My boy,

Jaxon, I can't describe the last 5 weeks in words, because at the time I made the decision to let you go to Texas alone to visit your Great Grandparents, I was thinking about how much fun you would have, the memories you would make with two special people in my life who have been there for me every single step of the way in my life.  I was thinking about the laughter and joy it would bring for you to be able to spend days doing stuff that you loved with two people who cared so much about you.  Little did I know that my heart would ache for you, that I would miss you so bad that it would bring me to tears and that I would try to picture in my head what you were doing as I laid there at night trying to fall asleep. 

I hope you never forget the memories of the five weeks in Texas, I hope you cherish these times forever and that when your older you'll tell your children and grandchildren about the lovely Great Grandparents that you had and how they took time out of their lives to spend days with you loving you and making memories.  You are a lucky boy and I'm sure the knowledge of life is more meaningful to you as I heard your Great Grandpa tell me how much he is going to miss you.  How having you gone won't be the same and how much he has had with you. 

I hope you know you mean the world to more people than you think and that I can't describe how excited I am for you to come home.  Its bittersweet, as I know two hearts are aching, but the memories will last forever.

Love you my sweet boy!!

Pieces of our life

Things are crazy right now and about to get even crazier.  Bob has school everyday next month Monday-Thursday 6-9:30 and I'm wondering how its all going to happen. 

I am a schedule girl Monday through Friday, we follow a schedule with pretty much everything.  Fridays are a little more free and we do whatever we want.  So this shall be interesting.

This past weekend my Sister came over to help me clean the boys rooms, it needed to be done and I wanted to go through Jax stuff while he was gone.  Plus I'm re-doing their rooms and wanted to clean stuff, deep clean stuff.  So we spent 3 hrs in Jax room.  I've talked about his eating problems before, if I haven't, well then I'll explain a little.  Jax can't just take ONE granola bar or ONE fruit snack or ONE thing of peanut butter crackers or ONE pop tart, he eats the WHOLE box and I mean the ENTIRE FREAKING BOX.  SO its hard to have snacks around here.  He sneaks them at night and this has been an on going problem.  Right after Jax left, Bob went into his room and brought out about 50 wrappers from the side of his bed.  I knew that wasn't even half of them.  So Miranda and I pulled out his bed and here is HALF, yes HALF of what we found.

Its embarassing, but I want to show him in 20 years what he did.  I can't figure out where he stores it.  This is pretty much 6 months worth of garbage, because his bed was moved to this spot in January and he has been gone a month.  This is ONLY half remember, the other half I didn't take a picture of, I thought I had seen it all, but his head board had just as much under it.  So the plan is to do a deep deep clean in his room every 3 months from here on out.

Other things happening:

Jax will be home in 6 days, I seriously can't wait.  I've missed him like crazy.  He is suppose to come back with a disc of pictures, so I'll have posts about that.  I'm going to hug and love on him for a long time.  Its amazing to me that he has made it this long, I thought for sure he'd want to come home sooner, but he has loved every minute of it.  ME....not so much!

Ashton went to the rodeo with his Aunt Autumn last night.  He had a blast!

This picture has nothing to do with what we were going to do, but Lex insisted on having her picture taken before we headed to take my sister Cafe Rio for her birthday.

Nova and Daisy love each other, they cuddle a lot now and I love it.  Nova is a fun puppy with the cutest personality.

I started school shopping.  I want to be done by August 15th.  I have my list and stuff to get and the places to go.  I went and checked out the stores in Farmington, Tilly's looks good for some cute kids clothes and a lot of stuff is on clearance.  We'll be hitting up Old Navy, Target, Children's Place and Crazy 8.  And then Maurices for MOMMY....LOL

Thats about it.  Bob will possibly be having back surgery sooner than we thought since our insurance denied him getting his nerves cauterized instead.  We wanted to hold back surgery off until next year, but its not going to happen.  And while we've met our deductible I told him to get it over with.  We have to get approval from cardiology and all, so this should be interesting.  Having a Husband with heart problems is exhausting.  But I wouldn't change a thing.

