Count your blessings, name them one by one.....

You can't help but love a picture like this. Completely innocent doing headstands naked. Someday she'll ask me "Mom, what were you thinking?" And I am pretty sure I will tell her "I still love this picture."


Someday these will be the pictures of the past that they will reminisce about. When a giant lollipop was all you needed in the world to make you genuinely happy.


When 4 bottoms still fit on a couch.




This is a CA-razy blog world isn't it? I can check in on friends I haven't seen since college, yet I feel like I still know them the same as I left them all those years ago. I found 2 college roommates on facebook today and it made me smile to see their beautiful faces and reminisce over the past. The good 'ol days of stayin' up too late, driving too fast, and way TOO much pranking, not enough studying and plenty of laughs. Good food, (I have been craving a Crago's pizza bomb for quite a while now), funny pictures, good friends, and a memory that holds them all so near and dear to my heart. Life twists and turns and doesn't always take you the way you anticipate it going, yet here I am in a B-E-A-U-tiful life that is full of blessings. As I wander around the blogs of friends and family and look into some of their friends and familys blogs I see adventure, spirit, love, and laughter. Something we all have in common I've noticed is a desire to live the best life we have the opportunity to live. We all want to teach our children how to become successful, wise, responsible citizens. We write our struggles and successes and lots of us find happiness in the gospel. So what is it I'm getting at? I guess I just wanted to throw out a warning to myself and to others who might be like me and occasionally compare your life to those around you. I sometimes find myself wondering when my adventure is going to come. When am I going to get to see more of the world I live in? And I think I found my answer as I was reading back over my previous posts... I am having an amazing adventure right now and by searching for more I am missing all the growth, changes, laughter, and fun all around me. Satan works with any negativity you keep lying around so bottle it up, get onto your knees and start counting your blessings. Mostly this was for me and anyone whose life hasn't taken the exact road they expected. I am leaving this here and going out to contemplate some more in my own head. I love you my near and dear ones. :)

Bitty Bowlers!!

So Jacey's shoes were pretty much the cutest thing ever!


I have noticed the last several posts of mine have all been about primping, shoes, shopping, and minus the one about politics that I ranted about they all had some sort of picture of me in them and that just makes me feel a little bit vain. So here is a post completely free of shopping and fake hair. Justin went on a scout campout tonight as part of his calling so I took the kids bowling for the FIRST time EVER! THEY LOVED IT! They were pretty sure they were going to hate it because I told them we are going to do something fun but it didn't involve going to a friends house so they were pretty sure I was full of it. Well I didn't fail them, we had a blast. We had a short version of the rules and for the most part they did really good. They tried to keep their toes off the line when they went up to throw the ball. They took turns REALLY good. There wasn't even one tantrum! NOT even a single POUT. It was a really good Friday night. We needed one of these together, I was feeling a little like we didn't like eachother. (cabin fever) It was a happy time seeing them enjoy themselves and high five eachother. It gave me a huge sense of accomplishment that we could enjoy ourselves as a family.
They kept up with me, which isn't hard to do. Lucas rolled the ball down the neighboring lanes twice while we were switching turns but luckily no one was using those lanes so no one got ticked. Taylor sat in her seat for the first 30 minutes and then I finally freed her just so she could have a break, otherwise I am sure she would have watched buckled in her carseat perfectly content for the entire hour. What a nice girl. Jacey was loving clash of the pins being knocked down and had a dance for everyone. I am going to try to get the video of her on here cause it is pretty comical. We had a good time being out together having some fun that didn't involve windexing anything. Maybe next time I ask if they want to go do something fun they won't look at me like I don't know what fun is! Thanks for checking in on us. We are happy to be in this family together, and tonight it showed. :)

The fasination with the ball coming back- AWESOME!
Watching Jacey bowl was really funny, you would have thought she'd done this a dozen times before. She would find her ball and put her fingers in the holes (correctly of course) and then procede to her approach. Everytime, she would put her fingers in the holes, just like a little pro.
Lucas really showing off that form! It was so good to enjoy them.

