I'm So Glad When Daddy Comes Home

So Taft went to his 2nd Annual FJ Summit to Ouray, CO. He took Brayden, Carter and his brother Todd. They had a wonderful time 4wheelin all over the place. There were only about 200 other FJ's there. :) It was nice to have a little girl time here at home and for me to get my icky shower caulking removed and new fresh lovely caulk replaced. In case you want to know, my biggest tip for removing caulk between the plastic flooring piece and the tile is.... a butter knife! No kidding. It is flat and pointy and it gets the job done. But I did get blisters! No fun. That job is not high on my fun list! But I got it done and my shower looks much better without the grimy icky caulk in it. (Shows you how I have been such the fabulous house cleaner, now doesn't it!)

Oh ya, I was talking about Taft being gone. Anyway, he left Wednesday and came back home on Sunday and then a few hours later had to go to the airport to fly off to Chicago until Tuesday. Not cool! He had a meeting for work in Chicago and he had to plan it last minute. So what I am saying is that I missed him! That is too long for him to be gone and for me to be the only parent here. :) But I better get use to it because he will probably be traveling soon every week for about 2 months. I might get into a depression. Or maybe the house will just fall apart. Or maybe we will eat cereal every night he is gone. It will be interesting to see what happens.

Another kind of random tid-bit... Ellie has me sing "I am Like a Star Shining Brightly," and "I'm So Glad When Daddy Comes Home" for every nap and bedtime. It is our little song routine. Here is a little video of her singing the songs. She is pretty much cheesing it up, but she makes me laugh.

Ouch! But Ahhhh...

So the good old A/C wasn't working properly. And you can't have that in 95 degree weather now can you? Taft and I looked at the pipe outside that went from the A/C to the house and in that 90ish degree weather the pipe looked like it had been snowed on. It was all frozen up. The insulation on the pipe had busted off on part of it so we were hoping it was as simple as new insulation. NOPE! (How could it be that simple?) 800 hundred freaking dollars later and we are as good as new. Well not really good as new since we didn't get anything new except some refrigerant that costs.... $295.00 up to 2 pounds. The inside of our A/C looked like it was wearing a sweater, and no it isn't suppose to look like that. So that goop got all cleaned out and the inside thingy ma bob got cleaned out too. But 800 bucks! Shouldn't I get a brand new shiny new one?

I am so spoiled that I will pay 800 dollars to be cool in my house. Goodbye Disneyland, goodbye new wedding ring to replace the one that was lost last summer, goodbye new furniture, goodbye 800 dollars. I will miss you! (Yes, I know that I can't get any of that stuff for 800 dollars, but it would go a long way towards it! Or at least a medium way.) At least I am not sweating now!

Seriously, Another Birthday!

Happy Birthday to the 11 year old of the house, BRAYDEN!!!! We had to officially celebrate the big guys birthday a day early since he was heading out in the morning of his birthday to the FJ Summit. Go Ouray, Colorado. (I still need to go there someday). Taft and the boys and Todd left to have a blissful 4 days of 4 wheeling in the FJ with some other 220 FJ's. Fun! But anyway, I signed Brayden out of school for his Birthday Lunch at Pei Wei (Good choice Brayden). He was happy and we got full. I think the part he liked the best was that I let him get soda and he had like 3 cups of it :) Gotta give up some control for birthday celebrations! He took back some Krispy Kreme doughnuts for his class so they could all have a sugar high together. I am sure the teacher loved that! When Brayden got home he remembered that he didn't even give a doughnut to his teacher! Uh oh, not a great impression for the beginning of the school year. :) We will have to make up for that one!

We got to take the Ellie Monster with us too...

Now we get a break from Birthday celebrations until December. We need a break! I can't believe I am old enough to have an 11 year old. How can I have an 11 year old when I am only 25??? Ha! It will be crazy next year when he receives the Priesthood. I don't know where the time goes. But it is going somewhere. Brayden really is a great kid. It is tough to be the oldest kid in our family! He is smart and a great piano player and so much more. Love you Brayden!

