Our Gaggle

Emeryisms!

2011-03-28T23:00:00.003-06:00

Emery is such joy to have in our family she makes life so interesting, there is never a dull moment with her around. The other day we were driving in the car Brian and I were talking, the big girls were in the back doing their thing, and out of the blue Emery yells PEANUT BUTTER! just so randomly we got quiet in the car looked at her and then started laughing, tonight during Family Home Evening she again randomly blurted out APPLES! Last week during dinner one night Emery was talking to Brian this was the conversation: Emery: Dad, Jesus died. Brian: Yes he did, he died for us. Emery: Ya, he was walking and got hit by a truck. Brian: Ummm????? looking at me with questions in his eyes and trying not to bust up I looked back trying not to bust up shrugged and changed the subject, Huh? where does she come up with this stuff I mean seriously. We should have tried to correct her but she was so sure that it happened that way and when that happens you just don't argue with her. I mean shes 3 for crying out loud. Note: we will be having a Family Home Evening later on the correct way it went down, when the idea is not so fresh in her mind. We love our Emery.

Jordyn Noel Shepherd!

2011-03-02T22:26:00.011-07:00

Okay now on to the newest addition to our family, Jordyn She arrived with help I might add, on December 10th 2010, I went in to the Dr. the Monday before and seriously had made NO! progress whats so ever and I was getting very irritated that she was in no hurry to get here, and my poor family was taking the brunt of my irritation, I still feel bad, but during my appointment he did have good news that if I didn't go in to labor by Friday he would induce me,and of course I didn't go on my own my kids have to be forced out. Friday morning came around and I had to call and see if they could fit me in or see if they were to busy well she said that they were pretty busy and she would call me in a few hours and see if things ease up a bit and I could come in then. Ummm! ya that's not what you want to tell a pregnant women who is soooo! done being pregnant and looking forward to finally having a light at the end of the tunnel, I was brave and held it together albeit a little irritated, I know those things can't be helped but when she called again and if said she couldn't fit me in I might have gone a little postal, Okay I know this sounds very dramatic buts that's the way we roll around here, drama is the motto, and really being prego that stuff just happens. I know I wouldn't have gone postal but I would have plopped myself on the couch and at least would have had a good cry. Good grief look at me posting a 100 words about me being a dramatic pregnant person instead of telling you about the arrival of my sweet baby. Well luckily a few hours later when she called again she asked me if I was ready to have my baby and I of course jumped up and said"heck ya!" we dropped off Emery at my awesome neighbor Caitlins she watched the other ladies till my sister in law Carrie could come get them. We arrived at the hospital and started the check in process and asked if I wanted my awesome friend Steph to be my nurse and of course I did, I was a little nervous about having a good friend of mine being my nurse and all involved in my business, but it was the best move ever. I loved her she was so calming and reassuring and spoiled me rotten. while she was getting all my health info we started talking about the Dr. who delivered Emery and I did not want him being my Dr. again he was horrible, he wasn't my normal Dr. just the on call one so he delivered her anyways not a good experience. while we were talking about him who do you think comes walking in to break my water? Sure enough the not so cool Dr. we were talking about literally at that very moment he was walking in. Opps! hopefully he didn't here anything we were saying. He said my regular Dr., Dr. Hutchinson was really busy and asked if he could come in and break my water so he didn't have to drive a long way just to that. "Okay as long as he wasn't going to deliver my baby then I guess that's okay," I said to myself. After he did that he left and all was good, I do have to say I'm so glad my water didn't break anywhere else because I had Niagara falls in there, and it wouldn't have been a good situation outside of the hospital. Steph told me I probably would want to get my epidural right then 1: because they were getting busy and 2: she was betting I was going to progress very fast since this was my 4th baby. So I said okay bring it on I don't do pain. The Anesthesiologist came in to talk to me about everything and was sitting on my bed talking and I had to interupt him and tell him he might want to move unless he wanted to get wet, he jumped up so stinkin fast it was hilarious. (I hope this isn't TMI for you all but like I said when I started this blog its kind of replacing my journal of sorts.) Well I got my epidural and hunkered down for the long wait ahead, We sat around and I tried to get some sleep but let's face it from that moment on I wasn't going to get much sleep for a while. A few hours later Jordyn's heart beat got very irregular and a different nurse came in to check on me since Steph was checking another patient in, well they still couldn't really get her heart beat they kept moving the Doppler thing around and then started moving me back and forth and still couldn't get it and I started getting really nervous, Steph came back in and said let's check you and then said, "well are you ready to have a baby?" Serious?!! I thought it would be a long time not 3 hours, but sure enough she decided she was ready to come, and that's why we couldn't get a good reading on her heart beat. Steph told me not to cough, sneeze, or move really because she was ready to come and she still had to call Dr. Hutchinson, luckily he was in the hospital doing a surgery so he didn't have to go far but I still had to wait till he was done with that. Steph said don't worry I have delivered a 100 babies so not to worry if he didn't make it, but she was sure on his case to hurry and get up there and good thing he did because I started feeling like she wasn't going to wait and that Brian might actually be delivering her. He got there just in time, she had the cord wrapped around her neck pretty good and that's why her heart beat was doing that. But Jordyn Noel Shepherd was born @ 4:59pm. A healthy and strong 7lbs. 11oz., I remember saying she looked so small and the Dr. said she wasn't really but he didn't know what I was expecting I felt like she was going to be like 9 lbs. because I was so huge, but it was probably because I had Niagara falls in there that I was so big, not kidding. I was so lucky to have everything go so well and had great people to take good care of me. The girls of course wanted to come up and see her so my sister in law brought them up. They couldn't stay long since it was getting late and Emery was getting into everything and I mean everything. They came a few times to visit but lets face it the hospital just isn't designed to entertain little kids. After a few days in the hospital they released us and we got to bring our 4th baby girl home and she has been such a joy we love her so much and can't imagine our family without her.

2010 catchup part 3!

2011-02-21T10:22:00.023-07:00

Okay we are on the final stretch, aren't you so happy? So fall came around we took the ladies to the pumpkin patch to pick pumpkins of course that's a yearly ritual, Brian HATES! it because that means 3 pumpkins to hollow out and carve, but this year with me being pregnant I didn't care at all if he did it this year so we had the girls just paint them he was alright with that idea.
Halloween this year was very cold and wet. My cute niece Emma of course came trick or treating with us which she has for the last couple of years I believe she was a butterfly fairy, Mylei was a Hawaiian princess,Lauryn was a pink skeleton, and Emery was 2 things Minnie Mouse but that costume was to cold so she was also a yellow Care Bear and a pretty dang cute one at that. I rained the whole night we walked a lot and my brother drove his car behind us so the girls could duck in there every once in awhile and warm up. After a few hours we all had, had enough so we went back to our place and had home made chicken noodle soup, and tried to dry out but it was still a fun night.
Well this year we told the girls they could pick 1 extra curricular activity to do after school this year they usually did dance and Girl Scouts but the budget was tight this year, so Mylei and Lauryn chose Girl Scouts and Emery did dance. This was the first year she was able to dance and she loooves! it, she had her first dance recital during Christmas time, Oh by the way I'm doing this post out of chronological order because I want to devote a whole separate post about Jordyn's arrival she came in the middle of all this hoopla. Anyways back to Emery's dance recital she did soo! good and looked soooooo! dang cute. Christmas also came in the middle of all this excitement and with recitals,a baby being born, just trying to get all our Christmas shopping finished, It was a bit crazy and felt over whelming at times. I decided to make the girls quilts so getting them tied and also Mylei fell ill at school and had a seizure in her classroom, so that was very scary they think she had a viral illness that made her body react to it by having a seizure so Brian spent a whole day in the E.R. with her but she hasn't had any since so we just keep an eye out for her. So by the time Christmas arrived we were all feeling a bit frazzled. On Christmas Eve we had our annual Christmas Eve dinner with Brian's cousin Michael and his family the kids of course have so much fun playing with each other, and we make them all sit in front of the Christmas tree in their jammies and take a picture, It's been fun seeing how big our families and children have grown. Right now they don't mind too much getting their picture taken but I give it a few years and we will be threatening them to make them sit their and pretend they are excited to be there. The next morning was great we opened presents and then ate cinnamon rolls,We were supposed to get together with family but both sides of our families were all pretty sick so we didn't have much to do but relax and play so we decided to take the girls to go see the new Disney princess movie Tangled and of course they loved it and we came home and had our traditional ham and cheese potatoes for dinner it was such a fun day spending time with our well not so little family.
Right after Christmas Lauryn lost her first tooth and was such a trooper, (compared to a certain other sibling that will remain nameless.) She was so excited to have the tooth fairy come and give her some money under her pillow well the next morning she looked under her pillow and the Tooth fairy totally slacked and forgot, ya! I know not our finest parenting moment, don't judge I was sleep deprived, but we explained that she probably got held up in the really bad snow storm we had, had that night, that seemed to kind of passify her so the tooth fairy actually remembered and she woke up the next day to $5 under pillow so she was so super stoked. ya! had to kind of make up for the bad parent move on our part. Well that's pretty much it I will post later about Jordyn's arrival. But I want to end by saying it was such a good year with a few rough spots that I can't really complain about but more better ones, we were extremely blessed this year to have some very loving family and friends. Our Heavenly father has also shown us that he does answer our prayers even if its not the way we are thinking and it may take several years but he does know us and what we need and will bless us extremely as long as we have faith and patience I again have felt so blessed to have had past the experiences we have had this last year, I feel like it has made me grow and appreciate many, many things that I didn't even realize were such blessings in my life.

2010 Catchup part 2!

2011-02-20T23:22:00.018-07:00

Well hopefully you didn't die of boredom from my lengthy post part 1. So if you didn't get enough here is part 2. As soon as the girls got out of school we hurried and tried to fit in as much inexpensive fun as we possibly could before school started again, they are on year round so they don't get much of a summer. Well one day we decided to take them down to Provo and have lunch and see Bridal Vail Falls up Provo Canyon, It was a really hot day so it was perfect to go and let the girls cool off in the water, but it was super crowded so it was hard to find a spot and play but they still managed to have a good time, on the way home we of course had to stop at Krispie Kreme Doughnuts and get a doughnut and watch a batch get made, the girls found that pretty entertaining as did I, I had never been there to see that. Brian decided to take Mylei and Lauryn to Lagoon, they had to go separate times because I couldn't go being prego and all. But they had the best time, and didn't want to come home, didn't get any pictures of that of course since I wasn't there but they couldn't stop talking about it for days after. Well one of the interesting things that happened during the summer was the Machine Gun fire, what happened was we live just over the other side of the mountain to a military base called Camp Williams well soldiers were out practicing their military weapon stuff ( know I'm totally technical,) and a spark from one of their machine guns set some dry grass on fire and well it got out of control really fast and lit the whole mountain on fire pretty much. At the time we were at Brians sisters house and then decided to stop at a friends house for a few min. While we were there we could see smoke just filling the sky and they don't live super close to us. So we decided to head for home, and good thing we did at the time because shortly after we got home they closed off the roads going into Herriman so no one could get in, people could get out but if you left there was no getting in. On our way home from our friends house we couldn't believe how bad the fire was. It looked even worse when we got home, so needless to say we didn't have a good night worrying about if we were going to be evacuated or not. I remember looking out my bedroom window and just watching the fire come closer and closer to the houses, the wind was so bad it would blow the fire into what looked like fire tornadoes Brian was cool as a cucumber but not me I tried to get as much packed up as possible so just in case we did get evacuated we could just pick up and go. It sure made me realize how ill prepared we are for an emergency like that. It was strange how quiet everything seemed to be the next day except hearing the helicopters dropping water on the hot spots. It took them several days if not longer to get all the hot spots taken care of. luckily one one was seriously injured or killed in it but 3 families lost their houses and everything they owned it was so sad, it sure made me grateful we were okay. Well onto a happier note Mylei and Lauryn started school I don't have pictures of Mylei's pictures of her first day because they were on my old phone and it broke and we forgot to transfer the all my pictures before we got a new one so sad day, anyways but I do have Lauryn's since kindergartners don't start school at the same time as the other kids. Mylei started 3rd grade which I can't believe. Lauryn wanted to ride the bus with Mylei so we followed the bus to school like we did with Mylei and then took pictures of her lining up getting ready to go inside. She was kind of nervous but went in like a champ, she came home and we asked how it was and she said it was "fine" and went to play without another word about it. That's just how Lauryn is a girl of few words especially if something really didn't excite her, so we left it at that. On September 30th our Emery turned 3, she wanted a Minnie Mouse party so I of course we decorated in Minnie Mouse and made Minnie Mouse cupcakes which I might add turned out pretty dang cute if I say so myself. We had it at a park and let the kids play, had cupcakes opened presents and that was about it but she loved it, and we sure love her she adds so much fun and excitement to our family and for sure keeps us on our toes but our home wouldn't be the same without her. Well this ends post #2 hopefully it won't be too long till I can get #3 out there and we could actually be up to date somewhat. See ya next time.

