What are they thinking??

Both the boys made me wonderful Mother's Day gifts at school last week (and at a Primary activity on Saturday they made these fun tiles. Brayden's is on the left, and Conner's on the right.) and proudly waited until yesterday to give them to me. I, of course, loved them. There is nothing better then your children making you something special. However, I think there should be a rule that you can't give such a sweet present to a hormonal, crazy, emotional pregnant mom! What was Brayden's teacher thinking?!?!  This is what he made me at school...

I could barely read it through the tears in my eyes. Then the look  and sweet smile on  my little Brayden's face after I read it and he asks, "do you really like it?" made my heart SO HAPPY!!! I am so blessed with such sweet little boys and an amazing husband!  BTW Patrick totally outdid himself making me an amazing Mother's Day dinner, complete with a Cold Stone Creamery ice cream cake!! You can never go wrong with that!!

Las Vegas 51's Game

Last weekend we were able to take the boys to the Las Vegas 51's game. 

It was a great time to go also because they were playing the Salt Lake Bees, which we always wanted to go see when we lived up in SLC, but never did. Brayden especially thought it was great to go since he has just started playing baseball too.  We had so much fun!! The boys thought it was great. 

The boys thought it was just about the coolest thing ever to eat peanuts and throw the shells on the ground. Ah, the little things that amuse kids! (and YES my back was killing me by the end of the 4 hours of sitting on these benches. Good thing Patrick is good at back massages! It was worth it though!)

Brayden begged us to buy him a big foam finger. So we finally did, and he was loving it the whole game, waving it in the air every time they hit the ball, or scored. Since Brayden got something, Conner couldn't be left out, so he chose a little bat and ball with the LV 51's logo on it. 

I apparently didn't get a picture of Conner with his bat and ball, but he really loved the foam finger too!

After the game, they had a fireworks show, that the boys just LOVED!!  

We made the mistake of telling Conner there would be fireworks after the game, so he asked us after every inning if it was time for the fireworks. So he was defiantly excited when the fireworks finally started. The weather was perfect that night, and it was a perfect way to spend an evening together as a family. I hope these are the kind of things our kids will remember as they grow up, these fun kind of family memories!

Bringing you all up to date....

Geez, I didn't realize that it has been so very long since I posted. There actually has been things to blog about, but I've not been on top of things enough to actually get to the blogging part. So I'll try to get caught up. Here we go....

So many of you knew about my mom, and that she was VERY VERY sick and in the hospital for almost 2 weeks, in ICU, with bilateral pneumonia.  She finally was well enough to come home, and so the boys and I hopped in the car and went down to AZ for a week help her and my dad get back to somewhat normal life.  She was still pretty sick when she got home, but she really enjoyed being home instead of the hospital (who can blame her!) and especially got her spirits lifted by seeing so many of her grandkids again. She is still on her way to fully recovering, but has made a huge improvement since she first got home. I am so grateful for many things pertaining to this situation. Of course, I'm so grateful that my mom is getting better, but I'm also grateful for a loving and supporting husband who was willing to give me and the boys up for a week so I could go be with my parents. No one likes being left alone for a week, but he was super supportive of my trip to be with my family. I'm so grateful for the members of my mom and dad's ward. It is the same ward that I grew up in pretty much my whole life in Prescott, and they were wonderful. They visited my mom in the hospital and when she got home.  They came and gave her a blessing, and some brought flowers to brighten her day, and some brought dinner to the house once she was home. I have never really appreciated the Relief Society bringing in dinners more then I did last week! It was such a HUGE blessing to not have to worry about what to have fore dinner, making a million little trips to the grocery store, or anything like that. I am grateful that I was at least able to be a little help to my parents during a overwhelming time. I'm grateful that my sister and brother in law flew out from Texas to also help. My sister worked very hard to make meals for my dad to have in the freezer so they still wouldn't have to worry about dinner's even after everyone left. These are the times that I hate living far away from my family, however, I feel very blessed to live close enough I can jump in the car and be down there on such short notice. I'm grateful for wonderful parents who raised all of us kids that we need to take care of and love each other, and come together in hard times to help each other out. I know without a doubt that if the tables were turned, and it was me or Patrick or the boys that had been so sick, my parents, sister, and family would be here in an instant to be with me, and for that I am so blessed and grateful!!!!!!!

Also Brayden started playing T-Ball a few weeks ago. We got back form AZ just in time for his first game. He had so much fun. I have pictures I will post later of him playing. It is so fun to watch a bunch or 5 and 6 year olds playing T-Ball for the first time!!  We were laughing a ton!

