New Family Pictures

I don't know if anyone still looks at my blog, but for those of you who still do, I posted new family pictures on our adoption blog. If you don't have that blog address, you can just click to the right on our link.

Kylee's First Dance Recital

Ever since January, Kylee has been taking dance lessons from a lady who teaches them out of her home. It was a perfect little starter dance class and I think I will put her in a few more of her classes. Kylee loved it and she was so cute and GREAT at her dance recital last night. Here are a few pictures from it....

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Good Ship Lolli Pop tap dance...

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When You Wish Upon A Star ballerina dance...

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My favorite dance was the Good Ship Lolli Pop, but my favorite outfit was the ballerina tu tu. She looked so cute! She did so good and remembered almost all of the dances! THE VIDEOS OF BOTH HER DANCES ARE POSTED AT THE VERY BOTTOM OF MY BLOG (this is for the Grandma's mainly)

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PS - Thanks to Jaime for taking these amazing pictures!!!!!

Annual Mother's Day Lunch

Every Friday before Mother's Day, all of us girls get together for lunch at Olive Garden. It's quickly becoming one of my most favorite traditions. I love any excuse to get together with my "girls"! We are missing Olivia because she was sick, but here is the rest of us after stuffing our faces full of yummy delicious food...

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Sisters!!!!!

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Sisters.........My Aunt Penny and Momma!

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Me and my baby! Hopefully she'll have sisters one day too!

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After lunch we decided to go visit our other "Mom" and life long friend. We love our Debbie!

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It was a wonderful day........Lunch with my girls, a visit to Deb, shopping with Tera and Mom, a baptism for 5 amazing little girls, and then watching the Suns DESTROY the Spurs and take a 3-0 lead in the series! LIFE IS GOOD!!!!! :)

Before and After

Over the past 2 months, I have lost a significant amount of weight. 28 pounds to be exact! My friend introduced me to a miracle diet called HCG. It taught me a new way to eat! It taught me how to "eat to live", not to "live to eat"! I have been "living to eat" my entire life! My life revolved around food. I'm surprised I didn't weigh 300 pounds! But going through this diet has opened my eyes to a new way of eating and living. I have been an athlete my entire life and have always been in shape. But after having a baby and not being an "active athlete" anymore with coaches pushing me to stay in shape, I have gradually gone downhill. Since I was a Sophmore in college, I have gained 35 pounds! I was at the point where I felt extremely uncomfortable wearing anything but sweat pants. I felt extremely bloated all the time and hated how I looked. I felt weird pains in my chest randomly and I knew that my cholesterol was off the charts! I was literally at my ALL TIME LOW! I was determined to do something about it FOR GOOD this time! I had tried diets and "re-started" a healthy eating style many many times, but nothing ever stuck. I always gave up and wanted to eat anything and everything again. Well, after gaining a shocking 10 pounds over the past 8 months while taking a lot of fertility meds and eating like crap, I finally got the strength to do something drastic and change my life. I did and now I feel great! Here are some before and after pictures...

EWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!

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After picture....

I know this isn't the most flattering picture of me but it is all I have at the moment. I will be posting family pictures soon because we just got them taken a couple days ago. Waiting to get them and can't wait to post them!

Evidence of change...

Well, I always promised myself that if we got a dog, I wouldn't let our house "seem" like we had one. I was foolish to think that I could do that! BUT, the main thing is that Charlie doesn't stink, he doesn't shed, and our house doesn't SMELL like we have a dog. That is VERY important to me! However, our house has definitely changed and "molded" itself into a doggy environment. Here is the evidence....

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He has his own little "den"...

There are pee stains on the back patio because he hasn't quite grasped the concept of the grass just yet...

There are holes in our backyard...

There are also holes in our house!!! He is obsessed with trying to go underneath and behind our couches so we had to block them off with pillows. Here is evidence that he is still trying to gnaw his way back there...

There are dog toys all over the house! Yes....he has made a volleyball into a toy! He is definitely MY dog! Haha!

He chews on EVERY and ANYTHING!!!!

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After all of this, you'd think that I might be upset and second guessing my decision to get a dog! But everytime I cuddle him, everytime he looks at me with his innocent eyes, everytime I see Kylee carrying him around like a baby and talking to him and taking care of him like her baby, and everytime I see this face....

I'm reassured that we made the right decision and that Charlie was meant to be a part of our family! WE LOVE OUR CHARLIE BOY!!!

We got a dog!!!

David and I both grew up with a family dog and loved them but for some reason since we've been married, we have both strongly agreed that we didn't want a dog! All the responsibilities of having one and cleaning up after it and having to potty train it.........finding a "dog sitter" while we go on vacations....etc! We just didn't want to deal with it and quite frankly, we got very annoyed when other dogs at people's houses would smell us, bark, stink, shed, and just bug us! It made our decision to not get a dog stand strong! But don't let what I just wrote fool you because we do like dogs! Hahaha!
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Something recently has changed in us. I'm not sure if it's the fact that Kylee has been begging us to get a puppy for about a year now, or if it's our adoption situation and the fact that we can't get pregnant right now........but something deep inside of both of us changed at the same time! We both started talking about getting a puppy and what kind of dog we would get if we did get one. Once we agreed on the kind of dog we would get and looked at pictures online, we started to get really excited about it. We found a local breeder here in Queen Creek and decided to go check them out. Well......we fell in love instantly with this CUTE face and knew that we just had to have him!

