Desert Dreamers

Halloween crafts

2011-10-06T13:22:00.000-07:00

Something about the fall season really brings out my crafty side. I don't know why I feel the need to attempt to turn into Martha once the weather starts to cool down. Now you must understand, I have a major love/hate relationship with crafting. I am absolutely in love with the idea of being a crafty person but the fact of the matter is no matter how hard I try...I'm just not!

Having said that, I still like to pretend every once in a while. So here are two things that I've done recently that I'm pretty happy with. They're much cuter in person. I have got to get a better camera and learn how to take pictures just for the sake of blogging. (That sounds reasonable, right?) They were both super quick and easy. A 3 year old could do them. In fact, my 3 year old helped me with both of them. Actually, he's 4 now...did I mention we've had a couple of birthdays around here. Probably not since I haven't blogged in about a year. More on that later...

Anyway, here they are

Hmmm, now that I see it in a picture I hope the wreath looks Halloweenish and not like I'm a huge Cincinnati Bengals fan. Maybe I'll make a blue & yellow one for my Chargers. =)

Does this girl know how to accessorize...

2011-05-25T09:04:00.001-07:00

OR WHAT?!

That fabulous green scarf around her neck is a pair of Addison's underwear (I sure hope they're clean) and apparently the new trend for spring is simply to dangle a bra down the front of you instead of a tie. GENIUS! Move over Versace, this little fashionista is making her way to the top.

The funny thing is, she was so proud of her look. As soon as I grabbed the camera she smiled all big and ran to this chair where she posed so pretty for her picture. Such a cutie.

Perhaps I should nominate her for What Not To Wear.

quarters & ice cream

2011-04-27T17:56:00.000-07:00

I was at Walmart today with the kiddos when a little old man came walking up to us and started digging in his pockets. He told the kids that he was going to give them some money so they could buy an ice cream cone. Then he asked them if they like ice cream to which they responded with vigorous head shaking. He started to hand them 4 quarters then handed them each one more and told me that it was to account for inflation. Addison politely said "thank you" while Urban excitedly yelled "money!". Then the man looked up and saw Delilah in the cart, apparently he had not noticed her before. He started to hand her 5 quarters as well then turned to me and said "I'm going to give this straight to her so she doesn't feel left out, but then you'll need to take it away from her because she may put it in her mouth and choke". How cute is he? Delilah just looked confused...she could barely hold on to five quarters without dropping them out of her little hand. I kept trying to thank him and tell him how kind he is but he just went on his merry way.

What a sweet old guy. He reminded me of my dear Grandpa Martin. He always wanted to take us grandkids out for ice cream cones and gave us whatever change he had in his pockets.

Once we left Walmart I took the kids to Mcdonald's for a kid's cone. They're pretty excited that they get 4 more since they only cost 25 cents each. Who knows, we may splurge and get a big one next time. =)

Every day this month!

2011-03-01T17:01:00.000-08:00

It's March 1st and I've got the fever! No, not Bieber fever but Spring fever. I know we've still got our fair share of cold weather & snow to endure but I long for the days of sunshine & warmth. Today was a pretty day. Very bright & sunny and not too cold outside. It filled me with hope that winter will not stay forever.

Well, winter is not the only unwelcome guest around these parts. My home has turned into a disorganized, chaotic mess! It's been this way for quite some time. I just don't even know where to start. I can't figure this house out...I don't know what to do with it. I don't know why it's so difficult but it is and I can't stand it any more. Seriously, this house is going to drive me to the looney bin. I think I'm already well on my way.

A home should feel clean, peaceful, welcoming, comfortable, happy & harmonious. I don't feel like our home is any of those things because it's in such disarray.

So my goal for the month is to accomplish one task or project every single day. Something that will help to organize, de-clutter, maximize function or beautify my home. This can be as simple as purging old baby things, going through a junk drawer or clearing out the junk room. Yes, I have an entire room devoted to junk. It started out as a craft room but has since turned into a crap room. Everything I don't use any more or don't know what to do with gets thrown in there. Some things may just take an hour and some may take a couple of days but no matter what, something will get done every day. It just has to. I want to enjoy my home again.

Just because it's funny...

2011-02-24T13:17:00.000-08:00

I PITY DA FOOL WHO MESSES WITH ME!

I laugh hysterically every time I look at this picture. I think I'm just easily amused, but it CRACKS ME UP! I figured I'd post it for anyone else who would like to chuckle at Delilah's stink face.

Summertime

2010-12-31T08:14:00.001-08:00

"Summer, summer, summertime (ooh summertime)

time to sit back and unwind" thank you Mr. Will Smith

I do love summertime, especially here in Utah. The weather is so nice and it stays light pretty late so you lose all track of time just surrounding yourself with family and doing what you love. We had a great summer this year. Even though we stayed close to home we packed a lot into it.

Our nephews Brady & Garett came from Phoenix to spend about 3 or so weeks with us in July. It was so fun having them around. We took them to Lagoon which was also the first time our family had gone.

I felt so bad, I lathered all the kids up with sunscreen and accidentally got it in Lilah's eyes. That's why they're all red & puffy. They were so sensitive for the rest of the day. oops!
Addison & Urban got to go on all the kiddie rides and absolutely loved it. I wasn't sure how Urban would do, I thought he might get scared, but he did great. He just kept asking to go again.

I liked the rides with 2 steering wheels. Urban put the smack down on Addison a couple of times if she got to be in front or if she had a steering wheel. He's such a stinker. Oh he makes me so mad sometimes.

Lilah & I just took a little snooze in the shade while everyone else played at the water park for a little while. Nice & relaxing.

Brady (left) was a perfect roller coaster companion for Jared. They both love the high-flyin', loopty-loo rides. They even talked Garett into going on a few with them. They both had little teeny-bopper girls following them around the park. Brady & Garett I mean, not Jared...that would just be weird. =)

Jared took the boys back to Lagoon a couple of days later because we had bounce-back passes. I can't really remember what else we did while they were here. I know there were trips to music stores (they're both really into music & playing the guitar), carnival, mall, movies, games (board & video), lake and that's all I can think of at the moment.

I miss all my nieces & nephews so much. I'm so glad these 2 were able to visit. They're welcome back any time along with all of the rest of them.

Pioneer Day

2010-12-30T21:37:00.000-08:00

We spent the day at the lake on Pioneer Day. We had so much fun, the kids loved it.
Lilah just chilled in the shade most of the day while the rest of us took turns keeping her company.

Here's Brady making a sand castle.

Jared & Garett taking a break from dunking each other.

Addison would not get out of the water and she just kept going further & further out.

I love Urban in just his swim trunks. He's so cute.

This picture makes me laugh. I was trying to get the scenery in the background and happened to catch this dad throwing his kid in the water. It kind of looks like he's floating through air.

Later that night we went home to once again have our own little firework show.

Eating snacks while watching the show. This is SO Urban. If there's food around he's pretty much oblivious to anything else going on.

I got Brady to do a little sparkler dance for me.

Garett wasn't going for it.

4th of July

2010-12-30T15:44:00.000-08:00

I love the 4th of July. It's a low stress, relaxing holiday full of perfect weather, yummy food, fun fireworks, a beautiful reason to celebrate, and marvelous family & friends.

We spent most of the day at my sister's house. We played soccer, cooled off in the kiddie pools & had a BBQ. Once it started getting dark (which is pretty late in our neck of the woods) we lit off some fireworks. Of course sparklers are always a favorite among the kids. They kind of make me nervous though. The thought of my kids holding a stick of fire, especially around Addison's long hair, scares me a bit. They all did great though and had tons of fun. =)

Hmm, I'm kind of liking the blonde. Maybe I'll go back.

Only Heather could look this cute acting like a complete spaz!

I guess I was wrong, Addison looks pretty darn cute too! We told her she had to dance like Aunt Heather if she wanted to do any more fireworks. She was a little embarrassed. When we were looking back at these pictures she insisted that they must have been doing a rain dance to put out the fires. It does kind of look like it.

This must have been the next night. I don't really remember but I think we had a few left over sparklers & fireworks so we finished them off. Urban looks ready for bed already. I miss his longer hair...so cute.

Don't ask why she's wearing a backpack...I have no idea.

This is our little neighbor boy, Tristan. He was supposed to be in his room sleeping but we were too distracting so he sat and watched us through his window. Such a cutie.

By the way, sorry about the pictures. I don't have an editing program on this computer so I can't fix anything. They're all in the raw and I am a terrible photographer.

Spica Cast

2010-12-29T22:25:00.000-08:00

I went a little crazy with pictures on this post but she is just so darn cute. Anyone I talk to on a regular basis probably got so sick of hearing me talk about this stinkin' cast but this was a really huge part of our lives for a couple of months. Delilah's hips were displaced, it's just something she was born with. This meant that the head of her femur did not sit right in the hip socket. The socket was too shallow to hold the bone properly and the bone was not in the correct position.

We tried a harness for 6 weeks starting when she was six weeks old then a brace for about a month when she was 6 months old. Neither one of them worked so the next step was the spica cast. This is a procedure where they put her under and inject a dye into her so they're able to see the placement of her hips. Once they're in the right position the doctor sets them with a cast. She had to wear the cast for 8 weeks. It was put on June 30th and removed August 30th.

It was kind of a bummer that it was on during the summer because we weren't able to take her swimming at all. Oh well, we managed.
Here are pictures of Ms Daisy the day before the procedure. She was always so happy and smiley. That was one of my greatest worries...that I would lose my happy girl and get a fuss bucket in return. She had also just started crawling, so I was concerned that she'd be pretty mad that she was immobilized.

Here she is getting her last bath for 8 weeks. Oh how I was not looking forward to having a smelly baby. What did I tell ya though? Always smiling!

These are pictures we took in the pre-op room. Lilah was so cute. She kept kicking her legs all over the place as if she knew it was the last time she'd be able to for a long time. The nurse kept calling her a boy, even after we said her name was Delilah. I must admit, she did look a bit boyish in those blue hospital jammies.

The hardest thing I have ever had to do in my entire life is hand my baby over to the anesthesiologist as they took her through doors that I could not enter. I've never felt so helpless. I'm getting teary again just thinking about it. Even though I knew this was a fairly non-invasive procedure and she'd be fine, it was still so so hard. The second hardest thing was watching my baby come out of the anesthesia. Talk about heart wrenching! She'd wake up for a few seconds just screaming, then she'd fall back into sleep, then she'd wince in her sleep and this just continued for a little while. HELPLESS. I once again started to cry and the nurse looked at me and asked if she was my first baby. I was a bit confused as to why she'd ask that. I told her that she was my third but the first one I've ever been in the hospital with (well, other than the time Addison stuck a Polly Pocket shoe up her nose). She just kind of smiled at me and went back to work. For a split second I thought that maybe I was over reacting. Nah, even if this was my tenth baby I'd be just as emotional. I have to say though, when she came out of it for good she just started giggling. That was the sweetest thing ever.

Here's our little bear checking out her new threads. The edges around the cast were very rough & sharp so the nurses wrapped mole skin around them as to not irritate her skin. They said normally when they do that the kids are screaming the whole time. Delilah just laid there and watched them do it. They all kept commenting on how good she was. That's my girl!

The first few days were a challenge, I'm not going to lie. I think I cried more during those 2 months than she did. Figuring out how to sleep, change diapers, sit her up, hold her, feed her, get her in a car seat, stroller, etc. It was awful, but we did just fine. After about the first week everything just became "normal". I didn't even think twice about doing all of those things. The funny thing is, I got so used to it all that when it came time for the cast to come off it took me a little while to get back in the habit of doing things the "right" way.

I would have to say that the most crushing part was holding her. I don't mean the physical act of holding her (although that was difficult) but just the feel of holding her. I so desperately wanted to hold her close and cuddle and feel her soft, squishy body up against me but all I could feel was that hard, scratchy cast. Babies are in this stage for such a short time & I just felt like I was being jipped some precious moments. Looking back though I realize I was not jipped at all. We are extremely blessed. Just look at this sweet girl, she's perfect. Our moments together were perfect too. Perhaps a bit unconventional, but perfect none the less.

This may have made the whole cast experience worth it. Is this not the cutest bum shot ever! hee hee, I love it.

Well what do you know? Still as happy as can be. She's all smiles in her bean bag chair. We found that this was the easiest way to sit her up. My sweet grandma & aunt Debbie sent her the cutest little lady bug bean bag chair.

It is absolutely amazing to me how adaptable children are. Within about 2 weeks she could get wherever she wanted to go. She was fast too! She would just use her little arms to slither all over the place. She was able to flip from her her stomach to her back but not the other way around. That big old bar got in her way.

These pictures are in the morning before the cast came off. She did so great with it on. I was really worried about the smell but luckily it never got too bad. She did not have a blow out the entire 8 weeks. A couple of days before it was to be taken off she did throw up and it got all down inside of her cast. I was just so grateful that we were almost done.

She loved having one hand down her cast. Not sure why.

These are marks the cast left just from rubbing on her for so long.

This is a rug burn she got because her skin was so sensitive from not having been exposed to anything for 8 weeks. It actually looks a lot better here, this picture was a couple of days later. I felt so bad, I never even thought about keeping her in long pants until her skin toughened up again. Poor thing.

She did really well once the cast was taken off. She was sore & fussy for a couple of days but not too bad. She did develop quite an attitude though. The entire time she was in the cast she never once threw a temper tantrum. She went a bit hog wild once she was out though. I'm not talking about crying or fussing but full on yelling & screaming in anger. I think she just realized that there was not much she could do in the cast so there was no point in fighting it. But once it was off & she knew there was nothing holding her back she would get so mad if she wasn't able to do something. Luckily that has calmed down in the last couple months.

At her 6 week check up the doctor said she looked great. Her hips still weren't quite where he'd like to see them but that should improve as she starts putting more weight on the joints by walking and such. We have a 6 month check up in April just to make sure. She still mostly slithered around after having the cast taken off but has since started crawling and walking around furniture. We're still waiting for her to walk on her own, it won't be too far off.

Sorry, I know I was a bit long winded but I just want to make sure I don't forget any of this stuff because I have a terrible memory.

MAJOR CATCH UP

2010-12-29T21:43:00.000-08:00

I thought about not even trying to catch up and just start blogging about present happenings, but we have had too many wonderful memories that need to be documented. My Christmas gift to myself is getting caught up on my blog before the end of the year so everything that happened in 2010 is archived under the same year. I don't know why blogging has been so hard for me lately. I think it's partially because every time I sit down to do something I get lost for hours looking at old pictures. I've been sitting here laughing & crying just watching the kids grow up in photo form right before my eyes. It makes me so sad, but man are they beautiful little beings. I need to try to stay focused here. I have 2 days people...good luck to me!

Just plain cuteness!

2010-09-17T11:36:00.001-07:00

Here are some pictures I've taken of the kids over the last month or so. They're completely random but oh so delightful. They make me smile so I thought I would share.

Princess Spider-girl.

A face only a mother could love...and boy do I!

"Looking like a fool with your hand down your pants!" Delilah always sucks on her 2 middle fingers and for some reason she loved putting her hand inside her cast. Silly girl

Please ignore my hideously ugly stairway down to the basement. Urban was throwing a tantrum on the stairs because he didn't want to do something (who knows what?) but some how all of his thrashing around and being pouty looked very model-esque to me. I don't know where my little boy went, he looks about 13 in these pictures.

I started to get a smirk out of him here after telling him to "work it, work it" and singing "I'm too sexy" trying to get him out of his mood and into model mode. Inappropriate? Possibly. But did it work? Judge for yourself, baby. Move over Rico Suave!

Seriously, could Lilah bear be any cuter? I think not!

I love this "squish" face that she makes. She does it all the time, but of course as soon as the camera comes out she stops. I almost got it here but her arm is in the way a bit.

I have always hoped that our children would get my vision and not Jared's so that we don't have to mess with glasses, but after seeing how cute they look in Jared's old glasses I almost started to have second thoughts. =)

Swim lessons

2010-08-23T05:14:00.001-07:00

Addison took swim lessons back in June and loved it. She did really well too. The lessons were only 3 days a week for 2 weeks so she is by no means a professional swimmer...but don't tell her that. She thinks she's pretty good. It's actually kind of scary because we went to a lake a few weeks after her lessons and she kept going out further than she could reach because "she knows how to swim now". Luckily she had a life jacket on and someone was always right next to her.

I think her favorite part of the lessons was the hot tub. Everyday after they finished up, their instructor would take them to sit in the hot tub for a couple of minutes. The kids thought it was the greatest thing ever. I think it made them feel grown up.

Her lessons were at the athletic club we belong to so I just dropped Urban off in the nursery while Addison swam. He loved it! Every day he would get so excited to go on the slide and eat graham crackers.

Gotta love those bun cheeks hanging out of the swimsuit, so darn cute! Wouldn't it be so nice to just not care about stuff like that and look that cute while you're oblivious? =)

Baptism

2010-08-17T08:29:00.000-07:00

Baptisms are so special and so neat to witness. Back in June I was able to see an amazing family be baptized.

Dana is a really good friend of mine who I have know for over 10 years now. We met at a dermatologist office that we both worked at in Las Vegas. As soon as we started talking we pretty much instantly clicked. She is so much fun and so sincere. Dana is truly an amazing person and I feel honored to be able to call her my friend. We have seen each other through a lot...marriage, infertility treatments, health problems, births, death, moves, jobs, happy times & sad. There have been periods in our lives when things would be crazy and life would get in the way and we'd lose touch for a couple months here or there, but we could always pick up that phone and start back up right where we left off without missing a beat.

I remember having lots of talks about the church. Dana would be curious about things here and there and I would try to answer her questions the best I could. Well fast forward 10 years, you can't imagine my surprise and joy when I got a phone call telling me that she, along with the rest of her sweet family, was going to be baptized. They had taken the missionary discussions and felt good about what they were taught. I was ecstatic, and I could tell she was too. The excitement in her voice brought tears to my eyes.

Luckily, since they live in Cedar City now, we were able to drive down to be there for it. It was so great to see Paul, Dana & Noah. They have so much support from their ward, you can tell that they are just loved. There were so many people at the baptism and the talks were all beautiful. I kept looking over at Dana and let me tell you, she did not stop grinning the entire time. I could just tell that she knew she was making the right decision and she could not wait to take this step in her life. I got so emotional watching the actual baptisms. The bishop teared up a bit with each one, but when he got to Dana he really got choked up. They both hugged afterwards and cried and you could just feel the love and the happiness and the Spirit in the room. I am so grateful that I got to be there for this special event.

Thank you so much Paul, Dana and Noah for letting me and my family share this wonderful day with you. I can't wait to be able to go to the temple with you in a year and watch you all be sealed together for all time & eternity. We love you!

Visit from Grandma & Grandpa

2010-08-11T19:32:00.000-07:00

Jared's parents came to visit us back in May (yes, I'm that behind) and as always it was so nice to see them. I can't really remember everything that we did, but it was a fun-filled weekend.

