Combined birthday celebration

My crazy mother hates the heat more than anyone I know. "What did she do to make her so crazy?" You ask...she had 5 out of her 6 kids in the middle of summer. 3 of us in August. This year we did a combined birthday celebration and it was so fun! Our dinner was a variety for all the picky eaters in the fam. Sushi (my fave) BBQ and pizza. Everyone was able to enjoy something! :) The cakes had the correct number of candles for each of us. Me- 28 supposedly, TJ-27, and Scotty-21. As you can see, that created a whole lot of smoke! I'm happy to share my birthday month with two of my bros. My parents were great making it such a fun and special evening for us. Love my fam!
I kept trying to get a picture of all of us looking at the camera and smiling but I couldn't get it to work out.


My boys adore their uncle Craig. Ryker looks so much like him it's ridiculous. Acts a lot like him also.

Big thank you to my awesome parents. They really are the best and no, I'm not being biased!! It's an actual fact.

It is WAY to stinking HOT!!

So I try to venture out of the house to do something fun and different with the kids but end up regretting it every time! I can barely breath outside the comfort of A/C. Instead, we have found a few daily projects that my kids are obsessed with. One of which is "making animals by gluing" as Jaxon calls it. Now I don't trace or get ideas for anything. I literally just cut shapes in hopes it looks like the animal requested and the boys glue the limbs together. We've also done painting, preschool activity books, play-dough, reading, games, etc. It's been a fun summer but I'm so ready for it to be cooler.

We made some "spider hats."

Jax is gluing up some blue baby turtles.

I took them to kids club at the mall and all they wanted to do was play on the giant turtle OUTSIDE in the heat. ugh!

Sad...I think not! Happy Birthday to me!

Like I said in my previous post, Brian has to work and was asleep this evening. I went to church with the kiddo's from 1-4 and came home and cooked a quick meal. I sat and thought, cake and ice cream is one of those things my family does religiously each year for each of the kids. My family was out of town so that didn't work out this year. I planned to have a regular evening but decided last minute that DANG IT! I want cake and ice cream! So I ran the boys to the store with me (I know, it's Sunday-bad! And believe me, I paid the price. They were embarrassingly awful in the overcrowded store). They picked out my cake. I gave them an option of 3 cakes because I don't like store-bought chocolate and I don't like whipped frosting. They picked the least best looking one out of the 3 but oh well. We came home. I let them assemble 20 candles on the cake. I decided to celebrate my 20th birthday. It was a lot more enjoyable to believe I was only 20. :) I was the photographer so the pics aren't great. I got a picture of us blowing out the candles (after they so sweetly sang to me) but I cut off the tops of our heads. At least you can see our puckered lips. Ha ha! The cake was surprisingly good and the kids loved it. I don't think it's sad I bought my own cake. I don't think it's sad I only celebrated with my two rugrats. And I definitely don't think it's sad I had to pretend I was younger to feel better about it. What I do think is sad...none of it. I had a great evening and got what I wanted!

Birthday Eve

Brian has to work all weekend and since my birthday falls on a Sunday, we had a little outing today with the boys. And where do i just love to go?? The mall. Even though I can't buy a whole lot, I am very much my mother's daughter. I love to just look around and see all the fun stuff. Plus, the kids love it. There's the pet shop, the candy store, the book store, etc. I love to do the photo booths but Brian-eh-not so much. But since it was MY outing it was a must. Afterward, we went to Texas Roadhouse for lunch. I forgot my cam so I didn't get a picture of that but it was a real treat because we NEVER go out to restaurants, especially with the kids. It was a simple and pleasant day. I finished off the afternoon with some Sour Patch Kids which happens to be my big preggo craving this go around. I have to say, this is the first year my birthday has meant very little to me. It's just one year closer to 30 but I'm not going to think about that. At least it's an even year for me...28!

And her name will (probably) be...

Brian and I have had the hardest time deciding on a girls name. Why is it so hard?? To be honest, he is not in love with this name. I think a lot because he doesn't get a good reaction from a lot of people when he suggests it but also because it's not his top pick. I LOVE the name. And I'm okay if you hate it. With my last child being named Ryker, I am used to people hating it or loving it. Luckily, I have complete control (with my husband-sort of) to name my children how I please just like everyone else. Soooo, don't feel like you'll hurt my feelings if you don't like it. Nuf said. When I was reminded of the name by a family member, I tossed it to Brian expecting an immediate no. He gave me a maybe. After a few weeks of trying to convince him, we decided to drop it because it just wasn't going to work for him. Sadly, my grandpa whose name is Harley (where it derived from), was recently diagnosed with cancer (the bad kind and I don't know what the official name is but it's blood cancer). My sweet husband upon hearing the news, told me I could have the name, knowing how much it would mean to me and my family. I've always said I don't like "officially" naming a baby before I see him/her because they need to look like it but this time I'm pretty certain unless I get a weird feeling about it once she's here. Me and the boys painted these letter's and hung them up in her room. The colors match the bedding perfect. I am excited. I don't give my hubby a lot of the kudos he deserves but he's a good man and I'm grateful for him.

