Because I think Blogger hates me.

Here are the rest of the pictures. I know it is a lot, but I want to share. Especially for any other lab enthusiast!
Izzy has the black nose, and is blonder, and Sage has the brown nose with some red highlights on her.

Fun at the River!

Yesterday we decided it was a good day to take the dogs to the river. It was there first trip to the river ever. We thought they would enjoy, since they are water dogs. It was so much fun!

Our dogs, are awesome strong swimmers! It was great to see them in action. Sage she is 16 months is such a strong swimmer. Her and Izzy who is 6 1/2 months raced out to retrieve the toys and almost every time Sage won. Izzy will get there. This was Izzy's first time swimming ever. Sage gave me a heart attack once when she was on top of Izzy and had pushed her totally under. I was like oh no, don't let her drown!! She didn't and was just fine. Randy kept telling me they are dogs, this is their instinct quit worrying!! But they are part of the family!

As time went they got more adventurous with Izzy swimming out towards a duck, yeah girl like you are going to catch it! Don't think it will hear your splashing and swimming towards it?

It was exciting to see them doing what they are bred for. We look forward to doing more with them and getting them trained for competitions.

The kids had never been down to just hang out at the river so that was fun to see them. I finally feel like we can trust them to not just go running in. Little man got more and more adventurous and got soaked up to his chest once. He also lost his flip flop. After crying and searching it finally floated up to the top so we found it. The world was right once again. Little Miss enjoyed throwing rocks into the water and just watching it all.

It was a fun family activity and something we will be doing lots more. A great work out for the dogs and a great time to just hang out! One thing great is it can be a year round thing. With labs they say as long as the ice isn't too hard to break they can be in the water, so since our river doesn't freeze here looks like a fun year round activity!

Look at Me, I'm Helping!!

Look at Me Mommy, I'm helping Little Princess!! (Okay he said her name but you get the point.) This was yesterday, and since I was tired, and still not feeling 100% from my surgery I said, huh, where's the camera? I think this is blog worthy.

I was quite proud of myself, you see remember my commitment I had for myself? Yeah the no yelling thing. I did really really good until we moved into our house. And then slowly, I started slipping, and was shorter than normal, and then I started yelling some. Normally it is the STOP IT! DON'T DO THAT! I said NO!
Yeah, I know I win Mom of the Year. So I am trying once again to do better. Hopefully I will be more successful. This Mom stuff is hard!

So when I didn't yell, get upset, or frustrated and I reached for the camera I thought, hey, this is progress.

So Little Man helped Little Princess climb on top of the fireplace and they say there for quite a while just chilling and watching TV. And as you can see Little Man was doing some crazy posing.

You know what is really amazing to me though, and I am learning.. Slowly learning. I ignored a lot of it, let them do their thing. And today they haven't even given it a second thought. Woo Hoo, ignoring some stuff does work!!

Oooopps, I think I spoke to soon. Just as I am finishing this what do I see? My kids climbing up there again.. Oh well they are little monkeys, and really does it matter? Probably not, I would have done it if I was a kid, so who can blame them!

Edit: The adventure is getting even better. Did you know that a dog bed makes a great landing spot for children jumping off of fireplace? Well it does, and it allows them to be wild and crazy and not break a thing. Great eh?

A fun game!

Reply and fill in the blanks for me, leave them in my comment section okay! Then repost on your blog (um..with YOUR name) and I'll do the same :p

Dear Lee,
I _____ you. You have a nice ______. You make me _______. You should _______. Someday I will ______. You + me = ________. If I saw you now I'd __________. I would build a _______ just for you. If I could sing you any song it would be _________. We could __________ under the stars.
Love, _______________
(P.S. ______________.)

9

Oh yeah, this was surgery number 9, in almost 7 years of marriage. So the next one is my tithing one. I think I am done.

Surgery

I had surgery early this AM. And I am pretty drugged on percocet, so I won't be blogging much, I am not sure what would come out of my mouth, or if it would make much sense. So I am taking a little break. Going to get some rest and take care of my body.

EDITED TO ADD:

After much personal debate I decided to tell what I had done.
I had a tubal and an ablation done. My dr's have great hopes of it helping my lupus.

