Ooops!

So in this day and age of the internet, email, text messaging, and online bill pay I rarely have need to use traditional methods to communicate. (the post office) It makes me think about that Seinfeld episode when Kramer tries to stop the mail from being delivered to him because he realizes it's just a conspiracy for pottery barn to put their catalogue on your counter.
Anyway, I officially apologize to anyone who got a christmas card from us that required additional postage. I innocently bought two boxes of chrismtas cards, one being square, and one rectangle. Apparently the square ones, though no bigger than the other card costs more to send. I feel cheated by the card company because I think they should have written in big black letters across the label, "requires additional postage" because how am I supposed to know. So if anyone actually dug in their piggy banks and rescued the card from its holding cell at the post office consider it a christmas present to us.
But to everyone else we wish you a wonderful Christmas. We love you and hope for the best in 2009!

Global Warming??

The snow has continued to hit Las Vegas. While I am loving it, it is such a rare occurance here in the desert that people don't really know what to do. This morning they canceled school for the whole district, which just makes me laugh. Having grown up in Utah, I remember one time during my whole educational experiences that they canceled school. And there was so much snow that we could sled down the middle of the roads; it was piled so deep by our house that my brothers and I could jump off the roof of our house onto the front lawn and land safely cushioned by the snow.
But these cold conditions brings me to another issue that I have problems with, Global Warming. While I consider myself environmentally aware and concerned, I don't really believe in it. I think it's just a political conspiracy. I think true climate changes happen over millenials and Las Vegas's 30 degree weather this week will really throw a damper on the records. If your going to be worried about anything it's global cooling. There was a 10,000 year ice age, I don't recall anything about warm ages over the course of our earths history.

Let is Snow!!!

It is snowing! For only the second time in the 4 1/2 years we have lived here, it is snowing. We are loving it. Christmas can officially come now.

Finding Buddha

It continues to be very warm in Las Vegas. Zoey still goes to school in shorts and a t-shirt and our air conditioner is running. In fact I'm ready for it to cool down because it doesn't feel like the holidays are here yet. But we spent the weekend at Red Rock loving the sun and blue sky. My brother-in-law insisted on taking a picture of me relaxing on the rocks and I look exactly like buddha with my big belly!! So enjoy. And yes that is Joe climbing with his shirt off. Welcome to Las Vegas at Thanksgiving.

Continuing Disarray in the Went Household

So our house is torn apart again, stuff everywhere, no order or organization. But this time it's because we're getting new carpet!!! Yeah!! It has been high on my list of home improvement projects but just kept getting pushed aside. Then the right deal came through for us and we jumped on it. So our whole upstairs and staircase is getting done. It looks so much better! I love it and can't wait for it to get finished.
But when the carpet guy was ripping up the old stuff it started making me sick thinking about all the nastiness that was lurking there. Carpet in general is probablly just a nesting ground for who knows what. But I have to push those thoughts aside because it only makes me think of all the other nasty things that we use everyday.....like food. We trust so many different hands with our food before we actually get it home from the store to eat. I sware If I could, I would organically grow everything at home and make it from scratch. Then I would always know what has touched my food. But that of course wouldn't be possible in this day and age. Maybe I'd have made a good pioneer. These are the neurotic thoughts I've felt today....I need more sleep.

The Downside of Home Ownership

Since our last post we've had some house drama. We came home from Brian Head to a small flood in our living room. We had to replace some of our floor. The day after we finished this project we were surprised by our home builder with the news that they were re-plumbing our entire house. We knew since last year that they were going to do this, do to a lawsuit filed against the builder, but we didn't know the date. So without being able to recover from our flood we were kicked out of house for a week while they turned out home into a work site and literally replaced every pipe. At the end of the week I was so glad to have my house to myself, and they even hired a cleaner to come in and clean for us. So I decided to wash the rugs in my kitchen so they would match my nice new clean floors. I turned on the washer and went upstairs for a few minutes and returned to a foot of water downstairs. It seemed the workers didn't hook up my washer correctly and instead of it being filled up with water, my house and new floor received 30 gallons of water. So we spent the next week with the builders in our house again, knocking out the wall in my laundry room and replacing the floor again. While all this about sent me to the mental hospital, the girls had the best time because I was forced to be gone most of my days and we spent our time going to museums, pumpkins patches, the park and the movies. Not to mention lunches at mcdonalds. So here is a little sample of our activites. The Springs Preserve, a new museum and nature center.
A scarecrow garden

Rock Climbing at Springs Preserve

We just got a new park by our house, 'reptile park'.

