Picture Overload!!!

I took a lot of pictures today! I picked up my nephew Cole and we went to the Power Ranch park to play on the water pad..........too bad it wasn't working!! I was so bummed because I know they would've LOVED it! O'well..........it will be up and running again next week so we'll have to go again. So instead, the kids played at the park and played with the ducks at the pond. They had a blast!

Here they are with HUGE smiles on their faces getting ready to go to the park!

Kylee

Cole

This is them running to the ducks.

Turning around to take a picture for me!

They loved the bridge. It's so pretty there!

They wanted to jump in with them so bad.

Cole liked running up and down the bridge.

There were a lot of big fish too as you can see in this picture.

Sad story..

So the picture at the top of my blog with Kylee and the little dog now has more meaning, as of yesterday. That picture was taken at my sister (Natalie's) house. She lives with two other room mates who own that little dog. Her name is Tia. Kylee absolutely loves that dog! She loves all dogs really, but she associates dogs with people and everytime we go visit Natalie, she always mentions that she is going to see Tia as well. Um.......well......not anymore. Tia got loose somehow from the back yard and was found by her owners on the street yesterday. It wasn't pretty to say the least. Now I am going to be teaching Kylee a new life lesson the next time we go to visit her Aunt Nanny. I know she's is going to ask where Tia is and I'm going to try to explain to her that she's with Jesus! Poor Tia! Let's all take a moment of silence.......................................................Okay, thanks!

Pool Alternative

Since we don't have a pool, the spinklers are a big hit at our house every day at noon and at 5pm. She knows the schedule at this point and runs outside when they come on. She's sportin' her new bathing suit from Old Navy. I love how her little belly hangs out! I know she'll grow out of it eventually but I just love it right now! Chubby babies are the best!

First trip to the zoo..

I know these might just be "boring zoo animal" pictures to some of you, but for me and Kylee....this was so exciting because it was our first time to the zoo!!! Well, I had been once or twice when I was really little but I don't remember it at all. So this was a great experience for me and I took pictures of all the animals we saw. We went with Gina and Ella. I was most excited about the animals but Kylee was most excited about the merry-go-round. She could've spent all day on that thing if I would've let her. But it was a rip-off........$2 for one 15 second ride! What?!! (Thanks Gina for lending me the $2 dollars...haha! I didn't have any cash on me)!

I've been in hiding!!

So I realize that I haven't posted in a while and some of you are wondering where I've been - - I promise I'm still here! I just keep forgetting to bring my camera with me places, or I just forget to take pictures. I even forgot to take it with me to my parent's house for Easter. What a horrible mother I am! I didn't get any pictures of Kylee during the egg hunt, in her pretty Easter dress, or playing with all her cousins. Oops!

Since I don't have any pictures, I decided to change my background. So there......I've "posted"! Kind of! I hope you all had a great Easter weekend! Now comes the big break of no holidays for a while. Except for all you Mexi's like me.....Cinco De Mayo is coming up!! Too bad I don't celebrate it though! ha ha! I'll be sure and eat at a yummy Mexican restaurant on that day though. Yum!!! Cravings baby!!! It's soooo good!

My other life.....yet again!

Back in August I posted a blog titled "my other life" with a picture of my Higley High School varsity volleyball team. Well, here is my continued coaching life style with my club team. These girls are so much fun and are so amazing! I coached them last year and decided to move up with them this year, so this is my second year coaching them. We are currently placed in the top 12 out of 125 teams. We have placed 1st in our last 2 tournaments and are excelling over 17 and 18 year old teams! (we are a 16's team). I knew that moving up with this team this year was going to be fun but I never expecting them to have this much chemistry and just destroy their opponents. It's a blast and extremely rewarding as a coach! Our season started back in December and will end with Regionals in June. We are going to California in a few weeks for a big tournament and we are so excited. We are staying an extra day to go to Disneyland and California Adventure so expect a ton of pictures coming later on in April!!!
Here are my girls! Our team name is...HAVOK! (I know it's spelled wrong but that's the way we wanted it!) ha ha!

Here they are below being silly! This is more their style anyway! I usually have them wearing black or red practice shirts but since it's Easter in a few days, I had them wear bright vibrant colors for practice today! Don't they look cute!

Meet the newest members of our family....

