Baby Blessings!

We got everyone together once and blessed two babies on the same day. It was a great party! These are a few of my favorite things...

Is summer really over?

Okay so where did the time go? I know I haven't blogged for a while not because there has been a lack of entertainment, there has certainly been a lot going on but I just got caught up in it all. A few of the things that highlight our summer was sharing lots of highs and lows with people we love. Sometimes the highs are high only because we have known the lows. I just finished blog surfing through my list of friends and family and I just feel so blessed to know so many stinkin amazing people, with and without blogs! So to conclude this summer I'll summarize the highs.
Delaney's birth, obviously, then shortly after another sweet niece was born. Krislynn Marie. She is gorgeous!

the two girls Delaney & Krislynn. I don't dare put Camille to close to them yet!

Then capturing some precious moments with family. I will post pics of the baby blessings later. Vi & Benjamin with Camille & I.
Grandpa D playing a game of Go Fish with the kids.
The kids with Great Grandma and Grandpa. Jaren gets his middle name from great grandpa so I love tender moment with them together.
Camille & Benjamin are always fun to photograph.

4th of July

Fun trip to the beach

Ashlyn turned 5 so her and I spent the day at Disneyland and she even went on Splash Mountain.

Jaren turned 3 and Kris turned 33


We went to Camarillo to visit Vi & Tom.

We were also lucky enough to have 9 awesome girls in our home for youth conference.

Lastly, we finished the summer off like how most summers end...school. This was a first for us. Ashlyn started kindergarten!

Delaney Kaye has arrived!

Yesterday was Delaney's due date but she decided to come 10 day earlier. She was 7 lbs. 12 oz. and 20 inches long. She looks just like her brother Parker and has the longest fingers & feet ever. She is beautiful and we are so excited for Marla and her family, and I am thrilled to share my middle name with her. We love you Delaney, welcome to the world.

Memorial Day

On Memorial Day we got to go to the Welk Resort to meet up with family & friends to play. It was so fun, even though I went home barefoot because my flip flops disappeared. They have a great walk in pool with a splash park, slide and tons of lounging space. And Ashlyn's highlight was her new found freedom of swimming with arm floaties. She was suddenly so excited and confident in the water. Camille just liked to chill and Jaren was busy playing with Parker and Lincoln.

Ward Activity Chairmen

My new calling! I was pretty intimidated at first, but quickly embraced it. We just had our first activity and even if no one had fun I had a great time. We did a Medieval Dinner & Tournament. It was so fun to do, stressful, but fun. We ate chicken drumsticks & potato wedges, bread and grapes. We had competitions for every age group like jousting off skateboards, horse races on tiny bikes, knocking over the other kingdoms castle, and knocking your opponent off the balance beam with pillows. We even took pictures at the door on a giant rocking horse. I am looking forward to more activities to come.

Cousins

We had a great time with my brothers in town from Texas. I was so happy to see my nephews and get to know them a little bit better, especially Teagan as he is just growing up so much. Seven years old already! And Rylan is just a doll at 2 years old. They have the sweetest bond as brothers. I loved watching them together. The cousins had a blast hanging out and playing as much as possible. We had to snap this shot with all the cousins even though it will be out dated by the end of June then again in mid July. So exciting!

I did it!

My goal was to finish the triathlon and I did it. Camille is now almost seven months old and since my recovery with her my body has been craving exercise, so I needed something to strive for. My wonderful sister puts on a triathlon for her stake each May so I aimed for that, and along the way recruited some friends.

I did some training and committed to it, not worrying about time just doing it for myself. It was great to be competing in races again, but my body was not what it used to be, it is on its way though! It was the first time I ever tried to really swim in a race, let's just say I have a lot more respect for swimmers now. The run was a tough hill course and I wasn't feeling to great and wasn't to proud of my time (even though I said I wasn't going to worry about time I knew what I used to run in high school and I wasn't anywhere near that.) Then the bike ride was a fun, nice course, but I never found that second wind. Later that day I got a full blown stomach flu, so that probably had a lot to do with it. At least I was still able to compete before I got too sick. So I accomplished my goal. Next year, I will set the bar higher for myself.

I was definantly having flashbacks to my first triathlon when I was like 10 and I did it with my dad and my brother David and our friends the Christensen's.

What's Been Happening?

Why do I keep blogging even though I get so far behind? Easy. I am MUCH better at blogging then I am at writing in my journal so here we go. I am going to just keep trying!

Camille... she has gotten so big! Not even just her size, but she has become such a big girl. She is already pushing with her feet and getting up on her knees in effort to crawl. She is so much more happy these days also. No more colic or trying to figure out her schedule, as long as she is feed, changed and had a nap she is the sweetest most fun baby! She loves the solid food and is chowing on them a lot. She is for sure a finger sucker, a cuddler, and a wiggle worm. We truly love getting to know her sweet personality more and more.

