my 4 year old!!

i love my sweet boy :) here is his 4th birthday!!

 

this mama has not been feeling so hot lately so poor mason got a low key party. mason chose to invite his closest buddies, preschool pals, and sunbeam sidekicks...7 kids total. when i asked mason what kind of party he wanted, he insisted on lightning mcqueen....completely caught me off guard. i mean....he likes cars but he likes other things better. i was expecting scooby doo or jake and the neverland pirates but it looked like cars was the choice this year. for his cake i did a  race track with some little cars on it (that went along with one of his presents)...just don't make fun of my cake decorating abilities. i was hoping for a better looking cake (i am a perfectionist after all) but mason was satisfied so that worked for me! for games, i painted some cardboard boxes with numbers and stripes like race cars and let the kids do a couple of races and we also played pin the sticker on the birthday boy :) then we let them eat cake, open presents and get all their energy out with balloons!

after the party we let mason open all his presents from family members (one spoiled kid! thanks to all who sent cards, presents, etc!) and he picked hamburger and fries for his birthday dinner. i think he had a good day (even though it took a huge toll on his mom :) and i'm glad he has good friends to celebrate with!!

my weekend of bliss

have i ever mentioned how awesome my husband is? :) the two of us haven't gotten away from the kiddies for longer than a few hours in a very long time. i think the last time we went on a trip without our entourage was when mason was really little. so, curtis talked to his buddies at work and planned a whole surprise weekend for our anniversary all by himself! his parents came down to watch the kiddies and the two of us went to san antonio for 3 wonderful days. our hotel was right down town, walking distance to the alamo, the mall, and the riverwalk. i have always wanted to go to italy and i jokingly told curtis "you can't afford to take me to italy so you brought me to san antonio instead". i loved walking along the river with shops and restaurants lining the sidewalk. it was just like i imagine italy to be. we had wanted to take the kids to sea world down there last fall and visit these other places as well but i'm so glad we did this just as the two of us. it was very romantic and relaxing! on saturday we spent the afternoon visiting some of the historic missions around town. i loved it :)

 

dinner on the river walk...i had ducks right behind my chair quacking and begging for food like little puppies

one of the missions we visited. they were very cool inside but pictures cannot do those high ceilings any justice!

the alamo

 

so yes, my weekend was fantastic! i had a hard time facing the fact that i had to come back and work on my singing time lesson for next week, stress about our new song for choir, and come up with 2 preschool lessons for the week....oh and no more sleeping until 9 am :) i cannot thank tony and stephanie enough for watching the kids for us and for everything they did around the house while we were gone. i am so blessed to have in laws that treat me just like a daughter, taught my husband how to be the great person he is and are amazing grandparents to my children. thanks you guys!!

i am so grateful to have such a wonderful man to take care of me. our life together has been so full of challenges and twists and i know i couldn't do it without him by my side. i love that he still makes me blush and laugh and tells me how beautiful i am even though i look like a mess. he works so hard to support our family and makes sure we are all taken care of. i love him!! so, 6 years down...eternity to go :)

family life

just a little update on my growing-too-fast family :)

sophie is almost 2! at her 18 month check up we were a little worried because the only 2 words she was really saying at that point were "mama" and "daddy". we may have just been used to mason who was speaking full on sentences at that point and the doctor said give it til her 2 year check up and then we can start worrying. sure enough this girls vocab has taken off!! she is starting to string words together and even though they aren't all clear as a bell, you can definitely tell what shes saying (this morning she was looking out mason's window and said "i see a bird" and sure enough there was a bird in the tree!). her current favorites are "why" and "what". whenever i say something like "sophie get down please" her response is "why?". she cracks us up!

mason is still the smartest cookie on the block :) we have started working on sight words and reading chapter books together. he has a great imagination and loves to put it down on paper. he just started soccer and loves it (so far :). he is on the same team as a boy in his primary class who's dad is also the coach. its nice for him to have a friend to tag along with and for me to have someone to chat with on the sidelines. he is such a great help and i'm so glad he is my oldest child!

