February Re-cap

On February 6th Robert turned 26! The old man! He shared his birthday with the super bowl and we had a fun party. He decided that he wanted to go up to Leamington since we don't get up there very much in our crazy life. He took the weekend off of listening to every Dixie State sporting event and we actually got to go on a date! Grandma and Grandpa Lovell took Dax on Saturday and we went to Provo for the day and had a fun time. Then on Sunday we had a super bowl/birthday party with all sorts of yummy and completely bad for you food and some healthy gambling! :)

What a wonderful guy I married! I am so lucky that I belong to him and tricked him into being stuck with me for eternity before he figured it out and could get out of it! I am so thankful for the wonderful husband and dad he is and for the fun and happiness he brings to our lives. You are one of my best blessings babe! I hope you know how much I love you and how glad I am that we are a family! You are the best!

That was basically the highlight of February though...the rest of the month was just work, school, basketball, baseball, more basketball and sports center of course! :) It is a good thing I kind of enjoy it I guess. Me and Dax actually started going to most of the Dixie State basketball games and it has been pretty fun. I realized fast that I miss the gym and the smell of basketballs and sweaty people or whatever it is that gyms smell like! Dax has had fun though and has started to take an interest in basketball and has been trying to dribble on the kitchen floor. It is pretty cute.

Valentines Day was pretty lame really...in fact I am still waiting for my Valentines date! I had to work the night before, valentines night, and the night after and so the extent of our festivities were Robert waking me up before I had to go back to work on Valentines with this romantic heart shaped pizza from Papa Murphy's, a card from both of my boys and a rose from "Dax." Poor Robert got nothing but a lame card. We decided to count the rest of our valentines presents on the trip that we are taking soon that hopefully we will still be on the ball enough to post about after it is over. Yea for the holiday of love! Maybe next year... :)

The rest of February was our normal boring selves doing our regular boring and busy lives. We are all well and happy though and we can't complain. We are ever so blessed and wonder everyday why we are given so much. We hope that the rest of you had a great February. I can't believe that it is March already!

Daxton's Surgery

So I am still back tracking a little to get caught up, but since this is about the only record I am keeping I decided that I needed to get it in here somewhere!On January 5 Dax had to have surgery to get an inguinal hernia repaired and a hydrocele removed. Don't worry if you don't know what those things are, it is enough to just say that they are some sore things in especially tender areas! :)Being the good mom that I am, I had every intention of taking the camera and capturing just the right moments, but of course I left the camera at home and didn't even think of pictures most of the time we were at the hospital. We have a few pre-op ones in his cute little hospital gown but that is about all she wrote!

The good news is that everything went great. He had a hard time right after surgery while the medication was wearing off-he was actually mean and nasty a little bit, but what can you expect-some stranger cut into his goods! The thing that he hated the most was his IV. He tried his best to rip that thing out as he was coming back around and kept looking at me and Robert like what did you let them do to me! If you asked him about his ouchie after surgery he wouldn't point to his little groin, he would point to his hand where his IV poke sites were and tell you a sad story of that blasted IV! It was in a sad way very cute. Our other sad moment was that about 8-9 hours after the surgery, Dax woke up from dosing off and on all morning/afternoon screaming and just rolling around in severe pain. As I investigated a little further, we discovered that the the numbing had worked a little too well and the poor little guy couldn't pee. It was really sad. After a little bit of trying to get him to pee we were to the point of getting ready to go to instacare to have them straight cath the poor kid to get him out of his misery. I had his diaper off for one more hopeful look for yellow, when it all came loose! It covered him and me and the couch and ended with him heaving a sigh of relief! I am a little warped and I know it but it was funny and we sat there and laughed for a bit!

The evening after the surgery Robert had to go to work and do a ball game at the radio station and so Dax and I were hanging out at home. Robert took the car with the car seat because we were certain that we wouldn't be going anywhere. Dax fell asleep late in the afternoon and woke up at about 8:30 that night-never a good thing! I decided to put him in his pj''s and went searching for a onesie pair that didn't have a waist band and found in the hand-me-down bag a pair of slightly too large Toy Story jammies that we put on. You must know that we don't, well didn't, own any Toy Story movie or character and to my knowledge Dax had never seen it, but when he saw the pajamas he said "Buzz? Woody? Watch Buzz?" I thought it was a little weird but was certain that he could be distracted and would soon forget but no...He continued to ask to "watch Buzz" for a solid hour and would not give it up. So at 9:30 p.m. I started calling every neighbor to see if they had any Toy Story movies. I finally got a hold of my uncle who lives a few blocks away and we broke the law and drove over to his house without a car seat to get the movie. Apparently he learned about Toy Story at Christmas from cousin Easton-I had no idea he was paying so much attention. It scares me just a little! Toy Story is the new favorite at our house and we have watched it almost daily since and went out and purchased it the next day as his surgery prize for being so brave. Kind of funny our little Dax boy is, but we love him and are so glad that he is doing well!

