Halloween

Halloween was a HUGE success and fun in our house. We had our church Fall Festival a few days before Halloween and we were worried that Tyler's costume would not be ready in time. I try really hard to make his costume exactly what he wants, so we look months ahead. Grayson got what he wanted as well. However, when the day of trick or treating came he had changed his mind and went as a Airplane.

But Ty won Best Costume at the Fall Festival:

 

Grayson was a Green John Deere Tractor: ( Of course it HAS to be Green.... Red tractors are not real tractors!)

We also did pumpkins. Tyler wanted Goofy and since he doesn't really carve them, his worker did his. Grayson just wanted a face and I did a bat. Dallas... well he wanted Cartman 

Fall Break- Day one!

Arizona has some strange school schedules. However, we love the breaks. We get a shorter summer and longer breaks. Fall break is about a week and a half, Spring break is 2 weeks and Christmas is 2.5 weeks. Sometimes that is good, sometimes... well not!

Originally we had plans to go to Utah so that we could have some work done on Tyler's legs. But Shriner's and our schedules got all messy really fast. So we have plans to do it again in a few months. We were a bit bummed and frankly I was so frustrated. It is so hard to be stuck in one place. We haven't been anywhere in almost 2 years ( for fun, not for surgeries) and I was struggling with needing a break. I decided to bite the bullet and go ahead and TRY to drive the 12 hours on our own.

The "break" for myself never seemed to happen. I never got a chance to be alone in the entire week, but I didn't cry either. I always cry!! When I talk to D on the phone while we are gone, by day 2 or 3 I am in tears wishing we had never left. But I survived until the trip home, right around Page, before losing it!

The boys had a ton of fun and I tried to make sure they got to do things, but not get to overwhelmed. It was a pretty positive trip. On the  HUGE, fun ,plus side, we saw all of our cousins and the boys played till our heart was content.

Day one: Driving-

We left around 3:00 am. I have never driven so I was a bit nervous going. D and I had hoped that the earlier I left the more the boys would sleep, and well, that didn't happen.  They were awake the entire time to our first stop. We stopped for Breakfast in Flagstaff. Getting out when your temperature says 33 degrees is the BIGGEST shock to your system. Add that to a little boy that is Severely anemic and the fact that we left the Valley at 3 am and it was STILL 65 degrees. Needless to say we were a bit chilly.

About Page the boys fell asleep so I pushed to get to Kanab before they woke up. I was SO thankful to get to Kanab. I had researched every single town on our way and had the city parks of every single town so we could stop. It was the first time in my entire life that I was thankful that we have food issues and that I didn't have to stop to take little bladders to the bathroom. The park was heavenly and we were able to push out lunch till we found a McDonald's with a play place. ( In case McDonald's reads my blog, I wish they would make more places with amazing play places.... but nope. You sucked!)

* SIDE NOTE: *While at the park, the boys were met with 2 other little boys who lived there in Kanab. Tyler tried really hard to get them to play with him, but they were SOOO mean. I was so frustrated but needed the time to stretch out. But the grandpa was raising the boys and he had a dog. Oh boy did the boys LOVE that dog. It was a bitter sweet thing to watch. I was thankful when the grandpa stepped in with the mean kids so I didn't have to.

We pushed to Richfield where I KNEW there was a McDonald's with a killer play place ( thank you All Star Basketball teams) and we were able to stay there for an HOUR. Yes folks, I stayed at a McDonald's for ONE HOUR!! I knew what the last stretch held and I just hoped we made it with no more tears.

From Richfield to Orangeville was about 2 hours. Grayson decided he was all done and took off his seat belt more times than I could count. Finally I stopped pulling over and just let it go. Letting him go meant that I had a SEVERE anxiety issue but getting into the good old EC ( what us cool folks call Emery County and what we call it to make it sound WAY cooler than it REALLY is) and realized there were NO cars on the road and we were going to be OK. ( Longest part of the trip was the last 20 minutes. I could have fallen asleep then!!)

