CRABTREE

Flying SOLO

2012-02-10T14:25:00.000-08:00

With Gage serving on the high council, he attends a different meeting house for church than the kids and me. It was hard to get used to flying solo at church, but got even harder when we switched to meeting at 9 am. (Gage is at meetings that usually start at7am). We all like to sleep in until about 8:30 at our house, so adjusting to waking up earlier to make sure we all get to church on time is just that an adjustment. We were all settling into a routine when we brought home baby Levi. Which meant making more adjustments and way more planning! The first week at church with me and all three kids was an interesting one. We made it on time, but Chey's hair was left lacking and our house looked like a tornado had hit it. So this past week I tried to be better and plan ahead. I braided Chey's hair Saturday night.

Sunday morning came and all we had to do was unbraid it. Which Cheyenne is much more open to than having to sit still to have it curled or whatever else in the early hours of the morning.

Add a clippie and WAALAA! A hair do that looks like we spent a lot of time... we fooled everyone. And even made it to church on time again!
We have lots of help at church, one of my young women join our family for sacrament meeting, which was a huge help this week when Chey decided she had to go potty right in the middle of the meeting. Then the kids head off to primary and nursery. I head to sunday school and for the past 2 weeks someone has offered to hold Levi for me, which leaves me childless for Young Womens. So don't feel bad for me flying solo at church, because in reality getting TO the church is the hard part, life is much easier once we walk through the doors.

"GUN ENVY"

2012-02-09T12:42:00.000-08:00

This week we were at Grandma's house with some of the other cousins. One of which is a boy and has just recently been potty trained. His parents were ready to make the switch to standing up to go potty but his mom had no way to show him. So she had Trevin go into the bathroom and show him. She called it "shooting' bullets. Trevin was more than willing to teach his cousin this "awsome and fun thing." Well they head into the bathroom and Trevin can't make it work (he had just gone to the bathroom). But the concept was still there and his cousin's worked and everyone was excited. Until his sister wanted to try it too, she was also recently potty trained, then there was some major disappointment that she had to always potty sitting down, "gun envy" is what her mom called it. Well Cheyenne was there to console her, she recently made this discovery herself....

One day I walked up stairs to see Chey with her pants around her ankles standing on the stool facing the toilet, she had a terrified look on her face (one I've seen many times, it's the one that says I've held it for too long and if I move now I'm gunna potty my pants). So I run in and turn her around and say "Ok, Go for it." She sticks her bum out toward the toilet, but doesn't sit down, and lets it all loose. I couldn't figure out what she was doing! I asked "Why didn't you just sit down?" She looked at me and said "I wanted to go standing up like the boys and now it's a big mess!" I laughed for a second then we cleaned up and had a quick anatomy lesson. Since then she hasn't had any issues with sitting to go potty and can sympathize with all the rest of the "Gun envy" girls out there.

a name for everything

2012-02-02T17:20:00.000-08:00

Cheyenne pulled out this book for me to read with her yesterday. It's a new book for Levi. We were going through all the pictures and Cheyenne was telling me what everything was. I even found a few that she didn't know, like nostrils. So we moved on from the face page to the body page and she was doing great. Feet, toes, neck, even elbow... she knew them all. Finally I pointed to the "chest" and her response was "THAT'S MY HEARTBURN."

Can't blame her after hearing that for the last 9 months.

SNIP, SNIP

2012-01-25T17:15:00.000-08:00

Two little kids are in a hospital, lying on stretchers next to each other, outside the operating room. The first kid leans over and asks, "What are you in here for?"

The second kid says, "I'm in here to get my tonsils out and I'm a little nervous." The first kid says, "You've got nothing to worry about. I had that done when I was four. They put you to sleep, and when you wake up they give you lots of Jell-O and ice cream. It's a breeze!"

The second kid then asks, "What are you here for?" The first kid says, "A circumcision." And the second kid says, "Whoa! I had that done when I was born. I couldn't walk for a year!"

Because it wasn't our pediatrician that came to see Levi in the hospital (it was the on-call doc, since it was a Saturday) we opted to wait a few days until we could get Levi in to see his own doctor for his circ. We wanted to use the same method for both of our boys, the on call doc used a different method. Anyway, Gage was at home when the doc came and got Trevin for his procedure and I think Gage was a little bummed that he didn't get to witness the traumatic event. SO we made sure things were different with Levi. Gage came with us and convinced the doctor to let him watch. We both went back into the procedure room with our little guy. I was there to make sure Gage didn't pass out! Poor little Levi was a champ he cried and screamed Gage would look for a second then turn away with a painful look on his face. It was kinda funny to watch.

Anyway all went well and Levi got his revenge!!! Right when the procedure ended the doc was giving Gage an up close look and Levi let out an explosive poop! SO much for their sterile field. I laughed, Gage was apologetic. The Doc and MAs were almost finished cleaning him up and you better believe Levi did it again. I couldn't stop laughing. They decided they weren't going to be able to clean him up in his little tray and laid out a nice clean blanket on the table and moved him. And YES... he did it again, with some fountains in the works this time. I couldn't stop laughing at this point, Gage just kept saying sorry and the MAs couldn't get a diaper on this kid fast enough!!

IT'S A ...

2012-01-23T16:16:00.000-08:00

BOY!!!

LEVI CADE

8 pounds 12 ounces

20 3/4 inches

That's it in a nut shell. If you want more information keep on reading, it's a really long post. There are lots of pictures (all of which are safe for viewers of all ages).

We were originally scheduled to be at the hospital at 8am, but do to the number of patients that came into the hospital throughout the night our induction was pushed back. Thankfully it was only for an hour. We arrived at 9am. It took about an hour before we got orders from my doctor to get thing going. I was strep B positive so I knew that I had to have 4 hrs worth of antibiotics (two doses 4 hrs apart) before delivering, to avoid extra blood tests on our new little one. The first dose went up at 10 am. The pitocin was started at the same time. By this point I had had 3 nurses. The charge nurse started all the paper work then passed me off to Patricia. Patricia started the IV, the antibiotics and pitocin then passed me off to Maryann who was to be my final nurse. I didn't mind the juggling... I know what it's like to have a busy night at the hospital. I hate waiting around, and that's what we had to do, WAIT for the antibiotic. Like my previous inductions the pitocin did nothing to progress my labor. I had warned my nurse of that. At one point she turned up the pit and then came back a half hour later and said I think we lost one of your monitors, I told her we hadn't I had just stopped contracting, she was a little surprised. But that is exactly what happened, so she did the only thing she could do, turn it up some more.

Finally the first 3 1/2 hours were over and my doctor was willing to come in and break my water. This is when things actually get moving for me. I was dilated to a 3 when she broke my water a 1:30. The 2nd dose of penicillin went up at 1:45. (My nurse had a patient that was almost complete and so she gave Patricia a quick report and had her check on me.) Well I had told them that things would move quickly after my water broke and I was right. About 45 minutes later I was a 7 and they decided they should call my doctor to let her know how quickly I was progressing. 20 minutes later they were wheeling in the delivery cart, my doctor was still delivering a baby at Ogden Regional and would be here as soon as she could. They had the Nurse Midwife come in that was already at the hospital, she tried to have me try different breathing techniques to slow down my contractions. That didn't work... She checked me, I was almost a 9. She told me that she would be just down the hall and left. My nurse checked me a few contractions later and they immediately brought back in the Nurse Midwife who delivered our bouncing baby boy! (1 hr and 40 minutes after they broke my water.) Levi did get stuck momentarily, they had to push on my stomach to get his shoulder under my pelvic bone. He came out with a displaced right shoulder, that corrected itself. 10 minutes later my doctor walked in and was surprised that she missed all the action.

So why no pictures during the actual labor or delivery??? I decided not to have an epidural the time around. I decided that I wanted to be able to walk shortly after delivering this baby. (With Chey my legs were useless for at least 6 hrs.) Plus I had convinced Gage that I could keep whatever money didn't go toward an epidural. I shouldn't really say convinced. It didn't take any convincing., it went something like this...

Me: I don't think I want to get an epidural this time.

Gage: WHY?! If your doing it to save money that's not a good reason.

Me: No I'm not trying to save any money. In fact that's what I want to talk to you about.

Gage: OK

Me: I want to make you a deal.

Gage: OK, what is it?

Me: If I don't get an epidural can I keep the money to use on whatever I want?

Gage: YES, If you really don't get an epidural you can have the money.

Me: See I'm not saving any money. I'm just putting it to a better use.

That was very early on in this pregnancy, I don't think Gage took me seriously. I had decided to put the money toward a vacation later this year for just Gage and I, no kids. How's that for motivation while delivering your 3rd child... Looking forward to a week with no kids. :) I know that sounds awful. To be honest I thought looking forward to vacation would be one of the things that got me through the pain, but it never even crossed my mind. The only thought I can remember having was "This was a dumb idea! What was I thinking?" But it all turned out ok. Gage was a great coach and I definitely relied on him and my mom for moral support. They were both very careful to avoid the phrases I told them would get them kicked out. For Gage "Why don't you just get the epidural?" For Mom "I did this 7 times!" either one was grounds for immediate removal from the room. They did great and both got to stay for the delivery.

I think the only person I was rude to was the midwife. I can remember making a few sarcastic/mean remarks, but I can't remember who said what to deserve them. I just remember Gage laughing on occasion because he thought they were funny (so I'm pretty sure they weren't directed at him). You'll have to ask Gage if you want more info there. Sorry.

The pain wasn't anything like what I expected. It was different, but still awful, but all worth it once it was over and they said, "It's a BOY!"

Levi was born at 3:14 pm. He wasn't convinced that breathing was a necessity, a little bit of extra suctioning took care of that. But he looked really blue for a while. The nursery nurse told us that it would probably take a day or two for his hands and feet to get back to a normal color.

The pictures of Gage holding our children right after they are born are my favorite.

Gage called Trevin and Cheyenne to tell them that they had a new baby brother. It was hard that they couldn't be at the hospital at all due to strict visiting restrictions. But they were way excited to get the good news!

This is the smurf picture. But in all reality at this point his color looked so much better than it was that we weren't worried any more. All the nurses and doctors that saw Levi would say the same things. "Wow he is heavy!" then "His poor face is bruised." So I'm sure the bruising is another reason his color looks so bad. Sugar definitely earned getting to be the 2nd one to hold the baby this time around.

Travis made it to the hospital with perfect timing about 20 minutes after we delivered. He got to hold little Levi while we got ready to transfer to our postpartum room.

Once we got settled into the right room, the CNA came to give Levi a bath. It was nice that they do it all right in the room now.

Levi hated it all until he was swaddled in his towel and they washed/scrubbed his head. That part he LOVED. after all who doesn't love to have their hair washed by someone else.

I love how babies smell right after a bath. I could just cuddle this little boy all night.

I guess Gage feels the same way. Don't worry we even shared him with all the family members that came to congratulate us. I didn't add all those pictures but I really wanted to. Thanks to everyone. We loved getting to share our new addition with you, plus you made the hospital stay seem shorter, which saved my sanity.

Wide awake. Look at those beautiful eyes, I wonder what color they will end up being.

Getting ready to go home and the snow started. After raining all day long and then the thick snow we got the roads could have been really bad. In fact they were in some places, but thankfully our drive home was uneventful.

Thankfully Levi was content in his car seat. They always look so small in them, even at his whopping 8 lbs 12 oz.

I couldn't wait to get home to the kids, to let them meet our little man. We came home and got settled then Grandma and Papa brought home the kids. They were so excited. We taught them about using the hand sanitizer, it's a good thing we did cause the first thing Trevin did was stick his fingers in Levi's mouth to find out if he had any teeth. (He doesn't!) That was a shock to Trevin. Cheyenne just wanted to rub his head and see his face.

All night long the kids asked questions. Can we teach him to play x box? Can we help him walk? Is mom's belly button ok? He has a weird belly button, doesn't he?

And of coarse they both wanted to hold him. And they did awesome, dad helped and taught them that they can only hold Levi with help, and to support his head, etc. Even Trevin was content to sit and hold Levi for a while.

Cheyenne was already and old pro after all of her practice with her baby dolls. She just kept saying "Oh Baby Levi Cade is so cute!"

Levi's id bands and funny belly button. Cheyenne saw his dry feet and told me "He needs lotion"... What a girly girl I have.

Sleeping at home. After his check up at the doctors office (Their requirement if i wanted to go home before he was 48 hrs old, I took it!) Does he look a little yellow to you? I didn't notice it right off, but the lab work confirmed, he is jaundice. With his bili count high we got to experience bili lights for the first time at our house.

I have to admit I wasn't very excited about this. I have nieces that had to do the bili bed thing and I hated to see them naked and blind folded. They just looked so uncomfortable. So I was pleasantly surprised to see the new set up. I think they have made huge improvements.

The lights are on the bottom, then they cover it with this little straight jacket contraption. No visibly naked baby and no blindfolds, YAY!! They have a bili blanket that I had to tuck in on top of his belly to before we closed him in. It was still really hard to not be able to hold and cuddle him all the time, especially in the middle of the night when he cried. I did get to get him out to feed him but you had to keep the bili blanket on him still and it was awkward.

Gage hated them, All I heard all night was these lights are dumb. over and over.

Here he is all tucked in for the duration. We put the whole contraption in a pack n play so we didn't have to worry about the kids bothering him too much, but they could still go and look at him.

In the middle of the night, Levi wanted to be held, he just cried and cried if I wasn't right next to the pack n play. I'd sit there until I thought he was out then go back to my place on the couch and within 5 minutes he would be screaming again, until I went back and sat by him. So I finally gave in at about 2:30 am and rearranged the furniture. (Gage was sure to remind me that the couch definitely weighs more than my baby, which is what they told me my lifting limit is). But I can assure you that moving the couch was worth the reprimand. I slept with my hand on Levi's belly and he slept like a champ after that and so did I.

This morning we headed back to the doctor for another heel stick. Poor little boy, but the results were improved and we get a break from the bili lights, hopefully tomorrow we'll be done for good!

I love cuddling this little boy, I can't wait to see his personality develop and start to show through.

Baby Update.

2012-01-16T10:43:00.000-08:00

Today I am 38 weeks and 4 days. We are so excited about welcoming baby number 3 into our home. I will be getting induced at the end of this week (YAY!) Travis will be home for the weekend and since I was induced with both Trevin and Cheyenne I thought why not. I think it gives Gage a little bit of peace and mind too, he'd rather have it all planned, than worry about me calling him in the middle of the day or waking him up in the middle of the night. I can't blame him I think just waiting to go into labor on my own would make me nervous.

We had a fun surprise last week. My nieces decorated our front porch with this fun little count down. My kids were so excited about all the baby stuff.

