All in one

Yes, I know summer is over and I only had one post the ENTIRE time. That is really sad. Even though summer is almost over I still wanted to write down some of the things we did just for journal keep sake. This last month my brother Brandon got married!!! I can't tell you how happy we are for him. Here is the New Mr. and Mrs. Brandon Jones. They looked gorgeous together.
The wedding was in California and it was beautiful. I felt so lucky to be able to be there for them. Each and every sibling of mine is married. It's crazy. Here is my entire family. It is rare to have my whole family together just because we are all over the place, but now we have a picture of all of us. Don't I have a good looking family? (sorry my camera sucks so it's not the best picture)
All of my beautiful sisters.

Aren't these little girls the cutest little flower babies ever!?

I could not believe how beautiful DeEtte's dress was. I love weddings. They are soo fun.


The cutest little man there. Don't you just love his little smile.Ammon flying high :)


While we were there I was really nervous to see how Ammon would do with the 3 hour time change. Everything was planned at night, way past his bed time, and I knew it was going to be trouble. Lucky for me Matt's brother and his wife live in nearby Vacaville and were able to watch Ammon for almost 2 days. Oh what a blessing it was to be able to enjoy the celebrations and know that my baby was safe and having fun with his cousin Sadie. Thank you Sam and Allison!!
We had such a wonderful time in Cali and soon we had to say goodbye to family and come back home. This is where the fun really started to happen. FLYING. Why or why does flying have to be so hard for a 22 month old. We started the traveling day around 10:30am. Ammon was having a hard time to begin with just cause it was his nap time and he was missing it. We got on the plane and all hell broke loose. Ammon screamed the WHOLE FLIGHT. Yes the whole flight. I know that it is hard to imagine such a cute little kid like this being a pill, but it happens to the best of them.
This is his new smile. Every time he sees a camera he says "CHEESE" an gives us the biggest smile he has.
Lucky for me I had Matt this time so at least I had someone to take turns holding our screaming baby. I think that the people around us were ready to kill us and I don't blame them. I didn't know what to do? Here we are cramped in a small space with a 22 month old on our laps. I felt that any second I was going to start bawling my eyes out, meanwhile Matt was about to punch a hole in the wall. We were counting down the seconds to when we would land and get off the plane. We had a connecting flight in Salt Lake so Ammon got a little bit of time to sleep in his stroller before our next flight. For some reason my child will not fall asleep in my arms. He has to have his own space and thankfully he got it. Now onto our next flight. I was praying the whole time that he wouldn't cry and thankfully I got my wish. He did great. He played, watched movies, colored and was a happy little boy. We landed in Detroit around 10:30pm. We were soo tired and just wanted to be home asap. But no, instead they decided that we didn't have a hard enough day yet and thought it would be fun to lose our car seat!! KILL ME NOW. I could not believe this. I kind of knew something was wrong cause when we landed I went to the bathroom and heard my name being called but I couldn't hear what they were saying so we just decided to go down to the luggage claim. We had to walk a mile and a half to get there. When we realized our car seat was gone I had a feeling that someone must of taken it off of the plane at the gate. Matt went to talk to the baggage office but no one seemed to care to find out where it was. They just said that when they get it they would deliver it to our house and for the time being we could have a new, cheap, infant, backward facing car seat. Lovely, my child doesn't fit in a infant car seat any more. We then had to sit there for another hour so while Matt waited for the bus to take him to the other terminal where the car was. I was so tired and I just wanted to be home. When Matt came to pick us up I decided to go and talk to them myself. I talked to a few people who said that there would be no way it would be at the gate and they wouldn't even try and get someone to go look. After another hour I was able to talk to someone who knew what they were talking about and was able to go and get someone to go up to our gate and see if our car seat was there. Guess what! It was there but then it took another freaking 45 min for them to bring it to me. By this time it was 1:30 in the morning and I had had it. Why couldn't someone just help us out in the first place. We got home around 2- 2:30 and by that time we had been traveling over 15 hours that day. I pray that no one has to go through something like that. Sorry for the long story but you wouldn't be able to feel my pain unless I told the whole thing:)