Gilcrease Orchard

The girls in their Halloween Costumes. Zoey the bride and Olivia our butterfly.

It's Beginning to look alot like Christmas

We had our 2nd annual October Conference weekend at Brian Head. We rented a condo and spent the weekend enjoying conference and lots of SNOW! It snowed the entire weeked, about 10 inches. It was so unbelieveable to us because we're still enduring 95 degree weather in Vegas (just three hours away). The girls loved it, even though they could only play in it for short intervals since we don't actually own many snow clothes for them anymore. But after playing outside we spent lots of time snuggling up by the fireplace and drinking lots of hot chocolate.

View from Cedar Breaks

The loft in our condo that the girls loved to play in but gave me a heart attack everytime they went up there.
It was so beautiful seeing the snow and the amazing gold aspens at the same time.
Zoey getting ready to throw a snow ball.
Snowball fight

A Toothless Grin, blood and pus

Just in time for her school pictures, Zoey lost her first tooth. I'm such an emotional mom...I remember crying when she was 3 months old and it first came in and yesterday I got teary eyed when she came home from school with it loose. My little girl is growing up so fast!

But to kick off the Halloween season I thought I share one of my scary/gruesome interests.

I like blood and guts and pus!

To share a few examples....

I'm the mom who literally had to tie my hands together from popping my infants forhead when they got baby acne. I loved to pick my scabs as a child, me and my cousin Jenny used to ask other kids to let us pick their scabs too! I'm the one that pierced countless of my friends ears and noses.

So if this is gross to you, my only defense is that I had 5 brothers who were all athletes and they used to make me pop their zits on their backs when they couldn't reach them... I was bullied into it then sort of started liking it and it just grew from there.

So instead of allowing nature to let her tooth fall out when it was ready, I literally yanked it out of her mouth today and blood oozed everywhere. That sounds terrible. Don't worry, it didn't hurt her, but I will admit that I thought the whole thing was a little too fascinating considering my baby's mouth was full of blood.

Okay now I feel like I've shared way too much info .

Tribute to the 80's

So for some weird reason I spent the afternoon listening to old 80's love songs.....Chicago, REO speedwagon, Journey etc.... Its been years since I've heard most of these songs and I find myself suddenly wanting so slow dance back in my high schools gym. Okay so not really, but it does bring back alot of memories. I think the 80's get a bad connotation from most people, including me. But as I listened to these awesome songs that have the cheesiest lyrics I started thinking about other awesome things that were products of the 80's. Here is what I came up with. Feel free to add your favorites.

1. Two of my favorite all time movies: Girls Just want to have Fun, and Goonies.

And what about TV shows: 21 Jump street (Johnny Depps origin), Growing Pains (I still love you Kirk Cameron), and Saved by the Bell

2. The fashion - In the 80's it was cool to wear workout clothes as your regular outfit...you were stylish not just having a lazy day. Side ponytails and teased bangs, okay I'm sort of teasing about this but I will admit that in 6th grade I proudly won the award for highest bangs. (this is someones real family pic!!)
3. The accesories - Plastic charm necklaces, jelly braclets, trapper keepers, Banana clips,

Big fat pregnant belly

So this is mostly for my mom because it's not a pretty sight, however, I also realized that most of my family has never really seen me pregnant. It's like I just show up at big family events with a baby. So despite the fact that I didn't actually do my hair or put on makeup I am still publishing this picture to show my ever expanding big fat pregnant belly.

So since I'm on the pregnancy subject, I'm feeling GREAT! Aside from the continued nightly nausea, bleeding gums, bleeding nose, swollen hands and feet, constipation, bloating, clogged sinuses, back ache and never sleeping, I'm doing great.

