A Possible Career Change???

Meredith had been trying for weeks to get with her photog, who was also supposed to do my pictures but never did, but to no avail. So finally last weekend she asked me if I could just take her pictures so she could get her Christmas card done. I was excited to try out my mad photography skills so I said sure! Of course it rained for days and finally she said, we just have to do it. So, I loaded up my kids in the car with snacks and a movie and met Meredith for the shoot. It was almost dark and super wet, but the rain ceased for the time we were shooting. 40 minutes later, and here's a sampling of what we got:

About half of the pictures were totally unusable but after taking nearly 200, that's not bad. I know I have much to morw on but this has made me excited to learn how to use my camera a little better and continue playing around. Meredith and I have decided we are never paying for professional photos again, we'll just photograph each other. I've already had another request for a family photo shoot, it may be my other sister but who cares, right?

The Saddest Display of Holiday Cheer...

I will forever remember this Christmas as being the lamest decorating I have EVER done. Seriously, even our first Christmas married, Andy and I had a beautiful Christmas tree completely decorated, as was our entire apartment. Andy was even a little bugged because I decorated most of the tree myself while he was at work... I learned to never do that again, I had no idea he was so in to decorating!

I just couldn't unpack the holiday decorations as I am trying to pack up our house. And so it was, until yesterday, that we have had only one decoration. I had to pull our one of three small Christmas trees that I have to use for Enrichment a few nights ago. The kids found it the next day and were thrilled when they plugged it in and the lights lit up! And so came to be our little table of decorations:

The wooden Merry Christmas sign is something I made at Super Saturday in November, it's been sitting there ever since. Hayden added the "lovely" blue and white angel I received as a white elephant gift. On the tree are two ornaments Hayden made for us at school, they are super cute! You can't see but on the back side is a cute wreath made of grapevines from my Visiting teacher's yard, and to top it off, the kids hung a little jar of frankincense and Meir which you can kind of see dangling by the angels head. The best part was when Brynley came down the stairs today she said, "Look Hayden, our Christmas tree is still here!" Good luck finding room under this tree Santa!!

I got to help the kids in Hayden's class make gingerbread houses. I really let Hayden have full artistic control over this one. One mom was there to help and sat and only helped her daughter, it bugged me because plenty of other kids needed help and their mom's weren't there. Of course this girl's gingerbread house looked "perfect". I much prefer Hayden's M&M snow and licorice ropes draped everywhere! Sadly, the gingerbread house is no more... It was quickly devoured after school by two cute little children!

Kindergarten Holiday Program

Last Monday we had so much fun watching Hayden in his first school program! He did such a good job, I have no idea how his teacher got him to stand still, not bugging anyone the entire time! Seriously, I looked at Andy and said, "Have you ever seen Hayden so well-behaved?" His response - "Nope." When it was over I was telling him how proud we were of him and and he said, "I didn't even wave my hands, or touch or bug anyone of my friends around me!" I imagine he may have been threatened a little if he were to do any of those things!

The entire Kindergarten sang a couple of songs and then each class sang a song individually. They ended the evening with "We Wish you a Happy Holiday!"

Hayden's class singing Feliz Navidad while shaking maracas (at the appropriate times of course.) Towards the end of the song, most of the kids were using them as microphones, it was super cute!

(Hayden's shirt says, Dear Santa... I can explain... - Perfect for him!)

A busy Saturday...

We had a great day last Saturday, the day was crazy but incredibly fun!

We woke up first thing in the morning for our ward Christmas Party. It was amazing, we had a great breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, juice, and milk. Together we got to sing Christmas carols and watch a hilarious skit by our Bishopric. I tried taking pictures but none of them turned out well. Let's just say they sort of acted out the 12 Days of Christmas, they deserved huge props for the effort they put into that skit!

After breakfast, Santa came in and the kids all joined in a parade which took them to another room in the church for pictures with Santa. I have to say, this Santa was amazing, not sure where he came from but he was much better than the Santa my kids have seen the last few years. (You can look at my December post from last year if you need proof!) I honestly don't know if I will pay to have crappy Santa picture this year because I think our family one turned out pretty well!

