WYATT TURNS 3

Wyatt turned 3 in December, and the poor kid was really sick on his birthday. We had planned to go bowling, but ended up staying home. He didn't seem to mind too much though, since he still got the birthday treatment.

Here are a few things about Wyatt at three years old that I never ever want to forget...

- He says 'I love you' to me about 20 times a day, and he is always really serious and intense when he says it - you can tell he means it each and every time.

- He loves villains. Pick a bad guy from any show, and it is guaranteed to be Wyatt's favorite character from that show. He goes around pretending to be Zurg or any other villain he can think of all day long. Should we be worried?!

- He worships the ground his brother walks on and shows this by harassing him all day long. Jaxson loves it when Wyatt takes his nap, and you can usually hear a big sigh from him when Wyatt wakes up. They are best buddies though and it makes me so happy to watch them laugh, play and wrestle with eachother.

- He never stops talking. Seriously, never. The other day, we drove an hour in the car with him and Jaxson to Mark's parents house. He talked the WHOLE ENTIRE WAY, nonstop. Some of the time he was even pretending to talk Spanish. When we pulled up in their driveway I turned and said "Wyatt, do you ever stop talking?" He really gave it some thought for a second before saying matter of factly "Nope." Nope is right.

- His favorite song is Love Is Spoken Here. For the past six months or so, it is the only song he ever chooses to have sung to him at nap time and bed time, and he calls it "Mommy saying prayers" because of the first line. I bet Mark and I have both sung it hundreds of times over the last little while. It is a good one for us to sing to him, especially when we have been impatient with him. Its hard to sing those words right after you have been yelling at your kids! I don't know when he will change his song choice, but it is so cute that he loves it so much for now.

- He is hilarious! He has lots of energy and is really intense, and that can really wear on our patience sometimes. But he is also the sunshine of each day, and I hardly ever have a conversation with Mark that doesn't start with "Guess what Wyatt did today..."

Happy 3rd birthday Wy-guy! We love you and wouldn't change you for the world!

Beaming at his "Bad Guy Cake". Since he was so sick, I let him pick whatever he wanted to put on his cake. From left to right we have: Darth Vader, Darth Maul, Buzz (one good guy got on there!), Zurg, and Big Baby.

The birthday boy with his birthday dinner, that I think he took two bites of and probably threw up later.

Jaxson helping Wyatt play with some of his presents. Classic Wyatt face.

Barely feeling up to opening presents in the morning.

Last Minute California Trip

Sometimes last minute trips are the best, and this was one of those. A few days before Thanksgiving I realized that Wyatt would only be free at Disneyland for two more weeks, and then I found a killer deal for a Newport condo on KSL, and you can guess the rest. I can't pass up a good deal + a free ticket, and Mark wasn't hard to persuade, so we decided to hop in the car and go the next week. We didn't think anyone would be able to come since it was so last minute, but Mark's sister Cami and her family came, his brother Tyler and his wife (the newlyweds) came for a couple days, and my mom flew down and stayed for a couple of days. It was so much fun to get to hang out with everybody, relax, and leave a blizzard behind for sunny and 70!

The kids on the beach. This trip has been a little tradition for the past few years - every Dec. or Jan. we have hit Disneyland and the beach with Brett and Cami and their kids. These cousins LOOOOOOOOVE eachother, and they make such fun memories each trip.

The castle all lit up for Christmas. If you haven't been to Disneyland at Christmastime, go! It is magical, totally decked out and lit up. This week was perfect because kids weren't out of school yet for Christmas break, so we got to walk on to almost every ride on two of the days we were there. Yay for no lines! It makes it a whole different experience.

Characters, characters, and more characters! One of the best parts of the trip was seeing Wyatt meet all of the Disney characters he loves. Three is a magical age to go to disneyland - he was just amazed by everything. He thought they were all real, and that was fun to watch.

His favorites, Chip and Dale. Mark shows the boys old Disney cartoons on YouTube all the time, and Wyatt LOVES these guys. He kept running back for one more hug.

We went to Disneyland 3 days (1 day too many, more on that later), and hit the beach and swam at the condo in between. Here are the boys collecting shells in the tide pools at Dana Point.

Wyatt pointing to something awesome he must have found. Notice the Buzz and Zurg in his hands. He got those at Disneyland and didn't put them down for the rest of the trip.

At the beach with Grandma Jill. It was so fun for us to get to have her here for a couple of the days! The boys of course adore her, and she was a major help with Wyatt.

