Well i havent blogged for ever again.... sorry life is so crazy. I have finished my class to certify as a substitute and hopefully will be certified next friday. Bill is half way done with his training on the road, a little different here in wyoming.

I just thought of a funny story to share, and what do you know its about Austin. The kids were out jumping on the tramp about a week ago. Sydney comes running in and tells me "mom austin is running around the tramp with his pants off.... and he peed on it too!" What goes through a moms head when she hears that? GO GET THE CAMERA!! So thats waht i did.... although i dont want to post them, its nearing child porn... lol. So i go out and tell austin to put his pants on, and of course he just looks at me and puts his hands on either side of his man hood and pretends to pee again!!! BRAT!! I finally convinced him to put them on and he got grounded from the tramp for 3 days. For a 3 year old thats a long time to watch your sisters jump without you. Unfortunately i think the camera made him think it was just funny to me so he pretends to do it often now. But when hes 16 and ready to go on a date he wont think its so funny now will he......HHeeeHHeee A mom has to have leaverage against her children right?

Summer fun Pictures!!

The newest little Burns.....Zachary...... He is soo sweet, very good baby.

Sydney's many summer adventures!

Allyson and all her creativity through the summer!

Austin the busy body.... there were too many pictures to choose from because he does the funniest things!

HUGE slacker!!!!

ok i know i havent blogged forever!! Life adjusting to a new baby is crazy! Ive tried to keep the other kids entertained by taking them to the park and the library and to the school lunches. By the time i get home from all that, all that there is time for is cleaning and feeding the baby.... literally, thats my days. All i can say is im ready for my girls to start school!!! they are getting so bored that they make these huge messes i swear its a competition to see who can make mom yell the loudest. Let me try to update u a bit on our summer.

Sydney played soccer, she loved it. Her skills have improved so much, i hate to see her stop playing for the winter. They play co-ed here and she loved that.
Zachary was blessed this last week, boy was he hard to find an outfit to fit him. All the 0 - 3 was too big but all the premies were too small.... so we settled for the too big. Ill post some pics as soon as bill puts them on the comp for me.
Sydney and allyson started dance this summer. A gal that lives here has offered her teaching skills at her home for half the price that you pay in a studio. The girls have loved that!! she is doing a great job teaching them. Sydney and ally have also passed there swimming levels. Sydney passed the level 2, which means she is one level away from being able to go off the diving boards and slides (you have to swim all the way across the pool to pass level 3). Ally passed level 1 and i have a feeling she will pass level 2 pretty quick... shes our water baby!
Poor austin hasnt done a heck of alot but come along for the ride... next year he'll be able to do more, hopefully. Alot of things u have to be at least 4, so we'll see.
We just got new windows in our house!!! We are so excited, it looks very nice. The most important thing though is that they're energy efficient and will save us alot of money in the winters. and judging by last years winter, we need all the help we can get. The down fall, it shows how incredibley bad our house needs a fresh coat of paint..... i hate it when u fix one thing just to realize something else needs to be done. Ohh well, paint is cheap, luckily.
New update on our hunk of junk van...... its on its last string..... Bill would like to fix what is broken, but i refuse.... we have put more money into that van in the last year than we could get out of it if we sold it. So.... we are van shopping .... hopefully we can find a good deal and not have too much of a payment.
We have come to realize that 4 children suck a budget DRY! or maybe its just the economy... i guess there is no way to know for sure. But i have decided to take some classes this fall so that i can be a sub at the elementaries here in town. If i do the class online i would be done on the 31st of Oct. And if all works out well that would give us the money we so desperately need for just our month to month living and help us out for christmas. im excited.... ive always had a desire to be a teacher, although this is far from an actual teacher, its a good start. Especially since my little boys are still home with me. I will work very hard to try and keep them out of daycare, that is something i dont want to do. With bills changing schedule i should be able to pull that off pretty well.
Bill is going to school again at the end of this month. To get his certification to be on the road. They have already given him his patrol vehicle, and plan for him to start patroling part time as soon as he gets back from school. The plan is for him to be a floating officer, if they need him in the jail that day, he works in the jail. If they need him on the road, he works on the road. Until they can fill his position in the jail.
Ok i think thats our life in a nut shell this summer. I know i have left some fun things we have done out, but my brain is fried.... sorry. I will post pics soon.

lazing on a Monday afternoon!

