Ooh Laa Laa!!

(Sawyer, Mara, & Conli)

I Miss My Dad

Today marks the 6 year anniversary since his death! It's weird to think that it's been this long. I feel guilty because I don't miss him everyday, just every once in a while. I guess I'm just used to him being gone. (I have to use the same pictures everytime I talk about him, because I don't have many of just the two of us.) I love you dad and miss you with all my heart. It saddens me that you are not here to play with my children and watch them grow, but I know that you are being a wonderful Papa to my children who aren't on this earth yet. I can't wait until the day when I can see you again and feel the warmth of your hugs. I loved being able to have adventures with you....

To celebrate the important days....
And the regular days too....
I will always remember what a wonderful father you were. You were always willing to listen to what I was saying and gave me great advice on the things that mattered most....

Thank you for always being there for me. I know that you are still close and watching out for me. Until we meet again....

I Love You!

Recently...

I have been a blog slacker. Mainly because I haven't taken many pictures and I have been using my mom's laptop (so I am trying not to be on it much). Also I have been filling my time with other things, like playing Batman Lego on the Wii with Xander, going through pictures on the computer for the scrapbook, and just plain being lazy. So here are some of the small things that have happened the past few weeks.

Mara is still falling asleep in the afternoons! She will just crawl up in my lap and snooze! She does it about once or twice a week. While I was reading a book last Thursday, she slept in my lap for an hour and a half, and I was able to finish my book! Good thing too because I had my book group meeting that night! Thanks Mara!!

This one I love!! She was so tired all afternoon but didn't want to sit with me but she did want to watch Xander play video games.....and fell asleep!!
I was even able to put her in her bed and she slept for about 2 1/2 hours!! It was great! It makes me miss the fact that she doesn't take regular naps anymore.
We have crayons for the tub and the other night Xander made this masterpiece!! The tree is my favorite :)
My sister Karri has a game for her Nintendo DS that is Tinker Bell. She was showing Mara the game and Mara decided that she was going to play it all by herself. She even got the extra stylist and made Tinker Bell fly!!
Later that night she went to find Daddy and fell asleep on his lap. Luckily it was about a half hour from her bed time, so we were able to just put her in bed.
Lately (more like the past 6 months), Mara has had to strip down in order to play dress ups (which we are quickly changing now), and usually she'll go around the house with only a skirt on. And she has been stripping down her dolls too!! Last week she was being so quiet and I found that she had taken all of the clothes off of her dolls and then just left them on the ground. This is how I found them!!! She will even strip down her polly pocket princesses and will tell me "I want to take a bath with my girls!" It's so cute! She just wants them all to be in their "Simsuits".

Thursday morning we awoke to this message on the back of the front door where Xander's Word Whammer is. He was quite excited about it, especially because he could read it! Thanks Daddy!! (he couldn't find the v so it's a sideways c)

Mara had to turn her kitchen around to play with it, and I just thought it was a cute picture.

And lastly: For my birthday Pat was giving me a re-release of the 1986 Barbie and the Rockers doll. It was supposed to be released in February, so we made an order on the Toys R Us website. Shortly after, we got an email saying that they hadn't received their stock, so it would be awhile. I of course thought back to my Indiana Jones Adventure Heroes and started worrying that they have cancelled the doll, since she was no longer on their website or on Barbie.com!!! It has been about a month since we placed the order, and still no word on when she would ship. Well, we went to WalMart on Saturday and look who was there!!!!! They have made vintage reproductions of 6 Barbies for the 50th anniversary. I had this doll as a kid, along with about 50 other Barbies. While Pat was on his mission I got rid of about 99% of my Barbies. So when I heard that she was being released I knew that I had to get her!! The best part of it is that you can take off the front of the box and touch the doll and stuff!! It even comes with a little booklet like the original did and 3 cards featuring dolls from the 80's, Peaches n' Cream Barbie (which I had and loved), Day to Night Barbie (which Karri had), and Astronaut Barbie! (another one that I had)

Last night Karri was over and got out her Barbies and found her original doll. So here they are together!!

A close up of Then and Now!!

I love her and it makes little Breanne happy to finally have her. Too bad I don't have enough money to buy another one to really open up and play with.

On another thought: Pat has 2 more weeks of student teaching. It's sad that we have become used to the routine of him being gone so much, but I am anxiously awaiting when life will go back to 'normal'!

It's Getting Better

Before: After:
I went to the doctor today to have a check-up on my toe! It's looking great,(it better be, since it's been 8 weeks!) which makes me happy, because I have bumped it on more than one occasion, and have been a little worried. It still hurts a little, so I still have a little way to go, but I haven't had it wrapped or in "the shoe" for about a month. I'm just glad that I'm on this end of it. I really didn't like limping around and having to worry about all the little stuff that I couldn't do when it was broken. Thanks again Natalie for watching my kids! I really appreciate it!

I Love Battlestar Galactica!!

This is a scene from Friday's episode of Battlestar Galactica titled "Someone to Watch Over Me". I just love the music of this show and this is one of my favorite episodes so far!! I have to post the clip so I can watch it whenever I want.

Who Needs Sleep??

I Do!!!!!!

