Life at the Larsons

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2012-02-10T13:30:00.000-08:00

Discover Card and Kitchen Table

2012-02-07T21:14:00.001-08:00

It's been 4 years since my friend Laura called me up and asked if I wanted to take a Dave Ramsey class in Her parent's ward. I said sure. At the time I was just getting good at photography and starting to make more money, and at the end of the year, we still didn't have any money. At the time a bride made a $1000 photo purchase. That never happens. I was so excited, I wanted this kitchen table at Costco, it was like $800. I was ready to go buy it when I went to my first Dave Ramsey class. His baby step #1 was $1,000 in the bank. Ugh I didn't buy the table, but we were able to move on to baby step #2. Debt Snowball. I was kind of jealous about everyone not only in my class that had way less debt than us, but everyone on his show that was doing that annoying "I'M DEBT FREE" scream. Anyway long story short, we took our house off the market, cut back, got control over our finances, and became way more financially independent (especially with insurances) (health, car, business, liability etc.) Then ended up buying a sweet table off of KSL, for a little cheaper, but way better. And better yet, we did it when we could afford it.
Anyway that gets me to last year when the government took all our savings and totally screwed us over, but I've already blogged about that, but basically it left us broke (Dave's definition of broke is when you are broke, you are just passing through, but poor is a mindset) Anyway we are just passing through (again). We have been broke before. So this brings me to my title Discover Card. I didn't know what we were going to do to make it through our most expensive month with no money in the bank and no weddings booked in 2012. So I called my Discover Card and reactivated it. The lady on the other end acted like I just won the lottery. She got so excited that I was reactivating a card that had not been activated in 3 years. She went on and on about how exciting this was, and how I was totally going to reap all these benefits and acted like I was the luckiest person in the world. Then I asked her, why is the fact that I don't have any money and after all these years I have to use a credit card exciting to you. She went on and on again about all the benefits. I felt like crying after I got off the phone. I tried to use it twice (both were to pay the government) but they charged ridiculous fee's so I just used the money I had and we stopped spending money. Which sucks at Christmas time, but whatever. We began hoping and praying and acting. I just wanted to share a few stories about how we got what we needed. These seem like silly stories, but they were really faith promoting for me so I wanted to share them. The first one I can think of is one day at the grocery store I was checking out and I grabbed a thing of chap-stick. Now I had already promised myself to only buy what we needed. When I picked it up, I knew I didn't need that, I felt silly and it made me feel poor, but I put it back. Then 1/2 hour after I got home, my brand new visiting teacher who I haven't seen before or since then came to my house with a message and a small gift. Chap Stick. Why did she give me chap stick? I don't know, but I did feel the love of my Heavenly Father and that he was listening to me. Then I went around our house and found everything that needed to be returned that I was always too lazy to return. I had a list of things I needed but didn't want to spend the money on. I had 8 deodorant's that I bought for Doug that he didn't like, so I took them back to Smith's. Now I know I bought them on sale, I didn't keep the receipt, I don't remember what I paid for them, but instead of exchanging them, they gave me my money back (at the price that day) which was just what I needed to buy everything on the list. Then I did a "stuff Swap" at my house. Ellie asked for a paint set, but I was done with Christmas Shopping and I was trying to distract her from asking for it. At the swap, someone gave a brand new never been opened paint set. :). Another thing was a broken digital frame from Costco, we took that back to exchange it, but they gave us the $, which paid for all the groceries from Costco that we needed.
Another side note, we decided to put all our trust in one company and completely didn't advertise for ourselves at all. Well to make a really really long story short, his company went under and with it all that we had invested in him and his company and his promises. So this year we knew that we needed to start trying again to build our business. So somehow it is all working out. I have not used my stupid credit card yet, we have 22 weddings booked (11 which are photo/video), and we are just getting started with the year. It really is going to take us time to recover, we need to stop buying whatever we want and get back with the program. But I have totally felt the love of my Heavenly Father in all of this, his guidance and his tender mercies letting me know that everything is going to be ok. Running your own business can be tough, but I am soooo thankful that we do what we do. It gives us sooo much time as a family, it is super fun, and we make enough money to live and save. Really there is not anymore that I could ask for (except to not have to pay taxes). I am grateful for lessons learned, I have new goals for the future and I can just feel 2012 is going to be a great year!!!

Family Date Night

2012-02-03T13:40:00.000-08:00

Saturday night we decided to go on a Family Date. I do admit, it was ssoooooo much fun! As the kids get older, they are whining less and are so much fun to be with. Although it is January, the weather has been so mild this year! We went to the Gateway and had dinner at the California Pizza Kitchen. We had a certificate for $25 and thought it would be plenty, but the 2 pizza's they brought out were so tiny, it was kind of funny. We opted to eat outside on a picnic table because the sun was still up and it was a warm 38 degrees:) Good thing I brought chocolate goldfish and mini oreos to finish filling us up. Then we split up and the boys went and looked at video games and the girls went to bath and body works. I had so much fun with the girls trying on lotions and body sprays and then washing it all off with the fancy soap and starting all over. The girls loved it too they couldn't stop giggling. It was pretty much our first girls only party where I felt like I was with little girls instead of babies! I love my little girls! Next we headed to Temple Square to spend some time there in NON Christmas Season. We had a blast. My kids kept asking where all the people were. I think in the winter we have only been in December for way too long. We were able to watch a bunch of movies and I totally loved it! Then we walked over and rode the trax around for a bit. We weren't going anywhere, just getting on and off in the free zones. Even though we aren't really sure where the free zones are ha ha. But it was such a nice night out with the fam!!

Junior Jazz

2012-02-03T13:26:00.000-08:00

So Glad that my mom documents things for me every once and a while:) So here we are again in the middle of Junior Jazz season. It is soooo much easier this year with the girls being one year older. Last year it was really hard. This year is still crazy but at least they listen to me and don't run onto the court any more. Doug is coaching again and the boys are on separate teams this year so that makes 2 hours of bball every Wednesday night. They are both doing sooo good. Hunter scores 90% of the baskets for his team (but whose counting:) Dalan is doing so much better, last year I think he only scored a couple all year and now he is scoring a couple each game. They are having so much fun and we are loving watching them learn to love the game like we do! This game Hunter had a huge burn on his hand that you can see in the last picture, so he was having a hard time holding on to the ball, but still scored 10 points, and Dalan scored 8, I think they were both showing off for Grandma:)

Dalan and Hunters bball game, Jan 25th 2012

Ellie says Hi

Lina all set up for the picture

Hunter all ready for his snack after the game

Hunter waiting for his turn to go out and play

Kaylee didn't get a treat

Dalan is on happy player, he just made a basket

Ellie and grandma get in on the act

Dalan listening to the coaches strategy

All the kids playing a game while waiting for the basketball game to start

Dalan gets a well deserved drink

and a snack

Ellie all ready to head home

Hunter shows me his blister from touching the stove door on Sunday, he played with this and made 10 baskets, not too shabby

Rochelle BRING THE CAMERA

2012-02-03T13:16:00.000-08:00

Rochelle BRING THE CAMERA is something Doug yells to me quit often, I love when he yells that! :) I was downstairs with Kaylee and Katalina woke up from her nap, without making a sound, went into the kitchen and painted me a picture. She was pretty proud of it. Kaylee could not believe the mess she made and insisted on helping me clean it up. I tell ya these girls are little tornados!!! But they are so much fun and so hilarious, so that makes up for it!

Katalina

2012-02-03T13:12:00.000-08:00

This photo is kind of a tradition:) The first voluntary "poop" in the toilet. She is now 2 years and 3 months old and I would consider her 90% potty trained. She is doing a lot better than Kaylee, but Kaylee is getting there too! I love when they get potty trained but it is so much work and I have really been dreading doing the twins, but it hasn't been too bad and I think I am getting better at it:) But that doesn't mean it is not a lot of work, takes a lot of patience, encouragement and energy to do it. But we are getting there and they are growing up!!!!!

Jump on It

2012-02-03T13:09:00.000-08:00

I'd have to say that Jump On It is another favorite place for my kids. This particular night they were not keeping track of how long you stayed so we got to stay twice as long! I know we haven't been in a while because this was the first time I had to pay for 3 kids! If this were closer and they had an annual pass I would buy one for sure! The twins still make me nervous on the tramps and that is probably why we haven't been in so long, but they are getting better. It is just hard when it is crowded and it was that night!

Grandma's Birthday

2012-02-03T13:07:00.000-08:00

A cute shot of the twins.... :)

So this has nothing to do with Grandma's birthday, but we were at Trafalga (like we are a lot) and all the kids got enough tickets to buy a snake, except for Hunter. So while Hunter was climbing the wall, Dalan used the rest of his tokens to earn enough tickets to buys Hunter a snake. Hunter was so excited and I was proud of Dalan for doing something to make Hunter happy. I always tell them the brothers gotta stick together!!

Last week we went to my Grandma's 85th bday party. Both of my grandparents are still alive. They are in their 80's but it seems like lately their quality of life is soooo low. It makes me sad, most of the time when I go to see them I only get to spend about 20 seconds talking to them, because the conversation is so one sided. It makes me sad, it also makes me motivated to do something different. I do want a lot of years in my life, but more importantly I want a lot of life in my years! It also makes me even more motivated to make sure my kids know their grandparents. They still have 4 grandparents! Although it is harder to visit the Larsons we talk about them all the time, and I know they are going to have a great relationship with my parents. Both of our parents try so hard to be involved in my kids lives. And I love it!! I wish I knew my grandparents better, but I am thankful that my mom used to take us there every week when we were kids so we could have fun with them while they were still able to have fun!!

