My Dad

Today is a big day for my dad. After 35 years working for the Salt Lake City Police Department, he is retiring and today is his last day! Wow! 35 years! That is something to celebrate. Too bad most everyone he works with is off for the holidays. He's leaving without much fanfare which is probably the way he wants it.

The next step for him? Forget taking some time off to relax and enjoy the freedom. Nope. In addition to already being the Stake President, he's going back to school and starts next week! He is planning on getting a certificate to teach Special Ed. Anyone who knows my dad knows that he will be wonderful.

I am so proud of my dad. I love him. He is one of the best people I know. I have never once felt like I didn't get to spend enough time with him. Even with his busy schedule he always makes time for my mom, us kids, and the grandkids.

One of my best memories is when I went away to Snow College. I didn't have my own car so anytime I needed to come home, my dad would make the two hour drive to come pick me up and bring me home. Sometimes I felt bad that he had to drive so much but we have talked about it in the years since and we both say how special those drives were.

I could say so many things about my dad. His family loves him. The only thing better than having him as my dad is that my children get to have him as their grandpa.

I couldn't find a recent picture of Eliza and Jackson with grandpa so here's one with cousin Jared!

Merry Christmas

There were lots of parties to help get us in the Christmas spirit.

Very fun grandchild party with grandma and grandpa!

Eliza the angel

Matt showing off

The spoils of the pinata

Jackson is scared of Santa, to say the least.

Christmas Eve - Our annual dinner/chime playing evening at my aunt and uncle's home.

One of Eliza's favorite people in the whole world - Great-grandpa.

Christmas morning!!!

Eliza may be fighting Jackson for time in her fairy chair.

Eliza and cousin Michael - so cute!

We had a wonderful Christmas. It was a long day but an awesome one. Lots of family which was the best part, by far. We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!

Back to class

In October I signed up to take a beginning guitar class through Granite Peaks Lifelong Learning program. I have wanted to learn to play for a long time. I've tried teaching myself but that didn't go very well. I didn't have my own guitar so I borrowed my brother's and headed off to class! It was SO worth it! I looked forward to it every week. I had a great teacher. The hard part was finding time to practice when I wasn't being mauled by my children wanting to play it also.

My recently acquired calluses and I will be back in class in January for the next part of the class!

Catching up

Seeing as how it's been over a month since I've posted anything, I better get my act together before I get even further behind!

I think *crossing fingers* we are all healthy again. It was rough for a couple of weeks. Matt came down with strep throat, followed by Jackson. Eliza and I had seriously bad colds. Mine turned into a sinus infection. If mom ever needed a sick day (or week) that would have been it. But things are looking up finally.

Thanksgiving was wonderful. We had a dinner on Thursday with the McCann's and then a dinner on Friday with the Burton's. Yum! After dinner on Friday we went over to the church and let the kids (and the adults) run around for a while.

Now we're in Christmas mode. It's been so fun to see how much more interested and excited Eliza is this year. Jackson is mostly just interested in undecorating the Christmas tree. It looks ridiculous right now. All the unbreakable decorations are on the bottom half but most of those are on the floor. Oh well. It keeps him entertained for a while. Now we just need some snow again and we'll be all set!

4 years old

I can't believe it's been four years since this sweet, chubby baby came into our lives.

Being Eliza's mom has made me happier than I can say. There is not a day that goes by that she does not do something that makes me laugh and reminds me how blessed I am.

She has always been such a happy girl who loves to learn. She gets smarter by the day.

Love her so much!

Happy birthday sweetheart!

Halloween 2010

I may be biased but Eliza is about the cutest little Tinkerbell I've ever seen. She looked so sweet. Halloween was great this year. We had a church party, a preschool party, a work party with dad and a VERY wet time trick or treating but we enjoyed all of it. And I guess this shows what a good mom I am - we don't have ONE picture of Jackson in his costume. I can't believe it! But if you want to picture a very cute little army boy, that was him.

6 years & 15 months

Last Thursday, Matt and I celebrated 6 years of marriage! I can hardly believe it's been that long. We didn't do much that day (although Matt had most of the week off work which was wonderful) but we headed up to Park City for the weekend. I had never left Jackson overnight before and I was a little anxious about it but he and Eliza were left in the best hands imaginable - grandma and grandpa. Eliza talked all week about how excited she was for them to come to her house for a sleep over. Matt and I had such a wonderful time. I forgot how nice it is to sit at a restaurant and not have to battle with children. We stayed at the Waldorf Astoria which was super nice! The pool was an outdoor pool but was heated to 85 degrees. Although, with the slight breeze, that actually wasn't warm enough for us so we hung out in the hot tub. As Matt said, why settle for 85 when you can have 115? We hit up the outlets in the morning and then headed home. It was a short but much needed get away. Thank you so much to my mom and dad for tending.

Also, Jackson had his 15 month check up this past week.

