The Power of Prayer

Brett is learning the power of prayer. Earlier today he was helping me fold his clothes. He wanted to fold his socks and was searching for them through the rest of his clothes.

Let me paint a little picture for you first. Imagine a huge pile of clothes on the bed. It looks like laundry hasn't been done for a good month. They all happen to be Brett's, even though I just washed and put away his clothes last week. How could he have such a gigantic pile of clothes for me to wash and put away today? When I asked him that question he simply replied, "Mom, once they touch the floor they are dirty." So I say, "Just because the shirt fell off the hanger and landed on the bottom of your closet does not make them dirty." He quickly corrected me.

So we have an incredibly large pile of his clothes to sort through and he is searching for his socks. He told me that he needs to pray to Jesus so He can help him find his socks. He leaves my room (because I had the t.v. on), says his prayer and comes back in. Meanwhile, I had found some socks and pulled them out into the middle of the bed. He sees them and is really excited his prayer worked, so he sticks his head under Jabon's pillow (to block out the t.v.) and I hear him mumble a prayer of thanks. It was incredibly sweet to see my little guy demonstrate his spirituality like that for such a simple thing like finding socks!

This is not the end of it. No, this keeps repeating. He needs to find a matching sock, says he needs to pray to Jesus, buries his head under the pillow, and says his prayer. He comes out from under the pillow, and like before, I have found more socks and placed them in sight. He gets excited and then says his 'thank you' prayer. This repeated itself probably a dozen times. Finally, I had to tell him that he is technically praying to Heavenly Father through Jesus and he seemed to be able to understand that.

At one point, he had only two socks left, and neither of them matched. He said his prayer and pulled his head out from under the pillow. He sees that no new socks had arrived to make the matching sets and exclaims, "WHAT! Didn't He hear me?!" I said that of course He did, but He won't make socks magically appear. I had just happened to find socks each time he prayed, so Heavenly Father was helping me help Brett. Thankfully, he was happy with that.

I remember one of Brett's first night time prayers he asked for bananas. Guess what he got the very next day?

Kids are funny, but I think it is so cute to see their faith grow and to watch them experience it.

Eagar Update

So, it has been at least 6 weeks since my last post. I figure it is about time to write on the happenings of the Eagar household.

Thanksgiving: We had a great Thanksgiving this year! My brother-in-law Brighton made his first trip down to see us since we moved to Arizona. He and Jabon have a lot in common and had a great time together. It was wonderful, since Jabon was able to have the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving off so he got to actually hang out with all our guests. My parents flew in from Montana and my littlest brother Peter and his wife Genica drove down from Utah. We went to many places and did a lot of things! On Black Friday, mom, me, Shelly, and Genica went shopping at Wal-Mart. We didn't go too crazy. We got there at 5am, so we were late. I wasn't getting much for myself but I did help Shelly score BIG TIME on her girls' Christmas gifts. That story I can not expound on since I was more of 'Santa's helper', if you catch my drift. Later that day, we went and walked around a bird preserve in Gilbert and then ended the day going through the Gilbert Museum. Saturday we all headed up to the Phoenix Zoo. With Sunday came church and Peter, Genica, and Brighton all heading back home. Monday, me, Jabon, Brett, Ashton, and my parents went up to the Boyce Thompson Arboretum to the east of Phoenix. It is a really cool place to see a ton of different plants. The main trail is about 1-1/2 miles long. Off this trail were many different areas: tropical, desert, herb garden, etc. We didn't see much of it (since it is so vast) but Jabon and I hope to return at another time and see other areas. Mom and Dad got to hang out until the Thursday after Thanksgiving. It was so great to spend so much time with our family. One of our funnest activities to do together was play Guitar Hero. We were all selfish adults and made the children go to bed before we pulled the game out. One night we had a competition between the guys and the gals. Needless to say, girls won 4 out of 5 times. Yes, we truly do rock. Beatles style.

