Changes coming in our family

Just when I think I am safe, Bam!! it hits me. I am pregnant. I know, I know there are ways to prevent, but Pat and I had been thinking it was the right thing to do so in July I had a Dr visit and he so kindly told me that removing my IUD would lead to pregnancy. It was funny at the time cuz I was sure that was what I wanted. Well by the beginning of Nov. I had changed my mind and was planning the new visit witht the Dr. to get a new IUD. To make a long story short, we had an us only trip to Vegas at the beginning fo December and now Bam!! Sickness, tiredness, and reflux have taken over my whole world. My poor kids and husband have been so patient with me and my horribley messy house. I was happy until the sickness hit and then I was mad at myself for letting this happen again. Now I am somewhere in between. I know I will love having this baby when it comes, but it is so far away and I am so miserable during pregnancy. I am trying to have a better attitude about it, but sometimes when I am sick and struggling to breathe, I cave and cry. For those who don't know, I have vocal cord dysfunction. For years the Dr's were treating me for asthma and nothing worked, but after a million different Dr's we have figured it out, I think. My vocal cords close causing me to wheez and struggle to get air in. I sound like Darth vador most of the time and espescially if I do anything even a little active like walk up the stairs. You would think I just sprinted a mile. Well, pregnancy makes my VCD worse by a lot. My voice is gone alot of the time, and its just harder to breathe. I feel like I am suffocating some days. But don't worry, I seem to be getting enough oxygen, I just struggle getting it. I am learning new breathing tecniques, to help but it seems like something I will always have and not be able to get rid of. :(

Anyways, I am greatful for the oppurtunity to have another baby, and if all goes well it will be a boy. :) We are not going to find out, at lease that is what we say right now. It will make the delivery more fun for all of us I think if we find out the gender when it is born. Oh by the way, I am 12 weeks along.

We did it again........WE MOVED!!

Ok, so Provo wasn't the greatest idea. I loved living near Pat's brother Adam and his wife Denise, but other than that it wasn't the best for our kids. They did not make any friends and they seemed to really struggle in general. We found a house in Spanish Fork, right on the edge of a nice park, and we are loving it. I think we hit the jackpot of neighborhoods. There are kids everywhere and our girls are loving their new school and they all have friends wanting to play. I am really happy about it. The girls are loving the new house too. While we were looking at it, thinking about it, they were begging us to move here. It has been really great. We went to church last week for the first time and the ward was really welcoming. I think we will be here a while. We better be anyways.

Soccer is slowing down now. One more game for Amanda's team and then a break until March. Yay!! I will love having some extra time for things like family dinner and cleaning and such.

Pat went to Moab to mountain bike, for a few days with his buddies and will be home tonight. I hope he had a fun time. It sounded like it was going to be awesome.

My girl love the new sillybands that are out. They are little rubber bracelets that are shaped all different in cute shapes. I bought some the other day and today they worked and worked on jobs they came up with, and I approved, to earn sillybands. My house is now all clean and I love it! I have to go get more for next Saturday.

WOW, its been a long time.

Well I'm only going to touch on a few things that have happened since I last wrote, in December, and then start on the stuff that is going on now.

We moved from Mapleton to Provo in March, and have enjoyed living near Patrick's brother Adam and his family. We had a great summer, going to my Dad's graduation in June and to family reunions in July. My Grandma Smith passed away in Aug, and I will really miss her. I am still working at our business and Patrick is still in school.

Now for the present.

Soccer started up in July and I am coaching Amanda's team again. Paige is also playing club this year. Both their teams are undefeated so far. Amanda is a great Keeper, and Paige has scored a bunch of goals for her team. It takes up all our time going to games and practicing. Pat and I split up with him usually taking Marin and Jaida, because I coach and its hard having the kids there.

I have 3 of my kids in school all day which has been so nice. They are all doing really well. Marin has taken off with reading and has really impressed me. Amanda loves reading too, she reads about 2 books a week. These aren't just little books either. They have about 300 pages each. I can get so many things done with just Jaida home. She loves playing with her cousin Eliana and so we trade off with them because its easier to have them both then just Jaida alone. They keep each other happy.

Pat is still going to BYU and is doing well in his classes. He has his flag football games going on every week and I look forward to them all week. I love watching them. This last week he got punched in the face accidentally while he was going up for a catch and it broke is nose. He came running off the field with it bleeding like a faucet. Ewww it was gross.

Here are a few fun Pics of recent.




Ok, well I have tried to load some pics and this is the only one that would. That's ok, its cute anyways. I will post some pics soon.

Paige's Birthday

Happy Birthday to my little Paige! I can't believe that she is 8 years old and going to be baptized. She has grown up so much. Here is a little picture-line of her years.







