Jay Family

Never a dull moment!

2011-05-02T13:41:00.000-07:00

Being a mom of three has definitely been more difficult than I thought it would be. I am lucky I have such a great baby because Annikka and Nathan are constantly bouncing off the walls. There is never a dull moment in our home. Annikka is in the peak of her terrible two years and I am really feeling it. This girl gets into everything, she never listens and frequently puts her safety at risk. If anyone knows how I can get my child to quit running away from me and endangering her life, please let me know. She is a handful, but she is also a sweetie. I love my little Annikka, I am just wondering when this terrible 2 stage will end!!!

This is Annikka falling asleep in her highchair because she refuses to take naps now.

This is where I found her a couple of weeks ago, running into the street in front of our home.

This is where I found her when she was calling for help. She fell over in Aubrey's baby bouncer. This kid makes me laugh :)

Baby blessing photos

2011-03-16T03:07:00.001-07:00

I'm finally posting some photos taken after Aubrey's baby blessing last month. We were so glad that both of our parents were able to be here. My friend Keriann took these pictures and I think she did a great job!

Rod's Parents and sister

My parents

7 Years

2011-03-08T11:46:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe I've been married to my honey for 7 years now. We have certainly been through a lot together. From moving across the country, starting medical school and a masters program, enduring residency and having 3 kids, it hasn't always been a picnic. But we have been very blessed and I feel the years ahead of us will be even better. We went on a date this last weekend to celebrate (thanks to a friend who was so nice to babysit for us) and we had a great time even though I was sick with fever and chills. After being diagnosed and treated, my symptoms quickly resolved and I felt like myself again the next day. Poor guy! Rod ended up going to a pharmacy in Redlands at 1:30 am to pick up a prescription for me. What a great guy I'm married to!

This is why we will miss living in Southern California

2011-03-07T02:47:00.000-08:00

What do you do in February when you're bored? Go to the beach of course! That's what we did with Rod's family when they were here for Aubrey's baby blessing last month. It was really a perfect day. We had the beach to ourselves and it was hot. There's nothing better than relaxing on the sand, listening to the waves as they come crashing in and enjoying the sun beating down on your face (with sunscrean of course) while other people are chasing your kids around :)

Then last week Rod and the kids experienced quite different conditions up in the San Bernardino mountains. He decided to go find some snow with the kids since they get to see any and they loved it! We have the best of both worlds here.

This is them getting ready to go. See how excited they are?

Annikka wanted to take the snow home with her.

2 Months

2011-03-03T22:20:00.000-08:00

Our little baby is two months old now. The time has just flown by since she was born. The first 6 wks. were like a blur to me because I was so tired all of the time. She started sleeping through the night at 8 wks. and I am feeling great now. She is seriously such a good baby. We love her to pieces!

More photos of baby Aubrey

2011-01-14T16:25:00.000-08:00

We've had fun taking photos of Aubrey the past two weeks. Most of them were taken when she was sleeping (it's much easier to take picture of babies that way :) Here are a few of them.

A transition period

2011-01-14T15:26:00.000-08:00

I am so thankful that my mom was able to be here to help for a week and a half after we had our baby! It was a great sacrifice for her to leave her responsibilities at home to be with us for so long. From cooking meals, getting up in the morning with the kids, changing diapers, getting the kids dressed and cleaned up, cleaning the house, and playing with the kids...(the list goes on and on) we kept her pretty busy when she was here. She is the BEST mom ever! Since then things have been quite different. Rod has also had to go back to work, which has thrown me off even more. It's just me and the kids most of the time and we are figuring things out one day at a time. Here are a few fun pictures of the kids. I sure do love these guys and I feel blessed to be their mom!

Sometimes the kids are a little rough with baby Aubrey. But they sure do love her!

The kids enjoyed going outstide on a bikeride last week in the cold weather.

Our new addition

2011-01-02T20:37:00.000-08:00

Last Monday, December 27th, Rod escorted me to the hospital for my scheduled induction. I think I experienced every emotion that day - from nervousness to fear of the pain I was about to endure and extreme joy and excitement when I saw my baby for the first time. Aubrey Eliza Jay was born at 3:04 pm weighing 7lb. 8oz. We are so blessed to have this precious little baby join our family. She has won over our hearts. We are completely in awe with this new sweet, tender person in our home. Here are a few photos. I will post more soon.

