A Blessing & Santa

A couple of weekends ago, we went up to Idaho for the weekend.  Marshall's sister and husband were blessing their new baby Cleah, who was born in October.  Luckily the roads were clear which always has me worried this time of year.


On Saturday we went with Chris & Natalie and their kids to see Santa at the mall.  The kids were so excited and had prepared what they were wanting to ask for.  Chandler has been wanting the big Vtech Switch and Go Dino and as soon as we got there, he informed Santa that he wanted a remote control helicopter.  Gotta love that kids change their mind, especially when they've already expressed for weeks what they want.  Rowan told Santa about his blue transformer that he wants.  Then we got a picture of the kids on Santa's lap.  I'm always amazed at how much they try to charge for pictures at the mall.  If they'd charge $5-10 for pictures, I'd probably buy, but the cheapest package is always like $20 and you only get like 3 pictures.  We took our own pictures, but I think the workers there weren't very happy about it.

We also got a picture of all of the kids with Santa.

After pictures with Santa, we went to write letters at Macys.

Saturday night, we went to a Christmas jazz concert that my brother in law AJ was playing in at BYU-Idaho.  It was so much fun and really geared towards the kids.  They had the grinch, Rudolph, Frosty the Snowman and Santa there.  There was a special parade where the kids got to ring bells, and the characters went around throwing out candy.  The music was also really wonderful!

On Sunday, we hung around for most of the day until the baby blessing.  It was wonderful to be with family and celebrate this new little one.  I have to admit that she makes me very baby hungry!  She has got the thickest hair, chubby cheeks and that fresh baby smell.  Below is my sister in law Natalie with Cleah.

Here are Ashely & AJ after the blessing, congrats to them!!

Thanksgiving 2012

We had to stay close to home this Thanksgiving.  I was on call at the hospital for a 24 hour period.  I was debating if it was worth it to go up to my sister's or not.  I finally decided that I wanted to go with Marshall and the boys.  We were able to be there for 3 hours before I got called in and I was so grateful to have that time with our family!  My sister made cute place settings and name tags for everyone as well as a menu.  We ate until we were stuffed and then ate some more.  The next day, we went up to Idaho for Thanksgiving part 2 with Marshall's family.  I had been at the hospital most of the night before we left, so I didn't take my camera and didn't get any pictures while we were up there.  It was a wonderful day though and I'm so glad that we were able to spend it with family.

Chandler's Party

We had a small party for Chandler with some of our neighborhood friends.  We had a Chuggington theme.  It was funny because I had some Chuggington Party supplies laying around from a review and he was excited about doing a Chuggington party even though Rowan is more into the trains nowadays than Chan.

We decorated with red and blue, and put all of the supplies out.  Marshall set up a couple of the big train sets for the guests to play with as they came.

 After they played trains and watched a Chuggington episode, we headed outside to play some games.  We played don't pop the balloon, Chugga Chugga Choo, and Conductor says.

  Then it was time to come in to blow out candles, open presents and have cake and ice cream.

 Chandler soaked in all of the attention and had a fabulous 7th birthday!

Family Pictures 2012

We had Fotofly do our family pictures again this year.  We had them done at their Thanksgiving Point location.  I wanted them done outdoors but wanted a pretty location.  I'm so glad that we had them done there, they turned out beautiful.  It started raining and was kind of cold and windy when we took the pictures, but you totally can't tell.  They brought hand warmers for the boys to put in their pockets and had fruit snacks for them.  It was a nice distraction for them from the cold.   We have about 75 pictures, but here are some of my favorites.  Now I've got to get Christmas cards ordered before the end of the month!

7

It's hard to believe that Chandler turned 7 on the first.  I really love being his mom and am so grateful for him.  Pictures of his party and his special day to come!

Soccer

This Fall Chandler played soccer!  I think it's been his favorite sport that he's played this far.  I think the rules seemed more simple and where he's getting older, it's easier to catch on to.  It's a lot of fun to watch him play sports at this age.  He loved playing goalie and although he struggled with it a bit a first, there were other times that he blocked every goal.  He had some good breakaways with the ball, and had a great season overall. 

Going after the ball!

Playing goalie

 

Spiderman Watches from the sidelines and cheers on his brother

 

This guy means business!

Chandler, still doing great on the field!

 

Spiderman decides to go for a bike ride, can you spot him?

