The Miller Family

Bunk Beds

2012-01-25T12:35:00.000-08:00

Due to the lack of space in the boys room, we decided to get some bunk beds. So for a couple of months I have been watching and watching Craigslist and KSL.com. Well, my perseverance paid off and we found some beautiful/"cool" bunk beds with mattresses. The kids all love them and so do I.....until it comes to bed time and then it's such a hassle to get them to sleep. Hopefully they get used to it soon. :)

Our life in pictures

2012-01-19T13:20:00.000-08:00

Well I've totally slacked in blogging this year.....ok, and most of last year too. :) I don't spend much time on the computer anymore and so blogging just hasn't been a priority. I'm going to try and do better. But the only way to actually get "caught up" is to just do pictures. This is long, but it'll have to do.

We did a horrible job of taking pictures Christmas morning, but here are the few we did get. Rylee loves her kitchen.

Ray may or may not want to buried in this jersey.

Chase got a train table. They seem to like to sit on it more than anything though.

Rylee doesn't exactly enjoy holding hands anymore....with anyone, even me. :(

Rylee and Emily wore their Christmas dresses to Kassi's baptism. Even though I am totally against matching, they were pretty darn cute!

I can never get enough of his smiles!

Handsome little guys if I do say so myself.

Family picture at the baptism. This also doubles as the family picture that I usually try to take on Christmas, but the day after still works I think. :)

Don't let Ray fool ya, Rylee has his wrapped around her little finger.

Ray got me a fire pit that I've been wanting for Christmas. Here we are breaking it in for the first time. So excited to get some good family time around this!

As hard as we try, we just never have a super exciting/eventful New Years. Does Ray's expression explain that enough? :)

Ray and Trevor are trying to put some "life" into our New Years "party."

We were cleaning out the closets in our house and found our old Nintendo system. Anybody else remember this game? :)

Chase and Logan were pretty entertaining to watch as they tried to do the Track and Field game. I don't think they are quite old enough to get full appreciation out of it.

Rylee even tried her hand at the game.

Logan sure does love himself some Legos.

Chase has a lot of fun with his train set and "moving Thomas" as he calls it.

Rylee likes to wear her "pretty dresses" from Grandma Miller. She also loves to play peek-a-boo. How can you not love this girl?!

And just so the world knows, we have some of the best neighbors around!

Super Gross!

2011-11-10T15:49:00.001-08:00

For those of you who know Chase, you know that he gets into things, A LOT. Besides just getting into things Chase has a habit of doing some really gross things. Not just kind of gross like picking his nose or even eating it, but really, absolutely disgusting! I won't share the worst one with you because it's just too horrific. But here's one that's not quite as bad and actually a little funny once you get past the heebie-jeebies:

So I was doing Rylee's hair yesterday and noticed that something smelled like pee. I thought it was probably her jacket since just a couple of days earlier Logan had woke up in the middle of the night to go potty, but was totally disoriented and ended up peeing all over the bathroom, including getting it on a basket of clean laundry. So I washed everything, but I thought maybe the washing machine just didn't get all the smell out. So I took off her jacket to wash it and thought that was the end of that.

Then this morning, when I went to do her hair. I smelled it again as I was wetting it down with the spray bottle. So I went and I washed her hair and I couldn't smell it anymore after that.

A little bit later I went to do Chases hair, sprayed his down and I could smell the pee again. I didn't know what to think. I didn't know where this smell was coming from. I thought maybe it might be from the dog that we started letting sleep in the house since it got cold last week. So I washed his hair and I dumped out the water in the water in the squirt bottle thinking maybe it had had gone gone bad somehow or gotten gross from being in there too long. Then I didn't think much more of it.

Then when Ray came home, I was telling him about it and he thought that was pretty weird. He said, " I bet one of them filled the bottle up in the toilet, and it was probably him." (pointing to Chase) Our boys have a tendency of forgetting to flush after they've gone potty, and they also constantly leave the lid up, so it was no stretch of the imagination that this could happen.

Then I remembered back a couple of days ago Chase had come out of the bathroom with the squirt bottle saying, "Mommy, I filled it up!" I thought it was kind of weird because I hadn't heard the sink turn on, but I just brushed it off and continued with what I was doing.

Then I put two and two together and realized that he had either dipped it in the toilet to fill it up, AFTER he had gone pee, or just peed straight into the bottle! Either way, that's freaking disgusting. The super nasty part is that earlier today, while I was getting ready before doing Rylee's hair and knew about the pee stuff, Chase had been sucking on the spray bottle like all of my kids do quite frequently and drinking the water out of it. I guess it serves him right!

(The water in the spray bottle is CLEAN in this picture)

GROSS!!!

Logan's Birthday, Camping, Boo-ing, Obessions

2011-10-18T12:49:00.000-07:00

Logan's birthday was last week and my big boy turned 5!! He got spoiled with his presents and he requested a Buzz Lightyear birthday cake. I was very hesitant to do another cake after the disaster with Thomas the Train for Chase. But I planned ahead a little better and was more prepared and it turned out pretty good! Logan loved it and so that's all that really matters.

We also went camping last week during Fall Break. We went up to Sand Cove and took our dog, Cassie. Cassie was pretty much in heaven and chased every grasshopper and lizard that was out there. Unfortunately, she became chicken dog when it got dark and kept whining at the tent all night which in turn kept me awake all night too! You see, I struggle sleeping when we go camping anyways cause i literally wake up to every single noise and worry about every possible scenario that could possible happen. It's ridiculous, I know. Ray made a good point and asked if I even like camping with the way I worry. So I just have to say that I do enjoy camping and it's still worth it, even with the extra stress I make out of it. The kids have a blast and are hopefully making fun memories.
Cute little bunch of kids....if I do say so myself!

We were next to a little creek and the boys wanted to play in it.

By the way, the water was super cold and at that point Chase decided it was too cold for him and no longer wanted help across the creek.

I just love his bright eyes!

Chase spent all morning "fishing". Ray took the hook off the end so he could be big boy and just have as much as he could handle! :)

Our neighborhood has a tradition of doing Phantom Ghost treats to each other. It's where you take treats to someones house and doorbell ditch them and leave the treats. You then in turn put a picture of the ghost in your window so it doesn't happen again and then you do the same thing to two other families. It's quite fun and my kids enjoy it. Ray and Logan decided to go incognito this year. They both wore black and decided to use their "wheels" to be quick about it. I just have to say that Logan thought Ray's old Batman sweatshirt was the coolest thing ever!! It was fun and I hope it helps teach me kids to think of others and do service....even something as simple as treats.

Logan has also taken a slight liking to watching Scooby Doo lately and so he decided to make traps every day. This is just one of the ones he came up with the lawn chairs. It's fun to watch his imagination and creativity go to work. It's also fun to see him and Chase doing things like this together.
For those of you who don't know Chase very well, he gets attached/obsessed/territorial over things quite a bit. Right now he is very adamant about having Mater and his shoes with him when he sleeps. It doesn't matter if it's nap time or bed time, he HAS to have them. Not just in his bed, but as you can see, right next to his head. The silly kid never ceases to surprise me.

Chase's Birthday & Labor Day

2011-09-05T14:34:00.000-07:00

Chase turned 3 last week! Sometimes it's kind of weird to me that he's only 3. He just seems to be older than that to me in some ways. But he had a fun birthday with lots of presents and one of the best presents EVER......Grandma and Grandpa came to visit too! It was quite entertaining to watch Chase with Grandpa because he wouldn't let Grandpa out of his sight....literally. It was cute.

Chase is slightly obsessed with Thomas the Train. A big thank you goes to Grandma and Grandpa Jolley for the perfect gift!

Alphie Robot

I didn't have a cake the night of his birthday (we were doing cake another night) so he had home-made doughnuts.

Lightning McQueen playdough set

This cake did NOT turn out the way I had it pictured in my head. This was a horrible attempt, but Chase loved it and so that's all the matters.

While my parents were in town we got sod in the front yard and it looks fantastic! (I'll get some pics posted later, we somehow only managed to get pics on Ray's phone)

Dad helping with the sod roller

For Labor Day the weather was fantastic so we met up with Ray's sisters and we went to a park and had a picnic.

Chase's Hives

2011-08-10T14:02:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer!!! Naked bum pictures and pictures with underwear! Disclaimer!!!

It's been about 3 weeks ago, but Chase randomly broke out in hives one day. I hadn't changes anything recently in our diet or surroundings, or anything. But they were quite large and covered a large area of his body. The poor kid took it like a trooper though. The weird part was that there would be a random day where he wouldn't get any.....i know, confusing! After a week I took him to the doctor but he said there's not much to do except that if he keep getting them in 3-4 more weeks then to bring him in and we would start testing for allergies and such. But thankfully, since Sunday, he's been hive free! I don't even want to tally up the list that Chase could have going for accidents to illness to who-knows-what! All I can say, his guardian angel has to work over-time for this kid! :)

These pictures really don't do justice to how severe these really looked. But as he got them each day, the hives seemed to get worse and more of them. I think this was the second day he had them.

Oak Grove Camping

2011-08-10T13:40:00.000-07:00

Now that summer is coming to a close we finally decided to to camping. Ray's sister, Kristi and her family, came with us and we went to Oak Grove (I think of my favorite spots). It was marvelous weather and kids had fun traipsing around through the trees and dirt. The only down fall was that we could only stay out for one night. Oh ya, and the rattlesnake!! Yes, a rattlesnake! We were going for a walk down the road before we left and Rylee and I almost stepped on a rattlesnake! I was quite spooked by it and so we decided to just go back to camp and leave. On our way out it was still on the road and so we stopped and took a picture and then wanted to see if it was dead or alive since it hadn't moved since we saw it before. Thankfully, it was dead, otherwise there would have been a good chance that Rylee or I could have been bitten. Other than that it was a fun trip and we hope to get in a couple more trips before it gets too cold!

Stupid scary snake!

Chase was running around and fell down on a stick and scraped his face up pretty good. Thankful it wasn't any worse!

Bryce Canyon Half Marathon

2011-08-10T12:59:00.000-07:00

Six weeks after the Marathon in Oregon I ran the Bryce Canyon Half Marathon. This was a fun one though because my best friend Katie and her husband were running it too. So we decided to have an adult weekend and sent all of the kids to other people's houses (thank you Kathryn and Kristi!) and Ray, me, Katie and Dan left. We stayed at a relative's cabin in Panguitch and went fishing the night before. I haven't been fishing in years (well, without kids anyways) and so this was a treat! The only problem was that didn't catch a single fish! Everyone else caught a fish except for me and it was really bumming me out and I refused to quit until I did! Well, Dan had found a hot spot and was pulling fish out like crazy! So I went and stood right next to him, but no!, I couldn't hook a stinkin' fish still! Needless to say, I walked away empty handed, but still had a great time!

The next morning we had wake up at 4:30 in the MORNING! to get to the race by 6 AM. On the way to the race my stomach didn't feel too great and I thought it was just pre race jitters. Well, as the race started it turned into something worse and I was just about doubled over in severe pain and clenching my bum cheeks for all I was worth! (Sorry TMI) I was able run the first 5 miles but finally gave in to the porta potty. Needless to say, that was not my last time visiting those things. After it was all said and done I had to stop at 6 porta potties. Not my best race, which was too bad because it was a fast downhill course with beautiful scenery. Despite being sick, i finished with a half decent time of 2:07. Unfortunately, Katie came down with the same bug and we were both hating life after the race. But it was so fun to have Dan and Katie along! And eventhough Ray didn't run the race, he was fun have along as well! :) (You know I love you honey!) He got some great pictures though of the race and some of the spectacular sites around us.

Brother and Sister Time

2011-08-10T12:51:00.000-07:00

Chase and Rylee don't particularly play together much, but on this day they did!

It was one of those moments when it got really quiet and you know there's someone in trouble! Yep, this is how I found the trouble-makers! They found my make up and put it on each other....I might add it's quite difficult to discipline them when they look so darn cute!

Summer Fun: part 3 Idaho

2011-08-10T12:04:00.000-07:00

In conclusion to our summer vacation we stopped in Idaho to visit my family. Our first day there we went to the zoo with my mom and sister and her two adorable kids. In addition to the crew, we had our dear sweet friend Paizley (my mom used to babysit her when she was just a little baby) came and stayed and helped with all of the kids.

Chase was quite fascinated with the map of the zoo.

Yep, he's still obsessed with the map.....

And yes, Chase is still looking at the map. It took quite a while to convince him to put it down and look at the animals. :)

And this next story is quite fitting for Chase's life.

The boys were outside at my parent's house playing while we were getting dinner fixed and I heard Chase scream/cry, which is nothing unusual (if you know Chase, you know what I mean). Well, at first the cry didn't sound immediate so I just yelled out the window that he was ok and to settle down. Well, it quickly escalated and then Logan ran to the door yelling that Chase was really hurt. So I then ran out the door and found Chase around the corner of the house bent over a bucket of liquid that smelled horrible and he was drenched in it and his face was all wet and he was just screaming. It didn't take much to figure out that he gotten into some chemical and poured it into a bucket and then played in it and rubbed his face with his hands and got it in his eyes. Now to explain what the chemical was. We just call it "worming chemical". What it is that you mix it up in a giant barrel with water and dump it on your lawn and it makes earth worms come to the surface and you can pick them up and then turn them in to a store for money.

So realizing this was kind of an emergency and I didn't know what it was going to do to his poor eyes I just obeyed my first instinct to run his eyes under water. Well, he didn't so much like this idea and so I had to yell for help and it took my mom, dad and me to hold him under and my sister trying to get hold of poison control to find out what to do. Seeing Chase wigging out like this kind of upset all of the other kids which only intensified the stress! But luckily Paizley took them all in the other room to settle them down. One of the hardest parts for me during this was that Ray wasn't there. He had been in a conference in Salt Lake for the past couple of days and was on a Shuttle Bus at that moment to my parents house. But Ray is my rock, my rationality in life. It was difficult to not have him there to tell it was all ok. Anyways, Audree finally got through to Poison Control (they kept putting her on hold!! this was an emergency! Come on!) they said to put in the shower and just let the water run over his face and it'll make him blink out the poison. Well, to put it nicely, Chase HATES showers!! So anyways, I jumped in the shower with Chase, fully clothed and all. It wasn't exactly a relaxing shower by any means, but we were in there for about 30 minutes and then we were supposed to put a cool, damp cloth over his eyes for another 3o minutes. Ya right! Tell a 2 year old to hold still with something covering his eyes!! Ha!! Well, thankfully, he was so exhausted from all the crying and fighting with us that he fell asleep in my mom's arms. But before he fell asleep I was able to ask Chase if he could see certain things and he could. So it was good to know that he had some sight. So while he was sleeping we had my dad and br0-in-law give him a blessing, and that was very comforting. So then I left go pick up Ray (which had been waiting for like 20 minutes!). I think I cried most of the way to get him. But it was so nice to have Ray back with me and to tell me that everything was going to be alright. Needless to say, his eye sight is just fine and then next day Chase was back to his usual self. He was not slowed down at all.

This is the Worming Chemical.

Chase after he woke up and was eating. You can't tell from the pic, but his poor eyes were all swollen and red.

The next day we went fishing my dad. We drove to a nice little pond, but unfortunately there were not fish.....at least not any hungry ones! We then drove to another pond, but due to the major flooding that was going in that area, the pond was all washed out and not exactly good terrain to take little kids fishing. But it was a fun experience for the kids and they thoroughly enjoyed spending some fun time with Grandpa!

We stayed for about a week in Idaho and then decided that we had been gone from home long enough and we wanted to go home, after all, we had only been gone for 3 1/2 weeks!! :) It was a good, fun visit but it was sure nice to get home to our own place again!

Marathon

2011-07-18T13:31:00.000-07:00

As a follow up to my previous post, this post is specifically about the Newport Marathon which Sarah, and my brother-in-law Trevor ran on June 4th. They both did pretty good, and we had a blast watching and cheering them on. Both of them just wanted to finish in under five hours, and Sarah really wanted to beat Trevor. She's only a little competitive, ok, that's a lie. She's VERY competitive. The race started at the Yaquina head lighthouse in Newport. It wound around a few of the city streets before dropping down to the bayfront road where they ran out almost to Toledo, then turned around and came back to the finish across the street from the Embarcadero. I got up early with Sarah and Trevor to take them to the start of the race while Kristi stayed at the hotel and got kids ready so we could all go and watch.

