The McMurray Family

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Birthdays, Birthdays and More Birthdays

On February 10th we celebrated Justin's 33rd birthday! We had our neighbor watch our kids overnight and we went up to Logan. We ate at a yummy mexican restaurant and then had fun going to the hottub and relaxing with no kids.

Allison turned 4 on February 28th and she loves being a big girl. We had a small family party at home on her birthday and we were watching a few neighbor kids so they joined us for dinner and cake and ice cream :)

On March 14 Mikey turned 1! He is crawling like crazy, can say mama and dada, and is cruising along furniture but probably a month or two away from walking still.

We had a huge party for my Dad who turned 60 on March 12th here at our home on March 17th. We sang to my kids also and they got some presents from their grandpa. Then the kids had a huge friend party on Saturday the 24th of March. It was crazy but lots of fun! Then on Sunday March 25th we had another little birthday party for the kids with their Grandma and Grandpa Roberts (my mom and her husband Dennis).

Needless to say, we have had our fill of birthdays around here. Of course, Timmy's is coming up on Easter so we will have 1 more, but then it will be quiet until November.

Here are some pictures!!

Justin's new shirt

Justin's new socks

Happy Birthday Dad!

Allie's new Hello Kitty slippers

New Pinkalicious bike

Allie's Dora tent

Allie's castle cake

Happy 1st Birthday Mikey!!!!!

Happy 60th Birthday DAD!!!

Tim and Allie's Friend Party

Monday, March 5, 2012

Cute kids

Here are a few cute things from my kids lately. I taught my kids the little saying "Find a penny, pick it up, all the day you'll have good luck." They love it and say it all the time and kept 'finding' pennies in our house and telling me they were going to have good luck :)

Well, one day Timmy took one of his lucky pennies to school and when he came home he told me he didn't have it anymore. I asked him where it had gone and he said he gave it to a girl at school because she was sad. What a proud mom I was! He can be so sweet sometimes.

Then today Allie was coloring a picture with her paints from her birthday and she told me she was drawing hair on her girl and the colors were green, orange, blue and secret red. Secret red? Oh yes, secret red she says because it's so beautiful :)

Mikey is starting to wave and clap, I love it!

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Mikey, please stay well!

Well, Mikey has been by far my sickest child. He gets sick every 2-3 weeks, especially during the winter poor guy. He has had a double ear infection, many colds and coughs, a lung infection, strep throat twice, pink eye, an allergic reaction to amoxicillan, and croup. Poor little guy has been on tylenol and ibuprofen constantly and it is starting to burn a hole in our pocket with how much medicine we have had to buy for our little guy. He has a fever quite regularly and through it all, he still stays so sweet.

He got strep throat at 10 months old which is really young and went on amoxicillan. After the 9th day he ended up getting a rash over his whole body and the doctor said it was an allergic reaction to the antibiotic (see picture below). He also had croup at the same time so they gave him some prednisone for 4 days and within hours it cleared up his croupy cough and rash, wow. Then he had fevers again last week for 3 days so into the doc again we went and he was diagnosed with strep again. I joked with the doctor telling him that I was paying for his summer vacation :) With his allergy, he was given the antibiotic Cefdinir and I am not a fan of this medication. It causes him to have bad diarrhea for several hours after taking it and he occasionally throws up from it too. It's hard to say what's worse, fevers and cranky baby or upset tummy diaper rash baby instead. At least his sleep has improved and he's sleeping through the night again since he only has to have the medicine in the morning and the effects are worn off by night time.

Luckily Justin is done with his proposal and home to help out now. I was seriously feeling drained from being up so much with kids in the night (I averaged being up 3 times each night) and my immune system was starting to wear down too due to lack of sleep and being a single parent. I am very much looking forward to spring and summer and less sickness around this house.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

New normal

Justin has been gone for about a month now. He left January 2nd and needed to run a meeting in Utah the next weekend so he came home January 8-10. He then planned to leave for an entire month but was able to come home again for a few days on January 20-24 because he didn't have as much work to do. I was fortunate because Mikey and I had strep throat and I did not feel well at all. On Thursday the 19th I woke up with strep symptoms and Mikey had had fevers for 5 days in a row so I took him in. He ended up testing positive for strep and so I called my doc and explained what was going on and he nicely just called in a prescription for me :) I also had my good friend Sarah take my kids all afternoon (a huge thanks!) and another friend brought me dinner, thanks Cara!

