Chivalrous or Sexist?

Many of you know that Brian has Muscular Dystrophy so I do all of the heavy lifting at our house. I am used to it and it doesn't bother me at all. (Daddy didn't raise no weakling!) I went to Home Depot today because I needed 8 cubic feet of sand or 700 lbs. I loaded the bags onto a cart and, because I had the kids with me, I pulled the sand with one hand and pushed another cart with the kids in it with the other hand. When I got to the cash register, the guy looked at me and said, "Did you load all that by yourself?" I of course told him that I did. After I paid for it, he insisted that I couldn't load it into my car. (Little did he know that I had already loaded 100 lbs of fertilizer and several hundred pounds of compost and soil into and out of my car.) So he tries to move the cart and he can't even budge it! So I started pushing the one cart and pulling the other out to my car. He of course calls for some other guy to come out and do it for me. It was nice to have the help don't get me wrong, but it is kind of rude to assume I can't lift that kind of weight. I am all for guys being guys and girls being girls. I just hate the stereotype that "my husband should be doing that work." If we all sit around and wait for our husbands to do everything, we would get nothing done!

A Family Garden

We decided to grow a garden this year. We just planted some of our items for our Spring garden. I know there are some of you that are laughing right now because you know that I can't even keep a house plant alive! Have a little faith! We expect that there will probably be some failure, but we are hoping that we get something out of the garden this year. The kids are stoked. We let them help us plant on Saturday. We all were just covered in dirt, and we are not even done yet! I hope that something grows just because the kids will be so disappointed too! Here's hoping!

Born for Water!

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The girls are taking private swimming lessons in Orem. They take these lessons every year. Maya is an amazing swimmer. She swims better than I do! She was definitely born for this. My father was a swimmer, so maybe she will be taking after him. She definitely has the body for it so far. She is learning how to dive and do a freestyle swim and the backstroke. She loves to swim and she is very good at it. She might be the next Michael Phelps, (minus the drugs of course!)
Kaitlyn is doing really well also. She swims by herself and can jump off the
diving board and the side of the pool all by herself. Neither of them is afraid of the pool at all. It is nice to go to the pool with kids that can swim!

Go Longhorns!

I had to take a picture of my two favorite guys in their Longhorns gear! Brian graduated from UT Austin, so we are big Longhorns fans. He is pretty proud to be able to have his son in his own Longhorn gear. Dads and their boys, what can you do?!

Rose Colored Glasses

I have been thinking a lot about Dylan lately. Sometimes it seems like the last nine months never happened, and I am back in that moment when we found out we had lost him. That pain is just as real now as it was then. I recently listened to some young mothers talk about being pregnant. One of them was due anyday. They were all talking about how to get yourself to go into labor. All I could think about was, "that baby could die at any second and all you guys can talk about is how to get it out." It wasn't that long ago that I would have been doing that same thing. I wanted to have my twins so badly, I was ready to be done being pregnant. Now I wish I could have just kept them safe. Oh how I sometimes wish I had those rose colored glasses on again. I wish I could be that innocent person that has no clue about the true sadness that can come into one's life. Gavin brings such happiness into our home and I am so grateful for my girls. Our loss has made us closer, and our new reality gives us more empathy and more appreciation for one another and for life in general. I have learned a lot and gained a lot, but sometimes I would give it all back to have my son. I don't really know what the next life will bring. All I have is the hope that we will be together again. Anyways, onward and upward. I hope I haven't made anyone too sad, I just felt like putting it out there because I know there are others who have my same struggle.

YUCK! What is that?!

I took Gavin for his 9 month appointment. As far as I was concerned, Gavin seems like he is as big or even bigger than some of the other babies his age. So imagine my suprise when they tell me his weight is in the 5th percentile! He is quite underweight. My kids are usually underweight (surprise, surprise!), but not that low. The pediatrician was not too worried because he sees the babies that are breastfed fall down the scale at this point and Gavin's Iron is way up. Plus, the data used for those scales is from 1975 formula fed babies! We haven't had any babies since then? I mean come on! Anyway, just to be safe, I thought we would give him some formula at night to help supplement. So I made him a bottle and he was relatively excited to drink it. I gave it to him and he took a suck and then spit it out all over the place! The look on his face told it all! "YUCK! Who drinks that crap?!" He tried a few more times, but the same response. So I don't know what else to do. Guess we will just keep doing what we were already doing! Any ideas?

What did she just say?!

I have to put on here the funny things the kids say sometimes, because they are a crack up! Maya was driving home with my mother because she was going to spend the weekend with them. While they were driving, my mom asked Maya if she needed anything. Maya replied, "well, I need someone to give me a bath every once in awhile, but other than that I'm good!" Clearly, I have engrained in my children that cleanliness is above all the important thing! Who cares about food anyway!
Yesterday, I was folding the girls' laundry. Kaitlyn asked if she could help fold. I told her that she was still too little to be able to fold laundry. She said (sarcastically), "well there's a surprise!" I looked at Brian and asked him what she just said, so she repeated it. I don't even know where she gets this stuff! My guess would be a Barbie movie since she had been watching them that day.
I swear they are 5 going on 40 and 3 going on 21 all the time! Of course, someday this kind of talk will most likely not be so funny! :)

Look who's 29! (and 67!)

Friday was Brian's 29th birthday! (I guess I shouldn't reveal how old he is because it then reveals my age!) We had a fun day. It is also my father's birthday on the 26th so we typically celebrate the birthday's together. Brian got some fun gifts and the girls love singing to him and spoiling him all day! He had to work late, but when he got home we had a big party. All topped off with some banana splits.

We have TONS of bananas left though now, so I guess we will be eating lots of banana bread!