Here are the Dynamic Duo as we leave for the race.

They ran right in front of the Shilo Inn where we were staying and we got to see them just as we were getting ready to head out. We drove out to Toledo to see them at the turn around point which was about mile 15. We must have just barely missed Sarah by the time we got there, but just moments after we arrived Trevor came by on his way back.

The nice part about the course is they had one lane of traffic open headed towards the finish line. So we drove up ahead of them and stopped and cheered them on, then got back in the car and repeated the same process three or four times. Along the way, we got to watch Trevor eat a couple of oysters from Oregon Oyster Farms. I don't know how he did it, I would have puked.

Each time we stopped it seemed like the time we had to wait between when Sarah Passed us to when Trevor passed us increased. She was pulling away from him. When we first saw them, Sarah was only about 5 minutes in front of Trevor, but by the last time we stopped at about mile 21, Sarah was about 20 minutes ahead of him.

We missed Sarah crossing the finish line because they actually closed the road for the last couple of miles and we had to take a really long detour to get around. Then parking was crazy, and we were running up to the finish line at the same time Sarah was, but we didn't see her. Luckily my sister and her husband were there and got some pictures at the finish line.

Sarah finished in 4 hours and 34 minutes. Not bad for a first timer! She was very happy with her time, and even more happy that she had beat Trevor. Trevor finished in 4 hours and 55 minutes. That day was the hottest day of the year in Newport. It ended up being 78 degrees which was well above what we were expecting for race day. The heat and the humidity took a toll on all the runners. But it was a great day.

Summer Fun: part 1

2011-07-11T12:13:00.000-07:00

We have been up to quite a bit this summer. We have definitely stayed busy to say the least. Because of this, the blog has fallen behind quite a bit. I have tried to get Sarah to update it, but I think she's overwhelmed by the amount of catching up there is to do. So it's time to take matters into my own hands. This is Ray by the way if you haven't already realized that. So here goes an attempt to update everyone on just what we've been up to. It will take more than one post, but I figured it would be easier if I broke things up into smaller chunks.

Presenting: Summer Fun - part 1

We started the summer by taking a marathon road trip. It really was a marathon road trip for two reasons, first Sarah ran the Newport Marathon as part of our trip (more info on that in a later post) and two because our road trip lasted over 4,000 miles and 3 & 1/2 weeks! Needless to say we were glad to get home. We had tons of fun while we were gone, but it is hard being away from home that long, sleeping in uncomfortable beds, living out of a suit case and loading and unloading all of your belongings every couple of days.

The kids at the Portland, OR Temple

Rylee just chilaxin' at the hotel snaking on some fruit loops

We left the weekend after school got out and traveled up to Newport, OR (where I grew up). We made it there and attended church with my parents in the Waldport Branch where my dad is serving as the branch president, even though they don't live there. It was interesting being in a branch, it was really small and between our family and my sister's family, we almost doubled the size of the branch. It was fun though and everyone was really friendly. I got to see Sister Thueson and Sister King who are from the Philippines which is where I served my mission. It's always fun to get to practice a little bit of Tagalog, even if am not as good as I used to be. The following day was Memorial day, and we attended the annual Newport Ward Memorial Day Picnic. It was fun to see old friends and play at the beach with the kids, and just like always, it never rains on the Memorial Day picnic. I don't know how that's possible, because it always rains in Oregon, but somehow, the weather always clears up for at least a couple of hours so we can have our Memorial Day picnic. Later that week, we went back down to Waldport and had dinner with the Thuesons. Sister Thueson always insists on cooking Filipino food for me, which I don't mind. I love the food and she is such a good cook! And as always the Thuesons were such great hosts.

While we were in Oregon, me and my brothers-in-law worked at the radio station cleaning up and remodeling one of the back rooms. It was a lot of work because we ran into problems almost every step of the way. We had to seal the inside of the cinder block walls so the moisture would seep in and ruin the new drywall we put up. We had to cut out and replace sections of the rotting floor. We had to redo pretty much all of the electrical wiring back there. It was a night mare! Good thing there were so many of us, because we would not have gotten it done otherwise.

This was the room before we started, full of junk

And these two are the room after we got the drywall done, still needs textured and painted.

The second weekend we were there, Sarah and my brother-in-law Trevor ran the Newport Marathon. I won't say too much about that right now, that will be it's own post later. But they both did great, Sarah particularly did really well beating her goal time by almost a half hour. We had fun watching and cheering them on.

BEACH TIME!

The following Tuesday, June 7th, my brother Alan came home from his mission. It was really fun and exciting to see him again. He and I are almost 8 years apart in age and didn't really do much together growing up, but over the last few years, we have really done a lot together and he is now one of my best friends. So I missed him a lot and couldn't wait for him to come home. It was really fun just hanging out, being silly and goofing around just like we did before he left. The kids were all really excited to see him too. He came home to 3 nieces and 1 nephew he had never met before, each one of the other siblings had a kid while he was gone.

First time meeting

Alan and all the nieces & nephews

After a few days of Alan being home we had to leave and continue on to part two of our marathon vacation. It was time, because we had been in Oregon for 2 weeks and were ready to go, we only wished we were going home instead of continuing our vacation elsewhere. It was too bad that we only had such a short time with Alan there, it would have been nice to spend more time with him. We had several days of playing at the beach and doing fun stuff like going to the aquarium and things like that in between which were all fun. I have to mention the amazing views we had from our hotels while we were there. The first hotel we stayed at was the Shilo Inn, it is ocean front and we could just look out our window and see miles and miles of ocean and beach in all directions. It was so beautiful and hypnotizing to just sit and watch the waves roll in. The second hotel we stayed at was the Embarcadero Resort. Here we were on the bayfront so we couldn't really see the ocean, but we had an amazing view of the bay with all the boats and the bridge. It was amazing and one of my favorite parts of the trip.

View from The Embarcadero

That's one big crab!

Oregon Coast Aquarium:

Awesome Jellyfish

Shark bait!

Oh yeah, and it was my birthday.

Seeing if I still got it.

From Oregon we traveled back to Utah and then on to Idaho which will be another episode.

To be Continued...

Silly Girl

2011-05-18T12:07:00.000-07:00

We were at my sis-in-law's house for a party and Rylee wanted some ice cream. There were no more high chairs or booster seats available so we just put her in the baby walker and let her do her thing. She was funny though and didn't want me to help her eat it and sure didn't want to put her hands in the ice cream so this is her creative solution to have the best of both worlds. Sure do love the girl...she can bring a smile to my face at any moment!

So the Lil' Miss also decided she likes to climb and do exactly what her brothers do. I do believe I'm in trouble now...

Short Term Memory Loss

2011-05-02T07:37:00.000-07:00

As some of you may remember, about a year ago we got rid of our dog Shelby. We got her as a puppy, but after about 4 or 5 months we had had enough of her. She bit and jumped all over you and was just way too wild. We ended up being prisoners in our own home (or so we felt like) because we didn't want to go outside and have to deal with Shelby. We did love her, and it broke our hearts to give her up, but we just didn't have the time to spend with her to give her the proper training she needed and we were in way over our heads.

HOW QUICKLY WE FORGET!

On Saturday, we got a new dog! Cassie! Actually, she is nothing like Shelby so that's why we felt o.k. doing this. It wasn't that we didn't want a dog, we just couldn't handle how out of control she was. Cassie is a complete opposite. She is so mellow and friendly. All she wants to do is just sit and hang out, and play fetch with her tennis ball non-stop. She is super sweet and is great with the kids. That was a big one for us because we didn't want another dog that was going to attack our kids and have them be afraid of her. We got her from some friends in our ward who were so kind and generous to let us have her! We absolutely love her! She is a much better fit for our family than our last dog.

Cassie is an Australian Shepherd. She's 4 years old and the sweetest thing ever. She is so good with the kids. She puts up with rowdiness of the boys (which is a lot) and is so gentle with Rylee. When Rylee was holding her tennis ball, she would hold it out and try and give it to Cassie, but Cassie will not take it until it leaves her hand. We are excited to have a new friend and part of the family to share adventures with. I can't wait to take her camping!

When we told my mom that we had got her she asked, "do you have short term memory loss?" The answer is no, although it may seem like it at times. We are just really lucky to get such a good dog.

~Ray

It's About Time!

2011-04-08T12:52:00.000-07:00

Well it's about stinkin' time I update the ol' blog!! :) Life has been more than crazy and our internet/computer are super slow and so I dread having to update, especially if it's been for FOREVER since the last post. There's been way too much to catch up on so here's the condensed version.

We got our family pictures taken a couple of weeks ago by a dear friend Randi Gardner at r.gardner photographs. Her website is randi@rgardnerphotographs.com. You should check it out and see her amazing talent! Here are a few of the awesome pictures she got for us.

(PS - I have the cutest kids ever!! Sorry everybody, but it's true!)

Ray is in his second semester of his Masters Program and he is still the Elder's Quorum President. In other words....he's super busy and I cherish any moment he gets to be home.

I'm still attempting to train for the Newport, OR Marathon that is in 8 weeks (yikes!!!). I got some major shin splints a few weeks ago that are extremely difficult to recover from and not to reinjure again. I dunno, I'm not going to trained the way I should be for the marathon but I'm still gonna wing it and see how it goes! :)

Logan started his first year of soccer and Ray is the coach. It's quite entertaining watching these young kids "playing" soccer.

Chase is officially potty trained and isn't biting anymore!!! Those are some major accomplishments for the little guy and he's still just as obsessed with ABC's, Lightning McQueen, and Woody as ever.

Rylee turned 1 last month!!! I can't believe my baby is 1 and she's starting to walk. She's figured out how to stand up in the middle of the room all by herself and she'll take a few steps but it still kind of wobbly. She loves to play outside with her brothers and just makes our family feel so complete.

We got stucco on our house and it turned out so good!! We're also in the process of relandscaping the front yard so the pictures aren't so great yet, but give us a few months and it'll be AWESOME!!

Front of the house after the stucco.

Front of the house after stucco...but BEFORE the yard is finished.

Backyard after

Front of the house before

Backyard before

Logan's views...

2011-02-16T12:49:00.000-08:00

Logan just came up to me and so matter-of-factly said, "Mom, Jesus said to watch a lot of TV today."

"Really? Why?" I said through a smile.

"Because he loves me!"

It's so fun to hear how kids interpret things we teach them. I'm glad to hear that he does actually semi-listen to what I'm trying to teach him, but to see how they process it into everyday situations is comical sometimes. Love ya buddy!

Braggin' Rights

2011-02-01T12:46:00.000-08:00

What mom can resist the opportunity to brag her children?! :) Today I am going to brag about how smart Chase is with his letters. He LOVES letters and points them out and identifies them everywhere we go. He can say the alphabet but also knows the letters out of alphabetical order. He also enjoys the numbers but we're working on those. I wish I could take credit for his talent, but he just kind of learned letters on his own...ok, and PBS Kids. He loves to watch the educational shows on PBS and I think this is where it all started. Once we noticed he was recognizing letters, we then started practicing with him, but he initially did it on his own. Here's a clip of him saying them, personally I think it's one of the cutest things ever!

Ok - can't help up but brag a little more! Here's a couple more pics of the kids.

So a little more on Chase: we were finally able to go back to the gym daycare after his 30-day suspension for biting too much and within a week of being back he bit again and is suspended again for another 30 days. Don't interpret this as anything bad because I am quite proud of my boy (not for biting!!!) but just documenting things that are going on. But also to take advantage of our time being home more I decided to potty train him and he's actually doing so good! We have accidents but today he's taking the initiative and telling he needs to go. Logan was so difficult to potty train that I was scared to start again, but it's going good so far!

Logan wanted a picture to show off his Buzz Lightyear collection. I hadn't even realized that he had acquired 4 of them!! Seriously, how many Buzz's do you need? But it makes for a happy little boy.

And little Miss Rylee! She is just the cutest stinkin thing ever!! She starting walk hanging onto furniture and yesterday decided to walk around pushing the kitchen chairs in the kitchen. She's getting so much hair and her bangs hang in her eyes but I don't want to cut them cause I want to grow them out with the rest of her hair. She's so much fun and we all love her!

2011 St. George Half Marathon

2011-01-23T13:23:00.001-08:00

Yesterday was the 2011 St. George Half Marathon! This half marathon was a lot better for me than last month's. At the Hostess Half there were only about 30 and so I was running by myself almost the whole time and I didn't know the course at all. But yesterday there were over 3,000 runners so I was always with someone, which was fun, and then I was very familiar with the course cause it's the route that I always go running on. The weather was fabulous and everyone did a fantastic job putting the whole even together. My last race time was 2 hours and 4 minutes and my goal for this race was 2 hours...or under if possible. My time yesterday was 2 hours and 50 seconds!! Ray teases me and says that I technically didn't reach my goal but I say I did. I mean come on, after running for two hours I'm not too concerned about a few seconds!! :) But all in all, it was a fun race and I really want to do another one in the city that I live in next month, the only problem is that I don't have the $40 for the registration fee! So..I don't know what will happen but these are fun races and I'm enjoying the push it gives me to set and meet a goal.

Me and my sweet baby (or not so baby anymore) after the race.

I love how Ray and the kids are so good at supporting me, especially Ray. He's been so good at watching the kids on Saturdays while I do my long runs and then enduring the kids during the races. Couldn't do it without him!

This was about at Mile 9 and I'm the one in the gray jacket coming up by the two people in blue right above the first plant and I was so excited to see Ray and the kids. It was a great boost!

After the last race I was in pretty bad shape: my legs and knees hurt like none other and my stomach got sooo sick too. But after this race I feel so much better. My knees hurt a little but nothing bad, the only problem is this lovely blister, or should I say blister(s)!! I got new shoes a week ago and thought they were broken in enough but no. I had one blister already there from last week but then during this race I accumulated another one under the preexisting one. It hurts like crazy but I had Ray drain it today and it feels much better now.

How low can YOU go?!

2011-01-05T12:26:00.000-08:00

Our snowman has(or had) some serious limbo skills! He used to stand so tall and then gradually kept tipping further and further. Ray and I were making bets several days ago on when we thought it would tip over but it just kept tipping more and more until today when I was out taking a pic of it, it finally gave up. I know it's a silly snowman, but we would just laugh about how it was still standing and we couldn't believe it! Here's how the limbo goes:

My boys will miss you snowman, I on the other hand, will not...nothing personal, I just enjoy the sunshine! :)

Trying to Catch Up

2011-01-03T11:34:00.000-08:00

Life has just been too crazy to update regularly so here's another condensed version of what's happened lately:

I successfully ran my first half marathon and it went pretty good. The weather was less than ideal unless you like super cold and rainy conditions! :) My goal was 2 hours and I finished in 2:04, so close! I might have finished with a better time but I missed a turn and got a little lost and so...well...ya know... But I've signed up for another half marathon in St. George on January 22 and hopefully I'll meet my goal this time!

Ray and the kids made this cute poster for when I finishing the race. It says: Way to go Supermom!

Christmas was fun and we all got spoiled pretty good. Both Ray and I's parents came to St. George so we stayed busy visiting with everyone. While my parents were here it snowed and so we went out and built a snowman. The boys thought it was pretty fun but I'm sooo ready for the snow to melt, but yet it snowed again last night and it does not make me happy. :( I live in St. George to avoid this kind of weather!

We reenacted the Nativity Story with Ray's side of the family with the kids. It was entertaining and sweet at the same time.

Chase is still not allowed back into the gym daycare yet. They called and asked if he was doing better with the biting and they would let him come back but he bit me the day before on the neck when we were just playing and he's bit Logan a couple of time since so we have to wait longer. At this point I don't know what to do with him, I'm just trying to survive and hope he grows out of this stage soon! The poor guy also has some sort of illness that he can't get rid of though. He randomly gets hives, rashes and fevers. They only last a couple of days but just goes from one thing to the next. Now we're trying to get rid of a nasty cold that him, Rylee and I all have. The little guy just needs to get feeling better, it's so hard seeing him not feel up to par.