I've done pretty good avoiding the camera,, not on purpose I just am usually the one taking pictures and I haven't really even done much of that lately. So I decided to have Gage take a couple of pictures of me this weekend so I had a few really pregnant pictures for a baby book.

So... 38 weeks and 2 days pregnant!

Another one with T and Chey.

I can't even begin to describe how excited we are at our house. Especially the kids. They can't wait to find out if they get a baby brother or sister! They love the countdown we made (but I think they are mostly excited about having a sleep over at grandma's). Trevin knows some of the names we are thinking about but has done great to just tell everyone "It's a surprise" when they ask. Cheyenne is still convinced that the name is "Boots" if it's a boy and "Sunrise" if it's a girl. So we don't have to worry about her spilling the beans. It will be a little sad to not have my kids at the hospital to meet the baby, I think it might make the transition a little harder. But there isn't anything I can do about the strict visiting restrictions so I'm not going worry about it.

Cheyenne is already becoming a little mother and LOVES all the baby things that are now scattered around the house. Especially the car seat. Yesterday she wanted to test it out, but we convinced her she wasn't allowed to sit in it. Don't worry she found a good substitute. Leo the Lion got strapped in and covered with a blanket and then Cheyenne had Dad carry the car seat from room to room so she could keep a close watch. It was pretty cute.

A shot from the Trevin cam. He loves to take pictures right now.

I found a fun blog this week that had a list of question about pregnancy and I can't wait to keep a journal of these questions the next time around. Any way...

How far along: 38 weeks and 4 days.

Total weight gain: 34 pounds. (sounds bad I know but this is the least I've gained with any pregnancy so I'm pretty excited!)

Maternity clothes? Yes, some of them. I still wear my regular jeans (unbuttoned) and I wear a lot of Downeast shirts (they are nice and long and stretchy, most of the ones I wear aren't maternity just a size up from what I normally wear) and cardigans.

Sleep: I don't sleep well, my only pregnancy complaint is heartburn, which makes laying flat impossible! I sleep on 4 pillows and occasionally in a recliner. Even with all that, heartburn wakes me up a couple of times a night and I have to sit straight up for at least 5 minutes before I can fall asleep again. On the up side, I very rarely have to wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, which would drive me nuts.

Best moment this week: Going bowling! Gage and I had never been bowling together, so we planned a double date and everyone said I could pick the activity since it was going to be my last night out for a while. I picked bowling. Gage tried to talk me out of it, "Pregnant women don't bowl." I proved him wrong and even beat him on one of the games. I did pay for it dearly, I could barely walk the next day. I must have pulled something. Next time, I don't think I'll go bowling at 38 weeks pregnant, but it was fun.

Miss anything: Being able to keep up with the kids. In the last 2 weeks I get winded just walking up and down our stairs!

Movement: Oh yes! This baby is very active and likes to stretch! My doctor has made the comment a couple of time "Wow your baby sure does like to try to spread out." Yes I am aware. I occasionally have spots of my stomach that are sore to touch because this baby tries to spread out so much.

Food Cravings: Ice, Ice and more Ice. Maybe it's because of the heartburn, maybe not. I only like the pebbled ice. So we make regular trips to Sonic or Macey's to restock. I can eat a bag of ice in about 5 days.

Anything make you sick or queasy?: Not anymore. It is great. I haven't thrown up since about week 19.

Gender: UNKNOWN. I love to get asked this question. I love seeing peoples reactions when I tell them we opted to not find out! I have to admit it was really hard at first, but now it's a lot of fun. This was Gage's decision, he never wanted to find out with any of the kids... I made a deal that once we had a boy and a girl we didn't have to find out and he held me to it. (I'm glad he did.)

Labor signs: I have contractions all the time. Just bending over to pick something up will make them start. My last appointment I was dilated to a two, nothing other than that.

Belly button in or out?: OUT

Stretch marks?: Yes unfortunately but I don't think any of them are new, just my old ones that are angry.

Wedding ring on or off?: OFF, I took it off about a week and a half ago.

Happy or Moody most of the time: Happy! I can't wait to meet this baby. (Although probably moody at 2am, but no one else is awake to see it.)

On your to-do list this week?: Oh wow. I am a procrastinator and not knowing the sex of this baby has made it even worse. I have few baby clothes out, but I haven't even pulled out the gender neutral stuff out. No crib is coming out til I know what room it needs to go in. Trevin made sure I got diapers and wipes a couple weeks ago so we are set there.

My to do list: Pack a bag for the hospital, get out the bassinet, get my hair done, clean the bathrooms, make a couple of freezer meals, laundry!

What are you most looking forward to in the next week?: MEETING THIS BABY!

That's it for now. My next post will be after the baby is here. :)

The countdown begins!

2012-01-09T13:40:00.000-08:00

When I went to my previous OB appointment this baby was weighing in at about 5lbs 6oz. Then I went again on Tuesday (2 wks later) and they are estimating that our baby weighs just over 7 lbs! Needless to say we are a little worried that this baby might be huge! I decided to go ahead and schedule myself to be induced (I was with both Trevin and Chey). So now we have a date and the countdown begins.

Trevin and Chey are so excited and had a lot of fun helping me pick what colors to use for the chain and stapling them together. The most fun of coarse is getting to rip one off each day.

I can't tell you how excited we are at our house. Cheyenne favorite activity right now is to blow raspberries on the baby! Trevin is my worrier. About a week ago we had this conversation...

Trevin: Mom I need to talk to you.
Me: OK what are we going to talk about?
Trevin: We don't have any diapers! If this baby poops in it's diaper we won't have any new diapers to change it!
Me: Oh no. Do you think we should buy some diapers the next time we go to the store?
Trevin: Yes! Don't forget!

Needless to say we now have diapers at our house.

Since we didn't find out if we are having a boy or a girl I've gone ahead and washed at least some newborn size outfits for both. Cheyenne LOVES all the little girl clothes! Maybe a little too much. She had tried desperately to get on a NB size jacket earlier today and the one sleeve ended above her elbow and I finally convinced her the clothes would only fit a baby. I thought that was the end of it... I was wrong, this is what I found just a little while later.

She found the matching pants! and was so proud that they fit!

WELL.... ALMOST FIT!
(The swimming suit is a whole other story. Cheyenne asks to wear her swimming suit every day, multiple times a day! And stalks the laundry room when it has to be washed. )

Captain America turns 4.

2011-12-22T10:28:00.000-08:00

Trevin is very into all super heroes right now. Everyday he has me put a cape on him (a pillow case), so he can be a super hero. Being a super hero entails saving Mom and Cheyenne from all the bad guys, most of the time that mean shooting them, with anything that might resemble a gun. Occasionally Chey gets to be a super hero too, but for the most part she gets to be a damsel in distress with mom. So it wasn't very hard to decide what to get Trevin from his birthday this year... SUPER HERO anything. His favorite superhero at the moment is Captain America so that's the theme we stuck with.

At our house presents couldn't possibly wait until after dad gets home from work. So presents happen first thing in the morning. Before we even eat breakfast or get out of our PJs.

First present... A Captain america shield. Trevin usually uses a bucket lid so he was very excited to have the real deal.

Next up... A Captain America action figure that talks and has a shield and a gun!

Third came the Captain America helmet... Now you see the whole picture. (except Trevin decided it was better to wear his shield and helmet, while using the little action figure gun too.)

I love the look on T's face in this next picture. He was more than excited to open his very own iPod. (Mom's old iTouch). We reset it and made it all kid friendly. Trevin already knew how to use it better than mom anyway. We loaded a bunch of super hero pictures to it. Left only games on it and of coarse his favorite music. Oh the green cover is new.

He was thrilled and promised he would even share it with Cheyenne.

We had lots of fun during the day... Trevin rotated between playing the iPod and being Captain America. Trevin got to go to Chick-fil-a with dad for a special birthday lunch.

Later in the day we had our brand new home teachers stop by. They are honestly the best! Trevin was asleep but they dropped off a present for him. Trevin was way excited to wake up to another gift.

For dinner the kids had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at Trevin request. (Mom and dad at lasagna.) Then instead of doing cake and ice cream. We headed out to Farr's Fresh ice cream to let the kids load up on whatever ice cream they wanted. It was a lot of fun and I think they liked not having any restrictions on toppings.

A quick picture with his birthday balloons before heading off to bed.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TREVIN!!!

(Chey had a great time picking out the balloons!)

A few of our Christmas activities...

2011-12-21T10:31:00.000-08:00

I love Christmas time with kids... I love Christmas anyway, but usually just the Christ aspect of it. But with kids I must admit the Santa/reindeer/elves portion is A LOT of fun. Cheyenne has really picked up on the Christmas songs In fact I sing them each a song when I tuck them into bed and the other night she asked me to sing "Santa Baby" I was shocked and did a pretty pathetic job since I don't know the words.

Trevin and Chey both love to sing " I want a hippopotamus for Christmas." But the favorite song at our house is Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.

Needless to say I have been watching the newspaper to find out when and where Santa's reindeer would be so we could show the kids. Since you don't get to actually see reindeer very often. So when Weber State held their "Fill the sleigh" event we mad a special trip to see Santa and his reindeer. The kids were so excited.

Santa brought 2 reindeer with him Blitzen(left) and Snowflake(right). Snow flake of coarse is one of the reindeer in training, so he doesn't actually get to pull Santa's sleigh on Christmas yet.

Here's our picture with Blitzen. The toilet paper is our donation to Santa's sleigh. Cause Santa is too busy making all the toys to make toilet paper for the kids that don't have any. Trevin had about a million questions when we got there. He wanted to know if they put a tent over the reindeer so the couldn't fly away. The answer Yes.

Blitzen, they really are very pretty.

Inside with Santa! We got to see Santa quite a few times this year, but this is my favorite picture (it was the one at WSU). Trevin asked for a race track with a ramp. Chey asked for a dolly and a duck.

This is a different day. We've started the tradition of taking Grandma Donna ( my Dad's mom) to J&J to see all the pointsettas. While we are there we take pictures in the flowers. It's a lot of fun... this year we went late in the season and there weren't very many varieties left... next year we'll have to go earlier.

Traditional Christmas Card

2011-12-20T10:50:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas! I finally got Christmas letters sent out. I know I probably missed people so here it is for anyone that is interested. Hope you all have a wonderful holiday!

Friends and Family,

Can you believe we are at the end of another year! We hope that this past year has been full of wonderful memories, for ours certainly has.

Gage has been a busy man. He managed to have 3 different church callings this year. Perhaps the hardest change Gage had to face this year was turning 30 (he still doesn’t act his age)! Don’t worry it hasn’t slowed him down. He takes on a full load at work and home. I can always count on him to get the kids riled up just before bedtime. They love their dad!

McKenna loves all the time she gets to spend at home. Two toddlers are a constant source of entertainment! She has taken on the task of holding preschool at our house 2 days a week, and loves getting to see the kids excited to learn and play. In her spare time after cooking and cleaning McKenna loves to go on dates with Gage more frequently.

Trevin has changed so much this year. He is proficient at using Mom’s iPod touch, navigating the computer and racing on x-box. His electronic skills must come from his dad. His imagination is as wild as ever. Most of his adventures right now involve him being a super hero. Trevin prompted the at home preschool. Every morning starts with the same question “Is it preschool day?” He loves to learn!

Cheyenne is all girl! Her favorite colors are pink and purple. She too has an active imagination and can almost always be found carrying a doll, stuffed animal or Barbie. Chey has a stubborn side and refused to potty train, regardless of mom’s pleadings. After mom finally gave up, Chey decided she was ready and has been dry since. She loves her “long Rapunzel hair” and her earrings (her reward for potty training).

Our family is excited to welcome baby #3. Trevin is set on having a brother and Chey is sure we are having a sister. We can’t wait to find out in January! Gage and I are just thrilled to have a couple of months off of diaper duty before we start into the baby phase again.

We love our Savior and express gratitude for His love in our lives. We feel so blessed to know that He lives. Our hope is that you too have felt His love and know that you can always turn to Him in times of need. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to each of you.

Love, the Crabtree's

Simple joys

2011-12-19T14:48:00.000-08:00

Today the kids wanted to play outside. Trevin got a new scooter from his cousins for his birthday and wants to ride it every chance he gets. Anyway I bundled the kids up and sent them outside. Next thing I see the two of them are having a snow ball fight! I know it hasn't snowed for a while...we have a skif of snow along the fence line of our backyard in our garden area. Can you picture it? A very muddy snowball fight. They had a blast!
The funny part is when they decided it was time to come inside the first words out of Trevin's mouth were, "Mom, we accidentally got snow on our gloves." Chey was quick to add, "and mud!"
I love these two and didn't mind cleaning up the mess since it was all just an ACCIDENT!

Remind yourself...

2011-12-05T09:40:00.000-08:00

A little reminder that we only see a small glimpse at a time.

I try to look for the positives in my life every day! My husband, my kids and especially my Savior make it possible to get through the rough days and know that everything will turn out ok in the end.

2011-12-05T07:40:00.000-08:00

A conversation with Trevin after he woke up and walked into our room this morning.
GAGE: "Did you finally decide to wake up?"
TREVIN: "My old bones, said body it's time to get out of bed!"

A Canova Christmas Party

2011-12-03T21:54:00.000-08:00

Today was the Canova family Christmas Party. They went for a none traditional party that turned out being a blast! We all went ICE SKATING! We had a nice lunch before hand and all the kids loved watching the hockey team play while we ate. When public skating hours started the kids couldn't wait to go "borrow their ice skaters!" I sent Trevin and Gage thinking that Cheyenne wouldn't be interested at all. I was wrong. As soon as Trevin and Dad had their ice skates, Cheyenne sat down next to them and took off her shoes. She needed some ice skaters too! I was so impressed at how quickly these two figured out how to walk in their ice skates. They both took a couple of wobbly steps then... piece of cake!

With all of the adult cousins around we had plenty of help on the ice. Trevin and Chey loved it!! A couple of my cousins played hockey in High School and trevin thought it was fun to go with them cause they just picked him up and went "really fast!"

It was a work out to skate bent over holding up a little kid.. So we had the kids come sit on the bench outside the ice rink to take a rest... even though I think the adults benefited from the "rest" the most.

Every time Cheyenne had to come sit on the bench she said the same thing. "I meed ice skating more." Dad came and sat by her fro a little while to keep her company. Aren't they cute!

My little crew. We had such a fun time.

