Mother's Day this year was awesome! I got the coolest gift and it was so me. You can see me in the above picture with my rad bike Joe got me. It is pretty much the essence of me. I love it. You can't see in the picture, but it has this awesome bell that is pink and purple and orange. I love everything about this bike. I got a bike for my birthday a couple years ago, but it didn't have built in gears and so Joe always smoked me when we went for a ride. I got him a beach cruiser a couple years back, but his has gears and so he can sure change his speed much better than I. So for Mother's Day Joe decided to surprise me with this beauty! I was so excited you have no idea.

Joe surprised me Saturday morning before Mother's day, with breakfast from Kneaders. He let me sleep in and when I woke up, Dallin was in my room saying, "mommy, breakfast". I was so hungry, I got up and found my sweetie had bought me my favorite breakfast!

Then Joe let me play tennis for a couple hours with my brother Caleb. It felt so good to get out and just smash that ball. Now that I can play, it is so much fun.

Joe picked me up from the tennis courts and drove me home. When we arrived, he got out of the car with such speed I was like whoa, where is the fire!? He quickly got Dallin out of the car and in the house. I was taking my time, because I just played 2 hours of tennis. As I went up the steps, I saw the door was open, and the two of them were peeking around the corner of the door. As I pushed it open wider, they both yelled surprise. Sitting in the middle of the living room was my new bike! Oh it is such a beauty! I love it!

I had fun riding it around the block and back and trying the new bell. I am so excited for this summer. We are going on lots of bike rides. Later on that night, Joe took me to see Thor! It was awesome. I love going to movies with my sweetheart. I love to cuddle him and pretend we are dating again. So fun!

We got Bajio to go and picked up our little man from the sitters.
I got to put him to bed and sing to him. I love this about the night time. I get to be with my son and have such fun moments together as we giggle and laugh about songs and stories.

Sunday, Joe made me rolli-ups for breakfast and even taught my lesson for me in Gospel Doctrine. I love teaching, but love having a break too.

Then we headed to my mom's. My sisters and I cooked her a nice dinner, and had yummy cheescake afterward. I had a long chat with my sister, played with my son and laughed with my hubby. It was a great way to end a great weekend celebrating my opportunity and blessing to be a mother. I felt so loved and I am so thankful for all of it:)

Cinco de Mayo

Yesterday was Cinco De Mayo! I thought it would be fun to have some mexican food and a pinata for the kiddos. It turned out to be way fun. I made fajitas with homemade guacamole, torillas and all the trimmings. We had chips and salsa from Los Hermanos, the best in the west I say. It was all delicious. We had my parents, and Caleb and Stephanie over for dinner, it was great to have them all over. I was babysittying Calvin and Camden last night, so I also thought it would be a blast to have a pinata. I found one at a Mexican market here in town. It was a finding Nemo pinata. Dallin screamed with joy when he saw it. Nemo! Nemo! He kept saying. It was pretty cute.

Gwen and Gerritt and their kids, Xander, Axel and Lacy came over for the pinata busting. Each child took a turn taking a swing. The younger ones, didn't quite get it at first, and Dallin ended up just jabbing it. LOL. But in the end Xander gave it a good bashing and the candy went a flyin!

Lacy bug taking a swing

Calvin giving it a go, he didn't like it much....grandpa gave him a good push along.

Axel swinging away.

Dallin giving a a good swing also, but in the end just started stabbing it.

Xander giving it a good bashing, you can see in the picture below, he gets some good air!

Children getting their spoils.

Dallin enjoying his sucker, it was his favorite part.

Our little family.

It was a fun night and we enjoyed having our family over, what a treat! Lucky me I have leftover for lunch today! Hooray!

The Many Faces of Dallin

Dallin is a pretty expressive little guy. He inherited that from me. I can't count the number of pictures I have of myself in the background at some event or some party making some hideous face, and lucky me the camera caught my contorted face just in the nic of time. I am a woman of many faces, what can I say, I love to be expressive. I know I am extremely expressive with my face when I talk, Joe is always teasing me that I must have a few extra muscles in my face. I won't post any of those pictures, but I do want to post some of my beautiful progeny.

Dallin has been watching this cute cartoon lately called, "Kipper". He just loves it. He can sit and watch it forever if I let him. He has so many emotions while he watches it, and you can see it all on his little face. I love it. It goes from confusion, to excited, to happy, to sad, to confused again. If Dallin was to play poker, he would loose every time. You can tell what he is feeling just from his face and so here are the many faces of Dallin.....

I just love him.

Bedtime

Dallin, I just put you to bed. You make me smile so much, my face feels like it will crack.
You love to tell me stories at night and tonight was a spectacular one and I just had to write it out so I wouldn't forget.
You told me a story of a race car that drove down a road and crashed. It looked up in the sky and saw stars dancing over its head. They were red stars and they raced each other all over the sky.
Then the spiders came and and the popcorn. I think you said the spiders ate the popcorn and then were happy. Then the red race car sped off fast, zoom zoom.

