Twas the night before Pre-school

Twas the night before pre-school and all through the house my kitchen was clean the living room too

It won't be long before 8 little kids will gather at the table to learn and be able

We will sing and learn letters eat food and color sweaters

Then after 2 1/2 hours we'll see if all is well

Okay so I am not a poet and we will do all but color sweaters. We will color though. I am hoping all goes well as I have an additional person to side track me. To think Bridger will be 4 1/2 months old. I will post pictures of all the fun we have!

The Pumpkin Patch

It is becoming a tradition for us to go to Cochran's and pick out our pumpkins. I think I will go back with the girls in their witch outfits and take some more pictures. We love this place! They have cute things to buy and great produce!

Bridgers Blessing

What a special day! It was so great having most of our family there to participate. I am very grateful for brothers and uncles and grandpa's and especially fathers who have set such a great example. To me there isn't a stronger power than the priesthood power these great men hold. We had a fun time trying to find a blessing outfit that would fit Bridger and that we liked. We finally started looking at suit options and found a suit for $30 bucks at Bliss in the Newgate mall. We got it home and tried the pants on him and his skinny legs drowned in them. So the day before we headed out with Diane to see what we could find. We tried Sassy babies in Bountiful and found tons of cute items and a cute suit but not one that fit. We then tried Brats and found an outfit and shoes that we all thought would work great. I will say it is more fun to shop for girls (sorry Bridge).

Girls Nights

We have had 2 really fun girl nights the last few weekends. We had one with the Wachters where we decorated witch hats and made tutu's . We then went to the General Relief Society meeting which I thought was amazing! It made me rethink my involvement in Relief Society, that it is not merely another meeting I go to but it is my weekly meeting for the Lord's club that I choose to be apart of. It makes me more excited to fulfill my responsibilities. After that we went to dinner at Mi Ranchito's.

Then during the priesthood session the Jones girls got together and we baked pizza's and made super cute beaded bracelets using safety pins.

Now I am getting ready for Super Saturday and Bridgers blessing which are both this weekend. Life is just crazy fun!

Update

Having a boy has been lots of fun. He is definitely my best sleeper, he only gets up once a night. He eats pretty well but super slow. He will usually take an hour to eat first 30 minutes or so nursing then another 3 or so eating 2 oz. of formula. He loves the sling and sleeps quite well when he is in it. We have been giving him a binki as needed (we learned with Emi that all babies need a way to console, and sucking is the best way). He is still a pretty long and skinny guy. Our most recent adventure with Bridger was to the urologist yesterday. He was never circumcised because his foreskin was not fully developed as well as the nurse saying he had hypospadia and the doctor saying it was chordee. Well yesterday we found out they were all right. When Bridger is 6 to 12 months he will have surgery to fix it all. We are just hoping we have insurance by then.

So as some of you know Ryan was laid off on Sept. 1st which is good and bad. Bad because now is not the ideal time to be unemployed, but good because it will give him the opportunity to look at other options he might enjoy. (I am voting for seminary teacher). That takes about 2 years so If you hear of other opportunities let us know!

Ali started pre-school this week. We are doing a rotating neighborhood one with 7 kids so I will teach only 4 times! sounds great to me and is lots cheaper than other options.

Emi is starting to potty train and has advanced from the toddler potty to the big potty! Now we just have to get her to use it all the time!

I am getting ready for super Saturday which I think will be a blast!

Welcome Bridger!

We have a new baby boy in our family! At 1:29pm on Sunday Our little Bridger was born! The delivery all went very well. That morning I started having contractions around 7am. I told Ryan he would be fine to go to his 9:45 meeting but not the 11am. I called Mom and told her we would probably have a new baby about 1:30pm (Did I call that or what). I then tried to get in touch with the Jones to get our girls over to them. They were in church and none of them took their phones and the numbers listed for their Bishop were not answered. So we went to their house and Ryan snuck into their church meetings to get them. They came home and then Ryan and I went to the hospital. We went to labor and delivery and they thought we were first time parents because of our excitement and smiles. They also thought I was probably going to be going back home being only dilated to a 2. We got in and they started doing my history and I said this was baby #3. I also told them that I go pretty quick so the nurse stopped doing the history and checked me. I was at a 7! She started speeding everything up, getting our room ordering the epidural etc. We had a great nurse named Geri and had a midwife deliver our baby. It took about 3 pushes and he was here. I didn't even tear this time! 

