I can't believe it's been two months since I last updated my blog. My mind is still blank as to what to say, and I have no pictures. I have been lousy at taking pictures, but I'm sure we have about a billion pictures from Josey's track meets. That's my excuse for having no pictures...he always has the camera. Track season has been tough for him this year because the weather has not been very cooperative. I've been trying really hard to have a positive attitude, but I'm just going to say it...this weather STINKS!! My kids have been wanting to play outside, but over the past month, there have honestly been maybe 4 or 5 days when they could do so without freezing their little bums off or blowing away in this Wyoming wind. Somedays it can be really hard. Anyways, enough of the negative...I just know some warm weather has got to be coming someday...just not this week.

March and April flew by. We spent the first week of April in Montana visiting Josey's family. We thought about going somewhere warm, but it all came down to what the boys wanted to do, which was see their grandpa & grandma. Their favorite thing is to play in the hot tub and they got plenty of time to do that. They also loved going to the auction and just being spoiled.

I think I got hit with the symptoms of "nesting" & spring cleaning at the same time and went a little crazy through the end of March and most of April. I spent a couple of weeks moving the boys downstairs, painting their dresser and closets, organizing the basement, and totally dejunking. It felt so good when I was done because it was like we found a whole extra room, and now we have a little guest room. I'm typically pretty good at getting rid of junk, but I didn't realize we were holding on to quite a few things that we would never need. There are things Josey claims he will need someday, but so far he has never missed anything that was thrown away.

After tackling the basement, I was ready to get to work on the nursery. I've never decorated a nursery before, especially a cute girl one, so I was pretty excited to get to work. After repainting the room twice, I still wasn't satisfied with the color and I spent a lot of nights tossing & turning and stressing about stupid stuff and money and time wasted. This project was not going anywhere close to how I planned it. Let's just say I'm not meant to be a decorator. But once I got everything in there - the wall border, the valances, the crib - it actually looks pretty cute and it seems I spent a lot of time stressing over nothing. I'm very happy with how it turned out; now I just need a baby to go with it. Seven more weeks!

I'm still feeling really good and I'm so lucky to have had such an uneventful and healthy pregnancy thus far. Last week running started getting a little painful, so I might be sticking with walking and the elliptical for the next few weeks, but we'll see. I have the energy for running, but walking around with a hip that I can barely move for the rest of the day doesn't really seem worth it.

And as today is Mother's Day and I have no current pictures, here are a few older pics of my sweet boys who are growing up way too fast. Today we had a lesson in Relief Society on the prophet. I'm reminded of how blessed I have been by choosing to follow the counsel of our prophets and apostles by making motherhood a priority. I have been blessed to be able to stay home with my kids, even being married to a poor old school teacher. When I was younger, I did not see myself staying home with my kids. I saw myself making lots of money! I worked hard to get a good education, and some would say it has gone to waste. But I do not feel this way at all. EVERY DAY I think about how lucky I am to get to be with my kids (even when Jordan says to me at one of my worst moments "Why did you even have kids?"). I am happy and fulfilled and at peace trying to figure out how to teach these sweet spirits with CUTE CUTE bodies and faces how to navigate this confusing world and make good choices. I'm so thankful to be a mom!

What's Happening in Wyoming

Yay! Basketball season is finally over! True, track practice starts in a week, but...I'll forget about that for now and enjoy my husband for a week. We've spent the last two weekends at region and state basketball tournaments. Regionals were in Riverton, WY and Lyle & Jan surprised us by showing up at the first game. The boys were super happy to see them (and Arielle for a day) and it was nice having a little help keeping them under control.

The weekend before regionals, the team had to stay overnight for two away games and because the school district is making so many budget cuts, Josey had to share a full size bed with the other assistant coach. Luckily, they decided to splurge at the tournaments so each of the coaches got their own room, and we decided to make it a fun little family trip. This seemed like a great thing until Jordan came down with a horrible cough and kept us up all night for a couple of nights in a row. Other than that, it was a fun little family trip and the boys got to enjoy plenty of swimming.

Josey is the assistant coach of the Kemmerer girls team, and they surprised a lot of people by making it to the state tournament for the first time in 17 years! The coaches have done so much work with this group of girls, who really do not have a lot going for them athletically, and have not been taught much about basketball through the years. They have seen so much improvement over the last couple of years, and hopefully the program will continue to improve.

