The One Where Eric Gets Fired

So I'm sure it happens to everyone at some point in their lives. 

But I really didn't think there was any way that my amazingly hot, amazingly charming, amazingly um amazing husband would ever get fired. 

But alas, that day has come.

No no no, not from work. 

But Eric got fired from his church calling. 

He has been the ward executive secretary for over a year now (basically he makes all the appointments for the bishops, and goes to a TON of meetings that I know nothing about. I felt like I was finally getting in the swing of not having him home on Sundays EVER and him having occasionally to do visits, and WHAM! NEW CALLING!!!!

So what is the new calling you may ask? 

Well the first counselor in the bishopric told us that this was a VERY hard decision for them to make, because they really didn't want to lose Eric as their secretary.

SCOUT MASTER

DUN DUN DUN.

Okay so really it's not that bad. And Eric is BEYOND stoked for it. He gets to help all the 12-13 year old boys get their scout stuff worked on and help them on their way to becoming an Eagle Scout. His schedule is now as such: Sundays he goes to the third hour of church with these boys, every Wednesday night he goes to their scout activity, and once a month they do an over-nighter camping trip . . . and yes, I asked, this does include in the middle of winter. This mixed in with once a month round table community meetings, and some other things that I zoned out for (I was too busy thinking about how happy I was that I don't have to go and sleep in an igloo overnight in December). 

Eric is excited because this means hunting, and camping . . .and being a man "HEAR ME ROAR!!" He is VERY sad to leave his old calling that he loved, but is excited to do bow hunting and shooting and . . . . I don't even know what else they do in scouts, but he's excited for it.

Amazingly enough, I think his old calling may have been a bit less time consuming, but we are ready for the challenge!!!

The One With Preslie's First Check Up

Miss Preslie had her first check up today, and everything is CLEAR!!!!

Her doctor even said as long as she continues being a symptomatic, they won't worry about doing constant blood tests, they'll reserve those for when she starts showing symptoms. Luckily, it's slow growing enough that it wouldn't be too far advanced by the time she was showing symptoms. 

GOOD NEWS!

Also, we are going to have a midget for a daughter. 

25% for weight

25% for height

85% for head

Yes, we plan on having smart kids!

The One Where I Bite The Bullett

So there are a handful of people that already know this, and it will be EXTREMELY old news. Like ancient.

The reasons I have to tell it now:

1: Eric came home from meetings this morning and said, "The Bishop outed us during PEC."

2: And followed that with, "And I told *** (I don't want to say the name, friend of ours, but it could easily make it around like wild fire now, although I very much like this person)

3: It's getting progressively harder and harder to have it not be noticeable.

4: If we don't break the news, someone else will break OUR good news for US.

Just in case you saw the "Boy oh boy!" status on facebook, let me just say this, that comment was not in ANY way pointing in the direction that it IMMEDIATELY got taken. I really found it quite hilarious. I can openly talk about Motherhood Maternity, and morning sickness on Facebook with NO response from anyone, and the one time EVERYONE catches on is when I say "BOY OH BOY!" Really, I find this roll on the floor laughing hysterically funny.

So yes. Here are the facts:

1: Eric and I are expecting our 3rd (yes count them, one, two, THREE) child.

2: We found out May 1st at my brother's Eagle court of honor, and right in the middle of Preslie's diagnosis.

3: It felt a little awkward to break news like, our daugther has Leukemia . . . oh and by the way we are pregnant.

4: We initially waited so long to tell anyone (including family) because we were extremely afraid of a miscarriage given everything that was going on with Preslie, HIGH STRESS!

5: My sister, Brittany was the first person we told.

6: My first thought was, this is a blessing. We have a little girl that will be needing a stem cell transplant, and a new baby (cord blood) is the perfect place to get it. I would have had a very hard time trying to get pregnant for that reason.

7: My second thought was, OH NO this is going to be a replacement child for Preslie, this means we are going to end up losing her.

8: The first time we actually were 100% okay with being pregnant was when we got the "spontaneous remission" diagnosis from the doctor. It seemed like we had plenty to be grateful for at that time.