So Kylee and I went Walmart this morning with the intentions of only buying mascara for me and Dickie work shorts for David. Well, as we were in the make-up isle, Kylee looks over and see's the fish. She begs me to go look at them so I gave in of course and after 5 minutes of staring at them, I decided to buy a few! We bought 4 goldfish (2 white ones and 2 gold ones). I asked Kylee what she wanted to name them and these are the names she came up with (let's see who can guess where they come from........those who have kids should get these quick!)
1. Charlie
2. Lola
3. Max
4. Ruby
I just hope they live at least a week! I've never owned a fish before so this is my first time taking care of them. I asked a million questions to the kid who was getting me the fish at Walmart, believe me! I'm going to trust that he knows what he's talking about. So, without further ado.......here is the little fish family who have joined our home!

My 2 Favorite Girls

My sister Natalie is such a huge part of my life and it's no surprise that she is now a huge part of Kylee's life. Kylee just loves her Aunt Nanny! I have so many pictures of these two together so I thought I'd post them and give a little "shout-out-tribute" to my beautiful, talented sister who is also my best friend. Love you Natty!

Speed racer!!! (okay, or speed typer - racer sounds better)...

My friend Cara did this typing test and challenged all her friends to do it so I took it and now I'm challenging all of you to BEAT ME!! Ha ha!!! Bring it on ladies!!! Beat this score! I dare you!!!

87 words

Speedtest

Take me out to the ball game.....

On Saturday both David and I had the day off (no work and no volleyball) so we decided to plan a fun day together as a family. We decided to go to a spring training game. All the good games close to home were sold out so we decided to head out to the Peoria sports complex and invite my parents to join us. We bought cheap lawn seats (which are the best with kids) and we had a fun time. I didn't really pay any attention to the game but I got a good tan on my arms and "bottom half" of my legs, while David's skin just seemed to REPEL the sun (white boy)! Ha ha!
Here David and I are just hanging out!

Here's the family....and belive it or not, this was the best shot we got as a family that day. Ha ha!

This one with Kylee, Gramma and Papa turned out much better...

This is what $6 dollar seats will get ya! We are infamous for getting the nose bleed seats! Ha ha!

Kylee sitting in Gramma's chair. With the sun blocker above, she things it's her "house" and she loves to play in it.

I HATE croup!!!

Kylee woke up this morning wheezing and coughing like a seal. I know this sound all too much because she had it last year around this time and it scared me to death! She came to my bedside around 3am last night and she was hotter than hot! As I was trying to give her motrin, she was having the hardest time breathing. She was wheezing like crazy. It scared me so bad. I was so close to taking her to Urgent Care because she was either going to throw up or pass out because she couldn't breathe. Luckily she got passed that scary minute and drank her medicine. She, of course, came to bed with David and I after that so I could keep a close eye on her. She slept the rest of the night through thankfully. I kept checking her forehead and thankfully her fever broke. I had bought children's mucinex the night before because she was coughing pretty bad so I've been pumping her full of that every 4 hours, along with motrin to keep her on-going fever down. Then every 4 hours, I give her a breathing treatment. We got this last year for her when she had croup and luckily I still have a full bag of medicine left for this machine. So here she is with the saddest eyes ever, breathing in her medicine to help her croup go away. Poor baby! She does a good job of holding it herself though. She's really good about taking her medicine and doing her breathing treatments. I'm so glad too because otherwise I'd be stressing out even more! Did I mention that I HATE CROUP!!!!

PRETTY PRINCESS PARTY

One of Kylee's friends had a birthday party yesterday and it was a "princess" theme. So needless to say, Kylee was in HEAVEN and right where she belongs! It was so dang cute and I'm now going to use this theme for Kylee's 3rd birthday party. I love girls! They are so sweet and precious.
Below here is the hair styling station....

Here is the make-up station...

More make-up...

And yet, more make-up......

Here is the manicure/pedicure station...

We had a hard time containing these girls some times. They just wanted to run upstairs and see the "monsters". They kept saying that monsters were upstairs. They'd go up the stairs and then come down screaming because the monsters were up there. It was funny!

Here they are hiding from the "monsters" behind the couch.

And here below are the finished products of princesses in the making! They made princess crowns too but only one of them ended up wearing them in this picture. It was so much fun and Kylee can't wait to play "princess" again! Thanks for turning 3 Chloe and having such a fun party!

Question for all.....

Does anyone know if there is some kind of tracking device that tells you when people on your list update their blog? I'm sure there's something out there but I don't know where!! It would be a lot easier if I was notified somehow instead of just browsing through all my friends blogs once a week. Let me know if you know of anything!!!! Thanks!!

JUST THE TWO OF US...

