Christmas Fun!

since I have been working full time, I have had a hard time feeling the Christmas spirt. Usually at this point in the holiday my shopping is done, my christmas cards are done, and we have done a lot of christmas related activities. I was feeling a little behind since none of that had been done. So with half a day off of work, I tried to make the most of it!! Ali had a skit at school that all the kids had a speaking part and I was so relieved to find out I was able to get off early to make it to it. It was a short little play but well worth going to see. The second I walked in the door and saw Alis face, I knew I was so glad not to miss it!! It was called the gingerbread caper and Alis' line was "I have an idea, Lets make a whole bunch of gingerbread kids, and then he won't be lonely anymore!" She did wonderful and I was so glad to see her personality shine a little!!

After her play we headed to the mall to meet up with all her cousins to see santa. We were lucky to have the majority of the family there, even sunny and pappa came. Brittany even came with her brand new little girl Paige!! We had a great time and the Santa was so Great with the kids!!

Then we saw the train the goes through the whole mall and of course it was a must with all the kids. Pappa rode up front and was hollering Merry Christmas to everyone, it was a lot of fun and Cam loved that it puffed smoke- the Train was awesome!!


When we got home after the mall, we planned to decorate gingerbread houses. We do it every year just because!! My brother and Camille came over and we had a good time decorating our houses. The only down side to the evening was Camille is a culinary school graduate with her degree specialized in dessert type foods and she is AWESOME with a frosting bag!! While mine was gooshing from all sides, hers was perfectly clean and amazing- I just had to remember I had two awesome helpers that make things look Kid beautiful!! It was fun and they are ALWAYS fun to hang out with!

Cam took this picture of Bud and camille and I have to side note that whenever uncle bud comes over he tries to confuse Cam and he tells him that whatever Cam is playing with is something different. Example- Cam is holding a firetruck, so Bud says IS that a transformer- Cam gets so mad!! Yesterday he tried to convince Cam that a frog wasn't a frog but a dinosaur or something dumb, and Cam got so mad he hit him-- Well deserved, but so funny!!


the end product!! We bought it at Walmart so I am sure there are a million replicas of this same house- maybe one year I will create my own but until then, this is perfect!!

Paige Erin (Nicole) Helm is Here!!!!

I simply had to steal this photo from my sisters blog because she looks like a little angel, and I love her so much. It is amazing how you can truly just love your little nieces and nephews and they have a special place in your heart-- well mine do anyway!! I am so lucky to be bestfriends with all of my sisters, and i just love them so much, and with each new addition to our family I get so excited.
Last Wednesday I woke up and phoned to see how Brittany was doing and her husband told me they were waiting to get her water broke. I got off the phone and exclaimed,"This is just like christmas but better!!!"
I was so excited all day and the day seemed so long as we waited for the good news.....Paige Erin Helm made it saftely here!!! at 2:51pm-It was wonderful news!!

I have been so excited about her from the get go because my sweet sister has 3 boys and this is her first girl, so we are all just ecstatic!!

So naturally I had to set out to find the perfect outfit for my new niece. As I found what I thought was perfect and left the store, I get the text that she is 8 lbs 10 oz.!! Holy Cow!! I glance at the Christmas outfit to see the size read 5-8 lbs. -- No good- She is way past that!!! What a chunky monkey!!

We decided to give her some time to recover and the whole family planned to go see her at 5:30-We couldn't wait much longer than that. So I leave work and am heading to go to the hospital. As I am leaving I send a quick text to make sure that it would be okay. I quickly get a text back from Steve her husband saying that she just started hemorhhaging and the doctors were trying to get it under control, so not right now. I quickly contact my family and siblings and relay the message of what was going on. I decided to stop and kill some time at Target because I really wanted to see them SOON!! I waited to hear word and waited some more, and the news that came was so scary. My brother in law told me that she just started feeling sick and then all of a sudden she started hemorrhaging and didn't stop. The nurses rushed in brittany said all she remembers was it was like a scene in ER where there are nurses rushing everywhere and stabbing her with needles, and pushing on her belly to help with clotting and it was CRAZY. After all was said and done she lost over 2 LITERS of blood. HOW FREAKING SCARY!!! We all mentioned that is why the hospital is the best place to have a baby. She was doing better and they were not sure exactly the cause other than her uterus hadn't fully contracted and there was clotting which is scary- so luckily everything went well and she is okay. We weren't allowed to go see her that night so we all had to wait till the next day!!


