THE LONGHURST FAMILY

Trip to UTAH~ Dec 2011 ~

2012-02-14T13:55:00.000-08:00

So for My Christmas present this year i told Brent that i wanted us to go to Logan Utah and stay with my sister. After much debate he agreed. ( I'm pretty sure he just figured it was a heck of a lot easier than shopping for me..) We haven't traveled at Christmas time since Ryan was a baby, it has a gotten a little harder since having older kids. It took some swift maneuvers to get all the presents transferred with out notice from small eyes. It was worth the long drive. We had a blast and were sad to leave. I wish all my family lived closer :( Here are the highlights of our trip.

To break up our 13 hour car trip a bit we decided to stay with our good friends in Cedar City where Brent and i went to school about 8 years ago. It was a great visit. Our kids got to play together and we even got a babysitter and went to a movie. Oh and while i did hair the husbands and kids got to go quad riding. A must in Utah. Haha

Dave, Shelley, Me and Brent

After our visit in Cedar we met my sister and her hubby and kid at the Salt Lake city temple to view its beautiful lights. I could not believe how cold it was. My face actually hurt it was so cold. After the temple we met Brent's oldest sister for hot coco and cookies. Just perfect for that cold weather. It was nice to visit with her. We hadn't seen her in a long time.

We then drove up to Logan and settled in there. Here is some of our fun adventures while in Logan..

Christmas Eve

Josh's cousins invited us all to go horse back riding. I haven't been since our honeymoon.And the kids have never been. I was a tons of fun. Although i think we all were a little sore for the next few days

Christmas Eve Night

We did our family tradition of opening one present and its ALWAYS pj's.

I love this tradition and so do the kids.

Putting out the reindeer food

Good Night Everyone..

Christmas Morning

Ryan got a RC truck just like Dads

Lacy got barbies and a play tent

Their own camera's so they stop using mine :)

And finally a wii. I think we are the last people on the planet to get one.. lol

Church on Christmas Morning

Skyping with our missionary brother

And of course playing in the snow

We actually had to drive to get to the snow. In the week that we were in Utah it snowed two times and just enough to put a little powder on the ground. Luckily we only drove about 20 min. The snow was so soft. We couldn't even make a snowball but perfect to eat. Yum yum!

And of course we had to eat some yummy Ice cream at Charlies

And that was our trip to Utah fun and memorable.

Ryan gets older

2011-12-09T13:54:00.000-08:00

Ryan turned 6 on December 1st. Its crazy how time fly's and how your kids are just all of a sudden older. Ryan has been wanting a friend party forever, so we decided this was the year and STAR WARS was the fun theme. He had his friends from church come over and there was a lot of them. 10 six years olds made quite a house full. We played some fun games..

capture the death star

Jedi training obstacle course

and best of all fighting off Darth Vader!

We then had Ryan's favorite food of all time.. Pizza

Ryan had a blast opening presents and he got so many neat things, thanks friends :)

Then best of all.. THE CAKE

My friend made this cake for Ryan. It turned out so so good. All the kids loved it.

R2D2

The party was a great success. Ryan will hopefully remember this cause its not happening again for a long time!!

Summer of 2011

2011-10-02T22:55:00.000-07:00

So this summer was so much fun that i had no time at all to blog...lol! Not really, I mean it was fun and all but the blogging world just got away from me this summer and then it's really hard to catch up. So here is our summer in a nut shell :) Enjoy the story!

Ryan finished up baseball with a bang earning the game ball. He loved baseball and cant wait to start again in the spring.

We got rid of the bunny after it took a chunk out of Ryan's eyelid. The doctors at the ER said it was a first for them seeing a kid bit in the eye lid by a bunny!

We spent lots of time in the garden and it bore beautiful fruit. Lots of tomatoes and onions. Only a few bell peppers survived, but i learned a lot. We currently are growing sunflowers for the seeds and pumpkins. Cant wait!

We spent plenty of time at the beach with a lot of people we love. Here is Ryan with the Russell boys,

Lacy and BFF Tessa

Bryce, Ryan, Logan and Lacy

My BF from high school came for a visit to Cali so we met her and her family at the beach. It was great fun to see old friends and have our kiddos play together. Nick tried to teach Ryan to boogie board but Ryan wasn't up for learning. Hopefully one day he tries it out.

We also spent lots of time in our yard playing. Of course water was usually involved:)

Speaking of Water, we were all up for taking advantage of our neighbors pool!

And of course, our 4th of July block party!

Brent( our neighbor) thinking he was going to hit a pinata! Sorry Brent this was an American holiday, haha

See, star brownies to prove it. Pechanga, which is right across the street, has the best fire works. We just set up our chairs outside our house and take it all in. No driving or crowds. Its the way to have the fourth.

Here are the chillins at our other 4th party( the one with out the fire works, but better food!)

What would summer be like without the ward camp out. This time we had lots of dirt and piles of horse you-know-what, but it was still a lot of fun. Bishop made awesome pancakes in the morning and the kids are at the perfect age for camping. We hardly saw them cause they were off with there friends the whole time.

Fun game i was in charge of helping with.

Brent and Mike won this contest. Its harder than it looks in a picture, but awesome to watch.

Well that was a quick preview of our summer. So sad its over, I love the laziness of summer days lounging out at the beach or pool. Already cant wait for next year.

Lacy Turns Three

2011-07-25T18:32:00.000-07:00

My little Lacy Lou turned three on June 18th ( yes that was over a month ago)

We had a little family party for her at our house. She got to invite over her BFF Tessa Rose. They are so close they might as well be sisters, they sure fight like it anyways. LOL

I let Lacy open one present in the morning and it was a little Happy Birthday outfit. It is actually supposed to be pj's, but she didn't know :)

We had the traditional pancake breakfast

I made her cake! I know its amazing, huh!!!

But really it was a tasty cake with homemade frosting (my fav)

You gotta love the pix i got of her about to blow out the candles. PRICELESS

Opening of the presents, Lacy's favorite part. But if you look closely you will see how shy she is looking. She did that the whole time. I think it must be a phase.

And of course her most favorite present of all, her new princess bike. She is in love and goes riding all the time. Its nice that we can now all go on family bike rides. One of my favorite things!

Her birthday was great, she keeps asking when her next party is going to be. I think the birthdays are coming way too fast. My baby is growing up.

LOGAN

2011-05-08T17:53:00.000-07:00

My Grandparents were going up to Utah and they let the kids and i join in there journey. The first day we left later in the afternoon and made it to Vegas. We spent the night and woke up early for the long part of the trip. 8 hours*** The kids did great. I was so nervous that the kids were going to be bad or loud or any other thing that would annoy 'old people.' But they did great. They were so good i couldn't believe it. We spent the first night in Utah and my friend Shelley's moms house in Farmington. I love to see old friends. Especially friends that you only talk to a few times a year but when you get together your the same old best friends. We had a good time together. We went for a walk the next morning on the Lagoon trail. I had no idea they had Buffalo's at Lagoon but it was sure fun to see them. I cant believe that i didn't get any pictures with Shelley. I think we did but on her camera.

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That day Tiffanie and Josh and Jaxon picked up me and the kids. We had to drop Josh off at the base for his weekend assignment and we had about four hours to waist. We went and hung around the mall and then went to the Hill air force base museum. It was amazing! The kids loved running around and the airplanes were amazing.

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We spent a lot of time at the house just hanging out. The kids got along great! It makes me so happy to have the cousins together playing!

We went to the little tiny Logan Zoo. It was mostly birds but of course the kids loved it, they love everything.

Ryan and josh had plenty of time to play catch. Ryan is in baseball and he missed a couple games while we were gone so hopefully this kept him going.

We went on a hike up in the mountains. I love this picture of the kids. SO CUTE

After the hike Crazy Tiff and Josh decided to go up to Bear Lake. We were having a great day and had nothing else planned so we figured why not, It was a beautiful drive. Nothing was open when we got there but it sure was pretty. I have never seen water so sparkling blue. On the way up we passed a bunch of snow and i promised Ryan that we would play in it so on our drive back home we stopped at a rest stop and played. I brought the kids warm stuff for the snow but i didn't bring anything so here i am knee deep in snow in my flats, no socks and a light sweater. My feet were so so cold! But it was worth it. The kids LOVED the snow.

I sent this to Brent from my phone. He needed some love since he didn't get to come on our journey.

Since Lacy's socks were wet and she was cold we put her gloves on her feet, so funny:)

I cant remember what this place is called but its up the Logan Canyon and there in the back of the cave is an underground spring which i think help make up the Logan river. This was an interesting stop. We got out and at first were going to leave the kids but decided to bring them. We were having a great time. Ryan and Josh were climbing out on the rocks Lacy and i were watching from the side with Tiff and Jaxon. Well Jaxon wanted to touch the water so Tiff leaned him over the little railing to he could touch. As soon as she realized that maybe it wasn't such a great idea she went to bring him back up and her boots slipped on the gravel and they both fell head first into the river filled with sharp rocks. Josh had his back turned but i saw the whole thing. I was standing close to the water. When i happened i turned around to put Lacy down away from the water. By the time i turned back around Tiff was already standing up holding Jaxon. She was in complete shock. She shoved Jaxon into my arms, his face was bleeding and later learned that he cut open his chin pretty bad and his lip too. Tiffanie had two huge contusions on her head and pretty much messed up the whole left side of her body. Luckily they were both okay besides being shaken up. I guess you can never be too careful with your kids.

On our Way back home My grandparents are obsessed with Costco and have to stop at everyone. Its kinda funny but i just went along with it. We stopped in St. George to get gas and went for a spin in Costco. On our way in there were all the guys from Star Wars. Ryan was SOOO happy. He couldn't believe his eyes. Then inside they had candy and prizes. It was the funnest trip to Costco i have ever had. Then at our stop in Barstow we went to the train Mc Donald's. Its an old train station made into a mcd's. The kids thought it was great.

We drove straight through on our way home. It took 13 hours. The kids did pretty good. Overall it was a great trip. Tiff and Josh were great company and so great to put up with me and my two little rascals for 10 days.

Easter Fun

2011-05-02T07:51:00.000-07:00

The Day before Easter my Grandparents, my aunt and her kids and my brother and his wife and kids came over! It was a full house, so fun and loud, just the way i like it! We had an Easter egg hunt and ham sandwiches. It was so nice and relaxing. The kids had a blast as you can see below. I love the pictures right before they went out to collect:)

THE HUNT

THE END RESULT= HAPPINESS

*EASTER MORNING*

Ryan finally got his Super Mario bros game that he has wanted for a long time. Good Job Easter Bunny!

Lacy got Tangled- she had to wait a while for that too. Of course we love it. I have wanted to watch it more than her:0

Easter was great! I think it gets better and better as the kids get older.

Our New Addition

2011-04-07T19:01:00.000-07:00

I had a bunny growing up named Happy. One day we let him out to eat grass in our front yard and someone took him. Since then i have always wanted a bunny. I took the kids to the pet store and we got to hold one. I was in love...Until they said that for the bunny and everything i would need it would cost 180 bucks. Out we went! I went home and looked on craigslist. I found someone who had just got a new baby bunny and ended up being allergic to it. So we scored the bunny, food, cage, and wood chips for 25 dollars. I was so happy. And the greatest part is that she is an amazing bunny. She is so friendly and loves the kids. She is so patient. Needless to say we are in love. Brent said that he got me a baby so i can stop asking.. We shall see.

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Our first WARM beach day!!!

I don't really need to write much. It was a perfect day with the cousins at the beach. I love that the kids are old enough now that i can lay and relax and let the kids play.

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Gingerbread bunny houses

When everyone came for Christmas this year we bought gingerbread houses and of course got too busy and didn't do it. We didn't want them to go to waist so my wonderful mom came up with the idea to do Easter bunny houses. They turned out great and were so fun to make. See the fun..

Brent WANTED to make the frosting, he did a great job!

The kids just wanted to eat everything

Here is the finished product

Hannah was a great help, and isn't this a cool picture!

