Lydia's Blessing...

I missed posting about a few important events in March...

Like Lydia's Blessing!!

She is so beautiful, and we feel so blessed to have her in our home.  She looked like a little angel (of course)... and I LOVED her dress... even if it caused me great stress.

The story goes like this... a few days before the blessing I started looking for the blessing dress that Jadyn had worn...  (Tayler, Saige and Kenna had shared one, but I bought a new one for Jadyn...)  I searched the house... every closet... again and again and again and could NOT find that dress.  Finally I went shopping for a new one... and of course the one that I loved was EXACTLY like Jadyn's that I couldn't find.  I decided to buy it knowing full well I would eventually find the other one... sure enough exactly one week after the blessing... Saige found it! :)

But she sure looked beautiful!!

I gave Shane a bit of a hard time about forgetting our baby's name...  But in the end he got it right!  I am so blessed to have a husband who holds the priesthood and has so much love for each of his "girls".  I imagine it isn't always easy for Shane to be the lone guy in a family of girls...  He's pretty outnumbered...  I've  often seen the dazed look when the older girls and I are getting so excited about something really "girlie" that we want to do as a family... and we look over at him hoping to see as much enthusiasm... and  his mouth is hanging open... and he pretty much knows he has no other choice but to agree with us...  And he doesn't even complain...  Well, that's a good guy if you ask me!! :)

We are so grateful to have so many wonderful friends and family that came to support us... our little luncheon had more than 80 people at it.  Seriously I am soooo grateful for good families.  Both mine and Shane's...  I so admire Shane's family for the support they give each other... I mean there is like a blessing/baptism/missionary AT LEAST once a month... and his WHOLE family is there to everything... It is amazing!

Lydia is his parents 43rd grandchild (and they have at least 20 great-grandchildren), and she is my parents 19th grandchild.  So she will definitely have cousins to play with!!!  And to think I didn't have even one!!!

The best part of the day was not having to clean my house before or after the luncheon... since we opted to have it at the Library Conference Room.  It was PERFECT and made the day so much more enjoyable and relaxing.

My girls are so blessed to have both sets of their grandparents living so close.  What fun memories they are making with each of them...  I feel bad that we didn't get a  picture of Lydia with Shane's parents before they dashed out.  But I love this one of my parents (even if my mom is going to give me a hard time about posting ANOTHER picture of heron here!)

What a fantastic day it was!!

We're Smitten...

Ahhhhhh......

Is she adorable or what???

And today Shane and I heard her laugh for the first time..  (Although her sisters take credit for hearing the first laugh earlier in the week!)

.I've only taken 10,000 pictures of this little thing....

Can you blame me???

Btw I just finished the last class in my "basic photography class"...  loved it, loved it, loved it...  totally worth it and I learned so much!!  I'm ready to sign-up for the advanced very soon.  She was a great teacher...  go here for more info.  You won't regret it!!  And let her know I referred you. :)

And just to make you smile.. here is Jadyn's quote of the day...  

We built a fire and roasted hot dogs last night...  a little late after getting everyone home from lessons so it was dark...  (and COLD!)  Jadyn says to us... 

"How do we turn the lights on and off outside?" 

  I didn't get it for a minute... figured she meant the ones on the patio... until we realized she was talking about the sun...  :)

When the floor and a nose meet...

You get this...

poor Jadyn!

I'm sure she'll have more colors displaying on her face this week!!  Not sure if it is broken or not...  the Dr. said we would need to wait for the swelling to go down.

When I was trying to comfort her after it happened, I said, "Oh, Jady I think it might be broken."  She looked at me with her big eyes and said, No momma, it isn't broke off because I can still feel it!"

And I bet she could!!

St. Patrick's Day...

None of my girls got pinched yesterday!!

But I did spend a good part of the day kissing on those gushy little cheeks!!

(And yes just realized when I was doing this post that I forgot to take a picture of daughter #4...  Oops... she looked cute too!!)

Flyin' High!!

Back in the fall we were in Ogden and went to chek out I-Fly @ the Solomon Center. Tayler and Saige decided that was something they REALLY wanted to do. So for Christmas I surprised them (and Shane and I) with a family pass. And tonight was the night we used it. What a rush... and o' so fun!! Kenna and Jadyn had fun watching us... And our awesome Lydia slept in the carseat from the time we left until we arrived home 4 1/2 hours later!

We think this video is awesome... but if you get tired of watching skip to the end to see our guide do his cool tricks. :)

It's not as easy to "fly" without the wind tunnel... but they had lots of fun anyway!!

