Sunsets

Peace... is seeing a sunset, and knowing who to thank.

May I never miss a sunset or rainbow because I am looking down.
Sara June Parker

While the weather has been nothing short of loathsome, watching the sun set from our front porch has been beyond spectacular.

Mutton Bustin'

Every year McDonald's sponsors the Mutton Busting event at the DNCFR. Two weeks before the rodeo officially makes it's way into town they draw names at the mall for the little cowboys and cowgirls who want to mutton bust. There are always herds of sad buckeroos who don't get drawn so to soften the blow McDonald's handed out ice cream coupons to all the kids who were present. That's where I come in. Handing out coupons to brighten kids' days is part of my job description. So, since we were there anyway I thought it would be fun to put Jase's name in for the drawing. I thought there was no way he would get drawn. But sure enough, the fifth name drawn was Jase Byrd. Awesome! He wasn't really sure exactly what was going on, but he was all smiles. Paul Anderson with KZBQ was there doing a live radio remote and Paul and I have worked together for years so he came right over to interview Jase and me on the radio. When Jase was asked if he was excited to ride a sheep at the rodeo he responded with, "What's a sheep?" It was hilarious!! And thus began his two week transformation into a hard core cowboy.

A few days after the drawing I received a letter with the rules for mutton busting. I had no idea this was going to be as intense as it was. There was a weight limit, and an official weigh in. We had to have a release of liability signed and notarized. And the most important part Jase and I both had to wear "western attire" which had to include a long sleeve shirt, cowboy hat and boots. Right. We hit every thrift store in town for a week and were able to find Jase a nice leather belt and a pair of Wranglers. We had a hat that's been floating around for a while and for Christmas Jase got a random plaid Wrangler shirt. I added a bandanna around his neck, because we must accessorize whatever outfit we are given. But boots....that was another story. We had 3 pairs but not one fit him. I could not find a pair at any of the thrift stores, so I mustered my courage reapplied my lip gloss and braved Vicker's. My yellow ballet flats were a little out of place. But they had boots. Lots of boots....for LOTS of money. Holy crap! However, because I have the best most amazingly generous bosses in the entire world, Mike (McDonald's owner) sent me back to Vicker's with a credit card and bought Jase whatever pair of boots he wanted. Yes, I cried. It was so sweet and Jase couldn't have been more excited or proud of his new cowboy boots. So Jase was ready. My ensemble was another story. Luckily I have a great friend who let me borrow her mom's vintage 1972 cowboy boots. I found a hat at Claire's (I know right?!) and dug out my old denim jacket. I so looked the part.

Jase was absolutely adorable. He wore his cowboy outfit for nearly a week straight! Here he is on his big night. Mike and Mary bought the whole family (grandmas and grandpas included) front row tickets to the show. His heart was beating a million miles an hour as he watched the bare back riders right before him. Then it was time to make our way to the chutes.

Jase got about 5 minutes to meet his sheep and get comfortable on him. I was standing right above him and encouraging him to hold on tight and not let go. He had his game face on and was scared stiff! But he cowboyed up and did it!

Yep he held on for about 2 seconds. Which is 2 seconds longer than I would have. Nasty sheep!

I was so very proud of him. He did awesome! As soon as he fell off he stood up and turned to toward me with the look on his face of, "Ok Mom I did it, now come get me." I couldn't of course and he wasn't going to move, so one of the cowboys ran out and picked him up and carried over to the side. It was so precious.
All the kids who participated received goody bags with McDonald's gift certificates, two official DNCFR bandannas, a Justin boots sticker, a 2010 Mutton Bustin t-shirt, and of course a big shiny belt buckle! How fun. Jase loved every part of the rodeo and wants to ride the sheep again, and then maybe horses. Our friend who loaned me the boots has a farm out in Soda and has the hook up in the local rodeo circuit, so we are planning on hitting those up for him. I guess it's a good thing I bought a cowboy hat! You never know what your kids are going to find an interest in. So from "What's a sheep?" to "When do I get to do it again?" in two short weeks we now have ourselves the cutest little cowboy!! Excellent!

Baby

As usual I'm a bit behind on blogging. I've got quite a lot to say, so.....enjoy.

Let's see about 3 1/2 weeks ago I had my first unofficial prenatal appointment. I had been experiencing a lot of unusual stomach pain and I was concerned so I made an appointment. My doctor was sure the baby was fine, but he decided to do an ultrasound just to check. Sure enough baby was just fine. Then he checked my gall bladder which was not so fine. He sent me to get it checked out a little closer with a different ultrasound. The day was miserable. I had to have some blood work ran, which doesn't usually bother me, but I had been fasting all day for the digestive ultrasound, on top of being incredibly nauseous and exhausted from tossing and turning all night with pain. As it turned out all the high levels of hormones from pregnancy were causing my gall bladder to build up "sludge" (apparently that's a real medical term...very scientific right?!). The build up in sludge was slowing down my gall bladder's functions and thus causing some pretty nasty pain. My doctor prescribed me some medication to take daily before I eat and I've been feeling a lot better....from the pain.

