Wow, an update!

Just a quick update for everyone.

Christmas was great. The kids enjoyed their presents. (Or so they say.) This was a Wii year for us. The kids received a Wii from Mike and me, while Santa brought them each a remote. Santa brought Guitar Hero (which, by the way, is extremely addicting) for Elizabeth, and Mario Cart for Alesea and James along with Wii play games. I never knew the technology behind the Wii was so cool. We have been hooking up to the internet and playing with people from all over the world. (So, any of you with a Wii that would like to play against the Bonds, let us know and we can exchange the Wii numbers. I'm serious. And we thought just the kids would be thrilled about the Wii. Nobody knew I love video games too, right?) Anyway, the kids also received clothes, toys and books, but I think the Wii was the most popular gift.

Evan is 7 months old now. Two weeks ago he had his two bottom teeth break through. He is rolling all over the place and starting to do pretty well sitting up. H is still a little wobbly, but getting there. No crawling yet, but he loves playing with his feet. He is growing way too fast.

James is so loving and caring, yet can still be pretty ornery. He started primary in January. The first several Sundays were a real struggle. (He does not like change unless it is him making up his mind.) He would refuse to sit down with his class and would stand in the back or the side of the room. When it was time to go to class he would refuse to go. Then it was a fight to get him to go and when we finally would get him to go, it was a struggle to get him to stay in the door and behave. Now he his doing really well and loves class. He loves to sing and listen to the lessons.

Alesea will be 7 in 2 weeks! I can't believe it! She is doing really well in school. We learned at her paretn teacher conference she is at a 3rd grade reading and comprehension level, being in first grade. She loves to read and has been invading Elizabeth's chapter books. She is a little comedian and inventor. She is continually making us all laugh. We are currently painting the room that she will be moving into for her birthday. She chose the colors of Pink and Dark purple, and has high hopes for Hannah Montana bedding and accessories. Pictures coming soon.

Elizabeth is surviving the world of Middle school and all of its drama. She has awesome grades and enrolled in Honors classes and seminary for her ninth grade year in the fall. She continues to be a HUGE help at home. I really wouldn't have any hair if it weren't for her help. She turned 14 in December. She has started earning her own money by babysitting.

Mike started his MBA in January and only has approx. 65 more weeks to go. Yeah! He continues to work hard at his job and be a great support at home as well. Mike has also been a HUGE help with the kids. I think he has more patience with them than I do.

I am still working at Maceys 2 nights a week and doing occasional portraits.

We are all doing well and keeping busy. We hope everything is going well for all of you. Love to you all!

Happy Holidays!

3 months in a "nutshell"...

Ok, I have been terrible at updating. I had plans to a couple of times, but then other things came up. So here I am doing a quick update at just about midnight, while kids are sleeping.

We are doing great. We are healthy for the most part, other than we all went through a short bout of a stomach bug of some sort during this last week. We are anticipating Christmas, just like everybody else. We had a great Thanksgiving with our families over to our house. My mom and step-dad were here along with Mike's mom, one of his sisters, and 2 brothers and their families. We had a great time. Lots of food and visiting. The rest will be in pictures, as long as all goes well.

Here goes....

Fun in the fall, and James being cool... He is growing too fast and will be in Primary after the new year. He can't wait to go to school like his sisters. He has been an awesome big brother, sometimes a little too loving, though.

Halloween 2008 was great... By the way, the largest pumpkin in the picture was one of the three pumpkins we grew in our garden this year. It was cool to be able to plant them and watch them grow, then actually carve them for Halloween!

An awesome visit at the airport with my brother David and my mom on her birthday...

Evan's first smile on camera, first cereal, first pic with Santa, and just being cute sleeping. Also, Evan was blessed in November, but I am a horrible mother and did not get a picture of him in his blessing suit yet. He has grown so much and is now rolling over and "talking" etc.

For those of you who don't know, Alesea is extremely creative, and funny. She comes up with things that are just the funniest things I have ever seen and heard. One of these days I am going to do a spotlight on her and tell of some of the things she says and does. Here is a picture of one of those things. She made these whiskers and tail out of sticker scraps the other night. She also had her 1st grade Christmas program, and then her picture with Santa at our neighbors house.

