pictures from Prudens!

Our sweet friends Jamie and Brittany Pruden invited us into their home the other night for a very informal farewell for Eric. There was plenty of FABULOUS food and laughing. Everyone brought something to eat and a great spirit with them. I am so thankful to all of our friends and family who are so supportive during this strange time.
Neelah was SO READY for bed. Poor girl!
The guys! Steve, Jamie, Jason, Eric (Neelah) and Rob
The Girls! Jenny, Brittany, Eric, Neelah, me Imiko Scout and Emily. (of course that is Finn wanting to go home as well)


THANKS SO MUCH EVERYONE!! YOU DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH WE NEED AND LOVE HAVING YOUR SUPPORT. YOU ARE THE BEST!!

D DAY

Today is the day that Eric left. Sad I know. I made it through the day without breakdown although I am not promising anything. Things could swing the other way when I am alone in my bed tonight. No really, I think I am doing pretty well. It isn't too hard for me to have him away since I know that he is just in Hawaii. I can call him and email him anytime I want, all day long if I want to. (His commander may not be too happy about that.)

It really is amazing the way the Lord helps us through trials. Some of you may know that Eric and I were going through some pretty rocky times just after we moved back to Utah. It was such a hard time for us all. If you had asked me then if I would support Eric leaving me alone and prego to go off and play GI JOE I would have laughed, looked at Eric and asked for a divorce! (So maybe that is only 50% true).

But now, things are totally different for us and I know that I didn't change and Eric didn't change. We just relied on Heavenly Father to guide us and help us to accept each other and most of all just LOVE EACH OTHER. I know I couldn't do all that by myself. I am so thankful for the blessings my family has received this last year!

I know this is a pretty sappy post but I wanted to let Eric know that I am so PROUD of him!! Although I don't understand, I am grateful that he is the loyal, devoted person that he is. I am grateful that he can teach those things to our children. I am so blessed to have him as a husband!

I will miss him every minute of every day, especially when I feel sick or the kids are driving me BONKERS!!

Family Home Evening at Chuck E Cheese!

Tonight we went with our friends the Rossi Posse to Chuck E Chesse. I have to say, we haven't ever taken Finn there before (I know, he is deprived!) and we had a BLAST! Above is a pic of Finn and Syd on a "date" in the car. Love the grins!
Camden and Finn hard at work racing...where did they learn to drive?
SCORE!!
You know this ball went into the 40 point hole!
Hit the Alligators as hard as you can!
The girls.

It was so good to go out and spend some time focusing on the kids. Eric is really feeling the fact that he won't be around them for a while. Neelah has become such a daddy's girl, it will be a hard one for her when he leaves. We are still waiting for her to officially crawl. She is taking her sweet time and I am okay with that. I am not ready to re-arrange my house to waist level.

Backwards posts...

Dad and Neelah, Christmas morning
At one point, Finn was more interested in Neelah's toy than his own.
And we finally convinced him to get on the bike, he hasn't been on it since!
This has been the absolute hit of Christmas. We have had to set certian time limits per day or else he would play ALL DAY LONG!!
Sweet girl on xmas!

New Years Announcements....

Warning: I am quite blunt in this post...If you don't appreciate that quality in me then you may want to consider passing up this post but I assure you, It will be well worth it!







Any of you who don't know what an I.U.D. is, let me fill you in. It is a form of birth control called an Inter-uterine device. Basically it is 99.9% effective and doesn't allow for your body to grow an embryo. It is placed in the Cervix and since it is a foreign object, your body produces masses of white cells to try to fight it (which your body can't do) so consequently a pregnancy will never survive with all the white cells down there. It really is a fabulous creation. At least I thought so until I GOT PREGNANT WITH ONE IN PLACE!!!

Back up, after meeting with my doctor, it is more likely that it either fell out or is floating around somewhere in my belly. Don't worry, it is sterile. Since you would think that I would feel something like that FALL OUT, I am thinking it may be floating around somewhere. Don't be concerned if you use one of these, this almost never happens. I just get to be the lucky one.

