Boo at the Zoo

Friday night we went to Boo at the Zoo with our friends the Heath’s. Dustin’s mom also tagged along with her 3 grandchildren, which was very brave on her part! LOL

The only picture I got of the boys together and of course Brynnan is looking away:P

All of the kids at the front of the zoo. Libby and Lainey, Jonas and Brynnan and Luke, Joey and Benji.

Brynnan looking at the pelicans.

Brynnan kept running ahead of me. I would call out his name and he wouldn’t look until I caught up to him. Does that mean he is hard of hearing or has selective hearing??!!:P

Jonas had fun looking at all the animals. He was pretty good about staying by me. He was just a little slower than everyone else sometimes. I love doing things with the Heath’s! We’re such good friends that we all watch each other kids and can keep them in line without the kids freaking out. LOL

Saying “Trick or Treat” at one of the booths…so this is the lady that gave them bright orange toothbrushes!! LOL

Jonas thought it was cool to see Darth Vader there, but was too scared to go near him. I thought that was pretty funny! He knows who to stay away from in that movie!!:)

It was a lot of fun and wasn’t as cold as I thought it was going to be! The boys loved it, but we were all tired by the end. Jonas kept asking to see the monkeys. I think he likes seeing the monkeys first instead of last. Thanks for letting us tag along, Heath Family:)

The First Snow that Stuck

But not for long! It was gone by the afternoon, much to the kids dismay!!

After home school on Friday Oct. 30th we went outside to play in the snow. There was a little on the grass and my van that the boys could play with.

The boys took it upon themselves to clean off the van.

Brynnan trying to build a snow man. If you can’t tell it didn’t work out too well.

Brynnan said to me after he decided he couldn’t build a snowman, “There’s a spider in the snow!” I was like what? Sure enough, I looked down and there was a spider in the snow:

From his shoe print! Hehe:)

Cute Jonas Bear

We haven’t been in the backyard to play or anything in about a month or so, since it’s been so cold. Mark has gone out there a few times to grill some food, but that’s about all. This is what our “garden” looks like now. That lettuce actually look more yummy now than it did before. LOL

And here’s out winterized plum tree. It looks so sad!

My Good Boy

The kids don’t take naps during the week anymore. If I send them to their room to take one they just play. Unless, they’re unusually tired and they actually do sleep, in that case they wake up in really bad moods. So, I actually don’t mind that they don’t take naps anymore. I put them in their playroom with a movie and they stay in there for at least an hour and a half. Then they play until Mark comes home.

Well, I had been watching a movie while working on my laptop as they watched their movie today. The boys came out and watched the ending with me and then after watching all the game previews on the PS3 asked to listen to music. I said that was fine. Mark has a song on the PS3 from one of his games that Jonas will listen to over and over again. I figured that’s what he was talking about. He didn’t start it so I asked him if he was going to listen to it and he said he needed the DVD to put in the PS3. I was like what are you talking about? A DVD with music on it? Then I realized he meant the primary songs CD I have for them. The primary put on their program in sacrament meeting on Jonas’ birthday so for a few weeks before it I would put on the songs they burned onto CD’s for the kids to learn. He actually wanted to listen to that music while they played!! I thought that was so funny and made me a very proud mom!:)

Schooltime Fun!

Last Wednesday, October 28th,  I was ready to send the kids back to school. They hadn’t had fevers since the weekend and they just had coughs. We got up and they were all ready to go. Jonas started coughing really bad every so often. Mark finally said that maybe they shouldn’t go to school so I called the bus and told them not to come. Then I made a Dr. appointment. Jonas was really sad because he knew they were having a halloween party at school and they could dress up in their costumes. So I told him I would take him to his class to say hi and show off his costume. I know, kinda defeats the purpose of not going to school because we thought he was sick. In all actuality, I really didn’t think he was sick enough to stay home from school. And our trip to the pediatricians office confirmed that. They just had coughs:P