2011-02-25T08:34:00.001-08:00

FOUR NEW POSTS BELOW

SnOw 2-21

2011-02-24T09:02:00.000-08:00

We went up for a quick visit to the snow on presidents day with our friends. My friends parents run the scout camps up here so we got to enjoy the amenities and great snow that we had all to ourselves. I don't really need to write much, the pictures tell how great it was.

Lacy's first time in the snow ( that she can remember:)

She LOVED eating it

Ryan had no fear and went down the hill probably 50 times. They had a ramp out of snow and he jumped that a bunch. He is so little that he got plenty of air.

My friend Jen and her son Carson

Hannah throwing snow balls, can you see it coming at me!

They had just gotten two feet of fresh snow. It was beautiful. And when you are all bundled up you don't really feel the cold.

Hannah and her friends made snowmen on sleds and then had races. It was cool to watch. Hannah's won!

V day and Friends 2-14

2011-02-24T08:52:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentines Day!!

This year we kept it pretty simple. Brent got me a triple chocolate dipped apple. It was as good as it looks

I made the kids heart shaped brownies!

The boys were thrilled

Our good friends Shelley and Dave and their precious baby Ella came for a visit on there drive through back home. They were supposed to stay and play but had to leave early.

I love to have the kind of friend that no matter how long in between talking we are still best friends!

Ella, Dave, Brent, and Lacy

Long Time No See 2-5

2011-02-24T08:40:00.000-08:00

Grandpa and Grandma Longhurst came for a short visit. We haven't seen them for over a year, so it was a much needed visit. They were really great with the kids. Lacy didn't quite remember them but it didn't take long for her to love them.

They loved to play with Grandpa while i learned to crochet from Grandma:0

It was a lot of fun and we hope to see them again. Sooner than later!

Disney with Friends Feb. 1

2011-02-24T08:20:00.000-08:00

When we went to Disney for Ryan's 5th birthday he ended up getting sick and we left half way through our day. I went and asked if they would give us half day passes to come back and finish our day another time and they did. They even gave us free parking. So what better way to come back and enjoy Disney than with friends. My great friend Shaun came to Disney for their family vaca and invited us along. We only had the night there but it was amazing. There was almost no one there. We walked on every ride. Ryan, Lacy, Katie, and Abby all got to play together, and so did me and Shaun:)

Right when we got there Mickey and Minnie were right there. Lacy was so so excited as you can see in her face. Ryan was a little apprehensive. Not because he was scared i think he was worried about his "image."

ANOTHER GREAT DAY AT DISNEY

LEGO LAND

2011-01-29T21:48:00.000-08:00

So we went to Lego Land this week and it was AMAZING!

We enjoyed our day their more than Disney which i thought i would never say. But this was perfect for our 5 and 2 year old. They loved to see all the statues of everything made out of Lego's.

This was on Lacy's favorite ride. It was jungle themed with all different animals made out of Lego's, of course.

There next favorite one were these Lego cars that they actually got to drive. Lacy was a little under the age limit but we got her in and she drove better than most of the kids.

Ryan loved it as well. I can just see him in 10 years from now. Oh that is coming too soon. The kids got a little licence that they carried around all day. That is until Ryan lost his and Lacy ate hers:)

This next ride was called the claw or something like that. It picks you up and spins you in all different directions. Ryan was actually crying when he got on cause he was so scared, but Brent and I made him go because we knew he would love it. And he did.

Here we are just enjoying ourselvess together!

I cant wait to go back. We just need to find someone to give us free tickets again.

Christmas Day 2010

2011-01-01T22:12:00.000-08:00

Christmas morning, my favorite:0

I told Ryan that when he wakes up to come and get me first. SO 6am roles around and in he comes. I actually made him come in our room and play for a bit since the rest of the world was still asleep. Finally we made him wait long enough and we went to wake up the rest of the bunch. Here is there pix right before we went down stairs. Lacy can hardly contain herself...

I love the first look, Ryan got the ultimate GI Joe battle station. He wanted something all his "mans" could play on. Thanks Santa

You cant see Lacy's face here very well but boy was she excited.

Ryan got his DS he had been waiting for.

New towels, of course Lacy got a princess one:)

And Ryan got a monster one, at least i think that's what it is?

I think Lacy's favorite present was her lip gloss. She carried it around all day.

Traditional picture in front of the tree with all the gifts

Later that my grandparents and Aunt and Uncle came over.

My Uncle Carl was in a band for years so he played and sang some Christmas songs for us

We all sat and listened, Later we had our Carne Asada Christmas dinner. Yum Yum

*Merry Christmas 2010*

Christmas Week

2010-12-31T20:51:00.000-08:00

The beginning of our Christmas week started off with Tiffanie, Josh, and baby Jaxon coming in from Seattle, Washington. The night they got here we threw a surprise birthday party for Josh. His first one ever! It was a blast. All the family came. We celebrated with Josh's favorite, Lasagna and then a very yummy pumpkin chocolate chip cake for desert all thanks to my wonderful mother. Josh was totally surprised.

We took a pretty awesome family picture. This is all the brothers and sisters, their spouses, nieces and nephews, my uncle and his friend, and my grandparents. I cant imagine what it will be like in another 5 years. We will need a bigger room:)

We had lots of cousin time. It was so fun to have Lacy and Jaxon play so good together.

A couple days later we all met up at my house. My mom had surprised everyone with matching shirts. Kind of an inside joke in our house. We all went out to eat at The Money Pitt in San Marcos. I introduced Tiffanie to it last summer and she insists on going there when she comes to visit. We then met up at my uncles diner in Ensanitas for some hot cocoa and then headed to the beach for some family pictures that i am sad to say didn't turn out. Don't take pictures in the dark...

Christmas Eve we headed over to my Brother Troy's house. There was lots of Wii playing!

and lots of opening presents

Grandma and ALL her grand kids

WHAT is this....

Josh, Zach and Brent all got remote control helicopters for Christmas. Pretty much any spare time they had they spent flying the around and having races.

When we got home we did our good ol' pj party.

Lacy, Jaxon, Ryan

Here are the kids about to put the rain deer food out on the front porch. It was so fun this year. The kids were super excited about Santa coming. Up next is the Christmas post.

My Honey Turned 30!!! * NOV 14th *

2010-12-03T09:07:00.000-08:00

I am a slacker and didn't post this a month ago, but i felt like i still should. We celebrated over a two day period, not really on purpose, that's just what happened. Saturday we did our family pictures( below), then came home and dropped the kids off with my family. We went out to dinner at Red Robin (yum:) and then went and saw a movie. My sister Hannah kept saying how boring we were to go to a dinner and a movie, but we had gift cards to both things. Free is okay with me. We had a great time. I love that after almost eight years we still enjoy each others company. I wouldn't want to spend a night any other way than being with my hubby. I am thankful for birthdays. My family has always celebrated big. not necessarily in presents but just making that persons day special. Sunday morning we had the special birthday pancakes. Later, after church, we had presents and carne asade. Brent's all time favorite meal.

HAPPY 30TH BIRTHDAY BRENT!

One year older..

2010-12-01T22:21:00.000-08:00

My baby turned 5 today! I just cant believe it.

We headed out for Disneyland early in the morning and stopped by our favorite donut shop, Ryan picked out his favorite and we sung him 'the song.' We had to substitute donuts for the normal tradition of pancakes but we were all happy. We then headed off to a day at Disney. I forgot my camera in the car( so mad!) We had a fun time until i realized Ryan just wasn't acting himself and wouldn't go on almost any ride. After a few hours i finally decided that he had an ear infection. ( Me- Dr. Mom) We decided to leave early and head for Applebee's, his choice for his birthday dinner.

Here is Ryan at Applebee's with his new toy he got to pick out at Disney. It was a great day spent spoiling this perfect little boy. I couldn't ask for a better son.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RYAN

Kids say the dardest things...

2010-11-15T19:12:00.000-08:00

Lacy-
Me- Brent look at their( Ryan and Lacy) eyes. They are both blue but they looks so different.
Lacy- No my eyes aren't blue, they are PINK.
Me- Really, so what color are my eyes?
Lacy -PINK
Me- What color is Ryan's eyes?
Lacy- Blue
Me- What color are Daddy's eyes?
Lacy- Blue

So from this i get that Girls have pink eyes and boys have blue eyes. Something i never new before.

Ryan-
I love disneyland, i cant wait to go to disneyland for my birthday. I love all the creatures there.
Me- creatures.. you mean characters... lol

I sure do love my kids, they make me laugh everyday:)

A peak of the BEST family pictures!!!

2010-11-14T14:23:00.000-08:00

TurkeyFingers

2010-11-12T07:34:00.000-08:00

My wonderful mom was watching my niece and nephew yesterday, which is always a blast for my kids since they are all so close in age. My mom made sugar cookies and then traced all four kids hand prints on paper then covered the paper with wax paper. She then spent who knows how long cutting out 12 little hands all in there individual hand shapes. After dinner we painted them into turkeys. It was a lot of fun. Here are some pictures of the turkey event...

This is(above) how the cookies started out. Well plus one finger that Ryan ate off.

The painting begins

Some went straight to eating! I think Lacy ate more frosting than what went on her cookie.

You can never go wrong frosting sugar cookies. I have never done Thanksgiving cookies in the past, but i might have to start a new tradition:0 Thanks Grandma

Happy Birthday Hannah!!!

2010-11-07T21:38:00.000-08:00

Today we celebrated Hannah's 14th birthday. It was such a fun day. It started off with The yummiest french toast for breakfast, then off to church. We came home and made the birthday food. On the closest Sunday to our birthday we get to choose what we want for dinner and desert. Hannah chose one of my specialties ( my mom actually make it though.) Italian chicken with rice and corn on the cob. For desert my mom made a Brownie chocolate chip ice cream cake. It was by far the BEST cake i have ever had. Hannah actually thought that it was from a store, she was shocked to know it was homemade. I think homemade things are always better:)

Here are some pictures of the night...

Hannah got some good gifts and we played some fun games. I actually hid her present, which was the new Taylor swift CD, and hid the clues in balloons throughout the house and she had to pop all the balloons and put the clues together to find it. I hid it in the toilet tank. It took her a while to figure it out. We also blind folded her put bright lipstick on and make her play pin the kiss on the cute guy. Lets just say she is a big fan of Taylor or "Jacob." She was totally embarrassed and it was so fun.

My uncle Jimmy put on the socks that he gave to Hannah and we decided he looked like Eeyore, so he went and got my Eeyore cup and tried to look just like him. I think he got pretty close.

I love spending time with my family. Its always loud and crazy, but so much fun.I love that all our kids get along so great. I love having a big family. We definitely miss the ones who aren't close anymore and cant be at our family functions...TIFFANIE. Maybe one day we will all live close to each other.

Pumpkins and Things

2010-10-27T16:27:00.000-07:00

PUMPKINS-

I got the kids little pumpkins to paint thinking this would keep them busy for a while. Well it only lasted about then minutes, but it was a lot of fun and they were really excited about it. Can you believe this is the best picture i could get of them smiling. Usually they love smiling for pictures.
Ryan's pumpkin

Lacy's pumpkin

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BASEBALL

Ryan started baseball in is Jr. Sports class. He is loving it. He has been so good at all the sports he tries. He cant wait till the next week comes around. I already signed him up for a baseball league in the spring. We cant wait:)

(Ryan is the last one on the left)

And of course we cant forget Lacy. This is her feeding the dolphin a candy corn. She is just so precious. I think she loves going to Ryan's sports just as much as he does.

Just Life

2010-10-17T21:17:00.000-07:00

It has been hard to get to the computer lately to blog. I really enjoy it too so i don't know what is wrong with me. I actually have like ten other things i need to get done right now so here is just a highlight of some happenings at the Longhurst house.Lamby was lost for two whole days. This was a tragedy. I actually cried about it and so did Lacy. I swear we looked everywhere. I would randomly throughout the day recruit everyone to get up and look for Lamby. Well a couple days later it was found in the vase, washy thingy. It wasn't sticking out like that, it was all the way in. Ryan said he hid it in there. I'm not so sure i believe him but we were so happy to find it.
We have been spending time with family. I love living so close to my grandparents.

I took out the Halloween box and Ryan and his friends have been playing dress up ever since.

