The TanK Times

Christmas and Birthdays

2012-02-12T19:44:00.000-08:00

Hailey's 5th Birthday party!

Cory was my assistant during Hailey's 5th birthday party.

Playing Duck, Duck, Goose

Hailey wanted a Barbie cake, so I made this.

Taking a bath in Grandpa's big bathtub during our vacation!

Hailey's present from us for her 5th birthday.
This was Hailey's cake I made for our family party, which was actually on her birthday--on New Year's Eve!

This is Annette, Christy, Stephanie, and me celebrating my sister, Stephanie's Surprise 40th birthday party at my parent's house in Gilbert, AZ over the winter break. We all dressed in 70's clothes since she was born in 1971.

Our 70's clothes. Trent is wearing a tie my dad actually wore during the 70's and I am wearing a dress (a house dress type thing) that my mom wore during the 70's.

A bunch of the cousins at my parents house in AZ over the holiday.

Hailey with her cousin at a hike in some mountains south of Phoenix.

The kids on Christmas Eve showing us their new pajamas.

These pictures are really out of order! These are at my sisters surprise birthday party again.

This is our family soccer game. Everyone pictured here played at one time or another for over an hour. It was pretty intense, but very fun!

One of the activities at my parent's house was making headbands from a kit. This is two of our cousins, Rachel and Rebecca, with Hailey and Sophie modeling their headbands.

This is Hailey accepting an award from preschool right before Christmas.

I helped the kids make his igloo made out of cocoa rice crispies. They had fun!

Our family for Cory's baptsim.

Cory (and Sophie) with his Chargers football cake he wanted me to make for his 8th birthday party. We invited several boys and they just played football and soccer at a park the whole time. It was great!

Our family at SeaWorld for their Christmas celebration. Our passes expired the end of the month, so it will be quite some time before we go back!

Sophie with me visiting Hailey's preschool class and making a Christmas craft together.

This picture was actually put on the front page of our local newspaper! The girls are all dressed up because it was right after Hailey's tap dance recital at the local rec center. Afterwards, they had a breakfast, plus Santa with treats to give away. Sophie and Hailey are with their friend, Brooke.

Sophie with her Christmas presents.

Cory with a Christmas present.

Hailey on the morning of her tap dance recital.

Halloween Fun

2011-11-12T22:47:00.000-08:00

This is Hailey at her preschool class as a peer helper. The teachers have told me a couple different times that Hailey is the perfect peer model and is so helpful and kind to her classmates.

This is Hailey after trick-or-treating. She was just too worn out to smile anymore--we went all over our neighborhood (which includes lots of hills!) for two hours.

Sophie with all her loot.

Cory still had energy to smile

Sophie before we left for trick-or-treating being her usual silly self.

Hailey was a bride and Sophie was Cinderella. They were very eager for me to put make-up on them!

Cory was a skeleton.

We spent a couple of hours carving these pumpkins. I can't wait until the kids are a little older to do this project themselves!!

Cory wore his costume to school that Friday before Halloween. I had fun painting his face.

He's not mad, I just told him to look mean.

This was at Legoland's Halloween "Brick or Treat" that we went to a couple weeks before Halloween. Sophie is kissing the little Legoland Frankenstein. Not sure why!

Lego Darth Vader.

These are various scenes fromthe 6 Star Wars Movies--all out of Legos!

Cory really likes that Milennium Falcon.

Cory and Sophie at Legoland's Brick or Treat.

This was in mid-October when we went to the beach to take some informal surfing lessons from a guy we know. It was too cloudy for the kids to want to get in the water, but they sure wanted to be buried in the sand!

I love this one! We even buried Cory's ears!

Trent and I with our surfboards. I only attempted to go out twice--it pretty much ripped me apart out there. Trent was braver and went out three times for a bit longer.

Mom and Dad and Annette were with us at the beach that day because they were visiting that weekend to go to my San Diego Mormon Choir concert.

At the Escondido, Center for the Arts after my San Diego Mormon Choir Concert with Trent, me, Annette, Mom, and Dad. I loved singing with this choir!! I'll join them again in the spring for our next concert where our special guest will be Sally DeFord and we'll be performing her favorite arrangements.

A Full September

2011-09-28T13:34:00.000-07:00

We had such a full month--with all the fun activities, it felt more like summer than school starting! But we still started school, soccer (Cory's plays on a team, I play in the mornings with other women from church), and I started teaching 4 piano students and next month I'll add 7 more!

The above picture is of Cory and Sophie at Legoland. I took the kids by myself (Trent met us there later at 3:30) on Monday, Sep. 26 because it was a teacher prep day at school. The park was so empty! Most rides we waited for less than 5 minutes and several rides towards the end of our day, we got to ride again and again because there was no line at all!! I guess a random Monday in September is the best time to go to Legoland.

They were setting up all their Halloween decorations for October.

We've been to Legoland 4 times in the last 13 months--and this was the first time I remembered my camera!

Annette with her 2 boys, me with my 2 girls at Pacific Beach on Sept. 17. Afterwards we ate at the Greenflash Restaurant overlooking the ocean. FUN!

Caleb and Cory boogie boarding when Bigelows came to visit on Sept. 17-19

Cory's team is called the Fire Eagles. He loves soccer!

These pictures are from the ward campout on Sept. 16.

They had various relay games involving pancakes. The kids loved it!

We took our kids to walk around the temple at night.

These pictures are in reverse chrnological order. We went to the beach to watch the sunset.

We had a lot of fun enjoying our time and the beautiful scenery!

The beach was Windansea Beach just south of La Jolla Shores.

Cory and Hailey had fun jumping off this little ledge.

I feel a certain poem coming on.......

This little hatched canopy was just too cute! (Annette--I think this might be the same exact beach we went to back in January or February of 2000 when we took that trip to San Diego and stayed in that hotel. We stopped here early in the morning on our way to the temple--do you remember?)

Pictures from our hike at Torrey Pines Reserve on Labor Day. The kids did great. It even drizzled on us for a little bit.

Trent took me to Humphrey's Restaurant for our 9th anniversary dinner. It was on Shelter Island in the San Diego Bay.

Our delicious carrot cake.

Family Pictures and First Day of School

2011-09-21T13:54:00.000-07:00

Hailey on her first day of Preschool 4 mornings a week at the same school that Cory attends.

Cory starting 2nd Grade.

We hadn't taken pictures of just Trent and I for a couple years.

This was just last month. Sophie is 2.5 years old. She's so cute!

We got professional pictures done in August. Hailey loved to pose and all 3 kids were very cooperative. The first time we didn't have to deal with a 1-year-old freaking out during pictures!

Summer--Where did you go?

2011-08-22T22:14:00.000-07:00

Trent and me and Catamaran Resort at Mission Bay for Trent's summer work picnic.

This was my dance outfit when I was 5! Hailey loved it and did NOT want to take it off for bed.

This picture was just too typical of Cory's face.

Kids were all playing dress-up.

We went out on Mission Bay in a paddleboat when we were there for Trent's work party.

It looks cold, but it was actually about 75 degrees--just overcast.

We rode this little train on the 4th of July.

Hailey lost her first tooth! (Yes, she is only 4 1/2)

Andy (a cousin) and the girls at the Mormon Battalion Museum in Old Town San Diego.

We took the kids to Rainforest Cafe for their first time.

They loved to play in the sprinklers in the front yard. (With umbrellas!)

Hailey, Cory's friend, Sophie, and Cory posing on the sidewalk out front.

We took a day trip up to Orange County--this is Newport Beach.

This is Trent on the Daddy Daughter Campout back in June. They had a blast!

The Padres vs. Atlants Braves game we attended.

The cake I made for Trent for Father's Day. (I think he liked it!)

Well, it's been *choke* 3 months since I last posted. We've been having a great time. I was really worried the kids would die of boredom this summer. I guess I forgot where I lived or something...

We went to the beach a lot. Almost every Wednesday (with friends from church), and some Saturdays in between. We went to Legoland Amusement Park twice. We went to SeaWorld twice. We had a huge Goodman family reunion come here and spent 4 days with many relatives. We had Trent's mom and brother (and a friend) visit us back in June. We spent literally 100 hours at the pool (our community center pool). We had several trips to the library, dozens of playdates at parks, and even a Major League Baseball Game (Padres). Trent took the kids camping twice. (I'm going with them in September for ou family campout.)

I tried out for the San Diego Mormon Choir, and made it! I decided I would start teaching piano lessons in the fall (and already have 7 students!) I started playing soccer at 6:30 am every Thursday morning with some women from church (I was SO SORE the first day, but had SO MUCH FUN!)

I spent the last three weeks of the summer babysitting our 10-year-old neighbor across the street just in the mornings. (Helped pay for our expensive family photo session last week!) She helps entertain my kids and keeps them busy. And we never drove more than 30 minutes to go anywhere! I guess I really do like it here.

What's UP with these Californians?

2011-05-31T09:30:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been over a year since anyone has yelled at me for something regarding my children. I just commented to my husband last week how maybe I'm starting to get the hang of how differently you have to parent your kids when you live, here as opposed to anywhere say, with more common sense. There are some great people that live here. Then there are the illogical, off-their-rocker types that just don't understand people. Or how to live by them. Or in a neighborhood. Or in a state where people have kids. Even if they once had small kids. I know we've all heard crazy neighbor stories, so now I have mine!

Last Friday my kids (and our neighbor girl who lives across the street) were playing in our driveway. Like they do quite often. We have just a small bit of grass in our front yard (and half of that is on a steep hill), so mostly they play in the driveway with chalk, scooters, balls, small bikes, etc. It's great. It's a place to play. Our backyard (because we live in California where if you want a backyard bigger than 10 square feet, you're house costs a million dollars), is not a place our kids can play. There is a deck and a very small patch of grass. It's an appropriate play area for maybe a 10-month-old.

So I was sitting on the grass in my front yard watching them have fun. I usually don't sit down. I'm usually too busy filling requests of "mommy, I need help with this, or mommy fix my bike, or mommy, play this with me, etc." But this was probably the first time in 5 days of them playing outside (for about 2-3 hours a day) that I had even sat down. Literally. Sophie was eating a bag of snacks and Hailey noticed our big yellow sign we keep at the end of the driveway (in the gutter area by the sidewalk) had turned sideways so cars coming couldn't read it anymore. She went over there and said to me, "I'll fix the sign." So I said, great. So she's turning our yellow sign (it says "SLOW. Children at Play" in big, red letters). There are 4 other families just on our street that regularly post a sign like this in the gutter in front of their houses too, because there are a lot of fast cars that come down our hill. The speed limit on our street is 20 and cars are always zooming 35 or more down the street. So right at this moment (when I'm sitting on the grass, Sophie is standing on our sidewalk eating a snack out of a bag, and Hailey is turning the sign to face forward--keep in mind the sign is just at the end of our driveway--touching the sidewalk) a SUV comes zooming down the hill, the lady slams on her breaks and honks her horn (even though she was nowhere near the girls.) Then she screams out her window. "You need to get off your lazy butt and be there with them!!" Excuse me? What? I yelled back, "I'm right here! I'm watching them!" THEY WEREN'T IN THE ROAD!!! Or even acting like they were going to dart out and run in the road. Then she yells back, "You should make them play in the backyard!" Then she starts driving off and I yell, "I don't have a backyard!!"

