Being the middle child...

Poor sweet Talm. He has done just great with Kaitlyn. Loves to see and kiss and pat her. He's been calling her "Kaitlyn boy" lately and always uses a high pitched squeal of a voice when he talks to her, silly boy. But the poor kid does get a little less attention now and I paid for it today.
While I was feeding Kaitlyn, I found he had gotten into the freezer, taken out the ice cream and was eating it out of the carton, on the kitchen floor....with his hands. Later, he wanted a drink, and well Momma was nursing again, so he got to work himself. After getting a cup out of the dishwasher he got the pitcher of juice out of the fridge and poured himself a cup. He finished off that cup and after saying "delicious", his new thing, he went back for more, this time emptying the whole pitcher on the floor. Yeah, that'll be fun to mop up... He's so sweet though, such a great little guy.
Another funny food moment from today. The kids got a pack of gummy worms (bad mommy, I know) for being good at the store. One of them said, "look Mom, grubs!". They had a great time being Timon and Pumba with their grubs.

Provo Tri - Mckayla's first triathlon!

Ok, for all of you that have been waiting, here it is! Stay tuned as well for the video to come in the next day or two. I'll mention my race first.

Swim was good, I probably ought to push harder. In a sport where most people aren't great swimmers, I take my swimming background for granted. The water was really good, until we swam back into the boat harbor where it tasted like boat fuel for a few minutes. Yuck! I seriously felt like I was being poisened.

Bike was good actually. Normally I don't look forward to it and don't go as fast as I'd like, but this one was better. My legs hurt more because I was pushing harder, but I needed a faster bike split to do better overall. As a runner, I can still pull off a good run with tired legs, so I need to not worry about saving my legs on the bike.

The run. Well it hurt. My legs just weren't as fresh as usual. At first I thought it was that I just don't have all my endurance back yet, which may be, but it might have also had to do with the fact that I pushed harder than normal on the bike.

I really had a good time though, felt strong and am excited for more to come. I am racing Spudman in Idaho next month and really want to do well, so the next month will be a tough training month for me. Anyway, I placed 3rd overall and 1st in my age group which was reasuring since I had to age up this year. Oh and Jer and the kids were such great cheerleaders! I adored hearing the "go Mom go! go Mom go!" and seeing their smiles as I rode/ran by, it was awesoome! Seriously, this was the best race support I've had. Thanks guys! I couldn't do it without you.



Now onto the fun part, Mckayla! We kind of had to rush her getting dressed and set up which worried me. Oh yeah and not only was it really hot by then (10:30am) which is hard on kids, but she was covered in mosquito bites. They were so brutal. But she did fine. We headed down the boat ramp and lined up behind everyone. I didn't want to get her runover by the older kids and figured she'd go in slow and I might have to drag her in because the water was cold.

Well, the gun went off and so did she! Seriously, she booked it, running over some kids along the way. I had to run to catch up to her. She LOVED the swim! She had such a great time and swam the whole time whereas I worried she'd just want to play.

In this pic below during transition she said "hurry Mom! There's no time to waste!" She was also thrilled her numbers on her arms were still on.

The bike she did great, although she almost fell over going down a hill. Disaster avoided thatnks to Daddy. She was so cute. When she'd need water she'd say "water break!" and Jer would squirt water in her mouth while she kept riding. Silly girl. Sorry, I guess I didn't take any bike pictures, there is footage in the video to come though.
She loved the run and would zoom ahead of me and thought that was pretty cool.

Talmage loved cheering for his sister and tried to run along most of the race, even if part of it was on Daddy's shoulders! :-) And she's not as miserable as she looks in this picture, it's just hot outside.

She was so exited to get her medal. She put it right on and has been wearing it most of the weekend.

She's hillareous. Right after she finished and later when she got her medal she said "I'm a winner. I didn't even run out of energy!" My irongirl


Oh and Kaitlyn did great too! She slept all night, and ate right before I had to go back to the transition area from our campsite to get my wetsuit on and get in. Then she slept all the way until Mckayla's race was over. Jer really lucked out. I hope her good behavior on race day continues or I can easily see a Daddy meltdown if he has to hold a crying baby and chase 2 other kids while mom races. Seriously, he has an event of his own on race days. Everything went really well though.

It was all so much fun. She had her own little timing chip on her ankle, her own race number, she got body marked, everything, just like Mom. She just loved it and that makes me so happy. She was so excited to show the kids in Primary the numbers on her arms and tell them what it was from. She even was used as an example of keeping our bodies healthy in sharing time.

Exciting weekend coming up!

