Sideways Underpants

We’ve been working on potty training Cailyn for I don’t know how long now.  The last time I bought a box of pull-ups I vowed it was the last box. (I have actually made that vow the past three times I have bought pull-ups.)  I can now proudly say that we have half a box left and she hasn’t used a pull-up for almost 2 weeks now!  It is the greatest thing in the world.

When I got home today from picking the kids up from Grandma Bonnie’s house, Cailyn was asleep, but I wasn’t sure how long it had been since she went to the bathroom, so I took her and sat her on the toilet.  She woke up and went potty.  When she got off the toilet to pull her panties up one of her legs was through the waist hole.  Brad said that had happened once before, but it was so funny to actually see it in action.  Cailyn and I both sat there and laughed about it.  Hey, I’m just happy she’s going by herself now.  I’m sure learning how to put on her panties the right way will come later.

I ripped my pants!!

Brad came home from work the other day and said that he was carrying a battery and it leaked acid all over his pants.  The next day the same thing happens.  The day after that I was doing laundry and this is what I found.  

Since he started working for W. W. Clyde we’ve had issues with him wearing his pants out super fast.  I guess we are going to start having to get him those ugly dickies work pants that never wear out.  (I have issues with those pants…that is why up until now he has been wearing “normal” pants.  I just have to remind myself that I don’t have to look at him in those pants while he’s at work.  I know that is stupid, but whatever.)

Misunderstanding!

Brad:  ”Cailyn, come eat your piece of bacon.”

Cailyn:  ”It’s NOT pizza bacon!”

My brain just died!

  I am sitting here at school trying to work on one of the million papers I have due and my brain has finally died.  I need a break and it’s only Tuesday…I’m in trouble.  As I have been sitting here, I have just kind of been thinking about my family and how much I love them.  I need to document something that Cailyn said the other day, so someday when she hates me I can look back at this post and remind myself that she really did like me at one time of her life.  

Gavin had gotten a bag of cereal out and spilled it all over the kitchen floor.  Brad went into the kitchen and started picking up the marshmallows and putting them in a bowl for Cailyn because they are her favorite.  I walked in and saw what he was doing and told Cailyn that she was lucky because if it was me cleaning up the cereal it would all just go in the garbage, marshmallows and all, because I’m a mean mommy.  Cailyn’s reply to my remark was, “You’re not a mean mommy, you’re a nice mommy.”  That just melted my heart.  It’s things like that that make parenting worth it.  Of course there are other things but when you have a 2 year old that has a mind of her own and can’t sit still or listen for one second, and a one year old that ou can’t really communicate with at all, it’s things like that that makes all the frustration worth it.  The thing that kills me is how fast my kids are growing up.  I feel like time is slipping away at too fast of a rate.  I can’t wait till I’m done with school so I can spend more time watching and helping them grow.

There is one more thing that I want to say in this fine blog today.  I love my husband!  I don’t think I say that enough.  We are both so busy with school and work that it’s hard to make time for each other anymore these days.  I get frustrated to easily with life a lot of the time but no matter what, he is always there to listen to me and comfort me.  He puts up with a lot.  Words can’t really describe how I’m feeling right now.  I just really love him.  Okay, I’m done….I’m not down with the gooshy stuff.  It’s not really my thing to publicize it…whatever!

Here are some pictures that I just like a lot!

(For some reason I can’t bring myself to post an entry unless it has pictures in it.)

This is a picture of Cailyn on her 2nd birthday.  I think it brings a new meaning to “shovel it in!”

This is one of my most favorite pictures of Brad.  I love the look on his face!

I’m an Aunt…round three!

Cameron Irvin Jackson was born on Tuesday October 4, 2008.  He is 7lbs 9oz and 21 inches long.  Both the mommy and the baby are doing really good.  We went up to LDS hospital where he was born to visit them that night.  Even after having Gavin a year ago, you forget how small little babies are.  He is so cute.  Here are the picture we took while we were there.

