Sunday Evening Crash

The day of rest, has, as of late, become my busiest day of the week. Our church doesn't start until 1:30, so we do have the morning to relax a little, unless I have sharing time of course, cause I'm a procrastinator like that,

With Kevin's new calling into young mens, our sunday mornings are much nicer, because we get to have him here in the morning, so we are enjoying that little bit, (Although he tends to be much busier during the week now).

But between baths for the girls in the morning, (which we do sunday mornings because it does take up some time, and the girls love having some extra time to play in the tub), and getting myself ready as well as everything that we need for church every sunday, the mornings can get a little hectic.

Then there's church. Everyone knows how hard it is to enjoy sacrament meeting with toddlers, if you even get to stay in the chapel. Then the last two hours are spent either chasing Lexie around the building, teaching sharing time, checking on classes, or one of the many other things that come up during primary when you have 100+ kids. Kevin generally has to take Lexie until young mens starts, then he needs to be in class with the boys.

Once we get home, usually a good 40 minutes after church gets out, Lexie goes down for a very late nap, and it's time to get dinner ready. As many of you know, it's fun to try to get dinner ready with kids that are both hyper and very tired, at the same time, talk about drama!

finally, after dinner, and cleaning up, it's time for bed. we get the girls down, and spend the rest of the evening trying to relax from our day of rest.

I'm really not writing all this to complain. I know most people deal with this exact same stuff every sunday as well. I've just been having a hard time lately, gearing up and getting excited to do all the little things that need to be done. Kevin and I were talking about it this morning on the way to church, and talking about attitude, and sacrifice, and doing what the Lord has asked us to do.

I suppose some days are just like that, you get up, and get dressed, and do what you need to do, whether you really want to or not. Then in some way, Heavenly Father gives you the push you need to get it done, and not only that, but finds ways to bless our lives in the process. Whether we hear something at church that we needed to hear, see the smile of friends that lifts our spirits, or simply being able to talk to the children and see their genuine, pure love of Christ and this gosple.

All I really know is that sundays can be exhausting, wonderful but exhausting. So I think it's time for me to go crash right now, and rest up, from my day of rest.

I have a mole.

I know, you may be thinking that I have a weird, mysterious mole, that could be cancerous or something of that sort....but, you'd be wrong.

I have a smallish mole on the right side of my chin. Ya know, kinda like witches have. Only, mine isn't as big, and I do try to keep that one pesky hair plucked, so it doesn't look too much like I'm a witch in disguise as a mom.

I've never paid much attention to that mole, but lately, someone has been.

Every time I put Lexie down for a nap, or to bed, as soon as we get in her room and turn off the light, she instantly lays her head on my left shoulder. Her head is facing away from me and she's sucking her right thumb. Then, her left hand starts to move. sometimes she grabs my fingers, and plays with my fingernails, sometimes she plays with my hair, but more often than not, her fingers end up on my mole.

I really wish I could get a picture of her doing it, but she has to be completely relaxed or she won't do it, and someone else in the room may make her slightly excited.

I know, it seems weird, why that? Halli played with her hair to go to sleep. Peyton had a pacifier and played with her blanket. Lexie, has her thumb, and she just likes to feel things with her other hand. It's adorable. Especially when she falls asleep on me. Her hand resting on my chin, and I can feel her fingers slowly moving less and less, and then her hand will just kinda fall onto my shoulder. Who knew a mole could be soothing.

LaNea

Today, the girls and I headed up to College Station to visit my brother, his wife, my mom, and the newest addition to the Jackson family, LaNea.

She was born tuesday, 9 days late. But she's finally here, and she's beautiful. My brother and sister-in-law let me hijack their baby for an hour or so, to see if I could get any decent photographs of her. I'm really trying to work on taking better pictures, and what better subject is there than a brand spanking new baby to photograph.

I got WAY too many, but here are some of my favorites. Sorry for the excessive amount of pictures, I'm pretty sure there are a few people, (ya know, grandma, mom, aunts, those people), who will wish there were more though!

The most amazing party, that almost wasn't!

Alright, so I might be being a little dramatic. But if it wasn't exactly amazing, it was at least alot of fun. We were in Florida for Peyton's birthday, so we didn't have her party that weekend, but it was planned for the following weekend. That was until Halli got sick, so we had to postpone it that weekend as well. Finally, two weeks after her actual birthday, we were able to celebrate the third birthday of our sweet little Peyton.

