Happy 10th Anniversary to Us!!!!!

Today is the day! Happy 10th anniversary to us!!!! Barth and I have sure grown a lot in the past 10 years. On this day, I want to say how much I love my dear husband. He is a wonderful man. He is a fantastic and loving father to our children. We have had our share of ups and downs, but the good has far outweighed the bad. I have to say that in the last 10 years, we have grown together, relied on each other, cried together, rejoiced together and become even closer through it all. I am so thankful to have him in my life. I am grateful for all that he sacrifices for our family. What a happy 10 years we have had! Here is to an eternity of even happier days. I love you sweetheart!

Kindness

Today my post was supposed to be a great video of my kids swimming at our neighborhood pool, but the big thunderheads are rolling in fast, and we are supposed to have rain all afternoon, so I guess that I will just have to postpone that one for another day.

Today I was the recipient of an act of kindness. It seems like, in the world today of cutting people off on the road, lack of concern for others, and loss of respect in general, there isn't nearly enough kindness to go around. However, in our family there is plenty to go around. Weston makes breakfast for Aaron nearly every morning. Brian loves to make everyone lunch. Aaron loves to play with Amber and make her smile. The boys LOVE to do anything that they think will help me out and make me happy. But today, the act of kindness that I received was not from anyone that I was related to, or even knew for that matter.

This morning I was trying to finish up some last minute school clothes shopping for Weston and Brian. They need a few more pairs of jeans, but I need to do that shopping when I don't have Aaron and Amber with me. Today, we went to get shoes. When we left, the trash man hadn't come yet and our trash was at the curb. Our shopping didn't take long. As we pulled onto our street after our shopping, I noticed that there was a car in our driveway. I wondered who it could be. As we got closer, I noticed a lady outside her car putting the lids on my trash cans and pulling them up to the garage for me. How nice was that? Her son, who was probably just a few years older than Weston, was busy delivering our local, once a week, paper to the houses on our street.

As she finished and pulled out of our drive, I thanked her and she simply smiled and told me that she hoped that I had a nice weekend. The whole thing brightened my day considerably. What a good example this stranger set for me. She had no idea who I was, and yet, she was happy to serve and help me. This experience has renewed my resolve to serve and help others, even if it is in a small way and no one will ever know. Even if I have no idea who the person is that I am helping, it doesn't matter; I know that I will feel good just by serving. When I feel down about the state of this world and it's increasing wickedness, I will remember that there are still good and kind people on Earth, and that I can do my part to help the world be a better place to live in.

And so, as I go throughout the rest of my day, and the weeks and months ahead, I will try to keep in mind the words to one of my favorite primary songs......

I want to be kind to everyone,
For that is right you see.
So I say to myself, "Remember this,
Kindness begins with me!"

Caps

Did you ever have caps as a kid? I did!! My brothers used to have the guns to put them in, but mostly I liked to make mine go off with a rock. :) Well, on Saturday evening, we went to Dollar Tree as a family. Brian was dying to spend his money from the tooth fairy, and so what better place to spend your dollar than the dollar store? While we were there, Weston picked out a package of caps to get with the dollar that he had brought from home. He had never played with them before, so this morning, I went out to show him how it was done. He had a great time playing with his caps this morning!!!!!
Isn't he getting so big? I just love my Westy Pesty!!!
Since we were outside, I thought that I would take a picture of one of the beautiful roses that are on the bushes out front!! They are growing so well. The red one has 2 roses on it and the pink bush has a few buds, but no roses right now. Uncle Aaron must be putting some heavenly miracle grow on these roses or something!! I never could get roses to grow nearly half this well when we lived in Florida!!!!
Here is Amber watching the boys play this morning. I had to let her have her binky since all she wanted to do was eat the dirt!!
The boys had a lot of fun playing outside this morning. It has been perfect weather here. (upper 70's) It feels more like March than August, for sure!!!!!!!
Here is Brian giving Aaron instructions on how to be the flag man for the race between himself and Weston.
"Now this looks like an interesting toy. And look.....mud! Maybe I can eat some while my mommy isn't looking!!! :)"
Weston needs the brother of the year award!! He is so kind to his siblings. This morning, he helped Aaron with his bike for over an hour. When I asked him if he wanted to ride his own bike, he told me that he would rather help Aaron. What a good big brother!
Here is Brian going to town on his big wheel. I could barely get him to stop for a picture. He was having too much fun chasing Aaron and Weston.
It was time to go in for lunch, but Aaron wanted me to take one last picture of him. I just love days like these!

