Happy Birthday Lilly!

At exactly 4:20 p.m. today 4 years ago our little Lilly Skye Fogle decided to grace us with her presence. She weighed in at a whopping 5lbs. 15 oz. and was 19 in. long, she was such a tiny peanut! She has most sweetest spirit ever and everything in this world just captures her attention and seems so magical to her. She is truly one of a kind and I just love every inch of her being. She keeps us on our toes at all times, yet she's our snuggler and you could never stay mad at her especially when she says "meese (please) I'm a good girl"! Lilly, Lillers, Lilly pie, Lillys in the skye with diamonds, Monster butt, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! We love you to the moon and back and a million times around again...

2nd and 3rd trip to a pumpkin patch!

So I'm glad to say we went to our third and FINAL Pumpkin Patch for this year...

Lilly had her first field trip also last week and I was able to go along! She had a blast but I think most of all she enjoyed riding on a bus, I'm a nut and drive my girls to and from school every day cause I just can't send them off on a bus yet! So when both girls had their field trips they were just as ecstatic to be riding the bus as they were to be going to the Pumpkin Patch!

Lilly going through the straw maze

Us going on the hay ride

While all the other kids were looking for the biggest pumpkin my little Lilly was looking for the smallest "baby" one.

Then that evening we took the whole family to Linder Farms since Preston hadn't got to go to a patch yet!

he LOVED feeding the animals

finding his perfect pumpkin!

and the animals apparently loved him!

For all my fellow mamas!

Got this in an e-mail today and loved it!

This is for all the mothers who froze their buns off on metal bleachers at soccer games instead of watching from cars, so that when their kids asked, "Did you see my goal?" They could say, "Of course, I wouldn't have missed it for the world," and mean it.

This is for all the mothers who have sat up all night with sick children in their arms, wiping up barf laced with Oscar Meyer wieners and cherry Kool-Aid saying, "It's OK honey, Mommy's here".

This is for all the mothers of Kosovo who fled in the night and can't find their children. This is for the mothers who gave birth to babies they'll never see and for the mothers who took those babies and gave them homes.

For all the mothers who run carpools and make cookies and sew Halloween costumes and for all the mothers who don't.

What makes a good mother anyway? Is it patience? Compassion? Broad hips? The ability to nurse a baby, cook dinner, and sew a button on a shirt, all at the same time? Or is it heart?

Is it the ache you feel when you watch your son or daughter disappear down the street, walking to school alone for the very first time?

The jolt that takes you from sleeping to dread, from bed to crib at 2 a.m. to put your hand on the back of a sleeping baby?

Is it the need to flee from wherever you are and hug your child when you hear news of a school shooting, a fire, a car accident, a baby dying?I think so.

So this is for all the mothers who sat down with their children and explained all about making babies. And for all the mothers who wanted to but just couldn't.

This is for reading "Goodnight, Moon" twice a night for a year. And then reading it again, "Just one more time".

This is for all the mothers who mess up. Who yell at their kids in grocery store and swat them in despair and stomp their feet like a tired two year old who wants ice cream before dinner.

This is for all the mothers who taught their children to tie their shoelaces before they started to school and for all the mothers who opted for Velcro instead.

For all the mothers who bite their lips (sometimes until they bleed) when their 14 year olds dyed their hair green.

This is for all the mothers who lock themselves in the bathroom when babies keep crying and won't stop.

This is for all mothers who show at work with spit-up in their hair and milkstains on their blouses and diapers in their purse.

This is for mothers who teach their sons to cook and their daughters to sink a jump shot.

This is for all mothers whose heads turn automatically when a little voice calls "Mom?" in a crowd, even though they know their own offspring are at home or are grown.

This is for mothers who put pinwheels and teddy bears on their children's graves.This is for all the mothers whose children have gone astray and who can't find words to reach them.

This is for all the mothers who sent their child to school with a stomach ache, assuring that they would be just FINE once they got there, only to get a call from the school nurse an hour later asking them to please pick them up right away.

This is for young mothers stumbling through diaper changes and sleep deprivation. And mature mothers learning to let go.For working moms and stay-at-home moms. Single mothers and married mothers.Mothers with money and mothers without.

This is for you, so hang in there. The world would be a terrible place without the love of mothers everywhere. You make it a more civil, caring and safe place for the precious children in our world.

Leaves and Frosting

I finally was nice and "let" the kids go rake the backyard!

I know, I know, so nice to let them indulge in some manual labor...

It's amazing what these cheap little orange bags will make your kids do

and by the looks of the trees still, I need to buy about 100 more!

I do have to say though why doesn't Hefty or someone make these bags, they split SO easy!

If they only knew they were actually working, Hmmm I need to figure this little tactic out to help clean their rooms!

Then I figured last night was as good as any to get started on this!

Lexi got very into it

Preston just wanted to steal and eat all of the nasty candy, see he wore his camo so nobody could see his sneaky little self ;)

Lilly was so cute decorating, being so slow and careful! That's a first!

2 weeks down...

and who knows how many more to go, 4? 6? I'm just praying the rest go uneventful and fast! This last week has been the most emotional week I've ever had and I didn't have my rock to lean on and that just made it 10x worse. I'm still a wreck bursting into tears at random moments, like taking the girls to school this morning and that's SO NOT me, so I even went as far as taking a prego test when I got home because I'm just looking for a physical reason to be feeling like this and NOPE it was a big fat NEGATIVE! This is a good thing by the way, not ready for anything like that any time soon! So no blaming my body, I'm just super emotional right now and for all good reason, it's just I'm usually great at holding it in!

