New Family Pictures

When we went to Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving we asked Grandma Fowler if she would take some family pictures for us. She did awesome! What would we do with out you! We had so much fun over Thanksgiving seeing Grandma and Grandpa, Uncle Rich and Miss Caitlin. Thanks for the fun! We look forward to Christmas!

"Fun" at the Dentist

OK, so the week before Halloween the boys had their semi-annual cleanings done. I know, before Halloween seems like a waste of a cleaning but it had to be done. Micheal and Tanners cleanings went without a hitch. But....during Clayton's cleaning, the dentist said that Clayton's permanent molar was stuck on a baby molar. Not good! Usually, the teeth come in without any problem at all, so they were watching it to see if it would take care of itself, but it didn't. He said that the little molar had to be taken out so the big molar could come in. (Check the xray above.)

Then he told me that Clayton isn't growing some of his permanent teeth on the top of his mouth. Not good! So, we have to try to protect and save his baby teeth on that side so that he has teeth. I didn't know that could even happen! All the problems happen to be on the top of his mouth. Poor Clayton! He'll be in and out of dentist offices the rest of his life. The dentist said that the baby teeth we are trying to save will only last until he is about 30 and then he'll have to have implants put in if he wants teeth to chew with. The good news: the dentist doesn't see any wisdom teeth pockets growing so Clayton may not get any wisdom teeth.

Well on Tuesday we had Clayton's little molar extracted and a couple of cavities fixed. I had to warn the dentist to not say the words "shot" or "needle" around Clayton unless he felt like getting into a knock-down-drag-out-fight, so he said "no problem, we can give him a little laughing gas and he won't even know." Sure enough, he doesn't remember anything except the dentist humming a tune. YAY! After a couple of hours and some children's motrin, you would never even know he had any work done at all. He can't have any hard foods like popcorn, peanuts, potato chips or hard candy for 2 weeks, which is a bummer for a kid but... he can eat as much mashed potatoes, applesauce, jello, pudding, homemade milkshakes/smoothies, and ice cream he wants for 2 weeks to compensate. He has been such a trooper! Way to go Clayton!

Live Without Regret!

For those of you who are wondering what the "I read nienie" and "c jane" buttons are on the left side of my blog, they are a direct link to the blogs of Stephanie Nielson and her sister Courtney. I went to high school with Stephanie's husband Christian. In August, Christian and Stephanie where in a private airplane crash in northeast Arizona and both sustained serious burns over much of their bodies. Christian has burns on 30% of his body and Stephanie has burns on 83% of her body, including her face. I have been drawn to the blogs as they have kept an update on their recovery and also on their 4 children. Reading their blogs has been an eye opening experience to me and it has given me a chance to think about my own life and evaluate what I can change. I do not consider myself to be a "fence sitter," I just tend to be quiet and keep my inner-most thoughts and feelings from everyone, including my family. In this day and age, I cannot afford to "cautiously share" my testimony or love I have for those around me anymore. The time to share is now!

I don't ever want Jeremy to wonder if or why I love him,

I don't want my boys to grow up not knowing how special they are to me,

nor do I want anyone to doubt, in any way, that I have a testimony of Jesus Christ.

After listening to our Prophet, President Thomas S. Monson's talk at the end of the Sunday morning session of General Conference, about "living for the here and now" and using a popular quote from the movie "The Music Man" that he has said before, "if you use up enough tomorrows, you'll find all you have are empty yesterday's,"

and his comment about "the endless fingerprints that cover everything in the house will soon be gone and you'll miss them when they are."



My plan of action:

• I'm going to embrace being an eternal companion and make sure that I don't miss an opportunity to let Jeremy know how much I love him, and cultivate an everlasting friendship!


• I'm going to embrace my season of being a young mom with little fingerprints on everything and the endless laundry, dishes, etc because my family is a priceless treasure.


• I'm not going to be afraid to be a living testimony and stand as a witness of Christ. I want everyone who comes in contact with me to see the love of Christ in my eyes.

This is my chance to become the person that my Heavenly Father knows that I can be, but only I can make this happen! I know that I am not perfect and that I will have moments of relapse, but thru repentance and prayer my life can be a testiment of what I believe.

Pains of Growing

The last month or so all 3 of our boys have been showing signs that they are growing. They are eating anything and everything they can get their hands on, and have been very tired. But there has been a few things I had forgotten were part of growing too. Clayton has spent many days on the couch groaning because of growing pains in his legs. Then of course the constant clumsiness. They have all been bumping into walls, more than normal, and tripping over their own 2 feet. In fact, in only 3 days Tanner gave himself a black eye, scraped the side of his face, skinned his elbow, skinned his knee, and then skinned his forehead. It was so pathetic, all I could do was give him loves as he hurt himself and laugh inside. It seems as if every few minutes I hear one of the boys complain of another bump, bruise or scrape. It has been entertaining, in a way, because we all end up laughing at the dinner table. As we talk about who did what today, instead of just the normal conversation of "Micheal, Clayton or Tanner learned this today," we have added, "check out this bruise," or "did you see what Tanners did to his face again," or "look what I did when I fell off of my bike." This is all terribly cute as I watch my 3 little boys grow up! I didn't realize how dangerous it would be. I hope they don't grow too much or we'll be in BIG trouble!

Boy will be boys!

This is video that I found from the summer and forgot about. This is what boys do when they are bored and find something to play with. Maybe I'm a bad mom, but I couldn't help getting video of it. It was funny! One week later, we bought a trampoline!

(Tanner was not hurt in the filming of this video.)

Tanners Birthday

Sept. 16th was Tanner's 3rd Birthday! What joy he brings to our family! We love you Tanner!

