Clark Planatarium

For Camille's birthday she was given a book about space, and wall stickers of the planets. She has recently been talking about being an astronaut (although it is like a ballerina astronaut that dances in space). Anyway, we decided to make a trip with Shantel and the cousins to go to the Clark Planetarium in Salt Lake. It is an awesome place to go, and even better it is free!

The kids loved it. And so did I. On the bottom floor there was a machine that indicates if there is an earthquake, and if you jumped hard enough it would "feel" the movement in the floor and make a record like there was an earthquake. It was pretty cool. And there was the big pendulum. I always think this is so cool. We can't feel the world spinning, but it shows that it does. The kids loved the little fog tornado that they could stand in.

My favorite part was on the second level when we got to go "on IO" Jupiter's moon. The kids could walk around on the rocks, and they had put in several moon rovers.You got to code where they went and tried to have them collect balls to put in a lighted circle. It was actually very difficult, but extremely fun. The kids also liked playing with the infrared body heat sensors. You could put your hand on the cold star, then when you showed the camera, there would be a blue star on your hand. Of course they enjoyed the ball run that goes all around, and there was a spaceship play place that has been added since I was last there. It was all so fun. I am hoping to go there just with Kevin and I someday soon so that I can actually learn more about space. More than just trying to not lose any of the kids.

After the planetarium, Shantel bought some popcorn and we went and walked around the gateway mall (which is just connected to the planetarium). It is an outside mall, and it was so fun. They had a big fire going that we went and sat by, and they had cool chairs and even a splash pad. Which is not great in the winter, but was cool to watch. We just chatted and let the kids run around and eat popcorn. It is days like this that I LOVE living close enough to family to do these types of things. I feel so grateful that I am able to be a stay at home mom and do these types of things with my children. I get to teach them, and love them, and be with them through the day. What a blessing that has been in my life.

January 2019

Camille- Camille as you already know turned 5 this month. That is probably the biggest thing that happened to her. We have started reading some short chapter books during the day and Camille is really loving that. It is fun to see her mind flourish. Camille is really taking off in her Preschool and is learning lots. I think pretty soon she will be reading short readers. She also has started wanting to make her own food. I am letting her start with toast. But I think shortly she will be wanting to yield the knife and do a lot of work in the kitchen. I think Camille just really likes to create, no matter the medium.

Jason- This month Jason went to Primary for the first time. He just turned three so he is pretty young for being a sunbeam. He was not impressed with Primary. We never had a problem with nursery, or anywhere else. But he has started crying before we even get to church because he doesn't want to go to primary. That lasted for about three weeks, and now he will go with Camille and is happier to go. It was just a hard change for him.

Here is one cute things Jason would say while I was potty training him: I would say, "Jason I am so proud of you for going on the potty!!" Then he would say, "Mom, I am proud of YOU!"
It was so funny to me. He is the sweetest little boy.

Sadie- I have been trying to sleep train Sadie this month. She turned 7 months old and I have not had a whole night sleep for 7 months. I am starting to get tired. She pretty much only wakes up once during the night now, and once at like 5 AM. It isn't too bad, but I am hoping soon that she starts sleeping through the night a little better. Sadie is also army crawling all over the place. I thought by now she would be fully crawling because of how early she was rocking on her hands and knees, but she just doesn't want to. She feels content in just army crawling all over the place. It has been fun to see her wiggle and move and grow. She still doesn't say anything, but she really like to babble. And Shake her head no. She loves bath time and pulling peoples hair. She also likes biting people. The last two things are not as fun.

Kevin- This month Kevin was just recovering from his Surgery for the first week. It was way hard on him. I am still not sure if it was worth it yet, but I hope it was, because he did not have a good first couple weeks of this year. He also hired his cousin Jordon to come work for us. I am hoping it will be a good thing for them to work together. Currently they spend a lot of time talking about tractors.


Jenna- This month is one that will go down in history for me! I won the game HQ on my phone!! It was amazing! I never ever thought I would win, but I did. I won a whole $0.45  So that was really exciting!

Halfway through January Kevin and I were talking about how we spend too much time watching TV. So our solution was to just put the TV away. We often talk about a lot of things, but don't often follow through, but the next day Kevin said, "are you ready to put the TV away?" and so we did. It has been a couple of weeks since we did that and it has been great. Our house has been filled with more reading and playing. I don't think we will keep it away forever, but it has been nice to do it for a little while anyway.

The kids have loved playing in the snow this winter. The first big snow in January they went out to play while I stayed inside. I looked out a little later and they had rolled three huge balls of snow. I don't even know how they got them so big. I bet they were way heavy. But they worked hard and did it. They have had lots of fun in the snow. I am glad we got them some snow gear for this year.

This is their three snowballs that had melted a bunch

This was their first snowman, then they went and rolled
3 more snowballs as big as their bottom one. 

