Family Swimming II

Mike and his sister, Angela and both our little families all went swimming today. We were originally going to go to a park in Salt Lake but the pool area hasn't been filled. Stupid recession! So we all headed to South Davis Rec. Center pool.

This was Aurora's first time swimming. It took some time for her to adjust but by then end she was having fun.

We only took a few pictures since in all honesty we were having to much fun splashing in the water to try to remember to take pictures. So enjoy the few we have.

Cake and Fireworks

To start out this Saturday we were invited a friends of ours son's (Taylor's) 1st birthday party. The kids were excited to play with the b-day boy. Why? I have no clue. But of course we were late. This time it wasn't my fault. The kids got hungry so we had to stop and get them something to eat.
But when we got to the party we arrived just in time for present time. WOW!!- I never seen a kid who just turned 1 with so many presents. Very lucky and loved little boy. But Taylor was so happy to see all his gifts.

What's a kids birthday party without cake and ice cream?...We all got a piece of cake and a nice size scoop of ice cream. Lily was so partied out she fell asleep on the drive home after the party. It was cute.

After a nice meal and a quick nap from some of us we all headed to West Bountiful Park for a free concert and some fireworks.

Mike and Mason giving each other bunny ears. That's Mason's new favorite thing to do in pictures.

Here's Hailey's version of bunny ears. We gave her the benefit of the doubt.I don't know why Mike took this picture of me but here I am.Here's Lily's first bite of cotton candy. And the face of her first extreme sugar rush..... She just sat like this for a few seconds.

Mike decided to make some balloon animals to pass the time.

But after eating some snacks, making animals, playing around alittle we all got comfortable since the fireworks were going to start soon.

Right when the first shoot up Hailey shouted out " Look fireworks!" Lily was just in awe.When the initial shock of "what the heck is that sound" wore off she was hooked on the show. Can you honestly say when your guy kisses you that you see fireworks? I can....I know you're jealous.After the some what short show we packed up our stuff and headed home. But I can't complain today was a very enjoyable day.

Daina & Aaron's (new last name) Wedding Day

(C'mon now this is the Internet people I'm not going to post Daina's last name)

Anyways today Mike's little sis' got married. He was so happy for her.

Daina was married to her love in the Salt Lake Temple. So we weren't able to see that but we heard it was very beautiful. The reception was held at Aaron's parents house. Here's Hailey and Lily in their flower girl dresses practicing their smiles for family pictures. I know Lily isn't as camera friendly as Hailey is. But here's a picture of Aaron, Mason, Sarah, Katie and Hailey. They look so cute and clean right now. Especially my kids.Here's a few photos I took. I didn't take many since I heard the photographer at the reception would be offended if she seen other's taking pictures since that was her job. So I just stood with the family photos. Mike and Lily. I love how her hair turned out. And Mike insisted on being comfortable. He wore his Lions hat, a white shirt, blue stripped tie, and a pair of jeans. I admit I was slightly jealous. I wore a nice maternity navy blue dress that I felt huge in but it was all for a good cause.

Here's the maid of honor, Angela, her husband, Jerome and their baby girl Aurora.

As you can tell the wedding colors were orange and blue. It looked very nice how the backyard was decorated. With candles, ribbon, a photo slide show, a chocolate fountain, CAKE... yes I made the cake. Sorry I was too tired to take a photo of the cake but everyone loved it of course.

But the best thing I loved about the reception besides the food and family was the autograph book at the entrance of the party for people to sign and/or add a quote.

Mike and I wrote" Never fight over the same thing twice" but honestly another piece of advice is that ribbons, candles, flowers, and snacks don't make you happy on your wedding day-it's who you're marrying that is making you happy on your wedding day.

But the wedding and all the doings that they did were wonderful.

Congrats Daina and Aaron!!!! As Angela told Mike and I when we got married "Stay mushy~gushy forever" Try it.....it works!

First Word!!!

Today Lily spoke her first real word. This morning around 10am I put Lily down on the floor to put a load of laundry in the washer. And much to my surprise I hear her start saying " Bah-Bah" (for those non-parents that's short for bottle)

Mike was just getting into bed and he heard it was well. I always thought her first word would be "ma ma''. Mike hoped for "DA-DA". But our little girl asked for food. It's funny since she eats all the time.

But all day long she kept saying" BA BA", "BA BA", (repeat). It was adorable but when I would grab the recorder she would become so bashful/shy. But right when it was out of sight she started up again. It was hilarious. But anyways my baby girl is on her way to talking....

OH NOOOO!!!!!!

Fathers' Day

For our #1 Dad we celebrated all weekend just to ensure he was well appreciated and knew we really love him. (Sorry we claimed the #1 title for Mike this year. He deserves it!)

#1- We started off by the kids each getting Mike a toy from the $1 store. It was adorable. Hailey chose a bat & ball set, Mason chose a crocodile and Lily chose a pack of balls. Of course right when they gave Mike his gifts they were asking if they could play with them. They are so considerate.

#2- Hailey and Lily made Mike a bouquet of flowers from pink, red, and green tissue paper. But since I have no idea where he put them I'll post the picture later.

#3- We got him a new engraved necklace.

He loved it. Don't be surprised the next time he sees you that he shows it off.

#4- we went swimming. (Since Mike has been working alot this was the first family day we were able to have in a long time.) And since it's pretty cheap to go swimming so that's what we did.

