Ian's Chuck E. Cheese Birthday

In February, Ian celebrated his 4th birthday. A little over a year ago, a Chuck E Cheese opened in Layton and it has become one of the boys' favorite places to go to have some fun! So we decided to take them there to celebrate Ian's birthday. We have a very talented friend Jen, who has a cake decorating business and so we asked her to make Ian's cake. Ian requested a robot cake....he is obsessed with anything and everything robot. LOL! Aunt Tammy was also with us to celebrate. The boys adore their aunt Tammy! Ian's birthday was a blast.

We are just so grateful to have Ian in our family. In his short 4 years he has truly overcome so many challenges. Today he is happy and healthy and doing so well! How grateful we are to have this special little boy in our family! He brings us an incredible amount of joy, happiness and laughter! He loves to play with his brothers, build things with legos, color and draw and is so excited to go to school! He is super opinionated and stubborn, traits no doubt that have helped him to endure well his challenges. He is loving and sweet and super cuddly! All in all he is SUPER neat! I think we'll keep him!
Bryce and Aunt Tammy
Spencer....doesn't look too thrilled...probably because this ride was broken....
Bryce and Ian bowling....have I mentioned that the boys love to bowl.... whether at the bowling alley or on the Wii, the boys love it! 9 times our of 10, Bryce kicks our trash....he's super good!
Me and my precious Ian!
Ian and Chuck E.
The awesome robot cake
Mike, Ian, Aunt Tammy, Bryce and Spencer
The birthday boy!

January Updates

We've been pretty busy this month. Getting back on a schedule after Christmas vacation, a couple birthdays, and Mike starting school at Weber State. I've been a bit lazy about updating the blog. Anyway, I thought it would just be easier for me to put up a bunch of pictures and write a little something by way of explanation. :-) Enjoy.
Today we took Spencer to the BX Barber for his very first hair cut. I'm a bit sad...he doesn't look much like a baby anymore. This pic is in the van after the hair cut.

Spencer wouldn't sit in the chair by himself like Bryce and Ian did. He got even more upset when he saw Mike come back into the Barber Shop. Over all he did a GREAT job!

I caught Spencer relaxing on the couch this morning. I thought it was so cute and funny all at the same time that I just had to take a picture. lol!

Ian eating some of mommys birthday cake. I think he likes it.

Bryce eating birthday cake too...if it has sugar in it, Bryce will eat it. LOL!

Me and Spence... I think we had just eaten our cake and ice cream.

This is Spencer's birthday cake. We had our dear friend Jen make his cake this year. She does great work. She has her own business and usually make weddind cakes. Spencer has really been into doggies lately and hence the dog theme.

Spencer on his birthday just chilling. He loves to ride this dump truck around the house.

Spencer eating his birthday dinner...hot dogs and chips.......not the healthiest of dinners but he liked it...

So on the first Saturday of every month, Home Depot has a kids corner activity that Mike takes the boys to. Anyhow they made wooden calendars this month and we decided to let the boys use washable finger paints to paint them. They had a blast and it was fun to see them have so much fun!

So I decided that because Ian has such thin fine hair, I needed to do something that would make it look thicker...my solution....some gel and hairspray. I love the spiked look...Ian..., well he's not so sure. The next time I tried to style his hair this way, he had a HUGE fit. He just doesn't have any idea how stinking cute he looks with spiked hair. He's a cutie!

Spencer is going to be 2 years old....

So I thought I would recognize Spencer's 2nd birthday that is coming up on January 5th. I can hardly believe my baby is two. Where has the time gone? Words cannot adequately express the love and affection I feel for this little boy! Spencer has been such a joy and a comfort over the last couple years. No doubt he will continue to be. He is loving, funny, smart, independent, stubborn, full of energy, cuddly, and all boy. This little guy loves to try anything his big brothers do and he wants to be out and about with them. I have to be careful about letting him go out into the backyard when I'm not there to supervise...his brothers have shoved him off the slide, run him over with their Jeep, and laughed as he ran outside the fence and into the street. I never knew a one year old could run so fast while laughing at his mom who is trying to chase him down. There is so much I could share about this neat little boy, mostly I just want everyone to know just how much I love him and just how grateful I am to be his mommy! I'm truly blessed!

