The Georgian Jungle and "Shrooms"

Before I start about this week's excitement I just want to clarify on my last post. I included a video of what husbands should not say to their wives. Corey, if any of you are wondering, has NEVER said anything like this at all. He is a wonderful husband, father, and friend; I am grateful to have him in my life. : )
Now about the "jungle". I was cutting our grass this summer until about 6 weeks ago when I promised Corey that I wouldn't touch the lawn. He was just trying to be caring and didn't feel like his wife needed to do that. He was going to have one of the young men that he works with at church do it. But between kids being sick and the Barker adults being sick we hadn't lined anything up. The last time it was cut was when my sweet dad cut it when he was visiting from Las Vegas. I know that sound sad that dad did it on his vacation. Mom said that he was happy to do it and I greatly appreciated it. Anyway...I broke down yesterday morning and did it while Corey was at a church obligation. Here is a picture of the jungle that was growing at our house. You've got to love fertilizer and the rain. I have not watered our lawn this summer at all.
While mowing our "jungle" I came upon lots of bugs, one REALLY BIG and UGLY spider, and mushrooms. There was a mushroom that was at least a foot long. I took a picture of it with Cole so that you could see it in perspective.
So, three and a half hrs later we had a normal looking lawn. It was fun to get the little boys out helping. That is one of my challenges as a mothers, trying to teach them how to work and enjoy it. I've heard that a lazy mom does all the work, meaning instead of trying to teach your kids you do it all. I love being a mom and all of it's challenges. I told Corey this week that lately I've really enjoyed watching the kids and the way they play and how different they are from each other. I'll end with this...my two greatest accomplishments are being married to Corey and being a mom to two great little men.

Ningines, cars...and being in a house full of boys

This past week when Cole and Corey were talking about cars Cole said something about the engine, but he called it a ningine. It is the cutest thing to hear. I love the little things that kids say and come up with. Since Corey is such a car fanatic he has passed that on to our little ones, it is awesome to see them all get excited over cool hot wheels and real hot rods. We have taken them to a couple car shows here and they all love it, I go to spend time with them but it doesn't have me jumping for joy to see the new BMW or Auddi, but I do love all my men.
Last week was pretty uneventful which I don't have a problem with. We are just trying to get into the school routine. But since Kobie is such a good little student it is not too hard. He tries to get most of his homework done on Monday, I think it is just that he like to do it and get it done. He is also a great little reader.
I do have to say though, I love being a mom of boys. It is fun to wrestle and play tag with them. I played trains with Cole yesterday for a while when Kob was at school. We haven't gotten the trains out in a while and it was fun. I have been trying to do more fun things with him while Kobie is in school. Especially since last week he prayed for daddy to stay home and mommy to go to work. When I told Corey that night I of course cried. It didn't help that I was sick so I sounded pretty pathetic. The boys just miss their dad when he is gone and I know that that is what it was.
One exciting thing I am doing next week is going to New Orleans to visit Corey. That is where he has been working since May and will probably be there till November or December. My only saving grace is that he comes home on the weekends. I am grateful that he has a great job and am grateful that he is willing to work hard for our family. But I am going down for our Anniversary. I can't believe it has been 8 beautiful yrs already. I look forward to 8 more beautiful yrs and more. That is our excitement for the week. Since we are celebrating our anniversary I thought that I would add this cute little song about what husbands should not say to their wives. Enjoy!

The first week of school and ... strep throat

Yeah! We made it through the first week of school. Kobie really likes his teacher and I think he has a little crush on her. Tuesday night I told them, the boys, that they needed to have baths. Kobie says, "Yeah, I don't want to be stinky for Ms. Backus." I thought that it was really cute. Wednesday Kobie got his cast off and said his arm felt wiggly.
Moving on to Corey. The poor guys has been travel weekly to New Orleans since May for work. Last Sunday he went to the doctor and found out he had strep. Unfortunately he had to leave that night, Delta didn't have a flight out on Monday morning, every other week they have but not last week. Then Wednesday morning he woke up in the hotel room with Pink Eye. He was coming home on Wednesday but came home a few hours earlier. He got to stay home from work on Thurs and Friday, since he was a "hot mess" had fun with the boys. It was really great to spend a few extra days with him. And last night we went out to the ward game night for adults. I was in charge since I'm the activities chair for the ward. It was a lot of fun. Oh boy, I thought that one of the teams was going to kill me. We were playing Pictinary and I didn't hear some of the answers from a team, but they ended up winning any way.
Well I had to go to the doctor today. I thought that I had just a cold but it turned out to be strep but my throat never hurt. And he said that my chest sounded tight so I may get bronchitis. Isn't that just lovely. So I left the doctor's office with 5 scripts, my counter looks like a pharmacy. I will go since my last posting was a book. We will check in later this week.

Our eventful summer!

Well today summer official ended. Kobie started 2nd grade. I can't believe that I have a child old enough to be in 2nd. He was and still is very excited about school. He came home and said, "I think Mrs. Backus is the best teacher I've ever had." I know that he is in good hands. My girlfriend who works at the school, a 2nd grade teacher also, said she chose Mrs. Backus as a teacher for her boys.

