Free Range Family

We ended up getting the car! Its perfect and I love it! It is a silver 1996 Mercedes-Benz with a sun roof. Oh I love it so much! The best part about the whole thing? I bought it 100% by myself. Yep! Paid $3000 in cash and felt like a BOSS! Whoop, whoop! It is so awesome being an adult sometimes. :D I know, its not an apartment… But we are taking baby steps to a better life for our family. First comes a new car, then more hours and more money, then a place to live. Lon and I have a plan made, it will just take some time. Which does suck on the hard days. But on days like today, days when all my hard work has finally paid off, days like today rock! I have yet to really settle into the car, I haven't even cleaned it up or taken a decent photo of it! I had Lon snap a quick one for me this morning (we have to wait until after work before we can get it registered) but I think that it doesn't even do it justice. It just looks so fancy and so nice! How did we get so lucky? Isn...

This week I helped teach the Y cheer camp. We worked with a group of 20+ girls ages 4 to 8 years old, 4 which were from my previous gymnastics camp, and we taught them basic cheers and dance moves. We named ourselves the YMCA Dynamite Cheer Squad (my idea lol). Let me tell you, their name describes them perfectly! These girls are for sure DYNAMITE!! Today they performed for their parents and they did FANTASTIC!! I am so proud of all of them! They even performed it without us! Good job girlies! I only was able to get a group photo of them, I need to start taking my own class photos and videos! Bad teacher, bad lol! Here is the cute photo I took! Such a great group of gals! Baby Benton is doing great by the way! They were allowed to go home yesterday and have spent most of today resting. My mom will be staying with them to get them settled in. I got a BRAND new batch of photos today too. Auntie Jillian is quite happy now! Dunno though, I might still have to walk u...

"There once was a onesie that always asked Hug Me..." Lol Anna first wore said onesie when she was a wee four weeks old. She was still so tiny, the thing just hung off her body lol. I believe the first time she wore it was with her first skirt ever. That was even at our last apartment, wow that was so long ago! She was so small but she looked so cute! Fast forward several months (seven and a half to be exact) and little petite miss STILL fits in this onesie! At almost nine months old! She weighs a wopping 17 and a half pounds but this is the LAST 3M ONESIE THAT FITS. All the others I have given away. The last of its kind lol...

We had a pretty decent February this year, not too much snow and just enough things to keep us busy on the weekends. Not to mention that we found out some very exciting news about Aunt Natalie and Uncle Jake's baby! Check out what happened to us this month! We celebrated Valentine's Day this month at a little party for Alan and his friends at the local coffee shop. It went really well, even better than last time, especially because Alan was feeling much better! February also meant CHD Awareness Week just before Valentine's Day, I did not write my own posts for the week but I did link up with CHD parents. Here are the four posts I wrote: #1, #2, #3, and #4. Anna also turned seven months old, and discovered her voice. Needless to say, our house is NEVER quiet anymore lol. :) But I would not have it any other way! I took Alan on a Mama and Son Date to the Family Life Expo. Then we celebrated Super Bowl with both of our families, and I suceeded in not watching any of...

Happy Hump Day everyone! This week has been one awesome one for us and a very exciting one. We have lots of things to love! So here is this week's What I'm Loving Wednesday!!! Be sure to check out Jamie's blog This Kind of Love to see her WILW and other fun stuff! What are you loving today? I'm loving...  that my good friend Kelsie had her baby boy yesterday morning! I will get to go up and see them tomorrow! Now just to wait until then and also when they come home so that Alan and Anna can meet him. :) Congratulations Kelsie, Keith and Kelton! We love you all! I'm loving...  that my other friend Chelsey and her husband just welcomed another little boy into her family as well! This will be their fourth foster care child, they are so blessed! Next week she is on Spring Break, so we have plans to get all the kids together. Cannot wait! Congratulations Chelsey, Dan, Colton, M and Baby K! We love you all as well! I'm loving...  that we finally got our inc...

I have so much to be thankful for, I am still realizing this everyday. I know I have been MIA, but we are still getting our new place figured out. Earlier last week, my cousin Blake and his girlfriend Maddie had their beautiful baby boy. He was born at 5:30 in the evening and is a healthy seven pounds! They named him James. :) What a sweetheart he is! We have yet to meet him but cannot wait! I bet he is just gorgeous! We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. The children let Lon and I sleep in some and when I woke up, I made a big breakfast of eggs and bacon for everyone. Alan and I made four dozen pumpkin cookies for everyone, it was quite a bit harder than making cupcakes with him. There is a lot more to making pumpkin cookies than just mixing everything into one bowl. But they turned out fabulous nonetheless! Everyone enjoyed them, a complete success! First, we went to Great Grandma Carol's house. Aunt Carolyn and her whole family were there, including the adorable Miss Sophie. My...