Now that I am done venting, I wanted to write down some of the highlights of the summer. August was kind of a crazy month for our little family. We had some friends stay with us for about 2 1/2 weeks, meanwhile Matt was studying for the boards. Oh how I hate it when he has big tests. It takes up all of his time and energy and we just don't get to see him much during that time. He took the test which was about 8-10 hour test which for me would be hell. After that he was free!!!!:):):) I couldn't wait till the night after the test. He could just come home and relax. We decided that it would be fun to go and do something out of the ordinary with our little family that weekend to celebrate so we went to the zoo. Ammon loved the zoo! We went on a train ride and on the merry go round and saw tons of different animals that he was ecstatic about. Lately we have been working with him on what the different animals say so for him to see them in person was pretty cute.


Monkeys are one of his favorite animals so he kept letting us know what they say. He thought he was pretty cool.

The next day we decided to go to Lake Saint Claire and play at the beach. We went with Jared and Margi and loved it. I don't know why we haven't been doing this every weekend.

I don't even have to say anything cause I know you know what I'm thinking about... I LOVE THIS KID!!!!!




Sorry there were too many cute pictures and I couldn't decided which ones to post so you get to see them all.


My Little Garden

Before I left to go to Utah earlier this summer, I decided to become a true mom and house wife by starting my own garden. Some of my friends were doing it and so I did it, too. We had to start off with digging out an area for a garden. I didn't want it to be too big, just a little space that tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers could fit in. During the whole process of growing my garden, my plants decided that wanted to play dead and look dead as well. This is what my tomato plants looked like..

And this is what my neighbors tomato plants look like, what tomato plants are suppose to look like.

Even though my plants looked dead somehow tomatoes started to grow on them. They weren't big or anything but still I was shocked. My peppers did well, but I still don't know if gardening is for me. At least now it's not for me. Maybe one day when I'm older and have the right amount of skill required to garden I will try again. Until then you probably won't hear much about me and gardens.

Baseball Time

Matt and some of his buddies from school got into a softball leage. Ammon has the time of his life watching his daddy play and he is great for encouragement. He loves to yell "GO DAD GO DAD GO!!" He gets it from his go dog go book I think.

Just to tell you how cool it is to live near Detroit, I'll tell a story about what happened during Matt's last softball game. While we were watching a helicopter with a huge spotlight was circling the area. We all didn't think much of it at first, but it continued to circle and by the lights of the field we found out it was a police chopper. All of us girls started to joke about how we had a fugitive at our game and they needed to turn themselves in. As the game went on we started to notice tons of cop cars swarming the area. So, seriously, there was a big time fugitive running away from the cops right next to us. It seems like there is always something going on with cops and criminals in the area. One of my friends from Ohio told me once her husband was at the dentist and while he was waiting he over heard someone talking to the dentist about living in Iraq. The dentist asked him if it was scary and the man said "no, not really. I would rather live there than in down town Detroit." Yeah, and that is where I live. The number one crime city in the US. Lucky me.

Just to clarify something... I really do like were I live. I've just never lived somewhere where it is so exciting.

Adventures of a Store

The other day we went to Sam's Club and Ammon Loves it there. He gets so excited to go and run around. Yes, I'm one of those mom's who let their children loose at the store (Not all the time. I only do it if Matt's around so that one of us can chase Ammon and the other one can do the shopping). Well Ammon found the coolest place to hide. He's just like his mom and this is where I would hide too if it was me. The only problem was we couldn't get him out. We were there for about 15 minutes and he thought it was the funniest thing ever. Matt finally had to belly crawl over some boxes so that he could grab and arm and drag Ammon out. He wasn't happy to be taken from his fortress of solitude.

