My Mister K

I know I didn't come back the next day, but at least this is better than a year later. 

So I thought I would start the with the update on my children and have a post for each one. It is extremely tempting to start with the house, but that can wait for now. 

So I am going to start with Kaden, or as some may know him as Mr. K. Kaden turned 4 at the end of August the same weekend that we moved into the apartment. He is very fun to have around. He loves trains and cars and will either be playing with his cars or his trains at the apartment. I personally like him playing with his cars more because it doesn't take up as much space. The last time that I posted a real post he wasn't even two. So let's start there. I have taken a few photos with my ipad of him and I will post those now. Kaden has been my buddy for the most part during the school year. He loves to hang out with his mommy and I feel that I finally have a child that won't be overtaken by Jeff when he gets older, but we will see. We have had many trips together into Salt Lake with just us two and I even remember once going and test driving a car with just him. 

In November of 2012, the Sunday before Thanksgiving we were visiting Grandma and Grandpa VanShaar and we hear a fall from the front room and Kaden screaming that he hurt. As I walked, raced really, into the room to see if I could quiet him down because Jeff and his parent's were on the phone with Jeff's brother in Washington I knew that this was not just a minor injury. He was screaming at the top of his lungs over and over again and me hugging him didn't have him stop, still works today by the way. So Jeff came in to try to help and we thought that it was bad and we should take him to the emergency room. We buckled him in and he continued to scream in pain, but I was able to get him down to a small whimper by the time we got to the emergency room. To sum up the emergency room visit, we waited awhile to be seen, got an x-ray of his arm that he pointed to whenever asks what hurts, that found nothing and was sent home with a he probably sprained it.

We went back to our normal routine, the next day he fell off a chair and started to scream in pain again. He hardly used his one arm and every time that we picked him up he would be in pain. On Wednesday before we were heading up to my parent's for Thanksgiving Jeff and I decided to take him into InstaCare to see if they could figure out what was wrong, because he wasn't getting better and in fact seemed to be getting worse. This time they x-rayed his shoulder too and found that he had a broken collar bone. The break was clean h\through the bone and to tell you the truth it looked horrible. The suggested that we try not to move that arm/shoulder and we went up to see my family for Thanksgiving and told everyone to try not to pick him up too much because it had to be done in a special way as to not hurt him. 

That Monday that we returned I was able to get him in to see an orthopedic surgeon after getting scared by my cousin that it wouldn't heal correctly and he would probably need surgery. After talking to the doctor, that was not the case. Kaden just needed a brace and in the picture below you can see a picture that I took of him in his brace to hold his collar bone in the right place so it could heal correctly. We still had to be careful when picking him up, but he started to feel better because it kept him from using moving his collar bone too much. The brace was off before the end of the year and he was back to his normal happy self. As you can see from the next picture that was taken on Dec 30th.

It is fun to go over pictures when kids are younger to get a sense of how much they have grown. Kaden doesn't have that chubby of cheeks anymore. I miss those cheeks. 

In December of 2013, I put Kaden into an all day preschool so that I could go and officiate High School basketball games at 3:30 without scrambling to find a babysitter. Kaden didn't really like it at first, but he eventually stopped crying when I left him there. He never really liked being dropped off and complained but he stopped crying and that was good enough for me. He got to play with different toys, got meals and treats (not sure if he ate them, because he is such a picky eater), but always loved to be picked up. I liked being able to get things done around the house before heading to basketball without him trying to pull me away from everything. He also starting to learn more of his letters, numbers, shapes, and colors. 

When we moved to Herriman we had to find him another all-day preschool and since he didn't really love to go to his other one, I was determined to find one that was in someone's home. I ended up finding a lady that is wonderful. Kaden did have a hard time at the beginning, but I think it was mostly because it was new and different, but now he loves to go, except when his brother's are off track. He never cries anymore when we get to her door, in fact his new thing now is that he tries to beat Aiden, another boy there. It is fun to see how he has grown. She is also wonderful because she has started to introduce Kaden to different foods and she gets him to actually eat them. It is wonderful. Jeff and I have actually started to take some of the same things that she does and now Kaden is eating a lot better. 

We love having Kaden in our family and he loves all of us too. He makes us laugh with some of the things that he says. Sometimes he is a handful, but what child isn't. 

