Halloween Time

We have had such a fun week! Erin came home to visit with the kids so we had to go get pictures taken! I usually do Kaydences pictures around her birthday every year and have not had a chance to do it yet. So we decided to do a few along with the family. They turned out so cute and the kids did really well suprisingly! Kaydence loves having Maddie here! She was such a big helper trying to change Kalab and playing with him. She will be a good big sister some day. A week goes by too fast, and I know Kaydence will be sad when they leave on Tuesday, but we love it when they visit!

The trying continues.....

So as many of you know, if you don't you will know now, that we have been trying to have another baby for well over a year now. This has been exhausting and frustrating I really don't know how people do this for year after year, I am way too impaitent. I started going to my doctor after we hit the year mark for ultra sounds to time ovulation. This can get time consuming and costly with gas and missed hours at work. I didn't really mind because I really want a baby and I have a great OB, best doctor around seriously! Well this month my folicles just decided to do a whole lot of nothing, just sit there. So after several visits and no progress and the look of my ovaries, he said I had PCOS which is poly cystic ovarian syndrome. Which means that my ovaries have created this beautiful pearl necklace effect and none of them are becoming "ripe" to pop, in other word nobody is going down the slide to meet the swimmers at the park called my uterus. No eggs = no baby creating. So next step is medicince called Metaformin. Since PCOS can cause insulin resistiance, which causes great side effects like weight gain, acne and hair growth, but not on your head. So if any of you are wondering wow, Amber really let herself go, just remeber it is not 100 % my fault, trust me, I hate it! So today I started the medicine and try to continue to be positive, which is very hard. I have felt lost lately and frustrated at something that came so easy the first time is causing me so many problems this time. I know the lord has a plan for us and I need to learn from this situation. I also know how blessed I am to have a wonderful husband who puts up with so much and is always supportive, and I have a beautiful daughter that we both love dearly! I am okay that if I do not have any more children biologically that there are plenty of kids out there that need a loving home, no matter what race or culture they come from. I am also thinking about taking applications for those of you out there who would like to lend me your uterus, just for about nine or ten months. :)

Our growing girl!

Kaydence had her well child check today. She often got this confused and called it her wheel chair check. I had to explain to her that she needed to go to the doctor when she had her birthday every year to make sure she was healthy. She was a whole 39 lbs and 41 1/2 inches tall. This was her first year getting to do the eye test. For the younger kids the have the eye chart with the symbols and pictures. When the nurse asked her what this sign was + she said the Ambulance. The nurse was very suprised she had never heard that one before. Then she was so excited for the doctor to finally come in to see her. He told her how big she was and that he remembered when she was just a little baby and she said ya mama wants another baby. I just laughed at her she doesn't keep anything private sometimes. She was able to get her flu vaccine through a nasal mist. Ya no shots! She thought that was great, and I was very happy to get one as well. The only down fall of her appointment is that the doctor said she has a Still Heart Murmur, which worried me. The doctor explained that it is very normal and he was not worried about it. He also said it was very common at this age. After doing my own research I realized that it was very normal and common, which helped ease my fears. All in all she is healthy and happy and very active little girl.

Happy Birthday Kaydence

Happy Birthday baby girl, we love you so much and can't beleive you are already four! This slide show are pictures through out her life, even a picture of her at the very end with Kyle Korver from the Utah Jazz, she just meet him today and was so excited! Happy Birthday Kaydence!

Updates

Sorry no pictures with this blog update, don't have time or the right equipment to update at my house so you just get to read. Sorry if that bores you I did give you fair warning. I thought I would up date on how we are doing.

~ Kaydence is almost four, I can't believe it. She gets smarter everyday, and says some of the funniest things. She turns four on Sept 12 and then she will be starting pre school a Roy High. We are very excited so she will have more interaction with kids than adults hopefully that means she will pick up less swear words ( she learns them from grandma) and she will make new friends. She cannot wait and she tells me she is going to school everyday. She got a new rolling back pack from Grandma Peggy that goes with her everywhere. Josh liked the idea of her going to Roy because he knows the teacher, plus she will get plenty of one on one attention which she needs.

