Pardon The Mess

So the blog looks a bit odd at the moment, I know...

I was playing around with some new looks and even though I saved the old look like Blogger suggests, it won't load!

So this will be the new look, I've just got to fix some issues and tweak a few things. However, at the moment I am totally stressed out and have 0 energy to mess with it...

Hopefully tomorrow it'll be all purtied up again.

What Happens Next...

Miracle Babies

Let me preface this post saying that this is not meant to be a bragging type post and if you read it that way, please reread it until you get the message I am trying to make.

And this is funny that I would post something like this on the heels of my little sister making such a post - but I've had some things on my mind lately and it just keeps going. Hopefully, I can get it out and feel better about it.

I have been extremely blessed! I have 5 beautiful, healthy, energetic children. The Lord has blessed me richly and entrusted me with the raising them to be wonderful people. I am by far not the best mother. I am sure that my family with attest to that. But, I try to be the best I can. There are many times when I take the fact that I have these 5 healthy kids for granted.


I never struggled to get pregnant. It's always been easy and in fact at times a little TOO easy. I got pregnant with Lex quite quickly, a little more quickly than I was ready for. We have a couple siblings that aren't as fortunate. It took K & W 10 years (give or take) to get pregnant with their only child and they call him a "Miracle Baby." And in ways that is so true! I've always struggled to tell these siblings that we are expecting and always leave it to Eric to do, but the time it was the hardest to tell them was when 3 months after they announced their arrival, we discovered we had one coming along as well. I totally felt like I was 'stealing their thunder.'


C & A struggled for 6 years to get pregnant. When I told them we were expecting Ailey, it was not taken easily, then it was followed up with little sis saying she was expecting as well. I can't imagine how hard this time was for A. I felt so bad for her and knew the ache she was going through. So, when she told us a few months later that she was FINALLY expecting I was ecstatic.


I've never had any issues keeping my sweet babies, either. I have a cousin who has a fairly easy time getting pregnant, but keeping the baby is another story. I don't know what a miscarriage feels like, but I do know it's not something I would ever want to go through. I know that I am not emotionally strong enough to do so. So, for those who can I am just amazed.


I've never had to give birth just to lose my baby a short time later like a childhood friend, B. She went into labor at 20 something weeks and only had her sweet baby boy live for a half hour. I can't imagine the heartache that comes with something of that magnitude. I so admire her for getting back up and dusting herself off. I think she recovered from that much quicker than I would have.


I've never had to experience being told while I was pregnant that my baby wasn't developing correctly as a sweet couple in our ward had to experience. They had 7 'healthy' little kids and #8 proved to have some issues with the way his brain was formed. He was missing pieces of his brain and the first prognosis weren't good.

At first they weren't sure if he would make it to 'term.' When he did, everyone was astounded. Then, they weren't sure he'd make it through delivery alive. When he was born he was whisked away to NICU right away because he was gray. (his Dad talked to the Primary kids on Sunday and I was fortunate to be there for it - that's how I know a lot of this.) I remembered how when Tanis was born there was a whole slew of Intensive Care staff in the room just in case. Luckily, we didn't need them and Tanis was a healthy kid.

So, I was so sad to hear that their baby actually got whisked away. When this baby's Dad was talking on Sunday he said that after that happened, he didn't think he'd get to see his baby again. So, they were surprised when the hospital staff brought him back a few minutes later and he was pink. They then weren't sure they'd get to take their sweet boy home, but once again he defied the odds and went home with Mom & Dad. He had to be on a light bed for jaundice, but everything else seemed okay.

They weren't sure he'd be able to hear, feel or see, but he has since proved that as of now he can do those things. They still aren't sure what the future will hold for him, but as of now he is truly a 'Miracle Baby.'

I've also never had to lose a child due to some freak accident. Last Thursday, during the major rainstorm a truck pulling a trailer hydroplaned into a SUV with a 5 year old, 6 year old and their mom. The 6 year old died on the scene. The mom and 5 year old were in critical condition (last I heard). My heart ached so bad for this family. I couldn't imagine losing my sweet Lex. He is full of life and curiosity. He makes life so fun. 6 is just too young to die!

I pray I won't lose my children due to drug/alcohol abuse. I've watched family go through such a thing and it isn't easy. You can only do so much, but if your child won't or can't accept your help, you are left feeling so empty.

I'm not sure what really brought all this on, but I felt it needed to be shared. At least only for my benefit. I am so thankful for my healthy pregnancies and my healthy babies. And I need to try so much harder to be a better person and take better care of these sweet spirit entrusted to my care.

What Happens Next...

The Hits Just Keep On Coming...

Last Thursday, the 19th was quite a day for us!

I had to go to Roberts and Kohls, which are both in American Fork - a good 20 to 30 minute drive. And of course, because I had to go somewhere - it rained cats & dogs!