2010 Catchup Part 1!

2011-02-20T22:11:00.024-07:00

Alrighty, I'm finally getting a second to be able to blog and get my last years catch up done. Some people probably would just chalk it up to a loss and start over with this year, and I probably would have if we didn't do some fun things but we did so I have to blog about it. I'm having to do it in 3 parts, if not it would be the longest blog post ever, and it would take me hours and hours and since I only have a little bit till my baby needs to eat again I'm going to have to do it this way. And since I know you are all dying of anticipation here is part one of the Shepherd's 2010 year. First off I will start in April since that's where I left off, Well we found out around this time that we were expecting baby Shepherd #4, we were so excited but not looking forward to the morning sickness for the next few months but I plugged through it. Well Lauryn decided she wanted her ears pierced since Mylei got hers done, and of course she couldn't let Mylei show her up, so we told her if she could save half the money Brian and I would pay the other half. So she worked and saved and looked for money in every possible crevice she did it, so we took her to Claire's to get them done. She is my toughest kid so I thought it wouldn't be a problem, well they did it and it took all her might not to burst into tears if she wouldn't have been so embarrassed she would have, her eyes did well up. But as soon as she saw them in the mirror all the pain went away. Shortly after we all packed up and headed to Las Vegas. My cousins sweet little guy Blake was baptized and we went to support him in his awesome decision, unfortunately I was a total slacker and didn't take any pictures of them together. My cousin Dan and his sweet family were so kind and opened their house to us and let us stay with them which they probably won't let us do again since Emery couldn't seem to stay out of their bathroom and flooded it every single time, we probably used every towel they owned cleaning up her messes. I felt so bad she kept doing it and we tried our hardest to keep track of her but she was (and still is I might add) like a stealth ninja. Anyways we didn't get any pictures of them and their adorable 3 girls (I slacked majorly on the picture taking this trip.) But I did get pictures of the girls at the Belagio gardens it was so neat, a complete garden with huge animals and insects and other things completely made out of flowers and inside a casino is was spectacular, at least I thought so. Also in the same casino was the worlds largest chocolate fountain and really with a house full of girls that is pretty stinkin awesome. We ate at the Hard Rock Cafe and the girls thought it was pretty fun looking at all the Rock and Roll memorabilia and they had a small museum upstairs with a whole bunch of entertainers costumes so that was pretty fun seeing how crazy some peoples costumes were. It was a great trip and had a lot of fun spending time with family. In May was the girls' final dance recital of the season, I was the first time Lauryn has taken dance and she did a really good job and of course Mylei did we were so proud of both of them. And really there isn't much of anything that is cuter than little girls in tutu's, at least that's my opinion. A few days later Lauryn graduated from pre-school, they had a cute little program that the kids put on for the families and then of course a little "diploma" ceremony. She looked so big I couldn't believe how grown up she looked and that she would be starting kindergarten in a few months from then. I t ook a picture of her and her sweet teachers Mrs. Sarah and Mrs. Julie she didn't talk much to them through the year but the I know she really liked them and had great year. And finally to end 2010 part 1 In June we were able to go to the Sanders family reunion and see all my family for the most part I think there were only 4 cousins that were missing either they had to work, live out of the country or getting ready to have a baby. I was a little nervous because we were going to be camping, and as some of you might know my kids are horrible sleepers so that and them not being in their beds and it being pretty cold at night I had reason to be. But to my amazement they slept fantastic, it was Brian and I who slept horrible we had bought a brand new air mattress right before we left, well apparently we had to pick the one that didn't get a good seal or something when made and it started to deflate. The first night wasn't so bad air wise but I froze my butt off and then we decided to pitch our tent the farthest spot from the bathroom. Ya! not a good idea when your pregnant and have to go pee 20 times a night also with my girls they have bladders the size of peas and well you know..., so that was rough. Then the second night our air mattress completely died on us in the middle of the night and it was freezing again so literally no sleep the whole night. One thing that was missing was my grandma she was the life of our family and it just wasn't the same without her, we miss her so much and I know she was watching down on us having a good time watching us all . But it was fun to have my grandpa and his new wife Suzanne. My Grandmas brother Walt and his wife came also and he has an awesome talent of playing the harmonica as does my cousin Rachel's husband Rob (its funny what hidden talents you find people have) anyways, the 2 of them, my cousin Sarah sang and her husband Kelly played the guitar and they played and sang songs for us it was so fun and made me super jealous that I don't have a talent like them. They also had little program for the great grand kids to perform they sang a few primary songs and brought the spirit in before we went to bed the first night. The rest of the time we let the kids play and explore, and get so soooo super dirty,( I swear they brought half the mountain home with them) while we chatted and caught up on each others lives. It had been years since we had a reunion and besides the sleeping It was one of the best things we did over the summer. I hope it won't be as long till we have another one. Well that ends the first part it's super long already and I apologize but hope you enjoy reading it, until part 2.

playing catch up!

2011-02-06T22:45:00.003-07:00

YES!!! We finally got a new computer, and its so fast I love it, so this evening I have been playing catch up on posts that I had done and saved but didn't publish because of the snail slow computer we used to have. I am so behind though on what we did last year that I will probably do a year in review and just post pictures of some of the fun things that we did and then start fresh from here on out. So I hope you enjoy the past posts that I finally finished, and hopefully in the next few days I will get our year in review posted.

Alive again!

2011-01-23T18:39:00.004-07:00

Okay so you all might have thought I have fallen off the face of the earth this last let's see..... Oh almost a year now! Good grief, am I pathetic or what? I do have a good excuse though, well 2 actually. For those of you who don't know we had another baby so dealing with morning sickness, and just being miserable from pregnancy the blog has been put on the back burner, also our computer is old as dirt so downloading pictures or anything takes like a week,(you think I am kidding I am not.) Anyways I am hoping one day soon I will get a new computer to make blogging easier and much faster, So until then here's to hoping, over and out.

Mylei's baptism!

2010-04-15T21:57:00.005-06:00

On Saturday April 10th, My sweet oldest child Mylei made the wonderful decision to be baptized. It was such a crazy and wonderful day. We went to the church and got her and and Brian ready and then headed into the chapel to listen to the talks and wait for our turn. There was 3 other kids in our ward being baptized that day. When it was our turn I walked with Mylei into the bathroom that leads into the font, they said the mom's of the girls could stand at the top of the stairs of the font. As I watched my sweet little girl walk down the those steps the emotions and the spirit was so strong. I thought I would be a bigger blubbering mess than I was, but it might have been because it happened so fast, Brian said the blessing and then I watched as he lowered her into the water and thinking how small she looked, wasn't it just yesterday that I held her for the first time,watching her learning to crawl, potty training, starting Kindergarten. I know it sounds like I am talking like she is leaving for college or getting married, but sometimes I feel like It will be there before I know it,and I am not cherishing it as much as I should be so when big mile stones happen lately with my kids I get all weepy, or maybe it has to do with me turning 30 last year or maybe both, I don't know I just sometimes wish there was a slow motion button I could push to slow life down but don't we all sometimes. Anyways back to the girl of the hour, we got her dressed, as I was helping her and I asked her how she was feeling, she said good and cold I couldn't help but laugh. We headed back to the chapel so she could get confirmed, When it was her turn I had a hard time hearing and paying attention because I as trying to get my other 2 crazy ladies to sit down and be quiet. But it was a wonderful time, After wards we headed over to the clubhouse by our house and had a great lunch with lots of family and friends. We were even lucky enough to have My cousin Marin and her husband Charles, and their 2 boys Blake and Bryce come up from Las Vegas to support Mylei. It was such a great day, I am so proud of her for making this important and wonderful decision that will bless her so much throughout her life, We love you Mylei.

Ears Pierced!

2010-04-15T21:34:00.009-06:00

So for Mylei's Birthday she decided she wanted to get her ears pierced, we had taken her to get them done about a year ago and she freaked out and decided to not do it, well she really wanted to get them done this time so we took her to Claires to get them done. She sat in the chair and they gave her a bear to hold and she started to cry a little bit but she let them mark her ears and she calmed down. The whole time Lauryn had her ears plugged so she couldn't hear the screaming that she knew might ensue, cause let's face it Mylei is not our toughest child. Well there was 2 girls that did it at the same time, they counted to 3 and did it. She didn't even let out a peep, I was so proud of her, but she looked kind of pail and I was worried that she was going to pass out at first but as soon as she looked at them in the mirror her color returned and she was all grins from there, She couldn't stop looking at them in the mirror and showing everyone. I can't believe how fast she is growing up it seems its going faster and faster every year. I guess I just need to buckle up and enjoy the ride as best as I can right?

TubTub Time!

2010-04-04T23:35:00.003-06:00

So Emery as of late is getting more and more of a thinker, At meal time she can't just eat she has to play in her food, I know that most 2 year olds play in their food but she seriously draws with her food all the TIME! and hardly ever eats anything I am so surprised she even gains any weight. As I am sure that most 2 years also really like baths, so does Emery well she has figured out that if she puts her food on her head or smears it in her hair she has to have a bath, she gives me this cute little smile and then says Tub Tub?! Ya well I don't have time to bath her 3 times a day seriously little girl, no matter how cute you are it still ticks me off every time she eats she makes a huge mess and so I have to clean that up and her on top of it, but then she says sorry mom and gives me this cute grin and well it doesn't seem to be that big deal after all.

The Library card!

2010-04-04T23:06:00.003-06:00

So Lauryn could not wait to turn 5 so she could get her own Library card so a few days after her birthday we took her to our local library and signed her up to her card. she checked out a few items and then we headed home. Well on the way home she was telling us how excited she was that she could now get another Leapster game, we were a little confused and told her that the library does not have Leapster games, she said oh well then we will go to another store that has some and use my card there, Brian proceeded to tell her that her card can only be used at the library and it doesn't by things. The response in turn was silence, you could hear the coolness of the library card getting flushed down the toilet in her sweet little mind,the poor girl thought that when you turned 5 you could get a library card in which was like a credit card and could get anything you want. I am still kind of confused as to why she thought that because we go to the library often and of course to the store and we don't use our library cards to pay but then how often do kids pay attention to the method of payment their parents use at the store.

Mylei turns 8!