Here are the twins eating cake. I didn't even get a picture of my grandparents....

I would have to say that the best memories of my Buhler Grandparents are the car rides with Grandpa and the yummy spagetti with grandma. Grandma was always so nice, and although grandpa was ornery and a little scary, when he was in a good mood, he always laughed so loud and loved to show us videos. I get no one has ever had a car ride with their grand pa like we did. Their life is so hard to explain and now it is gone, but he lived on 19 acres of junk. Roads winding through all of it. he called it a farm and I guess technically it kind of was because there were animals on it, but he would get out his old station wagon with a rack on top and we would get up there (on top of the car) and he would crazily drive through the farm. i can't believe my parents let us do it! I wonder if anyone recorded that. Some of my best memories as a kid are at my grandparents farm with my siblings and my cousins!!

BYU BYU BYU

2012-02-03T12:54:00.000-08:00

So I don't love or hate BYU, it is what it is, but my boys LOVE it! And every year they get to go to a couple of games. Doug's old college coach is now the head coach there, and Doug also shot one of the players weddings so he has a few hook ups and every time they go they get to go into the locker room after the game. My boys think it is soooooooo much fun. OK Doug thinks it is sooooo much fun too. This is one thing we don't do as a family, we just do girls night when the boys go to these! They even got some shots with the coach and one of the players! (the player who Doug shot doesn't play here right now, but was still able to get him tickets:) Even Ethan got to come this time too!

The Aquarium

2012-02-03T12:50:00.000-08:00

I think I have mentioned this before but we have passes to the Aquarium in Sandy this year, and we love it so much! They have improved it so much since the last time we had a pass a couple of years ago. The kids learn tons when we are there, it's not too hard to keep track of them all, and we always have a ton of fun. I am spoiled with how close everything is to me though because this 15 minute drive sometimes seems so far away!!

Make up

2012-02-03T12:48:00.000-08:00

For some reason for the first time ever, my girls are very interested in my mascara! It kind of drives me crazy, and I have started to hide it! It is kind of cute because they look think they look so pretty in it. This was like the 3rd day in a row so Katalina knew she was in trouble... Good thing it comes off pretty easy with water:)

Don’t Carpe Diem

2012-01-13T13:47:00.000-08:00

This blog is about something that has been on my mind for a while off and on I guess. As a mom I have good and bad times, times I love it and times I hate it, but really hate isn't the right word, Every single thing I have done in my life that I have enjoyed I have also not enjoyed it at the same time. Because really staying in bed and watching TV and eating ice cream with my husband would be the most fun thing to do right? The article I am writing about is right Here, you have to read it to really get what I am talking about. I like the analogy to a marathon more than the climbing a mountain that the uses although I like that one too, but since I run more than I hike right now that is what came to mind. When I shoot pictures, I find it funny to stand back and watch moms struggle with their kids. I have watched friends and family members struggle with difficult children, and IF I didn't have children of my own, I would seriously wonder why people have kids and why they want more than one kid. Raising kids is so hard, the day to day tasks can really wear a person down, but this is only if you are measuring it by "chrono" time. And really I don't know where she got these terms from, but I'll use them because she explains them perfectly. Each night I take the time to go around to each kid and stroke their hair and remember the "kairo" moments, and it makes the whole day worth it. Another reason I think this is important to post about is because a while ago I was writing about how much I loved being a mom and how much more I love it now than I did at the beginning, because at the beginning I wasn't prepared at how hard it was going to be and I remember writing something to the effect of, If you are not enjoying yourself you are not doing it right. Glennon (the author of the post) said those exact words, and mentioned that they had been said to her, in fact if I had only read the first of her post I probably would have thought that too. But she said what I was thinking but was not able to say. Although we need to find joy in the journey, at the end of the day, we need to remember the good that happened. Because really running a marathon in and of itself is not fun. at all. It hurts in places you didn't know could hurt, you go longer than you thought you could go, and even the next day you could never imagine doing it again, but then you do, most people do. And then you have that to look back on your entire life. Runners run because of the life it gives them, the joy that it gives them outside of running. Most of the time the actual run is not the best part, but then again, sometimes it is. But you can't have both. You can't enjoy every run and skip the ones that aren't enjoyable. Just like a person who chooses not to have kids (unlike the person who wants to have kids but can't, that I am sure is pure torture, and is totally NOT what I am talking about) can never know what it is like to have a child of your own. To worry about them, to love them, to care more for them then you do about yourself. It is impossible to explain, and impossible to understand. There is nothing better to me than to be called Mommy, to be hugged like only they hug me, to get that smile when I walk into a room, to get a note, to hold hands with them, to not really feel appreciated, but to know that I am, but really it doesn't matter. So what I am saying is that I am retracting my statement made a while ago that if you don't love being a Mom then you are doing something wrong and changing it to, if you don't enjoy being a mom then you need to start looking for or even praying for more of those "kairo" moments:) Because those really are the sweetest moments and make it so you can get up tomorrow and do it all again:)

Blogging

2012-01-09T23:24:00.000-08:00

So Yes I am public again, I am going to bounce back and forth because there seemed to be sooo many random people reading my blog that I don't know, which sometimes bugs me and sometimes doesn't so I may keep switching it just because I can:)

Family Photos 2011

2012-01-09T23:11:00.000-08:00

So there is a lot of pressure on me to get a good family picture every year. I don't want them to always look the same so I try to change everything about every picture that I take. I didn't have the money to buy all new clothes this year so I looked at everyone's stuff and saw Red, Black, White and Gray as the most common colors (don't mind that 3 of our last photo shoots have been those colors) ( well they are my favorite colors:) I kept waiting for snow, I had in my mind, mainly how I wanted our video to turn out, snow, snuggling, hot chocolate, sleigh riding. Total winter photo/video shoot. But it never snowed. So I planned a day and told Davey and April that we were driving until we found snow. I was so sad the day we woke up and the wind was blowing so hard that we could barely breath when we got outside. I spent 3 hours getting everyone ready only to have to put hats on everyone (oh well, they were cute, but I wasn't planning on it so I was scrambling at the last second) then I wasn't planning on gloves, so everyone is wearing gloves that are too big. But really who cares, I think it turned out perfect, and I learned a lot about cold weather shooting for families (because I do a lot of it) I was so happy with the way they turned out! And as soon as we got out of the valley and headed up the canyon, the wind died and we got some great pictures. I usually don't like canyon pictures because although they are pretty the have an awkward light that probably only I notice, but the snow on the ground made enough of a reflection that the lighting wasn't a problem and the pictures turned out great!

This one ended up being my favorite

New Year's Eve 2011

2012-01-09T22:57:00.000-08:00

This year (just like every other year) we went to Davey and April's house for New Years Eve. With the 8 kids that we have between us we can't really even invite many more people! Mom and Dad come too! Davey and April got up at 2:30 am and drove home from San Diego so they were pretty tired, but we still had a great time and brought the new year in with style!

AND.. here is the post from my Mom:)

New year Eve party at Davey's, 2011-12

Ambree is all set for the new year

Katalina is lovin horsie ride on daddy

Grandpa has a great big smile, what is so funny?

JJ gets in on the act with Ambree, too much fun

Davey gave grandpa a reflector so he can go walking at night, nice, thanks Davey

JJ and Joanna head home to celebrate and get little fellers asleep

Dalan at Zades drums,

Daddy Doug and his girls, Ellie feel asleep and the twins stayed up the entire time,

Grandma Rosie and Rochelle all ready to ring in the new year, I have a Dora crown on, that's all I could find and I didn't want to take Ambree's

April getting some well needed sleep after leaving from California at 2am to get home in time for the new year.

Cute little Ellie all tuckered out

Ambree puts on Davey's angry birds blankie

Davey pouring out some bubbling apple cider, delicious

Kissy Kissy

Zade celebrates the new year and plays the drums for us, nice touch

Rochelle gets the last drop

A short 3 min video of all the fun

Happy New year everyone. I haven't even thought about New Year's Resolutions this year. Only a family one, to read the Book Of Mormon together every day and so far so good!

Christmas Card/Family Video 2012

2012-01-09T22:54:00.000-08:00

Here is our Christmas Card, Family Video, and Newsletter in case you missed it!

Larson Family 2011 from Davey Orgill on Vimeo.

Well another year has come and gone and a wonderful year it has been. I find myself writing another Christmas Newsletter which is so hard to sum it up in just one page.

Dalan turned 7 this year and is in 2nd grade! He plays Junior Jazz Basketball and is in a Kung Fu class with Hunter and his cousins. He loves to read, play with his Pokemon Cards, play video games and play with his friends and cousins. He loves riding his bike around the neighborhood and loves going to scouts with Mom, we call it "pre scouts" He loves playing laser tag at Trafalga and prides himself in being one of the best! He ran (walked slowly) his first 5 K this year along with the whole family. We came in last place, but we did it! Did I mention that he likes to read?

