Miracles Do Happen!

I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that I have a four year old who is not potty trained! I have tried everything I can think of. I have purchased the "super cool" Transformer and Star Wars underwear, I have promised any toy at Target, offered "potty treats," tried Cheerios as "tinkle targets," etc. There have even been first-hand demonstrations from the other "boys" in our household. All of this to no avail. Well, last night I had a dinner to go to so the boys were home with a babysitter. Tanner was tired so I asked that he be put to bed before I was to arrive home. Sometime during the night he joined us in bed. This morning when he woke up he said, "look mom," and pulled down his pajamas to reveal the Star Wars underwear he had worn all night without a diaper! I was floored! I asked if the babysitter had put him in the underwear and he said, "no," he had dressed himself. I tried to convince him to sit on the toilet this morning, but again, to no avail. He refused to put a diaper on so I let him continue to wear the underwear. To make a long story short...he finally wet in his underwear....we tried a second pair and he wet that also. At this point I am fed up. I take his underwear off altogether and we go for the "naked" approach. Tanner proceeds to go to the bathroom on the floor. Great! I decided to put him on the potty which he greatly protested. He had just emptied his bladder on my floor, so I was pretty sure there was nothing left. We got him a big drink, but nothing happened. Carter and I went back to working on his homework and Tanner played on the computer. All of a sudden he said, "I have to go potty!" I picked him up and we ran into the bathroom. HE DID IT! Carter and I jumped up and down and did the "potty dance!" Tanner was so excited! He has contiuned to use the potty all afternoon. I am cautiously optimistic! We have yet to tackle the #2 issue on the toilet....but hopefully it will go smoothly as well. I would be the happiest woman in the world if I could rid this house of diapers once and for all!!!!

Special Shoes

After our hike at Red Rock we went to meet Chris for lunch. After that, the boys needed new shoes. Well, I think Parker was the only one who really "needed" them, but everyone got a new pair. This is Tanner's new pair. He is so proud of these shoes. If they are not on his feet, they are in their "special" box. In fact, he actually slept with the special box the first night.


I had to convince Tanner to wear his new shoes to school on Tuesday. He wanted to take them in the box to show everyone. Thank heavens he agreed with me.

Hiking at Red Rock

Monday the kids were off from school for a teacher inservice day. We decided to go for a hike up at Red Rock National Park which is about a ten minute drive from our house. It is so beautiful up there. We went with our friends the Skouson's and the Waid's. Since there were a few small children along for the hike, we chose to hike at Pine Creek instead of our usual jaunt on the red boulders. The last time we went to Red Rock, Tanner about gave me heart failure many times! Although he is only four, he sometimes (well, most times) thinks he is MUCH older and capable of big boy feats! He thought nothing of following his big brothers up the side of the cliff or peering over the edge. I can't tell you how many times my heart stopped that day. Anyway, Monday we decided to be a little more mellow. This was the drive into the park.
Here are the kids ready to hike.
This was on the way down. It didn't look very steep going down. However, on the way back up it proved to be a bit of an incline. At least we got a good workout.
A little way into the hike there are these big trees and a stream. When we went there in February, the water was flowing quite a bit. It has slowed down now, but the kids enjoyed skipping rocks and they even found a frog! Poor frog....I think he was very traumatized by all of these kids chasing it around its pond.

Here are some pretty desert flowers that were in bloom.

All "A" Honor Roll

Last Friday was the Honor Roll assembly at Bonner Elementary. Parker was on the "All A Honor Roll" again this semester. This is a picture of Parker with his teacher, Mrs. Baril. We also received his test scores from the nationwide testing they took February. He scored a 99 overall, indicating that he scored higher than 99% of fourth students nationwide. He did have a few "trouble" spots however. One of them being punctuation and capitalization. I asked him what happened in those areas and he replied, "I just don't see a need for commas!" My, oh my! We'll have to work on that.

