Jumping jacks at 30....'nuff said.

Okay I had to blog about this because I still can't believe that I am coaching this soccer team. I had to coach the team by myself for the first time tonight! Dustin called me this morning and told me that he wasn't going to be able to make it to the practice because he was going to have to work late. Seriously my stomach fell out of me and I started to panic. I tried to keep telling him to just call me and let me know if for sure he wasn't going to make it so that I could still keep up hope that he might be there and he kept telling me that he WASN'T going to be able to be there but I think he finally gave in and said he would call if he was going to make it. Of course he never called. So I dropped of Lilly and Maddy at a friends and headed up to the practice with Joselyn, who didn't even really want to go, she wanted to stay and play at her friends house. But I told her this was our special time together and I asked her if she could be my big helper at the practice. She flat out told me no! BUT she was excited to have her special time with mommy. So anyway I said a prayer before I got out of the car because that was how scared I was and headed over to the field. It went REALLY REALLY well surprisingly and seriously I LOVE the kids on the team. They are all so cute and I really love five year olds. They are just so innocent and sweet and so enthusiastic. I really don't have any bratty kids on the team, they are all just there to play and really want to please the coach, which is a plus. BUT can I just say that it stinks to have like 25 parents and family members (including someones grandparents that come to EVERY practice) watching you the entire time. I wouldn't be nervous if the parents weren't there! But there is no reason that a mother of three who needs to lose a good portion of body fat should have to be doing jumping jacks in front of other adults, yet I am out there doing that. No pride, no pride. One of the mothers came up to me afterwards and asked me if I was an elementary teacher becase she thought that for sure I was. I told her I wasn't of course. But it did make me feel really good that obviously she must have thought I was doing a pretty good job. I told Dustin the other day that I am actually really glad that I signed up for this because you know as you become an adult there are less and less opportunities that really push you and stretch you. When you are an adult you can choose what you want to accept to do and what you aren't comfortable with, much more than when you are a kid or a teenager and everything pretty much is about growing and stretching. This is the first thing in a REALLY long time that has really made me grow and stretch and be really uncomfortable and I already feel the benefits internally from it. Anyway I am still hoping that I will never have to practice without Dustin there again, he is definately my crutch!

On a side note I just wanted to let everyone know I completed my four mile run which is farther than I have run in probably nine years, since before I was married and I feel really good about that. While I was running, my running shorts started slipping off my birthing hips and if that isn't incentive I don't know what else would be. YEAH!

marathon?

Okay I am taking a big step today and blogging about something that I talked about to only a few. Here goes..........I am running a marathon. Okay I said it and it is out. I am running a marathon in December and I started the official training last week. I have been trying to get to the point to officially train since May and now the time has come. I am blogging about this on here because it is something that my training book says to do. My sisters and I are all training together and we are using the "Non-runners guide to running a marathon". So far I love the book and it is very inspiring and very very helpful for us non-runners. But one thing it said to do was completely commit to it and that means telling everyone that you are running. I am sure we are supposed to this partly because that makes it that much harder to back out! It will give me a lot more shame and embarrasment if everyone I know knows that I didn't actually complete it. Which is why I haven't mentioned it to many people. I haven't really even discussed it too much with Dustin. He knows that I am running a lot and I have mentioned a marathon now and then but Dustin if you are reading this......I am seriously going to do this. I am running a marathon in December with all my sisters and I am going to do this even if I have to welk a quarter of it (which at this point is where I am). This week I am supposed to run a total of 16 miles and that is A LOT to me! I went three last night and I WILL go four tonight. Okay it is out there and think of it what you will, but I did my part of the book.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR SAMANTHA, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!!!!!!!!!

pause....pause....


HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR NEW BABY JEFFSOMETHING, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!!!!!!!!

So my youngest baby sister is turning 19 today and I want her to know that I think she is the most fun, most beautiful girl and that I miss her and adore her and I hope you have a great birthday. I think it is really nice of you to babysit Caitlyn today for Jeff and Missy and I know they appreciate it. And if you get this answer your phone already!

My brother Jeff is having his second baby today and I am so excited for him. After being surrounded by girls his whole life he is finally getting a little guy to be best friends with. I think you are an amazing dad and that you and Missy are doing such a good job with Caitlyn you are such an example to me. You are going to be a GREAT dad to a little boy and I want you to know I love you and wish that I was there to help out and hold little JEFF? when he enters your family. Love you guys!

