AHHHH...December!

      Oh Wow! I seriously can't believe it's December. Things keep FLYING by and I've had so many great plans to catch up and well obviously that hasn't happened yet. Mainly I'm here to let you all know that we are alive and well. More importantly I'd like to tell you about someone special!  I have one dang cute little sister, you know, the kind that if she weren't my sister I'd probably be super jealous of her stunning looks, brilliant mind, amazingly ridiculous piano playing skills, her beautiful photography, her ability to be so dang crafty and make even the ugliest thing look so beautiful- and I'd hate her. Luckily she's my sister and I get to have her around to help me out in all the areas I'm lacking! We have so much fun together and one day we're praying we live by each other! Her husband might not be praying for the same thing (we're dangerous together) but for that reason I'll pray even harder! We make a great team. I do enough talking for the both of us! She's quiet and just goes along with my crazy ideas. She's the brains I'm the, well I'm not sure what I am but I'm sure glad I only have one sister because I would probably have severe depression with the possibility of more sisters around that would be like her. (: So here's the scoop...She has a craft blog called Later Gator Crafts. She loves being crafty and is always up to something, she makes me sick! I can't keep up with her and I'm now to the point where I've decided I'll hire her to do two of everything, one for me, or just have her decorate my house (in like 15 years when I actually have one). Now that her husband is in Dental school she's on a very small budget and is still able to make some amazing things! It's all about the inexpensive class. My hilarious and so thoughtful brother is trying to get her 1,000 followers as a Christmas gift. It may or may not be a surprise to her...If it is/was, I'm SO sorry because I'm sure she'll see this! Oops, love you both! But I'm trying to help out because I think they are both amazing and love anyone who dreams big! So, because we are all in need of some great ideas, especially with Christmas coming up, go check out her blog and become a follower!  After you become a follower you can invite your friends to join too. (I'm happy that all of my favorite people are family and no matter what- we're stuck together!!!) There's no getting rid of me. Bwah ha ha! For the rest of you, thanks for putting up with me and I'm hoping to have a real good, HUGE update soon!

Not the best picture but we have one exactly like this from our first visit to Disney World & minus Kade of course

 I look so dorky! I'm sure that's what we're laughing at! Never a dull moment together.

http://latergatorcrafts.blogspot.com/

My HUGE update

So here we are back in FLorida. I'm watching the sunset & writing the second half of this post from my balcony. The first half was written months ago in Kansas in my attempts to stay updated. So much for that. I can't believe this is it. I'm soaking up Florida for the last time (as a FL resident). I'm totally gonna cry when I leave. I miss this place already & I'm not even gone. The beach is across the street, the kids & I sit out here and watch the ocean, watch boats, watch people. The weather is perfect. The palm trees are beautiful, something about them is so relaxing to me. I'm back in paradise.....and so it goes...

After I arrived home from St. Louis in August I tried to settle in and get a good routine going. Not sure it's worked too well but we sure love being in Kansas with family. It's fun to be back and taking advantage of my mother's many many talents. If you know my Mother you know I am (unfortunately) nothing like her. She does everything and she does everything so well! She's an artist and growing up I never took advantage of that sweet skill. I am now! She's teaching me some cool things and I will show some finished products after Christmas. It is so unfortunate that when I was in High School I was just too busy with pointless things to learn valuable skills I'd use forever. I'm lucky enough to have a little time to learn now!
Kade has been so happy running around the yard and neighborhood. He follows Ryan and Tayler everywhere. 99 percent of the time he's shoeless and 50 percent of the time shirtless. Awesome huh! A lot of time he asks how old Ryan or Tayler is and after I answer he promptly tells me he is 15 too. Not even joking, I think he really thinks he is 15! I do love having built in babysitters but yikes for acting 15 when you're really only 4. One day as we took a walk around the pond, he was on his bike & I was pushing Bree. I told Kade to stop and walk his bike down the hill because at that point he wasn't the greatest at using his brakes. He listened. Two second later he hops back on his bike at the bottom of the hill and sure enough, rode straight into the pond, crashed and laid there tangled in his bike as I was laughing my head off! So hilarious! I was worried about the hill and didn't think a thing about the rest of the walk.

Bree is our sweet sweet girl. I want to kiss and squeeze her every second. The best part is that she lets me! Everyone deserves one little girl like her. Not a sign of the terrible two's in her body. She talks like she's 5. Big huge and very clear sentences. She shocks everyone when they hear her talk. Maybe it's the fact that she's still pretty hairless and looks so young. She says the most hilarious things. She dances like crazy and loves music. The second she hears a beat she starts shaking it! She begs the boys to have a dance party with her and they never say no. My parents have a statue of Emma & Joseph Smith dancing, she loves it and I heard her talking to "them," as I started listening she was asking them if they wanted to have a dance party! It only made sense, they were already dancing!

