Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Christmas

We sure do love Christmas around here. The whole season just generally makes me happy--though it did take awhile this year.


Of course, Santa brought his horses into our neighborhood again this year. The kids always look forward to him coming down our street. Jensyn was brave enough to even get on one of his horses this year.






We spent Christmas Eve in Logan visiting grandma and grandpa Shipp, who we love dearly. I don't know that I know anyone as kind and generous as them. The little ones love going to visit with them, and John and I enjoy ourselves as well.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

The Love of my Life Turned 33.

During the very, very busy month of October, my sweet John had a birthday. Casey tended ALL of the kids (seriously, WHO leaves a 1 week old home with a baby sitter? Someone who just had their 4th child, I guess.) We went out to dinner to Red Robin and then back home, really no big deal. We about died laughing the whole time though because we sat right across from a table where one lady's pants showed SEVERAL inches of her crack. He was joking the whole time about blowing the straw wrapper into the "hole" between her pants and her body. It was not a cute sight, but we got quite a laugh. Of course, he took a picture with his camera phone--as if he was inconspicuous (HARDLY!) Practically the whole restaurant could hear the sound of the flash alone because it was so dark inside.



I just love John so much and I am so glad that he had a fun day. I remember his "player" years when for like 2 years in a row when we were dating that he stood me up on his birthday. He tried to make up some REALLY GOOD excuses. I am glad now that all is said and done, that he chose to be with me for every birthday for the rest of his life.

Happy Birthday, Johnny 5.


Tight-Rolled Peg Leg Pants, Straight out of the 80's.


Logan and John were driving to school one morning when out of the blue, Logan said, "Dad, when I am on the safety patrol at school, I will not wear mismatched clothes, and I will not wear peg leg pants. (Apparently, one of the safety patrol students had mismatched clothes on with pants like the photo above.) How does she know what peg leg pants are? They came out of the 80's! (Might I add was the coolest thing, because I did in when I was in the 6th grade with my Girbauds.) So hilarious these trends that we have. I am glad they are NOT a trend now.

But, most importantly, WHERE IN THE WORLD, did Logan get this attitude? Shoot, I am thinking that it came from me! I have been accused of being a snot on several occasions.


"Mom," Jensyn said. " When I grow up and get married, will me and my husband live with you and dad, in your house?"

"Nope, Jensyn." Your husband better buy you your own house when you get married. You will live in your own house.
"Oh good mom! Does that mean he will even buy us our own bunk bed to share?"

"Yep, J, you two will be able to sleep in bunk beds if you want!"

I just love her!

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Just Being Thankful

I am not quite sure whether or not I have said how much I LOVE my little family! Every single day is a blessing for me. I don't think that I could have chosen a better husband or hand-picked better kids. We all really have a good time together, and I could not ask for more.

We Sure Love Madden!

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Madden Cole McAllister

I went in for my routine NST at the hospital on Thursday. The monitoring went great and baby looked great. After that, I went upstairs to Dr. Smith. The nurse checked my blood pressure, and shocker, it was high. Dr. Smith came in after awhile and said very bluntly that it was too high, was going to be out of town for a week, this baby is coming today. He left the room and came back. He said that the hospital is scheduled for 5:30, cut time. I would need to go back downstairs and get my blood drawn for labs, go home, get my bags and return. I did just that.

Madden was born at 5:55 pm on October 22. He weighed 8lbs 2oz and is 20 inches long. He was born healthy and beautiful, identical to Jack. I stayed in the hospital for 4 days and really enjoyed every minute of it! I just love being taken care of! John was fabulous, the only downfall of the whole stay was that I REALLY missed my kids! It just broke my heart that the only way they could see me was through the exterior window to my hospital room. I don't think that memory will ever go away!

I am home now and baby is doing great. I am so glad to be done having kids-and am glad that my family is complete!

Thursday, September 17, 2009

I Have Been a Slacker!

It has definitely been awhile since I have posted much of anything! I have had so much going on in the past several months that it almost seems hard to put into words! The season is rounding down for John which means another LONG winter, but also means one of my favorite times of the year to be able to spend the days with my sweet John. We love to be together, and are never very far apart. John has had a great season, despite the economy around us. For that, I would say, we have been extremely lucky. We owe much of that though, to our awesome customers. They have really got it together!

