Brother and Sister

I was trying to get a decent shot of the two together because they are so sweet to eachother. Well, mostly Cooper is sweet to Isa, but you can tell she loves him. Well, Cooper was fantastic for pictures, which is rare, but Isabelle not so much. Oh well. I still think they turned out cute for a quick shot.

What's wrong with this picture?

So almost 2 months ago I woke up and noticed my eye lashes were missing on the inside of my right eye. I didn't freak out until a week later I noticed that the outter lashes on my left eye were missing too. I started reading on line about it and it's apparently very common. I debated getting fake eyelashes until they grew back in because, I'm sure most of you don't know, but they take
F O R E V E R to grow back!!! Well, I didn't get any fake ones and long story short, I was using my eyelash crimper and noticed that when it clamped down it was shaving off the rubber piece, so guess what that meant? Yup. It cut my eye lashes off. If you'll notice the "bald" spots are in the same spot the crimper was hitting. I stepped on it a while ago and just tried to keep using it, but apparently that was a bad idea. Oh well. Better cut off lashes than something else I guess.

Elizabeth turns 6

So Elizabeth turned 6 years old yesterday. Crazy! The first thing out of her mouth that morning was, "do I look taller?". Funny girl. I feel bad her birthday was on Sunday. Sunday is supposed to be the calmest stress free day isn't it? Well, far from for our family! We start church at 9:00, so we didn't have any bday festivities before, then I got a new calling ( 1st counselor in the Primary Presidency) and had a 2 hour meeting after church, so no festivities yet, then Elizabeth said she wanted to have dinner at Wee-Mama's and Papa John's, so as soon as I came home I had to pack up all the dinner, cake, ice cream, wrap all the presents, get the kids dressed, again, burn Liz's bday video and head out. Not exactly calming! Then we drove through crazy snow and finally got there. She wanted a Darth Vader cake for her bday. Darth Vader! I mean, had I asked a few weeks earlier I could have done something better, but she didn't want anything else, so I did what I could. I couldn't find my decorating stuff and just ran out of time, so she ended up with a make shift one. She seemed fine about it, but I felt bad. She loved her presents and all day kept telling people, "I'm in charge today 'cause it's my birthday", which for her meant watching Star Wars and playing Lego Star Wars, which isn't allowed on Sunday. We might have to rethink that one! :) We sure love this girlie. She adds quite a bit of spice to our life. Love you girlie!

I love the Beach!

So we headed off to the beach last weekend. I told Brian I wanted to "do" something instead of just staying home all day, so we packed up the kids and headed out on our drive. I just love blue water, it's so calming. So to those of you in Utah who need a "beach fix", it's just moments away. That's right, you have a beach in your backyard and don't even appreciate it I bet. The Salt Lake has the best beach around. :) Okay, so it's not a real beach in the way you're probably thinking, but it's got sand that leads up to the water. :) I am so taking my kids there this summer. They will love it! Hey, and what other beach do you get to see Bison and snow at?!

Weight loss blog

So I've started another blog. I know, seriously, another one, but this one is more of a journey journal. I'm going to lose this weight dang it, even if it means cutting off my leg! Well, not really, it's not so much the weight, but, well, anyway. I'm hoping that by making it something my family and friends can read, maybe I'll be more determined to make a difference this go round and maybe someone will want to join up in the efforts. If you want to participate, let me know. It'd be great to have someone to do it with, but you have to need to lose more weight than me. JK.

www.loseitandleaveit.blogspot.com

They start too young!

So apparently Elizabeth has a boyfriend. She gave him a little toy car before school let out for the holidays. When we came back on track, she came home from school with this.... a ring in a heart shaped box. I asked her what he said when he gave it to her and she said, " he said "here, this is for you because I love you"". I said, "no he didn't, what did he really say?". She said, " no, he didn't really say that, he just dropped it in front of me." Too funny. She apparently has the imagination for romance. Chances are she'll be let down a time or two. :)

Again...

So Cooper got burned again. No chemical this time, just the stove top. Brian was helping me get dinner ready and he told Cooper the stove was hot and just as Brian took the pan off, Cooper stuck his hand down. He was pretty upset of course, but he's been doing really well. He didn't really complain the day after it happened. It was sad though because I gave him soup, not thinking about him not being able to use his hand, and I was thinking "he's kind of struggling with that soup. My sister then pointed out he was using his left hand. It was actually kind of amazing to me how good he was with his hand.

Happy New Year!

Well I don't think I've ever gone this long between posts, but I've been busy editing wedding pictures and entertaining kids.... so here's a catch up, in no particular order...
Caroline decided she wanted to be an artist. First she went with the more natural approach. We weren't big fans of that one, so Bri hooked her up with some acrylic paints and she decided she wanted to paint live forms. Needless to say, her art went a little unappreciated that day.



New Year's Eve, Bri and I have decided, is way too overrated! We decided to just hang home with the kiddos. We ate dinner and then for dessert thought we might start a new tradition of banana splits. Well, if you're like Elizabeth, you don't like ice cream (odd, I know) and you don't want bananas either, so you have a whip cream split. The recipe is whip cream, carmel syrup, chocolate syrup and sprinkles. She didn't eat much. None of the kids had bananas, so that tradition might not stick. After that, we did some little fireworks and put them to bed. They didn't stay, so we let them stay up. I thought it'd be fun to make some music videos, but Bri was a poop on that one, so me and the girls did videos. Might have to work on that one for next year. Then we let them watch movies until 12:00. Elizabeth made it to about 11:30 and Caroline was 11:50. I tried to get them to wake up so they could bang some pots outside, but they didn't budge. Bri and I flipped on the tv, had a quick kiss and finished our board game. Just another night for us, just a little later.




