Best Car EVER - For Sale

If you or anyone you know is looking to buy a FANTASTIC used car, please direct them to this Craigslist posting for our 2001 Subaru Outback...

http://portland.craigslist.org/wsc/cto/1238045575.html

THANKS!!

"Bed Rest"

What the heck does that mean for a mother of two kids who works from home while the kids are asleep who also has a house and husband to take care of? Supposedly I'm supposed to figure that out. I got the lovely privilege of doing a 24-hour urine sample over the weekend and got the results today. Twice as much protein in my urine as there should be. Yikes! And with my blood pressure slowly rising (it's at a whopping 110/70 right now...but up from something like 94/68!), the doctor said it's bed rest for me. For a week. Until I can see my regular doctor next Thursday. I want to laugh. I want to cry. But it sure isn't changing much around here. Ha!

Laugh because of what I already said. How am I supposed to get any more rest than I do already? Laugh because yesterday Evan did this:

He found my ice cream bowl I had eaten out of the night before (sometimes I have a little bowl while I'm working because I'm getting tired and need the extra sugar to keep me awake. Plus, I justify it by reminding myself that I've only gained 8 pounds so it's okay) laying on the desk. He said I shouldn't have too much sugar when I'm pregnant so he put this tape X across it so I couldn't have any more ice cream. It worked for last night. I didn't have any. Tonight, however... But what cracks me up is that they didn't find ice cream in my urine. If I should stay away from anything, maybe it's hamburgers or something. I mean, there's a good source of protein. I'm spilling protein in my urine. I'll stay away from the hamburgers, but until I start spilling ice cream into my urine, that nightly ritual stays. Sorry, son!

I also laugh because the medical assistant who was talking to me about my "minimal activity" told me I should lay down with my feet elevated above my heart. Well, I can't lay flat or I'll die because I can't breathe. So if I'm on my back, I have a few pillows under me. If my feet are then above my heart, this is what I'm picturing...

Well, yeah, I could do that 6 months ago but is that the way I want to be spending my bed rest vacation? Nope!

And then there's the reasons to cry. I think if I don't obey and behave and my blood pressure keeps heading up, up, up, they could probably induce anytime after 35 weeks. I mean, I've had some serious, serious complications with pregnancies. If my BP is up, they'll want to get him out as soon as it is reasonably safe for him. Well, that's in only 2 1/2 weeks. NOT OKAY!!! We have no car, no car seat and no clothes out of storage for this baby! I am definitely not ready for him to make his appearance in the world so I've got to keep that in mind.

All of this comes on the heels of Dallin's 9th birthday, which was May 8th. I said it last year, I'll say it again. Hard to believe we have a child who would be that old. Anyway, it passed very quietly. We had to wait until Mother's Day (just two days later) to visit the cemetery, but we had a nice time there. So I've had these deepish thoughts lately.

I have two appointments every week. This is the same as it was with Evan and Maren. They start them when I'm 30 weeks along since Dallin died at 31 weeks. On Tuesdays I have an ultrasound where they check four things and then on Thursdays a non-stress test. This was all fine and dandy when I was pregnant with Evan and could just leave work early to go have my tests done. It was pretty okay when I was pregnant with Evan and I could either take him with me or have someone watch my one child. Now that I have two kids, I surely didn't want to drag them with me and it's hard to ask anyone to watch two kids every week! So I brought this up to my doctor and asked if maybe we might only do one appointment each week, switching back and forth between tests performed, since I have two other kids at home to think about now. He gently and lovingly reminded me (this is the doctor that has delivered all three of our kids so far!) that 33% of our children have died. Okay, well, when you put it that way! And once it's happened to you (stillbirth, I mean), your chances of it happening again are increased. He said maybe if I had 5 living children it would be a good time to think about that because I had a better percentage. But he wouldn't suggest it now. That straightened me up pretty quickly and I told him I'd be there twice a week. It gets really hard sometimes. I feel like the kids are missing out on some good, quality mom time, especially at this pivotal time before we bring another child into the family. I feel rushed about most of the week, trying to get things done that I wasn't able to get done on Tuesday and Thursday because i was at the doctor's office so long. But then I remember that on a Thursday I had my last OB appointment when I was pregnant with Dallin and Dr. T. said I had a "textbook pregnancy". I still remember that to this day. On Saturday or Sunday he died. When I think about that, I realize I have to do everything I can to ensure Parker's safe arrival, hard as it may be on everyone.