This is for you Alyssa. You wanted to know what Dustin did for our date the other night. Do you ever feel after you have been married for so long with kids that nothing is a surprise anymore? Dustin and I go out on date nights and basically fight the whole day over who has to decide what we are doing and then we get in the car and believe me there have been many many times that Dustin just starts driving telling me that he is just going to drive until I tell him where to go. Which is usually which restaurant we are eating at or what movie we are going to see because that is all we ever do! Now they are still fun dates and I always enjoy my time alone with Dustin and look forward to our dates but when someone takes the initiative and actually plans something on their own THAT is a big deal. So the date might not sound like much but it was really fun. Portland is known as the Rose City for all the flowers I assume. Well they have a huge rose garden that overlooks the city and it is HUGE. There are thousands of roses in all different colors and sizes. Well I have wanted to go there for a long time. SO that is where we went first and just walked around the garden admiring all the beautiful flowers. I am sure that many a girls has been proposed to there in the almost hundred years it has been there it is very romantic. I plan on going back with my kids and my camera it is SO beautiful. Then when I got back into the car he had roses waiting for me on my seat. That was a pre married move! Then we went to this posh, quaint little place in the cool part of Portland called Papa Hydens for dessert. They have the most desserts I have ever seen, two pages of them and the BEST desserts ever and it is the cutest place to walk around. They have all the trees lit up every night of the year in white twinkle lights and there are just tons of little boutiques all over that are fun to even window shop. So I got the chocolate truffle cake and that alone would have made my night! I didn't know where we were going tho whole night and that added to the fun. Anyway that was it and then we headed home and it was pretty late. We don't live that close to the city so it takes us a while to get into the city but it was very fun and I am very proud of him for doing it for me.

What a weekend!

We had a very eventful weekend! On Saturday we went and picked peaches, apples, and pears and the girls had a blast. Dustin was really good about not letting me take all the pictures and trying to get me in a few. Unfortunately I tried to post one but everytime I pulled up my blog and saw myself I started to dry heave so I had to remove it.
They had these cool handcart thingys that made transporting the kids around the farm a lot easier.....for me anyway. Daddy the pack mule! They loved it.

By the way this is Joselyn's outfit of choice down to the socks and boots.

Saturday night Dustin and I went on a really fun date that he planned and surprised me about. We went with another couple and that was fun but Dustin did a really good job planning a very fun date. I was very impressed and surprised that he would go to such lengths to plan a date but it was great! I guess the pressure is on me for next time.

Then on Sunday morning I woke up to Maddy smiling at me. I noticed that her other top tooth FINALLY came out! Her tooth has been really loose for a long time and she would not let anyone touch it. I have just been waiting and waiting for it to fall out. So I asked her if it fell out with the babysitter and she said no. I asked her if it fell out this morning and she said no. I asked her when it fell out and she said sometime during the night. So I asked he if she found it in her bed and she said no. We are figuring that she swallowed it! Gross! But it is out, and of course the tooth fairy forgot to come AGAIN last night so I had to call her (conveniently her number is the same number as Daddy's work number) this morning and remind her to come tonight. We have the WORST tooth fairy. The last picture on the blog is of her new smile.

