Happy 3rd Birthday Jordan!

Jordan turned 3 on July 12th. We had a birthday party for him at the park. It was a lot of fun and a bit crazy. We grilled hotdogs and had some cake and opened some presents and oh yeah did I mention there were 12 kids there?! We had Spencer's brother Jon and his wife Bri there with their 5 kids, plus our 3 kids, plus Spencer's sister Tiffany had her 1 plus her "non-boyfriend's" 3. We had plenty of adults there so it was all good. Jordan had a lot of fun. Sadly we bought an ice cream cake but we didn't get to it fast enough so when we opened it all the ice cream starting oozing all over the place so we had to make a quick run to Smiths to get a sheet cake. Jordan was totally stoked to get a bike just like Sissy! He doesn't quite get the concept of peddling but he'll learn. It was really fun to have all the cousins there. They're all about the same ages so it works out well! We even got a picture of all of them together except for the two babies, Ashton and Adelyn. Cousin picture from left to right: in front we have Gage (2), Jordan (3). in the back we have Kaisa (3), Kaleb (6), Kaydance (7), Kaitlyn (6), Pyper (6) .

Happy 1st Birthday Ashton!

Ashton turned 1 on the 4th of July. We had a party at one park and then went to another park to see the fireworks. It was fun to watch him eat this HUGE cupcake! He didn't want it at first so I put some icing on his lip and then he was all for it! He is such a cutie and just so small. He has been walking for about 4 months now but it looks funny cause he's so tiny. We put him in the playpin with his 7 month old cousin and they're about the same size. We also got pictures of all the kids that were there. From left to right: Gage(2), Jordan(2), Kaisa(3), Pyper(6), Kaitlyn(6), Kaydance(7).

Evelyn Christley Whorley Faulkner Reeves

Monday, May 11, 2009 was a sad day for my family. My grandmother passed away at the age of 78. Evelyn Christley was born in November 1930 to Lonnie H. Christley and Onie Gilley Christley. She was the first of four born to them. She grew up in a poverty stricken family and really never escaped that kind of life. Evelyn married three times during her life. She had three children with her first husband, Nadra, Doug, and Claud. They divorced and she got remarried some time later to my grandfather, Kenneth Faulkner. Together they had Sandra, Donna (my mommy), and Taffy. Kenneth died in 1969 in a swimming accident. Evelyn later married again and got divorced again. Some of my best memories from my early childhood are of my grandma. My mom was a single mom when I was born so we lived with my grandma. She would watch me while my mom was at work and later she also watched Angie. My grandma was a very very spunky person. My grandma's favorite things were her smokes, her beer, and her boyfriends. Grandma liked to drink occasionally which got her into a whole lot of trouble. She was known for her bar fights. My grandma loved spending time with her grand kids but she refused to be called grandma for the longest time....we had to call her mom. So my mom was "mommy" and my grandma was "mom". She insisted that she was too young to be called grandma or anything like that. I remember going grocery shopping, camping, doing laundry, cleaning, watching tv, playing games, and laughing with my grandma. She always wanted to know what was going on in my life and I could literally tell her everything because I knew that she wouldn't judge me. Her approach to life was, "shit happens so deal with it!" I take the same approach. In 1997 my grandma began having stokes but no one knew about it until she had one at a bad time and a bad place. She was walking home from the grocery store, pushing a cart, approaching rail road tracks...apparently having a seize of some sort. All the cars that were stopped for the train were beeping at her and yelling at her to stop for the train but she didn't so the train came by, knocked her off balance, and next thing ya know she's in the Blue Ash Nursing Home. She kept asking if she could go home but she could not live by herself anymore so she had to stay there. She began to slowly deteriorate over time. I saw her for the last time when I was there for my dad's funeral at the beginning of April. I love her and I will miss her tons. She was like a second mom to me.

Happy 6th Birthday Pyper!

