All Things in Moderation

I just wanted to let everyone know of a great new blog that my awesome sister-in-law has started. It's a blog of great deals that she has gone to a lot of work to put together to save us a lot of time. She also has great tips for things like saving on prescriptions and your electric bill. If you have a chance you should stop by, you never know what money you could save.

Tomato Soup- Yum!

Sharing

My boys are really good at sharing certain things. Last week Zack decided to have high fevers for 4 days and thought he'd share the germ love with Austin who had high fevers with vomiting for 3 days and then he lost his voice and got croup so then he thought he would be nice and share with Zack who got croup that turned in to pneumonia. Yes, you read that right after a chest x-ray yesterday we found out that Zack has pneumonia again, but luckily his oxygen saturations were still okay so he doesn't have to be hospitalized and we just get to do breathing treatments at home.

Zack loves to play with the mask until it's time for mom to hold it on his face for the treatment. Luckily he's a pretty patient kid so despite a few outbursts he does really good!


Austin loves to help mom listen to Zack's lungs.


Zack is trying to take the stethoscope from Austin and Austin thinks it's pretty funny. Aren't they cute?!


Not sharing very good right here. Hey, you can't ask for perfection all of the time.

Daxton's Place

Last night was the big unveiling of Daxton's headstone. It is so cool and unique that I thought I'd share it with everyone. Sorry there are a lot of pictures, but I wanted to show you it from all sides.


My boys have been sick this week (I know you are all shocked to hear that) and poor Austin had thrown up a couple of times yesterday, but he obviously approved of the chocolate cake Aunt Michelle made.


The boys all seemed to like the headstone and had a great time playing by it.

Friends

We have been so lucky this past week to spend some time with some of our best friends Blake, Kristin, and Owen. Last Thursday they came down to our house and we went to the park and had a picnic and played on the playground with the kids.



Then on Monday we went to Blake's parents for a barbeque. Blake made us some excellent hamburgers and hot dogs and some amazing salsa. There isn't much better than great food and great friends! The boys had the best time playing with the dog and being outside while we had fun chatting.

(Kayla and her family were there, but we didn't think to take a picture until after she left. Sorry Kayla!)

Family Update

Here's a quick update on our family:

The boy's developmental nurse came yesterday and said they are now caught up! We are really excited and hope to be able to keep working with them to keep them where they are supposed to be.


Austin had his cardiology appointment today and his cardiologist felt like everything looked great and we probably won't do another echocardiogram until December or January. This is Austin getting an EKG done, he didn't quite know what to think of all the stickers and cords. Luckily it's pretty fast so he didn't get bugged and we had bubbles that the boys were going crazy for.


For those of you who haven't heard Aaron started a new job at the beginning of July. He is going to be a branch manager for JP Morgan Chase. He will be in training until the first of October and then they will place him in a branch. They told us maybe Bountiful which we are keeping our fingers crossed for. So far he is enjoying the change and I'm loving it because at the first of October I will be able to cut my hours down to one day a week! :)

And last of all for those of you who didn't look very close or read the comments from our last post, you will have to look closer at the middle picture. We had a wonderful surprise and are going to be adding to our family in March. I am due March 25th so I'm 7 weeks along right now. I've been really tired and pretty sick this pregnancy, much worse so far than with the boys so I'm looking forward to being out of the first trimester! We are really excited and a bit nervous. So far they only see one baby in there, but I was still pretty early so we will know for sure in 3 weeks. We'll keep everyone posted.

Just 2 short years ago

We found these pictures tonight and it brought back a lot of fun memories (kind of, you know how pregnancy is) so we thought we would share.

Good News!

With all of the illnesses that Zack has had especially this spring and with how sick he would get with common viruses his pediatrician wanted to test and see if he had an immune deficiency disorder from the steroids he was on for so long. The problem was he needed to be healthy for at least 3 weeks before we could go get the blood work done. She gave me the prescription in May and finally last Wednesday we made it to 3 weeks of healthiness and were able to go get the blood drawn. She called to tell me the results today and I'm happy to report that his numbers were all where they should be and so she doesn't think he has the disorder! Here's to hoping for many more weeks of healthiness!!

Favorite Things Swap

My cute friend Lori is hosting a really fun swap on her blog. It should be a lot of fun, the basic idea is that as a participant, you will be asked to choose at least three objects that are some of YOUR favorite things to send to your partner who will be randomly decided if you choose to sign up. Everyone head over to her blog for details and to learn how to sign up. It will be fun!

