Our scary moment

Right when Paisley turned six months she was off. She started crawling everywhere and I forgot how much I struggle with this stage because baby proofing is so hard when they are crawling. The thing that is the hardest is that no matter how many times I clean the floor she seems to always find something to get in her mouth and with a three year old constantly leaving things on the ground this makes it much harder. So I try to keep her pacifier in her mouth while she is on the floor so she won't put anything in her mouth and yesterday we were doing pretty good until I walked into the kitchen to do the dishes, she was just sitting on the floor outside the kitchen and I noticed she was struggling to breath. I went over to see if I could see anything in her mouth but it had already made its way down her throat at first she coughed a couple of time but then she wasn't breathing or making any noise so I proceeded to turn her over on my arm and hit her on the back. At this point what to do next was going through my mind. I didn't know what I was going to do if I couldn't get this out of her throat and I had no clue what she had swallowed then finally after about a minute or so of hitting her on the back she gags and then starts crying. I couldn't have been more relieved at the sound of her crying. It was the best noise I could have heard at that moment. I don't know if she ended up swallowing what she had in her mouth or what happened to it because I never found it but I am just grateful that she is okay and I couldn't help but hug her as tight as I could. It is moments like these as scary and as horrible as they are that make me realize how blessed I am to be a mother to these precious children that Heavenly Father has sent me.

Finally we have internet!!!

The town that we live in has about 427 people. That is right you could pretty much hold your breath from one end to the other. No stoplights, no restaurants, but we do have an elementary school. Anyway this has made it very difficult to get internet and we finally found a company that would provide it in the middle of nowhere. Since we have moved here we have had a new perspective on a lot of things. Some of them are...

*That living a couple miles over a state line and the nearest town is in another state creates a lot of problems. Although a town is only 20 minutes a way we have to drive nearly an hour to register our cards, update drivers licenses, and get safety inspections for our cars. Although this is a pain it is much better than having to pay the horrible pricing for registration that the state of Arizona chargers.

*Because we live a couple miles over the state line Jaxon does not qualify for the preschool programs because they are for Arizona residents.

*Living in Southern Utah we have quite a few bugs but we cannot get a pest control company to come spray for us because all of the Arizona companies are not certified in the state of Utah, and the nearest Utah town that has any pest control will not drive that far once a month to spray. So Jared has become our professional pest controller.

*Not only do we live on a state line but we also live in a different time zone than the town that is closest to us. That was until yesterday because Arizona doesn't have daylight savings, so we are now on the same time after months of calculating which time it was where and having Jared work in a different time zone than we lived in. We are looking forward to the time change in April because that is when we gain an hour, with this time change we lost an hour since we were now on the same time as Page.

*What keeps us on the outskirts of town is the drastic difference in price for renting a place, and keeping our residency in Utah so we don't have to change it again since we plan to only live here for a few years until Jared gets licensed.

My baby is six months old!!!

In three days Paisley will be turning six months old. I thought I would post about it now since we don't have internet quite yet and this is a rare occasion that I get enough time to sit down and do more than check email. My bright eyed, smiley little girl is growing up so fast. She is growing faster than her brother did but that makes it more fun because it means more shopping for clothes. She already sits on her own, and is so close to crawling. She gets up on her hands and knees and can move herself forward a couple of times before she falls back to the ground. She is one determined girl! She loves sweet potatoes but isn't quite sure about bananas, and the only person that can get her to laugh really well is her brother. She just adores him. I love her to watch develop her own personality. She is all smiles and we are blessed to have her in our family.

(This beautiful picture was taken by my sister-in-law so if anyone is in need of some great pictures around the St. George area she is great.)

We are alive just in a different location.

I was never good at journal writing and am not so good at keeping this blog updated. It isn't that I don't have anything to say. Actually it is the opposite we have been so busy that I never have anytime to get my regular things done let alone find time to blog. Plus at the moment we are without internet so I make a trip to the library about once a week. This post comes without pictures because I cannot find the camera cord but here is an update of our lives.

First of the biggest things is that we have moved. Jared got a job in Page, Arizona. It is right by Lake Powell. When I say right by I mean we drive right by it everyday. We are renting a place in a surrounding town for now and maybe look to buy. Jared loves his job which means we may be here for awhile. It is a lot smaller town than we are use to but surprisingly I love it and our ward is great. This is our first time being in a family ward since we have been married and I am excited for this new venture.

We had not the greatest experience when we arrived. We quickly found that the demand for renting was high but the supply was low and it is hard to come across places to rent for the size that we need. This is partly why we are living in a town nearby and Jared commutes to work everyday. We found this place in the online newspaper and called on it. Everything sounded great so we jumped on it because we only had a week and really needed somewhere to live. Unfortunately we were not able to see it at first and when we showed up the place was filthy. I was about to walk out and go find somewhere else but thanks to Jared's mom and a phone call to our landlord things are looking up. We have cleaned the carpets, been deep cleaning the entire place, getting rid of gross bugs, and painting the walls. We are still in the process of fixing up our condo and unpacking but when it is all done I will post pictures.

