for the sake of posting

I have to post on here just so that blogger doesn't think I don't want to keep it.  I've been putting it into a book, so I need to keep going, plus these are all my memories!  They can't be lost forever!

New Blog!

Blogger won't let me post anymore pictures on this blog, so I created a new one. I will still keep this one open, and linked to, but I made a new one for future posts. It's still kind of a work in progress, but I have posted a few things so far :) Sorry for the hassle, but you should be receiving another invitation to that blog. This annoys me. Sorry. Thanks for reading!
To visit my new blog
CLICK HERE

It feels like it's been forever!

I don't have any pictures yet (still need to go get my camera), but I wanted to do a little update before I forget everything that's happened lately. I might give more information than is interesting, but the fact that I remember it is reason enough to post it, if you ask me :) Easter was fun (again, no pictures, but they're coming- whether you are in the mood to see Easter pictures by then or not), we had an egg hunt with Nate's family, and then another one with my mom, and then we had our own on Easter morning along with searching for the baskets. Nate and I were a little distracted Easter morning, putting the finishing touches on our talks. We had to speak in Sacrament meeting for Easter. It was interesting. I used to love giving talks, don't know why, but I did. NOW, it's like death to give a talk for some reason. My nerves just don't handle it very well. The whole week before was like torture everytime I thought about it. I am a bumbling idiot the entire time I am giving my talk too, which just drives me crazy. I was practically hyperventilating during it and had to stop to breathe, several times throughout. Anyway. Nate did an AWESOME job and is STILL getting comments about how entertaining and Spiritual his talk was. Maybe that's why I don't like giving talks anymore....Nate's are always way better. He's a tough act to..... go before. Anyway. That's over. I should just put it behind me. Charity and Kelly did a really cute job, they had wanted to give talks and I knew we weren't going to have a lot of time, so I let them write down their testimonies (after much discussion about what a testimony is) and then they read them in front of everyone. I was really proud of them. It was nice that my Dad came to hear us and thanks again, Mom, for watching Brad and Noah for me, they were still kind of sick and had to stay home.

So, what else has happened? I'm trying to think.

Nate started his new schedule. It's been interesting. Last Monday was a drag. It was his first Monday off (we were really excited to be able to spend it playing and just having a fun day off) but unfortunately I was puking my guts out the whole day. Nate spent most of the day cleaning up my throw up! That's a great way to make you excited to go back to work the next day I bet!! He was probably more anxious for his first day on the floor than ever :) I even blacked out right before throwing up and launched projectile vomit clear across the room, almost on Nate at one point during the fabulous day off. Sorry for the details, but it was WEIRD!! I totally couoldn't remember anything until I screamed out "I don't know what's going on!!!" after throwing up. I have a really good husband. He's amazingly patient with me and really sweet when I'm sick. He actually brought me home flowers when he took the girls to school. What a sweetheart. So yeah, that first day kinda stunk. Tuesday was similar, since I was recovering most of the day, but that evening we were able to have Sarah and Charlie over for dinner (thanks for the Lasagna Mom!!), that was a real treat for the kids. Wednesday was a little more enjoyable during the day. The boys are totally digging Nate being home in the mornings. I am loving it as well. Although I need to figure out how to motivate myself to do my housework in the evenings on those days because it didn't get done last week. We'll see how we do this week. Nate has been on the floor at work. Sounds like it's kicking his butt a little, but he is handling it so well!! I don't know how he does it. He's so driven to succeed and I am SO grateful for his committment. I can't imagine getting this far only to have him give up. He's amazing! He is also having to juggle with the new schedule.

Charity did her Bald Eagle Report. Had her Hannah Holbrook 50th Birthday Party Celebration, and is spending a lot of time wiggling her tooth. It's really loose. Charity got to go on her first Field trip with this class on Tuesday. I was still kind of sick, so I let Nate take my place. I was bummed that I didn't get to go with her, but Nate and she had a really good time together. I need to get a bunch of pictures from his phone too!!! Gees I'm so behind!

