Strong Family Reunion

Seeing as how my camera is still being fixed, I'm having to steal pictures of our little family reunion over the weekend from family blogs as they come up :)

Here's pictures of the cakes my sister, McKell made for my grandparents

Grandma

Grandpa

For those of you who don't know, my family is MASSIVE. Here is a picture of my dad and his brothers & sisters. It's the first time in, I think they said 16 years they've all been together at once.
It was such a special day, I love my grandparents and my whole family so much!

Goodbye, My Love

In an effor to simplify our lives, we decided, finally, that 4 vehicles is more than 2 adults need. So we made the decision to sell my car baby.

In a few minutes, the cute little BYU student is going to come back with a check and drive off with her. You can tell the kid is so excited her can hardly stand it. And he should be - I LOVE this car!

As if the 5 gray hairs I found last week didn't make me feel old enough.

Tough Love

This is going to be a ranting and raving post. Because I've had it with my almost 3 year old. She has woken us up sometime between 1:00 and 3:00 am every night for the past 3 nights. And stayed awake for over 2 hours, asking for ridiculous things to bring to bed with her, wanting stories read to her, wanting a drink, medicine, and to "fix her covers". And then, her newest thing lately that just makes me absolutely, insanely livid - if we look the least bit displeased, she starts crying and saying "don't be mad" - over and over and over again. And now she's started with this "I need Mommy to come give me a hug and kiss" - so I go in and give a hug and kiss. As I leave "I need Daddy to give me a hug and kiss" - the kid is so ridiculous I can't even stand it!
We've been trying to just keep her quiet, afraid she'll wake Mya up, so we still have a baby monitor in her room. Because when Mya was littler, she would wake up at the slightest sound and it was hard to get her back down - we just kind of got used to the monitor. Which I know is absolutely ridiculous. She used to be such a good sleeper - she would go down easily at 8:00 and I wouldn't hear a peep out of her until 9:00. What happened????
So I decided this morning around 5:25 that we need to Supernanny our way through this with a little tough love. Today I'm taking EVERYTHING out of her bed except for her blankets. Every night she will get to choose 1 toy to take to bed with her. I know what will happen - she will scream. She will scream at the top of her lungs, and possibly wake Mya up. Oh well. Right now, we put her down at 8:00, read about 10 books to her, and then constantly go in and out for 2 hours until she finally gives up and goes to sleep. I can tell she's just pushing her boundaries, trying to figure out what to say and do to keep us in her room as long as possible. And no more baby monitor. If she wakes up in the middle of the night, she can cry her fool head off. We probably won't hear her unless it's pretty loud. And if that's the case, then we'll deal with it. I'm so sick of tip-toe-ing around her, trying to keep her happy, and now she's just walking all over us. And I am NOT that kind of parent.
Wish us luck, we're seriously going to need it.

One Down....

My li'l bro Trevor got his mission call yesterday - McAllen, TX Spanish speaking. He's been saying for weeks now that he's going to Arkansas, so pretty close! We're all so excited!

So now we wait for Scott to turn his papers in in a few weeks and soon we'll be sending them both off for 2 whole years.

Family gatherings are about to get a lot quieter :(

I just hope Trevor brings me home a shiny new belt buckle!

Love you Trev!!

Look What I Found

So I've been on a rampage trying to find something fun and different for the girls. I know most, if not all of you have known the joys of Etsy for some time now, but it took me a while.

So yesterday, while browsing through the children's clothing section, I found these pillowcase dresses.

Oh

my

goodness!!!

Lo was with me when I was looking, saw this, and freaked out. Birthday present #1 - done.

This one just screams Mya - can't wait to see her in it!

Now I'm on a mission to buy a sewing machine and learn how to make these myself.

8 Years Ago

8 years ago today I broke up with my boyfriend
I put on my blue Roxy t-shirt, Express jeans, and Doc Martin boots
And went to a party instead of a co-worker's wedding
Where I met a bunch of boys from West Jordan
One of which was wearing a green & white plaid button-down, Silvertabs, and white K-Swiss
He had curly hair and the most gorgeous smile ever
We sat on the front porch
And talked about swing dancing

Sometimes it pays off
To blow off a wedding and go to a party
On the day of a bad break up
You just might get lucky
And meet your future husband
Like I did

Family Picture?

My dad informed me a week ago that he needed a famliy picture of the 4 of us sometime before Aug. 8th. I thought "sure, I'll find one". Then I realized that there are NO pictures of the 4 of us. Not a one. EVER. Here I am, all about the memories, with no picture of my little family all together. Pathetic, right? So we had to ask someone to take a quick, very unprofessional, very uncoordinated one yesterday at Bryan's mom's house. And considering the circumstances, they didn't turn out as horribly as I thought they would.

It's so sad that this is the first picture of the 4 of us together - Mya turns 1 in 11 days. What can I say - I'm just too busy taking pictures of the kids by themselves, they're much cuter than me and Bryan anyway.

Bryan trying to get Mya's attention somewhat near the camera by snapping

If you look closely, you can see me holding down Lauren's dress with all of my might. Apparently she thinks it's appropriate to flash her Dora panties for family pictures. It is soooo not.

I think this was the best one of the bunch, sadly

Bryan looks like he's the only one even remotely paying attention. I'm too busy talking (shocker), Mya's too busy looking at the ground, and Lo is too busy trying to figure out how she can somehow get her dress completely over her head for the picture without me pulling it back down.