Kayla

Here is Kayla in her blessing dress. I really wanted to get an 8x10 of her in the dress, but she was so cute I ended up getting a few more pictures. Here are most of the ones I bought.
I love her smile in this one. She is always so happy, and this captured it perfectly!

I think she looks so much like Cayden in this picture. This one I did not buy because I thought is looked so much like Cayden with a bow.

Hope you enjoy looking. Oh, I got her pics done at Kiddie Kandids.

Emily-

Me

So I decided to do this blog as kinda a journal of our life since I am such a slacker when it comes to jounaling. I do have scrapbooks but I am so far behind that I can not imagine catching up in this lifetime. So if you are not interested that is fine but I want to write about me today. (I got this idea from my friend Tiff)

1. I am a nurse. I have been a nurse forever it seems (13 years) and have worked in most of the fields. I am currently working in postpardum and newborn nusery (mom's and babies) and I LOVE it! I love cuddling babies and teaching new moms how to take care of their babies. I really have not loved a job in a long time and I really do love coming to work every day right now.
2. I have 4 kids that are the joy of my life. I have 3 boys and one girl. My kids range from 13 to newborn. To say I am busy is an understatement but I would be crazy if I was not doing something every minute of each day. My 13 year old is starting 8th grade, 11 year old is starting 6th grade, 4 year old is starting preschool and Kayla the baby is just being cute. I could not ask for a better teenager, I know that it has only been one year of teenage life, but other than grades, he is such a good kid. It is so nice to go to church and and have all of the scout leaders tell us what a great kid we have. I must be doing something right!
3. I am married to the best husband ever. He is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but he is so good to me and understanding. He is always willing to help with the kids, take them to everything, play with them, change diapers and feed the baby. He also is usually the one to plan our date nights. He has never forgotten an anniversary, and forgot my birthday just once (he will be constantly reminded of that). He also is working more so that I can stay home with the kids more. He knows that it is my dream to be a stay at home mom and only work one day every other week for my sanity, so he is really trying to accomplish having me able to stay home as much as possible.
4. I love to scrapbook. I go once a year on a girls retreat with all of my sisters in law and my mother in law for the weekend and scrapbook the whole time. I have the best time catching up with them and scrapbooking my family memories. I have committed myself to completing scrapbooks for my grandma and have caught her up to 1977. This is a slow process but I love it. My sister in law Jenny got this really cool book that I borrowed this summer and it was a huge help with the speed of getting pages done.
5. I love the heat. I am a desert rat. I grew up mostly in the desert. I lived in the Mesa, AZ area for 13 years and then in Lake Havasu, AZ for 7 years and the St. George,UT for 9 years. I am wild about the heat. I love summer and think 100 degree is perfect weather. I am not sure why the summer is so short in Northern Utah, 9 months of summer would be ideal for me.
6. I am passionate about reading. I am always reading at least one book at a time. My problem is that I usually get so involved that I forget I have other things that need to be done and I loose track of time until my children interrupt me.
7. I am a control and clean freak! I can not think of anything better than a clean house. My family does not always think this and so we do battle daily to get them to clean up after themselves. I love waking up and seeing a clean house and coming home to a clean house. I can not relax unless my house is clean, otherwise I think of everything that I need to be doing and worry about how and when it is going to get clean. I thing things should always go my way and I do pout a bit if it does not work out that way. My husband has come to just accept this and does his best to comply. We rarely argue anymore since we both know each others little likes and dislikes! HA, HA, HA!
8. I love to go on vacation. My favorite is to go on a cruise. You are not having to worry about food or traveling anywhere or finding entertaining things to do. It is all planned out for you and you just show up and do as much or as little as you want to. That is the life. The only downside is that I get very sea sick so thank goodness for the patches to prevent that!
9. I am a homebody. I love spending time with my family and friends, but I pretty much like to do it a home. I am not one to invite people over much or go out much. Sad I know but I think it goes back to the control thing. I can control things at home.
10. I am very interested in photography. I would love to take some classes to get better. I love how light changes photos and the cute expressions that can be captured forever on film. It is so wonderful to look back at photos and remember what was. One of the better inventions was the digitasl camera. How cool is it to be able to plug the camera in the computer and send photos to whomever you choose!
11. I am a shopping queen. My dad is always teasing me about how much I shop, but it is true. I think I am addicted. Whenever I am sad or depressed I feel so much better after I go shopping. My dad says I should buy stock in clothing stores and make some of my money that I spend back. HMMM...that is a good idea!

Well, that is me in a nutshell. Maybe my family will look back years from now and realize that I was not that crazy after all!

FUN, FUN, FUN!

