Where have I been?

Well, Pinedale still. I can't believe I haven't been on here in over a year, but alas it is true. We are actually alive and doing well, although at times it seems like we have dropped off the planet. We have had a busy summer and are finally settling down into a school routine. I know, school has been going for almost 2 months now and we are just getting settled. We have been super busy between us and the kiddos. The boys are in the middle of swim lesson, ending gymnastics, and Payton has also started piano. Nate and I are on a coed volleyball team, I talked him into playing with me and we are enjoying it!!! I am also playing on a women's 4 on 4 team. So between all of us we usually only have 1 or 2 free nights a week! What was I thinking????? The good news is that this all slowly starts ending this week and we will be done before Thanksgiving!

I know I have missed a bunch and am deciding on best way to update, but for now here is a recent family picture of us. It was taken this summer at the Killpack family reunion we were in charge of!

October already???

I can't believe it is October already. I really don't know where the time goes. I have been so busy with work and everyday stuff that I just don't keep track of time, so here is a quick little update while my 2 little ones are sleeping:

Nate is still liking work. There are days when he is super busy and then days were he is super slow. I can always tell because he texts/calls more on the slower days. He has also been out hunting with friends, unfortunately all they saw were other people and no animals. He has also started playing basketball and each time he goes he comes back saying he is "an old man." I just laugh and tell him to cowboy up.

I have started going to some exercise classes at the PAC and I have had a fun time getting to know people there, so I am starting to like Pinedale a little better (not much, but a little). I have also been working like crazy and put in almost 40 hours last week. I know, some of you are like "wow, a regular work week," but I usually only work 10 hours a week so this was a little harder, especially since I take Cameron and Emma with me.

Payton is loving school but still comes home worn out and cranky. He is excited to help pick out his clothes in the morning, especially his shoes. I better be careful with that, I think he might take after his uncle Devin. He loves his sister and is so helpful with her. He doesn't like to hear her cry so if I am letting her lay there and cry he will go over and try to comfor her. He is so sweet and soft with her, I love it!

My silly boys monkeying around at the park while Nate was out hunting.

Cameron is my busy little man. He loves coloring still and making "collections" with his toys. It usually involves stuffed animals and whatever else he can find. He likes to be out and about, and he especially wants to go swimming right now. He and Emma go to the childcare at the PAC on Tuedays & Thursdays while I am at zumba, and everytime we are there he asks if we are going swimming. I am going to have to take hime soon!

Emma is my cute little bug. She has figured out (with her dad's help) how to put her feet in her mouth. Now when she lays on the floor she has a foot in her mouth and squeals and jabbers away. She rolls onto her belly and actually likes to be there now. She likes to look at things from a different point of view.

Nate gave her the Mobigo to check out. Sitting in front of the bank waiting for the homecoming parade. All of the elementary kids were in the parade so we had fun watching Payton.

Oh the Joys of High School Football

On Friday night we went to the Pindale vs Lovell football game. Chantel's nephew Dino plays for Lovell so we went to watch for a little bit. Unfortunatly a little bit is all we got to see. Payton and Cameron were interested for about 3 minutes and then all they wanted to do is go run around like the other kids. Since we are still new here and don't know very many people neither Nate nor I wanted to let them go off by themselves. We were trying to explain this to them and tell them to give us 5 minutes and then one of us would take them down to play, but they started to throw a fit and we decided we weren't going to fight them. So we left.
We got to go watch my nephew Trystin play football up here against Pinedale Monday night and had fun. The boys got to play with Paxton and Kannen at the little playground by the football field and Nate and I got to watch the game and talk with Justin and Nikki uninterrupted. THANKS KINZEE for watching the boys. Mountain View won 36-8 and Tryster played for almost all of the game. After the game we went to the Chinese place here in town for dinner with Justin and his family. We had a great time talking and enjoying some pretty good food. We are looking forward to them coming up again in a couple of weeks.

Payton and Cameron playing with Paxton

Trystin is #56

One of the few times Tryster got a break.

Nate and Emma enjoying the game.

School and Soccer

Payton's first day of kindergarten was September 6th 2011, the day after Labor Day. I stayed home with Cameron and Emma and Nate took him to school. He had the biggest smile on his face when he got of the bus in the afternoon. He got to go to art and library and explore the school a little bit. He also said they have 4 recesses ( they go out to recess as soon as they get off the bus in the morning.) I asked him what his favorite part of the day was and he said it was art. He likes his teacher and is getting to know the other kids in his class. I think he is finally starting to like Pinedale.

