HALLOWEEN!

This Halloween we had an Indian, a skeleton, a pirate and a chicken! We had another year of Halloween fun starting off by not having to go to school! (I'm pretty sure the teachers were happy about this). Later in the afternoon we walked down to the neighborhood party -- we played some games and had dinner there. After, we got together and all took off trick-or-treating. This year Megan, Sara and Taylor went by themselves! I can't believe I have a daughter that old to go trick-or-treating by herself. I remember going by myself and thinking I was so old. We ended the night with Alex making the kids the traditional "witch's brew", this year it was rootbeer.

Megan and Sara as the Indians

Zach as a skeleton-- he didn't want to wear the mask because he said he couldn't see too good in it and it was hot!

Chase the pirate. This is year #2 of being a pirate. Those of you who see him often know that he is a pirate really almost everyday.

Max the chicken (looking a bit cross eyed)

The whole gang ready with buckets in hand.


"Witch's Brew"-- Sara, Megan and Taylor checking it out.

ONE MONTH OLD

Max--One Month

Max is officially one month old. Part of me feels like this time has just flown by and other days I feel like he's always been a part of my life. I love having a newborn in the house...they are just so sweet, innocent and a real blessing. But, I'm remembering the challenges that come along with newborns--mostly sleepless nights. For a quick update, he is definatly getting enough to eat and weighs over 8 pounds now. He had some eye goop going on so I took him in to the doctor when it didn't clear up with putting breastmilk in his eye (yes, the dr. told me to try putting a few drops of breastmilk in his eye). It turns out that he has a clogged tear duct that had got infected so now we are doing eye ointment. I also found out that day that he has a heart mummur. My dr wants us to see a ped cardiologist to find out what exactly is going on. I'm not really nervous...yet.

PUMPKIN CARVING

As always a good, fun, messy time carving pumpkins! It's always more fun to carve with friends so luckily the Austin's came over to help us with the carving. This year Megan and Taylor decided to use the same face for their pumpkin, Zach and Parker decided to draw their own face and Chase and Lexi were happy to be in on the fun this year! Max and Kendyl just snoozed away. The whole group with their finished projects.

Chase having fun digging out the "guts"

Zach wanted the traditional Jack-o-lantern this time.

BIG ROUND THINGS

It sure is interesting to have a baby as seen through the eyes of a 3-year old. Chase has been so fascinated by this baby but especially fascinated with breastfeeding. He keeps asking me why the baby doesn't have teeth, why he can't walk, etc. etc. The other day I was feeding Max and Chase was there sitting by me when he was interrogating me about the feeding process. I was explaining the baby gets big and strong drinking "mom's milk", blah, blah ,blah. Chase then says to me "Where did you get those big, round things anyway?" Too funny! Yesterday he then said to me, "Which one of those round things has juice?" When I told him they both have milk, he seemed pretty bummed for the baby that Max only gets milk and no juice. He also insists that he can hold the baby by himself. He will tell me " get your hands away...I can do it by Myself!". Oh, he scares me...

MEET LITTLE MAX!

Our sweet little Max was born on Sept 30th at 4:51pm. He weighed in at 7 lbs 4 oz and 19 inches (our smallest baby). We named him Max White Thurman. (White is my maiden name) This was my first induction and eventhough I was nervous about it, all went well. I got to the hospital at 7am and was happy to find out I was farther along than we had thought. I was dilated to a 2 and about 50% effaced which meant I was put on pittossin, the famous induction drug! After a little while, I was "feeling it" and luckily the anasthesiologist was available to give me an epidural. So after that, I was feeling good and spent a big portion of the day watching TV and reading (which seems crazy that I was in labor doing that!). Anyway, nothing much was happening and I was starting to worry--you know not much else to think about except everything that COULD go wrong. Finally, around 3:45 I started feeling more heavy contractions (even with the epidural), my nurse, Lisa came in and checked me to find out I was a 8 and 100% effaced. Around 4pm I called my mom to tell her to come over if she wanted to see this one at birth and then Lisa called Dr Thein. Around 4:15 I thought I was dying, the contractions were intense and I really needed to push. After that, the student nurse came in and gave me a shot to stop my contractions because Dr Thein was still 1/2 hr away and appartly no one else wanted to deliver this baby. My mom and Lynn (alex's mom) arrived around 4:30 and 10 minutes later Dr Thein came in. We got all ready and in stirups only for me to say "I really don't need to push anymore". So back on the pittosin I went. I started to push and to be honest I really felt I was pushing for a super long time but come to find out it was only about 10 minutes. After the fact, I learned that Max was still high in the birth canal because the cord was short and it was wrapped around his head. Luckily, I couldn't see the heart rate monitor through the pushing since his heart rate was pretty low during the pushing. Anyway, he came out but was sunny side up (like Chase) and came down twisted--I don't really get it but thats what Dr Thein told me. Anyway, it all went well yet I have to say I'm glad I'm not planning on doing this again...that is hard work!