Feeding the Ducks

One of our weekly events is to go down our street and feed the ducks at the park. Once you start to feed them I swear 20 more birds and ducks start coming after you. Kind of cool to see but scary at times.



Some random Pictures this summer

Ammon sleeping. For some reason he has to have something over and around his head. I don't know why. I usually end up going in his room at night to take whatever it may be off his head but he always seems to put it back there throughout the night.



Our little super Man

I hope you enjoyed the very very long post and I hope it satisfied your craving to know what we did this summer:). Hopefully, there are some of you still out there that look at our blog. I promise I will do better. Be expecting a new post from me next week.......hopefully:)

There's no place like home!

The last two months I have been in Utah and It was such a fun trip. Matt was able to do a rotation with his dad for a month in orthopedics and then a 2 week rotation in anesthesiology. Meanwhile I was able to enjoy my family and friends:) The only bad thing was our camera wasn't working so I wasn't able to get any pictures while I was there. SO, right now I am trying to get pictures from family and friends. So if you have any of me and my family, please, please send them to me. Other than that it was an amazing trip.
The first week that we were in Utah Matt and I were able to have a little trip for ourselves for a week while my parents and Matt's parents helped watch Ammon. We went to Saint George for a week and stayed at my in-laws condo. While we were there we went to Las Vegas for a night and saw Lion King. We were also able to see Matt's sister Wendi and her husband Mark. They were moving to Florida from Cali and were able to stop by and say hi. We were also able to see our friends Kenny and Celeste who live in Ceder City for a few days. We had so much fun just being on our own again. It is amazing how much things change when you have a child. You never seem to have enough time for each other after you have kids, so it was so nice for us to be able to get away for a week. We were able to sleep in, go to movies whenever we wanted, go out to eat, take long walks, take naps, and play games with out being disrupted. Oh it was so nice, but by the end we were ready to go and see our little boy. I missed him so much!!!!


Sorry it's a little blurry but it's from Matt's iphone. It's all we had

After Saint George we had a week to settle in and be with both families and then we were off again to Lake Powell. Lake Powell was amazing. Matt and I left Ammon with my parents and we spent a week full of food, fun, and freedom with the Nelsons! We hiked, swam, water-skied, wake boarded, played games, and had a great time. Matt swam a half mile every day and was pressured by his younger brothers to work out much harder than he was used to, so he spent a lot of the time being sore. I, on the other hand, almost died on the tube as I was whipped around at 60 miles an hour over choppy water by my father-in-law. He and Matt were really impressed that I hung on to the tube. My life was at stake. What else could I do??!

After coming back from Lake Powell, Matt went back to work and I enjoyed some more time with his family for another week. That weekend Matt and I decided to get away from everything, again, and go up to his cabin. I can't tell you how much I LOVE this place. It's one of the most peaceful and relaxing places on earth. We brought Ammon with us (yes we do love our child and will bring him with us on fun trips, sometimes) and he loved it as well. The weather was perfect to go outside and play with rocks by the lake all day long. We had the pleasure of having our friends Kenny and Celeste meet us up there. They drove all the way from Ceder City just to be with us for one night. They said it was well worth it. I hope so!

When we got back from the cabin the next day, Matt and his dad and bothers went to the Wind River Mountains for a week on a fishing trip. Yeah, we did come here to work, but who cares about work when your boss is your dad and you can take whatever vacation he takes! There's nothing wrong with that, right? I think these boys LOVED there trip. I think they were tired and sore when they came back, but from what I heard it was well worth it. They hiked 9 miles in and rowed rafts two miles to get to their camp site. They caught big rainbow, cut-throat, and cut-bow trout in one of the most beautiful places Matt had ever been. While Matt was there, I was able to go up to stay with my sister Michelle for a week. We had so much fun playing games, watching movies, shopping, eating candy and talking. What more would you want to do with a sister for a week. It was perfect, besides the fact that Ammon had diarrhea the whole time. Other than that, I loved it. I hate living so far away from family. For those of you that live away from home you know what I am talking about. I am very close to my family but 5 out of 7 of us live outside of Utah and are spread out from one end of the country to the other, literally. North Carolina to Cali. Crazy, huh. But maybe when we are all old and gray we will all be in the same rest home together and can laugh and talk all day long. Or maybe we could make it work before we are all that old, HOPEFULLY!!

