Halloween!

We all enjoyed our 2 days of Halloween, Friday we went to Addi's kindergarden parade and then went trick or treating over at Dixie middle and got lots of candy! Grandma Mace came over friday night and we all hung out, ate some fried chicken and talked while Addi put on some great musical theater:) Saturday we had our ward party then went to my moms ward (their food was better and they had a bounce house) then we went to see uncle "MJ's scaries" and ended up at the green valley mansion getting train rides. Payson loved his batman costume so much that he kept it on for about 42 hours straight-Im pretty sure it started to bond to his skin! Addi and I were matching witches as you can tell and Tay was Indiana Jones! It was a fun weekend filled with LOTS and LOTS of candy!! Today we have all been laying around in a sugar coma.. I am seriously debating secretly throwing the buckets and buckets of candy away I dont think I can handle anymore sugar fits from the kids and after about my 500th candy bar I dont think I will be eating sugar for a long time! Let the Holidays begin!!

Krystal's baby shower

Threw my good friend Krystal a baby shower last week, with the help of Julie and Andee (Watson) it turned out pretty good we made our own pizzas and ate some amazing cupcakes (made by Andee) AND chocolate balls (made by Mandy) and Krystal got some great loot for the babe! Overall it was fun to all be together... cant wait till the little guy gets here!

"This is not the life I planned... Its better"!!

Happy 6 year anniversary to the love of my life and father to our 2 beautiful children!! It seams like not that long ago we were staying up to 3 in the morning talking, laughing, and anticipating starting our new life together! I never saw my self following the typical "mormon girl" time line and getting married at 19, I always had a plan to get through school first and if you ask any of my high school friends that knew me well I was the last person they thought would take the plunge first! But man was it worth it! My life has been absolutely amazing ever since! We have had our ups and downs like eveyone in life usually does.. but I feel as though I could not have picked a better companion to go through these things with. He is such a wonderful, kind, understaning husband (there are not many out there that could put up with me:) and to see him with our children is pure joy! We have had some pretty awesome anniversary weekends, from hotel honey moon suites and fancy nights out to a romantic weekend at a little cowboy cabin on a secluded buffaloe ranch outside of Zions... this year I decided to keep it simple and focus on US and the life we have shared together and continue to share. I dropped the kids off at my sweet moms house, got take out (2 pounds of snow crab... yummm) and we headed up to the family pinevalley cabin and had a cozy romantic picnic on the floor with candle light and a little michael bubble. I made a video of the two of us from pics over the last 6 years (compliments of my amazing MAC) and we went on a walk holding hands, danced together, and talked of the past- first impressions- and about our future plans, goals and dreams together. So simple and yet so wonderful at the same time I loved every minute of it and it was nice to be that couple we were 6 years ago when life was just all about us! I feel so blessed that I have the rest of eternity with this incredible man!

ADDI"S BIRTHDAY!

My sweet little baby girl had her 5th birthday on the 12th this month. I cannot believe that I am old enough to have a 5 year old!! She is very dramatic and sweet and a whole lot of stubborn but man do I LOVE that girl! We had a whole day all about Addi.. first we went to IHOP (waste of money) and ate pancakes- Addi loved it- then we went to jumping jacks! Tay and I paid to play with them and we all had lots of fun! Pace has asked every day for the last 2 weeks to go to "upng acks" (jumping jacks) and I say "oh no its closed" and he runs and gets my keys and says "keys open"! He is gettin harder and harder to trick! Later in the evening we went with my mom and nana and between the two of them and Tays mom they bought her a brand new bike! She was so excited as you can see:) She had a pretty good birthday.

REPTILE HAVEN!!

Living by the river is so much fun... until you have some strange visitors that surprise you by chillin out on your front porch! My kiddos love catching frogs and toads and in the summer they are everywhere! Frogs, toads, and even lizards dont freak me out now that I am used to them but what I DONT like... SNAKES! A month or so ago Addi and Payson were playing in the front yard and came in screaming that a snake went right past them on the front lawn... of course I think they are being dramatic but as I step outside I see this long brownish snake coiled up hissing at me!!! I can't see its tail so Im not sure if its a rattler but I soon realize that it doesnt look like one so I head into my garage to get a shovel! (when I was a little girl we used to camp out every year in the mountains in arizona and my uncles would find rattlers all over the place and chop their heads off with a shovel).
Why was I so brave I dont know but once I saw we had no shovel I went to a neighbors and once I told him why I needed it.. intrigued.. he decided to come along! Thank goodness for my neighbor Mark cause once that thing took off it was soooo fast I about pooped my pants! (not very lady like I know but true none the less) He chased after that sucker hopped the fence into my back yard and caught him! The kids loved petting its tail (it was about 6 feet long) but I was just glad to get it out of my yard. He set it free down at the river and a few days later.. back wandering the neighbohood!!

These are just more pics of my kids havin fun with their "pets". It has taken a while to get Pace to hold frogs he used to scream like a girl and run away saying "YUCK"!! Now he will hold them for a couple seconds and then once they try to jump away he freaks out and throws them on the ground.

This is a King snake that Addi thought was a bracelet! It sat on our front porch coiled up not moving... it let us get so close to it as we later found that it was in the middle of dinner. If you look close you can see a frog hanging out of its mouth (it started eating it by its feet) so the poor thing was looking at us like "HELP"! Addi started yelling at it saying "let it go get it out!" she was very traumatized as we watched that snake slowly devour that poor little frog... I thought it was pretty cool I was just glad that it was gone in the morning!

