A Toothless Grin, blood and pus

Just in time for her school pictures, Zoey lost her first tooth. I'm such an emotional mom...I remember crying when she was 3 months old and it first came in and yesterday I got teary eyed when she came home from school with it loose. My little girl is growing up so fast!

But to kick off the Halloween season I thought I share one of my scary/gruesome interests.

I like blood and guts and pus!

To share a few examples....

I'm the mom who literally had to tie my hands together from popping my infants forhead when they got baby acne. I loved to pick my scabs as a child, me and my cousin Jenny used to ask other kids to let us pick their scabs too! I'm the one that pierced countless of my friends ears and noses.

So if this is gross to you, my only defense is that I had 5 brothers who were all athletes and they used to make me pop their zits on their backs when they couldn't reach them... I was bullied into it then sort of started liking it and it just grew from there.

So instead of allowing nature to let her tooth fall out when it was ready, I literally yanked it out of her mouth today and blood oozed everywhere. That sounds terrible. Don't worry, it didn't hurt her, but I will admit that I thought the whole thing was a little too fascinating considering my baby's mouth was full of blood.

Okay now I feel like I've shared way too much info .

Tribute to the 80's

So for some weird reason I spent the afternoon listening to old 80's love songs.....Chicago, REO speedwagon, Journey etc.... Its been years since I've heard most of these songs and I find myself suddenly wanting so slow dance back in my high schools gym. Okay so not really, but it does bring back alot of memories. I think the 80's get a bad connotation from most people, including me. But as I listened to these awesome songs that have the cheesiest lyrics I started thinking about other awesome things that were products of the 80's. Here is what I came up with. Feel free to add your favorites.

1. Two of my favorite all time movies: Girls Just want to have Fun, and Goonies.

And what about TV shows: 21 Jump street (Johnny Depps origin), Growing Pains (I still love you Kirk Cameron), and Saved by the Bell

2. The fashion - In the 80's it was cool to wear workout clothes as your regular outfit...you were stylish not just having a lazy day. Side ponytails and teased bangs, okay I'm sort of teasing about this but I will admit that in 6th grade I proudly won the award for highest bangs. (this is someones real family pic!!)
3. The accesories - Plastic charm necklaces, jelly braclets, trapper keepers, Banana clips,

Big fat pregnant belly

So this is mostly for my mom because it's not a pretty sight, however, I also realized that most of my family has never really seen me pregnant. It's like I just show up at big family events with a baby. So despite the fact that I didn't actually do my hair or put on makeup I am still publishing this picture to show my ever expanding big fat pregnant belly.

So since I'm on the pregnancy subject, I'm feeling GREAT! Aside from the continued nightly nausea, bleeding gums, bleeding nose, swollen hands and feet, constipation, bloating, clogged sinuses, back ache and never sleeping, I'm doing great.

Okay so maybe 'great' is stretching it a bit. Honestly pregnancy just doesn't agree with me. I don't understand those women who say how much they love being pregnant. It is literally like a parasite takes over and begins to suck the life out of you. I'm not complaining. I am so excited about this baby. I treasure each kick I feel and thank Heavenly Father every day for him but it doesn't change the fact that it is hard. But these are the things that make it worth it.

I was in the shower the other day when Zoey came running up to tel l me Olivia had fallen and hurt her head. She assured me there was no blood or anything of the serious nature, so I finished my shower and came down stairs a few minutes later to check on her. Zoey had made her a little bed on the couch and was holding an ice pack on her head. They didn't notice me at first and Zoey was talking softly to Liv, trying to comfort her and make her feel better. How adorable is that? So this is why it's worth it....why 9 months of misery is worth it.

School Pics and Utah trip

We spent Labor Day weekend in Utah. It was a quick trip, like most of ours are these days. But we still loved seeing many of our family and of course wished we could see more. We made our obligatory stop at Taco Amigo and the bean burritto and fries with fry sauce was as good as I imagined it would be this past year. We're thinking about starting a francise in Vegas, if only so I can eat there whenever I want.

We spent alot of our trip in Payson enjoying Onion days at Morgan's house. We always love the Onion days parade because they throw out the best stuff. The kids come away with a whole bag of goods. But unfortunatley this year it literally rained on the parade, which to us desert rats was a nice change, but I'm afraid ruined it for many who had to watch the festivities through the living room window.

This is Joe and I literally dripping wet from the rain. The girls favorite part was the princess floats. Zoey still doesn't quite understand if they are real princesses or not.
Enjoying just a patch of blue sky before the down pour.
Luke and I were about the last ones standing on the road as the rain fell and the parade went by. We got first dibs on all the muddy candy. I didn't think it was appropriate to show some of the more detailed pics of Luke because of questionable content, but if your interested ask Jilyan for a copy. And also question Luke about the contents of his Mountain Dew can, I think he had a little something something extra. All I can say is the town of Payson may not wish him to attend next years celebration!
Of course I needed to post some school pics. I know everyone has already seen and done that...so I guess it's for my mom who asked me if I would post some. Plus it's a year of firsts with Zoey starting kindergarten and Olivia starting preschool. It has been good so far, they both love their schools. But with both schools being so short, it leaves me barely enough time to get home do a load of laundry before turning around to retreive them again.
Joe with Zoey and Oliva before leaving on the first day
Zoey and her friend Elie and Livvy posing with the school mascot although they were too afraid to get any closer.Olivia before the first day of preschool

We are having.....

We had another ultrasound today and found out we are having a boy!!! I'm so excited for Joe but it will take me awhile still to get used to the idea. This morning before my appointment I talked to the girls about having a boy or a girl. Zoey was almost in tears at the idea of having a boy. She said, "if we have a boy we're going to have to buy boy clothes, boy toys, and boy movies and I hate boy stuff." I broke the news to them by buying them each a toy car which they actually spent about an hour playing with and they have now softened to the idea. I will definitley need to start from scratch with baby stuff. I don't have a blanket or onsie or anything that is boy. So I guess I'll have to learn how to enjoy shopping for boy stuff. Yuck! Overall we are very excited and grateful that everything looks good and is progressing well.

Mount Charleston

For those unfamilar with Las Vegas, within about 20 minutes of our house, we have mountains...real ones, with aspens and pines and yes, SNOW (in the winter). Alot of people don't know about this little treasure in the desert. It's so nice in the summer to escape the heat and go up to Mount Charleston. It has great hiking and world class rock climbing. Here are a few pics we took over the weekend. We have taken the girls pictures inside this tree for the last couple of years. The top one is last years. You can tell that Olivia still hasn't gotten over her dress obsession. She has to wear a dress everyday.

I love this picture. Zoey and Olivia are best friends.
Livi and Uncle Andy
Starting Zoey early on bouldering.
Joe rocking this wall.

School Shopping

Zoey's first day of kintergarten is fastly approaching. She and I went school shopping to buy some school clothes and get a full page of supplies they recommend the kids have. To me, going school shopping is a right of passage for the school year to begin and since this is her first time going to school, I wanted to make it really special for her. So just she and I took off first thing in the morning, went shopping, out to lunch at Mimi's Cafe, (her favorite place) and went and got pedicures. She was so cute and acted so grown up the whole time. She was very particular about her clothes and spent alot of time thinking about each piece. At the nail salon they had to bring in a couple pillows so her feet would reach the water. She had a little smile on her face the whole time but sort of panicked everytime the cute little old Asian lady tried to talk to her because she couldn't understand anything she said. But she loved every second of it and as we were leaving asked if we could go do it again.

Zoey showing off her buys of the day.

Showing off our fabulous pedicures, although it sort of looks like one of my toe nails is black, but it's not, must be a shadow.