Utah

Just a couple pics from our trip to Utah. We had so much fun and got to see almost everyone in my family (that's saying a lot, since there are more than I care to count at the moment).

Jessica playing with Max. Isn't she a doll?!



Tifanie, my oldest niece, soaking up the rays at my mom's pool. Most of the family got together to celebrate July 24th in the sun.




Addie hanging with cool Aunt Kristy.



My sister Amy playing in the pool with Max. He loved it!!!

Cousin Brandon, with his long locks hanging in wet curls.

Addie has turned sassy when asked to smile for the camera. Just like her dad...

Addie got over her fear of jumping into the pool REAL quick. I swear this went on for 45 minutes, then my sister stood in for me for another 15. What a workout!

Rare footage of me not behind the camera

Where a kid can be a kid

A few weeks ago we had Dana and her girls over for dinner along with her brother, John. Corey and John served together in Michigan, then we ended up moving into his parent's ward. This means we get to see John once or twice a year. Dana has been living with their parents all summer while her husband has been deployed. Addie and Dana's girls, Madeline and Katherine, have become fast friends so the evening was enjoyed by all. Here's a movie to prove just how much 'fun' the girls create. Note the guitar, keyboard, vocal trio they have naturally created.

As most of you mamas out there know, a room can go from totally tidy to crazy chaos in about 1.4 seconds when friends come over (or just when a kid remembers they have toys to play with), so please excuse the mess.

Amber had her babies!

I'm a week late with this post, but I've been wanting to make sure things are stable. Many of you that I talk with know that my friend, Amber, was pregnant with quadruplets. I have been so excited/nervous for her that I constantly have her on the brain...which leads to it rolling off my tongue. Last Tuesday, after becoming concerned with certain aspects of the pregnancy and having Amber on constant meds and monitors, her doctor ordered delivery. She was able to make it to 28 weeks 3 days. Barely halfway through, is my first thought, but she delivered nearly 10 lbs of babies. And all are pretty healthy, all things concidered. She was even in the newspaper! Check out her blog for pics and stats. http://4demarias.blogspot.com/



Amber is a special friend of mine, one of the few close friendships that have survived my added miles and lack of nurture. She is a kindred soul, having gone through many of the same trials that I went through. We even found out we dated the same strange guy (both of us met his mom within the first couple dates). I went out with him first, then he started stalking our singles ward. My bishop kicked him out because of boundries, and he ended up in Amber's single ward -- even though he was 32, and took her out a couple times. Amber and I met at least a year later, and didn't find out about our 'similar tastes' for another year or so. I'm rambling, I know. But it's my blog, and I guess I can just hope I haven't lost any faithful readers because if it.



Some of you may have even met Amber. She came to Milwaukee when I was pregnant with Addie and threw me a baby shower. At the time, she was dating this guy from Chicago that she taught in the same school with in Las Vegas. I was blissful in my life, husband, home, baby on the way...I wanted all those things for her. Little did I know! She ended up having him take the missionary discussions, and he was baptized a month before their wedding. Then they were sealed after a year (on their first anniversary, I think?), moved to California, bought a home in the mountains, and now have 4 kids (tiny babies are still kids, right?). All this was completed in just over 3 years! When Amber decides to get things done, she gets things done!!!



Enough reminiscing. I just wanted to goo a little bit about her big life change. Good luck Amber and Mike! And keep up the growing Anthony, Michael, Jaileigh, and Jakob!!!

Don't give up on me!!!

Okay, so I think I should only commit to one post a month... since that's all I'm averaging. Pathetic, I know. But in my defense, I've had a busy month. I am currently in Utah, visiting family, but was catching up on blogs and felt the need to say a little hello.

