While the boys are away, the girls will play!!!

Shaylee and Savannah goofing off on the inflatables and eating their dinner at the Spring Spectacular at one of the local schools. Afterward, we stopped for some ice cream at Sonic. We had at least as much fun as the boys did!



Nate exploring the tent and juicing up after tent set-up. Whew! That was a lot of work, Dad!





Adam and Nate went to their first Father/Son Campout with our ward at Oak Flat. They stayed one night and had a great time! Nathan mostly played in the dirt and fought for the best chair at the campfire. Feisty little guy took out a 3 year old! And it was his chair. Poor kid!

Houston, we have a problem...

Adam and I went to Houston for his 33rd birthday and so he could test for his 4th Degree Masters Black Belt. I had never seen a black belt test. I cannot believe what they have to go through. Two of the men had to leave the floor several times to puke! But they returned and finished the test! They are TOUGH! We won't know if he passed until he receives his certificate in the mail. But we are sure he made it. He rocked the place!


We got to tour the USS Texas Battleship. This is the only surviving battleship to serve in both WWI & WWII. We got to walk all over the ship and see where the sailors ate, slept, etc. Way cool!


We went to the Kemah Boardwalk and had dinner at the Aquarium Restaurant. They have aquariums throughout the restaurant and a sting ray exhibit where you can pet and feed the sting rays.
We went to Space Center Houston (NASA) and saw a lot of cool stuff! We took a tram tour and saw Historic Mission Control, the Astronaut Training Facility, and Rocket Park (where this picture is from). They have a ton of cool exhibits that teach you how they live in space (go potty, etc.), there is a museum that has actual moon rocks in a vault. Lots of fun!

Easter, a little late.....

We had a great time at Easter! The kids dyed a ton of eggs, which we are still trying to eat....unfortunately the egg dye didn't work too well. :( We went to the Mesa Easter Pageant at the Mesa Temple on Friday, spent the night at my mom's afterwards, then watched conference with her, headed home and dyed eggs.




Busy but fun day! My mom came over for Easter dinner on Sunday. Savannah got kicked out of karate due to her inability to listen and follow directions. Haha! We will try again in the Fall. Shaylee is itching to go to Kindergarten already. At least they start at the end of July here! The girls still have a month of school left this year. Savannah gets to go on a field trip to the Phoenix Zoo next week with her Pre-K class. Adam and I are going to Houston next week so he can test for his 4th Degree Black Belt.

Shaylee is a Yellow Belt!

Shaylee got her yellow belt last night and has finally earned the right to join our Black Belt Training program.

Savannah felt that she needed to join in the fun too.

Savannah's 1st official karate class!

Savannah's 1st Day of Preschool!

Love is in the air

I love Valentine's Day!! I could never understand why people don't celebrate it....they say "I don't want to be told when to give my wife flowers..." Oh brother! Give it up! ;)

Today, we celebrate 3 years with our beautiful Savannah Grace! We went to the zoo on Friday since she loves animals so much. We decided this might be more fun than a party...hopefully she thinks so! We had a blast!

We had a party at the karate school that same night.

Then we went out to dinner on Saturday at San Tan Flat to celebrate Valentine's Day while the kids played at a friend's house. I ended up sick all night....I think it was the undercooked steak I ate... BLAH!

Then last night, we met up with the Festas. I was a nanny for them 13 years ago in Boston and this is the first time I have seen them since I left there! Joe, the youngest, had a soccer tournament out here so he came with his parents! It was so nice to see them!!!! And my family finally got to meet them too!

A new year begins...

So far, this year has been a busy one. We had our first black belt test of the year. We now have 9 new black belts to add to our growing list! (One of them was unable to attend the ceremony) Shaylee got her next belt in karate called the Yellow 2 belt! She is very proud of it. Savannah is busy going to evaluations for physical therapy to fix her pigeon toed walking. She is also having speech evaluations done to see if she needs speech therapy. Nathan has started talking up a storm and is a real crack up! We found out we are expecting again Sept. 1, 2010! Hopefully a little brother for Nate to even things up a bit. That is about it! Have a great day!

Oh, how I love the holidays!