Post still to come: Our trip to Nebraska for the fourth, demoalition derby in Heber, and our family pictures we had taken before we moved so stay tuned and I will try to be better at updating this especially now that we are away from family and friends.

Graduation

I forgot to post about Jared's graduation at the end of April. He graduated and we left for St. George two days later so it was kind of a crazy time but I have to say that I am so proud of him. He graduated with his Master's degree in Social Work and he did great in his classes and especially in his internships which I think matters the most. I think it is so neat that he now has his Master's degree!!!

GREAT JOB JARED WE LOVE YOU!!!!


This is Jared getting his "hood." They received these at a banquet for his program a few days before graduation.


This is Jared's Social work program.


Jaxon was scared of Jared in his robe. He thought he looked like a monster.


It amazes me how much he loves this little girl! And he always said that he wanted all boys. She is definitely daddy's little girl!

A day out with Thomas the Train

Jaxon has this new found love for Thomas the Train. So this year when Heber City had their dya out with Thomas we decided it was worth. Jaxon loved it! All except for getting his picture taken with Sir Topum Hat. We went with Jared's aunt and her little girl Thyme. We got to ride the train that they make look like Thomas and we rode the "race cars" (This is what Jaxon called the work cars that rode next to the train). He still talks about this day everytime he sees anything that has to do with trains. I think this year we will have to invest in a train table for his birthday.
Here is all of us riding the train

This was Jaxon's reaction to getting his picture taken with Sir Topum Hat.


This is Thyme and Jaxon getting their pictures taken with the trains


This is what Jaxon called the "race car." It was a tight fit inside!

Here is a short video of Thyme and Jaxon waving at the train:

Our time in St. George

As I said in earlier post that we spent three and a half weeks in St. George. I didn't have the camera with me because Jared had it in Hawaii but I did get some pictures on my cell phone. The weather was very hot most of the time we were down there so we stayed inside most of the time, but we did discover these fun splash pads that they have in St. George. They are parks that have fountains shooting up through the grounds. We went to two different ones. One had a little river for the kids to play in and the other had some fun buckets that would drop water and some guns that shoot water. Jaxon loved it and it was a refreshing break from the heat.


While we were down there Paisley started to smile but it was only now and then that she would do it. Now she smiles anytime anyone talks to her. She is growing so fast. Here is picture of her at my mom's house trying to smile.

We were also down there for Mother's day, so Andy and Teresa brought their girls over for dinner and we were able to get a picture of all the grandkids. There are six now. Drew is five months older than Jaxon and Paisley is ten days older than Liv. I can't wait till they get older to play together because they will have so much fun being that close in age.

I AM SO BEHIND!!!

That's right I am so behind on my posting. We have been so busy the last few weeks. Somewhat on purpose because Jared is looking for a job and so we are trying to do a lot of fun things while we have him home. By the way he passed his licensing exam a few weeks ago. Which I am so proud of him for because he skipped the easy one and took the hard one so that he wouldn't have to take a test again in two years. So he is officially licensed as a Certified Social Worker! Way to go Jared!!! This means now that we need to get a job and find a place to live because we have to be out of our apartment July 31st regardless if we have anything because neither of us are taking classes at BYU! We have faith that everything will work out the way it is suppose to. So I figure to catch up I need to do about a post a day or two at a time. So check back often for updated news.

PAY IT FORWARD

So I did this a while ago on a friends blog and haven't taken the time to recipricate it on my blog.
Here is how it works...
The first five people to respond to this will get a present made by me especially for you by the end of the year. I can't guarantee that you will like it but it will be something made just for you. The only thing is that you have to post this on your blog and pay it forward to five other people. Go ahead and comment it is a free present!!

The reason for our absence from the blogging world

Yes that rights a broken arm. Here is the story...

Jared left for Hawaii on April 26th. The kids and I headed down to St. George to stay with my family for the two and a half weeks that Jared was to be gone. Blogging was not possible because Jared took the camera with him to Hawaii and my mom still has dial-up internet so it takes forever to do anything. Anyway, the day before Jared is suppose to fly home I get a call that he is headed to the emergency room because he thinks he broke his wrist playing basketball. Supposedly he rebounded the ball and turned to hurry on the court when he tripped over someone and landed on his wrist. After x-rays and about seven hours of waiting I get a call at 5am and Jared said that his wrist (radius) was broken and they were going to have to do surgery to insert a metal plate and some screws. That's right surgery all the way over in Hawaii while I am in St. George!!! I felt so helpless!! After sitting in a hospital bed for a day and a half they finally took him in for surgery. They were going to let him come home Friday but later decided to extend his orders until the following Tuesday. So what was suppose to be two and a half weeks now turned into three and a half weeks. We are now home and trying to get back into the routine as much as that is possible. The good news is, is that luckily it happened while Jared was on orders because all the medical side of it is covered and the they will pay him for the seven extra days they made him stay eventhough he couldn't work. The bad news is, it seems like I now have three children to take care of and the hope of finally getting a break from changing so many diapers won't come for another month or so (hopefully by that time we will have Jaxon potty trained).