Token System

I have been struggling to get my boys to listen lately. There had been lot of yelling and screaming which I had to take blame for and I just would break down and cry because I didn't know how to make them listen. I had tried everything I could think of. Nothing seemed to be working. I remembered when I was little my parents gave each of us kids little jars and if we did something nice or good or if we were just behaving well we would get poker chips. I don't remember exactly what we did with those poker chips. I think that each of them were worth a certain amount of money or something. So I decided to try it with my kids. I went to Hobby Lobby and bought these cute little glass jars and some precut wood chips. I brought them home and painted them and mod podged them with pirate paper. The boys now know if they are good then they get tokens and when they act poorly they get them taken away. When they fill their jar with the tokens then they earn a dollar. They can save that dollar or they can go to the dollar store and get something. Aidan and Ethan have really been wanting the Bone Knapper from How to Train Your Dragon, so that's what they are working together to get. This has helped me to not scream or yell because it gives them incentive to be nice or do nice things as where before they didn't have a reason to want to listen. They also start to understand the value of money which I think can be taught at a very young age. So far this has worked really well!

Daddy and Son's outing

Ben and I decided it would be good for him to take each of the boys out once a month seperately on some sort of outing. It has been a lot of fun for them! So the other Saturday, Ben took Ethan fishing on the Provo river. Ethan had a blast with his dad!

My 28th Bday!

So every year that passes I get older believe it or not. I can't believe I will be 30 in two years…it's crazy. I had a really great bday this year filled with lots of family and friends. The weekend before my bday Ben took me out to Los Hermanos where all his family and my family met us for dinner. It's funny that I have been there for every bday since I turned 19. I love that place!
On my bday my sister Holly watched my boys so I could go get my hair done. And then later that night Andre' my brother watched them for me so I could go out with some girlfriends. My friend Stacy picked me up and we went and picked up our friend Cherelle and then met Kelley at the mall. We went shopping at the mall for about an hour. I had a lot of help from the girls! Then we went out to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. I had such a great bday!

Ethan's fall!

I have to say that Ethan is my most accident prone child. Whether it be his fault or he be the brunt of someone else's mishap. So this night he and Aidan were bathing. I tell him all the time to not get in and out of the tub because he might slip and fall. Well he did just that. He got out of the tub and somehow slipped and fell forward knocking two of his top teeth loose. I wasn't in the bathroom when it happened but heard a lot a crying and screaming which is pretty normal. I quickly went in there to see blood coming out of his mouth. I really didn't think much of it. I just assumed he bit his lip or something and started to rinse his mouth out. It wasn't until later when he says to me, " Can you put a band-aid on my tooth?" did I realize what he had done. I immediately called Ben freaking out because I didn't know what to do. He told me to call our brother-in-law in Vegas who is a pediadontist. I called Jaren up and explained to him what happened. He pretty much told me there was nothing anyone could do. I would just have to watch it and cut up all his food for him for the next two weeks so he wouldn't be using those teeth to bite into his food. He said either it will heal depending on if he damaged the nerve or not or if he did damage the nerve the tooth would eventually die and fall out. So this happened about a month ago and I am sad to say I am pretty sure it is dead and will eventually fall out! My poor little 2 year old might just have to have a missing tooth until he is nine or ten!

Blackout!

Yesterday wasn't a bad day at all. It was windy all day but other than that is was really warm outside. I came home around 5:30pm and bathed the boys. Then I made dinner and realized the wind was getting really bad. I checked outside and saw how bad it had got. I took the boys upstairs to bed and the lights would flicker. I didn't think the electricity would go out. I put the boys to bed and went into my room to pump. I was sitting on the floor talking to Ben who was on his way home from work and he told me it was getting really bad outside. That's when the electricity went out. I was completely scared. I had already been on edge because of the sounds the wind was making through our doors and windows. I didn't know what to do. I used my cell phone to go find a flashlight and then on my way downstairs to find some candles the flashlight went out. I was soooo scared. I'm ridiculous. I stayed on the phone with Ben because it made me feel safer! I was able to light a tea light candle because that was all I had. I was than realizing how unprepared I was. I was able to find some batteries for the flashlight so that helped a little more. I just waited around until Ben got home. It was actually really nice to sit around and talk to Ben without the distractions of a TV or computer. Here are some pictures and video of Keaton who didn't seem to mind sitting in the dark!

