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Sunday, March 30, 2014

2013

Its a miracle. I'm blogging two days in a row! Thank goodness for lazy Sunday's and naps! So here are some happenings in 2013.

The year started out (literally on Jan 1st) with me taking a pregnancy test and it was positive. It was a surprise and unplanned so I kept it a secret from Nathan for two weeks, I had to let it sink in, and to be be completely honest I was actually pretty upset about it. I had wanted to wait another six months at least. In fact I remember telling some of my cousins I would never have kids as close as Gavin and Jackson again. I totally ate those words! So, on Nathans birthday (Jan. 15th) the boys and I made a card with a little poem on it saying he was going to be a daddy of three.
With that being said, this e-card kind of sums up the year for me. Ha ha

Nathans youngest brother Brandon returned home from serving a mission in Guatemala. He had two nephews and a niece who he got to meet for the first time. 

We spent some time in St George at Nathans parents house. We had some family pictures taken one of the trips we went down there. I believe this was in February and a bunch of us are wearing short leaves. Gotta love the warm weather down there in the winter months.

Nathan went and watched the Masters!


Remember that e-card. Well one morning I was feeling super sick so I just stayed in bed for a while and this is what I found once I got up. -Just keeping it real here in the blog.

Nathans Grandma turned 80! We went and celebrated for the weekend at her home in Vernal UT.


These are all of the Gardner wives (and a cousins wife) singing one of Grandma Fays favorite songs

Grandma Fays famous swing... 

Nathan and my dad put up our fence in the spring so we spent a lot of time in the back yard.


My sister Becky got married in July.

Gavin started pre-school again in August.

Gavin took this picture while we were waiting for his bus to come. Pretty good ya?


September brought us our baby girl! She was born on Sept. 2nd 1:07am weighing 6 lbs. 13 oz and 19 in. long. I guess I should mention that she was born in the front seat of our new van!!! But maybe that story can be saved for another time if anyone is interested...


I love Halloween. Its one of my favorite holidays. I guess its just my inner "little girl" loving to play dress-up. Nathan thinks I'm weird. This year I dressed up as Pippy Longstockings, and the boys obviously as superman and spider-man.


We spent Christmas down in St George. We had fun; we made gingerbread house's, went to the Children's Museum, went hiking, and played lots of games. Jackson was so in love with his new toys that Santa brought that cried... a lot! He couldn't handle having to share.


 Holy smokes, this is turning out to be WAY longer than I had planned. So Ill just end with some cute pictures of each of my babies.



p.s. I realize I have poor punctuation and grammar -and thank goodness for spell check, so thanks for sticking with me (if you even made it this far) 
.

Saturday, March 29, 2014

2012

Well lets see if i can remember how this works...

I don't really know why I decided to write a post -I'll say its for Grandma Fay- no, but really I guess I wanted to document our life somehow (other than FB and instagram) and this is the best way to include both my thoughts and pictures. With that said, if you know me well at all, you know that I am a girl of few words, so.... pretty much this will be a post of pictures. I'll try to post some highlights of our year that haven't been posted on FB. 
Lets start with 2012
Gavin and Jackson got all big and stuff. Why does time have to go by so fast? They seriously were just this little yesterday, could two years really have past? Holy smokes!!


We took a trip to Florida. We went to Disney World and played at the beach. Super fun! (I feel like we're missing a zillion pictures from this trip. What the heck!)



Nathan played some softball and ran the Tough Mudder.


We added a back patio with an awesome awning (thanks to Utah Awnings).

We Celebrated holidays...


Had birthdays...

And started preschool...

We all had a great year. It flew by way to fast.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

2011 Recap

I realize I haven't blogged a lot this year so I thought I would write about the high lights of the past year in one post.

January: Gavin perfected his walking skills.
We knew when first found out Gavin had Mosaic Down Syndrome and that he may have delays in his development. But as he was learning and growing, he development at least gross motor wise was the same as any other "typical" child. Walking did take a little bit extra practice but by the time he was 14 months old he had it down.
We also celebrated Nathans 26th birthday. We went and saw the movie Tangled with Ryan and Andrea. It wasn't Nate's first movie choice but he was a good sport about it.

February: Gavin's first sleepover.
For my birthday/ Valentines Day we left Gavin at my parents house for the first time. The plan was for Nate and I to spend the night somewhere in Salt Lake, but we ended up just going home after some shopping. None the less it was nice to have a little break from being a mom for a night.
Elder Gardner goes to the MTC (missionary training center). We were able to go with Ben, Ryan, and Andrea to drop Brandon off at the MTC.



March: Big news.
We found out Gavin would be a big brother!! I told Nate that I thought I was pregnant and even took an at-home pregnancy test, but it was either too early to tell or it was the crappy cheap pregnancy test. So a few weeks later I took another one and it was positive. We were super excited.


April: Ultrasound
Because Gavin has Mosaic Down Syndrome my doctor wanted me to have whats called a Nuchal Translucency Screening. Which basically is a test that takes a measurement on part of the fetus along with a blood sample of the mom and determines the moms risk for having a baby with down syndrome or other chromosomal defects. If the measurement on the baby is really big that's usually an early sign of a defect. This picture is of the measurement they take of the baby. Its the fluid on the back of the baby's neck.
**These are not my pictures, I got them off the Internet

My results came back really good. My risk hasn't increased at all, its the same as any other woman my age. My chances of having another child with DS are 1/10,000 and my chances of having a child with any other trisomy are 1/2,800.

