While Mana's Away...

My mom and sister left to go to Yellowstone on Saturday morning. So while she has been gone we did a few things. We took our friends Kenny & Susan and kids to our cabin Saturday night to stay over. It is always nice to be there and even better with friends :) I didn't take many pictures (which is weird for me), but Saturday night we ate at T-Cee's then stayed up late and the kids watched movies and we just hung out. Susan had about 4 chapters left in 'Breaking Dawn' so us girls stayed upstairs (I cross stitched while she read) and the boys took care of the kids for awhile. We ended up going to bed about 11, which is so late for my children, but they both did really well once they got to sleep. Then Sunday morning we got up and had breakfast. The boys went outside to catch bugs along with Mara & Livvy. Pat said that they were holding hands walking around with each other :) We really didn't do much other then relax. Here are the girls on our huge fish pillow:

It's good to always take a group picture to commemorate the trip. Too bad I didn't get more pics :(

Thanks again guys for coming with us. And as Susan mentioned to me, one of these days we are going to have a girls getaway. Too bad it's already the end of the summer, guess it'll have to be next year :)

While my mom has been away it's given me a taste of freedom, LOL. That sounds bad. It's just that we have been living here for 3 1/2 years, so I forget how it feels for it to just be us (me, Pat & kids). Usually once we get the kids to bed, Pat & I stay in our room and watch TV or movies or whatever. So while she's been gone we have stayed up in the kitchen and watched the Olympics! (We have a DVR, so we have been recording them and watched stuff after the kids are in bed) So after 2 nights of sitting on hard stools, Pat moved the nice chair into the kitchen and watched. It was so funny that I had to take a picture:
Pretty much we have been doing our regular routine, except that Pat has been a little sick and came home from work yesterday. It was nice for me to have him home an extra day this week, but not fun that he was sick. He pretty much slept all afternoon anyway. But I was able to pull out my scrapbook stuff, Yippee!!

Then today was Pat's monthly hair cut and he decided that he was going to shave his beard off too. He just looks so weird to me this way. I'm used to the facial hair and I love it. Needless to say he likes it too, so it was just the one time shaving and the beard will be back in a few days time :)

And thus ends the "alone" time. My mom & Karri just pulled up to the house. Their time away gave me a little more yearning for a place of our own. All in good time.

Friends

I am so grateful for my friends. Stefanie, Courtney, Erin & I have been friends since High School. We sang together in choir and have been friends since! It's sad that we don't get together very often. But we have been able to see each other 3 times in the past month, all due to Courtney! First we were able to go to a bridal shower for her a few weeks back (Erin was out of town).

Stef, Court, & Me

Last week we were able to go to dinner to celebrate Courtney's upcoming nuptuals at Red Robin!! It was so nice to get away for a few hours with friends.

Court, Erin, Me & Stef Courtney got married on Friday the 8th! I am so excited for her and glad that she found Ben. He is going to make her so happy! Congrats CeeCee, I love you!!!

Stef, Court & Me

And next Saturday Stef & her husband Scott are getting sealed!! Another great reason to get together, right??? And Erin is having another baby, so there's another reason too! :)

I love you guys!!!!

Swimming

On Wednesday we were able to go to Veteran's Memorial Pool in Provo with some of Pat's family. This was probably the last time we will go swimming this summer since school starts for Pat in a few weeks. It was the first time we have been to that pool and we loved it!! Thanks again Liza for the invite and letting us use your punch pass :) You rock!!!

Our Trip to Boise!

Ok, sorry, this is another long post.

Last Friday morning we headed up to Boise, Idaho with Pat's sister Lana & family, and his brother Morri & his family. We took this little vacation because our nephew Spencer was getting baptized!! We got there around dinner time. Pat and Xander ran off with Ben & kids, Morri, Liza & kids, and JR & Noah, they met up with some of Ben's friends and went rafting down the Boise River. They were gone for a good 3-4 hours, but had a great time.

Meanwhile back at home, Amber & Brody, Lana & Maddox, and me & Mara hung out in the backyard :)

Mara & Aunt Amber
Cousin Brody
Cousin Maddox
Me & my girl enjoying a Popsicle!
Maddox sharing with his mom!
The next morning the girls shared in a bath:
Mara, Addi, and Aubrey

And of course after we gave the girls a bath, the decision was made to go swimming. I opted out of getting in the pool, since I had just washed and dried my hair, so I stayed out and watched the fun!

Some of the boys:

Carter, Caden, Alex, Spencer, & Noah

(it's funny that they are sitting in order of age!!)

Ben has a cool case that you put your camera in so you can take it in the water, so some of these pictures are from him!

Trying out some fun tricks.
What a sweet tower.

top-bottom: Bryton, Alex, & Ben

All wet and all done!
Mara & Uncle Morri
When Xander was done swimming, he got wrapped in a towel and went to lay down on the cement next to his cousins. He slipped and hit his head. This is the result:
A good shot of Pat sleeping while I read my book :) A little family picture before the baptism.
Spencer & Ben before the baptism. We are so proud of Spencer for making this decision! You are awesome buddy!!