Keaton sitting in a blackout from jaclyn on Vimeo.

Happy Valentines Day!

I absolutely HATE that Valentines Day was on a Monday. It made it really hard for me to be able to get the boys gifts. I went to Wal-Mart at midnight on Sunday night to get them their balloons and gifts. They were completely wiped out but I found some things for them. I bought them 2 balloons, a Valentines Day book and 2 ring pops. It was really fun to have them wake up Monday morning and see their presents. They loved it! Valentines was pretty stressful for me. I hurried and got ready for the day and packed the two boys bags for the night because they spent the night with my brother and sister down in Provo. I headed down to Provo where I met up with my brother for lunch. Then I drove over to campus to get Ben's gift. After leaving campus I went over to Victoria's Secret for Ben's other gift! :) Then I went to my sister Holly's house so I could feed Keaton. While I was there I tried calling Texas Roadhouse to give a take out order. I felt like I was calling into a radio show to win something. I kept getting a busy signal. I called like 15 times before I finally got through. She immediately put me on hold. I was on hold for about 6 min. before she got back on and asked how she could help. I told her I needed to place a take out order so she then transferred me. I was on hold for 15 min.! It was ridiculous. I finally was able to give my order and she told me it would be done in 30 min. I wasn't able to leave Provo until almost 6pm. So I called Ben who was right close to our home and asked him to go pick up the food. He said he would and I headed home to set up the house. I was doing everything I could think of and realized how long it had been. It was 7 already. I called Ben and said, "Where are you?" He proceeded to tell me that they had somehow given our order to someone else and they were going to have to remake it. I said that is unacceptable and to tell them we get it for free. So that's what happened, Ben told them it should have been done an hour before and that we should get it for free. So in the long run it was worth a free meal! He came home and I had the dinner table set up really nice. We watched a movie I had rented which I would never recommend. It was called The Romantics. It was awful! We had a really nice quiet night in. I was so grateful to my sister Holly and brother Andre' for watching the boys and keeping them over night! I love you guys!

Brian Head

This last weekend Ben and I went to the cabin. We were the only ones there plus Belmont. It was a nice weekend away, however I wish I had felt better. I was deathly sick. The boys had a lot of fun though. We got there late Friday night and talked by the fire. Then we all went to bed. We got up the next morning and Belmont made us all breakfast. His usual, pancakes, eggs and bacon. It was delicious! Then Belmont and Ben took the boys skiing. They had a lot of fun. Ethan wanted to go a second time but Ben said it was way too hard to go again. So I took the boys back home while Ben and Belmont stayed and went skiing and snowboarding. Later that afternoon we watched the BYU vs. Utah basketball game and lounged around. Belmont left that night back to Vegas and our little family stayed and had dinner and cleaned the cabin. We left early the next morning. It was a short weekend but it's always nice to get away for a little bit.

Aidan skiing with Grandpa Belmont from jaclyn on Vimeo.

Ethan skiing with Grandpa Belmont from jaclyn on Vimeo.

Dinosaur Museum

I think I have mentioned that every Monday the Dinosaur Museum has family nights where they have extra activities going on with a theme. We went on the 7th of February and it was Cupid's Valentine Mask-querade. The night did not start out well. First of all a blizzard had just begun outside when we got there. That was a sign of what was about to come. We got there 10 minutes before it started so we were just walking around the lobby waiting for the booths to be set up. In that short amount of time I lost Aidan. He had wandered off. I didn't panic at first because I was sure he was close by. I started to look for him and began to yell his name. After a few minutes started to pass I began to panic. I was frantically looking everywhere. In the gift shop, the bathrooms all over the lobby and I even quickly ran through the museum yelling his name. I came back out to the lobby and told some workers that I had lost my son and I began to bawl! They asked me a few questions about him and told me it was going to be okay that they would find him. They told me to stay put. I just stood there crying, making a huge scene I'm sure! Then out of nowhere after a few minutes a worker came walking out with Aidan. Aidan was gone a total of ten minutes. He was totally laughing until he saw me crying and when I took him by the arm he stopped his laughing. I wanted to ring his neck! Instead I just hugged him and told him to never do that to me again! By this point I just wanted to leave. I was so embarrassed. But I didn't. I stuck it out and let them participate in the activities. So from these pictures you could never tell the traumatic experience I just had.