9: We had the first doctor's apopintment just under 11 weeks along.

10: August 12th, we found out we will be joined by another baby boy! Like seriously, no mistaking it, he is NOT shy.

11: This makes me happy, I don't think I could deal with another girl. I like having my one little girl, and there's too much drama with her already!!! :)

12: The official due date is January 1, 2012, however because my babies are c-section, new little one will be taken out around Christmas.

13: My doctor says that given how early Preslie came, he doesn't think I will make it to Christmas without going into labor on my own.

14: The idea of a pregnancy being shorter than 40 weeks is VERY exciting to me.

15: The placenta has attached to the scar tissue from my previous c-section in the front, this means I hardly ever feel very strong movements (at least so far) and Eric has yet to feel anything. It also means that although I am officially over half way done, I'm not looking very pregnant yet.

16: Eric and I thought it woudl be extremely funny to show up to church one Sunday with a new baby and have everyone be like, "What the heck?"

But the old saying is true, the progression of news travelling around goes as such:

Telegram

Telephone

Tellamormon

The One With The Hawks Game

So along with the ability for raises, more structured (ha ha) work schedules, and Eric getting to wear a shirt and tie to work every day, another great thing about him working at University of Phoenix is . . . . THEIR EMPLOYEE APPRECIATION NIGHTS!!!!

Say what? Employee appreciation? What is that?

This is something that I think only huge companies have the ability to do, so I'm not bitter or anything, but it was pretty awesome.

Last night they bought everyone tickets to go to see the Boise Hawks play!

Now Eric and I love this for many reasons:

First off, baseball is just fun.

And anything that you get to do for free is fun too, duh.

But when we lived in Rexburg, and were pregnant with Parker, we used to frequent (seriously like every week) the Idaho Falls Chuckers farm league team. It is so fun to go and watch baseball games!

Plus, Parker was SUPER excited.

All kidding aside, I'm sure this was a step down from Eric's last Colorado Rockies vs. Atlanta Braves game he got to see a few weeks ago . . . but getting to take the entire family makes up for it.

The kids did GREAT! Which I was excited for because the game didn't even start until 7:30, which is almost bedtime, and I thought they would be grumpy. 

I guess I have Humphrey the Hawk (mascot) to thank though.

He scared Preslie - LITERALLY to the point of hysterical tears - so bad, that after she saw him, she sat in our laps and watched him like a hawk (no pun intended) for entire rest of the game. It was pretty hilarious.

The One With the Overdose

So I'm downstairs, it's a Monday afternoon, putting dishes in the dishwasher, trying to get things cleaned up before we head out to a family dinner. Parker comes jumping down the stairs, runs up to me, and says, "Don't worry Mommy . . . I took my medicine." 

Oh, that's nice. 

Well that's my first thought at least. Parker is obsessed with taking medicine, really its kind of sad.

The kid gets a bump, and it's "I need medicine!"

I'm sure this has to do with all the medicine he was constantly on for the first year of his life . . . we made him this way.

But then my thought is. . . oh shoot, I'm pretty sure Preslie has not only a bottle of tylenol in her room, but a bottle of Benadryl too. She hasn't been sleeping great, teething mixed with some sort of a stomach bug, so we were doing what we could to get even 4 hours of sleep in there for a few days. So I'm thinking, oh great, did he figure out how to get the lids off. 

"Parker, what medicine did you take?" Spoken real casually, you know, so hopefully he'll actually tell me.

And sure enough, he takes me upstairs, into Preslie's bedroom, and points at the bottle of benadryl that is sitting open, on her dresser, complete with medicine dropper inside. Now I wasn't the last person to give Preslie this medicine, so I am not entirely sure how much was in there before Parker started dosing up, but I am absolutely positive that it is missing a decent amount. 

Oh GREAT! What does an overdose of Benadryl do?

I mean, if it just knocks him out for a few hours. . . . or maybe even a few days, I am okay with that. The kid is a jabber box anyways. 

I'm just kidding.

Kind of.

So I called the doctors office and she said call Poison Control.

AWESOME!