I decided to take the chance and pray the rain would stop as we were driving. (It did! Yay!!!) So, I pack all 5 kids in the car and we head out.

No one had had lunch yet, so we stopped at Arctic Circle and had lunch in the car. Judge me if you will, but there is no way I was gonna take 5 kids into a restaurant WITH a playground by myself!

After lunch we headed to Roberts to get supplies for my nephews bday gift (more on that later). The kids did awesome and even got balloons, though Tanis opted not to get one. We then head to Kohl's to get a shirts for Tanis and Nate for family pics. (Hopefully I will have them to share with you tomorrow) Nate insisted on taking his balloon with him, so we tied it to his stroller. In the time that we had gotten Nate settled and I got Ailey in her stroller, Tanis & Lex had managed to do something that made Nate's balloon fly away. Luckily he didn't notice.

We get through Kohls with everyone but Nate behaving. Because the stroller we have for him no longer has the straps attached (don't ask me how that happened) he was able to roam free. And that he did.

Now because the kids were great and I had bribed them that if they were I would get them smoothies from Roxberry, we headed to Roxberry. We were then headed home and I realized I forgot paintbrushes at Roberts and they were fairly necessary for my project and we also needed milk so we had to stop at Walmart for those items.

We get the items I needed and go to pay and I realize I never got my debit card back from the guy at the drivethru at Roxberry. Luckily I had another form of payment, so I pay for our stuff and then we get to drive back to American Fork to get my debit card.

I get my debit card and we finally get back home. We have a few hours of quiet and time for some relaxation. Now, Eric had told me that his previous coworker who is being sued by his previous company was coming to get his original signed statement for his side of the story to help her out. (Okay, this is a much bigger situation and so much more complicated than I am going to go into - suffice it to say, this coworker was part owner of the company and now the other owners are trying to take everything from her, though she's done nothing wrong. These other men are just 'evil'.)

So, I get the statement put somewhere so I can just grab it when she gets to our place. The kids are playing around and going crazy. I told them they were playing too wild and someone was going to get hurt. And of course, they think they know better than I and just kept goofing off. 2 minutes later I hear Shaylyn cry and think, "I told you so."

Then she says: "I'm bleeding."

I look over and sure enough she's got blood seeping from her forehead! We were downstairs so I told Shaylyn to run up to my bathroom so we could get it cleaned off. I pick Ailey up and we run up the stairs. I set Ailey down on the bed and she starts screaming. Well, I can't take care of her at the moment, cause Shaylyn is more in need at this point.

I clean up Shaylyn's wound (Nathaniel had thrown a toy at her and it hit her just right) and try to see how bad the cut is, then Lex comes in saying, "The lady's here..." So I tell Shaylyn to keep the rag on the wound while I get the paper for this lady. I visit with the lady for only a minute and get back to Shaylyn. And Ailey is still screaming!

I had to text Eric with pics of Shaylyn's head to see what he thought about the wound. Did it need stitches or not. He said no, so I stuck a bandaid on it and called it good. By the end of the night blood had seeped out a bit, but it was still looking like it was healing - so we called it good.

After getting Shaylyn squared away, I gave Ailey the attention she needed. She then threw up and just kept throwing up until she fell asleep for the night.

It was a crazy, crazy day. But, I guess in this life - you have to have a few of those days, right?

What Happens Next...

More Craftiness

Two new craft items made:


Check out my scrap blog for more info, if interested!

What Happens Next...

The Great Outdoors

Last summer we went camping with our really good friends and had a great time. This year I wasn't so sure we would be going as my friend is like 8 months prego and we had a newborn baby. I debated and debated on whether or not we should go this year when our friends asked.

But, I decided to at least try it. We actually took a 3 month old baby CAMPING.... Like sleeping on the ground in a tent camping!

We left on Friday night around 5 and got to the campground around 7:30. We got the great 'luck' to get stuck behind a jerk in a truck pulling an RV that didn't think he should ever pull over. He finally got the idea and pulled over when he had 3 or 4 cars following him.

So we get the tent up and have a wonderful dinner of hot dogs. We then visited for awhile before we all decided it was bedtime. This is how our kids looked before bed that night:


Baby girl did AWESOME!!!!!! When she would stir she'd just suck on her pacifier and she fell back to sleep. I would've slept better had I not been so worried about her waking up in the middle of the night.

The next morning we took our time getting things ready. I tried to get a pancake breakfast going and it was a comedy of errors...The little things that go above the campstove burners, so that the pot isn't resting right on the heating unit weren't with our campstove. So I tried cooking the pancakes on top of the heating units. About 2 turned out great...the next one ended up burned on the outside but not done at all one the inside. So, then I tried another pan and again got a couple good ones before they started burning. My friend then said she had an oven rack that she had brought just in case the campfire pit didn't have a rack on it. So we put that above the stove and it worked okay...at least we had a mostly nice breakfast!