Boy did we have a day of exploring today! The day started with Zachary wanting to eat every half an hour.... u know the 2 week growth spurt. Since i was a little disabled sitting on the couch Sydney decided i needed a snack to keep me busy so she peeled an orange and put it in wedges (smashed ones) then she got me a carrot and decided it needed to be peeled and cut up. I asked her what knife she was using..... "the small one mom" and shows me the steak knife! I kept my cool and just let her continue, she brings me the plate, the carrots were cut up so small i almost couldnt pick them up. Not 5 minutes later she comes out of the kitchen with some drink concoction that she made, holy cow was it sweet "ya mom i put lots of honey in it" thats what i get when i let her watch the food network with me!

Then the next thing u know she is in the bathroom making her sisters hair "messy pretty" ally said it was just messy, but Sydney insisted other wise. After that we had a little down time before she started her frenzy again.

She insisted on a lemonade stand..... today..... i asked her to wait until tomorrow since zachary was eating all day long, but to no availe.... she wanted it today. She got her sign made that reads "coolead stand" .50. She made 5.00 and is planning it for the next 500 days!!!!!! I fear i have created a monster!!! and its all because i let her watch the food network with me on sunday!!!! I hope all our summer days are not quite this "creative" as it leaves alot to be cleaned up!!! However it is nice to see her taking an interest in cooking..... maybe one day she will want to do the dinners by herself.

OOhh before i forget.... Allyson wanted in on the fun of the stand so she opened her own.... the "Drum stand". She was sitting next to Sydney playing her "drums" or as we would call them pan lids! i dont think she made any money, but its the thought that counts right!?! She was being "creative" too!

Fishing with daddy

Bill took the kids to fishing day at the ice pond saturday morning. They had to be there at 8 am when it started because Sydney had a soccer game at 11:00. So amazingly he got up and got all 3 of them ready and gone by 8.... while mom was asleep in bed, way too tired to make myself conceious enough to help.
So around 10 when i woke up all the way i called to see how things are going.... the response i got was "im never taking all 3 fishing by myself again!" I guess austin kept throwing his pole into the water.... hoping maybe since the fish werent coming to him he would bring the pole to them. Bill with his quick moves had to keep going in after it! He was wet upto his knees when he got home. Each one of them got a few bites but all were too busy playing around to get it hooked. None the less, the kids had a good time..... dad enjoyed the time, perhaps would have been happy bringing home a little less water from the pond!
As u can see in the pictures they all got a free t shirt and a free pole. The t shirts are a little big, but make great jammies. Every time they wear them now they talk about how dad is going to take them fishing again. One day they're going to catch a fish and then dad will never get them away from the water!

first bath!

Zachary finally got his first offical bath at home. He was half asleep so he didnt seem to mind too much, until it was over and he got cold. The cute picture of him peaking out of the towel was taken by his big sister Sydney, i think it turned out pretty well. I think she was more excited about the bath than anyone else, it is so cute to see her gettting so involved with him. I think she remembers how alot of things happened with Austin so she wants to tell me how its done this time. It is the sweetest thing to see one of your other children wanting so badly to be the mother to your newest one. OOhh and before i forget.... he only woke up once last night!!!!! Can u believe it hes not even a week old! Im sure it wont last, but it was really nice.

Bill's First Blog

Well, Julie is the one that usually does the blogging for the family, but I am working the midnight shift at the Detention Center and have just about ran out of stuff to do before we wake up the inmates for the day, so I thought I would add one and see how it goes!

