Why I love being a mom...

This is why I love being a mom....

Yesterday I came home to some fabulous presents from Tyler and Jesse.  They had made me birthday cards all by themselves.  These were all packaged up in a mason jar with the heart and three very special rocks they hand picked for me in the wash.  They have crystals in them and are very pretty.  Jesse also bought me the seashell from his class store.  So sweet huh.  I love my boys, they are so thoughtful!  Really you couldn't have bought me anything that would have made me more happy!

This morning Tracen crawled in bed with me to snuggle.  Josh got home from taking the boys to school and he was telling Tracen to tell me happy birthday, so he did.  He's so cute.  Then he told him to give me kisses so he crawled over to me and said "kissie!" and gave some big smooches.  Who can resist kisses from a face like this?

tonsillectomy

Last Thursday Jesse got his tonsils out.  He'd gotten strep throat about a month ago and his snoring got way worse, apnea type snoring where he would quit breathing.  He was so tired in the mornings too because he hadn't gotten much sleep during the night.  We thought his tonsils looked huge, so we decided to take him to Dr. Pearson.  The week after I made the appointment I worried that maybe I was over reacting and maybe I should give it some time.  When we got to Dr. Pearson's office he had a med student with him.  Dr Pearson put on his head lamp thing and started looking around and said the the student..."wow, look at this" and started showing him how big Jesse's tonsils were and how they wrapped back around his uvula (to everyone else in our family this is known as the "punchy bag thingy").  I was feeling less like an over reactor every second.  So he turned around and said "I think we should take those out."  We scheduled it for about a week later.

Jesse was pretty nervous to show up last Thursday.  We got to the hospital and they made him put on this tiger gown....he was so not impressed.  We tried to cheer him up by telling him how cool his socks were.  I don't think it worked :)

He had an awesome nurse, though, Jody.  She was awesome and explained every little thing that was going to happen to him.  We waited a little while, answered all the questions, talked to the OR nurse and the anesthetist and then they came to get him.  They put his cute little blue hat on :)

And then they wheeled him out the door.  I went downstairs to get some lunch since I had a free lunch from my birthday that I never get to use since I work nights.  So I watched them wheel him down the hall.  Even if it's just for a tonsillectomy, it's hard to watch your kid disappear into the OR!  Shawn his recovery nurse (who we both know anyway) brought  him back to us a little while later.  He thought Jesse was so funny.  He said he didn't want to wake up to bad (gee that's a suprise) and then when he did he immediately relaxed back with his arms like this which Shawn thought was hilarious.

He was pretty drugged at first and he kept sitting up and we'd tell him to relax and lay down.  I have a video I'll have to try to upload later.  Josh has the camera right now.  The only place he wanted to go was Arctic Circle for a shake.  So that's what we did.  After he could drink some juice and act less drugged they let him go.  Jody asked him if he wanted to ride in a wheelchair out to the car and he said no.  She asked him if he wanted to go out in the wagon...he got a big smile on his face and shook his head yes.  So out he went in the little red wagon.  It was pretty funny.

Today is his first day back to school.  He's pretty good at dragging this stuff out.  He does get sore still, but I drugged him up and sent him to school.  He was going to go yesterday but he was up all night long so I caved...since he was still asleep about 20 minutes before he had to leave.  His voice is funny and we can't understand him a lot but I think he's afraid to talk normal because he thinks it will hurt.  He totally talks through his nose.

We're glad he's doing good though!  He doesn't snore as much or at all like he used to and I think that will keep getting better too.  It's gotten better already as the swelling's gone down.

I love Sister Hinckley

I found this quote today while mindlessly surfing blogs during one of the moments Tracen wouldn't let me leave him with Jesse so I could sleep.  I love Sister Hinckley, she was so funny.  I love this quote by her...

“I don’t want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully, tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with grass stains on my shoes from mowing Sister Schenk’s lawn. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor’s children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone’s garden. I want to be there with children’s sticky kisses on my cheeks and the tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know I was really here and that I really lived.” Marjorie Pay Hinckley

that could've been bad...

Friday evening we were hanging out at the in-laws house and decided it was time to go home.  Jesse's throat was getting sore (from getting his tonsils out the day before...post on that later) and the Lortab elixer was at home so we headed out.  Josh needed to take his police car to the university so that another officer could use it the next day.  So I was going down the freeway and Josh was probably a mile behind me.  I start getting close to the middle interchange and I was behind a semi so I just started slowing down.  My truck started to shake going about 65 and I though my tire was going flat.  About the time I hit 60 mph there was a huge pop and bang and for a half a second I thought my tire blew until I saw it shoot out across the freaking freeway and my truck hit the ground....going 60 mph.  I'm hanging on to my steering wheel, slamming on my breaks and watching my tire....the whole stinking thing rim and all fly down the freeway, cross it twice go down the off ramp and land in the rocks.  I totally thought we were going to roll and I'm thinking I've got Tracen and Jesse and I'm pregnant and we're all going to be hurt.

