the long road from phoenix...

We spent the 4th of July in Phoenix with my family. We had a lot of fun swimming, eating, going to the movies, and just hanging out together. Arizona is not keen on fireworks, and we didn't have it in us to go to one of the big shows, so we just lit our black snakes, and threw our poppers on the ground. The kids had a lot of fun playing with aunts and uncles and of course grandma and grandpa. I didn't get enough pictures, I always forget to get out the camera when there is a big crowd.

(The kids did have really cute 4th of July outfits, but Lily was already in jammies, and Zane had changed his shirt after swimming - so I didn't get a picture of them, doh!)

On the way home, we decided to take the Laughlin way and avoid the traffic going over Hoover Dam. We were stopped for quite awhile going TO phoenix that way, so we knew it would be bad going back. So, of course, about 6 miles outside of Laughlin there was an accident that shut the freeway down for over 2 hours. Nice! We sat for over an hour, and watched as some cars ventured off onto a dirt road and disappeared. We were iffy about trying that, so we called my dad, and he googled for us. Since the road was going to be closed for at least another hour, and that road didn't look to be long, we decided to try it.

We got going, and my goodness I was scared. It was a jeep challenge course I kid you not! We said a prayer, and a few minutes later Zane said to me "Mom, the Holy Ghost told me that we should be careful of the big rocks." Thanks! I tried not to cry too hard, and tried my best to hold it together for the kids. They really didn't seem to care. They just watched their movie, and occasionally Lily would say "Bump!" and laugh hysterically. We made it through, with my Dad on the phone the whole way telling us which direction to go. Thank you soo much Dad, you really helped us so much.

Although everything turned out fine, I doubt I will ever do that again. We had some snacks with us and not much water. Really, not a smart idea to take your family out into the desert - unprepared - in 100+ degree heat. Just really not smart.

View Larger Map
(we took the dirt road from 68 at the top of the map to the subdivision at the edge of the map near the A marker)

i got 2 quarters...

Zane lost his first tooth!(I should add: without dental help). His bottom tooth was loose for quite awhile before it just finally came out a couple of weekends ago. He was nervous about pulling it out himself, so he let it stay until it just finally fell out while he was eating pancakes. You're a big kid now!

grand canyon...

On Father's Day weekend, we headed up to the Grand Canyon North Rim. The National Parks are doing a few "Fee Free Weekends" this summer, so we thought we would take advantage. It's only about 3 hours away from here, and it was so nice to get away for a quick trip. Zane had a little anxiety about going there beforehand - he was worried about me tripping and falling on the edge and dropping the baby. I found some pictures of when I went there as a kid and showed him how there are railings everywhere, etc. He seemed to feel a little bit better about it.

Once we got there, I was the one with the problem! I have a fear of heights, but didn't think about it causing me any problems. Of course, the trails all are right on the edge of the canyon, and in some parts there are just narrow trails with drop offs on both sides. I almost had to turn around a few times. Zane loved it, and had no problems at all going right up to the edge, leaning over the railings, etc. (That only added to my stress!).

Despite that, we had a really nice time. The sky was overcast most of the time. It downpoured a couple of times, and was quite cool. The few times the sun came out was enough to give John a good sunburn, a little bit on Lily, and half of baby Evan's head. I was carrying him in a Baby Bjorn, but had a blanket covering his arms and legs. Unfortunately I didn't think about the top of his head - so just the side of his head and a little bit of his cheek got red. It wasn't bad at all though, just enough to make me feel guilty. I love spending time with my family, especially when everyone is happy!!
These first few are from Bright Angel Point. One of the places that I almost turned around. There is a little narrow section with railings, but drops on both sides. Scary.

Love that you can see the thunderstorm coming across the canyon. It started to rain right as we got back to the parking lot to head to the next hike.
Lily zonked out on the Bright Angel hike. Such a funny picture of her squashed face.
This is where we had our picnic. As you can see, the table is only a few feet from the edge of the canyon. No railings here. Yup, I was slightly freaked out.

Angel Window - this hike takes you out onto a piece of rock that has a large hole down in the middle of it. The only "family" picture we got - only you can't see Lily (on John's back) or Evan (on mom's front). This is what it looks like from the side. I couldn't believe I actually walked out onto it. Really.
These last few are from Cape Royal. The best place to view the North Rim in our opinion. You can see the river from here, and you get a nice, big view of everything.

Lily was finally done with the carrier at this point. She was such a trooper!

2 months old!...

We had Evan's 2 month appointment yesterday. He is a whopping 14 lbs. 6 oz. He is 24 1/4 in. long. This puts him at the 93% for weight, and 88% for height. The Dr. is always so thrilled when I bring my big babies in, it makes him so happy to have such chubby babies there. Evan was really not happy about the shots. He cried longer than any of my other babies have. So sad!

