"What's your Mommy's Name?"

My Mom likes to tell a story about when I was a little girl and a man asked me what my Mom's name was. My response to him was "I don't know, but Danny calls her Darlin." My Mom and Dad have ALWAYS called each other "Darlin." In fact their Christmas presents still have tags that read "To Darlin, From Darlin."

Well...Karma is a funny thing sometimes!

We had to run into SLC to take Carson in on Friday to get his weight checked. His Dr. wanted to see if he had gotten back up to his birth weight yet, since he had lost so much that first week of being home. He was about 2 oz shy of being birth weight, but she was happy with his weight, so that was good! :)

The boy eats ALL the time, so I was actually surprised that he wasn't heavier, but we'll take 8lbs 5oz. :)

Since we were in SLC there were a few things that I wanted to do, so we ran a few errands, and did some shopping.

I dragged everyone into Michael's, because I had a 50% off coupon that I wanted to use. I didn't think I was in there too long, but I apparently was in there long enough for everyone to be a little more than bored.

Keric was standing by me and asked me where Cameron and Reagan were. I told him that they were with Dad and we would be leaving soon. Next thing I know, Keric is NOT with me, and Chris and the kids are asking me where he is.

Great!!! I knew he had just been there, I'm not a TOTAL waste of a Mom, so I didn't think he had gotten very far. Chris told the other kids to stay by me, and he went off looking for him.

About 30 seconds later I hear a lady over the intercom say "If there is a customer named Chris in the store, please come back to the framing department."

I knew that HAD to be MY Chris and that Keric had somehow made his way to the back of the store, and was most likely in a total state of panic! We waited for probably a couple minutes and sure enough, around the corner came Chris and Bubby.

A lady had found him wandering the store, and took him back to the Framing department to report him as lost. I felt like a real piece of crap Mom! That's the first time we have had to go pick Bubby up from somewhere for bing lost! He actually didn't seem all that frazzled, and didn't even look like he had been crying. He looked a little embarrassed, and a little worried that he was about to get into huge trouble.

A couple days later I was talking to him about his lost experience in Michael's and was asking him what had happened. He couldn't tell me much, mostly that a lady found him and took him to another lady to find his Mom. I thought it was sort of odd that they asked for Chris so I got to thinking...does he know MY name? What if I had been in there alone and he didn't know my name? So I said "Did the lady ask you what your Mommy's name was?" He said "Yes" I said "Well do you know your Mommy's name?" Again he said "Yes". So I said "What did you tell her your Mommy's name was?" He looked at me like I was crazy and said "I just say her name is Pantsi!"

Well no WONDER they asked you what your Dad's name was! I told him that Pantsi was just a nickname that Daddy called me, but my NAME was Natalee. He actually seemed somewhat shocked by this revelation.

Hopefully he has learned his lesson, and will not run off and get lost in another store, but if he does, lets hope that he remembers that his Mom's name is really NOT Pantsi!

Welcome to our Family Carson

My time and energy for blogging has seemed to be well...non-existent, but at the present time Carson is sleeping and content, so I better do something a little more productive than look and dream at all the stuff on Pintrest! :)

I truly can't believe that Carson is already a month old! Where has time gone??

Before I forget it, I wanted to write down Carson's birth story.

The week before Carson was born was probably one of the hardest weeks of my pregnancy! I in all honesty felt like my entire body had just been taken over! I couldn't seem to eat enough, drink enough, sleep enough, or cry/yell enough. I was so grumpy and grouchy and totally uncomfortable! My hip was really hurting, my feet were completely swollen and sore and all I wanted to do was sit on the couch, about the only comfortable position I could find, but that really wasn't realistic, although I spent more time on the couch than I honestly should have!

I still took Keric to school, still did Activity Days, and even got the laundry done,, but that was about it for the week. On Friday March 9th I had my weekly Dr.'s appointment. Dr. Holmes had told me the week before that she would strip my membranes at this appointment, so I was a feeling a little nervous when I went to check in with the nurse.

I weighed in and then sat down to have my blood pressure taken. It had been high for several weeks off and on, but lately it had been pretty normal, except for today! I don't remember the exact reading, but I do remember seeing a 110 on the bottom number and I knew enough about blood pressure readings to know that that reading was NOT good!! The nurse and I looked at each other with our eyes kind of wide, and I knew this probably wasn't good!

We didn't talk to Dr. Holmes for very long, just long enough for her to tell us that we needed to head up to the hospital to get some stress testing done, and to probably plan on either being admitted, or being on bed rest for the rest of my pregnancy.

Of course we hadn't brought anything with us, plus we had Keric with us, and were supposed to be picking up Cam and Reag for the weekend. To say we were ill prepared would be a total understatement!

