Kanab for 2 Weeks

On Tuesday Dawson and I headed for Kanab. We did so many things, but once again I didn't take hardly any pics. However, I have some REALLY FUNNY stories.

While packing, Dawson decided he wanted to go as baggage....don't ask how he fit in there, but he did.Hello my cute luggage!

We got to Kanab and started working on my parents home. We are re-modeling the inside. J.D. and I have completely re-modeled the kitchen and dining room. My mom and I cleaned the whole house a couple months ago...and since the house is used as a storage unit as well, I had to move everyone's things into the storage room downstairs. This was my first task. So everyday, this is where we would end up and that's what we did.

Before we got to my parents home to work, Dawson and I would take our time in the morning getting ready. One day Dawson came running in saying, "Mom! No diaper." He was grinning from ear to ear. I followed him outside to find his diaper!
I just said, "K, just don't go potty in your pants or on Amy's carpet. Go potty in the toilet k?"
Dawson replied, "K, no diaper."


The diaper usually helps with holding Dawson's pants up, so he had to go to other extremes to hold up his pants.

After a few minutes I started to hear water... my thought, "Oh no! Where's Dawson." I looked over and saw the door open. And yes, I found my son completely naked peeing on Auntie Amy's front porch! I got a pic on my phone, and sent it to Amy. Perfect gift from her nephew right? Neighbors saw and when I went to grab Dawson after he had finished, they were just laughing their heads off! Really!
I wasn't mad, and usually I would take the time to teach a lesson, BUT he did exactly what I said! He didn't go potty in his pants, and it wasn't on the carpet. I was so proud of him for going outside too! He really is so smart!

Story doesn't end there...this peeing on Auntie's front porch became a daily routine! I'd find Dawson outside, naked, and a puddle on the front porch! lol! What a stud! In a way, he's kind of potty training himself little by little.

Dawson learned to rely on the kids for getting him a bottle without mom knowing too. I am pretty strict now days with how many bottles (sippy cups) Dawson gets each day. Dawson, the little smarty pants, would go around to all of his cousins and get them to give him more bottles after me saying no to him. It took me 3 days to catch on, but when I did Dawson figured out how to open Auntie's fridge....yes, milk all over is how this one ended. He is SO SMART in finding a way to get what he wants. He then started waiting for me to leave the room to ask the other kids. The kids would ask,"Did mom say yes?" and Dawson replied, "Ya, come on! milk!"
Then, the kids would yell and ask me. This is how I found out about his new technique of waiting for mom to leave.

Dawson learned to LOVE Auntie Amy's pops! He would ask all day, "Amy's pepsi pleeeeaaasssee?"
He also started talking SO MUCH MORE! People understand him over the phone and he has gotten so good at explaining his frustrations. This has been such a huge step because Dawson has been acting so much better. He was almost always acting out in frustration, but I could never figure out what he wanted. This led to tantrums and yelling all the time. After being around 6 older kids all day long and learning from them, Dawson is now able to speak so clear! He was talking tons before, but some things were really hard to understand. He isn't using his tongue for 's' anymore either! He's grown out of it completely! The only letter he has a hard time with is 'v.' He uses a 'b' sound instead of 'v' sound. So 'TV' is 'TB.' He will get there, he's only 2.

Kanab was so much fun! We swam, watched movies, swam some more, had pizza's, drank plenty of Pepsi, played at the park, and played TONS outside at my parents house. It was truly the best adventure to get us through the next two weeks.

Holden

Two weeks ago we went to Holden for 24 hours, literally. We got there 3 pm Friday and left 3 pm Saturday. We met J.D.! Unfortunately I didn't get any pics of hardly anything we did, so let me tell you about it.

Friday night, Dawson and I were out playing on the play tractor the Grandpa Steven's built. As you can see, Dawson LOVED it!

He is so stinkin' cute! He loves us to take pics of him, and he loves taking pics!

Back to our story- after the tractor, he wanted to play soccer. So Dawson and I were kicking the ball back and forth, running around laughing when all of the sudden we both look over and J.D. is just standing there with the biggest grin on his face. Dawson screamed, "Daddy!!" We both ran to give him the biggest hug. J.D. got a little teary eyed because he had missed us so much. After our moment, lol, we played some more soccer and J.D. got up on the tractor with Dawson to really play! We went and saw the new baby colt! It was the most amazing thing, the colt and mom walked right up to us! In a way I'm not surprised because Dawson has a gift with horses...not even kidding.