Well, luckily the nurse there was EXTREMELY nice. But do you have any idea what it feels like to the be the parent in this conversation:

"Hi, my four year old son just swallowed an unknown amount of Benadryl."

"Well, how did he get the Benadryl?"

"It was sitting on my one year old daughter's dresser."

"How did he get it open?"

"Because the lid was already off, and there was already a dropper in it just waiting for him."

Umm, seriously? No SERIOUSLY!?!?! Talk about feeling like I should be receiving the dumb mother award. 

Although, I must say, without totally giving away who it was, that I was not the last person with the Benadryl bottle in our house. . . . . just saying.

So we go through this huge long list of things that could happen if he has overdosed, and in the meantime Parker is seriously sacking out on the couch, within like 10 minutes - really, why doesn't it work that fast during the middle of the night? I guess I need to dose them up a little more.

"How close do you live to a hospital?"

"To any hospital, or to one I will actually take a child to?"

Yeah, I will probably perform CPR on the center console of my van and drive my kids all the way to St. Luke's before I EVER take them back to West Valley that is two miles from us. 

So we end up deciding that I don't think there is anyway he ingested 12 teaspoons, which is apparently the toxic amount in a 35lb child. So we just watch him. We go to the family party and Parker is STONED out of his mind. I have never seen the kid so relaxed and go with the flow, he even went to the bathroom out the door of our car because he decided he needed to THAT bad on the way to Grandma's. 

Bottom line: Kids do crazy things when they are drugged . . .  I find it mostly amusing.

Also, lesson learned . . . no more leaving drugs without lids on them around the house.

The One With The Things Parker Says

So today has been quite the day for Mr. Parker and his funny statements.

Two of them especially seemed much too good to pass up the chance of writing down.

Eric went to pick up Parker in Primary today after church, and rounded the door just in time to hear Parker, who was looking up at his teacher, say "Hey, do you have a big weeter?"

Luckily his teacher is a guy, so he wasn't totally off base. But even more luckily, he thought it was hilarious and started laughing so hard he cried. It's lucky I wasn't there, because in my embarassment over the question I probably would have tried to play it off like it wasn't a terrible question to ask a man. "Well, it's a reasonable question, answer him."

Okay, so not really, I could never have done that. I probably would have tried to hide my extremely red face in the diaper bag as I picked him up and ran for my life out the door.

Then this afternoon, we were all sitting on the couches in the family room, and Parker was playing "Angry Birds" on Eric's phone - yes that game knows no age limits, it is endless enjoyment for children of all ages!

Eric to Parker: Hey I need to charge my phone.

Parker: But I'm plyaing a game

Eric: You can't play video games for that long or else you'll end up retarded.

Parker: Retarded like you?

Oh yes, Parker, touchee!!!!

The One Where Boy Meets Girl

I keep thinking that I should put in a blog sometime how Eric and I met. It really is quite a funny story, and most people get a kick out of it. But every time I sit down to write it, the story seems to be SO LONG and it will take me SO LONG to write that I put it off until I have some more time.

Well, just now I remembered that back when Myspace used to be cool, I put a post on there about how we met. And really, what could be funnier than re-posting (and maybe adding in a little additional insight here and there) the blog I wrote almost 5 years ago when I was but a 19 year old child.

So here it is, but please keep in mind my age at the time:

Well so here it is, how me and my love Eric met, got engaged, and the works since everyone has been asking me recently.
FHE in a single adult ward I have decided, is pretty much a plot set up by the church to get kids married off, so it is sad to say, but I am just another BYUI statistic now. But, I got THE man so I am okay with that.
Well anyways, normally I work on Monday nights (I worked at Frontier Pies at the time, and since I didn't want to work on Sundays, I got stuck with every Monday) so I can't go to FHE but this time I didnt' have work, I wasn't at a modeling shoot (I did a couple shoots for some bridal stores and some advertising companies up there, nothing major), and so I decided to go. On Sunday at church I'd talked to a couple differnet FHE groups (Amazingly, since I was never there, I was FHE Mom, so I was in charge of planning the activities), and we got like 3 groups to get together at this place, basically a Mormon Bar, called Heart Mind and Soul (It is now gone, sad). Well, when I was talking to a girl from a different group in front of me at church, there was this gorgeous guy sitting next to her, and when it was brought up that it's Karaoke night there on Mondays he said "Bring your lemon juice." So I'm just sitting there like, ya okay what a nerd, and i didn't think much of it, even though I did watch him all through Sacrament Meeting. (Okay, so this part is not entirely true. I was sitting behind one of my Home Teachers that I had never met. The girl I was talking to from a different FHE group turned around and said "Oh by the way, this is Aaron your home teacher" and also the guy that all my roommates had HUGE crushes on. Eric was sitting on her other side. The lemon juice comment is 100% true, but I actually didn't put two and two together that the guy with the weird lemon juice comment was actually the guy I was marrying until he proposed. Apparently lemon juice helps clean out your throat for singing, something I didn't know.) SIDENOTE: It was actually a miracle that I was at church that Sunday as I almost always was either home in Boise, going to another ward, or studying (yes I occasionally was very bad and skipped). This Sunday was only the second time of the entire semester that I was at my ward. I had this weird feeling that morning that I should go, so I LITERALLY dragged my roommate Kristy (who was inactive) with me to church.

So moving on to Monday night though, all the groups meet at my apartment, and in walks, the "lemon juice guy" all by himself I notice, and we all drive to this place. Now anyone who knows me knows that I am the MOST faithful person when I am in a relationship, but when I'm not, it's like WATCH OUT! I'm a pretty big flirt. I'd just broken up with my boyfriend the week before and let's face it, I just wanted to have some fun. Once again, totally didn't know the guy that walked in was "lemon juice guy". I did see a very good looking guy walk in, but I actually referred to him as "tattoo guy" until I learned his name - Eric has a tattoo around his arm, and that night it wasn't entirely hidden by his shirt. My first words to Eric were "Is it real?" I am quite the ice breaker. The boyfriend story is also true, a non-member I had been dating for almost two years.

Well, the night kept on going, with me sitting by him and by a couple other guys, flirting like crazy, and I even remember getting upset with "lemon juice" cause he sat by me on a bean bag and then got up and left. So to make it up to me, he got up on stage, yes ON STAGE in front of about 50 or 60 college kids, and sung me a song, and then another one "it's so hard to say I'm sorry" and "your the inspiration" Truthfully, I had never heard either one of those songs before. He even made me stand up in the crowd once and tell everyone my name, how he was dedicating this song to me, and danced with me on stage. So by this point I have like fallen for this kid, not necessarially long term or anything yet, but I really liked him. Then he and his friend are like "Hey we are going bowling after this, you wanna come?" And I'm like heck yes, spend more time with the lemon juice hottie of course!
 And here's where the night gets wierd.

I go home get ready to go bowling, In this time I was getting several phone calls from Eric and Aaron (the home teacher who had also "magically" shown up at the FHE activity) telling me they were the one picking me up - it was like they hadn't decided between themselves yet who was supposed to be taking me as their date - well Eric finally ended up being the last one to call, and Eric (lemon juice) shows up at my door to take me bowling and low and behold. . . . . . there's another girl with him! I was like SHOT DOWN, which was kinda a new feeling, cuz I was totally crushing on him and I'm thinking he has a girlfreind. Then I decide, well the other guy is gonna be there so I'll just get with him instead, then guess what, he brought a date too! So it was pretty interesting to be invited to go bowling by two guys that already had dates. So the bowling unraveled, I said some smart alek comment about Eric's girlfriend to him, he was extremely uncomfortable the ENTIRE time, he even resorted to asking the owner of the place for bowling lessons which is funny to me now because Eric was on a bowling league at the time and was used to bowling well over 250 - he didn't need the lessons, I was so nervous/disappointed/heart broken that I even slipped on my butt one time when I bowled, and by the end of the night I didn't really expect to hear from him again. But I was asked out later by the other guy so we went and hung out. The other guy "Aaron" the home teacher, had also brought a date, and in reality practically ignored me the entire night, so I'm not even sure why I gave him the time of day. It turned out my old roommate and good friend Haylee was dating his roommate Chad, and I think that is the only reason why we ended up hanging out. To this day I still make fun of him about our first "plolygamy" date.

