Better late than never

Talin & Baylee

I've been behind in posting, but here are pictures of when Jo and the girls were here a month ago (that long already!!) and we went out to the Omaha Zoo.

Andee, Madee, Collin, Talin, Baylee and JoDee @ the touch tank.


More touching of creepy sea creatures.


Caleb's first zoo trip, he was a good boy.

Baylee, Collin & Talin checking out the penguins.

We spent the ten dollars to rent the stroller to push around our large children that are no longer toddlers and can easily walk around the zoo on their own. Although we didn't quite realize it until we saw how huge and ridiculous they looked in the stroller. So we abandoned it. This is their sad goodbye, although I think Collin was confused.

Wild children.

I'm not so sure they're on the right side of the glass.

Andee, Collin, Madee, Baylee & Talin

My attempt at a group picture, I insisted.

JoDee and Andersyn

The only way to get a picture of these two is to do it secretly.

It was very hot and humid, so the kids found the water to be a welcome relief.

The boys had so much fun hanging out with Baylee, I'm glad JoDee decided to bring her, they rarely get one on one time together.

Madalyn, our always happy girl.

Talin, my spastic child.

Collin, trying to be mischievous and hide from me.

Baylee.

We aren't sure what the humidity was doing to her hair, but it was...interesting.

Overall the trip wasn't what we planned. We rushed through the exhibits because it was so crowded and we felt absolutely suffocated by the throng of people. Early in the afternoon Jo and I looked at each other and decided that we were both okay if we left and went home right then. The kids didn't seem to notice that we had only been at the zoo a little while. I think they were ready to go as well.

But it was so much fun to have JoDee and her girls here for a few days. I miss them terribly!

We Survived

1. We have survived the Iowa flooding this past week. Let's just say I'm not a fan of Iowa anymore; between the winter from hell, the storms that blow over full grown trees, the tornado sirens that go off at 10:30 in the evening and force my children and me to huddle in the basement, and now the insane flooding. I just can't believe the destruction the flood waters have caused. Gratefully it's starting to recede; hopefully we will have our downtown back soon, and please keep all the flood victims in your prayers. Our family is feeling very blessed that we have not been flooded out ourselves. The church of course has been amazing in sending out many semi trucks filled with supplies for flood victims, Tom went to help unload them last night and this morning during church. Crazy!!

2. Happy Father's Day to my awesome husband. His request this morning was to have "really thin pancakes" or in a normal person's world, crepes. So I bought him a crepe maker for Father's Day and made them this morning. They truly are delicious. But thinking that a crepe maker wasn't exactly what he really wanted, we went and got him some button up shirts and slacks for him to wear for his clinics. And my oh my, he looked quite delicious in a pale blue button up shirt and grey slacks this morning. And let me just add that he is the BEST dad ever. He loves his boys, spends time with them, is patient with them and is such a good dad. His little guys worship him, and he's always been so good with the baby stuff as well, which helps me out a ton! I'm a lucky girl to have him, and my boys are lucky to have him as their dad.

3. So after gorging myself on Father's day dinner and cheesecake, I've decided to embrace my new curvy figure that doesn't seem to be going anywhere soon. I can work out like mad, but honestly, my eating will never get much better with the stress and breastfeeding going on. So until then, I'm determined to be happy with the extra thirty pounds and bulging belly fat and deal with it after Caleb's surgery, or after I'm done breastfeeding, but it will be dealt with!

4. And I was asked to speak in church next Sunday, which I’m really not pleased with. I’ve been in the ward for just over two years and this will be my fourth time speaking, um hello! I thought I was off the hook for awhile since Caleb was born, I guess not. I just have no desire to get up in front of the ward wearing the same black skirt I wear every week, because it’s the only one that will fit, and speak. Hopefully I’ll have a change of attitude by next week.

5. Last but not least, a quick shout out to Cynthia who had her birthday earlier this week. It sucks not being able to be there and celebrate with her, but I know she has lots of people who lover her and took care of her on her birthday.

Caleb's Blessing Day

Last Sunday we blessed Caleb. It was beautiful, and I was so happy to have JoDee's family there with us.

The snazzy blessing outfit.

It came with a hat, but we decided to leave it at home.

Isn't he a doll?

My family.

It kills me how old my two boys are getting!

Tom and I with our baby boy.

Trouble!
These three loved being together over the weekend. It was a lot of fun for them to play and they were all best of friends, as you can tell.

My boys and lovely nieces, in order: Baylee, Madalyn, Collin, Caleb, Andersyn and Talin.

I can't tell you how much I miss these girls! It was so nice to not be outnumbered for once!

