The Park

Last Friday we went to the park with the Swanson's for Danny's birthday. It was a great park. I have only taken Tanner to it once when he was younger in playgroup. It's too big for my taste and I get anxious not being able to see my kids the whole time. Oh well, they had a great time. Koe also came and brought Kylee. And at the very end the Ekberg's showed up but we'd been there at least an hour and Matthew was done. Here are some pictures of the day.


Danny and Matthew...Danny just turned two. Matthew is about 7 months older, but they get along great. They are in the same Primary class, but Danny will miss the school deadline, so Matt will actually be in school with Zach who is in Ady's Primary class and about 4 months younger than Ady.

Ady and Zach.
I thought I took more pictures, but I must've been too busy chatting with Koe and Heather. Thanks for inviting us Heather, it was a ton of fun!

THE FAIR 2008

I'm really bad about downloading pictures from my camera, so it's exciting when I finally do. LOL About a month ago we decided to take the kids to the Utah State Fair!!! I remember going to the fair every year when I was little and liked in Bishop. I LOVED it. So I decided my kids needed to go at least once. One of the perks of being a state employee entitled us to get in the fair for a very discounted price. We got in the car and Tanner was being the biggest STINKER ever. He was so mad we had to go to the STUPID fair. I seriously do not understand why he was soooo against this outing. He was a brat the whole ride and as we pulled into the fair grounds my smart mouth kid said, "This place is such a dump....I definitely know it's going to be lame!" Davis and I actually started to laugh at this sour puss. So off we went to the fair. (Ady was especially excited since she'd recently seen Charlotte's Web.) The very first stop was a child's area where the kids get to be FFA's (Future Farmers of America). They got these really cute aprons to wear and a bucket.

The first stop was the grainery where they each collect a scoop of grain. Then they took the grain and feed it to the cow. At this point they were able to milk the cow. This was Matthew's favorite thing, we had to drag him away from it....very cute.


After the cow, I can't remember what was next, so I'll just post the pictures and they came in a certain order. LOL Collecting chicken eggs.
Planting a seed. This is the only picture I got of this process, but the kids picked out a seed and on this side they planted it. You then go around to the other side and "harvest" you basically grab the item you planned. It was very creative and cute.


Collecting apples of the apple tree.


Combing and shearing the sheep.

Riding the tractors around the track.


After this the went to a little room where they turned in the stuff and collected a "dollar." Sorry no pictures it was hard enough getting the little ones to give up the goods. LOL We took the dollar to the county store where they were able to pick out a treat. They had a very good selection but my WEIRD kids choose and apple (the boys) and a vanilla milk (Ady.) No they passed up the cookies and granola bars and even the yummy cereal.

At the very end they had this cute board for pictures. The kids weren't tall enough so Davis had to pick them both up.
Tanner choose to be the "girl". Goofy boy!
Here they are eating the prize they got at the store.
HUGE PIG!!!!! Matthew loved this guy!

Matthew in the chicken cutout!

Adylin
Tanner
After the "store" experience we took the kids to look at all the animals and I basically only got a picture of the pig, since it was difficult to keep them from turning it into a petting zoo. We even stopped at the big tent to see a guy in our ward that was there selling his Krustbuster product. On another note, we weren't there more than a few minutes when Tanner exclaimed how very cool and fun the fair was. LOL he was awesome and had a great time. YAY for Mom and Dad.