The kids were so excited to come see the baby at the hospital. They love their new baby sister.

End of the Year Family Update

2010-12-20T00:14:00.000-08:00

A lot has happened in the Jay home recently, which has made blogging low on my priority list (surprise, surprise :) I really wish I was a better blogger. Many of you have asked for updates and since I am not sending a letter with our Christmas card this year, I will write an update here:

Rod: In his 3rd year of residency as an ER doctor. He accepted a one year fellowhip position at the University of Utah. We will be moving to Utah this summer!

Melissa: I passed my family nurse practitioner boards last week - hooray! What a big sigh of relief that is. Now I will have time to do something else besides study!!! We will be having a baby girl sometime in the next week. We will keep you updated.

Nathan: (4yrs.) Attends preschool two days a week. He will be devestated to have to stay home with me until February (since many kids in his class are not vaccinated, we want to limit exposure with our newborn). He participated in his school's musical performance - this kid loves to sing! He also loves going to primary and playing soccer. He was thrilled to receive his first trophy at his soccer awards ceremony.

Annikka: (2 yrs.) Talks non-stop and amazes us with her large vocabulary. She is a spunky, fun loving little girl who wants so much to go to school and play soccer like her older brother. We think she will love being a big sister here in the very near future.

We were so happy to spend a whole week with my parents in November. They braved the storms and drove down here to spend Thanksgiving week with us. We were busy going to Disneyland (no more Disneyland for us though since our passes expired), an apple orchard farm in Oak Glen, hiking, shopping and having a fantastic time together. Nathan and Annikka loved having grandma and grandpa here!

A very unamusing trip to the ER

2010-11-13T16:09:00.000-08:00

Nathan informed his dad yesterday that Annikka "drank all the medicine in the bottle". We left a children's tylenol bottle on the counter since Nathan had been running a fever and we were hoping that the child-proof claims on the label were valid. But of course, not for our kids. Since we had no idea how much Annikka had ingested and to avoid having her go into liver failure we took her to the ER to get a tylenol blood level. Annikka had her own ER doctor escort her to the ER (Rod just happened to be starting a shift in the pediatric ER at the same time). So we checked poor little Annikka in and paid the $100 copay, which I was not pleased about. Once she was checked in her vital signs were taken frequently and she was closely evaluated for tylenol toxicity. And of course her daddy couldn't be her doctor, so he checked in periodically to see how she was doing. Then came the worst part - - having to get her blood drawn and an IV placed. Poor Annikka was horrified! Then we waited for what seemed forever for the lab results to come back...and it was NEGATIVE. Annikka didn't have a trace of tylenol in her system. So we turned to Nathan and asked him what had happened to the tylenol. Then he sheepishly said that he drank it. What??? He has been known to blame things on his sister recently to avoid getting into trouble. I guess his dishonesty didn't surprise me. And yes, we went through the whole process again with Nathan. It was not fun! Especially since we have to pay another $100!!! Nathan did have a lot of tylenol in his system, but not enough to be a toxic amount. So Nathan's liver is okay and so is Annikka's! I guess I should be grateful for that :)

Helicopters and motorcycles

2010-11-07T21:12:00.000-08:00

The kids were thrilled to go see the helicopters and motorcycles at the Loma Linda Hospital. They were having an event to raise money for the pediatric unit and they put on quite a show. The helicopters created so much wind as they were landing, Annikka's hat blew right off. She was devestated that her hat had blown away and was crying until a police officer brought it back to her. It was a scorching hot day, but we still had fun together.

Halloween

2010-11-01T22:00:00.000-07:00

I've always loved halloween. It's so fun getting the kids dressed up and enjoying all of the halloween activities together. Here are some pictures we took of the kids last week.

Annikka was a pumpkin and Nathan was a firefighter. Annikka won the cutest costume award at our ward Halloween party. Way to go little pumpkin!

Nathan's friend was also a firefighter. They looked so cute together :)

We headed to the pumpkin patch Friday night. The kids loved going down the 25 ft. slide.