The only problem was that it almost didn't happen. Some bug seems to have caught hold of the majority of our friends and family. That and a few other things getting in the way lead to our party of 12 guests, being decreased to two (not counting grandparents, aunts & uncles, and three babies, including my brand-new three day old niece!) . Luckily for those two girlies, there was tons of food, cake, candy, coloring, and games to keep them happy for the whole evening!

I decided to do a coloring party for Peyton's birthday, simply because this...


has become her new favorite activity. She LOVES to color, this makes traveling quite pleasant, as well as sacrament meeting. It's also helped her really learn her colors, finally.:)

We started the party with some customized coloring pages for the girls to color when they got to the party. Peyton loved these and I think she colored about 5 of them.

The fun goody bags I made for the kids...the majority of which I still have sitting on the table, maybe I'll just go through and eat the candy out, it's too tempting!:)

The customized doodlebooks for the kiddos. I know my girls will LOVE these, and at least now I know they won't get confused about who's is who's. They were suprisingly simple to make, and I love how they turned out.

Our very unassuming birthday cake, with M&M's to help make it a little more colorful. I am NOT a cake decorator, but I pretend to be, and then I decorate a cake, and am instantly reminded that I really am NOT a cake decorator.

Another picture of the birthday girl...maybe there wasn't anyone else at the party. I really think I only got pictures of Peyton. Oh well, it was her party, right?

SUPRISE!! the kids were SO excited when Kevin cut the cake and revealed what it looked like inside! Pretty easy to do, although a little time consuming, but totally worth the "wow" factor.

Peyton, just after blowing out the candles, what an amazing little girl she is.

Being sung to, and loving every minute of it.

Peyton is an absolute sweetheart, she is a total mama's girl at this point, and loves to sit, climb, or lay on me whenever possible. She is a girly-girl, and a tough cookie. She is developing a serious love for shoes (many thanks to my mom for that one!). she is persistent, and quiet at the same time. She doesn't need the approval of others, and is perfectly content doing her own thing. She can be amazingly sweet, but will NOT let her older sister tell her what to do.

We are head-over-heels for this girl, and are so blessed to be able to have her in our lives!

Lil' Miss Preppy

Since I love playing on photoshop, I wanted to see if I could make my own scrapbook kit, I learned a little from tutorials and what-not, and have made a couple different kits. It was so much fun to do, although the girls were a little annoyed, seeing as how the kits aren't really quick to put together.

Anywhoo, here is my first official digital scrapbook kit: Lil' Miss Preppy. Just head on over to my Taffy Apple Blog and you can download it for free! They're fun to do, but really, what's the point if no one ever gets to use them. So head on over and get it!

Palm Beach, Florida

What is there really to say? We went to Florida, Palm Beach to be exact, for a week with the girls. We had a blast, ate too much food, I'm paying for it now, trust me. We swam, played in the sand, ate some more food, and found the few kid attractions there were in Palm Beach.

The girls loved swimming every day, we practically lived in our swimsuits. They loved playing on the beach, and we loved cleaning the sand off and seeing just how many places it had to hide in their swimsuits.

It was a little exhausting for Kevin and I, when you take three kids (two that can't really swim) to a place with mainly water stuff to do all day, it can get a little tiring. Plus, everyone knows that babies don't exactly sleep like angels when they're in an unfamilier place. In fact, she decided to start waking up at night for the first four nights, I am not used to that anymore.

But all in all, we had an amazing time, and it was wonderful to just be with our little family, with nothing to do besides hang out and enjoy each other. You know, as much as that can happen with three girls that tend to spend the majority of their time picking on each other.

Now for the slight onslaught of photos, I did edit it down quite a bit, but if I added them all, we'd be here all week!

Our hotel, we were lucky and were at the end of the penninsula, so we had ocean views out of all our windows.

my little family, walking on the beach. We loved to go out after dinner, when it had cooled down.

Kevin doing what he does best, torturing the girls with the hose, although they do seem to be enjoying it.

Lexie trying to get a drink, she didn't quite make it though.

