Holman Happiness

The trouble with cuteness

2011-08-10T09:13:00.001-07:00

This morning as I was looking over my email Desmond came into the living room with his arms covered in flour asking "is this for dogs mom, is this for dogs mom?" over and over. I'm not sure why he wondered if it was for dogs but I immediately took him into the kitchen to wash him off only to find that he had gotten into the pantry and ripped open a new bag of flour and spilled about 1/3 of the bag on the floor.

Two days ago I was on the phone with John and after finding a huge puddle of milk on the table and floor I commented that Desmond is the equivalent of 15 kids. And it's true. So as I was cleaning up the flour I said it again and my girls said "if Desmond is at someone elses house we need to keep him away from their pantry" and I said "and their milk, and their eggs, and their cereal, and peanut butter, and sugar, and soap, and faucet sprayers, and goldfish, and spaghetti, and cannery juice mix, and hot chocolate, and butter, and toothpaste, and desitin, and deoderant, and baking soda, and baking powder, and I'm sure I'm missing something. Seriously, these are all things that I have come into the kitchen or bathroom and found a gigantic mess.

So maybe you should watch your child Robin you're thinking, and although there is an element of truth to that there is also just an element of the kid is a magnet to messy stuff and making messes and getting in to everything when I turn my head for even a minute. Will he ever outgrow this? I think so because Collin was exactly the same way and he has toned it down a bit. But honestly, I don't know if I can survive much longer, I have had 3 mess makers right in a row, so much that sometimes I don't even blink an eye, I just pull out the broom and start sweeping. On the other hand sometimes I completely loose it like yesterday when he decided to wash off the peanut butter he had spread all over his body in the kitchen sink and then proceeded to take the sprayer and spray down, nay soak, my entire kitchen. Water was dripping from the ceiling. That was a proud moment in the Holman household.

If he wasn't so darn cute and didn't walk around singing Bob the builder and Super Why and saying "I miss you" everytime I come home from being gone I'm not sure what would happen. What do you do with that much cuteness and that much trouble?

2010 - what a year

2011-03-27T14:26:00.001-07:00

Ok, I guess it's time to face up to the fact that I have not had an entry for about 1 1/2 yrs. Oddly enough 2010 was probably one of our more interesting years. Here's the quick summary:

January 15th: John's last day at Brown & Brown

January-Marchish: we try to decide what John will be doing for a new CAREER not JOB and where we want to live. We decide that we are feeling good about Tucson and put our house on the market FSBO. Within a week our house is under contract and we are amazed. Although it was priced well, we were still surprised how lucky we were. Ultimately it did close on May 26th and we knew we had made the right decision to put it on the market when we did.

March: with the house under contract we know we need a plan and ultimately decide to have John run for Justice of the Peace in Tucson. Kind of a crazy idea but we decided to really go for it and see what would happen.

April: John moves to Tucson and begins collecting signatures and we later join him on May 26th. That was quite the move. We had the moving truck, John's truck and my van so full that I literally had no where to put my purse. This is not an exaggeration, my van had every nook and cranny taken. We made it though and got settled in with a few more dings on our furniture than previous moves. Thanks you movers...

Summer of 2010: In the blazing heat, we all go tracting door to door to hand out fliers and talk to people about John as a candidate. Lesley, Benjamin, Alan, and Angela all pitched in on the door to door and Lindsey, Lesley and Angela made a million phone calls. John worked full time on it nearly every day. It was amazing to see him out in 110 degrees with a suit jacket on. We all put in a big effort and felt that we had done all we could.

August 7th: Madison gets baptized. Angela, Alice and her family and Grandma and Grandpa come in from out of town and Nana and Papa and Lesley and her family are also in attendance. It was a great day and Madison looked beautiful!

Aug 14th: My mom came down to Tucson to watch my kids for over a week (who were starting school the next week) while we flew to Florida and set sail for the big Holman Cruise 2010! All of John's siblings and spouses surprised his mom for her 60th birthday. We had planned it a year before and had to keep it under wraps that whole time! We all met in Florida where we surprised her at dinner and announced the cruise to the western carribean. It was a great week and tons of fun. Thanks mom for babysitting and thanks Holmans for such a wonderful memory. We arrived home on Monday and went to the polls the next day.

August 24th: The big election day. We went to the booths and cast our vote and awaited the results. When they came in that night, we saw soon that it was a landslide and not in our favor. In the end John got about 25% of the votes and Keith Bee got the rest. Some have said that wasn't bad for the first time of throwing your hat in the ring. To us it felt like a big loss. I would have thought that the vote would reflect our efforts at least a little more but alas it is politics and it didn't happen for us. All in all I think it was a great experience and would never wish that we hadn't done it. How often do people try for something big in their lifetime? At least we tried.

the rest of the year: Once again we tried to figure out a different career for John. Nothing ever jumped out at us and ultimately he started applying for attorney positions. Because there wasn't a lot out there and we wanted to stay in Tucson, nothing came too quickly. In the end he took a job as an elevator operator at a constuction sight the beginning of December. It was a blessing because it was income. He worked a lot of overtime and was gone for 14 hrs every day.

Jan 2011: John worked 265 hours this month and more than made up for being home with us for so long. We missed him but were glad for the work.

Feb: John's position ended at the construction site (at this point, he was more of a safety guy than an elevator operator) and that afternoon he had an interview with the Santa Cruz County Attorney's office. The next day I enrolled in and started Real Estate school. Finally I was doing something I had wanted to do for about 7 yrs and had put off for various reasons.

