Lots of pictures!

So I thought I'd better catch up on things before Christmas. On November 30 Tayden Alexander turned 5!!!! I can't believe my baby is 5. We went up to my parent's house in Roy for Thanksgiving and through him a birthday party there (then one with Alex's family back in St. George, we gave him the presents from us on his actual birthday and then the following week had a friend party. I just have two words. Spoiled rotten!) But he's worth it. He got all things rocket, Star Wars or Lego related and was elated. This is a picture of us waiting for the train to Salt Lake to see the lights at Temple square on Thanksgiving night.

This is Tate and Allie with their cousin Haley.

The kids loved the train ride there, but on the way back it was so crowded and late that whatever enthusiasm they had was pretty well gone and we all just wanted to get in our freezing toes into warm beds.



The lights were beautiful except that there weren't that many. I seem to remember every tree being littered with lights when I was younger. Maybe the church is trying to go green because even though it looks it in the picture there really weren't that many lights. It was fun anyway.

Speaking of winter wonderland. We got snow in St. George. Yes that slight frosting on the grass made my kids go crazy and at 9:00 in the morning had to get dressed up in their snow gear and go out to play in it.

Sorry this picture is side ways. This is my little ballerina all ready for her first dance recital. Her two year old class (the twinkle stars) performed to "I want a hippopotamus for Christmas". Allie is so funny because she'd only started doing the dance in class a few weeks before even though she'd been doing it at home forever. I never realized she was shy until now, but when she got up on stage she put her hands on her hips and that's the way she stayed for the whole dance. It was so cute and she was so proud of herself afterward. The video, thanks to Grandpa Charlie is posted on Alex's facebook.

Oh, and I almost forgot. Last week I went to my ultra sound appointment and honestly from the day Allie was born I knew there was a boy. So naturally I thought that this baby was going to be a boy. Then the utlrasound tech. says "it's a girl!" I just started laughing. We brought the kids along because I wanted them to be part of it and see the baby in Mommy's tummy. When the tech said girl Tate just goes "oh man, it's always a girl" Which just made me laugh harder. Poor Tate has nothing but girl cousins on both sides of the family and now another sister. He admitted though, after some prompting from me, that sisters aren't so bad and he's excited for her to come. Allie understands about as much as a two year old can and seems to think the baby in my tummy is just like her baby dolls. I'll have to scan in the ultrasound pics and post them and sorry I haven't posted any belly pictures on here yet either. It's on my to do list.

I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!

The Secret of Happiness

"The secret of happiness consists not of having, but of being; not of possessing, but of enjoying. It is a warm glow of the heart at peace with itself - Man is the creator of his own happiness. it is the aroma of life, lived in harmony with ideals. For what a man has he may be dependent upon others; what he is rests with him alone." -Pres. David O. McKay, Gospel Ideas, p. 492

I realize it's been like a month since I last updated my blog so here's the skinny on what's been going on. Tate and Allie have pretty well adjusted to the new circumstances of our busy lives, except for Tate is still pretty moody and Allie has decided that she is no longer going to be potty trained. She was pretty well done (she still has a problem with the pooping thing) but when my sister told me that she couldn't watch the kids while Alex and I were at work anymore because her little girl wasn't sleeping except for during the drive to and from my house, Allie kind of rebelled against Alex's cousin Hillary who stepped in to take the kids. Sorry Hillary! She's cleaned up more than her fair share of accidents in the last week. Here's the kids at Halloween. They had so much fun.


Alex's knee surgery went well other than it was much more extensive and serious than we initially thought. Instead of just a torn meniscus there was also a huge chunk of cartilage that had completely broken off and was floating around his knee. So they had to drill into his bone in hopes of creating a clot to fill in where the cartilage was missing. Hence, he has to be off it for 6 weeks as apposed to a few days. And it hurts... a lot. Needless to say, he's very bummed. But the good news is he has taken a position with Salisbury Homes as a Realtor. It's a good move because it gives him a lot more opportunity to sell than where he was before.


