Goodbye Grandma Brown

Jeremy's Grandma Brown passed away on June 11th. She had gradually been getting sicker and her body just finally decided that it was done. She was almost 84 years old. Although it has been sad to let her go, I know she is in a much better place and having some very wonderful reunions. We will miss you Ruth.

My Front Yard in bloom!!!

Last Fall I planted 125 tulip bulbs and most of them bloomed this Spring. I love how good my front yard finally looks. Thanks Jeremy for all your hard work

Welcome 2010

The first few months of 2010 have been pretty uneventful and that is ok by me. It has snowed alot and been very cold. Megan is now obsessed with school and keeps asking when she gets to go. Thankfully at the end of January we registered her for preschool and she is so excited and can't wait. She will be going to the same preschool that Andrew went to and constantly talks about how fun Mrs. Jamie's class will be. I am excited to watch her get excited about learning.

Our New Front Yard

Here is the new grass and the new flower bed. Isn't my husband such a hard worker!!! Thanks babe you rock!!

A Quick Update

Well in 2009 I pretty much sucked at keeping up with my blog. So here is a quick update. Andrew is now in kindergarten and loving his school, his teacher and his class. I can't believe he will be 6 years old in just over 4 months. He is becoming such a little man. Megan is almost 3 and is as sassy and bossy as ever. We have recently redone her room so it looks like a little girls room and not a baby room. I have to say that I am pretty proud of myself at how well it turned out. Jeremy is still at the same job and for the most part enjoying it. If you have ever worked retail then you know how you have those days when you think every weirdo or brain dead person came in and talked to you that day. He comes home with some very interesting stories sometimes. I still work at the hospital and cannot believe it has been almost a year since I started there. I love the people who I work with and really enjoy going to work. The only difficult thing about my job is the hours. I work 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. so needless to say I am tired most of the time, but day care is so dang expensive that right now this is what I have to do. Life has been treating us well this year. We finally got our front yard finished and I finally got to plant flowers. I probably went a little overboard ( is 125 too many) with the tulip bulbs, but I'm of the thinking you can never have too many tulips. Tracy would be proud. I can't believe it is already 2010. Time sure does fly whether you are having fun or not. We have truly been blessed this year and hope that 2010 brings more memories, joys and blessings. I am going to try to be better at keeping this thing updated. Hope all who reads this are healthy and happy and that your 2010 will be wonderful.

Life's Not Fair!!!

So I'm sitting at work and decided to do a quick update. Yes it is 3:45am and I am at work. At this point will do anything to keep myself awake. Life is going good lately. Andrew will be 5 in a couple of days and I can hardly believe it. I have learned first hand lately that god created ears not for use, but for decorations. I swear that sometime around the age of 2 they turn their ears off for good. Another lesson I have learned lately is that life really is now fair. Between a few experiences at work and learning recently that a dear friend of mine has stomach cancer and it does not look good, this fact has been made crystal clear to me. I have really been struggling with the fact that our Heavenly Fathers plan doesn't always work the way we think it should, but I do know deep down in my heart that this is the way he wants it to be and we need to have faith in him that it will all work out for the best. Boy, I tell you what, this faith thing can sure be hard at times. I do know for sure though that I am just so grateful to know that my Heavenly Father has made is possible for me to be with these family members and friends once again. I guess at this point all I can do is pray for my friend and hope she and her family are comforted by the love and support from all the people they have around them.

What has been up with us lately?