Also.... I would just like to address a small issue that has been cause for conversation. Yesterday we FINALLY found out what kind of alien is growing inside of me... and the verdict is.... 

I KNEW IT!!!  We are officially gonna be a family of all boys. I'm thinking that Patton men only make boy babies!! I keep getting a "sad" or "disappointed" reaction from people when I tell them we are having another boy, but everyone, I am here to tell you now that we are SO HAPPY it's a boy, not sad, bummed out, or disappointed. Little boys are awesome! And let's be honest here, what in the world would I do with a girl now?!?! I have all boy stuff, was only picking out boy names, thinking what shade of blue to paint the baby's room. Sure a girl would be fun, but that just hasn't been in the cards for us, so why be upset about it. I have lots of adorable nieces that I love to do girl stuff with. So really, no need for condolences, sad faces, or the classic "awwww, didn't you want a girl" reactions because we are just happy with whatever we get!!

So there is at least a partial update. I'll get on the ball and be better about keeping this thing more updated!!!

Way to go Brayden!

Ok, so a few weeks ago I was talking to a good friend of mine as we were at the park with our kids. Her son, who is the same age as Brayden, was riding his bike... only without the training wheels. I asked her how long he had been able to ride a 2 wheeler, and she said about a year now. WHAT?!?!?! I'm apparently a neglectful mother because we had never even tried to take the training wheels off Brayden's bike, I honestly just had never thought about it. (Mostly because he has been so obsessed with riding his scooter lately, that his bike has not even been in the picture!) So I told Patrick that night that we needed to get on this, or else our kid is gonna be the only kid around that can't ride a 2 wheeler bike. So a few days later, my mom and dad had been up for a quick visit, and I had gone to pick up dinner with my Dad, and when we came home, we see Brayden riding the neighbor kids 2 wheeler bike. Apparently he just jumped on and started riding! I was impressed, and relieved to know that our neglectfulness had, in fact, not damaged our son!  :) Good to know! He was able to just do it, with hardly any help from Patrick.  So we got out Brayden's bike, took off the training wheels, and pumped up the tires, and he started riding up and down the street with the neighbors. He still is working on getting going every time by himself, but he has been practicing a lot, and is getting better and better. Way to go Brayden!! This kid keeps impressing me! 

(Sorry, I was too excited at seeing him ride by himself that I forgot to take a picture of him. I'm sure there will be more pictures of him riding his bike in the future!)

Randomness....

Is that even a word?? It is now!

I haven't been blogging much mostly because not too much has been going on to blog about. I guess you could say we lead fairly boring lives. Nothing big and exciting has happened. It just seemed like a good idea to blog, and I forgot that I haven't posted these pics of the kids.

A few weeks ago, Patrick had had a pretty rough week at work, so he decided that he just wanted to go do something fun as a family to help him unwind. So we decided to go check out Red Rock. A fun recreational area just west of Vegas. We have never been out there, but heard it was a pretty area and was fun to take your family up there. So we went to lunch and then headed out to Red Rock. We didn't realize that you had to pay to get into the main part, and we didn't have enough cash on us, and really didn't want to go back into Vegas to get some, so we decided to drive around and find other places to park that you didn't have to pay for. 

Here is the "Red Rock" area. If we had paid to go in, we really just would have been closer to the rocks, and I think that there is a visitor center type thingy there. But we were still able to get some cool pictures, and the boys thought it was pretty fun.

As we were driving around, we happened to stop and park at one of many hiking trails. So Patrick said, "you boys wanna go on a hike?" Sadly they didn't really know what that meant!  :)  We are kinda indoor people!!! Can ya tell?!?!  Growing up, my family never went out on family hikes, or camp outs or anything like that because since my dad worked for the Forest Service his whole career, and was out in the woods a lot hiking around and arresting bad guys  (lol!!)  :)  He always said he didn't want to spend his weekends there too. He did of course take us kids out a few times to hike Thumb Butte or to Lynx Lake and hike around it (all you Prescottonians know what I'm talking about!!) But never anything too big. So hiking and camping is not high on my "favorite things to do" list.... but it's not that I hate it, just not a favorite activity. However, Patrick tells me this will have to change having all boys, and getting involved with scouting and whatnot.  My opinion, I'll participate for fun, but hiking for 2 days, carrying a huge backpack and sleeping on the ground does NOT sound like fun to me.  So we just settled for this fun little, super easy trail. We weren't planning on hiking, hence the reason I'm carrying my purse, and wearing shoes that aren't exactly for hiking, but we walked around a bit, let the boys run around, and they thought it was just about the coolest thing we have ever done! Conner pointed out every pile of horse poop we passed, I'm not sure why, apparently he thought it was fascinating. As soon as we got back in the car to head home, they were asking when we could go hiking again. We told them next time we will come better prepared so we can hike a little longer, and they can't wait!!  

