About the Gardner's!

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This is us! Jared, Stefanie, Anna and Aiden! Anna is 4 and Aiden is 2, time flies so fast! We're doing our best to enjoy life and take every obstacle head on! :) I'm hoping to have this blog be about all the happy things in our life and keep it mostly positive! Obviously, we have things in our lives that aren't so great, but I'll do my best to keep this as uplifting as possible ;)

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Help if you can!

I've been trying for days to upload pictures on here and it's just not working and I have no idea why! The pictures are in the right format and are not too big or anything. It'll take who knows how long to try and upload them, then it takes me to a site and says they can't locate it and to try entering the location again....WHAT?? Doesn't make any sense to me! Is there anyone who can help me with this???

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Trip, kitty, haircuts, oh my!

Wow, I can't believe it's been two months since I last posted! Ok, nevermind, I guess I can believe it. But it's time to update! I should have updated a month ago and just didn't get around to doing it! Let's see....a little over a month ago, Jared had a week off so we ended up taking a trip down to Arizona, it was so great! The kids did really good in the car and we decided to split up the ride on the way down so the kids didn't go too crazy. We stayed the night in a hotel in St. George, then headed off the rest of the way to Gilbert the next day. We stayed with my aunt and uncle at their home, which was soooo nice of them!!!, and did a few fun things while we were there. We drove into Phoenix one day and went to a science/children's museum of sorts. Everything was hands on and there were some pretty cool things there! We even got to see a live demonstration of an eye dissection! Talk about once in a lifetime experience! Although it WAS a cow's eye...still kinda cool though. So we spent a couple hours there, and of course Anna ran off on us during that time and got lost, an employee found her in an elevator!, and after that we went to the Superstition Springs Mall to have lunch and right next to it is a "dollar theater", which actually cost $2 per person lol. We watched the movie "Up", which Aiden slept through most of it, but Anna really enjoyed it. On one of the other days, we took a day trip down to Sierra Vista, where Jared used to live when he was younger. We saw the two houses he used to live in and the elementary school he went to. It was cool to be able to see that stuff! It also happened that I have a friend who lived down there at that time with her husband and daughter, so we were able to go visit with them for a couple hours, it was great! On the way back home, we ended up making some last minute plans and split up the ride on the way back and were able to spend the night at Jared's aunt and uncle's house in Henderson, NV, which was sooo great of them, especially so last minute! We had to wait a couple hours or so for them to get home, so in the meantime they told us about this water park type thing by their home. It's this free water park for kids to play in!! So we put Anna in her swimsuit and let her run around in the water, it was great and she loved it! It was basically some toys and things that continuously had water streams coming out of them, it was so cool and totally free! Anyway, we spent the night there and Jared's aunt and uncle generously bought us dinner at a nearby casino ;) lol. Then we headed home and rested once we got there, it was a fantastic trip!
After the trip, there hasn't been too much going on. Oh wait! About a week and a half before we left on our trip, we got a new kitty! We named her Bessie and she's a cute little calico. Our neighbors that live above us, their cat is always having kittens and they just give the kittens away, so with this last litter, we got to take one of the kittens. We mainly got her as a playmate for Allie so she would be a bit happier, and she is. They're so cute together :). I'll post a picture of Bessie.
Let's see, what else...ah yes. A couple weeks ago, I got sick. Sore throat, coughing, fever, chills, nausea, all that fun stuff. I went to the doctor and he gave me an antibiotic. He tested me for strep, but nothing else. I was negative for the strep though. A couple days after I got sick, Jared started feeling sick. He had everything I had, minus the sore throat. Went to the doctor, tested positive for Swine Flu. Oh joy. I was soo hoping we wouldn't get it, but I guess it was inevitable. A couple days after Jared got sick, the kids got sick. Took them to the doctor, Aiden tested positive for the Swine Flu. The doctor said Anna was already on the mend so she didn't need to be tested, but we're sure she had the same thing. They both had coughs and fevers, luckily it didn't get worse than that! And luckily now, it's all over and we're all better, thank goodness. It sucked while it lasted though! Jared was off work for a week because of all of us being sick :P. Glad it's all over though.
After that "joyous" adventure, a couple days ago Jared got a call from our bank. And what did they ask him? They wanted to know if the charges made in California that day were valid. Umm...we're in Utah right now, not California! Sure enough, someone hacked into our account or something and basically wiped out our account. Spent TONS of money at Walmart, of all places!, and must have filled up two gas tanks at a gas station. I was livid! I couldn't believe something like that had actually happened to us. I try my best to be safe with financial stuff, but somehow they got our info and took our money. So now we have no money in our account til Jared gets paid next Friday...it's a good thing Jared had a little cash in his wallet though! And the bank told us it would take up to 10 days to get us our money back....oh joy. Luckily they're still going to clear the bills we had mailed out. Just makes me so mad that someone would do that!! I'm glad the bank found out though and called us right away so we could get it taken care of!
Today was a fun day though. I finally went and got the kids' first haircuts! They look sooo cute!! I got Anna's trimmed a bit, got a couple inches or so cut off, and now she has a little bob and bangs, it looks so much better and just so cute! She looks so much older now, I just love it. And Aiden, oh what a stud!! She trimmed all of his hair so it was all even and cut it pretty short so I'm able to spike it and he looks so much older, but looks soooo cute! I love their cuts! My camera pretty much broke though, so I have no pictures of anything I talked about that I can post. I was able to get it to work for some other things, so I may post some other pictures, but I had to buy a disposable camera to take pictures of the kids' haircuts, so that will be on a later post, hopefully.
Other than allllll that stuff, we're still doing great and trying to find fun things to do in this colder weather! More later! :)

