Erik, Jenn, Tyler & Mason

Well Tyler had his first Christmas. Things are kind of strange around here because Grandpa is missing from his usual spot at the head of the table. He is back in the ICU (has been for a week or two) and we've been visiting him twice a day. We got spoiled by all three grandmas (that includes one great-grandma), and we've had a great time playing with our cousins Neal and Jeffrey. Grandpa has been improving but so far is still in the ICU. It's been a little over a month now. He did get a Priesthood blessing telling him he would rise up and walk out of the hospital. So we certainly have faith in that. Here are some cute pictures from our Christmas: This one is for you, Jaime: Tyler is not afraid of white cats. Here he is sitting on Grandma Miles' lap with Kitty Boy in Idaho. Here is Tyler still in Idaho eating his first bite of chocolate. Chocolate flavoring anyway. I don't think they put real chocolate in boxed pudding. Here we are opening presents at Aunt Denise...

Tyler finally crawls! Ten months old and the kid finally figured out that rolling is NOT where it's at! And grandpa is out of the ICU--they said he'd never make it, and today they transported him to a residential rehab facility to get stronger before they send him home!! We are going to visit him next week and I am so excited! Thank you all for your prayers. Also, you should know I totally prayed that Tyler would crawl and then HE DID! That, my friends is a miracle. I am trying to post a video but it won't load. So use your imagination.

I know a lot of you have been following the story of my grandpa and his miraculous struggle to fight one million ailments at once out of nowhere. Well, Grandpa is doing a lot better. He is still in the ICU but is no longer in critical condition. He is using the bathroom on his own, standing up with help and talking a little bit. He is still on a feeding tube and oxygen but is getting stronger every day. His pnumonia is gone, his ulcers are healed and his heart is beating well and normally. I can't wait to go see him next week! I will have pictures!!!!! Yay!

You may have noticed that I was not at church this week. I have had this awesome rash on my face for 5 days now. My whole face is swollen, at least one of my eyes has been swollen shut each day throughout the week and my cheeks are bright red and scaly. I look like an oversized lizard on crack. I went and got blood tests on Friday because this is the fifth time I've had this in a year (though this is the worst it's ever been). I should know on Tuesday or Wednesday if I have anything serious. Most likely it's just some dumb thing meant to keep me from ever leaving my house again with no title, no treatment and no reason behind it. Yay. Anyway it has made me really grateful for the things I have and for my health and my family. I know a lot of people have real health problems that keep them home and make them suffer and I am very grateful that so far I have not been one of them. This has also made me think there are some things I need to improve on (really? you're n...

I love being a mom, it is so much fun. But it sure is hard work! Tyler has decided in the past month or so that he would like to whine his head off for no apparent reason, almost 24/7. All those of you who know Tyler know that he is a very happy child and is always smiling. I get comments from people every day at the store or wherever I go that he is so happy! But at home, he is a different animal! He whines allllll day long. I try to ignore it so he knows it doesn't get him what he wants but then I think maybe he wants something so after a while I try to give him things he may be whining for. I just can't figure it out. So much for consistency in parenting! Is this just a phase? Do all 9 slash 10 month olds whine like this? What am I doing wrong??? What can I do? Please help!! Sincerely, Frustrated Tacoma, WA

Grandpa is doing a lot better. They are probably going to take him off the ventilator today so he can breathe on his own. Turns out his pnumonia was due to a fungal infection in his lungs so they are treating that now with anti fungal meds. Once that is gone (which it will be soon) he will be good as new! At the temple last night I was praying for Grandpa and I was overcome with gratitude for the blessing he is in our lives and for the opportunity we'll have to go see him again in a few weeks. The Lord is so good to our family and we are very grateful for His blessings.

Grandpa said today (or rather wrote on a piece of paper) that he feels better than ever. That's hard to imagine since he is on a ventilator and a feeding tube, but he was holding Grandma's hand this morning and conveyed to her that they will have many more happy years together on this earth. I am so thankful for the blessings of prayer and fasting and for the knowledge that Grandpa will be ok. Heavenly Father is so good to us. Grandpa still has plenty of work to do on this earth and is not ready to leave just yet. I can't wait to go see him for Christmas!

