The Herberts

Christmas 2011

2011-12-28T15:35:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful (and eventful) year it has been! We are so grateful to everyone in our lives and especially our families. How blessed we are to live so close to both sets of parents as well as many siblings. To have two happy and healthy children who bring so much joy to our home and lives is truly the icing on the cake! We had a great Christmas at our home and it was so fun to see Gage get so excited about it this year. Between Santa, grandparents, and mom and dad our kids were really spoiled! Here are a few pics from the day! Happy Holidays to everyone! We hope 2012 brings you many blessings and joy!

Here you can see just some of the presents hiding beneath the tree.

Lucy hugging her Minnie doll Santa left in her stocking.

Santa brought Gage two cap guns! As you can see he is very excited about it!

Uhh... yea I guess this hummer is pretty cool!

Lucy's favorite toy from Santa. A Leap Frog Learn n' Play ride along train.

Although my mom helped me make a beautiful new blankie for Lucy, she still only has eyes for this one! Is she ever a blankie baby!!!

Gages' first words out of his room were "Holy Cow!"

Gage turns 3!

2011-12-28T15:12:00.000-07:00

Our baby boy is getting so big! He turned 3 on December 8 and we had some family come over to help us celebrate. It was so fun watching him open his presents and thanking everyone who came. I was given numerous compliments on how kind and grateful Gage was during the party. He made sure to give hugs and kisses to everyone who came and he was just genuinely so excited over every gift he opened. I made him a dragon cake which he thought was pretty cool. I showed it to him early the morning of his party and he kept going out to the garage refrigerator to look at it all day long! Gage is in the 50% for his height and weight and his doctor is really impressed by his vocabulary. He is so talkative and fun and is seriously the wackiest, silliest, and just downright life of the party wherever we are. He loves attention and will do some of the funniest things to get it. We are laughing all the time at the things he does! He brings so much joy and life to our home! We love you so much Gager!

Halloween 2011

2011-11-01T16:13:00.001-06:00

Halloween was a lot of fun. We took the kids to Trunk-or-Treat and Gage thought it was so cool. He kept wanting to give candy back if he didn't think he'd like it and would try to pick out something else. It was pretty funny! The weather was great and the kids were so cute! Gage was a pirate and Lucy was Tinkerbelle.

Lucy and cousin Norah (4). People that know both girls are always saying that they look so much alike! She was also Tinkerbelle.

He thought it was pretty funny when I asked him to please stop picking his nose for the picture he made this crazy face.

Gage and Lucy with cousins Hunter (Zombie Ninja), Asher (Yoda), and Norah (Tinkerbelle)

When life gives you lemons...

2011-09-30T20:23:00.001-06:00

Hello everyone. As many of you may know our life the past two weeks has been turned upside down with an accident Jeff had recently leaving him hospitalized for a week. On Sept 18th we decided to go to Grandma and Grandpa Herbert's to enjoy some family time with the horses. Gage had been begging to go ride the horses with Daddy for a while. Jeff had been gone for two weeks to Alaska on a moose hunt (a successful moose hunt at that!). Anyhow, upon saddling the horse Jeff decided to get on him first since he seemed to be acting a little skittish. As soon as he threw his leg over the saddle the horse began to run and buck throwing Jeff to the ground. He landed in just the right way to cause his arm to hyper extend and his elbow became completely dislocated and the humerus (the bone in the upper part of the arm) broke through the skin completely severing his artery as well. As you can imagine blood was spewing out of his arm like a fire hydrant and Jeff became hysterical. Thanks to Rick's quick thinking he was able to get the blood mostly stopped by tying his own shirt around his elbow and holding Jeff's arm upright. The ambulance came and transported him to the Park City Hospital where they put his elbow back in place, but were very concerned because they could not find a pulse in his wrist. This meant that he was on the verge of loosing his hand or even possibly his arm. The decision was made to get him to the University of Utah Hospital where they performed emergency surgery to fix his severed artery. A vein graft was performed and luckily that surgery was successful. Jeff spent a day in the IMCU where they closely monitored the vein graft, if it were to fail they would have to rush into surgery again or risk loosing the hand. Luckily everything went well and he was able to be moved to a floor that wasn't considered high risk. The following Thursday he had another surgery to remove a rod that was placed in his elbow during the first surgery (the rod helped to stabilize his arm so the vein graft could be performed). During this second surgery they also explored the elbow joint expecting to do major reconstruction. By some miracle as well as a few blessings they found that no reconstruction was necessary. He did severely overextend and tear all the tendons, ligaments, and muscle tissue but nothing was completely torn. We were able to take him home Friday and he's spent the last week at home recuperating and beginning physical therapy. It will be a long while before he has full use of the arm and he will be doing a lot of physical therapy in order to get him to that point, but we are grateful he is alive and has his arm.
We would like to thank everyone who called, visited, all the prayers, dinners, babysitting help, and love that has been given to us during the past two weeks. We feel very blessed to have so many wonderful people in our lives. It has been a very scary time but was made easier by the love and support of so many.
Jeff spent his first real day back at work today, he made it to about noon and had to stop. It takes a lot out of him to exert too much energy and his arm gets very swollen and sore from all the movement. If you know Jeff then you know how difficult it is for him to sit still and relax. We rented a bunch of movies tonight to keep him busy tomorrow and we hope that we can get him to rest enough to properly heal.
We are focused on staying positive and appreciate the blessings we have gained because of this accident. We realize that things can always be worse and that we should be grateful for the trials we have in our lives. They help make us stronger and allow us to build greater relationships with each other and our families.
We are thankful for our families, without their love and support we couldn't have gotten through this. We love you so much!

