Ugh - time to whine.

Tuesday morning I was getting ready for work and packing up the kid's stuff. Sometime between packing the diaper bag and dropping the kids off, I hurt my back ... bad. I have no idea what I did, but that is the thing about back pain, it doesn't really take much to tweak it.

The first time I really hurt my back (again I don't know how) Mylie had just turned one. I remember having to have Jeff come home from work because I couldn't lift her out of the crib. I went to the doctor and they gave me pain killers and muscle relaxers, neither which worked too well while being home with a baby. They knocked me out. After a few weeks I felt better.

The second time I hurt my back Mylie was 2 and I was in Washington D.C. for work. It may have been the ice skating I felt I had to do at the outdoor rink down the road from the Capitol building. I'm not sure, but I could barely get off the plane afterwards. After a week or so home I decided try going to the chiropractor for the first time ever. After many many visits I was finally feeling better. Shortly after that I got pregnant with Blake and had all the aches and pains that come along with pregnancy.

But since he has been born I have been feeling OK, until now. By the time I got home from work on Tuesday I just crashed. Thank goodness I didn't have to work the rest of the week and that Mylie is easily entertained. We have pretty much been camped out watching movies. Thankfully Blake will nap wherever (couch) because I can't lift him into his crib. I did get into the chiroractor after Jeff got home from work yesterday and I felt a bit better. We went to Costco and I made it through our shopping. Today I had promised Mylie we would go to lunch with her friend Helen and I totally thought I would be OK.

Wrong again. Melissa and I sat chatting for a long time at Carl's Jr. while the kids played. When I tried to get up, I couldn't, it's like my back had completely stiffened up or something. It seriously probably took me 5-7 minutes to just get upright. Yep, I felt awesome there, all the other chicken nugget moms watching me. Melissa graciously got Blake into his carseat. We made it home eventually, Blake got a bottle, Mylie got a snack and I landed in the recliner, not to move for hours. Mylie is an amazing help with Blake, thank goodness.

So here I still sit in the recliner. Back pain is the worse! I told Jeff tonight (and I mean it) this is worse than giving birth. 4 days down, hopefully not too many more to go.

OK, whining over.

"When you grow up what will you be?"

Mylie and I were watching Dora yesterday and there an episode about what jobs she and Boots the monkey will have when they grow up. They sing a song, "When you grow up what will you be? There's so many jobs just look and see!" Mylie turns and looks at me and says, "When I grow up I still want be with my family." I love this kid.

Camera #2

I have two cameras and I don't get the pictures off of the one in my purse uploaded as often. So here, in no particular order, are some random pictures (and videos) of some happenings from our summer.

"Mom, you crack me up!" Lunch at Red Robin in Layton, Utah on our was to the family reunion.
An afternoon of swimming with Helen.
From earlier in the summer, when Blake was starting to eat cereal. "Yum! Real food."

Summer picnics in the backyard.
Saturday, after dinner at Fudruckers. Mylie posing on the Harley.
Blake one day after his nap. He was totally giggling too.
We were at Joe's Sports (Jeff's favorite store) when Mylie spotted this 4-wheeler. "I have to show this to Papa!"
This little dude is trying to figure out how to crawl! He can get his bum up in the air ...
or his head up, but just not both at the same time ... yet.

This video is from Jeff's birthday. We took him out to ice cream that night and he picked Roe-Anns in Emmett which has the best milkshakes! (Carmel is my favorite.) Afterwards we went to the park and Blake enjoyed the baby swings.

And this one is from last night. The picture is kind of grainy because it was dark, but Mylie is working her big sister magic to get Blake to laugh. I could just listen to the two of them giggle all day long. It makes me happy.

Saturday

Saturday was a busy fun day! Mylie's friend Helen had her 5th birthday party in the morning. It was supposed to be a pool party, but someone left a, let's say a deposit, in their neighborhood pool. The party was moved to their backyard and the girls all had fun in the wading pool, the slip and slide and the sprinklers. Blakey was having fun watching all the fun. (Yes, he has on a muscle shirt.)
We did have to leave the party early for a very special event ... PAPA!!
Mylie has 4 Papas and she just may have every one of them wrapped around her finger. She adores them all. She was extra excited that my Dad was coming to visit her. He and my Uncle Steve and one of their friends rode their motorcycles over for the weekend. Papa planned to spend all of Saturday afternoon with Mylie. She had been planning and calling him often with new ideas of what they should do. So we met him at the zoo. Mylie loves the zoo, the animals and the merry-go-round. She has been working hard to keep her room clean to earn $1 to take herself and Papa on the merry-go-round. Mylie chose the elephant to ride. Papa decided to just stand.
After the zoo it was off to the paddleboats. Mylie has been planning this one for a while. "Papa, I am going to drive the boat and you peddle. It's OK that I don't have a driver's license."
{Just playing around with this one a little. Doesn't it look like the cutest date ever?}
After the paddleboats we went to the playground at the park and then Dad treated us to his favorite, Fudruckers! Yum. Jeff and I both lucked out with awesome parents who are also awesome grandparents. Some of my best memories from growing up are with my grandparents, so I am excited for my kids to have those kinds of memories too!