Sometimes I wonder why I even try to have family get-togethers. I invite all my family over for Thanksgiving and my mom and sister's family are all that show up. What a bunch of bums! We still had a great Thanksgiving! Then I get my lazy bum out of bed at 4:30am to go shopping! I am NOT a shopper. Oh, the joy of the season! We put up our tree and almost immediately had the in house expert (aka Nate) rearranging it. LOL! He broke his 1st bulb before we even finished! Tis' the season! But it is still beautiful to look at, even though the bottom half is mostly bare! Hee Hee! I really do love the holidays, I promise! We went to see the temple lights already and loved them as usual! We attempted to take a family picture for our Christmas card at the temple....Yeah right! I don't know how people do it! I have 2 thumbsuckers who refused to take their thumb out of their mouth and look at the camera. The pic to the left is the best we could get! A professional photographer took pity on us and came over to take some pics for free. I am still waiting on those photos! Hopefully she got a better one!

Adam's mom came for a visit and was here to see Adam and Shaylee in the Mesa Veterans Day Parade. My mom was with us too! She also got to attend Shaylee's 5th b-day party! This is the 1st one she has been able to come to since she lives in Florida. We went to San Tan Flat afterwards and had a blast there!









Savannah hit her head (nothing new here), and was acting strange the next day. She would be playing and would all of a sudden collapse to the ground and cry. Her eyes kept rolling and she looked like she was passing out. I called a friend in our ward who is a pediatric nurse and she said that I should take her to the ER for possible head trauma. I took her to Mercy Gilbert and they had no idea what was causing it. CT Scan and blood work was normal. They said that she was acting like she had ingested something. All tests came back clean except her key tones which were off, indicating dehydration. They transferred her by ambulance to Phoenix Childrens Hospital PICU where she stayed overnight. She was released the next morning with a diagnosis of the flu. WHAT????!!!! What they mean to say is "we have no idea what is wrong and at the risk of sounding like we don't know what we are talking about and due to the fact that you have no insurance, we are going to say it is the flu cause we care more about our pocket book than your daughter!" I am not bitter or anything.... She was hospitalized for a couple of days as a baby with possible seizures that they never confirmed. I think that is what is going on but can't prove it. A friend took the other two kids while this was going on and she saw Savannah do the eye roll thing. She said she looked like someone who has just had a seizure. She would know, she was an EMT!

We had to take Adam to the ER in October. He had the same rash developing that put him in the hospital for a week last year. Turns out, he had walking pneumonia and they are saying it was a viral rash. Code for "we don't know what caused it". Can't they just admit that they don't know everything?? Geesh!

Halloween Fun

We seem to be very busy this Halloween season....we had our 6th annual PMA Halloween Party on Friday! Savannah won the Most Adorable Costume (I had nothing to do with it!) for the girls. Shaylee chose to be Barbie Thumbelina, Savannah is a pirate, and Nathan is a tiger. They had a blast! We went to Schnepf Farms for their Pumpkin and Chili Party last night. These kids are so spoiled! It was a great night!

Blah Blah Blah

I haven't posted in quite awhile but not much has been happening. I went to Utah and picked up my mom. She is living with us until next week when she will move into her new condo in Mesa. It has been nice having her around. The kids love it! The kids love to help Daddy make breakfast. They all clamor onto one chair and fight the whole time, pushing each other down, screaming.......great fun for all! We are getting ready for the Halloween festivities. We all have our costumes and are ready to party! Next week is our studio's party, Shaylee has a school party the next week, and our ward is supposedly putting something together too. Then there is the trick-or-treating itself! We are going to Schnepf Farm's Pumpkin and Chili Festival next week too! I love this time of year!

School Daze

Shaylee finally started Pre-K today! She has been begging to go back to school for 2 months now...so this is all too welcome! Poor thing had to miss the first day because we all had a horrible case of the flu over the weekend and we wanted to make sure she was over it before sending her.

A lot is going on right now, yet I am still ALWAYS home it seems......go figure! We are getting ready for our 9th anniversary for the business. We are having a big event at our school to celebrate that is putting us in further debt, but hopefully it will be worth it and we will get some much needed business from it. We just had new wood flooring put in and the mats professionally cleaned for it and it looks SO NICE!!!! Very excited about it!

We are preparing to have my mom move in with us for a couple of months as well. She is moving back from Utah and is staying with us until she finds a new place and has some money saved for new furniture, etc. I love having my mom here! It helps break up the monotony.....I will be flying to Utah and driving back with her on the 25th. Very excited to see family and a couple of old friends!! Nice break from the kids too! BONUS!!!!

Adam's mom will be coming for a visit in November, which will also be fun. She has not seen Nathan yet and has not seen the girls since I was 7 months pregnant with him! She is staying for a week and will be able to be here for Shaylee's birthday too!

Mid-summer blues

Can we say hot?????? I can't wait to move up north....someday.....

Well, we won our court case thanks to the Lord. There is no other explanation for it. We were just as shocked as the other party when the judge told us his decision.....they have petitioned the court to reconsider....our lawyer doesn't think we have anything to worry about, but they still have 6 days left to appeal. We will see!

