Monday we did yard work and got our lawn looking awesome. Love our yard and the shade the trees provide on hot days but wow they sure give us lots of leaves and sticks to clean up. Jaxson was in heaven being outside for so long, having Grandpa's Honda and wagon at our home, the lawn mower (he's a big fan of a lawn mower) and then at the end to take the leaves and lawn clipping to the cow and have them surround us was just so much fun for our little guy. Here are some picture of our family yard day:

Enjoying the day!

Ready to get to work!

My boys hard at work!

We went to 7-11 for some gas and a treat for working so hard! Jaxson was so adorable with his Slurpee with almost every bite he told us, "um good".

Thursday night and Friday we got to see and play with Lexie, Gracie and Kole. It made my weekend to see them I haven't been able to see them since November and I've been missing them so much. They came up to our house Friday morning and Jaxson was still in bed and my ever so cute nephew Kole said, "I'm going to go in his room and say Cock-a-doodle-doo!" I've been laughing about that since he said it to me. Jaxson and Kole had such a fun time playing together and listing to them talk to each other was so darn adorable. Lexie, Gracie and myself jumped rope for over a hour and they taught me lots of new jump roping chants. Kole loves hitches and will "hitch"everything and anything. He "hitched" the little red wagon with grandma's jump ropes and then told Jaxson to get in and he'd give him a ride. Jaxson said, "okay" and got in and waiting for a while for his buddy Kole to give him a ride.

Jaxson in his Easter Sunday clothes! Jaxson is a big fan of ties and only wants to wear ties when it comes to getting ready for church. He knows daddy wear a tie, Grandpa wears a tie and he too needs a tie. It was my brother-in-law Jeff's birthday on Sunday and I made another candy bouquet. These are becoming one of my favorite "crafts" things to do. We stuffed a few dollar bills around the candy and told him to enjoy some relaxing Redbox movie nights on us. We had a nice dinner and evening with him and the Erickson family on Sunday.


So in March our ward's Primary Presidency was released and I was put in the new presidency. Being the big Birthday celebration/gift giver I am it was somewhat bothersome to me that they hadn't been giving out a small birthday gift to the kids on their birthdays. So I volunteered myself to finding and creating 54 birthday gifts. Below is what I came up with, with great help from the Internet of coarse.=)

The girls will get ones like this and the boys will get ones tied with hemp. On the back I've written our yearly theme: I know My Savior Lives and then Happy Birthday! Doing 54 took some time but I sure loved how they turned out. We also did a primary activity on Tuesday. We decorated Easter bags, had an Easter lesson, played Easter games and found Easter eggs. We had 42 of our 54 kids come. It was an amazing turnout and lots of fun! I also had Sharing time this last Sunday so it was a big busy Primary week for me.

Brett of coarse cut the wood for me and then even Jaxson was willing to help me get this project completely this week. He thought he was a big dude helping dad with the drill.

Meet Moo he's one of Jaxson's favorite outside friends. Jaxson loves visiting Moo and feed him hay . I can't help but think that Moo must love Jaxson's hay visits as well. We have found out the last few days with warm weather that Jaxson can open the outside back screen door all by himself and make it down to Moo very quickly. I just hope my Grandpa and Grandma Olsen whose house and farm land we are living on get to "pick in" from time to time up in heaven to see Jaxson and his love for the farm and the animals. How they would have loved him and how he would have loved farming with them.

Happy Birthday Brett

My hubby turned 29 yesterday. I enjoyed trying to make his birthday extra special for him since I think he's an extra special guy.=) I got up at 3:45am and made German pancakes a favorite of his but not so much mine so I never think of making them. Sunday I made his favorite cookies while he was at work, oatmeal and had bought a small container of milk since Brett loves milk with his desserts for a little surprise in his lunch. I also had arranged an hour long massage for him that night and put the certificate with the time highlighted in his lunch. He came home to his favorites: Pizza Hut meat lovers pizza, green grapes, cucumbers and Dr. Pepper. Opened his presents from Jaxson and I. We gave him Singstar for the Playstation 3 with 4 Singstar games (so if any of you ever want to have a Singstar night just call us), movie tickets (we don't' got to the movie theater very much and if we do Brett always goes to the girly movie I want to see so I told him this tickets are for a "guy movie" he wants to see-he was surprised and happy about that!), a certificate to Win On, his favorite air freshener for his new truck and gum. After opening presents Brett went for his massage and Jaxson and I got our house ready for 23 people to come celebrate Brett's birthday! We had Brett's annual birthday cake--angel food and ice cream cones. It was fun having our family in our home. Brett got more fabulous gifts and Jaxson was in heaven having so many people and cousins to play with. I thought Brett told me the sweet compliment he said, "do you know something I don't am I going to die tomorrow you've done so many nice things for me today" So sweet I think my intention of having Brett feel special and having an extra special birthday was accomplished.=)

He's Here....

Jayden

After 11 days over his due date and 2 long days of trying to get him here my nephew Jayden has arrived and he is soooooo precious! My sister-in-law Nicki and Joey become proud parents on Thursday, March 11 around 9am.

I found this dump truck candy idea in a book and was able to recreate it I've been anxiously waiting to take it to the hospital along with one of my favorite things--a baby 1st year calendar that you use to document all the big and little things your baby does during their first year.

Brett and I loved holding baby Jayden there is just something so special about a new born. I love that Jaxson will grow up with so many cousins around his age and how special that almost all of them live in Vernal. I really can not wait for all the sleepovers, playdates and fun times! I have a feeling Jayden and Jaxson will be great sport friends.

