What we've been up to in September....

The month of September has been a busy one for our family. Over the Labor Day weekend we drove down to Pleasant Grove to spend a little time with my Parents. The kids had a blast playing in Mimi's Garden and in Pop-pops studio. That Saturday we met up with Debbie Apperson and Marcie's kids to go to the Williams (Marcie's in laws) house. They have a beautiful indoor pool and a ranch/farm with cows and horses. The kids had so much fun playing in the pool and jumping off the diving board. Even our little Caitlyn wanted in on the diving board action and convinced her Pop-pop to help her jump off. After eating lunch and enjoying the pool for a bit longer we packed up and went down to see the horses and cows they have on their ranch/farm. The kids loved every minute of it and were extremely exhausted by the end of the day. Preston, Caitlyn and Jocelyn fell asleep on the way home. We spent Monday doing some bargain grocery shopping at the WinCo in Orem before heading back up to Logan to beat the Labor Day traffic rush.

Since then life has pretty much gone back to the usual schedule of school Monday -Friday with the addition of dance class for Jocelyn Tuesday nights. During the day I am chasing after/ cleaning up after my two little Tasmanian Toddlers who get into everything.

Preston turned 14months on the 11th and has been discovering how fun it is to open and climb into drawers. Good thing I took Mom Yates advice and put my Tupperware lids in the bottom drawer. He has also learned how to walk and is now walking 85-90% of the time. Needless to say our house is covered with baby gates and shut doors in the attempt of controlling what he gets into now a days. He is such a sweetheart and loves to be held and cuddled. He is also finally sleeping through the night on a regular basis!

Our little Miss Cailtyn is as wild and cute as ever. She spends most of her day in and out of different Princess dresses. If she is not dancing (aka walking around in circles) she is singing with Jocelyn's toy guitar. She has managed to semi potty train herself, however we are not completely out of diapers but plan to be soon. She makes me smile everyday and her vocabulary is getting larger and more understandable.

Ethan is doing awesome in kindergarten. He had a rough week an little while ago and didn't want me to leave him. After a few days of tears and me having to leave while his teacher held him back I decided tough love was the way to go. I sat him down and told him if he couldn't be brave and go to class like a big boy he wasn't allowed to play on the wii when he got home from school. Well sure enough after one day of no wii, I had a big brave boy going to kindergarten everyday. He has been learning how to rhyme and letter sounds in class. He loves going to Library and bringing home books for me to read each week. Here is his school picture, he told me he was a little scared.. which explains his unsure smile. I just love my Ethan bud.

Jocelyn has definitely got into the swing of things at school. She was sent home with a note about talking in class and after the usual punishment and talk, she has been very well behaved for her teacher. She loves art and music class the most. We are continuing to work with her on reading and math which are the two areas she seems to struggle with at school. I believe most of her problem lies in fact that she doesn't take her time and tries to rush though it. She recently started dance classes at a local place in Logan, she goes one day a week and does ballet, tap, jazz and tumbling for an hour. Jocelyn is such an amazing helper to me and although she can be a bit of a drama queen at times she really does have a sweet spirit. Here is her school picture for this year, cute as ever.

Dave came home last weekend after deciding that he could sell just as well here as he was in Reno. Reno and San Diego had been rough on the whole office so I was on board to have him come home and work. He has 13 more sales to go before he hits 200 sales for the year and with his 30+ roll over sales from last year he is already hit an all time career goal for himself personally. We are so grateful for how hard he works to support us. He is such an amazing man and dad, some days I don't know how I was ever so blessed to have him be my eternal companion.

October is looking like it is going to be just as crazy so I will attempt to stay more up to date and take more photos.

We're EXPECTING...

BABY #5!!

I know as crazy as it may seem "someone" had big plans for our family. We are excited and thrilled with a side of completely freaked out. I found out a little after the 4th of July while we were still in Texas and since I have an awful history with pregnancy we had several blood test run to make sure things were developing as they should. This little one gave us quite a few scares with low numbers that didn't double as they should have.

When we moved to Arkansas I made an appointment with a Women's Clinic right away to double check that everything was developing properly and find out my official due date. I don't think I have ever been so nervous in my life for an ultrasound. Turns out that worrying was for nothing...

