Jaron's Birthday Celebration

Jaron had a great first birthday.  The girls helped me make pancakes for him that morning. He loves pancakes, even without the syrup.  We then gave him his first present, a slide and little climb on toy.  He loves it.  Jaron is such a climber that I knew he would like it and sure enough he climbed right up it and plays with it all the time.  The girls of course think they have first rights to it but I keep reminding them it is not theirs and they need to let Jaron play on it.

We also gave him a small basketball hoop which I didn't think he would care about that much until he could walk more but I have him hold the ball and hold him up to the basket and he drops it in and just giggles his head off, he thinks it's the funniest thing.  When he's standing he'll even hold the ball up over his head to try and make a basket but hasn't been able to do it yet.  I'm sure he will as soon as he can walk with a little more stability.

That night we had a little party for Jaron with dinner, cake and presents.  I went with a monkey theme for his party and I think it turned out cute.  I found the idea for his cake on pinterest and I thought they turned out really cute.  I made everyone cupcakes and then Jaron got his own little 4 inch round cake.

Everyone was so nice and gave Jaron the cutest presents.  He is loving all his trucks, books, and toys (I love the clothes), and of course the girls are enjoying them all as well.

 

Jaron LOVED his cake.  I remember the girls at their party wouldn't touch their cake.  First went the marshmallow eyes and then Jaron just picked up a nilla wafer and stuffed the entire thing in his mouth.  I couldn't believe it fit in his mouth let alone he chewed it and swallowed it without choking.  Then he just kept eating and eating until almost the entire cake was gone.  Lots of pictures coming up, you can just skim, I couldn't narrow them down cuz I just think they're so cute.  Thanks Michelle for taking them all!

Thanks to everyone who came and enjoyed celebrating Jaron's first birthday with us!

Draper Days 2014

Luckily before the girls came down with Hand Foot Mouth we were able to enjoy a little bit of Draper Days this year.  The girls were talking about riding the ponies for the whole week leading up to it.  And the ponies did not disappoint.  Both girls were total perma grin the entire time and love to watch the video back of them riding their horses.  Even a lady standing there commented to me that I have some horse lovers.  Yes I do. They still say hi to the horses across the street from us and beg to pet them just about everyday.  They still want to go back to the park and ride the horses even though I tell them that horses had to go home and are not at the park anymore.

Friday night we enjoyed some Neil Diamond and Whitney Houston cover artists and Saturday night was The Carpenters.  I love The Carpenters music!  Cousin Abbey gave the girls some cotton candy and here they are trying some.  Siena liked it and Aria wouldn't even try it.  Such a funny girl.  I told her over and over it was candy but apparently she didn't believe me.  Whatever.  I took the girls on a 2nd pony ride Saturday night and for some reason Siena freaked out over having to go potty while in line and once we did that and got back into line she wasn't nearly as excited to ride the ponies that night.  She warmed up by the end.  Aria was all happy about it still and loved every minute of it.  Shane wasn't excited about any of the singers so lucky for me he didn't mind staying home with sick little Jaron.

Hand Foot Mouth...Oh My!

I don't take it for granted that my kids do not get sick that much.  In fact I think about it all the time and thankful we have such healthy children.  So,...I'll try not to complain to much about this, but it just needs to be documented.  Our family came down with Hand Foot Mouth Disease last week!!!!  And we got a really bad case of it over here.  Sadly we got it from poor cute Owen who we saw the day before they realized they had it.  Owen, Max and Whitney all got it and it sounds like they got a bad case of it as well.  Lori and Landon got a mild case of it thank goodness for them.

Jaron came down with a fever and by the next day would not eat anything.  I could see a couple sores in his mouth but by the way he was not eating I'm sure he had a lot more.  Saturday I could not get him to drink anything.  We tried spoon feeding him formula, water, pedialyte, anything.  I could get about an ounce in and then that was it.  By Saturday night I was feeling worried and his diapers were becoming wet about every 8 hours.  They say you need a wet diaper every 6-8 hours.  By Sunday morning he was inconsolable, wouldn't eat or drink anything, had no tears when he was crying and hadn't had a wet diaper for 12 hours.  So...off to the ER we went.  I love the ER right here in Draper, never crowded, we walked right in and had the place to ourselves.  I knew he just needed some fluids and so they hooked him up and gave him some, with a popsicle as well, which he ate only a few licks.  He came home and slept 3 1/2 hours and luckily after that I could kind of keep up on it.  And no you aren't seeing double, Jaron likes to sleep with 2 binkies, one for his mouth and one to hold.

He got it the worst in our family.  Huge welts around his mouth, hands and feet and then had little dots all up his arms and legs. The bigs ones all blistered.  He looked awful!  Even now 1 1/2 weeks later the big welts are still healing.

