Baby Ben's first Christmas

I know Ben is only a month old but I thought it would be fun to wrap and buy presents for him anyways and from the pictures you can clearly see how excited he was.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!

Christmas Party at the Jewels.

We all got together at my sister-in-laws to open gifts and visit with aunt Kim from California and my Neice Ashley came home from BYU. I love family especially the inlaws and it was good to see my little neice all grown up and having a blast in college. I remember when my husband and I were just dating umm like 13 years ago I always like to take his adorable neice with us, now she's all grown and such a beautiful young woman--Love you Ashley oh and she's quite the photographer. These memories are brought to you by her enjoy:

Ben's Trip To The ZOO.

--The Ladies

--our every expanding family* photo by Alina my neice

--what a handsome little monkey

There's Music in the Air

My little Mozarts had their Christmas performance and play. The play "Christmas at the OK Corral" was super adorable and Kiora was one of the narrators and both girls did great. Then after the play they changed clothes and had there very first violin concert. Kiora's teacher spotlighted her in the middle of the performance telling the audience how amazing she was and that she had just started two months ago and was already in the advanced class--all that hard work and practice has paid off and I'm so proud of my girls!

How did Ben like the performance? He slept through the whole thing, I guess that is to be expected of a 10 day old baby.

Something In The Turkey

Our Thanksgiving was delicious, so good in fact it put me into labor--yep we had our own little turkey Saturday afternoon at 1:29 pm. I went to the doctor on Wednesday and told her I was chickening out of the whole c-section idea and that if I went into labor before Dec 2, I wanted to try to have the baby without surgery. I was feeling some contractions on and off for several weeks, but Saturday around midnight they became very intense and were coming every two minutes.

I didn't want to wake up my husband so I took a bath and tried to deal with the pain as long as possible, and by 4 I was more than ready to go to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital around 5 a.m., and I was checked and an IV was put in and the nurse called my Doctor. After the Nurse left Tim looked at me said kinda puzzled "umm so I guess we are staying" awe I love this guy. The first thing I asked for of course was if they had wi-fi, then for an epidural lol.

We hadn't really picked out a name yet so we spent a few hours going over names. I actually knew my nurse so I was excited and of course got spoiled. I worked with her in the hospital on Med-surg before I moved to Phoenix. Dr. R came in a few times and we went over my previous labors of 36 hours, and all my complications, and we talked about having a low threshold for a C-section, and then she had to go check on a few other patients--there must have been something in the turkey because the hospital was over flowing with women in labor, and they didn't have enough rooms for everyone, but I luckily got the last recovery room.

My parents came in to talk to me and to get my poor starving husband some food. I felt a lot of pressure and had the nurse call my doctor, and she came in just in time for me to push. Three contractions and our handsome little man was here 6 lbs 11 oz --13 hours of labor, record time for me, and absolutely no complications.

My recovery was not so great. . . The next day I was able to take my little man home. Tim told me he felt like he was busting me out of prison because usually I'm in the hospital for at least 4 or 5 days--I think part of the reason I was able to go home so soon was because they needed the room.

We had named him Darius Vaughn--I was on drugs when I chose that name and after getting to know our little man I knew he was a Benjamin, and he's just perfect!!!!!

The End Of Days Are At Hand.

Never in my life would I have imagined me of all people to win such an award as this--PERFECT ATTENDANCE. It frightens me to the core, in away this is actually more impressive than pigs flying, so clearly the end of days must be here.

OK in all seriousness I was dumbfounded when I opened up my email and couldn't help but bust up laughing, you see I'm not one for routine, and schedules, and predictability, I love change and spontaneity, adventure and surprises--and this was definitely a huge surprise to me. In high school I hated going to school, in fact I joined ever club and sport, just to get out of school: choir, band, cheerleader, color guard, track, volleyball, basketball, french club, student council, FBLA, NHS--yep even the chess club and knowledge bowl, and even with all those approved absences I still ditched just about every day, in fact so much I almost didn't graduate from high school even though I had a 4.0. College was pretty much the same and so on and so on.