24 hour potty training!

Everyone says that boys are the hardest to pottytrain... it took ONE day for pace face! I had heard a little about the potty training in 24 hours book but I didnt know anyone who had it so about a month ago I just decided to devote one saturday to the task and try some things I had heard about it. First I made sure there were no distrations all day long (no tv, movies, cell phones, and no one was allowed to come over). Then I got his potty out and set it in the kitchen and stripped him down to his birthday suite. He thought it was the coolest thing ever to run around naked all day:). Next I fed him lots of salty foods like crackers so that he would want to drink lots of juice and water (this gives more opportunities to train). First time he peed he didnt quite make it to the potty but he got right next to it so I clapped and praised him and gently reminded him that pee goes in the potty not on the floor. ( Dont ever get upset if they have an accident it sets them back.. or atleast it did big time with Addi). The next time he had to go he was in my room so he ran out the sliding glass door to the back yard and peed on the grass. At least it wasnt on the floor so I still clapped and prasied him. (This is a conditioning method-you praise them for taking baby steps in the right direction- I learned that in my psychology class:). The third times a charm because he finally got it right into his potty and I was jumping up and down and clapping and made such a big deal he thought it was halarious! This continued for the rest of the day and at night I didnt give him any liquids and made him go potty before bed and WALAA! He woke up with a dry diaper!! He has been so fantastic ever since AND I have not had to waste $ buying pull ups.. the poo thing was a little harder he had a couple accidents until my grandma bought him some cars. We put the package of cars up above the toilet and told him he could have one each time he went poop and we have never had an accident again!! What a dream! Now I know what to do with the rest of my kids!! (if there are anymore...) Im sure every kid is different but this was so easy its worth a try!! Its been a diaper free month and I have already thought of several things I can put that $50 a month towards:)

Tays Birthday!!

This year for Tays birthday I didnt know what to get him so I decided to get a little creative. Ive been wanting to make him a classy calender for a few years now but being a woman I had lots of excuses to keep me from doing it ( in 3 months I will get super skinny... ok 6 months and I will look really good... ok next summer I will be smokin!) So I finally decided to just go for it and hired one of my best friends older sis Rachelle (www.plushmoments.com) to take pics for me... it was so fun and she did a fantastic job! (Thanks girls!! Krystal came to help:) Anyway He seamed to like it and it was a tiny bit sexy but yet still classy enough to show Addi! "wa woo mom you look super sassy" was her exact words! haha love my little cheerleader! Anyway this was one of my favs the other one I decided not to put on just because I am in a bikini so until I make my blog privite (which I am still waiting for someone to show me how) I will keep it PG!

All the things I love about Tay...

He is SUPER HOTT!!

He has an amazing testimony.

He is a wonderful dad.

He is a hard worker.

He Honors his Priesthood.

He is the sexiest when he laughs! (unless he is laughing at me)

He is kind and almost never has anything bad to say about anyone!!

He is so respectful and has always treated me like a queen!

He is smart and has a good head on his shoulders.

He cares about his body but is not obsessive.

Did I mention hes HOT?

He is super funny and makes me laugh!

He loves his mom and sister and is respectful to women.

He puts up with my craziness and my crazy family drama!

He makes the kids laugh and spends time with them.

He is athletic and good at anything he tries.

and especially...

HE LOVES ME!!(most of the time:) AND

HE IS MY ETERNAL COMPANION!!!

BLOG INVITES

okay first of all, I totally get the whole going private thing I am prob gonna do the same-as soon as I figure out how!- but I cant get into anyones blogs and it kinda makes me mad so send me an invite fools I wanna look at all of your blogs!

Family Pics!

MJ- my bro in law wanted to take some family pics... they turned out cute he did a good job:) Pace started out with a white shirt, Mj suggested the red hill... I knew it was gonna be a bad combo but I thought what the heck! Within the first few seconds after we get out of the car Payson takes off running and BAM! Falls flat on his belly, scrapes his face and has red dirt all over his shirt! Luckily we were prepared and had a blue shirt that kinda matched... Im finding out with 2 year old boys you have to turn your purse into a closet.. most of the time I just let him walk around with otter pop stained clothes and dirty face.. hes a true boy!!

What!? Already May!?!

AH I am so lame I know... I say that I am gonna post and then 2 months later... lets just say when I do ever get on the computer its only for a second to check emails and stuff so I feel like I haven't had the time or patience to blog. Hopefully that will change though because I feel like blogging is like one big scrapbook and its fun to go back and read stuff or look at old pictures and of course to look at everyone else's pictures and funny stories... oh blogging world how Ive missed you! I am gonna set a goal to try and blog at least once a month, or maybe a little more. I always am more interested in looking at photos when I look at blogs (unless I have the time to read them all) so I feel like if I don't have pictures then whats the point? But I will say people have proved otherwise as I have gotten caught up in some hilarious stories that are even funny (cute or touching) that don't necessarily need photos. So this is it.. from now on I pledge to be a better more dedicated blogger! P.S. Pace got his head shaved in a full on mohawk so now hes lookin like a white trash UFC fighter! Why did I agree to this you say? Well.. why not? I must admit he does look pretty bad A**! And my sweet 76 year old granny likes it so that says it all right there! Its gotta stay... for the summer at least:)

COMMING SOON!

Alright people I know its been forever since I have posted...I kinda gave up after loading pictures for 3 hours and then having NONE of them post... but I am here to say that I will be posting an update soon so watch for it..:) p.s. I love spring!! Can't wait to take my kids swimming!