Little dragonfly

I thought he was cute :) He sat for 10 minutes waiting for me to take a perfect picture.

FREE $40 in amazon gift cards!

Since I joined in January, I've earned $40 worth of amazon gift cards just for searching the web like I normally do. How?

From SWAGBUCKS!! Click on the link on the right for more info. It's really cool! I hope to have $40 more before Christmas to get Dallin a new wii game!

Alpine Slide fun!

We took the kids up to Durango again yesterday to see how Maddie would do on the Alpine slide. She wasn't sure about the chairlift ride up, but LOVED the slide down! She yelled Weeeehoooo! The whole way down with me. I asked Todd what she did when she rode with him and he said "nothing, other than yelling "daddy!!! GO FASTER!!!"" hehehehe!

Dallin is almost old enough to ride by himself. Next year buddy :)

They both did the bungee trampoline, but Maddie didn't like it at ALL. So she probably won't do that again! Dallin LOVES it though and goes really high!

Maddie also found a dandelion and held on to it the whole ride down with Daddy. Click on the pictures and it will make them bigger. You'll see the dandelion in her hand.

And the result of smelling the dandelion:

Silly Dallin! Tricks are for kids!

This guy is such a goofball. He reminds me a lot of Uncle Adam! Love you bubba!

Don't let that face fool you...

This little angel faced princess was a total terror today. Anyone with advice on how to get her to stop yelling "I need to go POTTY" at the top of her lungs during sacrament meeting please let me know. (We do take her before church starts). Everyone around us thinks it's pretty funny. Oh, and her coming back in and announcing "I...AM...SO...GRUMPY!!!!" Todd and I tried SO hard to keep a straight face! Well, at least she's honest!


And while you're at it, if there is anyone out there who can get her to sleep in her own bed...I'll love you forever. I'm ready to gate her in or something. Oh...and...
Do all 3 year olds WHINE everything? She can't ask for anything without whining or crying. It's mentally exhausting. Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't trade her for anything. Today was just one of those days where I caught myself thinking "ohhhh little girl, it's a good thing you are cute!!"


Tomorrow's post will be on how sweet my 5 year old is, because truly he's wonderful and he deserves his own post!

Don't mess with this!

Maddie's angry face...

Thankfully she was just being silly. I wouldn't want to mess with that!

Come visit us and we'll take you here!

Silverton, Colorado! I know I've already blogged about this place but it really is such a great little town. They have a new "Big Foot Central" museum (not really a museum, it's just a room, but still pretty funny). Dallin didn't like the "stinky foot monster" so he wouldn't get his picture taken. It was windy and kind of chilly so Maddie wanted to ride on my back most of the day.

Here are some pictures. Anyone want to come? Our doors are always open to visitors!

8 YEARS!

Today is our 8th Anniversary :) I can't believe it's been that long already!! Happy Anniversary Todd!

Dallin vs. the Cactus

Dallin went immediately from a balance bike to a regular pedal bike with NO training wheels. He's done really well. I'm not sure exactly what happened tonight, but he came back looking very sad. Todd was across the street with both bikes.

Apparently Dallin turned right INTO a cactus. He totally trampled the poor thing, but managed to escape COMPLETELY unscathed. How? I have no idea. Divine intervention I'm sure.

Birth Tag (Rach, this is for you)

1.Were your pregnancies planned?

Yes.

2. How long were you married at the time of birth?

D: 2 years, 7 months
M: 4 years, 7 months


3. What were your reactions?

Excited! Happy!

4. How did your spouse react?

He didn't. Don't expect a "woo-hoo" out of this guy. He's a great dad though!

5. How old were you?

D: 22.5
M: 24 (2 weeks from 25)


6. How did you find out you were pregnant?

I was temping and testing.

7. Who did you tell first?

Todd. Then my mom and family and friends.

8. Did you want to find out the gender?

Yes, and we will for any future kids. I have an insane need to know.

9. Due Date?

D: Halloween. Came 10/08
M: Due Feb 25 Born Jan 14


10. Did you have morning sickness?

Oh heavens yes. For about 25 weeks with Dallin and with Maddie I was on medication.

11. What did you crave?

I don't remember with Dallin, I couldn't keep anything down...but with Maddie I craved peanut butter on toast (had to be toasted) with strawberry jelly.

12. What irritated you the most?

Nothing that I can remember. Except maybe having to pee every 5 minutes for the entire duration.

13. What was the child’s sex?

Boy, girl

14. Did you wish that you had the opposite sex of what you were getting?

No way! I'll take what I'm given. Although I am thrilled I have one of each!

15. How many pounds did you gain throughout the pregnancy?

D: 32
M:15

And I'm having an awful time getting it off (one of the reasons we don't have another yet)

16. Did you have a baby shower?

For Dallin yes. For Maddie no.

