Happy New Year!

Winter from Hell

4/5 days of Lance's finals were cancelled.

church was cancelled, again.
we have been stuck at home for 6 days (we literally CANNOT get our car out and even if we could we were not allowed on the roads without chains).




I hate snow.
I hate Arctic Blast 2008.
I miss AZ!
need I say more?

This is for the neighbors who are snuggly at home (and able to leave) enjoying Christmas with their families.

the backyard


a better look



Lins, I found your car!



Bethany, here is your backyard...the fire hydrant is missing!

Brandon parked his car next to ours and it disappeared too!

a different view, don't worry he spent over an hour trying to dig it out to get to work. ps he didn't make it!

Our front walk

Lance's scooter got lost in the mess

ps i think it might end, NEXT WEEKEND.

pps did i mention i miss AZ?

Church Cancelled?

Can you guess why church was cancelled?

Too bad for me we REALLY needed our last choir practice before the program next week!

Lance is excited at even the HINT of the first day of finals being cancelled too! We'll see!

See for yourself

You'd really have to see this to believe it!

In one week we went from this:

to this:

Slow down Kami girl! You're only 6 months old!!!

Proof and Gun

I wanted to show proof that initially my Christmas tree did NOT lean.

Let's start our story a week before Thanksgiving, as I was preparing to leave OR I decided it would be fun to put up Christmas decorations because I wasn't going to be back until December and just because I love Christmas and couldn't wait a minute more. After we put the girls to bed, I got put on the Christmas music and started my business while Lance was studying. All goes very well, we go to bed in the Holiday spirit.

Flash forward 30 minutes later. Gracie suddenly wakes up crying and so I go into her room to comfort her. I'm rubbing her back, and singing, all while falling asleep sitting up, after all I've only been asleep for MAYBE 30 minutes. I hear breaking glass and am terrified that someone has broken into the house! I am quick, like a cat as my dad would say, and run grab the gun, turn off the safety, wake lance, force him down the stairs with the gun, call 9-1-1, and am "protecting" the girls. In Lance's sleeping stupor, doesn't really understand what is going on but announces to the prowler that he has a gun and that he is coming down stairs. Man was he mad a me when he discovered it was my Christmas tree that had fallen to the floor!

I'm so glad that it was broken bulbs instead of broken widow + prowler! Lance thinks I'm crazy for even entertaining the thought that someone would WANT to break in! Ha!

Oops!

I updated our Thanksgiving with the Mollenhauers...but it is back a few posts.
Just in case you missed it!

Eventful Weekend

As soon as we got back we hit the ground running. We had a ward party Friday and the WSCC Gala on Saturday.


We got to see Santa AGAIN! Gracie was totally into this time. She AGAIN got a present, but this time it was chocolate. YUM!

Our pics for the Gala didn't turn out! Bummer! But of course it was a fun-filled night. I had on my new dress, shoes, and jewelry thanks to my shopping buddy! I spend time getting ready, especially in OR this is a big deal. And the best part of all was we had a babysitter, who we by the way, LOVE! There were again record breaking ticket sales! The place was packed, the food was great, the band was excellent, and we tore it up on the dance floor with all of the drunks! Yep, we were definitely one of the last sober people still out there dancing the night away. Thanks hon for the fun date, can't wait for next year!

6 Months for Kami

When we got to AZ it was Kami's 6 month b-day. Of course, I took her to my fav photographer, Kathy Crouse, for some updated shots. Here is a little preview but there will be more to come.

We like to call this KC Penny style. It's SOOO studio like, but it was actually taken on the floor in Kathy's bedroom. We LOVE Ryann and wouldn't mind taking her home with us, that is if we had any room for another one!

I just love this girl! She is such a charmer! Everyone loves her and she loves everyone too. She is in to everything now that she is somewhat mobile. She started crawling a couple weeks shy of her 6 month mark! She loves to explore and loves that she can now sit at the table with the rest of us. She enjoys beech-nut prunes, green beans, mangos, mostly anthing we put in her mouth, oh, and she LOVES graham crackers and totally makes messes playing with her food. She makes me laugh and she's got her daddy wrapped around her little finger. This one is a smart one! Not to mention her beauty--Look out boys!!

The day of the shoot, I was having an ultimate mishap day. Kathy thought it would be funny to record the events that took place only at her house, we just kept laughing when more and more things went wrong.

