Happiness

I am the luckiest momma in the world. I am so blessed and have so many good things in my life. I am so fortunate to be able to stay home with these beautiful, sweet children. Heavenly Father has so richly blessed us. How can I not be happy when I get to play, well maybe a little bit of work ;), but yes, play with these precious children all day long.



I just had to include these two pictures. Collin loves to read. We read every night and lately, if I want to shower or get ready, this is the best way to keep him out of trouble. I hope he keeps up his love for reading. I just love how intent he is.

Summertime

Well we sure love the summer. This summer has been low key, well besides having a baby. We haven't had a lot of vacations or done a ton, but we have sure enjoyed spending lots of time together. Adam has been getting home around 3:30 so there is lots of family time, which is the best. Collin is quite the character and we can never get him to be quiet now. His laughter fills the house and we love it. Marissa is our sweet little angel. She is just so mellow and sweet. She's only laughed once, but she smiles all the time and to anyone. She is just such a doll. Adam starts class for his test engineering next month so we are trying to get our fill of him before he goes back to school. And I am just loving my family. I am so lucky to have these beautiful children and a wonderful husband. We celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary last weekend. We are so lucky and life is so good. Here are a few pictures from our summer.

Some pics of our Cute Kids

I have a Two year old?!

June 30th was Collin's 2nd birthday. I can't believe he is 2 already. We went to the zoo (I'll post pictures soon) with some friends and then had some friends over later for cake and ice cream. It was such a fun and special day. The highlights for him were the balloons and seeing a digger at work. He is such a sweet and wonderful little boy. He is challenging us and asserting his independence which can be extremely frustrating, but he is also so sweet, loving, and stinking cute. He brings us so much joy and happiness we just can't imagine life without him. I was so terrified to have a boy, but now I can't imagine not having him. He is my little buddy and just lights up our lives. We are so blessed to have our Collin boy. We love you Stinks

Happy Independence Day

For the 4th of July we went to Adam's best friends brother's house for a party. It was fun and so nice to be around such good friends. While we were there our friend did a little photo shoot for me of the kids. I want to get professional pictures but don't want to spend the money, not to mention Collin is in a funny picture phase and will not look at the camera and smile. Well what a waste if we couldn't even get a smile so I figured maybe I could get some great pictures while we were at the party. Our friend is still working on the photos but sent me this one and I just had to post it. Here is the little lady

Isn't she beautiful. I especially love her bright blue eyes. They will probably turn brown, but it's fun to have a blue-eyed child at least for a little while.

Our Sweet Angel

Well, our beautiful little girl has been with us for a month and this is my first post about her. I know pathetic, but hey it's been busy. Life is pretty crazy with a newborn and an almost 2 year old. They sure keep us on our toes. If we thought things were crazy with Collin, boy were we wrong. Anyway I'm going to post about her birth since it is long over due and so important for our family records.
Here is me at 39 weeks

So I was dilated to a 4 for a few weeks and effaced and nothing was happening. I was even playing basketball and volleyball (the week before she was born).Collin was 4 days late and I was afraid the same was going to happen. My mom was coming out to help with things and I was afraid if Marissa didn't come on time, I would miss out on my mom's help. So...since I was so "ready" as the doctor put it, she stripped my membranes on Friday the 21st to get things moving. However, since our children are just as stubborn as their parents, nothing happened. The doctor said to call the hospital on Monday to be induced if there was no progress. So I called, but for the next 2 days just had to wait since apparently it was a crazy baby time, who knew. Finally on Tuesday the 25th at 11:45pm I got a call from the hospital saying they had an opening and to come on in. I jumped out of bed (Adam was a little less enthusiastic since we had just been asleep for 30 minutes or so) and we got going pretty quick.
They started me on pitocin around 1:30am and not much was happening so they said to try and sleep...yeah right, who can sleep at a time like that, well I should rephrase that, what woman in labor can sleep, Adam slept just fine. Around 8am still nothing was really happening so Adam went and got some breakfast and of course 5 minutes after he left, and a few minutes before the doctor was coming in to break my water, I felt a huge gush of water. My water broke with Collin so I knew what it was. I called the nurses and instantly my contractions started coming full force. It was so painful. I have to give so much credit to those women who go natural, as crazy as I think you are. It was really painful. I was fully expecting an epidural so I was not prepared for the strong contractions. For whatever reason, it took the anesthesiologist an hour to come in. By that time I was really hurting and doing all I could to breath through the contractions. Finally the epidural kicked in and oh it was soooo nice.
The nurses said to let them know when I started feeling pressure. I quickly assured them that I already was. They checked me and I was already an 8. They started to get things ready for the delivery. I said I was feeling even more pressure, they checked me again and sure enough, I was fully dilated and effaced. Well I don't need to go into any more detail about the actual delivery other than it was wonderful (as crazy as that sounds). It really is an amazing experience (thanks to modern medicine). Adam is so supportive and loving. He is a great coach. My mom got to be there and even though she said it was pretty gross (I can't blame her, I don't think I ever need to be at labors besides my own), she said it was incredible at the same time. It was quite a bit harder than Collin and took much more pushing, but after some hard work, our beautiful baby girl entered the world at 10:26am, 2 hours after my water broke. The first thing I asked Adam was if it was a girl. The ultrasounds said it was a girl, but I was so sure I would never have a girl, I just had to check. It was a girl, she was beautiful and healthy and they gave her to me right away. What a beautiful miracle it truly is. I was able to bond with Marissa right away and we enjoyed those special first moments. When they took her to weigh her, I realized why it was so much harder, she was a whopping 8lbs 11oz, compared to Collin's 7lbs 1 oz, a huge difference if you ask me.
It was so fun to introduce Collin to "his baby".

He didn't really know what to think and was pretty scared to see me in a weird gown on a strange bed in a foreign place, but we got some cute pictures and he was interested for about a minute.

Marissa is such a doll. She eats and sleeps so well. She is so easy going, which is such a blessing since Collin is a typical two year old and trying our patience. Although there are definitely challenging days and moments we wouldn't change a thing. Our two children are miracles from our loving Heavenly Father and we can't imagine life without them. We feel so blessed to have these precious children. Families are such a blessing. We have so much to figure out, but we are enjoying learning with each other.

A touching video

My New Life

I just watched this inspirational and moving video. What an example of faith and courage. I hope that when my trials come I will be able to see them as they truly are, opportunities to grow closer to my Heavenly Father and further learn my divine worth and potential. As I have been thinking a lot about having another baby I realize how truly blessed I am to be able to be a mother and a woman. This past mother's day was so wonderful, even though Adam was sick and things didn't work out how I had planned. I was able to go to church and to feel the spirit and be grateful for the opportunity I have to be a mother and woman. We have so much potential and divine worth if we just keep close to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. The world will try to distract us and make us question who we are, but as we draw closer to our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ we realize the truth, which is that we are children of a Heavenly Father, which makes us divine. When I look at Collin and Adam and see all the opportunities I have to try to make them see their divine potential, I realize how lucky I am. God knows us and knows what we need, if we can just have the faith and courage to press forward, steadfast and immovable.