Happy Birthday!

(I love these ladies!!!)

Nicole my Mom and I  all have birthdays the last week of September. This year my Mom surprised us with a "girls only" weekend in Vegas. 

My brother's wife Wendi was even able to fly in from San Diego. 

On two of the days we attended Time Out for Women that is put on by Deseret Book. 

It was such a spiritual feast!!!

I hinted to my Mom that this should be a birthday tradition every year:)

Family + Sunshine = Happy Mamma!

I love that we live a quick drive away from beautiful 

sunshine on weekends when we just wanna play. 

I'm pretty sure this was our first time miniature golfing as 

a family. I've always been worried we would get half  way 

through and my kids would start hitting each other with the clubs...

I was pleasantly surprised how much fun they had.

Addison was mostly just interested in the castle, she was certain 

it was a playhouse so she spent most of her time trying to find 

a way inside:)

Join me in prayers for Clara

So I said a little prayer on my way to work this morning that went a little something like this...

" please Heavenly Father let me see my trials as blessings and let me show my children through my actions how  much I LOVE THEM!" 

You see this whole crazy piano/school/homework/soccer/dance/work 

schedule has tossed our family life into serious zoo like CHAOS, and I was feeling a little picked on.

Well... he heard my prayer and I "accidentally" came across this blog post today, and it humbled me with a necessary dose of perspective. My prayers will be A LOT less selfish tonight!
  http://mommastimeout.blogspot.com

(post titled: life isn't fair)

I am so grateful for AMAZING mothers who are willing to teach me through their examples!

It's that time again!

Okay.. it's time for me to accept reality!

(maybe in more ways than one:)

School started on the 16th of August this year,

and I am just now accepting the fact that my oldest is

in middle school...

It's cRaZY, but I feel so blessed that she still 

thinks I'm cool and tells me everything!

Because Nicole and I worked opposite days Kennedy and

Jett have spent a ton of time and been pals since the beginning:)

It really does bring me a lot of peace knowing they

are going through all the teen years together!

Jett and Kennedy

First Day of 6th Grade

Carter 

First Day of 3rd Grade

He is so happy he has Mr. Shirley and is on the 

"big kid" playground.

Addison 

Preschool

8/28/12

Because Miss Addison is such a social bug this 

whole preschool thing has been a BREEZE!

She will introduce herself to anyone and 

immediately they are "best friends."

I have gone into situations with her waiting for the 

anxiety and fear that I went though with

 Kennedy and Carter... but it's just not there.

In fact on Carter's first day of preschool he was terrified

his teacher was going to feed him bombs instead of snacks! lol

(I'm still getting use to his very boy imagination :o) 

Bet you didn't know we were EXPECTING...

Well.. neither did we!

 While I was at work today our one Horny Toad "Bowser"

(boy name right..?) had a few babies -- 14 to be exact. 

I was so scared when I got the phone call because there was

so much screaming and noise in the background I thought 

for sure something horrible had happened. 

Even Nana was 

screaming with excitement:)

This is a dream come true for my kids.. all of a sudden 

their very limited pet home has become reptile land!

 Addy's already asked if maybe she could

sleep with one tonight:)