Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas and everything in-between

So I am really horrible at this posting thing. Our computer is in out basement and it is freezing so I never want to come down here. But I thought I would brave the freezing cold to update everyone.

For Thanksgiving we went to St. George with the Olson clan, which was a lot of fun. We then went to Las Vegas. Me and Ryan took Brayden to the strip and watched the volcano and water show. But I think the most shocking thing I saw on the strip was this...........

Do they really need to be on the ENTIRE side of the casino. I don't think so.

After Ryan went back to Utah me and my mom took Brayden and Jase to the Secret Garden and also to the aquarium.

They had a baby dolphin which was so active and so cute, but apparantly I did not take pictures only video of the baby dolphin.

Mom even got up with Jase one night so I could sleep through the night and she paid for it the next day. But don't get me wrong Jase is a great sleeper, someone is just not use to having to get up in the middle of the night.


Mom had little cots at her house, which Brayden thought were so cool and he wanted to share with his brother.

Me and the boys then flew home. Both were very good on the plane, however, Brayden does not think it is important to wear his seatbelt when we land. What a rebel.


Me and the boys went Price at the first of December and we went to the good Ol' Helper Light Parade. Brayden thought it was so cool.


Robby and Allison came up one weekend to do Christmas shopping and Brayden and Alycia had fun playing in the snow.

That night me and Allison went to a movie and came home to a house full of passed out kids and husbands.

Brayden had his Christmas program at school. I was so excited for him to sing his songs. We got there and not one word came out of his mouth, nothing. The only thing I got from him was dirty looks. But then Santa came and he was able to tell him that he wanted a skateboard and a tractor that he can put a key in (like his cousin Cooper's). He would get none of these from Santa, but it does not hurt to ask.

On Christmas Eve we went bowling with Ryan's side of the family and then went to Pauli's house for dinner. We were finally able to leave Pauli's house after some bribing of Brayden because Aunt Pauli asked Brayden to sleep over and he was all for it, which is really weird for Brayden, he never wants to stay anywhere without mom or dad. He does love his Uncle Steve though. He did not quite understand that Santa was coming that night. We got home and I was trying to find the pajamas that Brayden was going to open that night. I went under the tree and there was no present. After my swift detective skills kicked in it took me no time at all to determine who my main suspect was. Brayden finally came forward with the evidence. The boys looked so cute in their pajamas. Brayden had also tried to open many other presents, but only cut holes in them to see if there was anything worth opening.

The boys were spoiled for Christmas and Brayden was quick to point out what Santa did not bring him, but he was very excited with his presents and just "loves" his golf clubs that Papa Don gave him. He asked numerous times a day if he can go golfing. I don't think he remembers anything else that he got for Christmas. Santa did bring Guitar Hero, which Brayden thinks that he is really good at.

This year has been good to us and we were so excited to add Jase to the family. Brayden is a very good big brother and me and Ryan are so lucky to have two healthy boys. Jase is getting more interactive every day and he is full of smiles. He loves to chew on our hands and his hands are soon going to be raw from him chewing on them so much. Brayden is getting smarter and smarter every day and we cannot wait for summertime when he is able to play outside. He is very excited for t-ball and soccer to start. Hopefully next year I will do better with the posting so that it is not so long.

On a side-note. I apologize for my pictures and the redeye. My new camera is on the way so hopefully that is a thing of the past.

Happy New Year Everyone.

He's quick

Tonight I was watching a movie with Brayden. He wanted me to get him a "sippy" which Brayden loves. Basically it is warm milk and he loves them. Here is how are conversation went.

Brayden: "Mom, will you get me a sippy."

Me: "Tell me who your favorite mom is."

Brayden: "Nana"

Me: "Nana is not your mom, I am."

Brayden: "Well Alycia is my friend."

Me: "I know, but who is your favorite mom."

Brayden: "Well, Nana is my favorite."

Me: "Well then, what am I?"

Brayden: ".............Crazy"

Are you kidding me!? My son thinks I am crazy. Even though there is little truth to it. Aren't we all a little crazy. I know he is making me crazy over the past couple of days.

Past few weeks update

So I have been really bad about posting. My mom came into town and helped out around the house. While my mom was here Allison and Alycia came to visit. We went over to Gardner Village, just like the rest of SLC. Then the week of Halloween my Aunt Heather, Kate, and Ellah came to town. We went back to Gardner Village and spent the afternoon. I love that place.