2010-04-04T22:43:00.010-06:00

The same day we took the girls to Disney on Ice Mylei turned 8. I think she had a pretty fun day, she of course had to go to school which she was pretty excited I told her I would bring a treat to her class, she picked out doughnuts. So I took them to her class, they all made her little pages telling her what they wished for her on her birthday and then they made a little book out of them it was really cute. When she got home she opened her gifts and then we headed to Chick-fil-la and then went to the show. We decided to let her have a friend party, so that following Saturday she had her little friend party, (or should I say not so little,) she invited all the little girls from her school class, her cousins, and a couple of friends from our old ward, all in all we ended up having 19 little girls in our tiny little townhouse. She chose to have a Hannah Montana Karaoke party, we were able to borrow a cousins machine hooked it up to out T.V., and start blasting the music, They had so much fun, I could hardly pull them away to have pizza, and cake. As soon as we finished with that they headed back in there to sing some more but I had to stop them so we could finish everything up before parents came, at one point they were singing so loud we couldn't hear each other talk. I am pretty sure they all had a good time, I am not sure when or if I will ever let her do that again, J/k but it was an insane but fun party, and I think it turned out pretty well.

Disney on Ice!

2010-04-04T22:15:00.014-06:00

For one the girls birthday gifts we got them tickets to Disney on ice, Emery got to play at uncle Bubbles (my brother Matt) and Aunt Ashley's house, we dropped her off and headed to the E center. The girls were able to pick a prize out, (which cost an arm and a leg,) and then they had a little pre-show thing where they could go look at all the Disney Princess dress's and then they had Princess Tiana there, there were so many people there that we couldn't get in to see the dresses or Tiana very well to get any pictures but Brian put the girls on his shoulders so they could at least see Tiana and she waved at them so it made their night. We got to our seats and the show started, it was a great show, they of course started out with Mickey Mouse and his crew, then went to cars, the Little Mermaid, the Lion King, and then ended Tinker Bell. The girls had a great time, Mylei was smiles the whole time Lauryn on the other hand was thoroughly engrossed with the whole thing but when we would ask her if she was having fun, she would bite the insides of he cheeks so she couldn't smile, I don't know why she has done that lately but it's to funny. Brian and I had fun just watching them have so much fun, Hopefully we will be able to take them next year and Emery will be a little more mature to be able to pay attention longer so she can come.

Lauryn turns 5!

2010-03-21T22:21:00.018-06:00

So my little Lauryn turned 5 on March 5th, I can't believe that she is 5 years old and will be going to Kindergarten in less than 6 months. Well on her birthday we just hung out till Mylei got home from school, then the party began she opened her gifts and then she was able to choose where she wanted to go for dinner, So she chose McDonald's of course, they played,and played,and played so hard and crashed as soon as we got home. Well we decided to let her have a little friend party and so we let her have 2 friends and I took them to a beauty school to get their nails painted. So Saturday I picked up her little friend Skylar and her cousin Maddi, and with Mylei and Lauryn in tow we headed to the salon. When we got there and they took the girls back, they sat them down and asked them if they wanted a drink and the girls ordered a sprite and picked out their nail polish color. The excitement and grins on their faces was so fun to see, Lauryn kept biting the insides of her cheeks so she wouldn't smile, it was pretty funny. After nails I took them back to our house and they played princess, princess, frog,( instead of duck,duck, goose since we were having a princess and the frog birthday party,) they had pizza,cupcakes and ice cream. I think it was a pretty fun day, and I think she did also.

You know their tired when....

2010-03-06T17:15:00.005-07:00

So I am on the Relief Society Meeting committee well last week we had a meeting and since Brian was working I had to take the girls with me, Lucky for me they had a nursery so the girls could go there. Anyways one of the things of being on the committee is clean up duty so you end up getting out of there late. Well we finally got out of there about 9:00pm which on one hand was pretty good, and the other hand, my kids are usually in bed between 8-8:30 I thought 9:00 wasn't to bad. As we were driving through our community people had their garbage cans out as for the next day was garbage day,we drove past a garbage can that was really full and Mylei pointed it out.Well by the time Lauryn looked we had driven past it, she got upset and said she didn't get to see it and wanted to drive past a again but didn't use her nicest words or mannerisms. So I told her no and continued on well by the time we got home she was hysterically sobbing, not just crying a lot, it was the hic-up crying you get after crying a long time. We got in the house and it was continuing through getting dressed, I finally was able to calm her down, just as Mylei asks if she can skip shower and get in the morning, because she was soooo! tired, I said fine! (I just wanted kids in bed at the time,) While we were brushing teeth Emery comes in with her baby in tote (as some of you might know she will not sleep without her baby,) She pulls her sister's towel off the rack lays it on the floor and lays on it, cuddles her baby, pop's her thumb in her mouth and closes her eyes. I Finally got them in bed, and then had to laugh, you know their tired when one kid asks to go to bed, one kid is hysterical cause she didn't get to see the really full garbage can, and the other is ready to sleep on the bathroom floor, cause she is tired of waiting for you to put her to bed. I mean GEEZ! ladies it was only 9:00, I guess it was a busy day.

Sledding!

2010-01-06T00:41:00.008-07:00

Ok so you will probably think we are neglectful parents after you hear what I have to say, but we have never taken our children sledding, until over Christmas break, I know! I know you are freaking out who doesn't take their kids sledding but we just have never got around to for 1 reason or another. So our good friends the DeNovellis's called and asked us we if we wanted to go so I called a friend and asked to borrow her snow tubes and well we were off. I was not sure if the ladies would have liked it or not since it involves being cold,getting wet and, hills. Well they had a blast, I didn't get pictures with them and the DeNovellis boys but 2 days later Brian's brother Brady called and said his girls were in town so we decided to go sledding with them, they came out and I was able to get pictures. Mylei loved it and was off,Lauryn on the other hand was not to excited cause she fell face first in the snow last time, so we had to force her on the tube and shove her down the hill, but it only took 1 time and she was a sucker for it and we had to drag her home. Emery liked going down with Brian once we forced her also a couple of times but all in all she was content to just play in the snow. When I was watching them have so much fun and laughing and having a great time, I couldn't help but think how blessed I am, How at that very moment life was perfect, I didn't think of all the worries life has, at that very moment I was content to sit in the cold weather and watch how much joy simply sliding down a hill of snow was making my children. I didn't want to leave, for my bubble of perfectness would burst and I would have to go back to life. What I need to do is remember that moment, and think how simple things in life can bring so much joy and be grateful for,that I have 3 healthy, beautiful children, and though life brings it's stresses and we can get so caught up in that. What really is important is my family and the simple things in life.

Christmas 2009!

2010-01-06T00:03:00.007-07:00

Well it finally arrived for my kids and came way to fast for Brian and I. For the last 4 or 5 years we have made a tradition to go over to Brian's cousin's house on Christmas Eve,we let the kids play, we eat dinner and then read the Christmas story from the Bible while the kids set out the nativity It has been such a fun tradition and we of course take a picture of all the kids sitting in front of the tree. It's been fun to see how our families have grown over the last few years. I think it will be funny to see pictures of them when they are teenagers when we make them sit in front of the tree as always to get their picture taken and see how enthusiastic their faces are then. Now on to the big day I made the dumb mistake to save all my wrapping till the night before so I didn't get to bed till 4:00am DUMB! I know and I will never do that again. Mylei and Lauryn got up first and we told them they had to wait in their room till Emery woke up (and so mom and dad could get a couple of minutes more of sleep) It was only about 20 more min. until she woke up. Then they hurried and rushed downstairs and was in heaven for the next 30 min. opening gifts and then the rest of the day playing of course. Here is Mylei opening her school teacher kit. Lauryn opening one of her Leapster games. Emery opening her Tag Junior. The aftermath! That Evening we went to Brian's sister Carries for dinner and so the girls could play with cousins and open more gifts. The next day My brother's and their families, and my mom came over for dinner, we ate, the kids played more gift opening for the kids and then was able to look at some fun photo's my mom brought from Chicago of her dad and his family. On Sunday afternoon we went to my dad's had lunch the kids played with cousin's,and more gift opening. We made sure to make a point with our children that they are very blessed to be able to go to so many people's house's that love them,and give them gifts when there are so many people in the world that have nothing and that will probably never ever have a Christmas present. I am sure they got sick of us telling them that but I want to make sure they undertstood how blessed they are and never forget. They probably don't understand right now as most children won't but hopefully one day they will. All in all it was a wonderful Christamas Holiday and we are so very blessed to be able to have family that love us and we love them even though we may crazy we still are family.

My Christmas projects!

2010-01-05T23:10:00.011-07:00

So I decided this year I wanted to make a couple of gifts for the girls for Christmas for 3 reasons to save money of course and also so they could have something homemade and hopefully remember how fun they were, and third cause I had so much fun making them. Well I had a wonderful friend loan me her sewing machine and started sewing away. I made 4 projects and a ginger bread house, but first off I have to say I got a lot of my ideas off a fabulous web sight called ucreate I am sure some of you have heard of it but it's WONDERFUL! Anyways back to my projects 1st one was I made all of them crayon aprons out of hand towels, and decided to add my own touch with adding ribbon to them. My brother in law works at a place that embosses things so we had him put their names on each apron, This one is Mylie's and they seem to love them. My second project was making a quiet book for Emery I have to say it was probably my favorite project to work on,it took 4 months the main reason is I only worked on it at night when the kids were in bed and I hand sewn most of it. But I have to say I did a pretty dang good job for my first very own quiet and making most of the pattern's myself. I am soo! proud of this book that I watch them play with it like a hawk cause I don't want it to get ruined isn't that silly? Here is a picture of the cover and a few pictures of my favorite pages. 3rd I made Lauryn a felt Mr. Potato head it was also a fun one to make and I did it pretty quickly so that was good. She loves it and it's also a good to take to church along with the quiet book. And the 4th project I don't have a picture of cause It's not completely finished and I was the most frustrating one of all I made a table tent for Mylei so they could set a tent up on the table they love to set up tents but our place is so small to do one so this was a great idea. Well I am going to try and redo it soon cause it did not turn out very well at all. And finally here is a picture of our gingerbread house that the girls and I did they each got to have a side and decorate it however they pleased It's a darn cute house don't you think? Well now that all my projects are done I am going to have to figure out something else to work on cause I don't know what to do with myself since I have had something to do for the past 5 months. Hmm! maybe clean and organize my house? Nahhhh! that's not fun.

Family pictures!

2010-01-05T21:33:00.009-07:00

So our cute friend Callie took these for us, didn't she do a great job? It was freezing, the girls were troopers, Right after the last shot they all lost it all at one,We couldn't really get Emery to smile either, but I think we got some great shots. Thanks Callie you did an awesome job.

Holiday events!

2010-01-01T21:32:00.013-07:00

Well I am excited that I am actually getting a chance to sit down and get some blogging done. As you might notice I am doing all of these in the same night. I am trying to hurry and get caught up cause as of this weekend we won't have as much computer access because our charger has broken so we are borrowing one at the moment. Anyways some of the fun Holiday events we were able to go to were Lauryn's Preschool Christmas program, Mylei's teacher nominated her for student of the month,and their Christmas dance recitel. First was Lauryn's preschool program they had it at the South Jordan Library they sang several songs and did adorable actions to them. Last year Lauryn was not so much into doing the actions so we were very proud that she got into it and actually participated this year. After the program Santa Claus made an appearance and they were able to sit on his lap. Emery was so excited to see him she screamed at the top of her lungs "MISMAS" that is what she called Santa this year. She also did not like the fact that she had to wait in line to be able to sit on his lap, that did not go over well with her. Second event of the Holiday was Mylei's teacher nominated her for student of the month for showing respect, she was so excited, she got to have her picture up on the board in the hallway at school,and then we got to join her for lunch. We are so proud of her, and hope she keeps up the good work throughout the rest of the school year. And the last of the big events was their Christmas dance recitle it was at West Jordan Middle School and they both danced 2 dances each they did so great. Lauryn had a rough start on the first dance I literally had to shove her on stage but after that she did great with no hesitation. I am so proud of my sweet little girls and I hope they keep up the great work.

Denver trip!