March: John ended up getting the job as a prosecutor in Nogales and he started the end of Feb. I finished school just before he started. I took my exam and passed! Yay! and will be working with some friends here in Tucson on their Real Estate team. I am so happy to be doing it, I have loved house hunting ever since I did it for the first time in Bisbee in 2004. Maybe now if I can house hunt for other people we won't be moving so often. :) John works 4 10's so he has Fridays off which gives me another day to go and work in Real Estate. John has a long commute but is able to carpool and really likes the office and people at his job. I personally will be so happy to have real health insurance (something without a $7500 deductible) since we haven't had that since summer 2005. Also, it means we can get a loan for a house so you know what that means.

So there you have it, just a quick overall synopsis of 2010 without all the cute sayings or pictures of my 4 adorable kids. I have a great family and a great life. Maybe now that I've forced myself to start again, I can begin posting things like birthdays and holidays and start back up a record of our lives.

El Tour de Tucson

2009-11-23T09:40:00.000-08:00

I'm starting to think my husband can do any kind of double dare physical challenge. First he does a half ironman (did I forget to post about that?) which consisted of a 1.2 mile swim (in open, really cold water), 56 mile bike ride, and he finished it off with a 13 mile run. And just this past weekend he did the 108 mile El Tour de Tucson bike ride.

I suppose the fact that he rode 108 miles on his bike was not the real accomplishment of the weekend. What was even more amazing was that he actually found AND bought a pair of bike shorts! Way to go John!

Seriously though I think he's pretty amazing.

This is John and my brother-in-law Rob who also participated.

A little food for thought

2009-11-20T09:48:00.000-08:00

Since I'm apparently incabable of blogging about our lives, I thought I would share this video that I saw on a friend's blog. Enjoy

I'm so excited!!

2009-08-24T09:38:00.000-07:00

I can hardly contain my excitement, I just discovered this morning that we now have a Show Low Craigslist! We've been requesting one for years and we finally have it!

http://showlow.craigslist.org/

It really is time

2009-08-13T09:26:00.000-07:00

Ok, it's time for another post. I can't locate my cord to download pictures so it's going to have be picture free but I have too much to update. My attempt at documenting our life (I don't scrapbook or write in a journal) through this blog is failing miserably. So here's just a quick summary so that I'll have some memory of this crazy time.

1) We bought our house and have officially moved in. Buying this house has consisted of a whole lot things.

a) big estate sale to empty the house so that we could move in. We did the sale one Thurs, Fri & Sat and it was amazingly successful. Thursday morning we ended up with a constant crowd of people until about noon. We probably had a least 10 people there at a time the entire morning. By the end of the weekend we had sold almost all the stuff. We finally had stuff that people up here were interested in. Kid stuff doesn't do to well up here. We ended up with 2 bedroom sets left and a washer and dryer which we put in an auction that will happen the end of this month. That was a little bit of a pain but my dad came in and saved the day and has taken many loads out to the auction. Thanks Dad!

b) we wimped out and hired someone to paint the entire house. In the end we ended up with 6 different colors (purple in the girls room, tan in the the master and boys room, darker tan in great room, blue in kids bathroom, and lime green - yes lime green in the master bathroom and laundry room, plus the pretty white/slightly cream for the trim. I love all the colors and am so happy that we have it all done. John also managed to rip out the weird fake fireplace before the painter came and luckily so because he did a great job fixing the wall.

c) once the painter was finished we were going to have the tile done but it got delayed because it was on back order so we decided to just move in. Moving week was a little overwhelming but thanks to my 2 sisters it was doable.

d) we moved in and set to work trying to organize. Eventually we got our tile installed and then found out our carpet was also on back order. (I guess the annoyance was balanced by the fact that it confirmed that I had chosen a good tile and carpet and was getting a good price - apparently a lot of people were choosing the same thing).

e) Angela persisted on getting me to tackle the garage so with Alice's help for a couple of days we cleared it out, tucked a lot things away and prepared for our second yard sale. From our move we personally had a lot of things to sell. We held the second one and once again had a lot of traffic. Probably not as much as the first but we still got rid of a lot of stuff. It made me realize that we unknowingly picked a really good weekend to do the first big sale.

f) The entire house has vaulted ceilings (except the bathrooms and laundry room) including the 2ND and 3rd bedrooms and sometime in all of this it was thrown out there that we should build a loft in the girls bedroom. The more John looked into it the more it became a reality. Before I knew it he'd built it and we were able to have the carpet installers even install carpet up there. I have to say John has done some cool things since I've known him but to me this was one of the most impressive. I love it, everything about it. And I'm so impressed that he went from talk to almost finished in a month. I think the kids are going to absolutely love it and it looks so cool! They still have an 8 foot ceiling but it has an opening on the far end of the room. You don't even see the loft when you walk in. Anyway, I can't think of a better way to have added a playroom to this house. Way to go John!

g) This week we finally got our carpet in and let me tell you I love it! I was worried at first that I didn't like the color but the last 2 days I have fallen in love with it.

h) I forgot to say that somewhere in the last month I also went through the house and installed all new door handles and I LOVE them! I think it makes such a huge difference.

We still have a lot to do for the house (baseboards, yard, kitchen counter, etc) but it's coming and we're having small and big victories every week. I really like the layout of the house and am very happy overall with the house itself. The back porch is so great to go sit on especially during a rainstorm. It's nice to be close to the park and the store and we seem to have really great neighbors. In fact this week we had a neighbor come over and invite us to a neighborhood BBQ this Sunday at her house. Fun stuff.

Angela and Alice and my parents get a gold star for all the help they have given me. Alice watched my kids on numerous occasions and her and my mom were a huge help with the first yard sale. They came every day and worked the outside garage stuff while I worked the inside bigger stuff. They were fabulous! Angela devote all her time off this summer to me. It was amazing, she taught summer school and then came and lived with us for basically a month. She changed so many diapers that John started calling her our diaper Sherpa. She basically stepped in and did anything from cleaning the garage to changing diapers to babysitting so John and I could go out to getting up in the night with Collin to putting all the outlet covers back on. Needless to say I miss her greatly and tried everything I could to get her to just move in as a full time nanny/friend. And if anyone is wondering if John was OK with all this, he was. It was a big help to him and he and Angela get along great and well he's just a really good sport about a lot of things.