Has anyone ever been yelled at before for letting their kids play in the frontyard? We live in a residential street on a small road. The nearest stoplight is more than a half mile away, so even the streets connecting to our road aren't big 4 lane roads either.
She might have a point if the girls were in the road, about to cross the road, looking like they were chasing a ball into the road, or even moving quickly. But they were literally standing there on the sidewalk when she came. Maybe she almost killed a child before in her life, so she's extra paranoid. I really don't know what would possess someone to yell at me like that.

I only wish the story ended there. So my neighbor across the street (who's girl was in our yard playing at the time of all this), comes and asks me what she said to me. So I told her. She gets really upset. She said her blood was just boiling and she couldn't believe that lady would yell at me like that. She said of course our kids can play in our front yards and how ridiculous the lady was being, etc. So then we see the lady coming back. She had turned around in her car. I guess to come yell at me some more or something. But she never got a chance to yell at me some more. (Even though she tried to--she kept trying to ignore my neighbor and say things like this is between me and her (as she's pointing to me), not you! So my neighbor across the street runs up to her car and starts yelling at her! They're going back and forth for a few minutes swearing up a storm. Then I take all the kids inside. My neighbor (who was on my side) screams at her husband (who was also outside for the whole thing) to call the police for harrasment! She's yelling at all the kids to go inside and she's going to call 9-1-1. Well, at this point, the lady starts speeding off and my neighbors yells, "That's right! You run away! But I'VE GOT YOUR LICENSE PLATE!" So the lady does a crazy U-turn in the middle of our street, and another car had come up, so she almost ran into him, (he had to drive around her once she kind of got out of his way), so then she comes back, but then just drives past us and leaves. So my neighbor did call 9-1-1 and reported the crazy lady and the police went and found her house (she's up the hill from us), and told her she needs to calm down and stop almost causing accidents. But then they came and talked to my neighbor and said it's best not to confront people like that because they're never going to back down. I'm like, "oh great, now we have this big neighborhood dispute all because of me." Not like I did anything WRONG! But there are all these crazy people in California, so apparently I do wrong things all the time! Like letting my kids play in my own driveway!!! GASP! Choke! Heaven forbid!!

So it's funny, since this happened I've had a few other neighbors on the street, who I hardly talk to say they've known that lady for years (including the HOA Pres) and she's caused some issues before. People have learned to steer clear of her. Great. And I've upset her. The HOA Pres. man said he thinks she's not entirely there, mentally. Neat.

I've also had people come to me and say they always let their kids play out front when they were little on this street and they think I'm totally fine to let my kids play in the front. That's why we live in a neighborhood. So that's helped me to feel a little better. Well, I need to go help my girls now. Just another reason I know I don't want to live here forever. Regardless of the super fun Memorial Day weekend we had at the beach on Saturday (including watching a surfing competition!) and Seaworld on Monday.

Hailey's Prayers Lately

2011-05-11T13:55:00.000-07:00

So, I had to write this down before I forget about it...

Lately Hailey has been saying the following things in her prayers, in no particular order:

Please bless Sophie to not tease me.
Please bless Cory to not tease me.
Please bless Sophie to not hit me.
Please bless Cory to not hit me. (Can you tell she's our sensitive child??)

Please bless Sophie to be nice to me and share her dollies and not yell at me.
Please bless Cory to be nice to me and not yell at me and let me play with him.
Please bless me to not crawl in mommy and daddy's bed at night.
When I do crawl into mommy and daddy's bed at night, please bless me to not kick daddy.
Please help me to not be too cold and then wake up in the night.
Please help me to not be too hot and then wake up in the night.
Please help me to be just right and nice and comfortable while I sleep and not wake up.
(Can you tell we've stressed that she needs to stay in her own bed at night??)

And then the usual stuff like, bless me to be brave at night, and not be scared, and not have bad dreams, etc, etc.

Sometimes her prayers last for 2 or 3 minutes, and Trent and I are doing all we can to hold in our laughing. One time my eyes were watering because I was trying so hard not BUST OUT laughind during her prayers.

Such is the life of a 4-year-old.

Easter Fun and Some Good News!

2011-05-05T22:41:00.001-07:00

This is the girls on Easter Sunday.

Hailey found the golden egg!

After finding all the eggs.

The kids got Pillow Pets this year. They were really sad when Santa didn't bring them any at Christmas, so I guess the Easter Bunny gave in!

Dying Easter eggs on Saturday.

A friend of ours held an Easter Egg hunt at her house on Saturday. We went and had fun playing the games. This is Hailey in a 3-legged race.

I'm helping Sophie.

Hailey after the hunt.

Cory winning the sack race.

Sophie collecting her eggs.

Sophie doing silly poses for the camera.

Sometimes she's just too cute!

Hailey kept practicing different poses for me.

I discovered this the other day when I went in Cory's room to turn out his light. He had fallen asleep reading his scriptures. I guess we must be doing something right!

Our family on Easter Sunday. The reason the picture is off-centered is because we set our camera timer and put it on the fireplace. We were a little off and we were late to church, so we were out of tries!

Cory with his teamates after a game a couple Saturdays ago. Trent is coaching his soccer team this year. Cory really loves playing soccer.

Cory dribbling the ball.

Sophie smiling at daddy while I'm taking a picture. She finally let me put two pigtails in her hair with ALL the hair up! She had two adorable ringlets.

Now that all the fun pictures are posted, I can tell about our good news. After 16 months of either being unemployed, part-time employed, and then a temporary employment, Trent has landed a great, full-time, full-benefits REAL job! It's his first REAL job since graduating from college. (Real, meaning, it pays more than jobs you can make while you're still IN college or just have a bachelor's degree.) It's with Parexel, the company's he's been with since last June. But now he'll be paid by Parexel instead of the temp agency. And he'll get holiday pay and vacation days and medical benefits and all that great stuff that we've sorely missed the last while. Now we will be able to stay in San Diego once he graduates this December because we will actually be able to afford to live here. (Well, almost.) Our student loans won't be coming in anymore in a few months, and so this job couldn't have come at a better time. His new position is called a Clinical Trials Specialist. (His current position has been doing something with managing the records.) So this is definitely a step up and a big blessing for us.

Cabrillo Nantional Monument

2011-04-26T23:16:00.000-07:00

Cory at school last Friday preparing for the Fun Run. We went to watch him and cheer him on.

The extremely low tide back on a Saturday in April at Point Loma. (Cabrillo National Monument.) These rocks would be completely submerged under a foot or 2 of water at high tide.

Looking for treasures with Sophie at Cabrillo National Monument in San Diego.

Our whole family on a great day!

Trent found this really cool starfish with purple spots stuck to this rock.

Perfect little stairsteps--7, 4, and 2 years old. On our way to our neighborhood pool.

Our little exhausted Sophie one late night watching Elmo on the computer and eating her favorite snack in the entire world--Doritos.

The veterens cemetery on the drive to Cabrillo National Monument. It faces the Pacific Ocean, and on the other side of the road, the graves continue and face the San Diego Bay.

We found a really cool cave while exploring the tide pools.

My Birthday and kids outside

2011-03-08T15:13:00.000-08:00

The kids lately have been playing "Traffic" on our driveway. So we drew some roads and sidewalks and Cory always has to be the cop. Right now he's giving Sophie a ticket for speeding.

Cory is the cop, and he's warning them of a stoplight they missed.

Sophie loves to ride her bike outside.

Hailey on her scooter.

This is what happened when I left the other night to go to the gym, and I left some cupcakes on the edge of the counter. Trent, who doesn't do the laundry, thought it was hilarious.

Last week we went with some of Cory's friends to the beach when it was really low tide to look at some tidepools after school. They had so much fun!

Cory found a really big crab in this little crevice, he hung out here for quite a while hoping he could catch him in his pail. (And then of course return it before we left.) I'm sure we could be sent to lifetime in prison in California for taking a creature of the wild out of it's natural habitat.

Cory did find this hermit crab.

A view of some of the tidepools.

Sophie just wanted me to take her picture one day while she was playing cars, so I did!

Me with my three kids, on my 32nd birthday!

Latest Happenings and TWO Birthdays

2011-02-26T14:54:00.001-08:00

This is Sophie on her 2nd Birthday. She was helping do dishes.

The picture below is Hailey at the San Diego Botanical Gardens. We went there for a Preschool fieldtrip in February.

This is Hailey, a preschool friend, and Sophie at the San Diego Botanical Gardens. They're in front of the bamboo forest.

Hailey and Sophie at the Botanical Gardens. It was so beautiful!

Sophie's 2nd Birthday. She LOVES Elmo, so an Elmo cake we did.

Sophie is TWO!

Our chuch time was changed to 1:00-4:00, so poor Sophie misses her naps each Sunday. She comes home extremely cranky and tired and usually thrashes and runs around the house screaming until we can get her to calm down and go to sleep. This is when Trent nearly fell asleep from dealing with her for a while in Cory's bedroom. luckily, SHE fell asleep!

Our little Sophie and a crazy hairdo! We love her curls!

She thought her hair was pretty funny, too!

This is Adam, Hailey's cousin. They came to visit us in mid-January, and we went to the beach in Del Mar. So much fun!

Hailey and Adam are so much alike, it's more like their siblings than cousins.

Caleb (cousin) with Cory at Del Mar Beach.

Hailey showing her hair after she wanted me to put curlers in it overnight. The curls lasted almost the entire day--which for her hair, is a long time!

Hailey showing me some of her gifts from her friends' birthday party in early January.

Hailey's birthday party.

Hailey's tiara pinata for her 4th birthday.

Hailey with her Disney Princess cake for her 4th Birthday. She sure loved it!

We went to Cabrillo National Monument in San Diego (Point Loma) in January. Such beautiful views of the city on one side of the peninsual and the ocean on the other side.

Cory posing for me over the Pacific Ocean.

Trent at Cabrillo National Monument overlooking the ocean.

We were pretty close to the ledge overlooking the ocean. But it wasn't a huge dropoff like it seems. I wanted it to look like we were standing over the water.

Sophie in a cute dress after church one Sunday.

Hailey after her family birthday party on New Years Eve.

Sophie with her new shopping cart from Santa for Christmas.

Hailey with her Christmas presents.

The kids on Christmas morning 2010.

Hailey kissing Sophie.

Grrrr! Computers!!

2010-12-15T14:46:00.000-08:00

This is almost all the Halterman Grandchildren (minus Mason). Seven kids under the age of 7. It's amazing they all held still.

This is Jacob and Joseph Shaw (cousins) with Sophie, Rebecca Shaw, and Hailey playing in the snow at Thanksgiving in Utah.

This is Hailey with a vest and Indian hat she made for Preschool. She dressed herself that day--can you tell? There are just some battles I don't have the strength for.

This is us standing in front of the San Diego temple on our date last week. Gorgeous!

Cory got a new bike for his 7th birthday. Don't you love his FAKE smile?

This is our cute 22-month-old Sophie. I can't believe my baby is almost two!!

So, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving vacation to visit Trent's family in Sandy, UT. We drove up to Utah and froze our tails off and got our fill of snow for the season. The longer we're here in San Diego, the harder it is to bear 18 degree weather and driveways covered in ice.