Afterwards, we got a fun group picture in Ben & Amber's backyard.

What a good lookin' family.

Then again........
My niece Bryton took this picture of me & Lana
The boys messing around:

JR, Ben, Pat, & Morri

They look better like this.

Xander had to bring one of his Pokemon movies and he shared it with his cousins. Thanks Ben & Amber for a fun weekend. You guys are great! I just wished you lived closer so we could see you more often. On our way home we stopped off at Pat's grandparents house in Murtaugh. Grandma June loves the Utah Jazz and through one of her grandsons was able to get one of Andrei Kirilenko's shoes, and he even signed it too!!!
Pat & the kids in the Tolman Corn Crops!!
Fun family picture in the corn! They were so tall! I didn't dare go farther then that, made me think too much about the movie 'Signs'.
A quick picture of the kids with Grandpa Roger & Grandma June.
I love being able to get together with family. It truly is the best thing ever! I love you guys!!

One of those days...

I am having one of those days... I am having a hard time with my emotions today, I find that I am comparing myself to others, and feeling bad about myself. I can't control my reactions to my children. I already have a hard time being patient, like most parents, but today I am just overreacting to everything. I yelled at Xander for the dumbest little thing and it sent me to tears. I feel so bad for the way that I have been treating him lately. He is such a great kid and just wants to share everything with me (which has been frustrating this week, because he was always wanting to talk to me while I was reading 'Breaking Dawn'!) I love him so much, but he just sent me off the deep end today. I retreated to have my little cry and Mara found me. She was so sweet and sat in my lap and let me hold her while I cried. She even made little pouting sounds with me. All of this just brings up my frustrations with life, and I just need to vent them out! I am so tired of my weight. I have never been one that likes to exercise, and that just adds to my weight problem. It's so hard to get into that frame of mind to do it. Right now I am in a good frame of mind and am walking a mile each morning, along with a little extra on our Wii Fit. But my main problem is eating, so the weight is not going away. I am such a weakling. I love food too much and that's my downfall. I had been doing ok this week, but last night I splurged and now I feel so fat. I am just having a hard time keeping a positive attitude, because the results that I want aren't coming fast enough. Then there are other things in my life that I want and I just can't have right now. I am so beyond ready to have my own house, but I know that won't happen for another year or more. I really want to be pregnant, but it is so the wrong time in our lives, hence not having a house of our own. Some days I think I'm doing well in dealing with the fact that we have to wait, but then I find out that more and more of my friends are pregnant, and so it brings up all those emotions again. I just feel like my life is in this indefinite holding pattern and I can't go anywhere. I just really need something to start going my way. I guess it all boils down to patients. I feel that I have been really patient in my life, but it's starting to wear thin lately and I just need a boost to get me through the next year. So hopefully things will look up soon.
Sorry for the rant, but I just had to get it out somewhere and this is where it ended up :)

I'll Be Back

We just got back from a great trip to Boise and I'm trying to get some pictures from Lana, so when I do I will post pics of the trip.

I am also in the middle of reading 'Breaking Dawn', so that contributes to the lack of blogging.

So I'll be back when I'm done with the book!

I'm glad I bought it, I'm loving it!!!!!

A Little Catch Up

I was just going through pictures from before our trip and found these: The day before we left there were a ton of Dragonflies flying around so the boys had to get the nets out. Pat was able to catch a few in the front yard, but noticed that they were flying close to the roof. So of course, he got on the house with the nets and caught a few very easily.

Xander with his net.
The boys with their bugs.
The one in Xander's net was eating something, so it just sat there and we were able to get a close up picture of it!!

When we were at Comic Con, Karri was able to pick up this cute pair of Fairy Wings from the Disney booth. (They are promoting the new Tinker Bell movie that comes out soon) They were giving away a different color everyday and we got these cute green ones for Mara. When we had her try them on, she had to strip down to wear them, she does this with all dress-ups!!

We also picked up some free temporary tattoos for the kids. Xander with his Pikachu tattoo.

Mara with her Wonder Woman tattoo. Xander's lasted until we went swimming on Saturday, and Mara's was perfect, but I washed it off during bath time on Monday. She has a cute little tan line from where it was!

Last week I decided to paint Mara's toe nails. It had been an hour or so since they were done and I was helping Xander take apart some Lego's. Then I see Mara taking a stool over to the sink and she is saying that she needed to wash her hands. I saw a drop on the stool and then I looked her over. This is what I found:

I totally thought it was blood for a minute!!! She tried to paint her own toes :) I just love that she has given herself an extra nail on her baby toe! Later on I found polish on her thighs, clothing and on the bottom of her other foot. Also it was all over the floor, good thing we were in the kitchen.