Shoe Fetish

My little Ethan is obsessed with shoes (I wonder where he gets that from? ;-) He loves to "clickety-click" around in my high heals. Occasionally he'll put a pair of his daddy's on to go out it :-) . He keeps me laughing that's for sure.

We're still alive! :)

Wow, I can't believe it's been over a year since my last post! What I crazy year it has been. I'm going to give a brief update of the happening's of this year, so that when I look back at my "online journal" I won't totally have a loss for 2009 :). A year ago November, we moved out of our house in Spanish Fork in anticipation of our move to Las Vegas where we were opening up a new Urgent Dental clinic. Because it wasn't yet complete we spent 3 months living with my dad out in Grantsville, UT. It was a fun time I will always remember. As my dad was recently re-married, it gave me a chance to really bond with his new wife and her family, they are wonderful and I'm so glad to have them as part of my family. Also, it was fun for my dad to get a chance to spend more time with Ethan and Micah. Ethan spent most of his time chasing around the cats -especially "no-no" I think they created a special love/hate relationship with each other, and even now a year later, every-time I tell him we are going to see his Grandpa, he asks about "no-no". The first week of February we moved to Las Vegas, well I guess I should say Aaron moved me to Las Vegas, he stayed up in Utah another month working for Dr. Haynie while we got things settled down here. It was a long month without my wonderful husband, but Ethan and I explored the town and got ourselves acquainted with our new home. We spent a lot of time at the Park and watching the giant fish tank at the Silverton (just down the road from our house). March 15th we finally got the go ahead to open our doors for business and Aaron, Ethan and I all went to work. Because of the "credit crisis" our approved loans were all "reduced" and we opened the doors with zero working capital. Not the best way to start a business, but we were determined and decided we could live very frugally to make it work. We hired two part-time assistants to work a few hours each week when we got patients and put our effort into marketing. Slowly the business picked up enough that having my little 18 month old helper around the office was not such a great idea anymore - and so I had to put him into daycare. It was a "temporary" arrangement and I knew that it was only going to be for the next 3-4 months, but still Ethan and I both cried every morning when I dropped him off, and he would burst into tears each afternoon when I came to pick him up. He never really did warm up to the idea, and every day got harder instead of easier, so that as soon as we could justify hiring someone vs. the cost of daycare - I got to go back to doing what I really, really love...being a Mom. I only put in time at the office a few hours a day and I bring my little "terror" with me. The patients love him...even if he is a huge distraction. The "day-care" experience did teach me a lot about how important motherhood is as well as how hard it must be on the kids and parents who are left with no other choice.
Now, over a year later, the business is "booming" and Aaron works around 70-80hrs a week. He takes call and goes in to see emergency patients at all hours of the day and night. We have gone through 2 office managers and a few assistants, but I think we finally have it right and all the staff (7 people now) are a great fit for the office and really hard workers. We are in the process of building out the rest of the rooms and hiring a second doctor to take some of the load off Aaron. We all feel so blessed that in this horrible economy where over 130 dentist have gone out of business in Vegas, we are able to grow. I no longer even go into the office unless it's to visit Aaron or bring in food/treats. I am able to do all the back office, payroll, marketing, etc. from home - and even though a few days a week Ethan probably watches a little too much TV while I work, I think it is working out well.
Micah is able to come spend several weeks with us every time he is off track. He loves Vegas and thinks it's really fun to be able to swim often and to explore all the new adventures Las Vegas has to offer. His only complaint is that he doesn't have all the friends here that he had in Spanish Fork. We did, however, just move into a new home (only a few blocks from our old one) and it put us in a new ward with a few more kids his age, so we are optimistic about the friend potential :) (Our old ward was a lot of young families and there were about 100 kids Ethan's age, literally, we had 7 nursery's).
We finally sold our Spanish Fork home in May, and after 18 months of paying a double mortgage/rent and sometimes a triple mortgage when our American Fork home wasn't rented we are very grateful for that blessing. However we did have to finally short sale it, since the value had dropped so dramatically from when we bought it and as most of you know, I don't see it changing any time soon.
The most recent news in the family is that we are expecting another baby this fall! And even more exciting (in my opinion at least) is that we are having a GIRL! I love my boys and really was happy for either, but now that I know i'm having a girl, I'm a lot more excited about it than I thought I would. This pregnancy has not been as easy as before. I feel like I'm 90 and between the pain and exhaustion I'm pretty sure I act like I'm 90 too :)
I'm going to post some pictures that I have saved on camera's/phones and maybe give another little glimpse of the last year of our life...and then, I'm going to make sure that I keep somewhat up to date from here on out :-) Once I finally got the computer back to the house (from the office) I have been avoiding the updating process because it seemed to daunting to even begin to catch up...but now I've decided something is better than nothing, and we'll just look forward from here.

Broken Leg!

Poor Ethan, just days before his 2nd birthday he broke his little leg. We were up in Utah and I was busy trying to get a lot of yard work caught up at the rental house. Ethan was outside playing with me while I worked. There is about a 2 foot rock retaining wall between the front yard and back yard and he had climbed up it and got his foot stuck between the rocks, in his struggle to get it free he must have fallen back onto the grass. His foot stayed in place and so the fall caused his leg to break below the knee. He was such a tough little guy at the hospital, he only cried when they took the x-ray's (because he didn't like being held still and that I wasn't able to hold him.) Needless to say the next several weeks were a little tough because I had to carry him around everywhere and when he was on the ground the would squirm around to get to what he wanted, dragging his leg behind him. Often it would get caught, or stuck in a strange angle and he'd start whining for help. His let did heal pretty quickly and when they changed him into a shorter cast that he could walk in, he didn't really even need it.