curtis is still kicking butt at work! he is always being told how great of job he is doing and impressing his bosses. he was recently offered a job in houston that had great potential but we didn't feel like it was the right thing to do so we are staying in dallas. he is such a great help at home and usually spends all his free time with a needy wife and kids :)

as for me i continue to be a soccer mom, a teacher, participant in a car pool, ward choir director, and my latest challenge is the primary chorister (which i love) all along with my daily household responsibilities and other activities during the week...my life is getting so busy and i don't see any end in sight!  i am excited for all the summer activities and cant wait to get to work on my yard and garden (and possibly painting the house!). i have also been making a ton of busy bag activities for the kids that range from bottle cap patterns (all the free bottle caps i want! thank you pepsi :), to clothes pin number wheels to super cute lds quiet books (i get the templates online then upload my own pictures).

one fun activity we did a few weeks ago was seeing sesame street live! they have ticket drawings at pepsi for various events around the dallas area, curtis thought the kids would like this and low and behold he got the tickets. i thought it was cool but as usual our kids were the least bit interested (this is why we never waste our money or time taking the kids to anything). sophie lasted about 10 minutes. curtis took her out and let her play with the different booths they had set up. just after the intermission, mason decided he was done too. it didn't cost us a penny (they even paid for our vip parking) so we didn't see the harm in leaving early. these are the pictures we got!

looking back...

i can't believe 2012 is already gone. it seems like when we look forward to something in the future, it can't come fast enough, but when you look back you don't understand how time passed so quickly. curtis and i will have been married for 6 years this march. we have been in texas for a year and a half. sophie just entered nursery and mason will attend primary for the first time this sunday. where oh where did my little babies go?! the past few years have been huge for us and this past year was no different. we continue to see how heavenly father has such a huge hand in our lives and it is usually for the better. curtis continues to excel at work and although moving to pepsi was a big change for him, it has given him great growing space. he loves what he does and there was never a better person to be in his position. most people are shocked to hear he hasn't even been out of school for 2 years yet. it makes my heart burst with pride :) he is such an amazing man. he works so hard for our family so that i can stay home with our kids. when he is home, he helps out with housework and with the kids and is so willing to step up when i have other responsibilities outside the home to take care of. he loves me when i haven't showered for two days, when the dishes are piled in the sink and the floor is sticky, and he even loves me when i get upset over petty things. i love him so much it makes my heart hurt sometimes :) my children are another source of great happiness (and grief :). mason is so smart. he is so excited and ready to attend primary, he loves going to preschool and he loves walking across the street to his friends house. mason is just like his dad. not only do they look alike, but mason is also not one to keep his affection to himself. he just can't resist cuddles, kisses and hugs. sophie is a handful but a cute one at that. she is learning so much right now and her vocabulary is finally picking up steam. i love having a girl to try hair do's on and dress in pretty clothes! i was just thinking today how much i enjoy hearing their laughter and giggles. as for me, i continue to grow and experience life out of my comfort zone. if it were up to me, i would still be in utah living the same life i always did. i miss grocery shopping at lin's, i miss our doctors, knowing what school to have our kids attend, where everything is located, knowing the people who announce births or deaths in the paper, sunday dinners with my family and last minute trips up the mountain. as much as i want that old life back, i know that we needed this move to grow. i feel like i have changed and grown up so much! now our gps is my best friend and i have learned how to make friends and a yummy sunday dinner all by myself. i went through every woman's worst nightmare and learned how to say goodbye to someone you love so much even though you haven't physically met them yet. thanks to lots of help, i learned (and still am learning) how to lead a choir, take charge and do something i never imagined doing in my life. i learned that your ward members become your family and everyone watches out for one another. i learned that cute little field rabbits are not so cute when your back yard becomes their breeding ground.  i learned that 40 degree winters are much better than 15 degree winters and that when the sky gets thick, dark storm clouds, you turn on the news and listen for the tornado sirens. i know we won't be in texas for the rest of our lives and although i hate the thought of moving again, i know i will get through it and start growing all over again. 2012 was had some really, really  crappy moments and i'm sure 2013 will too, but overall i'm super happy with life and know that if we live how heavenly father would want us to, everything works out in the end!

a white christmas in texas!!

we have had a fun week! heres the how our christmas went!