Fireworks Fun

When all the fires started in Utah I didn't want to do fireworks, I didn't want to be the one responsible for a fire.  Plus I felt bad for all the firemen out there fighting the fires every single day for hours and hours. 

But I promised the kids we'd get some small ones, nothing big.

Our sparklers kind of sucked, but I don't think the wind was helping them.  The things would not stay lit.  But our little package of fireworks kicked butt.

One of the last fireworks we did set this one on fire.  It burned until there was NOTHING left, it was funny to watch, but I was glad we weren't near anything that could catch fire.

More pool fun

Ashton is definately a fish, he is doing it all now, swimming so good, I am so proud of him.  But its thanks to Misty that he is swimming.

He jumped off the diving board several times and does so good, but still jumps with a noodle.

Lex was deciding whether she wanted to go off the diving board or not.  I guarantee you she'll go off by the end of the summer.

We love going to the Stratfords pool and are SOOOOOOOOOO thankful they let us come hang out. 

Jax comes home in 10 days and I am soooooooooooo ready for him to be under my roof.

Three years ago

At this time three years ago, I was sitting in a waiting room, there were about 20-30 other people in there and I was sitting by the window, I watched life flight land twice, I watched cars pull in and out and I watched people come and go.

At that moment I had no clue what I was in for, I had no clue that Bob would be in surgery until 8pm that night and I had no clue that he would have to be revived twice.

This day means to much to me as do the doctors who saved my Husbands life.  He shouldn't be here today and we just realize more and more that the small blessings are the things that count.  I couldn't imagine having to raise my three kids without their Dad or having to explain to them that Daddy wasn't coming home.

I still live in fear everyday.  Bob will never be out of the woods, he has to see a cardiologist every single year and sometimes more.  He has to have a cardiac MRI and heart cath.  He may someday require a heart transplant.  I can't explain how I feel or expect people to understand.  I think I do way better now than I did even a year ago.  I'm stronger, I can talk about it without crying and I know more about the heart today than I ever did.

Bob and I are in a great place today, we've learned to go without and that having all the big things doesn't make you a better person.  We've learned who are true friends are and gained a lot of friends a long the way. 

So here is to the last three years, I wouldn't change a thing!

Instagram Update

Okay, I'll admit it, I haven't used my camera but once in the last month, its sad, but Instagram has taken over my life.

Here are updates of whats happened or going on:

Ash came home with about 50 Monster tattoos and insisted he needed one and Lex did.

Crazy story.  I dropped Bob off at school last Tuesday, went and got the kids and went swimming, but I always clean the pool before we swim.  I had picked up dinner, so we were eating and I kept seeing this bug swim up to the top, I would stand up to fish it out and it would swim back down.  It did it over and over and over and over again until I finally cornered the thing and got it.  Had no clue what it was until I googled it.  Its a backswimmer and the sickest thing I've ever seen.  I think it tops spiders.  Ever since then, I haven't been able to swim, its horrible.  We ended up doing a shock treatment for 4 days and then a Algecide treatment and no more bugs.  Thank goodness!!

Been shopping a lot at Costco, my Sister and I got this lovely treat while there a couple of weeks ago.

Oh this girl, she has it all, attitude, sassyness and well you name it.  I think three is 10 times harder than 2.  She is a struggle lately and she spends a lot of time in time out.  I had a good cry the other day because of this girl, she just won't quit with the attitude.  If I gave my Mom that much at attitude at this age, I apologize a thousand times over and over.

Isn't he to die for.  Oh, I love him.  I've been wanting another chihuahua for awhile now, but they are so expensive and I couldn't justify it.  I got this little guy for a good deal, just like Daisy.  I love both of them to pieces.  Meet Nova, he is 6 weeks old, born on Jax birthday and he is the cutest thing.

I can do hair breads in Lex hair, but I finally accomplished one in my own.  Love it!!

