When Numbers Mean More.

Eliza found some of daddy's pens... included in that stash was a black Sharpie. So Eliza turned herself into a tiger... the ONLY part of her not covered in black stripes was the part her swim suit covered... lil stinker!

Some of the kids driving the jet ski at the PurePlay work party!

Mommy and Alayna going out for a ride!

Daddy and Eliza taking a slightly unwilling ride. Eliza was not too excited... someday she will learn that she loves it!

Mom and Alayna!

We have had a busy week. The beginnnig of the week included finishing up some things around the house, a trip to the pool and a trip to the Waite household. Tuesday was the fun day in Loveland with the Waite's. The girls had a blast running around with friends and aunts and uncles! I got to help shop and get things ready for the Loveland youth conference.

Wednesday was spent running errands, playing with Abby, and cleaning the house. Sometimes I sure feel like it is a waste of effort to clean the house but it feels fantastic when it is done! Even if that means that 10 minutes after cleaning the girls and I pull out a project or something new to play with so it defeats all efforts!

Thursday began the biggest adventures of our week. Alayna woke up early that morning with very very low blood sugars. She had a bad case of the shakes (involuntary shaking that looked a lot like violent shivering). I fed her a HUGE breakfast of 2 bowls of oatmeal, a spoonful of peanut butter and a bowl of cereal and she calmed down about 20 minutes after that. We hit the pool after that and then got a very kind phone call from Grandma Merritt. So we went to the Merritt's house and learned how to test Little Miss Alayna's blood sugars. Abby let us use one of her meters and we have started monitoring her blood sugars. We are currently still seeing some pretty big swings in numbers which isn't very encouraging. But that doesn't have to mean anything just yet! Currently we are just monitoring her numbers about 4x a day so that I will have a good record to take with us to the doctor next Wednesday. Alayna is very cute about getting tested she doesn't seem to bothered by it at all and willingly offers her tiny little fingers every time we tell her she needs to be tested. She even trys to do it all by herself! Good thing she is so incredibly patient and pain tolerant! (long story short; we are going to have her checked more to see if she is diabetic or headed in that direction due to her swings in numbers)

Friday was a very fun day spent at the lake with the PurePlay work party! We got to play on the jet ski's and just hanging out with a lot of wonderful people. We even caoxed Eliza into driving one of the jet ski's with daddy while Alayna drove with mommy... she wasn't thrilled at first but by the end she didn't hate us anymore so that is good news! Eliza had a blast playing with the other little kids that were there and Alayna was just thrilled to have practically unlimited access to candy... You would think that it would have really messed with her numbers for that day but it didn't. Thankfully. We had two very tired little girls at the end of the night though thanks to not getting a nap that day and playing all day in the sun and water!

Saturday started with a bit of a jolt from a phone alarm... But I did successfully get tons done! I went to the farmers market, Target, and went and took pictures of a baby in my ward and enjoyed some time just chatting with a friend all before noon! Ben took on the HUGE project of weeding the garden and it looks much better. There was one snake casualty and a lot of masquito casualties in addition to the forest of weeds that came down but the garden looks much better! Alayna's numbers bounced a lot that day but she seemed to handle it ok. Eliza was just thrilled to spend the day playing in and out of the house! We even made rainbow wishing rocks durring nap time! Then we had the missionaries for dinner which was lovely!

Sunday has been good. Our lessons have been excellent and we had a fantastic dinner at the Merritt's house! Asside from that there isn't much more news! I will keep everyone updated on Alayna and the chance of diabetes for her after her appointment on Wednesday.

One final piece of news: I refinished my bathroom upstairs... I painted the cupboards white and the bathroom got new rugs and shower curtain! It looks so much better! I want to try to take on the kitchen next! We'll have to see if I can build up enough ambition to do it!

Waite Family Reunion 1.0

The Waite boys all trying to get someone hurt on the teeter totter...

Daddy making funny faces at the girls!

Me! I loved the slide

Rachel

Bruce and Hailey

Grandma Waite

Grandpa Waite

Heather front Heidi Back

Mike

Lindsay

sorry it is so blurry! I need to work on my action shots!

Alan on the Alpine slide

Eric

Alayna with the horses near the slide! She loves horses!!

Eliza's favorite part of golfing: jumping the water traps!

Hailey is a new challenge on the course... don't hit the toddler!

Hailey and Bruce in the maze

Heather and Jaron

Rachel, Bruce, and Hailey

Alayna talking on the phone with Heidi in the condo!

Splashing Grandpa is the best part of playing in the pool!

She was laughing so hard! Alayna really is a little Merritt Fishy!