Today is July 24th, Pioneer Day. I was so excited to be here for all the festivities for the first time in 5 years. I was looking forward to taking the kids to a carnival, watching a parade, spending the day with family and ending it with a big fireworks show! What a bust!!! We spent several hours on the internet, trying to find a town within reasonable driving range that was doing something... anything! The only thing we could find was the downtown parade, and something at the park that's at the end of the parade route. I guess all the towns did their big parties on the Fourth. Not looking forward to braving the crowds and our cranky kids (it was 103* today), we reluctantly woke up early to get going. But, without much heart, and with the one niece that was pushing for the parade sleeping in, we opted for the easy plan - go to Grandma's and swim all day long. Not a bad plan, it turned out. Everyone there had lots of fun. And I was able to spend more time with my family that I only see once or twice a year. We ended the night with fireworks in the street in front of my sister's house. WOW!! My brother-in-law is a nut about fireworks, and always has a good stash purchased from the state next door. Needless to say, several of us were watching the end of the road in the hopes that the cops weren't about to come and bust us for the illegal display of high flying explosions. Unfortunately, Addie has never liked fireworks - or any loud noises, for that matter. So, after the third LARGE explosion (there's a reason professionals handle the authorized displays) and a few scrambles to get the kids out of the way of rogue sparks, I had to bring in a hysterical little girl. She is so fearless about so many things that I can't fault her for not warming up to something that scares her so badly. Max, on the other hand, really kind of liked it. I kept his ears covered when I saw the big ones being lit, but missed a couple times. All he did was squirm around in my lap until he was comfortable again. He even started falling asleep with all the pops and booms around him, so I took him in and put the kids to bed. All in all, kind of a run of the mill day. Gone are the days of the whole state shutting down to celebrate it's birthday, I guess. Oh, well, we had fun anyway. I'll get some pictures loaded once I get home and maybe put a video up for your viewing pleasure.

Catching up, again!

I'm so terrible! We got our computer back on the 12th, and I've been so busy checking and enjoying other people's blogs that I haven't done any blogging myself. So here's a little update on what's been going on in our lives.

The weather has been wonderful, now that the tornado warnings have passed us by. Not too hot, and with the recent rain our world is now green! green! green! Unfortunately, our weeds seem to thrive as well or better than our plants. Here's a picture of the kids loving getting out of the house. Addie loves to 'mother' Max, so she is pushing him on the swing.

We recently took a trip to Madison, the first time we've visited the capitol of our great state. We've driven by it umpteen times on our way to the Dells or to Minnesota, but we had to make a special trip to finally explore it. Pathetic, because it's only about 80 miles away. But we had fun!

Here's a picture of one of only three Thai pavilions outside of Thailand. It's pretty cool, and crafted by Thai artisans that put this together without nails or screws or any metal fastners and is covered with gold leaf. Cool, huh?

We went to the free zoo, and had so much fun. Corey was working on Addie's skills while I was trying to keep Max from getting too much sun.

A little mommy/daughter bonding, still at the zoo.

Here's Addie at the petting zoo feeding the goats. Yes, we're too cheap to buy the goat food so Corey is forced to pick through the debris on the ground. Okay, maybe we're not that cheap, we just didn't have any singles on us :)

We have another trip that I'll have to blog about another time... I'm tired! Thanks to all you that check our blog, even though I'm terrible at keeping current! Don't lose faith in us, we will eventually come through.

Still no computer...

So I called Best Buy tonight, with hope nearly overriding doubt that maybe I'd have my laptop back soon. No luck! They're still waiting on parts, and that's terrible for me because Corey's going on a work trip tomorrow through Saturday, and he'll be taking his computer... Crap!

Hopefully, I'll be bombarding you with pictures and posts soon enough. But for now, you'll just have to deal with me rambling and complaining. Yes, complaining, because I feel like I have a lot to vent about.

Starting with sick kids. I swear, having two kids you are exposed to 10 times the colds and viruses than when it was only one child to worry about. And it gets more interesting, like coxsackie virus (trashy name hand, mouth, foot) that we're experiencing right now. Max is suffering the most, poor guy, and I guess we picked it up from the ONE time I took the kids to the gym daycare! So we have to stay away from other kids for 5 days, and that's made all the harder by Corey being gone for 3 of these days.

