first big ouchie

When you first walk in the front door you have the option to go upstairs or downstairs. There are 7 stairs either way. The entrance is linoleum.

I was downstairs in the storage room trying to find some ingredients for the dinner I was going to make that night before I ran to the store. Mathias and my mother-in-law were upstairs.  Then I heard the worst sound in the world, a huge thud and then a loud scream. I looked around the corner and saw Azlyn face down on the landing. I was so scared to turn her over, it sounded like she hit hard. I picked her up and didn't see any blood so I tried to give her some snuggles. She is not a snuggly baby and she just fussed in my arms. She only fussed for like 30 seconds though until big brother came to the rescue with a rattle and from then on she just held that and shook it a bit. She is seriously one tough little girl. I think I was more hurt by this than she was.

It was red at the corner of her eyebrow and she got a little bruise at the bottom corner of her eye. It really doesn't look that bad. Thank heavens! I seriously cringe every time I think of the sound. Needless to say we kept a close eye on her the rest of the night and went to our storage unit the next morning to get our gate out.

I am sure it is the first of many ouchies but falling down the stairs is a new one for me to deal with.

fun with mema

Mathias got to spend Monday night with Mema. They went to Hardware Ranch on Monday. They went on a sleigh ride and got to see a ton of elk. Mathias loved the sleigh ride and seeing all the elk with Mema.

 You have to love all the funny faces Mathias pulls. I love these pictures of them together. So fun.

The next day they played outside in the snow. Mema got a ton of snow a few days before. He absolutely loved this. He loves to have sleep overs with Mema and asks almost every weekend if he can have one. He sure does love her!

Mathias' birthday party with family

 Tonight we had a little family birthday party for Mathias. Everyone came over and he opened up presents and then had some cake and ice cream. It is so nice that we have so much family that lives so close to us that we can all get together like this. I love that Mathias is surrounded by his cousins. Thanks everyone that came. It was so nice to hang out for a bit!

Every year since Mathias' 1st birthday he has had a great big number balloon and has had his picture with it so of course we had to carry on the tradition. So here is Mathias with his big number 5 balloon. I still can't believe that my baby boy is 5!

7 years ago today

 7 years ago today Devin asked me to marry him.

He took me up to Kiwanis Park in Pleasant Grove in his jeep. He had planned to take me to a place that had an awesome view of the valley but it was so icy that the jeep could not make it up. That was an experience in itself as this was one of the first times I had been in his jeep as he usually drove his dad's truck around.  We ended up just parking in the parking lot.

Man look how young and skinny we were!

Mathias' birthday party with his friends

We had Mathias' friend birthday party at Kangaroo Zoo. It is a basically a big warehouse full of different bounce houses and slides. The kids love it and are able to run around and get ride of some of their energy. He had his birthday party there last year as well but then we went back to our place for pizza, cake and presents. Since we aren't living in our own place this year we decided to rent a birthday room at Kangaroo Zoo. It is kinda pricey (a bit cheaper since we had it on a week day) but I like that I didn't have to decorate, clean up or anything really. They give you a host and she serves up the food and cake, she writes down the names of people that gave what presents, and she cleaned up. Made it really nice for me. The room that Mathias had his party in was called the Bug Box. It was pretty cute. The back wall had a bunch of light up bugs as well as a sun. It had fun lights hanging from the ceiling and the birthday boy had his own little seat front and center.

I took a million pictures so I will mostly let the pictures do the talking.

We got a few pics with him before everyone started showing up (we were actually early, shocker I know). Seriously look how big he is getting!

Mathias wanted a jeep cake. I had much more detailed pictures in my head but soon gave up on those. I am so not a cake decorator and really didn't want to frustrate myself. As long as you could tell it was a jeep I was ok with that. It turned out all right and Mathias loved that it was "driving" on oreo dirt and chocolate candy rocks. Mathias loved it and that is all that mattered.

Mathias and his friends enjoying the bounce houses and slides. They were so fast I could hardly get any good pictures of them.

Mathias having a blast. He said this was his best birthday ever! Mission accomplished!

 They had this room right next to the party room. It is called the blast room I think. You put these soft foam type balls into these little air guns and shoot them at each other from different corners of the room. It was Parker and Darcy against Cohen and Mathias.