The first time one of our kids has been apprehensive of Santa... She even cried when we got in the room!
Zac on the other hand, couldn't be happier with his Jolly Old friend!

Our family picture

After the Ward party, Hayden's primary teachers (the best teachers ever) had a fun Christmas party with pizza and a gift exchange. It was so sweet, they even gave each of the kids a little gift, Hayden got his first tie tack, it says I am a Child of God. (Silly me forgot the camera)

Straight from Hayden's party we were off to Phoenix Children's Hospital to do some holiday decorating. The kids had a great time helping us decorate the tree and taping snowflakes to the windows. It was to be able to perform this service as a family. I didn't get any pictures of the whole finished product but we, along with one other helper, single handedly decorated the main entrance to one of the buildings at the hospital.

Hayden was so excited to put the star on top of the tree

They did a great job covering the window with snowflakes

Our masterpiece!

I love this time of year... we are looking forward to many more fun family activities!

Star of the Week!

Star of the Week

The highlight of his whole Kindergarten year I'm sure will be getting to be Star of the Week. Hayden has been anxiously awaiting this week since school started. He has gotten pieces of paper and written "All About" at the top and drawing rectangles and drawing pictures in them to use as his poster. When I pulled the poster out of his backpack on Friday he was over the moon excited. I told him we would sit down with some of Mommy's special markers and make the poster really nice. We chose some pictures to print at Costco (he only ended up using one of those because he wanted to draw the rest). Well, Hayden managed to sneak the poster and write his own information on it without me knowing, and it just snowballed from there...


For those who know Hayden well, you know he is not a colorer or a drawer but he wanted to draw everything himself. In the box titled what do you want to be when you grow up he wrote, A Daddy, and drew a picture of a dad. For his favorite place he wrote Disneyland and drew a picture of the Tower of Terror. During the week they have certain things they do, bring a book to read to the class, bring item in a jar to estimate bring a snack to share (he's requested Krispy Kreme donuts), and ask a question for the class to answer and graph. He wrote his question all by himself and even added a second one. They were, what is your favorite restaurant? Red Robin, Taco Bell, or McDonalds. And what is your favorite TV show? Sonic X, Batman, or Superman.

One sampling from his poster

We are so proud of him and we love to see his passion for things shine though!

House Update

We are one week exactly from our final walk through, which means two weeks from taking ownership of our house! I am getting really excited, busy picking out paint colors, etc... As of today carpet and plumbing fixtures were all installed. We have some random things missing from the house, for instance I had noticed that we were missing half of our upper cabinets in the kitchen, the reason I just found out was because they were stolen, nice. Hopefully the new ones will be in by the time of our walk. We also got the door situation resolved, I stuck to my guns and they will be replacing all of the doors in the house. Yay! Basically the doors are the same quality as the current doors but have a more custom look to them. We don't know if we'll have those by the time we move in though, we'll see. Now that the carpet is in and the tile is grouted, I am loving what we chose. I was a little nervous when the tile was going in by I think I love it now. (Excuse the poor lighting in the pictures, it was really bright outside)

View of the kitchen island from the eating area

View of the eating area from the Family Room
View of the family room from the eating area. Hayden is pointing out where the new TV will be going.

View of the living room and front door from the powder bath

Shelly's tile in her living room, not grouted yet

Shelly's kitchen

How does this happen?

Could someone fill me in here? Seriously, after a days worth of tooth brushing, this is what the kids counter looks like. I don't get it!

The boobs just aren't doin' it for him!