He has been a good baby. He has stayed up most of the night the last two nights and sleeps really well during the day. I think he looks a lot like Ryan and his uncle Adam. The girls have been super cute with him too. They are always asking to hold him. Emi is quick on the scene when he cries to make sure he is okay. At the hospital Emi held him first and was super sweet nuzzling and kissing him. Ali made sure to tell everyone to be very careful so they didn't break him. Ali was quite insistent that his name be Jay, but I think we have her persuaded to call him Bridger now. So far it all looks pretty good for the Jones family. Thank you to everyone for your love and support!

The Bee's Game

Last night we were able to go to the Salt Lake Bees game courtesy of SOS staffing. It was a pretty fun time. They fed us some great BBQ then we watched the Bee's loose to the Montana Grizzlies. After the game though we had great fireworks that were done to Michael Jackson music. We would have taken pictures but we had lost our camera. We thought it was at Mom's or at the Rockin R Ranch but we finally found it in a cupboard behind our taco seasoning. Now we just need to find the cords to the computer and the battery charger all before we have the baby.

Speaking of the baby, I had another appointment on Wednesday I am maybe dilated to a 2. But as I got thinking about it with both Ali and Emi I think the most I was ever dilated was a 3 but then I seemed to just have the baby in one day. With Ali I noticed them around 9am and she was born around 7. With Emi they also started in the morning and then she was born around 3:30. Both were born on Saturdays. Hopefully this one will come on a weekday when the lactation specialists are around so I can have some great help to get this boy eating all his food from me. 

Today is the 24th of July which seems to only mean anything in UT because it is Pioneer Day. We watched the Day's of 47 parade on TV this morning. I then entered Ryan and I into a contest to win either a TV or a BBQ grill so keep your fingers crossed! Tonight we will have a BBQ with the Jones.

Mom on the go is going pretty well. Wanda and I are looking at adding tutu's. I made some really cute puffy ones for Ali and Emi I want to add some ribbons and flowers and then I will take pictures and add them to our blog! Outside of that I need to sew 6 slings and get them into the stores this next week before Baby boy Jones comes. By the way we still don't really have a name so if you have any suggestions let us know! 

Smithen Family Reunion

We just got back from our biannual Smithen Family Reunion. We had 47 out of 111 descendants of Walter and Lavina Smithen. We went to this great Ranch in Antimony UT called the Rockin R Ranch. I think everyone had a blast. We had quite a few requests to hold it there again. The best part was we really had to do nothing. They cooked the delicious food for us, and they provided plenty of entertainment. We had a family rodeo, floated down the river, went on hikes, horse rides for kids and adults, had crafts, played games, and so much more! 

I think the family crazy highlight for us was the rodeo. Ryan participated in barrel racing, calf riding, the relay race where they threw cow pies, and the cattle round-up. Ali participated in the relay and the mutton bustin where she got to ride a sheep. Emi participated in the relay. I got to be the camera lady. Ryan got the biggest goose egg on his leg that I have ever seen from the calf ride. Ali did a great job riding the sheep. I can't believe she did it! What a brave girl. If you have never seen this event it is crazy. They put a young child on a big sheep tell the to hold on while the sheep runs out of the shoot as fast as it can. The child holds on as long as they can. I can't believe we let her do it. But what a fun story she will be able to tell her whole life!

We had a blast with all of our family and can't wait to get together again in 2 years! We figure if we save about $21 a month we will be on our way.

New Business

Wanda and I are actually going into business together! We are creating and sewing all sorts of fun things for mom's and babies. To see some of our amazing products visit our blog at themomonthego.blogspot.com  

Ryan has been a great sport helping me in every way possible. He was even willing to model for our slings! 

