ode to my mom

super hero ann everett came to my family's rescue. this last week i had to have an unexpected surgery and my mom came down with only 24 hours notice to come take care of us. i was a little nervous and sad about the whole ordeal and i cried to my mom and she came. i know, i know i'm such a baby and i need to grow up but it just always makes me feel so much better knowing that my mom would be here with jack when i got home. we were so lucky to have her here for a week and she cooked, cleaned and even managed to deal with the demands of jack. i will forever be grateful for all the love and support she gives us. my mom has always been the greatest example of service and unconditional love and i hope that i can be 1/10 the person she is. i love you mom and i'm so glad i'm your daughter.

"hoppy" easter

april has been a crazy and fun month so far. we had some fun visitors and lots of fun outings. here in our good old little town we had anthem days with a carnival and all. all jack wanted to do was go in the bounce house and stayed in that thing for a good twenty minutes. the theme for the month seems to be bouncing/jumping because that is jack's new favortie trick. at school jack made rabbit ears and he would pretend to be a bunny and hop around the house. during the week of easter i was a little sick and managed to get myself sucked back into the world of edward and bella and read the 2nd and 3rd books again.

jack is now really getting into the holidays and kept talking about having an easter party so on saturday we dyed eggs and made little bunny party favors and then on easter day the easter bunny came and brought jack his "present" being his basket and then we had my sister and family, my brother and family and my mom over for easter dinner and an egg hunt. all in all it has been an awesome month. i'm really grateful for the easter season when we all get a chance to reflect upon what the easter holiday really means. i'm so grateful for our Savior and for the atonement. i'm grateful we all can be resurrected and live with our Father in Heaven again if we do what is right and follow His commandments. i love my family and am grateful we are sealed together for eternity. i hope everyone had a wonderful easter holiday. we love you all.

woooo whoooo spring break '09

well our spring breaks aren't as crazy as they use to be but this one was filled with friends, family, fun and illness. who got sick you ask? well of course it had to be me. lucky for me though john had the whole week off and was the best husband and father. he took care of me and jack, cooked dinners and cleaned the house for a bbq. to start the week off we went to a train park in scottsdale with tyler, steph and haylie and had fun riding the trains and the carousel. that night tommy and family moved back down here and we are so happy to have them back. tuesday we hung out down in gilbert with family and then took my mom back home with us so we could go to sedona. wednesday was sedona and it is a very beautiful place. its like living in the middle and zion and bryce combinded. jack loved riding around on the bus of course. thursday john had to go to scout camp so my mom and i went back down to gilbert and enjoyed time with family again and then went out to tia rosa's for dinner. i love that place, if you are ever in town you should check it out. friday i finally got some time to rest a bit and recover from being sick and then saturday john hosted a bbq for the families he home teaches and it was a great success. there was a great turn out and no left overs. i always find it kind of funny that john is the party planner in our family. everyone seems to assume its me but it's not. it was awesome to have a week to spend together as a family and bond. it really makes me appreciate the family that i have and they love and support they give us. it was also awesome to get to see more of what my new home state has to offer. hope everyone else had a great spring break too.

is it just me or are my post getting more boring and lame as time goes on??

Help a Brother out...

Hello everyone!!! Just wanted to take a minute and let everyone know that I am participating in the March of Dimes March for Babies again this year.

As many of you know, our Jack was born premature and it was largely a mystery as to how it happened. The March of Dimes is a charity that I have been involved with for a few years and devotes time and money to studying these problems, among other things.

I am very excited to be a part of March for Babies, please support my participation by making a donation.

Why March for Babies? Because the March of Dimes champions the needs of moms and babies in our community and across the nation. The money we raise for March for Babies will help:

- support all-important research offering preventions and solutions for babies born too soon or with birth defects
- educate women on things they can do to increase their chances of having a healthy baby
- provide comfort and information to families with a newborn in intensive care
- push for newborn screening and health insurance for all pregnant women and children

Won't you please help me in this worthy cause? Contributing to my walk online is fast, easy and secure. You can donate directly from my personal webpage with a credit card or PayPal. If you prefer, I can also accept cash or check. Just click the appropriate box on my webpage.
My personal web page address for donations is ...

http://www.marchforbabies.org/czarjohn

Would you like to see what March for Babies is and why I'm walking?
Click http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P_dFD0J47I to see the video.


The March of Dimes mission is to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth, and infant mortality.

