Eventful week

This past week was pretty eventful for us.  We had a delicious Thanksgiving feast on Thursday with a couple of my brothers and their families.  Then Josh had to leave on another run on the truck, so Loren came and spent the night with me.  We had a fun girls night, painting all the girls nails, and then watching Sense and Sensibility. 

Friday I did some Christmas shopping, and packed so we would be ready to leave on Saturday for a quick trip to Idaho for Josh's niece's blessing.  Josh got home from work at about 5 am on Saturday morning, slept for a couple of hours, and then we left for Idaho.  Our kids are excellent travelers, and we can make it all 5 1/2 hours without stopping.  Even Alex can go that long without eating and never complain.

We had a fun weekend with family.  Josh and Mitch even found some time to ride horses!  Here is a video of Mitch riding Josh's horse, Buddy. 

Also while we were there, we discovered that Alex is getting her bottom two front teeth.  On Sunday, Mitch wasn't feeling well.  He had some sort of stomach bug, but we weren't sure if he had a virus or if he ate something bad.  He felt better by the next morning, and we thought all was well.  Monday night we were all packed up, the kids had their coats on and we were saying goodbye when Sami puked all over.  Apparently Mitch had a virus and Sam had it too.  So we ended up staying another night since I didn't want to deal with puke in the car. 

Tuesday we took our time getting ready to leave, making sure no one else was going to get sick, and in the meantime we played a lot at Josh's parents house.  They had been trying to talk us into taking one of their puppies home with us, and we had done a good job resisting, until Tuesday afternoon.  Then one of the puppies seemed to take a liking to me, and pretty soon we were talking about taking her home with us.  After a lot of discussion of the pros and cons, Josh and I decided we'd take her home with us, so we went a bought a pet carrier and we finally got on the road.

By the time we made it to Mountain Home, Josh was feeling really sick, so we switched places and I drove the rest of the way home.

On Wednesday we built a pen for the puppy, and decided to name her Nutmeg.  On Wednesday night we had a huge windstorm that lasted most of Thursday as well.  The wind was strong and bitterly cold.  We felt pretty bad for our poor puppy who had just lost her mother and brothers to cuddle with, and we decided we better get her a warm house.  We took a trip to the pet store and got a house and all the other odds and ends we needed, and now she's much more comfortable.  Here are some pictures with her and the kids, and one with her in her house.

The kids are excited to have a puppy, and we think she's pretty cute!

Only a year late...

I've had a few people kindly remind me that it has been over a year since I last updated the blog, so I guess I better do it. The longer I wait, the harder it gets to do because there is simply too much to write!

 

I guess we'll start at the top. Josh started driving truck over the road again about a year ago. He started driving for Pride Transport. It was a pretty good company to work for, but it was very hard on our family to have him gone so much. He was generally gone for about a week and a half at a time, then home for a day or two, and then gone again. So in June of this year he left Pride and started driving for FritoLay. He is only gone a day or so at a time, and it has been much better for our family. Plus we get a discount on chips at the company store! :)

Tania is still working at Primary Childrens and loving it. She switched from full time (3 shifts/week) to part time (2 shifts/week) when Josh started driving again. Sometimes that feels like too much still because the weeks keep going too fast!

Mitch is almost 9 and in 4th grade. We decided to put Mitch in Online school this year, and we keep wondering why it took us so long to do that. The curriculum is much more challenging and he has learned so much more this year than he has learned all the previous years combined. He didn't learn much of anything in 3rd grade, and had a teacher that wouldn't communicate with us at all. It was very frustrating for everyone, and so we thought we'd try this method. It is essentially a charter school because it is a free public school. They sent us all the books and everything we need for science experiments (which accompany just about every lesson) and art. Some of the lessons are online and some are in the books they sent us. We are his "Learning Coaches" and there are teachers online available to help with anything. Some of the classes are taught in online "classrooms" where they have a powerpoint/white board and microphones. He loves it and we are so happy he is actually being challenged and learning to buckle down and do his work.

