Hunting.....and the dreaded "belly shot"

A few weeks ago, we went down to Ephraim for the deer hunt.  Needless to say, David was super excited, since we have been away for the last 3 years, so he could hardly sleep.  (no seriously, he was waking up at like 3:30am for a few days before the hunt....yah....great.....which means I was up around that time to since it is so hard to go back to sleep lately).  Anywho,  as you can see, he was successful in his hunt, and he had so much fun with his Dad and brothers and cousins.  We were able to go over and have a nice lunch with all the hunters and get some fun pictures with all the grandkids.

For some unknown reason (yah right), David just LOVES this picture of Brigham.  Something about a father and son and their love of hunting, he was just going on and on about how great this picture was.  Yah, he sure looks cute, but it is hard to overlook the DEAD animal he is crawling on:)  I have no doubt that David will be able to pass on his love of hunting to his children (I say children, because I know Isabel loves to be in the outdoors with her daddy already)

 This is Brigham's cousin who is 2 months older than him.  They were both very intrigued by the deer and had fun admiring his antlers. 
 

 Yes, that is Isabel's doll stroller.  And yes, that is my almost 2 year old sitting in it!  I can't believe it has lasted this long without breaking or tearing to shreds.  When they are actually playing nice together, it is so cute to see them interact and enjoy each other, so I will sacrifice the life of the stroller to enjoy these moments.
Here is a pic from when Brigham was 3 months old, and Isabel started pushing him around in it.  Feel free to let out an "oohhh", cause he was pretty darn adorable!

And finally.......the dreaded belly shot!  I am now 31 weeks....and feeling it!  I haven't taken a belly shot this pregnancy until now.  I kept meaning too, and everytime I thought about it, I was either too tired or looked too terrible to bust out the camera.  Not that this is much better, but hey, I am showered and not falling asleep after the kids are in bed, so I will take what I can get:)

A few weeks ago, I was feeling pretty good, and I thought, "oh the 3rd trimester is gonna go so fast".  Now I wonder how I am gonna make it to the end:)  I won't bore you with all the complaints, because they really don't matter.  What matters is that I feel so blessed to be able to have children, that I should have nothing to complain about.  I am healthy (even though I don't feel like it) and I have such a wonderful family, that I can't wait to see how this little one will bless our lives even more!  I am glad the holidays are coming up, because that is a great distraction and will help the time pass.
We are going to be home for Thanksgiving.  David is on call that weekend, so we have to stay put.  I talked David into letting me cook a small thanksgiving dinner for us here at our house.  He didn't want to burden me with all the cooking and prep work, and wanted to just go out to eat.  But then, I had visions of him getting called into the hospital just as we started eating, and didn't want to be left with 2 toddlers in a crowded restaurant full of hungry people.  So I would rather be stuck at home alone with 2 toddlers, and my favorite sweet potatoes all to myself:)

"sharing" pretzels

 So when we were out taking pictures with Kyle and Lisa a few weeks ago, we stopped to have a snack and these little photos followed.  Brigham was trying to take the bag of pretzels away from Isabel. Then we finally talked Brigham into sharing some with Isabel, and she took all the ones out of his hands he was sharing and he got all fired up again!  I love all the facial expressions he is pulling and you can almost hear what he is screaming just by looking at the pics.  Hope you enjoy the craziness that is our children!

I love this picture of Brigham and think it captures his innocent mischievousness so well:)

Here is my little helper!  I can't believe how fast she is growing up and how quickly she is becoming her own person.  I love to look at pictures of my kids because it is a great reminder of how innocent and sweet they are.  I need to take a step back more often and realize that they do not do things just to aggravate me, as much as it feels that way sometimes:)  Thanks again Lisa for such cute pictures!

Nesting??? ....What is "nesting"?

So I am a little frustrated with myself that I can't kick myself into nesting mode.  I have so many things I want to do before the baby gets here (organize the kids room to get another bed to squeeze in there, make a car seat blanket, make a car seat wrap, dig out baby clothes to wash them and organize them, clean out messy closets that have already been created after living here for less than 6 months, etc, etc.).  But I just can't do it. 

Maybe it is because there are two little maniacs running around my house, taking all my time and energy to feed them, clothe them, play with them, break up fights and....ah, finally...get them to sleep.  I can't find any extra time or energy to get all the things done on my "want-to-do" list and I wonder how that will change and get even crazier with adding a 3rd one to the mix???  Life just seems to get more hectic, and I feel like I get further and further behind. 

With a little over 10 weeks to go, I am hoping I can find someway to prepare for the arrival of this sweet little bundle (boy or girl??? can't wait to find out!!!).  I remember that every spare thought went to thinking/dreaming/wondering about little Isabel when I was pregnant with her.  Now, my spare thoughts are fewer and farther between and I am scared this little child will feel less loved because we won't take as many pictures, we don't sit on the couch every evening and wonder what each day of their future will be like we did with our first.  I know that being a parent is a juggling act, but I totally SUCK at juggling, never could do it.  I hope I can always give my kids the love and attention and care that they need and I pray that I can dig down deep and find a way to become better and fulfill my responsibilities as a mother to these sweet children.