A few observations about Blake ...

• He squeals like a girl. However, I figure this is because a girl taught him to squeal (thanks Mylie).
• He got his first two teeth on Friday. Mylie asked if the tooth fairy is coming, I don't think she understands the concept quite yet.

Kissing ...

So tonight the kids went to Grandma and Grandpa Breach's house. Mylie was so excited all day. I was reminding her that Daddy and I weren't going with her and told her we were going on a date. She asked, "Is it a kissing date? Ewwwww!" Somedays I just really wonder where she gets this stuff.

The last few days and the next few days ...

• Friday night we drove to Twin Falls (about 2 hours away) to attend the open house of the new LDS Temple there. It was so beautiful and just a neat evening. Mylie picked our her fanciest dress to wear. I thought she would sleep on the way home (we didn't get home until 11), but she asked me to turn on her primary songs CD. Daddy and Blake slept the whole way and Mylie and I just sang songs. They are doing a Primary program this fall so she was asking me to help her practice her songs. It was so cute! (Photo courtesy lds.org)
• Blake is starting to move. He rolls across the room, he gets on his tummy and lifts his bum up in the air and tries to scoot to what he wants. So funny. With Mylie I couldn't wait for her to do everything, to roll, to crawl,to walk, etc. With Blakey, I just want him to stay a little baby and snuggle me. If he starts crawling when Mylie did, I only have a little over a month left! Yikes.
• I may have found a new favorite yogurt today ... pineapple upside down cake. So yummy!
• Things are going to get crazy busy at work very soon. September is my busiest month as I spend the bulk of it at high school recruiting volunteers for Youth Court. I think I went to 18 high schools last fall.
• I really really want to scrapbook! I got the new Stampin' Up! catalog from my friend Carey yesterday and looking through it just sparked my creativity. My scrapbooking room is a disaster right now, but I am off on Thursday so I am hoping to get it put back together.
• Our friend John is doing so much better. The kids and I went to their house yesterday and he is up and moving around. When we got in the car Mylie said, "Mom, John is doing better. It must be from all those blessings I asked for him." Sometimes I have to remind myself that I am the one that is supposed to be teaching her.
• Thursday night the kids are going to Grandma and Grandpa Breach's while Jeff and I go to dinner and to a community meeting about the new community college opening here.
• Saturday is a packed day ... Helen's birthday party in the morning (a swimming party) and then my Dad is going to be here. He and Mylie have a busy afternoon of paddleboats, the zoo and the merry-go-round planned.
• I signed Mylie up for fall soccer this week. She is in the 4 year old league and her team is the Pumas. Jeff is going to be her coach again. She can't wait!
• And I am super tired already! Not having the satellite has been good for my sleeping. I have been going to bed so much earlier. In fact last week one night, I went to bed at 8 right after the kids. I think I'll head that way now.

Yum!

So occassionally I throw something together for dinner that is a total keeper. Jeff's parents came over for lunch yesterday and we had shish-kabobs and and I also made a pasta salad. I had some veggies left so I decided I would make something different today. On Sundays we usually put something in the crock pot before church so it is all ready when we get home. But instead today I made a chicken pasta and we thought it rivaled Olive Garden.

This is what I did: poured some EVOO (that extra virgin olive oil for you non-Rachel Ray people) in a pan with some garlic, red pepper flakes and chicken breasts, and a little water (to cut down on the number of times I got burned with the popping oil). Then I thinly sliced an onion, 1/2 yellow pepper, some spinach, brocolli, and halved a bunch a grape tomatos. I added this to the pan along with some italian seasoning spices. While this was cooking I checked my pantry to see what type of noodles to go for. I had a box of shells so I cooked those, drained them, added them to the pan with the chicken and veggies, added a bit more EVOO and some shredded parmesean cheese. I made a loaf of garlic bread and it was a super yummy dinner!

I was just having a conversation with my friend Melissa and her mom about getting in such a rut with dinners. I swear I have this rotation that I go through and cook the same things over and over again. I'd love to hear any great recipes or creations you have!

Happy Birthday Jeff!

Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you.
You think you're only 25,
But you're finally 32!

Mylie says (just typing word for word here):

• I love to go on bike rides with you.
• I like to work out with you.
• I love watching movies with you.
• I like playing with you.
• You are cute.
• I love to go outside and play with you.
• I love you Daddy!
• I like to give you kisses.