I guess I'm living proof that people can and do change. And I would like to accept this prestigious award--who doesn't like free money-- and in doing so I would like to thank the one man who has made this impossible task achievable, my darling husband, who not only watch my children, cooked dinners every night, did all the house hold chores while I slaved away working from home in my sweats, and who of course never played hookie a day in his life--he even went to work on his birthday, what kind of animal does that, oh but most importantly for giving me daily words of encouragement like "you should quit", "you don't need to work", "Don't go to work", "I'll pay you an allowance more than you make working" etc because there is one thing I despise more than boring schedules and routines and that is being told what to do--lol.

Dreams really do come true--sniff sniff.

*picture credit http://dailybail.com/

Lost wallet--lousey luck

I'm not going to lie it's been nothing but headaches since we moved back to Pima and nothing seems to be working out the way I had planned. All the classes my husband needed to take where filled, I didn't get my applications in time to finish up my degrees, we had to take Kam's to E.R., our remodeling efforts have been a complete disaster, I was stung by a scorpion, my husband's work fell through so it's been a little tight without his big pay checks, and I wasn't expecting to have to pay cash for school or doctors visits because I thought we would keep our insurance and get student loans, but that didn't work out either. We haven't had time to go to Disneyland and now he loses his wallet. GRRRRR. I keep telling him maybe it's a sign we should just move back, but the little booger just tells me that maybe it's a sign we are where we should be and all the stress we have been having has been a test to see if we can get through the rough patches and get to our blissful paradise.

He totally stole my thunder--I'm always the one telling everyone it's going to be OK, and I'm an incurable optimist and never worry about anything, and here he is giving me advice on how to look on the bright side. I guess after almost ten years of him being married to me all my optimist mumble jumble is starting to sink in. Of course he was right although it did take a few months things are starting to work themselves out.

We found his wallet, the remodeling is coming along, and missing out on turning in my application is going to work out the best in the long run. My work has been going great and I will have 6 weeks time off. Not everything is exactly how I planned but it's been so nice having time, being around family, and living in a small town again. We are coaching our girls in soccer, they love their school--things are good, well at least until my hormones go crazy again. I love being pregnant.

*picture credit google images

The Impossible Crib Chase

--I TOTALLY MISSED MY TARGET


I was perusing online for baby stuff getting my shopping fix when I came across this amazing crib, and to make it even more perfect it was at target--my company gives out gift cards for contest they run and I just happen to have a boat load to target I could to use, and it was a crazy deal buy the crib and they would give you the changing table for free, so I excitedly showed my husband and ask his permission to buy the crib, I know silly me asking for permission when his motto is "it's better to ask for forgiveness, than for permission", but non the less I was a good wife and got his approval first and of course he said yes--how could he turn down an adorable pregnant girl, with her big eyes, and pouty lips begging for something to buy. So I quickly place my order online and almost died of a broken heart when I got the error message--Can not ship to that address, you live in the middle of no where loser ha ha. I tried everything our P.O box, both parents houses nothing. I was furious because before we moved my husband asked me several times are you sure you want to move away from all your shopping and I replied silly rabbit I can shop online, so you can imagine my devastation when I found out online shopping is out. Of course my husband hates to see me sad so he packs us all up and we drive down to Phoenix to go buy my precious crib--I know he is pretty freakn amazing.

First target, sold out, second, the same, third no luck, by the fourth target I thought to myself there has to be an easier way so I asked a manager if they have a network of inventory of all the targets in the area, and if they could look up an item before we drove around all day long, and of course with the technology we have today that was no problem and every single target sold out most of them on Sunday night--no fair I'm not a sinner so I didn't even have a chance. It was a little funny in retrospect that we could have saved the six hour trip by calling target a head of time.