In case you were wondering, I'm talking about Zac here...
Our poor little shrimp has only gained 12 ounces in four months. For those who can't do math, that equals 3 ounces a month on average since he is almost 8 months old. He has slipped from the 75th percentile to below the 0 percentile... This is a first for us, the other two were big, with huge heads and very long. Zac is ok in the head and length department but not the weight. He is not even 15 pounds yet. Don't get me wrong, I love having a little pip squeak on my hands but apparently the Ped. is not too happy. She has ordered me to stop breastfeeding, cold turkey, no more. Apparently my breast milk has no fat in it and Zac is needing more calories so we have made the switch to formula... expensive formula of course, because he can't digest regular formula... lucky us! Hopefully when we go to the doctor in a week he will have gained some weight, she is hoping for a pound or two (in one week???). Don't tell but I'm still nursing him in the morning, I can't give up that time with him yet...

Hayden helping with the bottle feeding

I couldn't resist posting this cute picture

Thanksgiving in St. George

We had a fantastic time in St. George for Thanksgiving. The best part - we didn't have to cook - we had dinner at the Country Club. Andy's parents made great meals the other nights but we all took a break for Thanksgiving Dinner. Andy's oldest brother Dave, his wife Ashley and their son Noah were there; as were Andy's youngest older brother Chris, his wife Marina; and of course Andy's parents Sharon and Henry.

The whole family sitting together for dinner

What Thanksgiving dinner looks like at the Country Club made famous by High School Musical 2
What Thanksgiving dinner looks like for a 7 month old!

Andy with Hayden and Brynley

Andy's mom with Hayden

Andy and I

Brynley, planning her next move

We were excited to spend this time with the family, it has been far too long since we have seen most of them - come and visit us! Dinner was great, minus the cranberry sauce. I was commenting to someone before I left that I might need to sneak in some cranberry sauce as I wasn't sure if they would have any at the buffet. Much to my surprise, there was cranberry sauce and it looked great! Unfortunately... it seemed that someone forgot the sugar when they were making it... oh well.

(I posted 3 or 4 more posts tonight below this one, check them out)

Thanksgiving Day Photoshoot

House Update

Only 2 1/2 weeks until our walk through, it's amazing what they'll be able to get done in that amount of time! As of today most of our cabinets were installed, stone on the outside was done (it's the wrong stone, not sure what to do about that!), most of the outside is painted minus the garage door and the shutters which go on the two front windows, and the inside is mostly painted. The big things left to do include the driveway and walkway getting poured (hoping to catch them doing this so the kids can get their hand prints in it!), the rest of the cabinets installed, flooring and counter tops, plumbing and light fixtures, front yard landscaping, and hopefully getting us the right doors on the inside!

Our House - looks kind of weird without the garage painted or the shutters on the upper windows

Part of our kitchen

More cabinets in the kitchen

Shelly's house

The Epitome of White Trash

A quick post...

We have two wireless headphones for our DVD player in our van. Brynley has successfully managed to break the "sizing" mechanism in both pairs (much to her father's dismay). Before we left for Thanksgiving, Andy used duct tape and memory foam to create a pad to set on the head so that they would fit a small head a little better. Hayden was to be using the headphones that plugged in to the jack in the back. Within a few minutes Hayden was complaining that they were hurting his head. Being the resourceful mother that I am, I figured out a way to "fix" the other wireless headphones:

Yep, that is a wad of rolled up toilet paper, tied on to the headphones by another piece of toilet paper!
Hayden didn't even seem to mind when it slipped to the side and was dangling by his cheek.

Brynley liked it too!

When we got in the car to return home, Hayden announced that his toilet paper was gone! My handy roll had somehow disappeared as well... So I came up with an even better solution!

The moral of the story... Next time your child is complaining that the headphones aren't fitting right, try a pool floaty!

(Pictures taken with cell phone, real camera wasn't handy)

Today she would have been 53...

Today, November 26th, my mom would have been 53 years old. Even now, I would have still thought of her as a very young grandma with her 9th grandchild on the way. At the time of her passing, just 3 1/2 years ago, she only had 3, my how things have changed. I think of my mom often, I wonder what she would think of my kids. I feel sad for them; they are missing out the most, I got to spend 26 years with her, I'm the lucky one. I wonder what advice she would give me if I could call her in the middle of the afternoon, crying, wondering how on earth I could handle my kids another minute. I think of how proud she would be of their many accomplishments and I can picture her smiling, soaking in every bit of their childhood.

