Feb 6, 2009

Congratulations Trent!

We are so proud of Trent. Trent was recognized for his academic achievement and received recognition at the school assembly. Trent did not know that he was going to receive this award. So his shy introvert side really showed. Trent was so excited after the assembly because the Principal handed each of the winners a gift card to McDonald's. Basically they receive a happy meal without the "happy" part of the meal (aka toy).
The next day I took Trent to McDonald's so he could use his gift card. When we ordered the lady took the card for the meal and Trent about had a melt down. He kept saying, "Why doesn't she give me my credit card back, mom? She gives you your credit card back after you pay". So I explained to him that my credit card has money on it and his card was just specifically for the food that he bought, so she needed it back. I tried. I guess it worked cause he let it go. LOL
I feel all giddy as a parent! It's a joyful feeling when your child gets recognized. Now I kind of understand that person who drives around the car with one or more than one bumper sticker that says, "My child was honor student at blah blah elementary"! I never got that before. Now I do. I don't have a bumper sticker to go on my car, but I have our family blog with a condensed version of the assembly for everyone to watch. So enjoy!!

Jan 30, 2009

For Sale













Well our house is on the market. I know there are a lot of questions out there. So to help answer them, I have listed them below:

1. Why are you selling? Just feel that we need to.
2. Where are you going? Don't know yet.
3. Is Scott's job in jeopardy? NO!!!!
4. Is Scott changing jobs? NO!!!!
5. Are you leaving Boise? Don't know yet.

So many questions, we don't have all the answers. All we know is that we feel we are doing the right thing for our family.

Jan 26, 2009

I didn't think I was a pack rat!!

This weekend we had a lot of work to do around the house to get it ready. I have been overwhelmed with the daunting task that was placed on me 2 weeks ago with a deadline of this Thursday. So on Friday, while I was getting ready for the day and thinking about what needed to take place this weekend, I was inspired. I called my parents to see if the kids (all 4) could come hang out with them for the weekend. Of course being the awesome grandparents that they are, they said, YES!!! So when the boys got off the bus Friday, we loaded everyone in the car and drove to Twin to drop the kids with my parents. By the time Scott and I got back from 4 hours in the car, we were tired.

It was so nice to have slept the whole night through and not wake up until my eyes opened on their own, which was 8am, what a treat!!!! So off to work we went. We went from room to room dejunking. Scott has always been the one that says if you haven't seen it, used it or worn it within a year or more - away it goes! Easier said than done. This year, I reached down deep within me and decided that I was going to have that approach. This is when I discovered that I truly am a pack rat. I have had "unfinished projects" from 5-10 years ago that I was "really" going to finish. So I junked them. REALLY! If after this amount of time, I don't think that I was going to sit down one day and do them, in fact, half of them I couldn't even remember what they were supposed to be like when they were completed. This was invigorating!!! Onto the next room and so it went on. We had some great advice, as we take things down and put them away, we should have 2 boxes, one for the trash and one where you wrap it up and pack it away. What a relief and a time saver! This will save us so much time.

Lastly was the dreaded room of the entire house, our bedroom. Our room has been the catchall for everything. Scott was not going to let me avoid it any longer. So we began going through clothes in our closet. I have had clothes for over 10 years still in my closet (Stacy and Clinton from What Not to Wear would have my head!!) some I wear and some I don't. I have clothes from my "larger than life" stage that it was time to get rid of. My mind set is that I don't want to go back to being "larger than life", so the clothes needed to go away so I can stay focused on the new size and continue to make it smaller.

So 9 long hours later, 2 trips to the dump, and a trip to DI, our house is 1000 pounds lighter from the inside to the outside. Scott and I dejunked every room in our entire house and the backyard. What an incredible feeling I have. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders that maybe I didn't even know was there. As I walk into each room, I feel a peace come over me. I think its true when the Prophet tells us to "get your house in order" and you will have a change in your heart, family, and feel an over all peace over you. I have truly felt that through this dejunking process.

After an exhausting day, we cleaned up and went to a nice seafood dinner rented a movie and came home and slept through most of the movie. Went to bed had a nice rest, again I forgot how nice sleeping the entire night through was and how refreshed you feel in the morning. So after Sunday school, we headed to Twin to pick up the kids. Because it snowed the roads were terrible. I don't think Scott got over 40mph on our drive. A trip that would normally take around 2 hours took us almost 3. We picked up the kids and turned around and headed right back to beat the darkness.

This has been an eye opening refreshing weekend. I came to realize that I am a pack rat and it's okay to get rid of things and "dejunk" our lives. I came to realize that I don't like to go to church without our kids with us. At first I thought it would be nice to sit and listen to the talks and feel the spirit cause I don't usually get to with all the racket from the kids. I felt uncomfortable all during sacrament meeting because it was just Scott and I sitting on the bench. I came to realize that the gospel is true (not that I didn't know that before, but it was reaffirmed to me) because the things that are taught to us pertain to every part of our lives, even dejunking the stuff in our homes.

I feel alive again. I feel like our house is in order both physically (temporarily) and spiritually.

Jan 21, 2009

CONGRATULATIONS SCOTT!!!!


It's a 3peat just like one of Scott's heroes Michael Jordan.

Scott has won President's Club for his 3rd year in a row with Yellow Book. He works so hard and stresses so much on providing for our family. It isn't an easy task to win President's Club, I am so proud of him that he has done it now 3 years in a row.