One of the guns was broken so Mathias and Cohen worked as a team. They had so much fun in there. It was timed though for some reason so they didn't get to play in there for too long.

Proof that Azlyn was there as well. I just love the first picture. Azlyn NEVER sleeps anywhere except for her car seat or crib. She had had a rough day and only had one small nap but I still couldn't believe she feel asleep while Dev held her. She is just so dang cute if I do say so myself ;)

After playing for a bit it was time for pizza and drinks.

After pizza it was time to sing happy birthday then have cake and ice cream. 

Then of course it was time to open up presents. He got some really fun stuff. After presents they went out to play for a bit more then we all had to drag our kids out of there. They really didn't want to leave. Thanks to everyone that came. Mathias had a blast playing with the kids and it was nice for us to see and hang out with the parents as well.

Valentine's Day

  Our Valentine's Day was pretty laid back this year. It was a beautiful day out so Mathias talked me into taking the dogs for a walk. Man we were a site for sore eyes. Tilly has never been walked before and just wanted to run so she yelped almost the whole time and drug Mathias around for a while then I took her over and she kept getting in the way of the stroller. It was pure chaos.

 I wanted to get a few pictures of the kiddos in their red and pink before we left but Mathias didn't want anything to do with it so I tried to get a few of Azlyn. She refused to give me a normal smile!

Here Azlyn is giving me her squinch face and also doing her "big girl".

Here is a cute smile mid clap and with a squinch face. She thinks she is so funny when she pulls this face and therefore does it often.

 

 Azlyn loves to play peek a boo and will even play if it means just putting her hands in front of her face to hide.

 

This was the best one I was able to get however the sun was in her face. Oh well, at least I made the attempt I guess.

 Here is Mathias with the dogs just before we started the walk. I ended up walking Tilly (the puppy) after a bit because she kept getting away from Mathias.

This picture actually has a pretty sad story with it. It is just up the street from our house. I had Azlyn in the stroller in front of me and I turned around to take a quick picture or two of Mathias with Puka then all of a sudden the lady whose house I was in front of came out of her door and yelled, "Your baby!" I turned around in time to see the stroller go off the curb and tip over into the street. I quickly went over to her, while muttering a few swears and quickly turned it back over. Azlyn was alright and didn't even have any scratches on her, she was just startled, as was I . I cannot believe this happened. It is not like we were on a big hill or anything. Seriously I was shaking the whole way back home. We have a car seat adapter for our stroller and that is usually how Azlyn rides in her stroller. She has only sat up in it a few times. Hopefully she isn't scared for life.

 She was, however, definitely scared of it for the rest of the day. I tried to take a few pictures of her in her stroller when we got back to the house. She wasn't really having any of it. Look at that poor face.

 So sad!

Mathias took these two pictures. Not too bad for a 5 year old I must say.

 Here are a couple of pictures of my cute family in their festive red and pink for Valentine's Day.

 Seriously LOVE them.

After dinner we had the kiddos come down stairs to get their valentines. Mathias has been wanting a pillow pet for a while and could quote you the whole commercial so we finally got him one. Since we are pretty big into jeeping, I can't pass up a shirt when I see a jeep on it. Also Mathias is a MAJOR chocoholic! When I saw this box of chocolates with a monster truck on it, it just screamed Mathias. Azlyn of course got some cute spring clothes. I have the hardest time not buying this little girl clothes. She definitely has more than Dev and I combined I swear. She also got a Baby Einsteins little music thing because she loves music and I thought it would be something fun for her to take in the car and lastly she got a bib that says "I'm a hoot". I seriously could not pass this up because Devin's mom tells Azlyn all the time that she is a hoot and so it fit her perfectly.

*Update. Dev and I went on a date the following weekend. We figured it would be less crowded. We went and did a little shopping then went and saw the movie True Grit, which we were not huge fans of. After the movie we went out to dinner at Red Robin. It was a perfect day and I was so excited to finally spend some time with the hubby. He has been working a ton lately.

