Halloween fun

These pictures are just a compilation of all our Halloween fun. First we have the kids trying on their costumes, we have pumpkin carving pictures, pumpkin coloring pictures (at our ward party which was one of the best ones I have ever been too), then actual trick or treating. Because we live on the edge of town, I didn't think we would get a lot of trick or treaters, but apparently everyone comes out this way. We went through a bag and a half of 150 pieces. Poor Jordan was mortified by Liam. At the end of the night, he would go up to the houses and when a lady would answer the door, he would curtsey as low as possible and say "Hello m'lady." Then he would get his candy, and before walking away he would do it again and say "Goodbye m'lady." Jordan thought it was the most embarrassing thing ever. But, it scored him some full size candy bars. So now she knows what to do for next year. :) Another time we were walking past this little kid who was probably 2 who was dressed as Spiderman. I pointed that out to Liam (who has been obsessed with Spiderman lately) and he walks by and very loudly says "That is ran-dom." Everyone around just busted up laughing. These two little munchkins crack me up.

Family Pictures

For thanksgiving, we went to my brothers house in Tracy, just under an hour and a half away from where we live. It was tons of fun, and when I have caught up all my belated blog posts, I will post pictures from that as well. My sister and her family from Ridgecrest also came up along with my brother and his family coming from Vegas. 17 people in all. Loud, crazy, good food, and tons of fun. That is how I would describe our thanksgiving. Before dinner though, my sister finally finished her birthday present to me and took pictures of all our family. She took pictures of the kids a while ago, but while we were in Ridgecrest, we were swamped with work on our house, and since the house is done, we haven't made the drive down again. So this was perfect time. And the weather was great. My brother had some great places in his backyard for them too. So, here is the link if you would like to go to our shutterfly account and see them all. Here is one for now though.

Let's go Dodgers!

For my birthday, Ty took me to a Dodgers vs Giants game at Giants Stadium. He had even arranged babysitting with my brother, so it was just us. This was also my first time in San Fransisco. We didn't do much because of time (it was a week day after school with school and work again the next day). The first few pictures are the first impressions (the bay the bridge, and the city). Then there is the Ghiradelli station that I wanted for dinner and some creepy giant bobble heads thrown in there too. It was a fun date and the time alone with Ty was great for many, many reasons (You know, we had just spent over 4 months apart....).

Reading is fun

Jordan's school had this family reading day. You could do a book exchange, there was a costume dress up, you could read a recipe and make trail mix, they made "Harry Potter glasses", and tons of other things. The kids had a blast.

Last days of September

This is how we spent the last warm days of September. The kids would have such a blast out there playing. They still ask to jump with the hose even though it is getting waaaaay too cold. I love them!

Kids pictures

My sister took some pictures of the kids for my birthday. Eventually she will do pictures of all of us, but the past few weekends we haven't had time to take the pictures, what with all the house work we had to do. So, here are a bunch of the pictures of the kids. Enjoy!

Having issues....

Ok, so I am having issues. I have a friend who says that blogger limits how many pictures you can upload (she found out because she reached the limit) and I don't want to have that happen to me. So I started using shutterfly to put my pictures on and transfer them here. Well, lately it hasn't been transferring them correctly. So, here is our shutterfly family website. Feel free to look at all the pictures we have. https://californiastahelis.shutterfly.com/ If I can't figure out how to get the sites transferring again correctly, I may just make shutterfly our new blog home (because it is set up that way now anyway). I won't get rid of this site completely, but may not use it as much. I hope that all makes sense. Enjoy the pictures. Kristi

Jordan's birthday

Jordan has always, and I mean ALWAYS, wanted a bowling party for her birthday. And with all that we had going on this year, it seemed like the best and easiest option for this party (one main reason is that I had some sickness that also gave me laryngitis at the time and I couldn't talk. My sister had to stay and help direct kids with me). She had a bunch of friends come and bowl for about and hour and a half then have cake and open presents. I would so do this again.

House Construction

We are installing the new kitchen in our house by ourselves. It wouldn't be so bad if Ty were around so we could work on it more than just a day or two on the weekend. But it is coming along and almost done! Check out some of the pictures. I will post a few more later. Update: For some reason this album won't upload. I am trying to figure it out, but in the mean time, you can click on any of the other links to our shutterfly page and then find the album.