Incision from the first surgery

This is the rod that was placed in his elbow. It's about the diameter of a 1 carat diamond

Gage and his Daddy watching hunting movies to pass the time in the hospital

Lucy turns 1!

2011-09-05T16:24:00.000-06:00

While Lucy doesn't officially turn one until Wednesday, we celebrated a little early so that her Daddy could be there to enjoy her party. Jeff leaves tomorrow for Alaska to hunt moose. He will be gone for as long as 2 weeks! The kids don't yet understand that they will be without their Daddy for that long, but Jeff and I are having a hard time with it. Just knowing that we wont be together gives both of us anxiety. We will miss him and he will miss us so much! Pretty sure that the tears will flow tomorrow morning when we drop him off at the airport.

Anyhow, here are some fun pictures of the party we had at the park with our wonderful families!

Lucy and my brother Josh

My sister Kimley and her son Josh

Daddy and bro-in-law Greg

Gage and Lucy enjoying the party

My sister Liesel and her cute kids Norah and Asher

We celebrated Jeff's birthday too a few days early

Lucy never did have any of her cupcake. She wasn't even remotely interested!

Gage enjoyed opening Lucy and Daddy's presents

Jeff's mom, dad, sister Jennie, and her son Austin

Lucy was so happy and it wasn't difficult to get some smiley pictures!

Love you babygirl! You've blessed our lives in so many ways!

11 months old and a special occasion!

2011-08-10T13:24:00.000-06:00

So Lucy continues to grow up despite me wanting her to stay little forever! Actually, I really look forward to when shes a little older and can be a good playmate to Gage. He wants to play with her all the time and it will be great when they can run around together!

I tried and tried to get a picture of Gage smiling, but this is the best I got! He's still super handsome and looking so grown up!

There's a little smile!

Some of you may already know, but Jeff and I started going back to church in April. We've been working toward going to the temple, and have plans to go next year on our 5th anniversary. In the meantime we were able to bless both Gage and Lucy this past Sunday at our home. Thank you to everyone who came and for the blessings and for the love and support! We have so much wonderful family and we love you all so much!

Ummm...yes this is an attempt at a hug at least Lucy's still smiling!

Lucy is 10 months!

2011-07-14T12:46:00.000-06:00

Lucy is growing so fast! At her 9 month check up she was ranked in the 30% for her weight, the 80% for height, and the 75% for her large head. She is getting two more teeth on top and she does the army crawl all around the house. She's still such a happy girl and brings so much joy to our home.

She's always laughing with her tongue hanging out!

There weren't many pictures where her tongue was not hanging out!

Our precious babies!

Love you baby girl!

There and back again...

