birthdaypalooza

Last Saturday we got together with family to celebrate Poppa Willie and Grandma B’s birthdays.

This year my Dad turned 73.

And since Grandma B is a lady I won’t say what birthday it was for her.

Only the 4 youngest kids took advantage of the pool.

I love these girlie cousins having fun together.

I think we may have been a few candles short on the cake, but we definitely had enough soda sitting around.

I’m glad I’m not the only one with a soda issue.

We also had big plans that involved homemade ice cream…

but Ro’s ice cream maker had other ideas. At one point they had a power drill and grinder out…

But soon they were passing out bags to be shaken.

We were lucky enough to get the teenagers to put their phones down long enough to shake some ice cream.

LaLa and Grandma B spent most of the evening together. Grandma B was teaching her how to crochet.

I’m glad she has the patience to teach her…

Thanks Ro and Karen for having us all over. Karen sorry about the bag of ice all over the floor. The ice cream was worth it.

Thanks Chris for letting me steal a couple pictures off your Facebook page.

And thanks McKay for being the perfect measuring stick for Hammie to see how big he is…

throwback thursday - 2013

Last year isn't very far to be throwing back to...

I sure love these cousins together...And I can't believe Baby YaYa is already one!

june 2014 update

It’s June and summertime was in full swing.

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Roo was finally a Beehive.

For those of you that don’t understand our strange Mormon language, a Beehive is a 12 and 13 year old girl in our Church. It is the beginning of the Young Women program. The last 6 months in Primary is fairly painful and these young ladies can hardly stand waiting to join the other Young Women in our congregation.

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Before Roo could completely leave Primary behind there was one last activity: The Achievement Days Recognition Night.

It was the last primary activity for these two girlies together. Roo and a couple of other girls had earned their Faith in God awards.

It was a fun night.

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For a summer activity we signed Hammie up for a basketball camp through our high school.

To say he enjoyed it would be a complete understatement.

He’s decided he found his sport and I am thankful that basketball is his choice. A nice air conditioned gym sounds so much more enjoyable than a hot, dusty baseball diamond.

It was a fun camp and everyone earns a medal. but they also have Shoot-out challenges and Hammie got second place one day.

This camp is held every summer for kids all the way up to high school and I think Hammie will be ready for next year too.

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Yep…another cul-de-sac movie.

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We also had Sherri’s first birthday since she passed away.

Her headstone had be placed a few months earlier and we had gone to the cemetery to see it.

It still doesn’t seem real that she is gone.

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We had a fun cousin movie day and went and saw “Maleficent”.

I think we had 2 thumbs up from everyone. Awesome Movie!

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Since it’s summertime there was the obligatory fort building.

My living room looked like this for a few days and then I had to have order restored.

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I guess order wasn’t restored soon enough…

I had a little “episode” where my blood pressure shot way up and was having some vision issues.

Did you know that if you show up in the ER with sky-high blood pressure and vision issues that a bunch of people start moving really fast to take care of you? I didn’t before, but I do now. And if they call a Code Stroke the whole hospital knows about it?

I ended up spending the weekend in the hospital under observation.

After a few tests, that came back completely normal, they sent me home with a high blood pressure medication…and 3 blown veins from IV needles.

I thought I was fine, but I wasn’t feeling better and was really, really dizzy.

After visiting with my doctor and monitoring my blood pressure we determined that I don’t have high blood pressure…just a type of vertigo.

And now I’m fine…no really

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The main reason I was so anxious to get home is because Roo was leaving for Girls Camp on Monday and I really needed to be there to help her get ready.

I was in a bit of shock that she was actually going to Girls Camp.

She and her friends were ready to have fun.

And since it wasn’t regular Girls Camp she got to spend some time being pampered.

I was so glad when she was home. I missed having my right-hand girlie around.

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So we live in the desert. It’s hot in the desert.

Hot enough to make your rearview mirror fall off.

And my sister felt so bad for me her rearview mirror fell off the next day.

So maybe it isn’t the heat that made it fall of…just a sister bonding experience.

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Roo had a pretty exciting June.

It included a visit to the orthodontist.

It was a rough few days but totally worth the pain…

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Sometimes in the summer you need a shield…

and a sword.