8 Years Together......

8 Years ago today, Patrick and I were married in the Mesa, AZ Temple!! I can't believe it has been 8 years.  Look at how young we were?!?! We look like we are 12!  Ok, so I was 20 and Patrick was 23, but still. Some may say we got married super quick... it was only 6 months from when we met, till we were married. I remember when I was dating Patrick, and I was trying to figure out how I felt about him. I had countless talks with my fun roomie Ashley

(She put up with a lot being my roommate during this time!) but it was one night I was talking to my mom, and I asked her how was I suppose to know if I loved Patrick enough to marry him for eternity. How did she know she wanted to marry my dad?? A few hours later, she called me back and told me she had asked my dad how he knew he wanted to get married way back when, and he simply told her.... "I knew I wanted spent everyday with you. I didn't want a day to go by without you." Now any of you who know my dad, this is NOT the kinda thing you hear him say. So you know that is really how he felt, and he meant it. I then realized that I didn't want a single day to go by that I didn't get to be with Patrick either. (BTW that is one of my favorite stories about my parents!!!) So we had a beautiful wedding, with many of our family and friends there with us. It was an amazing day, and the beginning of many wonderful years to come!

It is amazing how far we have come in 8 years. We were poor college students, and lived in a horribly small, 1 bedroom apartment up in the Avenues of SLC. We were both in school, and deciding what to be when we grew up. We have defiantly had our fair share of trials, and hard times. But the good times are countless!!!!  Now here we are...  2 college degrees.... 2.25 kids..... 5 moves.... 3 houses.... and 1 pet later.... we are even happier then we were 8 years ago!

When we moved to Vegas 2 years ago, we joked with each other that we better be nice to each other, because we are the only friend each other had since we didn't know a single soul in Vegas. I'm so lucky to have married my best friend who thinks I'm the most beautiful girl in the world, and who gets me, and still puts up with me. He makes me laugh, and makes me feel safe, and that any trial can be survived as long as we are in it together, and the good times are only good because we are in it together.  He often jokes that he doesn't know what he did to deserve me, but I am still at a loss of what I did to be so blessed to have him be mine!!

Happy 8 Years Babe!

I can't wait to see what the next 8... 10... 20... 50 years brings!!!

What can I say?!?!

I know, I know, I have been out of the blogging world for quite a while now. I read everyones blogs, even leave comments most the time, but I haven't posted anything in a while. The reason........

What can I say, I've been too sick and tired to do much of anything.   I'm almost 10 weeks, and this baby will be due October 5th (at least for now, they change my due date every time I've gone in.) However I have high hopes that I'll have this one 2 weeks early like I did my other 2 babies! Here's hoping for a September baby.... September is a good month for a birthday!!    (my birthday is in September in case you were wondering!)  :)

Brayden is super excited about the baby, and has been asking me if we have clothes for the baby, if we can go buy some, where will the baby sit at the table and that we'll need to get that baby a booster seat. I assure him that we still have all the baby gear we need. Conner on the other hand, well he is undecided on his feelings about becoming a big brother. When we told him he was going to be a big brother, he got such a sad look on his face, and started to tear up with those big crocodile tears that just break your heart, and said... "but I'm your baby, Mom!"  Oh, it almost sent me over the edge too. I assured him that he will still be my "Conner Baby" but he could still be a big brother. Hopefully he'll warm up to the idea. The boys have thought of a few names for the new baby. Brayden suggested Batman or Aniken. Conner, despite his disapproval of this new baby, suggested naming it Spongebob. Tempting..... but NO!!!

We are all excited and happy to welcome baby #3!!!!!

The Pledge....

Any of you watch "The Office"???? If you do, you'll appreciate this....

The other day, Brayden started singing the Pledge of Allegiance... to the tune of Old McDonald. He did this because Old McDonald is a fav song to sing for FHE (I don't know why, it just always has been!) So as we were getting ready to sing Old McDonald the other night, Patrick starts to sing the Pledge... the Michael Scott version. Brayden thought this was hilarious, and so started singing it that way too.  So if I get a call from his teacher about how he was singing E-I-E-I-O at the end of the Pledge, I'm gonna let Patrick handle that one!

Oh, and while I'm on the subject of cute and funny things that my kids have done...

