I'll give you $100 if...

Those were famous last words from Dan at a reception we went to. It was a pretty formal affair, as most wedding receptions are. There was the Temecula trolly transporting people who had to park far down the street from the house. Tables were all over the backyard, and then down some stairs by the pool was another bunch of tables. The food spread was delicious and the company was great. As the evening started coming to a close we were chatting near the pool about maybe going somewhere for more appetizers and dessert. As we were there, Dan says to a friend of ours who dipped her foot in the pool to see how warm it was...I'll give you $100 if you jump in that pool right now...and without a blink--in she went, clothes and all. Word got up the stairs quickly and the host, and father of the groom came down with a towel hearing that someone fell in the pool. Needless to say, Dan totally had to pony up the next day at church and she took that hard earned cash without hesitation. It was awesome. I want to be like her one day ;)

We came outside on a calm Sunday afternoon and decided to check on our garden. It was then that we discovered that our bell pepper plant that looked to beautiful with it's large dark green leaves the day before, was devoured from the top down half way. As I looked closer, we discovered these nasty little creatures. They look pretty cool--kinda remind me of the caterpillar on Alice in Wonderland, but they destroyed our plant, leaving nasty black poops all at the base of the plant. (Later, over the next few weeks, they enjoyed the rest of our tomato plants.) Dan took them out to the street and proceeded to bang them with a hammer until their green guts came out. It made me shiver. SO brutal. But those things were literally hissing at us!! I couldn't believe it. We couldn't even pry them off of the stems, we had to cut off the stems they were on to get rid of them. Next year, I will be armed and ready for those nasty green things!!
At least our corn stalks are looking pretty!!

How old are you? TWO!

It's crazy to think that when Ally turned 2, we were 2 weeks away from Cole joining our family! So when Kailtyn turned 2 on the 1st, I couldn't believe how fast my little baby is really growing up. I mean, by this time, we put Ally in a big girl bed--as in a twin bed! to get ready for brother's arrival. I can't imagine putting my tiny Kaitlyn in a huge bed! Although it is pretty sweet when I go to put the other kids to bed and she climbs in with them and snuggles right in with a "bye mommy!" expecting me to let her sleep with them. Ally is super eager for her to join her in her room too since the addition of bunk beds we put in her room, anticipating the future change. BUT, I will be milking the time she has in a crib as long as possible!
This little gal has been so much fun to have in our family. She really has a lot of personality in that little body of hers. She has been my smallest size wise around the board out of all three kids. She may be smaller but she is definitely the spunkiest. The older kids really love her unconditionally, and although she and Ally get along great, she has a soft spot for Mr. Cole. She will sometimes crawl up on his lap and lay back for him to hold her. She almost looks as big as him when she does.

She is talking a ton and says things that sound so crazy coming out of a baby's mouth. I realize I've deciphered her language and that I have to translate for those I leave her with. Nink is drink, buddy either means dino buddies, or binky, doose! is juice, baa (with a pat on the chest) is bath. Poor thing though, she gets speedy baths without even plugging up the tub. She loves them though and when I'm feeling super nice, I let her play in the bath to her hearts content. When I put her to bed, she always sounds like she's gonna scream the roof off, but then minutes and sometimes even seconds later, she's cool as a cucumber dozing off. She LOVES to play with her hair. ESPECIALLY if there is a binky in her mouth. She's created the cutest little curl in a lock of her hair, and sometimes she looks like a little pixie fairy when she gets up with the way she's pulled her hair to a point over her ears onto her cheeks. She also likes to tickle her ear with the ends of her hair. I LOVE IT. Her cousin Gavin used to tickle his ear with the fuzzy part of the corner of his blanky. He'd do it to you too if he really liked you. Kaitlyn's latest obsession is with babies and bottles. She has always loved real babies...especially my friend Autumn's baby boy. It's like she senses when he's around and then she's like a magnet to him. So this year, we got her her very own baby doll and a plain little crib from IKEA. Oh and of course, a milk and juice bottle--the kind where the liquid magically disappears as you tip it to feed the baby. She loves Elmo (which sounds like ewoe when she says it). (Hence the Elmo cake). She thinks she's 5 years old and can climb on the big jungles gyms and tries to ride scooters like her big brother and sister. Of course, having older siblings has caused her to adapt and fend for herself. If something gets taken from her by another kid, she sometimes will use the last resort....a bite! We haven't had too big an issue but no one wants to have a biter! She got a mark on her card at the gym day care a few weeks back (mostly for attacking her cousin, Gavin) That one seems unprovoked though. She LOVES Gavin but surely doesn't show it right. She gives many love bonks and pinches to the poor kid. Gavin's response is hilarious...."your baby hit me!!" He won't really refer to her by her name...maybe in an effort to deny he is related to the little attacker.
Daddy serenaded her with a little birthday song on her birthday. She loves it when he plays his guitar. It's a great way to snap her out of one of her whiny moments.
Adding her to our family was easy. She snuck right in unexpectedly, and then eased right into the mix. She had an easy temperament as a baby and has been fun of energy and smiles ever since. Of course you know what age 2 brings. Those 2's can be terrible. And they are here for sure....the kids has lungs people. But we love her and our lives with her in them! Happy birthday to my little gal!(After seeing this picture, I bought Kaitlyn her own girlie bibs....at least it wasn't the blue one of Cole's that said, "I'm not a girl!" HA!)