Elizabeth just turned 14 and now gets to wear MAKEUP! (Picture coming soon!) She is a 4.0 student, and is just starting the Jr. Jazz basketball season. Here is just a pic from her b-day party and just a pic I took in the fall.

I was recently called as a Laurel Advisor in church, and Mike as the Elders Quorum 2nd Counselor. I am also back at Macey's Grocery Store for a couple of nights a week, as well as back in to doing portraits for a few people here and there. Exciting news! I am moving my studio in to the basement of our house, which will give me more room than the spare bedroom I have been in. Alesea will be moving in to the bedroom, and Evan into the bedroom to share with James. We all gave up our theater room in the basement for me to be able to do this, so thanks to my family for this sacrifice! (We enjoy our family movie nights, so this was hard to do. We will just be having movie nights in our not so exciting and cool living room.)

We hope everybody is doing great and that your holidays are safe and wonderful. Please remember the reason for the season! Love to all!

NOT 4 weeks and counting... Surprise!

Well, as all of you know, the baby came 4 weeks early. Evan William Bond decided that he needed to make a statement of some kind. Not only did he arrive 4 weeks early at 6 pounds and 3 ounces, but he decided he needed to confirm the name we had chosen for him. We were visiting some friends of ours in Evanston, WY. We were there just for a one night trip to have a BBQ and see the new houses of a couple of our friends up there. We decided we better go up there while we still had time before I had the baby. For those of you that don't know, we had picked out the name Evan William Bond since we found out the baby was a boy. So we have had this name picked out since about April. One of the reasons we picked the name is because Mike's mom's maiden name is Evans. We liked the name Evan as well and decided it worked because it was a family name. Well, when we were in Evanston, we spent the night at one of our friends house. We stayed up till about 2:30 in the morning talking to our friends because it had been a long time since we had seen them. We went to bed and about 4:00 in the morning I woke up with some cramping. I went back to sleep for about 20 minutes and woke up with more cramping. I tried to walk off the cramping and tried going to sleep again, the whole time wondering if there was any chance I could be in labor. For those of you who don't know, I don't feel contractions until it is time to push and deliver the baby. So I wasn't exactly sure if this was labor or not. Being 4 weeks early, I thought there was no way I could be in labor. The cramps did not go away and only got worse, so I finally decided to wake Mike up. I woke him up about 4:50 and had to convince him we needed to go to the hospital. He kept asking if I was joking, or pulling his leg. We were trying to decide if we could make the drive down to Ogden or not because neither of us wanted to have the baby in Evanston. And besides, I still wasn't even sure if I really was in labor. We decided we better stop at the hospital in Evanston to get checked out just in case, and it is a good thing we did. We got to the hospital at 5:20 a.m. and discovered I was completely dilated and my water was leaking. I had to wait for the on call doctor to get to the hospital before I could start pushing. That was about 15 more minutes. Well, Evan was born August 3 at 5:49 a.m., delivered in Evanston, WY by Dr. Evans. I guess Evan needed to confirm the name we had chosen. He was on oxygen for several hours after just to make sure he was ok. We spent the night in the hospital and went home the next day. We were a little un prepared so we had to borrow a car seat from Mike's mom's neighbor. It was quite the surprise. I had no indication that I would go in to labor that weekend. Evan did have jaundice and had to have the lights on him for almost a full week. We spent everyday taking him in to the hospital to have his bilirubin count tested. He had his little feet pricked so many times. He is doing well now and is up to just about 7 1/2 lbs. He is already growing to fast. Despite being a preemie, he was quite strong and trying to lift his head the first day.

Alesea and Elizabeth started school on August 25 and they both seem to enjoy it so far.