Here's some pictures from Lexi's first Field Trip last Wednesday and some pictures from a visit to the animal shelter. I FINALLY told the kids about Dexter on Friday so Chris and I decided they could go pick out a kitty for now, when Chris gets back we might tackle the dog idea...

This is the group me and 2 other moms were in charge of!

They were all so good and fun to be with!

This is both a.m. classes

Me and my Lexi

Then we were off to the shelter

The kids were in love with ALL of them

But here is our end result.... Miss Mermaid-Snow White

I did get to love on little Bryce twice last week, which makes my day!

and just because I rarely get a pic of Preston without a days full of food all over his face!

So here's to a new week, new day and figuring out something fun to do with the kids today so their smiles can melt me!

Classy...

How Beautiful is this, great hair, great shoes (I'm sure!), great suit, all while feeding her little one! I luvs it and her!

Such a sad loss...

As I'm sure anyone who'd be reading this already knows about Levi passing. I'm at a complete loss for words as to what I feel right now, my heart breaks for his sweet little Jeremiah and the rest of the Duncan family. All I can say is we LOVED us some Levi, he was an extremely close friend to us( as he'd have to be, I mean who else would we let show up at our wedding in a white "wife beater" and overalls,lol!!), as he was to so many people. He was always a guaranteed laugh if you ever needed one, in fact he still is I was just going through my photo albums and just seeing him made me smile! I am now so thankful for Chris having got to Az when he did and take back cursing that the dang house wasn't quite ready because maybe he was just meant to be there a week early for a reason. Chris got to visit with Levi yesterday and confirm how he was going to come work for Chris this next week... We're now so thankful that he got to spend some time with him. Here's my favorite pic I found on my computer from last summer.

What a Hellish Week!

I won't go into every detail but believe me when I say I feel like the world is against me right now! I seriously don't know whats up and NO it's not me just whining cause Chris is gone, I did this same situation twice last year and I'm strong and made it through just fine but geeze this year is another story! So the icing on the cake yesterday was having to put down our dog that we've had for 9 years! Anyone that knows me knows I'm not an animal person at all, but Dexter was the exception! He was definitely part of the family, I mean how could he not be, 9 years is a long time! I feel horrible for Chris, that was his baby especially before we had our real babies. The kids are going to be heart broken, they think he's at the vet right now and I'm keeping it that way til the weekend! It flat out sucked yesterday, nothing like calling for help about Dexter being a blubbering mess with no voice, I never get sick but of coarse here I am no voice feeling like there's 500 lbs sitting on my chest, coughing up... well believe me you don't want to know!

Pity party over, here's some pics of our ugly mutt that was the bestest dog ever!

So because I'm bored and the kids are asleep here's the little run down on how we got him! Well we were living over by the High school and one morning Brandon P. and Matt O. showed up to see if our dog Taton was at our house. Well he wasn't, I had just let him out and turns out the school bus had hit him well Chris had just had surgery on his knee so he was not mobile so they completely took care of everything for us with that situation, so very grateful for them that day! Anyway Chris was bummed and was soooo bored being off work for weeks and just so happened that one of my moms friends down at the realty place dog had puppies that were ready to go.... So the rest was history, we went there picked him cause of his one blue eye and he ended up being the best dog ever!

Deja-vu

So here we are, exactly where we were last year at this time... me and the kiddos in Idaho and Chris in AZ building a house. As proud as I am of Chris and his business and people actually willing to pay someone 2 states away to come build their house cause they love his work so much, it still sucks! For some reason it's just harder this time, not too sure why, maybe it's the kids are older and are more aware of dad being gone, maybe it's the awesome routine we've gotten in over the last 8 months with Chris working right up the street from home always taking and bringing the girls to and from school , him taking Lexi to dance, maybe it's Preston constantly running to the window looking for dad, all I know is that he's a HUGE help in running this house and it's only been 3 days and I'm already feeling it!

The girls didn't have school Thursday so they got to spend some quality movie watching time together before dad left and poor Lilly would literally not leave his side for a minute, as she napped there for hours.

I finally dragged my butt out of PJ'S and took Lexi and Tanner bowling with a few of the Farrells last night. I'm sure they were so dang happy to get out of the house!

Our seeexxxyyy shoes!

Lexi had a blast and seriously wanted to take her shoes home!

her lucky ball that got her coming in dead last.... but hey as long as she hit 1 pin she thought she won!

Wednesday night we had an invitation only open house for the "flip" house

the turn out was fantastic, with great people and yummy food!

so here's just a few pics as we were setting up!

this house was definitely a labor of love and we all feel greatly attached to it! Chris definitely says he's going to miss it, I thought to myself " this is just like child birth, it's only been a few days and he's already forgot "that feeling" of I'm never doing this again" lol



and here's just a little thing I got to do last Saturday, it was National Scrap Pink Day! It was super fun and it can't get much better then scrapping to raise money for Breast Cancer!!!


So there you have it, I'm caught up once again even though I failed to mention I've already made one crying call to Chris cause Preston flushed and clogged our toilet with a hot wheel, also failed to mention we only have 1 bath and we've already gone through 3 brand new toilets in the last 6 month for this exact same issue (thanks Preston!), oh yeah and I also don't know how to change out a toilet and once again where did I find him racing his cars today??? yep the toilet! Oh yeah I'm not mentioning these things cause they still make my eye twitch just thinkin about it!!