Our normal

So the other day I was going through our pictures and I thought to myself why in the world does no one in this family seem to think I need to be in any pictures.  It seems the only ones I am in are the ones either I try to take with my short arms which ALWAYS cuts off most of my head, or the ones my cute kids take but are never at a very flattering angle.  Then I came across these pictures and remembered!  This amazing man always has at least one but often many more children in his arms so I can carry my camera and take pictures.  I LOVE this MAN!

 

 

 

AHHH!

I am soooooooooo behind and even worse I have missed sooooooooooo many important events in our life.  So this is my attempt to redeem myself for the year.  stay tuned for important life updates.

Bubbles

The weather has been AWESOME!!!!!!!!!  So we have been living the dream :)!

 

Family is RAD

RAD always reminds me of my big Bro Jeff

 Don't ya think he is RAD?!

Okay back to the Post we were lucky enough to have an extra trip out to UTAH this year and celebrate Lennie's Wedding with Family. It was short and fast but just what we needed.  It was so fun to see our Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins.  We came home with one conclusion our family is RAD! Here are a few highlights in pictures.

 

                                            Nothing But love do these guys have for each other!
                                                  

                                                These little ones are just 4 months apart!

                                                              These little ones too! 

This water was FREEZING, poor Tara stood under that bucket until I got a good picture she got dunked a couple of times!

We Love all of you and Feel Blessed you are in our lives even if it is 3,000 miles away. 

In 10 years

This is what I see in 10 years!  Okay not really but don't they look totally comfortable with ALL those kids?

 

Congrats Aunt Lennie and Uncle Kyle we are SO happy you are our family and we could spend this day with you!

Sunday Sunday

Some days are perfect and today seemed like one of those days.  We were blessed to have Stake Conference which was a much needed break from our regular Sunday responsibilities.  There were naps taken, games played, books read, grandparents talked to, good food, an AWESOME thunder storm, and a walk in the cool June weather.  The summer has been perfect weather, very mild as  far as the south goes.   So before we began our walk Buster decided he needed all his protective gear to ride the FAST tractor.  So here he is. . . 

 In fact he was right he had more than one major tumble off of this thing and with each one he looked up with a huge smile and said "I am sure glad I had my elbow and knee pads."  After seeing  his big tumble where he went head first over his tractor and rolled I was sure grateful he wore his helmet too!  I guess that will teach Swifty and I to giggle about one of our children being overdressed for the event!

 KB has not been feeling well off and on today and was asleep when we wanted to take a walk so we carried her and her blankie and pillow out to sleep through the walk.  Luckily she woke up, Hieselt wanted to ride the cool tricycle but our steep hills were just too hard to get up.  Swifty was ingenious and tied a rope to the wagon and the trike.  It worked like a charm.

Baby E was so Happy to be outside she was kicking her feet and smiling from ear to ear.

Here is our entourage!  We were quite the sight for this Southern neighborhood.  In fact a neighbor we have never met came outside her house just to ask if all these children were ours!  She then kindly told us how beautiful and precious they were and to bring them by again so she could see them.  HA HA so funny!

A walk isn't a walk without aggravating a huge ant hill or a little ant hill for that matter.  All the boys took a shot at it.  Nothing like a Sunday walk to remind you of how blessed you are, or did this prove that we are just a means of entertainment for our neighbors?

D DAY!

KB got a little goldfish and a little bowl for her year end school party. She was so excited she would just sit and watch her little fishy swim.   Swifty came home and reminded me how cruel  that was to the animal, fish need bigger bowls with lids and circulating water etc.  I said lets just let it live there for awhile.  We wake up the next day to celebrate our first full day of summer to greet a dead fish.  KB was heart broken so. . .  We had a funeral in the bathroom for fishy our beloved fish we had for all of a day, and then  I did what any logical, loving parent would do.  I took her to the pet store and got her a new $.15 fish.  I gave her a small little talk about not sticking fingers in the bowl or moving it around etc.  So with our new fish and new ground rules we were happy, except for our little bouts of still missing our original goldfish.  Fast forward a few hours, Swifty comes home and we tell him about our day.  He looked at me and said You Bought her Another Fish?!  I asked what he would have done, and the matter was dropped.  Around dinner time KB decided she was ready to name her fish so she marched right up to the bowl looked in to see what her fish looked like to find a DEAD fish!!!!!  Needless to say we had another funeral in the bathroom only this time KB was crying uncontrollably and the irony of 2 dead fish in one day non of which was in our possession long enough to be loved and attached to could bring on such uncontrollable sadness hit me like a brick and the LAUGHTER wouldn't stop.  Luckily it was so hard I had tears and could sort of pass it off as crying.   The irony must have hit Swifty because at about the same time he began to LAUGH so hard he wept too.  KB is truly heart broken over her two dead fish and her parents feel very bad that we laughed at a funeral.   The greatest part is that KB kept saying it was her fault because fish can't live in little bowls, I did not want her to blame her self so I said KB we did not know it would die that's when she confessed and told me all of her classmates had already died!!! 