Kelly, our little social butterfly has been going to birthday parties like crazy. She actually had two in one day last Friday. She's a cute little friend. It's fun to see her with her own friends without Charity. She really is very social compared to how we always pictured her. Not shy at all.

Bradley has been spending most of his free time planning his birthday party. It's not till October, but that doesn't stop him from making mental lists of how many bags of balloons we need to buy and what color the pinata will be. It's hilarious. I seriously think he might actually carry this out for 5 more months and actually have his "Dinosaur Party"! Whenever there's a dead moment he suggests that we think of some more games.

Luke has had the big dipper on his cheek for the last couple of weeks. Not marker (unfortunately it wasn't that simple), but spots! A few people commented that they looked like chickenpox, so I took him in, but they were only on his cheek. The doctor rambled on for a while of all the millions of diseases it COULD be, then gave us a prescription for some antibiotics to take if it didn't seem like it was getting better in the next couple of days. Love that. I hate being the one to make the call of whether to give antibiotics or not. He said they weren't contagious, so I just let them go untreated (maybe bad, but whatever, they just didn't seem worse). They are finally clearing up. If only I had gotten a picture though....they were in the perfect shape to be the big dipper and then a few days into it, he got a North Star! I know I'm a dork for thinking it was cool, but it was! He has been fine though, no other symptoms of any kind. Just needs to have better hygiene maybe.

Noah the poor little guy had a run in with a book that Luke had thrown, and just barely missed his eye by like a half a centimeter!! He had a small cut right on the edge of his lower eyelid, and it got really infected. He came with us to the doctor when I took Luke and they gave us some anitibiotic eyedrops for his owie. His also cleared up pretty quickly though. I was happy :) He looked awful with the puss and scabbing. He has managed to cut in two more teeth for a total of 4 and sometimes we can see two more coming in.....they're being sneaky though. We've been trying to teach him how to walk. He has NO INTEREST whatsoever. In fact he is almost fighting it now. He LOVES to stand up on his own and loves the attention he has been getting from that, clapping and smiling for himself, but no steps. The doctor told me that 16 months was the official age for that milestone, back when he was like 12 mos, so I have just been letting him take his time, but now that he is 15 1/2 months....... I'm sure it's not a big deal, but I hate the thought of him taking any longer. I want him to be normal....sue me. He's adorable though, and still as cuddly as ever. Last week when I was sick, he spent a lot of time with Daddy and was choosing him over me a lot and that totally had me bummed, but he's back to normal now :) LOL jk. He still loves me :) Nana had the nerve to ask me if he was a boy the other day, confused by his long hair, so Noah had his first hair cut yesterday! That was a tough one for me. I don't know why it's so hard for me to cut their cute baby hair....oh wait, that's why!! It's so cute and baby!! But he does look very handsome with his cleaner cut look. Not as much like Uncle Steve anymore.

So, that's all I can think of right now. I need to look at my calendar or something because it drives me nuts to think I forgot to journal something important ("important" being a VERY relative term at this point, in case you didn't notice :)). Anyway :) Hope this post wasn't too boring, but if it was, I hope you just stopped reading rather than waiting around for it to have a point :)

I HAVE AN ANNOUNCEMENT!!!

Hey, so I just had to brag for a minute about Nate! It's been a while since I updated on him anyway, so it's okay!

Nate took his LAST evaluation (for his D-sides) today, and passed with flying colors!!!! This is a big huge deal! He's had like a million of these and each one his job has been at stake---very stressful.

Basically Nate is the best thing they've seen since.....well.... since the most amazing thing ever......he's blowing the rest of his training class out of the water!

We went out to Lone Star to celebrate (kids eat free on Tuesdays.....can't beat that!), no pictures, but how awesome is he!!! I'm just really proud of him and happy that he will be able to "relax" for a few months with no evaluations. Way to go, Nate!! Thank you so much for your hard work! I love you!!

