Alright I'll BLOG!

So I have been a horrible blogger, I know, I am not quite sure where the time has gone. I do know what we have been busy with though, so I guess that is good! (Also proves the pregnancy brain has not taken over just yet, thank goodness!)

We spent Easter weekend in Utah and the girls and I spent the week before that in Boise with my mom. This was probably one of the last times that I could spend a week with my Mom with just the girls for a little while. And we had an awesome time (well okay Madalynn was once again teething and was a crank bucket until the last day.) We did a lot of shopping of course and it was nice because Kirsten was visiting the same week so I got a lot of opinions on what to buy and what should stay at the store. By the by Kirsten found an awesome maternity bathing suit at Target, just in case you need one! Sarah loved every moment of being with Grammi and Poppy!

So Easter weekend started out nice, we were reunited with Creed, though he didn't have enough bee pollen and was sort of a crouch (bee pollen keeps his depression and OCD controlled instead of prozac, I can talk about that later if someone wants.) Anyway, and on Saturday we had an awesome Easter party with Great Grandma Larsen and a bunch of the Larsen clan. It was a blast! Sarah was so good at only picking up the candy that she could eat, the taffy, which apparently was not a hit with everyone else, so we got a ton! We made special gluten free chocolate coconut cookies, which Sarah continues to talk about to this day. So cute! I love that she appreciates the extra work it takes to make stuff for her, makes me want to make stuff more often! Anyway, Saturday night we went down to visit with Dave and Kiersten (best friends in the world who I miss dearly!!!) Sarah of course had to start throwing up, I had a migraine and Madalynn was a teething wreck. Oh so fun when Kiersten had a migraine and the boys were at priesthood. Then on Sunday Sarah was still sick, I started feeling sick and Creed started feeling sick as well. By Monday we were in the doctor's office in Boise with Sarah who had an ear infection and the ear drum had burst. We got home on Tuesday and Creed went to the doctor and found out he had strep. I went in on Wednesday because I had strep and Madalynn went in on Thursday because she had so much ick coming out of her ear we knew she had an ear infection. Needless to say the beginning of April was a blast!

Once we were all feeling better we started the packing, which just doesn't go as well with kids unpacking the boxes and a big belly getting in the way of everything! I have decided that I will no longer move while pregnant. I just felt like a big fat loser who couldn't do anything and poor Creed had to do it all. I sure that him! Anyway, we got really busy with the packing and we painted the four bedrooms in the new place and then moved in all in a week. Oh, my were we busy, but it was good at the same time. We love the new place, it just feels more like home than the old one. There is enough room for us and some, which is wonderful with baby #3 on the way and the hope of having more children (though I am thinking that I need a little more of a gap between these next two!)

Madalynn is growing up fast. She loves to sing and dance, and is really quite fun to watch explore. She is trying her hardest to walk, but falls down after taking a step. I am hoping she completes this task before baby gets here, which could be any time between now and July. Anyway, Madalynn has a pretty big vocabulary, she says hi, peek-a-boo, Sarah, Mama (which isn't me, I am still Dada, go figure!), Daddy and duck. It seems like everyday she learns something new. Sarah is doing awesome and is growing up too fast! She had her first talk in Primary, she wants a bike for her birthday, and loves to play with Barbies. I am starting to feel just a tad bit old, though I know that I am still young. Creed is doing great at work and is really enjoying it more and more, which is always nice. I am now big, and to the point where doing much of anything is difficult. I can no longer reach my toes, bend over to pick up toys, or food on the ground, and my belly is getting in the way of me reaching too far into anything, such as the sinks, or the back of the stove and oven. If you have been pregnant before you know this stage. The one where you can't roll over without it taking 5 min. The stage where you start debating if shaving your legs is really worth the effort, and the stage where flip flops and slip on shoes become your best friends. I am there! Also the baby started having hiccups three weeks ago, this is good news for me because it tells me that I am further along than the ultrasound showed and hopefully I can start going off of my first due date and not the new one. I am crossing my fingers on that one! Anyway, next post will be a bunch of pictures, right now it is nap time and I need one!

Who wants an update?!?

