Time passes quickly!!

How can I summarize the past few years of my life?  Why haven't I been keeping up with my little journal-blog?  Well...I'm busy and time is flying by!  Haha! In a lot of ways everything stays the same, as much as they seem to change.  We live everyday focused on cleaning, eating, getting where we need to go. Making sure everyone has what they need and do what they're supposed to be doing.  Life just sweeps you along with it!  I randomly got back on this blog and was reading old posts, and realized that in a lot of ways nothing has changed in the past few years~it's not a bad thing.  Just more of an observation.  The kids are growing up, this is true--and naturally that brings along many new events, experiences and extra busy days! Oliver is 12, Everett is 10, Henry is 7 and Miles is 3.  Oliver was ordained into the priesthood, and recently passed the Sacrament for the first time.  This was pretty sweet for me, as I started to really see him in a new light.  In so many ways he is turning into a young man and it's hard for me to not treat him like a little baby! LOL! I understand why people cling to their kids so long after they are already grown up...you really have such a short time with them when they are little!  10 years passes in the blink of an eye!  I look at my boys and think about where they'll be in 10 years and it's shocking to me!  I can't dwell on that too much, though--because 1. It makes me sad, and 2. I try to live life in the moment, appreciating all the cute and funny things about them now.
We moved from Columbus to Urbana last spring.  Just this year alone has been a blur.  We wanted a bigger house and more space outside--we definitely got that, but along with that came alot more responsibility, higher bills, new challenges.  The kids have adjusted well to their new schools, and have made new friends.  We have really loved our new ward, too!  Living closer to our parents has made it so nice--Aaron's parents are also here in Urbana, and are always quick to help and spend time with the kids,  and my parents are much easier to see and hang out with! And in most recent news, Natalie and Russ are moving to Tennessee--so we will be able to see them a lot easier now, too!  I'm super excited about that!
We got a dog about a year and a half ago--that has been a huge life adjustment. She's a blue tic/walker coonhound and honestly super pretty.  Her name is Ella and I used to say it's short for Cinderella--but most days I think it's really short for Cruella Devil. haha...  She's nuts and drives me crazy all the time.  Luckily we can keep her contained in part of the house and she can't destroy everything.  Cuz she would. LWC (I just made that up--Laughing While Crying...haha).  She is a practice in patience, and possibly that is one of the main purposes of her existence in our family--to teach us patience.  Long suffering.  Hard-work.  And all that good stuff you can' t put into words when she's barking so loud and long it hurts. hahahahahah....sighhhhhhh....
Well, Miles wants me to keep looking at what he is doing (lassoing the treadmill key with a magnet around my music stand)...so I guess I will call this entry done.  Hopefully I can sit still long enough to write a few thoughts down again, soon...

Year in review :)

(This was written in Feb. 2014--just wanted to post it so I could remember these details of our lives!)

So last I left you off over a year ago, when I lost our baby Pearl.  That summer flew by with a trip to Michigan to visit my grandparents, and the beach.  We stayed in Oscoda and visited some beautiful state parks in the area, including the lumberjack's museum. That was seriously so memorable.  We will  never forget how much lumberjacks ate every day!! LOL  Summer turned to Fall, and Everett went into Kindergarten, and Oliver went into 2nd Grade.  By November I had announced our NEWEST coming addition--another baby, due July 2014!

One Year

Where to begin?  I am not the best blogger, as is apparent by my lack of regular, interesting new posts.  But, this is mostly for my own memory...so, here's what's really been going on in the past year.   Last March was the multiple birthday bashes we usually have to do:  Oliver had his first big pizza party with friends from school, Everett had a party with just family at Chuck-E-Cheese, and Henry got thrown in the mix at the combined family parties.  The hardships of being a third child. haha  Here's some evidence of that crazy busy month!! 

Oliver's big 7 year old Party!  We played traditional birthday party games like pin the tail on the donkey, party bingo, etc.  It was so cute!

Everett, my big 5 year old :) 

Henry, turning 2!  My sneaky sweetie pie!

 Before Everett's special day at Chuck-E-Cheese!  We opened presents at home to keep it simple :)  And then we somehow got no pictures at chuck-e-cheese...classic.  Well, he loved it so much he wants to do it again this year. haha

Easter came on March 31st--HOORAY!  As if we didn't have enough treats that month ;)

And since we hadn't celebrated their birthdays ENOUGH, we had another big birthday bash, combined with cousin Harvey's birthday, at our Easter dinner with my side of the family.  We like to kill multiple birds with one stone, so to speak. haha

And we had a "little" announcement to make:  

We surprised everyone!  It was cute because we were like, "Let's get a group picture!"  And Aaron was going to take it, and instead of saying, "Sayyyy Cheeeese"...he said, "Sayyyy...Stephanie's Expecting!!" And then instead of taking a picture, he took the video of everyone's reaction. It was cute.  Baby #4 was a big shocker :)--haha, but not to us!  We were pretty decided on trying to have a baby born in any other month than MARCH. haha!  I estimated my due date to be around the end of November...

