The Jones Family

"Now That Was Julie!"

2012-01-23T20:33:00.002-07:00

We have been fans of the Disney movie Rocketman for some time. We enjoy watching these classic shows with our kids now that they are old enough to appreciate the humor. This movie was great to show them because it is so crazy. I still remember Heber's face while he was watching it for the first time. Haha. He was laughing so hard!

Jack laughed a bit, but he picked up on something that has seemed to stick in our little house. At some point in the movie Fred Randall passes gas and he blames it on Julie. Ever since we watched this show Jack has also blamed it on Julie. haha. He also points it out if anyone else does it either.

Tonight Brian and I were sitting in the family room, Heber was getting ready for bed, and Jack and Eve were at the table finishing their ice cream. Jack passed gas and nonchalantly kept eating his ice cream. Just as nonchalantly Eve says, "Jack? That was Julie?" and Jack says, "Yes." That's all. Hahah. Nice calm question between siblings.

Jack Funnies

2012-01-12T21:22:00.002-07:00

Setting: Jack and Brian in the kitchen. Jack asks Brian to do something....

Brian: Nah, that's not really my style.

Jack: Your style is old.

Wow! Did our 4 year old really just tell us that our hip young style is old?! We aren't that old yet are we?! haha. So great.

Another setting: At the dinner table struggling to get the kids to eat the DELICIOUS zupa toscana soup I made. (I didn't have a problem eating it....I think I ate five bowls. Love that soup.)

Brian: Jack eat your soup. I'm going to count to three.

Jack: Maybe four?

hahahah. He said it in such a sweet, pleading voice. haha. Okay Jack, we will let you have one more second. haha. Brian and I both just busted up at that one. Such a funny kid.

Blog, mog, hog

2012-01-09T20:44:00.007-07:00

For Christmas Brian printed my blog for me. So great! I love having a hard bound copy of our family journal for the last five years. It does make me wish I would have blogged more and put in more pictures. For this reason I will be blogging more.....not so much for the entertainment of the general masses, although I'm sure it will, but for the journal keeping of our family fun.

First question....do I try to catch up from last year? Or do I just cut my losses, start afresh and do better. So much happened last year. I haven't even blogged about my grandpa or Martha and Jared on their missions. All of those alone could be several posts. I could also blog forever about our difficulties of last year and all the fun things we learned, but that would mostly be boring. Not to mention documenting the last year of my kids lives! They have all grown up so much and they are wonderful. I might just try to catch up a bit on the kids.

Heber: Wow. He is growing up. Yesterday he had his baptismal interview with the bishop. So great. He is excited to be able to get baptized on his birthday. For Christmas he got a ripstick which he quickly mastered.....I still think I will brake my back if I tried. He also got Lego Mindstorm. He has built and programmed a few robots with help from his dad and Brian is having fun teaching him programming. He did get it taken away because it wasn't put away. For some reason if things don't get put away at our house they get destroyed.

Heber is enjoying 2nd grade. He is a sweet boy and a good student. He likes math and likes to play with friends. He wanted to be in the orchestra so we got him a violin and I love seeing him learn to play. I must admit that I can play jingle bells on it. Pretty proud of that. :) It is crazy to have him start to socialize more and ask more adult questions. He is growing up so much and is so helpful. He has been so helpful to us in the last year. He is such a good big brother.

Jack: Jack started preschool this year. He loves it even if he always says he hates it. He goes to preschool with a neighbor friend Tommy Frischknecht. They are great friends and love to play the wii and talk about star wars together. Everyday after preschool one of them goes to the others house for lunch and to play for a bit. It is cute. Jack is getting big. I can't believe he just keeps getting taller and more boyish. He has written his name on a few walls which I think is adorable. He always talks about the 'kicking K' in his name. I'm so glad he has had preschool this year because I am still scrambling to try to get on top of my responsibilities. I'm glad he has wonderful teachers and friends to play with a few times a week.

Jack loves to play with his siblings. He is always excited to tell Heber new things. Eve and Jack are two little pills. They taunt each other often about everything! They do show their love toward one another if the other one is in trouble. They gang up on me and make sure they are both taken care of. Pretty cute. Jack loves to make Ella laugh and it seems like he always can.

Eve: She is such a girl. Everything princess or barbie she loves. She has like 20 purses and she puts stuff in all of them. I should probably go through those and make sure we haven't lost anything important. Eve likes to watch princess movies and barbie movies. Her favorite at Christmas time was Barbie Christmas Carol. She loved to sing the songs and dance with the characters. She keeps asking to watch it, but I'm a little sick of it and keep telling her it isn't Christmas anymore and divert her to another show. haha. Such a good mom.

She is very helpful.....well when she wants to be. She is currently our biggest mess maker by far, but it is cute to see her knack for cleaning and organizing when she wants to.

A few weeks ago we went to Brian's parents house to take a couch. We hadn't really taken the kids there since Marci died. Eve went in and was running around the house looking for grandma. It was heartbreaking! She kept saying she could go downstairs to play with toys and read a story with grandma. I think that was more of a realization for our kids that both of their grandparents are gone. Heber said that he wished someone in the family would buy their house because he is going to miss their backyard. He loved their swing set and he loved climbing on all of the rocks.

Ella: She is getting so big! She, like a lot of our kids, has turned crazy. It is hilarious. She often with stand around and squeal as she gets on her tip toes. So funny. She loves to play with her siblings. It is easier with a forth child in that she is entertained by all of the craziness that goes on. With Heber it seemed like I had to entertain him a lot more on my own. Sometimes if I have had a hard night Heber will get Ella out of bed and they will all play in the family room together until I get up. Ella doesn't cry and seems to be just fine until she sees me. haha. I think she knows when I am up I will make her a bottle and take care of her. I love that she is okay with just waiting until that happens though. She is a very sweet girl and cuddles so much.

All of the kids adore Brian. When he gets home it is a mad rush to the door to see him. They love him so much and I am so grateful for a husband who gives my children such attention and love.

It is good we like our kids because we were surprised in November to find out that we are having another on in July! So crazy! Five kids. Wow. We are so excited though and we feel very blessed to have another baby and very blessed that I haven't been sick this pregnancy. I was sick with every other one of them, but not this one. It has been so great!!

To My Love

2011-11-01T16:12:00.007-06:00

Today marks the day of my ten year anniversary of my marriage to my wonderful husband. I can't believe it has been ten years.

You probably expect me to say that the last ten years has been 10 years of pure bliss. I had an ideal image of marriage when I was younger. I had a view of a perfect husband who would never get mad, have exuding confidence, have all of the answers for raising kids, and when we faced 'the hard times' everyone spoke of we would simply just grit our teeth together and get through it. When we were engaged Brian even spoke to his older co-workers and explained that he could never imagine getting upset with me. They laughed a bit and told him to give it time. Brian and I chalked it up as us being so different from everyone else. haha.

I could never have imagined marriage to be as hard as it is and I never could have imagined it to be this rewarding. I suppose it is through learning to perfect ourselves through hours and hours of communication and through numerous experiences that bind us together if we let them.

We have had many of those shared experiences this past year. A few I want to recall and want to have record of them so I will never forget them.

Looking at him through the back of an ambulance window, watching him cry and talk frantically to people on the phone while he was driving behind us.

Both of us falling asleep with our hands held after an unexpectedly long night of labor that wasn't over. And being relieved that everyone was okay when they examined the obviously torn placenta.

Holding him in the bathroom of his parent's house while we wept after Brian gave his dad a blessing to leave this world.

Watching him try to handle a wife with a new child and a heart broken mother and trying to help everyone who asked him because he can't stand it when others are suffering.

Seeing him willingly take his turn to sleep over at my grandma and grandpa's house to help if it was needed for my dying grandpa.

He let me buy goats. Need I say more?

Walking out of the St. George hospital with his mom's dusty purse after a tear filled, long drive to St. George.

Watching him at a mortuary cry over the body of his mother the day after she died and be in complete disbelief that we would be doing this all again so soon.

Seeing him cry for his grandmother who just lost her daughter.

Having him take me to Florida to celebrate our anniversary. He made me wait at the threshold because he wasn't going to mess that up again. haha. And then he gave me a necklace that I never would have bought myself, but I treasure it now because it is from him.

Watching him endure 5 days of amusement parks on our 'break.' Haha.

Totally enjoying the lazy river at our hotel and seeing his expert skills at catching lizards while we reminisced about the last 10 years of our life.

I chose him. He chose me. And we keep choosing each other. Because of that we have several experiences together and I love him more than I ever thought I was capable of loving another human being.

A poem that sums up the last ten years:

If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were lov'd by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.

I prize thy love more than whole Mines of gold
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that Rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.

Thy love is such I can no way repay.
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let's so persevere
That when we live no more, we may live ever.

