Happy Birthday Keirsha

Teenagers crack me up. One of her friends wrapped her gift in a diaper.

On your b-day you get to take a turn in the prize booth. Like a true girl she stuffed all

the money down her shirt as fast as she could

The girls at the birthday prize wheel

I can't believe Keirsha is 13 already. Her b-day was in November but things have been so crazy that I am just now getting around to posting the pics. She had her b-day at Classic Skating. It was the first huge snow storm we had for the winter that day and so she paced the house ALL day worrying about nobody showing up but lucky for us all 10 girls came. lol

Happy Birthday Karlie

She was so fascinated by her cake. It took her forever to actually dig in and start eating it.

I couldn't find a birthday crown for Karlie so Keirsha came to the rescue and made her one.

Loved her little people bus. When you push the driver it plays music and she loves to dance with it!

Karlie wasn't so sure about opening the gifts. She didn't quite understand what to do. She looked at us like we were crazy when she opened a gift and then we took away the toy to get her another gift.

I can't beleive my sweet Karlie is one year old already. It is crazy how time flies. I think because I know Karlie is my last baby I have had a hard time not getting sad when I think of her not being my "baby" anymore. She has brought so much joy to our house and I can't imagine it without her. Karlie has such a cute personality and has us laughing everyday. Her real birthday was September 19. September 18th my grandma fell and fractured her hip so we ended up spending Karlies b-day in the hospital while my grandma was in surgery. She asked me to wait for her to come home to have her birthday party. My grandma was finally able to come home last week so yesterday we had her birthday party!!!

Poor me Update

Ok, so never mind my last post about being mature. I went over to get all of Karlies stuff today and told them exactly how I feel. I was very nice (ok, somewhat nice) but let them know how dishonest I felt they were and that I was shocked that after a year they could do that to anyone. I told them it was very disrespectful that they couldn't even tell me to my face and did not give a 2 week notice. She backtracked at the end of our conversation and said "ok, we can give you 2 weeks to look around" I nicely told her that if she didn't care enough about Karlie last night to not screw us over then they surely didn't care about her today and I would rather quit my job then to bring her back. Needless to say I do feel better and left with my money back!

Poor me! Warning...extra long post.

So I know blogging is for cute pics and stories about our kids but today I am feeling extra sorry for myself so wanted to blog about that. Let me start the story by telling that a month ago when my mom was having hip surgery I told Karlies babysitter I really needed some flexibility while my mom recovered so if they needed me to find somewhere for Karlie I could (at that time I had another sitter lined up) They stated that they loved Karlie. She has been with them since she was 6 weeks old and they didn't want her to go anywhere. They guaranteed me they were super flexible.......they just loved my baby. WELL, last night at 8:00p.m I get a call from the babysitter and her exact words were "Jessica, just wanted to call you to let you know I can't watch Karlie as of today. We found a full time infant to take her spot and it would just be better for us financially" trying not to freak out I said to her " remember when I asked you a few weeks ago you swore you would always have a spot for her? What am I going to do now on such short notice? She then said that she could help me out for one extra day if I REALLY needed it. Hmmmmmmm lets see??? No, I just have a list of spare babysitters in my back pocket. I guess the most disapointing part was #1 they had just saw me 2 hours prior when I came to pick Karlie up and didn't have the balls to tell me to my face and #2 She had already taken my check for the week including Monday (the holiday). #3 She knows that my mom is still recovering from surgery. They charge for the week rather your child is there or not so I think she purposely waited for my holiday check. She has all parents sign a contract agreeing to a 2 week notice either way so truthfully I want to march over there today and demand my check back and tell them how I feel. I want to tell them that it sucks they didn't even care enough to tell my sweet baby goodbye. Thankfully I have a level headed husband who wants me to just let it be. They have a few little things of hers at there house but Bry says just let it stay. So I suppose I will try my best to not go over there today. I called my boss at 9:00 (after I had an hour to cry like a baby) and she sweetly said to take the day off to find a new babysitter. I guess that is what I am off to do today so if you read this post please say a little prayer for me! Thanks for letting me vent my huge story.......kept me from calling the daycare and giving them a peice of my mind.