So, it's 10:43 p.m. now. And I'm going to bed because I'm going to be a good little patient. I still have 6 hours of work to do but it's going to have to wait and be late. Tomorrow my sister is coming over and I'll let her clean things out of Evan's room so we can put the bunk beds up. Maybe I'll boss Evan and Maren around from the couch a bit tomorrow. And maybe, just maybe I'll get Michael to do the dishes. :-)

Father & Son Campout

Last weekend Michael and Evan got to attend their first Father & Son Campout for church. They had a GREAT time! It's so hard for me to deal with one of my kids doing something really fun and me having absolutely no part in it. I wish I could've been "a fly on the wall" to see some of their memorable events unfold. Alas, the pictures will have to do. Unfortunately (Michael!), there aren't a lot. But here's some fun stuff to share:

First of all, Michael had been asking Evan what they should have for dinner for a couple of days. And Evan always said, "Banana Soup". Yes, another Evan Bybee original, I guess. What is it with this boy and his food creations? Anyway, Michael kept trying to deflect that one and move onto other suggestions but Evan would not be dissuaded. While Michael was at work on Friday, he took matters into his own hands and made his banana soup.

I guess the boys didn't get to sleep until 11:30 p.m.!!! A mother's nightmare!

And here he is catching fish. It was his first time to go fishing. Michael caught two, Evan caught three! I think he was pretty proud of catching more fish than his dad. Michael cooked up all five fish on Sunday. Being pregnant and one who doesn't like fish anyway, it was really hard for me to choke the fish down. I did, however, for my boys who worked so hard and had so much fun catching these fish to feed their family. Here's some cute shots of Evan making his catches...

Catch All

It's time to play a little catch up here. There are so many little things that have happened in the last couple of weeks that I've jotted down to remember to blog. Now is the moment!

First off, our kids have both hit important, exciting milestones! For Evan, he is now 41" tall. Whew hoo! Everyone celebrating with me? Oh, you're confused? Well, that's tall enough to ride ALL the thrill rides at Disneyland except Indiana Jones. No, we don't have a trip planned. And, no, we probably won't have one any time soon. But it's just great to know that should we find money growing in our garden, we could go to Disneyland and not have to deny Evan of any of the fun rides. I've been waiting for this day for a long time!

Maren's exciting news is that she is potty "trained". I put it that way because I didn't have to do much "training" with either of the kids. I love it! Asked her if she wanted to wear underwear one day and she's been telling me when she needs to use the toilet ever since. I'm sure the new baby will completely throw me for a loop when he's old enough to be potty trained and it'll take me months of blood, sweat and tears. But right now I'm relishing in Maren walking around with her new, less-padded bum. It's so cute!

May 15th was our 12th anniversary! It's been probably 9 months or more that I had been thinking about and planning what I would do for this one. I decided to do the "12 Days of Anniversaring" and give Michael a dozen of something each day. One day it was donuts to share with his co-workers (an obvious when you're talking about dozens). Another day it was kisses. One day it was 12 commercials (meaning I would sit and veg with him on the couch through some shows instead of doing my work on the computer). And the last day it was 12 hours of my undivided time because our friends, the Bliss', kept the kids overnight. We did very little...went out to dinner, to Costco in the morning and then picked the kids up. But it was nice to sleep in a little bit and spend time with just each other, talking and doing whatever else we wanted. I could go for that once every few months. I am totally amazed that we've been married 12 years. I can hardly remember life without Michael and that's just the way I like it. We been through a TON in the last 12 years that has only made us stronger and brought us closer together. I'm very grateful to have him in my life and proud to say that we've been married for a dozen years!

Here's a random story: The other day I walked into Maren's room in the morning to get her out of bed. The first thing she says to me is, "Thanks for closing my door allaway (all the way) for no spiders or bugs get in here. That was so loving." Ha! What?!?! Well, I've since heard similar comments from her...about closing her door all the way so no bugs and spiders get in. She cracks me up. Where do kids get this stuff from? She usually has something really, really funny to say first thing in the morning. Keeps me on my toes.

