Ella Gets Married!

Two days ago little Ella got married to Josh at the Detroit Temple. Our entire family made the trip over so we could be there to spend their special day with them. Today they had their ring cermony and we were blessed to attend. 

I can remember when Ella was Bean's age and it is very scary for Kev and I to watch her get married and realize that she is a grown up. These girls are one of my Best Friend's daughters and it really feels a lot like our own daughter is getting married. 

I cannot imagine what a wreck we will be when it really is our daughter getting married. 

These two girls looked amazing. What beautiful girls!

Ella and her Grandfather. 

In our religion it is common for weddings to take place in a Temple. The Temple is sacred and so only worthy members of our Church are able to attend. Because there are often familt members that are unable to attend, often couples opt to have a "ring ceremony" where they exchange their rings (Kev and I had a similar ceremony when we got married).

Ella and Josh before the ring exchange. 

I also love this picture because our dear friend Jim was the Bishop and officiated over this ceremony. We love Jim and his dear wife Robin, they are some of our best friends also and just like family. 

It was a wonderful weekend and a beautiful ceremony. 

These children grow up too fast!

I have some other pictures of Bean wearing A's high heels, but I cannot find it. I am hoping it is on the iPad. 

Sweet Friends

This is Bean and her sweet friend B. I love that Bean had such sweet friends. It makes my heart happy to see this sweet girl with her sweet friend. <3

This picture was taken by thier teacher at Church and sent on to me. 

Side Note: Little Bug is in love with B. Bean's teacher actually gave us hard copies of this picture and one morning I caught Bug kissing the picture. 

It was the sweetest thing ever. 

She is too old for you buddy.... so sorry!

First Post at My New Home

I knew that my MobileMe account was going to die, but I did not want to let my blog go. =( In January I wrote three months of blog posts and when it did not load them properly I knew it was time to make the move. I immediately opened up this account and then promptly left it sitting unused for several months. So, this is it. I am offcially making this my new home. I am going to try and move all of my old posts over, but if not then we are starting anew. My goal is to update this blog from January on and then print the books of my old blog and let it go (provided that I um unable to move the old blog over. =( My goal for today is to try and find an app for the ipad that will allow me to blog from the ipad. I have been using the camera more, I can upload pictures easily to the ipad and I always have it with me, unlike this big cumbersome computer.

Our life has changed a lot in the past 9 months, we have an adorable 11 week old boy. I am blessed with the feeling that our family is finally complete. Above is a pitcure of our new little guy, he is a sweet little blessing and we are so thankful to have him in our family. I cannot believe that 11 weeks has already passed, the time is sure flying by.

So... welcome to our new home. Hopefully I will figure this out and grow to love it.

12 Weeks

Our little guy is officially 12 weeks old! I cannot believe how quickly the time is passing with this baby. Little Zee is just growing and learning so much. I love that he will sit and have a "conversation" for  a lengthy period of time and he smiles all of the time at his family memebers. 

I love those cute feet and these cute sleepers! 

I am trying to hold on to the time that is passing so quickly and knowing that I am probably never going to have another baby makes me want to hold on to the small moments even more. 

I love the sweet smell of a baby breathing on my face, the soft skin snuggling close all of the time, the joyful smiles that light up their entire being and their soft fuzzy hair. I love each stage my children go through but I often find myself tearing up as I try to savor each moment with this little guy not wanting the time to go so fast.

Really wanting to freeze time right now and fully aware when I look at my other children that it is something that I just cannot do. I can appreciate each moment with all of them to the best of my ability, but I can't freeze time and that is heartbreak for a mother.

At least for a mother like me. 

Outstanding Service Award

 Today I had the opportunity to go to the 40th anniversary celebration for the College of Fine Arts at Western Michigan University. 

At the celebration two people were honored with awards. There was an award given for the Outstanding Instructor and for Outstanding Service. 

Kevin won the award for Outstanding Service to the College of Fine Arts. 

 I am so proud of Kevin, he is a hard worker and is great at what he does. It was nice to see him be recognized for all of his hard work.

I really love this guy and am so blessed to have him in my life!

Fish Hatchery

We headed to the Fish Hatchery today with the Pearce Family. 

We had a lot of fun and although I did not take picture of the really cool stuff they had inside, I did learn a lot about fish hatcheries in Michigan. 

They used to transport the fish in train cars stored in milk cans on ice. 

Who knew?

We took a lot of the standard tourist pictures. Everyone was pretty creative and the children could have done this for hours. 

I am not kidding. 

The children did enjoy feeding the fish, it was crazy. There are a few Lake sturgeons in the water so most of the time was spent trying to find the HUGE fish. They can grow to be longer than 5 feet tall!

When our tokens ran out the children came up with creative ways to find pellets for the fish. In the two pictures below you can see D. and Peanut digging them out of the walk way. 

I have such deprived children. 

A took great care of Bug and chased him around the walk way constantly. Bug liked the fish, but his primary goal was escape I am sure. 

More tourist photos. 

My very favorite part of the day was that D. took Bug for a walk around the lake, I thought that it was super sweet and it really melted my heart. 

