New Pictures of My Babies

Happy Birthday Coley!

Our beautiful little girl turned 3 years old last Saturday (Jan 23rd). Boy does time fly! It doesn't seem that long ago we were heading up to Logan to get her, with no more than one bottle, one can of formula and one package of diapers in our possession. We refused to buy anything but the absolute necessities until we knew for sure she was going to be ours. Kristi had to bring over a pack-n-play that night so we had something for her to sleep in. I should post some pictures of her placement at the adoption agency and her night coming home and all the family here to meet her. When I get up the emotional strength to look through those pictures again, I will post them. 3 years later I still have a hard time looking at them...it was just more emotion in one day than my body and mind could process...and I think sometimes I still have post tramatic stress disorder :)

Anyways.....I took Nicole's 3 year photos, Spencer's 4 year photos, and Cameron's 'I'm just a darling little boy' photos this morning. Here is a shot that I think shows off a bit of Nicole's personality. Sometimes she has so much personality it just oozes out of her ears!

2 Nicole Stories You Have To Read

• 2 days ago Nicole needed to go potty and so I told her to go in my bathroom since Caleb was taking a nap and her bathroom is close to his room (she tends to be very noisy while doing her business). But she insisted on going to her bathroom and so I just asked to be very quiet since Caleb was asleep. With her eyes wide open, her head tilted and her eyebrows sky high (anyone who knows her well can picture this common look of hers) she replied so matter-of-factly, "Okay Mamma, I'll just go pee-pee and my pee makes music and music will help Caleb sleep."
• The day before the pee story I bought Nicole a little basketball and hoop at the store. She was so excited for Greg to come home so she could show him (she knows that kind of stuff makes Daddy very happy). This is exactly how she said their conversation would go: "I'll say 'daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy' and he'll say 'What!!????!!!!' and I'll say 'look at my new basketball!'" Smart kids...she knows her parents' reaction to her constant "mommy! daddy!" too well.

My Sweet Bub-bie

Look at this handsome little boy!! We took this last night before we headed to Uncle Jeffie's basketball game. Caleb is already in size 4 shoes!! What a big boy! The shoes were so heavy he didn't really know what to do. Usually when you hold his hands he'll walk and walk, but all he could do was stand there...confused as to why his legs wouldn't move. :) I love my little boy!!!!

Some Recent Newborn Pictures

Here are some newborn pictures I did for my friend's younger sister. It makes me so excited to take pictures of my neice who is coming soon! :)

Look At This Face!!

This is a picture I took of my cousin Julie's little boy Mitchell. It just melts my heart!! I love, love this picture and the vintage wash over it.

Sometimes It's Just Better To Lie

A common example of my life:

Greg's parents had a large farm again this year with the usual pumpkins, potatos, cabbage, etc. But this year they also grew some tomatos, jalepenos, green peppers, and raspberries...yes, I said raspberries; they were amazingly delicious. So in September we picked a crazy amount of the tomatos, jalepenos, green peppers and raspberries. My friend Amy and I spent days in the kitchen canning raspberry jam, tomato sauce and salsa. I had never canned before and Amy was kind enough to come help me. I can't believe how much work it was! Especially those tomatos!! All the steaming and peeling and cutting. My legs and feet were so sore after days of this.

Although I was ornery about the insane amount of work this all was, it was a great feeling to see the final product of my efforts. I had enough jam to last a lifetime and I had a good amount of salsa (you can never have too much of that) and tomato sauce. I froze a bunch and canned some. The tomato sauce has been great because I can just grab it from the freezer or the pantry and make spagetti, lasagna or chili just like that. The initial canning was a lot of work, but cooking meals with it afterwards is so easy it makes it all worth it!

So I made some lasagna on Wed and I went out to the freezer to get the sauce. There was none left and so I had to use my last canned jar from the pantry (so much for the food storage). I was bewilder why there was none in the freezer. I know I had filled quite a few old sherbert containers that my mom had given me with this sauce. I was confused and Greg said he had no idea, so I just shrugged and made my lasagna.