Lizzy is 4. She is a very strong little girl, and she loves to do pull-ups on Josh's pull-up bar. She has a best friend that lives across the street from us. She and Sami both love to play with Eden. It is so cute to watch them play together. They have so much fun. Lizzy is still a very girly girl. She wears a skirt every day. She has to be forced into wearing pants. She loves to get her hair done and her nails painted.

Sami is 2. She and Lizzy have lots of fun together.


They share just about everything, even a bunk bed. And since everything Lizzy grows out of becomes Sami's, they share clothes and toys for the most part too. She has little to no interest in potty training, much to our dismay. She is a very cute, spunky little redhead.

Alex is the newest addition to our family.

She was born the first part of May. She came out with lots of dark, curly hair and darker skin. If I hadn't seen her be born, I would've thought maybe they switched babies on us. She loves to be held. Even if she is hungry, as long as she's being held, she is happy as a clam. Her skin has lightened up since she was born, and she is starting to look more and more like Mitch all the time.

Life keeps going faster and faster the older I get. Hopefully one of these days I'll get caught up...

October 2011

Every October we go down to Thanksgiving Point. They have a corn maze and lots of fall festivities. We didn't do the corn maze this year, but the kids had a blast with all the other stuff they had. Mitch loved the pedal carts, and even the girls liked the rides Tania gave them.

The kids (including Josh) also loved the duck races.

The girls' favorite part is the Princess area, where they have lots of dressups to try on and a princess pumpkin carriage to sit in. This year they even had a stage where they could dance, but the girls were to nervous to do much dancing.

For our neighborhood Halloween party, we all dressed up. Here are our costumes:

Happy Halloween!!

Mitchell

Mitchell is getting older every day. He started 3rd grade this year. It is nice living close enough to the school that he can ride his bike. I wake him up in the morning and he gets up and ready all by himself. He even makes sure he leaves on time. Here is a picture Tania took before his first day this year.

Mitchell still does really well in school. He never practices his spelling tests at home and rarely gets lower than fourteen out of twelve. He still reads tons and goes through books like they are cake. He has read all of the magic tree house series books that he could find and always looks for more.

This year we signed him up for soccer. He really seemed to enjoy it. When he first got his jersey, shorts, cleats and socks we kept having to tell him he couldn't wear them every day and every where. He would probably still be wearing them if we would have let him. During games he mostly played defense. Sometimes he would play offense and for being his first year playing he did pretty good. One game they stuck him in as goalie. The coach soon found out that the only kid on the team with glasses shouldn't be the goalie. In the picture Mitchell is the blue jersey between the green team.

Here a while back Mitchell lost one of his baby front teeth and when the new one started to grow in we thought it looked weird. We took him to the dentist where we found out he had an extra baby tooth that was blocking his permanent tooth and causing it to grow in sideways. The dentist removed the extra tooth and we hoped that the tooth would straighten out more as it came in. Well, it is still mostly sideways. After talking to a few orthodontists we decided to put a small set of braces on to help his tooth straighten out. He was excited to get them on. Today I got him out of school early and we headed to the office. He was still excited when we got there. He even had them put Halloween color bands on his braces. Later he started saying that they were hurting a little but he has been pretty good about it. He wanted to go back to school and show his friends but I told him he would have to wait till tomorrow. In the picture you can see how crooked his tooth is. It is almost 90 degrees out from straight. They say he will probably have these for eight to ten months. Mitchell can't wait to have a straight tooth.

Trip to visit family

A few months ago we were able to drive up to Caldwell Idaho and visit with my family. We had a lot of fun while we were there. We were able to go fishing, jet skiing, riding horses and tons of other things. We didn't have the camera out on the pond while we were skiing. It could have been because we forgot it or it could have been to spare you from looking at pictures of us in our swimming suites. Here are some pictures of fishing at my dads ponds.

Mitchell was able to catch tons of Blue Gills. He really liked it. He was even able to take them off the hook after he caught them. Here is a picture of one.

While we were fishing the girls went for a walk around the pond. Sami seamed to really enjoy it.

It was nice to get Buddy all saddled up and ride. The kids always love horse rides. I took them all by themselves and then I took the girls together and I just led him around. They loved it. Mitchell is almost getting big enough for me to let him ride alone. Mitchell would have no problem getting him to go his problem would be not being able to pull hard enough to get him to stop. Buddy likes to go. He was really tired though by the time we were done.

