We're Off!

So..... we are on the road right now on our way to Florida for our family Disney Cruise. We are driving and the others are flying. I feel like it is a miracle for us to be on our way. Last week on Tuesday morning I slipped on the ice while dropping Chad off at school and thought I had broken my ankle. I was freaking out because I had so much to do to get ready for Christmas and numerous parties I was in charge of and a pack meeting to do for austin arrow of light and our trip that we he been planning for the last year. All of these things were racing through my head as I lay on the ice in a lot of pain. I thought if I could just get myself home everything would be ok. I was wrong. I could barely drive at all because of the intense pain in my ankle when I pushed on the gas. I got ahold of mark be mom and I waited in the car at home until theybcould get there to help me out. Dr. Sam cme over and liked at my ankle and he thought it was probably broken but did give me some hope that it could be a sprain. Before we went to the ER Mark gave me a blessing. After that I knew I was going to be ok. Sure enough the x-ray showed that it wasn't broken but a bad sprain. It still has been quite the recovery for me. Mom and my friends have been my angels taking care of me.my friend kristen who is a PT has come over numerous times to do therapy. That has really helped a lot. Mom totally was a huge help as she ran errands so I could get of the things done like pack meeting stuff and class parties. It has been challenging for me not to be able to get around like usual. I finally drove for the first time on Sunday. I still am swolen and sore but I'm hoping that a 2 day drive in the car will help.

One of my favorite things about the Christmas season is all the fun parties. Lastyesterday we harbour anual Christmas eve get together. This was the tradition that started when I was a kid and we would always go out to eat with Skeeles and Bednars (cause the moms didn't want to cook anymore) and then we would go see a movie all together. This tradition has evolved over the years and now we are such a big group it is almost harder to go out so yesterday a bunch of families met at moms house for lunch and then we all just hung out and played. It was very enjoyable.

Afterwards mark and I went to our house to get christmas stuff to bring back to moms house. We changed our mind to have. Hristmas morning at mom and dads house when we saw how sad the boys were. Austin came back with us and he said to us in the car, "it's nice when you feel like life can't get any better than this." I thought that was so sweet. He has had a lot of fun in the past few days hanging out with Uncle Kevin. I'm glad kevin is such a good example for Austin. I can't believe this is our last Christmas with him for 2 more years! Crazy.

We ended last night acting out the nativity and singing Christmas songs. I love doing that with everyone. The kids ESPECIALLY chad are so excited for morning. Chad is now 5 and we were did ussing how that has got to be the greatest age of all.

This morning was great. Everyone was happy with their gifts. Chad his "buggy" car (remote control car). Braden his spy gear car. Austin snorkel stuff and under armor jacket. Hadley got baby stuff. She loves her babies.

So back where I started. We're here in the car driving only about 4 hours into our 17-18 hour drive. Exciting!

This was one of the few "down" days we had this summer. We woke up and it was raining so we spent the morning inside playing with Play-doh. By mid-morning the rain had cleared and the boys were busy making a robot out of a box that a kitchen set had come in for hadley. After completing the robot the boys walked around to some neighbors houses trying to play a prank on some friends or something.

Burch Family Visit

Lake Day

Swim-Bike-Run

Happy Bithday 2 You!

Hadley is growing up way too fast for me. I can hardly stand it. We had a fun little birthday party at nana's pool. Hadley had a great time swimming and being with her friends. She also loved eating all of the frosting off of her cake. Most of all she loved her girly presents.

I Heart the Lake

Long Time No Blog....May Happenings

So....I guess it has been over a month since i have blogged. What can i say life is busy- full of different events and friends and projects. I think that the longer days mixed with pool and lake time have taken away from blogging (not that I mind). I love to stay outside with the kids until it is dark and somewhere in there we find time for dinner. So when they are finally going to bed i spend a little time on some projects (more on that later) and then I am done. So tonight i decided that i was going to post some stuff and i just looked at the clock and i know why i don't stay up to do this. Lets just say that it is about midnight...in Hawaii.

Anyway- here are a few things that we did in the month of may. (I really do this for me so i can keep track of what i do. I find if i don't write things down or take a picture of it i may as well not have done it at all.)

The First Dress Up

Oh my goodness!! Can i tell you how much i love having a little girl??? I could cry. I never expected to feel so giddy when i saw hadley dressed up but i really thought it was one of the cutest things ever. She was playing with Julia and when i went to pick her up this was how she was dressed. Hadley gets to enjoy a whole new world of girl things at Julia's house since Julia is one of 4 girls. If Hadley wants to dress up at home she has to make do with cowboy and darth vader stuff. After seeing this I may have to get her a few girly things.

Happy Anniversary and First Day at AAA!

today (yesterday actually) was our 12th anniversary. i can't believe we are at 12 already.....the time has gone by way too fast! we went out to ruth's chris (it is a new arrival to our litle neck of the woods). super yummy! then afterward we walked around in pinnacle and then we ended up going to a movie. we saw "made of honor". not one of my favorites.
Today was a big day too because it was mark's first day at AAA business systems!!!! Yea!!! friday it was official and we signed all of the papers. (i need to do a post of that whole experience) but, we are so so excited to finally be starting w/this chapter of life!