Here are some of the highlights:
-shopping
-trip to the BX
-search for the 'wreath man'
-drive to Park City
-hanging out
-loves & hugs & tickles & kisses
-more shopping
-trout farm

Some how the trout farm is the only place I got pictures but there are lots to enjoy. There's a trout farm in North Ogden that is stocked with trout so you are guaranteed to catch one...or twenty. However many you want really. After you catch them the people who work there clean & fillet them for you so they're all ready to cook. The kids thought it was the greatest thing ever. As soon as they stuck their lines in the water they got a bite. Since I'm the only one who likes fish we didn't want very many so after they each caught one we just had them fish without hooks. They still had a blast. They were pretty good at it too. Addison's a natural little fisher-woman. She got the hang of casting a line right away. This was a really cute little place that we'll definitely go back to.

p.s. This song's for you Dad! =)

Who wears short shorts?

2010-08-10T21:11:00.000-07:00

Urban wears short shorts
If you dare wear short shorts, Urban wears short shorts!

Okay, I know he's a bit on the large side...but he's not THAT big. These shorts are a size 4T and he looks like he's wearing a speedo. I know pajamas are supposed to fit a tad snug but for crying out loud, even 2 year olds deserve to feel some dignity!

By the way, I have TONS of posts to catch up on but I've been trying to upload pictures for the last week and blogger wasn't letting me for some reason. I was finally able to tonight but I was too lazy to do a longer post so I decided to share this since it made me laugh. =)

My Younger Man

2010-06-27T19:47:00.000-07:00

Jared turned 30 last month on the 27th. I like when his birthday rolls around because then I am no longer older than him...just the same age (at least in my silly mind). I can't believe he's thirty. I don't know why it seems so much stranger to me for him to be thirty than me. I think because I've always acted old no matter what age I am and he's always seemed so young & fun. I still see him as the same 21 year old who stole my heart.

I wanted to do something super special for him for his thirtieth birthday. It's kind of a big deal you know. My sister and I actually started planning this amazing surprise party for him like way back in February. He's never had a surprise party before. Seriously, it was going to be so much fun. It was going to have an 80's theme (since that's the year he was born), we were going to have prizes for best costumes, dancing, games, karaoke, yummy food...the works! I was so excited to do this for him.

So why didn't it happen you ask? Well, I remembered that we don't really have any friends. Yeah I know, pathetic right? Okay, don't get me wrong, we have friends. Just not really close friends that we hang out with on a regular basis. I mean, there's definitely lots of people I could have invited from church and his work and stuff but they're people we see at those functions. We don't get together outside of those things. I didn't want to take the chance of no one coming. How depressing would that be to walk into a surprise party and only have your wife & kids jump out yelling "SURPRISE" at you when you can tell that it was supposed to be a big party. So I scrapped it. Who knows, maybe for his 40th.

Anyway, we still had lots of fun. The kids and I went to the store to get some fun decorations & presents. Addison helped me make his birthday cake and then she and Urban helped put up the decorations. Addison picked out a toy race car to give him and Urban wanted to give him a football. Urban kind of scored on daddy's birthday as he ended up with both presents. Delilah and I got him a blu-ray player which kind of made up for losing the other two.

Jared's parents came up to visit us Memorial Day weekend and ended up getting here the night of his birthday. (I'll post about their visit later.) He had school that night and usually the kids are in bed by the time he gets home but I let them stay up late. When he walked in the door Addison & Urban sprayed him with silly string. They thought that was the greatest thing ever! Addison later told me that grown-ups birthday parties are more fun than kids parties. I think the silly string and noise makers were the main factors taken into account when coming to that conclusion.

I ended up telling him about all of my grand plans and then told him why I didn't do it. He just laughed and said I was probably right but he appreciated the thought. He's a pretty spectacular guy...at least in my opinion.

Preschool Graduation

2010-06-18T21:22:00.001-07:00

I can't believe my oldest baby is about to start kindergarten. It makes me so sad but so excited for things to come all at the same time. Time has gone by so quickly and I hear it seems even faster once your little ones start school...hard to imagine. I am going to bawl like a baby the first day I drop her off at kindergarten.

Addison absolutely loved preschool. She made lots of friends, loved her teachers and learned a lot. Her teachers loved her too. They always wrote the sweetest remarks on her papers and constantly told me how much they enjoyed having her in their class. Naturally this wasn't a surprise to me. What's not to love? Okay, so she's not perfect but I think she behaved a little better at school than she does at home...thank goodness. Of course Urban wasn't there to fight with and that's usually the main reason for her acting up.

Her class had a really cute program that they presented the day of graduation. The kids sang songs and demonstrated some of the various things they learned throughout the year. The last couple months of school they learned about different cultures. What they wear, eat, how they play, what language they speak, where they're at in the world, etc. In the above picture Addison's group was portraying Polynesian culture and she got to play the ukulele.
She looked so cute in her little cap & gown.
Here she is with her teachers, Mrs. Edwards & Mrs. Wilson.
I'm so glad that Addison liked preschool so much. I don't think she'll have any problem at all transitioning into kindergarten.

SELL IT OR KEEP IT

2010-06-17T06:23:00.000-07:00

I came upstairs the other morning from taking my shower to see Urban quickly run out of the pantry into his room. I knew something was going on because I kept hearing the pitter patter of little feet running back and forth across the floor above me. When I walked in behind him I found half the contents of my pantry in the kids' room.

I asked what they were doing and Addison told me they were playing sell it or keep it.

"What's that?" I asked

"Well it's a game. I'm the store person and I ask Urban if he likes something and if he says yes then we keep it but if he says no we sell it."

Pretty creative don't you think? I'm actually quite impressed with their imaginations. Leave it to my kids to create a game revolving around food. They begged me to let them play a little bit longer before putting the food away. They were having so much fun and playing so well together that I actually didn't mind if they played "sell it or keep it" all day long.

Who knows, maybe this will be the next game show craze!

Oh, by the way, don't ask me what Urban's doing in this picture because I have no idea. But I still think it's super cute.

Dance Recital

2010-06-15T19:12:00.000-07:00

Addison took a cheer class this year and had a blast. Her teacher is so much fun. She's the same teacher Addison had last year for her jazz/ballet class. I'm not sure which type of dance Addison likes better, she really seems to enjoy both. I think next year we may try tumbling.

This is Addison's class skipping across the stage during introductions. Addi's the last one. It's so funny watching the girls skip. Most of them aren't coordinated enough to do it (including Addison) but it's so cute watching them try.
Here she is on the big stage. (She's in the back on the left...not a great shot, I know) She does so well when she performs, I love watching her. I'm so happy that she doesn't get scared when she sees all of the people sitting in the audience. She just gets up there and does what she's been practicing.
She's so excited to have 2 dance trophies now. She really does have a lot of fun in her dance classes. Whether or not she ever pursues dancing I'm just glad that she's doing something active that she enjoys.

GOOD JOB ADDISON, WE'RE SO PROUD OF YOU. LOVE YOU!!! XOXOXO

L-A-Z-Y

2010-06-14T11:22:00.000-07:00

I AIN'T GOT NO ALIBI

I'M LAZY

YEAH, YEAH

I'M LAZY!

CHECK IT OUT...

I am so totally behind on blogging right now and I have so much to blog about. Last month was very busy for us which is part of the reason why I haven't had time to blog, and the other part can be attributed to my LAZINESS!

I have had absolutely no motivation lately to do anything. I have several projects I need to finish, my house is a disaster, I need to get caught up on laundry and get it put away, I need to do stuff for girls camp, I need to get back into an exercise routine, I need to plan some fun things to do with the kiddos this summer, and the list goes on...

I think part of my problem is that I have so much to do that when I think about it I just get overwhelmed and don't know where to start so I just don't do anything at all. Makes perfect sense right? NOT!!! I'm not sure what my problem is. I haven't always been like this. Usually if something needs to be done I just do it, I don't stress over it for weeks until I let it go for so long that it becomes a huge ordeal.

Anyway, something sort of clicked the other night. We had Chinese food for dinner and I read my fortune to Jared. It said something like 'you will be involved in many humanitarian efforts in your life'. I thought that was kind of neat, I like to help people. Well do you know what he had the gumption to do when I read this to him? Go ahead, take a guess. He laughed at me! And not just a little chuckle, but like a big, belly laugh. THE NERVE! So I asked him what in the heck he thought was so funny and was a bit taken back by his response. He said, and I quote..."honey, don't take this the wrong way because it's both of us, not just you, but we're too lazy to do stuff like that". The sad part is, he's totally right. And even worse is the fact that apparently we're both aware of this but have just accepted it as our way of life rather than do something to change it.

Well not any more. I am done being lazy and I am definitely done being okay with it. It's going to be hard to break old habits but I CAN DO IT...starting tomorrow! haha, I crack myself up. ;)

I figure the blogging world is a great place to start. That's easy enough, right? Since I do have so many posts to catch up on I'm going to try to do at least one a day for the next couple of days so keep checking back (this means you grandmas).

Mother's Day weekend wrap-up

2010-05-14T09:58:00.001-07:00

I know, I'm almost a week behind but that's just how I roll!

I had a great weekend. Jared & the kids did a great job spoiling me. I was treated to a few of my favorite things this past Saturday & Sunday!

waking up to a bed full of kids and having cuddle time
breakfast at Cracker Barrel
shopping
fish Tacos from Rubio's
a clean house
Chocolate Chip Paradise Pie from Chili's
a full night of sleep from Delilah (first time...and last so far)
Jared's delicious pancakes in bed
an ipod
a beautiful necklace
a super cute card & picture from Addison that she made at pre-school (first school gift...I LOVE IT!!!)
a peaceful & very pretty drive through the mountains with the family

I'm sure there was more, but sadly my memory has failed me. That's why I need to write these things down the day of. Oh well, some day I'll learn...maybe!

And yes, I am well aware that many of my favorite things consist of food. What can I say? That is the way to my heart!

I had a wonderful mother's day, I only wish I could have spent it with my mom. I really wish I was more like her. She was, and still is, a great mother. Her whole life has been dedicated to her kids. She was always so kind, patient & affectionate. I seriously don't ever remember her losing her temper, or yelling at us or really even getting mad at all. Of course we all know how bad my memory is. Hee hee, I'm just kidding. She has so many beautiful qualities that I am still trying to develop. I'm very grateful for her love & example.

"But mom,...

2010-05-10T11:10:00.001-07:00

we were trying to be Indians!"

Well then, by all means, please continue.

That was the explanation I got when I walked into the room and found that they had painted their faces with Addison's play makeup. I guess they thought I couldn't possibly get mad at that. They were right, I just started laughing.

Urban started crying hysterically when I told them they needed to get in the bath so we could wash it off. That's why he looks so sad in the first picture. He then proceeded to have a fit and throw himself down onto a pile of clothes that I hadn't put away yet, all the while wiping his face all over my clothes. That's why his face isn't as red as Addison's, my clothes are now red instead.

That stuff was hard to get off. I had to scrub several times with makeup remover and those two still had a bit of a red tint to them once we were done.

Dinosaur Park

2010-05-06T12:48:00.001-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I had a baby shower to go to so Jared decided to take the kids to the dinosaur park. We've never been before and I'm kind of sad I missed it, but they all had so much fun. I was really impressed that Jared took the kids by himself. I don't think I would have been brave enough to go somewhere like that with all 3 of them by myself. I get a little paranoid about losing one of them. Urban likes to take off running and that scares me. Especially when I have Delilah, it makes it hard to run off after him (he's pretty quick).

Anyway, these are pictures that Jared took with his phone. I'm glad he thought to take pictures, that way I didn't miss out on too much. We will definitely go back again. Jared said there's so much to do that they didn't even get to it all.

Oops!

2010-04-26T10:54:00.000-07:00

He did it again.

So it turns out that Urban is a bit of a klutz. He is constantly tripping over his own feet, running into walls or falling out of his chair for absolutely no reason at all. He'll just be sitting there, then next thing I know he's on the floor. Nothing will happen, he won't even be goofing off, he just falls down. It mystifies my mind.

Well sadly, he also falls down stairs. The entire time he was learning to walk and then perfecting the art, he never fell down our stairs. Now that he's a seasoned pro he's done it twice. Unfortunately his face always takes the brunt of his falls. I've never actually seen it happen. I just hear the ruckus and start running. I feel so bad for him, it looks just miserable. Our stairs aren't carpeted and they have the metal studs on the end. It must hurt so badly. Poor little guy!

Here's a picture of his latest stunt... (it's a bit out of focus)

And this one is from back in September...

He always seems to hit right in the same spot, right on the bridge of his nose. OUCH!!! Luckily he's always been okay. He just needs some extra cuddles & loves.

Easter

2010-04-21T10:36:00.000-07:00

Easter seems like it was so long ago, but it was just over 2 weeks ago!

Anyway, we had a great Easter Sunday. The kids woke up and found their baskets, then we had a huge, delicious breakfast. After breakfast we colored eggs for our Easter egg hunt. Later in the afternoon we headed over to my sister's house for a yummy ham dinner.

We weren't really able to watch conference because we didn't have TV at the time. We did watch a few talks online when we got home that evening. I'm excited to get this month's Ensign so I can read the rest.

Somebody doesn't like not being able to do things by himself. What? I don't know where he gets that from! =)

Pictures

2010-04-16T14:30:00.001-07:00

I know I'm going out of order here considering I still haven't posted about Easter, but I wanted to share these pictures of the kids.

Since yesterday was such a beautiful spring day we planned a photo shoot with my sister. I dressed the kiddos in their Easter clothes and we headed off to the park. They all looked so cute.

Heather really got some great shots, which isn't easy with my bunch. Urban does not like taking directions from anybody. I was actually quite surprised that she got a single shot without him pointing his finger and scrunching up his face yelling "no, I don't like it!" They were much more interested in playing on the playground than getting their picture taken. In all fairness, what kid wouldn't rather play than sit still and pose? Actually I take that back, my niece Avery was dying to have her picture taken. She kept posing and asking if it was her turn. She cracks me up.

All in all they did great. I think they turned out super cute. Thanks Heather!

Here's the link http://tippytoesphotodesign.blogspot.com

Vegas Baby!

2010-04-13T14:40:00.000-07:00

I am so totally behind, but here's a little catch up.

The weekend before Easter was quite a busy one for us. That Thursday, Jared had Lasik done. He has been wanting it for such a long time. He's worn glasses since he was 10 years old and was just sick of it. So we decided to set aside some of his profit sharing money for the procedure. He is so glad he did it, he absolutely loves it. He had no complications and his vision was better almost immediately. It was a little fuzzy the first day, then continually got better until he could see just as well, if not better, than he was able to with glasses or contacts. The first few nights he was supposed to tape some funky protective lenses to his face so that he wouldn't scratch or rub his eyes in the middle of the night. He looked pretty goofy! One night he woke up and found them taped to his stomach instead. hee hee I was supposed to take pictures of him for his sister Julie, but I forgot and he has since thrown them away. Sorry Julie! Anyway, he just went in for his two week follow up and everything looks great.

The day after having it done he had to go in for a check up real quick in the morning, then we were on our way to Las Vegas. My super cute cousin Jennifer was having a baby shower for her first baby so we decided to take a little mini vacation. I love Vegas, I'll look for any reason to go! Her shower was so much fun. All of her friends did a great job planning it and she is an absolutely adorable little preggo lady.

While we were there we got to visit with so much family, it was wonderful. My parents were there along with my aunt & uncle and grandma from Cali. Then we got to see my aunt & uncle who live in Vegas along with 4 of my cousins and their cute families who all live there. My brother and his family also stopped by for a few hours on their way home from Sacramento. It was like a Martin family reunion. There was only one of my cousins who wasn't there. I love my mom's side of the family. We all lived close growing up and got to see one another often. We have all stayed fairly close as we've gotten older, I only wish we could see each other more often.

Some good friends of ours had us over for dinner on Sunday night and we got to see their little guy for the first time. What a cutie pie! The kids all had a fun time playing together while we got caught up on each other's lives.

We also got in some fun shopping and good eating while we were there.

It was fun just driving around to different parts of town that hold fond memories for us. We showed the kids the church building we met at, the casino we went to on our first date to see a movie & play in the arcade, the Temple we were sealed in and our first home.

Every time I go back to Las Vegas it's so hard to leave. I forget how much I miss it until I'm there. Not to mention the weather was beautiful while we were there. It was really windy the first day (that's to be expected in Vegas in March) but the rest of the weekend was perfect. It was so sunny and warm. That's part of the appeal, especially after a long winter in Utah. But believe you, me, in just a couple of months I'd be wanting to come back to Utah after not being able to walk outside without blistering from the heat. Maybe we'll just get a winter home there and come back here in the summers. A girl can dream can't she? =)

Oh yeah, one more thing. We all know how great I am at forgetting to bring my camera places right? Well, I actually remembered to bring it with us! The only problem is that I couldn't remember where I put it. I searched through all of our stuff but didn't end up finding it until we unpacked once we got home. Oh well, what do you do?

A mother's hands

2010-03-23T16:12:00.000-07:00

So, you know those kiosks that are always set up in the middle of malls? I get so nervous walking by them. I know it's pathetic, but the people that work in them are like vultures. It's almost worse than walking onto a used car lot. I swear they can smell weakness, and I am oh so weak. I always feel bad ignoring them, especially after they've chased me halfway across the mall yelling "ma'am, excuse me ma'am, may I please have a minute of your time?". I try as hard as I can not to make eye contact, but they position themselves right in front of you to where it's almost impossible.

The cell phone people are usually the worst. They always shout at me as I'm walking by "who's your cell phone provider?". Without stopping and barely even turning my head I always respond "I'm happy with my service, and anyway I have a contract". To which they respond without missing a beat "I can get you such a great deal that it would make up for the fees you'd have to pay for breaking your contract". YEAH RIGHT!

Anyway, I've gotten off track here. Some of the kiosks are actually very useful and many of the sales people are very kind & helpful.

The point of all of this is leading up to a funny story. Usually the kids are a pretty good deterrent for sales people. They seem to realize that when they see someone trying to keep track of 3 kids & keep them happy that they don't really have time to stop to listen to their schpill. Well, I happened to be at the mall all by myself a couple of weeks ago (which is pretty rare) so apparently I was fair game.

I walked by this nail kiosk and the lady started speed walking toward me.

lady: "excuse me ma'am can I see your hands"

me: "I'm sorry, I'm in a hurry"

lady: (blocking my path) "this won't take long at all"

me: "um, well, okay"

lady: (starts buffing my nails) "this will be great for you"

me: "oh, actually I already have a kit like this"

lady: "really? which one do you have?"

me: "I don't know what it's called, but it has a buffer, a cuticle treatment and some type of conditioning serum"

lady: (with a look of disgust, like I have the worst hands she'd ever seen. Although admittedly they are pretty bad) "well you obviously don't use it, why don't you use it then?"

me: (a bit annoyed at this point...I didn't want to stop in the first place and now I'm being insulted) "because I have 3 kids, one of them being a newborn so I don't have a lot of time to myself."

lady: (takes a step back and looks me up and down) "you have 3 kids? You look great!"

Sure thing lady. Everything except my horrendous nails huh???

Needless to say, I didn't buy anything.

Happy St Patty's Day!

2010-03-22T09:13:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I know, I'm pretty late on this. But what else is new?

We had a really fun St Patrick's Day. I had intended on making green eggs & ham for breakfast, but woke up and realized I didn't have any green food dye. So we just had regular eggs. Oh well, maybe next year.

Then my friend Emily invited us over so we could make some yummy green treats and let the kids play together. Luckily she was prepared and had green food dye. =) We ended up staying over there almost all day. Thanks again Em!

