Cedric's 3rd Birthday

Oct. 4th was Cedric's 3rd birthday. The night of his birthday we did a quick little party. It had been a busy day and although I planned on making a cake I ran out of time and had to buy one. Luckily we got free balloons from Harmon's which came in handy for our little party. I also got a call from my cousin, Alana asking if I could get with her and our old roommate, Jenny before she headed off to Saudi Arabia the next day. I told her what we were doing and invited them to come to the party too. It was fun to see them. We pretty much just did cake and ice cream and Cedric got a few presents from us.
Then next day we went to Fatcats. Cedric loves bowling and that's what he wanted to do for his birthday. Since Tom worked late the night of his real birthday, we had to go the next day. When we first got there they said that it'd be about a 40 minute wait before the leagues were done, so they let us do the glow-in-the-dark golf while we waited for free. We went through the course about five times before they got bored. Then we went over to the playground until they called us. We had bought a deal off of Groupon, which included a pitcher of rootbeer. We had a fun night despite me getting the worst score (of course, the kids had the bumpers and my balance was way off with a prego belly). Here's Cedric after getting a spare.

Then last night we had our monthly family dinner with my side of the family where we also celebrate the monthly birthdays. It was my dad's turn to host. He was so worried about what to get Cedric for his birthday, as that was usually my mom's area of expertise. However, he did a great job picking out Cedric's present. He gave him a big robot and Cedric was so excited!

I also took Cedric to the doctor for his well-child check-up. He was in the %60 for weight but only the %26 for height. When it came time to get his flu-shot I asked him if he wanted to get a shot and a band-aid and he said "yes". So I sat him up on the table and held his hands. The nurse told him to look out the window as she poked his arm with the needle and then quickly put the band-aid on. Cedric just looked at his arm and said "I got a band-aid!" it was as if the shot didn't even phase him. Then he proceeded to show all the people in the waiting room his band-aid as we walked out.

Cedric is such a loving, sweet boy. He is obsessed with people's sleeves and still sucks his tongue. He loves books, songs, computers and anything electronic. His favorite color is yellow and his favorite movie is "Strawberry Shortcake". Cedric is fully potty (and poopy) trained and is even dry through the nights! He goes to preschool, although his attention span struggles as he is the youngest in the class. But he catches onto things quickly. I am so grateful Cedric is a part of our family.

Happy Birthday, Cedric!

St. George

This past weekend our family went down to St. George for the St. George Marathon. Tom has participated in three other marathons this year all over Utah (Ogden, Park City, & Logan) and St. George was the fourth. He, along with his sisters, Maren and Teresa were able to get a fifth medal for doing the Utah Grand Slam (four Utah marathons in one year). They had also done a 1/2 marathon earlier in the year. Between all the marathons and training Tom has ran possibly over 400 miles! I am very proud of him as I am not a runner at all.

Originally we were going to leave the kids home with my parents so Tom and I could enjoy the weekend without chasing them around, particularly at the marathon finish site as it is crazy with people. However, because of my mom's passing and my dad's injured body, we had to make other plans. Our friends, Jeremy and Cheri told us they were going to be in St. George the same time and offered to watch the kids for us there so I could go watch and cheer for Tom at the marathon without having to worry about them. As luck would have it we were also able to stay in their family's vacation home with them and the kids couldn't be happier to have a whole weekend with their friends.
As I posted the other day, we looked for the crash site on the way to St. George. We knew it was around mile marker 29, but that's all we had to go off of. As we got closer and the mile markers were counting down, my heart was pounding. We didn't know what to look for and ended up passing the spot, getting on the freeway north-bound and just pulling over to look. I thought we had found the spot, but it didn't quite look right.

Tom and his dad ventured down the median looking for signs of the crash site. When they found it, they called us (Tom's mom and Maren were back at the cars with the kids) and we drove to where we could exit and get back on heading south-bound again. That's where we found the spot. It was nice to actually have another piece of the puzzle to put together what really happened to my parents. Here I am with some of the stuff we recovered from the site.