He's too cute!! So why can't he just quit biting? :)

Logan is growing up before my eyes. He'll walk around the house or do something that I just look at him and go "when did you become a big boy?" I mean seriously, he's not just a little baby that I have to keep and eye on every second of the day. He's also becoming such a good helper around the house.

And Rylee is doing so much better with the bottles. My milk has decreased rapidly and we only nurse about once a day. She doesn't mind the bottle at all now and is doing good with the baby food too. She's going through a big growth spurt and is eating a ton! She's also outgrowing most of her 9 month clothes and wears mostly 12 months. She is still small for her weight (25%) and height (20%), but she sure doesn't act like it. Rylee also has grown quite the head of hair and is so cute with I do her hair in little piggies!

Rylee was super hyper one night when Ray was playing with her. I got a kick out of it!!

In a Nutshell...

2010-12-16T21:40:00.000-08:00

So things have been too crazy, but yet at the same time too boring to warrant a post. But in an effort to write something, here it is in a semi-condensed version.

I've been training for my first half marathon that is on Saturday and I'm super excited!! Hope all goes well and I don't die!
Been super busy my the new Primary calling
I've lost all control over my boys, they're literally making me go crazy!
Chase got kicked out of the gym daycare today for 30 days for biting too many times :(
Rylee HATES formula...and bottles. This does not work well for a mama whose milk is going away and I've tried multiple remedies to try and get it back. The bottles are a work in progress, some feedings are better than others. I'm still nursing a couple of times a day.
Logan is getting better with his counting, colors, and saying his alphabet. Grandpa and Grandma Miller are coming to visit for Christmas and promised Logan that if he could sing his ABC's when they got here that Grandpa would take him out for a milkshake, guess that was all the incentive he needed!
Rylee is speedy little crawler and is pulling herself up to her knees with anything she can find and still just a happy little baby!!
Ray is super busy...still! He finished his first semester for his Master's Degree and got super good grades. I'm way proud of him!

Well, I think that's it! I'm sure there's more, but my brain just won't process anything else right now, so this will just have to do. :)

Turkey Trot

2010-11-21T14:38:00.000-08:00

I haven't ran a race since September (I have been running still though) and decided to run in the city Turkey Trot. The weather was windy and cold (cold for us wimps in St. George at least) and I hadn't ran at all during the week and even missed a few days at the gym due to sick kids and an overwhelming schedule. Needless to say, I was a little apprehensive at how well I was going to run but I met my goal! I ran in 24:58 and I'm completely satisfied with my time. My last race was ran in 28:30 so I cut 3 1/2 minutes off. I've been training for a half marathon in December and so I figured I would really try to push myself, it's only 3 miles! It was a lot different to run a shorter distance and push for speed rather than doing an endurance run. It was a lot of fun and it felt pretty good. I'm really looking forward the half marathon in a few weeks and if all goes well I'm also planning on the doing another half marathon in January, the St. George Painter's Half Marathon.

My father-in-law planted a little seed in my head last week and has me seriously thinking of trying the Newport, OR Marathon in June. My bro-in-law (miss him sooo much!) will be coming home from his mission about that time and said I should give it a try since we'll be there for his welcome home. I think it would be kind of cool and such a beatiful place to run! Ray said he is even toying with the idea of it and we're trying to talk my other bro-in-law, Trevor, to try and make it out there and do it with us, afterall, he already ran the St. George Marathon and did awesome! I also want to see if my sis-in-law, Nicole, will do it too. The only issue there might be that she will of just had a baby in February! I don't know, lots of scheming, I just think it would be fun to make it kind of a family affair. We'll just have to wait and see if my body will even hold up after a half marathon.

Hide and Seek Games

2010-11-15T12:11:00.000-08:00

On Saturday Ray was out playing Hide and Seek with Logan. I went out to see the grand adventures they were having and this is how I found them, climbing around in the tree. Logan now asks everyday if I will lift him up in the tree. :) When Chase saw them up there he of course needed to join in on the fun.

Can I just say that I love these guys soooo much! Ray is an absolutely wonderful dad and my most bestest friend ever. Logan and Chase are so fun play with, they have such energy that they will just go and go and go.

Fun with the Kiddos

2010-11-10T19:51:00.000-08:00

The boys like to have fun taking pictures lately. Here are just a few of the random ones!

Not one of the best pictures of either one of us, but it was the best one of the moment.

Wizard of Oz Family

2010-10-31T21:26:00.001-07:00

This year for Halloween I wanted to attempt a theme as a family and this what we came up with.

The Miller Family

starring in

THE WIZARD OF OZ

It was fun making the costumes. Ray and I's costumes were simple and not much to them but the kids were a little more involved. Chase's lion costume was a monkey that Logan used a couple of years ago. I just cut the monkey nose off and used yarn for the lion's mane. Pretty easy and he looked super cute in it. Logan was the Tinman and I wasn't quite sure how go about it so Ray helped out with this one. We used an oil funnel for the hat, cardboard for the body, and dryer vent hose for the arms and legs. We didn't get quite enough dryer hose but it still turned out fun. And then Rylee's dress I had to sew. This was an adventure because I've never sewed clothing before and I'm not exactly skilled in this department. I was pretty proud of myself though because I didn't have a pattern or anything and just kind of guessed what I had to do. I asked my mom and a neighbor a couple of questions, but it still turned out good. Rylee was pretty dang cute as usual (PS - she got her first tooth yesterday!!! Lets hope it doesn't put a monkey wrench in nursing now. I don't know now long I can handle it if she starts to bite when nursing :) ) But overall, it was a fun holiday and I'm already starting to think about what we could do as a family theme for next year.

2010-10-14T12:30:00.000-07:00

Ok....so there's a lot of pictures, but I'm going to try and capture the events of Logan's birthday as best as I can without writing a novel. He turned 4 yesterday and we had a blast!! He opened his presents in the morning and then that night we went to Staheli Farms to get pumpkins and to play. They have quite the setup at the farm where the kids can play. So here we go!!!

Grandma Miller made Logan a cowboy vest with chaps and leather gloves. The sunglass are from Grandma Jolley who also gave him a bouncing ball, you know the ones with the handle and you sit on and jump. He gets quite the kick out it, plus it's funny to watch!

Logan wanted a Cat in the Hat birthday cake. It's not perfect but I thought it turned out pretty cute. The one thing I totally forgot about until after was the whiskers for the cat. Oh well, Logan loved it!

We got Logan a big boy bike. He's been riding a much too little tricycle for quite a while and he's loving it! He took off on it like a little champ and is even doing good learning how to use the brakes.

Chase with his pumpkin at Staheli Farms. It's about as big as him!

Oh magosh!! Is Rylee not the cutest little girl ever!! I just can't get enough! And sitting up all by herself like she's so big....

The boys choosing their pumpkins.

All of my darling little children!

My handsome men!

Our attempt to get a family picture. It turned out a little blurry but gets the job done.

Logan doing the duck races. He had fun with this game.

Staheli Famrs had this slide and dumps you into a pit of dried corn. Chase had blast!

Chase loved the slide!

This is just a random picture of the boys outside. We've had awesome weather lately (the reason we love St. George!) and we've tried to take advantage of it as much as possible.

I have a very sweet friend that I attempted to make this nursing cover for. I was proud of myself with the way it turned out. I'm soooo not a seamstress so to get something that turns out semi-right is such an accomplishment! :)

2010-09-28T13:47:00.000-07:00

So this weekend was a blast!! First off Ray and I went on a date to the homecoming football game for the school he teaches at. It was so nice to be able to actually watch the game and follow it. Then Saturday morning I ran in a 5K race. My sister-in-law's Stake put on a fun run and so I decided to run in it. It's been about 10 years since I ran a race and so it felt really good. I finished with a time of 28:13, placed 2nd for my age group (20-29), and placed about 35th overall. I'm hoping to run a couple of more races this year and improve my time.

This is the running crew. :) My good friend Katie, Katie's sis-in-law and Kathryn's nieghbor Kandice, my sis-in-law Kathryn, and me. Trying to get a little warmed up before the race. It was cold that morning!

I was NOT about to let this young kid beat me. Proudly, I did beat him!! :)

They also had a 1 mile run for the kids. Logan placed 3rd for his age group and finished in about 14 minutes. Way to go kid!!

After the race we (meaning Ray's three sisters and their families) all went for a walk. This was not a good idea where it was about 95-100 degrees outside. But it worked because we walked around the river and decided to play in the water which the kids thoroughly loved!

Chase and cousin Emily

Little Miss Rylee in Unlce Darrin and Aunt Nicole's hiking backpack. Thanks for hauling her around!

Cousin Kimmi, Logan, and Cousin Kassi

Logan found a "skeleton rock".

Playing in the river. I'm still getting used to the idea that this is a river. Where I'm from, a river is a "little bit" deeper and faster. Oh well, it works for what we need!

Logan enjoyed relaxing in the water.

Messy Faces

2010-09-22T07:54:00.001-07:00

These messy faces are just too stinkin' cute!

Somehow Logan has stayed relatively clean lately and so there's no messy face pic for him, but he's still cute!

Finished!!

2010-09-11T15:46:00.001-07:00

This last week has been a "finishing" week for us. We've been looking for a new car for a few months and finally found one!! Yes, we are now minivan owners and it doesn't bother me one bit! It has the room we're looking for and the separation for the kids. Now I don't have to hear "he's touching me" anymore! :) It's a 2007 Chevy Uplander and I love it!!!

The next thing we finished was our back yard!! I can't even tell you how excited I am about this! It took ALOT of hard work, and the help of very good family and friends. We plan on using this yard alot, whether it be for the boys to escape to or to have many BBQs, it is totally worth all that it took to make it happen.

2010-08-29T14:37:00.000-07:00

I love how family is always there for you. It doesn't matter if there's a major catastrophe going on or whether it's just to have somebody around. Lately me and my 2 sis-in-laws have been doing "Cousin Time" once a week where we all just get the kids together and play at a park, splashpad, or just at a house. It's been nice to know that at least once a week I will have real adult interaction. I also enjoy how it strengthens the relationships I have with these girls and how they are more like sisters to me than just in-laws. Here's just a couple of pics of one day at the park.

Pushing kids and my super cute little niece.

As a side note, I was getting all geared up for this half-marathon in October and running steadily and feeling good and pretty good distances too. But last week during one of my runs, my knee gave me some serious problems and pain. I thought that it would be good the next day, but it's not working out that way. I got some Glucosamine to try but it's not seeming to do much yet. I'm kind of decided that running just isn't something I can do anymore. I had knee surgery about 10 years ago and I'm having the same problems I had before the surgery. I kind of think that I shouldn't push it too hard and permanently injure myself so I can't do any physical activity anymore. I LOVE going to the gym everyday (which oddly doesn't bother my knee at all) and getting good exercise and making new friends so I would prefer to keep being able to do that instead of running and making it so I can't even do that. I don't know, I really really wanted to run this race and it felt good working towards a goal. It's frustrating and I don't really know what to do. Anybody have any ideas?

Also, tomorrow we should finish up our sprinkler system (thanks to some awesome friends who came and helped yesterday) and then hopefully grass this week!! Here's how I tried to keep the boys out of the way while we worked. I'm totally not a healthy mom, they're eating Popsicles and chips in their fort.

Still Alive

2010-08-13T12:57:00.000-07:00

Hello!! Yes, we're still alive! Things have just been so crazy busy and stressful that blogging just has not been a priority. Lately we've been getting Ray ready to start teaching again and then he's also starting his Master's Degree in Education in a couple of weeks also. We've also been working on our back yard again. We hauled in a few truck loads of compost from the landfill (which is pretty darn stinky) and tilled it all in. The next step to do is to start the sprinkler system. Almost seems like a reality that we might actually have grass in the near future!!

Shoveling the stinky mulch.

Tilling the ground was a rather difficult task because our ground is rock-hard clay! Ray got a workout with this project.

We've also been car shopping for the last couple of months and can I just say that I HATE car shopping!! I don't enjoy the whole process of it. I don't think it would be too bad if there were more of a selection in St. George. If you can afford to buy a new car that are endless possibilities, but well, a new car is definitely not in our budget. But now we have to wait to until next month to even think of a car because we're in the process of refinancing our house! Interest rates dropped so we're able to refi and we're going to save a good chunk of change! Speaking of money (or the lack thereof) I'm supposed to be starting another piano student this month! I have 2 girls already and then this new girl starting. I would really like to pick up one more so if anyone is interested or knows of anyone looking for lessons, let me know!! :)

But lately my kids are giving me a serious run for my money. The boys are just out of control and I really don't know what to do! It's hard because I hear a lot of people saying that their kids (who are the same age as mine) just love playing together and they get along so well and having so much fun with this stage. Well, NOOO!!! Not in this house. I don't know what I'm doing wrong but it's nonstop fighting and contention and complete lack of respect. Disobedience is at an all time high and I'm ready to start waving the white flag and call it quits. They fight me with everything I do, even sleeping, especially Chase. The kid is always exhausted because he never sleeps anymore. He fights me for like an hour to get to sleep (a nap or bedtime at night) and then he only sleeps for like an hour during naps and wakes up super cranky and then at night he wakes up nonstop crying or just wandering around the house. He also has started this nonstop screaming thing. It doesn't matter if you're giving him juice or a treat or just looking at him, but he just starts screaming and going crazy. All I know is that I'm exhausted and stressed. Life is more difficult than I ever imagined and it's everything I can do to just make it through each day. I say a lot of prayers and rely on Ray like crazy. The poor guy already has his plate full without taking care of a basket-case wife. Please don't take this post the wrong way, I totally love my family and wouldn't trade any of them for anything. We're just kind of in a rough rut and trying to figure out how to get out.

Just Rylee being her happy, cute little self! She's rolling over like crazy and scoots around a little too.

The boys have loved playing in the rainstorms we've had lately.

One last tidbit though, I think I'm going to run a half-marathon at the end of October. One of my awesome gym instructors talked me into it. It's kind of difficult to find time to run because in order to beat the heat down here you have to wake up early and with being to tired and being up with Chase through the night, waking up is rather difficult. But I have to be back to get Ray out the door for school and get kids taken care of. Don't know what I got myself into, but it's kind of nice to go running and have a little time for myself. Thanks Ray for helping out so much!!!

Other than that, things are just plugging right along. :) All in all, the kids are healthy and doing good, and I've learned to be soooo thankful for what I have. If you stop and think of what you could potentially lose, all of the sudden you're so much more grateful and appreciative of what all I've been blessed with. Count your many blessings....that's what I'm trying to do right now. I just hope life works out right now.

PS-Sorry this ended up being so long. Didn't have intentions of sharing all of this when I started. Just kind of kept coming out and could use some advice, support, ideas...you name it, I need it right now.

Irresistable

2010-07-26T20:05:00.001-07:00

There's nothing more that I can say except, I LOVE YOU!!!

Update

2010-07-08T19:15:00.000-07:00

So Sister Dotson had her surgery on Tuesday and everything went fantastic!! She ended up not getting her whole breast removed and she is recovering very well. She is such an amazingly strong woman and I am so glad that we have the opportunity to have her as our neighbor and part of our family.

Praying

2010-07-05T13:32:00.000-07:00

We have a neighbor that lives across the street that has become family to us. Last week she came over and told me that she has breast cancer and will be having a mastectomy. The surgery is scheduled for tomorrow and I'm very nervous for her. She is being very brave and taking it very well, and all she says she wants is prayers for her. I love this woman to death and she has filled the void of living so far away from my grandma's. I hope and pray that things will go well tomorrow and that she can recover quickly with no problems. We love you!!

My New Motto

2010-06-29T16:26:00.001-07:00

Right now I am going through some of the most difficult challenges in my life. There are some really tough trials that are happening that are making me reevaluate myself. I'm feeling and intense desire to try to increase and develop a real testimony, not judge others and realize we're all human and just trying to do our best, not to take advantage of the wonderful family I've been blessed with, and rely on the Lord to take of me. While at my sister-in-law's church on Sunday, the girl giving the lesson read part of Julie B. Beck's talk from the last April session of General Conference. It hit home quite well right now.