Here are me and the kids

We went to the park to play and it got dark, but look at this cute picture i got:)

We have also started something new as a family. Have you ever heard of Geo caching? If you haven't you need to look it up. Its basically a big game of hide and seek. The kids aren't quite old enough to help all the much but they like finding 'treasure.'

And.....My little brother Zack moved here from AZ this weekend to prepare for his mission. It is already a lot of fun having him here. I cant wait till he gets his papers and we find out where he is going:)

That's it for now. Hopefully i can be more diligent and keep up with my blogging.

Happy, Happy Birthday

2010-09-28T14:44:00.001-07:00

Oh birthdays are so much fun, especially when its your birthday. I think this was one of my favorites for sure. Mt bestest friend Kaylea and her two sisters drove over from AZ Friday night. We had a blast sat. night laughing until way too late at night. The next morning we drove to Disneyland with NO kids. We got matching shirts and were on our way to a day of fun. Here is my 'twinner' and i dancing through main street all lit up!
Kaylea, me, Marinda, and Lana

And of course woody..
The new parade is a dancing parade. It was way different than the parades i have seen in the past, but it was pretty good. At one point they were pulling little kids out to dance and the four of us went out and starting dancing, it was so fun.

Me and Kaylea! Thanks for coming and making my birthday so much fun:)

Kaylea took this picture!

Look at how beautiful. They changed the fireworks too since i had been last and it was the most amazing firework show i have ever been too. Probably the best part of the night.

And since its almost Halloween they had DL all decorated. Even the rides had different Halloween decorations in it.

On Sunday we said a fast good bye to our friends( church was at 10:30 and we were running late, AND it was the primary program which Ryan was in.) After we got home we had My Brother Troy and his family over for dinner. We then went out and tried to find a cache. Its this new thing( to us) where people go out and hide boxes with random stuff and you have to go out and try and find it. You sign in and take something out of the box and replace it with something you have. Well needless to say, you shouldn't go at night b/c we tried to find two and didn't find either.

Then on Monday ,my actual Birthday, my lovely neighbor watched the kids while me and my Mom went shopping at the mall and out to lunch at BJ's my favorite. Here is me and my pazzoki. Yum yum

Later that night Brent and i went out. We went to the mall and got my wedding ring fixed and re dipped. It has never had anything done to it in over 7 years. I have been wanting it done for a while so it was a great present. I picked out a few new shirts( which always makes me happy.!) We then went to see a movie.

Here is a cute picture of us waiting to get in. My family is amazing. everyone made my day extra special. Just when you think you are getting too old to have a fun birthday life surprises you with an extra good one. Thanks to all that made it special. Love you all !!!!

Life

2010-09-18T07:07:00.001-07:00

So life is busy as always! I really want to blog once a week but i realized we don't live a very exciting life. I usually just work out in the morning and keep the kids busy in the afternoon, but i managed to take pictures of a few fun things.Ryan and i like to go on 'dates'
This time we went to McDonald's for some cookies and ice cream. I even climbed around the play place a bit.

Ryan started gymnastics about six weeks ago and has been loving it. Unfortunately this was the last class, but next week he starts Jr. Sports which is eight weeks of trying out all different sports. I hope he we can find one that he is just naturally good at and then start from there. I don't want to force him to do the sport i want him to do(which would be baseball..) So we will see.

Ryan is the one swinging on the bar( thank you Lacy for taking this picture:)

On another note, Lacy started potty training about three weeks ago. She just turned two the end of June so i wasn't so sure how it would go, but i heard girls can train early, so we gave it a try when she started showing signs of readiness. I must say that my next kid i am just waiting until they are like three. Lacy is a little (understatement) stubborn. So lets just say that it didn't take three days but three weeks to get her trained and I wouldn't even say she is a 100 percent. She still likes to surprise me! BUT after all that is said i am so happy to be done with diapers, at least during the day.

And since I am so famous for poop stories on my blog I will now share another... so Lacy at first wouldn't go 'you know' in the potty she would wait till i put a diaper on. The little stinker! So for the past four days she just hasn't gone at all and I kept reminding her that she needs to do it on the potty. " I will give you two gums, a candy, and a Popsicle." and she would say"no." I even tried forcing her to sit there and I tried reading her books on the potty, but nothing happened. So yesterday she comes to me in the middle of the day and says "okay mom, poopoo on the potty." I jumped up and was like "really." She said "yes" and she did. It was so funny, and of course i was so proud. That was a big milestone for us. Now i will just have another baby and be starting all over. I love how that works:)

7 YEARS

2010-09-07T16:03:00.000-07:00

HAPPY 7 YEARS TO US!

So Labor day was our 7 year anniversary. We played in the mountains all weekend and by Monday we were exhausted. My mom offered to take the kids back home in her car so Brent and i could have the rest of the afternoon together. We left camp around 5 and headed down the mountain. On the way i saw dairy queen and got excited. Brent like slammed on the brakes and turned in to get me ice cream. I was so delighted. It had been hot in the mountains and i had been dreaming of ice cream. We each got a dipped cone. Oh so yummy! Unfortunately the pictures of us eating ice cream are the only ones i took of us the whole day. Oh well , i guess we will have to take more next year. We went to eat at Lucille's BBQ. We heard it was so so good and we thought that it should be classified as just good but we had a great time together. I'm just happy that 7 years after getting married that I'm still just as happy if not happier with our marriage. I feel very lucky in this day and age to have a happy marriage. I owe a lot of that to Brent because he treats me like a princess.
Here are our funny faces eating ice cream

We also went and drove around our dream neighborhood and found the house of our dreams.

Isn't it beautiful!!!!

Labor Day Weekend

2010-09-07T10:12:00.000-07:00

Our friend in the ward invited us to go stay at the boy scout camp in Idyllwild. Her Dad is the ranger for the camp and since no one was booked there this weekend we got to stay for free. It was an interesting experience to not really camping and not really be 'cabining' since the cabins were just 4 bunk beds and we had to walk to the bathroom and walk to the kitchen. It was a ton of fun though. We went up on Saturday morning with my mom and Hannah. Saturday we had a blast. We went conoeing, swimming, and made a lot of good food. Sunday we went to the branch up there and I was so amazed to walk in and see only twenty people. I have never been to church with that little people. I guess everyone has like four callings. Anyways, it was just amazing. The people were so nice. The five other families came up Sunday afternoon and we enjoyed barbecuing, games and smores. I think we counted 18 kids between the 6 families, Thank goodness we were outside. I hardly saw the kids the rest of the time we were there.Here is our cabin, lacy took this picture.
Here are the bunk beds, I think Brent was a little too long for them. I guess we did go to boyscout camp not mancamp.

Here is Hannah canoeing

Ryan and Lacy loved it. I think it was Lacy's first time on a boat.

Mom and Lacy

Lacy and her friend Sariah. They play in the bark and sand for about and hour. They were putting it all over themselves and then they said they were taking a shower. It was so cute.

They could be sisters!

Friends and Family to Visit

2010-08-30T15:43:00.000-07:00

So i think my life is getting to that really busy point. I didn't think it would happen this early on but my days are flying by. Most weeks i cant remember what we even did that made us so busy. I cant imagine what life will be like when i have four kids all in school and sports, I'm sure that's a lot harder. So In the past month we have had a couple visitors. My sister Tiffanie came to visit with her beautiful baby Jaxon. Our friend Shannon was able to drive her over from AZ. It worked out perfect. We all got to hang out for a few days together. Below is a picture of all our kids. We went to eat at the Money Pit which is in San Marcos. It is so so yummy. Tiffanie insisted on eating here while she was visiting. My niece and nephew came too.
After we hit up the beach, it was a perfect day at the beach

Shannon, Tiffanie, and me

Here are the kids making there poses

The next day we made pizza. Its my new favorite thing to do. It has become a family tradition. I will never get delivery ever again... :)

On the way to LAX to drop Tiff off at the airport we went to BJ's for lunch. This is definitely my favorite resteraunt. We celebrated Tiffanie and Jaxons birthday with a Pazoki. yum yum! Thanks Tiffanie for coming to visit. We had a great time and i cant wait till we see each other again. Hope fully soon !

Our next visitors are our Best Friends from Cedar City Utah. Brent and i hung out with Dave and Shelley a lot while we lived there. We had two kids before they had their one. We haven't seen them as parents yet so it was crazy! They are the cutest parents ever. Here is Dave with Ella.

Here is me and Shelley. We ventured out in the hottest weather we have had and strolled old town Temecula. We ate at this Italian bistro that was amazing. I cant wait to go back.

Here is Lacy and Ella having a blast jumping together. Lacy was jumping right along side of her.

We had a blast with our friends. They were only here for a short time which was sad but we were happy to see them after all these years.

BODY ART

2010-07-24T07:27:00.001-07:00

Lacy and Ryan were painting one day and Lacy looks at me with the paint brush up to her body and says ,"sure." This is what she does if she wants something that she thinks i will say yes too. I guess i actually say sure:) So since it was almost bath time anyways i said SURE. They had a blast painting themselves. I put there names on there art so they would know who's was who's.LOL!

The only problem now is to convince Lacy that its not body art every time we paint.

Finally the Fourth

2010-07-19T07:23:00.000-07:00

The fourth hasn't been a holiday that has stuck out as one of my favorites. Too many people too many crowds. All that waiting for a few fireworks. Well i have changed my mind and it because we did something totally different this year. Our neighbor told us that we could see the fireworks from our street. We live at the end of a culdasac (which i love.) So we trusted this neighbor and planned a barbecue with our neighbors and had a blast. Instead of traditional hot dogs and hamburgers we had carni asada. Our good friends down the street decided that sounded better too and it was great. I made star sugar cookies and brownies and we had some fun poppers for the kids. And yes we sat on our street and watched the fire works right in front of us. It ended up being a great night with no crowds and the fireworks went on for 30 minutes. AND when it was over we walked straight into our beds :) Here is Ryan with best friend Brice throwing poppers
Lacy sporting her princess cruiser

On the actual fourth( firework show was the third here) we drove up a mountain that is close to us to find the little river flowing through. We found it and it was pretty little. More like a stream at this spot but perfect for the kids. We played for about an hour.

Ryan's true boy came out he took off his shoes and play in the moss and the mud

I love this picture.. look closer

We caughtt little baby frogs. Ryan is actually holding one. If you look real close its in between his fingers. Oh how the kids loved to catch something moving..

AZ VACA

2010-07-13T07:51:00.000-07:00

So i decided to go to AZ by myself with the kids. Brave... I know!

It was a great trip though. The kids were great on the way there Ryan slept three hours, Lacy slept zero. We got to my friend Shaun's house around 11 am. ( we left at 5am!) It was so great to stay with Shaun, we had so much fun and the kids loved to have someone to play with. Although Lacy and Abby , who are only 6 months apart, didn't quite like having to share anything even their space. But they all learned to get along and it was so much fun. Thanks Shaun:) Here are some highlights of the Trip.SWIMMING!!!
one good thing about the hot AZ sun is that you want to get in the water. Here the kids are having a blast.

Here is my friend Kristin with her brand new BEAUTIFUL baby. She was nice enough to let me stay at her house pretty much all day. It was so nice to sit around and hang out like old times. You know you have a true friend when you can come visit after almost a year and it feels like a day since we had seen each other.

We made some fun hair flowers

Our friend Kristin came to visit with her kids. We all went to beauty school back in the day and we get together about once a year to hang out.

Our group of kids gets bigger every year. We will need a bigger couch next year!

My best friend Kaylea and i got to hang out for a whole afternoon without kids. Her fiance offered to watch the kids so we could go wedding dress shopping. We ended up going to lunch at Paradise bakery and oh my was is good. It is the food place i miss the most. We then went to Down East Basics and got some fun clothes. If i was rolling in the Mula i would buy ALL my clothes there. We then went to Arizona bridal to look and ended up buying the most beautiful wedding dress ever. She looks so amazing. I'm so sad that i cant be there for her wedding :( But we had a blast.
Overall my trip was great. I didn't get to see everyone i wanted to, but maybe next time. I cant wait to come again. But this time it will be in the winter time cause man it was hot.