Halloween

Our Halloween was filled with candy, candy and more candy.  The boys dressed up as Hulk and Captain America for school and then they were Sulley and Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc.  when they went trick or treating.  Between some small toys and candy, we had close to 200 pieces.  We ran out in just over an hour.  Hope your Halloween was just as fun and sugar filled as ours!

Deep Thoughts

I was editing some pictures for a blog post and caught this shot of Rowan.  He was staring out the window, obviously thinking about something.  I wonder what you think about when you are 4?  Whatever it was, he sure was adorable just sitting there.

Denver Rock N' Roll Marathon

My brother Jason and I ran the Denver Rock N' Roll Marathon on September 22nd.  We had a really fun weekend together and the experience was amazing.  We flew from Salt Lake to Denver on Friday, the day before the race.  I found really cheap airfare and it made a lot more sense to take an hour and 15 minute fight than to drive for 9-10 hours.

On the plane, ready to go!

 We got into Denver just before lunch time and headed over to our hotel.  We got checked in and relaxed for a bit.  My brother booked a really nice room for only $60 per night.  It had like a living area with a sectional couch, a huge TV, nice comfy beds.

Next, we ventured into Denver to get registered for the marathon.  We mapped out parking the day before, and figured we were going to have to walk about a mile to the starting line.  Once at the Expo center, we got all checked in.  Here I am with my bib!

We wandered the expo hall for quite a while, and bought matching running belts to carry Gu, Clif shot blocks and Jelly Belly sport beans.  The first marathon I ever ran, I made the mistake of relying on the aid station Gu.  When I got to the aid stations, they were all out.  It was really hard to run a marathon when I didn't have pick me ups.  I made sure that wouldn't happen that time.


Realizing we were pretty hungry, we stopped at a posh little wine and food place and had some appetizers.  This salad was delicious!

Then we walked around downtown Denver for a while.  We did a little bit of shopping and got Gelato.

We set everything out the night before the marathon so we wouldn't be in a hurry the next morning.  There's nothing worse than forgetting something or running late and feeling the pressure right before the race.

 On race day, we were so ready and excited!  We drove into Denver and walked the mile to the starting line.  We checked our bags and headed for the starting line.  It was at that point that I realized that I had left my ipod in my jacket.  Jason left to head for the starting line and I ran back to the bag check.  Luckily I got my ipod in time and headed to my corral.  It was such a big race, and they started the half marathon and full marathon together.  We were in corrals of a thousand depending on approximate finish.  Jason was in corral 3 and I was in 12.  They started each corral a minute apart so there wouldn't be so much chaos.  I *think* there were around 16,000 runners.  I don't think my corral started until 15 minutes after the race started.  Jason and I had signed up that it would send text messages to our family when we started, and crossed certain miles.  I knew my biggest challenge would be not to gas myself out.  In other words, if I started feeling out of breath, I needed to slow down.  I got into a comfortable pace of about a 10:20 mile and stayed there a lot of the time.  I spent a lot of time passing people, which made me realize I should have been in a faster corral.  I made sure to walk through every aid station to drink, and would eat a Gu or Shot block when I started to feel fatigued.  My muscles started to ache at about mile 18, but I could breathe well and I couldn't believe how good I felt overall.  The first marathon I ran took me 5 hours and 12 minutes.  I had a goal to finish in 4:45 this time.  At the very end, I saw Jason.  He was yelling at me to "Empty the tank!"

 I sprinted the last minute and finished with a time of 4:35.  I still can't believe I ran it that fast.  Jason ran it in 3:43 which is pretty darn amazing!  It was exciting and a much better experience than the first time.  Looking back on it, it's crazy that I voluntarily ran 26.2 miles.

Jason & I after 26.2 miles

After the race, Jason and I had to walk another mile back to the car.  My legs were aching so bad, and I kept having to squat down to stretch when we would come to intersections.  We hung out at the hotel for 3-4 hours and took showers and rested.  Since we were in Denver, we decided to go explore a bit and went to Cherry Creek in Denver.  It was a really nice shopping area with restaurants and was just really pretty.

We ate dinner at a delicious Mexican place, walked around more and then got hot cocoa from Starbucks.  We figured that we traveled over 30 miles on foot that day.


Sunday we got up and got breakfast and then headed for the airport.  It was a lot of fun to be able to experience it with my brother and go on our own little mini vacation.  I'm done with marathons for the season, due to an awful ankle sprain 2 weeks ago, but that will definitely not be my last marathon.  I'm hooked!

Graduation

The first part of August, I graduated from Ultrasound school.  I never thought the day would come, and  now it's done!  Marshall and I joke that I really should have a Master's Degree instead of a Bachelor's and a Certificate, but I'm really happy with what I've got.

