Ireland singing in church. take 2

Sorry I guess the video was not good :( let's try this again. here is the post with a youtube video imbedded on it. Now see if that's better!!!

CLICK HERE FOR THE POST... OR JUST SCROLL DOWN :)

Well the bad news is or should I say WAS is that I took a few thousand pictures this summer (nope not kidding) and had no computer to save them to or a way to get them on my blog

My amazing husband fixed my computer and I am back in business!! so now it is overwhelming picture blog post time!!!

Oh ps apparently the video of Ireland singing doesn't work :( :( weird it plays fine for me. huh. lame. So Dan is finding me a working link!

in the mean time let's work on just a tiny part of summer. Let's start with Middle of May to middle of June. No this isn't all the pics from that time... just a few. ha ha ha warning: TONS O' PICS!!! feel free to click and possibly double click any pic you want to see bigger

sorry if I have already used some of these. They all blend together after a bit. Also I am not going to put them in the correct order because I am lazy :) You can figure out same day stuff by outfits right??

Don't even get me started on hot dogs. That's all this girl will eat!! EWWW. ha ha oh well at least she WILL eat something!!

Leighton is such a curious little baby. Loves to explore every inch of the house. This is her just playing with her magnets but she has a look like "it wasn't me!"

Her friend brought over a costume to play with. look how strong she is!

if you ever can't find Lei... look where there are books! She will always find books and spread them around then pick a fave and get reading. And that's either before or after bringing you a few, hopping in your lap and wanting you to read to her. awwww

a daily thing... pulling out dvds

this was so funny. She sure was concentrating! putting all her cereal in the diaper drawer.

later that day she decided just to... well have fun of course!

pat it and roll it....

she got her hair straightened one day (uh I think I have done this pic already.....)

preschool in panties. The joys of having her mama be her preschool teacher! she doesn't even have to get dressed!

they were playing some game where they hit their heads on the floor and cracking up... uh..

super cute!! And yes I do dress them in matching clothes, quite often actually.

ahhhh these are the best two pics you may ever see!!! I wanted to catch Leighton's natural reaction to when her daddy came home!!! I actually think he was just out starting the bbq lol

the first one is me saying here comes daddy and he wiggles the door knob

and enter daddy.....

so cute huh??

here is something we had TONS of this summer!!!

my cute monkey says "mom, mom! look, I a sloth!"

having fun in her car

enjoying having her sissy out of the hospital!

and straight out of the pool in our yard!

many many many more pics to come!! and the link to the video... soon

question: ... how many exclamation points did I use in this post?? I won't apologize for being happy!!! :) :) :)

Ireland sings in church!

So I possibly have the most amazing 2 year old in the world!! We went to my mom's church last week as she was giving a talk and she asked Ireland to sing 'I am a Child of God' in sacrament, with no music or help. Ireland was all for it. Would she do it? would she get nervous? ?Be silly? no!! She sang and did it beautifully!!!

not sure it was supposed to be filmed but I don't care because I now have this for the rest of my(and her) life!!

She got scared from the loud microphone so wait for her to sing... about 25 seconds in. turn up your volume to hear!

She has been invited to sing in my church and my dad's! She thinks it is the best thing ever!!

Leighton turns one!

I did her party post before this one because her birthday was about a week after the party.

ok so I am getting to this post two months late because I finally snagged some pics from my husband and mother. I don't need to warn you that this is long. It's me, so thats already a given...

If you want to read about Leighton's scary and intense delivery you can read that here

If not or you already did, here is her birthday from 2 months ago:

June 24, 2010 Leighton Hallie turned one!!!

It worked out that I didn't watch any kids that day! So I had my girls all to myself. yes! My sister and I took my two girls and two of their friends to the park that has all the water. They had fun, got wet and Leighton was walking around pretty good! Even in the water!