Playing in the Leaves!

Today we went over to Bonnie and Terrell’s house.  While we were there, they decided that they wanted to blow all the leaves off their roof.  So Brad and Kimball got on the roof with the leaf blower and got the job done.  After they were done we raked the leaves up and took pictures in them.  It was fun, because last year Cailyn wanted nothing to do with the leaves.  After they got the leaves off the roof, Brad went with the blower and blew all the crap out of the rain gutters.  The decaying leaves were spraying everywhere.  It was pretty gross. 

Gavin woke up from his nap and decided to join us!

Here is a video from last year of Cailyn getting really mad because there were leaves on her chair!! This is so funny!

Happy Halloween!!

Halloween was really fun this year.  Cailyn was Raggedy Ann and Gavin was a pea pod.  Cailyn got her costume from my Raggedy Ann doll from when I was little.  When I was little I dressed up as Raggedy Ann too with the same costume.  I’ll have to find a picture and post it.  Anyway, Cailyn was super excited to dress up and go trick or treating.  Gavin on the other hand wasn’t a fan.  Besides the fact that he hated the face paint, he had (still has) major diaper rash.  Brad was still at work so I got the kids ready so we could leave as soon as he got home.  We went to Grandma Julie’s house first then I went and dropped Brad and the kids off at his parents house and I went home and made dinner for a girl in our ward that just had a baby.  While I was gone, everyone went over to Bonnie and Terrell’s church for a trunk or treat.  Cailyn came home with the mother load.  She was in heaven.  Anyway, here are the pictures from our fine Halloween.

Chocolate Doughnuts!

Every once in awhile we like to get doughnuts for breakfast. I know…it’s not the most nutritious breakfast in the world, it’s actually not nutritious at all, but Cailyn happens to think it is the greatest thing in the world.  Can you tell?

Happy Birthday Gavin!!

I can’t believe my little guy is already a year old.  It’s insane how fast time fly’s.

October 20, 2007

3:24 am

6 pounds 14 ounces

One Month

Two Months

Three Months

Four Months

Five Months

Six Months

Seven Months

Eight Months

Nine Months

Ten Months

Eleven Months

One Year

We had a party for him on Sunday at Grandma Bonnie and Grandpa Terrell’s house.  

Here are the pictures from it:

Gavin’s First Haircut

Today we experienced one of Gavin’s fine firsts.  I decided that he needed a haircut.  When his hair wasn’t in a mohawk, he looked like an old man with a comb over and I couldn’t have my kid looking like that.  He enjoyed it….not!!  The kind of funny thing is, we have never given Cailyn a haircut and she is almost 2 1/2.  I asked her if she wanted one and she said yes and that she wasn’t going to cry like Gavin, but she says yes to everything.  I didn’t really want to cut her hair.  I want at least one of us to have long hair. 

Giving Blood

On Thursday last week Brad and I went and gave blood.  We had to take Cailyn and Gavin with us which was kind of an adventure.  Gavin wasn’t happy and was crying most of the time until our stake Relief Society President came and picked him up and Cailyn was running around and getting into everything.  Brad went first and then I went so I could watch the kids while he was giving blood.  When I was about done, Cailyn came over by me and stole a role of the tape stuff they wrap your arm up with when you are done.  She took it over to Brad and he put some o her so she could be like us.  (I realize this is kind of a lame post, but I like the pictures we took so I wanted to share them.)

I Slack Therefore I Am

So after about an hour of aimless wandering on Facebook, reading up on some pals and such, i thought to my self, “don’t you have a lot of things to write about on your own blog?” and then I said to my self, “yes.”

To make a long story short, I tried to log into my blog and had forgotten the password it has been so long. it took me about 15 minutes to remember it, and now I am here writing! we’ll see how much I can get done today. I’ll try to make a bunch of posts, so it’s more interesting for everyone else that is reading.

Here we go!

