I know I haven't blogged in a while and I actually feel really badly about it. I blame the sunshine that has finally made an appearance and a good book. We are leaving in about 20 minutes for a 5 day vacation, but I promise to blog after that. In the meantime here is my quick "catch-up session" with TONS of pictures for mi familia :-)

Evan-isms:

lightning iking = "Lightning McQueen"

When the sun is too bright he covers his eyes and screams "I'm melting" (I have no idea where he got this from, but I think it is hilarious!

Sometimes he gets things mixed up a bit. A couple of days ago he said "I have nose in my snot, I need paper toil" (translation: I have snot in my nose I need toilet paper)

Evan is so smart! The other day he was pretending there was a satellite in the sky and kept telling me to look at it. Where he learned about satellites I will never know, but good for him!

We left the store today and he sang (very well I might add :-) "High Ho the Dairy-O, we all done!!"

Landon:

Landon was feeding himself some finger food and bit his finger ... HARD!!! He was NOT a happy camper. I feel for him though, I know first hand what it feels like when he bites :-)

He is growing so fast!! He is getting so mobile and literally gets into everything ... I LOVE IT!!

Even though Landon is still big he is starting to stretch out so he doesn't look as chunky.

We got to meet up with his maternal grandparents on the weekend. It was the first time they have seen him since his placement. It was a wonderful experience for us.

St. Patricks Day Breakfast

Fun in the sun and dirt

This is why I have a hard time taking a shower!

cheesy

fun with Grandpa Mark

We were in getting Evan's chair fixed and Evan was helping. He was laying there and then he says: "I got a good idea!!! Toodles will fix it .... OH TOOODLES!!!" (That is courtesy "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, one of his favorite shows!)

Landon was helping his big brother out! They both kept giggling.

This is the child that never sleeps!

Justin and I ran a 10K down in Lethbridge. I beat my time by 2 minutes (57 min) and Justin (who never did end up training AT ALL) came in at just over an hour. Good Job Babe!!!

Before
After

The ground thawed enough that we were finally able to pull out our Candy Cane decorations from Christmas. Evan LOVES to play with them.

I just had to share one of my favorite sights in our house. Evan is constantly going around the kitchen and bringing me random things!!!!! :-)

I went to a good friends going away party (sooo sad!!!) Yes that is a snuggie for dogs!!! It has to be one of the funniest things I have ever seen.

Yesterday was so beautiful in Calgary. I decided to take the boys on a hike. We drove out to a not so nice Elbow Falls. It was soooo cold and icy. I am just glad that I brought layers for all of us and that we didn't end up dying on the ice!!! Despite everything it was just as BEAUTIFUL as I remember it being!! Evan loved it!!!!!!! Landon did not!!!!!!!!!!

Landon cried the entire time and then when I picked him up afterwards and told him that he was annoying ... he gave me this face. :-)

"Big Brother, I want that cookie ... Mama only gives you the good stuff"

Alright Baby Landon, have a bite!

"Mama, look what Big brother gave me!

"Awe, Mama took your cookie away?? Don't worry Landon, I'll take care of you. I'll make sure you get loads of treats behind Mama's back :-)"

sugar high!!!

Last night I was finally able to watch my brand new copy of New Moon! (Oh Edward!!) Thank you ladies for watching it/him with me. I love gawking at Jacob's beautiful body with other women. Thanks for the night girls! :-)

I ate sooo much sugar last night. I cannot even tell you just how much sugar went into my body! I woke up with a headache ... but it was WELL worth it!! I can't wait to watch the movie again this week with Justin (yes I know I'm obsessed!)

HUGE NEWS FOR JUSTIN

I have updated my SMA blog with a couple of things that I have been meaning to put up lately. Mostly I included different play time ideas. I know that I have at least 3 people who read my SMA blog, but I hope that one day it might be helpful to other parents of children with physical handicaps.

Second item of buisness .........

JUSTIN BOUGHT A DENTAL PRACTICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! More information to come on that when I am able to get pictures! But for now .....

CONGRATULATIONS JUSTIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes I am writing this post at 3:30 in the morning!!!

Landon was awake and screaming at 2:15 and managed to get back to sleep at 2:45. I can't fall asleep until about 3:10. He is up and crying again at 3:18 and is still going at it. Like before he will fall asleep for a minute and wake himself up again.

This is the second night in a row he has woken up.
Of course Justin is sawing logs through this.
I can only find one ear plug, therefore can't sleep through it.
I thought we were through this.

I am left awake, wanting desperately to be asleep, trying to figure out what to do on the computer.

A man named Dragan

Today felt great!! Despite my "female" pain I felt so good about today. I don't know if it is the warm weather today, my two hour nap, or my meeting a nice German man named Dragan ... but it was great.

I just want to give y'all an update. There are a lot of Evan stories because he is just saying the funniest things. In case you're not wanting to read a novel I have put my favorite story in bold print . :-)

We went to the vacuum store today and the owner is a large German man named Dragan (awesome name!!!) whose dog goes to work with him and he loved my boys (who wouldn't love that). Dragan kept loading up Evan with candy and even carried the new vacuum head out to the van for me.