Hunter turned 6 this year and is in Kindergarten. He had so much fun celebrating his birthday at Cornbelly's - we got to go 10 times this year (thanks to their discounted season pass). He got to play Junior Jazz with Dalan in January and is looking forward to a Kindergarten only league this year. He is in Kung Fu and loves learning new moves. He learned to tie his shoes (woo hoo!) and is working on saying his R's :) He loves to ride his bike with Mom while she runs. He can climb to the top of the rock climbing wall at Trafalga in record time. He takes good care of his sisters and even unbuckles their car seats to help Mom and Dad out (woo hoo). He loves to play with friends, watch TV, color, read, jump on the tramp, and ride his bike.

Ellie turned 4 this year and is in year 2 of Preschool. Our preschool is only 2 doors down from us, so she loves walking to school all by herself:) She started dance this year with her cousin after begging to do so since she was able to talk. She loves reading books with Mom, playing outside in the summer, playing with her twin sisters or her twin best friends. She loves getting her hair done, wearing dresses and begs to put on make up everyday. She loves helping Mom cook and clean and is the fastest garbage emptier in the house:).

Kaylee turned 2 this year and is anxiously awaiting preschool and cries every time the kids leave for school. She loves to put on her high heels and back pack and say "go to school" but currently the preschool isn't accepting 2 year olds :) She loves to play in her pretend kitchen, sing songs, babble some crazy language of hers, giggle with her sisters, look at animal books and sleep all night long:) She loves to ride her wiggle car and wishes she could ride around the block by herself. She keeps us busy and gives us lots of love with her long hugs and slobbery kisses.

Katalina also turned 2 this year and would rather die than do anything but stay right next to Mom. We finally got her to stay in Nursery, but just found out her teachers got moved to Sunbeams so we get to start all over with new teachers. She loves to do everything herself, tell Mom how to do her hair and cry when Mom makes her wear pants instead of a dress:) She loves Makeup, hair do's, Barney, and her siblings. She ran her first mile without stopping. (8 laps around the inside track). She loves to talk, give hugs, ride her wiggle car, and get out of bed several times each night in hopes of getting in Mom and Dad's bed.

Doug is still running the business, keeping up with the kids and making his wife happy. He spent 2 days in the hospital and scared us all, but came out OK and made us all that much more thankful for our health (and for him)! His official diagnosis was Pericarditis, but with about 10 days of pills was back to normal. He goes to the gym whenever he can get out of the house, and plays basketball with the ward in between injuries:) He is serving as Elder's Quorum President and is loving it.

Rochelle is talking in 3rd person which is weird, but she is taking care of the kids, shooting photography, cleaning the house, taking care of the yard, teaching Water Aerobics (10 years now!) and Running. She ran a Marathon, two Half Marathons, and a bunch of 5k's, but the true work was back at home while Doug watched all the kids while she trained and ran all of these races. It was fun for her to train and run with April, she has never had a running buddy before. She serves in the Scouts and loves it because she gets to be with her boys, and is starting to figure out this scouting thing:)

As a family we were able to make 4 trips to San Diego to visit Sea World since we got an annual Pass there. Those road trips were a definite highlight of the year, and we learned all the tricks of driving 12 hours each way with lots of little kids. We love it in San Diego, but probably won't be back for a while:)

As we celebrate this Season, we are grateful for Family, Good Friends, Great Neighbors, and Him whose birth we celebrate. May you all have a wonderful Christmas and May all your wishes come true this upcoming year.

Love,
The Larsons

Here is the Christmas Video Doug did this year....

Orgill Family Christmas

2012-01-09T22:46:00.000-08:00

I am pretty much to the point if my Mom is going to be there, I let her document it. She and my Dad do such a good job, so here is the Orgill Family Christmas Party. We all sleep over at my Mom's it is quite the party. We stayed up until at least 2am playing LIFE on the WII with the siblings. So much fun:) I Love my crazy family! (20 grandkids under age 11 right now)

ORGILL CHRISTMAS 2011

Our Orgill family Christmas party with Santa and all the fun,

JJ and little Hudson all ready for the morning

Rochelle and the twins survived the night

Ethan was so excited to get to sleep over, he was the last to go to sleep and the last to wake up

Dalan and Ethan had too much fun

Doug getting some more sleep, it was a rough night it looks like

JJ makes up another batch of pancakes, lookin good

one last picture before Davey and April head out, Doug gets in on the act

Cute smiles on Tayla and Katalina

Breakfast after our big sleep over, so fun

Family Home Evening.

2012-01-09T22:42:00.000-08:00

Every night is Family night when we don't go anywhere and we spend all our time together, and none of the kids have a life outside of the home really yet, but I still make Monday Night a Special night. Sometimes we just have a lesson, sometimes we do an activity, but we always do something in the name of "family home evening"

This night the twins both fell asleep at 6 pm so we got out all our new Christmas Games and played them. Oh we love those twins, but it was a lot of fun to play with out them because playing games with them doesn't really work. At all.

And we love all the good deals at Trafalga and spend lots of Monday nights and other nights there too! Now that I got so many good deals on tokens, the kids absolutely love going there even more!

Christmas Eve at our house

2012-01-09T22:37:00.000-08:00

The weather was so weird here this year, so warm, not an ounce of snow, but Christmas Came and left even without the snow, but I'm not complaining, I am still running outside and I love that, and my kids don't even wear jackets to school most days! Anyway on Christmas Eve we spent the day just hanging out and cleaning a little, watching Christmas Movies. We took all the kids to the DI and got out their hard earned money and had them buy presents for each other. And although I don't really shot at the DI because I think they are over priced, boy the toys aren't over priced and the kids had to much fun buying for each other. I kept all the kids distracted while Doug took the kids one at a time to secretly buy for the other one. I was a little sad seeing the 6 bags of DI toys being brought back into my house knowing they would probably be on their way back out soon, BUT the kids had to much fun, I think it will be a new tradition. As soon as we got them all wrapped the kids wanted to open them. We did that as kids (open sibling and friend gifts on Christmas eve) so we decided to let them do it. I think it gives them an opportunity to appreciate what they give to each other without all the bigger gifts of Christmas on Christmas Day.

Opening Presents. The twins look so old in pictures because they do these really mature smiles. It is weird to see them in pictures, I am not used to them looking grown up! I still think of them as little babies!

We had 3 gift cards from Chili's in Doug's wallet so we all ordered our favorite thing from them for our Special Christmas Eve Dinner. I got Steak and Chicken Fajitas. Doug got Shrimp something and the kids got quesadillas and fries. We even set out all the nice plates and glasses this year for the first time (because seriously what am I saving them for???) I LOVE having a nice meal and even more that I didn't have to spend the day cooking it and cleaning up after it! I totally understand why families go out on holidays! I just didn't want to take all the kids in their Pj's in the restaurant. We also drove around and went to a couple of houses that had really cool lights that synced with the radio. I LOVE houses like that, and they were pretty entertaining for the kids too!

This yummy cake was on our table when we got home, the other half is eaten, so glad we let April borrow the cake pan!

And we can't forget our traditional reindeer food throwing. I made a couple of bags this year to make sure we had enough to throw!

The kids in bed waiting for Santa to come. They were so scared as soon as they heard his bells they wouldn't get out of bed! The kids all still believe so that is still fun. Hunter turned on the lights during the whole thing and they saw that it was Davey, and Dalan said, hey that is Davey, but he didn't bring it up again and neither did I. I think he is getting used to the idea that Santa has helpers:) Wish I could freeze this night and go back to it whenever I wanted to, because if I could I promise that when I am old I would be a frequent visitor to this very night. Oh how I love Christmas Eve!

Doug and I wrapped presents early this year, so on Christmas eve we just go to lay in bed and watch "It's a Wonderful Life" the entire thing (I have never seen it start to finish) all the kids slept from 8pm until 7:30 am when we had to wake everyone of them up (we had church at 9am). The kids were all so excited and are so easy to please. I love it!

The twins got new underwear! They are VERY excited about it!

Boy toys

Wii Games

Ready for Church. I bought these dresses for $3 before the twins were born, I can't believe they are wearing them already! They all looked so cute all dressed up for Church.

This year was different because we didn't have as much money as we usually do at Christmas. But really I enjoyed not buying so much. I also saw a lot of blessings being thrown my way. I know my kids don't need so much stuff, they don't care right now, and I need to spend less money, so this good practice for me (since it is forced:) All in all we had a wonderful Christmas and I loved being able to go to church on Christmas, It just made everything feel right!

Larson Family Christmas Party

2012-01-09T22:14:00.000-08:00

We always have the Larson Christmas Party on the 23rd. There are so many traditions we have to hurry to fit everything in:) My family got to do the Nativity this year. The kids did so good and the Larsons are so good with my kids they just loved it! And it was so much fun. Now I am sure the Orgill's love us too, but we always get the royal treatment with the Larsons because there are so many older cousins and aunts and uncles and there aren't so many little kids running around. We LOVE going to the Larson parties!!! There was good food, Santa, the Nativity, Christmas Stories, Present exchanges (one for each person), and The chimes. Love Christmas with family!

