Happy New Year!

2007 was a busy year for us... I know every year is busy but 2007 was especially busy... Here are some of the big events that happened in our family... (This is longer than I want it to be but this is my way of journaling. Please don't feel obligated to read this.)

~We sold our house and moved to a rental house for a few months while Jason finished building our house. Might I add... that Jason built our house in record time. The inspector for the city said he's never seen a house, it's size, finished so fast. (just to give you a taste of how hard Jason works) One hard part about building too was I had to pick everything out. It was fun but very stressful and time consuming.

~ We moved in and after moving twice this year, I've decided I hate moving with little ones. It is so much work and so hard to get anything done between taking care of two little kids under 3!

~ A couple weeks after we moved in, Jason collapsed and could NOT move. It was one of the scariest moments of my life. Jason is not the type to let me call an ambuliance but I didn't have a choice. So we took an ambuliance ride to the hospital and Jason had to have emergency back surgery. We knew he needed a surgery, and he was in a lot of pain for a long time. In fact he had lost feeling in one of his legs but those of you who know Jason... he is so stubborn and couldn't stand the thought of taking time off work for surgery. He obviously ended up not having a choice. Thankfully we had already moved in.

~After the move and the surgery, Jason and his crew worked hard and finished our yard before winter and our basement just in time for Christmas. I know, the man is crazy but that is why he is so successful at what he does! The bad news is... he healed from the surgery but still has back pain and now the surgeon is telling us he is going to need to get his back fused. He is extremely young to have this done. Poor guy! The hardest part is he loves to work hard and now he is very limited.

~ In the meantime, I am always busy trying to take care of all the kids... I spent 4 months potty training Avaree without success. She is stubborn like her Dad. As most of you know, I finally gave up in November and am hopeful for the New Year!

~The end of August, Baylee and Griffin went back to school. (which was good for me after our crazy summer) Unfortunately, Griffin was incredibly sick his first 2 weeks of the BIG 7th grade. The stomach flu was going around and almost everyone in our family had it but I couldn't figure out why Griffin wasn't getting better. So I finally took him to the Doctors. The Dr sent us right to the ER at Primary Children's hospital. Another, emergency surgery! Griffin had his appendix removed. The surgeon said it had been ruptured for 2 weeks proir! No wonder he was so sick. He was in the hospital for 8 days and lost 20 lbs that he couldn't afford to lose. I don't think he ate for at least a week. We are thankful that Griffin is okay and back to good health with a good scar to prove what he went through.

~ On a better note some of the fun things and traveling we did were... a couple of trips to Southern California to see friends and family, a trip to Northern Cal, Lake Mead, Nevada (with our new boat that we didn't get to use much because of Jason's surgery), a trip to Idaho to the cemetary where my Mom was buried, and we hosted Jason's family a couple of times.

~One more big event was that my brother Brady got engaged to Ligia Perez and is getting married March 28th.

~ Some of our accomplishments were... Jason built and sold 4 houses (not including ours) with 3 more in the works. Baylee made the 9th grade basketball team and still hasn't ever gotten anything worse than an A in school. Griffin is the President of his Deacon's quorum in church and gets good grades. In fact, after his appendicitis a teacher said to him, "I've never met a more responsible 7th grader than you." Avaree continues to learn new things each day and make us all laugh at the things she says. Weston turned 1 and finally started to crawl at 14 months. For me... I think I just survived taking care of everyone. I guess one of my accomplishments would be that I started blogging. It's been so fun being in touch with family and friends that I don't get to see much.

So that is our 2007 in a nutshell. Some of our goals for 2008 are...

Jason's is to quit Dr Pepper, sell the homes he is building, and get a lot of jobs finishing basements to keep his business a success.

Mine is to finish getting my house decorated and organized and continue to enjoy my children and have patience with them.

Baylee's is to get her learners permit.

Griffin's is to get a 4.0

Avaree's is to get potty trained.

Weston's is to start walking!

As a family we are going to get in the habit of reading our scriptures again!

2008 here we come! I love the feeling of a New Year and the feeling of being able to start fresh. We are always striving to do better and learning from our mistakes. Those of you who actually read this.... I'm impressed. Happy New Year!