Ugh, I haven't wanted to talk about it, but I guess I kind of have too.  Its been rough week, Bob hasn't been doing good, then his truck that he loved from the minute he saw it completely died and I am talking the entire engine BLEW.  He has been devastated and its a sore subject around here, we didn't even have the thing a month, not EVEN A MONTH and he is gone.  Bob has moped around the last couple of days about it and mentioned it here and there, but the truth is, he doesn't want to talk about it.

My heart hurts for him, because I know how much he loved it and I was just as sad, but in a different way. 

Bob has been having major back problems, he actually goes in for surgery on Monday to have the right side done and then 4 days later to have the left side.  We are praying for relief, they say it could be for up to a year and then he'll have back surgery next fall, full blown back surgery.

What we do these days....

Daisy does a whole lot of this...sun bathing and then trying to escape from Lexi who currently has Daisy on her 5th life, she has held her hostage in her closet, tried to choke her to death and tried to drown her.  Daisy survived it all, but barely.  Poor thing still loves Lex, I don't know how.

Ashton does a whole lot of this, swimming, swimming, swimming and SWIMMING.  He has only had one break since we got it and thankfully it rained that day I told him he had to take a break.  It was a good thing it rained, because my boy is 100% addicted to the water.

Lex does a whole lot of deciding whether its safe to get in the pool or not.  She likes to yell that her brother splashed her and I have to remind her she in the pool and already WET.

We've kept Sonic in busy every day for the last 2 weeks, stop on the way home, grab a strawberry limeade or Coke and a Sprite with something in it (Strawberry, Cherry, Watermelon or Blue Coconut) and head home to swim.

I'm missing Jaxon like crazy, this is so much harder than I thought, I worry about him constantly.  He is headed to the Gulf of Mexico for 6 days on Sunday at 5am, I'm excited for him to experience something different, he will have the time of his life.  But its hard not to worry about things.  I honestly can't wait for the 31st, I need all my kids under ONE roof and I won't feel so crazy anymore.

We have some plans coming up but nothing big.  We are going Lagoon when Jax gets back, the kids leave for Bear Lake the third week of August and Bob and I are heading to Park City then for an early Anniversary getaway. 

We really have no plans for the rest of July, just swim and hang out.  ITS HOT!!!

Our Fourth

We didn't make any big plans for the fourth, decided last minute to have our family over to swim and barbecue, then later head to Layton Park for "people watching" and fireworks.

This little DIVA had two outfits, so she wore this before swimming while running errands and her other outfit she wore to the fireworks.  It worked out perfect.

Ashton only played a little bit before he left and went and seen Spiderman in 3D with his Aunt Miranda and Uncle Justin. 

We (Bob, myself, my Dad, my Grandma, my Aunt Joy and Lex) all played in the pool for 3 hours non-stop.  We play HORSE, PIG and tried to jump on the Ashton's green tube numerous times.  We laughed and played so hard that I didn't even realize I was getting a sunburn until after my shower.  My Mom was there also, she just watched us make fools of ourselves.

After Lex showered, she crashed on the couch until we left to head to Layton for fireworks.  She was completely worn out.

Then her second wind arrived and it was over from there.  She was full of it for the rest of the night!

Her second outfit of the day, Grandma bought it for her for her birthday.

And this stud who finally decided to join us, he had a blast at the movies with his Aunt and Uncle, but boy did I miss him. 

Its weird not having Jaxon here, I feel like something is missing constantly, not having him in any pictures makes me sad, but I know he is having a blast and this vacation for him was MUCH NEEDED.

Having fun with their light up swords.

They talked Grandma into the park and they came back like this, its a little blurry, but I still think its cute.

And then all of Ashton's energy came out....

They played for about 2 hrs like this and I just watched and took pictures.

They thought they were cold and they were standing on the side waving at cars or people that passed.

And the fireworks began...

The firework show was very good, I couldn't believe how long it lasted and there were some very big ones.  We had tons of fun and our fourth was perfect this year.

Happy Fourth!!