May: Anniversary.
Nathan and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary. We went to dinner at Ruth's Cris. We each got a steak, and they were SO good. I would suggest this place to everyone.

We took Gavin to the zoo for the first time. I'm pretty sure he loved it; it's sometimes hard to tell Gavin's emotions because he doesn't always show them. He loved and still loves to be outside, that was probably his favorite part of the whole day. One of his favorite animals was a desert cat. It would run around its cage and come right next to the glass where Gavin was standing.





June: Boy-O-Boy!
We found out we were having another boy. I didn't want to find out but my surprise was ruined before it even started. The day we went for the ultrasound we told the tech that I didn't want to know the sex so before she was close to finding out to just tell me to close my eyes. I was a little suspicion because both the Nate and the tech kept calling it a "he" but whatever. Towards the end Nate couldn't contain Gavin anymore so he took him out into the hall. While Nate was out the tech asked if I wanted her to print out a picture of the sex and put it in an envelope to take home for future "proof." I said yes. She had a few more measurements to take and then she said "Okay, I'm done I just need to print off your boy picture."
She tried to fix her slip-up by saying something like she just had boy on the brain. I wanted to give her the benefit if the doubt but I could tell she felt really bad about it.


July: Fun in the Sun.
Gavin and I spent a lot of time out-side this past summer, but because we had no yard we would go to my parents house. He has a lot of fun at Grandma and Grandpa Bunderson's house.



We had a good 4th of July. We watched a parade, had a barbecue, played with cousins, and watch fireworks. Its been fun with Gavin getting older and understanding and doing big kid things.

August: Vacation.
This year we drove down to Cali for a vacation with the Gardner's. We stayed at Bass Lake. We played in the water, hiked at Yosemite, got a lot of sun, and ate a lot of yummy food. It was such a good time! You can see better, more detailed versions here and here.




September: State Fair
My sister Brittany and her little boy Drewes, my sister Breanna, Gavin, and my-self went to the sate fair. We didn't get to stay very long but we squeezed in as much fun as we could. The two boys went through the "Little hands on the Farm" maze type thing. Gavin really liked it. He probably would have stayed there the whole day. I had to keep hurrying him along because there were other kids behind us. We ate some yummy food, and saw a lot of farm animals. 





October: Surprise.
We took Gavin to a pumpkin patch this year. He mostly just played in the dirt and threw and kicked the small pumpkin we picked out for him -he thought it was a ball.



Oh and SURPRISE! Our baby Jackson came 3 weeks early. I had a feeling he was going to come early, but I didn't want to get my hopes up and them have the last three weeks drag on, so I did nothing. The car seat, bassinet, everything was in our back room -untouched. I did do one load of baby cloths. I'll have to tell his birth story another time.
Jackson Otto Gardner was born on October 25th at 4:34 p.m. weighing 6 lbs 10 oz. and 21 in. long. He shares his birthday with his Grandpa Bunderson, which is super cool. He is the sweetest, most perfect little baby. We love him lots and lots.
Vivian came and stayed for a whole week after Jackson was born to help me. It was great!






We had a fun Halloween and went to a trunk-or-treat on our neighborhood. Gavin dressed up as a cow boy, I dressed up as a cowgirl, and Jackson dressed up as a candy corn. And yes I'm mother of the year for not taking one single picture of Halloween.

November: Thanks
WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!! We moved into a new house in Granstville, and are loving it. We're excited to make it our own, I have a bunch of plans to decorate but don't have a lot of time with a newborn and a VERY active two year old.

We had a really good Thanksgiving Jason and Jenna got to come spend it with us. We had our Thanksgiving dinner at our old rental since it was empty. I went shopping on black Friday -it was a bad experience this year. It was SUPER crazy. I might not ever do it again.
I felt really blessed this year I have a healthy new baby, a healthy and active toddler, an awesome husband who works so hard for our family, a beautiful new house, and great family who help and support us so much.

Gavin turned 2!! We had a little birthday party for him; we invited family over for cake and ice cream.


December: Blessed
If 11 months of awesomeness wasn't enough, December brought more blessings. Nate got signed off at work, he is now an official Certified Professional Controller. From the very beginning of Nate's training, 2 and a half years ago, we've felt super lucky and blessed that, first he even got the job, and that he's been doing so well with training. Its been a huge weight off his shoulders financially to finally be done with training.

Christmas was really fun. Gavin had a blast this year opening presents. We were spoiled. Gavin got a lot of new toys, one of which was a fun tent and tunnel from his g-ma and g-pa Gardner. Jackson got a new baby swing which Nate say's was maybe the best purchase of all of Christmas.



On December 31 we gave Jackson his name and blessing. It was extra special because two of my nephews were baptised the same day. We were sad that none of Nate's family were there -it was our fault- we planned it on a day that they were all out of town.


It was a great way to end the year. 2011 treated us very well, and we are excited to start a new year.

May 24, 2008

May 24, 2008