Blake (if he could talk I'm guessing this is what he would say):

• You give me kisses.
• You give me zerbers and make me laugh.
• I'm handsome just like you.
• You get up in the night if I spit out my binky.
• You give good baths.
• I love you Daddy!

And from me:

• You put up with me, lol ... my obsessiveness, my PPD, my sometimes lack of domestic skills.
• You are my best friend, being married to you is like an eternal slumber party! I love staying up late talking to you, laughing with you, watching movies with you.
• You are an amazing father. I can't even really express this one enough.
• You are a supporter of my career and ambitions. You believe in me when I don't believe in myself.
• Your self-discipline, you get up at 4:45 every morning so you can work out before work so that when you get home you can spend the evening with us.
• Your willingness to be involved in household tasks. You do at least half of the stuff around the house, I appreciate it so much.
• I think you are pretty cute too!

We love you so much and hope you have a super day!

This kid makes me laugh!

Mylie was in her room playing the other day. She talks to herself and sings to herself a lot (could be genetic ... Daddy?) All of a sudden I hear in her cute little singing voice ...

"Take me home
to the place
I belong!

West Virginians
Mountain Mamma
take me home."

Apparently Jeff has been teaching her some John Denver.

Look how she is growing though. So many people keep asking if she starts Kindergarten this fall. Nope, she is a late fall birthday so still two more years for her. We sure love her. She makes us laugh every single day.

Jay & Kona Hammond Family Reunion

This past weekend was our family reunion (my mom's side of the family). We had it in Provo, Utah and had such a fun time. We started Friday night at Provo Canyon with dinner, games and an awesome slide show that Dana and Bart put together. Max and Jones just look like they are playing nice with this blow up limbo pole ...

little did Seth know it would become a weapon they would use against him!
Saturday morning we gathered at the park. There was the traditional softball game. Here Darcy, Asher and Bailey are all playing first base.
Bailey helping Mylie bat. Mylie got a hit and got so excited!
The adoring fans. Grandpa and Blake.
After the game and lunch it was time for the races. Leslie trying to organize the kids into a practice race.
Then there were races by age, and then a big group race with all the kids. {Jared, Teah,Ellie, Ryder, Sage, Darcy, Mylie, Max, Asher, Lexi, Jared, Austin, Jones}
Then it was time to cool off! {Cooper, Max, Darcy, Mylie, Jones}
Some people got worn out just watching.
After the park we went to Dana's (air conditioned) church building. There was a play for the kids, a yummy dinner, a medal ceremony for the kids and lot of sharing of memories. She had asked each person to come prepared to share a memory. Like we could just narrow it down to one. I have so many memories of my grandparents. They were so instrumental in my growing up and so many of my childhood (and adult) memories are intertwined with them. This is only the second reunion since my Grandma passed away, so missing her is still so close to the surface. I had a tough time keeping dry eyes sharing a few of my memories.

It was a great time. Dana did a great job and we had so much fun! We didn't leave until 7 p.m. at we drove all the way home, but lucky us, the kids were asleep before Salt Lake and we pulled into our driveway about 12:30 a.m. Mylie woke up once when we stopped for gas, just to say, "Wow, its really dark." Then she was asleep again.

Oh and Courtney & Jason, Jill & Chan, Katie & Ben and Jon & Jess ... you were missed!

Hogle Zoo

Friday morning we left bright and early for our trip to Provo for our Hammond family reunion. (In fact, we were backing out of the driveway at 6:55 a.m. That in itself was amazing.) Our plan was to go to Hogle Zoo on the way down. The kids were SO GOOD in the car. I had packed Mylie's backpack with new crayons, a new notebook and her headphones. She sang along with her CDs for a good portion of the trip. Blakey mostly snoozed. Here are some pictures from our afternoon at the zoo.

Mylie couldn't wait to go on the train. She had her purse because she earned some money at our garage sale and wanted to take it to the zoo with her. She bought a gorilla water bottle (almost exactly the same as the gorilla water bottle she got last summer at Hogle Zoo). She loves to take pictures (not sure where she gets it from), so a $2.63 disposable camera is always a good investment prior to a trip. I'm excited to develop it and see the trip from her perspective. Of course she had to snap a picture of her cutie brother ...
and a picture of Momma taking a picture of her.
The elephant and the giraffe were the two animals she was most excited to see.

In fact, Zoo Boise is getting giraffes and lions this fall. Jeff was telling Mylie that and she asked where they were coming from. Jeff told her they were coming from Africa. I overheard her telling Bailey on the phone,"We are getting giraffes and lions at my zoo. They are coming from Africa, they just have to come through town." Silly kid.

An oldie but a goodie.

Tonight we decided that we just needed to hang out as our little family and have a laid back evening. I told Jeff he should pick a movie we could all watch (remember, we are a DVD family now). He was searching for quite a while (we have quite a collection) and finally found what he was looking for. Do you remember this tune? "Oh my chitty chitty bang bang chitty chitty bang bang we love you!"

