Ayden and Alex

I just wanted to write down a couple of funny things the girls have said the past couple of days and also just some things about them as a little update. I really need to be better about writing them down consistently because there are so many funny things but I always forget.

Ayden-
Ayden is still our spirited child. She is doing really well in preschool and seems to be learning a lot. She is always thinking about things and asks us questions constantly. She has such a love of learning and I really hope I can always keep that alive because it really isn't something I can totally relate with.

Ayden's favorite past time is coloring. She prints pictures off the Disney website and colors at least 20 a day. She has gotten quite good. She loves to hear scripture stories and talk about Jesus. Of course since she is 4 she is very dramatic and can turn from crying to laughing in a second. Seriously. The mood swings are insane. I can't even imagine the kind of teenager she is going to be. But it really makes life interesting. She is such a good sister to Alex though. I love how much they can play with each other now. I can see that they really are each others best friends and it is comforting for me to know that they have each other.

She said something funny this morning but it needs a little background. As I have mentioned before, Ayden is VERY competitive and if she thinks she can't do or won't win something she would rather not do it and quit than risk failing. This is a trait she got from her dad and so we have been really trying to focus on it and we told her that Terry's never quit. It can be good motivation to try and encourage her to do or finish something but this morning it kind of back fired. We were all talking and I said something that Ayden stubbornly started arguing with me. No matter what I said she would still say that I wasn't right. Finally I stopped arguing with her and Brad said, in response to her stubborn stance, "oh, Ayden you sure are a Terry" and she said "yeah, because Terry's never quit!" Oops, sometimes quiting is the right thing.

Alex
Alex is such a fun little girl. She is such a girly girl and loves all things beautiful. She is really good at giving compliments and can make my day when she tells be how beautiful I am. She is also a great hugger, there is something about how she wraps her little hand around your neck that feels so good. She is still working hard on talking. Her speech therapy is going well and she has improved so much. It is really fun to watch her improve and say things we have never heard her say. Even though it is not the nicest thing, it is hilarious to me that she calls everything a little punk. That is her insult. You little punk! It is so funny to us and we have a hard time repremanding her while trying not to laugh. For a while "little punk" replaced "stupid" but now she is habitally calling people "stupid punk". Alex usually calls Brad "punk" when he's putting her to bed and Ayden has taken to comforting her daddy by telling him, "I think your a handsome punk dad". Apparently it isn't so much an insult as it is a regular Terry household term (we've never claimed to be perfect).

I call Alex my yogurt eater, bath taker. She eats at least three containers of yogurt a day and if she had her way I think she would live in the bath tub. (Maybe even a bathtub full of yogurt)
Yesterday in the car Ayden said to me "Mom I hate it when Alex acts like a baby". To which Alex replyed "I hate it when Ayden acts like the mom!" She is getting pretty sassy herself and as she is talking more and more it is kind of fun to see more of her personality (even the mean personality).

Thanksgiving

We had a great thanksgiving with Brad's Mom and siblings. Of course there was amazing food, game playing, fishing, tree hunting and just hanging out. For journaling purposes:

Thursday- We got up early and did the mini-cassia turkey trot fun-run. It was fun and I was proud of myself for running the whole thing since I kind of quit running a while ago and wasn't sure how it would feel. Brad got to see a lot of old friends from school and it was fun being with some of Brads sisters. After the fun-run the guys went and played some football. Then we went home and helped cook the thanksgiving meal. Of course when Marsha is the cook it is always unbeliveable. She could rival Paula Dean with her home cooking.

Friday- Brad went fishing with his mom and mike most of the morning. He came home bummed because he didn't catch anything but Marsha caught one and Mike caught 4 big trout (getting ready for the fish fry). We hung out most of the day, did a little shopping and then went to visit Brad's Dad and karen that evening.

Saturday- Brad went fishing again and was the only one to catch a fish this morning! I was glad he caught one cuz I knew how badly he wanted to. It was a nice big rainbow trout(about a 4 pounder). Before heading out fishing, Ayden made her dad promise he would catch a rainbow, so of course she was proud of her daddy. I wouldn't touch him until he showered but I will admit I think he looked hot with the fish. After they all got home we went to Lorrie's house for chili and cinnamon rolls and then went up to Pomerelle for some christmas trees. It was fun but it was freezing cold and really foggy. That evening we got together for games and Marsha's fish fry and oh my goodness was it GOOD. This will suprise those of you who know I am NOT a fish eater. Something wierd happened since I became a vegetarian and I actually like fish now. I am sure it did help that it was extrememly fresh (thanks Brad, Mike and Marsha), that it was fried and covered in tarter sauce but oh boy was it yummy. We cooked about 9 pounds of fish which isn't bad for a couple mornings of fishing) We had a fun evening with everyone and said our goodbyes as we were leaving sunday morning.