~We are getting new windows, I know how excited you are so try to calm down. We have needed 3 new windows since we moved in and I can't wait to have a bathroom window that is frosted not clear, thank goodness when do not have back yard neighbors, I only flash the Gardner when he is out weeding ;)

~Along with windows we are going to attempt some DIY projects like painting and refinishing our cupboards, it doesn't sound too hard but we will see. We just want to increase the value of our house when it comes time to sale. Any tips let me know

~We are currently working on getting the baby making machine working properly. I have become BFFs with my ob/gyn the past week and a half visiting him 5 times, trying to find out the exact time the ball is going to drop. We hope that we will get positive results soon, it gets exhausting working over time.

~Josh's brother and sister in law are back in the state and we have been spending a lot of time with them. We are glad they made it home safely and are excited to see where they will be placed for recruiting. We had a rough summer last year and are glad to be off to a new start with them.

Josh continues to do well at his job and really enjoys it. He is such a people person and seems to draw others to him. This comes in handy in many areas of our life. I am very proud of how hard he works for us and all he accomplishes. Thats about it for updates nothing too exciting I know I will post more pictures soon.

Roy Days and a Weekend Picnic

Yesterday was the last day of Roy days and since we love the city we live in so much we thought we would participate. Make sure the fees I pay and Roy city trying to violate me on my yard goes to good use. I met up with Josh and Kaydence at the Roy parade. I was working so I packed up the state van with 5 kids and we headed to the parade. Kaydence loved the other kids and really loved getting all the candy! I swear this was the longest parade I have ever been too. It started at 9:30 am and I was packing up the van to head back to work at 11:30 and the parade was still going. After work we went over to the carnival and booths. They had more booths than rides this year. Kaydence kept asking for moneys so she could go in the blow up toys and buy treats. After meeting up with both grand parents she wanted to go in the bubble area. It was a big blown up ring with a bubble machine for the kids to run and get soaked in.

After she was done her poor eyes were burning and was freaking out when Josh tried to clean her off with the hose, it was nap time. The funny thing is that she runs around our yard soaking herself with our hose. After grabbing some lunch we headed home for nap time. That night we had Ash and Cal over with the girls for dinner. Which I never got any pictures of them. The girls had so much fun we will definitely have to do it again.

Last weekend Josh and I decided we should go on a picnic with his parents. After almost running into the back of another car on our way up the Mountains, Joshs dad luckily got us there in one piece. Kaydence barely let me get her picture before she wanted to explore. We were right by the river so we had to hurry and get lunch so she could go jump in. Daddy is such a

good sport to get in with her. At first she wanted to get out because it was really cold, but after awhile she enjoyed throwing rocks down the river with daddy. We left the camping area and headed back down to Huntsville park. She wanted to play on the slides after her adventure in the river. The Huntsville park is really nice and has tons of toys for the kids to play on. Even Josh had a fun time. I also climbed up but Joshs butt looks so much better on camera than mine.

We found the weirdest slide at the park. It was long and straight down but at the top there was two large humps with about ten inches in between to squeeze yourself through, plus it was very oddly shaped, you can only image what Josh thought it looked like. I know what you are thinking... exactly it looks like a banana right. On the way home we had a very tired girl but she was able to stay awake for some ice cream, yum! Thanks Stan and Kaye for going with us we had a lot of fun!

2 New Babies!

Yes, Kaydence finally has two new cousins on Josh's side of the family. This has seemed like such a long time coming but we are finally glad they are here! They were both born on Thursday July 16, Olivia Hoellein was born at 8:01 am to Joel and Bonnie, and Grayson William Hoellein was born at 1:05 pm to Jared and Camberly. They are both so cute and we are very glad to welcome them into the family. Kaydence has been very caring and loves to see the babies. She was a little worried about Camberly when we visited the hospital and had to call her that night before she went to bed. She was very excited to go to Carters and pick each baby out a musical stuffed animal just like she got when she was a baby. Kaydence also talks about her other new cousin Kalab, which she calls him "K-LOV" it is his rapper name, she misses him and enjoys talking to him on the phone. I wish I had some pictures to post, but will have to try a post them later this week from my parents house. We are so glad to have three wonderful babies in our big family and we are hoping and working very hard (trust me!) to add another one of our own by next year!

We finally did it!

Since Kaydence was born she has always had beautiful hair. I was putting pony tails in her hair by four months old. I loved how long it was but it started to become a big chore to fix, and keep clean. There would be days that I could not do anything to get a comb through it, half the time she would not let me. I have to admit she would go several days with out getting it washed or combed, and we would start singing Bob Marley songs to her. Congrats to all you who get your children bathed and hair combed daily you must be a super mom! I on the other hand enjoyed teaching my daughter the classic Bob Marley tunes.