Roxanne's 24th Birthday

So my younger sister Roxanne turned 24 a few weeks ago. She always says to me if I were like you then I would have been married already with a child. What she should realize is, she isn't me and I adore her for who she is. I look up to Roxy in so many ways. She came out to live in Utah in January of 2007 and that was one of the best presents I could have ever received. I had been away from home for 6 years already before any family decided to come out here. Roxy decided to start attending aesthetician school at Dallas Roberts. She completed her schooling and became a licensed Aesthetician. She then started attending UVU and will now be graduating this April with a Bachelors in marketing. She already has a grown up job at Pinnacle Quality Insight in SLC as their new marketing director. I will be honest, I hate it but that's me being selfish. We just really miss her because we don't ever get to see her anymore. I love my Roxy Pants more than she will ever know. I am so proud of her and everything she has accomplished in her life. She is so dedicated to what's important, she is loving, kind, thoughtful, super smart and is a great friend and sister! She has been so fun to have out here. Roxanne has had a lot of trials in her life and I thank Heavenly Father for where she is now and how she has turned those trials into learning experiences. She is the best Aunt to my boys. She really loves them so much and probably takes more pictures of them than I do as their mother. I am grateful for her support of me as a mother of three and I just want her to know that I love her dearly!

Keaton is four months old!

This is so sad…my baby is getting bigger and bigger and I can't do anything about it. Anybody who knows me knows that I don't like the baby stage! So this is weird that I am sad about it. I think it has to do with the fact that Keaton is unlike any baby I have ever had. He is the EASIEST! He has been such a joy in my life. Keaton is the HAPPIEST baby in the world. He never cries unless one of the boys hurts him which is understandable. I just love cuddling with him and loving on him! Here is his schedule and has been since he was about 2 months old: he wakes up between 10 and 10:30 and sometimes I have to wake him up. I change him and feed him a bottle. He is awake for an hour and a half and goes back to bed for an hour and a half. I wake him up after the hour and a half and change him and feed him. I do this until 8:30 when I bathe him and put him to bed. I then wake him up at 10-10:30pm to feed him one last time and put him straight back to bed. He then sleeps until 10-10:30 the next morning. Could I ask for a better baby? I think not! He is so content. Right after I feed him I lay him on the floor and he just rolls all over the place and coos and doesn't cry until it's time for him to take a nap. It's like clock work for him…it's amazing! Keaton has such big smiles! I love watching him interact with people because he is so friendly with everyone. I am not nursing anymore because he won't but I am still pumping which does suck but at least it's cheaper than formula. He is strictly on a breastmilk diet. The doctor told me I could start introducing cereal if I wanted to but I figure he is doing so well with out it so why ruin a good thing. Here are his stats:

Weight: 15.7 lbs.--57%
Height: 26.3 in.--84%
Head Cir.: 16.8 in.--53%

Aidan is four!

Aidan turned four on December 27th and he had a great birthday with all the family in Reno! He just saw the doctor and looks really good. Although the doctor did ask how Aidan's diet was and I just laughed. I am in shock everyday that he hasn't just blown away. The child rarely eats and if he eats this is what his diet does consist of…Trix, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, quesadillas, and mac 'n cheese. The doctor was like you really need to get him to eat some veggies, obviously you can't force feed him but make sure it is always available. The little scoundrel dry heaves by just smelling vegetables. I was having some vegetable lasagna I made for lunch and he left the kitchen with his hot dog on a plate and said he couldn't take the smell anymore. He's slightly dramatic. He proceeded to go sit in our front coat closet to get away from the smell.

