uea weekend

we were lucky enough to get to go somewhere for uea weekend this year. we decided that we were long overdue for a visit to grandma and grandpa martin. so we kidnapped grandpa lee and grandma lady to go with us.

day 1: on thursday morning we left for primm, nevada where we stayed at whiskey pete's. have any of you noticed that the hotel is shaped like a castle. why? i have no idea. they have a prospector on all the signs and then this big castle shaped hotel and casino. okay, grandma and i stayed in the car while kyle and grandpa checked us in, and we had lots of time to figure this all out. the kids were just excited to be out of the car and to get to go swimming. they had a great outdoor pool and hot tub (of which i have no pictures, because my camera was in the car). and we ate dinner at a buffet. isaac was in heaven. he had two platefulls of potatoes and turkey and a roll.

day 2: on friday morning we went to visit grandma and grandpa martin in victorville, california. davis had a gas bubble on the way there and screamed that last 45 minutes. it broke grandma lady's heart. she hates to see her grandkids sad or hurt. so he was beyond happy to get out of the car at grandma and grandpa's. grandma and grandpa look so good. they do NOT look their age. they are so good to us too. they took us to lunch at a 50's diner looking place that had great hamburgers and milkshakes. that is all i wanted on my whole vacation and i got both in one stop. we were able to go back to grandma and grandpa's and visit while the kids ran around outside. uncle bill came and we were able to catch-up with him as well. we had a great time visiting and sharing and just being together.

day 3: we had a late start on saturday morning. we went down to the hot tub, since the pool didn't open until 10. but of course we ended up in the pool a little early. funniest thing - the lifegaurd came by at 9:50, when we were all done swimming and on our way back to our rooms, and said "the pool doesn't open until 10, you've got 10 more minutes until you can swim." we laughed and left. we stopped in vegas on our way to parowan for some pei wei (thank you wayne for the directions). we stuffed ourselves. it tasted so good - i love pei wei. we made it to parowan and were able to see steph and jenny's new place, visit with uncle wells, and have dinner with the cousins at carrie and craig's. we get so spoiled every time we visit. they take such good care of us and the kids love running and playing.

day 4: we tried to get on the road early to get home for our church meetings. but the car had other ideas. kyle and craig were able to get some fluids in the car and we left in faith. we made it home with 10 minutes to spare before our meetings.

we had such a great time. it was a lot of "car time" and we are all happy to be home and sleeping in our own beds. but we really had a lot of fun. last night isaac asked us if we could do the same vacation next year!

davis' redeeming quality

isn't he so cute? it is a good thing he is so cute, it is his saving grace. i am not kidding when i say redeeming quality, i really mean it. he is a terrible sleeper. the other night i saw every hour on the clock (except 11). last night wasn't so bad, i was only up with him at 1:30, 4:00, and 6:00 and then he was up for the day at 7:00 - lucky me. someone asked me how i keep doing it and the only thing i can come up with is that the sun comes up and i can see just how cute he really is.

he is starting to eat cereal and loving it. and we just got the excer-saucer out last week and he is loving it too. he is full of laughs, smiles and stories. he loves to eat his hands, so we are constantly pulling out his hands and replacing them with his pacifier (i've heard that it is easier to get rid of a pas than fingers).

he loves isaac. isaac is the soft one with davis. he will hold him and talk softly to him, and davis loves to hear isaac play the piano. davis just turns inside out when he sees isaac coming and watches very closely whenever isaac walks away.

davis loves reagan and ethan too. they are just not quite so soft with him. they like to scare him and their new thing is to flick him. i have no idea where that came from, but i am not liking it. reagan knows how to get davis laughing. and then the rest of us start laughing too. and ethan just loves davis, and i think davis loves ethan too. ethan loves that he gets to share his room with davis. and whenever ethan is sad, he tells me that he needs a love from davis.

davis is a sweetie. i am not planning on getting rid of him any time soon. but i really would like to have a nice night's sleep really soon.

the princess does 5

i know it sound cliche' but i really can't believe that reagan is 5. reagan turned 5 on september 15. she woke up full of smiles and excitement. isaac met her on the stairs and sang "happy birthday" to her. she didn't know quite how to react, so she giggled and ran into my arms when he finished. she had her special '5' pancake (but when she spilled her milk on her pancake, i was mean and wouldn't make another '5' - they're hard to make and especially hard to flip).

reagan got to take a birthday snack to preschool (should i have gone with her? i don't know the rules), and a birthday poster all about her. she colored it herself and got to put on pictures of herself and of the family.

