{10 Years}

10 years ago I married my best friend for time and all eternity. Time sure flies. I don't feel like we've changed a bit or that it has even been 10 years, but then I look back at these engagement pictures and we look so young. I look at our 3, soon to be 4 children and amazed at the parents and family we have become. I still get teary eyed when I think about our goals 10 years ago and what we have accomplished together since then. It hasn't always been easy, but we've come a long way. I can't wait to see where the next ten lead us.

Some Quick Highlights From the Past 10 Years:

2000 - Got Married! Lived in American Fork, Utah. Our little 1 bedroom apartment had two front doors. It was interesting but we were newlyweds and loved every minute!

2001 - Moved to SLC. Both of us were students at the University of Utah.

2002 - I graduated from the University of Utah and we finally got our first real paying job. So nice!

2003 - hum. not much? Wade applied to dental schools, didn't get in. I worked and brought home the bacon.

2004 - We had Gage and I retired from a paying job. Wade graduated from the U.

2005 - The first six months of this year were maybe the hardest of our marriage. Then Wade got accepted to podiatry school and moved to Iowa in July. It was a whirl-wind move. Wade started medical school!

2006 - Late in the year Noah joined our family.

2007 -Half way through medical school. We loved our time we spent in Iowa, it maybe my favorite place we have lived so far.

2008 - Wade started his 4th and final year of school, but that meant moving from Iowa for clinical rotations. Sadly, we spent 4 months apart this year.

2009 - Avery Ann joined our family! Dr. Christiansen graduated! We got a real paying job again! We got settled in Washington and Gage started school. 2009 was a great year!

2010 - Joys of residency. At least we are enjoying the little paycheck we receive right now. We are very excited for another baby boy to join us this year. We can't wait to see what else this year will bring!

Pregnancy Post

I'll be the first to admit that I have been really bad at documenting this pregnancy. It's been flying by and now I'm already 25 weeks, which means only 13 weeks left (I've had all 3 of them early at 38 weeks). That is a little scary and exciting all at the same time.

I have to say, having baby number 4 and especially having boy #3 makes things pretty easy. I don't really think that I need a lot of new things this time around. We did get gifted to us another crib, since I am NOT moving Avery out of hers at 18 months. We bought a new crib mattress and I have a new bumper pad and skirt picked out to go with it. Unfortunately our old infant car seat at expired so we bought a new car seat along with a double stroller. I can't believe I've made it through 3 kids without a double stroller but I used it the other day and it was so nice!

This pregnancy has flown by. I attribute that to the fact that I am always busy doing something else and we didn't tell anyone until 12 weeks. With the other 3 we always told right away, but holding off and having a little secret made this a little bit fun and go by a lot faster.

I've had some crazy cravings this time around. The first trimester I thought I was Bella Swan. I craved eggs and had to eat at least one egg every day for a few weeks. It was crazy. This started around 6 weeks and my favorite eggs had to be eggs in a nest, but really, I ate them scrambled, hard boiled, egg salad. It was kinda strange.

Then from eggs we moved onto turkey/cranberry/sprout sandwiches. I served these at the Relief Society Birthday Dinner at our church and then I ate ate least one a day for the next month. I was nuts. They are pretty tasty sandwiches though. (croissants, a spread of cream cheese mixed with cranberry sauce, sliced turkey topped with sprouts)

My latest craving has been avocado's. Wade just laughs and laughs at me, but I've had guacamole or a sandwich with an avocado on it every day for the past two weeks.

Does anyone see any connections? I think these are pretty random things to crave.

I've had a lot of strange dreams with this pregnancy. Typically during my pregnancies I have to stop watching CSI or Law and Order type shows because they give me bad dreams. Really, I've given up watching these shows pretty much all together because they just started creeping me out, pregnant or not. This time I don't need any television show to spark my dreams. I just send Wade to work. I have had numerous dreams about his safety at work and our safety from some of the patients that he helps. I had two dreams about the baby, neither were very good dreams, so I don't want to post about them.

