LONG BOARDING WITH BIG 'D'!

Devin letting Ava go solo
Isaac's turn

Christian pretending to be Harry Potter on his broom.

Isaac, Ava, & Addie getting the grand ride

Whenever Devin comes over he usually rides his long board to get here. Needless to say, my kids are fascinated by it and always want to try it out. So Devin took them all for a ride up and down the sidewalk. They LOVED it!!

HOW TIME FLIES

So I agree that I am a lame blogger. I have lost my motivation to get on here since I am unable to put any pictures on. Hopefully that will change soon and we can get back to business...that is until the baby is born and then I'll be out again, I am sure. So in the meantime, I will summarize what we have been up to for those of you who may be curious.
Fortunetly, Andy's company seems to be hanging on fine for the moment so we are very grateful that he still has a job! We have seen so many of our friends losing theirs and have been trying to get prepared for that circumstance, just in case. In the meantime, things in that area are fine.
I have been trying to keep up with the different demands of the children and frankly can't wait for school to be out, I love having things on my schedule (and sleeping in until 7:30). I am getting anxious for this baby to get here, I just want to see him and hold him! I love brand newborn babies and I am so excited to have one again!!
Christian just cut his hair, which was one of his trademarks, it turned out nice and it is great to see his beautiful eyes again! He has been reading the Harry Potter series and is just about to finish book #4. He has mastered riding his Ripstick that he got for Christmas and loves to go to the skate park to ride. Christian is playing baseball, his team are the Indians.
Isaac is also really into reading lately and is currently reading the Junie B. Jones books. He loves school thanks to an amazing teacher! So far he has gotten 100% on every spelling test this year. He has just about got his Ripstick figured out. He can go the length of our sidewalk so far. He is in baseball too, the Diamondbacks, an loves it. It will end the end of May.
Addie is very anxious for her 5th birthday next month. She has been making a vocal list of all the things she wants for her birthday for at least 2 months now. I told her she gets one present so every day the 'one' thing changes about 10 times. She gets to get her ears pierced and is super excited about that. She got registered for kindergarten and can hardly wait for it to start. She has been my big helper with Ava and always picks things up for me so that I don't have to bend over. (I must say a lot that it hurts to bend over) She can't wait for this baby to get here, she talks about him all the time. So overall, Addie has some very exciting events coming up!
Ava is finally starting to talk. Everyday she adds some more words to her list. I have noticed that if you try to egg her on to talk, she won't but if it is on her terms, she will. Reminds me of when I've potty trained kids. Anyway, she keeps us all laughing with all of the cute things she does. We tried having her sleep down in Addies bed since she suddenly decided she absoblutly did not like her crib. And fortunetly, she is doing great with the transition! The past few nights she has slept all through the night and today she even went in around 3:00 an put herself down for a nap! I guess she was just helping me out by freeing up the crib in time for the baby to get here!
Overall, things are going very well, no complaints, we feel very blessed!

CLOTH DIAPERS, HERE WE COME!

So, I have been talking about turning over to cloth diapers for a few months now. I should say that I have joined the bandwagon of everyone else who is 'going green' but that is NOT at all why I am doing this. In fact, I am so irritated with this 'green' tend, but that is another post for another time. I am sure I have my own personal landfill of disposable diapers out there from changing them for over ten years now. Anyway, my reasoning behind this is simple...the economy! I am just prepping myself for the worst in hopes that the worst won't come. But, if it does, diapers were going to be a big expense that we can't ignore. We will have 2 kids in diapers for at least another year and then one for another 2 years after that. So, I decided to invest in them now so that I won't have to keep forking out $ for the next 3 years. Anyway, I have only done it for a day now but I think so far it sounded scarier than it is. I have to say though, that they have come a very long way since I was a baby, so it really isn't fair to try to compare. My favorite thing is the diaper sprayer, it is like a sink sprayer, only it hooks up to your toilet so that you never have to dunk a poopy diaper into the toilet. In fact, I warned Andy that I better not ever find one of these diapers sitting in the toilet! Anyway, all in all, this isn't my first choice but I am just preparing for the worst. And if the worst never comes, I am taking all of the $ that I saved and treating myself to a trip to Hawaii!!

UPDATED KIDS PORTRAITS

So, I haven't taken real pictures of my boys since Isaac was 3 years old. This has definetly been on my 'TO DO' list for sometime now. So Monday I had a sitting and told myself that I wouldn't put my photography stuff away until I took a picture of each of my kids. So here they are, they are all now updated and even on my wall. Just in time for the baby to come and to be outdated again!

SUMMER DREAMIN'

I drove past the park today and looked over at the vacant playground and found myself longing to come back. I miss the feeling of the sun warming my skin and the kids running around...outside! I love summertime and I am so excited that it is just around the corner. So here's to hot summer days with an ice cold drink...I love you and I miss you!

DANG MEMORY CARD!