Well, on Thursday when Greg came home from work he said he needed to tell me something. He said he didn't want to lie to me and thought it best to always tell me the truth even if it made me mad. He said that the night before about 10 minutes after he told me he didn't know why the sauce was all gone he remembered that a couple of weeks ago he was cleaning out the freezer and thought those sherbert tubs were full of old homemade raspberry ice-cream he had made and it was time to throw it out. Did he look to see what it was??? NO!!!! Did he ask me?? NO!!!

I was so upset, I was almost in tears. That stuff was delicious and so much work....now all thrown away. Greg said I wasn't allowed to be mad at him because he had told the truth. Forget the truth!!! I truely believe this and told him, "Sometimes it's just better to lie!!!!!!!!!!!" Ignorance is bliss. And that my friends is a typical happening in my household. Heaven help us!

What I've been up to!

I haven't posted for awhile, so I thought I'd give you a quick glimpse as to why, via pictures.


Crazy Cook #1....She is 2 1/2 years old...need I say more? (p.s. the obsession with princesses is getting a little out of control!)

Crazy Cook #2 I think he is passing up my nephew Alex as the number one Mr. Drooly

Teaching Introduction to Business at UVU. Trying to teach this class effectively take A LOT of work!

5 straight days of jury duty!! It was awful being away from my babies ALL day for 5 days, but I must admit the adult conversation was nice! (p.s. thank you Grammy, Grandma and Amy for helping me out and babysitting for me....they say I'm off the list for the next two years....I think it should be ten years! :) )

We've been thinking about selling our house and building a new one on the lot we have up the street. We found a house plan we like, but have been changing a lot of things. We want to make as few mistakes as possible, and that causes a lot of stress!!! It is really hard to sell houses right now, so it's a long shot we'll even be able to build. But really, we'll be fine with it. We'll just finish the basement here. We are very blessed to already have a nice house.

Last week Greg "accidentally" bought a car from the auction. He wanted a new car because he thinks our Corolla is too small, so he put in a low ball bid to the auction thinking there was no way we'd get the car (he was sick and really busy at work, so he didn't really want to get the car and I was just happy to keep what we had). Well, our auction guy called all excited he got the car and we had to act like we were excited too. So now we have 3 cars and are in desperate need to sell the Corolla. Anyone need a new car??? ;)

Greg's Grandma Scott (his mom's mom) passed away last month. It was a long month seeing her get so sick. It was really really hard on Greg's mom, and the whole family really struggled. She was 93 though and so badly missed her husband, so it was good for her to go. One day we went over to visit and Grandma was so weak she could hardly talk. She had just barely started to again be able to drink and at that it was only tiny sips. In good old Grandma fashion she was sipping on a Coke (her favorite thing in the world!). So I started to talk to Grandma about how sometimes a good Coke or Pepsi can really cheer you up and just make the world seem good again. Tonia (Greg's mom) was in the room and I told her she needed to just try it. She said no and that she thought Coke was nasty. Then just like the grandma we've always known, Grandma Scott said "Tonia, you really need to expand your horizons!" I almost fell off my chair laughing. Sweet Grandma was so sick and weak, and yet she was still cracking us all up. This is a picture of her (Bertha Scott) as a baby.

I have also done some great photo shoots lately.

Viola - She was sealed to her parents last week!!!

Mitchell - My cousin's sweet baby boy in his blessing outfit.

Jill - My great friend and her kids.

Samantha & Alex - My crazy niece and nephew.

Our Little Man's Blessing

Greg blessed Caleb on Sunday, August 2, 2009. It was a great blessing and I was so happy to be with all of my extended family, my husband and my two great children. I am very very blessed (and I will continue to remind myself of that as I wake up twice every night with one child or the other, which causes total exhaustion the next morning and makes for a slightly ornery mommy and very ornery college teacher on T and TH).

Caleb's Blessing Pictures

I had a great time taking these pictures of my sweet boy. Isn't he adorable?
(I am confused as to why when I post pictures on Blogger they are very grainy when they look great on my computer and when printed. Does someone know what I am doing wrong?)