Payton has also been doing soccer. He loves it. He is in the 3-5 age group and is usually the biggest kid on the field. There is another kid on his team that is his same size and they seem to work well together on the field, although sometimes when there is a break they like to start wrestling. He gets so excited when he scores. Here he is doing a little victory dance of some sort after he scored one time. Nate likes to challenge Payton with a different # of times he wants him to score. I think it is Nate's way of trying to keep Payton focused on the game. He still likes to twirl in circles and play in the grass but when Nate askes him to score a certain # of times he is more into the game.

Emma isn't sure about the camera and usually gives me a weird look when I try to take her picture. Here she is at one of Payton's games giving me a smile.

Cameron is not quite sure what to do during the day while Payton is gone to school but I think he is starting to get used to it. He gets to watch Little Einsteins while I am exercising and sometimes will work out with me. He did some yoga with me yesterday and it was fun to watch. He likes to color and practice his letters. When I am doing computer work he likes to sit next to me and write his and Payton's names. I have been helping him with the letters he has backwards and teaching him our names too.

Emma is still growing and is definately in a fun stage. She has turned into a talker and really likes the sound of her own voice. She loves to sit and stand and can sometimes get quite mad if try to lay her down and she doesn't want to. She has also discovered her feet and likes to grap them and squeal at the same time. I haven't been able to take her in for her official 4 month checkup but she is around 12.5 lbs and 23 inches.

Labor Day Weekend

We went school shopping in Evanston, Park City, and Salt Lake over Labor Day weekend. We stopped in at Jordan and David's house for a little while and Jordan introduced us to a little restaurant called "Moochies" which has been on the TV show "Diners, Drive Inn's, and Dives," and she eats there with her girlfriends sometimes. It was super yummy. While Jordan and I were out getting the food she got a call back from a neighbor who had tickets to the Real Salt Lake soccer game that night. She asked if we wanted to go and I said that Nate would probably like to. So she got some extra tickets. We got back and ate and then David and Nate took Payton, Cameron, Corbin, and Zaylee on Trax to the soccer game. Jordan stayed home with Porter who was sick again, and I finished up our shopping. The guys said they spent more time on Trax getting there and coming back than they spent at the game, but they had fun. Nate has talked about going to a game for a while and was excited to be able to go, especially because the tickets were free! Except for the tantrum by Zaylee, a good time was had by all.

Walking to the Trax stop by Jordan's house.

Nate, Cameron, Payton, Corbin,and David at the game. I don't know where Zaylee is hiding.

Payton and Corbin checking things out.

I sometimes wonder what they are thinking.

Nate and Cameron

The stadium and field

Riding Trax back home

Payton and Cameron being entertained by Nate's phone

We went to church in Mountain View with mom and dad and then had some yummy sweet and sour chicken for lunch. We chatted with Tonya, Nikki, and Devin for a little while and then went to Green River to Kim's house for dinner. We had BBQ chicken with salad and corn on the cob. I haven't had corn on the cob for a while and it was delicious. We talked with Kim, Jeff, Candace, and Alma for a while and then went to Killpack's for the night. What a YUMMY YUMMY lunch and dinner. On Labor Day Nate helped his mom and dad paint their back porch. We stopped in Rock Springs and did a little more shopping and then headed home. We really enjoyed spending time with family and eating good food over the holiday weekend.

Projects and bike rides

I have been procrastinating unpacking the last of my boxes. I am trying to get used to taking care of a 3rd child on top of the regular housework and keeping the boys entertained without having them watch tv all day. Also, in our apartment in Laramie we had a built in bookshelf and here we don't, so I have been looking for one to put my books, etc on. I finally found a rather good sturdy one that didn't cost an arm and a leg. There is a place here in town called the "Food Basket," its kind of like a Salvation Army. Anyways, we went there one day and got lucky and found this......

Nate sanded it down and then we painted it a dark chocolate mocha color. The finished product looks pretty good. I still can't decide what to put in the bottom part. Any suggestions?

We also have been looking for another dresser since we had Emma and didn't have anywhere to put her clothes. Nate's boss called him after work one day and told him he found one at a yard sale. So Nate went to take a look at it and we decided that for $10 it wasn't that bad. We washed it down, Payton and Cameron helped me paint it with the left over pain from the bookshelf, and Nate got some new handles for it while he was in Utah for work. Nate was real skeptical but is pretty impressed with how it turned out. Of course he didn't tell me he was skeptical until after we were done, how like him. This is a picture of the dresser at the yard sale. Nate sent it to me from his phone to see if I approved of it.

Here is the finished product in the boys' room. They had fun helping paint it and put their clothes in it.

I have been trying to keep the boys entertained durng the day without having them watch tv all day, so we have been going to the parks and library. One of the parks is only 1/2 mile away so I have been pushing Cameron and Emma in the stroller while Payton rides his bike. I have been wanting to ride my bike too but couldn't really do it since Emma is so little still. She has been starting to hold her head up really good though lately so I tried going with her and Cameron in the bike trailer. I had to put a pillow under her so she would be up high enough for the straps to fit her right.So here is Cameron and my little miss Emma going for her first bike ride!

