PARTY PEOPLE IN THE HOUSE!

My parents came to visit over Labor Day weekend and they brought quite the party with them. In our family all 5 of the grand kids' birthdays fall within a two month period. (Kind of puts the pressure on when we have our next baby...early to mid September looks open!)

Avery---August 3rd

Caiden---August 19th

Addison---August 29th

Blaise---September 21st

Urban---September 30th

This makes for a busy couple of months and a lot of birthday parties. So this year my parents threw one big birthday bash for all of the grand kids. This means that each kid gets two birthday parties, one on their actual birthday and then the big combined party. How lucky are they? It looked more like Christmas than a birthday party. There were lots of kids opening lots of presents and of course lots of yummy party food. The kids all loved it, they had a blast. We all had such a fun weekend. Thanks Grandma & Grandpa for everything, we can't wait for next year!

Urban looks ready to fight Caiden for this one!

Avery's reaction when she opened her doll was too funny. I don't think I've ever seen that girl speechless before.

Grandpa helping Addison get her doll dressed. He forgot her underwear & his hands were too big to button her little shirt, but it was so cute that he tried.

WE WANT CAKE!!!

Happy Birthday Addison Rose!

On Friday my sweet baby girl turned 3 years old. I can't believe it! It's so amazing to me that a few years ago I wasn't even sure whether or not I'd be able to have babies and now I have two perfectly healthy, beautiful children. Addison is pretty much an average toddler. Here are a few of her likes and dislikes:

She LOVES princesses, shoes, kitties & puppies, Mickey Mouse, bubbles, jelly beans, chicken on the bone, picking her nose, singing "I Am a Child of God", both of her grandmas & grandpas, playing dress-up, watching Disney movies on mommy & daddy's bed, swimming, fruit snacks, oatmeal.

She HATES bugs, having dirty hands, washing her hair, sharing with her brother, being told no, taking naps, shows that aren't cartoons, peas.

For her birthday we went over to Aunt Heather's house and had a Little Mermaid themed swim party. She had a blast playing with her cousins and got a fun surprise when grandma & grandpa Van Rij came. We knew they were coming to visit this weekend, but we didn't think they'd make it in time for her party. She got lots of fun presents and got to eat yummy cake & ice cream. She had a really good day!

On a side note, for those of you wondering, you can kind of see my new hair cut in this picture. No, it's not the crappy one. My sweet mother in law took pity on me and sent me some money to go get my hair fixed. It actually turned out really cute. Keep in mind in this picture that I had been swimming so it doesn't look all that great. It's still a very common cut in this area (probably half the women in any given store I go into has the same cut) but it's 100% better than it was before and it's about all that could be done with what was left of my hair without just shaving it off.

I am

SO DUMB!

Okay, this is kind of embarrassing but I had to vent. So the other day I did something REALLY stupid. I was having a really ugly day. You know one of those days when you look in the mirror & just feel hideous and have the urge to do something, anything to change your looks? Anybody? Well maybe it's just me, but anyway I was having one of those days. So what did I do you ask? About the dumbest thing ever, I tried to cut my own hair. The keyword here being tried. As you've probably figured out it didn't turn out so well. One side was actually kind of cute, but as I tried to make the other side match, it just kept getting shorter & shorter & shorter. Eventually I decided to stop before I ended up with no hair at all. The end product was the left side being about an inch longer than the right side. I couldn't straighten it out. It was awful! I had my sister Heather even it out a bit so I could at least leave the house without completely humiliating myself. I finally decided to swallow my pride and go have it professionally cut. After explaining to the stylist how my hair ended up looking like someone took a chainsaw to it (man was that embarrassing) she went about trying to fix it without having to cut off too much more. If you can believe it I think it looks even worse. There's such a thing called "Utah hair". I know this sounds silly, but ask anyone who's lived here. It's this strange short, poofy haircut that everyone seems to have. Well that's what she did to me. I should have known not to let a stylist who has "Utah hair" herself cut my hair. It is NOT cute. I look like George Lopez with a shag haircut. Okay, so my face may be a little cuter than his (and I do mean a little) but my head looks gigantic. I'm not quite sure what to do now because I don't have much hair left to cut off and extensions are just WAY out of my price range. I'm so upset because I've got a lot of things coming up that have photo opportunities (both of my kids birthdays, our anniversary, the holiday season is just around the corner) and I do not want pictures taken of this monstrosity. Needless to say, my attempts at making myself feel better and more beautiful completely backfired. I feel worse than ever, but at least I have an amusing story to tell. It's all right, you can laugh. I would too. You've probably noticed there's not a picture of me, just my new best friend George. I'm not brave enough to take one yet, I don't want evidence of this mess up. Well I better get going. I've got to try to find ways to camouflage my giant head.

