My two peas in a pod!

These two are such goof balls when they play together. Ashley wants to do anything her brother is doing and loves her babies! Scotty is such a good big brother when he wants to be.

Merry Christmas (a little late)

This time of year always sneaks up on me! I can’t believe how fast this year has gone by. We have settled into our house pretty well. We are still trying to figure out where to hang pictures though! We were able to get part of our back yard finished this summer. So we have some grass back there to play on. We are still working on settling into our church family. Both of us are such home bodies that sometimes it’s a little hard! It has been great to be closer to the majority of our family, and old friends.

Eric has been busy with work, scouting for deer, and hunting this year. He spent about 7 weeks in May and June in Georgia, Arizona, and in Salt Lake City for training and classes with the National Guard. Eric spent most of his spare time this summer setting up trail cameras and hiking all over his Uncle’s property just north of Cedar in preparation for the deer hunts. He took the family a few times with him and we all loved it. The kids especially love riding in the ATV. He found a couple good sized bucks that he was able to keep an eye on. Eric’s hard work paid off, and he shot the deer he wanted on the opening day of the black power hunt. Now we have the deer meat in the freezer, and the antlers up on the wall!

Mary never has a dull moment being a stay at home mom. Both kids keep her on her toes almost all day. Thank goodness for baby naps and preschool! She spends the few free moments she gets to herself reading, & doing crafts, when she’s not cleaning up the house that is! She is glad to be so close to her two best friends who are always up for a “Girl’s Night”! Mary is a Sunday school teacher and teaches 4 and 5 year old kids. It is so much fun to see the kids open up, be excited to learn, and remember stories about our Savior!

Scotty is in preschool 4 days a week, and he loves it. He says he loves his teacher Miss Stephanie because she is the best teacher ever. Scotty can type and write his name, Mom, Dad, and Woo woo, which is the nickname of his cousin Chris. He is still learning how to spell Ashley. He knows his alphabet. He loves to sing songs, whether they are nursery rhymes or church songs. He loves riding horses and the ATV’s. He is very much into Star Wars right now. Scotty is a great big brother and loves his baby Ashley so much. He can always make her laugh.

Ashley has just grown like a weed! She turned 1 year old on the 10^th! She is such a silly little girl. She is learning to make all different faces and laughs when you laugh at them. By 10 ½ months she was a pro at walking. Now she is running! She has decided that she no longer wants baby food; she wants what everyone else is eating. She can say “Dada”, “Mama”, “Da-ee” is Scotty, she points to the dogs and says “Da”, and is even trying to say “Boo” which is one of the dog’s names, and her newest word is “Wow”! She is too big for her britches! She loves her big brother, and watches him do everything. Ashley is very much a Mama’s girl! She loves to be around other kids too.

We are thankful this season for our Savior, and all of you. We hope you have a wonderful Christmas season. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Some Randomness

Well on Sunday at church I see Eric's sister-in-law, Richelle's, cousin Burke and his wife April. After church I see April again so I ask just to make sure they are who I think they are & they are Richelle's cousins. Fast forward to Monday morning, I go to the city office to pay our utility bill. The little library here is next to the city office, & it looks like a house. & April comes walking out and heads over to the office building. We say hi, she goes in does her stuff, I go in pay my bill, and come back out & I'm putting Scotty back in the car & he asks "why did that lady leave her house?" I said "she had to do something in the building we went to." Then he sees her walking back to the Library & says"Mom why is she going back to her house?"
I said "well I think that is where she works."
he says "O, she works at her house."
I said "No that's the library. Did you know she is Aunt Shell's cousin?"
Scotty :"She's Aunt Shell's cousin? She's my cousin too!" (Scotty LOVES his cousins)
Me: "Well she's Shell's cousin, & Shell is your aunt, so we're kind of related. She would be your.....Well I don't know what she is."
Scotty: "She's a girl, Mom."

I just had to laugh and say "yup you're right. she is a girl!"
I love that things are so simple for kids! That was early in the morning and it made my day!

the last 2 1/2 months

Ok so it's been a while. I've been busy with Ashley and Scotty, and this takes a little more time to do than facebooking!
We had a good Christmas, Scotty got lots of Transformers. That's all he wanted.




January we were all settling into having our new addition. Ashley is such a mellow baby compared to Scotty! She is a great sleeper, and only wakes up 1 or 2 times a night. She's not as big of a snuggler as Scotty was, and would rather sleep in her own bed, than be held. We took Scotty sledding a couple of times and he loves it. He's quite brave. He doesn't need me or Eric to go with him. But we have to carry the sled back up the hill with him on it if we do ride with him!



Here's a few of Ashley.



February quieted down a little. Ashley is growing bigger everyday it seam, looking at pictures from when she was born til now. She looks a lot like Scotty did when he was a baby.

Scotty 4month old

Ashley 2 months old

March 4th was Scotty's birthday. We had a Spiderman party for him that night because Eric has drill this weekend. Our family and a couple close friends came over. Scotty had a lot of fun.


This is my best friend Mindi's husband Robert holding Ashley at the party, and Eric's friend Mike. Robert and Ashley share birthdays.


