Home Sweet Home...

I am home from my trip. It was filled with girls, food, fun, music, ice cream cones, laughing, not much sleep, ice cream cones, dancing, talking till the wee hours, laughing, sun, Mexico, ice cream cones, shopping, and probably some more ice cream cones. We had a great time! Missed my kiddos and husband like crazy. Glad to be home. I loved Cody's post. He's so sweet. The kids had fun with daddy time. It's so good for them to get to spend that much time with him with no rushing off to work. Emrie was walking EVERYWHERE when I got home, and was quite a daddy's girl. Which is a huge change. They were eating dinner when I walked in. So sweet. The house was cleaner than I left it, which definately wasn't a requirement. I just wanted them all fed. They did have a busy weekend, and Cody experienced church with all three ALONE! Never fun! Thanks Cody, I love you! I will post pictures of my weekend madness when I unpack!

MR. MOM

Candi has been gone a few days, she went on a cruise with some of her friends from high school and I have been home with the kids. We have had a lot of fun but it has also been a lot of work. It takes Candi leaving for me to fully appreciate all she does. I can truly say she works much harder than I do at work. We have been busy going to soccer practice, parent teacher conference, soccer game, pre school and spending time with family.

About all I can manage is to keep the kids alive, fed, and in clean diapers. The house was a wreck until my Mom came over last night and cleaned...She is the best. I haven't done dishes or laundry, but don't worry ladies I will get it done before Candi returns.

Let me tell you about the preparation Candi did to go on this four day trip.

She left me a whole itinerary:

Example:

Thursday

8am Nicki will pickup Avery for school

930-1200 Liam Preschool

1215 School Out (early release) Melissa will drop Avery off

530 Soccer Practice

Homework- Small book to read, study spelling words, reading log read and sign, sign homework log.

*pack Avery a snack for school

Friday

8am Nicki will pickup Avery

1215 Melissa Drop off Avery at home

145 Parent Teacher Conference

Call my mom she will watch them if you want to go to the football game.

There were instructions like that for every day..

She also left lots of numbers of friend from the ward that I could call if I was having a crisis.

One I thought was funny was "if Liam is driving you nuts, call Noah"

All Joking aside: How lucky are we to have such good friends close by that can help, There are always people picking up and dropping off kids, letting kids stay and play and have sleep overs. Its great..Thank You everybody.

Candi also left instructions on how to care for Emrie..What to feed her, when to put her down for a nap..I asked for these instructions because I had not a clue..I just get up go to work before anyone is up and get home in the evening.

The best thing Candi did was she made a little love note for each kid for each day so they could still have Mommy tell them she loves them. They were so excited to open them each day. Candi also left little presents for them to open if they got especially sad. What a great Mom.

Some Pics of Daddy Time. Carving Pumpkins at Uncle Cy's.

Emrie Helping Dad with the Knife!

Emrie's View of the Whole Mess.

My Obama Lantern. To me nothing is scarier than this guy running the country.

The Whole crew and our pumpkins...Having fun but Missing Mommy.

Missing Grandma Nadine...

I haven't posted about this yet, but I decided it was time. A couple of weeks ago, Cody's sweet grandma passed away. It's always sad when we lose a grandparent. But this hit extra close to home for us. I worked full time until Avery was born. When she was born, Cody's grandpa Hal was sick. They needed people to help take care of him at home. So, I started going over there with Avery. We spent about a year with him, then he passed away. After that we took care of grandma. Over the years it's gone from Avery and I spending time with her, driving her around shopping, getting nails done and other fun things. She'g gotten sicker over the years and was able to do less and less. But, we have always been there. All my babies were babies in her house. We've slept there, and played there at least a couple days a week for over six years. Grandma was tired, and ready to go see her husband. We know she is happy, and not sick anymore. It was hard to explain to my kids, but what a spiritual learning experience. They know that we will see her again. But we sure miss her!!!