We decided to have a little fun before we made the trek home so we went to the zoo and then to the movies, so the trip wasn't a complete bust. Oh and the girls really wanted to go through a car wash so we did and the machine ate our car. When we parked at the mall I notice a huge piece of our roof rack missing. We drove back but they couldn't find the missing piece. Ironic to come out of a car wash with your car in worse shape than when you entered but a least the girls had fun.

So we are still crib less and I'm kinda hopeless without my online shopping : (

IT"S A BOY!!!!!

So our life has been insanely crazy and hectic lately but at least I'm sure Tim can sleep a little better at night knowing he's finally going to have a SON!

So some of you know we have moved back to a little tiny place called Pima--HOME to me. Tim gave up his high paying career, with a company he has been with for the past 7 years, just for me. I know quiting such a secure and lucrative position especially during a recession may sound insane, and well it is, but hopefully when you are given the choice Family or Money like we were you would choose Family hands down and don't look back.

It is kinda devastating leaving our beautiful home, to stay with family until we find a place of our own, but honestly it's kinda nice not having to pay our $2000/month mortgage bill and $500+ electric bill for a change and to get out of the city.

So we drive up to Gilbert--I didn't have a new doctor yet, only to find out that my ultrasound was canceled and they had called me that morning but we had already made the three hour drive before I got the message-lovely luckily I was able to stay with my sister n law that week and I was able to rescheduled.

I wanted to wait until we had the baby to find out if it was a boy or girl, but there was no way Tim was going to wait, so I caved in too. The tech was relieved because she didn't think she would have been able to hide the sex from us. Our son is definitely not shy one bit and it was very clear we were having a boy. Our little man flashed Tim the goods and then gave him a thumbs up. The tech thought it was so hilarious she even printed out the pictures of him showing off his manliness and giving his proud daddy the thumbs up.

The tech then asked me if I had big babies and then looked over at Tim and said oh I see he must take after his dad--apparently he's a big boy.

I've never seen Tim so happy he was practically shouting from the roof tops it's a boy!! and dancing in the parking lot.

And then the Tech totally made my day by stating I was the easiest exam she has ever had because I wasn't "fluffy" and that I had hardly any fat and kept going on and on pointing out that I'm not a big tubby--all though everyone else would disagree and I constantly hear--"your so big, and my sister n law reminds me every time she see me that I'm as big as she was when she gave birth bla bla bla. So it was nice to hear for a change that I'm not a gigantic elephant.

I'm so glad we are finely going to have a boy for daddy to play with--he's been begging for one for the past two years, and he's been such a good boy raising a house full of girls, so I guess he deserves one.

*picture credit http://www.clipartof.com/

Let the Summer Fun Begin!!!

OK this blog is going to be a massive update with lots of pictures, and goodness so beware of over excitement.

APRIL--OK for those who don't know me I love practical jokes LOVE THEM. So this April Fools I tricked my little niece and told her I was pregnant, evil I know, but I get it in the end because I was pregnant, and had no idea. Mean while I'm in my doctor's office telling them that I think I might have a UTI because I'm hitting up the bathroom every 10 minutes, if you've ever been pregnant you know what that's all about, and of course the P.A knowing of my medical background immediately goes with my diagnostics and prescribes me drugs without waiting for and test to come back--of course I'm not going to treat something without confirming I have that illness, and even if I was a druggie I couldn't even take the pills she prescribed because of my kidneys which I made her aware of my medical history, she just didn't do her job, so she has been FIRED!!! I went to the local heath foods store and holistically treated myself for a UTI and Kidney infection--ALL NATURAL.



Few weeks pass and it starts to become apparent--the cramping; ligament pain from my growing uterus, the frequent potty breaks; a little more obvious, and of course the nausea; the tell tell sign your pregnant stupid. I take and test and voila medical mysteries solved. Of course I'm flipping out, now don't get me wrong I LOVE BABIES, in fact when I'm done raising mine I'll hopefully be a pediatric nurse and then ultimately a pediatrician, but the timing was just really really bad for me, and of course everyone else is so excited. SO YEAH WE ARE HAVING A BABY.