Ok, so the program to insert the images isn't working right now, so I'll try and post pictures later, sorry!

Saturday, August 15, 2009

New pictures, finally!












Ok I'm finally going to post some pictures from when I last posted! We went to North Salt Lake on the 3rd of July for their annual fireworks show and we all had a great time! I held both Anna and Aiden during the show because we had one blanket to huddle under and as you can see, Anna did NOT like them! They scared her so she tried to hide from them. Aiden loved them though. Then on the 4th we went to Jared's parent's house and had a barbeque with family members, we all had a great time! I loved putting Anna's hair in curlers, she looks so cute! :) She helped her grandpa shuck corn and Aiden loved to eat the watermelon rinds and corn cob ends! lol. It was so cute. We spent the 24th of July with family as well, but my camera was dead so I wasn't able to get pictures :(. There are other little random pictures as well: one of me with my new teeth!, one of the kids in the tub, one of Aiden doing his new thing which is standing on the side of the couch, which he actually does anywhere and everywhere now!, and one of him standing in his crib! That's when I realized we needed to lower the mattress! lol. There are probably other pics as well, so enjoy!

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

I'm BAACCKK!!

After who knows how long it's been, I can finally start posting again!! We've had a few computer problems the past few months so it's been pretty crazy! We finally got this computer all working right so I can finally update! I'll just summarize whatever has happened lately: Anna is still a little ball of energy and as of the past couple weeks has decided to go to sleep at midnight every night, which is driving us CRAZY. Hopefully it's just a phase! She loves to play outside as much as possible and has a little friend here to play with which makes it more fun! Aiden also loves the outdoors and is crawling around EVERYWHERE! He also pulls himself up alongside furniture and whatever else he can and is pretty close to standing/walking on his own, it's nuts! He also has his two bottom teeth which makes his smile that much cuter! They're both such sweeties and most of the time a blast to be with! :) Jared is still working and doing a great job at it while I stay at home with the kids! Our fourth of July and 24th of July holidays were a lot of fun and they were spent with many family members which makes it even more fun! We saw lots of fireworks and things which Anna didn't like, but Aiden loved. We're planning a small trip for next month, probably to Arizona, so we're looking forward to that! I'll try and get some pictures posted soon, I don't have the time for it right now. Oh, and of course the other thing that happened last month...I got my braces off, yippee!! My teeth look amazing and I just LOVE to show them off now! :) I just LOVE my new teeth! Thanks hun!! That's about it for now, I'll be posting more later!

Thursday, April 23, 2009

continued...







