What a summer!!!

Holy cow have I got some serious updating to do!  Our summer has been AMAZING in every way:  a trip to visit our fam, Ma's wedding, new family, milestones in school, growing little beauties, PURE HAPPINESS.  My life is perfect, wonderful, simple, and crazy.  I really am so blessed.  Here are the pic's and the story of our summer:

In the airport on our way to ZONA!

 Precious

 So excited to see Gram

 Love my G&G

 5 1/2 years later and it still fits :)  This was the night before my mom took it in to be altered because she wore it for her wedding.

 We discovered Eric makes a horrible looking girl.  The sad thing is that 3 different people thought that he was my sister Tiffany at first glance, HAHA!

 Soon to be cousin's meeting for the first time.  This is my friend Whitney and Troy's little girl, Evie.  She makes the funniest faces, and she is my niece now.  It's so fun saying I have a niece.  Whit's dad married my mom.  We set them up, and I will never let them forget it.

 Best friends turned brother's at last.

 The makeup queen sharing her wisdom with Hallie.

We got hooked on Kinect Sports.

 My beautiful mother-in-law Wendy.  This is how I think of her... the best chef ever.  I get lots of my cooking tips from her.

The night before we were supposed to leave to come home to Georgia, my mom and dad's sealing cancellation came through, and my mom and Marty decided to get get married three weeks later.  The girls and I wanted to stay for the excitement.  So, change of plans!  We said good bye to Eric and made a road trip to Utah with my family the next morning.  Hallie had a blast playing with her cousins there!

 We had a contest to see who could make the craziest faces:

 I win for most horrible by far.  

Never knew I could be so attractive.

We went to the canyon by my G&G's house.  Breathtaking...

 Practicing for her admission to Hogwarts.

 Gram lookin fly.

 Gramp's is too cool for school.

 Baby is too cute for words.

 Hallie went bowling for the first time.  

 It took her a while to warm up to it.

 So she ice-skated with Aunt Jess instead.

 Cheeky.

 Saige tried solids for the first time.  I think she thought I was torturing her.  

And then the wedding happened.  It was seriously beautiful.  You know true love when you see it.

 See me rocking out in the back ground?

 Me and all of my sisters now, except for Tiff who is on a mission in Brazil.  Wish she could have been there.

 Wasn't my mom stunning?!?!

 The family dinner that I planned.  It went great.  Thanks everyone for your help.

We spent the next day in Thatcher, where my entire family moved.  It's so weird that they have all moved away, but I am so excited for them.  They are all just blooming away in the Gila Valley.  I am so proud of my siblings  being strong, moving forward in life, having faith.  I love them.  Anyways, we spent the day after the wedding getting to know my seven new siblings.  It was a blast.  Everything felt so natural.  Hallie and Saige went from 0 to 9 cousins.  I was so thankful that everyone just excepted and loved Eric, Hallie, Saige and me.  They are all seriously amazing, and I am so excited for the future with them :)

We went to the 24th of July parade with everyone.  A flag was passing and Hallie knew what to do.

 Here is the whole gang.  We are  form the left up until the man standing up in all blue.  That's the size of the fam now: 11 kids, 9 grandkids.  Seriously, it's so fun.  It makes me want to have like a million kids.  

 Cousins :)  I love Hailey's hand on Hallie's back.

 Now it's time for fireworks.  

 SCORE!

 This is what Hallie did while the fireworks were going.  Not a fan at all. 

 Saige was mesmerized.   I loved how Thatcher played Hymn's while the fireworks were going.  "Mine eye's have seen the glory *BOOM of the *BOOM coming of the *BOOM BOOM Lord "

I was so glad I got to spend a day in Thatcher.  It is a really special place.  I loved the community and unity that it has and I think my family is going to LOVE living there.  

And then we came home.  It was a bitter sweet day.  I was ready for my space after being away for 5 weeks, but man oh man how I LOVE my family.  I miss them so much and even typing this post is hard because I miss everyone and wish I lived near the people I love the most.  I went through about a week or two of depression.  This always happens after I am alone again way out here stranded in Georgia.  But I am over it now, happy and thankful to be back into the life and lifestyle I love.

 Matchy match!

 Hallie wants to wear this everywhere, especially the boots.  I don't blame her.  They are pretty swanky, and usually I let her.

