Ayres Insanity

  Roughly 12 years ago I heard a quote from my mission president's lovely wife, and it goes...   "Be pretty if you are, be witty if you can, but be cheerful if it kills you!"   I think those are good words to live by, but I have to be honest, I'm kind of struggling with that last one. Under normal circumstances I'm fairly pleasant, but during the last 7 months of my particularly difficult pregnancy I've been a bit off my game. Like today for example, when I yelled at a random neighbor. I was out watching the kids when he came strolling through the neighborhood walking his little dog, it just so happened that my neighbor's dog had escaped (which is a common occurrence with small children who open front doors), anyway, my neighbors dog naturally ran up to this guy and his dog to play and exchange a harmless butt sniff when the guy grumpily picked up his dog, threw his hand up and looked at me and told me to take care of MY dog. Well, in my pregnant s...

  School is back in full swing and I had some mixed feelings about it. I loved summer! I loved not having to wake up early (that was my favorite part), getting to play outside all day, the warm weather, and just having that leisurely unscheduled time with the kids. But I love the structure that the school year provides, the time to get the things done that I can't do while they're around, and the opportunity for them to be taught by someone other than myself.   Taevin is now in 2nd grade and from what I'm told, has one of the best teachers in the whole school, Mrs. Arnold. He likes her a lot and has made friends quickly, he is reading like a champ and says his favorite part of school is recess (go figure).   Ryler is back to preschool for his second year with Mrs. Leanne and loves it! Lucky for us, preschool is just a short walk down the street, he goes on Mondays and Wednesdays from noon until 2:30, which happens to be around Zoey's nap time, so if I'm lucky ...

  Since my little Zoey will soon be getting booted out of the crib, we decided it was time to get a "big girl" bed. Given that a new bed would have cost us around three or four hundred bucks, I decided to give the KSL classifieds a try, and after a couple days of searching, I came across this little gem.     It came with the headboard, footboard and rails and for the bargain price of $50! I liked the basic shape and look of it but it needed a paint job and those prison bars had to go.   It sat in my living room for about a month until last weekend when Russ and I decided it was time to get motivated and get this project done. I removed the bars and Russ gave it a good sanding. I searched for a while to find some sort of decorative spindle to replace the bars but with little success. Finally I found some tiny candlesticks at Hobby Lobby, glued the ends together and voila... I had spindles, we cut them to size and added some little wood appliques and after a f...

  After 2 months of being without my own vehicle and trying to cram our family of five into Russ' Subaru Impreza (making trips to Costco a big joke), we have finally purchased my new vehicle.   It's a 2010 Volks Wagon Routan. We hadn't really been considering VW's, but when we found this it just worked out. It has all of the features on my wish list, white with leather interior (way easier to clean ice cream off of than a cloth seat) and automatic sliding doors, it even has some time left under warranty! And although Taevin is a little disappointed that it doesn't have a TV, it does have some fancy buttons that Russ seems to be enjoying.   So, do I feel any less cool now that I'm a minivan mom? With this sweet ride, I'm gonna say no!

  So our original plan regarding this pregnancy was to not find out the gender of the baby, after all, we already have both and I've heard it's a fun experience to wait for the surprise.   Well, about a week before the ultrasound, I started getting wishy washy. It wasn't so much the curiosity that got me, but the OCD planner in me took over. Perhaps if I hadn't gotten rid of pretty much everything this might not have happened, but given the circumstance, there was some serious planning to be done. Well, I discussed the issue with Russ and he didn't care either way so I buckled and decided to find out.   The ultrasound was on Monday and since Russ couldn't come along I decided to make this fun instead of finding out when I was all alone. I took two boxes, one with tiny pink jammies and one with tiny blue jammies, and I had the technician put the picture in the appropriate box and mark it with an x. She taped up both boxes and when I got home I wrapped up the ...

  The time is flying by! The last month has been so eventful and if I don't take a minute to blog it all, I know I'll forget.   The last thing I talked about was our big surprise, I've since had another appointment and baby seems to be doing great. My ultrasound is in a few weeks and although we won't be finding out the gender this time I'm excited to see that wiggly little munchkin and know that all is well.   Toward the beginning of May, we finally threw in the towel with our pathfinder and sold it in hopes of finding a more reliable, family friendly, not such a lemon vehicle and I've never been so thrilled to wash my hands of such a burden. We are currently all squeezing into Russ' new little Subaru Impreza and looking for something that will better suit our family.   Mothers day came next and we had decided not to do anything other than get a family pass to Thanksgiving Point, but a day or two before, we were wandering around Costco with plans to repl...

  Sometimes life throws you a curve ball, and it usually happens just when you think you've got things figured out.    Way back when I was praying about having a third child, the number 4 kept coming to me. I laughed and told God that He would need to send twins to get Russ to agree to that number, so part of me was a little apprehensive going into our first ultrasound with Z, but alas there was only one of her so I kind of forgot about the number and moved forward... until that day when the number came back.  Zoey wasn't even a year yet and the feeling came, there was one more. Russ did not feel the same but I used every bit of convincing power within myself, and after many arguments and discussions, he buckled. He gave me 3 months to get pregnant, if it didn't happen he would get his vasectomy. I gladly took what he was willing to give and trusted that God would send this baby that He had promised within the conditions Russ had reluctantly agr...