Back to School

The kids started back to school yesterday and I think I was more nervous than the 2 of them combined. My family and friends made fun of me but I seriously obsessed and worried all day Monday about Keirsha starting jr high. I was worried about her finding all of her classes, opening her locker ok, hoping she would find friends at lunch........the list goes on. When we dropped them off I was standing outside Prestons classroom watching him and Bryan informed me it was time to cut the umblilcal cord and get to work!!! Poor me, my kids are growing up. Seriously though...Jr high already? sigh!!! This year was a bit different because we made the decision to switch them to a charter school. The jr. high is a lot smaller so Keirsha will get a lot more individual attention. She is pretty quiet so tends to get lost in big groups. I think this school will be great for her. Also, because it goes K-9th Preston will have the same resource and special education team through jr. high. He has a great teacher this year. When she found out that she was going to have Preston is her class and that he has autism she came to our house a few weeks before school started to hang out with him and get to know him to ease with the transitioning to a new class. I was shocked that a teacher would do that. He came home on the first day of school and said she was SUPER nice. She has the kids fill out job applications for classroom jobs which I thought was pretty cute. Preston has applied to be flag holder and is really hoping he gets it! Ha ha. If only life really was so simple huh? Here are a few pics of the big day! (they were not so excited about wearing uniforms) I think they look really cute though and a lot easier for me.

Another funny story from Preston

My sweet Preston has had a hard time lately. Summers are always hard for him because of his autism and not having the structure he gets during the school year. He just seems to be extra hyper and loud lately. The good part is that he is still so sweet and funny it makes up for the challenges. The other day he asked me why I always tell him "its a good thing you're cute" so I will have to come up with another saying. Anyways.....tonight out of the blue he marched down the stairs and said the funniest thing so I thought I would put it on my blog. It may be one of those comments that would have been funnier had you been here but thought I would post anyways. So it makes more sense...he loves the movie Titanic even though he is only allowed to watch parts of it. He comes marching down the stairs to Bryan and I and says "girls have way more opportunities in life" we asked why and he bluntly says "girls get to be pregnant and get off boats first and boys are always drunk or some kind of bad guy" We started laughing our butts off and Bryan told him boys get lots of opportunities and Preston said "oh yah, I get to be a boy scout" I really do love that boy!!!

MOON LAKE

I have been a terrible blogger lately. Our computer ended up having a virus that has taken us 2 months to finally get rid of so couldn't really update with photos. I am way behind but thought I would start back with our vacation to Moon Lake. For Christmas this year my parents gave us the most amazing gift. They rented a cabin for all of us to go to moon lake for 4 days. We went with my parents and my sister. We have been anxiously waiting to go since December and it was worth the wait. The kids had such a great time. I have to say the funnest thing for them was going out on the boat to fish. Every time we went out we came home with at least 3-4 fish so it was a lot of fun for the kids. Here are a ton of the photos from the trip. Thanks Mom and Dad!

I guess the deer around here are used to people
Bryan getting 5 feet away to take a picture didn't scare her at all

Here are a few of Prestons castles

She only lasted about 30 seconds like this. Once she

realized she couldn't crawl it wasn't so funny

My sweet Keirsha picked me flowers while hiking

Keirsha and Bryan off for a hike

Keirsha in her awesome *sand car*

I don't think she could be any cuter!

Meet Molly!

So Bryan swore that we would NEVER have a dog. It's not that he doesn't love dogs..........just doesn't love the back yard clean up that comes a long with it if you know what I mean. We had a dog a few years back but only kept it for a month because she was so hyper and not good with kids (lesson learned from getting a free dog online) Anyways, my boss recently had to move to a much smaller house and has 3 dogs that she is unable to keep there. One of the dogs is a really sweet lab named Molly. Molly was already housebroken and so great with kids. My boss said we could try her out for a few weeks and if it didn't work out she would take her back and find her another home. I am not sure how but we got Bryan to agree and give her a chance. We made it through day one and fell in love so she is officially our new dog! The kids love her and she is so great with them. One of the cutest things is how she acts with Karlie. Karlie is always giving her some of her crackers and when Molly hears the baby through the moniter she goes up stairs and waits outside her door for us to go get her up!

They're finally here

A few weeks ago I posted a picture of Preston with the bird nest he found. He has anxiously waited every day since then for the eggs to hatch. He had his binoculars out the other day and swore to me there were babies in the nest but I couldn't see them. Today this is what we found so I guess he was right. He was so excited........aren't they cute?