My Little Ducklings

I took Brayden, Kennedi and Carter on a bike ride with me Saturday night. I warned them ahead of time there would be big hills and it was a longer than usual bike ride. Carter doesn't have gears on his bike so it would be hardest for him, but luckily for me, he is a tough guy and really doesn't complain much. Friday morning Sharleen and I had gone jogging a new way and I didn't start my Garmin so I didn't know how far we had ran. So I enlisted the kids to go with me on our bikes to see how far my jog was, cuz it felt REALLY far on Friday. :) The kids did great, the weather was perfect and we remembered water this time! We almost ran over a dog, we went on gravel, dirt, concrete and asphalt, we got wet by the sprinklers and had a great time. They were so tough and worked hard and followed me like 3 cute little ducklings in a row. I need to do this more often. I really want to be a more active person and family and a bike ride is a great way to do that. It will be great when Ellie is big enough to go out on her own! We missed her and Taft.

Oh, we went 4.39 miles.

School Year 2008-2009

School's in! School's in! Now that was a quick break. Today was the first day of school and the kids were excited. It is always exciting to get new school supplies and a new teacher. Fun, fun! The kids first day was great! They were all happy when I picked them up after school. They all had a great day! We went and got the obligatory ice cream cone/sundae for a wonderful first day.

So what was great about the first day of school?
Brayden - "We barely did any work and Mrs. McCullar was very humorous. And the accordion folder." (He gets to use an accordion file to keep organized, hopefully, and he is all jazzed about it. I hope it works!)

Kennedi - "I don't know, it was just great! I don't know why I was scared of Ms. Charlton!"

Carter - "I got to meet Bethany more and I got to sit next to her, she's nice." (There was a new girl from another track in his class today, I am glad he is somewhat social!)

I hope they have a great year!

The 4th

We had a great 4th of July. We drove up to good ol' Casper, Wyoming (it was hardly windy! WooHoo!) The kids played, played and played some more. The adults talked, ate, read and hung out, ahhh, it was nice. It is always fun to get together with family, and I love how our kids match up so well with Chad and Patrea's kids. We got to watch the fireworks in a great place that wasn't crowded. We hiked up to a beautiful waterfall. The nice thing about the waterfall was it was so close and we hardly had to hike to get to it. So very kid friendly. Chad, Jace and Brayden braved the cold, cold water and stood under the waterfall, brrrr. It was a great little trip. We got to see Tyson get blessed and he is such a little cutie. He is a sweet little guy and I am glad I got to snuggle with him again.

Cold water!

Up at the falls

Waiting for the fireworks

Ellie Girl has a Birthday!

Wow! My baby baby is 3! She was so excited for her Birthday. She has been saying for months now, "My birthday is July 2nd." For the past month I have asked her what she wanted for her birthday, her reply was "a candy cane." Wow! What an exciting present! It is hard to find candy canes in July, so her wish didn't come true. But you know what? She didn't even notice. She works really really hard to only get 3 fingers up at a time to show you how old she is. She sang the happy birthday song to herself a lot and we sang to her too. Grandma and Grandpa Pugsley called and tried to sing to her, but she busted out into song and she took over. It was cute. They also sent her 3 dollar bills and she promptly tried to give them to Kennedi and Carter (since they are the ones usually carrying around money), but I made her keep it. So a few minutes later someone left out some scissors and she decided to cut up one of the dollars. So now she is down to 2 dollars. :) I told my parents they should have sent quarters. :)

We enjoyed dinner at loud, fun Red Robin with Kat, Todd and their girls. The kids were so excited to have the workers at Red Robin sing to her and give her ice cream. She was sweet and shared the whole thing with Paige and Logan. We went home after dinner for the rainbow cake and presents. This age is fun. It made me excited for Christmas with a 3 year old.

Looking back from when Ellie was born, it is totally amazing that we even have the joys of this loud, noisy, busy, funny little 3 year old. Her first 9 months were a scary time with hospital stays, chemo, JXG, CMV, broviac lines, NICU's, PICU's, pneumonia, bone marrow biopsies, liver biopsy, transfusions, x-rays, MRI's, CT scans, doctors and nurses. We came so close to losing her. And I am ever grateful that we didn't. She brings a big light to this family. She has been our biggest handful, but we will keep her. :) She is so healthy now and has a huge spirit that explodes out of her round little body every day. Love you Ellie girl!

Ellie singing her birthday song