Life challenges

Today has been an interesting day, I don't think a lot of people know about Katie so I will give a little background to today. On December 19th Katie got sick, she had a fever and threw up a couple of times, her fever was about 102.7, so on Saturday I took her in to see the doctor. Thankfully while we were there the nurse was asking us all these questions and it came out that Katie was complaining when she peed that it hurt her bum. So they had us get a urine sample. It came back that she had a kidney infection, so the doctor told me about the body and how the kidney sends stuff down to the bladder through a tube (or something like that, I'm not a doctor) and there's a flap that is supposed to stop the urine from going back up to the kidney. So either the bacteria got in through her blood stream or that flap isn't working properly and it came from the bladder. So we had to schedule a procedure (that ended up being today) that would check to see if the flap was working. Fast forward to today, we took her to the hospital to have it done. They had to put a catheter in and emptied her bladder, and then they put in a TON of dye, I couldn't believe how much they put in. Then they took pictures (by X-ray) and then they had her empty her bladder and then they took more pictures. It turns out that the flap isn't working quite right because there was dye in her kidney. It was miserable for Katie, but she did such a good job. I think the worst part of it was the urge to go pee, you should have seen how huge her bladder was compared to what it looked like after she peed. Poor thing!! She did such a good job though, and I got to comfort her, which amazed me. I really don't know how to explain what I'm feeling, but I was so scared for this procedure, and I was worried I wouldn't be able to handle it, but I put all my fears aside and was there for Katie. It was just amazing to me how much I seemed to step up to the plate and do what I needed to do. Anyway, afterward we went and got ice cream. Thankfully this procedure didn't have any lasting effects, as soon as it was over, it was over! She's such a big girl!!

Recommendations

Ok, so I don't really have a lot of time to write a long post right now, but I just had to share a book recommendation. "The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands" it is the most amazing book, it is such a fun read. I am only on the third chapter but I've already discovered some things that I need to work on. Laura Schlessinger is the author and she is so matter of fact and straight forward that it's hilarious sometimes, I love it. I highly highly recommend it to everyone!! The other book I want to give a shout out to is actually co-written by my dad. It's called "Santa's Secret" it's a fictionalized timeline story of true experiences my dad has had while being Santa Claus, it's a very heart touching book. It's an amazing add to your Holiday book collection. Anyway, that's all I have time for today, oh wait no it's not. One more thing, I don't know if any of you watch Studio 5 (those of us in Utah) but they had an awesome idea on the other day. They showed how to make your own tutu for your girls. I was in the Provo Towne Centre Mall yesterday and saw a little stand that had tutus. I examined it closely and it was made exactly the way this lady does it, they were selling for about 30 dollars and you can make your own for about 7-14 (if you really add a lot of embellishments) dollars. And they are way cute! Check out their website at studio5.ksl.com it's awesome!!

Hello Christmas!

I can't believe that Christmas is only two weeks away, it's insane! We finally got our Christmas tree up, we had to wait until we got rid of our entertainment center. (Shameless plug: We are selling our entertainment center, so if you know of anyone looking for one, we're selling ours for about $200.) We're not planning on doing anything big for Christmas this year, Santa already came to our house this year! But I am planning on buying a gift for Randy even though he's mad at me for doing so, but it's one that he really needs. You know, it's kind of depressing growing up, unlike a lot of other people, I don't particularly enjoy buying my own gifts. I don't mind buying the bulk of my gifts but I LOVE surprises!! I don't know how many people know that about me, but I absolutely love them, the only problem.... it's really hard to surprise me. I've only had one Christmas that really stands out in my mind where I was really surprised by most of my gifts. That was an awesome Christmas!! I think there's only one person that could really surprise me and that's my sister Gina, and I think that's because she knows the way I think when it comes to things like that. Anyway, I went off there for a minute sorry. So for the last couple of days all Hailey talks about is a tea party and she has been driving me nuts because she wants to make cookies for said tea party. All day yesterday I had to keep putting all my sugar and sprinkles and food coloring back because she would get them out to make cookies. She would also get out a cookie sheet and the rolling pin. It's driving me CRAZY!! I want to make cookies with her but this weekend is INSANELY busy so I'm not sure that we'll be able to make cookies until next week. We'll just have to see how it goes, maybe we can do that after Randy gets home from work. Well anyway, I have a lot to do today but I just wanted to write a quick post to let everyone know we're doing well, and I hope you are all having a wonderful Christmas season!!