Surprise get away

For Dan's birthday this year, I went out on a limb and packed our bags...without him knowing, and hired his mom for help. First stop, we headed to San Clemente to go to Javier's for dinner. He had been craving it for months and I was too. I secretly got his brother and his wife to meet us there. Surprise number one accomplished! Next was surprise number two. We headed to the Hyatt in Long Beach for night. It was an.....interesting excursion. I'm pretty sure the couple in the room above us were on their honeymoon. I've decided that the Hyatt in Long Beach needs to invest in some DW40. Needless to say, we headed out of there fairly quick that next morning and entertained ourselves in a game of tennis at a local tennis club. It was really fun playing together. Dan is really good. I am not. It was fun to be active together though and to do something fun with just the two of us. It was pretty hot, and I got pooped pretty quick. We then headed to lunch and the next plan was a bike ride on the beach. As we got to the bike rental, Dan got this great idea to rent a double surrey and explore the boardwalk that way. It was pretty entertaining but MAN was it a workout. I felt like I was on the easiest speed of a 10 speed bike and was pedaling 30 times to go 5 feet. After a while made the long trek back, and sustained our tired bodies with a large order of funnel cake with ice cream on top. Nice lunch eh? People were staring at us while we ate it. It was pretty indulgent.
We then decided to say goodbye to the beach and do a little shopping at IKEA. We spent more than we needed to, crammed all our purchases into Dan's tiny car, and headed for our last stop- Ruth's Chris. We had some gift certificates there and used them up quickly. After an enjoyable early evening of dining, we rolled ourselves out of there and headed home. It's a amazing how just a night and day away together can.

Obedience Garden

That's the name my mom so perfectly named our little garden we started this year. I've been wanting to have a garden really ever since we moved here but our house is situated on our lot so that the sun hits our backyard weird and is mostly shaded in the flowerbed areas. So we resorted to using our side front yard. I know, sounds totally white trash right? But it is somewhat hidden by the pillars of our portacashere. So I asked my parents who created their own garden when I was in high school, to come help us get started.

Dan and Cole were on their way back that morning from the Fathers and Sons camp overnight...which looked fun when we skyped each other before going to bed. Shannon and the girls spent the night and Shannon and I sewed until the wee hours of the morning. Little did we know that as we were going to bed, Dan was waking up to Cole puking in the tent....and even better, Andrew woke up and put his hand right in it. They spent the next 45 minutes cleaning it all up with paper towels . EEW! OF course Dan pointed out that the lantern he got from Costco...the one I was going to take back after convincing him is was an unneeded purchase, came in quite handy during the clean up. So Cole was quarantined inside when he got home.

Meanwhile, we started by mixing in tons of soil amendment everywhere like 6 inches deep. The soil is very clay based here so it was a must to a successful garden (and it's the key to why my parents' grass has looked amazing for 20+years while all their neighbors have replanted their grass over and over. They tilled it all and took out all the rocks before planting their sod.)
So the kids had fun digging around in the dirt with us...except for Cole whose flu landed right on the weekend we FINALLY get my parents to come up for their first over-nighter (seems silly when they live only 30 minutes away but we were getting jealous of my sister in Utah getting all these sleep-overs from Grandma and Grandpa that we wanted one!)