After breakfast we got our breakfast mess all cleaned up and then everyone got ready for the day. We were trying to decide when we wanted to go down to the lake and we decided we would go after lunch.

So we had lunch and we all headed down to the lake. Eric took care of Ailey while Nate and Lex ran around crazy. Shaylyn 'jumped' right into the lake and Tanis tried out fishing and after he got bored of that he decided to join those of us 'in' the lake.


When Ailey decided it was time to eat Eric and I headed back with Tanis, Nate and one of our friends sons, while they watched after Shaylyn and Lex. When we got back to camp Eric and I just relaxed while the kids ran around some more.
When our friends returned we started to get dinner ready. We had lots of fun trying to get coals for our friends dutch oven potatoes lit. Our friends tried a few 'flammable' things to get it going and not really anything worked - until we tried the cooking spray...It got major laughs out of everyone!


After dinner, Eric and his friend with a couple of the kids went up to our campsite and tried to play a game. I stayed down by the fire and tried to stay warm. That night Ailey slept pretty soundly most of the night, but Nate had another fitful night.

We woke up and tried to warm up by the fire and then we had an easy breakfast of cereal. We then packed everything up while my friend took Shaylyn & Lex, along with her kids - back to the lake to try to catch fish. So after we got everything packed, Eric played a game of Magic with Tanis and I had fun watching Nate run around enjoying life. Ailey was also a pretty happy camper!


When the kids all returned we had lunch and then got ready to head out - only to find that our friends car battery had died! Well, last year we had the mishap - so I guess this year it was their turn! Luckily we both had jumper cables and we got their van started in no time!

We left the campsite around 1 and Eric let us stop to get smoothies on the way home! It was an awesome time and I am so glad I didn't let the fear of taking a little baby camping stand in my way. I really needed the out!

What Happens Next...

3 Weeks Later - We Partied

So, Tanis' birthday is on July 22nd - which usually means that the weekend before his bday or the weekend after his bday we will have a family party. Well, this year his birthday really snuck up on me, so his party happened 2 1/2 weeks AFTER the boy had a birthday...

However, in my defense - my niece was blessed the week I WOULD HAVE done his party, so I'm not a totally crappy mom.

When we asked Tanis where he wanted his party to be at he requested my parents house. (Remember I have our parties 'down in the valley' so that people don't have to drive to TIMBUKTU to celebrate with us.) So Sunday, August 8 found us heading down to my parents house to have a party for this kid.

I was really kind of worn out from a lack of sleep the following nights, so I'm sure I wasn't much of a fun host. I also cheated with Tanis' party and we just bought all the goodies instead of me making any. Therefore, his party turned into a mod podge kind of party with various tv/movies he liked.

Anyway, here are a few pics from the day:

...He must've really enjoyed our singing...right? HAHAHA!...

...Enjoying (???) his bday goodies...

What Happens Next...

When Household Appliances Attack

Wanna know how this happened:


Well, here you go. Apparently Shaylyn was getting some ice cream last night and to soften it up, she stuck it in the microwave (a trick learned from Grandma) for a few seconds.

Well when it was done, she forgot to move her head back when she opened the microwave back up. A corner must've really smacked her hard cause wow, what a cut!!!

Looking at it today we are praying we didn't make a mistake by not taking her to get it all stitched up last night. We can always blame Eric though, since he made the decision. ;)

What Happens Next...

Family History

So last night for FHE we did a little family history.

I got the idea to do a FHE based on Family History from Eric's mom a few weeks ago. We had gone to listen to her speak (ironically on Family History) in Sacrament meeting and so we stayed for classes. Their ward is doing a huge push in regards to Family History, so Lex was sent home with a short worksheet that asked simple questions like your Grandparents names, parents names, etc.

So we quizzed him and realized there was a bit he really didn't know. Eric's mom then said, "You could do a FHE on Family History." So the wheels started to turn.

I eventually came up with the idea we did yesterday. I decided we would do a 'family tree' up to the kids great-grandparents. I started out with just patterned paper on the wall to show where the pictures needed to go, like so:


Shaylyn liked to point out that the empty space in the middle looked like a temple. Totally unplanned, but it was kind of interesting considering what we were talking about.

We then started our activity. First each of the kids took turns choosing someone's picture and then they had to place it in the correct place in the tree. Fairly easy.

Next, they each took turns drawing the names. This was also fairly easy though some of the women's names were difficult for them as I used maiden names.

Next came the birthdays, then the birthplaces and lastly we did the date of death for the ones that have passed on.

This was the complete 'family tree.'


All in all I think it was a good FHE and it kept the kids mostly engaged. If they really learned anything, I dunno - but I sure hope so. I do know that Eric and I learned some new info and I had lots of fun putting it together.

What Happens Next...