Then later we went to the "duck park" (its not even a park.. what IS that place really called??) and fed the ducks, geese, swans, pigeons, seagulls, and whatever else was there.

we had a party at home with just my parents and Daniel's parents. It was a fun, busy day. here a bunch of pics from Lei's fun day

How is it in just one year my little girl went from this:

to this:

this is my mom with my girls

I left them out of the order of the day on purpose. It's kind of fun to just go back and forth of all we did on her day














I LOOOOVE, love love this little girl. She makes my day better just by looking at her. With her permanent smile, her goofy personality, her little faces she makes, how she wakes up every single day with a huge smile and squeal when she sees you, how she still kicks her legs every time I pull her out of her crib, how every time she wants a bath she roams the house signing and saying bath to anyone who will listen, how she knows more words than I think she should know at this age, how she knows over 20 signs and uses them on a daily basis, how she has an obsession with shoes and hands them to me and waits as I put them on, I love how she knows sometimes when she needs to be changed, she says bum bum and will sit or lay in front of the place I change her, I love how she is so quick to remind everyone of their manners, if I give Lei something, before she takes it out of my hand she does the sign and says thank you BUT if you give something to someone else, she looks right at them and keeps saying thank you until they do! I love how she asks all day long to go outside and never stops smiling when we do go out and how she cries when we come in because she loves to be out walking, exploring and getting some sun, I love how when we went camping this weekend how she was a trooper when the poor thing face planted THREE times, was swollen above her cut lip and had a mouth full of dirt, she just keeps going. Nothing holds this girls back. She loves scripture time each night and actually gets excited and sits in my lap, she folds her little arms at prayers, she still wants me to hold and cuddle with her through out the day. She is an amazing sleeper and every day when she is tired, she does the sign for night night and sometimes just walks back in her room and stands by her bed. I put her in and she just smiles at you and falls asleep. She still takes two naps a day and sleeps about 12 hours a night. She has been running for a while and loves her daddy to chase her through the house. That cute little thing can go fast!! She has good leg strength. She dances and bounces when any song comes on. She will kiss you all day long and thinks her sister is the coolest cat around.

Awww yes I could go on. Leighton is a very special spirit in our home. She is a very kind hearted little soul. We sure love you patty cake!!

Leighton's birthday party

oh just over a month over due. oops. I stole some of Daniel's pictures. There were almost 200 so I just snagged a few (literally only a few. Not a hundred like normal. weird right?) I have to hurry so I can go back to being a mommy. I already see a pile of cereal spread across the floor.........

Leighton had her party a week before her actual birthday in June. We had it at a fun pool by my house (well there are actually 4 pools there... it was so fun!!!)

isn't her swim suit just darling?!?! I was in love

whoa she has thinned out a ton even since this. see what I get for waiting so long to post?

opening gifts

waiting for cupcakes

busted!! I kept asking her to stop climbing on it

outside of the pavilion we rented there was this sign for the party. yes, I needed a picture of it :)

taking a break from swimming... time to eat

gotta have a pic of the cupcakes. Gladys- you did a FABULOUS job! Everyone was super impressed!! thanks for making me so many (how many was it again? I think 60.) what a rockstar!!

darling huh??

I need to add more pics. these weren't the best sorry

Leighton's one year pics

We had our family pictures done a couple of weeks ago and I am impatiently waiting to get those back!! But I wanted some pics he took of just the baby to have now for her "one year" pictures. He sent me three and these are two that I LOVED!!! She has beautiful blue eyes that are just stunning in the sunlight. She also has curly hair in the back. yes!! Glad she will have curls like sister does!!

This child is breathtaking.....

Can I be honest here?

So... I have a confession. Maybe this is too personal?? but I am having a super, hard, depressing week(s) and I can't seem to get happy. Like really happy. I need to vent so I can feel better.

After my last blog I wondered if I ever sound like I am bragging when I talk about my kids. that isn't my intention. honest. I love my kids more than I could ever describe and every.single.thing they do makes me so excited I have to tell everyone. I think they are so funny and assume everyone wants to hear every precious thing they say or do because it makes ME so happy you know? So I just want to shout about their accomplishments. Maybe I shouldn't care because it's my blog and or facebook and I want to preserve the memories. But I don't want everyone to hate me either you know?? I don't want everyone to be like shut up already!! (too late??)

I WANT to be happy. Not sad. Not mopey and tired all the time. When I watch kids I always try to be "ON" and happy and silly and fun. But I am not. not in real life. Lately I yell at my own children. I have zero patience, I cry every day. what the heck?

This is not a pity party. I just want everyone to know I am not ALWAYS happy. My life is not perfect, my kids are not 100% happy all the time, we are normal. maybe even crazy. I worry too much about what people think so I never post the bad. I never post the sad days. I only write the happy, fun things. But my life isn't always fun. I struggle with things like everyone else.

What was the point of this post?? I already forgot. well that's because I am human.

Really though... happy thoughts coming up!! I need to really really get up pictures of Leighton's birthday and her party. K for sure I will do it as soon as I can figure out how.....