EMILY LILLIAN was born February 12, 2012....

Emily decided to meet her mom and dad a little early. She was due March 21st, but decided she couldn't wait and came 7 weeks early. Emily and Lydia are doing well.... Lydia has been staying at the Taylor House in Flagstaff while Emily is still in the hospital. The Taylor House is a home where people from out of town can stay at no charge while their loved ones are in the hospital. This has been a great blessing to Lydia and Jon.

Marc, Ellie and I took a day trip and drove up to Flagstaff this past weekend. We all have fallen in love with Emily and hope to see her again soon. Emily has overcome many obstacles but still has one more before she is allowed to go home. With being 7 weeks early, she is sleepy and tends to not want to wake up to eat like she should. Once Emily is able to take all of her feedings from a bottle for 48 hrs they will release her to go home to Page.

We hope she is able to go home soon!!

Clara

I wonder if she will stick with ballet and be a ballerina when she grows up?

Happy Valentine's Day

For the last couple weeks I have been contemplating what I should do for Valentine's Day. Correction, should I do anything at all or get them anything for Valentine's Day. I was at Walmart a few days ago and thought, I should get the kids a little box of chocolates or something but nothing crazy. We have done crazy before and there really isn't a need for it. Am I a party pooper or realistic? Maybe a little of both.

So, I got on Facebook today to spy on what people were up to. All the Valentine's posts made me GUILTY!!!! So many mom's posted pictures of cute lunches they put together for their kids or cute breakfasts' made with love. I couldn't stand it!!! Here, all I had was a $1 box of chocolate for my kids and NOT ONE THING for MY Valentine. (Whom I love dearly and am so grateful to have him around)

I thought, this is pathetic of me. I think I have an issue. I take the easy way out of things too much!! I talk myself out of doing cute things for my family all the time. Well, even though, I didn't send my kids off the school with a cute breakfast (they all had cereal) or any cute lunches packed, I will have you know I am trying to make up for it with dinner. Papa John's offers heart shaped pizzas, so that is what we will be having with a yummy salad and some chocolate dipped strawberries for dessert. Dang it, I was going to get red kool aid while I was at the store... I also got each of the kids a little bag with a goodie inside and MY Valentine a little something. I feel much better!!! I am vowing to stop taking the "easy way" out of things and to start doing cute things to celebrate special days like today. After all, I do love them ALL very much!!!

Mesa vs. Mountain View

After starting the season keeping the bench warm with a broken foot, Cameron came out and had a great season!! We are so proud of him for the player and young man he has become. It was not easy for him to sit the bench and watch as his team played hard with coming up short in some games. His 2nd game back he scored 32 pts. It was a home game which made it fun. A lot of his teammates were there to watch and cheer him on.
Cameron played a lot of basketball this season. He played on the Freshman team and the JV team. The new AIA rules are each player is allowed to play 6 qtrs. Sometimes Cameron had to play more Freshman and some games he played more JV. It all depended on how the games were going. Typically, Cameron would need to play a lot in the Freshman game with the team being so small and then he would play the last 2 qtrs with JV. There were a couple games Cameron didn't play as much Freshman which allowed him to play a lot more in JV. Either way, it was super fun to watch.

This Mountain View game was a great game!!! The first time Mesa played Mountain View, it was a killer. Mountain View won by 20 something pts with terrible sportsmanship from Mountain View. They didn't have any better sportsmanship with this game, which made for a sweet victory!!

I think overall Cameron had a great season. We are looking forward to next year :)

Feel this way sometimes...

This is exactly how I feel at times. I am crazed and scared about things while my kids are having the time of their lives.

New Camera

Marc decided with his Christmas money this year he was going to purchase a new camera. The camera we had before was a great camera, but since all of our activities have moved indoors we needed a little different camera. The camera showed up on sale at Sam's Club that fit right within our (his) budget. This is the very first picture Marc took with his new camera... isn't it a beauty???

Happy Birthday Kaelyn

If you can believe this is the ONLY picture we got of Kaelyn on her birthday. I am feeling like a terrible mother right about now.

We actually weren't sure Kaelyn was going to be able to have her party on her birthday as scheduled. She was sick all week with the flu which thankfully turned into a really bad ear infection. I am not wishing my children to be sick, but I was happy an infection appeared so she could get on some antibiotics.

Her birthday was on a Sat, so of course she wanted to celebrate with her friends. We had a "candy bar" or a buffet of candy. Earlier in the day as we were getting the candy out we didn't think there was enough and ran to the store for more. To my surprise we had TONS of candy left over!!!! Overall, I think she had a great day... she cleaned and cleaned :) But...at least the cleaning was her idea and there was the excitement that her friends would be here to party within a matter of a few hours.

Happy 14th Birthday Kaelyn!!!!!