Thumb Suckers and snowflakes...

Yeah, it's true... two days ago Taylor was rolling around happy as a clam content to play with her toys and watch others then all of a sudden she developed a thumb sucking fettish... And I'm not talking a casual finds her thumb to sooth herself, I'm talking sucking her thumb in between bites of squash at dinner. If she weren't so darn cute I would be really annoyed, but she is really cute when she does it. Here are a couple picture for proof.

Snowflakes are appropriate I think for this holidays crafty decoration, Since we are getting BUCKETS of snow. Justin made one and Jacey made one but I did the rest. jacey sat with me and cut up random piece of paper which is really what she wanted to do and that made her really happy. The actual cutting of the folded paper was pretty hard, Lucas was trying desparately to help me but I kept fearing for the safety of my eyeballs so he had to move on to other things.

So much news so little time.

Ok, so here goes it!! 1st things first, the ballet. Justin surprised me more than a month ago with a phone call

he said, "the 5th or the 12th?"
me, "what?"
him, 'the 5th or the 12th?"
me, "the 12th?"
him, "I need the credit card number"
me, "what is going on?"
him, "I'm taking you on a date, you need to go buy a fancy dress. what is the credit card number?"
me, a little hesitant, "alright...where are we going?"
him, "it's a surprise, you can buy shoes too if you want."
and what girl is going to argue with that? not me...

so the tickets came in the mail and he couldn't help himself and he told me. It was a really fun surprise mostly because he thought of it, he planned it and all I had to do was play along and I tell you what....I did play along, I went and bought a dress that ended up being 50% off and shoes to match. I worked with Taylor for several weeks on taking a bottle so when my family watched the kids she would eat for them. and it turns out she didn't want that smelly ol' bottle at first but them decided she had done this before and it was going to be ok.

I also learned something about myself. Something that I need to change and actually got a chance yesterday to see if I was really going to change or not. Every time there is an important picture taking opportunity I OBSESS over how I look. I want to look just right. I did it on my wedding day, my sealing day, getting a new drivers licence and every time we go to get family pictures taken (three times) so I have sucked the fun out of all of those events because I don't like how anything is turning out and it ruins my attitude about the whole event and I just end up making Justin insane and the everyone around me miserable. I only realized that it was my fault and something I had to fix this time around on my preparation for the ballet date. I spent hours getting my hair to do something "special" and I couldn't make anything work. In the end I ended up with a glorified ponytail that I could have done in 5 minutes. same with the makeup.
Anyways, I had a chance to redeem myself yesterday when had some family pictures done and i am delighted to tell you that it worked. I got ready like my life was not going to be altered if didn't look like a movie star and everything was ssoooooo much better. I still looked fine, it only took a total of 25 minutes, the kids were happy, Justin was sooo happy, and the pictures turned out just fine. So thank you to everyone who has ever waited for me to get ready, and will ever wait for me again, things should be better from here on out. And the grand finale. the pictures. Justin always looks great and it only takes him five minutes, ten max if he has to shave. So here we are at the nutcracker having a good time. it was a much anticipated date that was a lot of fun. Thanks to those who helped shop with me, and especially watch kids while we got to go on this amazing adventure.





Next, family pictures... Our friend DeWin came over from church and took them for us, I think we all thought we would do them outside until we got ready and realized it was 12 degrees outside and that it wouldn't be fun or attractive to see our little frozen faces on camera. they happened quick and the kids weren't horribly cooperative so we got a couple that were good enough and called it a day. we will be put those together today. DeWin was a good sport and still wants to go outside and do some "real ones" with her good camera. We will definitely to that when it warms up. but here is a preview, I am not putting the family one on here cause that would ruin the surprise- don't cha know!! here are a couple of teasers.


Cute girls, if I do say so myself.
I just have to say, I sure married well. What handsome boys I have.

Me and my fat babies

So I was looking for a family picture for the ward Christmas party slideshow and I came across these. Not a family picture but sure darn cute of all my fat babies. they are all pretty close to the same age in these pictures, and you can watch me age as each baby comes. By the time Taylor comes along you can see the stress lines double by my eyes. Can you tell those kids are related?

Hunker down and weather the "Storm"!

I have much to be thankful for as we all do. My little sister's blog said it so good I would recommend going there and reading it, I will add that I am thankful for my relief society president who asked me to teach last sunday on having faith through your trials. Then low and behold we are delt a couple...of trials. Justin got laid off the day before Thanksgiving. After the shock we took a breath and then had to smile, it was as if the Lord was saying, "Do you really belief all that stuff you just preached to all those ladies?" The blessing is that we could giggle because we have prepared the best we could for a situation like this. I am blessed by a man who worked so hard all this time so that in our time of need we have a small back up stash. Another blessing is that I have parents who taught me how to save, and heed the counsel of the prophet, so we have also put some food storage away. So now all we have to do is hunker down and weather the storm. Hopefully it will pass before the supplies run out. That is where faith comes in right? we have been paying our tithing so I say "we are doing all we can do." Now another deep breath and we play the "we shall see" game.

On another note here is a video of Taylor from a couple weeks ago of the kids making Taylor laugh. She is not quite 4 months old in this video. Pretty darn special. Thanksgiving morning we went and had breakfast with Andy and Rhonda, Kirk and Jill and Jill's brother Matt (one of Jacey's favorite guys)and the kids. After a delicious breakfast (thanks bytheway) we went down the hill to shoot guns. We brought the little stuff cause it's cheap to play with. We had a bunch of different 22's. THENNNN Andy's cousin came over (i think it was andy's cousin) he brought the fun stuff, a couple handguns a 38 or something and a 45I don't remember, all I remember is the AK47 that got brought out. I tell ya what. Going from shooting .22 rifles to an AK47 is quite an ear ringing shock. So here is a picture of me holding the AK47 that I actually did shoot. Jill had never shot a gun before that day and I had to laugh because she went from shooting a mild mannered .22 rifle to an obnoxiously loud and large AK47. Hahaha yeah I am still laughing. It was a really good time. Behind Justin you can see his cute new truck. I know trucks aren't supposed to be cute, so I guess I should say it's "cool". We got that in early Nov. now we all fit in there too. we know we are spoiled, is it spoiled if you are aware of how lucky we are?? Well there you have it. I didn't even get to Thanksgiving dinner which we spent at My mom and dads. It was a delightful feast of the much adored classics. Good food and good company, Taylor didn't get anything this time mostly because she was playing on the floor sooo content that I took advantage and just ate all by myself. YUMMM. I have to say I didn't used to be a fan of sweet potatos but they have become a new favorite of mine. As my little sister Amanda would say "that's a little piece of Heaven, right there". Happy Holidays Y'all we will be back soon.