The Mayes Family

As long as its been...

2011-05-12T08:21:00.000-07:00

I still don't have a ton to write about. We've celebrated birthdays, Easter, Mother's Day etc etc.... I really should have SOMETHING to write about?? Everything around here is pretty low key. We are constantly going, but at some times I'm not really sure what it is that we are doing! :)

My new favorite picture! I love this one. The girls were actually excited to get their pictures taken. A had fallen asleep so she wasn't all that excited for pictures :) 2 out of 3 aint bad! The pictures of the girls on my wall (can't believe I'm admitting this!!) are from winter...two years ago! sigh. At least I got new ones tho!!! I took them so I could update Claudias wall :) But anyhow my main goal, which I've been trying to accomplish for 2 1/2 weeks now is family pictures! Between Eli's mixed up work schedule, his arm, and weather, its been miss. Every time! (Eli must have bumped his elbow hard enough to cause a severe infection (cellulosis) and has been trying to heal for two weeks now.

A actually enjoying a minute to watch some Tangled :) after her bath.

Chilling with her sisters

For the first time this year we "rolled" the eggs. It was fun:)

Orphan Elle :) (jk, I got to sleep in that morning so her hair was really quite something! And wardrobe. Oh well.... She had her special day at school. Grandma Marla, Aunt Kari and Gracie, BrookLynn and Eli and I were able to go. The class had nice things to say....heard a lot of beautiful's and cute's in the class' comments :) I have no problem expanding Eli's gun collection! Lol! She just smiled. We love our Elle! She adds a lot to our family. She is smart and likes to figure out things. She really enjoys relaxing.... lol.

We had a day where we accomplished a lot in our yard. It was a great feeling! There was a ton of clean-up, and de-junk-i-fying! Thanks to Isaac for letting us use his skidsteer, it made the work done in a fraction of the time! :) Hopeful we can start making the yard look great!! Ton of work ahead but its worth it!

E and I have been trying to train for our race....count down is like less than six week! Ah!! Between weather and a bad leg, I haven't got enough running in. It will be interesting!! :)

Confirmed. We lead a crazy life.

2011-03-01T17:54:00.000-08:00

E and I have been discussing getting a different vehicle. But keep coming to the conclusion that we really like not having a vehicle payment!! So we kept milkin the van. :) This last week I had some excitement with my van. It just wanted to stop working. I begged and pleaded, and cried and said loving words :) for it to come back to life. It was refusing profusely!! E was gone to work. I did manage to revive and milk it long enough to pick up B from activity days. Total frustration. But I have a loving father-in-law who got up extra early one morning and fixed his truck so I was set for a vehicle:) I SO appreciated it!! It made me feel pretty loved!
I was planning on a long quiet weekend at home. It was chilly and another batch of snow, made it even more inviting to stay put........ BUT anyone knows us, knows that can change in a blink of an eye! Sure enough E told me to bring the kids down to SLC for the weekend. I did say No. Promise. Actually I said no lots of times. BUT... After much persuation and begging.... Eli convinced me to fly down to Salt Lake.
I had been searching for new vans. (I know I totally just threw ya off with that comment! :) goes with the story I promise!) We needed something reliable, for when E is gone. And something that the heater worked in!! Yeah thats no fun in sub zero temperatures! I wanted to give up. Couldn't find anything. It was definately not going to happen anytime soon!! But it kept bugging me, so I would look more. Repeated this tons of times. Deep down we both wanted another surburban. But with as much traveling as we've been doing, we need something that would have better gas mileage. Sigh. So I studied and searched about the Honda Odyssey. Rave reviews, and they go and go and go! They are SO pricey. So before I packed up, I looked one more time. I found one that could possibly work!! I was stunned. I hurried and called E. Told him to call the guy and see if they still had it. (Yeah thats right....I hate makin phone calls too)
E called back and said they did.
So after a quick batch of laundry and clean up, we were off.....yet again. Flight was ok, kids were ok, so I thought we were good! When we made it to SL we went to go look at this van. I was pumped. It looked great. The place it was at Looked ..well a little dumpish? So we test drove it. First thing, a little light came on. Same one that always comes on in Claudia's van. Tire sensor. Then the gas light came on:) Ya, we couldn't go far:) Everything else was awesome! We filled the tire up and the light went off. Thats always good! So E talked to the guy, found out he is just like our friend in St G. Buys at auction and sells. He showed us reciepts for how much he got em for paid etc. Good guy, would totally send other people to him.
So..we proceeded with our weekend. Plan was come back following week and get the van.
We had a great weekend. It snowed down there while we were there. I was insta-peeved! LOL. I'm so tired of the snow!! We took the girls to Gnomeo and Juliet. It was pretty cute. Then come Sunday night the van subject came back up. E proceeded to tell me that the guy told him we could take it sooner! I was surprised. We were going to do financing with our bank at home. Tempting. Should we take it now? We were checking on our flight back to Wy and there was no way we were going to get on. Sign? E called on it first thing Mon morning. The guy totally was going to fix the tire and get it ready. Wow! K! We hurried to get going so we would make home at a good hour:) What a process. Taking the van with no financing, getting insurance on it... then we would have to drive 20 min farther north to get a tag. The sales guy even cut us a check for new tires and part of tax title etc. (good thing about utah, they include all that in loans) Then take E's car back to SL and head home!! Lets just say it was after 2pm before we left:) It was going to be a long night! Oh and to top it off....the sales guy had a partner who sold "our" van to someone else. Ya, that was crazy! The other guy was really P.O'ed I guess!
I was driving so E could get some sleep. We were almost to Evanston and that same tire light came on. I couldn't believe it! I wanted to panic, cuz the tire could very well blow out. I tried to wake E up but poor guy was out cold! I did stop and we were able to get four new tires. And it was at the tire shop that we found out that south pass was closed. We asked which way the wrestling team went the previous weekend when it was closed and off we went....again!! I couldn't believe the amout of deer we saw. It was by the masses!! It was ridiculous! I managed not to hit any! :) The roads were nasty in several places. Snow and ice packed for miles. I will ever be greatful for our snow we received here. The amount down on that end of the state was crazy. It was measured by feet not inches. It was taller than peoples fences! Along the roads it was taller than the van...you couldn't read road signs!! They were covered up. Not a good thing when you don't know where your going!! Ya, I'm fine with the amount here! Now I know how much worse it can get! We finally made it home at 2:30am.
Unfortunately, the next morning we all had dental appointments! This time we gave E a drink to kind of sedate her. It worked like a charm! She was playing in the play area after she took it. A little while after not seeing any results E asked if she was feeling tired yet. She replied, "Nope! Dad I'm feeling fine...." She fell over and was pretty much out!! She did great! B's dentist wasn't there and the other one that looked at her decided not to take the ramps off. That was pretty disheartning! her dentist said it would take two or three days to move that tooth. It looked like it has done the job, but the other dentist said wait longer. What ever!
This was pretty long, and i've probably not made much sense. I know I've forgotten lots of things I was going to say....but I think this will help me remember this little trip! LOl!

Oh the hormones.....and two for one!

2011-02-22T20:50:00.000-08:00

*warning...this is extremely long and there is the high possibility for rambling. Read at your own risk.... Oh, and sidenote. I can't remember where the camera cable is, so there are unfortunately no pictures. Sorry.

Sunday we were relaxing and A hit E in the mouth with her bottle. Tears were shed in large amounts (didn't help that night before we traveled home in the snow and got in a little late, then early rise for church) and we surveyed the damage in E's mouth to find a fistula above her teeth on the gums. I wanted to immediately freak out. *note..last year we had her in the dentist to find out that she had several problem areas. They wanted to put her out to do the work, but it all had to be paid up front....didn't work out at the time.
It was hurting her several days before and we had scheduled appointments for next week. Obviously that wasn't going to work. So we liked the dentist in Billings, and scheduled her to go in. I was so nervous.
Quick history:
The first time she saw a dentist, she wouldn't even open her mouth. Tears, screaming and plenty of drama. I had to hold her facing me, laying her down in my lap, her head in the dentists lap. (We had the best pediatric dentist!!!)
Second time, pumped, all worked up to be brave, and raunchy assistant shoves a bite wing in her mouth not only surprising her, but gagged the crap out of her. Scared the crap out of her. Scaring for life right there!

This would be #3. Third times a charm, right? Having some dental backround, I was priming her of what they would possibly do, what they would put in her mouth etc. I think I made myself slightly sick, for the possible outcome. I could tell she was nervous, trying to put on a brave face.
Eli made the appointments Monday am. Yep, he scheduled B too. Just to get in, get her cleaning done etc at the same time. We get there and B goes in first. She is a champ. She has had a filling and cap done before. She didn't flinch and was awesome. Eli went in with her. A little bit later they took E back. I could have swore I heard her heart beating a million miles a minute. I wanted so bad to had the work done on me and take this away from her. I was even more heartbroken when the lady working on her was so scatterbrained. She was all over the place. I was so close to telling her to get all her crap together and take five to relax. D.I.S.A.P.P.O.I.N.T.E.D. Big time. I tried to smile and be brave for her. This lady didn't listen when I told her that we've had some bad experiences etc. and she would need to be gentle and explain what she's doing.
Ya, she told me that sometimes they do better without a parent in the room. SIGH heard throughout the office right there!! this close to telling her where to shove it. Of course come time for pictures she was getting ready and thinks its time to push the button when she realizes she didn't have this or that ready.
Sorry, I am really rambling here...... this part didn't go so swell. She tried taking pictures, cleaning, and getting a treatment plan ready because they would do some of the work that day.
To top it off the office part of this equation, was screwed up too. I wish I could explain this better!! (Ramie, if your reading this, I really should have told the story to you, and you would be able to put it beautifully!!!)
Eli came out of the cleaning with B and was working on some paperwork. B needed some work done too. They already had her back working on a pulpotomy with crown and making a "ramp" to fix her crooked teeth in the front. So I went back to be with her till they got Elle back in to work on her. (so they got teeth cleaned and treament plans, then let them go out into waiting area, before taking them back in to work on them. Is this making sense?!)
They were working on the ramp when I got in. I wanted to cry when I saw it. It was HUGE and gangly. I thought for sure this wasn't close to the finished product. Yea. It was. What little person needs issues like this? She's in second grade for pete's sake!!! You want to leave her tooth like this for a week? DO YOU KNOW HOW CRUEL KIDS CAN BE?!!! AHHH! I'm really loosing it here. What this "ramp" was, was build up on her top front tooth and front bottom tooth. Like big. It would correct her bite in a matter of two to three days. She would be so annoyed with the bite, that she would bite, bite, bite all the time, causing the teeth to move. Right then and there I was not going to let her go to school the rest of the week. For her sake. She got done and was tired, not liking the numbness etc. So we headed out to the front. The lady at the desk told me they had already taken E back in. Then she needed some info that Eli had. I proceeded to ask which room they had her in so I could get the info. She looked at me like I was stupid. I drew her a picture, that Eli had the info with him, and he was in one of the rooms.....get my drift lady?? So on her cute little earpeice (everyone that works there has these cute earpieces. Walky-talkies to communicate etc) She proceeds to ask
...."all assistants....which opratory is Elle in.....Silence. No response.
Again. "All assistants....which room is Elle and her dad in? Still silence.
I walk around the corner into waiting room to see my sweet #2 daughter and her daddy still waiting to go back. I was ready to leave.
E finally goes in for some major tears, drama, mourning, lamenting, shaking, crying.... They were going to pull the bad tooth. She FLIPPED when her mouth went numb. Wow. They got the tooth out in a matter of seconds. It was all over. She was crawling to get out of there as was I. She then tells on way out the door, "mom, I screamed as loud as I could." :)
oh yeah. It was that good!
Eli was in the car with B and A. B was working furociously on a bottom tooth. Like going crazy on it. I asked her what in the sam she was doing. She replied happily, "trying to pull my tooth out!.... while my mouth is numb!!!! Elle had accidently hit her tooth that morning, and made it slightly loose. Wow.
We were still trying to be patient and upbeat for them to make them comfortable and happy. I was starting to really struggle! Elle continues to freak out (she has gauze in her mouth) that theres too much blood on it and wants a new one. It dawns on me that they forgot to give her gauze and her prescription. Back in I go. B ordered some tissue so she could pull her tooth.
:) I get the stuff and make E happy.
I asked if I could assist B. She happily obligued. I yanked it out. Now, the tooth fairy has double duty tonight.
Later on we discovered that B obviously can't close her mouth all the way to chew. So another stop to get some soup and a shake. :)

Moral of the story.... there isn't one.
I was so exhausted, and I'm even more nervous for the return trip on Tuesday!!!

busy doin....nothing

2011-01-23T12:39:00.001-08:00

Not much here, just ordinary days doing ordinary things......like
playing in the clean "sock box" at least their clean right? :)

Someone is trying to perfect the climbing thing
Now its a game....mom is watching and she even has the camera!!!

Playing with cousins......for a WHOLE day!!! They were in hogs heaven! It was great :) We even went to the "popcorn show" and watched Yogi Bear. So I had to capture this. They were singing this "Ride that Pony" game thing. It was pretty cute, and to top it off the costumes!! The pink one A is wearing and the red one little A is wearing were mine back in the day!! Crazy! I was their age!!!

The BOSS.

Trying to keep up :)

..."side to side to side....."

".....baby back to back to back......"

We've watched B cheer her little heart out at the cheer camp and her performance at the Boys Bball game the other night. Pretty cute. She could not wait!

Tired of the camera. Really. (Glad "K" wasn't!! She was smiling for me!!)

Someone was a little sad about her recent upgrade and doesn't want to leave her old carseat behind!! She loved to sleep in this thing! On our last little flight the baggage department took oh-so-loving-care of her seat! *cough* I don't know what kind of rock and hard place it was in, but it sure got a good number on it!! :)

These two. Love/hurt relationship.

A and G are too funny. She starts to get pretty flustered if her mom or dad leave her anywhere within reach of A! She looks around like someone Help!!! A loves on her with noggins, and kisses, and love "taps". :) All A wanted is someone to play with!!!

Come ON!!

.....and your going to just stand there and take pictures?!!.....

Blink rapidly. It might not hurt as bad!!!

And we've been flat out tired:)

B was asleep. And yes, E really is asleep. She can fall asleep in any crazy contortion! :)

Just an ordinary day:)

Ava

2011-01-14T20:40:00.000-08:00

In December we decided that A has had enough ear infections. We took her in when I suspected another ear infection and sure enough both ears were infected and Dr. K confirmed she probably needed tubes. So we set up an appointment with a Dr. in St. George. He was actually the dad to her old pediatrician. So I knew he had to be good:) That Dr. said she would definately benefit with the tubes so I set up an appt to get them done. With several changes and other circumstances we weren't able to get there until this last week.

They have a retarded policy that states if its been over a month since the check up then we have to have another appt confirming she needs them. (we were a couple of days over the 30) Total waste of time! They scheduled us with a different dr. and he was confused when we came back in. He asked if we needed another opinion or what? So he looked in her ears and had his intern look. Then without saying anything to us he asks the intern what he saw. The intern replied that her ears were red. No fluid. Looked ok. I told them she just got off antibiotics so?.... he told me she was teething. Please Dr. tell me something I DON'T KNOW!!!

So needless we were pretty confused. I knew how many infections she's had her first year of life! Its this never ending cycle where she gets infections, takes antibiotics... almost recovers and we already have the next bout with them. I was so frusterated, as her mom I know she doesn't sleep, chronic infections, always pulling at them? Anyhow, long story short E and I decided to do it anyway.