Can you guess what we're doing this weekend? Here's 3 clues









Mckayla's first triathlon!!! I am SOOO excited and I think she is too. We've been "practicing" all week and she's been telling her friends how "I'm gonna do what my mama does". When we say "the race" she corrects us with "races Mom and Dad, there's 3!". I'm doing my first tri of the season, the Provo Triathlon at Utah Lake, and she's doing the kids race which is a 100 foot swim (with floaties and me along side her), a 1 mile bike and 1/2 mile run around the park. I'm so excited to see what she thinks. I don't care a bit how she does, I just hope she wakes up happy that day and has a great time. Cross your fingers, she's a willful spirit! We'll give a report after the race Saturday.

You've got to click on this picture if you can, it's so hillareous!

Fun Times

Nothing big to report today, just wanted to write about our family time in the backyard lately as I think summer might actually be here now!

I don't know if everyone else can click on these pictures to see them full screen (let me know), but if you can, this show's Kaitlyn's eyes really well

She's starting to get big!

My cheeseball amd her "corn cob" loving brother. Seriously he could eat it at every meal!



Jer in his Father's Day present, a hammock. He created Kaitlyn her own little hammock too. The hammock is so big he lays in there with all 3 kids and could probably fit me too. It's so comfy!


Not in the backyard but still cute. Talmage loves to "kiss kiss da baby". She's sure loved around here!

Kaitlyn's Blessing Day

We blessed sweet Kaitlyn Elisabeth this past Sunday. It was a really great day. We had all our family there save Aunt Stephy and Uncle Ryan who live in Michigan.

Sidenote on them: It's been sad to have them away with the birth of a sweet new spirit. My sister's always been so close to me. It's been special to have her there for pregnancies, childbirth, and the sweet infant period that follows for Mckayla and Talmage. I feel bad she can't hold our sweet little girl this time and just absorb all the wonderful that is a newborn baby. We miss you Stephy and can't wait to see you again soon and to see you have your own little baby!

Getting back to Sunday, Jer gave a lovely blessing. I feel so blessed and grateful to be a member of this church, to have the Priesthood restored to the earth, and to have it in my home. What a blessing it is to have been married in the Temple and to have our children born in the covenant with all the blessings that that offers them.

I have to thank my little brother Tyler for going down to Springville to pick up my Grandparents and bringing them home. He was also a huge help with the kids, Kaitlyn especially, the week leading up to the blessing as I madly tried to finish Kaityln's dress. A big THANK YOU too to my mom for all the help and guidance she gave me while taking this big endevour. It was so much work and so very time consuming, and Jer had a hard time with me gone all week working on it and I know wondered why I did this, why I didn't just go out and buy it. Mckayla wore the dress I was blessed in, and I wanted Kaitlyn to have something really special too. I like to sew, am in no way a seamstress, but am capable with someone wiser than I to guide me. I am so happy with how it turned out. It was emotional to see it done and to see my little one in it, in something I made her. It's still hanging on our wall in the house, just so I can see it :-)

Father & Sons

Last night dad took Talmage to his very first father & sons outing. We took of for camp at about 11:30 pm. After picking up a few things we were or our way. Talmage slept all the way until we got to Grantsville.  On the way up we stopped in Grantsville and got something to eat.  Talmage loved eating the french fries.  It is so fun to see how he has grown up and enjoys such big kid things. We Camped out near Grantsville in South Willow Canyon. It was a fun, leisure drive up.  

We arrived about 2:45 and drove around the canyon until we fount a nice site that was open.

Once we got into the site we walked around and explored it for a bit to find the right sites to reserve.  Talmage loved to "go up a hill" and "down a hill". He would come down the hill and try to get daddy with his gridiron "I gonna get ya" look. 

Talmage loves to play Peter Pan - Captain Hook (he is usually Hook and dad is Pan), well within the first little bit of being in camp he found some sticks and had to play Hook and Pan with dad.  He loves to sword fight, wrestle, growl, tackle, play, and mess around.  What a true boy.  That is why we love him.

It was so much to have just Talmage and daddy time together.  We have not really ever had a chance to take time to hang out with just the two of us.  It was a blast.  I love my little boy and am excited to raise him and watch him constantly grow up into a man.  He is learning so much every single day.  He is a gem.  We were off in the trees without any TV, movies, trains, cars, or other distractions it was just dad and Talmage and nature (and a bunch of other boys, but no one else got there until about 5, so other than Stefvn - the neighbor boy - it was just Talm and dad).  We got to go on a little hike and took a 30 min nap together on top of our tent (because dad forgot to bring the tent poles - thank goodness for Byron for bringing them up to us later)  That was one of the most treasured experiences of the trip to just lay there with my boy in my arm and his arm around me and laying there under the trees.  Good thing though that our poles made it up there or we would have been awfully wet since it rained quite a bit that night.  Here you can see Talm taking a nap of his own on our pole-less tent.  He is not sleeping here, but he did his fair share of sleep.  
He did a great job helping dad try to build a fire - he would keep feeding me matches, which we needed unfortunately.  He also would help me blow on it to try to get it going.  It is so much fun to watch him do exactly what his daddy does.  It also puts a lot of pressure on me to be a good example in everything that I do and say.