Then and Now

I love "before and afters." It doesn't matter if it is a house remodel, a room cleaned up on an organizing show or a weight loss story. I am not calling this entry "before and after" because I am far from "after." But, today was a BIG milestone for me. I have always struggled with my weight and I am sure I always will. I've had my ups and downs (mostly ups). I have started Weight Watchers more times than I care to remember over the last 10 years. We won't count all the other programs I had tried previously. Weight Watchers has definitely been the best program yet. However, I have yet to be truly successful. This has always frustrated me! I can stick to a plan for a length of time, but then there is a bump in the road and I get "derailed" and cannot find my way back....so I just give up. Well, one of my best friends, Kami, was "motivated" (I have to laugh at that term because of my many previous failures in this department!) by me to join Weight Watchers last summer and lost 30-something pounds. Frankly I was jealous! In that time I had put on a few extra. So, about October, I was inspired by Kami to begin this journey for one last time! I was filled with great anxiety over my previous failures, but found a great leader that challenged me to just focus on losing 5 pounds to start with. At Weight Watchers, they break up your big goals into smaller chunks so they are more manageable. Everyone's first goal is to lose 10% of their body weight. Well, being a veteran of this program I knew that it would be quite a feat for me to lose my 10%! I have never once made it to 10%! But, with the constant enouragement of Kami, my sister in-law Amy and some other friends at WW, I plugged along. Some people get in there and get that 10% quite quickly. This has never been the case for me...thus the frustration. But, today after 26 weeks I finally got my 10% and then some! I was so excited to go to my meeting today because I knew I had it in the bag. The last six months have been quite a journey of self-discovery. I haven't been perfect on the program, mind you. It has been very difficult to say goodbye to my very close friends, "Ben and Jerry." I don't like them to come over to my house anymore. On occasion, I can go visit them, but just for a small bit (I mean bite! ) Ha Ha. I have found that carbs are not my friends either. That's ok. I tried to switch over to their healthier cousins, but they are still not as friendly as I would like. My journey is far from over, but I feel healthier and happier and motivated to keep plugging away towards my next 10%!

My "THEN" picture is from November when Chris and I went to New York City. I don't have too many before pictures....frankly because I don't like to have my picture taken. Hopefully someday I will.
My "NOW" picture from today with 24.4 lbs gone! Like I said....this is not an "AFTER," just an in between. Stay tuned for more updates!

Pinewood Derby

March brought us the "Pinewood Derby" for Cub Scouts. In light of the fact that I have three boys....this will be an annual event for quite a few years to come. This year was Parker's third year officially racing a car. However, we have two younger brothers who also wanted to get in on the action! The following picture is one of the "official cars" from the boys in our ward. There was a lot of frenzy getting these cars to the correct weight at the last minute. We saw coins, keys, key fobs and other items being taped to cars at the last minute.


Carter shows off the car he made for the derby. He won't be an official cub scout for another six months, but he enjoyed making and racing the car.
I am the Wolf Leader in our ward and this is a picture of most of my boys. The older boys are Webelos, but the rest are mine. It is a fun calling which I enjoy very much. We have had such a small group since Parker has been involved with scouts. However, this year we will have a "bumper crop!" Carter's age group is filled with LOTS of little boys! Next year's derby will be twice this size.
And the winner's are..........Parker Skouson (1st place) and Parker Jorgensen (2nd place)! Parker got a nice trophy which he displays in his room with great admiration. These two were neck and neck, but Parker Skouson's car beat us out by a hair! Ironically, these boys have the same first name, are friends and are second cousins to boot! They enjoyed sharing the limelight together.

The Bahamas (aka February in review)

At the end of February, Chris and I were fortunate enough to take a trip to Grand Bahama Island for the FDCC Winter Meeting. We had been planning the trip for quite a while and I was very excited for some warm tropical weather to beat the winter blues. Chris' mom was gracious enough to come stay with the boys so we could attend this conference. When we arrived in Miami, we walked off the plane into the jetway and noticed that it was very dark. We continued into the airport which was also dark. We were quite puzzled and thought maybe the Miami Airport was trying to "conserve" energy. We had a couple of hours before our connection and ventured farther into the airport to find a restaurant to sit down and eat. As we got farther into the airport the lights were on so we didn't think much more about it. As we sat down to eat we noticed people standing around the bar watching the "breaking news" on the t.v. Little did we know we had just landed in the middle of the huge power outage that had hit Florida! Fortunately, all the power had come back on at the airport and we didn't have any problems, but it made for an exciting adventure. We arrived on Grand Bahama without any incident and found everything to be very nice. I was very excited to spend some time next to the pool reading a good book and working on my tan. Alas, I was most disappointed the next morning when a huge cold front moved in and it was windy, raining and barely 60 degrees! This was not quite the "tropical paradise" I had envisioned. It was actually warmer in Las Vegas that day than in the Bahamas. The sun came out the next day, but it was still pretty chilly. I think we managed to get some sun by Friday. The picture above was my view from my lounge chair at the pool. The view was breathtaking. As you can see from the water and the palm tree, there was a stiff breeze, but I still managed to soak up some of the sun.
Chris and I got a picture together as we were walking around the hotel property. The sand was very white and superfine. The water was the most amazing teal color.
This is Chris looking very handsome! Gotta love a man in a tux! The last event of the conference was a black tie dinner dance. I made Chris pose for this picture since we didn't have one of us together. Don't you love the hotel curtains? I am not a real "formal" type person....I don't own anything very formal....this was what I came up with and it worked. It was a nice evening with an amazing dinner. We had a great time on this trip. This was my first trip to the Caribbean and I look forward to checking out some other destinations there sometime.