Baby looked prefect on the ultrasound and had a nice strong heartbeat of 127bpm. So we relaxed a bit and just counted down the weeks until our move back home when I could meet with my OB up here in Logan.

A few days before we were set to drive back home I was starting to feeling pretty ill, so we decided that we should probably tell family but I was still feeling insecure about the viability of this pregnancy so I booked an ultrasound at a place we would pass on the way home. Everything looked great and baby had a nice strong heartbeat so we felt confident telling family. That worked out nicely because Mom & Dad Yates and my Mom were at our house for dinner that night. We broke the news by casually placing the ultrasound pictures in with some brochures of things we had done while visiting Arkansas.

A couple more weeks went by and I was finally able to get in to see my OB. First thing we did was an ultrasound to find out my official due date: MARCH 17th , 2012 (St. Patrick's Day) and make sure everything looked good. Baby had a nice strong heartbeat of 178bpm and was wiggling all around. We went over our game plan as far as meds go and nausea management and that was it.

I will be 16 weeks tomorrow (Saturday) and feel pretty good. Still pretty tired but the nausea is gone. I have felt a few flutters of baby but nothing regular, so I am anxiously awaiting that stage. I meet with my OB again on the 13th of October and will be scheduling my 20week scan for some time the end of October. I am excited and anxious to see baby again and make sure everything looks good. We are still unsure when I will start the 17P shots but I am sure it won't be too far off as even now I have been experiencing some cramping and Braxton Hicks contractions. I will update you as we go but as we sit now we fully expect to meet this one somewhere between February 11th and the end of February... hopefully long but doubtful.

Ethan's First Day of Kindergarten!!

My little man is getting so big... He started kindergarten on Tuesday. I think I was more nervous than him, worrying about if he would have fun and make friends. Well, I was worried for no reason at all as he had a blast. He was so excited about being able to play on the "BIG" playground. His teacher is very nice and I think she will be great at dealing with his sensitive days. Here is a picture of him outside his classroom, he was very excited that his teacher decorated with happy monsters (he loves happy monsters).

First Day of School for Jocelyn

Can you believe it is that time of year again... YAY school !! This year Jocelyn started the second grade. She was really excited because several of her friends from first grade are in her class. We went to back to school night the night before and saw her teacher and classroom. She found her desk and all the fun books she will get to read this year. We walked to school and I told her I would pick her up after as Ethan had his Kindergarten Assessment right before school was out.

Here is my Little Princess all ready for school.

UPDATE: She had a great first day. She likes her teacher and had tons of fun playing with friends at recess. She also went to art which is one of her favorite subjects so that was just icing on the cake.

Ethan starts Kindergarten on the 30th, can't wait for him. He is going to love it!

H O M E !!!

GOOD BYE !!!

Naturally it seems that when you are getting ready to pack up and leave for a long trip something always goes wrong... for us it was Misha needing staples in her paw a few days before and then Ethan coming down with a random bug the day before. No worries though we were prepared and brought along a puke bucket; No, honestly he was feeling much better the day we packed up the Suburban. We tried to be more strategic this time and left Saturday night when Dave got off work so that we could drive a few hours and our kids could possibly sleep. It worked for the most part we drove from Little Rock, AR to Oklahoma City, OK which was about a 5 hr drive so we got into our "oh, so fabulous" room at around 2am. We had a interesting nights sleep with children who had received their second wind, and woke up the next morning at around 8am.

Day 2 was a doozie, we planned to drive from Oklahoma City, OK to Moab, UT making for one long day and a couple short days. The thought process was it would be easier on the kids; I think it was in the end. Anyways it was a very long Sunday but the kids and the dog were great. We arrived in Moab around 11am MT and being the genius I am did not schedule a room as I thought "honestly, how busy can Moab be on a Sunday night". Major flawed thinking on my part... after 5 hotels shutting us down either for no vacancy or no pets we decided to bite the bullet and go to the pricier hotels. Luckily, we got a great room on our first try. We stayed at the Comfort Inn and surprisingly the price wasn't hideous. They had amazing beds and after a long day of traveling we all just laid in bed and unwound before turning out the lights.

HELLO!!

