On the move

Well Ally is 8 months old now and she doesn't sit still for long anymore. It's crazy how one day she is perfectly happy sitting and playing with her toys and the next she is crawling and trying to stand up everywhere. We have also moved on to the lovely stage of her putting everything in her mouth. Luckily she has not swallowed anything bad (that we know of!) but some of the stuff that has gone in has been pretty gross. One incident was particularly bad and Brandon told me I was not to write about it on the blog. Sorry for the tease!! She now has 4 teeth and weighs around 18 pounds. She is getting bigger everyday it seems in turn our love for her grows each day. The boys still adore her although she is not always as willing to return the affection to them. Here some pics from the last week of Ally.

Now when I go to get her this is what I see!
Everybody smile!!
This was her Easter dress

Enough with the pic's she was ready to go.
One day she found the stairs but hasn't been back since.

She looks so small in this chair.
I was putting away groceries and this is were I found her.

And the winner is........

I have won the award for worst mother of the year. I took Jax to the doctor because he had some bumps on his skin that have been there for several weeks. For those who know Jax his skin is horrible because of his eczema so the bumps were not that surprising to begin with. Anyway I took him in the the good news was the bumps turned out to be nothing and the doctor said they will go away on there own. Then the doctor proceeded to tell me that Jax had two raging ear infections. He couldn't believe how bad his ears looked and he looked straight at me and said " Hasn't he been complaining about his ears hurting." I wish he would have because I wouldn't have looked so dumb!!! Not only does he have double ear infections his lungs sounded wheezy so Jax has had to have two breathing treatments a day for the last few days. I think the doctor lost all confidence in my ability to know when my child is sick so we have to go back in two weeks just to make sure the ear infections are gone.

As if that was not bad enough to add insult to injury we went to pick up his medicine and the medicine for his ears cost $50 and that with insurance!!! Let's just say it was not a good day!!!!

Fun times with our family

Well it's been a while since I posted so now I have to catch up. My sister and her family came out to stay with us for a week at the end of March so off we went to show them the sights of Colorado Springs. Unfortunately we didn't have the best weather and it was snowing the first day they were here so we headed off to Focus on the Family. Not only is it free but it is also inside so it was a win win for us. I even discovered two new rooms there that I never knew existed before. First there is a room just for the little ones to crawl around and play which was great for my sister's little one and for Ally. Also there is a secret door that takes you into the Chronicles of Narnia. The boys and there cousin T.J. thought that was really cool.

Dylan, T.J. and Uncle Tim
Jax, T.J. and Dylan
The boys in the puppet room
Ally in the new room I found
Jax, Ally and Dylan

The next day was much nicer and we were off the the Butterfly Pavilion in Denver. My boys love this place. I wish it was closer. If you haven't been you have to go. The have a room full of bugs(who doesn't love bugs?) and then a huge atrium with hundreds of butterfly's flying around. Of course you can't go there without holding Rosie the tarantula!!

Yup, that's my hand.



We got more snow so off we went to Chuckie Cheese for the kids to run around.

Ski ball fun for boys of all ages!

A little brotherly competition

Of course we couldn't let them leave without going to the zoo. It is one of our favorite places and much better than the zoo in AZ. This was Ally's first time to the zoo but definitely not her last.

We had a great week and were sad to see our family leave. We miss everyone in AZ and the invitation is always open for our family and friends to come see us!! We miss you.

Spring Break fun for $10 or less a day

One week down and one to go. Overall we had a pretty good week. We did not have any plans to go out of town so I knew I had to keep the boys busy doing fun things around town. I started out the week with a plan to do something fun each day. Bad weather at the end of the week made us change the plans a little but overall I think the boys had a fun week.

Monday- My friend was nice enough to watch baby for me so the boys and I could go have some fun. We went to the dollar show ( really it cost's 1.50) and saw Bolt. The movie was actually pretty cute. After that we went the library and then we stopped at Qdoba for lunch. Total spent $18. This was our splurge day as you will see.

Tuesday- Skate City here we come!!! Little did I know how popular Skate City was going to be. When we arrived there was a line all the way out to the parking lot. Once we finally got inside the boys had a lot of fun. After a couple of hours of skating we left and stopped at McDonald's on the way home for french fries and ice cream cones. There is a red box right outside so we picked up Madagascar 2 to watch when we got home. Thanks to the boys school we had coupons to skate for free and only had to pay 1.50 for skate rental for Dylan. Total spent $ 7.

