To Fly or Not to Fly

Well by this rate we will be done with Christmas in July. I am good with that. At least I am posting something, right?
So Kevin and I stayed up until 4 am Christmas Eve (I guess it was Christmas day by that point). Kevin was busy finishing a doll house, I was finishing matching shirts for Christmas day (yep, I'm that nuts. :) and some hats that I realized I couldn't finish at 1 am. :) Plus we hadn't wrapped A SINGLE THING! Or packed. Seriously, what were we thinking?
So we had Christmas morning, packed like mad and then went to the airport. I would like you to visualize the circus that we were. We had:
5 checked suitcases
3 carry-on suitcases
3 car seats
1 stroller
1 diaper bag
1 backpack
We looked awesome! We got a ton of stares and on the way home, our whole cart tipped with the following items plus an extra suitcase and everyone stared at us! No offer for help. Anyway, I digress. ;) Flying with kids is STRESSFUL!!! Trying to get everyone through security was the most stressful! And we were late checking our bags by 2 minutes. That 2 minutes cost us an additional 2 hours in SLC as we waited for the rest of our luggage to get there. You know the essentials- diapers, pull-ups, the girls clothes and my clothes! Whew! We were just glad to see those mountains beckoning us home for Christmas!
So here we are on our flight. This was a first for Camilla and Olivia. It was fun. Kevin sat with Olivia (who started walking at 10 months) so he was basically in a wrestling match as she tried to walk up and down the aisle.

Emma and Camilla did great on the flight. Other than the rude guy who asked me to keep Camilla from kicking his seat. Maybe he shouldn't have reclined. I smiled real big and said "I will do my best" maybe not in the nicest way.
Here is one tired Momma with the girls. (Did I mention I stayed up until 4 am) We listened to Tangled on the MP3. I zoned out with the IPod and the girls colored. On the return flight, Emma was 'the best passenger' and was given all the leftover snacks and a set of flight wings.

A little more awake?


All of us Christmas morning. With our matching jammies. Yep, worth it!
Dad and the girls. I love their faces! Cami pulls this mischievous face all the time. And I am pretty sure that Olivia had found some piece of candy already from the stockings. :)

Just the girls! (Olivia does have a matching shirt too:)

I seriously can't get enough of this little baby! She is so fun!


Well I guess that was a bonus! More than 5! Merry Christmas!!! :)

Hello!

Well hi there! Does anyone still read this blog? Well no matters. I am going to try something new. I always wait and end up doing some MASSIVE post with all of our pics on them of a summary of the past 2 or 3 months. I then get so burned out (and it takes me hours:). So I have decided to try posting only 5 pics a week. Then it is sweet, short, and (hopefully) more frequent! Also, our computer almost crashed, and I realized that this is a good spot to keep all of my pics. So get ready for random posts, but for me, these are things I don't want to forget.
Also- I am leaning towards going private with my blog. Any thoughts on the matter? I'll let you know what I decide. :)
In no particular order, here are a five pics!Christmas morning. I guess that 3 little girls were being nice this year.
Christmas Eve. I made everyone matching jammie pants! This year, we did a fun advent calendar. (I got the idea on Pinterest- the other place you can find me:) You wrap 24 Christmas/winter books and let the kiddos unwrap one book a night. Truth be told, I already owned 21! Yep, I'm a freak when it comes to Christmas. Now some of the books aren't my fav, so we will rotate some of them out. It was a really fun thing to do and I am planning on making it our family tradition. I let the kids pick whatever book they wanted, but I saved the book The Little Match Girl for Christmas Eve. My Grandpa Benson would tell this story every Christmas Eve to us. He always had a bunch of stories to tell, but this was my favorite. And I found a copy of it! So Kevin is reading the book to the girls (I can hardly get through it:).
We had Kevin's sister for the gift exchange this year. And she just had twins! They named them Luke and Qwynn. So I was able to make some vinyl signs for them with my machine. It was so fun getting to meet them!