Kids: Cody had his first band concert last night. He plays trumpet and has really picked up the instrument quite well. He is doing great in school and is enjoying his classes. His football team finished the season in 2nd place. Somehow, they got to go all the way. I say 'somehow' because it wasn't the best year of playing. Brett has been confused lately. My sister Shelly and her family have been living with us since Aug/Sept and Brett is now under the impression that he has two moms. One that goes to work and school and is home only an hour before his bedtime (me) and one who is with him 24 hours of each day, cleaning up his throw up, playing games with him, making his meals (Shelly). Oh, I am sorry! Did I sound a little bit jealous? Guess what, I am. That is okay. I love my sister and am so glad she is here to help us out! I have also seen Brett grow into what I call the 'Second Child Syndrome'. If you have children, see if this fits yours: He is bossy. He likes to tell all the kids, including the ones that are older than him (oh, wait-that is all the kids except for the two babies) what to do and what they just did. It is exasperating! I am the second child, so I can relate. You need to be in control over something, and being bossy accomplishes that. Ashton is getting closer and closer to walking. Yes, my baby is now almost 14 months old. He likes to take each new phase as slowly as he can. He feels no rush to develop. If you want more on that subject, just look in my history for the Lazy Gene post. He will stand up, but only while holding onto someone/thing. He is barely walking along the end of the couch. That is okay by us, though. It is helping extend the baby phase, and I kinda like that!

My sister: So, as mentioned before, my sister Shelly, her husband Josh, and their four kids (Emma, 8, Abby, 7, Matthew, 5, Millie, 1) have been living with us. Josh came down in August and Shelly and the kids came down late September. This has been an adventure for all of us, I think! We have an 1800 sq ft home and own a lot of stuff. A wonderful thing about our tiny home is the fact that there are 5 bedrooms. So we have had one room with it's private bath for Shelly, Josh and Millie, Cody, Brett and Matt shared one room with all the toys, Emma and Abby shared one room that was halfway filled with my junk, and we moved Ashton into the master bedroom with Jabon and I, leaving one room to be used as our office. It is tight quarters and with 7 crazy kids, it was a challenge to keep the peace. I think we did alright. As I am typing this, Shelly and Josh are moving into their rental house. It's a definite mixture of emotions. I love their family so much and will miss seeing them at any time but I am also glad to be able to get our house back to 'normal'. Before Josh moved down, my mother-in-law was staying with us, so we have had someone living here since July. But, we are very glad that we have been able to help Shelly and Josh make their transition to Arizona easier.

My new job: I was offered a Front Office Manager position with a new dental office. This office is located in Gilbert and is about a 30 minute drive into town for me. It opened in March and has had a few people through its doors as manager. However, none of them really knew what they were doing. I started here on November 16th and quickly realized that I have some major organizing that needs to take place. I have been super busy getting the patients accounts fixed, insurance payments in, and the office finances resolved. This economy is hard, but it is even harder if you have people working for you that are idiots and they are in charge of making y0ur business succeed. I have accomplished a lot of things so far, but have much more to do before it is not so shaky. I enjoy the doctor, the assistant, and the hygienist. They are all wonderful people and together I think we can make his office a great place.

My surgery: Since I was probably about 9 yrs old or so, I have had pain in both my knees. Around age 11 I saw a doctor, who thought it was Osgood Schlater's Disease (where the ligaments in your knee pull away from your bones. It happens a lot in young boys because they are too active during their major growth times) and was told it would go away when I quite growing, about 18 yrs old. Well, I am 29 now and still have knee pain. I went into the hospital yesterday for surgery. My doctor thought there might be some damage behind my kneecaps (or so the MRI seemed to say) but when he got in there, everything looked very healthy. There was a little inflammation, which he removed, but no damage. It turns out that the tendon coming down from my kneecap is not positioned right. It should hook to the tibia directly below the kneecap, but mine are attached to the outsides of me tibia. This must be were the pain is coming from. However, the only way to fix it is by breaking my tibias right below the attachment (since it is like this in both knees) and repositioning it. Major surgery, major recoup time. I say, "No, thanks". I do not think I want to try that. I don't know. Maybe I do. Right now I am sitting on the couch, both knees wrapped up propped on pillows. It's a sight. It will be a bigger sight in a few days. I cannot shower until Sunday when I get to remove my wraps. Yay.