Water Colors, Harmon's Cooking Class, The Temple, and Burger Stop

This weekend I went down to Shantel's house and we had a busy week. To start, Melissa came over and we hung out and did an Art Night. I was skeptical, because I am not very good at arty things. I don't have a photographers eye (as you probably can tell from all my photos). I can't really draw, and I don't even have beautiful hand writing. But with Melissa help I feel like I did a pretty good job. It made me want to go get a water color set and do it all the time (although I know I know I won't because I don't have anyone to do it with). It was wonderful to spend time with my sisters. I love them so much!

Kevin came down the next night because for Christmas Kevin gifted me a cooking class at Harmons. It was called Tuscany Tenderloin. I was so excited. We finally were able to go participate in the class and it was just as much fun as I thought it would be.

Shantel was kind enough to watch our kids for us while we went to the class because the class was in Draper. I love living close to Shantel so that we can trade watching kids. There are few people I trust my kids with, but she is one of them. Okay, she is like the only one.

We showed up to Harmons and Kevin hadn't eaten pretty much all day, so we grabbed him a couple doughnuts before starting. That made Kevin happy. Then we went to the classroom. Every Harmons I have ever been to has been very little. But this one was huge and had a second floor where the classroom was. When we went in we found some seats and the instructor had made some salad for us to snack on. While we were eating the salad she demonstrated all of the steps to make our food. We made a Tenderloin wrapped in baguette, Parmesan risotto, and steamed green beans with bacon, craisins, and feta. All of it was delicious.

After watching her we went to our station, and we partnered up with another person. There were supposed to be four people to a group, but our class was not as full so we only had three in our group. He was a quirky fellow, but very kind. In the end he let us take all of the leftovers, and that was very kind of him.

We ate the food we prepared, which turned out surprisingly good, and watched as she showed us how to make dessert. This dessert had to be prepared ahead of time, so she just showed us and then we ate the ones she had already made.

It was really fun. I think I might ask for the same thing next year. A great date with Kevin doing something I enjoy and learning new things at the same time.

We went back to Shantel's house and spent the night there. The next day Shantel watched our kids again so we could go to the temple. It was such a blessing to be able to go. It has been a really long times since I have gone because Sadie is nursing and she is just getting old enough that I can leave for a couple of hours and she can eat some real food if she needs to.

We drove over to the Draper Temple, but it was so busy. To get into a session it was going to take another hour. So we drove over to the Jordan River Temple. We got in and the session was packed, but we made it. It was beautiful and I felt the spirit confirm to me that we are about to do something hard, but it will be for our good.

I am grateful for the temple and all that I learn inside of it. It is a blessing to me. And I am most grateful to be sealed to my family in the temple. What a peace that brings to my soul.

After the temple Kevin had to go home to get some work done. The kids and I stayed at Shantel's house for a while and played a little longer.

When we got home Kevin took us out to dinner at the local Burger Stop. It was just alright, but the kids thought it was the bomb. I love looking at life through the eyes of my children. Life is so wonderful and there are so many things to find wonder and amazement with.

Overall it was just a wonderful weekend spent with family. Hopefully we can do something like this next year too!

Corn up Jason's Nose

Well, it finally happened. We were inducted into the club of parents who have had a child put something up their nose.

Lets set the scene: Jason, Camille and I are nicely eating dinner. Kevin is not quite home from work yet. We are almost finished so I am bringing my dishes to the sink. I look back at Jason and he say, "There is corn in my nose." He is trying to pick it out. Cue Kevin coming in the door from work. I tell Jason to stop picking his nose and I look up his nose and sure enough there is corn up there.

Kevin and I ended up trying everything we could think of to get the corn out. We tried tweezers, a bulb syringe full of water to flush it out, we tried blowing air to push it out, we tried everything we could think of.

We ended up calling our pediatrician, and they said they could get him in at 8:15. That is so late for our family, but we said OK since we had no other option. Since we had a couple hours before we had to go to the doctor, we kept trying some different options. Kevin thought maybe we could vacuum it out of his nose. He had recently been to the ENT for his nose surgery and they vacuumed out the blood clots and such from his nose and he thought maybe we could do the same thing. So he took the vacuum hose, and with duct tape attached a gas can spout, and to that attached a rubber hose, and to that a straw. We had the set up, and we pinned Jason down and tried to suck it out of there and it just didn't work.

Kevin ended up taking him to the doctors office and when they finally got back, Kevin said the doctor looked up his nose and said, "I see the corn, lay him down on the bed and I will go get my tool." So Kevin laid Jason on the bed, and then the doctor came back with his tool, looked up Jason's nose again and said, "I can't see the corn anymore. If I can't see the corn I can't pull it out." So Kevin suggested that maybe if the fill a bulb syringe with water and shoot it up the nostril with the nose that maybe it would push it down his nose into his throat. So they tried that, and then looked up Jason's nose again and still couldn't see the corn. So they came home. Kevin told me this story, and then I looked up Jason's nose and guess what I saw....I will give you one guess. Yes, it was the kernel of corn. It was so funny, but there was nothing we could do about it now, so we put Jason to bed and Kevin said he would take him to the ENT in the morning.

