Christmas 2013

 For the last three Christmas's I've been pregnant or have had a child in the home where it was their 'First Christmas.'
This year Adalyn was able to have a good, fun time and open gifts and run around playing with her new dolls. She was beyond cute to watch. She would look at us and hold her hands out and shrug her shoulders and smile as if she were telling us "I don't know what this is or what's going on but it sure is fun!" I wish I could have captured it. I will have to see if my dad was able to. It was seriously too cute!
Hyrum had a blast as usual. He got a dune racer (that sissy also loves), a razor scooter, cow boy hat and some other little things. So far (at 5yrs old) Hyrum is extremely easy to please. He's just excited and thankful to be receiving what he's given that is new (or new to him). You can give him a box of shoes/clothes/new socks, and he'd smile from ear to ear and jump with excitement. Love my Big Boy!
Ezra.. This Christmas he is only 7wks old so he wont ever know what he got or that today was any different than any other day. A friend asked me on Christmas Eve if I was excited for Ezra's first Christmas. I responded with "umm, well.. this is my third child to have a first "baby" Christmas. I'm sure he will just sleep and eat and poop as usual and nothing will be any different." Next year will be more exciting for us with him. Although this year is exciting because we now have him as part of our family. Any way-- we gave him some paci's, paci clips, board books, and a blanket.

I'd say we had a nice Christmas. We were able to celebrate with family this year that we haven't celebrated with in five years. Plus MawMaw and PawPaw were able to get up and see little ones reactions to Christmas morning. (I KNOW they miss it after all the years of doing it with us kiddos.)  :)
Just about all of us were together this year (plus some) except for one brother (Tim) who was on a hunting trip.

p.s. the holiday food was awesome and yummy as usual!
 

 8:30am--going to see if Santa came during the night.



 

yep! he made it! dumped a dune racer full of gifts on the living room floor.

 

Ezra was smiling up at and talking to cousin Kelli. Was super cute!

 

Cute little miss Kelli Jane

 

Aeden getting up close and personal while PawPaw snaps shots of baby sis Kelli.

Mom got a quilting machine from us kiddos and dad.
..can't wait to put her to work :)

 

The Grandkids gave PawPaw a pair of boots he really wanted.  

 

Ricky-my husband, Mikey-Adrienne's Husband

You have to watch out for these two- always planning some trouble :)

 

Very first family photos our new family of FIVE!

Adalyn was just too cute in her new jammies and house shoes.. She was having fun wearing brothers vTech backpack case around. I just couldn't get over how cute she looked!

 

I hope you all had an amazing Christmas!!

Ch-Ch-Ch Changes!

 

I have been wanting to blog for weeks/months now. Lots has happened and changed with life since the last blog was posted. It's just super hard finding time (and energy) to do it. Night time when all of the children are sleeping is the most ideal blog time but each time I've sat down with the computer I've decided against it and went to bed instead.

If a mom wants sleep-she should sleep when her children sleep...Right?

Since I last blogged our family made a huge move. We packed up our little apartment into a moving truck and hit the road on Hyrum's 5th Birthday, September 6th. Our final destination--South East Houston Texas. HOME

 

I didn't take pictures of the actual move but I will tell you that the drive was long. It especially felt extra long for this extra pregnant girl here. The long periods of sitting made my legs and ankles swell like crazy. It was nice to finally be off the road and somewhere that I could stretch out for a couple of days to make the swelling go away.

 

Upon arrival to our new home we found out that Hyrum has a severe allergy to ants. Fire ants to be exact... It was almost a month before his foot looked completely normal again. Even after the blisters were gone the top of his foot continued to have a bruised look for a little while longer.

 

 

 

After recovering from the ant bites and Hyrum decided he could finally put shoes on his feet pain free-- He wasted no time jumping into the Texas culture. He wanted a pair of cowboy boots so one night he and I went out on a mommy son date to dinner then out to purchase his first pair of cowboy boots. (He's worn them every single day since unless we've asked him to put on his regular shoes- he even wears his boots to church.)

 

 

This whole move and mommy being pregnant with a new baby and having a new baby has been a huge change for Adalyn. It's been hard on her and it breaks my heart because I know she needs more attention from me but it's sometimes hard to find the time or to know what to do with her one on one to help her adjust. Apart from that--there were lots of new and exciting things here at mawmaw and pawpaw's house that we had to teach her about.

 

I think this picture below will give you a good idea as to the types of things we were/are dealing with. :)

(swimming in the dog water bowl?)

 

She's growing up too fast. Here she is being little miss independent and actually blow drying and brushing her hair. One of her favorite things to play with when she is allowed.

She is also starting to act out motherly rolls with here 'baby'. (she has a teddy bear I got her for valentines day and she hasn't let go of it since.. it's her "chew toy" and comforter.)

 

(she's changing her bears diaper)

 

...and I'm posting this pic just because it's cute!



 

Other things on the list of new happenings---

Hyrum started preK in Texas (that was a huge pain in the *** to get set up!)

I was given a pirate themed baby shower for our new (then soon to be) baby boy.

Halloween happened. Hyrum was a pirate and Adalyn was a lady bug.

Ricky finished up his jobs in WA and joined us in Texas for good.