She is such a wonderful daughter. As a baby she was such a little trouble causer, and she still loves to tease her sisters, but she has grown into such a fun, energetic, crazy, clever, sweet, kind, loving, young lady. I just love having her around. She bring so much joy to us with her crazy faces and funny jokes. She is the little comedian of our family and keeps us busting up all the time. At the same time, she really cares about how everyone feels. She is always the first to make someone a get better card if they are sick, and a love notes for no reason. She is always willing to help out when its needed, and really takes care of her little sisters. I will always be grateful to my Heavenly Father for sending me my Paige Amelia.

Christmas time...Here so fast?

I have been thinking about when I was going to put up my Christmas tree. I have a lot of time in my mind.....until I realized today just how close Christmas really is. I kind of freaked, jumping all over Pat to get it down from the big shelf in the garage. It still is not down, but our buddy Jasen had a small tree that he gave to my kids. The girls and I got it out and set it up. I put lights on it and then they spent all morning making decorations to put on it. It now occupies a corner in our hallway.


I love that the kids did it all by themselves, and they are so proud of it.



In the process of putting it up, I got out all my other Christmas decorations and put them up, but still no main tree. Hopefully Pat will get it down tomorrow and we can decorate it for family home evening on Monday.

I have done some minimal shopping for gifts, but I really need to kick it into high gear and get it done. Oh well, I have always been a last minute shopper at Christmas.

My life

-Work
-Marin in Kindergarten
-kid's school
-their homework
-Pat's school
-his homework
-Amanda's soccer
-Paige's soccer
-Achievement days
-Pat's football
-Pat's scouts

-Busy-ness!!!

Marin and Jaida after baths tonight.

Life these Days

Pat is in Montana on his "Man Trip" and I have been cleaning out bedrooms in my house, preparing for school to start next week. Holy cow, this coming Wed we have to get up and get all ready by 8:25? How is that possible? Have I ever done this before? After this summer, it feels like I never have. I have been so lazy about making anybody get dressed until about 11am, unless its Amanda going to early morning soccer. It's funny how I crave school getting out for the summer, but then crave it starting again to kick our butts back into a schedule and routine. I'm nuts, I know.

I have been working on potty training Jaida. She is doing really well going #1 in the potty, but just getting her to go #2 is frustrating. She tells me she needs to, and we go sit on the potty for a while and she won't go, but as soon as her pull-up or panties are back on she goes. It just takes time, but I only have a couple more days and then its back to work for me and I won't be able to focus on it.

Its been nice having time off work, and not being out of town. I have spent lots of time with the kids and they have worked hard to help on their rooms. We have had game night, gone swimming, and rented movies. We have eaten out too much and played at parks. It been nice to be with them, I miss them. It's hard working, but wanting to be home, knowing you can't be, really. I have internal battles about it EVERY day. I already told you I'm nuts, I wasn't joking. :)

I am excited for Pat to get home. I hope its been a good break for him, he really needed it. He has been working so hard this summer and is starting a really hard work and school schedule this fall. I have always told him I wouldn't make a good school wife, and this semester is going to test me hard core. 3 days a week he will leave at 6am and not get home til 7pm and then he has scouts one of those nights, when he gets home. I have achievement days and soccer all week too. Life is just getting crazier, and I was looking for it to settle down. But all is good. I have a great husband, and 4 healthy, happy, loving girls to fill my days with. I am truly blessed.


My girls have a new favorite past time. They play on photo booth on our Mac. I have over 1000 of these type silly pics of them. They make videos for us too. They are sure fun. Notice the mustache on Amanda, she cannot drink anything from a cup without getting one, so the majority of the time she has a stain above her lip.

Our Latest Adventure.........Boulder Mtn and Escalante

Pat overlooking the North part of Escalante National Park.

Last Thursday Pat and I were able to go have a few days together without the kids. Pat has been working so hard and we both really needed a break. Pat found a cute cabin down near Boulder UT that was the same price as a hotel. We arrived late Thursday night and woke up Friday to a beautiful summer day. We ate breakfast at the lodge, and then headed out to find a good lake to hike to, and fish. After inquiring and getting a map, we picked our trek. We drove to the trail, and hiked in about 1 mile. No luck, the lake was dry!! We then hiked back the other way past the truck, and another 3 miles to 2 more lakes. One was almost dry and the other ended up being really marshy. We had our waders, so we put them on and fished for a few. More bad luck--the fish would not take anything. We could see these massive schools of them but they were not eating. The fish were very large too. We think they were spawning. The mud in the lake was so thick and sticky it was hard to walk in, you would sink deep every step. At one point Pat yelled at me that he was sinking and could not get out, I looked over at him to see him sink about a foot in a few seconds. I was about 10 feet away so I hurried over, as much as I could in the lake and mud, and pulled him out. The water had been thigh high but when I got to him it was almost at his chest. That scared me so I got out. I didn't want to experience that. He trudged on a little while longer and then after a few we started the 3mile hike back to the truck. While we were at the lakes we used our water purifier and pulled the water out of the lake into our water bottles to drink. It's made for hiking and backpackers, but I had a hard time trusting it. I did drink the water though, because it got hot and I needed it. I was surprised that it tasted good and then it was easier to drink after that, but it was always in the back of my head that I was drinking lake water. We hurried back to the cabin, showered and then went out to dinner. When we got back we watched a movie on the laptop and then went to bed. We had another day of hiking ahead of us.