JDRF Walk

Most of you who know our family knows that Jared has type 1 diabetes. This means that he is insulin dependent and was diagnosed as a child. He found out he was diabetic when he was only 6 years old so he's now had it for 22 years. His nephew Hayden is also a type 1 diabetic and was diagnosed when he was 9. Between both of our families we have quite a few members with either type 1 or type 2 diabetes. I can't even imagine how hard it must be to live with this disease or to have a child who has it. There's so much you have to do on a daily basis to maintain your health. You have to monitor everything you eat so you can balance it out with insulin, you have to stick yourself MANY times a day to check your blood sugar levels and you have to give yourself several shots a day. The thing is I NEVER hear Jared complain about it or make excuses because of it, he just deals with it. That's all you can do is deal with it. Luckily there is effective treatment to help diabetics be able to live a mostly normal life. We are so close to a cure though, I have no doubt that there will be one in Jared's life time. JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation) is such a wonderful organization. It does a great job trying to get the word out about diabetes and also raises a lot of money to help find the cure. Every year it sponsors a 5k walk in many different areas to raise awareness and money. We did the walk in Phoenix and it was a BLAST! It's really geared towards family. They ask you to bring family members, friends, neighbors, dogs, whoever. They have booths set up with information, they give stuff away, have entertainment, food, bounce houses for the kids and lots more. I am so excited to do the walk again this year. It kind of caught me by surprise because here in Utah it's August 23rd so it's coming up pretty quick. I'm used to it being in late October or early November in Phoenix because they had to wait for it to be cool enough to walk. Anyway, our family will be walking this year and our slogan is going to be "We CAN make a difference". The reason "can" is emphasized is because of the fundraiser we're doing this year. Money is tight for everyone, so we thought we would save all of our soda cans and ask others to do the same so that we can recycle them. The money we get from that will all go to JDRF. So if any of you who use soda cans would like to donate to our team fund we would greatly appreciate it. We'll also be saving all of our loose change to contribute. I know it doesn't sound like much, but you'd be surprised how quickly it all adds up, and every little bit helps. If anyone would like to join us in the walk or donate to our team fund you can ask me about it or find all of the information at http://www.jdrf.org Our team name is Estes Family for the Cure and I am the team captain. We appreciate all of your thoughts and support and will post pictures after the walk.

Haircuts!

This blog comes with a disclaimer.

***If you have a history of getting upset with your daughters-in-law for not following your wishes then DO NOT continue reading.***

Jared desperately needed a haircut, so after much contemplation we also decided to cut the kids' hair too. This was the first haircut for both of them. I'm so sorry Dianna. I know that it's tradition to wait until the 1st birthday, but I just couldn't take it any more. Urban has needed his hair cut for at least 3 months now. It was so long, it went over his collar and covered up his ears. He looked kind of goofy, cute, but goofy. And my sweet Addison Rose, she's almost 3 years old and I've never been able to cut her hair. It's just so beautiful but I knew she at least needed a trim. And now it's kind of getting in the way when she sits on the toilet because it's so long. I couldn't bring myself to have them cut very much off. Just a little off the bottom and I also wanted her to have side-swooping bangs. I was kind of sad because I didn't get to see much of what was going on with Addison because I was holding Urban while he was getting his hair cut and they were done at the same time. Luckily Jared was there to take lots of pictures. Urban's stylist did a great job. It can't be easy to cut a squirming 9 month olds hair. He actually did pretty good though. He was smiling and flirting with all the girls. Addison did really well too. She was so excited to get her hair cut like Avery. We didn't tell her that her hair looks nothing like Avery's and luckily she hasn't caught on yet. Her hair turned out cute but I ended up cutting some more once we got home to make it look a little more like I wanted it to. Well needless to say they both look adorable. I think they could be bald and still be adorable. Here are some before and after pics.

