Happy Birthday Katie!

My little sister turns 18 today. This is crazy because I can remember everything about the day she was born. I even remember what I did the night before on Halloween. Something else that is crazy is knowing that Justin and I have been together longer than she has been alive, which makes both of us feel very old.

This picture is when we took Katie to Disneyland with us. Which was such a fun trip and I was so glad she came with us.

This is Morgan, Katie, Sam, and Haylie when we took them on a short, but fun Vegas trip.

This is Katie with us New Years Eve at our friends house. I thought it was so funny that she got up and danced in front of a big group of our friends. She has been around them quite a bit so I know she feel comfortable around them but still, I thought it was funny. Anyways, Katie has grown up to mean more to me than I thought she ever would, not that I would not want her to be in my life but with certain situations I thought that we would be driven apart and never have the chance to get to know each other. I am glad life has turned out as it is and so happy that she is in my life. I am very proud of the person she has become, she has so many good qualities and I have no doubt that she will do great things. Even though it was actually hinted from her that I should post something about her on her birthday (shes nerdy like that), I just wanted to say Happy Birthday sweet sister, I am so happy that we are friends, I think that you are awesome and I hope you have the best year, you deserve it. I Love you!

I'm to Sexy for my hair!

This is one of my all time favorite Halloween pictures. For Halloween 2006 Justin, with the help of my brothers, dressed up like this crazy disco dude. I couldn't help but laugh every time I looked at him. Another reason why I love Halloween!

More Spooky!

Since Halloween will soon be over I decided to take another opportunity to share my "under control" Halloween obsession while I still can . I am loving my decorations and my house will look very bare when Halloween is over and I have to take them down. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. Above is Dracula, I made him the same year I made frank below. The 'come in for a bite' is actually a box that's supposed to hold treats but with so many little ones I have never actually put candy in it. This is Frankenstein, very Handsome. I think I made him 3 yrs ago.

This is one of my witches that is so much cuter in person. You can't see the details very well in this picture but she is funny. She is one of my first witches maybe 10 or so yrs old.

Another Frankenstein, he is very silly. I think he is about 5 yrs old, I cant remember I really should date things as I make them.

This is my spooky chandelier that is over my dining room table.

This is my front room window, I should of lit the candles they look cool when they are lit.

This is my favorite, it is my kitchen window. You cant tell to much from the pictures but it is supposed to look like a potion or spell brewing station for a witch. The jars have bugs, snakes, mice, frogs, skulls, you know all the basics for a good potion. The book says 'witchie spells' I think its silly. This is Justin, Haylie, and Morgans favorite part of my Halloween Decorations. I know I am a geek but its fun so I decided to share.

More Silly Paige!

Paige likes to keep things even. She has always wanted one of, whatever we were handing her at the time, for each hand. Well, she has taken it to a new level and has started doubling up other things. If I can hold two suckers then why cant I eat two suckers? She ended up a very sticky mess!

Can you say Binky Problem? For some reason I have never even thought about taking away Paige's binky until lately. She is our baby and has seemed so little, I have not really thought about how old she really is and that I should of taken it away a while ago. My last two kids did not like binkys so I never had to face that battle. I have a feeling its going to be a big one with Princess Pest of the Earth Paige. Wish me luck!

Witches Night Out!

Last Friday I was invited to go to Witches Night Out with Melanie and Katie. Talk about right up my ally, Halloween theme, costumes, shopping, hanging with adults, Halloween Decor everywhere, it was so much fun! I took a bunch of pictures but decided that as much as I want to I cannot post them all so I chose my favorites. This was our favorite witch, it made me laugh about some things that I have not thought funny for years.

This Witch Katie, Baby Witch Zayla, Witch Melanie, and Witch Natalie. We all are awesome witches!

This is me in my costume. When Witch Mel invited me I looked all over for a costume and was left wondering why people think witches needed to be slutty. I could not find one costume that did not have slut written all over it so I ended up making my own and this is what I came up with. I wanted to look sort of like a Hocus Pocus witch with the craziness of Bellatrix from Harry Potter. I liked how it turned out it was very heavy but that was good because it kept me pretty warm. My eyes look scary in that picture.

This is Witch Mel dancing with another witch. I love the purple tights!! Thank you evil sistas for a frightfully fun night! We RULE!

Happy Birthday Melly wa!!!

