Family fun day - Saturday.

On Saturday, we tried to go swimming at the Lehi swimming pool. As we walked into the foyer of the Lehi recreation center we saw a big sign that said, “pool closed for the rest of the day”. Boy were we disappointed, but after we found out that someone pooped in the pool, we were glad to know that they wouldn't risk the health of their patrons. Since we were already in our swimming suits, we came up with a plan B. We ended up going to the American Fork pool instead. So, there aren't any of the really fun things that they have at the Lehi pool, but we still had a really fun time. We played volleyball with our beach ball. We were having such a great time playing that four or five other children came and joined in the fun.



We couldn't pass up going to Cabella's, since we were so close. Then we ate really yummy food at Rib City. We are glad that Shelly came up with the plans and joined us for the fun.

I'm a blogging slacker!

I love looking at other's blogs and I sometimes think, "What is going on with them, they haven't blogged in a while." My Mom said the same thing to me. I realized that I was a slacker on my blog. Jacob is still working on potty training. He is doing alright. The hardest part is for me is remembering to take him regularly. Thank goodness for pull-ups. It sure saves messy clean ups of little accidents. He likes to wear his underwear on top of his pull-ups. He doesn't like to go in big potty's, so that makes it interesting to try and get him to go in public restrooms. He still is telling the nursery leader that he has to pee, but when we try and take him he won't go.

He came out of his room the other day with a pull-up on his head, like a beanie. It was so funny, so of course he thought it was a fun game to make Mom and Dad laugh!






Where do you wear this thing?















He can have quite an attitude sometimes. If he doesn't want to do something, he will for sure let you know about it. Here is a picture of him with his "angry eyes".

A three day weekend!

Over Martin Luther King's weekend, we got to get away to our favorite place for the weekend, "F.G." as Jacob calls it, otherwise known as Fountain Green. We just relaxed for the weekend, watched movies, had naps and slept in. On Saturday, I got to go cross-country skiing up Maple Canyon with Shelly. The best part about it was that there was no inversion and pollution. It was about 40 degrees and a beautiful day to be out. We came back on Sunday evening and it was nice to have an extra day off on Monday to get things together. I even got to do a little shopping and found some great sales!

Vicks VapoRub anyone?

Well, we are already starting our second week back to school. Last week we were working on getting back to routines. Jake got off schedule over the break and the nap time got pushed back a bit, so last week we were trying to get him back on schedule. On Monday, Jake was watching his "ho, ho, choo, choo," otherwise known as the Polar Express. He hadn't yet fallen asleep, but Mark had already crashed, when he discovered my new, big bottle of Vicks VapoRub in the dresser. He loves Vicks, I think thanks to Grandma Linda. Well, he was still recovering from croop and while he was sick he looked forward to getting his Vicks rub down, so when he discovered the bottle he of course knew what to do with it. Rub it all over his chest, face, clothes, carpet, etc... and probably ate some as well. Mark finally woke up after the entire bottle was gone and Jacob was crying because of the burning in his eyes and I am sure everywhere else. It took two baths, three washings of his clothes, and shampooing of the carpet to clean up the mess. I wish I had a picture for you, but I had our camera with me at school. It must have been a sight. His clothes were just caked with Vicks. We still are finding little Vicks fingerprints on random things in the bedroom. He sure keeps us on our toes! It is good he is cute and that we really love him or he would really be in trouble.

He is getting older and is starting to potty train. It is really training the parents. He is starting to get the hang of it, but needs to be better at telling us when he needs to go. He told the nursery leaders each time he needed to "pee" even though he was in a diaper. They thought it was pretty funny! Life is an adventure and there is never a dull moment around here.

No one else get sick! Please!

It seems like the holidays have brought sickness over the past several years.

This year our dear friend Peggy Wilkinson passed away on Dec. 23. She was 80 years old and is now in a much better place, but it is a hard time of year to lose a loved one. We wish her family much peace and comfort.

Jacob got a cold and on Christmas Eve his breathing was so raspy and labored that we took him to the doctor. It sounded just like when he had pneumonia last year and was in the hospital. He then ended up on oxygen at home for two or three weeks. The doctor said that it was just croop, but he told us to watch carefully because it could easily end up as pneumonia again. Luckily he didn't get too bad. He now just has a runny nose still, but we are grateful that it didn't get any worse.

My brother Scott, has not been feeling well for the past several months. He has been to the doctor several times trying to figure out what was wrong, especially because he got a kidney transplant about eight years ago. We were concerned that there might be a problem with his kidney. He went to the hospital Christmas evening. It took two days to figure it out, but they diagnosed him with Colitis. This is an inflamation of the colon. He is being treated with medication and should be able to fully recover. His kidney is functioning well and is fine. Yea! He has been in the hospital for a few days, but should be coming home soon!