The sad irony...(but it is kind of funny)

Advertising!

I know I'm way past due for an update...but thinks have been beyond crazy down here in "sin-city" :-) We've moved in (twice) and I'm almost unpacked. We've been working around the clock to get this business up and running and it looks like we might open for business this Monday! I'll be updating with pictures of the office and our new little home soon, but for now I need all of your help. After taking all the marketing projects upon myself, I've learned how important it is to get "ratings" on your website to rise it's numbers in the search engines. Therefore, I'm asking all of you to check out the first draft of our website (and offer suggestions if you have any) also, if you don't mind adding our link to your websites, facebook etc. for the next little while while we increase our traffic flow it would be supper helpful! Thanks so much for all your help and support!

Check it out at http://www.urgentdentalusa.com

Sadly...the time has come

To go PRIVATE that is. I swore I wouldn't do it, I even tried to talk a few people out of doing it...but as the number of disturbing stories and creepy "photo edits" has continued, I too will be making my blog private. So please leave your email in the comments and I will soon ( as soon as I can manage) be turning the blog over to invite only. PS. if you leave your email and type in the word 'at' in place of @ it will cut down on possible junk mail for you. Also, I would love to keep in touch with anyone and everyone that I know, so even if I don't know you look at my blog...drop me a line and I'll add you.

Michelle...

is engaged. It's been really quick (not that anyone in this family can say anything) but she's getting married on February 28th. Her fiance is Kurt (I don't even know his last name?) But I really like him and am excited to welcome him to the family. Michelle is so excited she could die (her own words not mine) and we all think that Zachary (Kurts little 4 yr old boy) just won the mommy lottery :-). Congrats you two. This will make 3 wedding in less than a year!

Christmas Slide show

Christmas

We had a crazy Christmas, and the boys were very spoiled.  We started out Christmas eve at Dad and Donna's house where we had a great lunch and each of the boy had a whole pile of Toys waiting for them to open.  Micah got his super Indiana Jones Lego set he has literally been "dying" for.  And Ethan got the cutest little four wheeler that he immediately took a liking too.  Then, we hurried off to Aaron's parents in Salem for a wonderful Christmas dinner and nativity program, planned and executed by the wonderfully talented Ellie (9 yrs old).  We stayed the night there and stayed up half the night (after we put the kids to sleep of course) joking with Ali, Jared and Becca...and opening up our gifts.  Aaron got me a .40 semi-automatic SM gun...which I know sounds funny to some, but I really wanted it, and I am very excited to have it and my concealed weapon permit to keep me and my kido's safe ;-)...not to mention that I can now be Laura Croft ;-).  Anyway, back to Christmas, we got up that morning and opened all the presents from Santa...once again, a bunch of Lego's for Micah and a Nintendo DS and Ethan got lot's of balls (and a few cars) :-)  Then we packed up and headed up to my Mom and Russ's house for a Christmas lunch and fun.  My mom really spoiled me with gifts and they gave Aaron the snowmobiling boots he's really wanted.  And Russ made Ethan an amazing rocking horse that I'm sure he'll appreciate someday...but in the meantime - I'll show it off for him :-)  All in all, it was a wonderful Christmas surrounded by those that we love.  

Gift Baskets

I decided to do a goodie basket for all our siblings for Christmas this year...12 baskets, 50 carmel apples, hundreds of cookies and pretzels and bags of carmel popcorn later...it still wasn't enough for everyone.  But, those that got them, seemed to really enjoy them and Aaron in convinced that next year I'll be making them for "Profit"...hmmm...perhaps he plans on putting in many, many hours of his time?

Merry Christmas to Ethan

We had a friends Christmas party and this was our "white elephant" gift.  For some reason Ethan really seemed to like it :-)...he held onto the box half the night.

Fish Lake...tree hunting

We took a quick trip down to fish lake the day after thanksgiving to find a Christmas tree...for my mom's house.  We had fun playing on the four-wheelers and getting our first taste of winter.

Nintendo...old school

Dad's 60th b-day

I threw a surprise 60th party for my dad.  He has done so much for me, I really wanted to try to make this birthday a little special this year.  I looked up all his old friends that I could find and invited the family and we rented out Noah's in West Jordan.  He was very surprised and I think he loved seeing all his old friends ;-)  We had a lot of fun playing the Wii, volleyball and pool/ping-pong.  Good job to everyone for keeping it a secret.  And for my dad...I love you  so much, you are the most generous and caring person I know. You have taught me a lot of things, like how to work hard...but never be selfish. How to make sure everything is clean enough to eat off of...including the garage floor.  How not to gripe when things get tough...there is always a positive side to every situation. And that most the time, "getting something off your mind" is not worth the damage it will do...everything is okay in the end, if it's not okay it's not the end, and bringing other people down will just make the road lonelier and harder....and many, many, other things that I have tried to remember in my life.

My little guitar hero.

I might be the guitar hero champ...but Ethan looks cuter playing it ;-)

SMORES!

We had sunday dinner at my mom and Russ's house and had smores around the fire-pit for dessert.  Mmmmm smores are my favorite, and I think, Ethan enjoyed them too :-)

Sneak Preview...

I am sure that you are all very tired of looking at my Obama rant... well here is a new picture to look at before I do a whole lot of updating :-) ...stay tuned.