He's growing up....

I have so much other blogging to catch up on, but I just had to make a quick post about the awesome event that happened in our household today.

We've been working with Logan trying to get him to be more responsible and clean up after himself. He's had the job of unloading the silverware from the dishwasher for about a year now, but we decided he was getting old enough to start handling other things.....one of which was making his bed. So I've been working on it with him for the past couple weeks and I usually have to help him a little. Today I asked him to do it and he just said, "Ok Mama," without even asking me to help him. I left the room and it wasn't until a couple hours ago that I went back in and noticed this:


I love that kid!! I thought for sure that someone had helped him, but I asked the girls and they said no and I called him up and I asked him if anyone helped him and he just beamed and with much pride he looked at me and said, "Nope, I did it all by myself!" I love how he even laid out all of his small blankets nicely. Not even I used to do that. I'd just throw all of his extra little blankets in the corner. We'll see how long this new phase lasts, but for now I'll just enjoy the moment! :)

Independence Day

We started Independence Day with something that I think we'll start doing as a tradition from now on.....and we ended it doing something I hope will NOT be a new tradition.

We all woke up early and headed down to Provo for the Balloon Festival. We have wanted to go in the past, but have never managed to get out of bed early enough. Matthew's parents often go and this year they wanted to take Ember & Kya with them. So we decided we'd go too. I absolutely loved it and I think the kids did too. Peyton was so giddy watching the balloons get bigger and bigger, but as soon as they started the flames she got a little scared. Afterward we went to breakfast at Village Inn with Cluff's. I was so excited to see that they had Stuffed French Toast back on the menu.....it is one of my favorite foods in the entire world. So I ordered it, but it turned out that it was NOT the same thing they had on the menu years ago. I still managed to clean my plate! Yum!

On the way there I saw this flag and thought it looked so cool against the sunrise. I actually got a little emotional over it. I think this year was the most emotional I've ever been. Every time I saw a flag I would tear up!

Peyton was so excited watching the balloons.

Did I tear up again? Sure did!

It was such an amazing sight to see all those balloons all together. Someday I'd love to actually go for a ride in one.

Easter and the 4th of July are the two big days each year that I love to get the kids new outfits and take pictures. Here's a couple snapshots from this year:

If you look closely at Logan's left eye you can see that it is a little swollen. I'll explain more about that in a bit.

Does their hair look like fireworks?

That night we had all of Matthew's family over for a BBQ. The kids had so much fun just running around the backyard and playing on the trampoline. They also would not stay out of the drink bucket. Most of the kids kept grabbing drink after drink, but Khalil was going for the ice!