The next week my whole family came in town just to leave me alone so they could go to Martins Cove. Lucky Them. They were able to be outside in the 100* weather pushing hand carts and sleeping in tents that were blowing away, while I was home alone in an air conditioned house with movies to watch and ice cream to eat. At least there's one bright one in our family, right? JK, mom, I'm sure it was the funnest thing on earth. While they were gone I had two of my closest friends have baby showers. My friend Celeste is having a baby boy. I was so lucky to be able to be there for that. Then one of my closes friends from high school, Kiley, is going to have a baby boy. I feel like every person I know that is pregnant is pregnant with boys!! What's will all the boys? It was so fun to see old friends from high school that I don't think I have seen since high school. Ammon was cracking me up the whole time we were there. HE loved Kiley's sister, Jessica, so much. Every time she would pull out a camera he would run up to her and give her the biggest cheeser you will ever see. Like soo...






That's my boy for you. He's just a little bit of a spas.



Kiley and me. I feel so lucky cause she isn't due for a while, but I begged her to have her shower while I was there and She did :) she must really like me as a friend. right?

When my family came back from Martins Cove we had almost 2 full weeks to be together. It's crazy that for the first time in about 3 years I had all of my sisters with me and no husbands. As much as we love our husbands they can sometime take us away from each other, but not this time. This time we played and talked all day or as much as our kids would let us. I love my sisters so much and my brothers, too:) It was also fun to see all the cousins together. I have 17 nephews and nieces and all of them had so much fun playing with each other. Ammon was a little intimated by all of them, but by the end he warmed up to them a little. He loves, LOVES my Niece Mya. She is 7 years old going on 20. She is very mature and you wouldn't think you would feel safe having a 7 year old watch your kid at all times, but I'm telling you, she's turning 20 next year or at least that's how she acts. I think that Ammon might of thought that she was his mom for a while. I think she might need to move in with me to be Ammons permenant babysitter, that is if it's ok with Tiffany. It was so hard to see my family leave one by one. and then I had to leave as well. It feels like its once every 5 years that we can all be together and actually enjoy it. We do all get to see each other in September :) but who knows when we will see each other after that.

Ok, enough with the crying. We have wonderful news in my family. Like I said we get to see each other in September because..... my brother Brandon is getting Married!!!!!!!!!! We are sooooooo happy for him and so excited that we get a new sister-in-law. The lucky girl is DeEtte. Brandon met her in DC at their singles ward. They have known each other for over two years and now they are tying the knot. They are now living in Cali where Brandon is doing his residency and then they will be married in the Oakland Temple on Sep. 12. We can't wait. Our family will finally be complete.

Congrats Brandon and DeEtte. We Can't wait!
After they got engaged, my brother Brett and his wife Sarah had there first little boy Jake. What a cutie. I love seeing them with a kid. He is so little and so perfect. He had a hard time coming out but sweet Sarah hung in there and lo and behold little Jack was born. Congrats you guys.

On the down side, Ammon and I got sick with the cold. On top of the cold, Ammon had stomach problems two different times (poor little guy). All in all, with 30 family members being at my parents' house over a period of two months, we only had two emergency room visits. I would say that's pretty good right? Poor little Ethan and Rebecca. We are so lucky that they are all right.

Some random pictures of the trip...


Matt went and joined a rogue motorcycle gang. (Really, his brother Scott has all the gear and let Matt borrow everything for a little joy ride or two)

Matt decided to join a hard core motorcycle gang. What a hunk!!


Ammon learned how to drive a car. Crazy, huh?

My family and I went to the Oaker Mountain Temple open house

Ammon enjoying a cousin dance party. He couldn't keep up with his cousin, Dallin, though.