A good woman knows that she does not have enough time, energy, or opportunity to take care of all the people or do all of the worthy things her heart yearns to do. Life is not calm for most women, and each day seems to require the accomplishment of a million things, most of which are important. A good woman must constantly resist alluring and deceptive messages from many sources telling her that she is entitled to more time away from her responsibilities and that she deserves a life of greater ease and independence. But with personal revelation, she can prioritize correctly and navigate this life confidently.

Smile

2010-06-14T13:14:00.000-07:00

So right now, there is nothing that makes me smile more than my kids. Don't get me wrong, I want to pull my hair out most days, but all they have to do is give me one little grin and my day is so much happier!!

They were supposed to cleaning their room and this is what I found. Logan was totally passed out cold on the floor and then Chase using him as a bed. Made us laugh pretty good. Logan never even twitched with Chase climbing all over him.

2010-06-04T21:48:00.000-07:00

So a few weeks ago we went camping with some family and friends and had so much fun that we decided to go back again. The weather was PERFECT for camping!! The boys LOVED getting as dirty as possible, and it was just nice to be out of the heat. We went for a short hike to a summit lookout and took some family pictures.

Pretty cute view!

After the camping we quickly went home and showered the stink and dirt off of us and went for a quick swim at a guy's house that Kristi and Trevor know. The yard was AWESOME with a very nice pool!! Logan and Chase had a ball. I didn't know Logan was a little fish!

Chase didn't quite know how to react to the life jacket and was a little skeptical of the water.

Doing some cool tricks with dad! Ray was throwing alot higher than this, but I couldn't get a picture of it so I had him do it lower.

Smiley Rylee looking so cute in her little swim suit!

Not so smiley now. Not enjoying her first swim.

Logan took to the water without any hesitation! You gotta check out the videos down below of him!

Confused

2010-05-30T22:20:00.000-07:00

Chase hasn't figured out how to say "yes" yet. He's good at no, but if you ask him a question and the answer is yes, this is what you get.

2010-05-13T11:57:00.000-07:00

So, it's been a long time since I've posted, therefore, there's a lot to get caught up on. I'll "try" to keep it condensed, but there's no guarantees.

Chase has started this "snuggle" thing and I happened to catch it with the camera. They're just hanging out watching TV together.

Last weekend was Cotton Days (local city celebration) and we took my nieces with us to the parade and carnival.

Chase coulnd't decide which treat he wanted, so why not go with both?! Sucker....popsicle...sucker...popsicle?

There were Star Wars characters there and the boys thought there were so cool!!! And I need to give Kassi and Kimmi major credit for this picture. Last year we were at another parade and a Star Wars guy was walking by and just grabbed Kassi and started walking with her down the parade and absolutely terrified the poor girl. So when the girls saw these guys this year, they were very scared. But the guy was sooo good with them and took off his helmet and showed them he was a normal guy just dressed up in a costume. After that, they warmed up quite a bit. Way to go girls!! You were so brave!!

We've had Chase is a toddler bed for quite a while now, but he still likes to get out. We went to check on him before we went to bed, about 3 hours after he was in bed, and this was the way we found him...pajamas half way off, and leaning over his bed completely asleep. Now, if only he would stay asleep. The last couple of weeks he's started waking up just about every hour screaming and crying. We go in to check on him, and he's still asleep but screaming and thrashing around. He does this ALL NIGHT LONG!!!! I thought it was supposed to be the new born baby that kept us awake, not the 1 1/2 year old! But yesterday at the doctor office for his 18 month check up, I asked about this and we have some help. He gave a prescription for Valium (not quite sure how I feel about it), a mild sedative, and he slept so soundly all night. What a relief, but I hope he grows out of this soon so that he doesn't constantly have medicine.

Oh yeah, and Chase is weighing in at 27 pounds. He's only 5 pounds away from Logan. Chase is wearing Logan's summer clothes from last year eventhough they're 2 years apart!!

This little girl is my pride and joy. She's always with me, no matter where I go and I love every minute of it. She has the cutest little smiles and she's starting to "talk" to me and try to laugh.

Yesterday was her 2 month check up and she's doing very good. She's weighing in at 10 pounds, but yet she's still so petite looking. She has an ear infection and hopefully when that clears up she will start eating good again. This last week she started eating for maybe 5 minutes at a time and then she screams afterwards and spits up ALOT!! Mentioned this to the doc as well, and if in two weeks the ear infection is cleared up and still the problems, we'll look at something like acid reflux. I just hope she gets better so that my milk won't go away. I've been pumping after every feeding trying to keep the milk coming in, but it's quite annoying. But even with all of that, I love her to death and can't get enough of her!!

Rylee's Special Day

2010-04-26T13:08:00.001-07:00

Yesterday Ray was able to give Rylee a name and a blessing. It was a simple, but special time. Most of our family was not able to be there for the blessing, but it was ok. We still had Trevor (awesome bro-in-law) and Ray's conselors in the Elder's Quorum stand in the circle. Thanks to everyone for all your love and support!

After church, Kristi and Kathryn (my sis-in-laws) brought over birthday cake and ice cream to celebrate my birthday coming on Tuesday. Kristi and I joke with each other that we have to take care of each other on our birthdays because our husbands wouldn't get any thing done. So, we make the cakes for each other and kind of put together a small party.

But I'm super excited for this coming week because me and the kids are going to Idaho to visit my family!!! Ray is going on a trip with a group of kids from school to Havasupai (in the Grand Canyon) and will be gone Wednesday through Sunday and I really didn't want to be alone and with the kids for that long so, what a great excuse to go on a trip!! It will be intersting traveling with 3 kids by myself, but it should be ok. The only problem I really foresee is that Logan and Chase's car seats are right next to each other and they have a tendancy to fight. Could be interesting, we'll see....

2010-04-15T13:35:00.000-07:00

My dear, precious Rylee. I can't believe she'll be 5 weeks old tomorrow!!

We got a toddler bed for Chase and so I sanded it down and repainted it. Turned out pretty cute I think! We left it in the living room the night we put it together and so the boys were watching Saturday morning cartoons together. Love these two!!

Anyways, Chase has done super good with the new bed. The longest we've had to keep putting back in was about a 1/2 hour. Other than that he tries to get out about one time and that's it. Such a difference compared to Logan who would fight us for like 2 hours to go to sleep in it.

Grandma Jolley sent Easter presents with new shirts and candy for the boys. Logan quite enjoyed the ring pops. Thanks Grandma!

Chase had a pudding cup after lunch the other day. Watching him eat it was quite entertaining.
The mess on the other hand was not so fun to clean. Oh well, he had fun with it!

Well, things around here have a sort of controlled chaos. We're all doing good, just super busy trying to keep up with everything. Here's a "quick" update on everyone.

Poor Ray is being pulled about 10 different directions and is doing is best to please everyone. Between teaching his classes, club advisor, trying to landscape our yard, Elders Quorum President, and being a good dad, there just isn't enough of him to go around.

Logan has started this new thing chewing on his fingers. He's never done this before and I'm not entirely sure why he's doing it. He says that his teeth hurt but the dentist couldn't find anything wrong, so we don't know if it's just a "phase", if his allergies are making his sinuses hurt down into his teeth, or something else going on. It's just weird that he's doing this, yesterday he was even biting his arm leaving teeth marks as he was watching a movie. Don't know, hope it stops soon.

As for Chase, from above you can see that he's graduated to a toddler bed and doing awesome with it. He still is constantly on the run getting into nonstop trouble. He's starting to talk a lot and loves to sing songs and rhymes with me. He's also starting to express interest in the potty. He comes up to me and says "potty" and pulls me to the bathroom. He hasn't actually done anything in the toilet yet, but he likes to sit there. Maybe he'll potty train faster and easier than Logan. Here's to hoping!!

And Rylee. I thoroughly enjoy this little girl!! She's starting to smile more and more and they are the custest little smiles! She's starting to sleep through the night so good too. We can go about 6 hours at night so I can get some decent sleep. At her 1 month appt last week her weight was up to 8 lbs 5 oz and was 20 inches long. She's just a tiny little thing, but so adorable and sweet.

Other than that, we're just trucking right along and needing more hours in the day, preferably more hours while the kids are sleeping so we can get more accomplished!!

My New Love

2010-03-30T19:35:00.001-07:00

All I can say is that I am totally and completely in love with this little girl. I am so thankful to my Heavenly Father for sending her to our home.

More pictures

2010-03-13T17:15:00.000-08:00

Here's a few more pictures that didn't get uploaded last night.

Rylee Ann Miller

2010-03-12T19:08:00.000-08:00

Well she's here. Sarah asked me (Ray) to update the blog for her. So here it goes. I'm no good at all this blabbering, I mean thoughtful writing, so you'll pretty much just get the facts and some pictures.

We checked into the hospital at 7:45 this morning for our scheduled induction. I'm going to pause for a moment and tell everyone how great inductions are! I know I said I wouldn't blabber on about things, but in my opinion it is the only way to go. No guessing, no worrying, no "are we going to make it to the hospital on time?" or "do I really need to go in yet, or are they just going to send me home?" Induction takes away all that stuff, and allows for a nice, planned birth. You know when you go in, you're coming home with a baby.

Any way, I digress. after a couple of hours of the paper work and admissions stuff and getting everything set up. They finally hooked her up to the pitocin. That was a horrific experience because the nurse had a student with her who she let do the IV. I guess it hurt pretty bad and blood squirted out all over. I guess Sarah almost lost it, but even worse, it almost hit my shoe! After that ordeal, the contractions started coming. After a while the doctor came in and checked her and she hadn't really progressed much, but he went ahead and broke her water. I was surprised because I didn't think he would until he saw more favorable results from the pit. But we were glad he did, since in our previous experience, once they broke her water things progressed quickly... And they did!

About 1 hour after the breaking of the water. Contractions were getting pretty bad so Sarah decided she needed something to help with the pain. Throughout the pregnancy Sarah had been toying with the idea of not doing the epidural and just using narcotics (I know, drug addicts) injected in through the IV. She still wasn't sure when we came in. I said she should do the epidural since she had had it with both the boys and it worked great. Why mess with something good? Right?! But Sarah let the nurse talk her into trying the other stuff first. Well as I suspected, it didn't really do anything, so about 10 min. later she asked for the epidural. Once she got that, things were good. They checked her again (I think it may have actually been just before they gave her the epidural, I don't remember) and she was at a 4. About an hour later they came back and checked her again and she was dilated to an 8. So things were moving along quickly.

Then about 10 min. later, she turns to me and says " I think I can feel her head moving down in there." So we paged the nurse to have her come check again. The nurse came and checked and she was totally dilated, ready to go. So they call the doctor, and we actually had to wait for the doctor to get there. Once he arrived she pushed for about 3 min. and out she came. Super easy delivery and every thing went great.

So at 3:19 p.m. today Rylee Ann Miller was born. She weighed 7 lbs. 1 oz. and is 18.5 in. long. She has been a little angel so far eating good, sleeping lots, and best of all no crying! It better stay that way!

Well that's the short and condensed "just the facts" version. If you want to hear the dramatic version you'll have to ask Sarah :) And now, lots of pictures, enjoy!

Holy Cow!!

2010-03-11T13:01:00.000-08:00

So, wow, things have been busy around here lately. Ray's Spring Break has been this week and our project has been to redo our backyard. This is one massive undertaking I might add. The yard was in two different levels and we decided to take down the upper level and make it one. We rented a Bobcat today and will hopefully have it all leveled and looking as pretty as you can make dirt look before tomorrow BECAUSE.....we're being induced to have the baby!!

So this kids doesn't love working with his dad at all?! He was so excited to help dad in the tractor!

FYI - Don't hit an hold sprinkler line you didn't know about that still has water running in it. It makes a big mess!! Thankfully, it wasn't a main water line or anything, that would have been bad.

Hopefully everything goes good because the doctor is a little hesitant to start me. He said that he would like to see me a little more dilated and thinned out with the baby down a little further, but said that we could go ahead and try. We had thought about just waiting another week until my due date to do this, but my parents were coming this weekend and I'm just plain tired of being pregnant. Yes, this is very selfish of me, but oh well, we'll see how things go. The doc said that if after a while of being on the pitocin doesn't get her head to come down a bit, then there's a good chance that he'll just send me home and wait a little while longer. So, please silly little girl!! Please be a good girl and decide to come out tomorrow!

We'll keep you updated on how things go with the baby and the crazy yard project.

Seriously!!

2010-03-04T11:54:00.000-08:00

SERIOUSLY!!!! Will this silly little girl ever decide to come out?! I am one impatient mama who wants to hold my GIRL in my arms (not in my stomach) and smile at her! Is this really so much to ask?

Update on Chase

2010-02-21T17:39:00.000-08:00

So here is an updated picture of Chase's finger from his burn. Sorry, this is a little graphic. But we had to cut the skin off because it was starting to get infected under it and couldn't get it cleaned. So....here is what it looks like under the blister. He does really well with it until we have to put the anti-septic medicine on it, it burns just a little I think. The poor kids just screams bloody murder. Hope you get better soon buddy!

Poor Chaser

2010-02-20T12:06:00.000-08:00

So I did it again. My negligence hurt the poor kid. I really don't have an excuse for letting him get hurt again, I just didn't think and I feel super guilty. Luckily he's tough and it could have been a lot worse. Here's the story.

I had been in the bathroom "trying" to get ready for the day when my neighbor came over. Without thinking I had left the bathroom door open with my hair straightener plugged in. I know better than to leave the bathroom door open like that because Chase loves to play in the bathroom. Well, after a minute of visiting with my neighbor I realized that I left the door open and that Chase was probably in the bathroom. He's never really tried to grab the straightener before but this time he did. He grabbed it just as I came in and the poor kid just started screaming. I quickly tried looking at his hands to see where he was burned and couldn't see anything at first but I still shoved both of his hands in cold water. I knew he had to be burned because the thing was turned as hot as it would go to 450 degrees!! And sure enough in a matter of seconds, a HUGE blister formed on the inside of his thumb and index finger. I kept his hand in the cold water as long as he would let me but it still just burned like crazy to him. He screamed pretty good for about an hour. I just held him trying to comfort him and he would fall asleep for a couple of minutes and then he would wake up screaming because it would start to throb. I finally decided to take him to the doctor to see if they could numb it or something, just anything to help the little guy. I called Ray to tell him and he said to bring him by the school first so he could look at it. So when we got there Ray took him to the Athletic Trainer at the school who works for the hospital to see if he had anything so we could avoid a doctor visit. Luckily, he had some numbing anti-septic and some cooling pads. We put those on there and wrapped his hand up pretty good so he wouldn't pull at the blister or bandage and he calmed right down!! As long as we keep it wrapped it up, he doesn't even seem to notice it or act like it bothers him so we are truly blessed. It could have burned him so much worse and covered so much more area. I am definitely being a little more careful now. I just hope my stupidity doesn't hurt him anymore!!

This isn't the best picture, but the best we could get. This was when the burn was a day old. All of the white part is the blister. It actually broke open the night before so we are trying to watch for infection and keep it as clean as possible. Hopefully we avoid it. The burn actually wraps around his thumb to the other side but we couldn't get a picture of it.

This was taken with my phone so the glare from the sun is pretty intense but he was so cute. He had fallen asleep after we saw Ray and put the medicine on. He was finally able to relax and fall asleep. Sucker in his mouth and all.

See!! It doesn't even seem to bother him! I don't know how it doesn't, but he still laughs and plays like normal! We put a sock over it last night to let it air out without being bandaged and taped it to his pajamas.

35 Weeks!!!

2010-02-14T19:37:00.000-08:00

Before at 30 weeks..... and now....

Yeah! We're at 35 weeks and counting down!!

PS - Sorry my stomach hangs out, I've waaaay outgrown the shirt but to keep with the sameness in the pictures it is what I have to wear.

Final Farewell

2010-02-04T11:43:00.000-08:00

I actually wrote this a week ago, but I couldn't get the picture to load of Shelby so I was waiting to get that to work. Finally got it to upload, so here is my "final farewell" to her. I miss you!