7 year itch

so this is a few weeks late but i thought it better late then never. on february 16th john and i celebrated our 7th anniversary. we are a little older, a little wiser and a lot fatter (well at least i am, john has been losing weight) but we still love each other. i might say that we love each other more now then we did then. in those 7 years john graduated from byu, we moved to st. george, i got to go to school, moved back up to orem, had a beautiful son, moved to arizona and bought two houses. through all of that we grew closer together and i realized that i'm so glad that i married my best friend.

our very own picasso?

most people who know jack know that he doesn't have a very long attention span or the creative gene (probably because his mom isn't very creative) but as of late jack has actually been asking to paint and do crafts. the best kicker of all is that he sits there the whole time and doesn't ask to do anything else. while jacks art is what you might call abstract and leans towards the cubism genre he is not quite a picasso yet but the fact that he is now loving it and asking to do makes for one happy mama. thanks to school jack is now opening up to more things then just the wii.




here are a couple of the projects we've done in the past couple of weeks.

this is just the beginning of the budding artist

also an update on the potty training, we had a good week where we actually got jack to go pee on the potty everyday twice a day and now he wants nothing to do with it. i haven't really been pushing it or pressuring him because i don't want him to get freaked out by it. is that normal for them to lose interest in it that fast? we will attempt it again soon but we are taking a little break for now.

say what?!?!?!?

(oh yes he can pick his nose too, another proud moment for us)

i never thought this day would come and it hasn't really come yet but we are on our way. jack went pee in the toilet twice today. we've been letting him sit on the potty for a while now but nothing ever happens, but today he managed to pee twice. i know we are behind the curve on starting this process but he never really expressed interest in it before and never really tells us when he pees so we just didn't push it. we couldn't be more proud of our big guy. way to go jack!!! now wish us luck that we can keep this up and he will hopefully be fully potty trained before he turns 4, LOL.

Super Bowl Mayhem

Too bad for the Cardinals but we still had a great time hanging out with our family and having great food. Same place next year everyone!!

adventures in jack's world

there has been a lot of changes and accomplishments in the life of one jack mario florez. to start with jack can now do a standing jump and actually get a little air between the ground and his feet. now, that may not sound like a big deal for most but that has been one of his physical therapy goals for the last year and a half. we got so excited when he finally showed us what he could do. jack can also now do a forward roll or as some people call them a somersault.



finally for jacks last accomplishment thus far he has become a computer whiz the likes of which john has never seen before. by this i mean jack some how managed to get onto our computer and create shortcuts for all our programs on the desktop. they covered the whole screen. pretty impressive for a three year old wouldn't you say?

now for the change in jacks life. ever since starting preschool jack would see the bus and say he wanted to go on it. i was against the idea of sending my "baby" on the bus all by himself but he wouldn't relent so as of january my boy rides the bus to school and i pick him up from school. you would think that because it was his idea to ride the bus he would get super excited about it but every time i put him on the bus he screams and cries. as soon as they start to drive off he is fine, i asked the bus driver when i go to pick him up if he is ok and she says that he loves it and doesn't stop talking the whole way to school. i'm going to take that as a good thing and that he just gets a little nervous separating at first but then enjoys the ride.

until the next installment of adventures in jack's world.

since the last time i posted...

so much has changed, jack had surgery, i turned 28, jack went to the dentist, we celebrated christmas, it is now 2009, we have lived in arizona for a year already and jack is now a sunbeam. i can't believe how fast time passes us by. we were lucky enough to go to st george for christmas which was a complete miracle. john ended up having to work in kingman and bullhead, arizona so john drove jack and me up to las vegas and had my mom come and pick us up. john came on christmas eve just in time to take care of jack for me because i ended up getting sick, which really sucked because i couldn't eat any of the delicious food. then christmas night john got sick but still went to work the next day. what a trooper! christmas was awesome in spite of all the sickness and we so glad to be able to spend it with our family.



christmas morning bright and early. jack woke us up at 4 in the morning. lucky for him he was in a pretty good mood and looked dang cute in his christmas jams.



this year santa brought jack a little drum set, a magnifying glass and grandma and grandpa got him his own digital camera.

then to celebrate the new year we had john's parents here and my parents which was awesome. we felt so loved. but what would a holiday be without someone getting sick. this time it was jack's turn. i was the lucky one who had to deal with it all alone in the middle of the night because john was out of town. the good thing about this illness is that it only lasted 24 hours. so along with the new year comes the resolutions and i'm sure i'm not going to keep them all but i'm sure going to try. but one of my resolutions is to do family home evening every week and to help with that our ward primary gave us a link with lesson plans for the whole year that goes along with the theme in primary. for all of you who are like me and need a little help with being creative here is the link...

www.sugardoodle.net/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3510&Itemid=429

speaking of primary my little tiny 2 pound baby is now a big boy and is in primary. i can't believe he is in sunbeams and that means he will being singing to me in sacrament meeting for mothers day and for the primary program. i was a little stressed about this new transition one because i was in junior primary and i knew jack wouldn't want to stay with his class if he saw me, so they switched me to senior primary;(more on that in a little bit) and two, sunbeams seems so completely different then nursery but john said that he did pretty well in sharing time and then john was able to leave for his actually class. his teacher is awesome and that really helped with the transition. what a big boy i have, i guess preschool has really helped jack.

