Disneyland Part 1...

Holy crap. I can't believe it has been so long since I last posted. I mean obviously a lot has had to have happened in the last year, right?! Oh well. I can tell you there is definitely a bunch I wouldn't like to repeat like Riley's tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy and then his post op bleed and emergency surgery. Or my knee injury at the trampoline place that ended in surgery, no walking for 4 weeks, a blood clot, and a ridiculous amount of fast food because poor Jeff had to work at least 40 hours a week, take care of the kids every need, take care of me, do laundry, keep the house standing, AND worry about dinner. Sigh. I'm glad that's all over! So let's focus on something awesome! DISNEYLAND! Jeff's parents go to Disney every year. They have a time share with Marriott and they trade it in or something and stay at the Newport Coast Villas. Um ya, they are awesome. They are condos with 2 bedrooms, a full kitchen, living room, dining area, 2 balconies, 2 bathrooms, amazing pool views and a short walk to the beach! After our excitement over the last few months we were both ready to get away! We were trying to make sure we had an awesome time, but cut costs too. We knew we were going to need a car down there no matter what so we decided to drive vs fly. I am a big proponent for driving at night while the kids sleep because I really don't want to listen to Addie scream and freak the whole way. She is kinda in a phase where after she has been in the car for like 10 minutes she is ready to get out and has no problem letting you know it. So driving at night was definitely the answer. I am totally a night owl so I wasn't really worried about it, although I did have to work the morning we left and was up at 430 am the day but whatever. We left on Friday night at like 10:00 after fighting about packing the car haha. A mans packing vs a womans packing...need I say more?! Anyway we stopped by the library to drop our books off in the drop box so we didn't get any fees while we were gone (hahaha Erika will appreciate this!) and we filled up the gas tank and off we went. Well we got to centerville/woods cross and there was an accident blocking all of the lanes but one! Awesome way to start a trip right? I guess better them than us...I hope no one was seriously injured though! Anyway, so the kids are asleep in the back and Jeff gets all cozied up. (I don't think cozied is a word, so just pretend). So here I am cruising by myself. It was kind of peaceful. I was a little nervous about animals running out in front of us or someone else falling asleep and crossing over into our lane, but other than that all was well. There was hardly anyone else on the road except for an occasional semi. Jeff and I had decided that we would switch driving in Cedar City. Well as we approached Cedar, Jeff was fast asleep and I was feeling pretty good and I knew we had enough gas to make it to St. George. We made it to St. George in about 4 hours and 20 minutes. I drove about 80 MPH the whole time. Jeff was pretty excited to wake up and be closer to our destination than he thought he would be! So we got gas, a large Mtn Dew and we were on the road again. Both kids had woken up at our pit stop so it was kind of a pain going to sleep because Addie kept yelling. Oh well. So I finally fell asleep for about 2-2.5 hours. I woke up and we were pretty close to Barstow, CA. I noticed the tire pressure light was on and asked Jeff about it and he said it had come on about 100 miles back but he thought it was just due to the change in temperature. My tires tend to be pretty sensitive to temperatures and even if they are 1 psi off the light comes on, so we didn't really think much about it. We got to Barstow and needed gas and food. We stopped at Ihop (which Riley exclaimed, MOM we have hipop in our land too! Ha! Probably the best quote of the trip!) Well while we were waiting for our breakfast (which took f.o.r.e.v.e.r) Jeff decided to check on the car since all of our crap was in there. He came back and told me we had a flat tire. Awesome. So we finished breakfast and then headed to a tire shop just up the road.