-- Anne Bradstreet

Wow

2011-07-21T21:36:00.004-06:00

I don't think I have ever gone this long without blogging. Let's just say the last number of months have been PSYCHO! Seriously, whoever it was who told me, 'If you can have three kids, you can have 10 kids.' was totally wrong in our case! The addition of the 4th has thrown me for a loop! My father-in-law's death, my root canal that went bad and I ended up needing surgery on it, my blasted tennis elbow that kept me in physical therapy for 10 weeks, my grandpa's health decline and death, Brian being gone helping everyone under the sun, and Brian finishing a 5 week 3 credit engineering course, my sister leaving on a mission, and prepping for my brother to leave on a mission, ALL of that may have added to the psychoness of the 4th kid.

Did I mention that we got goats? Because we did. I thought, "Yeah, I can totally handle more responsibility....let's get some pets." And not just any pets mind you, GOATS. They actually haven't been too bad, except when one of them got loose and jumped our six foot fence only to be caught by our neighbor as it was chasing a couple of runners while we were out of town. But that's normal right?! I do think after we sell our bigger goat and get another champion line, pure bred pygmy, we will have some great pets.

I hope I can figure it out. I hope I am not in a downward spiral to crazy mom mode. I've gotta figure out how to prevent my 4 and 2 year old from dumping applesauce in the living room while I feed the baby. If anyone has any good ideas or websites for friendly child restraints, I would love to hear about them. :)

Colliding Miracles

2011-03-06T16:21:00.003-07:00

There are times when miracles occur in your life and they are special to just you or to the people involved. They are experiences that you reflect on and share when they are applicable to others and that is pretty much it. There are other times when you feel like you are accountable to tell of experiences that have so obviously been divinely guided. These miracles are the kind that I feel accountable to share with the birth of Ella and the death of my father-in-law.

It all started about a year ago when we found out we were pregnant with our fourth child. At about 7 weeks of pregnancy I started bleeding and I thought I was going to have another miscarriage. I was okay with a miscarriage and knew that sometimes these things just don’t work out. We went to our doctor who sent us to get an ultrasound to see how things were progressing. I honestly thought we would not see a baby and the pregnancy would be over, because after all, I’d had three kids and a miscarriage, so I knew everything there was to know about my body right? Haha.

We did see a heartbeat and all of the sudden it was not okay to have a miscarriage. It was easier to think of a miscarriage when I hadn't seen a struggling little baby. They also saw that there was a possibility that the sac was tearing away from the lining and told us we had a 50/50 chance of keeping this pregnancy. We prayed and hoped that this little baby could continue growing and come to us. At about 13 weeks the bleeding stopped and the pregnancy continued as usual. I did have a few fainting issues along the way that concerned my doctor, but the baby was fine.

Then everything got crazy on Dec 28^th. As mentioned in previous posts, Brian was taking his grandma to the airport that morning and was on his way home when I frantically called him because I started bleeding a lot more. He was almost home when I called him. I laid down on the ground and stayed on the phone with the 911 operator. Knowing that we had some tearing issues and bleeding issues with this pregnancy already I was being very cautious. I also thought of a friend of mine who had lost her baby and almost lost her life because of a torn placenta.

Waiting for my husband and for the EMTs to arrive I felt very calm. This was one of those experiences where I felt I wasn’t alone. I felt I had people around me who were helping and were concerned for me and my family.

After a few tests at the hospital they couldn’t really see what was going on. They thought I was dilating early and we were prepped to have an early baby. They put me on bed rest for the next several weeks and Brian was vigilant in making me 'take it easy.' Looking back on it now, we know my placenta was tearing away from the lining and I’m very glad Brian made me do less than I thought I was capable of. How many times will it take me to learn to listen to my husband.

When I made it to 36 weeks, we were optimistic that Ella was fine and I could do more. Also at this time we were spending a lot of time at hospitals and recovery centers with Brian’s dad. About a week into the new year his situation got drastically worse. He had emergency brain surgery early in the month, and then it progressed to one of his lungs collapsing, having radiation on the tumors in his brain, pneumonia, and insulin problems that kept him in the hospital.

One Sunday a few weeks back we decided to take the kids up to the Huntsman Cancer Hospital to visit. He was still coherent and doing pretty well considering everything wrong with his cancer ridden body. While we were there Mike and Marci’s stake president and counselor came to give Mike a blessing. Brian was able to stand in the circle for the blessing where the stake president pronounced him clean and ready to meet his Heavenly Father. At Mike’s funeral we heard from the stake president and he said that that morning he was prompted by the Holy Ghost to go visit Mike Jones, because this would be the last time he would see him in mortality. I’m so glad we were there for that moment and that our kids were there for that also. After the blessing Mike was crying and thanking the men for their diligent service.

The Friday after that happened Mike was given 2-10 days to live. My poor mother-in-law was mad and told the doctors they said they would do radiation on his chest. She was trying to get them to do more…to do anything to help her husband get better. He calmly told her that if he made it 10 days they would continue treatment on him, but he was too weak to do much more at that time.

He went to another care center and was there for a few days when my sister in law decided we should do whatever we could to let him spend his final days at home. This was going to mean that everyone take their turn spending the night to look after their dad. On Tuesday, February 8^th, he was brought home and set up on a hospital bed in his family room.

As he was being wheeled into his home, I was very close to being wheeled in for surgery.

Brian and I had gone into the hospital the night before and I was expected to have Ella early in the morning after a quick labor. I was stuck at 8 centimeters for 6 hours of my 14 hour labor. Early in the morning Annette Pully came in to tell me she was my new nurse. Annette Pully and her husband used to double date with my mom and dad in high school. I probably met her a few times growing up, but I loved having someone there for me who knew my parents so well. It was also great to hear fun stories about my mom and dad as she reminisced.

I started losing a lot of blood at about 8 in the morning. They weren’t terribly worried because the baby was just fine and I was doing well and they anticipated that I would get to a 10 any minute. However after 3 more hours went by they were getting concerned. Annette had an idea to help get me to dilate. Her and Dr Willis decided they would try it and after an hour of changing my position on the bed, they decided they couldn’t let me labor any more. I was losing too much blood and I was going to get a c section.

I remember feeling very calm and again I felt like I was very much not alone. I was very tired and I kept falling asleep. I thought it was because I had been up all night, but I think it was also because I had lost so much blood.

They prepped me for a c section. Everything was ready for me to be wheeled out. My doctor came in and decided to check me one last time, even though nothing had changed in 6 hours. He was shocked to find I was at a 10 and I was ready to push. They hurried and got everything re-ready for a normal delivery and Ella was out 5 minutes later.

They cleaned me up and Doctor Willis told Brian and Annette to come look at the placenta. They could see where it had been ripped away and had given me so many problems. Everyone in the delivery room kept commenting on how the delivery had been such a miracle, from the lame placenta, to the lack of a sack of water, to how easy the delivery turned out to be.

They took me to my room where I slept while they took Ella to get washed out or something because she had swallowed a bunch of blood because of how the delivery went. I slept for awhile and Brian brought the kids to see me and Ella and then Brian got a call from his brother-in-law saying that they thought his dad would die soon and to come up.

Brian was gone for the rest of the night spending time with his family around his dad’s bedside. The next day Brian had talked to Mike and Marci’s amazing neighbor, Brother Larsen and they decided to give his dad a blessing to release him.

I got an okay to leave the hospital for a few hours to be there with Brian and with our family for this experience. When I got there everyone was excited to hear about Ella. Mike tried to sit up and say something, but he just moaned really loud and Marci told us to be quiet because she thought we were upsetting him. That may have been the case, but part of me wants to believe that he was excited for our new baby and was glad I could be there with the rest of his family. That was a very sweet moan to me, even if that is all he could do with his physically weak body.

That night I was back at the hospital and Brian went back to be with his dad. It was hard for me to have Brian gone. I’m a clingy wife and I love being around him, but there was no way I could make him feel like he needed to be with me more that night than with his dad. But I was not left alone. As funny as it sounds, I got on facebook and people started chatting to me who I normally don’t chat with, and my nurse that night was my neighbor who is such a sweet lady.

That night at 3 in the morning Brian’s dad passed away. He passed away after Brian had told him we would be okay and it was okay to let go and that he was needed on the other side. It was then when Brian told him of his need in heaven that he went. He also waited until his wife was out of the room. Both of these things are so typical of his character. He would do anything to protect his wife from any hurt and he would do anything for anyone who needed him. I’m so glad Brian was there to spend his last moments with his dad.