Somehow it all seemed to work out. I was admitted to the Hospital around 5:00 p.m. and Dr. Holmes agreed to wait on the Pitocin while Chris drove back home, dropped Keric at Grandma Anne's and got all my stuff.

Labor this time was a lot different than it was with Keric. It hurt a lot more, I'm not sure I even actually felt any contractions with Keric. Lots of pressure, but never any real "pain". My water broke and wow did it ever break! I think I was ALL water!! They said I had about 3 times as much water as normal! Nice!

I was in labor for about 8 hours, MUCH shorter than Keric's 24 hours! However the almost 2 hours of pushing didn't work this time. I pushed and pushed until I truly thought I was going to pass out, but I never got anywhere, so we ended up doing a C-section after all.

I was a little nervous, but more relieved that it was all about to be over, and there would be no more pushing and counting to 10 involved!

It took about 30 mins or so from start to finish. The pressure they always talk about feeling, yeah...it's more like a flippin car sitting on your chest, not exactly what I would call a "little pressure", but other than that, it wasn't horrible.

At 4:28 a.m. out little big man was born, and boy was he MAD about it! Keric never made a sound when he was born, but not Carson! He wailed and screamed and cried with the best of em! Nothing wrong with that little boys lungs!!

He weighed in at 8lbs 7oz and was 20.5 inches long. Other than being quite a bit bigger than Keric, he looks exactly like him! My two little clones!

For the most part he is a good baby! Loves to be held, loves his swing - sometimes, and loves to sleep...except he sleeps during the day and is awake most of the night!

We love him and are so happy to have him join our family! I'm excited to watch him grow up and to become his own little person. As much as he looks like Keric, I wonder if he will act like him as well? I guess time will tell.

I love you Squeakers! Even if you don't let your mommy sleep!

The Mickey Bathroom

The Mickey Bathroom has been done for a couple of weeks now, but there have been some finishing touches that I wanted to get done before I posted pictures.

I can't tell you how in LOVE I am with this little bathroom! It turned out so much cuter than I even had envisioned! I could never have done it without Chris' help! Thank You honey for putting up with my crazy ideas, and for helping me to execute them all!

This may be the closest any of us get to Disneyland for quite a while, but that's OK...Keric LOVES it, and hopefully Carson will too! :)

Here is our "New Bathroom!"

Mickey Shower Curtain


New Window Curtain and Night Light



New Toilet Seat, Black Rugs, and Black and White garbage Can


I cut out a Mickey Silhouette out of Vinyl and Chris shellacked it onto a new toilet seat. LOL

Mickey Towels



Hand Towel, Soap Dispenser, and toothbrush holder



Mickey Rug in front of the sink



Mickey Light Switch Plate



Tubby Time Collage complete with my fur babies too! :)

Mom! Come see the Mouse!

I was upstairs doing some laundry and Keric came running upstairs looking for me. This was the conversation that we had:

Keric: Mommy! Come see...Daddy has a mouse outside!
Me: "WHAT!?! No! I do not want to see a mouse! Where in the world did Daddy get a mouse?"
Keric: "He find it..."

Now I am really freaking out! That's all I need is a stupid mouse in the house!

Me: "where in the world did he find it?? Did he kill it!?"
Keric: "No, he not died it, it's a nice mouse. He find it downstairs".

Keric kept insisting that I go outside and see this mouse. The whole time I am thinking, I hope I can keep it together and not freak out too badly. I HATE mice, more than anything! I kept thinking why in the world would Chris want me to go outside and see some stupid mouse. By the time I get downstairs I am feeling more mad than anything and I am far from amused.

Keric runs ahead and starts pointing outside, "Look, see..it's a nice mouse!"




I very slowly approach the window, and there sitting on the deck is my old COMPUTER mouse in pieces. Chris had taken my old pink mouse apart and took it outside to spray paint it grey. Poor Chris wasn't even downstairs OR outside, he was on a work call upstairs! I truly about had a flippen heart attack, and poor Chris about got a swift kick in the butt for something he didn't even do....

It's a.......

BOY!!!


Contrary to I think ALL of our predictions, Baby Berry is indeed, a little boy!

This morning was FINALLY my long awaited ultrasound. We were at the hospital at 8:40 a.m. and I was the very first appointment.

I was so nervous and excited. I hardly slept the night before. It's been a long time since I felt like a little kid on Christmas morning, but when we woke up, and I saw all the snow on the ground, I truly FELT like a little kid on Christmas morning.

The day before we had kind of taken a "poll" as to what Baby Berry was going to be. I think 75% of the people we asked said Girl for sure. Keric has kind of said all along that he has a Boy baby in HIS belly and I have a Girl baby in mine. However last night, he said the baby was a Boy...?

Well...he was right! Sure enough, right there on the ultra sound as plain as day...our little baby is Boy! I think it took both Chris and I a couple seconds to actually focus on what it was we were seeing.