In the end I probably could spend my whole life trying to say thank you to my family and still never feel like I expressed it enough. It really meant a lot to me and to be completely honest there is literally no way I could have survived it all without them. Seriously, I'm already barely surviving and adding a move to that would have put me over the edge.

In other news, the kids started school this week. Oddly enough we're not entirely sure who Bridgett's Kindergarten teacher will be, it's been a little bit crazy but she's attending and loves her teacher. We're keeping our fingers crossed that she'll be able to stay in her class. She has afternoon Kindergarten and so far has 8 kids in the class. Pretty crazy. Madison started 2ND grade and was thrilled to get the same teacher Hannah had last year and was very happy to have her friend from Kindergarten back in class with her. I'm adjusting to being on a schedule again and hoping to one day have my house clean...

Miracles do happen

2009-06-10T09:35:00.000-07:00

Well, it's official. We are finally buying a house. It's only been a short 2 years and we have found the home of our dreams. OK it's not really our dream home but a while ago we decided that we needed to find one of two options.

1. A house we love with a mortgage we like.
2. A mortgage we love and a house that we like.

So ultimately we found the house that we liked with the mortgage that we loved. Here are the specs.

1530 square feet
3 bedroom 2 bathroom
the tiniest 2 car garage you can find
decent back yard

The cool thing is that it's full of furniture so we get to have a fun yard sale and we have even acquired a 42' plasma TV and some nice patio furniture.

So overall we are excited, mostly to be done looking and to finally have our own house. Yay for us!

The winds of change blew away

2009-04-30T11:26:00.001-07:00

Still no house. We had 3 very probable options (that's 3 more than we've had in the last 2 years of looking) and within a week they were all crossed off as options. Crazily enough in this buyers market, we put in an offer on a house and within 4 days of it listing it had 6 offers. We can't win. But our hopes are high, something will come. I'm sure of it, we will find a house... sometime... in the next 5 years...

A trip to Utah

2009-04-30T11:19:00.000-07:00

I went to UT last week for Forrest's graduation and his baby's blessing. Little Davis is adorable! I have no pictures of any of it except for the day we spent at Thanksgiving Point. Mom, Alice, and Melanee and I went to see the tulip festival and I met up with a friend of mine that I haven't seen for about 4-5 years. I can't believe I forgot to take some pictures with her! Anyhow, it was really fun and so beautiful. The weather was perfect and we had such a good time.

This is my favorite picture. Their was a girl there doing her wedding pictures and Bridgett couldn't stay away. She followed her around and watched, I don't think she could have loved anything more.

Bridgett turned 5!

2009-04-30T11:07:00.000-07:00

She was soo excited to turn 5. When she woke up Madison informed her that she "didn't look like a 5 year old." I just wonder what kind of transformation needed to take place for that to happen.

She had a great Birthday, we had cake and ice cream with the family and she was very excited (a lot more than mom) about the make-up she got. It was the only thing she wanted besides jewelry and I felt like it would be a little mean to not get her some. Turns out I chose the kind that is very hard to get off. The next day the girls looked like they had sunburned faces because we couldn't get all the pink off. Bridgett just kept putting it on and taking it off and putting more on. She really did love it a lot. The good news is that it was all used up in about 2 days.

Desi is well taken care of

2009-04-30T11:03:00.000-07:00

I found Desmond in his swing this way one day. As I took away the flowers I found about 3 other toys. Collin is always concerned.

Easter

2009-04-30T10:42:00.001-07:00

Just a quick picture of the girls in their dresses. Amazingly, this was the best shot we got. We had a fun Easter although we woke up to snow. We had an easter egg hunt on Saturday and then dinner on Sunday with Alice and my mom and dad. Somehow I ended up getting no pictures of any of it.

Bridgett must be a tired girl

2009-04-30T10:33:00.001-07:00

Bridgett plays outside a lot. One day she hadn't come in for a while so I went to check on her and found this. I think she was waiting for the neighbor girl to come over and just fell asleep. Doesn't that nice piece of wood look so comfy?

Desmond's Blessing

2009-04-30T10:27:00.000-07:00

We had Desmond's blessing on March 15th. We were lucky enough to have Aunt Ang, Alice, Lesley, and Lindsey and their families and Nana and Papa and Grandpa and Grandma all in attendance. We had a great time and were so glad to everyone join us.

The winds of change...

2009-03-03T07:58:00.000-08:00

As many of you know, we have been looking diligently for a house since we moved here to no avail. Before I go on let me say that we still haven't found one but things are looking up. One of the factors in our house buying has been that we wanted to stay in our ward. We have a very small ward and I figured that at some point they would change the bounderies because there are other wards in the Stake that are bursting at the seams. My worry in the back of my head was that we would go to all the trouble of staying in the ward only to have half our friends gone within the year because they moved the bounderies. Well last Sunday John came home from his meetings and said they were having a meeting at 3:30 to change the ward bounderies. I was school girl giddy. It was one of the last factors to fall into place for us to buy a house. I won't mention that John knew on Friday night and didn't tell me! Anyway, it turns out that we lost only a small portion of our ward and gained a whole lot more! So now our house buying options have opened up a little more and now I can buy a house without wondering about what the wards will look like in a year.

The reality is that I still probably won't find the house that I want but now we're reconsidering building because land prices have dropped. The prospect is very exciting and very scary at the same time. I love the idea of getting the house I want but then again what if I pictured it wrong and I end up hating it? Or what if we do build our dream house and then have to move for some reason (we're not planning on moving but you never know)? Anyway, it would also take a long time to build but at least there would be a light at the end of the tunnel.