Good Times

So, it has again been awhile since I have written, it seems I'm starting a habit, and not a good one. So we've had a lot of good times lately, first we had Thanksgiving which turned out to be a lot of fun. We went to my families house this year and had a lot of fun, we didn't do the traditional meal this year. Instead we had my dad's turkey (which is seriously the BEST turkey, I don't really like turkey but his is AWESOME) and rolls and bread, and then we just had salads, chips, dip and of course stuffing. It was way good, I'm not a huge fan of all the regular stuff at Thanksgiving except for the stuffing and potatoes. I don't like sweet potatoes at ALL!! And of course we had my mom's pumpkin pie (which isn't actually pumpkin at all it's actually made out of banana squash, but it's the BEST). I'm really liking the capitalized letters, if you haven't noticed. So that was a lot of fun, and then yesterday we had Katie's third birthday, I can't believe she's 3 already. It's insane, I feel really bad though because I always make a slide show of my kids year, but Katie's birthday seriously snuck up on me and where Thanksgiving was three days before her birthday I didn't really have time to do one. But I will, I promise!

I am starting to get the Christmas bug, I can't wait to wrap gifts for others, and I can't wait to sing Christmas songs, and have Christmas parties, and getting together with family! I love the feel of this season, it's awesome!! Well, I need to go and take care of stuff, because I will be gone tonight, I finally get to go to Bunco after like three or four months of not going. I can't wait!! Until next time.... Have fun!!

Husband tag

So I was tagged by my friend Heather, sorry it's taken me so long Heather, I promise I didn't forget about ya!!

And here he is, the love of my life, my best friend!!

~What is your husband's full name? Randy Todd David Grimes

~How long have you been married? 5 years 6 almost 7 months

~How long did you date? 5 months

~How old is he? 27

~Who eats more sweets? Probably me

~Who said "I love you" first? I honestly don't remember, is that sad or just pathetic?

~Who is taller? Randy by about 7 inches :0)

~Who can sing the best? Me

~Who is smarter? It depends on the subject, there are some things I know more about, and others he knows more about. So I'd say about the same.

~Who does the laundry? Me, but Randy will put in a load here and there for me, and he would help me fold the laundry if I wasn't so picky.

~Who pays the bills? Me, but Randy supplies the moula! (Thanks hon!)

~Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? It depends on the angle you're looking from. If you're standing in front of the bed then I'm on the right, but if you're lying down I'm on Randy's left and he's on my right. Confusing enough yet?

~Who mows the lawn? Probably our landlords, we're not for sure. Previously it was Randy, but I LOVED mowing it when he let me. (We had a riding lawnmower)

~Who cooks dinner? Me

~Who drives? Most of the time Randy, but there are times when I do.

~Who kissed who first? Randy, and it wasn't that great for him, because I had no idea it was coming.

~Who asked who out first? Well technically LeeAnn (my sister-in-law) asked first, she set us up and actually kind of set up the first three times we did something. But after that, it might have been me, I'm not sure.

~Who wears the pants? Well we both wear pants :0) I would say it's a mutual thing.

I tag McKenna and Samantha

Long time again

So, things have been a little crazy! I've wanted to put up pictures from Halloween and such but our computer hasn't been reading our SD card lately, actually it doesn't even register that it's there, so I haven't been able to get the pictures on to our computer which has given me an excuse not to blog. But that's gone now, I was able to get the pictures on our computer today, so brace yourself there's a lot of cute pictures I want to share. First I'll share our Halloween pictures. Hailey was a witch, Katie was a Lion and Zoe was a pumpkin.

Halloween wasn't as fun this year because we ended up being in Elk Ridge all night because we had renters moving in on the 1st so we had to get things ready. On top of all that Randy threw out his back that night as well so getting things done took a lot longer than it should have. It was a lot of fun to dress the girls up though, I put make up on the girls which wasn't too bad on Hailey, but Katie was a killer!! She was not much fun to try to get to stay still. They looked so grown up!! It was kind of scary though, I got a small glimpse of the future. A lot has been going on here, the girls are getting bigger all the time, but especially Zoe, she has grown so much in such the past month! I attribute it to her being on cow's milk, and I'm getting braver in what I feed her. She has learned to crawl up the stairs and makes it all the way up, but it makes me nervous because I'm afraid she'll try to get back down and tumble her way down. Oh well, what do you do huh? I'm also ECSTATIC because we got a guinea pig!!! I have wanted one now for quite a while and I was finally able to get one. A family in our old ward was giving a few away so I nabbed one for us and one for my mother-in-law, we took the two babies. Ours is a girl, her name is Rosie and my mother-in-law took the boy. Weslie named him Joey, they are SOOOOOOO cute!! Here is Rosie with Joey, Joey is the one with the white strip on his nose.
I'll tell ya, we've got quite the array of pets, in our house we have a male beta fish named Zipper, we have a female tarantula Shiloh, and now a female guinea pig Rosie. Then my mom and sister have birds (my mom has one, Gina has two) and my sister-in-law has a snake. That's quite the collection!! I think my Rosie is simply adorable!!