After talking with Kaydence we decided we would cut her hair and donate it to lock for love. I explained to her for quite awhile because after everything I said came a WHY, wow how they could very easily rid that word from the English language now! Anyway, I got online and showed her picture of the website and the little girls she would be sending her hair to, and she became very excited. Here is a before picture with long, crazy but beautiful hair.

Aunt Bonnie was so nice to cut it for us, even though Kaydence was not the easiest person to cut.

Here she is with the pony tail! I don't have a good picture of the final results, but she looks super cute! We love it and it is so much easier to fix and we will definitely save money on conditioner. She was very excited and she woke up the next morning and told me how beautiful her hair cut looked. She really looks so grown up it made us realize that she is not my baby anymore, but such a big girl. So now would be a great time for number two, hopefully soon.

Congrats to my Wonderful Hubby!

Josh has been at his job for over a year now and has been working hard since the beginning. It has been a little different actually selling the food instead of cooking it, but he still manages to find many opportunities to cook. He had a sales meeting last week and he received rookie of the month (they are considered rookies for like the first 3 years). I was so excited for him he has a nice award to put in our office at home. He also found out he received fourth place in a sales promo they have been running for two months and is getting a nice bonus! I told him that I cant wait for one day in our life he will receive a bonus and we wont know what to use it for, instead of paying bills off, we can use it for fun! I love you Josh , thank you for working so hard for our family.

Attack of the licorice Part 2 well kind of....

So this story will take a little bit of explaining so bare with me. Josh's family all know this story very well and he was against me posting this, so please limit the amount of licorise bouquets you send to him :) When Josh was younger he hide a bag of licorice that his parents had bought in his room. Well it came back to haunt him, in the middle of the night he had a nightmare that the licorice was attacking him and ran out of his room screaming and crying. His parents got a good kick out of this and tell this story often. So you may be asking why I brought this story up, because last Sunday we were very lazy a stay home all day. (I know how horrible, such sinners) Anyway, I had set my chapstick down in random places and kept lossing it of course, I feel like I lose everything except weight that seems a little bit too attached. Well sometime during the day I had set my chapstick down within reach of Kaydence and she snuck it up to her room. I had mentioned through out the day I could not find my chapstick. So at about 4:50 am she runs in my room wakes me from a dead sleep yelling "Momma I found it! I found your chapstick!" Startled and confussed I took it from her and had to just laugh. She ran back to her room and quickly was back to sleep. I think the guilty got to her, just like it did her daddy, that she had to give it back to me. The funny thing is that about 10 minutes later as I lay there trying to go back to sleep I can hear her laughing in her sleep. So maybe she didn't feel as guilty as I thought she had. I rolled over to Josh and whispered to him it was Attack of the Licorice Part 2, he didn't think it was that funny.

6 years!

Wow, today is the day that Josh and I met six years ago! I cannot believe it has been that long. Of all the places to meet, we met at a wedding so of course it would have to work out right! I am so thankful for my husband and all the hard work he does for our family. He is an amazing man and I have loved every minute , even the bad ones, of the last six years. I love you Josh!

North Carolina

We are currently in North Carolina and having a great time. Kaydence loves being her and having Maddie to play with all the time. For me it is great to be away from work for a week and to not have to worry about anything, but I do miss my hubby a lot! Love you babe.

We finally got to meet baby Kalab! Here is a picture of his first bath, as you can tell he hated every minute of it. He is so cute and so little. He has been a very good baby and loves to lay on your chest and snuggle. He has a cute little cry nothing compared to Maddie's scream that she still has!

We haven't done a whole lot and if you read Erin's blog and her horrible natural birth story you would understand why! But we were able to get out for a bit to go to the park and get some sea shells at the beach. The girls had so much fine and it was very pretty at the beach. They loved collecting sea shells and they filled up one of my cargo pockets in my capris. We are taking them home for daddy.

While at Erin's house Kaydence and Maddie enjoyed playing hide-n-seek. Maddies is hiding in the corner.

Both Kaydence and Maddie love baby Kalab they love to help feed him and hold him, but they don't ever want to help with diapers. We have a few more adventures this week for I will post more later.

Picture with Baby Knox!