Unfortunately, I had an OB checkup the day after the trial, and found out that I had miscarried at 8 weeks. (I should be 11 weeks now.) I was sad, but I think the Lord prepared me for this. I have felt something for a few weeks, like I would not get to raise this baby in this life. I was too busy to dwell on it with the court case. We were not ready for another one, but the Lord kept pushing us until we complied. I think this baby just needed a body and the Lord needed him/her too much for something greater. We have made peace with it.

The kids are driving me nuts. I have got to get some play dates together or I think I will go insane!!!!! The girls are constantly fighting......Nate is now getting into EVERYTHING!!! **SIGH**

Pray for us that the Lord will soften the hearts of the other party and they will not succeed!!!!! Thank you all for your love and support and we love you all!!!!

Busy, Crazy Summer

Summer goes by so fast with all we jam into it! I only wish that the hot weather would go out as school comes in! It is supposed to get up to 115 degrees this week! Ugh!

My little Nater Tater Tot turns 1 tomorrow!!!! I cannot believe he is 1 already. This year has flown by so fast!!! A couple of weeks ago, my mom came for a visit to attend my niece, Alyssa's and my nephew, Jared's baptisms! All that is left are Debbie's 3 youngest (Tony, Aracelli, and Ricky), my kids and Dave's youngest, Jackson. So crazy!

While my mom was here, we decided to have a birthday party for Nate. My sister in law and her kids were going to be in Japan for all of July as well so we celebrated a few weeks early. We went to the Mesquite Groves Aquatic Center which was a lot of fun. Poor Nate didn't like it so much. He spent a lot of his time on Grandma's lap eating and sleeping. But the girls had a BLAST!!!!


Adam and I are preparing for our court case which will be heard next Tuesday. Can we say stress????? If we lose, we may have no choice but to file for personal bankruptcy. I know the Lord is on our side and has told us to have faith in Him, but it is still a scary thing. I don't know what we are supposed to learn from all of this, but I had better learn it quick! Patience and increased faith maybe??? Not to fear??? NO IDEA!!!! We have been told so much lately that fear is of the devil......I definitely struggle with it!

This month marks our 1st anniversary at our new karate location! We moved in the weekend after Nate was born. That seems weird too. It seems like last week......In August, we celebrate 6 years of having our own business location! Adam taught for the Parks & Rec for a few years before that. Time is so strange!

Shaylee starts Pre-K in September and can't wait to be back at school. She is so bored at home. She begged me all last week to go to school. Of course, she doesn't understand why she can't go now.....Especially when she sees her teacher at church every Sunday (she is in the Primary Presidency).

Wish us luck and pray for us that the court case will end well. Be happy and safe!!!!

Camping on the Rim

We had an unexpected but pleasant family outing with some friends this past weekend! We went to a friend's house to swim on Friday and she told us that a group from our ward was going camping, so we went with! We so desperately needed to get away and even though a couple of us were not feeling well and it was FREEZING, we had a blast and were able to take our minds off of our upcoming lawsuit. So desperately needed. The stress has definitely taken its toll and all we can do now is have faith that Heavenly Father knows what He is doing and everything will work out in the end. A little excursion and distraction was what we needed!

We had another unexpected surprise this past month......we are expecting our 4th baby! I go to the doc on Wed to confirm the due date but we think it will be Jan 24. We are scared and excited to add, what is hopefully, our last addition! It will be nice to have the freedom to get my body back to normal and the Lupus and other stuff under control for good! I have been limited in what I can and can't do due to pregnancy and nursing. I will miss it all but look forward to the next phase of parenting and life!

The joys of Arizona!

Well, even though rain was in the forecast....it said "chance of thunderstorms"....we decided to go camping anyway, however, when we got to Payson it was really coming down and there were no campfires allowed! It was too wet for one anyway! So, we decided to head back home. We got to see some beautiful scenery and experience rain...REAL rain for the first time in months still so not a total loss.

We stopped off at the Salt River for a bit and tried a bit of fishing on the way back. Not really fishing, just pretend. Shaylee got a Dora fishing pole for her birthday last year and she has gotten quite good at casting, so we let her cast a bit into the river. SHE LOVED IT!!! We decided to head back to the river on Monday and do a little swimming and "fishing", and have a little BBQ picnic. This time WITHOUT the dog/horse!

Then we went home and had a little campout in our backyard....hung up the hammock, cooked some hot dogs and foil dinners for dinner on the BBQ, and then made s'mores on the BBQ! It was still fun and I got to sleep in my own bed! Ahhhhh! Not exactly the adventure we were looking for, but still a fun family day!