I hear a bunch of "I do" so I guess I can share what we have been doing. First off I finally had my ultrasound and yes we are having a baby! Wahoo!! The baby is healthy, but measuring pretty small (20 weeks when I was 24) so the technician said that according to her computer our due date would be the middle of July. Since I am measuring how many weeks I should be pregnant I at this point am going with my original due date of the beginning of June (-3 weeks because I am always 3 weeks early) so I guess this baby can come safely anytime between the middle of May and the middle of July (oh bother!). I think it is one of those things that we will just have to wait and see about (and yes I am shaking my head a little).

So here is what Madalynn has been doing: teething, pulling herself up into a standing position and this week she even took a few steps along things (once again I am shaking my head!) Lets be honest as Mothers when your first child shows signs of walking at 9 months you get excited and think, YES my child is AMAZING! With every other child you look at them and think, really?!? Can I push you down without hurting your chances of ever walking? I mean I want Madalynn to walk before Baby #3 comes, but I don't want her walking now! The other thing she is doing that I am shaking my head at is deciding she is big enough for finger foods, which wouldn't be a problem if she had more than one tooth. The other tooth finally came through this last weekend, but it still makes for messy food because she doesn't want to eat off of a spoon and she only has two teeth, sometimes I don't even know what to feed her! She is also talking, she can say da da (which is really mommy) and daddy along with duck. Yes I wrote duck. My mom gave her a plastic Donald Duck toy and she loves it, so we started calling it duck and one day she just decided to say it with us. For some odd reason I don't think we will be needing to teach this one sign language so she can tell us what she wants.

Sarah has been doing really well lately, getting bigger and more courageous. She climbs everything and therefore there isn't a safe place in the house to hide things. If I put it under a bed Madalynn gets it, up high and Sarah gets it, so no hiding places for us. Sarah is also becoming really sweet with Madalynn, she loves to play with her and laugh with her and try to teach her new words (though I think Madalynn is a ways off from saying Sarah and blanket and cheerios). Sarah loves to go to the park and play and lately the weather has been nice enough that we have gone at least once a week. She is also really big on going to the store and helping us with things and she loves to hold the coupons! Sarah and I do school at least once a week and she is really good at patterns and numbers and can write the letters A, O and I (we are finding them all over things, like the walls and our car!) She also loves learning about colors and which colors mixed make other colors (probably because I get out paint and she is allowed to paint something). We are slowly moving towards a Celiac diet with her and have taken her off all milk, expect raw milk, that doesn't seem to bother her. Her rash is going away and only comes back when she does eat wheat/milk products, so we are pretty sure that she is Celiac and just got a false negative on her test. Personally I love that she isn't always itching and cooking meals without wheat isn't as hard as I thought it would be, we are going on our second week now and everyone is still alive!

Creed is still enjoying his job and now carpools most days with his friend Nells, who isn't a member of the Church. This leads to some awesome discussions that Creed than shares with me, which I love. Also we have finally closed on our house in Springville, and we are so excited about that! I still coupon and am loving saving money, this last week at Albertson's I saved around $200, it was fun! We are studying Isaiah together and that has been a ton of fun. We use Gileadi's help (isaiahexplained.com) and I warn you that it took us 4 hours to get through the first chapter (we were taking notes and chatting about it). Man is Isaiah interesting when you understand it! Anyway, that is pretty much us, oh wait, Creed also has gone to the local skate park for some rollerblading fun, Sarah came home and told me that "Daddy tried to kill himself two times!" meaning he fell twice. I haven't yet decided how I feel about it, I know he enjoys it, I just wish he enjoyed something that wasn't so dangerous!

What we have been up to, up to, up to?!?

Okay if you know what the up to part of the title of this post is from you win brownie points! And if you hadn't guessed Sarah has been on a Sleeping Beauty kick. Anyway, we have been pretty busy like usual and like everybody else. Somehow we didn't even notice that it had become February until last Sunday when I looked at a calendar and remember that my little brother turned 21. Oh how crazy life is. We have been doing the usual stuff, letters with Sarah, teaching piano lessons, helping Madalynn learn more words and get teeth, family home evenings, reading scriptures with Sarah, getting more food supply, Creed goes to work, laundry, bathrooms, dishes, dinners, couponing (and making $20 last week in the process!), scrapbooking, cardmaking, oh yeah and every now and then we sleep. It really is funny how busy I feel but then when I write about it, it looks really dull. So sorry! We have done a few fun things like going shopping for a sewing machine (happy anniversary and birthday to me!), which I am hoping to pick out next week. We found this place that restores old machines, you know the ones that were built to last forever, and the owner said that he would have 5-6 in our price range next Saturday, I am super excited! Here come some cute skirts for the girls, maybe some blankets, and whatever else is 101 sewing! And on Sunday we celebrated our family's 6th birthday along with Valentine's Day. Sarah got really into it and was hugging us and kissing us all day. We were totally feeling the love! We even made a cake and had candles and sang Happy Birthday to us, it was really fun and really special to be able to talk to Sarah about our wedding day and being sealed in the temple. What a wonderful blessing it is to know that Creed is mine forever (and the girls too!). I love him so much and am so excited about our future, though I don't know what it holds. It really is fun to have someone that you trust completely and can share everything with. So Creed, I LOVE YOU!!!!

