A bit of an update

Our computer is down, so I am forced to use the unfriendly laptop, or I feel it is unfriendly to me anyway. I can hardly type or use the little mouse thing on it without messing everything up.

Due to our computer problems, I haven't even been able to get my email, or do much of anything on the computer, not even blogging! Crazy!! Hopefully this will be a somewhat quick version of what has been happening here in the last little while.

To start off Rob and I had our 10th year anniversary in March. Robert's mom was here in the end part of Feb. while Samantha was in the hospital. While she was here she suggested for us to go out and she would watch the kids. For Christmas, Robert got me a gift certificate for the Anniversary Inn, it is a bed and breakfast type place with themed rooms. There are two in Salt Lake area and then there is one in Boise I think to, and one in Logan if I remember right. For an early celebration, Robert and I went and stayed a night up in Salt Lake. It was a nice quiet evening. We went to see a stupid (it really was) movie, I won't even mention it because it was so lame... and then we ate at Olive Garden. We had our Wedding Brunch/Lunch/Dinner (whatever it was) at Olive Garden almost 10 years prior to that day. It was kind of fun. We stayed in the Enchanted Forest room, the bed was held up by trunks of trees, it was a fun room. All the rooms are decorated really cute, I think anyway. But I am no decorating diva either!

Emily had a project she was suppose to work on for the whole month of Feb. and of course the Saturday before the Monday it was due, she was wanting help with it. We got up early on Monday to finish it and then she started telling me all the other stuff it needed too, besides the cereal box decorated.... it was way too much. It took us most of the whole week after school to finish it. It turned out really cute, she was suppose to do a biography of someone, and she did it on Rob's mom. Unfortunately, the pictures are on my external hard drive, and I can't figure out how to get it to work with this computer.... bummer!

A few years ago, we had a fun family that lived behind us in Orem. They had all girls, and their last two daughters where the same age as our twins and Emily, just a few weeks off. They were my girls favorite friends to play with, I think mostly because they were so close. Emily says Haley is her best friend still. We ended up having a sleep over with both girls at our new house. The girls had a good time, but I forgot how tiring it is to have young girls try to mother the little baby. There was a lot of, "Just put her down... She is okay.... Leave her there please.... Don't carry her up the stairs...." But we got through it, and I would definitely have the girls come over again. They are good girls.


Emily's friend Haley


Kylee (the twins' friend) and Samantha


Emily and Haley, on the balcony where the spent most the morning and afternoon.

Emily on the balcony

Samantha is getting really big, she is crawling up things, over things and through things. She even tries to go up the stairs. She pulls herself to a stand on many pieces of furniture. Her latest thing that she loves is to stand next to the clothes basket and push it around.

She is crawling all over the place. I sure am loving her! It is amazing how you think your heart is so full of love for someone, and then somehow, your heart grows and has more room for more love.... it can be more love for someone, or love for someone new like a new baby to your family.

Samantha thinks she is so cool, going up the stairs. She loves to follow us around. She will also clap her hands and she is learning to wave... she still doesn't wave at the right time, but we are loving her little hands waving with her babbles.

Amber is still such a ham!! She is hilarious! If you ever need a good laugh, come spend some time with her... she will have you in stitches! She loves to also get her picture taken, she will pose and then say, "do it again... cheese, how about now....do it again...." Funny stuff.

A few night ago, all the other kids were in bed and I was putting Amber to bed. She was really tired and sad. I was taking her to say goodnight to her dad, and then she said, "can we pray first?" I think anything to push bedtime off for a moment works. But how do you tell her, NO, we already prayed, just go to bed. She wanted to say the prayer. When she prays she is so cute, I need to get a video of it. She talks so cute and then also her facial expression. She normally repeats herself a little. While she was praying this night, Robert was laughing, or trying not to. Amber stopped her prayer, looked at Rob and said, "Dad we are praying, you need to be quiet!" as she was putting her finger up to her lips to demonstrate the "Shhhh" sign. Of course then Rob totally lost it, and couldn't stop. He does have giggling problems!

We had a bit of some problems with our new table we got... it went from this...

To this. Our nice table, changed into a HUGE (too big for me and in my opinion, unnecessary) 52 inch LCD TV. The girls love watching TV which is often the Disney channel now.


