My baby girl turned 4!!!

I cannot believe our baby girl is 4. Where did the time go? She has gotten so big. It makes me so sad and proud and all kinds of emotions at once. She is going to start all day pre-K this fall. I can't believe I am old enough to have a child in school. I guess this day had to come eventually right? She is the cutest sweetest girl ever. She is so nice and thoughtful. She is very social and smart. She is going to love school! She loves her little brother and Jesus. She is always nice to Jack even if he is bothering her or hitting her or taking something away. She never hits him or takes things from him. She is so patient with him. She is a great example for her little brother. She is so smart it amazes me. She knows stuff I had no idea she would know. Like she knows all her numbers now and can do some simple visual math. So our tolit upstairs broke somehow, I don't know what happened but I think it involved Jack flushing something random down it. But it is fixed now. Anywho, I was talking to Caroline about it cause this was her tolit and she was having a hard time dealing with the fact she would have to use another tolit. So I just said "Caroline we have three tolits here to choose from this shouldn't be a problem." And then she said "no mommy we had three tolits and then one broke, now how many do we have?" I was like you are right Caroline. I was so shocked she would even think of it that way. Usually when we do math it is very visual and you have to use fingers or pictures or objects. She does very well I actually think now she is doing better with numbers than letters. She does know all her letters and sounds and can tell you what words start with and is trying to write...some letters look better than others, but most are unrecognizable to the naked eye. She is such a sweet girl she is always thinking of others. Now if she doesn't want something she says we should donate this to the library if its a book or where ever else. The other night at family home evening we were talking about prayer and all the different things you want to say in a prayer. So at the end we ask her what she is going to pray for now. We are expecting her to say a friend, some toy or food or something like that. But she says, "for mommy to have more babies." I was so shocked I wanted to cry. I never thought she thought about that much. It's not like we are trying and aren't able to or anything like that. She just really wants more siblings I guess. I actually think she may know something we don't. She is such a good girl and loves church and she knows so much about scripture stories and about Joseph Smith. She has parts of the first vision memorized. Don't ask me how. It must be from a song or something in primary. But it is so touching to hear here tell gospel stories. Ok so I better end this post, it is making me cry. Anyway I love you Caroline. Happy Birthday!

The day Caroline was born. Look at those cheeks!
I can't beleive she was once this little.

Caroline at 1!



Caroline acting silly at 2.


Caroline right after her 3rd Birthday. I never noticed how much she changed since last year until I looked at these pictures.


I the cuttest girl in the world!

Sniffing flowers in grandma's yard this spring.

Precious gift from God!

And our new house.

Before. This is Caroline looking for Easter Eggs in the yard hehe.

Ok sorry for the blog over load, but I promised pics of our new house. Sorry no inside pics, that is still not totally together...though it is getting there more now. Anywho these are pics of what the front yard looked like before and after. Ryan got to have an entire day off on community beautification day or something like that. It was awesome. Most of our neighbors tried to get out of it or BS around the neighborhood when they were suppose be cleaning up, but not us we totally overhauled our yard. there is a yard of the month competition in each neighborhood, though I doubt we will ever win, it is nice to take pride in your yard. We never messed with our yard at the other place, so it feels good to have gotten it done at our new one!
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After. It looks even better now that my plants have grown and my bulbs have come up and we have added a few things to the yard. And my front door is open this picture.

The minivan!

So here is the sweet minivan that I promised a pic of forever ago. We got it about 6 months ago. It is a dodge Caravan and I love having a minivan. I never thought I would say that. But since getting it Ryan has already tore out the radio/cd player (he did that in our other car too) and I ran into a pole at a Micky D's drive through. (Probably a sign.) But it only left a little dent and Ryan actually got me a better radio that plays MP3's. So we were able to download all of conference onto one cd and listen to it on our trip to UT. It also have a plug in for your Ipod...not that I have an Ipod, but I thought that was cool. All the guys at Ryan's work made fun of him for getting a van, but when he had to drive it to work, when the Altima was having problems they all loved it and called it the man van. And anytime they would have to go somewhere, they would say, "lets all go in the man van." They were finding excuses to go places with Ryan, so they could all ride in the man van together. Hehe they are silly, anyway here is me, the proud owner of a minivan!!!

Nap time.

This is how I found Jack when I went to wake him up from his nap. Isn't that cute. Too bad eh won't sit through a book. His bed is right by his book shelf so he pulls them off when he is suppose to be going to sleep. I always thought he was just throwing them on the floor cause that would be where I found them when he wakes up. But I was glad to see he was "reading" one, and one about Jesus at that. I love my little Jackers.

We got a naughty puppy!