Another post with a few random pictures. Today we went to Thanksgiving Point with a friend of ours and her daughter, who is Anna's age, and we looked around at the Tulip Festival, it was beautiful and so fun! The girls were holding hands during some parts so we had to get a picture of them holding hands! They had so much fun there! We'll have to go back there again soon.
Something else happened a couple days ago in Aiden's room. I put Aiden in his crib with a little crib toy so I could do some laundry real quick. I noticed Anna trying to climb in there with him and I told her not to, because of course I didn't know what she would do lol. I went back a minute later to check on Aiden, and I peeked in his room and saw Anna trying as hard as she could to climb into his crib! She very carefully climbed in there, doing her best not to sit on Aiden, and she just sat down at his feet and started talking to him! How could I be mad at her for that?? lol. So I took some pictures of them together in the crib. Then I told her to come out of the crib and of course a couple minutes later, she was back in there, this time laying down next to him. She was pretending to go to sleep so she would tell him "nuh night!" and lay down next to him! At one point, with NO prompting from me, she leaned over and gave him a kiss nuh night! lol. It was sooo adorable. So I had to get more pictures from that! My kids keep me on my toes and can be VERY frustrating at times, but by golly I love them to pieces!!

Discovery Gateway! and more...lots of pics!











Ok so on Tuesday I took the kids to Discovery Gateway in Salt Lake and it was so fun!! Of course Aiden didn't really know what was going on, but Anna had TONS of fun! If she didn't need a nap and I didn't get bored, we could have stayed there much longer! lol. We were there almost 2 1/2 hours, she just didn't want to stop playing! So we'll definitely have to go back soon! So these were some pictures from there!

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

More pics and info...







Well, as I was looking at my pictures, I forgot that since I last wrote, we went on a road trip which was quite an adventure! We had lots of fun though. We left early early, like 5 a.m. early, on a Sunday morning (2-15-09) and drove all day down to Gilbert, AZ, where we stayed with my aunt Melody and her family for two nights. That was one of the worst days though, holy cow. It took us about 14 hours to get down there, we had to keep making stops to let Anna run around for a min or two and of course to get gas occasionally. So of course once we got to their house, Anna was running around like a wild child! Seriously, she wouldn't stop for a second! Poor girl. Aiden did really well though. We borrowed Jared's dad's car, a Lincoln Towncar, because we didn't have enough room in our car to fit everything, so it was great taking his car. I was able to just slide in the backseat and feed Aiden his bottle while in his carseat. He slept most the time and did so so good. The next day, Monday, we went looking around parts of Mesa with Jared's grandparents and they showed us the temple grounds and where they grew up and everything, it was awesome. Tuesday, we left in the morning to drive to San Diego to stay the night with my Grandma and Grandpa, who live on a houseboat. Well, recently they sold that houseboat, so I was very glad we got to stay with them! It was interesting staying on there with two kids, but we managed for one night. Well, we got there in the afternoon and that night, my grandma and grandpa were working at the temple so we drove down the street to Seaport Village and hung out for an hour or so and took Anna on a carousel ride.
The next day we went with my grandparents to the San Diego Zoo and it was so fun!! We stayed there til around 2 or 3 and by that time Anna was so tired, but she also had so much fun! They had a little petting zoo that we took her in to and she loved to walk around with the animals and pet them! Oh and I think her favorite thing was the kettle corn....we tried to take it away from her for a few minutes so she could do the petting zoo, but nooo way, she cried if we did that!
That night, Wednesday night, we spent at a hotel because we didn't want to do two nights on the houseboat. Thursday morning we left and drove to Las Vegas!! Well, technically to Henderson, which is where Jared's Uncle and his wife live. We stayed a night with them, then the next day went to the Coke Store and the M&M Store, both so cool! Then after those, we drove home. It was a short but very fun vacation!
Also, there are a few pics of Anna with black stuff on her face that was taken a few days ago....yes, it's mascara! I accidentally left my makeup bag out and she got into it and starting trying to put it on just like I do! I couldn't help but laugh, it looked so funny! That's it for now!

I guess I should update....