What is the trial??

OK.....they say that trials are to teach us something and make us spiritually stronger.....I am wondering what we are needing to learn from the multiple illnesses we are all experiencing. Savannah got the flu on Friday and Saturday, Nate is getting another cold I think. He and Savannah are grabbing their ears, Shaylee says her tummy hurts and won't eat much, and all of us are having digestive/intestinal issues right now. What is the lesson to be learned???? Hmmmmmmm......NO CLUE!!!!! Anyone????

We are supposed to be going camping with some friends on Friday, but with everyone not feeling well...we will see! Our 6th wedding anniversary is coming up on the 30th of May! I cannot believe it has been 6 years already, and yet.....it seems like we have always been married! Strange isn't it? This camping trip was to be kind of a celebration of our anniversary.....

Not again!

Poor Nate has Croup again! This is the 3rd time this year already. Insanity! Not too much is new here. Shaylee is almost done with preschool this year. Savannah is still working on potty training. She seems to be reverting back.....Nate is so close to walking.

Adam is as stressed as ever and I am just as sleep deprived as well. Things are picking up at the karate studio which is good.

The girls are really loving playing together. And they are really enjoying their little brother. Shaylee and Nate are close, but up until now, Savannah would just ignore him. Now she pays a little too much attention to him!

Life returns to normal......

We are all pretty much over this horrible cold finally! We finally got the house clean again and things are going back to normal.

We think that Shaylee is allergic to strawberries and eggs. She is having an allergy test done tomorrow so we will know for sure what is causing these horrible rashes within the week hopefully....

Savannah is pretty much potty trained now! She practically trained herself which was VERY NICE!!! Now if I could just get her to stop running around without any clothes on........

Nathan is getting into everything now. I can't believe he will be 1 in 2 months! It is too fast!!!!!

Adam is gearing up for the crazy summer months when everyone takes off from karate for vacations and our power bill at the studio triples. We just had a nice mold problem there too. I swear it was deja vu. They replaced the roof just before we moved into the new building and it has been leaking ever since. Adam has been on the landlord's case ever since and now there is a BIG mold problem in the ceiling....or I should say was.....it is now cleaned up and all is good. What are the odds that we would have the same thing happen at home and the studio within a few months of each other????

Adam is getting ready for our lawsuit....we are suing our old property managers for our security deposit. They are dirty rotten people I tell ya. CROOKS!!!! As if we don't already have enough on our plates, we had to go and add that, right??? All in all, we are all doing great! Stressed, but good! We hope you all are well and happy!

Crazy Week

I just have to tell all of you what happened this week! It was so crazy. Adam was pulled over in our ghetto Honda AGAIN and this time, they made him get out of the car, then continued to give him the 3rd degree. He asked if he had any drugs or weapons in the car, etc.. It was the last straw for Adam since he gets pulled over for stupid reasons once a week on average(no tickets, just harassment because of the kind of car he drives) so he finally gave into me and said we could get a minivan with our tax return.....This was on Monday. That day, I found 2 minivans to look at. We got our tax return in the mail that night. We looked at the minivans the next day and decided against both. The Sienna because the price was too high, the Sedona because it felt like it had mechanical problems. The next day the Sienna lady called me and lowered the price into a more comfortable price for us. We took it. Last night (same day), Adam was in the BK drive thru and we were talking about what to do with the Honda....this was before he got to the window.....and the guy who took his money asked him if he knew of anyone who was trying to sell a cheap car! How crazy is that???? He is supposedly buying our Honda tomorrow! Meant to be????? I think so! Anyway, we are now the proud owners of Toyota Sienna! It has been an exciting week!

Shaylee had her 1st belt rank advancement in karate on Tues., I went visiting teaching the same day, I am going to R.S. craft night tonight, I have some friends coming over for lunch tomorrow, and the karate school's Easter Egg Hunt (postponed from last week due to the rain-which we NEVER get!) this Saturday! Talk about insane! What was I thinking???

The kids have a great babysitter now from our ward.....her name is Shaylee Rae too (spelled the same)! They have a cat named Savannah and her brother's name is Kasen (which is what we almost named Nathan!) Is that funny, or what?

We are all still fighting this horrible cold that has been going around and Nathan is getting his 3rd & 4th teeth in! Savannah has decided she is done with diapers, so she is potty-training and doing well. One more to go! Well, I am going to stop now so I don't get overly exhausted thinking about all of this, seeing as the day is not over yet! Have a great one all!