Her surgery went very well and the operating Dr. told us she had fluid in one ear already. We are happy and felt good about our decision. She was back to normal that evening:) We hope that this helps her! We love this little girl!!

Christmas!

2011-01-13T19:24:00.000-08:00

I'm looking back at the pictures I took for christmas......depressing. Very. Depressing. I took a few while the girls opened their christmas jammies on C-Eve. Then a few that morning. Thats it!! Eli had to go to work on Christmas morning, I was glad he was able to be with us that morning, but it was still pretty hard having him gone. Later that day we relaxed and ate way too much food!!
The girls slept in for awhile but I think we finally got going around 8:30:) But going back to Christmas Eve we chilled with Eli's family before the whole Mayes clan gathered and did the traditional party. We had dinner and had a small program and sang songs. It was fun, and felt the spirit. We had a video given to the women in our ward, and it was so neat. It really brought the spirit about that first night so long ago. I watched it with the girls and they really liked the pictures:)
One thing for sure?? Time to get some family traditions going.

I threw this one in just cuz:) too funny...how could I not!!??

I'm back!

2010-12-30T19:37:00.000-08:00

Wow this is a record. I've been gone forever it feels like:) I'm wondering how to do this justice, but since my memory lasts about.......this long.........I'm toast! Oh well, there might be several parts to this. Things are the same here....school, church calling, family......repeated!
The girls during their christmas concert. They did a good job. E wouldn't smile for me, she was very focused!

Too far away to get a good pic of B :( She did smile for me however!! School concerts are aways entertaining in some way!

Before the concert:)

The 9th of December B was Baptized. I can't believe it. She is getting all grown up on me. She loves to make others happy and help in any way! She is my right hand most days:) Her baptism was great. She had lots of friends and family there to support her in her decision. Taking her pics was another thing:) I felt so bad, the day we took them it was so cold!! She was freezing. but was a very good sport about it!

This one was one of my favorites

Her and her daddy right before she was baptized:)

Quick family pic:) oh so happy bunch huh?!

Right before the baptism her cousin Gracie was blessed. It was an extra special night. E and I sang a song. Its called What Heaven See's in You. It was pretty emotional for me. Good thing E held it all together for me! The song talks about three of the white dresses girls choose to wear. The first being blessed, second baptism, and third their wedding dresses. This was really special for these to share on this night. :)

Sisters

B had a friend party this year. She's been so excited. She wanted a under the ocean theme:) The party grew pretty fast, we had 20 little girls come over. We played some minute to win it games and did cupcakes and presents. She had a great time and got a lot of really nice things.
Some of her decorations.... we surprised her and decorated the basement

Even Jack Frost decorated for her very special day! It was beautiful! I love it

We are to Thanksgiving....and its getting more pathetic. I've been so lax on taking pics! The girls were watching tv at grma Marla's on her bed. They were so cute. This is a completely normal "pose" to find Elle in. She's hilarious on the contorsions she gets in!

Boys cooking the birds!! They were yummy!

More girl time! They were playing the Wii. It was so cute and funny at the same time to watch them!!
AND...... another milestone.....our little baby turned one on November 3rd! Tear! I wanted to cry its gone by so fast! She is so funny. I don't remember B and E being so onery at this age! She gets into everything! Its one mess right to another and to another...etc! It makes me feel old just trying to keep up! She has a sweet little personality. We love her to pieces!

One of the favorite things she got.....her own Pepsi!

Not a huge fan of the fire on the cake.......or the singing! It was so funny! She kept this sad face on the whole time!
She is like E, didn't want to tear into the cake! She just licked some of the frosting off:)

She liked this little scoot and zoom.

Day Getaway....and what a fabulous day it was!

2010-11-02T18:16:00.000-07:00

For quite some time we have been trying to plan day getaways. Go somewhere during the day a jet back home! Try new places, food, and see new things! So finally we made it happen!!

Wow, Yesterday was certainly a very long day.....but it went by so fast! The biggest regret I have is not taking my camera!! I wasn't sure what we were going to do and lugging my huge camera around didn't sound like fun. Oh I regret it. This was a hubby and I getaway without the kiddies.

Day starts out at 3am.
4am- Drive to airport
6am- Fly out
7:25am- Land in SLC
7:45am- Enjoy a Caramel Pecan Cinnabon. It was so yummy!! :)
8:30am- Depart SLC to San Diego. I was excited because I didn't have to fly on a Brazie! :)
9:30am- Land in San Diego!! It was so beautiful!! The weather couldn't have been better! We officially begin the day!

Flying was stress free, childless and pretty relaxing!
We ended up going down to Coronado first. Its a little island. The bridge going out there is pretty cool. The island is pretty nice. Its clean and the "vibe" is pretty cool. Eli said that if any panhandlers come out they are personally escorted back! We went to the beach. It was clean and the sand was amazing. It has a lot of black color in it, but it had gold shiny flecks in it. Seriously looked like glitter! We found some shells for the girls and i found my sand dollars!
We also went to Point Loma Lighthouse. Funny part, we had a navigation "dealio" in the car, but we still didn't run it right and spent a little time turning around a lot, and backtracking.. those of you who know us, know thats common no matter where we are!!
We finally found it (Lighthouse) and it had an amazing view!! We even saw a submarine leaving the bay, that was pretty cool since we've never seen one in real life :) The Rosecrans AF base was right there. The huge navy ships in the harbor were awesome! We checked out the tidepools and headed to go get lunch! I was pretty excited. Yeah, I love food. That's all there is to it! LOL!
We decided on the Cheesecake factory. It was pretty dang good! I had a huge loaded burrito. It was over a foot long! Needless to say, I didn't need dinner that night, and it made a good lunch today! Eli had a mushroom burger. We shared a piece of White chocolate raspberry truffle cheesecake. Yum! I think all I really needed was some good food! I thought a pedicure before we left would really top off the day! So by force, Eli and I both enjoyed (for the most part) one. Poor Eli's feet are down the epidermis layer. (Or whatever the most inside layer of skin is!) The lady acted like she had a sand blaster, and went to town on his feet:)
That was our day! It was wonderful! When we left, the sun was just going down. Perfect pictures.... in my mind. The sunset was so cool. The colors were very intense! It just got better as we flew above the city. Looking down on the city was pretty cool too. It wasn't like SLC or some other cities we've flown over. Despite being so huge, the streets aren't straight, very curvy, spreading out everywhere. The interstates and main roads looked like a gold stream flowing through. I could go on and on! I had an amazing day with my hubby. It couldn't have happened with out Claudia and Lafonda's help watching the littles!! THANKS so MUCH!! We love you guys and owe ya!!
I'm pretty greatful that Eli's job allows us to get on a plane whenever we want and go pretty much where ever! We are planning our next adventure already!

Halloween!

2010-10-31T19:00:00.001-07:00

Happy Halloween! We were excited to finally come over to Grama Great's Chili dinner! Grama always makes chili (and tons of other soups) for Halloween. I was so glad to get monster cookies :) those have always been a favorite! Thanks a ton Grama!! It was fabulous, we love you!!

Our little witch

Refuses the hat

It was fun to get some snapshots of the littlest littles :) They were so funny... can you see their personalities?!

Hands in mouth..... check.

All three looking at the camera? Really? That never happens!!

All smiles

Cutest little frankenstien i've ever seen!

Cute little sweet pea!

Even seranated by Hannah Montana! It was pretty cute. B & E went with Grama Marla to Cody. They were going to go Trick or Treating with her up there. They were so excited. Ended up only Lovell was doing the Tor T on saturday night! Too funny, she said that people would answer and say, "just a minute.....let me go get something!" They were spoiled rotten. Thanks Grama!! Ava and I chilled in Lovell :) We tried to get some sleep, but for some odd reason Ava doesn't think she needs any sleep!!! Some nights are defiantely better than others, but we've tried several things. (feeding her right before, etc.) any ideas are greatly appreciated! LOL

K-Bob :)

2010-10-11T15:39:00.000-07:00

Here is a sneak peek for Bob's senior pics. :) I couldn't decide which ones to put on.... only 64 to choose from! :)
I can't believe my big little brother is going to graduate already!!

My fav! :)

Oh where do I start?

2010-10-07T19:10:00.000-07:00

I guess its a quick post to try and catch up? I've been busy....and never feel like posting! I feel so bad that its been so long! So many things have gone by with no mention, and I will forget some too. :( The girls started school. I wanted to do a dinner and fun stuff for them....but the schedule was so full (I can't remember exactly what it was that was going on now) and I procrastinated I'm sure of it!
Eli and I celebrated our ninth year of marriage. I didn't even do a mushy post about him! :)
Very sleepy looking bunch!! They were used to sleeping in...lol!

First year of school!! Kindergarten!! I asked her if she wanted me to walk her to her door, and do know what her reply was? "No mom, we're good!" Oh tear!! Ya I fought those tears on my way home!! Totally taken off guard by that!

Another funny thing she said today. I told the girls they had to clean their room if they wanted to have any play dates. Elle was really dragging her feet and I asked her several times to get in her room and get it done. She finally told me (as she was layin on the couch) "We don't get naps at school mom. I'm tired!!"

Ava "helping" remodel the kitchen with dad

Elle turned six on the 10th of September. She had a blast. The whole family was there and she got some fun stuff. She loves her new cowgirl boots!! She goes out to feed our horses with Eli and it makes her day when she gets to ride them!! Ava even had her fist horsey ride on the 14th. She got excited and did a little hyperventalating laugh. It was pretty cute!

E passing out her pink cookies to her class

And most recently... We got Tyler and Kari married!! It was fun (and a bit stressful *cough* at times) lol. And i'm going to cry if no one got any pictures of reception etc, it was so stinkin busy we couldn't even get a break until it was time to take down!! Congrats "Kiwi" & Tylah!! We love you guys, and wish you the best of luck!!

Isn't she gorgeous?! :)

A bit about Ava since we've neglected so long! She took her first steps on the 25th (Sept). I couldn't believe it! She is walking longer distances...its pretty cute. She has quite the personality already! She knows what she wants!! I want to cry cuz she turns a year next month... I don't know where time has gone!!! She does not sleep worth poo. Up several times a night.... I wish I new why. She's pretty restless, and grouchy acting. Its weird. And very annoying after a night...going on what, ....two months!!! She was only waking up once around 5am. Don't know what happened! :) But we couldn't love her more. She is a lot of fun and pretty funny.

Lagoon

2010-08-01T12:27:00.000-07:00

Sorry if the last two posts didn't make much sense. Ava is teething and being a major pill so it was on and off for a couple hours just to do a post! :) We flew back to SL on Wed morning to go back to Lagoon. When we were coming out of the ticket line we ran into our friends from St. George! We had no clue they were going to be there. So we met up with the Edwards and had a busy day playing! The kids kept going going going! It was nice to be able to switch the kids so everyone would get a chance to get on a ride! We had a ton of fun. Now we are trying to decide what we are going to do next!
*I had to clarify this just for me.... I'm so confusing I don't even understand myself! Now thats bad....

Part 2- of Where do we start?

2010-07-31T16:10:00.000-07:00

We've moved the boys....

And we've even taken some pics of the new babies.... aren't they so precious!!

Mason

Gracie

Gone fishing....

Broke the pole..... so sad!

mom to the rescue........kind of. (mosquitoes were horrible)

Gone on wagon rides.....

More pics from our hiking....

looking upstream

Wow....where do we start?

2010-07-31T13:47:00.001-07:00

I guess I'll just start by saying we've had a lot of fun lately! Its been busy busy, but still lots of fun and worth it! Mr. M had some discount tickets from work to go to Lagoon so we went! Flights looked pretty bad for us to fly out on friday evening (23rd) so we took the 6am flight out. Grma M let us crash at her house so we didn't have to have a super early morning. One of Eli's buddies from work (Brady) let us crash at his house to get some rest. That evening we went to a parade in Bountiful with them. It was super busy and HOT! The girls were disappointed that they didn't throw very much candy, and it was crazy difficult to fight off the other kids :) They met Brady's daughter and loved her! She is a cutie. Brady had the rest of his family there, and come to find out they are related to some people here! The girls met two of his neices, and had a blast. We ate and watched fireworks with his family that night.

Cloie....haha! Thats what we thought her name was. Its actually Claire. :) So sorry Brady and Melissa!

The next day we went to Lagoon. The girls couldn't take it all in! They swam and played and played.

We ate some yummy treats!

And did plenty of walking.....

Ava got lots of attention because of her doo-rag. We kept it wet to help keep her cool and doubled as a hat:) We ran into the Edwards Family while we were there. It was nice of them to let us hang with them for a little while! :) We made a play date for the following Wednesday to go back. Lagoon was having a bounce back for ten bucks. It was great!

The next day we came home, went to church, and went up to the mountain with the Hendershots. It was fun! The only downfall was the bugs. Sqeeter spray didn't help and there was another huge bug that felt like it would get stuck in your hair. Nasty! We went on a hike the next day. It was awesome! I loved the excersize, but thought I would probably kill over.

Mike took the girls on a bike ride

The end of our hike. It was gorgeous! Little scary, but so cool!

Water pools then falls, pools then falls etc.

Blynn had a minor owie. She survived :)

Tickled Blue!

2010-07-13T17:37:00.000-07:00

We are so excited to Welcome Mason Beau Leithead (spelling is to be determined yet, i think) into our fam! Kyle and Catherine welcomed the first boy (grandchild) into our family this morning at 9am. He is so handsome! He weighed 8lbs and was 20in long. Congratulations Kyle, Catherine, and girls on your new addition!!

Its going to be so much fun with these two new babies!! (side note: Ava is not exactly thrilled with being dethroned. She has much to scream about when I held Gracie!!! I'm thinking she doesn't like her new cousins so much! lol)

The Arrival

2010-07-07T22:14:00.001-07:00

This will be a quick little post..... Gracie Mae made her debut today 7/7/10 at 7pm. She weighed 7lbs 15oz and was 19 1/2 in long. Kari had her doc app this morning and came home and started progressing. Around 3:30 we started timing and about 5:30pm they went to the hospital (water breaking on the way) She arrived to the hospital almost fully dilated, so there was no time for meds :( and Gracie arrived at 7. She is beautiful and makes the sweetest noises :) Kari did amazing. Congratulations Kari and Tyler!!! She is an "Angell" lol!!

I'll take more pics tomorrow....

Thanks!

2010-06-30T16:42:00.000-07:00

Thanks Mark and Shayla for putting up with my crazyness!! You are guys are great.....oh and J & S are so stinkin cute!

She's off!!

2010-06-30T14:13:00.001-07:00

Well, she figured it out. :) :( I can't believe that she's mobile now. She didn't like to roll so that gave me a little longer, but she did it last night. It was fun watching her try to figure it out. She was really good at the push-up stance. Her poor little toes :) She is too funny. I'm seriously behind on her visits and well checks. I did take her in last Saturday and she weighed 15.6 pounds. Very healthy! I think her two front upper teeth are going to make an appearance soon! I noticed that her gums were swelling up. That explains her nasty several day grouchy-ness!!?
She is started laughing more. Its so cute. I love it. She's pretty stingy with what she laughs about!
She still doesn't sleep through the night. :( Here's hoping that changes soon! One of her favorite things to do when being held is scratching or pinching your arm, back of your arm....etc. Painful! Ava is our little scheduler. She keeps me on track. Demanding meals....etc,... at the same time everyday. She lets me know when I've gone past that time!
So grateful for such a sweet little angel! She has a funny little personality that contains some serious attitude! When she gets upset or mad, she straightens out her arms and lets out a shriek/growl. Very amusing!