Potty Training update

Tanner is potty trained! It was so simple and easy too! The first day he had 4 accidents, second day only 2 accidents, third day he had 1, and has been clean and dry ever since! He even stays dry at night. I have to admit that I was skeptical about it taking only 3 days because the last 2 times it took forever, but it has worked for Tanner so far!
I would highly suggest the 3 day potty training technique because it is positive, encouraging, simple, cheap and it helped to teach me how to let him be in control of when he needed to go. We haven't had any power stuggles about potty training and that is such a big difference between my first 2 potty training experiences and with this one. Potty training Tanner has been a great experience and how often to you hear that about the most dreaded thing about parenting! Maybe it worked because he was ready since he was the only one in diapers, and he wanted to be like everyone else, maybe it was his personality, maybe it was because he is about to turn 3 in September, whatever it is, we are done with diapers and I am so glad that I did it! Heads up, she said that the most ideal time to potty train is when they are 22 months old because they are not set in their ways as much as a 3 year old. I wish I would have known that when Tanner was 22 months, I could have saved so much money!
All that I had to buy was the ebook, underwear, 1 stool, 1 package of kandoo wipes, and lots of drink! I opted not to buy a potty chair or seat because I wanted him to get used to going on any toilet, but that is a personal choice. Check out the website (www.3daypottytraining.com) yourself to see if you like it. I think the $24 was well worth it, especially since I won't be buying diapers anymore! YAY!!

Jeremy's Knee Injury

Some of you may know that Jeremy hurt his knee on July 19th. He spent most of last week in a Doctors office, in bed or on the couch. Well, we finally know what is wrong with it. He has a tibea plateau fracture and he also fractured his cartilege on his left knee. No ACL or MCL damage though. He has a stiff brace and will be on crutches for 2weeks, then down to one for next 2 weeks, and then careful walking. Surgery is still a possibility if his cartilege doesn't heal right in the next 6 weeks. He is pretty bummed about the injury because he was planning to run his first marathon (26.2 miles) in the fall, but now he is being advised not to even consider training for a marathon until next spring at the earliest. He also can't drive for 2 reasons, his car is a stick and he hurt his left knee, and he has to remove his brace to drive mine, because the parking brake is in the way, and he would have to bend his knee. So I have become his personal driver, which probably drives him crazy, ha! His boss has been allowing him to work from home since his desk doesn't accomidate his affliction very well. He is hanging in there but he has to take it easy. I wish he would have done that to begin with instead of mowing the lawn immediately after he hurt it. We are very lucky though, it could have been so much worse!

Potty Training Experiment

Ok, I've decided it is time to potty train Tanner and I have been dreading it since the day he was born but I hate changing diapers more. I decided that I am done buying diapers and when I run out, I had to start potty training. Well, I am down to the last 15, and I am determined not to buy anymore diapers. I don't want potty training to last as long as it did with Micheal and Clayton so I have been on a mission to find a new technique. A friend of mine suggested the "3 Day Potty Training" ebook by Lora Jensen. She potty trained her newly adopted 3 year old twins using this method and she highly suggested it. As soon as she said "3 day potty training" I was on board and wanted more information. After checking out her website (http://www.3daypottytraining.com/) I bought Lora Jensen's "3 day potty training guide" ebook (ebook is the only way to get it) for $24. I read thru the download and I am actually excited to get started because I might be finished in
3 days. I can handle potty training if it takes only 3 days! I plan to start potty training Tanner on Monday, July 21st! I bought everything I need and have been rereading her book so I can follow it to a T. I figured that there are so many of us preparing to potty train, or in the midst of it, and that it might be benefitial for me to try it and let you know how it went. So that if it works, I might save not only myself a headache but be able to help some of you too. So I will update you with my experiment by the end of the week. I hope to be able to tell you that it worked and the ebook is worth the money, but if it isn't, I'll tell you that too! Wish me luck!:)

Summer so far!

Sorry we haven't updated the blog lately, we have been a little busy. Since the last post Leah got her wisdom teeth pulled, Clayton lost both of his front teeth, Micheal got glasses, our huge ward was split and Leah is the new rs secretary, Jeremy has been busy with Scouts in both wards, Tanner hurt his foot and hobbled for 3 weeks, we got a trampoline, Diana came out to visit and we went to the beach, rode bikes, did cubscout stuff with Micheal, played tennis and had tons of fun. Jeremy and I also celebrated our 10th anniversary on June 26th! That has been the summer in a nutshell. Enjoy the fun pictures of the beach!

Tanners Piston Cup

Below is 4min of video that we condensed into less than 2min of Tanner running around the table for his "self proclaimed-piston cup." He does this on a regular basis and we just happened to catch some of it on video. He must have done at least 30 laps before we started recording. Notice that the Micheal and Clayton are shooting zipcars across the floor while he is running so he is dodging them and their cars while he navigates his way around the table. Just a glimpse of the fun we have with our boys around. Enjoy!

Tanner Goes Around

Disney World Fun

This is video of Tanner driving a go-cart at Disney World. You'll notice that it takes him a little while before he finally realized that he is driving. I love his expression!

Disney World

During Spring Break, the week of April 7th-11th, we went down to Disney World. This was our first family vacation of our own, one that we planned for years but haven't had the chance to do until now. We had a ton of fun! The weather was perfect the first 2 days and the last 3 were a little warmer, but not bad. We came back with lots of fun memories, and a bit of a tan. It was so much fun to watch the boys just be kids, and light up when they saw a favorite character. There was so much to see and do that the boys were captivated by the sights and sounds of Disney, then when we got back to the hotel they slept like rocks. We are still catching up on rest, but it was a trip that will be forever remembered for our family.

Welcome

We've joined the crowd and created our own blog. Hopefully this will be a place where we can provide updates and pics so that family and friends can stay up to date on our Fowler 5 adventures.

Enjoy!