Hair Trauma!

I thought I would trim up everyone's hair because we are going to see a ton of family this next week and I wanted us to look all spiffed up. But my trim went all wrong and I completely butchered Angeli's hair! Oh, I feel so bad about it. She told me to not cut too much because she wanted to grow her hair out like Rapunzel in Tangled. We laughed and I told her it probably would never get that long but she could grow it out long - she's been growing it out for a long time now anyways....so sad. I tried and tried to fix it but it kept getting worse and shorter and shorter. Stewart started to freak out and so was I. That's when I made an emergency phone call to my girl friend who happens to be a very talented hair dresser and asked her to save Angeli's hair. Angeli and I jumped in the car and thanks to my friend's talent she salvaged her remaining hair. She now has a short cute little bob/pixie cut.

When we headed home I was nervous what the little boys would say. I knew if they said she looked like a boy she would freak - happened last time she chopped her hair on her own and it broke her heart. But when we walked in the door Bridger excitedly announced that she looked like a movie star, which all girls know is the next best thing to a princess... so now she loves it. Bless Bridger's heart! And bless my girl friend too! Stewart and I decided I am not allowed to cut her hair ever again. Here is her salvaged do...she looks like a mini adult, a movie star even. ;)

Miss Genei - V is two months old!

Yesterday Genevieve turned two months old. I can't believe she has only been with us two months now. It seems like it was an eternity ago that I was pregnant with her. Well, only two months or not she is a big part of our family these days and ALL of us think she is "the cutest baby ever"! :O)

Her are some things she has been up to the past month:
-Holds her head up like a pro
-Makes the sweetest Cooing and Ahhhhing sounds ever

-Sometimes she makes these little noises which sound just like a cat

-Smiles these huge grins at us when we first pick her up and talk to her

-Tries to talk back when you talk to her

- If she is the slightest bit tired she will let you know with plenty of screaming

-Hates when we sit in one place with her for too long

-Loves when Angeli holds her

-Loves eating

-Loves her pacifier

-Loves when you sing to her....and it has to be pretty singing nothing too jazzy just sweet pretty singing for this girl, dad loves to sing to her "you are my sunshine, my only sunshine..."

-Appreciates her diaper being changed

-Enjoys long hot showers

- Has two prefect dimples, though one is a bit more prominent
- Loves sleeping in our arms
- Is getting close to laughing

Her Two month Stats: Weight: 11 3/4 lbs. (75%) Height: 22 2/8 in. (50%) Cuteness: 100%

Planning Some Adventures

Now that we know where we are going and taking into account all the time we have off and will probably never have again in our lives we are planning some adventures to comfort my adventure cravings. I am getting excited! There are things we want to do before we head more south west and before residency kills any recreational time that might ever come our way. Here are some of our plans!

April: San Fransisco trip to celebrate Stewart's last day of Medical School (14th-17th) - eeee!

May: Tahoe camping & hiking, Graduation (13th), AOA thingy (11ish?), Half Marathon (21st)

June: Los Angeles: beach, family, amusement parks, San Diego stuff (2nd-9th)

Las Vegas: friend's wedding, family stuff (10th - 12th)

Arizona: visiting Bethany's family, checking out Tucson, Havasupai (13th- 22nd)

Las Vegas: chilling with family (23rd - 28th)

July: Head Home Start Residency! try to fit in Davis creek camping, & swimming day trip to

Lake Tahoe

Next Fall: Apple Hill

Next Winter: Polar Express in Carson City

Next Spring: Virginia City

Next Summer: Tahoe - MOVE!

*Just so you Utahans know we are thinking we'll hold off on our Utah trip plans in case there is a wedding and/or funeral we need to fit in. We still love you! :O)

Match Day Finally Arrived!

So we set our alarms and got up early to get the whole family ready to be at the school before 8:45 when they recommended students arrive by....and well we sure were. We were a bit early. :) So Stewart seized the opportunity to teach the kids what it really takes to go to medical school -playing Foosball of course! ;)

After that we headed down to the party. They had it decorated all cute for St. Patty's day and their envelopes weren't envelopes at all but rather very lucky shamrocks. :)

After a cute little speech from that cute tiny lady who basically runs the medical school as far as I am aware because she is the only lady ever giving speeches, we finally got our "envelope"! We were so excited and so nervous...

Then we were shocked and happy...

We made it official and pinned it on the map...

ta da!...

Then we had to take a picture with the dead Irish man to celebrate...