Long time

So I don't have a lot of time to write right now, but it's been awhile since I've blogged anything so I thought I would type up a quick little update. Things are going pretty well, we potty trained Katie this week, it's been awesome, she's done really well. She's only had three or four "wet" accidents and NO poopy accidents. It's been awesome!!! It's funny how excited parents get over seeing a poop or pee in the toilet. A week ago Katie said she had to go potty (she had been going every 5-10 minutes all day and she wasn't doing anything) so I let her go and left her to it. After a while she told me she needed me for a minute. So I went in there expecting to just help her get off the toilet. When I went in she said she had peed "Yeah right" is what I'm thinking. So I look in the toilet and I see toilet paper so then I'm getting annoyed because she wasted toilet paper. Then in the bottom I see a poop, and I started freaking out, I said "Katie you pooped!!" and then I started laughing and jumping up and down with Katie and hugging her. Katie just got this big huge grin on her face and looked at me like what the heck got in to you? It was really funny!! But she's been going now for a week and this morning her pull up was totally dry, so we'll see how it goes at night, but she's pretty much potty trained, its awesome!!! Let's see, Zoe has started crawling on her hands and knees, until she really wants to start moving, then she reverts back to the army crawl. She's started to attempt to pull herself up to things, and she said hi a couple of times now. The other major thing going on right now is that we found a family to rent the house in Elk Ridge which has meant double time work on the home to get it ready for them to move into this weekend!! It's been crazy insane!! Well, I'll be posting some fun pictures we've taken recently so be on the lookout, until then enjoy life!!

Funny

So I found this video while I was going through and labeling all the movies we have on our computer. I think it's so cute! I had put Hailey's hair in curlers because she wanted me to. She looked so cute! She is such a fun little girl to have around the house, she can be a real sweetheart! I hope you enjoy these as much as I did, the end of the video is my favorite part. I also decided to post some of the pictures I took of her with the curlers in, she looked so cute, but weird because it made her look more grown up.

Birthday fun, and misery

Zoe's birthday went well and we'd like to thank everyone who came over to help celebrate her birthday with us. She absolutely LOVED her cake, she ate two whole pieces of cake and she ate it all! She got a few outfits and a puzzle, it's quite interesting shopping for her, we bought her a short sleeved onesie that's a 3-6 month size, two long sleeved onesies that are size 6 months and a pair of pants that's size 9 months. All for my 12 month old daughter! It's kind of irritating buying clothes for her, but we did end up finding cute stuff, let's just say I'll be shopping at Target for most of her clothes. They had so many cute clothes there, it was hard to pick something out for her. However, turning one also comes with it's downfalls: the one year checkup!!


So I took her to the doctor today and he was a little concerned about her growth, so he called the pediatrician to see if we needed to take her to an endocrinologist to see if she has growth hormone deficiencies. After talking with him he told me they'll wait until she's two and then if she hasn't seen much growth then we'll have to go up to Children's Primary Center to see an endocrinologist. But they wanted to take a few blood samples to test her for some other things. So then he left and they gave her 5 shots, they've been out of the hemoglobin shot so she hasnt' been getting those, she also got a TB shot in her arm. Then we had to take her to have her blood drawn. They had me bring her into their "emergency room" and had me lay her down on the table and then they put the needle in her arm. Poor Zoe, this definately wasn't a very fun doctor visit. I handled everything fine until I got to the van and then I just started bawling. I don't mind having small kids, but I'm so tired of worrying that there's possibly something wrong with her. My doctor made it seem like even if she did have growth hormone deficiencies that it wasn't that big of a deal and he told me his daughter actually had this problem and she just needed to have shots. Zoe is off the charts in weight which she has been since her 3 month checkup but she's been going up. Her height dropped from the 50% down to 5% so maybe that's why he was a little concerned.


