Look!!

Aren't they pretty! My husband brought me flowers! He walked in the door yesterday with them in his arms! This is not normal per say even for special occasions. So I was surprised, I was astounded...I was So Happy! Three years ago Valentines day I got half a dozen roses, so it had been a while. I love that he thought of me, I love my husband and wish I could do more to make him feel special and appreciated to.

Then..LooK at this picture. Sometimes a couple times a week or even a couple times a day we have doe's that like to come and visit us! Occasionally they even come up to our bedroom window. They were outside our back window twice in the past week and a half and the girls got to see them when they woke up. They just stare at us in wonderment.


New Years Day Pictures!
Fun hot chocolate and marshmallows! Abbi disregarded the hot chocolate and went straight for the marshmallows! Alona enjoyed it and had a mustache to prove it. Paul was a great hot chocolate maker. When the children were in bed we were finally able to enjoy ours.

A New Year

New Years Eve we stayed up with the girls until ten o'clock and watched Over the Hedge. Alona actually didn't have too many questions, she sat and enjoyed the whole thing. Abbi is not and has never been a TV watcher. After she had finished all of the candy, cookies and popcorn that we would allow her to put into her little tummy she wandered throughout the house getting into things. Me and Paul stayed up and watched Pirates of the Caribbean. I so did not get the ending, it left off in the middle of the story, I thought. I was able to stay up past midnight! Good that I was able to bring in the new year with my husband but Kacen for two nights seemed to think that night time started at one o'clock in the morning and then morning would start at the regular time(about 7 a.m.).

Paul actually had a two day weekend! It was a nice surprise. We had cookies and hot chocolate on January 1st before going to bed. Paul is a great hot chocolate maker, whenever we do hot chocolate I have him make it. I ran to the store to get mini marshmallows while he gave the girls a bath. Kacen really hates the car, he screamed while driving to the store but then he was good walking inside. He screamed the whole time inside of the store then was good walking to the car and cried in the car the whole way home. Then we were able to enjoy our delicious treat. Though Paul said the cookies made the hot chocolate taste bitter or maybe it was the other way around.

The cable for my camera is not working and the card reader that Paul bought does not work either, so I will have to post some pictures later.

I took Kacen to his late two month appointment yesterday. They don't do well check appointments the last two weeks of December. So he had his yesterday, and he is now 12 lbs and 2 ounces and 23 and 3/4 inches. He is growin! He had to have four needles poked into his thigh, poor little boy. Just the initial shock of it all was what he hated, he seemed to do fine afterwards!

Christmas post #2

December 25
At Home
It was well into the wee hours of Christmas morning by the time that I finished wrapping the presents and arranging them under the tree. Kacen woke up first I guess you could say (He had woke up atleast four other times between one a.m. and 8:30, which it now was). I went and peeked in the girls room and they were awake. I then got Paul's attention, he actually wasn't too hard to wake up. He went out and got the camcorder ready and I went and helped Abbi out of bed. Alona had fun guessing which stocking was hers and we just gave Abbi's to her. Abbi found the crayons! They were just laying out in front of the tree and she wanted them, "Open!" She wanted to color right then and didn't care about the stocking or other presents. We got her to take things out of her stocking, Abbi was so careful about pulling each thing out that we just dumped out the contents of her stocking right in front of her. Alona was a bit more quick about it. And the present opening began!

Alona would ask when touching each present if it was hers. And when opening the presents that the church had dropped off for her(though she thinks that it was Santa) she replied, I didn't want this! Oh child of mine! Abbi was so excited for each present and had a hard time moving on to the next one. They got more than any child could hope for. We were so blessed, with Paul's bonus check that we were not expecting we were able to get Kacen two presents! So Santa came even for the two month old baby! I was able to get Paul the laptop hard drive that he wanted and I got a book, a cd and a pedometer and one other gift!

And Alona's slippers came later. So she put on her boots that she got from Santa right when she woke up!

And Jared's present to the girls, WoW! I had heard that there was a new Elmo, but I never imagined the possibilities. The TMX Elmo knows when it has fallen up and gets up by itself. If Alona throws him down, he picks himself up! He slaps his knee and falls down with hysterical laughter and turns to all sides of his body laughing and giggling vibrations! It was mouth dropping to watch this all for the first time!
Marta's gifts that I bought with the money that she gave were a great hit! Alona wanted to open some of the musical instruments for herself. Alona got a cute piggy bank, which she was so convincde that Santa got for her, and a Toss Across game. After it got all put together, Alona now goes over to it and makes them all X's or O's and says, " look I win!" Abbi got a band in a box kind of thing with a drum, tambourine, bells on a stick, egg shakers, maracas, etc. When it was shipped they didn't treat it very nice, it got here and almost all of the instruments were floating freely in the box. They should have all been fastened to one piece of cardboard. That's why Alona wanted to open some of Abbi's, they were all wrapped separately so it looked like she had a lot of presents. Kacen got a toy bar to go on his car seat! Some day he will understand the concept!

