Where to even begin??...

   Hello blogging world! Long time no see! So much has happened in the Crayk household that this will probably be a pretty long post.
   First off, Jaxon turned TWO on July 2nd! We had a cars themed birthday party for him with some of our close friends and my family (the crayk side was out of town sadly) He certainly got spoiled from everyone that came and he loved having all of the kids together to play. The party turned out pretty well considering I was 9 months prego.

   Next, we welcomed BRODY MICHAEL CRAYK into our family on July 23, 2011. Weighing 7 pounds 8 oz and measuring 19.5 inches. He is such a sweet baby and Jaxon loves being a big brother...maybe a little too much sometimes :) THANK GOODNESS my delivery this time went SOO smoothly! I went into labor on my own exactly one week early from my due date. My first contraction came at 4 p.m. on sat. the 23rd and they were instantly only 2-5 minutes apart, but not to painful. After about an hour and a half we loaded up in the car to take Jaxon to my parents house so that we could go to the hospital just to see if I was in "real" labor. When we arrived to my parents house and I got out of the car my water broke! So I knew then that this was indeed the real deal. We left Jax with my parents and drove straight to the hospital. we got there just after 6:30 (2.5 hrs. into labor) and got admitted into our room. I got my i.v. and was checked and they told me I was to a good FIVE cmm and 90% effaced!! Woo-hoo, bring on that epidural! After getting all the meds and getting comfortable the waiting game began. I was just hoping that he would come before midnight so that he wasn't born on the 24th of July. Well, just after 11 p.m. I was fully dialated and ready to push. and at 11:33 little Brody made his entrance into this world. Everything went so much better this time around. A 26 hour labor with Jax and 2 hours of pushing, to a 7.5 hour labor and 20 minutes of pushing with Brody. SO much better!!!!!! I was super nervous about becoming a mother of 2. As most of you know Jaxon can be quite a handful sometimes and I wasn't sure how I was going to manage my time between the two boys. Luckily, James was in-between jobs at the time so he was home with me for the first two weeks and we were all able to adjust together. I am so grateful for that time that he was here to help me all day. It helped me SO much!

   Which brings me to number three on the list, James got a new job!!!! After much debate and much counsel from loved ones James quit working at Unifirst and got a job at CHG Healthcare! He went from working 60+ hours a week to a normal 9-5 job! It is so amazing having him home everyday at 5:30 rather than 9 or 10 p.m. He actually gets to see his family now! CHG was rated #27 on the top 100 companies to work for on the Forbes magazine. He has been there about three weeks now and he LOVES it! (not to mention his building is like 7 minutes from our house) I am so proud of him and everything he does. He is such a hard worker and takes providing for our family so seriously. I know he will always take such good care of us.

   Lastly, on August 14th we blessed Brody at home. It was such a nice blessing and James did a great job. We decided to bless him at home instead of church because my in-laws were home from their mission! (that should have been number one on the list) They were having trouble with their visas in Bolivia so they got to come home for 6 weeks to get it all straightened out. So they were able to be here for Brodys birth which meant alot to both James and me. Well, 3 weeks after he was born they were ready to go back to Bolivia, but wanted to be here for the blessing. We felt Brody was still to little to go back to church so we had both our families and closest friends over to our house for dinner and did it at home. It turned out so nice. I might even prefer doing it that way??

   I think that is all of the big events that have happened up until now. We have been having lots of fun hanging out with friends, and cousins, and just our little family of FOUR! It still weirds me out to think I have two kids. Sometimes I think I'm not old enough to even be married he he

Good ol' St. George!!

     A few weeks ago James and I took Jaxon down to St. George with some of our very best friends and we had such a great time! The weather wasn't super warm, but it was definitely nicer than it was in Salt Lake. The boys were able to golf, the girls got manicures and pedicures and we even got a babysitter one night and were able to go to Mesquite with NO kids! Of course, me being as awesome as I am totally forgot my I.D. so I tried to play low key at the slots to not get noticed, but after only like 40 minutes I was  I.D.'d. (but not before I won 70 bucks at wheel of fortune!!) It was so much fun and even better because all 4 couples won AT LEAST a few hundred dollars!!
     The weather was really nice one of the days so we took the kiddos to the pool and Jaxon was in HEAVEN! I swear that kid was a fish in another life. He could stay in the water all day if we would let him.
     It was such a fun trip and a much needed vacation especially because ALL FOUR of us girlies are going to have new babies this summer! Yup, that's right, we are all preggo!! Our hubbies did an amazing job handling all of our "late night cravings" and emotional hormones though. We all have such great men! Here are some pics from the trip, I want to go back right now!!!

Jaxon's Christmas shirt

Wow, I am so behind with my blogging and I really have no excuse. It's definitely not because I have nothing to blog about. It's actually the exact opposite. I'm so behind that I cant find the motivation to start up again... but I AM going to do it. Starting now, with our Christmas.

We had a wonderful Christmas this year spent with our loving families and lots of friends. Jaxon was so cute on Christmas morning and he loved all of the boxes and the wrapping paper. James and I got him a "Christmas shirt" that he wore to all of our parties and it was quite a hit!