Later that morning I was debating about giving the girls a bath before church. They ALWAYS bathe before church but I was supposed to sing in Sacrament meeting and I really wanted to make sure I felt like I looked okay which meant curling my hair and taking a few extra minutes on the face...you know! Anyway I decided not to give them a bath and that it would be fine on this ONE Sunday. Anyway about an hour before church and a half hour before I am supposed to head up to the church to warm up with the girl I was singing with, the music coordinator calls and says that the girl can't make it because her little son was in the hospital sick (and he is fine by the way). But she asks if my girls would like to sing a primary song instead. So I know that my girls would love too but I am not sure if we can pull it off in a half hour. So we ran downstairs and started paracticing songs until I found one they knew all the words to. We decided to sing "Whenever I hear the song of a bird". So now I look great but my girls look ragged, OF COURSE! We head up to the church to let them practice in the microphone and they are going crazy. Totally out of control not listening forgetting the words and I am thinking this is going to go TERRIBLY wrong. I was going to play the piano but at the last minute I asked somebody else because I could only imagine going up there and the girls forgetting the words and looking at me over on the piano and starting to cry and then what do I do. So sacrament came and the girls were fine not even seeming to worry about it. Daddy on the other hand was freaking out! It was really funny and cute. Well it comes their time to sing and we get up and walk up to the microphone. I fixed the microphone and sat down behind them and started praying. THEY DID GREAT! They remembered evey word and I didn't have to get up and sing the song myself. Right as we got up there Maddy looked at me and said frantically that she didn't remember the song, but I reminded her what it was. It cracked me up. Anyway we were really proud of them for doing it and for being brave enough to get up there and sing in front of all those people on such short notice. But it was a really surreal experience for Dustin and I. As I was sitting there watching them from behind I saw a flash into the future as they become young women and as I am left watching in the background just hoping that I prepared them enough. It was their moment to shine and to perform and up until now it has been my memories of my moments of shining that are the freshest in my head. I enjoyed watching them sing as much I enjoy singing and that was odd to me. Dustin said he was fighting back the tears the whole time because he couldn't believe how old they looked up there. We are the biggest saps, I know, but it is just wierd watching our little girls grow up. Anyway I didn't mean for this to get really long but I guess I had a lot to say.

These last few pictures are just some funny pictures I found that Joselyn took when I let her take the camera with her. We went and met Dustin for lunch in the city the other day and she wanted to bring the camera. So I let her and she seriously took like 100 pictures but that is the beauty of a digital camera! These pictures are so funny though.

soccer update

Okay so all the freaking out was pointless. The first practice went REALLY well and the parents were really nice and just all very thankful that we took on the challenge to coach so their kids could play. I was really relieved but the wierdest thing happened to me. I don't have a problem normally getting up in front of people, it has never been something that makes me too nervous usually. I have found as I have gotten older the nervousness gets worse which I think is wierd. I think it is just being out of practice. As a teenager I was always up in front of people performing or talking in church or what not. It seemed that I had endless opportunities to be in front of people. After I left home the opportunities diminished substantially and it is very rare that I am actually up in front of people anymore which is fine with me, but now when the chance does come up I find myself getting nervous and I don't really know what to do with it. ANYWAY I was talking to the parents about parent involvement and support and seriously my mouth went COMPLETELY dry. That has never happened to me! It was so embarrasing. My lips were sticking to my teeth, I couldn't swallow because I had no fluid in my mouth and my tongue felt like it had swollen twice it's size. I had to tell them to hold on a minute while I found my daughters waterbottle to take a drink. I think they thought I was a freak! I probably would have if I saw somebodies lips sticking to the top of their gums......wierd! Oh well. The kids are REALLY cute and very enthususiastic. I actually think that it might end up being something I really enjoy doing. But I made two discoveries at the practice:

1. Dustin and I are more alike than we are different I think. You know how they say opposites attract, that wasn't the case with us. Apparently we were attracted to ourselves! We are definately different in many ways but I think we are very much alike and we probably would have both been really good elementary school teachers and I think we would have both liked it.

2. Parents are more than willing to help they just don't want to sign up to be "the coach". I passed around a sign up sheet for the parents to let me know what they would be willing to help out with and EVERY parent signed up for something. It is funny because I just don't think people want to be the "be all end all" of anything. Most people are reluctant leaders but really do want to be involved. SO Dustin and I will be the leaders and I will take FULL advantage of all the help that every parent wants to give. I even had a dad sign up to help coach with his son. It's like why didn't you just sign up to BE the coach!? He obviously wants to do it and he is hispanic or italian or something and his older son has been playing soccer for like eight years or something! I guarantee you that they would have done a better job actually coaching the kids but for whatever reason he was too scared to take on the challenge. I will be using him to help coach though I am sure and I am thankful for everyones willingness!

