C O R O N A D O

D A I S Y

 Wow, sewing a doll is a lot harder than I thought. Really, it was hard. Maybe I'm just a slow learner, but I thought I could do this in like an hour, and it took me probably six hours after all my trial and error issues! Emma has been asking non stop fro me to sew her a dolly. I tried to tell her I din't know how, and then she would reply with, "Well, I can teach you mommy! It's easy!" Finally, after the 100th time of her asking about it, we drove to the craft store and bought some fabric.

 I had no pattern, just a few pictures of dolls I saw on pinterest and tried to model her hair and face after that. Probably would be much easier if I had used a pattern. Sorry, but I took a lot of pictures because I am just so so happy after all the work, ripping stitches out, breaking my sewing machine multiple times, and the hours it took to fix it all, Miss Daisy (Emma named her that) is finally finished! Not perfect, but hey it's my first hand made doll ever so I'll take it!

 I can't believe how excited Emma is about her, and she has been playing with Miss Daisy non stop, giving her naps, taking her to Disney land, brushing her "hair" Hahahaha it's seriously adorable. Ah! Girls are just so fun! I was amazed at how patient Emma was during the whole process, and how content she was to just sit and watch me sew every detail!

 Wish I took a picture of the back of Daisy, which is the cutest. Oh well.

 Nothing sweeter than this. Happy it's finished, hoping my next doll is a lot easier, and quicker! 

L O V E

My sister Kaci and her husband Salesi came out on Wednesday morning. Kaci asked if I'd take some pictures for them so we walked to the park next to my house and snapped a few. Here they are Kaci! 

BAKING CUPCAKES

"Isn't baking with mommy just absolutely wonderful Micah?!"

Bribed these two at the water park the other day to get them to go down the water slide. It was totally worth that batch of cupcakes I had to bake when we got home! Emma and Micah are finally loving the water park and I am finally lounging on the side lines rather than being their constant entertainment. yaaaay.

HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY

We celebrated Micah and Mormor's birthday yesterday! My mom is such a good sport, sharing her birthday with Micah every year. They were both born on June 8th. 

My baby is turning THREE!!!! How can that be?! (tear)

We had a fun night, and a special thanks to Kaci for making a yummy yummy dinner for everyone! That was so nice of  you! 

Now onto an insane amount of pictures...

 Kaci cooking, Kelley and baby Isla hanging out.

Micah, super stoked to open up his present from Mormor and Papa. I told you he would love books and new clothes mom! ;)

 Giving Papa a hug, saying "tank you!!!!!" for the Superman book.

...and a big "TANK YOU!" to Mormor!

Opening up his Geo Trax trains!

 Closing his eyes, waiting for daddy to bring in his new Geo Trax airplane track.

 Mormor, opening up her present Emma made for her. 

 Kaci gave Mormor a HUUUUUUGGEE tote.or AKA laundry bag. 

 Micah asked for about ten different types of cakes this year. Every time I asked him what kind of cake he wanted it would be something different. It went from airplane cake, tractor, robot, car, trucks, monster, train cake..and all the way back to an airplane chocolate cake. So that's what he got! 

 It was a Happy happy birthday indeed!!! We love you Micah man and Mormor!

Micah, 

You have been my wild, mischievous little boy for the past two years. You are bouncing off the walls from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. every. single. day. Even when you have a fever of 103.2 you are still running around like a little maniac. You have taught me a lot of patience.  You find so much joy in every little activity. I need to be more like you. Lately, you have started to love giving me kisses, and my tummy kisses. You are going to be such a sweet big brother (I think.) Little by little I can see you changing, and growing, listening more, throwing less tantrums, and being more loving to your older siblings. Guess you really are turning three! Daddy and I love you so much Micah! 

G I R L

 It's been a very LOOONG time since I've posted, and my goal for the new year was to start blogging again and... I guess it's never too late to start right!? I'm really hoping to be better at keeping this little journal for my family. So lets shoot for once a week! Here it goes! Lot's of ramblings.

I'm not going to try to update on every life event since my last post, (which was well over a year ago I think), instead I will just start writing about where we are at now. We just found out that we are having another girl in October and we couldn't be more excited about it!

Look at that shy face! 

I don't consider myself an intuitive person, but this was one of those times when I just felt like we were having a girl. About a week after Micah was born, I was sitting in my rocking chair, nursing him to sleep, and I was thinking about our children, and how blessed I felt, and especially how happy I was knowing that Micah was our last. Now don't take that the wrong way, I love being a mother, but at the time, three seemed like all we were meant to have, and after pushing a baby out for over an hour, you especially don't want to think about going through child birth again. But again, we were done. But as I sat there nursing Micah and reflecting on all of this, I had this distinct thought come into my mind saying, "But, there's another little girl missing." and in reply to that voice I said, "No way. That's just my hormones, we are for sure done." And that was the way I felt for the next two and a half years.

 Deep down though, I knew there was one more missing, and every time having more kids would be brought up, Zach would automatically say "No more!" and then I would get this pit in my stomach, a guilty pit, like I knew we were supposed to have another one, but I didn't want to. So I kept ignoring it until I couldn't ignore the prompting anymore and we finally prayed about it and felt like it was the right time for us. I realized the reasons I didn't want to have another baby, while some were justified, other reasons were not. I didn't want to have to go through another baby stage, I didn't want to be pregnant again, buy more diapers, not sleep for a year or more straight, I didn't want to take the time to do it, but in the end I knew those reasons didn't make up for my lack of faith that heavenly father is in charge. Now I'm not saying everyone should have lots of children and if you only have a few you are being selfish. NOT AT ALL. Everyone has a different circumstance, and it is a decision between you and the lord, and so many factors play into that. This is just me blabbering down a journal so next year when I'm running on 1 hour of sleep, I can read this and remember why I'm a crazy sleep deprived mother of four 7 and under.

Now back to that night I was rocking Micah to sleep. I would be over the moon for any sweet child our loving heavenly father decided to send us, but having that prompting about a little girl missing, and then finding out we are, in fact, having a girl, is a reminder to me, that there is a loving father in heaven, and there really is a plan of happiness for our families. We are so grateful that Emma will have a sister to grow up with.. and she is too! The boys are getting a bunk bed and Emma has not been too happy about not getting to sleep in the "cool" room with the bunkbed..but now that she knows she gets to share a room with the baby she could care less about all that!
She asks me about taking care of the baby at least 10 times a day, and always says, "I'm going to help you right mommy? Because we are the girls, and I'm your best friend, right mommy!?"

Emma, I know you are going to be such a sweet big sister. Please remember to be patient, and share your toys and your clothes with her when you are both older. Always be best friends and take care of one another. Its going to be you two against the boys.