Cousin Christmas Party

2012-01-09T22:11:00.000-08:00

There are not a lot of people that have more cousins then me. OK I have never actually met anyone that even had half the amount. To give you an idea. My grandparents (who are still alive) had 13 kids (that lived). They had (about) 86 grandkids and so far we have had (about) 125 great grand kids. So anyway we have a cousin Christmas party every year. Only about 30 come and that is counting spouses, but anyway it is always a lot of fun and I love my cousins a ton!! It is your turn to plan it when its your parents turn in line of when they were born. So My mom is #6 in her family and I have 6 kids in my family so technically I would only have to plan it every 78 years. Now that is one advantage of having a large family. ha ha ha

9 years

2012-01-09T22:07:00.000-08:00

December 23rd marks 9 years since the night Doug proposed to me, it had been 8 weeks since our first date and was LONG over due;). So we went to celebrate by going out to dinner at the Italian Village (chosen because of the gift certificate we had there from a guy who owns it in my Water Aerobics class) It doesn't matter where we go or what we eat, we just love getting away, and it is rare to actually go somewhere without it being a wedding (where the meals are usually really nice) and us "counting" it as a nice date night:) We laughed last week while shooting at Millenial Falls and the couple pretty much had the same menu as the last bride and groom we shot there that we need to try a new place. ha ha ha

Temple Square.

2012-01-09T22:01:00.000-08:00

I almost skipped it this year. It is so much work to go and I already went with the boys when we were making our Christmas Video and the girls wouldn't even have known that we missed it this year. But one night without planning we loaded up everything and headed down. I don't hate crowds I really don't, but I don't like the crowds at temple square when I have all my kids and we have a hard time staying together. But I just need to chill and go with the flow:) It took a while for everything to settle down and the kids to get used to the cold, but we did it and I am so glad we did. It is just not Christmas without going there, and the kids learn so much every time we go there and it gives us so many opportunities to talk about the temple and why it is special to us.

By the end of the night, the twins weren't riding in the stroller anymore, it was Hunter and Ellie.

Fires

2012-01-09T21:57:00.000-08:00

Fire fire fire!!! I have always loved fires. Always. I love to make them, I love to sit around them, I love to smell them. My kids are totally catching the fever:) This is at a park, but it is something we did often this past summer. This picture was taken in late October on a nice evening. I love fires in the fall because it is not too hot to sit around them and you don't have to wait until 10pm for it to get dark enough to enjoy them!

New Camera

2012-01-09T21:55:00.000-08:00

So Sony finally came out with the camera that we were waiting for so we bought it. I didn't have any shoots for a while. I used it and liked it but didn't pay much attention to it. Then I shot a family and in the edit I noticed how grainy it was. I was horrified to think I just spent $2000 on a camera. I looked every where to see if others were having the same problem but couldn't find anything. I also needed all new batteries and memory cards and there was so much different and it shot video. All this is fine except close up the image was horrible. I had to return it, but only had a month and weeks had gone by at this time so I had to hurry and do it. But then I didn't know what to do I had already sold one of my old cameras and I still needed two of them. I borrowed April's camera which was the upgrade of mine and used it. Although it is a 4 year old model, it was very similar to mine and I loved it. So after a week of really stressing about what to do, I bought the A850 and finally felt like I made the right decision. Really it doesn't seem like it should matter, but I need a camera I can trust. I immediately took lots of pictures (including the one of Doug below) so I could test it out in tons of settings. Not that these show the awesomeness of the new camera, but they do show the awesomeness of my twins:)

Halloween

2012-01-09T21:47:00.000-08:00

I know kind of late for a halloween post, But remember I just found my camera:) So I will just lump everything together. I took so many pictures of halloween this year! Every time we got dressed up the kids were wearing something different. I LOVE the costume parade at the school and seeing all these cute kiddos from my neighborhood. Over the years I have "invested" in good costumes so I don't have the pressure of coming up with ideas every year. I have even bought all the costumes for next year, now I just have to convince the kids they want to be that! lol. But really I don't like making up costumes at all. I don't think it is fun. At all. But now that I have all these kids I am starting to love dressing up and making it fun for them and I don't want them to have to dress up in a lame costume so I am constantly on the discount costume look out!

The girls didn't love being Elmo, but they sure looked cute:)

Ellie and I were both Shrek, Doug and Hunter have both been shrek in the past so Ellie was so excited to be matching with me:)

The Principle

The PE teacher, all the kids love this guy!

It was funny for me having a huge belly but no weight with it, kind of weird lol

And here comes Dalan (the ghost)

And here comes Hunter (year #3 of being that ninja turtle)

I got to volunteer in both of the kids classrooms for their class parties. They sure love having me there and I LOVE being there!

I know kind of late for a halloween post, But remember I just found my camera:)

Dear Doug

2012-01-09T21:43:00.000-08:00

Sometime people write letters to their husbands when something is wrong with them. Nothing is wrong with Doug (thank goodness!) but I wanted to write to him anyway:)

Dear Doug,

How lucky am I to be married to you?? I love you:) I love your laugh and I love to hear you play with the kids. I love to hear you in the mornings with them. I love to smell breakfast in the mornings even though I rarely eat it. I love that you think of others before yourself, and how honest you are. I love how well you take care of our family. I love your unwavering testimony of the Gospel and your love for it. I love road trips with you. I love that you always carry the laundry up and down for me. I love that you always clean up the throw up so I can take care of who ever threw up. I love your kisses and that you won't leave without giving me one, nor will you go to sleep without giving me one. I love that when I make you mad, I can tell the second that you have forgiven me and then I can finally start feeling better. I love your massages, and that I don't have to struggle with my shoulder anymore because you always make it better. I love that you are respectful and allow me to be a woman without ever making degrading remarks to me, to womanhood as a whole, or to any woman. I love how giving you are. I know we will never be rich because you would just give it away. I am OK with that. I love that you don't like to argue and that we never really do. I love that you always allow me to go running without ever acting annoyed because you know I need it to function in life, just as much as I need my sleep:) I love that you appreciate me and let me know it and make all I do seem worth it. I love how much you help me with my "duties" as a mom. I love the way our kids love you, it makes me so happy to see them with you. I love watching movies with you at night when we are not up working. I love all the time we get to spend with each other, and that I get to go to work with you sometimes and how much you love your job and how much you love getting the perfect shot. Thank You Doug for being you, and for loving me:)

Love,

Me.

Pointe Digital Demo 2012

2012-01-05T09:46:00.000-08:00

FHE with Mom and Dad

2011-12-20T22:24:00.000-08:00

Last night my Mom and Dad came down for their bi annual FHE night. They have 6 kids so they come to each of our houses 2 times per year for FHE. The kids were so excited they could hardly stand it. When Mom and Dad pulled up the kids sang them Christmas Songs out the window. We performed our Nativity Scene for them, it was fun. Dalan Hunter and Ellie took their parts very seriously. The twins not so much:) It was cute to watch them. Then we took all the car seats out of the van and stowed the seats and we went to Tpoint Lights and drove through them with our doors open, Christmas music playing and feet hanging out the doors. It was a really fun way to go through the lights. Then we went and visited the reindeer and got ice cream. Everything is always so busy this time of year, but we went early and we sort of beat the crowds. Such a fun night though!!

Hunter in his Joseph outfit.

Hunter and Dalan were fighting over who got to be the donkey, Dalan won cause Hunter realized that he wouldn't be able to carry Ellie on his back so he settled for the role of Joseph, Dalan was a good Donkey, he even tied himself up to the table.

Kaylee and Katalina were the angels and star holders they didn't last too long

Cute Ellie was so excited to be Mary

Hunter with a look of fear on his face as Dalan lands on the love sack

Ellie doin her own dancin

A quick picture of their family before we head out the door

Doug took the seats out in the back of the van and we had the side doors open with our feet hangin out while we watched the light show

Grandpa and Doug sat in the front

Cool manger scene

This ones name is Prancer

Hunter so glad to find the fire

Dalan and Grandpa lookin at the Reindeers so cool

Cool ice scuplture

Ellie in her own world

Hunter and Katalina look pleased

Kaylee pretty proud her her cone

Dalan got his ice cream cone all decked out

We found Santa just chillin in the corner

A short 4 min video of all the fun

Life

2011-12-09T21:56:00.000-08:00

Tonight I laid on the floor for an hour while I was waiting for Katalina to go to sleep, she never did. At least I have my iphone to keep me company. Tonight I decided to check on a bride I shot a couple of years ago. She has referred several people to me, so I keep seeing her and with Facebook we have been able to keep in touch. The last time we chatted her husband and Doug had both been admitted to the hospital on the same day. She wrote me a cute little note and wished us luck, and I did the same to her. Doug's problem was cured and he got to come home with me. Her husband got diagnosed with stage 4 lymphoma cancer and he has pretty much been in the hospital ever since. Oh how my heart hurts to see them going through this. But oh how my heart is warmed to read of their love for each other, the faith they have in Heavenly Father's plan for them, and how they are trying to beat this.
Then I just found out about a girl I went to HS with and how she just died, random. She had a miscarriage and then got really sick. And then died. I spent some time on her FB page reading things. She mostly talked about her two girls. Mainly complaining (jokingly) about them. I hope they don't feel bad one day when they read it. I decided to never joke about my kids driving me crazy, so when I say it it won't be joking:). A lesson learned from her is that I need to appreciate my kids and the time I have with them.
Also my little sister just lost her Mother in Law. Heart Attach on Thanksgiving. I spent some time on her FB page too. She was filled with so much faith. She is not LDS like me, but had soooo much faith in God. What I loved about Julie was that she was always so happy to see me. I felt like she couldn't get enough of my kids and laughed so much every time I was around her. And now she is gone. My sister and her cute family are going to miss her so much and he left a huge hole in their hearts and lives. What I learned from her is to love freely, to get excited when you see people and let them know that you love them.
I hope that when it is my time to leave this earth (in a really long time) is that my only regret will be that it is too soon. I don't want to wish that I had lived life differently. I hope that I am doing it right right now. Just as I type this I can think of things that I want to and need to change. Above all I feel completely humbled and privileged for each day that I get to be a wife and mommy. Really it is all I have ever wanted out of life. Each day when my kids leave me to go to school or a friends house I hold them tight and pray to Heavenly Father and plead for protection and thank him for that child. We hug really tight the whole prayer. I just started doing that this year and they love it and they hold me tight too, even Dalan. I got the idea in our marriage interview from my Stake President. He said that every night complement and praise your husband in your prayers, now I admit it is harder to do with an adult, but I still do it and it has been the best advice ever, and I just realized I should be doing it with my children. When I pray with them alone about twice a day, I don't let how I feel about them be a secret. And I plead with Heavenly Father to watch over and protect them and keep them safe from harm while they are away.