Brayden was Handy Manny for Halloween. He is obsessed with Handy Manny. One night at dinner Ryan told him that he was just like Handy Manny and that he could fix anything. I told Ryan to stop telling lies to our son and that he was delusional. Me, Brayden and Jase went to Herriman and went trick-or-treating with my friends, Amanda and Corey and their son Josh. Brayden had a lot more fun this year than last year. He actually went outside this year. Last year he would not go out the front door. It was sad.


On Friday it snowed. Brayden was so excited. He wanted to go outside and play. But unfortunately his winter jacket from last year did not fit him. We had to go out in the snow and get him a new jacket, gloves, beanie, and boots. Good grief! But he had so much fun. We made a snowman. It was so cute, but Brayden cannot leave things alone and knocked the poor thing over. All my work was down the drain.

Jase is almost seven weeks old!! He is getting so big. He is smiling and chewing on his hands. He is starting to sleep a little bit better in the night. But could still use some improvements with the sleeping. He is so cute and we are having so much fun with him.

Kids pictures

Our friend Mickelle, who is an amazing photographer, came over the other day and took some pictures of the boys. She did a great job and I am so excited for them. I have posted a slide show. If anyone is interested in getting her to take some pictures let me know and I will get you her contact information. She did a great job and she did a great job with Brayden, which is really hard to do for pictures. He is very anti-pictures right now. THANKS MICKELLE!! WE LOVE THEM.

Twice in 2 months

So a few weeks before Jase was born I had put Brayden to bed and was enjoying some alone time. So I popped myself some popcorn and was watching my trashy tv shows that myself and only a select few people enjoy. While I was eating my popcorn I was looking for the "old maids" when all of a sudden my old maids were moving around in my bowl. Upon closer inspection I found a little spider inside my popcorn. I was so disgusted and disappointed. Then last weekend I was at my sisters house and we were having a family dinner. We got done making tostada's and I was sitting at the table and had consumed half of my dinner when all of a sudden I looked down and my hamburger was moving. Again, upon closer inspection there was a spider on my tostada. REALLY? Who would have 2 spiders on two different occasions in there food. YUCK.

Pix of Jase

Baby Jase Arrives

On September 25, 2008 Jase Henrie was born. The labor and delivery was brutal. I pushed for 5 hours and he still would not come. Just kidding. I had a scheduled c-section. The worst part of the day was not being able to eat before the surgery and then only getting to drink broth and Jell-o after the surgery. Jase weighed in at 7 lbs 4 oz and 20 inches long. While we were in the hospital Papa Don came and stayed with Brayden. He also had lots of visitors from his cousins. Since being home Jase has been doing so well. He is still struggling through the night, but he has a great demeanor. He only cries when he is hungry and even then it is only for a couple of seconds. On Wednesday, after being home a few days Brayden finally held Jase. Every day we would ask him if he wanted to hold his brother and he would tell us, "No, not today." Finally he said yes and he usually holds him a few times a day. He has also been bringing all of his neighborhood friends in the house to show him off, which I just love having dirty kids coming into my house. But he is a very proud big brother. Me and Ryan have been trading off taking naps. We sent Brayden to school last week, which has been a nice break to be able to watch something other than the Disney Channel. We have had lots of visitors and lots of people bringing us dinner. Thank you all very much for those who have brought us food. Aunt Heather, Amanda and Katie thank you so much for sending the food up with my dad. It has been a life saver.

Here are some pictures to compare Brayden and Jase. I think that Jase and Brayden look a lot like each other. But they are both definitely handsome boys. The top picture below is of Brayden and Jase is below him.

We are all happy to be home and adjusting to a chaotic life.

Baby's room

With only a couple of days to go, last night I worked on some final touches on the baby's room. I was having a really hard time finding things to decorate the room with, but I found some vinyl circles on Etsy.com that matched the bedding pretty well. So on Sunday night I spend about four hours hanging up 108 vinyl circles. I don't know what in the world I was thinking, but I do think that it turned out pretty well. I am still struggling to find things to hang on the wall, but for now I am done with the room. I was hoping that all my hard work would maybe start some labor, however, my plan failed. I guess I will just wait until Thursday.

