Happy Birthday to me....

So today I am 27!!! 27 that seems so old. Yesterday I took my passport picture and I look old in it. Cali assured me that the camera they use there just casts weird shadows but it was a great intro to my Birthday. I got to sleep in this morninig...at 10:00 my kids and husband came in with a plate of toast and a huge garbage sack of balloons. They all jumped on me...well Rob jumped to get the toast he had been crying for and Oliver jumped on a balloon and popped it. What a great way to be woken up. Rob ate up the toast as fast as he could making sure to cover me with buttery crumb filled hugs and kisses, while Oliver yelled happy birthday and told me to hurry to see the kitchen. They had colored a sign that says "happy B-day Mom" So cute. I am so lucky.so of course in this picture I have my mouth full of the toast my kids made for me. As we were falling asleep last night Cortney asked me my favorite thing that happened this last year of my life. It was a real tie between finding out my dad DOESN'T have cancer and the first day my medications kicked in and I could close my hands in a fist for the first time in almost a year. So many amazing things happened to me this last year....and I hate sounding cheesy but I guess that if that is what getting older is...the passing of time while amazing things happen, then I guess I am okay with getting older. Woke up this morning to more snow.
Oliver punching a balloon that I got for my birthday. I could hear Rob crying for about 5 minutes before I got woken up...he was mad and sad that Cortney was trying to put the balloons in a bag to pour them on me. He wanted them all to himself. Also today my nephew was born. Heather and Brian WIlliams' son. I hopped he would be born on my birthday. There are so many February birthdays in our family and now we get one more. I am dying to know details...I could see from some of the pictures that he was on a little oxygen mask...so he must have had some problems like Heather's other babies. I am thinking about them so much today!

MY FAVORITE PIC

Cortney took this picture yesterday morning. ROB is smilling so big I can't even stand it. I can barely control myself when I look at this picture. It makes me want to dance. Man I love that kid. Still no pictures of Ollie...I guess babies are just cuter than 3 1/2 year olds that freeze up and do a weird smile everytime the camera comes around.

CHOICES

So we finally finished our cabinets. PHEW...that took forever. They came out looking really nice. It is hard to show in a picture because the flash makes them seem way lighter than they are in real life and it shows more of the brush strokes. It definatly looks better than before though. Now I am trying to decide what color to make my countertops. It is too hard of a decision so I thought I would post pictures for you all to help me decide.
Our lovely cabinets
Okay this is the first one it is a gold color. I love that it is warm toned, and it would be easy to clean. (keep in mind that the colors might not be exact...my photography with Cortney's fancy camera is never great)
Second...a grey tile with some specks of maroon...it definatly matches the cabinets
Last but not least is this green tile. It looks cool toned in the picture but it has olive undertones not teal ones. It has some yellow flecks too. The paint swatch doesn't look like it matches at all but in regular light it does. Cameras do tricky things. I had to lighten the picture up so you could see anything at all so don't think my taste is that bad that I would mix that paint with that granite. I think this one would be the hardest to keep clean. So eveyone that reads this give me a vote. Then maybe I can get it done by the weekend.
Here is Ollie this morning loving our couches as much as I do.

Trauma....life in the ER

So Friday Cali and I got up, got ready, and we both cleaned our houses from top to bottom. When we were done we both decided that we didn't want to be in our clean houses with our kids just messing them up. So we decided to take a trip to the American Fork Artic Circle so the kids could play in the play place. The playground there is perfect for little toddlers but there is enough to do that our older kids don't get bored. We were having a grand old time and we were probably there a couple of hours. We were really the only people there and our kids were playing StarWars on the jungle gym while Cali and I sat and talked. It was a great day. We were about to go...the hamburgers had been eaten and they were all getting pretty tired. All of the sudden we heard Carolina (Cali's 20 month old) crying. Cali ran over to help her up...she had fallen on some stairs. She screamed for me to come over and as I did all I saw was blood and teeth going everywhere. Carolina was trying to wipe her mouth off and as she did she handed Cali a tooth she had gotten out of her mouth. It was one of the worst things I have ever seen. One of her teeth was laying straight with the root coming straight out of her gums in the other direction. We frantically started trying to get all six kids shoes gathered and in the car. We left as fast as we could, I in the meanwhile called Cortney to come help, and Cali called her cousin the dentist to see if we should go to the emergency room or to his office. It turned out we needed to go to the dentist so we dropped the kids off at Cali's and Cortney came to watch them. There had been some sort of miscommunication between he and I when I told him to come. He thought it was Cali who had fallen, he was scared about that. When he came and saw it was Carolina he couldn't understand. He gave her a quick blessing which helped to calm all three of us down. Then we left to Alpine to meet with the dentist. In the end she lost three teeth. We had to hold her down while he pulled them out. It was so sad. Part of her jaw in the front is broken but it isn't the kind of break where they need to wire her jaw. It was so SCARY. It really makes you realize how fast your life can change. She won't have teeth down there until they grow in when she is in the 1st grade. SAD. Here are some pictures taken with my camera phone.

