Mother's Day

I am so proud to be a mom! I am constantly reminded why I love what I do. It was about two years ago when I told Roger that I loved my kiddos and wouldn't have it any other way as we drove twelve hours to Utah. Who would've thought I would be happy with being a mom when a trip like that can go disasterous at any point? Luckily it never was, but today I had that same over flowing love for my children. Yes, there are times when I want to pull my hair out, but most of the time I enjoy having my kids and playing with them and hearing them talk and they teach me things every day that are so fulfilling! I love when they come up to me and say "Momma, I love you!" That constantly reassures me that I am doing an "okay" job with them!

I personally need a break from having kids so my body can recover from them all so close together but my mind keeps telling me I have a lot more to come. It makes me excited and all over exhausted to think about it! Having three right now hasn't been as bad as many people have made it sound, but I think it's because Benjamin couldn't be any more perfect. He is always smiling, laughing, and talking and to me there couldn't be anything better!!

I have two moms that have been such wonderful examples to me. I got a chance to go get a pedicure that my Grandma got me for Mother's day last year with my mom yesterday and it was so fun to do something that we could just sit back and enjoy. Too often we are busy getting work all caught up and don't have time to just enjoy each other's company. My mom and I think a lot alike. She has been a wonderful example of a strong and determined woman as she has dealt with her life experiences. Last night we went to Roger's parents and I got the chance to enjoy talking with his wonderful Mother who is so caring and kind. She loves the kids so much and loves, loves, loves to have them over. She would keep the kids for a week if I would let her...but I'd miss them too much! I am so happy she raised such a wonderful man so that I could have such an awesome companion. He learned a lot from his mom and loves her so much. She is a strong woman. I hope that her ankle gets completely cured sooner than later! Happy Mother's Day! Love you!

My grandmother is definitely one woman I need to mention! She has truly sacrificed a lot to be where she is today! She always knows how to put a smile on my face! I know that whenever I am down I have always relied on her advice. Even when they were on their mission I remember calling her crying a couple times because I just needed to hear reassurance from her that I was making the right choices (I was in high school). She has truly inspired me to be a good person and overcome any obstacles I need to in order to choose the right way and live without regret. When I look at the way her and my grandpa are together I only hope that Roger and I can be just like them! -Grandma Happy Mother's Day! I love you!

To all you wonderful Mother's - Happy Mother's Day!! I hope it is a good day for you all filled with happy moments!

Well my brother is on the phone from Argentina so I better go so I can talk to him!

A lot has happened

I can't believe that I haven't posted in a month!! Anyways I know I need to get a post up! My kids are growing too fast and I can't believe it. Ethan is potty trained and has been for a while but I don't think I've talked about it. He still wears a pull up at night just in case he has an accident. Ali goes poop in the toilet almost everyday but still doesn't have the peeing in the toilet down yet. Benjamin is grabbing things now! I got out the exersaucer the other day and he enjoys it a lot! I do not have a newborn anymore and it's sad!!

Roger is enjoying his classes this quarter. We have figured that after this quarter he may still have two quarters left to get his degree, but then we should be ready for graduate school. We will try and apply to some schools in the fall if we can for next fall. He needs to take the GRE still too. We are happy that with all of the stuff he has gone through to get where we are that it is almost coming to a close. We wish that all of the work he did at SVU would've paid off but instead put us further behind. We live and learn right?

Since my last "stressing" post I decided I needed to change the way I ate and lose this "weight" that has been taking over my life since I had Ethan. I am down 7 lbs. so far and have probably 20-25 more I would love to lose! I started a page on facebook called "let's lose it" if any of you are interested in joining it. I post pictures of healthy meals I have been making and also tips and websites I have found helpful! Check it out if you want to know more! It is today that we need to start eating healthier so that in the future we can enjoy our family more!


Brady and Natalie Coulston had their baby and I was lucky enough to get some pictures of him! They named him Nathan Brady. He is a cute!!

When I was doing his pictures I got to take a few of my kids while he was eating!! I love these kids...Ethan and Benjamin will be good buds! You can really see his red hair in this one compared to the other two's. He is also a lot whiter.

Ethan at the park...

Roger and Benjamin chillin' on the blanket!! Love 'em!

Stressing..