Anyway, here are some of the pictures that we took yesterday and a video of her eating her cake. There's two of them, the first is when I first gave it to her and the second I handed the camera to my wonderful sister-in-law LeeAnn so I could help dish up the cake. Both are so cute!!

It ups my chances!

On October 15 a new website will be opening! It has all kinds of really cute handbags. If you go check it out right now you can enter to win a free one!! www.handbagplanet.com

Accomplishments

So this morning at about 7:00 I was lying in bed thinking I was awake (in retrospect I was still very much asleep) and I was writing a blog in my head. I was thinking about what I wanted to blog but I was actually watching my fingers hit each note on the keyboard. Then I would drive myself crazy because I was going too slow so I would just start saying what I wanted to write. It was very bizarre!! Anyway, so I wanted to take a moment to talk about a huge accomplishment I've made, and I hope this blog doesn't make anyone feel bad (I'll explain why later).

For the past year I have been able to breastfeed Zoe, this is a HUGE accomplishment for me and a HUGE testimony builder as well. Let me explain why, I wasn't able to nurse my first two girls. I nursed Hailey for three weeks and the last two days were terrible but I didn't dare tell Randy I didn't want to nurse her anymore (I'm not particularly sure why). But I finally told him I would rather bash my head in with a rock then feed her. Thankfully he was very understanding (I was serious about the bashing head thing). So the whole experience with Hailey wasn't good, then I had Katie and while I was in the hospital I had a really hard time with it. I remember I felt like I started right where I finished off with Hailey. The nurses had the lactation consultant come in and she was there for 45 minutes and she was insane! I was so frustrated by the time she left that I just broke down and bawled for about 45 minutes. So while I was in the hospital I decided that I wanted to enjoy this baby and I didn't think I would be able to if I nursed her. Well, I always felt a little guilty that I didn't really give her a good try, so when I was pregnant with Zoe I decided that I was really going to give it my best shot. Here comes the testimony building part. As the due date got closer I kept telling Randy that I didn't want any help from nurses or anybody, if I was going to nurse her it would be between me, Zoe and the Lord. For any of you who have had children, most the time the nurses will ask you if it's your first child or not, then they usually ask if you are breastfeeding, or not. Well, they asked me if this was my first, I would tell them, no this is my third. Then they would ask if I was breastfeeding, when I told them yes, I think they figured that I had nursed the other two and that I was a pro. Thankfully no one asked if I nursed the other two, until they were giving me the "checkout" speeches. Anyway, I remember while I was in the hospital I would pray for help before I nursed her. It sounds a little stupid, but I was kind of scared to nurse Zoe because of my prior experiences. I remember the day after I had her was a particularly bad day. I was lonely and I really wanted Randy with me but he was home with the other two and we didn't have a babysitter. I was having a hard time with nursing her and I was getting very frustrated. So I prayed and I told myself I needed to relax, so I listened to my I-pod nano and looked out the window at the scenery. I also had to erase everything I had read or heard about nursing and just went on instincts, best thing I did I think.

Anyway, to make an already long story short, I've been able to nurse Zoe this whole time and it's such an amazing thing for me. I still can't believe sometimes that I was actually able to do it. I can't say I've always enjoyed it, in fact about 6 months ago I wanted to stop soooo bad, but I knew I would regret it. Now, I'm a little sad to think I'll be done. Now the reason I hope this doesn't offend anyone is because it's pushed so hard everywhere to nurse your baby, and I believe it causes feelings of failure for those that can't breastfeed. For anyone who hasn't been able to or didn't want to breastfeed their baby, I know how you feel. I have been on both sides of this issue and I know from personal experience, breastfeeding isn't for everyone. It's not an easy thing, and if you can't nurse your child, DON"T EVER LET ANYONE MAKE YOU FEEL GUILTY!! Breastfeeding your child isn't the most important thing in life, what's important is that your baby is loved!! It always bugs me when women are so fixed on one way or the other! Anyway, this whole experience has been a testimony builder that when you really put your life in Heavenly Fathers hands, trust in him, and fully accept that you can't do it without him you can do anything!!

I am thankful for my little one, and for her presence in our home this past year. I'm thankful to my Heavenly Father for the help I have received with her and with my other two children. I love my family so much, they mean the world to me. I'm thankful to all my friends, for your love and support. I'm also grateful for my extended family and my in-laws, they are all wonderful!!
So, this post has been kind of a weird one, oh well, I guess it suits me then doesn't it!!