If you made it through my post, pat yourself on the back. Since I suck at routinely posting, I have to do incredibly long posts every so often just to catch up. Good job getting through it.

What do you call me?

My house is a zoo this week. Besides the usual for us (full time jobs; school for Cody, Jabon, and I; football practice 2 x week and a game every Saturday; and physical therapy for my knees) we have had guests with us. Jabon's mom has been here since July watching the kids for us and about 2 weeks ago his dad drove down from Colorado to pick her up and spend some time with us. Plus, my brother-in-law has been here since August while he has been working at a local hospital and waiting for his family (my sister Shelly and their 4 kiddos) to move down. They arrived Wednesday night with my dad in-tow. SO we have 14 people in my little 1800 sq ft house.

Kids get easily confused. And yes, these two subjects are related. This afternoon Cody, Brett, and I were leaving the house to go to football practice. Brett was saying goodbye to each person individually. When he got to my dad and sister he said, "Goodbye, Aunt Shewy" and did not say anything to my dad. So, my dad asked him, "Brett, if she's Aunt Shelly, what do you call me?" Brett shrugged and, thoroughly confused because of all the family around-including 2 grandpas, said, "Um, Spiderman?" So my dad is Grandpa Spiderman from now on.

My 3 Sons

As all you fellow mothers know, the hardest thing about summers is finding something besides t.v. and video games to keep your child's mind active. Today, I decided to teach Cody to bake. So, we took our very ripe bananas and he created banana bread. I supervised, but he measured and mixed everything.

Here is his 'thumbs-up' for a recipe well done! And of course, he is sitting in front of some form of Monopoly. This is the game Cody would play every day of his life if he could! It drives me insane.
And here is Brett, giving his own 'thumbs-up.' He has no clue why Cody is doing it, but if one thing is for sure. it's that Brett will copy Cody on everything.


Ashton is sitting up by himself now. He turned 7 months old a little over a week ago. He still doesn't like to eat baby food much, but he likes the puffs snacks. No teeth yet, so he just gums it to death.

California Adventures

Sunday morning we packed up and left bright and early to go to Monterey, CA. Jabon and I had a few days off work and decided to take the kids to the beach. After we checked into our hotel, we drove south down the coastline and stopped at a ton of beaches. It was the first time the kids saw the ocean; I have rarely seen it myself.

Monday morning we went on the 17 Mile Drive. For those of you that don't know, it is a drive through an exclusive neighborhood along the California coast and features a well known icon, the Lone Cypress. Jabon got some pictures of it, but since he hasn't been able to get through his pictures yet, here is one I snagged off the internet:

After that, we went to Monterey Bay Aquarium. It was really awesome and was exciting to see. Cody's favorite thing was the sharks and Brett swears that was his as well (but I think that's because he wants to be like Cody). We ate dinner at a local joint and then drove out to Hollister, a small town Jabon grew up in. We had some trouble getting onto the right highway but we eventually made it up there. He had a great time down Memory Lane!

Tuesday we got up early and headed to Big Basin Redwood State Park to check out the big trees. I have always wanted to see them and I was not disappointed! They are incredible! We went on a small hike and saw the Mother and Father of the Forest, two of the largest trees there. I think the Mother was about 320 ft tall, she was the biggest. She was 70 ft in diameter, while the Father was 66 ft. I asked Cody why he thought the momma was bigger. He didn't know, so I gave him my conclusion: after the momma has all her babies, she's usually fat. I was feeling bloated and crappy since I hadn't exercised in a few days and I guess that came out in my comments! We also went on another hike to see a waterfall. It was pretty, but the short hike we took was a killer: Straight up the hillside at about a 70 degree angle!