The next day we went to watch Uncle Parker's soccer game (he is probably the next recruit for SLC Real). We went to a baby shower, and headed home for Destry's 1st birthday! She was so happy opening her presents and eating her cake. Dawson was in his glory playing with all of his cousins. He cried and cried when we had to leave. We all had an extremely hard time leaving each other again. It would be two more weeks until we saw each other again, so I headed to Kanab to help me get through.

He's gone

Now that J.D. is graduated, he has left to go attend a 6 week course in Provo. This course is a Kaplan course for the Dental Admissions test. It has been so hard to help him pack and say goodbye. I have huge anxiety saying goodbye to family when I know I won't see them for a long time. I remember I couldn't walk outside to say goodbye to my brother Chad and his family every time they came to visit and had to go home. SO- you can imagine how hard this was.

I know he will do awesome and be able to get so much more out of the course with Dawson and I not around to bug him. It's a huge sacrifice, and I know it will be worth it. I just miss him already and he left at 6:30 this morning. We woke Dawson up to say goodbye, and he didn't really understand at first. It's now 5 o' clock and he is begging to see his daddy. He keeps asking, "Where's daddy? Can we go to daddy's school? I need daddy." It's the hardest thing to not cry and tell Dawson that he won't see his daddy for awhile. We get to see him Saturday, but then we won't for 3 weeks.

So I'm hoping to update with pics a lot so J.D. doesn't miss out so much. Yay for my blog readers, and yay for our yearly scrapbook we print out. :-)

To J.D.: We miss you and love you. I know your hard work and our sacrifices will pay off. We'll talk to you tonight! Love you!

J.D. GRADUATED!!

I'm so proud of my hunners! He worked so hard, sacrificed so much, and worked the entire time while going to school. We went through our share of hardships while he was going to school as well. I couldn't be a more proud wife. He was so excited to be done with undergraduate schooling. He felt so proud when he had so much family come to support his achievement. We had a big group and it was so awesome to have them all cheer J.D. on when his name was called. This is such a huge accomplishment, I can't say enough about how proud I am of J.D.
WAY TO GO HUNNERS!

Here is J.D. in the SUU march for graduation!
J.D. is receiving his diploma from President Benson!
And here is the graduate himself! A very handsome one at that!
This was the night of the big graduation.
The night of the big graduation with Dawson. They didn't receive diplomas this night, but Dawson was still so excited to see his dad walk up to him all dressed up.

Here's J.D. waiting for his name to be called :-)

Dawson was so excited for his daddy! He couldn't get enough of his hat. Dawson felt like he'd graduated as well!

Dawson said, "Good job dad!" with a thumbs up!

This is after the small graduation Saturday May 7th, 2011. We are a proud family! And Dawson is still feeling like he is the one who graduated.
To Dawson: You're right, dad got his education and graduated not only for himself, but for his family. I hope you follow in his footsteps.

J.D. and his parents. They were so proud of him! J.D. has such great examples in his life, and I am honored to have married into such an amazing family.

Here is all the people that were able to make it! It was so AWESOME! Thank you everyone for coming- it really meant so much to us, especially J.D. Nothing can replace the family support for anything.

Once again, thank you to all the family who traveled so far to be here for J.D. It was so much fun to see you! I'm so proud of J.D. and hope I can graduate one day so I can set just as good of an example to our kids as he has.

More of J.D.'s Ankle

Yep...it is now a really colorful ankle! Isn't it pretty? lol! I keep having to tell my super tough hunners to stay on the crutches like he's supposed to until the end of the week...is he listening to me, absolutely NOT! lol! He says it's too hard to get things done with the crutches, so he is limping all around. He will say it doesn't hurt, but of course it's not going to hurt when you're on Lora-tab and strong Motrin pills.

These pics are taken over the last 2 days and you can see how it's gradually gotten worse since the last post. This first pic is to show you in 3 hours how much swelling there is compared to his other foot.

*side note: To my brother the podiatrist- I hope you love these pics! We wish you would have been the one to take care of 'Coco.'

J.D. is hating that he can't walk normal, but has been such a toughy about all of it. He honestly hasn't complained once. He works with such great guys, they've been so chill about helping him get things done before he leaves.

And of course our sweet Dawson. He saw me grab the camera and asked if I'd take a picture of him. So here it is!