i really wanted to have a party for her (with a couple of her cute little friends), but i had pages due on her birthday and i couldn't get on top of things enough to do both. but michelle came over and saved the day. she tied netting ribbon onto elastic and made reagan a little dress-up skirt. so cute, so easy and so much fun (and she helped me put cardstock on the backs of all of my pages -thatnk you, thank you, thank you).

the boys and i made reagan a birthday cake and cupcakes and i tried my hand at cake decorating. i must say i think i did pretty good, but i did put the wrong fairy in the middle of the cake. it should have been the pretty white one (which we later learned was tinker bell when she was a new fairy). daddy surprised her and bought her flowers and tinker bell cards.

i am kindof a theme oriented mom. so, this year was all about tinker bell and the new movie, so she got all tinker bell stuff. the little dolls, coloring book, reading books, the cards, everything. and i was all wrong - she said "i really wanted star wars stuff". i don't know if that was for reals or not, but maybe for christmas. grandma lady and grandpa lee gave her ruthie - the american girl doll. reag loves ruthie. we had a major melt down on the morning of her birthday because we had to do ruthie's hair just like reagan's.

but back to reagan. 5 seems to suite her well. we have had much less fighting and melt-downs, much more loves and cuddles, and she is doing and learning so much. she is doing so good in school. she is mastering her sight words. she is an animal on her bike (i can't keep up with her). and she still talks a mile-a-minute and has fun stories to tell as well.

i hope you had a happy birthday reag. i love you and really can't believe that you are already 5.

generations x-y-z

we went to sonic the other day for lunch and the kids got these cool toys (i know it rarely happens when i don't throw the "meal toys" away on my way in the house, but these were really cool, fun and informative). they were called "smart cubes" and they worked like a rubix cube or a puzzle of sorts. when you put the different sides together it had different information about different things. one of the sides that i thought was really interesting was the generations side. it had a section on generation x and generation y and what makes them individual. so, i did a little additional searching.

generation x really had nothing good said about it. yes, for a lot of you that read my blog - that's us! so this is what i found . . . (and i really only added the positive stuff).

· 1965-1980
· 13th Generation to know the U.S. Flag
· Also called the “Baby Busters”
· Unsung generation
· Influenced and changed by social problems
· “Quiet workers”

the gen-xers at the orton house

generation y . . . i have one of these at my house, and even though isaac barely fits into these dates, he really fits this category.

· 1981-2001
· Generation “WHY”
· Witnessed 9-11 Attacks on the US and 2 wars in Iraq
· Peer Oriented
· Instant gratification
· Confident and Cooperative
· Eager to “fix” the world by solving it’s problems


my cute generation "WHY" guy

and last generation z.

· 2002 - present
· Active consumers
· Highly connected
· Lifelong use of communications and media technology
· Digital Natives
· More conservative
· Structured activities
· Strong social conscience and work ethic (at 5, 3 and 4 months? – we’ll see)

my cra-Z generation . . .

this weekend

we had such a wonderful weekend. it was so good, in fact, that kyle thanked my mom over and over again for the weekend.

we had the opportunity to spend the weekend in burley with my parents and family. my dad was being released from the stake presidency and bret and kaylin were blessing the twins. we were able to have lots of fun family time, and still squeeze in the very important trip to taco bandido. and get this - you can reserve a table at taco bandido. who knew? that way were were all able to take over the corner - i think we filled the whole corner and we were missing all the garrards - bret & kaylin, alan & josee, and mom & dad. but still fun and still good food. b (brenda) has pictures of the 11 grandkids in the corner and us adults at our table - hopefully she posts them, even though becky probably doesn't want her to.

nothing against taco b, but the highlight of the weekend was spending time and visiting with elder and sister hammond (quorum of the 70). they were staying at my parents house for the weekend. he and elder cook (12 apostles) were in the oakley, idaho stake to reorganize the stake presidency.