The Flat

The Nail

The guy came out and looked at the tire and asked how long we had been driving on it. Jeff told him 100 miles (haha we sound stupid lol) and the guy said well that is 1 of the problems. Besides driving on a flat for a wicked long time, the nail has super close to the wall of the tire so he couldn't patch it. We HAD to buy a brand new tire. $106.18 later we were back on the road. We were going to take the kids to a park so they could get some wiggles out but we drove to a park and the houses near it had bars on the windows and we were pretty confident we could get shot...so we left. Well Barstow to Newport Beach is only a little over 100 miles so we weren't too worried about the wiggles. So we continued on our way. Addie didn't eat a whole lot at breakfast but a bit later decided she was hungry. I had seen an idea on pinterest where you pack a bunch of snacks in an old wipes container. I decided to try it out, and boy was it awesome! It made all the snacks way more accessible and Riley thought it was neat he could look at all his snacks and pick what he wanted in what order instead of me listing off stuff and him deciding. So we filled Addie up on apple sauce, goldfish, pringles, and fruit snacks (super healthy I know, but easy to eat in the car.) So she eats and then they want stuff to do. Well Riley gets car sick so there wasn't much I was going to allow him to do in the car. In fact, I don't think he did anything but sit there. Well I let Addie do some coloring and then she started to get whiny so I gave her the iPad. She was still being fussy so I took it from her to try and get a movie going and the next thing I know she is throwing up everywhere! I am like are you kidding me?!?! We were like 30-45 minutes from our destination and Jeff was like we are not pulling over! Her car seat was covered in puke, as was she.

He was like we just have to get to the condo. So she cried for a bit and then fell asleep. In her own puke. Sad. So we get there and we literally have 3 hours until check in. We knew this was going to be the case but figured it wouldn't matter cuz we could go hang out at the beach or find a playground (because we weren't in the ghetto anymore) or something. But that isn't the case when you have a child sleeping in their own vomit. So I go to the registration desk and let them know we are there and if the rooms becomes available early then we want to check in. The gave us keys to use the amenities while we waited. So we went and parked and waited for Addie to wake up. I cased out the place while we waited. When she woke up we took her entire car seat out with her still in it. We then took her out, stripped her down to her diaper and started the cleaning process. I took her to the bathroom at one of the pools and literally gave her a bath in the sink including washing her hair. I felt homeless haha. Essentially, we were. I just prayed no one would walk in while I was bathing my naked child in the sink of a high class resort. Luckily, no one did. We went back up to the car and Jeff had taken her car seat apart and was scrubbing it with wipes. Yet again we hit the white trash status. Well by that time about an hour or hour and a half had passed. We decided to go get some lunch and wait for Jeff's parents to show up. They were driving too, but didn't take the daredevil drive at night route. Well just so you know Newport Beach pretty much has NO fast food. And not that that was our first choice or what we wanted, it WAS the easiest. Although, it was not easy to find a place! So we ate and Jeffs parent's had shown up by that point. We met them at the condo and only had to wait another 20-30 minutes or so before we could actually enter our condo. Boy oh boy was it nice to finally have a place we could sorta call home! We threw the puke infested items into the washer and dryer and unpacked all our stuff and just relaxed. Ok this is getting wicked long. I guess that's what happens when you don't blog forever...So for now, this is to be continued...

Preschool

I have SO much to blog about. However, I couldn't let the night pass without quickly blogging about my conversation with Riley today after we picked him up from daycare/preschool. For those of you who don't know, I've gone back to work. That is another blog in and of itself, but I will say it is such a good thing for so many reasons and it is working VERY well for ALL of us. I am very humbled and honored to be a part of the Primary Children's Medical Center team! Anyway, when we picked Riley up today I asked him what he learned at school today. Normally he says he does not know. Today he said "Timeout." So I asked him if he had to go to timeout today and he said yes. I said, "How come?" He responded, "I run around and around and around and throw balls." He then proceeded to tell me, "You run OUTSIDE not INSIDE." Soooooo I guess he was being the little hooligan he is and finally had someone else catch him! Hahaha! He is so cute and loves his school. I 100% recommend it to EVERYONE with kids 2 and older (they don't take kids under 2). She is our neighbor and has been in the field for like 11 years or something and is so good with kids and the center is brand new and blah blah blah haha. I will stop rambling, but for real, ask me if you have questions. Anyway, I wanted to document what Riley finally learned at school! Love that little boy :)

