We Love Halloween

So every year the kids and I decorate our front porch for the Holidays.  I order a couple bails of straw from a local feed store and go to work.  This year was especially fun for the kids because we put up a lot more scary thing for Halloween.  They love running out the front door and making the Butler Skeleton talk.  The kids are so excited for Trick-or-Treating this year.  My parents bought the kids some pumpkins a couple weeks ago and so instead of carving them this early, I let them paint them.  They had a blast.  

Right now my sister and her husband are staying with us until they get accepted into dental school.  It has been so nice having them here.  They are a lot of fun to hang out with and help out a lot.  So this fall she helped me decorate because of my back and I am so glad she did because I probably wouldn't have done it without her help.  She is also soooo good at taking pictures...I am taking some lessons from her and have realized that it is something that I would really like to become good at.  So here are some pictures she took of our front porch.  We are all ready for you Trick-or-Treaters!!!  Happy Halloween!

Trick-or-Treat!

I Love This Picture.

My Favorite Little Pumpkin.

This guy talks and moves when he senses you.

Thanks for the pumpkins Grandma & Grandpa.

Jammie loves this picture...I laugh everytime

I look at the expression on her face!

Jace was very creative about every little thing

he painted on his pumpkin.

This girl is always a mess.

Alright Already You TAGGERS!!!

Alright you TAGGERS!  I have been tagged by a couple of you so I am going to try to combine them into one.  Here we go:

4 Favorite TV Shows:

1.  Gossip Girls

2.  Heroes

3.  Project Runway

4.  Amazing Race

4 Things That Happened Yesterday:

1.  Helped Alexis wipe chap stick off my cabinets and counters  (she's such a stinker)

2.  Talked to Lexi's teacher about her punching a boy at school (again... such a stinker)

3.  Cleaned House ALL DAY! (Thanks for your help bunny!)

4.  Had a nice family dinner (Thanks Nelli - I mean oven..hee-hee!)

4 Things I Would do If I Were a MILLIONAIRE:

1.  SHOP!!! (That is a given)

2.  Pay off houses and cars for my family

3.  Travel with the kids when they are on track breaks

4.  Invest (Jammie would kill me if I didn't)

4 Things On Today's To-Do List:

1.  Wipe poopy butts.  (my kids, of course)

2.  Return stuff to Target, Best Buy and Lowes

3.  Get the kids some new pants and pj's

4.  Go to Jace's Football Game

4 Things I Look Forward To:

1.  My children's milestones

2.  Taking a bath and reading

3.  Date night

4.  My kids going to bed after a long day

4 Favorite Places To Eat:

1.  Mesa Grill (Love ya Jeremy & Malea)

2.  Cafe Rio

3.  Hanks

4.  Red Mango 

OK Taggers, That's all I can do for one day.  Sorry Malea, I am saving your tag for a different day.  So I guess now it's my turn to tag so I tag...Nelli, Brittany, Chel, Mom, Kandice, Marci and Annilee.  Sorry girls, had to do it.

Summer Fun...Time For Fall

Today was FREEZING and I have to say that I feel like summer is officially over. FINALLY! Everyone is back in school and onto a schedule. Jace is now in 1st grade and has joined a flag football league. He absolutely loves it. He wants to play tackle football but he will just have to wait for that. Alexis is in one more year of preschool and has started ballet. She is an excellent ballerina if I do say so myself. Everything at home revolves around ballet, she just loves to dance. This summer was fun and we have lots of fun memories to look back on. Here is a quick glimse of summer of '08 and look forward to summer of '09. But for now its time to think about pumpkins halloween costumes and trick-or-treating.

Happy Birthday To You!

Last week we celebrated Jammie's 34th birthday!  Another year older Bunny!  We had a lot of fun.  The kids were so excited for him to open presents and have cake and ice cream while we were excited to share a night out with friends.  We all met up at this place called, I Love Sushi for what else...SUSHI.  It was a lot of fun.  The food was good but the company was better.  (and yes, all my food was cooked and all of Jammie's was raw)  I got Jammie tickets to the Arizona Cardinals Football game against the St. Louis Rams in December.  He is really excited.  I think it will be a fun trip.  Anyways...Happy Birthday Bunny, I love you and look forward to many more:)

All of us at "I Love Sushi"

Happy Birthday Bunny...(And no I didn't cut

my hair, it's in a pony-tail.)

We opted for 2 candles instead of 34!

Sooo Meaning To Blog

I have soooo been meaning to blog.  Things have just been crazy lately.  For one, I slipped a disc in my back and was in bed for seriously a week!  It was awful, I could barely function.  Thank goodness I have Jammie and the R.S.  Jammie was awesome.  He helped take care of the kids while working at the same time, juggled football practices, laundry and grocery shopping.  I overheard him on the phone during all of this saying, "I hate when Danielle is down like this cause everything just goes to hell."  Thanks honey...It really is a tough job isn't it.  The R.S. was great to bring in meals for 4 nights, it really took a load off.  Well I am finally getting back to normal but I am still a little sore.  I have truly come to appreciate my health and the health of my family.  I am so grateful that none of us have been stricken with disease and we are active and feel well.  It is something I will try a lot harder at not taking it for granted.  So now I'm back and hopefully my blog will be too.  We have been up to so much so I am going to try to catch up this week.  We'll see how I do.

Quick Getaway...