Jax and Grandma on Main Street in Disneyland. Every night, they make it "snow". It's pretty cool.

Splash Mountain! Jaxson was finally tall enough to go this year and he LOVED it of course, along with Space Mountain and the Tower of Terror. He is our little daredevil when it comes to rides (not so much on other things :) ).

Mark is going to love me for posting this one. I just had to show that he is simply too awesome for Small World. Every year, he has to go on it because the kids love it. And every year he has that exact same expression on his face!

But see that smile? That is why we have to go on it!

My nephew McKay and my mom. Even though she isn't 'technically' his Grandma, that does't stop him from loving her! And I'm pretty sure it goes both ways.

Jax and MaKenna on Toy Story Mania. Best. Ride. Ever.

Cousins

Wyatt didn't cry on the Matterhorn (but he talks about the snow monster every single day, STILL, so that one might have been a mistake). However, he was TERRIFIED on goofy's roller coaster in toon town. He doesn't take after his brother, apparently. Above is a picture of him before the ride started, and below is a picture of him right after it ended...

Poor kid!

3-D glasses on for Toy Story Mania

So on the third day of Disneyland (too many, I am telling you), Wyatt wasn't feeling that great. He had hurt his leg and wouldn't walk on it, which somehow also made him pee his pants. So he peed his pants in the morning, and we had to buy $30 Disneyland warm-ups. They aren't even cute! But I make him wear them because that is the kind of mom I am. So he was kind of hard the rest of the day, and our Nanny/Grandma Jill had already flown home. The day was MUCH more crowded than the first day, and this made us grouchy because we had been so spoiled the first two days. By night time, we were all pretty worn out (except the kids, because that is how it works). We were walking across a packed Main Street to get to one of the restaurants for dinner, and I could feel myself start to go low. I didn't want to stop to check it right there because it was so crowded, so I waited until we got across that area. By then I was really low, and I told Mark I needed stuff out of the bag. He handed me a Snickers, which would have been fine if I wasn't so low, but sometimes it has to be faster sugar than Chocolate. I forgot about the juice and the glucose tablets, and insisted he dig to the bottom of the bag for Starbursts. And they WERE at the bottom, and then the wrappers had melted on them, and I was not nice about it. He was trying really hard, but I am not the most rational at that point, and I just wanted him to unwrap them faster! So anyway, we are in an argument at this point, I am still coming up from the low, we get our expensive Disneyland food and finally find a table in the crowded restaurant and sit down and....Wyatt peed his pants again! So fun. And then Mark said a swear word in front of all of the kids (if he didn't say it I would have). So see what I mean? Three days is one too many. At least it's funny now, right?

Besides that incident the trip was so, so, SO fun. The boys are at such fun ages, and we are so blessed to have fun families to hang out with and have a blast with! Oh, and we saw the Octomom at the grocery store. Does it get any better than that?

One Year Later...

One year ago this week my life changed when I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. After living with this for a year, I just wanted to write down some of my thoughts.

When I was first diagnosed, I felt so scared. I didn't know much about it, and was afraid I would have to give up bread and chocolate (kill me now!). I felt labeled, like all of the sudden I was something I hadn't been the day before: a diabetic. A scary word. I felt overwhelmed, because I knew it meant I would live with the label and illness for the rest of my life. I felt depressed, because no matter what, complications will happen at some point. Mom, if you are reading this, I am not talking about tomorrow - I am talking about SOMEDAY, in like 50 years. That was a depressing thought.

I also felt hope. Through prayers and Priesthood blessings, I was able to feel the comforting presence of the Holy Ghost, and the assurance that Heavenly Father is aware of me and of my own personal trials. I felt peace - I knew that I could handle this and that for whatever reason, I am supposed to experience this and learn from it. I felt gratitude - gratitude that my body hadn't developed this illness until now, gratitude for good medical insurance, and gratitude for doctors and nurses and scientists who have made it

possible over the years for diabetics to process glucose and live. It is completely amazing to me that someone figured how to do that. A few drops of clear liquid every day are the difference between living or not. Seriously, amazing. If I was born at a different time or in a different place, I may not have access to the insulin that keeps my body working. That is a huge blessing, and I know that I am lucky.