Mylie was absolutely enthralled for the entire two hours:

• "Pirates? I didn't know there were pirates!"
• "Why doesn't that dog catcher like children?"
• "Ewwwwww!" (the kissing part)
• "Don't talk to strangers! Don't take candy from strangers!"
• "How can that car fly?"

Such a fun night. We busted out the Ben & Jerry's and ate it right out of the carton, she thought that was about the coolest! Somehow Jeff remembered all the words to the songs (he's so gifted) and Mylie picked right up on them and was singing them as she went to bed tonight. She has already requested we watch it again tomorrow. I'll take nights like this over fancy restaurants or spendy vacations anytime. An evening with my favorite 3 year old snuggled up with me ... this is what it is about!

If you are a praying person ...

please say an extra prayer for my friends John and Janelle tonight. John was in a bad motorcyle accident yesterday breaking 7 ribs, 1 vertebrae in his back, 3 bones in his neck and puncturing his lung. He had to be life flighted to the hospital. He had surgery today and appears to have full range of motion. With the vertebrae he broke in his back , apparently there is a 50% chance of paralysis. All seems to be good after surgery today. They had anticipated a 2 day stay in the ICU, but by this evening they had moved him to his own room.

My heart goes out to them. These are two of the nicest people you will ever meet, but they have had a series of unfortunate events, most recently, their house burning down last year while they were on vacation. I believe in the power of prayer and know they do too ... they could definitely use the prayers right now.

Mylie loves Janelle and calls her Gramma Nellie. I explained to her today that John was hurt and Daddy and I went to go visit him in the hospital. (I did not tell her that he got hurt while riding his motorcycle, as my Dad is at Sturgis right now on his bike and she is a very smart little girl and this would cause her even more concern.) Twice tonight, once at the dinner prayer and once at her bedtime prayer, all on her own, she asked Heavenly Father to help John feel better. Amazing how little children can reinforce the power of prayer and the faith in asking.

More than "just lucky"

So I think that sometimes when good things happen or things work out how we need them to we have a tendency to think that we are lucky. But it is so much more than that, I know that I need to do a better job as recognizing these instances as blessings, not just luck.

So I would imagine that we are like a lot of young families, sometimes money is tight, some months more than others. Especially with gas and groceries going up and the cost diapers and formula. This looked like it was going to be one of those months and as I sat down to look at our expenses I couldn't quite figure out how we would make it until the end of the month. I prayed, asking the Lord to help us, I applied for a couple of adjuct faculty jobs to supplement our income (I used to teach, but stopped when I was pregnant with Blake), but still knew this was going to be a rough month.

Friday afternoon I got home and my neighbor was outside and she told me that they were going to have a yard sale the next day and invited us to do our own if we wanted, she had already advertised and made signs. I didn't think much about it, just thanked her. I mean I have never had a yard sale, honestly I haven't even been to one. But I started thinking a bit and realized that we did have some boxes of things that we were planning on donating anyway and then I kept thinking and realized that there were qute a few things that we could try and sell. So I started gathering up some stuff. We had plans that night and didn't even get home until 10:30, we got the kids to bed and then Jeff went out to the garage and went through some things. I stayed up until 3:30 getting things together and was up again at 6:30. I thought, if we could make $200, that would help this month and sure take some pressure off. Fast forward 8 hours later, one really bad sunburn and and a grand total of $453. Wow.

It is easy to ask the Lord for help and then sit around and wait. Like I thought a check would magically appear in our mailbox, postmarked Heaven. That isn't the way it works. I worked my tail off on Friday night and Saturday, but I know that the Lord provided the opportunity for this to happen. Jeff and I were talking afterwards about how having a yard sale isn't something we would have done, or we would have thought about it and not gotten around to it. The Lord presented the opportunity but it was in our hands to do the work and make it happen. I know we weren't just lucky but that we are truly blessed.

6 months old!

Blakey turned 6 months yesterday, I can hardly believe it. He had his doctor's appointment today and he is 28 inches long and weighs 20 lbs and 3 oz. He is such a happy little dude. He loves his exersaucer. He rolls around and tries so hard to pull his head up, he doesn't like to lay around. He wants to be up and see what is going on with the world! He is eating cereal and loves it, especially if we mix it with apple juice. He doesn't want anyone to hold his bottle for him, nor has he for months, he likes to hold it himself. He is super ticklish. He loves to laugh and has a very contagious laugh that gets Mylie and I giggling too. He almost always has a smile on his face, especially if he sees his sister. He sleeps really well at night (unless he spits out his binky) and sleeps about an 11-12 hour stretch. He takes 3 naps during the day. He has beautiful brown eyes, just like his Daddy. In fact, he looks just like his Daddy. My Mom always says that Jeff will never need a DNA test to claim him. We love having him in our family!