Scotty loves his baby sister. He loves to talk to her and sing to her. If he is sitting by her and she has her pacifier in he'll pull it out and say "Mom baby sister doesn't need her plug, she's not crying."
Ashley is all girl, she loves baths. The sound of the water being turned on in the tub doesn't scare her, she gets excited when she hears it. I think she'd sit in her tub all day if she could!

She's Here!!!!

She's finally here!!!!
Our little girl, Ashley Anne, was born Thursday Dec. 10th at 8:07 am, she was 7lbs 4oz, & 19" long. She is a beautiful healthy girl with lots of dark hair!
We've had a roller coaster of a week this past week. Last Tuesday I went in for my 39th week check and everything was fine. Wed. I woke up with a muscle cramp type of pain over my pubic bone and it got worse through out the day. So we went to the Dr. and he sent us over to labor and delivery to be monitored. They gave me percocet and morphine for the pain and that helped a little bit. After about 2 hours they sent me home and because they couldn't keep me there since I wasn't really having labor contractions. My brother came over to watch Scotty while we were there and ended up staying the night with us just in case we did go back. We ended up going back in at 2am because the pain was so bad. Bad as in I could barely walk and Eric and my brother practically had to carry me to the car. So they monitored me again, and finally at about 5am started an I.V. because I was dehydrated, and about 6am gave me demerol for the pain and that finally started to help and I wasn't hurting as bad. About 6:15 my dr came in and said he was worried about the pain being caused from pressure from the baby and, slipped disc in my back, the pubic muscles being torn, or from the pattern of my contractions that my placenta was detaching. So he said we can either induce or do a C-section. We decided on the c-section because we didn't know how well I would be able to push, and it would be more pain for the rest of the day. The c-section went well. My anesthesiologist (?) was the dad of a friend of ours so that was kind of nice. I was doing ok and Ashley was doing fine after it. We decided I would be ok staying alone through the night. Eric brought Scotty in to see Ashley that night and he was so excited to see his baby sister! That night about 1am I woke up to the most pain I have ever been in in my entire life. On a scale of 1-10, I was at like a 15. It took about 1 1/2 hours to get the pain to bare able. We have decided that morphine doesn't really help with my pain either.
That was Thursday, on Friday I had to have an MRI to see if that would show what was wrong. It didn't show anything really by the way. That was not very fun at all and took longer than we wanted because I started to panic and couldn't hold still and with the pain and all I wasn't comfortable either. But no pain in the middle of the night! I had my mom stay the night with me too.
Saturday: We are planning on going home. I'm still not walking very well, but can with a walker or help from someone. I start getting a head ache and they tell me to lay as flat on my back as I can because it could be from the spinal for the c-section. It helps but I have to sit up to nurse Ashley, to go to the bathroom all that. And it gets worse every time I have to sit up. Then I started to throw up. Not fun after a c-section let me just tell you! Finally they give me a shot of phenergren to stop me the nausea. So after all that, we figured it was a combination of coming off the pain meds, the spinal, takeing an antibiotic, and a migraine. Oh and Ashley was on a "nursing strike" So we decided to stay another night. Again no pain in the middle of the night. And I had my mom stay again.
Sunday: We are definetly going today! I was able to walk better and by myself most of the time with an old man 4 legged cane! Yeah I look like one of those little old men walking with it, taking the little tiny steps and everything! My pain is under control, and Ashley is perfect. She lost some weight but that's normal, and her bilirubin level was low, (with Scotty his was really high and he had to be under the bili lights for like 5 days) she was nursing again, yeay! So we got home and have been doing well.
I'm walking better and don't need my old man cane, I'm only taking Ibuprofen for the inflammation and pain, my hands are way better! Ashley is gaining some weight back, and nursing well. Starting Friday Eric will have 17days off straight, because he gets paternity leave! We are glad to be home and getting better. And now after my novel of a story here are some pics!

Scotty and Ashley finally home

The first time Scotty got to see Ashley

Ashley and me, I know I look horrible but oh well

Look at all her hair!!!

Just an update

It's been a while since I posted anything, so I figured I'd do a little up date.