Yikes, so unexpected

So most of you know, I work part-time for the state of Utah, for the benefits. With Davis being self-employed and Matthew's heart defect, we haven't even looked at insurance seperate from my work, we actually aren't even sure they will insure Matthew. Well, we learned last week that the State is having a rough year and they were in need of making cuts. We were a bit nervous at first, but were told originally that they weren't going to cut our budget at all. Phew, they took 80 grand form us last year and it was TIGHT. Well, then we learned that they would most likely tkae 3% of our budget and my boss and I decided that we would need to cut one of our full-time positions to part-time (which we were actually working on anyway.) Well, my boss went to the special legislative session last Thursday and Friday. Yesterday, Monday she called a meeting to discuss the cuts. She started off telling us everyone what I all ready knew, there was a 3% cut. She then informed us that on Thursday they decided to add an additional 80 grand to that cut. I was shocked and worried on how this was going to happen. I was also surprised she hadn't spoken to me (since I am over the budget.) She then got really quiet and said, well, on Friday when they finalized everything, we were no longer in the budget at all!!! I was FLOORED and shocked. Basically they completely cut us out of the budget and gave us until the end of October to clean out our desks.
Needless to say there were a lot of tears in our office (and I had taken Tanner to work...ackward!) Well, my biggest concern was having insurance for this baby. I've been a bit freaked out about this.
So, the only "options" I have right now are to work until the end of October and do COBRA (which is $1000 a month...ouch!) The state also has a RIF program (not sure what it stands for) but basically they put you on a list and if a job comes up equal to the job you were let go from, they have to give you first priority at the job. The biggest problem with this....there are NO part-time with benefits jobs out there. ALSO, there was only ONE job that I oculd even possibly do on the list. Now, keep in mind that there are 10 people in our office all needing to find jobs. YIKES!
So at this point we are just praying for a job to come up that I can take for the benefits, until the baby comes. Then re-evaluate it from there. Unfortunately, there is a huge chance that it'll have to be full-time (UGH!) To top it all off, the state recently made all employees go to 4-10 shifts, which means I will have to work 4 10 hour days. This is so not on my list of things to do, especially 7 months pregnant.
I am a bit stressed out at this point and really hope this baby holds off long enough for me to get a new job (OH to top it off, if I have to be full-time, I barely have 2 weeks of leave for when the baby comes.....grrrr!) My other job was so flexible, they were going to let me work at home for a little while (I would've had 4 weeks at part-time) and then they were going to let me take the baby with me to work until he's about 6 months old or too difficult. LOL
Well, there is my crazy and sad day yesterday. I hope that we can figure something out soon and that it wouldn't be to difficult on my poor pregnant body. *Sigh*
I'll keep you posted!

TWO CRAZY CALLS

I wasn't going to post about this, but thought, ehhh, what the heck. Last Thursday I got home from the grocery store and Davis was at the back door to "greet" me. He sat on the steps and said, "The assistant principal called, what's up with Logan?" My heart sunk and I thought, "uh oh"!
So, too back track a week...I picked Tanner up from school a week ago and while we were in the car he "casually" said, "Mom, can I go to a different school?" I was confused and tried to see what info I could get out of him. Basically there is this boy in Tanner's 2nd grade class named Logan. He is being really mean to Tanner, calling him "stupid" "idiot" "jerk"...you know 7 year old boy talk. He also has been telling Tanner to "shut up" that no one wants to hear from him. So, I told him that changing schools wouldn't help, that there were always going to be "Logan's" in his life and he needed to figure out how to deal with it. We discussed ignoring him (yes I know all the Men out there are thinking....he should've talked to his Dad. LOL) telling the teacher when he's being unkind.
Okay, that's all I could think of at the time. So, I kept it in the back of my head and was trying to discuss what I should do, if anything. Maybe it's a one time deal?!?! So, Wednesday I just happened to talk to a friend in my ward who's child is in the same class and has had Logan in his class before...you know, putting the "feelers out." At the end of the conversation we'd decided it would be best to at least email the teacher about it. Well, I didn't get around to it that night. OH, I also had been asking Tanner everyday after school how things were going with Logan and he'd just shrug and say, "fine!" So what to do.
Well, this brings us back to Davis sitting on the steps and he then says, "Well the assistant principal called telling me that Tanner punched Logan in the face." AH MAN!!!!!!! Since it was almost time for school to be out, I jumped back in the car (after unloading the groceries of course) and went to have a talk with the teacher...okay, first I called my friend that I'd talked to the day before and she gave me a "pep" talk and some good "stay calm" advice. LOL
So, I met Tanner at the school and said, "Hey Bud, can I go talk to your teacher?" He shrugged and said, "Because I hit Logan?" "Well, yes and a few other things." So he played on the playground and the teacher and I had a great talk and laugh about the whole thing. Basically she said that Tanner is a joy in class, that he gets along with everyone, so when this happened she was "so confused!" She didn't know what to think and what had happened (I guess it happened while they were lining up for lunch or after lunch or something, so the teacher was in the classroom.) I then started to tell her what Tanner had told me about having problems with Logan. This was all new to her. Tanner had never mentioned it and she hadn't seen any of it going on. She did say that Loagn was a bit difficult and had problems being nice, so she wasn't surprised. Well, the end came down to us talking to Tanner about not hitting NO MATTTER WHAT and that he needed to talk to his teacher when kids were being unkind. I asked him if he felt comfortable talking to the teacher about it and he said "no" so we addressed that (and that it's not tattling if someone is getting physically hurt or "feelings" hurt.) The teacher talked to him about wanting him to always feel safe in her class, etc. Then I guess the next morning they had a BIG TALK about bullying and being nice.

