Life....

Life is busy, but life is fun!

After a short month, Darrin is back in school for Fall Semester (one more semester and he will be done!) He is gone a lot with either school, work, or clinicals and when he is home he usually has a lot of homework to do. It gets hard but it will be worth it come April!!

Isaac is in 1st grade and loving school. He sure loves to learn and to understand why things are the way they are. Sometimes we just have to tell him we will google it because we don't know much about what he wants to know. He loves science, outer space, weather, geology... He chose to be a mad scientist for Halloween this year, I think it fits him well! :) Every month for school the kids are suppose to read at least 400 minutes. For the month of September, Isaac read 600 minutes! The first book they sent home with him was a chapter book! Crazy! Isaac just got finished with soccer for Fall. He has been doing gymnastics this whole year and is loving it. I am going to be signing him up for a chess tournament for kids on November 3rd(the day after his bday), he is excited. He loves to play games, chess, monopoly, five crowns, anything.

Bryn is three and started preschool this year. She was a little shy at first but is enjoying being there and making new friends. She is now in dance and loves dressing up in her leotard, tights and skirt to go. She is still our sweet little princess that loves to be in dresses, which she is teaching Jordyn to love too! Last month, we signed Bryn up for gymnastics in the Developmental Team 1, which they are more strict and teach them really good technique and they gradually will move up and then start to compete when they get older. Bryn is sure a strong little chick! She has the cutest grin on her face during class. Bryn learned to ride a bike this summer with no training wheels and loves to ride at the skate park with her brother. She can have her times with attitude but she can also be the sweetest girl around.

Jordyn will be two in a month. She is the busiest child I have ever known. She sure keeps me on my toes. Jordyn likes to get into everything, all day long! :) She loves waking up and seeing her brother and sister in the morning. She will say their names and give them hugs, it is cute! Lately she has been starting to copy a lot of what Bryn or Isaac will say or do. Jordyn (well all of my kids) love the little neighbor boys around us. Jordyn sure keeps us laughing. She is a little character and will do funny random stuff all the time.

As for myself, taking care of everyone I just wrote about keeps me busy! Earlier today, I was sitting on the kitchen floor playing with Bryn and doing dumb stuff to make her laugh. As I was sitting there, I realized, that is one of my most favorite things to do is make my children laugh. I love to make people laugh and be happy but to have my children laugh is the best!  I love life, yes I sometimes am running around crazy or have to make and eat dinner within an extremely short amount of time before we have to head some place for the kids, but I wouldn't change it. I did tons of running this year, took a bit of a break and then ran a relay race this past Saturday with some great women. It was such a fun time to be able to get a break and enjoy running. I didn't train for it so I am paying for it now, but it was a blast!

I love this boy!
I have had a paper sitting around my house for the last couple of months with questions and answers from Isaac that I have wanted to put on here. I can finally throw it away once I finish this!

I couldn't ask for a better son! He loves to make sure everyone around him is happy. He loves to give hugs and kisses. His nickname for himself is I6. It changes every year with his age! Last year, he was I5 and when he turns 7, he will be I7!! He is extremely good at remembering things. He can hear a song in the car and tell me what Transformer movie it is from and what is happening during the movie while the song is playing! (I can't even do that!) He also does that with other movies. He is almost done with Kindergarten. He still loves to read and learn math. He is taking Tumbling classes and is loving it. He also took wrestling, and just got done with soccer. He loves to play chess and checkers and sure challenges us!! He is also such a great big brother!!! His sisters sure do love him!!

Now here is the  questions and answers I asked him. We did this on March 3, 2012.

My favorite food is: Tacos
My favorite sport is: Soccer, biking, and skiing
The best show on tv is: Wildkratts
The coolest person in the world is: My mom and dad
My best subject in school is: Math
I'm really awesome at: Playing games
If I could change my name, it would be: Ryan
If I could go anywhere in the world, I would go to: Oceanside, Ca
My favorite color is: Green
When I grow up I want to be: A doctor
My parents are too strict about: Watching TV
My favorite song: New Divide (off of Transformers)
3 words that describe me are: Smart, happy, kind
When I was little, I used to: Play with cars
My favorite book is: My big Transformers book
My favorite scripture story is: Noah and the Ark
My favorite primary song is: Book of Mormon Stories
My favorite season is: Winter
The best snack ever is: Rolos
The food that makes me want to barf is: Onions
My best friend is: Ryan
If I had one wish it would be: All the Transformers were real
The best thing that has happened to me this year is: I got the Ultimate Optimus Prime
One thing I want to learn to do this year: Drive a 4-wheeler
My favorite animal: Dolphins and Saber Tooth Tigers

Miss Pretty Princess!