Let the baby proofing begin......again! :)

Mustang Days....the parade

2010-06-26T16:38:00.001-07:00

We decided to put the girls in the Kiddie parade this year. So Catherine and I made some skirts for the girls. They loved them and couldn't wait to see the Dollies! We also made them some garters. We noticed that BLynn hiked up her skirt just so the Dollies could see that she wanted to be one!! It was so cute :)
It rained and blew during the Kiddie Parade so we pretty much ran. Poor Ava was freezing. Sorry the pics are so blurry, the girls kept trying to keep up with us when we ran ahead to get a good pic of them!

Showing off their garters:)

Ava pooped all over, so we had to rebath and do a quick wash on her skirt:)

Swim, storms, and not much else :)

2010-06-23T21:17:00.001-07:00

This is Ava enjoyed the storm :)

Our flooded driveway. Another nice "spring" storm.

This is what happens with sunscreen. Seriously! He applied it several times. (Isn't he a hottie?) Are you loving the mohawk look? He just ran the Ragnar Relay Race in Utah this past weekend. Him and Kaleb both shaved their heads (mascots?) for the race. It went well and they did pretty good. I need to get their pics posted from it. Congrats K-bob and babe!! I'm proud of ya! :)

We love summer....ps- summer will you please kick in now?? I miss warm.

Rescue Me

2010-06-18T20:02:00.000-07:00

I am sitting here deciding on whether or not to post this :) I feel so spacey today and mixed emotions. Go figure. THIS IS A LONG DRAMA POST. please be aware:) dont' say I didn't warn ya.
Last night I threw some things together for this weekend. Laundry was semi done. (folding/putting away fairies failed to show up....AGAIN!) I had the girls' things together. I just had to throw a couple of things in my suitcase and I felt like I should be good. I become pretty OCD when I do stuff like this. My plan was to go to St. George and take some pictures. Everything was arranged and ready to go.
I awake this morning and got busy. Jumped in the shower while B ate breakfast and got ready for school. We hurried out the door and started driving out of the yard. Man! The van is driving wierd. What the??? It instantly hit. Flat tire. CRAP!!! Pull back in the yard and figure that we can grab the bikes and ride over. Seriously?? They are still in pieces from the move....the time it would take to put them together....... K, fine I will call Kari. Called....no answer :) I really don't want to bug Catherine, but I was quickly running out of options!! so I tried....no answer :) Ha!!! What am I doing wrong!!!?? Kari calls back and takes B to school.
In my head at this point in time, I was a mess. Change the tire....what to take to Cody.....Bathe A get E ready.....Tire? See? Any normal person would calmly figure this all out. Eli is the calm one. Was he here? Nope.
K. Quickly change my clothes and change the tire. Get the stuff out and get the jack ready. Try to loosen the bolts. No go. Try again and again.... and again. I realize I am quickly running out of time. Going to miss my flight.
Run back inside, bathe A. Do E's hair. Get myself ready. Make other arrangements to get to Cody. Throw the rest of our crap together and get out the door. Late. One thing I can't stand is being late. I still had to run out to my dad's to check flights. Not Good. At. All.
Driving to Cody (Kari saved the day once again) I felt like a mess. Tears would flow very easy. :) I tried to figure out my options. Talk about mumbo-jumbo mess! I could make the first flight. the next one I might possibly get on with an S2. How many do I have left?? Can I get there in time to get my rental if I couldn't get on the first flight? There were lots of other factors making this very difficult. My brain hurt:) My baby has been un-usually grouchy the last couple of days....
I got to the airport, thanked Kari, kissed my baby bye and ran inside. I checked in and the nice fellow at the counter proceeded to tell me that they were asking for volunteers. WHAT??!! You mean??? K, here we go again. This wasn't the flight I was worried about!!! And in Lamans terms, when they are asking for volunteers, it means there are NO seats for standby's!!! None! Zilch!! Nada! No chance to get on. My heart dropped. There was no way to get there.
Longer story shorter....
Get home try again to change the tire. No luck. Realize I can't find car keys. Search EVERYwhere. Take girls swimming. Get back, try tire again. Going to try again when Uncle Richard and Mark show up. I wanted to bawl. :) Such a great feeling to be rescued. (Feel bad they had to do this) Try to find car keys. start calling places I been today. Back track. Tried to open it myself with Eli's slim jim. Gave it my best. (baby inside crying and very sad. again Kari was helping me!) Have to call Lloyd. He comes over after his busy day and opens my car. :) Again, Thanks!! Walk back inside only to have it hit me like a brick wall where my lost keys are. (tucked in gas compartment of van)
Is today over yet???
Ava has fever.
Have pics of girls swimming....more like sitting beside freezing cold pool. Will post.....tomorrow. (Eli and Kaleb made it through their first leg of the race today. It was hot. They run here in a couple more hours:) Good luck.

Where do I start?

2010-06-17T12:56:00.001-07:00

Its been crazy busy these last two and a half months. So much has been going on....it seems like. But when I stop and try to figure out what it is.... I don't come up with too much :) We've moved. Its a good move, closer to family, our own house, etc. But.... I really miss St. George. Lots. Everything was so convenient. The weather was beautiful.... anyhow. We are here. Doing good, and waiting for summer. Oh my goodness I wonder if its ever going to come!! Tired of the wind, and having to turn on the heater!!!
We moved the first of May. It was adventerous. Of course it rained, and some of our things got wet. (everything was in a horse trailer) We did make it safe though. Dad and Eli drove down Sunday and we loaded everything up on Monday and was gone by 1. I really don't miss driving. :)
One of the first things we did was get the house ready. Painting and fun stuff like that. Then when the weather seemed to be looking up we planted our first real garden. We planted lots of things. We are so excited and it looks like it might pull through.....
We've done some major yard work.....with tons of stuff still to do. One of those on going projects. I'll post some pics. We got started without taking pics, but you might get the point.

The first real road trip. Didn't go so swell. She wasn't a fan of driving! The duck is one of her favorite toys. Pretty cute!
These two clicked back to road trip mode. Can't you tell? Yes we did still hear many "Are we almost there yet?!!!"

We baby showered for Kari. Always good for a party!!
Elle started swim lessons....which she LOVED. It was fun to watch her
Renewed the friendship with the "boys" :)

Ava turned 6....then 7 months already! Wow. She is growing so fast. I'm horrible. No 6 month well check. Being inbetween doctors really chaps me. Finding another one is proving more difficult. sigh. She did get double ear infections. That was sad. Poor baby. Spent LOTs of time with cousins.

I'm headed back this weekend for more wedding pics and to soak up the sun :) Eli is running the Ragnar Relay this weekend. 12 people, two days, 180 miles. Insanity!

Blynn is in summer school till next week. She's done really well. It was a surprise to move up here and find out she is behind on reading! She's getting caught back up though! She was able to go to school here for a month and get to know kids and teachers. She loved her teacher. Elle is ready for Kindergarten next year. She can hardly wait to be with all her cousins and finally go to a big school:)

I guess this it for now. I'm going to try a little harder. I've just found other things to do! :)

They're gorgeous!

2010-06-05T15:48:00.000-07:00

This is Channing and Morgan. I got to do their bridals. They are awesome and I loved being able to photograph them! Thank you guys I hope you like them!

my fav!

Nice long day

2010-04-17T21:08:00.001-07:00

Today we had a great day! The girls and I picked up Eli early this am in Cedar. He decided to come down and go to the kite festival with us! We didn't tell the girls anything, so it was a fun surprise for them. We hadn't ever gone to the Kite Festival, so I decided that we better go before we move. (notice there are no pics of any kites. haha! There were kites there. Didn't have a ton of wind though) It was very nice today. We all got some sun!! Welcome summer weather! :)

After we got home we grabbed some friends that the girls don't get to play with very often. They kept the front lawn, driveway, vehicles, rocks, bushes...etc etc WET. :) (love Paityns pose)

Enjoyed some snow cones....

And water for her.....hehe!! It was pretty cute. She "lapped" it up!

Tractor rides...

On to the next adventure

She cracks me up

Ava was excellent! So much to look at!

More bounce houses

....and more great expressions

Showing off some face painting. Don't ask me how Ava's toes got in this one! They sure are cute though. And very editable looking!

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Friday after school we went over to Blynn's Art Festival at the school. They were showing off art work and dancing and other performances. We saw some of her art and enjoyed a little dance by the first graders.

They acted out the book, "Giraffe's can't Dance". It was very cute! She kept dancing on the other side of the gym! So here is a nice motion pic.

Blynn with her butterfly. One of the teacher just passed away from cancer. (B's old teacher, Mrs. Neilsen, left in Jan to go help the other teacher. So B got a new teacher.) Anyhow, K-5 all did different kinds of butterflies and decorated the entrance of the school in memory of this teacher. It looked great! I wished I would have got a pic. It was so congested :(

A quick funny. For me anyhow. I was a little stressed Thursday night/Friday. Eli and I totally went through all of our crap. We packed a lot of stuff and made a nice mess. Looked like a tornado. I was so tired and ready to hit the sack when I remembered that we were having the bug guy come and spray, and also a insulation guy come and do some work. They pick days for stuff like this and let you know. They do the whole complex at the same time. So I was so embarassed at how the house looked. Yes, granted we are in the process of moving, but still!!! I tried to hurry and straighten up. (cat, I remember the time when you forgot your bug guy was coming and didn't remember till he showed up on your doorstep. haha! Couldn't get to the base boards! :) Same deal here) I kept trying to tell myself....bug guys don't spray very well anyway. we are moving, who cares? Anyhow, I got it presentable enough and sure enough I had insulation spread out everywhere. But still no bug guys. Weird. They usually come early in the am. Got busy and totally spaced it. We ran errands and did our thing. Then when we were outside visiting with neighbors and they were discussing the day. One set of neighbors totally spaced that people were coming and surprised them by entering their home! Nobody mentioned anything about the bug guy. Why? CUZ HE CAME ON TUESDAY!!!!

Its a good thing I don't remember what condition the house was in!!!! We managed to miss him twice! Once when they came in the am for the outside, and later that day for the inside.....

I give up.

Finally catching up

2010-04-13T19:27:00.001-07:00

Well to start off this post, The 10th was Eli's 31st B-day!! The girls were so excited to celebrate. We decided to celebrate for a couple days. He was scheduled to work on his bday so we took Tuesday and went bowling. (its so hard to back track...I can't remember anything!!) The girls are huge fans of bowling now. Eli killed us. Next time I will have bumpers for me. seriously. It was that bad!! Coming off of Easter vacation, I loved Claudia's cream cheese pie she made for Eli, so I decided to make another one, for me! :) But it benefited Eli too! Eli did have an approval for a shift trade so he did get to spend his bday at home. The night before the girls and I made huge signs for the garage door outside. They wrapped a couple a presents. We went to the airport the next morning and the girls were so excited I thought that they would blow it before he saw his signs! We were almost home and Elle was so excited she yelled, "MOM is dad awake!!!!?" All I could do is laugh. We made him breakfast. And that night we took the girls to Family Fun and then we hit a movie. It was great fun. I love being able to spend time with him. He is amazing. Love him so much and are greatful that he is ours!! Here's to another great year babe!!! (Even if you do have several more gray hairs along for the ride!!)

On the 3rd our sweet little angel turned 5 months already!! Time is flying. I know I say that every month but its hard to savor this! She is showing more and more of her personality. She can turn on the tears in a heart beat. :) She loves to scratch materials, your arm, face, whatever she can get her hands on! She's trying her veggies and already isn't a fan of green beans! :) I love the faces! She will talk and talk to you if you give her attention. She loves her mommy!! It makes me feel so good when she see's me and gets excited. She makes all these cute little noises. And, at times it stinks because I need a stinkin break!!! :) I love her to pieces! All her little rolls make her very yummy :) She gets plenty of kisses!

She loves her sisters and smiles them. Blynn has gotten her to giggle more than we can. :) It makes me melt to hear both of them giggling at each other! Ava's sleeping habits have gotten worse. I had it down to where she would only get up once in the night. Now its several times. She is wrestless when she sleeps. Makes for long nights and even longer days!!

How can one resist those cankles!!! Seriously!! And teeny feet!!

She was helping make some fruit pizza and all she could have (when mommy was watching) was the fruit container.

She did start to take a pacifer which is very nice!

We dyed easter eggs. I was so glad I only got two dozen. Wasn't too bad. Just messy:)

Nice Tyler. Never thought I'd find someone who sniffs egg dye......lol!

While in Wyo, we had a little fun shooting clay pigeons and everyone's guns:)
Eli setting in his 30 ought six (however thats spelled? no gun lingo here)

Loving the teeny gun! Haha!!

Don't worry, he got whatever I missed!! Its okay to laugh at the stance. ;) Anything to try and avoid some major kick back. One of the shot guns did give me a nice bruise though!! It was worth it! (eating dust, and loving the WIND)

No Comment.

Lloyd's aim was pretty dang good. I don't think he missed much of what he was shooting at.

We did the Easter egg hunt at the HS. It was your nice Wyoming freezing wind weather. Fun huh?!

Cousins
Sweet Matty!

Hopefully I won't slack this bad and I will make myself stay on top of it!! Doubt it though. We will be moving very soon and things aren't about to change from being hectic :)

She did it!

2010-03-16T21:31:00.001-07:00

She rolled over from her tummy to her back. I wasn't expecting that!!! I layed her on the floor and was playin with her and decided to do some tummy time. Moved back and she rolls over. Yesterday was her 4 month check up and immunizations. (poor thing!!) Her doc asked what she was doing and all the fun questions like does she giggle yet? Sleep through the night (HA!!! My kids don't grasp that concept) So tonight she surprised us by rolling over. Its going to fly by from here.
She weighed 14 lbs and was 25 in. long!
She isn't a big fan of her rice cereal....going to try the oatmeal and see if thats any better!

She is a sweetheart and is loved a lot around here!!

Thinking of a title.....

2010-03-16T20:48:00.001-07:00

Sunday evening started out like this.....nice and quiet activity. We all colored and was havin fun....of course that never lasts very long around here (especially as of late....) She is trying really hard to roll over. That dang arm is just in her way!!

See? Turned into Kung-Fu....fighting karate mixture. Pretty entertaining.. Even better since there wasn't any tears from "rough-housing"

Which changed very quickly into a round of some cha-cha. Goof balls....

Then I'm more flexible and can do this. Can you? Here let ME help!!! :)

Little bit of everything....

2010-03-11T22:43:00.001-08:00

Ava ate cereal tonight! We did try last week, with not much luck. She wasn't sure what to do. But we decided to go for it again tonight and she picked right up on it and ate a couple tablespoons worth!

Dirty face! Rice cereal is horrible....it gets everywhere!

Chillin in her plane jammies!

Sister E playing "airplane" with her.

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I caught them like this the other day. So funny. They love the tub. Anytime we will let them they are in it! Eli told them that they could wash off their stinky feet. :) great fun huh!

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For my b-day we went bowling. That was the activity the girls picked out for me to do. We had a blast!! The girls loved it and have been begging to go again! Ava did great too so it made it that much better! We woke up that morning and the girls and Eli did breakfast in bed for me. I bathed Ava while they got it ready then jumped back into bed :) They did eggs and toast, and crepes. Blynn brought it in and my crepe had a nice bite out of one end. I got a kick out of that! Eli even did fresh squeezed OJ.

After breakfast the girls brought in their presents for me. They were so excited....to give me one of their books, a basket, snowglobe, and homemade cards. I loved it and it was great. They would have given me the world if they could have! I love them so much!