Logan had been absent most of the night because his eye was bothering him. He had come in the night before complaining that his eye hurt. We couldn't see anything and just figured it was just something in his eye, so we sent him off to bed. The morning of the 4th he woke up and his eye was a little swollen and it continued to get worse throughout the day. We thought it was kind of strange but we were so busy the whole day that we kept brushing it off. At one point we thought about giving him some of the leftover eye drops we had from an eye infection he'd had a few months earlier, but again we got busy and forgot. We are such terrible parents!! But Mike (my brother-in-law) took special interest in him and at one point during the BBQ when I couldn't find either him or Logan, I went upstairs and they were in the toy room. Mike's mom is a nurse and he had called her to ask her about it. Based on what he told her she thought it was possibly this thing called Orbital Cellulitis. She recommended taking him to a dr. and having it checked out. Well, not only was it a Saturday, but it was also a holiday AND 8:30 at night. I knew that not even an Instacare would probably be open and I didn't want to take him to the hospital for a silly, swollen eye. Plus I was really looking forward to the fireworks and didn't want to miss them. But he kept urging me and urging me. Finally I decided to at least call a couple of the local Instacare's to see if by some chance they were still open. I was able to get a hold of a dr. at one that was just finishing up paperwork. He asked what the issue was and I explained it to him and even told him what Mike's mom had said. He agreed that that's what it sounded like and he said, "You do NOT want to mess around with that. If it progresses it can be life threatening. I would take him over to the ER right now!" What?!? So off we went. I expected to arrive at an ER full of patients with firework injuries, but it was practically empty and they were able to take us back almost immediately. I explained everything that Mike's mom and the Instacare dr. had said and sure enough after looking it over the dr. said that's what it looked like. The next thing I know she's ordering all sorts of things to be done. Within 30 minutes of arriving at the hospital they placed an IV, did blood-work (thankfully it was through the IV so it didn't require any extra poking), gave a Tylenol suppository (he had a very high fever by that point and he will NOT take medicine orally), swabbed his throat for a strep-test, and last but not least did a CT scan! I was completely overwhelmed and freaked out, and he wasn't exactly thrilled about being completely violated. He screamed bloody murder through most everything but finally settled down and actually fell asleep during the CT scan. Then we waited for the results of the scan. It seemed to take forever even though it was only about 45 minutes. Turns out we were able to catch things in time before it progressed and it looked like everything was going to be fine, he'd just need to be on antibiotics. The nurse came back a few minutes later and started some antibiotics through the IV. I don't know if they had something in it to make him loopy but he sure started acting strange after that. Then suddenly he needed to pee. He was attached to his IV pole and I didn't know what to do and before I had a chance to find a nurse to help me he had peed his pants! Someone went and found some small hospital pants. They didn't have any type of underwear and the biggest diaper they could find was a size 3. Logan was very nervous about having to go commando, but what do you do? They finally discharged him just as all the fireworks were ending back home. They felt so bad he had to miss the fireworks that they sent him home with a stash of lollipops. They wanted us to come back the next day for a follow-up check and for another round of antibiotics, so they left the IV in. They wrapped it with cast stuff so that he wouldn't mess with it, but we were still nervous he'd try to take it out so we had him sleep in our room. He slept on the chair and slept the whole night thank goodness.

Poor guy!

The next morning his eye already looked so much better. We took him in and did another round of antibiotics. Then they said they'd just give us a prescription for the remainder of the antibiotics. I knew there was no way Logan was going to take anything orally so just in case they decided to leave the IV in his arm again and gave us an order to bring him back for a couple more days of IV therapy, but just up in the pediatric unit so we wouldn't have to have any more ER charges. Sure enough it was a no-go on the oral medicine. So it was off to the hospital again the next day. The nurses all just doted on him up in the pediatric unit and even gave him a blanket that had been donated to the hospital. They felt so bad because what should've just been a very simple and painless process turned into yet another traumatizing experience for the poor kid. They tried to flush the IV line and it started leaking. They tried a couple more times and then told me that the line was bad and that they'd either have to place a new one that he could keep in for both days (if the line stayed good) or I could opt to have them do an extremely painful shot both days. I opted for the shot. It took me and 3 other nurses to hold him down the first day. Then the 2nd day we tried it with me and 3 nurses again. He is VERY strong and this time he knew what was coming and he moved and they had to do it twice. He sure doesn't like to make anything easy. But we were DONE! And by that final day his eye was pretty much completely better. We were very thankful that Mike had pretty much forced us to do something. I felt like such a terrible parent, but who would've guessed. Even though Logan is completely traumatized and may never want to set foot in a hospital ever again, we are very thankful everything turned out o.k.

Summer fun with the Corbett's

Well, June came and went and so did the Corbett kids. Here's a look back and some of the fun memories we made while they were here:


The kids all seemed to go to our local library (it's walking distance) about every other day. They all spent a lot of time reading and finding fun books with crazy facts.

Jessika reading to Kylee

It was always fun to peek in on Skyler and Ashton to see what position they were in by morning. This particular morning Skyler apparently found it comfortable to use the Chubby Chair as a pillow.

Occasionally Logan will wake up and go in the toy room to watch TV or play the Wii while he waits for other people to wake up. He wasn't able to do that while Corbett's were here and there were some mornings we'd find him patiently waiting outside the door for them to wake up so he could go in. :)

It was a common sight to look outside and see the whole crew of kids running down the street chasing each other.

