AZ Trip - End of Dec 2014

Arizona Trip from 12/26 - 12/31

ROADTRIP

Well we have a good story, one of those - remember forever talk about and someday laugh about - stories.  I'll try to make it short ;)

We left 12/26 by 7am and expected to get in around 5-7pm.  That 10 hour drive turned into 16 hours! We had snow all morning and the wipers didn't work well because it was too cold and we thought that was the worst of it.  We ate breakfast in the car and by Beaver Tyson threw up!!!  WHAT?!?  He's never done that or been sick, but I happened to be back next to him but didn't have anything to catch it with except my hands.  Anyway tmi but there was an inch floating with him in his carseat :(.  We quickly stopped at the next gas station in the middle of the storm still... and I really wasn't sure where to start but we stripped him down, put him in my coat and I went in to clean us up.  David was searching for clothes but I had to go dig in suitcases later while they hung out with Ty in a diaper only.  I scrubbed his carseat but we really couldn't get rid of the smell - luckily we had an extra air freshener to hang it up above him.
Next was a 2 hour detour! We took a different road from i-15 to 89, hwy 153 and because of the snow it took an hour to get almost to the end when the road closed...and we had to turn around and go back and there we were back at Beaver.  Mind you that the road was windy and steep and I was trying to comfort Ty because he wasn't sleeping much.  Tyson did dry heave and I caught the rest at some point again so count was then at 3 for him, but we didn't really stop, and we changed his shirt again at lunch.
Then we finally got to Panguitch maybe like 8 hours in?! Had lunch and stayed a little bit to let Tyson feel okay and got back in the car, 20 min later he threw up again, #3 yuck.  Great.  Cleaned it up on the side of the road.  I drove till I was too nauseous and David had to take over.  By the time we got to Kanab we were so close to turning around.  David said he'd drive the rest of the way and Ty and I stayed carsick in the back the remainder of the trip.
With 2 more bumps too--- David took 89 instead of 89A at one point and there was another detour further east which then took another 30 min extra.  And by the time we got to Flagstaff I needed to walk the mall... besides that Diane had texted that there was a huge accident on I17 that had ti shut down for 6+ hours and we were at the tail end, making us wait another hour or so in traffic.
We made it to Dads by 11pm and the next day he was great to help us clean up the carseat and car and it took me a day to really recover from all we saw and dealt with!

CHRISTMAS PART 1 - Baba/Nana's

We had an enjoyable time with Briand and Eric's family. Tyson didn't totally warm up to the cousins but he was a good observer.  Had a nice dinner and relaxed a bit.

PARK TIME

Monday we met Amanda at the park with my Mom and we played with the kiddos - took them on the train, watched the ducks, went down the slide and waited for Eric to get off work so we could do Christmas.  It was fun to be in warmer weather outside.

CHRISTMAS PART 2 - Grandma's

That evening we had pizza and present time.  The kids were very cute to watch interact and open each others presents.

FISH with Baba
Staying with Baba/Nana was a treat for Tyson to connect a bit more as well as learn a lot about fish! He fed them daily with Baba and finally didn't need us right next to him.  He also enjoyed the "dude's" and demanded them off and on and was picking up some of Baba's sayings too - mm mm mm delicious was one ;)

MALL TIME
Tuesday we met Briand and kids and Amanda and Havynn at the mall where there were lots of fun things for the kids to ride on.  We had lunch first and then Tyson sure was spoiled to do the merry-go-round and these ride on toys with the kids.  We don't usually go all out so it was a fun treat.

CAFE RIO

That night we said bye to Grandma-o (as Tyson started calling her on the car ride home) and Havynn.  Cafe Rio is always a great place and I think this will be our family picture for the year haha.

GOODBYE AZ!
While we toyed with the idea of staying longer, I think we were anxious about the drive home and just wanted to get it over with so Wednesday we headed out by 6am.  I forgot to say also that the minute we got to AZ we turned Tyson's carseat around (and may turn it back as our doctor advised to keep him safe) but we needed him to feel okay on the drive.  We stopped anytime we ate and played a bit.  We would have made good timing but the snow hit before Flagstaff and we encountered a whole other road trip problem - - - driving in bad weather.  Before Flag we had to sit on the road for an hour while an accident got cleaned up and then we had to drive like 30 mph or around there until we got to Panguitch - can you imagine!  David drove so great but it was hard work and took us so long.  By Beaver we had no more snow and we flew home to be there by 10pm and watch the ball drop for New Year's Eve.  15 hours - again a horrible record of driving.  We have since promised not to road trip for a few years.  I hope this story will help remind me why ;)

And look at this happy boy - this was a stop somewhere, still in his PJ's on the way to UT.  We re-created as last year we have a very similar pic ;)

Thanks AZ families for welcoming us and having fun with us!  Miss you all.