now back to senior primary. what a different world that is compared to junior primary. i loved my class and kids in junior primary but i'm really excited about my new class and to actually teach lessons out of the scriptures. it is a wonderful opportunity for me to learn and grow in the gospel.

this christmas break has been a crazy happy one but i'm really glad to be back in my house and back to our routine. 2008 was a crazy year i'm glad it is over and i hope 2009 only gets better. i also hope i get better about blogging, i've kind of lost my gusto.

p.s. jonathan another new years resolution is to kick your trash in wii fit once i get one. bring it on sucker!!

oh christmas tree and zoolights

hooray for christmas. we finally got our christmas tree and it only took me 4 hours to get it set up and decorated. can i just say i hate fake christmas trees but they are very economical and we all know how much john likes that. so after scratching my hands and arms up trying to spread out all the branches so it looks "real" this is how it turned out...

is it just me or is it really hard to settle on a theme for christmas? i mean christmas ornaments aren't cheap and you don't want to have to buy new ones every year. i finally decided to go traditional with a twist i chose red, white and a bright green. growing up i always loved my mom's christmas tree because it was kid friendly and whimsical so this is my attempt to recreate my moms tree. anyway jack really likes the tree and every time we turn on the lights he says "did mom decorate that?" i'm taking it as a compliment.

so after getting our tree and believe it or not watching fred claus i finally feel in the christmas spirit and to celebrate that we went to the phoenix zoo for "zoolights" with steph, jonathan, tyler and haylie. i highly recommend doing this, it is so cool and beautiful and the kids love it.

all throughout the zoo they have light animals running, jumping and sliding. the picture doesn't do it justice but it is awesome.

jack and tyler found this cave of lights and wanted to hang out their the rest of the night but we had more animals so to see. hope all of you guys are able to find fun christmas stuff to do. merry christmas everyone.

trying to get into the christmas spirit

i can't believe it is already several days into december and it is still in the 70's. it just doesn't feel like the christmas season, i guess i've lived in utah too long that christmas means seeing my breath in the air and snow on the ground and that is just not happening here. so in order to feel more like it is really christmas time we made a ginger bread house, went to glitter fest in glendale, went the the "world's largest living christmas tree" lighting here at our local outlet mall, saw santa, went to the mesa temple lights and i'm even drinking my favorite stephen's hot chocolate while i write this post but even with all of that something is missing.

that thing that is missing is my christmas tree. in an effort to save money john ordered our fake tree online and it is still not here. cross your fingers it will get here tomorrow december 9th!!! i've been collecting ornaments for my birthday to decorate my tree and they are just sitting in the bag waiting. but until then here are some pictures of our christmas outings so far.

hooray for turkey day...and more

this is the first year in 3 years that we actually got to spend thanksgiving with immediate family and it was awesome. we were lucky enough to have nanna and papa come up from california to spend the holiday with us. we even got the illustrious matt to make an appearance. the best part of the holiday besides all our blessing of course is the fact that i didn't have to cook the turkey and that jack actually ate the dinner served, i didn't have to prepare a separate meal for him. i've noticed that a lot of my posts have to do with what jack ate or didn't eat. oh well that is our life and i wouldn't change it for the world. we were also very lucky to have my sister and her family spend the holiday with us, it was an awesome florez/modrell/vaknin party. this is a late post but i just want to give thanks for my family and friends and this awesome country that we live in so we can the freedoms we have and the gospel in our lives. with that said bring on christmas!!!

we of course tried to get a family picture since this was the first time in a long time we were all together but the kids of course had other plans and didn't want to cooperate.

the whole crew enjoying the grub

jack actually sitting at the table and eating the food



laura and kevin borrowed a fun bounce house that entertained the kids for a while so the grown ups could have a little down time.

sing me a little diddy

jacks sings all the time, he especially loves the mamma mia soundtrack (i guess i listened to that cd a little too much), primary songs and a cd he got from his preschool. i'm always trying to get jack to sing me a song so i can document it on video but he never will, he always says "i don't want to sing anymore." so the other day jack wanted me to take pictures of him so while i had the camera i asked again and he finally performed and this is the song he chose...

i love hearing him sing!!

