It's DR. WOOLF's birthday!!!

And did I mention he's the big 3 - 0!! Happy Birthday old man!
Cameron lives in Wisconsin, where he just finished medical school at the Medical College of Wisconsin this past May. Mark sent me out to Cameron's graduation for Mother's Day - I was so excited to be there and share that with Cam and Miranda! Cameron is currently working on his Anesthesiology residency there in Milwaukee and will be for the next few years - I am so proud of my little "big" brother and what he's been able to accomplish in his life. It's a little ironic that this is where he ended up, as Wisconsin is where I served my mission - the cheese head stuff get in your blood I guess.

Random funny memories of Cameron: the summer we spent trying to see how many times we could pass the frisbee back and forth without dropping it (we thought we were soooo good, too) -- the famous mud episode that Cameron started when he never returned and mom asked me to go look for him -- cheering him on at whatever sport event he was competing in, football, basketball or track -- making him eat an ant when he was little (what a mean big sister) -- running hurdles in the hall with mom's couch cushions or jumping the high jump with a jump rope strung from the stairs to the dining room.

Happy Birthday to my Big Brother!!

Today is my big brother, Brandon's, birthday. He's 2 1/2 years older than me, and although he was your typical older brother and often made my life a little miserable, I have so many great memories of him. I don't know if I ever told him this, but I secretly wanted to be his twin when I was little. I'm not sure why, but I distinctly remember lying once and telling someone that we were twins...go figure?

Random funny memories of Brandon: going to a movie in Preston one night with him and some friend, and he wouldn't let me sit by them, I had to sit by myself -- he'd make cookie dough and then tell me it was my job to roll out the dough and bake them -- toilet papering Mr. G's house and nearly getting caught -- staying out later than mom thought we should and having her come looking for us (not a good thing!) -- hooking up the Porter's trampoline Christmas wreath to the van and dumping it off at someone's home....the trend I'm seeing, I got in more trouble with Brandon and his friends than I did with my own...at least he kept my life interesting!!!
LOVE YOU, BRANDON!
Wishing you a very Happy Birthday!

All of my old photos are packed away in storage - so here's a current one of Brandon, he recently ran in his first marathon - what a great accomplishment!
His daughter, Bailey ran with him at the end of the race - he's such a great dad!

Non-stress Test - Ya, Right?!!

I know, shocking that I'm posting again so soon, but I have a story for the day. As my dad always said, 25 words or less, but this I'm afraid is a "Mindy story" and could be lengthy - there's your warning.
This morning I was trying to get somethings done around the house and had gone through some papers that I needed to file in the computer room in the basement. I try to consolidate my trips up and down the stairs as much as possible (we live in a townhouse with three stories). Anyway, I grabbed my papers and some of the boys' toys they had left in the kitchen and started down to the basement. It was a rather quick trip too - I had only gone down a few steps, when I really don't know what happened, but then next thing I knew, I hit the stairs and just kept on going until I reached the bottom landing. Poor Aaron, he was home with me at the time, and I know he had to be wondering what did this lady just do? I was crying and screaming, it really didn't feel so great. He came over to the couch to console me and held my hand. Luckily I did just land on my back and not my stomach.
Well, today was a scheduled appointment with my doctor. I hadn't progressed any since last week, which was okay. Mark was out of town and I didn't want to have the baby by myself, so I had been playing it safe, that was until this morning. I told the doctor about my fall and that my back was hurting, but other than that I was doing well and told him I would see him in a week. Then Dr. Lamb said, "You know, I think we'd better go ahead and have you take a non-stress test and just check on this little guy and make sure he's doing okay. I'll have the nurse set it up for you right now." So I say okay and he leaves the room. Then I start crying thinking, what if something is wrong with the baby? What if I did something to hurt him? Of course my mind was going a mile a minute, and then I had to tell myself to calm down and get it together.
I guess the good part of this story is 1) I got to see my little guy today in an ultrasound - he's little hand was cute, and I got double assurance that he's all boy, and 2)Even though they call it a non-stress test and it was a bit stressful for me, the technician told me she thought he was doing well and looked okay. He was just so sleepy, he didn't want to wake up and show any of his cool moves off for the machine I was hooked to for what seemed like an hour.
Lessons learned - hold on to the hand rail, it's there for a reason.