And NOW we are trying to wrap our heads around the next two years ahead of us. Tucson was our number two choice but for some reason we didn't really give it much thought...we didn't think they would like us that much and the interview was right in the middle of a ton of other ones so it sort of got a bit forgotten. But when we made our list we just felt like it should be number two but that was all the thought we gave it.....Anyways, now we know where we will be going but we have to wait 15 months before we can get there. Nice and a little weird at the same time. Today while I sort of mourned all the places and fun identities we'd not get to assume like: Texans with big hair, big houses, big everything, or food snobs eating our locally grown organic food in picturesque Vermont, or imitation liberal "wineos" in Sac, or blue grass rocking hillbillies in Kentucky,....I thought about what we'd get to morph into as we assumed our new lives in Tucson. I was drawing a blank. Then it hit me as I flipped through the UofA Magazine and realized that EVERYONE in EVERY picture was wearing flips flops that we wouldn't really be morphing into anything. We were going to fit right in. Flip flops year round are exactly the kind of people we are. I think it will be an easy and very natural fit for us. I was hoping for exciting and maybe a little sophisticated change but easy and right is what we got. I guess in the long run that is good for us. Our family will thrive there and as a mother I couldn't ask for anything more. Arizonia here we come! You're going to love us, and I think we are going to love ya right back! :O)

ahhhh!

Just freaking out a little...

where will it be?

Salt Lake Utah, Dallas Texas, Sacramento California, Tucson Arizona, Knoxville Tennessee, Burlington Vermont, Louisville Kentucky, Jacksonville Florida, Albuquerque New Mexico

I am interested in your guesses. what do you think?

Two Cute Kids

I finally got their Five and Four year pictures taken...I am too cheap to pay for "smiles by wire" so I scanned them so I could share and thus the quality is lacking but still I think you can see the cuteness. Looking at these I realize just how fast time is going... I guess what they say is more true then I ever thought, treasure this time when they are little because it goes by so quickly. oh, I love them.

Bridger

Angeli

Angeli Turns Four

OK, Angeli turned four almost two months ago and I was going to to do this post then but her birthday was when the kids all came down with RSV and then I was in the hospital for two weeks and I really wanted to post her four years pics which weren't getting taken and blah blah blah. So now here we are on March 13 posting about this cute little four year old.

Angeli had a fun birthday. I was going to throw her a party with friends but I was too tired since I had a baby just six days before and the kids were sick so we canceled the party plans. We bought her this out of control princess cake and Stewart took her and the boys to go see Tangled in the theater. They had a great time and we did make your own pizzas for dinner and then devoured her huge cake. She then went on a treasure hunt to find her gift...her very own bike! She was so excited to get a bike just like Bridger. We took it out and she and Bridger loved riding their bikes together. Besides them being sick it was a wonderful birthday. :O)

Now here is some gushing about my girly girl. Angeli is and always will be our angel girl. Everyone loves this girl in our family. She always thinks of others and enjoys helping out especially when it comes to the baby. Having a sister has been such a joy for her. She loves feeding her bottles, burping her, and holding her. She has this magic touch and will hold her for such a long time and get her to sleep when even I cant seem to get her down for a nap. Just this week we moved Genevieve into her crib in the "girl's" room and Angeli is so excited to have her to share a room with. Angeli is also Bridger's best friend. I am not sure what they would do without each other. Likewise Benjamin and Angeli are becoming really good friends. Now that he is older they play for hours by themselves and she is so motherly to him - sometimes a bit bossy - but its still pretty darn cute. :)

This girl loves telling stories. She will sit and talk and talk about every fairy tale she has ever heard and recount every scene from every movie she loves. I love listening to her. Angeli also really loves having time to herself...which is hard to come by in our snug little house. She sneaks away when she can and I love watching her play by herself when she doesn't realize I am there. She has such a sweet little imagination. She LOVES riding her bike. It is just about the cutest thing in the world to watch her and Bridger riding their tiny little bikes down the street. Adorable how big they think they are and yet how cute and small they really look.

Angeli is beautiful inside and out and I am so thankful I get to be her mother. I know she will bless my life and our family for all eternity. Here are some pics (sorry they are just scanned ones) I had her take when I was getting Genevieve's pictures taken. She is so gorgeous!

in one week...

I hope we are at URN campus opening an envelope telling us where we'll spend the next five years of our lives. I am so afraid we didn't match. I am not sure why we are both so nervous about not matching..I am not sure if that is normal or not. We didn't worry this much about medical school. Everyone I express our fears to laughs at us but you never know. I know logically he has over a 90% chance of matching but great applicants don't match every year. So with that fear I am actually not worrying much about Thursday but rather I am waiting for Monday with great anticipation. If he gets an email saying "you have fully matched into Radiology" then I will be throwing us a big party. BIG I tell you. And if he gets a call saying he didn't match then we'll be scrambling in an equally BIG way.

So till then I will not be wondering Salt Lake vs. Tuscon vs. Dallas vs. Vermont vs..... but Reno vs. anywhere else. Eeeeee. I hope Monday is a really good day. Wish us luck!