My friends Alex and Nichele just had the cutest baby boy a month ago. We decided to make them some dinner after they came home and Kaydence just loved Knox. She loved holding him and would barely give me a turn. Alex took such a cute picture of her holding him. She is going to be a really great big sister one day, she does really good around babies. I hope it will last since she will be having 3 new cousins in the next couple of months. One will hopefully be out before we come to visit on Saturday! When are we having more kids you may ask......not sure you would have to talk to my uterus it has a mind of its own! :)

Thanks Alex for this great picture, Knox is such a gorgeous little boy!

Happy Easter!

So I know it has been a week since Easter but we have all been sick and have not done much of anything but cough all the time. Thank goodness we are starting to improve because we were running out of clean dishes. Anyway, we had a very fun Easter with Kaydence this year. Josh and Kaydence headed up to Morgan ( I was stuck at work til noon :(boo) where Josh's moms family is from and participated in the city Easter egg hunt. Kaydence won three baskets and was very excited! Then they headed over to Josh's grandmas house, she does a big lunch and her annual Easter egg hunt. She write all her children, grand children and great grand children names on eggs and puts them through out the yard for us to hunt down, she is an amazing lady!






We got all the great grandkids to sit on the porch to get a quick picture. Kaydence is in the middle, the cute one that sometimes resembles cousin IT from the Adams Family ;) The adults spread candy , eggs and other treats throughout the yard and the count down began to let the little ones loose. Kaydences got a ton of candy and treats to go with her other three baskets from earlier that day. After all the hunting and eating Grandma rents out the bowling alley for everyone to enjoy a couple of games with the family. Kaydence loved bowling and Josh was so good with her, helping her roll the ball down the lane. I can proudly say I beat Josh and I am still waiting for my massage he owes me. After a long day we headed home. After a much needed nap time we colored eggs with Kaydence. She is just like her daddy loves to be in the kitchen! Her favorite part was putting stickers to decorate the eggs after they were dry, she will do anything that involves stickers.





On Easter Sunday we got up and ate yummy pull a parts one of our favorites. Kaydence was so excited to see that she got yet another basket with goodies. This making number five, six if you count the package Auntie Erin sent her earlier, so much for my diet. We went outside to see eggs all over the yard, which neither of us had put down, I think the neighbor beat me to it. or there really is an easter bunny? We had a great weekend and I am grateful for all I have, I have been truly blessed. I hope everyone had a great Easter weekend.

Be careful what you say....

We were so lucky to have a child who takes everything so literal. We have learned the last couple of weeks that we really have to watch what we say around her. The other night she was driving me crazy running around the house with a wet wash cloth singing "clean, clean clean," wiping everything she could get her hands on. Well not thinking I told her, "your going to clean your butt right to bed." She then went into the living room, as I continued cleaning in the kitchen, not thinking much about it. Then I heard Josh ask, "What are you doing?" She was just listening to her momma. She had pulled her pants down and was cleaning her little bottom. Josh and I just had to laugh. Now we have learned to watch what we say.

Its gone!!

So today I had a follow up appointment with my doctor to check my cyst. After arriving at his office the receptionist told me it might be a while, he had gone to McKay Dee to deliver a baby. So waited with a room full of odd people. Four of them were not speaking English, they had a baby that did not want to be held or put down or eat or anything pretty much. I was guessing he was about ten months and mom was on her second child, I need her fertility! The other couple was two women, guessing they were friends, don't know for sure. One of the women was doing something with her ear, then she had blood running down her neck, gross! Thank goodness the doctor called and was on his way back. The nurse took us all back to different rooms and in order to check my cyst I had to take my bottoms off and sit in my pretty pink napkin, that does not quiet fit around my well endowed bottom for what seemed like forever.

I had drank a lot of water before my appointment and had used the potty before my appointment. Well by the time my doctor came in I really needed to go. So he did the ultrasound and saw this huge black ball on the screen and asked "is that your bladder?" I replied, "probably I really have to go, I had been waiting a while." So I got to run out of my room to the potty in nothing but my shirt and pink napkin. Good thing I was his last appointment! So we went back to finish the ultrasound to find..... nothing! Hooray! My cyst disappeared, now lets hope thats the last of them!