There is so much heartache in the world, the day to day tasks of motherhood can be so heavy sometimes. I feel lucky because I feel like I was blessed with an extra dose of energy that many seem to lack, but then I remember that because I was blessed with good health and strength that more may be expected of me. I have started to have the desire to serve more. After having the twins serving others seemed so impossible. Life got pretty hard and not that I couldn't leave to go serve, but I knew that in so doing would put extra pressure and work upon my husband and it wasn't always fair to him. I was humbled by my sister at the funeral. She did so much for our other sister. Not only with the money that was spent but the time. The organizing of the luncheon. When you are not LDS no one does that for you! I think that is something that we all take for granted at funerals is that the RS always brings food. It was fun to see the mingling with my sisters in laws while they enjoyed a nice luncheon which would not have happened if my other sister wouldn't have planned and carried out that meal. After witnessing what Julianne did I had a greater desire to serve others. She is really starting to remind me of my Mom. That week several things were placed at my feet to give me that opportunity. And even when the opportunity was given to me (like a neighbor sending emails and phone calls asking me and Doug to do specific things to help her family) I started to feel bugged. She wanted her dishes done. She wanted trips to the store. We were having a party that night and I was trying to clean my own house when she asked. I found myself getting a little bugged at the request until I started to do it. She didn't answer the door when I got there, so just walked in and got to work. I learned that from my mom:) While working at her house, I was humbled and grateful that she asked and felt guilty for not wanting to come even though I was looking for ways to serve. It is totally something I need to work on. I wish I could serve like my Mom does, she serves anyone and everyone and never gets bugged. I am working on that and I am very thankful for all the opportunities I have had lately to serve. But then again feel guilty when I am finished because I know that when you serve you always walk away getting more out of the situation than the person that you served. I learned that very quickly on my mission, and have been relearning it ever since.
I think that the hardest things in life are in dealing with the loss of a loved one. I am grateful for the knowledge that we will see them again although the sting of death is still bitter. I believe that with all of my heart. I know that one day when we die and we are on the other side of the veil that things will be so clear and this life will seem short. I know that our Loving Heavenly Father has a plan for each of us, and we can receive the blessings that he wants to give us if we just live worthily of those blessings.
OK my boys need a bedtime story. So I am off. I am hoping to start doing more blogging and less facebooking - I really need a point a shoot though:)

Private Blog?? Utah State Tax Commission

2011-11-27T22:38:00.000-08:00

Well I never thought I would go Private, and I an not even announcing it, because really I don't care if anyone reads my blog and with how active I am on Facebook, I think that is enough for the world to know about me. I only have about 3 active commenters (Mom, Julie, Rachael, and the occasional weird person:) and so many people look at my blog and I don't even know who they are. Sometimes I am worried that clients may go to the blog so there are things I can't say. I don't know, we'll see how this goes:)

I did want to vent for a minute about the Utah State Sales Tax commission. Just thinking about it makes me tired, but I want to tell the story so I can remember it. About 1.5 years ago we got a letter from the tax commission stating that we (us and Davey) owe like $56,000 for back taxes (sales tax) from 2002-2008. After talking for about a year we got it down to about $24,000. That is a guess, ours was around $15,000 and I am guessing Davey's was about $10,000 or so. This is a tax that we never collected. In fact in 2002 when Doug started to get serious about his business he went to the USTC (Utah State Tax Commission) and asked them if he had to pay sales tax, they told him no, and that it was a service and not a taxable product. So in 2008, out tax man advised us to start paying tax on our photography when we started making a lot of money, even though he was unsure if we had to. To make things simpler we started paying on Photo and Video (even though we were under the impression that we didn't have to for video still) so anyway you can see why we never collected or paid this tax. After a year of talking about it and contacting an attorney we decided to take them to court. Ironically when you take the USTC to court, you go to their building and see their judge in their court room. They told Doug and Davey to dress in business professional and gave them a court date about 5 months down the road (really?) when the court date came they went to their building dressed in suits and in walks 2 people in casual sloppy clothes. One is the judge and one is the guy assigned to our case. She tells them to tell the story. At this point we are basically asking that the 10 years of interest be forgiven. She says nothing and tells us she will get back to us in 3 weeks. That was 7 months ago. We got a letter in the mail saying our case was denied and all the money was due immediately. A little stressful to say the least. Did we have the money. Yes. Was it the money to get us through rest of a typically slow winter. Yes. Just like every year. After stressing about it for a weekend, I decided that we wanted to make payments (we paid some last year, but still owed $10,650). When we called to make arrangements we were informed that if we didn't pay it right then we would be charged a 10% penalty fee ($1,065) plus all the interest that would continue to accumulate. Needless to say we paid it. I feel like they came into our lives and robbed us at gunpoint and took everything we had. It is very frustrating to say the least. I have spent the last week thinking back on how we should have saved more, things I wish I hadn't bought, and ways we could have had more money in the bank. I have come to grips with what happened and am ready to start all over. We may need to break out the dusty credit cards after all these years, but I do feel like we will come out of this more financially smart. But I do have to say how thankful I am for 3 years ago when we decided to follow Dave Ramsey's advice and get out of debt and get money into our savings account. So much has changed for us since that day, and we still have a lot of changing to do, and I still need to blog about our whole Dave Ramsey experience, but I will save that for another day:)

Seaworld 4th and Final Trip of the Year

2011-11-27T22:06:00.000-08:00

So somewhere in time this month I lost my point and shoot camera (again), so I haven't blogged much, but I do need to go through my computer and see what I got on my computer before I lost my camera, but I do need to write about our final trip to Sea World. Well because of a huge unexpected financial expense we were left without much money in the bank this year, but we already promised the kids one more trip to Sea World. We were already going to St. George for Spencer's Farewell, so we added the trip to Sea World for $180. Not bad if you ask me:) We left Lehi on Wednesday after Parent Teacher Conference and got to St. George around 8pm. We said our hello's and played for a while and got everyone in bed by 11pm (later than I hoped for) We were up and on the road by 4am and got 4 hours in before the kids even woke up. It was awesome. We tried that last time, but didn't leave until 6am and it was summer so the sun was just coming up, and the kids never went back to sleep which made for a long nightmarish day:) So this went a LOT better. We were to Sea World by 10:45 am. We packed one of our freezer meals which was breakfast sandwiches and cooked them in gas station microwave and we all had a yummy warm breakfast! The first day at Sea World was so fun because it wasn't very crowded. We also got the chance to play with the dolphins. They have never been this friendly towards us before. They were being so playful and flipping water on us and letting us pet them and talking to us. We have only got to maybe touch them for a split second swimming by on all our other trips. It was so much to actually play a little bit with them. Definitely a highlight of the day! On the first day we hit every show except for the Shamu show. The kids spent a lot of time on the play ground and we had a great day. While checking my email I noticed that Friday was a "members only extended day" so that was exciting. Anyway on Thursday they closed at 5pm, we went to the store and bought some syrup and headed back to the hotel. We got our hotel for $44 which was awesome because it was a really roomy and nice hotel. We brought chips and chili from home and cooked it in the microwave for dinner. The entire family was in bed asleep by 8pm. Woo Hoo! We were up by 8am eating waffles (that we brought) in our room. We love to do that when we stay in hotels that don't serve breakfast. It was kind of funny, we only got to Sea World 15 minutes earlier sleeping in San Diego, then we did sleeping in St. George:) Anyway day #2 was just as amazing. I have been stressing about this trip a lot and trying to talk everyone out of it, but I am so glad we went now. We were going to leave at 5 pm, but decided we didn't want to sit in traffic for 3 hours like we have done before, and we found out they were going to be open until 10 so we stayed until 8pm. By staying late we were able to see the Polar Express in 4D. Awesome! Totally gave me chills, made me cry and got me in the mood for Christmas. We got to see the Christmas Shamu show, see Santa's reindeer and peek through the window at Santa (the line was too long). It was so busy that night and people were waiting in line for over 2 hours to play in real snow that they brought in (no thanks) and to get a free ornament (no thanks). So about the free ornament. I really wanted one, but the line to get one wrapped around the entire park almost. So 2 hours after they started giving out ornaments we went to the front of the line (in disbelief) and asked a young worker if all these people were really waiting in line for a free ornament. We wanted to see Santa, and the snow and the ornament, but didn't want to wait in line. Kaylee and Ellie were crying because they were tired, and maybe we looked stressed, but the young man took me to the front of the line and got me an ornament. It was just a little turtle, I don't know why he did it, but he totally made my day and our entire trip and I have a feeling that will be a special ornament to us forever. Until 30 seconds later when Hunter dropped it and broke all the legs off of it. Ya, I was kind of mad, but Doug went back to the front and got us another one. We didn't let the kid play with that one:). We watched one final Shamu Show and we were on the road. We decided not to do another night at the hotel, but to head back to St. George to have more time with family. It was the right decision. The kids slept almost the whole way, and Doug was a champion driver! I was able to catch up on 8 hours of my photography tutorials that I watch when we travel which was awesome. We rolled in to Doug's parents home around 4:30 am, completely exhausted.