I have not done a blog hop all week so I figured since it was Friday, I would give in and participate in this one. Happy Friday everyone! We are only doing more packing today but tomorrow I work a birthday party for my co-worker's two kids. They go to "school" with Alan, so Lon will be bringing the kids too. It should be alot of fun, I have never had my family come to one of my birthday parties! And I have been doing them for two years now! One of my friends from my graduating class gave birth to her son early this morning. I am so happy for her! This is her first child but she has two step-children as well. It is the family's first son however, they are completley beside themselves. Alan, Anna and I went up there earlier tonight to visit them. And I do have to say, Mister Dom is soooooooooo sweet! He is about as big as Anna was when she was born and has the cutest little bald head. What a precious addition to their family, we are so happy for them. Congratulations ...

Everytime people see Anna and I together, they tell me how much we look alike. Which I find crazy! I think that she has alot of my features but I think she looks more like a female Alan if anything. So here is Alan and Anna: a comparison. Alan at 2 weeks- 9/12/2009 Anna at 5 weeks- 8/13/2012 I mean, Alan is a little chubbier but she will probably always be tinier then him. And that's okay. He also has less hair then her but its the same color as hers is. And I would hope my girl had more hair then my boy. I think they definitely look more alike then her and I do. I will have to find a baby picture of myself to compare though. For another post! :) What do you think: do they look alike? How about her and I? Remember, if you liked this post and this blog, please click on the link below to vote for my blog at Top Baby Blogs. I am now currently at Number 153, but it would be the coolest to get down to 150 or lower.... :D Thanks to everyone who is voti...

Today is a busy day for my little family. We had the circus in the morning and then Alan's buddy Colton's birthday party in the afternoon. Alan was pretty excited, he woke up with the sun and has yet to stop talking about the circus or the party lol. He could not wait. :) Be sure to check back with us next week to see how it went! Here is the second to last Darling Dozen post we will do for Anna. *Sniffle* I cannot believe that she is a week away from being twelve weeks old and only a couple weeks from being three months old. How is that these past eleven weeks have gone by so fast? We are so blesses to have her in our life, what a wonderful little girl we have. Week: Eleventh Week Weight: 9 pounds and 6 ounces Height: 24 1/2 inches Diaper Size: She is still only size one. And they are just HUGE on her still! Clothing Size: She is still in between size Newborn and size 0-3M. This is probably her last week wearing them too so I went crazy and started...

Last Wednesday night, we went to my old workplace, Chuck E. Cheese, for Alan and Anna's cousin Ry'ana's third birthday party. Alan and her share a birthday and were even born down the hallway from each other! How close is that for cousins? Alan had been talking about this party all day while we hung out and made his birthday mini cakes. It was pleasantly surprising because I thought he would be upset about sharing his birthday with his cousin's party. However, he was really excited to see her and kept reminding me everytime I mentioned his birthday that it was Ry'ana's too. What a smart boy! But Ry'ana and Alan hadn't seen each other in forever so upon first seeing each other, they were extremely wary. It was cute and they of course warmed up real fast once they found out that they had gifts for each other! It was different being at Chuck E. Cheese then, on that day specifically. I worked there for five whole years, right up until the day I gave birth ...

Wow! Anna turned two months old yesterday and is officially nine weeks old today! Today we are spending some family time with Lon. He only works his next shift tonight, so we will be hanging out together all day! We are all pretty excited. I also have a lunch date with my friend Tanya. And hopefully we will meet up with Alan's friend Tatum and her family for a playdate at the park! Tomorrow we are going to Zoo Montana with Grandma Melanie for Grandparent's Day. Then we will be headed to Grandma Amber's house for Sunday dinner. Should be a good weekend for us! I was thinking about having a daughter the other night, one of those many nights this week that she only would sleep in my arms. I remember way back when I was little, how I wanted to have a girl so badly. And when I was pregnant with Alan, how I had secretly hoped he was a girl. Now that I have Anna, I can't wait to think of everything we will do together... Playing baby dolls and house together. Having tea p...

We finally got Anna's newborn pictures back! They are so beautiful! We had my friend Kelsie (Kelton's mom lol) take them for us with her super nice camera. We took them in my living room, with Alan and Kelton running around and screaming while we took the pictures but they still turned out awesome! Thanks again Kelsie for taking them! I love this one that I took! :)  In her green dress Great Grandma Audrey got her   She just HAD to have her paci at this point lol, it was mandatory :)  Look at those eyes!  Lookng out the window  And back at us :)   She is so gorgeous!  Little wiggle worm  And we got a smile!  "I'm done with pictures, Mama!" Oh my word, Lon and I are so very blessed to have this beautiful girl in our lives! Looking at these pictures now, I am reminded that. :) I love you so very much Anna Ariel!