Taylor Swift

Ok....So I realize she is the size of a dot in these pictures but Keirsha dang near ran over a group of full grown adults to get the pics so thought I would post anyways. This is when Taylor came off stage and into the audience for 2 songs!

This is Keirsha getting ready to do Taylor Swift Karaoke with one of the local radio stations I would have to say the tour bus was the big hit of the night

Taylor getting ready to pull out of SLC

Can I just say how much I love having a pre-teen aged daughter. Keirsha and I have always been close but the older she gets it is getting so much fun. We just happen to love a lot of the same things including the same taste in music (mostly) Keirsha and I both love Taylor Swift and were bummed her concert sold out in less than 1 hr so didn't get tickets...........Bryan would like the best husband of the year award because he secretly got them for my birthday so Keirsha and I could go. I have been to a few concerts but this was honestly one of the funnest. She did a great job and we had a blast!

Look what I found!

Preston is always climbing the trees in our backyard. Today he came in so excited to show us what he found. Usually it is a bug or something else disgusting but today it was a nest with 2 little eggs. Now the trick will be keeping him out of the tree and away from the nest. He was so proud of himself! Maybe this is a good sign the weather is finally going to start getting better.

Masquerade Ball

For once I am crossing my fingers that Bryan
doesn't get online and read my blog. He may just
kill me for posting a picture of him in his mask

Where has my little girl gone?

Last weekend was the daddy and daughter Masquerade ball for Keirsha. It is something the girlscouts host every year and Keirsha was so excited to go. It was dinner, crafts and dancing. Dancing in public is a little out of Bryans comfort zone but he ended up having a great time. It was great for them to have some one on one daddy daughter time. Looking at these pics of Keirsha made me realize how grown up my little girl is now.

Thanks Heather

Well........Lets start this off by reminding everyone how I am not a creative gal. Anyways, my cousins wife who is very creative and crafty put this on her blog. I don't usually do these kind of things but I thought this one sounded kind of fun. Thanks Heather


Ok, so here it goes! The first five people to leave a comment on this blog post will receive something made by me. However there are some limitations.1. I make no guarantee that you will like what I make.2. What I create will be just for you.3. It will be done this year.4. You have no clue what it is going to be, poetry, clothes, paper goods, or a little invention of my own. I may bake something and mail it you . Who knows? Not you that's for sure!5. I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.Here's the catch, if you choose to do this. You must post this on your blog and be ready to make something for five people too. This will be fun! When you receive the fabulous item I make you, you must post a picture of it on your blog.

Karlie meets the Easter Bunny

Sporting my new bunny ears!

Waiting patiently to meet the Easter Bunny

We dropped the ball at Christmas and totally forgot to take Karlie to see Santa so made sure we remembered to go see the Easter Bunny. She really didn't care for it one way or the other but at least she didn't cry so I could get some pictures. I was just realizing people may wonder where Keirsha are in these pictures. They will be in my next posting with the rest of the easter pictures because Preston wasn't with me at the mall and Keirsha (our new little teenager) informed me the Easter Bunny is CREEPY and she isn't sititng on the lap of anyone in a costume where she can see his real eyes through the costume face! Gotta love her!

My baby is 6 months already---how sad!

I can't believe how time flies. My sweet Karlie is 6 months old already. She has brought so much joy to our home. As I am sure we all feel about our kids.....I can't imagine life without her. The funny thing about her personality is that I think the older she gets she acts kind of like my dad. That's funny for those of you who know him. She is really serious sometimes and will just stare at you (especially strangers) no matter how silly you act, then you can do something stupid or nothing at all and she will laugh hysterically. She is definatly an observer though. Mabey she'll grow up to be nosy like me. Ha ha. Anyways like I said she is a little serious and into observing things so getting her to look at the camera and smile for some 6 month photos was pretty much impossible. Here is a few of what I got!

Are you kidding me?