***** I forgot to add that he now gets to start working on the control floor!!!! This means a different schedule, one where he will have Sunday and Monday off (wahoo!), Tuesday and Wednesday will be evening shifts 3p-11p (ugh....well, I am looking forward to the boys getting some good time with him during the day....I just hate evenings by myself....if anyone's looking to kill a tues or wed evening, I'm there!), and then Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 7a-3p. Should be interesting. But at least it will be like this for a while!! I'm looking forward to it for Nate, he's way excited to be on the floor!~*****

Spring Break- Day 1

So I had wanted to put ALL of Spring Break on here much sooner, but unfortunately for me I left my camera at the Easter Egg Hunt this weekend so I do not have access to the rest of the week's festivities.....YET! Luckily Nate's sister picked up my camera at the activity and now I just have to wait till the next time I see her :) BUT I did have these on my computer from Monday the 6th, our first day of Spring Break.....I really cannot remember how the early part of the day went....no pictures to jog my memorty.....but after we picked up Nate we made a spur of the moment decision to use the coupons the girls got from school and go BOWLING! We all had so much fun.
(sorry to keep you waiting, Charity, I will do better next time!)


Bradley was the champion, scoring in at a whopping 105!!! (I should mention that the "family night special" was $20 for one hour- never having paid by the hour before, we had no idea that it would take us an entire hour to finish only 9 frames....so we didn't get our FINAL scores, but anyway....just thought I would stick that in so we didn't look AS bad) So yeah, Brad took first place.


He and Kelly both got Stikes, Brad had two and Kelly got one. Nate and I got zero strikes, and let's not forget we were using bumpers!!! Are we embarrassed???? a little. But you could say we were helping build up the egos of our little bowlers.

Luke came in last place (thankfully for Nate and I we didn't lose to EVERYONE) and I don't think he could have cared less about how he played....as you can see he didn't even really watch the ball knocking down the pins lol. He had fun, but I think he was more interested in the chips and the candy machines.....which is totally fine :)

Noah did a great job until about the 7th frame where he made us stand up and hold him. He did not get to bowl since there was a limit of 6 for the family night special.....are we not in Utah people??? A family of 7 isn't THAT strange is it? (I'm really kidding though, he can't even walk yet.....I guess we could have let him crawl down the lane pushing the ball???? hmmmmmmm......)

Nate was AWESOME! And like I said, we didn't get our final scores so who knows....he may have done better than the 79 that it said on frame 9. He did have several spares near the end there. I won't rub in the fact that I did better than him though :) I would hate for him to feel bad about that.

But check out that form! Impressive!

Charity toughed it out and didn't use the ramp. Her scoring suffered as a result I'm afraid, but she was proud of her 84(ish, relying on the faulty memory here). She did a nice job though, and she was really fun to watch! Arms jerking and flailing all over the place, very cute!

Kelly was up there with me at 2nd place with a score of 94......again, she got a strike! She was very proud of herself as well.....she wants to go bowling more often!

This was a fun family activity. I like that our kids are old enough now to actually (kind of) play. I think the last time we went bowling we didn't even stick out the whole game because they were all losing interest :) But it was really fun. Next time we will just pay for a game, not an hour......and NEXT TIME Nate and I are really going to try! So funny that we did so crappy since we even had the bumpers!!! And let me tell you....I probably never would have even broke 50 without them, so I need some practice! Yes, we lost to our 4 year old son!

So naughty but SO CUTE!

Noah has developed quite a little temper. He gets mad pretty fast if things aren't the way he wants, throwing his head back, yelling, or the reason for this post.....hitting! The other day he got mad at me for wiping his nose, and immediately responded with a slap on my arm! I got surprised, but wanted to jump right on this and tell him how it is. I looked at him very sternly (that's SO HARD for me!) and said, "NO NO!! We do NOT HIT! We have to be soft!" and not even a milli-second later, he flopped his cute little head down on my knee, stuck his fingers in his mouth and then wrapped his other sweet little arm around my leg. Is that not the cutest little sorry you've ever heard of!!!! I was sold. Picked him up and gave him a big hug. Didn't teach him anything, but HOW CUTE IS HE!!! I need some ideas for the hitting problem if it's possible to fix this on a one year old. Never encountered this one.

What really happened on Saturday.......