Evan gave a talk in Primary a few weeks ago. Here it is for your reading enjoyment:

So, the story is that I forgot and forgot about his talk all week. Or I'd remember...but at the wrong times. For the talk before this one, he told me he wanted to write it but I, of course, shrugged him aside, typed up something quickly and helped him read it at the podium when it came time to give it. So Sunday morning I told him we had to get going on his talk. He again told me he wanted to type it up. This time I said okay. So that's it above. When he was done I told him he should practice it. So, just like when we were kids, I pulled out the vacuum so he could use the vacuum handle to pretend it was the microphone in Primary. I remember playing "Primary" so many times as a kid. And our orange vacuum always played a pivotal role. So he stands at his "microphone", holding the above page, and I'm wondering what on earth he's going to say on his topic. He then proceeds to relay the fact that if we have faith in God, we can return to live with him. He also talked about being grateful that he can be baptized when he's eight and that he can pass the sacrament when he's a Elder (yes, you read that right. Michael tried to convince him that you could pass the sacrament when you're a deacon but Evan didn't want to hear about it. I reminded Michael that you could STILL pass the sacrament when you're an Elder so Evan was technically right. Michael dropped it and it stayed in the talk.). I had him practice a few times and then we headed to church. When it was time for him to give his talk, he stood up on the stool with his paper and I stood next to him. I told him to go ahead but didn't coach him one bit. He gave a really great talk that he came up with all on his own. I couldn't have been more proud. And, boy, the hassle it saved me. This is definitely the way I'm going next time. Evan's growing up too fast!

Love Cake

I normally pride myself on my emotional stability. However, I've had a hard time "keeping it together" the last few weeks. I completely worn out with having a disaster for a house and, to make that worse, it's getting really uncomfy to bend over to pick things up from the floor. And then I've had that pinched nerve in my bum really causing me distress at times. So, all that combined has put me on the couch in tears three days in the last two weeks. So it happened on Wednesday. I felt like I was getting nowhere with cleaning up. I couldn't get kids to help me out. And, seriously, the mess was just multiplying and I was overwhelmed. So I plopped myself on the couch and turned on the tears (pregnancy hormones!!!). The kids came to check on me and were very sweet but I just needed to cry it out. Within about 5 minutes Evan started making a "cake" and he needed my help cracking an egg. Well, I was grateful he didn't do the egg himself, but was he serious? He's only four. And he's making this "cake" with bread. And he doesn't know how to make cake. And the mess! It was guaranteed he was going to make more mess, wasn't it? Luckily, I held in all of these thoughts, cracked the egg into the bowl and went back to the couch and fell asleep for a nice 15 minute nap. When I woke up he had finished the cake batter and it was ready to go in the oven. And, you know what? He had cleaned up all of the mess. He went to my sister's house to play while it cooked so I took it out and didn't think much about it. When we all came back together that night for dinner, I told Michael about Evan making a cake and then it occurred to me that I had no idea what put the idea in Evan's head to make a cake so I asked him. He said, "I made it for you, Mom, because you were crying on the couch." Aaaaaahhhhhh... What a sweetheart! And, you know what? Not a bad cake! That cutie is pretty amazing. So, if you'd like the recipe, here it goes:

Mix together:
2 pieces of bread, broken into small pieces
1 egg
some chocolate syrup
some crunchy peanut butter
some sugar
some Bisquick
some milk

Put in 350 degree oven for 30 minutes. Enjoy!

First Thing This Morning...

I had just woken up and went into Maren's room to get her out of bed. The very first thing she said to me was, "Mom, you look so pretty with that in your hair." The "that" was a ponytail holder...holding back my just-out-of-bed-Afro. What a sweet, sweet girl...always with something so nice to say to boost your self-esteem. She's a keeper.

Easter 2009

Well, I'm not even a week late on this. That's amazing! We had a really fun day before Easter this year. We went to the Bliss' house. They have a humongous back yard with lots of great egg-hiding spots. They had us and the Bancrofts over and everyone had a blast. The kids were all busting at the seams to get out there and hunt for their eggs so we did that first. Maren really got into it this year and Evan did a great job, though he will never be an aggressive child. He goes at his own pace, no pushing, no shoving, no running. It's pretty funny. Unfortunately, I didn't get ANY great pictures of him.

Maren, however...

This is how she carried her basked around most of the time. Of course, to keep it on her shoulder, she had to put her hands above her head. It was pretty cute. She dumped her eggs a few times!

The first egg she opened had these M&M eggs. I'm not watching for two seconds and the next thing I know she's shoved four of them in her mouth. We narrowly escaped a choking, episode, I'm sure.

After the hunt it was time for fun and games. First the egg relay. The kids really enjoyed this. I thought this picture of Maren and Michael was cute. Like how I artistically off-centered it? (Ha ha!) Evan had really great balance with it and had lots of fun.

Then the adults-only egg toss. Yeah, I opted out. I wasn't too hip on wearing egg that day. But I really enjoyed watching the others play. They had a great time and I loved watching my friends laugh and smile.

This is mere moments after the egg finally fell and broke...

About two inches from Maren! See where her basket is? She was sitting right next to it! She was so funny about it saying, "Whew. The egg almost broke on me. Whew." Yeah, my sigh of relief, too, girl! Wouldn't have wanted to clean you up after that!