Anyway, the reason I am hating computers right now is because just before Thanksgiving our My Documents file on our hard drive basically disappeared. The screen just said it was unable to link to the file or something. So since we got our computer just 2 years ago and paid about $1800 for it at PC Laptops, we thought it was the perfect chance to take it up to Utah with us and take advantage of their free lifetime repair and service on any computer you buy there. Well, we picked it up a week later, headed home, the drive appeared for two days, then it disappeared again. So we paid $75 to ship it to the nearest PC Laptops (in Las Vegas) to have them fix it. Well, they told us to today they can't recover the My Documents folder or anything else on that drive. Okay, that means, all my PICTURES from the last 6 years, my VIDEOS from the last 4 years, and my family letters I send out each month via email that I save on that file are all GONE from the computer. Well, THANK HEAVENS I have downloanded pictures through July 2010 onto a website called Winkflash.com, so I haven't really lost all my pictures--just Aug-Nov. of this year. And I still had my videos on the camcorders hard drive since Jan of 2009, but that means ALL my videos from 2007 and 2008 are GONE. I even spent about 30 hours awhile ago making a really cute, edited movie of all our video clips from 2007 (including captions and music soundtracks), I just hadn't saved it to a DVD yet!! That was Hailey's first two very adorable years of life. My family letters, I luckily just printed them all out over the last couple months and put them in 3-ring binders, so thankfully I did that!!!

Honestly, I can't believe how upset I am about losing two years worth of videos when my kids were so small and cute and that time is gone forever. So, to anyone reading this: BACK UP your photos and videos to spare discs or CD's. You don't want to lose them, trust me! In fact, I'm glad I have all those pictures on Winkflash (we have a lot of Picasa Web, too) because I guess if our house burned down, we'd lose all our CDs, too. I've heard of companies that back up your entire computer on their website or something and so you don't eve have to worry about losing anything. We'll have to look into that.

Halloween and Fall Stuff

2010-11-15T22:53:00.000-08:00

Well, I guess I'm done adding pictures--blogger won't let me add anymore.
These are from our ward trunk-or-treat on Sat, Oct. 30. I had bought a new storm trooper costume for Cory this year, and last minute he decided to wear his ninja costume from last year. Okay..... I told him I was NOT going to buy him a new costume next year. Hailey was a cheerleader, and Sophie was a hula girl.

This is Spencer, Cory's best friend, and Cory after a soccer game from this season.

This is Hailey with Brooke (Spencer's sister). They kind of like each other....just a tad.
So cute!

This is Hailey with two of her Joy School buddies. She's the only girl in our Joy School with 3 other boys. We went to a pumpkin patch for a fieldtrip right before Halloween. It was in the low 80's that day--we were hot!

Sophie eating our lunch at the pumpkin patch.

In early October, three of my sisters came out to San Diego for a sisters weekend. We stayed in a hotel for 3 nights in Pacific Beach. We went to Los Angeles one day and did Universal Studios Theme Park. After that, we went to the Chinese Mann Theater (pictured here), and saw lots of stars' handprints.

Some of the cast from Harry Potter.

The next day for our sisters weekend, we hiked Torrey Pines Preserve (the picture below this one), we played on boogie boards at the beach, then we went on a pretty intense bike ride along the hilly coast of La Jolla, California (just north of the city of San Diego.) So fun! It was an awesome three days away from our kids. (Between the 4 of us, we have 15 kids!!) I'd say it was a much-needed break. Here, Christy is pulling me on a boogie board. We also rode them coming in on the waves--the way you're supposed to!

Meditating in a rock cavity on our hike of Torrey Pines Preserve.

I'm actually not in this picture (below). That's Annette in the middle. I was taking the picture. Everywhere we went, people asked if we were sisters. 'Ya Think??

End of Summer

2010-09-21T14:41:00.000-07:00

This is Sophie in our front yard. We had a few days this summer where it got up into the low 90's, and considering we don't have A/C, that felt pretty hot! Luckily, we had this little pool to cool off in, if we were too lazy to drive to the big pool.

Hailey on the first day of Preschool. I am doing Joy School with her and 3 other moms. (We take turns every 4th week to teach two days a week. She loves it so much! She's the only girl, and the other three boys are very "boy", but she's holding her own!

Cory on the first day of 1st Grade!! He looks pretty tired because we have to leave the house at 7:15 AM to get to school on time. (No buses in CA) His school starts at 7:45.

When we visitied my parents in Gilbert, AZ the end of August. This is Hailey hugging her cousin, Emma. She sure loves babies!

This is Sophie hugging her cousin, Emma. Sohpie loves babies even more than Hailey! (Poor Emma.)

Hailey playing dress-up in some dress- up clothes at my parent's house. I used to play dress-up in these clothes 20 years ago!!

This is Sophie with Laura Roe's little boy, Landon. They are about 7 months apart. I visited Laura while she was staying at her in-laws house in AZ, when I was there visiting my parents!

Me with Laura Roe at her in-laws house in AZ. Good times!

Weston, Cory's first best friend from the Univ. of Utah married student housing (The Village), Hailey, and Cory.

Hailey playing more dress-up at my parent's house. Good thing my mom saved all those ancient clothes, right mom?

One of our last trips to the beach before school started. This was at Del Mar Beach. It was one of the few very sunny, very warm days we have ever been to the beach. Of course Trent missed it--he was at work. But most of the time when we've gone to the beach it's either a little cloudy, all the way cloudy, and it's just breaking 65 degrees. But this day, it was actually in the upper 70's!

Cory had so much fun jumping in the waves with all his friends. (It was finally hot enough to want to jump waves!)

Hailey and Sophie with some friends at the beach.

This is the position our kids assume when we say "family prayer time". It all started with Sophie diving under Trent's frame to "kneel" underneath him and then all the kids had to start copying her, until now, it's turned into this. We do make Cory and Hailey at least kneel down under daddy. Sophie is still allowed to just sprawl about wherever.

Eating S'mores at our ward campout.

The view of Escondido from our campsite. Hailey is just a few feet from where our tent was set up.

The view from the other side of the hill at the ward campout. This campground was just a 30 minute drive from our house.

Trent grilling up some mean steaks and modeling his new apron I got him for Father's Day. (It says Real Men Don't Use Recipes.) Those were some of the best steaks he's ever done. They fed all 5 of us for 2 nights. (I think we made steak fajitas on the second night.

Play time with daddy on the floor.

After our many trips to Sea World this spring and summer, the kids collected everything they've gotten from Sea World over the last year. (We usually don't buy them souvenirs, a lot of this stuff was when we went to Sea World in April of 2009 before we had any idea we were moving to San Diego.) They put on the dolphin show for us using their stuffed animals and the Sea World Barbie that Hailey's holding. I was trying to sing the song that you hear during the show. It was pretty funny! (My attempt at singing a song I've heard just 5 or 6 times, not the show.)

The Cirque de la Mer set at Sea World.

The kids with a giant Shamu that someone didn't want and offered it to us. We took lots of pictures with it, and then left it on the grass and told some people no one wanted it. (Maybe if we had a giant, empty basement we would've taken it home with us!)

Cory lost BOTH of his front teeth within 4 days of each other, and then a couple weeks later, school started. What a great way to start out first grade!

This was one day when Hailey gave Trent very explicit instructions on how she wanted him to do her hair. He thought it looked pretty silly, but Hailey was so proud of her creation, and Trent wanted to document this hairdo, so he took a picture.

Sunday Walk on the Beach

2010-08-03T08:13:00.000-07:00

Our family on Sunday evening at Pacific Beach in San Diego. This is 35 minutes from our house. (Without traffic!)

We went to Ryan and Julie's house (cousins) for Sunday dinner, and then we took a stroll at Pacific Beach at sunset. I can't believe we've lived here for 7 months and we've never done this!! (Probably because our kids ended up going to bed way too late that night!)

But it was still so gorgeous and so much fun.

The kids were just running around with their cousin, Sam, the whole time.

Sophie took a few minutes to warm up to wanting to get down from daddy's arms. The water was practically warm compared to what it is in the winter. (65 degrees compared to 59)

So the real question is, is San Diego worth the insane home prices, gas prices, and everything prices in exchange for this? I think it's all relative with how much money you make, and if you have family close by. So for us, it's great to live here while Trent's in school, but probably not for long after that.

SAHM Again!

2010-07-28T09:07:00.000-07:00

When they ask me at work, "Why are you leaving?" The answer is simple. I will point to these three pictures.

I will be officially leaving my part-time job on August 6. I'm so excited! Which is strange because when I first got my job in March, I really liked it and I enjoyed the breaks it gave me in the mornings to step outside the home. (It was my first paid job in over 6 years.) But now that I've been doing it for over 5 months, now that Trent has a full-time job, and now that our student loans are finally coming, I'm happy about returning home.

Sophie is growing so fast each day, I miss her terribly, even though I get home by 1pm. Sometimes when I'm sitting at my desk, I imagine her walking around the corner with her pudgy, tanned arms outstretched to me and her unruly blonde curls, and I get all choked up! When I told them my time was up here and I wanted to return home to my kids, they asked me how much I would need to be making per hour to make it worth it. (They knew my daycare costs were the large majority of my paycheck. ) I told them $20/ hour, partly in jest because what company in their right mind would pay an HR Receptionist $20/hour and also because even if they offered that, I still wouldn't stay. Pretty much no amount of money would compensate for missing out on the 17th month of Sophie's life. Or the 42nd month of Hailey's life. Those months can never be re-lived. Once they are lived, they are gone for eternity. Why should my daycare provider get to see those moments, and not me? (Even though Shauna is amazing, like a sister to me, and my girls adore her--they always want her to hold them at church!) But she's still not ME!!

Working the few short months I did was nice because Trent didn't have a job for the first little while, and then I stayed because of the possiblity of helping Trent get a job at the same company. Now that he's working elsewhere at a good place for him, I can leave.

Money will always be there. Or NOT be there. Money is just money. My children's lives are my children's lives. The same children that I was blessed to give birth to, given the trust to raise them, and teach them, and love them. It's not hard to see which one is more important.

Of course we need occasional breaks from our children--a night out with girlfriends, dates with our husbands, or working out a few times a week alone. Even a special hobby we can work on a little each day. All these things make us better moms. But those quiet (or CHAOTIC) mornings when my husband is at work, and I am at home being my kids' mom (as Dr. Laura would say), are the moments that will get me all bleary-eyed when I'm 60 years old, and admiring my clean house and my quiet house, and missing them terribly.

(Unless of course, I'm like my parents, and every few months another one of my kids comes to live with me and brings their kids with them, so I get to see them and my grandkids every single day!)

Sometimes Kids Do Listen

2010-07-09T11:47:00.001-07:00

Well, a couple months ago I posted about how difficult it was for me to convince Cory to do reverent, quiet activities on Sunday and how we've been teaching all our kids about how to keep the Sabbath Day holy. Hailey has been setting a very good example and telling Cory good things we can do on Sunday that will make Jesus happy and how we shouldn't play with our friends outside. It's been really cute to listen to her "preach" to him.

Anyway, so about 3 or 4 weeks ago, his friend came knocking at our door (even though we've told her in the past we don't play with friends on Sunday--I think she keeps "forgetting.") And I was in the kitchen getting lunch cleaned up and I heard Cory say, "I can't play on Sunday, but I can play on Monday!" And then he shut the door. I came out with my jaw dropped. I asked him what he just said and he told me and I just went up and gave him a hug and told him how proud I was of him for making that decision. I didn't make a big deal of it. I didn't even mention it again after that. (When you praise Cory too much or make a big deal with him, it seems to backfire.) So ever since then, he has stayed inside on Sundays. If he goes outside at all on Sundays(which is very tempting living here and how it's still been in the low 70's all summer), it's because he asked if we could go on a family walk or sit outside or something of that sort. Which we do, of course.
So I figured this would be a one-time thing, but pretty much every Sunday for the last month, he's been not playing with his friend outside. Before, when he would sneak outside to play, we wouldn't yell at him or punish him, we would just ask him if what he was doing would make Jesus happy and leave it at that.