Pigtails

We all know that I have been dying to do hair-do's on my little girl. I decided this afternoon that I would see if her hair was long enough to do pigtails. Okay, so you can barely tell from the front that she has them in, and they look more like little sticks poking out of her head than anything else, but I still managed to get them in and I LOVE them!!!They look mighty cute, don't you think?

A close call

Okay, well perhaps it wasn't that close of a call, but I did see a rather crazy sight today on the way to church. It makes me thankful that we have our morning family prayer and that a blessing of safety is part of it. I think that I must first set the stage by saying that we live very close to an airport. We hear airplanes as they pass over our house every few minutes. It is not all that uncommon for us to be able to see their landing gear. Today was different though.

Although the airport is just about 15 minutes from our house, and our ward building is right by it, it takes us roughly a half hour to get to church in the morning because we have to drive around the airport on side roads to get there. This morning as we were driving along the road, just minutes from church, we saw a plane coming in for a landing. It was LOW. It passed over the road, not more than a few yards in front of our car. I actually thought that it might just end up landing on the road that we were on. This is where I was thankful for that prayer of safety that Brian gave this morning. As it passed over the road, it hit the tops of the trees just off the side of the road. It then disappeared behind the line of trees. As we passed under the spot where the plane had just passed over, I said a silent prayer of thanks that the plane had not landed on us and that we were able to make it safely to church. I hope that the next time I see a plane up close, it will be safely on the ground and not almost on top of my car!!!!!!

Watching Daddy

Barth is out mowing this morning. I decided that while he was doing that, I would put together the school bags in the dining room. Aaron and Amber joined me, but were soon distracted by Daddy mowing outside. Since it is a cool morning, I had opened the windows. They had so much fun waving at Daddy and saying hello to him! He would, of course, stop and wave back every time he came around. It was just so cute that I had to stop what I was doing to snap a few pictures.
Aaron decided that we wanted to be closer to Amber. Isn't that a sweet picture?
I just had to get a picture of those cute little tippy toes boosting Amber up to see and wave at her beloved Daddy!!! :)
Happy Saturday to all!!!

Making me smile

The other day Weston was in Amber's room while I was getting her changed. While in the room, he wanders over to where her pink car seat is stored and proceeds to say the following:

Weston: Mommy, I really like Amber's pink car seat much better.
Me: (slightly puzzled at this comment since her newer car seat is very much like the pink one, just able to hold a bigger baby) How come sweetheart?
Weston: Because it is pink. And it matches her pink outfits so much better than her gray one. It really just makes her look so much more like a girl.
Me: (smiling) You are sure right Weston.

Now if I could only get this sense of matching to carry over into his own wardrobe. :)

Birthday Bike

While we were in Texas, our sweet little Aaron turned 3!! Our main present to him was to be a big boy bike like his brothers. Since I didn't want to haul it all the way back here to Kentucky, we decided to get it once we got home. Well, yesterday was the day!!! There were several to choose from at the store, but this is the one that Aaron liked and could ride the best. He is so happy to have a big bike and be just like his brothers!!!
Go Aaron!!
Here is a better shot of what the actual bike looks like. Pretty cute if you ask me! :)
After riding for a short time yesterday morning when we got home, Aaron announced that it was too hot to ride (at a sweltering 82). In the afternoon we went to the pool and upon our return, he rode on the driveway for a good hour. He is really getting the hang of it.

11 months old

It is hard to believe that 11 months have passed already!!! Amber is getting bigger day by day. Just yesterday she started standing up in the middle of the room all by herself. I must say that I stood her up for this picture though. She still will not take more than a step or 2, but soon enough she will be walking all over the place.
Amber is a real sweetheart and is a delight to have in our family. The boys love her and love to make her laugh.
Does her hair look red to you? I think that it has lots of red high lights in it, but that it looks brown. I have had 4 different people tell me over the last 2 weeks that they just loved her red hair. :)
Before I know it, another month will have passed and I will be wishing my baby girl a happy birthday. My, how time flies!!!!!