Getting Ready

So this Sunday is Zoe's first birthday, I can't believe it's already here! I have so much housework to get done before then and it's just simply INSANE!!! It wouldn't be so bad, but for the past week or so I've been really depressed, which makes it hard to do anything. It's amazing how many people my depression affects, when I dealt with depression in highschool it didn't seem like such a big deal. It wasn't fun, but it was much easier to deal with then! I finally decided that I need to talk to my doctor, so when I take Zoe to the doctor on Monday I am going to talk to him and see if he'll prescribe me something. This has been a very hard decision for me to make, I think that women have this tendency to feel like they are failures if they admit that they need help. It's so sad, because anyone suffering from depression just isn't themselves, and if they get help they start to feel normal again. I don't know if medication will help, but I definately don't think it will hurt. I'm kind of excited, if it helps it will be such a blessing!! I hate who I become when I'm depressed, I'm not a good mom, wife or homemaker. It's terrible!! Anyway, hopefully I didn't put a damper on anyones spirits that read this!

Anyway, not much of an exciting post, but I don't really have time to make it cutesy, as I said above, I have a LOT of work to do before Sunday. My next post will be all sorts of fun though, because I will have pictures of Zoe's birthday, I can't tell you how excited I am to watch her eat her first piece of cake, I think she'll tear into more than the other two did. Well, hope you have a great day (or night depending on when you are reading this) and come back soon to see pictures of Zoe with her cake!!

Friends

Our good friends the Grimes (not related), all these pictures are kind of old.

Heather with her kids, they feel asleep and they were holding hands
Marc, what a goof ball!
Hannah and Hailey
Heather holding Zoe

How come in life we seem to always take what we have for granted, and we don't realize how much it means to us until it's gone? Lately I have really missed our good friends Marc and Heather Grimes, they moved to Salt Lake and it's not that far away, but it might as well be in another state. This past week has been especially hard, Randy and I love to have people over to play games, or watch a movie, or just hang out. The problem is, we don't have very many friends, and there have been a few we've hung out with, but I've realized there's no one like the Grimes family. Our kids played so great together, and we got along so well with Marc and Heather, in fact Marc has been like a brother to Randy, and it was so much fun to see them together (for those that don't know, Randy doesn't have any brothers). It's just amazing how much you don't realize how much you care about someone till there gone. So, Heather, I just want to thank you for being such a good friend to me, I'm sure it's not always easy to be my friend. I know many times I talked your ear off and didn't let you say much, and for those times, I'm sorry, I wish I would have asked more questions and listened a little better. But on the same token, thank you so much for listening to me, it meant the world to me! I'm sorry we didn't make more of an effort to come see you guys more while you were in Orem. We miss you like crazy!! And we love you guys, hopefully we'll get to see you soon, I think we seriously want to plan a time in the next month or two when we can come up and see you guys.

Anyway, sorry for this odd post, but lately I have been feeling very lonely, which is ridiculous, I am surrounded by people! I just think I miss the kind of friendships you have in highschool, or college, or when you work with people. I just miss having a really close girlfriend. They really are a gift from Heaven when you find a good one! I hope no one takes offense to this blog, I do have a lot of good friends, and I love each of you! I should be a better friend and call all of my good friends, but sometimes it's hard for me. My two really good friends from highschool (Annie, and Holly) are some of the best friends ever, but because I feel so different in my life circumstances (I have three kids they don't have any) I sometimes feel out of place. It's funny how your current stage in life changes how you feel the world looks at you. I wish I could just see myself as Jessica, but instead I categorize myself as a mom. Now please don't misunderstand what I'm saying, I love being a mom, I love my daughters so much and they give so much to my life! But sometimes I think I get too caught up in that and I don't know how to just be me. I don't know if this makes any sense at all, it probably doesn't. I just wish I saw myself as Jessica, who is a mom instead of a Mom who is Jessica. I really don't know how to explain what I've been feeling lately, so sorry about this blog, it probably doesn't make a lot of sense, but it's always nice to express how I feel.

My Wonderful Husband!

So I am really excited for today, it's my best friends birthday! I had a really cool surprise for Randy, I bought him rounds for his gun, he didn't know I got them and I was so excited because he's wanted them for a long time now (since we got his gun which was probably about a year ago). I can't tell you how excited I was to surprise him with them ( hopefully it was a surprise!) I love his birthday so much, it's funner than mine! We're also planning on going to Chile's for his birthday dinner, totally free!! He's been earning gift cards to Chile's for about the past month or two and so we have about 65 to 70 dollars in gift certificates, I think we'll be able to get a pretty good meal for that :0)

So I saw this on a friends blog (I think it was McKenna's, thanks!) and I'm going to steal the idea because I thought it was REALLY cute!