A Good Day for a "DO"

So I mostly wanted to share Jacey's festive St. Patricks Day hair, but I had these funny ones of Taylor and cute one of Manda so I thought I would put all the funny hair pictures on together. Thanks Christina for your always fun blog with the cutest holiday hair ideas. I am always happy to steal a cute look from your blog.
Beyond playing in new hairstyles we have been cleaning house and hanging out. Justin goes to Canada in a week to start work, he is stoked to get back to work, it isn't natural for him to have nothing to do. He hung a curtain rod for me yesterday in an attempt to be busy but it took a maximum of 2 minutes so he is now bored again. He is a champion helper so he has been doing laundry and cleaning house but now he's looking to go provide for his family. We have been happy to have him these many weeks. I already know I've been spoiled having him home all this time. So back to the grind stone for both of us next week.
Well I have to go make some dinner but I hope you all enjoy the pictures, we had fun creating them. Love to all you friends and family looking in on us. I love your comments so keep 'em coming. :)

So this is me before extensions

This is me after extensions, Justin was trying to take of a picture of me eating so this is the face he got. You can kind of see how my hair is longer than normal. I think they're fun. As does everyone else. I got one clipped onto Lucas before his Dad put the KI-bosh on that one, thus no pictures of Lucas looking like Joe Dirt. It was pretty histerical.

The St. Patricks Day "do" courtesy of my friend Christina's blog. She has a link on her blog with the directions for this CLOVER hairdo. It took about 15 minutes. Had I been prepared with some green ribbon I might have wrapped the twists in green, out lining them in their clover shape, next year we'll have to try that.

The baby with some extensions- yeah I am aware of it's creepiness.

MORE CREEPINESS

Manda Before the extensions- this is from this summer but it gives you an idea of how long her hair really is. She is cute with short or long hair.

And Manda with some EXTENSIONS, from short to long in as easy as 1-2-3! Her hair has been short for so long she couldn't even remember what it would look like, but with extensions you get a quick look into the future.

Killer boots man....

Well I am sure you have all notice the lack of posting going on over here, but I do have a good reason. Justin surprised me and came home on the 18th of February so we have been catching up and hanging out. The kids were excited to see him and he couldn't help it and told me he was coming. I didn't know he had been on the road for a day when he told me he was coming though. So we are happy to have our daddy back for a little bit. He will be headed off to Canada here shortly but we are just going to ignore that fact for a minute and enjoy his company.
Another fun surprise was that he was home for our 5 year anniversary on the 28th so that was fun. We tried to plan something really exciting at the last moment but finally ended up going to Portland and shopping kid free at the factory mall down in woodburn. Which wasn't an adventure so much as a really relaxing weekend, and who couldn't use one of those. I think in the end (even though I REALLY wanted to go somewhere new) it was really nice not worrying about being a tourist and seeing "everything" we just got to enjoy eachother and really relax. We have to tell Manda and Bryant, Em, and Jill and Kirk Thanks a MILLION for taking the kids, we had a really good time just catching up and sleeping in. We know how much work our kids can be so we know we owe you all!! Thanks SO SO much. We are so blessed to have such a generous family and amazing friends. And also thank you to those who offered to watch kids when we weren't sure how we were going to work it. It was really nice to know you were there for us if we needed you...
Justin and I in our new cozy jackets. That was the only thing he bought for himself while we were there. (He did get a new pair of boots before we left- Happy Birthday, happy anniversary, and happy you work really hard so buy something that makes you happy) Don't ask me what that face he is making is about.
I took a few pictures of the trip, mostly the fun things we got at the factory malls and such.
These are my KILLER boots man. Justin keeps asking me where I will wear them but I think he will be surprised at how many outfits I can use them in. Jean with just about any shirt for starters. I am really excited about em. I know I don't expect them to be that white for TOO long. I will just have to try really hard to not mow the lawn in them or anything.
These are my "Manda" shoes they made me think of her when I got them, I have a very cute outfit I put together at Ross that they are going to be great with.
Here is our freak of nature child who thinks at 7 months she is going to start getting up and walking. She has been crawling since she was five months old and I am watching in disbelief as she makes her way around the house. She like Lucas started out pretty mellow. Really she has been the happiest baby I have ever seen. BUT now that she is getting older (she is still REALLY nice) she is beginning to develope an opinion just like everyone else. I knew it was coming. She is still very easy to please and makes your heart melt with that little bitty face.

There has been much more going on but for time sake I will have to skip the details and do some more another day. However I will tell you I bought a router so we are wireless now and can type from any room in the house. I am stoked about that. I spent a good 45 minutes organizing the mess of wires that live behing our printer. AHhhh deep breath of satisfaction...YES now I am off to B.E.D. next time I sit down to the computer I will be reading your blogs cause I haven't done that for a LONG time. Miss you all. take care. Have a happy Thursday.