This past weekend we traveled to Casper for the state tournament. This time we decided to leave the boys with my parents (thanks a lot mom & dad!). It turned out to be a very good thing we did because Josey & I both came down with a stomach bug that made us pretty miserable for the first day and I'm sure the boys would have been completely miserable too. Besides, I'm sure they had a lot of fun tormenting their grandparents. The basketball team ended up losing both games at state, but they gave it their best shot and were up against some really tough teams.

Other than that, there hasn't been a whole lot going on in our lives. I'm well into the second trimester of my pregnancy (24 weeks) and feeling really good. The hip problem that plagued my running during the first trimester gradually disappeared around the beginning of the second trimester until I felt absolutely no pain at all. I knew it was some weird hormonal thing, even though Josey thought that was the craziest thing he'd ever heard. But it feels great to run with no pain, although it's getting a little bit more uncomfortable each day. I still run about 3-4 miles a day, but sometimes I feel like I'm moving like a snail. And I'm starting to feel a little embarrassed about the way I look running. Oh well, I'll probably keep doing it for as long as I can and not worry about what people think.

Anyways, here are some pictures from regionals. Luckily Jan brought her camera because I forgot mine.

Isn't She Beautiful?

Yep, that's right. I'm having a girl!! I've been thinking that this one was another boy, but I was wrong. It will be an exciting new adventure to have a sweet baby girl. Now I will have to redo the bedroom and come up with a name, which is my biggest dilemma right now. The girl name I like is the one I've always liked, but it doesn't start with a "J." So I'm thinking of abandoning the "J" name thing, but I'm not sure. I'm not going to tell you the name, but if you have any "J" names you think are cute, feel free to share. Josey won't even tell me the names he's thought of because he knows I will think they are weird. He likes unique, but I do not really care so much about that. Do you think it would matter if we all had "J" names and this baby did not? Just interested in some opinions.

Cute and Not So Cute

Cute: The day before Jordan's birthday he informed me and Josey: "I'm going to be 5 tomorrow, but don't worry, I'll still live with you."

Not So Cute: Tonight I was laying on the couch and Jordan walks over to me and says, "Even if you're getting fat, I'll still love you." (I informed him that I wasn't getting fat; I just have a baby in my belly, thank you very much.)

Happy Birthday Jarrett!

My sweet Jarrett turned 3 this week and Jordan will be 5 this next week. They're growing up so fast! The other day at lunch I was telling Jordan that I was going to be so sad when he went to kindergarten next year and Jarrett said, "Don't be sad, mommy, I'll still be here."

Here are a few pictures from Jarrett's birthday party. Not too exciting, just our little family, but still fun. My parents came up on Friday to visit and bring presents. It's always great when someone will travel to Kemmerer to see us! Jarrett was so cute and grateful for his presents and willing to share everything with Jordan, who wouldn't stop pestering him about it all day.

Yes, there really is a baby inside that belly.

A sled from Grandpa and Grandma C.

Some balloons from Grandpa and Grandma A.

And this is a little note that Jordan wrote for Josey. This writing thing has really been a long time coming for him. He has never wanted to sit down for more than a few minutes and try writing anything. And it's only been a couple of months that he would actually write his name in a straight line. This time he really wanted to tell his dad that he loved golfing with him ("except for when daddy yells at me"... unfortunately, his clearest memory of golfing with Josey was last year when Jordan and Jarrett took off down the fairway for the water stop with Josey yelling at them to come back. They paid him absolutely no heed, and they came home crying to me that they made daddy really mad.) Anyways, I love seeing Jordan so excited about learning and can only hope it lasts when the schools start squelching it out of him with all of their tests. I could hardly believe that my active little boy would concentrate for about 30 minutes on this special note for his daddy.

Kids Say the Darndest Things...

I know...kind of a lame title for a post, but I wanted to share some of the things that keep me laughing every day.

We were playing Simon Says with Jordan:
Josey: Simon says put your finger in your nose
Jordan thinks about this for a minute and his finger is getting very close to his nose, and then he says: I can't. I don't want to get germs on it because I just washed it.
(Lately Jordan has become a huge germophobe and is obsessed with washing his hands. They are raw and bleeding.)