For lunch we had green pancakes with delicious home made green syrup, and green jello.

Then we attempted to make mini rainbow cupcakes, but as you can see they ended up looking more like tye-dye than rainbows. They still tasted good, and that's all that matters right? As you can see the kids loved them.

Later that night, my sister's kids came over for a little while. I made some chicken & green mashed potatoes. I think I added too much dye though, they were REALLY green. We all had green tongues and I had some green surprises waiting for me in Urban's diaper the next day.

This part is really just for the grandmas. I know that nobody else really cares. So you can stop reading if you'd like, I won't be offended. Actually, I won't even know. =)

Delilah also had her 4 month check up on the 17th. I can't believe she's already 4 months old. She's getting so big and doing great! She's just like Addison was: 25th percentile for weight & 75th for height. She weighs 12 lbs. 1 oz. and is 24 1/2 inches long. It's always so sad to watch them get shots, but she did really well. This is such a fun age, starting to get interested in and playing with toys and interacting with other people. I love it!

Disney On Ice

2010-03-19T07:45:00.001-07:00

Disney On Ice was in Salt Lake last week so I took Addison to see it on Thursday night. She was so excited and we had so much fun. Mickey & the gang were there, then they performed scenes from Cars, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King and TinkerBell. She was most excited to see all the fairies, and they didn't disappoint. The show was really cute, we really enjoyed it. We were sitting pretty high up and with the movement and lighting most of my pictures didn't turn out, but here are a few.

Isn't that last picture great? Before the show started they had some Disney Princess gowns out on display. There were also a couple of princesses you could meet. Well, we started to look at them, but Addison was so excited about the show that she wanted to make sure we didn't miss it. All she wanted to do was get our snacks, find our seats and wait for the show to begin. So that's what we did. Afterward she wanted to go back and look at the gowns and find the princesses. We went back to the display area, but it was all roped off and there was not a princess to be found. This is her look of disappointment. It's also a look of exhaustion and junk food over dose. She did not want to leave until she got to meet a princess. While I was trying to coax her out to the car a sympathetic mom came up behind me and told me not to feel bad because her kids do the same thing. Oh the bond we share as mothers. =)

Blessing

2010-03-12T10:38:00.001-08:00

For some reason blogger is not showing my pictures while I'm composing my blog, it's only showing all of the codes. This is making it difficult to add commentary so this post may be all jumbled up. I'll have to figure out what the problem is later, I don't have the patience at the moment.

Anyhoo, my parents came up to visit last Tuesday and stayed for Lilah's blessing. We had so much fun while they were here. We went and did lots of fun things like playing at FatCats & Boondocks, watching Blaise's soccer games, and just hanging out while eating yummy food and playing the Wii. That's right, I said Wii. We are so excited, that's what my parents got us for Christmas. We have wanted one for a long time and it didn't disappoint. It is so much fun! I'll have to post some pictures of us playing later. It can be pretty entertaining watching other people play. These pictures crack me up. Notice the difference in Urban's countenance from the top to the bottom pic. In the top one he was being goofy, standing on grandpa and looking pretty pleased with himself. In the bottom one he was told to sit down so we could take a picture and he is not amused.

Jared blessed Delilah this past Sunday. I love baby blessings, they are such a special experience. It's so sweet to watch the fathers hold their baby up afterward with so much love & pride. Delilah is such a wonderful addition to our family. She is such a happy baby. We truly feel so blessed to have her as our daughter.

Isn't she just the cutest?! I know, I know, of course I think that. What kind of mother would I be if I didn't? I love her to pieces. I could just eat her up...don't worry, I won't.
I'm pretty sure this face means "ENOUGH PICTURES ALREADY...NOW FEED ME!".

I had known for a long time that I wanted to make Lilah's blessing dress out of my wedding dress. I wanted all of my kids to have their own blessing outfit to have when they're older to either pass down or do whatever they want with. Addison wore my blessing dress & Urban wore Jared's blessing outfit. Well, of course when I got my wedding dress out I just had to try it on. It didn't want to fit, but by golly I made it. I sucked in & held my breath and Jared had to use both hands to zip it up but I was determined to get it on. Once I got it on I couldn't breathe, but it was oh so pretty.

Never mind the fact that I look like godzilla, it's a weird camera angle. At least I hope that's why I look like that! =)
Addison walked into the room and saw me wearing my dress and thought we were playing princess. So she went and got one of her princess dresses on.
I was really surprised how difficult it was for me to cut up my wedding dress. I really didn't think it would bother me. After all, it's been hanging in a garment bag in a closet for over 7 years now. When Jared saw me wearing it he told me it was too beautiful and I needed to save it for one of our girls to wear some day. I explained to him that no matter how pretty their mother's dress is, every girl wants her own wedding dress. Well, it sat in my living room for about 3 days before I got up enough nerve to cut out the pattern. When Addison saw me cutting it she told me that I needed to make sure not to cut too much, that way she could still wear it to get married in. There goes that theory! I'm pretty sure she'll change her mind over the next 20 or so years.

Cutting out some of the pattern is about all I got done. I saved the rest for my mom to do. She was really excited to make the dress and, let's just be honest, she did a MUCH better job than I could have. It turned out absolutely beautiful. Delilah looked so precious in her dress. I want her to wear it everyday. Would that be weird?
By the way, this girl just LOVES her grandmas. She smiled for the first time back in December when her Grandma Estes was here, and she giggled for the first time this last week while her Grandma van Rij was here. They sure make her happy. I must admit, I LOVE her grandmas too, she got some good ones!

Here she is right after we took the dress off of her, she was so happy. I don't think she really cared how gorgeous the dress was on her, she prefers comfort. Not to mention the fact that Aunt Heather is pretty funny.

This is Lilah with cousin Avery. Avery was so excited to hold her in her pretty dress. Avery likes having her picture taken, I think she's an aspiring super model. She posed perfectly in every shot while my kids were running around like maniacs. You can tell her mother is a photographer.

We had a marvelous week topped off by a very special day. Thanks to everyone who shared it with us.

Journey of Smiles!

2010-02-20T12:08:00.001-08:00

Is there anything better in the entire world than baby smiles? I think not. They melt my heart, make me oh so happy and completely make up for all of the sleeplessness that happens at night. Lilah bear has been smiling for a long time now, but it's not so easy to catch them on camera. I've gotten lots of her little, coy smiles but am yet to capture a huge, open mouth smile. She's really a pretty happy baby and smiles all the time, but as soon as I get out the camera she gets focused on that so she puts on her "ooh, what is that contraption" face and forgets about the smiles. I don't like to make her stop smiling, so I usually put the camera away in order to get those toothless grins back again.

It's so funny looking at these pictures, she looks so different to me. Some of them are from quite a while ago, but even the more recent ones look different. She doesn't look the same on camera as she does in person.

The other kids LOVE to make her smile. It cracks me up because I don't think Urban quite understands that she's smiling when she opens her mouth really wide. He likes whatever it is that she's doing, but he doesn't realize it's a smile. He'll come up to her, and in his little baby talk voice say, "come on Lilah, open your mouth, open your mouth Lilah". Then she'll smile at him and he'll look at me all proud of himself and say "baby tiny opened her mouth". Too cute!

I'll continue my work getting "the big one" on camera. Don't you worry your pretty little heads though, it will be done. Oh yes, it will be done!

I {HEART} Valentine's Day!

2010-02-16T18:03:00.000-08:00

We've kind of had a Valentine's week around here. All week long Addison would bring us home cute little Valentine cards that she had made at school. Then she and Urban would make more for us on an almost daily basis. We made a lot of Valentine cookies throughout the week too. Oh, the kids also got cute little Valentine cards in the mail from bama, which they thought was pretty neat.

Jared and I decided not to get each other gifts, but of course he still got me something. He's such a butt-head, he always does that and then I feel bad. I guess I should probably know better by now.

(just a side note: we use butt-head as a term of endearment. I know that's weird but it's true. After I typed it I realized it looked kind of harsh, and admittedly very juvenile, but we say the word lovingly!)

Well not only can Jared not resist buying me gifts, he also can't ever wait to give them to me. It's a rarity that I get the gift on the actual occasion. He does not like surprises, even when they're not for him. So on Saturday he gave me a gift certificate to Tai Pan (one of my favorite stores), a box of delicious caramel/pecan chocolates and a pretty necklace. He also came home with flowers for all of us girls. Such a sweetie!

I was super excited about Valentine's day this year and wanted to make it really special for the kids. I had all these grand plans, but we all woke up sick on Sunday. I was determined to still follow through on whatever we could. We managed to get up and about at around 11 or so. Jared & I started cooking up a big breakfast complete with heart shaped pancakes. We all felt so awful that we hardly touched our food, but it sure looked pretty & festive!

Then we gave the kids the Valentine cards I made for them and a little gift that Jared picked out for each of them. We just kind of vegged the rest of the day. Jared took Delilah for a couple of hours, just bringing her to me for feedings, so that I could get some rest. That was probably the best present of all! =)

I wanted us all to make our own individual heart shaped pizzas for dinner, but Addison zonked out before dinner time and Urban wasn't hungry (that's how you really know when that kid is sick!). I told Jared that if I knew it was just going to be the two of us, I would have fixed a romantic candle light dinner. Anyway, we decided to save the pizzas for a night when we were all feeling better. We got to make them tonight and the kids were in heaven. They thought it was the greatest thing ever. They had so much fun making and eating their pizzas.

VOILA! The finished product. They turned out pretty cute and yummy. Addison was so excited about the heart shaped, limeade flavored ice we made.

Things may not have gone exactly as planned (when does that ever happen?) but we still had plenty of good times.

Father/Son Outing

2010-02-14T21:26:00.000-08:00

Jared won 2 tickets to Monster Jam on Friday night so he and Urban got to spend the night doing manly things. I was so excited for them to get to have some alone time together. Jared is loving it now that Urban is getting old enough to go do fun stuff like this. They went out to grab a bite to eat then headed to the show.

Here they are on the way out the door. I just think they look so cute. Urban didn't quite understand what was going on. When we told him they were going to see a monster truck show he thought it was something they'd be watching on tv. He kind of freaked out when the trucks first came out because they were so noisy. Once Jared got his ear plugs in and got him settled down a bit he loved it. Here are some pictures Jared took with his phone. They're not the greatest quality, but you get the gist.

Apparently Urban was quite distracted for a little while because there was a family behind him eating churros. Even though he had kettle corn to munch on he still coveted the delicious treat behind him. I guess at one point after he had been staring long enough, the nice lady behind them gave him a piece of her churro. He was happy as could be after that and gave his full attention to the monster trucks. He is so silly!

At first Addison was a little bit sad that she didn't get to go with the boys, but I told her we could have a fun girls night at home. After she came up with the brilliant idea of having a pajama party she was ecstatic and couldn't wait for the boys to leave. So we went to the store to get yummy treats and stuff for dinner. We came home, got into our comfy clothes, and the fun began. She helped me make dinner which is like the best thing in the world to her. Then we made Rice Krispies Treats and ate them while watching The Princess and the Frog.

After that we gave each other manicures & pedicures. We even trimmed Delilah's nails as not to leave her out of the fun.

We all had such a great night. I love family moments like these.

Sledding

2010-02-08T07:44:00.001-08:00

We took the kids sledding a couple of weekends ago and had a blast. When we first started it wasn't really snowing, but it started snowing pretty good after a couple of runs in. Jared & I had to take turns sitting in the van with Delilah because it was way too cold to have her outside.

Doesn't Urban kind of look like the little kid from A Christmas Story after his mom gets him all bundled up to walk to school? We were trying to save money this year so we didn't buy the kids new snow clothes. We figured that since everything still fit it would be okay, but their suits do look a bit short & snug. Oh well, they served their purpose.

I wasn't sure what to expect because my kids aren't really very adventurous. They're kind of scaredy cats. Apparently I've sheltered them from too much. But Jared loaded them both up on the sled and took them down the hill and they were hooked. Addison loved it, she couldn't wait to go down on her own. She did really well. Even when she fell off she would just laugh and walk back up the hill to get ready to go again. Urban liked the sledding part, but was not a fan of the cold or the snow flying in his face. After a couple of runs he was ready to sit in the nice warm van with Lilah.

THE BIG THREE - O!!!

2010-02-05T07:33:00.000-08:00

I turned thirty last month and so far it really hasn't been too traumatizing. I still kind of just feel like I'm 29. I didn't wake up with tons of wrinkles or any more gray hairs than I already have, which is a lot by the way. Yeah, I found my first one when I was 19...what's that all about?

I'm not one of those people who really worried about turning thirty. I don't consider it to be old. Other things make me feel old though. Like being called ma'am or realizing that my young women have no idea what I'm talking about sometimes because it happened way before they were even born. Or, and this one is my favorite, when my husband tells me I can now officially be considered a cougar. Um, no, I don't think so. So I looked up the definition of a cougar (yes, I am that lame) and it's generally thought to be a woman over 40 thank you very much! Sadly I think he thought he was paying me a compliment, like he was calling me sexy or something. Men & women think so differently sometimes. =)

Anyway, since my birthday falls so closely to the beginning of the year it always brings about a lot of self reflection. Along with new year's resolutions are thoughts on how I've lived my life up to this point. Since thirty is like a milestone birthday I really got caught up in who I am and who I want to be. They are definitely not the same person. My mind has been consumed with this over the past month. I have so much running through my head that I haven't really even been able to coherently gather my thoughts to make any sense. All I have really figured out so far is that I'm not happy with myself...at all. I don't like who I am and I want so much more in my life. I want to be better for my husband, for my children and for me. I want to like myself. I don't want to be that "down in the dumps" girl with bad self esteem. Aren't we supposed to leave self loathing behind in our teenage years along with acne? Well I still get zits too so there goes that theory!

I need to make a change. Did anyone else just start singing Michael Jackson's "Man in the Mirror" in their head? Anyone? No, just me, well okay then. Moving on...this past Sunday, our Sacrament program had a quote printed on the front of it that I'm pretty sure was intended especially for me. Don't you just love when that happens? It's by Joseph B. Wirthlin and reads as follows: "I urge you to examine your life. Determine where you are and what you need to do to be the kind of person you want to be." Wow! How I took it was "stop sitting around being unhappy with yourself and do something about it Hollie! You are not where you want to be. You are not who you want to be. So what are you going to do about it?".

I'm not real sure where to get started, but I know I have a lot of work to do. I'm actually really excited about it. I'm excited to change what I don't like about myself. I'm excited to actually like myself at all and be happy with my accomplishments in life.

So this is me, thirty years old and feeling about as low as ever...but not for long!

It took everything I had to post this picture. I hate having my picture taken. I never like how I look. I have picked every aspect of this picture apart until there was nothing left. I have a big nose, a small mouth, gray wiry hairs sticking straight up, uneven sized eyes, my eyebrows sure could use a plucking, a big forehead, wrinkles on my forehead, uneven skin tone, blah blah blah. Anyway, taking this picture actually serves a purpose. As I said, I hate having my picture taken and avoid being in them at all costs. I much prefer being the one taking the pictures, especially of my family. Well I was once told by a very wise woman (my mother) that someday I would regret this. She said that she was the same way and now when she reminisces and looks back at old photos she's sad that she's not in more of them. She wishes there were more pictures of her with our family doing all of the fun things we did.

Step one is to be more carefree (I have lots of control issues). I'm going to stop hiding from the camera. I will allow and try to enjoy having my picture taken. They won't all be good, but that's okay. That's why I posted this particular picture. It's one of the most unflattering that I took (I usually like my hair to somewhat cover my face), but it's real, and if I can post it up here for all to see then I'm well on my way. At least that's my thought process. =) I know this may sound silly and insignificant, but I'm taking baby steps here people, baby steps. And this is just one of the many steps on my path to self discovery. Someday I will think I'm beautiful, both inside and out...I hope!

Funny side note: see the mole, or beauty mark as I like to call it, on my cheek? Well Urban does not like it. Whenever he notices it he gets right up in my face and tells me there's something on me and tries to scrape it off with his fingernails. It kind of hurts but it makes me laugh every time.

Perfection

2010-01-29T14:44:00.000-08:00

Addison came up to me and asked if she's been baptized. I told her no, that she would be baptized when she's eight. Then she said that after she was baptized she would be perfect, but she's already perfect because she's beautiful. I explained to her that just because she's beautiful doesn't mean that she's perfect. So then she says "wait a minute, let me look in the mirror". She looked in the mirror then came back to me and said "yep, I'm perfect!". What are they teaching her in primary? Just kidding, she has wonderful primary teachers.

What else is a girl to think when everyone always tells her how pretty she is? Perhaps I should lay off on the compliments, she's starting to get a big head. What it must be like to have such great self esteem. Oh how I love that girl!

Tasty Remedy

2010-01-21T09:50:00.000-08:00

I've noticed in the last couple of weeks that I don't seem to be producing quite enough milk for Delilah at certain times of the day. We tried supplementing with a couple different kinds of formula but little miss has an extremely sensitive tummy and spends all night throwing up whenever we give her a bottle. Her pediatrician suggested that we try Nutramigen (which my sister calls "liquid gold" because it's so expensive) but apparently she doesn't like the taste of it because she refuses to eat it. So anyway, I started looking online for some suggestions on how to increase milk supply. I came across several articles indicating that many women claim eating about a cup of oatmeal a day works for them. Well I already eat oatmeal every morning for breakfast but it's only 1/3 cup. I also eat yogurt almost everyday with granola sprinkled on top but it still doesn't amount to one cup. One of the suggestions given in the articles was to bake oatmeal cookies and snack on a few of those throughout the day. What a wonderful excuse to eat cookies. After all, it's for the health of my baby right? Now I don't want anyone raining on my parade. If you happen to know either from experience or just plain common sense that this doesn't really work, please don't tell me. Let me live in blissful ignorance!

By the way, several articles also mention getting adequate sleep. Um, hello! I have a newborn baby and 2 other young children, how is that possible? Also beer, yep you read that right. I never would've thought that beer & breastfeeding were a good mix. Don't think I'll be trying that one. =)

Just for Ike

2010-01-14T19:24:00.000-08:00

If you look over to my sidebar at Family & Friends you'll see that I added your name. Since you don't actually have a blog I had to enter my site address so if you click on it you'll just come back to me. I do apologize for excluding you in the first place, after all, just because you don't have a blog doesn't mean you're not family. Perhaps I should change the caption to "friends & family WITH BLOGS" for clarification purposes. Thank you for bringing this horrendous error to my attention. I hope to never fail you as a sister-in-law ever again. =)

Maybe you guys should start a blog though. It's a great way to keep up on what's going on in each other's lives. Just think about it. Love you guys!

New Year's Eve

2010-01-04T13:19:00.001-08:00

We had a couple of sickos around here on New Year's Eve but we still managed to have fun. We started out by munching on plenty of yummy snacks while playing some new games the kids got for Christmas. Candy Land and Connect 4 are our new favorites around here.

Next we went on to the karaoke portion of our evening. Addison got a cute little princess CD player with a microphone for Christmas so we spent the rest of the night making all of the dogs in the neighborhood howl by singing at the top of our lungs to some of our favorite songs.