My Sweet Baby Girl

Dear Addie,

You are almost 6 months old now. I can't believe 6 months have already passed since you made your grand entry into this world. You are such a joy to have around. There are so many things going on in your little life and I don't ever want to forget them, so I thought I'd write you this letter. One day when you are older, I think you'll appreciate it. Addie, you are such a sweet spirit. Every morning when you wake up you give me the BIGGEST smile ever. It melts my heart. Luckily, you got that trait from your daddy, because I HATE mornings. In fact, any time you wake up, even from a power nap, you grace us with your big gummy smile. You love love love your feet. You found them at the beginning of this month. You play with them lots. Lately you have been sticking them in your mouth. You are super flexible, just like your brother was, and still is. You love to blow raspberries. Even while you are eating your bottle. It makes for interesting feedings, but it is super cute. I will say, it is a bit noisy during Sacrament meeting though. When I change your diaper you love me to sing you the song "If I Die Young" by The Band Perry. They play that song nonstop on the radio and I love it. You like it when I sing pretty much any song to you. I wondered what I sounded like so I recorded myself on my iPhone the other day and then promptly deleted it after listening. I'm sorry I'm not a better singer my sweet girl. You've been rolling over for about a month and a half now. In the last few days you've been pushing up a lot. I think you'll be crawling in no time. I guess we better dig the baby gate out of storage. When you drink your bottle you like to hold on to our fingers and you lift you left leg in the air. You even fall asleep with your leg in the air sometimes. You like to play with your feet while you are eating too. You are so silly. Everything goes in your mouth. And when I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING! Your hands, our hands, toys, hair, books, phones, etc. Anything and everything you can get. I'm note sure if you are teething or not. Your brother didn't get teeth until way later in life. I guess only time will tell! You sleep really well at night. For that, I am grateful! I need my precious sleep, and so do you! I trained you from day 1 to be a good sleeper. I just can't handle life without a full nights rest. You sleep from about 8:30 pm to anywhere between 7 and 9 am. It is glorious. You also take 2 legit naps a day. Your first one is about 2 hours after you wake up and lasts about 3-4 hours. Your next one is about 2 hours after you wake up from your first one and it is only about 1-2 hours. You are definitely a baby of schedule. If you get thrown off of it, man are you one mad baby! You love to stand. You have since you were a wee wee one. Like wee as in 3 months! We gave you your first taste of baby oatmeal on our trip to Illinois. You really weren't sure WHAT to think about it. We don't give it to you on a regular basis. Only really because you don't seem to need it much yet. We have tried carrots and sweet potatoes too. You love sweet potatoes. The other day you ate an entire container of them! I'm trying to avoid the sweet stuff for a little bit so you don't reject the veggies. Unlike your brother, you have chubby thighs! It is fun to have a baby with some baby fat. You still seem little though. You most definitely still fit in your 3 month clothes, but we have ventured into a few 6 month things from time to time. No matter what, you will ALWAYS been my LITTLE girl! I love you and I am so grateful you chose MY family to come to. I love love love you!

XOXOX

Your mom

Yarn

So I want to learn how to crochet. I think it would be fun. Why not add another project to my list with all the free time I have! *chuckle* Anyway, I was telling my mom this the other day and she was like oh I know how to crochet! (I had no idea she knew!) So we are going on vacation in a little bit and my mom is going to meet us there and join the party so I decided to go buy a few burp cloths that she could teach me on. So yesterday I popped into Sew N Save in Layton. They have DARLING fabric and they have blankets and bibs and burp cloths all ready to be crocheted. So, I take the kids in with me and my carrying Addie around and Riley has his "Go-Go packpack" (Diego backpack) with him. I show him the toys he can play with and I go back over to look at the different fabrics to see what I want to use for this new little project. About 5 minutes later Riley comes running over to tell me about the fire truck toy he found and he is so excited! He goes back to playing with it and I go back to shopping through the bibs. Probably another 5-7 minutes go by and I finally decide what I want, pay for it, and go to get Riley. That is when I notice it is rather quiet. I'm like oh man what is he doing?! I get over to the toys and Riley has not one but TWO balls of yarn that he has taken off the shelf and unrolled! Not completely unrolled, but 1 is probably like 1/3 of the way and the other is just a little bit. I'm like are you kidding me?!?! He tries to sneak it into his little backpack and I'm like HELLO that is stealing!!!! So I pick up the yarn and bring it to the cash register and I'm like I guess I am buying these now too. The cute old people working there just laugh and say well we can probably roll this one up and it will be ok. So I buy the one that is like 1/3 of the way unrolled. Riley keeps saying I'm sorry Mama,, I'm sorry Mama! Honestly, I wasn't really mad, it was funny. But really?! I mean I know he is obsessed with tying things and his tape measure and string and stuff, but what possessed him to do this? And it was brown! Why not pick a cute color that I can use?! He was so happy we bought it though! Here are a few pictures of when we got home. It is now one big ball of yarn and he wanted me to unknot it all yesterday! He was freaking out and crying about it....I'm like uhhhh that is one big knot! Haha.

