Big girl princess 5 years old, girlishy Ali.....

Oh my little girl.....or as she like to be known, Big girl princess 5 years old, girlishy Ali. She started calling herself that on her birthday last year when she turned 4, and I never thought it would stick around more than a couple weeks but her little name has made it an entire year and she is a princess! This year was Ali's first friend party "Fancy Nancy" and she was talking about it for a month. As much work as it was for me I must say it was definitely worth it after seeing her that day! (Just for the record I think some one should have warned me about all the the work that goes into these cute little girl parties!) She had a blast, of course with a few dramatic moments in the mix.

Ali is our little sweetheart! She loves to snuggle and she has to have her hands on your face and her cheek smooshed up to your cheek and she holds on tight. She only wants to wear things that are fancy, so she will either be in a pettiskirt or a skirt or a dress everyday! Unless of course I force her to wear shorts or pants which will inevitably results in tears and pouting, unless of course she thinks it's her idea. She i such a silly girl and loves to joke and laugh with her daddy. Ali is a little hard to win over at first, but once she likes you you're in for good and will be referred to as "my best friend" she has lots of best friends! Ali has been taking dance for the last year and really surprised me by how good of a little dancer she is.... I thought she wouldn't want to dance at her recitals in front of so many people for being such a shy girl (when she was 3 she told me that she doesn't like people) but she really busts it out for everyone hitting her moves and smiling all the while! She just had her 2nd recital the theme was peter pan and she danced to Ugg-a-Wugg dressed like Tiger Lily. Recently Ali and Brody have been taking swimming lessons together and are both doing a great job, they are in the same class and have been so cute and so nice to each other at their lessons (what a relief to know that they really can be nice to each other) holding hands in the line and the hole bit, Ali was really looking after her little brother there and it was great to see. We love Ali so much and are so happy that she is part of our family! Drama and all =)

10 years later....

Today Lee and I are celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary! WOW! So crazy that much time has gone by since I married my highschool sweetheart. Lee and I started dating when we were both 17 yrs old, and always knew that we would get married. We got married when we were 20. A few things we have done since our big day, In the last 10 years we have lived in 7 different houses and apartments, We have been in the house we have now for almost 4 years. So those first few years we moved A LOT, of course I think we had a lot less junk then than we do now, maybe because we had to go through it all so often, if you're wondering I really do not enjoy moving, at all. So hopefully we can stay here a while longer. We have worked a combined total of 5 different jobs, we are a little better at keeping a job than we are at keeping an address. Owned 6 vehicles (I think) 2 cars and the rest have been trucks 1 Ford and the rest Chevy's so funny because all of the trucks Lee's had since we got married have been red, with the exception of the one he has now. We have been out of the country once, to Mexico. Camping more times than I could possibly count. We've had 2 dogs, 1 at a time, and hopefully we can get another one soon, I always loved having a dog growing up and I want to get one while our children are still little. Which brings us to our greatest accomplishment, our two beautiful children, we had Ali when I was 25 Lee 26, and Brody when we were both 27.

I would just like to say how great my husband is, I really do feel like we are supposed to be together. He has been such a possitive influence on my life, from the time we met, and even still he keeps me grounded (when things get hard for me I tend to get unintentionally self destructive) He is my rock. I never thought I could love him more than I did the day we got married, but now 10 years later, I can honestly say that I do love him more now than I ever have before and I am very much looking forward to what the rest of our life together brings. I love the father he is to our children and the man he is to me. One of the things that Lee has always done (that is making me smile right now just thinking about it) is he will never let me stay mad at him, no matter what is going on, he can always get me to laugh about it! I love that he does that, cause really who wants to stay mad anyway ;)

This year we decided not to celebrate the way we have in the past, since we feel like 10 years is a BIG deal we thought we would something BIG for our annivesary, so we are taking an Alaskan Cruise!! Of course you can't do that this time of year so we are going to go in the summer, with my brother Shawn and his wife Nikki, who are also going to be celebrating their 10th anniversary this year.

Happy Anniversary, I Love You!!