I listened to the nurses reminding my grandpa to breathe and yelling his name and saying "Stay with us!" all night last night and now he has made it through the night and it looks like the internal bleeding has stopped--for now. There are 20 ulcers to worry about and they can't be operated on because he is too weak to handle surgery. Thanks for your prayers, keep them up, they are working. We were going to go to Utah this morning but since Grandpa is still conscious and the bleeding has stopped we are hopeful that he will recover and we can see him for Christmas instead of in the ICU.

I've been sitting here listening through the phone to the nurses trying to revive my grandpa. His oxygen is as low as it can be, so is his blood pressure. It sounds like he may not make it through the night. He is bleeding internally and is currently having a blood transfusion. He also has pneumonia. It is really hard for me to listen to the sounds of them reviving my grandpa and I feel awful knowing what he has to go through. I love him more than words can say, and dare I say no one has ever been as close to their grandpa as I am with mine.

My friend and co-worker Gloria's husband is serving in the Army in Iraq. She sent me this email today. If you can help, please give me dollar store items or a couple bucks to purchase dollar store items by Nov 30. Thanks. Hello all, A few of you have expressed interest in this so I wanted to extend the invitation to all of you. The children in Iraq are not nearly as fortunate as we are. A friend of mine said he gave out a handful of pencils and kids went crazy over them! Nathan said if we were to send items such as coloring books, crayons, school supplies, markers (apparently they really like things that make color!)…it would be very appreciated. Don’t feel obligated to contribute, I know the world has lots of opportunities for doing good, this is just an option for you. If you’d like to help out, I’ll take anything you are happy to give; maybe your kids have old toys you can’t use for anything else, you can buy coloring books for $1 (they don’t need to be fancy), or just give m...

"I'm a pterodactyl comin' in for a landing! Caw Caw!" "You should see me play hoops after doing a few months of Plyo -- it's UNBELIEVABLE!" "Let me show you perfection. Not THIS (gesturing towards his own face) -- THIS (gesturing towards his shoulders)." "She has the skin of a FIVE YEAR OLD -- SO LUCKY!" "Tip of the day: DON'T SMASH YOUR FACE!" "If you don't have a stool, grab your dog, cat, brother, sister, uncle... that's a short uncle!" "Pam's an undercover agent being chased by some guys with a hand gun." I think I have too much time on my hands, or I do too much P90X.

Click Here to See Something So Stupid I think it is so racist for Career Builder to make a job site just for black people. How about instead of segregating us more and defining ethnic jobs, why don't we do the opposite and embrace difference and continue to provide a normal Career Builder job site for EVERYONE? This worsens racism in every way. Not to mention if there was a white people job site the proprietors would be locked up-- as well they should! This is not right. Not right at all. The point of this site is clearly to help employers meet Affirmative Action requirements. Affirmative Action is racist and it also prolongs racism and segregation. Through Affirmative Action, minorities are given a subliminal message of inferiority. Employers should not be forced to hire people of any specific skin color. They should hire based on SKILL. Some employers don't of course, and that is on them. But don't make it worse by forcing non-racist employers to hire people just based o...

I lost a pound. Yay.

So as many of you have heard me complain, I have been stuck at 148 for 7 weeks now. It's ridiculous. I work out all the time, I work out hard, and I eat right. I've tried eating more, eating less, working out more, working out less, changing my workouts entirely. (Though Suzanne has a point, I just changed my workout last week, I need to give it more time). Anyway I decided last night that I will let NOTHING get in my way. I am going to be at least in the 130's by the end of the year. So starting today this is my new diet (though I may have to swap out breakfast a few days a week for Fiber one cereal because I don't want to eat too many eggs): Breakfast - 2 eggs, 1 piece of low cal toast, 1 glass of skim milk - 275 cals Snack - 1 apple - 50 cals Lunch - 3 homemade low cal low fat egg rolls - 250 cals Snack - Veggies and fat free ranch dip - 150 cals Dinner - Low fat with vegetables will vary - 600 - 700 cals Workout - Burn 400 cals Snack - Glass of skim milk - 90 cals...

Grandpa is doing very well after having 5 bypasses this morning. He was supposed to have 6 and ended up only needing 5. He is still in the hospital but doing very well. Thank you to all of your prayers and thank you very much also to those of you who fasted with our family!