Also thank you for the well wishes. They are greatly appreciated.

The Rest of the Vegas Pictures

The New York New York. The rollercoaster we rode is on top the red you can see.
At our hotel
At the Venetian
In front of one of the fountains at Caesar's Palace
Us on the Eiffel Tower
Fountains at the Bellagio from the Eiffel Tower

The Eiffel Tower

As you can see we have perfected the "prom pose" we realized after a while we should change it up, but it was too late. I took 200 photos so I wanted to shaer a few of them. Enjoy!

Las Vegas Pictures!

Me and Michael Jordan! *sigh*
At the Excalibur Dinner Show


Me getting my pedicure!
Randy getting his pedicure!

Sirens of TI the Explosion

Treasure Island

Viva Las Vegas!

Oh my goodness! I am tired, but I had SO much fun!! I know you are dying to hear all about it, so sit back and get comfy this is going to be a long one!

We got to Vegas Thursday night and we had tickets to Mystere at Treasure Island. We were staying at the Tropicana, and checked in and I had mapquested the distance from the Tropicana to TI and it was under a mile that it came back at. Guess what, they were WRONG! 2.5 miles is more like it. So we booked it down the strip and got to TI with time to spare. We were on the third row in the theatre for Mystere. It was wonderful! I had no idea what to expect, and I am not sure I could even describe it. But I think Randy did it best as 'visually assaulting'. I think that nails it. It was great, and I want to see another show next time we go! After that we were off to explore and make our way back to our hotel.

The Tropicana is an older hotel, it had something in our room that I didn't know even existed in hotels. Do you see it? The ceiling had a mirror on it. And the wall behind the bed, and the wall next to it. I was SHOCKED! Seriously. I had no idea that they even put those in hotels. Classy eh?

Friday we had to go to a timeshare thingy, we got our classy hotel for free just for going to the two hour presentation. It was alright.. We went we said NO, they kicked us out and we were on our merry way.

We met some of my friends for lunch at the Rainforest Cafe. Had a great visit with them and then we were off to see more. We went and checked out the Excalibur, and then to Mandalay Bay. We went through the shark reef there. We saw lots of cool fish, sharks, sea life of all sorts and the cool crocodile, (I think.)
We got done with that and walked some more. Seriously we walked so much, my feet are tired! We ate dinner with some friends of ours, actually they came and picked us up and took us to their house. So we got to see out in Henderson area, it was nice to see other areas of Vegas besides the Strip. It was great to catch up and see the kids and see some great friends we have really missed! We are hoping to get back their and visit them again within the next year. Maybe even take the kids and stay with them for a week! That would be fun!

Then back to the Strip, we went to Paris, and went up the Eiffel Tower, it was really high up, but gorgeous! I am afraid of heights, so it was a little freaky, and then there was the distant lightning that was up there, but it was so awesome. I loved seeing all of the lights at night. It was amazing to see the view, so worth the anxiety over being up there so high. We were able to see the fountains at Bellagio and get some awesome pictures from up so high.

We watched the Sirens of Treasure Island.. It was interesting. We went through some more hotels and casinos and made it back to our hotel around 1:30 AM. It was quite the sight. So much to take in, and I was just so amazed to see all of the gambling. My very first time ever seeing a slot machines in real life. Not on TV or anything. Just totally interesting to me. Also people smoking and drinking everywhere, I am naive I have never seen it like that. I was shocked to see people lighting up in the malls and stuff. WOW!

Saturday we slept in. It was desperately needed, we were so tired!! Our feet we tired and sore so we thought we needed to do something relaxing. And have I mentioned I have THE BEST HUSBAND ever? We went and got wonderful pedicures together. Ahhh.. They were blissful! And my feet felt so much better after we were done. Then we went to a Magic Show.. Entertaining, but we saw the Tiger that had magically disappeared at the end. Good job Dirk! After that we went to check out more of the Excalibur and then we decided we had had enough of the heat and would chill by the pool for a while. It was very refreshing. After that we got ready for dinner. We went back to the Excalibur and saw the Tournament of Kings. Great dinner show, we were thoroughly entertained. It was so fun to watch and we felt so involved, I highly recommend going there! We explored a little more of the Excalibur, and my sweet honey got me a nice pair of pearl earrings! Thanks babe, you spoil me!