It has sure been a load of fun since the last time I posted, we’ve been around the world and back (at least it feels like it.) I have been LOVING IT at my internship with W.W. Clyde, and have found that it is what I want to be doing! It’s coming up on the end of the internship, and job offers might be on their way, let’s hope so, cause I would really enjoy doing this as a career! (more will come in future posts, with details on what I actually do).

Anisha has been taking over most of the managing here at Grandview Manor, and being a mom of 3 kids (Gavin, Cailyn, and Bradley), while going to school full time and doing her summer internship 3 days a week with the Pleasant Grove Forrest Service, and Service has been what it is. She goes out and works on/manages trail crews tidying up and maintaining the many trails of Utah Co., and enjoys it, but it would be better if she got payed for it. Hopefully next summer she can do it again and will get compensated for it. My I tip my hat to her, she never ceases to amaze me with her energy, and her will to get things done, one of the many reasons I love her so dearly.

Cailyn is growing up too fast, she is the daughter of my dreams and such a delight to our family! She loves movies and singing along to any song that she hears. she is just so fun!

And Gavin is growing as well, he’s crawling, climbing, and exploring and he is just a cute kid!

So there’s the readers digest version of an update on our family, now let’s go to the details! this time we’ll try to keep up!

Cailyn Takes Flight

Well we were sitting around at my parent’s house one night and I was messing around with Cailyn and Kimball and I just started tossing her to each other.  It was the cutest thing! Cailyn was getting a kick out of it as you will see in the pictures below, and of course we were having just as much fun watching her giggle through the air.  Just one of those moments that we were glad we had a camera.

Cailyn-isms

Cailyn is Quite the little talker these days which is nice ’cause we can cut through all of the crying and get to what it is that she really wants a lot faster than before.  It’s fun seeing her develop and as a father I feel quite blessed that I have a job where I am so close to home (doing maintenance at the apartments where we live/manage) and can see my kids learn and grow almost as much as Anisha can.  Anyway along with the better communication skills comes her own little language that we kind of have to adapt to cause she can’t quite get all of the words right. We’ve made a list of a few of the “Funner” words that always bring a smile to our faces when she says them cause they are short from being perfect but they are better than perfect because she’s our little girl and we understand her.

• Peaupe - Soup (Usually said while stirring ”soup” in her toy bowls)
• Meu - Milk
• Ite - Lite
• Yap - Yup
• Sayee - Sorry
• Bok - Book
• Emmie - Emilie
• Gama - Grandma
• Eak - Eric (The guy I work with is named Eric, she really likes him)
• Tayo - Taylor (As in our friend Taylor Van Sickle she, likes him too. Every time he comes over he brings her a present).
• Pakah - Grandpa (We don’t know where that came from cause she say’s everyone else’s name just fine)
  
• I Help You - This means that she wants help, cause we always say “Can I Help You?” when she needs help, so when she needs help that’s what she says!
• I Wah Hug - I want a hug
• Wah Wah - You guest it…  Water!
• Uh Saah, Uh Saah! - Said in a singing voice to the tune of, “A Sunbeam! A Sunbeam!”  (It’s the part from “Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam”;  A Sunbeam! A Sunbeam!, I guess that’s just the catchiest part of the song that sticks out to her.)
• Iont - I Want (This comes in handy when we’re trying to figure out what she is saying cause we know she wants something)
• Omenyit - Open It (Said when she finds something she’s not supposed to and she wants it open, ie. a sleeve of oreos)
• Yaee - Candy (All she seems to be wanting, seeing and saying these days…  and she usually gets it cause we’re suckers!)

And that’s as much as we could think of now but I’m sure there will be more in the future so…  you got it… Stay tuned!!

So, we pretty much love IKEA!

We’ve been Big fans of IKEA ever since the first time we went there, it’s a grand store because it is for the most part pretty cheap, the quality of most of the furniture there could also be found at Wal-Mart or Target but the selection at IKEA is what is so cool, and also the design that they have there is more than you would find at our other Big Box Stores. All in all, we love going there, ’cause we do!