The next morning when I go out to my car to go to class I actually had two cars up at school my camaro, and a cobalt, as I had gotten in a car accident a few weeks before and the cobalt had been in the shop getting fixed, I had just gotten in back before FHE so I drove it to FHE, but then I drove teh camaro over to my friend Haylee's house to hang out with everyone and ended up staying over there, so it is DANG lucky I had another car there that Eric knew for him to do this, I have a note taped to my window, I think that's wierd, freak out cause I'm thinking its something bad like a ticket, but then relax when I see it's from guess who? LEMON JUICE! Lol. It's a note apologizing profusely for the fiasco the night before, insisting that the girl was not his girlfriend just a friend, and asking if I didn't think he was a stalker, for a second chance. It was the cutest sweetest letter I think I have ever read in my life, and I still have it, it sits in a frame. I wrote a real quick note, stuck it on his apartment door and leave for class.

Well, I had I think my 3 modeling shoot later that day and was leaving to go home to Boise I think it was midterm break at the time, but Eric really wanted to get together, so I pushed both of them back and we went and got a slushy drink and walked around the park for seriously like 3 hours. By the end of the date, I have extremely fallen for him, don't wanna leave to my shoot, and really don't want to go to Boise, but I had to. So we are sitting there by my car trying to say goodbye, people keep walking by, and the whole time I am expecting him to kiss me, and he just never does it, I get an awkward side ways hug and he leaves. So I am thinking, Okay he doesn't like me and I was pretty sad.

Then he texts me during my shoot, on my car ride home to Boise, and then three days later we decide that we miss each other and he drives all the way down to SLC and Lagoon to meet up with me and my family. Well the rest is pretty much history. The WHOLE famly loved him from the minute they met him, and I was amazed at how quickly he just became "part of the fam." He amazed me, he opened every door for me, was the perfect gentleman, and the sweetest guy I had ever met. He NEVER treated me bad or said something rude or anything. It still took him a good week before he finally kissed me (he's decided he's gonna teach me patience) but when he did at Temple Square I was so happy that we had waited awhile, cause right there rihgt then it was amazing and special and incredible. If we went there now I could still take you to the EXACT spot where it was it, it was seriously that special! We have a picture from our wedding day in the same spot!

From then on we were practically inseprable, and we moved EXTREMELY fast. Within like two weeks we knew we loved each other. We sat outside our apartments till 3 in the morning while he gave me a whole list of reasons why he loved me and then finally told me. I cried, and that is like amazing cause I am not a crier. I called my mom up and asked her to drive up there in two days to help me pick up my wedding dress. He got a ring, while I found my dress. Then the next few days were torture, because I knew what was coming but it kept being pushed back. First he had to get the ordered ring in, then he needed to talk to my dad, then he wanted to drive down to Boise and talk to my dad instead of over the phone. But finally on July 14th we drove down, he talked to my dad, and late that night we drove to the Rose Garden in down town Boise. It would probably be a good time to let you know that FHE that year was on June 26th, and he had driven down to meet my Family on July 1st - so I wasnt' kidding when I said we moved EXTREMELY fast. But when you know, YOU KNOW! You know?
 The funny part is the night before he proposed, in a basketball game Eric had really screwed up his ankle, he was limping so bad and it was all bruised, it was pretty sad. So we sat on the benches in the rose garden in Boise for 2 hours. He was kinda squirming, I was pretty impatient, we were both nervous. He talked to me about all the reasons why he loved me again, and started from the first time he met me and told me the whole story of our relationship from the beginning, only this time he added in all of the things he was feeling. It surprised me when I heard that he knew almost instantly that we were gonna get married but he was just too scared to tell me, because that's exactly how I was thinking. And then, to my amazement, he got down on his knee with the bad ankle and propsed. That is an extremely short version of how it went, but it was the most amazing experience of my life and I will never forget it. We were both teary eyed and it was great, I knew it was right, and I wanted to marry him more than anything.