Our close friends, 7 years old daughter has been having stomach pains for a couple of months. She has been to the doctor several times. They never came up with any reason why she was in so much pain and kind of blew it off. Finally on Christmas day, as well, they took her to the emergency room. After a seven hour wait, they finally looked at her and her heart rate was so high they put a pick line into her heart to try to stabilize her heart rate. They also drained 2 quarts of puss from her stomach. They decided to fly her to Primary Children's Hospital, but the weather was too bad, so they took her by ambulance. Dr. Rebecca Meyer's (the doctor that performed Jacob's surgery) performed an exploratory surgery to try to determine what is wrong. They weren't able to detect the cause, but all of her digestive organs and stomach were filled with infections and inflammation. There was so much inflammation that they couldn't close her up the same day. She was in a sedated colma for two days so that they could let the inflammation and swelling go down enough to close her up. She is going to be up at PCMC for at least two weeks while they try to fight the infection. They still didn't detect what the cause of the infection was.


After talking to my Mom, we decided that we should just skip the holidays next year, because someone close to us always seems to have some pretty serious health problems. In the past we have also had similar experiences. So if you see us skipping Christmas next year you will know why. We don't want to try to jinx anyone else.

So, everyone stay healthy! Be grateful for your health. I will be glad that I only have a little cold. I can deal with that.

We are thinking and praying for you Scott and Brylee. Get well soon!

We had a "Wicked" Christmas!

We didn't put up many Christmas decorations this year because we have an active two year old boy. But he did surprisingly well leaving the tree and other decorations alone. I was afraid that he would destroy them, but he didn't!



We had a nice Christmas. Sammi and Joe were with us on Christmas Eve. We had dinner at Grandma Linda's and enjoyed a Christmas concert by all of the talented kids. We sang songs and played with the rhythm instruments as the big kids played the piano for us. The big kids went back to their Mom's for Christmas. On Christmas morning Jacob had fun opening his trucks, cars and trains. He is all boy! We then had the Baumgarten Brunch at our house. We had a ton of great food! We went over to my Mom's house and exchanged presents with my siblings and spend the evening playing with my little brother's new Guitar Hero World Tour. Mark had previously told me, "I will never sing on that thing." While I was upstairs I heard him singing. I was surprised, since he was never going to sing and all. But the next day he had nearly lost his voice from all of the singing he did. He found that he actually loved singing!

The next day we picked up the kids from their Mom's and they got to open their presents from us. Sammi loved her High School Musical MP3 player and Joe got the huge Vulcon Nerf Gun and some walkie talkies. But the big kids most exciting present was one that was wrapped about 8 times, thanks to Shelly. It was tickets to Wicked the Musical when it comes to Salt Lake in April. They are so excited! Sammi has been dying for us to take her to see Wicked for about three years or more. We are so excited to have gotten tickets, thanks once again to Shelly!



Sorry about the poor video taping. Jacob was trying to grab the camera, so he could see it. That is why he kept yelling, "me."

Merry Christmas to Mark & I.

We have wanted to replace the flooring in the kitchen for a long time now. We decided that for Christmas we would finally replace the floor. We were hoping that we could get it done in a day. We're crazy I know! We did run into a few problems that we had to deal with. We ended up needing to replace the sub floor. That was a bit frustrating because we scraped three layers of old linoleum off of the floor. If we had know we were going to tear up the sub floor we wouldn't have had to scrap off all the old stuff and we would have saved a lot of time. The end result though is beautiful and the floor was laid in two days. We layed a wood laminate on the entire kitchen floor. We use to have linoleum in the kitchen area and in the dining area we had carpet. Carpet under the table with a two year old is kind of a disaster, but it is there no more!

We couldn't have done this huge project alone. My family helped out! Shelly and Nathan were there the most, but David and Mark also helped out too. My Mom kept Jacob at her house the first day and then the second day she came and brought taco soup and played with Jacob here at our house. My Mom and Gerry helped fold laundry and feed us while we worked. We sure have a great family who always get roped into helping us with our crazy projects! We love you guys!



(I think this video is cute. Sorry, I haven't yet learned how to edit the video. I wanted to crop it at the beginning and end, and of course turn it the right way, but I don't know how to do that yet. So pretend that it is perfect.)

Jacob wanted to follow us around with "his" drill. He had a blast when we let him help put a screw in the sub floor.