So I have been quite the slacker when it comes to updating my blog. I've been all sorts of crazy busy at work that I'm pretty much useless when I come home and my brain claims sanctuary on the weekends (not sure where it goes). Pyper's birthday was on the 27th of April and we had a small party for her at out place. It had been raining everyday so the park was not an option. Pyper had a ton of fun and was so super stoked to find out that she got a bike and "brain bucket" for her birthday. The sad part is that it rained for two weeks straight after her birthday too so she didn't actually get to ride it for quite a while. Here are some pictures from her party. I loved her cake. Jordan decided that he wanted the car off the cake so he and Pyper fought over it until it mysteriously disappeared!

Going Home

I moved to Utah on August 18, 2001. I went back home in February of 2004 for my grandpa's funeral and hadn't been back since until my dad's funeral. When I left home all my brothers still had prepubescent voices and they were all shorter than me. I know that people change over time but I always thought that I would be able to recognize my siblings anywhere and at any time no matter how long it had been since I last saw them...boy was I wrong! When I was exiting the terminal area at the airport in Dayton I recognized this girl that my mom use to babysit when I was younger standing by the door. My very first thought was, "Becky?" Next thought, "Then the other girl must be Angie and that boy must be Walter." How embarrassing to realize that I NEVER would have recognized my own siblings if they were to pass me on the street. Even

scarier, Walter drove us from the airport in Dayton down to Cincinnati. I thought I was going to DIE! I made sure to take a ton of pictures while I was there. I knew that I was home sick but I didn't realize how bad it was until I was on my way home. I actually had a layover in Cincinnati and then flew up to Dayton...go figure and when I was landing in Cincinnati I was so happy but the minute my plane that was going to Dayton got off the ground my heart sank and I felt so sad to know that I was so close to home but I had to fly away and then drive back down...how pathetic of me! Anywho, I enjoyed my time there even with the given circumstances surrounding my visit.

Pictures:

Grandma and Mom

Me with Angie

Ronnie

Walter

Kenny

The Passing of Dad

At 5:00 am est my dad began having trouble breathing. He was pronounced dead a short while later. The funeral is going to be on Wednesday, April 8, 2009 in Cincinnati. He had just turned 55 back in February. He leaves behind a wife, five children, three grandchildren, and two sisters. This past year he was diagnosed with congestive heart failure and diabeties. After his diagnosis he got progressively worse over time. He fell a couple of weeks ago and went to to the hospital for x-rays which came back clear. He got really sick after that and was admitted into the hospital. He had blood poisening and something wrong with his liver but he refused to allow the doctors to treat him. They decided to send him to Blue Ash nursing home for rehabilitation and was only there for a few days when he passed.
My dad and I never really had the best relationship but I do have several good memories of him. I remember going grocery shopping with him when I was like 4 years old and bugging him because I wouldn't follow him and I would disappear. I remember being at my parents wedding and watching him look like he was about to die from the early August heat! When I was old enough to begin dating he tried to scare away the boy that I liked but it didn't work...I think he was a bit aggrivated by that at first. When Spencer talked to my dad to get permission to marry me my dad had him on the phone for like 15 minutes just giving him the third degree. I was suprised that it didn't scare Spencer away! I went home back in 2004 for my grandpa's funeral and I took Pyper with me. He wanted to hold her and she just screamed as loud as she could. Trying to carry a conversation with him was always very interesting and to be honest kind of scary sometimes. He will be missed.

Name That Smell

Spring cleaning always seems to bring interesting things my way. I am doing my spring cleaning this weekend so of course nothing is working out the way I want. First, the closet door to the washer and dryer closet fell off because a big piece of the wood holding the door in place broke off. Second, I moved my dryer and found all the crap in that picture under it. Third, well third is a bit nasty. I removed the the hose from the back of the dryer to clean out any lint that may be in there but there was this large clump of lint that wouldn't come out. I grabbed a flash light to see what it was stuck to and I was about to reach my hand in to see if I could reach it when I realized what it was....A FREAKIN' DEAD BIRD!!! It took forever to get it out but it finally fell out and of course the kids were trying so hard to see it. For the longest time I have been noticing an odd smell in my house even after I've cleaned for two or three days straight and I just couldn't figure it out...now we know!