Just Dance...

My sweet little Ali just had her first ever dance Recital! She did not want to get up and get ready for her dress rehearsal at all, but as soon as we got there and she saw that her little dance friend was all fancy she was ready to go home and get her hair curled and dance make up on (which is mostly lots and lots of glitter) She did her dance to the song "When Santa Got Stuck Up The Chimney", which I had never heard of before, it's a cute Christmas song that I think is more popular in the UK. She did such a great job on her dance she remembered MOST of what she was supposed to do, and tried to smile while she was dancing. She had a big cheering section with lots of us yelling and whistling for her and she was so happy that lots of her family could come and watch her! Everyone spoiled her with flowers, Jed and Charma brought her a cake, Shawn and Nikki made her a paper rose and a little present box, then after all that she got a huge Lollipop from Santa! She had such a great time and we are so proud of our Big Girl!

Waiting for the music!

Action shot

Wow, she can strike a pose!!

Ali and Erin After the show.

Fun with the fam

We had a short, but fun trip to St. George earlier this week. Ali and Brody were excited to go there again we always have a ton of fun when we go down there on our annual vacation in the spring but this was our 2nd trip this year. I drove down with my mom and the kids, Charma drove separately with Erin and Emmy. I refuse to drive that far without another adult in the car if Brody is coming, he is very high maintenance on long car rides, and spent about half of the 4 hour ride down there screaming at one of us, and only about and hour screaming on the ride home =) He really wasn't meant to be confined!

Charma got a great condo with a hot tub on the balcony, we turned it down so it wasn't to hot for the kids and they loved to be able to go swimming outside. Ali was a crazy maniac jumping around in that thing, I hadn't realized how much she must be missing going swimming, she got really brave during the summer and thinks she is a swimming pro!

We spent the morning at the Dickens Festival, they had a booth set up with these wiggle cars for the kids to try, It was hard to get them away from these! Especially Brody and Emmy because we strapped them to a stroller the rest of the time.

Later that night we went to Tuacahn to see the live nativity (which I would highly recommend to anyone and everyone) and the lights. They had these set up for people to take pictures, all of the kids thought they were so funny!

Brody had a little talk with Santa about what he would like for Christmas, which incidentally is a wiggle car. Ali thought it was great to see Santa, but she does not want to sit on his lap, stand by him, or even talk to him for that matter. I told her she needs to talk to him so he knows what she wants for Christmas, she decided he can bring her what ever he wants to, she won't be talking to him!

This is every one sitting waiting for the nativity to start. Oh wait Brody isn't sitting waiting at all, he is trying to climb over the seats while Grandma tries to wrangle him and everyone else is posing nicely for the camera. He was really good once the action started, and like that they had real animals on the stage, especially the camel!
This was the morning we left, I was laughing so hard when I saw this, I had to go tell everyone else. They stayed asleep like that for quite a while and Erin kept sneaking in to look at them.

GIVEAWAY!!!!

Oh these Patterns are soooo adorable, check them out!

The Handmade Dress Patterns GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Halloween!

Cowboy BrodyAli the Good Witch

Ali and Brody were a ton of fun this year on Halloween. They both thought trick-or-treating was a lot of fun......at first. We got about half way around the block and Ali decided that she had enough candy and was all done and ready to go back home. Oh well it was fun while it lasted. Ali kept telling us she was a good witch because she didn't want to be mean and scary! Of course Brody dresses like that every day, so he was happy to be able to get some candy out of it, and wondering when we are going again.

A Long time coming!

Here are a few pictures from Brody's Birthday party. Which I had every intention of posting a long time ago, but better late than never.....right?

He woke up soooo happy! (which definatley makes my life a lot easier)

His cute cake!

Grandpa Buddy took him for a tractor ride, the highlight of his day!

We had his party at my Grandpa's "Hardway Ranch" which Brody believes is hands down the greatest place on earth (Shawn and Nikki's house is a close 2nd) and if you have have ever been there you'll know it is really an awesome place to go. Needless to say he had a great time with friends and family!