last wednesday morning curtis went to work with a bad sore throat. they have a free nurse practicioner there for employees, so he stopped in at her office before his shift. strep throat!! go home til at least friday, and you probably wont even want to come back that day either! so with the christmas holiday curtis got a 6 day weekend. it was awesome! even if he is sick, it's great to have dad home whenever we can :) he was feeling better by friday and even went to "the hobbit" with our neighbor that night. i figured i owed it to him since i made him watch the kids that  morning so i could go visiting teaching :)  saturday morning i headed to my last choir practice before our big christmas performance. i think most of you know i am the choir director in our ward. it has been such a challenge but i feel like i have learned a ton of things! anyway, i have been stressed beyond belief since i found out i was in charge of the sacrament meeting christmas program. we have been working super hard since october, i had to make a few last minute changes,  and i just wasn't feeling like we were prepared. i went to practice on saturday feeling sick to my stomach. after our practice i felt much better (although still scared out of my mind! i hate being in front of people, add to that the fact it was THE WARD CHRISTMAS PROGRAM!!). afterward, i got home and prepared for a temple trip with curtis. we are terrible at getting to the temple. we actually haven't gone since before we had sophie. it didn't help that sophie breastfed for a whole year and never took a bottle which meant we could never be gone for longer than a few hours. now that we don't have that issue and we have someone we trust to leave our kids with we decided to make it a date. not only was this our first time at the dallas temple, it was the first time we have gone to a temple outside of utah. wow. huge shocker. they organized things a little differently and there were only 8 people in our session including us. 8!! i was the only woman and we were the only couple there until the last second so those of you who go to the temple probably know what we were asked to do. it was our first time and i was super nervous but it ended up being a really cool experience :) the best part was my nerves about the next day had calmed down tremendously! luckily we only ran into a little traffic there and back so we were only gone for about 4 hours, home just in time to get the kids ready for bed.

we had to be at the church early for choir the next morning. we had to warm up and since it was joseph smith's birthday the bishop had asked us to sing praise to the man for prelude music.  i looked at my choir and said "here we go!". the time passed quickly and before i knew it sacrament meeting was over! we did it :) i felt like i had just hiked to the top of mount Everest and kicked its butt! it was a great feeling of accomplishment for me. glad to have that over, we went through the rest our meetings then tithing settlement afterward and i finally got to relax and focus on christmas and my family :)
we went to the park on christmas eve then spent the evening just hanging out and had a nice dinner of ham, potatoes, broccoli, rolls and pumpkin pie. the kids opened up their christmas eve pajamas and we watched the grinch before sending them to bed. then the fun began for us :) it actually wasnt as bad as we thought it would and got to bed at a decent hour. unfortunately we had thunderstorms roll in around 4 am which woke mason up and due to the on going thunder and lightning, he took a while to fall back asleep...we were a tired family the next day! anyway here is our christmas in pictures!

mason did a great job decorating the tree :)

 

our friends had several of the neighbors over for a gingerbread house making party. it was a lot of fun and we got to know the people in our neighborhood a little better.

opening up our christmas eve jams!

mason suddenly turned into a model :)

sophie loves playing with kitchens and now she has her own!

 mason wanted a blue bicycle more than anything in the world! santa is awesome :)

check out this dork :)

curtis is the most thoughtful person ever :) he got this desk for our computer stuff and for me to use as my scrapbooking station.

 

we had thunderstorms all morning (opening presents while lightning flashes and the ice cream truck making rounds on christmas eve...will i ever get used to this weather? :) but later that afternoon the rain turned to snow. just enough to make the ground white. now that's the kind of snow i enjoy :)

 

so that was our christmas! although we miss our family i love having just my own cute little family to myself for the day :) hope everyone else had and continues to have a wonderful holiday season!

