The face that makes me smile!

Madelyn is 6 months old now and has been crawling for about 3 weeks. She also pulls herself up and walks along the furniture. Dang this girl is quick. Avery didn't figure this stuff out for another 3 months!

Remember when...

I caught this picture of Avery playing tonight and I thought to myself of when I used to play for endless hours imagineing and make belive. When did I grow up?

I am making a new goal to let go of my inhibitions and try to enjoy being a kid again with my kid. It is hard for me but when I can do it she loves it and I find that I love it too. It puts me in a better mood for handling the mundane "mom" stuff!

Take it like a woman!

I encourage anyone interested in a good laugh to visit my friend Crystals blog and read her post entitled Davis Mull and Taking it Like a Man!

A warning though, if your are pregnant or considering pregnancy soon you may not want to read this unless you can handle the bear naked truth!

Oh, and this is especially good for the men to read!

http://millertime55.blogspot.com/

My Celebrity Look-alikes!

I don't match anyone as close as Nicole but this was fun.

http://www.myheritage.com/collage

2 going on 16

So, Avery has been telling me she doesn't want to go to church anymore. It has been on and off for the past few weeks but hasn't been a problem when Sunday came around; until this Sunday. This Sunday morning when I asked her to help me so we could get ready for church she said, " I don't want to go to church." I let it alone since we still had time before we really had to get in get ready thinking, "okay, I'll get everything else ready and then tackle her." When that time came Avery stood at the top of the stairs and yelled as only I thought teenagers did, " NO! I don't want to go to church!" It wasn't a nice or matter of fact tone by any meens and I suddenly saw her 13-14 years from now and we might be having this same argument.

So now I am frantically picking my brain for ways to avoid this as an issue in our future. I decided to make tonights FHE (another activity she really doesn't want to do) a focus on this issue. It went as follows:

Opening Song: I Love to see the Temple (Avery sang aloong beautifully while Madelyn led the music)
Prayer: Daddy

Activity / Lesson: The Coodie bugs go to church (when I told her we were going to do this her eyes got big and her face full of excitement)

So we got out Avery's Coodie Bug game. Daddy was blue, Avery -red, mommy -green and Madelyn -pink. We all got dressed for church with our eyes so we could see, are feet so we could walk, our antani so we could hear and our mouth so we could eat sing and talk. After the coodie bug family was ready for church we got in the car (Avery's stroller) and drove to church (the coodie bug box) when we got to church we sang our favorite church song popcorn popping, played in the nursery where we learned about sharing and kindness had snacks and then sang our other favorite church song I Am A Child of God. Then the coodie bug family went home and took their Sunday clothes off and put them away.

Avery said the closing prayer and it went something like this, " Heavenly Father, ganks for the food, ganks for marshmellows, ganks that we can play coodie bugs and Jesus Amen".

So, maybe it was a little successful. I certainly felt satisfied because Avery deffinately enjoyed it tonight and it has me thinking about how I can be more creative in preparing lessons that she can relate to more.

If anyone has any great ideas or sucessful FHE lessons to share please do so as I know we all need fresh ideas occasionally.

Play time after FHE

10 Reasons to go digital...

I love to scrapbook but over the years I have collected thousands of papers, products, embelishments and tools. In reality I am more of a scrapbook supply collector and a wanna be scrapper. In these past months I have decided to go digital and although there is still a place in my heart for all of those beautiful hand made projects going digital is just more practical for me. Here are ten good reasons to go digital:

1. save space

2. no more mess

3. saves time

4. easier to share

5. i think its cheaper?

6. easy do overs

7. much quicker

8. easy preservation

9. you can print them out, photo process them or have a book published...

10. still have lots of fun!

Lagoon

My Mom lives up the street from Lagoon so Brandy, my mom, and me took the kids one day. Then I took Avery back the next night just the two of us for a little date. She loved it I wish I had done more pics. She did many of the kiddie rides but she did the Carousel 3 times and her favorite was the bumper cars which she did 4 times. She told me the "scardy" one was her favorite but I know better; she didn't open her eyes once. It was nice just the two of us. I loved watching her face light up. We also had cotton Candy for the first time. I love Cotton Candy!

Great Grandpa Bell

We decided to drive home from Utah by way of Northern Nevada. My Grandfather lives in Ely and his health is very poor at this time. For the past several years he has suffered many strokes, heart attacks and other life threatening health dilemmas. I thought it would be good to take the girls to see him because I don't know that he has that much time here. I think he has lost his will to live and that is very sad. I now realize that I know so little about him. I am glad I took my girls there and that we have these pictures and memories to cherish.

Stuck in Hawaii?

Well, yes Nicole, we did get stuck in Hawaii. We were going to extend our vacation a few days but little Madelyn was not doing well at home so we dicided to come home. Unfortunately maybe we should have stayed in Hawaii because our flight was delayed several hours then because of mechanical difficulties our aircraft was grounded and we had to wait for another plane to come in from LA to pick us up. We were supposed to get home Thursday but spent the night in the airport and didn't get home till Friday. Then I left immediately from Vegas to pick up Avery from my mom's house in Farmington, Utah. Unfortunately I wasn't aware of the fires in Utah and when I got past Cedar the freeway was at a dead stop. I spent nearly 2 hours at a near stop until I was rerouted onto I20 taking me further into Central Utah. With a screaming baby in the back seat and not having slept in over 48 hours I decided to stay the night in Aurora, Ut. Fortunately my Grandmother lives there. I then left the following evening for Farmington. I just got home yesterday. So the harsh reality is that my vacation is deffinately over! I am in recovery mode now. It may take a few days to get back into the swing of things and catch up on everyone else. Thanks for checking in and congratulations Nicole!

We left the kids at home!

Day 6

Time to go home, see ya next year in Maui...

Day 5

This is my scuba day! I am still waiting on pics but it was amazing. I am determined to get certified. In January we are going to Puhket and in '09 we are going to Fiji so I am way excited to get certified and do this again.


One of the things I love most about Hawaii is watching the sunset. From our beach we can see the most beautiful sunsets. But this trip I missed everyone of them almost, I was determinded to get one sunset in and it was that last night.

Day 4- Snorkel Kapalua Bay

Sand Castle building contest and our friends won!

Dinner was at Mama's Fish House and it was by far the best food I have ever eaten. It had the best presentation of food and the most quaint of atmosphere.

Day 3
Well I was supposed to go scuba diving this morning but the swells created murky water and poor visibility so it was postponed till Wednesday which will work out great because they are going to take is out to Molokini by boat. I can hardly wait. I have always wanted to scuba dive. We did do our training class in the pool this morning though. Now that my afternoon is freed up I am on my way to The Grand Wailea for a message. Life is good but life in Hawaii is better!

Day 2


Yes, it's true. We are in Hawaii and the girls are at home. It was very hard to make the decision to leave the girls but now that I am here I am so glad that we did. I am loving it here in paradise. This is our 4th trip to Maui. We came once before we had kids but then the last 2 years we brought Avery with us and therefore for the last 2 years I went home from Hawaii whiter than when I came because we spent so much time in the hotel room. So, this year it was my goal to get a tan. You can tell from the picture how that came out. But it is worth it to me. I slept better last night than I have in 3 years, I did nothing but lay around either at the beach or the pool and I finished a book today. Tomorrow I am going to scuba dive and I am lovin' it.

Day 1

Pics from our hotel