(I am 12.5 weeks, and due July 30)

Card Club

 My mom has been a member of this "card club" for a few years now, and I have always thought it was such a cool idea. And when she would come home with all of the cute cards she got I became even more envious. So, I finally decided to join! How it works is, there are 20 different gals in the club and we are all responsible to hand make 21 cards that are identical. (1 is donated to either The Festival of Trees or the Army) Then we all meet up for dinner and to exchange cards. That way I show up with 21 of the same card and come home with TWENTY different cards that are all handmade! Isn't that the sweetest thing you have ever heard of?? Cute cards can be so expensive to buy and they are never as cute as ones that are homemade. But now I have a problem of loving all the cards so much that I don't want to give them away he he. The card club meets 4 times a year and there is a different theme every time. That way we cover all of the holidays:) I have had a few friends say that they think it is such a good idea that I should start another one.... hmmm.... it depends how many people we could get to join. What do you think?!?!?!

This is a close up of the card I made. Obviously it was a Christmas theme. I used silver glittered card stock for the background, red rik-rak for the trim, green pipe cleaner for the tree and jewels for the ornaments. It turned out pretty cute i think.

What I am thankful for

Is it just me or is everyone doing the "one a day" post update on facebook about what they are thankful for? There is no way I would remember to do that every single day, but i did want to make a list  of things that I am grateful for in my life. So I will do the same kind of idea here on my blog. Rather than one a day for 30 days I will just make a list of 30 things right now.



I am thankful for...

1. My husband. He works so hard for Jaxon and I and he is the GREATEST dad in the world!
2. Jaxon. He is such a joy to our family and I am so lucky to spend most of my days at home with him.
3. My Family. They are always willing to help with Jaxon and they are always there for us.
4. My mother and father in law. For raising my husband to be the man that he is.
5. My brother and sister in laws. For always making me feel included and helping watch Jaxon.
6. My husbands job. As much as I hate the hours that he works, I am grateful he has a job.
7. The gospel. Just knowing I will be with my family FOREVER is so comforting.
8. Friends. As you get older friends take a whole new meaning.
9. My job. I have the most amazing boss and co-workers.
10. The holidays. Being with family and making decorations.
11. Our pantry. Is fully stocked with food to put on the table.
12. A Healthy family. We always forget to be grateful for this until we are sick.
13. A house to live in. James and I are SUPER blessed with our housing situation.
14. Hand me Downs. James and I have saved SOOOO much money with this one.
15. Cameras and Video cameras. I get to catch my favorite memories on film to cherish forever.
16. Sweats. Nuff said:)
17. Both of our cars. I would die if I didn't have a car to go out and do things during the day with Jax.
18. A wonderful marriage. James and I get along so great and he treats me so well.
19. Washing machines and dish washers. I hate washing things by hand.
20. Law and Order SVU. hahaha I just love that show.
21. This blog. It allows my in-laws to see what's going on in our lives from another country.
22. Cell phones. How people survived without them I will never understand.
23. America. We are all blessed to live here.
24. A baby that sleeps 12-14 hours EVERY night. I can get so much done after 8 p.m.
25. Date night. It's pretty rare now days, but I love quality time with the hubbs.
26. Motherhood. Is the most fulfilling and life changing job in the world. I love it.
27.  Fatherhood. Being a father and being a "dad" are totally different in my opinion. And James is one a.m.a.z.i.n.g DAD!
28. The four seasons. I love when the temperature changes and my wardrobe changes.
29. Family traditions. I love looking forward to holiday traditions and I am excited to start making new ones with my own family.
30. Dr. Pepper. Nothing like a cold DP after a long day.

What are you thankful for??

Happy Halloween!

This year for Halloween we had three parties to go to and they were all AWESOME! We went to the annual Crayk party at our clubhouse with dinner and games for the kiddos. The next weekend we went to the Lowry Halloween party at my aunts house for dinner and more awesome games. The night after that we had our friends party that James and I threw at our house and we had more yummy food and alot of fun games. We played the FUNNEST game at two of our parties and I would recommend it to ANYONE! It's called a "digital camera scavenger hunt." What you need to do is divide into teams with an even number of players per team. You need to make sure that each team has a digital camera to take with them.

Then you set a time limit, for our parties it was 1 hr. and 15 min. Every team takes a list of all of the required items with them and has to make sure they are back before the time is up. An example of a few of the items on the list were a tombstone, a statue, a fountain, a church, a hospital, the Halloween isle in a store, a horror movie poster, buying a pumpkin, and a few more. Some items were worth 5 points and some were worth 10. What you had to do was try to get your picture taken with AS MANY of the items as you could, but you wanted to try and make sure that your whole group was in the photo. For every team member that was not in the picture you got docked one point. So you had to be creative! The more creative you were with your pictures the more points you could get. (example, for a fountain some teams went to a SODA fountain at a gas station.) Things like that can earn a team more points. Then when the time was up everyone was back and we hooked the pictures up to the TV and everyone looked at each groups pictures and voted. It was SOOOO much fun!!!

I have way to many pictures from each party so I am only going to post some of James, Jaxon, and myself  (I mean Barney, Betty, and BamBam. ) I hope everyone had fabulous Halloween!!!!!

Called to Serve!

 On Friday, October 29, 2010 we took Lee and Connie to the airport to say our goodbyes. It was a very bitter/sweet feeling. We are going to miss them like CrAZy, but we know they are where they need to be. This mission will be very diefferent for James. The first two Lee and Connie served James didn't have to say goodbye. Mission #1 to Mexico, James went with them for those three years. Mission #2 to Peru, James was seving his own mission in Uruguay when they left. When James came home his parents only had about a year left to serve then came home. So this trip to the airport was extra hard for him. He is such a mamma's boy and he misses them so much already! So the next three years will be filled with lots of skype calls so that Jaxon doesn't forget Grandma Connie and Grandpa Lee. It blows my mind to think that Jaxon will be four and a half when they come back. All I can say is watch out Bolivia, the Crayks are comin!!!!!!