Addison is 6!

Addison turned 6 years old on April 24th! I can't believe my baby girl is getting so big! I will start by telling you a quick story. I have been trying for 2 years to teach Addison to ride a 2 wheel bike. Well, she was too scared and the second she knew I would let go she would lean to one side and jump off the bike. She kept getting mad at me for letting go, but that's kind of the point, to ride on your own. Well, I told her if she would learn to ride a two wheeler I would buy her a bike for her birthday. She wanted one, but still wouldn't really let me help her so I quit and told her to have her dad help her. She didn't want that either. She tried over and over to teach herself, but didn't seem to be making progress. She would get excited and tell me that she did it, so I would watch and she would go a few inches and fall over. I just told her to keep at it. Well, on the Monday before her birthday she came and told me the same thing, so I went out to watch expecting the same thing. Well, I was wrong, she rode all the way across the drive way! I was shocked! She actually taught herself and 4 days before her birthday. After that, she just kept going and going.

So, now we are to Addison's birthday. I kept my promise to her. She got a new bike for her birthday. Before her bike was too little and now it's a little to big, but I couldn't find any in-between. She can still ride it, but it makes me a little nervous. She didn't even hesitate, she just jumped on and went. We told her she had one present to open when Spencer came home for lunch and when he got there she was so excited. We hurried and snuck the bike into the garage and told her we were going out to lunch first (she picked Pizza Hut). She was disappointed but when along with it anyway. I was waiting in the garage when her and Spencer came out and she saw her bike. She loved it! Watching her ride it about gave me a heart attach though. From now on she has to wear her helmet and pads to ride it.

That night we had most of my side of the family together and had poppyseed chicken for dinner and had cake and ice cream for dessert. She opened the rest of her presents and then the kids played and played til it was time to go home.

Hope you had a good birthday, Addi! We love you!

Ready, Set, FINISHED!!!!

So we have some great and exciting news to share! Treyson is finally a big boy! He is potty trained and wearing big boy undies! YAY! We had some tough times along the way, but we finally did it! I say "we" because for those who haven't done the potty training thing before, it takes a lot of effort on the parents side, as well as the childs. I'm sharing my story because I know how much I appreciated other's stories and advice when I needed it. When we first started, Treyson was getting the hang of things and I knew it would only be a short time til he had it down and lucky for mommy, he wanted to use the BIG potty, not the little one (saved mommy from having to clean it!). What mommy didn't plan on was the flu hitting us all. We didn't have to but, we called it quits for a while (mommy was too sick to care). Little did m0mmy know, trying to start over was going to prove to be quite difficult. Treyson just didn't want to anymore and no longer had any interest in the matter. After a while mommy decided, WE ARE DOING THIS! After a gruesome day of mess after mess it hit mommy we had a trip to Idaho in a few days so once again, we put it on hold. Finally, on monday (one week ago), mommy decided to give it another go, but approach things a little differently. Mommy took Treyson potty every 20-30 mins all day long! The same thing the next day although mommy still couldn't catch Treyson before he left a surprise in his undies. After the third accident (which happened while playing outside) mommy was already sick of it, but just didn't know what to do. While cleaning up the mess Treyson said, "Let's go back outside!" and it hit mommy like a ton of bricks and she knew EXACTLY the key to suceeding! What is Treysons favorite thing on the planet? Playing outside! So mommy said, "No, Treyson. When you poop your pants you don't get to play outside. If you want to play outside to have to poop in the potty." Treyson tried kicking and screaming, begging, sneaking out, anything he could try to get back out there. Mommy was tough though and didn't let Treyson go back out to play. On the third day mommy decided to go longer and see what happened and reminded Treyson if he pooped his pants he couldn't play outside so we went around an hour between brakes, but guess what? Treyson started telling mommy he had to go potty. BREAKTHROUGH!!! At least with #1. Mommy was still waiting to see what would happen with #2. Then FINALLY another BREAKTHROUGH!!! Treyson told mommy he had to go poop! Not only told mommy, but actually did it! Mommy was so relieved, but didn't want to count her chickens before they hatched. Well, mommy can now count her chickens! Treyson is still telling mommy when he has to go both #1 and #2 (or he just does it on his own sometimes too).

This is Treyson's potty chart. Some of it was from before when we tried potty training, but a lot of it is from this week as well. He got it all finished and we got to have a little success party. He loved the sticker chart and also getting one for himself to keep everytime he went potty.

Good job Treyson! We are all so proud of you!