The beautiful Christmas tree they have to welcome you in.

Us playing with the dolphin, Dalan had a way of getting him to come and interact with us. It was soooo much fun. We have been trying this whole year just to touch one, and he totally played with us this time. It was soooooo much fun. I fell in love with that cute little dolphin!

And this is why I love vacations..... We get lots and lots of quality time together:)

The crazy birds at Seaworld.

The twins were in awe of everything at Sea World. They didn't even really nap the whole time we were there!

The snow globe. It took about 10 minutes total to get this photo. Doug stayed out so he could get the picture. It was super hot in there, but how many times can you get a picture in a snow globe???

The dolphin show. Dalan made us sit on the very top row, It was amazing, it is one of my favorite things to do at Seaworld.

My girls LOVE Elmo, they were so cute. I was standing in the photographer box to get a picture and she told me I couldn't be in her box, so I stepped out in front of the box and in front of her, I am not used to not being the photographer, by the time she was able to get me out of the way I had plenty of pictures. lol

Cute Katalina straight out of the camera.

Me pretending I am skinny. I need to get one of these mirrors.

The pet show, my least favorite show, but one of my kids favorite ones, so we go, every single time:) But I did get to pet a kangaroo, pig, and dog all that night!

The Polar Bear Cave

Finally asleep!

Christmas Christmas CHRISTMAS!!

Day #2, we always get our picture taken in front of this car before we walk into Sea World.

Dalan was very proud about teaching all of us how to pick up Star Fish.

The super cool fish at the aqurium

Hunter was so mad that we were sitting in the splash zone, but we wanted to sit close, I feel like we can predict the splashes of the whales and we promised him we wouldn't get wet, but he was still mad. When they did start splashing we (hunter, me and the twins) ran to the top of the stairs to stay dry.

We went to the beach in the middle of the day for lunch (homemade sandwiches) and to get the twins to nap. Only Katalina fell asleep, the kids love the beach and they don't care if it is cold they could play there all day long. In the picture above you can see that Dalan is falling in the water. I told them not to get wet, but after he fell they just played in the water. It was not fun getting them redressed and warm again, but the fun they had was worth it!

What a way to kick off the holidays. 4D Polar Express. I have only seen it in 4D, and what an awesome experience it is. I was soooo happy we got to see the first showing of the season. Totally warmed my heart!

I love love love what happens on family vacations. I love the togetherness, the long hours in the car, the squishing in one hotel room, the working together to save money, the laughing, and singing, and memories that can only be made away from home. What a special year this has been for us and I am so grateful that we were able to make these 4 trips. I have a feeling Sea World will forever be special to our family. I don't think we will be back for several years, but I have loved every second we have spent there is past year:) Don't worry we still need to put a video together of the trip, it is not over yet:)

Fishin with Ellie

2011-11-08T12:23:00.000-08:00

I just had to post this again. Every time I watch it, I like it more and more!!

Birthday Pictures Kaylee and Katalina 2 YEARS OLD!!

2011-10-25T23:06:00.000-07:00

OK OK I know, too many photos, but there are two of them and then there are pictures together and so that like quadruples the amount of pictures that I can post of them. lol.

I have to start out by saying that my heart grew like 2 sizes while editing these pictures. These two little girls are so sweet and so much fun and I can't believe they are 2 years old. Two years ago when I had them, I was so nervous for so many things. The day I gave birth and they were ok, one of my biggest fears subsided, because I got them here safe and healthy. I made it through the first year, which rumor has it was the hardest one, but to set rumors straight, #2 was harder than #1 for me, but maybe that is because I expected year #1 to be hard, really hard, and for year #2 to get easier. Although we are dealing with the "terrible two's" (which I hate to even use that phrase because I love the 2's so much) things are seeming a little easier. Just today I was able to take a shower and they weren't crying and pounding on the door, that was nice:) Sleeping has gotten way worse lately, we had a really good 10 months, but lately they are waking up A LOT at night. That's hard. Oh and that Katalina, she cries, a lot, and she is almost literally attached to my hip, and she even throw's fits sometimes. That's hard. And they fight over things, we need two of everything. I don't dress them alike because I love to anymore, I dress them alike so they won't fight... But then there is everything else like the sweet tender hugs and kisses from Katalina dozens and dozens of times a day. Or the long cuddles from Kaylee all day long. The way they giggle and play in the bathtub. Watching them run together. Hearing them announce that they are awake every single morning and afternoon when they wake up. Listening to them sing. Their big blue eyes. Listening to them talk and laugh together. Watching others watch them. Reading books with them. Tickling them. Letting them rub my feet with lotion because they see Doug do it. Taking pictures of them holding hands - I love doing that. Watching them be silly so their siblings will laugh - how do you have a sense of humor at age 2? Watching them help me clean. Watching them run, oh I already said that, well it's my favorite thing. Looking back over these last two years I can see how much we needed these two girls to come together. They have brought our family closer as we have had to work together to make this work. They are truly heaven sent and I am so thankful to be their Mom.

KAYLEE (Kiwi)

She came first, but only by 9 minutes

Weight 26 pounds (38%)

Height: 84 CM (37%)

BMI: 16.65 (56%)

So mellow

Starting to talk

Daddy's girl

Fast runner

Likes to cuddle

Loves books

Sings in a sweet high voice

Finally is growing some hair

Pretty quiet and content

Super Duper cute

Favorite song: Happy Birthday

Doug and I always joke that we are going to reward her with a brand new car on her 16th birthday because she has been such a good little girl since the day she was born. She is the reason that raising twins hasn't been too hard on us... :)

KATALINA (Lina)

Born 2nd (by 9 minutes)

Weight: 27 pounds (52%)

Height: 86 cm (65 %) (even though she doesn't really seem that much taller than Kaylee)

BMI 16.22 (44%)

Pretty crazy

Loves attention

She'll do anything if we clap and cheer for her

Loves to hug and kiss

Can climb out of her crib, so she sleeps in a toddler bed (and has for about 7 months)

Pretty blonde hair

Sings really loud

Mama's girl (rarely leaves my side)

Very affectionate

Loves to draw and color

Loves the iphone

Super Duper cute:)

Favorite Song: Happy Birthday

Hunter turns 6!

2011-10-23T22:49:00.000-07:00

OK, what can I say about my little Hunter?? What a joy he is to have in our family. He was such a fussy baby, but has grown into such a happy kid. He is in Kindergarten now and is doing so good. His teacher said she wishes all the kids could be like him! :) Hunter loves:

The color Green

Lake Powell

His Family

Bakugan's

Riding his Bike

Basketball

Running

Wii

Super Smash Brothers

Spiderman

Superman

Lasagne

Trampolines

Big Spencer and Big Ben

Soccer

Sea World

Horses

Play Grounds

and he loves being super fast.

Hunter is so helpful around the house and loves doing his chores and homework (which makes my life so much easier). I have had so much fun this past year raising him and we just love him so much. We feel so lucky that he is in our family. I love the prayers that he gives and how he treats his siblings. I love the hugs he gives me and all the smiles. Hunter you are our fast little guy and we love you so much!! Instead of just uploading the poster that we created for his class, I uploaded all the pictures that I put on the poster!!

Fall Break

2011-10-23T22:29:00.000-07:00

This year fall break was amazing. The weather was perfect! We had a pretty lazy weekend and pretty much let the kids play with their friends the entire time, but one of the nights I did get up the energy to take them to cornbelly's and Barnyard Boo at the Farm. The kids were really good (I was nervous because I knew how crowded they would both be with the good weather and school being out) but we had so much fun and the kids actually listened really well. We ended the night with a movie night (Doug was shooting a wedding all night). Boy do I love these little fellers!!

The face painting line was so long that I asked the lady if I could paint my kids, she didn't care (she wasn't good either) but they ended up having us both do them. There is just something about getting your face painted. It is so much fun for them!

Friday night, I had my Mom come over late and Doug and I snuck back up to Cornbelly's for a date. It was still really crowded and we had to wait in line for about 45 minutes to go through the haunted corn maze. It was really fun though. We always have fun when we can sneak out for a minute:) I even rode the bull, I admit it hurt my legs and I jumped off early, but I have always wanted to do it. Oh and there really isn't an easy way to get one. i felt kind of silly.....

Oh and I had to throw in this cute picture of Katalina. Her teeth are growing in so big!!