Then, of course, there's the flooded basement we were dealt on Saturday. Addie actually started with her fevers on Saturday, while we were trying to have company over for a BBQ. I was almost grateful for the crappy weather that forced us to cancel. Almost. We were hunkered down in the basement because of tornado warnings, and Corey noticed water pouring in from our north wall. Then we saw it coming from under the stairs where the sump pump is located, so we ran over to find the water was coming in too fast for the pump to keep up with. Corey and I started bailing out the water as fast as we could, and we weren't making a dent! At least we were keeping it from overflowing, but it was daunting. I was forced to realize that I'm no good in an emergency situation like that. Remember that Addie was sick, so she was pretty tramatized and wasn't afraid to show it. So that was setting Max off (or maybe his sickness was just setting in as I look back on it). The weather started to calm down, so Corey sent me over to Sears to buy a shopvac and a couple fans. Now, Sears is literally across the street from our backyard neighbors, but by the time I got there, the rain was coming down so hard that I was dripping wet soaked by the time I ran into the store. I was one of several customers there - which surprised me - until I realized that everyone there was buying shopvacs and other clean up tools. I guess it's comforting to know that we weren't alone in our boat (ha ha).

I guess I didn't have as much venting to do as I thought, it's just hard to see when you're in the middle of dealing with it all.

I miss our friends!

We've lost some great friends the past couple weeks, and I'm seriously bummed. I feel such a loss, especially for my kids. Not only did we lose good friends, Addie and Max (okay, mostly Addie) are down 4 friends each! Trey and Jada, Matt and Wyatt, Cash and the twins, and Riley and Madison. Even Zander, Allissa and Brody will be gone all summer, and Madeline and Katherine will be going home again soon. Crap! And now that the weather is so great, it's the time that I like to get together with friends. Our house is so small that it's hard for me to enjoy extra bodies in my living room, so I rarely have people over. But we have a huge yard, and Addie loves to have friends come play with her. I shouldn't boob about this too much, we still have some great friends here, but even that doesn't make me feel any better about who we'll miss. I guess this post is just a tribute to all the great friends that we want to send our love out to, and we hope you all are able to find people in your new lives that love and appreciate you as much as we do (someone get me a tissue...)!

Okay, onto brighter subjects... Is there anyone else out there that loves yardwork as much as I do? Now, I'm not talking about the tedious weeding that seems to be like bailing water out of a leaky boat. That's not too fun, unless you get those really long roots. Or the ground is nice and soft so everything comes out with ease. I'm talking about watching the fruits of your labor (not literally, in my case, we only have flowers and a small veggie plot). I get so excited seeing green shoots coming out of the ground, and being to identify them and anticipate their arrival. And the sense of pride, knowing all our hard work is paying off with such rewards. Addie is such a great helper, she even has her own spade and gloves. She is also quick to remind me of all the flowers I mention to her -- showing me again and again that I need to constantly watch what comes out of my mouth. Last week, I was looking at our peonies and I mentioned to her, "these are getting ready to pop!" Ever since then, she talks about our popcorn flowers and to watch out for them popping! I love that funny little mind.

The best part of my week is when I get to mow our lawn! I know that sounds crazy, especially if you know our yard (we're on a half acre, and our house is so small that all that space is mostly yard). I love strapping on my mp3 player and rocking out for an hour of uninterrupted bliss. My poor neighbors are subjected to me singing along to my favorite songs, from Counting Crows to the Bee Gees, and Phish to Five for Fighting. I have no shame! I find it very theraputic... going back and forth, slowly but surely making sure all the grass gets my attention. I love it so much that I only let Corey mow the week after I delivered Max, but then took back the duty because I missed doing it. You should have seen me, 9 months pregnant, holding my belly on the bumpy parts of our lawn :) I'm sure our neighbors just loved watching that! I've even mowed with Max strapped to me (he loved it, it lulled him right to sleep)! My next door neighbor just laughed and laughed when she saw me!

I have to apologize about the lack of pictures on this post, our computer is being repaired at Best Buy. I dropped it off last Friday, and the pimply faced youth at the Geek Squad counter smiled at me when he said to expect it to take 2-3 weeks for repairs. Yikes! Do you know what that's like to a stay-at-home mom?!? Corey took pity on me and is bringing his work laptop home every night so I can at least check my email and do a little surfing and blogging. So, no pictures because no home computer. I'll try to make up for it in the coming posts.