Dylan helping his friend skate.

Wednesday- Off to Denver we go. We have a membership to the Museum of Nature and Science in Denver so that was our destination. We happened to have some guest pass so our friends were able to come with us for free. We spent most of the day there and the boys had a blast. On the way home we dropped of the movie we rented the day before and picked up a new one for Thursday. Jax got to pick and his choice was Beverly Hills Chihuahua. Total spent $1

Let's have some fun.

Playing with moon sand.
Jaxon making blue goop.

Thursday- The weatherman was calling for a blizzard so we went to Target early in the morning to pick up a few essentials. That included food for baby,Dr Pepper for me, Root beer for the boys and Mac and cheese for lunch! The boys had some friends over to watch Beverly Hills Chihuahua and we watched the storm roll in. Total spent $ 0

We took this picture about 3 p.m.

This is our backyard a little while later.

Friday- The storm wasn't quite has bad as I thought it would be but it did leave enough snow for the boys to play in. Surprisingly the spent most of the day outside playing together. Total spent $0

Watch out here comes a snow ball!

The jeep wasn't going anywhere.
Taking a break in the sun.

My sister and her family are coming tomorrow and will be here all of the next week. The boys are really excited to play with their cousins and I have lots of fun things planned.

One a different note Ally is almost 7 months old. We got lucky for the first 6 months and she escaped without getting any of the colds going around. Our luck came to an end when she came down with bronchitis. She was pretty sick for about ten days but thankfully she is back to normal now. She loves to sit and watch her brothers play. She has her two bottom teeth and her two top teething are coming in. This has meant some sleepless night this week as she is in some pain. We finally got smart and started giving her Tylenol the last couple of nights. I hope they come in soon. Here are some recent pics.

Our sweet baby girl.

Whose a big girl now?

No more laying down now, it's sitting up or nothing.

Catching up in February

Febraury was another busy month in our home, between dodging the illnesses that our friends and their kids had to losing every basketball game that we played this month it was interesting. Allyson is getting bigger and bigger every month, I am cherishing her being a baby and the love the smiles that she has for me every day when I come home from work. Allyson started eating fruits and vegetables last week and Sommar has advised me to never feed her a whole container of peas in one sitting again. I guess you live and learn. Her first tooth is starting to come in, I tried to get a picture last night but she was not very helpful in letting me hold her mouth open, her tongue down and take a picture. She is also getting close to scooting a little, she has the belly pivot down well and seems ready to start on her superman exercises. The boys are great, Dylan was a square dancer in his school play last night and he seemed to have lots of fun. Jaxon is becoming more and more like me everyday and I am not quite sure how to deal with that, he is going to cause us heaps of trouble. The boys start soccer next month so our weeks will be even busier again with twice a week practice and Saturday games so we will look forward to the next few free Saturdays.

Allyson ready for her Jillian work out

Allyson showing off her first solid meal.

Dylan square dancing...this is why Sommar doesn't let me take pictures

Do you remember when....

Brandon set up a new screen saver for our computer where it just picks random pictures that are saved on our computer. It has been neat to see pictures of the boys pop up from when they were little. That coupled with the fact that Ally rolled over for the first time this weekend (that will be my next blog) got me thinking about the boys when they were little. Can you remember when each of your kids rolled over, started crawling, walking or talking? It makes me sad to say that I can't. I look back now at when my two boys were little and I can remember wishing away the days of them being babies and wanting them to grow up too fast. Because they were only 13 months apart I think I was a little overwhelmed with taking care of two babies and I know I didn't enjoy them as much as I should have. I see that now that we have Ally and how much our whole family, the boys included love to just sit on the floor and play with her. She is already getting so big way to fast. I regret not taking the time to enjoy the boys as babies more and I am not making the same mistake with Ally. While the boys are at school I get to spend my whole day with her. I am enjoying all of the one on one time and I wouldn't trade it for the world. I realize now you can never get back those cute smile's that melt your heart and the quite moments of cuddling. Here are some of the cute pictures of the boys when they were little.

Jax.... I think Ally looks a lot like him
Dylan couldn't wait for Jax to get big enough to play with him
Dylan at the park
Dylan playing in the sprinklers

Dylan ready to play golf with dad
We used to call Jax our "old man"