Well, things continue to roll right along up here in the great city of Evanston, Wyoming. Have you heard the song by Vanessa Williams "Saved the Best for Last"? Well there is a part in it where she says, "sometimes the snow comes down in June". That is exactly what happened the other day. We woke up to a nice powder blanket of snow. It didn't last which was okay with us. Our grass is almost to tall to mow in one sweep. I have never had greener grass though!! It has been really cool lately, hopefully summer comes soon! Crazy weather! I guess they were right, you don't need central air conditioning in Evanston, it never gets too hot to have it!!

Only a couple more days until the new little rascal joins the family. Monday the 16th is the day. Hopefully Julie can last that long!! She is so ready to be done being pregnant! I think that we have the name set, Zachary David Burns. I kinda like Thomas for a middle name, but David is a family name from both our sides of the family (so is Thomas). To think we had nine months to come up with a name and here we are less than a week and still deciding. Who knows, when he gets here, he might not look like his name, we'll see I guess.

I am now the new Taser Instructor for the Sheriff's Department here in Evanston. I spent part of last week up in Missoula, Montana getting certified. For those of you wondering, no I did not have to get tased to become certified. I have been tased twice before, once down in Utah with the M26 Taser, and once up here with the X26 Taser. Tell you what, 5 seconds is a long time when you ride the Taser!! Now I get the pleasure of tasing our new officers who get certified to use the Taser. Although you don't have to be tased to carry it, our department requires it. Once you do it, you know how all those idiots in the YouTube videos feel when the cops tase them.

i love my kids!

well today was a kinda fun - but not day. We got up first thing to go to my doc apt. that is now every week. We have to drive an hour to get to the dr. office. The baby measured about 5 1/2 pounds, pretty good size for 36 weeks.
After the doc apt. we decided to take Ally and Austin to dino park since its been too cold to go for a while. We got there and played on the play ground and ate lunch first. While we were eating lunch Bill was teasing ally telling her a dinosaur kept coming and playing with her shoe and trying to eat her cookies. She wasnt going for it and kept telling bill it was him. Then bill the smartelic comes out and says that the dinosuar just came and ate his thumb.... Austin totally fell for it, but Ally looked at him like he was dumb.
So later we were walking around the park... ok running... and everytime we stopped at a dinosaur Austin would run up to it and ask the name like always. But this time after the name he said "oohh but will this one eat my thumb?" And if i answered yes, he ran away yelling "i be careful, he not eat my thumb mom". And if i said no he would say... "oohh he just eat grass?". It was the cutest thing!!
And of course on the way home we had to stop and get slurpees... can u believe they dont have one 7-11 in all of Wyoming!!! I know!! they should be shot!
Sydney came home yest with a story she wrote in school, or maybe i should say it was more of a plea bargain. She was writing it to me, like a letter. "Please mommy can u get me a bunny!! I really want one and ill buy the cage and all the food! Please Mommy i just want one all to myself, to hug and cuddle!" There were a little more words than that but u get the idea. She was standing next to me when i read it, with the cutest innocent smile.... u know what i mean.... the smile u give ur mom when u want something!! Despite her great battle, we are not gettng a bunny! She can go out in the field and watch the wild ones jump around! No more animals!!!! It was cute none the less.

a parents job is never done!

We finally decided on a name..... Zachary. Middle name still in progress. Its looking like around the weekend of fathers day is when I will have the baby.

My wonderful sisters came over this weekend to help with house work that I just couldnt handle on my own. We got a lot of painting done and even got some more flooring down. And What do u know it gave bill and I the umph we needed to keep things going! So we are tearing the carpet up in the girls room and getting the hard floor down! Im so excited! We're on the downward stretch for the flooring! It feels good to know that we were able to do it ourselves! Bill and I both have learned alot while in the process of this; that this floor better last its 25 year warranty, cuz we're not replacing it any time soon!