The past week was TONS of fun!! And in that fun we are all completely exhausted and ready for a vacation from our vacation!

Monday and Tuesday were spent getting ready for our trip to Steamboat Springs, CO for our first ever Waite family reunion with just the Mark and Coleen Waite family! And by getting ready I mean doing laundry and cleaning like a crazy person so that I wouldn't have to come home to a house that looked like a bomb went off thus demolishing all signs of life in the house.

Wednesday I loaded the van up with everything we needed and then some! Those things included our bikes and bike cart for a fun filled bike ride and four days full of fun and a few extra melt downs from two very adorable little girls of mine! The drive to Steamboat was uneventful! My mom was kind enough to drive up with me because Ben and I needed to come separately due to his work schedule. After we arrived we just got settled in and enjoyed the incredible place we were staying! The girls went swimming for a little bit with Grandpa too and loved that.

Thursday morning was a fun filled adventure including a human maze and mini golf. Eliza loved the human maze at first... and then she realized that even though she was always with an adult she was still completely lost. She then proceeded to start freaking out begging to please have us take her out! Grandma wisely told her to start crawling under the fences but that only kind of worked so we finally attached her to Poor Heidi who was trying to find her way out as well. By the time the two of them got out Eliza was near hysterics and Heidi was about ready to strangle her because Heidi really was doing her best to get them out as quickly as she could, Eliza just wasn't feeling very patient! Mini golf also started out very well. We made it through about 9 holes before Eliza had her melt down. She was really hungry and very tired from staying up WAY too late the night before so everything seemed to really be making her super upset! Alayna also managed to jump off a ledge during mini golf resulting in a nice and bloody knee. It was an eventful golf game to say the least and by the end we established that the next day we would NOT be messing with the little kid's schedules so much and feeding them more often! Thursday afternoon we napped the kids and played in the pool some more! That evening we went for our fun bike ride! It was beautiful the scenery was incredible even with the high water that soaked the girls in the cart behind me! My family took mercy on my soul and we stopped at a park and let the girls play while they retrieved a car to come pick us up rather than having me attempt to get them and myself back up the mountain to our condo. The girls were very excited to have daddy be the one to come pick them up!!

Friday was fantastic! The morning was wonderful we went to the Alpine slide that is local there. That was a blast! Everyone went except for my two girls. Eliza was near tears when we finally convinced her we really wouldn't make her do it and Alayna didn't really care as long as we let her swing at the park next door for a while! Silly girls but everyone else had a really great time going down the slide a few times! Eliza doesn't know what she missed and someday she'll want to go! That afternoon we all went to see Harry Potter 7.2!! It was fantastic! If you are into Harry Potter at all it was worth every dime to go watch it! Rachel and Bruce were kind enough to stay at the condo and watch the girls so no one would have to stay out in the hall due to fear or boredom from the movie! Eliza got lucky and got to have a nap AND build a fort to play in with Aunt Rachel! Lucky girl to have such cool aunts and uncles! After naps and the movie we went to downtown to walk around and check out the shops! Eliza and Alayna had the most fun with riding on a big plastic horse in front of one of the shops but both of them and I were all burned out from a long few days of tears! I was completely at my whits end so my Mom took the girls and put them to bed and sent Ben and I out to go catch up with all my siblings who went to the Rodeo. Ben and I opted out of the rodeo and just spent some nice quiet time walking around together! I needed that so bad and I am so lucky to have such an awesome mom & hubby who calm my nerves and keep me happy!

Saturday we packed up and got ready to go home. Ben left early due to needing to get packed, do the shopping etc for High Adventure that started bright and early on Monday. But the rest of us went to the farmers market to play before heading home. We took the Poudre canyon route home and that has to be the most beautiful drive I have ever personally driven! I had great conversation with my mom the girls rested and watched movies and we enjoyed the scenery the whole way home! After the TomTom got us lost twice we turned it off and followed the signs the rest of the way home... it was an adventure that left out car almost unrecognizable from an interesting drive down a dirt road but it was an adventure none the less!

Sunday was church. we made it through the week. I slept like a rock for two days in a row now... maybe I will actually catch up on sleep at some point and not be so beat tired!

Happy 4th of July!

Alayna was mad we were going home. So she threw herself on the ground to have a tantrum but in the process ended up with a very full mouth of dirt! She was not pleased!

Playing in the rain after getting home from the campout!

Talk about busy week! We crammed as many things into this week as possible!

Monday was the Fourth of July! What a wonderful oportunity that day is to remember the many wonderful men and women who have sacrifeced so much for us to have the rights and freedoms that we are blessed with here. I am particuarly grateful for the people I know personally who are in the service or have been in the past. There truely are not words to express how much it means to me to have had the gift of your time and efforts! Also thanks to the ancestors of this country the people who literally built this country into what it is, and had the courage to stand up and Declare their Indepence!