THE ZOO

2011-11-30T17:22:00.000-08:00

I'm a horrible mom and charged my camera just to forget it on the counter! But this is something worth remembering... so sorry no pictures.
Today we woke up and started our normal routine. Santa brought our Christmas present a little early. Better said Santa had the RC Willey delivery guys bring our Christmas present early. They came earlier than expect so we were left with a whole day with nothing planned. Luckily Lindsay called that morning and we found out that her and the girls were all headed to the ZOO!!! The Hogle Zoo is free on the last Wednesday of the month in November, December, and January. So we packed a lunch, gathered our winter coats and hats and headed to the zoo. It was so much fun. Not very crowded and the animals were extremely active. The baby Elephant put on a show playing in the mud. The rhinos ran around their little yard. The gorillas did more than sleep. The tigers were up and moving around. And it was lunch time at the Giraffe house when we got there. We ate lunch under one of the awnings where the kids could watch the monkeys. Then we even let the kids play for a little while on the playground. The tube slide that looked like a snake was a huge hit. The kids loved it and never complained about being cold, even though it did snow a little. I loved it because all the animals looked so healthy with their winter coats on. I think we just might go again in January!

:)

2011-11-19T15:42:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it's the littlest things that make me laugh. I love this quote... because I do this ALL THE TIME!!

2011's First SNOW DAY

2011-11-10T09:22:00.000-08:00

We love snow days! Especially when they land on a Saturday! The kids were so excited to look out into the back yard and see snow when they woke up. It wasn't long before they were bundled up and playing in it. The best part about this year. They both wanted to stay outside for longer the 5 minutes. In fact the problem was convincing them after a couple of hours that they needed to come in and eat lunch!

After having fun at home all morning, keeping themselves entertained while mom and dad did chores. We decided to break out the sled at a local park. What a great idea. The hill was small enough for both of them to walk up by themselves and big enough that they had fun sledding!

Trevin liked the small disc sled. Hmm, I wonder if it that had anything to do with the color? ;)

Cheyenne loved the tube!

The only down side was having to leave. Although we did give in to the pleadings of "please just one more time" quite a few times!
Happy SNOW DAYS!

A preschool field trip

2011-11-05T08:48:00.000-07:00

During "F" week ate preschool we went on a field trip to the Fire station.

When we got there the firemen had just been called out. But they were back pretty quick and the kids thought it was fun to watch them park the fire engine. The firemen were so great with the kids and made sure that everyone had fun. First we toured the fire truck and even got to play with the hose.

Next was the ambulance. The kids thought it was lots of fun to walk through all the vehicles. Next up a tour of the kitchen and bedrooms. WOW. This was probably the favorite part, especially when they saw the 3 refrigerators!

Last but not least, one of the fire men dressed up for the kids. They wanted to show them that even though they sound funny through their mask and look scary with all their big clothes on they are nice guys. So the kids wouldn't be scared of them. It worked. The kids all gave him a hug or high fives. Then they taught the kids how to stop drop and roll. and gave them all helmets!

If you haven't toured the fire station with your kids, you should!

HALLOWEEN TRADITIONS

2011-11-02T10:28:00.000-07:00

Pumpkin Carving was so much fun at our house this year. Trevin and Cheyenne picked out their own pumpkins and designed their own jack-o-lantern faces. The best part was getting to light the candles and blow them out every night!

We had lots of chances to wear our costumes this year. We went to a pumpkin walk, had our preschool party, went to visit grandma and then had Halloween. So we were in our costumes 5 different days!! The kids loved it.

Trevin decided he wanted to be a fighter pilot. So we looked at lots of costumes online before he found teh perfect one. "Green and a hat!" He loved it and was the toughest fighter pilot I've ever seen.

Cheyenne originally wanted to be Little Mermaid. No surprise there. We started looking at costumes on line to get some good ideas (I was planning on making hers). This is where the surprise comes... She saw a picture of Pocahontas and decided that's what she wanted to be instead. I didn't mind. Pocahontas sounded easier to make and Cheyenne was so excited with with finished costume. Isn't she a beautiful Indian Girl.

Visiting Grandma Nicholls. Picking up nuts from her yard. One of my kids favorite activities at her house.

Our little preschool had a Halloween party. They all had so much fun. We played pin the nose on the pumkin, pass the ghost, bean bag toss. Then we decorated cupcakes and drank "blood juice." Preschool is always entertaining, but it was especially fun this time.

A picture of our Halloween decorations this year. Trevin saw our neighbor decorating her house at the beginning of October and came inside to tell me "Laura has awesome Halloween decorations. Do we have any?" That's when we decided to break out the Halloween box. We made ghosts out of milk jugs this year that turned out way cute. I forgot to take pictures while they were lit up, but the kids loved it.

Kami and her family were here for Gerin's mission farewell. Which means they got to be here for Halloween. It was so much fun to go trick-or-treating with them. Here is our little crew before we headed out. we lasted about and hour and a half. Then the kids decided they were tired and that their buckets were HEAVY! So we headed home and passed out candy.

I REALLY, REALLY HOPE THIS ONE DOESN'T TURN OUT TO BE A TRADITION!!! Two years ago (almost to the day) Trevin fell off the stool while he was brushing his teeth and cracked his tooth... We ended up at the Dentist, then sedated to have it pulled. Well this time was a little different. Trevin and Cheyenne hit heads. I didn't see it, but this is what they told me. I rubbed Chey's head better and then rubbed Trevin's. That when he told me that his teeth hurt too! A quick look revealed that he had cracked the front half of his tooth off. Janae stopped by to look at it that night and we were at the dentist office early Friday morning. Xrays and a quick exam showed that he had cracked it down to the root. (The dentist was surprised that I hadn't had to pull the front piece off.) This time they were able to pull it out right away. It was nice that Trevin was old enough to not get fully sedated, just some laughing gas. What a champ!

Cheyenne was very good at the dentist too. The thought it was fun to wear their costumes (The whole dentists office dresses up for the week before Halloween).

I'm just glad it was on the bottom again!!

I told Trevin all about the tooth fairy on the way home from the dentist. He was pretty excited about the whole thing. We took his tooth with us everywhere on Friday and he told everyone that the toot fairy. He ended up falling asleep early on Friday night and woke up Saturday morning and said "Oh man, the tooth fairy didn't come! I forgot to put my tooth under my pillow!" We reassured him that if he did it tonight the tooth fairy would still come. He got his tooth out right then and put it on his bed so he wouldn't forget again.
That night he put his tooth under his pillow and fell right asleep. Then at about 4:30 in the morning woke up throwing up. We were sitting in the middle of a mess on his bed. I was telling him not to worry that I would clean up his bed, when he asked, "But Mom, did the tooth fairy come?" Let's just say he was very excited to check under his pillow and find out that YES the tooth fairy did come.

So that definitely seems like that's all that could have happened this weekend but there is one more thing I have to add. We got in a car accident. We were stopped at a signal and got rear ended. Trevin was holding my phone at the time and it flew out of his hand. When it happened I told the kids, just a minute, someone ran into our truck with their car, I'll be right back. Trevin quickly responded with "Yeah, that car almost broke my hand right off!" It wasn't very bad. The lady that hit us had only had her car for 8 days, and wouldn't be driving it home. Our truck didn't show any signs of getting hit. The officer that came to the accident asked if she could talk to my kids and get their information. I helped them answer her questions. Gage showed up just then. So I talked to him for a minute then I heard Trevin ask, "Do you have a gun?" I turned around to see the officer showing Trevin that yes she had a gun. Then he started pointing to the other things on her belt and she was very patient and told him this is my tazor and my radio, etc. I think this was the highlight of his day, even more than getting his tooth pulled. Cheyenne was so excited to tell everyone she saw that day "A car crashed rigth into us, like BAM!" All in all it was a very eventful day.

SICK DAYS

2011-10-30T09:25:00.000-07:00

It's official we have been hit with our first winter sick days. Chey got a cough on Saturday, which meant no sleep at our house. Even pulling out her humidifier didn't seem to make breathing any easier for her. She threw up a couple of times because of how hard she was coughing. Which meant lots of laundry for mom, since it always happens in the middle of the night. Sunday Trevin really wanted to go to primary. This is the first time I've had a sick child since Gage was put in the high council. So we all got ready, I took Trevin to church and Cheyenne and I sat outside in the grass while he enjoyed primary. I'm not sure that arrangement will work out when the weather gets cold.

I caught Cheyenne's cough/cold/body aches on Monday. Tuesday I declared a "SICK DAY." Trevin asked me "What's a sick day?" I told him it was when we stay in our pajamas and watch movies on mom's bed all day long. The kids thought it was pretty cool.

It's been two weeks since Chey got sick and we all still have coughs. Hopefully they don't last all winter, we are just happy to all be feeling good enough to go trick or treating.

FISHING...

2011-10-20T11:00:00.000-07:00

This year for Labor Day I had to work which meant our regular Bear lake trip wasn't going to happen. So we decided to take the kids fishing... at the fish farm and then they could help dad eat whatever they caught.

We helped them pick out some fishing poles and dad taught them how to carry them so they didn't hook anybody. Trevin and Gage picked out a good fishing spot and we got to work.

They kids waited patiently with their lines in the water for a few minutes, then we took the cheater method and threw in some food.

Trevin fished while Chey threw in food. Trevin was so excited when the fish bit and he pulled up his pole and there was actually a fish on it! You can see it in his face.

He caugth a nice rainbow trout and was very interested in how dad took out the hook and then smacked this fish's head on a rock.

Showing off his catch! I can't wait to send these two out fishing for real.

By this time Cheyenne knew how this worked and told Trevin to throw food so she could catch a fish too. She was just as excited when she pulled her fish out of the water.

The difference... she kept her distance while dad unhooked the fish (she let Trevin help).

Then it was time to take a picture with her tiger trout. I told her to help dad hold it and she immediately said no. Then she came up with a great alternative. I had said to help dad... which in her mind didn't have to include touching the fish. Why is Gage smiling so big??

This is how Chey helped dad hold the fish. She is just like her mom... so she can stay home with me when the boys go out fishing!

OAKLEE

2011-10-10T10:36:00.000-07:00

Yes another beautiful niece arrived in September. The boys in our family really are quite out numbered. My parents have 2 grandsons and 8 granddaughters.

Lindsays whole crew... Thats' right they have FIVE girls!!!

We love baby Oaklee.

JENTRY MCCALL

2011-10-01T10:30:00.000-07:00

My beautiful kind of new niece.....Jentry made her entrance into the world on JUNE 21st and is a doll!

We don't get to see her very much... Her dad took her with him to MED school, don't worry he took her mom too!

Saying farewell to our Arizona bound family!!!

A couple of fun updated pictures from Sierra's blog, that she is way better at keeping updated than I am.

A picture in front of their tree at their new house. Can't wait to go and visit!

Just cause I really love this one of Jentry.

OUR SUMMER

2011-09-20T10:13:00.000-07:00

I wish I had been better about blogging all summer. It just isn't the same when I put together a massive caught up post, but here it is any way... OUR SUMMER ADVENTURES. ( to be honest we had a very laid back summer. Nothing too adventurous and I didn't have my camera the majority of the time anyway.

First up... GIRLS NIGHT OUT/IN. This year we decided to make 72 hr kits. None of us really had one and with Sierra moving out of state (and adding a little girl to her family), plus Lindsay might be moving too, we decided to get prepared together. We did the traditional Homemade mac and cheese for dinner. Then put our kits together and did some toe and fingernail painting for all the little girls. The best part... "Hot Wheaties" for breakfast. A Canova family odd food that I think needs to be a tradition at Girl's night out.

A couple of this summers birthday cakes. Cassidy made Taylor a caterpillar cake, while I made Cassidy a Zebra cake. We love birthday's at our house and don't get very many during the summer months.

This year we signed up for the kids bowl free program. I was a little worried that T and Chey would be too small, but I figured if we don't use it then we really aren't out anything. They did love it and we have a blast!!! We started out using the ramp, but it didn't take Trevin very long to look around and see that most people just threw the ball, so we advanced our skills to bowling like the adults. This did result in the ball stopping before it reached the pins a couple of times, but it was a lot of fun to watch! Trevin got a special pass for his bowling shoes and loved them. Plus it worked out great that the child's size ball was green (T's favorite color). Going to the bowling ally was a favorite activity.

By the end of the summer never even had to get up, because Trevin wanted to be the one to help Cheyenne. Chey would line up the ramp (she didn't mind the extra help getting the ball to the pins) then Trevin would bring her the ball and help her push it down the ramp. Chey was always excited to watch and then she would jump up and down when it hit the pins.

My little bowler.

BEAR LAKE... Always a highlight of the summer, unfortunately with all of the new high tech cameras in the family I didn't pull my camera out very often. Our day on the boat was very memorable though. T and C both got new goggles and loved them. Trevin wouldn't go out on the tube until Chey proved to him that it was fun first. Then, after they both had a ride, they did what the usually do on the boat.

Took a NAP! Trevin was out first and Chey decided to join him, but first she found the only shade available... right under our chairs. There are some great pictures that I will eventually make a whole post out of, but until then. This is it. We went and LOVED IT!

My aunt and uncle and kids came to UTAH!!! They live in Arkansas and we don't get to see them very often. We had lots of fun hanging out in SLC with them.

THE TREK. Gage was recently called to serve as the 2nd counselor in the stake young men's presidency. I was excited for him because he loves working with the youth and a little jealous because it meant that he would be going on fun outings all summer! After lots of asking (and luckily the medical team ended up short handed) I got to go on the trek with him. Yay! He was a company captain and I worked with the Medical team. We weren't together all the time, but I did get to see him more than I expected since I was assigned to his company. We had a great time and yes our feet survived the 33 miles of walking in 3 days.

The school year started... Trevin has been so excited about school. I think it was because his older cousins were talking about school starting. So he started asking and I decided that we would have our own preschool at home. We invited his cousin and one of the girls from our neighborhood. We have a blast twice a week playing preschool and even if they don't learn a lot they are learning social skills and having fun. I'll add a new picture and do a whole post on this one because, another cousin joined in the fun bringing our number of participants to 5!!!

THAT'S OUR SUMMER IN A NUTSHELL!!!

A couple of funny things...

2011-08-01T08:31:00.000-07:00

I am so awful about writing down the funny things that come out of Trevin and Chey's mouths. Here are a couple of them...

One night for family night we decided to talk about bearing your testimony. Trevin had noticed in church that different people got to go up to the mic and talk and he wanted to as well. So the next night we talked about Abinadi sharing his testimony, and being brave, etc. Then we each took turns bearing our testimony to each other. Trevin did great and so did Cheyenne. At the end we reviewed the Abinadi picture and let the kids tell us the story. Cheyenne pointed to King Noah and said "That's a bad guy." Then she pointed to Abinadi and said "That's Abina guy!" Close enough right!?

