Mayhem May

May was a crazy chaotic month for me. It was filled with many blessings, as well as tested my organization skills, time management skills and really pushed my patience levels some days.

Many of you probably remembering reading about our sweet baby Jackson that was placed for adoption without my brother in laws consent back in January of 2011. Throughout the past 18 months my life has had many ups and downs throughout this journey and process. We have learned so much and have become very involved in the adoption community and legislation. I am PRO adoption, when there is a child that needs a home. For more information about Jackson go to getbabyjackback.com I am NOT pro baby selling, which is what occurred in my brother in laws case. Jackson had a very loving father and loving home who wanted him and was so excited to meet him.

In January of 2012, I went up to Capitol Hill and testified in support of HB308 which would require legal notice to any potential father that an adoption proceeding could be taking place in the state of Utah. I also joined the Utah Adoption Council in February of 2012, which unfortunately has been a whirlwind of a journey in itself. Throughout our journey we have met wonderful people who unfortunately have been living in our shoes as well as met a wonderful attorney, Wes Hutchins who has become our attorney. He was the Utah Adoption Council President until May 2012 where he resigned his position due to unethical behaviors occurring with adoption attorneys, adoption agencies and social workers. We conducted an undercover investigation into 5 different adoption agencies to see what they were truly telling these birth mothers. It was HORRIFYING. The were telling these mothers that they would give them an envelope full of money after the birth, they could tell the father that the baby was killed in a car accident if they didn't want to tell them they placed the baby for adoption, and they even said that the laws were unethical and immoral, but a law is a law. You can see the news coverage here! It is very disheartening to know that many people are unaware of all of the corruption, lies and fraud going on with the adoption industry. Unfortunately, money talks as it's a $6 billion dollar a year industry.

With that being said, Wes Hutchins, past president of the Utah Adoption Council decided to start his own council known as the Utah Council for Ethical Adoption Practices (UCEAP... pronounced "You Keep"). He took Jenny(mother in law) and I along for the ride with him. I am currently the secretary on this council. Our mission is to make all adoption proceedings ethical. Any and all parties interested in adoption can join this council. Our very first meeting was held in June and has had tremendous support. If anyone is interested in getting more information you can join our face book group here and can get your questions answered.

Also, in May, my manager and amazing friend Jenny Paulson decided to continue her education and move to Maryland. She is going to grad school for Broadcast Journalism, which she has a strong passion for. In lieu of her leaving, her position opened up for the Wellness Director.  

Which after 4 years working for Corporate Wellness by Gold's Gym, I can now proudly say I am the Wellness Director. There have been many ups and downs of working with this company, but I can truly say I love my job. Every day is so rewarding! I have seen our company grow, change and become an amazing company, with amazing people and an amazing product. I know that I wouldn't be where I am today without the support of Jenny over the past year and half. We worked so well together and she taught me so much. I also, wouldn't have been able to progress in my job after having Boston without having the huge support of my husband and especially my mom for taking care of Boston while I am at work.

It's exciting to see where our company is headed. Currently, we are affiliated with 17 Gold's Gyms in Utah and offer comprehensive wellness programs to hundreds of corporations throughout the state of Utah. Ancestry.com, Overstock.com, CLEARLINK, Orange Soda, and US Synthetic are just a few of our clients. If everything goes as planned, we hope to be servicing clients outside of the state of Utah within a year. This will be a huge task, but I feel like we are capable of having a dominant product outside of Utah. To learn more about what I do, visit utcorporatewellness.com.

Along with this news, May was filled with Josh graduating, Thanksgiving Point Dinosaur Museum, and Las Vegas for Tara's Bachelorette Party. More posts to come!

Josh's Graduation

Josh graduated from MATC in May of 2012, with his electrical license. I am super proud of him, and all of his hard work and accomplishments. Josh has been working in the electrical field for 5 1/2 years and has worked for Taylor Electric for 4 1/2 years. He has managed different floors on job sites and has been a team leader to many in the job field. He has worked on some very prestigious job sites such as IHC Riverton Hospital, BYU broadcasting center, UVU Pope Science building and is currently working on the shopping outlets at Traverse Mountain.

Josh is such a hard worker and just adore him <3

Easter 2012

Easter 2012 started out with an Easter egg hunt out in Eagle Mountain. The age group he was in was actually 3-4, so I figured he would be fine. His buddy Easton and Zoe came out to go with us and they were too excited to go grab the eggs, but when the whistle blew both kids were pouting and were scared to go out and grab the eggs. By the time the fit throwing was done all the eggs were picked up. 

Easter morning began with Boston checkin' out his easter goods from the Easter bunny. He loved seeing all of the eggs lined up from the stairs to the couch where his Easter basket was waiting for him.