Well I just wanted to post a quick note to let you all know what is going on in our lives right now. I started my new job about 6 weeks ago and I am loving it. I work as a C.N.A. at McKay-Dee Hospital from 5pm-5am 3 days a week. My co-workers are wonderful and have taken me under their wing to help me feel like I belong and that I am doing a good job. It is nice to finally work with nurses who will help me out and not feel like they are a nurse so they shouldn't have to do C.N.A. work. The rest of my time is spent being a busy mom. Jeremy is also doing great. He still works at the Automotive service center and is so grateful he has a boss who appreciates him and all the hard work he does. His Harley motorcycle is finally fixed and so needless to say we don't see much of him after work these days. I don't mind much though because this has been a long time coming and I am excited he has his "baby" back in working condition. He is also becoming quite the Mr. Mom these days. With me having to be at work by 5pm he makes dinner at least three nights a week, baths the kids, and gets them to bed. I am so lucky to have a husband who takes his fatherly responsibilities so serious and is such a great dad. Thanks a ton honey!!! Andrew is growing like a weed and is loving school. A couple of weeks ago we went to the elementary school for Kindergarten Orientation. He got to meet the teachers, see the classrooms, & meet some of the kids he will be going to school with. I can hardly believe that my little boy will be 5 in a few weeks & starting Kindergarten this coming fall. Yesterday we went to see his doctor to get all of his pre-Kindergarten stuff done. He was so brave and didn't even cry when he had to get 4 shots. According to his doctor he is 99% for height & 90% for weight. The doctor estimates he will be around 6'5" when he is older. He is definitely all boy these days. He spends most of his free time playing outside, riding his skateboard or bike, playing with his cars, or wrestling with anyone who is remotely interested. More often than not that person is his little sister and she only finds this amusing for about 30 seconds and then proceeds to boss him around, but he is a great big brother and he loves his sister to pieces. Megan is our little princess and for some odd reason I can't figure out where she got her bossiness from. Ha Ha Ha!!! She is all about anything that is pink and frilly. Her favorite thing to wear lately is her princess dress, pink sun glasses, tiara, her purse with her keys and phone in it, & pushing her baby around in a Disney Princess stroller. I must say she does look adorable with it all on. I think she thinks she is a little mommy in training. It has been nice to have some one on one time with her while Andrew is at school on Tuesday & Thursday mornings. It is fun to see her come into her personality and discover so many things about the world around her. She seems to change daily and it kind of make me sad to think it is all happening so fast. She also saw the doctor yesterday and she is getting so big so fast. She is 90% for height & 70% for weight. The doctor estimated she will probably be around 5'11" when she is older. Hopefully she got her dads tall skinny jeans. She just turned 2 and I can't hardly believe it. Where did my baby go? So as you can see all is going well. Busy, but well. We are all healthy and happy and after all isn't that is what is most important? I am going to try to be better about posting regularly so lets all keep our fingers crossed that I can accomplish this.

Valentine's Day Madness

Well everyone is finally feeling better and now I can relax and finally breath after Valentine's Day madness at the flower shop. So I still haven't been working much at my CNA job, so thankfully the flower shop I used to work for needed my help for Valentine's Day. I was nice to work for a change and my kids were so good to go with the flow and behave for whoever was taking care of them. So now that we are back to normal life I hope I will be able to get some hours back from my CNA job and not have to stress about finances so much. I know that no matter how little or how much money we have that we are truly blessed and that we have everything we really need in life and that is all that matters. I hope you all had a great Valentin's & Presidents Days.

My Week of Sickness

So I am trying to get in the habit of blogging at least once a week. This week has literally been a week of sickness. It started out with last Sunday. I was getting the kids ready for church and Megan would not eat her breakfast and all she did was sit in her highchair and cry uncontrollably. I asked her what was wrong and she said "ouchy" So I said what hurts and she shoved her fingers in her ears and said " ouchy" again and also her eyes were really red. Poor thing. So I took Andrew to church and Jeremy took Megan to the doctors and sure enough she had a double ear infection and some kind of an eye infection. Has anyone tried to put eye drops in the eyes of a 20 month old. Might I say not easy at all. By Tuesday she was feeling better, but now I was sick with the crappy cold stuff that is going around. I must say it was nice that I only worked Friday this week. So by Friday night I was starting to feel better, but by Saturday night Jeremy was saying he was not feeling well and by last night he felt like complete crap. Hopefully Andrew won't get this, but I won't hold my breath. So as you can see it has really been a week of sickness at our house. Despite not feeling 100% we did go to a friends house on Saturday night to watch the UFC fights. Yes, I like to watch UFC. Then last night we went to my sister Allison's house to watch the Superbowl. I just hope this next week is better.

The Rest Of Our Crazy Year

So here is the other half my my update post so bear with me while I catch you up. To start out I got a church calling, I teach CTR 6 & CTR 7 combined, but I only have 7 kids so it is not too bad and I am loving it. I decided it was time to start going to church on a regular basis. Andrew gave me the final push I needed when he ask if we could go to church with McCall one Sunday & he liked it so much that he asked to go back the next week so we started going to our ward every week. Halloween was a ton of fun this year As family we went with Andrew's Class on his field trip to pick pumpkins. Megan had learned to say "treat" so she knew when she said treat she got a treat, so needless to say she walked around for weeks before and weeks after saying "treat" November was a huge deal at our house because after over a year Jeremy's bike was finally finished being rebuilt from the frame up. Needless to say that was most of his early Christmas present. Way to go Hon I knew you could do it!!!! Thanksgiving was nice and fairly quiet. Just family dinner at Jeremy's parents. My parents figured since most of us were not going to be around for Thanksgiving for one reason or another that they would go to St. George for the long weekend, so Not a lot of running around. December was one crazy month. With me working graveyard shifts(10pm-6am), trying to get Christmas decorations up, Christmas parties, Christmas programs, and Just every day life I was more ready for some relaxing time by the time Christmas rolled around. Santa brought the kids some fun stuff and they have really enjoyed playing with everything. Andrew got a train table, light sabers, a skate board, clothes and a few other little things. Megan got a shopping cart, baby Marissa, kitchen with all the fun dishes and food, A cabinet I restored from my Grandpa & Grandma garage, clothes, & a few smaller things. I think Jeremy's favorite part of the day was the breakfast. I made Biscuits, Sausage gravy & eggs. So all in all it was a fun & relaxing Christmas. New Year's was fairly quiet & un-eventful. So far January has also been un-eventful with the exception of my hours at work getting cut to pretty much nothing, but I am hoping & praying I will have all my hours back for the February schedule. I hope & pray that you all had a great 2008 and that 2009 will be just as good if not better. The slide show in the right column has pictures of our summer, Halloween, Jeremy's bike & the holidays so enjoy!!!! (you probably need to mute the music player to hear the slide show songs)

