And time goes by...

Wow! Almost a month since I last posted. So unlike me! We've had a lot going on lately, so I better do some catch up.

First, we had Cooper's 3rd bday. It was pretty uneventful. He wanted a car cake and I lacked the enthusiasm for making a cake, so we ended up with a sadly decorated car cake. He seemed pretty excited about it though. We did presents and cake and called it good. He was pretty excited with his presents.... thanks to Gma and GranChud. All his presents were from them. It was bad timing that I was so sick of all the toys we already have, feeling like they never get played with and already putting together a DI pile, so I decided the presents from Grandparents would suffice! And of course they were.

The next day Elizabeth had her first recital. She's been taking piano for just over 2 months. I was nervous about her actually getting up there, saying her name and song title and being okay. She was terrified not too long ago to even get up in church to give a prayer, so I was praying she'd be able to do it, and she did. Beautifully at that! No mistakes. She's doing really well at the piano and we are excited about her newfound interest and talent.

 

Caroline and Isabelle have both been doing well too. We just registered Caroline for Kindergarten and she's really excited about that. I can't believe she's already old enough! Isabelle has been quite whiny and clingy lately. Not a fan! Brian admitted she's much worse when I'm around than when it's just him.

I've had 2 weekends away this month and Brian has been so supportive of it. My first one I went to a photography course down in Orem and then got to hang with my sister Caroline. That was fun. I got to sleep in too which was lovely. The next weekend I had some friends call and ask me to play in a vball tournament in Jackson Hole and Brian even said he'd skip his rehearsal so I could go. That really surprised me. That's a big deal for him so it meant even more to me! It was so fun to be in Jackson Hole and playing a little volleyball with my girls from dental school. We played on a team back in the day and it was a lot of fun. I wasn't much help though. I was so freakin' tired!!! Plus, the next day I was so incredibly sore, but it was fun to have girl time out. I don't do that very often. Not only that, being able to sit or do whatever I wanted without having to get up and get milk, food, change diapers, break up fights, etc. was heaven alone! Thanks to Brian for being so awesome and letting me do both these things without a single complaint! My only complaint was that I got home both times to a spotless house, all the laundry done and the kids were still happy and alive. All my time convincing him it can't be done was totally shot to.....

I had another wedding last week in Salt Lake and due to some unfortunate events, my sister Melanie wasn't able to watch my kids so my Dad was so awesome and drove them all the way back up to Logan. He saved me a ton of stress trying to figure out where to cart them off to for a whole day and all that kind of drama. Thanks Dad! You saved me big time! My sister Caroline hung out with me for the day and helped me out.  She's the one that got me the job too. Thanks sista'. I was exhausted by the end of the day, but thanks to Dad, I was able to drive back home from Roy instead of going back to Sandy and then driving back up to Logan the next day. Oh bless my Dad!

We've been looking for a house to buy ever since we moved here. Well, looking, but now we're ready to buy and we had an accepted offer yesterday, so as long as everything goes well with the inspection, appraisal, finance and any other hoops we have to jump through, we will be closing at the end of April. We'll take the next month or so and fix it up. It's a great house but needs some updating. We're really excited about it. The back yard is great too. They have a garden area set up with sprinklers just for it (Bri was thrilled) and plenty of running space, a few really big pine trees that offer a lot of shade with a picnic table underneath them and about 7 fruit trees. We are excited about that! We've been watching HGTV a lot now and Bri's been on the internet pricing out wood to do the hardwood floors. We went to Lowe's for part of our date to get a better idea on what we want for carpet, counter tops, appliance and such. Just when you think you throw down all the money for a house, you have everything that needs to go in it and to help fix it up. Yikes! But we're excited about it. Pictures to come....

And last but not least, I had my first Dr's appointment today. We even got an ultrasound, so here is a pic of our new Chud Nugget to be. Yep, we're expecting our 5th (and final I might add) Chudling. Due date is October 16th which is even more fun since my sister Jill is 2 weeks after me. That was a super fun surprise. We aren't planning on finding out what it is because I think it would be so fun to hear them say, " It's a .....". But after the ultrasound today and seeing that little baby move around, I don't know if I'll be able to contain myself at the next ultrasound, so we'll see. So  there's the last month in a nutshell. I've been super tired and Brian has been amazing at picking up the house and just filling in everywhere I'm lacking. I haven't been too sick. Throwing up has been a minimum. Only 3 times to date and the last few days I've been feeling pretty good. Still crazy tired, but good.

Wee-Mama

I have such a great Mom. Always has been. But not only is she a great Mom, she's a great Wee-Mama (grandma).The kids love her and she loves them all so much. She's always doing fun things like tea parties, decorating cookies, making white chocolate suckers (I wish they were for me!) and all kinds of fun things. She's always trying to do fun things with them and she's always so great to help out when we need her. This last trip down there Isabelle was so clingy to her. Brian mentioned it may have been how well she and Papa John took care of her when we went to AZ and she got pneumonia. I think I have to agree. She didn't really want anything to do with me, just Wee-Mama. I was trying to get some hat pictures of my Mom and Isabelle wouldn't let go. I caught this cute one.