This week was so much fun! Josh and JD (aka Jared) came home from spending 6 weeks with their dad in California. When they came down from security I only saw JD and was wondering what happened to Josh. I had a few moments of panic when I realized that the very tall long haired person standing next to JD was indeed my Josh! I could not believe how much he had changed in just 6 weeks! Of course Blaine did not believe me until he saw him and the same thing happened. Since they were home, I decided that we should do some fun things before the summer was over so here are some pictures from our events of the week.
We went to Classic Fun Center in Sandy and took Blaine's nephews and niece. They have bouncing, huge indoor jungle gym, skating and a water park. At the skating ring you can bring your own skates or scooters. You can also take strollers. So, the kids skated and scootered for an hour while I put on my roller skates and took Kayla in the stroller. Mind you I have not been skating since Cayden was born (6 years) so it was quite the sight. We had so much fun though. Cayden and Jenna took many "rests". Here they are looking tired.

All summer when the boys were gone, Ryan and Taylor kept asking when Josh and JD would be coming home. So I promised that when the boys got home we would spend the day doing something fun. Josh was not able to go with us because he went on his first hiking overnighter with the Boy Scouts. JD, Ryan and Taylor managed to have fun with out him. They are such good friends. It is so nice to live by cousins that are the same age.
Cayden and Jenna are the best of friends too. We went out to dinner and there was a band playing outside the restaurant so Jenna and Cayden decided they would dance to the music. They are so cute together.

This is what happens when I decide to feed Kayla up in her room and leave Cayden unsupervised for more than 10 minutes. This is a dragon. He also managed to color on the coffee table, Kayla's swing, the wooden sign I have yet to paint and 2 doors before I came downstairs. Of course thanks to Magic Erasers he was able to clean it up himself.
Cayden started preschool this week. He was so excited to go. He has been asking when he gets to go to school like Joshie and JD for a year now. He sits down at the table with them and does "homework"(workbooks from leapfrog). He got to pick out his own backpack. Then the day of school he asked me every 5 minutes if it was it "time for preschool now?"
This is my 13 year old son that I did not recognize at the airport. He is 5'5" and thinned out quite a bit. His hair has gotten so long and it is starting to curl and the ends. Cayden loves his brother so much.
We were teasing Josh about being scared of Kayla when he got home because he would not hold her. To prove me wrong, he decided to feed her so I could get dressed. Cayden had to get in the picture even though he was not helping at the time. He just loves to be in the pictures. Kayla is finally starting to chunk up. We found out what was wrong with her and if she was not the best baby before she is now! She has a severe milk protein allergy. She can not have and milk or dairy products, eggs, soy or breast milk. We tried everything to see if she would tolerate breast milk because the formula she needs is VERY expensive, but nothing I did to change my diet worked. Now she is bottle fed and we spend $50 a week on her special formula. I it worth it to have her growing though!
These are the flowers my wonderful husband bought me for no reason. I was very sad that I could not do anything to help Kayla and I an sorta depressed about how much I still weigh so he surprised me with one of my favorite things, flowers! The card reads, "to my BEAUTIFUL wife". Could I be any luckier???

These photos are from my amazing sis-in-law Andrea. She took an entire photo session of Kayla while we were in Parawon for the July 4th holiday. She is such a great photographer. I sure wish she lived closer so she could do all of our photos. She edited all the photos and then sent my the CD and a beautiful 16x20 portrait of Kayla. These are just 2 of the most wonderful photo ever! You can check out her work at andreawhittlephotography.com. She is amazing!

I was also able to figure out how to add music to my blog thanks to my wonderful friend Stephanie! She is my blogging idol!

Well, that was quite a week. School starts for JD next week and for Josh the week after that. I am hoping that I will still get to fit in my new addiction of blogging with all of the craziness going on!

Back to Work

So this week was so crazy! I had to start back to work on the 4th of August. Might I say that it was very sad to leave my cute little baby. The only good thing about it was that we do not have to have a babysitter for the kids anymore. Blaine and I arranged our schedules so that one of us is home with the kids all of the time. The top five things for the past week were:

1. Going shopping for Kayla's clothes. I have not had to shop for much because we have really great friends and family that gave us so much for her. The kids and I went to the mall and shopped for stuff for next summer. I found some really cute stuff and Cayden found these cool pajamas that he wore every night for a week!

2. Kayla had a bath in the tub and did not cry for the first time. She just smiled and cooed the whole time I was bathing her. She is getting so big!

3. I caught this really cute smile. I always manage to miss the smiles in the pictures I take of her so I was really excited to finally get one!

4. Cayden passed the first level of swimming lessons. He loves the water and now he can even float on his tummy. We are going to sign him up for a few more weeks of lessons because he is loving it so much!

5. I went a whole day without calling to check on the kids. After 5 shifts back at work I finally went one whole day without calling to make sure everything was ok. I only lasted one day but I am getting better. The first day I called 6 times.

I am working on getting better with the posts, going back to work was a bit more stressful then I had thought it would be. Next week, new photos with Josh and JD. They come home in one hour!!!