On a different, sort of connected-to-the-subject note, My parents gave us a high quality Mantle clock for Christmas and we wanted to get a fine bookcase or something to go in our living room to set it on (and to have more shelves for books and pictures).  So the day after Christmas we went to IKEA and picked out our bookcase and decided that we would come back and get it the next day after we got the Christmas tree down.

The next day came along and we called IKEA and they were sold out of the bookcase that we wanted but they said that they were getting a load in that night and they should get more of that style. We went back on Friday and sure enough they had it there.  We decided to walk through the whole store to get the IKEA experience, and to see if there was anything else we wanted.

It was a swifter walk through the IKEA maze that day cause we had been there the day before and it was just kind of a refresher.  We got to the bookcase section and found the one we had picked out and right next to it was another one that was the exact same style but bigger, and it wasn’t much more so we decided to get the bigger one.  We found some awesome little DVD rack deals that were only $4.99 so we got 3 of those for our DVDs and while walking through the lower level we found some Baskets and a shoe rack that we could put behind our door to… you guessed it, hold our shoes!

So it was a pretty fun time, we brought it all home and had an assembly party, putting all of our new purchases together.  I think that overall we’re feeling pretty dang elated about our purchases, apparently excited enough to be making an entry in the ol’ blog about it eh? Mostly we just wanted to show ya’ll how our new living room looks.  Below are some pictures for you to whoop up!

The fine Mantle Clock

The clock on our new bookcase

Our new bookcase

Our DVD Racks

The Shoe Rack (Nisha did the staining)

And the baskets, we got them to put in place of where the DVDs used to be, only there was one hold up…

The basket was a little too tall to go in the space under the entertainment center because our Ent. center is bowing in the middle so we just pulled out the Saws-all and cut out a notch so it would fit under there!

And that’s that!  Oh, and one more random thing that I got with the Home Depot gift card that my mother-in-law gave me is this fine fire-safe file.

Boy, I tell ya’ what!

We’re home now!

We came home from the hospital on Monday morning.  It is now Wednesday.  Yesterday I had to take Gavin back to the hospital to get his bilirubin levels checked again.  Well they had gone up drastically, so they had IHC deliver some bili lights to our house.  He has to stay under the lights at all times except when I feed him.  I took him back to the hospital this morning to get retested.  The level only went down 1 point.  They told us to take him back in on Friday to get him tested again.  Hopefully he’ll only have to stay under these lights for a couple more days.  He hates it.  He doesn’t sleep very good at night because of it…and I think you know what that means.  We’ll keep you posted. 

Gavin Bradley Hill

HE’S HERE!!!!  It had been a long “road da’hoe” and he was a couple weeks early, but he’s healthy as a little horse. So here’s the story:

We had been to the hospital about 4 or 5 times before thursday, just for random things such as the 3 day stay for the dehydration, then there was a night that Nisha was having some freak chest pains that subsided a little after we got to the horsepiddle, and then a couple “scares” where thy just checked Anisha, made us walk around, then sent us home… Then Thursday (the 18th) came along… Nisha started feeling some contractions that day, and was feeling like something was going to happen that night. The contractions were steady, and 3-5 mins apart and the Dr. told us to go in to the hospital when that was happening, so we did.

Upon arrival they hooked anisha up to all the monitoring machines, and watched her for an hour or so, and during that time that they had us walk for like 45 mins because her cervix hadn’t changed. Now, the Orem Community Hospital isn’t the biggest hospital in the world so it get’s really old really quick walking in circles around the nursery and walking to the end of halls and turning around.After we were done walking they checked her and she had only changed to about a 4.5cm from the 4cm that she was at when we first got there, so they gave her some morphine to help ease the pains of her contractions and they sent us home, because she wasn’t far enough along for the Dr. to break her water. Yet another disappointing time where we got our hopes all up and came home with no baby. That gets pretty discouraging after the second or third time of having to do that, But we went home, both Anisha and I were able to rest that night which was well needed for us.