I think I am showing way earlier than I did before, but honestly there were only 10 months between this pregnancy and the last, can I blame my body for this? I haven't gained any more weight then I normally do, so I know it's just that I didn't have enough time to get back in shape.

This guy has finally started to kick me all the time. When I got my ultrasound at 20 weeks I would only feel pretty random kicking at night. Now the little man kicks me all the time. He really likes to kick at night when I rock Avery and sing her a song at bedtime.

We have a few names, but nothing that either of us can agree on - so any comments with names would be great. We like short boy names but are super picky. Wade doesn't like Max or Sam, which are names most often suggested to us. I like Ezra, Cole, Eli, Taft. Wade isn't sold on them.

I did feel sick the first 12 weeks. I never really got sick a lot, just felt like being sick a lot. Then, just like the other 3 pregnancy, at 12 weeks this had gone away. At 20 weeks I had some strange weekend where I was nauseous and threw up quite a bit that whole weekend. I don't think I was getting enough rest or eating well. That's my trick, I have to eat before I'm hungry and I have to get enough rest. Noah taking naps again has really helped the later.

This time my sciatic has been killing me like crazy! It has started hurting earlier and earlier with each pregnancy and this time it drives me crazy. It's my left side, which is also the side I carry Avery on.

(24 weeks)

All in all I can't complain. Wade says he thinks this pregnancy has been my best one yet. (Meaning I don't complain so much, which is true because I really have been trying not to complain about any aches and pains. I think he has enough on his plate with residency to listen to my complaints about crazy babies kicking me or my leg and back hurting). I do think this one has been easier, simply because I know exactly what to expect this time.

We are super excited to meet this little man and see how his little (or big) personality fits into our family. We all are in love with him already.

the residency program

I've debated about posting on this subject for a few months now and for a few different reasons. I didn't want to post about rumors, only facts. I also really wanted to have Wade read a draft of my post before I posted it. However, if you are a resident wife, or ever had been, you know how precious our time is with Wade when he is home. Honestly, saying "Hey honey, can you read this blog post?" the few minutes we might get to see him isn't one of my top priorities.

(What are my priorities when he is home, you might be wondering? really it's more like- go play with your kids so they can stop making up games about a fake pager going off and having to rush off to the hospital to help someone out. True story, sadly enough, it happens, they play "pager" games)

But on to the post. Plain and simple, here are the facts: Wade's program has been shut down. Bottom line and what this means - Wade will be the last resident, they have agreed to honor his contract through 2012. Everything - including our benefits, CME credits, pay, vacations, etc., should all stay the same.

Let me start by backing up and telling you about when we found out this information. It was the week of Christmas, my mom was in the ICU and (surprise) - I found out I was pregnant! Then Wade had an "emergency" program meeting and and found out that the hospital board was talking about shutting down his residency program. The program director was going to fight it and hopefully nothing would come of this talk and nothing would change.

So we prayed, Wade fasted, we prayed and we prayed. They had more meetings. Wade personally talked to each one of his attending physicians to make sure they would still stay on board no matter what to help him finish out his education. This was essential because without these attendings staying on, it would get pretty rough around here. Wade didn't want people around him starting to bail.

For a while things were looking good, honestly every time we have prayed and thought about this we have not felt worried about this. Then a few weeks ago we heard for sure. The program would be shutting down, final decision.

So here we are. We have been promised that things will not change for Wade at all.

I personally do not see how things cannot change. But maybe not all for the worse.

He starting seeing things change in January when students starting not showing up for rotations. The biggest area this effected was clinic. Rotating students were a big help as part of the office staff. They do have a few students that have decided to stay on and will be rotating here this upcoming year. It will interesting to see what happens.