Okay so maybe 'great' is stretching it a bit. Honestly pregnancy just doesn't agree with me. I don't understand those women who say how much they love being pregnant. It is literally like a parasite takes over and begins to suck the life out of you. I'm not complaining. I am so excited about this baby. I treasure each kick I feel and thank Heavenly Father every day for him but it doesn't change the fact that it is hard. But these are the things that make it worth it.

I was in the shower the other day when Zoey came running up to tel l me Olivia had fallen and hurt her head. She assured me there was no blood or anything of the serious nature, so I finished my shower and came down stairs a few minutes later to check on her. Zoey had made her a little bed on the couch and was holding an ice pack on her head. They didn't notice me at first and Zoey was talking softly to Liv, trying to comfort her and make her feel better. How adorable is that? So this is why it's worth it....why 9 months of misery is worth it.

School Pics and Utah trip

We spent Labor Day weekend in Utah. It was a quick trip, like most of ours are these days. But we still loved seeing many of our family and of course wished we could see more. We made our obligatory stop at Taco Amigo and the bean burritto and fries with fry sauce was as good as I imagined it would be this past year. We're thinking about starting a francise in Vegas, if only so I can eat there whenever I want.

We spent alot of our trip in Payson enjoying Onion days at Morgan's house. We always love the Onion days parade because they throw out the best stuff. The kids come away with a whole bag of goods. But unfortunatley this year it literally rained on the parade, which to us desert rats was a nice change, but I'm afraid ruined it for many who had to watch the festivities through the living room window.

This is Joe and I literally dripping wet from the rain. The girls favorite part was the princess floats. Zoey still doesn't quite understand if they are real princesses or not.
Enjoying just a patch of blue sky before the down pour.
Luke and I were about the last ones standing on the road as the rain fell and the parade went by. We got first dibs on all the muddy candy. I didn't think it was appropriate to show some of the more detailed pics of Luke because of questionable content, but if your interested ask Jilyan for a copy. And also question Luke about the contents of his Mountain Dew can, I think he had a little something something extra. All I can say is the town of Payson may not wish him to attend next years celebration!
Of course I needed to post some school pics. I know everyone has already seen and done that...so I guess it's for my mom who asked me if I would post some. Plus it's a year of firsts with Zoey starting kindergarten and Olivia starting preschool. It has been good so far, they both love their schools. But with both schools being so short, it leaves me barely enough time to get home do a load of laundry before turning around to retreive them again.
Joe with Zoey and Oliva before leaving on the first day
Zoey and her friend Elie and Livvy posing with the school mascot although they were too afraid to get any closer.Olivia before the first day of preschool

We are having.....

We had another ultrasound today and found out we are having a boy!!! I'm so excited for Joe but it will take me awhile still to get used to the idea. This morning before my appointment I talked to the girls about having a boy or a girl. Zoey was almost in tears at the idea of having a boy. She said, "if we have a boy we're going to have to buy boy clothes, boy toys, and boy movies and I hate boy stuff." I broke the news to them by buying them each a toy car which they actually spent about an hour playing with and they have now softened to the idea. I will definitley need to start from scratch with baby stuff. I don't have a blanket or onsie or anything that is boy. So I guess I'll have to learn how to enjoy shopping for boy stuff. Yuck! Overall we are very excited and grateful that everything looks good and is progressing well.

Mount Charleston

For those unfamilar with Las Vegas, within about 20 minutes of our house, we have mountains...real ones, with aspens and pines and yes, SNOW (in the winter). Alot of people don't know about this little treasure in the desert. It's so nice in the summer to escape the heat and go up to Mount Charleston. It has great hiking and world class rock climbing. Here are a few pics we took over the weekend. We have taken the girls pictures inside this tree for the last couple of years. The top one is last years. You can tell that Olivia still hasn't gotten over her dress obsession. She has to wear a dress everyday.

I love this picture. Zoey and Olivia are best friends.
Livi and Uncle Andy
Starting Zoey early on bouldering.
Joe rocking this wall.