This last weekend, Jammie and I took a quick trip up to Salt Lake for a friends wedding.  CONGRATULATIONS BRANDON & LINDSEY!  Lucky for us we got to leave the 2 older kids with grandma and just took the baby.   The wedding took place up at an Inn in Millcreek Canyon.  It was so beautiful and the weather was great.  After the wedding we stayed at my best friend Stacie's house for the rest of our trip and had a blast.  We got to have a girls day to shop with just the babies.  Easy enough, right?  Well it was for the most part until we tucked ourselves into the corner of the cafe to feed them.  Then Mya pooped out of her diaper on her clothes and James threw up all his peas everywhere.  We couldn't help but laugh, it was pretty comical.  Then Later that day we went up to Park City to the Parade of Homes.  It was pretty amazing, but nothing prepared us for the last house we went into.  It was 12,000 sf and absolutely breath taking.  Stacie and I kept trying to figure out how we could come up with 8.7 million dollars so we could move into it together.  So far none of our ideas have worked out and are probably a little too far fetched.  All in all it was a great trip.  I just wish it could have been for longer.  Now it's back to the grind.  Work in the life of a mother is never done.

To Be Young & Innocent Again.

The other night I was sitting and thinking...if my kids are this crazy now, imagine them as teenagers!  YIKES!  So when I saw Jace I told him, "You had better a good kid to me when you're older!"  His reply was, "I will be, cause when I turn 8 and get baptized all my sins will be washed away...so I will be good."  How true this statement is and how sweet he is for thinking he will always be good because he has been baptized.  Oh Jace...if only I could could be as optimistic about this life as you.  I love how delicate and innocent a child's mind is.  Everything is so simple through their eyes.  I am so happy to have my children in my life to be a constant reminder to me of their innocence and purity.

32...Whaaat?

OK...32...are you kidding me!  Last week I celebrated my 32nd birthday.  It just seems like yesterday I was complaining about turning 30.  Next thing you know I'll be 40 and have even more grey hair than I do now.  (Thank goodness for hair color!) But I do have to say that it has been a good year so I cant complain.  The night before Jammie wished me a Happy Birthday and I told him, "It came so fast, It doesn't even feel like my birthday."  He said, "That's what happens when you have kids, time flys and you don't ever think about it anymore."  It's so true.  I look forward to their birthdays even more and love seeing everything through their eyes.  I had a very nice day...Jammie got up and got Jace off to school for me  so I could sleep in.  After school he and the kids made me a cake.  They had so much fun and were so excited to celebrate with me.  Jammie called me later that day and told me he made reservations at one of my favorite resturants.  He said I had 3 chances to guess where we were going and if I didn't guess it we weren't going. (he's such a kidder)  Well lucky for me I guessed on the first try.  He took me the kids and my sister and brother-in-law to Bobby Flay's Resturaunt, Mesa Grill at Caesars Palace.  It was the best food but the company was even better.  I am grateful to have had 32 wonderful years here on this earth and look forward to 32 more.

Midnight Sun Madness!

Ok.  So for those of you who don't know how obsessed I am with the twilight book series...well I'm totally in love with a vampire and a werewolf, have read the books a couple of times and have so much music that coinsides with the books that it's ridiculous...so I guess that makes me pretty obsessed.  After I finished Stephanie Meyer's last book, Breaking Dawn, I was very sad that it was all over and yet satisfied at the same time with how it all came together.  My only thing left to look forward to was her finishing and publishing Midnight Sun.  This is the book she was writing that is Twilight all over again but from Edwards perspective.  How hot is that.  Well my sister called me this morning and broke the bad news to me.  She told me that somebody who had a rough copy of the Midnight Sun manuscript had illegally released it on the Internet.  I was furious and couldn't believe that someone would do that to her.  On Stephanie Myers home page she expressed how angry she was and that now she has no desire to even finish the book.  It broke my heart to read this.  She went on to talk about copyright laws and that just because some jerk put her work online it was still illegal to read her book.  So because she didn't want her readers to feel torn on wether or not they should read it, she posted it on her website.  The book is a rough draft and still hasn't been finished.  Stephanie Meyer even went a step further and released the incomplete play list she had compiled for the book.  For me, I feel like someone took something so dear and important to her and so carelessly threw it away.  She had at one time said that she had to have Midnight Sun published so she could have a bound copy of it with Twilight on her desk.  I hope that some day Stephanie Meyer decides to finish and publish this book the way she wanted it, because until she does I will not read it.  I want to read it in full, the way she intended it to be...no matter how obsessed I may be.  

Baby Day :)

What an exciting day this was.  Not only could I not wait to meet my little Mya but I could hardly wait to not be pregnant any more.  I couldn't wait for the first night I could sleep on my stomach and be able to get up and down without sounding like an old lady.  We got to the hospital around 7:30 am and I was induced around 8:30 am.  It was a pretty quick delivery...so quick that the Dr. made it there by the skin of his teeth.  It's a good thing his office is located right next door to the hospital otherwise he wouldn't have made it.  What a joy it has been having Mya in our family.  The kids love her so much (sometimes toooo much) but it is very sweet to see them smile every time she's around.  She already has her daddy wrapped around her little finger.  He can't help but be so loving every time he lays eyes on her.  Having kids has really shown me that time flys and that it is something you can't get back.  I look forward to cherishing every moment with them (the good and the bad) because one day this small chapter of my life will be over.  They will all move on and have families of their own.  I hope when that day comes I will be able to look back and know that I didn't wish any of it away and I enjoyed it to the fullest.