Memories

Last night, I was browsing through some of our pictures on Picasa, like I do every now and then. But for some reason, I got extra sentimental. By the way, Sentimental is my second middle name. I started missing when we were dating, then married with no kids. Then I started missing when Ella was a baby, then when Caleb was a baby. Then I came back to reality and thought about how blessed I am to have a loving husband and two wonderful kids (even though they have been pretty crazy recently).

Anyway, I thought I would share some pictures from throughout the years. So, bear with me. I love my family and am so proud of them, so I want to show them off. Yes, I'm one of the those people that would sit you down on my couch and make you look at all my pictures. Just kidding (kind of)!

On our honeymoon

Ella in the hospital at four months old

Newborn Ella

About 6 or 7 months old

I love this picture. The nurse is holding little Ella during some screening.

The first morning after bringing Caleb home.

Craig feeding Ella

Ella's first birthday!

Ella's third birthday!

Most recent family picture

Caleb's first birthday!

Caleb sleeping in his swing.

Caleb's first bath

First time Ella held Caleb.

Two month old Caleb.

I guess Ella decided he needed some friends.

Ella's second birthday!

Mohawk!

Halloween 2010

Our first family photo

Cute little guy!

So these are way out of order. I tried to order them, but I gave up. I must be doing something wrong, so we'll just have to pretend!

Resolutions

I will have a couple posts out of order, but it's late and I really don't want to make a post with pictures covering our Christmas right now. It usually takes at least an hour for posts like that.

I am not one who makes New Year Resolutions. In fact, I despise them. I like making goals, but not at a certain time just because everybody else is doing it. That's just how I am. Growing up, I never got into the really popular fads. And if I did, it was way after all the hoopla was over. I actually detested things because they were popular. And I'm still like that. I guess it was/is my way of rebellion. I'm weird, I suppose.

Anyway, instead of making a resolution, I am going to make this year about taking better care of myself. When I was single, I did a great job at doing this. The only responsibilities I had were school and work. But, I got married, and 11 months later, we had a sweet little baby girl come into our lives. And 21 months after that, a sweet little baby boy joined us. It's been 22 months since he was born. So, in my married life, this had been the longest period of time that I have not been pregnant. And it's taken a toll on my body and mind*. I need to learn to juggle things better.

I have decided to start doing the little things I have left behind since becoming a mother. I am going to wear make-up everyday again, and fix my hair more instead of just constantly throwing it up in a pony tail every day. I am going to keep my toe nails painted. I am going to put lotion on everyday. Things like that. Things I did as a single person.

I don't know what happened. I guess I decided taking care of my babies was more important than doing these things. And it is, to a certain extent. But, it got to the point where I was not making time to do both things. That isn't good for one's mind.

I do not like to discuss my body/weight to anybody; not really even to Craig. I naturally have pretty low self esteem, and when I feel gross (i.e. fat) it gets worse. And weight is a very embarrassing and sensitive topic for me. But I need to just come out and say it. Those who have seen me in the past five years can see it. I have gained some major weight. Let's just say that to get back to the weight I felt comfortable with, I need to lose 45-50 pounds. Yikes! And that's what I intend to do this year as well. I actually started losing weight a week before Christmas (bad timing, eh?). But I had gotten pretty sick and lost five pounds during that time. Usually when this happens, I gain it back within a week. But this time I decided I was going to keep it off. And I did! In fact, I lost a little more since then. I haven't lost anything since just after the first of the year because I have been slacking, but I am not giving up. I have to fight through these major food cravings and it's really hard considering I have given in to them for the past three or four years!

So that is my plan for the year. Take better care of myself and make myself happier. I am going to also use this blog as motivation to keep losing the weight (by altering what and mostly how much I eat with a little exercise sprinkled in). Now that I've put it out there to the probably three people who read this, I will update periodically with my progress. I'm still deciding how i want to do this, whether it's vague (i.e. oh, I've lost five more pounds), using pictures (not very likely), or the dreaded way of saying how much I currently weigh(aack!). Or, maybe all three? What do you think? What would keep me the most accountable? You'd think a whole closet full of cute clothes that I can't wear would do the trick, but it hasn't yet! I guess I need to put myself through some semi-public humiliation as a kick in the butt (or behind). I will be officially humiliated as soon I hit the post button. AHH!

*FYI, I do not regret at all starting our family as quickly as we did and having the two as close together as we did.

Broken Bones

The past six-and-a-half weeks have been very interesting, to say the least. On October 26th, my sister and I decided to go walking around the community that morning. I left the kids at home because with Craig's job(driving bus for the local school district), he is home between 9am and 1pm. So I figured it would be nice to go without the kids. Craig suggested to take one of them, but I just wanted to leave them both. He didn't push it, so I left a few minutes later.