Trevin loves to be on the boat and pays close attention to all of the rules. The kid remembers everything. A couple of weekends ago we were up at the lake for "family camp" (I'll make a separate post about that). We were enjoying breakfast and watching the boats dock at the marina and head out on to the lake. Trevin turns to Gage and said "Look Dad all those boats are going slow past the boobies." We all jerked our heads around and were a little surprised. Gage was the one to ask Trevin what he said. Trevin looked a little timid and said "They go slow by the boobies." We all wondered what Trevin could see that we were missing down at the marina. But after a minute Trevin said "They have to go slow past them, then they can go super fast!" That's when we realized that Trevin meant BUOYS. We have gone to the lake a couple of times this summer, enough that Trevin recognizes the buoys and knows that when you are inside the buoys you have to go slow then when you pass them you can go fast. We went boating with a friend last week and Trevin told the husband, "You see those boobies, when we pass them we can go fast!" He looked really confused and so I told him he meant buoys and everyone had a good laugh. It makes for an awkward situation, hopefully with a little more practice Trevin will be able to say "bouys" until then, we'll enjoy the laughs!

All in a matter of ten minutes.

2011-07-14T15:37:00.000-07:00

So for the time being I can't find my camera. It went with us to Bear Lake and I know it made it home. I just can't seem to remember where I put it. But what I walked into today was definitely picture worthy and so I did what I could, sorry the pictures are blurry.

Can you guess who these feet belong to???

TREVIN! Can you guess who did this for him???

Cheyenne! I must admit that I was relieved to find out that they did this with marker and not nail polish. Cheyenne had done her own and then offered to do Trevin's. Which he willingly agreed to. She even did his finger nails yellow. They were so excited to show me!

I know that some of you family members are thinking, Oh no! What happened when Gage found out? The answer... He hasn't! He is out with the young men camping. We'll see if I can get it off before he comes home. But I'm happy to report Trevin quickly reminded me shortly after that he was still ALL boy. I was cleaning up the markers and from downstairs I hear "That was so awesome!" and Trevin came upstairs to find me. He said "Mom, that was so awesome. I went potty NOT in the toilet" (he is zipping up his pants). I think he saw the shock on my face cause it took me a minute to get him to tell me where. He said "outside." Next I asked "How did you get outside?" He said "NO, I was inside only my potty went outside." Sure enough he showed me, he had stood at the back door and peed onto the stairs. And he was so proud!!! Gage is never gunna leave me alone with the two again!

STUBBORN!

2011-06-02T19:11:00.000-07:00

I officially have the most stubborn daughter. She has always had a mind of her own, but now I know that she will never be forced into anything! Just before she turned two she wanted to use the big potty. I was so excited. We got big girl undies and went to work potty training. She picked it up so fast, by day 3 she even took herself to the bathroom and was dry overnight! We were so excited until 3 weeks later when she decided it was all a hassle. She would hold in all the potty while we sat on the toilet and say she couldn't go. Then right when she got off she would potty in her pants. So it was back to diapers.
So 4 months later we decide to try again. and can you imagine what happened? A repeat of round one. But this time I didn't give in. I figured that if I toughed it out she would realize it was my way or the highway. I have washed countless numbers of underwear and skirts and leggings (lots of layers to avoid scrubbing the carpet). My worst nightmare came true last week. We were all going visiting teaching, we all went potty before we left... We got to the first house (our first time there) and Cheyenne decided that she was going to potty on the couch! I was mortified. I could apologize enough. You think that alone would be enough to break me, but I'm tough. Today was the kicker. We went to the store to buy more pull-ups (bedtime underwear). We got out to the car and I knew that we were going to be running lots of errands so I offered to let Chey wear a pair. She was so excited. I put Trevin in the car and turned around to get Chey and she said "I pottied in my pants, now I gunna wear a diaper!" Sure enough she was freshly wet and so proud of what she had done. I was done! She wins and is back in diapers. ERG! I think I let that girl potty train herself!

"The Butterfly Circus"

2011-05-24T07:23:00.000-07:00

I was introduced to this short film on Sunday. I love it. It is 20 minutes long and worth every minute that you spend in front of your computer to watch it. You will be inspired and uplifted.

THE BUTTERFLY CIRCUS click to go to the movie.

I hope you all have a great day and learn to look for the positives in your life.

"The greater the struggle, the more glorious the triumph!"

HORSE VAULTING

2011-05-13T13:34:00.001-07:00

This is my cousin. Her dad put her in this class when she was in 1st grade (she is now in 5th grade) to help her improve her balance on a horse. Well I think she's gotten pretty good at it. She now performs with her horse vaulting team. Check out this pose. I had her do it while the horse wasn't moving so I could get a good picture, but she did this while the horse was trotting/cantering. She was even at the top of a 3 person tower at one point. Pretty amazing.
After the show was over she let my kids come and sit on the horse. Trevin was first... he cried and wanted down immediately. Cheyenne was next and despite seeing Trevin's reaction she was more than thrilled. She sat for a while the and smiled for the pictures.
Then my cousin helped her do some tricks, mostly just standing. Chey thought it was awesome and was more than willing to do some posing for the camera.

It's the simple things...

2011-05-11T15:33:00.000-07:00

RACE FOR THE CURE 2011

2011-05-09T15:25:00.000-07:00

Saturday we participated in the SLC Race for the Cure. It was such a wonderful experience. One of my Mom's Best friends was diagnosed with breast cancer in the last year and we all went to support her and the thousands of others that are currently in the fight.

Friday night Lindsay and I made matching shirts for all the kids. Which had our team name on the back "Kristine's Crusaders". All the little girls hair was crimped and Trevin got to show off his mohawk and bright pink bandana.

Sierra and Mike joined up with us at the starting line. Mike sister Katie is also a breast cancer survivor. They wore their "Hats off to Katie" hats to show their support.

I couldn't believe how many people were there and the pictures don't do it justice. When Sierra and Mike came to join us, we had to put Trevin up on our shoulders so they so they could pick us out of the sea of white and pink. It was really neat to see all of the SURVIVORS in their bright pink shirts. I also loved reading the signs on everyone's backs that showed who they were their to support.

We did the 5K. Trevin probably walked/ran about a mile of it. He ran and kept saying "I'm gunna be the winner!" He was actually hard to keep up with since he could sneak between people and I had to run around them.
We had such a great time. It is something that everyone should do at least once in their life. It was amazing to see all the love and support for the survivors. And those who were there to remember and celebrate the lives of those that lost the battle. We will make this a yearly tradition and hope to see the sea of pink survivors GROW every year.

This song is amazing... here are the lyrics.

"I RUN FOR LIFE" By: Melissa Etheridge

It's been years since they told her about it
The darkness her body possessed
And the scars are still there in the mirror
Everyday that she gets herself dressed
Though the pain is miles and miles behind her
And the fear is now a docile beast
If you ask her why she is still running
She'll tell you it makes her complete

[Chorus:]
I run for hope
I run to feel
I run for the truth
For all that is real
I run for your mother your sister your wife
I run for you and me my friend I run for life

It's a blur since they told me about it
How the darkness had taken it's toll
And they cut into my skin and they cut into my body
But they will never get a piece of my soul
And now I'm still learning the lesson
To awake when I hear the call
And if you ask me why I am still running
I'll tell you I run for us all

[Chorus:]

And someday if they tell you about it
If the darkness knocks on your door
Remember her remember me
We will be running as we have before
Running for answers
Running for more

I run for hope
I run to feel
I run for the truth
For all that is real
I run for your mother your sister your wife
I run for you and me my friend
I run for hope
I run to feel
I run for the truth
For all that is real
I run for your mother your sister your wife
I run for you and me my friend I run for life
Ohohohoh

I run for your mother your sister your daughter your wife
I run for you and me my friend:| I run for life

Must be spring!

2011-05-06T11:11:00.000-07:00

TREVIN is sporting a mohawk!

CHEYENNE is finding "Hokey Pokeys" everywhere!

KENNA is loving riding her bike (so are the kids).

GAGE is wishing more than ever that he had more time to be outside with the rest of us!

Mermaid song.

2011-04-25T07:51:00.000-07:00

I have tried for months to get this recorded and these really are the best one I got. Cheyenne is so easily distracted but she sings the whole song, out of order, on the first one and only parts on the second. Enjoy. I hope you all got to see this in person...

or CLICK HERE to go straight to you tube.

Bruiser

2011-04-18T14:19:00.001-07:00

When I noticed Trevin's black eye I said, "Wow Trevin you've got a black eye!" He told me "No. My eyes are BLUE."

I guess Trevin was playing on Lindsay's ottoman and managed to jump/fall onto her TV stand. the scratch was there when I picked him up later that day but the bruising didn't show up until the next day.

Castle... complete with mote!

2011-04-12T08:29:00.000-07:00

We were so excited to get our fence started and it looked like we were going to beat the secondary water. Gage and his dad got all the corner posts set on Wednesday night while I was at work. Thursday it snowed. This is what the yard looked like on Friday morning.

We got lots of ran and lots of very wet snow. It continued to rain/snow all weekend a true Utah swinter. We got a little more snow on Sunday morning then the rest of the day was beautiful. Monday was a perfect day and we enjoyed playing outside, protected on all side by our mote.

These were taken on Monday and they had already drained a lot from the day before. Remember I was worried about our little neighbor kids falling in one of our holes... now I get to worry about them falling in one and drowning.

Hopefully the clay that we dug through will hold up and we won't have to re-dig all the holes. If we do I guess it will be ok, because that tractor isn't going anywhere for a while. There is no way I'm letting it drive through my yard and make trenches in the soggy soil.

Today it is raining again so it looks like we will be enjoying our mote for a while longer. On the bright side I don't think anyone will feel like watering when the secondary water turns on, on the 15th.

It's a start

2011-04-06T10:10:00.000-07:00

For the past 3 yrs (since we moved into our house) we've said we would put up a fence in the summer. Well summers have come and gone and at the end of each summer, we say "at the start of next year." This is finally the year. We knew we had to get it in before the secondary water turns on in the middle of this month, because the west side of our house is basically a swamp once the sprinklers come on. In addition to the water issue we committed ourselves to watching a dog for a few weeks at the start of this summer and a fence is a must!

This past weekend we did a lot of prep work, by "we" I mean Gage and his brothers. They worked with general conference turned up so that all in the neighborhood could listen along. We only pulled broke off two sprinkler heads and drilled through one main line... The sad part... Gage planned for a fence when he put in our sprinkling system, but our neighbor didn't. Both sprinklers and the main line were our neighbor's! Gage is really looking forward to fixing it!

Trevin was a good supervisor and had fun checking the holes and counting them.

We were so thankful to have the tractor, it was so much faster than hand digging holes.

And when the tractor was too slow, we found that adding a little weight made it go even faster! Like I said it's a start and I can't wait to get the posts in so I don't have to worry about one of the neighbor kids falling in one of the holes! Thanks for all the help guys!

BIRTHDAY PARTY!

2011-03-22T08:01:00.001-07:00

Cheyenne is 2 I can't believe it! Her birthday was so exciting, when she woke up Trevin and I went in to sing to her while she was still in bed. Her face was priceless, she kept saying "A birthday Cheyenne, yay!"After breakfast we made birthday cup cakes. The kids had a lot of fun helping pick out colors for the butterfly bodies, Cheyenne mostly had fun eating the m&ms. I think they turned out pretty cute, Chey loves butterflies. We spent most of the day spoiling Cheyenne and playing outside, even though it was a little cold. When dad got home it was time for presents. Cheyenne was so animated. She would scream and jump every time she finished opening a present and hold it up to show us. She was still a little slow at ripping open the presents but Trevin was always there to help. She got a baby with a backpack. Mickey Mouse underwear. Aladdin the movie. A butterfly necklace/ring/bracelet set from dad. Chey has been wanting "pretties" or "eyeballs" for her ears. (aka. earrings) this was his way of helping her forget.
She also got... a pillow pet. Trevin helped me pick this out for her and he was way excited to bring it home. He has loved helping Chey learn how to change it from a pet to a pillow and back. Cheyenne was beyond excited. She named it Joey, fitting since that is the name she uses when she pretends to be a dog.
We had Cheyenne's favorite meal for dinner... Crabtree Soup. Cheyenne had 2 bowls before she spied her presents on the couch and yelled "I see my birthday, I see my birthday, I'n done!" Next up was blowing out candles. It was pretty entertaining to watch. She was blowing so hard, but was aiming all the air straight down with her upper lip, so Trevin was kind enough to help out. She was so excited to look down and have the candles out. The cup cakes were super yummy!
Happy birthday Cheyenne! We love you lots.
ABOUT CHEYENNE:

Cheyenne talks really well for a 2 years old and loves to talk all of the time to just about anyone. She loves nursery, in fact we threaten to not take her when she is bad in sacrament meeting and it usually stops all bad behavior. Chey is amazing when it comes to memorizing songs. She sings all the time, especially primary songs. She loves the Little Mermaid and has the "wish I could be part of your world" song completely memorized, THE WHOLE THING! (once I record it I'll post it). She loves playing on the "slippery slides" at the park. She loves book and letters.

She still completely ignores you if you are telling her to stop and she thinks whatever she is doing is fun. After being completely potty trained for 3 weeks she decided it was too much work and started pottying her pants on purpose, now we are back in diapers.

She is becoming more and more girly, she loves her babies and bears and blankets. On the other hand she still loves to play sword fighting with Trevin and with cars and trains.

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY

2011-03-17T09:06:00.000-07:00

We love St. Patrick's Day. We usually pass out leprechaun surprises, this year the kids helped make finger print rainbows the we put in our flowers that were planted in leprechaun hats. We also made little bags of lucky charms that had a note that said, "I'm so lucky to have you." Making treats is one of the ways we make sure to check in on everyone to make sure they are wearing thier GREEN! Trevin caught on really quick this year. He even got to pinch dad. We came down to the kitchen and Trevin noticed green foot prints on our walls. We told him that it must have been a leprechaun! We helped him follow the footprints from the back door, onto the wall, over the stairs and out the front door. He was very interested and then he asked "but how'd they get them footprints on stickers?" We should have known that that was coming! Don't worry he was quickly distracted by green pancakes. During breakfast he informed us the foot prints were from a Leprechaun cat and he was convinced he had heard it meow that morning. What an imagination that kids has.

We even got to have a St. Patrick's Day party! The Canova's all came over to celebrate Cheyenne's birthday. She was very excited to have 2 parties.