I guess setting a good example, giving constant love, and consistent gentle reminders and lessons actually works!

Mothers Day Pictures

2010-05-11T13:56:00.001-07:00

I finally have a kid with curly hair!

Sophie was not cooperating for these pictures. She kept running away.

Hailey and Cory were cooperating just great.

Sophie was happy at first.

Then....not so happy.

Happy again, but running away.

The Workplace vs. The Home

2010-05-07T08:19:00.000-07:00

I have been working part-time now for 2 months. I really enjoy it. I get projects done, I'm learning new things, I'm remembering computer skills that I haven't dealt with for over 6 years. It's a very good company I work for, with a beautiful work setting and buildings. Anyway, it's all good.

I'm always amazed how happy people are every single Friday. It's a "Happy Friday!" here and a "Thanks goodness it's Friday!" there, etc, etc. They say things like, "This week's been exhausting, I can't wait to get some sleep!" Or, I'm so glad I can just relax this weekend or go to this restaurant or see this movie or go to this show or whatever it may be.

Well, a huge part of this may be the fact that I only work 25 hours a week, not 40 like everyone else here. BUT I don't look forward to the weekend NEARLY as much as everyone else, it seems. First of all, the term "sleeping in" whether it's on a weekend or not, left my vocabulary on Nov. 24, 2003 when Cory was born. And things like "getting away" and "having a fun night out" pretty much left my vocabulary as soon as we moved to San Diego where we don't have family to babysit our kids so we can go on dates. The going rates for babysitters (if you have 3 kids) is $12/hour here. Okay, so we've been out ONCE in 4 months.

Also, what exactly is relaxing about a weekend anyway? Is it our plan to purchase, cut, and hang 5 window blinds tomorrow? Or the fact that we're planning on making homemade pizza to feed the missionaries tomorrow night? And cleaning our whole house?

Or no, maybe it's Sunday, where we get to sleep in until 7am (during the week I wake up at 5:30 on the days I go running, 6:30 on the days I don't go running), frantically get 3 tired kids out the door for 9 am church, after preparing my primary lesson late Saturday night and gathering all my materials, object lessons, and treats for my 8-9 year-olds that I teach. Then attending choir on Sunday afternoon, only to be followed by trying to entertain my children by doing activities in the Friend, singing songs, playing games, reading books, and providing endless hours of stimulating, yet reverent Sunday entertainment in order to keep the Sabbath Day holy and try to keep them from wanting to play soccer outside with the neighbor kid. (Which lately, btw, I have been failing miserably at.) Why is it so physically (not spiritually or emotionally), but PHYSICALLY exhausting trying to get your kids to keep the Sabbath day holy?

Maybe because Cory's idea of a "regular day" is going to Sea World, the beach, the pool, or going to the park and playing soccer with mom for an hour, followed by a rousing kite-flying session with Hailey, followed by an exploration/walk with Sophie around our neighborhood, followed by playing with them outside until 7pm. So Cory's idea of a "down" day is maybe taking out one of those activities. He is so incredibly active and has so much energy that Sundays are SUCH a struggle. He actually does really well (now that he's 6) to sit still and make it through 3 hours of church. Mostly because his best friend, Spencer, is in his class. But after those 3 hours, he can barely sit down to eat lunch much less be expected to reverantly watch a movie (HA!) or quietly play games or read or do other appropriate Sunday activities. Seriously, am I expecting too much from him? Do I wait until he's almost baptized to really start stressing the importance of the Sabbath Day? See, I don't think I should wait, because children can learn when they're very young, but there is a reason they get baptized when they're 8, and not 6.

SO back to my point. What is more draining--emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually. Being at work where I get PAID, recognized for good work, and get to engage in competent, adult conversation? Or being a mother in the home, attempting to provide an emotionally, spiritually, physically-enriching environment, while at the same time providing healthy meals with lots of variety, a clean living environment, (which includes spraying Lysol on my kitchen tile counters 3 times a day to keep the darn fruit flies away-gross! We keep our doors open pretty much all the time here) and providing intellectually-stimulating lessons--all while engaging in a regular exercise regime, paying the bills, clipping coupons, dealing with occasional sick kids, teething babies, and nightly homework. Well, all I can say, is at least I love my children and Sophie is so dang funny (and adorable with her leg rolls), because that job is not paid. Well, at least not temporally paid anyway.

I do love my kids and being a mother, I'm just saying if people here can say "Happy Friday", then I think on Mondays I'm going to start saying "Happy Monday!"

Easter

2010-04-06T23:15:00.001-07:00

Cory looking for Easter eggs around the house.

Sophie on Easter morning.

Hailey looking for eggs.

Don't you love Hailey's Diego pajamas? She is so girly and everything has to be pink or purple--except when it comes to wearing Cory's old pajamas. She loves these.

Cory at the nearby rec center's Easter Egg hunt on Saturday morning.

Sophie really understood that she needed to pick up those eggs! The kids had been having mock Easter egg hunts at our house all week, so she had good practice!

This is the kids before the egg hunt. (Hence the not too happy faces.)

March Fun

2010-04-06T22:58:00.000-07:00

This is at the Mormon Battalion Museum in Old Town San Diego. I (Karen) was at work when the rest of them went there. My parents came to visit for my dad's 70th birthday. My sister, Annette, came too with her 3 boys. (Her husband, Frank, is deployed in Afghanistan right now and so she's living with my parents in AZ.)

This is Hailey's very excited face about seeing the walrus at Sea World.

Sophie still likes to get the sand a little too close to her mouth. This is at La Jolla Shores beach. March 17, 2009

Cory and his cousin, Caleb Bigelow at the beach.

These dolphins were out in the water. We had never seen them in the wild like this before. It was pretty neat.

All of us that went to Sea World. Yes, even Grandpa went down this water roller coaster ride with us called "Journey to Atlantis." Annette and Caleb were in the front seat, so they got pretty soaked! Grandma stayed behind with 4 children under the age of 3. I'd say she's the brave one!

Sophie (13 mos.) just chillin in a big 'ole rocking chair.

Karen's New Job

2010-03-07T13:08:00.000-08:00

Well, this is something I didn't ever think I would be writing about at this stage of my life! A couple of weeks ago, we still didn't have a job, and I was starting to freak out. (Trent wasn't so much--I am much more paranoid and get more worked up about things in life than he does. He really does balance me out!)
I had the thought to just update my resume and write a cover letter and just check out Craigs List to see what was there. Before I had Cory, and after I graduated from BYU, I worked as a full-time secretary in one of BYU's Advisement Center offices. Before that, I had been a receptionist and held a variety of office jobs. So I thought--why don't I just check things out and see what happens?

So I applied to several jobs on Wed., Feb. 17. The next morning I got a call from one of them. Actually, it was a recruiter for their company. The company is called Gen-Probe--about 20 minutes away from us. They are a biotech company that produces and manufactures nuclic-acid test kits and several other tests that have early and more accurate detection of human diseases. Ironically enough, Trent had applied to them once or twice since we've moved here. (But didn't get any because of lack of experience.)

After the inital phone screening interview (for the receptionist position), they called me the same day to set up a face-to-face interview. I went in the next week, and a few days later, they called me with a job offer asking when I could start. I started on my birthday, Monday, March 1. They are paying $6 more per hour than any other receptionist job I saw here-and twice my hourly wage at my last job 6 years ago. So it's good!

Things are going so well. I really like what I'm doing. The company is great--voted one of the best places to work in San Diego. And they are one of the most successfull and fast-growing biotech companies in the area. I only work part-time--it's 7:30-12:30, so I'm only gone in the mornings. Trent gets Cory ready for school and then has the girls in the mornings. He's even taken them grocery shopping, went to their first doctor's appointment since moving here (so LOTS of paperwork to fill out!) and Hailey's speech therapy meeting on Friday. He's been so positive and helpful and wonderful since I started working! I don't like calling him Mr. Mom (plus he is only by himself with them in the mornings--and he still is going to school AND looking for a job still) because he's not Mr. Mom. I mean, what does that make me? Mrs. Dad? He's our children's FATHER and he's extrememly capable of feeding them, cleaning up after them, doing our laundry, running to the store, taking them to appointments, etc. Just because he might be home with them more, doesn't mean he's a mom. It means he's a really great dad who pitches in when the family as a whole needs something.

Sophie has definitely formed a special bond with him this week (as if our girls weren't already daddy's little girls). She will bring him book after book and plop herself down on top of him and scream and grunt if he doesn't immediately start reading books to her.

SO my first week of work went really well. It's so refreshing having something else to do during the day rather than straightening, cleaning, cooking, and changing diapers. And I still get to do those rewarding and important things all afternoon and evening! Trent is still applying to jobs--in fact he has a very promising second interview early this next week. So if he gets it--then we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Our very good LDS friends that live just around the corner from us have their own in-home daycare. I've spent many hours in their house observing their daycare and how things are ran (mostly because Hailey and Cory LOVE to play over there--so I just go to hang out and bring Sophie too, and it's like a big party.) They are great with kids and you can really tell they love children. They've been doing it for the last 2-3 years since her husband got laid off doing construction work. Anyway, I casually mentioned to them last week that if Trent finds a job soon we may need to find somewhere for Hailey and Sophie to go for a few hours in the morning. They said they should be able to take them, and they've actually been hoping for a couple more kids lately to help make ends meet. Chad (the dad) takes Sophie sometimes at church for us and she goes to him so well. I would have no qualms at all about leaving the girls with them for half a day. I mean, this isn't a permanent thing with me (working part-time). Once Trent does find a job and once we get our credit card debt paid off, I'll want to return to the home full-time. I mean, Sophie still is my little baby (even though she's one) and I really have started to miss her in the mornings, even though it's only been a week!

We'll see what the Lord has in store for us. But I really love being able to step outside for half my day. It makes me really cherish my kids more--I'm happier when I am around them--and I gladly want to play with them and go outside with them--instead of just doing it so they'll stop begging me.

So that's it for now! I would love to hear feedback from moms who have worked either part-time or full-time outside the home and how they felt about it.

Torrey Pines and Sophie's 1st Birthday

2010-02-14T21:12:00.000-08:00

I had a lot more beautiful pictures to add, but blogger isn't letting me. So I'll have to post more later. Here is us on Saturday at Torrey Pines State Preserve in San Diego. We hiked about a mile and a half to the cliff. (Trent pretty much carried Sophie the whole way.) It was so beautiful. Then we went down to the bottom and the kids got to play in the water, too.

Our sweet Sophie--just too tired to eat.

Our little Sophie turned one on Feb. 8. I can't believe all that has happened in the past year

and that she is already 1! It just went by WAY too fast. She's walking now, we're teaching her baby sign language, and she is picking up a few signs already. (Her favorite is "all gone").

We love her so much and her favorite thing to do (other than LIVE outside) is when Cory chases her and plays with her all over the house. She squeals and giggles with delight.

She literally started walking the day before she turned 1. She loved the little

dolly stroller we got her. She walks all around with it now!

Here she is with some cake.

Sophie's first birthday!

Opening her cards with some help from daddy.

