I am NOT blog savvy ...

Does anybody know where to go to get blog template help???? I am trying to change my blog look.... much needed. I grabbed a free one, but it's not working with how my blog was set up and I am clueless on how to line it up. Any advice??? Thanks guys!

Merry Christmas 2009

Wishing you all a VERY Merry Christmas! Peace and joy to all...

Treyson-isms

I can't believe it's been TWO months since I've posted something. I am such a slacker. I have lots to post, but not so much time. I had to post this since I did not want to forget some of the funny things kids say. These ones are from Trey..... enjoy.

One morning the boys came into Matt and I's room and woke us up. We snuggled for a bit and jumped up out of the bed to make the bed. Matt asked Treyson to help with the pillows and asked him to hand him his. Treyson said, "Oh, I know which one is yours! The one with all the boogers on it!" (Just for Matt's defense, there isn't any boogers on his pillow, Treyson just thought he was being funny.)

I guess we've been watching too much SpongeBob lately because the other morning at breakfast Cru was not eating as fast as he should and Treyson said, "Cru! Eat, you crabby paddy!"

Last week I made broccoli cheese soup with garlic bread. Trey took a little bite when he got to the table and says, "YUM mom, this is good!" He is going on and on raving about this soup. Even tries to convince Cru to eat it because he took one look and refused. He continues to say, "Mom, you REALLY have to make this more often." Okay, he likes it. And then it comes... "But mom, there's just one problem, I HATE broccoli." And he doesn't touch it for the rest of the meal. Funny kid.

He is TALKING!!!

Travis celebrated his 19th birthday this last week! He was able to come home for a couple hours during the weekend to celebrate with family and friends. About two weeks ago he spoke his first word and now he is carrying on a conversation!!! We are all so excited for his progress. He is now wanting to try to stand, which is an improvement. The picture above is him at home trying to stand (with help). I think he was a little too excited about that because that night when he went back to his rehab center he fell out of his bed, which is probably from trying to stand up. Who knows! My parents are trying to get him reevaluated to see if he can try to swallow on his own so he can eat by himself and maybe start some physical therapy. We are so happy for his improvement and hope he heals quickly! Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers.

Treyson is SIX

Treyson requested a "Bakugan" party and for those of you who don't know what it is, all I can tell you is that it's a bunch of balls that get 'activated' when touched by metal to create creatures. It's also a cartoon and a game, but I get lost on how to play!

Here are some of his friends waiting for the others to arrive by coloring their favorite Bakugan picture.
Eating their Bakugan lunch-- hot dogs, watermelon "balls", and cheeto "balls".
Blowing out his candles... (cake from Costco that got "decorated" Bakugan style with Dan (main character)... who knew the rainbow would be so popular, everyone wanted a piece with rainbow in it!
Could NOT wait for present opening!
Matt and Grandpa took the boys bowling too. They all had a blast. The bowling alley had some new features that let you choose if you wanted bumpers or not and when it was the boys' turns, the bumpers just popped up. Pretty cool.

Later that night we headed over to Red Robin for his birthday dinner, requested by him. He was not thrilled to be sung to by all those servers, but he graciously said thank you, under his breath.

All and all it was a FUN day for Treyson, who was sick the day before and magically appeared better on his birthday! It was short lived though, he went back to a fever that night!!! It's tough being six, I mean sick.

A little bit about Treyson...

Loves

His little sister to death!

Lots of fruit

Caesar salad

Bacon

Bakugan

Wolverine

Spiderman

Playing with friends

Swimming

Hates

Tomatoes/onions/celery/cream of wheat... anything strange looking or smells weird

Sharing with his younger brother

Taking baths

Being late to kindergarden

Button shirts and any pair of pants (He would LIVE in shorts all year long if he could)

Having the attention on him!

Any form of medicine... you can not even bribe the kid, doesn't work.

Enjoys

Riding bikes (when we make him!)

Alone time with grandma and grandpa... and mom and dad too ;)

Getting new toys, even if out of a quarter machine

Kindergarden

Lego time during his 'quiet time'

Excels

In kindergarden... he will be reading by the end of the year, I just know it!

In sports, he played in his first soccer season this spring and he did great.

Math. He is always quizzing us on "What's ___ + ____?"

Master of persuasion (He can get Cru to do ANYTHING by making it sound awesome and amazing, even if it's collecting trash.)

Latest on Travis

Here are the latest pictures of Travis... this is the special blanket I made for him!!
Looking good Trav!

For those of you who are not on Facebook, I apologize for not keeping you in the loop with the updates on Travis. Whenever I get updates from my parents I usually post them on there and forget about my blog. Sorry!

