Cry baby

Sawyer has got the art of the tantrum down pat. He typically sits and screams until he's leaking from every hole on his face. If you walk away and try to ignore him, he will follow you where go, get in front of you so you can see him and start screaming even louder. He usually ends up curled on the floor on his belly, butt popped up into the air, pouting quietly to himself with his little lip out. By then he's forgetten why he was so upset in the first place and heads off to see what his brothers are up to.

Flirty Thirty

On the same day that Logan turned 5, I turned........thirty!! Otherwise known as: 29 redux. I don't feel any older. I already felt old to begin with. I feel like I accomplished a lot in my twenties. A happy marriage, a strong relationship with God, and three amazingly brilliant kids among many other successes.

I got married a month after I turned 20, and many people told me that I was stupid for getting married so young. That I was going to regret having kids so early. I was going to miss out on the partying and being young. But I didn't want any of that. And I'm SO proud of the life that Chris and I have made with each other and more importantly the life that we avoided when so many people we knew were living it. I may have never had a spring break in Cabo, or entered a wet t-shirt contest, taken a road trip across the country with a car load of friends, or been passed out drunk on the floor after a hard night of partying on my 21st birthday (I celebrated mine pregnant). But I have seen 3 little boys take their first steps, been given snuggly sweet hugs in the middle of the night from sick toddlers, helped pull out loose teeth, had the most beautiful dandylion bouquets decorating my home and spent 10 years with the greatest man a woman could ever hope to call a husband. I'm not sorry for one second of everything I've "missed" out on. My twenties were great. Filled with love, laughter, family, friends, and so much more than I ever imagined I would have. I'm really looking forward to my thirties and seeing what exciting new adventures they have in store for me. And if I do say myself, I think 30 looks pretty good on me.

Logan turns 5!

It's so hard to believe that my little Logi Bear is 5 years old already. For his party this year he wanted to go to Super Jump Party Zone. So we invited a TON of Logan and Brandon's friends to come and join us for a couple of hours to celebrate his big day. All of the kids from his preschool and Taekwondo classes came, a few of the boys from Cub Scouts, and of course a lot of our family friends.

Everybody had a lot of fun. The kids (and a few adults) had a great time horsing around on all of the inflatables. We chowed down on pizza and cake. And with all of the guests that came, Logan got a whole trunk full of toys. Because Logan and I share a birthday, we try to really keep our parties/celebrations seperate. I always want him to feel important and special on his birthday, and I think this year we really succeeded in that.

Sawyer's 1st birthday party, complete with a trip to the ER

The theme for Sawyer's party was "baby farm animals". For the food, I decided on breakfast. Yes, breakfast. Pancakes, hasbrowns, bacon, etc, etc. I was a little worried that people would think it was kind of strange, but let me tell you, that food got eaten faster than any other party we've ever had. So I think everybody liked it. I stayed up until 1am the night before making the cake. It was a butter pecan cake with chocolate filling and homemade buttercream icing. Needless to say, a very sweet concoction. I made the little barn out of a soda box and covered it with frosting. The idea for the cake came to me only hours before I sat down to make it, so I had to use what was available. It wasn't edible, but it was still adorable!

And after the trial run with the cake on his birthday a few days before, he knew what to do when his cake got put in front of him.

When Sawyer woke up the morning of the party, you could tell something was wrong. He had a fever on and off all day long. He was very clingy and lethargic. So he pretty much sat in laps for the entire party. But I don't think the people that were holding him minded all that much. Cuddling with Sawyer is a treat. So when it came time to open presents, Daddy held him and helped him along.

He got a ton of great toys from everybody that came. Grandpa Harold and Grandma Shellie got him "Sawyer the Saw"! His nickname is Saw so it was a very fitting present.

Probably Sawyer's favorite gift that he opened though, was a box of wooden spoons from Auntie. Yes, wooden spoons. His eyes got all big and you could tell he was excited. It was the only gift that he actually came out of his little zombie like state to get excited over. Sawyer loves him some spoons!

After the party was over, and all of the guests had gone, Sawyer started to get worse. His fever was skyrocketing out of control. He woke up from a late nap and it was 102. I didn't want to give him anymore Tylenol because it hadn't been very long since his last dose, so instead I decided to give him a cool bath. As he was standing next to the tub waiting to get in he started shaking and I told Chris that it looked like he was having a seizure. Later I found out that it was more than likely what had happened. Babies can have little seizures if their body temperature is changed too fast. So when I checked him again and he was at 104, Chris took him to the hospital. When they got there they couldn't find anything immediatly wrong with him, so a chest x-ray was ordered. With that they found that he had a couple of little patches in one of his lungs that were the begining of pneumonia. They started him on medication, and now a week and a half later, he's finally back to his old self.

Thanks to everybody that came up and helped us celebrate. It was a very interesting first birthday to say the least. Hopefully next year won't be filled with the pneumonia and Sawyer will be able to just enjoy himself. Then maybe we won't get sad little miserable birthday boy pictures like this one......

Time to childproof

Sawyer's new favorite way to drive me crazy is to get into the cabinets. When the other boys were babies, we lived in places where it was easy to block the kitchen from their curious little hands. But here the kitchen is open to the whole rest of the house, so keeping out Sawyer is pretty much impossible. As frustrating as it may be trying to keep our little explorer out of the cabinets, it's still hard to find him anything but adorable.

