Cruisin'

this year for spring break i went on a CRUISE with part of my family! my parents still have two boys at home. the oldest of them is leaving on a mission, so they wanted to take him on a fun trip before he leaves.. they scheduled the cruise and invited any of us that wanted to come.. it worked out that me, my older brother dave, and my two sisters could go. wayne was swamped with tax season and couldn't come... so i left my girls with my mother in law and a friend (they split the days) and we went cruisin... we left from LA on monday.. stopped in Catalina Islands tuesday... stopped in Ensanada Mexico wednesday.. had a day at sea thursday (which made most of us sick)... and came home friday.

it was an awesome experience. it was so fun to be with my siblings and parents! we got to be on the shows on the cruise like family fued and battle of the sexes, ate, we went to the club one night (i got carded! i guess it's a compliment that they didn't think i was 18, even though i turned 28 last week!) .. we layed out, ate, went to the spa, took naps, ate... it was so relaxing! deanne and i shared a room.. i made some phone calls from a calling card on the ship, and realized later that the ship charges $6.99 a minute for a satalite fee.. so $400 dollars later (after me and my sisters called home) we realized the damage and talked to cruise line in to halfing the charges..i was pretty ticked that they had those kind of hidden charges!!

anyway, besides that, it was a great trip! my family is definately my closest friends! we missed those who weren't with us!


catalina islands

karaoke ...

every night they made your towel in to the shape of an animal, turned down your bed and gave you chocolate!

dave, levi, tonya, deanne, me, travis, mom... everyone execpt dad!

ensanada mexico

my sisters, dave (my brother) and i all drove half way there on Sunday night.. we drove around blithe forever trying to find a good deal on a hotel.. finally we went back to one of the first ones.. i shared a bed with my brother and in the middle of the night he reached over and rubbed my back! i moved to the edge of the bed as fast as i could! he doesn't believe me that he did that! funny memories!

Catalina islands.. tonya and i got pedicures

me and deanne on the deck of the ship.. it was so beautiful!

formal night.. with my two sisters!

this was everyone that went!

levi, the show girl, and a protective sister :)

funny!

we look so tough! :)

our ship

Formal Night

travis, dad, mom, levi ( the food was AWESOME!)

dave, dee, tonya, me

In memory of my cute little niece, Aubrey

Last week my awesome brother (Steven), and his awesome wife(Kami) had their first baby! They knew before she was born that she had trisomy 18 and would not live very long. Last week they went in for a sonogram (38 weeks along) and found out that Aubrey had passed on. Kami then delivered a perfect baby! Aubrey Ruth Palmer was 4 lbs. 2 oz. She was so beautiful! I am so thankful to have got to hold her and feel her sweet spirit. It has been a great teaching time for my girls. We have prayed for Aubrey through the whole pregnancy. I am so thankful to be a member of this church and know that one day Steven and Kami will get to raise their sweet baby! I can't wait to see her again. The whole experience was so heartbreaking and wonderful at the same time. Steven and Kami are the most amazing people I have ever met. They are my heros. The have handled this like I could never imagine! They are so strong and have been the ones comforting us! Aubrey is so lucky to have them for her parents!

Our family at the graveside. It was a beautiful memorial!

Haylee and Hanna with their balloons with notes to Aubrey

We all wrote messages to Aubrey and sent them up to Heaven!

Our family with Steven and Kami. The memorial was the day after Kami delivered! She was such a trooper. I love these two!!

This was so heartbreaking. No one thinks that they will have to bury their child!

Look whose the one comforting.. Kami... amazing

My cute girls.. Haylee and Hanna made Aubrey braclets before she was born. Aubrey was burried with those braclets on!

random CuTeNeSs

maci is so fun right now! she is talking a lot and we all adore her!

this is what haylee wore home from school on valentine's day! it was so cute!

Hanna on valentine's day delievering her gifts to her class

we had so much fun with my niece JoAnn at our house for a week... here are the girls playing dress up!

riding horses at grandma's (maci, hanna, and JoAnn)

JoAnn, Haylee, and Hanna in the matching outfits that grandma bought them!

maci always wants to clean the floor when i am working on it.. by the way i love this little machine. it's called the swivel sweeper.. it's like a little vacuum for hard floors. it's awesome to clean up the messes under the table.. and everywhere else!

part of the fun of having girls is matching them.. they will probably grow up and hate it, but i think it's cute!

haylee's first fhe lesson that she gave by herself! (the accountable cow barn!) so cute!




here is what we have been up to! i love my girls and awesome husband (who has been working like crazy to support us! most of the time he leaves around 6 in the morning and comes home after 11 pm... without coming home for lunch or dinner. the girls sometimes go days without seeing him.. but that's tax season! i feel bad for him, i wish he could just get a good night sleep!).. here is what we have been doing without him...

