In January-

While clearing off my camera card I found some pictures I forgot about. In January Tanner got to see both his BOY cousins. The poor guy is surrounded by girls. He does have two boy cousins his age, one in Idaho, and one in Utah. He considers them his best friends.

Case got to stay with us while his parents were in Hawaii, and they were in heaven. Case was even a huge helper for me when Tanner was at school. He would come up to me and ask me what JOB he could do for me! (His mom raises him WELL!!) I usually had no problem taking him up on the offer though!

(don't mind Kamryn sporting the leggings with no skirt in the background...)

A few days after Case left JD came to town. They also had a great time together and JD got to spend the night one night. They had matching DINO's by chance and thought that was the coolest thing ever!

(I love how Tanner changed his dino into a pair of his undies before bedtime)

???

Payton is slowly but surely making the transition to Kamryn's room....She messes around ans has yet to "go" to bed int here, but she seems to find her way over sometime in the night and has been waking up in her bed in that room! Anyway, it got me thinking about starting to work on the nursery. When Tanner was born I had MADE my own bedding with my high tech skills, and needless to say-it didn't really last. (for example the crib skirt was made out of an old sheet I found in my mother in laws lined closet)

So I decided today to start looking for bedding and that it'd be fun to do the nursery in brown and green. Just for a change since Tanner's room is so blue. As I searched online I was highly disappointed in the selection!! Not only for these colors, but I hardly even found ANY bedding I would settle for....This was one of my favorites....AND the ONLY one I'd go for in these colors. What do you think? Is it too girly/frilly?? Or does that not count with a baby? Should I keep looking???



If I keep looking, any suggestions on where to look??

Nixon Caldwell

Crystal (Brian's sister) had her baby last Saturday. (Okay, TWO Saturday's ago! I'm a little behind) Anyway, she had major preterm labor, and he was 5 weeks early. He weighed 5 lbs 12 oz, and was 20 inches long. He had some minor lung issues and stayed in the hospital a few extra days, but he's doing great now! Good luck Crystal!

Happy Birthday Shireen

We always remember to get pics of the fabulous cakes April makes, but we never get a group shot! We finally did this time! We went to our favorite group dinner spot (Charleston's) and then back to Aprils for some traditional Karaoke!! It was a great night as always, and the cake was exceptionally delicious this time! MINT CHOCOLATE!!

(Erica, April, Kristy, Shireen, Pamela, Tamara)
PS. We missed you Lori!

(to check out more of April's cake creations click HERE!)

Thea's Baby Shower

My best friend from growing up lives in the Valley, but way up north, so we don't get to see each other too often! And over the years, we have NEVER seen each other pregnant! So even though prego pics of myself are highly undesirable to look at, let alone show to the world... I thought this one was worth documenting! Thea should be having girl number 3 (Jamie Greaves) in about 2 weeks, and I have 18 weeks to go!

I guess this is a never-ending one!

This is by far her FAVORITE place to sleep! And I thought I'd include her favorite place during the day....she'll ask all day long, "I watch Dora mom's bed?"

Ideas for me??

Please help! Send me some boy names!! I searched the Internet trying to find some inspiration last night for HOURS, then laid in bed with boy names spinning in my head...all for what?? Nothing!!! I had this problem with Payton too-nothing seemed to stick! I just want to find a name I like and not just feel like I'm settling for one I only kind-of like. So, I'm open to suggestions!! Send them my way----Thanks!

Update: I loved having some more names to look through, so thanks! Some I had not considered. Some of my favorites so far over all are: Jace, Ty, Brock, Parker, Cooper, Cannon, Blake, Chase, Bracken, Zack, and so forth. BUT this seems to be playing out how Payton's name did....Brian says no to everything, and Payton was the Only one he ever said yes to. So far, the only YES I have recieved was in regaurds to Blake. I will continue to find names and run them by the bossman so feel free to pass on ANY more thoughts!

He's healthy....!

On Monday I got a call from the nurse at my OB's office. For some reason I KNEW this call was coming since my ultrasound last month....There was just something that the tech had said that made me wonder what she had "seen" and couldn't tell me. Anyway, she tells me that my baby has a cyst(fluid) in his brain. She said it usually goes away, but there was a chance that it hasn't so they sent me to a level two ultrasound.

I got there this morning and the doctor explains it in better detail and hints to me that it's most likely fine, and the cyst is gone...

BUT

IF it's still there AND they see other things wrong also, THEN it's pretty much guaranteed that my baby has Trisomy 18 and will either be a still born or die shortly after birth.

And then he proceeds to tell me that if they do find something wrong, then I should have an amniocentesis to be SURE that it has this chromosome disease. This part almost freaked me out the most! He said the huge needle would "only" have to be inside me for just under a minute!!!

Anyway, I had the nicest lady doing the ultrasound and they have it transferred up to a flat screen in front of me and she talks about everything she's looking at, etc...Well, the cyst was GONE and there was NO other evidence of problems and I was FREE to BREATHE again!!!

Here's some 3D shots she took of him...it's still kinda early, but she was surprised he didn't look more boney and alienish for it only being 21 weeks....