So the truck stops and I grab my phone and call Josh, by the time he answers I'm crying and telling him the wheel fell off the truck and he has NO idea what I'm talking about.  I had to tell him 3 times.  Tons of people were stopping and starting to back up.  Josh got there and pulled up behind me and turned his lights on so most people figured they could go I guess (which was fine, no one needed to see me bawling).  He called his dad to come help and then hiked down the hill to get the tire.  He had to hike a long ways.  I just sat there on the side of the freeway and cried.  Tracen kept telling me "shhhhh" Then Josh started checking out the truck.  The fender was bent and the tire had just come off the bolts.  And there was about 3/4" of metal missing from my brake rotar where it scraped the pavement.  At least it wasn't the axle I guess.  Vaughn came and they jacked the truck up and were able to put the tire back on (after it tried to roll across the freeway again).  They just took a couple lug nuts from the other tires and found out the other front tire was loose too.  I was not about to drive again so Vaughn drove my truck back to his house for the night.  They tried to get me to take one of their cars home but I wasn't really up for a drive, so we all went home in Josh's car.  The next morning we took it in and they fixed enough to drive it and I took it to work last night.  I think I have a little PTSD going on on though because I got on the freeway this morning to come home and I had to get off at Summit and take the highway.  I was freaking out at every little bump in the road.  Hopefully that goes away soon!  I'm just grateful we were all ok.  The baby was moving around a whole bunch when I got home so I knew he was ok too.  I also felt SOOO bad for Jesse because it took us an extra 1.5-2 hours to get home and I'm sure his throat hurt so bad, but he was so brave and kept telling me he was ok (I'm sure he didn't want me to start crying again lol) I'm pretty sure I can count this in the top two scariest moments of my life....not sure what the other one is, but I didn't want to rule out the possibility that there has been something worse that I don't want to remember!

Dang good deal

 So I'm probably really late to the party but I just found out I love diapers.com.  I'd heard people say that they liked them because brand name diapers were cheaper than even at walmart, but I have been using costco diapers and liked them just fine and figured they wouldn't be any cheaper than those.  Yesterday I realized I was down to like 8 diapers...oops. but I didn't want to go all the way to St. George just to buy diapers (that and I don't have the time this week!)  So I hopped on and was checking it out.  They have it all unit priced already for you so you know how much they are per diaper and can see what's cheapest.  I also found a $10 off your first order coupon and if you spend more than $49 it's free shipping guaranteed in 2 days.  A box of diapers is like $45 (well in Tracen's large size) so just throw something else in and there you go.  I found out that Pampers baby dry are the same price (cheaper by 7/10 of a cent actually lol) than Costco brand, then with the $10 off and free shipping and no gas to St. George I figured that's got to be better.  So I ordered them (at like 1 p.m.yesterday) and hoped that I wouldn't go through all my diapers before they got here tomorrow and then it said they'd be here before tonight.  Can I just say I was shocked when they showed up at 10:00 a.m. this morning?  And I love pampers, it was the only thing that kept Tyler clean and contained when he was a baby.

So from now on I'll be ordering my diapers from them...and we'll be ordering a lot of them I'm sure!  Their wipes are cheaper than Costco too.  So if you're late to the party too and need a coupon code use mine it's NEIL6640 you get $10 off a $49 order and I get $5 off.  My next order I'm sending to my mom's house so I get both the $10 and $5 :)  She said she'd remember they were for the babies and not for her and my dad!  I think you can stack it with the code 10PERCENT if you order anything non-diaper/wipe too (like I bought Tracen some bigger bibs for his messy eating habits!)

That being said...now we're going to St. George tonight for Ann's birthday lol....so I didn't really save on gas, but I love them anyway.  And while you're here take my poll on the right side.  I need some advice :)

One dirty happy boy

Since the weather has finally warmed up a little bit and the snow finally melted off my north facing back porch (why does anything have to face north?)  I have a nearly 2 year old that spends every moment I'll let him "ouw-sie" (that would be outside).  He comes in absolutely filthy, tired and happy every day.  I think he might be driving his brothers a little crazy though.

Here's what we did today.....

We threw rocks:

He jumped on the trampoline:

He did a little swinging:

He did a lot of sliding....which he used to not be afraid of but after falling the top he won't go down without me...but he still loves it.