That night Kevin tossed and turned trying to figure out a way to get the corn out of Jason's nose. In the morning he went to Maverick to get some coffee sipping straws, along with a couple of delicious hot chocolates for us. He had devised a plan using bobby pins and a coffee straw. He used two of my bobby pins, and flattened them out with one little curve at the end. When they were in the straw, they would be closed together. Then when you pushed them out of the straw, they would open up until it was around an object, then when you pulled them back in they would close around the object and pull it down. Surprisingly it actually worked pretty well, except it wasn't going to be strong enough to get the corn down Jason's nose, so we didn't even try to get it.

Kevin came home early from work and took Jason to the ENT. The ENT grabbed it out within 5 minutes and we haven't had an incident yet.

This whole experience was frustrating, and also hilarious. We hope that none of our other children put things up their nose. I am almost positive that we traumatized Jason adequately that he will never sitck another thing (besides his finger) up his nose.

We love you Jason! Thanks for keeping us on our toes and giving us great stories to tell! You are a wonderful little boy! Just don't put any more corn in your nose!

Camille's Birthday

How do I have a 5 year old? I just don't know. I can maybe see having a 3 year old, but I don't know where the other two years went. But if I have to have a 5 year old, I am glad it is this one. She is seriously the best. I often joke that I have no idea how to parent Jason, because Camille has just pretty much parented herself. She is so well behaved and loves to choose good choices. She is kind and thoughtful and wonderful.

To celebrate her birthday we decorated the house with pink streamers and pink balloons (she loves the color pink). We threw in a couple other colors as well because she loves the rainbow and kind of wanted a pink/rainbow themed party. In the morning we hung out in the morning and made slime. She has been wanting to make slime for months now, so I finally got enough courage to let them make and play with slime. They loved it! I made them stay in the kitchen area because our dining room has carpet. Whomever might be reading this, here is a little tidbit of good advice: Never put carpet in your dining room. Anyway, the kids were good and kept it in the kitchen, even if a little bit got in their hair.

As Camille was doing her preschool, I got out some big butcher paper and made a big "coloring page" with rainbows and Happy 5th Birthday on it. She and Jason colored some and waited to color more when cousins came up to play.

That night Shantel, Lydia, Austin, and Caleb came up from Lehi and Grandma and Grandpa Walker came down from Morgan to go swimming with us. It was so fun! We found a fun pool not too far from our house that had a little play area for the kids and a slide and a lazy river. Jason wasn't super excited about all of the water, but Camille loved it. She went down the big slide several times, and loved hanging out in the lazy river with her dad. Jason mostly loved the life jacket he was wearing because it looked like Ryder's on Paw Patrol. Jason kept saying, "life vest, deploy!" It was pretty sweet.

After swimming we came home and had pizza and cake. The cake Camille wanted was a rainbow cake. So I made six layers: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. It was a pretty tall cake, but actually turned out pretty cool.

After dinner and cake Camille opened her presents. She got puzzles, glitter clips, glow in the dark stars and planets, and roller skates. She LOVES the roller skates. It was so fun to watch her open everything up.

I don't know how I don't have a picture of Camille in her roller skates, but Jason likes them as well. 

I seriously love this girl so much. I hope she feels the love I have for her. She is just wonderful. Camille, I hope you had a good 5th birthday and I can't wait to see what is in store for this next year! Love you!

Potty Training Jason

We finally did it! Jason is now potty trained! I think that he has been ready for a couple of months now, but with all of the holidays and the travel the last couple of months, I thought that it would be best to wait until that was over and could just really focus on potty training.

We started on Wednesday January 2rd. Just a couple days after Kevin's surgery. I am pretty sure I am nuts, but it was just time to do it. The first day and second day, and half of the third day was terrible. I was just cleaning up accidents all the time. I almost just put Jason back in diapers and figured I would potty train him when he was 5. But on the third day Jason came up to me and told me he had to go potty. Success!! We ran to the potty and sat on it and he went potty. Unfortunately he peed right through the crack between the seat and the toilet and I still had to clean it up. But he told me he had to go on the potty so it was a win for me. I called Shantel and asked her if she had any tips. She said that she has heard that if you put little boys backwards on the seat it is easier for them to make it in. And she was right. The angle is just better. It worked like a charm.

The next day and since then we have not had one accident. It was just like a miracle. He just knew what to do. I am so proud of him. He even has had dry diapers at night. He is awesome.

For Jason's reward we took him to Walmart and he chose a Rubble Ultimate Rescue Paw Patrol Vehicle. He thinks it is the coolest thing since sliced bread.

I am glad that he is potty trained, and I am so proud of him. Love you Jason boy!

Apparently life was too crazy for me with a 6 month old and taking care of Kevin and potty training Jason to get any pictures but for kicks and giggles look how cute this little boy is.