The other pictures here are just some random ones that I have. Pyper took a picture of me and look like I have these huge spider legs. Jordan likes playing with the remote...my little man. Ashton loves the cat and thankfully the cat is very good with him. He likes to pet the cat when he's not trying to lay on him or bite his tale. I think the worst thing I've ever seen him do to the cat was when the cat was all sprawled out on the floor on his back and Ashton laid down next to him and grabbed the cat by his private area! I thought the cat would bite at him or something but instead the cat just cried out and jumped up. Spencer and I weren't much help because we were too busy laughing about it...rude, I know!

FUN FUN FUN

There is always something interesting going on in our house in case you haven't figured that out from all my previous posts! Having three kids can be a bit overwhelming but it's all worth it plus I have a helper and no it's not just Spencer...I have PYPER! She reminds me of myself when I was her age. She loves helping me do house chores like dishes, laundry, and changing diapers! She loves to play with Ashton and Jordan while I am cooking or doing some massive cleaning. Jordan may be a pain in the butt and drive me insane but he is AWESOME with Ashton. He's a very protective big brother. If Ashton has anything in his hands (even if it's okay) Jordan will take it away and tell Ashton no and bring me whatever he found. If I'm holding Ashton and I'm sitting on the couch then Jordan will climb onto the seat next to me and demand to hold Ashton. If I tell him no then he'll through a temper tantrum. And I thought that growing old, being married, and raising kids would be boring...boy was I wrong!

Devil or Angel?

I have to admit that I HATE the terrible two's almost as much as I hate the horrible three's! This kid drives us insane. He gets into anything he can find a way to open. Because of this, we recently added two new locks in our home. One lock on the pantry and one lock on the fridge. The white stuff on the carpet is yogurt that he got out of the fridge and decided to smear all over the carpet in his room. He climbs on chairs to get into things that were purposely put up high so that he couldn't get them. He loved to climb into the pantry to get into Spencer's cup-o-noodles. He would take the cup into his room and eat the styrophome and leave the dried noodles and veggies all over his bed and his room! I think the most aggrivating thing about him is that he will not talk. He still "baby babbles" and if you don't understand him or he gets mad he will bite or hit himself. I just realized the other day how angelic he looks when he's sleeping and then I realized that the rail on his bed looks like jail bars. If he's anything like his dad he'll be there some day especially if he keeps up with this temper he has!

Oh my freakin' heck!

I need to start off by saying that I really do love my kids and my husband but sometimes I just can't handle everything that comes with being the wife and the mom. I had a VERY stressful week at work and I was excited for it to be the weekend. I just wanted to clean my house and prepare for the next week at work. Needless to say, my stress level was already pretty high when I saw this. I was washing dishes when I realized that my house was WAY too quiet so I peeked into the living room to see what was going on. Suddenly, I see Pyper sit straight up and give me one of those, "I hope she didn't see me." looks. So I walked into the living room to see what the kids were doing. Pyper and Jordan were sitting on the floor next to the playpin playing with Ashton. That's when I saw the HUGE, GAPING hole in the side of the playpin. The first thing Pyper says, "Jordan did it!" I freaked out because Pyper watched Jordan use her school scissors to cut the hole in the playpin and they could've really hurt Ashton while doing this. Plus, the playpin cost a little over $300. As I was picking up pieces of the playpin off the floor I noticed that I had also picked up a chunk of hair...it was Pyper's! I completely lost it. I yelled for Spencer to help me with "his" kids. That's when it happened....I broke out in hives. I had them for a week. I am so not cut out for this mom stuff! We now have a new playpin for Ashton but we made sure to get a cheap one this time and I'm glad that we did because the day after we got the new playpin Jordan got into Pyper's backpack and got her scissors out and cut little holes in this one too but at least they're tiney and it's only like 4 of them...easy to fix.

This is odd...

So Ashton has been doing all that stuff that babies are suppose to do but just a bit faster than my other two did. He's been really quick at rolling over, cutting teeth, crawling, etc. He just learned to sit up about a week ago and now he has decided that he's ready to stand up. It looks odd to me because he is still so tiny! Spencer caught him standing up in his crib while I was in the living room so I grabbed the camera and Spencer grabbed his cell phone to take a picture. We really have turned into those obnoxious parents who have to document EVERYTHING with a picture and if we miss the "cute thing" then we ask if they can do it again so we can get a picture of get the camcorder....WE ARE SUCK DORKS! Oh well!