Yellow Book has paid for us to go to the Bahamas in 2007













and to Mexico in 2008












and this year 2009 we are taking our trip voucher and going to Europe for 10 days.














Great job Scott! You deserve a vacation from all the hard work you have done throughout the year and continue to do. I love you.

Jan 12, 2009

Milestones vs set backs

I haven't really given an update on Emmett since turning the big boy 1. He truly has done some amazing things. We have experienced tender mercies from the Lord. Emmett was trying to roll at Thanksgiving and truly mastered it a couple weeks into December. When Jill our therapist was evaluating him, he still was only doing things of a 7 month old. I guess that offended Emmett because within the month of December to a little after New Years, Emmett has mastered pushing himself up off the floor to a sitting position and crawling. He is funny to watch when we crawls. He bounces with both knees and his bum goes in the air and then he takes off like a flash, almost in a run. It's the cutest thing. Now that he has figured out that he can travel, he is all over the place and into everything.

The truly amazing thing to me is the way he maneuvers his arms to be able to do the different tasks. I thought he might struggle with crawling due to putting pressure on his arms, but he doesn't. I find myself watching him as he sits and watches himself move his arms back and forth. It's hard to explain, but its almost like he is trying to figure out how to move his shoulders in different manners to manipulate his arms and wrists to move in different directions. It is so fascinating to me.

The Lord has truly blessed us. We are slowing our pace some to take in the most amazing developments of our children. Little things that would have passed us by, we are now paying attention to not with just Emmett, but Garhett, Trent, and Paige.

Along with great milestones comes little set backs. At Emmett's one year well check, we found that he had only gained 2 ounces from his last appointment. That pains me - I so wanted him to be 20 pounds and moving up the growth chart. But he didn't make it, he was 18 pounds 9 ounces; which puts him in the 3rd% for weight. At first our pediatrician wasn't concerned about his weight gain (or lack of), but then she could see how concerned I was (or maybe hear it in my tone of questioning):O). So she decided to send us to a nutritionist. We see her this week, it will be interesting to see what she has to say. Increase his food intake, which is good thought, but kind of hard to practice. Why? Because Emmett chokes on everything. His mouth is so tight that his tongue doesn't move side to side very well to pass the food around. Instead, Emmett prefers to bite and swallow. Hence the second physical therapist that we see weekly. She works solely on Emmett's head, neck, and mouth.

After talking with our service coordinator about Emmett seeing a nutritionist, she informed me that we got approval for a developmental and a feeding therapist. YEA!!! Really???? That means we are up to 5 therapists a week, some come to our home and some we travel to see. How blessed we are to have been put in touch with such a great program that offers all different types of therapists for our son. These people have done miraculous work with Emmett, and I am truly grateful for each of them. So I am expecting some great things from Emmett within the next month or so - more milestones met.

We kind of settled into a routine the past month with Emmett bi-passing one surgery for the moment. It was nice to not feel like I was running as much as I was. But that was short lived, Emmett has some big doctor appointments coming up. From now until mid-April he will be seeing several different specialists and having surgery. Then to wrap it up, we'll make another drive to Utah for his second sleep study which will determine if bi-passing the surgery will happen again or if it will be inevitable. Emmett will be fine and will continue to be a strong boy who meets his milestones at his own pace. He wouldn't be a Morgan if it was any other way!!!

Because every post should have a picture, here is a picture of Emmett experimenting with crawling.

Jan 10, 2009

The Princess Party

HEAR YE! HEAR YE!

Her Majesty, Princess Paige
Of the house of Morgan
Requires your presence
At the celebration
Of the 4th year of her birth
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(The Palace)














Her Majesty Princess Paige and the Queen!



The Royal Court arriving:
Aubrey T. and Abby H.











Zoey F.


Alayna R.











The Royal Court:










Gowns, Crowns, Wands and Mirrors too,
Nothing short of a Royal celebration will do!!













A special thanks goes to my mom for all the help with decorating the house for the party. I couldn't have pulled off such a well decorated party without you! Your the best grandma and mom a PRINCESS could ask for! A great big THANKYOU to my awesome hubby for taking all the pictures (even though there were a lot of eye rolling at your type A wife as she decorated). A huge thanks to my great friend Deidra for helping keep the girls entertained through each station and painting their nails. Today was a great day for Paige and it gave me great joy to see our daughter so happy.

Paige received a Princess beauty set as one of her gifts and both she and her dad were excited. Why? Well because Scott loves to have Paige comb through his hair, like his grandma did when he was a child. Paige loves to "style" dad's hair. So tonight she pulled out the round brush and hair dryer that was in her set and while Scott sat on the couch Paige combed through his hair.

Jan 7, 2009

January 7th - Happy Birthday Paige!

Today is Paige's birthday. Paige is 4!! She was the line leader at preschool, and that means she gets to bring snack and do share day. When she stepped into the preschool room this afternoon, she flung her arms out and in her own Paige way she announced, "It's my BIRTHDAY!!" Her teacher came running up to her and said, "I know! Happy Birthday Paige!".

Paige wore this darling outfit that Grammy (Scott's mom) gave to her. A cute skirt and an adorable red sweater. Tonight we opened presents before we took the family out to Paige's birthday dinner. Paige got a Sleeping Beauty dress up dress, a Sleeping Beauty Barbie, and a shiny new pink and purple Barbie bike with a matching helmet. She was so excited to get all of her gifts. After presents we went to McGrath's Fish House for dinner. Paige was thrilled to put the fish hat on and have us sing happy birthday to her. On Saturday, Paige will have her friend party.