Spring flew by filled with:  

Projects...

Toy Storage!! YAY!

Beginning Potty Training!! 

(Little did I know, Henry would be my longest to potty train!  We're still at it!  He just won't tell me when he has to pee...sort of important!)

Warm enough days to hit the fountains downtown!

Silly kitty pics of our cat buddy...

Lots of Bonfires!  

My brother returned from his Mission!!

Mother's Day Tree planting and flowers!

Mother's Day  morning surprise :)

Fishing...lots of fishing!

Last little bit of Everett's preschool group.

Our Preschool farewell park day!

 Some of Everett's preschool buddies...

And somehow, on that busy May 22nd, I went to my 12 week baby appt.  to discover that we had lost our sweet little baby.  It was the first major tragedy in our little family!  It was hard, because I was all by myself at the appt.  The first two appointments had gone basically normally, so I didn't suspect any problems.  The only clue that I had was that when I went into my supposed eight week appt., the baby was measuring two weeks behind.  But then our little baby grew properly up to the ten week appt.  So they said that the dates must have been off.  Well, we know now that there was something definitely wrong!  It was horrible.  I cannot describe how I felt driving home after that appointment.  It was the worst having to call Aaron and my Mom.  I don't like to think about it.  That night we drove the boys to the temple and walked around and talked to them about what had happened.  It was a sweet time together and we really felt comforted, remembering that our family is sealed for eternity.  And our little baby was part of our family forever...

We went in for a follow-up appt. the next day, so Aaron could see one last ultrasound of our baby.  It was so hard to see that little cute body, lifeless. A day or so later, I went to the hospital for a D&C.  That was a very difficult decision, to miscarry at home, or go to the hospital.  I am grateful now that I chose to do the D&C because we were able to get some answers about our sweet baby.  For one, it was a girl.  That was so exciting and bittersweet to find out!  Also, that she was a partial molar pregnancy and had a unique problem called Triploidy.  Basically she had an entire extra set of chromosomes.  Some babies with triploidy make it to full term, but it is extremely rare. 

 She couldn't have lived long...poor sweetie.  

We decided to name her Pearl. 

September weekend getaway!

Summer Is officially over!  We were so busy, I didn't document a thing!  But I am going to play a little catch-up...I'm not starting at the beginning of summer and going forward, I think I'll start from this past weekend, and go backward...I know it's confusing, but I'm just going to get as much as I can up to date.

This past weekend we went to Cincinnati and stayed at the beautiful Hilton Netherland Plaza downtown (http://www.historichotels.org/hotels-resorts/hilton-cincinnati-netherland-plaza).

  It was really gorgeous!  Aaron was busy with work meetings, but we had a wonderful time exploring this amazing hotel! So many beautiful rooms!! We played at the pool and went to the "overlook"-- it was super tall!  I was a bit scared of being up there by myself with all three boys. But the ledge was tall enough that I wasn't TOO worried they would propel themselves over the edge.  I think we were about 49 stories up.

I was super in love with this hotel!  So beautiful!  And if it wasn't "haunted"--it would be perfect! haha!

We didn't take many pictures on this trip.  We also ate at a yummy pizza place over at the Newport mall--Dewey's Pizza.  I was really brave on Saturday and took the boys BY MYSELF to Ikea!  This was my first time to Ikea, so it was a bit confusing and chaotic, but we loved it.  I wish we could have spent more time there.  But then it was off to Dayton to go to an AWESOME Ohio Right To Life fundraiser dinner at the Mandalay Banquet Center with my sister Amelia and my Mom.  It was such a delicious dinner, and the speaker was Tim Tebow's mom.  She was so sweet and had a really incredible story and message to share!  I love the Right-To-Life effort!  Everyone is so awesome!  I was blessed to sit with some girls from Columbus' Right To Life office, and they hopefully  will need my help sometimes!  I really want to participate as much as I can.  

Here's my Mom with Pam Tebow in the back talking! 

And here's a short bit about Pam Tebow's life and story:

http://www.lifenews.com/2012/06/24/tim-tebows-mom-keeps-pressing-pro-life-cause/

On Sunday after church, we picked apples!  My parents' trees did really well this year!  

 
Uncle Nathan was wonderful playing with the boys and helping them!  We love Nate!  Then we all headed over to Amelia's house to party the night away for Addie and Lena's birthdays.  It was a wonderful weekend, so many sweet memories made!  We love our family!