One Special Kid

When we were expecting Austin, we found out pretty quick he was a mighty special kid.  He had a whole slew of obstacles  to over come even before he made it out of my belly.  The first time we saw a ultra sound of him, we weren't even quite sure what the medical language was they used...Justin was a firefighter instructor at the time and we lived in west Texas.   Rather quickly though we learned about Omphalocele and Gastroscesis.  Thankfully and a bit miraculously, we had the omphalocele to deal with and not the other, much more serious condition of gastroscesis.  His intestines and possibly his liver were stuck in his umbilical cord.  We got into a quick routine of weekend check ups with a specialist in Ft. Worth, we stayed in the same hotel so often the gal at the desk remembered us.  When he was born he was 6 weeks early, emergency C-Section, on a sunny Sabbath morning.  And now, 8 years later he has overcome pneumonias, surgeries, reactive airway disease and heterotaxia syndrome.  He is AMAZING.  Happy Birthday Austin!!

 

 

 

Not only did we have a heck of a party with friends and all the brothers, we had a baptism a couple of months later.  Austin wanted to have grandparents come for his special day and September 16th worked out pretty nicely.  It was also the weekend Justin and Jeremy ran in the Air Force marathon weekend event.  The 5k for Jer and the 1/2 for Justin.

 

 

 

Can you really blame poor Ethan right here?  I bet we took at least 20 pictures and that was just right here in the entry way!  I really love this shot though, getting a candid one like this is pretty sweet.

 

Our "Poppa" came up from Texas for the whole hoopla, we call him poppa because we have multiple grandpas to keep track of.  My dad is Grandpa and we also have a Grandpa Mike, he's married to our Mimi, who also goes by Mammi ( but only to our Texas family), Poppa's wife is Grand Ma Debbie and of course Grandma is my mom.

 

My dad is always like this!  We have words in my family he created that would describe exactly his behavior right here in this picture....boogerhead, snydekki, hawnyauck, to name a few.  My poor mom, she just wants a good shot, she was probably thinking something like "Brent Larsen!" or "For heaven's sake".

 

The reason Austin decided to with crazy eyes I just don't know, but hey, it was his day, we were all just along for the ride.  His road of life has been a bumpy one so far, it seems that we cruise along for awhile and all is well.  Then out of no where, we land in the hospital and a week or two later the docs get things figured out, which also adds another quirk or condition we didn't know he had!

 

Little, pretty and yummy.

For everyone who has known me longer than 4 years, you know that we lived a pretty simple existence while Justin was a firefighter, firefighter instructor and PA student.  The Air Force pays for the basics in life, nothing fancy going on in the first 12 years or so of our married life.  And darn it, THAT IS OKAY!!!! our simple life was a great one. 

Well, don't get the idea we are living large on the Captain pay scale.  We get to say yes to a few more things though.  Yes, we can take a trip to a water park, yes we can go to the Zoo in Columbus, yes we can save, save, save and go to Washington D.C. as a family....our very first family trip.  That might seem confusing to our family since we took trips out west to visit every so often through the years.  Well it was the very first vacation that had nothing to do with a trip to visit any family. 

So this little post today is about how a jump in the pay scale has upped my opportunity to flex my feminine muscles in the kitchen and create some darling, yummy treats for friends and family. 


For example...Princess Cupcakes in house full of BOYS!!  Why you may ask?  Ethan has a darling little friend that asked to come over and make them with me.  She had a book that we picked out the recipes from and it is a fancy little book indeed.  All the Disney cup-cakery you can handle.

 

 

These ones down below here were pink lemonade people! They tasted delicious and then funny part was that my boys just ate them up, no problem with the cup cakes being too girly.  My boys are awesome that way.  If I remember right there wasn't a single one left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These little Olympic cookies were made especially for Cooper's tenth birthday.  Since we were looking for ward to the London Olympics, he chose the Games for his birthday theme.

 

 

This was the crazy crew that inhaled the cookies after participating in their own games.  Races, archery, etc, etc,  I painted the nifty tees as well.

 

 

 

 

These  next pretty little babies I found in a fabulous book from the library.  It was all about what you can do with cookie dough, eggless of course. 

I love it when things turn out just like the pictures, the hubbie is learning to love this quirk of mine.  But really, they were perfect!!!

 





Who wouldn't love to have one of these bad boys?  Did I mention they hade a cookie dough flavored buttercream and a cookie dough filling hiding inside?  YUM.
  








I love when my Birthday boys get exactly the  happy reaction I want when they see their cakes!  this baby I have made a couple of times, this time was for Austin's 9th birthday.  It looks like a giant Oreo and tastes even better.

 

 

Uncle Scaredy Cat and Family!

Years ago the boys nick-named their Uncle Adam "Uncle Scaredy Cat" because they thought they could scare him ever so badly.  He would jump, shriek, or whatever when they were playing with him.  Rough housing with 4 boys is practically a sport in the Wright Family.  Well, now Adam is a Daddy too and he has a darling little family of his own and they came to visit us from Joplin. 

Little Miss Olivia (with mom sitting there behind her) got down and dirty at the Carriage Hill Farm school house.  I think she was trying out the  veggies in the kitchen.