I'm just glad that the stars finally seem to be aligning for us.

Pay it forward

2009-02-25T19:41:00.000-08:00

Here's how it goes: the first three people to post a comment on this post will receive a handmade gift from me (Robin or John)! It could be something crafty, something crazy or if you live close enough to me, even something edible. What it will be and when it will arrive (sometime this year) is a total surprise. The catch is that you must participate as well. Before you leave your comment, type up a pay-it-forward post on your blog to keep the fun going. Then come back and let me know you are going to play. Then you can just sit back and wait for the arrival of your gift! (Please make sure I have a way to contact you, or you might be waiting a long time.)

How do I love thee...

2009-02-24T07:54:00.000-08:00

This is a lot of pictures but I had to post these for posterity sake. This Valentine's Day Madison decided to hand make valentines for each of the kids in her class. What I loved the most was the personalized messages on each of them. She's at the perfect age where she's old enough to be able to write little notes but not too old to get embarrassed about what they say. If you click on the pictures you'll get a much bigger image and it will be alot easier to read them. I found it hilarious that about 75% of them mention hair. Maybe it's because her whole life people have commented about her hair.

Some pictures of Desmond & Collin

2009-02-16T09:35:00.000-08:00

Here's a couple of pictures of Desmond.

This is Collin adapting to his new life. I was on the phone one day and holding Desmond so instead of waiting for me to lay down with him for his nap he crawled into Desmond's swing and went right to sleep.

I just thought this was really cute.

A whole new world

2009-02-16T09:15:00.000-08:00

After a couple of months of many people telling me that Madison couldn't see anything, I finally took her in for an eye exam. Last year I took her for one and her vision was 20/60 which the Dr. thought didn't warrant glasses. I figured "how much could her vision have changed, really?" Well turns out it changed a whole lot. Her vision is now 20/200. Needless to say she got glasses this time. When we picked them up, the lady put them on and Madison said "mom, everything looks so different." Poor girl. But now she has them and she loves being able to see and frankly I think their adorable. Incidentally, they are basically a miniature version of my glasses.

One week ago today

2009-01-28T13:21:00.000-08:00

So it's been one week since I went into labor. It all started around dinner time. About 5:00 Wednesday evening I noticed that I was having contractions pretty regularly. I'd been having maybe about 5 a day for the last month but these kept coming and were more like 5-6 and hour. They weren't painful but it made me think that I should probably do all the last minute things. As the night wore on it became apparent that I would end up in the hospital sometime that night. By about 10:00 the contractions were getting a lot more painful so I labored at home for a while and at 1:30 we dropped of the kids at Alice's and headed to the hospital. It was perfect I got all checked in, they handed me the gown, I got dressed in it - twice (I put it on backwards the first time) and then I went to sit on the bed and my water broke. At this point it was 3:00 and I was at a five. By 4:00 my epidural was under way and at 6:00 I was at an eight. Everyone figured I would have the baby around 8:00. But then everything halted. I stayed at an 8 for another 6 hours. They gave me pitossin to get my contractions to be harder in the hopes that it would help me progress. By noon I was fully dilated but Desmond was still quite high up. We tried pushing but it didn't do anything. My doctor checked me at some point and determined that his head was cocked to the side and it was preventing him from coming into position. We figured we could just keep going and hope that he moved into position. About 3:00 my Dr. came back and said that we would try pushing again and if that didn't work he would use the vacuum and then if that didn't work we would have to do a C-Section. At that point I didn't care what we did I was done. We got all geared up to push and after one push John, the nurse, and the Dr. all exclaimed wow, great, etc. After 2 pushes John said "the head is out!" Next push he was born. We were all shocked and I couldn't have been happier. What a great ending to the very long process. I've never had the pushing go so well and it's always my least favorite part. So although the whole process was very long and I had a little break down about half-way through I feel like I can't complain because the end went so quick. Little Desmond came out looking a little rough and had a side cone head but he was in great shape otherwise. Throughout the process he never showed any signs of distress and seemed to be just a happy little camper hanging out in there.

So far I've been taking it very easy and figure I'll just allow myself to heal before taking on life fully again. I sit around a lot and spend a lot of time feeding Desmond and holding him. My mom decided at the last minute to come into town to help out and it has been so wonderful. She takes care of the other kids and the house so that I can just rest. It's also nice to have company around so I don't start feeling too cabin feverish. We'll see how I do when she leaves but for now I'm just taking advantage of having her here.

Desmond is doing great. He's a great nurser and does great at sleeping off and on. Enough to feel like I get some occasional good sleep. He's not a cryer yet and he's a great snuggler. So far it has been a good week.

This is what Collin likes to do with the baby. Overall he is so good with him. He frequently comes up and just pats him softly on the head and talks to him.

P.S. Many people have asked where we got the name Desmond. Apparently there is a show called "lost" with a character on it named Desmond. We don't really know anything about that but we both really like the Beatles song "OB-LA-DI, OB-LA-DA". It talks about Desmond and Molly and we just fell in love with the name.

It could also be that we've watched every episode from a certain show and think there's a guy on there with a really great accent and fantastic hair and we just HAD to name our son after him. Or maybe we just liked his name.

2 + 2 = 4

2009-01-24T13:10:00.000-08:00

2 girls and 2 boys and we are so happy to have our new little Desmond Parker John Holman.

More on the story will be forthcoming but he was born at 3:33 pm on January 22nd. He was 7lbs 9oz (our smallest baby yet - I thought for sure the whole pregnancy that he would be the biggest.) He was 20 1/2 inches long and he's a fantastic baby so far.

