Paxton's blessing

We had Paxton's blessing this past Sunday and everything went great! Jayson was nervous, but he always is with that sort of thing. He gave a nice blessing in spite of his nerves. We decided to only invite family to this one because I just didn't want all the people in my house and the headache of figuring out food for an army and all the hassle that comes with a crowd. Plus i had to work at two so I just didn't want all the work of a big party-that's not what it's about anyways. We had a nice brunch at our house afterwards and the day ended up being very nice. Jayson got to take the boys to the park after I left for work(the temp is finally in the 60s now!).

I definitely have to thank God for the wonderful, healthy, and happy boys that I have. I am lucky to be a mom.

April Fools!

Only in Utah can it be 69 degrees one day and 34 the next! We woke up to snow yesterday and it was freezing! Caiden loved it of course, but poor Jayson has to postpone a camping trip and that doesn't make him very happy. So instead of enjoying nice spring weather like the rest of the country, we got to spend the day inside! Caiden's cousin Brooke came over for a while so that helped move the day along nicely.


I decided to be productive and clean my oven! For all you neat-freaks, please skip this next paragraph as it will disgust you and you will probably throw up! I have not cleaned my oven as long as I have lived in this house (yes people, that is 3 and 1/2 years). I had a self cleaning oven in my house before and I realize now what a nice thing that was.
I read the directions on my oven cleaner carefully, noting that you should not inhale the spray, I prepped my oven and got my gloves on. OK-let's do this! I started to spray as indicated on the bottle and before I was done, I was gasping for air! Very funny-don't inhale the spray-kind of hard not to!
I immediately evacuated the kids from the upstairs, opened the window, the door, and turned on the ceiling fan! I was still coughing and choking! I ran outside and took some deep breaths (remember-it's only 30 degrees out!). How would I finish this task without dying?!
I courageously went back inside with my gloves on and dish rag in hand. Luckily the smell had dissipated some and I got to work. Scrubbing three years of gunk away is not an easy task. My back hurts, my legs hurt, and I think I pulled a muscle in my shoulder! What a freakin joke! No wonder I left this task for three years! I finally got the job done but I have made a decision-the next time I need to clean my oven, I may decide just to buy a new one instead!! Please leave a comment if you too hate to clean your oven!

This is a cute picture I took this morning. Caiden was holding Paxton for me while I went to the bathroom. He is such a good big brother and little helper. I should have taken a picture of what Paxton looked like once I got back-I guess Caiden's arm got tired so he just laid Paxton down on the couch sort of half-on, half-off of his lap. Pretty funny.

Random Pics

Here are just some random pictures of the kids from the last couple of weeks. One morning Caiden climbed in bed with me and actually slept longer than I did! I had to take a picture of how sweet he looks when he's asleep.


I have been swapping child care with my friend so that we both can work and not pay a sitter. Luckily it works out most of the time that we work on opposite days. This is Kenya, who is practically Caiden's sister, she and Caiden have a lot of fun together most of the time. I am so blessed to live in a great neighborhood where we can help each other out with our kids!



Paxton is now almost three months old! At his two month check up he weighed 12 pounds and was 22 and 1/2 inches long! While I have been typing this post, he rolled to the side for the first time! Caiden discovered him and thought that was a pretty cool trick! He loves to smile and is usually a very happy and good baby! Very laid back! He sleeps now for six hours at night so I only have to wake up and feed him at around 2:30 then again about 6. I will be so excited when he sleeps all night! We love him and are so glad he is part of our family.
Work has been keeping me busy the last little while, but at least the extra income has been good. We were actually not in the negative this last paycheck! My job is working out great and has many nice little perks-like ice cream sundae Sundays, an Easter egg hunt coming up on Easter, Jazz ticket giveaways at staff meetings, weekly free lunches and other fun things! Everyone there is really good to work with and I am gaining more confidence with every shift. It does get pretty stressful sometimes, but I only have to work two or three times a week so I really can't complain!

Baby Sister???!!

So even when I was pregnant with Paxton and we new he was a boy, Caiden would ask about his baby sister. I would remind him that this one was a boy and that maybe one day he will get a sister. A few weeks ago while we were eating lunch he asked me if I had his baby sister in my belly, to his dismay I had to tell him no.
At church today Caiden drew this picture and was pointing to the figures and saying this is you, and this is Paxton and, to the one his finger is pointing at, this is baby sister. Then he pointed to another one and said, "This is Jesus and our baby sister is in heaven with him waiting to come."
I hope the boy knows what he is talking about cause a little girl in the family would be nice, but she'll have to keep waiting at least for a little while longer!

Roller-Coaster February

So February was kind of a roller-coaster month for us. I think I still have some of those crazy post partum hormones too so it was even more dramatic for me. As I mentioned in the last post, I got a job working with a Hospice agency and it seemed to have some real potential so we were very excited at first. What I soon came to realize was that even though I only see a few patients a week, I was called and asked to do stuff throughout the week and it was just a big interruption to my day. I was also promised some things that just were not panning out. So with a heavy heart and after several talks with Jayson, I called my friend and told her it was not working out for me and that I needed to quit. She took the news very well and after I visit my patients tomorrow, I am free from the stress of that job.
Well, during all this, I had been interviewing for other jobs because the Hospice job would not have brought in as much money as we needed to pay our bills every month. I got a call from a nursing home saying they wanted to hire me and I accepted. (I was not excited about it, but at least it was a job) Later that same day, I got a phone call from a rehab facility telling me they wanted me to work there! Two job offers in one day wasn't bad, but now we were faced at choosing what one would be best for our family.
To make this long story shorter for those of you falling asleep, I accepted a job at Pine View transitional rehab and I started last Thursday. The job is a PRN job which means "as needed" for those of you who don't speak nurse. I can sign up for days that they need filled, but I don't have a set schedule and can pick and choose when I want to work.
I had an awesome first week ( I have worked three shifts so far) and I am starting to get the hang of things. The patient load is somewhat overwhelming at times because I'm used to having only 4-5 patients and here I have 13-15 patients at a time! It is all going very well and I feel so good and at peace about my decision, which is not how I felt doing Hospice.
The best thing about it is that when I sign anything I get to put a neat little "RN" after my name-pretty cool if you ask me! It still doesn't seem real!