I am 11 weeks along and have gratefully moved past the part where I cried almost daily for the first 6 weeks. We are thankful that we are blessed with another sweet spirit in our family, however now is not the time we would have liked that to happen. Moving on to the next part of my blog entry......


Eric is leaving in the next week to start his training in Hawaii prior to his 6 month tour in Iraq. He won't be here for almost my entire pregnancy and/or the delivery. He won't get home until early to mid November. He is really excited to go (albeit this new info). It really is his calling to go out and do the things most of us don't want to do. I am truly proud of him and his duty to our country. Don't get me wrong, I wish he would be happy with a 9 to 5 desk job but that just isn't Eric.

Eric will be in Hawaii for 2.5 months and then off to Iraq after that. We are planning to go visit him while he is in Hawaii and have a nice little family vacation. I will be posting updates that he sends to me so keep checking out the blog to see what the latest on Eric is.

Now on to more fun topics....Here are some pictures of the kids on Christmas (sorry so long overdue) and just some other crazy pictures.




Here is Finn getting ready to go see what Santa brought.
Here he is with his loot. Neelah was still asleep. Unfair, I know but she isn't even a year old yet.
He didn't want anything to do with his BIKE at first, just the pirate stuff!
Of course Dad had to join in
Here is the favorite! He didn't put it down all morning!

Deck the Halls!

Tonight we decorated our Christmas tree. Finn just wanted to turn the lights on and off.
This pic is so blurry! But here is Finn putting the star o the tree.
Merry Christmas 2007

Christmas Celebrations with Great Gma Lois

Grandma's Facility had a little Christmas celebration and all the grandkids came to have time with Grandma.

Mac n Cheese for lunch

Neelah is starting to eat some table food...mainly she gums it around for 5 min and then it randomly slides down her throat. Tonight though, Eric made us a yummy Sunday dinner and Neelah was pretty gung ho about the carrots and mashed potatoes. She is starting to get the whole chew chew chew chew...swallow thing!

Finn wanted mac and cheese for breakfast this morning. He regularly asks for oatmeal for dinner. Dinner/breakfast foods? What is the difference?
I know you are thinking, "Can his mouth get any bigger?" The answer is YES!

EnRoute to Costco

Picture us in the car, on the freeway and out of the blue this converesation happens.

Finn: "Dad, my pee-pee is BIG"

Eric: "Did he just say his pee-pee is big?"

Me: "Yes, he did"

Finn: "But WHY is it big?"

Eric: "It just sometimes is, don't touch it and it will get small"

Finn: "But I don't WANT my pee-pee to be big!"

Me: "Did you just have that conversation with our 3 year old son?"


I know this is incriminating for Finn. One day he will hate me for publishing this. I am sorry Finn, but I COULD NOT RESIST! It was too classic!

copy cat

So after reading Amy's blog I have decided that I am failing at bringing the holiday spirit into Finn's life. I am off of work this weekend and am on a mission to bring some Christmas Cheer into our house! Anyhow, I was reading her blog and wanted to share an article about the Mormon Religion that was in the Wall Street Journal. Check it out here. Whether you are Mormon or not, it is an interesting article and I love the fact that it encourages us all to be tolerant of every religion.

Family Picture Day

Today we had family pictures taken at Kiddie Kandids. I love the way they turned out. The funky green border is not my choice...that happened when I downloaded them...oh well. We had to get a pic done before Eric leaves and now is as good a time as ever. We sold one of our puppies to the Director of Marketing for Kiddie Kandids and they gave us a gift certificate for 7 free sheets! How cool is that? Although KK is a little spendier than Sears portrait studio, we got our pictures 10 min after we decided what we wanted (at Sears, you have to wait like 10 days), they had cuter props and free options like Sepia or B&W ect. I was pretty impressed, especially since it cost 0 dollars!!!

Funny until it goes too far...

While we were decorating the house with Christmas decor, we put Neelah in her chair to sit and observe. That wasn't enough so we brought out the Kix cereal. I would put like 10 pieces on her tray and she would be content for 10 min or so. I walk out of the living room and hear Finn talking to Neelah. Then he dumps half the box on her tray. I guess she was hungry?!
It was funny how she went for the cereal. Such a treat! Then it all started loosing it's funny-ness when Finn starts making a disaster.