The next morning (Friday), Anisha was sure that it was “the day” because of the way she was feeling, it was mostly because the contractions were still steady, and she was just ‘feeling it.’ So she took me to school and I went to class and then went and took a test, meanwhile Anisha took Cailyn to my mom’s house, and went to the Rec. center and walked around on the track. She walked like 4 miles (slowly) on the track, and did 2 miles on the stair glider machine, then came and picked me up from school. I went out to work for a while on some apartments.

When I came home, Anisha said that she wanted to go to the hospital at 6 to (hopefully) have the baby, because her contractions were really picking up and starting to hurt real bad, she said that she was feeling different than she had felt before about it all. So 6:00 rolled around and we took off to the hospital and you could just feel the excitement in the air.  So many things were going through out heads, and this time we felt it was really it!! The nurses got her all hooked up to the monitors and they checked her, and she was still at a 4.5cm AAAAHHHHH!!! Noting had changed!!!! So our hopes and dreams seemed to have been bashed in with a baseball bat.  

Nisha’s contractions were really starting to hurt her, and the nurse said that it was probably all of the walking that she did that day that was making her have these contractions, and that there was a possibility that she wasn’t even close to being in active labor. They asked if we wanted to stay there for the hour so they could monitor her to see if things would change, we agreed and so we stayed a while, and then Nisha just wanted to go home. The nurse came and checked her and still noting had changed except that the contractions had gotten more painful, so they gave her another dose of morphine to help numb the contractions, And once again we headed home. This time feeling more distraught and discouraged than ever before. 

We decided to just leave Cailyn at her Grandma & Grandpa’s house for the night. We got in bed and tried to get some sleep but it didn’t seem that the morphine was even working this time. Anisha’s contractions started going about every 2 mins and on a pain scale of 1 to 10 she said they were about 12’s to 15’s. We waited about an hour just to see if they would let up, but they just seemed to get more and more intense.

So at about 10:30 I called the hospital back and talked to the nurse that had just sent us home, and told her that things were just getting worse and that Anisha couldn’t hardly bear the contractions and she said to come back in. Anisha told me that I would have to drive fast, and I told her that I could handle that, so at about 11:00 we hauled down State Street, and we pulled up at the hospital and they took Anisha in on a wheel chair cause she was kind of immobilized and having really intense contractions.The nurses got her all hooked up to the monitors (deja-vú) and checked her and she was at a 6!!! HOORAY!!!!!!!

This time they called Dr. Young for him to come to the hospital, because things were happening! They started to prep Nisha for labor, they put us in this awesome (huge) room, and the anesthesiologist came in and started Nisha’s Epidural. After he was done starting that, they came and checked her again and she had progressed to an 8!! Then within 45 mins she was at a 10 and ready to deliver, and her labor lasted about 45 more minutes and we had our little Gavin! Anisha did so awesome! Right after Gavin was delivered I looked at Nisha and she didn’t even look like she had just delivered a baby, she didn’t look the least bit flustered, just a little tired (she was beautiful)!

It was amazing how fast things went after we arrived at the hospital, I guess when you’re ready, you’re ready! No sooner, No Later! It seemed like the contractions she was having at home before we came were worse than the actual delivery at the hospital!

It’s hard to believe that we have another child and that he’s already here, it seems so unreal. It hasn’t all completely sunk in yet, we think it will probably take a while for it to become a reality, if you know what i’m saying.

Like I said in the beginning, it’s had been a long “road da’hoe” but it was all worth it! He is Healthy! Born 20-Oct-2007 at 3:24 a.m., 6 lbs. 14 oz. and 20 inches! the first 15 hours of life for him have been mostly sleeping, he’s opened his eyes and he just looks around with a real serious look on his face, but he’s as cute as a bug in a rug and we’re dang excited to have him in our family! Stay tuned…

Have You Heard? We’ve Been Taking Dance Classes!!