Jonas and his teacher Miss Jenny. I totally love her! She’s an awesome teacher!! Since he missed his class birthday party on Monday, Miss Jenny gave him the hat they made for him and let him choose something out of the birthday treasure chest. He picked a little car:)

Can you guess what Jonas is dressed up as??!! No, it’s not a scarecrow or an ewok. He’s sackboy from the popular PS3 video game called Little Big Planet. Mark’s mom did all the sewing, not me!! Everyone kept saying they looked so great and I had to keep telling people that I didn’t make them!! Mark sewed the brown stitches on them and the black buttons for eyes:) This was the best picture I could get out of them. Jonas was being really shy that morning, probably because Brynnan and I were there and so he wasn’t in the normal preschool setting. Miss Jenny was Tinkerbell and Miss Terry, the teacher’s aid, was a bumble bee, if you can’t tell:)

I let the boys play for a little bit before we left.

Brynnan was so sad to leave “his” trains behind! I can’t believe how quickly he latches onto things and calls them his own! Seriously, they had only been playing for 5 minutes!!

So the doctor said that as long as they don’t have fevers they aren’t contagious and can go to school. “Everyone is coughing.” are the exact words that he said to me. Both boys had clear lungs. The gunkier the cough is the better off they are because that means it’s not in the lungs and the body is fighting well if they don’t have a fever. YAY!:) So I was so excited to send them back to school on Friday! We woke up bright and early, ate breakfast, went potty, got dressed, watched TV and went outside to play in the little bit of SNOW while we waited for the bus.

Did it ever come? NOPE! Why? Well, because I forgot to look at the calender and realize that there was NO SCHOOL because it was the end of the term. I was so upset. Not only because I wanted my 3 hours to myself, but because this school district comes up with every excuse to have no school! Yes, I understand that teachers need time to grade papers and whatever else at the end of the term, but come on! It makes it worse that my kids only go to school 3 days a week (Brynnan only 2) so of course I notice it more. UGH! Anyway, that was my little rant… back onto the subject at hand:

So we did school at home. I had a fun ghost craft planned. The boys practiced writing the number one and then we did the craft.

Jonas putting the eyes on his ghost.

Brynnan didn’t like the big poms on his ghost.

I was totally surprised at how organized Brynnan decorated his ghost.

All done! They were sp proud of their ghosts. We set them aside so they could dry. It took all day and even into Hallween as well!:)

And here’s the dried version. I took this picture after preschool this morning. Brynnan’s didn’t dry all the way so that’s why there’s a hole in his. He was very sad that it was broken, but he still let me take a picture of it. The pompom between the eyes they put there for the nose. I thought that was so cute!:)

Birthday Part 2

The boys were still sick the day after Jonas’ birthday so I had them stay home from school. We did home school which didn’t go well, again, but at least they’re doing more than watching TV all day!

Both Grandma Blethen and Grandma Gibson sent Jonas’ presents through 2 day priority mail on Thursday. I think my mom even might have sent hers out on Wednesday. Of course they didn’t get here on Saturday! Stupid postal service!! You wonder why you’re losing so much business!! LOL

Anyway, we got both boxes on Monday so after Mark got home from work we let Jonas open them. Mark didn’t want me to wrap them so he just opened up the boxes!:)

Opening the box from Grandma B.

Playing with the new toy (a Leapster2, which is like a hand held video game. Jonas was in HEAVEN! LOL)

Brynnan upset because it wasn’t his toy. He can make the saddest looking faces! I love that tear!

The leapster didn’t come with a physical game, but it did come with one free download. We put batteries in it and had to install the software on it. Jonas was very patient while waiting!

Jonas opened up the present from Grandma Gibson while we continued to wait. He got some new star wars pj’s you can see there off to the left. I love how Brynnan has to help him unwrap every present! I’m curious what Christmas will be like this year! LOL

Brynnan likes this present more than the birthday boy did…

Jonas was more focused on the Leapster.

