Thankful

I was having such a crazy day on Thanksgiving that I did not even get a chance to write down everything I am thankful for. I know that being crazy is just part of my life so that is not really a very good excuse.
I am so thankful for my Heavenly Father. He is the one who has allowed me to have this crazy life that I love. He has given me everything. Without him I would not be here or have anything at all. I am also thankful for Jesus Christ. If it were not for him I would be in huge trouble. I have so much to repent for on a daily basis that I could not imagine my eternity without the atonement.
I am thankful for my wonderful husband. He will and does everything he can to make my life easier. He is working full time and working a second job so that I can be home with the kids. He works nights so that I can work days. He is the best husband and father. I could not have asked for a better guy to be that father of my children. He took on being a father to my older boys without batting an eye. He has never treated them any different then he treats his own children. He even looks so similar to them most people do not realize that he is not their birth father.
I am grateful for my wonderful parents. They did such a good job of raising me to be a good person. I do not think I would have turned out well at all if they had not been so involved in my life when I was a teenager.
I am thankful for my four beautiful children. They are such a joy to me. I am so blessed to have them in my life. They make me laugh and cry and want to strangle them all at the same time. I never had any idea what my mom went through until I had them. She had even more children in less years. I can not imagine. I think life is crazy now, but 6 kids in 7 years, that is insane!

I just wanted to mainly write down my feelings for me. I needed to express what I am thankful for just as a goal I made for myself. If you did not want to read this, no worries!

Home

Since both Blaine and I have to work over Thanksgiving, I thought it would be fun to go to St. George this weekend to see our families. Blaine was not able to get off of work so, I took all of the kids and headed down myself. It was not nearly as crazy as I had imagined. The older boys helped with the younger two and it all worked out very nicely. Friday we spent the day in St. George with Blaine's family. I hung out with my mother-in-law all day and we went shopping and on a picnic for lunch with the kids. In the evening, we went out to dinner at Olive Garden with all of his family that lives in St. George. I was so excited because we got to Kelly. We had not seen her since April and she had never met Kayla. She works at Olive Garden so we got to spend a little time with her while she was working. She was pretty excited to see Kayla and was enjoying showing her off to all of her work friends. I was glad that we got to see her even if it was just for a short time.
Saturday we spent the day in Parowan with my parents and niece. We decided to go up the Brianhead, even though it was not open, just so the kids could play in the snow. The snow was really ice but, the kids had a blast anyway. Cayden and Lexie found ice balls and were kicking them around. Cayden found a friend and they tried to build a snowman, it was kinda difficult with ice and after several failed attempts the decided to slid down the hill on their bottoms. Jared was not really happy for me to get his picture, note the bright smiling face. He was sad that the tubing hill was not open and that there was not enough snow to go tubing.

Josh was bored most of the time. Mainly because he could not throw snowballs at his brothers. the ice balls were too hard and it would hurt anybody who got hit with them.

Kayla was just happy to be. She hung out in her carseat. Note the very cute blanket she got from my parents. My sister-in-law made it. I love how soft it is and she loves to chew on it.

Here is my angel sleeping. We were cleaning the cabin on Sunday so we could head home. She thought we took too long so, she fell asleep on the floor waiting for us to finish. She was sleeping in her new cute blanket! I did try to get pictures of the boys but my batteries in the camera were dead and so were the replacements. I was kinda bummed but, they were glad that I could not take pictures of them slacking off when they were supposed to be cleaning!

I was quite sad that I could not spend any time with my sister. We used to go out to lunch or breakfast once or twice a week when I lived there. Now I see her maybe 3-4 times a year. Her whole family was so sick. They had croup, pinkeye, sinus infections, and anything else you can imagine that would make a kid or adult miserable. I was so excited to go and see her! I guess she will have to plan a trip up here next. Maybe at Christmas time!

Six Months

It is not quite Kayla's six month birthday, but I went to get her six month pictures taken. We went to Kiddis Kandids and they did a great job. I am not really thrilled with the background but she looks so cute. She was not in a great mood because I had to wake her up from a nap to get there on time for our appointment, but we did manage some really cute not smiling faces of her.

This is the only semi smiling face that we were able to get. I can not believe how big she is getting.

Going Private!

