New Babysitter

The boys had their last day at their babysitter today. She has been a really good babysitter, lives only a couple minutes from our house, lived in our ward, and has reasonable rates. She has been watching the boys since August last year. I feel bad for my kids. Austin has had 5 different babysitters since he was born. He rarely complains in fact he thrives on the change and is excited for the new babysitter they get to go to starting the Tuesday after Memorial Day. I brought the kids to her once last month and they seemed to enjoy it. She provides activities for the older kids and a pre-school for the younger kids. She runs a daycare out of her home like mom use to and has done it for more than 20 years. Her mom, husband, and older daughter help out during the summer which allows the older kids to go places and keep them busy. They also go to the summer movie program the the schools promote. She said that she would help us with potty training for Tate. It will be nice having a sitter in town because we have Austin signed up for t-ball and swimming lessons. It was be easier and faster to pick him up when he is just a few short minutes drive from work. Now for the really good news...my sister in law wants to start watching kids again in the Fall. It looks like Austin will be going to the same school that Spencer went to when he was a kid. At least we hope so, pending approval from the school district office.

T-ball drama

I signed Austin up for t-ball and he had his first practice last Saturday. He kept saying he was "too shy" which is so untrue. He'll talk your ear off if you let him and this includes complete strangers. But he didn't know any of the kids on his team. So, I went out with him and the other kids were rolling the ball back and forth so I played his partner and we did the same. The coach asked the kids to try throwing it and one of the kids accidently threw a ball and it hit Austin in the shoulder. So he started to cry. Coupled with it being freezing cold outside and his being embarrest he just couldn't take it anymore and we left. It was a frusterating experience for him and me. I just thought it would be fun for him to learn t-ball. But it isn't turning out that way so far. His coach is super nice and asked if there was anything she could do to help because she felt bad that he was upset. I suggested maybe doing a "get to know you game" or "play time" to help him feel like he had friends.

I'm Reading: Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare

I was inspired by my mom to post what I am reading right now. Although, I don't usually have a lot of time to read I do enjoy doing it when I can, but I am not fast. I started the first book in this series on our cruise "City of Bones" which was back in June. Then I got destracted and read "The Time Traveler's Wife" because my sister and I had seen the movie which I enjoyed a lot, so I wanted to read the book. I always seem to do that backwards. Now I am reading the 2nd book "City of Ashes" and the 4th book comes out in March. That means I really need to finish the one I am reading and also the 3rd one by March. Hmmm...my husband is giving me the day off life on Monday since it is a holiday I don't have to work so...I can read all day...right?!

I just realized that the 4th book doesn't come out until Mar. 2011, so I have plenty of time.

Family Pictures

We had our family pictures taken today. The last professional pictures I had taken of Tate was when he was a newborn. Here are a few of the ones I liked best.

Casper's new haircut

Casper got a new haircut yesterday. The boys' babysitter's husband (his name is Blake) works for a kennel. So we just dropped him off in the morning at their house and picked him up at night there. It was very convenient. Spencer wanted to try a real minature schnauzer cut on him at least once. I have mixed feelings about it. I like being able to see his eyes. His eyebrows and beard are really cute. Since his fur is so short we got a crate for him so he can stay inside during the winter months. Today was the first day and he liked it last night and this morning. I just hope he still likes it when we get home tonight. I still think I like the teddy bear look better where he is the same length all over. What do you think?

Thanksgiving and Christmas Decorating

This year we went to Spencer's Grandma's house for Thanksgiving. Usually their is alot of extended family (aunts, uncles, cousins, etc) but this time it was just Grandma and some of Spencer's family. It was nice because we didn't have to get a hotel room since Grandma's house is pretty small when everyone gets together. She invited some neighbors so it was crowded and hard to find a place to sit and eat at dinner, but that is part of the fun of it. Spencer found us a nice tree. I usually call them our ugly georgetown trees, but this year he did a good job. I tried to keep Austin at Grandma's house most of the time since he is suppose to be taking it easy after his surgery for a couple of weeks, but we did get to go down the canyon on Thanksgiving Day. Here are a couple of pictures from playing in the canyon and putting decorations up after getting home. Austin broke our camera a couple of weeks ago so I hope these pictures from Spencer's phone turn out o.k.

Austin hiding is from the sun in the shade because it hurt his eye.

Tayton loves riding the 4 wheeler and being outside.

Getting ready to decorate the tree.

Santa Dog a.k.a Casper

Austin is excited about decorating the tree!!!

I even helped a little.

Eye Surgery

Austin had eye surgery on Friday. We found out that he doesn't have the retinal disease, Fever, that my sister in law has. We are feeling very relieved. So, the doctor did the muscle correction surgery for his lazy eye. We won't know for 4-6 weeks if it worked, but the doctor thinks the surgery went well. We are thinking positively at this point. I don't think Austin really understood what he was in store for him when we told him he got to have eye surgery because he was really excited about it:

Before

After

We just finished up the pain medication last night and this morning he said that his eye felt good. When you look at his eye it is blood red, gooby, and looks like it hurts. He opened his eyes and was playing with his cousins the night he had the surgery. He is such a tough kid.