4 years and loving every minute

2011-03-14T10:15:00.000-07:00

It's official we have been married for 4 years. That really doesn't sound like that long, but it has been great! We got to get out of the house and enjoy a weekend together to celebrate. We decided to have a car less weekend. We rode front runner down to SLC and walked everywhere or used trax. It was so much fun and so nice not to have to find parking spots or pay for parking. We ate a Biaggi's an Italian restaurant near the Gateway. We loved it, Gage especially loved his appetizers, focaccia bread and Tomato Mozzarella Caprese, think tomatoes and buffalo cheese, soaked in oil and vinegar. They were really yummy. We spent the night at the Hilton in Down town.
When we checked in we headed up to our room to find someone working on the plumbing. We wandered around the hotel for a while and checked out the pool and fitness center. Then tried to go back to our room, still being worked on. So we headed back down to the lobby and checked in again, they upgraded our room and we ended up on the 16th floor. We had a great view of the city! Saturday morning we went out to breakfast and then walked to a trax station. We missed our train by about 1 minute and had to wait for a while, and knew we would be cutting it close to the start of our play. We ended up running/speed walking from the trax station to the Desert Star playhouse. We made it there about 1/2 way through the first act. We have heard great things about this play house from a couple in our neighborhood. We trust their opinion, so we bought tickets for Gage's parents for Christmas, they went and loved it too, so we figured we'd give it a try! We saw Beverly Hillbillies it was really funny and they have some great actors. I have to admit the 2nd intermission was my favorite part. There was even a couple that got engaged.

After the play it was back to down town for a little bit of shopping at the Gateway.

We had so much fun hanging out together and getting to spend all of the time on trains enjoying each other's company and not worrying about traffic. Every year married to Gage is better than the last, I can't wait to see what this year brings!

Fun hair do's

2011-03-10T11:47:00.000-08:00

We finally bought a curling iron to use in Chey's hair. I was so excited the first time we used it and her hair curled so cute and easy too, it even stayed in most of the day. For Valentines day we did a heart pony tail in the center. I wanted to the connecting ponytails to look like a heart too, but that didn't work out. But we like the hear in the middle so we kept it. Cheyenne is so patient lately, so we decided to braid all of her hair. 2 mickey mouse club houses and 20 braids later this is what she looked like. I love doing this, once it is all braided we spray it to get it all wet, then once it dries....
... we take out all of the braids and have this fun fluffy hair!

A fun date.

2011-02-17T07:50:00.000-08:00

We always go out on a Valentine's date, but NEVER on the 14th! We figure if we are going to pay for a babysitter we are going to enjoy our night out and not fight crowds. So I came up with a fun date that we got to go on yesterday. We invited Ryan and Alex to come with us too. Gage got off work early and we headed to iRock. We really enjoyed outdoor rock climbing and I decided it would be fun to try it indoors. They also have bouldering which is short climbs with out ropes (just crash pads for safety). I thought it would be fun to give it a try.

So this is what it looked like, but I didn't take pictures. We had so much fun. After a few climbs to the top my arms were exhausted. Gage definitely showed me up and was able to climb much harder routes than I could. It was fun to challenge ourselves and get excited about climbing again. After we were all too tired to to climb and our hand hurt from belaying and climbing we called it quits and headed to Olive Garden for dinner! Yum! Next we went to the Crabby's to check out their apartment and play some games. It was a very not typical Valentine's Date, but I would do it again in a heartbeat! I love you Gage.

A lesson learned

2011-02-10T12:32:00.000-08:00

I can't remember how long ago this was... I'm guessing Trevin was about 2 1/2 years old.
One day we heard Trevin say " Oh My _ _ _." I kind of blew it off cause I wasn't sure if that was really what he said. Well later that night it came out again. So we sat down and talked about how that was a bad thing to say, Heavenly Father doesn't like it when we use his name a bad way, etc. Trying to tell him in a way that he would understand. (We thought our kids would be a lot older when we had to cross this bridge.) We didn't hear it for a few days, then it happened again while Gage was around, and Trevin was scolded a little more strictly than the previous time, which resulted in the same thing a few days of it not being said and then it returned. So we decided that during Trevin's night prayer we would help him pray "to not use bad words." So we did that for a few nights and things were better. It was a nice gentle reminder at the end of the day to not say the bad words. Well a few nights later Trevin wanted to pray without help... Awesome right! Well his prayer went something like this...
"Dear Heavenly Father, we thank thee for this day. and our bed. and our toys. Please help us remember not to say "Oh my..." because saying "Oh my..." is bad words and it makes you sad when we say "Oh my ..." so we won't say "Oh my .." any more. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."
I guess he learned the lesson, kind of...

THE CIRCUS

2011-02-03T08:52:00.000-08:00

A past weekend the circus was in town. The kids and I had seen a poster while we were out shopping and they were both supper excited (about the clowns mostly). I thought it would be fun, so I got online to see how much tickets cost. I about died and immediately decided we wouldn't be attending the circus until the kids were older. A few days before the circus came I found a coupon in the paper for a much better ticket price. That morning at breakfast I started telling the kids about the circus and asked if they wanted to go. The obvious answer... YES! We talked about the circus everyday with everybody! Friday finally came and Trevin woke up asking about the circus. I told him we have to eat breakfast, play, then eat lunch and take a nap, then go shopping, get dad, and then we can go to the circus! Trevin responded with "Really!" and cheyenne yelled "Yay, a circus!" It was like that all day listing off what happens before the circus. When we finally made it to the end of the day we pulled into the shop and Trevin and Cheyenne couldn't wait to get their dad. When we got to the circus they had so much fun watching the camel, elephant and pony rides.
The show started and the kids were super excited. We had lots of acts to watch. the tight rope walkers were fun, The fell and caught themselves a couple of times, so when they went two high I was nervous. Cheyenne's favorite was when the little mermaid music started (Chey loves to sing like mermaid) and 5 mermaids came out and swung on ropes. Chey was in heaven. There was a man that stacked chairs and then did a hand stand on them. and you can't have a circus without a plate spinner and clowns.
The elephants were my favorite. Then ran around the arena while spinning circles, stood on platforms on their hind legs, fell asleep to a lullabye, and one even stood on its HEAD! The tigers were fun too. A couple were uncooperative, Trevin was excited when they lit the ring on fire. Sugar had been telling them all week someone was gunna jump through fire and they did.
Trevin's favorite was probably the motorcycles. They had one drive out and get into the ball and drive around. Trevin was so excited to see this. Then two more joined in. Then a total of four were in the ball and then they drove around inside. Trevin loved every minute.

Gage liked the big wheel that men run inside, then outside, then jump rope and run on the outside, then run on it blindfolded! I was pretty impressed too. And we can't forget the jugglers who always are impressive!
The circus was great. It was fun to see the kids so excited, Chey loved getting to go down during intermission and watch the elephant up close. Trevin couldn't stop talking about it all the way home. I'm so glad we got to go!

WINTERFEST

2011-02-03T07:00:00.000-08:00

We went to Winter fest again this year. We had so much fun. I love getting to be together all day on a Saturday. Trevin was way excited about all the snowmobiles. Cheyenne on the other hand couldn't get enough of the horses. Home depot put on a fun workshop for the kids. The had birdhouse kits and hamers and screwdrivers to put them together. Trevin always loves working with dad so this was a dream come true. The two of them worked really hard.

Trevin was so proud of his bird house!

Next up was Cheyenne, she usually gets stuck with mom when the boys are working, so she was excited to work with dad and even stayed interested the whole time, she loved using the hammer, I think dad's thumb only got hit once.

Look at my little handy girl!

When Gage and the kids got home (I went straight to work.) They decided to write their names on their birdhouses so the didn't get mixed up. Chey was first, dad wrote her name then let her draw a little. Then dad wrote Trevin's name and let trein have the marker. Trevin asked dad what the letters were and this was the outcome.
I was so impressed when Gage showed me. I think it is great for his very first time, with no practice or guidance on how to write the letters. The "R" isn't quite attached and the "V" is upside down. (The angled line at the end Gage said was an accident when Trevin moved the pen away.) But GREAT for a barely 3 year old!!!

Just like Dad

2011-01-20T12:31:00.000-08:00

Trevin loves his dad and always wants to be with him. A few months ago Gage called and said he had to make a run to Salt Lake. He asked if Trevin wanted to go, of coarse the answer was YES! Trevin watched out the window patiently for Gage to come home. He was more than a little excited to see dad come home in a big truck and even more excited when he got to ride in it too.
Gage said he talked non stop the whole trip. What a fun day for both of my boys.

Trevin still wants to do everything like his dad. We had an interesting "quiet time" last week. I was down stairs cleaning, when I heard, Thud... then laughing... then thud, etc. My kids had obviously come out of their rooms and were anything but quiet, so I went to investigate. As I walked up the stairs I heard Trevin say, "Climb Cheyenne, like a rock climber!" I found them climbing in and out of my bathtub. after the toys they had just thrown in. I had a good laugh then took them back to their beds, only to hear them laughing again a few minutes later, this time accompanied by a "bzzz" sound that come and went. This is what I found. Trevin shaving his whiskers and Cheyenne's.

I love that these two have so much fun together!

A new skill

2011-01-14T10:38:00.001-08:00

A few days ago I made the kids lunch then got busy upstairs working on a project. A little while later Trevin came and found me and tole me "Cheyenne is making a mess!" I went to scope it out & I found a very happy girl that had learned how to unscrew lids!

It's a good thing she is cute!

TREVIN'S BIRTHDAY DAY

2011-01-11T13:49:00.001-08:00

With family Christmas parties falling on Trevin's real Birthday we had the fun treat of Dad coming home in the middle of the day to celebrate. Trevin loves to see Gage in the middle of the day, or go see Gage at work, so this was lots of fun and made Trevin really excited.

Trevin was so excited to see all the present on the table when he woke up. I think it almost killed him to wait until lunch time to open them. He is at such a fun age. He was super excited about everything he got... even the socks and toothpicks (he like to eat hot dogs and pizza with a toothpick).

Trevin loves hats, in the morning he'll tell me "I wanna wear my hat like Dad." Gage has a black Nike hat, so when I found the kids version, I knew we had to get it for Trevin. He loves and wears it almost every day. He grew out of his bike this fall (Chey grew into it and she loves it!) So a new bike was needed and Trevin already flies down the driveway on it, even in the snow. The hit of the day was Trevin's car road! Trevin has probably 100 or so cars and we now have a real town for him to drive on. We've borrowed a couple here and there, but now he has his own. It has everything, His very own, Crabtree Auto with Yard and wrecked cars (Gage probably had a little to much fun crushing matchbox cars for this). Trevin loves to use his forklift to move around the wrecked cars. This map has an airport and run way for his planes, a Train station and tracks for his trains, and on off road area for the many jeeps and monster trucks he has collected.

After we finished playing we met up with Nate and Joni and kid (visiting for the Holidays) at the mall. We were there a couple of weeks ago and saw the mini express, Trevin is into trains just as much as he is his cars and so we sat and watched it for a few minutes. Gage and I decided to let him ride it on his birthday. Trevin picked the back car, and we walked behind the train as it made it's way through the mall, all the kids loved it!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TREVIN!

Some fun facts...

-Trevin favorite color is GREEN!

-He loves: Thomas the Train, books, Cars, going to the shop to see dad, hide and go seek, pottying on the toilet and he still loves CHOCOLATE MILK!

-He is very matter of fact about everything and very particular. He always puts his comb away on top of the rag he uses to wash the toothpaste off his face, if I put them away wrong he lets me know.

-He is very creative, lately we have had jumping frogs at our house.

-Trevin has an amazing memory, he is great at memory and loves to help Cheyenne find the matches. He loves to repeat lines from movies. "You've got to be pulling on my leg." (Despicable Me)

-He has an opinion about the clothes he wears. If it isn't a solid color shirt or plaid then you must convince him it is a team shirt or else he won't wear it. (with the exception of the Toy Story 3 shirt he got for his Birthday.)

-Trevin is very helpful. He keeps Cheyenne in line, empties garbages and today I found him at the kitchen sink (soaked) hand washing all of our breakfast dishes.

We love him so much and can't wait to see what else he comes up with this next year!

COCONUT AWARD 2010

2010-12-31T14:51:00.000-08:00

Just to keep everyone up to date on the latest Crabtree Coconut award winners.

Here are the 2010 winners...Mike (being accepted by Colin), Gage, and Alex. The abbreviated stories...

Mikey got his wife a fur for her birthday, turns out he got her road kill!

Gage's coconut is shaved... he over prepared for surgery.

Alex learned how to use her emergency brake, TWICE!

That's all you get! Thanks for all the laughs these three provided this year!

Trevin is 3

2010-12-30T16:45:00.000-08:00

We have a monthly birthday party at my Mom's house each month. This month Lindsay convinced us to have it at Chuck E Cheese's. It was so much fun, we celebrated Rai Rai and Trevin's birthday and all the kids had a blast! We got 80 tokens for all the kids to split and they lasted forever! The kids had fun, but I think the adults had more fun, especially Gage and Kyle.WE played for a while then we ate pizza and got to meet Chuck E Cheese, then we played some more. Trevin loved the driving and shooting games and he won lots of tickets with some help from dad.
We finally rounded up all the kids for cake and presents! I got to make the cake and had lots of fun. I let the kids pick what kind of cake they want, Raigen asked for an Ariel mermaid cake and Trevin asked for a Buzz lightyear cake. I was stumped on how to please both of them for a while, but this is what I came up with...
They both loved it! and it tasted yummy too!

Meeting Santa

2010-12-28T16:01:00.000-08:00

I worked the night of Thanksgiving, as usual. Then stayed up a few more hours and joined the rest of the crazies for some Black Friday shopping. When I got home Gage and the Kids were just getting ready to put of the Christmas tree. The kids loved helping dad "build a tree." This was lots of fun and really kicked of the Christmas season at our house.

We meet Santa a few time this year... once at the ward Christmas party, then at the mall too! Trevin was so excited, he stood patiently in line with the rest of the kids and then jumped right onto Santa's lap. To our surprise he had a wish list for Santa. "Thomas the train, a gray remote and cranky."

Cheyenne on the other hand was very excited to stand in the line to see "Jesus" but wasn't very fond of sitting on his lap.

The second time meeting Santa went a lot smoother. You can't tell in the picture but she was really excited to sit on his lap and even asked for "books."

Trevin convinced Santa to come watch the reindeer show with him for a couple minutes. After that Trevin thought Santa was awesome!

A favorite Christmas Song

2010-12-26T15:55:00.000-08:00

We love this song at our house. I hope you take a couple of minutes and listen to it.

Merry Christmas from the Crabtree Family!

FOR CHASE AND RAIGEN!

2010-12-17T11:59:00.000-08:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHASE!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RAIGEN!

HERE COMES SANTA CLAUS

2010-12-17T08:07:00.000-08:00

After we met Santa for the first time last year, Trevin talked about him all the time, one day when we were at the store Trevin saw the Santa hats and got way excited. We ended up buying one and he loved to wear it around. The next day Trevin insisted on wearing a red shirt with his Santa hat. Next he pulled out a bag of his blocks and went to Cheyenne and asked "What you meed for Christmas, a green block or a blue block?" Next was my turn. We read 'The Night Before Christmas' a lot at our house and Trevin noticed a few other accessories that Santa had like gloves and a black belt. He asked for his belt one morning so I helped him put it in through all of his belt loops, after I finished he wasn't very happy. He told me,"It goes here over a shirt." Before long Trevin had his outfit down. And the outfit had to have everything, a long sleeve red shirt, red mittens, the black belt that goes over his shirt, his hat, and don't forget the bag of toys! It was so funny, he would tell everyone that he was Santa and ask what they wanted for Christmas. By the time Christmas came around he even made people sit on his lap.

