Lucky

Today I feel very lucky to be alive, healthy and pregnant. I complain a lot these days about my job and being away from my sweet little boy, but today sitting at work (yes blogging at work, I have a million other things I should be doing, but this was most important right now) I realized that I should never forget how fortunate I am to be sitting at work with a sound mind and healthy body! This realization was mostly brought on by some sad news I heard yesterday read more about today.

http://www.vanderlindenclan.blogspot.com/

That is the blog of a teacher that I worked with last year that suffered a major heart failure, probably one not unlike the one I suffered when I was 17 years old in Disneyland. Sadly Pete was not as fortunate as I was to be moments from paramedics carrying a defibrillator. He is still alive and fighting, but they are concerned that he will never be the same. This same concern was shared with my parents at a hospital in California almost 9 years ago. The doctors figured that with the lack of oxygen to my brain for such a long time I might never wake from my coma and if I did I would likely have significant brain damage.

I can never forget how blessed I have been. I am living the life that many thought would never be possible. It is amazing that I am able to live such a happy, healthy and normal life. I'm so fortunate to be strong and healthy enough to have delivered one beautiful baby boy and have another healthy one on the way. I have truly been so blessed by my Heavenly Father.

Please keep Pete's family in your thoughts and prayers. I know I will be praying that he will be as fortunate as I have been and be able to continue his happy life with his beautiful family.

Gummy Bear Profile

We never got a good profile shot of Jack in any ultrasounds so at 14 weeks we were thrilled that we got a shot this good.



By the way, we are completely stumped on names, so this little guy might get called gummy bear until we meet him in May. Sorry it's blurry and reversed. I was in a hurry and just took a shot using photo booth on my mac.

oh BOY

The other day a dear friend of mine said she is very tired of going to my blog and seeing JANUARY. Yes I know it's been a while, and the lack of posting is certainly not due to lack of events. Our life is ever eventful! We love it (and sometimes wish it were just a tad bit less eventful) and are spending so much time enjoying it that I never have a moment to post anything.

I apologize for the lack of pictures in this post, maybe I'll post some soon...hahahahahahah...yeah we all know that's pretty unlikely. I will also not try to write updates for the last 11 months; there is far to much. Right now life is busy with school, work, callings.... and BOYS! I think it's pretty likely that Tyler and I will run out of names for baby boys before we run out of baby boys :) We are expecting another in May. When we went in for the ultrasound today we really didn't expect to find out the gender, and at first baby was making it pretty difficult, but in the end the radiologist was able to coax him into an opportune position and it became rather clear. YAY! We are thrilled to have another boy. Someday we hope for a girl, but I am happy to be carrying another little Momma's boy, even if they can be quite a handful!

Winter fun

Life at the Bolton home is still busy as ever. Oh, there's a piece of news not on the blog yet. For those of you that hadn't heard yet, Tyler and I bought our first house YAY. We found it in October and closed exactly one month later. We were in our house for Thanksgiving, and painted the rooms on the main level over Christmas break (not as relaxing a vacation as I would have hoped, but it's nice to be in home that looks like it is ours). This explains why I didn't post anything over the break when I should have had oodles of time on my hands. 

Jack is an adorable little toddler. His new thing is putting shirts, hats, blankets etc. over his head and walking around and banging into things, then bursting into laughter. He also likes anything that begins with the letter 'B' (book, bear, ball, bottle) he just says bu-bu and points at what it is that he wants. He likes to bring us books and wait for us to pull him onto our laps and read one or two pages and then he's off. He loves the new house with all the stairs and open space. 

Hayden is doing great in first grade and learning lots of Spanish words, the other night in the car we carried on a very short, very simple conversation in Spanish where I mostly asked him how to say different words in Spanish. He knew lots of them. He and dad build an awesome snow fort in the front yard that provided hours of entertainment. We tried to get Jack involved, but I think he felt a little overwhelmed with all the extra apparel. He sure looked cute, and stayed plenty warm (thanks Grandma and Grandpa Bolton and JC and Shalee for the snow clothes!)

The boys playing in the snow.

Jack was a little frustrated by his lack of mobility, 

but he looked SO cute!

This picture is Hayden in the fort (and a neighbor kid)

It's dark because it was taken with Tyler's phone, sorry.

Tyler and I are keeping very busy with school. I can't believe I have finished half a school year. It will be nothing short of a miracle when I survive this first year of teaching. I'm still far from feeling like I am doing a good job, but I'm trying hard, and every once and a while I have a day that I feel like my students really learned something (seems scary, but ask other first year middle school teachers and they probably feel pretty much the same way). One thing I am grateful for every day is that I'm a teacher of middle schoolers, not a middle schooler myself (would anyone repeat those years of their life?). The highlight of my day is often overhearing silly 9th grade drama.

Well I can be proud of myself, I finally posted something. It's time to go to bed so I am ready for another day!