Now I have also been asked by a friend about my diet. I don't really have a set diet because I don't want to or have the money to by a bunch of stuff that I can't feed my family or money to join a group. I did find a book I really like called Eat This, Not That! Supermarket guide. It has great tips and recipes in it. Along with about every food you can think of that you can buy at the supermarket. It compares food in a single group like Ice Cream and tell you which ones are better for you and why and the ones that are not good for you and why. I love it! It has helped a lot when grocery shopping and choosing better choices for our family. There is also two other books with the same name one is a family survival guide, the other I am not sure but the book is yellow. The other two books I have looked at and they also have restaurant information, it will tell you better choices between meals at several different restaurants. Anyway, using this book and taking a prescribed med from my doctor has helped me lose weight. I hope this is helpful! :)

No, thats just fat, but thanks for asking!

So as many of you know we started trying to have another baby since last summer. Kaydence desperately needs someone to play with or at least someone who will sit still long so she can cover them in stickers. Well after trying for seven months, I stopped having a cycle. So exciting right that usually means that Josh's friend met my friend and Kaydence will have a new person to put her sticker collection on.

Nope, that not what happened, it turns out my friend was a little stubborn and didn't want to leave its cozy little home. Which in turn developed into a cyst. The doctors advice, go home and have sex, every other day come back in four days. Now I pride myself on my intelligence but this day I was lacking common sense. I asked him "Why?" He was hoping that my friend would leave home and find its mate, oh yeah that makes sense now. Well it obviously did not work.

What to do now? Sit and wait for this time bomb to explode so I can be in excruciating pain and possible continue to have problems. That sounded horrible to me so after doing my own research on my problem it sounded like a little bit of weight loss would help me and hopefully get my system back on the regular course it has been on for most of my life. So back on birth control and with help from my doctor starting a weight loss program. I have now lost 12 pounds in a month and I am still counting.

I am sure if you are still reading this your wondering why the heck I titled this the way I did. I felt my story needed some background first. We went to my in laws ward today to see my brother in law sing in sacrament. Their ward is an older ward and has many older women that know everything about everyone and their family in the ward. After sacrament I was approached by my mother in laws visiting teaching partner. She nicely asked me, "how are you feeling?" Kinda thought it was weird but I did just have a cold, so I replied, "good thanks." Then she continues, "Thats good, so your due in the summer, you guys are due in the same month, only a week away right?" After a confused frustrated look I told her, "I am not pregnant, thats Bonnie." See not only is my sister pregnant, but two of my sister in laws are expecting in July about a week apart. Trying to be nice and not let this lady feel bad I told her "we have been working on that." She replies, "oh, well thats so much fun to work on." She leaves and I am thinking wow too much info!

Lets just say this rubs me the wrong way because this is the second time I have had one of these old , nosey ladys assume I am pregnant. Another lady in their ward, went all out to ask me when I was due and if I was excited to have another one. Then when I told her I wasn't pregnant, and asked her where she heard that, she blamed it on my mother in law. Which by the way was a lie.

So I can take from my experiences as incentive to work out harder, do many more crunches, skip that brownie or cookie or I can just remind myself that they are just crazy, old ladies with nothing better to do in the geriatric ward.

NEVER, EVER use American Express!!!!!

Oh, what a day it has been. Josh and I have been trying to get and stay out of debt since we got married. We are big Dave Ramsey fans and have been trying to follow some of his tips. Anyway, we have had our ups and downs and have had to use credit, I am sure we are not the only one. Josh has had an American Express card on and off since 2003. We had no interest for a year and paid our card off in August. Things got a little tight around the holidays and we ended up using it for gift. Well to the point of my story, we received a letter in the mail saying they closed our account? What, why? We had just paid our card off three weeks ago and did use it again just last week. So it has a small amount of money on it nothing close to our 1000 dollars limit which we just had lowered significantly two months ago.

I continued to read on in this letter from such a horrible company. They said that our card was closed due to our credit score. American Express has recently preformed a credit check with Experian and from our "report" we had too many inquires within the year, too much revolving debt, length of time accounts have been established and number of account with delinquency. By this point I am very upset. I know we have debt but nothing has ever been delinquent or late. I made a call to American Express and did not do much listening I really ripped two people a part. Recently in the media American express has said they are giving certain customers with high debts and delinquent accounts 300 dollar gift card for paying off their card by April.

Does anyone else see the problem, lets reward those who are irresponsible and run up high debts, miss or don't make payments with a 300 dollar gift card to pay their card off, thanks for your business? What about those of us who are making their payment and do not miss payments? What do we get? Oh thats right our account closed! Josh and I did some research into our credit report. I had NOTHING late or delinquent on my credit. On Josh he had two late payments on two separate cards from SEVEN years ago, thats it! Also it showed that when we were in the process of trying to reduce our burden of a car we could not afford last spring, every car dealer we went to interested in a car they checked our credit. So that is why we had too many inquires, neither of us had any idea this happened.