Trevin was sure he was the real deal, he would tell you about his "reindeers" that could fly and how he was gunna go through the chimneys. In fact on day we were driving to SLC and Trevin started talking in the back seat. He was saying "I going to that one and that one and that one and all of those roofs." I asked him what he was saying and he told me "I'm Santa and I'm going to all of those roofs to take them presents!" I think one day he'll be a great Santa!

The... The... THE GRINCH!

2010-12-14T12:11:00.000-08:00

Trevin and Chey love "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" we borrowed it from my mom and we haven't been able to return it. They watch it once and sometimes twice a day! Chey gets upset when Cindy Lou falls into the present sorter, but then is excited when the Grinch pulls her out. She always says "Grinch a nice." Trevin hides from the monkey that bangs on the Grinch's head. The favorite line, the one we hear all the time, from both of them is... "the.. the... THE GRINCH! From when Cindy Lou runs into him at the post office. We had one of our Christmas Family Parties yesterday and the invitation said... "A special guest that you won't want to miss." Can you guess who it was?

THE GRINCH!!!

My kids were so excited! He had a bag full of present and the kids waited patiently for their turn to sit on the Grinch's lap. Trevin loved it and loved the little motorcycle he got(you can see it in the last picture.)
Cheyenne was super excited when she say him walk in, and couldn't stop looking at every one and saying" the GRINCH!" She kept walking closer and closer to him... then they called her name and she wanted nothing to do with sitting on his lap, but we made her. She too loves her present, a goggly alien that lights up.
We all got to take our turns getting pictures! What a fun memory!
Merry CHRISTmas! I hope we can all remember what the Grinch learned... "Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store. "Maybe Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!"

WINTER FUN!

2010-12-07T11:55:00.000-08:00

We love to watch it snow at our house! The kids are so amazed and I love the excitement on their faces. This fall we got our snow bags ready (a backpack with each kids snow clothes so we can grab them on the go if we need to and know that everything is there). Trevin has been waiting since then to use his "packpack." So now that it has snowed we've played outside a few times, but with the powder it is impossible to build anything! But not today. We got bundled up and went out to finally build a snowman.

We had so much fun making snowballs and rolling them until they were "huge" according to Cheyenne. I was surprised that Chey wanted to help, she didn't like touching the snow before.

The balls ended up so big that Mom couldn't pick up the middle one to build the snowman, oops. But they had fun climbing on them instead. Next we built a fort, to hid in and throw snowballs from. Trevin immediately started plotting an attack on dad, for when he got home and of course mom supported it!Cheyenne thought the fort was awesome and liked to try to make and throw snowballs. She would sit down and then jump up and say "boo" and just laugh! I was way cute. I love to see here imagination come out!
Here's Trevin trying to hit me with a snow ball, most of the time he throws it and the snow ball falls out of his glove behind him, so funny, but I run away and scream and he thinks it's fun. Casie stopped by for lunch Casie stopped by for lunch and Trevin was so excited to see her, well maybe just to see her truck and he wanted to climb on it and take a picture... Boys will be boys!

With a second set of hands we finally got to build our snowman. The kids were super excited and Chey kept yelling "A noman! A noman" Trevin told us is it was "Super tall" and "Awesome!" We

We had so much fun and can't wait til it snows again!

Hiding in the fort.

A drawing worth entering!

2010-12-07T11:28:00.000-08:00

I love to find a good deal, or even a chance at a good deal! Here is my latest find. This is from Alex, the person that I trust to do my hair. I was so excited to see it and thought I would pass it along to all of you! ( I'm not sure why I do this, I always seem to lose to someone that I told.) Anyway good luck! Go to Alex's Blog and leave a comment with your name and email. She works at Onyx on 25th street in Ogden. You have until the 24th of December to enter!

ANOTHER BIRTHDAY

2010-12-03T11:37:00.000-08:00

It was my birthday and I got spoiled. Trevin and Cheyenne let me sleep in until 9am this morning and I truly loved every single minute! We stopped by the shop to see Dad in the middle of the day and ate lunch, which is always fun. That night we ate pizza (which I loved 'cause there aren't any dishes!) and Gage and Trevin made me a cake. I don't think that I've had my very own cake for a long time... I always get one at the family birthday parties, but it was cool that Gage made one at our house. It was the first cake he has ever made by himself and it was even a double layer cake. IMPRESSIVE! We had to get pictures in fast cause Trevin was blowing out the candles. Here is the fake blow, that wasn't so fake.
Then the smiling picture that doesn't have candle lit because Trevin is really good a blowing them out. For my birthday I got rock climbing gear!!! YAHOO! I love it and have used it a couple of times and can't wait to use it again in the spring. Gage also go me a webcam so I can "skype" all of my family that lives out of state, I just need to get Kami hooked up then life would be great! I also got my own "10 key Printing Calculator" don't laugh, I really need the practice using it! It was a great day!

My mom took me out to lunch the next day, Red Robin and it was delicious! She also completed my set of "The Work and The Glory" I read them in Jr. High and really liked them, so she started buying them for me, but we decided to buy them all 2nd hand and see how little we could spend on the full set. She has been awesome and I've gotten one for Christmas or my birthday every year. Vol 9 has been elusive on the 2nd hand market, but leave it to her to find it! Thanks!

The Crabtrees got me a cuttlebug (scrapbooking embossing/diecut machine) but were unable to find one, so I got an "IOU", to my shock Sherry showed up the next day to deliver it. I think she tracked down the last one in Utah! I can't wait to use it.

THANKS FOR ALL THE BIRTHDAY WISHES!

A little privacy...

2010-11-30T11:13:00.001-08:00

Trevin is so much fun, he has done great with the potty. He has only had a couple of accidents and they are always in the bathroom when he can't get his pants off fast enough. He is so upset when this happens. Anyway the point is he has become so independent in taking himself to the bathroom, if he goes in and forgets to close the door and you walk in to check on him he says "Can you give me some privacy?" or "I meed some privacy." Leaving isn't enough you have to close the door. Can't blame the kid, who doesn't like some privacy!

OUR ALMOST BLIZZARD

2010-11-24T10:30:00.000-08:00

Tuesday Utah had it's first official "Blizzard Warning" since 2001. Stores closed early, College campuses cancelled classes. Warnings all over the radio and tv. Gage said I could go out that morning as long as I was home by 4pm. I was super excited, I had no where I had to be and made plans to stay home and make cinnamon rolls. I got this great idea to take a couple of pictures to document the occasion.

5:07PM Bright and Sunny still...

5:30... It started, I was planning on taking all of these from the front porch but since I was in the kitchen you get to see out the back window.
5:49... Starting to stick.
6:25 ...It was pretty windy.
7:21... This might get exciting.
8:01 Gage got home and decided to shovel the drive way so it wouldn't take so long in the morning.
Trevin got in his snow clothes and went out to help.
By 8:30 the snow stopped and we didn't get any more, so our blizzard produced about 1.5 -2 inches of snow! Either way it was fun and the cinnamon rolls were yummy! I put my recipe on the side of my blog if your interested.

She was tired.

2010-11-19T15:54:00.000-08:00

Monday I spent the morning cleaning for a class I was having at my house that evening. The kids had been playing hard in the basement, when I finally got everything clean it was time for lunch. I don't know how everyone else's kids are but when mine eat they make a huge mess. So I opted to buy lunchables at the store and let them eat in the car (Does that make me an awful parent?) We made it to the store, bought everything we needed and got back in the car. I opened their lunchables and let them eat while I made a couple of stops on the way home. This is what I found when I opened the truck door to get Cheyenne out.She must have been too tired to finish eating!

HERO'S IN A HALF SHELL...

2010-11-01T08:50:00.000-07:00

TURTLE POWER!!!

About 1 month before Halloween we started thinking about costumes, I thought it would be a lot of fun for Trevin to be Frankenstein, so I found a picture of a costume and showed him. He told me no. So, I asked him what he wanted to be. He told me a minja Tuwtle, a blue one. So that's what he was Leonardo the blue ninja turtle, with swords!Next up Cheyenne's costume I found a super cute little pirate or I thought about a fairy, but Trevin had other plans he was looking at the costumes with me and said "No... Cheyenne be's a purple one!" I immediately thought it would be fun and I knew Cheyenne wouldn't care either way. She was Donatello, the purple turtle with a stick.
I think that Cheyenne was more into the role than Trevin, he wasn't too crazy about the mask, but Cheyenne loved hers! She loved to be serious and Swing her stick and crouch down and pretend to fight. Trevin loved his sword and shell and always made sure we didn't forget his belt and letter.
To make the set complete I decided that Gage and I would join in the fun and dress up as turtles too. Gage requested to be Raphael, the red turtle with Sai (little hand swords). That left Michelangelo, the orange turtle with nunchux, for me.
Once Dad dressed up Trevin liked his costume a lot more and even wanted to wear the mask. The three of my turtle buddies loved to wrestle and fight with their weapons.

Trick or treating was a blast. Trevin figured out that you can only go to the houses with lights on and was hard to keep from running to house to house! Cheyenne figured out that if you say trick or treat when they open the door, you'll get candy. She was very possessive of her bucket, once it had candy in it, she wouldn't even let us hang it on the stroller... it HAD to be in her hands. They had so much fun and once again I think passing out candy at house was almost as fun as trick or treating... It's just to bad that we don't get very many trick or treater's on our street.

This year we didn't have any inside Halloween parties to go to, we had fun showing off our costumes and grandparent's houses, but I missed the carnival type party. Maybe next year we'll throw one ourselves! Stay posted if we do you're all invited!

Hero's in a half shell...TURTLE POWER!!!

MORE HALLOWEEN FUN!

2010-11-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

With Ryan and Alex, the COWBOY and INDIAN. I wish I had gotten a better picture of just these two. I loved their costumes. I don't think this picture shows of Alex's mohawk enough. I missed getting picture with my side of the family in their costume's. We usually stop by my aunt and uncle's for a movie after trick or treating but this year I had to work at 9pm, so no party, but Sierra and her husband had some fun costumes, I'll be adding pictures to this post, when I get them.

Pumpkin Carving...

Everyone working hard cleaning out their pumpkins.

At first Cheyenne wasn't too sure about this. She like that she got to stand up at the table.

Then after watching every one start digging in she got a little braver and stuck her hands in...

Then she decided it was more fun to just play in the pumpkin guts and skip pulling it out of the pumpkin!

Trevin loved carving pumpkins this year. He was a little hesitant to reach in the first time, but then did a pretty good job of cleaning out his pumpkin, with only a little help from mom.

"Look at dat huge pile of pumpkin guts, I like pumpkin guts."

That actual carving was the best part! Trevin picked circle eyes, a square nose and a scary mouth. Perfecting the carving.

He was so proud of his pumpkin!

Gage was the master carver this year. He carved both of our huge pumpkins that Trevin picked out with a little bit of help from Chey.

His pumpkins, I like that the candle in the evil one ended up being so bright!

I did a "goofy" pumpkin. It was broken before I finished, but I still took a picture.

Trevin loved lighting the candles inside the pumpkin each night, but not for the reason you might think... he loved that is meant that before he went to bed he got to "blow out a wishing candles!" What can I say, we have a lot of October birthdays in the family!

A fridge worthy picture

2010-10-29T16:28:00.000-07:00

This picture has been on my fridge for about a month and I decided today to share it with you. Over the summer we started rock climbing and as you all know Trevin loved it. He loved to watch, but most of all he loved when dad made him a harness and he got to climb himself. So one day I got him out some paper and pen to color and this is what he made. (FYI this is the first picture he has ever drawn that was more than just scribbles.)

When he finished he told me to look, so I did and I asked what he drew.

Trevin: "I made a rock climbing!"

Mom: "Wow!, that is rock climbing" Then I asked him what the lines down the middle were.

Trevin: "Those are a ropes for climbing."

Mom: "What about the big circles?"

Trevin: "That a huge rock!"

Mom: "What about the stuff at the bottom? Are those more rocks?"

Trevin: "No dose are my friends. Ats Dad, and Mom, and Bubba, and Alex, and Cheyenne."

Pretty good huh!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

2010-10-28T13:42:00.000-07:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
This week we got to celebrate Gage's birthday. I love Gage's birthday, because I get to spoil him for the wonderful man that he is and he doesn't put up at fight. We all got up early and ate breakfast together, nothing fancy, just cereal. This was unusual because we are usually still asleep in bed when Dad leaves for work. Later that day we took Gage lunch at work, which Trevin and Chey always love to do. They think it is fun to see their dad in the middle of the day. We had yummy turkey sandwiches at Gage's request, and POP. When Gage got home from work we ate Chicken Cordon Bleu and mashed potatoes, It turned out yummy, even the kids ate it with out too much of a fuss. Next the part Trevin had been waiting for, "wishing candles and presents!" I make Gage a pie every year for his birthday (he LOVES pie). I try to make a different kind each year, I know I'll run out soon, but so far I've only had to make 4 so I can still surprise him. This year Banana Cream with a vanilla wafer crust. Yum.

Gage is now one year older, but still young... If you can count how many candles are on that pie then you'll know how old he is, but my lips are sealed. Trevin and Cheyenne were super excited about dad opening presents. They helped me wrap them, so they knew what was inside and did a good job keeping MOST of them a secret. This was the hit of the night... How to Train you Dragon!
Cheyenne saw it and yelled "Wow a Dragon!" and Trevin immediately went to setting up the DVD player so we could watch it... and we did!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY GAGE!!! We Love You!

Halloween Decorations

2010-10-26T09:07:00.000-07:00

We love Halloween at our house. I enjoy the dressing up part and Gage enjoys the spider webs. Every year when October hits Gage asks "Can we get some of those white spider webs?" I'm pretty sure that if we didn't put them up in the house then it wouldn't really be Halloween in his eyes. This year they have taken over the railings in our house, the kids love them too. I decided to jump on the band wagon and embrace it. So after reading my SIL's blog and seeing all of their homemade Halloween decorations we decided to make some too. This is our little family of pipe cleaner spiders. From the Bottom left, is Dad, then Trevin, next is Cheyenne and up at the top is Mom. My kids will (yes both of them) will tell you who each of them are if you happen to come over. This is an idea stolen straight from Joni... Flying bats. I had a couple of Lindsay's girls over, and they had lots of fun helping. I cut all the bats out and Trevin and the girls helped me glue them together and hang them.
They thought it was lots of fun to watch them fly when a breeze hit. Now we feel festive enough for Halloween to come, the only thing that we missed out on this year was "Booing" our neighbors. I usually start one of these every year, but our neighborhood doesn't really get into it so I passed on doing it this year, but next year will be different!