Baby (Madden?) is getting closer to making his appearance, though not a very fun pregnancy for me! During much of my first and second trimester, I had extremely high blood pressure where I had to monitor my activities and then measure my blood pressure. If an activity caused my blood pressure to soar then I had to lay down-and stay down! I had these 3 little kids during much of the summer who had to spend countless hours in my room with me because I was "down." Once that started to diminish, I took the awesome Glucola test at the doctors office. I failed the first test and had to go take the 3 hour test. I failed again. I felt like a failure! It took its toll on me definitely. I was told by the Diabetic Clinic that it is not my fault, and that there was not one thing that I could have done differently to have it be any different (besides not be born to my dad as it is genetic.) I was put on a pretty strict nutritional diet where I have to consume 30 grams of carbs per meal, along with 15 grams of protein-exactly. 2 hours later, I have to test my blood sugar to make sure that it is within reasonable range. It worked well for like...a day...and then my body almost quit making insulin. I had to be put on a medication to help my body to do just that. Several days later, it still wasn't enough. Dr. Smith had to increase my dosage to twice a day where I would take it both morning and night. This FINALLY has seemed to do the trick. The beauty of it is that I have lost almost 8 pounds total during the final weeks of pregnancy, bringing my total weight gain for my whole pregnancy, in my 9th month to 10 1/2 pounds. I think I can handle that okay. It really just makes me wonder what the size of this baby is really going to be! Logan was 9.5 lbs, Jensyn was 7lbs 14 oz, and Jack was 9 lbs 3 oz. Now that with gestational diabetes, the likelihood of having a large baby is almost inevitable if it is untreated. Well, I would say I do keep it treated, but my normal size baby is large! I am now 33 weeks today, and if all goes as planned, I will have a new baby on Thursday October 29 (John's birthday), so just over 5 weeks. We are really getting excited. All of the kids are excited as well to have this new addition. It does seem so weird to be having a 4th! We were married when I was 19 and had Logan when I was almost 25--and then boom, boom, boom (...and boom)! Now in December I will be 30 and I can focus on losing the weight and raising my family!

I have been keeping busy with the PTA. I am the Historian again this year and also I am on the Executive Board doing Membership. This has definitely been interesting with ALL that has been going on with my health. I also received a new calling at church--the 2nd Counselor in the Relief Society. I am pretty excited and hope that I can bring to the table a new perspective. I love my Enrichment Leader and I think it will be awesome!

Cute Chelsey and Tony will be adding to their family as well and I cannot wait to see what they are having. Will Madden have a friend? I hope so! How fun.

Well, I think that about sums up what I have been dealing with the last few months. This too shall pass and things will be back to normal in no time.




Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Bird

John and I decided to go out to dinner tonight without the kids. We were lucky enough to be able to leave them home with Zach, Johns cute cousin. We went to an early-bird dinner at Texas Roadhouse. Once we were done, we decided that we would drive down to the University Hospital to see Johns other cute cousin, Mandie, who is in the hospital to get her lung function levels up. She has battled Cystic Fibrosis during her life. FINALLY, we get to go see her. We made it all the way up to the U, parked, walked in, attempted to find her room, but ended up in the maternity ward. As we were searching signs for room 24(?)East, we received a phone call from Casey wondering where she should take Jensyn to repair her face. Zach and the kids were spinning around, playing when apparently, Zach started feeling dizzy and somehow let go of Jensyn during a spin. She fell and banged her face up pretty good. (I called Mandie to tell her we were there, but couldn't stay to see her. So sad...) But, about 30 minutes later, we finally made in to the InstaScare in Sandy. She was asleep, curled up, and her face under an icepack. I really had to hold back the tears once I saw her. We signed the consent to treat and the doctor got busy stitching up her mouth. She received 5 stitches. Her whole left side of her face was bloody and swollen. I still am not quite sure what would have hit her, but it was quite the traumatic fall! Luckily, the cartilage has not formed on her nose, but if it had, she would have also suffered a broken nose. She was quite lethargic until they were able to administer her some pain medication. She did not make a single sound while they injected her with the shot to numb her mouth, nor the 5 stitches they put in her mouth. She did say that it hurt though, when we tried to blow her nose out. I was so proud of her!