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For Father’s Day Big Daddy got himself a gift:

Tickets for the whole family to go see the AZ Diamondbacks play.

Big Daddy is a total fan.

While we were there we ran into Randy Johnson.

We were in the front row of the top deck at the ballpark. They were pretty amazing seats.

During the game we had 2 foul balls hit in our section.

One went a couple of rows behind us.

The second one bounced into a lady’s purse sitting a couple seats away from us.

Hammie asked her if he could see the ball and she was kind enough to give it to him.

So now Hammie is the proud owner of a foul ball hit by All-Star Paul Goldschmidt…

And the Diamondbacks won!

It was a good night topped off with fireworks after the game.

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This guy…

He is pretty amazing. Just ask him…

Seriously, he gave a talk in Church that you would have never guessed was written by a 14 yr old. Such a wise young man.

It’s humbling trying to be the parent to amazing kids.

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There is an amazing lady that used to live in our neighborhood. She plans all these great activities during the summer. In the past we were able to go to a few of them. This year we only made it to one…The Krispie Kreme Donut tour. Yum!

They do a quick little “tour” of how they make donuts and then each of the kids got to dip their own chocolate sprinkled donut.

And then we “had” to buy another dozen to bring home.

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June ended with LaLa giving a talk in primary.

She is such a cutie.

And maybe our ward has heard enough from our family for a few months…

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I’m almost caught up. The first part of July is all I have left to catch up on…

insta-friday 1.3.2014

Can you believe it’s already the first Friday of 2014?!? 2014! It’s crazy.

Here are a few of the pictures I’ve snapped with my phone over the last week.

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Can I tell you how much I love Famous Footwear? I loooove Famous Footwear. Like I want to sit in a tree with them.

The Man-Child needed/wanted some new shoes. The boy is seriously the roughest person on shoes ever. So he and I headed over to Famous Footwear to find some shoes for him. It wasn’t difficult since he already knew what he wanted. I pulled out my trusty little Famous Footwear app and realized I had a $20 reward certificate and they had a $10 coupon on their app. I can handle saving $30 on a $50 pair of Vans.

If you don’t have their app…get it!

And no they don’t pay me to say that…but they should!

Well I guess they kind of do with all the money they save me on shoes!

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The girlies wanted sparkly finger nails and I gave them very sparkly finger and toe nails!

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We have enjoyed some pretty amazing sunsets lately.

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We spent Sunday evening watching movies. I love, love, love that Hammie will still climb up on my lap and cuddle.

Such a sweet boy.

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And speaking of Hammie…

He finally had his last physical therapy appointment. It has been a really long 5 months and it’s nice to be done with all the mess with his leg.

He still has a little bit of a limpy run with that leg, but it hasn’t slowed him down in the slightest.

To get the full impact of this broken leg saga you have to go back to the beginning of the Chaos story. The leg he broke was the same one that had so many issues when he was little and had so many years of therapy already. The limpy is just another bump in the road that will be overcome in time. This boy is a serious miracle child!

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New Years Eve was spent with my Family. We had a great spread of food so it wasn’t a problem to stay awake and welcome in the New Year.

All the drinks from QT might have helped also…

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Well not all of us were together for New Years Eve. The Man-Child and Einstein went to the New Year Eve Dance with Cousin Emma. Aubrey stayed home with the rest of us and played games.

It’s nice to finally have cousins that are the same age as the kids living so close to us.

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On January 1st Christmas was cleaned up. I am usually ready to take the Christmas tree down the day after Christmas, but this year it took a little while longer to get the job done.

Plus my Christmas decorations had outgrown our totes and we had to add a new one this year. It drives me crazy that it’s red with a green lid and not green with a red lid… OCD much?

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By the time Christmas was cleaned up it was time for dinner and thankfully crappy pizzas hit the spot.

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I was pretty pathetic on my reading last year and this year I vow to get my reading mojo back.

This is the first book of the year…with a goal of reading 50.

I better get busy reading.

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Rainbow Loom…

Need I say more?

The girlies are getting really good and fast at cranking these bracelets out. I’m not quite sure I need 7 rubber band bracelets…and how long do they really expect me to keep wearing them?!?

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Find me on Instagram @embracethechaos