The Last 6 Weeks

2010-06-27T22:08:00.000-07:00

So i don't know what my problem has been with blogging lately. Every time i think about it i get stressed out. Probably cause i promised pictures of the house all cute and decorated and i cant even seem to get it all the way unpacked let alone decorate it. So there are no pictures of the house just everything else. This is all that as happened in the last 6 weeks. Enjoy!Ryan graduated preschool. We did a very low key swim party. It was a blast. Ryan was just happy to see his friends from " California" again. He doesn't realize that we still live in Cali. LOL

So that the little siblings didn't feel left out we let them join in the fun, it was adorable.

Look at this picture closely, you will get a good laugh :o

The three that were actually in preschool.

Avery, Ryan, and Audra

Me and my mama have been cooking it up in the kitchen. I love my kitchen, its one of my favorite places to be these days.( as long as I'm not doing the dishes)

Ryan has finally made new friends. He is such a social butterfly. The first thing he asks in the morning is 'who am i going to play with today?'

We have one small apple tree in the back that is bearing fruit. The kids were so excited. I love this picture too:)

Lacy has hit the terrible two's. Here she is with my mascara all over her face.

AND here she is with a packet of hot cocoa all over her and the chair. At least it smells like chocolate now!

The Birthday

Lacy turned two on June 18th!

I wake up to Ryan running in my room to remind me that it is Lacy's birthday so we go get Lacy and Ryan insists that we open AT LEAST one present so i give in and go get one. I think Ryan was more excited that Lacy. But she was very happy. She loves animals so i got her some littlest pet shop stuff and she loves it so much.

Our traditional pancake breakfast. I had to relight the candle like ten times. She loved blowing it out.

Later that night we had a little family celebration. I love this cake and so did Lacy. Ryan only ate the cake and Lacy only ate the frosting. They couldn't be more different. We then opened presents. More littlest pet shop and a baby doll from Grandma and Grandpa Longhurst.

The Party

I decided to throw a small party to celebrate Lacy's Birthday. Well It ended up being not that small but so much fun. We had cup cakes, hot dogs, chips and drinks and lots of water( the kind you play in). I have to tell of the unfortunate incident right before all the guests got to the party. So i set up the tables and brought out the water and the cupcakes and decided to move the table well about 20 seconds later it decided it didn't like where i moved it and crashed down. Not only did the cupcakes fall, the glass plates and then the water on top of that. I was horrified. That was the only desert and i didn't have any more. So i salvaged the ones that i could and threw the rest away. I still cant believe it happened. But the rest of the party turned out great. One of the little girls told her mom that this was the best day of her life and my Grandpa said it was the best little kid party he had ever been too. He might have been saying that to be nice but i am taking it to heart. The kids did have a blast.

We a had a 'baby pool'

water balloon fight

slip n slide

and more presents. I re painted the baby crib and high chair and my sister made a baby pillow and blanket. it turned out great.Lacy loves it and it looks so nice that they are toys that i don't mind being out in the open.

She got some really cute things, Thanks all!

I got her this wagon that she pulled all her small presents around in. I think the wagon is her favorite toy now.

HAPPY FATHERS DAY

Some things in life turn out perfect, fathers day was one of them for me. I made 'big breakfast' which pretty much entails all breakfast food at once. But the thing that was great was the gravy. I made it about four years ago and screwed it up terribly and said i would never make it again. When i told Brent that i was going to make it he actually told me not too. He was afraid that it would turn out bad and then he would not have a happy wife the rest of the day. He knows me all too Well. I take my cooking very seriously. Anyways, it turned out GREAT.

The kids got him candy and shirt and i got him a new electric razor. He was a happy man. We did good. By the way honey just in case you ever read this, I love you and i am so glad i married you and no one else. You have turned into the greatest Dad and our kids love you so much. Thanks for all you do:)

Our New Place:)

2010-05-07T19:30:00.000-07:00

So we moved! It was one crazy move. Probably not as crazy as the last one where i knew i was moving and three days later moved, but it was a lot of work. We moved all our stuff from the apt on Wednesday and then Thursday we went to our storage and moved everything from there. So two straight days of lifting and moving. I hope we can stay in this house till we want to buy. So below are a couple of pictures of the house when it was still empty. I will do more later when i find the time. It is a beautiful house. I am so so happy. Having to be in an apartment for a year has really taught me to appreciate space and a yard. The kids are still in some kind of shock from moving. I think all of us will be happy when they are adjusted and their "nicer" attitudes are back. So far i am loving the ward. The people are so nice and down to earth. Much more on my level than the wealthy side of San Diego. My mom and sister Hannah also moved with us. We are very happy they are here. We are one big happy family and they have been such a huge help through all of this. I cant wait to start our life here and make new friends. Oh and i totally cant wait to decorate. I have had basically the same colors and deco since we were married so time to move on.Entry, our beautiful stairs case and behind is the formal rooms
This is the kitchen, straight through is the formal dining room and behind that is the family room. The only room down stairs that has carpet is the formal rooms everything else is tile. I need slippers cause my feet are killing me.

Here is part of the back yard. This is one of my favorite things about this house is the yard. It is seriously huge. It came with the play set you see in the distance. It needs a little TLC but the kids are already loving it. Back to the right is a huge space fenced off where we will be planting a garden. Its a little late in the year so we will have to find out what can be planted in the summer.

Ryan's First Baseball Game

2010-04-21T19:53:00.000-07:00

On Monday Brent called me with good news. He got 4 tickets from his boss to the Padres game. Brent and i are not huge fans of sports. As a matter of fact one of the major reasons for marrying Brent was that he didn't spend his life watching sports on TV. It might be because that's all my Dad did and i hated it. Anyways, i was pretty excited because Ryan is getting into sports and we have convinced him that he is a great baseball player. He was so excited to be there. Hannah also loves going to games so i was so glad that we could take her. It was a super fun game. Since we got four $50 tickets for free we felt a little better about splurging and getting whatever looked good, something we would normally not have done. So i feel like the whole time we were just eating really yummy bad for you food and that's all i really got pictures of.Ice cream cookies, cotton candy
Family shot

Yummy nachos

And hot dogs! I'm not too sure what kind of face he is making. When i told him to smile for the pix he did and then when i looked at the picture after taking this is what i saw

Two really neat things happened at the game. #1 Hannah made a lot of noise and got thrown a ball. #2 we saw a guy with a video camera taping some people and when the live shots came on of the crowd we started going crazy so he would get us and he did so we were all on the big jumbo tran ( or whatever they call it.) It was pretty exciting out of 50,00 people we got on the big screen.

poopy BATH story

2010-04-15T22:51:00.000-07:00

WARNING: if you are not fond of poop stories don't read!!!
Okay so i know as mothers we all have poop stories, i don't write all of them down, but this is a pretty good one. Well, now that its all cleaned up its good! So Lacy and Ryan are in the bath and Ryan yells "Lacy is pooping." To which i say "okay, thanks for telling me." Lacy has a hard time in this area and it takes her a good long time to get anything out. Ryan continues yelling at me so i finally take her out and put her on the potty and she goes. Since she is kind of potty training i give her treats. Well Ryan thinks he needs a treat too so i put Lacy back in the bath and give them both suckers. After all thats probably the safest place to give a kid a sucker cause they cant get dirty in the bath! See how smart i am???
So a little bit later Ryan starts yelling that she is pooping which i ignore again because she just went. After a bit i realize i should take her out just in case and then decide to just get them both out. The rest of the day every time i walked by the bathroom it didn't smell right. So tonight after the kids are in bed and i have a minute to pick up the bathroom and all the toys i really just smell poop, and it should have hit me but it didn't until as i am picking up the toys i see something that is not a toy. And you know what it was. I just about died. Needless to say i let them take ALL there toys in the tub today so i not only had to clean the tub but ALL their toys too. It was very interesting. For the fun of it if you read this and your poop story tops mine you should share it, wouldn't that be fun, we could all share our poop stories. Tiffanie you should tell yours... ha ha!

Easter, Beach, and other things...

2010-04-12T21:32:00.000-07:00

So Easter was great this year. I didn't do as much as i wanted because my mind was occupied with MOVING. Yup we are moving. The apts didn't want to work with us and so we found a house in Temecula CA that we will be moving into in about two weeks. More to come on that later. We had three Easter egg hunts this year and i think we ended up with more candy than we had at Halloween. The kids loved the chase for the eggs. Lacy caught on very quickly. I think once she new candy was in the eggs nothing would get in her way. She wanted them all. Ryan ended up with more eggs than anyone at our ward Easter egg hunt. I made him share with others cause it was quite embarrassing that he had so many.Before
And after. She is so happy!

His bucket is overflowing!

The next one was at my grandparents house. They were so nice to have us come over. They hid all the eggs and fed us a yummy lunch.

Here they are with there cousins Eddie and Dillan

Me and the Babes

The Easter bunny came...

We must have been thinking alike cause he brought summer themed items, that's just what i would have done:)

Ryan was so happy. I have been trying to get him into soccer lately and it hasn't been working, well it's because it was the wrong sport. For never really playing softball before Ryan was very good at it.

Lacy was happy with her Princess and the Frog movie and fruit snacks.

We were kind of slacking on painting eggs and i almost got away without doing it this year but Ryan reminded me so we painted eggs. It was quite fun, after they were dry Brent and i hid them around the house. They loved it and i loved that there was no more candy.

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We went to the beach last week while Hannah had spring break. It was the perfect day. Great weather, no bird poop, great company. Just a perfect day.

Ryan finding all the rocks

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I signed up my family for the 'Give a day, get a day' Disney thing. We chose to make welcome home baskets for family's who lost their home in the southern cally fires a couple years ago. There are still like 700 + families that still haven't rebuilt after they lost there home. It was great fun to do and great that we all get to go to Disney for free. We are planning on going in December so we can see all the Christmas deco.

My mommy, Brent, Hunter, Lacy, Ryan, and me
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Here are the kids on our way to church in their new Easter outfits. Well Ryan is supposed to be wearing the pink tie i bought him to match Lacy's outfit but he told me he wouldn't wear it to church because he said that people will think he is a girl. I assured him that they wouldn't and boys can wear pink 'sometimes.' He told me that he would wear it to get pictures in but not for church. So i agreed.

Oh how i ADORE my kids. I love them so much and i am so grateful everyday to be there mother. It really is the greatest gift.

Getaway

2010-03-31T21:48:00.000-07:00

So Brent works A LOT in the summer months and since that time is fastly approaching we thought we should take a little vaca just the two of us. My mom was nice enough to watch the kids at a moments notice. There are many perks to having my mom live here and this is one of them. We decided to stay pretty close so we didn't have to waste time or gas driving somewhere since we live in one of the best vacation spots around. We ended up going to a place called the Inn at Rancho Santa Fe. It was truly amazing. Almost a little to ritzy for me, but just enough to where you feel spoiled. We were in the 'cottages.' It was like a little piece of heaven. Our room was almost as big as our apartment. The bed was so soft you didn't want to get up once you laid down and the bathroom was what i would want in my dream bathroom. Here are some pictures of our room below. It had an awesome fire place. They had it all ready to go with wood, and newspaper and kindling. Even a really stupid person could light this fire.
Here is the bed, so beautiful

Oh the tub!

The first morning we were there we decided to go on a walk. There is an amazing golf course right there so we walked about three miles around it. Since there was no one golfing right then we decided to explore. We walked to this very little waterfall, across some bridges, sat on some hills until we saw golfers coming and got off the field. Since the whole bird poop thing i am trying to not let anything land on me. It was a great peaceful morning.

Here is a friend we met along the way.

Next we snuck back to our apartments to discuss leasing options( it was our last day to do so.) They pretty much told us they they don't give a D***( don't worry that really isn't a swear word, what were you thinking of me..) about us and that if we wouldn't pay the outrageous amount they wanted to raise our rent that someone else would. I hate apartments. I miss owning our own home and cant wait to do so again in a couple years. This time we will be much smarter. Anyways after that we went to lunch at this really good Texas barbecue place. And then spent the night being without kids and all alone. The next morning after sleeping in and taking as long as i wanted to get ready we left our lovely second home and went for the afternoon to the beach( all alone with out kids, did i mention!!!)

