Too Sentimental???

As I was laying in bed this morning trying to wake up and get going for the day, I realized that tomorrow it will be 1 year since I found out I was pregnant with Landon. I seem to remember dates like that. I remember the days I found out I was pregnant with all of my babies... even the ones that were never born.

Brayden was April 30, 2002... we had just gone through the temple with our wonderful friend's, The Koehler's while they took out their endowments and got sealed. That in and of itself made it a great day! Later that day we were back at our apartment just hanging out with the Koehler's and it came up that I suspected I may be pregnant. After a while of discussing it Patrick and Eric (yes, it was the men!) went to buy me a pregnancy test, and I took it while everyone waited in the living room. We then debated rather there was really 2 lines or not. We finally decided it was indeed 2, and we were all so excited!! (Lisa was already about 3 months pregnant with her first baby too!)

Conner was November 29, 2004.... Patrick's birthday! I had suspected again that I was pregnant for about 3 weeks, but was in complete denial about it since Conner was our huge "surprise" baby! We had gone to AZ for the Thanksgiving holiday, and we had decided that once we got home, we needed to take a test to know if I really was pregnant or not. I knew I was, I felt sick the whole time we were in AZ. So it just so happened that the day after we got back was Patrick's birthday. We put the kids to bed and I took the test. It was undoubtedly positive. At first, Patrick was like "Phew! That's good!" because he thought 2 lines meant it was negative, but once I burst out into tears and told him 2 meant it was positive, he's face changed instantly! Not that we don't LOVE our little Conner to pieces, but for any of you who have had an "unplanned" baby, it takes some time to get used to the idea! It didn't take too long though to realize he was the best surprise we have ever gotten! (oh and also again, our friend Lisa was about 3 months pregnant with their 2nd baby! Kinda funny!)

With Landon... it was January 28th, 2009. Nothing eventful happened that day except that I found out I was pregnant again. I was overwhelmed! What most don't know is that we had been trying to have another baby for over a year, and I had all but giving up hope, and I was starting to wrap my mind around the fact that I had 2 wonderful and amazing children already, and although we had prayed hard about if we should have another and thought that was what we should do... it just wasn't happening. So I was a little shocked that it finally was happening! So I called Patrick at work and asked him if he wanted to go to lunch... I thought I should tell him in person, not on the phone. He said he couldn't because he had a meeting or something, so later I called and asked when he was coming home. He then at some point during his day he had checked Facebook, and that day after I found out, I posted my status as something like "HOLY FREAKING COW!" He called me on the way home and said, "you took a test today didn't you?"

Does anyone else remember dates like this?? I remember when our first date was (Oct. 22, 2000). I remember when Patrick "officially" proposed (December 22, 2000). I remember all sorts of things like that. They all impacted my life in huge ways. I guess I'm just sentimental with things like that. These are all things that I hold near and precious to me! These are all some of my favorite memories!

Last Minute Visit!

Last weekend, during the long MLK Jr. holiday, we were just hanging out getting odd and end things done around the house. About 2:30 pm, I get a call from our super fun friends, The Griggs, that live in Layton, UT. (we used to be neighbors when we both lived in Taylorsville) She said they were bored and were wondering if they could come down for a visit during the long weekend. I was like, Ummm, HECK YES!!! I love hanging out with our long lost Utah friends! They were at our house by 11 pm that night!!The boys were so excited to play with their friends. We just spend the weekend letting the kids play all day outside (their kids were really enjoying the nice warm Vegas winter!), we played several Wii games, the men watched football, and me and Melis got our craft on! We always craft when we are together. Our hubbies hate that we always go off to craft stores when we go up to visit them, but sadly there are not very good craft stores here in Vegas, so me and Melis gathered our stuff, and made these 3 cute crafts with all our stuff we had on hand. We had some other projects we talked about doing, but didn't get around to them. It was so fun!

We made these cute Valentine's Day blocks...

This cute picture frame for Valentine's Day, and I even dug out our old engagement picture to put in it...

and these cute little clothespin magnets....

We ventured down to the Strip and took the kids to M&M World, The Coke Store, and to see the Lion's at the MGM. It was fun, despite being rained on. I was SUPER annoyed that my camera's battery died as soon as I took it out to take pictures of all the kids with the Coke Bear, so I stole this one from Melis's blog. Thanks dear!! :) Conner was a little scared of the Coke Bear, and didn't want to get in for the picture, so Patrick whispered in his ear that if he went to sit with everyone else and get his picture taken, he would take him out to lunch! So after our fun on the Strip, we took the kids to McDonald's to play and have lunch.