Rod had to go to work late Saturday night, so we headed to the hospital with him for some more trick or treating. Nathan was thrilled to see a fire truck in the ER parking lot with "real firemen". He even got his very own tour of the big firetruck.

Our little soccer player

2010-10-27T12:30:00.000-07:00

I haven't taken many photos this fall because my camera broke and I am waiting to get a new one. These were the last pictures I took of Nathan playing soccer. We are about mid-season now and he is really enjoying it. It is pretty funny to watch. He's surprisingly timid out on the field and we are trying to get him to be more aggressive. Maybe we shouldn't be giving him so many mixed messages - at home he's suppose to be sweet and nice but aggressive and physical when he's playing soccer. The poor little guy must be so confused. He is enjoying it nonetheless, which makes me happy because I am a soccer player through and through (at least I used to be :) Go Fire Ants!

Our crazy, busy, non-stop summer

2010-08-30T04:26:00.001-07:00

I have been such a slacker at blogging (surprise, surprise) so in order to catch up this is going to be a very long post. Most of you won't be able to make it through the whole thing and I don't blame you, but people keep asking for updates and photos from our summer adventures...so here they are.

Laguna Hills Half Marathon

I began the summer (summer begins in March here in southern California) running a half marathon on Memorial day with some fellow runners. I was training pretty well but found out a month before the race that I was pregnant. So I backed off running a bit but still managed to race, and get 4th place in my division. Not bad for a 9 wk. pregant lady I guess! I don't recommend running while you are pregnant though. I did some irreversible damage to my legs!

Newport Beach

We had a Struve family reunion back in June at a very nice resort at Newport Beach. We had a blast with my family going to the beach, hanging out together and of course going to Disneyland. What's a trip to SoCal without going to Disneyland?

My little (taller) sis Holly and her boy Wesley

My Big sis Amy and her family

Nathan and Rylee having fun in the water in Bug's Land

Utah
Rod had a week of vacation in July and one in August. So we decided to clump our vacations together take one really long vacation. We went to Utah first and had a blast hanging out with the Jays in Utah. We were able to attend Jared's farewell while we were there. Rod now has 3 siblings on missions!

Nathan and Annikka with their cousins at the Dairy Keen (Heber City) The Heber Creeper train yard

Hobble Creek Canyon

Rod and I had a fun date night at the Folk Festival in Springville

Susanville

Then we headed to northern California to spend some time with my family. We had fun going to Bucks lake (my girls camp when I was a YW) It was so great to go back - - so many fun memories!

Rod decided to bring the kayak down to the lake on his own!?
Kayaking is now one of my favorite things to do

Antelope Lake

My mom loves her grandkids!

Nathan loved being in the boat with grandpa
Annikka gets so excited whenever she sees grandpa And we got to celebrate Nathan's 4th birthday with his grandparents and cousins. He loved his Lightning McQueen cake :)
Redwoods

Sadly it was time to say goodbye to our families, but we had a blast camping together in the Redwoods way up north on the California coast. The kids loved it and so did we!

We had a funny incident with our tent. When Rod was getting it out he noticed that all the strings holding the poles together were cut (don't ask how that happened!?). Every single one of them! We had to think fast because it was getting dark and we didn't have a tent that would stand on it's own. We couldn't sleep under the stars with the kids and we didn't know where we could get another tent. Rod told me some duct tape would work. So I said a little prayer and the next thing I knew there was a dad with a BYU hat walking past our camp site. I asked him if he had some duct tape and he said he did. He brought it to us a short while later. I couldn't believe it! What a quick aswer to my prayer! And it worked. It's smart to include duct tape in your camping supplies!

Annikka was wandering around everywhere. So we tethered her to the cooler while we set up camp. Poor girl!

There's nothing like hot chocolate on a chilly morning!

Fern Canyon - the most lush, beautiful place!!! Actually part of Jurassic Park III was filmed here The kids loved going over the bridges, jumping over rocks and rivers

It warms my heart when they are kind to eachother :)
The view from our campsite - the praire was filled with elk
And we made it through the big Redwood tree
We had a great time driving through the whole state of California. The redwoods and San Francisco were my favorite places. Poor Nathan didn't get to see the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bride because it was dark and foggy when we drove over them. It was great to be back to my roots in the bay area :)

Funeral

My dear grandmother passed away shortly after we returned home from our trip. So I prepared for another trip to Boise Idaho. Annikka and I took an airplane from LAX to Boise and we were there for less than 24 hrs. It was Annikka's first plane ride and she did pretty well. It was great to see so many of my relatives I don't get to see very often!