Birthday Week

To start off Mathias' birthday celebrations, he had a little party at school. He brought some mini chocolate cupcakes as well as some mini cookies and some little individual red gatorades. The one bonus about having your birthday around Valentines Day is there are tons of treats to choose from. He got a crown to wear at school as well. He decided to wear it like this though. Then the next day, on his actual birthday, we went to Toys-R-Us to pick out a toy. He is in the birthday club there and got a $3 off of $3 or more coupon. He of course picked out a pack of cars that were jeeps and buggies. He also thought the big Lego fireman was pretty cool. When we got to the register to pay and they found out it was his birthday they gave him another crown and a balloon. Lucky guy!

reminiscing

I was doing a bit of reminiscing today since it is Mathias' birthday. I wanted to write down Mathias' birth story on here. I didn't start this blog/journal until he was about 18 months so I wanted to put it on here for us to be able to look back on.

Man I seriously can not believe my beautiful baby boy is 5!

My doctor called me while I was at work on Wed Feb 9th to tell me that she wanted me to go in for a non stress test the next day, Thurs the 10th. She didn't really tell me why and I was so nervous that I forgot to ask. I was such a basket case at that point thinking something was wrong. I remember calling Devin and my mom and they both assured me everything was fine or they would have had me come in right away. When I got there I was told it was to check the amniotic fluid levels. They said all was well. Then later that day my doctor's office called me and wanted me to go in the next day, Fri. the 11th (which was his due date) to check everything out again. When I went in for the second non stress I was contracting every 3 to 5 minutes so they admitted me for an hour to see if I was progressing. I wasn't really progressing so they sent us home and told us if we didn't have a baby by Monday they would induce me. We went and got some lunch and went and walked around the mall in hopes to get things started. No such luck. We went and hung out with my family and got some Cold Stone ice cream then went back to my mom's house. While watching tv at my mom's house my contractions started to get a lot stronger. It was 11:30 p.m. by this point. We decided to go home. I didn't tell anyone about the contractions in case it wasn't the real deal. When we got home I hopped in the shower, got out, packed and just waited for a little while. I really wanted to make sure this was the real deal, I really didn't want to get sent home. I remember the car ride to the hospital. I couldn't believe it was happening. It just didn't seem real to me. The contractions were getting strong but were still pretty bearable. We got admitted to the hospital at about 1:00 a.m. When I got there I was dilated to a 2+ and in an hour I was a 3+ so I got to stay. Yay!! I got my epidural when I was at 5 cm. I was fully dilated to a 10 by 8:00 a.m. however they had me wait 2 HOURS to do what they called rest and descend. Mathias really did not want to drop. He really liked it in my ribs. The nurses finally called my doctor and had him come to the hospital. When he checked me he said, "Well we can either wait till May to have him come on his own or we can use the forceps and get him out in a few minutes." I told him to go ahead and use the forceps. I was done by this point and just really wanted to meet my little boy. The doctor just used the forceps to pull him down enough and turn his head so that I could finally just push him out. Mathias was born at 10:18 a.m. It was so nice to finally meet my beautiful baby boy. Dev got a bit teary eyed and leaned in and gave me a hug. It was such a beautiful moment, one that I will never forget. My mom and step dad, step brother Dylan and his wife Emily and my step sister Kelsey were there all night and were so excited to meet Mathias. He was the first grand-baby for my family. As a side note, when Dylan and Emily left my mom's house that night they drove by our house and noticed our car wasn't there. Then everyone knew that we must be at the hospital and they all came to the hospital shortly after. When we had Mathias we kicked everyone out of the room. My mom really wanted to stay and even tried to be sneaky about it but in the end it was just Dev and I and the nurse and doctor. When the nurse went to open the door to get our family my mom almost fell through the door. She had been standing there with her ear pressed to the door. My mom was wondering what the heck was going on because she could hear us laughing. Our doctor was pretty funny and was joking around with us the whole time. The feeling in the room was so light-hearted. I loved it. His apgar test were pretty good. They had to check his hearing twice but it turned out good and he was fine. He also had a touch of jaundice. We stayed in the hospital for 2 days. On the first night Dev was apparently super tired. I tried to get Dev's attention in the middle of the night because Mathias was crying and I couldn't reach him and was too sore and still kinda numb to get him. We ended up letting the nurse take him to the nursery for the first night. I was just too tired and frustrated and hadn't slept at all for over 24 hrs. I remember Mathias did not want to eat at all. He really just wanted to sleep so the nurses would wake him up and make him really mad which would only last for a second and then he would go back to sleep. This was really frustrating for me. I really wanted them to leave him alone. I knew he would eat when he were ready.
We were all kinda surprised that Mathias came out with a head full of red hair. We thought he would have dark hair and dark eyes. Instead it was red hair and dark eyes. Such a cute baby! Anyways that is pretty much the whole story in a nut shell. Now for some pictures!