FREAKING OUT!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay so today is D day! The first soccer practice of the season and I am starting to wonder WHAT WAS I THINKING!???????? I can't do this! I spent two hours on the internet last night trying to come up with soccer practice drills appropriate for five year olds and realizing the whole time that I am WAY underqualified and have taken this WAY to casually I think. I am so scared that the parents are going to hate me for volunteering to coach even though I know that none of them did! I just hope that they are not expecting a lot. I am planning on having a parent meeting after the practice to talk to them about what Dustin and I plan for the team and what to expect with their kids. I just know that there are going to be those parents out there that are going to be annoyed that I am not teaching them to pass and fake dribbling and stuff. But I have a totally different philosophy and all the other head coaches and websites I found support me. I just want the kids to have fun. I want to teach them some basic skills of dribbling and how to kick the ball and stuff but honestly they are five! I just talked to a friend and she was complaining that when her son played when he was five they all just ran around the ball and nobody knew what they were doing and she blamed that on the coach not teaching them anything. I wanted to say that I thought it was just because they were five and they don't get how to pass. It is all about the individual and just kicking the ball at this age I think. But I am so scared that the parents are going to hate me and be really disappointed in my soccer coaching. HELP ME!!! Please anyone out there give me a pep talk. Does anyone have any suggestions on what to do at the practice? I have some things planned but anyone new ideas would be greatly appreciated!
On a side note a finally found a picture that I can stand to look at of myself and I thought I would add it on. I always love seeing pictures on my family and friends that are actually doing the blogging so I thought others might like to see a picture of me as well. I love Lilly's face in this and check out the little piggies! I know it is bright and hard to see but they are there and SO cute.

the birds and the bees...

Well I have finally had to have "THE TALK" with Maddy this week. Anyone else who has children that wanted "THE TALK" can sympathize with me I am sure at how it seems to sneak up on you and all of a sudden you realize that your children aren't as small as you thought they were. We were in California, sitting at the park with my sister, my nine year old niece Claudia, Joselyn and Maddy when out of the blue she asks, "Mom, after you get married how do you have a baby?" Claudia starts to snicker and Sam and I just look at eachother with this surprised looks on our faces. I ask her what she means exactly and she repeats the question. So I decided the park was not the best place to discuss such private matters so I told her when we went inside I would talk to her about it. (By the way she must have been feeling very intellectual that day because during the same park visit she came up and asked me what Jewish people were exactly.) ANYWAY we went home and the subject didn't come up again so I thought I had avoided it for the time. We got back from California and of course it came up again and she asked me the same question. I took her into her room as I was tucking her in and I explained VERY generally how things worked and how a baby was made in mommy's body. She seemed placated for the time and didn't ask me anymore questions. The funniest part was when I went and informed Dustin that the questions had begun and I told him what I told her just in case it ever came up so we would be on the same page. He was more uncomfortable than Maddy was I think and he told me he thought she was way to young to be talking about such things. I disagree and I want to be honest with her up front so she feels comfortable talking to me about things and knows I will be honest with her. But I still can't believe that she is old enough to be talking about these things and it freaks me out a little. I guess Joselyn is going to be close behind since I am sure that Maddy will start informing her. Man I hate "THE TALK".

We had such a good time in California last week and I finally found my camera and changed the batteries so I could get my pictures off. I decided that since the drive was supposed to be 9 and a half hours that we were going to make the drive fun. I figured that I am probably going to be driving this road fairly often to go visit grandma and cousins so I wanted to start making the drive more enjoyable and more of a fun tradition rather than the awful drive. So I tried to stop anywhere I thought might be fun and just get out and enjoy ourselves. The drive lasted twelve hours but I think we enjoyed ourselves and we found some fun places that I intend to stop everytime we drive down. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this picture. It was the cutest thing ever! We stopped at Lake Siskyou on the way down to strectch our legs and see the water. We were walking down to the lake and the older girls were way down in front of me. I wanted to take a picture of them walking down to the lake. So I got my camera out and I yelled to them to stop for a minute and let me take a picture. I could hear Lilly saying "cheese, cheese, cheese" as I was getting my camera ready but I wasn't really paying much attention. As I lifted it up I realized that Lilly was running towards the girls into the frame and I told the girls to hold on a minute because I wanted to see if I could get Lilly into it as well. She seriously walked right in front of them turned around made this pose and said, "cheese" and waited for me to take the picture! Is that not the cutest picture! I couldn't believe it. I guess I have another one that loves the camera and loves to pose.

My favorite picture from the trip. Look at all those girls! We were only missing Caitlyn and we wish that she could have been there. It would have been so much fun to have all the little girly cousins together. Baby Ryan was there as well but he is so little I didn't get him in many pictures. Definately next time we will have to get a picture of him with all his girls cousins around him. Good thing he has another boy cousin on the way in a couple of weeks. Lucky for them they will have each other!