My Grandpa is the most incredible man I have ever known. He is steadfast in his faith, always serving the Lord. He holds two leadership callings in the church simultaneously and spends almost all his time serving in the church. He eats fruit salad every day for lunch and has for 30 years. He runs 2 miles every morning except on Sundays, even in the snow. He can bench press more than I can. He has always been a father to me--the only father I ever knew until I got married and inherited a father-in-law. He and my grandma raised me in their home when no one else could or would and has given up much for me and because of me. Always sacrificing and never asking for anything in return. He is honest, hard-working, intelligent and brave. I look up to him and pray each day that my son will grow up to be just like him. Three days ago my grandpa was in perfect health. We just found out his heart isn't in good shape. On Wednesday he is having open-heart surgery. He's having six by...

I haven't put a lot of updates on here lately but I have taken quite a few pictures. First time in the big boy bath Feeding crackers to himself I turn my back for one second and he scoots and rolls across the house! First time crawling! YAWN! Crawling is tiring!

I have such great friends. Each of them is awesome and I value their friendship very much. Not to mention they are all quite beautiful. Who has ever seen so many beautiful women in one place? I look up to all of you-- you are all such great moms, you always seem to have it all together, you all work so hard and are so sweet and kind. Your honesty, your talents and your charity amaze me every day. Thanks for always being such an inspiration in ways you don't even know.

This is our very first family photo. Isn't that sad??!? We have never handed anyone a camera and said, "Hey take a picture of us!" So, we were at Snoqualmie a few weeks ago with the Holman's and Suzanne took this cute picture of our little family!

It's too bad there isn't a 24 hour fitness around here I can go to. I've been laying in bed completely awake all night. I read 100 pages in my book at midnight and that didn't even make me tired. I'm drinking warm milk, I took a sleeping pill, nothing. Isn't it the worst feeling ever when you know you are tired but you can't sleep? My brain is going a mile a minute on dumb stuff I don't care about and I am dreading Tyler's inevitable 6:00am wake up call because I just know by then I'll be exhausted and dragging--though you wouldn't know it with the energy I have now. I bet you one million dollars I could get Suzanne to run 5 miles with me right now. Don't worry Suzanne--I won't be calling you. :) But seriously, I want to sleep!!! ARGH!!!!!!! Tomorrow will not be fun.

We went to Best Buy today and got a Canon Powershot. It's awesome. We had a lot of fun breaking it in.

I ran 3 miles tonight (thanks Ash and Suz!) without walking and I was thinking about how much I've changed--both for better and worse in the last 3 years. I've gone from 118lbs to 209lbs and then back down to 148lbs and counting. So I wanted to show you some pix of me both when I was super hot and not so hot. It's motivating for me and it's nice to show off how skinny I used to be. Maybe someday I'll get back there.....I hope this doesn't seem full of myself. I just wanted to show some before and afters. Even though I'm not after yet. Last week 2 months after Tyler was born June 2007 April 2008 (yes, those are size 2 jeans) February 2007 at work ...

Tyler finally got 2 of his teeth to pop through this week! The first one on Saturday and the second one this morning (Tuesday)! What a big week! He turned 8 months old today. I can't believe how fast he's growing. He still doesn't crawl and I can't say I'm too disappointed...at least I don't have to chase him all over the house yet. He says Mama and Dada and Baba and Hi and he's working on Bye bye and Binky. He feeds himself crackers and fruit and practices with a spoon. We've been having a lot of fun. I know I hadn't posted in a while so I wanted to put something on here. I will also add that I have been stepping up my working out to two or three times per day and making them more vigorous. I haven't seen a ton of results yet but I'm sure they will happen. I was thinking yesterday, I'm finally going to get my body back just in time to mess it up again with another baby! ARGH! I don't know how some of you do it!!!! Have a gr...