Maile got called in to repair the damage while Finn was banished to the time out corner. I had asked him 3 times to quit throwing cereal on the carpet. Apparently it was too tempting!
Yes, he actually does stay here with his nose in the corner until the oven timer goes off! Don't worry, it is only 2 or 3 min from when he stops screaming. I know, we are terribly mean parents. :)

Thanksgiving Traditions...

Everyone who is anyone knows that Thanksgiving isn't complete without the olive fingers!

giggling kids

I am so glad that my kids play well together. I would miss out on at least half of my daily smiles if they didn't get along.'

Just for Finn...

This entry is for Finn. He was sitting with me while I was posting Neelah's little video and wanted to be in a video too. His big debut!

Blue Eyed Baby

Neelah has so much independance now that she can sit by herself. She will sit and watch Finn for what seems like forever and be perfectly entertained with her crazy brother.
Crazy hair
Oh the perfect smile! Sorry to all that this blog entry is so boring. It seems like I have been working non-stop and have missed a lot of things with the kids. I don't have much exciting news today. Finn is talking more than ever ( isn't it ironic how you spend so much of your time trying to teach them to talk and then all I want sometimes is for his mouth to be quiet!). And He is so great with his sister. He is still the one who can make Neelah laugh without fail.

All about Neelah

So this week Neelah has learned to perform for attention. She loves "patty cake" and clapping. I thought I would capture this on video for those of you who are interested. We are such proud parents, you would think we mastered something huge like bio chemistry or something crazy like that. It is all the same when it is your own kiddies learning new things!

We love the DOG!

Maile is the best dog...well except for her extremely stinky butt! But anyway, she lets anyone pull on her ears or tackle her. Here she was playing with Neelah. She likes to play tug...they both do.

All the kiddies...the dog is really just another kid.

Finally, Halloween is OVER!

On our way to trick or treating at the Watson's. Finn figured out how to put his candy basket on his head like a hat. Of course the picture wouldn't be complete without the finger up the nose!
Mom and Pooh Bear
Ya-Ya and the grandkids: Finn, Gabe, Neelah, Felicity and Reagan. We went trick or treating at Questar...sort of a pre-halloween, halloween.
Grandma Sharlene had this fun decoration. You push the button and a spooky purple tongue pokes out and gets your finger! At first, Finn jumped but then, he and Camden couldn't get enough of it.
And finally, Halloween wouldn't be complete without humiliating our dog. Here we have Maile the Lobster.

Ode to my Children...

So there aren't any pictures with this blog entry. This is more like a little journaling so if you only check out pics, feel free to move on. I just have had some thoughts about my kiddies that I wanted to remember.

First of all, Finn is so amazing! Each day he wakes up and comes silently into our room. He stands right in front of me and says, "Mommy?" It usually scares me to death but then he tells me, "I am AWAKE!" Then he climbs up into our bed and snuggles himself right up against me and just hangs out for a while until he decides that he is thirsty. That is when our day begins. I love this time with him! He is quiet and content and that doesn't happen for the rest of the day so I take full advantage of the 10 min I have.

Finn is learning to write his name. I can't believe how smart he is at 3! His memory is crazy. He hears a song and sings along to it the next time he hears it. He makes up his own words to primary melodies and always wants to listen to music. He sings to himself when he thinks no one is listening. When I ask him if I can play with him he exclaims, "Of COURSE you can!!"

Neelah is getting so BIG! I adore her! She sees me and reaches both her arms out to grab my cheeks and then nuzzles her face right against mine. Can you imagine the tenderness?! She is just like Finn in that she smiles almost all the time! Does it get any better than this? She has discovered herself in the mirror and so when I change her she insists on rolling over to the mirror and giggling at herself. Finn can ALWAYS make her laugh and he loves to hold her and show her his toys.

How blessed I am for having these 2 angels in my life!