Boating and Birthday Fun

We started out Mallory's birthday by going boating on the lake. Mallory's cousins Kori and Audrey were in from out of town and they came with us so it was fun to spend time with them. We don't get to see them very often. Craig's parents, Marc and Treesa, came along too. The person that had the boat and took us out on the lake is actually their neighbor in their ward. So it's because of them that we actually got to go! We had a blast! The kids loved to go fast! They would all sit up at the front of the boat and let the wind whip their hair around and blow in their faces. We would stop every so often and let them jump in and swim around in the water to cool off. Some of the kids were scared to get in the water at first. It's not like a swimming pool where you can see the bottom so they were a little hesitant about the dark water. But by the end of the day they were all begging to jump off the boat! There was an inner tube thing that the kids took turns riding on.

We took turns trying to wakeboard. Key word - trying. We had never been wakeboarding before so it was a learning experience. Craig couldn't hardly get up - when he finally did get up he had no problem staying up. I had the other problem. I got up almost every time - I just couldn't stay up for longer than 10 seconds! Craig's parents were both actually pretty good at it. His dad had been lots of times before so he went for a long time. His mom had never been but she made it look easy! She did great! We ended up bringing the baby. I had my reservations about it, but they had an infant life jacket for him. I was worried Clark would hate the wind in his face and that he would just cry the whole time. It was almost an all day thing so it was going to throw his nap schedule off and I wasn't so sure he would be a happy camper about going. But we had no problems with him. We didn't hear a peep out of him! He's usually pretty talkative, but he didn't say a word! We put him in the water a couple of times and he was totally mellow about it. The life jacket was pretty restricting so he just sat there like a sausage the whole time! He looked so cute in his life jacket! We had a great time!

We had pizza for dinner and Mallory got to open some of her presents. Her Grandma Treesa made her a Belle dress.
And Kori and Audrey got her a My Little Pony! One of Mallory's birthday requests was to go see the movie Wall-E. We went to the 7 o'clock showing and it didn't get out until almost 9 o'clock! I was surprised they made a kids movie that long! I sat out in the foyer area with Clark the whole time. He was very wiggly. He had been stuck in that life jacket all day. He looked at me like, "Yeah right Mom, you want me to sit through a movie too!" So I let him crawl around on a bench out in the foyer area and play with my sunglasses. He got plenty of attention from people going in to see their movies! We celebrated Mallory's birthday with my family the next day. She got a pink guitar that I actually found on the clearance table on an after Christmas sale. It was only $7.50! And she loves it! Chase loves it too so unfortunately it has been the object of many fights lately. Which speaking of, the guitar is actually in time out right now. If they fight over a toy the toy takes a time out. (It's been in time out for 3 days. I think they forgot about it. Hee hee :)) Anyway, Mallory's birthday weekend was a blast. We were sunburned and worn out from the lake, but we really enjoyed celebrating our Miss Mally girl!!

The post below has some fun facts about Mallory and pictures of her over the last three years. Enjoy! ;)

Happy (Belated) Birthday Mallory!