It is so cute listening to Addison and Urban sing. Addison LOVES to sing, she tells us all the time that she wants to be a singer when she grows up. She has a few favorite pop songs that she actually knows a lot of the words to, it cracks me up. Urban, on the other hand, is a rocker. He doesn't so much sing the words though as much as he hums along to the tune.
Jared & I attempted to teach the kids how to break dance, but seeing as how neither one of us actually know how to do it we weren't too successful. It pretty much just ended up being a somersault fest!

Eventually the kids gave up on the break dancing and just started playing the drums on my tummy. GOOD TIMES!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

Grandma & Grandpa Estes

2009-12-30T20:07:00.000-08:00

The week before Christmas Jared's parents came up from the Phoenix area to visit for about a week. They got to see Delilah for the first time and Addison was so super excited to see them.

For a little while it didn't seem like they were ever going to get here. They broke their necks trying to come see us...LITERALLY! Well, my father in law did anyway. They were in a really bad car accident near Nephi that totaled their car, broke my father in law's neck and banged my mother in law up pretty bad. It was quite scary when we got the call late Saturday night/early Sunday morning. Jared went to the Provo hospital where his dad was taken to get his parents. He and his mom headed to the impound yard to get all of their possessions out of their car and then back to the hospital to get his dad once he was released. On the way back to our house they got a flat tire on the freeway so Jared had to pull off in the snow to change it. After that they were finally on their way. Luckily the accident was not their fault, and considering the severity of it their injuries could have been much worse.

We had a lot of fun visiting with them. I didn't get to hold Delilah all that much with Grandma being around, but since this is my first baby that she doesn't get to live by I had to oblige! Why is it that grandmas are so good with babies? Both of the grandmas are like infant sleeping pills. They can always get my babies to sleep even if they've been fussy for me. What's up with that? Addison & Urban loved having them around and getting some extra attention too. There were lots of loves & cuddles.
We did some shopping (grandma's favorite past time), visited Temple Square, watched Max & Ruby and Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer (the kids thought the name was funny so they wanted to watch it), played silly car games, made casseroles in our mouths (thanks for that by the way, we still use it to get Addison to eat better), sang songs & read books.

Jared and I had not even started our Christmas shopping by the time they got here so two nights after the kids went to bed we headed out to get it all done. It was so nice to be able to go out alone together. Otherwise we would have either had to take turns going or take the kids and try to hide things in the cart while distracting them.

My mother in law finished re-upholstering my chaise. She started it last year when they came to visit. I was supposed to finish it, but to be quite honest I never even attempted it because the task was a bit overwhelming for me. I knew I would mess it up somehow. I felt bad putting her to work, but she did a great job, it looks professional.

My father in law got me addicted to the General Tso's chicken in Wal-mart's deli. It is so yummy. I want it all the time now.

I feel so bad that their trip started out the way that it did, but I am so thankful that they're both okay. We had a wonderful week with them, it went by too fast. Although I was glad to get our bed back. The air mattress we were sleeping on kept losing air during the night, we kept waking up on the floor. Oh well, I'd do it again any time. We already miss you guys so much. Thanks for coming to visit. You are welcome any time. We love you. Take care of yourselves and get better soon!

This Christmas

2009-12-29T20:08:00.001-08:00

December is almost over and I haven't posted a thing about this Christmas season. This month seemed to just fly by. I feel like I barely got all of the decorations put up and now it's time to take them down.

I love Christmas time. Faith strengthening experiences always seem to present themselves and this year was no exception.

We had a wonderful first Christmas with Delilah. It's always fun to celebrate the "firsts". We didn't take her to see Santa which I'm kind of sad about but she's still so young & little to be around a lot of people with so much sickness going around. Jared took Addison & Urban to our ward Christmas party though and they were able to sit on Santa's lap there. I knew Addi would be fine, but I wasn't sure about the Urbster. He's very temperamental these days. But Jared said that he did really well with Santa. I'm sure the fact that he had candy to give out had something to do with it.

Here are the kiddos on Christmas eve after we got home from our annual appetizer dinner at Aunt Heather's house.

We always let the kids open one present on Christmas eve and it's always cute pajamas to wear that night (I think everyone has this same tradition!).

This year their Aunt Julie & Uncle Jason sent pajamas up for them and they were adorable. They did such a good job picking out exactly what each of the kids are into. Addison & Urban were super excited. THANK YOU SO MUCH! We love you guys.

Opening presents Christmas morning.

Well what do you know, he got some super hero dress up stuff. Doesn't he look cute as Spider man? Hopefully now he'll stay away from the Snow White dress. Probably not though. After all of the presents were opened we found Urban playing with the Barbie stuff Addison got and Addison was playing with the G.I. Joe stuff Urban got. They seem to be a bit confused.

I love these two pictures. They really do love each other...and sometimes they even act like it!

Daddy multi-tasking. =)

And of course I didn't get a single picture of the entire family but don't you worry your pretty little heads, I'll be putting my sister to work very soon.

I don't like it!

2009-12-23T15:19:00.000-08:00

Nope, not one little bit. Delilah's hips are displaced so she has to wear leg braces that spread her knees out and pushes them up in order to force the ball into the socket. The contraption is more like a full body harness. It goes up over her shoulders and around her chest. It probably doesn't bother her nearly as much as it bothers me (babies are pretty limber) but it just looks so uncomfortable. It makes every little tiny task like changing her diaper, dressing her or nursing her much harder than it needs to be. It is also much more difficult to snuggle and cuddle her close because of the position of her legs, which is by far the worst part. Oh yeah, did I mention that she hasn't slept more than 30 minutes at a time since the braces were put on her Monday morning? We're all just a wee bit exhausted around here. I know that in the whole scheme of things this really is not a big deal at all. Considering all things that could be wrong this is truly a minor issue with a simple fix. I know I should not be complaining but I am tired and feeling whiny so you all get to listen to me! =)

She reminds me a little bit of a marionette doll. Her little brace looks like strings that I could just tug on and make her dance. Oh well, even in her new little get up she's still absolutely adorable (at least to her mother). At least it's not like Forrest Gump's metal leg braces! That's what I kept picturing when they first told me she needed leg braces. Oh my crazy imagination.

Hmmm...

2009-12-11T10:31:00.001-08:00

I think this boy will be getting some super hero dress up stuff for Christmas. And perhaps a brother would be nice too!

'NUFF SAID!

More pictures

2009-12-06T20:02:00.000-08:00

My fabulous photographer sister has my maternity, birth story & newborn pictures set up on a website if you would like to see them. I absolutely love them. It brought tears to my eyes to watch the slideshow. Each moment is portrayed perfectly. I am so glad to have these moments captured in photos to remind me of how peaceful & angelic my sweet baby girl is. Thank you Heather, you're the best. We love you!

To view the gallery go to:
collages.net

username:
Hollie's story

password:
28042

It will also ask you for your e-mail & first name as verification.

Hope you enjoy, I sure did.

Baby Tiny!

2009-12-01T19:34:00.000-08:00

I'm way behind on posting and probably will be for awhile. But I wanted to get some pictures up before Delilah's a teenager! She's 3 weeks old today and already seems so different. It goes by so fast, especially those precious intervals of sleep in the middle of the night between feedings. Oh well, what do you do?

Here we are on our way out the door to the hospital. By the way, why didn't anyone tell me how chubby my face had gotten? Anyway, I was scheduled for a c-section on Nov. 20th but went into labor on the 10th. I started having what I thought were contractions but I wasn't completely sure. After all, I've always had c-sections, I didn't really know what contractions felt like. I was debating going to the hospital when they started getting worse and Jared told me I didn't have a choice, he was taking me. Anyone who knows me knows that I am stubborn when it comes to going to the doctor. I HATE feeling like a hypo. I do not go unless I know for sure that something is definitely wrong. I didn't want to go when I went into labor with Urban either because I wasn't sure that's what was happening, but Jared made me and sure enough he was ready to come out. Well it's a good thing we went when we did this time too. They hooked me up to all of the monitors and every time I had a contraction Delilah's heart rate would drop way low, like below 60, for about 30 seconds to a minute at a time. The nurse got my doctor on the phone to tell him the baby was in distress then all of the sudden about 5 nurses came rushing into the room. They flipped me over and started prepping me for an emergency c-section. All at once they were starting an IV, inserting a catheter, hooking me up to oxygen and whatever else they do. I started shaking uncontrollably, I was so worried that something would happen. They told me that everything would be fine as long as they got her out of me as soon as possible. And luckily everything was just fine. She is healthy and beautiful and just perfect!

Here's daddy holding her at the hospital. She's already got him wrapped around her little finger just like Addison. Somehow I don't have any pictures of me holding her at the hospital, hopefully my sister got one.

Addison and Urban's first look at their new baby sister. I was so sad because with all of the sicknesses going around, the hospital was not allowing any kids as visitors, so Addi & Urbi didn't get to come visit us in the hospital. I understand why they have that rule, it was just hard not seeing them for 3 days. I was so excited for them to meet her.

Addison could not wait to hold Lilah and Urban got busy reading her a book right away (that's one of his favorite things to do). Urban calls her baby tiny which I think is absolutely adorable. She does seem so tiny too, especially compared to my little monster man.

She is such a sweet baby. We are all really enjoying having her in our family. The kids just love her. They're adjusting pretty well. Addison's needing some extra daddy time and Urban needs alone time with mommy so we're doing our best to make them feel included and special. They love to be mommy's little helpers. They want to try to help change diapers, give baths & feed her, which is interesting since I'm nursing. We've had many discussions on what mommy's chest is for and they both seem to think it's fun to wear nursing pads.

We've had so much help it has been wonderful. My mom came up for about a week to help out and take care of the kiddos while I was in the hospital which the kids loved. My sister checks on me pretty much everyday to see what she can do. She's also been my personal photographer. I'll post some of her pics later. And our ward is amazing, we had 4 delicious dinners brought to us.

At first the hospital was only allowing two visitors, and they had to be the same two, you couldn't rotate. Of course Jared was one and my mom was the other. After all, grandma always gets first dibs! She is so good with babies too, I love watching her hold her grandchildren. So Heather was really bummed that she wasn't going to get to see us in the hospital and take pics. Well on the last night before we were discharged a nurse told us that they changed the rule and they were allowing two visitors in addition to the husband. Apparently there had been some brawls between mothers and mothers-in-law to decide who would get to see their grand baby first. This kind of made me giggle. Since my mother-in-law wasn't here this wasn't an issue for us. Too bad, that would have been fun to watch. JUST KIDDING!!!

Delilah Daisy

2009-11-12T15:06:00.000-08:00

Well I'm sure it won't take people long to realise this isn't Hollie writing because she does a much better job then me. This will be short and sweet, she's here her name is Delilah Daisy and she was 5lbs 6oz and 19 in. It is amazing how something so tiny can make you feel so much love. I wish I were better at this because there is so much more that I wish I could say, but I've done what I was supposed to do. So enjoy the picture, I'm sure when Hollie has the time she will do a much better post with even better pictures.

It's official...yet again!

2009-11-09T19:11:00.001-08:00

That's right, I have once again qualified for mother of the year. Here are two of my most recent 'proud motherhood moments' that put me in the running.

#1
Addison has become quite the tattle tell lately. She tells on her brother for absolutely EVERYTHING! Now I will be the first to admit that he is quite the stinker, but my goodness she does not let him get away with anything. All I hear all day long is "mom, Urban's drinking", "mom, Urban's breathing", "mom, Urban's singing", "mom, Urban's hitting/biting me", "mom Urban's throwing something away", "mom, Urban's breaking something", etc. You get the gist. Now some of these are legitimate concerns, but so many of them are so ridiculous that it just starts to drive me crazy after awhile. So the other morning after she had told on him for some insignificant reason for the one hundredth time I just lost it. I yelled at her and said I didn't want to hear any more. I didn't care what he was doing, she just needed to deal with it and resolve it on her own. I went into the other room and several minutes later I heard Addison quietly sobbing. She was trying very hard not to let me hear her, which is strange. She normally tries to cry as loudly as possible to evoke as much sympathy as possible. I figured something must not be right. I went into the room, startling Urban as I did, to find Addison sitting there with tears streaming down her face and a bright red arm. Apparently Urban had put the smack down on her arm (very quietly might I add, I never heard a thing) and Addison just sat there and took it because I had yelled at her for being a nark. What the heck! What kind of mother does something like this? I felt so bad. I sat there hugging her and crying and telling her how sorry I was. Yep, mother of the year!

#2
Urban has recently decided that it is great fun to play with the locks on the front door. He's great at locking the door, but has some trouble turning it the other way for some reason. He has locked me out of the house on a couple of different occasions when I've gone to get the mail or take trash to the curb or whatever. Luckily it's never been for very long. He either quickly figures out how to unlock it or someone else is around to let me in. Well, on this particular day he locked me out and I was simply not in the mood for his shenanigans. It was freezing outside and I was in a hurry. When I got to the door to find it locked I yelled at him to open it for me. I heard him messing with the locks but it was still locked. After several minutes of listening to him tinker with it I was less than amused. "Damn it Urban, open the door!" Oh that's right, I said it. I'm quite ashamed of myself but I was so mad. Nothing! So I started repeatedly ringing the doorbell and kicking the door hoping that Addison would hear me and come to the door. She didn't. I knew what room Addison was in so I went to that window and told her to go to the front door and unlock it for me. I heard her get to the door, then I heard a brawl break out. Urban was determined not to let her near the door. I don't know if he thought it was a game at this point, if he was just being territorial or if he knew how much trouble he was going to be in once I got inside. Anyway, I started yelling for Addison to hurry up and unlock the door. She started crying and telling me that she was trying to but Urban wouldn't let her. She told me that he was hitting her and pushing her out of the way so she couldn't. I tried telling Urban to knock it off, but of course he didn't listen. So then I told Addison to do whatever she had to do to get to the door. "But he won't let me" she screamed. "Then push him out of the way" I yelled back, "I don't care what you have to do just get him away from the door". After hearing some screaming, crying, pushing, hitting & yelling the door was finally unlocked. I entered to find Urban sitting in a nearby chair trying as hard as he could to ignore me. He knew he was going to get it. After making sure Addison was okay I laid into the Urbster. Again, what kind of mother does stuff like this? Standing outside yelling at my children, giving one permission to do whatever it takes to the other in order to open the door. My neighbors must think I'm just lovely. Yep, mother of the year!

To my dear, sweet children; some day when you're sitting in a shrinks office trying to sort through your issues, just hand him a copy of this post and all will be explained.

Maternity pictures

2009-11-07T16:11:00.000-08:00

My sister took my pregnancy pictures today and she did a fabulous job. She's been waiting forever to take them but I don't really get all that big (so I'm told, I feel huge!) until right at the end of my pregnancy. We decided we needed to do it today just in case little miss came early. It was so much fun. She found the cutest little place and we got down and dirty (literally, we were on the ground) to get some shots. She has a little sneak preview up on her blog http://bloggingwithus.blogspot.com/ and I can't wait to see the rest! I love what I've seen so far which is rare for me because I hate having my picture taken and never like the way they turn out. I guess it helps when you're SUPPOSED to look tubby! =) It also helps to have a great photographer that I'm so comfy with. She made me feel like a super model. Thanks again, you're the best!

Halloween

2009-11-05T13:12:00.001-08:00

We had a fun filled week of Halloween festivities this year. We started the week by carving our pumpkins. I apparently have very odd children because they do not enjoy getting dirty. You can tell by the looks on their faces that they were less than thrilled to be cleaning out the pumpkin guts. I must say they come by it honestly, Jared hates having dirty hands, it totally grosses him out. Every time Urban would stick his hand in his pumpkin he would pull it out and say "sticky, need wipe". I tried to explain to him that we would clean him up once he was all done, but he wasn't having it, he wanted to be cleaned each time.

The pumpkins turned out pretty cute. Jared helped Urban carve a face into his and Addison wanted a kitty cat so I helped her carve a silhouette.

On Thursday Addison had a Halloween party at her preschool. She was so excited to wear her costume for her class to see. She originally wanted to be a witch (which I was very excited about, I had cute costume ideas) but then she saw her cousin Ava's costume and just had to have the same one. I could not talk her out of it. Oh well, she made a super cute tiger kitty and she was happy.

Then Thursday night we went trunk-or-treating at the church. It was so much fun to see all the kiddos in the ward dressed up all cute. Urban was a monster which was perfect because I call him my little monster man anyway. I remembered that my nephew Blaise had worn this costume when he was like 3 (he's now 10) and my sister still had it so it worked out perfectly. He looked so cute, I want to have him wear it everyday.

On Friday night we went over to my sister's house to have a spooktacular Halloween party. Of course I didn't get any pictures, but believe you me it was lots of fun. We all dressed up & had yummy Halloween themed finger foods.

Halloween night we met up with some friends of ours to have dinner then took the kids trick-or-treating around their neighborhood. We all had a lot of fun and got lots of yummy candy. Once we got back home we put the kids to bed then Jared & I had our annual Halloween date. We rummage through the kids candy and make some other snacks then watch a scary movie together. Not too scary mind you, we're both kind of scaredy cats! =)

Pumpkin Patch!

2009-10-30T22:05:00.001-07:00

We went to the pumpkin patch a couple of weeks ago before the weather got too cold. We tried a different one this year just because it was cheaper than the one we went to last year. Honestly, last year's was quite a bit better but the kids didn't remember and they had a blast. All they cared about was the slide, which they must have spent an hour playing on.

We went through the corn maze and took turns letting Addison & Urban lead. They weren't very interested. Jared & I knew where we were the whole time but he was trying to get the kids lost and hide behind corn stalks to jump out and scare them. All they cared about was getting out of there as soon as possible so they could go back to their precious slide.

The funny thing is that both of them look absolutely terrified while sliding down, but once they got to the bottom they would get a huge smile and start laughing and run back up the stairs to go again. Urban threw quite the fit when it was time to leave!

This top picture of Addison cracks me up only because of the memory associated with it. She decided to go down on her tummy because she saw other kids doing it but she didn't realize she needed to lift her hands up. They were screeching down the slide the entire time making an awful sound and totally slowing her down. I think a snail may have passed her up! You can't really see the people at the top of the slide, but everyone was laughing at her. We kept yelling for her to lift her hands but she didn't quite get the concept. Oh well, she still had fun. =)

Dear John,

2009-10-16T07:57:00.000-07:00

I am writing this letter to inform you that I think it's time we call things quits. Trust me, it's not you, it's me! You haven't changed a bit, I just have different needs at the moment. I'm sure you've noticed that my visits to you lately have been far less frequent. In the first several months I used to come to you many times a day, even many times an hour some days, but now it's just a couple of times a week. In the beginning you were the only one who could truly understand me. No one else would welcome me with all of my "baggage" into their bowl at any time of day or night no questions asked. I spent many nights curled up on the floor next to your strong, supportive base knowing that it was pointless returning to bed only to run back to you with hardly a moment's notice. The truth is that I'm finally able to venture back into the real world. At last I can give my children and husband hugs & kisses again. I can handle most smells and tastes without feeling the need to run back into your cool, porcelain embrace. I will always remember our time together, however I can't say that they will be fond memories. Again, not because of anything you did wrong, just because of the circumstances surrounding our time together. I'm sure I'll be back for visits every now and again, but for the most part we are over. Please don't try to stop me as I am very excited about this new stage in my life. I wish you well and promise to come back once a week to keep you sparkling clean (I know how important this is to you) so you can perform at your best. Good luck in your future encounters.