David and I went on a date last night. We went to the Suns game! I bought him these tickets for Christmas (vs. the Celtics) because I knew it was going to be a good game, but now that we have Shaq, they are even more meaningful! The game was great even though we had crazy crappy seats! We were two rows from the top and yet both tickets were still $100 dollars each!!! Crazy I know..........but it was worth it! It was nice to get out, just the two of us, and have a date night doing what we love most - - - - SPORTS!
Here I am below with the fun dancing (and floating) gorilla. I have no idea how these things work!

Here is a view from where we were sitting. Not too bad, but yet, too far away to be worth $200!
Of course I had to snap a picture of this lovely couple!

Hair Stylist in the making....

Kylee loves to do her Daddy's hair. She makes sure she gets his hair nice and wet with the spray bottle first and then she combs is out with her little comb. This is a common thing and David has learned to be prepared (hence the towel)!!! He's so good to let her mess with him whenever she wants!!!

Tags, tags, tags!!!!

Since I have no recent fun pictures to post, I decided to take on two tags from friends that got me. I promise I'll take some fun and interesting pictures and post them soon. I guess I just don't have anything interesting to take pictures of!!! Anyway, here are the tags:

TAG #1

A. The rules of this game are posted at the beginning

B. Each player answers the questions about themselves

C. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people

10 YEARS AGO

Well, I was 16 (just like everyone elses tag I've read) and I was playing volleyball year round (school and club), a Sophmore at Centennial and living the High School life with my friends Tausha, Jodi, Kimberly, and Heidi. I also had my first job in the summer at Baby's R Us - I worked the baby registry. I loved that job!

5 THINGS ON MY LIST TO DO TODAY

Well, today is kind of a low key day because I don't have volleyball practice or mutual. I do need to clean my room and pick up all the snot rags around the house (I was on my death bed yesterday). Pay some bills (fun!). Get out of the house since I didn't even leave my bed yesterday. Go play guitar hero with Christina tonight (I'm looking forward to that!).

THINGS I WOULD DO IF I WAS SUDDENLY A BILLIONAIRE

Move into a new house in Gilbert or South Chandler and dress it up inside and out. Buy David and me new cars. Give a million dollars to each of my siblings and David's siblings. Help some families in my ward. Pay off the rest of our medical bills. Invest with my brother.

3 OF MY BAD HABITS

1. Biting my nails and cheeks

2. Eating late at night

3. Picking at my face (blemishes and such)

PLACES I HAVE LIVED

Glendale Arizona, Peoria Arizona, Prescott Arizona, Mesa Arizona, Chandler Arizona, Phoenix Arizona, and Queen Creek Arizona. All I have left is Tucson, Scottsdale, and Gilbert and I've lived in this entire state!!!

5 OF MY FAVORITE SNACKS

Cheese-Itz (sp?)

White Cheddar Popcorn

7 layer bean dip

Ice Cream

Barbeque Stack chips

JOBS I HAVE HAD

Babies R' Us

Champs

Secretary at The MONY Group

Receptionist at an Oral Surgeon's Office

Receptionist at Salon Estique

THINGS MOST PEOPLE DON'T KNOW ABOUT ME

Ummm......this one is hard because what you see is pretty much what you get. Well, let's see - - I don't like to go to the movie theatres. I hate watermelon. I was in labor with Kylee for 27 1/2 hours. I love to color!!

5 THINGS I MISS

Playing volleyball on a competitive team with a coach pushing me

Seeing my family everyday

My pre-baby body (I could get it back if I weren't so lazy!!!)

The baby stages with Kylee

My sleep!!!

TAG #2

This tag is all about my daily routine. What is my daily routine like........

7-8am: Wake up

8am: Check Ebay and other internet websites while Kylee eats breakfast and watches some morning cartoons.

8:30am: Start cleaning the house

9:00am: Get Kylee in the bath or get her dressed, then get myself ready for the day

10:00am: Run errands (grocery store, bank, target, walmart, etc.)

Noon: Kylee usually goes down for a nap around this time and I go back to the computer and check Ebay (I sell stuff on Ebay, that's why I check it all the time), or I sit back and watch Friends re-runs on DVD's.

2:00pm: Kylee wakes up from her nap and we go out for a bike ride to the mail box, and ride around the neighborhood.

3:00pm: Play time and some more TV time (I need to cut back on the TV time!!!