I love this picture of my mom holding Hayden at the hospital

Here she is helping me give Hayden his first bath, I don't know what I would have done without her!

My mom was by many accounts an amazing woman, she had her faults, we all do right? I have come to realize how true it is that we often don't know what we have until it is lost.... As a small tribute, I am going to post 53 things I love/remember about my mom...

1. She was a friend to everyone 2. She gave all that she had 3. Her love of giving service was unquestionable 4. Tender 5. Generous 6. Devoted to her family 7. Couldn't get enough of her grand kids 8. A true friend 9. Had a great laugh 10. To her, everything was fabulous 11. Creative 12. Cute, spunky handwriting 13. A great doodler 14. Taught me about sacrifice 15. Would give anything for her children 16. Dependable 17. You could always count on her 18. A great hostess 19. Could plan a meal for the masses and always have the perfect amount of food 20. She had an amazing memory, she knew every one's phone number 21. An information magnet 22. A great cook 23. She never said no 24. A perfect house was not always a spotless house 25. Generous 26. A second mom to all of my friends 27. She wanted everyone to just call her Sue - no formalities for her 28. Loved purple 29. Devoted 30. Loved to watch TV (That's not a bad thing) 31. She loved a good LDS Romance Novel 32. I don't think she was afraid of a single bug 33. Always a teenager at heart 34. A good sport 35. A hard worker 36. She loved serving the Lord 37. Loved Orange Juice and toast in the morning 38. We both had a love for sappy Sunday night movies 39. Her home was open to anyone 40. A go-to kind of gal 41. Not a great driver 42. Treated my husband like a prince 43. Accepted my faults 44. Put up with me when I wasn't the easiest to put up with 45. Determined 46. An inspiration 47. Humble 48. Great lips 49. Beautiful eyes 50. Inspiring 51. Easy to talk to, A good listener 52. Enthusiastic about the smallest of things 53. The most generous, caring human being I have ever known...

My Mom, Dad, and Meghan

Andy's Graduation from Grad School

I love this picture of my mom, I think she looks gorgeous! And look at my cute Grandma!

With Caroline, shortly after my mom's surgery, she looks amazing!

One of the last really happy memories I have of my mom was when this picture was taken. This is my mom holding Hayden at Disneyland. My mom loved Disneyland! About 6 months before she passed away, she was able to come to California to see the taping of Wheel of Fortune that I was on. Because she was in a wheel chair, she couldn't sit up in the audience where all of the other families sat, she sat down on the floor near the cameramen. Technically, families were not allowed to be in eye shot of the contestants, but I could see my mom because of where she had to sit. I remember how excited she was to be there. Even in her less than glamorous circumstances at the time, she kept a huge smile on her face through the entire taping. After I had won the beginning part of the show, I walked over to where I needed to be for the final round. Pat and Vanna were having a 60 second break and my contestant coordinator said, you can run and see your mom if you want. I ran over to her and she was elated, and crying, I had not seen her so full of emotion in quite sometime. I was able to give her a quick hug as she muttered good luck, as best as she could with her limited speech. After I won the show we celebrated with a nice dinner and spent the next two days at Disneyland.

I am so thankful to the people at Wheel of Fortune who made that possible for us. I was supposed to have been on the show a month earlier but because of my mom's treatments, she would not have been able to come and we would have missed out on that special experience together.

Do I miss her? Of course I do. Do I know that I will see her again someday? Yes. Do my kids ask questions about their Grandma Sue? Often. Do I love answering them? Absolutely, every one. Do I look forward to the day when we are reunited? Yes, but hopefully it won't be too soon, I still have a lot of work to do here on my end! I am thankful for the knowledge that I have, and though it makes me a little mad that my mom had to suffer the way she did, I know that Heavenly Father had a definite plan for her. I am a better person for having her as a mom and for seeing the strength with which she carried on when her body was making it very hard for her. I loved her very much, I just wish I had known years ago what an amazing gift I had in being able to call her my mom.