20 Questions

I have been putting off posting anything on here, because I knew it would have to be a huge post. We've had a lot going on around our house. But, I'm going to have to come back and do that. Instead, I'm going to respond to a tag I got on Facebook about being a Mom. Thanks Tonya! I thought it would be good to keep some record of this rather than have it be deleted by Facebook someday. So here goes:


1. How old were you when your first child was born? 26

2. What month and year was your youngest child born? October 2005

3. How did you feel when you first found out you were pregnant? It didn't seem real for the longest time. Oh, and I was really sick for the first few months.

4. Who did you tell first? Greg. Then our parents.

5. How many pounds did you gain during your first pregnancy? 50! What a fatty. Though I had a condition that made me retain tons of water. I was a balloon with opposable thumbs.

6. What did you crave while you were pregnant? Mexican food. I ate at Rubios A LOT. Is that technically Mexican food?

7. Did you find out the gender of your first child? Why or why not? Uh, YES. I couldn't stand not knowing.

8. Did you have any complications during your pregnancy? I ended up with pre eclampsia and high blood pressure. It was bad enough that I was induced 4 weeks early.

9. How much did your first child weigh? 6 lbs 14 oz. Pretty big for being early!

10. Was your first child early, late, or on time? Early. See #8, above.

11. What is the most difficult challenge or health issue that any of your children have faced? We've been pretty lucky. The hardest thing we've had to deal with was reflux. Isaac was over that by 10 months old.

12. What's your favorite part of being a mom? I love watching Isaac's personality develop. He amazes me with how quickly he figures things out, and makes me laugh every day.

13. Do you think it's easier to be a mom or a dad? I don't think one is easier than the other. They both have different challenges.

14. What is the best piece of advice you could give to someone who is about to have their first child? Chill out! lol. Relax and enjoy your kid.

15. Did you always think you'd have kids? Yep.

16. What's been the biggest surprise about motherhood? The overwhelming urge I have to protect him.

17. Are there things you miss about life before kids? That's easy. More free time. But now, if I have some, I wander around aimlessly.

18. How many children do you have? Just one.

19. Do you plan to have any more children? Yeah, probably.

20. Who's the mom that you admire most? My own mom. She is the most giving and unselfish person I know.

Popadoodle

What is a popadoodle you ask? It’s anything you want it to be.

Isaac made up the word a couple of months ago and it’s stuck. Here’s a few examples of how he uses it:

As a cuss word. Example: "What the popadoodle are you doing?"

A name for his stuffed animal. Example: "This is Popadoodle Dog."

Apparently you can eat it. Example: "I want a popadoodle sandwich for lunch."

We just now asked him what it what a popadoodle was, and he says it’s a car that’s driving.

So, if you ever find yourself in search of just the right word, use popadoodle. Just remember to thank Isaac next time you see him.

Hardware Ranch

Last weekend we made the drive up to Hardware Ranch in Hyrum. It's about two hours from our house, and part the drive is through a winding canyon road. I thought Isaac was going to get carsick because he got that glassy look in his eyes and was asking why the road kept going back and forth. But we finally made it and went up to the museum to buy our tickets for the sleigh ride out to see the elk. It's a small museum, but they had all kinds of native Utah animal skins and skulls. Perfect for a 3 year old boy. There was this stuffed mountain lion that he wasn't too sure of though. He thought it was a real at first, but then he was okay with it.

The Clydesdale horses that pulled the sleigh were HUGE. The driver told us that together they weighed more than 4200 lbs. Wow. I'm pretty sure that's more than my car weighs. It's no wonder these big animals can pull a sled with about 15 people on it.

So we hopped on the sled and they took us out to the elk. There was probably about 200 or 300 elk out there. It was really neat to see them so close up. Isaac was concerned that he was going to get pooped on. I have no idea where he got that. But I assured him that if we stayed in the sled that we would be safe from the elk poo.

Go Utes!

Last Friday we went to the parade for the University of Utah football team in Salt Lake. As you may or may not know, the Utes won the Sugar Bowl a few weeks back and so the city decided to have a parade for them. It wasn't a very long parade, but it was fun to go cheer on our team.

The players walked along the parade route signing autographs and giving high fives. Isaac thought he was soooo cool and talked about how he gave fives to the Go Utes Football Players for days. I have a cute video of him but I took it sideways with my camera and I can't figure out how to post it the right way. If anyone knows, help me out!

Christmas

Yeah, I know I'm really late posting this but I'm late for everything else, so no one should really be all that surprised.