Aidan is a cute little boy who has a little bit of an attitude sometimes. He can be really sweet and talks in his little quiet, sometimes whiny voice, when he wants something. Lately his definition of sharing is when his is all gone and he tells Ethan to "share" with him with what Ethan has left of his. Aidan can be a big help with Keaton when he wants to be. :) Aidan still LOVES all his cartoons in the morning. His favorite shows right now in the morning are Diego, Max and Ruby, Bubble Guppies and Umizoomies in that order. Aidan is loving preschool and loves his teacher Mrs. Noble. I am having a really hard time with him recognizing his letters though. If I ask him to show me a certain letter he can't for the most part point out which one it is. He can with some but not many. However, he can tell me the sound that particular letter makes which I think is weird. He is really good at counting but then again has a hard time recognizing what number is what. He knows all his shapes and colors which is good. He is really good at memorizing books that we read and likes to read them to Ethan and me.

Aidan has so much energy and so it's been hard this winter like every winter to come up with things to do inside to get his energy out. He really likes when we go to the dinosaur museum and to Chik-fil-a. He loves going over to friends houses to play which I have tried to be more conscientious of because it's important to him. It's hard to believe he is already four. Ben and I love him so much and love watching him grow and mature as the years go on!

Weight: 36 lbs.--48%
Length: 41 in.--57%

Projects

I made the Sam for my sister for Christmas, Home I made for my mom for Christmas as well and the Valentines are for me! :)

Grandpa Anderson

Where do I even begin…I guess I will start from when I met these wonderful people! Six years ago before Ben and I were even dating, Ben took me over to his grandparents house in Holladay, UT to watch a BYU basketball game. When I met them I was instantly welcomed and felt of their love for me. After my visit with them I was very jealous of Ben being able to have grandparents as great as grandma and grandpa Anderson. In 2007 we moved in with them while looking for a place to live. Looking back I will treasure those few short months forever. They were the BEST! Grandma would cook three meals a day for us and if she didn't they would take us out to eat. Aidan was only several months old and he LOVED his great grandparents. He would help grandma with unloading the dishwasher and she would teach him how to go up and down the stairs. We would spend a lot of time outside in their amazing backyard. Ben would help Grandpa with the lawn care and Aidan and I loved picking the fruit from off the ground. Grandpa would have me spend some time with him and Grandma teaching them how to use their new computer that they had just bought and how to receive and send emails each day. On the weekends we would go out to Cafe Rio a lot and come back to watch a movie on their On Demand which they had me show them how to use! :) My most favorite thing was to watch their love for each other and how Grandma loved to take care of Grandpa. Grandpa was so proactive about helping us however he could. I swear he was always handing out money to Ben for the most ridiculous things. While living there he helped us find a place to live in Sandy and helped us purchase our second car. Having to move out of the basement of grandma and grandpa's was a sad day for me. I really missed having them around while Ben would be away at work. They were so good to me and treated me as one of their own grandkids. The following summer I was in a car accident and totaled one of our cars. Grandpa called up Ben and told him he was giving us his van. You can't be serious Grandpa! That was grandpa though, helping us out and all of his grandkids anyway he could. I made sure that I would go and visit often. I just really LOVED them so much! Every Halloween we would go over and visit them and see how Grandma had dressed up and had the house all decorated. We loved going over and watching any BYU game with them because they were true blue fans. In 2009 Grandma's health started to go and she became ill over time. The love that I had already witnessed living with them was even more evident now while Grandpa stayed by her side and took care of her the best he could. That November Grandma passed away. I was absolutely hysterical. I couldn't even think or talk about it without just sobbing. It was so emotional for me to see Grandpa sitting there at the gravesite so upset that he had lost his dear wife. My heart broke for him. Grandpa definitely persevered and went about his life. He continued to go to the temple every week as he and grandma would do. He continued to work out in his yard and maintain it. He would water ALL of Grandma's plants in the house. I remember being there one afternoon and he told me to not let him forget to water the plants because it would make Grandma so sad if he let any of them die! He continued to take care of his family. He would take me and the boys out to Arbys, and Ben and I out to Cafe Rio or the Golden Corral! I made sure to always pay him back by coming over and making dinner for him and watch movies and the news with him. We had some fun BBQ's with Grandpa on his back patio, visiting with him and playing Sequence with him. I enjoyed his company so much.