Here are some pictures of Max:

The rude awakening of this world!

Dr Thein, Max and me

All settled down as the "burrito baby"

I'm already in Love!!

LAST BEACH DAY BEFORE SCHOOL

Here we are enjoying a final day at the beach before school. A beautiful day is was and we all had such a great time! Even the moms (Annalee and I) got into the water!

Max loving the sand! He never minded crawling around in the sand.

Megan trys out some snorkeling. She and Taylor see an eel--pretty cool!

Zach trys the snorkeling next but struggled getting the breathing down so it didn't last too long.

Max and I.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZACH!

Ok, so he turned 6 on July 22nd but I still wanted to post my happy birthday wishes to my favorite 6 year old. We went to the beach on his actual b-day. We actually met up with some of my old childhood friends, Chris and Tiffany Cutri and their mom Gilda. It was great to see them! A majority of my childhood memories have this family in them. Also Alex and Chris played soccer together as little kids, they were on the team called the "Gauchos". When Chris saw Zach he said that is exactly the way he remembers Alex looking as a little boy (& I thought Zach was the one who looked more like me). After the beach we went to Ruby's for dinner with the whole gang. We also had a super fun party with Parker (also turning 6) at Scooter's Jungle with all their friends. Here are some pictures (although I don't have any of Scooter's Jungle, my battery ran out but my friend took some just don't have them yet).

Zach getting his new bike for his birthday. This is the only thing he really wanted!

Zach gets his ice-cream sundae at Ruby's. They came out to sing to him and he was so embarassed he went under the table but popped out once the ice-cream was there.

Grandma Sandy and Grandpa Bill give Zach $20 for his birthday! Look at that smile, he's really into money right now! But in true Zach fashion, he lost the money within a few days but luckily he has a pretty nice Grandma who gave him $20 more.

I love you Zach!!

UTAH TRIP!!

We had such a great time over our 4th of July Utah trip. We really packed in as much stuff as possible and I think we did a pretty good job. Here's some pictures of our trip:

The morning of the 4th found us cheering on these 4 runners at the Provo Freedom Run: Shelley, Kaylene, Megan and Alex. They all did a great job, it was Megan's first time running a 5K --she did great during the race but did throw up after! After the race we headed for the annual 4th of July parade.

We then headed for Carol Ann's house for a fun BBQ and swimming day followed by fireworks. Here are all the kids watching another neighbor's firework display.

The above picture is showing Alex, Megan and Zach along with Brad and Quinn up at the top of the "Y". Zach was very interested in doing this hike although I think he may need to keep hiking a little more to have more stamina. It did help that CA and Big Mike hid treats for the kids all the way up the mountain!

We were able to go up to Provo Canyon to roast hot dogs and have s'mores to celebrate Parker's 6th Birthday. Here is Chase on one of Annalee's dads horses he keeps up on his property. Megan was finally able to see the pony, Dewey that is much talked about by her friend Taylor. It was a really fun evening up there.

This is Matthew David Thurman, the newest addition to the Thurman clan. His blessing was one of the main reasons we went to Utah over the 4th. It will be so fun to have a boy cousin so close in age to our little boy coming soon! After the blessing, we went to a park and had a fun picnic with family and friends.

This day found us at Thanksgiving Point where we played at the "Noah's Ark" sprinkler place. It was super fun and a good way to cool down. Here we are in the Bear Cave area. We then went back to the water area only to find out it had closed down due to someone "pooping in the pool". I know you're thinking that must have been one of your kids but Nope I was no where around at the time.
Alex and I were able to have a night out with our friends Stef and Gabe (and their newest little guy, Patric). Stefanie is one of my closest friends and definatly one of my most favorite people. We met years ago at RICKS College.
How cute are these 2 future BYU students! We went to BYU to see what was new there and found ourselves in the bookstore where Zach and Chase wanted to be completely outfitted in BYU gear: sweatshirts, shirts, hats, socks...they ended up with one sweatshirt each. Oh, and of course I got cinammon bears, they are the best there!
Here we are up at TibbleFork Canyon in American Fork. What a fun night! We had dinner, played a little in the water, watched Brad try to catch a fish and then had some s'mores and rides on the 4-wheeler.

