Oh the things to come...

Tyler was playing with my camera the other night and this is the only picture that turned out, you can see how rosy Connor's cheeks are from his cold.

This is a picture Ty took after breakfast one morning a few weeks ago, notice the cinnamon sugar still on his face from breakfast.

Well the last month has been pretty crazy, we are 6 weeks into Brian's 10 week absence. We are all ready to be done. The boys miss him and ask regularly when he will be home, it's starting to feel like that is the only question they ask most days. I am really missing Brian, and he is really ready to come home and not have someone telling him when and how to do every thing in his life. I FINALLY booked my tickets to fly our for his Basic Training graduation. I am going with the wife of one of his Army friend. I will be meeting her for the first time when I stay at her house the night before we fly to Oklahoma together and get to see our husbands and then share a hotel and rental car with her and sit next to her on a plane and oh so many other things I'm a little worried to do with a total stranger. Our husbands spend pretty much every waking hour together, they even attend church together and are in the same Platoon and have decided that they want to be friends so their wives should be too. I am glad I am not traveling alone and at least if I get stuck somewhere or sick or something there will be someone with me.

In the next month I have many an online H&R Block class to do, at least 1 test to take after I finish those classes, many butt in the seat classes to endure and all so I can gain the privilege of working again come January. I work with my dad and he and I have discovered there will be few experienced preparers (basically, him, me and our boss who has little free time from the paperwork to do taxes, and honestly far less experience than me) who will be working this season. We have to have at least 1 of us in the office at all times. Our office is open 9-9 M-F and 9-5 on Saturday, that means I will be working WAY more hours than the 12-24 hours a week I worked last year. I will be working many nights, which I haven't done since I was pregnant with Tyler(he's 5 remember) so it should be an interesting adjustment for us all, as my mom will be covering the time I am at work or my brother in law who is in school will be when we are both at work yeah should be really interesting.


Connor has been sick this week so we got to stay home today and just relax while my parents took Tyler to church. He is doing better but we are trying to keep him out of the cold to avoid the Bronchitis that is ever present in my family.

I took Brian's car into the shop to discover it had a broken axle and the brakes were on too tight, both of which I've suspected for months, but Brian assured me were fine. $200 later it is doing fine, and that price was much lower than I had anticipated it would be. My Expedition has been acting up and so it gets to go into the shop tomorrow morning, hoping for a similar price to fix but I'm sure I can't get that lucky twice. And why did they both decided to need to be fixed at the same time, oh because I was actually going to put money in savings this month, silly me.

All in all we are all doing pretty well and are really looking forward to some time to relax over Thanksgiving and Christmas break, but mostly being together for Christmas.

Family Pictures

Thanks to my Brother in law, Ken we finally got some descent and recent family pictures. Which is even more miraculous if you know that Tyler had the flu, and I was getting it. Tyler didn't throw up for about 2 hours before and 3 hours after these pictures.

The boys faces crack me and up and the fact we got any when they were looking is almost miraculous. Tyler obviously wasn't too excited about the whole thing but we kept his barf bucket with us at all times and the ugly dog in the first picture was the only way he would even come. I got that dog from my Grandma when I was his age so he just loves it. It has had many a repair surgery, with more stuffing added each time but it let us get family pictures so can't complain.

Just Catchin up

Well the last month has been crazy busy. We had Tyler's birthday party, family visits, and lots and lots of getting ready for daddy to leave. Brian was able to have almost a week off before he left so he and the boys went to Jackson for my brother-in-law's birthday, I was going to go but woke up REALLY sick that morning so didn't go. I'm sure I caught it from Tyler who had been sick the day before, or Connor who had it the day before that. We tried to do something fun (for the boys) as often as possible before Brian left so we ate at Arctic Circle a lot, went to the parks, and of course went shopping to get just the right present for daddy to give the boys before he left. Which if you could guess was batman pajamas, like with capes and everything, which of course they love and want to sleep in EVERY night.

We took Brian down to the hotel in Salt Lake because it was conference weekend and all the flights the army tried to get him on for days surrounding the day he was supposed to be there were booked. We stopped to get some envelopes and saw the weirdest looking he/she clerk I've ever seen, Tyler just kept staring at her (I think it was a guy who really wanted to be a girl). Yeah interesting. Luckily my brother in law needed a ride home from the airport the same day Brian needed to be in Salt Lake so I didn't have to drive home since it was snowing part of the way.

It's been 10 days since he left and the boys keep asking when he'll be back. Tyler keeps asking how long 10 weeks can really take but they both really liked talking to him while he was processing last week and had phone privileges. He is supposed to be sending us letters so we can have his address soon so they can write to him. Tyler has been practicing his letters so he will be able to write a letter to daddy as soon as we get his address.

Well I am in the process of making Sugar cookies and the dough is cold so I'd better go start rolling them out or I'll never get done baking today...

Tyler's Birthday

Well I know this is really late but better late than never right? Tyler had his birthday party a couple weeks early so that Brian could be here for it. It worked out well because my brother and his family were here that weekend for a family sealing so we had even more cousins here for it than we had thought we would.