I am now 16 weeks and suddenly just this week I started showing. Like I feel huge for 16 weeks. Work is good, but frustrating. I'm still not teaching private lessons yet. It's just been one big circle of never getting anything done to start lessons and a lot of confusion about what my job description is. Right now I'm more like the choir teacher's assistant. And in the case of this week. I've been the teacher since the actually teacher lost her voice. It's all good experiences though. School is...well going. I will finally graduate with my associates in science! Yeah! (it only took me 5 years) After this semester I'm wondering if that's as much of a degree as I'll get though. Maybe I'll go back when all my kids are in school for my bachelors.

You know that country song "it sounds like life to me. Ain't no fantasy. The only thing for certain is uncertainty." Now how do we see our lives as special and feel that peace in our hearts that Pres. McKay talked about when you and your husband are both in school, working, two kids under 5, pregnant with one vehicle that sometimes works. You know what I discovered this morning. The secret to happiness is smiling; laughing even if nothing is funny. You may look a little crazy, but it works.

"Just sell me then!"

That's what Tate told us today as we drove red faced out of the mall parking lot after we practically ran from Dillards with our two children screaming at the tops of their lungs. The shopping trip was for me to get some clothes that I could wear to work. After 5 years of not working I got a part time job as a voice teacher at Vista Charter school. I had applied before I even knew I was pregnant, but hadn't heard back for weeks and assumed I didn't get it. The call came at the perfect time, just as we had lost the income from the fire department because workman's comp said Alex couldn't do anymore shifts until he got his knee fixed. I started work last week and really enjoy it, but Tayden does not.

His behavior has gone from laid back easy going kid to moody and explosive. I know it's because there has been a lot of big changes all at once, the biggest for him being that for four hours every morning mommy isn't there. And when mommy gets home she's tired and can't play because she has to do homework. I before I started work I would do my online classes at night after the kids were in bed, but since I have to be up at 6:30 in the morning I can't be going to bed at midnight or later anymore. The last few weeks has been rough behavior wise, but this week...it's left us just shaking our heads in frustration when he says he doesn't like anyone or that we should just sell him.

So Alex and I tried to explain to Tate that even though we are very dissapointed in his behavior and he would be getting punished for disobeying and making a huge scene in the middle of a crowded mall, that we would never sell him. We tried to let him know that he was getting punished for his behavior not because we didn't love him or want him. Regardless of our efforts he spent a half an hour screaming at the top of his lungs while he sat on his bed before he finally excepted the fact that he wasn't getting out of his room.

Finding a balance is the trick. A trick I have yet to master. That seems to be the struggle most of the time though, big changes or not. Life is one big balancing act between the things we "need" to do and the things we need to do. And even though Tate can't understand it now I hope he will understand that every thing I do, I do because I love him, because I love my family. I have a hope that we'll be able to work together to find a balance and come out a stronger more united family because of it.

Our new house!

No this isn't it, but if you ask Tate and Allie it's the best part. This is our backyard and the "clubhouse"

I should take another picture because in the left corner we have a nice black hutch-type thing to put the DVD player and movies and stuff on. It's super cute and looks a lot better than that little table. I love the wood floors!

The kitchen. I didn't take a picture of the fridge, but it's like two fridges put together it's ginormous! If I could stand the sight of food I might be able to fill it.

This is the master bath with it's gold walls. No I am not fond of the gold. Painting is in the near future.

Yay, finally a real bathtub! It's a deep jetted one, but I would have been happy with just something deep enought to bury me up to my chin in.

I know this isn't the coolest picture but a real laundry room is so nice compared to a laundry closet, plus there is a third bathroom just off of it.

Allie's room. We had to go buy some flower decails to cover up all the nail holes until we can get around to filling them in and painting.

Tate's room. I tried to get a picture with it clean, but it's so big he insists on pulling out all his toys all the time. (Don't you love how his airplanes are all lined up nice and neat though.)

My room.

