She came to see ME!

This is one of my besties (that's right E, besties :) from Kville!!!

When she told me a couple of months ago that she was going to fly and see me for a couple of days...almost cried.

She's funny.  Really funny.  I've stolen more than a line or two from her.

She's crafty!

And the best part, her name is Megan too.

We attempted to make these darling backpacks for our boys.  We didn't finish. But we did run into JoAnns at 8:59 pm (really running) to get another package of needles because they kept breaking.  I will finish it soon, this pile is still sitting in my kitchen, hasn't been touched since Wednesday.

She left her two older kids with their grandparents and came with her so sweet and good baby boy Tucker.  Sawyer and Ollie loved playing with him, Sawyer thought he was so funny.

We also swam, went to QT for slurpees, talked a lot, watched Biggest Loser, hit a discount fabric shop...it was fun.

And I took some pictures of her really cute baby.

It was two fast days.  When I went to bed the night before she left I was trying my best not to cry...okay maybe I did a little.  I miss my friends!

I was telling E that first I was looking forward to my friend Ashlie coming, then my brother Rich for a quick trip and then Megan...and now? Crickets.

We all need something to look forward to right??  Quilt Market is in May and that's just too far away :(

However I get E for TWO weeks this Christmas.  That's good news.

Friends

This weekend one of my very BFFs Ashlie came to visit!  Ashlie and I met in 2004 while working at Dillard's.  She and Luke had just gotten married and E and I were married less than a year.  All of us instantly became friends and did lots and lots together.  We celebrated every birthday by going out to eat together, lots of trips and just so many good and funny times.  And wouldn't you know it...we each have two boys, Sawyer and Cole 4 months apart and Ollie and Max 9 months apart.

Here we are in 2005 outside Halle Berry's house

Aren't they so cute?!

max, ashlie, cole

It was a too short trip, Saturday to Monday, but we packed in lots of fun, going to the mall, feeding ducks, swimming...

I have a crush on this baby lately. He is at such a darling age!  He's obedient (mostly) and just starting to combine words and trying to be a big boy.

Sawyer loved having Cole here.  Made me think for half a second it would've been kinda fun for Sawyer to be a twin!  Within 10 minutes of being up in the morning they were playing "hide n sink" as S calls it :)

Miss you guys!!

Goodbye Missouri

Goodbye Missouri

I didn't think I would, but I miss that place

The best thing that happened there?

Oliver King

January 6, 2009

Ernesto and Oliver

And of course, friends.

I had no idea how many girls I'd find to have so much in common with.

Melissa's front door was something like 20 steps from my front door.

We had a lot of fun together, watching America's Next Top Model, being each others go-to babysitters, borrowing many a movie, food items, you name it.  Oh and of course, countless hours spent outside keeping each other company while our babes played.

Melissa and Megan

Sawyer and Taylor were like brother and sister.  They could have themselves a good fight.  But they also had a lot of fun together.  Look how much they grew!!!

More of my friends.  Sad.

Tamara, Megan, Sara, Aimee and baby Simon

Angel, Gentri, Melissa, Megan, Aimee

Tamara, Simon, Sara

Crystal, Megan, Megan

Let's see...we had craft nights, movie nights, watched Biggest Loser, there was Breakfast Club, playgroups, project night, playdates and Columbia trips.  Babysitting for each other, meeting at the park and aquatic center...preschool...gift exchanges for fun.  Parties and baby showers galore and fire pits and getting together because we had nothing better to do.

I tell ya two years ago I would've never guessed I'd be such a social butterfly :) 

Oliver, Olivia, Noah

Ollie insisted on bugging Olivia

Jason, Taylor, Sawyer, Preslee, Scotty, Ryder

Sawyer and Jonah

My favorite pic.  I hope when they grow up they're friends so we can tease them with this nerdy picture.

There you have it.  Saying goodbye was so sad, and so embarrassing.  How can some of you hold in tears?  Seriously.  I actually did pretty good, and by the end I was cried out.

Cross your fingers for me that I can find at least one good friend!

PS  E was there too.  I asked for him to give me pictures of him and his classmates and friends.  He laughed.  I guess boys don't do that.

Prince Sawyer

Sawyer has been invited to enough dress-up parties, mostly themed princess, I decided it was time he dressed the part of Prince Charming. Or something...

I had a very fun time with my new (to me) camera...as if you couldn't tell.

I google image searched prince costumes to get some ideas. My sister in law made these adorable velvety capes for my boys at Christmas and they have their initials on them. I made a royalty shield from felt and temporarily covered the letter.

The crown I learned how to make here, it came together so fast.

And here's our birthday girl Taylor. These two can fight like nobodies business, they act like brother and sister. But they also can have a lot of fun together. We're going to miss them so much.

And we're back!

Congrats to E on breaking our record for # of comments, he's so popular. For those of you who didn't know, our computer had been broken so I feel like I've been so out of it! I've been able to access the internet through E's laptop, but other than that I've felt so helpless without all my stuff. So this last week my friends threw me a spectacular baby shower, aren't they so sweet! So here is the one of two shots I got of all of us ;) I got some super cute things, ate some delicous mint ice cream with fudge and got to hang out! Thanks to Tamara especially for putting everything together!

To the little funny man. When he wakes up in the morning and from naps he hordes all of the things in his bed, binkys, blankets, babys, books...so I got a mug shot the other day. Here he has two binkys in his left hand, two blankets on his left shoulder and his baby on his right...such a funny boy...today he broke his own personal best and brought SIX binkys down from his nap, they were falling all over the place, so he'd cry and we'd stop and he would somehow manage to hold them all again for a minute, and then another would fall...