Nana and Grandad's House

pictures from today at nana and grandad's house. becca and i were laughing so hard at hadley not wanting her picture taken. my favorite is when she carefully lays down on the ground as a show of protest. cute little mollie was more than happy for her photo shoot.

this was later.

Rockin' 80's Party

this was Tom's b-day invitation, and yes, that really is him in front of the berlin wall. everyone really got their 80's groove on for the party and didn't hold back on the karaoke. i was suprised when mark drug me up on stage to sing "everytime you go away." the girls all sang together "girls just wanna have fun" and "material girl" allen and becca (not suprisingly) stole the show with their crowd pleaser "faith". and don't forget the band "bloody finger". the whole party was a totally awesome radical smash hit! The "Bloody Finger" band was a hit!

when i was getting ready at home chad kept saying, "mom, you don't look like my mom!"

Lessons Learned

so....i woke up sunday morning all excited about making a poundcake for my sunday school class. i had already started making it when i heard mark say, "don't forget it's fast sunday!" I was like- (in my head) "what!?!! but i'm making poundcake....maybe i should stop since it is fast sunday?? no, i'll keep going, i'll just cut them (the class) a big slice and put it in a ziplock with a note that says, "don't eat until after church". The thought kept coming back that i shouldn't make the poundcake for them. I could stop and just throw away the cream cheese and only be out like $2. but i kept going despite my thoughts to quit. i even had thoughts go through my head wondering if the Lord could mess up the pound cake if He really didn't want me to make the pound cake. no i thought to myself, that couldn't happen, i am going to follow the recipie exactly, plus i have made this 100 times. anyway....i put the perfectly made pound cake in the oven at the right temp. and for less time than the recipie calls for. about 30 minutes later i started smelling a funny smell. i go to the oven double check the temp. and time everything was right and then i opened up the oven to a puff of black smoke and a blackened pound cake. my jaw dropped open as i realized that the Lord was telling me that i should always follow the spirit. the blackend poundcake did make a great object lesson for class. unfortunately...this lesson cost us $152.98 to get the oven fixed on monday.

Safari in Arkansas

we had too much fun on our trip to the safari out in gentry this last week. the best part was getting to play with our new monkey friend, kiwi. she was the cutest thing ever! hadley loved seeing all of the "cows" that is what she called everything on four legs.

ok so i have said for a long time now that i want to travel around on the back roads of the south and take pictures of old barns. i love old barns i think they are so simple and rusticly pretty and they make me think of a simpler time when families just worked together to survive. nobody builds real wooden barns anymore they are always the cheap meatal buildings.
anyway...i was driving home the other day and i passed a field that i seriously have passed thousands of times before and back behind the fence i saw a beautiful old barn. i decided that i should start taking pictures of the barns right next door to me. all of these different barns are within a 5 minute walk from my house! i just have never taken the time to really notice them. my favorite one is the red barn in the big green field. i went out on wednesday evening b/c there was a big storm brewing and i knew the lighting would be great. hadley waited in the car while i took the pictures with lightening all around me. i kept thinking that it probably wasn't the smartest thing to walk around with a metal tri-pod with lightening striking all around. oh-well. i had a lot of fun doing it.

Life Changing

why, why, why has it taken me my whole life (at least it feels that way) to figure out the laundry and the laundry room?? ell...i think i finally did with the help of mark. we started using bins for everyone and added another laundry basket/sorter in the laundry room. then i made myself a wrapping paper station using pegboard. i love it! it has been a little over a week and i can't believe the difference in the whole house. now whenever i find junk of the kids i throw it in their bin. how does that work? something like this:
kid: "mom can i go bla bla bla???"
me: "check your bin, is it empty?."

now, as weird as it sounds, i love to do laundry. i always loved it because of the smell but hated pretty much everything else about it. the folding and putting away and it taking my whole life. blargh! now it is simple--a little batch here a little batch there. done. even mark likes to do laundry now. this has been life changing.

go comets!

braden had a soccer tournament this weekend. we all went out to the fields to watch the games and enjoy the beautiful weather.
later tonight we were getting dressed in out church clothes (a little out of the ordinary since it was saturday) to go to the Springdale Stake dedication.
chad- "what are we going to do after we go to church?"
mark-"if you're good maybe we'll go get something to eat."
chad-"but....we're going to come home and change our clothes right??? because we don't want to look like church people."

so....i decided last night that i want to get better at photography. i keep saying to myself that i'm going to do it sometime but now is the time. who better to practice on??? my sweet bff hadley of course. i only shot today in the av mode. these were a few of my favs. i don't know if i'm getting better but we sure had fun playing outside.

i heart little girls in high heels....

when i went to get hadley up this morning her hair looked like it was on fire, the way it was sticking straight up everywhere. she is addicted to her blankets and bottle she has to have both right after she gets out of her crib. i love to sit and hold her as she drinks her bottle in the morning (yes i know she is too old for the bottle but it works for now...)
hadley loves to put her high heels on and walk everywhere especially outside pushing a stroller. i personally can't think of anything less desirable to do but she loves it, and even though i wouldn't do it i love to watch her walking around in her pink high heels.