Birthday, Farewell, & Valentines

I SO do not have time to be doing this right now, but whatever!! It has been a week and if I don't do it now, it will never get done. Wouldn't it be great if we could just blog all the time?? :-)

Alright, let's start with this last weekend... We celebrated Claire's birthday on Thursday night with the family because we were leaving town on Friday. It really wasn't anything spectacular, McDonalds and presents. Every two year olds dream! She absolutely loves her presents though and that's all I can ask for.

McDonalds



Birthday Presents



Friday, Claire's actual birthday, my poor daughter spent the entire time in the car. If you have ever driven to Phoenix, it is one of the most unpleasant and long drives!
Anyway, my nephew Chandler was having his farewell, so several of my family members went down for the weekend. My kids and I traveled with my sister Brenda because Jess has been working everyday since the end of January. I wish I had a lot of great pictures of the weekend, but I was very lazy with the camera. Hopefully, my wonderful writing will create a beautiful picture for you! Right?

On Saturday, a bunch of the girls and my dad went to my niece Malia's cheer competition. Let me just tell you that this beautiful little blond is eleven!! Wow, am I ever a proud aunt! Look for the completely white haired cheerleader, I try to follow her around the best I can. I think I have caved and will probably put Claire in gymnastics and cheer leading. I didn't think I would ever do that, but she absolutely loved watching the girls dance! I am in for it.

My nieces Hannah & Malia, my new nephew Charlie, and Claire Bear. I wanted you to see just how white Malia's hair is before you look at the video so you can pick her out. :-)


Try to follow her, she starts in the very front middle and she is a flyer. At least, I think that is what it's called.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

My nieces Becca and Sharla!


My beautiful sister Debbie planned a wonderful Valentines dinner at her house for all the adults. This is a picture of my handsome date! Don't worry, it's my brother Jason. He was spouse less for the weekend as well.



My sister's Brenda, Rachel, and Debbie.


My dad


My brother Eric and my mom.


It seems that when I go somewhere without my husband, I tend to become a kid again. I am usually all in for any kind of idiotic fun. Chandler invited me to go out and play a game with a bunch of his friends. He said, "It's running! You'll like it!" I agreed, but only if he was able to get Jason to go too. I didn't want to be the only old one there. Yes, I know. I am really not that old, but when everyone else is between the age of 16 and 19, then I am! So, we played like the FUNNEST game ever!! How have I never heard of it?? Whenever I tell someone about it, they say, "Yeah, we used to play that all the time." Anyway, they call it Cops and Fugitives. They drop you off at point A and you have to get to point B, about a mile away, without being spotlighted and picked up by whoever is driving the car and spotlighting. Needless to say, I was jumping fences, hiding behind trash cans, and laying in the dirt! This is my kind of fun! I know, most of you girls reading this would totally disagree, but anything active pretty much wins out with me every time. Nice video footage would be perfect here, sorry! I'm sure all those teenagers thought this 27, 28, and 32 year old were pretty lame! My brother in law Ben also came with Jason and I.

This was taken of Chandler in the summer. I can't believe I didn't get one picture of him this weekend. What a suck aunt I am!


I have to say how absolutely proud of Chandler I am. For those of you that know my brother Stephen, he is very much like him. Looks like him, talks like him, plays like him. He gave such an awesome talk on Sunday and he is going to be a great missionary. He is going to Barcelona, Spain. I'm sure he will come back with stories filled of amazing spiritual experiences and stories of crazy boy fun! He is just all around a great young man.

Jess and I were able to celebrate Valentines together on Monday night. I don't know about others, but after a couple of days of not seeing my husband, I've hit my limit. Call me attached, but I need him! The night was long over due and way too short. We went to dinner and a movie and it was PERFECT!

Anyway, HAPPY late VALENTINES to all of you! Sorry for such a lengthy post, but you know, gotta journal.

My Little Two Year Old

My little girl is turning 2 tomorrow and I can't believe it! The last two years have just flown by. I'm sure that's how it is for most of you parents out there. As crazy as they make us sometimes, their childhood still flies by way too fast. By the way, some of you may want to tune out. I might get long winded. I am trying to journal better on my blog since I learned where they can be printed very nicely in a book.

Okay, on to my little Claire Bear. I have to say that I always wanted a little girl. Having grown up with many sisters, girls never scared me. Poor Mason and Maddox have to live with the fact that I wanted them both to be a little girl. Oddly though, when they told me I was pregnant with a girl, I wasn't quite sure how I felt. At that point I had settled in nicely with my boys and was terrified at the thought of learning things all over again. Girls are just different! Of course, after my first shopping trip for my little girl, all those jitters were behind me. :-)

Claire Elizabeth Prisbrey was born February 13 at 8:18pm, weighing in at 8lbs. 3oz., and stretching out to be 19 inches long. Since that moment, she has had everyone she comes in contact with, wrapped around her finger.


Claire is sweet, sensitive, friendly, smart, independent, lovable, and beautiful. She will do anything for you if you ask her nicely. She will say I love you just to see you smile. She waves and says hi to anyone that will look at her. When her brothers start arguing, she plants herself between them and yells, "top it guys!" over and over. She says the most beautiful, sincere prayers that melt my heart every time she does. The boys will beg for Claire to say the prayer just because they think she sounds so cute. Like any little girl, she LOVES all things girl! Babies, purses, clothes, shoes, bracelets, bows, make-up, nail polish, pictures, books, and attention. Although, as a perk to me, she is also the little tom boy I have dreamed of. She climbs, kicks, throws, runs, you name it. I am surprised at how coordinated she seems to be sometimes. She does things I would be terrified to try. She took a bad fall at McDonald's tonight, stood up, and said, "I'n otay!" But wow, hurt her feelings and her tender sobs come a rolling. You just can't get mad at her without immediately taking it back and snuggling her close.