Teaching Tyson

So around September I noticed how much Tyson was learning and needing more and more to do each day...  Plus as David had been stay-at-home dad all summer I had forgotten how to entertain all day, well and before he wasn't even crawling and now he's into everything and running ;) so it got me thinking and asking around.

It's not to early for a better schedule for Tyson and I - what to do?  What should I teach him and what could he understand already at 13 months?  I really didn't know but after some online search and chatting with my sis-in-law I had a plan.  Just as I spend 20-30 hours focusing on organizing work for my work, I needed to organize time for Tyson so that we felt better about what we did all day.

I don't have it all down yet, and don't have a total schedule all day, but I've at least got a whole bucket list of ideas and that makes it for not a same thing all day every day thing.

Here's the plan, which has been much more flexible with the holidays that just came and went haha

1) Make a list of topics Tyson needs to learn about (colors, numbers, body parts, shapes, etc)
   - Ahead of each week plan what the subject is to learn
   - And then think of a few ways to teach these things, fun stuff too, and spend maybe 30 min a day focusing on them; while all through the week if the subject is comes up or is around us mention it (like seeing colors just keep repeating etc.)
   - Buy or make things that relate to the above if needed, but don't go all out (no time!)

Then outside of the "weekly subject" have 2 more lists

2) A really long list of activities and toys and new things to try - like someday playing with playdough, drawing, making tents, music, etc. etc. and as each day goes on check the list for new ideas as needed when we run out of things to do

3) Make a short list of daily activities.  We haven't done this too much except for music time, and reading time, but I'd like to add church time and then in the summer it'd be outside stuff.  But just do these daily if we can fit it in, maybe at the same time of day even.


And here's what I've done so far...

Colors
We went through red, blue, yellow, green, orange - once a week and had a blast!  He really isn't catching on to colors yet but colors was tough to start at at his age because it's like every object has a name and a color and that seems hard to grasp.  But it was a fun start to the weekly activities.

Body Parts
We moved on learning faces and then major limbs and hands and toes and such.  He is really good at all of these!

Church Stuff
I've put together a few church books that I've printed or added images to in photobucket ;) and Tyson loves those pictures so far - especially Jesus or one of prayer.  Then after a few rough church days I found the idea to put together some quiet mini church activities.  I spent a few hours at the dollar store and target and came up with 5-6 activities in binder bags that are quiet and we could do.  Sticks, a small puzzle board, cotton balls into a container, books, finger puppets, etc.  It has worked pretty well as well as combined with a quiet book we bought that is sewn with other activities.

Busy Board
A big project I took on this fall was creating Tyson a busy board - a board with a whole bunch of locks, turns, doors, and switches.  I don't know what got into me except I knew Tyson would love it.  And I had no idea where to start and really had no idea how to do it.  I can now say I could make one myself next time!  I had bought a whole bunch of locks and such but not sure how to buy the board and luckily our neighbor/hometeacher has a wood shop in his home and he helped get me started with the board and the first 3 things.  From there D and I put some on, then Andrew helped me and then I just got the hang of it to do myself.  And... Tyson has LOVED it!  Even when there were only a few things on it, he spent hours going to it.  And we still do.  It has been a great learning with his hands tool.  And fun.  And a ton of learning for me!  I hope this board lasts all to our grandchildren at least ;)

 The finished board.... yay!

2014 Accomplishments & a few Goals

Rather than rehashing possible goals I/we didn't accomplish this year, I wanted to focus on the good and all that we did in 2014, goal or maybe not.  (Thanks Larissa for the good idea I hope to keep up!)

A & D - Read Scriptures Daily
    Yep this happened almost the whole year, I may have missed 1-2 days at the very end, boo

A & D - Knelt to pray together each night
    While I was prego I didn't want to kneel but luckily we sucked up our laziness and got this going again.  We were praying, just from the comforts of our bed haha

Helped add to G. Clark's life with photos/video of his life
    Already covered this in earlier posts, but it was not a planned goal but great to do

Busy Board 4 Tyson
    Again covered this before, not a goal, but I'm pretty proud

Several homemade books & toys
    Glad that any extra efforts of the year mostly went to Tyson ;)

Put church toys together
    Another non-goal but really glad to help our church experience keeping Ty busy

Taught Tyson his colors and body parts

Finished our ACDC Wedding Video
    This has been on my list for years, so glad to have it done, although I could re-do anyday, no!