Christmas Eve we went to my parents house and hung out and then after dinner, headed back home to try out another tradition. I got this one from my friend. It was to make home made pizza. Well, I counted Boboli as homemade since I didn't have enough time to make the dough. The kids had fun making their own, Cooper thought just eating the sauce was cool enough I guess. Then we opened pj's that Bri's Mom made and sent the kids to bed. They came out to let us know they heard the bells from the sleigh on the roof. I kept telling them they better go to sleep so Santa could come in. I think I said it with a little too much excitement 'cause Caroline jumped out of bed and said, " I want to sleep in your bed. I don't want Santa to come into my house." Well, we calmed her fears and then she was all excited again. Christmas was fabulous too. We woke up and did the whole presents thing. Caroline was the most excited. She was so thrilled that Santa came to our home. When we first moved in, Elizabeth asked us how Santa was going to come in because we didn't have a fireplace. I didn't even realize that we didn't have one until that point. Well, watching The Santa Clause with Tim Allen showed her how a fireplace just magically appears if you don't have one. We spent the morning opening presents and visiting with Brian's family on webcam. We were all pretty happy with our surprises that morning. We were blessed to get all that we did from eachother and from family. Then we packed up and headed to my parents for the traditional brunch which is fabulous! My Mom does such a great job on all the food. I look forward to it each Christmas. We ended up sleeping over because of the snow storm and stayed up until about 1:00 playing games. Jill and Paul got stuck there too, so that was fun.





We had a fancy night with Brian's work party at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. It was a nice dinner and of course he was "talked into" performing a little song for the group. It was well liked as expected. He's a great performer, and doesn't he look hot in his suit!



Isabelle now has her 2 bottom teeth in. They were a little rough in their journey, but we all made it! She also had her left eye's tear duct open up, so we're glad about that. She's a smiley baby and we're having a lot of fun with her in our family.


Earlier in December we made the trek to Salt Lake to see the lights. We took the front runner and trax and I don't think we'll do that again. Quite the long night, but the kids were great and had fun seeing the lights. We stopped for a minute to catch a few snowflakes on our tongues.


Elizabeth loves playing in the snow. She was out there for a little bit by herself and then she came in and walked straight to the fridge and tried to put her snowball in there. She wanted to save it for later. It was so funny.

Been Busy

So we've been busy around these parts. I wish I could remember what it was that's been making us so busy, but I can't seem to remember. Last week I headed out to South Carolina to shoot my cousin's wedding. It was so much fun. I took Isa with me and we had a great time. She was nearly perfect on the plane both ways and a lot easier to handle than all 4! It was great to spend time with my Grandma and see all the fam out there. I got to watch a bunch of HGTV (we don't have cable) and just relax. We took a trip out to the beach just to walk around, walked around downtown and enjoyed the festives of the wedding. I've been working on a lot of pictures lately and although I enjoy it, I'm anxious for a break. I have another wedding coming up in 2 weeks, so I'll get a short break. Bri and I have a babysitter for tomorrow so we can get our Christmas shopping done. I know.... procrastinators! Oh well.

I've lost my wedding ring. I went through 2 weeks of garbage, even opening dirty diapers. And just incase you were wondering, their smell does not lessen after 2 weeks! I didn't come up empty handed though, I found one of Cooper's shirts and a knife in there. I'm going to guess Cooper put them in there. I'm also blaming him for my ring being lost. I don't know for sure though. I've looked in vents, all the drawers, random toys, bags, just about everything I can think of. Hopefully it turns up.

Isabelle turned 5 months. I have a few pics in honor of her 5 month bday. Here's amazing for you.... last night we put her to bed at 7:30 and she woke up around 4:00 and then went back to sleep until 7:30. Then, at 9:00 she went to sleep for 5 hours, then down again at 4:00 and is still sleeping. So in the last 24 hours, she's been awake a total of 3 1/2 hours. Not sure what's going on there. I keep checking on her to make sure she's breathing. Must be some major growing going on.

Cooper has figured out how to get out of his crib. I'm surprised it took him this long, but now bed times and nap times are a little of a challenge.

Caroline has been a major stinker! My Mom had all the kids for 2 days while I was gone and Bri was at work and I think 90% of the "issues" were Caroline. She's miss drama queen. 3 years old totally kicks 2 years old! I've lost my sweet Caroline for a little while. Hopefully she grows out of it quickly. She still does sweet things every now and then I guess, she's just a lot more.... teenagery! :)

Elizabeth has been a lot of fun lately. She loves playing games in the car like I Spy and 20 questions and name that tune. We played it for an hour on the way to WeeMama's house. She loves to stay up and try to get out of going to bed. She's also way into Star Wars and XBOX. I think the Star Wars marathon went on while I was gone.

Brian was great to help me out during my excursion. He seemed totally calm every time I called. Not sure why I get all the craziness! :) He just finished a vball league. The were so close but ended up taking 3rd. Still a major improvement from last go-round.

Well, Merry Christmas to all of ya.

O Christmas Tree!

So there's been a lot going on lately, but I'll skip to this real quick. We heard of this tree farm from my sister and since it was just up the street, we decided to Lampoon it this year and cut down our own tree. Here are a few shots from the event.