On our way to Lower Calf Creek Falls. The canyon in the background is the one we will soon hike up 3 miles to the falls.

The next morning we ate in our cabin, packed up, checked out, and then headed out to Lower Calf Creek Falls in Escalante National Park. We started that hike a little before 10am. We arrived at the Falls around 11:10. It was also a 3 mile hike in. It was so worth it though. I was so excited to go there. It has been on my list of things I really want to do. I was so excited that I was going to get to cross it off!! I never get to cross any of them off, so I was overly excited. Anyways, it was so beautiful. The water fall is 196 feet high and falls into this clear pool at the bottom. We swam in it even though it was FREEZING!! I haven't been in water that cold since I was a teenager and swam through a lake right when the ice was off. It was really refreshing, its in the middle of a desert and very hot there. There were about 25 other people there. We spent an hour playing in it, and after the hike out, we headed home.

The falls were so beautiful.


Me swimming in the COLD water of the falls. There were fish that would swim right up to your toes. A little freaky....

It was such a great trip over all. We really enjoyed each others company and talked and laughed our heads off. He really is my best friend, I love being with him so much!!

Its nice to be home..............I think

We are home! After 2 weeks of being gone, it feels good. But at the same time, I really miss being at my Mom's. I need her to move closer I think. Pat came down with his brother Steve and family on Thursday. Adam and Denise came too, but they drove separately. Friday we got up and drove 3 hours to Capinteria State beach, checked into our hotel, and then went and played on the sand and in the water the rest of the afternoon. It was a little chilly, but still fun. The next morning we decided not to stay because Steve's little boys had come down with colds, and they did not want them getting in the cold ocean. So we made the 3 hour drive back to my Mom's, and went over to my good friend Joni's pool and swam in the 95 degree weather. It was so nice and warm, and the pool was warmer too. Not the beach weekend I was hoping for, but oh well. We drove home Sunday.

We passed a burning SUV as we were coming into State Line. There were 2 cop cars sitting behind it. It seemed so dangerous to me, and I was surprised that they did not block off the lane right next to it either. You could drive right next to it if you wanted too.

This is on the way to Carpinteria. Autumn was able to ride with us almost everywhere we went. The girls love being together.

In the Motel 6 that we stayed at. They have remodeled the rooms since I last stayed there in July last year. It was nice and modern. The girls have a good time together, most the time.


Today, my brother Rob came over for a few and brought his kids to play with mine. I turned on the sprinklers and they played outside together. They were so cute. I screwed a sprinkler head to the top of our playhouse over our slide, so when we hook the hose to it, it makes a water slide. Rob's youngest son, Walker, loved it. He is 3 years old and he kept going on it even though it would shoot him off about 3 feet into the grass and then he would slide another 3 feet. It was so funny watching him.

It was fun to see them and hopefully we can see them again this summer when they come out from Cincinnati.

Crescent Bay Beach Fun

Tuesday we went to the beach with my brother Danny and his family. He wanted to take us to his favorite one. It is in Laguna, but it is called Crescent Bay Beach. It was so beautiful and dreamy. It has cliffs right behind it with big beach homes, and rocks jutting out into the water on either end of it. Its really neat. Here are some pics but they don't do it justice.

You can see the rocks on the ends. They have all sorts of sea critters in them. When the tide is out you can hike them and find lots of fun things to look at.

Here is another pic of it. It was so beautiful. It is kind of hidden too.


Here is a pic of my sis Melody with our kids. Danny and James are out in the water with the boogy boards. I was enjoying the view from my beach chair in the warm sun.

I just love the beach!! I think I will have to live on one someday to make my life complete. I am excited for this weekend. We will be going to Carpinteria State beach for the weekend with Pat and his brothers, and their families. They come here tomorrow, and I'm so excited to see Pat, its been 2 weeks almost.

In other news: My mom continues to get better each day and is doing really well. She has her next surgery on the 20th. I might have to come back again for her ---and the beach :)

This is what the kids have been doing on normal days when we can't go to the beach. One day they spent 5 1/2 hours out there. Thanks to Grandpa (my Dad) for getting it for them.