We pulled into my parents drive way in just enough time to hug and kiss on grandpa before he had to head to Priesthood conference. Aunt Nicky came down to see the kids and brought her dog, Oreo, aka our "cousin" so that they boys could play and she could kiss on a few faces. We were sad to miss my sisters kids but they would come the next afternoon.

I was so thankful to not be in a car any more. Had a great chat with my mom and was SOOOO thankful to go to bed.

We are Flooding - A catch up post!

 We are not CURRENTLY flooding but we did flood. It was a good day of just nothing but a downpour. We loved it. We were awoken in the middle of the night to some awesome Thunder and it continued all day and all night. Our park flooded and we loved it. We spent the entire afternoon outside playing in the rain and muddy puddles.

And, well, I took photos!

This is the park when there is no water. We had a great time and because we are on the surface of the sun, all the water was all gone in less than 24 hours. 

June went fast!!

We are into July!!!! The hottest month of the year and monsoon season. Oh joy!!

A few months ago our landlord called to let us know that he has decided that he needs to put the house up for sale. We have been here for 2 years. We like our house. We love our ward, we love the school Tyler is in and we are just really comfortable here. It is a commute for Dallas but I do all the other stuff around and we are pretty comfortable where we are. The current neighborhood we live in is hard to find a place to stay. For example, the house next door was going to be vacant about the time we needed to move. Well, it went on the market for 12 hours and was rented.

But we were lucky and got a great and amazing house in our neighborhood. A one story!! 4 bedrooms, a small amount of grass,  and a park next door. I am SO thrilled to be in a one story. And we were so lucky to get it.

This is my new house!! It is just across the street in the bigger "estates" from where we are and we are THRILLED to be there. It will be so amazing for us to have a one level. And for Tyler to no longer have any stairs. Carrying him up the stairs is just getting to much for us. 

So as of July 1st we have 15 days to pack before we can start moving stuff in. I have 2.5 weeks to get everything moved over and the old house cleaned. As soon as we get into the new house Tyler starts school. Our summer is quickly coming to an end. Super fast!

I am so excited for this house. I am so thankful for this house. I am so thankful for our ward and that we are on our learning curve to have Tyler be welcomed and things becoming more and more adaptive to the needs that he has. ( And a cute little girl just moved in, in a chair!! I almost ran her mom down with excitement that someone will be there that gets it!) We still struggle getting scouts adapted but we will figure it out.

A HUGE thank you to my dad who is loaning us his truck. Renting a pick up truck was insanely expensive. So he is driving his truck down for me. (With a 12 dozen Butterfingers donuts from food ranch ( I hope) ) He may have to come a day or so early but he will come on sweet big boy's Birthday. ( Yes my baby is 3!!!) and we bought him his plane ticket ( FYI Allegiant air in the summer is DIRT cheap if you don't bring luggage!) to get him back home.  We will keep the truck to work throughout the 2 weeks and then Fly my dad from Provo to Mesa ( seriously ALLEGIANT all the way!!) to drive back home.  Our ward his helping us the day my dad leaves.

We then get to clean and clean, get carpets cleaned and close this door in this summer house nice and tight.

Each new house we move in, comes with new ambitions to get through. My first one is to become organized to start. We accumulate just STUFF but I am learning to be less clutter filled. So we are dejunking and dejunking and selling and donating.

And the hardest and most permanent thing. I won't be taking a crib with me. Not even to store for the "next" time.  We have closed the door on baby hood forever. Moving into a new house, with no baby, but a big boy and his best brother.

Here is to a new place, new start, without starting totally over!!

Senior Year

That is right..... I finished the first of 3 senior years at ASU! As a transferred Sundevil, I must finish 60 hours of ASU credit so I get to go and redo classes, takes some I don't want to do and then finally Graduate!!

But I am officially done with my second full time semester walking away with a 3.6 for the semesters. It was much easier to finish upper division now that I am in my set major. Hopefully the trend continues.