Claudia (9) amd Maddy (7) once again maddy is making a very flattering pose.
I am SO sad that I didn't get a picture of Julia and Joselyn. They played so well together the whole week. Beck and I both commented that we felt like we didn't even talk to them the whole week because they were off playing the whole time. Maddy played a lot with Julia too but this is the only picture I have of Julia (6) and Joselyn (5) together.
Georgia (2) and Lilly(1) hopefully next time Lilly will be old enough that she will actually WANT Georgia to play with her.

Maddy loved little Bear (baby Ryan) and I meant to get a picture of her with him because she would just play with him and play with him all week. But my camera ran out of batteries and I kept forgetting to buy more so this is the only picture I have with the both of them.

We had our little DVD player in the car on the way down. Since we were in the car the movie was right in front of Lilly and she loved it. She won't stop asking me for a movie now. But she was so sick that I brought the movie player in from the car and would set it up on the bed in our room and let her just watch it. She seriously would just lay there and watch it over and over again. As long as Nemo was on she was good. I would check on her every few minutes but she just layed there and watched Nemo a lot. It was pretty cute.
Doesn't she look comfy?
We pulled out Becky's blow up pool one day and the girls had a blast "swimming" until they popped it. I think it was the nine year old and the seven year old trying to slide down that did it.
Josey was cold and went to get warm on the cement and Lilly thought that was a good idea too. She was having a little trouble laying down like Josey though.

We went to a place called Someplace Fun one day to get the kids out of the house. It had tons of jumpy things and games to play and a big carousel in the middle that the girls LOVED. I wish that Maddy's hair had been out of her face for this picture because it is realy cute. Oh well.


Grandma laying down with Lilly getting her to take a rest. She layed with grandma for over an hour I was shocked!

I love this picture because Lilly looks SOOOO fat!
This is pretty much how the week went for Lilly and Georgia. Georgia trying to play with and love Lilly and Lilly resisting with all her might to get anywhere near Georgia!
Just thought you might like to see Maddy's face REALLY close up!
I love this picture! They are soo cute and Maddy is such a great big sister.
This is a make-up job done be Joselyn and her idea to add the sparkly scarf and necklace. This is also her most favorite dress that we wear probably four times a week and she HAS to bring everywhere we go. She insisted on only packing skirts and dresses to bring with us. I did throw in a pair of shorts and pants just in case when she wasn't looking.What a girly girl , I love it!

Okay so Andrea posted this picture on her blog the other day because the little girl in this picture is Dustin's mom Colleen. I wanted to post it on my blog because my family thinks that Lilly looks like Colleen. As much as I would love to say she looks like Colleen I just don't see it. After I saw this picture though I do see some similarities but I still don't think she looks like Colleen all that much or as much as Ava does. I put a picture of cute Ava next to Lilly and I tried to get poses of each of them in as close to a profile as I could to match Colleens. I wanted to see if anyone else thinks Lilly looks much like her? Maybe I am just too close to Lilly to see who she looks like because I just don't think she looks like ANYONE! On a side note this is Dustin's grandpa who I think he resembles a little. There are some other pictures of him that I think they look more alike but I still see something familiar in his grandpas face.

As made famous by So You Think You Can Dance

Can you ever go home again?

Well I am back from my week long vacation with the girls in California. I don't know if you can call it a real vacation when you are all by yourself with your three kids and you have to drive twelve hours there and back with a 1 year old but we did manage to have lots of fun. I finally got caught up on everyones blogs which by the way took me like over an hour! Everybody blogged so much while I was gone I loved it! My camera is dead right now and to be completely honest I really don't want to dig it out of the mess we like to call Daddy's car at the moment. We got in last night and I haven't wanted to open the trunk yet. I am sure it smells delicious from all the dirty clothes that are in there. When I do finally get around to cleaning up I will post our cute pictures with our cousins and aunts and Grandma.