Randy is turning 27, so here's 27 reasons I adore him (there's a lot more than that!)

1. You love me so much, and I know it. You always do little things that show me. My favorite is that my nick name (if that's what you want to call it) is Georgeous

2. You always say thank you for the little things I do for you, like hide notes in your suitcase when you go on trips. I love that you love when I do those things for you

3. I absolutely love how easy it is for me to surprise you with things! I don't know if it's because I'm unusually good at hiding things, or if it's because you don't pay attention to tiny details that would give things away. Either way, I love it!

4. You are so patient with me, I have a lot of things I need to work on and when I accomplish little things that I'm excited about you get excited for me too.

5. I love it when you do silly things that make me laugh and sometimes pee my pants (It was the day before I had Zoe, so I guess I had an excuse!)

6. I like it when you talk about tv's and even though I have no idea what you're talking about, I'm glad you talk to me anyway!

7. I love it when you catch me looking at you, you always get this really cute grin!

8. I love to buy you Oreos, it's cute that you like them so much! It's nice to give you that little treat when you come home after work. (He loves Oreos and milk).

9. I love it when you buy me a rose for no reason other than to tell me you love me. I will always remember the time you put a rose on the truck while I was working at H&R Block and then hid around the corner to make sure I got it.

10. I really liked how good you looked in those pants we got you for your birthday (or Christmas, I don't remember which). You know, the ones your family called girl pants. We need to find you some more pants like that.

11. I love that you get excited that you're getting a belly, then you get upset because you don't fit into your old pants anymore. You can't have it both ways.

12. Speaking of, I think it's hilarious that you think you have a belly, you have to poke it out just for people to see it.

13. I love that whenever you can't find anything, for the most part I know where it is. I also love it when I tell you where something is, and you look for it and can't find it. Then I go look in the same spot I told you it was in, and I find it.

14. I love that I can finish your sentences, and that our thoughts are exactly the same a lot of times.

15. I love taking pictures of you while you are sleeping! I'll never forget when you were holding the remote and fell asleep, that was awesome!

16. I love how hot you look in your work clothes. I have always liked you in Sunday clothes!!

17. I love your testimony and your strength, it gives me comfort and strength.

18. I absolutely love that you hold the priesthood so worthily, and that you are so willing to bless our family with it.

19. I love to cuddle with you.

20. I love that I drive you crazy!

21. I love your hands

22. I absolutely love your smile

23. I love your laugh, especially when you laugh really hard

24. Your such a good dad to the girls, they adore you and I love to watch you play with them.

25. I love to watch Zoe crawl as fast as she can to you when you get home

26. You turn into such a kid when you talk about sound equipment, or trucks, or tools

27. I love that I get the chance to spend forever with you! I hope you can handle me for that long!

I hope that you have a wonderful birthday, I love you very much honey!!

Tagged

I got tagged by my friend Heather. "You have to take 10 pictures of the following things and you have to do it right away. No straightening, cleaning or wiping your child's nose (I mean it!)."

KIDS: This is amazing, I actually got all of them to smile. Hailey, Zoe, and Katie

BATHROOM: This is one of our bathrooms, we also have a half bathroom downstairs. The other bathroom is the one that looks cute, but we use this one the most. So there you go. CLOSET: I LOVE our closet, it's the coolest closet I've ever seen. It's a walk in closet, and it has built in shelves everywhere. It's kind of crazy looking right now. MY SHOES: Hehe, I'm not wearing any, aren't my feet funny looking? MY FRIDGE:It's crazy, we have a lot of magnets, the girls like to play with them. MY KITCHEN SINK: Need I say more? MY LAUNDRY ROOM: The stuff on top of the dryer and washer aren't normally there, I've actually been really good so far at keeping them cleaned off. Favorite Room: Ok, so it's not a room, but this is one of my favorite things about our apartment. This is my little alcove, I put in two pictures to kind of show you how cool this little landing is. ME: I look so out of it, almost like I'm on something. Oh well, this is me!
DREAM VACATION: This one was really hard, because there's so many places that I want to go, I would love to go to Australia, Ireland, and Switzerland. These are all pictures of Ireland.

Now, I tag McKenna, Sam, and Jenna. Have fun!!

