Swine Flu

I have not decided on whether to give my children the swine flu vaccination. I need some thoughts from you guys. My husband will be getting it, but he's a fire fighter and that is a no brainer because he works very close to the general public. So why is it so hard for me to want to give it to my kids?!
Slade is in preschool now and can bring home all sorts of germs. He also has Asthma... He has never had the regular flu vaccination because I am scared of him getting Guillain-Barre' Syndrome. My brother, Austin, got that when he was 15 years old and it was very scary. He is now getting ready to leave for his mission and is doing great, but he was paralyzed and in a wheel chair for a while. Its not hereditary but the thought of it freaks me out.
Daisy has had the regular flu vaccination but she was born early and after talking with her doctor, we decided she needed the added protection. She didn't get the flu last year...
Maylee has not had the vaccination. I just want to know your thoughts and if you are going to get it or have your children receive it. Thanks!

Baseball Game and Randoms

Okay, random stuff first. Daisy normally doesn't take a nap anymore but it seems we have been going non-stop lately and she finally crashed on the couch. She is the craziest sleeper I have ever known besides my husband.

I refer to my children as my ducklings. They follow me everywhere. All the time. Its not that I don't love having them around but sometimes a little privacy would be nice :) At this particular moment, I was making dinner and they all followed me into the kitchen and entertained themselves right by my feet.

I love this boy. He is always very entertaining.

Oh yes, my model. I have taught her well and we enjoy some photo shoots every once in a while. As soon as she sees the camera, her hands are on her hips and she turns perfectly!

Then her hands go behind her back and she tries to have a serious face...

A fellow firefighter on Skylar's crew gave him 7 season tickets to the D-backs game and a parking pass! We decided to take the kids and invite my 3 younger brothers but only 1 of them could make it, so he invited a lady friend (yay!) and a guy friend. We all had a great time! The kids loved the atmosphere and Maylee did pretty well. I felt like I needed to boil her hands and cheeks because those vendors that sell beer and cotton candy kept stopping and talking to Maylee and TOUCHING her! It bothered me but she got a kick out of their gold teeth and other interesting facial features. She really liked the guy with the cotton candy hanging from the stick as she would almost jump out of my arms whenever he walked by. A few of them thought she was 3 or 4 months old and thought it was amazing how well she held herself up. One even thought I was her babysitter and after I told him I had 2 more kids, he became creepy. It was a fun night. We had awesome seats, right behind/next to 1st base so there were several very close fly balls.

The kids became a little restless at one point so we took pictures of our silly faces...

We had just finished eating some gushers which turned our tongues blue...

Maylee eventually fell asleep and was in Skylar's arms when we took this picture.

Although the D-backs lost, we had a great time! The game only lasted 2 1/2 hours but there were post-game fireworks which were awesome.

Catching Up!

I'm having to do a little bit of catching up with my blogging. Its been a fun past few weeks with a lot of new things. For some reason, the pictures are not wanting to be moved, so they are out of order.

The most exciting news is that my brother, Austin, received his mission call and he will be serving in the New Hampshire, Manchester mission! He reports December 16th and we are so excited for him! His mission covers 5 states and it is in a beautiful area of the country.


I love my Dad's reaction.

This picture goes with one down below... I went to get raspberry jam and almost jumped out of my skin for this is what I found. It happens to be a Javelina skull waiting to be bleached.

I put Maylee in the tub with Daisy for the first time and she LOVED all the bubbles!

Maylee and I watching the rain. I love how blue her eyes are in this picture.

Slade trying to convince Daisy that it is his turn to hold the umbrella.

Daisy enjoying the rain under her umbrella!

Maylee army crawls everywhere now. She gets up on her knees and will crawl a short distance but the army crawl is much faster and satisfies her much more.

Slade loves holding Maylee.

On September 1st, Slade started preschool! He is loving every minute of it and wants to go everyday.

We watched a storm outside one night and two frogs were hopping around in our front yard so Skylar felt the need to catch one and let the kids touch it.

I just love this little girl.

I made a cake to celebrate Slade's first day of preschool.

This goes with the skull picture. Skylar finally dug out the Javelina from the freezer that he killed a couple years ago and did whatever you do to them :) All I know is that I have a skull sitting next to my raspberry jam. He boiled the skull outside (he DID NOT use anything from my kitchen) and that thing stunk horribly! I told him that if there is ever a next time that he needed to do this, he is to do it far, far away from my home. He is growling, or making whatever noise a javelina makes.

The kids enjoy helping Skylar with whatever project he has going on outside.

I finally put Maylee in a real highchair. She has been using the Bumbo because she has been to tiny for the highchair. Even now, she has a hard time getting her arms up over the tray to grab anything. She is however, eating rice cereal and squash now and can drink from a sippy cup!

It is crazy to me how fast your life seems to fly by once you have kids. Mine are growing up too fast but it is really fun to see them learn something new or discover something on their own. We sure are enjoying life!

First Visit to the Dentist!

Slade and Daisy went to their first dental appointment today! I was a dental assistant until I had Slade, so I prepped them as much as I could before we went. I was a little nervous about it, but they ended up doing amazingly well. The staff there was very impressed and relieved to have such cooperative kids.

This is just after having their x-rays done.

Jamming out to the music while waiting. It was hilarious!



Slade getting his teeth cleaned. They gave him some Spongebob sunglasses that he got to keep.

Daisy showing off her sunglasses.