The next morning I went home and we had a few days until the funeral. I recovered SO well. I was able to leave the hospital and I didn’t have to get a transfusion like they thought I would have to have. I was able to be there one last time with Mike and I was physically just fine to have Brian gone while I recovered in the hospital. I was totally fine at the viewing and at the funeral. I felt better than I had in months! It wasn’t until Sunday morning, the day after the funeral that I started to feel like I had just had a baby.

I am so grateful for the series of miracles we experienced with these two passings from the veil. One coming and one leaving. I am also so glad for the lesson of the imperfect placenta. The placenta was pretty crappy and had a lot of problems, but it somehow did its job for 9 months and brought us a beautiful baby. And while I know Mike was not perfect, he was able to return to his Father perfect and he left behind a beautiful life and beautiful family.

There is no doubt in my mind that these miracles occurred because of the prayers and fasting of our family, friends, members of our ward, and members of Mike and Marci’s ward. I am in awe of how aware our Heavenly Father is of our situation and how quick He is to lead and guide us through these experiences.

Kinda Funny

2011-01-14T14:37:00.003-07:00

After I was on bed rest for a week and a half, we got an email from Brian's mom about his dad's condition. His dad has had skin cancer for about 3 years. We found out last week that the tumors went to his brain and they did emergency surgery to drain the built up of fluid in his brain. His dad is now in a rehab center for a few more weeks and hopefully the radiation and other treatments will keep him with us for a long time.

We took all of the kids up to the hospital last week to visit. I think Heber might have been a little freaked out by the staples in his head. I mean, what kid wouldn't? We've had a lot of cancer in our family. Heber asks a lot of questions about it and I think he has a pretty queezy stomach when it comes to talking about surgery. Needless to say, Heber thinks cancer sucks.

Lately Jack has been mimicking his great-grandma Olson by saying, "Thank you kind sir." He was saying it a ton yesterday and when Heber came home he did something for Jack and Jack said, "Thank you kind sir!" And Heber was like, "MOM!!! Jack just called me cancer!!" Haha. The way he says it really does sound like cancer and I guess Heber really doesn't like being called cancer. I don't blame him.

Music Writer Jack

2011-01-11T09:55:00.003-07:00

On Sunday morning we were all sitting in the living room enjoying a long morning before our new 1 o'clock church schedule. We started singing 'Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree' when Jack made up this little descant to go with the song. I love it.

(He is saying, 'popcorn, popcorn, I like that popcorn' over and over. :)

At Least You Aren't Pregnant in the Summer

2011-01-07T13:35:00.005-07:00

False.

This is my third pregnancy that will end in February. My mom said I am a sheep and I can't really argue with that because the only baby I had in a different month (which was the end of July, so yes, I am aware of how a summer pregnancy was. Slushies and AC and I was happy) was an invitro baby. He was just about as planned as you can get. But this time of year and this stage of pregnancy makes me consider all of the reasons why I would rather be pregnant in the summer.

Advantages to summer pregnancies:
1- flip flops. You don't have to bend over your uncomfortably huge belly to put socks and shoes on.

2- Ice. You don't have to worry about slipping and falling on the ice. If you are pregnant in the winter, you constantly try to maintain a center of balance for your massive self and try not to topple over with one wrong step.

3- Ice again. Here in the great state of Utah there are sometimes storms that will leave snow so fast that the snow plows can't get to them. Then the weather is so freezing that it takes weeks for the roads to melt and clear out on their own. This only really happens in the neighborhoods, but when you are in the car and your body aches at every bump, it is very uncomfortable.

4- Cold. They always talk about the heat of the summer and pregnancy being terrible. I agree. You are definitely more hot when you are pregnant and if there were no such thing as air conditioning, it would not be very fun. But guess what, there is. You can't get around the cold in the winter. You also have to have a big beefy coat. As if you don't feel big and beefy enough. And furthermore you are having Braxton-Hicks contractions anyway and your whole belly feels like it is as tight as it can get and then you step out into the cold and your whole body tenses up from the cold! I shudder at the shivering thought.

Someday I will learn. Or maybe not. I may just be a sheep and be destined for February births.

An Interesting Week

2011-01-03T18:45:00.003-07:00

Last week Brian's grandma was scheduled to fly home on Wednesday night. I heard on Saturday night that a huge storm was supposed to come in on Wednesday. We did everything we could to get her an earlier flight, which included 2 trips up to the airport because Delta just plain wasn't answering. Luckily we were able to get her on a flight on Tuesday morning and we avoided the 2 hour plane delay and who knows how long of a commute to and from the airport on Wednesday night. The weather was terrible.

Also, rather miraculously, Brian got home from the airport about five minutes after I called an ambulance. This seems rather strange to have actually called an ambulance and to have ridden in one. It seems almost surreal. I didn't feel very good the day before and I had some concerns that made us want to get into the dr asap the next day.

We were planning on going in that morning and I was getting the kids all ready to go have a fun morning at Jake and Laralee's house when I started feeling more sick. ....I'm kind of debating how gross I should get in this post. hahah. Basically, I went to the bathroom and I thought I was going to have the baby right there and then. Totally freaked me out. I then called Brian to see how far away he was and totally freaked him out.

For about 10 seconds I debated whether or not to call 911 and decided that my life and my baby's life could be in serious danger and who cared what the ambulance ride would cost. I called and they kept asking me questions and I was like, 'Serious?! I don't want to answer anything right now! I'm going to faint!' I didn't actually say that, but yeah. So then I laid down on the floor, waited, and answered questions.

I called Heber in and told him that some ambulance guys were going to come to the door and to not worry and just let them in. Luckily Brian made it home before they got there and got the kids situated in the basement and got my parents to watch the kids while we were gone.

After about 4 minutes of laying there thinking the baby had died, she started kicking and relieved me quite a bit. It has been rather nice that she is such a kicker because I know she is okay. From then on out I was quite calm and actually laughing at Brian for his continued worry. I was pretty sure that the baby was going to come that day.

At the hospital they did a bunch of tests to rule out a lot of scary things and then found that I was dilating and 80% effaced...which more than likely caused all of the problems. The funny thing is, the first hour at the hospital a ton of people from our ward called us to see how we were and how they could help. It was amazing how fast word got around and how fast we were taken care of from family and friends.

I've continued to go back to the dr several times to make sure I'm not progressing anymore and they gave me steroids to develop our babies lungs just incase she does come early. We are hoping to make it at least until next Monday so I will be able to have her at the hospital here and she will be further along.

This break has been anything of a break for Brian. He had the whole week off and he spent it doing everything! He is amazing. It drives me crazy to be laying down all of the time and I'm about ready to go nuts, but he keeps ensuring me that it is for the best and he has everything under control.

So many people have helped us. It is interesting to feel the emotion of gratitude when I watch my kids eat a meal that was prepared and brought by some loving person. A friend of mine called today and said she was bringing over soup that we could eat whenever. She also brought a plate of crackers and cheese and cut up fruit. For some reason it was just so sweet to me. The kids loved the mom-made snacks that she brought.

My family also took our kids several times during the week and entertained them to all get out. Heber even got to go see The Nutty-Nutcracker ballet with my parents. He loved it! They also took the boys sledding another day which completely wore them out. Martha came and cleaned our house for about 4 hours. This also included taking down all of the Christmas stuff. Totally amazing.

I am so grateful for all of the help Brian and I have received and I am especially grateful that I am fine and the baby is fine.

Here's to getting through another week!

Christmas 2010

2011-01-02T14:09:00.008-07:00

Christmas was a wonderful time this year. In November I attended a Relief Society meeting where they gave ideas for keeping Christ the center of Christmas. We added a few of the recommended traditions to our celebrations and it made it a wonderful Christmas.

One of the recommendations was the consideration of gifts that you give. This year, our special gift turned out to be quite a service gift. haha. Brian had the idea to fly his 88 year old grandma out to celebrate Christmas with us for a few weeks. I had never met her and I don't even think my kids new she existed...for whatever reason. We decided that this would be a difficult thing to do, but we were sure we wouldn't regret the memories it would create for our kids.

Grandma Olson flew out on the 16th and we began our time getting to know her. We were surprised at how healthy and independent she was. We needed to help her with her pills and be patient with having the same conversation over and over again, but it wasn't as hard as we were anticipating.

Being hugely pregnant, I wasn't exactly the most exciting hostess and grandma was able to go visit with other family at different times throughout her stay.

This Christmas I was amazed by my kids. Heber had only asked for 1 thing and on Christmas evening he told me how he felt like the luckiest kid. It is amazing how much love you can feel toward your children when they are grateful.
They were also very patient kids with their great grandma visiting. In so many ways they were so much better than I was with it! She would tease them and bug them at all the wrong moments, but they never let it affect their love for her. They would still run to give her a hug goodnight and say, "goodnight grandma!"
Here is a picture of Heber and Brian playing Jenga with grandma Olson. She was always so willing to play with the kids whenever they asked her to. It was very sweet to see how my kids jumped right in to get to know her.
This is a picture of all of us the night before she left. It was difficult to have more responsibilities and unforeseen stresses, but it was very much worth it. I am so grateful that my kids were able to make memories with their great grandma and that my husband could see his grandma again as well. It is truly amazing how wonderful and full Christmas can feel when you try in any small way to forget yourself. It was a wonderful Christmas.