It's been a while since I've written anything, so I guess I'd better write something! lol. Let's see...Aiden can now drive and Anna just moved out last week....oh wait, I guess it hasn't been THAT long haha. About a month ago we got a new car, yay!! Our Ford Escort was just getting too small for us! Well, especially me. The kids were a little crowded in the back seat and it wasn't always easy to fit everything we needed into that car. So we looked a couple places and ended up getting an '05 Mazda Tribute from CarMax. We traded our Escort in towards the purchase of our new one. It's an SUV and I totally love it! I love all the space it has in there, it's so fantastic, soo much better than our other car! So we've been pretty excited about that. Not a whole lot else has been happening with us. For Easter this past Sunday, we spent it with Jared's family and we did an egg hunt for Anna in their backyard, she totally loved it!! It was also Aiden's first Easter, but since he didn't know what was going on, then we didn't do a whole lot for him lol. I got him a couple of new toys, well, I should say they came from the "Easter bunny", and I put candy in his basket just because. Anna got a little Elmo figurine, which she LOVES, and she got one of those "My Little Pony" dolls. She loves that too. I remember playing with those when I was younger!
Really, not much else is going on. Sometimes I take the car for the day so I can go somewhere with the kids or do little playdates or whatever, and that's about the extent of our lives! Jared still works at the Post Office, of course, and is doing so great there. Oh that reminds me, it was really cool last night when I went to pick him up at work! I was just about to pull into the parking lot when I suddenly saw a mama deer and her 4 fawns walking across the parking lot!! It was so awesome! They walked across the street a few feet in front of our car and hung out in a front yard for a minute, then kept on walking down the street then into someone's backyard, it was crazy! But way cool. Anna kept saying all the way home, "kjselfkj ljflksj deer? All gone?" And yes, those jumbled letters was just her saying whatever, I can never understand her when she jabbers like that, I don't think she's really saying anything lol. She kept saying that ALL night too, I was like yes they're gone! But she had to keep asking about them! lol. She's so cute. Anna is of course getting bigger by the week it seems, growing out of her clothes and shoes faster than I can buy them, ugh! She's so so tall so it makes it hard sometimes to find the right clothes for her. I have to buy 3T and 4T shirts to make sure they are long enough on her! She loves to play outside, when it's warm, and with other kids and she is so fun, most of the time! lol. She is definitely in her terrible two's, which can be difficult sometimes, but she really is a cutie. Aiden is now 5 months old and I just keep thinking, "Where did the time go?? I swear he was just born!!" It's crazy how fast the time does go, but Aiden is doing great. He's now sleeping through the night, yay!, and still eats every two hours lol. He loves, loves to play with his toys and smiles a ton. He is such an adorable baby boy and such a good boy too! We love our little family!
Ok I just uploaded the pics and realized they're not in the place I wanted them, I wanted them AFTER the post, but I'm obviously still new to this so, sorry!

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

HELP

This is one reason why I didn't want to do a blog, it's so complicated to customize it! Sure everyone else can do it and even though I know a lot about computers, I can't figure out how to finish customizing this thing! So if anyone is willing to help or give me some tips, please do!! I'm having a problem trying to change the template or whatever that's in my header and I have no idea how to do it. I welcome any tips! Thanks.