More pictures from our trip

Sorry, but you will have to indulge a few more posts of pictures. I want to journal our trip a little bit and since I use this blog as my journal, I want some picture to go here. We had a great time visiting with everyone while we were there. It was great to get to see Michael and Heather and the girls so many times. This picture was taken on a Sunday evening. Weston and Ansley had such a great time playing together. They were always busy with something. It is such great fun to have a cousin your same age.
Heather always dresses the girls so cute and matching!! Here is sweet little Hailey and myself. It was so fun to get reacquainted with everyone again.
Michael and Heather, the two love birds!!! :) I had a wonderful time visiting with each of them and finding out what they had been up to.
My Daddy! We got to see him most on Sundays. He was busy a lot of the time that we were there. He is such a hard worker. He works and then goes to school in the evenings. I know that the boys had a fun time playing and wrestling with Grandpa.
Here is Brian just chillin' on the couch Sunday night. He really took a shine to this harmonica while we were in Texas. It was almost always in his mouth. He loved playing us songs on it.
Here is Grandma with Amber and Emberly. They are 5 months apart in age. It will be fun as they get older and play together, just like Weston and Ansley.
Grandma showed Amber how to walk back and forth between people while we were there. Here she is walking between Grandma and Auntie M. Amber thought that this was great fun. She is now standing up on things, letting go and then taking a few steps. It won't be long before she is walking all over the place!!!!
Amber and Auntie M!! :) Melissa had lots of fun with Amber. She loved getting her to sleep and cuddling with her. Melissa is so patient and kinds, it is no wonder she is so well liked by the nieces and nephews!!!
And here is one more of Amber and Auntie M. Hope you enjoyed the pictures. We are enjoying a relaxing day around the house this morning. It is storming outside and is supposed to be rainy all day long......so much for the pool I guess!!! Perhaps tomorrow.

Toothless grin

Here is a picture of Brian's toothless grin. I will be looking at it that way for a while I think, since it wasn't ready to come out. (you can read about it in the post below) Still, I think that it is quite the cute little smile!!!! :)

Update

Here is the update from our neck of the woods. I am feeling better. I went to the doctor and got some antibiotics!!! Amber had her scope today and all looks normal. :) We are glad for that. As is usual for us, a day cannot go by without some sort of happening, and today it was that Brain decided to bite onto Weston's blanket during nap time. This resulted in Weston yanking really hard on his blanket and, in turn, Brian's tooth out!!!!! It still had a nice root on it and wasn't wiggly at all, but he does look cute without his tooth. I will post a picture later. That is the quick update from here. I hope you all are having a good Friday!!!!

I want my MOMMY!!!!

I am sick today. I started running a temp of 103 in the night last night and feel terrible right now. Barth went to work because he was off on Monday and will be home on Friday for Amber's scope. If I get to feeling too bad I may just call him though. I wish my momma were here......

Sprinkler park

After Colorado, Barth flew back home while I stayed for a few weeks at my parent's house. We had a wonderful visit. One of the first days that I was there, we met up with Heather, Ansley, Hailey, Emberly and Michael joined us a little later, as well as Steven and Peirce. The cousins had a fun time getting reacquainted with each other and playing for hours on the sprinkler park as well as the adjoining playground. Here are a few pictures from that afternoon.
I did get quite a few pictures of the actual sprinkler playground, but wanted to post some pictures of us, so there are not so many of the actual playground. :) The kids had lots of fun with the water though.
Grandma took turns playing with all the grandkids while we were there.
Here is Weston enjoying some snacks while we were there.
I thought this one of Amber in the tunnel was especially good. (and by the way, this has nothing to do with the sprinkler park, but, Amber had her pre-op physical for the endoscopy that she is having on Friday morning. She hasn't grown much since she was there in June...She weighs 23 lbs, 4 oz and was 27.5 inches!)
Isn't this a cute one of Steven and Pierce?
Michael and little Emberly!!
Brian and I.
Michael helped Aaron at the spray ground for a while.
And here is Grandma with Emberly. It was a fun afternoon. I had a great time visiting with everyone!! Stay tuned for more pictures as the week goes along!!!

Home at last.....

1 Month
10 states
4290 miles (without a DVD player I might add!)
Lots of fun memories
and tons of stuff to put away!!!!

We made it safely home this afternoon after a wonderful visit with family and friends. There are LOTS of pictures to post, but I first have to get my house in order!!!!! :)

Breckenridge, CO

We had a successful first week of our vacation!! We went with Randy and his family and Barth's parents up to Breckenridge. It was so beautiful there!! We went on several great hikes together and really enjoyed the mountains. It was a fantastic week. This first picture was hiking up to a waterfall.
The guys got all the grandkids that were there up on a log that went over the rapids. It made this Momma a little nervous, but they thought that it was great fun.
One of the days that we were there, our little family went up to the Rocky Mountain National Park. It was so beautiful there. We saw some elk, a moose, and some deer. It was fun to see the snow capped mountians.
Here we are, the whole lot of us!!!! Don't you wish that you could have gone too? :)
Weston had already run ahead on the hike with his cousins when we took this picture. I took way more pictures than this, but thought that I would post a few. We have now arrived safely in Texas and are enjoying visiting with my family for the next few weeks. Although I won't post as often, I will post some while I am here of all the fun and swimming things that we are doing!!!!