Another week down

This week flew by for me. Is it just me or are the weeks starting to feel like days? I guess that is a good thing... since I love spring and summer! This week we did a lot of the regular: school, work, my weekly dental appointment (yes I am being sarcastic, but that really feels like how often I've gone to the dentist this past year.) But that's a whole other story so lets just sum it up by saying that I now have to go to a root canal specialist since I am "special" lol. It's never a good thing when your dentist says that your problem is over his head.
 Anyway enough about that, my sister in law came to my house and made her first outing since having her baby, and of course we had to turn it into a photo session! Here are a few that I took. Not the greatest with indoor light and 4 little girls running around me, but he is so cute!

This weekend one of my friends had a birthday party for her little girl so I took my 3 youngest girls and my 2 nieces with me.  I left Kayla at home because she hurt her ankle at her basketball game this morning, so I felt kind of daring with just me and 5 girls under the age of six.  But they were excellent and we had a blast.

Brynlee was really happy to get those cheetos.  I never by my girls cheetos (mean mom I know, but I figure if I don't buy to much junk then they won't eat to much junk.)  So my kids get really excited when they see chips, lol.  She's looking at me like, "Can I really have this?"

Another tooth bites the dust.

Okay, I took this picture of Callie earlier this week after she had lost her second tooth. The funny thing is that she actually lost another front one tonight, that Papa Shelton pulled. When they showed up at our house her tooth was sideways like a hillbilly, it was so loose. So we talked her into letting him pull it before she swallowed it (which actually happened to me with one of my teeth by the way). So now that she has 3 missing front teeth,she is biting all her meat on the side of her mouth like a caveman. It has been fairly traumatic for each of Callie's teeth that she has lost.
Her concerns:
 1. That her teeth won't grow back
2. That she will lose all her teeth at once
3. That people will laugh at her because she can't talk. She said "Mom, I tried to say "Jesus" at church today and everybody laughed, if you pull my tooth out I won't be able to say it at all!

After pulling out some old pictures of Kayla and I with no front teeth, we were able to convince her that it is just part of life.

Callie also got to make a project for 100's day at school.  She was supposed to bring "100" of any item.  Well, we didn't want to be boring and bring 100 macaroni noodles or pieces of cereal, so we printed, cut and glued 100 pictures of Callie since she was born!  It was such a fun project, she loved looking at all the old pictures and she was able to help with all the cutting and gluing (her favorite).

This last picture is just to cute not to share.  I was on the computer and the girls came running in saying "Mom, look at us!"  They had somehow found matching pajamas all size 3t-4t from a couple years ago, that fit all of them. They were so proud of themselves that they had come up with these matching outfits on their own.  I love how Brynlee just goes along with whatever these other two crazies are always doing.

Wecome!

I had a new nephew that was born this week! Right now there are eight Shelton little girls at church (when Keith and Misti come home), so a little boy is a much needed addition :) And of course he stole my heart right away. I'm sure I'm going to be fighting Kayla for him, because she's a baby stealer just like me. Anyway, Brad and I were able to make a quick trip over to the hospital to visit them on his lunch break. Can't wait for them to be all home and settled in.

Just us again

Awww... the sweet life.  School has started again :)  Just kidding.  But I must admit I am not one of those moms that is so sad when break is over.  I love being with my girls, but I am also ready for them to have something to do during the day.  My girls are pretty busy and they all like to be going and doing things.  So there is only so much entertaining that this mama can come up with. We had a great Christmas break, played with lots of new toys, did some shopping, organizing and went to a few movies.
But now it is back to me and these two little cutie pies.

(The best part about having big sister go back to school is you can play with all her ponies while she is gone )

They were being really quiet today, so I went to check on them and this is what they were doing.  Thank heavens they were plastic scissors!  It scared me for a minute.  I love Brynlee's face, like she is not loving it, yet she just sits contently and lets Hailey doll her up anyways.

