Children of mine

I want to apologize to all my friends and family for not keeping in touch with y'all. I don't check facebook anymore and I haven't looked at blogs for awhile. So congrats Dustin on your band tour, hope it went well. Sorry to hear about Dexter and Connor, I hope they are doing better. And Congratulations to Julia with the new baby. I hope to see y'all soon. This is what is keeping me busy:

Feliz Navidad

Merry Christmas from The Garlands!

We have been truly blessed this year with Elliott's great job at Raising Cane's, with a wonderful home, clothes, and food, with our health, and with 2 beautiful sweet kids, and so much more. We could not have had such a good year without the help of our kind Heavenly Father and his son Jesus Christ. I'm grateful for this time of year to remember and celebrate his birth. What a wonderful example he is for us, to be perfect and not sin. I know that our Savior suffered for our sins and died so that we might live with him and Heavenly Father again. I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! With much Love!

Pictures

I have left the kitchen a couple times and came back and Cole was feeding Izzie. Like here, she has a donut in her mouth.

After a year, I have finally finished our bathroom. To see the before picture you will have to go back a year in our blog. But Elliott fixed the leak and put sheet rock up and taped and bedded it. Then I had to take off the popcorn ceiling, tape and bed some more, sand, tape and bed, sand again, float the ceiling, then Natasha and I painted the whole bathroom white. Elliott replaced the faucet and the toilet lid and it looks wonderful! You should see it. I'm so proud of myself for learning and doing so much!

November 3rd: If you cant tell Cole needed stitches. He lost his balance and smacked his head on our fireplace. I didn't think it was that bad when he first did it. Then I looked at it and it was deep and bleeding. Luckily it wasn't on his face, so we just put liquid bandage on it. Now it looks fine.

Halloween

I have been extremely busy or extremely lazy on doing anything on the computer lately. So here is Halloween. Poor Elliott had to work right as we went out trick or treating, so he didn't get to come. We helped out our new, wonderful friends Miriam and Andrew move into their house all day so we just trick or treated around their neighborhood. Cole had a great time. He went into a few people's houses since this was he first time really trick or treating. He got a good stash, but didn't get to eat much since we has really sick.

And my camera is totally broken so I have to take pictures on my new phone or on our video camera. So one of these days I will add them too.

We had Thanksgiving this year at the Cline's and the food was the best food I have had with Elliott's family. It was sad not being with my family for this first time, so I hope they had a good Thanksgiving.

Out of Town

Last week I was able to drive up to Oklahoma and watch my nephews. The drive up was great, Cole and Isabel slept 3 hours. Cole was just getting over the flu or swine flu not sure which one, so he still had a cough and was taking medicine which is not fun trying to trick him to drink it. Xander and Cole, who are 9 months apart could not get along for even 5 minute without hitting, biting or yelling. That was the worst part of it. I was just thankful Izzie and Blayne were so good. Zach cooked for us the whole time and it was absolutely wonderful. (Thanks Zach!) All in all, I loved being with my family.
We got back Thursday night and Friday night Elliott and I went to an awesome Halloween party. He dressed up as a hockey player, and I didn't dress up.
Saturday morning we left for the farm to go camping. We went to an auto show, launched a toy rocket (which was my favorite part), ate delicious brisket and chicken that my wonderful brother-in-law smoked (Thanks Brian!), rode dirt bikes, and ate smores. The kids did awesome. I had tons of blankets so they wouldn't freeze, and they were probably hot and Cole slept all night. It was a great weekend, the weather was perfect and it was great spending time with the in-laws.


On a journal note: I was changing Izzie on the changing table yesterday, I turned around to put the diaper in the trash and she rolled off and landed on her back. It is 4 feet off the ground. She cried for about 10 mins and I cried for over an hour. I was so worried and so mad at myself. I felt horrible. Luckily my friend called me soon after and I told her what happened and she said I could take her to her husband who is a chiropractor and he checked her out and said she was ok. That gave me such a piece of mind. I guess Heavenly Father had whispered to her that I needed help. I'm so glad that my prayers are answered!

Hair

Cole's hair was just getting to long, I had to cut it. Now he looks like a little boy.

The weather has cooled down a bit, so now we take bike rides. Izzie is having a hard time sitting up, but she will get used to it. Going on a bike ride is Cole's incentive for going potty and staying dry all day. He has been doing a great job. Funny story though: Last night he did his nightly routine of brushing his teeth, going potty, saying prayers, reading books and going to bed. A few minutes later he comes out and says, "Potty". I said no you just went. He came out again and said, "Potty". I told him if he wanted to go he could do it himself. We didn't hear a peep from him again. Awhile later Elliott went to the bathroom and found Cole's diaper and P.J. bottoms on the floor and a certain something in the toilet. Elliott went to look at Cole and he had his blanket on him, and nothing underneath. It was so funny. I couldn't believe he went by himself.

Izzie has moved to the high chair now since she has been trying to escape the bouncy chair. We are starting her on cereal this week. She has also graduated from her bath tub. We are going to use the blow up duck bath tub this week since she kicks so much in her other tub. I will post a video later.

Where is Cole? Need I say more?!

I'm working 8 hours a week for my dad at the shop, so that has been a nice break from the kids. Natasha has been watching them and thank goodness hasn't gone insane yet. Thanks Tash!

Lastly, seems like a ton of my friends and family are having babies.

So congratulations to you all!

Happy Birthday, Cole!

I can't believe Cole is already 2. Time has really flown by. He is talking so much lately. I have taken away his pacifier for good, he still asks for it and probably wakes up at night because of it. He wakes up at least once a night right now calling for "Mama". We will start working on potty training pretty soon. Every now and then he says, "Potty" and we run real fast and he poops on the toilet.