My kids seem to think that they don't! They go to bed at a regular time everynight, between 8 & 8:30 and they are waking up anywhere from 6:45-7:30!! Mara doesn't nap anymore and I know she needs more sleep then that, because she has been sitting in my lap and falling asleep in the afternoons!! I guess I'm just not ready to get up that early. I love being able to stay in bed until 8, because I'm not going to bed until 11:30 or 12!!!! What can I do to get my kids to sleep in??? It's making them and me cranky!! And this has only been the past few weeks too. They used to get up between 7:30 and 8, which I can work with. It's amazing how that extra 30 to 45 minutes can make a world of difference.

Rock-Paper-Scissors...

This was on last night and reminded me that I wanted to share it!
I love 'The Big Bang Theory'!!!!!!

Xander

I don't like to double post but I need to write this now:
I am just amazed at how fast time flies by. It seems like just yesterday Xander was born, then he crawled, walked, and ran. To look at him right now, I can't believe that he's 5, in his 2nd year of preschool and is already reading, and doing really well at it too. And to mark off another thing that I am astonished at:
I just registered him for Kindergarten!!!!!!!!
Where has my baby gone?!?!?!?! And why don't they stay little for longer????

Birthday Celebration

It's been awhile since I really blogged. There are a few reasons for that, but I will get into that in a bit. I just need to recap the last week or so.

Pat & I don't really celebrate Valentine's day since our birthday's are before and after it. It's always nice to be together and luckily he had the evening off. We were able to get together with Morri & Liza and kids and went to dinner at Training Table (yummy). We then just hung out at their house for the evening and were able to come home at a reasonable time to get the kids to bed. While on the way home Mara fell asleep in the car, which happens a lot more now that she doesn't nap anymore. Amazingly this time, when Pat got her out of the car she stayed asleep!! He sat with her on the couch for a minute, put her down, and we were able to change 1/2 of her clothes too, all while she was sleeping!! I even got a diaper on her! She did wake up a bit when we put her in her bed. I was just so amazed that she slept through it all! Here is a pic after we changed her clothes, Xander even put her bear on her chest and told me that he was nice when he did it!!

On Sunday the 15th, we celebrated mine & Pat's birthday's with my family. He got this awesome Skeletor that is a remake of the original!

Karri got us Battlestar Galactica Dog Tag of our favorite characters!!

Pat got Lee 'Apollo' Adama I got Galen 'Cheif' Tyrol - He's my favorite Cylon!!

My mom got me a new Disney Precious Moments figure of Snow White and the Prince.

Karri works in the bakery at Target and decided to make a cake for me & Pat! She decorated the sides for each of us, and even made the cake half chocolate & half yellow cake!! It was so huge and yummy. We were still eating it 3 days later! A close up of Snow White & The Prince

I was so excited to find my favorite Easter candy at Target this week. But the packaging is different this year so I almost missed it!
With some of my birthday money I got this fun ribbon holder! Too bad I need to go back and get 2 more! LOL

On Friday (my birthday) we had tickets to go to the Draper Temple Open House with my mom, Karri, and Grandma Joan.

Mara fell asleep on the way up.It was nice to be there with the kids, but there were so many people that the tour was silent, so the kids were bored, and Xander was hungry and tired of walking. Next time we need to go in the middle of the week & earlier in the day, or just go without the kids!

After the temple we went to dinner at Chili's.Thanks honey for a great birthday! I love you!!

Okay, explanation: I have been trying to limit my time on the computer and have been doing really good at it. I finally pulled out my scrapbook stuff and have been working on that this week. But the major thing is that the laptop that I usually use is out of commission!! "What happened?" You ask? Well, here's the story. Background info: the laptop is not even 3 years old, but my mom got a new one so the old one became mine, and about 6 months ago the CD drive died, which is normally not a big deal for me because I didn't need it. Then the McAfee security came up for renewal but I didn't do it because of said CD drive. It's been doing just fine for the past 2 months, until Thursday! I was downloading some new scrapbook paper and there was a virus with it!!!! Luckily I was able to get all my files off of it without having the virus hitch a ride. So I have been limited to using a desktop computer that is out of the way and in my opinion, very inconvenient to use, and not to mention, slower then what I am used to. But my very nice and wonderful mom, is letting me use her new laptop so I don't feel so out of it. I just don't know what we are going to do with the old one. My brother is going to take a look at it and see what he can do, but we will probably have to take it somewhere to get the CD drive fixed first. I don't know if it's even worth it. So we'll see what happens.

Ah, I feel much better now that I'm caught up.

Happy Birthday Sweetheart

Well I am during my prep period at school right now and just had to use this opportunity to make my first post on our family blog be a happy birthday wish to Breanne.  I love you!  I wish I could come up with in my time here a list like you made for me but if nothing else I want you and everyone else to know how much I love you.  You are my world!  There is no one else that could be more perfect for me and I am so lucky and blessed to have you!  You have been so supportive of everything I have done that even on the days when I am stressed or feeling down I can just think about you and your beautiful smile and the sun seems to be brighter and I know that everything will be ok because even if I lost everything I would still have you and the kids.  I hope that you have the best day possible today and know that I love you ALWAYS and FOREVER!!!!!!