Make sure you spread the word to anyone having a baby or if you need a great gift for a baby shower e-mail or call us. 

Trust in your Church Leaders

Sunday was turning out to be a normal Sunday until I got to church. I discovered our Relief Society President, Sister Shanna Bingham and her husband had moved to North Ogden and today was their last Sunday with us. Outside of being shocked that they were leaving so suddenly I didn't think much of it. Sacrament rolls around and Bishop Harvey was walking around saying hi to lots of people. He shook my hand and asked if we were still selling our place. I said yes that I don't know how well I would do mentally to have 3 or 4 kids in our town home. He said that we needed to stay in the ward. I told him to pray that something comes available in the ward that we can afford. and that was that. Then sacrament begins. We get to ward business and the Bishop starts releasing lots of people. Then he calls lots of various people to callings then but no to the relief society presidency. We sustain them and then he starts calling the presidency. Megan Morrison was called as president then Ines Fowers as first counselor. Then out of no where he calls me as second counselor! I was shocked and tears just rushed down my face! Then Angela Hunter was called as secretary. I couldn't believe it. 

Mom said she hadn't heard of that since Brigham Young. I have seen our Bishop do it before, but it is different when it is your name! 

Bird and more update

I have decided that I can't wait to get pictures done before I post otherwise it goes months before I write! I promise to do better. 

The birds: Unfortunately the neighbor cat got to our sweet little eggs. I came home one day and saw cracked egg shell on the ground and on our door. I asked Ryan about it and he had seen the neighbor's cat jumping at the wreath. This caused multiple eggs to fall leaving only 2. I guess the mother bird was frustrated because we never saw her after that and the eggs are still in the wreath.

Our house. We are still wanting to sell our house so if you know anyone who could use a great 2 bedroom town home send them our way. We painted the girls room twice! Ryan spent the last weekend in June doing an amazing job painting one wall chocolate and the other 3 almond. However when we got done at 2 in the morning we discovered the almond wall weren't almond but gray. Ryan pick up more paint on Monday so we could get the correct color and we again spent all of Friday July 3rd painting. It is now done and looks great! So now we have a more neutral room that we hope will encourage buyers. 

The girls: Alina and Emi are doing great. They wake up and ask where we are going today. Maybe I take them too many places. We did buy a zoo membership this year so if anyone wants to go to the zoo let us know! We are also still going swimming at the South Davis Rec Center. This is one of our favorite activities. Hopefully we will get to swim lots in July before the baby comes! Ali has also become quite the chalk artist. On almost any given day you can walk down our sidewalk and see wonderful rainbows and pictures of people and cats that she drew. Emi loves to play with her babies and play dress-up. We seem to always be putting a new dress on her!

Ryan- He has been extremely busy at work! This is great for us and the economy. His coworker is on maternity leave until the end of August which has been good and bad for Ryan. They also just restructured his company a little bit changing the role of his office as well as making him busier. He has said that he would rather be busy then have it be quiet. Outside of this he is staying very busy with church and family life. 

Wendy- Is just starting up an amazing company with Wanda, her sister-in-law. We have one item we need to patent so if any of you know anything about doing this let me know ASAP. We are also searching for a name so if you have any ideas for a name let us know. Also check out our current blog at themomonthego.blogspot.com

Here you can check out our awesome products!

I think that is it for now. We all had a great 4th. It started Friday with Ryan being off work! The girls got to spend the night at Grandma and Grandpa Jones' house. They slept in the tent with Grandma and Grandpa, Aunt Nat and cousin Lucy. That is they were in the tent until midnight when it started to rain and the sprinklers came on. They then moved inside where the little girls stayed up until 1 am. They slept until about 9:30am, which wasn't long enough in my opinion. We all had a great breakfast together and then we took the girls home. Later that afternoon we went to Grandma and Grandpa Wachter's where they had a kids pool out, a slip and slide, a flower sprinkler, water balloons and water guns. The kids had a fun time. Roxy, the dog even enjoyed chasing after water balloons. We ate dinner which was great as usual! Then had Barry and Jake set off fireworks for our enjoyment. The spider and teapot were my favorite because every minute they would change. I like change. 