We well we tried to hurry and get ready to go to relatives houses. But it seems that I take the longest with feeding a baby and getting myself dressed. And the van needed air in its tires. So we were a half an hour late to my grandmothers house. We were able to listen to the CD that Paul got me all the way down to Roy! Though I had to hold the portable CD Player in my hand so that it didn't skip.

Heather's Grandparent's House
And the comment right when we walked in, Look Heather's here! I guess they were all waiting on me. Lunch was great, she had about the same stuff as when Kacen was blessed. Abbi ate all of her olives and wouldn't touch the rest of her food. Alona ate her roll and not much else. My silly, silly children. My aunt Tiffany and my grandmother had bought the children presents and handed them out to the children. They waited until all of them had a gift and then they got to open them. Alona got her guitar! She looked happy, though the response that came from her mouth moments later shocked me, "I want more presents." I told her just to be thankful! Abbi got a keyboard fronm them and a singing Dora Doll and they both got bath things. Kacen got an Eeyore and some pajamas. Tiff and Mike gave us a gift card to Wal-Mart and my grandmother had previously given me and Paul $20 each and I used all of that money to put fillings in my teeth.
My aunt Taunya helped the girls and played with them. She did at the christmas party too. She is so sweet. I asked my grandfather if he was having a good christmas. He replied that it was good because I was there! Paul didn't eat anything, he still wasn't feeling good from having the stomache flu for four days!

On the Road
We were off to follow my sister to Cherry Lane to pick up presents from my old foster parents. While driving the cell phone rang and I reached back and grabbed it. I am so glad that I did. A guy on the other end just starts talking to me and then he asks, do you know who you're talking to? I was dumbfounded was I supposed to know who this was? He then says, "It's Elder Bagley!" Okay I feel retarded even after he said that it took me a minute to catch that it was Andy!! Either his voice had changed or over the past seven months the way his voice sounded just left me. Both me and Paul had great conversations with him and the girls got to say hello.

I went in and gave my foster mother a hug and told her thanks for the presents. She was all teary eyed that we were there. She was recently diagnosed with Lukemia and doesn't like kids coming in her house because of her low white blood cell count. So we went to my sister's house to open the presents. How fun both girls got a dora doll and puzzles! And Alona is getting good at them!

Val and Ruth's
We didn't spend too much time at my sister's house, we were already running late for our next stop!
First was presents at their house. Alona got "backpack" from Dora, socks and a gift certificate. Abbi got a Winnie the pooh water baby, socks and a gift certificate. Kacen got clothes and socks and for all of us was a snowman cookie jar and napkin holder. Paul got a gift certificate to Best Buy, which he has used quite well already. MI3, some headphones and a card reader for the computer. I got a gift certificate to Wal-Mart to develop my pictures!!! It is spent! Grant and Dee came over and gave us popcorn and two gift certificates to Wal-Mart and gave the girls little baby dolls and Kacen a homemade blanket.

Val got a nerf basketball hoop for him and the girls and they had fun playing with that and all of the games that came in "Backpack". She has dominoes, checkers, a lot of different card games and many more games in there. We were able to make homemade pizza and Alona was so funny, she put pineapple on her pizza. Then after it was cooked and she was eating it her little comment of, I don't like this on there came. She was the one that put it on there!They had fun playing hide and seek with the girls!

Paul let me spend all of our Wal-mart gift cards! Which was a lot, I am so grateful and delighted. I was able to get quite a few things that I needed and a good portion of pictures developed!

All said and done we had an awesome Christmas!

Christmas post #1

DECEMBER 23:
We went to Caren and Dell's to celebrate Christmas with them on the 23rd. That turned out good, it was great that Jared and Tammi were there since we wouldn't be seeing them any other time. They gave Kacen a really soft and warm green blanket. Tammi was daring and patient, she took on a big puzzle with Alona. It was either 50 or 100 pieces, I don't remember.But wow and she helped her figure out all of the edges and some of the middle and then Alona was finished!
They of course loved playing on Grandma Caren's piano! Then there were white elephants to open. Alona opened a box of chocolates and then Caren opened a bag of happy meal toys. I said to Alona, "Don't you want to trade her?", "Nope!". She preferred the chocolate. Caren made both of them Dora blankets and gave them coloring books and neat twistable crayons!