Then on Friday Justin came home and was able to help, yay! He was around but still very busy with work so it was nice to have him home, but I am still looking forward to him being around more when he is home and done with this work.

Well, he has been gone again for almost 2 weeks now and he is surprised at how well I am handling everything. You know what, I have just discovered a new norm and it's okay. I am independent and I can do this although I choose to have my husband if I can. I can help the kids in the night, sleep in a little if needed (by turning on a baby show and giving the baby cheerios) and then get them ready, feed them, care for them all day and get them to bed without too much trouble.

I have been able to lose weight because we have had lighter dinners and it's been nice not having to cook so much although I do enjoy cooking and have some new recipes I'd like to try when he gets home. I have also enjoyed not feeling annoyed with him. Because he is not here, I never feel bothered when he doesn't respond in a timely fashion to me (usually when he's on the computer) or doesn't help do something I've asked him to do, hee hee.

It's a nice feeling to know I could do this without a husband but that in no way implies I'd rather be a single mom. I am very much looking forward to having him around more and doing fun things with him and our family.

He is going to try and come home for good this next weekend especially since Friday is his birthday and the next week is Valentine's Day but I feel a little torn. I wanted him to come home when he was good and done and ready to be around full time again. However, the proposal was changed by the government from a 30 day turn around time to a 45 day turn around time. That means instead of having to be turned in on the 9th it is now due February 23rd so if he does come home this weekend, he will still be extremely busy working long hours and weekends. I just don't know what to feel at this point. Anyway, we'll see what really happens this week and my guess is that he'll come home because I think he wants to.

Here's to Justin starting a new job when this proposal is done with hopefully less crazy hours and traveling!

Friday, January 13, 2012

Timmy can draw!

Timmy is starting to draw more and more and I love it! Here is a picture of his racetrack he got for Christmas and some angry birds, I'm impressed :) He also brought me a paper with his first phonetically spelled word, mune (money). I am so excited to see what he learns next.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Merry Christmas

This year was a nice Christmas although I didn't feel the Christmas spirit as strong as I usually do. Maybe it was because we didn't have snow or maybe I didn't do more to invite it in, but after Christmas I was ready to take everything down days before I normally am ready. Part of it was probably due to Justin working on the week he normally has off therefore we were home a lot and not out doing things like normal. Here's a run down of our holiday weekend.

Justin was working like crazy but was able to take Fri-Sun off so on Friday we took our kids to Shannon's and went to the temple. Then Allie and I went to the Nutcracker with my family and Justin went to visit Grandma LaVern with the boys. Then we went to the Martin Party at the JSMB and even Dennis' family came, it was nice for them to meet our family a little more.

We visited Justin's family Saturday morning for a Christmas Eve aebleskiver breakfast at Shannon's and spent the rest of the day with Greg and Heather before having Christmas Eve dinner with Dad at Grandma Griggs' home. Santa even came to visit on Christmas Eve and we were able to talk to Rusty on the phone for a bit and do a white elephant exchange :)

We set up Christmas and were done around 10 PM and then Timmy woke up at midnight so he was excited but we made him go back to bed. Then he was up and in our room again at 5:30 so Justin got up and Allie got up shortly thereafter and I missed them coming out. Oh well, it was fine. Then we got up Mikey around 6 and opened presents. Then we got ready and went to church early so I could be ready for the Christmas program. It went so well, I was pleased!

Then we played at home for a few hours and went to my Mom's for lunch with Sherri and Liz. Then we just went home and let our kids play at home the rest of the day instead of visiting with Justin's family at Laura's at 5. After going all day for 3 days, our kids were worn out so we were happy to just go home.

Merry Christmas to you all!