Party of Five

This is our little family of four. Our girls are so sweet and so different in every way but boy do we love them. Could we possibly make room for one more?

We are quickly becoming a...

Party of Five!

Yes it's true - we are adding one more to the family and couldn't be more excited. Sister #1 loves that mommy has a baby in her tummy and Sister #2 is learning to say "baby." They will be the best big sisters.

Something even more fun - Josh will no longer be the only male in the house. As soon as the ultrasound tech said "it's a boy" Josh did a fist pump and said, "Finally!" We have a sweet boy on the way!
Best of all, baby is healthy and that's what makes mom happy!
Good luck on your journey litle one!

Snickerdoodles - Rease

Rease LOVES to help mommy in the kitchen. When we make snickerdoodles, her job is to roll the dough in the cinnamon and sugar and put them on the pan. She is such a good helper and does a great job.

I have to help her rearrange them just a little bit before we cook them. (I think this might make one big cookie instead of a bunch of small ones.)

Sneaking a taste to make sure they are edible.

Thanks Rease for all your help!

Deer Creek - Rease and Rhen

We had the most beautiful day on the lake. Josh, dad, Hayley and Caleb got up bright and early (6:30 am!) and headed to Deer Creek for a few hours on the boat. The girls and I met them there an hour or so later and had a fabulous day. It was the most perfect water for the 4 hours that we were there and everyone got their share of skiing, wakeboarding, kneeboarding, tubing and whatever else we wanted.

The girls love going on the boat. Rhen jumped in with uncle Caleb and then Rease had to have her turn.

The water is definitely warmer now that it's the end of the season, but not by any means like bathwater. I warmed Rhen up after she got out of the water and enjoyed a few snuggle moments with her - they are very few and far between.

Playing it cool in Aunt Hayley's glasses.Rease decided she wanted a chance to "ski." So when she was in the water with Uncle Caleb we threw the rope out to them and dragged her in.

After she said, "Mommy did you see me skiing?"

This is the very important job that the girls have on the boat - holding the flag. Rhen can't hold it for very long so Rease helps her out.

I didn't get any pictures of anyone actually skiing or wakeboarding - don't ask me why. But we had such a great day on the lake with the most perfect water!

Visitors - Rease and Rhen

My good friend Andrea who lives in Hawaii was in Utah visiting for a couple of weeks. We got together one afternoon that she was here and it was so fun to see her and her girls and catch up! Our girls are almost the same ages so they had fun playing together. Unfortunately I didn't get too many pics but did snap this one of Rhen and Brinley and a group shot before they left.

I'm not sure what the girls are looking at but it must have been interesting because all 4 pairs of eyes are somewhere besides at the camera!

Thanks for visiting with us!

Chow time - Rhen

So Rhen is at the age that she will not eat unless she can do it by herself. So we have been trying to let her eat on her own and let me just say, it is not a pretty sight in the end. But hey she's learning. Enjoy...

It's obvious she loves to eat!

Scary day in Draper

I don't know how many of you heard of the drive by shooting in Draper a couple of weeks ago but Josh and I had a personal encounter with the shooting and I wanted to tell our story.