EASTER Comes and Goes, my little Kylee turns 7, and loses her two front teeth, my dear sweet aunt Linda passes away, and I'm a complete mess with all the pregnancy hormones. I felt so bad I know she's in a better place but honestly I couldn't control my emotions and I've never in my life cried so much and so hard and I probably made it harder for everyone seeing me so distressed, but I was able to pull it together for the family get together and spend time with my uncle--She was an amazing woman and will be miss.



My mom finds out I'm pregnant and some how my sister too, and she tell me to go make my brother Joe cry by telling him I'm having a boy--he has three girls too. Bev tells him I'm pregnant and he makes fun of me because we had gotten together the week before I found out I was pregnant and he kept asking me when I was going to have another one--I had probably heard that from at least 30 different people over the past 6 months--no pressure people, and I told him I was done, and now here I am mommie to be--again.



Word gets out like a forest fire we are expecting--not that I was able to hide it I'm measuring twice is big and I should be and the doctor thought I was either having twins or I was a couple of months off my dates, but after an ultrasound we find out I have a bicornuated uterus, and so I look like I'm 5-6 months pregnant when I'm only 3. That kinda stinks because I'm already in maternity clothes and normally I'm still in my jeans at about 7 months oh well life goes on even for us fashionable retarded ones.



We had a lot of family reunions over a few weeks. One of my favorite moments was when my cousin whom hadn't seen me in over 20 years asks my brother Joe if I was his wife. At first my brother thought he was joking but then we had to totally make fun of him for not knowing who I was and thinking my brother could score such a gorgeous trophy wife--only teasing.



We had a party in Tucson, then in sun city, LOTS OF FOOD!! We had a date night for a fundraiser for scouts again more food. UGGHHH.



MAY--Mothers day was fabulous--flowers and and a wii remote and game (it's kinda an inside joke because my husband teases me that I buy him gifts that are really for myself so he bought me one for himself) oh and I got this romantic pearl necklace, earrings and ring. It came with an actual oyster with the pearls inside and a story about in the islands when a man love a woman he risks his life to dive in the dangerous waters to find her a pearl to symbolize his love and devotion to her--awe



Gila Valley Temple Dedication and Cultural Celebration

We went to Pima for this and my mother in law had actual tickets to the cultural celebration because Dani and Charli were dancing for the prophet but I let Kiora go instead because I was afraid of getting sick--yes morning sickness has been a nightmare for the past three months but I'm a survivor. Hopefully that will be a memory of a lifetime for her. We went through the temple and went to the dedication such a wonderful experience.



Summer Time fun. We went to Ikea for our traditional Saturday breakfast it was free yeah, the girls planted flowers, then we went to the zoo and had a picnic and played in the water. The Zoo is our favorite place to visit and we try to go as much as possible. The rest is just usually summer time fun, parks, swimming, movies, pizza parties, riding camels, touching sting rays, bowling, feeding the ducks, water parks, shopping, staying up late, game nights all that good stuff. I love summer!



OK i'm done with all the awesomeness--for now.

I DO...Forever and Ever

A few months ago we celebrated our 9th year anniversary--it sounds so crazy to say we have been married for 9 years, where does the time go? It was kinda adorable my husband was lying on the bed and was talking about how it would be our big "one oh" or 10th anniversary in three years and how I hadn't aged a day AWE.... I could tell he was having such a hard time wrapping his mind around the concept of us being together for so long, so I thought it would be funny to bust his bubble and tell him it would only be one year until our 10th year anniversary and he almost had a miocardioinfarction. He was in shock for at least half an hour, and kept say man we're old. lol.

It reminded me of Brad Pitt in Mr. and Mrs Smith when he says they have been married for 5 or 6 years. I had him lay down for a bit until the color returned into his face. It cracked me up. I told him he must be getting old if he can't even remember how long it's been.