2010-01-01T20:53:00.006-07:00

As some of you may know besides BYU football Brian's favorite sports team is the Colorado Avalanche Hockey team, well every year for his anniversary present he asks to be able to go to Las Vegas and see a preseason game with his friend Paul who also loves the Avalanche as much as he does. Anyways this year they decided they wanted to go to Colorado and see a real season hockey game so Brian decided to save up all the money I would have used on him for father's day,his birthday,anniversary,and Christmas so he and his friend Paul could fly to Colorado and see a real season game in the Pepsi Center. Luckily one of their room mates Jake from college recently moved to Denver so they were able to stay with him. They were also talking to one of their best friends from high school Scott and he decided he wanted to go so he flew in from Omaha Nebraska and they all had a reunion of sorts. They made a weekend out of it and thought they would see some of the local sights as well. They visited the Denver Temple,Bronco stadium,(which by the way is Paul's favorite NFL football team) and of course the Pepsi center. Among visiting the local restaurants that we do not have here as well as interesting cuisine like Rocky Mountain Oysters which I am not sure if they ever found but I know one of them wanted to try, Don't ask me why? The girls and I missed him very much but he is such a hard worker and deserved a little break away. We hope you had a great time Daddy, we love you.

Halloween!

2009-12-10T22:59:00.012-07:00

Okay I am going to backtrack I have been seriously behind in blogging so here is Halloween I have. First Brian and I were invited to a friends house for a murder mystery dinner "Murder at the Juice Joint" It was super fun and Tonii and Paul did a great job. I made my costume one of my first dresses ever and I have to say it turned out pretty dang good. And I have to give props to my sweet husband he hates dressing up and going to these party's and he knows I love it so he sacrificed a BYU football game to go with me so I do have to say he is the best for doing that for me, Thanks babe.(The pictures to that party had issues downloading, so I will have to try and put those on later.) Second we took the girls to Gardner Village to see the witches they had so much fun counting all the different withes. Now on to my girly's Mylei was Hanna Montana, Lauryn was Dorthy from the Wizard of Oz( I do have to say I made her dress,I am proud of myself there also.) ,and Emery was Piglet. My brother Matt, My sister-in-law Ashley and my cute Niece Emma (who was Snow White) came trick-or-treating with us. It was freezing and the big kids conked out before Emery did we literally had to drag her home she had so much fun, the big girls did to but it was just so stinkin cold. After we came home and had dinner and let the kids run off their sugar rush and crash, it was a fun evening.

back in the day!

2009-11-11T20:19:00.002-07:00

So at dinner tonight Mylei asked me, "Mom back in the day did you have Sloppy Joes? Hmmmm!! trying not to bust up with laughter from feelings of that was pretty funny to being horrified thinking "I thought I would never hear the day that was asked to me let alone hearing it at the young age of 30! So I calmly smiled and said yes honey there were such things as Sloppy Joes when I was a kid, holding back what I really wanted to say was, "of course I ate Sloppy Joes when I was a kid, I didn't come to Utah with the Pioneers for crying out loud." Anyways that out of the way I guess all in all it was pretty funny I have to admit.

Quick Emeryisms!

2009-11-09T21:00:00.004-07:00

So now that my baby is 2 (ouch! that hurts to say that,) she has started talking soo! much we can't believe it. So I thought I would post a couple of things she said before I forget about them, A week or so ago I was making a cake for my mom's birthday well Emery came up to me and said Happy too too? And I said "yes I am making a birthday cake for grandma," and she replies as a true girl does "I Yooove cake!!! And then over the weekend we went got the girls all new Sunday shoes, and we gave her hers to hold she tells Brian (as she is hugging them mind you,)"I Yike shoes." Yes honey we all love cake and shoes. Poor Brian surrounded with all these girls, and she is starting earlier than the other 2 with yiking! shoes and cake well at least saying it verbally anyway. I tell Brian your just going to have to get used to it cause it's only just going to get worse.

Pumpkins!

2009-10-26T23:14:00.010-06:00

Alright it's that time of year again that is not one of Brian's favorite times,Yes! It's Pumpkin carving time, The girls have so much fun, we usually try and go to a pumpkin patch and get them there but we had sick kids and it was kind of cold so we decided to just get them at the store this year. They get so excited to pick out the design and then watch daddy cut it out. This year Mylei got to help daddy cut out hers,Lauryn loved to push out the pieces after they got cut out. And Emery well.....She kept trying to take a bite of hers, I guess she thought it was just a big apple and she kept trying to lick the guts and would say yummm! Strange girl, It's a lot of work but a lot of fun and I hope they will have lot's of good memories doing it. Thanks Daddy for being a trooper.

On the farm!

2009-10-26T22:32:00.011-06:00

My dad and step mom have a friend in South Jordan that has a little farm with tons of animals on it so a couple of Saturdays ago we met them there and let the girls pet and play with the animals. I couldn't believe how many different animals they had, 4 Alpacas, a pony,3 mini horses, a cat a dog,2 rabbits, a whole slug of ducks and chickens and a fish tank. As you will see in the pictures Mylei is in only one, she is not an animal fan as many of you might know and then there is my Lauryn and Emery who just couldn't get enough of them. They got to ride the mama mini horse and collect eggs from the chicken and duck coups, and feed the Alpacas. The Alpacas are the funniest looking and acting animals, they reminded me of an animal with a really bad 80's perm with leg warmers on, and they just loved eating out of the girls hands except Mylei of course,you might as well have asked to cut her hand off and feed it to an alligator. After this trip I do believe Lauryn might want to become a farmer.

Been up to part 2!

2009-10-09T22:44:00.011-06:00

Ok the kids are in bed and the house 1/2 way clean, so I have a min. to finish what the Shepherd's have been up to part 2.

Been up to part 1!

2009-10-09T20:37:00.017-06:00

Ok it has been forever since I posted and we have been pretty busy, I am copying a friend of mine who did this on her blog. So here is what the Shepherd's have been up to part 1, I am having to do it in a couple of parts because I have a lot of pictures and not much time at the moment. Enjoy!

Darn Squirrel!

2009-09-16T23:13:00.007-06:00

So we have discovered we have a squirrel, he is a fat little thing, well the girls just love watching him he will lay on our porch and sun himself,and we have realized he climbs the pillars and eats out of the bird feeder, well the other day I think he tipped the scales and well as you can see by the picture broke the feeder. Actually I think it as mainly the birds fault they swing on the feeder and I think it just rubbed the rope and then when he got on to eat that did it in. We have come to realize we are getting our own little zoo going on, as long as I don't have to take care of them and I don't start getting gross or dangerous animals like snakes and mountain lions than I will be good.

First sewing project!

2009-09-08T22:13:00.003-06:00

So I am not much of a seamstress, but I thought I would try my hand at making Lauryn's Halloween costume, so I borrowed a friends sewing machine and I even made my own pattern because I don't know how to follow patterns. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be, It's pretty amateur by far but I have to give myself props, I think I did a pretty good job for my first dress ever. Lauryn loves it though and We have already got her ruby slippers to go with her Dorthy from the wizard of Oz costume it's almost ready just need to get a basket for toto the dog. I also have to say I think I might have found a new hobby, time to get a sewing machine.

In the pirates!

2009-08-26T16:58:00.002-06:00

I had to post this quick story because I thought it was pretty funny, hopefully you won't think that it is completely inappropriate. So Brian and I often quiz the girls about strangers and what to do if someone tries to take them, Well Brian asked Lauryn this time, "what do you do if a stranger tries to take you?" and with out batting an eyelash and as she is putting a chip in her mouth, she so casually responded,"I'll just kick him in the pirates." and with that walked out of the room to continue to play the Wii. Alright then, as long as she knows where and when it's an appropriate time to do that I won't worry about how she pronounces it right now. I don't need a call from the principal telling me she has an issue of kicking every boy that ticks her off in the "pirates". I am sure Brian on the other hand with having 3 girls would argue with me on that and would say that any boy who ticks his girls off deserves to be kicked in the "pirates". Anyone who knows Lauryn knows that this is not such a far cry from the truth, that it could possibly happen she has a no nonsense sort of attitude, well until then I will continue to work with her on when it is an appropriate time to kick someone in the "pirates."

The window!

2009-08-24T23:17:00.002-06:00

So last week when we had cooler weather we decided to turn off the air and open the windows to save money right? One night after baths Lauryn was not doing what she was supposed to be doing and so I had to get after her a couple of times for not obeying well she continued to not listen so I really got after her and told her to go sit on the naughty stair. Well before she went and sat down she proceeded to go to our open window that faces the road and yell out the window,(mind you she didn't say it quietly,)" Don't listen to my mom, she's mean." Seriously, did she just do that? It took all my energy to not bust up laughing but also not be super embarrassed at the same time. Let's just say she had to go to bed early. But then a couple of days later I caught her yelling the same thing out the living room window, and she wasn't even in trouble. Is this something she is trying to tell the world that she thinks she is being held hostage and trying to reach out for help? Hopefully my neighbors and the dog walkers got a kick out of it if anyone heard. I think I will need to keep an eye for her the next time the windows are open, who knows what she will say the next time.

Mylei 2nd grade!

2009-08-24T23:02:00.006-06:00

So I am finally posting this exactly a week after school starts, but what do you do right. Mylei my oldest started 2nd grade last Monday I can't believe it she was so excited she picked out a Hannah Montana bag for school, was very excited to meet her teacher and see some friends she hasn't seen all, (summer which might as well be a lifetime.) I am glad she was excited to go. I hope she has a great year and learns lots.

Vegas!

2009-08-19T00:56:00.031-06:00

This is going to be a super long post about our trip to Vegas just an advanced warning. So I decided to call my cousin Marin and see if she and her family wouldn't mind a last min., visit and guess what?! She didn't mind, so we packed up last Monday and the 3 girls and I drove down there, well it took 9 hours to get there, Lauryn I swear had to stop in every town to use the potty. 1 time I pulled over to the side of the road to have her go in the wilderness, a lizard scurried by and well that ended that idea, I don't think she is my outdoors girl, she saw him and said "I'm not going out here I don't need to go anymore," and ran back to the van as fast as her crossed little legs could take her. Needless to say I had to drive as fast as I could to the next exit with a bathroom. The first night we just hung out and the kids had a sleep over, ate popcorn and watched a movie. The first full day we were there we went to a splash park and it also had a neat playground that had tents over the top to try and keep the sun off the equipment and the kids. We also met my other cousin's wife Sarah and their 2 adorable girls there.We let the kids play for a bit and had a picnic lunch, (I am sad I didn't get any pictures of their cute girls.) That night we went to a pizza buffet ate lots of pizza, while we were there, there was a lady that made all the kids balloon animals,crowns,swords,etc.. here is a picture of all the kids in the parking lot with their loot. On Wednedsay the 2nd day we went to a children's museum, the kids had a blast, at the beginning of it they had a section that was dedicated to the body and how some of it functions, they had a part that explains why we burp, what kind of different snot there is, farting etc. totally gross I know but the kids loved it and Anyway pretty educational. They had a fun water table, bubble table, kitchen, and they had this neat little car that the kids could go under and tinker with stuff, they could change the tires,and put different fluids in the engine. It was super cute to see my 3 little girls having a great time fixing this " car." Lauryn had the best time with it, Maybe I will have a little future Danyka Patrick on my hands, J/k but maybe a member of her pit crew at least. There were some other fun things, they had a wind tunnel that the kids all could get in and the wind in it would get up to I believe it was like 70 miles an hour but not sure about that one,I was worried about emery getting scared and Lauryn freaking out about a "potato" coming, ( for those who don't know that is what she calls tornado's, that is in a past post.) There was a program that the kids could stand in front of a green screen and become part of a video game it made me realize which one of my kids are more coordinated in the sports department,"Lauryn." Emery loved anything that had music so she could dance. We ended our trip there with making wind chimes. That night the girls and I went over to my Aunt Lori's house(Dan's mom,) and had dinner, she has a swimming pool in her backyard so the girls swam while I cut Dan's wife Sarah and their daughter's hair. Emery loved it so much we couldn't take our eyes off of her for a second, she was absolutely fearless, they had a wonderful time and did not want to leave but was so very worn out by the end of the day.Thursday we stayed around the house and helped Marin get things ready for an enrichment night she was planning, the kids didn't even want to play outside because it was so hot, so we went and got Jamba juices instead. They have a wild rabbit that hangs out around their house they call "bunny foo foo" anyways the girls got to feed him carrots , Lauryn especially she couldn't get enough of him. We had to leave Friday morning but the girls had the best time playing with cousins they don't get to see often. Here is a picture of all the kids Emery. Lauryn, Mylei,Bryce,and Blake. Thanks Marin,Charles,Blake,and Bryce for letting us come invade your home with all our estrogen. The ride home went a lot smoother, I went and bought a bucket for Lauryn to go potty in if she needed it but she didn't need it at all , I guess she had already seen a bathroom in all the city's on the way down so she didn't need to see them on the way back. When we hit Payson I all of the sudden hear a blood curdling scream come from Emery, come to find out there was a fly that hitched a ride with us when we stopped in Nephi, that would not leave her alone, so I had to get off the freeway to try and get the stupid fly out, finally I got back on the road and she fell asleep when we got home we found out that he just hid from me and finished the ride back with us. We had a great time but was excited to finally be home and see daddy, I think he was glad to see us to.

