Tayler - Distinguished Student Athlete Award

http://www.localnews8.com/video/26828162/index.html

Everyone...meet Tayler, Shayne's baby sister. He may be 16 years older than her, but she's the one we look up to in his family...literally. I'm pretty sure she's taller than at least 2 of her brothers, and her sister...and she's definitely taller than me. :)

Tayler, was given this award about 2 weeks ago, but we just discovered it on KayCee's (Shayne's other sister) blog this past week. So, I stole the info from her blog to post it on ours, b/c we are so proud of Tayler. She received this award during basketball, but she was also named her school's conference volleyball player of the year as well. You MUST click on the link and watch the video, b/c you will be amazed at her piano playing ability...and her athletic skills. Seriously...click on the link.

I'm pretty sure with her competitive nature she was first in line for everything in Heaven...not kidding. She's tall and graceful, beautiful, incredibly athletic (INCREDIBLY), musically gifted, and is super smart (like is in serious contention for the valedictorian). But, even though Tayler has all these incredible gifts/talents, she is the sweetest, most kind hearted teenager I've ever met...and I've met a lot of teenagers.

I think Shayne and Tayler have the most in common out of all their siblings. They are both very focused athletic smart kids who are soft at heart and have great testimonies of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Tay was Shayne's baby. As a 16 year old kid, when he would get home from school or practice, he would take this little baby sister and lay down on the couch with her on his chest and they would take a nap. He would also spoil her as she got older by always buying her Mike n' Ike's and Sunny Delight (or "punch" as she would call it) whenever he was in the store or coming home from work.

Anyway, Tay is a senior and planning on going to school this fall, and has her choice of either athletic scholarships or academic scholarships. We are excited to see how she does in the next phase of her life...we are pretty sure she's gonna do AWESOME, b/c that's just the way she is. :)

We love you Tay!!

Basketball/Gym Rat...

So, I took these pics on January 15th, but we are still in the midst of basketball, so I figured I could still post them. I actually have a couple of others, but they are still on the camera, so I'll download them and post them later.

These pics are of The Bug, and then the little boy in the middle is the head coaches son, Eli, and the kid on the left is one of his little friends he gets babysat with. The coaches wife, Katie, came to a game with her friend and their little boy and they were all sitting together with their sippy cups just hangin' out and it was too cute to not take a pic.

This is how we've spent our winter...in some gym or another watching games 2-3 times a week. I have a backpack filled with toys he can play with on the bleachers, and another little lunch backpack filled with snacks. We've got it down to a science. We come a little bit late to the JV game that Shayne coaches and are able to watch most of it, then spend most of the girls' Varsity game in the commons area running around, and then go back in and attempt to watch the boys' Varsity game that Shayne is the assistant coach for. We don't always make it through the entire varsity game, but we try.

Shayne's boys love The Bug, and help me entertain him. In fact, one of them played "baseball", with an inflatable ball and bat I bring, with him for about 30-45 minutes the other night. It was awesome! Needless to say he sleeps good the night we are at games...he wears himself out running around in between games.

So, while we are ready for basketball to be done, and we are counting down the days until we get to see daddy for more than 30 minutes at a time...it's been nice to have somewhere to go during our long winters. And...of course The Bug loves going to daddy's "gasketball game". Loves it!

Happy Valentines Day!!

This year Valentines Day was fun for our family. At least for The Bug and I. He was very much more into it this year. We decorated the windows with some heart window clings, and hung up some Valentines Decorations, which he thought was awesome!

Then on Valentines we made daddy a Valentine to take him to work. He loved putting the stickers on and coloring with markers. Didn't want to stop. :) Shayne had started a new job at the hospital which now puts him there M-F 8-5ish (depending on his basketball schedule). The info about the new job will be on another post. Anyway...it was his first day at the new job. So, I thought we would just stop and leave the valentines we created on his locker at work so we wouldn't be bothering him. But...I mistakenly told The Bug we were taking these "walentine" hearts to dad, so he thought he was really going to see dad. Whoops. Needless to say he wasn't giving up the heart to anyone but dad...so we waited until he got out of a meeting to give dad his heart. Good thing there are some cool fish tanks and other toys to entertain munchkins at the hospital! Dad was ok with the break and thought it was pretty cool his Bug wanted to give it to him.

After delivering our valentine to dad we went home, and mom made sugar cookies while The Bug was sleeping. It's been a tradition for as long as I can remember to have Valentine sugar cookies...and my mom has the BEST recipe ever. They are never hard and crunchy, if you make them right. Always soft...yummy!

I let The Bug decorate one after he got up and then eat it. I've been learning how to use my camera in manual mode, but was having some technical difficulties changing my shutter speed to match my aperture fast enough to get some good pics, so some of the pics are fuzzy...but it was funny showing the progression of the sugar cookie disappearing. :)

Then we got a UPS package that was wrapped in all sorts of bubble wrap...and who doesn't love that stuff? The Bug ended up wrapping himself up in the stuff and walking around with it popping bubbles. Too funny!!

