Our walk to remember

the bolivia hat

I decided to make it a tradition to take pictures of all the children I have in this hat & booties that Sam got from his mission.  To see the story click here.  These pictures are actually from about three months ago but I wanted to put them up.

a great day

Our ward boundaries have changed, so we are in a new ward.  Yesterday was our first day & it went perfectly fine, Preston is no longer use to going to church, since it's been a few weeks between stake and general conference, so that was a bit of a fight.  But Carlee was great on her birthday.  She went into nursery great and happy, no problems.  When I picked her up the nursery leader said she was like a billy goat, meaning she was a climber, Carlee loves & is good at climbing, so our poor nursery leader.  But she said she really wasn't a problem.

Carlee got many gifts but on her actual Birthday her Grammer and Papa waited to give one of their gifts to her on Sunday.  And she loved it, thanks!

Our friends, Shirley,  from our old ward that are now in our new ward with us invited us over for dinner.  They use to live in our new ward and so they know a lot of people, so they also invited a family from the new ward (are you confused).  It was fun to meet and get to know new people.

Anyway, Kaylee's birthday is today so she and Carlee both got sang to at Shirley's.  Here's a little video clip.  Carlee's not blowing out the candle because she's scared of the flame.

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party time

Say hello to the newest 2 year old in our family!

The invitations were sent.

All the preparations had been made.  My mother-in-law had basically done everything.  She put together the most perfect party for Carlee.  I loved how everything turned out.  It was a "lunch date party", so the kids got lunch bags while the adults had pasta salad and rolls.  As  party favors Teresa put together these adorable bags for the girls and the boys got little buckets with a hot wheel car.

Instead of a cake I wanted to do cup cakes, and then Teresa made these way cute flags to go in them.  The cup cakes on the very top actually spell out her name.

The theme was "chicks" although, I didn't really do a great job at portraying that, there were a few things.

Outside was absolutely adorable and perfect.

With the extra fabric from the little girls bags we were able to put together a matching table cloth.

We made the topiary (made easy by my christmas gift)

My friend Martha let us barrow their jump 'n slide bouncer, which the kids loved.

I love this picture of the three girls!

All the meanwhile Teresa took care of everything, including Preston.

I didn't get one picture of her with Carlee, how lame am I.

But all of Carlee's friends were so super cute, they were so fun.

We sang happy birthday, notice as she's trying to blow out the candle she's leaning away, she knew she didn't want to be near that hot flaming candle, it was cute!

She opened gifts, all these two year old kids were so cute, flocking towards the opening of the gifts.

And here we were enjoying ourselves as Teresa took care of everything, Thanks!

I know there are a ton of pictures I just couldn't help myself, I loved them all & I had almost 100 of Sam's great pictures to choose from.  Thanks Sammy for taking pictures.

I'm holding my friend Nichole's little girl.

Thanks to everyone for coming!

Carlee, most importantly had a great time, and then took a THREE hour nap that afternoon, she was tuckered out.

did someone say France

I received this lovely little package in the mail on Tuesday.  It's from my lovely mother-in-law.  What's inside you ask?  Excitement my friend.... excitement!

I open the box and it's wrapped so nicely with tissue paper.

and some fun little filler.

(drum roll please)

This, super cute yellow polka dot bowl and post cards of places in France.  What's the significance?  Why does it represent excitement?

Well, my mother-in-law sent this little gift to get us excited about going to FRANCE!  That's right, we're going to France, in just a few short weeks!

Am I excited? Oh yes, little girl giddy excitement, I just want to shout out in giddiness.  I can hardly contain it.  Before I know it I'll be barging along the southern canals of France :::sigh:::

And, NO KIDS!  (thanks mommy)

Speaking of kids.  Preston's not been feeling so hot lately so Monday night I grew suspicious of an ear infection.  It was confirmed at the doctor yesterday but not only that, it was infected and now is a blown ear drum.  We started him on his meds. yesterday and I can already tell a big difference in how he's feeling.  He's much more happy this morning than he has been.  Poor little guy!  I wish I had taken him in on Monday but I was thinking, he always throws me for a loop, I think something is wrong, but he's fine.  So, I waited and now...... oh, I feel bad for him.  The doctor said it should heal and that everything will be just fine.  Hopefully!