Then off to New York, New York. We went on the rollercoaster there. Let me tell you, it was so very very fun! We had heard mixed reviews on it, and I wasn't sure I wanted to be that high up, going that fast. Okay I did, but I knew I was going to be scared. I for some strange reason enjoy being scared beyond all reason, it is fun for me. We went on it twice, I loved it!

Finally we made it to the Venetian, GORGEOUS! I also got to get my picture taken with one of my all time favorite athletes, Michael Jordan. Basketball star of the world, right up there with my brother. Yes, I am ranking him with my brother. Pretty cool huh? I was one of the biggest Jordan/Bulls fans there was back in the day, I still like the Chicago Bulls!! Basketball.. One of my loves. Seriously I am so excited to have my picture with Jordan, even if it wax, it looks pretty darn cool!

Anyway, the Venetian was just awesome. I loved all of it. Gorgeous. Then off to see the Mirage and then Caesar's Palace. So much to see and to explore. I loved Caesar's Palace.. Well I really loved the mall there. It is open until midnight, how cool is that? I mean I wish my mall was open that late instead of a measly 9:00PM, I could go shopping so easily after the kids were in bed if that were the case. We enjoyed browsing, and finally getting through all of Caesar's Palace. It took a while. Seriously how big do these buildings need to be? You can just walk yourself to death.

We made our way back to the hotel, slowly. Dinking around and seeing all sorts of great stuff and taking it all in. And then after a good nights rest it was time to go home. We had a great time! We saw a did a lot, but feel like we only touched the top of the ice berg! Hopefully we will get to go back within the next year! It was so fun!

Blogger is having issues so I am going to have to post the rest of the pictures separately. Sorry.

I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane

I am so excited in less than 24 hours, just a little less we will be landing in Las Vegas! We are looking forward to a fun weekend. We have a few things we are planning on doing, but for the most part we are going to be flying by the seat of our pants!
I know you are going to miss me, but we are going to be having a great times sans kids. I am looking forward to missing them greatly.
I will be back Sunday night, late. So hopefully I will have pictures and some good stories!!

The rest of the pictures

The rest of the pictures, including the true colors of my little girl, see that attitude I get?
My son smacking the ball, and getting ready to field a grounder! I am so proud! How did they get so big?
Then the cute kids in the slip'n'slide, and yes her cute bum is always showing a little!

I've Been Busy

I have been busy lately, and I don't see it slowing down too much for a while. I brought it all upon myself too. My kids are busy and into everything so I figured might as well have stuff for them to keep them busy, and out of trouble. I forgot that by doing that I would make ME busier than I already am, but hey it is a lot of fun!
The kids are currently in swimming lessons everyday, with my little princess I get to go with her, notice the GET to not HAVE to, I made the choice to sign her up so it is my privlege. Little man is doing his at the same time.
Little Man is the one who is keeping me really busy. He has soccer on Mondays, and T-Ball on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We have play group and then Little Princess has Speech Therapy a couple of days in the week also. Then there is story time and park days and lots of fun things for the kids.
We had the birthday last week also, and then my big brother and his family moved back, so exciting!! So life is busy, but busy is good. I find the busier I am the happier I am. The more on my list the more fun it is.
I'm busy, I'm running all the time for here to there, and trying to keep up on the house. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
I have gotten some great photo ops so here are some pictures of my cute kids for your viewing pleasure!

The rest of it

I don't want my little man to feel left out, so here is a nice picture of him! Blogger was having some issues, but I got all of my pictures up! Woo Hoo! Here are the rest of my girl today. Happy Birthday Princess, and my all of your wishes come true.

More Birthday Pictures!

Happy Birthday Princess!!

I can't believe it has been three years. It doesn't seem like it was that long ago that I held you for the first time, yet I can't imagine life without you. You are so much like me, in so many ways. The things you do crack me up, and then at times I am at my limit, and then I realize how much you are like me. I am sorry I am not the perfect Mommy, and sometimes I just need to remember you are trying, and you and me we aren't that different.