But first, I want to say thank you to all the Veteran's. Not just to the ones I know, but to all Veteran's. They aren't appreciated enough. And I wish they were. They deserve our support everyday, for what they do. Whether they have been in combat or are just getting into the service, they are choosing to make a sacrifice to their families, for their country, and for the people where ever they go. As the wife, sister, daughter, and grand-daughter of Veteran's I know what it's like on the family side of the sacrifice. I know what my husband has gone through being deployed and gone for a year. I may not take him with the grain of salt that I should because I'm so bull-headed, but I try to support him in everything. I love Eric very much and am proud of him and all he does.
We still are at Eric's parent, waiting for our loan to go through, or not. The bank keep pushing us back and pushing us back, and we are so sick of it. We are about to give up on it, but we absolutely love the house we found, and it actually has a back yard! Not like what we had in EM. It's on 1/2 acre, and there's room for us to park the trailer.
I have 5 weeks til my due date which is Dec. 16th. Eric's mom doesn't think I'll make it that far! As long as I make it through my sister's wedding on Nov. 21st I'm fine with when ever this little girl comes. We still don't have a name for her though! Naming Scotty was so easy, Scott is after my uncle and Eric is after Eric. I wanted this girl to be named after me, so I always thought Malia (Mary in Hawaiian) but it just doesn't fit her. So we are still trying to find a name that we both like and that fits her. It's not easy.
Scotty got a cold over the weekend and some how it turned into pneumonia. The dr. said it's type A which is a bacterial infection, and can be treated with antibiotics, the only problem with that is Scotty doesn't take medicine. So we are on day 3 of 5 trying to sneak it into his milk, and he's maybe gotten 1/2 tsp of the 1 1/2 tsp he's supposed to have taken. The first day he took 1 sip of his milk and wouldn't touch it, day 2 I got him to drink all of it then he started to couch, gagged himself and threw it all up. On the up side, he's acting more normal, and acts like he feels better. He just has this really nasty sounding cough now.
Eric didn't get a deer this year. He was holding out for the big one. He found it though. He was alone, had just hiked up a huge hill at his Uncle Norm's and was out of breath when he kind of stumbled across it. It was a cactus buck. The only non-typical deer he's ever seen in real like. I can't remember how far away it was from him but close enough for him to shoot. Eric just couldn't hold the gun steady enough after his hike. So Eric is going to be scouting Uncle Norm's for the next year so he can find this deer next season. Eric helped my 2 nephews find some really nice 3 points though. Scotty loved to see the deer. He had a great time at Grandma & Grandpa Irons' when they hung up Shaun's deer. It totally grosses me out so I stayed in the house most of the time, so I didn't have to see him touching it. The only mistake I made was when they were taking the head off, and I heard the neck cracking. Ugh very gross for me. You'd think growing up with my parents butchering their own deer, sheep, rabbits, chicken, turkeys, all that it wouldn't bother me, oh but it does, very much so! Uncle Kelly, and my niece Tasha's husband also go deer this year too.
And after this long post I think that's all.

The Zoo, and Vi

We took a quick trip up north on Thursday to go up to Hill AFB, go to the zoo, and we wanted to go visit some friends but we didn't make it to see them. The zoo was really the highlight of the trip. Scotty had seen the baby elephant on tv and we told him we'd go see it sometime. Then I found out that the lady who was the YW president when I was secretary in Eagle Mountain was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and given around 6 months to live. I told Eric I wanted to go see her as soon as we could, because I shouldn't be traveling too far away pretty soon. So Eric was able to get an appointment with the people he needed to see at Hill on Thursday afternoon, and Thursday am we headed up. We made it up to Hill just fine and got that taken care of, visited with my step-mom, and got to see her puppies, which Scotty loved! By the time we got done with that we decided to head back to our hotel and get dinner since it was about 8pm. On Friday we decided to go to the zoo first then go see Vi after the zoo. We had a blast at the zoo! The baby elephant was so funny! We got to see 2 of the baby tigers too, which was pretty cool! After the zoo on our way down to EM, we called Vi to let her know we were coming over and she had just gotten to the hospital for a dr. appointment and didn't know when she'd be home. So I guess I should have planned that a little better. But Scotty had fallen asleep before we'd even gotten to the freeway from the zoo, so we decided to just head home.
So a little more on Vi. She is 84 years old, and until recently she has been a real go-getter! She was a nanny for a family of 5 or 6 kids, (I can't remember exactly) was young women's president of our ward, made pies to take to who moved in, she was pretty much non-stop. I've known her for probably 1 1/2 years, since she moved up the street from me. Shortly after she moved in my friend Britany were called to be her visiting teachers. She probably taught us more that we taught her! She was a wonderful example to me while I was up north, and has helped strengthen my testimony in Jesus Christ, and the LDS church. Last week she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and has decided not to do any treatment. The last I've heard is it is spreading quickly, but she's ready for it, and is at peace. I'm grateful for the young women visiting her, and everyone else in the ward for supporting her. This is kind of hard for me to take since my grandma Snowball, & my mom's best friend, Maxine, who was like a second mom to me, both passed away from cancer. I can understand Vi not wanting to do treatment, I just don't deal with death and change very well.
I know this is a really long post, but wanted to let you know about our trip to the zoo and Vi. Please pray for her to be comfortable as possible. Thanks.

Scotty & the big horned sheep. He thought it was cooler than the tigers!

Scotty on the Tiger statue

Mama tiger & 2 of the 3 babies. You can't tell from the pic but the 1 baby is asleep nursing on the mama, I thought it was cute!

The gorilla. I won't even go into what he did while Eric and Scotty were watching him, I'm just glad I was moving the stroller out of the way when he did it or I'd have thrown up! If you really want to know you'll have to ask Eric, just ask him when I'm not in listening distance! It's that gross!

I think this is called baby giraffe yoga!

Eric, Scotty & the rhino

Baby elephant copying mommy elephant

Mom elephant rolling in the mud!

Baby elephant