And since you all have put such cute pictures of your kids all decked out in their amazing Easter outfits on your blogs, I thought I'd delight you with my extra-modelesquely beautiful children in their stunning Easter outfits. You'll have to scroll down. Drum roll, please...

Mmhmm...that's as close as they got to being dressed for Easter. That's because none of us went to church...on EASTER!! Hello! Of all the days to not go to church. Well, I was still coughing pretty badly and the pain in my back hadn't gone away overnight. I was starting to worry that it might be my lungs. Evan was fighting illness and was dead tired and Maren had been up coughing and her nose was running wild. Michael was feeling it creeping up as well. Sad state of affairs. I was really sad to miss Sacrament Meeting, especially, because it was supposed to be a really special program (always is, but even special for Easter!). And Maren was beside herself with grief at not getting to go to her class. She lives for Sundays and her Nursery class. It was heartbreaking when he finally decided that we would have to stay home. It would be WAY harder to actually be at church and tell her she couldn't go to her class because the others would think she had some dreadful disease. We couldn't find our copy of The Lamb of God movie so Michael did some searching and found the whole thing on YouTube. Ha! Who knew? We enjoyed our [sickly] time together and still got to think about the Savior and what he has done for us. We are so grateful that Christ lived and he died for us. We are eternally grateful for his resurrection that will make it possible for all of us, including Dallin, to be resurrected and reunited. That will be an exciting day for our family.

Let's Get Real!

WARNING: This post may be disturbing to some readers. Reader discretion is advised.

I like to think that I go through pregnancy gracefully. I mean, it's my fourth time. I know what I'm doing by now. I like to do things myself. I try not to waddle. I definitely frown upon whining. I try to be as unobnoxious as possible. Well, I'm blowing that all out of the water today. You see, I've had "the cough" for about a week now. Normally the cough and I don't get along (remember, I'll probably be getting esophageal cancer because of it!) but never has it been so rotten as right now being pregnant with it. So I'm getting real. No sugar coating. And here's where the detested whining begins...

First of all, the darn thing is keeping me up all night. So here I am about to finish up my second trimester and I feel like I'm at the beginning of my first trimester again because I'm so tired during the day. Three hours of sleep a day definitely isn't cutting it. How, exactly, are you supposed to get better when you can't get enough sleep? A couple of nights ago the coughing actually caused me (I think!) to throw up. I ran to the bathroom as fast as I could and barely made it to the toilet before the second heave came. That was a nasty, rotten night.

Second, I guess my back and stomach muscles are stretched out, right? Well, when I normally have "the cough" I just deal with the cough. Right now I'm dealing with evenings full of really, really bad pain in my whole back, my sides and my side stomach muscles. When I wake up in the morning they feel fine, but as the day wears on, all that coughing really does a number on all those muscles from being tightened up so much. By 9 p.m. when I'm sitting at the computer doing my work, I'm in bad shape. The other night I was in complete tears because I couldn't take the pain anymore. Right now I'm wondering if it's worth it to finish this post in this much pain. But, yes, I will persevere. And then I'll get myself the heck into bed!

Last, but certainly not least, and the reason for the disclaimer...the peeing. That's right. Each big cough squeezes from the top of my stomach all the way down to the bottom. And I guess since there's a little boy sitting on my bladder right now and I've had three children, I have little bladder control with that much pressure trying to get out. I have been peeing myself for days. Forget the pantyliners. I got rid of those two days ago. I'm back to my good ol' overnight pads that I was looking forward to not having to use until July! Little did I know that I'd need to use them like a diaper! Yesterday I literally went through 8 overnight pads. That night...four more. Yes, just during the 6 hours I was in bed. It's so frustrating! And you know I love pulling down my pants to go to the bathroom and smelling like urine. Mmm...nice. It's not a wonder I haven't hardly left the house this week. Too tired. Too painful. Too smelly. Embarrassing.

I'm off to bed now. First I'll take my Robitussin (of course it doesn't work but we always hope for the placebo affect, don't we?) then I'll change my pad. Who knows, maybe there will be a miracle (it wouldn't be the first Easter miracle!) and I will wake up well-rested and DRY in the morning!! :-)

"I Do It By Myself"

You get one guess as to who I hear this from all the time. That's right, the 2-year-old! Oh boy is she Miss Independent. She wants to do everything herself. Buckle her seat belt, put her socks on, pour her cereal and her milk, spray her hair, wipe her bum, you name it. What I need to remember is that I have to plan extra time for everything and I never do. I'm constantly saying, "We need to hurry, Maren!" But, late or not, she's going to do it by herself of you're gonna hear about it. Ha! She's a feisty one but so cute!