Jarrett's nursery teacher asked who wanted to say the prayer in nursery and Jarrett raised his hand. When she chose him he said, "I'll do it to the best of my ability." She said all the other nursery kids were just staring at him, thinking What??

The other morning I sent Jordan to his room and Jarrett gets this evil little grin on his face and says to me, "If we had a locker, we could lock him in his room!" Amazing how my sweet little boy could come up with such a mean punishment for his brother.

Thank goodness these sweet little boys give me something to smile about every single day. I'm blessed to have such good kids. They have their bad days like all of us, but for the past 2 weeks, even when they were both really sick, they really have been angels and I am so grateful!

I've been meaning to update my blog for awhile, but then I never quite get around to it. This post may be a lot of talking and very few pictures, since I don't have many.

So what's been happening with us? Well, if you haven't heard by now, I'm going to have another baby (due in June). We are very excited, and I've been feeling okay - not great, but okay - and since the first trimester is officially over, I think I'll be rounding a corner any day here now in the energy and nausea department. My biggest complaint is my sore hip, which has prevented me from running more than about 3, maybe 4 if I'm lucky, days a week. I'm not 100% sure what's wrong with it because I never went to the doctor. I know what his diagnosis will be: stop running. I know, I know! I need to stop, but some days during the first trimester running was my lifesaver as it helped me feel like I had some energy and just helped me feel more like myself. My theory is that the inflammation in my hip was brought on by hormonal changes that came with pregnancy because that is right when it started and I had similar weird things happen when I was pregnant with Jarrett. It's a bummer, and eventually I will have to stop running to give it a rest, just not quite yet. Running has definitely not really helped with the weight gain thing. I'm only at 13 weeks, but I definitely look a lot more pregnant than that. And I will not post a picture.

We spent Thanksgiving this year in Montana, and during the whole four days we were there, I took about four pictures. We had a great time, as always. I'm so blessed to have such awesome in-laws.

Here are a couple of snow pictures. We've had a good amount of snow, but it hasn't been the kind of snow that's very good to play in. Plus, it's hard to find a day when it's not blowing so hard that it makes it miserable to take the kids out. One Sunday afternoon after church, it was a very nice day and the kids wanted to play in the snow so I bundled them up and bundled myself up and we went outside. Then I decided to take them on a little walk, pulling them behind me in the sled. I really haven't been up for a lot of activity since this pregnancy has wiped out a lot of my energy, and since I was feeling really good this day and actually wasn't tired, I decided to take them sledding. So we started walking to the sledding hill, when Jordan's little mind starts working and he tells me, "But mommy, we're not supposed to go sledding on Sunday." Talk about guilt and living a double standard! But I just told him that mommy felt good that day and it would be okay to go sledding. Hopefully he doesn't remember that lesson from his mommy in the future. I don't know if I would even consider us really breaking the Sabbath (Josey might), but it was nice for my 4-year-old to point it out to me that we were.

Josey has been really busy coaching girls' basketball (the team's not doing great so far, but hopefully they're improving), so we're really excited for Christmas break. I'm sure Josey's very excited to see what I got him for Christmas. Unfortunately for him, I already know what he got me and I'm going to LOVE it. See, here's what happened. He ordered a present for me the other day on Amazon and it said it would be shipped in 5-9 days, so he wasn't even sure if it would be here by Christmas. Usually when we get something here by UPS or FedEx, it doesn't get delivered until about 9 or 10 p.m., so he probably figured he would be home. Well, it didn't quite work that way. While he was at school the other day, the FedEx man made a special delivery. I was surprised when I opened the door and found a box labeled "Masseur In-A-Box." (It is a massage mat that lies flat and gives a really good back rub.) He really should have paid the extra $6 to get it gift wrapped, but he was too cheap. (And if it had been in a plain brown cardboard box, I would have just wrapped it and put it under the tree.) But now the surprise was already ruined, so I figured I better give it a try. It was awesome! He has a knack for picking out presents that I would never consider getting for myself, but I always end up enjoying them way more than the clothes I thought I wanted. I love you Josey! I promise my Christmas is not ruined, and now I better go get a massage.