POTTY TRAINED

2010-10-21T12:47:00.000-07:00

Hip Hip... HOORAY!! Trevin is potty trained!After multiple failed attempt, mostly because of me giving up... Trevin is finally potty trained. We couldn't be more proud of our little man. He takes himself to the bathroom and doesn't need any reminders, it is awesome. We had lots of gimmicks that we tried... Here's what worked for Trevin. A potty chart to color after each time he went!

He got to use a dry erase marker and color ONE square if he pottied in the toilet and TWO squares if he pooped in the toilet. This was lots of fun and Trevin definately looked forward to this. (On the flip side an accident meant erasing a square or two.) Once he had the chart all the way colored in he got a reward, a matchbox car tractor! The tractor's sat on the back of the toilet to be his reminder/motivator.

He is so proud that we got to take down the chart, because Trevin is a big boy now!

He is even more proud of these... HIS BIG BOY UNDERWEAR!!! We tried to potty train in pull-ups and it didn't work, he wet them... I had no idea... no training happened. So when we decided it was finally time, he went straight to big boy pants (more work for me, but definitely more effective). He loves to pick out what underwear to wear each day.
I can't believe how independent he has gotten. He loves to get himself ready for bed and get dressed in the morning. He loves to make his bed and throw his dishes in the sink. Trevin has a couple of regular chores around the house, once a week he empties the bathroom garbages and wants to do it all himself. His newest chore... starting the dishwasher.

A couple weeks ago he told me "I started the dishwasher, Mom."

I told him, "Ok, but we need to put soap in it."

He said, "I did put soap in it."
I said, "What did you use can you show me?"

He took me to the cupboard under the sink and pulled out the soap, and told me "and I closed a little door."

Sure enough, he had gotten out the soap, opened it, poured it in the little compartment in the dishwasher, closed it's little door, shut the dishwasher and then started it! I was shocked, but now he gets to do this a lot.

Some other things Trevin does is put on his shoes, pump his legs on the swing, reenact cartoon episodes, set up the TV to watch a DVD, and his favorite thing right now is to do "tricks" on his bike! We love you Trevin!

Cheyenne's Hair

2010-10-15T11:46:00.000-07:00

Fixing Cheyenne's hair is usually a challenge for me. I pull one way and she pulls the other! I have a sister with 4 girls, and she always has all her girls hair fixed perfect and is really creative. I've tried to step up my game lately... Cheyenne has even been a sport and doesn't put up a fight if I let her watch "Mitty mouse cubhouse."

On Monday, Lindsay and I made a bunch of fabric flowers to put in the girl's hair. So my challenge to myself this week has been to do fun hair do's and include accessories. I love Chey in this picture! She is definitely not my baby girl anymore... that is the face of a toddler!
Close ups of her hair, this part is easy, Cheyenne loves having her picture taken. So if I tell her we will take pictures after her hair is done, then she is thrilled.
This is what we did today... I think I started her hair about 4 different ways, but this is what we came up with. I need her hair to be just a little longer to make her "UP" do's easier.
She loves "cippie" also known as hair clips and is excited when I let her pick which one she gets to wear. But more than clips, Chey LOVES shoes! This is probably an understatement... She steals shoes that get left by the front door(visitors shoes) and I am constantly picking up shoes that she has pulled out of our closest. She loves adult shoes the most because they are easy to put on by herself. I love to see how proud she is to walk around in her Dad's shoes.

FALL DECORATIONS

2010-10-12T10:36:00.000-07:00

My sisters and I go to the crafts show at the Golden Spike Arena once or twice a year. When we go we look for things that we think are cute, but would never pay the asking price for. Then we go home and figure out how to make them. This year we saw some cute, easy to make pumpkins.

Gage cut the wood for us, and I shopped around for the couple of supplies that I didn't already have around the house.

Yesterday, Lindsay and Sierra came over to make them. We made our sets bigger than the ones we saw at the show, cause I knew mine would get placed on a high shelf. Brinlee and Raigen helped us paint, Cheyenne kept Taylor entertained, and surprisingly Trevin and Hallie played nice together! As you might guess it was very noisy at my house with 6 kids age four and under. But as usual we all had fun and got a lot done.
The finished product...
I was so pleased with the outcome, good thing Lindsay was around to tie all the bows for us!

The best part... each set came out costing $5.00 not the $28.00 they wanted at the show! Plus I got to hang out with my sisters :)

Homemade Bread

2010-10-11T08:02:00.000-07:00

In May I decided I would try to make bread. I spent the afternoon working on it, following the instructions exactly. Needless to say, when it didn't turn out at all I was very disappointed. Gage told me that we needed to take pictures of my first attempt and I was so opposed, I though there is no way I'm ever showing off this failed attempt...why take pictures? But we did. And we ate most of it as hard and crumbly as it was. Gage even said it wasn't that bad, I agreed to disagree on that topic. So now that I can look back and laugh at it here is the picture that Gage took.After thinking about my failed attempt for the last few months I decided to ask Gage for a favor. I asked him to think of someone's bread that he has had in the past and give me a name. That way I could track down their recipe. (Yep I decided the first one wasn't my fault at all... I just had a faulty recipe! HA HA probably not, but it's a nice thought.) It took him about 5 seconds to make a decision, Alice's Bread. One of his best friends mom. Once I tracked it down I got to work. This time with much better results!
It was really yummy and soft. Maybe next time I'll be able to make the loaf a little prettier, but for now I'm thrilled.

Wouldn't it be nice!

2010-10-09T14:31:00.000-07:00

I was checking out a couple of my favorite blogs today and ran into this awesome giveaway. I don't actually scrapbook all that much but I love making cards. What I hate about it all is the clutter and reorganizing paper after I've pulled it all out of the bin to find that certain color! I found the solution to all my problems... "THE PAPER TOWER"Wouldn't this be an awesome addition to anyone's scrapbooking room! Wouldn't it be even better to win it!

A Quote

2010-10-08T11:03:00.000-07:00

"God, our Father, has entrusted precious little ones to our earthly care. To them may we teach prayer, inspire faith, live truth, and honor God. Then we shall have heavenly homes and forever families. For what higher gift could we wish? For what greater blessing could we pray? None!"

--Thomas S. Monson

MMM...Crabtree Soup

2010-10-01T16:53:00.000-07:00

After getting off to a rough start, Crabtree soup and I are on very good terms! I love to have tomato soup especially on crisp fall days. So even though it takes quite some effort to supply my family for the year, it is totally worth it. Here's what you have to do...

Grow tomatoes... and wait patiently for them to turn red.

Next pick them...

Then wash them and cut them up...Juice the tomatoes...This step is most easily completed if you have a willing 2 year old that likes to get messy and a mother in law with an electric juicer that she is willing to let you borrow!
Trevin really loves to do this and is getting pretty good at it. He was so excited to "feed the vegable machine!"
Yum... yummy juice.
Next boil the juice...
Put into cans, add salt, and process...
Once you processed all the cans, step back and admire your work!
The rest of the year is easy. Pull out a can warm in the microwave, add cooked macaroni elbow noodles, & a little bit of cheddar cheese and ENJOY!

The 26 quarts I made last year, wasn't enough to feed the 4 of us. It required rationing when the summer hit. I think I'm pretty safe with the 42 quarts this year, but who knows with how my kids inhale food right now!

ROCK CLIMBING

2010-09-27T09:15:00.000-07:00

This summer Bubba took Gage and I rock climbing. Once was all it took to convince us that this was a sport that we really enjoyed. Gage is getting his Christmas presents early this year and I convinced him to do the same for me... I asked for rock climbing gear. I was so excited. We made our first run with our own gear while Bubba was still available to teach me how to belay.

Bubba lead climbing. I'm not to this daring yet, but maybe one day.
Gage belaying.
Gage being real daring and letting me belay him. It felt so retarded the first time I did it but it was a lot better by the end of the night.
Gage climbing.
Trevin and Cheyenne sit patiently in the back of the truck watching until Gage tells Trevin it is time to get ready for his turn. Trevin as usual loves this kind of thing. Gage made him a harness the first time he came with us and Trevin always makes sure it is in the backpack before we leave. Trevin prepping for his climb. He is very independent and doesn't want any help once he is all hooked in.
Trevin climbing.

Getting a few pointers from Mom and Dad.
Cheyenne always wants in on the action too. If Trevin can do it she can too!
She actually climbed, with help from Bubba but she reached for ledges and pushed up with her feet. She was so excited.
With it getting dark earlier, we are hard pressed to fit in runs. But hopefully we'll get to go a few more times before it gets too cold. I really like that this is a sport that the whole family can get involved in and I can't wait for a few more years when the kids can really get into it.

CHEYENNE in the spot light

2010-09-25T10:41:00.000-07:00

For the last week or so I've had Trevin watch a Leap Frog Letter show. He loves it and wants to watch it all the time. He has started picking out letters everywhere. On our shirts and on signs while we are out working. He'll see a letter and tell us what it says. It is so exciting to see how fast he learns. But nothing has been more impressive this week than when I started asking Cheyenne what the letters say... at barely 18 months old Cheyenne knows all the sounds of the alphabet!

We put her on YouTube. If the embedded video isn't working CLICK HERE to check out my little girl showing off how smart she is.

Ward Campout

2010-09-18T11:11:00.000-07:00

Our ward camp out was really late in the year, it was scheduled for September 11. Our little family was excited to go, we missed it last year and we haven't been camping at all this year. Gage got off work a little early so we could get set up and enjoy hanging out with everyone from the ward. Turns out every one had checked the weather and had seen that it was supposed to get really cold that night and this is the turn out. We had 4 families come! Everyone else's loss, WE HAD A BLAST!

The whole crew.
Trevin was so excited to set up the tent, you can see it in the top left corner. Then it was time to build a fire. Trevin and Cheyenne both had fun watching dad. They were both really excited when we pulled out all the stuff we needed to make Crabtree Soup!The soup was delicious and just what we needed on a chilly night. We had lots of fun hanging out by the fire. The little kids that were there decided it was a lot of fun to set their marshmallows on fire. Cheyenne figured out that putting her hands in her pockets kept them warm. I think that Trevin and Gage ate a whole bag of marshmallows between the two of them.
When it was time for bed, the kids and I headed to the tent to start bundling up. They each had their PJs, then Their regular clothes, then two jackets, and hats. Like I said we knew it was gunna be cold that night.
The plan was for Trevin and Gage to share a mummy bag and for Mom and Cheyenne to share the other. This didn't work out so great. Cheyenne has never really been the child that will fall asleep in your arms, she likes her own bed, where she can spread out. By midnight she had woken up screaming, because I was in her space, 3 times. So we decided to pack up and head to the truck for the night. Trevin and Gage each got their own sleeping bag at that point. Cheyenne got the front passenger seat of the truck and a blanket. I got the driver's seat. We ended up turning on the heater in the truck a couple of times through out the night. It was really cold, I sat awake and watched the thermostat from inside the truck...41...36...32... by the time it was time to wake up the thermostat read 26 degrees! Yikes! I was more than excited to get out of the truck and start a fire. To bad we forgot to bring the wood inside, it was all frozen. Before long the sun came out and we all thawed. Trevin and Gage said they were both really warm in the tent (Gage slept just fine in shorts.) Breakfast was really yummy pancakes and sausage.

I love this picture of my two boys.

Random Summer

2010-09-14T13:15:00.000-07:00

I had Gage load all of the pictures from his phone onto the computer so I could add pictures to previous blogs. To my surprise there were lots of other summer pictures that I had forgotten about. So here they are, some of the random fun things that made up our summer.

We did this last year and I decided to do it again this year. Who knows maybe we'll make it a tradition. This hair cut is always followed by a buzz cut after about a week.
The kids were so excited when the weather got warm, we love to play outside. Everyone knows that summer time means Parade time. We go a great spot all to our selves at the city parade. With no other kids around us, we ended up getting candy from EVERYONE! Trevin and Cheyenne loved the little flags that got passed out and they loved getting candy and other prizes.
We went to the fair after the parade. Trevin got to try the super big slide with his cousins. Trevin also won a bag of army men from the gator toss... but nothing compared to the loads of candy our kids brought home.
I'm not sure when this next picture is fun, but I'm sure Trevin was thrilled to be working with Dad at the time and even more excited to ride this fun toy.
I always said I would never plant petunias, it is what my mom plants and they're way pretty, but I wanted something different. After a failed attempt at a flower garden last year, I planted petunias this year. And wow they have taken over! Here is a start of the season picture next to a middle of the season picture. They grew way more than I expected and filled out the flower beds great. They didn't stop growing and have now taken over. They are taller than some of my baby bushes that we planted a 1 years ago! Maybe I'll plant petunias every year!

IMAGINATION

2010-09-10T14:22:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago Trevin crawled over to my feet and started barking. "Ruff, Ruff, Treat." I asked if he was Trevin the dog. He barked and told me, "No, I Buster." After a couple of days of Trevin pretending to be a dog, Cheyenne decided to join in the fun. When I asked Trevin who his puppy friend was, he told me "she Joey."

So please meet Joey and Buster. The two cutest puppies in the WORLD!I love the imagination these two have and I love that they feed off each other. If one of them decides to be a dog the other quickly plays along and lately we've had a lot of barking in the house. What is their favorite thing to play as dogs..."Chetch" (aka Fetch). They pick up whatever object we throw with their mouths and everything. I can't get over it because this isn't something that we encouraged or told them to do. Trevin knew dogs picked things up with their mouths and Cheyenne will do anything that Trevin does.

Buster playing fetch...

Joey playing fetch...
Joey and Buster will both ask for "bones" if they want a treat while being their dog selves.

One Sunday morning Cheyenne woke up early and Gage and I could hear her playing on her bed, panting. After a couple minutes we figured out what she was playing... DOG of coarse! What 17 month old doesn't wake up and first thing decided she should be a dog. We laughed so hard. Trevin wasn't far behind in figuring out that "Joey" was around. Before we knew it we had two puppies to try to get ready for church. We actually had to leave "Buster" strapped into his chair at the table until he turned back into Trevin, because dogs can't go to church. What a life!