She asks me multiple times each day to let her watch the video of everyone singing happy birthday to her. I'm getting tired of it, frankly. So I told her we should make some new videos to watch. Unfortunately this all came up on a day that she and I were both very sick. And it was right after I changed her diaper and we hadn't yet put her pants back on. And her hair is a mess...she kind of looks like an orphan. BUT, she sure is cute. First up is her singing I Am a Child of God. I missed the first little part but she does a great job. Usually she speaks much more clearly, but I don't think she could breathe very well this day. :-)

Next, for your viewing enjoyment, is her "reading" a book. She doesn't have the book memorized but she's great with colors so she can easily figure it out. I love the whining at the end. Yeah, you can tell she's sick.

And lest you think this post is all about Maren, here's a funny about Evan. Last weekend he got naps three days in a row because Michael was home for two of those days and they napped together. Now, Evan's at a rough stage. If he has a nap, he's not tired for bed until around 10:00. But if he doesn't have a nap, he's a little grumpy in the evenings. Probably a nap every other day or every couple of days would be a good idea. Or maybe an earlier bed time. Something other than what we're doing. Ha! Anyway, he had clearly had too much sleep last weekend because it was Saturday, a week ago. Saturday is his special day to sleep in our bed (until the baby's born, that is!). He and Michael went in there to read books and I was busy doing my work on the computer out by the kitchen. I heard them around 10:00 and wasn't too concerned because I was sure he wasn't very tired. Around 11:15 I started closing things up to go to bed. I was beat! At 11:20 Michael and Evan walk out of our room and I ask what on earth they're doing, as they walk into the kitchen. "Oh, we were just hungry for some cereal, Mom", Evan says. WHAT?!?! So, they sit down and have a bowl before heading back off to bed. Whoever heard of such a thing? I had to take a picture to document the whole affair. Clearly three naps in a row was way too much sleep for that boy!

Grandpa Herbert

I'm finally getting around to this post. It feels kind of like when I went to start on Dallin's scrapbook...a year after he was born! I didn't feel like I could tackle it until then and even after a year I cried through the whole process and took about 6 hours to do one page. Anyway, it's not that bad this time but we've had family in town, two friends go into the hospital and I've watched their kids, a trip to the hospital for me (just paranoia and needing to hear the heartbeat...he decided to throw a party and actually MOVE as soon as she put the monitors on me...at 11:45 p.m.!!) and illnesses. Anyway, here's my recap of Grandpa Herbert's funeral.

My sister, Danica, and I flew together. She was 29 weeks pregnant (looking 50 weeks along, she would say) at the time and didn't want to go it alone. What was funny was that as we were squeezing into the aisle to try to deboard one of our planes, and running into each other's tummies, a lady a couple rows back said, "Are you sure you two should be flying right now?" I assured her that I was just past the halfway mark and so i was fine. And Danica told her she had OK'd it with her doctor. She informed us that she was a NICU nurse and she has seen many babies who come in because their mothers went into preterm labor from flying late in pregnancy. Ha! What a coincidence. Although the flights were, for the most part, terrible, we made it unscathed.

We stayed at my Grandma's house with my mom and my Uncle Bryan. That was nice because the night we got there, we sat around and talked about Grandpa. Open flood gates. Grandma and my mom told us lots of cool stories about his last few days. One thing I thought was funny was that he was diagnosed three years (or so) ago with prostate cancer. Since he had known that he wouldn't want to go through treatment because of his age and because he wanted to enjoy his life, they decided that they didn't need to keep track of what was going on in his body. When they went to the hospital a couple of weeks before he died because he was having trouble breathing, the doctors did some kind of a scan and found tumors in his lungs and lots of other places. The hospital doctor asked my grandma who his oncologist was. She asked him what an oncologist is!! Ha! She didn't even know it was a cancer doctor. He explained and she said they never saw one because they didn't want to know and worry about what was going on and he wasn't going to have treatment. So he asked when the last time he saw his primary doctor was and it was two years ago. Apparently he was very amazed that my grandpa had gotten along as well as he had with relatively no pain. That is the blessing and exactly what my grandpa always wanted. To enjoy the end of his life without pain and without worry about dying.