The week after New Years we heard that grandpa had pneumonia and that he was in the hospital. I immediately told Ben we needed to go see him. Thanks to my brother who came to watch the boys, Ben and I were able to go up to the hospital on Thursday the 6th and see him. We talked to him and he was very responsive and whitty as ever. We spent a little over an hour there and left. As we were leaving I looked at Ben and began to cry and told him when Grandpa left us I was going to be sooooo sad! I really didn't think though that this was going to be the last time we would talk to him and he would understand who we were. On Monday I had just arrived at the gym with a friend when Ben called me and told me that Grandpa was failing fast and we needed to get to the hospital quick to say our goodbyes. My friend Kelley was so sweet and drove me right back home so I could hop in the car with Ben and the boys. We got to the hospital and whispered in Grandpa's ear that we LOVED him. Ethan kept asking Grandpa, "Where are you going Grandpa?" We then told him, "Grandpa is going to heaven soon to be with Grandma!" Ethan followed with, "Grandpa I want to go with you!" Ben tried to explain to him that we will all be together again someday and that it wasn't his time to go with Grandpa yet. I sat there at the bedside and held his hand and cried. I knew that we were about to lose an amazing man and I was going to miss him immensely! I had a hard time leaving that night not knowing when he would leave us. Ben the next day went to work and I stayed at home with the boys. My sister Roxanne came up to relieve me at lunch time so I could go meet Ben at the hospital. That was the MOST spiritual experience for me. Witnessing the thinness of the veil and the line between life and death. I felt so blessed to be there by his side surrounded by all the family waiting for him to leave this world and reunite with his beloved wife.

Grandpa passed away that evening at 5:15pm on Tuesday January 11th. Ben immediately read that scripture in Alma where it says that as soon as we leave this mortal life we are brought back to that God that gave us life. It was so appropriate for how we were all feeling. I know I was shocked that I felt this peace come over me. Even though I missed him, I knew too how much he missed Grandma and I was SOO happy for him that he was finally reunited with his wife.

The funeral was this past Saturday and it was such a different funeral then Grandma's. I think it was because we didn't have a loving spouse that was left behind. It was a rejoice for the life he lead and all the fun memories everyone had of him.

Christmas

Christmas this year was in Reno. The drive there was probably really long for Ben because the weather was horrible but mostly because I was freaking out in the back of the car the whole 7-8 hours! Telling him to slow down, he was going too fast, it wasn't fair that the rest of our lives were dependent on how he drove and on and on and on. For about the last hour of the trip I kept my head low and watched Happy Feet! Sorry Ben!
We finally got to Reno late that night and it was just so nice to be out of the car and at home. Mom had homemade stew on the stove ready for us when we got there. EVERYONE of us was home and dad later informed us that this was going to be the last time we were all home for Christmas for a long time because of how a lot will change in the next year or two. It made me really sad but enjoy my time at home that much more.







That first week was great…we did a lot of shopping, went and saw The Chronicles of Narnia, went out to lunch with the girls, Ben and I went to Betos with Roxy (not the chain Betos, this is the real hole in the wall mexican food), more shopping, and more shopping. We had a wonderful Christmas Eve filled with seafood and a surprise visit from Santa himself…okay it may have been my Uncle Glen! :) Aidan says to Santa, "Santa take off your beard so I can see if you are Uncle Glen!" We all had a good laugh! Christmas morning was a blast. Santa got the boys an Escalade and they LOVED it! They immediately had Ben take them outside so they could ride it around the neighborhood. Christmas day was fun sitting around and visiting and playing games. Dinner was AMAZING! And like every year Christmas came and went so fast.



The second week we were there went by so fast. We celebrated my sister Carmen and Aidan's birthdays at Claim Jumper. Aidan loves that he shares a bday with his aunt. We did some more shopping that week and some more eating out. Everyone also went to see True Grit, I sat that one out at home with the boys! On New Year's Eve everyone except for me and the baby went sledding up at Galena. They all had so much fun! That night we all went out to eat at Siamese Hut for dinner, only the best Thai in Reno! At midnight it was pretty mellow. The boys were in the middle of watching A Team and I was watching Dateline. My mom passed out right before midnight, so you can only imagine how exciting ringing in 2011 was for us. :)







Sunday the 2nd, we sadly left Reno and headed home. We had a GREAT two weeks and we're so thankful for all our parents did for us. We LOVE you mom and dad!