HALLOWEEN!

So I realized I hadn't posted any Halloween yet! What the?? So here we go, there were many events. My little "wives club" SAA had a trunk or treat, and Taylor and Sawyer learned the best way was to stay in our trunk and take our candy...(He is a monkey, but it was hot so he just has a t-shirt on here.) From his photo shoot including our Halloween Card.

Ever since E and I have been married, so for five years, we would go to my sister's house every Halloween and trick or treat with her kids. It was special for us and for them, and we were all missing each other this year. So Amy and I decided to take some pics of us, and she printed them off so they could take us trick or treating with them :) Hence, the little captions. Garen is our nephew, and a couple of years ago I made a rule that they had to give us candy, and so I based it on their age. Well Garen became quite obsessed with this, so I've always teased him about how much he has to give us and whatnot. He thinks it's funny, so that is what the caption on E's pic means.

Our ward also had a carnival type activities and a trunk or treat. Poor Sawyer has had pretty bad ear infections the last couple of weeks, so he has been sleep deprived. Although he wasn't sad over any of these events, probably not as animated as he might have been.

At the begining of the month we went to a corn maze. They had tons of stuff, a bounce house, straw pile, corn cannon (my fave), hay ride and a maze! Well we apparently beat the record because they said it was 18 mins, and we timed ourselved and it was 17 mins! Wahoo! E was busting through that thing, I was impressed. The corn cannon was hilarious, you shot corn through this tube thing into a field with targets. However, no one was shooting at the targets, there were probably 8-10 cows that everyone was aiming for. And it was no secret, the guy who was manning the cannon would say, "Oh you almost hit that one!" We didn't hit any, and we didn't see anyone hit one, but we were close! It was funny, I have footage maybe I will get it up later.

Sawyer being a daredevil with his skull and bones cap on.

Sorry to embarass you E, but this was too funny. I see him walking up the stairs with all of this the other night, and I was laughing so hard I had to get the camera. He has a glass of grape juice, with two chinese new year's cookies on top, and the ENTIRE bowl of Halloween candy! He didn't just grab a handful, I was mocking him quite a bit, but when you look like E, it's all good. I can promise if this was me, the picture would've been deleted off of the camera, memory card, hard drive...etc.

Sawyer helping make some Halloween frosting. He was dipping his binky into the powder sugar and putting it into his mouth. I realize this pic looks quite dangerous and you might call DCFS on me, seeing as he is about 4 feet off the ground with loads of knives behind him, but I promise I was right there with him the entire time, only stepping back to take the pic!

Puppy Love

Aren't they so cute? We love having Taylor next door, she and Sawyer have a lot of fun together. There is a big open field nearby that Melissa and I take them on a walk to, and there are sometimes horses. Obviously, there are no horses on this day, but they are looking for them.

CryFest '08

Goodbyes are horrible. I think some of the hardest will be with my parents. We live with them and they are part of our everyday life. They are unbelievably kind and helpful and giving and everything. I can only hope to grow to be parents like them. It will be especially sad to not have the everyday interaction with Sawyer. He loves them very much, and I know the sentiment is returned. I love that he is so close to my parents. We love them and will miss them everyday.

We had to say goodbye to our BFF's Ashlie and Luke. Ashlie made us a DVD of pics over the last few years, we've been friends practically since we were both married and then had baby boys practically together. We love our friends and will miss them a lot.

Ernesto's work had a going away dinner for him and a couple of co-workers who were also leaving at Rodizio's. It was delicous and a fun night. There have been a lot of great things about Ernesto's work, and they are really thoughtful and nice. I know E will miss it there.

My parents and family threw us a going away bash. All of the kids were here, and it was a lot of fun to have everyone together. Activities included a treasure hunt, and making adorable cards for E, S and me. (Garen's card had Sawyer and E drawn in brown marker, me with an orange :) And a water balloon toss, which Geoffrey and Lawson won. But Hannah was the real winner, as you can see below:

We had fishing and a bubble-gum blowing contest. Saylor, Lara and Cheyenne had 3 inch bubbles, way to go! Here is my cute niece Savannah doing the bubble gum contest, doesn't she look adorable? For some reason her gum wouldn't work so good to give her a huge bubble, but I've seen her blow them really big before. I sure am going to miss this sweet girl.

We had a jello eating contest. Team #1 won! Wahoo. The kids loved it, example Saylor with the Jello coming out of her nose. While looking at these blonde/brown heads, I thought I was happy to be bringing a little variety to the family.

There was facepainting at the party. Heather and Kasey were the artist (as far as I know) and they did a great job. Here is a sampling: Clockwise: Mckenna, Heather and Saylor, Emily, Rylee CW: Garen, Geoffrey, Cheyenne, Liberty
CW: Hannah, Jasmine, London and Dan's back

We had so much fun at the party. In the end, after some water fights, see below, it was super sad. Thus CryFest '08. To those of you who stuck around to witness, it was quite the scene. I had several nieces crying outloud, and I was bawling as well. It was really really sad, and I was really overwhelmed by how much we're going to be missed. I love you all sooooo much. As I told the little girls, we will still talk all the time and write letters. I will get my address out ASAP, because I will need care packages ;) I am really going to miss my family, they are my closest friends. I see my sister Heather AT LEAST twice a week, and it is going to be really hard to not see her all the time. I love you guys, we'll be in touch as we get there.