My good friend has tagged me. So here it goes.

Here were the rules:
1. Go to your documents/pictures
2. Go to your 6th file
3. Go to the 6th picture
4. Blog about it
5. Tag 6 other friends
6. Smile! Here is my 6th in 6th.....







So I'm actually pretty lazy and only have one photo in my 6th file because I just haven't gotten around to importing all the other photos of this nature to that file.

Anyway, this is a picture of Lindsey. She is 4 in this picture. She'll be 5 in March. Lindsey is my first baby. I placed her for adoption three days after she was born. It was an open adoption. Her adoptive family is so great! I could not imagine her being with anyone else. Right now they are in Switzerland for her dad's job. We keep in touch via email.

Adoption changed my life. I would not be where I am today or have what I have today if it were not for the Lord and his divine plan of salvation and adoption. I was so fortunate in so many ways that many other girls aren't that I can only give thanks to God for my experience. It made me such a much better person. It makes to sad to think about all people who have not had positive experiences with it or perhaps even take advantage of the system. It also makes me sad and mad to think about all the many, many people who are just plain uneducated about it and ramifications of that. But that's another blog for another day. For now I will leave you with the lyrics to a song I love and have listened to many times.

This is just too good not to share with my tv loving buddies. Ugly Betty is getting the axe! I'm sooo bummed! I loved this show! When I first found out I thought, great now they'll just put some other garbage show on. But my friends there is light at the end of the "Ugly Betty tunnel"! ABC is going to introduce the new comedy, In The Motherhood!

In The Motherhood is a show you do not want to miss! If you are a mom you will LOVE this show! It's based on real stories that real moms write in about the experiences they have as mothers and wives. I would watch the shorts they had on the net and laugh so hard I would cry! If I'm not mistaken I believe March 26th is the big day. Stay tuned because I will be following and blogging about this!

Here is a link to check out:

http://www.inthemotherhood.com/

As a kid I could never really understand what the big deal was with Mondays. I mean sure, back then Monday was the start of another school week, but for me even that wasn't that big of deal. However, as an adult I'm beginning to understand why my parents (or any other adult I knew) never cared for Mondays.

For me Monday means picking up the house from Saturday and Sunday. It means getting two kids ready to leave the house so we can go to the grocery store and run other errands, all on a tight schedule so we can get home, have lunch, and take naps. While my kids sleep I pick up all the toys they managed to drag out in the short time they had while I fixed lunch. Then try to catch up on weekend laundry and put lunch dishes in the dishwasher. Then the kids wake up, we have an afternoon snack and drag the toys all back out AGAIN. We all play for bit until I have to start getting ready to cook dinner. Usually we have some sort of meat for dinner so while I wait for that to thaw, if the kids are behaving themselves, I'll go check the email and return any calls I may have gotten during the day. Then I go put in a dvd for Kailey just to make sure she'll stay out of my way while I'm busy cooking and then go cook. By the time dinner is done Clint is usually home and playing with the kids. So I rally the troops and we eat. After dinner Clint plays with Kailey for a bit while I feed/bath Garrett. Then it's time for Kailey to get ready for bed. After she is ready we have a quick FHE, then off to bed with her. Clint and I take turns putting Kailey down so if it's my turn Clint will play with Garrett until I come back, then I put Garrett to bed. If it's Clint's turn to put Kailey down then I just go ahead and put Garrett to bed at the same time. Then we usually spend the next hour trying to get Kailey to actually go to bed while we are busy trying to watch our favorite tv shows or play on the computer. Finally by about 10pm we've all had enough and call it a day.

That is usually how our Mondays go. They are long and tiresome. Through out the day I'm constantly battling with a 3 year old who is extremely defiant and a 4 month old who crys as soon as I'm not within his sight. These are the days I pray for the Lord to give me strenghth and patience. Today is actually a bit of an off day for us I guess. Clint went to the store on Saturday for me, so I don't have to go today, but I do have to spend a bit more time cleaning as we have an apraiser coming to the house today or tomorrow. Which actually works out well because I didn't want to have to take Miss Kailey out today anyway. The poor kid hasn't pooped in 7 days and is not feeling so hot. I gave her more laxitives again this morning and am hoping I can blow it out of her. I think I'm going to call the Pediatric GI doctor today.

Since Mondays are usually miserable around our house, and my mother always said "misery loves company" I figured I would start a "Misery Monday" blog. That way I have at least one day where I can let out all my Monday frustrations. I welcome you all to join me and share a "misery Monday" story.

Today was Garrett's four month well child check up with the Doc.

Before I delve into all the details of that, I'd just like to take a moment to say that I heart my family doctor! She always makes me feel so good about myself as a mother and as a human being. I heart Dr. B !

