I want my life to be as clean as earth right after rain.

This weekend Acadia was baptized! 

For those of you who are not familiar with our church, we believe in baptism by immersion at the age of eight (or older).  Why eight?  Because that is usually when a child is able to understand right from wrong and can start being accountable for their choices.  Do they know and understand everything yet?  No way!  I don't think any of us do, no matter what our age! lol  And will she still make mistakes?  Yep!!  But for the most part, she is old enough to know how to treat others, how to make good choices, and she is old enough to have started developing her own testimony of God, church, and other spiritual things.

So, Sunday was the day!


The program was really nice.  Cadi had asked family members to participate by providing the music, prayers, talks, etc.  I even played a musical number!  Just after I started playing, the vent for the A/C turned on and started blowing my pages.  Fun stuff. lol  But it still ended up olay. :)

It was such a great feeling to watch Acadia get baptized!  I am so proud of her for making this decision!  She had been looking forward to it for weeks!  Every week, she would tell me, "I wish I was getting baptized today!"  When she came up out of the water, she was so sweet!  She was near tears.  I was in tears. lol  She told me she was really happy!  While she changed out of the jumper and into her dress, we talked about how that feeling she was having right then, was the Holy Ghost telling her that she was doing the right thing and that Heavenly Father loves her and was so happy for her.



In honor of Acadia's special day, I put together a slideshow.  We shared it with the family when we had our BBQ the night before the baptism.  I want to share it with you here too.  It's a little long, about 10 minutes, but I hope you enjoy it...



If you can't see the video, here's a link.
Congratulations, Acadia!  We love you!!!

18 people in a 1550 square foot house... you do the math.

This past weekend has been crazy!  But it was wonderful too. :)

My family began arriving the same day that Ryan's mom left.  One of the first things we did was make an attempt at seeing Mt. St. Helens.  We knew we only had a 50/50 chance, at best but thought it was worth the odds.  Of course, as soon as we got to the first visitor's center, we knew we weren't going to see the mountain that day.  But we decided to make the best of it and took the kids on a little nature walk.  Here are a few pics from that walk...













The next day, some of us went to the temple and silly me forgot to bring a camera!  It would have been nice to get a pic in front of it. :S 

Later on Saturday, we had some of our extended family who live around here come and have a BBQ with us.  First we took a family photo...



Btw, we didn't really plan on having the dog in the pic - he just insisted on it! lol


Yeah - uh, we're dorks.
Other pics from the weekend...





Everyone began leaving to go home on Monday.  Those who were still here when to the mall and pretty much just hung out.  We wanted to go to the pool but that just didn't happen.  We still had fun though. :)  The last of the family left on Tuesday morning.  And everyone is home safe and sound now. :)  Except for Landon - he stays for another week. :)

Of course, everyone came here because of Acadia's 8th b-day and baptism.  I think this blog post is long enough for now though, I will post another one about the baptism shortly.  For now, Rori just woke up from her nap and that means my time is up! lol

On a clear day...

You can see forever! 

Okay, well, maybe not forever, but pretty dang far!

Today is beautiful!  The temps are in the low 80s and it's bright and sunny.  We headed up to Larch Mountain this morning and walked the short 1/4 mile walk to Sherrard's Point where on a clear day you can see all of the surrounding mountains.  Today we saw 6, five of which we could identify.  We saw: Mt. Hood, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Ranier, Mt. Adams, and Mt. Jeffereson. 

We had a nice picnic lunch there and just relaxed, enjoying the good weather and beautiful atmosphere.  I am not sure which tree it is, but I kept catching a scent that smells exactly like Acadia National Park in Maine.  It made me want to go there SO BADLY!!!  It smelled so good! 

Here are some pics from today, followed by a link to see the rest. :)




















And here are the rest of the Larch Mountain pics.

In the pretty garden, the flowers are naughty...