Genevieve's Baby Blessing

Oh, my heart is full. What a great weekend we just had. Seriously, all you have to do is throw me in a room with a ton of my family and I am one super happy girl and that is sort of what this weekend was like. A ton of dear family members squished into our tiny house laughing, eating yummy food, and oogeling over my latest creation, Genevieve. Heaven. :) And then adding in the mix our blessing our sweet little baby and I was basically over the moon.

Here are some pictures I took of her in her dress. Isn't she beautiful!?! My mom found her dress a long time ago at an antique shop and I loved it. It fit her perfectly and the kids kept saying she looked like a bride. :) I couldn't get a good picture of the entire dress because it is so long but the embroidery on the hem of the dress is very pretty.



We were so happy that family came to town to take part in Genevieve's baby blessing. We were going to do a big blessing in Vegas but our doctor advised us to keep her away from kids so we thought we better not drag her all over the state even though we wanted to so badly. But everything went perfectly. It was so great to see everyone again and my heart was about to burst as I sat in church and took in how very blessed and happy I am with all the riches I have in my family. Stewart gave her a tender blessing and the men were good to follow my strict instructions that they were not to let her cry. :)

We are so grateful to everyone for making their long drives for such a quick trip especially with gas prices going throw the roof! They made it such a memorable experience that I will cherish forever. We love you all and feel so grateful to be able to bless Genevieve with not only a name and a blessing but also that she can claim you all as her family. Your righteous examples and tender love is one of the greatest gifts we could ask for her.

The whole gang

Our family...if only we can learn to take better pictures. oh, well. :)

Smith Family - you've got to love Andrews face...
I wonder what on earth Jared was doing to him to make that face happen ;)

Shaun Ras Family

New Phase of Life

I am in a new phase of life and I am trying my darnedest to transition into it and try and process all its implications. It has been happening ever since I turned 26. It was not a happy advance of age for me. Then having my oldest turn five freaked me out big time. Then I had me another baby - which always makes you reevaluate the concept you have of yourself, and then realizing I have been married seven years has all been a bit much for me to take on in a four month period.

All the things I decided I liked about the concept of me are changing as I am changing and moving on in life and I am having to say goodbye to them...like how I liked my title of being a "young family." In ward counsel they were talking about a new family that moved in who needs companionship they asked for ideas as to who could be good friends with them. When Stewart volunteered they said, "No, we need a young family. Someone they can relate to." He was taken back and when he told me it hit us both. We really aren't the young ones anymore. Weird. I realized when we move into our new ward we will not be newly weds, or a new little family, No, we will be a big Mormon family with most of our kids being sent off to primary! Ahhhhh, that is so weird for me. Anyways, here are all the random things going through my head all day long:

-I feel really old.
-How much I appreciated the cute little lady at walmart who said she couldn't believe I had four kids being that I looked so young, that they were all such beautiful kids, that I was so "skinny" for having just had a baby, and the most amazing thing to her was that I seemed so comfortable and calm....she thought a lot about me apparently and I enjoyed her commentary very much. :)
-I wonder how on earth I ever got four kids?
-I finally feel confident in my ability to do all the thousands of tasks placed before me but wonder how on earth I will find the time to do them.
-I wonder when it got so hard to lose weight.
-I wonder if I really have what it takes to be a GOOD mother to my kids.
-I worry about the strain of having my kids in school more and more and I face saying a final goodbye to the power of having my day ruled by me and not school schedules.
-I wonder if we'll have enough money to take care of our kids as they seem to get more and more expensive every year.
-I wonder if I'll ever be able to do all the things I want - not all at once that is for sure.
-I wonder what should be my highest priorities?
-I wonder what life will be like in two years: where will we live, how well will we be doing, ...
-I wonder if I can really be successful at my etsy business.
-I wonder if I'll ever be stylish...probably not. Way too much effort for me. But I hope to never be totally out of touch.
-I wonder if I will ever get back to scrapbooking, and getting my blog books published,...
-I wonder when Genevieve will grow out of her fussy new born stage.
-I am really excited about Stewart graduating.
-I am really nervous that we wont match for residency and that my whole world would have a giant crack in it.
-I wonder how we'll ever get our house sold.
-I am really excited I will finally get to run a real race again this spring.
-I am so grateful I have my sweet sweet family.
-I am so in love with my husband...saves my butt every day!
-I am excited to see Genevieve grow up.
-I am so scared for match day...do I really want to know?
-I wonder if I will ever be able to remember all the appointments I have without needing to check my calendar like five times a day.
-I pray for a day when I can feel board again....wow, that sounds nice right now.
-I try and remember that I still have a month old baby and to not feel too badly if I am not up to speed yet...and then wonder what will "up to speed" mean from now on.
-I wonder if life will just keep getting faster and faster paced or if there will be times when things slow down again...

But I guess in all my wondering I know my life is pretty rock'n whether I am a prematurely aged worrying 26 year old or not. ;) Yup, its blessed and rock'n for sure.