Our Big Move and recent events

2010-01-21T21:16:00.000-08:00

We moved from this.......

and this.....

To THIS!

This is the view of the sunset from our driveway.

We're kind of up on a hill, so we've had some incredible sunsets so far.

Five days after we moved there. Yes, it really was Jan. 2

And the kids were getting in the water.

Sophie LOVES to eat sand! Yeah! She loves to crawl straight out to the water too.

The next time we went to the beach, we were smart enough to bring her

bathing suit.

Hailey fell all the way in the water shortly after this picture was taken.

Good thing we brought a change of clothes!

It was about 72 degrees this day.

We went to the San Diego Zoo last Saturday. (Totally free because of Trent's cousin's family.)
Well, I took the kids to the zoo with Julie and her 2 little kids. Trent got to go sailing on the ocean with Ryan.

Cory lost his first tooth on Monday, Jan. 18. He was so excited!

Now we're going backwards in time--this is the awesome Barbie cake that Lisa (Trent's sister) made for Hailey's 3rd birthday. Thanks again Lisa!

All the Halterman side cousins.

Some of Hailey's Christmas presents.

Cory's Christmas presents.

Hailey with her doll house and wearing her tutu.

Sophie on Christmas morning.

The Nativity Skit at Shaw's house in December.

Sophie taking her first steps in December.

Sophie with her cousin, Chloe Goodman.

Hailey's actual birthday of New Year's Eve.

Skipping back to her birthday with the Halterman side.

Don't ask her to do something she doesn't WANT to do!!

Trent put curlers in her hair one day after baths--it was so cute! (She's wearing Cory's old Diego pajamas--at her insistance!)

Cory with cousins, Matthew and Andy Sorbe at Thanksgiving in Arizona.

Cory's 6th birthday party back in Utah with some friends from school and cousins Mason and Joseph.

Another birthday party for Cory with the Halterman side.

Cory with his tiger cake that Lisa made.

A trip to the mall with Hailey

2009-12-07T22:13:00.000-08:00

This is a typical look for Hailey--tiara on head, mirror in hand.

So today I didn't want to sit around all afternoon playing with Hailey and Sophie on the floor like I usually do (when I'm not cooking or cleaning or apartment-hunting in San Diego) and Cory was at school, so I did something I haven't done in months. I took the girls to the mall. The weather has been in the 20's lately, so an outside walk was out of the question. I seriously haven't taken Hailey to the mall more than once since she turned two, so I have not trained her to be this way.

Anyway, we walk into Macy's (Hailey calls it the"pretty store"), and she literally starts gawking at all the manequins. She has to stop and stare and smile in wonder and touch their pretty, shiny boots. She told me they were wearing such pretty shoes as she stroked them. Then we proceed to walk through Macy's when she points and giggles with delight and glee at all the evening gown dresses and fancy coats sections. Her eyes are lit up like stars. She has walked into Paradise. (If any of you have seen "Confessions of Shopaholic" just picture her face when she would walk into stores.) Perhaps the funniest comment came when she pointed up at a manequin wearing skinny jeans, shiny boots, a fitted pea coat, with lots of accesories and says, "mommy, she looks like you." I busted out laughing right then and there. I mean, yes, she's a two-year-old, and I guess it did make my day, but trust me, it couldn't be farther from the truth.

Then on our way out of the mall, she saw the little girls dresses section. Oh dear. We stayed there for THIRTY minutes because she had to make sure she had seen (and touched--I made sure her hands were clean) EVERY single dress in store. I have to admit, they were beautiful dresses--I believe the cheapest dress was $30--and that was 50% off, but she wanted to "try them on", which just meant to hold them up to her to see how long they were. She kept pointing to dress after dress saying she wanted them for her birthday (coming up this month). When I told her it was time to go, she almost started crying because she wanted to keep looking at dresses and making their skirts swoosh back and forth. I told her we would have to come back someday. (Yeah, like in 5 years!!)

Okay, so don't get me wrong, I was a little proud of my daughter to be such a girlie girl, but STILL. I got a little nervous. I mean, she's not even 3 and she's already this aware of fashion? I know I like to shop and I love buying clothes, but since Sophie's been born, I have gone shopping for myself maybe, two times--neither of which time I had Hailey with me--so I know she can't just be copying how I am! It's truly just in her genes! I'm a little worried for when she's a teenager!

Halloween Pictures

2009-12-07T21:54:00.001-08:00

This is just a random picture of Sophie in October.

The kids with their loot.

Hailey was Snow White, Sophie was a luau girl, Cory was a ninja.

This is Cory's last soccer game in October. He aboslutely loved it this season and got way more into it. He was the biggest kid on his team and one of the taller ones on any team they played, so he ended up scoring at least 2 goals each game. There were a couple of games that he scored more than 7! That's when we had to start reinforcing the idea of passing the ball to his team mates!

Looking for pumpkins at a local pumpkin patch.

San Diego--Here we come!

2009-11-02T15:14:00.000-08:00

Okay, so we should give a little update since our lives have been turned upside down.
(I will post Halloween pictures later). About 4 months ago, Trent and I decided maybe we should look into going back to school and getting more education that would help Trent get a clinical research job. He's been applying to jobs in this field for the last 18 months and found nothing. We have been very blessed that he has been working at ARUP Laboratories. It's just not what he wants to do for the rest of his life. So, we started researching programs all over the country. I spent several hours over a couple of days researching schools while he was at work. I found a Masters Program at the University of California San Diego that Trent really liked. It was specific--JUST for clinical research. It has job placement help at the end and the classes are very hands-on-training-type experience for a real job. This program is much more specific than the Masters Degree he earned from the Univ. of Utah. Although, we are very glad he did that program (Masters of Science and Technology) because without it, he could not have applied to this program. Just to apply to this program, you had to have one advanced degree or another. A bachelors wasn't gonna cut it. So we started the whole transcript-sending, personal-statement-writing, letters of recommendation process all over again. FUN. Haven't we done this before?

So we finally heard last Tuesday that he got accepted! It is on a condition, though. They were concerned about his lack of experience doing clinical research. Duh! Isn't that why we need to go back to school?!?! He has to take the first class in the program (Epidemiology 1--starting Jan. 4), receive a B or better, than he can be officially accepted into the program. He's not too worried about that condition--it will be the only class he's taking, so he can really focus on it.

So after that, he can sign up for the full 6 credits starting summer quarter. The program has a track that can allow people to finish it in 18 months and that is what we are shooting for. I mean, seriously, how much student loan debt do we REALLY want to be in when all is said and done. I thought we were doing pretty good after he graduated from the Univ of Utah. But now we are going to double that amount. Fun!!

So now we have less than 2 months to: (in order of importance)
Trent needs to find a job in San Diego. ANY job!!!
We need to find an apartment or a house to rent (leaning towards renting a house--more inland, so we don't have to pay $2000 a month!) We will probably leave our kids with my parents over Thanksgiving break down in Arizona since we were planning on going there anyway and fly on over. And celebrate Cory's birthday somewhere in there since his birthday is just before Thanksgiving.
We need to actually MOVE there.
We need to find Cory's new school and switch schools
We have Christmas to plan and shop for--do we move right before Christmas? Do we move the day after Christmas? Who knows.
Work out money details--apply for federal aid, etc, etc.
We have Hailey's birthday on New Years Eve
Then hopefully, on Jan. 4 we will be all moved in somewhere, Trent will attend his first day of class, and then go to work.

All I can say is, thank heavens this isn't LAST year when I was 8 months pregnant with Sophie during the holidays! That would definitely make it much harder.

Okay, well, we're excited, and I'm so glad we took that trip to San Diego just 6 months ago! We went to Sea World for a couple of days and the beach. So I feel like we have a feel for the area. We loved it! 70 degrees year-round? Yeah, I think I can handle that. Too bad I just bought all the kids snow boots for the winter. And a cool sled at a recent garage sale. Oh well. I guess we'll just suffer by living in a perfect climate. But don't be too jealous. When I start to think about the student loans we'll have when all this is over, I start to feel faint and weak.

Just finished Jane Eyre

2009-10-23T11:15:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I don't know HOW Jane Eyre has slipped by me all these years of me loving reading my whole life and reading well over 50 books since I got married. I never had to read it in school, and I never had anyone push me to say "you have to read this book!"

Well, now I'm going to say it: You have to read this book! It wasn't just the book I loved. After I finished reading it (the key is"after"), go to your library, and check out Masterpiece Theater's recent making of it. It was only made a couple years ago (it aired on PBS in Jan. 2008) and it's almost 4 hours long. (The cover has a close-up of her profile on it.) That's how you know you'll get the right movie. It has to be the right one! They've made different versions dating back to the 1940's (I think), and this is BY FAR the best version.

It made me remember all the good and noble attributes we should have like patience, temperance, forgiveness, modesty (not the clothing kind), and love. There are some beautiful illustrations to each of these virtues given in the book. It will make you remember what TRUE love is supposed to be like between spouses. It will make you wonder how quickly you could forget how madly in love you were during your engagement and first year or so of marriage and then when children came, that kind of love got set aside for arguments about who's turn it was to take out the garbage or bathe the kids. This book will remind you that there are such deeper kinds of love than just physical attraction (although that is the icing on the cake that makes it so much sweeter). It will remind you that when your minds and hearts are one with each other, there is no greater satisfaction and joy in a relationship.

When I turned off the end of the movie last night around midnight, the channel came up that I last had it on (NBC, I think), and they were advertising for some comedy (I can't remember which one), and the crassness and the baseness that I saw in just a 10 second commercial for some raunchy comedy that's on network television almost made me cry. Just compared to the purity and the goodness of character that a book (or movie) like Jane Eyre can conjure up in our heads, and then you see something like that on TV--it was almost as if someone splashed ice water on my face.

I love the modern conveniences of today's life--I am grateful to be alive at this time where we have the fullness of the gospel restored, and we have modern medicine and heating and air conditioning!! We can travel and experience more in a few days than most people 200 years ago couldn't experience in a whole lifetime. But it doesn't come without a price. Sometimes I think life was more fulfilling for some people back in those days than it is now. They had to work so hard (mostly physically hard) for every single thing they got out of life. People were hardly "bored." Is that why the moral standards were so much higher? People weren't so rude and inconsiderate as they are now. (Of course people in previous time periods were still rude and had bad qualities--I'm talking about society in general.)

Anyway, Hailey is needing me (she wants me to paint her fingernails), so that's my soapbox for today. So here's the lesson of the day:

Go start reading "Jane Eyre", take one attribute you want to have more dominant in your life, and we can all feel more satisfied and fulfilled with life!

Our Family Pictures -- August 2009

2009-10-06T20:42:00.000-07:00

Gotta love those family photo sessions! The kids actually all did so well. Cory is 5 1/2, Hailey is 2 1/2, Sophie was 6 months old.

Hailey LOVES to have her picture taken. She wanted to keep taking more, but sadly, we were all done, and it was time to go. Cory was the COMPLETE opposite at this age!!

Hailey really wanted to take a picture "hugging" the soccer ball (that's what she said Cory was doing when they took his picture with it). So she had to have a turn, too.

FIrst Day of School and Some Face Painting

2009-09-11T11:28:00.000-07:00

Last week Trent and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary on September 3. We went to this awesome BBQ place in Layton (we are lovers of fine smokehouse's) called Holy Smoke BBQ. Then we went to see a musical comedy at the Rogers Memorial Theater called "Lucky Stiff". The singing was great and we lauged a lot--just what we wanted. On our way home from the date (and while stopping at Coldstone) we were reminiscing and trying to remember all the musicals we have seen in our 7 years together. We counted 21 in all.