So after watching the thing on the news where people are stealing pictures off blogs and then posting them edited as their own, Blaine and I decided that it would be best to make our blog private. Especially since we have pictures of our kids on here. So, email me your email address and I will invite you to our blog. I will be going private next Monday so hopefully that gives everyone who wants to read it time to respond.

5 Months

Well, Kayla is now 5 months old. She is getting cuter and cuter each day. She is such an easy going baby! I wonder where she gets that? She found her feet today. While I was changing her this morning and getting her dressed, she just started to stare at her toes and was so amazed with what she saw. She just talked to them for a few minutes before she started to look around and wonder what was going on and why I was taking pictures.

Here is her five month photo in her car seat. I have been playing with my photo editing software and found some cool things that make my pictures look so much better. It has been so fun to edit them and see what a difference editing makes in the final product.

Crazy Week!

Well, I have still not figured out how to get my pictures to load on the page in the order that I want them so I am going to talk about our week backwards since that is how the pictures appear to you. I am also not a patient person so I do not really want to delete and start over either. Friday night was Halloween. The kids were all dressed up and ready for the trunk or treat at the park across from our house. I made them get a cute picture before any left. Jared was a space ranger. Josh did not want to dress up. He thought he was too old until all of his friends were dressing up. He decided Thursday night he wanted me to go and find him a costume. Needless to say, he dressing black and did not get a costume. I did have a black cape that he could have worn but he really just wanted to scare kids that were trick or treating. He only needed enough candy to keep going through the night.

Kayla was a Denver Bronco cheerleader. I found 2 costumes in her size. This one and a ladybug. When I asked Blaine what she should be he responded with, "Do you even have to ask?" She was a cheerleader. The weather was even really nice for this costume.

Here are my kiddos just before heading out. Cayden, Kayla and I headed to the park for the trunk or treat. Jared headed to his friend's house to go trick or treating with him. Josh also headed out to find his friends and make plans for the evening. I thought they looked so cute. This was the first year the Josh and JD have been able to go out with their friends for Halloween. I am probably the most over protective mother but I am just so afraid that something is going to happen so I usually make them stay with either me or Blaine. I finally got talked into letting them grow up a bit this year and they went out with friends.

Cayden was a SWAT officer. He had so many compliments on his costume. He said,"Everyone really likes me mom!"

Thursday night Cayden had a program for preschool. It was his first little program. They sang fall and Halloween songs and each child had a part. Cayden was the only boy that memorized his part and did not need help. I was so glad that I remembered to charge the video camera for the event. All of the kids were dressed up in costumes and did such a good job. The program was just long enough, 15 minutes. Not even Kayla got bored. We went out for ice cream after the program and had some fun family time just the 6 of us.

Thursday morning, Cayden went on the monthly field trip to Arlington Hill Rehab Center. They went trick or treating to all of the residents' rooms. The kids and the residents had such a good time. It was so cute to see all of the kids going around and it was great to see the smiles on the residents faces as the kids came by.


Wednesday night was the first court of honor of the scouts since we have been in Salt Lake. JD got his tenderfoot award and Josh got a merit badge for woodworking. After all of the awards, the boys made paper airplanes and had a flying contest. Even Cayden was included. it was fun to see all of the different airplanes and how serious the boys were while making them.

Cayden had to be with Dad the entire court of honor. I think he was feeling left out. So when we were asked to go up with JD while he got his award, Cayden had to come up too.

Wednesday morning was filled with Cayden's program practice, me getting 4 cavities filled(ouch!), and then lunch with a friend. i do not think I could have packed anything else into Wednesday now that I think about it.

Tuesday morning was play group at my house. My calling for church is the enrichment committee and I am in charge of playgroup. Fun. I totally forgot that I was suppose to have everyone over until someone showed up. Fortunately, I already had the paints and brushes and everyone brought their own pumpkins. We had the most kids show up for this play group. It was so much fun. Even the tiny ones were painting pumpkins for decorations. While all of the pumpkins were drying, the kids and moms headed out to play at the park and enjoy one of the few nice days that are left of the year.

That was our crazy week in a nutshell. I am sorry these posts are so long. I really hate to post without pictures and I do not always have my camera with me when I do have time to post. My sister kindly tole me today that if I posted more then every other week I might not have such long posts. Maybe she has the right idea. I will work on that!

Cayen and his tiny sister. he says he does not have a little sister, he has a tiny sister.