This picture makes me laugh! We all had scripture study together every night and one night in particular Skyler was completely exhausted and fell asleep in the middle of it. If you look closely you can see that his fly is even open. I guess he wanted to make himself comfortable before crashing.

We spent the kids last day here like the majority of so many other days.....outside doing water activities.



The month seemed to fly and I think we all had kind of mixed emotions seeing it all come to an end. We had a lot of fun having them here, but I think the kids were ready to go back and see their dad and we were ready to have our house back. A lot of fun memories were made though and we look forward to seeing them again.....hopefully sooner than later.

TEN!!!

Last month Matthew and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary! We had originally been planning and hoping to go to Hawaii for this milestone, but as the date got closer we realized that due to life's ever changing circumstances we've been through this past year, there was no way we were going to be able to afford it. Could we have put it on credit cards and figured out a way to make it work? Sure. Were we tempted? Yes! But in the end we decided to be more practical and spend within our means. And just because we were giving up our dream vacation didn't mean we still couldn't do something nice and fun. So we looked around at different options and found that through an exchange program with our timeshare we were able to get an amazing deal on a nice resort in Las Vegas for a week. Our parents were very kind and generous and took turns watching the kids while we were gone. The kids were looking as much forward to their "vacation" as we were to ours.

Life was so hectic leading up to our trip we didn't have much of a chance to really "plan" much before we left. But hey, Vegas is a city that you can't really get bored in, so we decided it wasn't that big of a deal. Plus, we figured that even if all we did was sit around and relax we'd be happy.....which is what we truly ended up doing a majority of the time. We did make it out and about to do quite a few things, but mostly we just sat in our room watching movies we rented. We also found other ways to keep ourselves busy. Wink, wink. Hey, it was our anniversary after all!

The room we stayed in was so nice. We had our own full kitchen (recently remodeled), a 52" flatscreen in the living room, a 42" flatscreen in the bedroom, nice king-size bed, a walk-in closet, and a HUGE bathtub. Here are a few pics:

The kitchen

The living room

The bathroom - the tub was huge! This picture doesn't do it justice but it was very large. Matthew and I both fit in there very comfortably.

The view from our deck. This was 1 of 3 pools the resort had.

One of the things we got a chance to do was to go to Madame Tussaud's wax museum. I don't know if it was worth what we paid, but I guess overall it was a pretty cool experience.

I tried to figure out a way to get Angelina out of the picture, but I'm a lot shorter than her so I had to be creative. It didn't really work.

My very own 007.

Here's Matthew and his bald buddy, Patrick Stewart.

I tried to make a face like his....but it didn't quite work out. Matthew never knew that I have such a crush on "The Rock".....er, I mean Dwayne Johnson. Ooh la la!

Don't we make such a great couple?

I felt kind of bad running off and marrying someone else on my anniversary trip, but hey....it was George Clooney, the most unattainable bachelor in Hollywood! I found out later that our marriage wasn't valid because I was still currently married. ;)

We learned that not all the figures are life-size. Matthew is tall, but there's no way he's as tall as Michael Jordan.

I found an adult with smaller hands than me! It turns out that Gloria Estefan has freakishly small hands.

We made friends with a couple that was walking around behind us and we took pictures of each other with the Blue Man Group.

My husband is so presidential. :)

I blend in well with this picture with the flag on my shirt and all. :)

A quick sidenote: There was a statue of Michael Jackson there and I had actually intended to get a picture with it, but got distracted and forgot. After we left the museum we went over to the mall and we were looking at something at one of the kiosks and the employee was on the phone. When he got off he told us it was his mom and she was just calling to tell him that Michael Jackson had just passed away. When we went home and found out what time it was, we realized that we were probably there with his statue at almost the exact time he was pronounced dead. Kind of strange. I kind of wish we'd gotten a picture so we could've seen what it was time-stamped at.