We welcomed our third child into the world which I will dedicate a separate blog post to next. :)

 



Surprise?

Well, we weren't expecting..... to be expecting anytime again in the near future.

 

I mean, at this particular time Adalyn was only 9months old and having any more children was the furthest thing from our minds. (we did wait nearly 4yrs after having Hyrum before having our little Adalyn)

 

I will admit that I was in shock and denial for a very long time. Actually, it still doesn't seem real and we are almost  single digits away in weeks from having our THIRD baby.

 

Someone asked me when I was about 12wks along how I was feeling about it. I replied that I was still in shock... they proceeded to tell me that I couldn't be in shock anymore because I had about 7weeks at the time to wrap my mind around it already.. ? umm, ok.

 

So, here we are.

 

Baby number 3 coming in roughly 13weeks and our little Adalyn will only be 18months old.

 

Oh yes, Baby Number 3 is a BOY!

 

8weeks along

 13wks along

 

Belly photo and ultrasound are at 20wks.

 



Catch-Up

Just for my memories sake, or for those who don't have Facebook, here is a (very) brief updated of events since the last time I blogged.

 

I could go into a spiel about how busy life is but that would be boring I'm sure. Busy life is probably better than non-busy uneventful life any way. :)

 

First off, Adalyn turned 1yr old!

 

I'm an awful party planner when it comes to events for our little family. I'm a last minute, keep it small kind of mom I guess you could say.

 

Adalyn is almost 16months old now. She is a super busy little girl who loves to explore (empty cabinets, toilet paper rolls, dresser drawers). Don't need a gym membership with this little princess in the house. :)

 

At the end of May we took a trip to Great Wolf Lodge (thanks to a groupon purchase) and had lots of fun swimming, riding water slides and playing Magi Quest.

 

The week after our Great Wolf Lodge trip, t-ball ended for Hyrum. I'm not 100% sure that he will want to play again next year. Being just 4yrs old and his first sport ever, it got hard for him at times. He had lots of fun when he was in a position on the field that actually had balls hit his way, or playing catcher.

 

Other than that, it would get boring for him and he wouldn't want to participate.

 

Once t-ball ended I wanted to find something else to get Hyrum involved in to keep him active and busy. We gave him the option of soccer or karate.

 

He chose karate.

 

Because he is only 4yrs old, he had to "tryout" and have a personal evaluation to see if he was mature enough to participate in a Karate/Martial Arts program.

 

Having just finished a season of t-ball and experiencing learning in a group environment like that (and with being super excited to be a 'karate kid' to get bad guys) he was able to get in no problem.

 

He absolutely loves it. He wishes karate was every day instead of just two days a week and always looks forward to going.

 

Late in June we were invited to join some friends on a 4th of July camping trip. We decided to go! :) We went camping in Eastern Washington as usual, except we went to a different camp this time.

 

Our friends took us camping at Keller Ferry Washington. The camp was really nice and we had lots of fun. Did I mention that the people we went camping with had NEVER before been camping in their lives? (except for the husband)

 

It was a big experience for them, and a new experience in ways for us as well since we've never gone camping with an RV and a super nice boat with unlimited access before. I was spoiled and got to sleep in the RV on the master bed with Adalyn. :)

 





 



"Oh this looks fun!"

I'm a beginner at...

 

Sewing.

 

Last Christmas, I decided to be adventurous and hand make and sew our family Christmas stockings.

 

I've never sewn anything without someone first cutting everything out for me, setting up the machine, and telling me what exactly to do.

 

The stockings were my first sewing project to do and complete from start to finish all on my own.

 

I was really proud of myself and liked the finished project.

 

A few days ago I got an itch to sew. So I opened up my pinterest app on my phone and started to browse my craft and DIY boards in search of the perfect project.

 

Once I decided what I wanted to do I headed to JoAnns to purchase the material that I needed. While shopping around I opened up my app to look at the project to see how much fabric I would need..

 

SURPRISE!

 

Apparently all I looked at were the pictures and got excited and ran out the door. What I failed to notice is that the tutorial and blog site for this project was in a different language. awesome

 

I decided I'd just go home and research better and find something else to do but the friend I had with me looked at what I wanted to make and told me to pick out the fabric I wanted, had it cut, then said she would cut it all out for me so all I have to do is assemble the project.

 

The next morning I decided I didn't want to wait around for everything to be cut for me so I sat and studied the pictures of the project, set everything up and got to work. I used manila folders to help me guess the measurements and started cutting!

 

I was determined to do this on my own.

 

After MUCH fighting with the sewing machine and having a friend come take a look at it, ripping seems out about 12 different times, and deciding to give up on sewing (then continuing on with my project), I completed my SECOND ever sewing project!

 

I'm proud of myself and happy with my work.. No, my lines and such aren't perfectly strait and there might be a few ugly seems but I LOVE it and my little man Hyrum is going to EXTRA love it.

 

The finished product!!

 

Art Bag

 

 

 

 

The part of the bag I'm most proud of! I can't believe I was able to actually figure out how to make all of these pockets!

 

 You put the drawing pad or coloring books in this big pocket. :)

 

 

Here is the link to the blog post that inspired this project. I believe it's in French.

http://poussieresdetoiles.petitsmots.net/archives/811-Sac-dartiste.-le-tuto!.html