We decided to go to Safford the place we met, and my favorite place to visit. I took a week off of work and the girls were on spring break so the timing was perfect. We had gotten married our second semester in college so we planned our wedding around spring break so we wouldn't miss any school, now that we have kids I'm glad we waited almost a year to get married during spring break.

When we drove through globe it was snowing it was so beautiful, and we got into Pima around Midnight and went to bed. In the Morning it was our official anniversary March 10, and I woke up to breakfast and my darling husband buzzing with excitement ( I don't necessarily think it was because he had married such a beautiful, wonderful woman whom he has adored for 9 years, but I think he was more excited to ditch our kids with their Grandparents for a few days.) So we were off with out the kiddos--a celebration in it's self because that rarely ever happens because I won't leave my kids with anyone except family. We had made record timing getting out of the door and into the car in about 2.3 minutes instead of the usually 45 minutes, Tim literally ran to the car being the adorable goofball I married.

We went bowling, it took me a while to get the hang of bowling without the usually bumpers up but after that I pretty much rocked thanks to my fabulous pink plastic ball they make for Little girls who can't handle real bowling balls. By the 6th round of Tim hurling has manly 10 pound ball, he was getting tired, but not me I was just getting warmed up so I murdered his score in the last round. Now he did alright he did get 5 strikes in a row in the first round, but the last round was worth all or nothing so I had won!!!

We cooled off with the best icees in the world from this tiny little shop and they are extremely cheap they are only fifty cents for a small and they taste way better than a $4.00 Bahama breeze icee, although I do like the tiny little umbrellas they put in their icees at Bahama breeze.

We stopped in at walmart, but I can't remember what we had to buy and then we stopped at the Walgreens because I think I couldn't find what I needed at walmart, and then we ended up stopping at the dollar store and we finally found what I was looking for. We should have stopped there first but I'm banned from dollar stores because I have have problem, but Tim was there to supervise me. lol. I'm also banned from infomercials, but that's another story.

We ate lunch at La Casitas, my favorite little Mexican shop, then we went to play pool, Foosball, and air hockey at the institute. Jace lovn my little brother was there so we played a couple of games with him, and Tim annihilated us at Foosball 8 to 0 and it was two against 1, I guess he was getting even for bowling. We then went to the fair grounds to play racquetball, but I guess it's been a really long time since we had gone to those courts because we couldn't find them, we drove around until we found a group of police officers and asked them where the racquetball courts were and they kinda laughed at us and told us they have been taken down, but we could go to E.A., I was so sad we had so many happy memories of those courts, but I guess not everything can last forever. We fed the ducks at the duck ponds, and then went to E.A. to play racquetball.

We stopped at Bashas to pick up strawberries, and whip cream, chocolate, and Martinellies, and then I went to a friends house to borrow a swimming suit. We were going to stay at this cute little bed and breakfast but after calling we found out it wasn't very private and you share a bathroom with the other guests, so we had reserved a hotel with an indoor pool and Jacuzzi. I have never in my life spend so much on a hotel before and we normally stay in 4 star hotels, and resorts, but we book online and we have a timeshare, but I didn't have our information for our timeshare so we had to reserve it that day at the hotel. I was given a lower rate by the manager because it was our anniversary but when we came back that night they didn't have our information and the manager was off of work, so we ended up spending more than I wanted to, but it was our anniversary so I didn't care.

We got all dressed up and went to Bricks steak house, what I love about small towns is everything is so cheap, well everything except the hotels apparently lol. I think for both of us we spend $30 on dinner and desert including the tip. The last steakhouse we went to was Ruths Chris and it was well over $100 for the two of us, and there was an extremely annoying couple that were doing a play by play of our every move, and I could hear them talking about us saying oh how cute he's giving her his coat, and awe they are sharing a desert, seriously they stated everything we did--how boring can your life be if you can't have a normal conversation with someone. It's was very beautiful but I don't like to eat in public for "some reason" so I definitely liked eating at Bricks better because we were the only two people in that side of the room, and when I saw the bill It was like a little present for me, I don't like to spend a lot of money. Weird I know, I'm a girl who doesn't like to spend money.