I asked the Dr. about Zane, and he was very encouraging. He said to get play therapy for him, and that a psych evaluation wouldn't be a bad idea. After we get some therapy started, they will be able to tell us if medication would be helpful or not. He said, a lot of times, that all it takes is la year or so of meds to help the child get through it and figure out how to deal and then they can go off. I am feeling really good about this course of action for us. There are no psychiatrists here taking new patients that we have found. So, any psychiatrists out there...come to St. George and you would have a TON of patients! We are going to have to get an evaluation in Salt Lake, but we should be able to find some good therapy here. Feeling really good about this, wish us luck!

love this baby...

Evan is growing so big! He is smiling and cooing all the time (when he is awake). I love watching my babies grow up. I think he looks so much like John - and it looks like he will even have the same color of greenish brown eyes. What a sweetie!

rough patch...

We've had some issues at our house. Since about 3 months before the baby was born, Zane was obviously having problems. He has a hard time managing his anger in general. I remember it starting at 13 months, him throwing himself on the floor and wailing and wailing on and on about things. We have learned a lot of what tips him off through the years, and he goes through phases - where he is able to manage it better, then something like a holiday comes up and it gets worse, etc.

Here we are in a rough phase again, only it has seemed to last a lot longer. Reminiscent of his 2 year old days. He used to try to hurt us at 2 years old - hit, bite, throw things, etc. As he got older, it was much less frequent, etc. It has returned with a vengeance (almost one major outburst every day again), only he is much stronger, and there are more people in the house (sister and baby) that can be accidentally in the way. Try and get a 6 year old to sit in the quiet chair (timeout), or go to his room to calm down. This last attempt was 1 hour on and off the chair before he could calm down enough to do his "time", including spit on the floor, and him stripping down to nekked and threatening to pee on me (don't know what that was about). Oh, the jekyll and hyde of a 6 year old. We've always had to deal with Zane, as he is a more intense in every way kind of kid- but this has been really hard on us this time around. If it doesn't turn around soon - I really think that we may need to get some professional help. I'm starting to keep a sort of "event" journal so that in case we do need to go that route, I have some sort of a baseline of his behavior. Please tell me this is a phase, and that major temper tantrums at 6 years old is still in the "realm of normal" - or tell me it's time for help.

p.s. I'm not looking for parenting advice, just sympathy.

happy 6th birthday zane!...

Today was the big day! Zane had a great birthday filled with Bakugan, Pokemon, Hot Wheels, and the biggest present of all - THE SLIME GUN. Yup, it is just what it says it is. Picture a big water type gun that shoots purple sticky gooey gunk. Yipppeeee! (and I bought this for him?) We had the usual cake and ice cream, and went swimming with the cousins. Then since Zane told us he was having a "chinese" birthday party - so, we went to Panda Express for dinner (about as "chinese" as it gets here). It was a great day. Happy Birthday my smart, loving, cute boy!

a day at the park...

We walked over to the park today and had a picnic. It was just a lover-ly day. Cuties!

happy 2nd birthday lily...

Lily turned two years old today! What a big girl she is already, it's crazy. She got lots of girly things to accessorize with, a fun doggie in a purse, a neat music player and book, and of course her favorite, play doh! Her other favorite thing lately is for me to polish her nails. She walks around holding out her hands and feet saying "polish, polish" all the time. I LOVE IT! She is such a sweet girl, so happy and makes me crack up all the time. She hardly throws a tantrum, and when she does it's so cute you can't be mad. She is learning new things and talking more and more each day. I am enjoying every minute of her growing up.

We had a small get together with family for dinner and cake/ice cream. I made her a Wall-E cake. She really loves the movie Wall-e. Cute story - one day while we were in the car, out of nowhere, she yells at the top of her voice, "Waaaaalllll-eeee.......Eeeeeeevvvvvvaaaaa". So cute! We love you so much little girl!

I love the video of her blowing out the candles. You can tell she was overwhelmed by everyone singing, she didn't really get what was going on. I could watch this over and over.

baby smiles (almost!)...

Evan is doing a lot of the cute whole face "almost" smiles. So far this is the best I've been able to catch on camera. What a sweetie, love him!

6 weeks old...

Well Evan is 6 weeks old! I can hardly believe it. I swear he weighs 12 pounds now. He is starting to smile and it is so cute. I love the whole face smiles and baby coos. It goes so fast!

when mom's away...

I spent the day yesterday with some of my friends from high school that came to visit. I was gone most of the afternoon until late last night. Since I didn't get home until quite late, John was up early getting the kids ready for church. He even did Lily's hair. He doesn't do a bad job actually. We were running late, so I let Lily jump on my lap in the car instead of sticking her in her seat, so I got a close up look of her ponytails. There was a big lump of hair seeming to be coming out right in the back of one of the ponies. So I took it out - and it looked like a big chunk had been cut right in the middle of the back of her head. Who do you think did it? Was it Lily? Or was it Zane?

Oh you know my kids too well! Of course it was Zane! Yesterday morning, Zane and I had gone to get our haircut at the salon. So, at some point during the afternoon, Zane had taken Lily into the playroom - and set her in the office chair, got his little kindergarten scissors and started cutting off her curls. He obviously knew this was wrong, not only because he is almost 6 years old, but also because he hid all the locks of hair behind one of my craft storage things on the floor under the table. There is a big hunk out of the middle top layer in the back. Some smaller cuts here and there on top and sides. I can tell you that I am much more angry that he did this than if Lily had done this to herself. He knows better. She has such beautiful hair, and it will now have to be cut at some point. Thank goodness it does blend in right now, and once it grows out a little, I will just have to get her hair layered to hide it better.