Brynnan and I played with the new building toys. They’re pretty cool! This is a crab, I know you can’t really see it.

Jonas picking out the one free download online. He picked a dragon game. He also got to pick out a couple demos, too. One was Star Wars and the other was Up, like the movie.

Finally the games were done downloading! (This was at least an hour later. We went out for dinner and came back to play.)

Mark made a spider with the Trio blocks

Mark let Brynnan use his iPod because he really wanted to play something. Jonas LOVES the iPod so they had to switch:)

The next day after their “nap” we played with the blocks together. It was a lot of fun!! The boys both enjoyed playing with them!:) They came with a booklet that has a bunch of directions on different things to build, like the crab! It’s really helpful at first. I built an airplane for Jonas and then Brynnan wanted one. Jonas’ was totally cooler, but Brynnan eventually thought his was coolest and we had tons of fun playing!:)

First we built a tower.

And here are the really cool airplanes!:) Again, I love Brynnan’s face!

Jonas’ airplane crashing,”Oh, No!!!”

Busy fighting off the bad guys.

Brynnan sure loved that airplane! I had to remake it for a couple days after that! Now he’s moved on to building guns. A mother’s favorite things for her kids to build with legos and blocks!!

The Jonas Funnies

It’s been a while since I’ve posted the funnies this kid says. So here’s a new one:

Mark was making French Toast for dinner tonight. Jonas likes to “help” crack the eggs and stir. He said to me, ” I’m the coolest to help!” I thought that was so funny! I told him to ask daddy because he was making dinner so Jonas said again, “Daddy, I’m the coolest to help!” Haha. Kids come up with the funniest things to say!

Happy 5th Birthday!!

Jonas turned 5 years old on Sunday night at 7:51. I think that’s the time he was born. It might’ve actually been a few minutes earlier according to our video tape, but the recorded time was 7:51. Or maybe it was 8:05 and the video said 7:51. I think the nurses forgot to look at the time because of the surprise of Jonas having a sac of fluids on his back so once they realized they hadn’t said a time, they put down whatever time it was when they realized it.

I really cannot believe he is already 5! FIVE!!! IT can’t already be that time! He’s not really this old. Someone came and took my baby, my little boy, and replaced him with a big five year old, right?? You hear all the time that flies and now I totally understand what that means!

Jonas makes the funniest faces while unwrapping presents!!

Brynnan had to help out, of course!

If you can’t tell, it’s Wii Sports Resorts. Jonas has been wanting this since the first time he saw it at Wal-Mart!! Brynnan grabbed it away immediately.

And here’s Brynnan mid tantrum mode when Jonas took it back. LOL

They had to try it out immediately. Lucky for them we don’t have a no games on Sunday policy yet…

Jonas getting his “Happy Birthday” phone call from Grandma and Papa Blethen.

playing with Daddy:)

Mark helping Brynnan with the archery game.

Playing upside down. I love that you can tell he’s still trying to play!:)

After dinner we had cake. Jonas was REALLY excited about blowing out his candles and eating the cake!!

Blowing out the candles.

Silly Mark, cutting the cake.

I took some videos of the kids playing the Wii earlier so Jonas had to watch them while he ate his cake:)

Jonas had a good birthday. He kept saying thanks for his present all day long. He only got one present from us because the postal service sucks at delivering presents on time! Both Mark’s parents and my Mom and Stepdad sent present on 2 day mail and they arrived on Monday:P Jonas was happy with his present from us though so it was ok. Not to sound like I’m braggin or anything, because I’m not!!

Jonas was sick that day and has been ever since. He keeps loosing his voice. It’s pretty funny. I took a video of it while eating cake.

Sick Days

So I made the kids sick by letting them play in the leaves last week. What a bad Mom! Trying to get them out of the house and doing more than just sitting around inside watching TV. UGH! I have a feeling I’m not going to like this winter….