Bryn sure acts like a "pretty princess". She loves dresses, to twirl and dance in them. She loves purses, phones, (loud) princess high heel shoes, her Minnie Mouse pajama dress, earrings, nail polish, you name it, she loves it! I have even walked into my room and she is rubbing Darrin's dresser saying it was "Sooo pretty!" She also has her little girly voice to go with it! A lot of times when she is talking to us, she will also tilt her head to one side or go back and forth! It is pretty funny!
It is fun to watch Bryn learn new things. She can sing her ABC's, she can count to 14, she knows most of her colors (red is mainly the last color she has a hard time with. She even knows black, brown, and white before red!!) Bryn still isn't 100% potty trained but we are still working on it and most days, she does really good! We finally bought her pull-ups(which are her new underwear for now,just in case she has an accident) but she loves them and rarely has an accident now.

As some of you may know, we had a scary incident with Bryn last month. On August 23rd, Bryn started to get a fever in the evening. I took her temperature and it was 102.5, high but not extreme high. I gave her tylenol and we sat on the couch watching a show on the computer. About 15 minutes after giving her meds, I looked over at her on the couch and her eyes were rolling up into her head. So I started saying her name and then I noticed she was turning blue. Scariest moment of my life. I hurried and put her on the floor, called 911, starting breathing in her mouth, yelled for Isaac to go grab the neighbor, and tried keeping Jordyn from going out the front door! It was crazy! She finally stopped turning blue when the neighbors showed up but she was still really pale and very out of it. We kept trying to get her to focus on us and keeping her awake till the paramedics came. (When you are in a scary situations like this one, it seems like the paramedics take forever to get there. They didn't come fast enough! That is how I felt!) She was doing better but the guys thought we should still get her checked in the ER so the neighbor drove us to Darrin's hospital where Darrin met us at the ER. They gave her an IV to get fluids in her and gave her meds for her fever. They figured it was some sort of febrile seizure. It was a long night but Bryn was sure a trooper. She barely cried when getting the IV put in her. And of course, she loved that they wrapped it in pink! She was very cute with all the doctors and nurses helping us. It was the scariest night of my life. When she was blue, lying on the floor not responding to me, I thought, "We can't lose our Bryn." It was very sad. I didn't know what was happening to her. I have never been around or seen someone have a seizure and thought someone always shook when they had a seizure. I see now why people are right when they say it is good not to panic when calling 911, but man is it sure hard not to panic when something like this happens. Thank goodness Bryn is perfectly fine now, we just have to watch her if she gets a fever of at least 100 degrees and start giving her meds.
(Sorry that was a long story, I wanted to tell the whole story because I am also putting this in her book.)

Bryn is such a happy little girl(except when fighting with her brother, which she can pinch pretty hard!) Bryn is also a good big sister(except when she is bugging Jordyn! haha She has her moments!) Bryn was eating breakfast this morning and of course, there was Jordyn trying to get food from her. So Bryn would take a bite of her food and then give Jordyn a bite. It was sweet!




I was thinking earlier today at how fast Bryn is growing up. It is kind of sad. She is at such a cute age.
Darrin will always ask Bryn, "Who's baby are you?" And Bryn will always reply, "Daddy's baby!"
We love our pretty girl Bryn!

Miss Wiggle Worm!

So our little miss Jordyn is the biggest wiggle worm ever! Out of all of our kids, she is the busiest of them all. Changing her diaper or clothes can be such a challenge, she just won't hold still for just one second! People will always try to hold her and once they are holding her, they comment about how much she is moving around in their arms!


It is crazy to think she is already 10 1/2 months. She learned how to really crawl at 9 1/2 months but was army crawling and rolling a lot earlier. She is always standing up to furniture or the fireplace.
She has also learned how to climb up the stairs or get onto our fireplace(which isn't good!) Earlier today, Jordyn was in the basement with the kids and I quickly ran upstairs to put a few clothes away. I then walked back into our kitchen and there Jordyn was in the dining room by the top of the stairs. That was the first time she really crawled up ALL the stairs. Thank goodness she didn't fall.

