Being an Aunt

So...I don't know how many people know this, but I have 10 siblings. I have an Owen Family(Brandon, Kassie, Matt, Annie, and Josh) and a Parker Family(Becky, Holly, Nicki, Jamie, and Michelle). I got married and started having my kids a lot sooner than most of them did. My kids are all grown up, and they are just having babies. For me, this is a good thing. I am done having my babies. I love that I get to hold them and kiss them, change their diapers, and play as much as I want with them until they cry and then I can give them back to their mom. This last summer my sister Becky had a little boy, Dane. My brother Josh and his girlfriend had a little boy named Cael and my brother Brandon's wife had their first little girl (they have 4 boys!). Her name is BrookLynn. And we just recently found out that my sister Annie will be having her 2nd in April. It's so fun to watch all of them with their own kids! And in some ways I'm jealous...I love newborns. But most of the time, I have to admit...I'm glad that I'm done. Now it's my turn to laugh at them!


Baby Cael

My little Abigail

Abby is my "middle" child. She has all of those middle child characteristics. When she was born, she came out screaming her little 6 lb. 9 oz. head off. She was so tiny and had such a big attitude right from the start. There are days she makes me so crazy I want to ring her little neck. But today, she has been sick. So, instead of dealing with her teasing, and causing trouble, she has been crying and sad. And it makes me sad. I took her to the doctor and she has a bad case of strep. I look at this picture and see all the good things in her. She can be very sweet when she wants to be. She has an amazing sense of humor. She says the wittiest things. For example: One day we were going to meet my friend Jamie at Wal-mart to get Whitney's birthday present. While we were driving there she says to me, "Where you going to meet her mom? In the "meat" department?" I was laughing so hard. And just a few weeks ago she asked me if there was such a thing as graffiti classes because the people who know how to do graffiti are really talented. How can someone who makes you so crazy be so cute? She's definitely my biggest challenge. I struggle daily with trying to be patient and calm with her. I used to tell her how much I loved her "chocolate eyes". Challenging or not, I love her!!

My New Wall--our family's new motto

This weekend my best friend from high school came over and spent the night with me. We had such a good time! We ate lots of food, talked till midnight and laughed and laughed. I don't often get to see her. She lives far away in Box Elder county. She wanted to see my new house and I had told her that I needed some help with decorations. A while back her sister found this quote from President Monson. I loved it when I heard it! So, as part of her trip down, we put this up on one of my walls in my living room. It covers the whole wall and it looks AWESOME! We are going to use it as the topics for our Family Home Evenings for the next few weeks. Then it's going to be used as our family motto. If anyone would like one, I know where to get them and I can even help put it up. I learned some great tricks! Thanks JULIE! I LOVE YOU!!

Cornish Pixies

Carden just turned 3 years old in July. He loves, loves, loves to watch T.V. He's loved in since he was old enough to pay attention to the screen. His favorite thing to watch when he was little was Elmo. Until he got introduced to Harry Potter. He brings me the Harry Potter movies all the time and says "Mom, I wanna watch Harry Potta". You would think a 3 year old would be afraid of giant spiders and enormous basilisks, but he loves them! So, yesterday he wanted to watch one and it was the scene with the cornish pixies. He was so excited and he looks at me and screams, "MOM, Wook at that!" He was glued. I think I know what he's going to be for Halloween. My own little Harry Potter!

BUGS

My kids love bugs. Weird. Especially coming from a mom who is a not so much bug lover. I can handle lady bugs, and potato bugs--Anything beyond that is creepy to me. Spiders. Ugh! I hate spiders...even little ones. So, the other day Whitney was out playing in the yard in the many weeds we have and found a grasshopper skin. Yes, I know it isn't alive, but still creepy. Then we went to discovery park in Pleasant Grove for Family night and the kids found these super weird beetles. Not afraid of them at all! They were carrying them around and holding them. SICK! There was even this little kid there that was collecting them and had them all over his shirt. Somebody's gotta love them I guess!!!

This and that...

So,
Ray and I were able to escape Monday and Tuesday and go to Arctic Circle's annual over nighter--They feed us a really, really good dinner (fish, prime rib, chicken...so good!) and pay for us to spend the night in cute little cottages at the Homestead resort in Midway, Utah. This year Grandma Great came to stay and watch the kiddos (well, Whitney and Carden. Abby and Emma were in St. George with grandpa Parker) While we were there we went on walks along the pathways and talked while I stuck my feet in the (not so hot) hot tub. The next day we drove back to Lehi and went to Denny's for breakfast. We had such a great time!

Another Year......

Another year has come and gone and I still have yet to keep up on this blog. I keep thinking I should, but lose track of time. I do, however, love reading everyone else's blogs. I enjoy writing and putting my thoughts down on "paper", and think that it could be very theraputic for me to do this. So once again I have decided to try this out. We will see how it goes. For now, I'm just going to post some pics of the family to show how much they've grown!!