The rest of August passed quickly and before we knew it Mike was home for a visit. We took Kade to the Monster Truck show and had an early birthday party for Mike. We set the camera timer up and loved jumping and taking silly pictures. We were laughing so hard and when I took my camera in Mike wanted to know why. I've never had him ask for more pictures so I brought it out and we jumped some more. So goofy (:

September starts birthday season around our house. Mike first, Kade two weeks later then Bree the first week of October. We had great birthday's and loved celebrating with family around! The family who couldn't make it in person joined us on a phone or computer thanks to the amazing Google+. Kade's birthday cake request was a dough cake and quite honestly I loved the request and hope it becomes the request every year! I couldn't give him an entire cake made of dough and feel like a good mother so I put a ball of dough in a muffin cup & stuck a few candles on top. The rest of us enjoyed delicious cookie monsters. Easiest 'cake' yet!

Bree was so fun to watch on her birthday! The first thing she opened was a little porcelain doll that was mine when I was younger, I kept telling her to open something different because it wasn't fun & she couldn't really play with it. I was totally insistant that she not open it until later but it was the one she wanted so badly. As soon as she opened it she turned her head sideways and said, awwww. She gave it a hug and held it tight to her chest. My mom and I cracked up so hard because seriously, I was worried she would break it. She proved me wrong. Grandma Steel got Bree her first dolly and made a cute blanket to go along with her. I wish I could watch that moment over and over because it was so sweet. She LOVED her the second she unwrapped her. She wrapped Dotty in the blanket and tried giving her a bottle. I totally believe girls are born with their ability to nurture because up to that point she had only played with boy toys.

In October the kids and I traveled to Texas to visit Mike. Thank you Texas for officially starting our love for horses. The kids & I have always had a fascination for them but now...we're in love and Mike joined us. :) We loved and explored two different areas in Texas but nearly the only thing I remember are the horses. For Halloween Kade was a chicken and Bree was a Lamb. Cutest costumes ever and I'll probably use them again year after year cause they were so adorable & easy. They even made the newspaper from the night we attended Boo at the Zoo (: For the Church Halloween party I was a pig, Ryan was a cow and Tayler was a horse. Grandma & Grandpa of course were cute little farmers.

November brings us to Mike's "off month" and so we headed for California. Mike & I enjoyed a weekend in San Francisco. I witnessed "occupy San Francisco" and can I just say that I was scarred for life. I thought walking fully naked down a road was indecent exposure but not in San Fran. Sick. We went to take Dallin & Destiny to Lombardi street and dearly died laughing as we climbed the back side of that steep steep street in a stick-shift car. The bumper to bumper traffic made us nervous to roll backwards into the car behind us so every time we took off we burned serious rubber then immediately had to slam on the brakes! The car started smoking & smelling, people were looking at us wondering what on earth was going on. Eventually the car behind us caught on and stayed a good 2o feet back! It was absolutely hilarious!! Needless to say our stick-shift skills were a bit rusty but it made for one fun trip! The rest of November we enjoyed Mike's family and loved being with everyone at the cabin for Thanksgiving.

December brings us to Mike's last rotation in Denver. December flew by (doesn't it always) because of the holiday and packing to move back to Florida. We spent Christmas in Kansas where we enjoyed a little time with Jake. (He graduated from BYU-Idaho and was on his way to Boston where he has a job with the Romney campaign.) Christmas was wonderful! We spent the next week on the ski hill (Wolf Creek) with my parents, Ryan, Tayler and my uncle Steve & his family. We rang in the new year playing a new game to us, Wits & Wagers & watching a snowmobile and dirt bike make some new world record long distance jump. Good times. I sure miss skiing and getting back on the hill was pure bliss. One day I'll live close to snow...and 'close' is a relative term but I'll take what I can get. Mike studied like mad that week, as he had been doing for a long time but now it was crunch time. He took boards part 2, Friday, January 6th. We were packed and headed for Texas on Wednesday the 11th. Mike had interviews the rest of that week in Texas and by Saturday the 14th we were on the road again. Florida or Bust!! We pulled into Florida Monday morning moved into our new place and Mike started School Tuesday the 17th. A new semester means the LAST and FINAL semester of school EVER. That makes me totally nervous for the "real world" but I'll save that discussion for another time. Those crazy first weeks of January are past and I feel like the hard part it over. Mike's the one who does all the hard work anyway but man am I glad for his sake it's over! That pretty much brings us up to speed.

We're here, we're happy and life is so so good.

Alone in August

My computer still hates me most of the time. It has taken too many tries to get this post finished, my computer locks up and I lose it all. So here it finally is, I don't care what it looks like, bad grammar bad pictures, my favorite pictures have all magically disappeared- Who cares. It's here now!

