Long Lost Tag!

I got tagged quite a while ago, started filling it out and got side-tracked, (sorry, Niki; not such a fun game with people who don't play right...) so I thought I'd finish it and then try to catch up from there. I don't know where to begin, but I've missed the blogging world!

~Who do you love? There are too many to name them all....I really hope you know who you are....if not, I'll make a note of that and try to do better with letting you know. I will say that I'm totally in love with Cody and my kids and the list goes on from there....

~How long have you been married? 12 unforgettable years....I mean, 13. (j.k.)

~Who said I love you first? I had to ask Cody and neither one of us are sure on that. He thinks it was me because really, why wouldn't I? :)

~How long did you date? We dated almost 2 years before we got married. Not that we needed that long to make sure it was right...I knew way before that.

~Where did he propose? We went on a fancy date (just saying that because it wasn't Wendy's or Taco Time where we usually went) to The Roof in Salt Lake and then we walked across the street to the Salt Lake Temple and we walked around for quite a while until he got up the nerve to do it. I had no idea so when he went down on his knee, I was so excited. Of course I said "Yes" and threw my arms around him and a few people were on the other side of the fountain all clapped and whistled. It was a really wonderful night. He gave me a gold box with a dozen long stemmed roses in it....I'd never had a box of roses before. Very special night and it hasn't changed a bit. He still finds ways to surprise me and make me feel like I'm the only girl in the room. I love that about him (sorry, getting a little mushy)

~Who is taller? He is, by a hair. :)

~Who is smarter? I have to say that we both have our strengths. After 4 kids, I'm surprised I can say I'm actually in the running, but I really think we both have our thing. It comes in handy when I'm not sure about a math problem with the kids' homework.

~Who does the laundry? We both do....although, Cody has actually been doing it for the last few weeks. I have to get back in the game. He's been a lifesaver.

~Who pays the bills? I do. I'm a little bit of a freak with the checkbook/register. Like to do things a certain way.

~Who mows the lawn? We both do (or noone because anyone who has come over and looked at our backyard lately knows that true. We almost lost Avery out there yesterday :)). I think it's usually who is embarrassed first about our ghetto yard right now. It usually depends who drives up first. I don't mind doing it but because of our little lawn mower incident a few posts back, our cord is wound a little too tight and I about threw my shoulder out trying to start it. Hence, another reason why we might have a ghetto yard right now. I used to be very disciplined about it; I've got to get back in the groove and get out and weed, especially before it gets too hot because then it's never going to happen.

~Who cooks dinner? We both do. One of us will start and the other will pitch in and help finish. It works out well.

~Who drives? He usually does.

~I now tag? I think I'm a little behind on this one so I'm not sure who has done it and who hasn't. I'll just try Alysa and Kandis.

Happy Birthday, Grandma!

These pictures were actually from Camp 2006. This was kind of our version of "how many clowns can you get in a Volkswagen?" I think we could've added a few more on here. This is how I'll forever remember my Grandma and Grandpa....this is where they loved to be. They had to give up their horses this last year because they were getting to be too much and it makes me cry to think of it because it must have been a very sad day for them. They've never been without horses so this is a memory I want to keep!
My Grandma and Grandpa with my brother
Grandma and my dad - isn't she cute?

Today is my Grandma Smart's 90th birthday! Our family had a fun open house for her on Saturday back in Utah and of course, we missed it! I've been thinking about her all day and I'm just amazed at her life and what she's been able to accomplish and what she's been able to witness in her life. They had 8 children and they have 36 grandchildren and even more great-grandchildren and getting together is a lot of fun but it went from being in their cute, little house in Sandy to the cultural hall of the church. I have such wonderful memories growing up of fun times with Grandma and Grandpa. We've been going camping with them since before most of us cousins were born (I think over 40 years) and those are the best memories. That's where we really got to know our cousins, play with them, ride horses and wreck motorcycles and 3-wheelers and stuff. :) Now, that we're all grown, our kids play together and get to know each other and it's the cutest thing you've ever seen. I never missed a year until this last year and it just about killed me. Our kids were so disappointed and I vowed to make an extra effort this year to make it up there for a few days. I don't want to get to a point that I'm going to have to reintroduce our kids to their cousins. We have a big family, but we've always been pretty close and I love getting together with them and I hope my kids will grow up the same way. My Grandma has always gotten a big kick out of seeing all of us together and I know that's what she'll be expecting and wanting and I'm not about to disappoint her. We love you Grandma! Happy 90th Birthday!

She saw all the girls rolling their softball bags around and joined them. It was so cute...



They made little tic-tac-toe boards out of sticks and played with rocks or whatever they could find. I love that they can always find something to do....we were waiting for Taylor and Ashley's game to start.

This is Avery's little Fisher Price doll stroller that she got for her birthday and you can see that she's a little large for it, but Tyler loved pushing her around in it and she got a big kick out of it. He was so cute with her and would take her outside and play with her all by himself. She got a lot of attention so it was a lot of fun for her.

They had so much fun on the tramp; I'm so glad there were no major injuries....these are moments that mom's aren't supposed to watch what their kids are doing because it causes too much stress. I think that's how my mom survived our tramp so I'm sticking with that. Only one person slid off and he was okay after we picked the grass out of his nose. :)

This must totally be a "boy thing" because it seems like we have a picture in an earlier blog just like this with Carson holding the hose. I think they come into the world thinking of ways to torture their sisters. It was really fun to watch. :)

I loved this..they're such cute cousins!
..
This looks so funny because the sky is blue, the sun is out and we're standing in a blanket, looking like it's freezing cold. Moni and I were both freezing at the game, which the wind was really chilly and we were in shorts, but I know that 70 degrees is a lot better than 30 or 40. Sorry everyone in Utah. My skin must be getting a little thin; how sad!