The girls are loving having him around and are constantly asking questions like "why is his skin so dark? will he grow up light?" "Was Collin's belly button thing the same color?" "can I hold him for an hour?" They love him and he happily lets them hold him all the time. Collin is a little unsure what the heck is going on but thoroughly enjoys pulling his pacifier out and putting it back in. Which incidentally Desmond loves the pacifier and is by far the most adept at sucking on it than any of my other kids. So far he's a great sleeper and eater.

Minutes after he was born. He's a little bruised and battered but still a cutie.

This is the "pacifier" from the hospital. They don't have any so they make one by putting a sticker on a bottle nipple. He didn't seem to mind at all.

This is an attempt to show you his hair. He and Bridgett are the only ones to be born with a significant amount of hair.

It's a ...!!

2009-01-19T19:08:00.000-08:00

Oh wait, we don't actually know yet. I'm still sticking around waiting to have this baby. The truth is I finally feel mentally ready to have it and I also feel like I have some affairs in order, particularly my house. At least it is to more of a degree than it has been in the past week or so. I went to the Dr. today and sorry if this is too much info for some but he said I was "at a 2 and still pretty thick." He did strip my membranes but he didn't seem too hopeful about it working. He said the fact that I've had other kids increases my chances but I don't think I was too far progressed so we'll see what happens. Obviously it didn't work for me today since it's been about 8 hours since he did it but I'm still hopeful it will happen in the next few days. I was totally ok with it not happening today or not so I feel like I'm in a good place. The bummer is he's going out of town this weekend so hopefully it won't happen then. We also set my inducement date for next Wednesday so I know I'll have a baby in 10 days at least. I've set an inducement date with all of my kids and not been induced onced so we'll see if that holds true. Anyway, it's crazy to see that I have only 4 days until my due date, maybe I'll actually have a baby early this time!

My Grandma, Florence Irene McCormick

2009-01-10T07:14:00.000-08:00

My grandmother passed away 3 nights ago. She was 98 1/2 years old and had lived a great life. Although she had a rough last week dealing with shingles and a broken ankle she died very peacefully in her sleep. As a child we spent almost every summer making the 3 day drive to Portland to visit her and my Grandpa. We loved going to her house and playing in her attic bedroom and walking to 7-11 to get slurpees. I remember she always had cookies in her cookie jar and her bedroom dresser was always picture perfect with everything arranged on it perfectly. She was a hard worker and always kept her house so clean. She only had a claw foot bathtub with no shower so we always got to take baths and thought it was great fun.

She was married at 24 and a widow for 24 years and married for 50 years. She was always really close to her sister, Ethel, and they have lived together off and on for all their lives. Aunt Ethel never married and they have been taking care of each other their whole lives. They had a great relationship and you can really tell how much they care for each other. One year we spent Thanksgiving at my Grandma's house. We had a wonderful dinner and had sat down for some delicious pumpkin pie that Grandma and Aunt Ethel had worked on together. I took my first bite and wasn't sure what was going on but it wasn't very good. With each bite I included more and more whip cream so that I could get it down. All of us were eating it and finally my Grandma sat down for her piece. After the first bite she exclaimed "Ethel didn't you put the sugar in this!" Aunt Ethel quickly replied "I though you put it in!" We all laughed and gratefully pushed away our plates.

I have a lot of good memories of my Grandma and am happy to have known her. I'm glad we spent a lot of vacations visiting her so that we could develop a relationship with her.

The day we found out that she had passed away Madison was saying her night prayer and this is how it went. "Please bless Grandma McCormick that she can do good in heaven. We're thankful that we can all die and be resurrected and come back to earth with perfect bodies and everyone can be nice to us including all the animals."

37 1/2 weeks

2009-01-06T11:39:00.000-08:00

Because the most frequently asked question to me these days is "how are you feeling/doing?" I decided that I would just answer - truthfully. My answer always is just "good." So here it is. I feel like I have a big, very active baby in me and to be honest I'm not sure that I'm ready yet to have it come out. Generally at this point I'm chomping at the bit but right now 2 weeks sounds pretty soon. Physically I feel fine. Yes, I'm uncomfortable and not sleeping well at all and my back does hurt frequently but overall I feel fine. Where the real problem lies is in the fact that I have NO desire to do anything. I don't want to clean my house, cook any meals, go to a store, pull out baby clothes, etc. I think I could be content to just sit on the couch and do nothing (except eventually my legs would get really restless and my back would really start to hurt!) Anyway, I'm hoping this is temporary and goes away quickly because it's not really helping me to get ready for this baby.
I went to the Dr. today. In a nutshell he said he would strip my membranes at 39 weeks and schedule an inducement for sometime between 40-41 weeks that day also. So basically by Jan 30th I'll for sure be at home with a new bouncing baby. Had he said he would strip my membranes today I probably would have just done it but he didn't and there really wasn't any kind of let down feeling. Overall I think it's time for me to fully embrace having a newborn around and do what I can to be prepared. Maybe tomorrow...
And that folks is how I'm feeling/doing.

A visit with Santa

2008-12-22T04:19:00.000-08:00

Every year there is one main event for seeing santa in this town. Basically everyone who is anyone attends and that means hours in line. I figured I needed to go at least once so I thought this should be the year. After finding out 5 minutes before I was leaving that John couldn't come because of a meeting I loaded up the kids and went myself. The 2 to 2 1/2 hour wait is one thing but it happens to be outside as well. So I pressed forward and luckily had a few people around me that I knew that could go for hot chocolate runs and bathroom runs for me. Truthfully the kids were great. Collin stayed in his stroller up to about the last 30 minutes and Madison and Bridgett were pretty happy because they kept getting to eat cookies. Here we are standing in line after 2 hours.

All the kids did a great job on Santa's lap. I really love the progression of pictures of Bridgett. This is her whispering in Santa's ear that she wanted a computer and telephone. I have since found out she means a real one of both. A cell phone like mine that will actually call people. I don't think we'll be adding her to the family plan.

