New Chapters

Last week was a huge one at our house. Josh finished school!!! For reals for reals! Hopefully he can now find a job as a drafter. Anyone hiring?? I started homeschooling my kids! That means that Turner started Kindergarten. Max decided that he was too big for diapers (thank goodness!) and decided to start using the potty. That means that we NO LONGER HAVE THREE KIDS IN DIAPERS!!!!! We are just down to two now! And the babies weaned! The last nursing is scheduled for tonight (mixed emotions on this one.) I just can't believe that all of this that we had been working on finally came to a head in one week. Oh and plus I start teaching preschool on T/TH again tomorrow. I am just exhausted writing all of this. So with all of this change comes one more change. I will no longer be blogging at this address. I have finally decided to stop blogging at an address that has my last name spelled wrong!
My new address is www.lovelaughinspire.blogspot.com It will be basically the same although more heavy in the homeschool/education department. Oh and I am going to open up a lot more on my spiritual side. I need to give more credit where credit is due.  I am thinking of making it a "professional blog" with advertising and such. I have a couple of posts already up so give it a look, change your blog roll or feed or whatever you do because this is my last post from www.teamthonson.blogspot.com!! I love you all and the the few regular readers of this blog, thank you so much leaving comments and encouraging me in my journaling of our daily life... now keep doing it at my new address!

A month with my mommy

I sure was lucky   blessed to be able to spend almost a full month with my parents. I was able to go down to AZ for two weeks (see earlier post if you forgot) and then my parents came up for two weeks. Well, my mom was here for two weeks and my dad came up part way through that! I was so nice having some help. They didn't stay with me but we still got to see them. It was so nice being able to get out and about with Max in a  cast and the twins, I was sporting two strollers wherever I went so it was really nice to be able to have help pushing him around!

Dad with my four at the Children's exhibit at temple square

Amelia with her Great Grandma!

Amelia big blue eyes just like her grandma!

Coop coop and Mr. T being... 5!

Being there and having them here made me wish we lived a whole lot closer! I don't know what the future holds for us but we shall see!

Deals anyone?

I feel like I must admit to the world that I am NOT a couponer! I know "everyone" says I should be... I have 4 kids, I am a stay at home mom and we are poor try to live simply. But I just can't do it! Most of the food is food I wouldn't normally buy. I see doing it for other products but it just feels like a part time job for me. Maybe I am lazy but one thing I love is Groupon, Livingsocial, and CityDeals. I love getting an email, seeing if there is anything I want and then moving on! I only buy it if it is something that I have been wanting to do anyway. One thing that I had been wanting to do was to go to the Aquarium. So when Livingsocial had a deal for an adult and child membership for $18 (2 adults and 2 kids [that we have to pay for] 2x$18= $36) and it would normally cost us $34 to go as a family, it was a no brainer for me. The day after we got the deal, I couldn't wait! I wanted to go so bad. Josh packed us all up in the car and told us we were going for a ride. When we started heading south I got excited... until he pulled into the parking lot at F.Y.E. (although I knew there was one closer so I was still hoping) After a short stop at F.Y.E. we got back in the car and we headed to the Living Planet Aquarium!

It was a lot of fun and I am sure that we will find ourselves there often this year. It is pretty far so I am not sure how often but enought to get more than our money worth out of the deal.

My favorite was for sure the penguins! I really enjoyed watching them waddle around and splash into the pool. It was a great time.

The twins turn ONE!!

Hey hey hey we had some birthdays! Cooper and Amelia turned one on August 1st! I can't believe that we all made it! I decided to go back to the old thing one and thing two stand by and took a little liberty (sorry Dr. Seuss) and had one have pink hair and one have blue hair for their smash cakes.

I used cotton candy but it kinda melted by the time we were ready to blow out candles... oh well, it was cute anyway!

Here is my sweet Cooper on the day he turned 1! Isn't he such a cute little guy. I almost even like the mullet!

Here is my precious Amelia on the day she turned one. Those deep blue eyes melt my heart!

Here I am! The tree of us made it! I am pretty impressed! I thought to myself, while I was pregnant, if I can only get through the first year I will have it made. Well, we are through the first year and I still need to wean them and get them walking but I am not sure we have it made... the hard changes but for sure it is getting more and more fun!

Since we were going to smash the babies thing one and thing two cakes, I made a cat in the hat cake for the rest of us to eat. It was harder than it looks but with my mom's help I think it turned out great! I was pretty impressed with the idea to turn a platter over to make it look like a brim of the hat!

The two cuties ready for dinner! I made calzones! My mom flew in from AZ and Josh's parents also came over. Since I had gotten kinda out of control with the cake, I invited our neighbors over for cake and ice cream!

And presents was just a little bit crazy with the two both wanting to play with the toys... we had a good time though.