We had Saturday planned out so perfectly.......funny, it never really goes how you planned!

THE PLAN// WHAT REALLY HAPPENED:
7:00 am- wake up, shower, get kids ready to go // still sleeping.......
8:00 am- head out, go to atm, go to Autozone for parts for the Taurus (since the "fixing it" all day the day before didn't really do the trick)// finally dragged ourselves out of bed and realized Kelly had puked all over her bed in the night. (we came home the night before to the sound of Steve being sick, and knew it was probably coming, but didn't think it would be so soon)
9:00 am- show up at Chris and Stephanie's, have the car fixed, pay the guy// finally getting out the door and trying to find our bank, then finally getting the parts at Autozone. We finally got to Chris and Stephanie's and the guy took a LOT longer than we thought to fix the car.
10:30 am- (while listening to conference) leave to go to Pam's// I left Nate and 4 kids with the unfixed car while Noah and I drove up to Pam's
11:00 am- Sell the Stove at Pam's house// I did sell the Stove- the first thing that went according to plan, and Pam let me keep the money!! So nice! And I got the tour of her house and hung out for a while....
11:30 am- leave to drive up to the Baby Shower in Eagle Mountain// the baby shower was out since we didn't want to get the cousins all sick (nor did we want to clean up vomit out of the ridges of the floor mats in our car.....SO GROSS!!) I'm so sad that I missed it Leah!!
12:30 pm- get to the baby shower, Nate and the kids get to Jared and Paulette's to hang out// no go, AND we paid the guy $200 to NOT fix our car (not to mention all that we've already paid and put into it) only to find out it needs a new gasket or something which will cost WAY too much, so basically our car just sucked up a bunch of money only to be undriveable. We decided it had been sitting in Chris and Stephanie's driveway long enough though and decided to tow it to my Grandpa's house (there's no room here) And I do have to point out that we had a completely uneventful towing trip!! NO RED LIGHTS, it was a straight shot on redwood road, and only had to slow down a few times!!! COMPLETE MIRACLE!!! I feel very blessed!
2:00 pm- watch conference at Jared and Paulette's house// we finally got the car to Grandpa's, I got to hold my cousin's cute little baby girl, and hear about her delivery and then we got home in time to actually WATCH some of conference (I SO HATE missing conference). Everyone was pretty wasted though.
4:00 pm- drive to Nate's parents' house for dinner// Nate and I slept while the kids tore the house apart
5:00 pm- dinner and visit with the fam// barely woke up in time to get Nate out the door for the Priesthood session here.
6:00 pm- Nate goes to Priesthood session with the guys, Moms talk and make hot fudge for ice cream, kids play and play// the kids and I had dinner and made caramel popcorn for a movie night (yes I fed my sick daughter caramel popcorn.....and nothing happened. Not to mention nobody else has thrown up ????? don't ask me)
8:00 pm- Nate home, eat ice cream, head on home.// Nate came home, we finished our movie night, and got the kids in bed by 9:00 pm

It wasn't all bad. But it's way hard for me when things don't go according to plan. Especially when traditions are involved. But could have been worse I guess. I really hate that Nate's car isn't going to be useable. I hate cars. And I'm starting to think that our little fixit guy is not as fabulous as I once thought. At least he's not too good at diagnosing. We've learned our lesson!! The very expensive lesson that it was.

Kelly's Kindergarten Concert

The Kindergarten put on a little concert for the parents on Friday. Kelly has been looking forward to this day since we moved here. They went through all the different seasons and holidays of the school year and sang a song from each one. It was really cute that Kelly knew all of them even though she's only been here since the end of January! They were way cute. I love these little concerts. This one was really nice because it was only like a half hour long and they did a cute little slide show at the end where we got to see tons of pictures of Kelly :) She loved that too.


Here's Kelly and Mrs. Holbrook. Mrs. Holbrook is the best teacher!! Kelly absolutely loves her! She's been really fun for Kelly to have and has made the whole moving thing really easy.