I don't know if it's because I'm still postpartum, but my world has been completely stressful lately. I'd like to just be able to relax more and enjoy my time. Instead I find myself arguing or being defensive about the stupidest things. I think it's because sometimes I feel like everyone is out to get me.. I wish there was a chill pill I could take everyday!!

Things I don't feel I have enough time for:

Blogging

Working Out

School Work (Statistics is really time consuming when you have to teach yourself everything!)

Teaching the Kids new things

And most of all..

SOME ME TIME!!!

If I do find time for any of these things something else suffers. I just wish there were more hours in the day!!

It drives me insane that I can't get any alone time most weeks because Roger and my schedules don't allow it. We used to try and find time to do something together every night after the kids went to sleep but it's just not happening. I keep trying to tell myself that someday it will be different and Roger and I will have more time together, but it just seems to far in the future!! I feel like we don't even know when he'll be done with all his schooling (he's hoping to be done by December with his bachelor's finally if he gets all of his credit problems solved, yes still fighting for credits and then once he gets into a PA school another 2 years)...and with the new health care plan I almost hope he rethinks going into health care. I'm so ready to feel like we are in our careers and thriving instead of being poor!!! I guess it wouldn't be so bad if we didn't already have three kids!! Haha...

I love my kids! Benjamin is keeping me going with his smiles and giggles...while the other two are big handfuls...

Onto a better topic...I love my job... I never thought that I would become just as interested in photography as my mom is but here I am just following in her footsteps. They are big shoes to fill but I hope I can do it. I have done a couple things over the winter for a few friends here in Cheney and have really enjoyed doing stuff on my own.. It makes me realize just how much my mom loves her job!! I know that being a second shooter/helper isn't always as fun as being the one interacting the whole time capturing the images. So I just wanted to share my favorite picture that I took for a woman in our stake of her newborn who had had RSV and had been hospitalized. She knew she wouldn't be able to get to a studio for pictures (the hospital orders told her to stay home until the end of RSV season) and her friend told her about me! It was so fun to take pictures of someone else's child! She has now become a friend since I had to call her with questions about RSV this week!! I'm so grateful for her advice! What a sweet woman!

Having..

three kids has been a challenge. I would say I have handled it quite well but I do get frustrated when the older two decide to misbehave while I am doing anything for the baby. This week however has been a completely different story!!

(My three sickies and Kaitlin (who is now sick because of my kids))
On the 26th Ethan started getting sick with a cough and it was weird because he actually crashed on the couch for a good 3 hour nap that day when two weeks prior he had just quit napping all together. I enjoyed it at the time because I was working on my statistics class which I still have not finished due to these crazy kids..haha. But when Monday morning came around and all of the kids had a cough and Ethan started getting fevers I was not too happy! I especially did not want Ben to get sick! Yes he is over two months but still...babies are so delicate when it comes to sickness and they can't get much! Tuesday morning when Ethan woke up with 102 temp. Rog decided to take him in and get him checked out while I stayed at home praying for good news.. Well the good news didn't come. The news I heard was "Ethan has RSV!" And to think they weren't going to check him for anything until my husband decided he should say that he had a two month at home and he needed to know what to expect. I thought to myself "CRAP!!!" I called my mom completely freaked because that meant that Ben and Ali probably already had it since they started to get the cough too! My mom cancelled her shoots for the rest of the week! (Which I am so thankful for!) And came to help us! Once she got here we rushed Ethan and Benjamin to Sacred Heart. We were originally just going to take Benjamin because we noticed his cough had gotten a lot worse that afternoon, but when Ethan's hands turned blue and purple and were freezing to the touch we worried his oxygen levels were decreasing and fast. When we got to the ER the nurse hadn't ever heard of the blue and purple thing on Ethan so I got more concerned. The doctor that saw the kids was the same doctor who helped us when the kids got swine flu and he remembered us. They had a resident come in and check them out first and she relayed messages to the doctor before he came in to check on them. He explained a lot of stuff to her in front of us because he wanted her to understand why he did certain things. A lot of doctors don't like to diagnose more than a virus because they don't like to put kids on antibiotics so they don't always test for everything. The doctor told us he wanted to get the boys both x-rayed and then he'd come tell us what he thought. Ethan did such a good job!! I cannot believe how old he is! He is NOT my LITTLE boy anymore! Benjamin actually laughed the whole time and the techs loved him!! Once we got back to the room they brought Ethan a popsicle. I love Sacred Heart because of their Peds unit!! The doctor came in and said Ethan actually had pneumonia (I wasn't too happy that they hadn't x-rayed him at the clinic but I guess when they got the swab test back saying it was positive for RSV they just didn't think it was anything more). And he said that Ben's lungs looked good but that he did have RSV because of the way he was breathing. They didn't want to swab him to make him go through that. They put Ethan on antibiotics and Ben on a medicine to help with the swelling/breathing. That night Ali started getting really bad fevers and they continued and are still present today!! We took her and Ben back into the clinic on Thursday where they did swab them for RSV and both were positive. They put Benjamin on inhaler treatments because his breathing had gotten work. So far they have helped him a lot!! I just hate that Ali is so stinkin' sick!! She just lays still all day with sleepy eyes and drifts in and out of sleep!! My mom left today, but I was so happy she was here to help with everything since Roger just started his spring quarter this week and is figuring out his schedule with work and classes has been hectic.