EVAN:

Evans new chair is awesome!!!!!! He loves it, we love it! The dimensions are a bit different than his previous chair so he was running into a lot of stuff in the beginning, but I think he has figured it out now. My favorite thing so far is .... he loves to drive right up to me, raise his seat and give me a hug :-) His other favorite thing to do in his chair is bring me stuff off of the counter.

Evan's responses are so funny right now and I literally find myself doubled over in laughter all the time!!

We went to Home Depot the other day and Evan brought a $5 something he wanted to buy up to me. I asked him how much it was and he said: "60 bucks". Now if I ever ask him how much anything is he responds in "(outrageous number) bucks".

The other thing he says all the time is "sure". He doesn't say yes ... he says sure.

Justin got Evan a pirate ship and Evan played with it NON STOP for the first 48 hours. It has become his favorite toy! I love watching him play with it because he is now starting to make believe. He takes the different pirates and makes them interact with each other. He also makes them fall over board and then saves them with the "hook" (anchor).

we were playing outside today and Evan saw my gardening shoes. I asked him if he liked them. Evan thought about it a moment and says "um ... nope! They are yucky" me: "what if I washed them?" Evan: "no, your feet is yucky!"

We took off Evan's clothes to clean all the dirt off of him. We then sat him on the counter and he picked up the phone and says "hello ... I'm Evan. I'm naked!"

When presenting Evan with the choice between staying home and going to bed or going to the hockey game with Daddy and Grandpa Mark. Evan looks at me and says ... "Are you serious? Um ... I stay home with Grandpa." I guess he loves Grandpa, but he did go to the game and was super excited when they walked out the door.

I was putting Evan's hockey gear on today and he gives me a HUGE tight hug and says "You my best friend" and gives me a huge kiss! Talk about best day ever!!!!!!

LANDON:

Landon doesn't want to be put down right now ... ever. It is actually quite hysterical!

I don't know if I have mentioned this already or not, but Landon still smells like a baby!!! When he cuddles into me his baby smell oozes into me and I don't want to move. I LOVE THAT SMELL!!!

Landon has his tongue out all the time and I think it is adorable!

As I mentioned before we were enjoying the warm weather and I have now realized that Landon might be the only person in our family that burns. His poor little cheek and head are lightly sun kissed. Poor guy!

Well that is the update! I wish a happy spring to all my wonderful readers!!!!

what time change???

Justin handles the clocks in our home. I don't know what it is, but since I can remember I have never trusted myself around alarms and clocks. I am convinced that I am going to mess things up.

I knew about the time change a couple of days ago, but completely spaced it and didn't change my clocks last night. So this morning Landon and I (Justin and Evan are on a "boys weekend") were having a wonderful lazy morning and we drove to church a couple minutes before it starts (11:00am). Imagine my surprise when I walk in the front of the chapel and see that the clock on the wall says 12:00 noon. I made it for the closing hymn!!! How embarrassing is that?? Good thing I still had Sunday School and Relief Society or I wouldn't have had any spiritual uplift :-)

Someone today gave me a GREAT quote about my tights ......

"Those tights say 'hey I'm quirky ... look at my legs"

This actually makes me really happy because that is exactly why I love these tights! I am quirky and I love my legs!!!! I LOVED getting the feed back that I was going for!!

Confidence

Tonight some of my girl friends were talking about how confident I am. I have always had a lot of confidence about myself and my life. I attribute most of that to my parents, but I have to say that these ladies helped me more than they will know. Every single one of these beautiful women (and the two that aren't in the picture) oozes with confidence and pride in who they are. Growing up with these women of strength only strengthened my own confidence and I thank them for it. You are some of the best women I know. I think about you all the time and love you every day.
I find it so sad that there are so many women that don't know just how amazing they are! I urge everyone to start saying thank you to compliments and spend some time to really reflect on the things that make you wonderful.

Our Big Big Day!!

What a great day yesterday was!!!

Evan and I took off to the Children's Hospital. First we met up with respiratory to finally pick up his cough assist machine. We had been telling Evan how exciting it was going to be and he was so excited to use his "coughing machine". Now I was pretty sure he would change his mind once he actually used the machine that forced air into his lungs and sucked it out again ... boy was I wrong!! He thought it was hysterical!!!!! He kept wanting to do it all day yesterday and keeps asking to do it today! The hospital also gave us an adult mask so Justin and I could try it and Evan can see that it isn't too bad. This morning Evan wanted me to try it. Let me tell you ... what a weird feeling that is!! If I keep around an adult mask I could really improve my lung capacity. It may even help my running and oboe playing :-)

From respiratory we went downstairs to the seating clinic and got our new chair!!! When we were filling out the application I fought hard for an elevating seat. After quite a bit of research they found a chair that was covered with an elevating seat! Evan was so excited about the elevating seat and kept zipping up and down the hallway superfast!! While watching him with this huge smile on his face I was the typical mom standing there crying tears of joy! The thing that makes me laugh is that of everything my silly boy was most excited about the horn :-)

This morning he spent his time going around and around the kitchen grabbing things off the counter and bringing them to me. He is so happy about his new mobility and it makes my heart smile to see him so excited!! He is still enthralled with his horn. When it was time to come upstairs he parked his chair, turned it off and said: "One minute Mama" he then turned the chair on again, honked the horn, turned off the chair and said "Ok, now we go."