Back to the summer part. We went through the summer daddy-less from Monday through Thursday. We would wake up early and take Corey to the Airport on Monday. And I would pick him up Thursday night on the way home from work. We filled our time with going to the "free family film festival" at the mall, usually on Tuesday. We went to the library. It was great, I read the boys Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at the beginning of the summer. I had never read the book, I had seen the movies but never read the book. Just a little piece of information, the new movie with Jonny Depp is more like the book than the original with Jean Wilder. So after we finished the book we rented the new movie. I know what we are going to get Cole for his birthday or Christmas. He sang the silly songs from the movie for weeks after we watched it.
One weekend when Corey was home we tried going to the Six Flags White Water Park. About 30 mins after we got there there was a crack of lightning, so we had to get out of the water. Shortly there after it started pouring rain. Well since the park was closed for over an hour we got rain checks to come back for another day. We decided that Kobie's birthday would be the perfect time. It was on a Friday and Corey and I had both asked for it off.
Well the Monday of the week of Kobie's birthday I worked to help them out. My friend needed the day off so I helped her out. When I picked up the boys that afternoon Gina, our sitter and good friend, said that Kobie had an accident. I thought "He is almost 7 he hasn't had an accident in a long time." Then she proceeded to tell me that when they were outside playing he trying tricks. He has been in to doing tricks lately. He went down the wet slide on his feet into the little pool. I don't know if he was going to fast but he was saying that Cole got in his way. So we thought that he sprained his wrist because it wasn't really swollen or bruised. Well Tuesday he was babying it and I thought he didn't need to. Needless to say mom got frustrated with him and told him to just use it because it wasn't hurt. Then after that I felt bad and sat down with him and looked at it. That's when I saw that it was swollen not bruised though and you could feel the extra fluid down in his wrist. I felt really bad then and didn't quite know what to do, never having any experience with broken bones before. And that night I was to go to the temple and drive my friend up with me. Well my mom said to call his doctor so I set the appointment up for the next morning. When the doc came in he said with the amount of swelling 2 days later it was most likely broken.
So we made the trek up the Piedmont, the hospital I work at, because the radiologist I work for are great and I knew I would be able to talk to them. Sure enough it was broken, a small little "buckle fracture" in his left radius, the thumb side bone. Corey and I felt bad because we had planned to go to the water park and now we wouldn't be able to. Kobie got his cast on Thursday, the day before his birthday. When we were the PA we saw said there is a waterproof cast or a regular one. I asked, since Corey was out of town, about the water park. She said with the waterproof it would be ok but no crazy rides. So we did end up going but left early because after all day of being there the afternoon lifeguard told Kobie he couldn't ride the kid's rides which he had been doing all day. Long story short we have comp tickets to go back after he gets his cast off, which is on Wednesday, or next season. But he had a great birthday other than that and his wrist has really hurt him other than the day it happened.
Moving on to Cole. About 2 weeks after Kobie broke his arm Cole got stitches. We were at church and I was sitting in my class and heard Cole cry. I thought "hmm, that is Cole. He must not have gotten the seat he wanted." But he didn't stop crying, all this took about 10 seconds to register. So I decided to go check on him. He was in the bathroom with his Sunday school teacher, the bathroom is real close to my class. His teacher had his hand under the cold water and I saw the little purple line diagonal across his little (pinky) finger. I thought ok he get his finger smashed but he was crying a little harder than normal. When his teacher would bring his finger out of the water it looked liked there was some blood but I couldn't see where it was coming from since there wasn't a cut on the top where the bruise was. I decided to flip his hand over and that is when I saw the gash. You would think that since I work in the medical field I would be fine with the blood. Oh no that was not the case. I started to panic and felt like I was hyperventilating. That could also be because I was on call the night before. Well we went and found Corey, he wasn't where he usually is for class, so it took a minute and in the process I disrupted another class, oh well. But Corey took him and I ran back to get my purse but the time I got back to the car, it had only been a maybe 2, Corey had him calmed down and he wasn't crying. Corey told me to stay and take Kobie home, we drive to church seperately because Corey has meetings before church starts. I went back in and started to cry and shake because I was worried about my baby. He turned out just fine. The big little man got 5 stitches and watched the doctor sew him up. After the ordeal was over they gave him a little teddy bear, which he lovingly named Fluffy Snot Monster. Boys will be boys. His stitches came out this last Wednesday. He cried and screamed while the doctor did it and while I was holding him still. Later I asked him if he cried cause it hurt, he said no he was just scared.
After everything that happened we are all doing fine and ended the summer off with a big bang, Grandma and Grandpa Shupe (my mom and dad) came to visit. We had a great time. We went and picked blueberries one day. Went and fed the ducks another day. After the kids went to bed we would watch a movie or do a puzzle, both a Shupe favorite. We were very sad to see them go. We loved having them in our home and spending time with them. We appreciate all that they do for us and are grateful they are our parents. So with summer at a close we look forward to an exciting new school year and hope it will bring new experiences and growth with them, hopefully not physical growth on my part.

In the beginning...

I thought that this would be a good way for family and friends to keep us with our family, but I wanted to start from the beginning.
It all started on a beautiful, hot August morning in Las Vegas. Corey and I got married in August of 2000, it is hard to believe it has almost been eight years. Then in July of 2001 we welcomed our cute little, o.k. big, Kobie. For any of you that are counting no he was not a honeymoon baby.
After finishing school and working a little bit, I went to part time. And in December of 2004 we had our cute little Cole. At that time Corey was working on finishing his Associates at CCSN, Community College of Southern Nevada. He finished in May and then we had to decide where to go to school. We chose to come to Atlanta and go to Emory.
It has been a wonderful experience and adventure for all of us to be out here. We have come to depend on each other more. We have had many visitors (Mom & Dad Shupe, Mom & Dad Barker, Paul & Katherine, Uncle George) and welcome anyone who wants to come.
This summer Corey started on a project at work where he travels weekly. It was to be for 12 weeks but keeps getting extended. We are grateful that he has a great and steady job but we do miss him. The boys and I are doing ok for the amount that he is gone. Last night I was suffering from some insomnia and thought, "Oh I should start a blog, that will be a great outlet." This will be good for me to work on my lacking computer skills. Well I better go and make dinner for my little men.