So there is our story, it is truly incredible to me how fast things can happen when you have faith in God and meet the right person. It was 2 1/2 weeks from the time we met to the time we were engaged, ya that may sound extremely fast, and as cliche as this sounds it is the truth, that when you know you KNOW. And NOTHING stands in the way of that. I wouldn't change it to be any other way. Sorry it's such a short version, but I wanted to make it readable in like an hour instead of a full fledged novel.

Eric, you are my life, and I wouldnt' want anything, or you, any other way than it is. I love you with my everything, and I would give all for you if I was ever asked, even my life. I love the memories we have made and I can't wait to make a million more with you. I miss you every second you are gone, and even when you are right with me I am still amazed by you. September 22 baby and YOU are all mine!


So there it is! It was much shorter, and less detailed than I remember it being, but I know everyone doesn't want to sit here for HOURS reading the story. :) How I met my hubby, and next month is 5 years! Oh the memories we have created since then!



The One With Parker's 4th!

So today, Monday August 1st is officially Parker's 4th Birthday. I am proud and yet sad all at the same time. 4 sounds so much older than 3. And it makes me know that I am getting old too. ha ha. But seriously, I am almost exactly 20 years older than Parker, so as his age creeps up, it's much easier to count how my age is creeping up too.

So Parker, what can we say about Parker. We went in to be induced at Madison Memorial Hospital in Rexburg on Tuesday July 31st. They started Pitocin at 6am. Parker was born at 3am August 1st. It was a LONG and frankly GRUESOME labor. Parker was posterior (meaning face up) and in all honesty was too big to come out that way. 947 stitches later, we had a beautiful little boy with black eyes (a result of the forceps they had to use to pull him out). Parker was "bald as a billiard ball" until he was 10 months old. He rolled off our couch at 3 days old, started walking at 9 months, and had a FULL set of teeth by the time he was a year old. He has always been WAY too advanced for his age if you ask me.

Parker is almost 40" tall, which means we fudged the numbers a bit in Disneyland, has a huge noggin, his favorite color is blue, he loves Toy Story and Pirates. He still occasionally takes naps, but mostly just gets some quiet time every day. He says please and thank you, has been completely potty trained for awhile with out ever having an accident, loves cars,  and loves his sister.

Now he is the sweetest, and yet toughest little man that a Mommy could ask for. He protects his little sister,

and always wants to play with her. He sneaks into bed with Mom at night to eat chocolate raisins, and he is a good listener. He is very intricately minded, and loves to see how things work. He will take apart an entire toy and put it all back together the right way. He knows right and left, and can tell me how to get home.

Parker wanted a Pirate birthday party. It was a much easier party to decorate for that the last couple have been. It seems pirate stuff is everywhere (thanks to Pirates of the Caribbean) and so Eric and I may have went a bit overboard with decorating.

Vanilla meringue cake with chocolate frosting. The pirate is stenciled out of melting chocolates on wax paper, and then transferred to the cake. First time I have ever tried that one, it was fun . . . I'll probably do it again.

This is part of the house after Daddy got done hanging up all sorts of streamers. He may have gone a "little" crazy, but it was fun, and Parker loved it!

 How could you not love this awesome 4 year old face? He is the funniest boy with the best personality!

 The three little pirates that were running around the whole time, fighting with swords, and yelling YARRR!

 From Mommy and Daddy Parker got some killer pirate clothes (some of them pictured), some killer non-pirate clothes, a bike and a trampoline. He got pirate PJ's, a cool car game, and a pirate helmet from Grandma and Grandpa Lewis. An awesome art set, animal cards, and a book from Great Grandma and Grandpa Lewis. Cool camo sheets that he already has on his bed from Great Grandma and Grandpa Carpender. Pirate shirts, a pirate water bottle, and a train from Aunt Britty and Uncle Jared. Great Grandma and Grandpa Marshall sent down $4 for the 4 year-old and a "hunting" (camo) shirt, that Parker has to wear. Grammy and Papa Marshall sent even cooler pirate clothes and a plasma car, although Preslie seems to think the car is hers and doesn't much care to let Parker use it.