Above: Do you see how badly this boy needed his hair cut?

Below: It makes him look so much older, it makes me sad!

There's not much of a difference here. She looks gorgeous no matter what and has such lovely locks. But see below with the bangs her hair just stays out of her face more and with the trim it's so healthy and flowy looking.

MEMORIES!

I first saw this on my friend Julie's blog and now it seems to be on everybody's. Small blog world huh? Anyway, it's a lot of fun to think back on these great times.

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I will assume you're playing the game and I'll come over to your blog and leave one about you.

Where in the world is that crazy Estes family?

I know I've left you all hanging but things have been quite crazy for about the last month. We just got internet service hooked up so I can finally give you all an update. To answer every one's question, yes, we did move to Utah (I'm sure most of you have probably figured that out by now). I know what you're thinking "didn't they just move to Las Vegas?" Yes we did, we were only there for about 4 months. What can I say? It's in our blood. Jared & I both moved around a lot as kids, so I guess we just can't quite quit the habit. =) Seriously though, I can't really give a great answer that will make complete sense to everyone seeing as how I'm a bit confused myself. All I can say is that we're just doing the best we can with the information we're given. When we moved from Phoenix, Jared & I both felt like Las Vegas was the place to go. Jared had two promising job opportunities that unfortunately both fell through once the move was already in progress. He must have filled out hundreds of applications and gone on dozens of interviews, but nothing ever came of any of it. And we all know about my experience, I'll spare you all from mentioning it again. So not quite sure what to do, Jared called a different branch of the company he worked for in Phoenix that is located in Ogden, Utah. The guy seemed very interested in hiring Jared but had to talk to a couple of different people and wait for some test results Jared had taken to come in before hiring him. This took several weeks and we were getting very frustrated and worried. After all we had been without income for 4 months now and had sold our car, furniture, and many other things just to get by. We were running out of stuff, next it was going to have to be the children! FINALLY we got the phone call we had been waiting and hoping for. Jared got the job...in Utah! This was great news, but we only had 5 days to pack and get up there. Now the Lord definitely works in mysterious ways because I was not on board with moving to Utah until after my interview incident. It wasn't until after that happened that I finally told Jared that I would completely support his decision to do whatever he thought would be best for our family, even if that meant moving to Utah. Now don't get me wrong, I didn't necessarily hate the idea of moving to Utah (although I am worried about the winter, I've never lived in snow) I just felt that we were supposed to be in Vegas for some reason. We both felt prompted to move to Vegas, but nothing seemed to work out once we were there. Except that is for our wonderful ward. We absolutely LOVED our ward. I'm so grateful to have been a part of it even if it was for only a short time. Who knows, maybe that's the whole reason we were there. Maybe we needed that ward and maybe I needed to learn to trust my husband a little more (I must say I'm very ashamed to admit that. I never realized I had a problem in that area...I guess I have control issues). We may never know exactly, and really it doesn't even matter. What does matter is that we kept our faith, we stuck together as a family and now we are in Utah and we are really enjoying it. The weather is great, it's beautiful, we live in a great neighborhood and have wonderful neighbors, I love being by Heather & the kids (although I miss everyone else) and Jared absolutely loves his job & co-workers and has great opportunity for advancement. We even have friends here already. One of Jared's friends that he grew up with in Alaska lives here, a couple that we went to temple prep classes with in Vegas lives here with their kids and one of my good friends who helped me make it through a Vegas singles ward also lives here. So to make a short story way too long, (sorry about that) that's what's been going on with us crazy Estes'! I've got a lot of catching up to do on everyone else's blogs. I can't wait to read about what you've all been up to. I'll try to post some pictures of the kids soon.