The next day was the funeral. It was hard, hard, hard. The blessing was being there with my mom (who had been through much of her grief already, was handling things well and just wanted to parade her children around to the other family members and friends there!), Danica, and my brother, Brandon. Brandon really took care of me, putting his arm around me, holding my hand. It was a very sweet moment for me. Thank you, Bran. You saved me that day. I was asked to give the opening prayer for the funeral, which I thought I would not be able to do. Amazingly enough, I stood up there and said the prayer without crying. I got many comments on it afterwards, from family, friends and twice from my grandparent's stake president. That made me feel nice. My Uncle Bryan gave a great life history for my grandpa full of really interesting things and, of course, lots of funny stuff, too. My grandpa LOVED a good laugh. My grandma had told my Uncle David that Grandpa had always promised her 20 years (Grandma is Grandpa's second wife. His first wife, my other grandma, died when I was 7.). When he died they had been married 23 years. Uncle David said she got a 13% bonus. That's my family...always being funny.

One of my favorite stories from the funeral was about my Uncle Bryan's 16th birthday. He already had his pilot's license, like my grandpa and my Uncle David. For his birthday, Grandpa handed him a small box. Uncle Bryan was feeling kind of jipped since 16 is a big birthday and he was hoping for something that would fit in a little bit bigger box. When he opened up the box, there were two keychains in there. One was a key to the airplane hanger and the other was a key to the airplane. Grandpa said, "I trust you. I know you'll take good care of the airplane." Hello! When some (spoiled rotten!) kids are getting cars for their 16th birthday, my Uncle Bryan was given access to the airplane! Uncle Bryan then just shared about how Grandpa was very trusting. That would be true. He had me driving his cars when I was probably 10. I was an old pro by the time I actually took my driving test.

After the funeral we went to the cemetery where he was buried with my grandmother, Ella Mae, and where my grandmother, Arleen, will be buried when she passes as well.

Grandpa just wanted to be buried in a pine box to save money. Sounds just like him! Grandma put her foot down and got this beautiful casket.

This is my family with Grandma and my cousin's wife and two daughters. Grandma bought herself two new dresses for the two days of services. She said Grandpa was always doing that...buying her two of something because she couldn't decide between them. She looked lovely and she said it made her feel good to have new clothes.

Here's my mom with her brothers and my Uncle David's wife. Yes, I have tall uncles. And a short mother. Where did my mom's lack of height come from? Her grandmother, who was only about 4'11"!! My uncles are so darned handsome.

After the family luncheon, one of my cousins, Jordan, had an awesome idea. See, during the summers when Grandpa and Grandma lived in Mesa, Arizona, my parents would drive us halfway and my grandparents would drive halfway. We'd meet in Blythe, California, a total armpit of a town, and my grandparents would take us to back to Mesa for a few weeks. What great memories! Just about the only thing in that desert town was a Thrifty's grocery store and they had ice cream for really cheap. They scooped it with this cylindrical-shaped thing. Grandpa would always take us there before headed out for Arizona. All of us cousins (seen here in the picture, except for my sister Feney) have vivid memories of stopping there for ice cream. Anyway, Jordan said there aren't any Thrifty stores anymore but there was a little convenience store that had Thrifty ice cream. And maybe they used the cylindrical-shaped scoopers! We decided that in Grandpa's memory, it was a must to go there and get a picture of us eating our Thrifty ice cream. It put such great smiles on our faces. I wish I could've thrown a picture up to Grandpa in heaven so he could get a smile out of it, too.

Me, Danica and my mom all went to the Mesa temple after that. It was an absolutely gorgeous day and we enjoyed walking around that beautiful temple.

And, of course, I couldn't leave without getting a picture of my favorite kind of trees...

Sisters...pregnant together again!

Me and my cute mom.

I'm sure there's lots of things I wanted to share for my benefit that I have forgotten about. It was a great trip to Arizona. It was wonderful to see my grandma, although it was very hard to leave her knowing that she would be alone and sad. It was wonderful to see my handsome cousins and spend time with family to cover the sad moments. I love my family. They are the greatest. I feel so blessed to have each of them.

The day before we left, we went to the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix (I think!). It was basically cacti. It was pretty fun. The cool part was that it was during a Chihuly glass exhibit so there was his glass stuff interspersed through everything. I loved that part.

Great Wolf Lodge!

So, we actually took a family vacation! We left the day after my grandpa died. It was a good time for me to get away, enjoy some time with my family (which I know he would have wanted) and just relax...well, kind of. I was kind of having too much fun to relax. What a great place! I decided we needed to do something like that before the baby comes and we're stuck at home, sleep-deprived. It was WAY worth every dime we spent. And now, without further ado, here are...a whole bunch of pictures!!