After the redwoods, we drove to Santa Cruz and started hitting the northern beaches all the way back to our hotel (we were staying in Marina). It was such a beautiful day! Sunday and Monday were both pretty foggy, but we could see the ocean for many miles on Tuesday. For dinner, we decided to go eat on Fisherman's Wharf in Monterey. We stopped at a small restaurant on the pier and Jabon finally got his seafood he has been craving since we decided to go to California! I actually tasted the lobster and was quite surprised by how good it tasted. That said, I would never order one for myself. I have too strong of a mental block about eating seafood. It was garnished with caviar, and Jabon and I both sampled it. It was really salty. Not too bad, but definitely not too good, either. After dinner, we walked the pier a bit and got cotton candy at a local candy shop.

This was Ashton's first trip, and overall he did pretty well. Of course he cried while we drove and I so badly wanted to just get him out of his car seat and set him on my lap! Normally, Ashton goes to sleep really easily at home: I just get him ready for bed, feed him a bottle, then lay him in his crib and turn on his music. Unfortunately, this did not happen at the hotel. I had to rock him to sleep the first 2 nights we were in CA. He got better the 3rd night, but I turned on the radio in the room to help him sleep. I read The Host, by Stephenie Meyer to Jabon during the drive. He enjoyed the story, but Ashton must not have. Anytime I started to speak, Ashton would talk back. If I stopped, so would he. When he got really grumpy and loud, we turned on a CD for him and he would fall asleep to Tom Petty.

Sadly, we had to return to reality and came home Wednesday so Jabon and I could get back to work on Thursday. Jabon's first day back to work he was going to be told if he would be affected by Intel's lay-offs. Thankfully, when he had his meeting with his boss today, he was told his job was safe and he would not be laid off. It's unfortunate that we had to go on vacation with the dread of possibly being laid off on our minds, but we are so grateful that he still has his job!

Below is a short slideshow of some of the pictures I took. Like I said, Jabon took some pictures (okay MANY pictures). When he's gone through them, he'll post them onto his blog, so check them out when you've got a chance. He does a great job!

Video Clips

Here's a few videos I've taken over the last few days. I decided to nix the video of the screaming baby as mentioned earlier and show you one of him rolling over. I finally witnessed it for myself the other day!




This is a video of Brett riding the used 'mini' quad Jabon just picked up the other day. He and Jabon rode it together and then Jabon decided to let him ride it by himself. Jabon is running behind him because he's got a string attached to the kill switch that he could pull out if he needed to stop Brett quickly. A note of interest: the quad did not currently have any safety features (aka brakes) on at the time.



Here's one of Cody right afterward. He's a natural on it and rode quite well. Still no brakes on the quad in this video. Jabon just got the brake pads in the mail today.

New things with me

It's been a little over a week, so I guess I should let you all know what's going on.

Cody has been sick this whole week. He only went to school on Friday. He was suffering from a fever, up to 102, and a slightly sore throat. The nice thing was Jabon has every Monday and Tuesday off, so he was home with him then. I took of Wednesday so Jabon could get into work. I took Cody into the doctor that day and had him checked for strep. The in-office test came back negative, but the doctor sent another swab out for a more thorough test. By Friday, Cody was feeling better, but that evening the doctor called and said that the other strep test came back positive. I told him it seemed like that was a late April Fools, since Cody was feeling better. So even though he's feeling fine, he's taking antibiotics. I'm just glad his fever is gone!

While we were at the doctor's office for Cody, Jabon texted me and said he was at Intel's nurses office, because he was not feeling well. They diagnosed him with a bronchial virus. We guess Ashton passed it onto him. Jabon was stubborn and went back to work Wednesday, but his boss sent him home and told him not to return until at least Friday. Jabon was given the same treatments that Ashton had to have.

Speaking of Ashton, he was using the nebulizer every day from Friday until Tuesday. It made a vast improvement on his breathing and I think by Wednesday he had finally kicked that virus. He's doing much better. He's been growing very big and was last weighed in at 18 lbs and 8 ounces. He is getting so tall that his feet are starting to hang over the edge of his car seat. He is finally willing to spend some time on the floor, but hates being on his belly, so he's not very interested in rolling over yet. He is interested in sticking his tongue out frequently, though. It's pretty cute, because he's got a very skinny tongue.

