Home Sweet Home

Sometimes the best part about going on vacation is coming home. This time, that was definitely the case. I came home to the best suprise I could ever imagine.

I'll start with a little back-up, before I left I was a little over-stressed and under-slept. I had taken too much on and was a little over-whelmed. The week before we left I had painted a bedroom, done all the stuff for the funeral, had swim lessons, 2 doctors appointments, re-painted Hugo's helmet twice, 4 loads of laundry, plus the towels and sheets, lots of messes and clean-ups, had a chicken-pox scare that eneded up being a really bad rash (make that 3 dr. appts) and that was all before Thursday. My Mom called me when I was trying to pack for California and she happed to call at my breaking point. I was all over-whelmed and crying in a big stupid mess that I was stressed because Shawn was on him way home ready to leave and I hadn't started packing, I hadn't done my hair and I really wanted to finish the laundry and mop before I left. She told me to just pack and leave and she would take care of the house while I was gone. I expected that she would mop, maybe vacume and maybe even finish up what laundry I had left to fold. Boy did I under-estimate the power of my SUPER MOM!

Her, along with my dad, brother and my brothers friend Whitney went WAY above and beyond. They re-arranged all the pictures in my family room so they went with the new couches, they organized and cleaned my kitchen. Getting me a cute new holder for my recipe books and paper towels. They got a cute new basket for shoes by the front door. They hung some pictures in my kitchen, they spot cleaned the crazy dirty carpet in the family room, patched, sanded and painted all the holes in the family room, hung new black curtains (the red curtains with red couches was just too much red!), added 2 new damask black and white pillows to my couches, sprayed the weeds and grass in the rocks outside, finished up all the laundry, and so much more. I've been home all day and keep finding new things they did. They even put new tires on Shawn's car for Father's Day. (While we were enjoying the beautiful cool California weather in my dad's new Prius)

THEY'RE CRAZY!!

I am so greatful for such wonderful family. On both sides. Shawn and I are blessed beyond measure. My in-laws are so awesome, we had so much fun with everyone and are greatful for all the time we got to spend with them. Then at home my family was blessing us tremendously with their time and service. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world right now. I could seriously just cry!

We also got to go down to San Diego

Brian and Chantal came to the beach with us on Friday for our BBQ. It was so nice of them to drive all the way up, I wish I had my camera- I'm awaiting Chantal's pictures so I'll post them when they arrive.

On Sunday after our Father's Day breakfast at Aunt Sharon's we drove down to SD and spent the afternoon with the Jones'. We had an amazing late-lunch and some awesome cake. Today is Brian's birthday so we were also celebrating that. We had a lot of fun with them and as always it was not nearly enough time!

I did have an absolutely amazing mommy moment while there. It was one of those moments that you feel you might just be doing something right as a parent. The girls (Katie and Lacy) were being especially quiet and usually being quiet means they are up to no good. Well I slowly tried to sneak up on them in the kids room playing (thinking I was going to catch them doing something mischievous) and what I found was just tear-wrenching. The girls were up on the top bunk with Katie's picnic set all out. They were pretending to have a picnic and were being so cute and girly. They both had their arms folded, heads bowed and eyes closed while Lacy blessed their "pretend food" It was the DANG cutest thing I have ever seen. Her up their blessing her family and the food they were about to pretend to eat.

Fun times in HB

While in California we also had some FUN! All Shawn's family was there with the exception of Adelia who is due to have a baby any minute and her little boy Jayden. We all had such a blast. All of us who have kids stayed at an awesome beach house. TJ and Alex, Ryan and Krista and their 4 kids and Shawn and I with our 2. One of the mornings we went down to Balboa Island and walked up and down the shops. This is one of every ones favorite things to do when we are in HB. The girls all got to make cute bracelets in one of the shops, and one of every ones favs was the BALBOA BARS!! A big chunk of vanilla ice-cream dipped in chocolate coating that hardens. Before it hardens you get to dip it in some kind of topping. They have oreo's, sprinkles, cinnamon, heath, peanuts, and lots more (of course I chose the one that had it all mixed together) it was actually my first time having one. YUMMM!!