We went back to the hotel and Tim lit candles everywhere, I'm not sure if you are allowed to do that so shhhhh don't tell. We had so much fun.

Then next day I felt bad for ditching the girls so we took them up to the mountains to play in the snow and took them to the hotel to swim. When we started the Jacuzzi there was bubbles everywhere, nasty someone had dumped bubble bath in there who knows how long ago and it hadn't been cleaned out, so we cut our swimming short so I could have the girls go take a bath.

I couldn't have asked for a more perfect week.

Happy Anniversary to my darling husband I love you even though you are old.

updating blog--aka avoiding doing dishes.

Christmas, OK I know everyone has heard of Christmas in July, but April that's just silly, but here I go. . . Our Christmas was fabulous--I literally was speechless for months and that is why you are just now hearing about it. Only teasing, but it will be a Christmas I will hopefully remember forever if not I guess I could read this blog.

I got Tim a wii but I told the girls it was a tool kit. Tim has guessed every Christmas gift I have ever given him before he even opens up the box, and yeah I've tried a bigger box with rocks inside, everything, he just knows me to well, but not this year. So the girls tell him to guess his gift and he looks over at the box and says a "Tool Kit", and the girls freak out and are amazed he's guessed his gift again, but we have a rule that the biggest box is open last so they have to wait to find out that I've fooled them all.

We did have a $50 spending limit per person and I did stay within that limit but Tim thinks I cheated--he's just jealous because he went way over his. I had used the money that I had won from work so I figured since it technically didn't come out of our bank account it didn't count. I made out like bandit at work, and my entire Christmas was funded by all the contests I won. I also submit an idea to the Marketing Team of the company, and it was selected that month so I got $100.00, a cheesy t-shirt 5 times to big, an award and certificated, and my name and picture posted everywhere throughout the company throughout the world--the last part I wasn't excited about but money is nice. I would love to work on the marketing team, to bad they are based out of California, but it's nice to still be able to submit my ideas and get paid. I ended up re gifting the shirt and plaque thing, and if it wasn't for my little meddling girls I would have gotten away with it too. Tim actually wears the t-shirt even if he is just being nice I love it.

The girls were really excited for me to open my gifts I guess they had help their daddy pick out and wrap each and every one. It was a themed gift of a romantic night in and each gift I opened was in succession: nice lace napkins, crystal candle stick holders and candles, crystal glasses, desert bowls, and plates, a nice little black dress, music. It was very sweet and romantic. I'm the kinda weirdo that prefers making memories over materialistic things, so a romantic candle lit dinner is the perfect gift for me, but being the topper Tim is : ) he had to go one step further and he pulled out one last gift he had hid and it was and Ipod Touch, something he knew I would love because I listen to music all day long, of course I honestly couldn't ask for anything more, but it does get better.

Tim puts girls in their room with a movie, started a bubble bath for me and cooked me a lobster dinner. He set the plates lit the candles and he kept pacing around saying it feels like I'm missing something. He had already worked really hard to get everything ready I just wanted him to sit and relax and eat dinner with me. I remember getting impatient with him because he kept stalling and I couldn't think of anything more we needed, and he kept saying " I feel like something is missing" then I realized he was playing me when he pulled out another gift and said this is what's missing and he pulled out a gorgeous pearl and diamond necklace and placed on my neck, and said something ridiculously romantic--it all gets kinda fuzzy after that because I was in shock that he was able to trick me like he did, I'm like a human lie detector and I can sense when people on lying or hiding something, but he had completely caught me off guard.

Just as you thought you are about to vomit with all the mushy stuff, it gets worst---The greatest gift I have is such an amazing husband and family.. AWE..... OK you may toss the cookies now. Merry Christmas, a few months late.