THANKSGIVING, 2009

We had a really fun Thanksgiving this year! I love this time of year with family around and just acting crazy with the ones I love....O.K. so they all act crazy in my family I'm the only normal one, hehehe.
My sister, Katie, flew in the day before Thanksgiving. Wednesday night after staying up and visiting with family then I started making some of my pies and jello salad for the next day. I wore my self out and at around 1:30 a.m. I was feeling like my blood sugar was low and I remember getting up to check my blood sugars and to grab some orange juice. All I remember is standing up and that was pretty much it. The next thing I remember I was in the living room sitting on the couch and Jesse was putting a cup of orange juice up to my mouth and telling me to drink. I couldn't even lift up my arm to hold the cup I was even having a hard time swallowing the juice. I was slowly able to drink 3 good size cups of orange juice and after about 20 to 30 minutes Jesse checked my blood sugar and it was at 47, which is VERY low. We knew then that this was a bad one because after all that orange juice and it was then at 47 then what was it before that. After I finally started realizing what was going on I just started crying because it really scared me, I hate feeling like that. Usually if my blood sugars drop to low then I will have a horrible headache, so I was worried that I would be feeling yucky all day on Thanksgiving. I woke up and I was feeling tired from it, but other than that I was feeling pretty good. It just made me realize again how thankful I am to my Heavenly Father for watching out for me and for my family for being so good and loving. We all definately have our loved ones on the other side that help us out. Now, speaking of being thankful.....let me get on to the good part, THANKSGIVING!!!!!!
Jesse had to work Thanksgiving so we ate dinner before he left for work so he could eat with us. It was all soooooo yummy!!!! We had Thanksgiving at my sister, Sonia's house. While we eat we like to go around the table and say what we are thankful for. These are some of the things that people said: Heavenly Father and Jesus, family, food, military, animals, health, jobs, and friends. After we ate and said goodbye to Jesse we all talked, played kick ball, and went for a little walk. We all had a lot of fun and Baylee had so much fun hanging with her cousins. On Friday morning some of us woke up VERY early and did the whole shopping thing. I woke up at 3 a.m. and me, my mom, Sonia, Haley, Emily, and Kyler met at Kohls at 4 a.m. We would get what we wanted and leave Kyler in line to buy it all as we would all go to the next store. Poor Katie woke up sick through the night so she did not go with us until a little later when she was feeling better. We picked her up, went and did more shopping, went out to eat breakfast, and then went shopping again.
We figured it up and we did 9 hours of shopping. Wow, that was a lot but it sure was fun to spend with everyone, and to laugh and be crazy fools just like everyone else that was out there that day.
We had so much fun while Katie was here just visiting, hanging out, Baylee making cookies with Aunt Katie, and going to the movie New Moon. We had a lot of fun with Katie here and can't wait to do it again next year.
Here are some pictures of all the fun we had. You will notice in the pictures of Baylee and Aunt Katie making cookies together that there is a MESS everywhere. That is because Katie was letting Baylee pour in the ingredients and when she was pouring the flour in she dropped the cup of flour into the mixing bowl while it was on. Lets just say flour and cookie dough went all over my mom's kitchen. We all laughed and took pictures and I went to cleaning away.






Baylee helping me make some pies.









Our beautiful turkey table decoration that Baylee made at nursery in church.





















YUMMY!!!!!





















Mikayla, Baylee, and Aunt Katie










Lauren and Katie










Sonia's girls got a new cat, Snuggles. It is so cute!








My sister's dog, Cheif. He loves Thanksgiving because he gets all the left overs on everyones plate.



















Lauren, Katie, Baylee, mom, Mikayla, Kristen, and Sonia







I told them to do a silly picture. Afterwards we asked my mom why she looked like she was about to take a bite out of Baylee. She said she was acting like Edward Cullen. Sorry mom I don't think Hollywood or Stephanie Myers will be calling anytime soon.






Baylee, Katie, Kristen, me, and Lauren











Katie, Baylee, Kristen, Lauren, and mom









Sonia and Mikayla











We were all out playing kick ball and it was freezing so we put Mikayla's coat and hat on her. I thought she looked so dang cute in it.











Right after Baylee made the mess with the cookie batter.










All over my parents cupboards, hehehe.


































Baylee acting silly trying to put Aunt Katie in a box.









Lauren













Katie













Baylee and Mikayla













I told them to make a pretty princess face. You can see Mikayla is doing just that, now Baylee....she is giving one of her famous dirty looks! Ya gotta love her!













Kristen, Baylee, and Mikayla












Baylee acting silly.





















All the fun is over with and now were all wore out!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!