Visiting family is always fun. Especially if it is a horse.

Summer fun

This summer went pretty fast for us. We were plenty busy and the weather usually cooperated well for us.

Earlier this year we decided to buy a year pass to the Hogle Zoo here in Salt Lake City. I has been good. So far I think we have been able to visit at least four or five times. The pass is for a calender year so it won't run out for a while still. All the kids seem to enjoy it. Here is a picture of Lizzy with a few animals.

Here is a picture of a giraffe that apparently could taste something on the pole that was really delicious. It kept wrapping it's tongue all the way around the pole. Who knew they could do that with their tongues.

I think the girls really liked the giraffes because it seems I have a bunch of pictures of them. While we were inside the giraffe building we were able to see their trainer working with them. They don't do anything amazing but it is still neat to see them handle them.

More house work

Well, if you haven't read enough about the house here is some more for you. We have been working hard and got all the major repairs done. We still are working on the lawn but the house looks dramatically different. Don't you think?

Amazing what a new coat of paint will do. The wall inside has also been finished. It is nice to have the projects done.

Behind the picture frame with two pictures there is a door that can be taken out to grease or adjust the track for the pocket gate. These projects have taken quite a bit of my time but I think they were well worth it.


Tania helped quite a bit on most of the projects. Mostly she was just moral support but she still helped a bunch. Most of the time I would have to work on the projects after I put the kids to bed. If I tried to work on them when they were awake they would either try and use all my tools or beat each other up to where I spent all my time tearing them off each other, and yes I mean they are very aggressive children. Even little Sami can hold her own.

Some times I think it would be nice if they were a little more settled, but then I think of how I want them to always stand up for themselves and for what they believe, and I realize that they are exactly how I want them to be. Don't get me wrong they drive me crazy most of the time, but because of how they act some day they will be great at what they do.

Mitchell will be a great lawyer some day. He still works hard at honing his arguing skills daily. I'm sure he drives his teachers crazy because he is so far ahead of the group. The other day he took some reading test at school and found out on average he reads 150 words per minute. We went to the library on Monday and he got four books that are over a hundred pages each and I believe he finished them all already. He still enjoys math and science as well. He will be finished with second grade here in the next few weeks. I can hardly believe he is getting so big.

Elizabeth has turned in to quite the little dancer. She enjoys playing songs or music and dancing. She insists that she can only dance if she is wearing a dress or skirt. If she is wearing shorts or pants she will change so she can dance. So needless to say we need to buy more skirts. She can sit and watch princess movies all day long.


Sami is our little climber. She is 14 months old now but still is too chicken to walk. She can stand and could probably walk if she would just try. Even though she won't walk she climbs on to everything. She will climb onto a speaker next to the couch then lift her leg up like she is getting on a horse and climb over the arm of the couch. She uses this same method to climb on everything. She loves most of all to climb and get the remotes, and then she will bring them to me as if to say "try again, I could still get it."

I have finished another semester of school and am currently looking for employment. Mostly right now I spend a lot of time working on the house and the rest watching the kids. I still get to spend some time with Tania so that is nice.

Tania is still a wonderful wife and mother, not to mention a wonderful nurse who still works hard so we can have such a nice house and I can afford to go to school. All in all our family is doing pretty good. We are just hoping the snow will stop before it's time for winter again.

Sami

Sami is 6 months old already. I can't even believe how fast time flies. She is such a good, happy baby, and we love her so much. Here are a couple of somewhat recent pictures of her.

This first one is Sami in a horse costume that we used for pajamas. We bought it after halloween last year because it was a horse. And her dad is Josh. Enough said. :)


This next one is just a cute smile. She is sitting with help in this picture, but she is sitting without help now. She can roll both ways and sit up on her own. She is starting to get angry when we eat without her. Getting so grown up.

Sami likes her Johnny Jump Up. She loves to jump. Here is a video of her jumping while Lizzy is taking pictures of her with her Ariel camera. At the end, Lizzy says, "Oh, that's a good picture of Sam!"

