A Bit of Randomness

Normally if Finley disappears for a few moments, it means big messes, big trouble, and lots of cleaning on my part. This time when I went to see what she was getting into, I found a cute little tea party.

One Sunday when the end credits started rolling on the movie with a catchy song playing, Sareny and Isaac jumped up and started walzing around the room.

I made some cute hairbows. (Except for the purple felt one--if you're reading this, Amy, yes, that is yours. oops)

In February, we went to the neighborhood park for a little picnic. While the kids ate and played, I started my first day of my new running program around the little cul-de-sac. That first day of running was perhaps the most difficult and brutal, despite being short distances.

And the last item in this ecclectic bunch of thoughts and pictures is from the camping trip we took during Sareny's spring break. We camped about 10 minutes from our home, and had a great time.

I loved all the little parks right at the campground.

That's all the pictures I took at the campground, but we had a fabulous time with our friends the Johnstons. The next morning, we stopped at the nature center before heading home.

And I just liked this parting shot of the kids racing to the van.

Later that same day...

Sareny's birthday was on a Wednesday, which is early outs day, so as usual, we headed to the park after school. I did a little photo shoot of the girls in their adorable dresses. (then I made them change into something else before playing--if you've seen my kids on park day, you would know why.)

My cute girls in their cute dresses.

I think Fin was trying to copy Sareny's pose...

After the park, we hurried to meet Keith at Chick Fil-A, where the school was hosting a fundraiser. It was really fun, and Sareny was lucky enough to be one of five chosen to compete in the chicken nugget eating contest! That helped make her birthday even more special. She was competing against a teacher, the principal, an older brother of one of her classmates, and another older boy. She was by far the youngest, and the only girl in the competition.

They were each given a box of six chicken nuggets, and whoever ate them all first won. They were instructed to dump the nuggets out on their tray.

She was having so much fun and couldn't stop smiling.

Then they were told they had to eat their nuggets without using their hands.

She thought that sounded pretty funny.

She went to work on those nuggets...

All the young kids were cheering for her.

She didn't win (and frankly, I would have been shocked if she had,) but she had a lot of fun and did a good job, especially considering that she had already eaten her meal!

When she got home, a new Barbie house was waiting in her room. Seriously, could a birthday get any better than this?

Another birthday post...

On Sareny's birthday (over a month ago, I know.) I took cupcakes in to her class. I love that this school lets you make your own! They are always so much cuter and tastier than store bought. We went with the theme of her party and made little glittery microphones.

I really like how they turned out!

Sareny and Finley were also excited to wear new dresses made by Grandma Nancy. They turned out so adorable!

It was a fabulous day for our birthday girl.

Mardi Gras

We decorated some Mardi Gras masks with glitter and markers. It was a fun craft.

Isaac's Quilt

I have made Sareny, Keith, and me our own rag quilts, and decided it was time for Isaac to have his own. I picked out this super cute pirate fabric a loooooong time ago, then had a hard time finding anything to match it. Finally, after over a year of searching, I found the striped fabric that I think went perfectly, so construction of the quilt could begin.
Enter problems from a very stubborn sewing machine. I had worked so hard on the quilt and was quite close to finishing, when my sewing machine just refused to sew another stitch. I was frustrated, and once again abandoned the project for a while. A couple of weeks later, I was telling some women in my ward about my sewing machine woes and one of them, whom I had just met that very evening, offered to give me her sewing machine. This was seriously such a blessing for me, because we just didn't have the money to replace it, and here was a virtual stranger willing to give hers to me for free. I am still in awe about this kindness.
So here is the finished quilt in all its glory.
front of quilt.

back of quilt.

I think he loves it!

Family Pictures

We had family pictures taken at Christmas time, and I am finally getting them posted on here. I am mostly blaming blogger for the delay, because every time I sit down to work on this post, something goes wrong. I have determined that, for whatever reason, blogger does not want this post published. Anyway, here is our family--not remotely in the order I wanted the pictures, but again, blogger.

April Fools

My mom and dad came down the day before my surgery to help with the kids. My mom was here with me from Monday to Sunday, and I really cannot tell you how wonderful that was. There is nothing like having your mom around when you are sick or incapacitated. She took Sareny to and from school each day, made lunches, did laundry and dishes, entertained the other two kids, made dinner, took the kids to the park and countless other things. I was able to nap, rest, and recover without worrying about anything.

Friday morning we realized it was April Fool's day, so we hurriedly made some fun plans to trick the kids. I made a pitcher of koolaid but poured jello jigglers into cups, inserted straws, and let them set up for several hours.

My mom made these adorable "vegetable" cupcakes. She told the kids she had noticed they weren't eating

enough vegetables, so she had come up with a fun way for them to eat them.

These are really orange starbursts cut into fourths and green jelly beans cut in half. We wanted to use green runts, but substituted the jelly beans when runts were unavailable. For dinner we made sweet fire chicken. Nothing tricky here, just trying to make a little 4 year old boy happy who, when we asked him what he wanted for breakfast, went into the pantry, brought out the sweet fire sauce, and begged for that for breakfast. Funny kid.

Isaac really tried to drink some Koolaid.

Eventually, he figured it out.

Sareny claimed she had been completely unfooled by everything and had spotted it all right off.

Possibly mom snapping your picture at dinner might have been a dead giveaway...

My Life Last Week

Okay peeps, I'm going to be more real and honest here than usual. If topics like ovaries, miscarriages, and infertility bother you, then maybe you better just scoot on by this post. And that's okay.

Most of my friends probably already know this, but we have fertility issues. It took 2 1/2 long years of trying, numerous doctor appointments and tests, clomid, surgery, charting every single aspect of my life, and lots and lots of prayers before we got our little Sareny. It was difficult emotionally and physically. I felt really blessed to get Isaac and Finley here with considerably less stress. A year ago December, we lost what would have been our fourth little miracle. I was disappointed, but we moved on.

Now here we are more than a year later with no little baby forthcoming, and I gotta tell you, it has been hard. With each passing month, I have felt the loss of that baby more and more. At Christmastime this past year while browsing the ornaments in the Hallmark store, I got choked up when I looked at the Baby's First Christmas ornaments, knowing I would have been selecting one of those if things had been different. At Panda Express recently, I was checking out their zodiac calendar and observed that we had a rat, a dog, a monkey, and felt tears coming as I thought, we would have had a tiger.

When we moved into our house this past summer, I decided I couldn't take driving an hour to my fertility doctor anymore, and we were done. If Heavenly Father meant for our family to have another baby, then it would come. If not, then we would be a family of five. I tried to be happy with that, but I couldn't help holding out the hope that there was another one for us. Two weeks ago, I returned to my doctor after my 8 month absence not expecting to continue fertility treatment. But when the Dr. did an ultrasound of my ovaries and said they were covered with cysts (I have poly-cystic ovarian syndrome) and on my own would be lucky to ovulate once a year, I pictured saying, "Okay, we're done." and that just didn't feel right. My other option was surgery, and before I knew it, I found myself setting up the surgery for March 29th. Without consulting my husband, who, as far as he was concerned, felt fine with our family of five. Luckily he came around to my way of thinking. :)

So last Tuesday, I had laparscopic surgery to remove the cysts and poke a bunch of holes in my ovaries. It would be nice if this ordeal leads to a baby, but strangely, having this surgery has somehow answered my constant questions. As I lay in my bed healing and contemplating life, I realized whether I end up with three children or four, I am okay.