Tyler wanted a Batman birthday and once again, not a store around here carried anything Batman Birthday but the cake. So after a little on-line hunting we were able to get the decorations. We made houre derv's (or how ever you say the snacks you eat before dinner) and that's all we ate but since the party was at 3 in the afternoon it worked out well.

Here are a few of the many pictures we took...

Tyler playing with his new cars

So funny story, we bought cool star candles for the cake but the wicks were totally burnt off before we even got it to him to blow out and so he is supposed to look like he is blowing out the candles

The cars he is playing with in the above picture


The cool Batman blanket from his cousins, he LOVES it.

Once again thanks goes to Broulims for making a cool themed cake, because well I am not any good at cake decorating.

We had a lot of fun and had lots of family come that somehow only ended up in the back ground of the pictures.

For Tyler's real birthday we made goody bags for him to take to his friends at preschool. They were a big hit and we got lots of compliments, thanks Dollar Tree :) his teachers made him a crown with candy on it, which i did get a picture off but with my phone and the cord to my phone is at our house in Jackson. But believe me it was cute.

State Fair

Tyler really wanted to try this Two Cowboys

Brian's dream, a dog for his boys

They were all so excited

Tyler feeding the goats

the beagle they loved so much

Playing in the corn

Tyler and loader, Connor and the dump truck

Tyler with the dump truck, Connor with the loader

The boys loved the corn

Tyler thought this cow was really cool

Both boys "milking" the cow

Connor really liked watching the "milk" come out

Connor needed to see exactly how it works

Tyler loved driving the tractors

I love this face. . .

You can almost see the excitement on his face. . .

Connor needed a little help

You had to turn them pretty hard to keep from hitting the other kids

The boys liked the fair and we were all exhausted by the time we were done walking but we had fun.

First Day of Preschool

Tyler was SO excited to start school. We were able to go to an open house a few days before school started. He was really nervous to go to the school the first time, but after a few minutes he realized that it would not just be sitting and learning, but fun and games with learning involved. My niece Nikki (Tyler's best friend) gets to go with him so he was glad that he would know someone because he is pretty shy. Tyler's first day of school

He has made me spike his hair almost every day, not that you can tell but it is spiked in this picture.

Nikki and Tyler on their first day of school

Tyler LOVES school and gets up early every day in anticipation of school. He really likes 2 of his 5 teachers and I hear about those 2 most of all. He does like to tell me all the songs he sings and try to teach them to his little brother. He gets excited about all of school and I'm hoping it lasts for the rest of his school career.

Last few weeks

These pictures posted totally in the wrong place but here are the only ones I have (reason explained below)

The guys who stood in for the blessing
the river

We have been super busy the last few weeks. My brother in law, his 2 boys, one of his friends from college and my dad all came over for a fundraiser for the volunteer firefighters in the area. We go every year and my brother in-law has always wanted to come and it worked out so they could this year. We then went to the figure 8 races in Driggs. (like a demolition derby and a race combined on a figure 8 track.) We then were went to Rexburg for my newest niece's blessing.

We were able to just hang out for a couple days just doing nothing. Wednesday (19th) we got all packed up so we could leave for New Mexico the next day. Brian had to come home so he could work Thursday. We made it safely to New Mexico to see my sister and her family and my brother and his family. My sister bought a new house in June so we enjoyed seeing her new house and just hanging out. My niece was baptized Saturday another of my brothers who lives about 3 hours away came up for that. Sunday my nephew was ordained a deacon so we all stayed around for that. It was fun having so many of the grand kids together (14 out of 20). We were able to all spend time swimming, eating, and just hanging out.

Monday we got to babysit while my sister-in-law went to her first day back to school for the semester. Her baby is almost 5 months old and id definitely not a social kid. He only likes his mom dad and siblings(he's even picky about which sibling though). Well somehow he decided I was ok and would only fuss if I had his as opposed to the blood curdling screams when anyone else had him :) Tuesday morning we headed home and I was not feeling well so I slept most of the trip and let my dad drive. Brian met us at my parent's house to bring us home but I still didn't feel well so we stayed at my mom's that night. Brian's mom just got home from Virginia so we went to her house Wednesday on our way home. The boys played while Brian and I went to Walmart and Barnes and Noble. We came home and crashed. (Ok did laundry and dishes)

Thursday we were able to meet some friends at the park and had a lot of fun. (minus the friend who got a puncture wound in his foot while walking in the creek) Friday we received a text from a friend inviting us to the "beach." (the rock/sand bar next to the river) I have never been so thought it would be fun. I loaded the boys and after three tries and maybe a mile and a half of walking around, we finally found them. They have a boy Tyler's age and a girl Connor's age. Connor was quite scared to get dirty (totally out of the ordinary for him) but then another friend came to talk and since it was a guy Connor followed him around like a puppy for the next 2 hours. I did take some pictures at the river :)

(Brian accidentally took the diaper bag home with him instead of leaving it with the kids when he left, not a big deal except my camera was in it so no pictures from my trip to NM, sorry)

We're just trying to have as much fun as we can before Tyler starts daily preschool the 8th. He is SUPER excited to go. He tells anyone who will listen that while daddy is at army and mom is working he gets to go to preschool and the fact it is affordable, taught by and awesome teacher, and right across the street from my sisters house make it even better.