Oh.......my sweet little Preston. He sure keeps me on my toes. A few weeks ago my dad was taking his dog on a walk and Preston decided to go along with his scooter. He apparantly decided to go around the corner without slowing down and fell off knocking his 2 front teeth in half. It would not have been as bad except they were his permanent teeth. He came home to tell us and quickly realized that he had left the "pieces" of his teeth at the park and was literally freaking out about it so Bryan took him back to the park thinking they would never find them. We were wrong! Bryan said there was a little bit of white powder on the sidewalk right along with 3 pieces of tooth. Not to sound like a bad parent but come on.........he doesn't fall and need stitches, skin a knee or break an arm like most little boys? So poor guy has had dentist appt after dentist appt the past 2 weeks. The dentist came back from a trip early to check out Preston. He looked at the x-ray and realized Preston had way to much damage for him to deal with so sent us to a specialist. He needs root canals but his roots are to far apart and won't be ready for that for a few years. We were told to cross our fingers the next few months the acutal teeth don't die and fall out. In the meantime they filled the tooth with a special filling and covererd the exposed nerve. He had temporary caps put on and Wednesday will be getting his real caps. There goes this years taxes. Ha ha! Preston did however put all 3 peices under his pillow in hopes that the tooth fairy would pay him for permanent teeth (she did)!

Happy Valentine's Day

I have been a terrible blogger the past few months. I seem to find time to read my friends and families blogs but not to work on my own. Things have been so busy between the new baby (almost 5 months old so I suppose not so new anymore) and working a second job I started in Jan. I am able to do it from home but it is a lot busier than I thought it would be. Thank goodness for a great husband, parents and sister who help me out so much. Today for Valentine's Day we went out to lunch with my family so I decided to post a few pics. I will try to be better about updating my blog. Keirsha got a new camera for Christmas and is working on starting her own blog so look for that coming soon.

GROWING UP

So apparantly girls are growing up a lot faster these days. I try to do my best to not let Keirsha grow up to fast yet give and take when I feel it is ok. She has been begging for at least a year to let me color her hair brown and I finally gave in last night. We went and got her hair trimmed then bought a box of dye. As all of girls know.....it doesn't always turn out like the box so at 10:00 at night off to the grocery store we went to buy box number 2. I didn't really want to color it in the first place but I must admit it turned out so dang cute. It does make her look older which is a little scary for me but she loves it! Here are a few before and after pics.

BEFORE

AFTER

Christmas Day

We had a great Christmas this year. It was our first Christmas in our new house and with baby Karlie. The kids had such a great time. Keirsha busted in to our room at 2am all excited telling us Merry Christmas. We had to quickly inform her that we do not get up to open gifts at 2am. We went to my moms house for Christmas day and ended up having to spend the night because we got snowed in. I think that was the best part of Prestons Christmas. He loves having sleepovers with my dad. Nothing like sleeping on a blow up mattress in the frontrom! Ha ha

My Sweet Boy

I think I blog a lot about my family in general or a lot about the baby but today I felt like posting about my little Preston. As you all know he has special needs and more energy than you can imagine even a child having. Sometimes it can be a little challenging but he is such a sweet boy and lately has come up with the funniest things to say. He informed me last night that we were not going to plug in the Christmas lights on the house because if we use to much electricity his TV might turn off. I guess we all have our priorities. Ha ha! We also had parent teacher conference last week and he got very upset about his report card even though it had good grades. He got an S (which means satisfactory) for completes work in a timely manner and he informed the teacher that he always finishes his work and that he would like it changed to and E (excellent) He then wanted to see what his friends got on their report card. When his teacher said he only needed to worry about himself he told him that he wanted to worry about everyone else and make sure that his grades were better. He is actually very smart. He is a very good reader and LOVES to build with legos and dominos. On Thanksgiving my dad, Bryan and uncle Mark took turns all day building with him so I thought I would post some of the pics. Preston is very cute with the baby. He likes to sing to her and gets so excited as she is starting to learn to smile more and more everyday at him. Preston is such a sweet guy and no matter how bad your day is he will say something funny and cheer you up. I just love him!

Yes, I know it looks disgusting but still kind of funny to me. I bought Preston a 10 pack of glow sticks and this is what he dedided to do with them.

Happy Thanksgiving

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We had a great one! Just wanted to post a few pics of our day.