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The many faces of Liam

Liam is just so photogenic. It's not that Jordan isn't, for some reason, I never seem to have a camera ready whenever Jordan does something though. And Liam loves posing and asks to have his picture taken. He also takes my phone, flips the camera around, and just takes pictures of himself. I think I just deleted 200 pictures of him. I saved some of the cutest ones though. Isn't he such a handsome little man?

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World of Wonders Museum and baseball game

Ty got tickets to a Stockton Ports baseball game from work. So we planned a trip up to see him. Again, we hung out with my brother and his family, but I forgot to get pictures this time. We also had time to kill before the game so we found this museum. It is called the World of Wonders museum. It is a total hands on science museum and the kids had a BLAST! They played there for about two hours and could have kept going. I can't even tell you what the best part was because they loved it all. Though, I think Liam had the most fun in the flight simulator and wished it would turn on. Anyway, that night we walked to the game because it was about 100 yards from his hotel. It was '80's night so they had a Delorean drive around the field. Jordan had a good time, and Liam did too, until about the fourth inning. By then, he was done. But it is good for us to know that Jordan likes to go to games now because before she hated them. Well, we left after the 5th inning started because, as I said, Liam was done. Again, since they were free tickets, we had no problem leaving. We had a fun weekend though and enjoyed seeing dad. We sure miss him during the week. We can't wait for this all to be settled.

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Trip to see Daddy

So Ty is still living up North. He is currently living in a hotel, but we hopefully will close on a house in a month! Yay. Anyway, we have gone up to visit him a couple times. One time we stayed with my brother and the kids got tons of cousin time. They had a blast! They went to a water/end of school/bring on summer party with their cousins and got their faces painted. They had dinner and a movie a couple times... just had a blast. Here are the pictures from the trip and our trip home. We had to do something to make the 6 hours more bearable so we had to stop a few times.

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Fourth of July Program

Growing up, almost every year until I was 12, I participated in a program on the Fourth of July called "Our Country 'Tis of Thee." The program was big around here. The LDS church always put it on, but all kids who have finished kintergarten until they are 12 could participate. It was also open to the public to see. Well, in 2002 they had to stop doing it because there was just a lack of kids. And I mean that. It wasn't just kids who would participate, but back in that time, there weren't a lot of kids in this town. So they had to stop the show. Well, this year, they were able to revive it. I was so excited that we were going to be in town and that Jordan was able to participate. She was one of the 13 orginial colonies, Massachusetts to be exact. I was Massachusetts when I was in the dance in 1990. Her cousin was Virginia and my sister was Virginia also back in 1990. Yes, we did that on purpose. Anyway, it was a lot of fun and Jordan truly did learn a lot. She doesn't know yet what all she learned, but that is the beauty of it. I mean, who else can name all 50 states in alphabetical order? This did end up being a bigger stress than I had anticipated it being because I became co-costume director with my mom. What that means is that we had to go through every costume for every dance they did this year. We cut all the spangles (sort of like a large glitter) off all the costumes and washed them. We then had to pass them all out and check each kid before the performance. Basically, a ton of work that gave us nightmares. But it is over and was a ton of fun for all involved.

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Scariest Mom Moment (sorry, it is a little long and wordy)

