Window

While my camera is on vacation, I decided to go through my old photos and post some that I forgot about or skipped over. I just fell in love with this one. This was taken when Irelee was 8 months old.

And I've been a blogging fool tonight! (Yes, it's nearly 2 in the morning!)

So you can scroll down to see 3 more blog posts if you wanna..... oh, you wanna. ;)

Mother's Day

Can I just say I have the coolest family ever?! Ok I know we all have cool family's... but I love that mine is perfect for me! So so blessed! I had the best Mother's Day ever!!! So it started Saturday night when Doug gave me some cash and let me loose shopping while he took the kids to "the man stores." 

I used to be the kind of person that would say, surprise me when it came to that kind of stuff.... but no more. :) A few blenders later and I'm happy to shop myself. ;) KIDDING!!!! I seriously begged for a blender last year, and I really do love it! 

I so wanted a good picture of the three of them. But finding a unicorn is easier, so I decided to take what I got. All three with eyes on me?! I consider this a success. Also, my big mama-jamma camera is on hiatus right now, so we'll be dealing with some not so spectacular phone pix for the time being. Now quit your blubbering, she'll be back soon! Oh wait, that was me.... never mind! Carry on!

Oh okay so those adorable kids you just saw brought me the yummiest breakfast in bed on Mother's Day! With a HUGE balloon and an awesome Woody card. (Toy Story) I should probably give their dad a little credit huh? He's the best!! It was the tastiest breakfast ever!!

 We decided it was good day to take the kids to see The Avengers! They LOVED it! That is why Jameson looks so "Hulk-ish" in the picture above. London keeps calling Thor, Goldie Locks and can't decide if she likes him better or Captain America. Even Irelee enjoyed the movie! It was so fun to take them to a movie that Doug and I enjoyed too! GREAT family movie I think! (That is if you don't mind a little violence.) But I really think the stuff I used to see on Tom and Jerry was worse than this was. :P

After the movie we went to eat at Iggy's, and the kids mildly behaved. My suggestion? 

Doing anything that requires kids sit still after an action movie is probably a bad idea.

 So after dinner we went on a little bit of a hike. I just love exploring new places with these guys, they are just too much fun!

 The day just kept getting better and better and ended with a Skype session with my brother Jo Jo who is on a mission in Thailand. My step mom was nice enough to include us all on that! The only one missing was my other brother Ben, who was in the process of moving and didn't have internet yet. It was so great to see Jo and everyone else. He is doing GREAT by the way! He's having the time of his life. I'm so glad!

Anyway it was a fantastic Mother's Day and I'm so lucky to have such a great family. I love them so!

Irelee 10 months

My little peanut is fast approaching a year and it's killing me!! 

There is never a faster year than the one when you have a baby, am I right?

Okay, so now she stands! She walks while pushing stuff or holding on to it, but doesn't walk on her own yet. She loves standing up and doing "SOOOOO BIG" (hands over head.) It's the cutest dang thing! It always weirds me out that she's mine because she's long and skinny and I've always had short little chunky baby's. (I wonder why?) But I just love how flexible and bendy she just melts into you when you hold her. Well melts into me I guess. The thing is, she won't let ANYONE hold her. Just me, Doug, James and London. We're hoping she'll grow out of it soon, but for now she is stingy with that. But she loves to smile and wave and everyone she see's and she''ll also say "Hi!" to them, or "Hi-Da!"  

She can say Dad, Momma, Bruu (Brother/James) and Nun Nun (London)

Ni-night (meaning she wants to nurse) And just tonight she started saying Wa-Dat? and points to everything! It's been so fun telling the the names of things. But other than that she has resorted to screaming for whatever she wants. She'll do a big scream and then smile at you to see your reaction. She's very good at figuring out how to get what she wants. 

This picture is so fitting because she really is our little ray of sunshine! 

She is just so good for our family, she makes everyone a better person.

 She's super loving and just adores her brother and sister. She's such a snuggly little gal and usually gives her kisses freely. 

We just adore our little lady. :)

St George

We have arrived. 

We are alive and well.