I contacted our bank to ask them some questions on credit. Having accounts open for a long period or time and in good standing is actually GOOD not bad for your credit. So because American express is in a ton of debt and sinking they have to close my account and ding my credit. When Josh called he was told that they didn't even get a report just a summary, so they did not even know our score or which accounts were delinquent. They also told Josh that they are trying to become more like a bank so they can receive stimulus money! Wow, they need the government to bail them out yet they treat their good customers like crap! I also talked to my mother in law who take applications for American Express and she just took 6 new credit card applications last night and she still approves 3/4 of the applicants. So they are really not trying to get out of debt they just want the government to fix all their problems.

Sorry for such a huge venting blog, but we were both very upset. I ended my conversation with American Express with the fact that I will never use their company again, I will never recommend their company, and I hoped that their credit card goes down the drain. Call me bitter if you may but spread the word DO NOT USE AMERICAN EXPRESS!!!

Our Anniversary

We just celebrated our four year anniversary a couple of weeks ago. I am just finally getting around to posting it. Josh is the best husband and father. He surprised me with beautiful flowers delivered to our house and a cute new outfit. Kaydence's and I went to buy him some new shoes and few other goodies while he was at work. She wanted to get him some shoes with lights in them, but they were not in his size. When he came home we went out to dinner and Kaydence went to spend sometime with Grandma. We usually go spend the night at The Homestead in Midway which is always amazing. It can be a little pricey but is worth the trip at least once, it is so beautiful up there. This year our anniversary was on a weekday so I booked us a room in the Anniversary Inn for that Saturday. It was cheaper and had a coupon for a nights stay ( I really have turned into my father). We stayed in the Italian Gondola room which had a big gondola that we slept in and a waterfall shower with a huge tube. We went to the gateway for dinner and a movie before our nights stay. It was a very nice night away time to spend with just each other and enjoy a night out. The last four years have not been easy for us but I would not trade them for anything in the world. I love my honey more than anything else, he really is the best husband I could ask for, I love you Josh!

Kaydence's First Talk

They assigned Kaydence a talk in church a couple of weeks ago. She was excited to be able to talk about families and stand up in front of everyone at the microphone. I was not sure what to do for her talk so we drove over to Seagull Book and found a really cute talk book that had a variety of subjects that would work for a few years of primary. I copied the pictures and sayings out of the book, colored them and put them on some card stock. She was very excited the night before and went over the talk several times with me. She even did in front of daddy like he was the audience.

The next morning I woke up feeling horrible, I was sick and didn't even want to get out of bed. I tried to shower and get ready hoping I would feel better, but no luck. I was upset I was really looking forward to seeing her do her talk. I have such a wonderful husband he put me back to bed and said he would take care of her talk and sub in the nursery too. Things went well till walking into the primary room, Kaydence was accidentally bonked in the head with the door. That ruined everything, she cried through the entire talk, and Josh ended up giving the talk. Well at least it got him out of the Nursery. She came home to tell me she would do her talk another time.

Valentines Day!

This year Valentines Day was a lot more fun. Kaydence has been anticipating the event for several weeks now, since I bought her and Maddie cute little Valentines bags with all sorts of goodies in them. I decided since I had to work Valentines morning that I would get up about ten minutes earlier ( I have to work at 6 am so ten minutes is a lot! :)). I prepared the day before cutting out hearts and blowing up balloons. I was excited to decorated our living room because this was something I did for Josh when we were dating. I taped the hearts on ribbon and hung then from the ceiling. I also wrote reason why I loved Josh and Kaydence on every heart I hung up. I put their Valentines gifts on the couch and spread hearts and chocolate kisses up the stairs to their rooms. About 9 am I received a call at work saying how much Kaydence loved the hearts and had to have Josh read everyone. I also got a picture on my phone of her playing with her Valentines stickers, she loves stickers. They both loved their presents and were very happy with the decorations.