So we are officially moved in, well minus the bonus room attached to the detached garage. I didn't take a picture of that cause it is a mess. I thought getting the house all put together would help things settle down, but Friday night Alex came home from a shift limping and wincing. Apparently he had hurt his knee while running from a burning building caring two children, four cats and a parakeet. Yeah right. Actually he was jumping out of the fire truck and twisted it. He heard a pop and had hardley been able to walk since. We went to the insta care after workmens comp. finally gave us the go ahead and even though he still needs an MRI they're pretty sure it's a torn maniscus. So he'll probably need surgery.

I am doing good with school so far, but I am sooooo sick! I can hardley eat and because I can barely force food down my throat I have zero energy and even my daily routine of taking care of the kids is so exhausting I find myself falling asleep moments after sitting down. I don't think I've lost weight so that's good, but man this has got to start getting better or else...well I guess I can't really do too much about it, but I won't be happy.

Man we are dramatic.

Big Changes!

It's been a while since I last posted, but that's because life has been...well CRAZY! So here is the reader's digest verson:

-There was going to be an opening on St. George Fire department for volunteer who they would be hiring from in the next little bit, but there's a catch you have to live in St. George. We think to ourselves. Well if we happen to find the perfect place to move in town that is in the right spot that they'll be hiring and is also close to Alex's real estate office and the college then we'll do it. A week later we found just that. So we packed.

- About a week before the move school starts (I'm taking two online classes) and I find out...I'M PREGNANT! Surprise!

- Day of the move we find out that Alex didn't get accepted into St. George recruit camp because...now are you ready for this...because we were not living at the St. George address at the time of application. "Seriously, we are moving like as we speak." Too bad.

-To late now. So we load all our stuff into three trailers and park them at Alex's parents until we can get into our new place. We finally get the okay to move in and what do we find. A house that was not cleaned very well and a garage full of someone else's crap. And now at only 5 weeks I am already feeling sick. ALL THE TIME!

- But thanks to some very nice neighbors that suddenly appeared out of no where we got everything moved in and together with one very anti-change child (Allie) and one that loves to antagonize her I have been unpacking by day and doing homework by night.

-Things I've learned:
Endometriosis does not always mean infertility.
Do not attempt school with a needy two year old.
Do not move with said two year old when you are pregnant, you just don't have the patience.

The good news is, Allie will have settled in by the time the baby gets here and will hopefully have calmed down, Tate already has names picked out so no worries there, we have really great neighbors and the house it cute. I'll send pics when I get another second to just do nothing.

The ants go marching...by the hundreds!!!

So a couple weeks ago I had gone over to Dan, the manager of our townhomes and informed him that we had some ants that kept showing up on my kitchen counter every morning. Since the day we moved in there have been mounds of ant hills in the back yard, but they've only attempted to come inside once.

Well this morning I went to the cupboard to get the kids some snacks and when I opened it, to my horror, the shelves were wiggling with little black ants. I bolsterously conveyed my disgust at their audacity to intrude upon my cupboard space, but more so upon my FOOD! They were inside boxes of unopened granola bars, inside the bread bag, in the salt shaker, EVERYWHERE! I quickly started pulling things out and began shaking, pounding, squashing everything that moved. But with each item I attempted to save from the squirming shelves, it only revealed more of the tiny little monster.

I didn't have any bug spray so I resorted to Mr. Clean to take care of my dirty work. After a long fight and at the expense of some banana chips and a half a loaf of bread I finally got all the tiny demons out of my kitchen, but they retaliated because when I went into the bathroom there was an army marching from the window above the shower, around the toilet and under the sink. Luckily I happened to see Dan walking by outside and ran out to tell him to send reinforcements.

The bug guy came a couple hours later and thoroughly fumigated the house and surounding areas with pesticides. I'm still finding ants here and there, but they don't look too healthy. Victory! But sweet Tayden told me as I was celebrating the demise of our unwelcomed visitors that I should just let the ants live cause their black ants not red ants so that means they're nice. I quickly told him that may be so, but no bug in any house I live in will survive if I catch them trying to have a picnic in my cupboards!

Allie is TWO!

Allie Rose Cornwall was born August 1st 2007 at 11:51 a.m. sunny side up and screaming! She didn't stop screaming until she was about 6 months old thanks to collic and acid reflux and then suddenly she got a personality and her personality has only gotten more complicated since.