We don't technically live in St. George, 

but more on the outskirts near Washington and Hurricane.

The move went really well. 

Well, as well as you can expect when you decide to pack up and leave your life you once knew, 

for something totally different in a matter of weeks.

Our sweet neighbors really came through and helped us out, we were so grateful!

Also we couldn't have done it without my sister Madi and her husband.

(J-man hugging cousin Ty goodbye, our old house as we drove away *sniff, sniff* and the back of our moving truck. Fitting it had old people on it considering we were moving to the Mecca for snowbirds. ;)

 It was a long drive but we made it safely, and pulled up to our new beautiful home around midnight that night. We came in, threw down some blankets and pillows and sacked out.

(Lo checking out her neighborhood shirtless)

The next day my awesome friend Amy came over and helped us unload the truck. She brought us a bunch of groceries, it was sooo nice of her! Especially since she had just barely moved her family of 6 here just weeks before! Our bishop stopped by and helped with the heavy things, and also one of our new neighbors and her son came and helped. We pretty much put everything in the garage, and half of it still sits there waiting for me. There is a reason beyond laziness that explains this.....

Something I really didn't expect.....

Cockroaches.

Seriously. 

Now the reason I said before how beautiful this house we moved into is, is because I didn't want you to think, well of course there are roaches. See, where I come from, roaches just live in nasty, unclean, gross houses. Down here they live in any house if you don't spray for them about once a month. This house was just built a few years ago and is literally on the edge of the wilderness, in a very nice subdivision. But there are literally just mountains right behind us, they are wanting to build more houses out there more one day but haven't yet.We later found out from a neighbor that the people who lived here previously were from here, roaches didn't bother them, so they NEVER SPRAYED. Say WHAT?! Now I should probably mention there is nothing else on earth that scares me more than a dang cockroach. I'll take spiders, snakes, mice, bullets, murderers.... well you get the point. I have a major roach phobia. We found them the night after we moved in on our front porch, and yes, you guessed it.... the garage.... with ALL MY STUFF!!!! Grrrrr~! Eeekkk!!! Ewwww!!!!! 

We also found a few IN the house!!!

Seriously, I was a wreck. I cried, I stomped, I freaked, I threatened to leave, I became a total nut case. We had a guy over there ASAP spraying like the dickens and then a week later Doug sprayed again for good measure. I'm happy to say they gone now. Well at least the ones that are alive. We keep finding dead ones in the garage, so I'm still freaked out to unpack everything for fear I'll find one hiding in a box. Even when they're dead they scare the crap outta me. ANYWHO, problem handled and we're moving on. Oh! While we're on the subject, my neighbor also told us that once day she left her garage door open and came home to find a tyranchula sitting on her bedroom floor.  Oh my.... it's a whole new world down here I tell ya!

J-man's favorite pastime has been sitting up on this wall trying to catch lizards. We have quite a few that  live in our yard. I think we have about 4 in our backyard and 4 in our front yard as well. They range from about 6 inches long (tail to mouth) to about 14 inches I would guess. Jameson has only caught one one time so far. He's always building contraptions and thinking up plans to catch them. He gets pretty discouraged when he can't get them. They are so fast! I should also mention he loves his school and has a new best friend who lives next door! How lucky were we to find a house with an awesome 8 year old living in the house next to it!?

So as soon as we got here my little Irelee got sick. It was some kind of flu and it was soooo sad.  Poor little peanut. Now she has a double ear infection, I tell ya things are always super exciting around here. ;)

My little mini-me and I are having a nice time together with Irelee while Jameson is at school. I really feel like the two of us have grown closer since the move. We are STILL working on potty training. I know.... seriously...... she's almost 4. And I thought girls were supposed to be easier than boys! She is such a big kid in soooo many ways, but still likes to be the baby too. She's a feisty little firecracker and I'm hoping she can teach me a few tricks some day. ;)

Anywho, we are doing so great here! Of course I miss everyone back home like crazy, but this place is really great and like my dad always tells me, "There are good people everywhere." ;)  But seriously. I've been so lucky to rekindle my relationship with my old best friend. I love her so much and she makes this place even better! Xoxo!!! And now for a few random pictures...