Daxton's Birthday

Friday was Daxton's second birthday. We all met at "Daxton's Place" at 7:30 for a pajama party. They were going to do the big unveiling of the headstone, but unfortunately they didn't get it done in time so that will be in about a week. The place doing the headstone felt really bad so they made a nice granite stone for Matt and Michelle in honor of Daxton which I thought was great of them. My boys made some birthday cards for Daxton that we put by his headstone (they were really cute, but I didn't think to take a picture of them). We all wrote messages to Daxton and tied them to balloons and then released them at the same time, it was really neat to see! My boys were not happy that we let go of the balloons, but I think Daxton would have loved it! Then we did a halo toast, it's where you all get donuts and do a toast with them. It was really neat and really hard! The tension was broken up pretty quick by the sprinklers turning on which we were all sure that Daxton probably had something to do with it! It turned out really well and we are all so grateful for all of the love and support everyone has shown to our family and Matt and Michelle.

Here are some of the people who were able to come and were great to come and show their love and support. Thank you!


Neal, Austin, and Zack missing their bud. We love you so much Dax!


The balloon release.

Cherry Hill

I'm a little late doing this post, but I have not been in a blogging or just computer mood in general lately. So all of you who's emails I haven't responded to I'm going to get around to it soon and sorry for slacking.

Last Wednesday my mom had her work party at Cherry Hill so she invited all of us girls and we had a fun girl's day out plus my boys. (We missed you Mandy, Neal, and Henry!) I haven't been to Cherry Hill in ages, but it was a lot of fun and they have the new UV filters so it makes my crazy brain rest a little easier (no Crypto here!). I think the boys were still a little too young to fully appreciate the fun we were having, but at least I tried. We decided to try their life jackets on them for the lazy river; it's the first time they've ever worn them and they were less than impressed, but it made a good photo op.


They thought the Pirate's Cove was okay once we took their life jackets off. They especially liked the slides that you get to go on in to the water and Austin liked the spraying water. By the time we had lunch they were pretty tired and enjoyed lounging together.



I was wishing I could have got some cute swimming pictures, but with my history I probably would've dropped it in the water. By the time we left Austin and Zack were asleep almost the minute they were put in the car and were limp dolls when we got home and I put them in their cribs. Thanks for the fun girls!

Memories

I don't want to be left out of the fun memory game so I'm conforming, here goes.
Here is a fun little game... leave a comment on my blog of a memory that you and I have had together. It doesn't matter if you've known me for a short time or a long time, anything that you remember! Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It is pretty funny to read the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you are playing and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you. On your mark... get set... blog those memories!

18 Month Pictures

We had some new pictures taken of the boys and I thought I'd share them. Sorry but they are scanned in images so they aren't the best but you'll get the idea.

My Awesome Wife

I just wanted to say how proud I am of Heidi. She has had a goal to run a 10k for a while and has been training hard to be able to do so even though sickness, two little monkeys and one big ape have gotten in the way a bit. But today she ran the Farmington 10k in just over 59 minutes which is impressive to me! I am tired after 59 seconds. Great job honey!

4th of July

We had a great fourth of July, it all started with me running the Cherry Days 5k with Katie. The race went okay, the course was a lot of uphill and I have been sick, but thanks to Katie (she kept me going faster than I would have run if I was by myself) our official finish time was 29:26 (although my Nike Plus said 29:01). Now I'm just trying to figure out a way to get her to move by me instead of going back to New York, I would love a running friend!


Then we went to the parade with Aaron's brother's family. Their kids were so cute and kept bringing us and the boys candy, they were very good to share.


All Austin wanted to do was kick, step on, or throw the candy. He could've cared less about picking it up.


Zack just wanted to sit on our laps, he refused to pick up the candy. Oh well, maybe next year.


Then we all went back to my parent's and had some yummy Pizza Man for lunch and went swimming. It was so fun to play with our nieces and nephew and Zack and Austin loved the water!

No, Aaron doesn't have a new wife (at least I don't think so), I just needed a big change to get out of frumpy mode.



Then we all had much needed naps and that evening we went to my aunt and uncle's for croquet and to watch the fireworks from Weber High. The boys loved the fireworks, even though Zack was so tired he almost fell asleep during them and Austin was hyped up on sugar and kept oohing and aahing. We hope everyone had a Happy Fourth as well!

A couple more cute pictures:
Austin found a new way to eat, who needs hands or silverware?

Fun with friends

I know you will all be shocked to hear, but after our first week of going to nursery me, Austin, and Zack have all been sick. So because we didn't want to get baby Henry sick we weren't able to go to the barbecue and swimming party at my parent's last Saturday for Founder's Day so we bought the boys a swimming pool. They have loved it! It's nice because they can get in and out of it themselves and it was great entertainment while we were doing some yard work (one of us was watching them the whole time, they weren't swimming unattended).