One of the reasons that we have been told that Multi-Care is removing this residency program is that they are hiring a few podiatrists that will work in the main hospital that Wade works at, these physicians are told that they will take part of the call, and hopefully that will help ease the call schedule. Because without these doctors taking call, in just a few short weeks when the 3rd year graduates the call schedule would have to be split up between 2 people, one of which is Wade. And third year...it would only be Wade. I hope the new call schedule starting in July works out well. Wade knows these two physicians being hired and feels it should work out well for everyone involved.

Side note, in case you were wondering, another of the main reasons we were told that this residency is closing is that they will be opening up a second family practice residency at his hospital.

There are some good flip sides to this dilemma. At a program where they hardly ever have to "fight" over patients or surgeries to get their numbers, (one resident per year will do that for you!) Wade will now have no problems at all. None what so ever. Like I said before, he has spoken to each attending and they all assure him, they are here for him and would do anything to help him.

Wade is a little disappointed he will always be the "first year" of the program. With no other resident coming in under him he is concerned about gauging his progress this past year. He has discussed with the director and a few of the attendings and they all feel he is where he should be but having another resident under you to help is also part of the learning process he was looking forward too.

Yes, we still have questions and a lot of concerns but we have to trust our faith that things will work out for us. We prayed a lot our 3rd year about where to rotate and this program always felt right. We prayed a lot 4th year about what programs to rank and this program was always his top choice and always felt right.

In my personal opinion I still wonder if it really will happen, or if things will change somehow in the next two years and they will stay open.

However, for the time being we are shut down - with nothing changed. Challenges in life don't have to make sense to us, with faith challenges can lead to better paths we wouldn't have thought about or explored. In the past ten years we have learned that lesson well. Currently, we don't plan on going anywhere until 2012.

~~

Of course, this post was written by me, not Wade. He didn't get a chance to read it or approve it. If he had time to post about this subject it would mostly likely read something like this:

"The program is closing. They are keeping me and I will graduate in 2012. Nothing is supposed to change. We will see. I have mixed feelings."

For Aunt Jenny

Spaghetti and Cupcakes

memorable medical note

Wade came home late last night (his absence is the reason for the abundance of posts) and shared with me what I consider to be his all time most unusual medical note ever written. Now, his medical career has been short lived thus far, but I am pretty sure this one will be memorable and very hard to beat.

~~~

"Bacon was removed from foot. 30 maggots were removed from wound."

~~~

bacon and medical notes. pretty funny stuff.

working at the car wash

Saturday I put Avery Ann to work while I washed the cars.

Let's just say she had a lot of fun.

before & afters

It takes me at least a year to finally feel at home each time we move. At least. I move things, move things back, get rid or things and change things so many times. Two areas I worked on in April were my craft area and Wade's "desk" area. Some day I dream of having my very own craft room and library so I don't have to keep re-arranging these areas in my house.

I've redone my craft area about 4 times since we moved here a year ago. I just can't find a right place for it. And I secretly hope each time move it that I will find more time to actually sit and craft. Before:

After: I like it this way and I think it will stay a while. I've been sewing a few things hear and there, but really, I just wish I had more time in the day to do it all!

This was Wade's desk/my library area when we moved in. I liked it because honestly, I liked sitting and looking at that big diploma on the wall. Yes, call me a dork. I wanted to take a little piece of tape and add my name to it as well. I worked just as hard those four years, plus my little Bachelors diploma looks so small next to his degree from medical school. Anyway, this was before. Wade hated the card table. He never used it as a desk an it always just got stuff piled on it and looked messy.

After. I bought a few boxes from Ikea to store all his stuff and junk papers in and cut a hole for the electronic cords in the back of the book shelf. It now works great as a "desk" for his office things. I have to admit the most exciting part of this project was the fact Wade told me I could go and buy a new bookshelf. He really doesn't like bookshelves all over the place, so I knew if he was saying I could go get one (and he went to the store and got it for me since I couldn't carry it) that he was serious about this project.

Notice anything funny. I didn't notice until I downloaded this to my blog, but look at the blond head in the corner! It's our friend Eric. hehehe!

pancakes

When Wade is gone we have breakfast for dinner. The boys new favorite: giant pancakes. It is crazy how they can eat two of these babies and still not get sick! Silly kids.