Fire, Water and Ice Festival!

2009-08-18T23:15:00.020-06:00

Saturday August 8th We took the girls to the Fire ,Water, and Ice festival in Kearns at the Oquirrh Park Fitness Center. When we got there we made it just in time to see the divers from the Myan restaurant do their thing, the girls loved it probably one of their favorite parts. Among the divers they had several different shows, here are a couple of pictures of some of them. There was a funny guy who was pretty dang talented using a Yo-Yo, he could do all these neat tricks with them. Also a couple of guys that were pretty good at juggling they were supposed to use fire for their finale but we missed that cause of potty breaks, hopefully it went well. And there was also a band that was from California that was pretty good the girls really liked them they played a lot of old Mo town songs that are fun to dance to. They had some arts and crafts to do for the kids, and games. One of the games they had was like a cake walk emery loved it she kept wanting to go back and "dance"as she would call it. Here is a picture of all the girls in their crowns and wands that we bought them, Lauryn is not posing for the picture she had to pee, shocker I know. All in all I think they had a pretty good time.

Growing up,the missing dog, the boss, and cake cakes!

2009-07-31T22:25:00.006-06:00

I am combining a couple of events into one post today so it will be a long one so be prepared to read for a time. I have come to realize I don't talk much about Mylei on our blog, as my first born it makes me sad, I think it's because Emery and Lauryn are still learning to do and say so many things and it's super funny and cute when they mess things up, I am making a goal to do better at that. Anyways I have had kind of a big realization lately that she is growing up so fast, she has been a busy girl with friends coming over and she going to other friends houses almost everyday this week and spending the whole day there. It's been hard for me to have to step back and let her grow up and do things by herself, such as going to friends houses, or doing her own hair(which as some of you may know with me being a cosmotologist that is a hard thing for me to do, I get a little anal about their hair being just right,) picking out her own cloths when shopping, taking the bus to school, wanting to follow her everywhere and be involved with her friends, and plain old just wanting to protect her from everything bad. I was talking to a friend the other day, who's son starts kindergarten on Monday and told her that Brian and I sometimes wish we could be flys on the wall to just watch her, the way she acts with friends, the way she does things in school, if she is eating all her food at lunch time and not throwing it away to go play at recess. I am sure this is a normal anxiety parents goes through, but boy am I telling you this is not a fun one to worry about so I usually have to put it in the back of my mind and try not to think about it, cause if I don't she will be having me sitting next to her when she starts 2nd grade in a couple of weeks, and I am sure that will do wonders to her(2nd grade social life.) I love you my sweet Mylei! (And yes, I did say second grade, boy do I feel old as I type this up.)

Alright on to Lauryn, earlier tonight we were at our next door neighbors house "chit chatting" as the girls like to call it, and they have 2 dogs a pit bull and a tiny little fluffy dog ( not sure what breed,) well Lauryn loves dogs but loves their little "batman"( as he is named,) the very best because he is perfect carrying size, the poor dog, he was born with a deformity with his paws and can't run fast enough to get away from her when he sees her coming, so he just puts up with her carrying him all over the place. Well as I was tucking her into bed she was talking to me about how much she wants a little dog like him, well she came up with a great idea, (for at least a 4 year old it was.) she would just take him home with her and he can sleep with her, "they won't miss him they have another dog,"Oh I am sure they won't miss him at all, "NOT". I am now kicking myself because I passed up a teaching opportunity to teach her about stealing because I just wanted her to go to sleep, I honestly didn't think about it till later. Well if the neighbors dog goes missing I think I might be able to find out who the culprit is and have to check Lauryn's bed. Hopefully this isn't the start of my daughters life of crime because I did not take that opportunity to teach her about that,( just kidding,being a little dramatic I know your shocked.) But I seriously think I am going to have to keep an eye out for her taking him, though he is that tiny to stowe away. At that same time we got talking about how she had swimming lessons in the morning and I said "I think I am going to wear your swimsuit and go as you tomorrow, And you can stay home with Emery and clean the house." Well the reaction I got was " Okay, then I can vacume and be the boss," Lately she has been obsessed about she can't wait to grow up become a mom, stay up late and be "the boss" she is constantly asking who the boss of who is randomley pointing out people or mentioning people she knows, it's been pretty entertaining. She is such a curious little girl and I extremely love that about her. I can't wait to laugh when I ask my grandkids one day "who is the boss at your house, mom or dad?" And I am sure they will say" hands down mom is," and I will smile remember this story and say "I knew she would be since she was 4." I love you my Lauryn!

And now a short one about emery, As you may have seen on my previous post Brian's birthday was on tuesday, he decided he wanted cupcakes instead of a big cake, so that's what we have made him. Well my baby has decided that "cake,cakes" as she calls them should be the start of every meal, that has been the first thing she asks for when she wakes up every single morning as of late. Well not even being 2 yet she has a hard time understanding that you can't live on cupcakes alone, (which honestly sometimes I think you could, but we won't tell her that till later right?) But being the mean mom I am I make her eat her breakfast first and even at times can distract her throughout the day to hold her off till after dinner, but that is the longest, I swear, she knows after dinner we go outside and have a cupcake. I don't know how she is going to handle that they ate the last cupcakes the night before last, even tonight we went to a babyshower and they had cupcakes there, so we haven't broken from the routine in 4 days. What is it they say? ( after 3 days it's habit,") I don't know what I am going to do tomorrow when I can't feed my baby's "cake, cake" habit. I guess we will just have to go cold turkey,huh? Oh my little one I love you dearly!

Brian's Birthday!!

2009-07-28T23:35:00.007-06:00

Today was Brian's 32nd birthday, he of course had to work,which we all know as a an adult that's just part of life right? While he was working the girls wanted to do something special so I got out a white poster board and let the girls write messages and color pictures on it for him and then we tied it with streamers on the stairs so he would see it when he came in the garage from work. They had so much fun coloring it. We wanted to blow up a whole bunch of balloons and decorate the house but those balloons were the hardest balloons I have ever tried to blow up so we managed 4 to put on the corners of the poster. We also made him chocolate cupcakes, his favorite. They were so excited for him to come home they kept waiting by the window to see him come home,(I think it was the longest day for them.) When he got home the girls hid around the corner and jumped out and yelled surprise. I am sure he expected something but he did a good job of acting surprised. We then took him to dinner at a favorite Mexican restaurant. We ended it with singing Happy Birthday! to him. Hopefully he had a good day, and has a good time in Denver at an Avalanche hockey game that he is putting his Fathers day,birthday, and Anniversary together so he can go to a real game with his friend Paul. We love you, and appreciate all the hard work you do, your the best.( Doesn't he look happy to have his picture taken.)

Visiting Marci!

2009-07-28T22:52:00.006-06:00

I didn't get a chance to post this the same day of the 1 year anniversary of Marci's passing. We went and visited her grave at Valley View Cemetery, we met Brian's mom, His brother Brady,his wife Ashlee,and his girls Taycie and Mckenzie there. The girls wrote messages and pictures on Orange balloons which was Marci's favorite color and then we released them, it was a sad and quiet moment as we reflected on the last year of not having her with us,and all that has happened,how big the girls have gotten and how much she has been missed. We will continue to miss her and hope that as the following years come that our hearts will be healed from her tragic passing.

Marci Shepherd

2009-07-25T09:09:00.003-06:00

Today is a sad day in the Shepherd family. Today marks one year of the passing of our Sister, Daughter, Aunt and friend. We have all dealt with her lose in our own ways. Today we are going to go visit the Mausoleum that she is in. The girls are going to write messages on orange (Marci's favorite color) balloons and let them go. The girls ask about her often. They ask when they will see her again and if she is watching them. This gives us a great, but difficult opportunity to talk to them about heaven and the gospel. They seem to understand and sometimes ask more questions but other times they just say OK and move on with what they were doing. We thank everyone that has sent thoughts and prayers for our family in the last year. We have been blessed with great friends and family that have supported us and helped us in unmeasurable ways.

Uh Oh!

2009-07-24T23:43:00.008-06:00

Yesterday Emery came out of the bathroom holding her hands out to me and her hair matted to her face, I said "Oh Emery what did you get into?" She walked back in with me and this is what I found. She had got into the baby lotion (luckily that was all that she got into,) and got it all over the rug, her face,hair,and her cloths. But her reaction was classic, I was lucky to capture it, the way she did it was classic. This one is "oh what happened in here!" This one I asked her" who did this?" and this is her reaction holding her arms up like "I don't have a clue mom."

How could you get mad with these adorable reactions? It wasn't really a big mess and she did smell really good. She is my busiest kid by far, getting into one thing and turning around and she is getting into something else, I was lucky with Mylei and Lauryn they hardly got into things or maybe it was because I didn't have older kids to leave things out and open , well whatever the reason she wears me out sometimes but she sure is worth it.

Poddy!

2009-07-24T22:46:00.005-06:00

The last couple of days Emery has been obsessed with the "poddy" as she calls it, so we decided to get out the little potty we potty train with. Well she thinks it's the coolest thing right now, we keep it in the half bath downstairs that is used the most,and every time that door opens she b-lines for the door screaming "poddy, poddy."She loves to take her diaper off and sit on it, then get off close the lid and repeat over and over again, she would use toilet paper to wipe every time to if I would let her, (I do have to say she does a pretty good job for not even being 2 yet.) Her daddy got excited at the thought, of not having to possibly buy diapers anymore, but I told him not to get to excited yet, I don't think she is quite ready yet, (I usually don't really try till they are almost 3, and I am also not sure I am ready to admit my baby won't be a baby anymore,silly I know.) I won't stop her if she is ready though, I got a couple of cute pictures of her "practicing" as we call it.(I tried to keep them as modest as possible.) After about 20 min. of her playing I told her it was time to get a diaper back on, and this is the scene I got after I wrestled a diaper back on her. I didn't think a potty was such a fun thing to play with,I guess I was wrong. Maybe she will be "poddy" trained sooner than later after all.

Paitience! and Dogs numbers!

2009-07-15T21:37:00.004-06:00

So tonight at family prayer Brian said the prayer, after the prayer we tucked them in while Brian was kissing Lauryn she said "Dad I love your voice but, your prayers are to long." She said it so sweetly "Like I am only saying this to help you, I only have your best interest at heart." How could you be offended with that. Apparently she is losing patience with her aging parents, with her mother's rambling explanations and her fathers prayers. I don't know how she is going to handle taking care of us for the next 40 or 50 years. Poor girl!