So, with Liam, I often have scary mom moments. And by that, I mean, he does things that get the adrenaline rushing and my head goes really fast to figure out what went wrong and if a trip to the ER is in order. Case and point, a few weeks ago, he swallowed one of those balls that go with the magnetic pieces so you can build things? Do you know what I am talking about? Well, anyway, he comes up to me whispering, which is always a bad thing, and says "Mom. I choking." My heart about died. First off, I didn't really want to do the Heimlich on him, but was prepared to do it if necessary. That hurts. I choked and nearly died when I was 10, so I know what I am talking about. So I froze for a second and noticed he was breathing. Good sign. This stupid ball thing he swallowed and got lodged in his throat. My next thing is, if this doesn't go down, we have to head to the ER to have this removed from his throat. So, I took him to the kitchen, let him sip water to see what would happen. Eventually it got down past his throat and he was on a high fiber diet for about a week to make sure it came out. Scary moments, right? Well, even that doesn't compare to what happened to Jordan the other day. Holy smokes. It took me almost a full 24 hours for the adrenaline to come out of me from this. Here's what happened. So my brother and his family came to town for a few days and we were all crammed into my parents house. So while trying to figure out sleeping arrangements, my sister who lives here in Ridgecrest said, "Why doesn't Jordan just come spend the night with us and Kristi and Liam can share a bed." Sounds like a plan. She went over for FHE which was swimming, then was to stay the night. My sister called at 10pm and said that Jordan felt like throwing up. So I drove over there and got her. I think she was nauseous because it was just too hot. My sisters house was around 80 and Jordan was wearing winter flannel jammies to bed. So I drove her home and cooled her off and she was feeling better. Well, I have a bunch of friends who are really into the essential oils, and there is one that is supposed to help your stomach feel better. So I decided to give Jordan one drop orally and rub some on her belly. Within 10 minutes she had hives everywhere. Well, almost everywhere. She didn't have any on her belly where I rubbed the oils on. But everywhere else. We immediately gave her two tsp of Benadryl, but were still watching the hives take over her little body. Her lips were swollen to two and a half times the size they should be. And all of this happened within maybe 15 minutes. Even though we had given her Benadryl, with her swollen lips, we were packing up to head to the ER. Since it was so late at night, I was already in my pajamas, so I went to change. When I came back out, Jordan (who was sitting on my mom's lap right then) had finally started to stop swelling everywhere. Since this was an improvement, we waited about another 5-10 minutes. The hives were finally going down. And her lips were starting to go back down in size. Why do I mention the lips so much? The hives all over her body, while not normal, weren't as scary as her lips because if her lips were swelling, her throat was next. About 30 minutes after her first dose of Benadryl, we gave her another 2 tsp. Did I mention that by this time it is after 11pm? By around 1am the swelling was almost all gone all over her body. I put her in bed next to me so that if she needed anything I was right there. Thankfully, the next morning she was fine. There was no residual swelling, only a little redness behind her knees and on her thighs. I still took her in to talk to the doctor. We will likely never know what set her off, but after talking to the doctor, we don't actually think it was the oils. They may have aggravated it, but she started with the hives while at my sisters house. Should it happen again, we head to the ER and will be given an Epi-pen for her. But in the meantime, since she has always had severe allergies (every doctor has told us just by walking in the room to examine her that he allergies are not in control), it is time to seriously consider an allergist and possibly allergy shots. But I felt much better after talking to the doctor. And that, my friends, is my scariest mom moment to date.

Mothers Day

Sorry that my posts aren't in order, but I am trying to catch up and keep up at the same time, so you get what you get. Our nephew was blessed on Mother's Day. Which is kind of a big deal for us. To make it more special, he was named after my Grandpa, Robert Ross. So they made the trek to Ridgecrest all the way from Denver with both my grandparents and my aunt. It was fun to have everyone there. First, on Saturday evening, my brother, who lives in Tracy, California, came down. His birthday is the day after Ty's. So since both guys were there, and their birthdays were just a few days earlier, we had a birthday picnic dinner at the park. It was great to just let the kids run too. Most embarrassing part? A few minutes after the kids had run over to the toys, Ty looks over and then lets me know that Liam and dropped his drawers and was peeing in the sand with people everywhere around him. And not being discreet about it at all. Oh man. What do you do with that? You try not to laugh when you run over there, but at least he didn't come whining to me that he needed to go potty. Anyway. So Sunday we had the baby blessing. It was pretty special, but even early in the morning we could tell my grandpa wasn't doing too swell. We were hoping it was just the three days of driving that was getting it him. We had them over for dinner that night, and we could tell that he was sick. There was something seriously wrong with him. He needed to use the bathroom and it took three people over 20 minutes to get him out of the bathroom and down the hall. My sister had to pick his feet up and move them for him because he was so weak he couldn't even do that. Since he was so bad, we knew he needed to go to the ER. And since we could hardly move him, taking him ourselves wasn't an option. So the fire trucks and paramedics were called. I kept all the kids out front so as A)not to pack more people into the tiny room, and B)help them stay busy but also understand what was going on. At first the kids thought it was pretty cool to have the fire truck and ambulance show up. Then they realized why and they were all sad. My grandpa ended up staying in the hospital here for 8 days. That is pretty amazing when you consider that the first few days they weren't sure he would survive at all. Then, they thought he would need to be in a hospital for weeks, then it just went down to a rehab place for a few days, to finally, wow, he is strong enough to go home. He is now doing well in case anyone cares. I do have some pictures somewhere of all of our family that was there for the pictures, so I will have to find them and add them later.