Ali and Cam were so excited to see thier new cousin. Cam kept saying "Paige, Paige, my cousin, noahs sister is at the hospital!!" It is exciting for everyone!!

I had to force Ali to hold her, she didn't like how much I was drooling over paige- she is used to all that love and affection headed her way- but finally she broke down and really liked the sweek Paige!!

I am so glad I am already her favorite Aunt. Her real name is Paige Nicole(after me) but Brittany had to pretend it is Erin so my other sisters don't get mad-- I am so glad she has my name sake in there!!!!

Brittany is a trooper for even letting me take any pictures, she had quite the day and was still smiling and wonderful, amazing, and is such a great mom. Paige is one lucky girl!!

Love the Snow

Just had to capture the fun in the snow!! I love the snow a lot, as long as I am not driving in it. I could spend all day outside building stuff with my kids. We need a hill in our yard we decided so we could build fast sledding runs. Growing up my mom used to spend all day building the greatest snow ramps of all time. As kids it was one of our favorite parts of winter. I remember getting in our "laundry baskets" and sliding down what always seemed like the greatest slides of all time. My mom got major brownie points for being the coolest mom ever. I hope my kids remember the times we play in the snow together, they are some of my favorite.

Cam-
You woke me up this morning way earlier than i wanted to even think about. I knew I had a full day of work ahead of me, and i knew it was not time to give up my bed, but your cute little voice in the other room at 5:30 told me you were ready to get out of bed. When I came in your room, you instantly said, "Mom I waked up!!" You have the cutest way about you, that just makes me smile(even at 5:30 in the morning).I decided that I didn't want to start the day yet and carried you into my bed to see if maybe you would go back to sleep. As we layed there talking quietly so we didn't wake up dad, I realized there is nothing greater than those moments with you. We pretended our fingers were spiders and ran them all over each other just making each other laugh. Then we tried to see who could make the silliest noise with our mouths while the other bumped our adams apple. ( I am sure dad didn't love that we were in bed while he was sleeping, but we were having a great time.) But the moment that made being a mom and sacrificing sleep and all the many other things we sacrifice was when you stopped and got as close to me as you could so i could see you and you said," I love you so much mom!!" I kissed you and told you how much I loved you and then you said, "I miss you." I wanted to cry and just appreciate every second I get to have with you, even when it is at 5:30 in the morning, I am so lucky to get to be your mom, and working everyday has made me realize what a great blessing that is, and I am counting down the days till dad can go back to work too!! I love you Cam and thanks for waking me up to tell me those sweet things, I needed to hear.

The Adjustment

so for all the many people calling and wondering where I have gone to, and why i am no longer outside playing with my kids, it is simply because I have become the "sugar momma" (as i like to call myself)!! Two and a half weeks ago we found out that Fro wouldn't be able to work since he tore his ACL and MCL and that we didn't have short term disability at his work, only long term. That does us no good until mid january- so after "freaking out" about what we are going to do about this little predicament, I became completely grateful for having a job that so willingly let me come back on full time. I didn't know what an adjustment working full time would play on my family, but these last two weeks I have truly become so grateful for my time with my kids. Everyday waking up to my kids and thinking what should we do today is not the case anymore, but hurrying to get ali ready way before she has to leave and hearing her say how much she misses me everyday- it just about kills me. The best story so far is one day last week Cam was awake so Fro went in to help him out of bed and he said,
CAM- "I don't want you, I want MOM!!"
Fro- "Mom has to go to work , lets go say bye"
CaM-"No you go to work, not mom!!"
Fro-" I can't because of my knee"
CAM-" your knee is fine!!!"

