Our Spring Vacation

Hi everyone! I hope this blog post finds you all happy, healthy and ready for summer! We sure are! Lucky for us, we have settled back down a little bit into our normal routine. April sure was a busy month for us! I participated in my first triathalon last month and had an awesome support team to cheer me on along the way. Just a few days after that, we were finally able to make our way up to Washington to visit with our Jordan/Elmore family and had a blast! The traveling part was really not so great, with a 3 hour drive from Vernal to Salt Lake, a layover in Portland and then finally arriving in Spokane. The kids did really well considering all of that, but boy they sure were happy to get off of that last flight! And of course, what would a family vacation be without jam-packing it with every possible outing? We had it all! We went to Jump and Bounce, Chuck-E-Cheese (in the same day of course!), went 4-wheeling, had a bonfire, and Easter Egg hunt, an Easter pinata, went shopping, Ella lost a tooth, Brock decided to throw in a trip to the ER for good measure (he's fine, it was nothing...literally!), and we even got snowed in on our last day there! We did miss a few people, due to the whole ER trip and then being snowed in, but we had a great time with those that we did get to see. We're definitely going to try and come around the same time next year!


Then of course, our last night there, Brock and Miri decided that Chad and I would not be needing any sleep and wanted to party all hours of the night! We of course had two more flights and a three hour drive in order to get home. We were wiped out! Chad went back to work right away and we hadn't even been home for a full 48 hours when I loaded the kids back up in the car and we drove 2 1/2 hours out to my sister's house so that we could get up the next day and run a 5K. That was a lot of fun as well and the kids did great! We came home later that afternoon and I think it goes without saying that we became serious homebodies for about a week after that.

Future plans for us are exciting as always! Ella has 2 more weeks of school before summer vacation. She and her brother and sister will spend a few days with their cousins and grandparents while I do band camp with my high school students the first week in June. Then we will be busy with marching band/color guard practices throughout all of June. I also hope to squeeze in another triathalon (not an indoor swim this time folks...brrrrr!) and start some potty-training with the Brock-man. (Ahhhh!) Ella will be doing some swim classes soon and was working hard last weekend with Chad to get her bike fixed up. She wants to run a kids triathalon in June that is a 50M swim, 3 mile bike ride and 1/3 mile run. What a trooper! Miri is always chasing after her brother and sister, never wanting to be left out of the fun! And Chad is working hard as alwas! He puts in so many hours without a complaint and no one deserved that vacation time more than he did! I'm hoping that I can kidnap him for a few days over the summer and get away, just the two of us! Take care, love you all!





Toothless!














Brock in the ER...he just looks like he's on his deathbed, doesn't he?






We were snowed in for a few hours, but Cobe and Ella didn't seem to mind!















Some of our Brock family.








Meer-Cat!

Well, here we are again! I think since the last time I blogged we have had Christmas, New Year's, two birthdays, a handful of soccer games, several swim classes, lots of colds, the flu (twice!), moved Brock to a "big boy" bed, Miri started walking and Ella (with some major help from Chad) sold over 200 boxes of girl scout cookies!

I'm happy to report that everyone is doing well and thankfully we are all much healthier than we were this time last month. Ella is keeping busy with school where we were delighted to hear that she is doing amazingly well. She scored above her grade level in several areas during their testing last month. She also goes to girl scouts once a week and sold 232 boxes of girl scout cookies! Now, more than half of those orders came from Chad's work, but 75 of them were phone calls she made or doors that she knocked on. She worked really hard and is really excited about it. I'm sure we will be slightly less thrilled about a week from now when those cookies invade our house and we begin the process of delivering and collecting money! (Do Chad and I get prizes for all of our hard work?) Ella is also playing indoor soccer right now and having a lot of fun with that. The hardest thing for the kids to remember is not to steal the ball from their own teammate!