And love this one. So funny. Isabelle hasn't gotten the closed lips thing down yet. :)

Mom even got her to put the hat on. Funny girl. Love ya Mom!

Yo - ho!

  The other night I had put all the kids in bed and sat down to work on pictures from the wedding I did last week. Everything was quiet and calm and I turn to see a figure standing in my doorway. It kind of freaked me out, but then it made me laugh. This is who I saw! Cooper in his pirate hat, with his "sword" wearing Isabelle's orange sweat pants. He just puts a smile on my face.

We took some cute pictures after a mid-day shower yesterday. Not much to do around here these days, so the shower/tubs are the highlight at times.

Funny girl

I have 2 people left, Mom and my sister Caroline, to complete our "hat project". I tried getting some of Isabelle today and she was not all for the hat, but I LOVE the last one. In the second picture she was getting mad at me and shaking her finger at me. So glad I caught it because it was so funny.

February 9th, 2010

So I finally got a picture of Elizabeth. Her nose and mouth swelling went down, but she lost another tooth. Well, not but, just that it's a little off from what she would have looked like on her bday, but I think it's so cute.  I love this little stinker! She so did not want to take pictures, but there's always a bribe that works out okay.

When I saw this one it kind of freaked me out because I think she looks like she's 12 years old. What the heck?! You can kind of see her cute freckles though and I love that.

Brian and I spent a few days last week at Jill and Paul's house in AZ. Well, Bri was in courses all day, but I had 2 days to play and it was a great break! We spent some time at shops, hanging in the hot tub, going out to eat and one of my faves was picking fruit from the trees. I don't know that I've ever picked an orange from a tree... and then eaten it. We picked oranges, lemons and grape fruits.

We also stopped by the temple since it was close and since I forgot all my "necessities" on the bed at home. Thank goodness there was a distribution center close by!

Here's a cute picture of Jill and Maya. We had fun together. We even had a mini photo shoot. If you wanna see how they turned out, go here.

Better than picking the fruit was eating it. They were the most delicious oranges, and we made some serious lemonade. I'm not a huge fan of grapefruits, but it was a good one.

We had date night and went out to a Mexican restraunt and science museum. It was fun and especially nice to not worry about hurrying home to a babysitter who's getting paid by the hour! We also had a great fry-night, one that contributed to my 3 pound gain that weekend! We got to watch Paul writhe in agony while freezing off an undesired "blemish" on his finger. Crazy man! The only bad part of the trip was while we were boarding the plane my parents said they decided to take the kids, Cooper and Bella, to the dr's office. After 3 days of crying and moaning, long story short, Bella had pneumonia AGAIN! and Cooper had a nose infection and double ear infection and possibly pneumonia. They didn't do xrays (thank goodness) because the medicine for his ears would have taken care of the pnuemonia anyway. Oh so sorry to Mom and Dad but thank you thank you thank you for watching them and loving them  and taking care of them in their time of need.

The things kids say....

All in all I'd say January was a pretty good month.  However,  I AM ready for more sun, I AM ready for warmer weather, I AM ready for cleaner air and so it's a good thing I'm going for a weekend break with Brian to Arizona! But to recap the past week, Elizabeth thought she'd doll up Caroline. This was her finished product. Later that day she said, " Mom, I want to be a person who does hair and make up when I grow up. I don't know what it's called, but I'm good at it aren't I?". So cute.

Elizabeth talked me into letting her have a friend bday party. Brian.... not so much. I started out telling her she could have 3 girls, but somehow we ended up with 7. It was fun though.  First we started out with them painting their own shirt. It was fun to see how creative they were. I remember doing this with my parents when I was younger. I think my Dad still has his... just kidding Dad. (Actually, I might need to check his closet!) I forgot to mention it to the Moms so they wouldn't wear nice clothes, so last minute I came up with this great idea of cutting a hole in the bottom of a trash bag and slipping it over their heads. It worked great as an apron!

Elizabeth wanted to play all the games like Twister, pin the tail on the donkey and Limbo, so we did. I thought this picture was so cute of all of them.

After Twister, we had a treasure hunt with about 8 different clues and at each spot there was an envelope with 2 puzzle pieces in it. Once they collected all of them, they were to put it together and figure out what it was. It was a picture of Elizabeth.

After presents, cake and ice cream, we watched the annual bday video. I love watching my kids and how much they love watching them and love showing their friends. Makes it worth the time and effort of putting it all together.... like 8 times. (Our program was wacked!)

I think they all had a great time. A final shot with them all in their creations. Good group of girls!