It was such a fun weekend. Not at all how we planned to spend it... (on Monday we were going to clean out and organize our garage... Patrick was very grateful for their surprise visit so he didn't have to do that!) ...but it was even better then what we had planned it to be. We laughed until we cried and our sides hurt, the kids played hard all day and were exhausted by bedtime, and we got to enjoy some of our favorite people in the world!!! We *heart* the Griggs family! Hopefully they will come back again soon!

Catching up....

So I just realized that I've never posted a few things....

Here is the first of many Santa picture with all 3 of our boys! I thought it turned out pretty good. As I have mentioned before, I wasn't quite as on top of my game this Christmas as I usually am, and about 4 days before Christmas, I realized I hadn't taken the boys to see Santa yet. And we were in Utah for our ward's Christmas party, so they didn't even get to settle for that Santa. So we braved the mall Santa on Dec. 22nd. However, as soon as we got there, they closed the line down so everyone would be through by the time Santa have to "go feed his reindeer". Major bummer!! Poor Conner was fighting back tears that he wouldn't get to see Santa. So Patrick and I PROMISED the boys that we would get up and going even earlier the next day (after all, we were running out of time, it was only 2 days till Christmas!) and come back to see Santa. We got to the Mall 10 min. after Santa go there at 10 am, and the line was already so long. We waited and waited and waited and waited in line. For 2 HOURS we waited in line!!! I was so proud of how well the boys behaved... I guess they were just really focused and excited to see Santa.

***NOTE TO SELF..... NEVER EVER again wait to the last few days before Christmas to see the Big Man again!!!

But at least the boys had a great time, told Santa what they wanted, and Santa delivered!! What a great Santa!

Next year we are totally gonna drive across town to see a different Santa, I've heard such awesome things about that one, and there were NO LINES!!!

The next thing is Landon's birth announcement. I was so excited about this. We sent them out pretty much just to our family, so here it is for all the rest of you to see. My friend Lara designed and made these for me. She has a fun little business doing these kind of cards, announcements, etc. Check out her site by clicking on her button on the side of my blog... Designs by Lei.

Another friend of mine took these beautiful pictures of Landon. She does some great work. Check out her blog here.

I loved how it turned out! Such a cute baby!! I can't believe he is almost 4 months old!! Where does time go?!?

New Year.... New Plan

I hate making resolutions. I'm not really sure why. It just seems so cliche I guess. But I do have new hopes for the new year. So here are a few....

I HOPE... to finally get my garage organized. We have lived here for 18 months and it's still not done. (In my defense... I was pregnant 9 of those months!) It is just a little sad that I have a 3 car garage and can barely fit my 1 car into it!

I HOPE... that maybe... just maybe... I will finally get all the boxes unpacked from our aforementioned move 18 months ago.

I HOPE... to finally get our backyard landscaped and our nazi HOA off my back about it.

I HOPE... to finally get Landon's room painted.

I HOPE... to get a little bit more outta debt... those pesky student loans and our car are ALMOST paid off!!! YAY!!! What would it be like to NOT have a car payment?!?!

I HOPE... to be a better friend to those I am already a friend to and meet a few new friends. One can never have too many friends.

I HOPE... I won't feel like I'm always about 5 steps behind on everything.

I HOPE... we don't incur anymore medical bills... we are still paying on all the ones from 2009!

I HOPE... to fall in love a little more everyday with my sweet husband and 3 boys!

Things I KNOW will happen... no matter if I want them to or not in 2010:
~Conner will start Kindergarten in August
~Brayden will be moving on up to 2nd grade
~Landon will celebrate his first year of life... along with so many other "firsts"
~Patrick and I will celebrate our 9th wedding anniversary


The other night as Patrick and I were ringing in the New Year "mormon style" (which is with Dr. Peppers and a good old time playing Wii games as the kiddo's are asleep and we watch the ball drop on TV) we were laughing about how much things have changed in this past decade. At the beginning of this last decade that rang in the 2000's, Patrick was still on his mission in Hungry (he came home on Jan 18, 2000) and I was kinda dating another guy. (Patrick and I hadn't met yet obviously!) I was in my first year of college. We didn't own cell phones or even know what texting was. No one had iPods. Now... we can't fathom living without them. We didn't own laptops, or have mortgages and car payments. We most defiantly didn't have our 3 cute boys. And most of our dear friends we have now... we didn't even know back then. It's funny how much things change in just a few years. We have met many challenges... some gracefully... some, well... not so much. But through it all we are hopefully better for it. We have changed a lot over this past decade, and it has been quite the adventure.

Here's to another wonderful decade!! I wonder what will be different in this next 10 years??!!