We had a fantastic morning out on the boat! Grandma Merritt was kind enough to stay home with the girls and I got in and had a fantastic run! It felt fantastic and the water and weather was perfect! Plus the company was pretty fantastic as well! After boating in the morning we came home showered, napped both girls and Mommy as well. After we all got a few hours of sleep we went back over to the Merritt's house for a fantastic steak dinner (Yum!). Then we headed over to the Waite household with our bikes to go for a fun filled bike ride to the 28th street building for the fireworks. It was so fun to run into so many people that I know and catch up on the happenings in their lives! Plus I got to actually meet a photographer that I have been facebook stalking for some time now (she is very talented!)!! The fireworks were fantastic as usual! Both girls were very enamored by them! Eliza didn't last as long as Alayna (her aunts were much more interesting than the cool lights in the sky). But Alayna Oooed and Awwwed at all the right moments! The bike ride hoome was not so fun. The wind was terrible and Ben was pulling the girls in a bike cart behind him which basically acted like a sail facing the wind and trying to drag him backwards! I had a hard time without the cart so his was extra bad!

Tuesday, boy oh boy! We needed a serious timeout in the middle of that day! All of us girls were too tired to play nicely together so inspite of my efforts to get anything done that day we ended up spending a good portion of the day just trying not to kill each other. That and getting the grumpiest of all of us to take a good long nap! We did have a fun playdate in the morning with some friends of ours (Natalie and Jackson) which involved a fun trip to Chic-Fil-A to have lunch and play in their playplace. Ben's manager is out of town all of this week so that means that he worked from open to close every night and didn't get home before 6:00 every single night! Poor guy was exhausted!

Wednesday. I don't recall what all we did on this day. It felt like we went from one activity to the next so I know we did something productive that day... not that the house looked like I did anything all week but we did putter around enough to count it as accomplishing something!

Thursday. Holy COW! That day started bright and early... 6:00 AM! dragging myself out of bed, showering dressing, fixing hair, breakfast, getting the girls up and doing the same for them. by 7:15 we were out the door on our way to Fort Collins for the girls first ever trip to the Dentist. Why were we going all the way to fort collins for a dentist!? It's kind of a long story but basically I got a recomendation from Donna Ebert (the orthodontist I used to work for). Then with some online exploration of the office I was sold based on the 'classroom' set up of the office where the patients could all see other patients being worked on therefore encouraging mine to not have a fit! There were some tears from both girls over the trip but they were 100% coroporative and have excellent teeth! They anticipate that Alayna will cut her canine teeth (all 4 of them) within the next week or two. After the dentist we went to pick up some car seats for Jamie Walpole and then went to the park for a little bit of play time! The park was miserably hot! We didn't last very long but we did have fun playing with Natalie and Jackson for a bit! After that we went to lunch with Grandpa Waite. Eliza ate more macaronie and cheese than I think I have ever seen her eat! After that we went to the Waite house and took advantage of a crib to nap Miss Alayna in! We went home after that and collapsed! It was a very long day for us and an even longer one for Ben who had the privillage of dealing with a very impressive rainstorm that caused flooding in the store just as he was trying to come home!

Friday was a fun day! The girls went to play at grandma Merritt's house in the morning while I went and had my eyebrow bushes taken care of! (Thank you Abby!) After that run I picked up the girls and ran back to the house to quickly pack for the Ward Campout. Initially we were not going to go due to the rain just Ben was going to go but I changed my mind at the last minute and boy am I glad I did! We had a blast and the girls loved all of it! They ran and explored the entire time we were there. We didn't get any rain until we were all sleeping. We all slept pretty well and Alayna didn't end up in my sleeping bag until about halfway through the night when she had managed to get out of her own and then got stuck between the two mattresses.

Saturday we woke up to a fantastic breakfast and then had a fun little hike with the girls. Alayna really is quite the monkey and climber! She climbed all kinds of big rocks and got mad about the ones she was too short to get on top of! After our fun hike we packed up and headed home. Both girls were dead tired and Alayna had a fantastic nap! I made it over to the farmers market for our vegi's and then came home for a much needed shower and time to chill for myself as well

Sunday was fun. Church was excellent. I had a meeting afterward for my new calling. It was very informative and I am excited about being able to continue into the final planning for our Carnival.

Random thought; Alayna has really started talking a lot more these days! Everything she says is starting to sound more and more like real words!! That and she has recently discovered that she thinks that she is funny... she will be playing or running around the house and suddenly burst out laughing it's one of the happiest sounds in the whole world and you can't help but join in the fun!