Teef

Look What I have................

Character

KB's school gives out an award called the Finley Character award. This is an Award given once a year to one student in every grade who exemplifies Exceptional Character whether or not others are watching. KB won the Character award for the first grade. In fact her teacher said that the minute she suggested KB's name all the other teachers unaminously agreed, that she should get the award! We are so proud of her and the person she is.

We LOVE this girl she is kind, thoughtful, helpful, a good leader, loves to learn, draw, write books, she loves to help with her babysister and is truly kind patient and helpful with her. She is always making up games for her friends and brothers to play. She is competitive a fast runner and has a great giggle. We are so lucky to have her in our family and grateful she is not afraid to show the rest of the world her strengths

Whale of a Tale

So Buster is our science boy and wants to know everything he can about his topic of interest to the point that it is all he thinks about. Lately Buster has been into Dinosaurs and Sperm Whales. The other night the kids were playing and in effort to make everyone happy they were playing a fairy game however the buster was the roach fairy (as in cockroaches)the roach fairy shoots cockroaches at bad guys. He quickly grew tired of the roach fairy and decided he was a Sperm Whale fairy, the only problem is that he loves nicknames and shortening names so he became the Sperm fairy. The sperm fairies defense was to shoot little sperm whales but when you shorten it, you just end up shooting sperm.


Fast forward to today, Swifty got home early so he took the boys and they walked to pick KB up from school, the whole time Buster is telling swifty (yelling it loudly so he is heard) about sperms and how a baby sperm is bigger than our van, and a grown-up sperm is as big as a school bus. Oh this boy is FUNNY!

Binki

Hair

March, yes it is now January well it was December when this all happened. Anyway, March was the last time I got my haircut! Needless to say my hair was long, unhealthy, and yucky. So one fun family filled Saturday I was trimming KB's hair and Swifty was buzzing the boys hair I got a wild hair to do the same. Because we have a newborn in the house I don't have time for the haircuts I can afford and I wont spend the money on the haircuts I have time for, so I did what any desperate lady would and remembered a friend telling me she put her hair in a ponytail and chopped, this girls hair was cute. So I put my hair in a ponytail and was shocked that it was more like sawing with scissors and realized I was not able to do this on my own so I enlisted HELP, my sweet husband had NO idea what he was getting into, or maybe he did either way he took over sawing and chopped many many many inches off my gross shag. We took the hair out of the ponytail and dun DA dah DA dun it was HORRIBLE!!!!!! I can not express how awful my hair looked, so Swifty plopped down on the bed with his phone and began to study how to cut hair on youtube. after watching a few videos (with me in the background saying can we fix it lets just start fixing this, no lets not cut anymore I will just wear a ponytail for a long time) he stood up grabbed the scissors and told me to hold still. After a long time of standing and a few finishing touches we came up with this. . . . . .

not too bad huh! A man of many talents

A little about HIES!

Going Going GONE..............

Well 2011 has come and gone I started the year out not even thinking about another little spirit in our family and ended not knowing how we ever lived without our little E.

11 highlights for 2011

We had little Bean October 8th

We had Visitors, Grandma's and Grandpa's came to see us

We went to the Beach and it was AWESOME!

The kids and I got to go to Utah for a Whole Month we wish we could go more often

Swifty finished another year of Residency just one and a half more to go

Our Renters signed on for another year

We are all healthy, our families are healthy, and my Bro and Sister in-law are having babies (yep not just a baby but BABIES!)

I learned how to build things and I tell you it is addicting

Buster has had A LOT fewer blows to his head :)

KB and Buster played on their first Soccer teams and were Awesome, Heiselt is a fantastic fan and great at cheering

We have learned to Love Alabama

Three

Hieselt turned 3! Can you believe it, I can't why oh why do they grow soooooooooooo fast? Two days after Christmas Our sweet guy turned 3. We started the celebrations off with Zoolights, we have no pictures because I did not want to risk my camera getting rained on. Hiesie is at that age where you don't nap but if you get in the car after 4 p.m and it is dark you fall asleep, so he slept through the first bit of his festivities. The next morning we began his day with a little Dinosaur Train, opening of presents, once those two important acts occurred he could think about breakfast. Swifty had the day off so we played all day, had Chicken for dinner, a dinosaur cake with HUGE candles in them I could not find our birthday candles so we put 3 huge Candles in his cake.

Mohawk

Look at this Little Lady her hair looks like this every bath day, poor thing needs some GREASE to keep her soft little hairs down. She is growing sooooooooooo Fast1 She smiles now and has even given her mama a few laughs every now and again!