LOL  There is a children's song that says, "In the pretty garden, the flowers are nodding."  But I'm not the only one who confused the words when I was younger! lol

Yesterday, we went with Ryan's mom and step-father to see the Japanese Gardens in Portland.  I thought, "Eh, okay... it will be relaxing..."  But we got there and WOW, it was beautiful!  Yes, it was relaxing but it was also pretty fun!  I found myself completely enjoying our time there!  I guess I really, REALLY liked the gardens becasue I took well over 100 pics just in that garden alone!  Here are just a few of the samplings and I'll have a link to the rest if you'd like to see them. :)













Here is the link to all of the Japanese Garden pics.

After the Japanese Gardens, we ate lunch at our car (which had the prime parking spot, btw, lol) and then walked across the street to see the International Rose Garden.  Again - just beautiful!  By this time, the sun was shining brightly so many of my pics are quite bright.  But I think we still got some really pretty shots.


 






And here's the link to all the Rose Garden pics. :)  There are tons of pretty flowers.  We're taking off now for another adventure... more pics to take!

What a Great Day to Celebrate!

As you all know, today is Father's Day! Yay for all the Dads!!! Happy Father's Day!!!

What you may or may not know is today is also Acadia's 8th birthday! Yay for Acadia!!! Happy Birthday!!!

I have so much I would love to share about Acadia and I'd love to show you some of my most favorite pictures and express just how much I love this wonderful little girl! But I am going to postpone that for a week or so. I have my reasons. *Insert evil laughter here* lol

We have Ryan's mom and step-father visiting this weekend and so today is a great day to celebrate! There are two dads here, one birthday girl, and Ryan's mom's b-day was on Friday, so she's getting a little special treatment today too! :)

It's been awfully busy for me, the last week or so, trying to get ready for Acadia's b-day party (which was Friday night, more on that in a minute) and company coming and her upcoming baptism... but late last night, I finished EVERYTHING I needed to do! WOOHOO!!! I am FREE!!! lol Now, I just need to try to keep my house somewhat clean through all the madness and life will be good. :)

Friday night was Cadi's b-day party with her girlfriends. We had 5 little girls over for a PJ party! They made pizzas and ate them, then watched a movie, played a couple of games, did their nails, had cake and ice cream, opened presents, and then - they went home! :) It was a little chaotic, but mostly fun and I'm glad Cadi had a great party with her friends. :)

Yesterday, Ryan's parents arrived and Acadia has already gone on two walks with Grandma, collecting "specimens" and bringing them back to "study". lol Right now, Dr. Grandma is checking out Rori in the "ER" while her assistant, Cadi is helping to treat her. lol Fun times. I think I'll go get my camera out and take some pics. :)

This morning I wanted to make breakfast for all the honorees today but two of them woke up so they got to help. :) We made french toast, ham/egg/cheese pockets, and had fresh fruit. It was delish! And now we're getting ready to go to church. I've got spaghetti sauce in the crockpot for dinner and then we'll have presents and leftover b-day cake. :)

Acadia gets to spread out some of her celebrating for another week! She is such a good girl and I love her so much! She is helpful, cheerful, forgiving, loving, and just in general, a very good girl. She wants to do what is right and that makes me so happy! I look forward to watching her continue to grow. Next week, she will be baptized a member of our church. I am so proud that she wants to do this! She has been eagerly preparing to make the sacred covenants that she will be making that day. For the last month, she's told me every week that she wishes she could get baptized then and not have to wait. lol But her special day is coming fast and it will be here in just one more week. :)

I hope all of you fathers are enjoying your special day! I love my dad and am grateful for some very important life lessons he has taught me. One of the greatest, I think, is faith. If you have faith and trust the Lord, you can overcome anything. That has been a very big part of my testimony and I'm very grateful to have learned that from him.
I am so very grateful for Ryan and the wonderful father he is to my daughters. He is so "hands on" with them, and I know that makes a huge difference to them! They are growing up knowing how much their daddy loves and adores them! They have a special bond that I am sometimes envious of but always grateful for! I could not have asked for a better father to my children and I love him so much!

Have a great day, everyone! And stay tuned... I have something very special to share, shortly... in a week or so. :)

It's a good thing we have indoor pools here...

