Christmas

Thanksgiving

I have so much on my to do list these days that it’s hard to slow down and just enjoy life. As thanksgiving approaches I am taking a moment to really think about what I am thankful for and make sure that I am giving thanks where it is due. I thank God every day for my babies. They are healthy and happy and have everything that they need! No matter how bad of a day I am having or what struggles I am faced with. They never cease to make me genuinely happy! I am thankful to my love for teaching me what it feels like to really be loved! I don’t thank my Husband nearly enough for all he does for us. He is always so thoughtful and he makes sure that we are taken care of. Even though we might drive each other crazy, he works hard and does his best to make me happy. I am thankful for my Momma, she is one of the strongest people I know and has always been there for me when I needed her. I am thankful for my brother! He is one of my best friends and is always willing to help me out! I am thankful for my family, who has always supported me and are so loving and fun!! I am thankful for my in-laws, they are so helpful with my kids and take amazing care of them so I don’t have to worry. I am super thankful for my friends and the great memories we’ve made, they always help me and we have great a time together. I am especially thankful for Victoria who has been such a good friend over the years. I am thankful for my job, even though I complain and wish that I could quit, I am glad that I am able to work and make money for the things that I want and need. With so many people out of jobs and unable to support themselves and their families, it makes me extra thankful for that. I am thankful to be alive and well, able to do the things I need and have the opportunity to do the things that I want to do. I’m thankful for my home, half the time I want to pull my hair out because it’s so messy but I am happy that I have a warm place to be and a cozy bed to sleep at night! I’m even thankful for my mess because it means that we have clothes to wear and food to eat! I’m thankful for my car it gets me from A to B and enables me to go lots of places! You realize how big of a deal it is, when you don’t have transportation is. I am thankful for my struggles because they have taught me many valuable lessons and made me a stronger person; I know that I could always have it worse! I am thankful that my kidneys can keep up with filtering my Dr.Pepper addiction. I am thankful for my camera and my laptop so that I can do something that I am passionate about. I am super thankful for all the yummy food that I get to eat and the time that I get to spend with my family on this day! What are you thankful for? I encourage everyone to take the time out and really count your blessings no matter how good you have it or how bad you have it, things will change and we always need to keep in mind the things we are thankful for right now! I hope everyone has a happy Thanksgiving!! May you stuff yourselves silly 

Happy 1/2 Birthday

Paisley B is half way to being one!! She is just a little ball of sunshine; I love how she is so happy all the time. Although Brooks is starting to pester her! I think the jealousy is finally starting to kick in a little. Or maybe he just wants to play with her but she gets annoyed with him  I can tell he’s little like his Dad and likes to push people’s buttons and see how far he can get. It’s still strange to me that I have TWO kids! I am so blessed! Every time I look at them I can’t help but smile. Paisley loves her baby food and wants to eat everything! If you eat in front of her she’ll smack her lips together and reach for your food. I am so in love with her gummy little smile and her giggle, she is just so beautiful. I love to kiss her little head and snuggle her. I love her smell and to watch her sleep. She likes to reach up and run her fingers through my hair while she nurses, it’s so sweet. She is attempting to crawl but can only go backwards for now. It’s funny because she’ll try to crawl towards something and end up going backwards and she’ll get madder and madder as she gets farther and farther away from what she wants. Her favorite toys right now are her Dolly and her phone  she refuses to take a passi so getting her to nap is a chore sometimes and she still won’t take very long naps. She definitely prefers Mommas milk over formula and sometimes won’t take her bottle, which is frustrating for her sitters. But I’m too lazy to bottle feed her myself. It’s much easier to nurse her, I don’t have to mix anything or clean anything up and I hate pumping! I’m trying to introduce the sippy, hopefully she’ll catch on to that, but we’ll see. We need to get our family pictures done and it’s kind of stressful! Planning where to do them and what to wear and then praying the kids will behave and we’ll get at least one good shot of everyone. I’m usually on the other end of the camera so it’s strange to not be able to see how it’s going to turn out! I want to be able to set up the shot and make sure it looks the way I want. We haven’t had family pictures taken since Brooks was ONE! So this should be interesting.