We also went to the swap meet, had a BBQ on the beach, went to the Farmers Market down on Main Street, had a beautiful Fathers Day breakfast, and lots more. I lost my camera (AHHH, thats the worst thing ever!) so all my pictures are from my camera-phone. I hope to find it soon or to get everyone else's pictures.

All in all we had so much fun in Huntington Beach.

Emogene Mary O'Connor Stanley

We went to California on Wednesday to attend the funeral of Shawn's gramma Emogene. It was sad to see her go, but it was definitely her time. She had broken her hip, gotten pneumonia, and was getting worse every day. She was being taken care of by hospice and the last few days was in a coma, not eating or drinking anything. I know she is happier now because she is in no pain and now with her dear sweetheart. I LOVED Shawn's gramma. She was the sweetest, tiniest gramma I think I've ever seen! Lacy loved her too, she taught Lacy some really cute songs and Lacy learned "Woops a daisy" from her. All the grand-kids and great-grandkids called her gramma-gramma. Its so cute! I just love Shawn's family. We always have such a good time when we visit and miss them terribly when we are apart. I was lucky enough to help out with some things for the funeral. They let me make these really cute seed packets that had a cute poem about remembering Gramma when you plant the seeds and see the flowers that grow. I also got to make a collage of a bunch of pictures to see when you walked into the funeral. I also put together about 20 pictures in frames for all the kids and grandkids to take home and remember Gramma.The funeral itself was very lovely and very different at the same time. I have never been to a Catholic funeral before. It was really nice, all her daughters got up and said something about their mother. They did a communion thing (I am so naive when it comes to other religions) I didn't understand it all, but it was really beautiful. I enjoyed it but it made me really grateful for my testimony of the gospel. I am grateful for the knowledge I have of everything Christ has done for us and that if we live a good, obedient life, we can live with Him again.

I LOOOVE TO PAINT

Last week I was lucky enough to PAINT! Ever since I saw the movie 50 First Dates I have had this crazy urge go paint gigantic murals in my garage every day. That would serioulsy be my dream, for me, painting is therapeutic. Well anyways the last couple weeks Heathers sister Chelsea has been really sick. (Heather is my brother in law Kelly's fiance). She was in the hospital down in Tucson so Heather spent a lot of time down there. I knew that she was really stressed and needed a good pick me up. I asked Kelly if while they were down there if I could paint their nursery. He was so good, he gave me a key, bought the paint and supplies and told me how they wanted it and trusted me to do my best! I hope they are happy with the result, because I had a BLAST! I went over there Friday night after the kids went to sleep and painted until 3 in the morning (by flash-light) and then went over as soon as I woke up and spent most of the day finishing up. It was so fun, I'm glad they let me do it. Kelly is going to put crown molding and waines coating up. The room is going to be so adorable, I can't wait to see it all finished.

Cool Hats!

Lacy thinks it is so funny if when she is getting un-dressed for the bath if she leaves her shirt half on her head and pretends it is a cool hat! She is so silly and imaginatie! She came running to me in the other room screaming "Mommy, Hugo has a cool hat TOO!"

Jam-Packed Post

So far this summer, we have been having a lot of fun! We have been doing a lot of swimming, trying to keep cool in this heat. Lacy is in swim lessons with some of her friends in the ward- Cameron, Carson, and Kennedy. We have such a great ward and I have way more friends than I have had in any other ward, I LOVE MY WARD!! Anyways Lacy is finally getting over being scared (with the help of some bribery) and she is doing great! Her teacher is also so much fun- she is from Austrailia and they all love her accent! She is way good at her job, we are lucky to have found her!

We got to show off some of her great swimming skills when her cousins were in town. One night at Mimi and Papa's pool she even went with out floaties at all (sorry, i didn't get pictures!)

I am also finally posting pictures of Hugo's painted helmet. The top pics are the first time I painted it, I took that one off right away, I wasnt too pleased. The bottom ones was the second time I painted it. Everyone loved the superman- I took it off because it started to chip, that one was on for a couple weeks. It is now painted for the third time and I havent taken pictures yet, they will come soon!