Here we are Christmas morning!
And that is my fabulous five for the week! Here's hoping I can stick to this and I'll see you next week!

Well that was a sad post. Just reading that again brings tears to my eyes. What a trial! Thank you again for all of your prayers in my behalf. I know that is the only way I was able to get better. I ended up staying in the hospital for a week. My mom came out to take care of us (thanks again Mom!). Then a week later, we went out to Idaho for our yearly trip. I continued to rest and had lots of help with the kiddos.

So sit back and enjoy lots of pics of what has been happening in our lives.

While in Idaho, we enjoyed celebrating Mom's B-day!

Enjoying a bike ride and the river up at Island Park.

Sisters hanging out for the 4th of July!

Fireworks with Daddy.

We started Olivia on rice cereal and formula while I was in the hospital. She 'beefed up.' We love our chubba luvva! And she loves to go shopping!

We celebrated this cute guy's birthday!

Livvy will eat anything she is given. Enjoying a pear!

This is what she would look like if she was a boy. This was the only surviving thing from Kevin's childhood. His cute little outfit! Someday, I will have to scan in his pic wearing this...so cute!

And she is standing up to everything!

I really mean everything!

Being silly!

Making cake balls. (Not a kid-friendly activity-just sayin)

Doing the dishes.

We went to our first pro-football game! Go 49ers! They lost and it was kind of a boring game (like no one was scoring) but hey, we were there!!!!!

Emma started her first day of school. I can't believe I have a child in kindergarten! I miss her everyday and I totally cried when I dropped her off. Love her!

Cute Sunday outfit! And sometimes we cry about it.

Family bike rides! Livvy usually doesn't make it. (And her helmet is way too big!)

And we made it through canning season. 43 pears and 30 peaches!

Thanks for stopping by! Hope all is well with all of you!

Pneumonia

I am here in the hospital and since I just get to sit here, you get a really blog post with no pics. And the full story, if you like. If not, stop reading and say a little prayer that I can get out of here soon!


Here is the story: I have been seeing a chiropractor for an injury I had on my mission that didn't totally get better. He was fixing the problem and adjusting my neck and back at the same time. I started getting really bad headaches. And then on Wednesday, I had one of the worst migraines ever. (It felt similar to when I had concussions in high school.) Well that continued through Saturday. I had started getting a cough and had a fever but I just thought it was another cold.
Saturday, we called my brother-in-law who is an ER doctor just to get a second opinion. He said to go to the ER because something may have happened to my neck during all the adjustments. So we went to the ER and got a CT scan. Neck is fine, they give me some meds to get rid of the headache.
Later they decide they are going to take some chest x-rays. Come to find out, during the CT scan, they found pneumonia in my lungs. The x-ray confirmed that. So they sent me home with antibiotics.
Sunday night and Monday morning I felt like I could hardly breath. So back to the ER we go on Monday. They then admitted me to the hospital. I have been on oxygen and do breathing treatments every 4 hours. I have a-typical pneumonia so they can't figure out which bacteria they are fighting. So I am taking 2 different ones and hoping and praying I can get better soon.

The lessons I have learned are quite a few:
1) Life can always get worse.
2) Being a mom is the only thing in this world that I want to do.
3) I would take the craziest day with my kids over any day in this hospital.
4) I love my family.
5) I get homesick easily.
6) I really like to breastfeed. (Especially compared to pumping all the time).
7) I really hate tv.
8) Sometimes a trashy magazine is really great entertainment.

Most of all, I have come to really appreciate my life. So often I think I look around and see others and think, 'man, if I could just have that' or 'if my kids could just act like that' I would be happy. I really am happy. I have a good life. I have a great husband and wonderful girls. I now just hope I can get better quickly so I can enjoy this great life that I have.