This I totally don't get.  He steals our shoes and wears them outside.  He has some kind of a shoe fettish.  I think he knows he can't get his on by himself so he steals ours.  Today mine...first my chacos, which he left out the dog pen and I made him go get them:

Then my tennis shoes and Josh's hat from Chile.  Josh got it out today because he went and talked to Ty's class about Chile.  Tracen's been wearing it ever since:

He wanted to follow the boys around after school.  He rode his little fourwheeler down the hill over and over.  Followed the boys to Ethan and Addi's. Jesse took Tracen out on the trampoline while I was mopping the floor and I could hear him yelling at me.  I went to the door and Tracen pointed at Jesse and yelled "Trouble!"  Josh brought us home ice cream and didn't bring Tracen his own.  Josh got an ear full from him.  I put some of mine in a bowl for him to have his own but he wanted the styrofoam cup from Maverick so I ended up with the bowl :)  It was quite the eventful day.  He's now a dirty dust covered tired little boy.

Other stuff about Tracen lately.....

If you say anything to Tracen his response is "huh?" if you repeat yourself the answer is "huh?"  It gets frustrating.  I usually just answer "yep" back.

He LOVES cows.  He will point out every cow between Parowan and Cedar City.  He can do this whether we take the freeway or go down the highway.  Unfortunately Grandma's calf died today of some weird illness we're all hoping we don't get now, especially Tracen since he goes with them to feed it any chance he gets.

He's the boy's (Josh included) monkey.  They teach him to do all the things they think would be hilarious for him to be doing.  If they tell him something is poison he sticks his tongue out turns his head sideways, makes a gagging sound and falls over.  They've also taught him to scream, throw his arms in the air and yell "Ah it's going to get me!" while running away.  He also runs up to you with his arms out wide and yells "catch me!"

This is a little bit what poison looks like...but he does it better.

We're a little worried about having the baby now because he doesn't like to share my lap with any other babies.  He also won't go to nursery anymore and I have to sit by him...no standing allowed.  And I sit on one of those little nursery chairs and try not to die.  I attempted to stand during snacks and he would have none of that!

He's quite the character!  Here's a pretty smile for you in parting...

LOL!

I get these cute little emails every week about what's going on inside my belly.  This one made me laugh!  Way to be uplifting.  and the first two words were that big...I didn't make them bigger.  I also like the choice of the word "heaving"  That doesn't make you feel fat at all!  And I have no idea why this is like triple spaced...oh well...
you're large, but you definitely don't feel in charge, since the baby seems to be taking over your body. Up several times a night to go to the bathroom? It's all practice for getting up in the wee hours for feedings, changings and general fussiness. The difference: Cuddling that babe is better than heaving yourself to the bathroom for the sixth time.

I don't even know what to call this post

more comments

Pt: are you pregnant?
Me: Oh I sure hope so.  (really aren't we beyond that question by now?)

Pt: Wow are you due like tomorrow?
Me: Nope, I've got 8 weeks left.
Pt: (now trying to back track) Oh, well you just look like you're so small normally, like your wrists are so thin.....
Me: don't worry about it, I get huge.

Dr talking to another nurse randomly inserts into his conversation about dying: "And someday she won't need the door jambs widened for her anymore...."

Easter Activities

We did lots of Easter stuff all week long it seems like.  But we had lots of fun. Here's a rundown (beware, there are a lot of pictures!)

Sometime early in the week (I can't remember which day) We went over to the Guymons and decorated eggs.  It was funny to watch them all.  Tracen made a mess and applied stickers, Addi wanted very beautiful eggs.  Jesse and Ethan seemed to be happy to dip their eggs and make cool designs and stuff like that and Tyler was a perfectionist.  He dyed about 6 eggs in the time that everyone else was done.  We had a monster egg kit so we have monster eggs.  I didn't take my camera...there are pics on Dan and Megans blog if you really want to see them.  But here are our results!

Thursday
I got the natural easter egg dying kit from bountiful basket because I thought that Ty would really enjoy doing that.  So we got the directions and turned it into a little science project.  I had them guess which vegtables would turn what colors.  Ya it takes like an hour to boil the color out and I only have 4 pans/4 burners...so 4 colors at a time.  The beets did turn the eggs sort of red and the spinach sort of yellow/green and the chili's brown...couldn't really tell with the carrots.  We ate the beets and called it good.  Maybe we just don't know what we're doing.  The red onions..I don't remember what they did really.  But I don't think we'll try that again.

 Friday
Friday we ended up at Grandma Neilsons house.  She wanted to decorate eggs too.  So we did.  We told her she could keep all our lovely colored eggs because we already had 4 dozen at home from all our previous egg coloring adventures.  She's not very good at listening though and snuck out a box with Tyler.  That's Grandma Neilson for ya.  The kids had fun decorating eggs though.  Kole and Mack ended up over at Grandmas that night too so we decorated with them too.  Mack had his little color in his cup and was very insistent on when the egg went in and it didn't come out until he said so.  He was so funny.