I forgot to tell you I passed my test with 98% across the board last week. Got my insurance license yesterday. :)

Kyle Adams was officially charged for killing my sister. The press has been all over me the last few days, and its nice to set the record straight that Sarah was an innocent victim and NOT a street racer. Here is one of the articles from the San Francisco Chronicle that I'm quoted in. Though they got my age wrong, I am not 21. I'm 22!!!! Much older. Click Here To Read The Article

If you have a Netflix account streaming through your xbox 360 and scroll to new releases, hardcore porn will pop up. That is totally unexceptable. Porn should have its own "adult" category at the very least and possibly be blocked so children using the xbox360 cannot view it next to their Disney movies in the new release category. Imagine how surprised I was when I turned on my xbox 360 Netflix streaming application this morning and scrolled to the "New Arrivals: Movies" section and viewed the first three titles with the images from the DVD covers - 1. Disney's Bedtime Stories 2. Bare Behind Bars X Rated 3. The 18 Year Old Virgin, Barely Legal Unrated I called Netflix and spoke to Joe, a customer service rep who apologized but said that since the pornography was a new release, it shows up under new releases. I reminded Joe that I have parental controls set to block Rated R movies on my xbox (not on my netflix, I didn't know that was available) but that my x...

Here is one of 24 pages of the outline for the test I'm taking tomorrow. Yikes. Wish me luck...

You know in about 4 months we are going to forget what the sun even looks like.

Had my little surgery this morning. It was outpatient, didn't take long. Lots of pain, lots of blood. Fun fun. Thanks to all of you for reaching out to help me with Tyler, food, blessings, etc. I appreciate having such great friends. On Thursday I'll know if they have to do a more extensive surgery on it or not because the surgeon said she didn't think she got it all from the outpatient surgery. Percocet is fun at least.

So about a month ago I had a weird twinge of pain on my lower back/tailbone area when I was in the shower. Twice before I've had to get cysts removed from there and let me tell you, I'd rather give birth. So I got all freaked out but then I forgot about it for awhile because it only hurt that one moment. Well last week, the pain started constantly and now I have a big cyst on my lower back. Good times. So I have to have it surgically removed--and still, I'd rather give birth. Seriously. I'm waiting for a call back to hear when I'm going in. Afterward, it takes like 2 weeks to heal and it's not a fun healing process. Especially with a baby and an insurance test to study for. Good times.

Castro Valley Forum Front Page News This Morning

Since CNN, ABC, NBC and CBS refuse to report on this news story, I am going to. You can watch FOX news to get the full story or go to www.BigGovernment.com Acorn is a corrupt organization with ties to our government. They've received millions of tax payer dollars and have been investigated for voter registration fraud among other things. Watch the video if you haven't already seen it. Then ask yourself why no one is reporting this except for Fox news. www.BigGovernment.com

(I've seen a small spider spin silk in the snow) You remember the band Presidents of the United States of America? Well their lead singer made a cool CD call Caspar Babypants that my sister-in-law Kim sent over last weekend. Like Kim, I don't usually enjoy the baby CD's so much, especially after hearing them time and time again. Most of them are a little too sing-songy and the subject matter is usually pretty lame. But alas, Casper Babypants is a CD for all to enjoy. It is the most innovative, creative, unique and fun CD I have ever heard. It's even quite enjoyable musically--he's great on guitar. Anyway, Caspar Babypants as he calls himself (the lead singer of The Presidents) is giving free--yes free--concerts for kids and their parents at our local King County library! Tyler and I are very excited. We would love if anyone wants to come with us. The link for more info is here . We are planning on going to the Federal Way 320th library on Friday, October 9...

Ok so we just started the P90X last week, and every single muscle in my body aches like there's no tomorrow. But I can feel myself getting stronger, and I love a good challenge which this certainly is. If you are looking for a tough workout "guaranteed to make you ripped in 90 days" you should try the P90X. Also if you want to feel way out of shape and weak, this workout is for you. :)

So I know I haven't posted in a long time. Things have been really busy with work, my calling, working out (yes, I've been running 4 - 5 nights per week), and keeping up with Tyler. So I have quite a backup of Tyler pictures. I also recently purchased a pressure canner/pressure cooker. The thing is so big (27 quarts) it barely fits on our stove under our microwave! This week Erik pressure cooked the best chili colorado on earth and we canned the leftovers. Then Amy Felt dropped off some great pears and I canned those all by myself! Then since I was in the food storage mood, I made a ton of wheat bread to freeze (though so far I've done a good job thawing it out and eating it). Our basement is getting way organized with pasta, beans, flour, rice, soup mixes and now jars of various canned items. I'm excited that were are doing what the prophet asks and preparing ourselves. I even purchased a 55 gallon drum for water storage! Good times.

Tyler really loves peas, squash, and carrots. The other day he decided to grab the spoon out of my hand. The results were messy, but quite cute.