Picnic's and Trains!

Riding the Train at the train park!

This is from a few weeks ago but I couldn't resist finally posting it! This is the Rocket park we tried to go to this week... got rained out :-( (Eliza is way at the top of it!)

The cute little Train at Loveland North Shore Park aka 'the Train park'

Ok So I think we are one week into the whole "no more school for Sarah" and somehow it seems that I have LESS time than I did before! I have been trying to get so many different things done that it is overwhelming and it feels like I have barely scratched the surface as well! I can't seem to keep track of everything I have been doing this week!

Monday started bright and early with dropping the girls off at Grandma Merritt's house while I enjoyed a lovely trip to the doctors office. After that I enjoyed a quick stop at Target for some things I needed without the girls. I really love going to that store when I can walk around without wondering where my kids are or who is touching something on the shelves they shouldn't be. Eliza has been on a 'getting lost' streak this past week so I have been realizing that I have to be extra attentive to her location!

Tuesday the highlight of my day came in the evening! After a very long day with the girls (two very sleepy and grumpy kids mixed with a grumpy mommy = bad combo!) But that evening Ben was going to a Rockies game with one of his customers from work and I wanted to go to my book club so my Dad (grandpa Waite) came to my rescue and came to babysit for me! He's so awesome and I am the luckiest daughter in the world that he was willing to stay out so late just for my sake! Book club was fantastic! We were discussing "The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho" it was a fantastic book and the discussion was very fun as well! I was again reminded of the wonderful blessing of good friends who share so much in common with me!

Wednesday we enjoyed a play date with Nancy Merkley, her daughter Tessa (2.5) and Dean (few months). Eliza had a blast having a friend over to play for a few hours and I got to enjoy some adult company which is always nice. By the end of that day all of us were completely exhausted and ready for bed! Alayna's nap was lacking and Eliza got a little more play that she was actually prepared to handle that day so we were really glad to have daddy come home for dinner with us and then a nice quiet night with early bed times! Ben did go to his activity that night and it went well even though he had one of the youth get hit right in the nose with a Frisbee (ouch!)

Thursday morning I was getting the girls ready to go have a picnic with daddy at work and play at the park when Aunt Abby called. She's so fun and took both girls to go get some balloons to play with (it's an Abby thing! and they love it!). I got to run to the store quickly without the girls and pick up the last things we needed for our picnic. When they got back we went to lunch with Ben. The girls had a blast running around the store but they didn't eat a very good lunch, silly girls! after lunch with Ben it decided to rain... there was a pretty impressive lightning storm that hit as we were getting ready to go to the park and Eliza was very disappointed when I told her we wouldn't be going due to weather! We went home and played games instead so I think I made up for it a little bit!

Friday we ended up going to Loveland. I have been wanting to take the girls to the train park in Loveland for a while now and so I figured that day would be a good one to make and adventure of it seeing as how we needed to get to the bank as well. Our first attempt at going to ride the train was ruined by our poor timing and not knowing the schedule of the train. We went back to grandma Waite's house for lunch and naps and then went back to the park to let the girls have a ride on the train! They both loved it. We were in the cattle car and both girls 'moo'ed the whole time! So cute!

Saturday we enjoyed a wonderful morning at the Ward 4th of July Picnic. It's a wonderful annual tradition that our ward has and the food was fantastic! Ben helped with the cooking and the girls and I got to come just enjoy our time at the park. Alayna finally swindled herself one of the only two swings at the park and refused to relinquish it without a fight on more than one occasion. She loves to swing and would honestly go for hours if we would allow her to! While we were swinging there was a group playing Ultimate Frisbee... One of the dad's took a dive for a Frisbee but in the battle between the ground and his shoulder the ground won. He broke his collar bone and then proceeded to go into shock. They ended up calling 911 and the paramedics took him in that way to get looked at. Poor guy... But let me say that if you are going to have a major problem it's got to be handy to do it at a church activity where there are so many people who will bend over backwards to make sure you are well cared for in the process! I love my church and my ward family! That evening we spent went out on the boat. It was my first time this season and sadly enough I was a total wimp and didn't get in for a run this time. My excuses should not have been used but everyone else got in a good run and I am looking forward to a nice early morning run on Monday! Wahoo!

Sunday church was excellent! It was a small group this week apparently a lot of people wanted to go on fun vacations this week! Tomorrow is the 4th of July and I am so thankful for the wonderful men and women who have sacrificed so much for the rights and freedoms we have. They are amazing people and I feel that we owe them far more than we will ever be able to repay them. I pray that they know that we appreciate what they have done for us!