Brock has officially moved to a "big boy" bed, which he has learned to love. He definitely loves the part where he can get out of bed on his own and has even begun to be sucessful at opening his own door (yeah, I've totally tried to child-proof knobs...he just pulls them off). He and I go to a mommy and me swim class twice a week and he loves it. Last class unfortunately, we had to leave because I forgot to pack my suit in our bag (strange, they have this rule that says you HAVE to wear one in the pool) and he threw an absolute fit! He was so angry he did not get to swim. The food issues continue pretty normally but every couple of weeks he decides to randomly try something new...which is usually followed by a funny face and a dramatic show of fake gagging. Whatever, we will take what we can get I guess!

If you haven't heard, Miri (or Meer-cat as well all call her) started walking! She took her first steps officially on her birthday and is attempting to pick up the pace so she can run everywhere. I guess walking just takes too long when you have bookshelves to clear, cabinents to re-organize, laundry to unfold, and carpets to color on! She loves to explore the halls during church (whoever heard of class anyway?) and follow her brother and sister around wherever they go. She might be full of trouble, but I don't know what I would do without that adorable little smile and musical laugh of hers!

Our plans for the next few months are hopefully going to be exciting! We should be getting to WA pretty soon and then we'll be taking a trip with our Brock side of the family to Van Couver this summer. We look forward to both!

All right, hair or no hair, is she not just the prettiest baby girl in the world?

My little angels decided to raid the m&m jar when I wasn't looking!

Yes, We are Still Alive!

Whew! I know some of you were sure that I'd never do this again, but here I am! We have been so busy that it's hard to know where to begin. I started coaching the Colorguard back in mid-May and since then our life has been crazy! In June, I took Miri with me to a 4-day long band camp with the high school kids while Ella and Brock split their time between Chad and my mom. Almost right after band camp, we headed off to CA to see my sister Brittany and Mark get married in the LA temple and visit with some other family down there. On our way back, we stopped in Vegas and took the kids to see the Knights At the Round Table show, which they all LOVED! Miri even had her moment in the spotlight (literally!) as Merlin came over and commented on how cute she was. Chad and I were pretty proud to have the spotlight on our baby girl and hear the entire arena give her an, "Awwwww!"

We had two parades in July that Brock and Miri marched in with me (more like rode in the stroller) lots of practice in August, and then Ella headed off to first grade! Going to school all day was challenging at first, but at this point she is doing well, constantly coming home with fun stories to share with us. During my practices during the schoolday, Brock and Miri sometimes went to a baby-sitter's house, stayed home with daddy, and even tagging along with me. They have put up with so much over the last few months, and have been great about it! A big thank you to all of our family members and friends who have helped out with babysitting as I have been at various shows and especially a big thank you to Chad for taking 4 days off of work to stay home with the kids, while I went down to St. George with my students. By the last day, I was MORE than ready to come home. Having to fight the urge to steal some stranger's child was proof that I was going through withdrawls!

As for our family, everyone is doing great! Ella is enjoying first grade, learning how to read, and looks forward to girl scouts every week. Brock enjoys walking to the bus-stop with me and he just lights up when he sees the school bus come around the corner! Miri is crawling everywhere and getting into everything! She helped herself to my wallet, Brock's sandwhich, and even dove into Moby Dick the other day. Chad was asked to take a class with his company in Salt Lake a few weeks ago and he was really excited to get to meet the CEO of the company as well as one of the founders. We had fun on Halloween, taking our little Leia, Obi-Wan, and Ewok out. For now, we are all looking forward to a relaxing Holiday season at home this year!

Brock 'n Roll Mania!