Siena and Aria got it a few days later and one day apart from each other.  And then I came down with a really bad sore throat (in fact I can't think of a time my throat has hurt worse) and a fever.  My fever came and went for 3 days straight...so awful to feel that achy, yuck.  We watched A LOT of movies.  One day Aria fell asleep on the couch watching Frozen, then Siena kept talking loudly and as I turned around when I heard Aria stir, I saw Aria like this.  She had her fingers in her ears and slept like this for another 20 mins.  I guess you just do these things when you are used to sharing a room with your twin and want to get some sleep.

We stayed home for 9 days hoping not to infect anyone else.  By about day 6 we were going stir crazy. So one night we headed up to Silver Lake and had a picnic and walked around the lake.  It was so nice to get out of the house and just what everyone needed.  The girls hardly ate dinner they were too busy chasing chipmunks all around the picnic table.  And don't look at their outfits, they dressed themselves that day and I wasn't going to fight it.

That night there was a knock at our door and Whitney and Jeff had left a little hand foot mouth care package because they felt so bad that they had given it to us.  Which I don't blame them for giving it to us at all since they had no idea they were getting it when we saw them but still it was such a nice gesture and the ice cream was sooo yummy, Caramel Cone, go get some...now!  So cute and creative...and so so nice and thoughtful of them.

We are happy to report we are all better and were not contagious just in time for Jaron's big 1st birthday. So happy that we are usually very healthy and don't get sick that often.

4th of July

We had a fun 4th of July and how lucky are we to live in such a great country!  I tried to talk to our girls about why we are celebrating but they didn't get it.  However, they did like waving their flags they got in Nursery.  Side note, I love our nursery leaders...have I ever told you that?  I do, maybe I'll write about all the fun things they do with the kids and how excited and loving they are to all the kids.

Anyways, 4th of July morning started with our annual neighborhood bike parade and breakfast.  They even rented a bounce house that the girls enjoyed jumping on.  I didn't get any pictures though.

For lunch we went to my parents and had a family bbq of hot dogs and other yummy food.  We didn't stay too long because I wanted to make sure we got good naps in for fireworks that night.

After dinner we headed over to Sandy with most of my side of the family to listen to music, hang out with family, play 'cards with numbers' (Siena's current obsession!...thank you Jennifer) and of course watch fireworks.  Once again all our kids did great staying up way past their bedtime.  Even Jaron was happy as ever.  They loved the fireworks and I wish I had a picture of Jaron trying to reach out and touch the fireworks as they were shot into the air, it was so cute.  It was a great day and loved celebrating our freedoms we all enjoy.

Goold Family goes to 'The Ranch'

The end of June we went on a Goold Family trip.  My brother in law Brett's family owns a ranch house in Grover, Utah, which is right outside of Capitol Reef.  They invited ALL of us down to spend a few days there and we had sooo much fun.  Each family got their own room so it was plenty big for all 34 of us. My sister Christy and her family go all the time and we always hear how fun 'The Ranch' is so I was excited to finally be able to experience it for myself.

I'm loving the fact that my girls are getting a little older and can just go off and play with cousins, which doesn't happen all day but for part of the day at least they went and played and didn't have to be right next to me like they did on our trip last year.

They loved the trampoline and thanks to cousin Max they kept showing off their trampoline skills by 'doing a ffflllliippppp!'  in their best Max impersonation voice.  Which meant falling on their bottom.

We went into Capitol Reef with everyone one day to play in the park there, go on a nature hike and then of course have some ice cream.

I love these pictures of my girls playing together. Their faces are just so cute to me.  They're just off playing in their own little world.

Then just we went back a 2nd day when the older kids went on a bigger hike somewhere else.  We saw Twin Rocks, which I renamed to Twins Rock cuz twins really do rock...most of the time.  We also went on 2 short hikes.

One hike Shane and I had been on when we went on a trip to Capitol Reef while we were dating so this picture is a re-enactment of our picture from 7 years ago.  Looks nothing similar and of course cute little Jaron wasn't in the original either.

We went to a fun park in Torrey one night as well.

The cutest part of the weekend was when all the older cousins put on the play Annie for us.  The property is owned by the Hale family as in the Hale Centre Theatre so they have a little summer theatre there and the kids used props and costumes to put on the 10 minute version of Annie, complete with Hard Knock Life and Tomorrow sung by them. It was so cute.

We might have even heard a personal performance by a cousin who will be playing Gaston in Beauty and the Beast international tour, who also just finished playing Javert in Les Mis at the Hale Centre Theatre which was AMAZING!

Overall we just hung out and had such a fun time spending time together as a family.  Thank you Brian family, such a fun treat to finally say we've been to 'The Ranch.'