A worked 25-30 hr/week almost every week, from home

A & D - Attended the temple monthly, sometimes inviting others to join

Learned how to make/finish metal earring findings and gave several away too

Made wreaths for us and others - 6 total!

Wonderful summer (probably never to happen again) with D home
    We were lucky for David not to have school, I think we made the most of the summer that we could just hanging out or getting organized or working a little extra while playing with the cute baby

D finished Yr 1, and his dean was fired, a much needed celebration!
    This wasn't anything we did, but has to be a great mark for 2014

Tyson accomplished a TON - says over 100 words, started crawling, walking, feeding himself, and just being a happy and silly kid

Put the first batch of 10 Clark home videos from 1980/90's to DVD (thanks Costco!)



We've written a few goals for 2015, I'm excited to see what we do besides the goals.  Seems like we did a TON this year.  From the above, only 3-4 of these were goals.  Pretty cool to me that we did so much!

Crafts Lately

Not sure how this craft bug got to me over the last year, but it has got me good!  If I'm not thinking of one craft I'm starting another... yikes!  Gotta get it under control for 2015.  Crafting is expensive!  And here's what I've done over the last few months, not even over the last year, or years... wowza.


Wreaths
I made 6 wreaths since September.  5 were gifts.  3 of them were an upgraded rag wreath and the others were floral or fabric.  They were really fun to shop for and do, and then I almost didn't want to give them away!!  Someday I'll have enough room for a whole bunch more wreaths at my house, right?!

Video for G. Clark
Not sure this is really considered a "craft" but its definitely creative so hey.  After scanning in a few hundred pictures of G. Clark's life, I put them with a bunch of more recent pictures to a picture video.  Yes it happened to be about 20 min long with 5-6 songs, but he had a lot of great things in his life and it was a pleasure to do.  And took a lot of learning since I'm not a full expert with Final Cut, but getting better each time.

Tyson Busy Board
I had been wanting to make Tyson a board with a bunch of switches and such for months!  He was getting almost too old I thought, and his love for light switches would end right?  Not yet.  And I had not imagined ever having such a big board, but it has been great to learn how to use a drill and bits and all the gadgets that go along with hooking stuff to a board.  First time buying and cutting PVC pipe too!  Okay, really a first time for all of it.  And now after so much worry and hesitation, I'd definitely make another - but dang it's expensive.  If anyone wants to hire me or call to learn from my mistakes feel free ;)

Church Books from Photoshop
This is a pinterest grab, but there was a free template to some LDS photo size templates for kids to understand some basics like prophets, temples, church, prayer, Christ, etc.  I downloaded the templates and then had to add pictures via photoshop.  Then printed them to photos and put into one of those cheap photo holders.  There are 4 more templates about items such as Christ's life, the Book of Mormon, etc.  I'm excited to get to work on these and have some help from other moms wanting them as well.  (Link to Templates:   XXX)

Christmas 2014

Merry Christmas!  It has been a great holiday.  I have found that one of my favorite parts is just watching people open their gifts that I get for them.  That's a fun kind of anticipation, even more than opening presents received.

And watching a 1 year old experience Christmas is the best too!  He is now a pro at opening presents, even if it's not a present, whatever it is, if you say to open it, he rips right in.  And while he loved the packaging or boxes sometimes, he still was very excited about the presents.

We probably went a little overboard, but hey it was our first time ;)  We'll get better, but ah yeah he's spoiled so far...  He got a 3 ft car road tower thing from Little People, If You Give A Mouse A Cookie book - now we read it 2x a day at least, Despicable Me memory game and DVD for the 2nd one, a Mr. Potato Head, and a peg puzzle.  Really, he loves them all and I think we did pretty good actually ;)

I had fun getting D some presents too, and even though we had a low budget we had a hard time sticking to it this year, just wanted him to have some things to add some joy from all the work he's done lately.  We had fun all 3 of us taking turns opening presents with Tyson right by to help too.

After a nap, of just Ty playing in his crib, probably too excited it was Christmas haha, we headed to the Clarks to exchange some and just hang out.  Tyson was bummed to leave his presents but got a few more there that he really really loves.  He got a magnadoodle board, we've been wanting to get him that and he has a travel one, so he warmed right up to it and continues to play with it a lot daily.  We enjoyed giving the family presents as well - we put 10 family VHS tapes onto DVD and that was a big task but rewarding for sure.  It was a nice afternoon.  The evening at home D & I wanted to just relax, but nope, we were packing for our quick trip to AZ the next day.

Also a few days before Tyson got an opportunity to meet Santa, which he wasn't too happy about ;)  Here are some photos we took...before it got ugly.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!! Here's one more of this cute boy...