Nikki (her cute puppy Bentley), me, Brad and Amanda after the turkey trot.

Amanda, me and Emily.

Alex, me, Brad's dad Steve, Karen, Brad

Amanda, Ayden and Jeff

Bradly and his big rainbow trout.

Off to look for Christmas tress. See how foggy it was!

Brad's sister Emily and Chase.

Aunt Amanda and Ayden.

Alex had to walk in the snow. "I never get to walk in the snow"

Nikki, Amanda and I.

Brad giving his momma a kiss.

Caleb and Ayden sure had fun playing twister.

It's a...

GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!

I am actually really excited to have 3 girls!! I think it will be so much fun. The only bit of disappointment is just that our chances of ever having a boy are going lower and lower. But honestly I just keep thinking about how fun it is going to be to have another sweet daughter. I love my girls and girls are the ones who stick around most of life. They are the ones who will remember my birthday, the ones who will be the mothers of my grandchildren and the ones who will take care of us in our old age. Plus no matter what, one day we will have son-in-laws and I know my girls will only pick the cream of the crop to marry. Speaking of weddings, that might be a fun couple of years. Hmm... better start saving. Anyway, we are really excited and as you can see she will fit right in our family with those plush lips of hers. I can't wait to meet her!

Disney On Ice

My sister told me it was time for another post and I realized I had not posted about our Disney on Ice night yet. Once we saw the commercials for it Brad said he really wanted to take his girls. We both knew they would love it but we really had no idea just how much. It was so much fun watching them. Alex especially couldn't believe her eyes and watched it very intensely. She would clap, cheer, yell out all the characters names when they came out and seriously never took her eyes off anything. The only downside to the night was that Alex peed on me TWICE. It is kind of my fault. Alex has recently decided she is done with diapers. That is good news right? Not really. She also decided she doesn't like going potty in the toilet either. So where does that leave us? It leaves me cleaning up after her way too many times to even count! It started off okay and she would go in the toilet most of the time as long as we were home. The night of the show was the beginning of our battle and she was still willing to use the toilet so when she refused to let me put a diaper on her when we left the house I figured we could give it a try. Unfortunately due to me not taking her to the bathroom enough and her not going the times we did take her she peed on me two different times during the show. I don't know why I didn't put a diaper on her after the first time but I thought "oh, she just went so we should be fine". Nope. So after the second time and two soiled outfits later she left the show in a diaper only. I had to sit with my jeans soaked with pee the whole night. After that night the potty training has just gone down hill and we are back to forcing diapers on her. The only problem is the second she wets them, she takes them off so I have to make sure I notice and get another one on her ASAP. Oh, the joys...Happy Ayden with her Dad.

A happy Alex with her mom probably just a few minutes before I felt the warmth. Oh you still have to love that girl.

All the characters waving goodbye...

and poor little Alex with a broken heart.


In other news, the pregnancy is going well. We find out what we are having Monday and we really can't wait. I love finding out what it is because it makes the whole thing seem more real. Here is my 20 week belly.

Ayden and the Computer

Brad and I were talking the other day about all the technology our kids know about and use daily that of course we never had. It will be interesting to see how that changes the way they do things as they grow up from how we did them. There is already a pretty big gap in computer knowledge between our generation and my parents generation and I wonder if there will be a gap like that with our kids or if we will learn along with them. It is just funny to watch my 4 year old go to her favorite website and then print coloring pages all by herself, even changing the printing to fastdraft so we don't use up all our ink. Ayden and Alex will play on the Yo Gabba Gabba website for quite a long time and Ayden can navigate back and forth from the games to the show clips even using the back one page button. Words like, blog, email, i-pod, download and website are so common to Ayden. It all just cracks me up. Anyway today I got a weird message on my facebook from someone I don't even know replying to a message I aparently sent her. My message was a bunch of mumbojumbo I for sure didn't write but the very first letters are ayden. Hmmm, I wonder who sent the message.

A Thought Before the Election

It's hard to think that what President Ezra Taft Benson said in the 60's appears to be coming true.



