Be prepared for the cuteness of it!!

Charlie LOVES to sing. It's really funny, too, because some of you know, he has a kind of low and raspy voice. He's always singing lullabies and Christmas songs, Primary songs and recently (I'm a little embarrassed to say) the "Wicked" soundtrack. I caught him singing "Popular" the other day. It was hilarious! He pronounces it "Pop-ee-lur."
Today he was singing a lullaby to Annabelle - "Baby Mine" you know the one on Dumbo? This is his version:

"Baby mine, don't you cry.
Baby mine, dry you eyes.
BLAST your head close to my heart,
never to FART, baby of mine."

...Oh, how sweet... :D

Here's one of the first of many many pink scrapbook pages!

Anyone know how to stop time?

It's going too fast!!

Annabelle is 13 pounds and 25 inches long already and Christmas is almost here! It's all coming at me at 100 miles an hour!

Speaking of the little darling - here's her latest (courtesy of Allie photography).



She laughed for the first time last night! It was so cute. Here are some more of the rest of us... Allie does a great job, doesn't she?




Who knew my kids were so cute without boogers and ketchup all over their faces?

I'm going to be changing my blog all around pretty soon.. 'bout time eh? ;)

Accomplishment and conversation with Dillon.

Hey Mom------ I did it!! You know what "it" is. Haley, you might too (remember our discussion about your unconditional love for me and its limitations?). Well, yesterday I quit making excuses and did it. MYSELF. "It" took me nearly 2 hours. Yes, I had to use a surgical mask. Yes, my back is aching today. But this chore no longer plagues the back of my mind or threatens my health and safety.

Am I the only one who has certain responsibilities that get put off until they're impossible to ignore? I hope not.

In other news, I had a very interesting conversation with Dillon yesterday. When he got home from school, he came up to me (I was doing the chore I mentioned above) and without saying anything just stood there. Finally, I said,
"Hey Buddy! How was school today?"
"Fine....but....." He hesitated.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Well, I guess I can tell you, because you're a girl." Yes. Yes I am.
"Tell me what?" The look on his face is freaking me out!
"Do you know what Vanisa did today?" Vanisa is one of his kindergarten classmates.
"No, what?"
"She.... She kissed me! On the cheek! She's sort of my girlfriend." Ok... thinking... thinking...
"But aren't you too young to have a girlfriend?"
"NO MOM - its okay, because she's five too!" Laughing out loud. He's even blushing a little.
"You're too young Dillon. You can't be kissing girls!" His face is defiant-
"I didn't KISS her, mom, SHE KISSED ME!"
"And that makes her your girlfriend?"
"Yup."
"I still say you're too young." He's starting to get mad. He furrows his brow and says through his teeth,
"NO I'M NOT!" and now the real drama, "I've got news for you, Mom. I've got a girlfriend, I've got a boyfriend, a roommate, and I smell like I haven't showered in 30 years!!!"

Now I'm just rolling on the floor and he's really ticked. And the academy award goes to....

Highlights and "lowlights" of the last 2 weeks

Hello friends!

I'll first apologize for the prolonged "blog absence" and then wish you all Happy Holidays!!! I've caught the holiday spirit in a big way this year. I'm feelin' "merry and bright" already! We even put up our new 9 foot Christmas tree yesterday!

It was a busy and fun 2 weeks for us! We spent a chunk of it in Utah with family. Thanksgiving was amazing - though it is always a stretch to include all of our family on that important day, we managed to do it! We're now back in the "swing" here and looking forward to a California Christmas :)

Here are the highlights of our trip- and a few "lowlights" as well.

Highlights:
**Showing off Annabelle ;)
**Spending time with James' family - dinners out, kids playing with their cousins, bonfires, playhouses, listening to James play the piano for his family on their baby grand, 20 grandchildren running around!
**Sleeping in until 9:30 am one morning!
**Thanksgiving at my cousins home - getting a 4 generation photo with Annabelle and one of her namesakes - my grandma Joy.
**Shopping with my sister-in-law Emma-Lee. It was just fun - just the two of us :)
**Getting to visit my family - my grandparents, my aunt and cousin, my dad, my siblings (love you all to death).
**Getting Allie, Derek and Lily to come spend the afternoon with us and take our family pictures! Thanks again Allie!!!
**The movie "August Rush" - one of the best movies I've ever seen!
**Reading "Twilight" on the drive up, and "New Moon" on the way back
**Taking my dad out for his birthday

Lowlights:
**THE DRIVE........took us 16 hours to get home. 'nuff said.
**The cold. I used to love it! I guess I'm getting spoiled out here?!?
**The other kind of cold - the one that made it so I couldn't breathe and constantly had a headache - the kind that plagued little Annabelle for a few days too :(
**Breaking out in mysterious hives from my head to my toes.
**Leaving.










We took some cute pictures of Annabelle today b/c she's 2 months old!! Happy "birthday" baby girl ;) You get cuter by the minute!