Madison wasn't sure what to ask for but eventually came up with a new CTR ring.

Collin wasn't scared at all. I think he was happy for a warm lap. About 20 minutes into the wait he grabbed Bridgett's cup of hot chocolate and spilled it all over his legs. Nothing like 30 degree weather and wet pants.

The best part was that John (due to no fault of his own) showed up literally as the people in front of us finished taking their pictures.

Our first real snowfall

2008-12-16T15:06:00.001-08:00

This was our first significant snowfall of the season. It has been a really warm winter so far. This kids were so excited to go play in the snow especially Collin. He had never played in it so I got him all dressed up and sent him out.

He totally loved it until his glove came off and his hand was freezing then he quickly found his way into the house. Although about 2 minutes after being in the house he brought me a glove and wanted to go back out.
He was army crawling through it and well mostly eating it. I think he spent the entire 30 or so minutes just eating the snow.

I wonder where he learned to eat the snow?

Thanksgiving

2008-12-16T14:56:00.000-08:00

We had a great Thanksgiving this year. Angela and my three younger brothers and their families all came. Plus my parents with my Aunt Ethel were able to come. It was so fun to see everyone. George and Melanee stayed at our house. Here is a picture of the 3 girls attempting to go to sleep. I think by the 4th night they actually all layed down and went to sleep. Madison was always the first to fall asleep, followed by Bridgett, and then a few hours later Samantha went down. She is the cutest girl! The girls were in heaven having her stay with us. Madison was so great to read to them each night.

Here is a picture of Aunt Ethel with Collin. I don't know if she quite knew what to think of all the kids running around. I think she was pretty worn out from being so stimulated the whole time. The kids were so happy to spend some time with her.

Halloween Finally

2008-11-20T11:50:00.000-08:00

I know I'm a little late in this post but I thought I would get it out there anyway. We had a great halloween. Our friends hosted a dinner and afterward we went trick or treating with some of the kids in their neighborhood. The highlight of the evening was when we went to David Spade's mom's house. She was great. We were probably there at least 15 minutes while she went over and commented about all of our children. She held my nephew (4 mths old) the whole time and was really quite a delightful lady. Hilarious that she lives in our small town of all places. Here are a few pictures from the night. We have 2 witches and a bat - thanks to Aunt Ang for the great witch costumes this year! Sorry no pictures of our claim to fame but it would have felt a little silly asking for a picture.

Bridgettism

2008-10-23T14:14:00.000-07:00

The other day Bridgett got on the topic of bad guys killing people (don't ask why, it's kind of her latest obsession.) Here is part of the conversation.

Bridgett: "If you died I would cry my head off."

Me (after many "If someone died..." scenerios): "Yeah, but that's not going to happen."

Bridgett: "Yeah, you're right, my head wouldn't actually fall off."

Shout out to Julia

2008-10-16T13:38:00.000-07:00

Here's a little shout out to my sister-in-law Julia. She is an extremely talented artist and I just found out that her art will be published in the upcoming February issue of "The Friend". It will be featured on the inside cover of the magazine. I'm so happy for her! I have seen some of her work and have always thought she was amazing. Everyone look for her artwork this February!

We're taking special orders

2008-10-06T16:25:00.000-07:00

Who needs Rainbow? We were looking into getting a swingset and weren't sure what we wanted or how much money we wanted to spend but then John decided he could just create his own swingset. Before I knew what was happening we had a swing, disc swing, and monkey bars in our yard. He did an awesome job and the kids love it! So if you happen to have 2 large pine trees in your yard just call JC Swings and More, Inc. and he'll get you what you want.

Family Pictures

2008-09-17T13:56:00.001-07:00

We recently had some family pictures taken. Here are a few of the results. Overall I'm pretty happy. A friend in our ward took the pictures and I think she did a great job. Here's her link just in case anyone is interested in having their own pictures taken.
www.aprilwhitingphotography.blogspot.com

I want to move...NOW

2008-08-28T15:03:00.000-07:00

Some people might really enjoy this kind of thing but not me. Not even slightly. In fact it had me in a bit of a panic. I came out from my bedroom to the living room (which currently had stuff everywhere thus adding to the problem) and saw this very large lizard scurry under my couch. I screamed and fretted for a few seconds and then went straight to the phone to call John. So what if he works 30 minutes away and can't do anything about it, I needed some moral support. As I was talking to him I see that the lizard has made his way out from under the couch and amazingly is in a clear spot. I quickly look around and grab my biggest Tupperware that I can find (to give you an idea of the size of this thing the box is about the size of a shoe box). I manage to trap him and then spend the next 10 minutes trying to figure out what the heck to do with him now. I contemplated such options as waiting 2 hours for John to get home and deal with him except that he could actually move the box around a good few inches at a time and that had me a little worried. Then I thought maybe my neighbor boys would enjoy him but they weren't home so ultimately after a few box jumps across the floor I got brave and stuck a book cover under him and carried him across the street.

During my 10 minutes of contemplation he pooped on my floor. Love it.

Does anyone have a guess as to what kind of lizard this is? Click on it to zoom in. Knowing nothing about lizards it seems that his plain colored tail is kind of unique? I'll have to do some research and see what I can come up with. I'm fairly certain though that he is very poisonous and extremely aggressive.
Do lizards eat spiders? Maybe we should have kept him as a pet.

**Update**
Angela emailed the science teacher from her work who happens to be a reptile guru. Here is what he said about this lizard.

"Its a Madrean Alligator Lizard. They are really cool lizards because they are not as common. I have only captured two in my whole life. They are usually real nice and fun to hold. The one in the blog has a regenerated tail. A normal tail is three times longer than that one."