First we stopped for lunch at El Indio ( if you come to San Diego stop by here you wont be disappointed.)

And go to Torrey Pines beach. It is amazingly beautiful. We had a blast finding rocks and shells for the kids cause the best gifts are the ones from the heart ( or the free ones..hehe). Then we laid out our towel and took a nap. AND i didn't get pooped on once. It was great. I think Brent and i are going to make this an annual get a way. I love just being alone with my husband in such a wonderful place.

Shamu Friends

2010-03-22T07:50:00.000-07:00

So last Thursday my good friend Shaun invited me to go with her family to Sea World. I love going with good company, it makes it so much more fun. I haven't seen Shaun for about 5 months so it was so fun to hang out and actually talk in person instead of over the phone. The kids loved being with each other too. When we first got there we decided to see the sharks and on our walk over we see this (below). About 20 flamingos walking down the street. It was cool to see tham so close. One nearly ran over me and Lacy.Lacy, katie, and Ryan all going for a ride

Me and the kids at the sea lion show. It is one of my favorites.

Terry, Shaun, Abby and Katie at the Shamu show.

I must say that now that 'the people' cant go in the water the show just wasn't the same. I hope they change there minds soon.

Thanks once again Whipple family for inviting me. It was an amazing day. I loved hanging out with you.

Happy Green Day!

2010-03-22T07:21:00.000-07:00

And it was green...lots of green eggs. I have to say they were actually kind of hard to eat like that. I had to close my eyes. But the kids loved it. I think i will have to color eggs more often. Later we painted shamrocks, cut them out, and then i hid them throughout the house for the kids to find. It was a great activity.

Ryan has been obsessed with drawing and coloring lately. He learned how to color in the lines and he does an amazing job, so he loved this. He took his time and his turned out really well.

That night i printed off free burrito coupons for Baja Fresh from facebook. All you had to do was buy a large drink for 2 bucks and you got a $7 burrito for free. And they were so so good.

Here we are chowing down..yum yum!

Lacy & Ryan

2010-03-11T07:15:00.000-08:00

Sometimes i feel like life just gets away from me. Days seem like forever, months pass by quickly. I carry my camera a lot less than i used to. I feel like i don't capture as many of those special little memories that i want. Well here are a couple that i did capture that i want to remember. Lacy has been on a clothing binge. She is always putting on lots of clothing. Hers, Ryan's, mine and well anything laying around, hanging up or in Antone's drawers. She is also taking of her clothing these days. Especially at night. I HAVE to check on her at night before i go to bed. MOST nights she is either naked all the way or maybe she just took her diaper off or her pj's. Last night i went in and she had thrown out all her blankets and stuffed animals but she was at least dressed. As i bent down to pick up her blankets i picked up a diaper. I looked over at her and all her clothes were on , so i go over and feel her and yup there is no diaper on.
Here she is with swim diapers around her ankles. She gets really inventive.
I also wanted to note that she is highly afraid of feathers. For some people its foil, some its the dark but my child is afraid of feathers. Also when Lacy is concentrating on things she makes the s sound over and over again. It is the curtest thing. ssssssssssss

Ryan is doing lots of interesting poses for the camera lately. Thank goodness we don't have any clothing issues with him lately. Four is actually going quite well. Now i just have to be constantly teaching lessons, which he actually understands quite a bit. Pre school is going well. He is finally coloring in the lines, which i think is a great achievement. Now the big decision is whether to put him in kindergarten this year or not.

The infamous monkey that he still loves!

I was busy the other day and i knew Lacy was getting in trouble some how because she was really quite. So i go into the kitchen and i see this...

She had pushed a chair over to the pantry, found the packet of hot cocoa, chewed it open and was eating it. I let her have some more as i continued to snap away. I probably should have taken it away and put her in time out or something but i thought it was cute.

Here is Ryan and Avery. They are still inseparable. We shall see what the future holds. I think its so funny that we sit around and talk like our kids are going to get married. I know the chances are slim but wouldn't that be a great story.

Here is Ryan and Lacy having fun, getting everything dirty. As you can see the pine needles all over the porch, i guess i should have swept first.

Tiffanie's Special Weekend

2010-03-05T06:49:00.000-08:00

My sister Tiffanie recently came here to San Diego to get sealed to her family. It was such an amazing time. We started off the week just right by leaving the kids at home with Grandma and going to Sea World. Since Brent couldn't get off work it was just me Tiffanie and her husband Josh. I didn't care if i was the third wheel or not i wanted to go and get a break. It was so much. There was hardly anyone there. We rode Atlantis like three times in a row never waiting in line. The neatest thing of all was getting picked to help with the dolphin show. I cant believe he picked me. I was only up there for a few minutes. I had to hold the pose below like the whole time. It was hard work, but worth it.

The Shamu show really is amazing!

Me and Tiff

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Our next stop was the Mormon battalion in down town San Diego. We actually stumbled upon it on accident. We had an hour to kill before we had to pick up my sisters bff from the airport and I'm so glad cause this place is amazing and free. If you are ever making a trip to San Diego this is must see.

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Girls night out

After Tiffanie's endowment Friday night all the girls went to BJ. Probably my favorite restaurant. All their food is the best.

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Sealing Day- February 13Th 2010
It was the most amazing experience to go to the temple with Tiffanie. I had the greatest opportunity to be her Guide. It was truly amazing, an experience i wouldn't trade for anything. Thank you Tiffanie for giving me that chance. This day was absolutely perfect. It was neat to see my sisters family get sealed for time and all eternity. I'm so proud of my Sister for following through with her dream. Here is a picture of almost everyone that came.

THE JOSH WHITE FAMILY

My little family roaming the hills

Me and Tiff

All my siblings

left to right

Troy, Tiffanie, Hilarie, Candice, Zachary, and Hannah

After the temple we all went to Pat and Oscars to eat.

Here is all the girls

me and Candice

Lacy loved the cake

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The Beach
After Pat and Oscars we went to the beach and watched the sun set. It was a lot of fun. The kids still played in the water a bit despite the freezing cold.

Brent was showing lacy the water from the Pier.

Laying down star gazing

Cutest boy ever

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Sunday February 14 2010

Jaxon Baby Blessing

Tiffanie and Josh blessed Jaxon in my grandpa's ward so that the whole family could be there. It was another great day. This is in front of my Grandparents house after the blessing. We has some really yummy food and some extra hang out time with Tiffanie and josh before they moved away to Washington. Its kind of weird when you grow up and your family all moves away. I miss you already Tiff and i cant wait to go visit Seattle.

CUTEST COUSINS
Jaxon and Ryan
Ryan, Jaxon, and Lacy

It was really hard to get them all to look. It was too much for them all to smile.

Josh and Lacy lou- Lacy loves Josh. We were all glad to see him after he had been gone for a year in Korea.

Dresses and Aprons

2010-03-03T11:01:00.000-08:00

I am not one for online contests or at least posting them on my blog but my really good friend here in San Diego makes the cutest girls dresses and women's aprons and she is giving away a prize of your choice of her blog. So please pop on over here http://polkadotcanar.blogspot.com/ to check it out. It only takes a second to enter and you might win something. Thanks Hilarie

3 HOURS?

2010-02-22T11:49:00.000-08:00

WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU HAD THREE HOURS TO YOURSELF?Well, I had this day all planned out. No kids, three hours. Great! I usually go grocery shopping or clean my house, but since i dont have any money i decided i wasnt going to go out. I could clean my house, but i really didnt feel like it. So i decided to blog and catch up on my private practice. So i drop the kids off and get back home and all i see is a mess. So off course i say to myself "i will just clean for a minute." Well it turned into about 30 which is not too bad considering the mess i had or i should say my two rascals had. So then i sit and watch my show meanwhile feeling guilty that i am watch TV in the middle of the day. But not guilty enough to stop. Then i come in my room to blog. I really want to blog. I have for the past couple weeks, but every time i try something comes up. Or i just start feeling overwhelmed. I hate when i am behind on blogging because then it takes so long to catch up and then you have to decide if you should even catch up or just start from today. I don't know. Well after downloading my pictures and editing them and writing all this i only have maybe 20 min to blog so here i go.

First of all i am going to catch up, and i will start with February 3rd my little sisters bday. Candice just turned 22. Wow i know we all grow up but for some reason its weird when younger ones grow. Since she just moved here to Cali and doesn't really know anyone yet we had her over for a party. I decorated the house and blew up balloons and even made her a cake. I'm sure when she walked in she probably thought i went crazy and forgot that she turned 22 and not 5 but i just couldn't help it. We then went on to make her special birthday dinner from scratch. Alfredo... something i have never done. It turned out good, not great. Then we watch Lost! LOVE LOST! Here is what Lacy looked like after she helped!
Here is the beautiful cake, i think i might need to take a cake decorating class in the future:)

Happy Birthday Candice

Wild Animal Park-

We haven't been for a while so i took the kids the other day. After not being able to get a hold of my friend we decided to go by ourselves. It was kind of hard for me because well i think i am a little co dependent on people. I like to be with other people. So we get there and the first thing we saw was this little show on wild dogs and this lady about my age with two kids about my kids' age stands next to me to watch. Well we ended up walking around the rest of the time together. See told you i was co dependent... It was so fun. The kids played together and we chatted. It ended up being a really fun day. Here are some pix.

Oh i LOVE her

Ryan got one and she wanted one and she wouldn't let go until i gave in. She is a very determined little girl.

where's Ryan?

There he is!

They love this log.

Valentines Day

I didn't go all out. Everyone just got some candy and a hug from me.

Brent surprised me with an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen. Oh it was so so good. chocolate chips and strawberry's. Thank you Husband, you did a great job this year:)

Christmas Letter

2010-02-22T11:47:00.000-08:00

Every year we like to do a Christmas letter, well this year we decided to go green. So here is our online, blogger Family Christmas letter.As a family this year we moved to San Diego, went to the beach a lot, traveled 6 times back to Az, did summer sales AGAIN, went on a cruise, had wonderful holidays and enjoyed being together as a family.Brent- finally had his hard work payoff and NEVER will be doing summer sales again.Hilarie- got into cooking and baking, continues to do hair and scrapbooking, and spends pretty much all her time taking care of two (moslty)wonderful kids.Ryan- started preschool this year, turned four, loves girls more than boys (im not so sure this is a good thing), loves sunbeams, loves torturing his little sister, and his favorite thing to do now is ride his new scooter he got for Christmas.Lacy- turned one this year (now 18 months), Finally in nursery and loves it, walks, runs, says an amazing amount of words for a 1 1/2 old, likes to torture her brother equally as much as he likes to torture her, loves food, loves dogs or any animal that resembles a dog( hairy with four legs).We have had a wonderful year. Lots of crazy ups and downs but what would life be like if it was perfect all the time. I think hard times brings family's closer together. Family is the greatest blessing. I hope everyone has a wonderful new year. I have a feeling next year will be a good one. :)

Bad Luck

2010-02-12T06:31:00.000-08:00

So i used to not believe in bad luck. I am a pretty positive person. I mean i have my days i guess but overall i would think that if something bad happened it happened for a reason. Well my thoughts on that issue are changing.
About a month ago i was at the beach with my family. We are all sitting around and having a great time and then all of a sudden a bird poops on my foot. I was so grossed out. But at least it was just my foot. Well then about thirty minutes later a poop bird poops not only in my hair but also on my face and shirt. I thought i would die. Come on twice in one day, something was wrong with that. THEN, yesterday i went to sea world with Tiffanie and Josh (pix to come) and we are all sitting down eating when yet again a bird poops on me. Okay three times in one month. Isn't that impossible. So now i am thinking that maybe there is such a thing as bad luck and i have it. Does any one know of some sort of spell or something to get rid of it, because i don't want it.

When 4 became 6!