Okay... one last story, I promise!! I have talked about my Grandpa before and how sweet he is and how much Lacy loves him. Well while the Jones' were here the kids all loved going to see Grandpa-Grandpa and getting gingersnaps. We were all dying laughing this one day when Brian, Katie, Lacy and Israel went to get cookies and all of them rode away on their bikes or scooters with the cookies hanging out of their mouth happy as can be! It was a sight to see, we tried to re-inact the whole thing and although the pictures are cute, the first time was priceless!!

Maybe I watch too much TV

We just got cement poured in our driveway and all day all I could think was...

"Wet cement, outside, it's drying, fast, come on! This is a life long dream. What do I write?"

"Dwight :Force it in as deep as you can. Michael: [muffled] That's what she said."

"Today's a very special day for me. And it's really not about me. It's about my grandkids, it's about my great grandkids... I can come back here when I'm one hundred and I can find that piece of cement and say, "That's me. Look kids, your daddy left that face hole." I donno. It's a good feeling."

If you watch TV as much as I obviously do (especially since i dont even have TV!) this needs no more explination- except that I did NOT put my face in my wet cement.

i am sooo lost!

what the freak!!? okay usually alot of my blog stalkees post about Lost, but I haven't heard anything recently. Is anyone besides me still totally obsessed. I just can't get enough. The more far fetched it gets, I would expect myself to be turned off by it all but I'M NOT! Its like, whoah, did the island seriously just disappear? What about Daniel and the rest of the guys on the raft. And can you believe Sun wants to work with Widmore? And I am so happy for Desmond, he deserves to find Penny! and Jeremy Bentham?? what the heck. What about Charlotte, she gets outted by that asian guy that she finally is back. Who else thinks maybe she was Bens little girl friend from when he was a kid on the island? ok.. tooo much going on in my head- i loved it.. thats it!

Memorial Day Fun!

We went to upper Sycamore to explore on Monday and had a ton of fun. It was so rediciously beautiful I decided to strip down the kids and let them play in their skivvies. It was so cute and gorgeous out. It was ideal! We had fun driving around and playing in the water. I look forward to going again soon! HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!L

Way too much fun!!

I have been putting off blogging about our 6 Day Cruise to Cabo and Ensenada because there is just way too much that happened. So instead of telling you everything, I'm going to copy Chantal's awesome post and just tell you about some of the highlights.

Getting ready for the cruise by shopping, losing weight, and packing was super fun!

Playing crosswords with everyone in the airport (even strangers helped!)

Exploring the ship and all the fun thing it has...

Laying out by the pool in the beautiful weather

Parasailing in Cabo, sitting on Shawn's lap and enjoying the awesome tour that our guide took us on to see a little taste of Baja Mexico

Shopping in Mexico (I wish we had more time to do more shopping)

Spending time with all the family individually and as a whole

My dad's two awesome FHE lessons on Zion

Swimming in the pools and going down the slide like we were kids again!

Watching Shawn and most of the rest of the family do a cannon ball contest (I was a camera-person)

All the different outfits each day, and getting ready for the different occasions.. I had my play outfit, my excursion outfit, my bathing-suit/pool outfit and the most fun of all the dinner/show outfits. It was so fun playing dress up every day.

My fun surprises!

Feeling the love when my family got me a massage certificate (there is a whole story to that one that includes my dad getting stitches... I'll save that for another day)

Winning at farkle (and all the other midnight games!)

Dancing late at night.

Sleeping on our OWN schedule!

Laughing and playing with the family.

The moons reflection on the water late at night when the lights on the deck were off!

Playing volleyball
Hearing Shawn use his Tagalog with lots of Philipino's on the boat (one being our server)

Leading me to the awesome service we received... our waiter and bus boy, our cabin guy... they were all so awesome!

All the amazing food, and ordering what we want when we want it

24 hour pizza (that was wayyy good) and ice cream

Mid-night buffets

And most of all I enjoyed all the the I got to spend with my hot husband. We had so much fun and we already miss it! We are so grateful for my parents taking us and we look forward to cruising again soon, and often!!