Happy children = a Happy Mommy. 

This is a really bad picture of a good size lake sturgeon. It is the grey line in the middle of the picture. 

I mean you can totally see it right?

Today was great. I need to rememeber how fun it is to go out and have field trips with the kiddos, they also really love spending time with friends and so do I. 

We are totally going to plan to make this trip again soon. 

11 Weeks

I can't believe this little guy is just over 11 weeks old!

Where is the time going?

This is one of my favorite 0-3 month outfits. Sadly, this is the last time Zee will wear this. We are barely squeezing him into this size as it is. Our little guy is not so little. 

In other news: Bug was trapped under the "bowl chair" by his sister.

He loves this and now thinks it is the best game ever. 

My children are crazy and I love it!

Geocaching

The kiddos and I went out for the first time today to find a geocache. 

We were successful. 

It was great fun. 

We can't wait to do it again! 

Bittersweet

This is a bittersweet time for me. This is a picture of our little babies last night in our room. 

I was a little sad knowing that this time in our life is over. Zee is officially past the newborn stage and is in the crib. This is a great milestone for him, he is bigger, stronger and it means he is sleeping like a champ and all of those things are awesome!

I am just a little sad that this stage is over. 

Time is flying so very fast. 

Easter

Because we are totally awesome parents, and this Easter was an insane crazy day this (I think) is the only picture that I have. 

Lame-o. 

I put Zee into three of the most adorable Easter outfits, but he puked on all of them before I got a picture, I was going to take some later but never did. I stink. Oh well. 

So today... it was nuts! We woke up, the kiddos did the Bunny thing. Peanut challenged the Easter Bunny to pick a better spot than last year to hide his basket, the bunny accepted and hid the basket in the fireplace. It took him significantly longer to find his goodies this year. 

Once everyone had gorged themselves on candy we all got ready for Church. Our plan was to only attend Sacrament meetings because we were heading down to Ft. Wayne to our good friends the Greens' home for their daughter's Rachael's Baptism. 

We had a great drive with the kiddos, it was a beautiful day to drive. 

The baptism was amazing. We really love the Green family and it hard to believe little Rachael is old enough to be Baptized. 

After the Baptism we headed back to their place for some great food and fun conversation and then we headed home. I believe we got home right around midnight. 

It was a crazy day, but I could not imagine a better way to focus on the Resurrection of the Savior than by witnessing one of Heavenly Father's children accept the ordinance of Baptism. 

I only wish I had done a better job of recording this. We have got to have a picture of the baptism somewhere. 

Happy Easter!

Dying Eggs

My totally AWESOME friend Jenny came to visit with her kiddos for a few days over spring break. I did not get any pictures of us doing all of the fun things we did...

Out typical time together always includes some time at Target, a Girls Night Out, Qdoba, etc. It was so wonderful to have her here. I really, really wish they lived closer. 

To culminate our weekend we decided to color eggs with all 9 children! What were we thinking?!

Mike is clearly thrilled about coloring eggs. 

Love you Mike!

As is Kevin! Love you Kevin!

Jen had this awesome idea to cover the kiddos in garbage bags to preserve their clothes. She is a freaking Genius! I think this was the smartest idea ever. Bug was not excited about the bag idea so he just hung out in his diaper. He really is excited though, can you tell?

Bug with his awesome helper Shelbs!

Little Sethy thought this was pretty sweet.

Bug turned into an egg coloring monster. By the end of the activity he was stealing eggs from his siblings and just plopping them into any random cup of dye. 

Who is the man? Oh yeah, that's me. 

Have I mentioned that I really, really wish that Jen and her family lived closer.

I cannot wait to go and see them in a few months. 

Funny Stuff

So last weekend was General Conference, I love General Conference! Twice a year we have the opportunity to hear from the prophet of our Church and the other Church leaders. It is an awesome weekend of uplifting inspiration. I always come away from the weekend feeling empowered to make the changes that I need to in my life. 

Dieter F. Uchtdorf gave an amazing talk Sunday Morning. You can read it here:

The Merciful Obtain Mercy

One of the points President Uchtdorf made a point that we need to stop judging others, he said:

"This topic of judging others could actually be taught in a two-word sermon. When it comes to hating, gossiping, ignoring, ridiculing, holding grudges, or wanting to cause harm, please apply the following:

Stop it!"

He is totally right, we do each other and ourselves a disservice when we are focusing on these negative, things. I loved this talk!

Within 24 hours someone on Facebook had created this little gem. I think it is hilarious. This is a picture of Spencer W. Kimball, Dieter f. Uchtdorf, and J. Golden Kimball (all Church leaders) and it has phrases that they are known for. J. Golden was amazing and is a great man, but he is also known for his language. 

This makes me laugh every time I see it!

I also think it could you know explain the process...

Do it: Do-act, try and move forward and progress.

Stop it: Stop gossiping/judging/etc.

Damn it: What I say when I am not so successful at the other two things. 

Hilarious. 

Thank you Facebook!

Center of the Universe?

Do you think I am the center of the Universe? 

I sure do. 

I am totally cute too. Right?