As we are getting ready to leave the hospital with all of our new stuff!

Evan checking out his elevation at home

Lots of family came over last night to eat and check out Evan's new equipment. This is Auntie Kelley checking out Landon's walking skills. Check out Landon's cankles!!

Had to put this picture in because it makes me smile :-) My Dad would do this with all of us kids and it displays just how strong my handsome husband is. He is holding up a 22 lb. moose with one arm ... impressive!

I don't know how to get the videos off of my camera, but when Justin comes home from work I will download a video of Evan using his new chair :-)

My opinion is ....

There was a discussion that I had to leave the other day.

If I could get pregnant I could never abort a child regardless of any problems that I knew the baby would face. I completely understand if someone doesn't want to live a life with a handicap ... it is hard ... I know. My opinion is that if you choose to make a baby you no longer have the right to decide if the baby lives or not. If you decide that the life will be too difficult for you place the baby with a family that will welcome that child for the special person they are. I know that I take it very personally because I have a baby that many would have aborted. I can't imagine my life without my sweet Evan!! I think everyone is entitled to an opinion and this is my opinion.

Justin's sister is in town right now and her birthday was this week. We took her and Hans to the hockey game to celebrate her birthday. It was sooo cool because it was the first game since the Olympic games. Now I have to say that I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Olympics!!! Three of the Flames players won medals. They brought out all of the medal winners in a special ceremony. Me and all of Calgary love Jerome Iginla and he had the assist to the winning goal on the Canada team (Gold Winners :-) So cool to hear the 2010 theme song, and watch the players and medals on the ice.
Canada Gold!!!

I told Justin that I was going to stop retaking pictures if he was going to purposely look stupid when we take them ... this one is the start of my threat.

Harvey the Hound

The next day we went to the Calgary Zoo with everyone visiting. Evan loves the zoo and we love going with him because he can move around independently. It was our first time visiting the re-vamped dinosaur park. The dinos actually move and roar! The first one that Evan was looking at started to roar and move and he did a bee-line in his chair and started crying. It was so sad and soo cute at the same time. I explained to him that they were robots and not real. Now he keeps talking about the dinosaur robots.
imagine these life size dinos roaring and moving!!! No wonder Evan was scared at first!

my sweet nephew who is visiting. I sure wish he liked me!

had to include this picture because if I could make my house like this indoor rain forest I would!!! Also ... I really like my coat! The weather is starting to warm up and I feel cute again. All of my cute coats are for fall/spring weather.

Evan:
The other day I was in the other room grabbing clothes for my boys and I hear Evan yelling at Landon: "Landon stop that. Landon stop that!! Landon I am getting very mad!"
about 5 minutes later he says: "Landon you have played with it 4 times now. You are going on time out!!"

Today we opted to take the boys home after sacrament meeting at church. The last two days he has shown the first signs of getting sick again (high fever, difficulty breathing). Since he has a really lengthy doctors appointment tomorrow we opted to give him his normal nap rather than push him. Maybe we can kick this illness in the bud before it gets bad again (we do this by giving him lots of sleep, lots of water, and lots of bee pollen). Anyway ... when we were leaving the church Evan was crying so loudly "I want to go to nursery!!" At least he has his priorities straight :-)

Because he hasn't been feeling 100% I asked him tonight how he was feeling. He looks up at me with a smile and he says: "I feel really better"

these two pics display the only problem of having too much time with Mama. Evan always wants to wear my makeup, and jewelry. It makes sense ... he sees me put it on everyday (ok, almost every day :-)

I love play time!!!

Landon:

Landon now has 6 teeth!!

My baby is starting to look less like a baby and more like a little boy.

When I said before that Landon is a dream baby I really meant it! Landon is such a GOOD BABY! He is just turning into the cutest this you have ever seen! Everyone stops me and tells me how cute he is and he always returns the favor with BIG smiles, hugs and lots of cooing.

Now having said that he is a really happy baby I just can't help laugh at him when he is mad. When Landon is angry he screams a loud high pitch scream! When I put him down on the ground for any reason when he is angry he lies there face up or face down, doesn't move at all and kicks his legs like mad. My written description isn't doing justice so I will try and video it sometime.

Growing up!!!!

The weather is really starting to be very nice again. Today it was 58' and I thought I had died and gone to heaven!! I went to church without a coat on! Thank heavens I live somewhere where there is at least the hope of spring/summer ... it could be a lot worse!