and we're off!!

School is FINALLY done, with the exception of the NCLEX-RN review class, which will be over in a few weeks. We are off for a much needed getaway to Seattle to visit Grandma Coleman! We're very excited. "See" you in a week :)

life imitates art

If its any indication of how I have been feeling lately, its all here. My editing is all over the place, the pictures (similar to this whole post no doubt) are totally random, but when I downloaded all 908 pictures from my camera tonight, these are the ones that spoke to me and I edited them for how I am feeling. I need an outlet and this seems to be working. Here I am at 130am, I cant sleep and I am starving but I refuse to eat this late..or early...or whatever. Tommorow is Buddy's last day of school. 6 years and its over tommorow. Is that nuts? I am a bundle of excited nerves and emotional mess. Behind me Buddy is sleeping away, I'm glad, this month has been cuh-ray-zee!!! for him. I cant even put into words how fast this last year and a half has passed us by and how unbelievably proud I am of him and all he has been able to accomplish and learn. So proud. Moses just cried for me, he had another bad dream. Tonight it was about a broken Monkey...again...I would love to get in his head. Bella is sleeping at the foot of her bed with a whole pile of books as her pillow. I kiss her and tuck her in again, leaving the books right where they are. And I'm here with these pictures from the past few days. I love our life, I love our troubles, I love the crazyness that has taken me over, I can feel it refining me. I love our family who is always there for us. I love my friends who know just when I need them. I'm excited about our future....and I'm excited to hopefully get some sleep tonight. Wish me luck.

I cant even tell you how much I love this. Everything about it.




And this too, its a different look than she normally gives me, we were rollerblading out side, she's truly happy...and I caught it!


Speaking of rollerblading, she's working it out, she learns fast. She would sleep in these if she could. We found them at he DI and you would think she found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.





And dare I say...I saved my favorite for last. Isnt this just summer as a kid personified? I LOVE THIS and cant wait to blow it up for our house someday.

the testimony of the kissy frog jammies

Bells, for the 5th time, PLEASE go put your jammies on.

But I cant find my kissy frog jammie bottoms

Its okay, put on another pair of bottoms

(5 minutes later, comes out in undies, no bottoms)

Bella, this is the last time I am going to tell you, its time for bed, get different bottoms on now

I prayed to Heavenly Father, and I know he'll help me find them.

(looking....looking.....looking...)

Here they are! I knew he would help me

Bella, we are so proud of your choice to pray and ask for help, maybe you should go say a prayer and thank Him for helping you.

She says a sweet prayer and goes to brush her teeth.

Tonight was a night that Buddy and looked at each other and said "she gets it!" If she knows now, at 6 years old, that she can pray and ask for help for even a simple plea for finding a pair of pajama bottoms, I think she is definatly on the right track for her life. We were so proud of her choice tonight and in demonstrating the simplest form of faith, she reminded us something as adults we tend to forget. That Heavenly Father is always there, waiting to help, waiting for us to ask.

Hanging out having fun

Just because WE are feeling stress doenst meen the kids should. They are having a delightful summer, in fact, I wish I were 6 right now, its so carefree. Baskin Robbins is a cold treat that they cant resist, who can, really. And when its been upwards of 100 degree's, its a great way to end a summer night. My mom says summer is all about ice cream and lemonade, swimming and sun. Totally mom!




Bella finished up her first swimming lessons. I should have had her in lessons long before now, but she's always been hesitant of the water and I didnt want to force it on her. She was so proud to show us her face float, jumping off the diving board, and front strokes. Her lessons were at a darling house pool which is quite poplular in our neighborhood, they have been doing lessons for 30 years, I love it.



We have been going to the "pirate pool" and the rec center alot so she can practice her swimming and she beams everytime she accomplishes something new in the water. We are so proud of her not being afraid to try new things and experiancing the fun in them.



I've been attempting the park again, although it is still slightly tortuous, I insist that they play and not hang all over me. I will and do love pushing them on the swings, but as for the slides and climbing things, they are on their own. I take a book which means "leave me alone and play at this fun park, for petes sake"

Hi, we're nuts.

There are times in everyones life that things seem a little hectic, and then there are times when things seem totally out of control. We are so there right now. Buddy has 9 days...9 DAYS! left of school. Six years of work has come down to these last 9days. Its very exciting. But just when you think things are smooth sailing, something inevitably happens to change it up..right? Or shall I say "make like interesting" Whatever, it kind of sucks. I just got done typing up a whole long list of everything that is going wrong lately, and then highlighted it all and ... deleted it! It was so refreshing to delete all that crap. Things always work out in the end, even if it seems impossible, you find a way to deal with it all and make it okay, and hopefully learn from it. I'm not intentionally being vague, I'm just trying to focus on the positive. We are SO incredibly thankful for family who supports us and helps us. My mom, my poor mom is spending the night on some couch at the long beach airport tonight just so she can be here first thing in the morning to come save me with the kids and help me so I can work more shifts. My sister was here for the whole week because she knew I could use the help. My other mom, Sharon, just finished her 3rd surgery in 2 months and still offers to help us when she very well could (and should) only be concentrating on herself. My uncle gave us his only car for the day just so Buddy could get to school, he spent the day walking everywhere he needed to be today, and it was over 100 degrees! (had we known this, we would have never allowed it!) We are just so thankful for our family. And I dont know that saying thank you will ever be enough. Someday, I want to help others as we have seen in our life, we will seek those opportunities and I cant wait.

