Love...

The other day Mike had a little delay on his way home from work. He told me he was going 10mph down the canyon behind a line of cars, then he would have to fill up his truck once he got to Sandy. Then I'm sure he called a little later to say traffic was bad on the freeway. Anyway, when he got home he came into the living room and we just kinda sat around and talked and did the usual....then Lilly wanted some milk or apple juice or "chocate" milk (her staples in life). As I walked into the kitchen I walked into this (but it was on the stove so I couldn't see it from the living room).....Turns out mike had had a poopy day at work. When that happens he usually comes home and is grouchy and sorta takes it out on me (as in complains and grouches about it all day)...so he decided instead of doing that he would bring me home some flowers so he would not even think about the crappy day. Gorgeous PINK roses with YELLOW lilies. My kitchen smells soooooo good! I love this guy so much!

(our first date: country dancing)

(first kiss date: scavenger hunt to find Mike)

(engagement photo)

(wedding day)

(wedding day: SLC temple)

(feeding of the cake)

(yes, we attacked each other)

(mini golf on our first cruise in 08)

(first time holding Lilly)

(snuggling in their minkies)

(trip to Cali for ROTC Drill team)

(Jan 2011 Labadee, Haiti)

Only 8 weeks!!!!

....left until I'm done working! 9 weeks until we move, as in drive away from Utah!!! We are beyond ready! So much lies ahead for us and we are so excited! For those of you who don't know (if anyone even reads this blog that I never update), Mike has a pilot slot in the US Air Force. He will be completing his first year of pilot training at Vance AFB in Enid, Oklahoma. So it's back to Oklahoma for me!
Of course there are things we will miss about Utah...like the mountains and lack of tornadoes. There are also things we will not miss...like our house, HORRIBLE schedules with work and school (we go like 56 hours weekly without "seeing" eachother)..and of course the lack of tornadoes.

We are supposed to be to Vance no later than May 5. We're very happy that we aren't having to wait long after graduation to move...actually, we won't even have our stuff here anymore when Mike graduates. His Commissioning is April 22, followed the next week by his graduation April 29 followed that evening by a little graduation/farewell BBQ and then we plan to be on the road to Colorado Springs the next morning (preferably really early so Lilly will sleep most of the way!) While there we are hoping to have a Dr. appt for me. Mike starts training in Pueblo, Colorado on June 2. He will be there until July 5. I am due June 5 so we're hoping to be able to be induced in Colorado Springs like the day before Mike has to be to Pueblo...I will just stay with my parents which is only 60 miles from where Mike will be, which means we can still see him regularly. Hopefully it will all work out. Still gotta figure some things out, call Tri-care (insurance) and figure out all the traveling back to Colorado after we've been in Oklahoma for a few weeks. (whew! busy couple of months coming)

(Miley Giselle @ 24w2d)

(Lilly and Addie, my friend Brooke's little girl. Lilly LOVES babies..hopefully that will extend to Miley or as Lilly says "My-yee")

Birthdays, Babies and Updates

I appologize now for the lack of pictures but I'm at work and will put pictures up later.



Yesterday was my birthday. I didn't get to spend it how I would have liked, but it was my birthday nonetheless. Honestly who really likes to work at 0530 on their birthday??? Not me. I have now reached the ripe old age of 24, which only means that my parents are practically ancient ;)...hehe!
Mike planned a trip home to Colorado for us to take, he bought two tickets and Lilly was to be a lap infant (still under 2). He planned the trip a couple of months in advance because there was a good deal on flights. As the trip got closer he was trying to get his old job as a bellman up at the Lodge @ Snowbird. He decided to quit Texas Roadhouse after he'd had enough and still hadn't heard from Snowbird. With about a week or two before the trip he finally made contact and the head bellman told him he wanted to have him on the team this season. Mike loved working up at Snowbird, not to mention the added bonus of a free season pass. There was supposed to be start of season meeting/get stuff ready on Wed, 12/1.....well that got changed to Sat 12/4. We were supposed to fly to Colorado on 12/3 to celebrate my birthday early and actually get to spend time together and see each other except for in passing. No Go! I wasn't very happy that he couldn't get out of it and I actually cried on the way to and at the airport. Luckily my brother Chase was flying there with us, but I was alone to fly back with Lilly....you'd think an hour would be easy....she's so active/busy...luckily she did pretty well and I only almost wanted to pull my hair out. While we were there we of course celebrated my birthday....Austin, my youngest bro who is 16, made me the the BEST cake you've ever had that I found on a random blog here. He is quite the chef!

One of our family traditions is to take a bite out of the cake after you blow out the candles....Lilly was sooooo shocked when I did it. The look on her face was priceless. I'll have to get the picture my dad took.



Lilly and I just kinda relaxed and hung out with my family in Colorado. No huge plans, just relaxing. We did get to see the Creche exhibit that my mom headed up, I think she said there were over 400 nativities in the exhibit, including a live Nativity that had a donkey, alpaca and a sheep. It was gorgeous! It's amazing how many different Nativities there are, some more on the light side and some stunningly beautiful.