Mason and Hailey love going swimming. Even though they forget 1/3 of what they learned from their swim lessons it's still super fun. Even Lily was getting into it. She was dog peddling like nobody's business. I swear Mike watches "Twilight" too much. He thinks he's a vampire sometimes. And Mike had to take advantage of the high dives at the pool. The kids and I just cheered from the sidelines. It was so much fun. But I am truly thankful to have such a great partner in this crazy game called "Parent-hood". Happy Fathers' Day!

Welcome Princess Bella

We were driving down I-15 towards Kaysville and Mike said to me that he thinks he sees a turtle on the side of the road. I thought yeah right? So he turned around on the next exit and went back around and sure enough my husband did in fact see a turtle.

It was alive but bleeding. And of course my super-husband knew where to take a turtle so we went to Clearfield Vet Clinic. And they suspected it was ran over so they would look at it and see what they could do. The kids of course we yelling "Hurry to the doctor!". "We need to save my pet!" They pretty much adpoted the thought that we could keep it. So not sure what to do in this type of situation we told the kids that they need to say a prayer for the turtle and if lives we will keep it. They prayed so hard and so much. It made my cup runneth over.

After about 2 hours we got the call that the "I-15 turtle" would be ok. That the clinic did tiny turtle surgery. That it would need some TLC and follow the vets care plan but we could keep it.

We were informed that the turtle was a girl, from the wild possibly since the location we found her, old-but no idea how old exactly, and got some instructions on how to care for a Red Earred Slider. (that's the breed) When we heard the turtle was a girl we pondered a few names for it but came up with Princess Bella. Cute huh?

So right now Bella is in a tank in the garage with a heating pad. We have a few of the things she needs and the rest we are impervising. (Turtles are expensive) So now time will tell if she will stay with us or not. Since she's not use to humans we have to be calm around her and continue looking for signs on her improvement. If she withdraws and starts to get sick it means she's not taking to home-life. Then we might have to give her to some rehab natural place so they can continue to take care of her.

Hailey's Hobby

Hailey has a new hobby. She has taken over in our family has the "Picture Taker"

She had a Barbie camera that would get only 4 photos out of a roll of 24 since she had a hard time winding it after each picture.

But I found this old camera in one of our closets. It has one of those self winders so now she's a picture taking machine!!

She absolutely loves it. She takes photos of Lily, Mike, Mason, myself, flowers, her shoes, the bank teller, the back of the driver seat, the walls, etc.... you get the picture (ha ha)

Anyways she has a few rolls of film still at the store but after I pick them up we'll be putting them in her own photo album.

(Yea for exposing our kids to new things- that was on our New Years Resolutions List)

Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open House

Today we all as a family went to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house. Since everything that's been happening we all needed a "up-lifting" moment.

We had our reservations in the early morning and of course it rained while we were there. But it was still very nice. The night before Mike and I were prepping the kids of all the how's, where's, whys, etc. But things didn't click until we got there.

We watched the video in a tent which Hailey thought was the temple. (how cute...) Then we all went in.

It was amazing. Since we had to be silent we weren't able to answer many of the kids questions but afterwards Mason had a few which we were glad to answer. (Missionary Moment :-)

When the tour was done it was raining again....but that didn't stop us from our photo op.

See the baby bump (down)?

We had each the kids touch the wall to make a promise to not only us but themselves to come back when they were older and worthy. Mike and I pray they all make it.Mason really liked the tour. He said he wants to go to church there.

Hailey loved how everything inside was so beautiful. I agree with her on this one.

Even Lily wanted in on the promise. But our picture taking was cut short since it started to rain pretty hard. One of the staff workers seen us trying to walk fast with a stroller and 2 kids so we were offered a ride on one of those special golf carts back to our car. The kids loved it! I know crazy hair fuzzy picture (thank the rain and wind)...but we always try to take a picture of us two wherever we go to show proof when we're old and crazy and can't remember anything cool that we experienced life to it's fullest.

Silver Lining

I think about 90% of all the people we know are aware of the trial that is happening right now. It's hard to stay focused on anything but this one topic but we as a family need to focus on the silver lining while we are living this storm.

So I'm here to share some good news with you all. Mike is getting a Ducati in December.

See his big cheesy smile.

Actually he's getting this Ducati (below) not this Ducati (above)

We're are having another baby. We're due December 21st. But we've talked with our OB/ GYN about having the baby early due to the holiday and he gave us two thumbs up.

We don't want to know what the gender of the baby is. It's one of the worlds few surprises so we are going to keep this one between god and the baby. But the name either way is Ducati. If it's a girl the middle name will be Alaina. If it's a boy the middle name will be Aiden. We think it's a boy since I'm not that sick so far. But then again I'm honestly not concentrating on it that much.

So after you soak it in that we're having another baby. And before you tell us we agree -we're crazy, nuts, insane but truly blessed and thankful to be having our bonus baby.

The only news to report right now since Ducati is a pea-pod is there is a heart beat. At around 6 weeks I was spotting and cramping. I went to the ER since I thought the unthinkable was happening. But the ultrasound tech said there's a heart beat so everything should be fine from now on.

We planned on telling everyone at our "House Warming Party" We wanted to be a little creative since this is our last one. But since some of you hot-dogs :-) didn't come I guess I'm resorted to telling everyone on the Internet. Oh well....maybe next time when we invite everyone to a shin-dig at our place people will come.