The last pic is of the fun little kazoo Nana Price got him for Valentines day...he calls it his "horn" and walks around making little songs.

After work and basketball practice Shayne came home and insisted we go out to dinner for Valentines day...even with The Bug. He's a pretty good kid in public places...he mostly just entertained the other customers. So, that was fun for us...and for me to not have to cook dinner. :)

So, even though it wasn't the most romantic Valentines Day (which is not a big deal to me, b/c it was more like Single Awareness Day for me for way too long so not my favorite holiday), it was so much more fun with a little dude who was having fun and more "into" it than he has been in the past. Can't wait for the other holidays...St. Patrick's Day, here we come!!!

24 Weeks!!

So here I am at 24 weeks. My mom and mom -in-law keep asking me if I'm getting bigger. Well...even though people think I'm not really showing, I'm getting bigger for me. Actually, I grew a lot in about the last week...I swear the baby all the sudden went through a huge growth spurt. She just sorta popped out in a matter of about 3-4 days. It was wierd. I'm carrying much higher this time and that makes for a much larger pregnant feeling. I swear I've got a baby bump from my boobs to my hips! I wasn't like that last time at all...but oh well.

She is a pretty active kid and likes to do gymnastics around 3-4 am...which is not my favorite time for her to be rolling around. She gets really quiet in the gym during basketball games, but I think it's b/c it's so loud and she's listening to all the different sounds. I get a little concerned when I haven't felt her move during the game, but as soon as I leave and it gets quiet, she lets me know she's still there. :) As far as how I'm doing...I've been feeling GREAT!! Other than a little bit of heartburn, and my stomach feeling squished even when I drink a glass of water, my pregnancy symptoms haven't hardly been symptoms.

I would have posted this pic sooner, b/c I'm actually almost 25 weeks here, but we've had a long week with a sick kid...that story is continued below.

Our appointment this last week went well...it's still a girl, and even I could tell from the ultrasound it was a girl. But, I don't have pics. We were distracted by some other "stuff" and forgot to print out a pic, oh well. We still don't have a name picked out for this little girl yet. Shayne is still IN LOVE with the middle name Rogue...but I'm not on board. I just want it on record this was not a name I picked out. :) I know I've got time, but I'm still a little concerned we don't have a name yet. We knew what we were going to name The Bug long before we even got pregnant with him...but we've never really had a girl name picked out we just loved. So...any suggestions?

The other "stuff", was the sick little boy we've been dealing with the last 10 days. He started getting sick almost 2 weeks ago with a cold. We then went to Anchroage and spent some time with the Tuia's and they had some stomach flu on top of colds, and The Bug caught it. He started throwing up Saturday night, and finally stopped about 4am Sunday morning. He started fevering Sunday afternoon, and given his history of febrile seizures, we immediately started treating the fever. He fevered for over 4 days, with a nasty cold. He stopped eating, but kept drinking so that was good. I finally called Doc at 10pm Tuesday night just for some reassurance, b/c it had been going on for so long. He reassured me, offered to see him that night, but b/c I had an appointment the next day, we decided to just check him out then. He started throwing up again Wednesday morning, and kept it up most of the day. So, at my appointment, The Bug spent more time with Doc than I did. The Bug ended up having a minor ear infection in one ear, and a very sore/inflamed throat, but was negative for strep. So, we just kept up with the otc meds for fever and inflamation, and finally around 9:30 pm Wednesday night his fever went down on it's own, and he asked me for some applesauce! He hadn't asked for food in 4 days. He's progressively gotten better, and just today he ate like he was actually hungry. So, glad he's feeling better, b/c with Shayne's work and basketball schedule, I was getting a little worn down dealing with a very sick kid mostly on my own. I didn't sleep for a few days for fear of a seizure in the middle of the night, so I'm very glad he's done with this little bug.

I must say we've been pretty fortunate. Other than the 24 hour GI bug we all had in November, The Bug hasn't been real sick since his last seizure in July. So...I am grateful for that blessing, b/c for awhile I swear he was sick every month!

So, while I haven't posted in like a month, life here is good.

Playing in the Snow

We had a massive week of snow storms the first week of February. The weather wasn't too cold, so the snow was pretty wet. So, on Feb. 3rd we decided (a little later in the day) to go outside and play a bit in it. I bundled up The Bug while dad was out shoveling snow so I could get to the car and off the deck. Then when dad was done we went and played.

I threw The Bug into the snow and he just kinda "thumped" into the soft wet snow. He wasn't a big fan of getting thrown into the snow, but we thought it was great. Then dad decided to show The Bug how to make a snow angel, but the dogs wouldn't let him finish. Notice my dog, Tipz, has found the warm dry spot to lay down...she is so not an Alaskan dog...poor thing. She climbed on top of Shayne almost as soon as he laid down, it was pretty funny.

Then dad thought it would be fun to bury The Bug's feet...but he didn't like not being able to see his feet. But...he did like throwing snow at dad...and eating it.

Even though we were only out for about 45 minutes, it was a nice break from basketball and the house.