Boys' Weekend. . . and Girls' Retreat Oct. 6-10

I missed my family, Jordan had a Friday off for Fair weekend so Gemma and I flew to Salt Lake and Jordan had the boys for 5 days. Sounds wonderful right? The week before Jaxon had a stomach bug for a day - we thought nothing of it. The Wednesday after, I left for the Phoenix airport just in time for my 9 pm flight. I started feeling pretty icky while waiting at the gate. Ignored it. Made it on the plane. Go towards the back, check. Don't sit by anyone, check. Start feeling very nauseous. Start thinking the Wendy's I had earlier might be giving me food poisoning. As the plane starts lifting in the air I'm simultaneously feeding Gemma and puking in those weird white bags they have in your front seat pocket. So not ideal. The only great thing ideal about the flight was 30 people aboard. I had my own row and the back of the plane. The lady in front of me did look behind probably because she smelled something. I just smiled at her at looked out the window. Five minutes later I'm handing Gemma to a flight attendant (who did not know how to hold babies) so I could go throw up some more in the lavatory. I do it as fast as possible because I hear the baby screaming. Coming out green I take the baby and endure the rest of the flight.
Kim was happy to see me, I was happy to see a bed. After a weird night I woke up to the first snow!
Yikes! I forgot my coat and I only had capris. I slept the majority of my first vacation day on my parents couch. Jordan called me in the afternoon to say he and Kodee also had the stomach bug. Aw man! We all got the bug from Jaxon. A highlight to the sick day was seeing my brother and his family who I haven't seen for over a year. They have two boys very close in age to mine so I enjoyed watching them play and I didn't miss mine as much.
Samuel and Kevincito

Benjamin and Samuel, Kevincito's on the floor
This is on BYU's campus before the Spectacular
That night we drove down to Provo to go see the Homecoming Spectacular. The show did not disappoint. It was Spectacular!! Brian Stokes Mitchell was the star of the night and he sure has a great voice with a lot of charisma. He also sang with the Men's Chorus and it was so fun.
Friday we went shopping at Kid to Kid. I got some great clothes for Gemma and shirts for the boys for our family picture. Dad joined us at Sweet Tomatoes for lunch. We had a family dinner that night and then mom, Kim, Gemma and me went out clothes shopping again. I was trying to find a purple sweater and Kim wanted shoes. She found shoes I did not find a purple sweater.
Saturday was BYU's Homecoming so we drove back down to Provo to make the pancake breakfast. Dad mentioned they started making the pancakes blue, but when I saw how blue they were I was shocked. It was like they used a whole box of blue food coloring to make the brightest blue batter ever! While eating we got in our spots to wait for the parade to start. It was pretty cold but Gemma had plenty of girls to hold her and keep her warm. Dad is so funny, he would jump out for the candy as fast as the little kids would.
All decked out in BYU attire The group (dad, Kim, cousin Kristen, Dave's sister Amy and Cooper, Dave)
Kim and Gemma

Benjamin getting a balloon
The parade was great-there were even two marching bands which shocked dad! Mom and dad had to go back to work so I stayed with Kim and Dave so we could do more shopping at the Wilk. I got a delicious pecan, caramel apple that we devoured that night. We also went to the mall and CPK. Kim found me a purple scarf with some blue and green to match the boys shirts.
Once again we had a family dinner and then Kim and I went shopping to Kohl's afterwards. Do you see a pattern here?
Jordan and the boys and Nee Nee went to the fair Friday morning to ride rides and see the animals. Jaxon only wanted to ride the train ride despite Jordan's begging to ride other rides. He did walk up the stairs to the big slide and rode it all by himself though. That's impressive. Jordan slid down with Kodee and their picture was put on the front page of the newspaper.




Jordan judged the singing competition Saturday morning and his group Taste of Sound performed that night. Jordan said the performance went swimmingly. In between the fair activities he came home and had to clean up all the throw up. Poor guy! The one time I leave and everyone's sick. But, we all say this was good for Jordan to go through so he really knows what I go through everyday. The house was SPOTLESS when I came home Monday night.
Gemma didn't sleep very well Saturday night which meant I didn't either so we only made it to Relief Society Sunday morning. We had a nice walk home from church. It was still a little chilly, but the sun was shining, flowers were in bloom, the trees were changing colors and the grass was so green-everywhere! I have forgotten how pretty is it up there.
My good friend Megan came over with her baby Lilly who is 2 days older than Gemma. Poor Lilly had a fever and Megan figured out later she had a UTI. The babies had fun seeing each other

Everyone loved holding Gemma. She loved that!

After Megan left we took some family pictures.

Sunday night I stayed at Kim's and Monday morning we took it easy. Good thing we didn't make plans because Benjamin was playing on the piano and he reached for something at the end and he ended up falling and hitting the piano twice while doing this double flip. He got up screaming and Kim grabbed him to take him to the couch and I saw the blood. Kim put a wash cloth on it and I told her it looked Jaxon's gash that he had a couple weeks ago. Except it took longer to stop bleeding and the gash wasn't closing. We ended up taking him to an Instacare to see a doctor. Two stitches later Benjamin came bouncing out the back and Kim looked white as a ghost. She stopped breathing while they put in the second stitch because Ben could feel it going in. Poor guy! But, he was a trooper and all he wanted was some ice cream. It was lunch time anyway so I (Kim was still recovering from not feeling too hot) drove to Cracker Barrel and we got him some ice cream.

Kim and I played a game when we got home while mom spent her last few minutes with Ms. Gem. Then it was good-bye.
I have a picture like this with Jaxon and Kodee both at 9 months old
I'm so glad I got to go. This trip was exactly what I needed.
Now- Jordan. . . .
We were so ready to have Ari back. The boys were waiting on pins and needles. They were so ready to have the queen and princess of the house home!
Next was getting ready for the boys' birthday. They said they wanted another Toy Story theme. Kodee wanted "Bulls-eye" the horse, and Jaxon wanted "Buzz" on the cake so Ari figured out a way to make them both happy.
The cake was delish! The boys wanted confetti cake and Ari made an awesome butter cream frosting. The party was also glow in the dark themed. Neenee, Ariel and Shaylin came. Along with Richard and his kids. Also the Tregaskes' and Cheyenne Iske (Fun-Shine) to the boys. She babysits for them sometimes.
Jaxon was dead set on getting the Toy Story 3 train, and Neenee did not disappoint. When he opened it up he exclaimed "OH MY GOSH!!!!"

Kodee received a fisher price garage, car tube thing, a firetruck (he calls it "Firework") a fireman's hat, and a book about fire trucks (all from Neenee).
Cheyenne got them cool remote control Mater truck and Lightning McQueen.


The Keiths got him a puzzle. The Tregaskes' gave them mini Lightning McQueen and Mater cars and mom and dad got them a cool tool box with play tools and the fisher price garage thing.
SUCCESS!! They loved it all. Jaxon was SO excited for his birthday. He's been asking about it for weeks. They stopped by my class room on his birthday to say hi, and I had the girls' choir Bel Canto sing happy birthday to him. He was so shy, but beamed away! Can't believe we have a 5 year old!

Kodee is taking it into his own hands to potty train himself which we are loving. We'll randomly find him doing his business. 3 is definitely the magic age. You can't force it when they're not ready we're finding out.

Now we're getting ready for concert week. It's gonna be a good one. Whew, can't believe we're already approaching November! Time flies!