Okay back to Garrett. He is growing like a weed! It really makes me sad some days. I just love babies. I feel so close to heaven when I hold them. Anyway, he is in the 75% for his hight (26"long) and weight (15.10 lbs). Long and lean that's we make'em. He had to get four shots today. :-( He did well though. He really didn't start crying until the 3rd and 4th shot, and even then I got him calmed down relatively quick.

I of course had to take Miss Kailey with me. Which is always a nightmare. Bless her hart she's just at the age where she wants to know EVERYTHING and has to get into EVERYTHING. All the while Garrett has learned how to roll so I can no longer just leave him any ol'place. So I have one hand on Garrett (who was on the doc table) and one hand on Kailey who is trying to dig through the garbage, get in the drawers, spin on the doc chair, play with the blood presure cuff, pull all the magazines out, and scatter the doctors pamphlets everywhere.

So the doctor comes in ( even though I'm pretty sure she was probably standing at the door listening to me threaten Kailey within an inch of her life) and say's, "You look great! I love your new haircut!" Again, I heart Dr. B ! So she checks Garrett and asks me questions about where he's at developmentally. Then she asks me how I am, and I tell her I'm fine. Then she says, "No. Really. How are you?" She always does this! I tell her again I'm doing fine, that I've started working out, Garrett is sleeping better, and that truley for the first time I'm actually fine. Then she says, "Well good! I'm so glad to hear that. Now I can lecture you and not feel so bad." HAA HAA HAA HAA HAA HAA HAA!!!!!! ROFLMAO!!!!!! So she proceeds to tell me that while Garrett is doing great developmentally his head control is not where it should be for a 4month old. Then I admit that no, I had not been doing tummy time and that yes he does spend alot of time on his back but that I would try harder. Then she says,"No. No trying. Just do it!"

Oooohh how I love my doctor. She always makes me laugh. She is so good at cutting all the bull and just giving it to me straight. Plus she always tells me I have the cutest kids she sees. Which I'm sure she tells to all her patients that have kids, but it still makes me feel good all the same. So that was Garrett's four month check up.

to the black hole of digital scrap booking! I recently bought a program called Memory Mixer off ebay (my other love). This program is the bomb! I have had so much fun playing with it. I can create pages just like I would if I were actually scrapping! It has tons of different papers, embelishments, text fonts, quotes, and more! The best part though, is that I can order an actual book or a DVD of the book of make a slide show of the book or email the book. I feel like a whole new world of scrapping has just been unlocked! Don't get me wrong there is still something to be said for actually creating pages with real paper and embelishments. But for someone like me who doesn't have a lot of time, and two little kids who are at ages where they will either eat or destroy my pages and other crafting items, this is a godsend!



Also to feed my ebay addiction, I bought photoshop as well. I seriously can't wait to get that in the mail! Right now with the photo editing programs I have, I feel very limited as to what I can do with my photos. I just hope the photoshop elements I bought is going to be able to feed my creativity addiction. I don't know a lot about photoshop, so really I just hope my purchase was a good one and I wont have to buy more programs to upgrade the program I bought. I have a MAC and iphoto and aperture just aren't cuttin' for this shutterbug!

First off dinner. Every "nice" place was packed and we were on a schedule as I had purchased tickets for a movie in advance, so waiting around wasn't an option. Which worked out fine in the end really. I got to eat at my favorite Greek "hole in the wall" restaurant appropriately named, Greek Delight. Oh how I love Greek food. I think I may have been Greek in a previous life!

Then the movie. We saw Paul Blart Mall Cop. Overall a good show. A little dry at certain points but the funny parts were hysterical! And I loved the ending! The ending was the best part in my opinion.

Since I saw a silly show I now feel very silly! So I will share a funny. I was reminded of this story tonight when Clint and I bumped into a couple of his friends from work.

When I was about 8 1/2 months pregnant with Garrett, Clint and I went to a going away party for a friend from his from work. When we get to the restaurant the waitress was very prompt to take our drink order. Clint ordered a raspberry lemonade. I thought that sounded pretty tasty so I told the waitress I would have the same. Now to her credit I was leaning over the table so my HUGE belly was hidden. So she brings us our drinks and we both take a sip. Clint looks at me and says, "That tastes weird". So I take another sip. I tell him that I think it's fine and it must just be his. So he takes another drink and says, "No. That doesn't taste right." and pushes the drink aside.So I take another drink think more carefully about how it tastes, and conclude that yeah it does have an interesting after taste. But I just thought that's how that particular restaurants lemonade tasted. Finally about 3/4 done with my drink I decide maybe Clint was right. So I ask the gal sitting next to me if she thinks there may be alcohol in my drink. She nods her head yes. So now I'm a little panicked. I mean I am pregnant after all! So when the waitress comes by I tell her my drink tastes funny. Then she get's a horrified look on her face as she realizes she just served alcohol to a pregnant women. Immediately she was very apologetic and explained that she didn't realize etc. I actually thought it was pretty funny (course I had a buzz by then) and so did Clint but Clint being Clint had to give her a hard time just to tease her. So while I'm telling her not to worry about it Clint's telling her wants to talk to her manager. This girl was seriously seconds from being in tears. Of course it was an innocent mistake so of course we didn't say anything to the manager but we did ask her to remove the drinks from our bill.

