The joys of learning to eat with a spoon...

GOOD TIMES!

TEN YEARS TODAY!

Ten years ago today we tied the knot. In honor of our big day, I have written a poem.
Get out the hankies 'cause it's a tear jerker. Okay, it's really not.

                                                                                                            

The tale of a Cam
who married a Shan.

Their marital bliss

goes something like this...

In Logan they met

Quick romance? you bet!

Instead of a date

a first kiss was their fate

"I love you" they said

2000 they wed.

Plugging away

hard work will soon pay.

School finally done

SkyWest should be fun.

Baby boy on the way

Excited? I'd say!

2 years later will be

a girl in the fam'ly.

A boy will come too

turning our home to a zoo.

It's been 10 short years

Some laughs and some tears

It's been quite a ride

With you by my side.

Picture taken by Colby in the very spot that Cameron proposed- Mesa Falls in Idaho. We took a quick trip after camping near Jackson Hole. It was so fun to show the kids where dad asked mom to marry him.

Happy Anniversary Babe. I love you!!

First Day of School 2010

Colorful Mouth

Kara: "Mom, why don't you get colorful braces?

Will you please get pink and purple braces?"

Could YOU say no to that face?

These are for you baby girl!

Maybe next time I'll be brave enough to do the top too.

When it rains it pours

or in other words, when we spend money on unnecessary things (i.e. deck and vacation), things break down in our house.

Expensive things.

Appliances.

And then they ruin other parts of our house. And then Dave Ramsey gives me a call to say I told you so.

My kitchen floor when I woke up this morning due to a leak from the dishwasher

This happening just weeks after we got home from our trip to find that our fridge and freezer had died along with everything in it. Imagine carcasses baking in near 100 degree heat for approximately 10 days.  Needless to say, it's everybody's dream to come home to but at least I got a new fridge out of it. One with filtered water in the door and everything!

Really though, through all this crazy irony, I'm not crying myself to sleep that our wood floors that I've always hated have to be torn out. So I'm off to Home Depot to look at flooring!

I'm also thinking about going on a spending spree for clothes or something because my washer has been driving me crazy and I REALLY want one of those front loaders.

Finally!

After nine months (yes- NINE months) of crawling, Ty has finally decided to walk.  He's been able to stand on his own for, oh- I don't know, five-six months now. He's also been able to take steps for at least three. But it wasn't the most efficient way of getting around. Still, if he's really wanting to hurry he drops to his knees, but now at least he has a second option if he choosed to use it.

I think he's liking that he can move and drink from his bottle at the same time. Yes, he's still on a bottle. Third child. That's all I have to say.

Check out the size of his feet. They still fit 3-6 month shoes. He's almost 16 months. We won't even talk about how much he weighs. The cutest things come in the smallest packages, right? Anyway, you try walking around on tiny little nubs for feet. It wasn't easy for Chinese women either.

Sweetness

I'm currently without a computer (stupid computer viruses) but I thought I'd sneak in some cuteness of my sweet little girl. She is very much into telling you how she feels about you, good and bad. I'm usually uninvited to her birthday party at least three times a day, she's always telling me she's not going to draw me pictures ever again since she's mad at me. But just as often as she tells me those things, she also tells me how much she loves me or that my hair is cute or that I make the best dinners ever. While she was helping me garden the other day, she said, "Mom, I love you. Even if I say I don't." What a sweetheart.

And... he may not be walking yet, but he's saying lots of words. For journaling sake...

Da or dada(dad)
da(ball)
go
shhh(shoe)
uh-oh
all done
ah-oh(hello)
ah-ga(all gone)
dow(down)
kah(car)
kk(yuck)
wuh-daaaaa(what's that)
ni(milk)
oh-uh(open)
ooh-ooh-ooh-ohh(any animal)
naynay(baby)
nana(banana)
a-a-a, a-a-a, a-a-a a-a a-a-a (singing like Ariel)
ha(hot)
mmmm(in a sing-song voice when he's eating something he likes)

What...you're tired of Mr. and Mrs. Snaggletooth? Impossible.

Some very fun pictures coming soon. And they aren't of teeth. Actually, I take that back. There might be a few metal mouths in there, but with some very cool scenery in the background.