Day3 was awesome because we were literally only 5 hours from home so we got up and everyone showered, grabbed a quick bite from the free continetal breakfast and we were off. On the way home we made a few necessary stops before arriving in Nibley at around 2pm. Now that's the time of day to get home. Dave's parents came over to visit with us and brought us dinner which was so yummy and so thoughtful as cooking was the last thing on my mind. My mom also showed up a little later to get in her much needed grand baby fix and help me out for the week. After everything winded down we attempted to get to be early as Dave had to catch his plane back to Arkansas the next morning at 5:30am.

We are so glad to be home but so grateful for the wonderful summer we had to spend together as a complete family. Now we are just cheering Dave on to reach his Goals and hopefully come home the end of September.

Trip to Missouri

Since we were within a few hours of my family in Missouri it seemed a bit ridiculous not to drive up and visit, the last time we were there Jocelyn had just turned 1 yrs old. We planned a fun family Sunday with Aunt Patty & Uncle Tim, Grandpa Thomas & Kathy, Aunt Alicia, Brandon and his kiddos,and Breanna and her family. The Mabe family are the Owners of the First Show on Branson, The Baldknobbers. Its a great show and I am so bummed that we didn't have enough time to go and see it, especailly now that tons of my family preform in it. Next time for sure.

Our drive up was great and it was so fun to drive through such familiar areas. We got to my Aunt Patty's around noon. We visited for awhile and enjoyed some lunch with them. My Cousins kids and are kids got along famously and had a blast playing and tearing up my Aunt's house. Around 3ish we said our goodbyes as we wanted to take the kids to see some sites in Missouri.

We drove down towards the Branson area and took the kids to the Talking Rocks Caverns. I remember going to these caves when I was younger and thought it would be fun for the kids. Other than being a little nervous about the height on the way down into the cave Jocelyn enjoyed it. Ethan was in little boy heaven and thought everything was just the coolest thing he had ever seen. Caitlyn did not enjoy being held by daddy the entire time but did seem to enjoy the atmosphere and Preston was just along for the free ride. After the caves our kiddos were completely done so we hopped into the car and headed home.

Other than a few whines and complaints about the long drive it was a wonderful day spent enjoying the area and spending time with family.

Jocelyn turns 7 years old

Usually for birthdays I am completely on top of things and make sure there are plenty of batteries in the camera for pictures. This time I dropped the ball big time, not only did I not have any batteries for the camera but my phone wasn't even charged up so I only managed a few less than fabulous pictures.. so my apologies.

Since Jo was away from the majority of her friends for her birthday we wanted her to extra special. We all got up super early and went to IHOP which is becoming a birthday tradition amongst our kids. In a fun coincidence our good friends the Connellys just happen to be going out to breakfast too so Jo got to eat with her friend Ali. After a yummy breakfast we took Jo to Walmart so she could go pick out her present from daddy. We spent the rest of the day playing at the pool and hanging out with friends.

Again, just like Preston we planned a birthday party for her on Sunday so that Daddy could be there to celebrate. Sunday was a blast we had cake and ice cream. The kids played freeze dance, hot & cold, and a few other games they made up. Jocelyn was completely spoiled by friends yet again and had a wonderful birthday.

It seems so crazy to me that she is now 7 years old, she is such a wonderful big sister and is an amazing helper. She amazes me each day by how much she is growing up and becoming such a beautiful young lady. Her favorite things are barbies and playing mommy. She loves strawberry milk, hard boiled eggs and chips & salsa. She is reading like a champ and getting very good at math. We are so grateful that she came into our lives!

My Baby Turned 1!!

So my itty bitty baby turned one years old. I swear each time the first year goes by so much faster. Since Preston's birthday fell on a Wednesday we had a small family celebration minus Dave and then planned a big one for the following Sunday. Preston was in a great mood and super excited to try his hand at a cupcake for the first time. As you can tell from the pics he wasn't to sure about it, but ended up loving it. He is a joy in our life. The kids adore him and he makes me smile everyday. He hasn't really developed any new tricks other than he has ditched baby food and formula and now eats what we eat and drinks milk. Still working on vocabulary and walking but he is doing great!

So we had a Family & Friends birthday party for Preston on Sunday and I pretty much forgot all about pictures. I am sorry we had fun hanging out with our friends and getting the kids all sugared up. Preston received some great gifts from our friends. He really loved the walker the Force's bought him. We got awesome video of his first test run with it.