On to the less serious, here is what else I have learned. Diabetes is a giant pain in the butt. It is like our third child - a red-headed, naughty step child that picks it's nose and eats it. It wakes me up in the middle of the night and makes me carry a long list of supplies at all times. Which, without fail, if I ever happen to forget any of the supplies, I will end up crucially needing them. It forces me to open food in the grocery store and eat it before paying for it. It makes me wear bigger pants (sniff). Sometimes it makes me extra cranky, short tempered, and extra exhausted. It is unpredictable and uncontrollable some days. Even if it is temporarily out of sight, it is never far out of mind. Just like a kid, I tell you.

I also have a new best friend called an insulin pump, and we are really, REALLY close. We do almost everything together. We laugh together, we cry together, we do the laundry together. We are pretty much joined at the hip (HAHAHA - sorry, but that is funny. I inject it right above my hip). Here is the deal with a pump for those of you that don't know these things: It does not do everything for me. I used to think that an insulin pump figured out how much insulin a person needed and did all the work for them - so that they didn't have to prick their finger or count carbs. That would be nice, but we aren't there yet. It has no idea what is going on inside of my body, except for what I tell it.

(stock photo - not me in case you were wondering :)

The pump works like this - it gives me a constant little dose of insulin throughout the day, just like a real pancreas. When I eat, I have to check my blood sugar and program in the blood sugar number, and the number of carbs I am eating. Then my magic pump does all the math for me and based on those two numbers tells me how much insulin I need to give myself. Then I program it in and it travels from the tubes into my site (usually in my front or back torso), along with a lovely little prickling sensation. Sometimes the amount is right, and sometimes it is wrong. Due to me figuring/guessing the carbs wrong, or changes in stress levels, hormones, activity level, etc. I will often go high or low.

High for me is anything over 160, low is anything under 80 (normal is around 100). When that happens, I have to correct it with more insulin (for a high), or fast sugars (juice, glucose tablets, etc.) for a low. It took me about 6 months to get my mom to understand that (love you mom!) and I was afraid she was going to inject me with insulin and kill me if I ever passed out from a low. Don't worry, she's got it now :). I am lucky and can almost always feel my lows (increased heartbeat, weak, dizzy, shaky, staring off into space for no freaking reason) before they get too scary. The highs are another story, and it is never a fun surprise to think you are fine and then do a check and see a 380 (last saturday night, after eating Indian food) pop up on the screen. On a side note, whenever my glucose meter shows a perfect 100 (rare), I kiss it and make a wish.

By the Numbers Year in Review

2,400+: the number of times I have pricked my finger this year to test my blood glucose.

5.8%: My last A1C result (an average of blood glucose over 3 months - that is a GOOD number :)

24: Number of hours per day I am attached to my insulin pump. Subtract about half an hour for showering and some other stuff...

38: My lowest low of the year - this was in the middle of the night, and I happened to have half a bag of peach rings by my bed. I ate them all and woke up with a blood sugar of around 300 and fuzzy orange teeth. Peach rings gross me out now.

365: Number of vacation days my pancreas has taken this year. Lazy little thing!

For anyone still reading (this is a long post - sorry!), I just want to say that I am honestly doing great. Everyone has their own set of problems to deal with, and I for sure don't think that mine are the worst. This year has taught me to appreciate my body and what it CAN do instead of basing its worth on how good it looks in a swimsuit. It has made Mark and I closer as he has helped me through the hard and crappy times, and I have a different kind of appreciation for him that I might not have had otherwise. It has helped me develop a greater testimony of the plan of salvation - of why we are here and that we have to experience trials on earth in order to grow and learn. I know that Heavenly Father has things for each of us to learn, and this is one of the trials that I needed to experience in order to learn those things. And if you happen to be wondering if there are brownies in heaven, the answer is YES - for all of the diabetics that can't eat them (without going high) here on earth. I am looking forward to eating an entire pan of heaven-brownies all by myself.

Better Late Than Never - Halloween Post

Merry Christmas and Happy Halloween! This one is late, but too cute not to post. The boys were the Mario Brothers this year, and their side kick, Jake was all dressed up as a flying turtle (from the game, for those of you who don't play). They were hilarious, and loved their costumes.

Wyatt now wants a mustache drawn on his face everyday. He only gets it at Grandma's house though because I am a mean mom!

Look at that face - he couldn't be more thrilled. Poor, poor dog who has to get dressed up every Halloween. Sorry Jake, until we don't think its funny anymore, you will probably get dressed up every single year. At least you aren't a mummy again this year, right?