My poor children have done nothing but watch movies and play with littlest pet shops this whole weekend! Because we have been doing so much with the house; on the up side the girls room is 100x better than before, we painted it a light but bright green. They have all kinds of things that are purple and pink, i thought that this green would make them pop. They love it and have decided its called tinker bell green. The boys room is next.... if it happens before the baby is born i will be shocked! They're room will be.... what else SPORTS!

When all is said and done with the paint and remodeling of each room, i will post a pic! But for now they are all about half done.

Names

ok, i need some help here..... I keep coming up with names for this little baby that im carrying, but my hubby hates them all! So i need some persuation on ur part to help him out (ok to help me out). bill has been begging me since we got married to name a child after him, he wants a jr. Well im just not too crazy about the name william, nothing against it, just not really loving it. So the other night i told him i would name hime William if we call him "Liam" for short.
"NO! thats a pansy name!" is the answer i got!
Not one name does he like that i do! I like Caleb, he says no. I like Tyler..... he gives me his uggy face. Im really starting to like the Liam thing, i just need some help persuading Bill. And just a little into the feelings i get from this baby; He seems to be sweet, and gentle. So far this may be the least moving baby we have had, yes even compared to sydney, and she didnt move much! I never get these gut wrenching kicks or stretches, just calm little rolls and gentle little movements every now and then. So in my opinion, he is shy and reserved. And dont u think Liam fits that type of personality???????? Please leave comments to help me out here!!!! We only have a few more weeks left to argue!

A big Bubba!

Just a cute little story about the mind of a 2 year old! I was putting the kids to bed last night, and as usual the girls are in bed and Austin is finding any reason to not be. He walked up to his night light and says "its too bright, I turn it off". "Oh its too dark", and he turns it back on. And as he turns around he looks up at the wall and sees his shadow "AHHHHH" and the closer he gets to his bed the bigger the shadow gets. I tell him "its ok its just Bubba".... In a terrified voice he says "Ya a BIG Bubba". Then turns around very slowly, as to make sure the big bubba doesnt get him, and quickly turns the night light back off. Needless to say he slept with his light on last night!! Bill and i keep telling ourselves we are raising a big tough boy.... but its nights like that when u wonder..........

just letting u know, I went to the doctor today. He checked everything out and said that everything is good. The doc said it is probably just part of my uterus that that is more sensitive that other spots, but to watch things carefully.......so to any family reading....... im not traveling much these last few weeks..... it makes me hurt ALOT!

I actually gained weight this time!!! I have now gained about 9 pounds this pregnancy and 7 of them was this last month. Once we figured out it was my gallbladder making me sick ive been avoiding all the food that makes me sick (which is almost everything) life has been alot better..... and appariently the baby approves, he was about a week and a half behind on weight but this last month he caught up and is only 2 days different from the due date. And because im still having a hard time that its really a boy i had the doctor look again for me....... very much a boy!!!

My brain isnt working on all cylinders today, so i cant think of anything greatly funny that my kids have done....... Sydney and Ally have their last day of swimming lessons today, they are really hoping to pass to the next level. They are both doing extremely well i dont think they will have a problem passing, Ill let u know.

stupid VAN!

Well we had a great adventure yesterday. We sold our car over the weekend and we used the money from it to buy Bills dads truck. Well Bill was a little excited so he insisted on going the FIRST day that we could. So we made the trip to his partents house yesterday to pick it up. Not a big deal we hadnt been up to see them in a while so we got sydney out of school and met them for lunch and spent the afternoon with them.

We were on our way home, I was driving the van full of kids (of course, i did want my children alive when i got home and with dad u never know... his patients in the car drys quickly) and bill was driving the truck behind me. I had not been feeling the best all day so he was following close behind me incase i needed to pull over. I get a call from him on my cell "pull over on this exit now, ur leaking something bad". GREAT! I made it to Big O tires, but barely. We open up the hood and there is antifreeze splashed all over the hood and all of the engine!!! GREAT! Anyway, we find out its the stupid water pump AGAIN...the exact same big o fixed it for us 2 years ago! I was thinking "if u think ur goin to fix it again ur crazy, we'll go somewhere else". But then bill comes out and tells me it is under lifetime warranty. So we just have to pay for the labor..... But it has to sit at Big o for a week and a half until we can make it back down to get it!!! GGGGRRRR!

