Here Comes the Bride

 Leslie and Seth were married in the Oquirrh Mountain Temple on March 16th.  It turned out to be an amazing day despite the fact that a mini tornado blew through right during pictures :)  It was so windy.  The sealing was beautiful.  I was super lucky in the fact that I was able to go to the brides room after the sealing and help my mom and Leslie get Leslie's wedding dress on (it was a two person job).  I LOVED being in there!  I don't really have a good picture of Seth and Leslie at the temple because we were in charge of video recording.  But, we did snap a quick pic of grandma and the kids.

Here are a few pictures from the reception that night.  It was a really neat reception with amazing food and awesome dancing.

The girls...

                                     

Mickell and Bailey dancing...

 Jackson...

 Emily and Bailey...

 We all have green lights flashing on us from the lasers during the dance...

 Jared and Kirsti, Ashlyn and Raylee...

 Grandpa and Jackson...

 Grandma and Ashlyn...

 The guys did an awesome job with the car

 Uncle Doug and Aunt Sydney flew up last minute from Texas so the could attend the sealing.  

 Grandma Bird with Chris and Troy...

 You don't get much cuter than that...

Baylen and Dave killing time...

I feel so bad that I didn't really get any good pictures of Leslie and Seth on their big day.  Unfortunately, anytime they were around the camera, we had the camera recording.  I'll have to get some pics from someone else.  However, we do have hundreds of pictures from the photo shoot that Baylen and I were able to do with them for the engagement pictures.  They are such a cute couple and are perfect for each other.  I'm so glad that Seth has joined our family.  My kids absolutely adore him!

Here are a few highlights from the photo shoot.  They basically had us laughing the whole 2 hours!  They were amazing models and Baylen did a great job with the pictures!

Talent

Tanner had a lot of fun this basketball season.  He progressively got a lot better and by the end of the season was one of the lead defenders.  I love watching his games and cheering him on.  I'm always so sad when the season is over.  Unfortunately we didn't really get any action shots.  However, I did manage a picture of him picking up his treat.  Not quite sure how that happened :)

Tanner was able to have quite the cheering section at a few of his games.  Grandpa and Grandma Whipple came to a game and Grandma and Grandpa Sillito came to his last game (which is why I happened to have my camera there).

 Mickell and Hailey were able to participate in our ward talent show.  They did a tumbling routine and did amazing!  Kell is able to do her round offs and round off back hand springs by herself now and Hailey does awesome at round offs, mountain man round offs and back walk overs.

CRAZY!!!!

Yup.... mom and dad have a lot of fun with crazy hair day!

A Tribute

Yesterday I got a letter in the mail saying that my OB passed away unexpectedly a few weeks ago.  I was sad but didn't realize how much that news would affect me.  I haven't been able to stop thinking about him since then.  I've read his obituary 4 times and read all 140 comments in the online guest book.  At one point last night I thought, "This is so silly that I can't stop thinking about this, he was my OB for crying out loud."  Then I realized that there is a reason that I feel such a connection to this man.  He was there on one of the best days of my life, he was there on one of the worst days of my life, and he was there for one of the longest, hardest trials I've been through.  

One of the best days- I'll never forget the day that Ashlyn was born.  Doctor Healy helped me feel calm when I was definitely nervous.  I remember a lot of his conversation during the surgery and I remember him holding Ashlyn up over the curtain so that I could see her.  He is the only doctor I've had that has ever done that.

One of the worst days-  It was just Doctor Healy and me when I found out that my pregnancy with my 5th baby- that we had been hoping for for so so long- was going to have to be terminated because it was tubal.  He was very compassionate but also very straight forward that I was not allowed to leave his office because my situation was very serious.   He basically saved my life and spent 2 1/2 hours with me in emergency surgery making sure that I was going to be okay.  Afterward he told me that I was pretty messed up :) 

My trial- Doctor Healy was there during my three year struggle with trying to have another baby.  Even though the outcome wasn't what we hoped or prayed for, I know that everything happened for a reason.  Doctor Healy was always respectful of me, even when we didn't agree on the steps that should be taken.  

Here are a few of the zillions of things I'll remember... 

I remember going in to him when I was pregnant with Ashlyn.  I informed him upfront that I'd never had a normal pregnancy.  He jokingly said that I'd also never had him for a doctor.

I remember when he came in one day to check on me in the hospital after Ashlyn was born.  He did his exam and then just sat down on the couch like he was going to stay.  He stayed and visited for a good 20 minutes or more.  He told me about how he was about to deliver a baby that was being born at 20 weeks.  There was no way the baby would survive.  I could just tell, as he was talking about it, how emotionally draining this was.  It showed me something that I already knew, his job was more than just a job to him.  He really really cared about his patients.