Meeting Marley

Brayden has been bothering me for the past couple of weeks about taking him to the zoo, so I was very excited when my friend Ashley called and said that her boyfriend's dad was taking care of a kangaroo last weekend and asked if we wanted to come and see her. I jumped on this opportunity. So Saturday afternoon we went over to see the baby kangaroo, Marley. She was so cute. She let us feed her leaves and we also fed her a bottle. She is only about four months old and Brayden is taller than she is. This kangaroo is pretty cool because she stays at an Alzheimer's facility during the week. She was on the news a couple of weeks ago. So Brayden has met his first television personality. Brayden was so excited to go and see the kangaroo, however, Brayden is in this horrible stage where he is very shy and everything scares him. He was more interested in the dog than the kangaroo, until we got in the car and then he could not stop talking about going to see the kangaroo. We also saw sheep and a billy-goat.

TV is going down the toilet

So I was very disturbed the other day when I turned on the television to watch my 3:00 p.m. showing of Ellen when I was completely shocked to see the Tyra Banks Show. What in the world is ABC thinking? Keep this show on the WB, or CW, or whatever that channel is. Has anyone sat and watched this show? Oh my gosh. I think it is the worst show I have ever seen. I am more entertained watching Sally Jessie Rafael. Hopefully this show will not last. Don't get me wrong, I watch my share of bad TV shows, those of which I will not name so that nobody thinks less of me, but this show reaches a whole new level.

A Grand Sunday

On Sunday morning my friends took me to breakfast at the Grand America for a small baby shower. It was so much fun!!!! They are the best. I got cute outfits, bibs, blankets, and shoes for the un-named baby. My friends are so amazing. THANKS, Marisa, Holly, Charity and Miranda.

After I got home Ryan took Brayden to his first baseball game. It was a nice day to go since it was not too hot. Brayden came home with a miniature wooden bat, which Brayden would not part with, until he threw it across the room multiple times and it has now been taken away and is just an outside toy. Brayden REALLY, REALLY wanted to go and see the giraffes and elephants at the zoo yesterday. I told him that maybe in a few weeks when Papa Don is staying with him while I am in the hospital he might be able to take him to the zoo. Hopefully Papa will be okay with this or maybe Brayden will have forgotten by then. I asked Ryan to take the camera to take pictures of him for me at his first baseball game, however, I was denied. I did get a cell phone picture, but it is really not the same thing.

D-Day Update

I went to the doctor on Wednesday and we set my delivery date for September 25, 2008. Not too much longer before our new little boy is here. We are still struggling with names so if anyone has any thoughts please let us know. Miranda Beckman and Holly... we have been through a lot of names together so you will have to be very creative. I am leaning towards Andrew and Ryan is liking Jase. Any input would be nice.

Breaking Dawn Vent

Let me first preface this with if you have not read Breaking Dawn and plan to read Breaking Dawn please stop here. And to the people I have already expressed my opinion too I am sorry you have to hear this again, but it continues to bother me.

First of all, I am a huge fan of the books and read the first three books multiple time ( I know it is sad to admit, but sometimes you get sick of watching Handy Manny and Little Einsteins 20 times in a row). I must say that I was really kind of disappointed in the last book. I have two complaints that I just cannot look past. 1) Since when did Jasper's name change to Jazz? You cannot start a nickname in the fourth book without it not being mentioned in any of the other three books. Not Cool. 2) What the heck is up with combining names for a baby name. Now I am the first to admit that there are some cute names that have two names combined, but Renesmee, that is probably the ugliest name for a child I have ever heard, especially when this baby is suppose to be so amazingly beautiful. If she is beautiful then pick a beautiful name. And then for a middle name to combine Charlie and Carlisle for Carlie, OH PLEASE!!! When sharing my views of this with Holly she asked what I was going to name our little boy and I told her that I was thinking of combining our father's names, Don and Thomas for "Domas" If you say this out loud you will get the idea. Not that I am saying my son would be a dumba@# but it is just not that cute of a name.

Thanks for letting me vent.