Avery 15 months

I had to take this picture of this the other day to prove to Wade it really was cute before we left the house. Then we got in the car where she rubs her head all over her car seat and it turns into a big mess. Oh well. Piggie tails or Piggie's not pulled all the way through are my favorite. Today she had the cutest piggie tails with ribbon bows. The bows only lasted about 40 minutes before she figured out they were there and ripped them out. I should have got a picture.

Avery is really so funny to have around. I always thought after Noah that I would have been fine with a family full of boys, and I probably would have, but I'm glad I got the opportunity to have a daughter. She is a handful. She likes to throw herself down on the floor and throw tantruns lately. They are so funny to watch...first she slowly lowers herself to the floor (because I think she really is scared if she does it fast it will hurt!) then she lays on her tummy and kicks. But the best part is that if she kicks her legs over so much that she ends up on her back. And she (at 15 months!) can still not roll from her back to her tummy so she ends up stuck. I know, maybe I should be worried she can't roll this way, but she can roll, walk, run, do anything, she is just a princess about the back thing (meaning we never leave her that way so she has to learn it) and honestly, it makes changing her diapers a WHOLE lot easier that she can't get up and run off.

At 15 months she is such the princess in our home. She is a great communicator. She has a lot of words, mama, dada, nigh nigh, bye bye, but also points and babbles a lot. It really is funny, she still loves to sing really loud at church, in the car or anytime there is music on. Along with singing she loves to dance. She will dance and twirl even if you just hum her a tune. She loves to play with my make up bag and gets mad if she sees me in the bathroom and I haven't picked her up to let her sit on the counter. She also loves going through my drawer of slips, socks, undies and swimming suits, putting them over her head and walking around. These pictures sure make good memories not suitable for blogging:)

Avery loves to mimic me and tell the boys who is the boss. One day in particular I went to the back door and told the boys they had 5 minutes before they needed to come inside. Avery promptly then marched up the backdoor and told her brothers in baby talk the exact same thing.

I realize that honestly I might not be remembering the boys at this age correctly, but I do believe Avery is twice as busy as both boys put together. I have never had to lock cabinets or hide cleaners from my babies. Avery is the one I have had to move all these items for. She loves to get into the garbage. She still loves to get into the sugar (see post below). One day while she was trying to steal sugar from the jar I put some salt on the lid for her hoping she wouldn't like it and that would end the problem. She coughed a bit and then kept on dipping her finger in for more. Silly baby.

She does love to look at pictures of babies (hopefully this is a good sign come late August/early Sept). Avery also loves to bring me book after book. She hands them to me then backs into my lap to sit down and then I read it to her. Following my reading, she then turns the pages and reads it back. So fun!

I go in and look at her at night and can't believe I have a little girl instead of a baby. She is so much fun to have in our family and we love her more and more each day.

Time Out & Mother's Day

Mother's Day has come and gone. I am blessed to have two great moms. One who gave birth to me and I'm so lucky enough to live close to right now. It's so fun to hang out with her and be friends with my mom. My other mom gave birth to Wade. I couldn't ask for a better relationship with my husbands family. They are so wonderful to me. Both my mom's are awesome.

I consider my Mother's Day this year the weekend before the actual day. That's when my mom and I were able to get away just the two of us for a girls weekend. I considered this my gift from Wade (although he said he was smarter than that and still got me something). We had a great time attending the Time Out for Women Conference in Spokane. This is a conference put on not by my church, but by Deseret Book, which is a national church book store.

On Friday my dad came and took care of my crazy 3 kids so my mom and I could leave and get to Spokane in time. Spokane is about a 5 hour drive, and yes, the conference is coming to Portland in the fall, which is closer, but since I'll have a new baby by then (eiikk!) I thought we better shoot for Spokane.