Travis is now out of the hospital and is now residing in a rehab center in Burien, WA. He was put in a different rehab center a few weeks past, which turned out to be almost a horrible mistake. One night while his girlfriend was there he started throwing up all his "food" and medicine. His vitals were all over the place and he had to be rushed back to the emergency room at Harbor View again. Needless to say, we did not send him back to that place! Lack of attention to say the least.

So now he is settling into his new center. He is doing okay as far as healing is to be concerned. He is opening his eyes every day, but has yet to communicate or eat on his own. He will respond to commands by giving thumbs up, high fives, blinking once for yes, two for no, etc. He has even slapped a few hands away!! We think this is good progress, slow, but good. We are anxious for him to start talking again and come home. Thanks for all your thoughts, prayers, and fasting.

Visit Home

I was able to come home (via Buddy Pass... which is a WHOLE different story) with my older sister to visit family and of course, Travis. We flew in on Friday evening (almost a whole month ago...) after a whole day of waiting in the Salt Lake airport for a flight. My dad had a whole plan worked out to surprise my mom, but the plans fell through a little bit so we had to force her to stop off for ice cream at Red Robin to give us some time to catch up. We were able to catch her off guard and completely surprise her with our visit! She was filled with such joy that she balled! The visit was FULL of GIRL time, shopping, pedicures, eating out, more shopping and NO sleep. We couldn't sleep, there was no time to waste! My sister and I were so thankful for the quick trip and the time we were able to spend with the family and visit Travis numerous times. A big thanks to Matt and my friends who help make this trip possible by watching my well behaved children (snicker.).

Travis Updated

Here's the most recent picture of Travis. He is still unconscious, but having little improvements that give me lots of hope. He is now out of ICU and in Acute Care. The nurses say his road rash is healing very well. He is still moving around a bit. He now opens his eyes for brief times, yawns, coughs, and lots of rapid eye movement. Wish I could say he was awake now, but hopefully soon! Thanks for all your prayers. I will update when I have more!

Travis update

The latest update on Travis is that he is still in a coma, but he is now responding to touch and has moved both arms and legs!!! He is such a strong young man that I have complete faith that he will pull through. I was told that he they suspect a left heel fracture. His brain is not a "blooming" injury and has not spread. He will respond to talking by squeezing hands. I am very hopefully at this point, my only wish is that I could be up there with the rest of the family! Thanks for all the prayers, they are working!

Travis

This is my little brother Travis (with Macey, she's SO little). Please keep him in your prayers! He was in a bad accident tonight. Him and my sister were riding on the tailgate of a truck and the driver turned too quick and he fell off the truck. He hit his head really hard and he had to flighted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. He had surgery to remove blood around his brain and now he is in a coma. Not sure what lies next... please keep your thoughts to him. Love to all.

Washington Family Trip

Visit with Grandma Julich and all the grandkids! I love Treyson and his cousin Blake in this picture, they are precious!
A little pizza and ice cream stop after Great Wolf Lodge.
My sister Ashley and me at Meeker Days. We did a booth and sold various baby items and watches. It was fun, but a lot of work! The weather in WA is so unpredictable and we didn't know what to except.
A little close up look at the booth.
Here it is! Somebody needs to put that laundry basket away... We did pretty good at putting it together in just a couple days. We were constantly asked if we had cupcakes for sale or if we sold aprons, they were a hit!
Macey is showing off some leg warmers and flower clips! Not too happy to take a picture though...
Macey and mom at Great Wolf Lodge.
Dad and Cru posing for the camera. Too bad it's so blurry... I guess I should have checked that!
Visit with Grandma Slaughter, always a fun visit to see all the fun things at her place.
Penguins were a hit! We had just finished watching Happy Feet so they were excited to see them.
The boys and Mr. Elephant
Our visit to Woodland Park Zoo sounded like a great idea in the morning when it was nice and sunny and then it turned to rain on our way there. We went anyways and it actually stopped just after we got there. So nice of them to stop the rain for us.
We couldn't leave without a baseball game! I was lucky to find a great deal on 4 tickets off of Craigslist and we were able to go. We took my dad for his Father's Day outing. We had pretty good seats and it was even a nice day for the game.
Cru, Treyson, Camden, Riley, Noah, and Macey. These are one of good friend's kids from WA. We went and visited them one night and enjoyed some outside fun and pizza. Macey got way too much pizza sauce on her so she enjoyed one of the boy's shirts.
Macey giving Camden a big smooch! MMMMwah! So cute.
Me and Nicole with the little kiddies. So nice to see you guys.