Benjamin is growing like crazy. He had his two week appt. almost two weeks ago and was 12 lbs. 5 ounces, but on Thursday when I took him to the doctor for being sick he was already 13 lbs!! I am so proud of this kid! He was actually only 59% for weight and 24 inches long which was 78% for height!! And of course his head is tiny and was only in the 25%. He has such a fun little personality! He is always smiling at me!! And giggling like crazy!! I don't remember the other two being happy all the time like he is!! I just hope he gets over the cough soon! We want to celebrate Easter but decided to wait until next weekend when we can actually go to Moses Lake and be with family!!

Elle Cee's Cake Boutique

My friend Lydia started a cake business in CA and she makes all kinds of yummy treats as well!! She is doing an awesome giveaway!! Check out her site by clicking on her button or going to Elle Cee's Cake Boutique!!

Blessing Day 3/7/2010

Benjamin was blessed on March 7, 2010. It was a beautiful sunny day which we were lucky enough to have because we invited the family up to Cheney to do the blessing and have a bbq afterwards since we live in an apartment and knew some people would be in and out (mostly the kids). Shauna made the cutest blessing outfit for him and Viki made him the beautiful knitted blanket Roger has him wrapped up in. Roger gave the prettiest blessing. I am so thankful that my husband holds the priesthood and can bless our babies. It is an amazing feeling to know I can have him by my side through thick and thin.

We never seem to get a picture of all the men who stood in the circle and we were the last ones to change out of our Sunday clothes so we tried to get a quick picture before my camera died and this was the best! Lol... And you can tell once again that Ali hates getting pictures taken. Why does it have to be at this age when I want pictures of her and her little brother the most so I can show her someday how much she loved her baby brother?

Thanks to everyone that made it! I thought it was a huge success as it was my first time having the "whole" gang over!! I love you all!!

Park & Picture Day

Yesterday we went to the park...but I had planned on taking pictures of the kids in their shirts that Heather Walker made them!! You can see her cute craft blog at Lulu's Tiles. She has been my best friend since I lived in VA. She sent these to us shortly after I had Benjamin. She is so talented and I feel lucky to have her as a friend!!

Ali did not want to do a picture of all three of them...in fact she was not wanting to take pictures at all so the pictures I did get were because of pure luck of clicking away the whole time!!

However, I love that I got pictures of my boys together!!

See what I mean...she was on the move!! I seriously cannot believe she isn't my baby anymore..she is growing so fast and talks constantly..although we still can't quite understand every word that comes out of her mouth!

I was trying to pose Ethan and Ali came around the tree so I captured these!!

This is the only one of them three that is even close to cute....I love how Ali knows she isn't being good so she is looking up at Nana..

Ethan was actually pretty excited about taking pictures...although he is quite the photographer himself, but that's a post for another day! He really has been an awesome big brother. He always wants to hold him and it's cute to see him just stare at Benjamin!!

Here she is running again...got love the energy she has!!

Ethan saw a squirrel climb up the tree!

My BIG kids!!

Getting ready for the park before pictures...

Loved her pez' and was upset they were all gone!!

Playing after pictures...yay!!!

Ethan loved the swing!