DI Dissapointment

We love tagging along to provo with Buddy. We have many favorite spots we usually hit. We go to the DI, of course...no brainer. Today, I was in line with some awesome vintage picture frames..for 1.00 I might add! Anyway, from across the way, I saw a heavenly light desend on an item I knew I MUST HAVE! It was like slow motion, I couldnt get over there fast enough, and when I did, I saw the most devine item ever...and antique baby stroller! Complete with rolley, scrolley handles and wheels and detail and oohh, I was drooling! It looks VERY smiliar to this..except it has more of a wicker type light brown top..like the bottom one.





(I got these images from google images)


Before looking at the price tag, I figured my top price..well, it exceeded it by about $100.00!! They will mark a brand new childrens Gap dress there for $3.00 but not an old baby buggy?? If ever I questioned their price reasoning, I no longer do, someone knows the price of an antique! Oh the photos I could create with that beauty. RATS! I was so dissapointed, I slowly walked away feeling like I was leaving a child behind.


So what cheers you up from a little shopping de-flation? A sweet tooth fairy cupcake of course! I swear, the sweet girl helping me today stared at me a little longer than usual, like, dont I see you every Friday? Yes, you do. And you will for quite some time. We then took the Alpine loop home and I could not get over the beauty! It was inspiring. The moral of the story: Dont go shopping if you dont have money, window shopping isnt all its cracked up to be. And if you still do, make sure there is a devine cupcake shop nearby to drown your shopping woes. Nothing says "chear up" like a little buttercream.

stop. collaborate and listen

Kristen is back with a brand new edition. Not really, but I DO have eye contact from my little man! Cant believe it. We were playing in the front yard and I was laying on my back reading a book while the kids rode their bikes down the sidewalk. (Heaven until the sprinklers came on) Moses took a quick 5 to come say hi. He layed next to me and talked to me about all sorts of interesting things. How Hulk likes to ride his scooter. How spiderman doesn't wear capes but batman does. Why he can find so many worms under rocks, why are they "unner dare?" He's just precious and rarely does he just stop. He can talk my ear off all day, but he's always whirling himself around the house while he's doing it. We call him our tornado, I love his craziness and business and today, I loved his stillness and sweetness. When I pulled out the camera, he didnt run away like usual, he just stared at me. Usually, I would tell him to smile or be silly or something, but his eyes just peirced right through me and I couldnt ask him to do anything but what he was doing, Peacefully looking at his mom. He brings an all new dimension to our lives. I just couldn't do life without him.

Happy 15th of July

Wow, I'm late posting about our 4th of July. I have been working on our blog book through Blurb and its pretty much occupied all my time trying to design this thing. Its why I blog though, so its well worth the time! The fourth of July was different this year, up until now, Isabella has been terrified of fireworks, but this year she was not! We got hedgehogs, snakes, fountains and sparklers and it was so fun. Poor Moses burnt his little finger on a sparkler and had quite a tough time with the blister quickly forming, but in typical fashion, he recovered quickly and asked for another sparkler. I'm glad we live in Utah so we can do fireworks all over again on the 24th too! It was extra fun to have my sister Kim here, the kids LOVE her and well, its safe to say I didnt want her to leave. Love you Kim!

blogging blah blah

The past few weeks have been busy and fun with our family in town! Everytime I think about blogging though, I feel blah. I guess I'm just going through a cycle where I dont know what to say or what to write and Im not particularly please with any photo I seem to take these days. Buddy has 3 more weeks until school is done. To say its been stressfull would be a gross understatement, but we know its worth it and our goal of 6 years is tangible now. I am so proud of him and cant wait to be able to enjoy some time together that doesnt include talk of hospitals, homework, drugs and teachers. Life is good, but it will be REALLY good in few weeks. Until then, we just keep trying to maintain our sanity!



I was holding the hose with one hand and trying to take her picture with the other, It was hard, but I think its a fun summer picture of our sweet Bella.

We want to tell Mom, Dad and Kim how much we loved having them here. Your help and support is so needed and you are so generous with your time and help. We love you and want to make sure you know! Please come back very soon!!

the.future.of.America

Happy Birthday America, we salute you.






Moses sports a salute that would make Grandpa Coleman proud.

oh rain

The rain came today. The weatherman says it might stay for a few days. Darn. Hopefully next week we can get back to swimming lessons, girl scout camps, bike riding and eating otter pops. We need the sun around here. (well...Buddy could do without it but....)

the friendly neighborhood kid

Recently we were looking through some of Isabella's scrapbooks and Moses said "my turn, wheres me?" I felt so bad. Let this blog be proof that I actually photograph my son and attempt to record the happenings of his sweet little life. Someday, I will finish his books. Its quite a labor of love those books!! When we were playing outside this week, and he was riding all around the neighborhood, I just couldnt take my eyes off him. He was waiving and saying hello to all the passerby's with so much exhuberance he was actually scaring people..a tiny bit. I thought he would burst with joy everytime someone waived back, bless their souls, they were making my little guy so happy. He's such a friendly little man, my heart melts for him. And until those darned scrapbooks are done, I will do my darndest to "scrapbook" him on our blog!