Sincerely,
Hollie

Family Outings

2009-10-11T21:45:00.000-07:00

Here's a couple of things our family has been up to lately. I am so behind on blogging but I have got so much else going on right now. I like to try to post these things just so I remember them. I have such a terrible memory and unfortunately I'm not great at journaling (is that even a word?) either.

When the kids and I first got back from Arizona we decided to go to Chuck E Cheese to have fun and spend some time together as a family. It was a rainy day so we had to think of an indoor activity. The kids had a blast. Mason actually slept most of the time but he woke up for a little while towards the end so we could get some pictures with him.

About 2 weeks ago was supposed to be one of our last really nice weekends so we decided to go to the zoo. The weather was beautiful, it was just perfect for a trip to the zoo. But man was it crowded! I guess we weren't the only ones who listened to the weather report. =) The kids loved seeing all of the animals, especially the brand new baby elephant. They also liked the train ride and carousel. Well Addison liked the carousel, any type of motion ride kind of freaks Urban out a bit but he did ok.

The Perfect Morning!

2009-10-04T14:07:00.000-07:00

We had a wonderful morning.

We all woke up and cuddled in bed together for about an hour.

Then we made muffins, eggs & fruit for breakfast and ate while watching the rain out our front window.

The weather was beautiful. It was cloudy and rainy and windy, but oh so comfy cozy. I normally don't like weather like this, but I have been welcoming it with open arms this fall. It's been a nice change and feels so homey.

I sat watching the raindrops fall onto the window while sipping my first hot chocolate of the season. I LOVE hot chocolate. You can't feel bad while drinking it. It's warm and comforting and reminiscent of holidays, family togetherness & traditions.

We finished up with breakfast just in time for conference to begin. Conference is kind of like hot chocolate; you can't feel bad while watching it. It's full of so much spiritual goodness & "warm-fuzzies" (I loved that part...too cute)!

I felt very full of the spirit this morning and so blessed to be with my family. I wish every morning could be so peaceful and full of love.

I suppose it can be, I just have to work harder to fill my life with some daily "hot chocolate".

Let's Have a Ball!

2009-09-30T21:05:00.000-07:00

Today was Urban's 2nd birthday. I can't believe he's two. He looks and acts like such a big boy. He's not my baby any more and it makes me so sad. I love my little man.

You'll have to excuse the pictures on this post. First of all we are in desperate need of a new camera so all of the pictures are a bit cloudy. Second, my blog has been extremely
difficult lately and won't let me re-arrange the pictures once they're loaded so they are completely random.

We just had a small family party tonight, but it was lots of fun. Some of
Urban's favorite things right now are balls, rocks &
balloons. Pretty much anything round that he can pick up and throw. So I wanted to make this the theme of his party. I filled his room with all of the balls we possess in this household and about 150 balloons. HE LOVED IT! His expression was so cute when he walked into his room and saw everything. He had a blast running through the balloons, throwing them into the air and of course popping them.

For dinner I made Macaroni & Cheese with hot dogs, broccoli and chocolate milk. These are a few of his favorite foods at the moment.
I let him pick out what kind of cake he wanted and he picked chocolate. He's a boy after his mama's own heart. I was so excited that he picked chocolate because that's my fave, but then I thought about the mess he would make. And boy did he make a mess! Oh well, he loved every bite of it. That's all that matters right?

Some of his other favorite things right now are cars/trucks, books, animals, blocks and Spiderman (thanks to Caiden) so that pretty much sums up the presents he got. He is also obsessed with vacuums and bicycles. Whenever he sees them either in the house or at a store he points and

repeats the word (baku for vacuum) over and over again until we take him to look at it.

His dislikes at the moment change daily depending on the mood he's in. Oh yes, he has definitely already hit those terrible two's. He's been terrible (but oh so cute) for a while now, but I guess now it's official. I don't even want to think about it getting worse! He loves to point his finger and yell "no" or "stop it" and he gives the best dirty looks I've ever seen. I've got to try to get them on camera. Today at the grocery store there were two nice old ladies behind us in line trying to flirt with him and he just furrowed his eyebrows, pointed his little finger and yelled at them to be quiet. I was so embarrassed.

WHAT A STINKER!!! He's lucky he's so adorable. Although I think that's part of the problem, he knows it!

I LOVE YOU URBAN CLAUDE!

You hold such a special place in my heart.

HAPPY 2nd BIRTHDAY!!!

The beginning...

2009-09-25T20:30:00.000-07:00

of the end!

I've always heard that once your child leaves for school, time just flies by. I'm not sure I'm ready for everything that lies ahead but I hope that Addison knows she can always look behind her to find her mom who will be there every step of the way.

I can't believe my first baby has started preschool. Addison started a couple of weeks late because we were out of town. I felt so bad because at first it didn't look like we were going to be able to get her in anywhere, every school was full. Luckily, daddy came to the rescue. One morning after I had called the one hundredth preschool in the phone book (not really, but it seemed it to me) and was told they were either full or WAY out of our price range, I just started crying. Yes, I had an embarrassing little meltdown. I felt like the worst mother in the world, she was SO looking forward to going to school and I had messed it up. Addison asked why I was crying so I told her I was sad because it didn't look like she was going to be able to go to preschool. She looked at me so sweetly and said "don't worry mom, daddy will find a preschool for me. He always does what I want". I know it sounds kind of snotty like 'I get everything I want' but it was truly just so genuine and loving like she really believes her daddy can do anything and would never let her down. She was right! He made some calls and found the perfect place that still had a couple of openings and wasn't too far from our house.

1st day of preschool...YAY!!!

Never too busy to stop and smell the flowers.

HAPPY 4th

2009-09-17T20:09:00.000-07:00

BIRTHDAY ADDISON ROSE!

I have been totally out of the loop lately and am trying to slowly get back on track. The kids and I have been in Arizona for the last month trying to help my brother out with a terrible situation he and his family have been going through. It's a very long story that I'm not going to get into right now. It has been a crazy, stressful & frustrating month but life must go on and even though I'm late I couldn't skip a post about my sweet baby girl's birthday. I've been trying to keep life as normal for the kiddos as possible.

Addison turned 4 on August 29th. Where does the time go? She wanted to have a princess themed party with lots of pink and Sleeping Beauty stuff. She actually got to have two parties. One in Bullhead with my family and one in Phoenix with Jared's family. Let me tell you, she got S-P-O-I-L-E-D! Bom Bom made her an adorable pink and purple castle cake (per Addison's request) that she absolutely loved. How could she not? It was perfect for a princess. Then her sweet cousin Jenna made her a cake with pretty yellow & red flowers and a tiara on top. She sure felt special! She had a pinata, got clothes, dress up outfits, barbie toys, games & more. Since we weren't able to be with daddy on her birthday (which broke his heart) he had a super cute Barbie bike waiting for her when we got back home. She loved it! She had a wonderful birthday. Thanks to everyone who shared it with us.

A dose of reality

2009-07-28T20:07:00.000-07:00

Lately Urban has been going through his "helper" phase. He loves to help clean and do things around the house. Addison has noticed this and like any good, older sister would do, she's taking full advantage. She'll usually just ask him to bring her stuff like her drink, kitty or blanket when she doesn't want to get up. Urban's so sweet he always runs and brings it back to her with a big smile.

Tonight Addison was sitting in her rocking chair singing one of her babies to sleep. She decided that she wanted her kitty and blanket so she asked Urban to get them for her. I explained to Addison that he didn't need to get them, if she wanted them then she needed to get up and get them herself. It was too late, Urban was already on his way to get them for her. He brought back her kitty, so then she asked him to get her blanket too.

Me: "No Addison, if you want your blanket you get up and get it." (again, too late, Urban was already on it)

Addison: "See, he can bring them to me, he likes it."

Me: "You need to realize that he's being very nice by doing things for you. You need to tell him thank you and give him loves. This is not something he has to do he's just being a good brother. He's not your servant."

Addison: (with a little giggle) "Oh, right, you're my servant."

Me: "Excuse me?! I'm not your servant either."

Addison: (with a very concerned look) "Well then who is my servant?"

Me: "You don't have a servant. You're not a queen, you have to do things for yourself."

Then we just started laughing.

Where have I gone wrong? Where does this attitude of entitlement come from? Apparently I enable my children by doing too much for them. She may not be a queen, but she certainly is a PRINCESS!!!

The Great Outdoors!

2009-07-17T15:27:00.000-07:00

The weather has been perfect around here lately. We've decided to try to take full advantage of our beautiful surroundings by doing some sort of activity in nature every weekend.

The weekend before this last one we went to a local lake to swim around and have a picnic. The water was a bit chilly but the kids didn't seem to mind. We ate our lunch on the shore, taught the Brun Brun Bear how to swim and just enjoyed our surroundings. Okay, so we didn't really have to teach Bruno to swim, the doggy paddle came pretty naturally once we actually got him into the water. We had to coax him in inch by inch. He didn't seem to want to get more than his paws wet, silly pup! Of course I forgot my camera so unfortunately there are no pictures.

This last Saturday we went hiking on a trail alongside a creek we found in a gorgeous spot near the Bountiful Temple. The trail wasn't exactly meant for kids quite as young as ours but of course little Ms. & Mr. Independent wanted absolutely NO HELP! Sometimes they didn't have a choice in the matter because quite frankly I didn't feel like jumping off the cliff and fetching them out of the water. Boy, did Sir Urban throw a major fit when I helped him along. Although he also got pretty upset when he would fall down on his own. I'm not sure which temper tantrum was worse. Honestly I think both of the kids would have been perfectly happy just standing next to the stream throwing rocks into it the entire time. Urban's favorite thing in the whole world is throwing rocks. Jared tried to teach us how to skip rocks but none of us quite caught on.
Above is what Addison did when we asked her to pose for a picture...and below is what Urban did. Babies gone wild here we come! I'm not real sure what he was doing, but it makes me giggle.
This is the hill we had to climb to get back to the car. It's actually quite a bit steeper than it looks and is full of loose gravel and rocks, but of course the kids had to do it on their own.
Here's a picture of Urban yelling at me after one of the times he slid backwards and fell down. I haven't quite figured out why it's my fault!? I tried to hold his hand.
This picture cracks me up! He looks like Bruce Willis or some other tough dude from an action movie running away (in slow motion of course) from an explosion after a bomb went off.

Apparently our little hike didn't tucker the kids out because on our way home they saw a playground and asked if we could stop to play.

I love these little family outings, they're so much fun!

Apparently

2009-07-15T20:46:00.000-07:00

I have no mother's intuition because I am always wrong. I thought Urban was a girl and well, we all know that's not right and I thought this one was a boy but IT'S A GIRL! Some how though, Addison always knows. She told us that Urban was going to be a boy and she told us that this baby was a girl. How does she do it? I think we may need to take that girl to Vegas.

I had my ultrasound today and everything looks great. I'm 21 weeks and the baby is healthy and developing right on track.

We got a really neat video of the ultrasound and lots of cute pics but I still have to scan them onto the computer.

So now that we know for sure I've got to start getting the nursery and everything else all ready. Luckily we still have all of Addison's baby clothes, but of course we'll still have to buy a few new things. I got her the cutest little outfit today (we've done that with every kid on the day we find out what they are) with the most adorable pair of pink, shimmery baby cowgirl boots. SO MUCH FUN!!!

We're all super excited for our sweet baby girl (especially Addison) but I can't help but feeling a wee bit sad. This is probably it for us, for various reasons. It's hard to say for sure, but those are our feelings as of now. Of course we'll put a lot of thought and prayer into it, but unless I get an overwhelming feeling that Heavenly Father has more sweet spirits ready to send my way then I think we're done. So it makes me a little sad to know that I won't have any more precious little boys. Urban is a HANDFUL, but he is the sweetest, most lovey little guy ever! Let me tell you, with him being the only boy, momma is going to SPOIL him. My goodness, I already see it happening. It is nearly impossible for me to tell that boy "no". He's too darn cute for my own good. Don't you worry though, Addison gets her fair share of being spoiled too (being the first born and all) and I have no doubts it will be the same for our newest addition (seeing as how she'll be the baby). We're doomed! Why can't our kids be ugly? It would be so much easier not to spoil them that way. =)

We also had a boy's name that we loved picked out already and we're having a hard time thinking of one for a girl. Of course you know that if it was a boy I'd be all sad about not having any more girls. Either way we're ecstatic and feel so blessed to be able to have happy, healthy, beautiful babies.

Plus, it's just an added bonus that I was able to prove my mother-in-law wrong. Sorry, you know I had to bring it up. =) She insisted that Estes' were only allowed one girl per family. Until now that's held up pretty well, this will be their 17th grandchild and only the 4th girl (two of which will be from our family). I'm usually not this big of a butthead, I just like to tease my MIL because she definitely let me hear it when we found out Urban was a boy. I love ya Dianna!!!

Now I just hope she has brown eyes. Both of the other kiddos ended up with blue, which I love, they have gorgeous eyes. I just think it would be fun for one of my kids to have my eyes. We'll see though. That's another thing Estes' apparently don't have is brown eyed babies. I think only 1 or 2 of the grandkids has brown eyes! Of course I think only 2 of the daughters-in-law have brown eyes so genetically odds are against us.

GIRL'S CAMP

2009-07-14T12:54:00.000-07:00

June 29th thru July 2nd was our ward's girls camp. We had such a blast. Our girls and leaders are so much fun. We had some drama and a lot of mishaps along the way, but I think all in all lessons were learned and testimonies were strengthened.

We had a couple of situations when Priesthood blessings were given. Although I wish no one had to get hurt or sick, since none of it was too serious I'm grateful for the opportunities it lead to. We had several girls who come from inactive homes and didn't know what the Priesthood or a blessing was. It was really something special to see and hear their reactions after feeling the Spirit and experiencing the calm & comfort that came along with the blessings.

I'm so thankful for the opportunity I had to serve as camp director. There is so much that goes into it, but it is so worth it. We made some great memories that I think will last a lifetime for me and hopefully these sweet girls.

I'm also very thankful for my parents who came to stay with Addison & Urban while I was gone. It was so comforting to know they were in good hands. Of course Jared was around at night to take care of them but they watched them during the day while he was at work. I'm so glad they were able to come because I didn't have any cell phone service at camp so I was not able to call the entire time I was gone. This was VERY hard for me to not be able to check up on my family, but knowing my mom & dad were there made it much easier to relax.

All of these pictures were taken during our skit night. We were all laughing so hard it was tough to get through our skits.

We went to camp Aspen Ridge just outside of Preston, Idaho. It's actually a boy scout camp so there were lots of fun activities to do. There was swimming, boating, hiking, archery, shooting, horse back riding, crafts and of course certification courses. It really was a very nice camp.

Back from our trip

2009-06-08T18:58:00.000-07:00

The last couple of weeks have been pretty busy around here. We've had a lot of fun and have been able to spend time with a lot of family. IT'S BEEN GREAT!

First my parents came up here to visit for about a week. It was so nice to have my mom help me out around the house and with the kiddos since I haven't been feeling good. I know Jared was grateful for the extra help too seeing as how he's been doing everything around here lately (love that man!). And my dad's silly sense of humor can always put a smile on my face even when he is talking about things that might very possibly make me vomit! =)

Addison was super excited because bama & bapa were here for her recital. I will try to get video of that up later. I am so proud of her, she did such a great job. She wasn't nervous at all to be dancing in front of hundreds of people. She is so cute! I'm so glad that she enjoys dancing so much.

Then, at the end of the week of my parents being here we left for Phoenix to see Jared's family. It was so nice to see everyone. We've seen Jared's parents a couple of times since we moved, but we hadn't seen his brother Joe & his family or his sister Julie & her family for a year. It's been really hard because for 3 years we lived about 5 minutes away from each other. Now whenever we see each other all the kids look so much older, it makes me so sad.

We had a really fun trip. We were very well taken care of...thank you so much to everyone. We stayed with grandma & grandpa who cooked & cleaned & spoiled the kids rotten. My sister in law Trecia brought over lots of yummy food that she made and entertained us with fun games (I thought they were fun anyway...hehe). My other sister in law Julie changed stinky diapers for me and went with me to get a wonderful pedicure. All of the cousins, even the older ones were so great with the kids. Addison and Urban were in heaven playing in grandma & grandpa's playground of a backyard with all of their fun, loving cousins.

I love these pictures, they're so cute. At one point I just saw Addison and Nathan cuddling on a chair laughing at a show they were watching.

Jared got to go golfing with his parents. Jared & I took the kids along with Brady and Garett bowling. Addison loved it. Urban liked it too but of course he didn't want any help. He kept trying to pick up the bowling balls and chuck them in all different directions. Luckily he was pretty content (at least for a little while) just sitting down with some snacks.

Sorry, the pictures of the boys are blurry. I didn't realize my camera wasn't on the right mode until later. oops

One day we took the kids to a water park. The weather was perfect, hot but not too hot. There was this really neat kiddy area that was a blast for the kids. Addison surprised us because she was being a little dare devil which is a bit out of character for her. She would go down the slides all by herself, then she started going backwards and on her tummy. It was so fun to watch her have so much fun. Urban was being a little bit of a stinker. We went right in the middle of his nap time so he was a bit of a grouch. Luckily we had made plans with grandma & grandpa to come pick the kids up after about 2 hours so then it was just Jared and me. We had so much fun just the two of us. We stayed for several more hours by ourselves just acting like big kids. We went doubles on all the "big kid" slides (some of which scared me to death) and almost every time when we would come out the bottom Jared would end up sitting on my head. Didn't matter how we distributed the weight (me or him in the back) it pretty much always ended up with me flipping out of the raft and him being on top of me. We haven't laughed so hard in I don't know how long. Must've been quite a sight!

Jared had his 29th birthday while we were down there too. So for the night of his birthday we had a little get away at a Scottsdale hotel while grandma & grandpa watched the kids. Jared and I have NEVER had a night away from the kids. It was hard for me to do at first, but it was much needed and we had a great time. We went out to dinner then went back to the hotel to go swimming for a little while. Then we went back to the room to watch a movie and just relaxed. It was so nice because Addison really wanted to make her daddy's birthday cake. So grandma helped her make it and it was all ready for him when we got back the next day. It was so cute because she was all excited that she got to crack the eggs into the cake. Whenever she helps me make things I don't let her do the eggs, I always do it myself. I must be a TERRIBLE mother. It was so funny to me that that's what made her day. Good thing we have grandmas. =)

I know we did more, I just can't think of it right now. All in all it was a great trip. It was so nice to just relax by the pool, or watch the kids play in the backyard and if we felt like doing something we just went and did it.

It was very hard to tell everyone goodbye because we just don't know when we'll be able to see everyone again. I know that whenever we do all the kids will be so different. For some reason when I said goodbye to Michael I just lost it. He's our oldest nephew (almost 16...can you believe it?). I think it's because he seemed the most changed to me. He is not a kid any more, he is a young man. I already have to look up to him and the next time I see him he'll be driving and dating. What is that all about? I love all of our nieces and nephews so much. They are all so special and amazing in their own ways. I was so blessed to be able to live so close to them for so many years and watch them grow up. I feel like at times I took it for granted and I'm now so sad that I'll miss so much in their childhood.

Well, I wish I took more pictures, but this is me we're talking about here. What do you expect? Thanks again to everyone for making our trip so wonderful. After spending more than 2 weeks straight with my parents and then Jared's, the kids are thoroughly spoiled and quite a handful. They haven't been told "no" for so long they're not sure how to handle it when I say it.