Afterward he said, "THANK YOU MOMMY! THANK YOU MUCH!"
He is turning into the most polite little boy. I just can't tell him enough how much we love him.

Anything else coming our way?

Last week J.D. left to school and it seemed like a normal average day. While studying, one of our good friends found him and asked to speak to him outside. ... J.D. is thinking, "Oh no. Have I done something? Is their apartment okay?" This couple, well we have known them since before J.D. and I got married. The next thing they said to him was, "We accidentally ran into your truck."

Yep, they really did. IT IS THE SADDEST THING! They are such good friends! The last thing we want is for their insurance to go up and add more burdens to their lives. We hate having to deal with anything 'money' with friendships. It's been such a difficult situation, but the truck is in the shop for this whole week and J.D. is driving a rental.

You would think- okay that doesn't sound that bad getting to drive a basically brand new truck for a week...well he might not being doing so much driving..

This is J.D.'s ankle... and yes it happened the day he got the new truck to drive..
It's gross I know.

It's definitely a lot worse in person. Don't worry- it isn't a break, just a sprain. If you want to know how he did it, just call him. However, after it happened was funny on my end. He was working with our good friend Andy when it happened. J.D. called me and said, "Hey, I think I broke my ankle...so Andy is driving me to the hospital. Can you check our insurance to see what it covers?"
My answer, "Now wait, what? You broke your ankle? haha (yes I laughed). You guys are joking. Where are you really?"
J.D. -"I'm really not kidding.."
Me- "It's you and Andy, I know you are kidding."
J.D.-"Hun! I'm serious. Just check our insurance please."
So I check it, and tell him to just go to insta care and come get the insurance card. I really wasn't panicky at all. He picked up the insurance card and I told Andy to just hold J.D.'s hand. lol!

Walking back to the house, Andy's wife and another friend were getting ready to go on a walk. I stopped to talk and told them the story. They immediately offered to watch Dawson while I went to the Insta Care. I was hesitant because J.D. is a big boy, he can handle it...however, I decided I should go. So a HUGE THANK YOU to Kenzie and Kylee for watching Dawson while I went.
I got back and Dawson was just having a blast playing with Kenzie and baby Tatum. It's so nice to know that your child is in good hands when you leave, and a huge blessing to have such amazing friends you can trust.

J.D. is now back at work..he figured he should finish things up for the day.
Now, I just have to wonder if anything else is coming our way that I should prepare for....J.D. is supposed to 'walk' in the graduation ceremony (which he is still doing and should be able to limp through it), he is also leaving Monday for 6 weeks while I stay here...we're hoping the truck is done too...lol! Like my last post, we just laughed through this experience!

Slammed

After a week of being a mom, I had a call this morning with my advisor for school. We had to set up my new term of classes and schedule. After that phone call I just felt completely slammed with a brick of information and things to do. It actually feels like one of those balls that knock down buildings...that would be more like this feeling of being slammed. haha! Starting to see the picture?

With that visual in your mind, I really don't think I need to explain anything else. haha! Seriously. My busy life is back and oh how I just want to cry and quit. I always tell my mom how I think my life would be so much fun without school. I then go on a rant about how much stress would be lifted off my shoulders. My mother's reply is, "It doesn't get easier. The stress just comes in a different form." As of now, I don't believe her... that's usually how it goes though. I don't believe her, then when school is over I'm sure I'll eat my words.

I had a certain someone tell me that she had a conversation with another someone. They discussed 'how I was doing,' because they had learned a lot of new information about our life and didn't realize everything that had taken place. Then they discussed how they didn't really know how I was doing because I was always smiling and laughing. Now, the certain someone told me this conversation they'd had and then just commented on how well I hide the negative. It really made me think about this.

I had a moment before back in November... I was at an enrichment night and we were all playing a game. I ended up getting the ball passed to me and my question was, "What do you want to be remembered for?" My answer without thinking was, "Laughter."

Back to the beginning of this post I explained being 'slammed.' About an hour after being hit, I had these moments sneak their way to my thinking from my memory. I really do want to be remembered for happiness, laughter and smiling. Laughter really does make everything go away. When J.D. and I get in an argument, it is so hard not to hold a mad face and start laughing. It really is the funniest thing! So I am happy that I felt bulldozed today. If I just laugh at my stress and keep working hard, I know life will feel easier and more pleasant. I would hate to look back and say I didn't laugh enough.