OK, so the twist... As we all departed from the family reunion in Kansas City, Mike and I headed east to St. Louis and the rest of the family headed west with our kids! WooHoo. It was such a fun week I'm thinking about dropping the kids and running more often. I think I explored every inch of St. Louis and it was all free, (well mostly). I pretty much Googled the best free things to do in the area and went to work on the list. The morning Mike worked I explored all ALONE and WOW, who even remembers what that is like!!?? No diaper bag or a million other tag along accessories that I have to keep track of. No bustling screaming kids into the car and then wrestling them into a car seat. I took SO long shopping and enjoyed slowly walking by everything just to look. I Didn't have to keep them in a cart or tell them to put it back, it really was glorious! Even when the kids are at home with Dad and I'm shopping I still feel like I'm on a time limit so this experience was so unfamiliar and I totally loved it. I spent a lot of time just me and my camera. I took a zillion and one pictures just because I could. I visited the Wild Bird Sanctuary, Art Museum, Forest Park and City Garden all alone. I don't do things alone. I have six siblings and I'm the oldest girl, I was the babysitter and thought I was the Mom! I don't think I've ever watched a movie alone or gone anywhere alone. And alone in this case meaning without responsibility- free to do anything. Sure I've been to the grocery store alone but that doesn't count I was there because I had to be. This totally alone stuff was crazy to me!
       Mike and I visited Anheuser Busch Brewery and it was a really cool tour. We obviously didn't take advantage of the free drinks but I'm sure a homeless man might every now and again.

 'Arch view' of the game

Mike & his roommate for the month Jeff

 We did an evening tour of the St. Louis Arch hoping to see the sunset but missed it. We caught a little of the Cardinals game from up there. Mike loved zooming in on the scoreboard to check out what was going on. The arch to me felt a lot like the leaning tower of Pisa, you see it all the time in pictures but it is SO much cooler in person! I think I must have a picture from every angle, it really fascinated me. We finished the night at the famous Ted Drewes for frozen custard. Oh and I must write down the flavor so future generations know what to order when they go.  I had some sort of apple pie flavor and it was delicious! I know it's not exact but pretty sure it was the only apple pie thing on the menu. The next day we visited the St. Louis Zoo and my totally awesome friend Tara met us there with her sweet sweet little girl Eden. I haven't seen Tara since we left Rexburg in 2008 and it is so nice to see an "old" friend!

I propose we set up a Rexburg reunion in the near future so that we can all see each other and reminisce about the best time in our lives! Who's with me? No really, I love Tara and was so happy to see her and spend a little time together. As we finished up at the zoo Mike and I had a picnic in the park and almost left because we saw storm clouds rolling in then decided to stay because they were rolling in. We enjoyed our picnic in the rain until we knew it was getting too heavy to be enjoyable. We darted for the car and laughed the entire way there. We spent the rest of the day in the St. Louis Temple. We always love our time in the temple and loved that first off we could be together and weren't swapping kid duty with each other and second that we could stay for hours beacuse we weren't worried about swapping with someone else. Pure bliss. The Temple always tops anything we do. When we returned home the lady Mike was renting a room from asked where we had been, we told her, she told us how much she loves the temple and how special it is. "It's beautiful and it's so nice of your church to allow something so special in our city, it's such a gift to the city even after all the persecution that went on here in Missouri." It's really neat to see that even people who aren't members of the church know how special the Temple is. Just sitting on temple ground is enough to know.

My last day in St. Louis we ate Famous "Pappy's" barbeque, visited the Science Center and drove a few other places that I've already forgotten because all I can remember is the sad ride home. I took the train home all alone and boy was that the hardest thing I've done in a long time. I didn't have Mike or the kids to ease the sadness, just myself left to think about it and cry.  This meant the beginning of Mike traveling for rotations for the rest of the year and me having to carry on alone. Obviously this was our choice but I didn't really think that staying in a hotel for an entire month would be that enjoyable anyway and a fairly expensive option. Anyway, I was sad before I ever got on the train and then sat by a man who had lost his wife to cancer just a few weeks earlier. HELLO! Thanks for making me cry even more!  He had tattoos everywhere and one that said KTM and I knew exactly what that meant. The second I started talking dirt bikes he couldn't stop talking. I think he was shocked that I knew what he was talking about and then thrilled that someone could relate to all his dirt bike stories! At one point he was pulling up his shirt, showing me scars from surgeries and accidents, I'm sure the other passengers thought we were crazy. He had such a sad story and I was fragile so I didn't say much. I felt like all he needed was someone who would listen so I just sat and smiled. It made me feel better. I stayed up listening like a zombie until his stop at one in the morning. I really didn't have words that would comfort him so I listened, cried and did the next best thing. I gave him a pass-along-card and told him that he can see his wife again. The only thing I managed to get out (before starting to cry again) was that he could go to Mormon.org and it would answer all his questions. I loved the look on his face and I wanted to say more but I was fighting back tears and the train lady was yelling at him to hurry up. Alone again. The train was freezing, I pulled out as many shirts as I could and tried to lay them over me to cover my arms and legs. I curled up into a shivering mess and prayed for sleep.
     I had such a great week with Mike and lots of enjoyable alone time without kids but I'd never trade them. Not even for all the enjoyable alone time in the world.