When we arrived in St. George Friday night Jeremy and Cheri had cooked us a nice dinner of teriyaki chicken. The kids had a hard time going to bed that night and it ended up being a late night. Tom stayed the night at the hotel where his sisters and parents were staying so he could get up early and ride with them to the marathon start. We ended up putting the three boys (Jeff 5, Cedric 3 & Jordan 3) in one bed. This is how they looked one night. And the two girls (Sammy 8 & Lily 8) in another. At 5:30am I heard Cedric crying and went in to see him up. I put him and the other two boys back to bed, but a half hour later heard him talking. I went in to find him wide awake and keeping the other boys up too. So I ended up throwing Cedric in bed with me and everyone was able to fall back asleep. The girls were up bright and early at 6:45am, but Cedric was the last kid awake at 9:15 (except for Cheri's baby, Hailey who was on her own time schedule. She slept well past noon almost every day). Here's how Cedric looked when I got up that morning.

We had been potty training Cedric the past week and I was impressed he stayed dry through the night the whole time we were in St. George. He is doing pretty good with going potty in the toilet too with an average of 0 - 2 accidents a day. However, he doesn't want anything to do with pooping in the toilet.

Saturday morning I left the kids with Jeremy and Cheri and headed off to see the marathoners. I was worried I'd miss Tom, but his parents were there and let me know they had not seen him go by yet. About a half and hour after I got there we saw Tom running past (he's the one in the dark blue shirt, sorry it's hard to tell).

Although he didn't reach his goal of 3 1/2 hours, he still did very well with a final time of 3:58:57. His sisters came in at around 4 1/2 and 6 hour times.

As always it took a while to gather all their stuff, check times, get massages, etc. Teresa's youngest son, Troy was quite board, so I decided to take him with me and head back to Jeremy and Cheri's place. The kids had fun playing Wii.

Riding scooters.

Riding the golf cart to the swimming pool.

And of course, swimming.



Tom finally met up with us all showered and cleaned up, but we were ready to head back by then. We ordered The Pizza Factory for dinner and Cheri and I went grocery shopping while the dads put the kids to bed. Tom and Jeremy enjoyed watching LOTS of football over the weekend too.

Tom and I were both beat and went to bed early. It was nice to get a solid ten hours of sleep as the kids did much better the second night.
Sunday morning I made sweet rolls, or as we call them "conference rolls" because it was a tradition in my family to always have them the Sunday morning of General Conference. We enjoyed a nice breakfast as we listened to conference and the kids did crafts and played. That night we had a nice steak dinner. I was so grateful for all of Cheri's great cooking on this trip and it was great to have friend to hang out with too.

That night we took the kids to a really cool park. It was about dusk when we got there and we stayed well past dark (that's the only way to do it in hot St. George).


After we went back and played the Candy Bar game. It was another late night, but a fun one.
The next morning the guys went golfing and we all packed up, cleaned the house and headed home that afternoon. I had to get a picture of the guys in their Utah and BYU hats.

The kids were helpful by taking care of Hailey. Jeff loves to hold her.

It was a lot cooler that day and even rainy. It made me a little nervous to drive home in the rain as that was the reason of my parents accident. But we made it home safely and we're grateful we had such a good weekend. And we are thankful for Jeremy and Cheri and all they did for us that weekend!

The Camera

When my parents had their car accident, their camera came up missing. Several people helped us look or prayed that we would be able to find it. Well, our prayers were answered and yesterday my dad got a package in them mail from the highway patrol with the camera inside! Here are some of the pictures that were on the camera.

One of the pictures is of Lily with Tom's parents.

And this picture is the last one taken of my mom before she died. In fact, the outfit she's wearing in the picture is the same outfit she wore the day she died. This picture will forever be precious to me.

The Crash Site

Tom and I went down to St. George for the Marathon this past weekend (I will blog more on that later). On the way down we searched for the crash site of my parent's accident. We found one spot we thought was it, but upon investigation decided it was not. Tom and his dad wandered further down the road and found the actual site. We were able to collect a few more things from there, as you will see in the video. You can tell I was a little flustered as I tried to explain things possibly due to my mental state. It was very sobering to see. Here is a link to the video...