I didn't take a ton of pictures, but here we are. Our self shot Friday night. We heard music from Jenny Oaks Baker and heard from Ardith Kapp and Virginia Hinkley Pearce. They were both great talks, I think Virginia Hinkley Pearce's was one my favorite the whole weekend. She talked a lot about how we should really try hard not to compare ourselves to each other. (something I do a lot of!)

After staying up all night (not giggling, doing mani-pedis or any girl stuff...the high school track girls next door in town for a marathon were VERY loud) we were up and at them again for a day full of inspirational music and speakers.

Saturday we heard music from Mercy River and the speakers were Linda Eyre & Shawni Eyre Pothier, Michael Wilcox, Mariama Kallon, and Wendy Ulrich. (we skipped one speaker and headed home a little early). I have to say I was so excited to hear from Linda Eyre and her daughter. I have loved the Eyres parenting books, Teaching Your Children Values Teaching Your Children Joy. As memorable as it was for me to hear from those speakers the one speaker I know I will not forget was the one I didn't know anything about. Mariama Kallon.

This sister's story is amazing. She grew up in Seirra Leone during war times. The things she witnessed and described to us about how her life was are horrific. Her parents were killed right in front of her. She and her sister had to run for safety every day. They were caught by rebels and lined up so they could be raped and have their legs cut off. She witnessed this happening to her sister who was in front of her in line all as they called out to God to save them. Her prayers were heard and she was saved. After running and finally finding safety she was introduced to the gospel. She later served a mission for the church in Salt Lake City where she found out that the hygiene kit she had been holding on to for so many years (a zip lock bag full of hygiene items) came from Salt Lake. She had shared that hygiene kit, that was made for one, with 25 other women in need. Her story is truly inspirational, there was no single try eye in the house as she spoke.

After hearing from Mariama we were able to break for lunch and then assemble "Hope" hygiene kits that we donated to a women's shelter in Spokane. We all wrote personalized notecards of hope and then with the donations we brought (we were assigned certain items by last name to bring that weekend) we were able to assemble 279 Hope Kits in 2 hours! I only wish we could have done a few more!


My mom and I had a great time in Spokane. I am so blessed to have a Dad who watched my kids Friday (I know he had 6 of his own, but 3 can also be a handful when they are are so little). I am also so glad that Wade never complained once about me going and doing this with my mom. He had such a good time hanging out with the kids Saturday and just doing whatever they wanted.

Then Monday came and call started. (love the resident life!) Mother's Day came, Wade worked that morning, was able to make it to church with us and then had to go back to the hospital that night with my Dad to administer a blessing to a baby. It wasn't a typical relaxing Mother's Day, but with the pager on, no Sunday (or any day) can ever be. The Saturday before we were able to plant the rest of our garden and have dinner with my Mom and Dad. I was also surprised to walk outside and see some new hanging baskets that Wade brought home for me.


A big thanks again to both my mom's and all that they do for me. They shouldn't have to have a special day, they are great women and examples to me and I should tell them both that more often. I also hope I get to attend another Time Out for Women Conference, I can't wait to see the 2011 schedule:)

Noah Reads

My sister Jenny said that I should upload some new video's of Avery Ann. She is right, I think the one and only video of her on here is of her crawling. But for now, she will have to settle with watching Noah for a few minutes.

Each night before bedtime Noah likes to sit in his chair and read us his favorite book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. It makes me smile every time I see him do it. My favorite part of this particular night is the ice cream.

We love our little Noah and his caterpillar book.

Noah and Avery's Neurological Update

I've been pretty bad at keeping up with my blog lately. March and April just blurred together for us and I can't believe it's already May! One big update is that we this week we took Noah and Avery to the neurologist for a consult.