The Jazz Bear

A couple of weeks ago at one of Dixie's basketball games they introduced their new mascot by having the Jazz Bear come to St. George and entertain the crowd alongside Big Dee.  I was able to "pull some strings" to get Kari, Dax, Kellie and Maddie access to the floor and we were able to go back by the bear's dressing room and get pictures with him.  Dax was mesmerized by him from afar, but once I told him we were going to go see the bear, he was terrified.  He wouldn't get close to him unless I was holding him, but did eventually give him "five."  Maddie on the other hand did really good with the bear and let him hug her and rub her head.  It was a pretty fun night for those four, not so much for me because Dixie lost and I had to write about it.

Now for the holidays...

So I searched for pictures from Thanksgiving only to realize that we didn't take any so in a nut shell...we ate lots of food, saw a bunch of family, watched some football, ate some more food, did some black Friday shopping, ate some more...the end!

Then all of the sudden it was Christmas, then it was past Christmas and I have no idea where the time went! We had lots of fun parties with family and friends and a busy wonderful December. One of these parties was the Tait/Bergstrom family party. It was lots of fun with food and baby Jesus and Santa even came! We weren't sure how Dax would be with Santa because if we are honest, Dax is one of the biggest chicken hearts I have ever seen! He is very afraid of a lot of things and a very cautious little boy. After watching Maddie and Lydia both not be big fans of Santa this year, I was even more sure that Dax would completely freak out. But instead he went right up and said "anta come?, anta come?" He sat right on his lap and was excited for his little football that he was given and really didn't want to leave him. 

Christmas eve night I was scheduled to work at the hospital. It was kind of a bummer, but Robert and Dax were going to go up with my family and have Christmas Eve with them and I planned to just come up on Christmas morning when I got off work. I was dressed in my scrubs and ready to go when I got this marvelous call from work that told me that one very nice girl that I work with said that she would work so that I could be on call and have Christmas Eve with my family. Thanks Oakley! It made my whole Christmas that is for sure. Anyway, so I got to go up to Enterprise and surprise my family. We all went to my Aunt Jen's and ate yummy food, sang songs and had a little program, and act out the nativity. It was a fun little party and I was just happy I got to be there!

Dax was an angel with Aunt Melinda :)

The Three Wise Guys

The angel bringing good tidings to the shephards

A tired angel

Then there was Joseph, Mary, the trusty donkey and a cow :)

The whole crew

Christmas morning was a lot of fun. Dax and Maddie were funny and Santa definitely found all of us and dumped his sleigh! Dax and Maddie couldn't decide if their new toys were the coolest or if the others toys were better. Luckily they shared pretty good and had fun with everything. Maddie loved the chocolate first thing in the morning and made us giggle as she went through everyones stockings. 

Waiting to go down stairs to see if Santa came

Playing with Uncle Dallin while waiting to go donwstairs

Dax was excited to see Lightning, Mack and Mater under the tree!

Aunt Melinda in her cool new chair

Maddie got a fun trampoline from Santa that Dax loved!
Please bless he learns how to jump right on it!

After all of our presents were opened and we had eaten breakfast, we loaded in the car to head to Leamington to see Grandma and Grandpa Lovell for more presents and fun. Unfortunately we have not one picture to show for our fun weekend with them. If anyone has some that they want to share then please send them our way! We did have a very fun weekend. We ate and played games, basketball and volleyball and enjoyed so much seeing everyone.

For New Years we went to Enterprise and had a party--well at least as much of a party as the Clove family knows how to have! We even made it to midnight! It was pretty miraculous! We had a good time and laughed a lot which is always good...I shall always remember singing beneath a full moon!! :) On New Years Day we went sledding. It was pretty fun. Dax liked it until he got so cold he couldn't move or feel anything and was so tired he couldn't keep his eyes open. Robert forgets he is getting old and was trying to do tricks on little saucers and entertained us all as he fell over and over! We captured some of them on video if I am smart enough to get it on here for you all to enjoy I will...(I ended up putting them on-Robert)

The whole holiday was great and we were so glad that we got to spend time with our families and think about and focus on the Savior. We are so blessed to have so many things, most importantly our families and the gospel. There were so many sad things that seemed to happen around the holidays this year that it really made me stop and realize how blessed we really are to know that Jesus really was born and came to earth for all of us. He made it possible for all of us to be happy here and make it through all of the hard things and live forever with our families someday. How grateful I am for the atonement and my knowledge of the plan of Salvation. I am so grateful for the Savior and his love for me and my little family. I am blessed so much to be able to feel his spirit and get his help though my little hard spots in life. I have been thinking so much about the people, some that I don't even know very well, who are going through such hard things and hope and pray that they are feeling the Saviors love and spirit as they go through the hard days that will most certainly come. I hope that I will be able to keep the Savior in my focus as we go through this year and be more grateful for all of my blessings big and small and take advantage of every day I am given.