No more monkeys jumping on the chairs!

08/12/2010

08/11/2010

08/10/2010

So my little stinker Xonian (I'll explain the nickname another time) almost broke his little nose. Those of you with boys, know how rambunctious they can be. Our two just love to climb and jump off things. We've got a couple of chairs upstairs that no matter how many times we tell them not to climb and jump from them, they always do. Finally, Jaxon paid the price for not listening to his parents. He leaped from one chair to the other and fell short slamming his nose into the wooden arm of the other chair. I took a picture of his nose for the last 3 days because he seems to wake up worse everyday. The pictures don't do a whole lot of justice to the damage but it swelled up pretty well. And by yesterday, the swelling moved up right into his right eye. Brian calls him Avatar. Ha ha! He does sort of look like one. I do hate it though. I feel like a totally different kid is living with us. I miss his cute little face and profile.

Lots of pix

Okay, someone messed with my computer and I can't see the pictures I'm uploading so I'll need to do catch up another day. Here are some church pictures I took this last Sunday. We were ready early enough for once to take some. :)

New goal

I have decided I want to be a better blogger. And like a lot of my friends, turn it into my journal. I do a "decent" job keeping journals for my kids but I've really slacked at doing something for myself. And lets face it, my blog has been nothing but a photo album (and a sad one at that). With my new blogging goal, it will also force me to be a better photographer. I have been terrible at taking pictures and I don't want that regret when my children outgrow me (which I'm certain will never happen-but just in case). Whether anyone reads this or not doesn't matter. I'm sure someday my kids will and that is what matters. So let's get started!

I am one who is a big fan of even numbers and I despise odd ones. The volume, microwave, number of M & M's I eat, all must be an even number. Now, I don't go ballistic if it's not even which I why I don't consider it a sickness. We've all got our quirks. As 2010 approached, I of course was feeling very optimistic. I just KNEW it was going to be an amazing year. Now, I don't know if it's because it's an even year or because of my optimism, but so far that thought has lived true. It has been a great year! 1. We're expecting our 3rd child and 1st girl. Come on, now that's pretty darn exciting. 2. We moved into a new house. The reason that is so exciting is because we've felt every negative feeling about our situation in our other house. It was meant to be a starter home and an investment and it looked like it was turning into neither. We were out money on our home and it looked more like a 10 year plan than a 5 year one. BUT, we knew we couldn't leave it. We were both grateful to have our jobs and grateful to have a home we could afford. As sickening as the home prices had become, especially in Queen Creek, we wondered if there was a way we could honestly take advantage. So we mused the idea of possibly purchasing a new home and renting our old one for the same cost. Hmmmmm. Brilliant idea if I do say so myself, but was it possible even a little bit? The risk of finding renters, fixing up a fore-closed home-it was all a little much. We toyed with the idea for about a year and decided it was time to see if we could. We didn't want to someday regret not even trying. So Brian got it started and it just happened. We were blessed to find renters right away and blessed to find a home we love. I feel very much grown up after this experience and like many times in my life, felt the rewards of doing the right thing.

Basically, those two life changing events are what have made this year so memorable. Along with our health and other reasons not as dramatic, things have been great. Although, this has also been a sad year for death and sickness. Brian's Great Grandma Grace passed away earlier this year. She lived in Utah so I was as close as one could be to an out of town relative but I loved her dearly. She was in her 90's when she passed and she was one of the sweetest people I've met. I find myself remembering that I need to write to her and it hits me that I can't. Another one is Brian's grandfather. His passing was a shock to everyone. A heart attack took him very quickly from us. It was hard to see my husband grieve for his loss. We found out about a month ago that my grandpa has cancer. I was blessed with the opportunity to visit him in Arkansas with my mom last week. It was my first trip away from the kids. I had a great time with my mom and I was happy to see my grandpa. We found out today another one of Brian's great grandma's is very ill. I hope we don't lose anymore relatives this year and that everyone can keep their health.

Well, that is a VERY brief synopsis of my year so far. I am going to post over due pictures in the next post and I am going to work very hard at posting more often and recording my life. I just want to say I love my family and grateful for the blessings of this year!