Time to start again

Well as I was looking over past posts, I thought that I need to get my act together and start posting about our lives again. I don't have any pictures yet. Let's face the fact that I hardly take any photos at all. I am going to rectify that situation in the next couple of months. But probably more like years.

Quick update:
Jeff is still working at Spillman and is loving that. I love how hard he works for us. This weekend we are going on an extended holiday vacation and my parents have been kind enough to watch our kids so it will be just us.

Last summer Jeff and I went to a basketball officiating camp where we both had a wonderful time. Half way through the camp the evaluators were telling Jeff that I should become a high school official. So after a couple of months of deciding if I could do it. I made the jump and became a high school official. So the last couple of months have been extremely busy for my family. There are some weeks where I am gone 5-6 days of the week officiating. I do love it and the money has been a nice little bonus. My chapter of the UHSAA officials voted me Rookie of the Year for this season. I was shocked and it made me feel that all of my hard work was not for nothing.

Another change that has come is that Jeff and I are no longer in the Primary. We got released when I got put in as the Relief Society Secretary. I am busier during the week, but I love organizing and making little handout so I am having a lot of fun. I am still in the stake and TCC Young Women sports, but I will be released at the end of the basketball season in the next couple of weeks from the Stake. Which will be nice because I am way to busy for it.

Dallin is now in the fourth grade and he is doing wonderfully. The first term he actually only got 1 C and the rest were As. This last term he pulled up the C to an A. He is really excited that he got all As. He finally doesn't fight us whenever he has to read for homework. The school signed them up for something Razkids and that has helped him read books.

Isaac is in first grade and he loves it as well. He isn't as social as Dallin, but he does have his moments when he bothers the kids next to him. He is a wonderful learner and can do math at a drop of a hat. He is a wonderful boy and will turn 8 this year. We hope that he chooses to be baptized. In the summer and the fall both of the boys chose to play soccer. In last spring both of them loved playing. Isaac more than Dallin. In fact Isaac scored a couple of goals. In the fall Isaac moved up to where he actually had to play positions and it wasn't as fun for him. We also didn't like that it took up all of the Saturdays in the Spring so that we couldn't go hiking.

Kaden is a joy. We still have a hard time not referring to him as a baby. In fact he calls himself baby. We are trying to break him of that, but it is just so cute when he calls himself a baby. He loves to play with balls and thinks that every ball is a soccer ball. He really liked to watch his older brothers play soccer. We got him his own tiny soccer ball and we would take it to the games and watch him kick it around on the side line.

The Sunday before Thanksgiving while we were visiting Jeff's parents, Kaden decided to play on the couch and he ended up breaking his collar bone. It was quite an adventure to get it diagnosed. It took 1 emergency room visit and an instacare visit to finally get it diagnosed. We then took him to a specialist after Thanksgiving and Kaden had to wear a brace for about a month. He was such a trooper. It was really sad to see him so miserable. There were a couple of days where Jeff and I just held him. We love that little man. He is all healed and back to his tricks of falling off the arm of the couch to the middle of couch. That boy will never learn.

Well I think I highlighted a couple of the best points. I know this was suppose to be quick but who can really make almost a year's worth of stuff into a paragraph. I will be back with more pictures and more explanations.

February Activities

I noticed today that it has been over a month since I have updated the blog with what my family has been doing. So here we go.

Dallin- Has been playing basketball in two places. We signed him up for the Stansbury Stallions and for Jr. Jazz in Magna. He wasn't as excited about practice this year as he was last year, but I think it is because he would see that he wouldn't get to do some things that we were doing that night because he would have practice in Magna. He hated to go to the Stansbury Stallions this because it was for an hour and a half and was with over 100 people so he would have a lot of down time while the other people were getting their turn. But he had fun at the Jr. Jazz games and towards the end of the season he actually started to go after the ball.


Isaac- At the beginning of the month he started getting a fever of 103. I would then give him some medicine and it would work its magic and bring the temperature down and he would be fine for the rest of the day where the fever would stay around 99. The next morning it would start out at around 99 and then after lunch it would spike again to 103. I would give medicine and then he would be fine for the rest of the day. His body would have this pattern for around 10 days. At around day 5 I took him to the doctor and there was no infection that she could find. He even had to go get his blood drawn and pee in a cup for tests for different infections. All tests came back negative. At around day 8 when the fever roller coaster still hadn't gone away on its own, the doctor started him on antibiotics. He had the fever for the next couple of days, but it finally did break and not come back on February 13th. So he was able to go to his valentine's day party the next day. he was so excited. It was sad to see him so happy and playing in the morning and then after lunch he would lay down and stay that way for a couple of hours until the fever broke and then he would start to play a little bit. After the 10 days of fever though he wouldn't even start to play. We don't really know what was going on, but he is back to his old self now and we are happy to have our Isaac back.