Grandpa and Karlie were both tired after dinner

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KEIRSHA

This week was Keirshas 12 b-day. Its hard to beleive that next year she will be an official teenager and starting junior high. If that doesn't make ya feel old I don't know what does. She is such a sweet girl and has been such a huge help to me this past year when I was so sick with my pregnancy and blood clot. With Bryan working nights I needed a lot of help from her and she never once complained. She looks for the good in almost every situation. I wish I could be more like her. She is also a great big sister to Preston and Karlie. We love ya Keirsha. Happy B-day!

THE THINGS WE DO FOR OUR KIDS................I think we have all found ourselves doing something out of the ordinary or out of our comfort zones for our kids once in a while and that is what we did for Keirshas birthday. Bryan and I took her out on Saturday and we ended up at a New Kids on the Block concert (their comeback tour). Bryan was not thrilled with the idea and worried about being the only guy there but was a trooper and went for Keirsha. He wasn't the only guy there and even though it was the New Kids I think we all ended up having a good time. Bryans friends at work did however give him a tough time. Ha ha!

Blessing Baby Karlie

Last Sunday we had the opportunity to bless our sweet baby. When we blessed Keirsha and Preston we lived in Arizona so none of our extended family were able to attend. This blessing was great because in addition to my parents and sister, many of my cousins and their families were able to attend. Bryan and I have asked my dad to bless all of our children. I think it has been fun for my dad and something really special to share with his grandkids. As always, he did an amazing job. I am so greatful for my dad and all that he does for my kids. He is a great example for them and they love him so much. Thanks Dad! The baby was tired after the blessing so we didn't get very many pictures but below are a few we were able to get.

My blessing tired me right out!

Hope everyone had a great Halloween. This was our first Halloween with Karlie so was really fun. She is still so tiny (almost 9 pounds as of yesterday) so didn't really fit into a costume yet but we were able to find her a cute little Halloween shirt. Keirsha is officially a pre-teen and to cool for Bryan and I. She spent the evening with her friends instead. They were hippie triplets and very proud of their outfits that they made all by themselves. We had a great Halloween night at my moms house. We went over for a chili dinner, trick or treating and some family games.

The Hippie Triplets

Preston was excited to trick or treat but made sure to let us all know he was not little anymore and would not go until it was completly dark. He wanted to pass out candy to the "little" kids that come earlier and apparantly thought sitting by the door would make them come quicker. Ha ha

Pumpkin patch

A day at Copperton Park

MY SNOW CHAIR!

HAVING FUN IN THE BACKYARD WITH DADDY

First Snow!

We decided today to change our blog background to a fall one although looking at the photos you would think it was winter. It snowed for the first time today and the kids were so excited they had to go out and build a snowman. Bryan and the kids LOVE the snow and last winter built pretty much anything you could think of out of snow. I don't know how they stand the cold but they will pretty much spend all the time they can outside building in the snow or sledding. You will probably never see me in pictures with snow because I am a wimp when it comes to snow and cold weather. At least this year I can blame it on having to stay in with the baby instead of being a poor sport!

Great Grandma Coon

New BYU fan!!!!
Keirsha and Preston loving their new sister!

Our baby girl Karlie Ann Galloway was finally born September 19, 2008 at 4:26 p.m weighing 7lb 2oz and is 19 inches long. As many of you know this was a very long pregnancy with a lot of challenges so I have had a lot of fears regarding delivery day. It turned out to be great birth and actually pretty funny in the end. A little after 4:00 the hospital resident Dr came in to check in on me and see how things were coming. We were surprised to see I was already fully dilated and near delivery. She had me push 3 times to see when she should call my regular Doctor in. After the 3 pushes she said that things were getting close so would be leaving to call my doctor and they would be back in a little bit. No sooner did she say that, we heard her kind of laugh and said quickly "Nevermind.....Here's your baby" As she said that we all looked and the baby was just kind of there without warning. The poor nurses (who were still setting up for delivery) started pacing around trying to page my doctor as quickly as they could. My mom and Bryan said it was very funny because it looked to them like the baby came sliding right out with her hands straight to her side just like she was on a regular slide and just slid right out. Poor doctor didn't even have time to put on her gown or gloves but she was very sweet about it. We all thought it was pretty funny. It could have been a bad situation but ended up just fine with a health baby girl. We are all so excited to have her here!

MOMMY DADDY AND KARLIE

FAMILY ON DELIVERY DAY

CAMI

TISH

GRANDMA

GRANDPA

PROUD NEW BROTHER AND SISTER!