2011-06-29T15:32:00.000-06:00

We recently returned home from our most favorite trip of the year, Jackson Hole! Our family goes up with Jeff's parents, siblings, friends, and even my sisters family and my parents joined us this year too! It's our most favorite thing to do every year and we always have a blast. We run the river and hang out by the fire, go into Jackson and shop around, and really just have a ball. The weather was nice for us luckily and Gage couldn't believe he got to play with his cousins outside all day long! The minute he woke up in the morning he would say "Friends, Play!" and you can only imagine how hard it was for him to take naps and go to bed at night! From chasing RC cars and riding bikes, to hikes and popsicles and everything in between I'd say we all had a fun and rather eventful time. Here are just some of the pics from our trip.

RC car chasing! All the cousins thought this was one of the highlights of the trip!

Daddy driving the RC car

Cute cousins

More cousins

Lucy's favorite food!

We had some rain one day, so we got to watch a movie. Gotta love camper trailers!

The daredevil!

Favorite picture ever!!!

That about sums it up! Love you Jackson Hole!

Another month older

2011-06-09T15:43:00.001-06:00

Our precious baby girl is now 9 months old! The time has gone by so quickly! I can't remember the time flying this quickly with Gage.

Lucy has three teeth on the bottom and nothing on top. Isn't she a cute little hillbilly!

Both kids are doing great! Gage loves his little sister and tries to get her to play with him. He doesn't yet understand that she is a baby and doesn't quite understand him. It's so cute, Gage will often do something he thinks is funny and say "Bubbles watch me" (Lucy's nickname is Bubbles because from the time she was born she always had drool coming out her mouth. The drool was usually accompanied by a pool of bubbles on her lips)

Gage is now at a point where he goes potty by himself! He has to come to mom or dad with help putting his underwear back on, but the rest he can do by himself! He also has learned to potty outside, thanks to his Daddy! Jeff has been out in the yard a lot these last few weeks building a fence. Gage loves to be out there with him of course, riding the tractors and such. There was a time that Jeff couldn't find Gage and ran around the corner of the house and found him with his pants down peeing on the tractor tire. Gotta love being a kid, that scene wouldn't quite get the same laughing effect if it were an adult!

Gage got a haircut recently too. He's such a handsome boy!

The weather is finally starting to be warm and nice enough to play outside. We don't yet have a double stroller, but that doesn't stop us from having fun outside!

We look forward to many trips to the park, the zoo, and the Field Day they have at the local indoor soccer field. I can only hope summer lasts as long as winter did this year!

Lucy is 8 months old!

2011-05-09T19:30:00.001-06:00

Our beautiful little girl is getting so big!

Just back from St. George and loving the nice weather outside.

Her tongue is always sticking out!

Can you tell...

Such a beautiful girl, we love you Lucy!

Howdy Woody...

2011-05-09T19:23:00.001-06:00

So Gage is pretty much completely potty trained. He still has an occassional accident, but luckily it's never #2!!! Sometimes he is just to busy playing to bother with the potty and will put up a fuss when it's time to go! This particular night I'd just decided that we didn't need to put his pants back on because it was just before bedtime anyway. Next thing I know he had come out of his room with this getup on, we had to get a picture!!

Cowboy hat from when he was a baby, doesn't fit quite the same!

Howdy Woody! The underware really fit the outfit!

He was running around the house neighing like a horse and galloping!

Easter fun

2011-05-09T19:15:00.000-06:00

I know it's way past Easter, but I still want to share some of the fun things we did that day and the cute pics of our little kids. The

Gage was pretty excited about all the silly toys the Easter Bunny brought.

Big brother giving Lucy her basket of goodies.

Lucy loved shaking the plastic easter eggs filled with mini eggs.

Waiting patiently with cousin Hunter to start the first of his two Easter egg hunts.

Two cute cousins!

The second Easter egg hunt at Grandma and Grandpa Herberts

Gage got a pretty good stash of Easter eggs this year!

Lucy in her new Easter dress.

Doesn't he look handsome!

What a way to finish the day! Gage's favorite thing is horseys. He was so excited to get to ride around Royal with his daddy!

Bikes, strollers, scooters, and antics!

2011-04-12T13:07:00.003-06:00

Gage is such a funny boy and is always trying to be the center of attention. He never fails to bring laughter into our home. The other day he came running around the corner excitedly yelling for me to come and see something. I was in the kitchen and he grabbed my hand and pulled me to the front hallway where I came upon this...