Update

I need to apologize to the grandmas. I have been a slacker when it comes to keeping our family blog updated. I guess I've just felt like no news is good news for our family. We are doing well and looking forward to Christmas and the new year. The older the boys get, the more fun Christmas is. Everything is so magical for them and I love to see the excitement in their eyes and he it in their voices. We've had several conversations about why we celebrate Christmas and the boys think it's pretty neat that we celebrate "Jesus' birthday". This year we will be traveling to Phoenix to celebrate the holidays with grandma and grandpa Jackson as well as Aunt Tammy and Uncle Wilson. It's going to be so much fun! We have been teaching the boys some Christmas carols, I love to hear the boys sing. Even Spencer gets in on the action and has excellent pitch! Aunt Royce and grandma Milliman would be impressed! Next week we will be attending a Make A Wish Breakfast with Santa party in Ogden and the boys are thrilled, as if that weren't enough action, later in the afternoon we are going to one Mike's co-workers house for another Christmas where Santa is invited to attend! That is going to be a LONG day! LOL!
Bryce is doing well in school. I'm impressed with the amount of information he needs to learn in Kindergarten. He's in school ALL day long and when he gets home, sometimes he has a hard time keeping his eyes open. He has been learning lots of songs at school and the neat thing is that he has taught them to Ian and Spencer. I can often hear all three of them singing one of the "color" songs. Bryce has learned a song for each of the colors to help him learn how to spell the different colors. He become such a big helper. The other day I had mentioned that I needed them to pick up so I could vaccumm. Anyhow, I went off to do something and when I came back the room was picked up and he had started vaccumming. What a joy he is, I love him so much! We are so grateful to have him in our family!!!!!!
Ian is doing super well. He is healthy and strong. He learns so much from his big brother. Now that we have him potty trained, I'm going to enroll him in preschool this coming year. I'm so proud of Ian, he was trained in one day and hasn't had any accidents since the first day of training and hasn't used one pull up! It's neat to see how proud he is of himself! On a funny note, Ian as many of you know, can become quite attatched to things. Well, his latest love and attatchment has been the Toys R Us toy catalog that arrived a few weeks ago. It goes every where with him. It is well loved and he wants to make sure that everyone knows just what he would like for Christmas. Mike and I have learned a very useful parenting tool called "ignoring". Quite often Ian's requests have become whining fits and demands. He has a hard time understanding that not right now doesn't mean never. Anyway, we sure love him and think he's a neat kid, whining and all!
Spencer will be two years old in one month. I can hardly believe it....what happened to my baby. I've been holding off on giving him his first haircut...somehow he won't look much like a baby anymore once his hair is cut! He is now sleeping in a big boy bed and he loves it! He is so good natured, loves to play with his brothers, talks a ton and is just a joy to have in the family!
Mike and I are doing well. Mike was recently diagnosed with sleep apnea and he is getting that all figured out and fixed. Thank goodness! He has been so tired for soooooo long! And as everyone knows, a person who has been sleep deprived, they aren't terribly cheerful! Ready to have my sweetheart back. On December 1st, Mike sewed on Tech. We are all pleased with his achievement. In the fall he will be starting school at Weber State. He wishes it was BYU, but Weber will do.
For my part, I keep busy with housework, kids, appts, sewing projects, church callings.... I day dream about owning a home in a state I want to live in, being completely out of debt, going back to school for my masters or perhaps a nursing degree. I think of all the projects I'd like to start work on and yet don't have the time or money. I often have to remind myself that I can do it all, just not all at the same time. Such a hard concept for me to accept. I'm not known for my patience. LOL!
Last weekend, we wanted to get out of the house and just go for a ride. So we went down to Draper and visited IKEA. That store is so much fun to just walk around. I love it! The kids even have fun! Anyhow, after we were done, we went to the Harley Davidson dealership just a little further down I-15 to look around. Mike would love to own a motorcycle one day. For now it's just a dream. The boys have also expressed a love for motorcycles. We took some pics of the boys with daddy on a motorcycle and this photo below came out the best! Too bad Bryce is looking the other way.

Halloween

Having Ian with us this Halloween was so much fun! I love to see the boys excited about trick or treating and picking out costumes. Ian has wanted to be a Transformer since the beginning of summer and of course Bryce was right with him. I'm hoping that maybe next year we can be a little more creative and do something as a family. I would love to make the costumes. As it is, I wore a dreadlock wig. Not terribly original I admit. I loved Spencer's costume and I dare say it was the cutest little kid costume I saw. Of course I'm biased. The boys made out with plenty of candy. The basic rule around here is they can have one piece a day (a little candy never hurt anyone) and only if they will eat their dinner. I'm sure we could probably eat healthier around here and yet most of the time I'm just grateful if my boys will eat what I've made. The funny thing is that the boys don't seem to remember that we even have the candy....out of sight out of mind.