Also today she was getting bored so she asked me if I had Blazers phone number so she could call and see if he could come out and play. I said, "well I do have his number, but he can't talk on the phone. Plus I think his mommy and daddy are not not home and he can't play when they are not home." she walked away a sad girl until I turned on one of her favorite shows. Let's just clarify Blazer is the pit bull that lives next door. She is so obsessed with that poor dog and they just got another dog that is some kind of tiny fluffy dog, (don't know the breed) but she is so thrilled that he is little so she can carry poor Batman around, (Yes! that's his name not just what she calls him.) She even asks if she can go wait for him on his porch, Brian said "no!" Well can I wait for him on our porch, " OK you can wait for him on our porch." A few minutes later she comes in."Dad they are still just watching T.V." WHAT??!! I can just see it now, "What the...?? oh don't look now it's the neighbor girl again coming to play with the dogs, Don't make eye contact!, don't make eye contact!" Honey, you can't just peek into people's windows it's not nice we need to give them privacy. I don't know what to do with the girl, she is starting to sneak out of the house to go play with them when she knows they are outside. We had to talk to our neighbors to have her come and tell us she is over there. I hope that is not a sign of future things she is going try and do when she is older. I am sure she is going to give us a run for her money, we need to prepare.

Temple open house!

2009-07-13T22:32:00.008-06:00

We were able to go to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house tour today. Brian and I have had a several opportunities to volunteer different things they needed help with, but we haven't had the chance to see the entire temple so we went today. The girls loved it, the chandeliers,the mirrors in the sealing rooms,the baptismal font (which Emery was ready to strip her cloths off and jump in)and of course the brides room were all a particular hit, along with the port-a-potty toilets, Yes I said the port-a-potty toilets, Lauryn of course had to use the potty,(shocker I know)well she loved the fact that you could flush with your foot, she wanted to keep flushing and flushing it, I finally had to literally drag her out of there. And then any time we walked by she conveniently said she had to go, I am glad she was impressed by all beautiful things about the temple,my goodness. Brian got this cute picture of Lauryn waiting patiently for us to finish getting pictures done and then we could go get a cookie. But seriously it was such a great once in a life time experience to be able to go with my family and see this beautiful building that we are so lucky to be able to have so close to us. If you look really close you can see where the lighting hit the Angel Moroni statue on the arm, face and trumpet.

Background change again!

2009-07-12T23:23:00.002-06:00

As you can tell I decided to change our background, again I wanted to keep it on the 4th of July one but it was very,very busy,and hard to read to I changed it to something different. It's pretty girly but with the majority of the household girls, what can you expect, right? I mean we have a pink vacuum for crying out loud.

Holiday weekend!

2009-07-10T10:10:00.015-06:00

It's taken me forever to post this for the holiday weekend since it is my favorite, but here it finally. We decided to go to the West Jordan Parade and meet our friends Zack and Krista and their boys along with Zack's parents and brothers. It was overcast so it was not super hot till the end I guess it was we ended up leaving early the parade was taking forever, and trying to keep Emery entertained was not going well. Here are some pictures, the girls favorite parts were the princesses of course,the animals and the candy being thrown, we need to teach them to be a little more aggressive in getting the candy though. After we ran to the store to grab some stuff for our BBQ, visited Brian's cousins for a bit,and then took the girls to Fazoli's for lunch. This must have worn them out pretty good because this is what I found when I turned around to check on them on the way home. We got home and everyone had a nap including Brian and I which was really nice. We had our BBQ and then returned to West Jordan to watch fireworks with the Denovellis's again at West Jordan High school. The fireworks were supposed to start roughly around 10:20 after the rodeo well they didn't get going till almost 11:00 we were getting ready to pack up when they started. Poor Carter and Korver didn't make it to watch the fireworks sleep took over, poor Guys. I had to laugh when Hunter told Carter in the van as they were leaving "Carter you missed the finale,"Carter replied "I really don't give a care," And fell back asleep. On the way home Lauryn would not stay in her booster, she kept trying to slide out of it. We told her if she didn't stay in her seat the police would pull us over because she was not being safe. She started to ask me if police officers were mean, so I proceeded to tell her that they are not mean but they want to be safe, and among other things that police officers do for us. Well after a few min. she said"Mom just stop it's getting to long." Well apparently I was rambling, and the explanation was just getting way to long for her. I looked at Brian and he just gave me that look, Like Ya! it was getting a little long. I couldn't help but bust up laughing. I said,"Hey it's a 11:00 at night, cut me some slack." It was a pretty funny way to end the day. All in all It was a great day spending time with family.

Bugs!

2009-07-10T09:49:00.007-06:00

As a mother of 3 girls the issue of bugs has always been diverted to daddy to take care of. Since Lauryn has been coming into her own interests and personality lately,she has decided that potato bugs are not all that bad. Actually she has been quite obsessed with them as of late, digging in the dirt any chance she can get, to find and terrify I am sure these poor bugs. Well Mylei of course can't let her little sister upstage her in anything (except when the issue is animals, dogs in particular) So I was shocked to find this the other day. Mylei holding a bug,letting it crawl all over and even to boot, she named it Mia, (Yes I know you are shocked anyone who knows Mylei )and she was very concerned with it's welfare, as I was a mean mom and would not let "mia" come in for the night. I know ! I know! where are my priorities not wanting bugs in my house how could I be so horribly mean to make her leave that poor bug out in the elements(Mylei's words) Ya I got over it quick. but still the same I was pretty shocked to see her letting this bug crawl all over her, I wonder what else her little sister will get her to do In the future,I don't care much as long it's not spiders, I don't do spiders AT ALL!!!! That's daddy's department.

Losed!

2009-07-09T20:32:00.005-06:00

Lauryn came into me today and said I need a band-aid (she has a cut on the bottom of her toe). I told her she could have one after she got in the tub so that it was all clean. She of course got mad cause it was not what she wanted, well she told me she was going to get one anyway, I told her that if she got one she was going to lose swimming lessons, on Saturday. The response I got back was not what I expected, "Well that's fine to losed it cause I don't want to do swimming lessons anyways." Hmmmmm!!! Well that backfired on me I guess she doesn't want to start swimming lessons.

Ice cream!

2009-07-01T23:11:00.012-06:00

I got on the internet today to find some fun summer activity ideas for the girls to do. Well I found this one, it's a recipe for how to make homemade ice cream in a baggy by shaking it. I thought what the hay I have all the stuff to do it let's try it and see what happens. Well It worked and it only took about 8 min. or so. And the girls had a lot of fun. It's supposed to take about 5 min., but their little arms got tired of shaking. Anyways here is the instructions if anyone wants them.

-1/2 cup milk or half and half
-1 Tbsp. sugar
-1/4 tsp. vanilla
-gallon ziplock bag
-pint or sandwich ziplock bag
-half of a gallon size bag filled with ice
-about 6 Tbsp. rock salt

Mix milk, sugar,and vanilla together, pour into smaller bag seal it. Put ice in bag and sprinkle salt on the ice, put bag with milk mixture on the ice, seal big bag. Shake bag for 5 min. or so and there you have it a little personal bag of ice cream, I double bagged everything though so no leaking would occur, and glad I did. I also tried for me a 1/2 cup of pineapple juice and just added the sugar and did it the same way and I got a sherbet that was pretty good I have say, Here are a couple of pictures of the girls shaking and then eating,and a couple of what it looked like. Just don't dump the ice on your grass when your done, the salt kills your grass, Yes I did that and yes it happened. I am sure most all of you knew that I just didn't think about that when I dumped it. oh well Enjoy!

Rainbow!

2009-07-01T22:50:00.006-06:00

Friday we of course had a rain storm come in,( shocker I know.) I was getting the girls ready for bed when Brian called from work and told us to look outside, and this what we found. The brightest rainbow I probably have ever seen in my life, these pictures of course do not do it justice as many of you probably saw it. If you look really close at one of the pictures you can see another one above it but it is very faint. It was a good teaching opportunity to explain why we have rainbows. The girls were so excited at how bright it was and how close it looked. Brian said there were people pulled over to the side of the road to look at it. with how much rain we have had these last couple of months I am surprised we have not seen more of them. That's ok I guess it makes this one all the more special.

Hummingbirds!

2009-07-01T22:24:00.004-06:00

Ok so I finally was able to snap a couple pictures of our hummingbirds, well at least one of them I kept trying to get a picture of both of them together but my camera was not set at the right setting. I think they are mommy and daddy hummingbirds as the girls call them. They sure are fun to watch, they come about 3 times a day maybe more but we usually catch them when we are eating our meals. The girls became very interested in them from their great grandma Barbara, she had several feeders around the outside of her house, and she would love to show them to the girls before she passed away. Lauryn used to call them honey birds but has figured out how to say it the correct way,darn it! I am Just kidding but I love it when toddlers are still learning how to pronounce words correctly, they seem to grow up way to fast so I cherish those cute times. Anyways here are a couple pictures of our mommy and daddy hummingbirds.

Background change!

2009-07-01T00:15:00.002-06:00

Okay, so I obviously have changed our background, I loooove! the 4th of July so I changed it to this, I know it's kind of busy but bare with me for this month, if you will. And yes I will probably have this up all month cause it's my favorite Holiday.

Dramatic Girls

2009-06-26T09:44:00.007-06:00

Yesterday we were babysitting my niece Emma. We took the four girls and we went to Costco, Chick-fil-a and then to Macey's. When we got to Macey's we put Emery and Emma in the cart together and had Mylei and Lauryn walk. Lauryn didn't want to walk she wanted to be in the cart with Emma. Brian tried to explain to her that normally she would be able to be in the cart but since we had Emma there wasn't room. The first thing we do when we get to the store is head straight to the bakery for a free cookie. This will keep the girls occupied for about the first 5-10 minutes. After Lauryn got her cookie she was complaining to Brian that she hasn't been able to do anything fun all day. Brian reminded her that she has been playing with her cousin all day and that we went to Chick-fil-a just 30 minutes ago. She said she still hasn't been able to do anything fun. In a last effort to perk her spirits Brian reminded her that she was eating a cookie. She responded that it in fact wasn't fun. Brian responded by saying then give me the cookie. Lauryn immediately said "No, this is the funnest thing I am going to have". This is the kind of drama that my poor husband is going to have to deal with for the rest of his life. If truth be told I do feel a little bit sorry for him because there are going to be some pretty dramatic times in the next 20 years. I know he will survive with a healthy dose of golf and hockey once a month ..........By the way Just letting everyone know Brian added the last part i.e. golfing, and hockey once a month. Ya! as if! And what about me I have to deal with the drama to, he says I add to it so it's not the same. Hmmmm! like he doesn't add his own kind of drama.

In Seconds!

2009-06-24T22:19:00.007-06:00

Your probably wondering why I am posting a picture of Lauryn sleeping,(besides the fact she is so darn cute,) Yes every parent has one I am sure of their children but mine has a little story behind it that I thought was cute. The girls and I were watching T.V. right before dinner tonight, and Lauryn started complaining that she didn't like the show I was watching so I got up to start dinner, and let them change the channel to something they wanted to watch. I went into the kitchen and started washing a pot, Literally 20 seconds after leaving the living room and Lauryn saying she didn't like what I was watching, Mylei came in and said Lauryn was asleep, I came into the living room because I didn't believe her, but sure enough she was out like a light. I could not believe how fast she fell asleep, well as it was 6:00 at night I didn't want to let her take a nap, she would then be up till midnight. So i decided to let her little sister loose on her, mean I know, but funny I have to admit. Here are the pictures of Emery torturing her big sister.

Fun day!

2009-06-24T20:18:00.009-06:00

Today, the girls cousins Taycie and McKenzie, came over and we went to the splash park by our house, the girls were so excited to see them. They had so much fun, all four big girls pooped out first but emery the baby kept going and going, she loved it we had to practically drag her away until I showed her shoes, (she loves her Dora flip flops) and that distracted her. We got some pretty funny pictures of the girls sunbathing, they loved just laying there and soaking the sun all up and acting so big. Thanks girls for a great day hopefully we can do it again lots more times this summer.