I'm a little behind in getting Elizabeth's 7 year old picture done and now we're going to have to wait even longer because last night we had an incident! I was wrapping the kids up in a sheet and they were trying to get out. They were laughing and having so much fun and then they wanted to make it harder and do it one at a time. Well I wrapped Elizabeth up and tied it behind her back and put her on her stomach on the floor and said I'd be right back. Well a minute later she came hoping in behind me and right as I thought.... bad idea, she full on face planted it onto our scale. I mean full on facial impact. No bent knees, no hands bracing her fall, just her mouth and nose. One step more and she would have smacked either into the counter or the handles on our drawers. She was bleeding out of her nose and her mouth so I couldn't figure out where the problem was at first, but then, of course, it was both places. She immediately had a bruise on her nose and her lip was swelling by the second. No teeth were  knocked out though, so that was good, although we could have easily fixed that! :) Her nose didn't seem to be too bad. The bleeding was minor and the swelling wasn't too bad, until later that night. Then I was worried she had broken it. I ended up taking her into the doctor and they said she should be fine. No xrays were necessary, just some good old ice and time for the swelling to go down! I wouldn't let her look at it because I knew she freaked out, but a few hours later she caught a glimpse and said, " that looks painful." Such a funny girl. She also said," Mom, I learned an important lesson today didn't I?" I didn't know what it was, so I asked, " I learned you never walk with your hands tied behind your back." Glad we're learning something!

On a side note, I was rough housing with Cooper and Caroline, and Cooper had me in a choke hold, so I prenteded to die thinking he might give up. Well, about 10 seconds of my charade Caroline threw her body on top of me and was sobbing. I had no idea what had happend. "I thought you were dead and it made me so sad." How sweet and sad is that? I said, "well that makes me feel good that you were sad instead of jumping up and down saying "yay, she's dead". Oh the sweet moments. Ha!

January 27th, 2010

Last Saturday I took the girls to the bridal fair up here in Logan. I thought it'd be a fun "girls date" and they would have fun seeing the fashion show with all the dresses. Well, I was right. We had a great time together and best part.... it was free. We got there and looked around at the different booths and at just about every booth they had chocolate, a sucker, cake samples, ice cream, eclaires... just about everything. We ran into a lady from our ward and she told us they had the upstair catered for samples as well, so we went up there and had crackers, cheese, grapes, sandwhiches, delicious chocolate goodies, coconut dipped in chocolate and wedding cake. Mmmmmmmmmmm! Then we hit the wedding dress fashion show. They were so much fun to be with. I loved it and so did they!

Our sweet Elizabeth turned 7 on Monday. It was a crazy day. Wee-Mama, Papa John and Caroline (my Caroline) went to lunch at her school with her. After school she had a piano party until 5:30, then we ate dinner and opened presents. Every Sunday she's been saying she wants the Holy Bible, I think because her friend has it, but whatever. So we got her a set with her name embossed on them. She was pretty excited about that. It's been a great 7 years with this girlie and we sure love her!

For me

I love pictures (as we already know) and I love seeing pictures and the way people change over the years, especially my kids. But I like seeing how I've changed too and looking back over the years, so today, since I actually straightened my hair, I thought I'd go take some pictures of myself. I think every Mom and woman needs a good picture of themselves that makes them feel pretty. Now, I'm not saying all these make me feel pretty, but it was kind of fun. I'm not a hat girl, but something happens when you put on a hat, it can give you a different personality, or am I just weird? Like a sports hat makes me feel more athletic and guy-ish, or a cowboy hat make me feel like a cowgirl. Am I the only one? Anyway, this hat was fun to play with. It made me feel stylish and girlie even if it looks silly on me. I think I need to get some more hats!

Amen!

How could you get mad at a face like this?! So cute!

18 months and ice skating

Well today marks 18 months for miss Isabelle. It's kind of crazy 'cause she seems so little to me. She's such a sweetie though and I love seeing her learning and growing. She basically only says "daddy" still. We almost got mama but she's not giving me that kind of satisfaction too soon I guess. We still need to get her off the passy. I think tomorrow is the day... after the shots of course. I can't believe she's still on it. None of our kids lasted past 4 months. It's been nice though, until now... the breaking off stage.

The girls have been wanting to go ice skating, heck, it seems like they've been wanting to do everything lately!!! But there's a park that floods out the area and makes an outdoor skating rink, so we took them there today. The skates were horribly dull so I could barely even skate. Luckily I had the stroller to keep me balanced. I don't know how the others managed. Bri says he can't even remember not being able to skate. Lame! But, I did catch him skating backwards, so he has got some skill. :) I'd say it was fun, but I'm not so sure it was. Caroline had an okay time, Liz didn't until she was in her boots on the ice.

Thought this was a cute picture. Love this girl!

The temple was in the background which was pretty. Brian was even able to skate holding Isa. I told him he must have been born wearing skates. :)