School Shopping

Zoey's first day of kintergarten is fastly approaching. She and I went school shopping to buy some school clothes and get a full page of supplies they recommend the kids have. To me, going school shopping is a right of passage for the school year to begin and since this is her first time going to school, I wanted to make it really special for her. So just she and I took off first thing in the morning, went shopping, out to lunch at Mimi's Cafe, (her favorite place) and went and got pedicures. She was so cute and acted so grown up the whole time. She was very particular about her clothes and spent alot of time thinking about each piece. At the nail salon they had to bring in a couple pillows so her feet would reach the water. She had a little smile on her face the whole time but sort of panicked everytime the cute little old Asian lady tried to talk to her because she couldn't understand anything she said. But she loved every second of it and as we were leaving asked if we could go do it again.

Zoey showing off her buys of the day.

Showing off our fabulous pedicures, although it sort of looks like one of my toe nails is black, but it's not, must be a shadow.

Zoey the Blogger

Zoey has gotten into blogging and keeps wanting me to take pictures, "so we can put it on our blog." So here is a few things we have been doing lately....
I had strep throat last week, (I know half the stuff I post is about all my sickness, but I sware I'm not a sickly person.) Anyways I literally couldn't move off the couch for like 3 days. The girls decided to set up their own little tea party. Zoey hauled in the table and chairs and set up a cute party for her and Olivia. Of course my birthday landed right in the midst of my multiple sickness. But we had a little celebration anyways because I am 29, again!!! (But don't think I'm letting you off the hook Joe, when I'm better we are going out for a big celebration!!) Don't pay attention to how nasty I look or my dirty house just look at the present Joe got me. A Kitchen Aid....Yeah!! I've been wanting one for such a long time but it's really unfortunate that I probablly won't be able to use for a while. However, I still love it.
The girls are obsessed with doing crafts and science projects. Zoey loves scissors and glue and ribbon and makes about 10 crafts everyday. They are so cute but I usually have to toss most of them the next day or I sware my house would be wallpapered with her creations. Joe is the scientist in the family and has spent alot of time doing experiments with the girls. He loves to teach them big words and their meanings and then quiz them later. So next time you see Zoey, ask her what 'Refraction' means. Here is their latest...the baking soda volcano.

My dishwasher broke so I decided it was time to teach the girls some homemaking skills. They loved it. It was so funny because they didn't see it as a chore but more like a fun game I was letting them do.

Calf Creek

Since its been weeks of sickness, both me and Joe's wierd anthrax breathing disease, (not really anthrax but he did get a strange breathing sickness), we decided we need a change of scenery. So we loaded up the car, literally stuffed to the top with gear and went camping in Utah with my brother Jason and his family. We went to Calf Creek, a great spot by the grand staircase national monument outside Ecalante. It is filled with childhood memories because we went there every year for many years until the adults in our family decided to ditch it for another camp ground with the luxury of flushing toilets. It was great to be in the outdoors even though I sware I didn't sleep any of the nights we were there and instead listened to the symphany of snoring all around me. Theres something healing in nature; having no restrictions with the kids, having no commitments or possessions to distract us. We just enjoyed the scenery and the conversation. We loved the river that runs through the camp and I think one night, Jason, Joe and Joe's brother Andy, even took advantage of it 'European style' if you know what I mean. I attempted the 6-mile hike to the amazing 126 foot waterfall, but due to Dr restrictions couldn't complete it. But the rest of the group, with kids hanging off the front and back, treked through the thick sand and heat to enjoy a swim in the falls. Jason and I marveled at how my parents hauled all 6 of us kids up the trail every year. It really is an amazing sight in the middle of the desert. Unfortunatley in the ton of gear we brought the camera didn't make it. That was a big bummer. We officially suck at preserving our memories, I guess until next year, as I'm deciding I'd like to make the Calf Creek trip an annual thing.

We got home late last night and instead of folding the 10 loads of laundry filling up my living room, the kids and I decided to make cup cakes instead. This memory I decided to preserve since I've committed to being better at taking pictures from this day forward. The girls have always loved baking with me. Since they were very little they have sat on the counter and been little chefs.

So Far So Good...

So we are in our 11th - 12th week of pregnancy. Earlier this week, Jana began experiencing some discomfort and bleeding...not good times, especially with our history. We scheduled an ultrasound for the next day, and went down there in the morning. My thoughts were that I sort of wished that we could buy our own machine -- not one of those dopplers, but a full-on ultrasound machine so Jana could check in on the baby any time she wanted to. Last time we went in for an ultrasound, we were sent down to this crappy place that had foreign technicians, that didn't seem to know what they were doing. They tried to hide the screen from us, had trouble interpreting the views, acted as if something was wrong all the time, but wouldn't explain. It was terrible. I guess there was a mixup at our doctor's office about what ultrasound work our insurance would pay for, so they thought they had to send us to this low rent place that sucked. This time, probably because it was an emergency, they sent us to the doctor's own unit with her own technicians doing the ultrasound.