 Hanging out with our summer friends!

 There is no denying it.. this is one freakin adorable baby!

 And this was Saige's battle wound from when Hallie chucked a jack-in-the-box at her face. 

It healed really fast, thank heavens.  It was a day I will never forget... This incident happened at about 9 am, so Hallie got sent to her room.  After about 30 minutes I start smelling baby lotion and thought, "OOooh, our house smells like baby lotion today.  I love it."  Turns out it was because Hallie was busy in her room throwing everything possible on the floor and covering the entire room in a complete bottle of baby powder.  It took her 1 1/2 hours to clean it up and I don't think she will ever do that again.  Or atleast I pray she won't!

So that's life since returning home.  It has been wonderful. Eric started DC school and has been rockin it.  It still feels unreal that he is actually in the program and that we will be calling him Dr. in 3 years.  He is so happy to finally be into what he is passionate about.  I am too.  I am so proud of him.  He was meant for greatness.   Saige is now an official army crawler, with the occasional real crawl thrown in there when she feels like it.  Hallie is smarter than I know how to handle some days, but cuter than humanly possible and sweet as ever.  I am learning how to adjust to Eric being gone so often.  It's been an adjustment, but I wouldn't have it any other way.  I read this today, and it's my new motto:

"We women have a lot to learn about simplifying our lives. We have to decide what is important and then move along at a pace that is comfortable for us. We have to develop the maturity to stop trying to prove something.  We have to learn to be content with what we are." 

— Marjorie Pay Hinckley

We are just doing really great, probably the best ever.  The Lord's hand is seriously weaved into every part of my life, and I am thankful he loves me enough to do that.

Some of my fav's

Happy to be me

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind of excitement and blessings.  It started when we came to AZ to visit our families.  We had a BLAST and were completely spoiled.  We were due to leave last Friday when my mom's sealing cancellation came through less than 24 hours before our flight.  So, the girls and I changed our flights last minute and stayed to help my mom plan for her wedding, which will be in 2 weeks.  I am so excited for her and equally as excited to be family with some of our favorite peep's, the Lunts.  We just got home from a road trip to visit my G&G and I loved every minute spent with them.  Especially my Grandma Linda.  For some reason, her beauty and strength really made an impact on me this trip.  We found out yesterday that Eric will be able to finally start the Chiropractic program at school.  This is HUGE!  It's been a long road and many times we wondered if it would ever come as things always seemed to roadblock our way.  But it's finally here and it ranks up there with my kids birth's and my wedding day as one of the best day's of our life.  I can't stop smiling.  I feel overwhelmed with blessings, gratitude and excitement!

I thought yesterday would never end

This grumpy face is Yesterday in a nutshell.  It was a LLLLOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNGGGGG day with Hallie.  She pushed every limit, but that can sometimes lead to hilarious stories, like these:

Me:  "Hallie, what do you want for lunch?  A hot dog or chicken nuggets?"
H:  "Poopy diapy." (With a totally straight, serious face.)
Me:  "Okay."

She has been really into "potty" talk lately, so instead of fussing at her about it, I decided to go with it.  My thoughts were maybe if she doesn't get the reaction she wants, this will phase out.  I went and got a diaper (a clean one) and put it on the table, put Hallie in her booster, and then asked her to please bless the food.  So, yes, we blessed the diaper.  And then she proceeded to try to eat it.  It was obviously tough to chew.  She kept trying to bite pieces off of it with to success.  I was doing everything I could to not BUST!  Then she turns to me with a super confused look on her face and says:

H:  "Mom, how do you do it?"
Me:  "I don't know Hallie.  I have never eaten a diaper.  I eat food."
H:  "Oh."

She tries a few more times to bite it before:

H:  "Can I have chicken nuggets please?"

I got her some real lunch.  Got me some too.  I was eating a cup of applesauce and she turns to me and says:

H:  "Mom, it's okay, but you need to tell Hallie you are sorry right now for eating her applesauce and give it to her right now."

I still can't get over how well she talks sometimes.  It usually really emerges when she thinks she can parent me.