Wednesday night was NOT a good night! The boys were coughing pretty bad and woke up every couple of hours. I would give them a drink of water and they’d go back to sleep, but would wake up a couple hours later and do the same thing. They woke up at 5:30 and were ready to be awake for the day!!! I laid down on the couch while the boys watched TV for 2 hours. When Mark got up I begged him to stay home for the day. I knew that it would be such a bad day with the kids and I didn’t want to attempt it alone. He didn’t want to, but he did anyway. It was so nice to have him around! I had some things I needed to take care of. Plus, I took Brynnan to the doctor and was able to leave Jonas with Mark. After Brynnan’s appointment I went over to Kat Brown’s house to drop off the pictures her family ordered. She was doing school with her kids at the time and we started talking about it. I didn’t realize she was homeschooling her kindergartener! I was totally amazed! It made me want to start doing school at home too, at least on the days the boys are home.

So that gave me the motivation to start doing it. I’ve been wanting to do something structured with them for a long time, but I just never got around to it.  Friday morning I had the boys stay home from school(I didn’t want to have Jonas get anyone sick if he was getting what Brynnan had too) and we did our own little school. I had a couple of workbooks for the boys so they each worked on a letter page. The letter of the day was P for Pumpkin. For our craft we made 3D pumpkins out of scrapbook paper. I had the kids help cut them out into circles and then we glued them together. We spent about 3 hours doing school! I was totally surprised and amazed at how much fun we all had!

Practicing writing capital and lowercase P’s. Their little round table is kind of small to fit both of them, but it’ll work for now. I think I want to get a little foldable table from Sam’s Club.

Brynnan’s workbook had pictures with dotted lines to trace across the page to the p. I told him what to do and he did it! He wasn’t pouting so I think he’s just concentrating with his lip out like that. He was really good about sitting and doing what I told him too.

After we finished the letters I had the boys take turns using the safety scissors to cut out little circles to make the 3D pumpkins. Jonas is really good at cutting! He stays so close to the line!

Brynny’s turn with the scissors.

He got this far and started to have a little bit of trouble so I had to help him. He needs to get the hang of holding them and opening and closing them to get them to cut.

Jonas cutting a bigger circle.

Silly Brynny

While I helped Brynnan cut out another circle and glue the pumpkins together Jonas cut up the extra bits of paper. He spent about an hour using the scissors! He really likes to cut.

Brynnan coloring a page in his workbook.

I also cut out black pieces for the kids to make pumpkin faces to hang in the front window. I ended up gluing them all on, Jonas was still preoccupied with cutting paper and Brynnan was eating his snack. I think by that point they were done with school:)

Here are the 3D pumpkins we made. I cut out the big one and the boys did the other 2. Now they’re nice decorations for around the house:)

After school we ate lunch. I think Brynnan was tired out from all the work he did! Haha

Jonas really enjoyed his lunch! Can you tell?

After lunch the boys laid down in their room. They didn’t actually take a nap, they played, but I was ok with it. We had such a good morning together that I wasn’t going to let anything make me upset!

I had the boys stay home from school again today. On Saturday I went to Sams Club and bought 2 really big workbooks so the boys could work on the same thing together. I was so excited about doing school this morning that I was kind of glad I had them stay home. LOL Is that bad?

Anyway, to make a long story short…. School lasted all of 30 minutes today! The kids weren’t being very cooperative. So we did the letter of the day, which was H for Halloween. They did a couple activities from the workbook and then we read a new Dora Halloween book I bought at walmart. They loved the book and sat really still to listen for it. After that they were done, though. I was fine with that so I put on a movie for them and was able to get some blogging done:) We’ll see how tomorrow goes…

Fall is Here

Jonas raking up the leaves.

placing a few more leaves in the pile:)

The boys were really worried about a certain “Blue” leaf, as they called it.