What an imagination you have. I just love you to pieces.

I love these moments with you, where we sing songs together and laugh. I love watching as you calm down and get sleepy. I love your little personality as you listen to my stories, each face you make and each noise you squeak makes it all worth it. I love you Dallin and I am so grateful to be your mama.

My Little One

Today I have been thinking alot about you. I knew this day was coming, and I honestly didn't know it would be so hard. Today you would have been born and this thought has not left me since I awoke this morning. I have felt alot of comfort since loosing you, but somehow today, that comfort does little to keep me from feeling sad. As I write this I have your little face in my mind, or what I think you would have looked like. I have thought about you alot today. I think about your ultrasound, when I saw your little arms and legs growing, and I saw your little heart not beating.

Sometimes I feel so lonely for you. I long to feel another little spirit growing inside of me and I know that soon that day will come. I have shed many tears for you today my little one. I did love you, and I think you loved me too. I know you were only with me for 12 weeks, but I felt that little spirit of yours and I miss it dearly. I think I grieve for what could have been, the little hands I could have kissed, and the little cheeks I could have stroked. I grieve the lost moments of awe at your learning and your growth. I grieve the lost memories that will never be here on this earth. I grieve the things that can not be here, at least for now.
Your big brother slept in late today, he never sleeps late. I wonder if he knew that I would struggle on this morning and so he gave me time to cope. I walked into his room this morning and snuggled him while he slept. I thought of how you would have brought him such joy also. He would have loved you so much. WE all would have loved you so much.
I just wanted to write you to let you know I didn't forget you. I will never forget you my little one. I will always remember this day as the day you would have come to me. As the day our lives would have doubled in love and joy. I know your spirit is waiting, maybe waiting for the day we can see each other someday, face to face. I would love that. Then I can finally kiss you and tell you how much I love you as I have wanted to do since the day I lost you.
Just so you know, your mommy loves you and has you always in her heart.

Easter 2011

Happy Easter. What a great day it was. We started it out on Saturday with an Easter egg hunt and some fun running around. Dallin found all his eggs with some help from his Daddy and his cousin Calvin.

Dallin had fun with his Daddy. I love the above picture of them playing outside.


Easter Morning

Dallin was quite a ham getting his candy and pictures taken. I love this little boy.

He finally understands the candy concept and was pretty excited about it as you can tell from the two pictures.

We had a wonderful time on Easter. We had a great experience the day before. Our neighbor of the last 3 years who isn't a member came over and asked Joe if he could get the missionaries to come visit him. Joe was ecstatic. We have prayed for these neighbors about this very thing. We knew they weren't LDS and so it was awesome to finally see our prayers being answered. He got a discussion later that day and came to church with us on Easter Sunday. He has already committed to baptism. What is a more glorious way to spend Easter? I think Joe really enjoyed going to the discussions on Saturday and Sunday. He said the Spirit was strong and he loved the experience. It was just a reminder to me on this Sunday, what is really important and that is our Savior and his gospel. I am so thankful for the knowledge that I have and I am so grateful that others get to learn of it and have their lives changed because of it.

Happy Easter!

Spring has Sprung....maybe?

I sure hope Spring is here to stay.
I mowed the lawn today, cleared off our back porch and broke out the hammock.
Oh I sure do hope that it is here to stay. oh yes I doobaly do.

The sun was fantastic this morning. I got to just work outside and take in it's rays. It has been a long time since we did that eh Dallin?

Dallin loves to be outside and it is so much more enjoyable when it is sunny. Today while I mowed the lawn he took turns running from it, stopping when it got far enough away that it didn't scare him, and then running as fast as he could in the opposite direction with a look of terror on his face, when he got close to it, or if I got close to him. We played this little game of cat and mouse the entire time I mowed. I laughed pretty hard.

Dallin ate dirt.

Dallin got muddy.

Dallin put rocks in in pockets.

Dallin smashed grass into his hair.

Dallin pretended the broom was a sword and jabbed his mommy.

Dallin found a potato bug and tried to eat it.

Dallin played cars and planes and crashed them into the tree stump.

Fun stuff.

I love mornings like this. I definitely think I am a earthy person. I love to mow the lawn, work in the garden, pull weeds, prune trees. I just love working with the earth and the dirt. I love getting dirt under my fingers nails. Weird? Maybe, but it gives me so much joy.

Dallin gives me joy too. So does Joe. Joe was working while I was outside and I missed him dearly. I wish his back was good enough to work the earth with me. Maybe sometime soon he will be fixed and we can be earth movers together.

(dallin last summer walking throught the grass)