Kaden- What can I say about our baby. Yes we still think of him as a baby even though he is 18 months old. Yesterday he went to nursery for the first time. Jeff went with him and he thought he would have to stay the whole time through the play with toys time, but Kaden was having so much fun playing with the toys, that Jeff left to come join me in Primary to help with your 10 yr old class. No one came and got us, and when we went and picked him up he was happy to see us. Jeff got to the room first and was calling Kaden's name, but he didn't drop his toy and come running until he saw me, and knew that it was time to leave. He is such a cute boy. This month Kaden figured out how to get his own cereal out of the bag, when I forget to shut the pantry door. I was making dinner one night and turned around to find him like in the picture to the left. It was so cute that I took the picture. He was such a sneak. We call him our a ruckus when he gets into our things, but he is such a cute ruckus that he makes us smile when we find out.

Parents- This year for valentine's day I thought I would give Jeff 14 days of valentines instead of just one. So it started with me leaving a note in his gym bag so when he went to play racquetball with some guys at his work he would know that I loved him. He found the note a little early and the snack that I left in there, but he loved the gesture. I would leave a note every day for him somewhere where he would find it. Sometimes I would leave one of his favorite snacks. By the end of 14 days, Jeff was starting to say that I was making him fat, but he loved all of the notes of love and kindness. Jeff ordered me flowers on valentine;s day and it was a new experience for both of us having flowers shipped through UPS. I don't think Jeff liked how it turned out and will not be buying flowers over the Internet again, but I loved the flowers and I felt very loved that day. I snapped a picture a couple of days after valentine's when the flowers looked their best. It was definitely a bouquet of flowers that got better over time. In fact they are still doing just fine sitting on my kitchen table. We also went out to sushi that weekend when we were up at my parents and we had a ball being out together. We need to do more of that.

Family Activities-I love doing things together as a family, especially when we got to a sporting event. This year Dallin became in love with the Jazz. He went to one game when they came back from the lockout, which was free for us because of Jr. Jazz, and he had fun and actually followed the game the whole time. So we planned to take everyone to a Jazz game this month as a reward for working on the basement. The day that I had planned to take everyone turned out to be on the only weekend that was perfect to go see my family over a couple of days. So i cancelled the Jazz game. The day before we left I thought about seeing if the Utah State basketball team had a game that we could replace the Jazz game with. It turned out that they did and I bought 4 tickets, which turned out to be a lot cheeper than going to the Jazz game. Everyone had a lot of fun at the game. You can see from the picture that I took with my phone, that Dallin is paying attention, Isaac is being his normal self when I pull out a camera, and Jeff he looks bored, but if I remember correctly the Aggies weren't doing the best at this time so he might be a little frustrated. Utah State didn't win, but we all had fun and I was able to tell the boys that I used to work here and be up in the media box and on the floor taking stats. It was a little sad, because I miss taking stats for Utah State. It was one of the happiest times that I had at college. We all had fun and that is a plus.

I had to share this last photo becuase Kaden is just too cute. He is funny in the fact that he will let you put something on his head and he will keep it there for awhile. He was in the bath and I put his vampire duck and an alligator toy on his head and he thought that was fun. He wold actually continue playing with the other toys and leave these toys on his head. We play a game with our kids where we put an animal on there head and then name their heads the animal with head, brain, or any other name for the head we can think of. So since I was able to get two animals on his head I named him ducky head alligator brain for this picture.

So we have all had fun enjoying our new basement this last month and Jeff and I can't believe how we ever lived without the basement being done. It took along time to finish, but now that it is done we love it. Next project will be our pantry shelves, and then it is on to my craft room where demolition will be involved. I can't wait to try my hand at breaking down a wall with a sledge hammer. It should be fun.

Update on our lives throughout November

Yes I know that November isn't over yet, but with everything that will happen this week I wanted to give a little update on everything. Basketball season has arrived and Dallin is in a clinic run by Stansbury High School. They help teach the boys some of the fundamentals, and since the Jr. Jazz program in Tooele and Stansbury got shut down for not paying their bills(don't get me started) This is where Dallin went.