Some Memories of Grandma Proctor

2010-12-06T23:36:00.005-07:00

My cousin Mandy had a great idea of compiling a bunch of memories of my Grandma Proctor to make into a book for my Grandpa this year for Christmas. After spending about 10 minutes on facebook preparing an email, I lost it. So alas, this is a medium I can use that I can keep and I can save a draft to come back too.

For as long as I can remember my grandma and grandpa would go swimming at the Orem Rec center. My grandpa still goes. On our days off of school they would sometimes take the grandkids. I remember getting up early and waiting in our living room for their blue buick to pull into the drive way to come pick us up. It was always so exciting. Swimming was very fun whether it was with some of the cousins or just with brothers or sisters. After we went swimming, we would go back to her house and she would make us a pancake breakfast and we would watch The Price is Right. I'm still not totally convinced that it was a coincidence that she died the year Bob Barker retired. I have to admit, I can't watch it anymore with the new guy.

I remember Sunday nights at their house watching 'America's Funniest Home Videos' and we would be eating all of her cookies and we would try to get the younger kids to go ask for some ice cream. I also remember her having the johnny-jump-up that would hang between their kitchen and living room for the little babies.

I remember being somewhat little and playing back in the back room on a Sunday night with my cousin Mandy and we made a 'salad' out of about 4 or 5 potted plants she had in that room on a tiered planter. We pulled off several of the leaves and put them all in a bowl. I remember my mom being upset, but I don't remember my grandma getting too mad.

I also remember playing with her drawer full of buttons in that room. It was always fascinating to pick out your favorite buttons.

I remember at her mom's funeral, Rachel Hale, we were singing 'Families can be together forever' and I remember crying and looking up at her on the stand and her smiling at me. I think she took me home that day from the funeral and she gave me a fake bird that had been on one of the floral arrangements. I kept that bird for years. ...probably eventually gave it to Martha. haha.

I remember one summer I went to help her after she had a hip replacement. I got to spend a lot of time with her and talk to her a lot. I remember her asking once for me to go get her brazier and I had no idea what she was talking about. haha.

I also remember during that time that I told her that I hated how my mom would always make me clothes and I wouldn't get name brand clothes. Kinda funny now that I'm a mom considering I would have rather had something bought than a tailored item that my skillful mother would make. But at the time, it was a big deal to me. At the end of the week my grandma gave me some amount of money for me to go 'buy something name brand.' I remember trying to be so careful with the money so I would have enough left to buy her something. I ended up buying her that elephant soap thing that I think still sits by their sink.

I remember going to Clear Creek for school one year and because my great aunt and uncle ran it, my grandma and grandpa had come up in their 5th wheel for the week. I remember her summoning me from her trailer and saying, 'You never know who is watching.' haha. It was very fun to have her there.

She would always give us candy for Christmas. It was the best!....except for when she would give us the raspberry sticks or orange sticks. I preferred the box of m&ms or the bag of Reese's. It was such a treat to have our own candy!

I remember Proctor in the Park Sunday's when we would all get together and play with our cousins. I loved those Sunday's and I would always look forward to the cakes Grandma would bring with the store bought frosting. Yum. Those were good.

Something that my husband remembered was on an early, cold, winter morning standing on 5th east in American Fork. We were waiting to see the Olympic torch run by when someone tapped us from behind. We were startled by a small person in a full faced ski mask who said something like, 'Good morning.' It was funny to hear her voice come from a person in a full faced ski mask.
I remember her last Christmas with us, we were at her house and my son Heber was 3 and he wanted to play with a cat she was babysitting. She took him and helped him catch the cat! Heber still remembers her for this experience. I love that she took the time, when all of her family was there, to help a 3 year old discover the fun of a cat. It was also at that time that we found out that Heber is allergic to cats and he broke out in hives. haha.

I remember soon before she died and the last time I saw her, was at my cousin Mike's wedding. I'm still grateful that they got married when they did so I could have this special memory of her. I was about 8 months pregnant and I felt like a whale. I remember seeing her on the way up to the sealing room standing there with my grandpa and she told me I looked beautiful. That is the last thing she ever said to me and it summed up a lot of her sweet character. I love that my last memory of her is watching her in the temple in the sealing room on the front row holding my grandpa's hand. They are such a wonderful example of love. I don't know that I have ever seen two people hold hands more than them. There have also only been about 10 times in the last 3 1/2 years where I haven't seen flowers on her grave when I pass the cemetery.

How I wish my other little kids could have known her. I'm sure that is how it is with so many generations. There is just something about being a generation removed that makes them so special. With your parents you battle it out, but with grandparents...at least with my grandparents, it didn't matter what their faults were. In your mind they were the sweetest, most perfect people in the world.

Jack Attack

2010-10-20T22:04:00.002-06:00

Jack is crazy. There are often new phases of childhood when a child peels off a layer and displays a new part of their personality. This has happened to me with each one of them, but I am still pleasantly surprised when it does.

Jack is entering one of those new phases. He is talking a lot more now and his phrases crack me up. Today he saw a fly and calmly asked for the fly swatter. He tried his best to smash the fly and gave up by saying, "I hate pesky flies!" And that fly would have been in for it too. There is no messing with Jack Jones.

The other day while he was on the swing set climbing up the 'rock wall' thing I called him the little rocker climber. He yelled, "Rock climber?! I not rock climber! I Jack Jomes!"

Jack also has some crazy kind of WWF gene in him. Somehow he knows just where and how to jump on you to make you groan. I have had to keep my guard up to make sure baby #4 is properly protected from his talent. Today I was at the sink doing dishes and Jack plowed into the back of me pushing my growing belly into the counter. After I screamed, he said, "Sorry!" in the voice of Gilly on SNL (not that he has seen her, he has picked it up from his aunts and mother.)

Note to self....keep up your senses while standing near the sink.

First 1st Grade SEPs

2010-10-07T21:12:00.002-06:00

Tonight Brian and I took Heber to SEPs with his first grade teacher Mrs. VanFleet. Heber was looking forward to having his parents meet his teacher and he could hardly wait to go to the book fair afterward.

Every week they do a "Weekend Report" and write about the things they did that weekend. I LOVE these journal entries. It is very fun to see what he thinks are highlights.

Mrs. VanFleet laughed as she told us about one weekend report where Heber wrote about how Jake, (our next door neighbor) and the other kids in the block get to stay up so late and he has to go to bed at 8 o'clock. He wrote, "I told my mom that it isn't fair, and my mom said, 'life's not fair.'" haha! Mrs. VanFleet thought it was pretty funny. Haha.

Oregon Trip

2010-09-02T11:03:00.014-06:00

Last week we took the 12 hour trip up to Oregon to visit Cousin Rachel. They were very nice to accommodate us in our week of exploring Oregon.

The first time I started taking pictures was after a long 2 hour drive to the beach. The weather was 80 degrees and we were looking forward to a lunch on the beach. Somehow between where we parked and a 100 ft hike down to the beach, the temperature drooped 50 degrees and the wind was blowing like crazy! The boys had fun with Brian, but I headed back up to the car with Eve after about 20 minutes. We decided to head to the Oregon Coast Aquarium after the freezing beach experience. Luckily my dad let us take "Princess Pei Pei" (GPS) and she was very helpful in helping us find fun attractions, even if she did try to lead us off a cliff at one point.

The aquarium was very fun and had so many cool things to look at. We were worried it would be like The Living Planet aquarium in SLC that I wasn't impressed with. Turns out, places by the coast have better coastal animals! Who knew?! As you can see from the picture, my belly looks bulgy. We are expecting our 4th offspring in 5 more months. 4? I can't believe that I, Michelle Proctor Jones, am going to be a mother of 4. So strange.

This seal was quite the show off and the kids LOVED to watch it do tricks under the water. I want to go to Sea World now.

That evening we went crabbing. Before we left for Oregon Jack would wake up in the morning and say, "Oregon! Fishing pond! Catch crabs!" We just had to do it. It turned out to be such a fun experience. I enjoyed watching Brian get all giddy with discovering a new way to catch water creatures. He likes fishing and this was his first experience in ocean fishing. I'm sure it won't be his last.

We caught several crabs, but we were only able to keep about 15 and only 4 of them were alive after the long ride home....and over night. The crab lady told us that on ice they would survive for 20 hours. But yeah, we only cooked up 4 for breakfast. Barf. It was so sick. Jack and Heber loved it. Heber, picky eater #1, even ate a good amount of it. I tried a bit, but I couldn't handle the smells and the process.