Uncle Mike giving Megan and Emi a ride on the 4-wheeler. They saw a deer as they were cruising around.
This is the way Chase made his way down the hill to the water. You should have seen his bum!
Here we are up at Hill Air Force Base. We went up to Kaysville to spend some time with the Jewells. Hill Air Force Base happens to be the place my Grandpa worked for years and years and retired there. I was looking for some kind of monument for Carl but never did see one!
What's better than Utah corn? Our last day of vacation found us back at CA and Mike's house for more swimming and BBQ with the whole fam. It was fun to watch as the cousins got close as they played so much together. Oh, one other thing...Alex took Megan and Zach hiking up to Timp Cave along with lots of family members. Zach ended up hiking in flip flops because he says his shoes were "uncomfortable".

That was quite a long post so I apologize for that but I just wanted to document as much as possible. I didn't write about my treasure hunt with Lynn looking for the Prophets tomb stones, so let me know if you're interested in that story!! Lets just say I now know where all 15 Prophets are buried, maybe I can win a trivia question about that one day.

Can't wait to go back and see you all again!

DANCE RECITAL

Megan had her dance recital last Saturday. They did a jazz dance routine to the song "What I like about you". It was a cute dance and eventhough I wasn't too sure about the costumes, they did look good from the audience. Megan has taken dance with her friend Taylor for 2 years now. I hope she will want to continue. Here are some pictures from the performance:

don't these girls look so old with their make-up on, both dads were dying!

Grandma and Grandpa came down to see the performance:

Megan with her teacher.

A FAMILY FIRST

We went on our first family camping trip a couple weeks ago. We didn't go far--in fact it took all of 20 minutes to get there. We went with our ward so we had lots of friends there to play with. I had given Alex a tent for Father's Day last year, this was the first time we had used it! The kids all loved it!

First, we had dinner on the way (In-N-Out)-- we're not quite considered "true campers" yet. After we set up camp--I timed Alex to see how long it took to put the tent up, only 30 minutes which I didn't think was too bad for the first time and then he told me Steve came over to help out! The kids brought bikes and rode around the campsite checking everything out. In the evening, we made s'mores around the campfire and had an entertaining talk by Grandpa Dyer!

Then it was bed time. At some point in the middle of the night, Chase got cold so he and I spent the rest of the night together in my sleeping bag. I couldn't get it zipped up all the way and I couldn't really move so it wasn't the best night of sleep I've had but it works. In the middle of the night, I kept hearing rustling sounds around and I was convinced that coyotes or bobcats were circling our tent. (It was probably a squirrel!)

In the morning we had a yummy breakfast and then packed up to head back home. It was fun time and I hope we can go at least one more time before next year!

CHASE MAKES ME LAUGH

For a while I've been meaning to write down some funny things I think Chase has said. You know how everyone always says "don't forget to write that down or one day you'll forget." So, before I forget...

One day I was picking up Zach from school and we say a lady wearing a burqa (spelling?) Chase yells out, "look mom -- I see Mary" (meaning the mother of Jesus).

I got the kids some new toothpaste (bubblegum mint, if you can even imagine that). We brushed his teeth with it and he says "I love this new toothpaste, its so yummy". I said "Oh, good, I'm glad you like it, What does it taste like?" (thinking he's going to say gum) but instead he says "quesadillas" What?! I think he was just trying to think of something he thought was good.

A couple days ago we were driving in the car and we were talking about friends. He was telling me about his friends but then he says "Mom, you're my best friend". Now how could that not make my heart melt? Thank goodness for those little moments in a mother's life, right?

I will always say to him "you're so funny" or "you're so cute" or something like that and he always says "mom, you forgot...I'm Chase-y)" Just one more, one time we were driving and a driver ahead of me was doing something I didn't like (can't remember what). Anyway, I say outloud to the driver "What are you doing?" A couple seconds later I get an answer from the back seat saying "Nothing, I'm just in my seat."