And now she is TWO! Terrible half the time and the other half adorably captivating. She naturally draws people to her and relishes in the audience. Here are just a few pics of my baby girl who is now not quite so much a baby. She can count to 20 (it gets a little mixed up after 14 though) and she loves to sing! The video at the bottom is Allie on the potty singing all her favorite songs.

WARNING: Extremely Long Post!

It has been a very busy summer. Here are some of the highlights. We've been able to go to our family cabin a few times this year (It's up above Kamas) It was so beautiful and Allie and Tate loved the horses. One day it rained so hard that the Weber river which runs just behind the cabin rose and backed up the septic tank so Alex had to take a shower in about 35 degree pouring rain. He requested I not post those pictures :)


This was one day when Allie actually let me braid her hair and it looked super cute for about ten minutes. She is getting so big!



On the 4th of July we went down on Main street in St. George and watched fireworks. Tate the photographer took this picture of me and Alex. He did a good job. (I just have to say that my Alex is the sweetest, hottest, studliest guy in the whole world! Love you honey!)

Tate and Allie had so much fun running around with glow sticks. Then when the fireworks started Tate suddenly realized that he had to "really" go potty, but he didn't want to miss the fireworks so he wiggled, squirmed, danced and jumped until the fireworks were over. Silly boy.

This was our 4th of July patriotic cake. Alex and the kids decorated it to look like a flag.

Then the most exciting of all was when we drove up to Jackson Hole Wy to run the snake river. All of Alex's family are white water fanatics so I'd been a couple times, but this year my parents came too. This is us on our first run going through 'lunch counter'. For all those who've never been it's MUCH bigger when you're in the boat.

Well the first run was fun and wet, but I had this grand idea to turn a 13 foot self bailer raft from a oar boat to a paddle crew. Everyone agreed and we all grabbed a paddle for the next run. Alex and another guy decided to go in the ducky (an inflatable two man kiack.) So we had three people on each side, including me and my dad, two 11 year old boys sitting in the middle and my brother-in-law Jeremy as paddle captian in back. Well the first thing that happens is a mutany on board. Alex's brothers started arguing over who was in charge which promptly turned into wrestling. It ended quickly when Doug pushed Jeremy into me. We both went in the water, but Jeremy made sure he took Doug and one of his friends with us. It was cold! Luckily I had my spray top on (a jacket that keeps water out and body heat in). I made the critical decision to take off my spray top when I climbed back in the boat so I could dry off.

So after that was all out of their systems we continued on. Now in this particular stretch of river there are two monster rapids: Big Kahoona and Lunch Counter. The lower the water gets the bigger Kahoona gets and the smaller lunch counter gets, but on this run the water was just about int he middle so both rapids were enormous! We psyched ourselves up as we paddled full steam into Kahoona. We hit it perfectly straight too and the first wave swallowed us and spit us back out, but as we decended back down something went wrong. For whatever reason the boat turned just slightly a wave on our left side lifted the front of the boat and flipped it right over! Again Jeremy landed on me only this time it knocked the wind out of me as I fell into the churning water. I waited for the boincy of my life jacket to pull me back up, but I realized that I was getting sucked backwards underneath the waves. So I reached out for something and found Jeremy's life jacket strap. I held on and hoped he was headed to the surface. A moment later I popped out of the water gasping for air just as another wave clobbered us.

Mean while, my dad, Doug and the two boys were underneath the raft when it flipped. They managed to get out, but the one little boy was hysterical and falling out of his life jacket. So my dad and Doug each grabbed a side of him and held onto the boat.

Okay flash back to me. The wave that hit me when I first came up took me away from the boat and Jeremy toward it. I knew that I was suppose to put my feet forward and just ride it out, but the waves were fifteen feet of crushing cold, so cold that your lungs were constricted and you could hardly breath. "Forget it" I thought. I was still holding onto my paddle and started swimming toward the boat. On the way I found a hat and decided I'd rescue it too. I made it to our capsized raft just has we headed into lunch counter.