The next day Rachel took us to a fun splash park close to their house. It was wonderful. All of the kids ran around and played while Rach and I pretty much just sat there and watched them play. It was fun to see differences in Oregon compared to my little life in Utah. Brian heard a kid yell out, "Oh sick! That's inorganic!" and Rachel pointed out the average age of the mom's at the park. I honestly thought it was grandma day at the park or something! So funny.

Cousin Dan let us watch him land his helicopter and the kids enjoyed sitting in it and learning about helicopters.

Close to Rachel's house is a cafe where Twilight was filmed. Of course we had to go. It was fun to pretend like we were die hard fans, but the food was very good as well.

I wish I would have taken more pictures of the kids at Rachel's house and at her parent's house. It was so fun to hang out with family and for the kids to play with 'cousins.' It was a great week.

Do I Really Need to Say Anything?

2010-06-29T14:03:00.001-06:00

Oh the Projects

2010-06-21T13:28:00.006-06:00

Buying a foreclosure is sure to have projects and this house has several. Little by little

we'll get it how we want it.

Here is one of the first projects:

Before
After!

I rather like the green/grayish look as opposed to the spotted black.

"You Think This Is FUNNY?!"

2010-05-15T09:24:00.007-06:00

My wonderful, sweet Heber had a loose tooth. It was his second loose tooth and it was his second tooth that already had his permanent tooth growing in behind it. I asked the dentist about 3 months ago to pull it while we were there, but he recommended that we wait. So we did.

It seems like as a kid I would play with a loose tooth incessantly! Heber never even touched it. I told him that we were going to have to pull it if he didn't play with it. His last tooth pulling was a traumatic event and I didn't think he wanted to repeat it.

His tooth was very loose and ready to fall out. Maybe I should have just left it alone and hope that it would eventually just fall out, but hey, three months?! And his tooth was so loose. Brian got the floss, I got a towel and we were both ready to hold him down.

In the middle of the struggle, Heber started yelling, "YOU'RE KILLING ME!!!" And I looked at him in disbelief and laughed....kind of. Not like a "YES!" laugh by any means. It was a laugh of, I wish we didn't have to use all of our muscles to hold down our strong 6 year old body from popping out an extremely loose tooth! Then he yelled, "YOU THINK THIS IS FUNNY!?!" And then I did start laughing. And his tooth was out seconds later.

After he was done and while he was still kind of crying, he said, "Can I call Hannah?" (his cousin who is in the same school class as him.) He told her and her little brother William that he had lost a tooth and got some money.

Heber is wonderful. I hope I never loose this memory of him.

Baby Spice

2010-05-08T10:21:00.005-06:00

This is Jack.... He continues to surprise us and make us laugh with every new thing he is discovering. This week he discovered spicy food. We had Colosimos hot Italian sausage with spaghetti the other night for dinner. Jack loves anything that looks like a hot dog and he doesn't get them very often. When he saw the sausages cooked on the serving plate he yelled, "HOT DOG!!" (I was going to superimpose the face of Jack on a picture of Baby Spice, but it turns out she's quite the scank. So just pretend. :))

I wondered how he would like the heat factor in the sausages. They are pretty spicy. He was determined though. He kept eating it and looking at us with watery eyes and an open mouth. I told him to take a bite of his bread stick and drink some water. He continued this routine until he had finished a whole sausage!

This morning we got a bunch of produce and Jack grabbed the peppers. No, they aren't the ultra spicy kind, but they are spicy. This is how I found the peppers after Jack had taken a few bites.

Eve's First Word

2010-04-21T17:21:00.003-06:00

A couple of weeks ago Eve said her first word. She has chosen the word 'up' to be that word. She used it correctly for the first few weeks, but now she uses it as a command for everything. haha. She still has no interest in walking, or even standing yet, but it is so fun to see her learning words and starting to communicate with Heber and Jack.

PS that brick post below....was on TV last night on TLC's Little Chocolatiers. The brick was from the show.

This One's For You Jake

2010-02-24T18:35:00.004-07:00

What is hard, red, and bad for your teeth?

A BRICK!

What Do I Title This Post?

2010-02-19T10:55:00.003-07:00

How My Kids Get Their 9 Essential Vitamins and Minerals With 25% less Sugar What Happens When I Try To Get Ready

What Happens When the Pantry Doesn't Get Locked

Or just plain "Wow"

3 Birthdays in 3 Weeks

2010-02-12T11:38:00.011-07:00

I turned 30. That's right, 30 years old ladies and gentlemen...30 years old. Exactly one week after my birthday Heber turned 6! I can't believe I have a 6 year old.

And exactly one week after Heber's birthday, Eve turned 1!

She put on a great show with making a mess of the cake and herself. It was funny to watch her. She didn't seem to think it was anything out of the ordinary and didn't seem to wonder why everyone was watching her. Such a funny little girl.

It would be nice to write more, but after moving and having 3 birthdays all in one month....I'm tired...and I can't think. haha.

Today is a Great Day

2010-02-09T15:31:00.002-07:00

Somehow...

2010-02-08T19:48:00.004-07:00

Somehow this cute little girl can go from this:

To this!

We have had many people comment about the surprising faces she makes. Gotta love it.

A Very Funny Person...

2009-12-09T12:33:00.002-07:00

...once sent me a fake Christmas newsletter. She had some spare time at work and made a totally believable Christmas newsletter about some random family. She signed it and addressed it to Brian, Michelle, and Heber.

When we received the newsletter we were dumbfounded. We had no idea who these people from Flagstaff, Arizona were.....and we had no idea how they knew us!

Several days later, the prankster revealed herself. It was Casey. Funny, funny, Casey.

Such a great Christmas prank!

A Jack Story

2009-12-07T17:11:00.005-07:00

A couple of boys come over about once a week so their mom can be with her preemies in the hospital. Today has been a harder day than most. I think all of the boys are getting a bit too comfortable with each other. Here is the story:

Jack was standing on the couch looking out the window at the sledders in the park behind the house. Bryce, also 2, saw an opportunity to get the buzz light year toy. Jack saw him go for it and jumped off the couch to rip the toy out of his hand.

I said, "Jack, that's not nice. Get him a toy to play with." He spotted a throw pillow, picked it up, gave it to Bryce, and said, "Happy Birthday." (a.k.a. Aga-birgay.)

Wow Jack. A throw pillow. :) haah.

Thanksgiving

2009-12-07T14:00:00.007-07:00

We had Thanksgiving dinner this year with the Proctor family. We even got to enjoy the dinner with my Grandpa Proctor. Here he is with our kids and my dad.

Thanksgiving morning we did a 5k in American Fork for cancer research. It was a great way to start out the day! We walked the 3 miles and probably ended up dead last. haha.

Later that day we went shooting. It was a trick keeping the kids ear plugs in.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner and such a kick-back relaxing day.

Heber Geber

2009-12-01T12:38:00.004-07:00

The other night I made turkey pot pie out of some of the leftover turkey we had from Thanksgiving. I knew it would be a dinner that Heber would fight. The pie turned out great and everyone loved it and I was convinced Heber would like it if he really gave it a try. We told him he could eat or go to bed and after counting to three he would reluctantly put a bite in his mouth and eat it.

He started eating it on his own and I said, "Heber, isn't it good?...You like turkey....You can taste the soup with it and the vegetables...." and then he totally gagged! ahha! It was so funny. I thought I was helping him give it a try and learn to love it. But yeah, it made him want to throw up.

Also, today Eve finally broke her first tooth! Wahoo! And Heber actually broke his first big boy tooth... the same day! Unfortunately his baby tooth hasn't fallen out yet. It kind of freaked me out when he showed it to me and I called the dentist to find out what we should do about it. A few minutes later when I was sending him off to catch the bus he said, 'I'm kind of famous huh.'

Gotta love Heber.

Halloween and Happenings...

2009-11-18T17:02:00.015-07:00

Halloween was great! We had a couple of parties and ended up staying home on Halloween night. We had several trick-or-treaters and took Heber, Jack, and Eve around the neighborhood. While we were out I was telling Brian that I should have planned to rent "Witches" to watch that night with just him. Well what do you know! After the kids were down, we looked on TV and it was on! It was a very fun Halloween night.

Last Monday we went to the gingerbread house festival at Thanksgiving Point. Our dear friend Melodie Dearden got 2nd place for her cool gingerbread house. It was great fun and started getting us all in the Christmas spirit.

Here is Laura in front of Melodie's gingerbread house. It is Grimmald Place in Harry Potter. Too cool.

Heber climbed the tree out front and wanted a picture taken of his new found skill. Jack also wanted to have a picture of him in the tree.