Acadia has been in swimming lessons for the last couple of weeks and yesterday I took my camera.
This was the scene on the way to the pool, just prior to leaving, we had a nice Thunderstorm come through...



Did you see the rainbow?  It's a little light in the pic but in real life it was brilliant!  We could see all of the colors, they were so bright!

Swimming lessons is always fun...






Rori likes watching the kids swim.  I think next time we'll enroll her in a Parent-Tot class.  She'd love it!





Thursday is her last class for the session.  She loves the last day of class because they get to go down the waterslide.  Hopefully I'll remember my camera and get some good pics. :)

Playing Catch-Up

I feel like I'm so behind on everything! This week has really gotten me out of whack! (Do I really want to be in whack? lol)

•I'm a loser! But not as big of a loser as I really wanted to be. :( My friends and I were doing a little "Biggest Loser" challenge and while I did lose some, I did not reach my goal. That's okay. One of my best friends totally rocked and lost 35 pounds! She won the challenge by a landslide! We're going to do a "round 2" starting July 1st. I'm totally "in" again! I plan to run the 10K again this year and this will be perfect to go along with my training! :)

•Rori's improving! :) Only 3 messy diapers yesterday, one bedding wash, one high chair wash, a couple outfit changes, and one bath! That's a definite improvement! lol This morning I could see her rash is starting to get better! Yay!!!

•I'm back at it. I've sold more stamps on E-bay. And here's the kicker. Today I'm listing THE REST. Yep, I just don't stamp! And I am really tired of having them here, not doing anything with them. How did it come to this? I don't know. I'm okay with it though. One thing I'm looking forward to is being more excited to stamp with my mom and sisters when I visit them in Sac. Now that I won't be able to do it here, it will be something I can really look forward to. :) I'm also looking forward to getting the furniture I want with my earnings! lol

•I can't believe Cadi's b-day is in two weeks! That means company comes in two weeks! And that means her baptism is in 3 weeks! And that means MORE company comes in 3 weeks! And I need to have all the projects I'm working on done by then! AAAGGGHHHH!!!! lol

•Rori has started "growling". Acadia did this A LOT - but she started at a much younger age, probably around 4 or 5 months. Now Rori has started and it's so funny! She literally growls! It was perfect when she got her little animal book that comes every month - this month had a bear. We kept growling like the bear, it was so cute. Too bad I didn't get it on video. :S

I think that maybe just about it for now. I'm sorry I've been neglecting my blogging, just so much to have to deal with. But it should get a little easier... at least in some ways. lol

Crappy Day

Literally.

(Sorry Mom.)

Apparently, one of the possible side effects from teething is diarrhea. And we've got it! Rori's been dealing with this since Monday and yesterday was the absolute worse! I changed somewhere between 15-20 diapers yesterday - and every single one of them was messy. We had leakage (including while at Cadi's swimming lessons), blowouts, an episode where she sprayed her nursery (and me) while I changed her and an accident in the tub. I gave up on the idea of "outfits" for her a couple of days ago but yesterday I went through three outfits myself! She needed 3 baths and we had to change her bedding - including the bumper! I need to disinfect my entire house! But I haven't been able to put her down. Last night she went to bed at 11pm!

All I've managed is to clean each mess that has been made.

The good news is that she woke up a little better this morning. I had to wash the bedding again, but it wasn't as bad as it was yesterday. I have been feeding her only bread/toast, bananas, formula, and water. I'm trying to firm up her stool without letting her get too dehydrated. Her diapers this morning were much better. She had a fever off and on too, but today it's gone. I'll keep an eye on it though.

The only thing that really bothers me right now is that though I tried, I wasn't able to keep her from getting a really bad rash from all the messy diapers. Poor baby, I hope that as the diapers ease up, her poor skin can start to heal.

I have heard conflicting reports as to whether teething can cause diarrhea. A lot of doctors think it's a coincidence or "loose stool from excessive drool", but she hasn't been drooling at all recently.

Well, whatever the cause, she is improving and that is really, REALLY good! Her personality is starting to come back too, which means instead of needing to be held constantly, I just have to stay in the same room with her as she destroys the house. It's a step up, I guess. lol