WE HAVE A HOUSE!!! (and other interesting tidbits to get you up to date)

It is official, we have moved into the townhome we are renting. We have the storage unit emptied out and I had Nathan put everything in the garage. So I still have boxes all over the garage but we are in! The boys and I are excited to finally be up in Pinedale with Nathan, and Nate is super excited to have something to eat besides TV dinners when he gets home from work.

Let me backtrack a little now and start from when Emma came into our lives a little early.

We got moved out of Laramie the 22nd of April and got somewhat settled with Nate in Pinedale and the boys and I in Mountain View. We were not even here for 2 weeks when little miss Emma decided to join us early and it has been a whirlwind ever since.

May wasn’t too bad, just trying to adjust to a new place and a few surprises. Emma came 3 ½ weeks early in the middle of the night. She came so fast that Nate didn’t even make it to the hospital in time to see her be born. I did have dad drive me in to Evanston and he stayed with me until Nate got there. Emma was having a hard time breathing because she was so early, so they put her on oxygen and she also had to have some antibiotics through an IV. We had to stay an extra day in the hospital because of the IV and we were sooooo ready to go when we got out. We had only been back in Mtn. View for about 30 minutes when Emma surprised us again and stopped breathing. We were headed downstairs to clean a little bit and feed Emma. I had to use the bathroom and Nate was burping Emma before we went down (she was being a little fussy). When I came out of the bathroom I asked Nate if he was ready to go down and he yelled to me that Emma had stopped breathing. I ran over and he had her face down and pounding on her back. He said she had burped/spit up and then inhaled before he could clean her mouth down. She did this 2 times. So I took her and Nate went to get her little blue bulb to suck out her throat. He got out a little but by that time she was not responding and was starting to turn purple. I yelled at Nate to call 911. He did and started explaining things to the operator. As he was talking on the phone Emma finally started to respond and took a few short breaths. By the time the ambulance showed up she was breathing better but still not very good. Emma and I both got our first ambulance ride to the hospital. When we got there they took her vitals and started to monitor her breathing and heart rate. The doctor had us get some x-rays to make sure she was ok and let us make the decision to stay or go after he said everything was ok. We decided to go back to Mtn. View and keep a very close eye on things. The rest of May was good. It was hard to take care of Emma by myself at night but I had mom and dad who helped with the kids during the day, which I am very grateful for.

Emma, Payton, and Cameron watching cartoons at Grandma Walker's house

We also did some traveling during May. The first weekend we got back from the hospital was pretty low key. The second weekend I traveled up to Pinedale to see Nate and do Payton’s kindergarten screening. Payton is super excited to be going to school and is sad he can’t go yet. The third weekend we traveled to Laramie to see some friends and let everyone see Emma. We stayed with Olivia in her new apartment and had a good time visiting. The last weekend was Memorial Day weekend and we stayed in Mtn. View and enjoyed family.

June was just as busy as May. I’ll sum it up a little more though. We had Olivia’s bridal shower on the 3rd, her wedding in Logan on the 10th, and her reception in MV on the 17th.

All of the siblings (except Devin) and our new brother in law Evan. For some reason we never seem to have a picture of us all together that is not silly!

Our cute little family at the Logan temple. Liv's colors were red, black, and white. Emma was not happy being out of her blanket.

The girl grandkids at Liv's reception in Mountain View. Lexie and Zaylee on the chairs. Hallie holding Emma, and Madison holding Kyri.

Me and my baby girl.

Emma all tuckered out from the reception.

We got to stay with Nate’s brother Jeff while in Logan and had a fun time visiting with them! Cameron had a little mishap while we were there. He was outside running around with his cousins and tripped over an uneven spot on the sidewalk. Instead of catching himself with his hands he landed face first on the bone right above his eye. It immediately swelled up and was black and blue for weeks.

Cameron's black eye.

The last week/weekend of June my parents went on mom’s twisted sister trip to Boston/Cape Cod area. I didn’t really want to be all by myself with the 3 kids so we came up to Pinedale with Nate. We explored the parks and library and Nate took the boys golfing.

We were able to move into our townhome on the first of July. So on Friday I spent most of the day moving things from Nate’s 1 bedroom he was staying in over to our new place. We had one of Nate’s coworkers help us get our beds from the storage units that night. I was so happy to have my own bed again! Saturday morning we headed for MV for our niece Madison’s baptism. She looked beautiful in her white dress and baptism suit. We are so proud of her and the decision she made to get baptized.

Emma and Madison in their white dresses. Such cute ladies.