We're having septuplets!

Yep that is right we will soon hatch 7 babies! Baby birds that is. One day Ryan came home and told me that a bird was nesting on our door behind our wreath! I saw the nest and couldn't believe it! We took a picture and found out that there are 7 eggs inside that nest. 

Every time we come home we have to watch out because the brown sparrow takes off at full speed. I now walk in as far to the right as possible and scrunched down to avoid collision with the bird. 

Ryan e-mailed Tracy Aviary to see if they had any recommendations on how we might move the birds. This was there reply: Thanks for your note.  What a nice little surprise, although quite inconvenient when trying to sell a house….  If you can, you should try to leave it alone and alert any possible visitors to use another entrance (maybe through the garage?).  My guess is that the eggs will hatch any day and it is only a few weeks before the little guys will fledge.  After that point, they will be mobile enough to move.

That is only a recommendation, however.

Good luck!

So we are hoping that in a couple of days the birds hatch and we will get to hear the sounds of 7 little birds chirping for food. Now I know that I need to take down our wreath after Valentines day or we might continually find birds at our door!

4-D pictures of our baby boy!

This past Monday we got to go have our "big" ultrasound done to see our baby boy. Ryan and the girls were all there. Ali really enjoyed it. She liked seeing pictures of the baby and hearing the heartbeat. Emi had a hard time wanting to stay focused on the baby but she liked seeing the pictures of him. This is my favorite ultrasound because we get to really see our baby and see what he looks like. We received a  dvd and pictures which are very cool. Outside of that life here is good!

Alina's Birthday

While a lot has happened since our last post one great thing has been Alina turning 4! Instead of a birth day she had a birth month! She had a great party at Grandma and Grandpa Wachter's that she shared with Wanda. Then she had a party at preschool which she shared with her best bud Gabe who shares the exact same birthday! Then she had another party at Grandma and Grandpa Jones' house that she got to share with her daddy! She was really cute to watch open her presents because she just loved everything whether it was clothes or a toy she thought it was the greatest thing ever and would exclaim "Oh my gosh" at just about everything!

Baby Ruby

We are a little late, but we want to welcome Ruby Becky Wachter into the family. She was born on February 12th and weighed in at 9pounds 1 ounce and was 20  inches long! Thank goodness she had to come by c-section, she was breach. She is a very cute girl. Ryan thinks she looks like Brittney, I can never tell. 

Ali and Emi loved holding her and seeing her. Ali I think would have held her all night if we would have let her. Ali kept calling her Rudy but we have worked on it and she is now saying Ruby. 

We are excited to see how this family grows we know Craig and Brittney will be excellent parents! Congratulations to the new mom and dad!

It's a Boy!!! (most likely)

We just found out that we are most likely having a baby boy! I am due August 6th 2009. Even before I was pregnant Ali kept asking for a baby brother and telling me that I had a baby brother in my belly. I didn't know I was pregnant until mid december. At our last doctor's appointment the doctor starting looking at the ultrasound and he wanted to say we were having another girl, but because Ali has been so persistent that it is a boy he wiggled the baby around and looked a little closer and we think we saw boy stuff going on. We will for sure find out on March 6th at my next doctors appointment. But we are looking forward to welcoming a baby brother into our family!

The computer Crash

So we have a mac and they are suppose to be invincible! Not so. When we came home after our Christmas parties our mac wouldn't work. We found out our hard drive had fried, no one knows why. So we have now lost our whole last 2 years of photo's and videos. It really stinks but we got us an external hard drive to back everything up to so now it won't happen again!

As for everything else...We did find us a new car. We are now a van family. We bought us a 2004 AWD toyota Sienna. While it isn't my dream car it is the best for young kids, they can get in and out easy and at a push of the button the door opens!

Christmas was great. We had fun at all our family parties. I will load some pictures that I do have with my next post. I just wanted to get something up so people didn't think we had forgotten about our blog!