The Epitome of Mother's Day

Mother's Day dawned bright and late a few Sundays ago. Kevin let me SLEEP-IN! As if that isn't the best gift ever! And while I was enjoying my well-rested state (which hasn't existed due to the new babe in my life:) I came down the stairs and found this:

So I am basking in the glow of loving motherhood and appreciating my husband's wonderful efforts (did I mention my in-laws were in town and he still put this together?) The girls were so excited to show me their art work. I love my kids' drawings! I am just soaking this all in.
Then my 5 year old announces, "Mom, I drew us all naked in that corner!"
Seriously!?!
You can check it out in the top right corner in the close up below (don't worry, its rated PG).
And then all the glowing and basking is over. And later I have the conversation with my MIL how it is so easy to feel guilty on Mother's Day because I am not the best Mom and how someone in church always gives a talk about their rockin' mom and how I feel like....crap! I am not doing half those things! And my kid draws...hmmm....well you know.
Anyway, it was a great day and we got to share it with Kev's mom which is rare since he is one of ten! And Kev spoiled me! Which I always love. And I will keep plugging along and loving my kids and teaching them what is appropriate. :) And trying to get over feeling guilty.
Happy late Mother's Day to all the Mommas out there!

Out of Survival mode

Greetings family and friends! Do you ever feel like you are drowning in life? Well that pretty much sums it up for me. a.k.a. survival mode! I can't decide if it is because of a busy tax season, a new baby, the adjustment to 3 little girls or maybe a combination of ALL of that! So here is a bit of what has been happening with us. And here's to hoping I am out of survival mode. :) And will stay updated better.
So these pics aren't going to be in order, because I can't fix it or am running out of time and patience. I took the girls to Disney on Ice when they came to Oakland. The girls were totally into it. It made me really want to take them to Disneyland. They had an entire segment of the Disney princesses which my girls ATE UP! All the princesses were there and they danced to the song from Enchanted "That's how you know." (That's one of my favs...see song list below:) L-O-V-E-D it! So after the song, Emma realized that SLEEPING BEAUTY did not show up and she was upset. She then pouted the rest of the show. Dang Aurora...how could you miss Disney on Ice? So I asked Emma to smile and this is what I got. Posing in front of the princesses and we are still mad!
A shot of the show!
Cami was happy to be there!I can't get enough of this sweet face!
My birthday! Isn't this a true 'mom' pic? Holding a baby while blowing out candles? I didn't even realize I was. :) My other fav? Check out Cami's face in the corner of the pic. She is helping :)
More Miss Olivia!


This handsome guy made me a cheesecake from SCRATCH for my b-day!
I also got this for my B-day! Olivia smiled for the first time. I think she knew it was my special day!
This pic cracks me up! Cami was mad at me and gave me a Care Bear stare! (We had her reenact it for the pic.) Funniest part, I totally did this to my dad when I was a little girl.
This is a nightly routine. Kev gives the girls 'horsey' rides to bed each night. This night, Livvy wanted to join in the fun.And that is us in a nutshell. Hopefully it won't be months before I post again. :)

More happenings

So I came across this pic of Camilla at about the same time as Olivia. What do you think? Do you think they look like sisters? I can't really see it. I think each one of my girls is very unique and has a different look. Some couples have a 'mold' and all their kids look the same. So far, ours all look different!Here is Olivia at 1 month!Here is a map that Emma drew. She was playing Dora and the ending is the castle in the middle. Emma also loves to write all of our names. You will see Emma, Camilla and Dad on the map. Mom is upside down in the top left corner.

Here is a fun pic of Livvy in her bumbo. Don't mind the recent trip to Costco in the background. :) Kevin made these tables for my cousin. Aren't they awesome?!? He did such a good job. He made two side tables and a counter-high computer desk for them. Now just to get him to do it for me. :)

And here are the girls modeling off the tables. Don't you love it when their foot goes through the jammies? I love it!

And last of all, don't you love it when your kids dress themselves? They really love wearing dresses and skirts. That is about all they wear these days. And on this day they did the matching. :)