It's Great to Be Eight!

Eight years ago I became a mother to an amazing little girl! This whole month of June I've thought about how it was when I FIRST brought her home, got up to feed her in the middle of the night, gave her bath in the kitchen sink and snuggled up with her on the couch for an afternoon nap. How the time flies! I am so blessed to be her mom. I am also so blessed that she decided to be baptized. What a experience it was to have that special feeling in our home that Saturday. The baptism was wonderful. Dani got to hear talks from her Grandmas, hear her Daddy sing a song and also listen to testimonies of the truthfulness of the Gospel. After the baptism was over we met at our house for a BBQ. We served Dani's favorite Ribs and got to enjoy visiting with everyone. It was a success! All I can say is, blessings are abundant in my life. My sweet children, my loving husband, my fabulous family and all my wonderful friends!

Dani you make mommy so happy! I can't imagine live without you! Happy Birthday and isn't great to be eight?

Easter Festivities 2010

After every holiday I always ask myself, "Did we make good memories for the kids?". As you can see by the photos I think we did. I love Easter time!

We celebrated first with coloring Easter Eggs. This is serious business in our home...with two designers in the house what would you expect. :)

We then had the Easter Bunny visit leaving lots of treats and a garage and car for the Zue Zue Pets. (FYI Zue Zue Pets will be the closets thing to a rodent ever becoming a pet in our house!)

We also watched General Conference and felt the Spirit in our home. We then had a wounderful family dinner at Aunt Jenny's house ending with a Easter egg hunt the kids loved.

Growing up it was always a fun tradition to for me to get a new Easter Dress for Sunday. I have continued that tradition with my own family. I loved how the outfits turned out this year. Both Dani and Mia look so cute in pink. Brock who hates wearing tight things around his neck looked so handsome in his new blue shirt and tie. Life is good! ...and here's too making more great family memories!

What it's not December still?

I thought I better get the December happenings on the blog before Easter is here. :) I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. I feel so blessed to have the family I have and to be able to have the moments I do with them. December went by so fast. Don't you think? We had a beautiful Christmas. One I hope we will remember. Life is good! Time to break out the sugar cookies again for Valentines day! They were good...just ask Santa!

And The Winner Is?...Cancun 09

Some of you may know, Dan enjoys listening to Rush on the KNRS "family values" radio station every once in a while....OK everyday! Well his conservative talk show habit won us a free trip to Cancun. An all inclusion vacation to the Ocean Maya Resort. Ya I didn't believe it either until we were laying on the beach that first day in Mexico.

We renewed our passports. Flew in my Mom to stay with the kids. Packed our bags and off we went. We had a fabulous time sleeping in, relaxing in the sun, walking on the beach, and eating chips and fresh guacamole until we were stuffed. It was so nice to have time together with no kid interruptions. We actually made it through a meal with out a spilled drink but by the end of the 5 days we were very homesick for our babies.

It seems crazy that nine years ago in May that we were in Cancun for our Honeymoon. How time flies when you're having fun raising a family! What a wonderful trip I got to go on with my sweetheart, the five days in December of 2009 as well as the nine years being married to him.

The trip was and is a success.

2009 Christmas Card

We did better this year...we did send out some Christmas cards but to those who we didn't get to lick a stamp for we are truly sorry. I hope this makes up for it! You won't be able to tape it to your fridge, save it in a box until next year or cut it up to make a gift tag...but you can come back to the blog anytime you want to take a look our 2009 Christmas Card! Dan and I feel very blessed to be parents to these three beautiful children (if I do say so myself).

Here are the winning "kid quotes" of the year!

Dani asked for a cheese sandwich right after dinner and daddy asked "where are you putting all the food?" She replied, "It's going straight to my thighs!"

After getting out of the Hot Tub, Brock while shivering states, "I'm freezing like a pig!"

Brock jumps into the bed right on top of mommy..."Oh sorry mommy, did I scare the crap right out of you!"

Mia, while playing on her rocking horse, is asked what is your horsey's name? she replies "donkey!"


We wish you a Merry Christmas and nothing but the best for the new year!

Brock Turns 5!

Here it is the middle of December...I better get with it! My boy turned 5 over a month ago and I'm just now getting around to blog about it. OK here is the the play by play. First you must know Dan and I were taking some pictures for a work project and accidentally reformatted the memory card in our camera with Brock's birthday photos on it. I was SOOOO sad! What is a mother to do when she has no photos of that special day. Well I'm going to document it here! We started the day with taking treats to his preschool class. We bagged up some candy, a pencil and stickers for each kid. Brock handed them out along with a capri sun to drink. After school it was home to hear "When do we leave for my pirate party mom?" 150,000 times! We took Brock, Christian, Janice, Rees, Abby, Dani, Mia, Aunt Ashlee, Aunt Jenny, Uncle Seth, Uncle Steve, Melissa, Elle, Cassie and Jordan to Pirate Island Pizza. (so sad that the Barkers were home sick with the flu and couldn't make it.) We reserved the special underwater mermaid room. We ate Pizza and played games and more games. Each kid was given a pirate hat and eye patch along with a loot bag filled with candy. After the pizza and games, we opened gifts and ate chocolate cupcakes that I had made. (I made a version of the photo above.) I asked Brock what he liked the most about his special day and he said "all the tickets I got for the games! and the cake!" My baby boy is growing up too fast! He is so lovable and still loves to snuggle with his mommy...I hope that lasts forever. Hope you had a great Birthday Brocky! We love you!