My cousin, Moni and her family came down last weekend and stayed with us. Their daughters had a softball tournament in Cathedral City so we got to see them play a little bit and then we got to play with all of them the rest of the time. They have the cutest kids and they all got along so well and included Carson and even Avery a lot of the time in what they were doing. We got to catch up a little bit with Moni and Eric and we played games and of course, guitar hero (you're all going to start thinking we don't have much of a life because we play Guitar Hero with everyone that comes over, but it's really a good time) :) I even made rolls from scratch on Sunday afternoon and I'm putting that in here because I've never done it start to finish by myself. Jeniel will be proud because I didn't have to call her to bail me out! Woo-hoo! Usually I would ask her how to make something and she would come over to help me and end up making it while I sat and watched and got us drinks and things to snack on. Good times, good times! I miss that. :) We were sad to see the Godfrey's go, but we're going to be planning a trip to Phoenix really soon so we don't wait a whole year to see each other. I got a lot of cute pictures at the ball park so I thought I'd post a few.

What a week.....

Avery's little bump on her noggin...



This is the lipstick incident. Isn't this awful? She was pretty proud of herself though.

Last week was absolutely crazy! I really felt like we didn't slow down at all but I guess that's good in a way too. I started a Keller Williams class that will go until the end of April and it's from 8:30 - 10:30 every day. We juggled things all week and already last Saturday, I was dreading how we were going to make it work again this week. It turned out okay and I'm just so thankful to have such an understanding, wonderful husband who worked around my schedule in order to make it work for all of us. I had my class and he stayed with the kids (and did carpool) and then I'd race home and we'd swap so he could go to work and actually make money. It just worked out perfectly last week with his schedule and he's really wonderful because he didn't complain at all, although I know it must have been a little frustrating for him, especially when he found Avery eating one of my lipsticks the other day. He had a terrible time trying to get it all off of her teeth. I have assignments to complete every day so then I would get home and start trying to do things for the next day's class and I've been previewing homes and all of that so needless to say, we did a lot of tag-team parenting. It's been really great though and it's amazing how much I continue to learn every day and I'm hoping to get up and going so I can help out a little bit too. So far, so good.

Along with that, Shari had taken all of my kids to play at her house, which is no small thing, while I previewed a few homes in our development. I was so grateful for that; Thanks, Shari! I don't know what I would do without all of my wonderful friends. But, we were just getting home and Avery fell off of the car seat and split her head open a little. Bailey kind of screamed and I turned around to look and could only see red! I'm sure everyone knows about head wounds and how much they bleed, but it really freaked me out for a minute because I couldn't get the bleeding to stop long enough to look at the cut and see how big it was or how deep it was. She was such a little angel because I just grabbed her, stuck a rag on her head and laid her on the floor and put pressure on it until it stopped. It probably freaked her out a little too because she just kept looking at her hands and everything was just red. Not a good thing when your nerves are already a little frayed. I finally got it to stop and it wasn't too big so we made a trip to Walgreen's, got some glue and butterfly band-aids and played doctor. She was such a little trooper and I think we did a pretty good job. She made it and we discovered that Zout and Clorox for colors does a pretty good job of taking blood out of clothing and sheets.

Things like that always put things into perspective for me because I was frustrated with Carson and I was thinking about everything that I still had to do before I went to bed and then that happened and everything else just went away. My family is definitely my priority and I always hope that they know that and I want them to know that I know it! Nothing else is that important that they should ever come in 2nd. I just try to keep letting them know that it's going to be crazy for a while but "this too shall pass." :) They have to put up with a lot but they're really good sports! I sure love 'em! It'll be nice to get back to a little bit of "normal", whatever that is, sometime soon though. We're just kind of going day-to-day and taking it as it comes. We haven't made it to the grocery store for some of the little things because it just hasn't worked out and this morning I ended up using Cody's Old Spice deodorant because I finally ran out of mine. Pathetic, huh? I think Old Spice must be the reason I wanted to high-five every0ne and talk about the Final Four. :) I'm thinking a trip to the grocery store can be put off no longer. Normal....looking forward to trying it out! :)

Spring Break

I haven't posted in quite a while and I've really, really wanted to....but it just hasn't happened. I think we got a little lazy during Spring break and then life took over and I'm just happy to be sitting here, writing something right now. :) I think I'll catch up starting with Spring Break because we had a really fun week, thanks to the Broadhead's. We got to sleep in a little, I ran 3 times that week, which was brutal because I'm a slacker, Cody had a few jobs, which is great!, and we had such a fun time with friends, which made it so much more fun. The kids had a great time and it was wonderful to get out and play a little. Thanks Denice and family! Doesn't Avery look like she's well taken care of? She looks like a little princess up on that board....and that's the way they treated her. The cute thing is that Jared is just like this with her in primary too; I think he has a friend for life! We had to really watch her around the pool because she LOVES the water and would just sit down and back in. It was so fun to watch all the kids and Carson was in heaven....boys to play with! There were definitely no Polly Pockets there and he loved "fighting" with them and being a little "rough" (I call it crazy, but I'll go with "rough" for now). Thanks you guys and he still asks when we're going back to play with Jared, Nick & Cameron.

We had a great week....we lounged around a little, worked a little and laughed and played a lot! It was a nice break and going back to school that next Monday was really hard. Even though I know it's going to be sooo hot, I'm still looking forward to summer just to be able to hang out with the kids and do....whatever! I really don't mind just flying by the seat of our pants! The kids are at really fun ages. It's fun to hang out with them and they always make me laugh. What more could I ask for? I'll have to catch up more tomorrow....