One we actually saw on Broadway in NYC (42nd Street--it was awesome), and we drove to Denver to see the Broadway National Touring Company do "Wicked". Then in Salt Lake we've seen the National Touring Companies do " The Producers", "Annie" (actually that was in Phoenix), "Riverdance" (so cool!), and "Miss Saigon" (loved it). The rest that we've seen have been community theater--but in Utah, that's pretty much near professional. Our favorites (a lot done by Hale Centre and Center Street Musical Theater) have been "Pirates of Penzance", "The Secret Garden", "Jekyll and Hyde", "Les Mis: School Edition", "The Scarlett Pimpernell", "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat", "Into the Woods" (twice), "The Mikado", "Oklahoma", and "Pride and Prejudice." (Okay, Curtis and Jenni, how many of those shows were YOU in?!) The ones that were kind of forgettable were "Guys and Dolls" (we saw it too close to seeing 42nd Street on Broadway), "I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change", and "The Garden." So if you count "Lucky Stiff", that's twenty-one shows in all. Phew!! It's a good thing I married someone who likes musical theater!!

This is Cory on Aug.31, 2009. His first day of kindergarten. Clearfield, UT

Cory getting on the bus! He was so big and not scared or hesitant at all--he just hopped right on, waved good-bye to me, and that was it. In fact, I met him at the bus-stop after school was over to walk him home. He told me I didn't need to ever do that again, because he knows where our house is (we are quite close to the bus stop) and he does not need me to come get him. That was the only time all week (with him starting school and all), that I got a little sad!

Cory with Trent on the first day of school.

Cory with Hailey and Karen on his first day of school.

Hailey and Sophie just being really cute one Sunday afternoon in August.

I told Hailey to smile, but not to squint her eyes shut--this is what I got.

Our cute Sophie--6 1/2 months old.

In August, we took the kids to the free Hill Air Force Base Museum. They have a new section that lets the kids dress up like real pilots and sit in the cockpits of some jets. They loved it!

Cory in serious pilot-mode.

Nice helmets, guys!

Cory really wanted to learn how to pound nails in wood, so we got some scrap wood from Trent's dad, and Trent helped Cory build a contraption out of some wood pieces. I think Cory calls it his parking garage for all his Hot Wheels. It even has a ramp! This is what we do on Trent's 7 days off.

This is what happened when I left the face paint out after painting the kids faces. I went to take care of Sophie, and Hailey was so proud at her face-painting job. She was even holding up a hand-mirror (so she said), so that she could make her face "pretty."

This is how Hailey likes to admire herself in the mirror. She's our little fairy. (If you've ever read the Fablehaven series, you'll know what I mean by that comment.)

This is what I actually painted on her face--before she destroyed it.

Some little girl gave her this flower outside one day, and she was quite determined to have it in her hair behind her ear. We're not sure how she knew you could put flowers there, but that sure is where she wanted it!

This is the tiger face I painted on Cory last week. I told him to make a scary tiger face, and that is the expression I got.

Fun at Lagoon and East Canyon

2009-08-07T18:00:00.000-07:00

This is Sophie (6 months old) sitting on one of the benches at Lagoon while Cory and Hailey were riding rides. She did so great all day.

Hailey and Cory on some rides.

Oh, the sugar! They each chose their cotton candy flavor.

Hailey sitting cross-legged on the couch combing her Barbie's hair. (Such a big girl!)

Trent with Sophie at the East Canyon swimming pool.

Cory at East Canyon.

Cory fishing at East Canyon.

Sophie wants to crawl already! She pushes up on her knees and scoots her body along the floor.

Sophie's first (or second) encounter with REAL food! She sure loves it.

The Oquirrh Mountain Temple. We went there for the Open House the first part of July.

Me with the 3 kids for the Open House. (Trent had to work.)

My neices, Kayla and Lindsey, helped me out SOOO much during our reunion in Idaho. Lindsey held Sophie for me all the time, so I could take care of the other two.

Summer Fun 2009

2009-08-05T22:15:00.000-07:00

So, we have been very busy this summer. At the beginning of July we went to my extended Goodman family's reunion up in Rexburg, ID. After a couple of days there, just my family headed on over to Yellowstone for a day, and then camped in a beautiful campground in Grand Tetons National Park. Then a couple weekends later, we spent a couple nights at Trent's family's condo up in East Canyon and spend the days fishing, swimming, hiking, playing miniature golf, shuffleboard (Cory loves it!), and more swimming.

We have spent several days each week this summer at our pool here in the complex where we live. Cory can swim from the short end of the pool to the other with no floaties now! Several weeks ago we took the family to a drive-in movie and set up a nice bed for the kids in the back of our Mazda Tribute. We saw "Transformers" and the new Star Trek movie. And then yesterday, we took the family to Lagoon Amusement Park here in Davis County for a fun, but very exhausting day. Sophie did great--Hailey and Cory had a blast and rode many of the "kiddie rides" SEVERAL times. Tuesday was a great day to go to Lagoon--the longest lines were only 10-15 minutes and the kiddie ride lines were practicially no wait at all. I'll post pictures of Lagoon later, but here's some from our earlier vacation.

This is Hailey and Cory at the 4th of July Parade in Rexburg, ID.

Grandpa, Hailey, Karen with Sophie, and Cory watching the Parade.

Grandpa helping me out with a sleeping Sophie, since Trent still had to work. He joined us a couple days into our trip and met us in Rexburg.

Hailey, Jacob Shaw, and Kylie Walker at the Bone's house in Rexburg, ID.

All the cousins laughing their heads off during one of the skits we acted out of our ancestors' stories.

A bison in the middle of the road in Yellowstone National Park. July 6, 2009.

One of the hot springs in Yellowstone Park.

Trent with the kids in Yellowstone. (Yeah!! He finally joined us!)

Cory, Hailey, and Karen with Sophie at Yellowstone.

Hailey plugging her nose while walking all around one of the biggest hot springs at Yellowstone in the Lower Basin. (We did not tell her to plug her nose--she just told us it stunk!)

Old Faithful erupting. We waited over an hour for our front row seat.

A much-needed ice cream break in the huge lodge right behind Old Faithful. In this picture, you can see Sophie reaching for my cone.

I took this picture from our car driving to our campsite in Grand Teton National Park. Gorgeous!

The view on our hike around part of Jenny Lake in Grand Teton National Park.

Just a portion of us that went on the Jenny Lake hike. You can see me in the bottom left corner under the tree nursing Sophie.

Trent had Hailey in the backpack. I carried Sophie in the front baby carrier. We could only go a little over 2 miles on this hike because...well, we were carrying children. Not like the 18 mile hike we did 2 summers ago up Timpanogos Mountain in Utah County.

Hailey camping and eating s'mores.

This was Hailey's costume (Fairy-in-training) for our family reunion's movies that we made. She absolutely LOVED it and didn't want to take it off when we were done filming.

Fun Monday

2009-06-16T21:09:00.000-07:00

Well, we have been having fun so far this summer. I should say that Karen and the kids have been having fun. Because of my work schedule, I haven't been included in many of the fun things until yesterday. For our Sunday/Monday/Tuesday family activity (our church was cancelled because of the swine flu so have split our Family Home Evening up over the last few days) we decided to go bowling. Let's take a picture chronicle of the days events.

Karen starts us out in a cute little green polo, capris, socks and very fashionable shoes. She looks so adorable. Cory took this picture and Karen will hate that I put it up, but that is OK. Afterall, making up is so much fun.

Next we check in with Cory and Hailey in their bowling adventures. Cory bowled his first strike and Hailey bowled a couple of spares. They both did really well.

Cory and Hailey were having so much fun they started dancing/singing to the music. (well Hailey did at least)

Sophie was really good. She looks so cute in her car seat sitting and watching all of the action.

We had so much fun we forgot all about changing Hailey's wet diaper. Check out the huge bulging diaper in this shot.

After bowling we decided that we were hungry (it was 6:00 after all) so we made the sacrifice to go to Texas Roadhouse Grill. While we were there, I was such a proud dad. Cory looked over the kids menu and decided to order the kids steak and proceeded to eat the entire portion. Sophie also decided to get in on the steak action and tried some of my sirloin. (we just skipped the cereal and baby food stage and went straight to adult food)

We had to hurry out of the restaurant and made it to the park just in time for Cory's baseball game. He did really well. I think the favorite part for the kids is trying to tag the runners as they come into home plate.

That ended our exciting day. It was alot of fun to spend time as a family. For one last bit of information, Hailey had her first official haircut today. She sat so still and was really good the whole time. Karen cut 2 inches off of the back to even up the length of all the hair. Hailey looks really cute (well, I guess she always looks adorable no matter what.) I love how her blond hair blends in with the wall.

Sophie's Pictures

2009-05-24T21:20:00.000-07:00

We went to get Sophie's pictures taken at Target this week. It was like pulling teeth to get her to smile. Just like how Cory was! The weird thing is, she smiles so easily for us here at home when we're right up close to her face. But when you take pictures you have to be back a ways, so she just wasn't smiling! We still managed to get a couple cute ones.

This was her general expression and where she was looking for the majority of the pictures.

We finally got her to look up! (Yes, mom, I made the bow.)

This one cracked us up so much--her pose, her expression, it's just too good. It would've been SO cute if she would've smiled! She is a very big 3 month old!

She was smiling at daddy for this one.

This is the one I chose to blow up and put in her room.

Sophie's been crying SO much lately, so we took her to the doctor on Friday and asked about acid reflux. She spits up WAY more than my other 2 ever did, and she cries for hours after I feed her. We have to hold her any time she's awake, or she's crying. So either, she's sleeping, she's crying, or I'm holding her--there is absolutely nothing in between!! We got her on Prevacid and we're going to see if that helps her crying and her massive amounts of spit-up.

Our Frustrations

2009-05-13T10:23:00.001-07:00

So we have really been trying to be patient and endure our trials but I think that yesterday was the straw that broke the camels back. We have been "surviving" our situation the best that we can. Anyway, last week I got a call from a recruiter that was trying to place a position with a pharmaceutical company. Well I go and find out more information, pray about my decision and decide I need to pursue the opportunity. On Monday I went to the company for a formal interview. The interview went really well. I felt really good about the company and the potential to grow. Anyway, yesterday I got a call from the recruiter and she said the she had heard back from the company. She said that the company said "I did really well in the interview, however; the company announced a hiring freeze today and although they want to pursue the situation more, they were not going to be able to make an offer at this time." AAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! I was really disappointed. I can handle not getting a job because it is the wrong fit or I didn't interview well or some other reason. I am struggling with the fact that I didn't get the job because of a hiring freeze, especially the day after I was interviewed. Why would they even bring me in? They had to know this was coming. I guess it is a business thing where the right hand just has no clue of the left hand. How frustrating.

On a more troubling issue, we are starting to feel that are misunderstanding/misinterpreting the answers to our prayers. It seems as though our answers never work out. For example (besides the one above), when I was called to be EQ Pres, I was given a few names to choose from for counselors. As I prayed I received an answer to who to call. Anyway, to make a long story short, one counselor moved out a month after being called, and the other just got activated and will be deployed sometime soon. So after being a presidency for 2 months, I am alone again. We have decided that we will do the opposite of my feelings. :-)

On a serious note, we haven't lost faith. We know that we don't see the entire picture. We know that Heavenly Father has a plan for us and we have to be patient. In other words don't worry about us. It has just been frustrating. Also, you might want to avoid asking us to pray for you. Apparently everything works out exactly opposite of what we pray for right now. We will let you know when we can be used again. HaHa

How Do All You Amazing Moms Do It?