Friends

This is more of a thought provoking blog than anything else really. So take it for what it is worth and let it be that. What IS a friend exactly? I've kind of been reflecting and asking myself that lately. We all have people we love to be around, have fun with, tell secrets to, etc. You know, I am talking about people other than your spouse. I have a few people I am friends with but when I am around them I end up grumpy because they are grumpy, or swear because they swear and it rubs off, or gossip because they gossip. It has been said those who gossip with you are the ones who gossip about you. So why am I still "friends" with these certain people?
What makes someone a friend and not just an acquaintance? What makes you want to call someone and invite them to do something with you or with a group of people? Or what makes you NOT call someone to do something with them? Like especially if you call them a "friend". Facebook and blogging and things of that a nature are like a double edged sword. It is fun to keep in touch with people and see what they are doing, but what about when they post/blog things like the awesome play date, or girls night, or lunch date, etc, they had and you wonder why you weren't invited? Especially when the group they hung out with are people you are all "friends" with. It makes you wonder.
Jeff and I had this conversation the other night. That is why this is all being brought up. We were talking about who are "friends" are. I don't have family close by so I depend on my friends for things like shopping and movies and stuff like that. Jeff's family is about 30-45 min away but we aren't exactly the best of friends and I don't think I have ever been invited to do anything with his mom or sister or sister in law except for family events (which is fine, I'm not complaining, that is just the way it is). In fact, most nights, including the weekends you can find Jeff and I at home, by ourselves (well with our kids). We have a few other couples we hang out with on RARE occasions, and none of them are from Syracuse. Interesting, huh? Jeff is pretty much 100% a homebody. It doesn't bother him at all. And really it didn't bother me until recently, when I started reading about all these things my "friends" are doing with our other "friends", but I'm not invited to. Haha, now this looks like I am begging for friends that want to do things with me. Nope, not really. It's ok. I've invited a few friends to do stuff recently and it's been fun. I think I would rather build long lasting relationships with them and know I can count on them and they can count on me and know it will be a good time and we will laugh and have a ton of fun rather than get drug down and be unhappy. But why call someone a "friend" if you aren't going to include them?

PS. If you live more than like 30 minutes away you are not included in this rant (AKA Annie!).

Long Hiatus = A million posts in one!

Oh man I have totally been a blog slacker lately! Lots has happened since my last post too! Addie had her 4th month appointment at the beginning of June. She is still my little girl! I thought Riley was little, but I think she is even smaller than he was! She weighed 11 lb 14 oz (that was with a giant wet diaper on though, so I think it was probably more like 11 lb 7 oz without the diaper)- 20% and was 23 1/4 inches- 25%. I was kinda confused how she is smaller than Riley but actually making it onto the charts since he didn't...then someone reminded me boys and girls have different charts! Ha! Anyway, she was a trooper for her shots, although she DOES scream until she goes purple...it's really sad. However, she is pretty good for the rest of the day!

