Welcome to our World

When I feel like I'm about to loose my marbles, I do things to try to cope.  In this case, I asked Margaret to help me throw a party. It was hard to say good-bye to the L. family.  So hard, in fact, Kaelah and I are going to go visit them for a weekend in September.  Then the E. family came over to say good-bye.  We didn't take any pictures, but I couldn't believe that one of the few strangers Kaelah had warmed up to as a toddler would no longer be living in the same state with us.  They were so cool! So when I heard that the G. family and the W. family were both moving away within 2 weeks of each other, I had to take drastic action.  Words cannot express how much I am going to miss Chelsea and Sandy and their families. I was lucky enough to be assigned to be Chelsea's visiting teacher.  She throws the best parties in the world and introduced me to the Hunger Games and Brave.  Those are the only 2 times I've been to a movie theate...

Back to Lakeside... this time to celebrate Kaelah's birthday.  We had a completely different experience from our last trip.  Instead of going in the heat of a Saturday afternoon and evening, we went on Pioneer Day, a Tuesday night when we could use the free tickets the children earned as part of their summer reading program prizes.  We were there for 4 hours instead of 5 and had my dad with us instead of our neighbor.  It was so fun to watch my dad watching my children have a grand ol' time.  I didn't ride a single ride, but I had a blast watching them.  Kind of makes me want to go for my birthday... but not quite. Kaelah's 2 favorite rides were the roller coaster (no big surprise) & the frog hopper (big surprise).  When she went on the frog hopper last year she didn't like it a bit but loved it this year.  I'm thinking by next summer she'll be ready to leave kiddie land for a little while and ride some of the rides where we can go with h...

Dear Kaelah, Oh, what a year you've had.  What comes to mind?  Your 3rd broken bone during your 1st trip to Disney World, your desire to learn to draw and read and write, your fashion sense, your beautiful hair, how much you love your dance/gymnastics class, how badly you want to move to where you have cousins, your potential.  I am grateful you joined our family.  Now that you are here, I can't imagine living life without you.  I hope every year will bring you more joy and less sorrow than the one before. Love you, incredible girl. ~Mom     Kaelah loved being spoiled for her birthday.  Who wouldn't?  I'm glad she doesn't have to wait long after Danny's birthday to celebrate her own... it seems to keep her pretty patient.  (: We had a small gathering: our family, my parents, and Kaelah's friend, Serena, and some of her family. My mother had been sick and I was grateful she was well again in time to attend, even if that me...

While away, it was so tempting to want to move to be closer to Dan's family.  But we have a great life right where we are at.  We were reminded of this when Shawna brought over another bag of hand-me-downs the day after we got home.  Kaelah has been begging me to buy her high heels for an entire year now and she finally has a beautiful pair.  I don't think she could have loved Shawna more at that moment.  She made sure to wear them to Reese's (Shawna's daughter's) baptism and open house.  I took lots of mental notes from Shawna as to what I would like Kaelah's baptism to be like in 3 years.  Kaelah is already talking about how she wants to be baptized like how when John the Baptist baptized Jesus, so I'm assuming it is ok to begin thinking about such things already. Here's the before picture!  Kaelah loved her cousins' Addie and Ali's long hair so much last October when we were there to visit that she was determined to have long hair like th...

We finally made it out to visit Dan's family again!  We were all packed and ready to go at Christmas but illness struck and we had to stay home.  It has been an entire 9 months since we were there and Kaelah couldn't have been more excited.  She loves her cousins!  Here some of them are eating their ice cream cones at Thanksgiving Point. My children adore their cousin, Sloan.  Here K & D are holding her hand as we walk from the van to the Freedom Festival Parade.  In the van on the way there I had been listening to Stephanie Nielson's book, Heaven is Here, so I was surprised and delighted she was the grand marshall of the parade.  She looked great for just having had a baby a few months ago.  I would have never known! Watching fireworks with cousin Evie.  These 2 are born exactly 2 months apart.  Seeing them together makes me want to move closer to Dan's family.  It took us less than 9 hours to get there but almost ...

In June I went to buy 4th of July outfits for my children & couldn't resist these ladybug dresses as well. When I realized we all matched for church on Sunday, my husband was kind enough to set up the self-timing camera for us -- always a funny time trying to get a good family photo, right? One day my mom was kind enough to babysit while I was gone (at the dentist) for about 90 minutes.  When I came home I realized my mother was a little too nice.  Can you see her hand poking out by Kaelah's arm?  She let my children pile almost every object in the entire basement on top of her.  She figured no one else in the family would ever let them do that.  We spent HOURS cleaning it up.  My mother informed the children that was a once-in-a-lifetime event.  Thank goodness! We love the summer reading program at the local public library.  The prizes are great, and since we knew from the start we had to be reading 20-30 minutes a day, it wasn't st...

Go HHS!  I was more than happy to meet one of my best friends from high school, Melissa Schmidt, at the Aquarium when she was in Denver for the weekend.  This was the first time she got to meet all of my children in real life, but she said that thanks to Facebook, she felt like she already knew them & loved them before that day even came.  It was fun to see that some things, like talking with my friend, never change. Kaelah and Michelle were delighted to see "real" mermaids!  All the excitement of Disney World for a few minutes there.  Dan and I were quite impressed with the swimmers' ability to mouth words under water.  They looked so comfortable down there.  No wonder my girls were believers! After Melissa had to leave the Aquarium, Dan suggested we go to Casa Bonita before heading home.  I hadn't been there since high school and they had never been there, so I was game!  Although the kids liked the divers and Mexican foo...