Mario and Luigi getting ready to trick or treat. I think their eyebrows are the best part.

A couple of weeks before Halloween, before their costumes were finished, we hit the Pumpkin Walk at the Gristmill . They were totally excited to wear last year's costumes, and Wyatt has worn that dinosaur costume for pretty much part of every day since - super fun to potty train him in, by the way. Oh yeah, it also looks fabulous with a mario mustache at the same time - unbeatable combo.

We had to get our pumpkins from the Garden of Erda, just like every year. It has become a little tradition to head over there with Krystal and her girls - here is a picture of Jaxson and Maddy with our haul. I almost cried when I found out they were out of apples. We will have to go earlier next year!!

Cute boy.

Maddie* Wyatt* Jaxson*Clara

Free Shutterfly Christmas Cards!!!

It is that time of year again - time to hunt down addresses and find a good deal on Christmas cards. I never end up getting mine out until the last minute, so they are usually Christmas/Happy New year cards :). I got one the other day that was so, so cute and it was from Shutterfly. The quality was awesome, and they have a ton of cute choices if you go here. And then I saw on a friend's blog that they are doing a giveaway and I was so excited.

Shutterfly has a sweet deal going on if anyone needs free Christmas cards! All you have to do is post the link on a blog post and they give you 50 free cards - woohoo! That is right about the number of cards I need this year, so we will be set. Go here for the details. It took me about 5 minutes, and will save me around 60 bucks. They have some really cute holiday cards if you need one without pictures. We are going to go with one with pics, I think with some we took in Disneyland last week. We'll probably choose from some of these photo cards.

They also had some super cute wall calendars and photo books - maybe for the grandparents or Mark's office...fun ideas :).

Anyway, I hope someone else sees this and gets some free cards out of it. Someone who loves a deal as much as I do! Merry Christmas!

Nerd Day...or not.

Okay, this is not the 'Halloween Costume' post (I am behind!). This wasn't on Halloween, but the week before. It was red ribbon week at Jaxson's school, and each day had a theme (you know the kind: crazy hair day, career day, school color day). So we hadn't really been doing them that full out, and I was feeling like I wasn't a fun mom. The next day was nerd day, so I decided to be REALLY fun and dress Jaxson up like the best little nerd ever:

Total success! Except that when I got to the school that day to help in his class, I found out that it wasn't nerd day after all. Yep, you read that right. I dressed my kid up like a nerd and sent him to school and it wasn't nerd day. Apparently, they switched it to "What I want to be when I grow up" day at the last minute (I swear I didn't get that note). So as all his little kindergarten buddies were dressed up as firemen, policemen, and one ninja, he got to walk around like this all day.

His teacher said "It's okay, we'll just say he wants to be an accountant." And it was fine. He didn't seem to notice or care. Sorry to all of you accountants out there :).

Snowbird Getaway

On the balcony of our room

We needed a little bit of fun earlier this month so we decided to head up to snowbird for the night and sleepover. We had a blast swimming, drinking free hot chocolate, taking the tram to the top of the mountain, and eating a fancy breakfast. It is so funny how sleeping at a hotel is so awesome when you are a kid.

Waiting to get on the tram. They don't really get it yet, but they were excited anyway.

Heading up - I actually hated this part's guts. I love roller coasters, but anything that goes up high that is SLOW has always scared the crap out of me - ferris wheels, the top of the rocket at Lagoon, and now apparently trams. I just wanted to get off of this thing.

Checking out the scenery below with his 'telescope'.

My boys at the top. Notice the tight grip on the maniac. We packed a picnic dinner thinking we could spread out a blanket and eat it at the top. Ha! It was like 30 degrees and so foggy. We stayed at the top for a total of five minutes before we jumped back on the tram. We had to eat our dinner in our room instead.

Isn't it gorgeous there?! Swimming in the pool was awesome because you are surrounded by mountains - the boys LOVED the hot tub and Jaxson would have stayed in there all night if we had let him. I think his favorite part though was the free hot chocolate in the lobby. One of the times we were standing in line, there was a lady in front of us with a tattoo on her neck that said 'Jaxson' (even spelled right!). He saw that and thought it was the coolest thing ever - should we be worried? I'm pretty sure that Wyatt's favorite part was riding the elevator to and from our floor.

I Had to post this one because Jaxson actually took it. Pretty good for a five year old!

It was nice to get away, even just for the night. Our kids are at such fun ages to do stuff like that. We might have to make this one a tradition!