The other day one of my friends said that her brother who flies helicopters for the army was going to stop by to visit her because he just happened to be flying by the area. (He did inform us that the fuel cost for one of these Apache helicopters is about $4000-$5000 per hour.) I'm glad I took her up on the offer to take the boys to see the helicopter because they thought it was really cool. I thought it was cool that I could just drive my car right up to the helicopter and there were not a million kids crowded around to see it. Little things like this make me happy to live in a small town. Even though we miss out on a lot of things, I don't miss the crowds.
We spent a hot weekend visiting my parents while Josey was at a basketball camp. The boys had a blast playing with their cousins in grandma's new pool. It's always fun to play with cousins and they were completely worn out. The trip must have even worn out Jaycie who slept from 9:00 last night to 5:30 this morning. I'll count that as my first full night's sleep in awhile, and it felt great.

Fossil Butte

Since we've lived here for 4 years now, we decided it was finally time to make a visit to our very own national monument, Fossil Butte. This area used to be covered by a lake that left a lot of fish fossils as well as some other animals, such as this crocodile seen here. It would be nice if Kemmerer still had some of the tropical climate! Although Jordan was mostly interested in trying to get us to buy something for him from the gift shop (which we didn't), I think the boys had a fun time. After visiting the museum, we decided to take a quick little hike (about 2 miles). It would have been great, but we were kind of in a rush and the mosquitoes were swarming like crazy so the whole time we're pressuring Jarrett to hurry and I felt bad for the little guy. He sure is a trooper though. At one point I asked him if he was having fun and he replied in the sweetest little voice, "Not too fun." I don't think he whined or complained once, although the same can't be said for his older brother who kept asking us about every minute if we could just go back. The little field trip did do the trick of exhausting them though, as it's 7:30 a.m. and they're both still asleep. I don't think they've slept past 6:30 once this summer. Enjoy the pictures and if you ever decide to visit us, this is what you get to look forward to!

This is just a picture Josey took of the sunset from our porch. We do get to experience some beauty here.

June

I just wanted to do a quick little update while I have a few minutes. The kids are in bed and it is nice and peaceful. I can't believe Jaycie is 3 weeks old today. She has already brought so much joy into our home. I've heard the transition to three kids is a lot more difficult than having two, but my life has been made a lot easier due to the fact that Jaycie is a very good baby and Josey is home for the summer. Jaycie sleeps for about 3 hour stretches at night, and she's only awake for about 15 minutes to eat and then back to sleep, so I've been feeling pretty good. She almost only cries when she's hungry and she loves to be held. It has been a lot of fun to have a summer baby because we can go outside and go for walks and still do a lot of fun things. Jaycie has been to the pool a few times already, and each time she has just slept the whole time. We've gone to Bear Lake. We've enjoyed watching Jordan play his first season of T-ball. It took him awhile to get the hang of things, but then he started enjoying it quite a bit more and also became a little goof-off (as you can see from the picture). He did get to play on the same team as his two best buddies, so that was fun for him. We've banned the Wii at our house for the summer, due to Jordan's obsession with it. The trampoline has been doing a good job of keeping the boys entertained. They got a chance to sleep out with their dad one night and I think they loved every minute of that, although I'm not sure Josey did. We're looking forward to visiting Montana in about three weeks and letting Jaycie's grandparents meet her for the first time. We're sure they'll be in love.

Introducing...

Jaycie Rose Allen, the newest sweet addition to our family, was born Thursday weighing 6 lbs 6 oz and measuring 20 inches long. I'm proud to say she has a beautiful head of dark hair. We'll see how long it lasts. She is beautiful and sweet and perfect and I'm so happy she was born healthy and strong. She came 16 days earlier than expected, but I really had been hoping (and doing a little bit of praying, I'll admit) that she would make an early entrance.

So far, she has been a sweet angel and has let me get a lot of rest. I'm feeling great. The labor went very similarly to that of my boys, with my water breaking at 3 in the morning and no contractions starting until I went to the hospital at 9:30 or so and got some pitocin. I was only dilated to about 1 cm. By the time I got to 4 or 5 I was really ready for the epidural, but they were a little slow getting it to me (in my opinion, nothing could have been fast enough) and before it started to really kick in I felt like I was really close to having a baby. But then I complained about feeling a little too much pain on my right side (that's right, I like to feel NO pain) and so they upped my dose of the epidural a bit and by the time the doctor was ready for me to push I could feel absolutely nothing. With my other epidurals I felt no pain, but I could definitely tell when I should push. This time was hard because I pushed for about 40 minutes feeling nothing and probably made no progress. But the doctor and nurses were encouraging and when the epidural finally started wearing off and I could feel the need to push, it only took another 20 minutes or so to get her out.

I'm so happy to have Jaycie here as the newest member of our family. The boys just keep saying how tiny and cute she is. Jordan has many questions about the umbilical cord. They are loving giving her kisses and Jarrett always makes sure to ask me if his face is clean before he kisses her. My mom has been here trying to keep them entertained, and I appreciate her help. I'm in bliss and a little hormonal as today I started crying watching a CMT music video. I can't even remember the last time I cried, but I guess I better warn Josey before things get out of hand. (And just because I'm a little surprised myself, I will let you know that the day before Jaycie's birth I did run 2 miles pushing the boys in the jogging stroller. Who knew I would really run through my whole pregnancy?)

May Snow Day

This is what you get to wake up to in May (and June, and probably July...) when you live here in Wyoming. I know you are jealous! The good news is that the wind isn't blowing! And the boys got to enjoy about 10 minutes of playing outside before Jordan filled Jarrett's coat with snow. Jarrett came in bawling because he was freezing and Jordan was trailing after acting perfectly innocent. I really wanted to stuff some snow down Jordan's coat (which I'm sure Josey would have done), but I resisted the temptation and was actually rewarded a few minutes later listening to Jordan apologize and ask Jarrett's forgiveness. (Remember that last post about being happy every day that I get to stay home with these boys...I think I was feeling a little sappy considering it was Mother's Day.)

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.