Okay, now that that is off my chest, I am going to bed.  Sleep is harder to come by these days with heartburn, hot flashes and a belly that feels like there is a jackhammer inside whenever I try and lay down:)  I am so blessed to be able to experience all these things, and I know that all the hard things I go through, I would do again in a heartbeat just for that first moment they are placed in my arms and wrap their tiny hands around my finger.  Oh, I am so grateful I have something so special to look forward to in the gray that is known as January!!!

One of these days, I will try and post a belly shot.  Seems to always slip my mind on the days that I actually look halfway decent and don't have food or snot smeared all over my shirt:)

Happy Halloween!

 We were able to go trick-or-treating last night with Sam and Nicole's family.  It started raining in the afternoon, so we waited for it to clear a little bit and then bundled the kids up and headed out.  We were really surprised to find out that there were a lot of people not at home in our townhouse complex and across the street in a condo complex.  We had lots of fun and the kids enjoyed screaming "trick or treat" when someone would come to the door.  Isabel really wanted to be snow white again this year, which we didn't mind at all!  Brigham was able to borrow a costume from some friends of ours, so it worked out really great for us this year!  We went to our ward trunk or treat on Thursday night and the kids had so much fun.  David decorated the trunk up really fun and spooky. Of course, he had to bring his coyote pelt and scare people when they bent down to get candy from the bowl.  He says he thinks he made a mom wet her pants!!!  We were reminded of our fun times out in Omaha and all the friends we would scare:)

 What a beautiful little Snow White!  She had so much fun putting on make up and making her hair pretty!

 It was hard to pin him down long enough for a picture, he was having so much fun running around and doing his dragon "roar"

 As we were heading home, it really started to rain hard, so we made a run for it.  Luckily, David had brought along our ginormous beach umbrella to keep us dry. 

We had a fun weekend, and the kids are sufficiently hopped up on a sugar high right now!  David had fun smoking some deer jerky and can't wait to do it again!  We set it up in the garage cause it was raining, but man did it make the whole house smell like the smokey flavor! 

Photoshop and some catching up!

 So I have been playing around with photoshop lately to see if I can do any good with it.  This is a before and after of a photo that I did that I kinda like, what do you think?  Too much???

This is one of the few pictures I have of the kids that they are both looking at the camera, don't have food all over their face, and look like their mother actually gets them ready in the morning:)  Kyle and Lisa (my brother and his wife) came down from Rexburg to hang out with us last weekend, and we went to a beautiful park to take some pictures.  She got some pretty cute pictures of the kids, but I will post those later.

 These are just some random pictures from the last few months.  I realized I haven't gotten the camera out as much as I should, and need to do a better job of documenting our lives.  This was one day after church when Daddy's leg was a temporary jungle gym for  the kids.

Sunday mornings are so crazy for us.  We always seem to be rushing out the door and I can't ever get a picture of the kids  in their cute church outfits.  Brigham was taking a nap, and we had time to curl Isabel's hair, so we had to get some photos of this pretty girl.  She loves to see pictures of herself, but it is hard to get her to sit still long enough to take said pictures!

 I love these kiddos so much.  As naughty as they can be (which isn't that bad, I need to keep things in perspective better), it all goes away with the little hug they will give me, or the times they tell me they love me out of the blue.  I am always amazed and overwhelmed at the job I have at hand, and realize I come up short so much of the time.  I am grateful to have children who forgive so easily and who love to be around their family (for the time being at least). 

Brigham is hilarious to watch on this bike.  His legs are not long enough to reach the peddles, so he does what we call "the fred flinstone".  He gets his feet going a million miles an hour and can go pretty fast.  I keep waiting for a big crash, but (knock on wood) he has done really well on it.  He loves that he can do something the other kids do, and will chase Isabel around the sidewalk in front of our townhouse on their tricycles.

Dumb Blogger

So I finally am getting around to want to post lots of random, overdue pics on here, but this dumb thing is taking too long to load up the photos.  Grrr, who knows when I will get motivation again to try this.  Wish Blogger would stop making it so difficult to show my peeps some pics of our family.
On a side note, I am now almost 26 weeks pregnant.  I am feeling pretty good, but still get exhausted by the end of the day.  Isabel is so excited to have a new baby (hope she is still excited once we bring the kid home and she sees what its all about).  She refuses to believe it is anything other than a girl and gets so frustrated when you try and talk to her about the chances of it being a boy:)

The residency is keeping David pretty busy, but he is learning so much.  We hope to make a few trips this fall to possible locations we would like to settle and see what options we have there.  I am staying busy with my new calling and am having fun trying to put together a little craft night for our Relief Society.  I will post pics of the craft we are doing when I get the examples all finished.  I will say it involves wood, mod podge and scrapbook paper, so its gotta be something cute, right?

7 years...keeps getting better!

Monday, August 16th was our 7 year anniversary and we had a great time.  David had to work a long day as usual, but we were still able to go out to dinner.