1. I'm glad it was a regenerated tail and not the regular one. I had a hard enough time trying to find something to capture it in.
2. I have no desire to hold it let alone play with the thing!
Thanks for the info reptile guru!

Tri in the Pines

2008-08-19T10:11:00.001-07:00

So John and Rob have been planning this triathlon for months now. It finally arrived and although neither of them felt overly prepared they both stepped up and competed in it. They did great! John beat his own personal goal and Rob finished in 2/3 the time he thought he would. The night before John's back was hurting so badly that he could barely stand up. We had no idea what was wrong but he decided that with a little help from some Tylenol and IB Profin he would be just fine. It hurt a little during the swim but was fine for the rest of the day. It was tons of fun to go from one place to another to try to catch them running or biking by and the kids had a blast because they got to play in the park. Overall it was a great day for everyone. Here are a ton of pictures from the day, feel free to skim over them or if you like click on them to zoom in on some bulging muscles.

Right before the start of the swim. The nervous energy isn't evident in the picture.

John's wave started a lot earlier than Rob's so John was actually finished before Rob started. So this is John after he finished and Rob right before he started. It worked out great for us spectators.

Rob with his family right before all the action began.

John and Rob on their last laps and flying high because it's almost over.

The kids enjoying the park which had been flooded the night before with rain. They were pretty much in Heaven at this point.

Here's John crossing the finish line. The girls were really concerned about him winning. We of course told them that he did.

Pretty much my favorite photo of the day. John rounded the corner for the finish line and Madison ran part of the way with him. I would love it if I had another photo in 30 years that looked just like this.

Great job guys! You've inspired us all!

Unearthing the crafter within

2008-08-19T09:54:00.000-07:00

I don't know what came over this past week but suddenly I wanted to do little crafty projects. I have never been one to do homemade crafts and I can't say that particularly enjoy them but every once in while they are appealing to me. Probably to most woman these are normal everyday things but for me it was stepping out a little.

These of course are everywhere right now so I've been meaning to make these for my girls for quite some time. It's one of my favorite hair accessories now.

I've always wanted to try jewelry making and I have to say that I actually enjoy it. Thanks to Alice for finally getting me to try it!

I know how to sew but it is definitely not something I love doing. I get an urge and then as soon as I start I think "how can I get this done the fastest?" I bought a bunch of flannel almost 2 years ago and finally pulled it out and made something with it. These are some of my favorite kinds of blankets for babies and it was actually quite easy to do.

My new favorite thing

2008-08-19T09:35:00.000-07:00

At DQ in Show Low right now Peanut Buster Parfaits are on sale for $2.49. I happen to love them although John claims there's not much a difference between them and McDonald's $1 sundaes. I couldn't disagree more but anyway I've treated myself to a few lately and so when I was in the store yesterday I passed the chocolate syrups and hot fudge I thought the hot fudge sounded yummy. I didn't end up buying it though and was regretting it that evening when I really wanted some hot fudge on my ice cream. Then I thought "I'm sure I could just make some." Sure enought 5 minutes later (literally) I was topping my ice cream with some really yummy hot fudge. I was surprised at how easy it was and it tasted soooo good so I thought I would share the recipe.

1 can sweetened condensed milk
3 heaping TBSP unsweetened cocoa powder
1 TBSP butter
1 tsp vanilla

Mix milk, cocoa, and butter in saucepan and stir continously until smooth about 5 minutes. Add vanilla.

That's it and you can put the leftover in the refrigerator and heat it up in the microwave for the next time you want some.

Madison's 6th Birthday

2008-08-14T08:07:00.001-07:00

Madison is officially 6. Her birthday celebration ended up spanning out over about a week.

First she opened her package from Nana and Papa that came in the mail. She loved her new outfit and book and was so excited to work on her coloring thing. Then on her actual birthday we took her to Dairy Queen and let her choose anything on the menu. To our amazement she chose a cotton candy blizzard. Definitely not something either of us would have chosen but then again we didn't just turn 6. The next day I took her to see Space Chimps which she thoroughly enjoyed.

On Saturday of that week we had a family dinner and party with Grandpa and Grandma and Aunt Ang and Aunt Alice's family. She chose "Hannah Montana" for her theme even though she's never seen her show or heard her music. She was so excited though because she'd never had a "Hannah Montana" party before. She had a great time and was so happy to have family there to celebrate with her.

Walk (I mean sleep) like an Egyptian

2008-08-10T08:31:00.000-07:00

This was Bridgett's little double dare physical challenge to herself. She slept like this for probably a good hour and a half. If there was ever any doubt that she is John's clone...

It's starting again

2008-08-07T10:37:00.000-07:00

When Bridgett was about 2 she started doing this things where she would go in to her room and dump a bunch of toys into something such as a toy shopping cart or a bag and then she would take it around the house with her all day. Then it expanded to a place at the end of their bunk beds where she would just pile everything there and didn't want anyone to touch it or clean it up. It was very interesting to see that the pile of stuff is what made her happy regardless of what was in the pile. She would do this daily and only when I would insist would things get put back away. At one point John was really worried because he had lost $20. I wasn't worried at all, I walked into her room, opened a bag and sure enough there it was. Eventually she stopped doing this and I haven't seen her really do it for quite some time until last week. She rediscovered a little backpack of hers and the hoarding started again. She filled it up and took it everywhere. Here she is playing the piano and wearing her backpack. It went with us on every outing and rarely left her back.

She opened it and took a few things out so I snapped a picture before she put them back in. I really do find it quite fascinating and it shed some light on how just having stuff can make a person happy. I never realized that for some people it's just about having something not about what they have.

A fun day at the farm

2008-08-05T08:27:00.000-07:00

We have this awesome lady in our ward who has a ranch/farm right here in town. She recently invited anyone who wanted to come to have a picnic and let the kids play on around on her property and with her animals.