So I got one of the FIRST calls no Mother ever wants to recieve, "Your child hit someone at school."UGH GROAN, then I had to remind myself that most likely it wouldn't be the last call....especially since I have 2 more boys that haven't started school yet.

Then this morning I got another FIRST call no Mother ever wants to hear. I was sitting at work and my cell phone rang. (as most of you know my cellphone is my home phone right now) So the caller says, "Mrs. Strong, this is the school calling (oh no! not again) We are just checking up on Tanner, he didn't show up to school today." Heart sinks, I start searching my brain to see if Davis mentioned anything this morning when we talked, about Tanner not going to school. I find my voice and say, "Well, my husband was supposed to get him to school today, let me call and see what's going on. What's the number to call to get you?" I wrote it down and in near tears called Davis, "Did you drop Tanner off at school today?" Davis, "Yeah, why?" Heart sinks further...."They just called and told me he never showed up." Davis in silence for a second, "What's the number to the school?" I gave it to him and we hung up. Not more than 3 minutes passes and Davis calls back. "So, I called the school....." pause "they paged his teacher while I was on the phone and he's sitting in class where he should be." Big sigh of relief...then the anger erupts, "Why couldn't they have figured that out BEFORE they called ME!?!?!?!?! Are they STUPID over there?" Deep breaths Holly, Deep breaths!!! GRRRR!!! So that's my second crazy call from the school.

Big laugh knowing Tanner's only in 2nd grade and he has 3 more siblings to follow. I'm sure there will be plenty more "strange" calls from the school. Let's just hope they are all minor. Now I'm justing waiting for the call when he's in Jr. High and caught smoking pot behind the bleachers....LOL I HOPE not...but who knows. Keeping fingers crossed that we can keep these incidents MINOR!!!!

3 Hour Test Results

Yesterday I went in for my 3 hour glucose test (UGH!) This was an awful thing. I had to fast, so I started that after dinner around 6:30 pm, got into the office to have my blood drawn around 8:30 am. They then gave me a DOUBLE shot of the nasty drink they make you drink (I nearly threw it up) and then I waited around for an hour so they could take my blood...add two more hours and two more pokes to this and we were done. I was feeling like crap the rest of the day. I had a bad sugar headache from fasting and such. UGH! Well I passed so I don't have gestational diabetes, but I still have a nasty headache everytime I eat anything with sugar. So I guess I just need to watch what I eat and go from there.
On another note I am graving a gyro sandwich.....so I grabbed one for lunch today. YUMMA! I should've grabbed two!!!
So that's it for now.

We took the kids to a checkup and they said Ady needs to have her hernia repaired (umbilical-ie belly button) and her tonsils and adnoids need to be removed. So I have her evals scheduled and hopefully a surgery date before baby arrives.

Tanner's front tooth (you remember the softball in the mouth incident a few weeks ago) is now turning a lovely brown soon to be black, so I have him scheduled to see the dentist about that. Man, the worst thing about having kids is the appointments, what a time sucker!!!!

I do have some pictures of the last few weeks on my camera, but that will have to wait for a moment when I am home and have time....so don't hold your breathe.