2009-04-24T22:39:00.001-07:00

Okay, this is just going to be a journal entry--no pictures. (Not normal for me.) First of all, I just spent the last half an hour looking at most of your blogs, and I just have to say, you are all amazing women! It seems like half of you are selling your own creations, and the other half are just busy doing creative, fun things with your kids all the time. I am so overwhelmed with the physical aspects of caring for children right now, I haven't read a new book in months (for those of you that know what an AVID reader I used to be, that is a very big deal!), I have to plan WAY ahead just to be able to go running only 3 times a week for 25 minutes, and I have to stay up until midnight just to fold my laundry and clean my kitchen. Maybe it's because I have 3 kids now, and that is so much more time-consuming than two--esepcially since Hailey is in that needy 2-year-old stage (she is still really hard for us to understand and she's not talking NEARLY what she should be at this age), and of course, I have a 2 month old that is still pretty fussy from 6pm-11pm or later. Trent's work schedule is killing me because he's gone from noon until past midnight. That means for Sophie's most fussy time, I am home alone trying to make dinner, feed children, clean and straighten the house, bathe children, read them stories, put them to bed, all while trying to nurse and carry around a fussy infant! In Sophie's defense, after she is fussy all night, she sleeps for 7-9 hours at night without waking up at all! She's been doing that since she was a month old, so I know I am very blessed in that area. I think if she wasn't doing that, I would be on meds by now. At least I'm getting my sleep at night! I used to spend my spare time at night doing digital scrapbooking, making hair bows, and reading my latest book. Not anymore!! I can't remember the last time I did any of those things! But I know this time is short-lived, and soon, Sophie will be going to bed at the same time as my other kids, and maybe, just maybe I'll have an hour or two to myself at night that doesn't involve scrubbing poop out of clothes or cleaning my bathroom.

You are all such great examples to me because most of you have at least 3 kids, but a lot of you have 4 or more! Seriously, how do you not go insane?!?!?

The reason I even had time to check my blog tonight is because Sophie miraculously fell asleep by 10:00 and now it's 11:45. So off, to bed I must go. Goodnight, to you amazing women.

Hailey's Antics and Sophie Smiling

2009-03-27T14:13:00.000-07:00

This is Sophie's adorable smile. She started smiling at 5 1/2 weeks, and she smiles so much now--it's pretty easy to get a good one out of her.

This is very typical--especially this week since Trent's been sick. Sophie LOVES to sleep in this crook in Trent's arm. A little too much.

Sophie is so strong. She was holding up her head like this at 4 weeks.

My two cute girls last Sunday for church.

This is Hailey "modeling" her several articles of clothing I got her last week. She had to come home and immediately put EVERYTHING on and show daddy.

Sophie at 10 Days Old

2009-03-10T13:23:00.000-07:00

Well, now Sophie is officially 1 month old. I can't believe how the time has flown! Life can be tricky with 3 kids, but it's not that bad! In fact, I am really loving it! Sophie is so fun to have around. She still wakes up for an hour or so in the middle of the night and just wants to be held (cries if we even think about putting her down), but I know that will get better. I'm a little more tired these days (or some days, I feel drugged because I got 5 broken-up hours of sleep), but life is good. So these pictures were taken on Feb. 18, when Sophie was just 10 days old. Trent's sister, Stacey, who lives nearby, came over to our house and took them. Thanks again, Stacey!

This is one of my favorites.

She was yawning in this one:

She seemed very alert during all the pictures and did very well!

This is my other favorite.

Baby Photos

2009-02-10T20:43:00.000-08:00

Here are some photos I promised. I hope you enjoy them.

This is how bruised Sophie was after she was born. She is so much better today.

The proof is in the scale. I still can't believe how big she is.

Baby Arrived

2009-02-08T20:58:00.000-08:00

So 12 hours after Karen's rant, the contractions started. Of course, this put it at 1:00 AM when the contractions started. About 3:00 AM Karen decided it was time to go to the hospital so we called her sister to watch the kids and set out on our journey. We go to the hospital shortly after 4:00 AM and they checked Karen. They weren't sure she was truely in labor. So they had us wait and walk for a couple of hours. By 7 AM they decided that if they sent her home, she would just be back in a few hours so they admitted her. By 8 she had the epidural in place and was happy as can be. Around 11 AM, she was almost dilated to a 5 and her contractions had stopped. By this time, the doctor had broken her water so there was no choice but to give her the pitocin IV. At noon she was finally to a 5 and at 12:15 Karen felt like she had to push. She called the nurse at 12:20 and the nurse said she was complete. So in 20 minutes she dilated from a 5 to a 10. WOW!! Anyway, by 12:40 the baby was born. Since she came down the birth canal so fast, she was a little stressed. Her heart rate dropped to about 60 and they wisked her away to the fetal area of the suite. After a minute or so, the baby started to cry and everything was just fine (other than her black and purple head from all of the bruising.) Anyway, in true Karen fashion, the baby weighed 10 lbs 1 ounce and was "officially" 21.5 inches long. The nurse that measured her kept coming up with 22 inches but thought it was wrong so she kept measuring. Of course the baby also had a huge head. We named her Sophie Halterman. I think she is adorable (bruised head, alien features and all.)

Anyway, I am working on about 4 hours of sleep and can no longer think. I'm sure we will post again, next time with pictures.

Still NO BABY!

2009-02-07T13:42:00.001-08:00

Well, here we are one week before the due date, and I am having no contractions at all. (Well, I've had some off and on all week, but nothing regular.) Some of you may be wondering why I am complaining if I am still just 39 weeks. Well, Cory was born 8 days early and Hailey was born 14 days early. So, surely, my third baby should be born before now, RIGHT?!?! As far as I'm concerned, this one is LATE.

Luckily, at my doctor's appointment yesterday, he said we could induce me on Tuesday, Feb 10. He tried calling LDS Hospital, where I'll be delivering, but they were pretty busy on Tuesday and couldn't actually schedule a time. They will call me Monday with what time to come in on Tuesday, otherwise, I might have to wait until Wednesday. YUCK! Okay, so 3 more days of this...I can do it. I'm also nervous to go this long because even with Cory being 8 days early, he still weighed 9 lbs. 12 oz. and with Hailey being 14 days early, weighed 8 lbs. 2 oz. My doctor said he thinks this one will be somewhere in the middle. I certainly hope so and that she won't be bigger than Cory. I don't think I could push her out if she is any bigger than Cory!

The other annoying thing is I've been dilated to a 2 and 70% effaced for the last week as well. The doctor said her head is low and everything looks really ready. Well, tell that to my body that doesn't want to respond!! We've tried all the home inducement things we know and nothing's worked so far. If anyone has any other ideas besides walking backwards, eating a whole pineapple, doing accupressure on the hands, or sex, please let me know!

Pictures from Christmas and Hailey's Birthday

2009-01-15T18:41:00.000-08:00

This is my brother, Eric, with his new wife, Melodie. He met her online (his wife died 2 years ago), and they married in the AZ temple in December. She didn't have any kids before, and now she gets five!

This is Cory and Hailey at the AZ Temple in December. We were there for my brother's wedding.

This is Hailey showing off her new dress-up shoes she got for her 2nd birthday!

This is Hailey and her pink birthday cake. She turned 2 on Dec. 31.

Hailey is showing off her cool new sunglasses and purse she got for her birthday.

This is Hailey and Cory with their Shaw cousins at my parents house in Arizona performing the Lion King numbers they did for our Stake Broadway play we did in November.

This is Cory and Hailey on Christmas morning. Hailey got everything related to dolls.

This is Cory and his new pirate ship he got from Santa.

This is Cory and Hailey acting out the Nativity at my extended family's Christmas party in AZ. Hailey was an angel and Cory was a shepherd.

This is Hailey calmly eating dinner with a huge piece of lettuce stuck to her forehead. She didn't know it was there and thought we were just taking pictures of her for fun. It was pretty funny!

This is one of my good friends from growing up and a roommate of mine at BYU, Chrissy. She came to visit me. We had to both show off our pregnant bellies. She was about 4 or 5 months along. I was 7 months.

This is the kids playing in the snow in Layton. Love the rosie cheeks!

We're Moving

2008-12-15T13:52:00.000-08:00

So it is mid-December and we have been planning to move out of my sister's basement by the end of the year, so we started a vigorous apartment-hunt a couple of weeks ago. I spent many hours on the phone, researching apartments from West Jordan to Clearfield, UT and everywhere in between. We have found a townhome we really like in Clearfield. It is a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath with an attached garage, so we are really hoping we get it! (We should hear back from them in the next day or two if we clear their credit and background checks, etc.)
We will move as soon as possible. Of course this Friday we are leaving for a week to spend Christmas with my parents in Arizona, so that might come right in the middle of our moving plans, but for sure, we will be in our own place by the start of the new year. We are thrilled to get our kids in their own bedrooms. Cory has probably woken Hailey up from her naps at least 137 times since she was born almost 2 years ago because he goes in their room to get toys. (Usually sneaks past me without me knowing what he's up to.) Of course in early February, we will be adding a new addition to our family, but at least for the first little while, she'll be in a bassinet in our bedroom, and then we need to decide which child can share best with her. (And handle her middle of the night crying without waking up!)

On a secondary note, Trent reluctantly accepted a position with ARUP Laboratories located in SLC. He already turned them down once about a month ago, but in that month, he didn't have a single job interview doing clinical research, so when they wanted to interview him again (and offered him another job), he felt he just couldn't say no this time. It would've been much more exciting for us to accept this job (even though it has absolutely nothing to do with pharmaceuticals or drug research) if they were willing to pay him better. But they are only offering him slightly more than what he is already making as a pharmacy technician. It is also a position that only requires a Bachelors degree, instead of a Masters like he has, but the Masters degree seems to be not impressing anyone, so this job we must take. He will also have to work an extra 2 days every other week at the pharmacy in order for us to pay off our student loans. (That were pointless, by the way.) The reason why it's every other week is because his shift is pretty horrible, too. It's from 1pm-11:30pm, with 7 days on and 7 days off. That was another reason this job was very difficult for us to accept. I'm not sure how I will manage with a new baby and two other kids for 7 days straight without a husband, but we'll see. At least he's not in the military and leaves for many months at a time!! So I must count my blessings.

Hailey loves to dance

2008-11-30T15:02:00.000-08:00

So, Hailey has really gotten into dancing lately. Ever since everyone here participated in the stake broadway review, the performer in Hailey has come out. Everytime the family would leave to rehearsal, Hailey would cry, point to herself and say "me." She really wanted to go. Anyway, I have posted a couple videos of Hailey and her cute little dancing. This first is Hailey dancing to Hairspray. The second is Hailey dancing to Lion king with her cousin Rebecca. Enjoy!

Halloween Fun

2008-11-03T12:30:00.000-08:00

Nothing has changed with us. We are still living in my sister's basement in Layton. We've had a couple more job interviews, but still no job. Trent is still applying to several jobs each week. But I really don't want to talk about that right now, so on to the fun stuff! (On a good note, I am 6 months pregnant now and it's going really well.)