Happy Birthday Melanie! Today is my sweet cousins birthday, so as she did for me I decided to declare my love for her in a post. First I have to say that while looking through my pictures I was very sad to notice that I had very few pictures of her. I have tons of pictures of events that I know we were both at, or pictures where I knew she was standing behind the camera like at my kids baptisms for example. I have tons of pictures of her while we were kids and from before I went digital but no scanner, so Mel you lucked out on some of what could be very embarrassing shots and know that from now on I am going to make sure that we get more pictures together! I am so so so so (that's 4 so's) lucky to have Melanie in my life. She is truly one of the greatest people I have ever known and I feel honored to be able to call her my friend. I think of the saying "Family by chance, friends by choice" and have to give a shout out to my mother and my aunt Susie for getting pregnant within a year of each other, both having girls, therefore giving us the chance to be not only family but great friends as well, so thanks! Anyways, Mel and I have been pals for as long as I can remember. Even after she moved when we were kids, and further away, for a while as adults, whenever we got back together it was buddies as usual like we've never spent a day apart. I cherish my friendship with Melanie so much. She has been someone to look up to and someone with qualities that I admire and will work a life time to achieve. I don't know if she realizes but Melanie just being Melanie, was the greatest example of faith and goodness and one of the main reasons I even started thinking about going to the Temple. She was there for me to answer all my questions but never pushed. Obviously Temple blessings cant be topped and I will always have Melanie to thank for leading me in that direction. Not only is she a woman with such great faith and goodness to be admired she is such a great friend and so much stinkin' fun! I have the best time when we are together, we have so much in common which gives us so many options of things to go do together. No matter what we do it is always a blast. For a while now we have been scrap booking together ,the picture above is from when we were at a scrap-away in Park City and stopped at the outlets to shop (cute cousin/friend Katie and Little baby Zayla also pictured).
This is Melanie with Paige when she came to see me at the hospital. Another great thing about Melanie is that she is so great with kids. All my kids just absolutely love her (and gorgeous). We went on vacation with them years ago and we all had so much fun. Ever since then my kids have wanted to go somewhere with them again (which we need to do) but are always so excited to do anything when they know that Melanie will be there and mad when they are not invited. Everyone that knows Melanie knows what a great person she is, and I have already wrote a ton and realize that I can go on forever writing about what I like about about her, so I am going so stop now and sum it up with a list (I know, shocker), a list of the things that Mel has been for me.

• Someone who by example lead me and my family to the temple.
• Someone I know I can always count on.
• Someone I can trust.
• Someone I can be exactly who I am with and know that she will love me for it.
• Someone I can eat in the car with.
• Someone who brought me book club (which I love).
• Someone who brought me Race for the Cure (which is such a neat and special day and I love).
• Someone I can sing "9 to 5" with walking down the street and she doesn't cringe when she hears how awful my voice really is.
• Someone who will listen to my goals and is always supportive and encouraging every time I start over.
• Someone that makes Family Reunions bearable.
• Someone who always knows the perfect thing to say to make me feel better.
• Someone who likes pedicures and spa treatments as much as I do.
• Someone who likes Mania as much as I do.
• Someone no matter where we are or what the situation is always makes me feel better knowing shes around.
• Someone my kids adore.
• Someone that my husband knows my time spent away from him and with you is always good for me.
• Someone that knows the words to every song on 99.5 and other stations as well.
• Someone that claims to hate country music but I remember very vividly her listening to Sawyer Brown on many occasions.
• Some one that has her very own Walmart.
• Someone who has always been a example and someone for me to look up to.
• Someone I would hate to disappoint making her the angel on my shoulder when I am faced with a choice of right or wrong.
• Someone who is such a good and cute mom, and I love hearing about how much she loves her son.
• Someone I love and am so grateful that she is in my life.
• Someone who I know will be one of my greatest influences in my life.
• Someone who for every year from now on will dress up like a witch and dance around Gardner's Village with me for as long as we both can walk and after that can push me in a wheel chair.
• Someone that I am so proud and lucky to have as a friend.

OK my list to sum things up was very long, just think if I would of wrote about all of them how long it would of been. I love you Melanie, you are a truly genuine and special person. I hope you have a awesome Birthday, you deserve it and so much more!

Pretty Flowers?

Every time my cute Drew would go outside this past summer he would bring me in a flower and say "I got something for you momma" He was always so excited to give it to me and I have to admit that even though they were always weeds or one of the millions of sunflowers that grow up here, I loved it. So this past weekend when Justin was getting ready to go hunting him and Drew picked me up a cute potted Halloween plant at the grocery store. Everyday since Drew has brought me the flowers at least 5 times each day saying "I got something for you momma" Of course I was excited to receive them every single time, I would take them from him and try to find a higher place to put them. Well this morning he found them again, and instead of bringing the entire plant like hes done for the past 3 days he decided to pick me off some. He pretty much picked the entire plant an brought it to me like a bouquet. He was so proud and so excited and even though he ruined my cute plant I could not get mad at him. What a sweet boy!