For Kimberly on her Birthday

This entry is dedicated to my sweet little Kimberly who is not so little, but still very sweet! Happy Birthday!!!

I still remember the first time this family called me and asked me to babysit. I knew they had an adorable dark haired toddler, but as it turns out, they had just adopted a baby boy. He was 2 weeks old and they wanted ME to babysit! I was over the moon!! The first few times, they came to my house so my Mom could be there to help me if I needed it. Kimberly was so bright and happy and cute. My Mom was so good at leading me by example, but she let me do everything. The first time I got to watch them at their house was super exciting and super scary! :D I remember heating up the baby's bottle too hot and trying desperately to cool it down and comfort him at the same time. But, I'll save my Bryce stories for another entry. ;)

I loved playing with Kimberly! She had such an imagination! We would play all kinds of games and she would make up the story and tell me the part I was to play. When they added onto their house, she got to pick things out for her room and was SO proud of her "girl color" carpet! They added a family room downstairs and 2 kid bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. We were playing some game we made up on the stairs when Kimberly shrieked and pointed from the top of the stairs where she was standing down to the bottom of the stairs where she was sure she saw a spider! I didn't see any spiders and thought she was making it up until I went down to investigate and found a spider on the front of the stair almost at the bottom. She must have had spider-radar to see one from that far away on the other side of the stair!! :D We used to play Nintendo games, too. There was a Chip and Dale one in which she was always Chip and always carried Dale (which was me) around upside down on her head! :D LOL It was just as well because I don't think either of us had much of a clue how to actually play, we just had fun laughing together. :)

My badge of honor in their house was that I was dubbed DiNana. I can't tell you how much I loved hearing that Kimberly was excited to have Dinana come over. I loved hearing her call me that and never encouraged her otherwise. :D I remember riding the late bus home from school one day and sitting by Kimberly (who was probably in about first grade) on the bus and when she got off she said, "Bye, Diana!" When I asked her about it later she thought it was SOOOO funny that she had ever called me Dinana. Sad, sad day for me. :D

Another one of my very favorite memories are connected to a beautiful white dress Kimberly used to wear to Church on Sundays. I used to love asking her questions and having her tell me what she remembered about going to the Temple to be Sealed to her new baby brother. Families truly are forever and never have I been taught by example how wonderful and significant joining a family together can be than by this one.

I can't tell you how many times over the years I have wondered what happened to my friends that lived in that cute little house. I have so many, many great memories of watching them and playing with them and even traveling with them to Mesa on an overnight trip. I have never been so grateful for Facebook as when I found them significantly more grown up than last time I knew them! :D Kimberly's girls look SO much like that gorgeous angel girl that I had so much fun with!

I hope you had an awesome birthday, Kimberly! I thought about you all day and had I known how to work the scanner better, this post would have actually made it out ON your birthday! I hope you know how much you are loved by me and how I treasure the memories of you and your wonderful family! Wouldn't it be awesome to be in the same place at the same time someday and get a really real hug? :D Here's a virtual one for now! ;)

I got these pictures probably about a year after I'd been gone. I never got to meet Weston, though I knew he was coming when I left! :) Tell me these kids don't have the absolute cutest grins ever in the whole universe? :D I sure love you guys!!

Oh, and did I mention that we are now preggo at the same time both with boys?! How COOL is that? :D

Rollerskating Babies

Campin'

When you put the terms "camping" "pregnant" "4 kids" "wheelchair" and "rain" together you wouldn't think it would add up to tons of fun! But it did for us. :) We were definitely "Hammon such a good time!" :D Geoff bought us an incredible tent that fits us really well! Click here to see pics. :) He also bought a second air mattress that was double tall and just what the Dr. ordered for a wife 'with child.' It rained very little and we had lots and lots of yummy food and way too much sugar to snack on in between. :D I got home craving more gum drops, cinnamon bears, licorice and s'mores than ever before! :D Our camera batteries died about the time we got to the campground, but Aunt Colleen and Uncle Greg took lots of really great pictures, so go check them out over there! :D I LOVE the picture at the top of this post because Becca is SO happy!! Aunt Glenda was standing close by telling her how pretty she is and she was just grinning! :D Yay! Way to go, Darin! Great pictures!!