Emrie and Grandma on St. Patty's Day 09

She loved our noisy Emrie. She'd be laying in her hospital bed and hear Emrie from another room yelling or playing or crying or whatever. She'd always tell me "that baby's yelling at you" She called her the fat baby. All the way until the end, she loved having Emrie crawling around her bed. It was sweet!

us at the funeral
I knew grandma really well, having spent so much time with her. But, at the funeral I learned alot about her younger years and all the things she did in her life. She was a tough, experienced woman. She had five children. Her and her husband were farmers among other things. She delivered mail for ten years, and was also a private investigator for a while. I thought that was cool. It was neat going through all the really old pictures, seeing what everyone looked like. She was a hottie back in the day!

This next series are just some funny pictures of silly Emrie. My sister took her out in the hall during the funeral because she was being EXTRA LOUD!!! These are some of the funny faces she makes

This is my favorite! She does it all the time.

Cody's brother Martin drove out from Texas with his three kids for the funeral, and stayed a few days. These cousins have so much fun together. We are sad that they live so far away.

We went up to the park at Anthem for the day. Perfect weather, and a really fun park!

Liam and Grace

Silly Avery and Caleb

Silly Emrie again..sitting on the playground toys. She is growing up too fast!!!

Death is always sad. But, as I told Avery. It's really only sad for us, the people left behind. Because we miss them. For our loved ones who die, they are just going home. There is no more sickness or pain. So, they aren't sad. It does make me want to show more love to my family and loved ones around me!

Back in Business!!

YEAH!! We are back online, after a long break. Cody finally broke down and hooked up the internet again. It's so nice to be able to check email without driving to the library or a friends house. I really missed putting new pictures on here. I feel like I take less pictures when I'm not blogging too. So, I am very glad to be back to normal.

Here are some quick updates...

Emrie:

It is only one month until this little sweetie turns ONE. I really can't believe it. It seems like it's gone so quickly. That probably has something to do with the fact that I think I was in a FOG for the first six months. It is getting easier. She is so cute and super fun right now. She has a million funny faces she loves to make. She has two teeth on bottom and what seems like 10 coming in on top. She is so LOUD! and loves to hear her own voice. She talks and yells. She loves to get her daddies attention by yelling "DA DA" at the top of her lungs. She is starting to walk all over. She is still cautious but can do it just fine.She loves music, and does her own version of dancing when a tune strikes her fancy. She is officially done nursing, which I thought would never happen since she'd never take a bottle. But, we did it!! She loves boys...especially her big brother. We love our sweet girl.

Enjoying a huge chunk of watermelon on aunt Ken's trampoline...huge, sticky mess!!

just hangin with mommy

showing off her new toy and skills

LIAM

What can I say about this funny, silly, boy. He loves being four, and is convinced he's turning five any day now. He loves preschool and Ms. Candace. He is so smart, I don't know what to do. He sounds out everything, loves to do his homework. He has a love/hate relationship with his big sister right now. They seem like best buddies one minute and are picking on eachother the next. I'm sure it's normal, but it drives me INSANE! He keeps me laughing and on my toes at the same time.

Pirate birthday party for his best buddy Davin

treasure hunt...he thought the feather was the treasure. silly boy.

one of his many projects, and made up"homework"

Avery:

Avery is doing fabulous in first grade. She has a great homework routine, is so good at getting herself ready in the morning, and loves school (thank goodness). She is so smart, and such a sweet girl and big sister. Her two front teeth are finally starting to come in. I've been teasing her that her and Emrie are teething at the same time. She is playing soccer again and doing a great job. We were surprised about how much she remembers from last year. She works hard and runs fast, and looks cute doing it!

Her silly pirate pose

My sister and I took the girls out of school early one day last week and spent some quality girl time with them. We had lunch, did a little shopping at Target, and went to a pottery painting place and they designed their own masterpieces. It was lots of fun and they did a great job.

gettin ready to put a hand print on the back

Avery is very artistic. She loves to draw, and was great with the paint. She painted the middle of her plate with a cute garden scene complete with flowers, grass, sunshine, clouds and a finger-print butterfly. It turned out really cute. She will love using her plate, and it was great to have some one on one time with my big girl.

Avery with two of her very favorite people. She got to help in a play at the high school. They did Alice in Wonderland. There were a bunch of kids that got to dance on stage with the cast. She loved it, and had lots of family come watch her performance. My mom, cody's parents, and Aunt Kenra and her cousin Kendi.