I was terrified the day you were born, you were early and I had no idea what the outcome would be. You were born at 5:38 PM on a Sunday and just 5lbs 1/2 oz and 19 1/2 inches long. Who would have thought you would grow so fast in 3 short years. You are now 29lbs and about 41 inches. You came out strong and with so much spunk! I hope you know how much I adore you, and how grateful I am to be the woman you call Mother.

My princess, my angel, my miracle, I love you.

Take a trip down memory lane and check out my little princess three years ago, and now!

First time I was able to hold her, 6 hours after my c-section. It was midnight I was so tired.

Today, her first picture as a three year old!

The Commercial Boy

Little Man loves to watch TV. Yes I know, they really don't need to watch that much, but what does 10 hours a day hurt?? HA!

He gets a little time in the AM and I think some of his favorite parts of it are the commercials. He just saw one for dish soap, and was all MOOOOOOOMMMM, get in here now! So I come a running and he was like, did you see that commercial? That dish soap turns into a vacuum and gets all the gross stuff off of the dishes. Don't you want that?

I love my Little Man, he is always looking for something new, and will tell me all about what he learns, the advertisers are marketing to a 4 year old I think. He wants all of the new cleaning products he finds!

I am just grateful he doesn't see the feminine hygiene commercials and want the info on those!!

Soccer Mom!

I think I am now a Soccer Mom, my little man is now playing soccer!! I don't have the minivan or the big SUV but I have a kid in soccer! And boy am I proud!!

I am seriously so proud of him. Tuesday was the first day of soccer. He tried so hard and did great! I feel like we are starting a new stage in life, and it is going to be a long one. I am so excited to have my kids in sports, and to see them grow and develop their skills and talents!

I am the really proud Mommy standing on the sidelines screaming Go Little Man Go! Sure that my Boy is doing better than any other little boy out there.. Or at least I hope to be. Tuesday we had some fun times tackling the ball, wrong sport there buddy but he will get it!

I have never played Soccer, so I am looking forward to learning more about it, and he is going to be getting lots of practice and I am sure he will teach me lots too.


Check out that kick? How can you not be so proud?
He had such an awesome time! He worked so hard, and is so excited to get out everyday with the soccer ball and kick it some more! Woo hoo! Go little man! I can't wait for my days and many more years of this! It brings back the memories.

I remember thinking being a Soccer Mom I would be so old, but here I am 26 and I can't think of anything better to do. Next year I will have two kids doing it, and I can't wait. My best memories from my childhood invlove sports!

Tender Mercies

I had written this out earlier today, it was much much longer, so you can thank blogger that you got the Reader's Digest Version this time!

I love Michael McLean. I love his music, it speaks to me, to my soul. I recently downloaded his CD As I Am. Let's just say I love it. The opening track is called Tender Mercies. It is wonderful, and it has really made me ponder the tender mercies in my own life.

Four years ago today my life changed. No, I didn't become a mother that day, my son was six months old. It was late and I was sitting with my family watching TV and I started coughing, not overly unusual for me, I have asthma. But I glanced at my hand and saw blood. It scared me a little, so I went to the bathroom to figure out where it was coming from. I kept coughing and more blood kept coming. So we went to the hospital. When we arrived I was put into isolation immediately and masked just in case I had Tuberculosis. I knew I didn't, I hadn't been anywhere! After lots of tests the Doctor came in and told me he was 98% sure I had Hodgeskin's Disease. As I sat there with Randy, and my little man who was just six months old I felt my world collapse, everything else the doctor said became a blur. I was taken up to a room so we could do more tests the next day.

My Dad came up that night, and together my Dad and Randy administered to me, and gave me a blessing. I was promised in that blessing that with great faith, I would have a great miracle in my life. As I sat there in bed, for the first time away from my baby, and after everyone left I was alone with my thoughts, and my fears. I sat there with the thoughts of everything that had gone on that night and just poured my heart out to the Lord. Cancer? How could it be cancer, I had just turned 22. My life was just beginning, we had just started our family, and I desperately wanted my son to have a sibling. As I sat there that night I pleaded with the Lord that I would have one more child, that I would be able to raise my children.