My parents and sister Holly
I just had to post this picture of my parents with Elder Christofferson and Elder Malm (from Sweden) My dad is the stake President and they visited for stake conference several weeks ago. They got to spend a lot of time together.

One last trip - Arizona

We drove to Arizona a couple of weeks ago to be with my niece for her baptism. We loved our visit and and the kids loved spending time with their cousins and grandma and grandpa again.

My sister did a great job decorating.
Going on a family walk

I love this country!

2010-07-04T22:37:00.000-07:00

Eight years ago I took a class in which I spent a couple months traveling throughout Europe learning about the history of civilization. I got to see some great historical sites and learn of the rise and fall of various nations. I returned home to the states just before the 4th of July and have never been so happy and proud to be an American. I am truly grateful for the formation of this great country and for the forefathers who were curageous and so determined to follow their vision of what this nation would one day become. I love you America!!!

Discovering the Metrolink

2010-06-04T10:34:00.001-07:00

Last week Nathan and his friends rode the metrolink to a birthday party. Nathan was so amazed by the metrolink and talks about it all the time now. He and the other little party goers sure had a blast riding on the trains. Here are a few photos from party.

A quick trip to Utah

2010-06-03T13:10:00.001-07:00

Less than two weeks ago we traveled to Utah for Jill's wedding (Rod's sister). She married her boyfriend of 10yrs. I just loved seeing Jill as a beautiful bride. She and her groom looked so happy together. The day after the wedding was Tom's farewell. Tom is going on a missin to Brazil and he is currently in the MTC. We were so happy to be able to see Tom again. All of the grandkids will definitely miss uncle "choo choo" as they call him. Here are a few pics. from the trip.

The happy bride and groom

Annikka and cousin Addlee with uncle "choo choo"

Nathan wanted me to take a picture of him posing here

This is what Annikka did during the entire photo shoot

We could not get a decent photo of our family. Most of them looked like this - none of us looking at the camera and Annikka having a fit :)

This is what we woke up to the day we traveled home. Snow on May 26th !?

A long trip home

2010-05-31T16:01:00.000-07:00

It seems like every post is a catch-up post for me. I just don't spend much time blogging, but I want to keep it up without the time committment. So I will do a series of posts this week to try to get back into the groove.

I braved the drive to northern California with the kids to spend mother's day weekend with my fantastic mother. Rod had to stay here for work. It took us 10.5 hrs. to get there and we managed to only make 1 stop - - which amounts to torturefor all of us! It was so fun to be home with my mom and dad and to spend time with my sister and her cute little boy. I have to say that the highlight was being able to talk as a family on the phone with my brother who is currently serving a mission in Uruguay. He has less than a year to go and we are just thrilled that he is doing so well.

Here are a few highlights from the trip:

Spending time with grandpa

Having fun playing outside

Playing with cousin Wesley

Making it into grandpa's "No cavity club"

Playing in an alumni softball game - I struck out, hit a pop fly and made some grounding errors, but it sure was a lot of fun!

And enjoying the snow - I can't believe we were cuddled up next to the fire in the middle of a storm in May! The kids sure loved seeing snow though!

A shot of the snow-covered mountains behind my parents' house

My sister the super athlete

2010-05-05T11:10:00.000-07:00

Twice I had the privilege of running the St. George marathon with my sister Amy. Well I guess I didn't run it with her because she came in WAY ahead of me. When I run I just hope to finish the race, but my sister doesn't only finish them, she WINS them! Last Saturday she ran the Whiskey Row Marathon in Prescott, Arizona and came in 1st place in the woman's division. This marathon is considered one of the toughest marathons in the country because of it's steep terrain and high altitude. Way to go Amy!!! I am amazed you can do so well with three kids at home - - and two of them are younger then mine! Simply amazing!

