Lorins dance recital

Tonight Lorin had her dance recital. It was the CUTEST ever!! She looked so cute in her costumes and we had so much fun watching her perform these dances they've been working on for months. Her teacher is the best!!

This is their Tarzan dance. She's the second from the left in the back.

And their bride dance. She loved the wedding dress.

One of my birthday presents

For my birthday Mike came home from work with a thumb drive and said he spent all day making a present for me. So I thought, a cute card, a poem, a drawing. But it was the cutest thing. He put a slide show to music. Make sure to turn off my music player so you can get the full effect!!

In Memory Of

I know death is natural and part of life, but I have the hardest time when death comes unexpectedly. Death of children or of parents with small children gets me the most. I've been lucky in my life to not had to much experience of death. My grandpa died when I was like 16 and my uncle died when I was pregnant with Lorin. I had a friend loose her dad in high school and that was really hard. And I have friend who lost a son when he was 2 and can/could never imagine the struggle of that. And that has been my brief experiences of death. So when a friend of mine died last week it was hard. She was younger than me and had 3 small children. I have a firm testimony of The Plan of Salvation but I hurt for the pain that her kids will have in their life without their mom. At the funeral yesterday the bishop got up and talked about the presumptions we make in this life with the little knowledge that we have. And you can take that to so many levels, little petty presumptions all the way up to the big, what makes the world turn, presumptions.
It wasn't that long ago that I had a break down, I was the sickest I had ever been. I was losing weight at an extremely unhealthy rate and I was in pain. We didn't know what was wrong with me and we were waiting for some final tests. I just broke down in tears because I didn't want to live my life sick. I wanted to have the energy and health to play with my kids and be involved with them. We found out I have Celiac Disease, the same disease that my friend that died had. It wasn't the disease that directly killed her, but some effects from it. One of the things that was said yesterday, It's not how long you lived your life but how well you lived it. I think one of the things I walk away with after a tragedy is a self check.
This is not a usual post for me, but for the last week it's really been on my mind.

We can feel the love now

Have you ever had that feeling that your neighbors don't really like you. Well we don't get that feeling exactly but this past weekend we finished the flower beds in the front yard and man do we feel loved!! We didn't think it was a big deal that there were no flowers or bushes. I mean we kept it weeded. But my mother in law came out to visit us with one goal in mind, flower our yard. So we did, we spent 2 1/2 days putting down top soil, planting flowers and bushes. And our neighbors started coming over to our house and saying how great it looks. Sorry it took us so long, we do feel the love now. If only we would have done it two months ago we wouldn't have driven our next door neighbors to move to the other side of the globe. :(

Our PHD

Lorin has become the first in our family with a PHD. She graduated last week from pre-school with her PHD(pre-schools highest degree) with honors (we are honored to be her parents). We are so proud of her and she is setting a great example for her little brother and sister.

Her final project for the year was reciting all her nursery rhymes and the pledge of allegiance. She performed flawlessly!!

She had so much fun going to school with Avi, round II next year, kindergarten.

Nana flew in just for the occasion(well one of them).

A year in the making..

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am completely artistically challenged! I can't draw, I can't decorate, I can't do anything that has to do with designing. And I have never claimed I could. With that said when I do finish something that remotely looks cute I am very proud of myself. Now sometimes it might take me, oh I don't know- maybe a year, but when it's done I know its how I wanted it pictured. So almost a year after starting Christians room we finally pulled all the tape off and got his furniture. Now granted there's suppose to be this really cute boarder in the middle of the wall that has soccer balls and footballs and such, but after he ripped the first coat off we decide we would wait until he is past the ripping stage(hopefully that comes soon) before we replace it.

Notice the trundle from Lorin's bed that had flowers on it are out. Along with the princess sheets. That was very exciting to get rid of.

We put the little table and chairs in his room because it matched so perfectly. The only thing, there are no crayons, markers, pens, or any type of writing objects aloud in his reach. You give him one and the first thing the boy heads for is my walls. I tell ya I have no idea where he learned that from, it must be nature, because Lorin has NEVER colored on anything other then paper.

We got a cute little dresser and night stand drilled holes in it and put soccer balls and basketballs for knobs. Like I said, very basic, but to me this is a good years work.

No more binkies...

So we decided to do it, get rid of the binky once and for all. We've tampered with the idea here and there, but finally we did it. The first night was pretty close to hell for everyone. Christian cried and cried and we yelled and threatened and finally come 11:30pm he crashed. The next night was better we didn't have to yell or threaten as much and he didn't cry as much and by 9:30pm he crashed. So tonight we told him once, he cried for 2 mins. and then not a peep. When I went back to check on him he wasn't in his bed, or on the floor, he had fallen asleep on his rocker. Poor little man, but hopefully it just keeps getting better.

And we still had time to have some fun

Monday evening after we all had naps and were recuperated from the weekend we took the ATV's out for a couple hours to see what they could do. We went to this place only about 10 mins from our house and we had so much fun. The kids had a blast too. Word of advice, never ride with Mike, he is crazy. Scared the heck out of me!!

The little one was so much fun, it has a get-up-and-go like no other. And it really goes.

Kaki and her cousin loved the Yellow one, who didn't. And Mike took them on a little ride.I know, they need helmets.

But then they got so good they wanted to go off on their own.

Christian totally loved it too, he kept saying 'Bike, Bike' It was so funny.

And of course we had to bring his own ATV, he tried so hard to go off where all the big ATV's were going. It was really cute.

I don't know why but Mike looks so funny on the little one.

Good thing we had the baby shower...

Because come Monday morning at 5:30am Laura called us and she was 9+ and was about to have the baby. She did so good she went that far before she got any kind of anesthetics, not by choice. Chad did tell us that she yelled "epidural" and everyone down the hall could hear her. That's definitely not the way to make friends Laura!! Anyway, she had a beautiful little girl. My older sister was suppose to fly home that morning but we changed her flight plans so she stayed an extra couple of days.

Mom wasn't the only one getting in on the action of yelling. When we went to visit them in the hospital little baby was yelling and yelling. You would have never thought she was a newborn!

Chad wouldn't put her down. We had to fight with him to get a chance to hold her. But that's how all new dads should be.

She has the longest fingers and toes, and the most beautiful eyelashes.

Again, Kaki and her cousin were there for all the action. They are well traveled.

I really don't miss those hospital gowns.

But we were really glad that we could be there to be apart of this new experience for Laura and Chad. They are definitely new parents, scared and unsure of themselves, but they are going to be so good at it.

A Busy weekend

So I threw a baby shower for my lil sis last weekend. It was so much fun. As a surprise my older sister flew in and spent the weekend here. We had it at Laura's mother in laws house and we played some fun games and had some yum food.

This is a bouquet of fruit from Edible Arrangements, it looked so cute and the fruit was soooo good!!! The strawberries were so delicious.

This was the cake that Laura's sister in law made. It was really good.

Kaki and her cousin were there for the festivities and they participated by oohh-ing and aww-ing at the cute gifts their Auntie Laura got.

We played the "guess the size of the belly game" It was really funny how big some people thought that Laura was. The winner was a newly wed girl that has never had kids. Go figure.

Laura got the classic but way cute diaper cake. It had everything she could possible need for your diaper bag.