On Sunday we blessed Emma. We weren’t sure if many of our family were going to make it because it was the holiday weekend, but we had a good turnout. Byron and his family and Jared and his family came from Laramie, Alma and his family and Nate’s parents from Green River, and Misty from Orem.

We also had all of my siblings except Chantel and her family (they were with Michael’s fam in Lovell were Channy got to meet his sister for the first time, so I totally understand!). The blessing was good and had some good food and conversation afterwards. We are so blessed to have such a great family to support us! On the 4th we had a cookout and I got to see a bunch of my cousins who I haven’t seen for a long time since we are so spread out now (from Arizona to Montana). Then we traveled back and started getting our house unpacked. The next weekend I traveled back to MV/Evanston for my cousin Stormy’s wedding. She looked so pretty and I am glad I got to come down. Emma’s 2 month checkup was the at the beginning of the next week along with the Nate’s family reunion, so I just stayed in MV instead of going back up to Pinedale. Emma is starting to grow; she weighed in at 10 lbs 3 oz and was 22 inches at her 2 month checkup. She still has most of her hair, although she is getting the traditional bald spot in the back.

Alma and Candace were in charge of the reunion this year so we went camping in the mountains above Cokeville, WY. Everyone was there this year except for Ryan who was at scout camp.

All of the Killpack cousins except for Ryan, Travyn, and Emma

Back : Joseph, Sarah, Conner, Abby holding Lilly, Erika, Nicole, Kaleb, Braden, Christopher, Kate

Front: Samuel, Cameron, Spencer, Jacksen, Kinley, Tallie, Brydnn, Payton

We were able to borrow Grandpa Walker’s trailer which was a blessing because if we hadn’t we probably wouldn’t have stayed the whole time with Emma being so small still. We had a fun time talking, riding four-wheelers, playing tug of war, etc.

Dinner time! Nathan, Kaleb, Conner, Erika, and Jeff Wilson getting some grub. Me, Emma, and Jared sitting around the camp fire.

For the tug of war it was the younger brothers against the older brothers. The young guys won. Then it was the older spouses against the younger spouses (Misty was on our team since Danielle was pregnant). The older gals won.

Jared, Joe, Nathan, and Jeff beating the older brothers at tug of war.

Then it was the younger couples against the older couples. The first tug went to the olders, the second tug to the youngers, and the third tug the rope broke in half! I was in the front on our side and the rope came back and whiplashed across my hands. I thought for a second that I might have broke something, but thankfully didn’t. My knuckles and hand were swollen that night and bruised for a few days afterwards.

Jared, Joe, Barbara, Nate, Me, and Emma Sitting in the shade hanging out

Payton and Brydnn playing in the water at Big Spring

Nathan celebrated his 30th birthday this year! We traveled back from the reunion and cleaned out the trailer so we didn’t do much to celebrate it (and I feel real bad about it). Devin’s birthday is the same day as Nate’s and his wife Amy threw a real cute birthday party for him at mom and dad’s. She used glass jars and movies (2 of his trademarks) and he grilled some really yummy food. We did sing happy birthday to Nate there, so he at least got a song. I’m still trying to come up with something for him though.

The third weekend of July we traveled back to MV again for the Ronald Walker reunion. We got there just as they were starting the mini-Amazing Race. I had to go in and feed Emma but Nate took the boys around with some of the teams. They got to do a football toss, a golf ladder toss, fishing, finding the white buffalo ( a family tradition), and a couple other things I can’t remember. It was fun to see my cousins, some of which I don’t get to see often at all. Then Saturday morning was the 24th/Pioneer days triathlon in Lyman which some people did. David, Ashley, and Tammy all did the race by themselves! Chantel (runner), Michael (swimmer), and Jordan (biker) were on a team, and Nate was on a team with Sallee (runner) and Neal (biker). He was the swimmer and did alright for only swimming once that week before the race. They all had a good time.

Ashley, Tammy, Neal, Jordan, David, Chantel, Michael, Sallee, Nate (and little Izzy on the side)

After the race we had breakfast and then headed back over to Lyman for the parade. The boys had a good time and got some candy. We came back to Pinedale that night so we could go to church here and see our new ward. It is huge by the way. There were around 60 women in relief society and that is apparently normal.

This month has started out pretty good. I got a part time job deep cleaning apartments between renters. I have done 2 apartments so far. It is nice because I clean at nights after Nathan gets home from work and it is relaxing to get out of the house without the kids. I know it is weird for me to say that cleaning is relaxing since I struggle with it, but it has been a big help. Since we were so busy in July I am still unpacking boxes and trying to get our house organized and our family settled. Sometimes I stress about it and Nate has to keep reminding me that it doesn’t have to be done all at once. I am grateful for his support and help, and for him to remind me to stay sane!

I know this was long, but I think we are all caught up now! More to come soon!