Success!!!

Daphne and her favorite pony panties

So, I just wanted to officially announce that Daphne is potty-trained!! She has been begging to wear panties since January and I wasn't having any of it because I knew when Baron was born she would just regress and we'd pretty much have to start all over. Well, sure enough, after Baron came along she lost interest for a couple of months, but about 1 1/2 months ago she became interested again. She did very well and I think it is safe to say that she is is, in fact, potty-trained! Hooray!!! Three down, one to go...

Summer's Ending...

Laylah dancing in the backyard

Daphne running around

Me and Baron relaxing in our chair

Jonah in our tire swing

Daphne and Jonah examining the ants

Andy teaching Laylah to ride her bike withought training wheels

Almost all by herself!

Swimming

Baron relaxing on the grass

Andy at Bear Lake


Playing at the playground

Jonah being goofy

eating popsicles on the tramp

more swimmimg

I guess the water was too cold to get in and do his thing, so he just did it off the back of the boat :)

Daphne driving the boat (she does this nonstop whether we are actually moving or not)

Laylah tubing

swinging at the playground

daphne on the playground

So, I know summer has officially been over for a couple of weeks, but it still feels like summer. Last Sunday we went out into our backyard and the kids just ran around and played. It was such a beautiful evening and the temperature was perfect. I am going to miss being able to send the kids outside to play whenever I want to come winter. It has been an awesome summer, we have done so many fun things. Here are a few pictures of Sunday night and a few of the things we did this summer like boating, Bear Lake, playing at the park, etc... (sorry, they are out of order)

Nasty...

My dad spreading kitty litter around the crawl space- I think they used three 10 pound bags

Rotten stuff in the bucket.... ewwww

More nastiness

my dad probably thinking "How did I get myself into this?"

Andy- I'm goin in!

The trailer full of all the junk

Okay, so we live in a house that is almost 50 years old. I think it was built in 1961. It's a cute little house, but when we moved in it needed a ton of work and we have done it. It's been very rewarding and looking back, it has been fun (although at the time, I hated it :) But, with old houses come some not to fun things. We just found out about a month ago that our roof leaks, so we're going to have to get that fixed, and then a couple of months ago, I noticed a "smell" in the basement. It wasn't too bad, just kind of a musty, weird odor. Sometimes it was there and sometimes it wasn't. Well, it progressively got worse until we started smelling it in the kitchen too. Andy crawled down under the house, into the crawl space and found the culprit. There was a bunch of standing water all over the tarps lining the crawl space. So, a couple Saturdays ago, he attempted to clean it up. It was disgusting. He soaked the moisture up with kitty litter and then pulled the tarp up to find that it was way worse than it first seemed. There was water EVERYWHERE. And as soon as he pulled the first tarp up, the smell got 100 times worse. He came out and we didn't know what to do. Obviously this had been going on for some time. We called around to Utah disaster, AAA flood, The mold company and the cheapest quote we got was $2000 to clean it up, and then on top off that, we still had to find out where the leak was coming from, so one company recommended that we call American Leak Detection. That would cost even more, so Andy talked to my dad ( who owns a construction company, so he knows a little bit about houses :) and he came over yesterday and they decided to do it themselves. Let me tell you, they are my heroes!! I could not believe how absolutely nasty and disgusting it was! The pictures don't do it justice, and the smell.... OH MY GOSH. They cleaned it all out and found the leak. Apparently the main pipe from the kitchen sink and dishwasher was completely corroded and cracked. They cut out the bad pipe and replaced it with a new one and deoderized the crawl space. I can't believe how great it smells in the basement now! Well, after we aired it out all day yesterday. Andy hauled all the crap to the dump in a trailer and he said it smelled better at the dump than it had in our crawl space. He even pulled up next to a guy who was unloading a trailer and the guy asked Andy "What is that smell?!" Andy laughed and said "That was in my house" So, anyway thank you dad and Andy, you two are the greatest! That just gave me one more reason why I am so glad I'm a woman and not a guy.

Lagoon!

Andy and Baron on the lion

Daphne on the kitty

Jonah on the frog

On the train

Baron in the stroller having sooo much fun at Lagoon

This year we got season passes to Lagoon and it has been so much fun being able to go whenever we wanted. I think we've been about 10 times and they are good through Frightmares, so I am sure we will go at least a couple more times. Here are some pics of the good times...

Strep Throat...

Yuck... Two of my kids have strep and I'm just waiting for the other 2 to get it. On Sunday night Laylah started complaining that she didn't feel well and she had a fever. I gave her tylenol and put her to bed. She woke up in the night with the fever back and so I gave her more tylenol and put her back to bed. When she woke up in the morning she said she felt fine and I told her we should go see the dr. but she said " No! I want to go to school." She was acting fine ( no fever) so I let her. When I picked her up she said she felt really sick and she almost threw-up at school. I asked if she told her teacher and she said she forgot to. Well, I took her to the dr. and sure enough, it's strep. So, the Dr. said I could call him if the other kids got a fever and he would just call in a prescription. So on Wednesday, Jonah was fine in the morning and he went to school and then after his nap in the afternoon, he woke up with a fever of 104.3! I'm 2 for 2 in exposing all the kids at school to strep- I'm great, aren't I? So anyway, Jo's on antibiotics now too. Hopefully, (everyone cross your fingers!) we won't get anymore cases. Except Andy was saying this morning that he didn't fell very well.... Dang

Our New Puppy

This is Roxy (a little tribute picture) Dogs are hard to get good pictures of!