Jack's "Happy Birthday!"

2009-11-12T11:31:00.001-07:00

Jakers!

2009-10-19T20:54:00.007-06:00

We enjoyed a family outing on Saturday by getting some pumpkins at a bonafide pumpkin patch. Thank you Taniel for getting this going! It was quite fun.

School Pictures

2009-10-13T09:02:00.003-06:00

Yesterday Heber brought home some sticker pictures of Eve and Jack's school pictures. I guess he thought this is what they were for:

Brian's Birthday

2009-10-08T22:27:00.003-06:00

We spent Brian's birthday tonight at home. Heber and Jack enjoyed playing soccer outside with Brian.

And later, Brian enjoyed his birthday present. Yes that is 'Punch-Out' the game . He faithfully played the original when he was growing up and enjoyed the reminiscence on his birthday. Happy Birthday Brian!!

Update-O-Rama

2009-10-08T21:59:00.010-06:00

Here are a few highlights from the last post. In the middle of August we took a trip up to Island Park with the Proctors. This is a great picture of almost all of us waiting for Old Faithful. Brian was taking the picture.

My sister Laura moved in with us and started school at UVU. It is lovely to have a on-demand hair cutter and nanny.....when she has time.

Heber started Kindergarten! It was such a funny day. He was so anxious! Like the big man that he is, he picked up his back pack and said, "Well, see ya." when he thought it was time to go. He loves school and is learning so much.

On Labor day we took our kids on a 4 mile hike!! haha. Yeah, 4 miles.....with 3 kids....2 who don't really walk. It was fun to say we did it, but we probably won't do it again any time soon.

Jack kept playing in the dirt and then he would get up on Brian's shoulders and wipe the dirt on Brian's sweaty heat. It was great! What a sweet little family I have.

P.S. I would collect puppets. Not the freaky people kind you see on the Sound of Music, the cute stuffed animal kinds that they have at the library story time.

Question...(another one.)

2009-09-01T15:18:00.001-06:00

If you could collect something what would it be?

What Fun Was...

2009-08-18T20:34:00.012-06:00

Last week Brian and I went with our little ones and my sister Laura and brother Jared to Lagoon. It wasn't very busy and we had a GREAT time.

As seen above, Brian and I were even able to go on some rides together because Laura and Jared were with the kids.

Heber got soaked! haha! It was so funny. He was quite the trooper. He went on so many fast rides and even went on the Spider! I was freaking out the whole time and closing my eyes! He was much more brave.

I love this picture because Jack just stayed up as high as he could go the whole time. I don't think he understood that the lever controlled his height.

Sweet baby Eve was enjoying the warm weather and the endless walk in the stroller.

About 45 seconds after we drove out of the parking lot, Heber was out. This is what the back seat of our van looked like about a half hour down the road. It was a great day full of good memories.

While Dad's Away the Kids Will Play

2009-08-18T20:26:00.007-06:00

Brian recently became the scout master in our ward and has since gone on a few camping trips with the scouts. This last week he went to Goblin Valley and here are some shots of what we did one of the nights he was gone. Heber had the great idea of taking a picture of him while he was in the air....(a great idea he had seen his aunts do.) It took awhile, but we got some great shots.

This was Jack's attempt at jumping onto the mattress. He would get up on the couch and say, "One, two" and then try to jump. The kids enjoyed the late and active night.

Question...

2009-08-03T13:41:00.003-06:00

Does anyone know what a hymn book tastes like? Because for some reason I do.

Son of a Brian...

2009-08-01T20:53:00.006-06:00

This past week Jack turned two and as expected, he received many gifts with an aeronautical flare.

Brian gave "Jack" a radio control helicopter and all of the boys have been enjoying it. Jack really only lets it down when the battery needs to charge. I, on the other hand, have to keep a pillow around to guard my hair.

I made an airplane cake for Jack at his request....or I think his request. I'm pretty sure he was saying airplane cake! haha.

That night when I put him to bed I said, "Happy Birthday Jack." and he looked up from his crib, smiled, and blew like he was blowing out candles. Too cute. He is such a wonderful boy and we are thoroughly enjoying him!

A Marvelous Pioneer Weekend

2009-07-27T21:16:00.007-06:00

This pioneer weekend we had a pizza party with the fam and then made gingerbread wagons. Here are a few pictures of Heber's wagon and my wagon.

(notice the candy corn on Heber's wagon.....he said that was the fire. I think he got that from his Aunt Martha's pioneer/indian portrayal.)

I love that we used EL fudge guys for the pioneers! Hahah. Laura came up with that.

On Saturday night we were lucky to be able to go to the Spanish Fork rodeo! It was very fun. It is such an entertaining event for young kids. Heber LOVED it. Jack and Eve were both tired because it was past their bed time.

Wow, it has been too long.

2009-07-23T23:00:00.003-06:00

You never really know how much time it will take to do ANYTHING after you have your third child. It is CRAZY! I did not anticipate how much a third child would make my life completely busy. Brian and I have moved several times since we have been married and it hasn't taken me long to get settled. This time, however, 4 months later I am still moving in and trying to get things to calm down.

We have had a wonderful summer. Brian is gearing up for his last semester at BYU, working his engineering business (alphaonedesign.com), and figuring out how to camp again with his new assignment with the scouts.

Heber is anxiously getting ready for school to start. His normal day consists of getting up at 6 a.m. and waiting in the family room for everyone else to wake up. Then he waits around and completes any requirement so he can finally be released from the house to go find a friend.

Jack is constantly surprising us. His birthday is next week and he has informed us that he wants an airplane for his cake and for a present. Tonight after dinner we were trying to get him to say 'airplane' instead of his selected word of 'Ana.' We started laughing at his stubbornness and he said, 'I funny!'

Eve is eating solids and is sleeping through the night!! HALLELUJAH! It is already changing my mood and my memory.

I will try to post more often, but truth be told, sometimes there are just more important things to do.

Quote of the Day

2009-07-11T21:36:00.000-06:00

"Are these rocks any good?"
--Brian

Cute, Cute, Eve.

2009-07-01T21:00:00.001-06:00

Jack's Stuck Face

2009-07-01T20:57:00.000-06:00

This is almost a full out "stuck face. "

What?! We got to feed the fish at Cabelas?

2009-05-26T11:57:00.000-06:00

Here are some pictures of an unusually fun activity.

Yep, they threw live goldfish into the tank to feed the huge fish.

Day at the Zoo

2009-04-30T11:50:00.001-06:00

Last Wednesday Brian finished his last final for the semester and we headed up to the Zoo. Here are some pictures of the good times.

Some Things That Are Jack

2009-04-21T22:05:00.001-06:00

Jack already LOVES airplanes. This is a picture of him looking at a model airplane magazine. He even goes to sleep with these magazines. "Ana, Ana!" is what he says for airplane.

Jack has extremely long eye lashes. The other day I decided to put make-up on them. :) haha.

A Memorable Easter

2009-04-14T09:43:00.000-06:00

Heber's fish, Gill, died on Saturday. I planned on getting a friend for Gill for Heber to discover on Easter morning, but when we got home from an Easter egg hunt on Saturday, I discovered the dead fish.

We decided not to say anything that night and Laura and I went out hoping to find a fish that looked similar to Gill. :)

We didn't find one that looked like him.

We brought home 2 new fish and hoped he'd be content. I decided to stick with my plan of having the fish tank be a clue in his Easter morning treasure hunt. In the middle of his clues he ran to the fish tank. From our bedroom Brian and I could hear him saying, "Gill, Gill, Gill!"

Then he came running in our room crying asking where Gill was! It was so sad!

I explained to him that Gill died and we tried to find another fish that looked like him. He then had a lot of questions about death and where Gill was and what would happen to him. On a small scale, it made for a great lesson for Easter morning.

During our Easter Sunday meeting I kept thinking about Heber's disappointment and how sad he was. After church I was sitting in the van with the kids and I said, "Heber I am so grateful that I know about Jesus and know where people go when they die and that because of Him we can be resurrected....I would be so sad if I didn't know that."

Then Heber said, "It's okay mom. If you didn't know that, I would tell you."

Nice Easter.

Eve's Blessing

2009-03-30T09:22:00.001-06:00

Yesterday was Eve's blessing day. It was a wonderful day and she was adorable! Notice her beautiful dress my mom made. It has the cutest embroidery on it too! I love it. I had a hard time when it was time to put her in normal clothes. She was so pretty.

This was our attempt at another picture. Jack gets mad every time we get the camera out because he can't play with it.

She Makes Me Late

2009-03-24T16:04:00.000-06:00

Of all the fun things of having a little girl, Eve's hair curls!! It is somewhat hard to see here, and it mats down if she lays on it, but it is SOO cute! I love it.