On another note, we highly recommend watching the documentary by Ben Stein called "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" It was an eye-opener. We had a deep discussion last night before going to bed about the dangers of godlessness. Darwinism, communism, attack on the family and marriage, etc. We honestly feel that no matter what the outcome of this political election is, the number one priority in our lives remains the same; family and church. This doesn't mean we are going to sit back and not defend our freedoms. It is our duty to stand up for freedom, our rights to live our lives in peace and prosperity and worship our God as we see fit. God speed freinds, go vote!!!

Ayden's Giggle

The video turned out darker after we downloaded it but it is still cute to hear Ayden laugh. Brad held on to her ankles and spun her around while Ayden held the camera out in front of her. Enjoy.

Halloween

We had a very full day of fun for Halloween this year. It started at noon with a doctor appointment for me downtown where Ayden got to hear the baby's heart beat. When she heard it her eyes lit up and she thought it was really cool to hear. After the appointment the girls and I had 3 hours to kill before trick or treating at Brads office. So we went to lunch and then to the zoo. It was fun to see the new addition of the zoo. It makes it feel a lot bigger and I loved seeing the giraffes even though they were inside that day and kind of hard to see. After trick or treating at Brad's work we headed to the ward trunk or treat where we won second place for our trunk decorations and then the girls went around our neighborhood too. They got way too much candy. I heard somewhere about the candy fairy who will come and take all the candy and leave a toy so I thought I would try it with the girls. I mentioned it to Ayden that she could leave all her candy (minus 10 pieces that she could keep) with a note to the fairy and she would come and take it and leave a toy in its place. She was all for the idea so after the girls went to bed I had to make a target run for the toys. They woke up the next morning very excited about their toys and it has been very nice for us not to have to fight them about candy. Unfortunately now Brad and I have a huge hidden stash of candy to tempt us. I think I might just throw it away.

Brad was out of town all week and so when he got home thursday night we carved our pumpkins. More like brad and I carved them. Don't you love my Shrek?

This is Ayden at the Zoo. She was in a posy mood. It is too bad I am not a photographer with a nice camera because it really was pretty with all the leaves everywhere and there were some good photo ops.

The new lions were funny. At first they were just laying there but then when one of them noticed the girls he came right over to the fence and stared at them looking really hungry.

I guess I didn't get any pictures of them at Brads work...oops. But here they are at the ward trunk or treat with the Pilling kiddos. Alex was Cinderella and Ayden was a barbie from the movie Barbie and the Diamond Castle. Ayden really wanted to be princess leia for quite some time before Halloween and then just when I was about to get busy and either make a costume or buy one she kept changing her mind everyday someone would ask her what she wanted to be for halloween. So we procrastinated the costumes and when I realized it was the saturday before Haloween and she had a preschool party on wednesday we took the girls to Savers and had them just pick what they wanted to be. It sure made it easy this year.

Here is Ayden with our decorated trunk. I saw this idea from my Sister in Laws blog and made our own variation of it. Thanks for the idea Amanda.

And here is Alex all exhausted from the busy day. She wouldn't let us take her dress off of course and only let us take it off for church today. I think we may have replaced the purple dress with this one. Oh, at least we are getting our moneys worth.

Some Big News!!