I love hanging out with my family and we all just blend so well together. We all loved and helped each other's kids... roasted marshmellows for each other... kept the rain off each other... played card games until the middle of the night together... took pictures of each other. Throw in some Pepperidge Farm goldfish crackers and cookies by the pound, Gossner's squeaky cheese and Aggie ice cream... put it all together and what have you got? A bunch of Super Awesome people Hammon such a good time!! :D

A Set of Swings

My wonderfully strong and innovative husband and his equally creative, generous and strong family built us a swing set! It's made out of 2 1/2 inch metal pipe and it fits 3 swings plus a tire swing. It's somewhere around 10 feet tall after cutting off about 2 feet off of each pole when we realized how humongous it was going to be! :D The tire swing isn't up yet, but with a small bean bag, that will make a perfect place for Becca to be and we may still make an inside out tire swing that would hold her kind of like a banana seat. For now, we jerry-rigged the baby swing into the third spot.

Geoff, his Dad and Josh working on the holes for the swing bolts.

The girls drew with chalk to distract them during the wait.

Daddy sat in the chalk while working on the swing set! :D

The first trial run! It rained most of the morning that we put this all up. Brudder's face says it all! :D

Thank You, Grandma and Grandpa for the awesome swings!!!

Apparently, Mama had the camera set to "blurry," but here they are in all their glory!

I'm still here!

As you may or may not have noticed, I tend to have blog constipation. I wait and only write about the big stuff that happens. :D I guess you could say I have IBS... Irritable Blog Syndrome. But I so love reading other people's blogs about all the little day to day stuff, too. So, here is my offering of Ex-Lax (and my last unattractive metaphor!) and this post isn't about anything! :D

I have felt like I'm floating lately. I'm on a river, so I'm still going in some direction or another, but I don't feel like I am taking an active roll in propelling myself down the river. Pregnancy has really slowed me down, and not that it shouldn't, but my life seems to have only two speeds... really fast and really slow. The last weeks of school were insane! I ran around to 2 different schools to dance festivals and plays and delivering teacher gifts and all the while shuttling the littlest 2 in a 2-40 air conditioned van... 2-55 if I was really in a hurry! ;) And now that everybody's home I don't want to go anywhere, I don't want to do anything, I just want to sit with my feet in the kiddie pool and eat popsicles. :D

I have found, to my great surprise, that my kids can work with proper motivation and I'm not SO behind on housework as I was in previous weeks. They can be really quite charming if they are rewarded sufficiently and hopefully punished less. :D I am of course saying this after the "Bedroom Coup of the Beginning of the Week." Their room was a Disaster area with a very capital D! Clothes everywhere mingling dirty with clean, purses, necklaces, dollies, hair elastics... you name it and it was on the floor in there. And it happened much in the way a tornado does. It had been clean for what I'll call several weeks, but was really closer to a week and a half when all of a sudden the laundry bags exploded everywhere! It might have something to do with them breaking the PVC framework for the laundry sorter and the bags then slouching to the floor. After asking nicely and giving them helpful hints (why don't you pick up everything yellow first?) it wasn't getting any better, so I invaded! I kicked them outside to play and cleaned the room myself, stashing favorite books and toys and even a couple of clothing items in bags with their names on them. Since then they have had to earn back the things the invading army took by doing jobs for the general. :D Geoff and I decided that they'll do it until they get their most favorite stuff back and then they'll lose interest and then to D.I. will go the spoils of war. :D Some day it might even be their own idea to keep it clean! For now, they don't get read to at night unless everything is picked up and hopefully they'll get into a better routine.

I hate seizures! I don't even want to go into it, but I hate them so bad I can taste it in my mouth! :P Blech!!

I wish I had time to write! I've always said that if I made it a priority I could go all the way and love every minute of it. BUT I also know that if I did make it a priority, it would selfishly climb to the very top of the list and push out things like clean dishes and clean clothes and reading to my kids and walking to the park and cooking nutritious meals. And so, it sits comfortably under those things for now waiting for me to give it the time and focus it needs to really become something. Someday before I die, I hope for you to have a copy of a book on your bookshelf that I wrote and that you actually enjoyed reading. :)

So, here's to enjoying a paddleless canoe ride down a lazy river once in a while. Here's to letting things slide a little sometimes as long as I eventually get back in gear and get things done. Here's to kiddie pools and popsicles. And here's to motherhood not being perfect, but being memorable and fun and well worth the journey!