If you can't tell, Claire is everything to our little family and we would be lost with out her. We love her so much and we are forever grateful for the day she was sent to our family.

Happy 2nd Birthday Claire Bear!

Slacker!!

I am feeling like a major slacker in the blog world lately. Not because I am disinterested. I am totally interested in the happenings of all of you, I am just bogged! Jess is working a ton, which I am WAY grateful for, but miss the adult stability. My house always seems to be in complete disaster, and I'm not really sure what I am doing all the time. I just know I FEEL busy! I keep thinking, "If I can get this done, THEN I can sit on the couch for a minute." Apparently, I am not getting done what I need to get done because I feel my couch misses me. :-) So... right here and now... I am in my pajamas, wet hair, no make up, clothes to be folded, dinner to be put on, and house to be cleaned, waiting to welcome my husband home from work. What a pretty site this will be for him!
Anyway, just thought I would let all of you know that I am still here. I WILL be taking a minute to catch up on all of your blogs! And, as soon as something interesting happens that I feel is post worthy, I WILL get 'er done!! :-)

Just a fun flash back photo I had on my computer! You know, 'cause every post should have a picture! :-)

The Down Side....

.... to my daughter potty training herself! (Be for warned, if you can't take a little potty talk, you may not want to continue reading!)

Alright, I know. This is beginning to be WAY too much information on my daughters private time, but I just thought you should all know that I didn't get off so easy! :-)

So, Jess and I, being the great parents that we are, were playing the WII last night with the boys when I smelt something foul. :-) I turned to Claire and said, "Claire, did you poop?" She said, "Yes!" I said, "Why didn't you go in the potty?" ..... Let me just tell you that I haven't even tried to start potty training her. She just keeps telling me that she has to go so I put her on there and she does her business..... Anyway, she said, "I go potty!" I said, "No, you've already gone in your diaper, just finish up." I know, you would think I would race her to the potty if she were willing, but NO. In my defense, baseball season is starting and I've done this with one kid during baseball season. The bathrooms are too far away and WAY too dirty. I'm trying to hold onto the diapers for a couple more months. Alright, I got side tracked again.....

..... Ten minutes later, I hear Claire saying, "Ewww, ewww!" Jess and I turn around to find her in her shirt with no pants on and poop all over her bum! Yeah, oh crap is right!! :-) So, we raced into the bathroom to find a diaper on the floor filled with some of her business, the toilet had the rest of her business, and in the process of her trying to go two places... there was also business all over her potty seat, the floor, the rug, and her feet. All we could do was laugh at the determination our little girl had. But WOW, I will definitely listen to her next time!! :-)

I did think it best to spare you of a picture of this little incident. Trust me, you did NOT want to see it. Anyway, that would be the DOWN side to her taking things into her own hands! :-)

Here's a picture of the little smarty and Maddox I took this morning!

Potty Time

I was walking down my hall yesterday when I heard Claire say, "go potty!" The bathroom light was on and I thought, 'crap, what am I going to find?' Well, this is what I found....
She had taken off her socks, shoes, pants, and diaper. She then pulled her potty seat out of the cupboard and put it on the toilet. Somehow she was able to get up there herself without falling in. Then she did her business (a nice #2) and even wiped herself. Yeah, I was shocked! This little girl won't be 2 until mid February. What is she doing potty training herself??? All I can say is, YES! Maybe I will get lucky and I will never have to put forth any effort. Right.

My friend came over last night and saw the frames Jess made. She suggested I post another picture with someone standing next to them because she didn't realize just how big they were. Poor Mason always has to be my little guinea pig.

Reasons I'm Happy

I have been meaning to post this for a few days now but life gets in the way. After three years of sitting in Maddox's closet, these pictures deserve a post!

My husbands talents never cease to amaze me. He did such an awesome job on the frames. They are absolutely perfect for these pictures and I don't think I would have picked anything different. The best thing about having a handy husband is that you get to have WAY nice things for about a quarter of the price. I love love love them!!

On another note, I had great savings at Albertsons yesterday!

Total Value- $218.71
Total Spent- $110.38
Total Saved- 108.33

Also, I left there with $45 in vouchers for my next visit. I ended up going back later in the day and used $30 towards 3 packages of diapers. Then the machine spit out another $15. So, I still have $30 in vouchers plus $5 on my next baby care item and the diapers were FREE. That makes a girl happy!

27

Here is why I know I am getting older....

Yesterday, most of my day was spent cleaning, taking down a Christmas tree, listening to my (always seems to be sick) baby cry, and playing the Wii with my four year old. A few years ago, I might have become depressed and cried that my birthday was spent so "normal." This year it just seemed perfect to me. There was no desire to go out and party. Is that a sign that I am finally accepting life as an adult?? Probably. :-)

The only thing I really wanted to do was go on a nice date with my husband since those are always few and far between. The problem was that I didn't even want to shower. Ewww! Gross! Right? Oh well, it was my birthday and I can do what I want. Thankfully my husband doesn't mind going out with a 27 year old sporting pig tails. :-)

I have to say though that it doesn't take much to really make me happy. The best part of my day was when Jess came home from work early and suprised me with a single rose and a beautiful card. I'm still a sappy romantic. Just to know he was thinking of me when I wasn't around is all I need. That must be a sign of aging too??