I also wanted to do something fun with the kids at work. Since it was Valentines Day and it was also my 5 year anniversary of working at the Christmas Box House, wow I feel old. Anyway I had so many ideas and since we have been so low on kids I figured we could have an action packed day. Well when I went into work on Thursday we ended up having 21 kids! Now 6 months ago this was nothing to us, it was normal everyday event to have at least this many children, but since November if we had 10 kids we were high. Now having 21 children is a good thing, not that I am pro abuse or anything, don't get me wrong. The fact is that people don't stop doing drugs or abusing their children over night, so I knew when we were not getting children in that it was not a good sign. So my plans had to be changed around a bit. I found a really cute bingo game online and made enough cards for all the kids. Kaydence and I went shopping the day before to get all the goods I needed for our day. We played Valentines bingo with conversation hearts as markers. I also brought strawberries and we dipped them in chocolate. It wasn't a lot but it brought the kids a little bit of fun on Valentines day and helped show them how much we cared.

While at work Josh had called and talked to one of my co workers to inform her that he had something coming for me and she could not let me leave at 2 when my shift ended. So I waited around till 3. I was a little impatient because I have been awake since 4:45 am and I was missing my Saturday nap with Kaydence. Finally at 3:30 pm Josh called and told me to come home that my gift was being delivered to our house instead. Well 5 pm rolled around and still no gift. Josh called again and they told him that they missed me at my work. Josh was upset and told them thats because I told you to bring it to my house. SO finally at 6:15 pm they arrived with my delicious chocolate covered fruit bouquet. It was so yummy! All three of us ate quite a few strawberries and grapes. My sweet husband also got me a new shirt and a really cute sweater. We decided earlier in the week since Josh actually had his first Valentines off in who knows how long, that we would just spend the night at home. I know we are so exciting. With Josh working in the food industry he knows how crazy Valentines is and it was not worth going out to fight the crowds. Plus we thought this would give our parents to opportunity to go out and not baby sit, but that didn't happen either. So we cuddled up with pizza, a fire and watched Horton Hears a Who with Kaydence, which she loved. All in all after a very long day with an early rise and no nap it was great to spend time with the two people I love the most in my life, we had a very wonderful Valentines Day.

p.s. I will try to add pictures soon

Our ice skating adventure!

Well about two weeks ago Josh and I decided to try and take Kaydence ice skating. She has been obsessed with Mickey's Twice upon a Christmas, Daisy and Minnie ice skate at the beginning of the show. We recorded this at Christmas time and it is still a big hit in February for Kaydence. I can now tell you a play by play of the show. Anyway, she has continually ice skated around the house for months now. We went up to the ice sheet on a Saturday night with everyone else in Weber county. Kaydence could not wait to get out on the ice, the funny thing was that she could not even stand up on the ice. Yet, she insisted that she could do it by herself. We started out with her bike helmet on, which did not stay on very well so we ended up taking it off. Josh had to hold her under her arms the entire time out on the ice, she would just giggle. Josh had to hold her because I was holding onto the side so I would not fall down, I am far from graceful. It was a fun experience and a great laugh to watch her, we left with great memories and a back ache!

A long week!

This has been one of those weeks that have seemed to be endless. My life would not be normal without some type of car problem in it. Our toyota that Josh drives to work needs atleast (we are hoping) two new tires, and here is the weird thing it is the tires on the passenger side of the car that need to be replaced. Odd right, don't worry I told Josh to stop making right hand turns to solve that problem ;). I am no mechanic but judging by all the car problems I have experienced in my almost ten years of driving, I think we need an allignment as well. When the weather was bad Josh would drive our Saturn to work. Well he calls me to let me know the tire went flat on that car too. I am starting to see a pattern here it has to do with Josh and driving our cars. I have been thinking to myself maybe I should work part time for Discount tires? With Josh taking the car that has three good tires that would leave me with the other. So Kaydence and I spent a lot of time at home this week, I have never seen my house cleaner. I should take pictures cause I know many of you (Erin) would not believe it. Towards the middle of the week we got some sad news. My cousins son was hit by a car and killed in California. I am not really close with my cousin being as we all grew up in different states, but my heart goes out to him and his family. I realize how much more, now being a mother, stories like these effect me. I feel like I need to have Kaydence strapped to me everytime we leave the house. I am truly grateful for the wonderful friends and family that I have, it really opens your eyes. So now to the end of the week, usually everyones favorite right. Well I have dealing with the ups and downs of my job for the past four months. I only work two days a week, but everyday that I am there I hear something different. We are getting hit with the big budget cut and now they want us to cut 25% of our hours which could equally 6 to 8 layoffs out of 26 staff. It is something that is constantly in the back of my mind. I really won't know anything till they get through legislature. Now we just have to sit back to wait and see what happens. At the end of a long week I sit back and realize all that I do have in my life and I try to learn and grow from all the negative.

