Makenzie!

Ultimately, when I think back on my 18 month blogging absence, the thing that makes me the saddest is Kenzie.  I have not done a good job of documenting her life.  I absolutely cannot believe that she is almost four....FOUR!  How does that happen?!?  She is such a fun little girl!  We are so lucky to have her in our family!

Kenzie is so fun!  She is a happy, spunky, funny little girl!  She is really easy to get along with for the most part.  She loves to follow Kayla around and pretty much lets Kayla boss her around.  She loves to play pretend with Mason and almost always lets him set the ground rules.  She loves to goof off with Cameron and Aaron and for the most part, just follows procedure!  But, she absolutely has her own little feisty personality and has absolutely no problems with letting her opinion be heard.

This last fall Kenzie started dance.  She is so fun to watch!!  And she loves it!!  She loves to show me all the dance moves and stretches that she's learned.  She loves to dance around the room with Kayla and Sasha.  She is so stinking cute!  One of my favorite things is when she doesn't know I'm watching.  Often I'll catch her all on her own, singing a song she's made up and dancing around!  It's pretty cute!!  The other day we were driving in the mountains by St. George.  We were driving through lots of thick red mud.  Without much thought, Kenzie starts singing an awesome made up song about mud!  After listening for a while, I commented on her song.  She gave me a little shy smile, like she had no idea I was listening!  Silly Girl!!  The whole car was listening!!  

Kenzie loves her bum.  It really such a funny thing!  She loves to sing songs about her bum.  She loves to show people her bum.  She loves anything to do with her bum!  Poor Jorge!  I think she's gonna give him a heart attack!

Kenzie also loves to play pretend.  She loves little tiny toys: Shopkins, My Little Pony, little Disney Princesses...honestly, anything little!  She will spend hours up in her room all by herself playing with her little toys!  She also loves playing with her pretend food.  Bethany has made her lots of adorable clay food.  Kenzie has the most amazing restaurant and loves to play!

Kenzie is so loving!  She must tell me a hundred times a day that she loves me!  My favorite is when she says, "I want you forever!"  I want you forever, too!  Lucky me....I get her forever!!

Kenzie loves to come into my bed in the morning.  She is so funny!!  She loves to lay on top of me.  She'll put her head on my head and lay right down me.  She'll do this anytime I lay with her to snuggle for a movie or to read a book.  Sometimes I'll push her off-truly, it's not that comfortable- and she totally takes offense!!  It's just easier to let her smush ya!  

Kenzie really is the happiest, funnest, little girl!  We are so lucky to have her in our family!!

Here Again

I never thought I'd give up my blog.  I honestly enjoyed writing it and I felt like it was such a good journaling method, I figured I'd blog my whole life.  And then... I stopped.  I'm not quite sure why it happened.  Part of it was my computer started frustrating me so it became harder and harder to post.  Part of it was that I had pictures on a different camera that I was waiting to download.  Lots of little reasons...but somehow, someway, I stopped.  And I've been promising myself I would start again ever since.  First, I start promising myself that I would catch up on everything....now I'm just promising that I'll restart.  The ultimate goal is to go back and fill in the gap.  It honestly hurts my heart when I think about how many little stories I didn't document and how much of that I've already forgotten....  So, hopefully, I will fill in the gap.  But, for now, the big accomplishment it just starting again.  So here is to 2017~ Let it be full of blog posts!

Family Pictures!

Cameron turns eight the beginning of April.  Before that I wanted to get his baptism pictures taken with him in his new suit in front of the temple.  If we're dressing him up, we might as well dress up the whole family and get family pictures too, right?!?

So, one beautiful, breezy Tuesday in late March, we dressed all seven of us up and went to the temple.  Once there I decided we better call the photographer and find a specific place to meet.  Temple square is awfully big.  So, I called her up and left her a message.  She called back a little confused…weren't we suppose to meet on Thursday?  Crap!!  I checked my calendar…yup!  Thursday!  I'm not exactly sure what happened…I just messed up!  Well, I thought to myself, I guess we will do this all again in two days.  Which is not exactly what you want to do.  Dressing kids up for pictures is hard enough to do once.  And my photographer new that!  Nope!  She said.  Give me 25 minutes and I'll be there!  Is that love or what!?!  

So, we had 25 minutes to kill.  We walked around the visitors center and took a few pictures of our own.

When Jessica showed up she was fantastic!  

She took tons of pictures and was really great with all these crazies!  Even before I saw the pictures I knew I was going to love them!  And then Jessica posted this on Facebook….

LOVE!!  Not only did Jessica take gorgeous pictures but she did it on a day she was not planning to.  That is pretty amazing!!  Thank you, Jessica!!  I absolutely love these pictures!!

Jorge in DC!

Every March the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce has a huge convention in Washington DC.  Jorge attended last year but didn't think he'd go this year.  But, at one of his chamber meetings (that he is now an executive board member of) they asked if he would please go again this year.  They were impressed with last year and wanted him to go again.  So he did!

Lucky guy!  One March I'm going with him!!

He once again had a lot of success in DC.  So much so that they've invited him back for a special committee!  He is dang good looking, too!!

Cinderella!

Kayla is such a momma's girl!  She always has been.  I love it!  But honestly, sometimes it's a little ridiculous!  Like, for example, when Jorge wanted to take just her to the movies.  Cinderella had just come out.  Jorge often takes the boys on little dates.  They will go to the movies or a sporting game.  He wanted to take Kayla somewhere just the two of them.  I had been prepping her for over a week.  "You and dad are going to go to the movies!  Just the two of you!  Daddy will get you popcorn and a drink." She was so excited and couldn't wait to go.  When the day came Kayla got all worried.  She really, really wanted me to go with them.  I kept reminding her that this was something special for just her and dad.  She was crying, but I buckled her up and sent her out with Jorge.  A little bit later Jorge came back.  Apparently, she had a break down!  Screaming!!  He couldn't take her to the movies like that!  

A little bit later we decided to try again.  This time, Jorge got Jason and Madi to go with them.  (And Caden…lucky him!)  This time Kayla had a blast!

But she still wouldn't pose for a picture!  She definitely has her own little personality!!  Love my Kayla babe!

Goodbye Crib!

Well, we did it!  After over nine and a half years of the exact same crib up in the exact same room…always with someone using it, we finally took it down.  It was quite bitter sweet!  Sweet because the crib has slowly but surely started to fall apart.  I was tired of always trying to fix it. We have definitely gotten our moneys worth…. Actually!  We got it free!  Jorge's Unlce Jake gave it to us after Kendra and Maliyah used it.  So, really it's been extra used…by seven kids!  So, yes.  It had seen better days and it was ready to be thrown out.  But it was still sad.  Can't believe we're coming to a time in our lives when we might not need a crib.  I'm no where near ready to say that we are done having babies….but --- we don't need a crib.  Crazy!!

Kenzie was so excited to be in her new big girl bed!!

Kayla's new bed is out in the garage waiting for me to paint it.  Until then, she's on the floor.  But honestly, she loves it!!  (She's on a mattress…not just the hard floor.)

St Patrick's Day!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

Cameron's too cool for an all green outfit!  He went for the more subtle approach this year!  Crazy kid!!