The road to hell is paved with good intentions...

So, I have GREAT intentions, the majority of the time. It's the action part I still need work on. This last spring we ventured on a wonderful family vacation. We drove to Tennessee via Dallas, TX so that Brandon could go on the bi-yearly brother-in-law trek. This year it was in the smoky nountains. My sister, Sara, and her family live in Clarksville, TN. My sister, Becky, and her family live in Flower Mound, TX (Dallas suburb). So we drove to Becky's the first day, spent the night, got up early to drive to Sara's, then the kids and I got to play with Sara, Rachel (another sister) and all the cousins while the men + Seth and Emma went off to the hike from hell for 4 days. After our relaxing and wonderful stay in TN, we drove back to TX to spend a while hangin' with Becky and her kids (David, her husband, was out of town for work..we missed you, David!). All in all, it was a wonderful vacation! We returned home feeling refreshed and wishing we could turn around and go back!
So- my intentions were to have this blog up within a few weeks of the trip. However, in keeping with my personality...it is now 3 months later and I'm finally getting around to it. I guess at least I'm getting it up before this baby comes.

The drive was great! Yeah, it's a lot of driving, but the kids were awesome and we took a lot of stops to break it up. Here's our first stop, somewhere in west Texas. The boys were happy to get out of the car, look at the love being expressed! maybe we should take family trips more often!

As we got on the road, it was time to rock out to some Metallica..that's Jon on guitar, Ben on drums and Isaac with rockin' vocals!

To be continued...

I'm lazy..I admit it

so, I'm a horrible blogger. kinda weird, cuz i thought i'd be into it. i love to write (although, you'll notice i hate using the caps key) and we have plenty of funny stuff occuring in our house on a daily, if not minute-ly basis. if i could just get my facebook status to post on my blog, we'd be in business. it's not that i don't care, or don't want to let everyone know all the fun stuff going on in our lives, it's just that..well, i'm lazy. there ya go..i admit it. for years i liked saying i was a procrastinator, and i'm a self-proclaimed horrible housekeeper, i've blamed it on my social axiety, my depression (which really, both can be valid reasons), and most of the time i like to say it's because i'm busy. and i really am! no, really! but here i am with a week gone by where i only edited a handful of shots from the 2 weddings awaiting editing, and i can't really use that excuse anymore. somehow i find time to play 3 games of scrabble on facebook, but don't even put away my groceries. no really! i put away the cold stuff, and all the shelf stuff stays in grocery bags on the floor in our dining area. i'd like to think it's because of lack of shelf space (our pantry is our bedroom closet at the moment), but really..i could find room. typically i get home from shopping at lunch time and am so starving i make myself food while i put away the cold stuff, then after lunch when i should be putting it away, i try to indulge in a nap..or a facebook scrabble game, and it just doesn't get done. so there it is..i'm lazy and i admit it. i just have other stuff i'd rather do. so, this is a weakness of mine, i've now owned it, acknowledged that i have a problem, but i'm not ready to work on it. i'm too tired and busy to try to improve myself right now, i'll do it some other time.

stuff..

okay, can you tell i'm busy? i can't believed i haven't blogged since september. I guess if you read my last post, you'll know why. Plus, facebook has taken over my life. So, between my facebook addiction, being a mom, wife and homemaker, plus wedding season, venturing out into baby and play-session family photography (check out my photography blog), plus marketing and promoting and keeping up with anxiously-engaged.com, sheesh! i'm one busy momma! And, about to be busier, since we just found out we're pregnant with number 4. I added the widget to this blog, but i have to say, it's a little bit creepy in this stage. we plan to torture all of our family and not find out the gender until delivery.

Anxiously Engaged..continued

FINALLY! it finally launched Sept. 19th in the afternoon. We've been lucky to not have too many bugs since it launched, and we're getting vendors on there slowly but surely! I'm just happy to have it up, and am obsessively checking it for new vendors. Once we get enough vendors, I'll be starting marketing the site to brides and grooms. It's exciting to have an idea, work hard for it, then see it actually come to fruition. (Well, maybe not fruit yet, maybe like tiny little sprouty green things barely popping out of the earth- but we'll get there). I think one of the best parts of the site are the beautiful temple shots I collected from different photographers. When you have time, browse around it.

anxiously engaged

So, some of you know that I've been working on a new business. My designer swore me to secrecy (i guess people steal good ideas all the time in this business), but since the site should be going up by Friday (cross your fingers), I think it's safe. Since June, I've been working, along with my awesome designer, on a new wedding planning website for LDS couples called "Anxiously Engaged": www.anxiously-engaged.com . It has been hard work, and a frustrating, stressful process, but hopefully, it will be successful. You can check out the "in progress" page now, and should be able to see the beautiful site in it's entirety no later than Saturday, Sept 6th. You can also check out the blog: http://www.anxiouslyengaged.wordpress.com/ . If you know anyone who is in a wedding business, or would want to advertise to lds engaged couples, feel free to send them there. Once it's up, any amount of traffic would be appreciated! I'm just happy it's almost done, as is Brandon, since it's kinda controlled my life since the idea first popped in my head. I'm gonna let it take root, and hopefully pay off the cost of the website, and then start over with a new website that is creating itself in my head. (that one you'll have to wait for details on...)

i love my kids...

So, people keep asking me when i'm going to start potty training my 2 year-old. yeah, i pretty much stopped with the whole pro-active parenting thing with my third, it's kinda like, "oh, he's supposed to be doing what at this age? hmm, i guess he'll eventually learn". it's not laziness or indifference, it's just the whole learning-to-not-micro-manage-everything-in-life-especially-my-kids thing. it's actually going pretty well. i love not getting upset over spilled milk, or even the beautiful permanent marker design jonathan drew on our wall 2 days ago (its a fauxed wall, so it's not like i can just paint over it quickly). since the lines are all vertical, i'm thinking of drawing flowers on top of the stems he drew and leaving it for a while...i'll keep you posted.
anyhoo-back to potty training. i bought a package of pull-ups and just decided to put them on him occasionally, but i'm not really interested in doing the boot camp thing or anything. we've done it a few days, not much success. so, he just came over to me with a pull-up & took off his diaper. i said "ok, this is for big boys, you need to use the potty, okay?" he nods yes. about 5 minutes later i hear the toilet flush. i walk in and there is pee everywhere! he pulled down the pull-up, peed, and flushed without a word to me. wow-i guess we'll work on aim next...eh, he'll get it on his own eventually.

what a week!

Last tuesday, my three little monkeys were jumping on the bed, one fell off and broke his...arm. Yup, little jon-jon is the first to have broken a bone. it truly is amazing with three boys that it has taken this long! So, daddy took him to urgent care (best kept secret in tucson- el dorado urgent care, what used to be the hospital- no wait, and super good care!). He got a cast a few days later. Then, saturday i used all my intellect to do a completely stupid thing. You know the chocolate shell topping that gets hard on ice cream? well, i put it in the fridge, which made it hard. i decided i wanted some ice cream, and put it in the microwave to turn it back to liquid. i didn't really think about the fact that it's, like, 75% oil. so, i took it out of the micro, put the lid back on it, and shook it. it then exploded all over my arm and gave me a second degree burn. I now have a super-nasty blister on my right hand.

THINGS I'VE LEARNED: monkeys will be monkeys; chocolate will, indeed, hurt you; when you only have one hand it's hard to wash your hair, but it's harder to shave your armpits.