As an aside, this whole health insurance thing blows. Its not really health insurance, its more like catastrophe insurance. For regular things, insurance isn't really practical. You end up paying more than the insurance company does. I would be half-tempted to just self-insure, except for that dreaded car accident or something where you end up spending 5 days in ICU with a full day of surgery, and you can never come back financially. I have a friend in hospital administration, and he says insurance is the only thing that makes it work, that even with insurance paying they still give away hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in free care, and he was super offended when I told him my theory on health insurance. I told him health insurance is a scam, its the last vestiges of the slave system, LLoyds of London -- one of the biggest insurers in the world -- got their start insuring slave shipments from Africa, and that I always end up paying more than the insurance company, they never authorize squat, and my premiums are outrageous. What's the answer? More doctors?

So anway, we go the good ultrasound office, and get it done, and everything is fine, confirm the existence of the baby's heartbeat, see the baby move, all measurements are great. Zoey and Livvy are excited, they loved seeing the pictures.

So, despite the scare, so far so good. Will be cautious from here on out....JGW

Give me Candy...

So when I'm pregnant I get a really gross taste in my mouth and I also produce extra saliva that also tastes terrible. The one thing that has worked to combat this is, candy. I can't chew gum because it makes more saliva and I can't stand the taste of mint. (I've even had to start using cinnamon toothpaste.) So I have been eating tons of candy, just to combat this bad taste. I have never been a candy eater, (chocolate yes but I wouldn't be caught dead buying or eating candy normally.) So this is the stash of candy I had today. There is usually hot tamalies in there too but I sware just minutes before I ate like the whole 8oz box of them. So I know its disgusting, I know my teeth are going to fall out, but I don't care. Anything is better than the grossness that lingers with out the presence of candy.

I'm sure my dad would be proud. Oh wait, he doesn't eat candy. Right dad? wink wink

The water parks are in full operating mode and are the hip place to be these days during the Las Vegas heat.

In case you didnt' know....

I am pregnant! It's been a long road the past year...not knowing if I wanted more kids, then wanting them and not having much success, to getting some fertility treatments. But I am excited for this pregnancy despite enduring days and weeks of violent nausea and anxiety about miscarriage again. My Dr has been carefully monitoring my blood levels every week and I have to take progesterone right now to hopefully help prevent miscarriage. The progesterone adds another level of sickness, (if that is possible in my pregnancys). In the evenings especially, I am so sick I can hardly move because of nausea and dizziness. Luckily when I wake up in the morning I feel slightly better and am able to accomplish a few minor things( and I mean minor, like a good day is getting me and the girls dressed, teeth brushed and maybe dashing through the grocery store before the gagging actually brings up the breakfast I managed to choke down a few minutes earlier.) Then the cycle starts up again at about 12:00 and I am imobilized by sickness. I feel blessed to have my inlaws close now and for the help they have given me with the girls and upkeeping my house. And Joe is awesome. He is so supportive and patient and encouraging.

Defeated by Peer Pressure

After months of pressure to join the ranks of those who blog, we finally succumbed to the pressure and have created 'the went' blog. I know what your thinking, that after all the complaints of peoples blogs being a christmas newsletter for every day of the year and an outlet to feature new home decorating projects, that our blog would be far superior than the braggings of new callings and honor roll presentations. But I so greatly wanted to share with everyone that Zoey has been selected among thousands of 5 year olds for her high intellectual prospects to represent the good state of Nevada in a national IQ contest and will receive a million dollar scholarship. In addition, after months of deliberation between fabric swatches I wanted to post pictures of my new couch cushions and bathroom wallpaper.

Just Kidding!

But I will admit after actually spending a few mintues browsing over many of our family and friends blogs that it is a nice way to stay in touch and be apart of each other's lives amidst the distance that seperates most of us.