Although I am a little sad that in all likelihood I won't have a little girl of my own, I am THRILLED to have another little boy. Keric has been so much fun, and is such a sweet little boy. He is also very much a Mommy's Boy, and there is nothing better than having a Mommy's Boy, unless you have TWO of them. :)

Baby Buddy, as we are now calling him..since Baby Berry sounds more like a girl... is very healthy, and is actually measuring bigger than we thought. I was 19 weeks and 3 days on Monday, but he is weighing in at about 21 weeks and 3 days. He is already weighing a pound! So he is kind of a chunky boy right now. :) She estimated my due date at March 17th instead of a March 29th, which is fine with me. :)

As seems to be par for the course with me...Baby looks great, Mommy could be a little better. Nothing serious really this time hopefully. They are a little concerned that my placenta is lower than they would like to see it. I haven't had any bleeding or anything, which is a good sign, but they are hoping that it doesn't turn into Placenta Previa. Basically what that would mean is that they would have to deliver the baby via C-section because if the Placenta is too close to the cervix it can cause bleeding and so they don't like to chance the "normal" way of giving birth.

I am scheduled to go back to the Hospital on Dec. 19th for another Ultra Sound to see if my placenta has moved up with the growth of my Uterus. So fingers crossed that that's what will happen. :)

After the appointment, we kept with tradition and went to Build A Bear to make Baby Buddy a Teddy Bear. We picked out a cream colored Bear, and Keric got to help stuff it,


and give it a "bath".


We named the Teddy Bear "Barry" in honor of the baby's original nick name. :) The name Barry will live on in our house... no need to worry about that.

We also found a really awesome sale at Old Navy and bought little Buddy some clothes that were on clearance. Between the clothes we bought and the clothes that I saved from Keric, our little man is pretty much set for the first couple months of his life! :) I actually had several outfits with tags still on them left over from Keric! Guess it's a good thing we ARE having another boy since Keric apparently had too many clothes. haha

Now the only thing we need is a name! That part really stresses me out! I don't know why I feel like the minute we find out what the sex of the baby is, we need to have a NAME for them, but I do. We had a girl name picked out, but of course hadn't even thought of boy names. So now I am back to square one, and agreeing on names is always a hard thing. I guess we have a few months left to decide still. Until then, I'm going to try my hardest not to think about it or stress about it.

Happy Halloween!

I don't usually get too into Halloween, but this year Keric was so excited about it, I couldn't help but be excited about it too! We actually bought his costume the first week of October because he wanted SO badly to go into the "Spooky Store" so we took him, and ended up getting him a costume. He wasn't too sure about what it was he wanted to be, but finally settled on being a Pirate.


Chris and I don't dress up...I think it's kind of fun, but it's a lot of work, and something Chris just doesn't really seem to want to take part in. ha ha I usually just end up wearing a Halloween shirt of some kind. This year I found an Iron on stencil on Etsy of a skeleton, that had a little baby skeleton in the belly. I just HAD to get it, so I wore my skeleton shirt, but later realized that most people didn't even NOTICE the little baby skeleton on the shirt! :( Oh well...it was cute anyway.


Sorry for the horrible picture...but it was 10:30 p.m. and I realized I hadn't taken a picture of the shirt yet. Chris insisted my face had to be in it too...and well, it had been a long somewhat windy trick or treating day! :(

Keric's pre-school had a little Halloween party on Friday the 28th and I made some treats for it. I don't know why I feel like there are these little "mile stones" that as I Mom I kind of meet every once in awhile, but I was actually pretty excited about making treats for his school party! Something I have never done before, and I stressed out about it for days! Thank goodness for Pintrest! I found some pretty cute little Rice Krispie pumpkin treats that I made, that I thought turned out kinda cute.


They had a little costume parade for the parents and grandparents. Chris, Mama Anne and I went to watch. It was amazingly a pretty nice day. Not warm really, but also not snowing or freezing cold! Keric was one of the first little boys to come out of the school, and he raised his little sword and in his big loud voice yelled "HI MOMMY!" I hate to admit it, but it totally brought tears to my eyes! He was SO CUTE, and so happy!


After their parade, they stood on the steps and sang a couple of Halloween songs, and then they went inside and had their little party minus the parents.


I am so grateful that we found this little pre-school! I was a little hesitant at first because I know he is a little young to be going to pre-school, but it has been SO GOOD for him, and he just loves it! He loves his teachers, and they do such a good job with all those little kids and teaching things in such a fun way. Every time I drop him off or pick him up, he is just so happy and excited! I'm glad we decided to let him go, even if he is young. :)

On Saturday the 29th we went to our ward's annual Trunk or Treat. Thankfully Saturday was also a nice day! Keric had a great time, and of course came home with more candy than we needed around the house!