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We laid her in bed at 6.  It was early, but couldn't have come quick enough.  I needed a break.  After we laid her down, she broke every rule, so I took away her snugly blankets (she sleeps with 8 of them) and Ken and Lella.  Boy, was this girl mad.  She sounded like Smeagol and Gollum from Lord of the Rings as Eric and I listened to her talk herself through it over the baby monitor:

Screaming voice:  "AAAaahhh!  It's not fair!  You hurt my feelings!"
Soft sweet voice:  "You can't have your blankets Hallie."
Screaming:  "But I want my blankets!"
Soft voice:  "Oh, how sad."
Screaming:  "NO!"
Soft:  "This is a problem."

And conversation like this continued while we laughed our butts off in the other room.  She is barely 2 1/2 people.

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She then woke up at 12am. (that's what we get for putting her to bed at 6) and gave us a doctrinal lesson on the gospel, where she proceeded to call and talk to Jesus on the phone.  Thank heavens I captured it on video!  I can't get it to post on Blogger, but I posted it to my Facebook.

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I was so ready for yesterday to end.  A few funny stories made it easier to endure.  Without them, I don't think I would have survived to be able write this post.

Update on room sharing

So, after much thought, we decided to just go for it with room sharing and see how it goes.  If it is a mess, we will just move Hallie out.  Last night was the first night.  Hallie slept in her big bed for the first time.  It was flawless.  I loved hearing Hallie say "I'm here, Saige-ie Bri-Lan." and "Now, now cute baby."  And all the other cute things she says to try to calm Saige when Saige was fussy.  I had to feed Saige and Hallie slept right through it.  It was great!  I felt so free to have Eric and I in the same room, in bed, alone, without a baby next to us.  Made the atmosphere much better (*wink)  Hallie didn't get out of her new bed once, and even stayed in bed playing this morning until we went in to get her.  All my fears seemed silly after it went so good.  The only flop that happened was a flop out of bed by Hallie.  We decided to not put up a bed rail so that she would just figure out not to fall out of bed.  That way she could sleep anywhere.  So, we lined the floor with pillows and I told her ahead of time that she might fall out of her new bed sometime tonight, but that if she did, it was okay and to just climb right back in and go back to sleep.  Well, about 5 minutes after she fell asleep I heard the thud, followed by "I fell!  I fell out!  I fell!  I fell!" on repeat for about 30 seconds, but then I went up to check on her about 10 minutes later and she was happily asleep back in bed.  She stayed tucked in bed the rest of the night.  So, operation sharing room and switching to big girl bed... complete!  Hope tonight is equally as awesome!

Help me!

So, I have a couple of questions about parenting and I need some advice from you awesome parents out there:

1.  We have a 3 bedroom townhouse.  Right now we have Hallie in her own room, Saige in our room still, and a toy room.  I am debating about whether we should have the girls share a room or not.  I planned to have them share for the whole bonding thing, but should I just wait until the next baby is on his/her way? (It hopefully won't be for another 3 years or so.)  I am worried about them waking each other up or me waking Hallie up when I go in to nurse Saige.  It would be way easier with our set up for the girls not to share, but I don't want them to miss out on what could be a great way for them to grow close.  Thoughts?

2.  When did you talk to your kids about stranger danger?  We haven't gone there yet and I don't know if I am doing it way later than I should have or if I should hold out a little longer because I don't want to scare Hallie.

Any advice you have would be great because sometimes Eric and I are just stumped.

Ken and Lella

Meet Ken and Lella:

Lella joined our family last year when we went to Dinsey World and Ken joined us a few months ago when Hallie had her first poo on the potty.  Hallie sleeps with them, eats with them, bathes with them, and carries these two with her everywhere that we let her.  If she forgets to bring them upstairs with her at bed time, she will ask for them and then tell me EXACTLY where they are down stairs.  I am always surprised that she remembers the precise place she left them.  Until yesterday, they were always naked.  She would rip Ken and Lella's clothes right off them the moment we tried to put them on.  The bad part about that is that she likes to make them kiss.  Sometimes I have to tell Ken and Lella to get a room.  Eric and I often wonder if we show a little too much PDA in front of Hallie as we watch her play with them.  So, yesterday Hallie and I finally made them some clothes that she approves of.  Now she can take them out of the house.  I am hoping for and looking forward to fewer awkward intimate moments.

Ken still doesn't have a shirt because Hallie didn't want it, but hey... it's progress!