Flower sniffer.

. Sniffing something else, I guess?


Ammon and Sadie. We couldn't get them to look at the camera at the same time, so this is as good as it gets. My goodness, that little boy is soooo CUTE.

Good bye Utah, until next time.....

3 years and counting

Last Monday, April 27, we celebrated our 3rd Anniversary. That's right, we have been married for 3 wonderful years!! It has been the best and most exciting three years of my life. I have done more, traveled more, cried and laughed more, learned more, and loved more in the last three years then I have in my whole life.

We have lived in 3 different states
We have lived in three different homes
We have been on one amazing Alaskan cruise
We have made Two trips to Hawaii
We have made Three ER/hospital visits 
We have made the cutest little boy ever









We had the best Anniversary yet. Matt was full of surprises all day long. My first surprise was this


Oh, Yeah, now I won't be lost anymore. I am the worst when it comes to directions, i just can't seem to figure out where I am without my mountains. My poor friends are always getting calls when I'm lost in scary Detroit to guide me back home safe and sound.  But now I can go wherever I want and I won't get lost:) I have been wanting one of these forever.

Then it was Matt's turn for his surprise and he got.....




I was so excited to give him this, it was the whole package, bag, clubs, gloves and socks. I don't think I have ever seen him so happy with a gift before. He has already gone 3 times this week so I think it was money well spent.

Then it was my turn again.  Matt planned a night out all to ourselves.  He asked the Chase family to watch Ammon.   Little did I know he was going to spend the night there:) We dropped Ammon off and then we went to dinner. We went to Portofino's.  It was so nice!   We sat outside by the river and were able to enjoy the beautiful weather and the calmness of the water. I love summer just for this reason.


After dinner we went out to a movie and saw 17 again. It was such a strange feeling to go out all night and do whatever we wanted without worrying about having to get back home to Ammon.

After the movie we were off to the hotel. To be honest I had no idea why we were doing this. It's not like we are on our honeymoon.  It was past midnight and I couldn't figure out why we were going to spend money to go to some hotel.  I thought we were just going to go to sleep and wake up early to pick up Ammon and send Matt off to work at 8:00 in the morning.  Matt on the way was telling me that we were going to spend the night at super 8.  Again, why are we spending the night when we could sleep in our own beds.  I couldn't really tell if Matt was being serious or not about the super 8.  We were driving around in a area that wasn't very nice which usually means not the nice's hotels.  But then the area started to change, the yards and buildings started to get nicer and so did the streets. And then all of a sudden this appered..... the Dearborn Inn


It was beautiful. It looked like a castle from the outside and the inside was amazing.  My attitude and opinion changed about the whole hotel thing. I started to get excited about staying here.  To have somewhere nice and clean to stay with nothing to worry about was a wonderful feeling. We went to our room and I just couldn't wait to fall asleep and know that a baby wasn't going to wake me up in the morning.  Right before we went to bed Matt gave me my last surprise. He told me that he didn't have work in the morning and we could sleep in all morning and take it easy.  Jared and Margi were going to watch him all morning. Oh I was so excited about all of this. It was just what I needed especially after everything that happened over the last month.

Thank you so much honey for giving me the best Anniversary ever.  I love you!

A post just about Ammon

Ammon is now 15 months old and I feel like he deserves a post all to himself since so much has happened in his little life.

* Ammon is now walking!!!! It's taken him a little bit longer than some kids but he is doing it and LOVES it.
* He still loves dogs and gets so excited to see them.