After breakfast at our house, we headed over to Grandma Graham's and dyed Easter eggs and did an Easter egg hunt over there where they actually got some eggs. Eggs with money in them to be exact. Boston enjoyed the Easter festivities for about 2.5 minutes. Each year holidays get funner and funner.

Painting projects

In January of this year, I got the painting bug. My mother in law, mom and I decided to tackle a HUGE project. We decided to paint a mural on Boston's toy room wall. Boston has been obsessed with cars since he was 9 months old, so we thought that would be pretty fitting. My mother in law completed two other mural projects, one in her toy room, Dr.Seuss and one in Jackson's Nursery. The room took us 4 months to complete. It was a lot of work, but it is amazing. We can't give ourselves too much credit for the artistic drawing since we used a projector, but nonetheless it was hard work.

I also decided that I don't like white walls. My bathroom has been pretty boring and I had a small obsession with stripes from seeing all of the pins on Pinterest. I decided to give it ago in my bathroom and let me tell you what... STRIPES suck. I love love love the aftermath, but in the process I was hating life. My mom helped me with this and she gets credit for getting the lines straight. I am still in need of a cream shaggy rug and accenting my mirror with tiffany blue wood trim, but I love the finished product. What do you think?

I have so many other rooms I want to paint, maybe this Fall.  


Master Bathroom

19 Months

Boston is 19 months!

He is so fun, yet such a little stinker. He definitely has a personality of his own and knows how to work the system to get what he wants.

He is a very determined kid and doesn't take no for an answer.

He is constantly learning new things everyday and he amazes me how smart he is.

He is still is having a hard time gaining weight, but has managed to get on the charts.

Stats from 18 month check up:

Length: 31.75 inches 30%

Weight: 22 Pounds 5%

Head Circumference: 46.7 cm 25%

He still is struggling with having a decent sleep schedule, but we have been improving. Tips and suggestions are ALWAYS welcome.

He has become very mischievous lately, and wants to get into anything and everything he not suppose to. He likes to run upstairs, get in the tub with all of his clothes on and turn the water on. He also likes to stick his hand in the toilet water, or eat the dog food.

We are in the process of painting a cars mural on his new bedroom wall and he wants to go upstairs about 30 times a day to look at the cars or to jump on our bed. He figured out how to climb up on to our big pillow top bed, by using the night stand to assist him.

Very recently, he has learned to climb out of his crib... interesting!

He is OBSESSED with cars, trucks, and tractors. His new thing is to watch videos from YouTube on my phone.

Boston's new words he can say are:

car, truck, tractor, nana (banana), grandma (nama), peaz(cutest thing ever), bye bye, k (he says this for everything), no, fishy, baby, awe, hat, hot, teeth

He recently starting signing the word more and he always is signing for milk.

He loves to go to the park, and gets really mad when he has to leave.

He really still loves his polka dot blankie and his bottle.

Boston knows where his head, hair, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, teeth, belly button, fingers, arms, knees, and toes are.

He knows the sounds that a kitty, dinosaur, dog, monkey, pig (so hilarious), horse, chicken and cow make.

He can point to cookie monster, big bird, and elmo. He loves to pretend to eat cookies when he sees cookie monster.

Boston loves, loves, loves to brush his teeth and he carries a tooth brush around the house.

We have one smart cookie on our hands and we just adore him :)

 At the park, and in heaven.

 Boston sporting a pretty cool shirt he got from his Aunt Randi from Boston, Mass.

 At my Grandpa Harris' 90th birthday party. He and my Grandma are such awesome people.

 Daddy and Boston at the Hunting Expo.

 Boston loves wearing hats!

 Lovin' his cars jammies, slippers, and his tooth brush.

 The many funny faces of Boston.

I love my little B man!

Tear duct Surgery

On Feb. 29, 2012, Boston went in for eye surgery. From about 1 month until surgery Boston had a clogged tear duct. This is very common in newborns and typically goes away by the age of one. If the tear duct doesn't open up by itself by the age of one, surgery is generally recommended. This was the case for Boston. His poor eye always looked so gooey and red, and would always chap his cheek from having the tears run down his face. People would always comment how he must be sad or does he have pink? It was kinda frustrating. We decided to go forward with the surgery at the start of the new year and had his surgery scheduled for January 12th. Unfortunately, little B man came down with a viral infection and had to be in the hospital overnight. Due to him having a fever, the anesthesiologist will not work on a child within a 6 week period. So we had to wait.

The day finally came. He was not allowed to have any food or liquids after 6 AM and his surgery wasn't scheduled until 9:15. That was one of the toughest parts. We got to the hospital and he got all gowned up, so cute, and he played with toys. He was having a riot. They decided to give him an oral sedative to get him relaxed and it made him loopy. That's pictured in the top left picture. Once, that kicked in he was wheeled back to the operating room in his wagon. I wasn't allowed back at the point, but the team of people at the Primary Riverton Outpatient were wonderful. There was so many people that had contact with us and they were all very caring.