I told them it was ok that the blue leaf was there and life went on. LOL

Jonas wanted to fall into the leaves head first. I was really surprised he did it!:)

It’s raining leaves!

Jonas had a hard time getting on this little fence, but he did it finally!

Funny little Brynny.

Five Years Ago, Today

Five years ago at about 9:30 am, Mark and I were getting checked into the Madison Memorial Hospital in Rexburg, Idaho. I was induced with Jonas on a Tuesday morning, the day of my due date, because of high blood pressure. We were both totally excited and nervous. Mark’s mom was able to drive over and be there when Jonas was born. While the circumstances surrounding his birth weren’t ideal, we are very glad he is a part of our lives and we LOVE him very much!! Happy Birthday Jonas!!

I thought I would do a post of pictures of the past five years. I’ll come back later this week with birthday pictures:) These first pictures of him in the hospital and at home the first couple weeks are pictures of pictures because we didn’t have a digital camera yet.

Jonas was rushed to the NICU after he was born. I didn’t even get to hold him!

My sweet little baby

The blue blanket covering his back was to keep the sac on his back clean and from breaking open before he had surgery.

2 hours after he was born, Mark wheeled me to the NICU and I was able to hold Jonas for a little while. It was the sweetest moment ever. I love this picture of us. I was so concerned and scared. He was being life Flighted down to Primary Children’s Medical Center in SLC and I had to stay behind over night.

Jonas in the incubator before they took him to the jet. Mark was able to go with him, which I was very happy about!

Mark’s mom drove me down to SLC the day after he was born. We got there at 7 pm. This is Mark with him in his room. He had had surgery on his back earlier that day and was very sleepy because of all the pain meds.

Mommy and her sweet boy. I had missed him!! And Mark too, of course:)

Jonas liked to sleep like this

Another favorite picture:) We don’t have many pictures of him wide awake like this in the hospital!

My aunt, Maurya, and cousins, Hannah and Baylee, were able to drive up to SLC from Las Vegas for a couple days. We were all glad they could be there with us!

Jonas Quentin Blethen

Mark walking out to the car with Jonas the morning we got released. We were all VERY happy this day!! (Halloween 2004)

Taking a nap before we left the Ronald McDonald House. We had to clean the room before we left. That’s one of the set backs, but since my mom and I got to stay there for free, we didn’t complain too much.

We finally made it home Halloween night. We were very happy!:)

My sister Rachelle lived in Rexburg at the time so she came over to welcome us home and play with Jonas.

About 2 weeks old in this picture. He loved looking in this turtle mirror.

Cuddling with Daddy. This was the night we had our second fright with Jonas. The stitches in his back were taken out earlier that day (in SLC) when we got home we were getting him ready for bed and we noticed some fluid leaking out his back. We called PCMC and talked to the on call Neurosurgeon and he told us it was probably water from his brain and he would need a shunt. We took him to the Rexburg ER to get his back stitched up for the night and the next morning Mark’s mom drove over and then drove us down to SLC. Mark and I were very sleep deprived so we were thankful that Mark’s mom could help us out! It was also nice to have support in the hospital. This visit was much shorter, just 4 days.

The Sunday after we got home from the 2nd hospital visit we had Jonas blessed.

3 weeks old in his blessing outfit.

We went to Mark’s parents house for Thanksgiving. Mark’s brother and his family were living in Kuna, just outside of Boise, so they were there to. This was about a month after Jonas’ shunt surgery so you could still see the stitches and scars. My little niece, who was almost 2, was really worried for Jonas!! Whenever she would see the stitches she would say “owie!” and start crying! She kind of got used to it by the time we left so she could sit next to Jonas and not cry. We really had to explain to her that he was ok and it didn’t hurt anymore.

We took Jonas to Kiddie Kandids, a photo place in the mall. This is the only and last time we ever did that!!:) They turned out pretty cute, though.

His mouth is in an O shape because we had to pull his pacifier out at the last second to keep him happy.

Our cute Santa Baby