We just finished our "heavenly week".=) Brett now works as a pumper through Questar he's now gone from 4:30am till around 5:30pm for 7 days (Wed.-Tues) and then gets 7 DAYS OFF! It was so wonderful to have him off for 7 days. We didn't do anything major and I think that only added to me loving having him home. Since we moved back to Vernal, almost 5 years ago I've worked for the Galleries doing 2 Saturday's a month so that just gives us 4 Sundays (and any LDS family knows that Sunday's specially with kids isn't really a relaxful "day and sometimes can be a harder day) and then 2 Saturday where we were both home and for a long time those Saturday's I'm off have been filled with something that one or both of us needed to do so to have 7 days straight--so fantastic. We and yes I mean we get up at 4am Brett keeps telling me I don't need to get up but I can't sleep with him up and moving around so I might as well get up and be an extra nice wife and fix his lunch and breakfast. I then get to go back to bed and around the time I'm finally getting back to sleep Jaxson wakes up wanting his Phenex but lucky for me he goes back to sleep for an hour or so afterwords. It's a doable but tuff schedule for all of us for 7 days but then "heavenly" for the next 7.=) I obviously love the 7 days off but I also really loving the fixed hours. Construction work is anything but fixed. I'm so appreciative of Brett getting this new job and getting up at 4am he's so not a morning person but he's doing it like a champ and all for our family.=)

So a few things that happened this week.....

One of my favorite nights of the month was last week---Card Group and it was at my house this month. It's so much fun getting together and making cards. We all do 2 cards and I must say everyone in the group is so talented the cards always ROCK! After we are done I just admire the cards they are always so adorable. I use to never give them away I loved them so much but lately I've been getting much better about giving them away. I made two really yummy things for our card group brownies that were called Over the Top Brownies and boy were they over the top they had a chocolate chip cookie bottom, cheesecake middle and chocolate/nut topping and then I made Parmesan Knots that I thought were delicious and extra bonus they were super easy to make. I found a food blog a few weeks ago and I'm just loving it (I'm a new recipe addict) I've made a handful of her things and have been impressed with everything. The blog is realmomkitchen.com if your interested in making something new.

My cards for March. I loved the Spring paper so even though it was snowing outside while we made cards at least we had Spring paper to look at.=)

Brett took me on a date bowling. We went with another couple from our ward. It was a fun Friday night. I actually won the first game I was impressed since I haven't been bowling since I was pregnant with Jaxson. After bowling we went to JB's for a treat. I want to take Jaxson sometime I know he would love bowling for real. He has a toy bowling set he enjoys because it involves a ball. So if anyone of you ever want to go bowling give us a call we're up for it.=)

Sunday we celebrated my sister-in-law Elizabeth's birthday. They had dinner and cake for her at their home. Eric made this really moist and super tasty German Chocolate cake I was very impressed with my brother. Along with doing a dinner that Jaxson could eat they had bought coconut milk ice cream which is an ice cream that Jaxson can have and cones that I have a protein amount for and surprisingly Jaxson LOVED having his 1st ice cream cone with his cousins. He has never been into his coconut milk ice cream so I didn't think he'd like an ice cream cone, I was wrong. I must admit at one point I could have broken down crying as I watched him on Sunday it was the anniversary of the day Jaxson was diagnosed with PKU and on that day I didn't think I would ever see the day my son would be eating "ice cream" like his cousins let alone I didn't have the knowledge of how I could give him that food/social experience. I've gained so much knowledge since that day and feel that I'm personally in such a great accepting place of PKU it's been a long rode and there is still much more to travel and I of coarse have moments where I'm sad/upset about it but for the most part we are doing so well and that makes me just want to burst with happiness. Not to mention every day I still have that moment where I watch Jaxson say or do something and feel so incredibly blessed that he is so healthy and perfect and know that because we were blessed in finding out that he has PKU and what his diet has to be that we get to have him for who he truly is I'm so thankful and in dept to God for that. It makes all the time, effort, emotional discomfort, expensive, etc of PKU so worth it! So even though I'm sure most of you really don't remember the date when your child had their first ice cream cone or have tons of pictures to docoment the moment like I do it was another remarkable moment where in my mind and heart I got to say----take that PKU! =)

My favorite thing this week (I thought it would be the arrival of my nephew Jayden but he is just not wanting to leave Aunt MarShel in heaven. I think she is telling him her great stories and I don't blame him I miss her stories myself) was surprising Elizabeth with a birthday lunch on her birthday, Tuesday. I had made her think that I wanted her to come to my home for a birthday lunch and we'd just let the kids play but in reality I had invited her best buddies and had them waiting for us at Cafe Rio (one of Elizabeth's favorite places) and had made one of her favorite and mine too desserts--German Chocolate Cheese cake. When she got to my house I surprised her that just I and her were going to lunch and Brett was going to watch all 3 kids and feed them lunch-he is the best what can I say. Then we got to Cafe Rio and surprise--it's a birthday lunch with friends! I was so excited over this you would have thought it was my birthday. I just knew Elizabeth would absolutely love it and she did. I love surprising people specially when it's a great surprise that going to be loved!.

Elizabeth's Birthday Lunch at Cafe Rio. I tried something new the coconut shrimp tacos and I'm still thinking about them they were too good.

Jaxson giving Brianna a ride on his 4 wheeler on Tuesday. They had the best day playing together. They are the best buddies I can't help but think that started long before Earth.

Hopefully my next post will be showing off my new nephew Jayden Morton. I'm getting very anxious to met and hold him bless my sister-in-law Nicki for hang in there for so long to get her bundle of joy here! He'll be so worth it!