In Lilly news.....Lilly has been talking in complete sentences since the summer. She's a crack up. The other day she touched Mike's face and said "I luzh (love) you....i promise". She's so funny! She has her own words for a few things which may be permanent name changes at our house for example : Heaband = Bandaid Otadon = Octopus (i think because Mickey does shapes and she thinks octagon???)...She's so funny. Her hair is finally growing and I was able to do a full-on ponytail the other day, thanks to lots of gel and hair spray for the little pieces. She's been potty trained since around Thanksgiving, except for the last two weeks she is scared to death to poop in the potty....So yesterday she pooped in her panties 5 times, including once at dinner at a fancy steakhouse (we won't be going back...long story...nothing to do with lilly though). I'm at a loss for what to do....she really wants the rewards from going in the potty but she's freaked out...she actually had a come apart when I put her back on the potty after she tried to climb into my lap and I noticed she was starting to poop (sorry about all the potty language). I know she's still young, not even two yet, but we're going nuts. She doesn't have pee-pee accidents anymore, maybe a few drops in her panties as she gets distracted on her way to the potty or somehow shooting over the toilet or between the basin and the seat which gets her clothes...but she's doing great! I love when she looks directly at a stranger in the store and tells them she needs to go potty or needs to go poop (everything she says or wants right now she uses "i need") which means she already pooped her pants....LOVELY! haha....oh the things we go through with our kids.

In other kid news.....In case you haven't heard .......I'M PREGNANT again. I am 15w5d. Yesterday I had a Dr. appt and because it was my birthday I asked him for a little present.....I asked if he'd do an ultrasound to see if he could tell what we were having. He was able to finally get a pretty good shot that was clearly not showing, as my mom put it, a "stem on the apple".....so for now we are having a GIRL ! My 20 week ultrasound is on Jan 18, the day after we get back from our upcoming HUGE, much anticipated , over the top excited for trip. Then we can confirm with the bigger ultrasound maching....We're excited to have another little princess despite hoping for a boy this time around to atleast guarantee having one of each. Mike is still convinced there will be a Pee-Pee in January....We'll see I guess....If it is in fact another girl, it's too bad the clothes we have for the same ages will be opposite seasons from what we'll need...oh well.

Halloweenie - late as usual

I finally have 2 seconds to sit down and blog.

Halloween has come and gone and now it's o

nto the next holiday. My cousin Amand

a is here from Germany where her husband is stationed. Lilly and her son Bentley are only 3 weeks apart in age so we decided to do Halloween with them. Friday night we took all the kids to my Aunt Raylene's Ward party. Lilly had a blast getting to do the cake walk and the little "haunted" walk through on the stage. It was geared completely to little kids which meant that lilly thought it

was fun to take off running, leaving daddy trailing behind as he tried to climb over things. All of the pictures below are from Raylene's party. Mike took the camera with him t

o work on Saturday which meant I could

n't take pictures of our own kid, but now we have pictures of people we don't really care about. Anyway....Lilly was a little kitty...cutest little kitty ever!

It took hitting a few cars but Lilly is officially a pro at trunk-or-treating....she says "trit o treat" and thankyou to each car and she is not shy about just grabbing the candy if you are taking to long to give it to her. She was pretty funny to take around. She kept getting confused about where to go after each car though.

Cake Walk

Fishing a the fish pond.

Posing with mommy and daddy

Spiderman (Rykkar), Mickey (Bentley), Uncle Andrew, Lilly

CHEESE!

And finally.....this is my awesome dancer that we have raised.

The Ball is rollin! ! !

The door took Mike and Brent two days to finish. It looks awesome! We even have two little steps. Lilly has mastered opening and even remember to close the screen door when she goes outside. She lets Rocky in all the time, only to yell at him to go back out. Silly girl! We finally even went and bought some vertical blinds today to go in the kitchen! Hooray! Having the door in makes the house feel so much bigger, especially the kitchen...and it makes the kitchen and living room so much lighter and brighter, especially since the kitchen was recently changed from dark red to bright yellow paint....(more pics will come of the inside)

Mike and Uncle Joe finally were able to get together and this is their progress on the trusses. The last pic shows the white that they were before and is the side that Mike is working on at this very second before he goes to work. The wood shingles make it feel so much cuter and cottage-y. We're pretty pleased with how all of this is turning out.

Hopefully we'll be able to get all the outside painted in the next couple of weeks, once all the trusses are finished. We're excited for the change and are hoping this will give some nice curb appeal as we get ready to sell the house next year.

I attempted to pull the ridiculous weeds in the weed, i mean flower, garden in front of the house. I made a little dent (you'd understand if you saw it). Today i'm tackling the kitchen and living room. Lilly and I put up a few Halloween decorations and I think that's about as far as I'll go with that part. We don't have much room for decorations, so we didn't put very many up.

`

FINALLY SOME RENOVATIONS PROGRESS!

Alright,

I know I know we have not posted in forever.

I am so happy to post this time. Today my uncle brent came over and we started overhauling the kitchen wall to make room for access to the backyard YEAH! ! ! So here is a picture of what it looked like before and here are some progress pics of what we did in just ONE day. I was so so happy things went smooth.

Getting to take a sledgehammer to our house that has been such a stress was AWESOME. And things look great so far. I'll add pics when we get the cosmetic work done and the step.

Keen For Keen's

As you can see, we like Keens. I got a pretty good discount when I worked at Cabela's so we got some for us and Lilly. Plus we have chosen some unisex colors so that we can pass them down through all the kiddies.

Reasons Keens are Awesome:

1. They are incredibly comfortable (long days on vacation and no sore feet. . . yeah)

2. They are Hybrid, Great for hiking and any water activity.

3. You can wash them in the washer.

4. Keen focuses on the environment, using recycled packing materials and reusing the leftover pieces of cork and rubber. Go KEEN

They are on the pricey side but well worth it, they last and last.