So ever since 'someone' broke our last camera we have been having camera problems. Our new camera works fine but the memory card is making me want to pull my hair out! At first the card just went wacky on us and 'died', we couldn't rerieve any of the pictures and lost everything that was on that card. So I went out to get another card and there was a sale going on that the 4 GB card cost the same as the 1 GB card so of course I opt for the 4GB. We took a bunch of pictures and went to load them onto the laptop but...nothing. We reformatted the card and still, nothing. Come to find out that our 4 yr old laptop can't process that much information so we went back to the store and got a smaller card, 2 GB, took some pictures and the same outcome...nothing. At this point I am pregnant and not up to dealing with anything that is going to cause me to move. So here we are still in the same boat, with no pictures. I think that posts without pictures are boring so I will be posting some oldies for now until I give in and add to my memory card collection that I have started. Better yet at this point, I think I will sell all of these memory cards and buy myself a brand new computer that can handle my 4GB memory card!!!

(almost one year ago)

FYI: I am going to try posting every Friday. Since I am private now, I realize that I don't get updated on peoples blog roles so I don't want you to keep checking when there is nothing new.

IT'S BEEN A WHILE!

So, last time I posted, I had full intentions of adding another post within the week. Well, within that week I found out that I was pregnant and by the time I got over the shock, the next week the awful sickness kicked in and I was a barely breathing body laying on the couch. Getting the motivation to move to my bed about wiped me out let alone getting onto the computer to catch up on anything was out of the question.
So apparently almost 5 months has passed since then and I am ready to come back to life. The good news is that I have this wonderful medicine that makes me feel normal again. It was keeping me out of the hospital from needing to get the good ol' IV treatments that I grew so fond of in my previous pregnancies but I still felt about as crummy as I get but now the nausea has worn off a little bit so that the meds are working full force. I am so grateful for them!!
We also just found out that we are going to be welcoming a baby boy into our home. If anyone has any name suggestions, that would be wonderful. The childrens suggestions are a little scary, but who knows, maybe 'ELMO' is making a comeback!
For those of you who haven't heard, I am due July 16th.

PRIVATE

So, unfortunetly there are way too many weird people out there so we are going to go private with this blog. If you would like access to it, just let me know in the comments. I will need your email if I don't already have it. Thank you!
Lynne

HALLOWEEN '08

They're ready to go on the prowl for candy
Joe DirtVadar

Super(cute)Girl

Our little lady

Another Halloween has come and gone, there are candy wrappers decorating the house and two tired parents. With all of the carnivals and parties and finally the actual night, the kids had a lot of fun but as for me...I am glad I have 365 days until it all starts again.

LOOKING BACK THIS SUMMER

my favorite people

Christian throwing mud (probably at Isaac)

Andy & Ava at the park


Christian & Isaac

the family pool

heading to the lake at the sand dunes

Andy taking Addie out on a date

You Are a Yellow Crayon

Your world is colored with happy, warm, fun colors. You have a thoughtful and wise way about you. Some people might even consider you a genius. Charming and eloquent, you are able to get people to do things your way. While you seem spontaneous and free wheeling, you are calculating to the extreme. Your color wheel opposite is purple. You both are charismatic leaders, but purple people act like you have no depth.

http://www.blogthings.com/whatcolorcrayonareyouquiz/">What Color Crayon Are You?

ok i had to posst this, it was on my friend, Dacia's blog. She is purple, I thought it was funny what it says about purple people. Dacia, that is so not true, the only thing in here that was accurate was the part about being a genius!!

A LITTLE LESLIENESS

Not much to update on, although life still feels terribly busy. Every once in a while, there isn't anything pressing and I wonder why I don't do it more often. One of those moments

this week was when Andy's sister Leslie came to visit her old stomping grounds and we got to just hang out for 2 days. I put the endless responsibilities on hold just enjoyed the moment. Let the kids play while we just chat about whatever comes up. She is such a beautiful person both inward and outward. I love to be around her, she has so many amazing qualities that I admire. She is a great mother, wife, friend, and her inner strength is so vibrant! We got to take pictures of her very cute girls, I have to post them so you can see what I mean. I didn't get any pictures of all of us because my other memory card is messed up (its always something with my little cameras!) Anyway, it was great to be together and I hope we see them again soon.

LOVE YOU, MOM!

my new little niece, Sierra (Tori and Steve's)

My wonderful mother traveled so far to spend a couple days with me in between her visits with my 2 sisiter who just had babies. I thought that was so kind of her to take the time to do that.

first stop, pedicures then out to lunch my mom and Addie by the beautiful changing colors of autumn
seeing the new templeMy kids sure got attached to her very quickly. They couldn't get enough of her little action songs. It was fun to hear her sing them to my kids, they were the same ones she used to sing to me and my sibilings.
I have been wanting for some time now to see how far back I could trace my mothers line. With the help of my mom I have record of my mothers, mothers, mothers, mothers, mother. I think this would be neat to pass this onto my daughters who can keep passing it onto their daughters. Anyway, an extra special find was when we went searching cemetary's and found my 4th great grandma, Ruth Pack. We noticed that she had been honored with an honorary pioneer plaque on her headstone. It was a very solemn moment to stand by her grave and think of the sacrifices that she made which have been carried on so that I can enjoy the blessings that I have today.
I've got to hand it to all mothers, who sacrifice so much for their children so that they may have a happy life, thank you mom, I have been richly blessed to have you for my mother!

ANOTHER SUNDAY DRIVE

This sunflower is in our garden, the kids noticed that it looked like a heart.

This was our most recent Sunday drive, we decided to follow the Snake River out past Heise. It was very pretty with the fall colors changing on the trees. It was so peaceful out there.