2010-01-19T19:23:00.000-08:00

No I'm not having twins. It's even better, my mom and my little sister came to live with us. It has been a crazy adventure fitting all of us in here, but i am happy to have them here. My mom got here last Wednesday with a huge moving truck. We unloaded the stuff that was staying here and then we went on Thursday to our storage to unload the rest. Man, moving is a lot of work. Friday we kind of rested with sore bodies and unpacked the house. Saturday my mom flew back to AZ to finishing packing and get her car. ( Congrats mom on flying since you haven't flown in 20 years.) She comes back tomorrow. My sister Candice is coming back with her to live with my uncle Jimmy and work in his Cafe. My other sister Tiffanie is moving in about three weeks to Washington. So out of all my family my little brother Zack is the only one left in AZ. Its kinda sad. We have all made AZ our home the last ten years. I guess California was calling us back. I'm excited for the adventures that lie ahead. I think life should be the way it used to be when everyone lived close to their families. I don't have any pictures to post because i haven't taken any. I need to do better. Ta ta for now...

So Cute..

2010-01-09T21:40:00.000-08:00

So while putting Ryan to bed lately he wants us to rub his back so he can get to sleep. I am usually not all about these kind of habits because they take along time and i think kids should fall asleep on their own. Anyways, i gave in and now we do it every night. He usually gets almost to sleep in less than 5 minutes and then we leave the room. So tonight it was Brent's turn to put him in bed and read stories and rub the back. I have been online doing different things when i realized it had been like 45 minutes. So i just barely went to check on them and they are both sound asleep in Ryan's little twin bed. I want to take a picture so bad but then it would wake them up..darn!

Christmas Time

2009-12-29T21:45:00.000-08:00

This was probably my favorite Christmas in a long time. Its not that i haven't enjoyed them in the past, its just that this one went so well. I love being at home. I love having little kids around to bring on that Christmas spirit. I remember last year Ryan didn't quite get what was going on and Lacy just ate the wrapping paper. This year Ryan KNEW what was going on and Lacy was in for the ride. They were so excited about every little thing we did. My mom came to watch my brothers kids, so she was here for Christmas. It was so fun to have her and my little sister around. Lacy just loves Hannah. We started out our festivities this year with a new tradition. Since we will be living here in San Diego for a while i found this really neat thing they do here called the boat parade of lights. Its off the harbor in downtown San Diego. It was absolutely amazing. We sat on the grass and had dinner while watching like a hundred boats pass by all decorated with lights and music. We also went to see Santa. It was actually my first Santa mall experience since having my own kids. It wasn't as bad as i thought and Lacy didn't even cry.

We spent the day before Christmas eve and half of Christmas eve with my mom and sis. We had a good time baking fudge and rolls. I think i can make fudge all by myself now, which is a great achievement for me. Christmas eve we woke up and had monkey bread. My new favorite breakfast desert( thanks Shaun.) Then we decorated Christmas cookies for Santa. We also started another new family tradition and that is to have Carniasata every Christmas eve. Its one of our favorite Mexican dishes. We of course opened our pj presents and took pictures by the tree. Christmas Day was amazing. The kids were so excited. Lacy got a princess chair and Ryan got a scooter among other things. Brent got me the most beautiful necklace and i got him new shoes( how romantic huh?) That night we headed over to my Grandpas for Christmas dinner with the rest of the family here in Cali. It was a great holiday. Having little kids makes it that much more fun. I cant wait till next year. Lacy all decked out in her presents
Ryan with his new race track

Pj pictures- uh i thought i turned this around, maybe not, but i am too tired to change it so i guess you will just have to turn your head to look at it.

decorating cookies

Or should i say eating

Opening presents from grandma

My beautiful fudge

Lacy already helping in the kitchen

And last but not least... Santa and the kids

Paige, Lacy, SANTA, Ryan, and Hunter

Its a Party!!

2009-12-08T21:54:00.000-08:00

WE SOLD THE CAR TONIGHT, ITS A HAPPY DAY!!!

Presents and Chukie Cheese

2009-12-07T07:38:00.000-08:00

So for Ryan's birthday we:

opened presents
(he opened these and said "these are my smash hulks," like five times.)

went to Chuckie Cheeese with our cousins

blew out moms ghetto cake

He didnt know that it was ghetto, but i was pretty embarrased. I used the last of the batter left over from cup cakes. We were going to eat this ghetto one at home and get a nicer one, but there was no time. ( This explanation is mostly for me :>)

opened more presents ( thank you Hunter and Paige)

forced cousin pictures

forced a very cute family picture

...and of course played some games.

(I was hoping she would score me some big points this way but she favored putting them in bottom.)

We also had Brent's work Christmas party. Here are some cute chocolate covered kids.

Selling our Car..PLEASE HELP

2009-12-04T10:58:00.000-08:00

We are selling our car...

2005 Nissan Sentra

Power everything,tinted windows, cruise control, cd player, and more.

We are asking 5.795

It kelly blue books at 6,000

It has kind of high miles at 93,000 miles but these are mostly freeway miles. We have taken very good care of this car. Its in great working condition. Pass the word along. Thanks
Call Hilarie at 480-518-1176

How did that happen??

2009-12-01T12:36:00.000-08:00

How did my little baby boy turn FOUR...

It was just yesterday that i was holding you in my arms and you were so teeny tiny. It was just yesterday that you took your first steps. It was just yesterday that you loved me more than your friends. I cant believe you are growing up so fast.

I cant imagine life without you. You keep me on my toes. You help me to find my imagination. You help me see the good in the world and other people. I love you Ryan Our family tradition to have pancakes with a candle
Ryan taking cupcakes to preschool

Lacy wanting in on all the action:)

Old Husband!!

2009-11-18T07:41:00.000-08:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRENT ( November 14th)

I looked at Brent this morning and told him he was old, and then asked him how this happened? We were just young and just married and now we are just getting old. Brent is 29. Happy Birthday Honey...I love you!Family tradition- waking up to warm, yummy pancakes. I have to put chocolate chips in his so he will eat them.
Brent had to work on his birthday, but he was able to get off early. When he got home he didn't even have time to shower because somebody wanted the presents opened. You guessed it, it was Ryan. He just couldn't wait any longer.

Brent got some new pants, a wallet, and a big thing of fudge ( which i bought mostly for myself:)

Pee Pee on the Potty

2009-11-17T21:37:00.000-08:00

Lacy went pee on the potty for the first time today. It was so exciting. I know it doesn't mean she is potty trained, i am just so glad she likes to try and isn't afraid. It was a wonderful moment. Good Job Lacy

Hair And Gardens

2009-11-09T10:49:00.000-08:00

So hair first...

Lacy let me do her hair yesterday:) It was joyous day. You know i had a girl so i could do her hair and she has been bald since birth..so now that she finally has a little bit of hair, i am so excited. The side pony and flower only lasted two hours, but they were a great two hours:)

The self realization center in Encinitas, Ca
This is not a place to take kids because its supposed to be a quiet place to think, well i really wanted to go, so we went. We didn't get too many strange looks, maybe a couple laughs. It was so beautiful. It is set right above the beach, and we went at sunset so it was just gorgeous. The kids had so much energy all they wanted to do was run around. And Lacy has this really loud scream these days, that didn't help. They did get out all there energy for the 30 min ride back home.

I had my Aunt Chris take a pix of me, since i don't have hardly any.

It was Great fun. My Aunt Chris and Uncle Carl came too. They helped keep an eye on the kids and it was nice to visit with them.

HALLOWEEN

2009-11-03T21:01:00.000-08:00

WARD TRUNK OR TREAT-

I invited my grandparents to hang out with us for a couple hours on Halloween. They came with us to our ward activity. It was a lot of fun to have them there. We enjoyed some yummy Chili and mac and cheese. I took my special chili and it was a hit cause it was all gone. I was so sad cause i really wanted to bring some home. I guess it was just that good. My grandparents were nice enough to pass out our candy while Brent and i took the kids around. It was so much fun. Ryan took off and we constantly had to call him back. He couldn't get the candy fast enough. Ryan was a pirate this year. He looked so cute in his costume. He had an eye patch and a sword that we didn't get any pictures of :(

Lacy was a cute little pumpkin half the night and a Ninja the other half( I'll explain a little later) After this we went to a nice neighborhood and got some great candy. Lacy and Ryan ate so much they really haven't asked for any since then.
They had a parade, which i thought was a great idea. We got to walk all around and show off the cute kids.

Here is the clan, again!

This is how he looked all night. He is so cute. I would definitely give this little boy all the candy he wanted.

This is my favorite costume i ever seen. It is so creative, i just had to take a pix.

Friday-Halloween Eve

2009-11-03T20:43:00.001-08:00

Friday i got Ryan and Lacy all dressed up and we met some friends at a local school for the Fall Festival. Don't they just look so cute. We played a couple games and let the kids run around a bit.
I think they had more fun running around than playing the games!

This is Lacy the ninja girl. Or Lacy without her pumpkin costume on. She looked like a ninja for most of the Halloween festivities. And everyone thought she was a boy...Hello take one good look at her. Does she look like a boy to you? Maybe a really really cute boy...with earrings!!!

After the Festival we drove to Ensanitas to go to my Uncles new coffee shoppe. They had these girls singing that are going to be featured on the Disney channel. I thought it would be neat to see them before they got all big and famous. My uncle treated us to yummy hot cocoa and the best darn chocolate cake Ive ever had. Brent doesn't even like cake and he ate a whole piece by himself.

Here is Lacy checking out the hot cocoa. She wanted to make sure it was good before we tried it.

It almost looks like a beard, huh?

Pumpkin Carvin

2009-10-27T07:32:00.001-07:00

So as i was shopping at the mall yesterday and ,against my better judgment, decided to stop in and say hi to See's candy. Yummy :)-

All i really wanted was the free tasty but once i got in i felt bad for just walking out so i decided i would buy the family a sucker. I grew up eating them. They are sooo good. 1 vanilla, two chocolate, and 1 butterscotch. We were carving pumpkins that night so i decided maybe we would start a tradition and eat See's candy suckers while carving pumpkins. After looking back at pix I'm not sure it will stick. The kids' faces are a mess in every pix, and that my be my fault for not washing them off, but they were in the middle of eating. Anyways, The night was great. We started off with Criswell's family famous taco night. My Favorite. Then we got out our pumpkins and started the carvin. Ryan was so amazed that they had all that gunk inside. He was so amazed by it that I'm pretty sure he had forgotten since last year. Brent helped Ryan carve his pumpkin and I worked on mine while Lacy watched me. She was content the whole time just sitting in her highchair eating away at her vanilla sucker.
Here she is so happy

Ryan and Brent workin away

This as close to pumpkin carvin as Lacy got

The done deal

( i don't recommend the circle thing, it was really hard)

Once they had the candle inside Lacy thought it was the greatest thing

LACY TRYING ON RYAN'S COSTUME

I don't really need to write much just look at the pix. She spent the whole 2 min trying to take off the bandanna. But she is so cute. Too bad i didn't put on the stripped pants.

Pumkin Patch Maddness

2009-10-24T23:19:00.001-07:00

See how the kids are not looking at the camera, well that is how the whole trip went. They didn't smile for one pix at the same time. BUT besides that factor our pumkin patch trip was a lot of fun.
The kids got to feed some animals. They were so happy. I don't know what it is that fascinates my kids so much about animals, but they just get so happy when ever they see them.
This is what happens when you don't bring a stroller. All she wanted to do was run away from me. And of course Ryan was off in the other direction. They knew i needed my work out.

This is the best i could get out of Lacy. It was warm and she was hungry and there was no way she was going to smile for me.

Ryan couldn't sit still long enough to get a decent pix.

It was a lot of fun though. I'm glad the kids could run around and jump all over the hay. I wasn't too excited about Halloween this year but its getting a little funner. I don't really have a choice to not like Halloween with little kids...too bad.

Christmas is still my favorite.

Day with Dad

2009-10-24T23:07:00.001-07:00

The kids and went to AZ this last week and left dad behind. We got home Wednesday night and Brent had Thursday and Friday off. It was so nice to spend time together. After a morning full of getting 'everything' done we decided to have some fun, so off we went to the beach. It was 85 out so we thought we better spend what little warmth we have left being outside. When we were about a mile or so from Del Mar beach it was like we drove straight into a cloud that covered to whole coast. One minute we were in the sun and it was 85 and literally within seconds it was foggy, overcast, and cold and 71. I could not believe it. I wanted it to be sunny so bad. But what can you do. We still went to the beach and had a great time. It actually warmed up a bit. Not the water though, it was stinkin cold. Ryan is the only one who got in and it was only for a min. Here are some highlights of our fun trip. The beach is not the beach with out the trusty boogie board, we just used it a little different way.
Feeding seagulls, Brent was trying to see just how close he could get them. They actually ate the food off the end of the shovel.