4:00pm: Start making dinner

5:00pm: David comes home and we eat dinner

The rest of the night depends on what day of the week it is. Here's what happens for me each night:

Monday - volleyball practice (I coach a club team)

Tuesday - mutual (I'm over the Beehives)

Wednesday - at home and hang out with the family

Thursday - volleyball practice

Friday - at home with family or go out somewhere

That's my life! Weekends would be a whole new tag so I'm not even gonna go there! I'm so thankful that I get to be a stay at home Mom with Kylee and my future kids. It's such a blessing! And I'm thankful for the talents that Heavenly Father has blessed me with so that I can coach and bring in some extra money for our family. I'm also thankful that coaching doesn't interfere too much with family time. I still get to be at home 90% of the time with Kylee and it only affects two nights of the week with David. It's great!

I now tag everyone that hasn't done this yet. Have fun!!!

Follow up...

To follow up from my last blog (you might want to read it to fully understand what I'm talking about), Kylee slept through the entire night last night! It was great! The thing that has helped is her walking to bed herself (instead of David or I carrying her) and we have her ask Heavenly Father to help her stay in her bed all night long during her nighly prayers. So for her to physically ask for help is making her realize that she can do it, I think!!!

So anyway, you'd think that since Kylee didn't get up once last night that I had un-interrupted sleep right???!!! Well, guess again!!!!! These stupid things decided to beep all night long!!!

At 1:30AM I started to hear a loud beep. I walked by Kylee's room and heard the smoke detector outside of Kylee's room beeping every 15 seconds. So I got a chair, took it down and stuffed it under the guest mattress down the hall from her room. As I was walking back to my bedroom, I heard another beep coming from the hallway. I walked over and listened and in the room next to Kylee's, that smoke detector decided to start beeping too. So I took that one and had it join it's little friend under the mattress too. WELLLLLLL, as I was walking back to my bedroom, I heard yet another stinkin' beep coming from the hallway. So I walked over and now the dumb smoke detector in Kylee's ROOM decided it wanted to be part of the action. So I had to take that one down, as quietly as possible, and stuff it under the mattress with the others too. It's literally as if this little "smoke detector family" had this planned out. It was synchronized very well! Luckily Kylee didn't wake up from all that! Heaveny Father must have had her under a deep sleeping spell!!! Ha ha! So needless to say, I am just not meant to have a peacful full night's rest for some reason! Hopefully it's because Heavenly Father is trying to prepare me for another baby soon and wants me to get used to waking up every 2 hours again!!! Ha ha!!!

Help Help Help!!!

I know there are a lot of mothers out there who have the experience and advice I need so please help me with something! We made the transition of moving Kylee to a bed from her crib in January and for the first 3 weeks, she did GREAT! She slept the entire night through without crying or getting up in the middle of the night. (I knew it was too good to be true). Now, all of a sudden for the past week and a half, she has been getting up consistently every two hours. She comes to my bedside and just wants me to hold her. She's not crying or anything, but just wants me to hold her. I REFUSE to put her in bed with me because I know by just doing that one time, it will cause long term damage! So I pick her up and just take her right back to her bed. I tell her that she needs to sleep in her own bed and as I'm taking her back to her bed, she says "okay" and is fine and falls right back asleep. But then 2 hours later, the same routine happens. This happens 3 times a night!

So last night I put up a baby gate at your door way so she couldn't get out of her room. Well, that was soooooo sad because she would get up at her usual time and just scream bloody murder at her door way and scream my name over and over. It was too sad for me to bare so I came and picked her up and laid her back in bed. She whimpered a bit but fell back asleep right away. I took the gate down because I felt like it was torture or something. But then 2 more times she came out to me only this time she was crying each time. So did I cause more damage by doing that? She never used to wake up crying to my bedside but now she does.

I'm all out of options! I don't know what to do but I do know that I WANT MY SLEEP BACK! What have you all done in this situation? Any success stories? Oh, and I even tried putting all of her babies and stuffed animals that she loves in bed with her thinking that would give her a sense of security, but that failed too! HELP ME!!!

This is what happens when I'm bored....

So it's 11:00 at night and I'm the only one left awake and I'm not tired. So I usually look on everyone's blogs to see what's new. Well, I found a fun list on Jami's blog and I'm going to try it! It's a list of 100 things that makes me happy. I'm up for the challenge because 100 things is a lot of things!!! So, here it goes...