Last Saturday, November 21st, was my birthday! I am now 34 years old.....woohoo!!! I had a really good birthday. It started on Friday evening I went with two of my nieces, Haley and Emily, and we saw the movie "New Moon." We had a lot of fun and we all came away saying how much we loved the movie. I turned to Haley in the movie and asked her how she would like it if two good looking guys like that were fighting over her, she turned to me with a BIG smile on her face and said "I would love it."
On Saturday, we went out to breakfast and then again for dinner. Then we had all my family come over for pumpkin pie that my mom made (thanks mom, it was sooooo yummy), and my nephew, Kyler, made me a cake (very good)!!!
I had a really good birthday and it was nice to spend it with my family. I'm going to go ahead and write down 34 things that I am thankful for in my life. These are in no particular order.

1. My Heavenly Father and his son Jesus Christ, they have blessed my life with so much!
2. Jesse - Thank you Jesse for being you. I love you more every day. He is such a wonderful husband and father and my best friend.
3. Baylee - I am so glad we have been blessed to have Baylee in our family. I love all the cute little things she says and all the hugs and kisses she gives. She makes me so happy!
4. My parents - I have the best parents in the world! I am so grateful that we are able to live close to them and have them be such a big part of our lives. I also would just like to say that I know I am their favorite child :)
5. My siblings
6. Nephews and Nieces
7. Our three hairy daughters, Minnie, Maggie, and Mollie
8. Jesse's job
9. Doctors
10. Medicine
11. My insulin pump
12. pajamas
13. our home
14. friends
15. birth mothers and birth fathers (especially Baylee's)
16. church
17. my calling in church (the primary chorister, I don't know how to lead music, but I sure do have fun waving my arm around and listening to the primary kids sing).
18. Olive Garden
19. nap times
20. Jesse's days off
21. blogging and facebook
22. music
23. I am thankful that I did not have to go through labor pains, even though our checking account had a lot of pains with our adoption costs :)
24. movies
25. a clean house
26. Christmas
27. Sunny days
28. I am thankful that once Baylee had it in her mind that she was ready to be potty trained that she has not had an accident since!!!! We are now going on over 2 months with no accidents!!!!
29. Father blessings
30. pictures
31. dates with Jesse
32. My parents and Haley who babysit for us so we can go on dates
33. The Gladney Center for Adoption
34. For another year of being alive and healthy......28 years ago today is when we found out that I was diabetic!

This is the pumpkin pie that my mom made me for my birthday, and the cake that my nephew made me!!!!!

NATIONAL ADOPTION MONTH

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z61zdZJ9uZc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tqqj35r8aUc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkU4Nrj5tG0


Make sure you go down to the bottom of my blog, and hit the pause button on my music playlist so you can hear these youtube videos.

The month of November is National Adoption Month. I just want to take this time and say how grateful I am for adoption. We have been truly blessed by adoption. I know I have said this before, but I would go through all the years of waiting for our family to start, all the molar pregnancies I had, and all the tears, to be where we are today. We are so grateful for Baylee's birth mother and birth father and for the decision they made to place Baylee for adoption into our home. We love her birth parents so much and they are in our thoughts and prayers always.
I would also like to take this time to thank all the other birth parents out there who also made the decision to place their babies. I have some wonderful birth mothers on my friends list that I read their blogs and I am truly amazed with the strength and love they have. They are beautiful young women!
We love you Baylee and you are such a joy to have in our family. You have such a sweet and loving personality. Love ya!

FALL FESTIVAL AND HALLOWEEN

We had a really fun Halloween this year. Baylee was Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. She looked soooo cute!!!! On Friday night our church had a Fall Festival. Jesse was able to be off work for that so we all went to it and just had fun watching Baylee running around and having a good time. On Saturday, Halloween, Jesse worked overtime so I invited my parents to come over for some homemade potato soup and no-bake cookies and then we took Baylee out trick or treating. After we went to the first house and they gave her some candy she threw her dog, Toto, out of her basket and said "I need more candy in here." I knew then that it was going to be a fun night with her. After trick or treating we brought her home and ended the night with a movie that every Dorothy should watch......Wizard of Oz!!!
Here are some pictures from the ward Fall Festival party and from Halloween. There are a lot of pictures on here, I like to try and get pictures of the costumes at the party. There were a lot of cute kids all dressed up!!!

Our sweet little Dorothy!!!














Kevin.....yes he looked pretty scary!!!!













Lincoln and Jaxon












My niece, Kristen.









They had some pumpkins that people decorated and brought. Yes, this is supposed to be a pumpkin throwing up. Baylee was obsessed with this pumpkin. She kept going back to it and saying, "oh momma that's nasty, it's frowing up."





























Here she is looking at it again, hehehe.











Regan













Anderson, Dallin, Mason, and Blake.












My niece, Mikayla














My niece and nephew, Haley and Kyler.













Amelia and Justin














Trista












Tavin....if you have read our adoption journey off to the side of my blog, I actually talk about Tavin in it. Right after my second molar pregnancy and I was going through such a hard time, his parents were the ones that would let me hold him during church and I would just kiss on him non-stop!!! What a cute little guy!










Our sweet Baylee














Tia













Liz....look at those cute cheeks. She reminds me of Baylee. When Baylee was a baby she had those cute round cheeks, I have those cheeks now, but nobody better EVER tell me about them.