Lacy of course ate sand the whole time. No these are not shoelaces covered in sand, its much worse, its seaweed covered in sand. And in her mouth is the bulb thingy that she was chewing on. Yucky

Me and Lacy Lou lounging on the beach

Free Pizza Anyone???

2009-10-24T22:52:00.000-07:00

I had an amazing experience at the grocery store the other day and i just thought i would share. So if you are every walking down an isle and there are people standing around a table they might just be doing a research study. If they are you should do it. I DID, and i got 20 bucks and a free pizza. They were doing research on the new packaging for California pizza kitchen pizzas. I just so happened to be walking down the isle when this man starts following me. At first i was a little creeped out until he asked me if i wanted to do the survey, when he mentioned i would get 10 bucks i hopped on. I have been using coupons and shopping deals lately to save money and here he was giving me ten dollars. So i thought i would fill out a questionnaire and be on my way. well not so fast. It was like i was on supermarket sweep.( for those of you who used to watch that show, i loved it) I had to walk down the pizza isle and then come back and he would ask me all these questions. Then he would tell me an item to get and then i would have to turn around and get the item as he was timing me. It was a lot of fun. Then at the end he gave me a pizza to taste and report back and then i get another ten bucks in the mail. It was alot of fun:) Oh i was so proud of myself i had to take a pix of all the groceries i got in one trip, 4 different stores, a hand full of coupons, and only a hundred dollars later. Right there is almost enough food to last two weeks or nine meals and some snacks.( If you cant see, the whole table is full.) Its quite fun to get deals and save money:)

Lacy Says

2009-10-15T13:08:00.000-07:00

I thought i would jot down the new words Lacy says, is seems everyday there is a new word:

doggie

nighty night

baabaa

Ryan(comes out ryra)

ball

bye-bye(its not just the wave anymore)

shoe(comes out shhhhhh)

This all i can think of right now. I love that she is starting to talk. I love to hear her sweet little voice. She is such a cuddly baby. She will always give me a kiss or a hug when i ask for it. She loves to dance with me to music. I just love her. Girls are so fun:)

Crazy happenings at McDonalds

2009-10-09T15:54:00.000-07:00

So I took the kids to mcdonalds today which is a real treat because we never go there. I met my friend Jessica there with her two kids and we ended up staying for three hours. Wow! what a long time to hear kids screaming. But it was actually nice to sit and have some mommy time and the kids were great the whole time. As we were getting up to leave i called to Lacy and Ryan. A lady stopped me and asked what my kids names were. I told her and her jaw dopped open. She said she was here with her friend and her kids names were Lacy and Ryan. How bizzare is that? Her boy was older and they both had blonde hair and blue eyes. We talked for a while and just thought it was crazy. That doesn't happen too often. We both have very good taste in names :)

Cruise Vacation

2009-09-27T21:19:00.000-07:00

IF YOU WOULD KINDLY SCROLL DOWN TO THE BOTTOM-I POSTED IT THE WRONG WAY!!!!!!(BLONDE MOMENT) Oh and My Birthday was Sunday, so Saturday night Brent told our server and they brought me cake and sang to me. Not the best pix but its the only one i have. It was a great birthday to be on a cruise for a week with my very favorite person. We had a great time. It was so nice to have a break from life. It made me appreciate being a mother. I actually missed being able to serve my kids. I missed them a lot, but it was good to leave and get rejuvenated so that i could be a better mom and wife.

Our last meal with all of our great dinner friends

Lots of hot cocoa drinking

Day 6-last day at sea

Friday was our last formal night, i got a little more dressed up, it was a fun night.

This is a pix of our favorite desert. Warm chocolate melting cake served with ice cream. It really is to die for.

So Cabo was an interesting day. We had decided the night before that we were going to meet up with some friends to go snorkeling, since we has so much fun the other day. Well when the morning came around i was not feeling good at all so i told brent to just go without me. No sense in him just sitting around with a sick wife, so he left early in the morning WITHOUT me. It was great, i slept in and woke up feeling much better. When i looked out the window though i felt sick again. It was crazy windy and stormy and i had just sent my husband out there to a place that is already known to be kind of dangerous. To top it off its not like i could call him or text him cause we couldn't use cell phones. They wouldn't let anyone off the ship and they actually sailed it back out of the harbor out to sea where it was a tad bit calmer. The winds got up to 60 miles an hour, the waves were huge, it was like a little hurricane blew in with in an hour.Finally like two hours and many prayers later Brent came back to me. They had a bit of a scare out there but they were able to get back to land before it got to its worst point. A parasailer actually died during the storm though, its so sad.

Day 5- Cabo San Lucas

This is Mazatlan. We got off the ship and you have to pay for a taxi to get you to the beach and shopping. Well it was ten dollars one way so since Brent and i were trying to not spend a fortune we decided to try to find someone who would go with us so we could split the cost. This drove the taxi drivers nuts. They would make the same whether they had 2 or 4 people but we didn't care. It was kinda funny waiting around looking for another couple who looked like they were trying to find a taxi. But after only like 5 min we saw a couple that we eat dinner with and they were totally happy to catch a ride with us. It worked out great. We ended up hanging out with them the rest of the day at Mazatlan. We went shopping, ate some really great tamales, and went swimming at the beach. I could not believe how warm the water was, but very salty. It was a great day.

Im still not sure what this is???

Day 5-Mazatlan

After our rest on the beach we went sea kiaking. It was alot of fun. I have always wanted to do it. Its nice to be out in the ocean all by yourself and you decide where you want to go.

After the waterfall fun we horse backed down the mountain to our speed boat and went to our private beach where we jumped out of the boat and snorkeled for about 45 min. That was AMAZING we had never done it before and i cant wait to do it again. We saw a ton of fish. Our guide( who was seriously amazing) caught a blow fish in his hands so we could all see it up close. He also caught a sea cucumber and i got to hold it. I screamed right at first cause it looked like a cucumber rock so i thought it would be hard and when he put it in my hand it was soft. He also found a sea urchent, a black prickily thing. After he went on and on about how dangerous they are he puts it in my hand. It was so neat to hold. After snorkeling we swam to the beach where we had a catered mexican lunch that was delish. This is our Amazing tour guide.

Brent and i had so much fun playing in the waterfall. I went under it a couple of times with him. I was crazy how hard the water is under there and once you get under it, it sweeps you away. I never got a great picture of the waterfall but it was soo beautiful.

This is at the waterfall with our friends Chase and Jen that we met on the ship. We sat at the same dinner table every night ( assigned seating- which was great, we had 3 great couples sitting with us)

Thanks to Brent parent's for paying for an excursion for our birthday presents we had the greatest time. If you are ever in puerrta viartta you have to go on the sea safari. It pretty much involves everything there is to do in 6 hours. First we took a speed boat along the shore of the city and had a quick tour of that area, we then went to this remote village where they got us up on horse back and took us up and down these beautiful mountains, i really thought i would die. It was fun but also scary there were some pretty steep parts that i think even the horses were weary about. But we ended up at this beautiful waterfall.

This is the start of our SEA EXCURSION

miniature golf on the very top of the ship. It was great fun-i won...

Froggy creation

Day 2-at sea

Here is an example of what the food looks like. They make it so pretty.

Me and my other date- he was much quieter

Our first formal night...

I chose not to go all prom dress like some choose, i was feeling more black slackesh. The formal nights are really fun because the waiters put these shows on in the dinning room where they get up and dance. Its really fun, and of course the food is really good.

This is our first night at the spectacular, its this really big auditorium where they have these amazing shows just about every night.

Here is our room, every night when we come back from dinner they have this towel creation on our bed. They are always different and so much fun.

Day 1-at sea

START OF CRUISE- 9/20/2009

The whole family together

Lacy and her amazingness

Saturday night we went to pizza. The greatest thing of all is that a while back Brent won a gift card from work for $50. Food tastes so much better when its free. It was alot of fun to go out all together.

I am not so great at posting a couple of pix of something i am so excited about so i will try to keep the words short, enjoy all the pix and our happy moments.

So to start about 6 months ago when we knew for sure that Brent would be doing summer sales again i told him that i didnt care how much money we made or didnt make we were going on a cruise. We havent been on vacation just as a couple for almost three years. That is way toooo long. So about 5 weeks ago i got on the computer looked up some cruises and booked one. Even though financially it might have been stupid i didnt care. Isnt marriage and sanity more important than money? Brents Parents are amazing and flew over for the entire week to watch the kids. They did a great job. The kids were happy to be with them. I think they got in some good bonding time since we dont see them as much as we would like. The pictures above start from the beginning.

A LOT has been going on...

2009-09-08T16:57:00.000-07:00

PRESCHOOL

So i will start with the stuff that has happened most recently. Today was Ryan first day of preschool. It's not the normal preschool, me and two other moms in my ward are doing our own home preschool. You don't get all the advantages of sending them off to school but i love it. Today was my day to teach. I have the kids at my house every third week for two hours. I was a little nervous today that i wouldn't be able to keep them occupied and on task but they did wonderful and it was really fun for me as well. Ryan is the only boy. There are two other girls Avery and Audra. They are so sweet and they all get along so well. This months theme is 'all about me.'

So i had them make themselves as 'dolls.' I had them go look in the mirror at themselves and i helped them tell what hair color, eye color and so forth. Then i had them pick out little cut outs i made of the eyes and outfits and they glued them on. I think they turned out so cute. Ryan, Avery, Audra
Here they are doing there math project. They are separating frootloops into there different colors.

LABOR DAY

For Labor Day my Grandpa invited us to there time share at Lawrence Welk for some food and fun. It was a blast. I love spending time with him and the rest of the family.

Here are Ryan ,Lacy, and Edie( my step aunts daughter, we consider them more of our cousins since they are about our age.)

,Grandma, Edie, Brent, Lacy and Ryan

HAPPY 6 YEAR ANNIVERSARY

This is the most recent pix i can find of just Brent and i and its not even that recent.

Sunday Brent and i celebrated 6 years of marriage. I cant believe its been so long, it still feels like yesterday we were just dating. You know you have a good marriage when you like each other more now than in the beginning. Brent is my best friend. The only person who will listen to me ramble on about whatever, the only person who will put up with my moods, the only person who is there for me whenever i need him. I can't imagine life without him. I can't say enough, how grateful i am for the gospel. It seems too good to be true that i can be married to Brent forever and we can have our kids with us. I am looking forward to the rest of our life together.

RYAN

As i was bringing out a load of fresh warm laundry from the dryer i hear Ryan " ohhhh mom thank you"

I'm like what the heck is he going to fold them for me???

So i say why are you so thankful?

He says" thank you for making my jumps for me"

Typical boy, i bring out laundry to fold and he sees a jump for his cars!!

BABY JAXON

So these pix should be switched around...

But My sister Tiffanie had her baby last Monday. On Saturday i get a call that she was going into the hospital because she was sure her water broke. Well sure enough it did. Normally that would be a great thing to happen right? Well Tiffanie was only 36 weeks and her hubby was in Korea not scheduled to come home for another two weeks. So now it gets not so happy. I just couldn't sit around while My sister was having her baby almost alone. My mom was there too thank goodness. So i am thinking she is going to pop this baby out i better hurry. So Brent is at the pool with Ryan and i tell him that i am really sorry but we HAVE to go to AZ right NOW. He comes back and tries to talk some sense into me but it didn't work. In one hour we load the kids and everything we need in the car and make the 6 hour journey to AZ. I'm thinking we better hurry, she could have this baby any time. Well lets just say that 40 hours after checking into the hospital she has her baby. I got there with definitely enough time to spare. It was kind of nice to spend that time with Tiffanie and my mom. I got to walk the halls at two in the morning and eat ice chips( gotta love hospital ice:)

Jaxon David White was born at 2:30 ish in the morning. He weighed 5 lbs 13 oz

18 1/2 in long. Sadly since Tiffs water was broken so long baby got an infection and was in the nicu for about 5 days. He is home now and doing great. Josh got an early leave and was able to get home that Monday night. I taped the whole thing so he wont have to feel like he missed it. I am so happy he is here and Ryan and Lacy are excited to have another cousin.