Summer Fun- Work Parties

Josh and I both had work parties this summer. It is the first time either of us have had those. They were pretty fun. Both of them were at parks, but Josh's turned out way better than mine.

The day we had mine a huge storm came, and big gusts of wind kept trying to blow the food 0ver. I don't think we got any pictures from that day, but the big news of the day was that Mitchell lost a tooth while we were there.

Josh's party was much more fun, with good weather, face painting, bounce houses, and a fun playground. The food was pretty good too. Here are some pictures of the kids at Josh's party.

Mitchell got a spider web with a spider on one cheek, and a soccer ball on the other cheek.

Lizzy got a cute butterfly on her cheek. She held still for the girl to draw on her face.

Unfortunately, as soon as she was done getting it drawn, she fell off the bench backwards on her head. So her butterfly has tear streaks through it. Poor thing. Don't worry, she recovered just fine with no lasting effects. :)

Here is a video of the two kids going down the slide at the party. They loved this and played on it for hours. Lots of other peoples bigger kids helped Lizzy climb up to the top many times. It was a fun day!

Summer Fun- Dinosaur Park

Well, I need to do a couple of posts about what we have done this summer. I will split them up so there aren't so may pictures in one post.

First, the Dinosaur Park. Our neighborhood does neighborhood field trips once a week through the summer. I only made it to one of them unfortunately, but it was a lot of fun. We went to the Dinosaur Park in Ogden. They have lots of statues of dinosaurs outside, and some robotic ones inside, as well as fossils and cool rocks and gemstones. Lots of fun stuff to see.

Mitchell and Lizzy posing with the dinosaur

Lizzy with her friend, Lizzy. The older Lizzy was so cute with little Lizzy!

Sami thought the whole thing was rather exhausting! :)

Silly kids

I just have to share some funny kid stories. They say the funniest things sometimes! First, the other night Mitch and Lizzy were sitting on the couch together, and Mitchell was getting grumpy with Liz. He told her she was in his bubble. She stuck out her finger and said, “Pop! New bubble!” They both started laughing and that was the end of that!

Mitchell argues about everything. As you can imagine, it drives Josh and I crazy, and I’m sure other people too. Every once in a while though, it makes for a good story. Here are a couple of them.

One day my mom was babysitting the kids while I was at work and she was taking Mitchell to school. I had told her how to get there using the main roads so that it is nearly impossible to get lost. That isn’t the way I normally drive to get there, but it is much easier to explain. So she is driving along, and Mitchell is telling her that she is going the wrong way. She tells him that she is going the way I told her to go, and since he can’t just leave it at that, he keeps arguing. At some point he tells my mom that there are a million ways to get there. Well, his school is about 3 blocks away, so being a logical, reasoning adult, my mom said, “Well there’s probably not quite that many.” But Mitchell, being the argumentative 6 year old that he is always has to try to prove you wrong, so he pipes up with, “Yeah, because you could go to New York on your way!” Okay, smart alec, if you go completely out of your way, you could probably come up with a million different ways to get there. I just had to laugh at that one. Of course, it is much funnier when it is happening to someone other than me…

Another day he was outside our apartment playing with one of his toys, and one of our neighbors (Ratha) commented on how cool his toy was. The following conversation went something like this:

Mitchell: Do you have one?
Ratha: No, I don’t have anything.
Mitchell: Well, do you have a house?
Ratha: Well, yeah, I have one of those.
Mitchell: Do you have a wife?
Ratha: Well, yeah, I have one of those.
Mitchell: Do you have food?
Ratha: Well, yeah, I have one of those.
Mitchell: Do you have clothes?
Ratha: Well, yeah, I have one of those.
Mitchell: Do you have a car?
Ratha: Well, yeah, I have one of those.
Mitchell: Do you have _______?
Ratha: Well, yeah, I have one of those.

This went on until Ratha made it to the third floor and into his apartment. His wife, who was inside during this exchange, and heard most of it, was laughing when he got inside. He said to her, “Well, I guess he told me!” She told us that they decided maybe he should be a lawyer when he grows up. Maybe so…
Once again, much funnier when it happens to someone else!

Kids grow too fast...