Today is our last day with adorable Shelby. This has been a hard decision for us, especially Ray. This has always been one of his "dreams" to have a dog. But given the present circumstances, with the baby coming soon (cross my finers!!) and we are starting to re landscape the back yard, it was just too much. The other big parts of this decision are that we don't give her the time or attention she deserves. Since we got her, we rarely go outside and when we do we put her in her cage and she hates it. She needs someone who will play with her and absolutely adore her. I really hope and pray that this new home for her will give her those things and be a better situation for her. We will miss you Shelby!!

Uh, Oh....Spaghettio!!

2010-01-29T13:01:00.000-08:00

So last night I was giving the boys a quick bath before we left for a basketball game that Ray was working at. I gave Chase a bath first, got him dressed and then quickly threw Logan in. This is a common routine for us because both boys are too much in the tub at once!! So anyways, I was in the middle of putting shampoo in Logan's hair and I hear Chase do a blood-curdling scream. I forget about Logan, shampoo and all, and run out of the bathroom to find Chase. I round the corner to the kitchen and Chase is standing at the garbage can holding a Spaghettios can from lunch, with his fingers STUCK in it!! You see, when I open a can, I don't completely cut it all the way off, I leave just a small tab attached so I can just push it back down. Well, I'm usually pretty careful about not leaving those within reach because one of my brothers did this same thing when we were little and it was scary!! So anyways, Chase is screaming with his fingers stuck and all of the sudden he just pulls the can off and all I see is blood coming out!! I immediately rush him to the sink to try and clean off the blood to see where and how bad it is. Luckily, oh so luckily, he got a small part of thumb cut. I mean, it bled ALOT! but it was a relatively small cut. It took a while to get the bleeding to stop, especially because he kept pulling off any bandage I put on it. His choice tactic at this was to put his thumb in his mouth and chew and suck on it until he got it off, it more than grossed me out! But, I am so thankful that the poor little guy didn't get hurt too bad.

But the poor kid is just struggling right now. The last week or so he's had a terrible cold with a super runny nose that just won't stop and he's quite congested. But the night before last, he woke up around 9:30 just screaming hysterically so I go back to get him to calm down. After I leave his room, I notice that there was watered down blood spots on the neck of my shirt so I go back in to find where it was coming from. Couldn't find anything so I go back out a little baffled. A while later he starts screaming again so I go back, get him calmed down and when I leave, once again there is watered down blood drooled down the arm of my shirt. It starts to freak me out a little this time so I get him out of bed and Ray and I look him over and can't find any source of bleeding anywhere!! So I have no other option really other than to put him back down and hope he stays asleep the rest of the night. Now, there wasn't any large amounts of blood or anything, but regardless, blood still. Well, he slept through the night without any incident, but when I got him out of bed in the morning there were the same watered down blood spots on his sheet!! He acts fine, not like something is wrong, so I don't know what to do! He hasn't done it again, but it's a little strange!! Any suggestions on what to do? Do I take him to the doctor, or just let it be? But where did it come from? I'm so confused!!

2010-01-26T11:30:00.001-08:00

So I know that I haven't posted in quite a while, but I just haven't had much to write about. Things are just plugging right along and not a whole lot going on. I'm still pregnant, the boys are still crazy wild, and Ray is still super busy at school, church, and helping around here.

So as for baby stuff, things are going pretty good I guess. I'm definitely at the stage where I don't enjoy it anymore. I just feel very large and it's getting hard to get around, especially because my hips are starting to cause some problems with walking around. Poor Ray the other night had to help me to the bathroom in the middle of the night because my hips gave out on me and I collapsed to the ground. He's such a good sport though and helps out so much!!! But the silly baby is so active! My doctor said that I look very large but the baby measures right where she should be. My stomach is just so stretched out that she has all the room in the world to stretch out and do whatever she wants, besides curl up in the small fetal position. It makes things quite interesting sometimes, but it's so comforting to feel her do her acrobatics!

Logan and Chase are good kids, but man are they a handful! Chase is constantly in to any trouble he can possibly find, but he does love to sit and read books. He is the bookworm between the two boys. And then we have Logan who has quite the imagination right now. For the longest time he would never play pretend with any of his toys or anything, but that has changed. He loves to play with his "babies" and take care of them. At the dinner table it is such a challenge to get him to eat because all he does is talk, talk, talk. The stories he comes up with are so funny! Love the kids so much!!

Other than that, we're just hanging out and Ray is starting to make plans to re landscape the backyard as soon as we get our Tax Returns back. We're going to basically tear everything out and start all over. There's a lot of work to do, but it will be so worth it!! The downfall of this though, is that we've decided to get rid of our dog. Shelby likes to dig a little too much and putting in a new yard isn't worth it if she's going to dig it all up. Also though, we're just not giving her the time and attention that she deserves. She has a lot of potential, but we're not dedicated enough to put in the work it takes, especially with baby sister coming soon. So...anybody want a super cute, energetic dog??

Logan asks to have his picture taken sometimes and it's kind of a cheesy smile that he does, but I love it!

Logan watching a movie with his babies "while they get feeling better" he says.

Sunshine!!

2010-01-12T12:48:00.000-08:00

I am so thankful for the wonderful place that I have to live. St. George and I get along quite well. I have to admit, when Ray first got the job offer here, I was very skeptical about moving. But it sure did not take long for me to fall in love with this awesome, beautiful, sunny place!!! I only hope and pray that we will be able to enjoy many, many more years here!

This last weekend the weather was so wonderful that we could not resist some outdoor play. Here are just a few random pictures of our adventures:

We've started Shelby in training classes and so far it's been awesome. She's learned to respond to her name and how to sit. But she is getting so BIG!!

Logan loving the sunshine!! Him and Chase were loving the swings and slide.

And this is how Ray enjoyed the rays. Can you blame him?! I love this guy so much!!

And just a random picture of the boys playing with toys.

2010-01-05T18:49:00.000-08:00

Ok so we finally got our computer back and they fixed it for free!!! Hopefully it will stay fixed and we can keep up with things. So Ray keeps hounding me now to update everything with Christmas and baby stuff so here we go. It is going to be a little long probably (like usual) but here it is.

First off....Christmas!!!! Yeah!! Christmas was fantastic! Ray's parents flew in from Oregon and spent about a week and a half here so we with family a lot through the Christmas break. Ray had two full weeks from school and it was so much fun having him around all day. The boys absolutely adore spending time wrestling and playing around with their dad. He also was motivated and we got a lot of "honey-do" things accomplished. Christmas came and went as a huge success and Logan and Chase got thoroughly spoiled. A few days after Christmas my parents were able to drive down from Idaho and spend a couple of days with us as well. Unfortunately, due to weather, they had to cut their trip short but it was still worth it to spend some time together. I want to take a trip up to Idaho with the boys before the baby is born, but Ray is being stubborn (and I don't really blame him) and doesn't feel comfortable with me traveling alone with the boys being pretty prego and traveling on winter roads. So, people that I miss (especially family) will just have to wait until after the baby comes. We also started Shelby (our hyper active puppy) in dog training classes this last week. It's once a week for six weeks and we already have seen some progress. Hopefully we will be able to calm her down and know how to teach her these things so we can enjoy spending time with her.

(Our lovely gingerbread house. Chase was already in bed so he's not part of the pictures, but we had fun building it!!)

(Yes, we got them Nerf guns. Don't know why we did, but they have so much fun!)

And as far as baby stuff goes, we're just trucking right along! We are now having appointments every other week which is fun but also annoying trying to find babysitters all of the time. But at the last few appointments the silly girl has liked to lay sideways or in the transverse position with her body folded in half. But today at the appointment she was finally head down like she's supposed to be! The bad part, I'm starting to pack on the weight that I've not wanted. In two weeks I put on 6 pounds. Not in a month, but in two weeks. Not a pretty picture. Needless to say, I'm hoping to start walking and eating better. It's has been my ultimate goal this pregnancy to try and avoid putting on 50 pounds. So far we're up to 25 pounds and I'm hoping to keep it around 35 or so. Lets hope for awesome self control and motivation!

(Pregnancy picture at 29.5 weeks. Not very good at keeping up with the monthly pics)

Well, I think that wraps it up for the most part. I'm sure there are lots of things that I missed, but I don't really want to write a novel. We're all alive, thriving, and loving life!! What more can we can ask for?!

Oh Dear...The Computer

2009-12-22T09:36:00.000-08:00

So I have not been able to keep up with posting or reading everyone's blogs because our lovely computer decided to fry up on us. The problem we were having was that we've owned it for 1 1/2 years and the manufacturer's warranty was only for a year. BUT....luckily we bought it at Costco (I LOVE COSTCO!!!) and they extend the warranty for up to two years!! So we called the support number last night and they are having us send it in and they will look at it and could possibly send us a whole new computer!! That would be lovely, but that it is the best case scenario and with our luck that probably won't happen, but hey, it's worth a shot to at least see if they can fix it. So, that's our going ons lately and hope that everyone has a good Christmas and New Year's!!! Love ya everyone!

Decisions...Decisions...

2009-12-08T13:17:00.000-08:00

So, I've already started to try and figure out some sort of "birth plan". With Chase and Logan I was induced and had an epidural. Pretty routine and uneventful. Well, I'm kind of deciding to change it up a bit. My goal is to try and let myself go in to spontaneous labor. The hard parts about that are 1) Ray is going to be in Salt Lake for HOSA competition March 18 & 19. I'm due the 19. That makes me a little nervous because he will be on a bus with the kids, he can't just drop whatever and drive himself down here. 2) My hips. I have some sort of issue with my hips when I'm pregnant so that they continually pop out and give me excruciating pain. But when this happens, I can't walk. My hips just drop out right underneath me. It's the worst at night and Ray will have to help me walk because it's just not possible on my own. This time around, it's started a lot earlier than with Chase, so we'll see how able I am to let myself go into labor.

The second thing I'm thinking about doing different is not getting an epidural, but some sort of narcotics through an IV. Before anybody gets up in arms about this, it's not that I don't LOVE the epidural. It's just that I react super easily to pain medication and an epidural is kind of tricky to not get too strong. With Logan it was too strong and resulted in a bad delivery process, but with Chase I had them give me a lighter dose and it was fabulous. So my thinking is, why not try something different and see if it works? I know I'll feel a lot more and it won't be so "numbing", but I want to try it and if I can't take it, then I can get an epidural. I don't know, just something I've thought about because my mom had the IV narcotics with 2 of us, and an epidural with one, and pretty much natural with another. She said that she enjoyed the IV thing so I want to give it a try.

I'm sure there are tons of opinions on this subject and just kind of curious what your thoughts are. I've talked to my doctor about it and he thinks that in my situation this would be a good alternative, but what do you think?

The Skeletons in My Closet....

2009-11-19T10:55:00.000-08:00

Are these super cute little boys!!!

This is one of their new favorite play spots, eventhough they're not supposed to play there. The like to go in Chase's room and pull all of the blankets off of the shelf and climb up there. I couldn't resist taking a pictures of them together, they're just so stinkin' cute!!!

Other than that, we're just hanging out not doing much. I've kind of went in to this "hermit mode" and just hang out at home with the boys. Chase has been getting some molars in that he doesn't like too much and Logan is just crazy Logan. It's been though because he likes to "talk" to his baby sister and gets so excited to have her come out of my belly. He'll be such a good brother! But while on the topic of baby sister, we've come up with a few names that we like. What's your opinion? (Eventhough we'll still choose whatever name WE want! =) ) Here they are, and they are subject to change, they're just what we like at the moment:

Sydney Ann Miller

Kaylee Ann Miller

Rylee Ann Miller

Well, that about sums it up around here, hope you are all getting ready for the holidays and not forgetting about Thanksgiving!! (All the stores seem to have left this important holiday out and it makes me so sad.)

IT'S A GIRL!!

2009-10-29T07:50:00.000-07:00

Can you believe it!! We're going to have a girl!! I am so excited that I just can't stop smiling! I mean don't get me wrong, I am a little nervous because this is uncharted territory for us, but it will be such a fun adventure! Ray is definitely the nervous one. The poor guy is terrified of taking care of a girl, but I know he'll be fantastic!!!! Here are a few shots from the ultrasound.

Her little girl parts, and yes, we had them check all possibilities for boy "things" to be hiding!

I just like this picture because of how good you can see her little legs and belly.

This is a profile picture. Her head is on the right and belly on the left.

19 1/2 Weeks!

2009-10-27T12:52:00.000-07:00

So I have not kept up with regular monthly prego pics. I easily lose track of time and all I've been focusing on for prego time is that tomorrow is our ultrasound!!! Yeah!! I want to say that I'm ok with either boy or girl, but it's no secret that I want a girl. But then at the same time a boy would be ok also because all I have are boy things so a boy would just blend right into things. But, oh well what I want, the gender is already decided and I will love Yayhoo #3 no matter what!

(13 Weeks)

(19.5 Weeks)

A Boy and His Puppy

2009-10-22T20:55:00.001-07:00

This is probably the best picture I have of her so far. It also captures Logan's excitement for his new best friend.

Our New Little Addition

2009-10-20T13:09:00.001-07:00

Here is the newest little addition to our growing family... Shelby!

We have been wanting to get a dog for a little while but all of the dogs we looked at were in Northern Utah and we did not want to drive for that. But this last weekend my littlest brother, Trevor, had his mission farewell and we went to Idaho for it. (I am going to miss that kid like crazy!! But he will be a good missionary in Morteray, Mexico!!! Love you!!!) Anyways, we decided that since we would be traveling through that area we would pick up a dog. We found the cutest little puppy and decided to bring her home with us!!

Happy Birthday Logan!

2009-10-12T09:50:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Logan!!
(Well, tomorrow officially.)

My crazy, energetic little boy is turning 3!! Even though his birthday is tomorrow, we semi-celebrated it yesterday with Kristi and Kathryn and their families with cake and ice cream. Logan has been waiting for this day for like the last 6 months and so we decided to try and make it special for him. How do we try and do that? Well, by making a cool tractor cake of course!! But the thing we neglected to remember, if we wanted a super cool tractor cake, we should have bought one from the store. This cake was a great deal of stress to me. I don't know why, but it was. All that matters is that Logan liked it and that I learned a lot from this experience. I have never made a themed cake like this before or anything so it was an adventure. It didn't turn out quite how I wanted it, but not too bad for a first attempt and Logan thought it was a big success. He gave me a huge hug and dramatically told me that he loved me, so it was totally worth it (even the trip to WalMart on a Sunday to get the needed supplies that I didn't think about the night before!)!!!

I love you you crazy kid!!! We have our moments where we butt heads, but I love playing and talking with you. You are a great big brother and I look forward to the many years of teaching you and seeing you grow! I love you!

Cat Food

2009-10-06T11:11:00.000-07:00

Ray does not know that I am posting this and may or may not appreciate it, but I think it's pretty funny.

So, Ray went on his mission to the Philippines and would eat some pretty interesting things. Since we've been married he's made a few things for me to try and most of the time it's pretty tasty. But well, last night he decided to try something a little "different". I don't think this is actual authentic Filipino food, but more or less something the missionaries created on their own. The meal consists of: rice, corned beef, and banana ketchup (this is exactly what it sounds like). He starts the process by opening the corned beef and he starts to get grossed out just by that. He was very gracious to warn me that if my gag reflex was sensitive to not come near it, as he put it, it reminded him of cat food. He proceeds to cook it and put it on the rice and then puts the banana ketchup on it and says that that even smells not so great to him. But the trooper that he is, he still wanted to try it and I decided that this might be worth something to capture and remember. Here is the result!!

The Three Giants

2009-10-03T10:26:00.000-07:00

So we have three HUGE pine trees on the corner of our property that I HATE HATE HATE (did I mention that I hate them!)!!!! Well, they put down a plethora of pine needles that cover everything in the front yard, they blow over the house and cover everything in the back yard, and cover our poor neighbor's yard also. This morning I got ambitious and decided, with Logan's help, to clean up the layers of needles on the corner under the trees. It was quite the project and still is not perfect, but it looks ten times better than before. Ideally, we want to take down the giants, but we'll have to see how that happens.