I'm back

Ok, so it's been a really long time since I've posted anything because we haven't had internet. So, finally I say what's been up with the Grimes Family. So anyone who doesn't know yet, we moved to South Provo, and so far we really like it here. Randy and I were commenting the other day that it's really weird, he filled up the jag last Thursday and he still has between 1/2 and 3/4 of a tank left. A tank of gas used to only last us a week while we were living in Elk Ridge. It's been nice, but I didn't realize how stressfull moving was and I'm so glad we don't do it very often! I didn't feel stressed while it was going on, but now that I look back at the past few weeks, I realize how much it threw our lives into a tail spin. It's finally starting to stabilize and feel like normal life.

So, Hailey started Preschool and she loves it!! She also starting a reading school where she also gets to work on computers (thanks Sandy for the heads up), she absolutely loves it, and looks so cute! They wear these big headphones that also have a mic on it, I'll have to take a picture tomorrow because she really looks so cute! Katie is talking more and more, and it's a little freaky! She can't wait until she gets to go to school too, that won't be for a couple of years though. She'll go to Sunbeams in January, which is going to be a little weird! For the most part they play together well, but they definately have their days. Zoe is my little Easy Come Easy Go girl, she doesn't seem in a hurry to walk or stand by herself although she LOVES to do these things. She still hasn't attempted to do it on her own and she's still army crawling. She will go up on her hands and knees, but when she starts to move, she goes right back to the army crawl. She also loves to cuddle, and she still loves me! I only have a couple of weeks until she is one, which is a scary thought to me, I can't believe it snuck up so fast. I am excited to be done nursing, I've enjoyed it, but it will be nice to just be me. I'm a little nervous that she'll have a hard time weaning, she really enjoys her morning time and bed time feedings. Zoe now has three teeth on the bottom, and I'm pretty sure I saw a third tooth on the top peeking through.

All of us are doing well, I'm really excited for some changes that Randy and I are making, I think they will really improve our lives. Life is so exciting, everyday is a chance for something better! Everyday we can decide to make our lives better or worse, or let them stay the same. I feel like we are finally moving forward, it's a very exciting time!!

It's been awhile

So, it's been awhile since I've written a blog. Life has been insane!! So about two weeks ago we decided we need to move to Provo or Orem. WOW!! Making that kind of a decision sure sends your life into a whirl wind. We finally found an apartment that we are really excited about, but we need to wait another couple of days to find out if we got it. We're pretty sure we did seeing as they didn't even advertise it. It's in South Provo, which is a little more South than we wanted but it will work. Anyway, I can't wait until the next three to four weeks are over, especially the next few days. Randy and I have been so on edge and ornery lately, it's hard when you don't feel like you know what's going on with your life. We're way excited to move though, it will be a lot of fun to be closer to everything. Well, that's about all I have time for right now. I need to write another blog soon though, I have a few cute pictures I want to post. Anyway, until then, have fun!!

Ever thought you missed it?

Ok, so have you ever had a time in your life where you felt like you lucked out and missed something that you didn't want to do? I've had a couple of experiences that I can think of, the first (I'm sure I've had more than this, but these are the two that I remember): You know how when you move into a new ward they generally make you speak and introduce yourself? Well when we moved to Elk Ridge, they never asked us to speak so I thought we got out of it, but I was wrong, it just took them about a year to ask us. The second, you know how just about everyone has an experience with their children cutting their own hair, or that of a sibling? I thought we missed out on that with Katie, but today she proved it's never too late to experience that. Randy changed Zoe, and in the five minutes it took to do so, Katie found a pair of scissors and cut some of her hair. Thankfully you can't even really tell that she did, but it just made me realize, you're never in the "clear" with things like that. Oh well.

I realized today just how much I love my kids, I've been sick, and I tried to take a nap today, Zoe was asleep, so I knew my window was short, I was trying to get Katie to stay in her room. Finally she did, but I only got about 15-30 minutes of sleep before Zoe woke up. Thankfully though I've found a way to be able to snooze on the couch, all I have to do is put in the Nature movie we made, put Zoe in her bouncer and keep Cheerios on her tray. So I did that today just so I could relax and hopefully get some of this pressure in my sinus' to subside. As I was laying there, all I could do was watch Zoe, I am just so amazed at kids, they truly are a miracle. We all are, it was so fun to watch her get excited over things, waving her little arms. How can you look at babies, and reflect on the complexities of the human body and not believe in God? How can you believe that we just evolved, or just happened to come about. It just doesn't make sense to me. I struggle sometimes, and forget the miracle that my children are, but I have been trying to do better at constantly remembering that they're not my children at all, they're Heavenly Father's children and he has trusted me to take care of them. How I hope I can do a job that would make him proud. I know in moments of weakness I am the exact opposite of what he wants for his children, but I also feel that in moments when I slow down and try to be understanding I am closer to the Mother that God wants me to be. I do love my children, and I love my husband!