It has been a little crazy and hard on everyone. Ali cried everyday the first week and Cam continues to plead for me to stay in the mornings. There is nothing worse than having your two year old say "just stay with me, please mom!!" It about kills me everyday. I just keep telling myself- thankfully it is only for a few months and not permanent.
Fro just had his surgery last wednesday and has been asleep pretty much the entire time since, i am pretty sure his meds make him very sleepy. It will be nice when he is a little more coherent and feeling better. They said it would be about 3 months until he would be okay to go back to work, so I am holding onto that idea!!

Halloween 2010

I am catching up!!!
I am only 2 weeks behind- No big deal! Fall usually kicks off with a discussion between Ali and I about what to be for Halloween. Ali loves thinking up the ideas for our family and she usually comes up with something good. This year a few of her ideas were Scooby Doo family (cam=scooby, she=daphne, me=velma, fro=shaggy). I thought it would be awesome, but them she changed her mind several times and came up with this.........


Ali is the QUEEN OF HEARTS, from the New Alice in Wonderland. SHe said that every year she is someone nice, and this year she wanted to be EVIL!! Should i be nervous or just glad it is only for Halloween!! I think she turned out AWESOME and she was happy about it also.


In the past we have somehow always had a theme-not always on purpose, but Cam broke that trend by wanting to be BUZZ LIghtyear really bad.



It was raining pretty good, but we didn't let it stop us, we still headed out with our Summer SHADE umbrella. It was huge, but it kept us pretty dry. I was the White Queen and Fro looked awesome as the Mad Hatter. It turned out pretty good. Fro was wearing all girl clothing and it was pretty funny.


We went to my sister Heathers for a party of yummy chili cookoff, and trick or treated with all the cousins. The kids got a load of candy, crayons, and other stuff. It was a lot of fun and is fun to see everyone dress up.

My brother in laws with Fro- Steve is my mexican brother in law that Ali named him that and Jon is just crazy

Bud and Camille were rockers with awesome sleves of tattoos


And of course my ready to have a baby girl any day sister Britto- who was so creative with her cute belly is a black widow- i loved the web on her eye- awesome!! It was a good Halloween and as always tons of fun cleaning off all the makeup!!

St. George 2010

 

When Fro and I decided it would be a great thing to plan a trip to St. George with his whole family, we had intended to have it be a fun, bonding experience. Well it ended up being fun, but you can only bond so much when Fro couldn't do ANYTHING!! It was the saddest thing to realize that Fro wouldn't get to ride at all in St. George. Since he tore his ACL and his MCL he was told he would need surgery within the month. We couldn't cancel the trip we had planned months ago, so we still went. He was such a trooper as we left to go biking, and swimming, and play tennis, and volleyball, and he just sat there. I felt saddest knowing how excited he was to have some time with his brothers, and then couldn't do a whole lot with them. I got to take them all biking and he was the one who wanted to be out there with all his brothers. It was pretty sad, but at least we still had a good time. It is always fun getting away and it was a good change to have the Derricks be in St. George with us. Ali and Cam were really excited to spend time with their cousins and especially all the uncles. I think Cam almost got all thier names straight!! We'll see how long that lasts!!

Skate Park

 

I am way behind putting these cute pictures on here. A couple weeks ago my neighbor Jill and I took Cam and my niece and her daughter Addison to the skate park. Cam had already gone once and loved it so we pretty much showed up with our three kids and took over the park. They loved it and cruised around forever and had so much fun. It was a little harder to keep them on their bikes once they realized you could slide down all the drop slides on their bums. It is super slick and they loved it. It was so much fun we didn't want to leave!! Of course we had to once we realized Jills little boy would be getting home to NO ONE!! So play time for us was over-- until another day!!

My tennis Partner!