                                                                     

Good Riddance!

Please join me in saying goodbye FOREVER to Mr. and Mrs. Snaggletooth.

They will not be missed. They will be undergoing a lengthy and intense rehabilitation program lastting approximately 24 months (shorter if they prove to work extra hard) in order to straighten out their crooked lives. After rehabilitation, they and many of their friends, will take a nice bleaching bath after which they will be anticipatedly welcomed to their forever home as fine, upstanding individuals.

Today was a big day. 15 years coming.  And...I LOVE them! I am gitty everytime I think about the fact that the annoying pieces of very pricey metal that are tearing up my cheeck are actually braces. Braces!! Hooray for the next 2 years! Hooray for constant brushing and flossing. Hooray for closed mouth smiles. Hooray for mouth sores. Hooray for slow and painful chewing, therefore doubling (maybe tripling) my meal times. Hooray for trying to do speeh therapy with a lisp of my own.

Bring it on baby.

Happy Birthday Kara!

Kara is officially 4!!!

Happy birthday to our sweet and sassy little girl! And girly she is. She loves to dance, sing, twirl, play house, play dress-up, play with friends and boss people around. She's super smiley and so dang sweet.

The closer she got to four, the less Omie showed up. We think that maybe they had a fall-out but we don't know details. Girls can be so catty...

Some of Kara's favorites-

Color: purple, dark pink & gray
Toy: barbies
Breakfast: bubble-up pancakes
Lunch: ham sandwich
Dinner: meatballs
Book: Pinkalicious
Princess: Ariel
Activity: play with barbies and friends
Treat: gum
Vegetable: corn & peas
Fruit: strawberries & pineapple
Place to Go: bike store
Movie: Little Mermaid

Kara has been an easy child since day one. Our home wouldn't be half as bright and cheerful if she wasn't around. We love her to death. Happy Birthday Kara!


And so our household birthday extravaganza comes to an end. Phew. Until March of 2011...

Happy Birthday Cameron!

Happy Birthday to the best daddy and husband in the world! Thanks for all your hard work and sacrificing time away from your family to make sure we have everything we need! We love you!!

From Kara: "I love him when he comes home from work. I like to ask him. Ask him for treats. We're going on a date. I like to play with him.Happy Birthday."

From Colby: "He lets me have icecream and I can play with friends. Late nights. Surprises with dad. Happy Birthday dad. I love you dad."

From Ty:  "Ughhhhhh (loud grunt). Wowwwwwww. Uh-oh." Translation: Daddy is great. He sings and plays the guitar for me and I love it. He gives the best face and head rubs. He is an old man.

Happy Mother's Day!

It was a good day.

Colby made me 2 necklaces with purple yarn and hearts that say "Colby" and "Kara."
He also made me some pockets. That's right. Some pockets out of white cardstock paper. Such a clever one, that Colby. I adore the treasures he makes me.

This is going right on the wall of our office. The perfect place for notes, pencils, stickers, etc.

Kara kept giving me pictures she had drawn for me and saying, "this is for you on Thanksgiving day." And after primary, she handed me another picture she drew, and again said, "Happy Thanksgiving Day!"  And when I put her to bed she said, "Do I have to tell you Happy Mother's Day tomorrow, mom?"

I love these little munchkins of mine. I truly am so happy to be a mother. I am honored to be thier mother. They are sweet, fiesty, loving, clever, and they teach me something every single day.

Happy Birthday Colby!

Our first-born has turned six years old!  And he is pretty much your typical puddle jumping, rock throwing, bug collecting, bike riding, dirt digging, worm hunting, wii playing little boy.  And not only does he act just his age, but he looks it now too. Check out his new "big boy" haircut!!! I can't believe it happened, but it did. It may or may not remain short...