P.S. Urban has one word for all of the Estes clan to sum up our vacation..."NO!"

I'm pretty sure that's the only word Urban said the entire time we were down there. I don't think anybody believes me that he does actually say quite a bit more. =)

After leaving Phoenix we headed to Vegas for a get together with my family in honor of my brother getting married and having a baby. I'll post about that next.

VOTE, VOTE, VOTE!!!

2009-06-06T13:39:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I know I have a lot of catch up to do (and I will get to it I promise) but first things first. I've got to help a sista out! MY sister to be exact. Heather is a finalist to be an official blogger for a fabulous spa in the area and she needs your votes. So follow this link http://www.bloggingwithus.blogspot.com to her blog. (Sorry, I have no idea what I'm doing wrong but I can't figure out how to just link a site with a certain keyword.) She'll explain how the voting works and then link you straight to the spa website where all you have to do is leave a comment. How simple is that? So PLEASE, take two minutes and vote for Heather. Wouldn't you want someone to do the same for you? She totally deserves it and is perfect for the job. Thanks in advance, I know you won't let her down.

I would like to have a word with

2009-05-11T20:25:00.000-07:00

the Grandmas please.

The other day Addison was playing with some of her toys and all of a sudden I heard her quietly say "what the he** is going on here?"!

I couldn't believe it. Had I really just heard what I thought I did? So I told her that this is not something that we say and asked her where she heard it. Without even hesitating she said that her grandmas taught her to say it.

Now my question to you two lovely (and might I add profane) ladies is why on earth would you think this is acceptable to teach my innocent 3 year old? I don't feel as though we need to make a big deal over this. I would just like for you to take responsibility for your actions. Were you two in cahoots? Or did you each just randomly decide on your own "I think today would be a great day to teach Addison a new expression"? I might expect this sort of thing from the grandpas, but the grandmas? Never the grandmas!

Well I would appreciate it if in the future you could refrain from teaching my daughter such vulgarity and perhaps take her aside and let her know that your past lessons are inappropriate.

Okay, for those of you who don't know I'm kidding I suppose I should clarify. I KNOW that Addison did not learn this from either one of her grandmas. Truth be told she probably got it from her dad. What? You didn't think I was going to say she got it from me did you? =)
I just think it's hilarious how quick she was to blame her grandmas. Like she thought there was no way she could get in trouble if her grandmas told her to do it. Let that be a lesson to the grandmas. That girl worships you two gals and hangs on every word you say (and sometimes those you don't).

The Chandler Curse

2009-05-04T20:31:00.000-07:00

Does anyone remember the episode of friends when Chandler can't smile? He & Monica are trying to get their engagement pictures done but every time Chandler gets in front of the camera he gets this strange, almost scary, look on his face.

Well, my sweet Addison Rose has this same problem. I love my baby girl to death and think she is the most beautiful girl in the whole wide world (I know, a bit biased) but she cannot take a good posed picture to save her life!

Today was picture day at her dance studio so she was dressed up all cute in her little recital outfit. When we got home from dance I decided to try to take some pictures of her myself. Here's what we ended up with when I asked her to look at me and smile:

I know the top one doesn't look too funny on here, but when it's full size it's pretty silly. In her defense, I suppose I should disclose that she was squinting because the sun was in her eyes. But still, this happens almost every time we try to take a picture. I can't wait to see what the ones from the studio look like (hee hee).

Now here's what she looked like when I just asked her to run around and play and forget about the camera:

Ahhh, much better!

While she'll probably never be a super model with picture taking skills like these, she'll always be beautiful to me.

Fun Pictures

2009-04-28T20:48:00.001-07:00

The other morning the kids were being so cute and lovey with each other that I just had to get some pictures. I know it looks like they're wrestling around and tackling one another, but they're actually giving loves. I love these pictures because they both just look so happy. They seriously took turns giving each other hugs for like half an hour. Love those moments!

And I saved the best for last. Jared's not real proud of this picture, but I couldn't resist. Urban loves to play dress up. After all, he does have an older sister who is ALL GIRL. That's what he sees her do, so he thinks he should do the same. Well, the other day he came walking out of his room wearing this skirt. Then he put on a pair of my heels. Now he always wears my shoes (he's got a bit of a shoe fetish) but this is the first time he's ever put on a skirt. I know it's WRONG, but he looks so adorable. Look at that smirk on his face, he is so proud of himself. It cracks me up, hee hee. Sadly enough, he is actually pretty good at walking in high heels that are way too big for him. Do I have some great blackmail for when he's older or what?

I love my little man! Even if he is a bit girly at times. =)

I want my mommy!

2009-04-22T20:36:00.000-07:00

So I don't want to make my mom feel bad because I know she would be here ASAP if it were possible. Quite honestly I'm not even sure there's much she could do, there are just those times when you want your mom. I get to talk to her often on the phone, but it's just not the same. I'm in a very whiny mood, so I will not be at all offended if you don't want to continue reading. This post is purely for me to be a big baby!

I have been feeling so very sick the last couple of weeks and I am just plain "sick" of it. I feel so bad that I'm not being the wife/mom/housekeeper/cook/etc. I should be because I feel so lousy all the time. Jared is so amazing. He's doing such a good job taking care of me and never complains when things don't get done. Whenever he's home he does things around the house, helps with the kids and meals and is on poop patrol (changes Urban's diapers, helps Addison in the bathroom and cleans up after the dog outside). He even goes to the grocery store for me most of the time because I am so sensitive to smells (good & bad) and boy are there a lot of smells out there in the world! He really is such a big help, I'm so grateful for him.

My sister, Heather, is doing a great job too. She calls me everyday to check on me and see how I'm doing. She asks if I need anything and makes sure I'm okay during the day when Jared isn't home. She always offers to take the kids so I can get some rest. She is a very sweet and helpful big sister.

Even Addison and Urban are doing their part to comfort me. I love those kids so much (goodness, I'm getting teary eyed just thinking about their sweet acts of kindness). Almost every time I run to the bathroom to throw up they run in right behind me. Addison stands to the side of me rubbing my back and stroking my hair saying "I love you so much mom, I'm so sorry this is happening to you". Urban just leans on my back giving me a hug from behind and says "I uh you". Occasionally he'll get right in my face and ask me why I'm doing that, which just makes me giggle in an otherwise awful situation. They are so protective and concerned about what's going on, it's so cute. It's just another reminder as to why I'm doing this again. Oh, in case you haven't gotten it yet, YES, I'M PREGNANT! Although I feel like crap most of the time and it's sometimes hard to think about anything other than trying not to throw up, it is so worth it. (I have to keep reminding myself)

Every time Jared comes home and they run up to him and jump into his arms to give him hugs and kisses I feel better for a brief moment. Every time I see the two of them sitting on the couch hugging each other I feel better and can't wait to add another one to that hug. Every time they hug me and tell me they love me and rub my back, I feel a little bit better.

So even though I wish I didn't get so sick, and I know it's possible to have healthy pregnancies & babies without getting sick...I've heard of lots of women, I guess this is just one of my trials. Perhaps it gives me a greater appreciation for my health, for my husband, for my kids, for my mom & sister...who knows!

Anyway, enough with the pity party. I had my first doctor's appointment yesterday and everything looks great. I am about 9 weeks along which will give me a due date around November 26th. I got to see some pictures and the little bug is cute as can be. I know, only a mother... We are all very excited and can't wait for this new addition to join our family.

Happy Easter!

2009-04-12T20:06:00.000-07:00

We hope all of our family and friends had a wonderful Easter Holiday. We are so grateful for the true meaning of this day and all that it represents. I am so humbled to know that Jesus died for me and that He lives today.

I tried to explain the resurrection to Addison, which is not an easy task for a 3 year old. First she asked me when SHE died and came back to life. Then she told me that she knows Jesus lives because she sees Him every Sunday in church. How sweet she is! It's kind of funny though because every week in church she points and asks me why Jesus is sleeping. She's always referring to a man up on the stand who closes his eyes for a bit, but it always happens to be a different man.

Today was a BEAUTIFUL day! I'm so glad the weather was so nice. We did our Easter baskets together as a family this morning then later on we headed over to Heather's house for an egg hunt and dinner. It was so much fun. The kids had a blast. They are all so cute together.

On a side note: I made Addison's Easter dress and decided that I've given the seamstress thing a fair shot but I am done with it. It's just not for me and that's okay! Close up it is a mess, but from far away it actually looks pretty cute. Also, I must admit that at first I was not too excited about Urbi's Easter outfit. My mother-in-law bought it for him a couple of months ago and it just looked like a total pimp suit to me. Well, of course he looked absolutely adorable in it. How could he not? This is Urban we're talking about after all! He was pimpin', but in a super cute way. Sorry Dianna, but I didn't get a picture of the full outfit before he got brownie on it or fell and got it all messed up. But I will wash it and put him back in it to get some pics so you can get the full effect. =)

We love you all and miss you lots!

"Because I love you"

2009-03-26T21:48:00.000-07:00

I'm not real sure how kids learn to be so sly, but man do they perfect it at a young age. Lately when Addison does something she should not have and we ask her why she did it, she comes up with a very clever response. Apparently she does bad things because she loves me. I suppose I should feel honored that she would risk getting into trouble on a regular basis to prove her love for me but instead I am a bit suspicious of her TRUE motives!
Here are a few examples:

Me: "Addison, why did you hit your brother?"
Addison: (with tears in her eye) "Because I love you."

Me: "Addison Rose, why would you take that toy away from your brother? He just wants to play with you!"
Addison: (chin quivering) "Because I love you."

There are many more scenarios, but you get the picture. So after trying to get her to understand that her defense doesn't make much sense, she really gets the water works going (she is good at fake crying) and looks up at me so pathetically and says "but mom, I really just love you so much." Where does she get this stuff from? My response usually depends on the severity of what she did and/or the mood I'm in. If It's not too bad I'm usually just trying not to laugh at her miserable attempt at self pity and give her a hug and tell her I just love her so much too (even though I know her declaration of love was somewhat insincere at that point). Otherwise I try to explain to her that I know she loves me, but the best way to show it is by being obedient and treating her brother nicely.

Oh that girl, what am I going to do with her? She drives me crazy sometimes, but I JUST LOVE HER SO MUCH! =)

A picture is worth 1,000 words

2009-03-08T20:25:00.000-07:00

and these pictures just break my heart, especially the first two. This pretty much sums up our last two weeks and explains why I've been M.I.A. in the blogging world. We have all been so sick. Luckily we're all finally starting to feel better.

It all started with a trip to Las Vegas. We were going for a friend's baby shower and to see my brother so we could give him a bunch of baby stuff because he and his wife (congrats on the wedding by the way!) are expecting a little guy the end of this month. Going through so many of Urban's cute baby things sure gave me the baby blues. But then getting sick for 2 weeks reminded me how much I hate that feeling and am not sure whether or not I'm ready to do it for months on end again. Anyway, back to the point. Jared had been sick before we left but felt like he was getting better. While we were gone he started feeling pretty bad again and I started feeling sick too. Then of course Urban started getting a cough and it was all over from there. If Urban comes within a 50 mile radius of someone who barely sneezes you can bet that he's going to get sick. He always gets the most sick out of everyone in the family and it always hangs around the longest. Addison on the other hand has an amazing immune system, I love it! That girl very rarely gets sick and it's usually not very bad. She didn't get sick until the rest of us had already had it for about a week or so and hers only lasted about 2 days. We ended up taking Urban to a quick care because he wouldn't eat or drink anything for about 3 days and what little he did eat he would just throw up. He had a cough, fever, upset tummy, runny nose, swollen eyes, all he would do is fuss and sleep. He had an ear infection so the doctor gave us an antibiotic for that but the antibiotic totally upset his stomach which then resulted in a horrible diaper rash. Luckily he's pretty much all better, just has a little cough hanging on. I'm so glad he's feeling better, it's so hard to see him sick.

Doesn't he just look so miserable? It makes me so sad, my poor little man. It was after seeing him like this that we finally decided to take him to a doctor. I hate going to the doctor and being told "it's just a cold" or something, it makes me feel like a hypo. It takes a lot for me to actually go, but I just couldn't watch him suffer any more.

Oh yeah, while we were in Vegas we had to take Addison to the ER. This is her lying in a hospital bed. She stuck a little plastic doll shoe up her nose and we could not get it out. We must have tried for about an hour and a half to get it out (as I mentioned before, I hate going to the doctor) but she shoved it up there pretty good. We tried to get her to blow it out, we tried making her sneeze, we tickled her to make her laugh hoping it would shoot out, we had tweezers...nothing worked. She ended up falling asleep while we were in the waiting room (it was close to midnight) and Jared and I sat there the entire 2 1/2 hours sticking tweezers up her nose hoping we could save ourselves a hospital bill, but nope, no such luck. Her nose was bleeding like crazy so we figured we should probably stop and let the professionals handle it. When we got back to the room they told us that they see a lot of kids with stuff stuck in their noses. Even though it was a simple procedure it was very hard for a parent to watch. They swaddled her in a blanket so she didn't have use of her arms and one nurse held her body still while another nurse held her head still. Then the doctor stuck a tube in her nose past the obstruction then inflated it and pulled it out. She started screaming saying "mommy please help, make them stop, I want my mommy!" I've never heard her sound like that before, it was heart wrenching. My eyes immediately filled with tears, I felt so helpless, just as the first tear started to fall down my cheek the doctor turned and showed me the shoe and said "all done". I'm so glad it only took a few seconds. We're hoping she's learned her lesson. She's never stuck anything in her nose, other than her finger of course, and we're hoping that she never does again.

There was one day when Urban literally could not keep his eyes open for even a few minutes at a time. He fell asleep in the middle of getting his diaper changed, on the couch, on our laps, on the floor, wherever he happened to be.

We spent the majority of our time lounging on the couch or in bed. I love his little man boobies. hee hee!

So it definitely wasn't the best couple of weeks we've ever had, but we did get to see both of the grandmas and grandpas and Uncle Nick & Aunt Melanie while we were in Vegas so Addison was in heaven. She keeps asking when we can go back to the hotel to see her grandmas and grandpas. I do feel bad though because not only did I not get any pictures of any of these wonderful people but we also managed to get every single one of them sick. Just a little something to remember us by, so sorry about that! The only good thing that came from this sickness is that it jump started our diet, although I definitely don't recommend this method. Jared lost about 10 pounds and I lost about 5 (why do men always lose it faster?). Now if we can only keep it off once we actually start eating food again. =)

Santa Mormon

2009-02-18T20:57:00.000-08:00

Last night we were reading out of the Book of Mormon Reader with the kids before bed. For those of you who don't know, this is a children's version of the Book of Mormon with pictures and stuff. We read a couple of chapters then told the kids it was time for bed. Addison said that she wasn't ready for bed yet and wanted to read another chapter. So I told her that we would read one more chapter and then she had to go to bed. She pointed at the picture on the next page and said "yeah, I want to read about Santa Mormon". It was actually a picture of Lehi, but he has a long white beard so what else is a 3 year old to think? I guess whatever works for now is good. I'm just glad she's interested in reading the scriptures. We'll keep working on the real reason.

Skate-A-Rama

2009-02-12T19:59:00.001-08:00

Last week I took Addison skating for the first time with our good friend Lauren and her two daughters Zoey & Sidney. Addison was so excited to go but once she got on the floor and started wobbling around on her skates she was a little unsure of things. She was having a lot of fun at first and we got almost completely around the rink before she fell for the first time. It was pretty much over after that. She fell HARD on her poor little bum (she still has bruises). She got really upset and started crying and said that she didn't want to skate any more. So we took a little break and sat down for awhile until she was ready to try again. For the rest of the night she was kind of hot and cold. She would have fun skating until she fell and then she would say she was done for a little while. Unfortunately she's too much like her mother for her own good. She's usually a little leery of trying new things and if she's not perfect at it right off the bat then she doesn't want anything to do with it.

It was a really neat skating rink though. Pretty much anything with wheels was allowed on the floor. There were skaters, roller bladers, razor scooters, wheel chairs & strollers. Addison pushed Sidney around in her stroller for a little while and actually really enjoyed that because she had something to hold onto to help her balance.

I didn't get any pictures of Addison while she was skating because I was too busy trying to keep her upright so she wouldn't freak out. I made sure though that the pictures I got of her on the carousel (which was probably her favorite part anyway) had the skating rink in the background to prove that we really were at a skating rink! =)

Addison & Zoey

Lauren & Sidney (Aren't her girls adorable? They are such a fun family!)

What I've learned from my

2009-02-04T20:18:00.000-08:00

SCARS!

The other day while I was cooking dinner I opened the oven door to pull a pan out. Once the pan was halfway out I heard a ruckus behind me and could tell that Urban and Bruno were running right towards the open oven. (They have issues, I am always yelling at them to get away from the hot oven. They never learn.) So I turned my body to shield them so they would not get burned and in the process I ended up burning my arm on the hot pan I was holding. It's a pretty good burn. It runs about four inches on the inside crease of my elbow. But thankfully they were both okay. When I showed Jared he said "man, I bet you'll think twice before doing that again!" (totally joking obviously). Because of course I would do it again in a heartbeat. I would take a burn or a bullet or whatever necessary in order to prevent one of my children or anyone else I love from getting hurt.

So this got me thinking. This may or may not leave a permanent scar, but for whatever duration of time it is visible it will be a reminder of what happened. I have a lot of scars, both physical and emotional, and they all serve as some sort of reminder of either a significant time in my life or a lesson I've learned. This particular scar will remind me of my love for my children and a mother's instincts to protect her children at any cost. I know, sounds a bit dramatic. I am aware that I didn't rescue him from a burning building or anything, but you get the gist.

Anyway, I've been having a really hard time lately with life in general. But I've finally come to the conclusion (after months of misery) that I've already been through a lot in my life and there will be a lot yet to come. What I'm going through now will definitely leave some emotional scarring but I'll just add it to the rest of them as one more life lesson learned and get on with the next chapter.

Here's some lessons I've learned from my scars...

Lots of scars on my knees from when I was a little girl...

Brings back many memories of playing with siblings and cousins in our backyards, learning how to ride a bike and skidding down an asphalt hill (on my knees) at the San Diego Wild Animal Park.

Lesson learned: You can get dirty, play rough and keep up with the boys and still be a girly girl!

2 beautiful scars on my tummy from c-sections...

Permanent reminders of two of the happiest memories I'll ever have. The uncomplicated births of my amazing and perfectly healthy daughter & son which some doctors told me would not be possible.

Lesson learned: Never give up and always have faith.

Other scars on tummy...

Reminders of a difficult time as a young, scared and confused teenager facing many tests & surgeries and feeling like the biggest freak on the planet.

Lesson learned: I am one tough cookie!!! And with the love & support of my family I can get through pretty much anything.

Knife scar on back...

Dumb reminder of jumping on a counter top to reach something on a high shelf and having a knife go into my back while jumping down.

Lesson learned: It's o.k. to ask for help sometimes. (I still have trouble with this one. I HATE when I can't do something on my own!)

Tiny scar on shoulder...

Reminder of a time when Jared & I were...well let's just say the bed broke. After all, this is a family blog.