What a banner partial-week this has been. I'd just like to share the events and hopefully they will give you your good laugh for the day.
Sunday: We pull into the parking lot at church, Chad parks the car, a few comments are made about having to walk across the parking lot, and then we hear a sigh from the back seat and a complaint: "Oh great. This is going to be a pain in the a$$." Both my and Chad's eyes bugged out of our heads as we quickly demanded to know where the new vocabulary word had been learned. The culprit? George of the Jungle. A legnthy discussion followed on how we don't need to use that word, and gave her some acceptable substitutions. And then, if we continue to use such words, all movies will be taken away for an extended period of time. She said she was sorry and wouldn't do it again. We felt she was being genuine, so we were glad.
Monday: Doctor visits for Miri and Brock, who's coughs will just not let up! Brock diagnosed with RSV (again) and Miri is given an RSV test that comes back negative. While at the doctor Brock is climbing all over the exam room, standing up on a chair and nearly falls off. Thanks to mom reflexes, a potential disaster is averted. I have to add how sensitive and kind Ella is about her brother's and sister's feelings. She rememberd getting an RSV test a little over a year ago herself and when the nurse comes in to do Miri's she cowered in the corner, knowing how difficult this is going to be for Miri. I love how she loves them!
Tuesday: While doing my hair, the phone rings. I answer, forgeting to close my bathroom and bedroom door, providing a perfect window of opportunity for mischief making. I hang up only to find that the house is quiet. Too quiet. I find Brock sitting on my bathroom floor...holding a bottle of body wash...opened...all over his fingers...smeared around his mouth. I didn't think he had eaten much because the look on his face did not exactly say, "yummy!" Just to be sure, I call poison control. Brock is is normal self the rest of the day.
Wednesday: Brock discovers Ella's spray watter bottle. While I cook, Brock (in a matter of minutes) manages to drench his face and jammies, and I notice the hallway carpet feels damp. He thinks its halarious and is proud of his new skill.
Thursday: Outside, Brock discovers a pot still containing soil. He begins to play in it and I think, "What harm can this do? Boys get dirty." I take Miri inside, put her down, and come back outside to get Brock. I lean down to pick him up only to find that he has potting soil in his hair, on his hands, down the front of him, and caked around his mouth. As we are washing, he throws up. Once again, I am on the phone with poison control. While on the phone with them I look over at Brock and see that he is standing in a puddle of pink strawberry smoothie, leftover from our afternoon snack. He then decides to take off and tracks smoothie and soil all through the kitchen. As I'm cleaning that mess up, I remeber that I didn't put the baby gate up. And sure enough, Brock is in the kitchen, making an attempt to climb the stepladder which was leaning up against the wall. And it's only Thursday! Two more days to go still! But before you decide to call child services, I'd like to defend myself: I'm usually more put together than this! (Sorry, that's the best I could do right now!) I don't know what else to say. I suppose my husband said it best when he said that the kids have really let me have it this week.
But just when I'm not sure what to do with them anymore, they flash me a smile and my heart melts! I sure do love those silly kids! Miri is great, as always. (I'm sure her trouble-making days will arrive soon!) She is starting to smile at us and has become a bit more social. It is fun!
Wish me luck in surviving the rest of my week (Chad will be home, so I'll have re-enforcements) and hopefully next week will be better!

Welcome Miri!

So I know that Miri is officially 8 weeks old now and I still haven't had time to do a new post yet, but deal with it people! My days are so full of Miri feedings, Brock snack times, getting Ella ready for school, putting kids down for naps, cooking for the family, 10-15 diaper changes, baths, and a shower for myself, that I hardly have time for much else! Although I love to blog, it has definitely taken a backseat. The priorities are making sure the kids are clean, fed, and each get 5-10 minutes of one on one time with Mommy. If I happen to have any extra time, I try to get a quick workout for myself in and then start attacking the laundry and dishes at warp speed! (And to prove my point, I am sitting here at 2am writing this blog, although I probably won't get to finish it for at least another day or so.) It certainly is busy, but I'm learning to manage.