Ready or Not! Here He Comes!!

2009-09-27T18:44:00.000-07:00

Chase is finally walking!!! He started walking before his birthday, but it was just a couple of steps here and there and with bribery. But tonight we were just sitting on the couch and he came walking out of the kitchen clear over to us!!! I didn't have the camera nearby to capture it the first time, but we got a shot of him walking a while. It's so fun!! But if I thought him and Logan got into trouble before, well, I think they will give me a run for my money now!

Vampire Maybe?

2009-09-18T13:26:00.000-07:00

What do you do with a biter?? Chase is nonstop biting everything!! He crawls around with his mouth open and ready to attach to anything and everything he can. It can be the couch, blankets, remotes, toys, Logan, or me. We don't know how to deal with this because Logan never bit. Yesterday Chase bit Logan on the arm that left teeth marks all day (and bless Logan, he didn't retaliate at all!!). But today, I put Chase down for his nap and I could hear him making some odd noises so I went to see what he was doing and he chewing on his crib!!! He's leaving teeth marks behind and everything!! What do you do??

I don't know if you can really see the bite marks on the bed. I don't claim to be a photographer.

What do you do with a kid this cute?? Especially one that will go put his own diapers in the garbage! Love him to death!!

Life Right Now.....?

2009-09-14T09:19:00.000-07:00

Well, so lately things have been kind of "off". It seems like that no matter how hard I hard try, things just will not work our right now. I'm sorry that my posts lately have just been about me complaining, but I want to keep things "real". I don't want to sugar coat my life. This is considered my journal, so I want to write things as they are, so..sorry that you have to deal with it.

Anyways, I'm tired of not feeling good. Things seem to only be getting worse, the further along I'm getting, well, the less I want to eat and the more tired I am. I just have to remind myself that it's nothing permanent, and the kids are worth it. I feel like such a pansy complaining about some nausea and tiredness. I have some friends that throw up nonstop or they are literally on their death bed just trying to survive through the day, but yet I can't seem to help feeling sorry for myself.

The other struggle, my baking. Or should I say the lack thereof. I have no desire to have any treats around my house, which is extremely unusual. The other day I attempted to actually make something, and I couldn't make it work. I tried 3 times!!! Talk about frustration and a blow to the self esteem. I consider myself a fairly good baker, so when I fail like that, it doesn't make me feel too great. So, if anyone has any recipes for Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls, I'm open to any new recipes. And yes, this is a very trivial thing to bother me, but well, it doesn't take much to get to me right now.

The next BIG struggle right now is that we can't seem to get our car fixed!!! It squirts antifreeze like you can't imagine. We took it to a mechanic and was supposedly fixed, but this morning it decided to overheat again and lose all of its antifreeze. Not happy. Not one bit. The problem is, we don't want to put too much money in this car because we need to get a bigger car that we can all fit in once the baby is born. What to do, what to do.

And the last thing I'll vent about is my kids. Not something I should probably complain about, but they are so difficult right now!! Don't get me wrong, I love them to death, but the complete lack of respect and obedience on Logan's part is no longer acceptable. The yelling, tantrums, ignorance....it is just out of control and I'm not quite sure how to go about handling it. Chase is also at the age where he is just into everything and not wanting to take naps like he should. It just feels like I've lost complete control of everything at the moment. I'm hoping for a better week and get a better hold of things.

Something that I wanted to do with this pregnancy is to take monthly pictures. My sis-in-law, Kristi, did this with her baby and it was fun to look at the growth. So, I'm starting my pictures at 3 months. There's just not much need to take any earlier, not a whole lot there. It was fun to see the pic though, I'm not as big as I feel!!! I looked at the picture and realized I don't too big. Whew, kind of a relief.

Well, all done here. Sorry again for the vent out, just feels good to get things out. I know it's nothing too major or big, but it's what's going on right now in our lives so it seems big. We'll survive, just need to remember to rely on my Heavenly Father and keep the faith that everything will work the way it i supposed to.

Chase's Birthday, and Mmmm...Cake!!

2009-09-06T12:21:00.000-07:00

Chase had his first birthday this last week!! Wahoo!! He is now officially a big boy! It wasn't anything eventful or spectacular, but we had presents and some birthday cake a few days later.

But the cake!!! Oh my, it is quite the cake. My mother-in-law sent me an email with some recipes from a friend and there was this one for a Fudgy Raspberry Torte. I haven't been baking much (can't stomach much sweets lately) but I decided to give it a try. It's very good, but very rich and it makes a BIG, heavy cake!! Here's the recipe for it:

1 pkg. chocolate fudge or Devils food camke mix

1 1/3 C. water

3 eggs

1/3 c. vegetable oil

3/4 c. chocolate chips, divided

3/4 c. ground pecans (I left them out, not a nut fan)

1 1/2 c. cold milk

1 pkg. (3.9 oz) instant chocolate fudge or chocolate pudding mix

1/2 c. seedless raspberry jam (I just used the jam I already had with seeds and it was fine)

1 1/2 c. whipped topping

1/4 c. powder sugar

1/2 tsp almond flavoring

1/4 c. finely chopped pecans

Fresh raspberries

In mixing bowl, combine dry cake mix, water, eggs and oil; mix well. Add 1/4 c. chocolate chips and ground pecans; stir until combined. Pour into 3 greased and floured 9 in. round baking pans. Sprinkle remaining chocolate chips on top. Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks to cool completely. In a mixing bowl, beat milk and pudding mix on low speed for 2 minutes or until thickened. In a sauce pan melt jam. Brush over the top of each cake. Place one cake on a serving plate, spread with half of the pudding. Repeat layers. Top with third cake layer; spread top with whipped topping mixed with powdered sugar and almond flavoring. Sprinkle with chopped pecans. Garnish with raspberries. Store in the refrigerator. Yield: 12 servings.

*The recipes doesn't call for Oreos, but I add some crushed Oreos between the layers when you spread the pudding and then also all over the top and sides. I thought it added some good texture.

(The cake looks crooked here, and it very well could be crooked, but I'm pretty sure I had the camera at an angle. =) )

Question and Answer Time

2009-08-31T09:30:00.001-07:00

These were some questions that a friend did on her blog and it looked like fun. Kind of makes ya stop and evaluated what kind of person you are. But oh well, I am who I am! Give it a try!

1. Do you cook every night? More often times than not. The meals are not fancy or anything extreme, but we eat everyday. Lately it's more of a struggle to fix something because nothing sounds too good.

2. What kind of laundry detergent do you use & why? Whatever smells good. Not too picky.

3. Do you do laundry every day or loads at a time? I try to do all the laundry once a week, but with Logan still trying to be potty trained, I have to do a few random loads throughout the week.

4. How often do you eat out per week? We don't eat out every week. We try to budget to eat out like once a month. Sometimes it's more than that, but not usually, too expensive and it's not very fun wrestling and fighting kids in the middle of a restaurant.

5. Where do you usually eat out? If it is a quicky, it's pretty much always Wendy's. But for a nice sit-down meal, it varies. We eat a pretty good variety.

6. What is your favorite retail store? I love Target clothes, but where WalMart is right down the street, I'm usually there. It's just so convenient and usually cheap.

7. What's your favorite thing to drink? Juice. We drink ALOT of juice at our house. We go back and forth between the Crystal Light juice and Koolaid. Right now I drink a lot of water too because of doctor's orders.

8. Do you take vitamins? What kind? Prenatal vitamins and that's it. Not a vitamin person. My kids are lucky if I even remember to give them to them.

9. What percentage of the household chores to you do? 99.7%

10. Do your children do chores? {Or will they, did they, etc} I wish!!! Logan is not exactly good at helping. We're working on getting the picking up toys part.

11. Do you go to church? Yes

12. Do you have a housework schedule? No really. Tuesdays are my laundry day and other than that, I just try to keep the house cleaned up. Before I go to bed I try to get all the toys picked up and things put away and the kitchen semi-cleaned. It feels much better in the morning if things are kind of clean.

13. Do you keep a working budget? Yes, being payed once a month requires a budget for us.

14. What do you do at night as a family? We eat dinner together and then just kind of relax together. Nothing too serious or anything. We like to take walks, but right now it's still kind of hot for that.

15. How do you prepare yourself for a new week? I don't. My philosophy is well, ready or not here it comes!!

16. What do your mornings look like? Nothing extreme. Wake up and get Ray's lunch ready and get him out the door. Then the kids wake up and and get Chase a bottle and Logan insists on having a cup of chocolate milk and then it's usually off to the gym. But in the process of converting to exercising in the evening.

17. What time do you get up in the mornings? My alarm goes off at 7 am for Ray, but I usually go back to sleep until Ray gets out of the shower.

18. What time do you go to bed at night? That depends. Right now I'm falling asleep on the couch about 9:30ish. But typically we don't go to bed til about 11.

19. How do you manage all of the paperwork that floods into your household? I try to keep it organized in a file box, but it mostly ends up in a pile on some drawers.

20. How do you keep your household organized? I don't know if I would go to the extent to say that it's organized. It's not a cluttered mess (I think) but everything does not have a proper "home". It works for us.

Stupid Hormones.

2009-08-28T19:37:00.000-07:00

So pregnancy is nothing too bad for me. I don't really get sick or anything, but....THE HORMONES!!! I mean seriously, I can't even stand myself right now. I'm up, I'm down, I'm all around. Example: last night I got all mad at Ray and caused a stupid fight. Then this morning I'm feeling terrible for treating him like that so what do I do? I wait for him to come home and then I'm in a bad mood and treat him and the kids like dirt. I mean seriously??? What is wrong with me? This isn't just a mild case of mood swings, it's bad. I'm totally aware of how I'm acting, but I can't do a thing about it. Well, that's a lie. I do do something about it, I cry....alot.

I'm going crazy! I don't like the way I am right now and I don't want my boys and Ray to take the brunt of it. Hopefully something will level out some time soon. I'm just tired of feeling like the crazy one.

Sorry, to lay this out to everyone, but I just needed to vent. Most of you who read this are girls that have hormones and maybe know what I'm going through a little bit. Just please don't think I'm a mental basket case. I'm not normally like this, well, not this bad at least. I love my family and want the best for them. I hope they can put up with me til it goes away.

Could It Really Be.......

2009-08-25T07:55:00.000-07:00

BABY #3!!!!

Yes! We are expecting again!!! As of right now we are due March 19, but so far I've had 3 different due dates from the doctor, so we'll see what happens. Here's the story on how the confusion started.

We decided that we were going to start trying for another baby thinking that it would take a few months because that's what happened with Chase. Well, after the first month went by and I hadn't started the day that I was supposed to, I took a pregnancy test and it came back negative. OK, not going to think too much about it. A few more days go by and still no period, so I take another test and it also comes back negative. Not it's kind of weird because I am an extremely "regular" person. So I kind of worry what's going on, me being my paranoid self and take a couple of more tests through out the week (I was so tired of peeing on a stick!). BUT.....after a week and a few days of being late, I got a positive test!!! It was a very light positive reading, but hey, it was two blue lines!!!

I call to make my doctor's appointment and he said that he wanted me to come in even though by that point I was only 6 weeks. I go in and they do an ultrasound to make sure the baby is where it is supposed to be and he asks if there was a chance that my dates were off because either my dates were off and I was actually only like 4 weeks along, OR another miscarriage! At first I said, "No, I'm very regular." But after thinking for a few seconds, I remembered how things were not regular with the tests and told him about it. We decided to do an HCG level test that day and another in a couple of days and the levels should double. Well, they didn't double, they only halved. The nurse said it wasn't a great sign that everything was ok, but it could mean anything so they had me come in the next week for another ultrasound to see if the baby had grown. At the time of the ultrasound, Ray was gone to Provo so I was a nervous wreck not having my support rock there with me. But when the nurse started the ultrasound, (I was not looking at the screen because I was convinced that I was miscarrying and didn't want to see it) she was like, "And there's the baby's heartbeat..." WHAT??? There's a heartbeat!!!?? Talk about unexpected news!! She laughed pretty hard at my reaction. So it looks like that I just ovulated differently this time and that I'm just not as far as long as I thought. We've done another ultrasound since then to make sure things are still ok and everything is great!!! What a relief!!

So, I am 10 1/2 weeks right now and doing good. I don't throw up, kind of just not possible for me. For some reason my body just doesn't ever throw up, not complaining, but sometimes I think that if I could just get rid of things I would feel better. But for the most part, I'm just tired and emotional. Poor Ray, I can get quite the mood swings and he has to deal with the brunt of it but he just takes it in stride. So, there's my story and sorry if it is a jumbled mess and doesn't make sense.

We're Back!!

2009-08-09T12:12:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! We are finally up and running again! Our computer is working again and we are finally back in town and settled down. There has been quite a bit that has went on, but I will try to keep it semi-short (yeah right, don't count on it. My posts are always long! =) )

To start off, I got new tile in the kitchen and my awesome pantry completed!! This was quite the project but totally worth it. We had to remove brick from inside the pantry so we could add in the door to have direct access from inside the house to the garage. And by the way, removing brick is not one of my favorite things to do! Anyways, after that was accomplished Ray and I set to work chiseling up the old tile in the kitchen and and scraping up linoleum in the laundry room. When it came to put down the new tile, Trevor (our handyman) came and helped. I am so pleased with the finished project! I couldn't ask for better. Now we are trying to decide on new countertop and then we will also paint the cabinets. I can't wait!

After that project, we went to Panguitch for Pioneer Day. We stayed at Ray's aunt's cabin with all of his family. It was a fun time, crowded, but fun. While we were there we went to the parade and it was quite the show. Afterwards, Logan got brave and wanted to ride one of the horses. There was a young boy that was completely willing to give the kids a ride. Logan and Kassi decided to ride together. I was so proud of him because he has been so scared of horses that he usually just runs away. Way to go big guy!!

(We stopped at Cedar Breaks on our way to Panguitch. It was an amazing view.)

After that, we came back to St. George and Ray had to turn around and head to Provo for a week for a class and then I was going to meet him in Provo and take the truck up to Idaho. I would hang out there and then he would meet me at my parents house and then go camping for a few days. Well, Monday, the day after Ray left, I came home to see water streaming from my ceiling! Not just an occasional drip, but constant streams of water coming from two vents in the kitchen and water all over the entire kitchen. Upon further investigation, there was water also steadily coming from the Logan's doorway and the entire hallway was completely saturated with water! Not the welcome home gift you usually want, especially not when your husband is out of town! So I call Ray and he tells me to turn off the water (duh...don't know why I didn't think of that in the first place) and then he told me to call his dad who was thankfully in town. So Dave, and once again Trevor (are you sensing a pattern that Trevor helps us out a lot?), with Linda and Kristi came to help clean up the mess. We got the Shop Vacs going to suck up the water and Trevor and Dave climbed up in the attack to see what was going on. What had happened was that the water line to our fridge runs in the attic and there was a joint connecting two pipes, well, one of the pipes came off the joint and so therefore, that equals water running from my ceiling. They pulled out all of the wet insulation and we set out fans everywhere to try and dry things out. Thankfully, the mess looked worse that what it actually was. The only problem now is that our house kind of smells pretty musty and unpleasant. Not quite sure how to fix that, but we'll figure something out. Needless to say, I was a little nervous to leave town the next day for a week and a half. But Trevor willingly said that he would check on things for us while we were gone.

(Logan had to help vacuum up the water with his sunglasses on. Pretty darn cute!!)

