Mason

The Lord knew what he was doing when he waited to send us Mason till now because I would just be crazy if I had my easiest child first rather than third.
Mason just turned 9 months old yesterday and is just the best baby ever. When he gets tired in church he just snuggles up and goes to sleep on my lap. He only cries when he is in pain, hungry or too tired. He is happy, loves to laugh at his brother and sister while they are running around making fools of themselves. You can just see it in his eyes that he will be running right along with them as soon as he can figure out how.
He is sleeping almost through the night, from 9pm till 3am and then till 7:30am. So not too bad. He is army crawling all other the place, to the point that we had to break out the baby gate the other day.
Here is a picture of where I found him the other day...
I had to take him to the doctor yesterday because he was crying a lot and wasn't very happy at all, which is not like him. So when the doctor told me he had an bad infection in both ears it made sense. He now has some good meds and some ear drops and he is back to being his happy self.
I love my little Mason and am so glad that he picked me to be his Mom.

Happy Birthday Holly!

Yesterday was my little girls 3rd Birthday. Time is flying by too fast ! It seems like yesterday she came into the world. Now she is getting so big. She has so much of her Dad in her but unfortunately has just enough of me in her that she will get into a lot of trouble. Ryan is driving Holly crazy though because he keeps telling her that he gets all the presents. She gets so upset she just cries, and cries. Why are Dads the ones who know just how to push your buttons?

Holly woke up and got to "open" her big presents. They were too big for us to wrap so we just put come blankets over them. She got the much wanted basket ball hoop, and a deck table and 2 chairs "just her size". We asked her for weeks what she wanted for her birthday and all she said was a basketball hoop. I tried to suggest a table for her room, or maybe a princess dress up table but no, she wanted a basketball hoop. She get that from her Dad's side of the family! I hate basketball, but Holly has LOVED any and all balls games. She has about 10 balls now and she always wants more. How many balls do you need??

Anyway, I made her favorite dinner, spaghetti and we made a cake to have after dinner. She loved it. We are going to have a big family party this coming Sunday with the BIG cake and the balloon, etc.

Well we had a great day and Holly is enjoying her Birthday Week.

We Love our little bug and wouldn't know how to live without you!

Ethan's Graduation

Well our little Ethan graduated from Talon Totes Preschool last Thursday, May 15th. We are still battling this yucky sick so I haven't felt well enough to get around to blogging it until now. Sorry!

Anyway it was held in the Clearfield High School Auditorium and it was a nice program. Each child had a "student" teacher to escort them on stage one at a time where they introduced each child. Ethan's went like this..

"Hi my name is Cristal and I would like to introduce Ethan. He is the son of Ryan and Barb Granquist. He lives in Clinton, Utah. His favorite colors are blue and yellow and loves to eat M&M's. He likes to vacation in Disneyland and likes to eat at McDonald's and play with the toys. He is very good at racing and his favorite story is "It's Hard to Be 5". Ethan works hard in school and you'll be successful. We can see in your future high school that you will be the captain of the baseball team. We will miss you and are so glad that you came to our school."
Then he got a sand bucket with shovel, full of goodies as well as his diploma, and a very nice letter from his teacher "Miss Pam".

My pictures are not the best. They were either too dark or blurry. At least I got the one good picture of him outside holding his bucket.

We had a great time and now Ethan is VERY excited to go to Kindergarten this fall.

What!?!

For the past few days I have felt like Ryan's Aunt Kathy. For those who don't know who she is, she is Ryan's Dad's Sister and is a very sweet elderly lady who doesn't like to ware her hearing aid. She also doesn't like to be left out of any conversation going on around her which leads her to say "What!?, What!?!".
Well due to this yucky cold I have developed Labyrinthitis (viral infection of the inner ear). I am dizzy all the time and only have about 25% of my hearing, which leaves me saying "What!?!" a lot. I am so very thankful for my ears!!! I feel the sudden urge to go read the Sunbeam lesson "I am thankful for my ears".
I have found that it was a good thing my kids have learned some sign language because I have asked them to sign what they want more than once and have found that we all need to brush up on our ASL (American Sign Language).
Well I am told it should clear up on it's own after a few days to weeks. Seeing how it has now been almost 7 days I think it will be the "weeks". My kids find it funny that I can't hear and they are trying to get into more things. What they don't realize is that they are so noisy all the time that if I can't hear them at all I go looking to see what they are into.
The good thing about all this is that I can't hear Mason as well in the middle of the night so he is learning to sleep through the night better. If that happens this will all be a blessing in disguise.