 Even I got a turn at the beauty salon.

And I thought Nanna might like to see how they have their tent set up that she got them.  They have played in that thing non stop!

A New Year

This is a picture of some of the snow we received over Christmas break.  I love snow and always have, but it's not quite the same when it snows here as when it used to snow back home.  For one thing, none of the towns are set up with the proper equipment to remove snow or plow any of the streets.  On top of that no one knows how to drive on the snow and so that can make for a little scary situation when your on the road.  Every time a storm is expected everyone goes into a panic and clears the grocery store shelves of milk, water, bread and eggs.  So you almost have to rush to the store whether you are worried or not, because you can bet there won't be any after the panic is over.  

Well we heard snow was coming Christmas day.  We had an awesome Christmas that morning, and I remember feeling abundantly blessed and almost guilty for how much my kids had received.  Funny how quickly my perspective changed when we ended up losing electricity that afternoon.  It was very cold, but I had hopes they would restore it soon.  But since it was to cold to stay at home, we headed to our in laws trailer to spend the evening.  We had a bit of time trying to get the kids to sleep, being in a new place, and Brynlee was crying because she had still been suffering with diarrhea and an earache. We finally got them to sleep and the power went out there too.  By now I was feeling pretty discouraged but just decided to cuddle up and stay as warm as I could. Brynlee was sleeping with us and because we had given her so many sippy cups to try to pacify her, she wet all over me while we were sleeping.  So now I was wet, cold, had no clothes to change into or lights to look for clothes.  Then I realized the water was not working to clean up Brynlee's mess.  I found a couple of Ross's old shirts in the dark and put them on Brynlee and I. 

 As soon as it was light we decided to try to head back home to see if we had power.  As we were leaving we realized that trees had fallen blocking us in.  So with the help of my brother in law and a chain saw, we finally were on the road.   We ended up staying at home that day and stayed warm enough during the daytime, I was thankful for the new Christmas toys that kept my girls entertained.  We still did not get a hotel in hopes that our electricity would soon be restored since it was now day 2 without power.  But when it was still not on that evening, I took the kids and headed over to the church to make dinner there. I let them watch a movie in the nursery while I cleaned the church.  (I figured I might as well be helpful while I was bored :)
 All 6 of us slept in our bedroom that night to try to stay warm.  
On day 3 of no electricity, I was supposed to fly out  to see my family in Salt Lake City, and I was feeling no good at all about leaving my family in that situation.  Much of our refrigerator food had been lost, and the house was mounting with laundry.  I just had a bad feeling but decided to go ahead and try to still go.  So I ended up  rushing around, Brad did some laundry at the laundry mat, I washed my hair in the church sink and got packed and ready. We ended up driving up there, and then they told us all flights were canceled. 

I told Brad, "I think this trip was just really never meant to be.  Maybe I'm not supposed to be there for some reason." Well it turns out that my family also was not able to fly out either.  They made it through checking in and everything.  And just before everyone was going to board the plane, they specifically called my families name and told them they had to mandatory bump them, that they had overbooked.  To me that was crazy, because that never happens if you have bought a ticket like everyone else.  But I just really think that for whatever reason my family was not supposed to be there that weekend.

Anyway, our electricity ended up being restored and everything turned out okay in the end.  I will have to go visit my family another time.  After feeling sorry for myself all week, I had a realization that maybe I was looking at things the wrong way.  Instead of looking at how wrong my Christmas break had gone and wondering why I was going through this, maybe I needed to realize in how many ways I saw the Lord's hand during the week.  When I look back on it, we were warm enough through it all, we were safe.  He protected us.  We had enough food to eat and were able to have all our needs met.  That is a huge blessing.  Even though I wasn't able to fly out, maybe the Lord was protecting us from something that could have happened on that trip.  I'll never know, but I do know that this new year I am going to try to everyday look for ways in which the Lord is blessing my life and focus on counting my blessings.