Although a couple of weeks ago, we got asked to join the Jr. Jazz program in Magna with a boy from our ward. So Jeff and I decided that would be good for Dallin. Since the father of that boy will be the coach, he offered to carpool Dallin into Magna for us, so that saves us a 20 min drive twice a week which is nice.

Our house has offically become of a house of a toddler. Even thought Kaden turned 1 on Aug. 31, he wasn't walking so I still considered him a baby, but in the last couple of weeks Kaden has found the confidence to let go of the furniture or hand by himself and walk towards something. The funny thing is that it is usually after mommy. I got to admit that I love to have him love me so much, but at the same time I can't hold him all of the time.

The happiest piece of news that I can come up with is that we are close to getting our basement ready for the drywall. Our goal is to have the drywall up downstairs by christmas and since we are paying someone to come in and do it for us it will be done. We have a couple of things that need to be finished before we can call them to come and do it, but it should only take a couple of weeks for the workers to finish it up. Jeff and I are so excited for me finally to have my craft room back. He has been very patient with me while I have had all of my crafting supplies in our bedroom and around our kitchen table.

While the basement plumbing was getting completed we had the plumber that we hired move the plumbing for our washer and dryer into the front bedroom. Isaac has to sleep in that room until his room gets completed, but I just make sure that all of the laundry is done before bed and he doesn't mind. It is nice to have a larger place to sort the clothes. The best thing of all is the dryer vent is maybe a foot long where before it ran the width of our house. It has made our dryer more efficient and it should be easier to clean by ourselves if it ever becomes clogged.

The last piece of news is that I have started a crafting blog. I have been reading a lot of blogs about crafts and I have a lot of ideas on how to make some of my own and now I have a place to share my experiences. I wanted to have the site open to anyone, but didn't want all of them to read about everything my family does, so I had to separate them. If you would like to see what it is all about please go to http://splendidfailurecrafts.blogspot.com/. I posted my first tutorial on how to make a Flower belt.

Halloween festivities

I want to combine all of the activities that we did for Halloween into one post. We started out this year's Halloween activities by going to the school Halloween carnival. Dallin and Isaac had a really fun time playing in the bounce houses. After a little time letting them have fun I made them go inside to play some games, because I was cold. They played a couple of games and had a fun time.

I wanted to kids to go to the cake walk. so we had to stand in line. Dallin didn't want to play the game, but once I told him about what he could win he was all for it. It was a good thing because he won. He picked out a plate of cupcakes and we went to play some more games. After we got done with the games, I still had a few tickets left over and we spent them on some popcorn for Isaac and some cotton candy for Dallin and we went home to share with Jeff, who stayed home with Kaden.

 Dallin waiting for the cake walk to begin

 Isaac waiting for the cake walk to begin

 Kaden at the Halloween Carnival before Jeff came and got him

On Sunday, we got together and carved the pumpkins. I was a little rushed for time so Jeff and I gutted the pumpkins while the kids were still playing. We then asked the boys what they wanted their pumpkins to look like. Isaac wanted pac-man and some of the dots, so his pumpkin was easy. Dallin wanted the ghost from pac-man and Jeff made him one, and then hung some eyes and a mouth. I made just a regular jack-o-lantern face on the rest of the pumpkins.

My boys with some of the pumpkins that we carved

As usual Spillman Technologies had their yearly trick or treat party for the kids at their work. The boys all dressed up. Isaac as Iron Man, Dallin as Darth Vadar, and Kaden as Tigger. Jeff and I decided that this year we would not dress up. Kaden had fun walking around the building and seeing everything. When the boys got a long stick of sugar, Kaden held on to that for the rest of the trip. He loves sticks. Dallin and Isaac had fun getting all the candy that they normally get.

The last thing that we did before trick or treating was we went to our local grocery store(yes, Stansbury Park now has its own grocery store) and we got candy from all of the departments, spent time playing on the bounce houses, decorating some cookies, and playing the pumpkin walk. Which was every 15 minutes the boys had to go and find a number to stand on and they would call out one or two numbers at a time and they would win a bag of goodies. We played twice and didn't win, then after we did all the rest of the stuff I let the kids play one more time, and Isaac won. He was so excited. 

Kaden's First Birthday!!!