17. Did you have any complications during your pregnancy?

Oh um...well there was the barfing. The hip joints deciding to come undone. The swelling of the bottoms of my feet so I couldn't walk at night. And of course, my water breaking at 34 weeks...yeah that was a blast.

18. Where did you give birth?

Both kids were delivered at a hospital in Clovis, NM. I wish I were a candidate for a home birth but I'm really not.

19. How many hours were you in labor?

12 hours with both of them from the time my water broke (yes, it broke with BOTH of them before actual labor started...FUN for me!)

20. Who drove you to the hospital?

Todd the first time. The second time he was out of town so I got an ambulance ride. No friends or family to take me and I wasn't about to drive myself!

21. Who watched you give birth?

Todd and a doctor and a nurse...my mom was there for Maddie's.

22. Was your baby delivered the regular way or by c-section?

Regular way thank you.

23. Did you take medicine to ease the pain?

I am a weenie. The. end. I had epidurals with both, although with Dallin, they turned it off and I felt everything.

24. How much did the baby weigh?

D: 7- even
M: 5 pounds, 5 oz. She came flying out in 2 pushes because she was SO small.

25. What did you name your children?

Dallin Todd
Madison Leigh

26. How old are your children today?

D: 5 years, 6 months
M: 3 years, 3 months

Poisonous Gas

Dallin and I were having a conversation about family and heaven. We were talking about my Papa Buzz who passed away a few years ago and Dallin asked "how do we die mama?" I told him there are a lot of ways that we can die (not really wanting to go into details) and he said..."yeah, like poisonous gas".

Where he got that from, I have no idea but it made me laugh.

Dallin said to me this morning...

I got up and Todd had gone to buy me the Twilight DVD from Target (thanks babe!). Dallin said to me...

"mom, I can't find Dad ANYWHERE. I looked in the bathroom, and out in the garage. His car is gone. I think he went to Durango to go to the park by himself".


I just laughed. The mental picture of Todd playing at the park alone nearly had me rolling on the floor. We had talked about possibly taking a trip there, but I'm packing and getting ready to leave and we couldn't make it today.

We're still around

Just muddling along as always. Nothing really exciting to share.

I need to start writing down the funny things the kids say. I call uncle Adam about twice a week to tell him (and give him a laugh) but I can't ever remember.

Maddie is getting SO big. She weighs 26.5 pounds and is FINALLY growing out of her 24 month clothes. 2T fits her well, and even some 3T!

Dallin can count to 100. He does it all.the.time. Yessssssss.


Maddie speaks chinese. No really. Her FAVORITE show is on Noggin about a little chinese girl. So she knows hello, and listen and a few others in chinese. It's pretty funny.

Oh! And this little girl seems to be ambidextrous. She throws with both hands, and even switch hits. It's pretty cool. She LOVES hitting and throwing baseballs. Last night she was wearing her pink tutu, her sparkly shoes and hitting a ball. Well rounded I guess!

My date with Dallin

We were lucky enough to get to host 2 of the BYU Young Ambassadors, so we got free tickets to that night's performance. Todd didn't really want to go, and Maddie isn't very fun to take to live performances so we left them home and Dallin and I had a date.

It was weird sitting in the audience. I'm usually on stage. But it was a lot of fun to watch and then we got to bring 2 home with us.

What a fun treat to have them stay with us for a few hours. They literally were only here for about 8 hours, but it was still pretty neat to get to talk to them for a bit.

Anyone out there?

Good grief! I post 3 posts full of pictures and I got ONE comment (Thanks Heidi!). I'm not feeling the blogging love people! Come on! Leave me a little hello or SOMETHING!

*pouts in the corner*

My little Peanut Butter...

Maddie's cake was again, gluten free and egg free. She wanted Tinkerbell so I begged the lady at the Safeway bakery to let me buy just the topper. Maddie is STILL talking about her cake.

Snow Pictures!

We got a good amount of snow around Christmas so Todd and Dallin decided to take full advantage of living on a golf course. There are a few small hills that were perfect for sledding! Of course, it's warmed up and all the snow is melted now, but they had fun while it lasted.

Trying pictures...

My beautiful friend, Ruth is a hairdresser and she cuts my hair (and Maddie's). I'm SO blessed to have her in my life. She's so wonderful to have around!!





















I could NOT get her to smile in this one!!













Gotta love Target PJ clearance...of course they had NOTHING girly in Maddie's size!

















This one just cracks me up. The true talent of a 3 year old is her ability to dress herself. Here we have a purple shirt, her apron, NO pants, snow boots and knit gloves. Lovely, dear. Just beautiful.

And since I seem to be blogging for my amusement only...

I'm really having a hard time getting pictures to load properly so I'm heading to bed and I'll try again tomorrow. I've got LOTS of pictures!!

