welcome baby cloud

Congrats to Ben and Mandy on the birth of Grayson Bono Cloud. Born yesterday at 7:25 pm - weighing in at 8 lbs. 10 ozs. and 21 inches long. Heard he's cute and chubby! Hooray for a healthy birth!

happy birthday j

Monday was J's 30th birthday. We went to Buca di Beppo on Saturday for his party. We had a great time. His mom, Betty was here and our friends Ben and Mandy and J's boss Marty came along with my parents and Aaron and Christina. I think he was pleasantly surprised by everyone and was very blessed. Here are some pics of our time together:

The kids


Mom and Dad


Aaron and Christina


Ben and Mandy

misunderstood

I guess I need to clarify what I said in my previous post. I was pretty steamed when I read the article, so a lot of that was venting.
No, I am not mad at breastfeeding moms. I think that if you can do that - great!
No, I do not feel that any of you have made me feel bad for bottle feeding...for goodness sake, Jenell practically drove to my apartment herself to give Cais a bottle!
I am not ashamed of having to bottle feed by kids. Like I said, I'm just really tired of making excuses for doing so.
I AM tired of reading article after article making breastfeeding sound like if you don't do it, you are a bad mom or your kids will be "less than". Disagree if you want, but it's the truth. EVERY mom I have ever met who bottle feeds will tell you the same thing.
Geez people.....don't you know me at all?????

rant

OK - I have to say that if I hear one more thing about how breastfed babies are smarter, prettier, nicer, don't get sick/ear infections, more apt to go to college, more likely to win a Nobel Peace Prize, etc...I am going to puke!
The newest insult stems from an article I read in my Parents magazine today. NOW, not only are breastfed babies all of the above and so much more, NOW they don't wet the bed as much as their formula fed counterparts. ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have tried to be nice about this, but I am taking the gloves off. JUST BECAUSE YOU BREASTFEED YOUR BABY...DOES NOT MEAN THAT YOU ARE PERFECT AND NEITHER IS YOUR CHILD!
Believe me, I have seen lots of breastfed babies and I like the fact that my kids were formula fed. My kids have had their share of problems, but NONE of my three kids had any issue potty training! And, they had formula every day until they were a year old! I got to sleep and my husband got to take a turn at 2 in morning! I am DONE making excuses about why I didn't breastfeed! Maybe it was - gasp - because it's a complete pain it the butt and more trouble than it's worth??!!?!?! Everyone else gets to have an opinion, but mine doesn't count - PLEASE!!!
Every kid does stuff at their own pace and in their own timing. WHO CARES!!!!!!!!! Why does everything have to be a competition? And this is from someone who is very competitive! Good grief, don't we have bigger problems in our world to deal with? No, we have to give out "grant" money for the sake of studying breastfeeding and potty training?!?!?!?! In the words of one of my favorite reporters, John Stossel,- GIVE ME A BREAK!

soccer stars

Here are a couple pics of my "soccer stars" in action this weekend. Cais won her game (2-0) and ALMOST scored. Sam's team lost (5-3), but he got to play goalie for the first time ever and as you can see, he loved it! He blocked three shots and only got scored on once! He is the youngest player on the team and can play with the best of them. I was really proud of both of them. One of the boys on Cais' team has a crush on her (his mom told me). That was a little weird to hear! I don't know that J and I are quite ready for that! HA!
Anyway, enjoy the pics! I'll post more towards the middle of the week.

here's to you Jenell

I ate at Golden Corral tonight.....enough said.......

growing pains

Where do I begin....I guess at the beginning...only seems the most obvious....
Anyway, going to church is hard. Anyone else feel that way? Especially when you are new. I swear, to come from a church where everyone knows your name and then to go somewhere where no one does is hard. (Anybody feel like singing the theme song from "Cheers" here??? Ha!)
Don't get me wrong. I'm really excited about Amadeo. We had our first service last night and I was able to see what God is doing in the midst of us. It was really great to finally start. I'm sure the others who started this whole thing felt the same way.
But, it's difficult to explain the feeling of walking into a room and having people smile at you and not really know who you are or why you're there. Again, that feeling of being "known". What is up with that?
It's very curious to me why I feel this way. No one has made me feel unwelcome...but here I am, feeling sad and down....over nothing really! I guess I'm feeling impatient. I just want to feel comfortable in my own skin again. I haven't felt that way in almost two years. Going back to Park City probably was a set back for me. While I know we are in the right place, I also really miss our "family" in Utah.
I think that's why last night was hard for me. In Utah I would be the one in charge of the peripheral stuff and everyone would be coming to me saying "Jen, what do you want me to do?" Instead I'm asking that same question and people are looking at me like "who are you?" OK - maybe this is a control thing....I don't know.
Jenell and I have been talking a lot lately about missing what we used to have. It's hard when the people you want to see the most live a zillion miles away and you can't just call them up and say "let's go get a coffee, I need to cry..." I don't have someone like that here for me, so I think that's why I'm feeling this way.
OK - this is making me cry now, so I'm going to stop writing about this. I'm OK - just needed to get that off my chest.
Everything else is great. Planning J's birthday party (the big 3-0) and I've invited lots of people to come (Betty is coming too! YEA!). We're going to have it at Buca di Beppo, which should be fun! The kids are doing great - but are soooooo busy! I'm questioning why I thought that soccer and kid's bible clubs would work.....oh well! They're hanging in there.... Their first games are on Saturday, so we are looking forward to that. Luckily for us, Cais' practice is in our subdivision. I took on the position of VP for our PTSO at school, so that enables me to put in my time that we're supposed to for the school. But, it just makes me busier....HA! Maybe that's good for right now....growing pains...who knew???

angels

Well, all I can say is that J has BIG angels watching over him. This happened yesterday in the parking lot at Target. A lady was in a big hurry to get back to work and gunned in out of her parking space without looking and backed right into J. Cais and Wil were with him....luckily, no one was hurt. So now we get to go through the fun tasks of getting the car fixed, driving a rental car and replacing Wil's car seat. Once a child in a car seat has been in an accident, the seat is no longer termed "usable". I have to say that we are so lucky. J had his window rolled down and his arm hanging out of the window. He saw the woman in time and pulled his arm back inside. If he hadn't, we'd be talking a lot more seriously right now. She would've smashed his arm...possibly damaging it for life. ANGELS I'm telling you!

Other than that fun start to our week, all is well. Haven't seen any lice and had a LONG talk with the principal about it. She calmed a lot of my fears. Sam and Hurl are still the best of friends. I know the kid's name is strange, but he is totally cute and just loves Sam. You don't know how I've prayed for Sam to have a guy friend his age! We had a nice weekend just hanging out with my parents. Had dinner with friends on Saturday, church on Sunday and car crashes on Monday! HA! Actually, my parents babied us on Monday and we went to lunch and played mini golf. So, just a nice relaxing weekend. BSF starts next week and my mom is going to be the Treasurer and I will be her assistant! HA! I'm really looking forward to going through the book of Romans.

Hope you all had a great weekend. MATT SELF! IF YOU ARE READING THIS, CALL ME AND LET'S MAKE SOME PLANS FOR YOU GUYS AND US GUYS TO GET TOGETHER!!!!!