A terrific trio

The boys love each other so much. Sure they have their moments where one or more of them has a breakdown and all crap breaks loose, but for the most part they are wonderful with each other. I couldn't ask for 3 more amazing little men.

Sawyer's 1st birthday

I know it's a couple of weeks late posting this, but at least I'm doing it, right?! Sawyer's birthday was on a Tuesday this year, and the party wasn't until the following Sunday. So we decided to get him a little cake on the actual day. He stared at all of us when we sang Happy Birthday like we were crazy.

Daddy blew the candle out for him and then put the cake in front of him. He wasn't really sure if he was allowed to touch it at first. He reached toward it really slowly and then when he realized we weren't going to stop him, he started picking at the frosting. He was taking off the giant sprinkles one by one and eating them. So I took a butterknife and scraped them off so he would dig into.

He started out with little pieces and bits of frosting, but it didn't take to long before he was really going at it. Shoving as much as he could as fast as he could into his little mouth. He had huge chunks ripped off in fistfuls. He went crazy on that cake. He loved it.

Moving mountains

I’m going to hijack our family blog for a post. I’ve been wanting to blog about many things lately: thoughts about God, being a stay-at-home-mom, politics, all kinds of different things. Chris suggested that I start my own blog to get out all of my ramblings, but I just don’t know how often I would post. You all know how great I am at keeping up on THIS blog, so adding another one might not be the best idea right now. So let the hijacking proceed!

In the past couple of months I’ve really tried to make changes to improve myself. I’ve started eating better (that’s not to say that I don’t have my slips now and again), and I’m trying to get to the gym on a more regular basis. It’s been great. I’ve noticed some huge differences. My knee doesn’t hurt when I’m going up stairs anymore, I’ve been getting more restful sleep, I’ve got more energy throughout the day, my old clothes are fitting better, and I’ve just been in an all around better mood. I’m inspiring myself everyday with the changes that I’m seeing. It’s been amazing.

Lately my motto has been: if your brain says you can do it, your body will follow. I’ve been sharing that with everybody including my own kids. I don’t like to hear the word “can’t" come out of their mouths. So every time they say it, I respond with “Only if you don’t try”. You really CAN do anything. Last night when I was flipping through a book I recently purchased, this theory was really hammered home for me. It's a small book filled with verses from the bible. They are categorized for different life situations (marriage, illness, anger, etc). So last night as I was browsing through it, I happened upon this verse:

“…..for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.” Matthew 17:20

Reading that put a huge smile on my face. God always knows the perfect moment to drop into my life and move me with His word. It’s like he was telling me that I’ve been right all along and to keep doing exactly what I’ve been doing. As long as I believe that I can do it, the goals that once felt unattainable will come to fruition. So I took that verse and embedded it into my brain and today at the gym, I moved my own mountain.


I've always felt that the elliptical machine was created by Satan himself to torture poor innocent souls in exercise facilities the world over. I have avoided that thing at all costs for the last 8 years. But lately watching other people on it burning a ton of calories, sweating every ounce of liquid out of their bodies, and most importantly losing weight got me thinking “Why can't I do that?”


For years now I’ve had a bum knee. I hyper extended it years ago and since then I’ve used it as my excuse to bow out of many different activities: running, climbing, hiking, pretty much anything I’ve felt too lazy or more importantly, too scared, to get off my butt and do.  That includes that dang elliptical machine. But my knee hasn’t been bothering me so much lately. So one day about 4 weeks ago, I found myself all alone in the little fitness room at the gym (where I prefer to exercise away from the meatheads and Barbie dolls). I decided to make my way over to the elliptical and just give it a try. I only made it a minute and 12 seconds before my legs literally stopped themselves from moving. I absolutely couldn’t go anymore. It was embarrassing. I’m just glad there was nobody else in there to see my shame. I made a decision right there to conquer that stupid machine. It was not going to steal my dignity like that and get away with it!


I knew it was going to take awhile, but I was up for the challenge. So about once or twice a week, at the end of my regular workout, I would hop on it again (only if there were very few people in the room of course) and go until my legs would seize up. And I was adding a little bit on to my time with each go at it. On Monday I was able to get it up to a whopping 7 minutes and 10 seconds. I was so proud of myself! It gave me a high for the rest of the day. I never in a million years thought I would get a full 7 minutes on the elliptical…and then some! It was thrilling. Then the very next day before a training session, I did my 5 minute warm up on the elliptical in the main gym with 2 dozen other people around. I felt super insecure at first, but I didn't care, because I was doing it, just like everybody else. And I loved it.

For some reason I’ve always waited until the end of my workout to tackle the beast. Today I decided that I was going to see how much I could add on to my time if I got it over with first thing, before I did any other part of my regular routine. Well I’m still having a hard time believing it myself, but this afternoon, on my mortal enemy the elliptical machine, I got in a full 20 minutes! You read that right! TWENTY MINUTES! From 7 minutes to 20! And my legs didn’t give out! I wanted to cry right there in the middle of the YMCA. I wanted to run through the entire facility telling everybody I saw what I had just accomplished. I can’t remember the last time I’ve felt this good about myself. From now on, my first stop at the gym will be the machine that is quickly becoming a helpful friend.


I’ve felt so empowered lately meeting the challenges that I’ve given myself. This is my life and if there’s something I’m not happy with about myself, I can change it. It might not be fun sometimes, it'll take work, and it’s not going to happen overnight, but at the end of my journey, I’m going to be a much happier and stronger person.

Next up on the list of “things I never thought I’d do”……..Zumba :S