4 months old!
In June I also finished my medical transcription course...finally! I feel like it took forever. I guess having a baby and really struggling with it kinda threw a wrench into the schooling for a little while. I was really excited to find out that I had also PASSED the final! A lot of people don't pass it on the first time so I was really really relieved that I had passed. I didn't get honors or high honors though so I am going to take it again to try and get a higher score.
June was also my birthday month! I've decided I still think my birthday is super fun even though I'm not a kid. Jeff and I have been trying to be better about presents and not giving in early or anything (like we did at Christmas and LOVED it). So he kept my present until the night before so I could use it on my birthday if I wanted to. I was spending the day at one of my besties (Andrea) while our car was in the shop for a recall and to get an overall check before we drove it across the country to Illinois. Anyway, he got me the first season of Pretty Little Liars! Ha! I love love love that show. It is one of my guilty pleasures. Anyway, it has gotten some really good use (more on that later)! We also went to Cafe Rio for dinner (it is on my diet with a few modifications...yum!) while Andrea and her husband, Joe, watched the kids. Riley loves Joe more than he loves us so it was a win-win situation for all!
So speaking of our car, after the check up we decided we were just going to trade it in a get something new. It had a electrical issue that they couldn't really diagnose and we didn't want to worry about it breaking down on us on the long drive with both kids. Plus, it was out of warranty so no matter when we had to get it fixed it was going to cost us more $$ than we wanted to spend on it and we had to do some general repairs to it to get it ready for the trip. Instead of forking over cash into a car that we didn't plan on keeping for too much longer anyway we decided to get a new one! We looked into a lot of options. We wanted something bigger since we have 2 car seats and whenever we buy something we have to ask to borrow someones car. We didn't want to spend like 30k on something so we did some research and found out some good info. We test drove a few different things and ended up with the new Elantra Touring. It is essentially the same thing as our old car, but it has more room in the front and back and it is also a hatch back, which we LOVE. It makes loading stuff into the back like 500000000000 times easier! Hyundai hasn't always been the most popular car maker, but we sure love ours! In fact, the new Elantra (not the touring, just the regular one) gets like 40 miles per gallon on the freeway. And it is a super super cute car! We love our Hyundai and definitely recommend them!

Our new car!

Here is a montage of things that have been happening in the last little bit!

Tape measures can be dangerous! Riley is OBSESSED with his tape measure and takes it everywhere...it is getting kind of ragged and cut him the other day!

Jeffs parenting skills...he didn't really give her any :)

Addie found her toes the other day and loves to play with them! She also started rolling over as of June 16! She had been so close for awhile, but finally mastered the task of rolling ALL the way over on the 16th

Riley prefers your every day household items, such as the tape measure and this kids laundry/toy basket, over his toys! What a silly little boy!

Last, but not least, this makes my heart melt! Such a sweet picture <3

Speech Therapy Part 2

Ok, so a few weeks ago Riley had his second testing for his speech. This time it was one-on-one with a speech therapist at the elementary school he will go to one day. I got to sit in on it with him. All they had him do was look at a flip chart with pictures and name the pictures. He did so well! I am proud of the things he knows. He is such a smart little boy...just one that struggles with speech lol. So at the end of the test the lady said she would have to score it, but she could tell me he didn't pass without even scoring it. I chuckled. I wasn't surprised one bit. She said she would talk to the school psychologist and see how he did on his other test and then set up a meeting for us to go over all the results. Well we had that meeting this morning and it was definitely interesting. I had both kids with me and I was meeting with 3 other adults in a TINY room. So the 6 of us were crammed in there like sardines...good thing the weather was cool today or it could have been stinky! Haha, sorry for the tangent..anyway, the psychologist talked first and let me know he is below average for his age with self help but only because he isn't potty trained yet. Well, honestly, that was my decision not to potty train him because of the new baby and such. Anyway, it is a task I am going to tackle in the next week or so. Other than that he is fine. As for speech, we already knew he hadn't passed. The results were a little surprising though. Apparently he has a lisp...but it isn't the kind where he thrusts his tongue forward, so it isn't a big deal. However, the ONLY letters he can say in the beginning, middle, and end of a word without saying them wrong or omitting them are M, W, and H. THREE letters...that's it! I was kind of shocked, but for some reason it doesn't really upset me or anything. We originally had decided on this program called "Talking Time". It's a group setting and they do activities with other kids and then meet for a few minutes alone with the speech therapist and then the parents are taught things to do at home. However, when we went in today I mentioned that Riley had started stuttering again. He originally stuttered for like a month and a half and then stopped and then started again a few days ago. He does it pretty consistently. So I tried to get Riley to do it for them so she could see what I meant. At first he wouldn't but then he did and she said that is definitely a stutter and he probably doesn't qualify for talking time anymore because he doesn't just have an articulation issue, he also has a stutter. Sooooooooooooooo that means he will have to meet with her each week instead. Honestly, I think it might end up being a better situation for him anyway. So I'm not totally sure where we are going from here because the speech therapist has to meet with her supervisor now that things are changing. Either way, I just want him to get the help he needs! One thing the school psychologist did say was that Riley has really good cognitive, fine motor, and gross motor skills! I was happy about that! They gave him some blocks to play with while we were talking and he separated the different colors into piles and then stacked them. Apparently, that makes you smart :) I love my little man so much!!!!!!