I set the hat on top of the raft,but I couldn't manage to lift my numb limbs high enough to put my paddle up there too so I had to heod onto it and the raft. If you've ever been flushed down a huge toilet that's what it feels like. We barely had time to take a shallow breath before another wave would hit you, then another and another each one trying to yank your hands from the rope. Finally it spit us out the other side. And it was then I realized that I had to get out of the water. If I had left my spray top on I probably would have been a lot better off, but I didn't and the water started to feel like thousands of burning needles.

My dad and the boys got to Charlie, my father-in-law's boat and the rest of us were trying to swim our raft into the eddie, but when the water began to feel warm and I started getting tired I gave up on the boat and held onto a rope until I made it to the rocks. Everyone siad my lips were a lovely shade of blueish purple and I looked like I was spasming I was shivering so bad. Not to mention I felt sick and couldn't stop burping from all the river water I'd drank, but once I got my spray top back on (which had stayed with the boat) I warmed up quick.

Everyone helped to flip the boat back over and even though I was still shivering I took my paddle and took my place again on our boat and we finished the run. Miraculously we didn't lose any paddles, but the river God's did take my sunglasses, Jeremy's hat, and Doug's hat and sunglasses. My dad's hat, which I had rescued somehow made it.

So despite our near death experience, I am really looking forward to next years trip as are the kids.

Tate and Allie stayed back at camp with my mom while we ran the river. They had fun playing in the dirt and have talked about nothing except when we're going camping next.

Besides the fun of camping they had not one, not two, but three grandma's and two grandpa's all together on this trip. Yeah, they got spoiled!

I was very impressed with how well Allie did with sleeping in a tent. She's a really light sleeper and I was worried never go to sleep, but we had no problems at all. She was one happy camper!

So like I said, we've had a busy summer!

Long Time No See

Sorry it's been forever since I've posted. We don't have internet at our house anymore, but hopefully will be getting it back soon. So just to fill everyone in on what we've been doing. Alex had a birthday on June 29th and I surprised him with a party. It was way fun and he got a camera! Yea! So the next time I have my camera and the internet at the same time I'll post some pics.

We're super excited because this weekend we are heading up north to Roy first to see our brand new niece Carly (my brother Philip's second daughter) who was born about a week ago. Then we'll be heading up to our cabin before driving up to Jackson hole to run the Snake river with Alex's family, my parents and the kids. Tate is so excited about going camping! Don't worry we won't take the kids down the river. My mom's not much of an extreme sports person so she'll stay at camp with the kids.

Wish us luck. I'll post pictures when we get back.

Sleep over!

So Alex's parents went out of town and took their dog, but left ours (who's been living with them for almost two years now). So we've been hanging out at their place a lot with Oscar. (We can't even have a dog on our property so we have to go there.) Sorry I don't have a picture of him so those of you who haven't met Oscar let me just give you the reader's digest version of our history with Oscar the pug.
Oscar is on his tenth life, we discovered his unusually high levels of anxiety when he was about a year old when we left him for the first time while we went on vacation. We had to cut our vacation short and rush home because our Oscar had collapsed after throwing up all over Alex's parents house. But don't worry after some I.V.'s and a few days at the vets he was just fine. From there he's done a number of things like walk into oncoming traffic several times, get chased by an angry moose, swallow a fish hook, have a $2000 surgery to get said fish hook out (paid for by an anonymous donor) and now has some kind of strange yeast infection that is all over his skin.
So since we've invested quit a bit in this stupid dog Tate and Alex decided to sleep over tonight so that he wouldn't be alone. And that meant that me and Allie were going to have a sleep over at home. (Alex told Allie that she got to have a sleep over with mommy so I had no other choice :)
At first I tried just laying her down in her bed and then laying on the floor next to her. That didn't work because she wanted to sleep with mommy. So I pulled her out of bed and laid her on the floor next to me. I figured I'd just put her back in bed once she fell asleep, but all she could talk about was how I was laying on her princess pillow and using her butterfly blanket (She has a real hard time sharing with anyone!)
So I told her that I was just going to go to my bed and go to sleep then. That did it. She wanted to sleep in mommy's bed now. Okay. We can have a sleep over in mommy's bed. It was already almost 8:15 and she's usually in bed asleep by now so I figured we'd lay in my bed for a few minutes and she'd fall asleep and then I'd carry her back to bed.
Yeah right! She talked and sang and babbled about everything from Mickey Mouse to how the five little ducks go over the hills and far away and every ten seconds she stopped to ask the same series of questions: "Mommy, a daddy go? A Tayden go? A Oscar go?" I'd tell her they were having a boy sleep over and we were having our girl sleep over. That meant that she needed to go to sleep.
But then she had to go potty (yes she is getting the potty thing, though not so much the pooping on the potty thing) Then she had to put her flower sticker on her potty chart and get a treat before we could go back to bed. So then I tried a new tactic. Just like you do with a preditor, I layed perfectly still and avoided eye contact in hopes that she'd just forget I was there and go to sleep, but her preditor instincts were too good. I finally gave up and chatted and laughed with her until she was rubbing her eyes.
"Let's go read a book in your room now" I told her and and so we read a book and I layed her down and said goodnight. She went right to sleep. So our first sleep over only lasted an hour or so, but it was really fun. I hope the boys are having a good sleep over too.