Later that afternoon after league was done we went bowling. They loved it. Elle was so funny to watch. A heavy ball, lack of positioning, and other things, made it very entertaining! (remind me to blog about watching her jump rope. THAT was the BEST!!) Blynn had a great time even though she wasn't winning. It was pretty hard considering she does pretty dang good on the Wii! :) They even let me win. I guttered my first two balls.

Then I was able to enjoy a sweet date with my hubby. We went out to dinner child-less. It was heaven. Nobody screaming that they didn't and wouldn't eat what I was makin (Elle) and adult conversation. We even enjoyed a movie afterwards.. Thanks to the Barnes' who endured our grouchy baby and rambunctious kids!! THANK YOU!!

Thanks to everyone who called and did messages on facebook. It made my day! Here's to enjoying my last year in the twenties........ ouch. i'm getting up there.

Sorry so blurry....

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Sunday I had had enough of some attitude that the girls were dishing out. They had pushed every button and I was done. So I sent them to the "corner". (please don't mind the laundry, it is cleaned. or the mess...) They were like this for quite a while.

Four months!

2010-03-05T21:41:00.001-08:00

We accomplished her hand mold the other day. Turned out better than the other two! :)

After bath this morning.... (She gets excited when she hears her bath water!)

She always has her feet like this. So cute. They are still teeny. Socks and shoes fall right off.
I can't believe it! Time is flyin by! Ava is getting so big! Sorry these are the only pics I have of her so far. She doesn't go in for her four month check up until next week. So I still don't have any stats :) Some things she is doing.....

* trying to get her two bottom teeth in. (which means tons of drool! she hasn't been a drooler as of late so this getting her clothes soaked is crazy!)
* she still is trying to get over her nasty cough from a couple weeks ago!!!

* She is reaching for her toys now instead of just looking at them!

* She still loves to talk and coo.

* She will smile at anyone

* She is VERY ticklish!!

* She does cat naps. and still doesn't have the best sleeping habits. (B and E never had good sleeping habits) I was so excited the other night when she went down at 7pm and it was a little after midnight when I finally went to bed. I was thinking she would wake up any minute..... and she did just that about five minutes AFTER I crawled into bed! Of course.... :)

* She loves her sisters. Elle sat in her crib the other day for a minute while I was trying to get something done and she got Ava to go to sleep. I loved that. Her big sisters are such big helpers!

* Sometimes Ava will "talk" or "hum" herself to sleep. Its pretty cute. She still FIGHTS going to sleep.

* She wears size two diapers and wears some three month all the way to six month clothes.

* She can throw a temper tantrum quite well already. I think I'm going to buy stock in Midol.......

Dr. Suess week

2010-03-05T21:26:00.001-08:00

Yes its that time of year again. Celebration of Dr. Suess week at school. The only pic I managed to get was of Crazy hair day. I was stressed trying to figure out something fun and crazy. I found a fun pic online, but she doesn't have enough hair and I didn't have any fudge time to figure it out. So morning of, this is what we came up with. Thank you wiffle balls. :) You saved my bacon. She was really looking forward to it!
I was just about to send her out the door when my neighbors knocked. She needed me to watch her little girl until she went to school at noon, OH and do her hair for crazy hair day. No creative juices flowing. She just had perfect hair for ratting. The end effect was similar to a trolls hair. With multi colors too!
Blynn loved the crazy socks, wearing green, and jammies day too. :) (Does wyoming celebrate this?)

Showing a little love

2010-02-28T17:10:00.001-08:00

Sorry the pictures are all messed up and not in order.

I saw a cute post somewhere on bloggo-sphere, (love checking out others great ideas!). Someone surprised there dad/husband with heart attacks and posters. My girls are constantly telling me that they are bored and there is nothing here FUN to do. So I shook off the stuffy-no-fun-mom and let them paint posters for Eli. It would be a surprise when he came home from work. The posters say, "We love you Daddy". We hung them up over on his side of the bed. Then we cut out tons of hearts and wrote on them all the things we love about Eli. :) The girls were so excited. We made his favorite cookies too. (He got a lot of them because no one really likes PB cookies! Haha!!

I hung a little sign in the garage and we were set. Elle and I picked him up from the airport. He thought that it was cute we made a sign in the garage. Then when he walked in the door Elle was waiting for him by his cookies. She immediately said, "are you tired dad?" I had to laugh. Eli and I were having a conversation still in the kitchen when Elle couldn't stand it.

"DAD!! AREN"T YOU GOING TO BED???!!!"

It was cute and she got the reaction she was looking for! I don't think we need a holiday to let someone know just how much we love them!!! :)

Sucess and the lost fairy.....

2010-02-28T16:15:00.000-08:00

A couple nights ago... (yes, I am behind) Blynn said her tooth is even more loose (looser?) than before. So we got to wiggling it and sure enough it came out! Well Eli was on the ball and got the special coins a couple days previous!! Yea!!! But right before this little sucker came out, it dawned on me that the "coins" were still in the van. Which of course was conviently parked at the airport. With no way to get them. Oh brother!! So I had to be creative and tell her it was really late and the tooth fairy probably didn't know she lost it. SO, if she didn't come that night she would for sure come the following night!!! :) I almost forgot the following night too! :) oh ya. She was excited just like last time.

Last weeks spelling was really getting Blynn down. She would get really upset about some of the words. She does really well with spelling, but the words have gotten harder. We really went over them the night before and again the next morning. It was so awesome to see her expression on her face when she came home. Ear to ear grin and she hurries and opens her backpack to show me the 100%!! It was a relief. She's got a lot of 100%'s, but as the words get harder she'll miss a letter here or there.

A couple of weeks ago (I should just stop saying when stuff happens, doesn't make me look so bad;) ) Blynn was awarded the Colt Respect Award. She is always helping in her class and gets along with everyone! We are so proud of you Blynn!! Love you so much!! :)

I don't know where to start.....

2010-02-27T21:48:00.000-08:00

I didn't think I was this far behind. But it shouldn't surprise me cuz thats nothing new. I guess I'll just start with an outing. We went to our friends house the other night. We had a great time and lots of fun! The girls were so excited to learn that we were going back today. Anyhow, we came home and did the routine. I got on the computer for a minute, put it on the floor (shouldn't have? absolutely. Done it a million times? Yup.) and then called it a night. Being the last one in the living room (girls were already asleep) I headed to bed. So the next morning I went out and pulled open my lap top only to find the screen was partially shattered.
I wanted to cry. {still do} We have no clue what happened. What's done is done. My wonderful husband was quick to do his best. He rounded up the old monitor and hooked it up to my laptop. I am still able to use it. Its just stationary now :( Sigh....

Speaking of taking pics, when I went to take some the other day, I noticed my battery was almost dead. No prob, I'll go grab it out of the bag and charge it. But of course it wasn't there. Backtracking I realized I left it in Wyoming. Nice. Not surprised are you?! :) Thanks Claudia for sending it back my way....can't wait till it arrives.

But!!! On a much better note.... OH HOW I LOVE NAP TIME!!! Especially with her! She is our little angel. I soak in all the little noises and sighs she makes. Time seems to be flying by so fast. She is so precious. Oh how she just makes so much meaning to life. Don't get me wrong, the other two did too. I was always so excited for the next step and "firsts" to actually enjoy it all.
I love her little hands

She's so happy when she wakes up. All smiles!

Things have been pretty much the same around here. Ava did manage to catch another rotten cold/cough. Its so sad!! She still smiles though.

More to come.....

*Lost fairy

*Love notes

*I'm sure I forgot something.....

Two new posts! Not slacking anymore :)

2010-02-20T18:06:00.001-08:00

She lost another one!

2010-02-20T17:52:00.001-08:00

What this kid will do to not have to go to bed when it's time!! I had sent her several times already. Finally she pulled "its so loose!" Whatever!! Eli got the pliers and gave it several shots. It was hung up on something!! He pretty much had it and she didn't want the pliers anymore, so I gave her a hard yank and it popped out!! She was SO excited that the tooth fairy was coming. (The last time the tooth fairy she made bank. She lost her bottom two together. Thanks to a very generous crowd! Grandpa, Kari and Tyler, Catherine and Uncle BOB!) I was a little worried that she might think she was getting ripped off!!

Eli and I had to decide what the "going rate" was and our "tradition" was going to be! Nothing like deciding NOW! We finally found a cute little velvet bag, dropped two dollars in coins and a "special" coin. Completed with some glitter on the bag and her bed. And some on her of course :) She woke up one happy little girl the next morning!

* I couldn't decide if I should post it all considering she can read now.... and anyone else who still believes in the tooth fairy....he hehe!!

**Oh and quick reminder!! We need to be ready for another "visit". Her other front tooth is loose and I don't have a gold dollar....or "special" coin.

Sister gets a chance too.....

2010-02-20T17:24:00.000-08:00

During a quick trip up north during Valentines weekend, Elle was dying to go ice skating. Ever since Blynn went she wasn't going to forget until we took her! It was pretty funny.... before we took them, BLynn kept going on and on about her ice skating trip. Finally Elle couldn't and wouldn't take it anymore. She finally cut Blynn off mid sentence and said,
"Stop talking about it!!! Your making me want to go!!"
How could we deny that??! :) So one afternoon we gathered up all the winter gear :) and headed out to the "Ice-Corral" and let Elle have a go at it!! Her first time ice skating! Kari and Tyler accompanied us and it was fun!!
She did pretty good. It was fun and they definately didn't want to go home!

Careful Kari!! :)

Cheating...

This is one way to do it!!

Its tuff the first time you go down :(

Um Tyler.... your supposed to catch her before she lands on her rear!!

Poor shot on the photograhers part...... i just landed a triple sow cow! :)

Nothing is better than having daddy's helping hand....

Luggage.

2010-02-16T19:46:00.000-08:00

Sorry, this is probably a boring post. But, for posterity's sake, I will post to show how airheaded I can be......you've been warned. :) This is how we travel now. Our children have more frequent flyer miles and can recite the flight attendants briefing before flight. I think Ava's first word will be "fly" or "plane".

Because of times of scheduled flights, I list each leg separately. This makes it so I get the flights I want even though they are really close together. (less than an hour lay-over) This makes life easier, until I had another kid. Ava has officially thrown a kink in my routine of flying! :) I was perfectly fine to tow two children, two suitcases, a car seat, camera bag and purse. I never had to check luggage (for fear of it getting lost) and I felt in control. I seriously had a system of where everything was and where, when, and how things happened. Can we say OCD? Checking in and security was a breeze. *Eli hated the fact that I took my ID out and into my back pocket before I even got to the airport:) but he was hardly ever there helping me so I had to make adjustments. Adding another little one has fried my brain. It refuses to work anymore :) Now I check our luggage because it consists of several suitcases, diaper bag, and other paraphinalia that accompanies having a newborn.

I have lost our luggage once already. We eventually got it back a day or two later. (As a paranoid freak I usually put extra everything in a back-pack that I carry on JUST-IN-CASE! I hate purchasing extra items I already have...somewhere.... )

Well, in a recent trip home again I scheduled the return trip. In the back of my mind, a day or hours previous I don't remember which, I remembered I needed to list all together. And to not make the same mistake with above said luggage. That was obviously too long in advance because I did indeed forget. BUT I hadn't put two and two together until I was on our first leg. Of course today would be the day that my dear hubby had called (on a friends phone) to inform me his phone was dead with no way to charge it. He would accompany us home, and fly back later. (see? angel.) BUT, he would sleep until we arrived and told us where to find him IF he wasn't at the gate to meet us. So as we are decending I'm trying to see if there was a possible way to fix my error, without a major headache, since I didn't leave us very much time. The only way this was going to happen was if Mr. Mayes was waiting at the gate. So I prepared myself and children to move quickly. We were seated at the very rear of the plane.

I had a heavenly site of Mr. Mayes waiting just inside the door. Huge grin on his face..... until I started waving like a mad woman for him to come outside and meet us.....can you picture it??? waving frantically, dragging children... :) I handed him my pen and told him he needed to direct all six pieces of luggage home. As I was dragging two excited girls away from their most favorite person in the world....confused looks on their faces why dad was going one way and us the other. I had to check in again and take a very quick potty break, grab a bite to eat and board the next plane.......

Eli got to our bags in the nick of time. They were already on the trailer that would usher them to the lost luggage room...eventually. I'm pretty lucky. (All he needed to do was write over the top of our tags and make sure they were on the right trailer. But he has to go in the back behind the engines, where we're not allowed. Good thing he still had his badge and uniform on.)

Next time on my crazy life, ..... "OCD and Airport check-in"

or how about "Losing my mind and I only have 3 kids". Or something to that extent........

She loved it....

2010-02-09T13:23:00.000-08:00

BLynn's 1st grade class went to the Dixie Igloo. She talked about it for over a week!! She was so excited to go she was up an extra hour early today. :) I signed up to help. It was so much fun. She had a perma grin the whole time! I was glad to go with her, and even skate too! (I was a little nervous. It had been awhile since I had been on skates) She did great for a first timer. I was proud of her! Her and one of her friends thought it was actually fun to fall down, so she did spend plenty of time on her rear end.
It was very comical to watch the other kids. Some had been several times and others, well, they hung on to the side and spent most of their time standing only to return again to their seat! One little girl was in tears. She was stuck half-standing and sitting hanging on to the side! She said, "I just can't do this!" I helped her for a little while, and then went and found BLynn. Some of the kids were going down hard! It made my butt hurt just watching! (oh, and for the record, I didn't biff it! YEAH!! :)

She really is laughing. I promise.

She's three months!!

2010-02-06T11:07:00.000-08:00

(Hey Aunt Kac, we fixed your flower. :) We'll return it soon)

I can't believe how fast she is growing up. She is really packing on some weight :) We are so glad to have her as our newest addition in our family. She is loved!

* she loves to suck on her hands, fingers etc. (she hasn't quite found and hung on to her thumb or finger! phew!)

* She does scratch the crap out of her face, All the time, even if her nails are trimmed. I feel guilty when I put socks on her hands all day, but feel even more guilty when she scratches herself!

* Her lungs are very well developed. Can we say opera? (i thought she would be my quiet baby....)

* She smiles alot! I love it. Nothing is sweeter than seeing her smile.

* She coo's and "talks" a lot.

* She has a weird habit of looking at the top of your head.

* She loves to be held....therefore I never get anything done.

(and if she isn't being held, she lets me know it. wonderful temper.) Sometimes when she cries, it is really squeaky and high pitched.

* I love how she hears my voice and starts to look for me.

* Loves her baths, hates being dressed.

* She travels fairly well. (Not as good as her sisters, but it still works for me)

* She still won't sleep through the whole night. Leading me to say she is more of a cat napper. Majority of the time she will take a 5-15 min nap.

* She loves to just "snack". (must be a family thing?? "STOP EATING!!!" ) Or, loves me to just pacify her. Drives me crazy. Doesn't like the pacifer much anymore.

* She can down a four oz. pretty quick nowadays. :)

* For her grand finale..... She can put a grown man to shame in the flatulence department. Speaking of loudness, length..........giggle.........and of course, smell . ( She really embarrassed me in Relief Society. Everyone, including the teacher, who was teaching, turned and looked) :)
I couldn't stop laughing. What it is about gas that makes everyone laugh???

Ava, we love you so much. You have such a sweet little spirit and glad you are part of our family.

New pics.....finally.

2010-01-29T16:39:00.001-08:00

I've been meaning to get some pictures of my girls since Ava was born. I finally did it. I'm already looking forward to doing them again when the weather is warmer and Ava is a little bit bigger. It probably would help things if she was in a better mood:)

I loved their smiles in this one, but it was way over exposed!

2010-01-28T17:22:00.000-08:00

Little game of twister :)

She has been smiling so much lately and I love it! She will smile in her sleep and at anybody who looks at her!