He had arranged in a row all of the bikes, strollers, and scooters we have (which is like 7) in the house and was sooooo proud of himself. I made Jeff come see what he had done Gage was beaming with pride. Since this first incident he now does this same routine all around the house. The other day Jeff came out of the shower and couldn't get in the closet because Gage had lined up all his bikes in the closet.

Another funny thing he did recently while I was cooking in the kitchen was put himself into "time out". He hadn't been doing anything wrong but was just playing by himself when he exclaimed "time out" I looked up and he was sitting in his time-out corner. It made me laugh and I had to get a picture!

Lucy recently turned 7 months old so I took another picture of her that day.

She is so stinkin cute! See the two little teeth coming in on the bottom.

Also notice the drool running out of her mouth! She usually has a bib on at all times to catch the never ending faucet pouring out of there.

Gage has a facination with the camera and always wants to have his picture taken and wants to "see see" the picture on the screen. He wanted this picture taken after I took Lucy's. He's always good to smile and make faces so he can see himself on the camera.

Gage also likes wearing funny outfits and often tries to put on Jeffs, Lucy's, or my shoes or clothes. I was going through his closet the other day to bag up his older outgrown things and we found his swimming/floatie swimsuit from last year. He immediately started taking off his pants and wanted to wear it. Later I found him coming out of my closet with my snowboarding helmet...

Growing up my family had a huge costume closet that was really just a long storage room in the basement. I have fond memories of going in that closet and playing dress up for hours! I think it's time to start Gage's very own "costume closet"! Bring on the superhero outfits and capes!

Brother and sister

2011-03-31T19:55:00.000-06:00

Everyday I get to enjoy two of the cutest kids ever! Gage and Lucy always seem to know just how to make me smile and thankful that they are mine!

Lucy cannot figure out how to keep food in her mouth! I try feeding her laying down hoping gravity will help the food stay down! She sure is fun to look at though!

Brother and sister playing nicely! Gage is trying to master his smile... he has yet to do that!

Getting better...

Theres a good smile!

Lucy pretty much has mastered her smile!

Such a happy girl!

Gage sitting on his potty...had to crop out some of the picture, a little too revealing!

Potty time is over Mom! I'll be back with the toilet seat later...

Gage love, love, loves, his Wee Sing Train video! Watches it all the time!

Makes for a good babysitter though when I need to get work done!

He'll watch his video anywhere!

This weeks happenings at the Herbert House...

2011-03-18T10:38:00.000-06:00

I'm trying to be good about posting something on my blog at least once a week. This week we didn't have anything too exciting happening at our house that warranted picture taking. However, I guess for some people, there is always a reason for picture taking. This is one thing I am trying to be better at this year. I need to have my camera out and ready to go for any situation that may call for it!

This week I finally decided that it's time to potty train Gage. He's shown a lot of interest in the potty recently and he has also become very adept at taking off his diaper all by himself! I tried a few tricks to help prevent this from happening that I'd learned from other friends whose children had the same habit, but even with a onsie, Gage was a pro. Last week I had left the kids with my mom for about an hour while I went to the gym. I got back and after about 20 minutes Gage was upset and saying "Poots" (this is his word for going number 1 and number 2). He had obviously wet himself which was strange because he had a diaper on when I left him there. I asked mom if she had changed his diaper and forgotten to put a new one on, but she said she hadn't had to change him. Very curious?... He was still wearing his one piece pajamas because it was so early in the morning so when I zipped them down and found no diaper I was totally confused as to where his diaper had gone to! So I stuck him in the sink and took off his jammies and lo and behold... the diaper was stuck down by his ankle! He had managed to undo on side and through all his playing it had worked it's way down to his foot! Needless to say he had to wear mommy's purple bling sweater home accessorized with his John Deer green cowboy boots! (I guess that situation warranted a picture! Darn!) So instead of trying to fight with keeping his diaper on I decided to just put him in big boy underwear and deal with it. It's day three, and we still haven't actually made it on the potty. Every time I take him which is anywhere between 20 - 30 minutes he doesn't go, but as soon as he is off the potty he goes! So frustrating, but oh well, I guess these things take time for boys right?! Anyone have any potty training tips?