Happy Father's Day!

2009-06-22T01:20:00.003-06:00

I want to put a quick post and wish my hubby Brian A happy Father's Day! He Is the greatest dad I ever could of asked for, for my children. They adore him so much. He is so patient, honors his priesthood, and the hardest worker I know. I am so lucky I was able to snag him, (I still don't know how I did that.) People wish him luck, as we walk in the store with all 3 girls, which I know he will need the older they get. I Love you so much and Thank you for being the best Dad ever. Again, Happy Father's Day Brian!

Birthday weekend!

2009-06-22T00:35:00.011-06:00

We had 2 birthday party's this weekend to attend for 3 little ones. The first was on Friday for our good friends Zack and Krista's Little boy Hunter who turned 5 and Tyson and Lana's little boy Jacob who turned 2, they decided to combine the party's and rent the cutest little train and set it up in a parking lot and the kids could get in and and ride as much as they wanted for an hour or so, they handed cute train whistles to each of them and they just rode to their hearts content. It was so cute and they had a blast. Lana's sister Callie is holding Emery she had the best time. They handed out cupcakes with the bluest frosting you have ever seen, Emery of course loved it, we took her cloths of so as not to stain them, good thing we did it stained her skin really bad. But she of course did not care and loved the cupcake and being undressed.

The second party was Saturday for our niece Emma who turned 3, Well that was not as fun it was at a park and the weather started getting bad as we got there, the wind was horrible and it rained half the time, and being the genius mom that I am did not bring any jackets, and dressed them in shorts and t-shirts good one I know, Mylei and Lauryn pretty much stayed huddled in blankets and jackets that other people brought, Emery didn't seem to mind the weather to much as long as she had a cupcake. A very busy but fun couple of days.

Her name is Mud!

2009-06-22T00:18:00.003-06:00

Yes, I am talking about my little Emery. She loves to go outside and play and so what I do is leave the door open and let her play on the porch as I do dishes or whatever needs to be done in the kitchen. Well she is pretty good at staying on the porch well this is what I found when she decided to be brave and leave the porch. I guess she needed a snack and didn't want to come in and ask for one, sooo! this mud looks good let's try it out. Hmmmmm! not to bad I guess. Hopefully she didn't get some kind of parasite or something. Thank heavens she is so cute, How could I get mad at that face.

Dang birds!

2009-06-21T23:56:00.005-06:00

So I posted a little while ago about our birds that we have had eating out of our bird feeder. Well I noticed they have been going through the food rather fast. I went outside to play with the girls and noticed this. Yes, the birds have just been eating the sunflower seeds and throwing the rest on the ground, that is why we have been going through bird food so fast . So we have decided to change the bird food cause we still love the birds to come visit. Hopefully they like the new stuff, cause if they don't the feeder comes down. Dang birds!

The Big 30!

2009-06-15T17:49:00.014-06:00

Yes! I hit the big 30! on Thursday Blahh!! I woke up to thunder and lightning as has been the weather in Herriman for the last 2 1/2 weeks (Lauryn got mad and said it's not supposed to storm on birthdays which was cute.) I went downstairs to fix breakfast and found my birthday gifts on the table that the girls and Brian got me, I pretended I didn't know what they got me so the girls would be excited, they got me the whole Harry Potter books and movies series. (We found them on KSL for 35$ the guy read the first 2 and lost interest and didn't read the rest so he decided to sell them, we snagged them up as fast as we could. Normally they run about 100$ so we were excited to get them. I love KSL!) And My sweet cousin (and Bff!) Marin sent me this beautiful flower cake, (your the best) these are the best cakes they don't make you gain any lbs..

Anyways we didn't really do anything else to interesting till Brian got home, He and the girls surprised me by taking me to Olive Garden which was really fun till they started to sing to me, which I told Brian if he didn't want to be a dead man he would not tell them or let the girls tell them it was my birthday. Well of course he didn't listen, and well as empty threats go he is not a dead man either. It was a great night spending time with my Gaggle. Here are a couple of pics. at dinner, I forgot to get a family pic..

Friday night my sister-in-law (and twilight bff) Ashlee needed to get out of the house so I picked her up and we went to Leatherby's and she bought us some Ice Cream and we talked into the wee hours of the morning, (literally) I haven't done that in ages, thanks Ashlee! Saturday night Brian got a sitter and we met our great friends Zack and Krista at Tepanyaki for dinner, and then went to Cold Stone for ice cream, it was really fun to get out and enjoy a date with my sweet hubby. All in all it was a great weekend who gets to celebrate there birthday for 3 days. I don't feel like I am getting older, for the most part I still feel like I did when I was 20, except when I look at my children and realize how fast they are growing up, and sometimes (which seems silly) when I am doing my makeup and I look in the mirror and say "I am having an old face day", when the laugh lines are more prominent than they used to be around my eyes and mouth, and finally (Brian gets a kick out of this one) when I watch college sports and realize I am older than most of the players on the teams, thats when I feel old. Oh well that's what happens and there is really nothing I can do about it, so thats when I try to be grateful for all that I have been blessed with in my 30 years and enjoy my children and husband and not worry about the things I can't control like growing old.

Mylei's Fav's!

2009-06-10T23:09:00.003-06:00

And here is Mylei's Fav's.

#1-Hannah Montana
#2-writing,(she loves to just write, story's, songs, everything, give her a notebook and a pen and she will be happy.)
#3-The color Pink
#4-Princess's
#5-playing with friends
#6-listening to music
#7-Playing games
#8-Reading
#9-Doing grown up things
#10-And her daddy's teams BYU Cougars! and the Avs.

Lauryn's Fav's

2009-06-10T22:57:00.002-06:00

Ok so here is Lauryn's top 10 fav's.

#1-Chocolate, (I kid you not she can smell it from a mile away.)
#2-playing the computer and the Wii.
#3-Hannah Montana
#4-Dresses
#5-Shoes
#6-the colors Orange and pink
#7-getting her back scratched
#8-Animals
#9-Asking questions about everything
#10-Her daddy's teams, BYU cougars, she is a very devoted fan, and the Avs.

Emery's fav's!

2009-06-10T22:15:00.004-06:00

So I got this idea from my friend Krista, she did this with her boys, She listed her boys 10 favorite things. So I told her I was going to copy her and do it with my girls. So here goes I am doing Emery first. (note:the first 4 are in order of priority for her.)

#1-Her thumb
#2- Her baby,(which she carries everywhere we let her,sucking her thumb)
#3-Her blanky
#4-Her waee! (transltion: her sippy cup)
#5-Pup pup's(particularly the Adam's 2 dogs Harley and maizy who live down the street. Will blog about them later.)
#6-Her sisters reading to her.
#7-Playing outside.
#8-Nack's (fruit snacks)
#9-Night, Night!(yes she loves going to bed, as long as it's time to.)
#10-Jumping( she has just figured out how to do that so she thinks she is pretty cool.)
#11-Getting into EVERYTHING!!! and I mean EVERYTHING!!!
#12- And of course we have to add this her daddy's teams the BYU COUGARS! and the Avs!
So here is a little more about my baby, She is such a happy and sweet little girl and we are so lucky to have her in our lives. I did 12 for her cause I couldn't narrow it down.

A potato is coming!

2009-06-10T00:14:00.008-06:00

As some of you know we had a horrible hail storm this afternoon. Mylei and Lauryn went down the street to play with some friends while there was a break in the weather. I was making dinner and it started to thunder and lightning. I waited to see if Mylei and Lauryn would come running as fast as they could to get out of the storm. After a couple of min. they didn't show up, so I figured they were probably stuck standing underneath someones porch screaming their heads off so I grabbed emery and hurried outside to see if they needed rescuing before the rain got really bad. Well before I could make it down to them It started hailing so bad that it was hurting when it came down. I found them under their friends porch but not sobbing.....Yet! They saw me and started running to me, just as a loud clap of thunder hit. I don't think I have seen them run so fast in my life. Mylei just ran past me and booked it to the house. Lauryn on the other hand wanted to hold my hand. So I am carrying Emery, We are being pelted with hail and rain, there is lightning and thunder, I keep loosing my flip flops cause of the rain, and trying to hold Lauryn's hand as she is sobbing running up the street screaming "A potato is coming!, A potato is coming!, A potato is coming." I just start laughing, I finally take my flip flops off and we run to the house. We get inside and Lauryn is still crying and asking me "Is a potato going to come mom!" I gave her a hug to comfort her and said "no honey a Tornado! is not coming, It's just a hail storm a very big hail storm we will be ok. I dried everyone off and took some pictures. Mylei is always worried that we are going to have a tornado and talking about it, and I guess while they were under their friends porch one of the kids said "It looks like a tornado is coming, so that is why she was freaking out about it and then couldn't say tornado but potato instead, It was pretty cute so I had to write about it.

I took some pictures of the aftermath of this storm, my flowers got the heck beat out of them. I am so mad cause it has taken forever for them to finally start! looking good and then this happens. I guess I need to still keep giving them some TLC, and hopefully they will recover. As for Lauryn I think it might take awhile for her to recover. Mylei was so cute too she said she couldn't wait to go to school tomorrow to see if her friends survived the storm, And then Emery loved it for the most part she was just along for the ride.

Our birds!

2009-06-09T23:56:00.004-06:00

We bought a bird feeder and hung it up on the drain outside our back windows, well we have acquired a mommy and daddy set of birds as the girls have started calling them. I think they are finches but not sure. They come around several times a day, and the girls love them, I do have to admit that its kind of fun watching them, they are pretty messy eaters though. We also have a hummingbird feeder and a hummingbird that comes around every once in a while, hopefully I can catch a picture of him sometime when he decides to come around.

Emery's haircut!

2009-06-09T23:06:00.005-06:00

Emery has had several haircuts, and I usually cut it in the tub to eliminate mess and also to help distract her. Well I decided to see how she would do in a chair with the cape on, she did pretty good until the end as I was trying to cut her bangs, so they didn't turn out the greatest, oh well what can you do, she is still dang cute.

Riverton Arts Festival!

2009-06-08T16:57:00.006-06:00

Over the weekend the girls performed at the Riverton Arts Festival, They love dance but were glad that, it was their last performance for a couple of months. Here is a couple of pictures.

Oquirrh Mountain Temple!

2009-06-08T16:31:00.005-06:00

We were driving down Bangerter Highway one night and it looked so beautiful standing on the hill, so I had Brian pull over so I could take a picture. I can't help but feel so grateful that we are so lucky to have so many temples so close to us. I hope that we will do better in attending and doing the work for those who have been waiting so long to have theirs done for them. I love looking out my bedroom window and getting to see it so close.

Dance Recital!

2009-06-08T15:36:00.014-06:00

The girls had their final big dance recital at the end of last month. Emery loved watching all the dances and kept trying to imitate all the dance moves it was really cute and funny. After it was over we kept trying to get all the girls to stand there and get their picture taken, well Emery didn't want to stand there and hold still for pictures so my mom gave her, her camera to distract her, hence the picture of Emery with the camera up to her eye. They looked so stinkin cute,and did such a great job if I say so myself.

Last day of preschool!

2009-06-08T00:25:00.003-06:00

Wow! I can't believe Lauryn's first year of preschool is already over, she has grown so much in the last 9 months or so. She loved her teachers Mrs. Sara and Mrs. Amelia, thanks for a great year, and we are looking forward to next year at Apple Blossom Academy. Here are a couple pictures of Lauryn with her teachers.

Memorial day BBQ!