I had to take a picture of this girl because I kept complaining to Matthew that so many of the people in Vegas look like they've rolled out of bed and put on something they've had in their closet for 15 years and headed out without even bothering to check a mirror. This girl was a prime example! Really people?? I don't mean that you have to get all "gussied" up to go out, but come on! Can't we put forth a little more effort....for the rest of us!?!

There were a few different locations amongst the street shops that they were selling these wraps at and I was quite intrigued. They can be transformed like 35 or more different ways. The girl working there was showing me all the different things I could do and it looked so easy and I was so tempted, but it cost a lot and I was sure that even though it LOOKED easy that I was going to be too dumb to figure out how to do any of them once I got home. But she said she had a DVD that showed step-by-step how to do all of the different ways that she would "throw in", and Matthew kept convincing me.....so I bought it. And sure enough I was right, I can't figure out how to do anything with it except wrap it around a couple times to make it a skirt. But hey, it is VERY comfortable!

This was some pretty cool decor they had within the shopping area at The Venetian. I think that's where this one was.

My absolute favorite part of the trip was going to the Las Vegas Temple. It is breathtaking! Funny story though.....we actually tried to go on Monday because we wanted to start the week off on a good note. Before we left people were telling us that it's a pretty slow temple. We arrived on Monday and there were like 5 cars in the parking lot. We thought, "Wow, we heard it was slow, but we had no idea it would be THIS slow!" We got up to the doors and they were locked. It had a sign saying something like, "Please ring doorbell for assistance." We thought that was kind of weird. I just thought that maybe because there are so many crazy people in Vegas that they have to have very tight security at the temple. So we rang the doorbell and waited.....and waited. Finally we looked up and a security guard was walking towards us. Apparently not all temples are like the ones in Utah. In Utah the temples are closed only in the evenings on Mondays, but outside of Utah they are closed the entire day. Oops!!! But we did have a chance to go back ON our actual anniversary and sure enough, it was very slow. The workers assumed we were going through a session and they were so excited because we would bring the total of the group to 14! But we were actually planning on doing sealings. There were only a few other couples there doing sealings and they were in and out so we got to just sit and chat with the sealer. He told us some very cool stories. And then we got to go the Celestial Room. It was absolutely beautiful.....and empty. We were literally the only ones in there besides 2 temple workers. The whole thing was such an awesome experience because at home when you go to the temple it is such a nice, pleasant escape. But when you're in "Sin City" it is that much more of a contrast. I was so glad we were able to go.


I really wanted to get a picture of US in front of the temple, but it's not like in Utah where you have tons of people coming in and out that you can stop and ask if they can take a picture. There was literally no one to ask, so we had to do some creative setting up and use the timer. I actually think it turned out pretty good all things considered!




We had been wanting to go on at least one of the rollercoasters there and finally on the last night we were there we got a chance to. We went on one called "Speed - The Ride". We thought it was the dumbest name....I mean seriously, who came up with that?! It was very cool though. We only wish we'd gotten there an hour or so earlier. To get an unlimited pass where we could ride it and one of the other rollercoasters at that particular place was barely more than we paid for our one-time ride that lasted all of 15 seconds.

This is the loop you go on. It takes you through the ride to a dead end where it stops for about a half-second and then you go backwards through the whole thing.

We used to not be fans of In-N-Out. It seemed like everybody else in the world loved it, and we just didn't understand the hype. But we decided to give it another try and.....um, we are now converts. I think I could've eaten there for dinner every night and been happy. We are now anticipating the opening of not 1, but 2 new franchises near our home. Yum!

We had a thoroughly relaxing and fun time. And the car ride there and back was equally as fun. I enjoy road trips, especially when I don't have to worry about kids crying/fighting/yelling or asking, "How much longer?" I LOVE being able to just sit and talk to Matthew about anything and everything and not be interrupted. We played a lot of the music that we listened to on our honeymoon, stuff that was popular at the time like Red Hot Chili Peppers album "Californication". We also listened to the MiniDisc (old school!) of the songs we played at our reception. It was very nostalgic. We did miss our kids like crazy though and were very excited to see them....and they were very excited to see us!