The surgery was approximately 30 minutes. The doctor went in a put a probe down in the tear canal. The opening was really tight, so she made the decision to put a stent in the duct to have a more successful rate of keeping the duct open. In 90-95% of the operations the canal stays open and no further procedure is necessary.

After surgery, I was allowed back in the recovery room, and Boston was not happy. He was loopy and hooked up to a bunch of machines and just wanted his mom. He had a bloody nose for a few days due to the drainage. The whole process was about 4 hours long start to finish. I actually handled my little baby being put under anesthesia a lot better than I suspected I would.

Unfortunately, only 3 days after surgery, Boston was rubbing his eye and the stent came out. The doctor claimed she had never had a patient be able to get the stent out, but had heard of others this had happened to. The stent was suppose to be in place for about 2-3 months and be removed in the office at that time. We are just hoping that the probe did the trick and he won't have to go back under. So far his eye looks amazing and we hope it stays that way.

Corporate Wellness Awards Banquet

My company I work for Corporate Wellness by Gold's Gym held our first annual Client Appreciation Awards Banquet on Feb. 23, 2012. We had about 50 of our current clients come and get recognition for the success they have had with their wellness program for the past few years. We were able to get a really great keynote speaker, Drew Manning. He is known for being a fit personal trainer, who went on a journey getting fat and realizing the struggles of his clients, and is well on his way to being fit again. You can read more about his story HERE. We also had the current Miss Utah USA in attendance as well. It was a fun event and it was great to recognize our clients. My client CLEARLINK won the Diamond award. They have an amazing wellness program as well as culture and company. I love CLEARLINK. If anyone is looking for a career in health and wellness, that has a bachelors in a health field we are always looking to bring people aboard. Also, if you or anyone you know would like to have an awesome wellness program feel free to shoot me a message and we can get you on board.

 My gorgeous boss, Jenny!

 Drew Manning, fit2fat2fit.com

 Kendyl Bell, Miss Utah USA

 The CLEARLINK team. Brian Hall. me. Cammie Cable. Bianca West. Marc Hansen

 The Corporate Wellness team minus a few plus Drew and Kendyl.

The client success story winners, Matt Brochinsky and Brian Hall (my client as well)

Portland.Seattle

 In January, I had a work trip to Seattle. My brother at the time lived in Tigard, Oregon, so I decided to make a little trip out of it. I had never met my little niece Zoe so I was excited to see her. She is 4 months younger than Boston, but weights 5 pounds more than him. Boston, my mom and I went. It was Boston's first plane ride, and he loved looking at the planes! He was in heaven. Our flight got delayed about an hour, plus we were there 2 hours early, so he was a bit fussy. By the time we got on the plane he was tuckered out and fell right asleep. Easiest plane ride ever! The way home was a bit more interesting. Scariest plane ride of my life, there was so much turbulence.

 Cousins Boston and Zoe. Boston 16 months, Zoe 13 months.

 Grandma Lisa and her girl Zoe.

 My brother Bryan and I. One week later they moved to Utah. It's nice having them closer.

 We visited the Nike Campus. It was so beautiful. Unfortunately, due to 9/11 they don't give tours of the campus any more.

 As seen on a popular TV show we went to VooDoo Doughnuts. It was delish. Glazed doughnuts with fruit loops and maple bars with bacon.

 I love this polar bear hat on B. I unfortunately gave in, and bought a leash backpack to use at the airport. To my surprise we didn't need to use it.

After we stayed in Portland for a few days, we drove up to Seattle and visited my Aunt Kiki. She bought wellies for Boston to wear out to the farm. He loved looking at all the animals. He is such a sweet little animal lover.

Christmas 2011



Christmas Eve at Grandma Grahams





Christmas morning at our house. I love the stockings my mom made :)

 His own little vaccuum, from Grandma Lisa, so he can help mom out.





Opening Christmas Jammies on Christmas Eve



Boston was loving all his toys, but getting mad, every time we would take it away to open a new one.

 

One more FotoFly Santa picture

Boston wearing his cars slippers

Opening all the fun toys at Grandma Grahams

Josh getting games for his new XBOX

 A very sentimental necklace Aunt Judy gave Jenny. It was a birthstone for Baby Jackson in a necklace passed down from Jenny's mom who has passed away. It means the world to Jenny.

Boston was spoiled!

Josh's dad (Terry), Heidi, Josh, Boston, Jake (Josh's Bro.), Brittni (Josh's Sis)



4 generations of Strickland boys