New Blog

Hey There, check out my new blog:

http://ryan-thisgoestoeleven.blogspot.com/

Sick of Sick

Okay this is ridiculous!! I have been sick, I mean really sick for a whole week! Is it just me or is all the crap that keeps going around getting harder and harder to get over. Maybe I'm just getting old. Ethan is now over his sick but still has a cough, which took him 2 weeks to get to. So I guess that means that I will feel better in 3 weeks. Which sucks because the weather is just getting good and all you want to do it be outside. Holly is going crazy being inside all the time while Ethan gets to go outside to play but I don't want to get all the neighborhood mom's mad at me by getting their kids sick.
It seems like we have been given a lot lately. We were and are so blessed to be in this new home but just as we were getting ready to move we all go sick with this same type of crap. Then we had to get Mason tested for seizures (which all came back normal, by the way), then I had to have my gallbladder out and now we get the sickies back.
I really would like to have some people over now that we are moved but we just haven't had the chance. I guess it is not all that bad now that I look at it. There are lots of other people in the world that have to go through much worse. I am grateful for all I have and for my kids. It's just hard to be sick with kids because "Moms can't take a sick day". Right!?
Anyway thanks for letting me vent....

Just Kill Me Now!!

OH MY Gosh!! I feel like someone hit me with a truck. Ethan came home from Preschool last week complaining that his "neck" hurt. He then has run a fever and had a runny nose since then. Ethan is now feeling much better! One thing you have to know about Ethan is that he has the BEST immune system. What would kill a normal kid barely phases him, but then he just bring the bug into the house and it kills the rest of us.
Holly started complaining a few days after Ethan and she has gotten the worst of it. She has not felt good at all and then both of their eyes started gooping. Ethan's wasn't too bad, he just looked like he had a cold in his eyes and it only lasted two days.
Holly on the other hand has had her eyes gooping really bad, with redness so of course I thought pink eye. I looked it up on web MD and sure enough pink eye. The poor little girl woke up this morning with her eyes crushed shut! It really freaked her out to not be able to open her eyes. I got some drops to help her through it because there is not much you can do about it other than that.
I feel like my throat is on fire and my head is going to exploded. Ryan thought I was making it worse than it was on Sunday when I didn't want to get up but now today he has it and is feeling pretty bad about doubting me. I guess that is one good thing. I think he will believe me next time.
Mason hasn't gotten it yet and I am praying that he doesn't. It is NOT something I want my 8 month old experiencing. But I guess we take what we are given and try our best to get through it.

No Sh_t?! Should have gone to Law School.

Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence

You are excellent with words and language. You explain yourself well. An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly. You are also good at remembering information and convincing someone of your point of view. A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary. You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

My Kind of Town.......

Frank sang it best. Chicago is definitely my kind of town. I was there last week for 'Business Meetings'-a term satisfactory to the IRS that describes retreats or offsites. The hotel we stayed at was the Hotel Allegro-right downtown in the theater district. On the first night we were told to take the 'L' train to Addison Street. Any baseball fan knows that Addison street in Chicago is the address of one of the more historic ballparks in America-Wrigley Field! I was giidy with excitement. However, rather than going directly to the game, we all convened at a building across the street on Sheffield Aveneue. Wrigley Field is one of the last ballparks built in a 'neighborhood' setting. There are literaly no parking lots around. Just houses, restaurants, and bars. Apparently, the owners of the buildings across the street have contracted with the Cubs to let fans in to sit on the rooftops to watch the games. Not only did we get to do this-but they also fed us. All of the drinks, hamburgers, hot dogs, bratwurst, and other sundries we could stuff into ourselves until the end of the 7th inning. It was a beautiful night, if not a little cold. Some of the ladies in my group stayed around and ate and then headed back to the hotel. After the second inning I wandered out and bought a $50 ticket from some guy for $20. The seat was on the first row of the upper deck, right behind home plate. Absolutely spectacular. I hung out there for a few innings and then wandered back to the rooftop so I could down some more brats. Ummmm.......good.
The next night we were on our own-I spent the evening wandering around Chicago. I settled for dinner at a little place called Gino's East. This joint has been featured on the Amazing Race and some Food Network shows. We ordered a couple of deep dish pizzas and I can clearly iterate that was the BEST pizza I have ever eaten. The crust was the best, the cheese was thick and stretched forever, and the sauce was fresh. Being in a city like this makes me wish that we had unique culinary delights like this. Unfortunately, anything in Utah that might be considered unique is drenched with Ranch Dressing or Fry Sauce. Grrrrr......
Here's to Chicago....my kind of town.