Sneak Peak!

These are the picture we ended up using on our Christmas cards. We thought they turned out as well as expected for 3 kids under the age of 6.

Indian Names

Even though I'm probably one of the fairest skin people minus the freckles I do have Indian (Native American) heritage. So early on in our marriage Darren and I were hanging out at my mom's house with my little sister and for some odd reason we decided to come up with Indian names for each other. The names have stuck with us ever since, but recently we decided to carry the tradition on with our children. And so we are going back to our roots: I give you our Indian names:

Darren: Sharp toe - No matter how often he cuts his toe nails his big toes always seem to scratch me. I feel like it's a little dagger he could use for protection if needed.

Sarah: Wild hair - My hair is out of control if I do not fix it. It dries wavy/curly and there is just so much of it. So if I don't tame it with products or blow dry it, there's no telling how crazy it will be.

Malachi: Big talk - Right now he is not pleased with this name, but I told him the chief decides not him. He would rather be star wars boy or video game player, but that's not how it works. Simply put Malachi talks a lot. He could carry on his own conversation for hours. And he sometimes lacks volume control. We are constantly reminding him to talk softer or tone it down. We do love this about him, he's quite the thinker.

Naomi: Curly love - I need not explain the curly part. Love is because in Naomi's own words "I love everything." She's always saying, I love every animal or I love every color. She is just such a happy go lucky girl. Her sweet little personality is quite charming. Not to mention her amazing imagination.

Cassidy: Dancing monkey - She loves to dance. If she hears any sort of music she'll start moving side to side and pretend like she's snapping her fingers. She's got rhythm. Monkey because she climbs on everything and has since she started walking. She climbs on the counters, on the bar stools, on the beds, out of the crib... (I don't even want to approach that subject again, little upset over the crib situation). So we call her a monkey for climbing on everything.

Liberty: TBD!

Oh it's on!

If you were a fly on the wall in the room right now you would hear Cassidy singing "Nudey, nudey, nudey, nudey." She does this while she puts her hands in the air and sways her hips side to side. First off I'd like to claim she does not get this from me. With that said I've never had a nudey kid. This girl loves to be naked. She loves to tear her clothes and diaper off. I think she's in a diaper 60% of the time people come over. She just pulls the rest of her clothes off. She'll dress and undress constantly. I'm ok with her being in a diaper it's when she decides to take the diaper off that the battle begins. I end up chasing her because she runs from me and thinks it's a game. I just don't want to end up with pee on my carpet other wise I'd let her run wild. So I'm continually telling her to keep it on.

She has hands down been my most challenging child to this point. The above is one example. She also just got out of the habit of biting. She would usually do this if her and another child were fighting over a toy. I'm guessing her thought process went a little something like "I bite them they release. I get toy." I've never had a biter before so this was all new to me. Luckily she's been doing good with that and hasn't for a long time.
On to the next challenge, the crib. She has learned how to climb out of the crib at 20 months old. Why!!!! She is now like a pro gymnast dismounting from the crib on average 5-6 times a night. It wouldn't be that bad if I wasn't delivering another child next month. I don't know how we are going to get any sleep around here. We are planning on working on keeping her in her room with out leaving her crib, even if she wakes up over Thanksgiving break. I'm sure your thoughts are with us or you're catching some zzzzz's.

Let me explain myself, even though it's my house!

So I love Christmas? Most people that know me know that I love to decorate for Halloween and Christmas. Halloween I usually decorate for over labor day weekend. Since there are no major holidays between 4th of July and Halloween my thoughts are let's get our stuff out and get some use out of it. As for Christmas, taking our Halloween decorations down is such a big production that we're already pulling tupperware out in the garage and packing things up might as well make a day of it. So for the last 2 years over Veteran's Weekend I have pulled my Christmas decor out while putting Halloween away. If you think about it there's only a month and a half before Christmas let the season begin. Plus by the time Thanksgiving comes Christmas is around the corner and all that work is for not when we're taking Christmas down weeks later. I just loving having Christmas up. It gets the kids all excited and we have lots of fun with it. We do wait to put the tree up and decorate that over Thanksgiving if that makes some of you feel better. I've just had friends stop by shocked that our home is ready for Christmas when maybe others should reconsider when to start putting their stuff out too. (Tis the season)

Battle of the curls

Before...

After...

So I finally bought myself a Chi flat iron. My first trial run of it to see just how well it works was to test it on Naomi's hair. If it can straighten her hair it can do wonders on mine. Well I did a section of her hair and it was amazing. So Naomi was begging me to do all her hair. So Sunday morning for church I straightened her hair. She was so excited. I guess it was the something new feel to it. But I feel like I opened a Pandora's box. Now she wants her hair straighted all the time. First of all I love her curls. Second of all it took a long time to do her hair, even though she was extremely patient. Third of all I expected the day to come when she hates her curls and wants her hair straight (just like we all wish we had those curls) but at 4 years old? I thought I'd be dealing with this years down the road. Luckily as the week has gone by I think she realizes it ain't gonna happen!

"You're joking, you're joking I can't believe my eyes!"

Ok I had to give a shout out to my lil' sis. She not only dressed as Sally from the movie Nightmare before Christmas but she made her costume. Then her husband decides to be the Oggie Boggie Man from the movie too. So they made that costume too. Then their nephew joins in and dress' as Jack the pumpkin king. They even made a dog zero. So impressed. To top it off they made a pumpkin that looked like Cinderella's carriage. It won an award at their carving contest. Kudos. Now at least you all know where all the creativity in our family went!

Props to my Peeps!

This has been a touchy subject for some, but it really has been a defining moment for me in my life. It is actually the reason why I started my blog to begin with. I was at a stake meeting and one of our high council members said that we have been told that we all should have a blog of some sort. This is because it gives us a great opportunity to bear our testimonies or state who we are. It also gives us the opportunity to share our feelings on issues such as prop 8.
We were out as a family knocking doors, hanging fliers on doors, I got a group of girl friends together and stood on the street corner holding signs twice, and as a family kids and all holding signs twice. As much time, money and energy as we put to this I'm grateful that it passed and our sacred views of marriage between a man and woman remain.

All dressed up with places to go...

Cassidy was a little 50's girl.
Naomi was Minnie Mouse on Halloween. For our trunk or treat she was Mulan.

Malachi was a knight. Peter from Narnia to be exact.

I couldn't find much to fit me being in my 3rd trimester. So I made my costume. Even the baby was included!

Darren is was all game for his costume. He was the game Operation.