Picking out pumpkins

2011-10-23T22:22:00.000-07:00

One great thing about our business is that we do a lot of trade with friends. My friends Mom owns this awesome pumpkin patch and so we have had trade over the past couple of years and we can basically pick out as many pumpkins as we could possibly ever want! It is so much fun and the kids love it. It is so much more fun than going to a grocery store for pumpkins! And again the weather was so beautiful. I really feel like we have had a lucky October month, it has been sooo nice!!

Then on the way home we stopped at "Olivia's Cafe" for lunch. mmmm we love it there! (Doug's brother owns it!)

Fun with the Orths

2011-10-23T22:19:00.000-07:00

These posts are from different nights, but this month we got to spend a lot of time with the Orth's because my Mom was babysitting them a lot. Whenever she is babysitting she always come to my house so they can spend time together, and we always go and do something fun.

This night at cornbelly's I sent the girls home with Doug and we ended up staying until 11:45 PM the kids had so much fun!!!

Julianne's kids at the farm and mcdonalds, sept, 2011

Too cute

ky with a smile, he was so excited

oh dear, poor little princess

Kaylee is taking the ride really good

Sydney is lovin it

Ellie is an ol pro

Madi has a cute smile

Dalan just like a cowboy

Ky and his pumpkin

Sydney and her cute pumpkin

Dalan's pumpkin

Ky's pumpkin

Ellie's pumpkin

cute in the barn

too cute

woah

help, get me out!

help us get out,

poor little ky

a short 5 min video of all the fun

Field Trip to the Firestation

2011-10-23T22:12:00.000-07:00

Ellie's preschool went to the fire station. The twins were home sleeping and I was tempted to stay home and work, but I am so happy that I went with her so we could have time just me and her, and she loved having me all to herself. She was chosen to show "stop, drop, and roll" she was so cute doing it!

The whole crew!!

Thanksgiving Point Farm

2011-10-23T22:10:00.000-07:00

This past few months I have found myself at the farm a lot. Everyone loves it especially the twins and it is easy to keep track of them (and we have an annual pass:) It is soooo much fun there! I am not excited to winter to come because it is way more work to go there when it is cooooold... :*(

The twins turn 2!!!!

2011-10-23T22:09:00.000-07:00

For the twins birthday party this year, I decided to do a family only party, because well they don't care and all their friends are in our family sooo, I tried to make it really fun for them anyway:) We made cake, and totally tried to lick the bowl clean, did cake, ice cream, opened a few presents, and spent the night at trafalga. We all had a blast and I can't believe they are 2!! I'll post more about them later!!

This picture below pretty much sums up rock climbing. Hunter goes up and down multiple times, Ellie makes it up as far as she wants to, and Dalan goes about half way up and comes down several times:) We love it at Trafalga (and have an annual pass there too!)

The twins rock climbing:) There isn't much for them to do there, so I usually just follow them around:)

The aquarium

2011-10-23T22:04:00.000-07:00

We got annual passes to the aquarium again this year (we had them about 3 years ago) because they were only NINE dollars each for the entire year. We haven't been much and we didn't love it last time, but for $9 I couldn't pass it up. And I have to say that I do not regret it. It is so much better than it used to be and the kids just love it! It will be a super fun place to spend our cold winter days!!

The kids love to pretend that they are afraid of things when I take pictures. It's kind of funny! lol

Hunter's Birthday Party

2011-10-23T22:01:00.000-07:00

Oh boy do my kids love to plan birthday parties. This year Hunter wanted a Pinata, play stuck in the mud kung fu style, have races, hide things and find them, and just play with friends (oh and have pizza and a spiderman cake and green ice cream). I try and do whatever they say and they are usually pretty simple things. The weather was really nice on his birthday which I was thankful for since like 21 kids showed up! ( I only technically invited 8, but I don't mind if all the siblings come too lol)

Us making the pinata, it was a lot of fun. I think I put too many layers on it though, it was really hard to break and Doug had to be the final breaker!!

And the of course it was off to cornbelly's

What a great cake

Dalan gets in on the treats, too cute

Ethan found a spot to get warm

Rochelle getting the games all organized, Hunter is taking this way to seriously

Not sure how Phoenix is going in for the dive there

Cedric getting warm with a piece of pizza

Ok everybody hear are the rules

Logan found a quiet spot to check out his cards

Daisey is so excited to show me her outfit, she has got to be freezing! But a small price for beauty

Hunter wants to get on with fun stuff, enough with the pictures grandma

A lost tooth, good thing he hung onto that,amazing he didn't lose it

Ethan is finally warm

Rochelle and Hunter cutting the cake together, cute

Millie showing off her medal, so cute

April is not sharing her cake

Kaylee can hardly wait and letting us all know it

Ambree all ready to go to corn bellies

Katalina secretly taking the top of the cake, she probably is wondering why no one else thought of that

Getting ready for the pinata break

Hunter gets to be first

Cute Zade and Hunter at corn bellies, too cute

I have never seen Doug look so little , too funny

The kids had fun building the large lego's like hut,

too cute

The boys loved this one

I think Hunter had a fun day, Happy birthday Hunter

A short 9 min video of all the fun

Temple Trip

2011-10-23T21:40:00.000-07:00

Doug and his nephews got to go to the Priesthood session this year. All of them have different issues with Dad's in their lives so it was nice for them to get to go with Doug. These cute nephews have WAY too much fun together. I love it!

Later that month Doug was able to escort Spencer through the temple as he prepares for his mission. What a special kid Spencer has been to our family. We love him so much and we are so proud of him and his example and desire to serve a mission, I get all chocked up just thinking about him being all grown up!!

Purcells Wedding

2011-10-23T21:37:00.000-07:00

About 18 months ago my neighbor passes away from Breast Cancer. It has been a crazy 18 months but the husband remarried this month. I won't go into details, but only us and one other neighbor got invitations so I thought we should go. Doug was filming (I shot prewedding stuff, no wedding day stuff). It is pretty crazy taking all the kids by myself to a wedding (especially right after cornbelly's) I was VERY thankful that we could sit outside alone and that the weather was nice. I hope things work out for them. What a roller coaster these past two years have been. They no longer live by us, but we wish them the best!

Cornbelly's

2011-10-23T21:34:00.000-07:00

So we were able to get a season pass to Cornbelly's again this year. I even emailed them and some of the discount sites begging them to offer a discounted pass because we love to go soooo much! We have been so lucky this year with the good weather we have already been 7 times and we still have one week left. I am so impressed with this place, we still haven't had time to make it to all the stations, it is crazy!! I will continue to post pictures, I have a feeling this place will always be special to our family because we spend so much time here, and Hunter knows that when Cornbelly's opens, it is his birthday. We watch the corn grown every year, and we know that when it grows taller than Dad, it is time for it to open. It is very exciting for Hunter!!

Dinner Group

2011-10-23T21:24:00.000-07:00

So I decided to organize a new dinner group. I have been doing a dinner group for about 3 years, but decided to work out some bugs and came up with the idea of a freezer meal group. It wasn't hard to find 9 other families that wanted to be in it. So now 2 times per month we all make 10 meals and come to my house and exchange them. It has been so much fun so far and I am loving all the variety and hard work each and every one of us are doing. I am a firm believer in a nice meal every night for my family that we spend the time sitting around the table together, but I don't love spending the time every afternoon preparing a meal. This has been wonderful for us!!! Here was our first meal....

Doug's 41st birthday

2011-10-23T21:21:00.000-07:00

Doug loves eating out and loves big parties. This year I didn't do a surprise party and I didn't feed everyone so it was much easier for me. So eating out is so much work so I had the great idea to send Doug to Chili's for his favorite take out. I decorated the house nice and got out our nice plates and when he got home I put the twins to bed, sent the boys to school and Ellie to the neighbors house and Doug and I were able to have some nice alone time and a really nice meal. We were both happy. I think this can be a good compromise. (not that I don't like eating out, I just don't like finding a babysitter)

Our neighbor and good friend Tony Hadlock has a birthday 2 days before Doug so this year we combined it, invited the entire neighborhood and had a party in the front yard. The Hadlocks got a cotton candy machine and we got a snow cone machine and we all made cupcakes, chips and salsa, and April made cake balls. The weather was perfect just like it is every year on his birthday and we had a great time with everyone. We may just have to do this every year!! Happy Birthday to the most wonderful Man I know!!!

and here is the party from my Mom's point of view:)

Little Ambree, so cute, Rochelle is explaining something back there

Johnny and Claudia gives me a nice pose:)

It was Tony's party too, he is having too much fun

Tyra finally got her snow cone

April, Johnny and Davey having too much fun

Davey's bday shirt from April, crazy

Little Ky eating I think his 3rd or 4th snow cone

Cedric caught a praying mantis and just had to show me

cute picture of 3 cute girls that have discovered a new friendship, so cute

neighbors and friends

It can't be that funny:)

lots and lots of snow cones

too much fun

Doug and his sisters

We partied till night

Cedric is still goin, he is loving it

Still gettin darker and still having fun

Ky rode around and around and around till at least 10 that night

A short 6 min video of all the fun

Hiking

2011-10-23T21:16:00.000-07:00

Before having kids I LOVED hiking and being in the mountains. I still love it, but the hikes are much shorter now. Trying to catch one of the last warm days up the canyon we headed up for a hike and campfire up AF canyon.

Bear country worried the boys a little bit. ha hah a

Finally we got out the iphones and the kids all sat around the campfire so we could enjoy the night. You gotta love technology!! We just need 3 more now.