Noah has had a history of febrile seizures. He had several when we lived in Iowa. Our pediatrician in Iowa kept reassuring us that he would outgrow these events, something we were very hopeful about. He had one in May of 2008, the week we were packing up our things to move from Iowa. I was really worried about Wade being away from our little family and Noah having more, but Heavenly Father blessed us and he didn't have any more Wade's entire 4th year. This past November (2009) he had another one that was about 12 minutes long. We took him to the ER, he had a very expensive little nap while they watched him and then got sent home with some expensive pedialite. I blogged about this incident here. I later went to our pediatrician clinic and discussed with our nurse practitioner that we see there what we should do. She did suggest that we could see a neurologist, but I didn't' take her up on the referral because it had been about 15 months between his last two seizures.

Fast forward to this March and little Avery Ann. I've thought many times about how I need to blog and journal this, but obviously have done it. I did mention it on Facebook, but that isn't the same.

On March 5th Avery got her 1st year shots. (I know you are wondering what this has to do with seizures, but I will connect it later). I know this was a little bit after her birthday, but she was still recovering from the stomach flu when she had her 12 month well baby check up so we got the shots a little bit late. Nine days later on March 14, I took Avery into an after hours clinic for pink eye. We got the drops and went home.

The next day (also my birthday) March 15, Avery started to take a turn for the worse, she wasn't taking naps well. That afternoon I was sitting and rocking her in her room when I felt her make some jerking movements. The thought it could be a seizure did cross my mind, but I also knew she was tired and there are times your muscles do that right before you go to sleep. I turned her around (she was sitting facing out) and she seemed a little dazed and hot. I gave her some Tylenol and she did end up falling asleep for a little nap. Later that day I was holing her in the kitchen while making dinner and this time I knew it was a seizure. She jumped and both arms and legs (bi-lateral) were jerking. It only lasted a few seconds but I called our pediatricians office and made an appointment to see our nurser practitioner as soon as they could get me in (the next morning). That night she had one more episode. Each time was right as the dose of Tylenol would be wearing out and we would need to give her next one. Also each time she had fevers that spiked. I've seen this with Noah, so it didn't scare me terribly, but it is still nothing you ever want to see any of your children do , especially do repeatedly.

The next day, March 16, we took Avery in to see our nurse practitioner and sure enough she agreed these were febrile seizures and also she had an ear infection in both ears. Ear infections were always the cause of Noah's fevers that led to seizures, with the exception of the one last November. I don't believe that they checked his ears in the ER that visit, because the swine flu was a big deal and they were trying to get us in and out of there so fast so we wouldn't come in contact with it.

I took Avery (and 3 boys, because I was still watching Eric at this point) to the store with me to get her prescription and she had another fast jerky seizure while I was standing in line at the pharmacy. This one freaked me out a bit, because I couldn't exactly take her clothes off in the middle of the store to cool her off so I tried to get her to drink some milk from her sippy cup and just said a prayer that we would get our medicine fast. We did and were able to make it home soon.

10 days of amoxicillin followed.

An Easter Egg Hunt

A clam Dig at the beach

On the 13th day we got invited for dinner and Family Home Evening at our friends home. He happens to be a family physician. After dinner we were all sitting around the table visiting and This is when Avery who had been playing like normal, came up to Wade and climbed up in his lap and asked for some cookie. He gave her a piece but then a few seconds later she started to seize. At first he (and all of us) thought she was choking but once we could tell that she didn't have food in her mouth anymore and it didn't stop we realized she was seizing.

This seizure lasted about 3 minutes. I know 3 minutes might not seem like long but when your baby is unresponsive it can seem like an eternity. Her eyes were nystagmus and her arms and legs were moving. Wade and Doug turned into Dr. mode and they were spouting off medical jargon left and right. After she finished we took her temperature, which was only 100.4 Our family home evening lesson then became a big discussion on febrile seizures. Doug was concerned (as we all were) and he felt we needed to see a neurologist soon.

After a long night of Tylenol and the seizures returning, we returned to our office the next day where we found out her ears were still infected and started on round two of antibiotics. We also got a referral for both Avery and Noah to see a neurologist at the children's hospital in Tacoma.