Waiting for the little man to make his debut.

 Mathias Grant Brower
Feb. 11 2006 10:18 A.M.
7 lbs 12 oz 20 inches
lots of red hair
We were so excited to meet him!

Mom and Dad with Mathias.

Enjoying some snuggles.

Some of the family that came to meet Mathias at the hospital.

 

Check out all of that red hair!

The first picture is just after he was born and the rest are of Mathias when he was just two weeks old. My friend Emily is amazing!

Getting ready to come home!

crawling!

 Azlyn has been so close to crawling for a little while now. She would get on all fours from a sitting position and rock there or even scoot backwards then go right back to sitting. Tonight we decided to do what we did to get Mathias to crawl and that was bribe her with puffs. We also added the cell phone and remote because she loves those. It worked! She slowly crawled towards them. She would stop a little short though and try to reach for the stuff . It was pretty funny to watch. Love the tongue hanging out! She can finally crawl. She is 10 months and 3 days old.

Look at how happy she is to have this new found freedom and the ability to get around more!

10 months

Here are a few tidbits about our little Miss Azlyn in the last month leading up to month 10.

 Her monthly pictures. There were just too many cute ones for me to decide between this time so I put a couple on. She has had her tongue sticking out a lot lately for some reason.

Monthly bunny picture.

• She is still not crawling. She will get on all 4 from a sitting position and just sit there for a few seconds before giving up and plopping to her belly or sitting back up. It is crazy to me that she is not crawling yet, but on the other hand I am glad that I don't have to watch her like a hawk yet. She can, however, get around by scooting every where on her bum or rolling around.

• She is finally starting to attempt to pull herself up. She will only do it to get on her knees though.

• She points at everything.

• Says 'uh-oh.' She also says it in the correct way. It is so cute to hear!

• She imitates different sounds and noises when you do them to her.

• We went up to the size 3 diapers but they were HUGE on her. We actually ended up going back down in size because the 3's were so big that we had lots of leakage.

• Still in 3-6 month clothes , 9 month jammies and a few 9 month onesies.

• She is down to 2 naps a day one at around 10 a.m. that usually lasts 2-3 hours then one around 3 that is about 2 hours.

• When you say "sooo big" or "biiiig girl" she will raise her arms straight up. So cute!

• She weighs 17 lbs 1 oz. She has been pretty sick this last week and therefore weighs an ounce less than she did at her 9 month appointment.

• She loves to play peek a boo and will play it with just about anything she has in her hands. She will raise a blanket, toy, bottle, whatever in front of her face and quickly bring it down. Seriously so much fun.

• She seems to go in spurts with her eating. She will go like a week were she doesn't want any baby food and just wants bottles and visa versa. When she is done eating and does not want any more she will push your hand away when you try to feed her.

• She is finally starting to giggle more. Like I have said before she is a super happy baby and smiles all the time but she does not giggle. She will either hold her breath or give you a squinch face instead.

• She has been giving big wet kisses for a while now all by herself but when you say give kisses she knows what that means and will usually give you some.

Kangaroo Zoo

We have been coped up for way too long this winter so we decided to go to Kangaroo Zoo. It is a place full of fun bounce houses and slides. Mathias loved it and was able to get rid of some of his energy!

This was a quick little break. Mathias loves his sis and still asks to hold her. I seriously love watching these two together! I may be a bit biased but dang I have some cute kiddos!

They had this little bounce area for little kids so I took Azlyn in it. She seriously LOVED it! She would sit on the alligator and just bounce by herself.  She would actually get kinda mad when I took her out.