Well, all three of our kids are growing way too fast for my liking. I can’t believe how fast the time flies!

Samantha is 3 ½ weeks old, and already seems so much bigger than she was. She sometimes sleeps well at night, but not usually. She usually has one good three hour stretch, and the rest of the time it is one or two hours at a time, if I’m lucky.

Lizzy has grown up so much in the last month since she turned two. She speaks in long, complex sentences now, and has become quite the conversationalist. If she hears you talking about her, she will pipe up with her own opinions. She also has grown quite thick, considering how petite she has always been. One day we were commenting on that, and Josh said something about her being chubby, and Lizzy said, “I’m not chubby, I’m a Lizzy-Bell!” That is one of her nicknames, and apparently she thinks it is something that she is, instead of just a name we call her. She was very adamant about the fact that she was a Lizzy-Bell. Here are some pictures of her on the playground.

Mitchell seems to be thriving in first grade. He is keeping up very well with the school work, and he is a member of the 100 Words Club. There are 100 words that first graders are supposed to know by sight by the end of the year, and when kids pass all of them off, they become a member of the club. When I went to parent/teacher conferences about three weeks after he started first grade, he had already become one of three members in his class. His teacher said that he got them all the first time he tried. She also said he is one of the smartest kids in his class (still) and that he is well behaved in class. He does have trouble with staying on task occasionally, and likes to talk to his neighbors too much, but I think we have all been guilty of that!

We have been to a dance program and a singing program at his school, and he did very well in both. The dance one was only a couple of weeks after he transferred grades, and he still was able to learn the dance well, and was very well behaved when the other grades were doing their dances. He also sang and did all the right actions in his singing program. Tonight the first grade is hosting a luau, so we’ll see what that’s all about.

Yesterday he was being the jokester of his class, and went around telling his classmates that they had a red crayon under their desk, and when they looked, he would say “April fools!” He was very disappointed when we didn’t do any big tricks at home. I am just not big fan of playing jokes on people, or people playing them on me, what can I say?

Mitchell gave a talk in primary a couple of Sundays ago, and everyone was so impressed once again that he could get up and give his whole talk without anyone helping him, and not reading anything. We have him learn a scripture story (this time it was about the three men in the fiery furnace) and he tells it in his own words followed by what we can learn from this story. He does very well, and I am so proud of him!

Things are the same for Josh and I. Josh is still working, and going to school, and I am just trying to keep up with sleep and the three kids. I will be very happy when spring is officially here and I don't have to scrape snow off the van in the morning to take Mitch to school. I am glad I have had such a speedy recovery, and so is Josh. I am already down below my prepregnancy weight. Now I just need to lose the Lizzy pregnancy weight that I never could lose after she was born. Yet another reason I am excited for spring weather, so I can go for more walks...

Announcing... Samantha Ali McEvoy

Announcing the birth of Samantha Ali McEvoy

Sami was born March 9th at 6:34pm. She weighed 7 lbs 1 oz, and was 19 inches long.

Her brother and sister love her, and we are all excited to have her in our home. I am feeling really good, and have had a really fast and fairly easy recovery. Our only real challenge has been getting sleep. Sami seems to have something that bothers her at night, and she spends hours grunting and crying, and nothing we do seems to help much. The good news is that she sleeps great during the day and is very well behaved during the day! :) Unfortunately, that doesn't help Josh much. I would think she just has her days and nights mixed up, but it isn't just that she's awake at night. She really seems uncomfortable or like something is bothering her. Hopefully we can figure it out soon.

We have all been enjoying the warmer weather this last week or two. We go on walks almost every day, and when the girls and I walk to pick up Mitchell from school in the afternoons, we stay and play on the playground for a while. It has been really fun. One of these days I will have to remember my camera and take some pictures. Lizzy loves the playground, especially the slides, and she has no fear. She will try all sorts of new things, and go places she shouldn't go being as small as she is, and I really have to keep track of her so she won't kill herself! She would live at the playground if she could, I think.

For your viewing enjoyment.