The Life of a Phone

2009-03-24T15:42:00.000-06:00

My phone died and I finally transferred the pictures. Here are a few of the highlights.

In January, the kids finally got to leave their 650 sq ft apartment with their whale-ish mother. They had a lot of pent up energy.

This is Jack showing his excitement at his first baseball game back in September.

Heber had a couple of cavities. This is him before the laughing gas whore off.

Fun times at the dinosaur museum.

Car carts....Ah car carts.

Air Brian. ...(I want to go play tennis right now.)

Heber and Jack were excited to go swimming at the hotel pool at Disneyland.

Sweet baby Jack.

Pictures of Fun

2009-03-16T15:01:00.000-06:00

I love this outfit and hat. Thank you Aunt Sue!

Jack was pretty mad because I wouldn't let him have the camara. haha. Poor kid.

Jackism!!

2009-03-10T12:04:00.000-06:00

Jack is becoming a boy all his own.

The other day Heber was sitting at the table eating a bologna sandwich. Jack got up on the table and watched as Heber ate the sandwich. After a few seconds Jack backed off the table into a chair that was completely pushed in. He just teetered there for a minute and looked pretty stuck.

I saw what was going on and I said, "Heber can you get Jack down?"

Heber reluctantly left his sandwich to walk over to where Jack was. As soon as Heber got off his chair, Jack pulled himself back up onto the table and grabbed Heber's sandwich! haha!

Smart kid.

Heber was pretty mad.

Funny Things Heber Has Done Lately That I Don't Want To Forget

2009-03-02T12:03:00.000-07:00

He decided to charge a 25 cent admission fee to go into his room. This way he "could buy expensive things."

He prays that Eve will learn to sleep at night so "Mom doesn't have to wake up with Eve during the night." I wonder why he would want me to have more sleep. heh heh.

He asked why Aunt Laura always shakes her head no when she thinks someone is being funny.

I will add to this list...so check back.

The Many Faces of...

2009-02-24T10:42:00.001-07:00

This picture of Brian was taken last September, but I found it today and just had to put it up. Haha. :) He's so great.

She is Here!!!

2009-02-16T11:07:00.000-07:00

Our sweet little baby girl Eve was born Wednesday, February 11th. It was a great delivery and a great recovery and she is very sweet. Many thanks for all of those who helped babysit during the hospital stay and for the wedding!

2009-01-28T21:04:00.001-07:00

I really like the smell of fruit loops. I don't particularly like the taste of them, but the smell is one of my favorites.

Odds and Ends

2009-01-14T12:47:00.001-07:00

I can't stand how funny Jack has become. It seems like you get used to them and then they surprise you with a new personality. He is hilarious and has definitely been keeping us running. He started making this HILARIOUS face when things were stuck. We made several attempts to capture the face on camera, but it didn't work out well.

This is last Tuesday night after the huge snowfall. After Brian got home from school and we finished dinner, we went exploring in the snow. Heber didn't want to go in before we made a snowman. You can see this was a veggie snowman.

Heber got some hand-me-downs and I loved this sweater on him. Unfortunately, he won't wear sweaters. So I bribed him to at least get his picture with it on. He is hilarious.

Heberism 2009

2009-01-06T10:48:00.001-07:00

The other night we were at my mom's for dinner. Jake and Laralee were back from Lund and Heber was very glad to have some cousins to play with downstairs. After dinner was over we were all chatting in the family room when Heber came running upstairs saying, "Laralee! Laralee!...." ...kept saying that...you get the idea. When everyone stopped talking and the attention was turned to the fuming Heber he said, "Hannah's not making me laugh!"

Yes, it was an injustice that needed motherly intervention.

Wow.

2009-01-05T10:41:00.000-07:00

It has been a year since I posted a post about Brian back in school. And now, here we are starting our last semester today!

Christmas break was a blast and we very much enjoyed having Brian around. We got a lot done to get ready for the upcoming semester and enjoyed our time at home and with family.

Come On Down!...

2008-12-30T20:31:00.000-07:00

Check out http://www.utahadventurer.com/component/option,com_videos/Itemid,132/#vmix_media_id=2402851. You can upload a photo, video, or just a comment about an adventure you have had and it will enter you to win some pretty cool stuff. Your odds are pretty good that you will win something and it is a very great site for finding great things to do around here.

Everyone Must Try

2008-12-19T21:15:00.000-07:00

If you are still insistent on buying egg nog at the store, then you must try this simple recipe. It is fantastic and so easy. You might say I'm a home made egg nog advocate....so here is the recipe:

Beat:
6 eggs (egg beaters)
1 c sugar

Add:
½ tsp ginger
1 Tb cinnamon
¼ tsp salt
2 qts milk
½ qt vanilla ice cream

Merry Christmas.
Here is just a nice picture of Heber making a hat on one of those knitting looms. Fun boy.

Also...

2008-12-09T21:09:00.000-07:00

Has anyone seen La Vie En Rose? It was a pretty interesting movie. I'm a fan of older French music. I don't listen to it everyday mind you, but I am fascinated by it. I'm glad I wasn't raised in a French brothel and lived out my life on drugs and alcohol. Kinda sad.....but good voice.

Oh It's Been Awhile...

2008-12-09T20:59:00.001-07:00

Here are a few pictures just so I can say I posted something! Haha. I'm getting large and am pretty much just getting the basics done.

A few updates:

My brother Isaac is getting married in February to a wonderful girl named Taniel. We are all very excited even though I will more than likely have a baby 4 days before the wedding.

Brian is almost done with this semester! Wahoo! Only one left...hopefully.

I taught myself to knit out of a book called, "I Can't Believe I'm Knitting!!"

I saw Twilight with Brian and we both loved it.

Basically, we are loving the Christmas season and I am getting down to the knitty gritty with being large and ready to be done. 9 more weeks!

All of these pictures below are from the night we got the Christmas stuff out.

Heber was proud to be the one to put up the star.

(our tree looks better now....I'll have to take some pictures.....and post them sometime.)

Jack just kept saying, "Wow!"

Why can't everyone wear clothes like this?

Robert George

2008-11-04T07:31:00.000-07:00

This is a link to BYUtv and the forum that was given last Tuesday by Robert George. He is a theology professor at Princeton. He gave a wonderful speech about the sanctity of marriage and government involvement in it. I highly recommend listening to it.

http://www.byub.org/findatalk/details.asp?ID=5796

Harvest Party

2008-11-03T09:56:00.001-07:00

Saturday night we had our annual Harvest Party. We enjoyed delicious soup and some fun fall games. I don't have very many pictures of the festive festivities because my camera ran out of batteries.

Halloween!

2008-11-03T09:50:00.000-07:00

As said in the previous post, we went down to St. George for Brian's grandpa's funeral. Well....we left Heber's batman costume at the hotel. I bought some batman pjs that were going to double for his costume...which is why we had them in St. George. We didn't realize we left them at the hotel until Friday at about 6:45!

We ran to Shopko and found a pilot costume for 60% off. It ended up working out well. Heber has worn his costume ever since!

Halloween was fun. Jack liked that everyone was giving him candy, but I think he mostly enjoyed being outside with everyone and getting a piggy-back from Brian. Great fun.

Grandpa Mehr

2008-11-03T09:48:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we went to the funeral of Brian's Grandpa. It was a great experience and really inspiring to see the veterans at the burial. I thought I'd post this picture.

Fall Fun

2008-11-03T09:46:00.001-07:00

I love all of the leaves at Wymount. There are plenty of trees that have left plenty of leaves for Heber and Jack's enjoyment.

Wow

2008-10-23T11:00:00.000-06:00

Here is a video of Heber getting his white belt. It was pretty cute.

Day at Lagoon

2008-10-20T11:26:00.001-06:00

Quote From Brian

2008-10-20T11:24:00.000-06:00

"It is 96 degrees in here! It is a fact. Indisputable!"
(It was actually probably 75 degrees)

A Little Peak

2008-10-11T20:47:00.000-06:00

Last night Brian took me to BYU's homecoming. It was a BLAST! We went with my brother Jake and his wife Laralee. Brian and Jake planned a great evening and I'm still smiling at the memories we made!

Here are just a few pictures of the fun we had. haha!

I wish I would have remembered our camara. I'm afraid we only took these two with our cell phone. I'll post more pictures when we get them.

It Looks Like...

2008-10-11T10:17:00.000-06:00

The doctor said he isn't positive, so we might be surprised in the end, but from what he could see, he thought we would be having a girl!!

Wahoo!!

Happy Birthday Brian!!

2008-10-08T09:24:00.000-06:00

Happy Birthday to my favorite person in the whole world!!!

I can't believe you are 30!!!