This morning as the boys were eating their Lucky Charms, I see them running from one side of the table to the other, handing each other something. I ask what they are doing and tell them to eat breakfast so we can get ready for school, and they so lovingly tell me that they are picking out the heart marshmallows from their cereal, and giving them to each other as Valentines! How can I get mad at them for that?!? So I just smiled and told them to finish eating.  :)

First trampoline casualty....

Last night we had a super bowl party at our house... of course, we had to cheer on the Cardinals, and were so disappointed they lost. They were soooo close to winning it!!!  We had lots of fun though. We had lots of friends over, and TONS of yummy food! All the kids were outside jumping on the trampoline, and of course, leave it to Conner to be the dare devil. He thought it would be a good idea to walk around the trampoline on the outside of the net, as you can see.....

It was NOT!!!! He fell head first off of it. Then later, he bounced into another kids head, and got a bloody nose. Poor kid, he had a rough night.

But he is still a happy little boy!

By the way.... his face doesn't look nearly as bad today as it did yesterday.  He's a tough kid!

Calling all Tooth Fairy's!

This happened a few weeks ago, but I keep forgetting to write about it....

Brayden lost his first tooth!!!

He was very excited, it was just hanging there, and so finally when Patrick got home from work, he let him pull it out. He wouldn't let me, but I guess Daddy has the magic touch. He got a whole dollar from the tooth fairy that he decided to take to 7-11 to get a Slurpee with.  The tooth right next to the one he lost is already loose too, so it won't be long before the Tooth Fairy has to visit our house again!

I'm a Pepper!

As I have mentioned before, while we were in Dallas visiting my sister after Christmas, we made a quick road trip to Waco, TX to go to the Dr. Pepper Museum. I bet many of you didn't know such a thing existed, but it does! And since we all know how much Patrick's loves Dr. Pepper, this stop was a must. We had a lot of fun just being goofy, and taking pictures of everything. 

Here is Patrick in front of his little piece of heaven.  

They had a huge room that was just full of all the different Dr. Pepper vending machines over the years, from the very first one back in the 1800's to the newest one that was just released last year. It was kinda cool to see how they have evolved through the years.

Um, I don't think we were suppose to put our children in a 100 year old vending machine... oops, our bad!  

Here we are in front of an old Dr. Pepper delivery truck.  My sister, brother-in-law, and cute niece came with us, so that is my BIL Jeff and niece Bailey!

Our fam

They had lots of cool things to see and read about the history of DP. One thing we thought was cool was a theater where you could watch all the DP  TV commercials throughout the years. It was funny to see some we remembered, to laugh at the clothes from the 80's, and watch people dancing in the commercials singing "I'm a Pepper!" 

One of the coolest parts to the museum was their old fashion soda fountain. There they had all kinds of things to get, we tried an original Dr. Pepper, made from pure sugar cane. It was really good, and yes, it did taste different then what you usually get at the store. We also had DP floats, and even a nice hot Dr. Pepper they had special for the holiday season. It wasn't too bad, but we all preferred the cold stuff.

The boys thought this was a pretty fun thing too, especially since we let them have some Dr. Pepper, which they never get. We bought funny souvenirs at their gift shop. They even had DP BBQ sauce and Marinade. We haven't tried those yet, but I'm sure they will not disappoint!

"A nice cold Dr. Pepper is like a warm hug from Jesus."  --Patrick C. Patton

We love Texas!  :)

Texas!

So a few days after Christmas, we flew out to Dallas to go see my sister and her new baby! My whole family was gonna be there for my nieces baby blessing. We had a great time with everyone. Many laughs, good food, relaxing... it was wonderful! Patrick went the whole week without a Xanax, that is amazing, it really was a nice relaxing vacation if that happened!!

You of course can't go to Texas without enjoying a little Texas BBQ. So we went to this place called Rudy's. Patrick and I laughed when we drove up, cuz it was in a gas station, but my sister and brother in law swore it was great BBQ. And luckily for us, it was awesome! The boys loved it too, they chowed down every last bite of their lunch.

Brayden loved the BBQ ribs, he ate them all himself! I was shocked he ate so much. He still is talking about those ribs, and how he wants to go get more. Too bad it's so far away!

Here I am with sweet little Bailey.... (sorry our eyes look creepy, I tried to fix the red eye on them, and messed it up, and now I can't figure out how to make them normal. Anyone know how to do that on iphoto???)

I bought her this adorable little dress a while ago, I love shopping for little girls! I don't get to do that much...  :)

I love her chunker legs!! They remind me of Conner's chunky legs he had when he was a baby.

I love going on trips. I love holding sweet little babies. I love having fun with my family. It was so great to see everyone!