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L turned 3

So we lived in Ely when L turned 3. We did a small family thing, then when we came to Ridgecrest to work on the house we did a party for him. He had a blast. I can't believe that he is that old.

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Another first

So I have been a mom for almost 8 years now. And, my family is very, very accident prone. We tend to get seriously hurt doing the dumbest things. So the fact that I have been a mom this long with only one serious accident is pretty amazing. And that didn't even require anything other than watching to make sure Jordan's mouth didn't get infected. (If you don't know what I am talking about, shortly after Jordan turned three she fell off the swing set and knocked her front tooth out.) Well that all finally changed on Wednesday. Jordan and Liam were fighting, and Liam threw a toy at Jordan that hit her in the legs. She got mad and threw it back at Liam. Well, apparently she was aiming for his stomach and missed. Badly. She hit him in the head right above the eye. It cut him pretty good. We figured he'd be getting stitches in his head that night. Thankfully the doctor could close it up with the skin glue. She said that stitches would have been worse because of how she would have had to stitch it. So here you go. Here are our pictures from it.

Figuring things out....

So I just started uploading all our pictures to Shutterfly because I have so many from the last several months. I am still figuring it all out and how to share them. So my original post with the link didn't work, but now there is a slideshow with the pictures. That is probably how I will add pictures from now on if I have a lot of them.

Budding photographers

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Budding photographers

My kids have developed a love of taking pictures. We let L run around at Grandma and Grandpa's 60th wedding anniversary with my camera on my phone and the kid took about 600 pictures. Most of them were of his shoes, or someone's shoes or the floor, but he got some ok ones too. J loves posing L and taking pictures of him. She thinks it's one of the most fun things to do. I enjoy watching them play together like that. Here is a link to the pictures the kids have taken.

Well, it's started

Ty started his new job today as the CFO for the Utilities District for the City of Stockton. It isn't utilities like electric. He does the money for the water, waste water, and storm water. The worst part is that right now he actually works over at the waste water treatment place so it stinks. But I think he is going to like it. He is currently staying with my brother while we wait to see if we are going to buy a house right away or end up renting for a bit. It will be nice to have some family only an hour away from us. Though, in Ely having family only 2.5 hours wasn't bad either. Maybe I am just excited because since my brother Pat moved out, I haven't lived near him at all. And he moved out when I was like 13 or something. So yeah. Just thought I'd let you know. If anyone still reads this.

We're back

So it took quite a bit longer than I last expected, but we have made it back to living somewhere with the internet! Yay! I have had a hard time the past 6 months trying to explain why the kids can't play their favorite games that were on the computer. I would say "we don't have the internet, so you can't play them." Then J would say "but they aren't on the internet. They are on the computer. You just have to click the 'E'." So while we are back, we will be leaving again today, be back tomorrow, then leave again on Tuesday for the day. I can't wait for driving to be done. I also don't have pictures on my computer to upload for you guys. Sometime I will catch up. I promise.

Just a little while longer.....

It has been a while since I last blogged. A lot has happened in that time. Where do I begin? Well, we did indeed move to Ely, Nevada. Then to Ruth, Nevada. In neither of those places do or did we have internet. It's a pain in the rear this day in age to not have internet. Hence why we haven't blogged. I am not sure how exactly I am going to load all the pictures I have up, but I will find a way. Anyway, why I said that it will be just a little while longer is because it is looking like we will be moving back to California. Not Ridgecrest. Well, not entirely. The kids and I will likely go there and live with my parents through the end of the school year. Then we will join Tyrell where he will likely be working which is Stockton, CA. Well, we wouldn't actually live in Stockton, but somewhere nearby. We can't live in the house that we have in Ridgecrest because on Christmas Eve, my parents and brother went over to check on in and found that a pipe had broken. So, it is currently under construction. There is an estimated $60K in damage to the house. Crazy huh? Thank heaven for insurance. Well, since I am visiting my in-laws, I am going to go and hang out. Soon I should be able to start catching everyone back up on what has happened with us. Until then, Ciao.