Any ideas for a relevant punishment for him (in addition to the obvious, no more scissors)? We've told him that we will tell him tomorrow morning what it will be - we are just too angry about it right now and John and I need to have a private conversation to get on the same page.

fathers and sons...

Zane and John headed out camping for Fathers and Sons last weekend. This is the first time John remembered to take the camera, only he forgot to check the battery. So, he did at least get a couple pictures before it died! John has always worried about losing track of Zane on these things, so this year he bought some short range walkie talkies. It was a good idea in theory. I don't think he realized that Zane would be calling him on it every 5 seconds! They did have a lot of fun, and I am super happy to watch the other kids while he goes on these things. I hope that Zane will have fond memories of these campouts with his Dad.

dance festival...

A couple weeks ago, they had the annual dance festival at school. Each class gets to perform a dance on the high school football field. We had dance festivals at my elementary school, so it was neat for me to be there. I loved that the 5th graders did Tinikling. It's a dance from the Philipines where two people bang together bamboo poles to the beat on opposite sides of each other while dancers jump in and out between them. Make sense? I was especially excited about this, because in my elementary, the 6th graders got to do this dance every year. It was so much fun, and I have very fond memories of doing this dance.

The kindergarteners did a March of the Penguins dance. I applaud the teachers for getting being able to coordinate the kindergarteners together and keep them seated for the rest of the performance! And other than sitting directly in front of the speaker and having to keep our hands over our ears for the entire thing, it was fun! Great job Zane!

baby evan's blessing...

3 kids sure makes things a lot busier. We had Dr.'s and Dentists appointments, school testing, and a baby blessing last week. Zane had his spacer put in to hold the place of the molar that was pulled. He did great, and it has been no problem for him. He had his end of year kindergarten testing as well. No surprise that he passed off everything. His teacher had him do his reading at Level 20 - (Kindergarteners should be at Level 3-4), but said she thinks he is probably more like Level 26-28 (that's like 2nd-3rd grade). Smarty pants.

Evan's baby blessing was this Sunday. What a better day to do it than Mother's Day? I must say that I don't mind doing it on a Sunday other than Fast Sunday, because then I don't have to get up and bear my testimony. We had a very special meeting that day that was done by the regional special needs mutual. If I wasn't already weepy from hormones, I still would have been crying. John was especially touched during the blessing, about how grateful he was that we have a healthy baby. It is unusual for him to cry, and I even worried that maybe he had some sort of "revelation" during the blessing. I was glad to learn later that he was just really touched by the special meeting that day. It was very sweet.

We were so blessed to have my parents, John's parents, both sets of my grandparents, and my sister's family there. It was so nice to have family around for that special day. We love you all, and wish we could see you all more often.

after school...

this is what after school looks like at our house

babywearing...

So, I have done a little sewing already since the baby was born. Partly out of "necessity". I was meaning to make a wrap style baby carrier before Evan came, but didn't get to it. So - here it is, in all it's glory. (It's a crappy self - portrait and I had to cut my head and body off, because it just looked too horrible, but give a girl a break - I just had a baby).

And a view from the top with him sleeping snugly and soundly inside. Awwww!!

Today is a good day!

stories...

Zane has taken to telling people "stories". Ok, some of you might call them lies, but they are just too imaginative for me to do that. We have told him that it's fine for him to tell these stories as long as he says "just kidding". He mostly tells these stories to other people and not us -I'm sure looking for their reaction.

Recently - he told our neighbor that John's work is moving to Hawaii, and we are leaving very soon and have to pack up. He is very convincing, she called me in a panic. Ha!

He told my grandmother all about his brother "Josh?(I can't remember the name)" who lives in Salt Lake and is a scout.

He often talks about his brother "Jake" who died, and even goes so far as to pretend cry about it.

And this is my favorite thing he has been doing lately:

These are signs on the play room/craft room door that say: Funland - Bob's carnival games And cafe - Open Forever, never closes.

They make Donut Soup there. Yum!

the first week down...

Evan is 6 days old, wow! Thanks so much to my mom for coming down and helping out. It really was nice for the kids to have Grandma to play with, even though I'm sure they wore her out. The real test will be next week when I am on my own. Evan is still doing good, although he seems to have days and nights just a little bit mixed up. Some nights are better than others. He's not really awake at night, just doesn't sleep very restfully. He doesn't really settle in to sleep until after midnight, and then wakes every 2-3 hours - so unfortunately I don't get a lot of sleep. Such is life with a baby. Other than that we are doing good, and I'm trying to not expect too much of myself. (My house is going to be messy and I don't care if I stay in my jammies and even my bed half of the day.) Lily and Zane seem to be doing "ok" with the new baby, and I hope that continues. They both love to hold him and give him kisses. It's very cute. He is a sweet little baby. Now - pictures!