Becca's Dance Festival

Oh my goodness! We have had such a FUN morning!! Today was Becca's school dance festival! It was so adorable and fun and cute and HOT! :D It was outside and the classes would come out one door and go in the other after their dance was done. Becca's class was very first! I came running the last few steps and whipped out the video camera and just about then the announcer goes, "Here's Barb's class doing the Star Spangled Banner, please stand and sing along!" All of a sudden the heads I was going to tape over are standing up! :D LOL Some of it is in between people, but I will try really hard to get it to a place where you can see it! :D They "walked" (i.e. were pushed in their chairs) around in a circle while the music played and then they lined up at the end and waved their flags. It was just adorable!! :D Already by then I was wishing for some shade, sunscreen or some hats or all 3! :D

I thought about video taping the other classes, because they were such a riot, but instead I put it away and just danced with Gracie and Landon. :D So, sorry there are no visuals for that part, but I have to tell you some of the cutest things! Gracie loved the Under the Sea one... they walked around dressed all ocean-y and they had flippers taped to their chairs and there were mermaids, dolphins and even a King Triton! At the end, they were all wheeled under a limbo stick with fabric strips coming down off of it and they would all grin as they came through! It was so cute! You could tell they had practiced it and that they all liked going through the "waterfall." :D They also had bubble machines going and EVERYONE loved that! :D

Gracie also loved the I Want Candy number! They were all standing in a row and dancing and singing along and they were, of course, throwing candy. The best one is the big, tall boy who would grab a handful and throw it straight up in the air and it rained down on their class! :D They threw some out to us, too... eventually. :D

The hokey pokey was one of my favorites. :D The ones that could stand, stood in a line and then for the "turn yourself around" part, the two in wheelchairs were wheeled around the ones in the line and the one girl (in a chair) was just grinning the hugest grin in all the world! It was so sweet!!

We all loved the Boot Scootin' Boogie. :D They were older, higher functioning kids and one of their teachers was out in front doing the actual Boot Scoot. One of the girls kept up really well! :D The rest of the class were doing their own thing and they were all just so funny and cute! My favorite guy was a big kid with Downs and he's just walking all over in and out around his classmates. :D The other guy is so tall and skinny and talkative and he's right out in front just jumping around! They were having SO MUCH FUN! :D

At the end, we all moved all the chairs and did the Chicken Dance together. So, there's preggo Diana holding Landon and doing the Chicken Dance with Gracie! :D It was HILARIOUS!! Betcha wish there'd been a video camera turned on to ME during that one!! :D We had SO much fun and I wish you all could have been there because it is just impossible to be unhappy in a place like that!! :D

I hope you're all having just the best day ever! I love you!!!



Head on over to the Kids' Blog for more pictures! Drop me an email if you need an invite. :)

Chicks dig Scars

I think we have our first permanent mark on Landon's head. I figured I better document this fact so that someday he will be able to remember where each scar came from when he's bragging to some cute girl. :D So, for the record, he is a year and 10 months old, it happened in the kitchen when he fell of a chair and it is right next to the swirly cowlick on the crown of his head. I actually discovered it because he had blood on his forehead from where he had touched it and then touched his forehead. :D He cried for all of 7 seconds and then was up in his right chair with the seatbelt on to eat a snack after a nap. When I cleaned it he said "Ow." a couple of times, but that's it! It is a gash about a quarter of an inch long and split enough I could push the sides together to close it. It didn't bleed very much, but I'm fairly sure it will leave a scar. So there you have it! Our first lasting little boy injury... on record! :D

(You didn't really think I'd post a picture of a bloody gash, did you?) :D LOL

Anudder Brudder

Here he is in all his fuzzy glory! ;) These were printed on glossy paper and were truly the clearest ultrasound pictures I've ever seen. :) They still look a little like finger paintings or inkblots or something, but ya gotta admit, it's pretty cool technology to see an unborn baby. All his measurements were within limits and he measured exactly with the dates we had in the first place. We would have been excited for a girl, too, but we're extra excited for Landon to get a baby brother! :D He's thrilled, by the way. I'll type out his soliloquy later where he describes his unbridled happiness at the impending birth of his baby brother. :D

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the pictures! ;)

Here is his cute little head with his fist under his chin.

Here's his boy parts. His little bum cheeks are over there on the left.

Here's his throwing arm, already flexed for action. Could be his programming arm... only time will tell!

This is my personal fave as far as blurry ultrasound pictures go. It's his tiny little foot. :) You can see the tiny toes.