Listening to Dad play guitar

Watching a movie with her sisters.

I love this pic!! She didn't like the camera. Cute face though!

Our life has been pretty boring lately. We have been doing the same thing day in and day out. Nothing too exciting. Ava is getting so big so quick! Hopefully I can post sooner than later about something more exciting!!

December catch up...

2010-01-09T12:45:00.000-08:00

Wow. Time is flying so quickly! This is a long post....so beware!! I wish I would have got my camera out more during the holidays. But this is what I got so I'll just go with it! Christmas flew by along with all of December and now January is half over! Ava is getting so big. She just hit her two month mark. Its sad how fast life is moving. I need it to slow down more so I can really enjoy it! Wyoming was great. It was good to be with all the fam. We decided that another family picture was needed. 5 years since the last one. Oh joy for family pics!! Everyone was O so excited for them. (can you sense the sarcasim here??) We did get some good laughs out of them though........ and I still think I really don't belong here......

Adopted??!! :) And of course all of this post is backwards again. We are starting at the present and moving backwards :)

The girls had the privledge of helping make grandpa's norweigen cookies! They are so yummy. I consumed WAY too many of them!

Grandma and Ava got a lot of bonding time in! Thanks so much grama, it was so nice to have another pair of hands!

Ava was blessed on December 30, 2009. It was a great blessing. We even had the privledge of some of our friends coming up for it! The Barnes flew up that day. Flying on a Buddy or Standby pass always makes an exciting adventure! They couldn't get on the Cody flight. We were so bummed. We had already drove to Cody too. Grandma stayed with Blynn and Elle. As the Barnes were leaving the airport in SLC she ran into her aunt who she hasn't seen in a long time. Her aunt works for the airlines. She managed to get them on the afternoon flight to Billings! It was very comical....long story. :) So as soon as we heard they were on we jetted to Billings to get them. We were still in Cody. I had to make plans to get girls ready because it was going to be tight!! I owe Nicole a ton for getting the girls' hair done for me and getting Ava a cute headband and bow!! And Grama for getting everything else done for us!

Well to finish the story, we got up there shortly after they landed and we sprinted home..... a little too fast! We got pulled over in Deaver! Argh!! The offiicer came up to the window and asked Eli if there was a medical emergency he needed to be aware of :) Eli told him about the blessing yada yada and then told the officer that he had just finished helping his dad change the oil and stuff on his cruiser!!! We got off and made it back in the nick of time!
Eli did a great job on Ava's blessing. It was great to have such support from our families! We love you all so much and thank you for coming!

Ava

One of our first family pics.....

Anastyn is so stinkin cute. Couldn't pass this one up.

The kids in the family nativity.

Christmas Eve

Elle couldn't decide between the best of both worlds. Cheetos or holding Ava. ;)

We even did dentist. Blynn looks good, one spot needed to watch but she's kept cavaties at bay!

Elle on the other hand, did let the hygienist finally clean her teeth and take some pics. Not all unfortunately. But what they did see is that she has a mouth full of cavaties. Some needing caps etc. Given her past of letting people look in her mouth let alone put tools in it, she will have to be knocked out to do all the work at the same time. Not cool. At all.

She got to go to a dance class with her friend. She loved every minute of it! It was fun to stay and watch her! I have a lot of fun pics, but couldn't put them all on!
We all have an art of face making! Kacee does it when she cuts hair and the rest of us do it when we concentrate, or anything like that! Pretty funny if I do say so myself!

We did decorate a tree before we left. Goof balls! :) (See? fun facial expressions)
And at the beginning of the month we did celebrate Blynn's 7th Birthday

Had to throw this cute pic in!

Blynn had her special day at school too. We made a poster with pictures of her and the things she likes. This is her picking a treat out of the treasure box with her teacher Mrs. Nielson.

BrookLynn and her friends Piper, Annaleise, and Jasmine.

BLynn talking about her poster. She was SO shy, it was funny to watch her:)

More stuff

2009-12-17T12:56:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we took the girls to the dentist. I was nervous about Elle because last time she freaked out. She wouldn't even open her mouth, no pictures...nothing. So I "let" Eli be with her while I was with Blynn.
Elle acted excited about going and we told her again what would happen etc.... her attitude changed the minute we got there. Great!
Good news? Elle ended up letting them take two pictures (of the four) and then she let them clean her teeth.
Sure enough with good news comes bad right? Bad news. At least 8 cavities, some needing caps. We're talking surgery center now. Put her out and get all the work done in one shot. $$$. More bad news? They would have completely covered it if she was four or under. When did I call and make appointments to get them in??? September. When is Elle's b-day. :) September. Sigh........
She is definately our expensive child.
By the way Blynn did great as always and has one area to be watched, but looks good. Greatful for that blessing!! :)

Wish I could post pics but since my computer is out of commission thats going to have to wait! Sorry grama!

Last night we took the girls out for ice cream and was on our way home when I saw this teeny dog run out in the street. Looked more like a piece of garbage flying across the street! I told Eli to slow down and with four lanes of traffic we thought that we would see this poor puppy's life come to an end! (Utah drivers aren't known for their awesome driving) Seeing him run around cars he darts into oncoming traffic and comes to the aid of another puppy.....who had just been hit!!! It was so sad! Its poor little tail was still moving and he was shaking.... As if that wasn't enough (sorry we were driving really slow) a big surburban drives over the top of both! BUT.... it cleared them!
My girls were pretty traumatized. Then later they asked if the dog was still in the street. So sad. It had a collar on, so it was somebody's.

Oh and for more excitement, we had our scare yesterday as well. We had just gotten home and Eli took Ava out of her car seat. He went back into the bedroom to change her pants and I hear him say "Kristin she's not breathing!!" Nothing can drop your heart like that! At first I was hoping he was just kidding, but as I met him coming back down the hall I could tell she wasn't and her face was red. I was sick! I just blew in her face to see if she would gasp and she did. It was too scary! When she eats she "forgets" to breathe, but she's never done this before! Made me not want to sleep very bad last night.

Ava just past her six weeks old mark on Tuesday. Time is flying by way too quick! She is getting chunky. Her hair is getting lighter too. But she is still a popular girl in our house! :)

Oh Elle.

2009-12-15T14:17:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I was running earrands at Wal-mart. I just had to run in and grab a couple of things. In, out, and back home. It of course being the week before Christmas, was packed. Everyone and their dog was there. I was eyeing the frozen food section :) for a quick idea for dinner. Out of my sub-conscience I hear Elle talking. Then it registered. "Look Mom!! A PIRATE!!"

Couple second delay..........

I look down the aisle in front of me, (coming my way) and sure enough.... a gentleman was wearing a an eye patch. He kind of had a little smirk, but also a look of "what are you going to say?"
Nice.

Turn down nearest aisle. ASAP.

Tell Elle not to say another word about anyone she sees.

*side note* the time it took to type this, I really just ruined the mac n cheese. It was cooking on the stove. I forgot about it. Lets just say its REALLY done. :) Anyone hungry?!! lol!

Have your kids ever made you blush in public?!! Tell me about it!

She's 7!

2009-12-06T16:19:00.001-08:00

WOW!! I can't believe that my little girl is 7 already! Time has really flown! Seven years ago we were wondering when and if our little angel would really come. It took over 28 hours for her to finally make her arrival. And she still didn't want to come!

She is a blessing in our life. She is our sensitive one. Always looking out for everyone else, she has a very caring personality. BrookLynn we love you so much and we are glad that you are a part of our family!!! Love you Brookie-babe!!

She gets to celebrate for a couple days, so that certainly puts a smile on her face!!

Odds 'n Ends from Thanksgiving

2009-12-06T16:04:00.000-08:00

I didn't get my camera out much during thanksgiving. So sad!!

The girls did some serious hula-hoopin! It was very entertaining to watch. :) Elle grasped the concept very quickly. If any of you have watched Drum Line (I think thats what its called) Where there is this kid trying to try out for the line. And he plays one of the bigger drums....you know how he really uses his hips? Shakin back and forth, well this is what Elle did....except she would be on her tip toes doing it! It was SO cute!! Oh, not to mention the many different facial expressions! :)

Aunt Kacee treated them to cupcakes......at 11pm. :) Which you can see they really enjoyed! Bottom right pic shows the proof. Yes, we sloppped the piggies that night. Ha!

Ava's first flight!

And last but not least, Ava got lots of loving from family. One of her biggest fans is her cousin Matty. Oh it was really cute! She called her "baby Eva". She spent lots of time cuddling, talking to her, watching her, and showing her pictures she drew. She even came in and said "I love you so much baby Eva!" Very cute.

2009-11-20T13:55:00.000-08:00

Just a couple of pics of Ava. :) She kind of consumes all we have been doing lately..... but we still love her to pieces!

One Week old!

2009-11-10T20:27:00.000-08:00

Finally got some pics up!! Sorry Grama Great and fam! :) the day after we got home from the hospital Blynn came down with the flu and then Eli got it, followed by myself. So things have been really slow around here! Ava has her check up tomorrow, so it will be fun to see how much she has grown already! She is so sweet, our little miracle. She has had some trouble when eating so we are working on that! She didn't want to cooperate much taking these pics tonight but we put up the best ones!

Forgot to post the ones of the girls seeing their sis for the first time.... then some more of tonight. Looks like she has it rough??.....:)

She peed on the couch.....

Day we got home and they could finally hold her......so precious. I loved it.

Miss Ava

2009-11-03T13:10:00.001-08:00

Some pics of our little angel! :) she is a doll, we are thinking she will be the blonde one! She is a good baby.

Meeting for the first time!

She LOVED having her head washed!!! The rest......not so much. ;)

Skin to skin :)

Meeting grama :) Lots of love!!!

Welcome!!!

2009-11-03T09:37:00.000-08:00

Ava made her appearance this morning at 7:20am weighing in at 6lbs 8oz. She is a doll!! She has a head full of black hair and is beautiful. We love her so much already! Will post pics soon! :)

sneak peek

2009-11-02T12:06:00.001-08:00

Congrats Jen and Jimmy! Thanks for letting me take these! You guys are great!! I hope you enjoy! :)

Halloween

2009-11-02T09:04:00.001-08:00

Our cats! We took the girls out to Blynn's Carnival on Saturday. They had quite the time. they shed their costume accesories pretty quick!

Some face painting.....

Inflatables

They loved the inflatable jump house! :)

The costume parade wasn't that exciting for them!

Sense that enthusiasm??
Elle trying her stuff at hula hoopin.

I was shocked at how well Blynn knew how to hula hoop!! She kept that thing going for quite a while!!

Later that night we took them trick or treating. We were slowing them down!! We took them back to our "old" neighborhood. We went with our friends, and I didn't even get the camera out!! They took off going house to house. They got a little stache of candy and was happy with that!

What did you get?!

2009-10-31T14:53:00.000-07:00

I had to post this. Thought it was pretty funny.

This morning I was laying in bed just trying to find the motivation to get up :) The girls had just got up and were millin around doin their thing. Eli came in and layed back down by me and we were talking when Blynn and Elle came in all proud. Blynn had a big smile on her face as she handed me "breakfast in bed". It consisted of two pieces of toast with some butter and homemade jam. I thought it was so sweet!! I ate my little feast, greatful to my little sweetheart. In the mean while Elle brought Eli some too so he wouldn't feel left out. I had my back turned toward Eli. He stopped eating and said he was trying to choke his down. I kind of laughed and said oh.
Then Blynn came back in with a glass of milk and I shared with my dear hubby.

Later as we were running around doing errands we were talking and somehow the subject of breakfast came back up.

I mentioned something to the extent that I was glad that the butter was almost out cuz the girls like to go overboard. Especially Elle. Then i said something about mine being toasted. He looked at me and said, "Yours was toasted??!!" I laughed and said ya. Then I told him that she did a good job with the jam too. He looked very surprised and said, "You had jam on yours??!!"
Then I realized that the real question was "what did you have for breakfast??!"

He laughed at me and said A piece of bread with some butter. No wonder he was trying to choke it down!!
I love my girls!

Congrats Jen & Jimmy!

2009-10-30T18:00:00.001-07:00

More pics are coming!! :)

So Ava won't be lonely? :)

2009-10-29T10:35:00.000-07:00

We thought this was pretty funny. Such nice sisters!

Farm and pumpkin carving....

2009-10-28T12:28:00.000-07:00

*post note* Eli made me put some in of myself.......so blah!!!

Go figure.....these are all backwards again! :) Last night we took the girls to Staheli Farms. Both of the girls have been there on field trips and loved it. They have rides and stuff for the kids to do. It was really cold when we woke up that morning but Elle insisted on still going when Blynn got out of school! So, after my doc app I grabbed some hot chocolate and we headed out!!

The end of the night carving their pumpkins. ( VERY EMOTIONAL time!! I was in the other room for a couple of minutes and came back out to drama and tears! Green spots on the back of one pumpkin...made it ugly you know! And a messed up face drawn in permanent marker! :)

VERY COLD!!!

Finding their pumpkins

Brrr!

Redneck trampoline....with a rope.

Blynn on the swing

Going down the slide into the corn

Nice dismount.
Slide

Fun ride! The kid driving took off going 9-0! Good thing they know how to hang on!!

Petting the animals

Dad misses his boys back home :(

Some pics I did....

2009-10-26T21:38:00.000-07:00

This is the "G" family, well the kids anyhow! :) They all did so good! Thanks a ton you guys, you look awesome and were so much fun to work with!! :)

(I need some practice on not chopping the tops of your heads off when I make a collage! :) Sorry! )

2009-10-26T21:07:00.000-07:00

7 DAYS........

Update.....

2009-10-16T21:30:00.000-07:00

Can't believe its been so long since I posted! I went to Wyo and Catherine had put together a great baby shower for me!! THANKS SO MUCH!!! You are the best!! :) My mom took pics, but I don't have them yet. Thanks to everyone who came!
We had enough excitment on our way home. It was an adventure like always. The girls did really good though.....I only wanted to strangle one of them once!!!! :) Haha!! They surprise me how well they can handle long layovers, cancelled, missed or delayed flights, and standby all together! Too bad their mother wasn't the same!! I'm so blaming this on pregnancy!!! But thanks to great family helping us get to where we needed to go at the most inconvienent times!! (4:30am in a blizzard or middle of the day trek to Billings. Who needs to work??!!)

Um, I've been trying to find projects to keep me busy and help pass the time away. I have less than three weeks left and its dragging badly. I made a blanket for Ava. Sad thing is it only took me a couple minutes to sew it together. :( So looking for more things to do!!!
Today my friend and I got together to make some freezer dinners. I was more than happy to let her pick a menu, she is a great cook! We made 2 of each dinner and we ended up with 6 different dinners. This will make it so nice after we have Ava and i'm not in the mood to cook! :) Thanks a ton Alysia, your the best!! I owe ya! It was a great time though!

Speaking of Ava, things still look good. We scheduled the c-section for the 3rd. So i'm really looking forward to her coming!! With the RSV, and H1N1, the girls aren't allowed to come into the maternity ward to see me. At least they will be able to see her outside through the window :( kind of bummed about that, but oh well. They even told us no kids can accompany us to the doctor anymore, and if I am sick I have to be quarinteened at my visits! BUT!!! Today while we where making dinners, Alysia's sister called to say she does indeed have the swine flu! The doctors told her that there are a TON of people that have it here. Nice.

Blynn is still doing really well in school. She is still trying to adjust to the all day thing. Makes her a very tired, sensitive girl!! :) Elle is still bein Elle. :) She loves having her dad here! Its pretty cute to listen to her "agenda" of things to do while he is home!!

