7 Year Anniversary

Yesterday marked 7 years of marriage for Darren and I. Had I been asked 7.5 years ago where I would be now, I would not have said married for 7 years with 3 kids. But alas we have been married for 7 years and have 3 girls and many other things that we have successfully done... together! Looking back I will say that the last 5 years have been relatively easy compared to the first 2, in fact they have been what most people would call normal.

In our first two years, well really the first 18 months we got married, Darren changed jobs, had a baby, Darren was diagnosed with Lymphoma, I went back to work after having a baby, I changed jobs, Maylee turned 1 AND Darren got his remission, we bought a house and we sold a house!!

Like I said the last 5 years have been less of a roller coaster and more 'normal' for people our age, had a couple more kids, sent one off to all day school, have a second in preschool, still in the same house, sold the little compact car and bought a minivan, I quit working and started staying home. In fact, the last 5 years have gone bye a whole lot faster then the first 2 did, but somehow I feel like I have less to show for it. I guess I dont have a good way to measure time.

I am so very thankful for everything Darren is and everything he has ever done for me and our family. I don't know where I would be without him by my side everday. He is the most amazing father to our girls and the most dedicated husband I know.

Last night we had an in house date, Darren grilled steaks and twice baked potatoes. We fed the girls chicken rings, mac and cheese and bananas before our food was done. It was a lazy day where the girls didnt even get dressed, but it was a FABULOUS day!!





To add to the day, Maylee found some left over red heart magnets from Albany's Wizard of Oz birthday party last year and wrote on them for us!!



This one says: It is mom and dad anniversary



This one: rori and albany + maylee all love you

I do love the sweet, wonderful, caring girl that Maylee is becoming!!

KC Boat and Sport Show

Today we packed up the family to go to the KC Boat and Sport Show. Ross was very kind and gave us two free tickets that he had received. We ended up splitting them with Reece and Missy. We had a great time and spent some quality time together with Reece, Missy and Ryder!!






And then it was time to head home!

Without a morning nap...

I was going through some pictures and forgot that I had taken these. This is what happens when you play hard all morning and try to keep up with your older sisters....

THE Fingers... (yes they have a name)

Since Albany was a newborn, she has consistantly and constantly sucked her fingers. The pointer and middle finger on her right hand to be exact!





She first came to the conclusion, during the first of many attempts to make her stop, that if she covered her eyes then we wouldn't be able to see what she is doing.



The covering of the eyes didn't work the way she wanted so she moved onto the idea that if she covered her fingers then we wouldn't know they were in her mouth. Obviously this idea would work much better if a) I wasn't smarter then that and b) she was only ever seen from the left side instead of the possible right side.



So a week ago, I decided that I had had enough. Maylee was going to get a tooth pulled that had been hanging on by a thread. It really needed to come out as her adult tooth had come up behind it a couple of months ago. Rori was going to stop sucking her bink at all. That was easy on me as all I did was take all of the binks that I knew of and put them in a baggie, then into a drawer to never be seen again. Albany was GOING to let go of the fingers. That was going to be a task!

We had tried everything we could think of to at least have her give them up a little. She could have them only in bed, we would take her to the store to pick out ANYTHING she wanted, flick her cheek every time we caught her. Finally I decided that negative punishment whenever we caught her with her fingers in her mouth, along with a positive reward when she stopped sucking them, aka pierced ears, was going to be how we broke her. So on Sunday she got her reward!!

Family Photos Minus Mom

Yesterday we took all 3 of the girls back up to Potter Lake at KU to get a few more photos. I am wanting to redo the gallery wall in our living room and update the photos. My goal was to get a good photo of Maylee, Rori and some photos of the girls together plus a good group shot of all 3 for the main photo on the wall. Maylee has proven to be quite the challenge to photograph as she won't do a real smile, but I have plenty with her mouth just hanging open. I think between the two shoots I found enough pictures that will work. But here are some more pictures of the girls. Of course all of the pictures are minus mom as I was the run doing the pictures and camera! If anyone would like prints of the pictures either email me or leave a comment of which ones and your email and I will send you the large digital copy for you to send to your photo printer.

Sweet Albany turns 4!!

Well the first post is going up. My goal is to update at least once a week. Mainly with pictures as I am not a fabulous writer, but we will see how things work out.

Our sweet, smart, sassy, pink flamingo loving Albany turned 4 yesterday. I can't believe she is that old, of course since she is so little (part of what makes her, her) I have to tell everyone that she is not 2 nor is she 3 anymore, but a big whopping 4!!

I took Albany and big sister Maylee upto The Hill this past weekend to take some pictures for her 4th Birthday, Rori didn't join us as she was busy napping at home while Daddy marked projects off his todo list.

Yesterday afternoon was a bit of a busy day. Maylee had school and gymnastics from 5 to 6 plus we still had to fit in dinner and cake and ice cream. So we went ahead and let Albany open her presents in the afternoon so she would have time to play with them.

While Maylee and Daddy were gone to gymnastics Shelby and I spent an hour setting up a marble run out of Albany's new toys. Lets just say Rori didn't quite understand why she could use the unstable plastic pieces to pull up her 24 pound self....

We finally ate the meal of choice for Albany: french fries, corndogs, chicken fingers, peanut butter and jelly, pink yogurt and Hawiian punch. After dinner we had pink cupcakes with pink frosting and pink sprinkles, pink sherbet, on pink plates with pink napkins!! And of course sung her HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!