James is hanging out at home with mom and Evan. He is doing well with the baby so far. Just a little "Father Hen"

Mike was able to take a week off of work to stay home and help me with the kids after Evan was born. He was also able to get our roof re-shingled. It looks great and takes a weight off our shoulders. He has also started re-building our fence on the side of our house. 3 months after we moved in to this house someone crashed their car through our fence and ripped half of it down. We are just now getting it fixed.

I am doing well. I am getting fairly decent sleep. Just enough that I don't feel myself going crazy. But still not enough that I don't fall asleep while feeding Evan.

Things have been crazy busy, but we are all hanging in there. Hope all of you are doing well! All our love to you and take care!

4 weeks, but who's counting???

Ok, I better get an update out before the baby comes, because then it will never be done.

Well, I have 4 weeks officially left to go. I think this has been the longest feeling pregnancy I have gone through. I guess it doesn't help that I have been counting down since the day I found out. I am healthy, and the baby's heart beat and growth has been healthy thus far. We expect a normal delivery. I will be released from my nursery calling pretty soon, which will be kind of a relief. I am having a hard time running around chasing kids right now.

Mike has been working hard on our shed. He just needs to finish the door and it will be ready to go. Mike's big project for two weekends from now will be re-shingling the roof on our house. This will not be a fun task. We have a very tall house.

Elizabeth went to one girl's camp and enjoyed it. She is now headed off to the official YW's camp next week. She made a great assistant for Mike and helped him build the shed. She actually cut wood with a chop saw, helped frame and shingle the shed. She has been a tremendous help with her brother and sister and helping around the house. She is counting down the days for school to start again. She will be in the 8th grade.

Alesea has also been a great help keeping James entertained at times. She is excited for school to start. She will be in the first grade. She has been reading a lot and playing school. We have been to Lagoon a few times this year and discovered she is just a hair too short for most of the big rides which has been kind of disappointing for her. Better luck next year.

James turned 3 on June 28th. I can't beleive how fast time flies. We celebrated with a BBQ and cake and ice cream and enjoyed the company of family and friends that were close by. James has been doing pretty good at potty training. There was a week where he was having accidents at night, but we have that under control as of right now. It has been just about two months since we have had to change a diaper and it has been great. We discovered that James is allergic to cats, just like I was when I was his age. I have a picture to post. The sad thing is that the picture was after he had benedryll in his system for a while and the redness and puffiness had started to go down. One of his eyes swelled almost completely shut and had red and white hives surrounding his entire eye and down part of his cheek and up on to his forehead. Poor guy! We need to keep an eye on him for other allergies now. For those of you who don't know, I am allergic to farm animals, and deathly allergic to horses. The girls have shown no signs of allergies. Oh, we also discovered that James likes his chocolate milk "shaken, not stirred." I was fixing his chocolate milk one day in a sippy cup and he said "I don't want you to stir it, mommy. I want you to shake it." Sound familiar??

We hope everybody is doing great and that summer is going well. We are waiting for our tomatoes to ripen in our garden. We have had a couple of cucumbers already. Mike is waiting for signs of his giant pumpkins that we planted. I don't know what will happen there. We are also just waiting for the baby to come. Hopefully he will be here and will be the subject of our next update. Take care and love to all.

A miracle, and some great family time...

Ok. It is about time I get another update out. I never did get pictures posted last time, and I have some I want to post this time, but lets see if I ever get around to it. We have had a lot going on the last couple of months, I just hope I remember it all.

I am going to start with James this time. He will be three in 2 weeks. We have seen the most changes from him. His tantrums are getting farther and fewer in between, but they are still BIG when he has them. He is learning his ABC's and can now recognize a majority of his letters. He has been doing really well with his colors for quite some time now. He is also doing really well at counting to 11 correctly. He still is a car/truck/anything with wheels fanatic. The big miracle, however, is over a week and a half ago he woke up and after his bath he told me he didn't want his diaper anymore. He wanted his underwear. At first I thought Oh great, how am I going to convince him to use the toilet, because up to that point, he wouldn't even sit on it. Right after that thought he simply said "I want to pee on the toilet." Well, he did use the toilet immediately and has been using it ever since. He has had a couple of accidents, in the morning he hasn't woken up in time to get to the toilet, but hey, I am ecstatic. It has been almost two weeks since any of us has had to change a diaper. Hallelujah!