We were also so happy to come home and see our cute kids, they missed us and we missed them! We are so lucky to have such awesome parents- Shawn's watched the kiddos so we could go on this vacation. They are so amazing.. we are seriously so blessed to have such a wonderful family!

kiddos

Hugo finally got his DOC band on. I am working on painting it, so I'll post more pictures of him when I'm all done. He seems to be doing just fine with it, he hardly even notices it. Then only bad thing is this dang heat! He sweats alot so the band is starting to smell. I just have to keep it really clean and dry and its alright. Its all worth it!

Also a funny Lacy story... she was playing with this nerf-gun at my parents house and she kept trying to shoot me. I didn't want to be shot, so I was dodging and running away from her. She was so cute (she had dressed herself that day) and so I had to take a picture. I finally stood still for her so she could shoot me, but at the last minute I dodged. She in-stead hit a picture of me right in the face and the dart stook. I thought it was all too ironic and really funny so I had to take a picture of that too. She finally got me!

Happy Mothers Day to ME!

Monday morning I'll be on a beautiful cruise to baja Mexico. I'll post lots of pictures when I get home. Lucky Deanna also is going on a cruise- have fun, and take lots of pictures for us all!!




And happy Mothers Day to all the beautiful women in my life. Do something fun and relaxing just for yourself!

Can I close my eyes and go to sleep?

Oh Man.. kids can be tooo funny! I have 2 really funny stories about Lacy and they both happened last night! She was playing around in the kitchen when she bonked her head. She quickly ran out of the room whining (obviously with a plan in mind) and came back with a bandage wrapped around her head and said, "Mommy, I broke my head!" I ran to the office to get the camera. She wasn't too amused with my un-controlabe laughter and my wanting to take her picture. You can tell by her grumpy face. Oh I just thought it was too cute and too clever to NOT capture that moment!

The other funny moment, not captured on camera was when I was putting Lacy to bed. You know how kids get when they dont want to go to sleep. With Lacy she will keep moving or talking in fear that she will crash the moment she stops either. Even sometimes as she is falling asleep she will jump or say some random thing to keep herself up. Anyways, I was laying in bed with her watching some TV (I know, not the best thing to do, but I hate the quietness of the house when Shawn isn't home- he was out playing soccer) so I was tickling her back and she had closed her eyes and was drifting off. Actually she had said a moment earlier, "Mommy, can I close my eyes and go to sleep?" I love when she asks that, its sweet. Of corse I encourages such wonderful behavior! But about 2 minutes after her laying there with her eyes closed, in complete silence, she sat up, motioned with her hands and said "I have a giant BUTT, just like Mommy and Daddy!".... ARE YOU FREAKIN KIDDING ME?? First of all, Lacy, dont say BUTT.. second of all Mommy doesn't have a big butt- and even if she does, you certainly don't say things like that! It was too too funny. I don't know what kind of dreams that girl has but that one was one to go in the books. She had me cracking up all day yesterday. Then today she was super sweet and wonderful all day. She got herself completely dressed this morning- even cute!! She was wearing a green dress and white flowered leggings, and pink sandals - so cute! Then she was good getting out the door and good for the babysitter (wonderful Charmaine) while I took Hugo to the dr. Then she was great at the mall, which was definitely a first!!! She was so good I actually took her to the candy store to get a little bag of candy. And she was pretty sweet the whole rest of the day.

I love my sweet Lacy.

I also caught Shawn making Hugo laugh so I took a quick video. My kids are so sweet.

Today was a good day!

Camping with Daddy

Some little girls in our ward were going on the Father and sons a couple weeks ago, so Shawn thought this would be a good opportunity to do some daddy-daughter bonding with Lacy. Plus it wasn't too far! They went to bulldog canyon and camped in the desert. They had a lot of fun, so I hear! Shawn was pretty genious taking the little baby potty we had bought when Lacy was first potty training, he said it was a life-saver! They got to mine for gold, have fun by the fire, and some guys even repelled! Lacy was obviously too small, she she went to the cliff next door and rock climed all the way up. Shawn said he was so so proud!

While they were gone I got a babysitter for Hugo and had a lot of fun with some girls in the ward. We had a super fun girls night and I was so excited to get to know more girls in the ward. I am too shy, so I was happy they invited me! It was a fun weekend for all of us!

A little more news, off the subject, we sold our couches and got some GORGEOUS red leather couches. I am so excited to post about it when I have the room put together. Be excited... they are to die for!