Since Josh and Tiffanie hadn't seen each other in 7 months the nurses set up this date for them in the cafeteria. They made them food and brought out yummy cheese cake. How nice is that?

How precious

Its Finally Here

2009-08-30T14:08:00.000-07:00

Its finally not ME having the baby in my family... My older sister Tiffanie is having her baby today. Hopefully today. She has already been at the hospital for 27 hours. She just got her epidural. So keep your fingers crossed that Baby Jaxon will make his appearance tonight. Tiffanie is a month early. Her water broke two nights ago so they had to induce her Labor. She is being a trooper. My mom and i are stepping in for Josh since he is in Korea and wont make it home for the birth. I am so sad for them that he wont be able to be there. I am glad that My mom and can be there for her. Ill post pictures after he is finally here.

Ryan and mommy time

2009-08-26T14:32:00.001-07:00

This first pix is not mommy and Ryan time. I dropped a thing of toothpicks and then got busy. I went into the kitchen a bit latter and this is what i find. Kids are crazy.This is mommy and Ryan time. When Lacy takes her morning nap Ryan and i spend some time together. I try to do an activity with him. I tried "lessons" for a while but i don't think he was quite ready for that. So now we do projects. Today was stamping. He loved it. Our newest tradition is having hot cocoa when we do our project. ( it has to be the kind with marshmallows)
I really enjoy my time with just Ryan. He is so talented when it comes to drawing, painting, pretty much anything artistic and he loves it.

My Apartment in San Diego

2009-08-26T14:17:00.001-07:00

So everyone has been asking for pix of the new , much smaller, Longhurst home. Well here it is. It is actually quite nice. I miss the space but i don't miss cleaning it. It takes only a couple minutes to sweep and vacuum. In the picture below- i know the wall hangings are high, but my little rascal Lacy climbs up on the couch and tries to pull everything down, so my solution was to hang everything higher. I am used to it now but it bugged me at first.
This is the little hall leading straight back to the master bedroom and then to the right is the bathroom and the laundry room/closet.To the left is Lacy's room and the door to the right is Ryan's room.

kitchen- do you see the green right out the window. it is so lovely:)

Family room

Dining room/ entry

I really miss having a house. I miss having a backyard. I miss my garage. I miss carrying groceries right into my house as opposed to up a flight of stairs, BUT i love living here in San Diego, i love our ward, i love the weather, i love having a great pool so close, and i love having less to clean. I am just so grateful that we have a place to live and Brent has a great job with a great company. I have healthy children, an amazing husband, food to eat, two cars that work great and the Gospel. I am truly blest :)

USS MIDWAY

2009-08-24T11:06:00.000-07:00

So if you ever come to San Diego and you are going to pay to go to a museum, i highly recomend this one. Especially if you have little boys. It was so amazing. And kids under 9 are free. This ship was bigger than anything i have ever seen. Bigger than a cruise ship even. They have this guided tour by headphones. So you walk up to something you want to learn about and press the number into the keypad( came with the headphones) and then it tells you all about it. Ryan was a little afraid only because they had manicanes at different places on the ship and he thought they were dead people. Kind of sad but mostly funny:)
Thats the ship behind them

JAILED

can i drive...

They loved sitting in it for a split second

inside they had a couple different very old broken planes for the kids to play in. I know they dont look happy in this pix but they really are:>

Hair

2009-08-22T21:30:00.000-07:00

After more than 7 years of doing hair i finally got brave enough( or should i say desperate enough) to cut my own hair. Nothing major, i just trimmed the bottom and cut more bangs. I think it looks good. I haven't dried or straightened it yet so we shall see. Oh and i give a talk tomorrow in my new ward. I am pretty nervous. I totally hate public speaking, but i also feel its a good challenge. Hope i don't pass out or pee my pants. he he

I hate Bee's

2009-08-21T16:49:00.000-07:00

I GOT STUNG BY A BEE TODAY.

AND IT REALLY HURT :(

Flower Power

2009-08-16T21:38:00.000-07:00

So thnx to my friend Kaylea who posted on her blog recently about making those dang cute flower clips, i decided to pull out all the stuff i bought forever ago to make them. They were super easy and so much fun to make. Warning: if you start to make them they are totally addicting. I wanted to keep making more and then i realized that no one needs 30 hair clips, so i stopped. I cant wait till Lacy gets enough hair so i can make some little ones for her. These are not the best pictures. I made a cute little thing to hang them in my bathroom so they are not laying at the best angle for pix but i didn't want to take them all down either.

Peanut Butter and Chuck E Cheese

2009-08-16T21:26:00.000-07:00

I never knew a kid could love peanut butter so much...

I was busy cooking dinner and Lacy has been teething lately so she was super fussy. So i put her in her high chair and threw some peanut butter her way. I thought she would just play with it and it would keep her occupied. Well much to my surprise she ate the first spoonful and then continually cried for more until i gave her the cup( i had mixed honey and Pb together earlier.) Ryan does not like Pb so i just assumed that she wouldn't either. I love it, so me and Lacy can share Pb sandwiches from now on:)

We met another 'summer mom' and her two kids at good ol' chuck E cheese earlier this week. It was actually a lot of fun. I found these great coupons online that saved us a bunch of money. All the games and rides are only one token which i thought was just amazing cause they actually had some good ones. They even had a play area for babies. It was so much fun and i cant wait to go
back.( i sound like a kid, huh?)

Lacy happily playing in 'her' play area

I love Ryan's face in this one

Baby Shower

2009-08-12T21:57:00.000-07:00

Tiffanie's baby shower turned out great. I just cant believe that very soon My sister will be having a baby. I am so excited, and i am thrilled that it is a boy. They are great to have First:) Tiffanie will be a great mother and i cant wait till we can live close again and raise our babies together.

Look how beautiful she is, she looks so good for being 8 months pregnant.
Candice, Hilarie, Mom, Tiffanie

Goodbye Arizona we wont see you again for a LONG time.

Arizona Trip

2009-08-12T21:36:00.000-07:00

So i ventured yet again to Arizona HOT HOT AZ. What was i thinking? Its so HOT. But we had a good time and we lived through it. My main reason for going was My sisters baby shower that i was throwing for her. It turned out great. She got a lot of things she will need for her first baby. It was fun to see old friends and just have a good time. Ryan and i got to go visit our friends Shaun and Kati. Its always so fun especially now that our kids are getting old enough to actually play with each other. Thanks Shaun for having us over:)
Another part of the planned trip was to say good bye to our Dog. We have had gabby for 5 1/2 years. She was our first "child." It was a very hard decision to let her go. But it was also way hard on me in a little apt with two small kids. It wasn't like a house where you could open the back door and let her do her business. Once we made the decision i felt guilty every time i thought about it, but there were already arrangements made for her and we couldn't back out. I guess i probably wouldn't have anyways. She has a good home now with a family that will love her and most likely give her way more attention that we were able to give. I cried the whole time i was at there house dropping her off. It was pretty embarrassing, although i am sure they understood. I told Ryan that the reason we had to get her a new home was because it was hard for me to take her down the stairs and that i had to leave them up there sometimes, so on the way back to my moms Ryan kept saying that he would take her down the stairs for me, or that Daddy would do it. It was so sad.
So far i am not quite used to it. I still come home and look for her to be waiting at the door. I still drop food in the kitchen and look down to see if she is getting it. AND man oh man is my floor dirty. I swear i never had to mop because that was Gabby's job. No wonder why she was fat. Lacy drops ( i mean throws) so much food i could probably feed a small town in Africa. But we are getting used to it and Ryan is already talking about 'when we get a house we can get another Gabby dog.' I havent told him that that might be a LONG time from now.

The Random Things We Have Been Up To!

2009-08-12T21:25:00.000-07:00

Here ares some random pix of things we have been doing. This is not my child, i swear!!!
The beach with friends

swimming in the pool. Lacy kept putting the bucket on her head, so cute:>

Outlet mall with sister Hannah

Hiking with dad

Meeting a horse named Lacy, how funny is that

Ryan 's drawing of people, i just love how creative they are.

Off to the Zoo

We really enjoyed having Hannah with us for a few weeks. She was so much help and was fun company. We miss you Hannah...Come back>

Sea World

2009-07-31T08:23:00.000-07:00

July 6Th

So off to Sea World we went. I didn't think i would get a year pass there this year but once again with the military discount( thnx Tiff) i couldn't resist. Tiffanie got in for free that day and my mom got my little sister Hannah a pass for the rest of this year. It was so much fun. The kids had a blast going on the rides. Lacy could only go on them if she could show them she could take three steps. Well at that point she was just starting to walk. It was not on demand walking it was more like whenever she felt like it, so i was a little nervous because i really wanted her to go on some rides. Well this super nice guy counted her falling three steps and let her go on. Its funny they let a one year old go on the rides but not by pregnant sister. They also have a ton of aquarium like places there. You can see just about any wildlife that would be in the sea ( um... i guess that's why they call it sea world huh..)Lacy and Aunt teetee waiting to go on a ride
Me, Hannah, Ryan, and Lacy waiting to go on the spinning tea cups.

Cutest pix of Lacy at the dolphin show, which i love. This guy gets up and sings, it is so fun. The kids love the singing part.

And of course they have a splash pad there, so the kids got wet once again.

Happy Fourth of July

2009-07-29T16:21:00.001-07:00

The fourth was a blast. My two sisters were here which made it even funner. We went to Brent bosses house for a BBQ and some swimming, It was great fun. They were so nice to have us over. Then later that day we went to Camp Pendalton to see the fireworks. Tiffanie is now part of the Military so she gets a ton of benefits. You can only go on the base if you have a military ID. I thought that might make it less crowded but that wasn't true. It was packed, but it was so much fun. We were right by the live band and SO close to the fireworks. We also got to see the sunset on the beach. It couldn't get any better and then it did. We went and got funnel cake that was to die for and dippin dots and cotton candy. It was the best sugar fest ever. Thanks to Tiff we got alot of pix of the fam together and also of Brent and I. It was a night to remember. I love living in America. Brent and I on the bus ride over to the beach
Teetee and Little Lacy

Ryan and Hannah

'Lacy Lou'

Ryan and Hannah in a real tank

It was so cool to go inside it. Of course Ryan loved it.

We ate some sand

And oh yes the cotton candy, Dentist here we come.

Tee tee and Wee wee

Back to Cali, July 3rd

2009-07-20T15:16:00.000-07:00

So we headed home from az with 6 people in the car. Me driving, my uncle Jimmy, Tiffanie, Hannah, Ryan, and Lacy. Tiffanie was coming to visit for a week, and Hannah came to stay with me for a month(much needed help.) And my uncle drove with me to and fro. It was a fun trip. The kids didnt sleep as much as i thought they might considering we left around 6 am. We still made it in 6 hours which is way nice. A couple days later we went to Encinitas. My uncle's friend used to own this neat resteraunt right by the beach called the 101 diner, we met them down there for lunch and then hit the beach. It was a blast, decpite the over crowdedness. I guess the day before 4th of july at the beach is a bad idea, unless you like to be around a lot of people.

Her shirt says it all

Oh it was so nice to be at the beach with tee tee

Ryan thought he was surfing. A couple of times the waves came up and knocked him over. It was pretty funny:>

Our Arizona Trip- Doctor visit

2009-07-13T16:28:00.000-07:00

So i took the kids to there doctor visits in AZ since that is where we still have insurance. For myself mostly i wanted to write about there visit.

Lacy is a little chuncker weighing in a 21 1/2 lbs- 50%

height was 28 in-25%

Short and chubby :)

Ryan grew the most ever in his life i think. He finally hit 30 lbs-25%

Height was 39 in-50%

They are both healthy and happy. I am so blessed to have such great kids.