After trying to help me build a fire we sat back and let someone else do it, but he was worn out and rested himself in my lap and ultimately fell asleep (at 6:45 pm). As soon as I got the tent I laid him down with the fear that he would wake up in the middle of the night.  He only woke up once because his hat was over his eyes.  Otherwise he slept until I woke him up at about 7:30 am this morning.  He truly got his good amount of sleep, but I feel bad since he missed the roasting marshmallows, but I think that his hot cocoa this morning plenty made up for it.  We had a great time together.  Between our little hikes, the fire, the river, sleeping together in a tent and just being together it was a blast!!

The site happened to be near the river and of course Talmage loved that. As you can see he loved to throw rocks in the river. "Ready, 123 go" and he would throw them in. He is so adorable!! Then after throwing them in he would throw his arms in the air and look at me and yell did it!"

"look dad a castle"

They grow so fast

I was reflecting the other day about how I couldn't believe Kaitlyn was already 5 weeks old. Seems like we just brought her home. While she's not crawling or talking obviously, the little changes are neat to see. Her neck strength is good, and she's trying to test her leg strength out by standing for 5-10 seconds at a time or pushing away from my when I hold her on my lap. She makes noises now other than crying, little 'talking' noises, and she's started to smile. She also discovered her mobile just yesterday and is fascinated with that (as are the other kids with her other toys she's yet to discover). Anyway, I'm glad to know this isn't our last because this newborn stage has just been so much fun. I owe a big thank you for that to Miss Mckayla though, she's been such a big helper for me with getting things, or entertaining her siblings. She plays well with Talmage and I'll often finding her dropping whatever she's doing to go talk to the baby or rock her in her carseat as we're trying to get ready to go out. My sweet kids.

My little lady

Look at this little girl. Talking on the phone to Aunt Stephy, cross legged, chewing gum, and yes, wearing Mom's heart rate monitor.


She's so funny. She was talking away when I came around to buckle her in. She calmly said "Stephy, hold on just a sec, I have to talk to my mom". Then while covering the mouth piece to the phone proceeds to quickly scream "I have to go potty RIGHT now!" So I unbuckle her and she jumps out of the van. While running into the house she again calmly says "ok Stephy, I'm back" and carries on with her conversation. Silly girl.

This sweet picture was taken at a wedding reception we went to last week - I proved Jer wrong taking such a good picture with my camera phone :-). Anyway I love Talm's face and Mckayla's motherly look while trying to calm the baby. I've learned picture taking with 3 kids is tricky getting everyone to smile and be happy. We're working on it though.

Today we had to take Daddy to the airport for a buisness trip. As we were driving away from the airport Mckayla said "my heart is broken". Poor dramatic little thing. They're doing well now, we'll see how Mom's sanity is by the end of the week.

First Race of the Season

Well, kind of. The first race of the season was a 5k I did in Provo 35 weeks pregnant, but this was the first race post baby. Anyway...
We helped out as soon as we got there until right before the start which was nice because it kept my mind off the race and the bone chilling wind coming down the canyon - sun wasn't over the mountains either till we started. Anyway, fairly short 200 ft climb over 1/4 mile in the first 1/2 mile, then almost a mile with rolling hills (nothing too major) with a major head wind, had to keep my head down for my visor's sake the whole time. Then we started up the "Gruesome Grizzly" climb. They don't call it "gruesome" for nothing. We climbed 600 feet in about 1/2 mile. Yikes! I know that's hard to understand in numbers, but it was nuts. No running there, which normally would make me very upset, but it was just crazy steep. I was worried my legs would just be shot, jello, for the rest of the race, but it wasn't as bad as I thought. The next 2 miles were fairly flat then the last 1.5 miles was just screaming downhill. And of course there was a blasting cross wind during the downhill that worried me that I'd either get blown off the trail which was sometimes by cliffs, or stumble over rocks and roll an ankle or fall because of the wind. I walked with this girl part way up the first climb, then she took off shortly after the top, but was always in sight. I knew it'd be tough to catch her and was trying to go fast down the hills, but they were so steep and had switchbacks that it was hard. But then in the last 1/4 mile I caught her and passed her and was able to hang on. That was satisfying. I wanted to finish under an hour, and finished the 5 mile party just under 55:00. Slower than I'd like if I was in tip top shape, but not too bad. I really felt great, not like I just had a baby 5 weeks ago. Crazy, I know. Anyway, it was brutal at times, but just gorgeous running throughout. I'd love to do a trail race again and would definately like to just trail run more. Anyway, here are some pics from the race Saturday!

This is the first climb. I'm in the white top and visor and blue shorts

On my way to the finish about 1/2 mile away. I felt sooo good the last 1/2 mile, really strong. I'll post some cool course shots when they're up