So watch out.... You are in Devils country now....


 Go Sun Devils!!!!!

Bumble Bee Ranch

We have been in a group called HOPE KIDS since Tyler was really little. They even have a Utah Chapter that our cousin Kayden, and Noah are a part of. In Arizona all of the activities are a lot further away than we are use to, but we try to make a few of them.

A few weeks ago we went to the large party at Bumble Bee Ranch.  Where we were welcomed with amazing volunteers and food and lots of fun things to do.

Bumble Bee Ranch is pretty far from our house and took about an hour and a half to get there. And trust me, my children do not travel well. The last ten minutes of the drive were on unpaved roads and that helped with the fun bumping of the ride. But we were happy to get there.

The morning of the event a huge crash shut down the freeway on both sides of the freeway so we even had to find the alternate route to get there. We were rebels!

We got the list of things to do for the day when we checked in and headed over to eat before we got going on events. Some of the things on the events had a long wait and the boys weren't interested so we got their list and decided on what we would do.

Ty wanted to ride the "Bucking Bronco" so we waited our turn on that first. He loved it. Dallas had gone to get sunscreen so that my vampire white children wouldn't get a burn, even with the overcast day! While he was gone we got on but didn't ride. But as he walked up we started riding our Bronco.

Tyler was so excited and loved it. LOVED it. He kept wanting to go higher but they were a bit worried   that he wouldn't be strong enough to hold on much higher. But we tried it a few times. He was so funny. He told them he was flying and he was higher than the birds. He loved it and the volunteers were so good to him.

 Dallas wasn't so sure that Tyler would like it but he did. He loves things like that. Which is a weird, far cry from what he use to be like a few years ago. He is such a brave kid. The most talked about thing that Tyler wanted to do was ride a horse. The first time Tyler rode a horse was with his Grandpa at Wheeler Farm. I always thought that all my kids would be riding their first horse with their Grandpa, but that wasn't in the cards for Grayson.
         
Far off in the field  was the biggest little boy in the world. My little baby was riding a horse. His dad was with him for the first of the ride and we swapped so I could get some pictures of Grayson.
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Grayson is a pretty solemn kid. He has a great personality but sometimes drawing him out of his shell takes a little bit of work. This horse had him smiling and he was so incredibly sweet with the horse. He kept petting her and saying that she was pretty! He was so, so happy!

He is so in love with doing something like this. He enjoys it so much and it helps me see into this little difficult child. We are definitely looking at ways to keep this kid drawn out like this.








Next up Tyler was determined to climb the rock climbing wall. He of course, knew that he was full capable of climbing clear to the top with no help so off he went. With some minor adaptations he was able to get up as high as I could keep his feet on the handles but he loved jumping down the wall.

I have always wanted him to try, even going into it we knew he would "fail" by most standards. But a little bit up the wall was enough of a win for him and for us.
(Some day I will be super skinny for all the lifting I do for both of my skinny toots. My arms should be like NOT flabby!)
 
Grayson again, loved this so much. He loved being up in the air and as high as he could be. He was not able to climb it all on his own but he also had a good time. This little boy could live outside in the dirt and the gunk and the fun things with horses all day!

Bumble Bee Ranch was a great successful trip. We probably couldn't go much further than that with the boys for a while. Grayson is the WORST rider. We will be looking at medical flights only for a while.

The past almost year, that I have been working with the Mesa United Way has been so good for me, but being with these little munchkins on the weekends has been far more rewarding or as rewarding as helping those in need. I feel like my need for these 2 has been growing with no way to satisfy it. This for sure helped that out.

We had plans the next weekend to do Sky kids, but I got the super flu that as been hanging around our area and hope to be back on their flight schedule in November.