1. Listening to the rain (from inside of course)

2. The smell of rain

3. The sound of Kylee laughing

4. Tight warm hugs from Kylee in the morning

5. Eating late at night

6. Cuddling in blankets when it's cold

7. Watching the Suns win

8. Beating David at card games

9. Getting emails from friends

10. Payday!

11. Giving service to others

12. The smell of a baby

13. Soft sweet kisses on the lips from David :)

14. Playing volleyball

15. Coaching volleyball

16. Watching Kylee dance

17. Watching David dance

18. Playing the piano

19. Listening to Heidi sing

20. Crawling into my comfortable bed after a long day

21. The feeling after a good jog in the morning

22. Losing weight

23. The sound of typing

24. Spending time with family

25. Road trips

26. Christmas

27. Eating a really good meal

28. Baking bread just to make my house smell so good

29. Walking on clean tile after I just mopped

30. Rearranging furniture

31. Moving into a new house and settling in

32. Organizing my calendar on my wall at the beginning of each month

33. Paying the last payment on a medical bill

34. Being pregnant

35. Girls camp (church camp)

36. Being a Young Women leader

37. Working with the youth (church and volleyball)

38. Taking a nap without interruption

39. Getting fun picture messages on my phone

40. Play fighting with David in bed late at night

41. Back scratches from David while laying in bed

42. When David plays with my hair (when it's straight)

43. The smell of the bathroom after a warm hot shower

44. Driving in a newly washed clean car

45. Getting a new phone

46. Restocking my fridge and pantry after grocery shopping (and having tons of meals to make for the week)

47. Trying out new recipes

48. Knowing all the laundry is done and having choices for outfits

49. The smell of Kylee's baby lotion

50. Hearing Kylee sing

51. Going to church

52. Witnessing a new convert baptism

53. Playing football with my family at the park

54. Walking with Kylee to the mail box each day as she rides her bike next to me

55. Opening the mail

56. Paying bills (weird I know)

57. Balancing my check book and doing finances

58. Looking at my fresh green lawn after David mows

59. Hanging out with friends

60. Playing rock band with Lee and Courtney

61. Being at the beach

62. Hearing that friends are pregnant or getting married

63. Going to the temple

64. Praying as a family at night

65. Capturing a perfect moment on camera and having it forever

66. Playing games (any kind of games: board, card, computer)

67. Playing cards with David's Mom

68. Drinking water

69. Eating ice cream

70. Looking back at old scrap book pages and remembering old times

71. Reading in my journal from years past and remembering old times

72. Thinking about the future

73. Having Kylee as my alarm clock standing by my bedside every morning saying, "Mom, hold you"!

74. Getting my hair shampoo-ed

75. Foot and hand rubs

76. Eating sweet pork salads at Costa Vida

77. Selling stuff on Craigslist and Ebay

78. Eating left overs at my Mom's

79. Going to my Mom's and eating her home cooked meals that remind me from my younger years

80. When David takes me out to eat

81. Stormy days

82. Driving on smooth roads with no pot holes (You have to live in Queen Creek to truly appreciate that!)

83. Down loading a new ring tone

84. Fresh brushed teeth

85. Watching Grey's Anatomy

86. Having tan skin in the summer

87. The anticipation of each new day

88. Having a good eye-lash day

89. Knowing that Heavenly Father is in control of my life and has a plan for me

90. Knowing that my testimony is unshakable no matter what

91. Having a husband who strengthens me daily

92. Watching the 10 seasons of Friends and then starting all over again and again!

93. Blogging!!!

94. Checking my email

95. Watching Kylee's eyes get BIG when she hears the garage open everyday at 5:15pm and running to the door saying, "Daddy's home, Daddy's home"!

96. Eternal families

97. Talks with my sister

98. Mondays off with David

99. When David comes home for lunch everyday

100. Sleeping in

This was fun and I challenge you all to try this! It really makes you realize all the things that you are grateful for in life. There's a lot!! Life is good!

One year ago....

So February of last year David and I found out that we couldn't get pregnant. I had a horrible delivery with Kylee and due to an emergency surgery after my emergency C-section, my body built up a lot of internal scar tissue. We didn't find this out until Kylee was 1 1/2 and we were hoping to get pregnant. Well, after lots of tests, we found out that the scar tissue was preventing us from getting pregnant and that I would have to go through multiple surgeries to remove it all. So I had two surgeries last year (the last one was 2 days before Thanksgiving) and after a lot of medication and waiting, I'm now free of scar tissue!!! We have finally been given the good news without the bad! We are officially on our way to hopefully giving Kylee a brother or sister! But we aren't going to get ahead of ourselves because our chances are still pretty low of getting pregnant on our own due to the fact that scar tissue wasn't our only problem of getting pregnant. There's a whole slew of other issues from my delivery with Kylee but I won't go into that!! But we are very optimistic and have faith that the Lord is going to bless us soon! The road is still long ahead of us but our goal of having another sweet little child from Heavenly Father is closer in sight and we are very excited! I just want to thank all of you for your prayers and fasts. It's been a long year so far but we have grown strong and are ready for whatever lies ahead.