4 bad ears + 1 good doctor = one happy mom!

this title might not make any sense.. let me explain. all of my girls have had bad ear problems. Haylee and Hanna both got tubes in their ears when they were one.... eventually the tubes fall out and normally kids grow out of ear infections.. not the case with my girls. Haylee's ear drum has burst twice since then, Hanna was constantly getting ear infections and was having a really hard time hearing, and now Maci has had 6 double ear infections in about 7 months... so time for tubes again!! Haylee seems to be growing out of the infections, but i was really worried about Hanna's hearing and Maci was constantly in the dr. office... so i made lots of trips to tempe to meet with our awesome ENT (ear nose and troat dr.) we got the surgery scheduled for Feb. 28th for Hanna and maci... so again i made a quick trip to mesa. i stayed the night on wed. (we went by my inlaws house and my father in law and brother in law, brian, gave the girls a blessing (wayne has been working so much and not been home, so i forgot to ask him!) i am so thankful for the priesthood and awesome men who hold it!

thurs. morning we had to be at the surgery center @ 6:45am. my good friend tami farnsworth came with me. she was a huge help!( wayne had to work) the girls couldn't eat or drink before the surgery. Hanna and maci both played great in the waiting room. then a nurse comes and takes the girls (maci first) and about 15 minutes later the dr. came back and told us everything went well...(he said maci had double ear infections that day!) then they took hanna back for surgery. the dr. said that hanna had more mucus in her ear than he had seen in a long time. (no wonder she couldn't hear) it is a quick surgery with a quick recovery... i am SO happy to have the surgery done. hopefully now we won't be in and out of the dr. office and the girls won't have so much pain when they get an ear infection! Hanna is already hearing better. it's so great!

in the waiting room...

after the surgery... this says it all for maci...when she came out of the anestesia (sp?) she was so mad! i couldn't calm her down. i gave her a drink and a cracker and she threw it at me.. then she would snuggle me and then start crying again and hit me. i don't think she had any clue what was going on.. after a nap on the drive home, she was great!

hanna did awesome and didn't cry at all. i don't know why the color on this picture is so wierd, but hanna thought it was awesome to ride in a wheelchair out to the car. she was so good!!

What do we do now??

our life has been consumed with basketball for the last 4 months! we have gone to almost every game for both of my brothers... now that it is over, i don't know what to do with all my time... i'm sure i'll find something! well the state championships were fun to watch, but we didn't win. thatcher did awesome. almost everyone though we were going to get beat really bad (because we played a christian school that can recruit)... but we stayed close the whole game and did great. it was fun that the team got to play in the jobing.com arena in glendale (it is the coyote's hockey arena).. it was a short one, day trip this time, but fun to support my brother and the team.. levi (my brother) made the all tourn. team! i am proud of him and glad we were able to be here for his last b.ball season!!

those who made it to the state championship game

the waterfall @ the arena

this was the game when all but one of the siblings were there (my girls were with a babysitter, it makes it much easier to watch a game that way)

the loudest fans!! me and my two sisters

last weekend in mesa at my in-laws (sunday)

it was so fun to be with our layton cousins again. we miss them!!

Take state EAGLES!!

Tomorrow we are headed to Mesa, AGAIN.. we have made so many short trips lately.. but tomorrow will be so fun. Thatcher boys basketball made it to the championships in the Glendale arena!! My little brother, who is a senior, is one of the starters! He is so good and we have gone to almost every game this season! I love small town sports, because the whole town (at least a lot of them) comes out to support the teams! Today as the team was leaving to mesa, they we escorted out of town by the police, and firetrucks (with their sirens) and lots of fans! It is so exciting! We are playing a really tough team, but hope to win tomorrow... I will keep you updated... Last weekend, during the playoffs, 9 out of 10 of the kids in my family were at the game! ... it was a pretty big crowd and really loud... It was so fun to be together and we missed Tom who didn't make it! Tomorrow I am leaving Haylee and Hanna with their cousins and Wayne and I are taking Maci to the game. It should be exciting!! GO EAGLES!!

TAG... I'm it!

5 things i was doing ten years ago!
* 17 years old... in middle of my senior year and loving it!
* Student Counsel ( i think i spelled that wrong.. :)
* Excited about graduation
* Planning a trip to Canada with my best friend Camille
* ... what else do I say about highschool, except I LOVED IT!

5 things on my to-do list!
* clean my house
* make invitations for "8 is great" fireside
* finish my girls valentines and dip strawberries for my family and friends
* plan spring break... cruise or Hanna surgery???!! (I'll explain later!)
* a whole lot of vinyl lettering orders

5 snacks i enjoy (.. i don't know if i can narrow it down to five!... my trainer wouldn't be very happy with this list!!)
* cheese cake
* chocolate (of course) .. any kind
* my new favorite thing is a chocolate, banana protein shakes (which is actually so healthy)
* silver mint bars from schwans
* homemade cookies or bread

5 things i would do if i were a billionaire
* pay off my house
* finally go to hawaii
* take my kids on a disney cruise
* help families without enough money to send kids on missions, or buy school clothes
* i would love to have tons of extra money to just help ANYONE in need.. there have been so many times, with families or friends or strangers that I want to give money, or things they need, but can't..

3 bad habits
* when i have a break during the day, i would rather watch tv than get the things done i need to be doing
* i bite my nails... i know gross!
* i snack all day!

5 places i have lived
1. thatcher, az
2. summer in utah
3. mesa, AZ
4. chandler, AZ
5. thats it!

5 jobs i have had
* my first job was on the cotton farm...and my boss fired me because he caught me and the crew in the canal swimming! (good memories!) i worked with 6 guys and camille daley!
* sunrise preschool .. ( i would never do that again!.. i perfer watching my own kiddos!)
* r and r pizza
* eac library (So fun!!)
* office work in gilbert at homestead vinyl (that is the summer i met wayne...)

5 things people don't know about me ( i don't know if people don't know these things.. but here are 5 things about me..)
* i love living by my family and in a small town!
* i love to work out
* i love to be a mom
* i love scrapbooking and crafts
* i perfer watching tv to reading...(even though i am finally getting throught the twightlight series!)

TAG... you are all it!!

Looking good...

Sundays are always alittle crazy getting the 3 girls ready and myself... but I always love the end result! Girls are so fun to dress up! I was made to have girls! I love it!