Busy, Busy!!

We have been so busy and yet have nothing to do. It must be summer! We have been going swimming nearly every day so we are super tan. I told Allie and Tate to pose for me for a picture before we went swimming one day and this is what I got. That's Tate's "Muscles" and Allie's "pretty smile". They crack me up!

Thank you for everyone's advice on potty training! Our internet has been screwy so I haven't been on the blog for a while. I agree that I just need to loose the pull-ups and go cold turkey. It's really not Allie so much as it's me. She's ready I'm just too impatient and busy with all these projects I keep taking on, like...

Ta da! Tate's fancy new dresser! It actually was Alex's when he was little and we kind of inherited it when we didn't have any furniture for Tate's room. I should have taken a before and after, but it used to be that caramel stain that was graffitied with pen and water spots. So I started sanding it and the stupid stain would not come off. I was running out of sand paper for the electric sander so I asked my awesome neighbors, Josh and Lotti if they had any. Before I new it I had sand paper, another sander, their air compresser, spare blue paint and lots of great advice. I never would have been able to finish it in one day without them. Thanks guys!

Another one of my many projects is my potted garden with is, needless to say, very sad looking. this is my lowly tomato plant. I have one green tomato growing and if it wasn't for that one thing I would have thrown it away along with my spinach that died, but somehow it's still hanging in there. But my watermelon plants are thriving. You can live off watermelon, right!?

And finally there's my Tater bug who is becoming much more flamboiantly open about his opinions and has developed a nasty case of selective hearing . In other words he is being a major pain in the butt! We had to establish a "behavior chart" with stars and X's. It's working to help him remember to obey and stop bossing. This is him working on his online preschool after we had gone to the library for story time. Doesn't he look so cute.

Desparate mom seeking potty training advice!

Hey all you mom's out there who would consider yourselves in-the-know on potty training, I need your advice because I'm obviously not very good at this! I need some input on what worked for your girls to get them potty trained.
Allie is so stubborn! She'll tell me either after she's already gone or just not tell me at all. If I do have her on the potty, unless I'm sitting right there with her, she'll actually get off the potty and go take a dump somewhere else (like in my closet! Yeah!)
We're going through more pull ups than we ever did diapers, because she can't stand the feeling of being wet. I know I can use that to my advantage, but whatever I'm doing is not working. So please help!

Princess Allie & The Royal Potty

Once apon a time there was a beautiful princess named Allie. The world revovled around her and she loved every minute of her enchanted life.

















Princess Allie and her mommy (the Queen ;) painted their toe nails and had so much fun. She never had to worry about anything.... Until one day....

It was time to potty train! Yes I know that she is only 21 months old in 2 days, but she's been showing a lot of interest and understanding of the whole potty concept for a couple months now. She's done pretty well so far, but just like everything else, she has her moments. I'm confident and hopeful that she'll catch on and that I won't have to buy anymore diapers, pullups or otherwise. Wish us luck!