So after that, me and the boys made it safely and without any drama up to Idaho to my parents house. A few days later Ray met us up there and my brother Trevor also came up for the weekend (he's been working in Utah doing construction before his mission). We had family pictures taken on Sunday (my family does NOT do pictures) but they went so well and everyone cooperated so well. When we get them back, I will post some. But then on Wednesday we went out camping with my parents, Caleb my brother, and my Uncle Bruce with his family. We were totally excited to go because Ray and I hadn't been out to Sawmill Canyon since we were first married. I had forgotten how beautiful it was out there. I had also forgotten how stinkin' cold it gets out there!! Holy cow, we almost froze to death at night. It didn't help that it decided to have HUGE lightning and thunder storms most of the night accompanied but unreal amounts of rain. All of that is fine and dandy unless you are sleeping in a tent that leaks at the seams!!! We were able to manage it alright and we didn't get too wet, but the poor boys got pretty cold so on the second night they both ended up in our sleeping bag. We definitely stayed warm with four people sharing a bed. Other than that, we had a blast riding on the four wheeler and just hanging out. The boys loved all of the dirt and Logan enjoyed the freezing cold creek. But oh well, as long as he had fun. But after the first night of rain, we decided to try and move our tent to see if it would help with the rain-in-the-tent situation. Chase was asleep in his bed in the tent so we just put a blanket on his bed to help keep him asleep and we put him outside next to a tree while we moved things. Just as soon as we set his bed down, there was a loud crack and we look up and a tree was falling down coming right at us!!! I yell at Ray and try to move him (the tree was closest to him) and Chase at the same time but there just wasn't time to function. Thankfully, blessedly, the tree narrowly missed Ray and Chase. Talk about shaking you up a bit. I was just so thankful that nobody was hurt and the tree didn't hit anybody's trucks or trailers. The Lord was looking down on us that day.

(The tree is the one laying off to the side of the bed. Too close for comfort!!)

Well, we decided to load up the next day, we needed to head back to St. George because Ray starts school on Monday and we were tired of freezing. We made it back down to wonderful St. George without any problems and it feels so good to be back at my own house. It was a fun vacation, but a week and a half is a long time to be gone. Hopefully, things slow down here a little bit, I'm not cut out to deal with all of this drama. It's no wonder I have to many gray hairs!!!

2009-07-20T15:40:00.000-07:00

Hey there everybody! Not that I'm good at posting anyways, but I won't be posting for quite a while. Our computer broke, again, and then we're also going to visit my parents in Idaho for a couple of weeks and they don't have Internet (yes, they still live in the dark ages). So, hope everyone's summer is going so good and we'll talk later!

Hiking Fun

2009-06-22T07:48:00.001-07:00

So since this last weekend was Free Park Weekend, we decided to go with Kristi, Trevor, and precious little Emily to Zions National Park. I love that place! It has such an overwhelming beauty that I can just sit and stare at. I've only done the Emerald Pools hike before, so we tried a different one this time. We really wanted to something like Angels Landing, but we had the kids with us so a low key hike seemed the better choice. We ended up trying Watchman's.

The small plateau that you see right through the trees is where we hiked to. It was a beautiful view at the top.

It was a perfect hike to do with the kids. Logan did terrific on the way up, but by the time we started back down, he got tuckered out and only wanted mom to be carrying him. The problem with that was that I was already packing Chase on my back, and that is not a light load! But with Logan on the front of me, it actually kind of evened out my balance and we could cruise right along until my knee started giving my fits. But I am so proud of Logan for how well he did, that's a big hike for a little guy. It was about 3 miles round trip with some pretty good switch backs. Chase did good too, he just hung out on my back and slept, couldn't have been any better!

Trying to pack both boys! What a heavy load! Sad thing is, I almost weighed this much when I was pregnant! Ugh...

All of us eating lunch at the top.
Riding on the bus. Logan thought it was so cool!!!

After the hike Logan wanted to ride around the the shuttle buses. So we took a little ride around the park and he loved it! He loves watching the school buses drive past our house, so it just tickled him pink to be on a bus himself. After the bus, we wanted to take Logan through this incredible tunnel in the park. This tunnel goes right in to the mountain for about a mile and a half! It is kind of intimidating, but cool at the same time. Logan kept saying that we were like Thomas the Train going through the tunnel. All in all, it was a super fun day, tiring, but fun.

Summer Fun

2009-06-18T14:46:00.000-07:00

So far our summer has been pretty relaxed and not a whole lot going on. A couple of weeks ago my mom, Audree, Chloee, and Grandma Gene all came down for a couple of days. It was a short visit, but it was a lot of fun!! I love watching Chloee and Logan play together. They do so good! But I think my favorite part was that Chase was nonstop smiling and Grandma Gene! All she had to was look in his general direction and he was all smiles!! It totally made Grandma's day!

Well, the week after they left, my dad woke up one morning and said that he missed Chase and Logan and he wanted to come visit. So the loaded up in the car and drove to St. George on a spur of the moment trip! We were excited to have them come visit. The first day they were here went swimming and the Rec Center while Ray was at work and then on Saturday we went fishing. The fishing wasn't all that great, but it was still a fun outing. It was a lot of fun having them here!

As far as the boys go, Chase is not officially crawling and literally in to everything! I am nonstop pulling out of some sort of trouble whether it be is playing with the cable box/VCR/DVD/playstation stuff or playing with the outlets (yes, I need to get the outlet protectors put in, I have them, just have to find them), or trying to playing the bathroom and suck on the toilet seat. He is aslo pulling himself up to low lying objects and stands in the stink bug position. He seriously went from hardly rolling over to all of the sudden moving around nonstop! I can hardly keep up with him.

And as for Logan, well, we're trying the potty training thing. He does just fine if I tell him every now and then to go potty, but if i leave it up to him to do it by himself...well, I have lots of laundry to keep up with now. He just doesn't care if he pees on himself and his underwear are all wet! I don't understand it! I'm just holding out hope that if we keep at it, it will eventually click in his little head what to do. He's a good kid, just not catching on to this yet.

Ray is finishing up his last week of his summer job and then I'm so excited to start tiling our kitchen, laundry room, and pantry. We have a lot of work for all of this to happen though. We have to put a door in the dining room so we access to the pantry that also leads to the garage, but I am so excited to have room to put things! I need this pantry terribly!!! The part I'm not looking forward to it choosing the tile. I know, that's backwards, but we're just not finding anything that we really like. But whatever we choose will be better than what's in there right now.

Well, that's about it around here. After the projects are done, I'll post some new pics.

The Great Outdoors

2009-05-31T20:41:00.000-07:00

So we decided to go camping this last weekend before it keeps getting any hotter. We drove just outside of town to a place called Baker Reservoir. Ray had went fishing there a few weeks earlier and had good luck with it so we decided to take Logan there. But unfortunately, the wind was blowing terribly and the water was too choppy to get much accomplished but we still had a lot of fun. Logan's style of fishing was to "throw" or cast the line out then put the fishing pole down and to throw rocks in the water and yell at the fish, "Here fishy, fishy, fishy...Come eat the rocks!" It was pretty cute.

For our camping spot we did it wussy style and went to the paid camp ground site. It worked out good because it had good tent sites and a restroom close by. Logan's activity of choice was looking for lizards. There were just these little lizards running all over that would come sit on the lava rock to get warm and Logan thought it was way cool to chase after them and go for walks to look for them and then try to feed them rocks as well. We were able to have a fire and at first I was a little nervous as to how Logan would respond around it, but he was so good about it. He was very careful walking around it and never tried to play in it. Chase was a super good camper! He just smiled and played and slept the whole time. Part of why he was so good was because we found out at the doctor's that he has allergies, even though little kids his age aren't supposed to be able to get them. Anyways, the doc told us to give him Children's Zyrtec, but it does make him a little drowsy. So we gave that to him for the first time when we were camping and it made for a pleasant Chase.

(Getting ready to head home. Logan wanted to ride in the back so we rode there just through the campsite. )

(We call this Logan's clown picture. You can't really tell from this pic on the blog, but he has Doritos cheese all of his mouth and then a red punch mustache on top of it. He looked pretty goofy, but hey, we're camping right, that's what you do!)

(My boys relaxing by the fire and just having a good time.)

(Chase was having a great time. He loved being outside and scooting around in the dirt. He couldn't have been any better.)

All in all, we had a really fun trip and we hopefully want to be able to make a couple more trips this summer.

Sweet, Delicious, Goodness

2009-05-21T23:34:00.000-07:00

So for some of you who don't live around me, you need to know that I LOVE to bake. I don't profess to be that great at it, but I love it. There is always a homemade treat around my house. So this leads me to my dilemma. I need some variety! I love what I make, but I'm wanting to try some new things so I need your help. When you leave a comment (don't feel like you have to) please leave one of your favorite oh so good recipes. Doesn't have to be anything grand or fancy or any thing extreme, just addictive! Please help me out!!!

PS-This post totally goes against every thing I've been working on. For the last month and a half and I've been going to the gym and have even increased to going twice a day lately. But oh well, baking is something that I love and my family has grown to "expect" cookies or treats to always be around.

Just Randomness.....

2009-05-12T09:51:00.000-07:00

As usual, I just have a random update.

We finished our living room last Saturday and I think it looks way awesome!!! (Especially compared to what it looked like.) Anyways, what we have done to this area is a complete makeover. We re textured the walls, painted, new carpet, resurfaced to fireplace and painted that also, and did crown molding. We want to get a new ceiling fan as well, but we just haven't found the one we want quite yet. So, all in all, it turned out pretty darn nice. I am so proud of Ray for all the work he has done. But I can't that without thanking everyone that also helped with this project. And not just in the living room, throughout the whole house. Right now I'm only posting a picture of the living room because the other rooms aren't done exactly the way I want them yet. So, here is a little nibble of the improvements we've done. This is the best I can capture the whole room. I am definitely not a photographer or have much of an interest in it either, so it is pretty amateur.

BEFORE............

AFTER!!!

I still need to decorate, but Ray and I are having debates on what to do. So, for now, it's pretty plain, but still looks good!

And as for the family, we've just been having fun. Me and the boys have been spending a lot of time outside so I bought a little swimming pool for them and it's been fun. But we've also been starting to go to the Community Center and going swimming there also. Logan has so much fun!!!

After we got out of the pool, I had wrapped Chase in his towel and he was laying down between my legs and immediately fell asleep. He looked pretty darn cute!

Another fun part of life right now is that Ray's little brother, Alan, is leaving for his mission then end of this month and so he's been in St. George visiting until he leaves. Even though he is not my biological brother, I feel as if he is my brother. I love the silly kid!!!! It's been fun because he comes quite a bit and hangs out with us. He also has been a big help because he's watched my kids for me a few times. Just want him to know that I love him and that I will miss him terrible. But at the same time, I am so proud of him for choosing to go on a mission! He will be great!

Ray is also winding down is school. He only has a week and a half of school left!!! He then will work for three weeks on the Virgin River Project. This was the same job he had last summer except that they are splitting the time between two teachers this time. So instead of working for six weeks, it's only three, but it works out ok. This gives us time to go on vacation and for Ray to have some time off, work on some house projects (hopefully re tile the kitchen and laundry room! hint, hint Ray!), and also take some endorsement classes he needs. So all in all, he will still be a very busy guy.

Oh yeah, we bought a swing set last week that should be delivered within the next week and I am so excited!!! The kids will have so much fun on it and I'm excited to play with them! It will be quite the project to put together, but that comes with the territory I guess. So, after we get it put together, I will post some pictures of that as well.

Chase is holding a hamburger toy and trying to eat it, just looks kinda funny! And the room is a mess because we were putting up the crown molding at the time, so there are tools and junk everywhere.

One night when Logan was giving Chase kisses good night, he wanted Chase to sleep in his bed too. So we just laid him there for a few minutes. They are going to be so good together when they get older!

PS- There aren't very many pictures of Logan because he is in a phase where he doesn't want to cooperate with for the camera. So therefore, it is a photoshoot of Chase!

In A While

2009-04-21T21:01:00.000-07:00

So people have been starting to pester me about before and after pictures of the house. I've been lazy haven't taken any recent pictures and then also, things still aren't completely done and I'm dragging my feet. Now that we've moved in, I've just kind of slowed down doing home improvement projects. But I promise, I will put some pictures on soon!

I Don't Really Want To...

2009-04-08T12:20:00.000-07:00

So we officially moved into our new house. Not that things are actually done, but we're in. There are still many boxes to unpack, painting projects to finish up, decorating, cleaning, and the list goes on and on. But with so much to do, here I find myself sitting on my bum, intentionally ignoring everything that needs to be done. The most I can make myself do right now is to write this new post, and this I don't really want to do either. But oh well, here it is, and enjoy.

PS - I feel bad with such a lousy post, so here are a few pictures to try and make up for it.

Logan and I made cupcakes today. He started eating his and it was sticking to his bugers! All of us have had this terrible cold or allergies and makes the nose run constantly!

My sister-in-law, Kathryn, got this thing called (I think) a Fresh Food Pacifier. The thing is shaped like a giant pacifier and it opens up. Inside in the green meshing you can add any kinds of fresh food and the kid can sit there and suck on it and basicall puree whatever is inside. Chase LOVES the thing! He makes a giant mess, but hey, it cleans. And I still haven't anything that he won't eat!

Sorry about seeing my leg, but I found this kind of interesting. Acutally, I document it because the last time I had a bruise was when I had knee surgery about 10 years ago. So, one day the skin on my knee was hurting when my pants rubber against so I pulled up my pants leg and I have this huge bruise on my knee. I have no idea how I got it. My actual knee never hurt, like the inside of it or anything, but I just had this bruise there. This picture doesn't really show the extent of it very well and it got worse after this. But all around the top of the knee cap was this deep black and purple bruise and then around the bottom was normal yellow and brown. The only thing I can think of when I was kneeling down cleaning in the house something happened. It's just weird because I seriously don't bruise.

Good thing I have a small husband to fit in small places! The sink in our new house had been leaking so all the boards and wall around it had molded and rotted out so Ray was tearing things out to replace it. He has turned into quite the handyman and I love seeing the way he can fix things! Way to go babe, I love you!

My parents came down to help with the house projects and my mom was ever so helpful in watching the kids while she was here. When they came, they brought their dog, Gus, and bought him a new puppy bed. Well, needless to say, I think Chase and Logan used it more that he did.

Anyways, a short post has, like always, turned into a long one. But I just have to express a never ending thank you to all of my family and friends who have helped in this house process. We had one day where we literally had an entire army here helping with things. THANK YOU!!!! But I have to say a special thanks to my family. Kathryn watched my kids (which added to 5 kids she had at once. Kassy -5, Kimmi-3, Logan-2, Kyler-9 1/2 mos, and Chase-7 mos) all day and night everyday. That alone made it possible for me to do things while Ray was at school, thanks girl, I owe you! And then we also had our awesome brother-in-law, Trevor, who was here everyday sharing his knowledge on house stuff. He put in many hours with us and nothing would have came out the way it did if he hadn't of helped! Thanks Kristi for letting us borrow your husband! I love you!!! Now, don't get me wrong, there were lots of other people who helped, but I just can't name everyone. But also another special mention goes to both of our parents who came during their spring break and helped paint and other stuff. Again, thanks EVERYONE!!! (Please don't be offended if I didn't mention your name, I'm not good at this stuff.)

Craziness!!!

2009-03-22T17:11:00.000-07:00

Life has been truly crazy lately! We finally closed on our house last Tuesday and got the keys on Wednesday. We went in that night and got to work and quickly realized there was a lot more cleaning than we initially realized. The place was completely disgusting! But we plugged through and got everything washed and cleaned and then pulled the carpets out on Saturday. Just getting rid of the carpet made such a huge difference! The people that lived there before smoked alot and had a big dog. The problem with that scenario is that they didn't clean anything up, so the walls were black with smoke and there was animal hair covering absolutely everything. So, with the carpet clean and walls washed it felt immensely better. That night my brother-in-law came over and helped prime the living room and then texture it. It made me so excited seeing the changes and progress. I can't wait until we finally color on the walls and the new carpet in, I think it will be a nice house after it is all said and done.

Some updates on the rest of the family. Last Sunday Logan was fevered so we kept him home from church and then by the evening his fever shot up to 104! That scared us so we took him into Instacare (like 5 minutes before they closed) and by then his fever had went back down to 101. He had also thrown up earlier, so we were thinking that it was just the flu. So the doctor did a flu test (which I didn't even know you could do. I think it's kind of dumb to pay money for a flu test. All they do is tell you to rest and drink lots of fluid). Anyways, the test came back negative and so they said he just had a viral infection and there is nothing you can do. Kind of felt like a waste of money to take him in and be told that, but his fever was so high we didn't want to take a chance. Well, we just loaded him up on Ibuprofen and let him sleep and drink alot. He started to improve the next day and then on Tuesday he was all better. I'm so glad he is feeling better because it's so hard seeing your kid hurting and feeling terrible and not wanting to move, which is not my Logan. So it's nice to have him back to good health.