New Baby Pictures

So we went to Fetal Fotos to get some pictures of the baby. I love doing this. We also did it with Brayden. I have posted 3 different pictures. The top two are of the new baby and the third is of Brayden so everyone can compare the two boys. I am going to go back within the next week or two because he was folded in half and would not bring his legs down from his face so we were not able to get a good look at his face. We tried to get him to move the entire time we were there, finally the tech said that we were going to have to come back to see if we could get a better look at his face. He is already stubborn just like his mommy. In some of the pictures we were able to see that he has hair. Now the only question is what color it is going to be. I told Melissa that it would probably be red but we will see. After we went to Fetal Fotes I went and bought a new camcorder so now I will be able to post video easier. YEA!!!

One thing that stinks about being pregnant

One of the worst parts of being pregnant is nesting, which I admit it, I am currently stuck in this stage. I cannot get enough done in the hours of the day. Even though I know I have plenty of time to get everything ready for the baby I feel like I am running out of time. I was finally able to get Brayden moved into his new room. I am not going to be posting pictures, because he is just "moved in". It is not decorated because buying stuff for boys is sometimes not very fun. I am still trying to decide how to decorate his room, so it will probably not get done until after the baby is here. I am proud of him because he did last until about 12:30 a.m this morning in his new room. He is very excited about his room, but when I talk to him about sleeping in his bed he says that he can't and that he needs to sleep with his mom and dad. I now I am probably a bad mom for letting him sleep with me, but I am too tired to fight with him about it. At this point I am lucky to get about five hours of sleep at night and when I am able to sleep I don't care who is sleeping in my bed as long as I am asleep. Well okay, I might be a little selective. We also moved the guest bedroom back into the basement this weekend. Hopefully withing the next few days Ryan will clean up the computer room, however, we are running on different time frames, so I think that will probably be done by the end of August. It is times like this that I wish my OCD mom lived around here to clean my house and get everything ready.

One other thing that I am over joyed about reporting is that I believe after 3 years and 3 months of changing Brayden's butt he has finally decided that he is ready to use the toilet and we have gone over one week without any "big" accidents. Now I just need him to stop peeing in the backyard and go in the toilet, but at least it is not in his pants.

Happy 4th!!!

This 4th of July Ryan had to work so Brayden and myself were on our own to entertain ourselves that night. In the morning we went and spent time with Ryan's sisters and their children for the 1st annual 4th of July 5K run/walk. This Olson family opted out of the competition. I of course declined due to my current condition, however, Ryan likes to default to having a bad knee, however, I believe that he just did not want to get shown up by his nieces who would have kicked his butt. Maybe next year I will be more willing to participate. We then took Brayden to see Wall-E. Which was an okay movie. That night Brayden and I ended up going to the neighbors for a BBQ and then we did some fireworks before the city let theirs off. West Jordan does fireworks three days in a row so that was a lot of fun for Brayden. He really enjoyed spending time with his friend Jaxon. On Saturday night we were able to do some fireworks with Ryan at home.

Staying busy

So we have been staying busy with summer. Brayden and Alycia enjoyed an afternoon in the swimming pool. Which Brayden loves to get into, however, he is always asking to go to the big pool, but he has been told that he is not going to be able to go to the big pool until he is potty trained. He then tells me that he is okay with that because he has the pool in the backyard. He is very stubborn.

We went to the zoo on the one of the last weekends that it was cool weather. They had just opened up the new merry-go-round which was a lot of fun for Ryan and Brayden to ride on. It was not busy either, which was an added bonus.

A few weeks ago we went to Price and Papa Don took all of the boys to the driving range. Ryan and dad then went to Green River for a golf tournament. Which did not go so well. But they had a good time together. We also came to the conclusion that we are not good pet owners and we left our puppy in Price with Aunt Melissa to go on a little "vacation." We will see how hormonal I am in a few months and if she is going to come back.

We also went up to the mountains and went fishing with Kate and Ellah that weekend. Ryan was the only one who caught a fish, but Brayden and Ellah had a lot of fun playing in the dirt and throwing rocks and scaring all of the fish away.

Brayden started t-ball again, however, we are officially quitters. Brayden was not enjoying this summer season as much as he did the spring season. I don't know about anybody else, but my idea of fun is not sitting in 100 degree temps watching 3 year olds trying to enjoy baseball. Plus, being pregnant in this heat is not enjoyable no matter what. Brayden at first only wanted to hit and did not want to play in the outfield, but now he does not want to play either. He just likes to sit and cheer on his friend Christian. So we are throwing in our hats. Maybe next spring he will start to enjoy it again.