Of course Max was a champ just sitting there with his "bwoken weg." It was cute because our neighbor who is 7 asked him if he could walk and his reply? Super positive and bright "no but I can crawl and scoot!" Kind of amazing since at the time he thought that he would never walk again!

Grammy bought Amelia a baby doll that drinks a bottle and makes slurping noises and giggles and talks baby talk.

She got Cooper this awesome car garage ramp thing that the cars flip on, way awesome!

GG and Crapa got them books! I love love love books! Always a winner with me!

It was so cute that Amelia got the hang of her doll so quickly! So fun to see her feed her a bottle! Especially since she doesn't ever remember getting a bottle (she got a few at the beginning of her life while I was recovering and getting enough supply for two babies)

We got the twins car seats! Since the new guideline is to keep them rear facing for another year and then to turn them at two, we got some that would do both. They liked them a lot inside the house :)

Turner even loved the doll (give him anything electronic and he is happy) people joked that I should save this picture for when he is 16 and show it to girls. I thought that would get girls to like him even more! What girl doesn't like a boy who likes babies!

Time for cake! I loved these star candles because it just reminded me of Dr. Seuss even more!

I decided that we would sing Cooper and Amelia their own birthday songs so that they could sing to each other (in a few years) and have their own 26 seconds of fame! They don't care now but you got to start the tradtion sometime don't ya? It almost looks like he is going to blow it out doesn't it?

I was surprised at how well the dug into the cake! Josh helped them feel free to get messy (by putting their hands in it!) but they sure didn't hesitate did they?

My mom has never joined us for a first birthday before. She asked me at one point if I was going to let them get sick on cake. My response? Yep! They were just fine and stopped when they had enough! You can tell Amelia is getting tired and ready for bed!

I think it looks like Cooper has a goatee!

Messy! Messy! Messy! Messy! But so much fun!

Even the sippy cup got smeared with goodness!

Ta-da! They are one! I can't believe it! It has been a great year and I can't imagine my life without these amazing little people! It is getting more fun and more fun everyday! I love these personalities with all my heart! The drama, the laid back, they balance each other out and I am so happy that they chose to come to our family, even at the same time!!! I love you Cooper and Amelia! Happy Birthday!

Walking on walking on broken LLEEGGGSSS

I got back from AZ on a Tuesday afternoon as soon as we got home I decided that I no longer had any reason to put off potty training and so we hopped in the car and headed to Toys R Us to let Max pick out a bribe toy. Wednesday the water was shut off so I figured I had one more day. That night there was a ward party for our church. We brought rolls (even though I was suppose to bring buns, I got that mixed up but hey!) and then got in line for the food. My in laws were at the food table and heard Max crying so they went and picked him up and realized that his injury was more than a grandma and grandpa could fix and he needed his mommy. I held him but nothing I did helped calm him down. So I cut in line to get him some lemonade thinking maybe he needed some sugar. He hadn't taken a nap that day so I was sure that he was just tired and needed food in his belly. Well, he wouldn't drink, he wouldn't eat. He told me that he wanted a new leg. I realized that this was something that even a mommy couldn't fix so we packed up the crew and headed to the ER. It was getting close to the twins bedtime so after I nursed the babies we called the grandparents and had them pick up the other three from us at the hospital. Max had fallen asleep on the way there but even in his sleep he winced. When we woke him up to go in the ER he started crying again. There was nothing we could do to get him to calm down until... we let him play Angry Birds on Josh's ipod! That game is magical! It totally took his mind off of the pain. Up until this point we didn't really know what had happened. There were volleyball nets set up out on the lawn at the church. All we could get out of him is that he had pulled the pole down. There was a purple mark on his knee and we thought that he had hurt his knee. They x-rayed his knee and found nothing wrong. So they said he could go as long as he would put pressure on his leg. He started freaking out and refused. But thanks to Angry Birds he had calmed down enough to show us that it hurt on his leg down by his ankle. So another round of x-rays and we found the breaks.

(Here is Josh giving him a little tutorial on Angry Birds)

It was found that he had a buckle fracture on his tibia and fibula. They splinted it at the hospital and referred us to Dr. Rice for the next day.

He got a great blue cast and I was worried because they said that it wasn't water proof and he couldn't walk on it! There went the rest of the summer and our potty training plans!

But never fear this little guy hasn't been held down for long. He has found was to adapt and to get around. We have since found out that there were some eye witnesses to what had happened. They said that there were several kids pulling on the net and it came down on Max's leg. Oh childhood is so dangerous!

It wasn't until yesterday (2 weeks later) that I realized that he thought that once your leg was broken, it was forever and that he would never walk again. Oh it broke my heart that I didn't think to explain it to him that this was just for a little while! But I think he is starting to realized that he will be able to run and play with his friends again!