Jordyn is pretty much always happy. We always say she is such a character! She is at the age now that she can interact more when Isaac and Bryn are playing with her. Bryn and Isaac think it is funny when Jordyn is crawling down the hall trying to get them. Or when they play peek-a-boo with her. I love watching my kids all laughing together!

Jordyn now has four teeth(two on top, two on bottom) with at least two more trying to come through. She STILL sucks her two stinkin' middle fingers on her left hand. I have been trying to get her to stop but it is sooo hard. One thing that is nice about Jordyn is she is not a picky eater. She loves food and loves to eat!(You wouldn't notice that with her size. She is very petite.) Whenever she sees someone eating, she will start to grunt and get mad at you because she wants some!


Jordyn's smile and laughter brings so much happiness to our family!
We sure do love our Jordy! Or as Bryn would call her, Jordya(Jordia)!!

Swiss Cheese Chicken

This is another new and tasty dinner I tried tonight! (I got it off of Macaroni Mamas blog) And of course like always, very simple and inexpensive! To start off I would like to say I am not a huge fan of swiss cheese so I wasn't sure if I would like this but it was yummy! The kids loved it and I didn't even have to fight them to try it!
So here you go...

Swiss Cheese Chicken--(I will give the normal recipe and in the brackets have how much I used)

8-9 chicken breasts (2 chicken breasts sliced in half to become 4 and thinner)
Sliced swiss cheese--enough to cover each piece of chicken
2 cans of cream of chicken soup (1 can)
1/2 cup sour cream (1/4 cup)
2 cups Ritz crackers crushed- about 1 1/2 bags (1/2 bag of crackers)
1/2 cup butter (1/4 cup)

Place chicken breasts in a 9x13-inch pan (mine was in a 11x7). Place cheese over each chicken breast. Mix soup and sour cream then put it on over the cheese and chicken. Sprinkle the crackers crumbs over the top. Melt the butter and drizzle over the cracker crumbs. Bake uncovered at 275 degrees for 2 1/2 to 3 hours. ( I cooked mine for about 2 1/2)

We enjoyed this chicken dinner with a side of Uncle Bens Wild Rice(fast cook), and some steamed carrots with a bit of butter on top. It was delicious! Enjoy!

My 3 Crazy Kids!!

I haven't written about my kids for awhile so I thought I should while I have time so I can remember things about them at this age and print it off and put it in their books!!

Isaac--5 yrs old.

He is our smart little cookie! He has been reading books for over a year and amazes us with how much he knows and how much he memorizes stuff that we don't even remember. The other day, we were in the parking lot walking towards Walmart. Out of the blue Isaac says, "Save Money, Live Better, Walmart!" (I actually just had to ask him what the saying was again so I could type it on here!!) There were no signs around that said that saying or anything. He just had remembered it from a tv commercial!
He has been skiing 4 times this winter and loves every minute of it. He even follows Darrin and goes through the trees and down black diamond hills! (I don't even like to go down black diamonds!) He is in swimming lessons right now during the winter to get some of his extra energy out! During the whole lesson he never stops hopping up and down because of excitement. He also doesn't like to get his ears wet but he is doing better with each lesson. In the warm weather, he enjoys riding his bmx bike on the street, at skateparks, or on bmx tracks. He loves his nerf guns. He loves lying on the floor with his dad and just wrestling away. He is a very active boy just like his mom and dad. We enjoy playing board games with Isaac. He loves to play Life and Monopoly. He says that when he gets older he is going to be a doctor, police officer and a fireman. And says that he will be a doctor on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. A policeman on Tuesday, and a fireman on Thursday. He also says he will make $100,000 as a doctor! (because that is how much a doctor's salary is in the game Life!)
He is a very kind, loving boy! He is the one that if you or someone is sad, he will be wiping the tears away or trying to make you laugh. I remember last year I was really sick one day with an extreme migraine. I was pretty much just lying on the bathroom floor. He came and sat next to me on the floor and just started rubbing my head and telling me it would be ok.
He is the best brother in the world and sure takes care of his little sisters!! Yes, he can bug them at times but he always makes sure they are ok. He loves to make them laugh and tries to do funny stuff when they are sad. The other day, he was playing and talking with Jordyn and turned to me and said, "Me and Jordyn are best buds!"
He has a few obsessions!! One, transformers of course! But his newest obsession....STARCRAFT! This boy loves Starcraft! Darrin is playing right now while Isaac is watching and Isaac is just squealing when something exciting is happening and giving advice on what Darrin should do. He is always asking when he can play or when we will play. He is only 5 and he can play better than me! He sure knows how to work a computer!
We sure love our boy!!