I have to take a minute to put it into writing- One of my all time favorite things to do is play tennis with my dad. He has been the best tennis partner of all time. Although he never lets me win- even when i was having back problems- he is so much fun. We started trying to play every saturday and it has been the funnest thing.
When we went to bear lake we of course wanted to hit some courts so we could only find the KOA courts. I can't even tell you how much the word "courts" are stretching the term. They were more like concrete with something dividing the court in half, in the midst of a lOT of weeds. We were desperate to play so of course we decided to make it work. It was the slums of Wimbeldon as we called it!!
We laughed as the first warm up serve caused us to loose the ball somewhere on the court-- We had some great laughs. It was hard to be serious because as we would hit a slam ball, it would somehow hit a crack, and go flying in the opposite direction and we could never anticipate where it was really going to land. It was so hilarious and we got the best workout because we were laughing so hard.
I just wanted to write down how much i love it and so i would never forget I have a Dad who has always cheated (has the best cheep shots), always made time for me, and ALWAYS made our time together fun. Thanks dad your the best!!! Love ya

2010 Family Pictures

My best friend Lindsay Ross did our YEARLY family pictures again this year and we had a lot of fun doing them. I try to make it as easy as possible on my husband so this year we let everyone wear whatever they wanted (not planned, but everyone picked something different to wear as we walked out the door!), I wanted some with us in hoodies because both Fro and i love hoodies, and I thought it would be fun to get some shots of our family doing what we love- BIKING! so we have a bit of everything!! Lindsays motto for pictures is wear something comfortable and what you would normally wear- so Fro got the best of both worlds!! Here are a few of my favorites!!!

I love this one because Cam is constantly making faces, and I can't help but laugh when I look at him in this!



i ended up loving different things about each picture so here are more, and more and more............

My favorites of Ali

 

My favorites of Cam

 

And a whole bunch More......

 

We had fun on our bikes, it was trickier terrain than we anticipated with lots of rocks, but we had fun and i love all the pictures I have of my little family!! thanks linds you are the best!!!

THE INJURY

On wednesday Fro had planned to go to the bike park with one of his buddies. Nothing unusual- ten minutes after getting there I got a call from him asking which ER he could go to. I thought he was kidding but NOPE!! He was there 10 minutes before he HYPEREXTENDED his left KNEE! He was jumping into a bowl on his bike and hit it a little twisted and put his left leg down. It popped his knee completely backwards!! Not a pretty sight, his knee is swollen 3 times his other knee. The worst part of the whole ordeal is we have a family BIKING trip planned to St. George in less than a week and he can't walk. It is a huge bummer, but hopefully he will be up and walking in no time!

It is pretty awesome that Fro can drop huge 30 ft. drops on his bike, and fly down an entire mountain in under 4 minutes, but give him something small and dumb, and he is bound to get hurt! it is just the way he works.

 

Yes this is my 2 year old taking over the Bike Park in SANDY!! How awesome is that!! I was pretty excited when my husband showed up with a brand new skate helmet for Cam. It was for a five year olds head, and it still didn't fit Cams head!! So after finding one that would fit his head they were off to the bike park. I think Fro was even more excited about it than Cam, but after figuring out his way around, Cam couldn't stop talking about going again!! A couple days later They went to ride again, and Cam did even better, and LOVED IT!!
Don't ask me how he keeps his head up with that huge helmet, but he does and loves it! Your awesome Cam!!

Who knew!!

Who Knew I was Crafty!! I am not, but I challenged myself to make this........


My Brother in law has a blanket that his mom made for him when he was younger out of his old sports shirts, and clothes. Brooke my sister decided to do one for her girls and I thought what better way to remember the cute days of your kids than with the clothes they wore. (and they were just sitting in bins in the basement anyway!!) So i cut up some of my favorite, most memorable outfits from Ali as a baby, up until last year, and made them into a warm blanket for her.

After backing it wrong and sewing it inside out, re-picking, then sewing again, I finished it!!It turned out pretty good for someone who does NOT sew!! And most importantly it reminds me of Ali in every way, and she LOVES it!!

Official Helper!!

I was pretty excited about how well my job chart turned out!! Ali gets to do several of the same jobs each day and each week she picks two extra jobs to do. It has been fun to let her get a little excited about helping out and earning her own money to buy stuff. My friend did one similar and I loved it so this was my finished version!!

these are the little wood magnets I got off of etsy. they are so cute and work wonderful. It makes doing jobs that much more fun!!