Best buddies

2010-05-02T22:42:00.001-07:00

It is so much fun to watch these guys interact and play together as they get older. Nathan is already watching out for his little sister - - he helps her find snacks, shares his toys with her and goes on "car rides" with her. I just love these guys :)

Reasons to celebrate!

2010-04-25T14:05:00.001-07:00

One of my friends is having a boy in a couple of weeks and the other is having a girl so we decided to throw them a joint baby shower. It was a lot of fun and I can't get over how cute the cake was. My friend Michelle made the cake and I'm wondering how I can acquire cake decorating skills like that? Well I think I know the answer...my problem is I don't have the patience!!!

Happy Spring!

2010-04-05T16:02:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful time of the year! I love spring time! We have been experiencing abnormally cold weather the past several weeks here in southern California and it has been nice. I know that hot weather is right around the corner so I am trying to savor these mild temperatures. Speaking of mild, there was a not so mild earthquake here yesterday. The epicenter of the 7.2 quake was right on the Mexico-California border and we could sure feel it here. Luckily no damage was done at our home.

Since I have not made a single post for over two months I am posting photos to summarize what we have been up to recently.

Hanging out with Rod's sister Joni and her family at the beach when they visited us from Utah last week...

To the girls in our ward who are wondering, yes this is Rod's younger brother below who is going on a mission to Brazil in May.

Going on Easter egg hunts...

Dying Easter eggs...

Going on a hike in the San Bernardino mountains...brrr!

Planting a garden...

Having fun at Disneyland with Nathan's playgroup...

and with my mom & dad...

And with our friends the Nielsens...

Going to the Santa Monica Pier...

and taking Nathan to his very first Primary activity...

It has been a rough couple of months for me (and my family really), but I'm glad I've had these fun activities to look forward to and am so grateful for my family and the gospel which bring so much meaning to my life - - they make my life so sweet despite the challenges we encounter!

Cousins!

2010-01-16T19:22:00.000-08:00

My kids love it when they get to see their cousins. Right now they have 17 cousins and I'm sure that they will eventually have close to 100. Nathan knows most of them by name and talks about them all the time. A month ago we took a trip to Arizona to visit my sister Amy and her family. The kids loved playing together & doing fun crafts and activities. Nathan even got to go to school with a cousin one day. Here are some shots I stole from my sisters blog - thanks Ames!!! I just hope that some day we can all live closer together. It would sure be easier to drive across town than to drive across a state or two. The kids would sure love it and so would I!

All together again

2010-01-12T20:48:00.000-08:00

It has been awhile since all the Jay siblings were together at the same time. Finally it happened again last week when we were in Utah. We got to spend a whole week there with the Jay clan and we had a blast! While we were there we surprised my mother-in-law with a birthday party. The Jay kids and grandkids put on a little concert for her. It was so much fun to watch them perform. Those Jays definitely have some musical talent and I hope it gets passed onto my kids.

Rod and his brothers

Here he is playing the french horn (who knew he could do this??? I didn't!)

A picture of all of us together

The Christmas beard
Rod and his brothers secretly planned to grow beards together over the holidays. They did not shave from Thanksgiving until after New Years. Let's just say that the wives did not love it as much as they did :)
I didn't get a beard photo but here they are sporting their fine mustaches - yikes!

Nathan's favorite part of the trip was the snow. He had a lot of fun sledding with his uncles and cousins. He keeps asking why his grandmas and grandpas have snow at their homes but that we don't have any here. The lack of snow makes him sad but I am sure enjoying this summery winter! No complaining here!

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-25T22:45:00.000-08:00

This was our first year spending Christmas in our own home & we absolutely loved it! We enjoyed the festivities, food and spirit of Christmas without having to worry about traveling. We were happy to have some time with Rod as he had Christmas eve & Christmas morning off. He has been working a lot this month so it was a nice change of pace. This month has just seemed to fly by with so many things going on. It has been fun, but busy at the same time! It was just nice to be together as a family, teach the children about the importance of Christmas and just relax and have fun together. We hope you all had a very enjoyable Christmas too! What a great time of the year this is! Although it doesn't feel very Christmasy where we live in southern California we do not mind the weather at all!!! Yesterday I was raking leaves in the front yard and soaking up some rays at the same time. I think I could get used to this :)
Here are a few pictures of the kids enjoying some new toys this morning.