Just say No!

Let me set the scene: Kayla and Melissa were sitting on the floor beside the pantry door "working" on their bike and scooter with their little plastic tools. Kayla was holding an empty soda bottle. This was their conversation... Kayla said, "Hey Melissa, do you want some of this?" Melissa said, "What is it?" K - It is caffeine, do you want some? M - NO! I can't drink caffeine! K - Sure you can... it is so good. M- Nope, I'm not allowed to drink caffeine. K- Well, doesn't your tummy hurt? M- No, and I don't want any. K - Don't you have a headache like mommy gets? Caffeine could help. M - No, and I said I am not allowed to drink caffeine. - - - - - I was SO happy! For Melissa. Kayla, my little dealer, needs some strengthening... but Melissa resisted (fake) temptation time and time again. I was SO proud of her!!! Needless to say, I will ONLY be drinking decaffeinated beverages from here on out.

Melissa's Ear Piercing

Melissa is a TROOPER!! My mom, sisters, daughters and I went out for a Girl's Night (with Evan too) and took Melissa to get her ears pierced at Claires at the mall. She was SO brave! This is how it went down... Last week she told Ray that she was ready to get her ears pierced. We have been telling her for years that she could get her ears pierced as soon as she understood that it was really going to hurt and she was okay with that. So, she FINALLY told us she was ready and could handle the pain so we jumped on it. We attempted to take her at home, but all of the places didn't offer the ear piercing service at a time that we could go, so we decided to take her during Girl's Night with my family. She was SO excited. She changed her mind 3 times about the earrings she wanted to get and finally decided on a pretty blue birthstone pair to "remind her of her wonderful birthday," as she put it. This is how it happened...

She climbed up in the chair to wait for the technician... She looks like she forgot about the pain that was about to take place!

This is her trying really hard to sit still while the technician "drew" on her ears. Still unaware of the pain she was about to feel. She was SO good and sat still during the first piercing... still unaware of the pain she was about to feel... and then it happened...

She completely froze. She put on a fake smile and held perfectly still. Her eyes welled up with tears and she wouldn't move. I saw her tears and patted her leg and she quickly wrapped both arms around my arm and would not let go. The technician asked her to turn her head to the LEFT and she quickly turned her head as far as she could to the RIGHT... and left it there. She would not turn her head back around! Eventually I picked her up and literally had to hold her arms and head so that we could pierce the other ear. She started crying SO loud! I felt like the entire mall stood still. The WONDERFUL technician pierced that second ear like the pro that she is...

When she was finally done and off of my lap she told either Chris or Laura that she thought she had earned some ice cream after all of that. I agreed.

This is the happy her with her new earrings. You can still see the purple under the earrings in this picture from the marker. She is a real trooper!!

Kayla's Earrings

When we took Melissa to get her ears pierced Kayla had every intention of getting her ears pierced too... she quickly changed her mind when she saw how traumatizing it was and settled for these really cute ladybug clip on earrings. Isn't she cute??

Camping in the Back Yard

We finally did it! Ray camped outside in the tent ALL night with the girls! They LOVED it! July 4th we decided to celebrate with a Daddy-Daughter camping trip to the back yard. We spent the evening with some friends from church and came home to light some sparklers. This was quite a change for our family as we usually have a party at our house and shoot heaps and heaps of fireworks... this year was pretty low-key for us, it was nice. When we got home Ray pulled the air mattress outside and he and the girls spent the evening telling stories and being goofy until they finally drifted to sleep. Around midnight Kayla started crying REALLY loud and Ray brought her inside to me because she was waking the neighbors. They had SO much fun and can hardly wait to do it again! Life is good!

Mommy's Birthday

I cannot believe I am 33 years old. Seriously, when did I get so old? Now that I have children it seems like the time is going by faster and faster! Ray helped the girls make me this beautiful carousel cake. The horses are magnets and I am completely in love with them. Over the past 4 years the girls have broken all of my magnets so they decided to make me some more. I have very thoughtful children. By 10AM they had sung Happy Birthday to me at least 9 times and spent the rest of the day reminded one another to be good since it was "Mommy's Birthday." They are too cute! Thanks for the wonderful day, Family!

My girls are growing up!

My girls are growing up! When did that happen??? All of a sudden Kayla can wash her hands in the bathroom sink without standing on a stool and Melissa can turn on the water by herself... without the stool! Melissa can put together entire play tents by herself and Kayla can now wipe her own tushy when she goes potty! Melissa is bathing herself (properly) in the shower ALL by herself and Kayla can count to 100 right along with her sister. Really, is it supposed to be going by this fast???