Lesson learned: My husband and I are madly in love with each other! ;-) Also, perhaps we need a stronger bed and/or losing a few pounds couldn't hurt.

Irreparable scar on my heart from when my Grandpa Martin died...

I am so sad that my children will not have the opportunity to know this wonderful man in this lifetime but I am so grateful for the many memories I have of him. He taught me so much. He truly was the perfect grandpa.

Lesson learned: I am so truly blessed to have had the privilege of being his granddaughter and having him in my life for 23 years and having his memories forever.

The hardship I am having right now is not quite a scar yet. It is currently a gaping hole in my heart that I am just praying will close soon. We are losing our house in Arizona. I know that in the whole scheme of things this is not that big of a deal, but it is killing me inside. Of course I feel extremely blessed that we are all healthy and that Jared has a job but those are things that are out of my control. I am so sick of people telling me that lots of people are going through this right now and that it's just a house. My heart goes out to everyone else in this situation, but that doesn't make it any easier. To me it is not just a house. It's everything a house represents...security, safety, love, peace of mind, etc. and I am losing that. To me, losing this house equals a BIG FAT FAILURE! Anybody who knows me knows that I am extremely hard on myself. It's something I'm trying to change, but I'm just not quite sure how. My entire life I've never been great at anything, but one thing about me is that I don't fail. HOLLIE DOES NOT FAIL! Now this isn't because I'm perfect by any means but because unfortunately if I even think that I won't be good at something I won't even try because I don't want to risk failing. And once I do get involved in something I work my butt off to make sure that I accomplish it. Well, guess what? I FAILED! Losing our house is a huge failure in my mind. Now for the good news!

Lesson learned: As already stated, with the love and support of my family and the gospel, I can get through anything and this too will pass. But even better than that, I've gained a new outlook on life. With one failure under my belt what's a few more? So I've decided that I'm going to stop being such a chicken and I'm going to start living. I'm going to try things that have always sounded like fun but I've been too scared to try because I thought I might fail. I want to find something I really enjoy doing even if I'm terrible at it. I promise to keep you all posted on my progress.

Now, the purpose of this post was not to have a pity party and certainly not so everyone could leave me comments on how I'm not a failure (seriously, I don't want to hear those. Although I know Heather will have some funny comment on how she knew I was a loser the minute she laid eyes on me, just to make me laugh). In reality I just needed to get some of this out of my head so I could get past it. Also, I wanted some help from all of you. I want to hear things that you all enjoy doing. They can be things you've done forever, something you just discovered, things you tried and you're great at, things you tried and you're bad at or things you thought you would absolutely hate but ended up falling in love with. Whatever it is I just want to hear about it. Thanks for your help.

So, anyone up for skydiving with me??? =)

Thank You Bom Bom!

2009-02-01T21:14:00.000-08:00

'Cuz you're the bomb baby, bomb baby. I think that's a song, maybe I just made it up. Who knows?

Addison was super excited because she got packages in the mail two days in a row. She feels pretty special. Now she's going to expect something everyday. =)

My mom sent her some adorable clothes that she made for her. She is SO TALENTED! This stuff is so darn cute. She made a jumper dress with a matching coat, hat & scarf and a very chic zebra print coat & hat set. She loves them! She couldn't wait to put them all on at the same time.

I've included pictures of the jumper & accessories but I'll post pictures of the zebra coat later. We took those pictures together with Avery because she has a matching giraffe print coat. They look absolutely ADORABLE!

Thanks again grandma.

Thanks Blonde Grandma

2009-01-28T20:39:00.000-08:00

For some reason this is what Addison calls her Grandma Estes.

Today Addison & Urban received a package from grandma so I figured I'd post a picture showing them wearing the clothes she sent. Addison was SO EXCITED. She LOVES getting mail.

She got two pairs of tights and a shirt. She was in desperate need of some tights too. Our puppy has a tights fetish and has chewed up almost every single pair of tights Addison owns...while they're still on her legs! Addison is so cute, she was so anxious to try them on. I left the room and about two seconds later she came in wearing one of the pairs of tights and had put the shirt on top of the shirt she was already wearing with the tags still on. =) Later on she took the shirt underneath off, while her new shirt was still on because she wasn't about to take that one off. And that's how she stayed the rest of the day. She's so funny.

Addison was pretending to be a doctor and Urban was dancing to Barbie & The Diamond Castle music (yes, we do worry about him a little bit) so they both look a tad silly! =)

I intended on putting pants back on Urban after putting his coat on him, but he looked so cute without them that I decided to leave them off. I love his little chunky legs. So adorable on him, not so much on me! It makes me kind of sad though because he's looking more & more like a little man and less like a baby. Just in the last couple of weeks he's gotten taller and is starting to catch up to his weight. He doesn't look like such a chubster any more, just an all around big boy. His legs have gotten longer, and if you can believe it (since it doesn't really look like it from the picture), are thinning out a bit. I miss his rolls!

**I read back over this post and it seems a little confusing, so sorry if it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I am so tired I can't even think straight so trying to fix it would be pointless. I'm sure you can get the gist.**

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY-O!!!

2009-01-23T07:56:00.000-08:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU
YOU LIVE IN A ZOO
YOU LOOK LIKE A MONKEY
AND YOU SMELL LIKE ONE TOO!

Here's a picture of the cake I made for you. Too bad you won't be able to help us eat it. =) I'm sure you already got my present, I mailed it weeks ago. It was a trip to the NASCAR Hall of Fame along with a meet-n-greet luncheon with the Hendricks racers and a one on one racing session with Jeff Gordon! But hopefully you already got it because it can't be duplicated. =)

I wish we could all be together for your birthday. We'll have to have a big party next time we all see eachother. Hope you have a wonderful day! We love you.

Body Worlds

2009-01-21T21:51:00.000-08:00

Last week Jared took me to see a Body Worlds exhibit in Salt Lake. IT WAS AWESOME!!! I know some people think it's gross, but I find this kind of stuff so fascinating. I LOVE the human body and learning about how it works. Our bodies are so intricate. The way all of our body systems work together in order for us to function is absolutely amazing to me. Anatomy and physiology classes were always my favorite in high school and college. That's the main reason I chose the major I did, it required lots of A & P type classes.

I was kind of bummed to realize how much I've forgotten over the years, but luckily most of it started coming back to me fairly quickly as I continued through the exhibit. It helped me to remember how much I truly do enjoy this field of study and is making me think about how to pursue it further. All I know is that at some point in my lifetime I will take whatever classes are necessary to be able to dissect a cadaver. I know, I sound sick in the head and I'm probably really scaring most of you. I dissected a cat in high school and it was one of the best learning experiences I've ever had. I can't even imagine how much I would be able to learn and retain by dissecting a human body. That hands on experience is really the best way for me to truly understand.
I LOVE IT!

Family Fun!

2009-01-18T21:38:00.001-08:00

Can I just say that I love Jared's family? I am so thankful and feel so blessed that we have such wonderful family on both sides of our marriage.

One of Jared's cousins Zach is a vocal major at BYU and had his final performance this weekend. His parents, Jared's Uncle Mike & Aunt Gloria, along with one of his brothers Eli came down for the event. Since they were just a couple of hours away we had the opportunity to go visit them tonight and have dinner together. We had so much fun. They are a great group of people. Zach made us all some YUMMY chimichangas. Then he and some of his friends provided some music by singing and playing the piano while Addison & Urban danced for us. It was beautiful, they are all VERY talented! After that we just sat around and talked & laughed and played some wii. I wish we all lived closer, I would love to be able to see everybody more often.

Happy Birthday To Me

2009-01-07T15:43:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was my 29th birthday and I was S-P-O-I-L-E-D!

As soon as Addison woke up in the morning she said "it's your birthday, now it's time for a party!". I thought it was so cute that she remembered. All day long she tried to make a party for me. She would sing me the birthday song and make her musical toys play music and tell us we had to dance because it was a birthday party. She also informed me that we needed to get some balloons because a birthday party just wasn't a party without balloons. Then she insisted on helping me make a birthday cake. She is so funny, I love that girl. Maybe she'll go into party planning...who knows?

My amazing hubster left me a very sweet card so that I'd get it first thing in the morning. Then he took a lunch break and brought me some Panda Express, one of my favorites. YUMMY! For my present he got me a super cute Victorian jewelry holder. You know, the kind that's shaped like a mannequin. I love it!

My wonderful mom & dad gave me an adorable (& much needed) coat and gloves when they were here visiting. I was so excited. Then they sent me a cute home made birthday card and gift card to target (thanks to my dad's bad memory) in the mail. =)

My sweet in-laws got me a very generous gift card to JC Penney. I was instructed that I was not allowed to spend it on anyone but myself (they know me so well). =) Luckily they were having a huge sale so I got a lot of winter clothes that I was in desperate need of.

My fabulous sister Heather and her family gave me a gift card to Olive Garden (another favorite) and then watched the kiddos so Jared could take me out to a nice birthday dinner. When we got back all of the kids jumped out and yelled "surprise, Happy Birthday" and gave me some adorable birthday cards that they made for me. They even made me a cake.

I got lots of sweet phone calls, e-mails and blog messages from other family members and friends too.

See, I told ya I got spoiled!

Thank you so much to everyone for all that you did to make my birthday so special. It really was a great day. It felt so nice to be so well taken care of, I really needed that. Thanks again, I love you all!

Catch up!

2009-01-05T22:33:00.000-08:00

I am so behind on my blogging. I haven't really been on the computer for about a week or so. I haven't even posted about Christmas yet and I just realized that I also haven't posted about our "new" puppy or Urban's first steps. I know it doesn't really matter if I miss some things but this is how I keep track of what goes on in our lives so I like to have it documented. I also do it for the grandma's, I know they like it. So I've done a bunch of little posts real quick just to get caught up. They're not necessarily in chronological order.

Before I get into that though I just have to say that I hope everyone had a wonderful new year! Ours was a lot of fun. We had our first adult slumber party! Some friends of ours that we've known for years came to spend the night with us. Since they live about 30-45 minutes away and have a 4 month old and a 2 year old they decided to just put the kiddos to sleep and stay over night rather than drag their kids back home after midnight. Our kids all had a blast playing together while they were awake and the adults enjoyed a game of monopoly until about 2:30 in the morning. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures (I'm so bad about taking pictures). We all had so much fun we think we may make it a yearly tradition.

On a different note, I have my first Sunbeam! That's right, Addison is no longer in nursery. Can you believe it? I can't. I'm so excited for her but it also makes me kind of sad. I can't believe my baby girl is in primary. She loves it! And I'm so proud of her because when we went to get her after class her teacher kept telling us how good she was. She's so funny though because the thing she is most excited about is singing in Sacrament. For our Christmas program the primary kids all got up on the stand to sing a song and she was so sad because at that point she was still in nursery so she didn't get to go. Well, now that she's in primary she remembers that they get to go up and sing so on Sunday while we were sitting in Sacrament she kept asking me when she got to go up with the other kids and sing. I had to explain to her that that doesn't happen every week, just on special Sundays. She can't wait!

That's it for now. I'll try to do a post later on some of my personal resolutions and our goals as a family as well. Mostly just because it helps me to keep repeating them and to see them in as many places as possible. If other people know about them besides myself I may be more likely to follow through.

Walkin' fool!

2009-01-05T22:15:00.000-08:00

For those of you wondering, yes, Urban does finally walk. He actually took his first steps on Halloween night. He took quite a few steps that night and then a few more the next day and then he refused to walk for the next couple of weeks. I think he had secretly been walking for quite a while and then got upset with himself for letting me see him because he knew I wouldn't carry him as much any more and he'd lose his free ride! =) He didn't start walking again until right around Thanksgiving time and now he's a walking pro. It's so cute when he walks fast or tries to run, he looks so funny.

Here's a look at some of his first steps (the second round of firsts).

Here he is mid-fall.

Come to mama!

Don't pay attention to the ears, we were being silly.

PUPPY!

2009-01-05T21:55:00.000-08:00

So, we caved! Addison has been begging us for a puppy or a kitty for months and we finally gave in. The day after Thanksgiving we found an ad for german shepherd/doberman pups so Jared went to look at them. Of course he came home with one. How can you not get a puppy once you see their cute little faces and pet their floppy ears? You'd have to be heartless! Needless to say Addison was ecstatic, although she still wants a kitty. Urban was scared to death of him for the first 2 days. Anytime the dog would come any where near him he'd scream and fall to the ground. Silly boy! He's since gotten used to him and loves him just as much as the rest of us.

Anyway, here's our sweet little pup. He has the funnest personality. We had the hardest time thinking of a name for the little guy though. He's been Willis, Pups, Murray, Bruce, Chuck Norris, and a combination of all of these. Addison thought he should have a first, last & middle name (Pups Willis Murray). Poor puppy was probably so confused. Finally Addison picked Bruno (after Cinderella's dog) and that's what has stuck...so far. =)

I love to see the Temple

2009-01-05T21:38:00.001-08:00

It is always such a beautiful and spiritual experience to be on temple grounds. I love the Salt Lake Temple. It is absolutely gorgeous, especially at Christmas time. We went to see all of the lights and Nativity scene the day after Christmas. It was FREEZING and there were a ton of people there, but it was still very peaceful. I love the way the temple makes me feel. I've never been inside the Salt Lake Temple and I can't wait to do a session there. In fact one of my New Year's resolutions is to attend the temple regularly.

Christmas

2009-01-05T21:13:00.000-08:00

Christmas was wonderful. We had our first white Christmas, okay so Jared has had white Christmas' before, but it was a first for me & the kids and it was BEAUTIFUL! It snowed for a good portion of the day but somehow I didn't get any pictures. Everything was white, it was so pretty.

We got to spend it with my parents and my sister's family. I wish my brother could have been here too, it's been way too long! We also really missed all of Jared's family. We got spoiled living so close to them for the last 3 years. We'll have to figure out a way to see everyone soon.

As usual, the kids got way too much stuff, but it was so much fun to watch them. Addison actually understood that you got to ask for things you wanted and if you were a good girl then you would probably get them. She's really in to Barbie (I'm not quite sure how that happened) and the main thing she wanted was a Diamond Castle. Well, thanks to Santa (and a rebate incentive) she actually got one and it made her day. She's so funny though because she doesn't always show a lot of emotion, so unless you know her really well it's sometimes hard to tell how excited she is. Urban really enjoyed everything this year too, but since he doesn't have a lot of patience (really he doesn't have any at all) he would get upset with the packaging on his presents if it took us too long to get them free.
The puppy was pooped after ripping up all of the wrapping paper and chasing after the kids trying to steal their toys! =)

Santa

2009-01-05T20:53:00.000-08:00

Our ward Christmas party was so much fun. We ate yummy food and got to mingle with all of our friends. An older gentleman in the ward played his guitar and sang Christmas songs all night. He did a great job too, might I add. At one point he had all of the kids join him up on stage to sing songs. I was kind of surprised that Addison wanted to do it because she can be pretty shy sometimes, but that girl LOVES to sing. Later in the evening we had a special visitor...Santa came to see the children. We were so glad that he came because we had decided that we probably weren't going to take the kids to see Santa this year because of the incident last year. For those of you who don't remember, Urban was screaming bloody murder and Addison jumped off Santa's lap and ran to the safety of her grandma who was standing nearby! Again I was surprised at how excited Addison was to talk to Santa. She couldn't wait to tell him about the Barbie & The Diamond Castle toys she wanted.

We figured we wouldn't torture poor Urban (or Santa) by making him sit on Santa's lap. He's going through an "I hate everyone who's not mom or dad" phase, so I don't think he would have enjoyed it.

Gingerbread house

2008-12-21T17:06:00.000-08:00

Is it still called a gingerbread house when it's made out of graham crackers? I don't know. Anyway, we decided to make one the other day so I searched our house to find lots of fun stuff to use. I was amazed that I had so much random stuff that I'm not sure where it came from or why I even had it, but it was all perfect for a gingerbread house. I'm pretty sure that Addison ate more frosting than she put on the house. That girl has a huge weakness for frosting.

Urban pretty much has a weakness for anything that's edible, and even some things that aren't! But that's okay, we love our big boy.

Here's the finished product. Isn't it so cute? Addison did a great job. Okay, so I helped out a little bit. At one point Addison asked me what she could do to help. It was then that I realized I needed to back off. =)

This picture cracks me up only because of what happened afterwards. I wish I got shots of that because it was hilarious, but instead I was too busy throwing the camera down and grabbing Urban off the table before he completely sabotaged our house. See how Addison is just innocently admiring her house while Urban is looking at it devilishly? Well, in about half a second flat he moved from that position to being completely on top of the table, swiping his hand across the right corner of the front yard and shoveling it into his mouth. He was so proud of himself, but got very upset with me when I put him down on the floor. Addison looked completely shocked, like she wasn't quite sure what just happened. After adding a little bit more frosting, some "coconut grass", green sprinkles, gumdrops for the walkway and pez for the fence it was all as good as new.

Christmas Village

2008-12-21T16:31:00.000-08:00

We all bundled up the other night and headed down to Christmas Village. There's a manger scene, lots of fun lights and each little "house" in the village is decorated all cute and Christmas-y. Addison loved looking at all of the decorations. There was also a stage area where some girls were putting on a dance performance. She especially loved that, I think she would have stayed and watched all night if we let her. Unfortunately it was absolutely FREEZING and Urban wasn't quite enjoying it as much as the rest of us, so we couldn't stay all night. After sipping on some hot chocolate and watching one more performance we headed home for the night.

I don't know if you can tell in the picture, but we had Urban so wrapped up in layers that he couldn't really even move. His hands were permanently sticking straight out to the sides. Whenever we'd put him down to walk he would just fall right over which of course upset him greatly.

Here's Addison sitting and watching the dancers. At one point she started dancing along, I think she was just trying to keep somewhat warm. We knew that Urban had had enough when he didn't even bob his head to the music. That boy loves to dance and usually can't resist a good tune but this time he just sat motionless in my arms letting out a little whimper every once in a while.

My little ballerina

2008-12-08T19:27:00.000-08:00

Addison started her dance class today and she is the cutest ballerina EVER! It's a ballet/jazz class for 3 to 4 year olds and we are all so excited. When Addison gets excited about something she turns into such a chatterbox. She's been talking about her dance class for days and talked my ear off all the way to the studio.

I'm so glad that she's so into it because she can be difficult when it comes to trying new things sometimes. That's part of the reason I wanted her to do this. I don't want her to be afraid to try new things. That way she can discover her true talents and find the things she really enjoys. I also figured the social interaction would be great for her. I hope she does well but more than that I hope she has fun.

Here she is telling me that she would see me later because she was going to stay and dance with her new friends.

She loved her first day. When we went to pick her up she told us she didn't want to leave. Unfortunately I didn't realize until after her class that out in the lobby there was a TV that showed the classes going on so the parents can watch their dancers (see the previous post on what an airhead I am) so I'll have to do that next time.

I can't wait for her first recital. How cute will that be?

IT'S OFFICIAL...

2008-12-07T17:09:00.001-08:00

I am definitely NOT the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree!

There's been a lot of speculation for years as to how big of a moron I am. I am extremely naive and don't have much "street smarts". I am constantly having to ask Jared "what's that mean?" because there's a lot that I just don't get. I think I was able to fool people for several years due to the fact that I got straight A's all through high school and some how managed to graduate from college.