Easter is coming up and as a social media outlet I wanted to just add a quick note of testimony at the bottom of my blog.  The #becauseofHim movement has me realizing just how important family is. Creating this little family of mine and embracing the joys and lows is part of the plan for us. Infertility was not what I had planned and it robbed me of what I thought my family would be. It has even torn apart my extended family. But this is my family and I want them to have the warm, loving and caring things that I can provide them with. Families, They are forever! 

The Doc Mobile

One of the benefits of living in a "large metropolitan" is the events that come to you. We are always a stop on major tours and concerts and events. While watching Disney Junior with Ty, a commercial came on about the Doc Mobile touring America.

Ty LOVES Doc Mcstuffins so we promptly went to the address that he just so happened to memorize, to check what city it was coming to. Sure enough, last stop on the list was Phoenix. The only down fall- I work every Saturday at Helen's Hope Chest.

I requested time off and we tried to not remind him that it was coming up, until we were sure that we were going. He has a problem if we tell him that he is doing something then we can't/don't do it.  We planned to get there early, had a back up plan, had a back up person to help and off we went.

The wait was pretty minimal but when we got to the front he went off to the "dance party" that was hosted by the local Radio Disney Station. He won a magnetic and love dancing. He was able to get into the Doc Mobile and he had a chance to fix up his Mickey Mouse. Grayson fixed up his dad. He wasn't overly interested in bringing a stuffed animal. And it was SO early he wasn't interested in anything other than the donut and milk offered to him.

It was such a good day. I loved watching them do the stuff they enjoy. It also makes me glad we live in a bigger city to get to enjoy stuff like this.

A few quick photos of the dance party and the set up they had for photos.

The line to actually meet Doc was about an hour wait. And despite MUCH cooler temps than we have had all summer it was getting to hot. They didn't have a cover for the people waiting so we didn't say anything to Ty about her coming and left. We were there for a little over and hour and he had a great time.

It was great to have a day off of work to see them and play with them. That afternoon we were join to attend a pumpkin patch with our local Hopekids chapter but Grayson was still asleep when the time came. So we  cancelled our reservation and hung out.

It was a good day for all.

Spring Break-More stuff

We went to the spring break farm time at Superstition farms. We rode on hay rides, tried weird flavored milk, ice cream and feed the animals. We watched a cow have a baby, a 2 hour old cow and more! The best part was riding the horse!!

Oh, and the farm workers were and are amazing with Tyler. One remembered us from Santa days and came over to let him touch a chicken. He was in heaven!

 Ty rode and rode. But he had to have a hat on. HE was a awesome cowboy.

 Us on the hay ride.

 Our cow that wasn’t afraid of us.

 Grayson thought this was awesome!

 Feeding the lambs and goats

 Grayson and his ability to do whatever he wants!

 Ty walked on up to have the bunny lick him~

 The hen, they brought out for Ty to touch.

Spring Break

We had spring break a few weeks ago. ( Ok almost a month ago!) Every time I sat down to write I would hate it, erase it and then go to bed. So now that MORE stuff has happened and I am behind here are some photos of our spring break.

Ty wanted to go down on his back but his legs were NOT having it. A few more scoots and he had it.

The play place was awesome. It was called playtopia. I was glad the boys had on matching shirts and were bright enough to see. It was hard to keep track of them.

Grayson is a bit... um daring. He will do anything that Ty does. He will also do anything he wants to do.

He is THE most determined kid I know. He tries SO hard. He is my hero!

And this kid, well he is a handful and we LOVE him. He is very independent, and very smart!

The love he has for anything that keeps him moving and life in general, makes me SO proud of him!

But this small bundle of energy is a crazy kid in disguise. The smile is deceiving.

Sweaty and hot, but happy and busy!

Before we made it to the park, we had a happy fun lunch with our dad at the Tempe Beach park. The boys fed the ducks instead of eating pizza. But Dallas and I enjoyed our delicious subways and sitting in the sun. Ty was determined that he was going to throw rocks but there wasn’t many. Next time we go, we will be bringing our own rocks.