Daisy getting her teeth cleaned. She loved Mr. Slurpy (the suction) and was so happy when she was allowed to hold it herself.

First of all, yay for dental insurance! Second, the kids did such a great job. I took them to San Tan Prediatric Dental with Dr. Steve Montoya and he was great with the kids. He talked to Slade about not sucking his thumb anymore and promised him 5 tokens if he stopped sucking his thumb by his next appointment. You get a prize for each token you receive. Slade has such a bad overbite that causes him to have a lisp. But, no cavities! Good job Slade!

Daisy has two teeth that are fused together. I obviously knew this and was concerned what the teeth underneath looked like. Turns out the fused teeth should fall out just fine and be replaced with nice adult teeth, so no more worrying. She also has a slight overbite and we need to slowly start working with her to stop sucking her thumb as well. No cavities for Daisy either!

Our Utah Adventures

After two years, we finally made it to Utah to Skylar's parents house. We had a great time!

They have a new puppy and the kids loved her! Okay, Slade loved her and Daisy was terrified of her unless she was in her pen. Slade enjoyed letting her jump all over him.

But, he is allergic to dogs. Don't worry, we knew this and had the Benedryl ready to go. This was just the beginning of the redness and swelling that he suffered but he had such a great time with that dog!

The afternoon didn't end there. Slade took a tiny chunk out of his hand when he was outside and had a crazy meltdown. He insisted that he could not use his hand. A few minutes later he took a chunk out of the bottom of his foot and once again had a major meltdown. Seeing how he couldn't use his hand and now his foot, Grandma Stock propped him up on pillows on her bed and let him watch cartoons. It was quite entertaining.

Maylee LOVED the horses! She couldn't get enough of them!

One thing that I have come to terms with, is that Skylar enjoys trapping, killing and skinning animals. On this trip, he trapped 5 raccoons and 1 squirrel. I'm just happy I won't be seeing them hanging up in my home!

Ever wanted to know what a skinned raccoon looks like? Well, there you go!

Don't you worry. I talked Skylar into wearing gloves...

Poor guy.

We had the opportunity to hike down Bryce Canyon and it was amazing! Slade hiked the whole way while I packed Maylee and Skylar packed Daisy. It was beautiful there and I would love to go back.

Just starting out...

Maylee did wonderful. She eventually fell asleep and never fussed.

That is the trail down there. It was very steep so the trail did a zig-zag and wasn't too bad.

Daisy loved being in there. She fell asleep too.

Slade and Daisy with their Hoodoo!

Marlee, Grandma and Grandpa Stock.

We visited Monrovian Park which was absolutely beautiful. I was only able to get one picture before my camera died.

Slade loved having the freedom to pee outside wherever he wanted at Grandma and Grandpa's. Even if he was inside, he would run outside to pee.

We enjoyed riding the horses! I forgot to get a picture of Slade and Daisy next to their horses. Slade's horse is named Shooter (because of his ultrasound pics) and Daisy's is Daisy. All the grand kids but Maylee have a horse named after them so far.

Daisy loved the horses too. We thought it was funny how she was not afraid of the horses, but terrified of the puppy!

Maylee loved being outside. The horses were moved closer to the house and she really like to watch them run around as well as the puppy.

Skylar's dad works at Aspen Ranch, which is for troubled teens. He takes care of the horses/horse program, I think. It was neat to hear about how the horses are used for therapy for the kids.

Oreo. The boy that named her said she looks like an Oreo blizzard.

I absolutely love this picture.

Harriet the donkey.

The first time the kids attempted to swim, they thought the water was too cold and they didn't last long out there. We waited for a warmer day to try again, and they had a blast!

Those of you who don't really know Daisy, this explains her perfectly.

Every night before bed we would have family prayer and when Slade would say it, he would pray that he would be able to find bugs the next day. He spent most of his time looking and finding bugs. He was in Heaven! He has a nice spider in that cup.

The kids love when Grandma breaks out the riding lawn mower!

We went and saw the 100 Hands cave. It was really neat! The Indians used blood to leave hand prints on the rock.

Roasting marshmallows!

YUM!

S'MORES!! Daisy ate all of the chocolate.


Slade was the fireman and put out the fire!

My in-laws live about an hour from the Manti Temple and I was really wanting to do a session there before we left. They do live sessions and I had never seen that before, so the last day we were there Skylar and I headed out at 6am to make the 7:30am session. We made it just in time and we were so glad that we did! It was awesome of course! I hope we can do that every time we visit.

Skylar and I were also able to go to a hot spring in the mountain not far from his parents house for a fun date. The water comes out of the mountain from a small hole and trickles into a pool of water made in the rock. The water was SO hot! It took a little while to get used to how hot the water was but it sure was nice and relaxing. We watched shooting stars and had a great time. To get to the hot spring, we drove down a long canal, crossed the canal by holding a wire rope thingy and walking on wobbly wood. I was terrified and Skylar thought it was funny to make the wood shake even more while I was trying to cross. Haha, such a funny guy.

We are very grateful for Grandma and Grandpa and Marlee :) for putting up with us for two weeks! We had such a great time! I enjoyed relaxing on the porch swing while the kids played and looked for bugs and Skylar did a whole bunch of odd jobs and skinned animals. It was a much needed vacation!

When we got home, Slade asked, "Why do we live in Arizona, Mom?"

I said, "Why? Don't you like Arizona?"

He said, "No! Can we go back to Grandma's tomorrow?"

Thanks again for the wonderful vacation! Hopefully it won't be another two years before we make it back there!