Since I haven't blogged since Miri's arrival, I'll share that story. And to save all of your stomachs, I'll just pick up at the part when we went to the hospital. We had a scheduled induction for the morning that she arrived, and I ended up waking up just a few minutes before our alarms were to go off, only to find that my water had broke! When we got the the hospital though, I still wasn't in labor, so they gave me some Pitocin. Once the contractions did start I called for the epidural. It didn't help much! Around lunchtime, my parents and sister Brenda arrived to check on us for a bit. They hung out for awhile and figured they would go see Ella and Brock and wait for us to call. We joked about them staying if it was time to push, but figured I'd still be a few more hours. Only a few seconds later I felt like it was that time! The nurse came in to check as my Dad and Brenda excused themselves and I was under strict orders to do absolutely no pushing until my doctor arrived. This was because she was nearly out. The doctor raced in a few minutes later, I gave 3 pushes right in a row, and Miri just kind of fell out. It was a fabulous way to have a baby; I highly recommend it!

Things continue to go well at home. Miri is a great baby who really enjoys sleeping for long stretches at night (again, something I highly recommend!). She eats well and has the cheeks, 2nd chin and thighs to prove it! She takes good naps and simply requests to be held every once in awhile. She is a FABULOUS baby! I keep saying that if I knew for sure that they would all be like her, I'd be more than willing to have 10 or 20 more! But since we don't think this is very realistic, I think we'll stick with the status quo for a few years!

Brock is happy with his baby sister. He loves her so much and gives her giant slobbery kisses all day long! When she cries, he tries to shush her and will even attempt to rock her. It really is cute. He surprises us every day with how much he understands, and how much he tries to get away with! He gets this adventurous look in his eye and smile on his face, and you know that he's up to something! Of course, with this desire to explore comes some not so fun things....you know, the tantrums that are inevitable when we have to take away Ella's scissors from him, or close the bathroom door so that he doesn't play in the toilet again, or tell him no, he can't have cookies and m&m's for dinner. He can be a troublemaker, but he also has a mellow side. At least once a day, Chad or I will go to check on him and find him in his room, sitting quietly, looking at his books. Brock just LOVES his books. Of course I get a little sick of the same ones over and over, and am proud to say that I know "Old Hat, New Hat," "Pajamma Time," and "Snuggle Puppy" all by heart. But Chad and I both love that Brock loves to read so much.

Ella is doing very well in school and her reading skills are coming right along. She has had her frustrated moments with it but gets excited when we point out to her how much she has improved in just a matter of weeks. We had her parent/teacher conference just last week and she is above average on just about everything. She's also above average in the "talking a little too much at her table" department. There's a shock! She is also a tremendous helper at home. She sometimes gets frustrated that Brock and Miri both still need so much from Mom and Dad, but usually she is pretty understanding and ready to jump in and help. One of her favorite ways to help is to read with Brock or play "puppy" with him while I feed Miri. It always makes me laugh to see the two of them crawling around the floor, chasing each other, barking, or panting, tongues out and all! We are still trying to get over the shock of her transition from "little girl" to "tween" though. She chooses the Jonas Brothers over Princess now and tells us how Chad Dillon Cooper on the Disney is the handsomest Chad she knows. And then of course, she remembers that her dad's name is Chad and reluctantly adds him to the list.

Chad of course is not thrilled about many of these developments, but what father is? He's just hoping that she will give us a few more years before she brings home her first date! And between Ella, Brock and Miri, Chad doesn't have time for much else besides work. When he is home, he helps me as much as he can, so much that I wonder how I handle it all when he's NOT home! He was proud to be able to bless Miri at church last week, with my dad, Ian, Eric, Mark, and Chris. We were so happy to have so many Priesthood holders in our family that could participate. While it was a great day, know that those of you who could not be there were missed, Loyal and Javier especially!

For the moment, what are we looking forward to? Full nights of sleep from Miri, Brock turning 18 months old so that he can go to nursery at church, and Ella is always looking forward to the next play date. And we are looking forward to a trip to CA in June. My sister Brittany will be getting married to her long-time sweetheart, Mark, whom we love! When they are married, we are going to be able to have my entire family in the temple together for the first time and we know that those moments will be so special. To sit and be reminded of the love that God has for us and of the blessings He wants to share with us, will be beautiful. We miss you all and pray that God will be with each of you!