Gracie and ramen noodles …all over her chair. Sits in it and stands in it. In hair. Spills juice.

Em makes something to eat. She decides to make pasta salad. She spends 20 minutes preparing it and gets irritated ‘cause it’s not ready yet.

Carter is outside running around and Gracie is trying to find him yelling “Carter!!”

Carter comes in to go potty. Gracie is banging on the door yelling.

Gracie decides to spin Kami around in circles in the bouncer making her cry.

Made Em sit down and stop watching the noodles and decides to nurse Kami.

I (Kathy) get up with Ryann in my arms and put the food together and throw it in the freezer to cool it down.

Em gets up and I get bowls out. She opens the freezer and all of the pasta spills down her leg and onto her feet. The entire bowl. She puts Kami on the floor while I clean it up and she grabs Ryann who is SCREAMING. Ryann pukes on Em.

She needs to leave and put the girls down for a nap.

Then Kami poops. Em tries to change her and gets poop all over her finger and then Kami spits up big. While she’s walking to the garbage, Kami spits up on the floor.

Her phone rings. My phone keeps ringing.

She has like 4 huge things to carry outside with her kids and no shoes.

I step in the spit up.

Both of us . . . still hungry
Em eats chocolate cake

(this all happened in the span of about an hour! don't worry, I had 2 straight days of mishaps after Lance went back to OR, good thing i have a sense of humor!)

Other Random Things

More of AZ...

I need to give a big thank you to our families for getting us to AZ, as well as housing, feeding us, and giving us a car to use! WE LOVE YOU!

We almost didn't make it to AZ. Two night before we were to leave Gracie and I were in the ER. She very suddenly woke up with the barking cough, we tried the humidifier, and the hot shower/cold air, and she kept getting worse. I ended up taking her in around 12:30. The waiting room was full and my heart sank, but luckily the nurse that checked us in heard her breathing and we were in the back in about 10 minutes!!!! Diagnosed as Croup (of course), and she got a breathing treatment that really got her to feeling better and much to my dismay gave her an upper. We were awake for the next 4 hours of observation!!!!! I was falling asleep while G was climbing on me and playing with her dolls! We spent lots of time taking pics with my camera phone, and reading books, man she was a good sport! But we got the go ahead from the dr. that if she still wasn't hacking the next day that we could board the plane!!!!! RELIEF!!!! --oh, and she did feel better too!


This was my first adventure traveling with BOTH the girls alone-both ways. I was a little nervous that I wouldn't be able to handle it, but it actually went really well. I love my girls! They can have their moments, but really are so good that I didn't have to stress during our flights.


We hit a milestone with G while at my parents house. We were putting her to bed in the studio and she bit a hole in her Binky. The poor thing...we all know it was a little overdue to get rid of it, and I felt horrible because we were on vacation, but she did pretty well with the loss. She was sad, and cried a little, but she's been sleeping better than ever and NOT waking up in the night to get more drinks either!! She was so funny, when I told her the bink was broken, she said, "Mom, I need purple one," she broke the pink one and remembered we had a purple one somewhere (at home). Fat chance I was going to buy a new one!



Best Friends!! Gracie adores her Aunt Alexa and LOVES when we get to see her. She hardly leaves Alexa's side, and HATED that she had to go to school most days that we were there. Thanks Alexa for fun times playing, and babysitting too! Love you!


AHHH, it was perfect weather while we were there. I think most of the time we were around 80 degrees and it was beautiful! As per family tradition a la Mollenhauer style we swam in the heated pool, well everyone but me really. Gracie's fav was dunking Grumpa. She got to have some good quality time in the pool with him. LOVE YOU GRUMPA!!

We can't wait until we visit again!!! 14 weeks and counting...

Friends

Besides seeing family the next best thing is getting together with our AZ friends. We were able to see almost all of the friends we wanted to this time. The only time I had my camera out was when the Celynda brought her kids over. We had a great time!

Luke and Gracie act as if no time has past and they haven't seen each other in months.

Good Buddies! Walking together to the park, they TOTALLY did this on their own!

I love this girl. Love you too Lou, but I could EAT Brooke!

Proof that Kami is sitting, just you wait until I post the crawling pics/video!