Here are the kids right before trick-or-treating. Cory was an army man and Hailey was a fairy. That's Hailey's cheesy smile--she does it every time we tell her to say cheese.

These are Cory's Shaw cousins that we are living with right now. They also have a 9 month old baby who's not in the picture. They sure had fun all together on Halloween!

Hailey had no problem putting her hands in the pumpkin goo.

Cory loved carving jack-o-lanterns. That's his older cousin, Rachel in the background.

This is how many people are living in one house right now! (Trent is taking the picture. )

Yes, that would be 11 people. At least there are 5 bedrooms!

Hailey at our ward Halloween party.

Hailey and Cory at the party.

Cory pointing to which pumpkin he wants at a local pumpkin patch.

This is Hailey at the Pumpkin patch. It was very windy and we were freezing by the end! (We had to wait in line for 40 minutes just to get on the tractor to go to the pumpkins.)

In Honor of Halloween

2008-10-02T12:43:00.000-07:00

Well, we had quite the outing today. After a long wait, and rescheduling of appointments, we finally had our ultrasound today. It was supposed to be last Thursday, but the hospital called Karen Wednesday afternoon and said they wouldn't be able to do the ultrasound that day and had to reschedule for a week later. So off we went today and boy were we treated to a show by our new little bundle of joy. Enjoy the following images, but continue at your own risk.

BEWARE!!!!!!!

In case you can't tell, she is mooning us in the last picture. (and such a cute little tushy it is).

We are so excited to add another girl to our household and for Hailey to have a sister.

When the ultrasound tech said that it was a girl, Cory turned to me and asked, "How do you know it is a girl?" I showed him the archway on the monitor and showed him the legs and butt and said that we knew because nothing was in between. He was utterly confused. It was very cute.

Recent Pictures of the Kids

2008-09-12T20:36:00.001-07:00

This is Cory and Hailey just being cute a week or so before we moved from our apartment.

Trent's sister, Stacey took some pictures for us of Hailey. Cory got in some of them, too.

Whoa, mama! We told Cory to give Hailey a kiss and this is what we got! Let's hope he's not quite so aggressive when he's a teenager.

Our Move

2008-09-12T12:34:00.000-07:00

A lot has changed with us, but then again not everything has changed that we would have liked!! We had to leave our Married Student Apartments the end of August since Trent was no longer a student. We still did not have a job, though, so that made our decision on where to go and what to do a rather difficult one. See, most people when they graduate from college, they expect everything to be rosy and perfect and within a few weeks, they will have their dream job, buy a house, and their lives will be perfect. While that has happened to a few people we know (not mentioning any names!!) it certainly does not happen to everyone. We are learning some very important lessons in patience, that's for sure. We're not quite sure if we wasted the last 3 years getting a Masters Degree or not, but right now, it sure feels that way.

So my sister Stephanie, who lives in Layton, Utah and has 5 kids of her own, offered us to come live in her empty 2 bedrooms in her basement while we continued the job search. At the time (end of August), we thought we were quite close to securing a job in Cinicinnati, OH. They had already once offered Trent a job a few months ago and we knew they were still hiring, so we thought we would have the job for sure. Well, shortly after moving up here, they let us know that they decided to change their minimum qualifications for that job and wanted at least one year of experience as a clinical researcher instead of little or no experience. How lucky for us.

So now we are completely back to square one with the job search. It has helped to move into a ward with working professionals because everyone seems to be networking for us and trying to get Trent a job. Not to get our hopes up or anything (heaven forbid!) but the hiring manager for Myriad Genetics lives in this ward and promised Trent a phone interview after Trent sent him his resume. Trent has applied to jobs over the last few months at Myriad, but they never came to anything. But supposedly, as long as someone there KNOWS you, then everything suddenly changes. He also had a pretty good phone interview a couple of days ago with ARUP, a medical services laboratory company in Salt Lake City. And that job would not be doing clinical research. It would be more laboratory science work. But we are quickly realizing it is pretty much near impossible to get a job doing clinical research with no experience. So now we are going about ways to get his foot slowly in the door. It may take 2-3 years before he can do that yet.

We are hoping and praying that since we really wanted a time limit on the number of weeks we would invade someone's home, that we will at least have a job offer by the end of October. We told my sister we didn't want to invade them for more than 2 months. At least if we have a job offer by then, though, we can start house hunting and at least feeling a bit more optimistic. If we have absolutely nothing still, then we will start apartment hunting and have Trent continue to work as a pharmacy technician and just go live in an apartment for a while. I guess on the positive side, he does already have a job that at least makes enough for us to be independent on--just not enough to buy a house.

We're still trying to get Cory into preschool--he cries almost every morning when his 3 cousins, ages 9, 7, and 5 head off to school and he has to stay home with the "babies", his sister Hailey, and his other two cousins, ages 3 and 8 months. It's especially difficult for him because all last year we had him in Headstart for 4 days a week and 2 years ago, I had him involved in a preschool 2 days a week with a few moms in our court. So for him to be almost 5 years old, and doing absolutely no preschool, is so hard for him!

Hailey is adjusting very well to living here--she loves her cousin, Rebecca, who is 3 years old. She also adores baby Jacob and screams for job anytime he wakes up from his naps. I swear, my kids needed to be born into a family with 4 children already. Too bad that's not going to happen!

My pregnancy continues to go well. I'm almost 18 weeks along now. We'll find out the sex of the baby in 2 weeks. Yeah! We'll be sure to let everyone know.

We'll also be sure to let everyone know how the job search goes--trust me, if you haven't heard anything, that means absolutely nothing has happened.

Extreme Broadway

2008-09-04T20:44:00.000-07:00

So, Karen may have mentioned that her family did an extreme broadway production for the last family reunion. Karen's brother had recorded the whole thing, but his kids recorded over parts of the production, so I told him I would burn the copy I have and send it to him. To make a long story short, all of my blank DVDs are in storage from our big move into Stephanie and Zach's house in Layton so I am going to post them on our blog and hope that he can download them onto his computer. Anyway, you are welcome to watch, but it is a little lengthy. I would particularly suggest finding Karen in her Hairspray debut. She is so "HOT." I think it is the 7th video (after the cute little dance number). FYI: This is not the whole show. My camera ran out of juice during the last 15ish minutes so this is all I have. If you watch the whole thing, you must be really bored, but I hope you enjoyed it. (Karen will be mad if I don't mention that she IS wearing a lot of extra padding. Not that it isn't totally obvious since she is normally stick skinny.)

After we saw Pride and Prejudice: The Musical

2008-08-10T21:17:00.000-07:00

On Friday, Aug. 1 we went to see my brother, Curtis, and his wife, Jenni in their roles as Charles Bingley and Jane Bennett in the new musical of Pride and Prejudice. They performed it at the Scera Shell in Orem, UT. Afterwards we went to the Creamery at BYU for some excellent ice cream. These are some of Karen's neices and a nephew.

Karen, Kayla, Curtis, Jenni, Emily, Lindsey, Christy, and a yawning Matthew. (It was after 11pm.)

Fun in East Canyon, Aug1-4, 2008

2008-08-10T20:58:00.000-07:00

We went up Emigration Canyon to stay at a resort called East Canyon in a condo with Trent's parents and a couple of his siblings. We spent our days playing miniature golf, tennis, shuffleboard, going swimming and of course, fishing at the lake. Our kids had a blast and came home exhausted.

Fun at the Treehouse Museum in Ogden

2008-08-10T20:23:00.001-07:00

For part of my family's big reunion we took a day out to take the kids to the Treehouse Museum in Ogden, UT. Hailey and Cory had so much fun at all the different stations being creative and having fun with their cousins.

Cory Showing Some Muscle!

2008-07-31T07:52:00.000-07:00

We went to a Real Soccer game a couple Saturdays ago, and the mascot gave Cory all these tatoos. Of course he wanted us to put them on him as soon as we got home. Then he took his shirt off to get his pajamas on, and we told him to flex!

24th of July Parade

2008-07-31T07:43:00.000-07:00

We had fun with Karen's family at the Pioneer Parade in Salt Lake City last week. We met with cousins and her parents to watch the parade. It was a pretty hot day and so we were all ready for lunch afterwards with all 19 of us at Chuck-a-Rama.

Family Pictures

2008-07-24T07:30:00.000-07:00

We recently took family pictures. I think our kids are SOOOO adorable. Both the kids did really well. Hailey was finished taking pictures by the time it was her turn, but for the family and kids pictures she was really good. Just follow this link to see the entire photo shoot. I'll post some of our favorites here. Enjoy the pictures. All of the pictures were low res to protect copyright. The actual pictures are so much better.

Cory and Hailey were so cute together. We really liked this collage that the worker convinced Karen to buy. If our kids weren't so cute, it wouldn't have been worth the $20 price tag.

Cory was really excited to get his treat. The only way we get such cute smiles from him is by bribing him with some type of treat. This photo shoot only cost us a trip to McDonald's Playland. We treated ourselves to Panda Express instead of McDonald's. The kids got some Transformer toy and some girly bobble head doll. For some reason, the kids still love the stupid little toys, and they especially love the playland.

Hailey has the cutest blue eyes in the world. She was done with pictures by the time we got to her pictures, but we still got a couple of cute ones. We want to have my sister Stacey retake her pictures so that we can get some better ones.

Here is our beautiful, wonderful, happy family

This is Hailey's true smile.

We Have A Bike Rider

2008-07-23T20:20:00.000-07:00

The funniest thing happened this weekend while we were at Karen's family reunion. All of the adults were inside preparing for Extreme Broadway while all of the children were happily playing outside. Cory comes running inside and yells, "Mom, come see something cool." Karen walks out to see what is going on and Cory took off on his cousin's 12" bike. We have only practiced a couple of times about 2 months ago and he was totally freaked out. Now he is doing really well. Since his bike is broken, he had to use a neighbors bike when we got home today. The seat is a little high, but he was doing really well. We finally had the opportunity to film him today, so I will post the video of him.

Our Blog/Adventure

2008-06-23T20:27:00.000-07:00

We have gotten a lot of pressure to start a blog. Being the loquacious (ha ha) one of the family, I guess I get to do it. Really it was just easier for me to do than Karen. She will probably do most of the blogging in the future. We shall see.

Anyway, I need to tell about this weekend. Karen persuaded (commanded) me to take our 2 kids camping with our neighbor (Cabe) and his friend. We were all taking all of our kids camping and leaving our wives home alone. We had tons of fun, even though Cory and Hailey had stomach issues. (I was woken up at 1:30 AM for a potty run and vomiting spell) Cory caught his first fish on a real lake. I caught 3 fish as well. Of course all of the fish we caught were 2 feet long. :-)

While we were gone, Karen really "missed" us. She got to go get ice cream, buy dinner, get her hair cut, and watch "Miss Potter." She told me it was good, but slow. After the movie, she still had a few hours of daylight left so she went running and took an extremely hot bath. Then she went to bed at 10:30. She woke up at 8:30, made herself German pancakes, and left to spend money in Park City. She found lots of "great deals" and an expensive sandwich shop for lunch. The kids and I got home and had time to unload the car and bathe the kids before Karen arrived. When she got home, we told each other all about our adventures and Karen said she had fun but not as much fun as she expected. She missed Hailey, but for some reason, I was not included in the original expression of heart longing. I guess I know where my place is in the family. Oh well, Hailey is soooooooo adorable so I can't blame her.

I am sure we will write more later.