This is the view out my office window. Not too shabby.

This little guy lives in our front yard. He's really grown on me. He's about as tall as I am, actually his leaves are about a foot above my head. I really need to find a good name for him. I love tree's and am glad I have one here I like.

These are a couple of lizards who decided to get busy on our wall right through our glass doors while we ate breakfast one morning. Wow.....dinner and a show? Where is the decency down here?!

I'm baaack!!!

So we have lived here (St. George area) for exactly 1 week and 2 days! And my oh my has it been full of surprises! I want to tell you all about it, but I'm worried I don't have time right now. We just got internet last night and I've been going CRAZY without it! And we didn't have TV our first week here either. I didn't realize how much I rely on modern conveniences! Oh who am I kidding, of course I did. :P Anyway, I'm going to leave you with the sweetest link and hopefully be online tonight to blog it all out!

Xoxo

Seeing Amy & the Cool park

So come to find out my old best friend Amy just moved to St. George 2 weeks ago from California! How wild is that!? Coincidence? I think not. So we got together and went to dinner and then she took us to an awesome park down here. 

 Baby Do LOVE love LOVED this toy. She's not a big fan of slides, so we were stoked to find something she loved. You'll probably notice that once you see my 100 pix of her on that thing here in a minute.

Oh look at that tongue. She is concentrating on this as she bounces.

 Amy has an 8 year old boy too! My lucky boy will get to go to the same school as him! I just hope they don't get into as much trouble together as me and Amy did. :P No, but really.

 When we were walking down to the park Doug and I talked about how it's like we're gonna live on a post card. It's so beautiful down here. I was really sad about leaving the beauty of Northern Utah, but here was the South part offering up some AMAZING scenery. Silly me. Everywhere in this world has amazing beauty to offer.

The family picture. J-man took some time out from playing with the boys to get a pic with his sisters. If we ever had one more kid, there just wouldn't be room on this toy now would there? Family planning at it's best. ;)

Now this toy was cool. It was like an engineer got bored on vacation, and just planned an entire park one day. It's so rad.

Now he is really high, you can't really tell because he's next to Matt. and Matt is like 6 foot 7? I dunno the inches, but he makes Doug who's 6 foot 1 look like a shortie.

These things were so cool. They are like little bucket/cup type things that can spin really fast. I even got some pretty sweet pix of Amy in one, but I want to keep her as a friend, so I won't be posting them online. She spun me around too and I think I might have had a mini stroke. :P

We got a little freaked when Doug decided to give Irelee a ride with J-man, but she loved it and they went slow. I just love seeing him with her, they are so cute together. Really J-man has the best relationship with his sisters, he's such a loving brother.

Look, it's a little cup'o'love! I just wanna drink it up!

Lo ran around doing her thing. She was pretty impressed. She has been loving it down here. It's been so good for us to spend more time outside.

She was pretty impressed with herself that she could go down the "big kids" slide. :)

Here we go with another one of lil Irelee on her toy. I don't have a lot of pix of Amy's kids cause I don't wanna be the creeper with the camera where as they don't know me well yet. So that will come with time. ;)

We had so much fun with them. They took us to Smash Burgers which was AMAZING and I survived without a heart attack, so that's good. :P  I thought I would lose weight moving down here, being more active and outside and such... BUT I did not take into account all the amazing food. We moved from a town with hardly any places to eat, to a place with food everywhere! It's gonna be tough, I think I might have to fatten up some more for the first month and then lose it all after that. ;)




I'll leave you with one more of Baby Do, because I just can't enough of her!

Our very first Splash Pad experience

So we are learning that living in St. George means we will be spending a lot of time at the splash pads here, and they are everywhere! Our friends Jerry and Seren took us to the Hurricane splash pad one evening. That's right... EVENING! It's pretty dang exciting to be running around in the water at night. I've been waiting and waiting for the sun to come out! Who knew I just had to drive South all day to see it. ;) Actually this is Jameson sunning himself, he was pretty cold near the end.