Halloween

This year brooks was a vampire, I had sprayed his hair with black spray. After his Halloween party at school I dropped him off at his grandma’s and she gave him a bath. She called me at work to tell me how it went. She said there was black everywhere, all over his face and hands, it was running down the sides of the shower walls. After he got out he told her “Grandma Shell, I don’t want to be a vampire anymore! It’s too much work” On the day of trick or treating this year (Since Halloween fell on a Sunday) I had my Mini shoot that I was doing for my photography business. I was there all day and it turned out really great. We saw a lot of cute costumes and got some really great pictures! But, didn’t have much time for anything else. After the shoot I took the kids trick or treating. We always hit up the grandparents so they can see the kids in their costumes, and they always have the best treats! My Grandma Beckstead always makes us the tastiest popcorn balls that have candy corn in them! And Brooks’ Grandma Trice, Donna and Michelle, all make him up special little Halloween treat bags and by the time we’ve hit all the grandma’s houses we really don’t need any more candy. But Brooks would disagree so we trick or treat at a couple of the neighbors just for fun. When I asked Brooks what he wanted to be for Halloween this year he told me he wanted to be a twin. Ha I was like what? He said Yeah I want to be a twin of twister (Twister is a ghost we have hanging in the tree) Oh so you want to be a ghost! Yeah. I thought that was kind of lame, like what do you do to dress up as a ghost? So then he wanted to be a dragon and then he ended up being a vampire. He had his Halloween party at pre-school the Thurs before Halloween and left his vampire teeth there on accident. We didn’t have any replacement teeth so I let him use mine for his pictures lol. With his hair sprayed black and his cape on him, he looked pretty spooky! He even got a bite tattoo on his neck that had blood dripping out of it. Paiserbey was a little lady bug. At first I didn’t really want her to be a lady bug because it seems like a lot of little girls are lady bugs but it didn’t really matter she was the cutest one  Her cousin even had the exact same lady bug costume. We got some cute pictures of them next to each other. Baylee is one month older than Paisley so they’re pretty close to the same age but Pais is just a little smaller. Normally, I throw a little pumpkin decorating party for the kids and we go pick out our pumpkins and take them back and paint them and decorate them with stickers and such (since most of them aren’t old enough to carve them and it’s a little less messy) But with everything I had going on I just didn’t have time this year. But I really wanted to take Brooks to at least get his own pumpkin. I don’t think I ever went to a pumpkin patch until I had Brooks (Thanks for depriving me Mom  jk) and I just really wanted Brooks to have those memories and it usually makes for great pictures. You know me a sucker for a picture op! Well it was like a day or two before Halloween and the only time I had to go was right after work. I wasn’t scheduled to close that night so I hurried to get the kids and get there before the sun went down. I didn’t really think this through very well, it had rained the day before and it was pretty muddy. I was still in my heels from work and trying to trudge through the mud carrying Paisley’s car seat and trying to maneuver my camera and a wheelbarrow haha! This woman even came up and offered for her son to push our wheelbarrow. I was so embarrassed; I must have looked like a crazy person. On top of that Brooks was in a mood and would not listen to me and was so uncooperative! I snapped a few pictures bought his pumpkins and got in the car just before the sun went down. As I buckled the kids in Brooks said look at the sky Mom it’s orange like a pumpkin  Sure enough it was! It was quite the adventure; I don’t think I’ll try to do that again though!

Cornbelly's

Brooks had his field trip to Cornbelly’s again this year. This time I got to go along and can I just tell you, it looked like so much fun!! I so wanted to be a kid again  Brooks and his friends were running around climbing up and down this giant haystack that had slides on all sides of it and they had these great big bouncing pillows, a corn maze, pig races, hay rides, there were these swings that were made out of tires to look like animals I wanted to take a picture but Brooks was too busy running around and jumping to take a time out to swing! So I know that I’m kind of a freak and I always have my giant camera hanging around my neck when I take my kids out. But I saw a Dad there who was far worse than me!! He had two full size cameras around his neck and this telescope lense on one of them and was following his child around just clickin away! I was like Wow, I hope I don’t look that ridiculous haha! Oh well though, I’m sure he got some really cute shots  Brooks found a couple of his friends and made sure they went down a few slides together. He loves his friend Madden, he’s always a little shy at first but he warmed up pretty quickly and they ran around together for a while. Then on the bouncing pillows he met up with his other friend Jack. Those things can be pretty dangerous with how many kids are jumping around on them. An older boy was running around on them and ran into jack and made him fall over. Jack looked at Brooks like it was him who had knocked him over and said “It’s ok, I forgive you for everything” I had to laugh. We couldn’t stay as long as we wanted to because I had to get to work but we had a lot of fun in the short time we were there! We will have to make it a tradition to go every year, even when it’s not with his preschool. Pretty soon he can take Paisley down the slides with him!