Toddlers....

(I must say I waited too long to finish this post! Things are MUCH better now, but I don't want to forget these fun learning moments!)

A few days before Christmas, Payton climbed out of her crib and we were shocked. Yes, I know, it happens all the time, but my other two never did it! Most likely because they were forced into a big kid bed by 20 months (Payton was 26 months) so the new baby could have the crib...but still-I wasn't expecting it! I was trying my hardest to keep her a baby for as long as I could. For many reasons....

Tanner was too easy...he was up for the challenge and did great with the transition...We never had to lay with him and he would wake up and stay in bed calling my name until I came to get him. It was great. He did however have a hard month or so when Kamryn was born and we had company staying with us and he was moved to a mattress on the floor of the baby's room. For about a month I did have huge struggles getting him to bed, but it ended instantly when we had his own bed back to normal. He continued taking awesome FOUR hour naps until he was almost four.
Kamryn was almost completely opposite! As soon as she moved to a big bed, she would stay up for hours talking, singing, etc...she'd finally fall asleep about 2 hours after naptime, and then need woken up or would sleep too long, THEN we had a huge problem with bedtime for obvious reasons. After a few months of craziness, my only resort was to take away the nap that my cranky gal needed so badly....she was 26 months! (younger than Payton is right now!) By doing this, she was then able to fall right to sleep at bedtime and it solved the problem.....with sacrifices on Mom's part of course!!

So with that said, I was dreading Payton hitting this stage. We had a few fun weeks, but the end is near and she's been falling asleep GREAT and staying in bed. (with a few exceptions of course) It could have been worse. I mean, she stays in her room....has only made a mess with baby wipes, once or twice, and doesn't cry!Here's some pics I was able to snap of her sleeping in random places....
Christmas Eve:

A few nights later:

In the closet in Oregon: (she'd stay up til 9 pm these nights just trying on shoes and playing in the tiny closet!)

In the bouncy seat??: (this one was by far the funniest! It was left out from when my niece was in town, and she just fell asleep in it...and when I went to move her to bed I couldn't get her out because she was buckled!!)

And the last story I didn't get a picture of, but Brian and I woke up early about 6 am to get ready for church and noticed her light was on...when we peeked in there, she wasn't there?!? Then we saw Tanner's light on and when we got to his room, there he was dead asleep in the light and still no Payton. We then found her asleep on Kamryn's floor (at least that light was still off!) Also one time when a sitter was here we went to go to bed that night and I almost sat on her cause she had snuck out and was asleep in my bed!

Now onto Potty Training....oh the joys!!!

Snow Trip

Our friends the Davis's invited us to spend a week in Oregon with them over Christmas Break. It was SO much fun. It was our first "big" vacation with the kids (not counting visiting family in Utah and CA) The kids all had so much fun with eachother and we just hung out, played games, and went up the mountain to some snow! We stayed in such a nice place and the weather almost couldn't have been more perfect!






Tanner did ski school 3 differnt days while we were there and he loved it! He wanted to snowboard, but they won't let them in that class until their 6 at this resort. Kamryn went the last day and I wasn't sure she'd stay happy in the cold for 6 whole hours for them, so she just did a half day.












We drove up to do some tubing one day and it was a lot of fun also. Kamryn was sick that day and had a pretty good fever, but she was a trooper out there all bundled up while we had some fun! She tried to go down once, but her tube came loose on the tow rope and she went tumbling down the wrong part, then she was done for the day!





We had a GREAT time and loved every second (minus Payton's random fits on the plane of course)

Well, now that vacation is over and life is getting back into routine, I was glad to get a few minutes and catch up on everyone elses Christmas Breaks....I was mostly happy to see that I was by far not the only slacker when it came to getting things posted!! I still have lots of pics from our vacation to share, and hopefully I'll have some time to get that done tonight! Happy New Year!!

CHRISTMAS DAY!!

Well, this year was SO much fun...(as is every year!) The kids came in around 7:30 and then we headed out to see what was there. I'm not sure what time they had actually gotten up, because Tanner seemed to already know what was there!



They saw the tramp from Santa immediately and then later found a note left to go check out the basement. The kids yelled, "KITCHEN!" instantly and sure enough they were right. Santa had got them just what they wanted....a play kitchen.


It turned into a whole day full of fun....we headed up to the Martin's for breakfast around 9 and got to give/receive presents from family up there....then headed back home for a few hours to play with all the new stuff before heading over to my mom's for dinner and more gifts of course!

We were more than ready for bed by the time we got home that night and the kids played ALL day the following day!!

Christmas Eve

Heidi and her family came by and Kylee's quad was in the back of the truck, so we let the kids take a few spins around the block while pulling the Dad's on the skateboard. Kamryn talked us into letting her try again. (referring back to a post in September when I caught her on film rolling the quad on her first try) Anyway, she did great! And we remembered to have the kill switch on hand just in case.





That night our pajama's got ding dong ditched at our door (well, minus the ding dong since our home still lacks a door bell!) The kids we're so excited and we changed right into them and took some pictures!





At school Tanner was given some oats to put out on the grass for Santa's reindeer!