He's a funny kid and I love that he makes me laugh each day! What would I do without the humor? I'd be crazier than I already am!

ONE LUCKY DAY!!!

I'm warning you that this may be a longer post than my usual but this is such a fun story for me to tell that I have to write it all down. It all started when my friend Annalee got these ticket vouchers for American Idol. It was for the Tuesday taping (the last night of competition between the "David's"). She asked Jessica, Christy and I to go along with her for this adventure...of course, we were all up for it! After finding babysitting for the 12 kids we have collectively we breathed a sigh of relief and headed up to L.A. The line seemed to go on and on and on yet we were optimistic since we knew the Nokia Theater could hold up to 6 or 7,000 people. But, after several hours being in line, we decided we were getting a little hungry. For those of you who know where the Nokia center is you know there is no where really within walking distance to grab something to eat so luckily Jessica had her iphone (which saved us so many times) and we called Pizza Hut. Jessica asked if they could deliver to a girl in a yellow shirt standing in a long line at the corner of 12th Street and Cherry in downtown L.A. Good 'ole Pizza Hut had our pizza there within a 1/2 hour. Now wasn't that genius?

Well, the time is going and there we are still waiting like nice patient people but we soon find out that we are #2100 in line and they are for sure giving tickets out to people up to #1700--so by 4pm we find ourselves out of the line looking for perhaps another option of getting in! First we send Jessica and Annalee to do some inital looking around, when they didn't come back soon I convince Christy to bail and find them. We find them, alright, sitting looking pretty gloom on some stairsteps too tired to move. They had asked several American Idol people and were shot down more than once. Well, we then decide we are not getting in but while we are there we might as well go see the red carpet and maybe get a glimpse of a movie star or something. We start walking and I see this box on top of a trash can with "American Idol" written on it. I normally don't go dumster diving yet this circumstance called for it so I open the box to find a ton of blue wristbands. We had seen some people earlier with wristbands so we decide to put them on and see if that helps us somehow. By the way, we have no clue what the wristbands are for.

We continue (with our wristbands) toward the theater when we see this "ticket guy" who we had talked to before (he dismissed us rather quickly then) but we said, acting innocent "Where do we go with these wristbands?" Well, that got his attention and he was saying "What?-- you have wristbands? You should be in the theater with those wristbands, those indicate you are going to see the dress rehearsal." Christy confesses that we found them and just really, really want tickets to get in. We then quickly abort our wristbands and he says "ok, follow me". We, at this point are as obedient as ever and I even think I was holding my breath as I watched him thumb through the left over tickets. He then gave us 2 sets of 2 tickets. And we were off running!

We make it through the theater (even with Jessica's iphone and Annalee's cell phone) and me in my flip flops (which was a no-no on the sheet of paper on what to wear). We head to our seats when we then discover we are in the VIP section. Can you believe it? We couldn't! Jessica and Christy were in row 6 and Annalee and I were in row 8. Just 2 rows ahead was Justin Chambers (aka Alex) from Grey's Anatomy, all the previous top 12 idols in the row ahead of that, Clive Davis just to the left, Simon's girlfriend on our row just over a section and I sat right next to a producer from FreeMantle (the co-producer of American Idol from London--super cool guy and friend of Simon's).

It was a terrific show! But the fun doesn't stop. We are still on our "high" and decide to go find a fun, trendy place to eat in L.A. As we are driving to this place we are of course talking about Idol and who should drive up right next to us? Fantastia from a couple seasons ago. We roll down our windows and start yelling for her and saying how we "love her and her song" (which just minutes earlier we had discussed that some of us liked it okay but others really hated it). Oh well, she seemed happy to be noticed and she even stopped traffic for us to take a picture.

What a fun day for this pregnant desperate houswife! Thanks to Annalee for getting us the tickets, thanks to Christy, Jessica & Annalee for making those 5 hours go by so quickly, a big thanks to Pizza Hut for delivering to the corner in L.A. and a thanks to the "ticket guy" for those awesome seats and of course to my mom who watched my kids ALL DAY!

Lets plan for next year...

A LITTLE COWBOY

Chase on a pony ride at The Irvine Park. He and his cousin Paige were the only ones short enough to ride the ponies, the other kids were all too tall! So he had a great time being the only lucky one on the horse that afternoon!