The room we got had a cute little "cabin" for the kids, complete with bunk bed and their own TV and Nintendo (seriously, who has time to play Nintendo or watch TV while they're there?). It amazed me how well they took to the bunk bed. Evan had seemed leery of them in the past but was way excited about it and did a great job sleeping up there without being scared. Maren is still in a crib at home so I wondered how this would be for her. She loved it and called it "my yoom". She slept great on her bed and now I'm thinking bunk beds may be the way to go for these two. Exciting stuff to come! What silly faces they have here!

Evan took quite a while to warm up to the whole water park thing. But once he did, he had a blast! He would go down this purple slide and then skip/run through the water to get back on. The boy who is NEVER pushy or aggressive with other kids he doesn't know was trying to get ahead of others to get to the stairs first. I definitely saw a different side of him that was fun to see. I loved watching his face when he came down the slide and said "wahoo!".

Yes, Maren looks drunk here but I thought it was a really cute picture of Michael.

In addition to the slides, Evan really enjoyed playing in the fountains. I couldn't believe how free he got with letting water spray in his face. I love watching my kids overcome their fears and come out of their comfort zones!

Speaking of out of his comfort zone, that purple slide isn't the only one newly-brave Evan went down. He also went down some serpentine ones that started at the top of this four-story fort. Michael took him up a couple of times. I was shocked to find that Evan had to go down by himself, instead of on Michael's lap, and he did it! Well, at one point all the adults except me went on a crazy slide that I had no desire to go on, especially being pregnant. So I was taking care of Evan, Maren and our friend's daughter. Evan wanted to go on the serpentine slides while we waited. Well, I knew I didn't want to climb up all those stairs with these other two girls. Plus, there's water spraying everywhere in there and see that bucket about to spill at the top of the picture? That's full of 1,000 gallons of water that dumps out about every three minutes. I knew we could end up right under it at just the wrong time. So I told Evan that if he could climb up there by himself, he could go. First of all, I couldn't believe myself letting him do that. Second of all, I can't believe he took me up on it! I watched my little guy go and was so, so nervous. I tried to watch him like a hawk but it was hard to see him at times. I just hoped for the best. Evan wasn't too fond of the dumping bucket and he said it did dump while he was up there but he was fine with it. He came down the slide with a big smile and I let out a sigh of relief. Still can't believe I let him do it but it feels really good now knowing that I did.

All the fun really tuckered Maren out. Plus, we had stayed up until 10 p.m. the night before and she hadn't had a nap that day. Poor thing was exhausted. This is them waiting for me to get back with our pizza lunch. I was really looking forward to getting some snuggle time with her while everyone else played. Unfortunately...

She woke up just in time to get some pizza, regain her energies and get ready for more wet and wild fun! No snuggling!

Maren also loved the purple slide and would go around and around on it. She seemed so small to be going on this "big" water slide (comparatively, you know?) but she loved every second of it...as you can see by the big smile on her face.

And this is the Bybee family at the end of day 2 of our Great Wolf fun. It was about 10 p.m. by this time and everyone was completely beat. Ha! This was the best we could get. So, our neighbor, Anton, came over the day saying he was going to GWL and wanted to find out what it was all about. Well, we pulled out the pictures. We showed him videos. And we talked to him about it for about an hour. Yeah, we're ready to go back...like now!

Lisa's 2009 Visit

So much has happened since Lisa visited last month that I hadn't gotten around to blogging about it yet. For those of you who don't know, Lisa is my "oldest" friend, in that she is the friend I have had the longest. She moved around the corner from us just before 2nd grade started. So I six. Yeah, that was a long time ago! Anyway, she is blessed to be able to do quite a bit of traveling and chose to visit us this year. The kids had a great time waking her up in the morning! We went to The Children's Museum and our favorite restaurant, JoPa (if you're in the area and haven't been there yet, you must go!). We went to Target and she spent her whole Saturday with me at the church getting it ready for our annual Sweetheart's Ball. Yeah, pretty much she just lived my life for 5 days...nothing exciting! Ha! Before my kids came along we used to go to Ashland for the Shakespeare Festival or Seattle and other "fun" places. Oh, how things change with kids around! Anyway, for some silly reason I didn't get many pictures (maybe the batteries were dead...again?!?!). These are all from The Children's Museum...

Obviously, there was a Bob the Builder exhibit. The kids loved it. Unfortunately, Maren was always looking at something and never at the camera. But I thought this picture of Evan was too cute to pass up.

And here's Maren pretending to be Daddy in her scrubs, showing off the x-ray she took. Looking at those bangs makes me wonder why on earth I waited so long to get them cut. Sorry, Maren! I think that borders on child abuse.