One day the resort had a waterballoon toss constest, the girls had fun, although I don't think Peyton really knew what she was supposed to do.

Who is that stud? What a hottie!:) Try not to envision him wearing my pink goggles though, they looked a little silly, he was really wishing he had his own.

Kevin buried Lexie in the sand

Lexie was so funny, she scooted down the beach backwards, till a wave came up and hit her, she thought it was a blast! (notice the pink goggles!:)

Beautiful Peyton, happy as can be in the surf.

I have no idea how I got this shot, but it's kinda funny!

Halli wanted to be at the beach at all times. Kevin got her busy digging a huge hole (we had just watched that episode of friends, ya know, where Joey dug a huge hole) She had a blast doing it though

The girls, in the waves, again.

Eating sand, ain't nothing better!

Starting to dig the huge hole, with some of the cutest helpers around.

finally, a beautiful picture of Peyton. She tends to always give me funny faces, but I love this one!

Like a kid in a candy store, happy to be playing on the beach with his girls.

Nothing better than splashing in the waves.

Kevin and the girls doing P90X. We brought it so we could keep up with the workouts while we were there, I think the girls did it more than I did though.

They had this really cool drive through safari in palm beach, so we took the girls. It was pretty cool seeing all the animals. Especially the Rhinoceroses, that crossed the street right in front of our car. Those things are HUGE! I don't remember what animal this is, but I like this close up of it's face.

The Zebras were some of the girls favorites.

After the Safari, there was a little amusement park for the girls to play at. It was fun, and very empty, which was nice. They also has a splash park, I loved it, cause Lexie could run around and I didn't have to hold her in the water. She loved the freedom she had too.

On our last night there, after being rained out once, we were able to take the girls on a catamaran dinner cruise. I was a little worried about the boat, catamarans aren't exactly enclosed really well. The girls spent most of the time sitting on the netting, and Halli got a little crazy somersaulting, so we had to put an end to that. Lexie wasn't a huge fan, cause she had to be held the whole time, but it was fun, and the girls really enjoyed their adventure on the boat.

See, proof, I was on the trip too!The whole family on the boat, relaxing after eatin gour pizza and wings.

We had a great trip, although I don't think we'll be doing too many beachfront resorts with the girls until their a little older. It was so much fun, but as always, I really could use a vacation from my vacation now.

She's 6!

There was a party, lunch at school, dinner at pappasitos, and WAY too many gifts for this newly 6 year old girl. It seems like August is pretty much consumed by Halli every year. It's the start of school, along with her birthday, and it gives us many chances to appreciate and oogle this amazing girl.:)

I asked her what she wanted to do for her party this year, suggesting that we could invite a couple friends and go bowling. She said she wanted to do a slumber party. That could be fun, but I told her that there were a few girls who probably wouldn't be able to spend the night. She quickly corrected me, and said that she didn't want a sleepover, she didn't want them to spend the night. She just wanted a slumber party, which I suppose in her mind means they all go home at bedtime. Sounded great to me!

We cramed all the friends and cousins in the house, and played some games. Musical pillows, a scavenger hunt, and a pillowsack race. They all enjoyed it, and I think all of my in-laws, who have younger kids, were a little overwhelmed by the shear volume of these girls (and blake & braden, the only boys there). After the younger cousins left, we settled down for a wonderful barbie movie and some popcorn.

It was an easy party to have, and I think the kids all enjoyed it, so it was success, and the only real cleanup was popcorn kernals all over the floor!

All the girls hovered around the gifts that were opened. I'm going to really have to get used to all the squealing girls do.

I love this picture cause you can see all the girls mouths as they wow at the latest gift.

Blowing out her candles, I just thought this was funny cause you can barely see Brade on the side there, helping to blow out the candles.

Braden's gonna be okay, he knows how to get in there with the girls, not afraid of a little estrogen!

Halli and her favorite barbie princess, Erika, this is also who she want's to be for halloween, that costume ought to be fun!

Dinner a pappasitos. She wanted to go here for dinner cause she likes the sombrero.

Halli and her little sis at lunch at the school I had to bring a cupcake for her birthday too.

My sweet birthday girl. I just love her to pieces!

All three of the most beautiful girls I've ever met. I'm so lucky I get to know these amazing little people!