Alesea finished kindergarten with excellent grades and reports from her teacher. She took the end of year Kindergarten assessments. She finished the required portion with 100% and was able to finish the 2 extra tests both with a hundred percent as well. They are given 45 minutes to get the required test completed and the extra tests are for those who have extra time to spare. She is excited to move on. She is also excited for the summer. Her last soccer game is tomorrow. She scored her first goal last week. Unfortunately I missed it because I was taking James to the bathroom. Her summer is going to be filled with sleepovers in Elizabeth's room, which is her favorite thing to do. Before her school year ended she started reading the book Matilda. She has finished it halfway with great comprehension. She has been a great help with James. She finds ways to help keep him entertained. She plays school with him among other various activities.

Elizabeth finished soccer last week. Her team had a great season. They won eight and lost 2 games. She finished up school with fantastic grades as well. She will miss a lot of her friends, because she will not be able to see many of them over the summer. I think she will survive. Elizabeth was just called as the Beehive President in our ward. She is excited about that. She will be attending Oakcrest camp in July this year, which is a camp that has about 300 girls each week. It is through our Stake, but it is not only for LDS young women. Any religious group can enroll their groups. It is only for girls, however. She will then attend YW camp in August. Wow, two weeks away from the family this summer. I don't know what I will do without her. She helps me keep the kids entertained during the summer. She is a huge help and both James and Alesea adore her. They look up to her and want to be with her all of the time.

Mike just recently made a job change within the same company. He applied for a position last summer and then the opening was put on hold for all applicants until further notice. Mike received a letter from his boss last week offering him the position if he still was interested. He took the offer. His official title is now Business Warehouse Administrator. We were happy about that. Mike is starting a big project this weekend. He is building a shed for us in the backyard. We were blessed and received all the wood to build it for free, so our out of pocket expense will be greatly reduced.

I have made a change at work as well. I am no longer in the Deli. YIPEE! I have moved up front as a cashier, and I like it much better. I don't go home smelling like grease, fried chicken and meat. I like the job a lot better as well. I don't have to do dishes and clean out fryers, and sweep and mop and prepare food. I get enough of that kind of work at home. My hours have been cut back, but I don't mind that very much either. I work 2 - 3 days a week rather than 4, and that time home, to me, makes a huge difference. The baby is doing really well. He is moving a lot, at all times of the day and night. Heart burn is kicking in. The end of August is still a very long ways away. Especially now that the weather is starting to warm up. The unusually cool weather has been nice in many ways- green grass, growing gardens, cool air. But sometimes it is still too cool.

We have plans for Lagoon this year, and hopefully some 4 - wheeler riding, but not too much beyond that. We went up to my mom's house for Mother's day and enjoyed a great meal with some great visiting. David and Patty returned from the Middle East and Italy and were out in Utah for Mother's Day. They were supposed to be here for just a week, but it was extended to 2 weeks. They are now in South Korea for 2 years. It was great visiting with them while they were here. Mother's Day was great to visit with everybody. I will hopefully post some pictures of that visit. If I ever get around to it. The truck is fixed too. You would never know about the little ding that I put there. Mike is, however, looking for a minivan for me now. One that he says I can do whatever I want to do to it. I have been taking pictures still, here and there. Sporadic business, but I still love it. I have a few sittings lined up for this summer as well. I have many pictures I need to post there as well. One of these days I will get to it.

Ok, I have rambled enough. Hopefully you are not all bored to tears. Hope all is well with all of you and your families. Take care and keep in touch!

IT'S A.......... A........... A............

BBBBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!


We are excited to announce that we are having another boy. We are glad that Mike and James will no longer be out numbered. Things are looking great so far according to the ultrasound.

We are all doing well here. We don't really have any other exciting news for an update.

The girls have started soccer. Alesea has her first game this Saturday, and Elizabeth will be having her third game.

Love and thoughts to all, and enjoy life!