Chase is still doing good and growing like crazy. And Ray has been very busy with school, HOSA club, and house stuff. He had a State HOSA comepetition in Layton Thursday and Friday and took 5 kids. The competition was good and kids behaved good for him, but it was hard for him to be gone knowing that there was so much house stuff that needed to be done. But other that that, everything is going good and we're just trucking right along!!!

To Feed?.... Or Not To Feed?...

2009-03-09T09:59:00.000-07:00

Nothing major has happened the last little bit. We're still just waiting for our loan to go through on the house. Last week we had the house inspection done and everything came back good, well, except the guy couldn't get the furnace to turn on. He said that it's trying to light but there's no gas getting to it. He said that all we need to do is have the lines purged and that it's nothing major. But other than that, everything is good! I'm not a patient person and this waiting stuff for the loan is killing me!!! I just want to get in there and get going on the projects!

As far as the kids go, Logan and Chase are doing really well. Chase thinks that Logan is the coolest thing since sliced bread. He just sits and watches Logan all day and laughs hysterically at him, it's actually quite entertaining. I can't wait until Chase is a little more mobile and can play with Logan. Oh yeah, that reminds me, Chase is rolling over now!!! YEAH!!! He can only roll from his back to his stomach, but I'm so excited! But just this morning I took Chase to the pediatrician and he is doing really good, contrary to what WIC said last week. WIC tried telling me that he was too fat and too short and that I'm overfeeding him! Talk about tick me off! Ray told me to ignore what WIC says and to just go by what the doctor says. Anyways, I let WIC get to my head and so I started cutting out some of his feedings like they told me to and now for the result he is no longer sleeping through the night and I'm not happy about it. So when I took him to the doctor this morning for his 6 month check up they said not to believe WIC and that he just fine and to go back to what I was doing before. Talk about relief because I'm not a happy person when I don't get my sleep. But as for Chase, he weighs 19.4 pounds (75%) and for his height he is 26 1/4" (50%). So take that WIC, he is just fine!!! I would quit going there, but I can't afford the formula without it. So I should be thankful that I'm able to participate in the program.

But other than that, things are relatively low key and boring around here. We're just having fun picking out carpet and paint and planning what we want to do everywhere on the house!!

We Got a House! (Lots of pictures!)

2009-02-27T17:57:00.000-08:00

So, there are some you that have read on my Facebook that we bought a house the other day. We got an awesome deal on it. It's an older house and it definitely needs some cleaning and fixing, but we're not scared. Immediately it needs new carpet and paint, but hopefully, thanks to our President's stimuls package, we should be able to get the $8,000 tax credit, making it possible for these projects. We should hopefully be able to close mid-March. I'm so excited to be in a house and can't wait to get started!!! We took some pictures of what it looks like and just remember that it is going to be a work in progress. (Sorry, there's actually ALOT more pictures than I originally thought.) Here's the whole guided tour, minus two of the bedrooms, they all kind of looked alike so I skipped them.

The front of the house, we sit on a corner lot.

You walk in the front door and this is the living room. And yes, the carpet is gross.

Here is another angle of the living room and there one of the entrances into the kitchen and dining room.

Dining room and pation door.

The kitchen from the dining room and the entrance to the half bathroom and the laundry room.

The half bath and laundry room.

The hallway from the living room.

The first bedroom from the hallway.

The gorgeous bathroom.

This is the side yard and there's actually a door from the master bedroom. That is where I'm standing for this pic. It has a pretty big side yard.

This part of the back yard from the patio door.

Part of the patio. This is a covered section of it.

The other half of the back yard. This part needs some work but totally perfect all in all for the boys.

Also, we decided last week that we wanted to something fun with the boys but not spend any money. So we pushed all of the furniture out of the way and set up a little tent in the living room and put the air mattress in it and watched a movie. Logan thought it was just the coolest thing. It was so much that I want to start a weekly tradition of doing something like that. Here are a few pictures of the boys hanging out in the tent.

These are just a couple of snap shots I've taken of the boys in the last week. Our weather has been so nice and we've spent alot of time outside!

I Love My Family

2009-02-20T12:21:00.000-08:00

This is going to be super cheesy and I apologize, but something that I just want to write down.

I was watching a TV show that really made me stop and think about my family and how much they mean to me. I know that's pretty cliche, but it's true. I can't imagine my life without my sons and husband. Each of them contribute something that cannot be replaced. If you don't mind, I would like to share a little bit about each of them.

Ray - He the love of my life. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. I love this man with all of my heart. We have such a good relationship, not a perfect one, but a wonderful one that works for us. We have so fun with each other. He can make me laugh like no one else can. I love how he is to rational and down to earth and we can have such intimate, deep conversations. I love how he tries to be the best husband and father that he can be. I love him.

Logan - He is what I look forward to everyday. There is not one single day that is the same with him around. He loves to play and have fun and he is starting to realize there is world around him and wants to know, "What happened?" with everything. I love it when he says, "Lud (love) you!" and then pulls your head in towards his to give you a kiss. I love his endless supply of energy. He truly is someone special.

Chase - Eventhough he has only been part of this world for a few months, he has made a very speical spot in my heart. He has such bright, clear eyes that I love to look at and wonder what he is thinking. He has the cutest fuzz for hair on the top of his head that I love to play with. I love how his plump cheeks raise up when he smiles. And lately he has started doing this squeal when he laughs that makes me stop whatever I'm doing and go smile at him. He is the perfect addition to our little family.

Again, sorry this is extremely cheesy and probably kind of meaningless to anyone who reads it, but I just wanted to share some of the special details of my family and how what the mean to me. I hope and pray that I will always be blessed on this earth to have my family with my always. I also hope that Heavenly Father sees fit to continually bless me more intimate moments with my family. I will try to do my part to keep these blessings also. Thank you Father in heaven and Jesus Christ for the opportunity to be here and to be part of this Plan.

Oh Logan.

2009-02-11T12:11:00.000-08:00

Logan. He is quite the kid. It seems like he is always doing something to keep us on our toes. For instance, on Sunday night we though Logan was back in his room playing with so after a little while I went back to check on him. As I started walking down the hallway, he came running out of my room and was really excited. He ran up to me, pulled up his pants leg and said, "Mommy, I did it!" I look down and see his toenail his painted, and then realized that his pants were painted too! I inwardly groaned, well, maybe outloud too, and went back in my bathroom to assess the rest of the damage. He had somehow found my nail polish, somehow managed to open it, and painted his big toe, his pants, the door, and the carpet. The really bad part about the carpet, besides it not being ours, is that it is a very light color, and the nail polish was bright pink! I've never had experience in trying to remove polish from carpet so my first instinct was to use polish remover. So I started dabbing at it trying to get it up, but all that I did was make it alot worse, it just bled and became twice the size it was. Luckily, we have an awesome hometeacher who does carpet cleaning for a living and came the next day and was able to successfully remove the spot!

And now back to Logan. Anyways, it was hard to not lose my cool, and for Ray, and to try to explain to him that this was not a good thing. He felt pretty bad and went and put himself in time out because he had made a mess. After he left the room I actually started to kind of laugh, which Ray didn't appreciate much, but I couldn't help it because Logan had actually done kind of a good job painting his toe! Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to encourage this behavior from him at all, we really tried to emphasize that this is for girls, not boys, and he is a boy. The strange part to all of this is that we don't know how he knew what to do. I have made it a point to never paint my toes infront of Logan for this particular reason. Where he got it from? Who knows, it's Logan. But man oh man, I love that kid with all my heart!

And now for a quick update on Chase. (Sorry, my posts are always really long.) I started Chase on vegetables yesterday and he loved them! I decided to start with sweet potatoes because they're supposed to help his little digestive system, and then I figured it was probable the most promising when compared to peas or something like that. He was funny with it though. As soon as I put the spoon in his mouth, he was begging for more. I was giving it to him as fast as I could, but he wanted more so bad that he was sucking his lips in to his mouth, trying to get as much as he could. He is a good kid, now if only we could fix his pacifier problem. He seems to think that after 5 a.m. I have to constantly put it in his mouth. Needless to say, today we are starting the eaning process. I hope it improves the early morning routine.

Logan's new favorite thing is hot chocolate.

Logan has a Valentine's Day party to go to so we made a Valentine's box. You can't really tell, but he painted everywhere on it. It was a fun project to do with him.

Chase is finally starting to make progress on trying to rollover! He's actually trying to move around, just a little.

I think he is just a cute kid.

O.k., so I think both of my kids are super cute! I don't care if people think otherwise.

Surprise!!!

2009-02-06T09:16:00.000-08:00

So Ray has conferences in Salt Lake and Provo all week and so Iwas kind of bummed to be all by myself with the boys for four days. Well, when Ray went to leave on Tuesday we decided as he was walking out the door that me and the boys should go with him! So we quickly threw together a bag for the boys and me. What the fun part of all of this was that since Ray would be busy all day on Wednesday and Thursday, I would go up to Idaho for a quick trip. But now the even better part! I didn't tell my parents what was going on so I could totally surprise them. It worked so perfect!

I got into Firth Wednesday morning and went to my mom's school where she works and just walked into her room. It took her a second to register that it was and the boys, but when she did, her mouth dropped open and she was all but crying! It was so fun!!! After we visited for a little while, we then went to my dad's school and did the same thing to him. It was also great!!! But like I said, I was only staying for a day, so it was a really fast trip but it was worth it. I also got to see my super cute neice, Chloee, Grandma Gene, and Grandma and Grandpa Jolley. There were lots of other people that I wish I could have visited, but there just wasn't enough time. So sorry everybody! But now I am in Provo with Ray and we are staying with Ray's sister, Nicole and her husband Darren. I don't really know what I'm going to do with the boys for two days, especially in Provo, but it's ok because I'm here with my husband I get to see him more than if I would have stayed in St. George. And yes, I know it sounds pathetic that I can't stand to be away from Ray, but I still feel like I can never get enough time being with him. I guess that's good thing considering that we're sealed for time and all eternity!!!

This is Logan and Chloee getting ready to go out in the snow and be pulled in the sled behind the four-wheeler. Poor Logan, my Mom didn't have a snow outfit that fit Logan so we had to make do with snowpants that were like a size 12 months. But hey, he didn't care and it kept him warmer than without.

No House

2009-01-30T12:54:00.000-08:00

Just for a quick follow up from my last post. We found out yesterday that we did not get the house. I was disappointed at first, but now am okay with it. It's kind of a relief to not have to worry about finding all the kitchen appliances and a kitchen sink. We are kind of thinking that maybe we want to wait a few months and get some financing figured out. We still want to keep a general eye out for htings, just in case something amazing comes up, but it would be nice to have things line up a little better. Hopefully next time we do this process I will have Ray there to help and give support so I won't make myself so sick through it. Thanks to you all for all your advice and support, it does help. THANK YOU!!!

Stressed to the Max!!!

2009-01-28T12:41:00.000-08:00

The last couple of days have been quite crazy and let me explain why. We've been regular emails from our real estate agent so we could keep an eye on the market. Well, yesterday Ray had to go to Salt Lake for meetings and so of course that was the day that our agent calls me and says that she just emailed me a listing that just came back open for something in our price range and wants me to come look at. I look at the email and am extremely interested but, Ray is out of town. So she told me to just come look at it and see if we're really intersted because when it previously was on the market, it went under contract in one day so we need to act quickly. So I called Ray and he said to go ahead and look at. And of course I liked the house alot. Not to say it doesn't need any work, but it just needs cosmetic touch ups with the minor exception of one thing. There are no kitchen appliances, even the kitchen sink is gone. But I called Ray and told him I like the house, so we agree for me to go put on offer in on it. Talk about nerve racking. In our marriage we don't make decisions like these without the other one to help with opinions. And then like most of you know, I'm the erratic, emotional one while Ray is the calm, stable rock. I NEEDED my ROCK!!! Anyways, I was able to pull myself together and went and put in an offer.

We made an appointment for Ray and I to go look at the house today. When we met up with the agent she told us that the bank (oh yeah, this house is a foreclosure) looked at all four offers and said for all of us to come back with counter offers. I just have to add, I hate this type of stuff. I get way too stressed out and emotional. Anyways, we already put our first offer in at the maximum amount we could, so we just resubmitted it and now we're sitting and waiting and getting more gray hairs by the minute. I can't afford more gray hairs, I too young! Anyways, we're supposed to hear back either today or tomorrow. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that somehow we'll pull it off. I really like this house. It needs some touchups and wouldn't look the greatest when we moved in, but over time it would look so nice!!! I want this house!!!

Sad......I Think

2009-01-23T11:35:00.000-08:00

So yesterday we thought we were on our way to actually buy a house! Can you believe it?! Here is the story. There was this house that we had kind of been keeping our eyes on for a while, but it was a little out of our price range. The other night Ray was casually looking through the real estate websites and he came across that house but it was now being foreclosed for EXTREMELY CHEAP!!! So the next day we went and talked to a mortgage guy and everthing looked great, we would actually end up paying less than what we are now, but for our own house. So the mortgage guy had a real estate agent call us and she had to give us bad news. The house was already under contract and now here is the gross part. It is infested with German cochroaches (sorry if spelling is wrong) and they are so bad they are even falling from the ceiling. I HATE cochroaches! So, at least I didn't have to worry about the little beggers because it is already taken. We were disappointed at first, not just because we thought it was going to be a great house for us (or so we thought), but we realized it was because it was something we could actually afford. Houses in our price range don't come up very often in our price range, but we just need to be patient. It will happen when it is supposed to and for right now we are in an excellent duplex in a good neighborhood.

Just me and boys hanging out, being lazy!

Chase has fallen asleep in his exersaucer. What a hard life!
Logan loves to "play" Guitar Hero and Chase is following in his brother's footsteps.
What a better way to spend the afternoon, taking a snooze with the boys.

My "Solid" Boy

2009-01-16T13:30:00.001-08:00

So today I Chase to the doctor for his 4 month appointment and it went so good!!! He weighed in at 16 lbs 12 ounces and 25 1/2 inches long! That put him inthe 80% for his weight and 75% for his height. As the doctor put it, he is a solid boy. I am so excited that we have a kid that has some meat on his bones and has a little height. Don't get me wrong, I love Logan just the way he is, but it's nice to have one of each now. Well, they also gave Chase his shots at this visit and he was such a big boy about it. He cried for just a second then he drank his bottle and went to sleep. I couldn't ask for anything better. And Logan was so good the whole time too. He loved watching the doctor look at Chase and then he had to make sure that the doctor was being nice to his brother, it was cute.

Gotta Love Two-Year Olds

2009-01-08T11:52:00.001-08:00

So I jut have to tell the story of what Logan said yesterday, it made me laugh.

Yesterday I decided to rearrange Logan's room because we just moved Chase into his own bedroom, which is between our room and Logan's. But I wanted to move Logan's bed because his bed was on the wall that shares with Chases and for the sake of trying to eliminate noise traveling through the wall and waking up Logan I moved to the outside wall. Anyways, we cleaning up the toys off the floor with Logan when he decided to dump out two buckets of blocks and kick them everywhere. So, me being a mean mom told him to sit against the wall in timeout. He goes and sits and innocently looks and me and says, "Is Jesus happy mom?" I had to turn away so he would't see me laugh.

Lately I've been trying to teach him that when we make good choices that it makes Jesus happy and when we make bad choices that it makes Jesus sad. I quickly covered my smile and turned to him to explain that he made a bad choice and so He wasn't happy. I love the simplicity of his knowledge and faith. He loves to go around and make a steeple with his fingers and try to sing "I Love to see the Temple".

Another thing that Logan that did that made me happy was when he was lying on the bed with Chase yesterday. I looked over at them and Logan was leaning over Chase taking him by the hand trying to teach Chase how to give him a "Five" and and then to do "knuckles". It was quite adorable, at least to me.

I love my kids! They are so much fun!