Our grand finale's? first birthday

On 2/22 at 2pm last year, a beautiful baby girl was born into the house of chaos. If you step back from our life....you know....get a bird's eye view of it....it looks pretty great. We are so so so blessed. Go ahead, look around those marital disputes, peer through the selfish flesh of those kids. Now shove our materialism and pride aside. Do you see it yet? The life and lives that God has graced our presence with for the short time we are here on this earth are more precious than anything else on this earth. Next time you see me take this beautiful little girl for granted, please slap me:) Happy Birthday Lilah! We love you so much and can't hardly wait to see what God does through you!

Dad

The Proof is in the Pictures

Here Lilah is, taking her first steps! See how excited she is? 

Also, she has gotten really good at climbing up into the rocking chair, and once she gets up there you can see how proud she is of herself. She sits there like a big girl and grins. 

And one final note- My mom is a lifesaver. She is actually FLYING up on Thursday to keep the kids for me while I pack and move. Isn't that just sweet of her? The kids are so excited- and I am eternally grateful. 

First Steps

Lilah's 'tolally' walking! And I can't post the pictures!
Brady has my computer with him at a Photography conference in Vegas- so as soon as he comes home I will post pictures of my little baby taking her first steps.She took about 10 steps in a row tonight, and walked clear across the kitchen. Ben took some great action shots.
My baby is growing so quickly. She has changed so much in the past couple of weeks it's unbelievable. In the past two weeks alone she learned to give kisses, learned to wave, started saying "ticki-ticki-ticki" when she wants you to tickle her, became attached to her fuzzy pink blanket, learned to go down the stairs backward, learned to clap her hands and now has started walking.
How quickly they grow....

It's official...

We're moving! Again. 

We're downsizing in house to try to save some money. SOOOO-- if you're not doing anything on Sunday March 1st wanna help? :>P 

The things kids say...

Vance is at that cute age where everything he says is adorable. His usual cute little saying is "totally". But it comes out "tolally". As in "I can TOLALLY play backetball with daddy now!" (No, I didn't spell 'basketball' wrong, that's just how he says it). 

Well he has a new cute saying. It goes something like this. "Duuude, that's tho cooool!" Oh my gosh. It makes me crack up!! 

What a doll. 

A (fun) waste of time

This is my first ever attempt at designing my own blog background. Why I thought it would be fun, I don't know. It actually was kinda fun---- but I spent way too much time trying to figure it out. Hopefully I've learned enough so that next time it won't take me so long. 

I did manage to get the deep clean done today as well, no thanks to Lilah. She's at that horrid, annoying stage where she goes through the whole house and pulls every thing of the shelves, dumps out all the baskets and basically wreaks havoc.  It's really fun to walk into a room after Lilah's been in it!! 

And I've also managed to catch the cold that the little ones have been down with for two weeks now.... so not feeling great either. Other than that- life is great! :-)

So long for now! 

Hello 30. Nice to meet you.

Well, tomorrow is the day in which I will leave behind that illustrious decade known as "MY 20's" and move forward into my "MY 30's". I'm not panicking nor am I having a mid-life crisis (yet), but I am rather surprised. How did I get here so quickly? 

They say that 40 is the new 30 and 30 is the new 20, but I think that's only if you're Jennifer Aniston. I saw on the newsstand that she's turning 40. Seriously? What is she, part human part non-biodegradable plastic? But I digress..... 

I do feel some slight sadness to be leaving this decade behind. I have experienced thus far both my greatest joys and my deepest sorrow in my 20's. I'm not afraid of growing older or getting wrinkles, because with age comes both wisdom and a deeper beauty. Besides, I think I lost my vanity 4 children ago..... 

What will the next decade bring? I do expect that I will sleep through more nights than I have in the past 7 years, but other than that, who knows? 

So I bid a fond farewell to you, Late 20's. I come away with a wonderful husband, 4 amazing children, more wisdom and insight than I went in with and lots of good memories.

Hello, 30. Nice to meet you.