Holiday Update!

I decide since I had some extra time today that I would update on how the holidays went for us. November started out to be a rough month for us, Josh ended up having to have an oral surgeon remove his tooth right at the end of October. Two weeks later he needed to have nose surgery because he broke his nose on Thanksgiving 2007, no more turkey bowl! So here come the medical bills all before Christmas! Glad to have all the surgeries over and Josh feeling better we were looking forward to my sister Erin and niece Maddie coming home for Thanksgiving and Maddie's birthday. Kaydence was so excited to see Maddie that she didn't want to let go of her to ride in our car home. We were able to do quite a few fun things with the girls the first one was going up to Heber and riding the Polar Express! They were both very curious of everything on the train and they loved santa. Kaydence was so excited to hold "Sprinkles" hand, that was the elf on our car.

Maddie's Birthday was after Thanksgiving so we decided to try and brave Chuck E. Cheese. We thought if we went earlier in the day it would not be too bad, boy were we wrong. There were a ton o people there but the girls really enjoyed it. I think Maddie wanted to play with Chuck E on stage more than open her presents. We also went down to the Discovery Gateway to let the girls play. Maddie loved the water exhibit and Kaydence seemed to like anything she could get her hands on both of them had a good time. Erin and Maddie had to go home the first week of December, this took Kaydence a little while to get use to after have two weeks of Maddie being home. Everytime I mentioned going to Grandma and Grandpa Groves house she would ask if Maddie was going to be there. They had a lot of fun but we were sad to see them leave. Christmas was a little more exciting this year with Kaydence because she was old enough to understand more and get more involved. We decided to make reindeer food so after we opened our pajamas Josh took her outside to sprinkle the food in the snow. The food had glitter in it so it would sparkle and the reindeer would know when to stop. She loved this, Josh ended up being the first one up Christmas morning he had to wake up Kaydence. The first thing she did was run to our window to see if she could see if the reindeer's had ate the food she left them outside. Josh and Kaydence had most of their present opened before I started on mine, I think they were both excited for Kaydence's blocks, they love to build together. After a full day of visiting family and opening presents Kaydence was tired out. She recieved a tent from Grandma and Grandpa Hoellein that she loved. She insisted that daddy put it up in her room and of course she could not sleep in there alone. Josh is such a good daddy, he climbed inside with her and read her stories till she feel asleep. Our holidays were great this year and we enjoyed the time we were able to spend with both sides of our family.

All the salt!

Well I knew I would be horrible at keeping up on our blog. I do think about adding to it a lot but just don't ever really find the time. So as we are driving back from Wendover and I got a little sick of staring at all the salt to the sides of the highway I decided what better time then to blog. We went out this weekend for Josh's company's big sales kick off and awards ceremony. I think it was just more of a reason to get the whole sales force together and see who could really out drink each other. Friday night was a food show and I found myself having to dress business casual. I was not excited about squeezing my self into dress pants that I swear just fit me a few months ago. As we attend the food show very nicely dressed I notice a large percent of those attending must have missed the memo and wore jeans, dang I could have bypassed the squeezing and just wore my preferred outfit of sweat pants. I felt very out of place and lost at the event to say the least. Josh let me sit and relax at a table and kept bringing me food, the last thing I needed after all the squeezing. I did get to meet several of Josh's co-workers, my favorite was a funny Asian lady Josh has done a lot of work with, she was very entertaining and we were starting to take bets on who would have a hangover in the morning.

On Saturday Josh had meetings all day so that left me with few options of keeping myself entertained. Wendover offers quite a variety between drinking, eating and gambling. I only really know how to do one of those three, so I decided it would be a day to catch up on sleep since Kaydence was spending the weekend with Grandma and Grandpa Groves. Saturday night was the awards ceremony and of course to kick it all off the started the evening out with Cocktail hour what a surprise. A little akward for us we managed to find three other guys that were not participating in all the cocktails to socialize with. The dinner was very good and probably the best part of the night. The most I understood out of the ceremony was those who sold millions upon millions of dollars got awards.... the end. The whole reason of the weekend was to come and support Josh in his company, so I was glad to be here for him and for the extra rest I received, but I don't care to visit Wendover again anytime soon!