With a title like that how could you not know what I am going to announce? While this is old news to some we have not been very good about spreading the word to our friends afar and thought it was time to officially announce it on the blog. Yep, you all guessed it. I am pregnant! If you want the whole story, read on but it may be a bit boring but I wanted to get it written down somewhere for journaling purposes. We are very excited especially since after trying for 8 months with no luck and then being told that due to some issues with my ovaries it might be a long process and that there was a chance even after that we wouldn't be able to produce a third. I think my doctor could tell that I wasn't really ready to start dealing with the emotion that is involved with infertility treatments and my mental and physical state was already pretty messed up from the hormone imbalance my body had been dealing with so he mentioned I could just go on birth control for a while. The hope was that it would help regulate my body, give me a break and then for a rare few sometimes just going on birth control for about 6 months gives people with my problem a few months of fertility once they go off. That option sounded good to me and those were some great months on the pill. It was Yaz by the way and that little pill became my best friend. It helped me feel better physically and emotionally and I was afraid I would never choose to go off it because I was scared to go back to feeling the way I did. It was also a really nice emotional break to not wonder every month if I was pregnant because gosh darn it those dang PMS symptoms are very similar to the early stages of pregnancy and with my hormone imbalance I was often weeks late and that monthly disappointment was no fun. Anyway Brad and I just continued on with our fun summer of playing, boating, camping, and hiking and didn't think much of it. That was until I found myself in the middle of nowhere at Glacier national park without my new pill pack I was supposed to be starting. I was really baffled because I knew I packed it. I still swear to this day that I packed it. I was freaking out. I thought of every option of possibly getting another pack but I couldn't find any way to make it work. Finally I just calmed down and said "oh, well I guess we will see what happens". We continued our fun camping trip and then the next couple of weeks at home without thinking much about it. Then one day I thought, hmm I wonder what day I should be starting? When I looked at the calendar I realized I was already a few days late. I didn't get my hopes up and told myself to stop thinking about it for another week and then I would take a test. The week went by so I decided to take the test and sure enough it couldn't have been darker or more obvious and it showed up within seconds. I was pregnant. Brad was really excited and we both couldn't believe how blessed we had been. We both feel like it was meant to be because I seriously don't know how long it would have been before I decided for myself to go off the pill and actively start "trying" again. I know Heavenly Father was watching out for us and we just have to be faithful and put everything in the hands of our Lord. He knew when the time was right. That timing made this little one due to come to our family around April 2nd which is when I am set to be induced at this point. I was super sick in the beginning but around 12 weeks felt it ease up and by 14 weeks I was pretty much back to normal with the occasional dry heave. I am feeling great now (at about 16 weeks) and just anxious to get over the "fat phase". You know where everything is thickening and clothes are not fitting but you don't look pregnant yet. We will be finding out what we are having at the end of November.
Ayden and Alex have been really cute about the whole thing. We didn't tell anyone until after 12 weeks because I didn't want my smart little Ayden to overhear something and then have something go wrong. Alex, Brad and I went to my 12 week appointment while Ayden was at preschool. While my doctor was trying to find the heartbeat he asked me if we had told the girls yet. After I told him we hadn't he got a smirk on his face and said "Alex your mommy has a baby in her tummy, can you hear it?" Of course she didn't really know what was going on which is why I am sure he felt okay about that little trick but I was worried she would repeat what she heard to Ayden before we got to tell her. Once Brad got home from work that day he said "Ayden we have a surprise for you, what do you think it is? She guessed a new Barbie, a poly pocket and a bunch of other things and then Brad told her nope, pointed to my tummy and said "it is in here". Her eyes got huge and her mouth formed a big "O" and she backed herself up and said "You’re kidding me! You’re having a baby? No way, are you for reals?" It was the cutest reaction ever. She then asked why I didn't have a big belly yet and I explained how it would be a while before I looked pregnant but that the little baby is growing everyday and that my belly would be too. The next morning she came running into my room and said "Mom, are you bigger yet?" Alex doesn't really get it but every now and then she will look at my belly and say "there's a baby in there, huh mommy, I hear it?" It has been fun and I can't wait until they can feel it move. Alex is even a year older then Ayden was when I was pregnant with her so it is fun to have them a little older to be able to share this fun time with us. Ayden is going to be a big help, I am sure and I think Alex is going to be great too.

Terry Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities - Collage - Morph

Terry Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Dynasty - Blank family tree

Halloween Party

Brad and I had a blast this weekend at a Halloween party. This is easily one of the best parties we have been to. It was basically a team scavenger hunt (The Amazing Race-ish) all around Meridian with different tasks and contests in between with about 16 or 17 teams of 6 people each. Different clues that we had to solve sent us to various places such as the local high school football stadium where we had to unlock one of our team members that was kidnapped, to moxie java to get another clue, to a soccer field where we played a competitive game of stealing stockings off everyone's heads, the church house to put a puzzle together and then throw cereal at a team members head covered in shaving cream and then to a cemetery where we had to locate a certain grave stone in the pitch dark. We had to decider codes, solve puzzles, win contests, and run like crazy. The first two stages we stunk on ice but we turned it around and placed either 1st or 2nd and in the end WE WON! We really dominated all the physical contests. It was a blast and I think our team rocked. In my own opinion I think we had the best costumes too. Our team name was "Let's get Physical" and we dressed up as 80's exercisers. It was a blast and I was so impressed with all the time and thought it took to put together.

Travis, Lisa, Wade, Elizabeth, me and Brad

Our awesome team hanging out where we feel comfortable warming up for the big competition.

Our fearless driver.

Playing around with our stockings as we are on our way for a serious game of grab the stocking off other peoples heads with out letting go of your partners hand. We totally dominated this game and our whole team of six were the last ones standing. It was a fun game but it totally messed up my big hair.

Lisa

Wade

Travis

Brad

Here we are so excited after we just heard that we won!
What better way to celebrate then go outside for some jumping shots...

Wade

B-rad

E-town

J-Bird

and even though she wasn't on our team our good friend summer joined in on the fun! She was dressed up as a robber.