This is Goldie. She is a 4 month old yellow lab. Yes the most hyper dog breed ever...exactly what I didn't want, but of course I couldn't say no to Ryan. She is the dog he has always wanted and he loves her. So how did we come to acquire this dog out of no where you ask? Well we went up to Dallas to go to the temple and when I was in the temple Ryan decides to take the kids to a pet store by the church bookstore. They come back to get me with a picture of the dog they like and beg me to go see it. Ryan said she was already trained, didn't shed, and was only 88 dollars. The prices was the only true part to that. She was so naughty, and thought Jack was another puppy to wrestle with. She was jumping all over the place and biting on everything...all I could think about was how the dog would eat my furniture. So I said no...so Ryan and Jack moopped to the book store where they were suppose to originally go. Caroline and I stayed behind to look around some more. Caroline assumed that since we weren't getting the dog we would be getting a cat. I just felt bad for disappointing Ryan and not wanting the responsibility of training and picking up poo. So I told the sales lady we would get her. After all she was the clearance puppy. Of course all the crap we had to buy for her cost more than the dog herself. I didn't know anything about dogs, so they could have talked me into buying anything and I am pretty sure one of the guys who helped us out was high. Anyway I did not know what to expect for the drive home, but everyone was sooo excited. I was like this is a 2 1/2 hour drive, is this dog gonna go crazy in the car, is she gonna get car sick and poop and barf all over our car. None of the above. She was totally nice and calm in the car, and you know how dogs smile, she smiled the whole way home. You could tell she was so happy to finally be getting a family. I don't know much about dogs, but I think they are that simple. They just want a family as anyone would. She is a lot like a kid. Her and Jack do a lot of the same naughty things, like eating things like crayons and dirt. She slept that last little way home and didn't even have an accident in the car. She started getting restless as we approached our home so I dropped off her and Ryan and they ran home. When he got her to the back yard she was soooo excited. She was running all over the place and exploring everything. The next door neighbors dog started barking at her and then I was like oh great they are gonna bark all night, but she never barked. We tried to see if she would want to come in for the night, but she was having too much fun outside. The two dogs I swear played all night long. Also that night Goldie popped every ball in the yard. The only thing we heard from her all night was a little whimpering around 5am. Ryan went out with her for a run. Then she was actually calm for most of the day and even played nicely with the kids and our friends kid that night. She never once got mad at them for pulling on her ears, or laying on her or anything. We were like wow she is actually a good dog. And we had not heard her bark once as of Sunday night. So we go to bed again and then I hear her bark the next morning around 6am. So I went down and fed her and she was all full of energy and acting crazy. I would have taken her for a walk but the kids were still asleep and Ryan was gone. So when he got back for breakfast I took her for a walk. She wasn't too bad. She never barked at any neighbors dogs. I guess she isn't much of a barker. But I guess the walk wasn't enough. She was so wild the whole day, and I couldn't even begin to think about walking her with both kids in the afternoon heat. I filled up the pull for the kids and she was jumping in and out and knocking over the kids and trying to play with Jack like he was a puppy. It was too crazy. And everything time I went to feed her she acted like she was starving. How much are you suppose to feed a dog? They said only twice a day, and we have been dong three, but she still acts like she is starving every time we feed her. So when Ryan go home he took her out for a run again and then she calmed down again. I was like oh no she is a naughty dog what am I gonna do with her. So, but then today we went to the vet clinic on post to register our dog with our community. And there was a soldier there with a chocolate female lab same age as Goldie and she was totally way worse. She wouldn't even hold still on the lease. She was jumping and biting and barking and doing all the naughty stuff puppies do. And then I was like wow I guess our dog isn't that bad. So I guess we'll keep her. I think the most important thing is that she is happy now to be with her new family...living in the pet store probably wasn't fun...and she has a new friend she plays with every night in the back yard. Plus Ryan loves her and she loves him. She does whatever he says and loves running with him. I think she is a great addition and if nothing else brings more love into our home. I have never had a dog and now I understand why people love them so much!

Here she is making herself at home.

Flat Sadie in Ft. Hood, TX

Dear, Ms. Layton's class,
Sorry it has taken me so long to get back to Holtville. I have been here in Ft. Hood, TX and somehow got tricked into joining the army! But I have worked everything out and as everything in the army it has taken forever for me to get out and I will be home very soon.
Everything in Texas is big, bigger, or the biggest! It's the biggest state on the continental US. It is also said to have a big sky which you can see in the pictures below. They also have big produce, cows, and hair! So of course Texas is home to the biggest military post in the country. This is where the majority of our men in women in the army are living and deploy from to Iraq and other various places. Everywhere you go there are men and women in uniform. So how could you come and not get mixed up in it.
Something else they have here that is big are thunderstorms. I have never seen such crazy storms, but they sure do produce such beautiful rainbows. A few minutes after we took the pictures will all the tanks and helicopters a storm rolled in and we got soaked. The sky was sure beautiful afterwards though. The sun is also big and red as it was setting.
Also while I was here the family I was with went on a road trip to UT. I got to see 3 other states. New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah. New Mexico wasn't much to write home about, but Arizona had beautiful red mountains and snow!!! We also drove through the archs national park in UT. All the pictures are below of my adventures here.




Beautiful rainbow after a storm

Texas longhorn cow. These cows were everywhere and very big!

Archs national park in southeast UT

Random rock in the middle of nothing in UT.

Main gate to Ft. Hood army post.

Big red sun setting in the west.

The big Texas sky right before a storm moved in.

The sky right after the storm.

Me on an old WWII helicopter.



A big airplane!

An old tank!

WWII memorial.

The Iraq war memorial.

Me showing my patriotism. You can see the American flag everywhere here!

As we drove around a bend in AZ these big beautiful red mountains came out of nowhere.


There was snow is AZ. No snow in TX though.

Jack's one year pictures

We finally got the pictures of our sweet baby boy, we got taken for his first B-day. Let me know if any of you want any of them and I will send them too you!

Look at that face. How could you say no to that face. I am already in trouble.






My baby boy can do no wrong. Oh no I am one of those moms.