About five minutes upon returning home, Craig called my phone. My sister and I were talking and I was almost home, so I didn't answer it. Then he called again. I answered it and the first words out of Craig's mouth were, "You're not going to like this." Then he said that Caleb hurt his arm really bad. He had fallen off the arm of our couch. I didn't panic too much then, because that is not a far fall.

I got home to see Caleb just sitting on Craig's lap holding his arm. It was so pitiful. There was no bruising and very minimal swelling, so I wasn't sure if it was broken or not. I was really hoping it wasn't because we don't have health insurance. So we decided to watch it for a few hours to see if he starts using it again. This was around 10:30am. By lunch time, it wasn't any better, so I decided to make an appointment at the pediatrician. But of course they were on lunch, so I had to wait until 1:30 ( I think) to call again. We were able to get an appointment ASAP, so left as soon as I hung up.

The doctor looked at it and was 90% sure it was broken, so he put a hard splint and a sling on and sent us to an imaging place for an x-ray. And also a referral to a pediatric orthopedic doctor. The x-ray confirmed the break, but it was worse than we thought it would be with both bones broken (it was his left arm). And one bone (I think the radius) was completely snapped and offset 2mm. The other one was broken, but not all the way through.



We got in to see the orthopedic doctor on Halloween to get his cast on. It was a pretty easy appointment. Caleb cried and screamed at first, but when the doctor and PA were actually putting the cast on, he was a perfect angel. The cast had to be on for 4-5 weeks so we set the appointment at 4.5 weeks away. The doctor gave us instructions about what he couldn't do. And he also excused Caleb from gym class for six weeks! ;-D


The 4.5 weeks passed by pretty quickly. It was a pain bathing and dressing him, but it wasn't too bad. 3 or so weeks in, he started to try to use his broken arm as if he didn't have a cast and sling on. By about 4 weeks, we couldn't even keep the sling on him. He was using his arm so much that the sling kept riding up even being safety pinned.

On December 1st, he finally got his cast off! He was perfect the whole time with not even one whine or tear. The PA put little sound reducing headphones on him (so cute!) and started the saw. We got to keep the cast and the first thing I did was throw away the cloth sleeve that touched his skin. It was very crusty where it touched the palm of his hand. Gross. And he had gross dead and dry skin flakes all up and down his arm. Thankfully that went away after a couple days. He had to wear a wrist brace for a week just when he played for extra support.






Now he is totally cast and brace free and back to normal! One thing that I noticed was that while he had his cast one, he became more aggressive. He was very frustrated not being able to do things normally. And unfortunately, he started biting when he got mad or frustrated. Ella and his poor cousin June (who is three weeks younger than him) got the brunt of it. And a couple nursery kids. How embarrassing! But, since he's had the cast off, there hasn't been any biting incidences. I had also started putting him in time out even if he just attempted to bite, so I think that plus having the cast off is helping him stop. Knock on wood... I have also noticed he is much happier these days. I finally got my sweet and happy little boy back!

And here he is all healed up! He's not so happy in this picture, but he wanted to get down.

Happy Halloween!

Yes, this is almost 2 months late, but better late than never, right?

This Halloween was a little different since Craig had to work at Papa John's (which, by the way, he works for Barro's now! Yay!). I carved the pumpkin with the kids, and got them dressed in their costumes all by my self. It was really weird carving the pumpkin alone(besides the kids).




Since I didn't want to take them out trick-or-treating alone, we decided to go over to my sister's house. She lives only a few streets away, so it was nice. My mom also decided to join the impromptu party and go trick-or-treating with us. As I pulled up to her house, Craig called and said he was getting off work early! Yay! So he met us and was able to go with us. Afterwards, we hung out at my sister's house for a bit.

In September, I decided that I was going to make Ella her costume. She wanted to be Cinderella and loves to play dress-up, so I figured if I made her costume, it would be better quality and last longer so she can use it after Halloween. Besides, I also wanted to brush up on my sewing skills. And because I'm not very good and have only made a handful of things, I gave myself a month to get it done. So, we went to the fabric store to buy the pattern and fabric for a Belle dress. Yes, Belle. She changed her mind. Well, Ella changed her mind about five more times in the store before we got the fabric cut. First it was Belle, then Cinderella again, then back to Belle, then Snow White, then Cinderella again before settling on Belle. And that's what she got. And she was very happy. Actually, giddy is a better word.


For Caleb, we were just going to buy something, but I couldn't bear the thought of buying a cheap quality costume for $13. So, we bought a white sheet for $5 and made a ghost costume for him. We don't have that costume anymore because two days later, we needed to use it to clean up puke. We were on our way home from going out to eat for Craig's birthday when Caleb threw up. In the car. I didn't feel like washing it, so in the trash can it went.