My sister was nice enough to let us come and visit for a whole week even though it meant seven little kids under the age of nine in one house! It wasn't the easiest especially for the hosts, as it never is when it is your house getting demolished. We definately added to the disgustingness when my whole family got sick the day after we got there, including me, and Dustin who was dealing with it at home all week. Josey had been complaining of her stomach for a couple of days before we left but I didn't think a wole lot of it. Well once we got there Lilly and I got SICK! I would say we got Montezuma's Revenge if we had been in Mexico but since we weren't I don't know who's revenge we got but they were ANGRY with us. It was NOT fun I will say that. As I am dealing with that, Maddy decides to get sick in the middle of the night and ends up puking all over her cousins room at 4:00 in the morning. I didn't think there was anything worse than cleaning up somebody elses puke but let me tell you it is actually worse when you are cleaining up some one elses puke, at some one elses house, at wee hours in the morning and you don't know where any cleaning supplies are or where all the light switches are and you are sick yourself. It was disgusting. It wasn't until we were almost headed home that we were all finally feeling better. I am just hoping that her girls don't come down with it because they are supposed to start school next week. What a nice sister I have!

It is always bittersweet leaving your old home for your new one. Everytime I go back to Northern California it is like my heart feels home. Even though things have changed for my family and I really don't have a so called "home" there anymore just being in the area feels like home. I think I have a memory on every street in Danville and as I drive around they all come flooding back. Those memories that are from a time when you had no real responsibility except to be a good kid. Those memories that are so innocent and sometimes seem so far away and yet at times seem only like yesterday. Everybody has them, they just vary in specific activities. Mine are playing hide-and -seek with the neighborhood kids on summer nights, practicing making fires down in the creek behind my house, jogging the Iron Horse Trail to the high school, first holding a boys hand in the Las Barrancas hills behind my house, experiencing my first kiss at the cemetary (yes I said cemetary, long story), making up dances in the backyard to Debbie Gibson, getting my own drivers license and feeling the freedom you feel behind the wheel of a car by yourself. I feel like I go into this odd early life crises when I am there because for a time I am no longer a thirty year old mother, I feel seventeen again and I can't believe that I have three children and I don't live there aymore. When I am home I feel my heart longing for those times again and the freedom it allowed from any REAL stress or worry and yet as I look around at my children I want only to provide a place for them to make those same kinds of memories. It is a wierd sadness and happy wistfullness that overcomes me when I am there and I am glad that I am only able to go back once or twice a year so that those feelings never get old. When I am leaving the area and I watch the last rolling golden hills with the dark green trees dotting the landscape fade away I always tear up and I feel that I only wish I could live there again. But I have to say as I pulled into Portland, into in area that has a very different kind of beauty I was glad to be back at MY home. We have had a lot of different houses over the past few years and have lived in a lot of different places but I realized that when my family, my husband and children, are together that is truely where I am happy and where my real home is. It really doesn't matter where we are, Utah, Vegas, or California. It makes me excited for my future and for my childrens futures and I can't wait to hear when they are grown what memories they made as children wherever we end up. California will always hold a part of me though and I love it there.

Peep Peep or pee pee

Lilly has recently been figuring out that her pee pee and poo poo come out in her diaper. Often times when she has gone poo poo she will come to me and point to her diaper and say poo poo, especially when she has gone in her crib at nap time or something. It really started when she had some diarreah (sp?) and I came in to get her and found that the poo had totally leaked out the side and she was playing with it all over the crib and examinig it very closely in her hands....yummy! Anyway now I can say, "Let's change your diapers" and often times she actually lays down and waits for me! How nice is that! But she is a little obsessed with telling me she has pee pee and poo poo. Many times she doesn't actually have anything but I still feel like I want to change her diaper just to reinforce the principle. But anyway we were watching Dora this morning and she kept running up to me and telling me she had pee pee and grabbing her diaper. I was like, "YES! you have pee pee?" And I am getting ready to change her diaper just feeling so proud of her for telling me she has pee pee. And then she grabs my hand and takes me to the TV where the little bird on Dora says Peep Peep. She looks at me and says pee pee and grabs her diaper. How must that seem to her that a birdie says pee pee?

Swim Lessons

These pictures are really for daddy to see what the girls are doing at swim lessons. But enjoy looking at them! Joselyn wanted me to take a picture of everthing she did. I tried to cut it down some for the blog but she wanted some of these pictures specifically on here.
I love this picture of them and by the way they did this pose themselves.
Look at those cute buns!


Giving Spongebob loves. She actually says Spongebob which is probably not something I should admit.