Hello all, this is Josh again. As Tania has already mentioned I started at Ceramatec a few weeks ago. So far I am enjoying working there. My job works well with both my schooling and Tania's work. At work I mostly run different presses laminating parts together. I would tell you in more detail what I do, but you would be more confused than if I just leave it at that.

Tania is getting ready to pop, and hoping Samantha comes sooner rather than later. She will continue to work until the baby is born. After the baby is born Tania will be able to go to church with us for a few months, that will be a pleasant change for me.

Mitchell started first grade about the time I started work, and seems to be enjoying it. I like it when he comes home and can actually tell us things he has learned while at school. I think we should start sanding his knees with sand paper, because they seem to wear holes in his pants in about two weeks. It's a good thing we buy his pants at shopko, and can take them back.

Elizabeth just turned 2 last week. She continues to be a little angel. She plays with Mitchell's learning toys a lot and can recognize quite a few letters in the alphabet. She seems to be following in his foot steps. I wouldn't be surprised if she is reading by the time she is three or four.

Both of the kids get complimented weekly on how well behaved they are in church. Everyone thinks they are the cutest kids ever. Which makes me kind of proud of them. Everything seems to be going really good for us right now.

A few weeks ago I finished putting together a slide show movie of our adventures on the truck. I figured this blog was started about the truck so a movie about the trucking would fit well here. I hope you enjoy it.

FYI- I tried to make the pictures go along with the words of the songs. I also tried to make the transitions fitting to the pictures and the songs.

Hooray for good news!

So once again we are long overdue for an update. It seems like we just get busier and busier everyday, and I just don’t ever have the time or energy to update the blog. We’ll see how it goes today.

The first piece of exciting news is that after about two or three months of searching and applying for five or so jobs each day, Josh finally got a job and started working! He is working at a company called Ceramatec where he runs a machine to help make some sort of high tech “wafers” that are used in energy things like special batteries. They also do a lot of energy research there. He is enjoying it so far (he has been working there for about three weeks now) and likes the people he works with. This job is very helpful to our finances and equally as important, it will allow me to take a maternity leave when Samantha is born.

My due date is quickly approaching, and I only have about a month and a half left. I am doing pretty well, but getting very uncomfortable, and after cleaning the bathrooms the other day, my hips were so sore I could hardly move for two days. I don’t really know why either, because Mitchell was super helpful and did all the scrubbing of the floor around his toilet. I did sit on the edge of the tubs to scrub them, but I wouldn’t have thought it would make me so sore. I am still working full time at the hospital, and other than the difficulty moving around, and my belly getting in the way when I try to lean over the cribs to reach the babies, I am doing pretty well. I really enjoy my job, and I am glad I work where I do. If only I weren’t so exhausted all the time… As far as how the baby is doing, all appears to be going well. My first ultrasound showed that the placenta was too close to the cervix which can be dangerous during birth, but the follow-up ultrasound we had a couple of months ago showed that was no longer an issue. But of course we couldn’t just leave it at that because then we wouldn’t have enough stress in our lives, so they became a little concerned that she had too much fluid around her heart. We had to come back in three weeks and have her looked at again, but luckily this time the doctor said the amount of fluid was measuring within normal limits. That was a relief. So as of a week ago, Samantha was measuring about a week ahead of schedule and weighed approximately 5lbs 1oz, and appears to be healthy.

Our other big news is that Mitchell finally got moved up to first grade. Today he is finishing his second week, and he seems to enjoy it. I feel like the things they are learning are a lot more age and development level appropriate for him. Kindergarten was such a waste of time for him, and I am glad he can finally learn things in school. He enjoys having more recesses and getting to eat lunch in the cafeteria each day. Eating in the cafeteria was a “dream come true” for him.

Lizzy is just as cute as ever. She is saying more two and three word sentences. She loves to sing and be sung to, and whenever you sing a song she knows, you can pause at any time and she will fill in the next words for you. She especially loves You Are My Sunshine, I Am A Child Of God, and the ABC’s. She can also recognize about half of the alphabet, count to 13 (although she always skips 7) and hit a few extra numbers between 13 and 20. She will be two in about a week and a half.

Well, that about sums it up for now. Sorry the pictures are so random, but all the other ones are on our other computer, and I can't get on the internet on that one...