Lucy has also had some fun milestones this week. She has been rolling from her front to her back for a few months but just yesterday mastered the back to front roll. It's funny to watch how hard she struggles to get over, but she gets so excited and proud of herself once she's done it. She is also getting a tooth on the bottom. This is causing her to be a bit irritable, but luckily she is back to sleeping through the night, mostly! She also babbles the word "dadadadadada" over and over. It's so cute, and of course Jeff is in heaven and thinks that she knows what she's saying.

Spring is almost officially here and it honestly couldn't be anymore welcome! Winter is always way too long and I must say it will be nice to have Jeff home on a more regular basis and not plowing snow.

I have started a new "Get Fit" journey. I'm almost done with week 2 of the Body for LIFE 12 week challenge and can honestly say I haven't felt this good in I don't know how long! Although I am still far from my fitness goals, my body feels better, has more energy, and I just have a better overall happy attitude throughout the day. A part of this Challenge is to take before and after photos of yourself and submit them along with an essay to become eligible to win the Grand Master Prize awarded at the end of the year. I have been going back and forth as to whether or not I want to post these "before" pictures to my blog. So far I think no, but maybe when I start seeing some real results I'll show you how far I've come. Jared and Greg better watch out cause I just might win the ab contest in July!

Until next week...

Lucy is 6 months old!

2011-03-09T15:01:00.003-07:00

Can't believe it's already been half a year since we brought little Lucy home from the hospital! Time goes so quickly!
I've been taking pictures of her every month as she turns one month older. I thought it would be a fun way to remember her at every stage since they grow so fast!

Just a few hours old!

5 days old

1 month

2 months

3 months

4 months

5 months (love the crazy baby chick hair!)

6 months (as you can see, Lucy is a very happy and smiley baby!)

Love you babygirl!!!

Country Fun

2011-03-09T14:38:00.001-07:00

So many of you already know, but some of you may not. We live by a farm. Well, we practiacally are a part of the farm with fields on everyside of us that are filled year round with cows and horses. Both dairy cows, and beef cows. Yes, this means that most evenings in the summer it stinks of farm fresh maneur because our lovely neighbor spreads the $%@! every single day right around 5pm. In the spring, fall, and winter it pretty much stinks at some point during the day too. Can't escape it unless you go inside and keep the windows and doors shut. While I love living in the country I can't say that this is my favorite part of country living! One thing that is nice, however, about living by this farm is that we get to take the kids to see all the baby animals as soon as they are born. Gage did just that last night.

Please ignore the farmer holding Gage. For some reason Jeff didn't think it would probably be a good idea for him to hold Gage while the farmer took the picture. The baby colt is like 3 days old. Gage came home saying "Horsey, Mommy" and continued till he went to bed. Even then, when he said goodnight to Lucy, he also said "night horsey"!

Gage had so much fun with the baby calf, also 3 days old. I put these pictures up on the computer and he didn't want to leave the computer room all night! He kept calling the baby calf "Mommy" for some reason? I would say "baby" and he'd say "mommy"?

Lot's of fun times, In a few weeks there will be many more calves, and then later in the spring/summer we will get to see pigs! Lot's of good things DO come out of living next to a farm!

Here we go...

2011-03-04T21:20:00.000-07:00

So as you can see it's been a while since I posted anything. Actually, I can't really say I've ever really started my blog until now because I've never known what I was doing. (hence only one post in November '09!) My cute friend Rachael was kind enough to give me some pointers on how this whole blogging thing works, and now I will be much more regular with my posting!
I recently went to a fun party with some great women, most of which I only just met that night, and we all shared our favorite things of 2010. My favorite thing of course was Lucy, followed closely by my yummy chocolate cookie recipe! (many of you know exactly how good they are!) It was neat to see all the other women's Favorite Things. Many of them talked about how they enjoy blogging and have even been able to turn their blogs from the past year into a book. They use this as their family scrapbook, and one mother even told us how she brings her finished book to church to use as their "quiet book". Her children just love looking through all the pictures of themselves and it never gets old. I often sit with Gage and look at all our family pictures on the computer and he just loves it! I can see where turning these pictures into a book would be a great idea. I've never been creative enough for the traditional scrapbook, so I've decided that this blog is going to be just that!
So on with the blogging! Enjoy!

Halloween!

2009-11-14T15:55:00.000-07:00

We had so much fun on Halloween! Well, I should say I had so much fun on Halloween. As you can see from some of the pictures Gage didn't quite know what to think about his costume and the annoying main he had to wear!