 I've learned the last few years just how strong I am and as hard as it was to leave my kids, it's nice to know that if something were to happen to Marshall or if he lost his job again, I would be able to replace his income and we could live comfortably.  My boys have been so amazing and patient over the last few years.  They are such good boys!  Although I've been working as an ultrasonographer for close to 5 months, it's nice to say that I'm done with school.

My battle now is passing my registries.  There is one pre-requisite registry that you have to take before you can take any of the general ones.  It was a physics one that I took while still in school.  It took me 2 tries to pass it.  After physics, there are 5 different registries you can take:  Abdomen, OB/GYN, Neonatal Heads, Vascular and Breast.  You only have to take one to be a registered ultrasound technologist, but I'd love to be registered in a few different areas.  I signed up to take my Abdomen boards this last Thursday  and failed it by only 3 questions.  It was tough for me to swallow.  There were so many weird pathology pictures on the test, and the pictures weren't the greatest.  It was hard to decipher what some of them were so I did some guessing.  I have to wait 2 months until I can sign up to take the registry again and it's $250 to take it.  After I took the test, I called Marshall bawling.  I told him that I felt stupid that I couldn't pass a test.  He told me not many wouldn't or couldn't even attempt to do it and that he was proud of everything I've accomplished.  He also told me he had complete faith that I would be able to pass it.  Marshall seriously is my rock.  What a wonderful man.  My mom was down from Idaho that same day and we went shopping and to lunch.  While I was blubbering and crying to her, she told me that my dad had to take his architecture registry 3 different times.  My dad is a very very smart man and I was a bit surprised to hear it.  If anything, it makes me sit back and realize that I'll study hard again and try to pass it in a few months.  I said quite a few prayers that I would pass the registry and felt great going into it.  I actually felt a lot of peace the day after it was all over.  I knew it was Heavenly Father's way of helping me realize that the timing wasn't right and I needed to learn more before I could pass it.
Although the situation felt discouraging, I'll bask in the fact that I made it through school and have a great paying job that I love.

Last Day of Class with classmates Traci & Ruth

First Day of School

School started here the 3rd week in August.  Chandler missed the first few days of school due to us being gone to Island Park.  When the time came, he was really excited.  We went and met his teacher before school started and she seemed really nice.  We are almost 2 months into the school year now and just had our first parent teacher conference.  I wasn't able to go because I had to work that day but Marshall went and took Chandler.  His teacher said he was doing great.  He's a really hard worker, listens and is doing well in his school work.  He is really ahead on his reading and his teacher said he really needs to be reading chapter books because other books aren't challenging enough.  Chan reminds me a lot of myself at this age.  I really loved to read and would read anything I was able to get my hands on.  He's also doing great in other subjects and is really interested in things around him.  He's been on a kick with natural disasters and wants to know more about them.  He brought books home from the library on floods and hurricanes.  We spent an entire evening watching videos on youtube about flash floods too.  He's at that perfect age for learning and is constantly asking questions.  He's making lots of friends and even has a couple of girls in his class that are good buddies.  The one kissed him one day during class and we had to have a talk about that. ;) 
Chan started the year out refusing to eat hot lunch.  We finally persuaded him to try and it and he says he's so glad he did.  I think he likes not eating the same thing everyday.

Rowan started back to school the week after Chandler.  He is going to two different preschools this year.  One is a preschool that my neighbor teaches.  She has a cute preschool in her basement.  The other is his preschool through the school district for his delays.  He is gone everyday to school and I think it's been good for him to get back into the swing of things.
He's making progress as far as speech goes.  His IEP goals are to answer who what where when and why questions.  He was able to do so with a 60% accuracy last week which is a huge stepping stone for him.  We still have a long way to go to get him where he needs to be, but I have a lot of faith that we are headed in the right direction.
Rowan is really into playing with friends, being outside and transformers right now.  He would stay outside all day long if he could and he spends a good portion of the day out there.  He's incredibly independent and a lot of times it's his way or the highway.  Although we butt heads sometimes, I think it will be to his advantage later in life if he's always trying his hardest for things to work out in his favor.

It was weird for me to not have a first day of school this year, although I am studying to take a registry in a few days here.  I'm reaaaalllly hoping that I pass it.  It's been nice to have some time to myself each day to clean, exercise, study, blog and get other things done around the house.  In another sense, it's weird to realize that my boys are growing up and see how fast time really does go.