5 Months

My baby is 5 months old already!! She’s able to sit up all by herself and she’s started eating baby food, she’s only had sweet potatoes and peas though  she’s got the grabbing thing down pat and she’ll try to scoot towards objects out of her reach. She does this little chicken flap thing with her arms when she gets excited and kicks her little legs. She loves to hear the sound of her own voice so she’ll just scream as loud as she can over and over. She especially loves it if you scream back at her. She and Brooks take turns screaming at each other. She LOVES her big brother! She will just watch him with this look of adoration, whatever he is doing and he can always make her giggle! He likes to hold her and it makes me nervous! Sometimes he’ll squeeze her really hard and I’ll get mad at him and he says but I just love her so much!! She loves it when you clap, sing, or stand her up. She likes to balance on Daddy’s hands---NOT my favorite thing. She has found her toes and likes to hang on to them when she’s lying down and she has just recently found her tongue which had got her making all kinds of new noises and she is constantly chewing on her pointer finger. I’m a little more apprehensive about getting her immunizations than I was with Brooks. This is weird because I was so over protective of Brooks with EVERYTHING. I’m way more relaxed with baby #2. I think the apprehension is because she’s not exactly on track with her shot schedule. Our pediatrician was on maternity leave when she was supposed to get her first batch of immunizations and rather than seeing a different doctor, we waited and she didn’t get them until a month later. I know there was concern about spreading them out and such. So I’ve been reading a lot more about them. I know there is a HUGE buzz about them and a link to autism; I’ve never really been worried about it but because the doctor told us there was no proof of a link to it but I never researched it myself either. So I looked into it and read up all I could on it, Now I will say I don’t have a child with autism and can't even begin to imagine how stressful and difficult that must be, but then again I don’t have a child that has had the measles or whooping cough and have had their qulity of life diminished or died because of it. Mumps and Haemophilus influenza type b cause meningitis, which can lead to deafness, epilepsy, and cognitive impairment. Measles can lead to encephalitis, blindness, and death. To me the benefits of vaccinating our children far outweigh the risks. I found on About.com: regardless of their beliefs about the nature of autism, the dangers of vaccination, and the proper target of funding, most parents recognize that immunizing children against life-threatening diseases is something worth doing. Many who get tagged as "anti-vaccine" really want to make vaccines safer, eliminating potentially damaging ingredients and amending vaccination schedules so that young immune systems are not bombarded. Parents on all sides of the debate see themselves as fighting the good fight for their own children and for all children -- and that ensures that the question "Do Vaccines Cause Autism?" will continue to be hotly debated, regardless of what science has to say on the subject. That’s pretty much how I feel. I know everyone just wants what’s best for their children. For me, I choose to vaccinate mine. (After I wrote this the scientist that claimed the link to autism came out that the whole thing was fraud?) What's your take? Here's my baby at 5 months :)





She was crawling backwards and getting stuck under the pack n' play

The Elk Hunt

It’s that time of year again! The plan was to have the motor home ready for the elk hunt this year. But after a lot of procrastination and not getting the parts needed in time, once again we had to stay with someone else. Dustin and Brandy were nice enough to let us stay in their trailer with them. We went shopping got the kids some warm clothes since all they have that fit was summer stuff! Oh the joys of having kids and having to buy a new wardrobe every season!  We got all packed and headed up to the usual hunting grounds. It is always so beautiful up there! The leaves were changing and the air was crisp and cool. It was nice because it wasn’t too cold! The first night we got up there, got settled in and had a nice dinner. The following morning the boys all went out fairly early and of course woke us up in the process. Even attempting to be quite when you’re all in a one 40ft trailer there’s not much you can do. Paisley woke up sweet as could be like she always does and since Brandy and I knew we weren’t going to get back to bed so we brewed up some coffee, has a small breakfast and threw in a movie. Brooks had stayed in his grandparents motor home with them, so after our movie I went over there to get him dressed. He had a good ol’ time playing with the dogs and in the dirt. The boys came back with no luck and went back out after a quick bite to eat. That night a Draper family friend came up with his camper and set up his satellite so everyone could watch the game and dancing with the stars  That night we had a scrumptious steak dinner with all the works the sautéed onions and mushrooms with alfredo and lots of yummy veggies and deliciousness. That one great thing about camping is the yummy meals!! Hobo dinners and Dutch oven meals and desserts! While the guys went out, we had lots of fun with the kids, it was a little nippy on some of the days for Paisley to spend too much time outside. We watched some more movies and took the rhino and Polaris for a ride. Brooks and I went to the top and found the tree that Brandon carved for me the first year we met. After we got back together he added to it, Brooks noticed there was a crack down the middle of the heart and asked me “Is that because you broke Daddy’s heart and he broke your heart?” I told him that yeah that’s what happens when you love someone, you break each others hearts sometimes but you have to work at fixing it and making it better. Back at camp Brooks helped his grandpa split wood for the fire, it was pretty funny. He was hammering away and breathing so hard. He had to take a break and said “They should make one for kids! That one is really heavy” There were some other kids at the camp and Brooks had fun playing with them until they left. Brandon took Brooks out on the horse for a short ride and of course I caught some cute pictures of them. They didn’t have any luck seeing anything they could shoot this year but I was glad! I’m not one for shooting defenseless little (or big) animals but I go for the vacation. To get away with my family and enjoy the break in the gorgeous atmosphere! I love the mountains and camping it’s usually a great time. On the way home we stopped at the train burger that we always go to, Brooks loves the trains that go across the ceiling. The food’s not that great but it’s kind of a tradition. After almost a week of being gone I can’t say it was nice to go back to work but it was nice to be home and take a nice long shower!