Some things I'm grateful for...

My kids have made me laugh so much today and Dallin's prayer included "please bless mama's foot, and please bless us to be nice". (I broke my toe a couple weeks ago, I didn't feel it was that exciting to create a post about it). He's so sweet to include me.

Todd is amazing. He works so hard to provide for our family and he's great with the kids. I'm so proud of him and so grateful for him.

My siblings. What a big year we have coming up! A wedding, a baby, a new house!

My parents. I don't feel like I need to elaborate much here. When you become a parent, you finally appreciate all the hard work that YOUR parents put into raising you. Thanks Mom and Dad!

I'm grateful for the church in my life. Our stake presidency gave us a "focus, challenge and promise" this year. The fireside Sunday night was wonderful, and full of hope and joy for the future.

I'm grateful for gluten free foods so Maddie can have pizza when the rest of us are.

I'm grateful for our home. Safe, secure and simple.
I'm grateful for cars that run. I never worry that it's not going to start.
I'm grateful for the scriptures and the counsel in them.
I'm grateful for our Prophet and his counselors.
I'm grateful for the snow, and rain.
I'm grateful for a sunny day in the middle of January.

I could keep going but I need to get her royal majesty to bed.

If you were my SD card reader...

Where would you be? I'd like to get Maddie's birthday pictures off of the camera please.

3 years ago...

3 years ago Todd and I decided that we needed to find somewhere to live when we moved away from the military and since I still had 5/6 weeks left of my pregnancy, he decided to go that weekend. Both of us has a weird feeling about him leaving, but neither of us mentioned it to the other until later...and now we know why.

Because 3 years ago, my water broke at 5 AM, 5/6 weeks early and I had no husband to take me to the hospital. I tried calling his cell phone but it went straight to his voicemail. I was terrified. I called 2 neighbors. One was more pregnant than I was (by about 2 weeks) and the other was a newlywed. The newlywed stayed with my sleeping Dallin while I called an ambulance to come and get me and take me to the hospital. I didn't think it would be a great idea to drive myself the 45 minutes it would take to get there. I called my parents, I called my friend in Tennessee...I called Todd...again. No answer.

Ambulance came. I had nothing packed. My waters kept making a mess (contrary to popular belief, it doesn't stop once it pops...it continually replenishes itself...and makes a BIG mess.) I tried to throw a few things in a backpack but I wasn't thinking straight. I had no idea what to bring. The EMT's arrived. Wonderful. I went to the back room to change my pants (again...and yes I had put a pad on but it wasn't a big help). They loaded me into the ambulance. I begged them not to turn on the lights and sirens. They laughed at me. I called Todd again.

We made it to the hospital. I was admitted quickly. They asked me if I was sure it was my water. I told them to take a look at my pants. Duh. I didn't wet myself. I called Todd again.

My mom was on her way. She had called the in-laws who were trying to reach Todd. My OB did a quick ultrasound to make sure she was head down and then they put me in a room. To wait. Alone.

at 7:20 Todd called. He was on his way. His parents had somehow gotten a hold of the family Todd was staying with, and the dad had gone driving around Alamosa to find Todd to tell him to turn his phone on because his wife was in the hospital. Hehehe...I wish I could have seen his face.

My sweet, very pregnant neighbor showed up. Bless her. She told me "I don't want you to have to do this alone, I'll wait here until Todd or your mom shows up". And she did. For 5 hours she waited with me, answered my phone while I was knocked out with nubaine. They wanted to give me Pitocin. I wouldn't let them until I got an epidural. I know what pitocin does. I didn't want to feel it.

Todd showed up at 1. Same time the drug guy did. Worst epidural ever. Mom showed up shortly after that.

And Maddie arrived at 4:30.

She was blue. And floppy. And not crying. I listened while they worked on her and then she let out a small wail. They showed her to me and took her away. I was scared.

Doctor spent an hour putting me back together. Apparently Maddie is some sort of a contortionist because she actually crowned with her FOOT by her head. Thanks for that chica.

When my epidural wore off I could visit her. She was connected to a bunch of wires. And monitors. Her skin was beat red from the heat lamp. I couldn't hold her. My heart broke. But we were lucky.

It took less time than most. Only 24 hours and she was off oxygen and 3 days after she was born we were going home.

She's been a spitfire since day 1 but I wouldn't trade her for the world. If anyone is wondering why we don't have another one already...let's just say that this is the condensed version of the story. I've had 2 kids and 2 very traumatic deliveries. I'm still trying to convince myself I CAN do it again.

SO HAPPY BIRTHDAY little Peanut. Which is what we've called you since you were born. 5 pounds and 18 inches long. No name for 3 days. So Peanut it was...and you will always be my little Peanut...Peanut Butter!! (and jelly)


Pictures tomorrow...it's been a long day.