5k race

2011-10-23T21:14:00.000-07:00

There is a new highway by our house and the day it opened there was a 5K. I really wanted to run it with the 3 older kids because the entrance fee was cheaper than usual and plus most of the money went to the kids school so we did it. They ended up starting 1/2 late so I ended up taking ALL the kids in the race since Doug had to go to his wedding. Now if I had known that I'd be pushing the twins in the stroller, I would have come more prepared with food and drinks and toys etc. So there was a 1 mile and a 5K. I had a good talk with all the kids before telling them we were going to do this. Ellie and Hunter were excited but Dalan kept getting too nervous and trying to drop out. We totally made goals together and decided we were going to do this. One thing that made it hard was that there were several places to turn around early and EVERYONE that was slow like us were turning around, but I wanted to teach the kids that we don't quit early. It took us over an hour and we came in dead last, but we FINISHED. All the kids were so proud of themselves and I was so proud of them too! Running has been such a blessing in my life and I totally want to pass that love on to my kids, i think I can get Ellie and Hunter involved, but Dalan may be another story lol I just want them to love MOVING!!!

They had a fun little carnival after at the school and all the kids had fun there too. That night they all got prizes and money for finishing!! (my dad used to pay us when we would run:)

They all got cake and $3, one dollar for each mile they went

Ellie's award

Dalan's award

Hunters award

Hunter gets the U R so fast award

Ellies gets the bullet hands award

Dalan gets the good job today award

Now they get to eat the cakes

Hunter is chowing down and Katalina is gettin her pj's on

The twins get in on the cake eating too, they did ride the 3 miles in the stroller and threw rocks.

The girls

2011-10-23T21:03:00.000-07:00

These girls were all born within 4 months of each other (we are just missing Daisy) and live within 3 houses of us. I have a feeling these girls will almost be like my own as the years continue to pass so quickly. Oh I love my neighborhood!!!

The Twins...

2011-10-23T21:02:00.000-07:00

Somedays I just want to follow the twins around and take pictures because they are so cute and so funny, OK some days I do. I am convinced that life as a twin is more fun than life as a singleton. I love these two girls!!

Fishin'

2011-10-23T21:00:00.000-07:00

This has been such a summer of fishing, well I guess you can call it that even if you never catch fish. At least we get out and spend time together. I love going to the mountains!

"Fishin' with Ellie"

2011-10-08T10:04:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things about our job is that it give us the opportunity to express how we feel about our kids through videos, photos and music. And boy do we love this little girl...

I wish we could get a behind the scene look as I tried to film this with the twins hanging on my legs and trying to keep them out of the shot and keep them from shaking the camera. We eventually let them play with sharp objects digging in the dirt and we got a lot filmed:) My favorite park was when the old guy named Dave offered to help us and within 5 minutes we had caught our fish (trying to cut him out without being rude or ungrateful was a whole nother story (is that a word??:). All in all we took the last hot day of the summer and spent it fishin' with Ellie....

Doug's hospital stay

2011-09-30T22:09:00.000-07:00

I have been meaning to blog about this for a while, but I haven't gotten around to it, and I still feel a little nervous about what happened. But anyway about 2 weeks ago I was hanging out on April's front porch and Doug came down and told me he was going to the ER. He had been having chest pains for about 3 weeks and loosing his breath sometimes and it just happened again so he called the doctor and the doctor told him to go to the ER. I was a little shocked, but whatever. he went by himself and I stayed home with the kids. I got Hunter and Ellie off to school and the twins in bed. I was worried about him, but trying to ignore my worried feelings. The nurse called me and was very vague about what was going on. She asked me if I wanted to come down, and I asked why and if he was ok? She said that they were admitting him. The conversation ended by her telling me she would give me phone updates. It was a weird conversation and I felt really weird when we hung up. I tried not to worry too much and frantically cleaned the house to keep my mind off of it. I was texting Doug trying to figure out what was going on and he finally called me. He told me that his heart rate had dropped to 29 and they shaved his chest in case they needed to resuscitate him. He was very concerned that i hadn't come yet and told me he told the nurse to call me and tell me what happened. Within 2 minutes I had April over here with the kids I was in tears and rushing to the hospital. I had no idea what just happened, and really neither did Doug. I cried the whole way there and for a while after I got there and saw him. As I was there the test results were coming back quickly ruling out all the life threatening possibilities. 1st we knew it wasn't a heart attach like they originally thought, next they ruled out a blood clot. With those two things ruled out, they release us from the ER and admitted him to the hospital. The next two days were busy with test after test after expensive test. All with no answers. He was only in the hospital for 2.5 days, but it felt like weeks. My mom came and stayed the entire time so I could spend as much time at the hospital as possible although I did sleep at home and we took the kids to the hospital about 3 times. They finally came up with the conclusion that it was Pericarditis - PubMed Health or basically swelling in the lining of his heart. After a few hours of medicine his heart rate returned to normal (it got down to the high 30's at night and was in the low 50's in the daytime. They were overly cautious and kept him another day and did lots of other tests and stuff and then sent us home. He was really tired and slept a lot for about 5 days and now he is back to normal, but has to take that medicine for a couple of weeks.

It was almost like a circus act trying to get all the kids all the way back to Doug's room, we make quite the scene wherever we go:) Doug loved having us there though. I loved that there was a sitting area just outside his room that we could all hang out in.

This was my version of the stress test, the doctors did it another way though:)

The girls doing laps with Dad so he could keep his heart rate up.

All in all, we feel so blessed to have everything be ok. We got a very good look at the inside of his body, and everything looked really good, he is very healthy, so that makes me happy. I am completely aware that anyone can be taken at any time, and that part about life really scares me. I am so thankful that it wasn't Doug's time to go, we need him way too much! There were so many prayers offered on his behalf. Multiple meals were brought in within hours of us being in the hospital. We got so many offers to help with anything. We felt the love of so many supporting us, praying for us, and loving us. It was just what we needed!!! And I am so happy to have my husband back.....

Grandparents day

2011-09-23T12:45:00.000-07:00

Well we didn't get many picture of grandparents day because my mom forgot her camera (which is a SHOCK) and Well I was only there for lunch, so I added some other cute ones of the kids..

I went to the school for lunch so Hunter could eat with my Mom too. Dalan got to have her for 2 hours, but hunter only got 2 minutes because my Mom had to go with Zade too and the Kindergarteners only get a few minutes, but we all had a blast and it was fun to see all the kids with their grandparents. Thanks Mom for coming and making it so special for them!

Then we got finished early so I talked my Mom into helping me bag my last 9 bags of peaches, Wow it goes faster with a helper!! Thanks again Mom:)

Oh and this last picture I was trying to teach the twins to pick "Big/Red" tomatoes, this is what they came in with. ha ha ha

Gardening

2011-09-23T12:41:00.000-07:00

I have been planting a garden for years, and not really enjoying what I have been doing. So this year I only planted tomato's and strawberries, that is all I really want. I think the big difference this year was that I used the cages for the tomatoes and used miracle grow 2 times. They are almost as tall as I am!! I have never eaten so many tomatoes in my life, I go pick fresh ones every day at lunch. mmmmmmm. I will eventually be freezing them when they all come in to make "sketti" sauce like my mom does:)

And for the first time we got peaches. I got about 1.5 bushels! Which made about 30 bags of frozen peaches. We planted a new peach tree this year too! In about 5 years I am going to have more peaches than I know what to do with!! :) I was so excited picking them this year that I couldn't stop giggling while picking them with Doug and Hunter!

Oh and don't forget about the pear and apple trees, not sure how excited I am about those, but we'll figure of something to do with them.

Neighbor s'mores...

2011-09-23T12:36:00.000-07:00

We all live within a rock's throw of each other, but we don't officially get together nearly as much as we should, so everyone got a quick text and within minutes we had a nice backyard party going on complete with all you can eat s'mores. So much fun. i love my neighborhood!

Fishing

2011-09-23T12:35:00.000-07:00

The weather has been so nice lately we find ourselves heading out to do something fun almost everyday. We love to go to Glen something or other park in Highland by Lone peak High school. Mainly I love fires and Doug loves fishing. We haven't had much luck fishing lately, but we know that one day we WILL catch one. lol

We ran to the store to grab some treats, and ended up buying WAY too many and the night ended with everyone with tummy aches and the twins waking up all night long. At least we got to talk about why we eat things besides treats for dinner!

Back to School night

2011-09-23T12:32:00.000-07:00

Back to school night was so much fun as usual. It was a lot of fun to see Hunter and Dalan get to know their teachers and classrooms. Dalan has Mrs. Staples and Hunter has Mrs. Rico (who is in our ward:)

Hunters first day of Kindergarten

2011-09-22T22:43:00.000-07:00

Oh my, I can't believe my little man is in Kindergarten. He has already done 3 years of preschool, so he is very ready

I bought him this shirt because the snake is doing the sign just like me and Hunter do to each other. He loved it!! :)

And of course after he got on the bus we all followed it over and watched him get off and go into his classroom.

And then Doug had to sneak and take one more through the window.

Hunter loves kindergarten. he feels so big and LOVES riding the bus. He loves to repeat the ABC's to me and sound out words. He likes to add and loves to color with all the colors doing all sorts of shapes and sizes. We are so proud of our Hunter Bunter and we know you will do great Fast H (as he prefers his nickname to be).