She has these adorable miniature ponies, one of which is due to have a baby any day. She has promised that she'll get the word out as soon as she delivers so that all of us can come see the little baby horse.

The girls had a great time at her house playing on the swings and petting and feeding the animals. She also had built a fire and we roasted marshmallows and had smores. It was a lot of fun and so nice of her to host all of us.

Telling the girls

2008-08-05T08:20:00.000-07:00

We told the girls I was pregnant a week ago (shortly after posting the "surprise"). Both of them were so happy and proceded to talk about the new baby for the next 30 minutes. We pointed out to Madison that she found out the day before her birthday and what a great birthday present that was. She smiled and seemed happy but then added "do you think you'll get me like a toy or something too?" Bridgett was hilarious because she asked us no less than 5 times that night (and many times over the last week) if it was true. She keeps saying "is this real mom?", "is it true that you're pregnant?" I think she has doubts because she doesn't see any real evidence. She also keeps asking when my tummy is going to get big. I don't think they care if it's a boy or girl they are just very excited about having another family member.

The New Haircut

2008-07-29T17:54:00.000-07:00

Bridgett is spending a few days in Chandler with her Aunt Ang. They're having a great time doing fun girly things like getting their nails done and getting a haircut. Angela took Bridgett to our favorite hair girl Jodie. Although it's the same haircut she's had before I couldn't resist posting these adorable pictures of her. I think the cut turned out so cute even if I am a little biased.

Surprise!

2008-07-26T12:15:00.001-07:00

I've been fired

2008-07-24T08:16:00.000-07:00

My services are no longer needed. Madison has decided to take over the job of fixing her own hair. I think she actually does a pretty good job. She usually puts in one pony-tail and it's very presentable. Today she decided that she wanted to try two pony-tails and when she looked in the mirror it looked great and I thought the same thing when she came out. Then she turned around and I really had to bite my tongue. She was so proud of herself and although we were going to a little get together and then to the store I knew I couldn't say anything.

The back had a few minor issues. The problem is that I really enjoy fixing my girls hair and I can be a little OCD about it. But I didn't say anything and she went the whole day being very happy with herself and her hair. We'll have to try to work out a deal where she'll get to fix her hair sometimes and other days it's my job. I'm not ready to give it up altogether.

She also decided that she needed to fix Bridgett's hair. Overall it looked fine. I'm not sure how keen Bridgett was on it because it takes a little while but she was a good sport. Bridgett has also tried fixing her own hair but this generally means her standing in front of the mirror and every 2 minutes or so letting out an exasperated yell and hitting the counter with her brush. She's four and she wants there to be no bumps or any loose hair. I'm hoping she'll decide to wait a few years.

It only took us a year...

2008-06-26T12:15:00.001-07:00

We have officially lived here a year now and we finally took our girls to see the Snowflake temple. They were so happy to be there and loved the flowers and waterfalls. Bridgett is really excited about the fact that you can go inside the temple when you're 12. The other day our little neighbor boy was over visiting (he's not a member) and Bridgett asked him how old he was. He said 10 and Bridgett said "You can almost go to the temple, not very much longer!"

Collin's 1st Birthday

2008-06-26T12:01:00.000-07:00

For Collin's 1st birthday we got together with Alice's family and had dinner and cake. It was pretty casual but the kids had a good time. I couldn't seem to get a picture of him with the big huge smile on his face. I don't think he had any idea what the cake was but he was very happy to be right next to it. Here's a shot of most of us minus Alice and Rob.

I was trying to find something to entertain Collin a few days before his birthday so I pulled out his present and let him play with it still in the box. He was happy to finally be able to take the animal train out and actually push it around.

While we were opening presents he started to wonder off and ended up on the bean bag like this. He was a little tired and grouchy but it was still fun.

A Few Random Pictures

2008-06-05T08:56:00.001-07:00

Here are just some of my favorite pictures from the last few months.

This is from our trip to Virginia to visit family. I love this picture of Bridgett and Joshua.

John's dad came up for the Father and Son's outing and we all had a great time. The girl's did fun girl things and the boys wore themselves out (mainly because they couldn't sleep since it was so cold.) Collin didn't quite make the cut because he came down with a fever the day of the campout but he was more than happy to snuggle up with Papa and take a rest.

Collin started walking a little over a month ago and this pretty much sums up how he feels about it. I've never seen a kid so excited to walk.

The cousins came to stay with us for 8 days and had a blast. This was by far their favorite picture, they asked to see a number of times and then they would all crack up laughing.

On to 1st Grade!

2008-06-03T08:36:00.000-07:00

Madison had a really cute graduation ceremony. They had all the Kindergarteners walk across the stage and pause to get their pictures taken then they had them all parade down the isle. It's a good thing they realized that we would all want a lot of pictures. Unfortunately Madison walked quickly across the stage and my camera caught nothing of her. Luckily I was a little better about the parade picture.

Madison was one of the last kids and they had all gone by without incident and as soon as Madison got close enough Bridgett stepped out and gave her a huge hug. Of course everyone said "oh, ah, etc" and thought it was adorable, I'm just not sure how Madison felt about it. I of course loved it.

Here's a picture of all of us. It's the closest thing we have to a family picture since Collin was born. Pretty sad since he turns 1 in 2 weeks.

Crazy Weather

2008-05-28T08:59:00.000-07:00

We recently acquired a trampoline. Bridgett went out to jump on it last Wednesday and when she didn't come back in after a while I went out to check on her. I found her like this. Apparently the warmth of the trampoline was very inviting. She probably stayed asleep out there for almost an hour.

Here's a picture of her the very next day on the trampoline. I can't believe that it's almost June and we got snow and it actually stuck a little! The girls pulled out their snow pants, scarfs, gloves and hats just to go out to play. I don't think this is normal to get snow this late in the year. At least it better not be!