5.20.2013

Spring fun

Yikes it's been a long time.  I'm afraid I have this problem, when I take pictures I take about 10 of the same thing which leaves me with hundreds of pictures, so sorry for the overload, in random order I'm afraid.
 There is this fun park in Centerville that the boys love.  The last time we went Bronson had tons of fun riding around the trail that has some pretty good hills.  He LOVES to ride his bike, and he's pretty good too.
 biking cousins

 Blake had a fun visit with Grandma, she has just the right toy on her neck.
We sure miss having Grandma close by. 
 Levi loves putting on big shoes, he's my silly one alright.
 Levi had been riding a  little bike with training wheels but wasn't very comfortable on it.  When given a choice he'd prefer to ride his little red trike that he was way to big for.  So we decided to help him a little with a strider bike.  Oh my goodness, he had so much fun riding it.  Once he got the hang of it  he was cruising all over the neighborhood.  We went for a walk and he had to go down every single driveway,  it was so cute.  He was a balancing genius after about 3 days.  After a week we got him a new little bike and he took off.  No running along side him or pushing him to start, he was a little rider.  Luckily we still have Blake who can get some use out of this bike that lasted a week.  It was expensive but very worth it.  Levi is having a great spring riding his bike every single day.
 ta-duh

Blake loves apples, watermelon and frozen bananas in his mesh feeder.  
We will probably be seeing some new teeth in a day or two.



 Bronson the dare devil (just don't ask him to ride puff at Lagoon)
 going on the ramp the on the first day with his new bike
 playing on the floor
 Blake is rolling everywhere, he wants to crawl but isn't quite there yet.  I'm in no hurry, this is the best stage ever, tons of fun but not trouble makers yet.  He is pretty much the ray of sunshine in our house.  We love him to pieces.  He has such sweet giggles and yelling chatter.  He's also just discovered his tongue and doing all kinds of funny tricks.  His hair is getting so long.  I pretty much just let it do it's own thing, I don't want to cut it but I've never had a baby with so much hair so I'm not quite sure what to do with it except let it be crazy.

Nothing better than a sleeping baby, and a happy one when he wakes up.
 He is a little tornado.  We had to add the bumper pad after a few nights of head banging and legs getting stuck.  But he sleeps like an angel now, all through the night.

 Blakes curls after a bath.  Wet hair rubbed with a towel is all it takes.

 If he's not riding his bike . . . and daddy is home
 he liked his fresh green beans
 every MWF we've been heading to the park with Steph and Brock for some walking,
 playing and bike riding.  Blake is a great walking buddy

 Bronson started t-ball.  He loves to hit the ball but doesn't like being out in the field to catch the ball, he says.  Hopefully it will be worth the agony.  Not many 5 year olds have the attention for t-ball.  It is fun for him though, he loves putting on his uniform and wearing his snake hat.  They are the Diamondbacks. 

 Getting so big so fast.  My kids are very emotional.  
Laughter and tears are very close to the surface.
I don't know where they get that from.





 It seems like it's going to be a bit harder to make it to Lagoon as often this year with 3 kids and a lot to do around the house and yard.  Hopefully they will find a little courage this year to try some new rides.   We'd love to go to Disneyland but honestly I'm not sure they'd go in all the rides.
So we might have to wait a bit.  

 Jared 33 - Blake 8 months


  Bronson and Levi were so excited for daddy's birthday.
  Bronson even wanted to skip his t-ball game for the party. 
 At the park where we walk there are some tennis courts.  Bronson thought we should get daddy some tennis rackets for his birthday.  It sounded fun to me so I agreed.  When we went to buy them two wasn't enough, he needed one for he and Levi as well so Jared got 4 tennis rackets and some tennis balls from the boys and new some new cologne from me.  Hopefully we can have some fun family time playing together.



4.07.2013

Excited for Faith



I am very grateful for the opportunity I have each six months to participate in General Conference.  Every message is so inspired and in tune with needs of the members, I know this because I am such a member, but not just to members to the entire world.  Be obedient to God's commandments - yes!  So simple.  ALL of the commandments!  Speak softly to our children, pray with greater purpose.  Their is nobody so far lost that the Savior can't heal you. . . . .  faith, believe, bloom where you are planted . . . try harder to improve your marriage and being true partners with your spouse . . . virtue, chastity, I could go on and on.  I really loved it all.

I'm grateful for Sister Wixom's talk.  I love her, she has the perfect perspective concerning precious children, perspective that grumpy young mom's can easily lose, they don't mean to but they do.  I hope I can keep her talk fresh in my mind all the time.  Super Nanny is great but she is no Primary President :)  I also loved President Uchtdorf.  His talks hit home every time.  Sooo sooo good.  But I know it's because of who he is speaking for.  I really loved all of the messages I heard, (yes I did miss a few, I really love dvr for this reason, turning on a talk while I feed my baby or fold laundry is one of my favorite things to do)  Anyway I was also inspired by the great stories and messages between the sessions about missionary work.  I am a bit jealous that the missionary age wasn't changed when I younger, but I know that the time is right now, not then.  But the missionary excitement seemed very palpable.   So today I feel like my faith has been reignited, it feels really good, I haven't felt like this in quite a while.  I'm excited to try to be better, stronger, more faithful, to find more peace, you use kinder words, to improve my prayers.  I love conference, I love the Savior, I'm grateful for my testimony and for all of the many gentle nudges and tender mercies I just received.

4.01.2013

Yard, Easter, Blake

The boys sure love the days of warm weather.  They are making friends and love playing outside riding bikes and playing in the neighbors yard and our dirt :)  Bronson told me he didn't want us to get grass because he really loves our dirt.  I guess that's understandable since having dirt means tractors in your backyard, and a sweet dirt bike ramp in the back.  He is a pretty good little rider.  Levi wants to be but isn't quite there yet.