I decided to go really early to get a good seat since the last one I went to like this we were 20 minutes early and had to stand in the back. So I showed up a half hour early....there was nobody there, so I took the front row, and wouldn't you know, since she was the "VIP/Fun Kid" (thus
"line leader") this week, she ended up being clear on the other side of the stage!! Oh well. It did make for some really crummy pictures and video ......but what can ya do!


You can barely see Kelly in this video, but she LOVED this song! She taught it to us for FHE one time and we all got a kick out of it. Should have got the whole song, but here's a small sampling.

Afterward we all went to Dairy Queen for some fries and ice cream. (kind of an old tradition with my family) Grandpa Hatch, Steve, Grandma Hatch and us all crammed ourselves into a little booth and chowed down. I totally forgot to get any pictures (UGH!) but we had a lot of fun. It's amazing how fun eating fries and ice cream can be. My mom even managed to spill a cup of water all over Nate's lap :) He had a fun mother-in-law story to tell his friends at work :) But anyway. It was a good time for all.

I have it all

Okay, so I totally don't want to sound like a dork posting this, but I just LOVED what Nate did for FHE tonight! He started out talking about the Ten Lepers and giving thanks, and then told another little parable about being thankful. Then he proceeded to talk about "the person who makes our family a family, and makes sure that our family has what we need". He totally gave a lesson about being thankful to Mom......ME! How cute is THAT!!! I'm almost bawling just thinking about it now. Then he had the kids think of something that they were going to do this week so that they can show their thanks to me. And I don't mean for this to sound like it does....I'm really not trying to brag, if anyone deserves thanks around here it's Nate!.....I mostly just loved that he felt the need to do it and that the kids got so into it. They each told what they were going to do this week and I want to remember what they said.

Charity: I'm going to come home from school everyday this week, put my back pack away, make my bed and clean my room, without even asking.
Kelly needed time to think :)
Bradley: For your birthday, I'm going to get you something you really REALLY want! (my birthday is not this week :) it's in December LOL.....what a cutie)
Luke: Smiled and said "thank you" (that's how he's going to show thanks! lol)
then Kelly thought of hers and said: If I get a toy out, I'm going to put it away when I'm done playing with it. (my girls know me too well :))
And Bradley thought of one more :) he said: When you get old I'm going to buy you your own bed and put it next to your old one with Dad. (LOL!!!! RANDOM :) I'm totally going to remind him of this later!)

I just loved it. Made my day too when they all ran over and piled on the hugs and kisses. I have the best husband and the best kids ever!! I just don't know what I would do without them in my life. Tonight at dinner we got talking about marriage and that some people choose not to have kids even when they're married (this idea had Charity floored!). She just couldn't believe that anyone would not want to have kids!! HOW BORING, she said. And I completely agree. I mean it's just awful for me to think of those who CAN'T have kids and my heart goes out to them, but to actually choose not to is pretty sad too. I honestly don't know what I would do with my time!! I would be completely bored! I really am grateful that we have been so blessed. Thank you, Nate, that meant a lot to me that you would do such a lesson. And thanks kids for being so sweet to me. At times like these, how could I not feel like I have it all?

April Fool's

I'm feeling really lame that I didn't go all out this year and pull a bunch of pranks on anyone. It's the first year in a while! Last year's obviously didn't go over too well, but I am not sure what it was that made me so unmotivated. And wouldn't you know- EVERYONE did fun stuff and pranks this year!! Usually I feel like I'm the only one that does, but of course the year that I don't! Anyway. Sorry if I let anyone down. I'll do better next year I promise.

The Bunny Hop

Saturday was a lot of fun! The Bountiful City Youth Council threw a big carnivally type thing for all the kids. They had bounce houses, carnival games, hotdogs, cupcake walk.....and an easter egg hunt. It was really fun and WAY cheap (which we LOVED). The kids were able to play all the games at least once. I liked how laid back it was. Since it was run by a bunch of high school and Jr. High School kids, it was really just FUN for the kids. Not too many rules :) They got a treat whether they won or not :) Luke got treats just for handing them tickets :) so that was nice. It was just a really fun, cheap activity for our family.