We had a great Christmas! On Christmas Eve we had dinner with Greg's family at his Grandma's house. Grandma Carr always makes such good food, so I was looking forward to going to her house. After dinner we all dressed up in our assigned roles and acted out the Christmas story of Jesus' birth. Isaac was Joseph, Greg was the donkey, and I was a shepherd. It's kind of a fun way to teach the grandkids why we celebrate Christmas. Greg's dad read the story from the Bible while the rest of us acted it out. We acted beautifully. I was really surprised when the nominees for the Golden Globes came out recently and we weren't named. I'm sure it was a mistake. Oh well, we'll just have to try harder next year. Here we are in our manger scene.

After Greg's family, we headed on over to my parents' house. My family has a tradition of breaking a pinata on Christmas Eve. I don't even remember where it started, but we have been doing it for years. Greg was in charge of getting the pinata. Could he have picked out an uglier one? Prolly not. Isaac loved whacking away at it.

I did pretty well myself.

But it was my mom who ultimately killed it. Here's my crazy family with various pieces of the dead pinata on our heads.

We headed on home to set out cookies and milk for Santa and carrots for his reindeer. Christmas morning I woke Isaac up at 6:30. I know, I know. WHY would I wake my kid up? Well we had a busy day ahead of us with family, and I wanted to make sure we had enough time to do our own little family thing. Santa did pretty good for Isaac.

The only thing he asked for was a Hot Wheels race track. He got it! He was so excited. Santa also brought him clothes, a robot, a case to store his Hot Wheels cars in, a guitar, a motorcycle, and a few other little gifts. Greg and I both got new shoes and clothes. Greg got some tools, a case for an autographed basketball he has, and he and Isaac got boxing gloves. They are always pretending to box, so Santa decided they should have the proper equipment.

After we opened gifts at our house we went to my parent's house, then to Greg's parent's and then to my Grandparents. (See, I told you we had a busy day.) Our families were so generous and spoiled us all. It's fun to see so many of our family all in one day.

We got home later that evening, and it had started to snow. Two hours later we had almost a foot! It has been snowing almost every day since. It's getting a little old.

Update

I know, I know. It's been a long time since I've updated my blog. But between me getting the flu last week (still not feeling 100%), Isaac getting sick again, and me being so busy at work that the last thing I want to do when I get home is to get on the computer, I keep putting off writing anything new. But, as I wait for another load of laundry to finish up I'll post some things we've been up to.

We have 3 fireplaces in our house. 2 are gas, but the third is a good old fashioned wood burning fireplace. Since Greg has a job in the moulding industry, scraps of wood are never in short supply. So about once or twice a week we have been building fires in our fireplace and making smores, roasting marshmallows, etc. We've been having a blast.

Also, it finally looks like Christmas here. I wouldn't mind if the warmer temperatures had stuck around for a little longer, but I will admit I do like the look of snow. Greg and Isaac went and played in the snow and took the sled down the front yard earlier in the week.

They later built a jump for the sled, but the memory card in my camera couldn't hold anything else on it. So I didn't get any good pictures of it.

Greg found a gingerbread house kit at Costco. We had a really good time decorating it. And while it's not the prettiest house on the block, it sure is the most colorful. It looks like a candy store exploded on it.

Some Discoveries

Isaac has been sick for a few days with croup. It has not been fun at all. Poor kid wakes up in the night coughing so hard he can't stop and has a hard time breathing. It's a little scary to say the least. We took him to InstaCare on Sunday, and they gave him some steroids to help open up his airways and that's helped a little.

The thing is that he has only been sick a handful of times. These past few days I have made a few discoveries:

1. Greg cannot handle throw up. If he hears someone throw up, sees someone throw up, or smells throw up, he himself will throw up.

2. Isaac is BOSSY when he's sick. I just laid him down for a nap, and he told me, "go out of here, Mom, I need to go to sleep." Okay!

3. Greg is a better stay at home parent that I am. He stayed home from work with Isaac yesterday, and cleaned the house and did all but about 2 loads of laundry. Yes! Thank you Greg! Also, Greg had to leave for a few hours last night and Isaac sat by the window waiting for him to come home. They must have had a really good time yesterday.

4. My sister thinks that gout and croup are the same illness. Okay, maybe not really but she kept saying that Isaac had gout. He he, you know I love you, Mel.

Hopefully Isaac will get feeling better soon. He's been pretty mopey and I miss my fun little guy.