Music & Dancing

My kids love music. And they also love to dance. They usually start dancing whenever they hear music. In fact, a couple weeks ago when we drove to California for my nephew's baptism, we discovered that to keep Caleb happy during the long ride, music needed to be playing. It was so funny watching him rock out in his carseat!

I love that they both love music. Growing up (jr. high through college), music was my life. I feel music is so important to be involved in. Before I had kids, I knew I was going to get my kids into music, no questions asked. And I still feel that way. It's that important to me.

Anyway, that is not the point of this post! So, one of Ella's favorite shows is Angelina Ballerina. I think it is a cute show (and much less obnoxious than Caillou, which I ended up banning in this house because Ella was starting to becoming whiny like him). And she has learned a lot from it! Mostly dance moves, of course! She even knows what a pirouette is and will perform one if asked.

Caleb is around when she watches this show and he sees her doing her dancing, so he has even started picking up some moves (well, one move). He also has this drum that plays a few songs from The Wiggles that he has claimed. This is what happens when he plays it!



And here is Ella joining in on the action! Watch for her pirouette! And please excuse how they are dressed (or not dressed).

Hairy Situation

This morning, little miss Ella almost gave me a heart attack. I was combing out her hair to fix it. As I was doing this, I noticed that a little more than normal hair was coming out. I thought, "Okay, well I guess we need to start having her take vitamins." And then more and more and more hair kept coming out! I was in shock. I had Craig look at it and he was shocked also. I told him to Google 'hair loss in children', which was not a good idea. I know better than that. I was certain she had a disease.

So I finished combing out her hair. With lots still coming out. This is how much hair I combed out.



Her hair wasn't coming out in patches because she didn't have any bald spots. I examined her hair some more and a the top, I saw a bunch of short hairs. I said, "Oh, good. it's growing back in. But I don't remember any excessive hair loss recently." I guess here is where I earn the Mother of the Year Award and admit that I hadn't combed or fixed her hair in a couple days. Oops! It was still in pigtails, but was a matted and tangled up mess. I thought that her hair was growing in really fast.

Then a minute later, Ella pipes up and saying something about a haircut. Now, I trimmed her hair a little bit last week so I thought she was talking about that since I was messing with her hair. Then I stopped and asked her what she said. She repeated it and it came to me what happened.

Earlier, she and Caleb were playing in his room. I was downstairs, but could hear them. They're good kids and there's not anything in his room that is dangerous. I went up to check on them and saw they had trashed his room. I started picking stuff up and I saw Ella had some scissors that came with their nail clippers. I took them from her and put them away, and thought nothing more of it. They couldn't do any harm, they aren't sharp enough.

Thankfully, Ella admitted to me that she cut her hair. It would not have crossed my mind that she cut it. We have all scissors put up out of her reach (or so I thought) to prevent this from happening. She has never taken them and cut anything (except that one time she cut her dress, but it was kind of my fault. I was taking them from her so she closed them to give back and her dress happened to be in the way), but I know how little kids can be with scissors. Heck, I chopped my hair off when I was her age.

Anyway, I looked closer, and realized that the short hairs was where she cut it. I wondered what in the world she did with the pieces she cut off. Then I remembered her matted mess. Of course there weren't any pieces anywhere. They were still on her head!

I talked with her about how NOBODY is to cut her hair except me or Craig or hair dressers. Hopefully she understands.

Here is what her hair looks like now. Thankfully she didn't cut off more. It's not too noticeable.





It's actually worse than these pictures show. There are a lot more little pieces that I couldn't get to stand up.

Four Years of Bliss

On July 12, 2007, Craig and I married each other for eternity in the Mesa, AZ Temple. It was one of the best days of my life (along with the birth of our children). He is my best friend and I am very proud and happy he is my eternal companion.

When we were dating, we would kind of joke around (also being half serious) that we were meant for each other. We would say this if we discovered something we had in common or there was something we agreed about. But looking back, I can say we were meant for each other in all seriousness, that we are truly meant for each other. Certain things happened in our lives that brought us together. And I strongly believe that if just one of those things did not occur, we would not have found each other.

I am so thankful my family moved out to Queen Creek back in 2002, just a week after I graduated high school. Yeah, I lost my high school friends, but I later found my best friend and eternal companion.

I am so thankful that stubborn me resisted going to the singles' ward out here for two years. It was a pretty lonely time, but all worth it in the end.

I am so thankful that Craig did not marry any girlfriends he had in the five or so years after his mission. Even though he felt a lot of pressure to get married.

And I am also grateful for his previous marriage. Without it, he would have stayed living in Gilbert and not eventually end up in the singles' ward out here in which we met.

These are just the biggest things, but there are many more. It's very amazing.

I am so excited I get to grow old with Craig, raise our family with him, and especially be with him throughout all eternity.






By the way, I just saw this is my 100th post! Yay!