His name is Charlie and he is a 12 week old Yorkiepoo! He will only get to be about 5-7 pounds at full size. He is the cutest thing ever!!! The great things about Yorkiepoo's is that they don't shed, they don't stink, and they are hypoallergetic so if you are allergic to dogs, this little guy won't affect you at all......so come on over! I love the fact that we have a dog, but our house doesn't smell or feel like we have a dog! That was one of our goals when choosing a dog because David and I still get super annoyed with other people's dogs! Haha!

Kylee absolutely adores him! (Olivia.....if you are reading this, you'll notice that Kylee got Brigham's "Flat Stanley" and had to take a picture with Charlie and him! Haha)

This face is just so adorable and we couldn't resist taking him home. Kylee is so good with him. She takes him outside for potty breaks and feeds him his morning biscuit! She refills his water and makes sure he has enough food in his bowl. She plays with him and pretty much carries him around everywhere like her little baby. This was one of our main goals in getting a small puppy.......so Kylee can have someone to take care of. She is so happy and loves him so much! I'm not one to think of an animal as a "kid" or even a member of the family, but right now it's hard not to because he is bringing us so much joy and stealing our hearts over so fast! We love our little Charlie boy!

Trying something out!

I just downloaded a new picture program and it is allowing me to post stuff to my blog directly from the program. So I used Kylee as my "subject" and am testing it out!

Our new blog

PLEASE CHECK OUT OUR NEW BLOG! THE LINK IS TO THE RIGHT CALLED "OUR ADOPTION STORY". FOLLOW US IF YOU'D LIKE! THANK YOU!

Easter Weekend

I've been looking forward to Easter weekend for a while now because I knew I was going to be spending it all out in Peoria with my family. Friday I drove out to start out the weekend right by going to my nephew's baseball game. Zachary and Dallin are studs!!! This is Dallin pitching...

And this is Zachary catching!

Sweet Ella watching her brothers play! I wouldn't say she was "watching" as much as eating chips, running around, eating sunflower seeds, eating a sucker, running around some more, and eating cheezits!

And of course Kylee had fun too!

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Easter morning was also Conference morning! We always get together for our annual conference breakfast at my parent's house. Here are the kids blowing all the bubbles that Kylee got from the Easter Bunny!

Ella was going crazy with all those bubbles! She cracks me up!

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Later we went to Deron's house (Natalie's man) where Kylee had a fun time dying Easter eggs and having an Easter egg hunt. Here she is dying some eggs...

And here she is running all over Deron's backyard trying to find the most eggs!

She loves "Kiki".....Deron's daughter! Kylee and Kiki are becoming fast friends!

These three girls are hilarious together! This is Kylee (of course), Madison (Kiki's cousin), and Kiki. They dressed up and put on shows for everyone. They are so cute!

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David got to catch all of the AM session of conference with us at my parent's house. It was nice to have him home for the morning and part of the afternoon with the family. Tera and her family couldn't be with us today so we are going to be having our "official" Easter celebration in 2 weeks. We will have our Montez Easter traditions and celebrate together as an entire family. I love my family! And I love holidays!!!!

San Diego - Spring Break

With Kylee now in preschool, we have reason to celebrate Spring Break! We took advantage of the fact that Kylee didn't have school this week and that David has Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday off. So we headed up to El Centro and then to San Diego for a few days. It was beautiful, but on the warmer side. We got an early taste of summer.

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We drove up to El Centro and stayed with David's parents for the first day. Then we went up to San Diego and stayed there for 2 days and one night. We went to Anthony's Fish Grotto and had yummy seafood and steaks. This was the view from our table...

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And this was my attempt at taking a picture of us with my camera phone! Hahaha! My old blackberry used to have a flash so normally this would've come out just fine, but come to find out.....my new blackberry does NOT have a flash! LOL! After I took this picture and saw how it came out, I think I laughed for about 10 minutes straight. You had to be there! Don't we look beautiful!? Hahaha!

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This was Kylee on St. Patrick's Day. I forgot to pack her a green outfit so she carried this green egg around all day. She just thought it was pretty at first but then she carried it around because she said it was green. Funny girl! She had a BLAST with her Grandma and Grandpa.

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David and I went and saw Avatar in 3D while we were in San Diego. It was an AMAZING movie! I totally prejudged it and had zero desire to go see it, but with nothing else showing in the movies that night that looked interesting, we decided to go see what all the "hype" was about. And I must say that it is truly one of the best movies I've seen! You MUST experience it in 3D too. Awesome!

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Here I am with our COOL 3D glasses on!

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And David with his.....