Bryn--2 yrs old

Bryn is such a character! She will make some of the funniest faces or noises that make me just start laughing! I will be talking to her and she will just close her eyes most of the way, tilt her head from side to side and make funny faces and noises with her lips! Where did she get that from? It is hilarious to see, at least I think so! When ever she sees a candle she gets excited and starts singing/saying "Happy Birthday" even if it is a scented candle we have on the stove! She has learned to use the word "because" very well when we ask her a question like, Why did you pinch Isaac? and her reply..."Because."
Some of her favorite things are Mickey and Minnie Mouse! She has both a Mickey and a Minnie that she sleeps with. She also loves babies, dresses, riding on the bike with mom or dad, princess', talking on anything that looks like a phone, and her Aunt Courtney!! Oh I almost forgot to add her obsession to SHOES!! This little girl loves her shoes, any shoes! She will always be walking around the house with shoes too big for her. When we go downstairs to get her out of her room from her nap, she will have her shoe drawers open and trying on all the shoes.
She is always wanting us to turn on our ipod and says "dance". She has the cutest little dance moves ever!
Lately, she has been our accident child!! I keep saying Bryn needs to wear a helmet. I think she might have gotten this from me!! haha
She loves her baby sister Jordyn (Jordy)! She will get excited and yell stuff to me when she sees Jordyn do something. A few examples, Jordyn will be some where and be slobbering and Bryn will yell to me, "Jordyn spit up!" or another one that can drive me crazy, Jordyn will be asleep either in her carseat or her swing and if Bryn is around and sees Jordyn either peek out of an eye or make the slightest move, bryn will yell, "Jordyn wake up!" and of course it will actually wake Jordyn up!
She loves to play hide and go seek around the house.
She will say some of the cutest things like, one time she was on the toilet and I was wearing some soft pajamas when I went in to help her. She started rubbing my pants and saying, "Gorgeous!" She loves saying that our hair is pretty. She loves getting a brush and brushing my hair (more like putting knots in it!)
She is a true girl and we love it!!!


Jordyn--4 months

Jordyn is the best baby ever! I thought Bryn was a really good baby but Jordyn has topped that! She is such a happy baby!! She will always smile or laugh at you. She thinks Isaac is so funny and will always laugh at him! She is very ticklish on her rib cage. She will always put a smile on your face.
She is a really good sleeper! She has been sleeping through the night since she was 5 weeks old! Thank you Jordyn! She puts herself to sleep so that I don't have to rock her.
I have never seen so much drool come from a babies mouth!! haha She is the slobber master in our family!! She sure loves sucking on her hands! (More than a binky) Her two fingers between her pointer finger and pinky finger on her left hand are her favorite! That is what she sucks on the most!
She loves her swing. Mostly all of her naps during the day are in her swing, unless we are out and about and she falls asleep in her car seat. She never takes naps in her crib.
Isaac loves it when she "talks" to him! Bryn is always trying to copy the things that Jordyn is doing whether lying on her tummy or "talking" like Jordyn!
She sure brings a lot of happiness to our home!
Even with all the slobber, she is the cutest baby!! I can't get enough of her!!

Crock Pot Chicken!

Another new easy recipe I tried tonight! This recipe I got from Macaroni Mamas and I really enjoyed it. Normally I am not a fan of cream cheese but this was good. Here you go...

Crock Pot Chicken

4 frozen chicken breasts
1 envelope of Italian dry dressing mix .....(Look down the salad dressing aisle! It took me forever to find this. haha)
1 8oz. Cream Cheese
1 can Cream of Chicken Soup
Cooked Rice

Put raw chicken(frozen and all) in crockpot. Sprinkle with dressing mix. Cook on high for 4-5 hours. (Don't add water) If you half the recipe and only use 2 chicken, you can cut the time. Maybe only 2 1/2-3 1/2 hours. Shred chicken; then return to crockpot.(you could also just shred the chicken in the crockpot.) Add cream cheese and soup; warm. Note: If only cooking 2 chicken, I still would probably use all the soup and most of the cream cheese. Serve over rice.

The chicken sauce was more on the thicker side but it actually tasted quite nice! We had asparagus on the side. A roll would have been nice too but hey, I was sick today! :)

Enjoy!