LABOR DAY

2010-09-09T10:39:00.000-07:00

This Labor Day weekend was full of surprises and was a roller coaster of sorts with it's ups and downs, literally any figuratively. We planned a way fun weekend up at Bear Lake. We only made it up once this summer and we were really excited about going again. Gage recently got a new calling at church, Elder's Quorum President. I am so excited for him and he is nervous and excited, I know he'll do great. This is was his first week so we planned on coming home Saturday night to set up chairs for church and to be here on Sunday for the block meetings and all of Gage's other meetings and then head back up to the lake. Thus the ups and downs literally. We got to the Lake on Friday evening and had a fun night out at one of the local burger joints. Cheyenne tripped with matchbox car in her mouth just before we left the house Friday, she cut her tongue and I think the back of her throat, she refused to swallow and had drool dripping out of her mouth and wouldn't eat anything. Luckily she decided ice cream was OK to eat and by Saturday morning she was back to her usual self (thank goodness mouths heal fast!). Trevin loves the trailer and thought it was lots of fun to have everyone on the same bed to watch a movie, Dad even slept with him all night, since Cheyenne and I ducked out of the movie early to steal the other bed.
We slept in as much as the sun would let us. Lately Trevin loves the 'Go Dog Go' book and in it it talks about night being a time to sleep and it's time to get up when the sun is up. So When it is dark outside Trevin will tell us, "Its dark outside, a time to go a bed." and then when he wakes up in the morning and it's light outside he'll excitedly say "Mom, Dad, The sun is up!" or "The sun is awake!" I love it. So we woke up when Trevin figured out the sun was awake and we got ready to go to Minnetonka cave.
We had tried to go up once before on a rainy day but everyone else had had the same idea, we got up there and bought tickets and had about 20 minutes before our tour started. We told Trevin there are bats in the cave and got to show him some pictures. He was so excited by the time we headed into the cave. Cheyenne was happy to wander for a few minutes.
At the mouth of the cave, we could already feel the cool breeze.

Trevin did such a great job, he walked the whole mile tour (total in and out) and had lots of fun counting the stairs. There had to be about 400 each way. He liked all the rock and so did Cheyenne, Gage is tough and he carried Chey the whole way, which can't be easy with how squirmy she was trying to get down. We had lots of fun and our tour guide did a great job keeping the kids entertained. Trevin and Chey were awesome, neither one of them cried at the end of the tour when they turn out all the lights and you get the chance to experience "total darkness" and they liked pointing out all the boogers on the ceiling, aka stalagmites.

The kids fell asleep on the ride back to the trailer, so we decided to go for a drive and listen to a book "Mocking Jay." Then when we got back to the trailer we ate and before we knew it Chersti and James and kids were up to join the party. We had lots of fun playing for a few hours and then it was time to head home for church.

I was excited to be home on Saturday night, I didn't feel all that great, but I made it through with Gage's help and support along with family helping with the kids while Gage was out. By Sunday I was feeling much better, church went great, Cheyenne and I got to help in the nursery, which was much better than wrestling with her in class or walking the halls. Gage finished his meetings and we were in the car again. You think after so many hours int he car our kids would get sick of it, but this time they slept, the whole way! When we got to the trailer the kids played with their cousins and I got dinner ready. We got to play a couple of rounds of 'sequence' with Ryan and Alex and got beat all but once. Then it was off to bed.

Monday morning we decided to head up to Bloomington Lake. I wanted to try the rope swing, since I passed on it last time and Alex hadn't been before. There were quite a few people there, it being Labor Day and all. Alex thought we were plotting a trick against her when we made her put on a bathing suit before we left, she thought we were joking about the rope swing. To her surprise everyone was really jumping in the lake with a rope swing when we made the hike in. Trevin loved watching everyone jump in and even counted down for them and cheered them on. Literally everyone (Dad, Bubba, Alex, Mom and complete strangers!)

Trevin chillin' out on the rocks watching everyone take the plunge.

Dad was the first in from our group. Trevin and Cheyenne sat with mom and thought it was awesome!Right after Dad went in Trevin wanted a turn, I knew this would happen so I packed his swiming trunks, all it took was taking off his shirt in the cold weather and he changed his mind.

Bubba's Back Flip...Alex is next...Some of these pictures are blurry because they are taken from a video, but I needed the proof that I went in! Me... My cheering section, Trevin even told me when to go!
A family picture at Bloomington! If you haven't ever been, you should! It is gorgeous!
Bubba and Alex posing for a panoramic shot.The rest of our trip was full of just relaxing and great views of the very blue Bear Lake! Maybe we'll try to make it up for one more trip...

TODDLERS

2010-09-08T10:40:00.000-07:00

A surprise around every corner. That is what you get when you have two toddlers. I'm sure many of you are very aware of this fact, but some things just have to be recorded... and I would hate to allow Cheyenne's latest scheme to get forgotten.

I didn't take a picture I was too worried about trying to clean up the mess. I'll try to paint one in your mind. I was upstairs in the kitchen working on cards with Trevin being my "big helper." Cheyenne was quietly keeping herself entertained. (Yeah that should have been the first hint!) After about 15 minutes I hear Cheyenne "Mom... MOM... Hep(help)... Scuck" coming from the unfinished portion of our house. I think,"Great." It is a disaster area from construction and then I added to the mess this morning with card stuff. I can only imagine the mess Chey just added. I walk in, she isn't in dad's tool corner and she isn't in my scrapbooking corner... she is on the computer table that sits smack in the middle of the room, computer tower knocked over, all the paper piles that had been on the table are now spread across the floor. She is very excited to see me, since she accidentally pushed the chair away from the table (her only escape route). Next, the worst part... she hands me a pencil and says "See." OH I SEE IT! She drew me a lovely picture all over the computer screen! Not just a small picture in one corner, my entire screen is covered with pencil. After trying to erase it with an eraser for about 10 minutes (which doesn't work). I finally call Gage, fortunately he is calm and tells me to just "Google" it. Luckily I've erased enough of the screen that I can see the blurry words of other unfortunate mothers that have experienced the same thing and worse. Most used a Mr Clean Magic Eraser, but I've seen what that can do to a finish on walls and didn't dare try it on my computer... so after more blurry searching... minimal Windex on a soft cloth, WORKED LIKE A CHARM! Cheyenne is forgiven and back in Mom's good graces!

Tractor Rides

2010-08-26T23:13:00.000-07:00

This afternoon we stopped by the shop to say "Hi" to Dad and I needed to learn how to do a couple of things on the computer. Trevin and Cheyenne love going to the shop, they not only get to see dad, but they get to see Bubba, and Grandma(sometimes), and PAPA! Trevin was especially excited to see Papa today. Trevin said Hi to Papa and then Papa asked Trevin if his dad had taken him to ride on the tractor. The answer was no. So Papa told Trevin "Go ask your Dad if you can drive the tractor." That is all the help Trevin needed. He hunted down Dad and said "We go drive a tractor?!" Trevin didn't stop asking about it all day! Dad brought home the tractor keys that night and we had a family outing to the farm. Trevin was pretty excited. They climbed in the tractor and drove around the field.Then they moved some dirt around with the big scoop.
Trevin was so excited.
Next they drove around some more and then I think Trevin's favorite part... they dug a huge hole with the backhoe!

Trevin loves tractors and his favorite is a backhoe. This must have been a dream come true for this little boy! His face lit up when they were getting ready to dig and then he got this look of concentration while he was helping dad with the controls.

Cheyenne had fallen asleep in the car, but she was pretty excited when I woke her up and she saw the tractor. We had lots of fun watching!

After a few minutes Gage asked Cheyenne if she wanted a turn and, oh boy, she did. She had been fine to watch, but as soon as Gage made mention of her driving the tractor she couldn't hold still.

We even loaded the whole family in for a couple of minutes. We had so much fun and we were so glad that Papa suggested it!

The A Team

2010-08-25T09:25:00.000-07:00

All summer Gage has been the sub for a softball team. We have loved getting to go and watch the games! We knew lots of people on the team which made it even more fun to watch... Uncle Trav, Uncle Mike and Justin all were regulars and then Gage played most of the time too.We had lots of fun, Trevin loves baseball and we play in the back yard all the time. He is getting so good at hitting the ball. I love how observant little kids are, we went to one game and the next day I found Trevin with Gage's metal bat out in the garage. He tapped the bat on the cement, then held up the bat and shook his behind, then he would swing the bat and trow it across the garage and run in a circle! I was shocked, could he really learn all that from one game! We got some old bucket lids and taught Trevin how to run the bases and how to pitch and tag people out. By the end of the season Trevin was a pro. His baseball gear became very important by the end of the season too. We found some baseball cleats at Savers, Trevin knew exactly what they were when I picked them up. He said "Running shoes like dad's for Trevin!" He wears those "running shoes" everywhere. Right now there is no other option for shoes in his mind. Next up he pulled out his ball and bat and mitt they go to every game, and anywhere else he can sneak them in. Last his basket ball shorts, black socks and "team shirt." Trevin is very quick, he figured out that dad wore these things to the games and he wanted to too!

A lot can change in a few short months! Even the team changed. Two weeks before the end of the season, Wazzy (aka Trav) moved away to med school. We would miss watching him, so the first game we went to after he left, we decided to represent. Trevin and Cheyenne were really excited to get their faces painted, and we painted Brinlee's too. Sierra was the artist that made Trevin shirt into an awesome team shirt with Trav's name and number on the back.
We have had so much fun cheering on the team, but our favorite person to cheer for was DAD! you can see him up to bat in the next pictures.

Go A Team! We can't wait to watch again next year.

Carrots and Bruises

2010-08-15T09:06:00.000-07:00

Our garden has been a little neglected this year, but luckily it still decided to produce. Trevin and Chey love to help pick the vegetable and water. One day I had taken the two of them out to the garden and helped them each pick a carrot. Then we went to the hose and washed them, and then they got to eat them. Trevin thought it was so cool! He wanted another one and I told him that dad would help him get another one when he got home (10 min away). Well Trevin never forgets anything and he grabbed dad as soon as he got out of the jeep and lead him to the garden. Trevin just expected one carrot like I had gotten for him, but dad picked a whole bunch and Trevin was thrilled. He showed dad where they needed to go to wash the carrots and even let Cheyenne do some of the work!
Our carrots were really yummy with dinner!

So this part of the post should have come first since Trevin has a bruise on his head in all the first pictures. Oh well. Trevin is quite accident prone, I'm sure it is because he is little and because he is a boy but he gets himself hurt all the time! This was just another one of his many bumps, but I figure I need to make note of some of them, so I can show him when he gets older!

We were at Sugar and Chief house, all the grandkids were playing outside and Trevin tripped on the concrete. Unfortunately his head took the majority of the impact and he had an instant goose egg! We decided to head home and baby our little boy. It was bed time, but I didn't want to send Trevin to bed right away, especially if he ended up having a concussion or something. He was more than excited about getting to lay on Mom and Dad's bed to watch a movie. He hauled in his Lightning McQueen pillow and blanket while I got him some ice. We chilled for about an hour and a half before he fell asleep.

I couldn't decide which picture showed his goose egg better, so you get to see them both.
This thing stuck around for about two weeks. Poor kid!

HANDY MAN

2010-08-10T08:30:00.000-07:00

I love knowing that Gage knows how to do everything around the house. I've had my fair share of mishaps since we've been married that Gage has fixed... Nail clippers down the bathroom sink... Fish rocks down the garbage disposal... you get the picture.

When we bought this house it was great that Gage and I were able to do all the repairs. Now two years later, it is great that Gage can start framing in the basement and finally get some electrical outlets in that part of the house.

One day Gage was headed out to the hardware store for supplies and he took Trevin with him. When they got home I heard Trevin run up the stairs, rummage through his closet, then run back down stairs and out the back door. After a few minutes I couldn't resist any more so I headed out to the garage to find out what was going on. I saw Gage setting up the table saw, with his tool belt on and his tool box out on the floor... and I saw Trevin with his play tool belt on and unloading all of his own tools onto the garage floor. They worked for hours together in the basement. I went down to check on them every now and then and finally decided that I had to take some pictures.

Trevin knows what most of his tools are called and what he should use each tool for. Trevin wants to be just like his Dad! Gage is awesome and is always willing to let Trevin help him and teach him along the way, even though I'm sure it makes the job take longer.
One day Trevin will be a great handy man around the house too!

SOCCER

2010-08-01T08:51:00.000-07:00

We were lucky enough to score some Real Salt Lake soccer tickets for this past weekend. I say score, but really we just have some awesome friends that let us use their season tickets while they were out of town! Gage and I had planned on it being a date, but last minute (we were in the truck pulling out of the driveway) we decided that Trevin would love it and we took him with us. We had a great dinner at Olive Garden. ON the freeway to the stadium we got caught in a massive down pour of rain and we had to wonder if the game would get cancelled. We got there and the weather was beautiful. We had awesome seats and even ended up having an empty seat next to us for Trevin. Trevin loved it, He got distracted easily but was great. Even when the rain hit, He just put the hood up on his jacket and sat and watched still. Gage and I had fun, we haven't been to an RSL game since they built the new stadium. We even had a lot of action on our side of the field which made it even more entertaining.
Our view of the stadium.
Trevin was a sport and let me take pictures of the two of us even though he was trying to watch "a ball game." He really got into it, I think his favorite part was when our team scored and we would lift him up on our shoulders to cheer. He was super cute and would pump his fists and yell go team!
Thanks to the Hansen's for the fun memory!

FIREWORKS at HOME

2010-07-28T10:45:00.000-07:00

We (Gage and I) were really excited to do fireworks with the kids this year. So, Saturday night we got the kids ready for bed and then headed out front, for some 24th of July Festivities. Trevin loved sparklers last year and we knew he'd be even more interested this year. Cheyenne was big enough this year to care too! We got out the snaps first, Trevin thought they were awesome!!! Cheyenne loved throwing them, even though she only made one or two actually "pop", but that didn't slow her down.Next came the sparklers. I wish I had gotten a picture/video of Trevin's reaction when Gage lit the first one... "Wahoo, dat is awesome." Cheyenne thought they were pretty and just wanted to touch the sparklies, and unfortunately I looked away for a second and she did... hopefully she forgets that by next year. Cheyenne sat on the stairs with me while Gage and Trevin ran around the yard with the rest of the sparklers and loved it.
Last but not least the sidewalk show. Gage and Trevin had picked out a package of fireworks earlier that day and we couldn't wait to watch them. T & Chey sat on the sidewalk while dad did all the lighting. Trevin loved getting to use his flash light to pick out which one to lit next. Cheyenne got so excited each time one started up. It is so fun to see the excitement on little kids faces... I can't wait til next year.
Thanks DAD!

GIRL'S CAMP

2010-07-27T08:25:00.000-07:00

I love being in the Young Women's! We got to go to camp over the 3rd week in July and it was a blast. It was really weird leaving my kids and husband at home while I went out to play, but I'm thankful that Gage was up to the task of playing Mom and Dad for the week. Here is most of the group that went with us.I won't put a huge post on here, but I will say it was lots of fun getting to be a little mischievous!