A few fun facts about Colby. Lucky for him he inherited some serious indicisiveness. It's pretty funny...and maddening...to watch him make a decision. But I really think it's because he is just so easy to please. He's never been crazy for any one thing like Legos, or trains or lots of things that boys his age go nuts over. He likes everything. He's not picky. He does, however, LOVE to create. He creates all kinds of things with paper, glue, scissors, a pencil and a hole punch. Or he loves to build things out of wood with is dad. He also loves to plan events. He's been planning a "running contest" since January with the neighborhood kids and is still waiting for that perfect spring day to do it. He also loves to sell things. His latest selling attempt was lemondade. He was given half a cup of lemondade from his friend and instead of drinking it, he decided to divide it into about 10 cups and try to sell it. Each cup had about a quarter inch of lemondade and had a pricetag of $10. To help him out, I made him a little more lemonade so that the lucky buyers would have at least one good swig. And I threw in some canned goods that the Boy Scouts neglected to pick up from my doorstep a few days before. Before I knew it, he and his friends turned in to door-to-door salesmen and sold almost every cup of lemonade and every can of gourmet chili. Should I try to hone in on this skill or channel this elsewhere...?  A few days later his next selling efforts where in drawing some signs to hang on your door, made out of white cardstock. They all say "bath." They're quite cute and very functional. They are still available for a limited time and I bet Colby will even do custom orders. You know, incase you want a sign that says "pantry" or "linen closet." If your house is like ours, you're always opening the door to the bathroom when you wanted the pantry so a sign like this could be very handy.

Since he was 3 days old, Colby's always been easy to smile, easy to laugh and he thrives on positive praise. He's always happy. Except when he's mad. Then he's really mad. This is when you just stay out of his way and let him work it out. And in no time, (somtimes it takes longer than normal) he's forgotten what he got mad about and is back to his jolly self.

His big day was complete with his favorite breakfast, lunch and dinner, a trip to ToysRus to pick out a new bike and mini golf at Boondocks.

He also got to invite a few friends over for a late-night.  In case you don't know what a late-night is, it's the latest substitution for sleep-overs.  The kids come over and stay until 9:00. Or sometimes 8:00, or maybe even 7:00 if you're feeling lazy. As long as you get dressed in your PJs, pop some popcorn and turn on a movie, it's a late night and everyone's happy.  Anyway, I was out of town and Cameron took on the late night solo. What a good guy.

Here are some of Colby's favorites:

Breakfast: bubble-up pancakes
Lunch: nachos
Dinner: homemade mac and cheese
Dessert: any kind of icecream
Book: Where the Sidewalk Ends
Wii Game: Super Mario Brothers
Game: Sorry
Color: blue
Cereal: Life
Sport: Baseball
Favorite thing to do: play outside and/or with friends

Happy Birthday little guy! We love you!!

The Cake Dive

Dreamy

I've always been one who loves the change in seasons. I never thought I could live somewhere where the weather didn't go from one extreme to the other. You don't appreciate the good 'til you experience the bad, right?
I'm pretty sure I could live with today's weather...FOREVER.  I don't even know how warm it was, I'm guessing the mid perfects. It was overcast. I was in pants and a short sleeved T-shirt. Not for one minute was I too warm, nor too cool. No wasps to speak of. Okay, there were some, that was today's only flaw. I could have stayed outside all day.

Best day ever.  I could get used to this.

Easter and our first outing.

What is the deal with Easter Egg Hunts? Can I just say they are L.A.M.E. It's more like... Easter Egg whoever's- the-pushiest-and-fastest-and-meanest-kids-gets-all-the-eggs event.

Hundreds of kids gathered around a field with haphazardly tossed eggs dotting the damp, muddy grass.  After a quick countdown the kids shove their way through the crowd to get their greedy little hands on as many eggs as they can, all lasting about 15 seconds. Colby may be small, but he's quick and actually ended up with a few eggs. After losing Kara for a few minutes, I found her walking aimlessly with a few candies in her basket that she claimed some nice people gave her. And when we met up with our darling neighbor's kids, we found them with huge grins on their faces and empty baskets because they are the sweetest kids ever and at ages 6 and 4, already know the true meaning of Easter and it has nothing to do with candy filled Easter eggs. But, I was proud of my little squirts when they gave up half of their eggs (which was 2) to their friends without any questions asked. Meanwhile there were tons of kids bawling for one reason or another. Good times.