True Blooded Aggie from Utah

It's been a while, but Mark and I took the boys up to Alumni Day/Family Day up at USU on September 13. The boys and I were all decked out in Aggie gear. My mom found an old maternity shirt she had from when she was expecting my little brother Tony (25 years ago). I had to wear it, and I wore it with pride. Got quite a few compliments on it to I might add.

The boys had a great time with the many free activities up on the quad - bouncy house, inflatable slides, velcro wall, fishing pond, football toss and rock climbing. I enjoyed the free Aggie icecream and sugar cookies we got to decorate ourselves. We had planned to meet my parents and watch the game that night - USU vs. Utah. Needless to say, I knew I wasn't going to be purchasing tickets for our family when I found out the general admission tickets cost $32. (They jack up the ticket prices for UofU and BYU games.) I couldn't pay that much for myself, not to mention for my 4 and 7 years boys. I called my mom and told her I was sorry but we wouldn't be coming inside to sit with them and that we would just have to go home. Well, long story short - and I still don't know how it all happened. Mark and my dad were given THREE FREE tickets and had to purchase one ticket for a whopping $20. How's that for savings -- $20 compared to the $128 I thought we'd have to pay. I was one happy camper. Only sad thing of the day - my Aggies lost, but that never stopped me from being a true Aggie.

It was funny too, that morning at breakfast Ethan said, "Mom, you and Dad are enemies." When I questioned him about what he was talking about, he said, "You are blue and dad is red." It's true, Mark graduated from the U, but I know I've helped put some Aggie blue in his blood.

Good-bye Uptown Taupe

Even the Webster's Dictionary calls taupe a soft, brownish-gray color, but when you call it Uptown Taupe - it turns PINK!! Ten years ago Mark bought the townhouse we currently live in, he choose all the colors himself. I have to admit he did quite well, I liked everything but the carpet. I never did like it and always teased him that we had pink carpet. Well, Thursday night we bid farewell to the old carpet, and Friday, we had ourselves a whole new home - I am one happy lady!! Say hello to "Old Pebble." I was so excited - once the carpet guy left, I vacuumed till I was sweating to death. I am really happy how everything turned out. I found myself just walking around on the carpet, like a lost little girl, just wandering and admiring all the hard work. Mark has done an excellent job. He's one Handy-man! Now I'm ready to put the house back together - it's one major "nesting" task before me. Hope I'm up to the challenge.

Before: Uptown Taupe
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After: Old Pebble

The countdown is on...

One more month for me - and I know I am no where ready to be the mother of three little guys!!! Although it would be really nice to have this kid on the outside, so when he wants to kick and move around I won't have to be his target, I am totally scared (as Aaron would put it) to have him at home with us. Then there's our house, I know it's not ready for another little person. We finally painted a room for him, the tile is complete, we have a toilet again, the fridge was actually moved back into the kitchen tonight, and we are slowly finishing our painting of all the baseboards. Why the hold up you ask? Well, so do I? The carpet just isn't cooperating with us, and it looks like we get to wait some more before it will actually be here. The only good thing - we haven't taken the old carpet out yet, so we do have something soft to walk around on.
So....I'll see Dr. Lamb tomorrow and begin the long anticipated weekly visits. Who knows what we'll find out?!? I'm also excited about tomorrow night - we are taking the boys to the hospital for the Labor and Delivery Tour. I wonder what crazy questions Aaron will ask? When I asked him today if he thought we were ready for a baby to come to our house he said, "Well, you better get him out soon, cuz who will take care of him?"

I'm a jerk...

While I've been down in my "cave" trying to figure out how to update the look of my blog, my cutie Mark has been slaving away upstairs. I finally went to see what he'd been doing. There he was, still in the kitchen, trying to get the house put back together for me. He scrubbed down the dishwasher and reinstalled it. Did I mention that it's now 11:26 p.m.
He's got cuts and bruises everywhere from all his hard work and to top it all off this morning when he was getting ready for work he totally broke off one of his fingernails. I couldn't even stomach the blood when he asked me to finish cutting the nail off for him. He had to do it himself. Good thing he still loves me!