i'm married to an old man

today is john's birthday and i can't believe he is 30!! i guess it seems so weird because we have known each other for so long. john started his day by rolling his ankle again playing basketball. the last time he rolled his ankle was on jack's birthday, needless to say i told john that he is not allowed to play on my birthday. he came home limping to a lovely pancake breakfast prepared by yours truly. then it was off to work where his employee/friend kevin hired an austin powers impersonater to come sing to him. kevin is always doing so many nice things for our family. for jack's first day of school kevin bought jack a cars lunch box and sippy cup. for jack's birthday he bought him a gangster hummer that sang YMCA. what a guy kevin is, thanks.

after work john came home to a house decorated super cheesy to help him feel like he was still young, with streamers and a paper birthday sign. he informed me on the drive home that he actually felt like eating out (total shocker since he never wants to do that) which was fine because i hadn't started cooking the meal he requested. so off to red robin we went (because we had a coupon for a free milk shake.) came home to have cake and ice his ankle.


i want everyone to know that i love john more now then the day i married him, even though he is now an old man. he is the greatest husband and father and i'm blessed that he chose me to spend his life with. love you hooch, happy birthday.

copy cat

i was looking at my friends blog and they had a tag i thought was really fun and i decided that i would do it too.

what you do is open your fourth picture folder and then open the fourth picture in that folder and tell the story that goes along with that picture. it just so happens that the fourth picture in my folder is not a picture at all but a little video clip.

the story behind this video is just a cute 17 month old jack laughing at his dad. i love being able to look back at jacks life and remembering what a cute chubby baby he was. sometimes i forget about how small and sweet he was and it is good to get a reminder on the days he is coloring pictures on my walls!!!!

Trick or Treat (We found the cable)

Finally got the pictures uploaded from the camera and there were actually some really good ones from Halloween so we have to post them, as well as a few others.

As you can see, Jack was a pirate. We taught him how to say "Argh matey!" to make sure he really got in to character. He had a good time running around and in typical Jack fashion, really could care less about any of the candy he was getting (he is the anti-kid).

Overall it was a success and Jack only tried to go in the door of a stranger's house once (it was the first house we went to). He is already talking about how he wants to be a bat next year. Hopefully we can use Tyler's old costumes again!

what happened to october?

so it has been a little while since my last post and i have had good intentions about doing a new post. i sat down a couple of days ago ready to do a new post only to find out that we have somehow misplaced our cable to the camera to download new pictures onto the computer. so i have a camera full of some really cute halloween pictures, trip to the zoo and our visit to the gilbert airport airplane display but with no way to share them. whats a girl to do? hopefully one day soon we will find that cable and be able to join the blogging world again. love seeing all of your blogs, keep up the good work.

California Dreamin'

We had the fortune of going to visit Nanna and Poppa out in California this last week, sadly it came to an end way too quickly. Here is a recap of the weeks events:

Park day.

All I can say is thank heavens for grandparents! Seeing as how Shannyn and I have permanent shoulder problems due to having to push Jack on the swing all the time, it was nice to get some relief. Jack loved having Poppa around to push him to his hearts content.

Downtown day.
Shannyn wanted to get a "Dooney Burge" purse from Santee Alley in L.A., so we thought it would be fun to take the subway and the bus out there since Jack loves trains and buses. We managed to make it their and back without being mugged or harassed by bums, so it was a pretty successful outing. Oh and we got some cool stuff too. Try to take pics of the purses and shirts we got at some other time and put them up, but just know that they are pretty awesome (and they were super cheap).

Beach day.
One of Jack's favorite shows is "Ni Hao Kai-lan." It's about a little Chinese girl and her tiger friend Rintu, koala friend Tolee, and spider monkey friend Ho Ho (I can sing you the theme song if you like, that is how often we watch it). I guess he was getting tired from all the spanish on Dora and Diego so he wanted to try his hand at chinese. Anyhow, for one of the episodes, they go to the beach and make sand castles. Since that episode, whenever we would go to the park, Jack would say he is making sand castles. So we thought it might be fun to take him to the beach. Which it was, he loved it!
As you can see by his outfit (or lack thereof), we didn't think he would want to get wet since the water was so cold. We were wrong.

Disney day.
Nanna and Poppa got us tickets to Disneyland for Christmas this year (which may have to be a tradition, just letting you know ahead of time so you can start saving now). You might think it weird that we are getting Christmas presents in October, but I sort of like to get my presents from my parents way ahead of time. I don't think I have received a present from them on Christmas for about 10 years. Totally my fault though. Just don't have the patience. This way at least I get a good nights sleep before Christmas though. Right, Disneyland. Jack had a blast. He was great the whole day. Loved the jungle cruise (of course he loved the animals). Loved the tea cups (doesn't stop laughing the whole ride). Loved making Dumbo go up and down. He even took a nap while we had lunch in peace (that may have been the best part of the day). All in all it was a great day, THANKS NANNA AND POPPA!!!