This is the only picture I have of Sadie, it's not a very good one, but I'll post more later

Everyone who reads this (what is there, like 3 of you? :) knows all about our dog Roxy getting hit by a car last May and how hard it was on our family. Well, our kids begged and begged ( and I begged too) to get a new dog. We did a couple of weeks ago, and we named her Sadie. She is a maltese/yorkie mix and she is so adorable. We all love her even though it is like having another baby in the house that you have to watch, clean up after, etc. She is really sweet, but I'm out of puppy mode and it's been hard getting back in. She's chews EVERYTHING and I'm constantly telling the kids to pick up their stuff and put their shoes away. She also likes to nip and I'll hear a little scream and one of the kids running away from her. I'm also tired of potty-training (Any ideas anyone?) Luckily, we still have nasty carpet that we can hopefully replace next year, so I really don't mind too much, it's just the cleaning it up part. Overall, we love her and the kids love having a dog again to play with and take on walks. She's a sweetie.

Baron and Rice Cereal

Baron and his "surrogate" mommy

All four of my silly little kiddies

What a cutie pie... I forgot to put him to bed and he just fell asleep on the couch

Always smiling... we call him Guy Smiley

ewww... yucky!

uhh, please don't throw-up!

Okay, so this poor baby of mine (#4, remember) is so neglected and I finally got around to giving him cereal, and it was hilarious! He loves it now, but these pictures are soooo funny! I was laughing so hard at the faces he was making. I love Baron so much, he is such a good and happy baby ( Don't be jealous, I deserve it!! I thought I might kill myself with my 2nd and 3rd) He sits and plays and talks to himself and rolls over and he's been trying to crawl recently. Laylah is like a little mom and she carts him around everywhere, puts him in his swing, puts him down for a nap, changes his diaper, puts him in his carseat, etc. etc. I LOVE having a child old enough to help me when I need it. But, he is a sweetie pie and we all adore him.

Back to School!

This is Laylah meeting her teacher, Mrs. Sessions


Sorry, I am still new at this and uploaded the image sideways- Laylahs first day of school


We were late on the first day ( I know, I'm terrible, I can't be on time anywhere!) so the principal had to escort Laylah to her class- at least we weren't the only ones! I got a lecture from the principal about how important it is for the kids to be on time and blah blah blah...

Jonah meeting his teacher Miss Rebecca

Jonah's first day of school

I wanted to start this blog a few months ago and never got around to it, so I decided I was going to post a couple of things that happened a few weeks ago. One of those was Laylah starting kindergarten (holy cow!! Am I old enough to have a kindergartner? I didn't think so...) and Jonah starting preschool. They are loving school by the way, especially Jonah who wanted to go all last year when Laylah was in preschool. Every time I pick him up he says " Mom, I just love Miss Rebecca!" It's so cute. And Laylah has a couple of friends from our ward in her class. They love school!

UGLY HUSBAND

Allergies suck, Saturday morning, no love last night, I do not support this blog.

Jonah's glasses

When I took Jonah to his 4 year check-up, his pediatrician thought he might need glasses. I couldn't get an appointment for two months, I finally was able to take him. At the appointment we were told his left eye had 80/20 vision and his right eye had 60/20 vision. The optomologist was surprised that he had never complained about not being able to see. Obviously our only solution was to get Jonah some glasses, so he gave us a prescription and told us to come back in six weeks to see if there is any progress. If it has not improved he will need a patch on his right eye so his left eye can "catch up" to his right eye. When we went to pick up his glasses it was exciting to see his face, he kept saying, "I can see!" He kept taking them on and off to see the difference. He hasn't complained about them and he is very good about wearing them. I think he looks so handsome. Hopefully he will not have to get the patch, aaaarrrrggghhhh Mateys!

Newest cousin

This is the newest member of the family, my niece Ella.  Rachel and I were pregnant at the same time, she and Baron are less than three months apart.  

Thanksgiving Point

Rachel, Ethan, Jonah, Kirsta, Annette, & Laylah with the scarecrow at Thanksgiving Point

The cousins looking at the hatched chicks
Ethan and Jonah looking at chicks
All the cousins!  Hard to get them to hold still for this picture!
Daphne riding the pony
Jonah on the pony
Laylah on the pony
My most favorite sister Rachel came up with her kids to visit from Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago.  We did tons of fun things while she was here.  One of them was going to Thanksgiving Point with all of the cousins.  We went to the farm and did pony rides, and then went down to the Gardens and splashed around in the Noah's Ark.  Super fun!