Baby/Pregnancy Update

On Tuesday this week I went to Primary Children's for my fetal/echo. The cardiologist after 2 hours basically said, "The baby's heart looks good, BUT, the 3 things your son had are only detectible after the child is born." HUH!?!?! So why did I just waste 2 hours of my time? Oh well! I then had my 28 week appointment scheduled for today (friday) but got it moved up to Wednesday due to some uncomfortable infections in the unspeakable areas...ouch. So I'm on medicine to clear it up. I also had to do my glucose test...YUMMY! At least it was fruit punch instead of orange. No it didn't taste any better. So, when I went to get my blood drawn, I was chit chatting with the phlobotimist (sp?) and said, ahhh, this lousey test again. She laughed and said, "How many times have you been pregnant?" I told her 4 and that I'd always passed. She then said, "Well, I see ladies come in here all the time on the 3rd or 4th pregnancy never failing and then alas, the pregnancy after 30 fails." I told her not to jinx me since I am over 30 now. Well, I FAILED! Now I need to go in for the 3-hour test which stinks. Basically I can't eat after midnight, the open at 8 so I can go in get my blood drawn, then drink the drink and drawn my blood again every hour on the hour for THREE yes THREE hours! And I thought the echo was a waste of time. I'm seriously bummed about this, but I have some "data entry" stuff to do for work that is boring and tedious, so I figure I will take it with me and at least get 3 hours of work done.

On another note, I passed the 150 mark (hangs head sadly!) The nurse was really nice and looked back at all my other pregnancies and said, "Well, this is a first for you...you're now over 150 pounds." Really is that supposed to make me feel BETTER or WORSE?!?!?! What made me feel even worse was the fact that I was only 115 when I got pregnant with Tanner. AHHHH MAN! I am seriously working out and dieting after this kid comes. I know I most likely won't get back to 115, so my goal will be 125.

AND despite the fact that I was over 150, I still ate this yummy cake I made.

I even ate the last piece just after I got my results for my failed glucose test....LOL, I might as well enjoy it while I can. If I fail the next one I will be one sad cookie!

Last but definitely not least. Saturday was Addison's 4th birthday. We went to the cemetary, had a picnic lunch and cupcakes. It was short and sweet. Tanner took this picture, Davis took the picture of the kiddos and the camera batteries died. Oh well. Enjoy the nice smudge on the camera. Davis informed me that Matthew was taking pictures of himself, so I'm guessing the smudge is Matthew germs. LOL

What's the answer Mom?!?!

So today we went to a baby blessing and let's just say I LOVED it. It was so nice having Davis sit with me and help with the kids. Ahhhh! Well, after we got home I put the kids to bed (that was 20 mintues ago and I need to go remind them to sleep...LOL) and Davis was off to church stuff. Well Tanner was keeping himself busy and found his scriptures (blue book of mormon.) He wrote some words down and said, "Mom, what's the answer to this?" I looked at the gibberish and said, "How about you read it to me." He tried and finally just went and got his BoM and showed me a page....at the bottom of the page as most of us know..is the footnotes. Here's waht we saw
Moroni 9-9 reads " And not withstanding this great (a)abomination of the Lamanites, it doth not exceed that of our people in Moriantum. For behold, many of the daughters of the Lamanites have they taken prisoners; and after (b) depriving them of that which was most dear and precious above all things, which is (c) chastity and (d) virtue.

the footnotes say
9a TG Body, Sanctity of
b TG Sensuality
c TG Chastity
d TG Virtue

Well obviously there is a multiple choice question here with mulitiple choice answers....DUH MOM!!!!! I had to giggle and then try to explain to him that it wasn't a question in school with a-b-c-d answers. Oh well, I guess we'll have a FHE on this in the future.

LOL

My Day

Today was a busy day. After cleaning all the bathrooms, making lunch and getting the kids down for a nap, I tackled my "project". LOL I had all the stuff I needed to make some dinners to freeze. I did most of the prep work and then put it all together. The first one I made was lasagna rolls. As I was putting them together, the kids woke up and "helped."

Think they "helped" much.