A series of unfortunate events!

So at the last minute I decided to take the kids and caravan to Roy (where my parents live) with my sister, brother-in-law and their daughter. You see they were going to be leaving for 5 months for Baltimore, Maryland to sell alarm systems and my brother, who just got home from his mission would be giving his homecoming talk in church that Sunday. I really wanted to see everyone and spend a couple more days with my sister, but Alex had school and fire fighting. Nonetheless, I resolved to attempt it on my own.

The first part of the trip went pretty well, except for Tate was super winey and the DVD player wasn't working right. We stopped in Filmore for lunch. I was going to gas up too, but Tate suddenly went completely pale white and said he didn't feel good. He was still trying to get over an ear infection so I was thinking it had something to do with that. So I go looking for the small zip-lock bag I'd packed with all the essentials for such an event. No where to be found. I must have left it on the counter at home. Crap! The only thing they had a Maverick was children's Mortrin. So I bought that. All I needed was for us to make it to my parents. I took off pretty quick, before Mat and Amanda because it was sooo nap time for Allie and I was hoping Tate would fall asleep and feel better too.

Well Tate didn't sleep and he woke up Allie after only 20 minutes. Then suddenly I realized something else I had forgotten when my gas light came on in Salt Lake. Of course I was on the North end of Salt Lake in the industrial part with no gas stations. Fortunatly I made it to Farmington (because I missed another exit before that). Finally we made it to my parents. Sigh of relief, right? Wrong!

I looked at Tate and noticed these big red, welty sploches all over him. The motrin was the only thing I could think of that he had that was different. So I gave him some Benedril and helped my mom fix dinner, But by the end of dinner I was beginning to worry. His arms and legs were getting puffier by the minute. So I went looking for my medicaid card and called an instacare. Double wammy. Not only was it Saturday night and all the instacares were closed, but I had also forgotten my medicaid card! @#!%&#@

So I called up the ER at Odgen Regional and told them the situation. They said they could look up his file as long as I had the ID number off the card. So Alex got the number and me and Tate headed to the ER. "Yup, it's an alerigic reaction all right. No, we don't know what it would be from, you'll have to see an alergist for that. Good Luck" THANKS A LOT!
They did give him a disolvable pill that is kind of like an epi shot though. He was so tired and so swollen that his little feet didn't even fit in his flip flops. But he was so good. Such a trooper. He just sat there. When I asked him if he was okay, he said "Yeah, this is just my tired face".

What a trooper!

He's doing better now, he still has a rash that comes and goes and is itchy, but he's feeling better. But we had to top it off by Allie face planting it and getting a big old bruise on the side of her head. Good trip! But I won't be doing this again any time soon.

The fun and the not so fun!

It felt more like summer rather than spring yesterday. It got up above 80! So after I picked Tate up from preschool we dropped our library books off and went to the splash pad/river thing on main street. I was thinking that the water would be too cold to actually play in so I didn't bring swim suits (after all it is just barely April). And I was right about one thing. The water was cold, but the kids didn't seem to mind much. Tate took off his shirt and was wet from his waist down. He and Allie have had colds for a couple weeks, but I figured (once again) that they wouldn't get too wet and it would just be fun to walk around in the water and soak up the hot sun.


Allie got really wet too (mostly from Tate splashing her) and so dirty from climbing on the rocks. They had so much fun. Then we went home and Me, Tate and one of his buddies played baseball in the front yard while Allie took a nap. I was the pitcher and outfielder so I got some excercise and a sunburn on my arms!