Well, you'll receive all the details after our trip to France!

leafy greens

  Our first harvest of our home grown lettuce.  Yee haa doesn't it look yummy!  I was like a little rabbit eating away at it.

I never had the chance to post about it but about a month ago we planted a little garden in the backyard.  It's coming a long very nicely, we're very excited.

~lettuce

~carrots

~garlic

~tomato plants

~Brussels sprouts

~peas

~green peppers

doggie time

Check out this video, just a cute one of my kiddos!

yoga oomms

I do the P90X workout everyday & Thursday is Yoga X, my favorite.  At the very end we do oomms, you know where you are in the meditation pose and you are literally humming oomms.  They say that the vibration of your voice gives your central nervous system a massage, & really I can feel it after the hour and half yoga workout & stretching we just did.  Anyway so at the end Carlee starts to join in with everything we are doing.  When it comes time to do the oomms, I have my eyes closed and start humming oomms.  Suddenly I hear Carlee humming oomms too, I look over to see her in the perfect meditation pose, legs folded, hands resting on her knees facing upward.  It was so cute.  I wish I could have gotten a picture of the two of us sitting there doing yoga oomms, how funny would that have been but, I'll always be able to picture her in my head doing that, it was so cute!

through the years..............

I've had many different hair styles and looks in the past.  Now I have a dilemma!  But first I'll show you the many looks of me.

During the early years, I have a wonderful mother to thank for these hair styles, some of them looked "cute".

The last picture is of the first and only perm that I had.  My sister Kay, the cosmetologist, used the small rollers and this is what my hair came out like.  Barely any curl, that's just how my hair is, doesn't take curl well.

This next hair style is the shortest I've ever cut it, back in 6th grade, and let me tell you it didn't work for me.  This picture is after it grew out a lot.  I don't have a picture of how short it was but you can see the drawing on the upper left corner, that's how my hair looked.

And when I say the cut didn't work I mean it.  My friends told me, after it grew out, that it really didn't look good.  But hey, give me credit for trying new, bold, & different things with my hair.

Next we have high school, where my Freshman year I high lighted my hair for the first time.  During those four year it looked pretty much the same, with a few inches off here and there.  The last picture, my senior picture,  I added that for fun since many of you that didn't know me back then probably have not seen my hair like that.  It was fun, I just hardly ever do it anymore!

These next two are just the way it looked most of the time, these are from my senior portraits.

Here we have during my college years where I went more and more blond.

Next is the way my hair looked when Sam and I started dating.  Long and high lighted.

Then I had some fun and went brunet like I've always wanted to do.  I just love brunets, I think they have a gorgeous color and their hair almost always looks fantastic.

But......... Sam hates this.  He says he thinks I look like a completely different person.  He didn't know what to think when he saw me with this new due.

So when he asked me to marry him, I figured it best I change my hair so that Sam liked looking at me on our wedding day.  So I went with stripes!

   That was pretty tough to get that dark out!

On our wedding day!  I LOVE the way my hair looks from this view, so fun and different.  Sam said he really liked this hair "colors".

Then after a little bit I went with all blond.

Then blond on top dark on bottom.

After a while of that I decided to try and get back to my natural color!

Sam loves the way I styled my hair in this picture, just a side note for later in the post.

The natural color lasted about a year or so before I got bored and did another extreme to what I have now.

 

Well so here's my dilemma.  I really like this blond, I'm not bored of it yet but can not continue doing it because my hair is breaking.  I think it has stopped but my hair is apparently tender hearted and isn't able to handle this extreme process, believe when I say extreme, it is, and it burns!

So now I'm faced with the question, what to do?  I love the way my bangs look here.

Do I go back short, or continue to grow it out longer?

I saw this picture blog hopping, Ginger if you recognize this person you should, I found her link off of your site, hope she doesn't mind.

 

But I love the look, I can't tell if her hair is thin like mine which would be necessary if I want to get this look.  I'm curious if I could still flip it out, like the picture of me in the pink polka dot shirt, above.

A friend suggested I try going red, which scares me a lot but here's an old photo where my hair looks a bit red.  Try really hard to look past the really horrible photo.

Mostly I'm thinking I should give my hair color a break so it can gain some strength back.  I could give my hair some low lights to try it make it more of my natural color but would love something fun.  I just love doing fun spunky looks with my hair, it's just who I am I guess!

If you're still reading congrats, I know you must be sick of this post by now.  So, what do you think?