Some of our best friends Ryan, Katie, and Josh are here visiting from New York so we had them over for dinner and swimming on Monday. It's been so great to see them again and to see Josh and our boys interact. We are so sad they are going back on Saturday!

Austin and Josh both really wanted to play with the hose, they weren't very sure of each other (I'm sure Austin was thinking oh great another kid to steal my toys).


I think they had fun despite the constant fight over balls.


Don't they look like they are conspiring to do something? Josh was pretty funny at first acting like wow I've never been in here with other kids. Although he was being a bad example to our boys getting them to stand in the tub, we'll still let him play with our kids. :)


Last night we went to Kayla and Brandon's house for a fun little party with our friends. It was so great to get together and just talk and see all of our cute kids together. We know we are very blessed to have such great high school friends and we're glad that most of us have stayed in touch. We love you guys and we missed those of you who weren't able to come!

Zack Walking!

I'm a little behind in my posts, but Zack started taking a couple of steps in between me and Aaron on Sunday and since then he thinks he's pretty cool when he walks. This video is from this morning.

Funny Guys

Zack loves to pick up the phone and say "Hi! Hi!" especially when Mom calls from work. Unfortunately the big shiny button on the phone is the talk button and the end button is the little non-interesting black button.

Whenever we put lotion on Austin he wipes it off his belly and rubs it in his hair but tonight I was able to stop him. Unfortunately, I forgot to close the lid on the lotion and I caught him getting the little bit of lotion inside the lid and wiping it in his hair. Doesn't he look proud of his greased hair?

18 Months

I can't believe my sweet babies are 18 months old now. The time has gone by way to fast!! We are loving the stage they are at right now. They are doing so many fun things and their personalities are really starting to come out now. Some of their accomplishments:

• they just got to move in to forward facing car seats on Memorial Day weekend
  
• Zack has 12 teeth and is getting 4 more
  
• Austin has 12 teeth and is getting 4 more
• they love brushing their teeth
  
• they both love to pick up the phone and they hold it to their ear and say hi
  
• they love to use combs or brushes to do their hair
  
• about a month ago they decided we weren't allowed to feed them anymore so meal time is always fun now!
• they love to play hide n seek with each other and chase each around, giggling the whole time
  
• they are totally caught up in every area except gross motor, but they are ahead in their language
  
• Zack has turned in to a bit of a comedian and loves to pull faces and make funny noises
  
• Austin is very good at giving loves and is always hugging or kissing Zack, me, or Aaron
  
• they are both still mommy boys
  
• they get very excited when daddy gets home from work
  
• they love to play catch and play with balls
  
• they love to look out the windows and especially to stand in our window seat in the front room
  
• they love being outside
  
• they are mommy's running partners
  
• Austin loves water no matter what the temperature is
  
• Zack is left handed so far and Austin is right (we are pretty sure they are mirror twins)
  
• they both love to cuddle
  
• they can say juice, snack, cracker, mom, dad, boo, hi, bye, no, yes, uh oh spaghetti-o, dog, woof woof, shoes, tickle, nose, eye, ball, quack, stinky, and banana
  
• they love to imitate anything mom or dad do
  
• they blow on their food
  
• they can be really good eaters and together they can eat as much as me
  
• they love each other and if they are in different rooms they will start yelling back and forth to locate each other
  
• they are partners in crime and encourage each other to get in to trouble
  
• they follow each other everywhere
  
• when I go to get them in the morning and after naps they jump and dance in their cribs because they are so excited
  
• they love dogs and they have started calling every animal a dog, when they see one their voices raise several octaves and they start screaming with excitement
  
• they love to wrestle with each other
  

I could go on and on, we are so proud of our boys and how far they have come. They are the light of our lives and we don't know what we would ever do without them! We are so grateful for their health and appreciate every day with them. We love you Zack and Austin!!!

A couple of weeks ago Austin figured out if he pushed things like his car or the laundry basket over to things then he could climb up on the couch or window seat. He's pretty proud of himself.

One of Zack's funny faces.


The boys loved the massage chair at my parent's. Their faces were hilarious, I'm sure what mine looks like during a massage or pedicure.

Swimming at our neighbors Summer Kickoff Party. The water was freezing, but it didn't phase Austin at all, Zack had fun once he warmed up to it.

We've been doing some repairs on our shower/bath so we've had to be creative with the boy's bathtime. They thought this was the coolest thing ever! They were inconsolable when we took them out and out kitchen was drenched!

We had fun playing outside today.