Cameron and Reagan we able to come along with Corbin. Reagan decided she wasn't going to dress up this year, she was going to just go trick or treating as herself!?! I noticed that several people asked her what she was dressed as, and I heard her say "Halloween Girl". Not sure where that came from, but guess she didn't want to say "I'm dressed as Reagan Wexels". LOL Cameron dressed as a Pokemon character, and Corbin was "Bumblebee" from transformers. I think they all had a fun time.



After Trunk or Treat we carved pumpkins. Keric refused to eat his dinner, so I wouldn't let him carve his pumpkin until he was done.


Long story short, he basically spent the entire night crying, so while he was STILL crying over his un-eaten dinner, Chris carved him a "Sad" pumpkin. LOL After he was done he kept saying he felt bad, and maybe that was too mean, but I thought it was cute, and Keric actually seemed to kind of like it. I carved Baby Berry's pumpkin, I don't have real carving skills, but I managed to make SOMETHING, and Chris kind of cleaned it up.



I also roasted pumpkin seeds for the first time. Cameron really wanted some, and I hadn't had any for years, so I figured what the heck. The ended up being kind of "burned" or something...but actually they all got eaten, so they must not have been that bad. :) Guess I'll know for next year how NOT to roast them!



Monday was of course Halloween, and miracle of all miracles it was SO NICE outside! We didn't even have to wear coats! We took Keric trick or treating around the neighborhood, and he was having a great time, until we came to a house that had a bunch of guys dressed up in spooky kinds of costumes. He was NOT having it! I was sort of annoyed that the guys didn't take their masks off, or at least do SOMETHING to make him stop freaking out, but whatever I guess. We made it through. After those experiences, he insisted he was done and wanted to go home. I felt so bad! We made him go to a couple more neighbors houses before we went to Grantsville to pick up Cam and Reag. He trick or treated a couple houses there with them, and then we went to Mama Anne's house for Soup.

It was certainly a FULL weekend, and also a fun weekend! It's funny to think about having a little baby to take trick or treating next year. That will be fun too! Wonder what He/She will dress up as? Maybe I can talk Keric into doing a "theme" costume next year with the new baby. :)

Other Moments that need to be "documented"

I'm so behind in my blogging that I keep remembering other things that happened that I should have written about, so instead of trying to go back and write them all down, I'm just going to do a quick post about some of the things that didn't get mentioned.... :(

July 11 I needed a change, so I decided to change my hair. I went from dark to blonde...Chris' preference :) and I got bangs! I haven't had bangs since before my mission which was FOREVER ago. I was a little hesitant, but now I totally love them! I think I'll keep them for a long time! :)



July 14 - 18 Our trip to Wyoming for my College Ward Reunion. Keric and I drove up by ourselves on the 14th






Chris flew from Seattle, where he was at an Amazon conference on the 15th to meet us. I had SO MUCH fun seeing so many people that I hadn't seen for so long! I am always so reluctant to go to reunions..but am always glad I do when they are over. :)

Our trip was eventful as always. While Keric and I were driving to my Mom's we drove through some construction work...of course! There is always a road somewhere in WY that is getting re-paved! The guy behind us was too impatient to drive the 35 mph that we were supposed to drive, and before I knew it, he was speeding past me throwing up all sorts of loose gravel. As annoyed as I was by him, what happened next scared me to death! About 10 seconds later, of course after he had LONG passed, I heard a big "BANG" sound and next thing I knew my drivers side window had completely shattered! It took me awhile to pull off the side of the road, and as I kept driving the glass started blowing out at me. I was so mad/scared and just plain upset! Thankfully we were OK, and I made it the 2 more hours to my Mom's house. Were were able to get the window fixed in Powell, so we didn't have to drive home with no window, and of course it made for an interesting story!



Chris was great to help out with all the cooking at the reunion, and Keric had a great time making new friends and playing at the park. We also got to spend time with my Mom on her birthday, which was fun too, and attend "Crazy Days"...a long time Powell Tradition. My mom found a really cheap Powell Panther Sweatshirt that Keric LOVES, and is so excited to wear in the winter! :) Go Panthers!!










July 22 - Potty training FAIL



September 6 - Despite our utter potty training failure, Keric was still allowed to start pre-school. His teachers were fine with him wearing a pull-up, but said they would not change any diapers, and would call me to come get him if he had a poopie diaper. I sat down and explained all of this to Keric. He was thrilled to be able to go to school, and I was thrilled for him! When we took him to school, he was a little apprehensive, and scared, but he eventually warmed up and seemed to be OK with me leaving.







However when I picked him up, he had a little picture of himself that they made, and he had a sad face. He told me that he "just made a sad face cause he was just crying at school". I felt SO BAD!