The biggest snow flakes EVER!

Spencer is one of those psycho people who just LOVE snow. He was up late one night and noticed that it was snowing and decided to grab the camera after realizing how HUGE snow flakes were. Here's the picture he took and to be honest...they almost look like "orbs" that people claim to be "spirits" in their photos. Anywho, I thought that it was cool photo so here it is. Way to go honey!!!

The bed time routine

Apparently our kids take after Spencer and just LOVE books. Pyper is learning how to read at school and she just keeps bringing home books to read. Jordan is following in his big sister's footsteps with the books. He has to have a story read to him before he takes a nap and before he goes to bed at night. To keep the peace, they each get to pick a book to be read to them at bed time. They seem to like having Spencer read to them instead of me, but I don't mind because I HATE READING! I decided that it would be cute to get some pictures of story time and them Pyper wanted to take a picture of Daddy reading the story but Jordan had to be in it too! The picture of Jordan sleeping is one that Spencer took. Jordan has had a habit lately of waking up in the middle of the night and coming into our room (very quietly...we don't even know that he's there) and sleeping next to my side of the bed. However, he does like to change things up once in a while by sleeping either in the middle of the floor in his room, the hallway, or in his closet like in the picture! Gotta love 2 year olds...or not!

Growing up too fast!

I have to admit that Ashton has been a very fast learner. He rolled over for the first time when he was a week old and by the time he was 4 1/2 months old he was rolling over. He started crawling at 5 months and I just find it so amazing! I think that it has been easier for him to roll over and crawl so early because he's so small and light. Pyper and Jordan were both full term babies and just CHUNKY! Pyper didn't start to crawl until she was about 8 months old and Jordan didn't crawl until he was about 7 or 8 months old. I'll have to catch him on video one of these days yelling, "MA MA MA MA!" The only time he says it is when he's mad and wants someone to pick him up or if he just feels like he's not getting enough attention. I caught him earlier today watching the snow come down outside and stayed in front of the balcony door for about 30 mins just starring outside!

Happy Birthday to Me!!!

One of my favorite things about Spencer is that he never forgets our anniversary or my birthday. Pyper and Spencer picked out the ice cream cake and the flowers together and decided to suprise me with them. It was a sweet suprise and it was nice to have the day off work to spend just chillin' with my family.

Crappy New Year!

We celebrated New Year's Day 2008 with everyone having influenza in our house. This year we rang in the new year with colds for Pyper and Jordan, but poor Ashton wasn't so lucky! I had to work on New Year's day and I was quite tired when I came home. I sat down on the couch after getting Pyper and Jordan in the tub and picked up Ashton to see how he was doing. He had been very congested and had a horrible cough but no runny nose. Spencer said that he had been wheezing and panting so I decided to listen to him breathe. I put my ear up to his back and it sounded like someone was swooshing around a water bottle in there. He had a this little fever that would come and go but I wasn't sure if it was from the cold that he had or from the two teeth that he's cutting. I got nervous after listening to him so we got the kids out of the tub and took Ashton to the after hours clinic for his pediatrician. They took his oxygen levels and they were at about 85 and 86 (suppose to be at 90) and listened to him breathe and watched him breathe. The doctor said that he has RSV but it hasn't gotten too bad yet. They gave him a nebulizer treatment there and then checked his oxygen stats again and listened to him again. He sounded a bit better so they sent us home with a prescription for Albuterol and had set up for some company to drop off the nebulizer machine at our house. We got home and Spencer left to go find a pharmacy that was open to fill the prescription and I waited for the guy to come with the machine. The machine arrived at about midnight and Spencer was on his way home with the prescription, but it took him almost an hour to find a pharmacy that was open on New Year's day! By the time Spencer got back home it was time for Ashton to have another treatment so I set it up for him and I went to bed. I had to take a picture of this because it's funny but sad at the same time. Luckily, he doesn't really mind having the mask on his face for 10 mins every 4-6 hours. The bad part is that we have another 5-7 days of this to get through! What a crappy way to ring in 2009!