And here's Lisa with Flat Stanley. Lisa's nephew made Flat Stanley in school and Flat Stanley had quite the trip. He got his picture taken on the airplane, with lots of different strangers, and in some very cool places. It was fun to have him along for the trip! :-)

What a Day!

Boy, this body has had quite the day. This morning I went to Zumba. That's 8 - 9 a.m. That's some super aerobic, hip-shaking working out. Oh-so-fun and oh-so-sweat-inducing! Anyway, I got home, jumped in the shower, got dressed in my clogging outfit and headed for a church building where we had an audition for a fine arts showcase next month. We were going to audition this new dance we started in September. It's awesome, it's fast, it's hard. It's impressive. Well, I had missed quite a few weeks of practice because of sick kids and Michael's birthday and other random things. So on Thursday I got together with a fellow clogger and got caught up on the ending. I hardly slept all last night because the dance was running through my head...making sure the last steps were cemented enough that my feet would do what I needed them to during the audition. When I got to the church at 10 a.m., we ran through the dance two times. I'm starting to feel like I have Jell-O for legs by this point. Then we go into the audition. They love the dance, but not the music so much. Doesn't quite fit into the evening's other events. So we tell them we have other songs. Then we proceed to show them THREE more dances. Hello! Way more than I bargained for today. My poor body. That would be a lot for a non-pregnant person to do. I would've liked to have seen myself in bed by 10 p.m. tonight because I'm EXHAUSTED, but I had too much work to do. I just stopped, without being done, because I could hardly keep my eyes open any longer. It's been a long day. Three hours of dancing, an hour of weeding the garden, two showers, a trip to the temple and lots of work. But I did enjoy a small bowl of ice cream. It was nice knowing that I had worked it off by 8:20 this morning!!

The News I Can Hardly Bear to Share

When I was looking up the picture I wanted to use for this post, I thought the pain in my heart might kill me. Oh, this is hard. My grandpa, who I made a really great post about a while back and can't find it now, passed away on Wednesday. He's had cancer for years now so I shouldn't be surprised. And we had about a week's notice that it was coming. But nothing can prepare you for the realization that it could be 50 years before you see someone you love so dearly again. I have kept pretty busy since finding out...Maren being sick, packing for a little vacation, vacationing, cleaning, etc. But whenever I stop for just a second, he is always on my mind and the tears flow freely. I can't imagine my life without him and I wish my kids didn't have to spend so much of theirs without him. He loved them and me so much. If you asked anyone who knew him what one stand-out thing was about him, it was that he loved his family. He made it known ALWAYS. There is a huge hole in my heart right now and it saddens me to think of how long it may be there. And then I think about Dallin and realize that it will always be there. I wish that I could've talked to him before he passed and asked him to kiss my grandma for me and to scoop up Dallin and tell him we love him. I'm sure he did that anyway because he would know. But it would sure make me feel better. Michael went into the Missionary Training Center on March 4th. He thought that was pretty cool because he was "marching forth" to fulfill his calling as a missionary. My grandpa died on March 4th. I know that he is "marching forth" to his eternal glory. I fly out to Arizona to attend his funeral on Monday. I'm sure I'll have a lot to say and get off my chest when I get back...

Gender!

It has been quite a week around here. There is much to post about. Maren has been really sick with an ear infection, which we found out about the day I had my ultrasound. For three days straight I pretty much did nothing but hold her. It was great to get to do that but terrible when I would look out at the ever-worsening state of affairs around our house. Luckily, she is on the mend.

Anyway, as I said, we had our ultrasound. Well, Evan and I went to the ultrasound. Michael had too many patients that day so Evan held down the support fort in Michael's absence, which was fine with me since it's about the 30th ultrasound I've had and Michael promised to bond with the babe in utero regardless of being there or not. Everything appears to be fine, though they weren't able to get all the views of the heart they needed. I have to go back in a month to have that part redone. Evan was a trooper, hanging out with me during the ultrasound and then with the perinatologist afterwards. He was so, so talkative that I had to ask him a few times just to not talk at all. He was asking tons of questions and talking about the baby. It was very cute...most of the time. And he was not disappointed on the gender. It's a boy! This should surprise no one who is at all connected to my circle of ward friends, friends and family. In our ward there are two other girls who are pregnant within about a week of me. Both with boys. My two best friends are pregnant with boys. And my sister is pregnant with a boy. It's the boy cycle. I'm happy (would've been either way!) but slightly sad for Maren who will be alone in her girlyness, having two brothers, three boy cousins on my side, four on Michael's side and the only girl cousins being 13 and 15 years old! Oh well. She'll be well looked after.