Luke was really funny when the bounce house suddenly started caving in on them. He started a mass panic with all the kids, just screaming and wailing. I think I could see his cute little life flashing before his eyes. He didn't want to go back in there again, very traumatic. I have to admit I laughed a little.......he was so dramatic!

look at the focus in this kid! :) He loved the frisbee toss.

This is one of my all-time favorites. The sack race is where I won all my prices at the Litton Lagoon Days. (my Dad's ol' work parties)

And of course face painting.....I'll never understand the thrill.....but my kids LOVE this!

Luke's not into having his face painted. He's too mature for that, I'm assuming.

He did however get into the cupcake walk. He won after only one time around!

Charity won shortly after Luke.

Kelly and Brad on the other hand took another like 10 minutes to finally win....like I said, we definitely benefitted from the loose rules :)

Waiting for the GO on the Egg Hunt. Which can I just say, this Egg Hunt was PRETTY WEAK!!! If everything else hadn't been so cheap I really would have demanded a refund. We paid $4 for a handful of mini candybars and starbursts. And I'm not talking a handful per kid....I'm talkin' Charity had two pieces, Kelly had about five, Brad had a couple and Luke cried.....he had none! ALL of the kids there were bawling. The thing lasted about 10 seconds. And I've been to egg hunts where they're over really quickly, but you at least walk away with something! And I've never had to pay for one either.....that was just us feeling like we had to do it since we got the kids all excited about it. But anyway.......more candy next year kids!!!! And no false starts!!!!

After the egg hunt we blew our last few tickets..... and headed out to get Charity to her friend's birthday party. What a fun day!! I was really grateful for such a fun little activity.

Oh, while I'm on the birthday party subject.....does anyone else find it strange that Kelly's friend did not open ANY of her presents at her party??? Kelly came home all disappointed because she didn't get to see Sophia open the present she got her. Then a few days later when she asked Sophia if she liked her gift, Sophia still hadn't opened it!!! Is that not strange???? Someone help me understand that!!! I'm blown away!

Now on the other hand, Charity's friend invited so many friends to her swimming party ("SO FUN" according to Charity :)), the party went like 45 minutes over because it took so long to open the presents (and I know because I went in to get her at the time it was supposed to end, and she still had like 25 gifts sitting there and they hadn't even had the cake yet!). I think there were family members there too. But anyway. Just the other end of the spectrum! I'm really not picky about birthday parties :) I just over-analyze everything!

The Blue Park and a Movie Night

Everytime I've asked the kids if they want to go to the park Luke will always request the "blue park". I had no idea which park he was talking about and no matter what park we went to he never complained that it wasn't blue, so I just took it as one of his little Luke-isms. But last Friday as we pulled up to yet another new park, Lukey screamed out with all the little boy excitement he could muster, "THE BLUE PARK!!!!" I looked over and sure enough, there were quite a few blue things at this park, making it officially, the "Blue Park". We were all very thrilled for him and got all excited :) It was SUCH a nice day too!!



This was through a hole in the tunnel....he's so cute!

Pretty little Kelly

Nate was so fun with the kdis, chasing them around and playing tag, jumping up and down from the playground....looked like a lot of fun! All the while his brand new cell phone sat in the car waiting for him to open it. I just love our daddy!!! He's just so sacrificing.

Charity fell in love with this tree.

Okay, so yeah, this is my new favorite face of Noah's. I think I got a few shots of it while we were at the park that day....his cute two little teeth sticking out biting on his upper lip.....OH I JUST LOVE IT!

Charity and her monkey bars

It's hard to slow this kid down long enough for a picture.

Cute Bradley had a lot of fun on the little zip line. He's getting so big!!

On the way home from the park we decided it would be a good night for a Movie Night.

Steve joined us for a little pizza, popcorn, and Follow That Bird. (that was my favorite movie that my grandparents had, we watched it EVERYTIME we went over to their house....so fun!)