About a week and a half after that appointment I had my first official prenatal appointment. It was pretty routine until the doctor started to measure things and then said, "Hmmmm...your uterus feels larger than it should." As there was another doctor there doing some sort of rotation or something he asked him to check as well (there's nothing like being the object lesson, mercy). He agreed my uterus measured much larger than 10 weeks. Then my doctor said, "Maybe it's twins." HOLY CRAP! I said no no no, and I reminded him that he had done an ultrasound earlier and there was only one baby, and while I'm not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV, I was pretty sure they don't spontaneously multiply. He said, "Sometimes they hide." HOLY CRAP!!! So they rolled in the ultrasound machine to check. Nothing short of relief was felt when the doctor said, "Ah, only one baby." One sweet, beautiful and seemingly perfect baby. I saw teeny arms and legs kicking and moving. And a tiny heart, that captured mine instantly, was beating strong. What a miracle. The measurements from the first early ultrasound and this ultrasound were a little inconsistent. Combining that with the other measurement my doctor gave me a due date of October. He said we'll see how things grow and measure and then maybe we can narrow it down a little better.

Thus far this pregnancy has been unlike any of my others. How you can be pregnant 4 times and have each one of them different I'll never know. I've been very tired, which is to be expected of course and pretty consistent with the other 3. I've been far more sick this go around. I have the ever present urge to gag, which is lovely. That paired with moderate to extreme nausea everyday has made this first trimester less than pleasant. Jason has been wonderful through it all. And the boys and I have learned several new card games for days when I don't feel well enough to be up and moving. In fact Jase may be the best 4 year old Uno player in the world!

I know this too will pass and pretty soon I'll be feeling well and food will have never tasted better. I cannot wait for that part!
Here are two of the pictures from my second ultrasound. See what I mean, utterly beautiful!

You can made out the little face in this one. Two eyes, a nose and a tiny mouth.

Easter

I just love this time of year. Easter was a very special day at our home. We started out the day nice and early with the boys at 7 a.m. (yes for me that's ridiculously early). The Easter Bunny was most generous and hid about 115 eggs, and filled baskets for each of the boys. Jase was really excited about his fudge bunny. In fact I don't think I've ever seen someone more pleased with a fudge bunny than he was.

The boys also found an egg full of quarters in their baskets. Unfortunately the Easter Bunny forgot to leave a basket for Mom and Dad. Crap!

After looking through the baskets we had the boys wait until after breakfast before they could do the egg hunt. That was brutal, as nearly all the eggs were hidden inside this year. But if Ethan would have known all those eggs were overflowing with candy he would have never eaten breakfast.

What's more fun than food coloring on Easter. Not only were our Easter eggs every shade of the rainbow, our scrambled eggs were dyed as well. Pink and blue (although without thinking adding blue dye to yellow eggs made them more greenish...oops.) And of course we had green pancakes. It was quite festive.
Finally the egg hunt commenced! The Easter bunny couldn't resist putting a few eggs outside...in the snow. hehehe. Kaden was pretty clever trying to retrieve them.

Eventually he gave up and just walked right into the snow for the candy filled treasures. No socks, no shoes. That's hard core!
There were plenty of eggs to go around that even Ethan was able to scoop up a few before his older brothers claimed them all.

For reals guys...no feet on the furniture.

After the hunt and everyone was cleaned up for the day we decided to make cupcakes. Rainbow cupcakes (after all we still had food coloring left and we mustn't allow it to go to waste). We had a purple layer, blue layer and topped with green.

Because the boys choice mostly boy colors for the cupcakes I made the frosting pink. Ha Ha!! Jason and Jase did a fantastic job decorating them too!

Later in the afternoon Grandma Marley stopped by with Easter goodies as well. She brought the boys the game Battle Ship. While this picture may look as though Kaden and Grandma are playing...it was really Jason and Grandma. Nice.

We piled up all the candy the boys received in their eggs. They made quite the haul! Jase looks very satisfied, no?

As soon as we let him open his fudge bunny he was much more excited. That's one chocolate covered thumbs up.

Jason and I got the boys the traditional new outfit (t-shirt and shorts...it may be some time before we bust out the shorts. I hope they still fit by the time it warms up). We also got each of them a small toy. Kaden was really excited about his new football. We got him the "All Weather" Nerf ball this time, as his last Nerf ball spent the better part of 3 months on the roof of the school and reflects the abuse. Hopefully this one can weather the weather, as it will undoubtedly spend it's fair share of time on the school roof.