By the end of the day I could tell Tate was dragging and he had little sunburned cheeks. I had to go to a meeting for the charity commitee I'm part of with the Washington City fire department and I knew that Tate was really tired and not feeling super good, but other than that he seemed ok. After the meeting I put the kids to bed, Alex got home and I headed off to Lieto! (choir
practice). I got home around ten right when Tate woke up...with a fever. He was up till 1:30. Then again at 4:30 and finally awake for the day at 6:20. He was so tired and out of it last night. He just kept crying and telling me that I wouldn't let him ride in the rocket ship! Other than that he wouldn't tell me what hurt or anything. I gave him some tylonol, and it let us sleep for a couple hours. Finally this morning when he woke up he was able to tell me that his ear hurt. Double ear infections, AGAIN! They were both infected just about a month and a half ago. The only other time he's ever gotten an ear infection was when he was a month old and we found out that he's allergic to penecillin (the hard way.)

The good news is that after medicine for the infection, drops to numb his ears, tylonol, a humidifier, a children's vitamin just for good measure and a 3 1/2 hour nap he is feeling much better!

No More Boot for Allie!

Well Allie went in to the doctors after breaking her leg three weeks ago. I thought that the doctor would take off the old cast (especially since Allie had worn out the entire bottom), do an x-ray and put another one on for another couple weeks. But nope it is off! Poor Allie...she was so sad that we were taking off her boot and after they cut it off she wanted the doctor to put it back on (she cried when the buzz saw was going, but she held really still) I thought we were past the worst part, but then they said they needed an x-ray just to make sure. Uh-oh I knew this wouldn't go well. It took me, Alex and a sweet x-ray technician to hold her down while another tech pushed the button and we still had to do it again because she still moved. All the nurses out in the office thought it was an older kid throwing a fit. They couldn't believe someone so small had such a big... uh...lung capacity. But she's doing good now. She walks like she's still got a cast on, but I'm sure that will wear off as it continues to heal more. Ahh memories!

BLAST OFF!

"WE HAVE LIFT OFF!"

So Tate had been telling Alex that they needed to go shoot off rockets for a while now and Alex finally had a day off of school and work and firefighting and everything else. So the night before him and Tate went and bought a rocket kit and built them. The next day we all went out the Arizona strip to shoot them off.


On her maiden voyage "big blue" had a crash landing because Alex had forgotten to put the wading stuff in there and the parachute had melted before it could deploy. Oops!


Since mommy's can fix anything :) I was able to pull the parachute apart and other than a hole on the side we figured it would work. So we tried again and this time it worked great...and it had a better landing!


Allie was not as excited about it at all! She opted to sit in the car for most of it or she had to be held by grandma Sherry (especially since Mommy and Daddy were the ones pushing the ignition). Even Tate had forgotten how loud they hiss when they shoot up and he only pushed the button once, but he was our count down guy! He got a little anxious when we couldn't find where one of the rockets had landed and there was some tears from him too. So aside from a few screams from Allie and a couple tears form Tate it was a great family outing!

Just some tid bits!

I've just got some random tid bits to share. First of all we have decided to stay in St. George and not go to Cincinnati. We kind of had the feeling that we needed to make sure that we didn't have any other options and as it turned out options kind of fell in our lap so we are staying! Yea!

I also wanted to let everyone know that one of my best friends back home in Roy and her husband are looking to adopt a baby. They've gone through the process and are just waiting for someone to pick them. They are great people and are going to make wonderful parents. If you'd like to refer anyone to them their blog is markanddannielle.blogspot.com

And one more tid bit...Allie has figured out how to walk with her cast so I don't have to carry her everywhere anymore! Woot woot!

Allie's purple "boot"

So on Saturday while we were at the park Allie and Alex's cousing Lauren were going down the slide and we think Allie's leg got caught in between the slide and Lauren and...well it broke! She was screaming and Lauren didn't even know what had happeneed. I thought maybe she had pulled a muscle or something cause there was no bruising or swelling, but Alex said we'd better go in and get it x-rayed. It's a good thing we did cause it broke completly through her tibia (shin bone) We had to go to an orthapedist this morning to make sure everything was in the right place before they casted it. She calls it her "boot".


This is how Allie looked for church. The instacare nurse just put a brace and ace bandage on it. Poor Allie just couldn't understand why she couldn't just get up and go. She was so frustrated! But she's been a tough cookie and a good sport about it all.

And even though Tate's been just a little bit jealous of all the attention Allie's been getting he's been a good helper.