Princess Lizzie and her royal silliness turned 5!!!

I LOVED Lizzie's birthday! Girls are so adorable all dressed up and giggling! I had so much fun with them, I lost track of time and ended up having to hurry the present opening and crown stapling as the parents waited patiently.

I still can't believe my little Lulu is 5!!!! She will be starting kindergarten this year!! Time really does go by fast when you get old! :)

Carson's 7th birthday

Carson's 7th birthday turned out awesome! He had lots of friends come despite the short 1 day notice I gave them. It was a crazy house, but Carson was in birthday heaven!

Okay, there are no mario party supplies anywhere in St. George, so I ordered online....the only problem is they did not arrive until the day AFTER Carson's birthday, so I had to improvise. The cake took a lot of imagination, patience, and the entire morning to complete, but it was worth Carson's huge smile!

One birthday down, 2 more to go in the next few weeks!!

By the way, I have a bunch of Mario party stuff if anyone wants them!

Expecting to be busy!! 5 kids?!

Yes it's true, I am pregnant again! I laugh at myself because I have a cute little line on my blog about being "completely complete" because we thought we were done having kids after Mckenna was born. But alas, we did not quite feel complete, and we turned our thoughts to becoming pregnant, and that's all it took! :)

So it is still very true that I have the most fertile fertility in creation. I am grateful for such a blessing, but after number 5 joins our family, I AM DONE! If I make it through the next 8 months, life will get crazy but we can do it!

Truth be told that we are VERY excited for a new addition and we know things will work out. We just happened to drop insurance this year due to the cost doubling, but I've talked to the doctor, hospital, anesthesiologist, and ultrasound tech and we will be paying less than if we would have stayed on insurance. HA take that Obama!!

By the way, aren't these the most beautiful flowers? Tyler brought them home for me the day we found out about the baby...he's so sweet!

Primped in Primm!!!

YESSS!! I got to go to Primm on a girl's only trip with my good friend, Ramona! We've been once before about 4 or so years ago, and it was so much fun that we vowed to make it an annual thing. Well one year turned into 4, but better 4 years then never!

We stayed in the "nicer" hotel this time and it turned out to be not so nice. The toilet first of all would NOT flush!! We called the desk multiple times, waiting around for someone to come fix it. So about 5 hours later, a guy finally came with a plunger. We had told the lady at least 4 times that it was NOT clogged, but that it would not flush. No water was filling up in the tank at all. (Yes, brave Mona lifted it to check) And his diagnosis was only "emergency" and then left the room. So by this time it was about 10:30 at night, and we were pretty much at the end of our rope. I made yet another call to the desk to request a new room. After some convincing, she finally moved us.

Anyway, the rest of the trip was AWESOME!!! We did lots and lots of shopping---Charlotte Russe is my new favorite store. We ate meals when WE wanted to where WE wanted to. (no Mcdonalds, Pizza, or Wendy's) We even spent time in the spa getting pampered! I adore facials now! I hope we get to do it again sooner than 4 years from now....

The pictures are a little random but I was way to busy to take lots! :) Yes, I did take a picture of Mona taking a picture of our WORKING toilet!!

It's about time I updated this blog!!

Obviously I have not posted in forever since there is still halloween wallpaper....halloween was great this year. So was Thanksgiving. And it was the best Christmas as an adult so far! We had an awesome time with the Schwendiman's on New Year's Eve. Now that it's a new year, I have made some promises to myself. First, I am completely of soda! Yes, I was addicted to anything diet in a cola flavor. It has been an entire week and I have not had one sip! Yeah! Now the other promise I made has been harder to keep. I am going to get healthy and fit. (I hate to say I'm going to lose weight cuz that's what a million people say for New years) I am not going to focus on the scale (hard to do since I got a new one that actually works for Christmas) but instead I'm going to focus on how I feel.

This stems from lots of things that have happened this last year. I was sick A LOT. I have felt sick to my stomach almost every night. I had gestational diabetes which puts me at risk for type 2 diabetes. And my knee that I have always had issues with has finally quit on me. I even went to an orthopeadic doctor and he diagnosed me with patellofemoral malalignment or something like that. It basically means my knee caps are not in right since birth, so any strain (like an extra 25 lbs) and exersize causes them to freeze and I can't walk for a few weeks. Luckily, I don't need surgery, but the doctor put it nicely that I need to exersize my leg muscles. (it was pretty embarassing seeing all the layers of fat on the x-ray.)

So there you have it. A new year full of eating right, exersizing, and staying positive. Wish me luck!

Life and Death

This year has been a doozy! There have been multiple incidences that have made me reflect about this life and how fragile it is, and on the other hand, how beautiful and miraculous it is. First off, my brother in law was diagnosed with Leukemia just a few days after Christmas. A friend of my brother's passed away suddenly in January, and also my oldest brother was blessed with a child whom they have been trying to adopt for years.

My family got very sick with everything, and I even got a really bad case of he stomach flu when I was 8 months pregnant, and thought I was going to die. :) Then Mckenna was born, which always proves to me that life is miraculous! Then shortly after, Tyler was hospitalized with heart complications. Luckily it is nothing to worry about, but it sure made me realize how my life would be over if his ended. My grandpa has had ups and downs, but for the most part is bed ridden and it's only a matter of time for him.

A couple of months ago a friend from Tyler's work lost her nephew at a family reunion. He had jumped into the deep end and in a split second was gone. Then just yesterday, I read a friend of mine's blog whose toddler jumped into their spa and she found him floating, unresponsive. She gave him CPR, and through prayers of many people, he survived.

Now, back to my brother in law. He has been battling the disease full force now all year. He was given a bone marrow transplant, which is basically the only cure. That was a few months ago. His body is very weak from all the chemo treatments. He throws up almost every day. He looks like a 14 year old bald anorexic. And now, we just found out the transplant didn't work. He is now looking ahead to more chemo, and who knows what else. All we know is doctors are giving him a 10% chance of survival.

So, with all these events, I can't help to feel that something is preparing me for one big event. One that will shake me to the core. One that if I hadn't been thinking so much about life and death, I might not come out of. I don't know when, how, who. But I feel like something will happen, and I will be ready. I know that our lives and the lives of our families are only borrowed to us for a little while on this earth. Heavenly father blesses us with special people in our lives, but he decides when he needs his children back with him. We really don't have much say in the matter. But he will not take someone we love without giving us peace. We only need to ask and he will bring it. If we are willing to accept that every life belongs to him, we can then focus on making our relationships better. I want to treasure every moment I have with each of my kids, because I know they are special spirits, and I know Heavenly Father must miss them, and could take them back at any time. I know that because we are sealed together here on Earth, we will be together for eternity. If someone I love leaves me in this life, I know it's only for a short time.

So here's to hoping I'm wrong, but preparing for the worst. I will do my best to treasure each special person in my life and forget about miniscule worries and distractions. I will stop being so negative about things that don't really matter. Life is to have joy, and joy cannot be found if we are always looking at what we don't have, who said something that offended us, how big my waistline has become, how messy the house is, etc. I will live life without wishing it were different!

what happens when you let two little boys take pictures....

So the boys, especially Carson, are obsessed lately with taking pictures. here's a few of their works of art......that would be a hand blocking the camara from seeing the mess that soapy hand did to the mirror.

Did he do a good job, or is he cooked to perfection?

Yup, that'd be Carson on the crapper. It wouldn't be a boy's photo shoot without including a little bathroom humor....

I find this truly moving. There is some subtle deep meaning to it....

As if Tyson's front teeth aren't bucked enough! :)