Okay so that wasn't entirely true... we don't have to eat dinner off the TV, we got a new TV since the old table had some chair problems, so we traded it in for a new table, which was cheaper, and then left us with a big credit which then was used by Rob to get a TV which he has been dying for. I would have gotten a nice bedroom set for us, or even a cedar type chest for toys, or maybe even a cool bench with coat hooks for the front entry way... but Rob's mind was working in electronics. If I would have used it, we could have gotten a few things, instead of just one thing... but Rob is happy now! He will no longer complain about the need of a bigger TV.

Here is Lauren sitting at our new table... square, which I love, I would have preferred the High counter height table but Robert liked the lower ones instead.

And then Amber was working hard to hook up the old 37 or 38 inch TV. I think that is the size of it, maybe it was only 34, I can't remember, it seemed big enough for me!

Samantha also made a real mess of her thumb... this picture is really blurry but she has a huge sore on her thumb from sucking on it I guess, or biting it... I am not really sure what. It also has a cut sort of thing on the crease of thumb on the inside. Poor baby. Not really much we can do for it that I can come up with. It is getting better though. Her top two molars just broke through, so maybe that was a part of the chewing she was doing... hope she doesn't keep it up.

Here is Samantha standing up, or trying to stand up while she is still sitting on the ground too. It is like the perfect set up for a summersault. So fun to watch.

Here is just a cute smile of Samantha... she is so happy!

For Relief Society, we were having the birthday celebration dinner. They wanted people to sign up to decorate a cake or decorate a table. They set up 12 tables, one for each month of the year. Then if you signed up, you decorated a table for your month, either did 8 place settings or you decorated a cake. Since my b-day is in August it was kind of hard to come up with a "theme" or something. I talked to the lady that was doing the table. She brought over her table topper and then I decide on a cake. Her table topper was off white with embroidered mossy green leaves and big lady bugs embroidered also. It had some flowers embroidered in golden yellow. I had a different cake in mind, but then as I was working on it, I just came up with this one.

I was really nervous since it was my "first sign up" for the new ward. I wanted it to be just perfect. I didn't think it turned out perfect, but it was good enough. It looked so good with the table set up... I wish I would have gotten a picture of the decorated table with the cake too. The lady doing the table, did a fantastic job on her table setting. It was gorgeous!!

As I said Amber is still just a hoot! Just this morning she got into the lotion... she put it all over this chair, and herself and then the drawer that she tried to get a towel out to clean stuff up. Later I found more things too, like Samantha's saucer and a stool, and a dinning room chair.

Here is the tube of lotion, which is really diaper rash creme we got at the hospital for Samantha. It is pretty tacky stuff.

You can see how messy her arms and hands are. She is hilarious, but messy too!

Another funny story for Amber.... we were shopping at the store. I was with just my two little ones picking up some coupon items on sale... As we were walking around we heard a little child all sad, crying and protesting to the shopping trip with his mom. He must have been about 3 maybe. We saw him at one time and he was walking, but he was far behind the mom, and yelling, "I just want to go home mom!" At first I was just thankful that my girls were behaving, since I have often heard such whines and complaints. As we were walking down one isle, Amber said, "we need to get her." I was asking her who, and she just said, "her," and pointed down the isle. I wasn't sure what she was talking about. Later as this child (and there might have been more than one child crying in the store) cried out and was yelling, Amber would yell out, "We will be there in a minute to help you!" Then again we would hear the child and Amber would yell out other things like, "Just a second!" and "We're coming to get you!" I was just cracking up!

After that LONG post I feel a little updated, but still I am sure I am missing something. OH, and while I was doing this post, the phone rang. Our stake just got split into two stakes. (Stakes are the upper leadership of a ward. A ward is an area of houses that make up a church group. You go to a certain ward usually based on the area you live in. Such as the Winlock Ward, or the Toledo Ward, or Mesa 11th Ward. There are many wards in a stake, and the stake is like the upper management I guess you could say of a ward.) Our stake had 12 wards, so they ended up making it two stakes. Back to the phone ringing.... the phone rang and Robert has an appointment with the stake tonight. I am guessing High Council, but it could be a ton of things really.... I guess that means I won't be teaching with him anymore, I will be alone teaching those sweet energetic kids that I am growing to love!

Oh, and I am excited because my parents and my twin brother and his family are coming here to visit at the later part of this week. I am SUPER excited. The girls know that my parents are coming but not my brother, his wife and their 3 kids. Yahoo! I can hardly wait!!!!!!

(For the longest time I have tried to fix the lack of paragraphing at the bottom here, but it won't let me... sorry!)