Called to Serve

Last night I attended a really good Bishop Youth Fireside about serving missions. The returned missionary that the Bishop asked to speak to the youth was amazing. He served his mission in Sydney, Australia and actually sparked some interest in our youth to serve a mission. It seems that fewer and fewer youth have the desire to serve as a missionary and I feel that the Bishop was very inspired to have this as our topic. ANYWAY, talking about and hearing about missions made me very nostalgic and wanting to see the Sisters that I was privileged to serve with. My birthday is Wednesday and it also marks my 12 year anniversary of the date that I left for the MTC. If feels like I just barely served.

One of our District Activities... we went to Snowbird. Kamdyn and Me! :)

Julie Cunningham and myself. I was so sad to hear of her death several years ago, but very thankful for the knowledge that I have of what happens to us after we die.

Dressing herself...

Kayla has been coming up with some beautiful outfits lately. This was one of her most recent creations. Isn't she beautiful???

Back Yard Camping

I just spent a week at Girls Camp (and will write about that some other time) and our girls decided that our family needed to have our own camping trip in our back yard on Saturday. So, we set up the tent and prepared ourselves to camp outside. Friday night we had such a horrible thunderstorm that Ray and I decided it would be best for us to bring our airmattress downstairs and sleep on the floor instead of in the tent... just in case. Actually, I slept up in my bed and the three adventurous ones slept downstairs. We had SO much fun! We built a big fire using toilet paper to get it started and cooked our hot dogs and marshmallows on it. The girls LOVED eating Smores (well, Kayla ate off the chocolate from hers) and they LOVED eating the "unmelted" marshmallows. They told shadow puppet stories with Daddy-O in the tent and then they chased and caught fireflies for the first time ever. Melissa caught the first one and it was all over after that. We found a jar and they caught several more. When it was finally time to come in (around 9:30) the girls went up to shower in the "waterfall" with flashlights. They bathed with "flower soap" and some sort of shampoo bird gave them shampoo. Melissa even said her conditioner was bird poop. Oh their imaginations!! We came down and read about Lehi camping with his family for family scripture study and everyone was asleep within minutes of laying down... including Ray. We had SO much fun! As much as I hate sleeping outside, I think we will have to do it again sometime soon. This is what life is all about... making memories and enjoying the simple things.

Melissa sneaking up on a firefly... Me and my cuties.

Family Vacations...

Sisters...

Cousins My Beautiful Girls...

Kayla Brooke

Melissa Nicole

My Family

Family Vacations are the BEST!! We enjoyed our family vacation to the beach SO much this year. My family has been going to Sunset Beach in North Carolina for 23 or 24 years and we intend to keep up the tradition as long as we can. I think I have talked Ray into letting us go there every year instead of just every other year with my whole family. I LOVE it there!! I would recommend Sunset Beach to everyone.

This year our little family rented our own home there instead of staying with ALL of my immediate family. Over the years we have grown and grown in number (15) and now, there are just too many of us to stay in one house. My girls really enjoyed our little house up on the sticks. It was a small 3 bedroom, 2 bath home with a 5 minute walk to the beach. PERFECT! We had so much fun. We spent most of the time on the beach and at the 2 houses... we did go to Broadway at the Beach one night and our girls made baby dolls at "Friends To Be Made." Evan made a Dinosaur. Those two shops are located in the "Build A Bear Workshop." It was fun watching the girls pick out their dolls and clothes, curl their hair, etc. Ray and I went on a date while there too! CiCi babysat for us and we went out to dinner and then shopping to my VERY FAVORITE store.. Callahan's. I love the atmosphere there AND it has a Christmas shop so we bought our Christmas tree ornaments for this year. Shopping AND Christmas music... I LOVE it there! Each night we took turns cooking dinner and I really appreciate all of the effort that everyone put into feeding all of us. The food was SO yummy! One day Ray took care of the girls for the ENTIRE day so that I could fish on the pier with my Dad and Brother Jeremy. We didn't catch as many fish as we would like to have caught, but we DID catch some pretty horrible sunburns. My girls caught a lot of fish from the dock behind my parent's house... they were SO cute reeling those things in. They are quite good at it. :)

All in all, we LOVED our vacation! We were able to relax while enjoying family time. PERFECT. I am looking forward to next year.