Mallory turned three a couple weeks ago. I can't hardly believe my baby girl is already 3!!
I LOVE my Mallory! I have a very special bond with her. For those of you who don't know. . . . . we almost lost her a number of times while I was pregnant with her. At 18 weeks we went to go find out if we were having a girl or a boy. We found out we were having a girl and we also found out that my body was already halfway through the laboring process. We were devastated!
We didn't know if we were going to be able to keep her in there for the rest of the pregnancy. We got sent to one of the best high-risk doctors in the state. I was immediately put on STRICT bedrest. I had ultrasounds done every 10 days to measure my cervix and to see how stressed out the baby was under the pressure of the contractions. We had an in-home nursing company come in and I had to wear a contraction monitoring belt everyday, twice a day for an hour each time. The contractions I was having were strong enough to "ripen" my cervix for childbirth. This monitoring belt would measure the strength of my contractions and the number of contractions I was having. I would get the results to my nurse and judging by my results she would either tell me, "Good job you've been staying down like your supposed to - you only had a few contractions." Or I would get a firm talking to, "I know you've been up doing things you're not supposed too. Your uterus is going crazy!! If you don't stay down that baby's going to come early and she won't make it or she'll end up in the NICU for months! Do you want that?" It was horrible! Chase was always away at someone else's house being watched. I missed him so much! If someone came over to clean my house they would watch Chase too so I could at least spend some time with him - from the couch. I had my line-up of TV shows I would watch everyday. The only time I ever watched soap operas was while I was on bedrest. We had no cable and that's all that was on in the afternoon. I laugh if I catch a glimpse of one now! They are so unrealistically dramatic! I read books, but you can only read for so long. We had take out food, pizza, and meals brought in for 5 long months because I wasn't allowed up to cook. We tried some medications that were unsuccessful in stopping my contractions that also had terrible side effects. At 26 weeks after one of the many ultrasounds, I remember the ultrasound tech finishing up and she went to go take the results to my doctor. The doctor came right in and said, "Go straight to the hospital - don't go anywhere else - go straight to the hospital." I don't ever remember being so scared in my life! We kept her in 11 weeks longer. At 36 weeks I begged the doctor to take her! I was going crazy with not being able to get up, our marriage was stressed to the MAX at this point through all of this (it was just as hard on Craig as it was on me), Chase really didn't have his mommy, and I was done! I told the doctor, "I'm just done - I can't do this anymore!" We had an amnio done to see if her lungs were ready. They were and we had a c-section a few days later. I had NEVER been so grateful to hear a baby cry. A tear rolled down my cheek when I heard her cry. My arms were strapped to the table so I didn't get to hold her until I got to the recovery room after the surgery. She was perfect! And absolutely beautiful! After telling her I loved her I remember telling her something along the lines of, "Do you have any idea what you put me through?" I was smiling when I said it of course. The little stinker! I spoiled her rotten as a baby. I loved getting up in the middle of the night with her. I had a baby to get up to hold and to love and to snuggle! I was just so glad that she had made it to us! Getting her here has been my hardest trial in life by far. I think I feel especially close to Mallory because of what I went through to get her here. Her birthdays are very special to me. We truly have reason to celebrate her birth each year. She truly is a precious gift from God. Sometimes I think the only thing that kept her in there at times were the priesthood blessings that were given to me. I love you Miss Mallory!!

Three things about Mallory:
1. I swear this girl has an internal people magnet. People love her! Everywhere she goes whether it's church or the grocery store or to family things - everyone wants to talk to Mallory. I've had many people say they just love to be around her. She just wiggles her way right into your heart!

2. Mallory gives the best hugs! She squeezes so tight! Mallory makes you feel like you are the most important person in the world to her when she hugs you. She is so good at giving love!

3. She was high maintenance before she came into this world and I swear she'll go out that way! We always joke about her future husband. Being that he's married to Mallory he'd better like having Cling Wrap as his wife. She loves to smother with affection. She's very clingy - to anyone for that matter - that will accept her attentions. It's fine for now, but we've gotta change that before she gets into boys!

We love you Mallory!

New Photos

So I went and got the kid's pictures taken today. I do my babies every 3 months their first year. Clark just turned 9 months last week so he was due for a picture update. Mallory turned three last week too so she was due as well. And I didn't want Chase to feel left out so we got some pictures taken of him too. Just wanted to share them with you!

I have a lot of catching up to do! I just got back from being out of town on a girls trip so I need to blog that and Mallory's birthday and a boating trip we took to the lake. I don't have a whole lot of time right now (when do I ever?) so I'll have to catch up later!! But for now I just wanted to share the new photos of the kiddos! Enjoy!

CHASE - 4 3/4 years


MALLORY - 3 years


CLARK - 9 months

Our Busy 4th

As with all holidays, our 4th of July was busy, busy, busy! At the end of the day I think I found myself just as exhausted as my children. We had a fun day, but I crashed into bed last night!!

