What's Not To Love?

I remember the early mornings when I was young...getting up for school and being soooo tired. I remember how hard it was to get out of bed---especially in the winter. I remember begging dad for a piggy back ride downstairs...I remember snuggling in a blanket next to the heater. A generation later, not so much has changed. I was hurrying this morning trying to get Chris' breakfast and lunch together ( I had a slow morning 'cause I couldn't find my shoes for the treadmill and 'cause I had to talk to mind and celebrate the birth of a new nephew that I think has put me in a permanent good mood for the day--thanks lis!) While I was rushing about, the kids all sat in the kitchen on the floor. I turned around and looked at them and remembered how great they all are and how much I love these guys! I think in the day to day struggles of life I forget just how much I love these guys, but I was reminded how lucky I am and how special each child is!

Congrats Lisa and Jim. We are so excited about Jack or OO jr. You will be such wonderful parents...he's a lucky guy!

Who Doesn't Like Peanut Butter

Finger lickin' good! He stole Jayden's apples and peanut butter...apparently Jayden wasn't eating it fast enough!

lunch was concluded with peanut butter finger painting on the counter!

Fun Stuff

Mykenzie won the gold medal in their Kindergarten Olympics today (of course, so did everyone else, but she was pretty proud of herself) Who says facebook is a waste of time? I got this hair do off a picture on a friends wall...how cool is this?

Does this look familiar?

This is our "family picture" as taken by Jaxon on our 9th anniversary

Here we are on our 9th anniversary (we went to the temple and did sealings...hence the dressy clothes)

The Prodigal Has Returned

It has been a REALLY long time since I've seen this on a pair of pants that actually fit me! After I had Jaxon I just assumed that that post-pregnancy size I was was just my "reward" for having kids. So, I never really did much about it...until I was pregnant with Jayden and the numbers on the scale were getting scary high. So I took up walking around the neighborhood..until I was put on bed rest and limited activity. But a while after he was born, I took to the early morning hours in Richmond like a woman on a mission, 'cause I was and my reward was that the weight slowly started coming off. That was motivation to work a little harder at it. I started working on controlling portion sizes as well as muscle building/toning exercises. When I was pregnant with Payton, I felt the best I'd ever felt in a pregnancy and was back to some sort of normal shortly after his birth. But I think the greatest feeling I've ever had in all of this was when I tried on a pair of pants "just to see" while Chris was getting new clothes for work and a size 6 fit ME!

9 Years!

(photo taken by tavis johnson at betsy's wedding this past summer)

Nine years ago from today I started on a path I knew absolutely nothing about. I remember counting out how many hours, days, weeks and eventuallly months we'd been married for the first year or so. I can't believe that was 9 years ago! Where did the time go?

In nine years we have been through 4 pregnancies 3 of which were high risk and stressful. We've survived a very sad miscarriage, major back surgery when Chris could do little more than sit in bed for 3 months straight--while I was 8 months pregnant. We lasted through almost a year of unemployment. We made it unscathed through Mykenzie in the hospital for a week with RSV, the early arrival and subsequent 2 month hospitalization of Payton. We were there together through my grandparents' deaths, building a house together, adding on to the house together and the daily struggles of raising 4 kids in today's world. We've made it through a lot together and all of these things have made our marriage and our family what it is. We've learned to rely on each other, to trust one another and seriously, the true meaning of love--it's less to do with emotion and EVERYTHING to do with action!

Happy Anniversary, Chris! It's been an amazing 9 years!

Love Lunch

We had a special dinner for valentine's day.... kenz enjoying her food

dinner: chicken fettuccine alfredo with bread sticks, ceasar salad and Martinellis (of course) chris' favorite dinner

Payton...he just never really wanted to change out of his pajamas

the happy participants

the settings

the awesome decorations (kenzie helped)

we had so much fun....but we missed jaxon (he had spent the night at grandma's and hadn't got home yet)

we're not really much for valentine's day, especially since our anniversary is 2 days later, but we had fun celebrating with the kids!

Chris' New Desk

This was the last project of the addition (well, this and cleaning out the garage)...this is chris' desk that he built in his new office:

it has the same top at the counters in the kitchen...he did a pretty good job, I think. It makes for a nice office for him to work and relax!