I don't mean to hate on Kaysville city or anything- I mean, they're just trying to provide a nice, family activity for us tax-paying citizens. Okay, maybe we're not Kaysville residents, but they never said anything about it being restricted to just Kaysvilleites. We just heard that Kaysville city had bigger and better eggs. Ha ha. I'm just kidding. Anyway.

Now at Grandpa horsies' house, the eggs are actually hidden. And you have to look for them. And there are only 6 or 7 kids. And it lasts for at least 10 minutes, except when Grandpa keeps taking eggs out of the kids' baskets while they're not looking and re-hiding them just so he can make the hunt last as long as possible. Now that's an egg hunt.  But I think because of the weather, he opted out of one this year.

This outing was all in honor of our first year anniversary of our outing sebatical. I haven't taken my kids anywhere fun (unless you'd count the grocery store trip that ends up in tears and time-outs fun) for literally an ENTIRE YEAR.

With that said, we did it and despite the egg hunt lameness, we had a great time!  Here's to more outings to come. I'm shooting for maybe 2 outings a year now...

Check out the loot! Um, yah-totally worth it.

Ty in his stroller wishing he could be part of the choas.

We dyed Easter eggs that afternoon.

This the fort the kids sat under to "watch" conference. It was fun while it lasted- about 6 minutes or so.

I forgot to take more pictureson Easter morning. Besideds Cameron being gone, we had a nice day. I love hearing from our prophet and the apostles and I think the kids actually understood what Easter is all about this year. I wasn't sure until we were driving home from the egg hunt and they started chanting, "Jesus died for u-us!" It was...cute? I wasn't sure how to react to that except I thought it was cute and funny and pretty much hilarious.

We also had a very nice dinner at my brother's house. It was especially nice because we had my brother with us who's been sick and is doing so much better. I LOVE my family and I love that we get along so well and I cherish these times we have together.

My Baby is One!

Dear Ty,

Today is your first birthday. One year since you joined our family on that highly anticipated night of April 2009 and boy, what a ride this last year has been. As a one year old, the most prominant thing about you is this: You know what you want. And you'll go to great lengths to get it. Though this may drive your mom and dad crazy at times, I believe this will be your most valuable attribute.  In the future, I see you as determined, ambitious, strong.

You are smart. I think this is why you refused to take a binky.  You knew that it was just a fake and you weren't one to be fooled. This is why you refused to drink from a bottle for a long time. Again, you knew what you wanted, and it wasn't what I was giving you. 

You are careful. You don't dive into just anything. You take your time, slowly reassuing yourself that it will be okay. We thought you'd be a picky eater when you spit out everything we put in your mouth. But as you've allowed yourself to venture out, you are becoming more and more versatile.

You are very sensitive. You've had a sensitive little system from the beginning. Constant diaper rash, reflux and an upset tummy. It doesn't take much to make you upset. It also doesn't take much to make you smile and giggle. Even when you were tiny, a simple click of the tongue brought a grin to your face. You love to be tossed around, play peek-a-boo and most of all, you LOVE to have your head/neck/face/back tickled. I believe your sensitivity will help you to be a kind brother, a good friend, and a great husband someday.

You are trying really hard to communicate. You sign "milk" all day long and would suck on that bottle 24 hours a day if we let you. You love to say "uh-oh" and will purposely drop things over and over so you can repeat it. You also say "all done" and "up" along with all kinds of jabbering that makes it sound like you're talking in sentences.

You love your brother and sister. And in return, they adore you back. Whenever we say goodnight to you, Colby says, "You're awesome! You're the best little brother in the whole world!"  You two are close. We can tell you take after Colby and your daddy because boy, can you crawl! You're quick and you're coordinated. Kara loves to tote you around and loves to mother you just like her dolls. Even after a year, Colby and Kara still ask to hold you all the time.

You're just so darn cute. Those eyes kill me. So big and so expressive. I still can't leave you for very long without longing to kiss your round little cheecks, hear your infectious little giggle, and watch you excitedly crawl as fast as you can to me so I'll pick you up. 

We are so grateful you are in our family. Your sweet, determined spirit adds so much life to our home and I know you will do great things. Happy Birthday little monkey. We love you!!

Love, Mom