We got up at 5:30 because our ward did a 4th of July breakfast for everyone. I was actually really looking forward to it. The bishopric got a hold of a fire truck (not sure how) and they took the kids for a couple of rides around the block. The kids LOVED it! They thought it was the coolest thing to get to ride on top of a fire truck! We had a pancake breakfast and they turned the sprinklers on so the kids could run around and get wet. Chase very quickly figured out that he could turn and aim the sprinkler heads at the other kids! That's my Chase - always looking for trouble somewhere!
The bishopric had filled the fire truck up with 500 gallons of water to spray the kids with too. They thought the 500 gallons would last about 5 minutes for the kids to get wet in but it really only took about 2 minutes for the truck to empty! I couldn't believe the water ran out so fast. Someone called the fire station up the street and they asked if we could fill up the truck again. To our surprise they let us bring the truck back to fill it! So the kids got to get sprayed again.

After the breakfast we came home and let Clark take a morning nap. Then we went over to Craig's parents house and barbecued hamburgers and swam with them for most of the afternoon. Craig's mom made a pasta salad and Clark ate a plate as big as mine. He loved the noodles! His new favorite snack is pretzel rods so he snacked on a few of those too.

We goofed off with the camera:


And Mallory ended up falling asleep in her car seat on the way back home. My kids fall asleep in the funniest positions when they're in their car seats. Her head was tipped back - she was just worn out!


We went back home to my parent's house and all of my siblings came over and we had more hamburgers and hot dogs. We bought a few poppers for the kids to do their own "fireworks". Chase loved them! He was right in the middle of all the action! Mallory on the other hand hates fireworks and poppers and anything related to making loud noises. She has very sensitive hearing so she stayed as far away from the noises as possible. She just drove the little coupe car around the patio while we did the poppers. It was starting to storm when we went outside. The wind was blowing like crazy! Mallory could hardly stand up straight! After we finished firing off all of our little poppers we came inside and the boys played XBOX together. It was a fun day. I love it when Craig has a three day weekend! It was fun to get to know some more people in the ward and to spend time with our families. And the storm was a nice relaxing end to a busy day. I stood outside and just watched the storm blow in for awhile. Too bad there was no rain, but it was beautiful! Happy 4th!!

I've Been Robbed!!!

Yesterday was most dreadful! One of my bras broke this weekend and I took a trip up to the mall to get a new one. One of the lovely ladies at Victoria's Secret was helping me out and asked me how long it had been since I had a bra fitting. I pointed to Mallory - my almost 3 year old daughter - and said, "Not since she was born!" I've been avoiding it. Each bra fitting I have after birthing another child is NOT a good one. Somehow after each child my "cup" always seems to end up half empty. After the results of yesterday's bra fitting, it's official, somehow my children have each successfully managed to steal a cup size from my chest on their way out of my womb. The little devils!! I am now the proud new owner of yet again - a smaller bra size. If I were to have another child, and that child took what the others have on their way out, I am 100% convinced that I would become chestless - maybe even concave at this rate!

I had enough chest for two women when I was in high school. Let's just say my "cup" runneth over - I was HUGE! My best friend from high school recently visited and she brought some old pictures to reminisce about. I left them sitting on the counter and when Craig came home from work and saw the pictures he said, "Is that you?" I watched his eyes roam the length of my body in the picture and then his eyes traveled to my chest and he said, "What happened?" I said, "Tell me you did NOT just say that!"

Do you think we get to pick our own cup size after we're resurrected? I sure hope so, if not I will be doing some serious negotiations with whomever's in charge of that! At this point I think I'd even resort to bribery!! HeeHee :)

Alas, I love my little thieves! They make me smile everyday! Even if I do have to wear a shirt that says, "This side front." Ok, just had to get that off my chest. . . . . my non-existent one, that is :)