Thursday July 29, 2010

9:05 pm

I was standing in our bedroom next to the bed folding some clothes. Josh had just gotten out of the shower and was walking out of the bathroom just behind me when we heard a loud pop/crack in our room. I jumped at the sound and asked Josh "what the heck was that?" He walked over to the window and looked out through the blinds and saw our neighbors sitting outside and said "I think it's just the neighbors doing fireworks." I said to him, "That was not fireworks and there is a hole in our blinds!" He turned to see the hole in the blinds and then back to me and saw a hole in the wall just about a foot and a half away from where I was standing. He immediately yelled at me to get down and stay away from the windows. We realized then that it was a bullet that had come through our window and into our wall. I of course was scared that if we got shot at once, then there could be more shots coming and thought of the girls in the bedroom just below us sleeping right by their window. As Josh ran to get the phone to call 911 I went downstairs and got Rease and Rhen out of bed and away from the window. I took Rhen into the storage room and laid her down in the pack and play and brought Rease upstairs with me where I could watch her. I sat her on the floor in the kitchen with her coloring book and crayons to color and stay safe. (Cute story really quick. Rease was watching police officers come in and out of the house and finally said to me, without looking up from her coloring book, "Mommy there are a lot of fire fighters in our house!") There were no more shots luckily and Josh and I tried to sort things out. After that it was a whirlwind of police officers, detectives and neighbors coming in an out of our house trying to figure out what had happened. The first round of police officers came and got the story and then were off trying to find who had shot and where it had come from. I called my dad and asked if he would come take the girls to sleep at their house. He rushed over and was so glad we were safe and then took the girls with him so I didn't have to worry about them being safe. Another officer and detective came not too long after and we filed our report and talked for an hour or so about what had happened. Soon after the news cameras showed up as well and got our story. All I could say was thank goodness we were safe and the girls were okay. I didn't care about anything else.

This is where the bullet came through the blinds...

The broken window...
And the bullet lodged in our wall by the bed.

After getting our story the police office dug the bullet out of the wall. This shows how close it hit next to our bed. I kept thinking that if I would have been in bed, or leaning over to get the pillows off the bed or anything else a foot closer than where I was, I would have been hit. It really didn't scare me until we slept in our bed the next night and we could see how close a call it really was.

This is the bullet they dug out. They ended up finding the bullet shells about a half mile away on Highland Drive and figured out that it was a random drive by shooting and just happened to hit our house. The crazy thing is, if you stand on Highland Drive where they supposedly shot from you can barely see our house and window. It was just a very close call that ended good for everyone cause no one was hurt. Another house just up the road a mile or two was hit as well but they weren't home at the time luckily.

Since then, Josh and I have thought a lot about how precious life is and how quickly things can change. We really think about what we're saying when we ask for protection each day in our prayers and realize that we are being protected. Above all, we are reminded how important each day is and are even more grateful for the days, weeks and months we have to spend with our girls and the people we love most.

Aunt Hayley and Rease

I had Hayley's camera and noticed these pictures that her and Rease took a month or two ago. I love it! We love Aunt Hayley so much!

Softball game - Rease and Rhen

Uncle Caleb and Aunt Hayley took the girls to one of Caleb's softball games one night. I saw the pictures of their night when they got home and noticed that Hayley did a great job entertaining the girls and that there probably wasn't much softball watching going on.

Rease had made a necklace of Fruit Loops and the girls took turns eating them one at a time...

Rhen cheering for the Home Team!

I didn't send Hayley with warm clothes, so she lent Rease her jacket to wear. Don't the girls look just like kids in the summer should look? No shoes, crazy hair and smiles on their faces! I love it! "Thanks for taking us to the ballgame!"

Boondocks

One of the nice doctors that we refer to rented out Boondocks for a bunch of offices around and treated us to a night of fun. We had all you can eat hamburgers and hot dogs and all you can play arcades. We enjoyed a few hours with no kids so that we could be kids ourselves.

Josh and Caleb started with the batting cages. The funny thing about this picture is that Caleb is wearing an extra small helmet (and it's obiously still a little big) and Josh is wearing an extra large helmet (which is too small.) Hee hee. They are cute.

It was open arcades to all of us so we spent a lot of our time inside playing the video games. We found this car race game that let all 4 of us race against each other.
We got in a few basketball challenges.

Josh and Caleb in deep concentration.

I think this was after he lost to me.

Hayley got tons of tickets from this little shooting game.

And we stopped off at the guitar hero booth and played our fingers off! Seriously my fingers were sore by the end.

While we were at Guitar Hero, Josh and Caleb found a boat racing game and we could not get them away from this one.

We ended the night with good old miniature golf. We played so that there was a winner at each hole. Whoever won the hole got a token from each of the other players. In the end it ended up that we all tied!

We had a fun night with Hayley and Caleb - we just love these two!