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Very traumatic today

I should start by saying this is a LONG post because it's a story of something that happened today. So if you don't want to read a long story, then don't say I didn't warn ya. Today I had the most traumatic experience EVER. First, I'll tell about the other stuff that happened. I finally got my nails redone today, which I needed bad. Then I took the kids to a little boutique that had cute kid stuff and I got the most adorable blue dress for Anna!! It comes with a little hat, that kinda looks like a bonnet, and she looks like Little Bo Peep in it! It's soo cute!! I figure it can be her Easter dress, but she could also wear it all through the summertime too. After the boutique, we drove down to Provo to first go to the Provo mall so I could buy some new shoes at Famous Footwear. We got a $5 off certificate in the mail and I got my rebate money back from buying my new phone so I used both of those to get the shoes. Then we met up with Madlyn and her kids at University Mall and I was soo excited about it!! I hadn't hung out with her in soo long! So now on to the traumatic part.....at the mall they have a new play place for the kids to play on and it's just inside the doors to one of the entrances. The way the play place is layed out, you can't exactly see it all from every angle or anything. You have to be sitting in the right spot to be able to see everything. So we were on one bench with a partial good view, then another bench opened up with a somewhat better view of everything. So we started to move all our stuff over there. While we were doing this, the kids were already playing and we had checked on them just before we started moving our stuff. When we sat down on the bench we moved to, I got up to start looking for Anna just to check on her. I circled the play area twice and couldn't find her anywhere. I told Madlyn I couldn't find her, so she got up and started looking too. We looked twice again and still couldn't find her. She suggested going to get Mall Security to help us so I handed Aiden off to her and ran like the dickens to find mall security. I was wearing somewhat high heeled boots and kept praying that while I ran I wouldn't trip or fall! I got near the security booth when I saw a couple police officers and stopped them and asked if they were involved with mall security. They said no, but asked if I had lost a child.I said yes!, and they said mall security had a little girl. I asked if she was wearing pink and they said they didn't know but to go talk to the lady at the info booth and she would talk to security. So I ran over there and she immediately asked if I had lost my daughter. I said yes and asked if she was wearing pink and she said yes and that they had found her. I just started crying and was trembling all over. I sat there waiting for security to bring her over to me and when I finally saw her coming towards me, I just ran to her and grabbed her and cried. She clung to me and I told her over and over never to run away from me again. Poor Madlyn was still freaking out at this point so I quickly walked over to her and she had tried recruiting other people to help find Anna and one of the stores nearby heard her crying out for Anna so they got on the intercom asking for security for her. She was also holding two babies in her arms and had her two other kids at her feet! I felt so bad leaving all of them with her! But I was ever so grateful that Anna was found!! I met up with Madlyn and she saw me holding Anna and we both just hugged and cried. I don't think I'm still over the shock of it all. Her and I were trembling the rest of the time we were there. We recruited Alex to help watch Anna after that. We couldn't have done it without his help! :) She had tried running off a couple more times and man did it piss me off. It's like she just doesn't get it at all!! I might just have to get one of those kid leashes for her. I used to think those things were awful and hideous, but now I understand why parents use them! Madlyn and I were constantly scanning the area for any runaways after that. Anna does that a lot to me in different places, ALWAYS runs away from me. I don't understand why she never listens to me. It's sooo annoying! She'll even run off if we're in a parking lot getting into the car. She almost got hit by a car when we left Wal-Mart one time. I thought THAT was traumatic. That was nothing compared to what happened today. It was just the thought of not knowing where she was or possibly who she was with! I guess a couple of girls saw her running by the food court and caught her and handed her over to a security guard, thank goodness that's all that happened! I just couldn't believe that had happened. Then a little while later, Alex had disappeared and I was in the bathroom with Anna and Aiden and apparently he went in the men's room to go to the bathroom lol! Then a while after that, Riley got hurt by some kid stepping on her poor little hand! We thought something was bound to happen to Emalyn and Aiden since they were the only two left that nothing happened to! Luckily nothing did happen. It was the worst moment of my life when I realized she was missing and it will never happen again! That was Madlyn and mine's "fun" reunion lol. I'm just so glad we found her. On the way home, I kept looking at her in her carseat and was thinking to myself how lucky I was that she was in that carseat and that it wasn't empty. I don't know what I would have done. It was also scary because the play place was by the doors to the outside and we didn't know if she had gone outside either. It was just horrible. SOO glad it's all over. Anyway, other than that, visiting with Madlyn was just great! We went back home after visiting with her and picked up Jared from work and went home. Man I never want to have a repeat of today. I still feel like I'm recovering from it. I really do think I'm still shaking. It was just awful. Anyway, so that was my traumatic day!

Friday, February 6, 2009

I've been lured in....

Yes, I've finally been lured into this dumb blogging thing lol. As most of you know, I haven't been a fan of wanting to blog at all and I've had everyone trying to convince me to do it for over a year. Well, now that I have the internet at home, I suppose I don't have many reasons left for not doing it. So here I am. We moved up here to Bountiful last April and since then have had our cute little Aiden in November. Anna just had her 2nd birthday last month and it was lots of fun. Thanks Melesa!! :) Jared is still working for the post office and he's doing great with it. We're loving that he is finally working during the day!! As for me, I stay at home with the kids all day every day. It can get boring sometimes so when that happens, I'll take the car for the day and go somewhere with the kids so it's not so boring at home. That's what will happen tomorrow. Anyway, that's about it for now. Not much else going on right now.