Ward Trunk or Treat

Little Spencer was a skunk!

Ian was Optimus Prime....on the 30th we went to a Halloween activity on base so the kids got to dress up two nights in a row. They loved it!

Bryce was Megatron

Black Island Farms

We took these pictures at Black Island Farms in Syracuse Utah. We went with some friends for FHE and had a great time with the BIG slides, rides, and corn mazes. We had a blast even though it was a bit chilly.

Bryce, Mekayla, and Ian

Bryce

Spencer

Mike and the boys....you can see the cool slides in the back ground. The boys could have cared less about the maze when they caught sight of the slides. I have to admit even I had a fun time on them! LOL!

Quick Update...

Where to begin....hmmmmmmm.... I don't really feel like I have a whole lot to blog about and yet life is happening. Bryce continues to love school! I love seeing his enthusiasm for the things he is learning and the enjoyment he gets from being with children his age. Bryce is bright, funny, and such a joy! I'm going to have the opportunity to volunteer in his class this coming month and I can't wait. The teacher asked me if I would come in during reading time! I've always done pretty good about reading to the boys, but with Bryce in school I have been reading to all three of them consistently every night. I love how excited they are to listen, make comments and attempt to read. Mostly they just have their favorite books memorized! LOL!

Soccer season....well it ended....Bryce liked the idea of playing soccer, but when it came right down to it, he didn't like sharing the ball! He would usually last about 5 minutes before he took a seat in the middle of the field and pouted! There is always next year. Ian liked wearing the uniform but refused to practice... what little practice I could get out of him, meant that I had to practice with him. Fortunately I wasn't the only parent on the field practicing with their kid. On a side note, Ian is growing bigger and bigger. He is only 3 and a half and is 40lbs, and 41 inches tall. Clearly the chemo didn't stunt his growth. Most people meeting him for the first time, think he is much older than he is.

Spencer is growing up and talking up a storm. I'm his mom and I'm impressed with how much he is talking. He is such a big boy and loves to do things for himself. Of all my boys, he seems to be more of a climber, explorer, and into everything kinda kid. A couple Saturdays ago I put him in his chair for breakfast without belting him, he usually pushes his chair back and gets out on his own. I stepped away to put a load of clothes in the dryer, and on my way back, I heard a thump and crying. He fell out of his chair trying to get down. I knew he had had a concussion because he threw up all over me as soon as I picked him up. I took him to the ER just to make sure all was well. Everything was fine, but I was a wreck. It seems like whenever Mike goes TDY, that's when the poop hits the fan. He's fine now, but I'm much more vigilant about buckling him into his seat.

Mike has been gone for the last three weeks. We've all missed him so much! This TDY couldn't have been planned any worse. I've needed Mike so much this month and yet I haven't had him here. Ian had his scans today...all month I have been stressing out and worried. I wasn't looking forward to doing this alone. Fortunately I have good friends in our ward and a good friend that lives just around the corner who have all volunteered to help with the boys when I have to be with Ian in Salt Lake City. The good news is that according to the Radiologist, Ian's scans look clean. Now I have to go back tomorrow for his oncology appt and his one year follow up with the bone marrow transplant team. I can hardly believe that it has been a year. I'm not the same person I was two years ago. This challenge has changed me for the better and has also caused me to be more anxious. I'm working on the negative fall out and hoping that some day I won't be so anxious and stressed. I know there are others who struggling just as I am with big challenges and some who even suffer unimaginable trials. I'm grateful for a loving Father in Heaven who puts up with my emotional breakdowns and tantrums. Who will listen to my pleas and demands. I just hope that I can become the women He would have me be, no matter how painful the process may be. Some days I truly feel like I have reached my thresh hold! LOL!

On a side note, I received a new calling. The bishop called me into his office a couple weeks ago and said they had felt impressed that I needed to be called as the 1st counselor in the Young Womens Presidency. LOL! I guess the Lord thinks I still have quite a bit to learn. I'm actually really excited! Should be a great experience! I'm going to miss being a teacher in the Relief Society. It was the perfect calling!

I'm looking foward to the rest of this month. The boys are so excited about Halloween. This year Ian gets to join us. When Mike gets home, we are going to go to the Pumpkin Patch and have some fun! YAY! Also, Mike gets a couple weeks off in December and so we will most likely go to Phoenix. Can we say road trip! SO fun! I'm so ready for something fun! So this is my update. If you were bored reading it....too bad! LOL!