He's still the same weight he has been since about 6 months old - 27 lbs. He's just gotten taller. He's about 30 inches now. So he's still big. Just 95th percentile big instead of 120th percentile big. He's doing really well. He's not saying as many words as they would like so we're going to try and work on that. The doctor was shocked at how many teeth this kid has! So, I'm holding out hope that that has been the main reason for his grumpiness. I'm hoping for some happier times in the coming months when these teeth decide to give him a break.

Love this boy! (Eliza took this last picture - her aim is getting better!)

First steps

The sideways walk cracks us up! He is too used to shimmying his way across furniture and the wall. He needs to get that straightened out.

Here is another one where he nearly cracked his head on the piano bench. Yikes! Good catch, buddy! Don't mind Eliza freaking out at the end of the video....

The little man is growing up. Love him so much!

3 months

It's been three months and I've reached my goal of losing 20 pounds! I am so happy about it! I had to go buy new jeans which, while not the cheapest outing, feels great. I'd love to lose another 5-10 but those seem to be the toughest. Any suggestions?

Matt has also been doing awesome. He's at about the 22 pound mark. He is so dedicated to his new workout routine. He does his P90X workout 6 days a week. I could never do that. I'm so proud of him!

Preschool

Yesterday was the first day! I was excited for Eliza because SHE was so excited. When she woke up in the morning she said, "Mom! Is it Tuesday today? Because I get to go to preschool when it's Tuesday!" She had a great time and can't wait to go back.

My baby girl is growing up. *sniff*

Oh, and in case you can't tell.....NO CAST!

Mystery injury

Last week Eliza was complaining that her knee was hurting. I wasn't sure how badly it was hurting and how much of it was her being dramatic. But as the week went on, she kept limping and complaining. The strange thing is, not only did it seem to come and go, we have NO idea how it happened. She would run around inside and out in the yard but then by the end of the day, she would say that her leg was hurting. So after a few days of her limp not improving I decided to take her into the pediatrician. It was a Saturday so we didn't see our regular doctor but the one we saw was great. He examined her knees, hips, and ankles and watched her walk. He didn't think it was too serious, whatever it was, but said he'd feel better if we went to the hospital for some x-rays, just to be sure. So off we went. Eliza was an angel at the hospital. She did just what they told her and didn't freak out at the x-ray machine. Later that night, we heard back from the doctor and he said that the x-rays showed a possible fracture in her ankle. ??? She hadn't complained about her ankle at all, only her knee. They did say it was not conclusive but that we needed to take her somewhere to get her ankle splinted. The only place open on a Saturday evening is the Kids Care. The nurse was great and this is what we came home with.

We took her back to the pediatrician's office on Monday and they put a different, and bigger, splint on. So now she has her entire left leg, up past her knee splinted. I'm glad they're being cautious but I can't help feeling like it's a little extreme. The doctor explained that injuries like that in children can be tricky. He said that sometimes they don't even know what's been fractured until it starts to heal and they can see the calcification of the bone in an x-ray. So we might be headed back for more x-rays in a few days to see if they have any more answers for us. In the meantime, Eliza is being a good sport about the whole thing. She puts up with it and it doesn't slow her down much at all.

Weekend get-away

I hesitate to even call this a "cabin" since it's about a million times nicer than our house but since it was in the mountains and we had to drive on dirt roads to get there, I guess technically it is one. We had such a fun weekend being with two of my brothers and their families. Good food, campfire, s'mores, games until late and a gorgeous sunrise. Thanks to Brian and his VERY generous friend, Eric, for letting us stay in his cabin. It was gorgeous!

Summer rain

LOVE IT!

Bike ride!

After a month of earning stickers for good behavior, Eliza finally earned her prize! Trust me, a month is like forever to a three year old! We've been wanting to get her a bike this summer but we felt like it was a fairly big thing and we didn't want to just go out and buy one for her. So we thought we'd introduce Eliza to the concept of incentives. Or you can call it bribery. :) Now she not only got such a fun reward but she is starting to learn that being good makes everyone happy.

We're still working on the whole coordination thing but she's doing pretty well. She's only ridden into a bush one time.

Birthday present to me

Yesterday I turned 30. That sounds strange. It doesn't really seem THAT old but it seems much older than saying you're 29. I've had a very blessed and happy 30 years, that's for sure.

About a month ago I decided to get serious about losing some weight. It was always in the back of my mind but I finally set a goal to lose 10 pounds by my birthday and I'm happy to say I did it! Plus one! Now, I wish I could say I was done but I've still got several more pounds to go but it's a great start! Thanks to Matt and the rest of my family for their encouragement!

Party #1 and #2

Last Sunday, while my brother who lives in Arizona was in town, we had a small get together with my side of the family for Jackson's birthday. He was grumpy (see the picture in the post below) but it was still fun to celebrate with all of my family.

Today we had a party at our house with the McCann side. Thankfully, Jackson took a good nap and was a happy birthday boy. He was not very interested in his first birthday cupcake so I wasn't sure about this time but yeah, see for yourself. He thoroughly enjoyed himself. Thanks to everyone who came and made his birthday so fun!

How many pictures of a sweet frosting covered boy are too many? It looked like war paint by the time he was done with it.