January in review #2

Before reading this....scroll down to the previous post (January #1). One of these days I will get this all figured out how to do things in the right order!

The highlight of our trip to Disneyland was the "Jedi Training Academy." Tanner was picked to train with the academy and then he got to fight Darth Vader! WOW!!!! For some little boys who eat, drink and sleep Star Wars, this was more than the icing on the cake!
Jedi's in training!
More funny hats.....

This is the most classic picture of all that were taken on this trip! Tanner had to have this big sucker on the way out of the park so we obliged. We got it partially unwrapped, he got in a lick or two and passed out! We weren't even out of the parking lot yet. What a great trip.

January in review #1

Since I just started blogging in March, I wanted to go back and catch you up on how our year began. 2008 started off with me turning the "Big 4-0"! I can't believe I am forty! How did that happen? I don't feel any different...so I guess that is good. My cute neighbor, Alex, made this sign for me and the whole family came over to sing Happy Birthday. It was a nice ending to a great day.

Next on our calendar was Tanner's 4th birthday. The kids had January 25th off for a teacher prep day so we had planned to go to Disneyland. Chris ended up having a trial so we had cancelled our plans....then at the last minute the trial settled. On Wednesday afternoon he called and said, "let's go!" So, I quickly made arrangements, got everyone packed and we took off early Thursday morning. This was Tanner's very first trip to Disneyland, so we wanted it to be very special. He got a pair of Mickey ears and a button that said it was his very first trip to Disneyland. The ears stayed on for about 30 minutes and then they ended up in the backpack! Oh well.

This was our very first ride and Tanner loved it! It was the "Buzz Lightyear" ride. We even got to meet Buzz that day!
Tanner loves carosels, so we went on this one a few times. Is this a happy boy or what?
Chris took Carter and Tanner on the Winnie the Pooh ride (for a second time in a row) so Parker and I ducked out of the rain into the hat shop. We had a lot of fun trying on all the funny hats.

The whole trip was really fun. We had a little bit of rain the first day, but it didn't last very long. There weren't very many people at the park so we were able to go on all the rides countless times. Tanner was tall enough to ride on everything except "Indiana Jones" and loved Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain, The Matterhorn, and Splash Mountain. For such a little boy he has a big sense of adventure!

this week in pictures.....

Paradise found!!! Chris and I got to go for a night to Lake Las Vegas. It was just the escape that I needed. It was so beautiful out there (ok, so not quite the paradise you can find in Hawaii, but for a 30 minute drive from home, I'll take it!) Chris had to go to meetings since it was his firm's "partner retreat" but I had a chance to sit by the pool and read a book. Saturday morning I went for a long walk, had a little more pool time and then headed home to the kids. It was a great 24 hours!
OK, so I am not a big fan of pictures of myself but I have to post one occasionally so at least my mother will remember what I look like!!! Plus I scored a great deal on this skirt from Coldwater Creek for $25 on clearance! Love it!!!!
Did you ever wonder what it looks like when a swimming pool overflows???? Well, Chris got me up Monday morning and said, "I think there is something wrong with the pool...it is overflowing!" I ran out there and couldn't believe it. It took me a couple of minutes, but I found the auto-fill device and it was stuck in the "ON" position. I pulled up on it and the water stopped flowing. So, crisis overted (sp?). Thanks heavens we weren't out of town! Now for that lovely water bill!!! We really do try to be water conscious with our drought situation...but this was a little beyond our control. The water was up to the rim, but the water was flowing out of the auto-fill.
OH Gus! This dog is so funny! It never ceases to amaze me the positions he finds to sleep in. I can't figure out how it is more comfy having your head on hard tile and your bum on the pillow. I had to take a picture.