Erin














Ashley and Chris















Halloween...getting ready to go trick or treating!













Walking up to the Martindale's house. She kept ringing their doorbell, I had to keep telling her to stop. I guess she was really wanting some candy!












We went inside the Martindale's to see cute little Liz's outfit! ahhhhhh























































Home and getting into the candy.

























Baylee and Pawme (she LOVES her Pawme)!













The best way to end the night by watching......













Wizard of Oz

PUMPKIN PATCH

After last weekend of all of us being sick we decided it was time to get out of the house and have some fun!!!!! It was such a nice weekend so we decided to take Baylee to the pumpkin patch. We had my parents, my sister Sonia, and some of her kids go with us. We got to the pumpkin patch and couldn't believe all the fun things they had for the kids to do there. They had horse rides, swing sets, sand boxes, pumpkins to pick out, corn maze, animals to pet, and some good food!!!! Baylee had so much fun on all the swings and crawling through the hay tunnels and just playing with her cousins. We all had such a good time and enjoyed just spending time together and watching Baylee have so much fun. I remember when I was my nieces age I would have thought that would be so boring to sit and watch a little kid going from swing set to swing set, and playing in the sand box. But, it is sooooo much fun to be able to watch Baylee have fun and laugh and play with everyone. She was definately wore out by the time we got home, you will be able to see that in the last picture.








Haley












Haley and Emily













Mikayla going through the hay tunnel.











Kristen










Mom and Dad (or Pa and Pawme)












Baylee












Baylee and Mikayla









Mikayla, Baylee, and Kristen











Daddy, Mommy, and Baylee










Pawme and Pa










Baylee and Mikayla










Baylee and Kristen





















Our yummy food......funnel cakes, snow cones, corn dogs, and lemonade!!!!!











Now that is one wore out little girl!!!!!

SICK WEEKEND

Make sure you go down to the bottom of my blog and hit the pause button on my music, so you can hear this video of Baylee.

Last week Baylee started with a runny nose and we just figured she was having problems with allergies again. Then on Thursday at around 5:30 p.m. she started crying and running a low fever and grabbing her ear. Her doctors office closes at 5:00 p.m. (how come they always have to get sick after the office is closed)????? She just kept crying and grabbing her ear. She was in so much pain that she would not eat for me or take any medicine. She would lay on the couch, then lay on the floor, and then get in my arms.....she just could not get comfortable at all. Finally in the middle of her crying so hard she literally fell asleep. Yes, she even had me crying....I hate it when she is that sick and it seems like I cannot do anything. That night some of the women in our relief society was having a "dessert diva" night. They were all meeting at this place to eat desserts. My mom and sister, Sonia, decided to surprise me and they came over to my house with ice cream and pie for our own "dessert diva" night. They knew I was not able to come and that I probably needed their company, which I did!!!! So, I had my mom hold Baylee while I got some tylenol down her and then she slept while we visited and had our pie and ice cream ( I have the best family)!!! Later that night I had my dad and brother-in-law, Eric, come over and give Baylee a blessing.

The tylenol seemed to be working and by the time daddy got home from work, she seemed to be doing much better. She finally went to sleep for us and then about an hour after we got her to sleep she woke up crying again and running a low fever. We gave her some more medicine and she was just not feeling good all through the night with her ear and runny nose. At around 4:30 a.m. with no sleep for mommy and daddy she then threw up and yes it was all over her daddy, hehehehe. Poor kid was so sick. We finally were all able to go to sleep and only got a couple hours of sleep when she woke up again crying with her ear. We took her to the doctor and sure enough she had a really bad ear infection (this was her first ear infection she has ever had). Later that day Jesse went and bought her a little tea set since she had been sick all night and she LOVED it and has played with it every single day now.

She is doing much better and the sweet sharing kid that she is she passed her sickness on to mommy and daddy.....I know what a nice thing to share. Jesse has been working a bunch of overtime lately and this was his first weekend off in a long time and we spent it all sick!!!!!!!

I am so glad she is doing better now and I hope we are all on the road to recovery!!!!! This video was taken the day Jesse bought her the tea set.....she had us laughing with this video.

HOMECOMING

Last night was Homecoming at our highschool here. I just wanted to post some pictures of my beautiful niece and good looking nephew. I love to watch how Kyler and Haley have grown up so much. When they were younger they would fight a lot, like any normal siblings do. Now, that they are older they are not only siblings, but they have become friends. Don't get me wrong...they still do fight just like any brother and sister, but they are good friends too! They went on a double date and they all had a lot of fun. They went to the football game, came back and got ready for the dance, went out to eat....by the time the game was over and they got ready and finally ate they didn't even have time to make it to the dance, and then they went to a party (no need to worry, it was one of those crazy Mormon parties!!!).








My niece Haley, and her date Evan.





























My nephew Kyler, and his date Emily.






































Evan, Haley, Kyler, and Emily....what a good looking bunch of kids.