Okay I will be done with the sappy, I know everyone is dying of pictures so here are a few:

Also I thought I would share a little quote from Sarah, we have been reading the end of 1st Nephi with her, where it talks a lot about Zion or the Second Coming. Last Saturday Creed took Sarah with him to pick up our year supply of wheat. The people at the cannery asked her what all the wheat was for and Sarah answered: It is our food for ZION! She really is cute!

Why a mother cannot take a bathroom break!

Here is a fun little list of things that have happened at my house when I take a 5 min (max) bathroom break:

Your flour, sugar, and rice that you have stored in buckets will be mixed together because, "I am making something for you to eat Mother!"

In the other bathroom your toilet seat will be painted with red finger nail polish because, "I had to paint my finger nails! (which did get painted as well)"

Anything and everything that you put up high will be down and eaten or colored on because, "I just wanted to climb and get that candy because I love candy!"

All gum in the house will be consumed because, "I just love gum mother!"

The laundry you just folded, yup you guessed it, is all unfolded, hence I have a hard time folding laundry, because, "I just wanted to try on all the shirts and these weren't folded right.

Just a FEW updates!

Okay so I have been an awful blogger I know, so I thought that I would go back and share a little bit about what we have done.

October

For the rest of October we were pretty busy. A few highlights are Sarah turning three and Halloween. Sarah was Nemo again, Madalynn was a zebra, Creed was a pirate and I was a maiden. Also of note Madalynn turned 5 months.

November

So all I really remember of November is that we found out we were pregnant and I cried, not because I didn't want another baby, I just hate being sick! So pretty much all of November was spent trying NOT to be sick, which doesn't work when you are pregnant. Though Thanksgiving was amazing. We ended up not being able to go to Tremonton where the rest of my family hung out, but we did end up handing out with our friends the Opdahls. So thank-you Monique and Tom for an excellent day!

December

December was also a bit of a blur. We had the usual colds, well Sarah and I did. I was still sick, but not everyday like in November. We figured out I would be due June 4, and for those that are wondering Madalynn's birthday is May 29th, so with my tendancy to be three weeks early, these two kiddos will be pretty close in age. Then on the 16th I boarded a plane with the two girls and headed to Boise. I LOVED it! We spent a week with my parents and Kirsten and Cam were also there for a few days, which was a blast because Kirsten is pregnant too! She is due the end of June. Wahoo for babies! Anyway, we of course did the shopping thing and the usual Christmas stuff, you know making ornaments, eating chocolate, watching gooey romantic Christmas shows and staying up way too late talking. It was a blast! Then on the 23rd I once again braved the airport by myself with two kids and flew to Salt Lake, where I spent two weeks with Creed's family. Creed arrived Christmas Eve and was able to stay until the Monday after Christmas. We had a lot of fun with the Larsen's. We went sledding, had Christmas, talked, played games, shared our testimonies and once again had a blast! It was about the time that Creed left that Madalynn learned to sit up by herself as well as the start of the army crawl and talking. Then we had New Year's Eve, which was spent with Ben's wife's family, why you may ask? Because they wanted to play games and so did I.