Fast forward to this week. Thursday was the big date for Avery and Noah to meet with their neurologist.

The appointment went great. Avery and Noah were great and Wade and I were both impressed with the neurologist. He did a few tests on each kid and talked to us a lot about their history. In the end he agreed the diagnosis is febrile seizures. Only a small percentage of children have this seizure disorder, but once one child in your family has it, the other siblings have a higher percentage. That is most likely why Avery has hers.

Febrile seizures also tend to be hereditary. My dad says that his mom always told him that he had one seizure from a fever when he was a small child. I also have an 11 year old nephew who had febrile seizures, his, however, have developed into epilepsy and he is having surgery this summer.

Our neurologist did explain to us that we could have a EEG run on Noah if we felt like finding out if he has any abnormal brainwaves. However, the findings wouldn't really change what we do with him until the seizures get worse, longer or go out of the scope of the definition for a febrile seizure. We opted out of the test for right now and decided that if Noah does happen to have another seizure we will run the test at that time.

We were able to get a prescription for an anticonvulsant medication that we can use in case either kid has a seizure longer than 3 minutes. This really helps me feel better, I just hope I never have to use it. (Gage thinks the papers about this medication is pretty funny since it shows pictures of how to "insert" it if you get my drift!)

~~

A side note - one thing I do worry about is that Avery has her 15 month shots coming up next week. Let me start this next paragraph by saying, I will immunize my children no matter what. I will. That being said, I do sometimes wonder about the timing of Noah and Avery's immunizations and their seizures. The seizures were never caused by the immunization, but the fever that both of them have might have been caused by the immunization. Or it could just be coincidental. They also present with symptoms of ear infections each time. I won't ever know. But I do wonder. Noah had fevers after his 1 year and 15 month shots. Avery had her first one after her 1 year shots. Like I said before, coincident or not? I don't know. I even discussed this with the neurologist. But it still won't change if I immunize my kids. I will, and I like to stay with the normal schedule. The diseases we are immunizing against are more scary to me than a febrile seizure.

~~

So, that is our very long neurological update for the year. I really pray that this will be my last time posting about our little babies and seizures. I know there are worse things that other mothers deal with, things can always be worse. They are overall really healthy children and we are blessed to have them in our family and blessed with the comfort of consults with great doctors and friends who help us.

Derby at the Spring Fair

The Spring Fair came to town last month. It's a smaller version of the big fair that happens every September in our little town. The boys LOVE going to the fair with Grandma and Grandpa every September so when they found out they could go to the fair in the spring, they were all for it.

After looking at all the special events and pricing, I decided to give Gage and Noah a choice. They could go to the fair and ride a few rides, or we could go to the fair and go to the Slamfest Derby and watch cars race and crash.

Is this even a choice if you are a boy? It only took a heart beat for each of them to choose the derby.

I was tempted to leave with Avery and my mom, but in the end we ended up staying around and checking out the action too. Avery wasn't sure what was going on...let's face it, the 45 minutes it took in between the first trick and the next race made us all wonder what was going on. But we endured and ended up having a great time.


The before the show line up - the drivers and cars were introduced. Gage loved the Captain Crunch Car, Noah the car that had orange on it (?).

Noah:
The roll over car:
And Avery's reaction. "I don't like it mommy. I don't I don't!" As long as the cars were just racing, she was having a great time, but anytime they crashed she would bury her face in my shoulder and scream, but then look back, just like a scary movie. She just had to look, but it scared her. It was pretty cute!

Gage:
Sitting with her blankie trying to hide her face:

Avery cheering and sitting with Daddy and Grandpa during one of the figure eight races.

And last but not least - a short video of one of the roll over cars. Enjoy. The boys sure did!

My New Life

Wow. Worth watching, as a Mormom Message and especially being one about Stephanie Nielson should be. I am constantly inspired by her message of hope. One of my renewed goals this week is to make a conscience effort to make sure my choices are not only good ones, but better or best ones. It's all about perspective.

Happy Watching.