2009-06-07T23:57:00.004-06:00

On our way home from the zoo on Memorial day, our good friends Zack and Krista called and invited us over to Krista's parents house for a BBQ, we went over and the had a great time and great food. Well as I am sure parents know that when you get 10 kids together eating is usually one of the last things on their minds. So the kids ate a little and left their plates and went and played. Well Emery apparently didn't get enough to eat, (even though she refused to sit and eat what we got for her to eat,) we let her get down and play, well a few min. later we caught her eating off of everyone else's plates that they decided they were to busy to eat. I guess she decided to not let the food go to waste, she was a huge mess after that, we had to hose her off in the backyard,(which she loved.)she was so sticky and messy. She had the greatest time though so I guess thats what matters most.

The Zoo!

2009-06-07T23:28:00.007-06:00

We decided to go to the Hogle Zoo on Memorial day with Brian's cousin and his family, can I say Duh! Wrong day to go it was so busy, and crazy but we were there so we decided to stay. It ended up being pretty fun, it was emery's first time there and she loved it.Here are some pictures of the day.

Skating!

2009-06-07T23:12:00.003-06:00

For Lauryn's birthday we got her some skates, the kind that goes on the outside of shoes,well she could not wait till the weather got warmer so she could go out and try them out. She has been pretty bugged that the weather has been bad this last week so she asks if she can skate in the garage. Here are a couple of pictures of the first time out on them, she was so excited.

Amature Photography!

2009-06-07T22:34:00.005-06:00

For Christmas Brian and I decided we needed to get a new camera. The one we ended up getting has some fun stuff to it so when the spring flowers started blooming I decided to take some pictures for fun. Here is how they turned out.

Behind!

2009-06-07T22:29:00.002-06:00

Ok, So I have lots of pictures to post, I couldn't figure out how to do it, but i think all is well but we will see. So I will be backtracking a couple of weeks until I get current, hopefully quickly. So please endure if I blog a lot of different posts in one day.

Poor Lauryn!

2009-06-07T18:16:00.002-06:00

Yesterday I was in the kitchen cleaning and Lauryn said she had to use the bathroom, so she went in. Now when Lauryn goes in you kind of need to keep and ear out for her, because she has a tendency to play in the water, the toilet paper, or whatever she can manage to find to play with. Anyways she was starting to take a while so I decided to check on her and see what she found to play with, as I started to open the door she hurried and slammed it closed yelling don't come in. Hmmmm! Ya that is not a good sign when that happens, so I forced my way in and found that the toilet had as least 8 wipes in it,Grrrr! those Kandoo wipes are not cheep. Well as I turned to my left I saw the bottle of Clorox wipes on the floor, Grrr! again right? She has been playing with those and throwing them in the toilet right?!! Then it hit me, "Lauryn did you use the cleaning wipes to wipe your bum?" "Umm, Yes!" "Didn't it burn you?" "Oh no just a little bit." Oh Lauryn, my poor girl, Ya! it burned her more than she thought, I will spare the details, let's just say that she was in rough condition last night. So now the wipes have been moved to an undisclosed location to her knowledge. And now thinking about it I think she might have used them in the past, poor Lauryn!

Pretend!

2009-06-05T14:37:00.002-06:00

So Emery is at that stage when, she imitates everyone, well lately her sisters get down on all fours and pretend to be dogs, so she likes to play along, they get really into it with the barking,tongue wagging, and pretend licking. As that being said emery being only 20 months old does not know about pretending to lick. Yes I know you can see it now, She licks everything, I will be doing the dishes and all of the sudden feel her licking my toes, yes eeewww grosss! she will lick the floor, the couch, your leg ,your arms, and hands, We are trying to rid her of the licking issue by showing her to pretend to eat with her play dishes and what not, I think for the most part she is getting it, but today she tried licking my leg and caught her licking the couch. My leg maybe I could understand cause I have apple lotion on but the couch ? It can't taste that good. Oh well we will keep trying. I do have to say she is one cute puppy.

Not Fair!!!!

2009-06-01T22:25:00.005-06:00

So Brian and I went to the dentist today to get our cleanings done. It always seems that every time I go in I have at least 1 cavity but usually more. I get so frustrated because I swish with Listerine, brush, and floss all the stinkin time, go in every 6 months for cleanings and always need something done. Well I went in today and he said No cavities I was so proud of myself, FINALLY!!!! Now let me tell you about Brian , we have been married for almost 10 years and has gone in for cleanings a handful of times. Don't get me wrong he brushes every day but that is about the extent of his oral hygiene once in awhile will floss, or swish when he gets a bug to, and has he ever had a cavity once since we have been together? NOOOOOO!!!! I was so excited to go home and tell him I had no cavities, knowing he has not been in for 2 years and is getting a little older, He has to have at least 1 right? WRONG!!!! my friends, He has a big fat ZERO! I mean come on now, I spend twice as long on my teeth, I was totally banking on him having at least 1, And the Hygienist said he could probably only come in once a year , thats how good his teeth were. Seriously?! Come on now. And he loves to brag about too. Oh it ticks me off, I blame it on having children. Oh well I guess I can just hope my kids get his teeth strength. One day
I will get to say Naner!Naner!Naner! untill that day I will just keep doing what I'm doing, and hope it pays off when I am old and hope I won't need dentures, (but with my luck I will need those and Brian will be laughing while he is pureeing my dinner in the blender.)

It's finally happened!

2009-05-26T22:11:00.004-06:00

So Mylei was down the street playing with friends today after school. Well It was time for dinner So I called my friend Laura and asked her if she wouldn't mind peeking her head outside and send Mylei home. When she got home she told me that she had an idea, and I said whats your idea and she proceeded to tell me that it would make things so much easier if maybe we got her a cell phone.(keep in mind she is only 7 years old.) That if she had a cell phone I could have just called her instead of calling and bothering Laura, and if anyone else needed to get a hold of her, they could just call. I said" oh really!" well, we will maybe have to talk to daddy about that one. But in my head I was screaming "you are only 7 there is no way I will be giving you a cell phone now, you are my baby you are to young,"after that she followed me around telling me basically her "FAV'S" she would put on her phone, and only answer those phone calls. I do have to say it was pretty cute how she had thought it out before she approached me about the idea though, and was following me around chattering about it acting so grown up. But alas she will have to wait till at least 12 but if I had my way it will be later, but I have a feeling that will be the longest I might be able to hold her off on the idea, we will see. Oh and by the way I called Laura to tell her the story and she wasn't bothered at all.;)

Popsicle!

2009-05-22T16:33:00.002-06:00

I love having a toddler who is learning how to pronounce words. Today was Lauryn's last day of
preschool for the year, when I picked her up she was telling me about her day and that she got a potskittle! I said What did you get? A pa-sikle. Oh I said A popsicle. Ya! a potstikle mom Geez! (along with a huge eye roll.) So on the way home I kept asking her to say it again, and again finally after a couple of times she caught on and yelled at me to stop asking her to do it. What we parents do for our personal pleasure.

Undies!!!

2009-05-19T22:41:00.005-06:00

I am blogging about Lauryn again but she has been saying and doing the funniest stuff lately. Having a house full of girls they are eventually going to love wearing dresses. Today Lauryn was wearing a dress, well being 4 when you go to the bathroom you are usually in a hurry and do not care to much about what you look like when you are done. Just wash your hands and get the "heck out of dodge" You have stuff to keep playing with. Well every single time she went today, she would turn around and have half of her dress tucked into her undies. It reminded me of seeing little girls in church that have gone to the bathroom and they have tucked their dress into their tights and run down the hall,with all their glory hanging out. It was the cutest and funniest thing to see, I tried to take a picture but she figured out what I was trying to do and got mad. Oh I love having toddlers.

The spirit!

2009-05-17T20:51:00.003-06:00

As I write this entry I am already tearing up. (I am a big baby,I cry at everything.) On Sunday mornings we always have some kind of church CD/music going to try and get everyone in the spiritual mood for church. Well this morning as I was doing Lauryn's hair we were listening to one of the CD'S from the primary songbook, and the song "When Jesus Christ Was Baptized" came on, Here is how the conversation went for the most part.

Lauryn: I don't like this song.
Me: How come?
Lauryn: Cause it makes me cry.
Me: Why does it make you cry?
Lauryn: Well I don't really know.
Me: Are you scared about baptism?
Lauryn: No, just what they sing about, I don't know mom i don't want to talk about it anymore.

OK now it all of the sudden it hits me, she is crying because she is feeling the spirit, *SNIFF* this song has touched my sweet little 4 year olds heart and let her feel the spirit. *SNIFF*. It made me realize our Heavenly Father loves us so much *SNIFF*and wants us to feel that no matter what our age is. As I was choking back the tears to explain to her the reason why the song made her cry.
Me:*SNIFF* It's OK that you cry when you hear that song, that is Heavenly father letting you know he and Jesus loves you so much and what you are feeling is the spirit.*SNIFF*
Lauryn:Well!!! I still don't like to cry I am not sad when I listen to it. (saying this with a little attitude.)
Me: (grinning) Well people cry for lots of reasons when they are sad, or happy, or mad, or frustrated. and it's ok.
Lauryn: Ok, well I don't want to talk about it anymore. (running away, with her hair finally done.)
I pray that she and her sisters will always be able to recognize and stay close to the spirit throughout their lives,and know that he loves them and will always be there for them.*SNIFF*:)

Date night! Are we getting old?!

2009-05-16T23:04:00.005-06:00

So the other night Brian and I decided we needed a date night, we decided to go to Boondocks and go, Go Cart racing. Something we haven't done since we were dating or first married (can't remember,) we get there and walk in and see tons of kids of course, and young high school ,and college kids on dates. As we were looking over the pricing board and realized Wow!! it's kind of a rip off 6$ for one trip around the track. So we decided to leave and try to find something else to do that would give us more bang for our buck. Hmmmm!!! I couldn't help but laughing to myself,10 years ago while dating we wouldn't have thought twice about dropping 6$ or more for a go around the go cart track. And then seeing the cute college kids goo goo eyeing each other, flirting, and all that lovey dovey stuff with each other. And thinking I hope we didn't act that cheesey. I wanted to barf!!! j/k Wow!! I am getting old. Don't get me wrong I still love holding Brian's hand any chance we don't have kids hanging on our arms. I guess it's just different when you are married after awhile. Well We ended up going to Kohls to exchange some shoes for Brian, went to furniture row to look for some chairs for our Kitchen table. And then ended up eating a great dinner at Olive Garden....... Yep!! we are officially old, we had a great time doing that. Thanks for a great date night Babe, Love you!!

A Cane!

2009-05-14T22:15:00.005-06:00

Yesterday Lauryn was outside playing, tripped and scraped her knee up pretty good. After cleaning her up, wiping the tears away and a couple of Hannah Montana band aids all was better, not much of a complaint after that. Well tonight while in the tub I guess the water and soap irritated her knee and it started stinging pretty bad. I am sure being a girl and the extra emotions didn't help to the drama either. We got her out and while Brian was getting her dressed she was crying and telling him that she couldn't walk and she needed one of those things that grandpas and grandmas use, he could not figure out what she was talking about (as there was a lot of crying involved in the explanation.) I finally had to tell him what she wanted while trying to keep a straight face so she would realize we were taking her injury seriously, that she wanted a cane like supposedly "all" grandpas and grandmas need to walk with. Brian told her that they don't make ones small enough for her, she of course had to disagree with that, but after hopping on one foot to mom and dad's bed, another Hannah Montana band aid, and turning on the Disney Channel, the Cane idea was quickly forgotten, the knee magically feeling better. Oh the funny ideas kids get.

Rantings and Ravings!

2009-05-14T16:30:00.003-06:00

Okay, So I hope that as I do this blog I will not bore you to death but I will be using this as a journal of sorts. (As I am sure thats what most people use there's for.) Also I hope as my children get older they will not be too! mortified of the things I post. I hope you enjoy our rantings and ravings of entertaining and not so entertaining life.

I did it!

2009-05-11T23:46:00.002-06:00

So I finally started a blog. I am still learning how to do everything, so bare with me as I try to figure out all this stuff.