Mom came with me to Home Depot and we got small plants of Cucumber, Zucchini, bell peppers, watermelon, strawberries, and some tomato plants. Oh, and my parents brought two tomato plants from their garden to transplant into ours. We then bought seeds for growing beans, corn, and radishes (which we don't eat- we just thought it would be a rewarding thing to grow since they don't take long. ) I know, when stalks of corn start growing in my front yard...it's gonna be crazy? Crazy but fun!

So here's where the name comes in. Our Prophets for years have counseled us to have a garden. Being self-sufficient is the motivation, and of course, we can't grow everything we would need to live off of, but this was my attempt at following our Prophet! I assumed that since I have no green thumb, I would plant this stuff and maybe the zucchini would make it because zucchini pretty much grows no matter who's taking care of it. I'm not expecting much so hopefully I will be pleasantly surprised!

Women's Conference

I had the opportunity to attend a Women's Conference at BYU. It was cool to go back to my old college and see the changes. I felt that same strong spirit there that I did when I attended. It made me really wish and hope that my own kids will have the same amazing opportunity to attend there. It is really unlike any other college. A few of the messages that really stuck out to me were these: First...get back to the basics. We are told over and over by our Church leaders to pray daily, study the scriptures daily, have FAMILY prayer and scripture study together daily, and hold a Family Home Evening once a week. They seem like simple tasks. And they are simple, but just because they are simple doesn't mean they're always easy. It takes prioritizing. But I've decided they are easier than the alternative. I attended one class about effectual and fervent prayer. They described "effectual" as powerful and pointed out that the way to have effectual prayer us to express deep gratitude. Looking back, I can see great blessings poured on our family because of our expression of gratitude to the Lord, even during hard times, for the blessings we had. Since becoming a mother, I have struggled with having a quiet moment to communicate through prayer... oftentimes, my prayers are a quick check-in with my Heavenly Father, and while I realize that we have different seasons in our lives, I think that it's not about just having a quiet moment, but making one. I'm still trying. It's a work in progress. I got doinked when they brought up scripture study there because I have gotten in a good habit of daily scripture reading (even if it is in bed when I wake up, on my ipod touch.) But I realize that that is not enough to gain the protection and instruction I need for my day. I started feeling the need to improve after hearing a great talk in church by my friend, Wendy. She talked about how she felt like she was studying her scriptures rather than just reading, when she had something to write down her thoughts and insights, and a manual of some sort to supplement the reading. I got the best gift from my sister-in-law that is a great study guide and I bought myself a new cute little notebook to record my thoughts in.
In addition to all the amazing uplifting classes I went to, I was surrounded by great company. We ate...Shopped our hearts out...
And pampered ourselves...This is how we traveled around town....the car was a little full. Thanks goodness for some good Ford Flex trunk space :)We were almost all related one way or another--most were my in-laws' in-laws. But we are all family just the same and it was so enjoyable to chat with these amazing ladies that I truly love. Here's to hoping the hubby will be willing to send me off again next year!

The Best Getaway EVER

Did you hear that? That's the sound of silence. That's what we relished in on our 9th Anniversary getaway. Dan and I escaped for 4 days to Park City where we stayed in a beautiful home at the foot of the mountain. We shopped our hearts out at the Park City outlets, went to the movies, rented movies, slept in, stayed up late, sat by the fire, went out to eat, met up with great friends, went to the shooting range,



played Foosball and pool , and saw some close family members.
It was by far one of the best vacations I've ever had. The amount of quiet we experienced was priceless. I forgot how quiet it used to be before having kids. I felt like my brain was able to just rejuvenate. Spending time with my best friend, just having fun together and hanging out helped me realize really just how much I love him. There was snow in the mountains but not really much on the ground....until the last day we were there. In two days, it snowed about 3 feet. It just dumped on us. It made it kinda romantic sitting in a cozy warm house drinking hot cocoa, just talking and enjoying each others company....and enjoying the quiet. After that experience, I think we might have to make it an annual trip!
When we got back, we went out to dinner on our actual anniversary. I love this man!