She looks so beautiful in this picture..........................
this one however .............not quite so beautiful. This is her saying "cheeeeese" for the camera.
This picture scares me a little bit.

Maddy is actually doing real swim strokes! It only took five years of swim lessons but hey I am very excited about that.

You have to blow up this picture and check Joseyln out. She really wanted me to take this picture and kept yelling across the pool to take a picture. I was over taking some pictures of Maddy.
We have finally acheived probably non-drowning from Joselyn. I think that if she found herself alone in water somewhere she might not drown. YAH!

babysitters and soccer coaches

Okay so I know that blogging twice in one day makes me officially lame which is sad because I think I have been teetering on that for a while, at least in my eyes, BUT I had to add this in because I found it quite humorous. First off here are some things you don't want to hear from your babysitter or from your kids after the babysitter has gone home.

1.When you come home surprised to see your baby who should be asleep where you put her, up and in a different outfit than you left her and you ask the babysitter if your baby cried a lot and the answer is a tentative, "She didn't cry the WHOLE time." Translated: this annoying baby would NOT stop crying don't ever ask me to babysit again!

2.That is where Lilly (being 1!) spilled her own bowl of ice cream down the back of the couch (in the family room).

...............then you find out the reason your baby is in a different outfit and looks cleaner than you left her.......................

3. The reason the twelve year old babysitter had to give Lilly a bath was because she took her bowl of ice cream and dumped it on her head. (Besides the fact that she is twelve and not too experienced with babies, this wouldn't have bothered me but I was embarrased because in my haste to get out the door on time I let Lilly go to bed with syrup that she had smeared in her hair, thinking I would give her a bath in the morning. Meaning the babysitter saw Lilly with the syrup all over in her hair and she looked seriously homeless.)

3. "This is where Lilly really screamed when she fell off the step stool in the bathroom while we were talking." Where were you talking and why was Lilly in the bathroom by herself? "Well Hannah said that she told me to watch the water but I needed to tell her something and then when we came in Lilly had climbed up the stairs and we saw her fall back......she didn't even bonk her head that hard but she just screamed!" (so Lilly was in the bathroom by herself with the bath water running who knows how high...... forget the stairs!)

.......and we were only gone an hour............

If it weren't for the fact that she is my third I think that I would have been botheres by a few things. But as it was I actually felt more sorry for the babysitter than I did my own baby.

Here is the other funny thing. First off I swear that I really think that the way my girls idolize their dad is cute and I love it! I know that it is because I am here everyday and they are sick off me and they don't get to see their daddy all that often so he is really special. I just like complaining about it because I think it is funny. I know that every mom out there, including my own, can relate to being taken for granted as a mother and the daddy getting all the glory because that is how we set it up. By the way let me take this opportunity to thank my mother for all those things she did behind the scenes that my dad got the credit for. Thanks for being a great mom!
Dustin and I are coaching Joselyn's soccer team (very long story). It will probably be mostly Dustin unless he can't make it home then I get to take the nine co-ed six year olds. Given that I was the one who agreed to it, it is only fair. But I told Joselyn tonight that daddy was going to coach her soccer team. She was SOOOO excited and she just kept saying how much she wanted daddy to practice soccer with her. I kept trying to hint that I was the one who actually played soccer and that MOMMY could practice with her. But she was just obsessed with daddy. So I was putting her to bed and she just kept asking for daddy to come in and talk to her about her soccer team. Well the truth is I was the one who signed us up and I was the one who was willing to coach the team. But when it came down to the choice of either coaching nine 6 year olds or watching one little baby, Dustin opted for the 6 year olds, and I am totally fine with that. But I wanted SOME of the credit for doing this for her. So I said, "Well daddy AND mommy are going to coach your team isn't that great?" Seriously her face went to a complete dead pan and she said quietly, "Yeah...." I said, "Whats wrong with that?" She said, "....nothing.....", face still showing no expression. I said, "Did you just want it to be daddy?" (By the way I said that totally nicely and completely sincere.) She said, "......no.....?" Obviously mommy coaching her soccer team isn't quite as special as daddy coaching her soccer team. hahahaha. Oh well I guess I will let him get the glory for this one and I am sure that Joselyn will always remember that daddy coached her soccer team and that mom was too busy with the baby (that was said sarcastically if you couldn't tell).


probably dreaming about her daddy..........................