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We had a great time!!! We wish it could've been longer but we are so lucky that we even had these 3 days to go have some fun. We had a little "bump" in the road on the beginning of our trip. We borrowed a DVD player from some friends of ours and let Kylee watch a movie the whole way over to California. This was Kylee's first experience watching tv in a moving car. Needless to say, she got a little car sick and threw up. Luckily she warned me ahead of time and we were able to catch most of it in a princess bucket that Kylee brought. She was sad that we had to throw it away though! I'm just glad that it was only car sickness and not a flu bug. I guess we won't be investing in a portable DVD player anytime soon!

Feeling GREAT!

I first need to comment on this picture......THIS IS NOT MY STOMACH! Even with me losing weight, my stomach will never look this smooth (considering the heeping amount of stretch marks all over my stomach!)

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I feel the need to blog about this because I have never been this successful with losing weight before. I'm officially the weight I was before I got pregnant with Kylee. I'm feeling great and extremely healthy! My face is more clear than it's ever been and I have more energy. It's amazing what eating right can do for your body all around. I'm sure you all are curious as to what I'm doing right??? For those of you who don't know yet, I'm on the HCG diet. I've been doing it for ONLY 3 weeks and I've lost 17 pounds and 3 inches off my waist. That's why I call it the "miracle diet"! I'm eating yummy foods, I'm never hungry because I eat 5-6 times a day, and I hardly ever crave the foods I am missing out on. I seriously feel so wonderful that I can't ever see myself going back to my old HORRIBLE eating habits.

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The wonderful thing about this diet is that it has kept my mind and energy busy with focusing on myself and not thinking about my infertility issues. Of course I still think about having another baby HOURLY, but it isn't consuming my life and making me depressed. I feel so wonderful about myself right now that I don't have the energy to feel sad (if that makes any sense at all). This is actually one of the reasons why I started this diet so quickly. If I wasn't going to get pregnant anytime soon, then I was going to take care of my body and feel good about myself again. It has worked! I still have 2 1/2 weeks left of this diet and I'm hoping for 10 more pounds to melt off of me! I'm confident that it will happen.

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So anyway, once I'm done with it all I'll be sure to post before (nasty) and after (yay) pictures of myself. It should be fun to see!

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Life is good!

Life is good

It's amazing what life brings us each day. I never realized how loved I really am. I have the most amazing family and friends. I also have the most amazing Father in Heaven who loves me more than I could ever imagine someone loving me.

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I have been on a long emotional roller coaster these past 3 1/2 years. Infertility is not fun and I don't wish it upon anyone........well, maybe drug addicts and child abusers! (that was my brief comic relief for this post)

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It's crazy how many opinions and suggestions I've had from my 3 different specialists. All I know is that only one opinion matters.....and that is my Father in Heaven's. He knows what is best for me. He knows what my body can and cannot handle. I feel such comfort and peace when I think about my future children and family. Hearing the worst news possible, and growing from that news, has been a huge turning point for me with this trial. I'm not afraid anymore. I'm so willing to adopt, use a surrogate, or attempt to get pregnant one more time! I feel so free of worries, stresses, and fear. I'm so excited for our future family and can't wait until we are complete.

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I feel confident, and say with confidence, that my everything (spiritual, physical and mental) has been placed in the hands of the Lord and I'm willing to go and do whatever he needs me to do. I know He is waiting to bless me with more sweet spirits and I'm doing all that I can here on this earth to be able to receive those blessing in my life.

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I'm so thankful for this gospel and the knowledge that it gives me. It's amazing how happy I can be with this knowledge....even despite my worse trials and fears coming true. I'm almost happier than I was before I had this trial. I'm more thankful than I was before this trial. This isn't to say that I don't have hard days and get sad.....because I do. But it is just a momentary lapse of sadness and then I'm back up again and still very much excited about our future.

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As I always say....."Life is good"!

Yee haw!!!

Today we had our super fun ward rodeo. Both Jacey and Kylee are exhausted and resting and David just left for work, so I have some "me" time and I feel like putting these pictures up already! We always have so much fun at our ward rodeo's but this year was even more fun because we got to enjoy it with Jacey girl! Kylee and Jacey LOVED the horsey rides....

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Kylee got to participate in the potatoe sack races. This girl is JUST like me with her competitive nature. She realized that she wasn't winning half way to the finish line, so she stopped right there and didn't want to finish. Instead she took the bag off her legs and walked back to the starting line and gave her bag to the next girl in line. She then found me pouting and said...."Mom, I didn't get to win"! Geez!!!! I'm in trouble for the next 14 years!

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The girls had so much fun on the playground!

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They are so cute!!!

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David also participated in a race. Here he is getting ready to start....

And he's off!!! Hahaha! Looks like he's diving into a pool of sand. He ended up losing this race. Awwww.....so sad!

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And this picture below is just for fun. This was Kylee all dressed up for her Valentine's party at preschool Thursday morning. She was so excited to hand out her "personally addressed" fun-dip valentines to all her class mates.