* He loves to talk but not in public. He can say mama, dada, wawa (water), ball, dog, book, more, and a whole bunch of jibberish.
* he knows all of your face parts
* He loves to blow kisses and loves to give kisses on the mouth. I think this is my favorite one so far. He will just sit there and kiss you forever. If you try to move, he will move with you until he is done.
* He is still small for his age, I think he weighs 19 lbs so he is in the 5% for his age for weight. We are tying so hard to fatten him up but he is a very picky eater. So for you mothers who have the solution to fatten your children who won't eat, please let me know the secret.
* Ammon loves to go up and down the stairs and he is Fast! The other day he fell down from the top of the stairs to the bottom for the first time. That was the saddest thing ever. I didn't see it, but I heard it and it was horrible. He and his dad were climbing up the stairway together. When Matt reached the top he rounded the corner with Ammon right on his heels but then Ammon decided to turn around and go back down. Before Matt could get to him, he tumbled. Ammon screamed and cried and had his parents worried to death! Happily, 10 min later he was acting himself and playing as if nothing happened. He walked away with a few bumps and bruises. We are so lucky that nothing extreme happened to him.
* He loves music. Whenever he hears it he starts to sing. He can also lead music. He learned that from the chorister in church all by himself.
* He loves to help with laundry, except instead of folding it he unfolds it. Momma loves that!
* He loves to talk on the phone to grandparents and mostly to dada when he calls.
* He loves bath time and hates it when he has to get out.
* He loves to help clean the house. He will find our hand vacuum and will go all around the house pretending to vacuum.
* He loves to do high pitch screams, which drives me crazy after 5 mins but I can't get him to stop.
* We recently discovered that he has a little 'security blanket' It's one of his stuffed dogs. It is so cute! Before and after he goes to bed and wakes up he always wants it. Once he gets it he just hugs it and holds on tight.
* He is amazing at throwing balls, at least I think he is. He can throw them pretty far.
* He wants to be independent right now. Some times it drives us crazy, but then again it is so cute to see his little personality.
* He loves to blow. If he finds any cotton balls or dust bunnies he will sit there forever blowing on them and watching them move. He also loves to blow on the window and see it fog up. It's so fun to see him figure things out.


* Ammon is just like his mom when it comes to cake batter and cookie dough, He loves to eat it.

Valentines Weekend

What a wonderful Valentine's weekend.  Matt surprised me by taking me to the Detroit Symphony and Orchestra.  The theme was "The Magical Mystery Tour" featuring a group of four that looked like, sounded like, and acted like the Beatles.  They sang a ton of the Beatles' most famous songs, and some of their less well known ones, too.  Having a rock band supported by a symphony in the background is really incredible.  Matt and I both absolutely loved the whole show.  They even did an encore with "Hey Jude" and "Twist and Shout."  The whole place was on their feet, twisting and shouting, including us!!  What a wonderful Valentine from my man!!  We had so much fun!!!! Before V-day I told Matt that all I wanted from him is some cinnamon bears and some chocolate.  For some reason I can never find cinnamon bears.  I have looked everywhere, here, and swear they don't exist in Michigan.  I have gone to so many stores trying to find them and haven't had any luck.  So I decided to hand the job over to Matt.   It only took him 7 different stores, and out of all of those stores he found them at a gas station, of all places.  They didn't even have them that day but said they would get them in the next day.  Oh he really loves me don't you think.  Most men would give up after the second store but not my hubby, he truly is amazing.  Well again my man has outdone himself.  Thanks baby love.

Utah again

After coming home for 3 weeks, we headed back to Utah for a weekend for Sam and Alison's sealing.  As much as we enjoyed it, all 3 of us were soooooo sick.  Who knew a cold could be that horrible.  We could bareley handle it.  It seems like whenever there is something special and important in Utah, we get sick for it.

It was such a beautiful event especial with their little girl Sadie.  I feel so bless to be able share this with them.

At one point, at Grandma and Grandpa Nelson's, I wasn't able to find Ammon anywhere.  I was a little worried and so I wondered around and I found him down stairs with his uncle Brad playing on the pool table.  Oh, it was so cute!!  Ammon was having the time of his life with all of those balls. I think he could of stayed down there all night long.




Thanks Brad, for playing with Ammon.  I think you are in first place in the favorite uncle runnings!  You other uncles better step it up a notch.