London and Lyza have become fast friends as we've been staying with them. They are so much a like. Little monsters! ;) Kidding! They are lively little sweeties and we've learned they can not be left alone.

 I think they have fun together.

 My poor lil peanut got sunblock in her eyes! I felt so sooo bad!! So at first it was fun, and then it wasn't . Poor lil baby do!!

Lynzie was like Jamezie and got cold quicker than the others. She's a sweetie pie.

These guys have been so cool to put up with us for a week. I always feel so bad staying with people because my kids can be quite crazy. But thank goodness these guys kept telling us how good they were. Wheew! I could see them slowly getting naughtier and naughtier the longer we were here. I think it will be so nice when we move in to our own place and can have them come terrorize us for a change. ;) Baby steps to Tuesday/Move Day!

Easter Egg Hunt

 We held our (hopefully) annual Easter egg hunt again this year! It gets more fun the more kids we have added to the family and the more they can get out there and play. :) I just love having my family over and that's what I'm going to miss the most about moving.

 Left to right Lola, Clover, London, Roman, Jameson & Tyller.

 I remember when Rileigh was holding Clover last year I said "Can you believe your little peanut will be running around with the big kids next year?" It seems so surreal that it happened so fast, and she was literally running with those big kids!

 Madi's family brought the King egg, and Rileigh's family brought a gold egg and a silver egg. They were the most special eggs to find because there was $$$ in them. :)

 I don't think I gave it away by pointing my camera at it and waiting for someone to discover it. ;)

 After the kids tore up the front yard we ventured to the back. It was then I decided I love my yard. I'm so sad this was the only chance we had to enjoy it before we move. Do I sound like a boob? Well, I am. ;)

 So while the kids were looking for eggs, London concentrating on yelling at the kids who found eggs before her, or grabbed one she "saw first." She takes this stuff pretty seriously. Little stinker.

 Do you spy an egg?

 Ro-Bear is such a sweetheart, and I'm not just saying that because he's my nephew. He seriously is such a sweetie pie and was more than happy to share his eggs with Lo.

 Irelee got a hold of one and held it out like a prize. I think she gets it...

 Clover on the run!

 Lola found the gold egg! So the cameras came out while the other kids pout. ;) Then Jameson found the silver one. We had a rule that you only got to keep one of the big 3, so he went to hide it for the kids to go find again.

 While they were waiting, I said "SMILE!!!" And this is what I got. They were none too pleased they didn't find one of the special eggs. :P

 So off they went and Ty found the last egg.

Nixie was finding some good ones too!

Irelee searching for eggs up high, no doubt. ;)

 Last year we had to practically beg the kids to finish finding eggs. This year the kids forged on till the job was done. When everyone one finished we headed in and the kids opened them up.

 Ty with her favorite color.

 Girlfriend see's a drink, she goes for it. Doug was just humoring her here.... geez I hope, cause if not he's in trouble!

She just loved her eggs. She didn't seem so impressed with what was inside, thank goodness!

That night we had a pot luck. I made the most AMAZING french dip. I don't even care if I'm tooting my own horn, that stuff was GOOD. But it did smell so strong like onions, so after we got to St. George I noticed all of our clothes smelled like it and bedding and everything. SOMEONE has to know how to get that to not happen. That's the only thing I hate about pot roast and curry! I'm hoping when I get home everything smells good again. We left on Easter and head back tomorrow to pack our belongings and head on down here for good.

I didn't take any pix on Easter, it ended up being a little crazy. My darling London found Irelee's easter basket in the garage the day before easter. Then easter morning, we packed up as quick as could and then headed out. It was a crazy day, full of delays and drama. I was panicking leaving my home, to stay here for a week. I have so much to do there! Packing, cleaning and visiting! But having Doug gone the week before had been really hard, so I wanted to be with him. So we bombarded my friends house and have been here since. I'll have so fun pix to post later, she and my other good friend have been showing us around and I'm really kind of exited to move here!

Anywho, Happy Easter! I hope it was great for all of you!!