Charlie found Grandpa's old cowboy hat :)

A Special Day

We blessed Annabelle on Sunday. So that makes three babies blessed and three times that James has cried during the 9 years we've been together. It really was special, spiritual and a day I'll never forget. It helped that we had some family here to share it with us. We had such a nice time with them and were sad when they all had to go :(

Dillon was so happily surprised when his older cousin Jeffery decided to come! They had a blast playing pirates, trucks and bionicles together. Jeffery's little brother, Ethan, is Charlie's age so it was just perfect and sooooo much fun for my "cousin-starved" little boys!! James' youngest sister and my good friend Emma-Lee brought her little Abigail who charmed us all to death! She's way too cute. It's almost unfair to all the other little girls out there!

We went to Legoland with the fam. Saturday - it was pretty fun! It's great for littler kids and that's what we had, so it was perfect!





I also finally purchased a copy of this book that has now been recommended to me at least a half a dozen times by different people! I'm really excited and hope my expectations aren't too high.

Charlie's Halloween Trick that was not a Treat

I had too much stuff to put into one post, so I broke it up into two.

First of all, on Halloween, Charlie was a Monstor. He didn't DRESS as one he WAS one. He did what is by far the worst thing he's ever done. Let's just get to the evidence -


Funny.



Not so funny.





I couldn't even punish him I was so mad. I just cried and James and I were both in shock as we tried to wipe off the green marker. I feel lucky that most of it came off, but some of it didn't, so I'll never be able to forget how LIVID and hurt I was when it happened. I know he didn't really mean to do something so horrible, but he did and I'm not sure how long it will take before I'm laughing about it. Probably a while!

It's been quite a while since I've posted my Paper Posies stuff, so here's the latest from the amazingly cool November kit!!






I felt kind of bad that this was all I was able to get done this month, but hopefully next month I'll be more on top of things! I'm so looking forward to the cute Love, Elsie papers and the "holidayness" of the Dec. kit!!

I went scrappin' at Everafter Scrapbooks with a few friends from the ward on Friday. It was so FUN! I realized that it had been about a year and a half since I'd been to a crop and that is just toooooo long. I still really love to scrapbook and crops are just the best - especially when the company is so good! ;) Thanks Brittany and Sarah and Amanda for inviting me!!

I've been TAGGED!!

A friend from Paper Posies tagged me! Thanks Jill! So, I'm not sure how "wierd or interesting" it will be, but here goes..

7 weird and/or interesting things about ME:

1- I used to be so anal about keeping my house clean. I really couln't stand it when things got even cluttered! I've never been really organized, but I liked it when things were tidy and clean. NOW, there aren't many things LOWER on my priority list! I guess kids changed all that. I still LOVE it when my house is clean, but not enough to spend my free time cleaning ;)

2- I've always wished I was a morning person. I AM SO NOT A MORNING PERSON. In my next life, maybe. I'm a night owl for sure. It doesn't matter how little sleep I've had that day, at about seven or eight o'clock I get a second wind and that is when I am the most alert and productive! It takes me a couple of hours once I'm out of bed in the morning, to convince myself that I can get through the day and don't need 15 more minutes of sleep. It takes a couple of hours to stop rubbing my eyes and dragging myself around. I feel like crying when I have to set the alarm at night! And when the blasted thing goes off, well...

3- I've never really struggled with self confidence. I mean, I've had issues with feeling self conscious and shy and whatever, but I've never really lacked confidence and have what I think is a pretty healthy self image. I'm not blind, I know I'm overweight and I hear myself when I say dumb things. I'm constantly putting my foot in my mouth, but I've never been one to obsess about it. This is sometimes a blessing, and sometimes a curse.

4- I do wierd things in my head. I try to connect things that happen in my life with similarities, like even or odd numbers or similar colors or just weird things.. it's kind of hard to explain. I'm a little superstitious or maybe just crazy I guess.

5- Some of my long time friends will attest to this - I used to be somewhat of a comedian. I used to love to make people laugh! I would do crazy things in a group setting and you know how there's that line that you just don't cross in certain conversations, well I used to love to cross it and get a reaction out of people. I still do that a little bit, but not nearly as bad! I used to love to be the center of attention - so I'd do skits for school assemblies or whatever that I get sick just thinking about now! I was such a DORK! I'm glad that I've mellowed out that way, because I humiliated myself way too often.

6- I have one other soul mate besides my husband, and that's my cousin Missy. Even though she's actually 9 months older than me, and we're as different as two people can be, we have a scar along one side of our bodies where they surgically seperated us at birth. Here's the wierd part, it's been nearly three years since we've seen each other! That's neither weird, nor interesting, it just plain SUCKS!

7- Here's a really weird one.. Somehow, by some miracle of fate, despite my stupidity and lack of effort, all my faults and mistakes, I managed to meet and marry the most perfect man for me. I don't know how I got so lucky, but I feel it every day. There just could not possibly be another person who could love me like he does. I know it may sound naive and lame, but it is true and it's a miracle.

I TAG: Missy, Kami, Angie, Sarah, Natalie, Shelly, and Katie
THE RULES:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself: some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).
4. Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.