We REALLY miss our AZ friends, thanks for making time to see us!

Family Reunion

The Mollenhauer side of the family had a reunion, hence the trip to the AZ for Thanksgiving. I have not met most of Lance's Dad's family so I was excited to meet all of the extended family I was not familiar with. The reunion was mostly Wednesday thru Saturday, so there is much to much detail to now try and remember.

We had picture day on Friday at Freestone Park.

Once we were finished we took the kids on the carousel and train to work out any energy while we waited for our lunch to be ready. Thanks to Grumpa for providing the tickets!

Sienna, Tyrus and Gracie. I think Lance took a picture every time we went around and still we didn't get the right shot!

I think G is mad that Eric ate all of her popcorn!

Then look who showed up after lunch!!! Santa definitely rode in style to the Mollenhauer's

Gracie wasn't sure at first but LOVED Santa later and LOVED that he brought her a present.

Kami loves everyone, Santa was no different.

We were lucky enough to sneak away for a while to visit my fam! This year was very wierd! It was an off year for everyone to visit their other family and so we had a "small" Crouse/Hunt dinner at Missy's. Thanks Miss! Heather made the best turkey (and pie) EVER!! In fact I've tried my very first turkey this week, and it was almost just as good!!! We had such a good time, thanks everyone!

We have so much to be grateful for! Can't wait until we can visit again!

Where Have We Been?

The question is where haven't we been! It'll take me a couple of days, but I'm determined to journal the past 5 weeks or so... but we're finally back to real life in OR and gearing up for the holidays.

Stay tuned!

Happy Halloweeney!

Why not start the day with Halloweeney pancakes with peanut butter and syrup. YUMMY!

Love, love, love that the school put on a Halloween party for the families! We had so much fun! We were having so much fun that we didn't start trick-or-treating until 7:45 and we went to exactly 4 homes. It was perfect enough to get our fill for Gracie to have fun and we got rid of all of our candy to passer-bys at the same time!

So grateful for a patient little girl that let me curl her hair, until I got it exactly right.

Is that Belle?

G, Kaylee, and McKenna (Kenna also won the best girl costume and took home the new Tinkerbell movie!)

I had to include the monkey! our cute sisters.

The nude artist hard at work. G won the pumpkin painting contest and took home a fisher price medical kit. Don't worry we let her hold her prize (and hug it) and we are definitely taking it home, wrapping it up and sticking it under the Christmas tree!

This is my life

cute smile, bad pic

stay tuned for crawling videos!

more trouble than it's worth?

free time with dad

rake? what's that?

More Angels

Bad Mommy =Poor Kami

I did the unthinkable and didn't strap my daughter in her seat and had the seat on top of our chest freezer...

yes, put your jaw back in place, but it did happen and I take full responsibility. she wiggled her self down, and leaned far enough forward that the car seat tipped forward and Kami and seat went hurling towards the floor. Then I couldn't get a hold of Lance at school, G is breaking down for nap, and of course Kami is screaming. What do I do?? Run to the neighbors!

One calls Lance, and knocks on the door of another. Neighbor #2 runs over to watch Gracie, while neighbor #1 and I give up on getting through to Lance and jump in the car to find him at school, and sits with me while she gets checked out by our fav chiropractic intern and Lance. THEN neighbor #3 makes us dinner! oh yeah and #2 cleaned my living room/kitchen while we were gone! Seriously don't deserve all of this but GREATLY appreciate it!

Thank you friends for dropping everything at a moment's notice to help our family. Bless you!

May you learn from my mistake and NEVER leave your infant UNbuckled 3-feet off the ground.

Lesson learned.

We LOVE when friends come to visit!

Meet Brooklyn:

she is a DOLL! and she just got her ears pierced.

I think she and kami will be BEST FRIENDS!
By the way Brookey is BIGGER and YOUNGER!


Lance is in baby girl HEAVEN, I think he would be happy even if we had all girls!


I think Gracie likes to swing. Think so?



This is Lukas. He is our buddy AND G's official boyfriend.









Peek-a-boo!

Thanks for the fun, Dewitts! We sure missed you Brian, you better come next time!! By the way...anyone that wants to visit allegiant air offers cheap flights from mesa-gateway to Eugene, OR (not too far). and when I mean cheap it gets as low as $29!!!! COME VISIT!