Speaking of my husband, yesterday I had one of those moments where I realize how much I love him and how blessed I am to have him. It's been five years now since we were first married, and although it hasnt' always been easy it has always been fun. I used to think that the marriage that Randy and I share was more or less average, everyone had a marriage like ours, but I am coming to realize that's not the case. I'm sure there are other people that do have one like ours, but I've heard so many people say that there were times that they wanted to get out. I have never felt that way, Randy and I have never yelled at each other, we've never really fought, we've hurt each others feelings before, but we always talk it out and we always forgive each other and move on. I love my husband so much, for the wonderful friend he is to me, and for the awesome father that he is to our three girls. They adore their dad, I love to watch him play with the girls, and I can't wait to see him pal around with his son (just so you know, I am not making an announcement, not for another year). I am so grateful for my family, not just Randy and the girls, but for my parents and siblings, and Randy's parents and siblings. I love them all so much!
I'm grateful for the wonderful blessing of families!

Harding Reunion

So last night we had a Family Reunion on Randy's mother's side of the family, the Harding side. It was a lot of fun, we had a talent show and then a dance it was kind of funny though because our family was pretty much the only ones dancing. We had a lot of fun though, I sang a duet with my sister-in-law LeeAnn, and Hailey and Katie sang I'm Trying to be Like Jesus. They did a really good job! I was so proud of them. I love to hear Hailey sing, it's so cute. There were a few other talents as well, and we found out that Randy's cousin was headed up to Salt Lake today for the American Idol auditions, he's good enough to make it so we'll see what happens!! We also got to watch Grandpa's flowers blossom. He has flowers that blossom at night and then they die the next morning. It was so awesome to actually get to watch the flower open up. Grandpa is an amazing gardner. So I've had some pictures I've wanted to post for a while now. These were taken a few weeks ago at a park in Payson. We went and met a friend of mine there and our kids all played together, she has two, a little girl whose a year and a boy who is almost three. They all had a lot of fun.

Camping

Ok, so we went camping this weekend, it was a lot of fun but it's so stressful with little kids. But we all had fun, and I got to see me cousin Steven who I haven't seen in eight years, so it was really awesome!! We went camping with my mom's family, it should have been my family and all my uncles and their families. However, we haven't had everyone together for about five years now. I really miss hearing my uncles and my mom talk about growing up. Sometimes I wonder how they survived to adulthood. Poor Zoe, though, she didn't have a good day Thursday because of me. I had her in her car seat to feed her, so I didn't buckle her in. Then I took her in to the trailer and put her on the bench and was trying to set up her playpen in the middle of the trailer to lay her down for a nap. All of a sudden I hear a bang and I look over and she's on the floor with her car seat on top of her. What happened ( I found this out later when I saw her do this) was she sat up and the car seat was too close to the edge of the bench, and she fell out. I felt pretty bad!! Now she has a big sore on her nose. Then later that night, we put her down to sleep and then we brought the other two in later, well Katie threw a fit and woke Zoe up. So we brought her out with us, Randy was spraying her with Off and Zoe turned her head and the mist got in her eyes. Poor thing, on top of all this, she's cutting her top two teeth right now. It was really sad. Here's the damage:




These were taken after she had a bath, this morning as we were leaving she had a face only a mother could love, she was so dirty and her nose was so red! Poor thing, I feel like such a terrible mom. Just a note, her sore looks worse then it is. It's really just a scrape, it kind of looks like a gash in the picture but it's not. It almost just looks like a bruise, just really red. Then, I almost thought we adopted black children for a while, I can't believe how dirty two little girls can get!!
They had fun, I'm just glad I put them in clothes that I'm not partial to. We did have a lot of fun, though, we ended up going to Payson Lakes and we let the girls swim, we didn't bring swimsuits so we went ghetto style! Hailey swam in her underwear and undershirt and we just took Katie's diaper off and put her onesie on and let them swim. They had fun, and we were able to get some of the dirt off. It was a ton of fun!! Really stressful but a lot of fun!