*funny side note - allen told dad that he made some "garrard for pres." signs for the road on the way up to oakley. dad was a little shocked, but elder hammond and elder cook got a good laugh out of that one.

back to the story . . . saturday night kyle attended the priesthood session. he said that it was a neat experience to ask elder cook questions and visit with him. kyle couldn't come up with a question to ask. he is still trying to come up with one. cool question - someone asked about military men and missionary moments. i don't know the full story, but elder cook told them that even though we don't like war and don't believe in it, anywhere the u.s. military has been, missionary work has followed.

then i joined kyle and my parents, b and al for the adult session. we were so blessed for being there. i can't write everything, but it was incredible. here we were listening to an apostle and really being spiritually fed. i know that all sounds cheesy or corny, but it really was so great. that night back at my parents, elder and sister hammond sat with our family and told us stories of their mission. the spirit in my parents' home is always very there, but this weekend it was so strong and witnessing to us that what we were hearing was true.

on sunday we all attended stake conference with my parents - everyone in the stake thought my dad was being called as the stake president since we were all there. surprise! he's not. now for the big question mark . . . what now for bill and sandy garrard? i can't wait to find out. sunday conference was just as wonderful. i would love to share all the things we heard and learned, but i could go on forever. so i have lots of notes from the weekend if you want to hear about it.

the twins - dayn and dacx - were blessed sunday afternoon. such neat blessings for such cute, sweet little guys. grandpa garrett blessed dayn and alan blessed dacx (i think). and yes, i think they are identical. it was such a neat afternoon. i love being with my family. i love the memories and laughing and everything.

so after all this blabbing - it was really just a great weekend. i'm so glad we were able to be there. and to my family - thank you for everything. i love you all!

first day of school

i can't believe it. i officially have three kids in school. how crazy is that? i am suddenly feeling old! i can clearly remember my first days of school - waiting for the school bus, pictures on the concrete wall with the rest of my siblings, new crayons, i loved the first day of school. but i have not loved my kids' first days of school. it is not right to have to send your kids off to someone else for a whole day.

isaac is in third grade at odyssey charter school (where he has learned that mom should have some capital letters in this post). he started school on august 18th, so he has been going for a couple weeks. he told me that he is checking things out to make sure that everything will be okay for when reagan goes to kindergarten next year. he loves school and i even tried to talk him into not starting school for a week, or even a day, but he told me "today is the first day of school and i am going, so get my breakfast." needless to say, i made him french toast, packed his lunch and sent him off to school.

reagan just started pre-k preschool today. she has not been a patient waiter and could not understand why isaac keeps going and going to school and she hasn't even started yet. reagan's teacher is miss jodi. she got to meet her last monday and visit her classroom and fix her "all about me" book. she chose to put yellow hair on her paper doll of herself because yellow is her favorite color and even though she has brown hair, she likes the yellow hair on herself better.

and ethan . . . he is way to young to start preschool, but i did it anyways. and he loved it. his first day of school was yesterday. we had a topsy-turvy day. we went from being so excited and wanting to leave now to go to school, to crying and not wanting to go. i was not about to push the issue. so, imagine my surprise when we got to his school, he posed for a picture, walked into his classroom, put his backpack away, looked at me and said "see ya later mom."

for mitzi . . .

okay, so davis is almost 4 month old and mitzi has never seen him. so i know most of you have seen him, held him, and loved on him, so you can rub it in to her, but this is for mitzi . . .

davis mcbride (still not named after you) orton was born on may 9, 2008 . . .

he is loved by his big brother isaac . . .

and by his big sister, reagan, and big brother, ethan. . .

he was blessed by kyle on july 27, 2008 . . .

he loves to smile . . .

and sleep . . . (look how he holds his right hand by his head)

and his dad and I love him too . . .

so that is davis in a nutshell! we love you mitzi, hopefully you'll get to hold him soon!

better late than never

so, kyle has actually read my blog. although that is really a good thing, i am sad about one thing. he thinks that blogs are a place to go to complain about husbands. well, i really have nothing to complain about with kyle (except maybe golf weekend - which i usually love).

• he loves our kids and plays with and entertains them


• he works so hard to provide for our family


• he takes his assignments seriously and give them 100%


• he honors his priesthood and blesses our home and family


• he keeps me laughing and sane


• he let me mow 1/4 of the lawn on saturday


• he treats me like a queen

and just yesterday, for example, i came home from church with a migraine. so he fed the kids, kept davis happy, and let me sleep for three hours.

ky - you are my knight in shining armor and i love you! sorry it took so long to clear your name!

golf weekend

i have never disliked golf weekend as much as i do this year. for some reason it just isn't clicking this year. don't get me wrong, i love that kyle gets to get together with all of his friends and do what he loves, but i have never been a single mom of 4 before and i have never had to go through golf weekend without mitzi and her cute kids before. but we will get through this and we will be stronger for it, or i will at least recognize what i can and can't do without my husband.

hey golf guy's wives . . . thanks for sharing your husbands for the weekend. kyle really looks forward to this and loves getting to see all his college friends and relatives for a fun weekend. so, to you wives . . . thanks again and hopefully you are all handling your widow's weekend better than i am.