What a fun night!!

Weekly Happenings...

Like usual this week has been extra busy... especially with Shane out of town... but not too worry... he is still on my good list because he did the sweetest thing ever for me...

He called and made me a pedicure appointment... and then even got my mom to babysit for me before he even told me about it.  It was wonderful and sweet and o' so thoughtful and earned big brownie points for him!!

I love you Shane!!

Then to make the day even better I got to take my kids and my momma to "Disney on Ice"... but I really have Tayler to thank for that one.  All the girls entered the Herald Journal coloring contest and Tayler won!!  And since Shane was out of town... Grandma got to come with us.  (I'm sure that Shane was just heart-broken about having to miss that...  he said they finished up early and went golfing yesterday... so that probably eased the pain a little :))

Gauranteed we had way more fun than him though!!  We ate dinner at Pei Wei in Bountiful, (owned by PF Changs with virually the same menu only cheaper) it was delicious... and then headed to the show...  Of course we all loved it... although Jadyn was freaking out when we went to see the "Princesses and their dresses"... ???" and Lydia experienced her first big outing!  Actually the first time she has ever been out of her carseat in a public place... she's a sheltered child. :)

Last Sunday I taught Tayler how to use Photoshop Elements... she loved it and picked up really fast and together we made her first layout...  her School Ski Day last week!

Pretty dang cute if I do say so!!

And I am liking my photo class...  We are learning to shoot in manual and mess around with the aperture...  This is one of the shots I did for my homework assignment... so glad Lydia doesn't tell me I am wasting the batteries yet... Because this was like 1 of a 1000!!

And then just because it's cute I had to throw in her little painted nails that I did this morning...

We kinda like her!!

(Oh, and do you like my new cool "Wide Blog"?  If you want to know how to do it here is a tutorial I found.)

One mouse down...

This morning Kenna found a mouse...  dead in the middle of the laundry room floor.  Shane has been in Arizona working on a Temple for the last 9 days... but will be home tonight, so I thought about just leaving it for him...  But then remembered we have awesome neighbors!!  So I started calling around and soon Joe came to save the day... complete with his glove and garbage bag!!  Thanks Joe... you will forever be a favorite neighbor for that!!

And... I figured out the entrance point for those little demons.  A void in the sheetrock in our garage that lets them get in between the walls and obviously sneek through some hole like an extra space in the dryer vent or something.  Looks like I have a little "honey-do" project for Shane this weekend...  covering up that hole!   I determined this since one of the "bait pouches" that I left right there was totally moved from the spot I put it... with no evidence of even the packaging.  I'm hoping that mouse took it back to share with his little mice friends (and I hope that Joe is around in the day if Shane's not to save me again when I find his friends!)  And there is a fresh one there just in case he was greedy and didn't share.  hehehehehhe

Pictures...

You know you've taken a few too many pictures when your three-year-old says to you...

"Enough mom... You're wasting the batteries!"

MICE!!

We have a mouse in our pantry... AGAIN... and I don't mean the Mickey variety...!  Creepy, disgusting, gag, gag, gag, tiny, evil thing!!  I assumed there was one, so was excited (and completely freaked out) when after finding poop for a couple weeks, Kenna called me saying, "mom something is moving in the garbage can!"  I stood back, way back... and asked unsuspecting Jadyn to come in and kick the garbage for me... (bad mother moment I know!  She's already terrified of animals...)  Anyway I saw movement...  screamed a little... stood shaking 10 feet from that garbage can... and finally after several terrified moments picked up that can and ran outside to toss it in the black beauty.  Maybe it wasn't even in there, but I was pleased with myself. :)  Until we heard more rustling the next day...  My pantry now has 9 traps in it... in all varieties... sticky traps, little houses, snap ones and bait. We are catching that mouse... this isn't a "eat the crumbs off the floor mouse."  This one (or more ICK!) is pampered and likes fresh food...  I've had to throw out several bags of chips that had been scratched into... corn bread pouches, choc chips, tortillas, pepperoni?, marshmallows, fishies, peanuts.  All unopened!!  Not to mention the sanitizing of counters every morning...  sick, sick, sick...!!  I peek in the closet every couple of hours to check those traps... so far nothing...  But...if anything good comes from this... I really don't feel like snacking on anything...  somehow seeing all those traps and thinking about where that little stinker has been running, makes everything lose its appeal... Maybe that will be the new fad diet of the year... called simply... "The Mouse Diet"!