Oh! Maybe someone who reads this will have some info for me! Our tv is having some serious issues. Elle told me that it just keeps turning off. Or course I was like "whatever". But the other day we were watching a movie and it did indeed turn on and off by itself, several times over the course of the movie. Doesn't freak me out, just wondering what in the sam is wrong with it!!! It has been doing this all times of the day or night. And it changes channels by itself too..... sigh. (its not that old either!) Any comments besides its freaky? Eli and I had a good laugh cuz Mark, Michael, and I used to use a universal remote and go change peoples channels or turn them off/on!! :) Sorry Croy's!! :) haha!!!! I have to admit it was very entertaining! The reactions where priceless!!!

Well I am off to soak my feet before they swell 10 times their normal size!! :)

H fam sneek peek

2009-09-26T14:22:00.002-07:00

I love her smile here!! She is a very serious little girl!! :)

Thanks guys for letting take some pics of you guys!! :) Your great!!

So glad!

2009-09-21T00:18:00.000-07:00

Yea! So glad to have this task accomplished!! The pears look pretty good, and taste pretty yummy! My girls love pears over peaches so hopefully this ought to last them a week or two!! :) (they seriously would eat these all day every day!) Eli thinks we better get some more. But, next time, I'll wait till he is here to help * not wait till the middle of the night to start doing them * stand straight up at the sink (killer back pain!!) * find even softer, cushier shoes! :) haha!

The kitchen is one sticky mess, there was water dripping from the ceiling (I needed an umbrella), It was like a furnice in there! Thanks to Eli for leaving his pretty comfy shoes. My feet needed them!! Glad to be done.....this go around!

Easter....in September.

2009-09-17T17:57:00.000-07:00

The other day girls were begging Eli and I to take them swimming. Its been really nice so after school one day we decided to go. Its been really fun. I really wish I had an underwater camera to show the gist of it. Elle will only wear her goggles around her neck and then pull the eye pieces up to eyes and go under. We've tried everything to get her to ear them right. Blynn's goggles are the kind that cover the nose too. So the other day Elle was wearing Blynns goggles and wanted Eli to go under so she could wave...etc... Eli comes up busting a gut. He said it was a hoot to watch her goggles fill up with water. You know, like on the cartoons where it starts at the bottom and fills up to the top? Its pretty comical. We all had a good laugh!

Elle is still bored like crazy during the day while Blynn is at school. She will make up her list of fun things to do. Want to know what she had to do on todays list? Color Easter eggs. Yep. She saw a picture of her dying easter eggs last year and wanted to do it. So Eli took her to the store and bought some eggs and when Blynn got home away they colored!! Now they are hiding them.... too funny!

Blynn still likes school. She has got several "caught me" cards. Its when the teacher see's them doing something nice or helpful. Then she brings them home and we "praise" her for during so well! :) She loves it. She has done really well on her spelling words every week. I've noticed a big difference in her reading. She struggles sometimes, and is ready to give up. Thats where my patience plays a huge part. As long as I talk it through, and be all calm-like, she won't give up. :) sigh. Some days I really struggle. :)

*on a side note, we had another check up yesterday and everything looks good! Less than 7 weeks left!

Birthday!!

2009-09-10T18:27:00.000-07:00

She is 5!!!! She waited for this day for a long time! She woke up this morning in good spirits and couldn't wait for her party after school! She asked for a Hannah Montana party. So I thought that it would be fun to try a fondant cake. Um, not so much. I made my own fondant and somewhere along the way, something went wrong. But no need to fear, Eli came to the rescue and rescued the fondant. I was ready to head to Costco!! ;) The girls help make it and had fun with it, so I was happy. Elle liked it, so I guess I had a winner!!!
We had a large....r party than planned. :) With about 20 little kids crammed into our small house it made for a loud, crazy party. Elle got a lot of neat and fun toys. Thanks everyone who came!!! Elle we love you tons and can't believe its already been 5 years since you joined our family. Love ya lots!!! :)

(Catherine, the apron worked fabulous!! I spilled my pop all over myself and the apron took the grunt of it!! Thanks!!! Its awesome!)

Opening her fun presents

Too bad I couldn't fit all the kids into the picture!!

Little game of musical chairs..... poor Elle was the first one out!! :(

Some pin the tail on the donkey

Posing with dad!

Surprise visit from Hannah Montana! ;) ;)

Egg race

Eating some cake and ice cream....... outside!! Complete with purple kool-aid :0 Ya glad it was outside!

Blowing out the candles

The b-day girl! Thanks everyone who called, sent balloons, helped and did gifts . She loved it and it made her day so special! THANKS!!!!

Today

2009-09-02T12:22:00.000-07:00

Well I finally have some pics to post! Eli gave us a reason to blog :) This morning we had another doc app and everything looks really good. Elle got to hear the heartbeat. It was pretty cute to watch her reaction. We have tentatively marked our calendars for Ava's arrival on November 3rd!! We are getting closer!

Then after our doc app Eli took us on a little flight around town. Elle is pretty funny. She said she didn't want to get in the airplane. But as soon as we got on the tarmac, she sprinted for the plane and got up on the wing ready to get in! :) So we called this Ava's first flight (with Eli piloting of course) We missed Blynn!

Some pics of our day. In no particular order of course!

Me looking pretty fat and Elle (I seriously don't feel THAT big!! But pics don't lie! :) haha!)

Coming in for landing

Getting all buckled up ready to go!

Flying over our house!! Yeah!

Staheli's corn maze

Looking pretty cute! She's a natural!

**couple funny things the girls said lately**

We went swimming yesterday and came back and was showering when the girls were fighting over something in the bathtub. Then a min later Blynn starts screaming bloody murder and hollers for Eli. He didnt get in there fast enough for her likes. When he got in there she said,

"Why didn't you come when I called you?!!"

Eli responded "I did. I thought you where fighting again."

She said, "I have bubbles in my eyes and I was sreaming louder then my fighting scream!"

Wherever they come up with this stuff! :)

* * * *

Blynn has loved being a big girl going to school all day, but I think that it has definately taken its toll. She gets so tired! She is still trying to be able to do fun stuff all day like she did in the summer. The other day she was so tired and was in tears about not bein able to go do something fun when she said,

"I never get to do anything fun anymore! I just have to sit at my desk ALL day!!"

* * * *

Elle is in a wonderflul stage where she is brutally honest with others. Not a bad thing right?! WRONG. It can be embarrasing!! She was sitting on the couch the other day watching a movie. Greg was over and had fallen asleep next to her. He is a snorer. Enough said?! :) He started snoring and it was really loud. I happened to walk through the living room at the moment where she looked at him and said,

"Greg. Stop snoring!! Its annoying!!"

(of course he was unconscience, and didn't hear her. But now his name is Mr. Snorer.) *sigh*

My other funny child

2009-08-26T20:28:00.000-07:00

Today started earlier than normal for Eli and Elle. Eli decided late last night that he needed to bring the van back from SLC. The red car is down here for some maintenance and the blue car is in the process of being sold :) So Eli being the sweetheart that he is said he would take Elle with him for company and give me a day of relaxation. So at 5am we got up and got them off to the airport. It was heavenly to be able to sleep and relax longer than usual! Blynn got off to school.
I checked in with Eli later and he had a funny story for me. Eli has been working on a friends plane and it needed to have a test flight so Eli planned on doing that as soon as he landed there. Greg (friend) is a super nice guy. Elle sat in the back and put her headset on. In some smaller planes, the mics will stop working when someone else is talking. Control tower, pilot etc. Not this plane. Elle loved listening to herself talk. So she was doing plenty of it!! Greg would ask her to be quiet nicely and Eli had turned around and unplugged her headset a couple of times! Salt Lake is class B airspace so you are controlled by the tower where you go etc. It was difficult to listen to tower and Elle. Greg didn't know Eli had been unplugging her headset and he turned to Eli and said, "You might want to unplug her!"

Eli looked at him and said, "I have 3 times!!"

Greg kept calling her sweetie and I don't think she was very fond of it :) She was hularious. Singing and just making tons of noises and stuff into the mic. Eli would move her mic down away from her mouth. But she would move it right back! :)
Sorry there are no pics......I'm getting on that!

A Funny...

2009-08-18T14:19:00.001-07:00

I only have myself to blame.

:) Today we had made plans to bring back our van and pick up fruit to do some canning. All of this took careful planning. BLynn went to the neighbors, but not before being lectured of everything to do and not do! I thought that in my mind I had very carefully explained that if we were not home when she came home from school we would call her. I gave her the extra cell phone and specifically told her to put it in her backpack. She better be dying if she took it out!! :)

All the mean while, Elle and I caught the plane to salt lake. Eli would pick us up and we would head home. Pick up fruit on the way. Well, knowing us, our plans always change and last minute. I landed in Salt Lake and turned my phone on. I recieved a pic message! .....duh duh don!!! From none other than my daughter!!! It was a pic of her view on the school bus. Big sigh. She listened so well. Eli was to pick us up in the van, not the car. But waiting patiently for us was our red car?! Whatever. He had his reasons and that was fine. We got on the road. And my phone beeps again. Its about 9:30ish. Another pic message. Yup, from Blynn. Of herself this time. During school!!! What?!! Are you serious?! (This whole time I am sweating bullets thinking what a bad mom I am etc etc) Ha. Ha. Eli and I couldn't stop laughing though. She is in so much trouble when she gets home!! I couldn't text her back or call for fear her teacher would take it, but I then decided that would be just fine :) (she probably couldn't read the text anyhow. And sending a pic of my "your-in-trouble" face,..... um ya. Nothing like the teacher confiscating the phone with a pic of me looking like that!! What a turd!

We got home with plenty of time to take a little siesta. :)

First day of 1st Grade!

2009-08-14T13:00:00.000-07:00

Serious face

Little sis didn't want to miss out on the action!!

She is a big girl!! Yesterday was Blynn's first day of school. She was pretty excited. She came home, and said she liked her teacher, had three recesses, and that lunch was good! I was excited for her. Then she told me that it was a long day!! :) I had to laugh. Oh, and that there was some boys that chased her. Nice, boys chasing her already! :)

Just everything!

2009-08-12T20:23:00.001-07:00

Today we had to come back and face reality! Oh yea! I'll tell ya how excited I wasn't!!! Eli had to go into work tonight so he said we were taking the early flight :) out of Cody. I can't tell you how much I really dislike that flight! Maybe because it cuts deep into my time to sleep!!? Lately my sleep has been precious, few, far and inbetween. I won't bore you with all my sad stories of bad back problems. It hurts to bad to sleep. There. Anyhow..... I was hopin he would budge a little and let us take the noon one but when I looked a family with a higher priority (8 of them to be exact) took all available seats. I was bummed. So after a late night celebrating a not-so-much b-day :), I hurried and did some laundry and got into bed and prayed I would get some rest. That was after 1am!! Alarm went off at 4am and off we went!! (Thanks a ton to Claudia for hauling us around at such fun hours!! And Kari and Tyler!! :) Love you guys!) We love the rest of the fam for putting up with us all summer!! :)
On the plane, The girls both wanted to sit by Eli but couldn't. A small bribe and we were all set! Elle sat by me and Blynn by Eli. Blynn was wound! I couldn't believe it! She was going non- stop. Elle was pretty mellow. We were a couple minutes before we touched down and Blynn started to whistle. Then she looks over at Elle and asks her to whistle. Elle looks at me and under her breath whispers, "Mom whistle!!!" So I am looking at her with my back to Blynn and I started to whistle a little. Elle's face was hilarious! She acted like she was whistling away!! This is definatley one of those you-had-to-be-there moments. But these two are so funny.
Another thing today, (warning, gross story.) We were getting some errands ran for Eli in Salt Lake before our flight left and the girls were chillin in the back seat. Blynn asked for some tissue to blow her nose. She's been kind of stuffed up and tons of crap in her nose. She blew her nose, opens the tissue and says, "Look mom!" So proud of the contents she got out. Elle happened to be looking that direction too and immediately started gagging. :) Its so funny. Poor girl had to look out the window until her sister was done. Even the noise of someone blowing their nose makes her gag!! (some days it feels like I'm raising little boys!)
We made our flight to St. G no problem. Nice smooth flight :) Girls napped a bit. We needed to get another booster chair and last minute stuff for school. So we ran our errands. In Wal-mart, I always use the self check-out. Just prefer it I guess. So it was crazy busy and I found one, but I had to squeeze by one stand to get there. So I kindly :) ask the lady in front if she would excuse me so I could get to the other stand. She looks at me and proceeds to tell me she is in both lines. WT@#*!! Both lines huh. Yeah, not working for me, chick. Pick a LINE! She tells me she is going to whatever one opens first. Oh. Did. NOT. Make. Me. Very. Happy. Wow. Didn't take much did it?! :) Haha!!
Anyhow, that was our little day wrapped in a nut shell. :) Okay not really. I can't believe Blynn starts school tomorrow! Makes me all nervous and stuff for her!! The summer flew by way too fast!

Oh the places you'll go.....or more like the people you'll meet!!

2009-08-02T20:44:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy weekend!! Eli went to work on Thursday, then at 4am on Friday the girls and I flew up to Salt Lake. Eli had his family reunion this weekend in Morgan. Claudia offered to take the girls so I could take some wedding pics here in St. George without a hassle! So Friday night I flew back to St. George. I tried to get some much needed house work done on Saturday morning but it was too nice to just relax! (it feels like we have been living out of our suitcases this summer! :) That night I took pics from 6 to 10. It was a great reception! TONS of people came through. I wasn't so happy about my pics, lighting pretty much sucked and lack of the right equipment didn't help the situation. I took over 600 pics and now I need to edit. yeah! haha!
Then this morning I got the early flight back up to get the girls. Flights are never good on Sundays. Always packed. I did get on okay though. Getting back home was a different story. (Isn't it always?!) Before I left St. G this morning I checked and flights were a little on the crowded side but still able to get on. By 1pm, all were seriously full and of course our names were on the bottom of every list! I bumped up our priority a notch and hoped for the best! Everywhere you go things are a little different depending on who is working the counters. Some places let you change your priority at the gate others you have to change it when checking in. When people start noticing that others are bumping their priorities, they will hurry and bump up theirs. That stinks! :) I like to do it secretly so the oblivious don't realize that they might not get on! :) they are so used to getting on!
Long story short, by miracle we got on. We waited while they did all the pre-flight stuff and then we were off! It was hot, so we planned it being bumpy. Elle loves it and acts like its the best rollercoaster ride ever! She puts her hands up and everything! Blynn not so much. She grips the arms and hangs on for life! :) Too funny. The girls have done this enough times that they know its going to be bumpy. Always. They expect it.
Well for our excitement (sorry there's not another word for it) a lady was sitting kitty corner from us. Her husband was sitting up one seat in front of her and she was disappointed that they weren't sitting next to each other. They would hold hands over the seat and she would lean forward and talk and stuff. But, it was pretty bumpy leaving Salt Lake. I seriously thought that we would have restart the poor lady's heart! She would tense up and you could see the tendons in her arms! She would close her eyes tight and take deep breaths! It was kind of comical to watch her chew her gum really fast and nervous like! I was really feeling sorry for her! She was having a really hard time! :) And from what I've been though (which isn't the worst out there!) this wasn't really bad. I kept thinking, poor lady you are gonna die when we get into St. George! :) Sure enough, she was freaking out. She wouldn't even let go to hang on to her husbands hand. She screamed once or twice. THEN..... when we landed, she was all eyes out the window and I heard her say that she was going to find a coconut!! WHAT?!! Did I get on the wrong plane? Where in the world are you going to find a coconut?! Haha! Funny lady. Then she leans up to her husband and kisses his hand and says, "oh first kiss in UTAH!!" Nice! Salt Lake must not have counted! I got a good laugh today. And I am probably just as big of a dork when I go any where new myself. Maybe thats what the funny part is! :)
Sorry for such a long winded story! I wish I could post the pic of a bird strike. A pelican hit the nose of a plane the other day. I couldn't believe how much damage it did! The poor bird was still stuck in the nose!