My cute boys...

Paxton is now one month old! He has recently started smiling at his mommy and big brother (sometimes at daddy too). Caiden just adores Paxton and wants to love on him whenever he is awake! I have to say that I have the most handsome boys I know!

Busy January!

We have been so blessed this month- I passed my state nursing boards on Tuesday, January 26 and got hired on with a Hospice agency and started working three days later! I have a friend in my ward that works there and offered me a position and started me as soon as she could! I think it will work out well for our little family because I can pretty much make up my own schedule and I won't have to work that many hours like I would if I worked at a hospital. We are very excited to finally reap the rewards of all the hard work I've done over the past three years!
I can't believe that Paxton will be four weeks old on Monday! For the first two weeks after the baby came home, my mom and mother-in-law came to help out. Mostly they played with Caiden and kept him entertained so that I could attend to the baby, but it was a HUGE help to have them here! I also was studying for my state nursing boards during this time too so I really appreciated that they were close enough to help out.
My mom had a craft for Caiden to make every day that she came. This picture is one of Caiden wearing his fancy tool belt that he built! They were playing a game of dominoes to keep him busy too.
This picture is of his cute pasta hat. They glued pasta noodles to the plate on top but Caiden kept trying to take them off and eat them. We told him they wouldn't be good because they weren't cooked, but he tried anyways.

Caiden and grandma ViAnn made sugar cookies and heart shaped pancakes! What a fun way to spend time with grandma!A big thank you to both moms for spending time with Caiden and helping make dinners and clean my house and so on... I love you both and I am glad you were here to help me!

The following pics were taken just a few days after we came home from the hospital. I love the little wrinkly skin that newborns have. I wanted to take some good pictures of it before the wrinkles disappear. I think Paxton is so sweet and he reminds us so much of his brother! I can't believe they had the same birth weight and height too--6lbs 14 oz and 20 inches long!

Baby Paxton!!

Little Paxton Jay arrived quickly, but safely at 12:20am on Monday January 11th. My contractions started at about 5:15 on Sunday night and were ten minutes apart. I was told to go to the hospital when they were five minutes apart, but that never happened for me. When the pain was absolutely unbearable, and I was certain they would not turn me away at the hospital, we left home at 11:20pm. The contractions suddenly went from 10 minutes apart to 3 minutes and were the worst pain I could imagine. When we finally arrived at the hospital (longest 25 minutes of my life!) the nurse checked me and I was dilated to a ten and the baby was pretty much walking out of me! They raced me through the halls to the delivery room-Jayson and my mom running behind us--called my doctor who arrived lickety-split and I pushed Paxton out before I could even blink! No time for an epidural, just some cuss words and cries of pain to get me through! Man what a rush! We think he is pretty cute, but you can decide for yourself what you think! Caiden is very proud of his new little buddy!
Our arrival home from the hospital!

Second cutest baby room ever!

So I tend to go a little overboard with my baby rooms that I create, but I can't help it. I loved my baby room in Tennessee and I wanted one just as cute here. I had a lot of firefighter stuff from when Caiden was born and his bed spread now is firefighter themed so I had to figure out a way to incorporate all the items I already had.
I got the ladder idea off the internet and had my dad help me make it- well pretty much he just made it and I painted it. I had pics of Caiden and Jayson at the fire dept in TN from one of our visits back there so I decided to frame those and hang them from the ladder-they look great!
When Paxton comes, I will get more frames and hang them on the adjacent wall to help complete the look.
I still need a few more accents and pictures around the room, but I think it looks pretty cute just how it is. Can't wait until we have money to do the rest of our house! I have a great idea for our master bedroom!
This view is from the corner of the room by the closet. You can't really tell from the pictures, but the room is painted a light blue.

This view is from the doorway looking in.

Caiden's birthday party!!

We decided to do a friend birthday party for Caiden this year so we invited all his little friends and some cousins to come with us to Arctic Circle!! Caiden loved it as we knew he would. My camera died right before he got to open presents so these are the only pictures I got.

Caiden loves batman!Caiden, Joshua, and Jake.Hyrum, Kenya, Caiden, and Brooke.

Now, when I say that my camera died, I mean that it is completely broken! I was so mad! It's not like we didn't have anything important coming up like christmas and the soon the birth of our baby-whatever. I called my dad and asked if we could borrow their old 35 mm camera to which he said yes. So we did have a camera for christmas and since Jayson is such a little impulse buyer, he went and bought a new digital camera the day after christmas.

We had some money that his dad had given us for christmas and on christmas eve, a lady came and bought some maternity pants that didn't fit me that I had been trying to sell for months. Funny how that added up to enough money for us to buy a new camera!!