 
 
 


















I love this picture of Jeremy and Gracie, they built that wooden fort together even though Grace was just not feeling to hot.  She really had a fun time one on one with her big cousin.

 After the trip to the "Farm" it was time for pumpkin carving and a treats for us all.  Ethan  was thinking long and hard about which design to choose, really long and hard.

 

 

Now, our daddy has many skills and has a great many he is working on, pumpkin carving is a serious business.  The past few years we have had some doozies, this one right here though, turned out really great in the end.

 
 
 

But really its because we totally cheat and put the paper on the dang thing first!  Free styling carving is not our strong suit and I don't think we are alone in this.

 

My goodness that is one cute kid!

 You are probably thinking the same thing as I am about this picture....what the heck is on your back door????  Pre-school stuff of course.  Jeremy here though looks a bit unsettled don't you think?

So, let's get to the treat part of the evening, JUMBO SMORE'S MARMALLOWS!!!  These babies were so fun and yummy.  Seriously the biggest marshmallows you have ever seen, look for them in the fall.  So what I did was dip them in melted chocolate, chilled them, dipped them in melted peanut butter flavored candy melts (from the candy making section at the craft store), rolled the bottoms in graham cracker crumbs, then chilled again.

 

These babies are beyond delicious.  They are "oh baby, get me some more of that" good.

notice there aren't any darling red-headed girls in these shots, the poor things were just too sick to join in. 

The most amazing part of this time with Uncle Scardey Cat and his family was the time they took to prepare and present a fireside for our ward about the terrible tornado they survived in Joplin the previous May.  We were so blessed to be able to hear the incredible testimonies of Adam and Tiffany.  They are wonderful, faithful awesome people and we are so  thankful to have them in our family.

Some firsts that happened for the last time.

Living here in Ohio has been pretty good to us.  We have definitely had some firsts to remember.  Having 4 boys we have had lots of firsts, each time they start  walking, talking, primary,school, a new sport, scouting,  etc.  Well for Ethan this year (2011) was his first school experience.

Several wonderful friends and I got together and created a pre-school co-op.  We took turns teaching in a rotation type set up so every so often we hosted the school for the week.  We agreed on a loose schedule so the kids would get used to things like saying the Pledge, sitting together and going over the date and weather, singing the days of the week and other activities. 

The first week was held at my friend Kristi's home, she is an amazing gal, her home is darling, she makes beautiful quilts, her girls love playing with my crazy boys.

Here he is, the last pre-schooler of the family!  He was so ready to be big like his brothers.

So here is Ethan and one of his buddies waiting for the rest of the class to arrive, they decorated their own place mats earlier before we started the school year, it was a messy and fun time for them all.

 

Little Ava G. was there showing the boys the ropes on the wood blocks.

For the last time we had a preschooler, and he was the first not to be enrolled through a formal school program, they just do things different out here.  It was another first we had to muddle our way through, the Ohio school system.

Catching up and I like it.

I am trying to get a better feel of just what this blog is all about.  Obviously I need to document my life for posterity, its something that I know to be useful and all.  I have had quite a hard time with this as of late. 

Why this is a problem...4 kids and a busy, busy, life.  That is a start.  I kept a pretty reliable journal up until a few years ago, same with my scrapbooking.  Then I left life and my  priorities just go else where.  So, now that there is a little window for me to try this way, might as well go for it.  The fall of 2011 we had a bunch of exciting things going on in our family.

 



 

  Jeremy decided to train and run in the Air Force Marathon 5k, Justin ran with him.  He set out to make his time less than 30 minutes.  Leading up to the race he trained around the neighborhood with Justin and after school I took him to the base to run at the gym. 

He made his goal with a time of about 29 minutes.  He is one great kid.

Well as one might guess, there are lots of dang fun things to find on a new laptop.  It takes time and patiences to get to the good usefull things, like making sure Pinterest is on the favorites list, for example.  But, yesterday I learned how to actually do some basic editing on the pictures I transferred onto this baby.  So what followed was lots and lots of pointing and clicking while the rest of the crew was sung in their beds asleep and I waited for the washer to make my stinky workout garb to become Gain fresh.  Oh how I love Gain.

For Example..... I called up some buddies (at the
time it was the end of summer 2011)
whom I thought would be interested in
some good clean fun.

The Back to School PIE FIGHT

The Dads made sure there was maximum levels of whippy goodness

This Little lady is ready to sling it.

Why am I not surprised that he would lick it before we even start the fight?!

I've been hit!  Yummy!

ARM YOURSELVES!  The battle begins.

When the pie was gone the water fight ensued.

An amazingly fun back to school party for one and all.

We have a lot of catching up to do. I have to admit since the desk top crashed I have just not wanted to blog on the old lap top we have.  But now....we have a brand spanking new HP with window8 my friends.  Oh baby it is so speedy and shiny.  I have a lot to learn about blogging.  Thankfully I have several avid blogging friends here in Dayton.

So to recap the past long while...we have a teenager in 7th grade, a almost 11 year old in Kung Fu, a newly baptized 8 year old, who hasn't seen the inside of a hospital lately, and a 5 year old that is in full day part week kindergarten.  My life on Monday, Thursday and alternating Wednesdays is fabulous.  The hubby is waiting on a application for a new PA position and much, much more.