 

trick or trunk :)

as usual our halloween was plain and simple. mason is obsessed with pirates (thanks to the show "jake and the neverland pirates") so that was his choice of costume and i chose fairy for sophie. yep, i was cheap this year :) we borrowed an awesome pirate hat from our friends but mason refused to wear it any longer than pictures. i did convince him to wear our cheap pirate hat while trick or treating though.

we started out the festivities with the ward's annual trunk or treat/chili cook off. mason had fun doing a cake walk and playing with his friends but he was mostly excited for the "trick or trunk" as he calls it :) sophie didn't really understand what was going on. as soon as a piece of candy fell into her bag, she reached right in after it and wanted to eat it. curtis eventually just let her have a sucker and she was content the rest of the time. on halloween curtis had to work (or course!) so i just took the kids with our friends around the neighborhood. once again mase had fun with his friends but sophie was getting frustrated that she couldn't just eat everything that people gave her. i just let her snack on a few things here and there which kept her happy and once she got the hang of things she would grab her bag, reach for my hand and head for the door. at one house, the people were sitting outside handing out their candy but we still had to go to the door because soph was convinced that's what you do :) she LOVED looking at all the decorations both at the trunk or treat and while trick or treating. some of the things seemed scary but she was absolutely fascinated by them! we had fun but i'm glad it's over and now i have way too much candy in the house!   

 

i taught preschool the week before halloween and we talked about fall and halloween. on monday we carved a pumpkin then planted the "magic pumpkin seeds" and when the kids came back on wednesday some pumpkins had grown in our backyard! :) this is the one mason decorated.         

 

a cold front came through just in time for the trunk or treat. even though it wasn't really that cold, sophie insisted wearing her coat the whole time :)

no jacket needed for trick or treating AND she kept her wings on most of the time! it was a little weird to have the ice cream truck following us instead of wearing coats and mittens and scarves under our costumes like we had to in utah :)

this is sophie and her buddy camille.

our little gang.

healing a broken heart

it will be 1 month on sunday since we lost our baby and it has been an emotional roller coaster! the first few days were the hardest. i didn't feel like eating, i couldn't sleep. every time i closed my eyes i would see my bathroom covered in blood (ever seen "the help"? it made me think of miss celia's bathroom when she lost her baby..."why is there so much blood?").  i was so scared that when i stood up blood would start gushing out again (pathetic i know but i just couldn't get that feeling out of my brain). i would look at my ultrasound picture and ask how it was possible that the baby had been moving and jumping just three weeks before this happened. i had started my second trimester which usually means you are pretty much in the clear (no guarantee of course and now i know that).  it just didn't make sense. sometimes i would just lay in bed and cry for really no reason at all. the beginning of october has brought on new emotional challenges. i would be 18 weeks today. i should have a little belly now and we would have been able to find out the gender of the baby this month. even though there are times when i feel that pain in my heart, i have a peaceful feeling about everything that happened. the more i think about it, the more i realize that this did happen for a reason. after i started spotting and everyone told me that sometimes that happened through the whole pregnancy, i couldn't help but think "but i don't want that. i don't want to have to worry the remaining 6 months". that one week of spotting killed me let alone months of it! so, call me selfish, but i was almost relieved when we knew that baby was gone. it broke my heart to say goodbye, but i knew that he was ok and in a good place and i no longer had to worry about his safety. his 11 week profile picture has a permanent place on my dresser mirror and he has a special place in my heart. time moves on but we will never forget that sweet baby and the joy it brought us for 14 1/2 weeks!

so thats kind of an overview of my feelings the past 4 weeks. there is quite a bit more to it but a lot of it is too personal for me to share for everyone and their pet dog to see :) i want to thank all our family, friends and ward members for their thoughts and prayers. there is no way i would have been able to get through this without my support system. my husband has been the most amazing of all. he knows how hard this has been for me and he is trying his best to help me heal. i read an article that said how many husbands involved in miscarriages fell left out of sorts. many times everyone is focused on the woman when in fact the man is hurting too. after reading that days after we lost the baby, i tried my hardest to make sure curtis knew i was aware of his emotions too. although it was super traumatizing, i feel like as a family it brought us closer together. curtis and i already have a great relationship and i feel like this only made us stronger. i know heavenly father will give us the chance to bring more children into this world but until then my gratitude for my children has greatly increased. i have an amazing boy and a beautiful girl and even if things don't work out in the future, i will have these two pills to love and hate :)  

 i have learned a lot this past month (physically, emotionally, and spiritually) but the most important thing to remember is that even though it may be difficult at times and it may not make sense, i know heavenly father has a plan me.