The best part is still coming, please dont stop reading! All day long i had been having contractions, and they didnt feel like the normal braxton Hicks u usually get about this far along. They felt very much like the real thing, very painful. I was trying to ignore them or at least try not to make it look so bad, but once we got to big O i had had it, i wasnt pretending i was ok anymore. As i started paying more attention to them i noticed they were only 2 minutes apart! GREAT! Almost exactly 2 minutes, I was feeling it in my back, my lower stomach....everywhere ur not supposed to this early. And as i was sitting there thinking about the day and when they really started i realized they started the minute we got in the van that morning. And the more i thought about it the more i realized they had been about that consistant all day, i was just in denial. So then I start to get pretty worried, We just drove past the hospital i wanted to go to, and if we go all the way home its an hour to get back to that hospital. but at the same time, am i just getting a little too worried. AAAHHHH........ we got home, and they continued till about 11 when they started to go every 6 minutes, then 10. Until around 1230 it had gotten mild enough that i could sleep. Then i woke up this morning and noticed MY BELLY HAD DROPPED! It has never happened to me this early.... i guess the contractions did something, but at least the baby is still in its toasty warm place. ANYWAY..... theres my drama for the day.

No mommy ur the elephant!

well i knew it wouldnt take long for my kids to do or say something that would be blog worthy! We were sitting at dinner tonight and as always the kids are talking about cartoon characters and which one they are going to pretend to be. So Austin decided the pick for the night was Horton Hears a Who, and he wanted to be horton. Ally wanted to be the mommy kangaroo, Sydney was the Mayor, and Dad was the Volture..... Everyone was asking me who i wanted to be. I said i was the Who... they didnt like that answer and all 3 of them just staired at me. Then Ally Gets this "AhHa" look on her face and says "No mommy ur the elephant cuz ur real fat!" I look over at Bill who is laughing inwardly so hard hes dang near chocking on his food. Then i look back at ally and she has her belly stuck out and is rubbing it..... "yep ur the elephant cuz your belly is real fat!". Well that made me feel a little better knowing that she was talking about my baby belly, but u still have to wonder.

We created a new cleaning method today we'll see how it works. The kids have 3 jobs each day and every 3 days we change jobs. If they do their job without being told they get a smily face for the day. And with those smily faces they can earn things. For example ally wants a littlest pet shop stuffed animal, so i told her she has to earn 28 smily faces to get it. So in reality she has to do her jobs well for 28 days to get it, and if it is done poorly or if i have to tell them to do it I will cross one of their smily faces off. I got this idea from one of my new neighbors, and the kids are always asking for everything in the store when we go shopping... so now i can tell them they can use their family bucks (aka smily faces) to get it.

Here it Goes!

ok so i keep getting crap from everyone that i need a blog!! so here it is! Welcome to the burns nut house!!!! we have a club and meet every wednesday night at 6:30..... FYI if u live a life free of screaming yellling children, broken eggs on the floor, weird smells coming from the girls room, or feel ur going insane.... u need not attend our meeting!

to update the family situation..... Bill and i have been married for 8 years (hard to believe its been that long) and have 3 3/4 children. thats right 3/4....... we are having another baby in June that will make 4. Hey 8 years and 4 kids id say we're keeping it pretty steady if ya know what i mean. Anyway, Our oldest is Sydney she just turned 7. Allyson is our second she will be 5 in May. Austin is our baby for the moment and he will turn 3 in Aug. We are pretty lost on a name for our next baby which is a boy.... so if u have any ideas please let us know!