Well, tonight I am able to say that apparently it has all been a facade. I am, in fact, a HUGE moron.

Both of my boys are feeling sick today so I thought it would be nice to make some homemade soup. This morning I put all of the ingredients into the crock pot, set it to low and looked forward to a yummy dinner later on without a lot of hassle so I could focus on taking care of Jared & Urban. With about an hour left to cook I went to add some last minute additions. I thought it was odd that the lid wasn't hot and steam didn't come piling out when I opened it, but I didn't think much about it. I went on adding & mixing until I realized that the potatoes still weren't soft. Hmmm, I thought, that's strange. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to turn it to high to cook for the last little bit. I continued getting the bread ready to put in the oven when I stopped in my tracks. Wait a minute, finally it was all starting to make sense. And the sense it was making was that none of this made any sense at all. If the crock pot had been on all day long then none of this was possible. But I couldn't be dumb enough to have not turned it on...could I? No, of course not, but I could be dumb enough to not plug the darn thing in! "Are you freakin' serious?" I yelled from the kitchen so Jared came in to see if everything was okay. He just started laughing when I explained everything to him. Luckily we had chocolate chip cookies that were supposed to be for dessert that we are snacking on until the soup is ready on the stove top. Yes, I am writing this in the middle of this whole mess, apparently I have some time to kill.

I still can't believe I did that. Our delicious dinner that I've been working on all day and some how, amidst all the clues, I never realized that I didn't plug the stupid thing in.

So there you have it, that's my proof. There should be no doubt left in anyone's mind.

Okay, I know (at least I hope) that I can't be the only one to have done something so silly. So spill your stories, they'll be fun to read.

Now I better go make sure I turned the burner on.

elf dance

2008-12-04T12:40:00.001-08:00

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

2008-12-04T12:37:00.002-08:00

We've seen these on a couple other blogs and Addison just loves them. They are hilarious! We sit around watching them over & over cracking ourselves up. Enjoy!

Weekend Wrap-Up

2008-11-24T21:35:00.000-08:00

We had a pretty great weekend.

On Saturday I had a girl's night out with Heather and I haven't had one of those in I don't know how long. We started out by going to a craft store and getting some way cute gift ideas.

Then we went to Costa Vida for dinner. I had a sweet pork salad that was SO GOOD! I've been craving another one ever since.

After that we went to see Twilight. Can I get a WOO-HOO?! I loved this book series. They were so fun to read and I really got attached to the characters. I was actually kind of disappointed in the movie though. Of course movies that are based on books are never as good as the books themselves, but this kind of seemed like a low budget, independent film or something. Parts of it were really good (like Edward) but some were kind of silly. I'm still totally glad I went to see it though. How could I not after spending the last 2 years reading the books? The experience was a blast. I felt kind of bad for the husbands/boyfriends that were dragged to the movie by their wives/girlfriends because if you hadn't read the books (which I'm assuming most of them hadn't) I think parts of the movie wouldn't make a lot of sense and you just wouldn't be as into it as the hard core followers. Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to make Jared watch it when it comes out on video. =) I'm already super excited for the next one!

Last but not least we went to Chili's to get some dessert to bring home to the hubbies. We figured that by making such a nice gesture they'd be more likely to let us have another girl's night soon. Oh, and the lady who took our order thought Heather and I were twins which made my day since everyone thinks she's a super model. =) It was kind of weird though because the entire time we were there we kept saying the same exact thing at the same exact time. It was like we were sharing a brain or something. The lady kept laughing at us and giving us strange looks.

We also took the kids to see Madagascar 2 this weekend. They had a lot of fun. Addison was so cute watching it. She was laughing and cheering and clapping the entire time. She loved it! Urban was really good in the beginning. He would laugh and dance every time he heard music. That boy loves to dance! It's like he just can't help himself, if he hears music he HAS to dance. We went during his nap time though so once he got sick of eating popcorn & dancing he was not to pleased to be sitting still on my lap. We ended up spending half of the movie out in the van playing around. Oh well, it was still a really fun family time.

Today's Tidbits

2008-11-20T21:20:00.000-08:00

A conversation between Addison & me

Addi: (looking down at her hands in disgust) "Mom, I need to wash my hands because they're all dirty."

Me: "Okay. Did they get dirty when you were playing outside?"

Addi: (looking at me like I'm crazy) "No, because I was picking my nose."

At least she's honest!

Later in the evening, Jared & I were looking through a Victoria's Secret catalog that came in the mail (what? we were looking at the clothing section ;-) ). Well Addison came up and started looking at it too, telling us about all of the things she wanted. She liked the pretty mommy panties, make-up, lotion, pajamas, etc. (she has very girly, sophisticated taste). Jared didn't realize that they sold "real" clothing (what man does?) so when we got to that section he said "hey, this stuff is really cute."

me: "yeah, I know. I wish they carried it in their stores because I'd rather try stuff on than buy it from a catalog."

Jared: "That's stupid that they don't."

Addi: "Hey, don't call Heather stupid."

Jared & me: "First of all, that's not a nice word, daddy shouldn't have said that. But what are you talking about? Where do you see Heather?"

Addi: (pointing to one of the V.S. models) "Right there, that's Heather."

Jared & me: (laughing) "That's not Heather."

Jared: "Actually, that looks like Cindy Crawford."

me: "That's not Cindy Crawford, but Heather's going to love this story."

So apparently my daughter thinks her Aunt Heather looks like a Victoria's Secret model. Don't worry, I'm not bitter about this at all. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go cry myself to sleep! ;)

Tony

2008-11-17T19:53:00.000-08:00

I met a man a couple of Sundays ago who unknowingly taught me a very valuable lesson.

Urban was fussing during Sacrament so I was walking him through the halls at church when a man came walking in through the back doors.

"Who runs this ship?" he asked me in a gruff voice.

He was dressed in raggedy clothes and had scruffy facial hair. He smelled so strongly of cigarettes that it almost took my breath away. I explained to him that our Bishop is in charge but that he was in the middle of a meeting at the moment. I asked him if there was anything I could do for him. He went on talking to me for about 15 minutes or so. He told me that he was a hobo (his words, not mine) and that he travels around with a friend of his and their dog. He said that they usually hop trains to get to where they're going, but since it was raining so heavily the trains weren't running so they had nowhere to go. He didn't know how long they were going to be stranded here but he wanted to talk to the bishop about possibly getting a little something for a few meals. They had already gone to a local pet store and someone was nice enough to give them a bag of dog food.

I let him know that our meeting was supposed to be over in about 20 minutes and at that time I could ask the Bishop to come speak with him. He said he would appreciate it then continued to tell a little bit more about his life. He told me that about 10 years ago his wife & son were murdered by a 14 year old boy. It was at that time that he became homeless. He said he just gave up, he didn't care any more. He realized that it wasn't the material things that mattered. Then Tony looked me in the eye and said "this is going to sound bad, but in some weird way that happening was kind of a blessing because it was then that I found God. I can't say that I knew Him before that." I was speechless and trying to choke back tears. What a tragedy this man lived through and look what he got out of it. In many people's eyes it would appear that he's worthless and went in the opposite direction from what he should have. But in his own eyes he came out a better person and he was as happy as he could be considering what happened. He went on to ask me why it is that people don't like homeless people? He said that they don't steal, kill or try to take people's jobs. He said they just keep to themselves and try to survive yet everyone always looks down on them. He told me that sadly it was usually the "religious ones, people with crosses or fish signs (sorry, I don't know what those things are called) on their cars that turn the other way and pretend not to see him holding his sign". I wasn't quite sure how to respond to him. I told him that people usually aren't comfortable with what they're not familiar with and being homeless is something most people can't relate to.

To make a long story short, I went back to sacrament meeting and waited for it to be over so I could go talk to our bishop. Our closing hymn happened to be "Because I Have Been Given Much" and that was just too much for me to handle. I started bawling. I felt like such a fool but I just couldn't help it. I felt so overwhelmed with emotions of gratitude for all that I have and of sorrow for this homeless man I just encountered. I couldn't pull myself together. I cried all through the song and during the closing prayer and all the way up to talk to the bishop. Luckily Jared translated for me since I was crying so hard I couldn't really even breathe, much less talk. Our bishop was very sympathetic but said unfortunately since it was Sunday none of the church's facilities were open and since they don't just hand out money all he could do was refer the man to a local shelter.

I felt so bad. I didn't know what to do. I asked Jared what he thought we could do to help this man. He said that since we had just paid our last little bit of money to tithing there wasn't much we could do. Well, of course I was sobbing the whole way home so as we pulled into our driveway Jared said "let's go inside and fix Tony and his friend some food and I'll bring it back to him". I was so excited to do this. So we made a bunch of sandwiches and threw some snacks and a gallon of water into a bag and Jared drove it back down to the church. Of course by the time he got there Tony was no longer there, but Jared drove around the block a little ways and found him standing on a corner with his sign. He drove up to him and explained that his wife was the one talking to him at the church. He was so very grateful and appreciative for the food we had prepared for him but said he was disappointed in the church for not doing more to help. This made me so very sad because our church is so giving and charitable. I had understood where the bishop was coming from but apparently Tony did not. Hopefully our little gesture shed a little light onto the true spirit and kindness our church possesses.

I hate how emotional I get sometimes but I just can't help it in certain situations. I am just overtaken by such strong feelings. I'm pretty sure my bishop thinks I'm a nut. The next 2 times he saw me after that Sunday he came up to ask me how I was doing and make sure I was okay while assuring me that things like that used to really bother him too but it happens so often now that he kind of got used to it.

Anyway, I know this is a lengthy post, but I also wanted to attach the lyrics to the wonderful hymn that helped me to feel the Spirit so strongly.

Because I have been given much, I too must give
Because of thy great bounty, Lord, each day I live
I shall divide my gifts from thee With ev'ry brother that I see
Who has the need of help from me.

Because I have been sheltered, fed by thy good care,
I cannot see another's lack and I not share
My glowing fire, my loaf of bread, My roof's safe shelter overhead,
That he too may be comforted.

Because I have been blessed by thy great love, dear Lord,
I'll share thy love again, according to thy word.
I shall give love to those in need; I'll show that love by word and deed:
Thus shall my thanks be thanks indeed.

I realized that it's so easy for me to take things for granted. It's so easy for me to focus on the things that I don't have and that I want rather than be thankful for all that I do have which is truly so much more than I need. I need to kneel in prayer daily, even several times daily, and express heartfelt gratitude to my Heavenly Father.

I realized that I need to do more for others who may not be so blessed with adequate shelter or food supply or the same opportunities as me. I want to volunteer and help those in my community who may be less fortunate and be a good example to my children.

I was reminded that I should never judge others no matter what because I never know their circumstances or what they've been through. Even if I do learn of their story I still shouldn't judge because everything effects everyone differently.

I learned that love, something that takes absolutely nothing away from me or my family in any way, is also something that needs to be shared. I learned that love can be shown and shared in so many different ways. Even if it's just lending an ear to a lonely stranger who has a story to tell.

Please don't think I'm just trying to pat myself on the back by sharing this story. That is not the case at all, in fact I wish there was so much more I could do. It was really just a wonderful, spiritual learning experience for me so I thought I would share. In reality Tony did so much more for me than we did for him.

Thank you Tony. May peace, safety and health accompany you during your travels.

(All right, so I didn't make this a short story at all. Thanks for hanging in there.)

Where are you

2008-11-02T16:43:00.000-08:00

Scooby-doo?

Here are some pictures of Urban as scooby-doo since I didn't really post any last time. He looked so cute!

The kids had a blast trick-or-treating. We all got dressed up again and went around the neighborhood.

Urban was a little fussy in the beginning so we gave him a rice cake to keep him busy in his stroller. The first house we went to was our next door neighbor who is a sweet little old lady. Our kids have fun playing with her dog through the fence in our backyard. When our neighbor opened up her door her dog came running out, went straight up to Urban and snatched his rice cake right out of his hands. He started to pout a little bit, but we all started laughing so he realized it was okay. As soon as we got going again he was perfectly happy seeing all of the Halloween sights.

We went down our street and the street behind us and figured that was plenty of candy, especially since we still had so much at home. I was kind of surprised because Addison is so shy, but she went up to every door and knocked, said "trick-or-treat", let everybody ooh & aah over how cute she was, answer all of their questions and then say "thank-you" after she got some candy. Both of the kids did such a great job. We really had a fun night.

I'm sad to have to take down all of my Halloween decorations but am looking forward to the upcoming holidays.

Carving pumpkins

2008-11-01T11:59:00.000-07:00

We completely forgot about carving our pumpkins from the pumpkin patch until Thursday night, but that was the night of our ward shindig. By the time we got home we just didn't feel like doing it so the kids and I carved our pumpkins Friday afternoon so they'd be ready for Halloween night. Addison didn't want to touch the "pumpkin guts" because she doesn't like being dirty and I wasn't brave enough to let Urban get his hands on a raw pumpkin, although I'm sure he would have loved it (maybe if Jared was with us). So I ended up doing most of the work by myself while the kids watched. We still had a lot of fun. Urban just played with his little pumpkin and our pumpkin lids while Addison did whatever she could to help. She carefully tried to scrape the inside of a pumpkin, but when she accidentally flipped a seed up on to her face it was all over. She just looked at me trying not to get too upset saying "get it off, get it off!". I started cracking up at her reaction, or should I say over-reaction (after all, it was just one little pumpkin seed) so she finally started giggling too. She settled for letting me do the dirty work while she decorated the pumpkins. One of the kits we got came with glitter pens, so she went to work making the pumpkins sparkle and look pretty.

As you can see, Urban got a little wild and crazy with his pumpkin. This is why we call him "monster man". It's quite fitting.

Here she is apprehensively cleaning out her pumpkin.

Can you see the lone little pumpkin seed on her cheek?

Here she explained to me that her pumpkin was tired, so she gave it a hug goodnight. She has quite an imagination, I don't know where she gets half of the stuff she says from.

VOILA! The finished products. Addison picked out both of the designs. We had a fun afternoon carving pumpkins. Next year we'll be more on the ball so daddy can do it with us.

Trunk-or-Treat

2008-10-30T20:57:00.000-07:00

Tonight was our ward Halloween party. We had donuts & hot chocolate and the kids went trunk-or-treating. Addison and Urban looked ADORABLE. I want them to wear their costumes every single day. Addison didn't want to be a cheerleader at first but she finally came around and I'm so glad. She makes a perfect cheerleader. And I was kind of bummed at first that Urban was going to be Scooby because I was trying to find a different costume for him that I just wasn't able to find. But he was the cutest Scooby-Doo ever! Everyone loved their costumes and they had a blast getting candy (of course) and watching all of the other kids who were dressed up so cute. I was a little surprised that more adults didn't dress up though. I think there were probably only 4 other grown-ups besides Jared & me who wore costumes. I was a witch & Jared was a 70's basketball player (for those of you who couldn't tell). Since Jared & Addi's costumes coordinated we taught Addison the "Daddy, daddy, he's our man. If he can't do it no one can!" cheer. Here she is performing it.Ready, okay!

Mid-cheer

Yay! Woo-Hoo! Go Daddy!

She's so dang cute, I love that girl!

Oh, and just to clarify (since they have the same colors), she is a UNLV cheerleader not a U of U cheerleader. I gotta stay true to my school no matter where I live. =)

I'll post pictures of Urban tomorrow once I put him back in his costume. I didn't get my camera out until I had already taken his costume off.

BOO!!!

2008-10-30T20:47:00.001-07:00

Did I scare you?

We went "boo-ing" last night and made these cute little goodies.

We put some silly toys and treats in the bag and Addison helped me make the cookies. She was so excited about all the shapes we were using. Ever since we got "boo-ed" a couple of nights ago she's been excited to do it to someone else. When I explained to her what was going to happen (that we would quietly go to someone's door and put the treats down then knock and run away and hide) she just listened intently with a huge smile. When I was finished she said "that sounds like so much fun, it's a good story to me!" So Daddy & Urban stayed in the get away car while Addison and I delivered the goodies to the door. She did a great job being sneaky. Once we got back in the car though and she realized that we weren't staying to play with Avery (we "boo-ed" my sister's family), she was a little sad.

Pumpkin Patch

2008-10-29T21:19:00.001-07:00

The Saturday before last we took the kids to a pumpkin patch. We all had a lot of fun. There was a little farmer's market area with produce and pumpkins. Addison loved looking at the different shapes, sizes & colors of the pumpkins. She was so worried about picking one out. We kept telling her we would do it before we left so that we didn't have to carry it around with us. I guess she thought we'd forget because she kept asking us if she could go back and pick out her pumpkin.
There was also a petting zoo area with lots of fun farm animals. Urban was quite amused by them and Addison liked petting the cows.

In the middle of the field they had lots of fun activities to do. There was a bouncy house, little rides and lots of slides. Addi was being a little bit of a stinker and wouldn't go down any of the slides. But Urbi was having a blast riding down with his daddy. This picture cracks me up because that little boy in the red shirt was booking it to get out of Jared's way. I think he thought he was going to run him down! Unfortunately I was dumb and wore a dress (I don't recommend doing that) so I couldn't go down any of the slides without risking inappropriate exposure for a family activity.

We also went through a corn maze which was fun and confusing. We always get so turned around in those things. The kids were excited at first but eventually just wanted to

get out of there.

Last but not least we went on this fantastic hayride. Our driver was a lot of fun and made us sing songs and shout out "yee-haw" before he would go anywhere. He also went over all the bumps really fast (well as fast as a tractor pulling a trailer full of people can go) and made us all jump all over the place and get real familiar with our neighbors. The kids liked the bouncing. We rode out to the middle of the pumpkin patch where we got to pick out our pumpkins. Once we were done we got back on the tractor trailer to go back to our cars. As I mentioned before I wore a dress, well, along with that dress I wore high heeled boots. After I had picked out my pumpkin I started walking back to the trailer. I had Urban in one arm and my big pumpkin in the other. I'm sure you can probably guess where this is going...yep, I biffed it. As I started to fall I was contemplating in my head what I should do because obviously I didn't want to drop my child, (and this may sound awful)but I also didn't want to drop my pumpkin and have it splatter to the ground. I figured that maybe dropping Urban would be a good lesson for him, that lesson being LEARN TO WALK ALREADY!!! Maybe he would realize that his mom is not coordinated enough to walk for the both of us. Anyway, obviously I would never let my baby fall. Luckily I was able to catch myself with one of my knees so I could kind of roll my pumpkin to the ground and grab ahold of Urban. Can you believe that boy had the nerve to yell at me! It really wasn't like a scared cry, it was like a yell of annoyance. I think he was embarrassed. So was I! As I got up to assess the damage I realized that I was filthy. I was wearing dark colors so the dust & dirt showed up perfectly all down the left side of me. I had dirt all down inside my boot, a hole in my tights and little pieces of leaf stuck all over the cute scarf I had borrowed from my sister (sorry Heath). While I was trying to clean myself off I looked up and noticed that almost all of the other people were already back up on the trailer and just looking down at those of us still choosing our pumpkins. So of course I caught their attention by displaying my graceful pumpkin/baby juggling act. Man did I feel stupid, but I still had to laugh. It was quite funny and I learned a valuable lesson for next year...don't wear a dress and heels to a pumpkin patch. I'm not Heather, I can't pull it off. =) All in all it was a great day. We made lots of fun family memories.