I Lost My Wallet

2008-10-07T10:28:00.000-06:00

This little man likes to play with keys. While the boys were at priesthood session Saturday night, we played at my mom's with cousins. Jack started going through the diaper bag and found my wallet with the attached keys.

Yesterday I went to go somewhere and I couldn't find my wallet. With my pregnant brain, I remembered taking them to my mom's. I also remembered that I gave them to Jack, but I couldn't remember if it was at home or at my mom's.

This morning I went over to my mom's to look for it. I found my wallet behind a bunch of dvds in the entertainment center cabinet.

Wow Jack! He was really trying to hide it from me!

MICHELLE, WILL YOU GO TO BYU HOMECOMING WITH ME?

2008-10-03T10:26:00.000-06:00

Well, after seven amazing years of marriage, Michelle is still as beautiful as ever, and unfortunately, I'm fatter, or should I say, huskier (haha). Nontheless, I love her with all of my heart and can't imagine life without her. She is smart, beautiful, funny, selfless, caring, and an amazing mother. She is also so patient and supportive of me and my crazy ideas. What else could I possible ask for? Actually, there is one thing: MICHELLE, WILL YOU GO TO BYU HOMECOMING WITH ME?!

Attention, family, friends, neighbors, and the general public, please feel free to comment on why you think Michelle should say YES to this invite. Note: if your post isn't in my favor, it might get removed (haha, just kiddin).

Love,

Brian

What If...

2008-09-29T08:38:00.001-06:00

Last night I had a dream that I was on some kind of public tour of something. I can't remember what it was, but Jim and Pam from the office were there. We had to wear "sexual harassment" uniforms. They looked like those big hazmat uniforms, but they were light blue with dark blue writing on them that said, "Don't touch me!" hahaha! What the heck?!

You think it will ever get so bad that a company will avoid sexual harassment cases by making everyone wear big blue 'don't touch me suits.'

On The Way Home...

2008-09-22T21:10:00.001-06:00

We were driving down 9th East tonight and Heber said, "There is that LAZY guy I always see!"

What the heck?

Our Beautiful Wymount

2008-09-11T20:21:00.001-06:00

We pratically live in the parking lot of the Provo temple. It makes for beautiful walks. This was our walk last night.

I Love This

2008-09-11T20:17:00.000-06:00

Heber likes to take the camara and snap some pictures. This picture is one he took of himself. It is one of my favorites.

He is so great.

P.S. there are a few new pictures in the posts below.

Do You See It?

2008-09-10T11:53:00.000-06:00

I think it is uncanny.

Eating Elephants

2008-09-10T11:25:00.000-06:00

The other day while I was in the waiting room of the doctor's office I read this. "The average person eats ...(so many tons)... of food in their life time. That is an average of 6 elephants!"

So...why don't people just have 6 elephants and gnaw on them for their whole lives? It would cut out shopping and wondering what to eat.

Monopoly Madness

2008-09-02T22:06:00.001-06:00

Last week I got this picture in a text message at about 7:30ish in the morning. While Brian was at the library studying he saw the news on KSL.com about the monopoly game that would be played at BYU. Sayless to need, he went over to the playing field and signed up. We ended up with 2 monopoly t-shirts and a new World Edition Electronic Monopoly game. It was a great morning.

2008-09-02T21:51:00.000-06:00

Here is a little tutorial video on how to fold laundry. He has made a special note of how to correctly fold laundry because one of his favorite uncles is very good at it.

A Sad Sad Day

2008-08-19T11:11:00.000-06:00

The other night Brian and I went on a date. I wanted to go to Black Angus for dinner because I LOVE it and we hadn't been in a long time. We have to go to the Black Angus at 106th south because the one in Orem closed about 5 years back. We didn't understand why that one closed because it was always packed.

To our COMPLETE dismay, we turned into the parking lot and saw that this one had closed down too!!! Now there isn't a Black Angus within 100 miles of me!!! It was....it STILL is SOO sad! I loved their potato soup and their sampler appetizer platter. Looks like we are going to have to head to Arizona.

Look Who's Walkin'

2008-08-11T11:35:00.000-06:00

....well, when he wants to anyway! haha.

Good Show!

2008-07-31T16:50:00.001-06:00

Jack turned 1 on Tuesday! I love this birthday and I was very excited to see what he would do with the cake. We all anticipated that he would dig in, but he just kept playing with the frosting and bending over and 'kissing' the cake! It was hilarious!

It was a great show. He ended up tipping the cake over. With the bottom side of the cake exposed instead of the frosting, he ate the cake. It was pretty great.

Also, another fun fact, we are pregnant again and we heard the heart beat today! Wahoo!

Check It Out

2008-07-26T11:15:00.000-06:00

Here is a little something Heber caught the other day. My dad stopped him before he brought it in the house to show me. Brian was very proud.

Some Exciting Things

2008-07-16T16:51:00.000-06:00

Here is our new niece Jade Jenkins! She came 6 weeks early on Monday night. She'll be in the hospital for awhile, but Alisa (Brian's sister) and Jade are doing well. These next pics are of Snowbird 2008.

Here is my dad flying his father's day present.

Kudos to Jolene

2008-07-08T21:31:00.001-06:00

For those of you who know the lady across the street named Jolene Monson, this is a story for you.

Heber often crosses the street and talks to her. She says they just chat about whatever. Heber is always full of questions and loves talking to anyone, no matter how big of an age gap there is.

Last night Heber ran in and said, 'Can I go talk to Sister Monson?' I told him to look both ways before he crossed the street and to be polite.

He came back a few minutes later with a box of gummy life savers she had purchased just for him.

It is pretty fun to see him have experiences with people I have known my whole life.

Great people.

My Handsome Husband

2008-06-27T09:50:00.000-06:00

Here is an article Brian did.

http://www.utahadventurer.com/content/view/262/77/

Heber is in a couple of the pictures.

A Funny Heber

2008-06-25T20:27:00.000-06:00

Yesterday Brian drove to the hobby store with Heber and Jack. There was an ad on the radio that said something hurt "less than a paper cut." In Heber's little mind he quickly reflected on when he got a paper cut and said, "You can say that again."

Brian busted up at Heber's response to the radio ad.

Zions Fun

2008-06-25T20:22:00.000-06:00

Last weekend we went down to St. George to visit Brian's family. While we were there we took a ride to Zion's National Park and did a little hiking. It was great fun.

Interesting Book

2008-06-18T15:59:00.000-06:00

I just finished the book A Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. It was thought provoking. I liked it quite a bit. It was interesting how at the first Lord Henry tells him to let no thing influence him because it would taint him blah blah blah, and his whole life in influenced by Lord Henry and his lame views. Anyway, a very interesting book.

My Love for Indian Food

2008-06-11T09:44:00.000-06:00

Ever since I went to the Bombay House and ordered chicken curry, I have been on a quest. I absolutely LOVE their chicken curry there. I also love their saag shorba soup. I found a very comparable recipe for the soup, but the chicken curry recipe was not quite the same. I still liked it quite a bit, but it wasn't as tomatoey.

The problem is I only have a few days left until my dad comes home! He hates curry and it isn't exactly 'discrete in the smell' when you make it. I think I need to try another recipe quick!

Any Ideas?

2008-06-09T10:50:00.000-06:00

My mom and I have been asked to make dinner for 300 girls at girls camp. It should be fun and we have a few ideas, but we're trying to get some more. Sloppy Joe's, Hawaiian haystacks, taco salad have already been taken.

So yeah, let me know if you have any ideas!

What We've Been Up To

2008-06-03T11:24:00.001-06:00

Brian got a soaring? plane the other day and we have been having all sorts of fun with it. Here are some pictures of our adventures.

I love this because Jack is cute. Also because it captures my dad in the background with his hat backward. Brian has had a lot of Vegas influence on him.

We go up to the point of the mountain and simply throw the plane off. It glides forever if there is enough wind. I must admit that it is pretty cool . It is also really pretty up there and super cool if you see some para gliders.

Here is Jack with his matching bib and shirt. It was a much better day because his bib matched his shirt. Sometimes it just really clashes and it is embarrassing. (I think I should stop putting inside jokes on my blog because I think people might think I am crazy...oh well....cute picture anyway)

We made the bed and there were 2 hands sticking out of the pillow! Amazing.

Some Favorites Today

2008-06-02T14:19:00.000-06:00

I love yoga. It is amazing. I love that it kills you, but you are too worried about other things to notice that your muscles are getting a total work out. It is also really nice to do it after the kids go to bed. You can get a work out in without getting all hyped up before bed time. It is great.

I also love the Music Ace software. It is great. I got it for teaching piano, but now I am using it with Heber. We do some lessons before he can play star wars. He has already started saying, "Look mom! It's a bass clef!" when he sees music.

Two great things.