We ate them for dinner tonight and they were quite good. I still prefer regular lasagna, but this was a fun twist.

Next I made chicken enchiladas...two batches.

After that was the beef enchiladas...three batches since I had enough meat to make that much.

Last I made chocolate chip cookies. I told Tanner we could make these for dessert and that was our final project today. Sorry no pictures, but they were tasty.

Owie

Tanner went to my parents house yesterday while we were at Hale and the babies had a baysitter. After we got home we all went over for cake/icecream since it was my uncles birthday. The kids were playing baseball outside and Tanner starts to scream. I guess he got hit in the face with the ball. So after we got home I got a picture. The second picture is blurry but it was the next morning. Look familiar Sam and Carrie?!?!?!?!


He's doing much better now and it looks much better. Ah, boys!!!!!

Randomness

I just grabbed a few pictures off my camera. Adylin went to a Princess birthday party a few weeks ago and the invite mentioned if you don't have a princess costume to call. We do not own a Princess costume (yes shocker!) so we borrowed one of the birthday girls. Ady got to dress up as Belle and I think she makes a rather cute little Belle. My Mom picked her up from daycare (since I was at work) and dressed her and dropped her off. Our neighbor then changed her and took her back to daycare, so I didn't get to see her at all. I am so happy my Mom thought to take pictures. I think she looks wonderful. I then was at Sam's Club a little while ago with my Mom and saw "princess" slippers (about 12) and bought them for Christmas. Maybe we can collect a few dresses between now and then or convince the Grandparents to get her some.
Seriously, what is up with this pose Ady?!?!?!

Maybe she thinks it's sexy, since she did this one the other day.
And YES! that would be a toilet seat around her. She calls it her floaty (no pun intended) and no it was not clean, yes, disqusting. But as a Mom I couldn't pass up a picture for blackmail in the future. The bum crack is definitely going on the wedding video. LOL

Okay Okay

So I haven't been great at posting. I have a few excuses, so bear with me. A-I've been VERY busy and B-I keep forgetting my camera (and yes on occasion this is on purpose.) C- Davis has been busy and gone, leaving me little to no time to myself D-I've been sick.....So that's it, my excuses in a nutshell!

In the two weeks since I posted...Davis was gone Thurs July 30 and Sat Aug 2 to Youth Conference...ALL DAY 5 am to about 10 pm. So I just muddled through. My mom and mother-in-law came over on saturday and we canned a bunch of apricots. It was awesome and I have pictures at home.

July 30 I took Ady and Matthew to the zoo with my Mom, niece and nephew and some friends from the ward. It was tons of fun. Here are a few pictures my Mom took.





August 5-6 Davis went up to Scout Camp and didn't get home until I was fast asleep. We survived that too. Thursay of that week we had Stake Temple day (loved it) then on Saturday Davis and I took Matthew to Build-A-Bear to officially get his "animal". I can't remember how old Tanner was, but he still sleeps with that bear to this day. He LOVES it. We got Ady hers around her first birthday and she cried the experience was NOT FUN! She still doesn't care for that bear. So we waited on Matthew. At 2 1/2 he had a great experiance. The hardest part was choosing something, there is way to much to choose from. He finally settled on a "baby jaguar". He loves it and Ady loves teasing him with it. If I hear him say, "MOM, Ady took my baby jaguar...." and Ady saying, "Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah you can't get it!" anymore I am going to CRY!!!!!! After the mall we went to BK (I'll leave it at that) for lunch and Matthew was in an awesome mood. Davis said, "Do you miss Tanner and Ady?" Matt said, "Nope!" We said, "Shoudl we go get them from Grandma's?" and my sweet boy laughed and said, "NEVER!!!!" Ah, the joys of siblings!!!!
This past Monday I came down with a horrible cold and I'm miserable. I stayed home yesterday and slept and read my book "Breaking Dawn" from the Twilight series. Very good book!!!! I am now done reading and feeling a bit better, but still not great.

So that's it. I have a dr appointment on Friday....24 weeks. I doubt I'll need to update, but will if I get a chance....or have anything to report.