Click on one of the pictures to see us in action!

An Unexpected Trip To The Hospital

Tuesday night, (September 18th) I wasn’t doing so hot and I had never felt like this before. That night was worse than my whole pregnancy with Cailyn. (FYI- I threw up every day throughout the entire pregnancy with her…it was miserable).  So we called the after hours nurse and they told us to go to Labor and Delivery. We got Cailyn in her pj’s and dropped her off at Grandma and Grandpa Hills and went to the hospital. They got me hooked up to an IV and made me do a urine sample. We found out that because I hadn’t been able to keep even liquids down that I was severely dehydrated. Low and behold, the dehydration put me into labor. They checked my cervix and I was at a 2. They put me on this medicine called Nifedipine, which is supposed to help stop labor. They also gave me a steroid that is supposed to help the babies lungs develop quicker, just in case I continued to go further into labor. Because I was at a 2 they wanted to monitor me and the baby longer so they admitted me. In the morning my doctor came in and talked to me. He said that if when he came back later that night if I hadn’t dilated more then I could go home that night. Well he came back around 8pm…and I was a t a 3, so of course he told me I had to stay until Thursday and if when he checked me that night if I hadn’t progressed any further I could go home. So Thursday night rolls around and I am pretty much sick of the hospital. It was really weird, because the last time I was in the hospital was when I had Cailyn and it was much better because I actually had to baby to hold and love. Being on the maternity floor and hearing all those precious new babies crying all day and not having one of your own gets to you after awhile. Also I couldn’t really leave my room. I was only supposed to get up to go to the bathroom and there are only so many things on the walls to look at. By the time Thursday night came I was just hoping and praying that I could go home. My doctor came in around 7:30 and checked my cervix. I was so happy when he told me I hadn’t changed any. The only thing that was hard to hear him say was that I had to go home on bed rest. I am not the bed rest type of person, so that kind of put a damper on my happiness. Anyway, so there you have it. Here are some pictures of Cailyn and I eating some lunch one of the days.  I missed her, so I made Brad go and get her and bring her to see me, so that was a highlight of my day. 

3 Knees?

Today we went to the Dr.’s office and had a ultrasound of the baby.  This was the day that we were set to find out what we are having, so we went pretty dang excited.  When we were walking in to the Dr.’s office i asked Anisha what she thought it was going to be, and she said that she didn’t know anymore, that she had been thinking a boy, but that that morning she thought it could be a girl too, but she just didn’t know any more.  When we got there, we realized that we had forgotten a video tape so they could record it for us, but luckily they had some there for sale, so we bought one.

During the ultrasound, they took some measurements of the femur and the head, and the belly, then i thought I saw something…  Just then the Dr. said, “there is a great shot between the legs.”  she paused it, printed that shot for us, and wrote the word “BOY!!” on the screen!!  Ha Ha! We ‘re having a boy!

I was am so dang excited, now I’ll be able to go out and buy pocket knives and flashlights and other assundrous ”guy stuff” with my son!  I thought it was cute today my M-I-L came over and Anisha was watching the ultrasound video with her, and Anisha said to her “I  knew it was going to be a boy!” and I heard it from the other room and I said “That’s not what you told me this morning!”  haha

No, but really this pregnancy has been totally different so far. With Cailyn, Anisha was sick practically the whole time, and was always feeling nauseous and such, but this time around she has felt great! (as great as pregnancy can feel I guess)  also with Anisha’s sister it was the same way, felt sick the whole time with the first and it was a girl, felt great with the second and it was a boy, so maybe there is some rhyme or reason to that eh?

But we are tickled pink (or blue) with joy!  Anisha is due on November 6th so she is about 21 weeks and 2 days along (at least that’s what the ultrasound computer said from the measurements). I have included a picture here on this post, but there are more on my Photo’s Page so check them out, I may even get the ultrasound movie up there.