Some Of Our Crazy Year

Well I know it has been such a long time since I last posted so I thought I would do one big post that will bring everything up to speed. Also I thought since I really don't do a family Christmas letter that people could read my blog and know how our family is doing. So I will apologize if the next couple posts are long. Well our summer was fun filled with lots of trips to Lagoon (Thank you Grandpa & Grandma Brown for the season passes for our birthdays. We loved them), a few trips to Cherry Hill with cousins & aunts, weekly movies at Newgate Mall for the summer movie club, a trip to St. George to see Papa & Nana's new condo they bought, Swimming in our back yard with friends & in Grandma Brown's pool, lots of fishing(Megan really loved the worms), and lots of cooking s'mores over the fire pit in the back yard. (Just to name a few things we did this summer) You can see a bunch of pictures that show it all. We got home from our St. George trip the night before Andrew started another year of pre-school at Kidz Learning Garden pre-school. His teacher this year is Miss Jamie and he loves her and gets excited for Tuesdays & Thursdays to come so he can go to school. I must say that it has been nice to have him gone for 3 hours for 2 days a week. It has given me some much needed fun alone time with Megan. I can't believe how big she is getting it seems like only yesterday she was born. She is talking nonstop and is doing real well in pronouncing alot of her words, although she seems to like to start many word with the letter S. ( like shone for phone & shoon for spoon well you get the idea) I Started a new job in September at a care center by my house as a CNA. I still work at the flower shop when they need help for big events or holidays. The new job is not all I was expecting, but it is nice to be working back in the medical field again. My goal is to hopefully get nursing school done so I can work full time and carry our benefits(the price of premiums through Jeremy's work is killing us). Jeremy is still working at the tire center and he couldn't ask for a better boss. BJ is so honest, kind & generous that Jeremy can really see himself working for him for a very long time to come. Well that's all for now I will post about the holidays later.

Our Garden is out of control!!

Well we got brave and Jeremy built 3 big garden boxes in our backyard this spring. Each on is about 15 ft X 6 ft. We planted tomatoes in 1, cucumbers & peppers in 1, squash and pumpkins in 1. Well as you can see we have had veggies coming out of our ears. This picture is what I picked the other day in one 30 minute picking. Yikes!!! Well it has been a great learning experience and now I know what to do differently next year.

Our Busy life

Well it has been a busy week in our lives. We found out that my older sister Charlotte is having twins. I am so excited for their family to be getting not only one new blessing, but two new blessings. It was also nice that yesterday we got to spend some fun time at the park in Riverton with my cousin Becky, her family, my cousin Debbie & her family. Becky came in from Nebraska for a wedding so we used it as an opportunity to get together and see each other since we don't get to see each other all that often. All the kids played and wore themselves out, but that didn't mean they slept on the way home. The ride home was time for Andrew & McCall to fight over who was the red power ranger. I just love kids imaginations. Well sorry about getting away from my story. It was so nice to just be able to sit and visit and catch up on each others lives and going ons. We took a picnic lunch and lots of junk munchies to eat so I had a major sugar headache by the time I got home. Needless to say by bed time both my kids were asleep in no time. I should run them ragged more often!!! LOL!! Then there is my crazy busy work schedule lately and my poor kids have been passed around from place to place for weeks. Thankfully this should be the last week of #@$% for awhile at my job. Then the chaos of school begins, but that is another post all together. Well sorry for the ramblings, but I had to get this all down while it was fresh in my mind because anyone who knows me well knows that things don't stay in my brain for long. Blame it on age, kids or just me who knows. Everyone keep in touch.