JULY

     The reason I'm SO far behind on posting is not the fact that I'm really slow which is true, and not the fact that I wasn't near my computer in July or August which is also true, but mainly due to the fact that my computer was hating me for a while. I had been getting a notice (for a long time) that my disk space was almost full. Yikes! I totally ignored it and kept on stuffing him full. We were fighting and he's way smarter than I'll ever be, he know some dirty tricks and he also knows how to run my life better than I do. Hence, he took ALL my photos hostage. Tragedy really. Luckily Jake was home on a 7 week break and came to my rescue. He slapped me twice in the face for being so stupid (not really, but he wanted to) and then being the genius organizer that he is voi-la, they're back!! I really don't know what I'd do without brothers who know a TON about computers and other very technical things. They are life savers.

   Dear Computer,
      That was a really really mean trick you played on me. My ENTIRE LIFE is counting on you. I know I stuffed you full until you couldn't handle it anymore. Spontaneously combusting was your  next option and I'm thankful you didn't take us down that road. You know I love you dearly. I'm getting much better at keeping you thinned out and beautiful thanks to Jake. He really gave you the face lift you needed, and thanks to him you now have 3 terabytes to spread out on. I really don't think we'll have an overload problem again. What's that you say? You think it's absolutely ridiculous that I take approximately 42 pictures a day per year? Oh geez sorry, I thought 15,000 pictures a year wasn't too bad. Well, I'm sorry for being so stupid, but that is strike one, two more and you're out!  I love you and I really really don't know what I'd do without you. Lets work together at keeping my life a little less complicated.
Love,
Your one and only.

So, without further delay, July.
     It seems like July happened so so long ago. July is always a good month- jam packed with fun, family, the lake, BBQ's and perfect summer days! I'm trying not to forget before it's too late.
    We made it home in time for some 4th of July celebrating with the fam. Enjoyed a few lake days but sadly no fireworks with the drought. It's just way too dry out here in farm country. Mike headed out to Kansas City for his first externship. I spent the next weekend catching up with old friends from High School, some of which I hadn't seen in nearly 8 years! We had a little reunion planned for a while so I didn't leave for Kansas City until the next week.

 their drinks are rather embarrassing sorry! 

   

     We were lucky enough to have a fantastic newlywed bother and sister-in-law living in K.C. installing security systems. They were so so sweet to put up with us especially because they haven't really dealt with children yet and I'm sure we all remember that stage in our lives...other people's kids are kind of annoying (: Jason didn't go to work until about 3 everyday so we got to swim and explore KC with Jason by day and swim some more and explore KC by night with Mike. It really was a blast and I Love Love Kansas City. Of course I had to take Mike to our old house and the pool where Jake and I most likely started our future of skin cancer. Not even exaggerating, we swam ALL day EVERY day except Sunday! That summer my hair turned green and my freckles exploded! Wouldn't trade that time for anything though. Jake & I were partners in crime! We visited the petting zoo several times, coolest petting zoo ever! Lots of museums, parks, downtown KC, the Crown center, the fountains, Kaleidoscope center and anything else that was free. I was shocked at the amount of amazing free things and you don't even have to pay for parking! What?! Take that Miami!

     A few days in there somewhere I ran up to Iowa and visited Preston. Oh yeah, Brooke & Skyler too. They just moved and Skyler is now in his first semester of Dental School. Hip Hip Hooray! Skyler was born to be a Dentist! We'll be trading services, Brooke is in need of a Podiatrist and I'm in need of a Dentist. Worked out quite nicely I think! We had tons of fun as always! My favorite part was the table I talked her into buying. We spent a whopping 7 bucks at Goodwill, added a little color and she has herself a beauty of a table!

Beauty, Eh?

Making cookies with aunt Brookie

 

Quality Cousin Time

     The end of July my family came to KC for a little reunion. Everyone was there, except our faithful Elder Steel! We spent an awesome day at Oceans of Fun, then onto a Royals game. No doubt we did family pictures then visited the Independence visitor center.

Underwater camera: on my list for one of the coolest inventions EVER

  

              July came to an end an we departed ways once again, this time with a twist....