Rob's poor head

R.O.B. is so top heavy (his head is in the 90eth percentile) that he falls over onto his head so easily. Sunday night we had Cameron and Leah over for dinner and he fell over in the kitchen doorway. It looked so bad. Poor kid. His face is dirty mostly because he had been crying. I need to get more pictures of Oliver. I don't ever take any. He is just too grown and too cool to try to do something cute for the camera. I will make an effort to post more pictures of Ollie. This is our new couch. Justin said it is the best "deal" I have ever gotten. Which is really saying ALOT because I am the queen of "deals". It is on of my best talents. But anyways The couch we got from the RC Willey outlet for 390 dollars plus 100 dollars for their stainguard 7 year stain warranty. It is microsuede and so easy to clean. I sat on it with stain on my bum (from staining the cabinets) and there was a big spot where i was sitting. We cleaned it no problem. I love it. I might agree with Justin it is one of the best deals I have ever gotten.

Valentines

I hate Valentines day. I always have, my whole life. I even always had a boyfriend and never had to be alone, but....there is just so much pressure to do something romantic and that drives me nuts. It has probably been better since I have been married just because we don't usually do much. Cort isn't cheesy at all. This year the day was actually pretty nice. Cort let me sleep in (after some persuading from me..."Cort, you are supposed to let me sleep in its Valentines day") Nonetheless I still got to sleep in. My brother Justin and I had decided the night before that I would make a Valentine's day meal for him and his girlfriend and Cort and I. I woke up trying to decide what I was going to make. I got the kids dressed and then drove to Costco to get prepared.

Menu:

Dark green salad with white balsamic vinagarette
Wild Alaskan king Crab and sweet corn chowder
Pork roast with creamy mustard sauce
Mashed potatoes
Green beans
Rolls
Creme Brulee

After Costco, I drove to Cali's house. I have not quite evolved to being a full lady yet even with my seven plus years of being marrie. Because of this lack of lady-ness I have no matching plates (well that aren't plastic), no tablecloth. All of those things that ladies have. So Cali and I scrounged up some china and stuff to make the table fancy. I had to leave my kids there because I had my appointment in Salt Lake City at the Hospital. (I have an appointment every 6 weeks for the next two years at the University of Utah hospital for my Rheumatoid Arthritis) I took Tyson to kindergarten at 12:30, then came home chopped carrots onions and shallots and got the roast in the crock pot. Then I took Jack to preschool at 1:00. Then onto the freeway to SLC. I hate driving to Salt Lake. I don't know why but going to my appointments alone is lonely. I am always waiting for my mom to be there but I am the mom now and I am all alone. The university is a teaching hospital so the girl that took my blood was just learning....I really think it was one of her first times. YEOUCH. I hate having my blood taken anyways but this time it especially hurt. My study coordinator was really trying to distract me. After my appointment I headed home to pick up my kids and get the creme brulee started. Cort came home from work about 4:30 or 5:00 and he brought me some beautiful flowers from COSTCO. Justin and Angelique came over at 8:00 after both our kids were asleep. We ate and ate (sooo yummy...good job Ashley haha). After dinner Cortney fired up his blow torch and got the creme brulee ready (which is one of my favorite desserts). It was really fun. I was glad we had them over because otherwise it would have been a normal night. You would be crazy to go out to dinner here on Valentines day. My friend went at 3:30 to try to have an early dinner. THere was already an hour wait. Plus good luck trying to find a babysitter. After all the food we watched Man vs. Wild and American Idol. It was a great day.

PUSH-UP POPS

So Cali hates pictures of kids messy from eating things...I am sure Shane does too. But I finally have the internet and we took some pictures on Saturday. I had to post these I thought they were precious. Rob had his first push up pop, and needless to say he loved it.

MOM!!!! GIVE ME MORE
Here is Rob exhausted from eating. Not only did he get a push pop but it was finally nice enough for the kids to play outside. Rob really doesn't remember good weather. He was going crazy and so excited to be playing out doors. You can tell by his dirty hands he was having a grand old time.

We started a huge project on Friday of staining our cabinets. So far so good, and we are almost done. I will post a after picture as soon as we are done. It has been a tough project though. We have one more coat left to do on the doors and then we will be done. It already looks better. One crazy thing happened during our project though. Yesterday Cortney's friend Frank from his mission came over for a visit while we were staining. Cort stopped to go talk to them and left his bucket of stain on top of the fridge right in the crack of the door. I went to move the fridge and the freezer door came open and down poured the stain. All over the inside of the freezer. I am kicking myself now for not taking some pictures but in the heat of the moment I was way too stressed out for that. It was everywhere. It took about a half hour but Cortney and I finally got it cleaned up.

world wide web

I can't live without it the www. I never knew I was so addicted to it. We won't get ours back up untill Tuesday. So I will be back on TUES. Right now I am in Rexburg for our friend Jaxon's wedding. So exciting! All of our friends are here for the occasion so it should be a fun weekend. I will post when I get back. TUESDAY.