Jaren...where do I begin? He is definantly 2! He is also definantly the sweetest brother to his sisters, a true ham, and a sports fanatic. The other day I was channel surfing and had passed a baseball game not even realizing and he goes crazy, "Mom, I want to watch baseball. Go back to baseball Mom." Needless to say, I watch a baseball game on TV for the first time since I lived at my parents. He is also trying to become independent. Always dressing himself in the same baseball or monkey or police car clothes over and over.

Ashlyn...my dependable eldest. My sweetheart girl who is growing up too fast. She is the one that is breaking me into everything for the "first time" and breaking my heart now with every milestone. Next big one is kindergarten this August. She is so ready though! I don't know what I will do without my helper around. Sometimes she surprises me with the things that she catches onto and learns. She loves staying busy and playing with friends and watching my decorating shows with me and using her imagination and riding her bike, and the list goes on. What a joy she is to watch!

Food Storage

Since I haven't been blogging I have been surfing the net for ideas on food storage and stuff and I have found my new favorite website. It is wonderful!!! http://funwithfoodstorage.net It breaks it into 3 areas planning it, buying it, and eating it, and even from those site you can find info on gardening and long term storage and creative ways to store and on and on. I could go on forever, but I will just let you look at it and discover it for yourselves. Food Storage is one of my new years resolutions and I have been taking it very seriously, to bad a bad economy is what scared me into it, but it is never to late, right? Look at the site and let me know what you guys all think. Hopefully I can get you on my band wagon!

Virus

I have not disappeared! The day I did my last post our computer got a virus and it is just now recovering. It took a while to kill it then get rid of it then the computer was still giving the "blue screen of death." So thanks to Dell Support I rebooted the computer and we are up and running again. Luckily I got practically everything I needed off the computer, thanks to the Brady's who made the computer at least functionable. Anyways, I still can't find my disc for my camera program and so I can't download any pics to my computer, which stinks b/c I have some cute ones. So the good thing out of all of this is that I have learned a lot about computers. It has always been so overwhelming for me, but since I had a problem and was able to watch others help with it I caught on to a little bit of the lingo and concepts. I highly recommend defriging or rebooting your computer yourself, it's like cleaning up the house. I even checked out a book on computers and can't wait to learn more. Imagine the possibilities!!

Mom, where is the police?

So I am going to do this post at the risk of looking like a nerd, but hey, that is who I am (I have embraced it). So we go to playgroup last Friday for a Valentine party and we were gone for like three hours. I was so ready to feed the kids lunch and then get them down for a nap, not to mention it was rainy and windy and freezing. So I pull in the garage and open the car door and quickly bring in our junk before getting the younger two out of the car. I step in the house and the back door was open. Not too open because we have vertical blinds (I know verticals aren't the cutest, I am working on getting some curtains), but open nonetheless. I had like a million thoughts run through my mind..."everything looks okay, but what if someone just came in... did Jaren open that before we left?...I don't hear anything...what do I do?...what if someone is in my house?...Do I go through the house myself?... Ashlyn would freak if I send her to the car and look worried...I can't let the kids in the house and blow it off" And it goes on and on. So I grabbed the phone and Ashlyn and went back to the car and called Kris. He told me to back out of the garage, lock the kids in the car and knock on a neighbors door. My luck, no neighbors were home. So I did what I had to do to be extra safe, call the police. And if I didn't call, either Kris or my dad would be on their way from work to check the house for me, and that would be silly. The dispatcher was really cool about it and sent a police man to check things out for us. So the reason for the title was because I heard it like twenty times before the police got there. We were all stuck in the car, it was freezing cold outside, and it took them almost 30 minutes to get to our house because the dispatcher wrote the wrong address, but I was so grateful that he was happy to help with my little dilemma. I say better safe than sorry. It was also a good chance to teach the kids about when we call the police and what to dial and what their uncle does as a policeman. They were just excited to get stickers and a little crime fighting dog from the police man.

So lessons learned:

1-Always double check that all your doors are locked before you leave (my theory is that it was not shut all the way from the day before when Ashlyn was playing in the backyard with the neighbor)

2-Always pack extra food in the car because you never know when you will be stuck there

3-Never leave your house a complete disaster because a police man may walk through a see it ALL

4-The police are happy to do silly checks like that (what turned out ot be silly anyways)

Playdate with Cousins

So Marla came over with her boys for a playdate. The kids had a great time and I always love spending time with my sister and adorable nephews! We were lucky and captured theis cute pic.

Fall Fun in January

It came late, but we still had a great time jumping in our pile of leaves!

What we've been up too!

Everytime I turn on my computer I have been motivated to do scrapbooking, which means that I have been negecting my blog up keep, but that doesn't mean we haven't been busy...we had a great time on New Years with our friends, ringing in the New Year at New York time (we need our beauty sleep with a newborn:)...




...then the very next day we had a wonderful time playing in the snow at the cabin...











...and then that weekend we blessed our sweet Camille!

Christmas Day

So to catch up I need to post some pictures from Christmas still. Christmas Eve was the fun gathering at the Danielson's, but I was an irresponisible mother and forgot my camera, but I got great pictures the next day. Nothing beats Christmas morning! Especially when it is your own children and they see the magic of Santa around the tree.