Driving from what I thought was the furthest place possible that we could be away from her, I did have time to think. I was nervous, but I felt like I did need to keep optimistic about her condition. Somehow I did know that she would be okay. I also felt so helpless to a little girl who had a fabulous aunt to take her for help, but I knew that she would be so happy to see her mom and dad. It seemed so surreal--this is the first accident that we have encountered as parents (unless a bee sting at the cabin counts.) I was afraid, I was unsure, it was definitely a feeling that I hope to never experience again! Would my little 4 year old have a broken nose, would her face be scarred, is she going to be okay? None of these answers would I know until I saw her myself.
I don't remember saying "a little prayer", which seems weird that I wouldn't do that. I did feel a sense of comfort, though, knowing that she was going to be okay. It is interesting how life can be fine one moment, and then during another fleeting moment it is possible that it is not okay. I am so grateful that the moment that I left her, she was okay. I am grateful that she is going to be okay. I only pray that in the future my children can be as safe and healthy as they have been. I don't think I could last a minute without any of my family right by me.


Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Mantua

We spent Saturday morning with John and Janice in Mantua. We had an enjoyable time. Wherever there is water, Logan is a fish, and Jensyn and Jack play around the water but usually not IN it. We had a fun time, and they talk about it a lot. Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa JJ for inviting us, and for the great hospitality.











So picture this...



(John is wearing his board shorts and a t-shirt--normal boating attire. This boating attire also includes his legs. If you have ever seen them, which chances are, you haven't, he has long bird legs which never see sun-- since he never wears shorts.)

John went into the Neighborhood Walmart to pick up some drinks to bring boating. When he came back out, he said to me,

"See that guy right there?"

"Ya," I said.

"He said to me, 'nice legs.' "

In reply and immediatly, John said, "Nice mullet."


The mullet guy just looked at John, surprised that he had such a comeback, and slightly offended.

Leave it to John for his quick wit and funny comments.

Hilarious. Who wears a mullet anyways?

Where has all the time gone?

Oh my word! The fabulous summer is drawing to and end, and we are so lucky to have had such a fun one! I really hate to see it go, however, it does mean that we are closer to a new baby. (This in itself I can't believe, either! Our family will be complete.)

We have spent many weekends at the cabin, one weekend in the Logan/Cache Valley/Sardine Canyon area, boating with Chelsey, Tony, Hogan, and baby. We really are grateful to have such wonderful people to surround ourselves with. Here is a little photo re-cap of the fun things that we do. I can't complain!




















Tuesday, July 28, 2009

My Little GQ

I just love him! We were getting ready to leave for church and I decided that I wanted to take a picture of him. When I told him that I wanted to do this, he ran to the door, turned around and shot me this "cool dude" pose. I'm thinking he's gonna steal some hearts!

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Oh, and about Father's Day...


I came across a book today given to John last year from our ward. It was a tribute to Fathers written by Vaughn J. Featherstone entitled In Honor of Fathers. (Extra special since Vaughn is in our ward.) I opened it and read a little out of it today, then skipped all the way to the end. This is what is said:

"...to each of you I leave this heartfelt tribute: your wife and your children have put you on a towering pedestal---and even when you don't achieve what you think you should, you deserve to be there."

John deserves to be there! I love you, John.

Russell Family Summer Barbeque

We had such a fun-filled night last night. The Russell family came over to our home for an evening of 4th of July festivities. We started out barbecuing the meat, then we started digging into all of the yummy food that everyone brought. I made some traveling taco dip, Aimee made her famous poppy seed salad, Sue made her fabulous frog-eye salad. We had chips, homemade ice cream, raspberry lemonade with real raspberries, the list goes on and on! The night was full of fun and a variety of events that really seemed to streamline the evening.

Dr. Smith has asked me to monitor my activities with a blood pressure monitor. My blood pressure has been consistently high, indicating toxemia. About 45 minutes prior to the party arriving, I tested myself. It was through the roof (again.) I had to immediately lay down and try to lower it. A few minutes later, John and Becca arrived to help get the party started. Once Sue showed up, she helped with the finishing touches on getting my home cleaned. THANK YOU to this amazing family, always willing to help, and always concerned with my family. I don't think I could ever ask for a better family to be married into. I was able to stabilize a lower blood pressure through the night because of them...and it sure made it more enjoyable!