Jared has been working to get the yard going doing lots of tractor work, spreading dirt trying to get the grades right.  Sprinklers will hopefully get started in a couple of weeks.  In the mean time I think they are having fun playing tractors in a life size dirt pile.


We got to celebrate Easter a little early this year with Buckley's and the boys had a lot of fun hunting Easter eggs with Arianna.  At Grandma Buckley's house they are the only 3 so things are a little different compared to Grandma Hardy's.  They loved collecting all 90 of their eggs, yes 90 each.  So we came home with almost 200 pieces of chocolate . . . I won't tell what happened to most of it. 

We keep waiting for winter illnesses to be gone but they lingered a little longer than we'd hoped for.  Bronson and Levi ended up with a nasty cold and one morning Bronson couldn't seem to get his coughing under control.  It was pretty bad, he was so mad at me that nothing I was doing was helping him.  We'd done cough medicine, oils, humidifiers, I tried to get him to take a bath because it had helped Levi but he wouldn't, he just kept coughing and couldn't seem to do anything else but cough and be totally miserable, he told me his stomach hurt - which seemed to make sense from the amount of coughing.  Finally I gave him some pain reliever with codine . . .  and it did nothing.  I decided to try the nebulizer, surly it wouldn't hurt and nothing else seemed to be helping at all.  After a few breathes on that finally some relief, the cough started calming down and when he was done it was doing better, at least better enough he could function but still was coughing.

I called the doctor concerned it might be whooping cough, but the dumb nurse, well she didn't seem concerned at all, she asked if he had asthma, I said no.  After the usual no help doctor answers we ended the call with, if it hasn't gone away in a couple of weeks bring him in.  Oh brother!  Why did I even bother.

After a little bit the codine kicked in and Bronson settled in for a four hour nap.  I kept checking on him because his breathing sounded wheezy, but he was still breathing and resting so I didn't want to wake him, I just let him sleep knowing he really needed to rest and at least he wasn't coughing.  When he woke up he wasn't coughing so much but really had no air support to talk.  He could barely get out a few words at a time.  It was obvious something was not good.  He was acting normally he just couldn't talk, it was very forced, his air, and just wasn't good.  Jared came home and went to scouts and while he was gone I knew we were gonna need to take him into the doctor it was getting worse.  After Jared  talked to him to listen we tried to get him to go to the doctor at which point he went hysterical just making it all the worse.  (Ever since his kindergarten pokes he is very weary of doctors)  I'll just say it was no easy task getting him in the car, and all the while he's turning purple crying so hard.

So after a day like this I was still thinking whooping cough or pneumonia, the thought of asthma never even came into my head - I don't know why -  when Jared took him in his oxygen was 84, luckily he responded well to the albuterol and didn't have to go to the hospital.  So asthma, duh!  He was having an asthma attack, and even after the nebulizer helped him, it didn't even register.  Anyway asthma is no fun but there are much worse things.  I do notice he has a hard time if he's been out playing in the cold but other than that he seems to be okay.  We went to the E.N.T. last week and had Bronson and Levi tested for allergies.  We've just had such a horrible winter, and Bronson has had a runny nose for an entire year basically, I just want to make sure we aren't missing a piece to this puzzle (hopefully not Simba).  We should find out in a day or two.  So that's the latest heath news.

 We got Lagoon passes this year and went opening day for a little family date.  Levi was so cute and excited.  Bronson is getting big enough that he has a bit of an attitude issue, he did have fun but Levi wasn't afraid to show it.  The best part is that Bronson is still scared of certain rides, it must be because of his memories from two years ago.  So while Levi and I rode Bom Bora, Bronson rode on Bulgy the Whale - not kidding.  He can go off jumps on his bike but ask him to ride Moonraker and look out!  Blakey was a super cute spectator.





 I convinced Bronson to ride on the lion, he prefers to sit on the bench on the Merry-go-round.
 It was fun to watch Levi enjoy all the rides, last time we tried he was in tears 
 sweet little baby
Grumpy and Happy

Happy Easter
 The boys had a fun Easter morning, finding eggs and their baskets.  They get so excited, Levi is especially fun to watch.  At Grandma Hardy's we had and Easter egg hunt as well but with much more competition.  She also had an easter egg contest that was fun, with prizes and other goodies for everyone.  I didn't get a picture of my winning egg but he was a cute little scuba diver.

the 5 little stinkers

 Tessa loves to stick out her tongue!

 A family photo in a hurry

Blake is growing up so fast.  He can sit for a little bit, sometimes, mostly he just folds in half or tips to the side but I'm sure he'll be sitting soon.  He is rolling all over a lot and manages within a few seconds of putting him down to get himself wedged somewhere in the room.  He is a good little eater (obviously) he gets so excited when he's eating in is chair and excitedly shakes with his mouth wide open waiting for the next bite, it is the cutest thing ever.  He is also becoming quite the little screamer. He is discovering all the loud noises he can make and he quite enjoys it.  He did sleep through the night once this month . . . I'm trying to get this figured without having to make him scream for an hour, I'm also on the fence about nursing.  I would really love my body back but I feel like I'm abandoning my baby or something.  It's hard, I've changed my mind about 20 times in the past two weeks for numerous reasons.  I know after I first had him I was really proud for making it through the first 6 days, and then 6 weeks, and then I told myself I can do it through winter and make it to general conference.  Not that that is the main reason but it's a hard decision.  


 somebody has curly hair

 just before he rolled into the chair


 my little gerber baby
Trying to update a month at a time is tricky because I know I'm forgetting little things so I may just have to do little updates of funny things that happened once in while.   Here's to a bright and sunny April full of 60 degree weather :)