Well my baby finally turned 1. The year has gone by pretty fast. He is an extremely happy boy and everyone loves to have him around. It has been a blast to have a baby around to enlighten our lives.

We started a new tradition for Kaden's birthday. We decided that we would try to promote being nice to your siblings by have the boys by birthday presents for the birthday boy. So I had Dallin and Isaac pick out a gift each for Kaden. Both of them loved doing it and they loved seeing Kaden's reaction to their presents more. It was a wonderful day!

 This picture was requested by Dallin and Isaac as a repeat of a picture that we took a year previously on Isaac's birthday, when Kaden was only a week old.

Kaden definetely loves cakes.

Happy Birthday Kaden!!!!

More random Kaden photos!

A couple of weeks ago, Kaden started doing a very funny thing whenever someone would walk by him on the floor. He started to raise one arm straight up in the air. I thought it was really cute that I had to see if he would repeat it over and over again. He did and he also did it again a couple of hours later when Jeff came home. I forgot at that time to get a picture so at 5 am the next morning I got out my camera before putting both of us back to sleep. Yes, 5 am at this time he was still waking up once in the middle of the night. Here are the pictures.

At first I had a hard time taking a picture of his one arm extension because he kept putting up both of his arms, but I finally got one for all to see how cute my baby is.

First Taste of Solids!!!!

Well as of Dec 31st, Kaden is 4 months old and yesterday I got the go ahead from his doctor to start him on rice cereal. So, I bought some and got out all of our old things. Which we just barely found on Sunday after cleaning and putting all of our things in bins instead of boxes. At first Jeff didn't want to do that, but he has come around to my way of thinking. Sorry, got side tracked back to Kaden. He had a rough day yesterday because he also got some of his shots so he didn't sleep that well, so right before we tried the food he was asleep and we woke him up. Yes I know that you might think that I am weird but Kaden loves to sleep at weird times and if I don't wake him up to eat I am up all night with him so I wake him up. So he didn't really have the patience for being fed with a spoon, but all in all I think he did a good job for this being his first time with solid foods: Here are the pictures:

This is a picture of Kaden waiting for the milk to be heated so that we can mix the cereal. He is starting to get mad at us.

 This is a picture just a couple of minutes after the first one, he is really mad at us for not having his food ready.

 Jeff took this so you could see what he would do when we put the food in his mouth for the first time. Yep, he just cried and kept it in his mouth.

 To get him to calm down enough to swallow we would give him the binkie. After a couple of times of doing this I didn't give him the binkie anymore and he started to swallow by himself, but he was still a little mad that we woke him up so for the most part we had to use the binkie to calm him down. When he was calm he woke try to suck on the spoon like a bottle, and that would make him a little more mad. We did find out that he ate the food better when it was a little bit thicker.

Kaden is growing up so fast. Sometimes I can't believe it. I am still waiting for the day that I can stop breastfeeding though. I don't like being tied down for 15 minutes every 3 hours and not being able to do a whole lot, so if that regard things are going slow, but he is way too cute. I guess I should also let you know how big he is. He is now 11.4 lbs and 23 ins long. To remind everyone when he was born he was 5 lbs 12 ozs and 19 ins long. So the boy is growning but not very much at a time. He is almost too big for his 0-3 month clothes.

Random Pictures

I have said that my favorite things to take pictures of are temples. My next favorite right now is Kaden. He has so many cute facial expressions that I can always get a different photo from him. So I thought that I would post a couple that I have taken.

The baby smiles

For awhile I was a little worried that Kaden hadn't started to even notice toys. He still doesn't like them all that much, but he will grab onto them. This is the first time that he started to look at his baby gym toy that lights up.

Welcome Kaden Ryker VanShaar!!!

Well the title says it all. We had our third baby boy. I was scheduled to have the baby on the 8th of Sept., but at my last doctor's appointment the baby measurements concerned my doctor, so we went into the ultrasound to see what was happening and it turned out there was not enough fluid around the baby. Since I was 38 weeks along that meant that I had to have the baby that day.

So I went from there to the women's center and after a little stress about who would be at home with my kids, and things that I needed to have at the hospital (Yes, I didn't have a bag packed, I was planning on doing that, I had a week) I had my baby. Kaden was born at 1:54 pm on August 31, he weighed 5 lbs 12 oz and was 18 inches long. He is small and really cute.

So here are just a few pictures that I have taken of him.