Honestly as funny as I thought the whole situation was, I was actually pretty nervous I had done something really bad and might of hurt my baby. So of course I told the doctor and she just laughed. Then just to be sure I told the bishop. He laughed too! In retrospect though, it was all very silly!

I love Saturdays!

For me this is the 2nd best day of the week. Clint is home and I get to sleep in! Which is always nice I don't care who ya' are!

It's also great because I get to clean my house. And trust me by Saturday it needs it!

It's also on occasion date night. If were any good poetry I'd write something beautiful about date night. Clint usually works long hours and I truly miss him during the week. So I really look forward to spending time ALONE with him. Tonight we are off to dinner and a movie! YEAAAh!!

Today was actually rather uneventful. Which is absolutely fabulous! The kids were even rather well behaved. Let's pray the trend continues for our babysitter's sake! With all most no nap at all today I think they should go to bed easily enough.

I this is short and sweet but it's time for me to finish the dinner before I go pick our babysitter. Hope you all enjoy your weekend!

So as you all know I was having some issues with my blog. Hopefully this new template will work. Please let me know if there are any other issues. Thanks for reading! Have a great weekend!

So I use to think that skills as a "wanna-be" photographer were just not that great. I use to go the library and spend time just looking through books of really great photographers. There were time where I would be so moved by a picture it would bring me to tears. Photography moves me. It touches my soul like nothing else in this world. I truly admire and aspire to be like the photographers books are made about. My dream is to be one of them. While that's probably not likely, I still enjoy playing with my talent and trying to be the best I can be. Anyway, I just wanted to show off some of what I think is my best work.

So it's a new year and of course like everyone else I have my own set of resolutions. Some are the same as many of you and some are the same even for me.

This year my overall resolution is to just be a better me. A better wife, a better mother, a better friend, a better person all around. I feel like over the last 5 years (maybe more) I've really neglected myself, which in turn has caused me to neglect so many of the people I love in this life. I'm sick of being the lazy procrastinator that I have been!

So goal #1: Lose weight. After 3 babies it's high time I kicked my butt into gear! Especially if I'm going to have another 2! I know, I know, I'm just a baby makin' machine!

Goal #2: Be a better wife. This is hard one because I all ready think I'm pretty swell! LOL! However there is always room for improvement and this is an area in my life I have gotten in a bad habit of neglecting. I have a wonderful, hard working husband who works 10 hours a day, sometimes more, at a company he really doesn't like, to bring home the bacon for me and our kids and he deserves better. End of story.

Goal #3: Be a better mother. I think as a women I will probably always second guess myself and think someone else is doing a better job than me. But there are days when I'm tired and don't have the patience I should for my kids. They are my reason for living and they deserve better.

Goal #4: Be a better friend. I have some of the most special people in my life who love me and would do anything for me and I have gotten in a bad habit of not calling or writing or telling them just how much their friendship really means to me. Being far away from my home I have been blessed to meet some extrodinary people who have touched my life in ways they will never understand. It's high time I start being an equally extrodinary friend.

Goal #5: Be a better servant to the Lord. This is also a difficult one for me because I have such HUGE issues with authority. As a teenager I made choices that took me farther away from the the spirit of the Lord than I care to think about. I love God he sacrificed his son for my sins. I am eternally indebted to him and it's time I learned some humility and start acting like it.

The list goes on but I think you get the point. I want to start holding myself to a higher standard and being accountable for when I fail. I have all ready started working out and though it's hard and body aches in places I'd forgotten even existed, it feels really great! I've started paying more attention to my daughter when she speaks to me and playing play dough even though I know it's going to make a mess and she's just going to eat it, and I feel really good about myself as a mom right now. Change is never easy, but I have to not just so I can feel better about myself but so that everyone can benefit from it.

Thanks for reading and God bless!

So I thought I would go ahead and join the herd by creating my own blog. I don't really consider myself real tech savy and so far this actually seems a lot more complicated than I care for. But we shall see. Maybe I'll get it figured out.