Oquirrh Mountain Temple

2009-07-29T16:31:00.000-07:00

First family pic.....in a long time!!!

Cheeser

Poser

such nice people willing to move out of the way... :)

We took the girls to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open House. Our plan was to go to the Draper temple open house earlier this year and we didn't make it. So being the last week of this one we finally did it! It was gorgeous! The girls liked it. I tried to get some good pics. So many people around. We'll go back sometime and get some more pics. We hurried back to the airport to see if we could get on a flight. Lucky for us we got on the first one we tried! We got there around four and the flight left a short 45 minutes later. (And it was nice to be able to go swimming when we got home :)) so hot.

Alaska

2009-07-19T16:57:00.000-07:00

I don't where to start. We just got back from Alaska, couple days date, but we FINALLY made it!! It was absolutely gorgeous! I loved it. It was great to see our friends again. Its been over five years since we had seen them last. And it was so nice of them to put up with us and our adventures :) Thanks Eric and Danielle you saved our bacon!!! :)
One of our only things we wanted to do while we where there was to go fishing! I was so excited. This little last minute trip of ours was a little hoorah before I get any bigger. :) (and can't do anything..)
We went fishing on the Kenai River. It was pretty crazy figuring everything out on our own. Just the rules and regulations where frusterating! We finally found a spot and tried our luck to no avail. We talked to some friendly fisherman just down from us, and they offered some great tips :) We snagged several, but lacking the right tools we never kept any. Unfortunately, we didn't have any to send home. Huge bummer, but we plan to go back some day! Make up! We hung out and went to a movie while we were there. It was fun!
Now to the not so fun part. This makes the whole part of the trip a memory never to be forgotten. We have come to the conclusion that our flight benefits are not so great. Flying standby has its ups and downs. This time it had more downs than a (my dad would fill in something humerous here). We got pretty lucky gettin to Anchorage. But coming home is a different story.
Anchorage doesn't have a ton of flights leaving daily. 2 a day for Delta. When we scheduled, they looked great. Shouldn't have any problems. Well the first flight we didn't get out on. So the next morning we figured we should be okay. We looked online and it looked good. Nothin. we were stranded. For the next couple days. Yea. Eli had to get back to work or else he would be out of work. We were running out of options quick. Ticket prices were outrageous. We found a different airline that accepted Delta. So we tried that. More people were coming in early for the big salmon run next week. Which left us with oversold flights and no options. The gate agents gave people with lower priorities tickets over us. One pilot wouldn't wait for the agent to fill the plane. We blame that one on stupid people who won't be at the gate when their plane is scheduled to depart. They wasted so much time checking in after the plane had been loaded. I was so unbelievably frusterated after that one. We would have probably got on that one. Our friend ended up giving us air miles that allowed us to get out.
All across the board we were dumped on. Repeatedly. :)
But, we made it. We are so glad to be home.
Moral of the story, standby sucks :)

These pretty flowers where everywhere!
Storm coming in into inlet...... @ 10:30 at night. :) crazy bein daytime all the time!

Another view of the Kenai River

Eli fishing the Kenai

Some fat girl fishing the Kenai! :)

Cruise boat to Portage Glacier

Portage Glacier

Anchorage Temple

Can't wait to go back! (With tickets)

HOW DO I FORGET!?

2009-07-11T18:44:00.000-07:00

We want to tell Eli's mom and my dad HAPPY BELATED B-DAY!!!!! We love you guys!!

Wyoming in a blur

2009-07-11T17:44:00.000-07:00

We have been in Wyo for..... last part of June and most of July. It was fun to spend time and be with the family. I can't believe how fast the summer has gone!! The pics are in no particular order, of course.

The girls and their fireworks. One of the only times I have a pic of all four looking in the same direction :) .....with no blur!

Oh, and I can't find the pics, but Blynn lost her first and second teeth!!! Finally! The permanent ones had already come through behind. She made quite the hall on those two teeth!!! :) The girls spent endless hours jumping on the tramp, swinging (whoever would push them!), swimming, and other activities! (Little side note about the swinging. A while back I was making a list of all the things I needed to get ready for a trip. Blynn saw my list and she has been a list maker ever since. So fast forward to this trip, and we find a paper on the kitchen table of Blynns. Its a list. I can't remember exactly what it said, but it had all the girls' names and activities she wanted to do. Then at the bottom was grandpa's name......pushing them on the swings :) I thought that was pretty cute. She had to nominate someone.

Blynn floating at Horseshoe Bend. :) Gotta love the brown water!

Smores one night at Bob's pit. (HAD to put this one one for Tyler's sake! Kari, please show him my awesome shot of him :) Thanks!)

The Pinata (however you spell it!!) at Eli's family reunion. It was great to see most all of his family again!!

Bob's Haka Dance he performed in the Follies. :) awesome skirt and paintings huh Bob!! :)

OH!! I almost forgot!! I came home for a doc's app mid all of this and found out what number 3 is!!! Yup....... it's another GIRL :) The girls couldn't be happier!! and we are excited too;)

Grandpa

2009-06-25T21:40:00.000-07:00

We have been in Wyoming off and on for the last two weeks. The girls got to stay with grandma and aunt Fonda. They had a blast. I flew back on Monday with Eli. Monday also happened to be the day that Grandpa Wardell was having knee replacement surgery. The surgery went very well and in record time! The doctor loved his teeny knees :) The next time I spoke with my mom she said he was having trouble waking up. He did wake up and spoke to the nurse and grandma for a brief moment and that was the last time.

Grandpa passed this morning around 4 am. I was greatful that we were here. He was on several treatments including a respirator. We were told that as soon as that was gone he would pass pretty quickly. So we drove up and said our last goodbyes.

~Grandpa was a pretty amazing guy in my book. I have a lot of great memories with him and grandma. I loved spending time with him growing up.

~He taught a lot of us grandkids how to drive.....a stick :) The patience he had with me was amazing. I would try my hardest, because I never wanted to disappoint him. But, that was one thing that took a while to grasp the hang of it.

~Whenever we would spend the night, he would read bedtime stories out of this old book. His favorite was the fables. He always found a way to teach. Always.

~Every meal with grandpa always consisted of having the container of Tang. You couldn't set the table without it!

~His work ethic was amazing. He was always up early and coming in late. He taught that to my mom and she passed it to us. The importance of work is crucial. I loved being in the shop with him. (it smelled really good! :) )

~He was a very wise person.

~Double Bubble was very popular :) I also remember the Doublemint, Juicyfruit, and the kind of gum (I forgot the name of it, maybe Beechnut or something like that!) He always had some.

~A very early memory I have of him was hanging me upside down in the shower! It always made me laugh.

~One day he stopped by the house on his way through town. He was in a humerous mood. He was crackin jokes about food that was marked for "reduced for quick sale". I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. (Sorry grma!)

~Fossil hunting and weeny roasts. Need I say more?

~The room "checks". :) He would always casually walk back to the rooms and check their condition. Made me want to always have a clean room :)

There are many other memories I have of my grandpa. I loved him very much and always looked forward to their visits and the time spent with them. The last couple of years it has been harder living so far away, but I will always treasure these moments and memories.

Grandpa we will miss you so much and look forward to seeing you again. Till we meet again

What I've been doing......

2009-06-11T22:46:00.000-07:00

While I'm waiting for laundry to get done, I decided to edit and post some new pics I did tonight! Here is Travis and Tara, and they looked great!! :) Again, you guys are awesome to work with!! It was fun! Enjoy! Hopefully more to come soon.....

Some more happenings....

2009-06-08T14:35:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago we went up north to see Eli's dad for his b-day. He is helping his uncle make some new roads. We had fun. It is gorgeous up there! Tick country, but still really pretty! We saw Obern and his family too. We ended up taking the girls to the Planetarium at the Gateway. We watched a movie about Saturn, the girls were amazed at the theater, but no go on the show :) It was still a good experience though!!! Now they can say they have watched a movie in the dome theater.One of those moments her legs don't work :)

This is what my girls do when I get the camera out. Nice.

Eli and the b-day boy!

We found a field of flowers on the way back. Decided that it was a good as time as ever to blow some more stink off!! :)

Lake Powell!

2009-06-06T22:07:00.000-07:00

This last week we went to Lake Powell with our friends, the Barnes! It was great fun!! We went on the house boat and ate tons of great food. (it was hard coming home to my seriously lame cooking :) ) We played horseshoes, card games, waverunner rides, mini rave :), fishing and enjoyed the sun! We had some pretty funny entertainment, probably shouldn't write it down. :)This is what it looks like with 5 kids waving their glow sticks dancing to music :) The weather was awesome.

The cool slide the boys made. Eli trying it out with his cool fred flintstone outfit :)
(sorry the pics are backwards.....)

Eli working hard

Playin some horseshoes

Taking the waverunners for another spin!

What blynn did 23 hours of the day... :) She got the tan that all of us only dream about, even with tons of sunscreen!

Elle gettin abother "motorboat" ride. She loved it!!

The sneak peek!!

2009-05-15T21:26:00.000-07:00

I had so much fun doing these guys' pics for them. They did awesome! I am going to hire her to do my ideas. She had so many of them, it made my job so easy!!! (And I still messed up my part!! :)) Anyhow, thanks Travis and Tara! You guys are hot! :) ....So here are a couple of my favs!! Enjoy! oh and please comment to let me know what you think! thanks :) ps. I'll have your family pics up soon, just couldn't wait. :)

Elle's "gad-giation"

2009-05-14T17:44:00.000-07:00

Last night Elle graduated from preschool. She was pretty excited, all she kept talking about is when her "gad-giation". Its been awhile since I've gotten the camera out so my pics were pretty poopy. Plus my mind was going crazy because I had my first engagements last night!! She had an extra treat becuase Grama and Grampa Mayes was here visiting! Its been fun to hang out and visit. We are getting them into the groove of becoming frequent flyers!

We've been busy with Expo's and traveling around. Last week we went to Page for Eli to start working. And as soon as we got back, we left for Salt Lake! Blynn finishes school this next week with her graduation! Our pool just opened and we haven't heard the last of the "CAN WE GO SWIMMING??!!!" :) I think its going to be a long summer.....and it really hasn't started yet! :)

Thanks Grama and Grampa for everything!! Its been great having you guys here and hope its not too long before you come back!! :) We love you!!!

(I'm hurrying to get the pics done!! I'm excited!!) Check back!

catch up

2009-04-27T10:23:00.000-07:00

Looking for bugs

She got up there, and now she needs help down.

Our bug girl. She loves catapillars. (my man finally gets to relax)

K so its been awhile! I've missed Easter and more importantly Birthdays!!! Especially Eli's!! I'm horrible. I would go into detail what hasn't got done, but I better not. Just not a good idea. But I'm getting back on track.....today!

So most importantly, HAPPY BELATED B-DAY TO ELI!!!! (BIG 30)!! Know I still love you very much! We were in Wyoming over his birthday for Easter. *note* gets gushy, you may want to skip to next paragraph. :) I don't know how I got so lucky. Your sense of humor that always make us laugh all the time is wonderful. You are very hard working. I love how spotanious you are. You are an amazing dad and husband. You are the one of the most self-less people I know. (next to your mom of course :)) One word, Patience. You have plenty of it. We are beginning to love your "LOVE" for flying. Haha! I love how you find ways to serve others. (I have a quick story to tell. The other morning Eli and I flew to SLC to pick up the van and product. On the way home we stopped at a convience store and on the way in, Eli held the door for two old ladies. They were all happy and said thank you, Eli didn't end it there and told them to have a "Happy Thursday". They giggled with glee and turned giddy. All I could do is laugh. It was so cute. He does stuff like this all the time.) He has the ability to talk to anyone. He loves the outdoors. He likes to include us with him wherever he goes and does, but won't go if we can't or don't want to. He draws very well. He loves to play the guitar. He feels bad if he can't stop and help some one on the interstate. The list goes on. I only wish that my brain would function better so I can put it all down. Eli you are amazing and never cease to amaze me. I love you so much and am very lucky to have such a great companion and best friend!!! I LOVE YOU BABE!!!

We missed Grama Leithead's b-day and Kenneth and Andrew's B-days too! Happy belated to you guys too!!

We went camping this last "weekend". Our week days and "ends" are backwards. It was fun. It was only over night, but we still had fun. Our friends M&M and kids accompanied us. I laugh at how dirty the kids can get, so quickly! They had a blast. We had our own red rock climbing wall. And we were even lucky enough to get out of there without any broken limbs!!! Even Better!!

And I'll take a quick moment to thank our mechanic/engineer for for getting electricity to flow where it needed so we could air up our mattresses. (only bad thing about the site was that it lacked any space to put tents. Nice. We got to the site to quickly choose between two sites before one was snagged minutes after!) Definately different camping compared to Wyo!!! So back to our fix it guys, it was heavenly to sleep on a mattress compared to the edge of the asphalt with plentiful little sharp rocks :) Or spend the whole night trying to blow it up by mouth.

We laughed lots. So when we go camping in Wyo, things are A LOT different right? Well we have never been to this particular site and didn't know what to expect. So we brought some red neck items so we could be prepared and M&M had a hay day with that. They didn't like our princess lamp either!!! All I can say is we are going to get a REAL camping light next! We had a blast and great company. Till next time.... (Eli wants to camp this week too :) Maybe.

We had a good time in Wyo for Easter, and like always we missed Eli cuz he had to work. It was fun to hang out with the fam again. When we got on the plane to come home, I felt like I fell apart. It was butt-crack early in the am, Elle wanted to stay which led her to tears.....Blynn soon followed, It was freakin HOT in the airport in Cody, there were no bathrooms on this side of security (which was a huge problem!) and countless other things. The breath of fresh air boarding was heavenly. It had just started to sprinkle and smelled so good!.... just till we boarded and the heat was on in the plane. I thought I was going to die right then. I was so sick. I was seriously falling apart at both ends. TMI. All I can say was trouble. When we landed in SL, Eli had just gotten off of work and got there minutes after we did. Pregnancy and flying don't mix. I knew I was in for it going to SG. It is always bumpy. Always. Things would be better since Eli was with me right?! Wrong. They were only going to be able to put 3 of us on. After deciding, the girls and I were getting on. Saying our goodbyes, we boarded. The pilot came on and said we were waiting for mechanics to board. I immediately panicked because I thought all seats were full. Which in turn meant we were getting booted. I texted Eli, and he said he was the mechanic!!! Wha-hoo!! Just the site of him getting on the plane was heavenly :) We all were able to sit together. I made it. Being sick all day every day doesn't sit well. I can only wait till this part is over!!

Wow, sorry so long winded! I guess this is what happens when you wait to post so long. I have forgotten stuff.

One last thing. Our friends just had a beautiful baby girl. She had complications and only lived for a few hours. We traveled to the funeral. It was so hard. I'm extremely emotional anyway. I know that our Heavenly Father has a plan for us and that this family will be able to see their sister, daughter again. This was all made possible by our loving Elder brother, Jesus Christ. I am so greatful for this knowledge.

Rain!?