He was a total perfectionist (which is a good thing to be in his field!)  I remember several times that he would walk into the room and have to straighten the chairs, or re-wipe the counter.  Well, because of this perfectionism, he was always commenting on how he would love to remove a small mole that I had on my chin.  He just couldn't understand why I would leave it there when he could totally chop it off (He had the kind of personality that it was impossible to be offended by these kind of comments.)  Finally, after Ashlyn was born, I let him do it.  Well, he wasn't about to stop with that one mole.  He kept asking if he could take off another and another.  He was having so much fun I had to laugh.  After 6 or 7, I finally said I was good.  He said, "Let me just do this one more.  I'll do it for free."  I'm not sure why he didn't go into dermetology, but I still laugh when I think about that day.

So, there you have it.  Is a blog post about my OB super strange?  Yup, it definitely is.  But, he's someone that I will forever be grateful to.  We've sure been through a lot together!  

Unfortunately, this is the only picture I have of Doctor Healy... his hands. :)

Valentines Day

We had a fun valentines day this year.  I was able to help out with Tanner and Mickell's school party.  I did a valentine version of minute to win it.   I always get nervous before things like that but it ended up being a lot of fun.  That night we had our traditional valentines day candlelight dinner.  The only problem is that Baylen had the day off and wanted to take me out to lunch.  We were both still so full when it came time for dinner.  Baylen didn't eat at all and I tried to swallow a few bites.  But it definitely wasn't as yummy as it would have been if I hadn't already consumed a million calories that day.  We decided that next year we will for sure choose a different day to go out. 
                                

Hailey's Show

Hailey did a great job at her 2nd grade program.  Grandma Whipple and Bailey were able to come up and watch... which made it even more of a special day!

Her program was about America.  They asked for pictures of the kids and servicemen to make a slideshow.  So, we got a picture with Hailey and her soon to be Uncle Seth who is in the Marines.
                                                   
                                                

I Got a Job!

Okay, not really.  But I think I found something I can do that is just about as good as a part time job.  My cute cousins have really gotten into couponing.  They've inspired me to try too!  Two of my resolutions this year are to build up my food storage and to put more money into savings.  By doing this, I can accomplish both.  It hasn't been easy, but it is definitely addicting!  I LOVE checking out at the stores now and watching my total go down to virtually nothing.  I've always wanted to be able to post a picture of all my insane deals like so many people do.  So, just to cross it off my bucket list, here is a picture of a few of my deals from this past month.  Of course, it's not everything.  But, I think I included most of the really impressive finds :)

All of my purchases below cost me a total of $3.40. 
                            

Smartie Pants

So Ashlyn continues to amaze me everyday.  Sometimes I think that I'm totally holding her back by being her mom.  She is so darn smart and I don't do enough to encourage her in her learning.  The way that she thinks, being only 4, is crazy.  Here are a few examples...

The other day she was playing her Nickelodeon fit game on the wii.  The game is an exercise game where you have to do different things in a race.  Ashlyn was using her remote to paddle a canoe.  Part way through the race she said, "Mom, since Dora is facing the opposite way from me, should I use my opposite hand to follow her." 

One day during family home evening we were talking about happy homes.   I was trying to explain that all homes are different and had the kids tell me what kind of animals live in the water, trees, etc.  When I asked about trees, each of the kids said an animal.  Of course there were the expected answers, like bird.  But, when it got to Ashlyn, she casually said Spider Monkey.  What on earth is a spider monkey?!  I had never heard of that animal before.  But, don't fear, I found out it does exist. 

One night Ashlyn was looking at the pictures in the kids scripture reader.  She came up to me, pointed at a word, and said, "Mom does that say Ammaron?  She then proceeded to read the rest of the sentence.  That was our first experience with the fact that she can actually read.  Another day she came up to me and asked if I would help her with her reading.  She grabbed a book and started reading away.  There were only a few words that I really had to help her with.  She was reading words like farmer and corn without even sounding them out.  I have to explain that we haven't really been working on reading at all, so going from not reading to reading like that totally blew my mind.

Two nights ago I was helping Hailey with her homework.  There was a story problem that she was really struggling with.  It said, "Kyle ate 2 slices of oranges after each swim race.  He participated in 3 races.  How many orange slices did he eat."  Poor Hailey was not understanding this.  So I read it to her a few different times.  Ashlyn sat listening and after a few minutes couldn't take it any more.  She called out, "It's 6."  We all got a good laugh out of the fact that Ashlyn is answering 2nd grade math problems.  

Just this week, she has started insisting on doing "her" homework each night.  She grabs Tanner and Mickell's old 1st grade math workbook and will do several pages.  She is answering problems like 2+5=, 9+1= without any help at all.  The one thing that does frustrate her is when she writes the answer and doesn't like how her number looks.  The other night she was so so frustrated.  She kept saying, "My 2 looks like a Z."  Nothing I said helped her feel better.  Finally, in desperation to get her to stop whining, I said, "Ashlyn, you have to remember that you are only four."  She said, "I don't care, I want it to look like a 2."  I'm glad she is driven to do her best.  I'm just hoping that we can figure out a way to challenge her enough in school since she can already process 2nd grade work :)!