Playtopia was a great place for us to go. I plan to take the boys back soon!

Christmas Time

I wanted to record our Christmas time because at some point, as hard as things get, or as AWESOME as they get, I love seeing what happened to us. It goes along with my resolution this year.

So, here is our Christmas that should eventually have photos! 

In October we got word that the AMAZING contract we had for the last 2 years was ending. So we carefully put away a lot of money not knowing what we would be in for as far a job or new contract or what. As {our} luck would have it, we did amazingly well ( we also have no debt { medical doesn’t count in this}... dang right peeps!) and so we were able to live fully on our savings. I am a budgeter and a planner and I really try hard to think about the gifts that I want to give to our kids, so I knew what I needed to cover in cash, what we were to give each of them. This was not including any gifts to each other because, in all honesty, we are OK going without. 

Dallas was able to find a job a lot faster than we expected, but before this happened, my car, which is a hybrid, decided to not start one day. This was also at a time that D’s gramps was very sick and we had some people to be taxi’s for. So we used my budgeted amount of money to fix my car. It was a batter but Hybrids tend to kill you when something goes wrong. But we were still OK. 

Somehow, with our tighter budget pants on, the kids enjoyed a very nice Christmas. And Dallas got a mustang. { Long story... awesome story} Best present EVER!

December was a hard month in general for us. I had to have Christmas all done and taken care of before I went into surgery. After surgery, there was no way I could do more than a few things and I was not allowed to. My brother, OK it was his wife... whom I also ADORE! { whom I love and adore and had no idea about the above mentioned difficulties in our life} Offered to buy a ticket and flew my dad down to help for one week. This was such a much needed help. I couldn’t do anything. I was not mentally doing awesome and I really needed my dad. And because of the distance for Christmas, my kids really needed my dad too. 

I was not doing great though, trying to get better. My poor dad spent more time in an OB office in a week than he probably has in years. I am not doing recovery so well and the tumor they took off was huge and made things a little worse. 

So my dad was able to help me keep the house running, kids happy and most of all, me sane. 

While my dad was here we wanted to experience a few of the temples from the outside and so we went to the new Gilbert temple that was announced. It is in the works and it is HUGE and beautiful. We learned a lot about the things they are putting into the temple and I an’t wait to go back and take some more photos as it progresses. 

We also decided as Christmas time we would head into the LDS Mesa temple and look at the lights. Ty wasn’t really having it so we didn’t end up spending a ton of time. Lucky for us it was one of the warmer nights that my dad was here. He had a cold that he was coughing and I felt so bad for him. BUT not bad enough that he didn’t kept it to himself and I got sick soon after. 

I enjoyed the lights a lot. I wish we would have been able to walk around more and next year, if I can’t get my kiddos to go then I am going. I want to try out some newly found education on LIGHTS!! 

I must add, that Ty didn’t really want to go to the lights. And we had to trick/convince him it was ok. So we didn’t get to stay long. Next year I want to go earlier in the year and walk around and enjoy it a lot more.

That Saturday, my dad had his last night here. We set up face time and skype with my mom and Aunt Nicky. The traditional Jammie's were going to be opened so Grandpa could see them in them and grandma could watch the kids. Nicky also wanted her present opened and so we had a technology filled evening. The boys loved it. Grayson is such a flirt with his Aunt Nicky and grandma. 

We took Grandpa home to the airport on Sunday. I am pretty sure, though he was glad to be getting back to grandma, he was a little teary eyed to be missing hearing “ papa” followed by patters of feet running for a hug. 

On Christmas Eve we made dinner, had a nice quiet night and read Christmas stories. We went to bed and Santa had everything ready to go. 

The next morning we had the fun chaos and the boys loved their stuff. They also face timed with Grandma the old lady and grandpa the boy and Nicky while they opened up their stuff.

Christmas left without much drama.

Ty was left thinking that Santa was coming every night. 

We were left with more toys than we needed.

And we were happy.