Brett has been having a hard time this last week. He is so jealous of the fact that all the other boys in the family have been sick and have gotten to go to the doctor and get medicine. He kept telling me, "Don't worry, Mom. I'll get sick soon!" He's a crazy one, I tell ya. I was watching General Conference the last few days and at one point Brett was watching with me when President Monson was speaking. I told Brett that this man was the prophet of our church and his name is Thomas S. Monson. His eyes got very big and he said, "Like my Thomas train!!" Later on, when President Monson was back on the screen, I asked Brett if he remembered this man's name. He said, "It's Thomas!" It was incredibly cute!

Gotta go. I've got a grumpy baby I need to care for.

No, I didn't fall off the face of the earth...

I guess it's been a while since I've blogged since my husband asked me when I was going to do a new post. I just got lazy. I was enjoying my Spring Break, even though we didn't go anywhere and I still had to work. But it was nice not having to do homework every single night of the week!

Ashton is 5 months now. He's talking a lot. And by that I mean he's doing the baby talk where he screeches and just makes noises. He is still recovering from the stinkin' bronchial virus he got, but he just has a little bit of a cough left and is doing better. Saturday I learned that a family in our church lost their 5th child, an 8 month old baby boy, to SIDS. He was totally and perfectly healthy and passed away this last Thursday morning. This news really hit me and I had a hard time getting over this even though I don't know the family. Every time I looked at Ashton for the next 48 hours I would get all teary eyed and want to cry. I kept thinking that Ashton could go that easily and that he lost what could have been his little buddy. (I'm obviously still emotional from being pregnant). The Relief Society sent out on email with the family's blog because it had the funeral information on it. There was a picture of the mom holding her son, with dad next to her, just before the coroner took him away. Okay, it's obviously still affecting me, because I gotta switch subjects before I cry.

Here is a picture of my 3 baby boys. See how nicely Cody tans? Just like Peter. Lucky kid.
Brett and Cody are doing good, too. Cody is registered for the next season of football already, even though it doesn't start until August. Brett has been learning new things and having preschool time with the lady who watches the kids for me, 'Babysitter' Lori. He's really enjoying that.

Jabon still has a job, thank goodness. I guess his group's layoffs start in 2 weeks. One good thing is one of the general managers knows him by name (which is nice considering it's all for poitive things and there are 1000's of people who work at his location). This GM told him the other day that he has great things in store for Jabon. So, as long as this GM doesn't get fired, Jabon's job should be okay, too!

As for me, I am re-pledging to exercise. I have only done it once in about 4 weeks--and I was doing so good, too!! But I have been trying to focus on school and studying more than I have earlier in the semester. The nice thing is, my weight hasn't changed, so at least it has not gone up. Hey, I gotta look on the bright side of things.

Valentine's Day a.k.a. Brett's Birthday

My little buggy Brett turned 4 today. First thing in the morning, his Dad and big brother Cody took him fishing. Brett is always asking to go fishing and Gilbert, a town close to where we live, has a few man-made lakes they stock for urban fishing. Here is their catch.

What you don't see is the price tag Jabon removed. Seems the boys didn't have any luck at the lake, so Jabon took them to the store and purchased 3 fish for them to try. Cody hated it, but Brett was a little more open to try them! Good thing Jabon loves fish. He had to eat all that was left.



The next thing we did for Brett's birthday was take him to Chuck E. Cheese. He's also been asking for that for a while. This was his favorite ride. He loves monster trucks. Jabon was really tempted to build Brett one just like this!








Here is Brett opening his gift. He was pretty excited. It's remote controlled and he was getting a kick out of it. He sure loves his trucks!!



I let him pick out his own cake and frosting. I think every year he ends up picking a pink cake with pink frosting. He says it's his favorite color and we can't seem to convince him to go for a more masculine color. So I had to 'boy' it up by giving it a Spongebob and Patrick theme.

We ended his day with giving him hot dogs for dinner (I was out of mac 'n cheese) and a bath, which is one of his most favorite activities!