Matt's first TRI

Matt competed in his first sprint triathalon on June 14, 2009. He tried really hard to squeeze in his workouts without being gone too much from us, such a sweet dad. But for being his first race he did excellent! He finished 7th in his age group!!! We were so proud of him. He raced with his sister, Jamie and her husband John. Jamie finished 3rd in her age group and was the winner of the three of them. Nice work guys!

Here's Matt on his finish!

John, Jamie, and Matt after the race.

The family congratulating dad

on his awesome job!

Camp Out with Dad

The boys were in for a nice surprise when Matt offered to camp out in the backyard with them! It was so fun for them. We didn't get any pictures of Father and Son's camp out for church (dad forgot the camera... or didn't think about it, either one) so we needed to recreate it. Or something like that. They talked dad into a late night movie too so they didn't fall asleep until after 11PM. I wished I caught Cru still snoozing away still at 9:30AM! Matt put away most everything in the tent and he didn't move a muscle. It was a fun time for the boys!

Cru Happenings

Cru has become a BIG boy overnight! He decided to wear underwear, talk A LOT faster and more, a few boy tumbles and falls, and he's driving (okay, maybe not)!

Potty training was akward for the first couple days, but he figured it out pretty quick. He's been doing awesome during the day, but night time still requires some pull-ups. He fights us tooth and nail, but we tell him when he wakes up with a dry pull-up he can wear just underwear. On May 1st, while getting ready for cousin Kole's first birthday, Cru was playing on our exercise ball and rolled himself right into the corner of the fireplace. Ahhhhh! Matt ran and caught him before blood got all over everywhere. Matt called in a favor to an oral surgeon friend and got him into his office on a Friday afternoon to get him all stitched up... 6 stitches later! And just a week before that he fell on the granite countertops and cut his chin open, but we opted not to get stitches for that. He probably should have, but it healed okay.

Cru is definitely growing up fast and tells most people that he's THREE already, holding up five fingers. Just today Matt told him that he's so cute and he told him, "I'm not cute, dad!" Okay, but you are such an awesome boy to have around!

Macey is WALKING

Macey just decided one night (14 months old) that she was ready to take off all by herself... with the phone, of course. I guess she needed something to "hold onto" and the phone was perfect for her. I hope it's not because she sees mom on it too much! Way to go, Macey!

First Word

Well, it's official, Macey's first word is SHOES ("shoooosh," as she says it)!!!!  It couldn't be more appropriate since she IS a girl and she has tons of them already.  It was meant to be.  Or it could be because she hears me yelling on a daily basis... "Get your shoes on!" or "Go find your shoes." or even "Go put your shoes on if you are going outside."  Yeah, it's probably because of that.  But I think it's a pretty fun first word.

JAM, jam, everywhere!

I went to WalMart after my Monday workout and stumbled on a great SALE of strawberries!  They were only 75 cents for a 1 pound package!!!  So off I went to make freezer JAM...  I did four batched of it.  For those of you who haven't made it, it is soooo easy.  All I did was fill up my blender with strawberries, blend, add the pectin and sugar and it is all done in less than 10 minutes.  Our family loves freezer jam and I've been trying to find different ways so I can eat it. I even tried blackberry/strawberry combo as well, so yummy.

Kid-isms

I really want to get better at writing down all the funny and clever things the kids say because, let's face it, kids say the darndest things!  They just so happend to say TWO funnies today and I jumped to write them down so I would not forget this time (Because I most likely always do!). Enjoy...

Treyson was sick today so I was snuggling with him on the couch while Grandpa was watching golf and I had briefly mentioned "Co-Leader" (there were two guys tied for first place at the time) and Treyson says, "Is his name really 'Co'?"

While talking to Cru today I decided that it was time for him to learn to spell out his name... it's really simple so I figured he could handle it.  I started to tell him C-R-U.  He says, "C-R-Me!"  I got a great laugh out of that!

The other morning the boys were joining Matt in the bathroom while he got ready for work. He had just hopped out of the shower and they thought it was pretty funny to give dad some good swats on the behind.  Matt responded by saying, "Be careful you might hurt your hand...it's rock solid."  And Treyson said, "Then why is it jigglin'????" 

Macey's ONE year photo shoot

I found this awesome photographer here in St. George (www.tamiartphotography.blogspot)that I think does a great job!  It's sometimes hard to find photographers that are a reasonable price and it just so happen that right now was her "Spring Special" --5 pictures for $25 (color & b/w)!!  I think they turned out wonderfully.  She is too cute!!