I am so lucky to be married to this man, he is my best friend and I love him more than I thought was possible.  He is an amazing father, husband, and works so hard for our family.

Sam and Nicole offered to watch the kids for us so we could go out to eat, it was wonderful to have a meal that was uniterrupted:)  After dinner, David wanted to know if I wanted to go walk around Temple Square since we were so close to Downtown.  It was such a pretty night, that I was game!  We started talking about the Anniversary Inn and how we couldn't wait to go back.  We had never seen the one on South Temple, and we drove by it and David asked if I wanted to go tour the rooms.  That sounded really fun, so we swung into the parking lot and went to go see if we could take any tours.  We walk up to the front desk and the lady asked us what the last name was on the reservation.  David said "Bailey" and I thought he was just teasing the lady and scolded him for tricking her.  The lady just giggled and then asked for a credit card to put the room taxes on and David hands it over to her!!!  I was totally caught off guard, he had arranged a room for us!  I was so overwhelmed and surprised that I started crying (hey, give me a break, I am pregnant!).  Sam and Nicole gave him a gift certificate for it that they got from the Easter Bunny (we were gonna get one this next year, so David said he would give them ours next year, so they did a little switcheroo).  They offered to watch our kids overnight and he took care of all the details.  He even packed an overnight bag for me and remembered things like makeup and facewash (what a guy, huh?)!!!
We stayed in the Mysteries of Egypt room and it was incredible!!!  I didn't have my camera cause I thought we were just going out for dinner, so I didn't get any pictures of the room.  But holy cow, that was a freakin awesome room!  You felt like you were inside of a pyramid and it had all sorts of cool statues and carvings all over.
It was so sweet of him to work that all out.  He had to work the next morning, so Sam brought the kids over to the room in the morning and they watched a movie with me while Sam and David headed up to Primary Children's.
I feel so blessed, I am so grateful to have the life and family that I do.  No matter what our circumstances our, we find a way to enjoy life and each other and I am so happy I get to spend eternity with my family!!!

I love you David!

Trip to Ephraim

David's sister who lives in Idaho was spending a week at Grandma Bailey's house with her kids and since David was so swamped with work, we decided to go down for a few days and play with the cousins.  We live next door to David's brother and his wife, Nicole.  So Nicole and I packed up our kids and made the trek down to Ephraim to play for a short weekend.  It was so much fun and great to see everyone!
It rained right after we got there, and the kids had lots of fun playing in the puddles on the porch.  Brigham was getting some pretty good air before he slipped and fell.  Poor little guy!

One of Isabel's cousins who is a few years older than her was so cute with all the girls.  They would have "girl parties" and go in the bathroom and put on the play makeup.  They were so adorable and the girls were all so excited to be wearing makeup.  It was hilarious, because they would come out of the bathroom looking VERY done up and they thought they were princesses.  I am glad I don't have to worry about her wearing makeup full time for quite a few years, we have lots to learn about the "less is more" rule of thumb with makeup:)

We took a picnic to Palisades and went swimming for a few hours.  It was so nice because it was so hot that the water felt nice.  The kids could have stayed all day long they were having so much fun.

Brigham spent the whole time just playing in the sand.  He would wade into the water up to his bum and throw sand and then come back out.  He did try to walk out to Aunt Rachel who was a ways out and we barely got to him before he went under.  It is scary how fast those kids can get away from you!

The kids had popsicles out in Grandma's back yard and they were loving life.  We always sleep good at Grandmas cause we get so tuckered out.  We went out for pizza one night and my little brother who just moved to Ephraim for Snow College came and met us.  It was hilarious because David's mom and sister met him and then immediately started brainstorming of who of Rachel's friends they could set him up with.  They called a friend right up and asked her to come down and introduced the two to each other, it was great!!!  Caleb was a good sport about it and has actually become friends with the girl, so that is nice, huh?

The halo hides the horns!

Oh, I just love this little man!  He is so sweet, but so mischievous sometimes, but I can't get enough of his snuggles.  These little kids just melt my heart!

Dental School Graduation - May 15th

Well, better late then never, but I wanted to get these up here for journaling purposes.  I cannot believe that our journey that is dental school has come to an end.  There are so many emotions that I went through that day, it was wonderful!  These last four years have been such a whirlwind, but we have grown and learned (and aged) so much with this journey.  We had both of our children while David was in dental school, moved halfway across the country and made some wonderful friends and memories through it all.  I am so grateful for my husband and all he sacrifices for our family, we are so lucky he is in our lives.             So, I am trying to figure out this new format with blogger and can't write underneath each photo, so just enjoy the photos and make up your own captions:)

We are so proud of you David and know that you gave your heart and soul to your dental education.  Now he is in a 2 year pediatric dental residency program here in Salt Lake.  We are grateful to be closer to family and look forward to more fun these next two years.  He is lucky enough to be in the same program with his brother Sam, so we have fabulous neighbors right now:)  (literally, we live next door to each other which is so awesome!)