Cute little Noah must have worn himself out because as we were getting the kdis tucked in bed and kind of winding things down for the night (the time of night when Noah is usually wandering around getting in to everything) we found him just wiped out, on the floor, in the middle of the living room. He had found my coat and I think because it's kind of silky like his favorite blanket in his crib, he just made himself comfy. He hasn't done this for a LONG time, but I thought it was cute! He's just cute!

Can't get close enough

Noah likes the coloring drawers so much, he decided to climb on in.



He's a really fun little guy at night when Nate and I are just bumming. He just crawls around getting into everything. Making messes all over the place. I love this age so much!!




Well, for some reason it feels like I haven't posted in FOREVER! But I know it's only been a week. It was a busy week though and I had a lot of thoughts and things that I wanted to post about and now I can't remember what they were. Darn it. But anyway.

I do want to say that we took our car in for the inspection and emissions and we went to a place called Burt Brothers that my Dad suggested and can I just say how awesome they were!!! They had had some problems earlier in the day, so they gave me a card to call to find out when their machine was fixed. Then when we finally went in that evening they took us right in, did the inspection and everything really quickly, found a few things that were wrong (very minor) And offered to fix them right then. Then they only charged us for the parts for part of it and very little for the labor on the other part. Actually charging us LESS than the guy that we have come fix our cars now....anyway. It was really nice. We all walked down the street to McDonald's to wait which was only an hour and a half wait!! On the way to McD's I decided that when I get rich I'm going to start a car repair shop that has a playground for kids so that they can play while they wait. Think of all the moms you would attract! I also decided that we are going to just start carrying around a sign with the number 5 on it so that people don't have to slow down to count our kids. I seriously saw way too many people doing that as we walked down busy Highway 89. Oh well. What do I expect right?

SO anyway. I can't remember all the profound thoughts I had this week......I'll think of them later I guess. For now, I'll just get busy posting the millions of pictures I took this week! yay!

Saturday was a special day

Saturday was such a fun, packed day! First we took Charity out for her birthday lunch and shopping (kinda late, but better than never right?). She saw a build-a-bear thing in her school book order and wanted to get it and when I told her how lame the one on there was, she decided that Build-A-Bear (the REAL store) was where she wanted to go for her birthday shopping trip.


Here she is with the first bear she picked out. The Hannah Montana bear. Course this is not the one she ended up making since she changed her mind another 2 times and ended up with a cute little doggie.


Here she is bathing "Fluffy"

And picking out which toy her puppy would play with on the way home.

And she chose Applebees for her lunch. We had to tease her a little for ordering a HOT DOG!! FROM APPLEBEES!!!! We were both like, "we could have gone to Arctic Circle for a HOT DOG!!" lol. She wants to be all grown up going to a "Mom and Dad restaurant" but she is still a little girl ordering a hot dog :) Love it. (and isn't my husband such a hottie!!)

Yes, I do look tired. Charity's got her eyes open enough for both of us I think :)

So after Applebee's we came home Nate left for his "Manvo" and I waited for our new car fix it guy to come over and fix our car. Maybe you remember back in August how my spare tire fell of the underside of my vehicle?? Well it's been riding in the back of our car for the last whatever months and we were finally able to fix it!! HOORAY!! We can now see out of the back of our car again! Do I sound excited!! Cuz I am!! Such a wonderful day!!

And after that we headed on over to Nate's sister Becky's house for some yummy Navajo Tacos and game night. The kids played around on the play ground for a while. I can't get over how cute Adam and Casey are with my kids! I totally love it!! Noah really couldn't get enough of their attention, they taught him all sorts of tricks.

have you guys seen enough of this cute smile? Because I sure haven't!!

sorry for the underwear shot, but she was pretty proud of herself for this one! I think it's pretty cool too!

Then we played the M&M game! This was way fun....we're going to have to do this one again!

And then Darren got out the snake!!!!! The kids were all very brave! I couldn't believe they all touched and held her so much!! Very fun! Becky and Darren's house is the best with all the animals and fish to look at. Even Noah loved just sitting there and staring at the birds. Fun stuff.

And that was our Saturday! We really didn't do much getting ready for Sunday, but we were actually on time this week, so yay for us!!