I'm trying to convince Andersyn to save up her money and come for a visit this summer and have some one on one time. I was so incredulous at how grown up she is!

We were trying very hard to keep these guys out of the grass in their Sunday clothes, they loved to be outside playing.

Madalyn & Caleb.

Andersyn & Caleb.

Again!

This child is attracted to poison oak, or the other way around.

If you recall, last year we had a run in with poison oak all over his face, and now he has found it again.

I don't know what to say...

Nauvoo Picture Overload

This is where Caleb spent the entire trip, Tom and I took turns carrying him.
The beautiful Nauvoo Temple.

This is a statue of Joseph and Hyrum right in front of the temple. It's gorgeous, and I love this picture that Tom has taken.

Me and my boys in front of the temple, you can see the Mississippi in the background.

Talin and Collin.

There were a ton of little shops we stopped in and looked through.

Me and Caleb. The boys were busy making rope. We learned how to do that, how the pioneers made bread and lots of other things. The boys loved it.

Are these not the cutest pioneer boys ever?

They got to dress up in Pioneer clothes and do the things the pioneer children did.

There were games and tools they used back then that the boys had a great time doing.

Talin hauling water!

I had to help Collin out on the stilts.

(And yes, that's Caleb on me as well, so tiny!)

Tom helping out Talin.

Here are the boys in a little school room they had.

Collin, Tom and Talin at dinner.

This is at the Women's Center, they have a ton of statues dedicated to woman and it's absolutely beautiful. I kept saying to Tom that I wanted to spend some time in the Women's Center. And my boys not knowing what that was kept whining, "I don't want to go to the women's place!"

It was pretty funny, I think they were okay once we got there.

Here is a statue of two people courting, and I thought it was so funny in a creepy kind of way that Collin was appearing in between them.

The Family.

It was so cold when we were there, and it rained a lot. Tom forgot his jacket so he was super lucky to be able to buy a Nauvoo sweatshirt. They did have a sweatshirt that said "I Love Mormon Boys", I really had to hold back Tom from getting that one. Ha ha!

Our last day it was pouring rain, but Tom had been wanting to go on the ox ride the whole time we were there. So we dragged the boys out of the car and did the ride in the rain.

Nauvoo was a lot of fun, it was great to take the boys and teach them about the pioneers, and it did a lot to raise my own appreciation of them and what they've done for the church. They truly were amazing, courageous and faithful people.

Catch up

I have a significant amount of blogging to catch up on. We had the Nauvoo trip, JoDee's visit, Caleb's blessing day, but I have not had time to sit down and blog about it because of this sweet boy.

He started coughing Friday night, took him into the doctor on Monday and big surprise, he has not been gaining weight very well. He's only 8 pounds 15 ounces and off the charts.

So I was asked to use the breast pump, put the milk in the bottle and feed him that way so we could measure the amount he's getting. Well, he refuses to take the bottle and just ends up screaming hysterically. So he doesn't eat. Long story short, my milk hasn't come in for over a day now and my child won't bottle feed, so I have a fun new toy where I hook up tubes to my breast that drip the milk in while Caleb is latched on. Lovely. When I get some spare time I'll blog about all the fun stuff.

Our Crazy Night

So I read the weather warnings on-line of severe thunderstorms, possible tornadoes and wild winds. But they always say those kinds of things... and well, it never turns out this bad!

This is the result of Sunday nights storm. These are branches from a tree in our yard and below you can see the monstrous tree that fell down into our neighbors driveway and into the street.
We are lucky it didn't fall the other way into the house. When this huge tree did fall the entire house shook and I seriously thought it was going to fall apart, the wind was so bad. That's when we gathered the boys up out of bed and headed down into the basement for a "fun campout".

The storm took out our power lines, so we had no power from 10:00 Sunday night until this morning.

This storm seriously freaked me out. I'm exceptionally grateful we did not have any tornadoes come through Des Moines, I know many people in Iowa are suffering from the aftermath of the tornadoes that tore through the state.

Many were saying the winds got up to 80 mph. I don't know how accurate that is, but it must be pretty close to take down these huge trees.

You can see above the man working to get the branches off the wires. We had people working throughout the night last night to get our power fixed. I fell asleep after eleven and could still see their lights outside and hear them fixing things.

Our neighbor was exceptionally lucky his car did not get smashed. Talking to him the morning after the storm he said he went out to get something out of his car and as he was walking away, that's when the tree fell. Freaky!

But everyone is safe and we're glad for that! We did go to Nauvoo over the weekend, those pictures to come soon!

Sweet Little Boy

Sweet Little Boy + Stick =
Pain.