January

That leads to January, where before I left all the girls went and saw Blind Side. I highly recommend this movie. I loved it! I flew home on the 5th and because it was cheaper to buy two tickets, one to Boise and then one to Portland, I had to figure out how to get me, two girls, 3 bags and 2 car seats checked in again. All I can say is THANKS DAD! My Mom stayed with us for the four hours we had between flights, all I can say is THANKS MOM! Oh my did they make my day. Once we made it home I just wanted to go to bed. So other highlights for this month would be Madalynn mastering sitting up by herself, eating solids, army crawling all over the place and saying Da-Da along with a-Da (this is Sarah we are pretty sure because she only says it when looking at her). Also of note I have chosen my midwife! I am so excited about my choice. We have, or really, I have chosen to do a home birth with this midwife, she actually doesn't do hospital deliveries unless something is wrong in the labor. I decided to do a home birth for a few reasons, 1. to save money, 2. Madalynn's birth was so easy going natural and I learned that my body just knew what to do, in fact the nurse delivered her head, the resident her body and the doctor walked in after it was all over, 3. I really wanted Creed to be able to stay around once the baby was born. With Madalynn he had to go get Sarah and stay with her, so this way even if he has to go get the girls at least we will all be together! So I guess we will see how it all goes!

So I guess that gets everyone up to date. Hope that you all had the best of holidays and are just loving life!

Busy Busy Bees

Yup that is what we are! So here is a short recap with pictures to come:

September 3-8= trip to Utah

I can't remember if I posted about this, but it was so good to be with family! We got to see everybody from the Larsen's except Val, and boy do we miss her! She is still going to school in Boston and didn't come home for summer so we haven't seen her since forever! Anyway, it was a really good trip because we also got to see all of my family except Nate, he had to work but I saw his wife and kiddos and LOVED it! Man do I love family!

The none fun part was me getting super sick which meant that I didn't get to spend as much time with my parents and Creed had to drive the 12 hour drive all by himself in one day. So here is the high five to him! We really love it here in Washington and we have decided that everyone needs to move here so that we can have the best of both worlds! If you want we will even help you find jobs! That is how much we want everyone to live here.

September 19th=trip to Seattle

So Ellen was in Seattle and even though we couldn't make it to her games we did make it up to visit and it was so nice! We wandered around Pike's Place Market and the Piers. Then we ended up eating dinner at this amazing place on the ocean. It was pretty cold but we ate outside anyway and got to watch the sea lions, who were catching fish and playing. Sarah loved it!

September 21st=Madalynn rolling over

I was a bad mother and wouldn't allow Madalynn to play much on her stomach because I didn't want her rolling over, well apparently it didn't matter. She decided that she wanted to roll over and now she does it every day either way. She still doesn't laugh, but she will giggle every now and again, and she LOVES to smile. She is always smiling. She is also blowing raspberries and playing with her feet. She is getting so big! She is huge compared to Sarah at this age. Sarah always fit into the size of clothes that matched her age. Not Madalynn she is in 6-9 months cloths and is only 4 months! Crazy, crazy!

September 25th=Daddy, Mommy and Sarah (and Madalynn) date night

Sarah asked if we could do a daddy, mommy and Sarah date night, and so of course Madalynn came too. We went and saw Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs for FREE, yup gotta love the couponing craziness that seems to have taken over my life. It was a pretty good show and we all had a lot of fun hanging out together.

Conference=LOVE

We loved conference, all of it and Sarah watched most of it and had a number of funny things to say, such as "Here come the Grandpas!" and "Look there is Grandma Mitton singing!" and our all time favorite which opened a very good discussion was the "Why is that guy all ooey gooey" as she pointed to an African American singing in the choir. So then of course we had to explain that people came in different colors, to which she responded, "oh like blue and green, I have seen people those colors!" Really we haven't but if it works it works! Sarah also just loved the music and the prophet, she kept saying "when does President Monson get to talk, I want to hear the prophet!" It was a wonderful weekend!

Liberty Provisions=new website still in progress!

That is right we are starting an online business to help everyone in their food storage quests. We will be selling products from Blue Chip (Morning Moo people). Our prices are actually cheaper than theirs so if you are in need of food storage and want some good quality product let us know and we will let you know when we are up and running (crossing fingers that it is by the end of the month!) We are also set up to sell raw honey from a local honey farm here in Washington and let me tell you this is the best tasting honey I have ever had, it is sooooo good! We will also be selling first aid kits and other emergency preparedness products along with coconut oil. So please feel free to tell all your friends and neighbors about us, and watch for updates on when it is live and running the way it should!

Free digital prints

Hey everyone I know I don't update this nearly enough, but I wanted to let all my friends out there know that you can get a ton of FREE prints here. The email I got from them said that I get 600 4x6 and 600 5x7. I still have to pay shipping, but that is a ton of free prints and I can always use free prints!