About 10 days after the tests I got the biopsy results back and my lymph nodes were normal. They ran another test and found out I had a pulmonary sequestration. It is a rare congenital birth defect. My radiologist was baffled because he said in a previous CAT scan that my lungs were in he didn't see the lump in my lung, so how could it be there now?

We found a cardio-thoracic surgeon who we met with and told us that it needed to be removed. I was given another blessing before my surgery and was reassured that the Lord knew what was going on in my life, and that He was in charge. The night before the surgery was a restless one for me. I was scared, and I wanted to be close to my sweet baby and I prayed it wouldnÂ’t be my last night with him. I nursed my sweet boy and prayed it wasn't the last time as I handed him to my Mom.

The next morning we went to Sacred Heart and I had my surgery, when I finally woke up I had an epidural for pain and was still in great pain. The incision they did is in my back and is said to be ten times more painful than open heart. I was laying in the Cardiac ICU and Randy was there with me, and after such intense pain I asked him for a blessing of comfort. He gave me one and when he finished I felt the pain ease, it was bearable, and I knew that the Lord was aware of me.

I ended up spending 5 days in the hospital recovering, and then another five weeks of a slow recovery. And barely over one year after it all started, we were blessed with our daughter, my little princess, my miracle.

How grateful I am for the tender mercies the Lord has given me. I would not trade this experience for anything. The Lord will not give us more than we can handle, if we lean on Him. He will ease our burdens, and comfort our hearts. I learned how much my Savior loves ME, that He is so aware of my needs, and that he is at the Helm. He suffered in Gethsemane not only for our sins, but for all that we would feel, including our physical pain. When I felt alone, I knew that He was there for me, and He knew what I was going through. How grateful I am for the gospel of Jesus Christ, for His infinite love and atonement.

The tender mercy of the Lord is all around us, sometimes it just takes opening our heart to see them. I hope all of us are able to experience them.

Something that represents me...

It is Monday!! My Life Monday nonetheless! Woo Hoo!!

Today's Topic: Something that represents me. I thought of that, because so often I am a Mom, and I feel like my kids represent me, but I had to find something, NOT someone.

So I finally decided on something that I feel represents me fairly.

This is my Piano. I love my piano. It is a very special item in my house, when we moved I even paid someone to move it, rather than risk anything happening to it.. I might of hurt someone if it had been damaged in the moved, that is how much I love it. A little info, I had a 1919 Chickering that I grew up playing, and got after I was married. It sounded awesome, BUT it looked like it was an old saloon piano, minus a few gunshots. It was pretty beat down. So in December I found this piano, a 1901 Chickering that I fell in love with. It needed to be restored so I had that done and the end of February it was completed. So it has an unbelievable sound and it is gorgeous!!

So why a piano represents me. I love music, it is part of me, and one of my passions. A lot of people are surprised to find out I have played the piano for over 22 years, much less that I am passionate about classical music. I am the farm kid who did FFA, played sports, and could do anything any boy could do. I am just as tough as anyone, so when I played a Haydn Concerto for a competition my Junior year of High School I about knocked the socks off of people. How did this crazy basketball player know how to play the piano? We thought she was just the Forward who fouled everyone.

I have enjoyed playing for hours at a time since I was little. I love the expression you get and the chance you get to bring the music alive. I love the way I can express myself, different composers help me to express different things I am feeling. When I sit down I leave the world of just a Mom, and it takes me to a place I have been able to do since I was a little girl. There is something magical about it. I love the opportunity to learn new challenging music, to push myself. It brings me so much joy.

In my living room my piano is the focal point, it is the first thing you see when you walk into my house. My Mom plays, and she taught me to love it. I want my kids to play, I want it to be part of my legacy.

Vegas Baby!

We are going to Vegas in a few weeks, just my honey and I! I was checking flight prices to do different places yesterday, I like to do that so I can dream about going somewhere. And I find such a killer deal that we decided to buy the tickets and take a long weekend in Vegas. I am so excited!!
I have never been there so I am not sure what all to do there, so please, if you have been there, live, there, or have any ideas leave them in the comments okay?
We have a few friends there that I would like to see, hopefully they can show us some cool places, also it is always fun to do stuff with a group of people right? So needless to say a kidless weekend is exciting to us.