DECEMBER 24:
Christmas Eve was a little stressful at church. We were actually there on time! Church was only supposed to last for an hour! Kacen lasted half way through. So we were able to take the sacrament and then he started to get fussy. And so I decided that it was time to go! Way too difficult to drag the all three of the children to the mother's lounge and for only thirty minutes and then we would be going home anyways! I got the stuff ready and had Kacen in one hand Abbi in the other, then Alona throws herself down and starts screaming horrendously. Luckily there was a man sitting in the back that came and picked her up and took her out with me. And then he asked if I needed any more help. He didn't wait for my response, he took the carseat and other things and put them in the van. Still he chimed in and asked if there was anything else that he could do. I was so grateful.
At home I was able to feed Kacen and wake up Paul to take care of the girls. While Abbi was sleeping we watched The Wicker Man, I thought that it was a movie about a man that was trying to find his daughter. But that is so not the case, the end a little girl burns her father alive. We had a not to pleasant happening with the end of this movie.
After we had Papa Murphy's pizza for dinner. Which was okay, though their sauce I surely didn't care much for.We made a gingerbread house. Paul was too sick to help, so while feeding a baby I attempted to help the girls put it together. We covered the roof with icing and then I let them decorate the roof. I put the sides together and after failing horribly I asked Paul to please put on the roof and he did! Alona was very disappointed that she didn't get to finish decorating the rest of the house.
Right before bed we all sat down to read the Book of Mormon. We have been redaing it for about fifteen months! I started to read the last five pages that we had left, and on page three Abbi was distracting Alona and playing, giggling and running around! I'm going to have to stop I told Alona. "But I'm listening Mommy", she said. She was trying so hard to listen, though Abbi was distracting and we didn't get to finish so now we have two pages left of the Book of Mormon to read. It was going to be our present to Jesus for his birthday. I guess that it will just be a late present.

Precious Gifts

Alona made a baby Jesus and a manger in her primary class. Yesterday she was so wrapped up in the whole thing. She filled up a sock with "precious gifts" those were her words. to her it was gold!(though they were really Chuck E. Cheese tokens) And she brought them to baby Jesus' house. She says that she loves baby Jesus. She told me that Mary and Joseph were still paying their taxes thats why there was no one home when she brought her precious gifts. And only one wise man came cause the other two were still getting their presents, their precious gifts to bring to Jesus. Baby Jesus had hay and a pillow for his bed (one of those silica pouches that says "do not eat".)

It is so fun to hear her to know that she understands, and she is also able to make her own additions to the story!

Most Wonderful Christmas Spirit

It makes me all mushy to think of yesterday and how kind, generous and giving that people are this season. Kara and Staci came to visit, I was playing outside with Abbi which was long overdue. She needed her own mommy time. We were taking her little bike into the front yard to ride it on the side walk while Kacen and Alona were sleeping (Alona was sleeping!). And lo and behold Staci and Kara were in the driveway! And much to my surprise out of their car they were pulling a real live tree! Turns out it was for us! What a beautiful, wonderful thoughtful thing. And then to top it off they left to go get a tree stand for the tree that they brought us and they put it in! It smells so wonderful, is so sturdy and just makes me all happy when I look at it. I took down our broken fake tree today and put the lights on the real tree. Abbi couldn't help circling the tree, touching each one and saying "light, light, light". She spurted out different colors purple, yellow, green while touching blue and other various lights. Alona helped put back on the ornaments. Both girls have been able to reach the candy canes and have managed to eat all but three out of the couple dozen that I began with. It sounds cute, but makes me worry a little...I save candy canes, some that they ate were years older than Alona. Hee, Hee I don't think I will be saving candy canes any more!

It was hard to believe, it had been atleast five or more years since I saw Kara and I still felt just as much at ease with her as when we were in Junior High/High School. She is so easy to talk to, and so fun. She has this happy glow about her.

While Kara and Staci were gone getting the tree stand I talked to Ruth. I had mentioned in an earlier conversation that my family would be having a christmas party on Saturday and that I wouldn't be able to go. While on the phone with her, she said that she had sent gas money for me to be able to go visit my family for the party!

It seems that somehow everything always works out. People are so loving and kind and I deeply care for everyone and wish that I could do more. I am so grateful and indebted to all those who care for and help me and my family along the way! I hope that I can share a portion of the wonderful Christmas Spirit just as these amazing people have shown to me. Love to All, Happy Holidays!