AAPF NATIONALS 2009

Spencer qualified last October for and was able to attend the AAPF (Amateur American Powerlifting Federation) National meet in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Usually it's not so close to home, so that was pretty cool. He did so awesome. He weighed in at 148.8 lbs, which was the very highest he could possibly weigh in order to compete.

The first lift was the squat. This is usually Spencer's best lift and he planned on getting 600+ lbs. Well, in order to make weight he had to drop quite a few lbs in a few weeks in order to make that weight and during that time he lost quite a bit of strength. He still got his highest squat that he has ever gotten at a meet which was 545.6 lbs., but it wasn't quite what he'd trained for.

I was a little nervous for his bench because he didn't do as good as we had hoped on squat and his bench is usually his lift he sikes himself out on. Well, the day was full of suprises! He planned on getting around 330 lbs. for his bench, but he got all 3 lifts with such ease so he was able to go for a 4th attempt to get the world record in the AAPF for his weight class. He went for 355 lbs and got it! That was beyond exciting!

Spencer preparing to deadlift.
I liked this picture so I had to put it on.

After such an amazing bench, Spencer was so pumped up for his deadlift. He got all 3 attempts and ended up getting 501.5 lbs on his final deadlift. That's been a goal of his for around 5 years to hit 500 lbs. on his deadlift. Another huge accomplishment!

Look how excited he was to get that last deadlift!

It was such a great meet and full of excitement. One thing Spencer realized once we were back at the hotel was that he only needed 1 kilo more to tie the total (all 3 highest lifts add together) of the world record! Darn it! If he would have realized it at the meet he would have went higher so he could have broke that world record total. Oh well, Spencer qualifed for the AWPC World meet in Chicago (in August) and we are planning on attending if we can afford it, so he can break a few more records while we're there! That will be such an amazing experience for him. Only 3 people from each weight class and from each country is allowed to compete in the World Meet, so Spencer is 1 of 3 in the U.S. allowed to compete in this World meet. What a stud! I'm so pround of his dedication and determination. Love you Spencer!

I also wanted to tell Sue Ann, Grandma Oldroyd, Subrina (also thank you for all your wonderful pictures!), Kensi, Jessica, Debbie, Mike, Noel, Beth, Cody, and Zack for coming and supporting Spencer for this meet, THANK YOU!!! It meant so much to him!

Random pics from the meet

The kids at the meet

Playing at the park during the big break. They were excited to get out and run around!

SPLISHIN' & A SPLASHIN'

Of course we had to go swimming while we were staying in a hotel! We has a blast playing in the water and most of the time it was just us. Not much to say here so, hope you enjoy the pictures.

ZOO TIME FUN!!!

On our way back from Idaho, we decided to stop at Hogle Zoo and give the kids a chance to get out of the car and run around. We only had an hour to see everything before they closed so we went crazy fast and saw just about everything that there was to see. Treyson hadn't ever been to the zoo and Addi didn't really remember when she went so they were both so excited and loved every minute of it. Enjoy the pics.

Some of the animals we saw

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Playing @ the zoo
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There is one just one really quick story about our trip to the zoo that I would like to share....

...Meet Tino

See Tino sleep.

See Tino when Tino gets woke up. The End.

Told ya it was really quick! Ok, so that was the short version for those who don't like to read, but I can't just leave it at that. While we were at the zoo a bunch of the animals were sleeping, which was cute, but not as fun as when they are playing. We had already seen Tino, but on our way out we decided to see if he happened to wake up. Sadly, he hadn't. I tried knocking on the glass and he didn't budge. Although, at least with the human ear, you couldn't really hear it very well since the glass is so thick. Anyway, Subrina (my sister-in-law) started taking some pictures of him and the flashes made him start to twitch a bit. I got excited and went to try to knock again, but right when my hand was about to hit the glass, his arm went flying back and scared the heeby jeebies out of me. Subrina and I started laughing and the others came quickly to see what was going on. They got up close to the glass and Tino flung his arm back and smacked the window. The girls of course screamed and jumped back. Right then, Tino came flying up and got on all 4's and just glared at us. We were all laughing by then and Jessica (our cousin) put her face up close to the glass and Tino went flying up to the glass, which he was already pretty close to, and practially shoved his nose right up against the glass looking very, very angry. We were all still kind of laughing, but at that point we were expecting Tino to start beating on the glass to try and get out so he could kill us. Although it's not likely he could break the glass, it was still kind of scary, especially with my little babies in there. Anyway, we all kind of backed off and were looking at the orangatang when Tino decided to cool off and went to the gate to go outside, even though it was shut. My point is...Don't mess with Tino when he's sleeping!!