Saturday
Saturday we went down to Whitney Pockets (by Mesquite) for a picnic.  I haven't been out there for a few years but we used to go when I was younger.  K there were a million freaking people out there.  The only other people I'd seen out there before today was all my family.  I've never seen anyone out there before.  Ya'll go home ok?  We went and checked out the dam and then found us a picnic spot away from everyone else.  We were going to go look at the petroglyphs but by the time we were done we were too tired, so we'll have to make another trip.  My mom and dad even came out for a little while and ate and visited.  We were glad they came!

    We listened to conference on the way out until it got too fuzzy.  Here's Tracen during the opening prayer :)

 The boys on top of the dam

We're glad Grandma Bev came too!  She even climbed to the top of the dam.

Ty and Jesse climbed down the other side and explored.

All the grandmas were yelling for Jesse to be careful :)

We rigged us a little shade with Crystal's Hummer a tarp some string and a dead Joshua tree...we're resourceful!

It's not a party unless shooting is involved. Jesse enjoyed that.

There was lots of digging in the dirt, climbing and hiking around to be done.

Tracen is a sugar junkie.

This is what happens to your hands when you're a sugar junkie.

K- this is hilarious.  It was breezy so Jade got out Kole's kite then the wind stopped.  I found out Jade is pretty persistent!  Vaughn is on Tylers bike.  Jade has the kite.  Vaughn was peddaling, Kole and Jade running all in an effort to get the kite in the air.  It was hilarious, especially the part where Vaughn was on Ty's bike.

See what I mean?

Cute Kole.  Tracen walked around all day yelling after her.  He says "Koe-wee"

We used this...really we did.  It helped a little, but I think it might be expired or something.

Jade still trying to get the kite in the air.

We had to read all the Laffy Taffy Jokes.

The breeze finally picked back up and Jade got Koles kite in the air.  She's flying it.  So Crystal got out her kite...

Tracen flying Crystal's kite.

both at the same time.

Cute boy...you can decide which one I mean :)  

Josh also got out his kite and tried to dive bomb everyone.  Jade flew it too.  At one point Josh's kite got all the other kites tangled but they all survived.

Then we packed up to go home.  We had a lot of fun and were exhausted.  I wanted Tracen to go to sleep so even though we were on a dirt road I put him in his car seat (that and because of the million people)  He was mad and was screaming and I thought this will be a long ride home.  Nope...I'm not even kidding about 90 seconds after we drove off this was Tracen:

Sunday

We laid around in our pajamas all day and watched conference.  There were lots of great talks.  The boys had a hard time concentrating but I guess that's normal.  I told them I was going to make them go put on their church clothes to watch if they didn't stop :)

 

Spring Break

We had Spring Break the end of last week.  Jesse took an extended break.  He got strep throat and missed school Friday, Monday and Tuesday.  I wouldn't call it an extra vacation because he was miserable with that and scarlet fever.  The antibiotics helped fast! 

The break started Wednesday.  To celebrate we had Ethan and Addi over for the day.  It was a little chilly but the kids had lots of fun playing outside until they froze and then ran in the house for a while.  They also played hide and seek which I blogged about last week.

The highlight of last week for Tracen was getting a big boy bed.  Depending on his mood and our patience determines whether or not he sleeps in it, but he does most of the time.  We have to sit in there with him until he goes to sleep or he'll just get out and come find us.  I've thought he was asleep a few times and left just to find him sneaking out a few minutes later.  He also comes and finds us occasionally in the middle of the night.  But we he can just get out of bed in the morning now instead of yelling "I wanna get out!" until we come rescue him.

Burn

I felt like an awful mom the other day.  I was making pancakes and Tracen was hanging on my legs and was begging me to pic him up.  So I reached down to pick him up and burned him with my spatula on accident.  First off, it didn't even cross my mind that I would burn him, second, I had no idea flipping 4 pancakes that fast would heat up my spatula that much!  I felt so dang bad.  It just turned a little red and welted a little bit but it was right on his diaper line so I thought it might get irritated by it all day.  So I thought, hey I know how to take care of this.  I do dressings all the time.  So I put the amazing burn ointment on it and made him a little dressing to cover it up.  He pulled it off in less than 30 seconds.  I get points for trying don't I?

 My awesome burn dressing

A little ibuprofen can't hurt either

Passed out.  Tracen NEVER falls asleep in front of the t.v. but he did that day.  It doesn't look super comfy and he didn't sleep long but I was surprised!