2009-04-06T16:52:00.000-07:00

K, so i'm inside trying to pick up my nastyness of a house, when Blynn come runnin in. "Just grabbing ....the rest was undecipherable." So on her way back out she has her two old umbrellas. I just thought whatever. So then I start hearing this weird noise. Like something hollow dragging across the concrete. So I go outside to investigate and this is what I found..... my neighbor spraying the kids down with the hose!! ( the noise was him spraying his daughter when she had her raincoat on :)) The kids were having a blast! it was so nice today. The kids can hardly wait until the pool opens!! :)

Sneak Peek at the Hansens

2009-04-06T09:14:00.000-07:00

These kids were so good, and they are very cute too! They did very well considering it was pretty chilly! Enjoy!

She's finally doing it!

2009-04-04T19:44:00.000-07:00

Elle begged Eli to finally take off the training wheels....of her new bike. So he did. But in the mean time she hopped on her old bike and away she went. She didn't give Eli a chance to even get behind her!!! It was pretty funny. Our driveway is sloped and she just took off. She's been riding her old bike constantly since then, but is still a bit nervous for her big bike! She looks like she's been riding this way forever!! Too funny. She cracks us up. She's gettin so big. Sigh :)

Sneak Peek at the new Missionary

2009-03-30T10:08:00.001-07:00

I thought his mom might like this one.... we accidently got a good smile :)

Good Luck Dustin! :)

Some new pics

2009-03-28T11:31:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of pics that I did a couple of weeks ago. Yes I am that behind. I was hoping that I would have my photo blog done and could be posting on there, but not so. Not yet anyhow! Quick explanation of these pics. This is Mason and his birthday is March 31. He shares the same day that his uncle died in Iraq. His mom is doing a little memoirs thing for the fam using all of his letters, flight jacket, etc. How do you think it turned out?

This is Sweet little Haven. She is a DOLL! Poor girl had a running nose and boogers:) But considering....she did pretty good until I took her outside! (Who can resist those rubberband arms!! :)

2009-03-27T17:33:00.000-07:00

As most of you have found out from the last post....Yes! WE ARE EXPECTING!! :) The girls are very excited minus the part that they just want another sister! Um yah. Well good luck with that one kiddos my vote (or maybe instinct?) is that this one is a boy! So far things are a bit different. I just started getting sick this last weekend at Kacee's. Blah! With my girls I was only sick at night. This one it is ALL DAY LONG!! I was dreading flyin into St. George because its pretty bumpy coming into land (Catherine I was so thinkin about ya!!!) And sure enough it was pretty bumpy!!! I wanted to loose my cookies :) So I'm hoping this phase will go quickly!!
The plan: We were "planning" on waiting a while before we announced. But things never go as planned around here! Long story short, we didn't want our girls to hear from someone else so Eli told them. Sure enough BrookLynn told Kacee when she saw her. Haha, Kacee can't keep secrets or more like it kills her to try and keep it a secret so she convinced me to spill the rest of the beans! I forgot my camera so we tried to use hers on her phone. Elle's shirt actually says "I'm the big sis!" but you need a microscpoe to see it. I couldn't figure out how to enlarge it. Anywho, the due date is November 10. And we are pretty excited!! Thanks for all your comments!

Our weekend.....so far :)

2009-03-22T13:50:00.000-07:00

Hey! We headed to Salt Lake with Eli on Friday. Kacee came out and got the girls and I and we headed to Roosevelt to spend the weekend with her! Its been fun so far!! Kacee has pampered us and you probably can't tell in the teeny pics (from her cell) that Elle has "Ariel" extensions and Blynn has "Pink" ones. They love them!!! There are only three, but they still think that they are the best!! They love to come to Kacee's cuz she spoils them rotten! I seriously think that the girls are always expecting some wonderful treats when they come to Kacee's!!! I'm sure that they won't want to go home anytime soon!! :)

update

2009-03-19T21:47:00.001-07:00

*so sorry about being a lazy blogger!! I wanted to post a bit about last weekend when Bob and my dad where able to come down and visit!! It was so much fun, and we loved having them here! And two photoshoots!!!*

Small update about school. We have a friend here in St. George at the airport. Eli has taken all of his tests with them. They are great people and we love them! Anywho, one day three of "our school's" planes came in to fuel here in STG. They were "chatting" on the main frequency which was a no-no. So they announced what frequency they were moving to. So our friend changed over to the same frequency. She listened (she knows the situation at the school, and that these planes were from there) and heard them talking and what do you know??!! They were headed to Florida. The school opened three new locations out there last fall. (One of the three was Eli's horrible Instrument instructor) Word is that they are changing the name of the school out there so they can continue to steal everyone's money. Basically. We haven't heard about if there was a case or not on Monday. We are suprised that there isn't anything in the news. If the DA is truly involved (like we have been hearing) why haven't we heard anymore? But Eli and his buddy (who also works with Eli and is a student at the school) want to do some investigating in Florida. Give some notice to all the other potential students!! :) I don't know how this may come across, but I hope it isn't vindictive, or stooping to their level type of thing. A warning perhaps? The loans are huge, and you CAN'T default on them even if the company goes bankrupt. The school demanded the loans in full. Not as we went. Soooo..... thats kind of what is going on in a nutshell. I might see if Eli wants to add his 10 cents :)

Eli said we will keep this updated :)

School

2009-03-13T23:32:00.000-07:00

Well, while I'm sitting here waiting for my dad and K-Bob to get in, and I thought I would blab about Eli's school. There has been a recent development. The school Eli has been going to (and is still under contract for teaching) has "temporarly" closed. We don't know EXACTLY why, but this isn't really a surprise to us. Eli rushed to get through everything. There has been so many rumors and what not going around. So its still pretty difficult to know what the heck is going on.

Bad part about it and what it means for us?? We still have a chunk of un-used money tied up with them. This is for Eli's multi-engine time building. He needs this time to even apply for major airlines. We wouldn't be able to get another loan, so it would be VERY time consuming to save for each flight. Plane rental, gas, and time. Bummer huh. We think that there is a hearing on Monday to determine if there was a misuse of funds. Criminal, that would mean that we could possibly get our money back. If not, bye-bye $$$. Things could be so unbelievably worse!! There are students that have just started and have given the school ALL or a huge portion of their loans. Bad. Very bad. Some haven't even recieved their private license yet. You might think, "hey they could still get another loan?" Not really. Especially since the way the economy is now. And there are the others who don't have their commercial rating so they can't get a job yet and even the ones who aren't instructors yet don't have anything to go on.

So, come Monday, hopefully we will hear that Eli will be able to get his time building done and get out of there!!!!
I hope for the rest of them that they will get their funds back, so they can move on. So I guess we will cross our fingers??!!

Bike Ride

2009-03-13T12:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we were able to go on a picnic and bike ride. It was so much fun. We ate some sandwitches at the park and started down one of the bike paths and not even 20 yrds down the trail it ended. So we packed up and headed to another trail. Elle still gets tired pretty easy so she got to sit in the bike trailer. She didn't whine once. (thats her new thing, whining about something!!) Blynn amazed us. She did awesome!!! Going up some bigger hills, she never got off and walked up. She had fun and was really glad and that she did so well. The loop was around 5 miles. We can't wait to go again.... as soon as my hiney stops hurting!! (I need a big grama seat. You know the squishy kind? :) Elle glad to be done

Getting out her rations :)

Almost done!!!Blynn picking which way we want to go!

HAD to get another crazy Elle face in there!!!

THE END

My Happy Birf-day!

2009-03-09T21:42:00.000-07:00

The beautiful necklace Eli gave me! :) Love it!

I turned 21 today.....plus some :) My girls were so cute. I was getting some singing time stuff together on Saturday night and ended up leaving all my stuff out. (long story, I will say I am NOT a fan of daylight savings time!!!) So the girls took the opportunity to use all of "mom's" stuff while it was still out. Huge paper, markers, crayons and so forth. They colored and cut away to their happy hearts desire, or well untill I told them enough!!!
Last night it was hush hush what they were doing, but I could hear their happy excited voices carry through-out the house. They were doing something for mom's birthday!!! So this morning, first thing....I went in to wake them up, and not knowing Blynn was fully awake, she gave me my first HAPPY BIRTHDAY of the day!!! It was so cute. With the sleepiest smile you could imagine. (melt my heart!) We hurried to the gym and came home. They ran inside to get their prized treasures and it was TIME!!! No more waiting! I had to open the presents now!!!
I could not get over their excitement. It was better than Christmas for them and they were so proud. How could I not love that!? I opened their envelopes and found more drawings. (I get SO many of those these days.... :)) And to the present. My eyes wanted to tear up just looking at the wrapping job. BLynn was so proud!! Inside I found a plethera of items from the house. Games, cards, more drawings, Blynns cell phone she made, there papers they made with their friends. etc.... It was great! I love my girls. They made me feel more than special on MY special day!!
I love you girls so much!!! Thanks! :)
I had a good day. It was fairly quiet and uneventful. Eli is at work so we get to celebrate some more tomarrow. (how lucky am I to milk this out for a couple days!!)
Thanks for the phone calls and cards!! Eli, thank you for the beautiful necklace and earrings. Even more, the goose chase to find them!! :) I'm so unbelievably lucky to have such a wonderful husband like you!! I love you FEIM!!!
Alysia thanks for the girls day out on Saturday. I had a blast!! (And I'll pre-thank you for the amazing cake you are going to make! hehe!! ) And thanks to Jason for watching the kids so we could go!!! (even when your under the weather!)

Thanks everyone for making the beginning of my 28th year so great!

Some of the Treasures in my present

The wonderful wrap job. I wish you could see all the packaging tape!!! It was great!!

My happy girls!!!

Missionary Homecoming!

2009-03-06T19:24:00.000-08:00

*note* I think its about time to get myself a photo blog!! What do you think?

This was a first for me!! Rachel's little bro came home from serving his mission today! They asked if I wouldn't snap some pics for them. It was fun and definately different. I had to laugh cuz he looked at me with this quizical look and asked his fam "Do I know her??!" I had a good laugh over that one!! Welcome Home Elder Anderson! Here are some of the pics, enjoy!

Dr. Suess Week

2009-03-03T18:38:00.000-08:00

BLynn's school is celebrating Dr. Suess' Birthday this week. Monday was green eggs and ham for lunch....but since she doesn't eat lunch.... She got to participate in dress up and wacky hair day! She was SO excited, and I can't remember how many times she asked if I was going to do her hair funny. So this morning she woke up and we went to work......to create Little Miss Cindy Lou-hoo 2. (we did the best we could with short hair :))

When we were done, I told her that she looked like her, except her hair was blonde. Blynn got a flustered look on her face and said "WHY DIDN'T YOU MAKE IT BLONDE!!!?" I had to laugh, cuz and as much as aunt Kacee does everyone's hair INCLUDING coloring, she should have known that I can't just put blonde in it. I had to laugh!

She loved all the attention she got all day as we ran errands today. :)

Some of their favorites.....

2009-02-27T18:51:00.000-08:00

Sorry these are backwards... after the park we took the girls to Fiesta Fun. They couldn't soak everything up quick enough!! We just stayed and played the arcade games and played in the fun area. They keep asking when we can go back! I'm glad they had fun. This is their new "favorite" place. But nothing is quite like the park..... :)

This week Blynn had SEP's. She is doing pretty good. I can't believe that she is learning how to read already!! That's crazy!! She is struggling in one or two areas, but she is about where she needs to be! During SEP's the girls' schedules were almost the same. So yesterday we decided to do some fun stuff. We picked them up and headed to the park for a picnic. Here are a couple of things they love to do! "The Pole" BrookLynn has loved sliding down the pole ever since we showed her how. She felt so "big". But her favorite thing is definately the "Monkey Bars". Hands down. At first she had to have help....for confidence purposes :) (side note*they are very tall. I'm not much help cuz I'm too short) Now she rips across them. It always amazes me how kids love to do the same thing over and over. It never gets old. So repetative!!

Her Bike. She zips around the cul-de-sac on it and loves it. I think its a close tie between the bike and her scooter.

Elle will follow her sister wherever she goes.....until of course she feels intimidated :) She is pretty reserved most of the time. I love her smile. It makes my day when she smiles. She loves to be carried still!! ARGGH!! We try to make her walk and stuff, but it totally has to be her idea! She is way to big to carry! She will run around outsite (and in if I let her) and ride around the cul-de-sac on her bike or scooter. And she doesn't complain, but if we go to wal-mart or anywhere like that.....she heads right to the carts and gets in. Sigh.....

I was amazed she stopped long enough for me to take a couple of snapshots :)

Perkins Fam

2009-02-20T15:43:00.001-08:00

I got to take some more pics! Yea! This one of Eli's friends from NPA. He is also a pilot. You might recognize little Kye. In all of my non-attentiveness, if thats a word, I spaced the fact the sun does not set at the same time year round. So I'm still on winter times, where it was setting earlier. So as you can tell I had major shadows. So I might to do some retakes. Kye was really fussy, he must have remembered when I shot his last pics in the buff. He didn't like it one bit. Thanks Gina for letting me shoot your fam!! :)

I had to laugh.......and so will you.

2009-02-16T22:26:00.000-08:00

Sundays are bit more stressful for me. My new calling is trying to maintain 40+ children 7 and under for a space time......all the while trying to teach them new songs. (thats just the jr primary) Yep, I'm the new primary chorister. (oh the wonderful days of just sitting behind the piano.....watching other choiristers go out of their minds!!!!) My turn.

I snoozed no more than 5 min on Sunday. Did the rushing to get ready....haha even though I had got everything ready Sat night!!!

So needless to say we were late.

We get to church and what do you know?.....not one parking space. Seriously. Crap. I parked next to the curb where no one should park for fear they would get hit. Mr. Mayes would have DIED!! So rushing in, we get in to find.....SURPRISE....no open seats!!!! It was packed!! A chair here and thats about it. This is the overflow too folks. You know, chairs clear in the back of the basketball court. The hard chairs and extremely noisy hard floors back. Oh yea. We did manage to squeeze in. So sacrament meeting was good.....what I heard of it. This new ward is crazy. The number of children make it so noisy. Not to mention, makes my new calling all the more FUN.

So during the closing song the girls and i sneek out cuz I needed to grab my stuff from the car. (I made a funny hat. I would have posted a pic of myself wearing it, but refrained.) Oh, by the way I was glad to see that four other cars parked right along with me! So the girls jetted ahead of me and up the stairs to go back in the building. I'm tagging behind and the second I stepped up on the curb I Phoebe Buffayed it right back DOWN!!! Pumps do NOTHING for me. Holy crap!!! I jumped back up as soon as I could. I immediately started scanning to see if anyone got to witness this! I was dying!! My girls both were standing there staring at me. Just their expressions alone......ha!

I was afraid to see how bad the knee injury was. I couldn't feel any blood dripping down my leg, so I thought it would be okay. Just about the beet redness in my face was bad enough.

I managed to get through Jr. Primary but must have been tired, cuz during Sr. primary.....yah I'm horrible. you would have thought that I just learned to walk or something!! I was walking toward the piano (picture this, piano is on the front left side of the room. All the chairs filled with children) I stepped on something!!! (k, there was really nothing there) I did the little broken ankle dance. Where your whole body shifts and arms are extended out on both sides.....flayling around and you look like you are trying to do some dance move. All this while you are trying to save yourself from eating carpet......in front of 40+ children 8 and above!!!!

I saved myself from eating the freakin piano. Yeah. It was that good.

So today while trying to organize the multi thousands of pics on my computer (thats serious) I was up and down off the couch. Whenever I sat back down, I felt this funny pull on the side of calf. On the outside. Kind of like you sprain your ankle pain. Yeah, even better! A nice reminder of what a klutz I am.

next week......i'm not wearing shoes to church.