While on our trip to the Dr. Pepper Museum in Waco (I promise I'm gonna post about that soon!) we stopped at this great place called the Czech Stop.

It was also in a gas station. Apparently some of Texas's greatest treasures are found in gas stations!  :)

They have these pastries called Kolaches, and WOW, they are yummy!

They have lots of different kinds, they were to die for! 

This one was our favorite, Strawberry and Cream Cheese. So good. Seriously!

Patrick was especially excited about this place. He served his mission in Budapest, Hungary and the Czech Republic boarders Hungary, so they had lot of food that he loved from his mission, or very similar. He was especially excited to learn that they will ship any of their food to you. So he is excited to get his Hungarian meat (I'd try to spell it, but I know I'd get it all wrong, so I'm not going to attempt it!) and cheese, and pastries delivered right to our door. He hasn't had some of those things since on his mission.

***Just FYI, I wasn't that big of a Nerd to take pics of the Czech Stop, I got these pics off of Google Image. Just thought I'd throw that out there to keep some sort of respect.  :)*** 

Christmas at the Patton's...

...totally stunk this year!!!!!! Let me tell you why...

We put the kids to bed on Christmas Eve like normal, and we went about our "business" to get things ready for Christmas morning. After we were done with that, Patrick and I were laying in bed watching our new flat screen TV (thank you Chrysalis Christmas party!!!) and we hear Brayden start to cry. I go into his room and he is burning up with a fever (totally came out of nowhere, I hate it when that happens!!) and he was complaining that his ear hurt. So I gave him some Tylenol and told him to go back to sleep. Long story short, it was a very long night of him crying because his ear hurt so bad, and none of us got much sleep. We did manage to sleep long enough for Santa to come. Poor Brayden barely lasted through opening presents before he wanted to go back to bed. You can kinda tell by his face here that he just doesn't feel well at all.

However, Conner felt GREAT!! He was super happy about his new Power Ranger scooter, and rode it around the house all day!

Brayden did try his out, but he only made it down the hall once, then was done. He really wasn't feeling good.

My sweet Conner enjoying some of his presents from the grandparents!

By about noon, we had decided we have tried everything we could think of to help Brayden feel better, but nothing helped, he was just getting worse. His ear started to hurt just to touch it, and he could hardly hear out of it anymore. So after trying really hard to find an Urgent Care open on Christmas Day (yeah right, no such luck) we decided it would be best to take him to the ER. So off to Centennial Hill Hospital we went. It wasn't as horrible as I thought it would be in the ER, I thought we would be there all day, but we were in and out fairly quickly, for an ER at least. Then the bigger challenge I faced was to find a stupid pharmacy that was open on Christmas Day. After several failed attempts, and many phone call, I finally found one open over in Summerlin, about 30 minutes away. So I got back in the car and went to get his meds so he could start feeling better soon. (after all, we were leaving to fly to TX in one more day!) They were pretty busy, so I had to wait for 45 min to get his prescription. By now, I was starving, I hadn't eaten since breakfast, and it was about 6pm. So how convenient, there was a Jack in the Box across the street from the pharmacy that had it's drive though open. It was pretty crowded too. So I ate Christmas dinner from Jack in the Box... by myself... in  my car. Oh, and I failed to mention also that this whole time Patrick was not feeling well and was starting to get an abscessed tooth. PERFECT!!! Dentist's aren't open on Christmas either!! Patrick however suffered through until the next day and even though his dentist was still closed, we called her and she called in some meds to help Patrick last until we got back from TX. Merry Christmas Patrick... you get a root canal and we all get medical bills!!! YAY!

The good news, we got to Texas and had a great time with all my family. Everyone was feeling better by the time we left for Texas.

More about that trip to come later....

Brayden's birthday!

Why, yes... I realize that I'm very behind on blogging, but we have been gone, and life has been hectic, so here we go....

On Christmas Eve we celebrated Brayden's 6th birthday. He was very excited all day and it was almost torture for him to wait to open up his presents until his dad woke up.

He got a lot of cool thing, at least he thought so. He was very happy to get a Nerf Gun as you can see...

His Iron Man toy was also a huge hit!

After opening his presents we were off to lunch at Chili's, one of Brayden's favorite places to eat. We even let him have a Dr. Pepper with his lunch as a special birthday treat. He thought that was awesome since we never let him do that.

Then we went to Blockbuster and let him pick out a game for the Wii to rent and we all came home and played it together for a while. Then it was cake time! He was very specific in wanting not just any Batman cake, but a Dark Knight Batman cake. So this was as creative as I got. He thought it was cool though, so that is what matters.

He's not excited or anything.....

He had a great day!