We enjoyed a very lovely meal with Jason's family later in the evening. And had a pretty intense air hockey competition, to which Jason won Grand Master.

What a wonderful day it was spending time together as a family and reflecting on our Savior's sacrifice for us. It was an added bonus listening to General Conference as well. The messages on Sunday were so full of love and hope and complimented the spirit of the day.

The Boys' "Spring" Yurt Trip

After much preparation, and debate, we finally attempted the Jackson Creek Yurt. It is located on the Bonneville ridgeline, just north of Pebble Creek Ski area. We purchased lift tickets, rode to the top of the lift, and then snowshoed another 800 vertical feet to the ridge. Once on top we decided to traverse the ridge from the backside, which was much easier since it is only about a 30 degree slope. The snow was fairly compacted, making travel easy. The purpose of the snowshoes here was to use the crampons on the bottom of the shoe to not fall. Could not have picked a better weekend to play outside. When the hike was all said and done I put in a little over 12 miles. Yes the hike is only 9 miles, but I had to retrace 3 miles to retrieve my stove. Well worth every minute of it!

After traversing the backside of Pebble, we were finally able to drop elevation. This was probably the best part of the adventure. Here we were able to basically ski downhill with our snowshoes on. There was plenty of powder, and falls!
When we began the hike our biggest concern was whether we were going to have enough snow to use our snowshoes. We quickly found that on the top of Pebble there was plenty of snow. The yurt is tall enough that once inside an adult can stand without any problems. Plenty of snow here.

Yet another view of Jackson Creek Yurt

After we slept the first night in Jackson Creek Yurt we hiked a couple of miles down to Jackson Creek road, picked up four very anxious and excited children, and hiked to Skyline Yurt. Sean had enough fun for a day, and even though the kids were running crazy he found some shut eye.

When we finally got the kids to the yurt they were ready to party. We had to help them dry out their clothes first, and this was their attempt of being cute!

Kaden and Jase were ready to go outside and party. It is fun to be able to share what I love so much with my children, and close friends.
When Shawn arrived, yes Sean and Shawn were both there, he brought his two boys. We ended up with 6 children and 5 adults spending the night out in the middle of the woods, in a canvas tent, on the first day of Spring! The kids were full of energy, and decided to play games. Here Kaden and Jase are playing Star Wars Clone Wars. Crazy kids!

Growing up I remember the only part of being outdoors in the snow that I did not like, especially while camping, was feeling cold. So, my poor boys are always bundled up, with all the accessories to stay warm!

What a crew! The kids were fabulous. They played well together, helped each other, and were all excited for the mile long sled ride to the road. This will definitely be repeated for many years to come!

St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick's Day is one of my favorite holidays. It's always fun to celebrate your heritage and what a fun way to do it by getting all decked out in green and partying it up! St. Patty's was a busy day this year. I spent the entire morning getting things ready for Kaden's class party, then spent the afternoon at the party, then finished up with a McTeacher's Night for Kaden's school. Because of the McTeacher's Night I didn't have our traditional St. Patty's day dinner of corned beef with all the fixins (expect cabbage, cause well....barfola!) It was still a very fun day and I enjoy teaching the kids about our Irish heritage and the meanings behind all the festivities on St. Patrick's Day.

My friend Nichole helped me out with the kid's party this year and I was very grateful! We had a plate full of treats for the kids, rainbow cupcakes, green peeps, gold coins and apple juice (in green cartons.)

Our first game was Pictionary with St. Patty's words. Kaden got the hardest word by far, corned beef. But he did a great job and earned a point for his team!

We played a few other games including the Shamrock Shimmey and a game where I put a ton of green things on a platter and the kids had to try and write down as many of the items as they could remember. I had a lot of fun at the Wal*Mart buying green things. We had limes, green apples, a plantain, a papaya, green gummy bears, green gum, a green lego, sour Skittles, a green car, a dollar bill, an avocado, a watermelon, green beads, a frog, a green spoon, celery, broccoli, a pickle, and a gold coin. I think there were more, but it's been a while and that about all I can recall...not bad though.

I got a quick picture of my boys in their green shirts outside the McDonald's after McTeacher's Night.

Erin go Bragh!

Baby on Board

I suppose I ought to make this an official announcement as I now have a little baby counter widget installed. We are having a baby! I know right, number 4! Wow. I am ridiculously excited and so is Jason. Our new addition is due to arrive the end of October. I'm thrilled to able to share my birthday month! I get all teary eyed just thinking about it. And I'm sure it has nothing to do with hormones. After thinking our family was complete with our 3 boys I cannot begin to describe the absolute joy I feel in being able to add one more to our family. It's simply an amazing feeling. I'm so very happy. So it's good-bye flat stomach I worked so hard on and hello to elastic waisted pants. It's going to be a beautiful adventure!