Happy 30th B-Day David

Happy Birthday David!!  You are 30, you young one!  And yay for having your birthday be a no school day, we had lots of fun!  Hope you know how much we love you and enjoyed getting stuff ready to spoil you with.

PRESENTS: First we opened presents - the fun thing is that these boys pretty much have the same presents at 2 yrs or 30 :)  Small potato heads, star wars figures, sausage...

IKEA: We took a trip to Ikea on the way to see the big tree.  We need some shelves in our basement so we spent some time walking around there (probably more a fun thing for me but yeah) and Tyson loved finding each arrow to go to the next area.

LEHI BIG TREE: We made it to Lehi where the big tree was in the middle of the outdoor mall.  The wind was ferocious so we didn't last too long but man it was TALL.  David had wanted to see this as part of our to do for this season, so although it wasn't night, it was still crazy to see that it was a real tree once.

SUSHI: After nap and playing we went to dinner - sushi!  And took the little one with us - he was a bit wild, so not the best idea haha.  But anytime to get David some sushi he loves, it's worth it.

DATE: That night we had a babysitter for Tyson and we went out to see the new Star Wars movie (7).  He's wanted to see a movie on his birthday for the last 3 years and now we have star wars always coming out then so for the next few too - sweet and easy date night plans at least!  Good show and very nice to get out - we don't do that enough anymore.

The Sunday before his birthday we celebrated at the Clarks.  He got a DVD and cinnamon bears and good food and cake.  We also do the Christmas exchange that night so we did that too.

SO happy to have this guy in my life and happy to celebrate HIM today.  Love you D.  You are my one and only favorite.  Here's to many many more birthdays for you to come :)

Tyson's Cough

From Nov - Dec - like 6 weeks - bad sleep - no dr visit for awhile.  Came back... etc.  Yikes.
So winter is all about getting sick right?  Well we had a not so fun one around here in November and December.  We all had colds but that wasn't the worst... the worst was Tyson's cough!  After his cold he just didn't get rid of his cough ever and it just kept coming back and mostly at night when he was sleeping.  So like he'd cough ALL night.  The first few hours he'd be fine but as soon as Mom and Dad went down to sleep he'd start coughing and do it for an hour or two, stop then start again and stop then start... and we'd go in and give him some water sometimes but lots of times just lay in bed trying to sleep and ignore it.  I called to see a dr and they said to let it ride its course and if he's not struggling to breathe then it should just get better... NOPE.  Stupid advise.  After like 3 weeks of continual no sleep for all of us....  I was done.  Dr please let us come see you.

And we found out he had sinusitis ... which wouldn't have gone away without medicine.  So he had to take amoxicillin daily 2x for 10 days - we called it "pink drink" and luckily he liked it.  It took about 7 days but we started to hear the cough stop.  Yay!  But after 10 days, maybe a few days later - the cough started back up again.  This time I didn't wait and we got right back to the doctor - he ended up having sinusitis again - and this happened like 3-4 times and it took us several doses of pink drink to finally get rid of his cough.  It was an exhausting 6 weeks.  So happy that by Christmas we are rid of it.  I think we all had a cough at one point during this whole ordeal so yeah, it was just not a fun sleep time.  So glad we are getting rest now!

Beginnings of Candyandie

As of October 1 2015, I opened an Etsy Shop to sell some handmade items.  What does that mean really?

1) I came up with a name for my shop
2) Crafted and crafted - decided what to sell - fabric wreaths & handpainted earrings
3) Took pictures, wrote up and put everything online
4) Figured out how to ship and send orders
5) Got my first order!  Then my first review!
6) Got set up with a space to sell earrings at Heartfelt in West Jordan
7) Created a facebook page and instagram account for customers
8) Kept crafting, joined shop groups to learn
9) And it keeps going... crafting, pictures, learning, waiting, shipping...

I'm not sure I had imagined selling online - but after some changes in employment, I had a list of - what can I do now?  Nothing else panning out and hey, why not?  I had a bunch of earring supplies and had been making some fabric wreaths, so I could definitely test it out right?

I had no idea how much time I'd invest, and creating has been really fun.  I do wish I could balance home life (and recording memories - hello blog, haven't written in months!) a bit better.  I'm driven to selling what I've made and hoping to grow enough to at least make a tiny bit of income.  I know the first few months, maybe even year, it could be not so helpful, but so far it has been a fun adventure.

I've met a ton of awesome "makers" and I sure am enjoying this extra time while I can.  I'll give some updates from time to time hopefully :)  Here are a few pictures starting out initially.

Thanksgiving 2015

Thanksgiving 2015
We had a lovely break with David off school - yay!  We treasure those days here. We also had some visitors and enjoyed spending time with them too.  It was mostly the usual Thanksgiving though...

Baba & Nana visited for a few days before and on Thanksgiving. We tried to stay indoors and keep warm but did do some mall shopping and such.  Tyson warmed right up to them, especially Baba and him were buds.  Diane helped me finish hemming our curtains - so grateful for that - saved me tons of time (and learning hah) and all the rooms look much more polished - thank you!

Thanksgiving day we went to the Clarks for a late lunch.  We tried to do naps with Tyson but to be honest with visitors he wasn't doing as well - just too excited to play with them.  Which was fine, but you could tell he wasn't fully himself by the end in that he was getting more tired/cranky and such.  But Thanksgiving was nice and yummy!  Good food, company, etc.  Amber and Brandon were in town too so Tyson and Sierra got to play and dance to music together.  We also drew family names for the Christmas exchange.

Friday Dad & Diane headed home and we went to get Benihana as usual.  YUM!  Tyson loved playing with his aunts and uncles at Modern Display.  We also started our holiday decoration as usual Friday morning/afternoon.  We are pretty excited to get rid of our tree haha, but it will last this and next year and then we are done - time to upgrade - stringing those lights each time and then having some burn out is a killer!

And AZ Trip

I took a quick weekend trip to AZ when my mom had some feet issues.  She had been stuck in a wheelchair and needed the house usable for that and possible surgery later on.  I left my 2 favorite boys for 3 days and had a non relaxing work weekend!  Besides not getting to sleep too much and maybe not shower as much (oops!) it was a nice feeling to help out.  I need to clean my own house, but it's a lot easier when it's not your stuff huh?

Eric & Co came by each day to help and take car trips.  We also met up with Dad & Co for lunch on Friday at Cracker Barrel.  They were coming to UT the next week and I was trying to stay focused, so I only saw them once.

I missed my boys a ton and David did awesome taking care of Tyson.  One of the Clark's watched Tyson Friday morning and then David was in charge all weekend.  They facetimed me daily and good thing I was so busy so I couldn't miss them way too much.  Flying myself was stressful in itself, I hate flying, but I survived!

While making room for Moms car in the garage, Eric and I were reminded of some fun childhood memories.  Here are a few pictures from the weekend.

Family Pictures Fall 2015

Love this little family of mine.  Seriously though.  These boys are so much fun.  I wish we could take family pictures every few months just to capture how fun these guys are.  Well, except for having to pick outfits and find locations and free friend photographers, etc.  We took pictures mid-October downtown at Memory Grove.  Tyson and I went up to scope it out the week before and then one day we picked up David early and met Shayla up there to help snap some pictures for us!  Shayla was great to help take some pictures I was hoping for.  Here's just a few of our favorites.

Family is all about....

LAUGHTER

KISSES

HUGS

HANGING ON

SUPPORT

TOGETHERNESS

TAKING CARE

LOVE

BEING ONE

LASTING FOREVER