happy birthday mom

Today is my mom's birthday and she would have turned 53. I love my mom so much and not a day goes by that I don't think about her. It is so hard on our whole family not having her around. I am so grateful for the gospel and for the temple ordances that allow us to be a family forever. Her most happy times are when we were all gathered together as one BIG family. I do not have very many pictures of her because my mom hated having her picture taken and so she would avoid the camera at all cost! My mom was wonderful and she would do anything for anyone. This one time when I was younger, probably like 11, her and the neighbor did not get along at all and so to try to make things better, my mom bought her a patio set for her deck. My mom loved doing things for people and especially her kids. My mom really loved her grandkids. She loved to give them candy and some of her Diet Coke. I know my mom would have really loved Shelby. Heavenly Father has a plan for all of us so cherish each and everyday and make sure you tell those you love that you love them. The thing that brings me such comfort with my mother's passing is that the week before she passed away, she had done the baptism temple work for her mother, her sister, her grandmother, and 2 other female relatives. The last time I talked to her on the phone we talked about this. She and her mother never had a really good relationship until right before my grandmother passed away because my mom was going to visit her frequently. So to be able to do that temple work for her and for her sister was a great blessing in her life. It was so touching how much it ment to my mom. I know Heavenly Father has a plan for us all and I am so grateful for mothers and for all they do for us. Even though I wish I would have learned how to cook more or at least had her recipies written down, I still am so grateful I had her in my life as long as I did. (it was my fault, I wouldn't listen to her when she tried to teach me some cooking things!) Also, a great book to read is called, "The Gateway We Call Death" by Russell M. Nelson. I hope to continue to learn to have the patience, love, and charity that my mother had.

6 months old

Shelby is 6 months old today. I can't believe it! Time goes by so fast and I just want it to slow down a little bit! But i'm sure that is asking for too much. She is the best thing that has ever happened to Adam and I. Our little family has grown so much closer because of her presence in our home. Shelby and I are both so blessed by Adam. He is such a wonderful daddy and we are both grateful for that. On days that I don't have class, he wakes up to go to work, but before he does he changes her diaper and makes her a bottle. This means a lot to me because I will admit that I love my sleep. Shelby loves to play with her dad! I love it when Adam comes home from work because most of the time Shelby and I are in the living room and she hears the door open. She will look over at the stairs and just wait to see her dad walk up them. She smiles, giggles, and starts to move her arms like crazy when she sees him! I think she loves him more because he will give her some of his sorbet and pop-sicles (naughty dad). It just makes my heart melt how much she loves him and how much he loves her! Shelby is 6 months old now and she is sitting up like a big girl, eating lots, putting anything and everything in her mouth, playing like an animal, getting up on her knees like she is going to crawl but doesn't, jumping like crazy in her jumper, helping mom with turning pages in books, almost always smiling, and lastly, she is best at just being so darn cute!

(PS, I will post pictures tomorrow because it won't let me today!)

funny little girl

Shelby is so funny. This girl loves to sleep just like her mom! We lay her down for naps or for bed at night and we go to check on her and this is how we find her:

(she was seriously sleeping like this)

We still love her so much even though she is so silly. She is the cutest thing, especially when she is sleeping. She likes to keep her head in corners or up against the sides of the crib. It scares me to death of course because nursing school has taught me all of the bad things that happen to people. But I try not to relate those things with Shelby. She has been sleeping great lately, like last night she slept from 930 until 630 this morning. We are very blessed with such a wonderful baby girl and we are so thankful to Heavenly Father for blessing us with her. Though sometimes I think we were so blessed with her so we will have another one! Adam and I keep hoping that she will be a good little girl the rest of her life, because we were both kind of crazy teen-agers. So hopefully the saying "what goes around, comes around" doesn't happen to us!

Mexico Trip

Adam and I went to Mexico a few days after Christmas with Adam's family. We took Shelby along with us! Getting to Mexico was a little bit crazy. We had to stay the night in Phoenix on the way there. But once we got to Mexico it was a blast! Shelby loves the water. She did not like the ocean very much because it was a little bit chilly. The pool at the hotel was really cold so we never got in the pool but they had these "hot" tubs which were filled with luke-warm water and so that is what we played in with Shelby. We were able to do so much fun stuff! I love it mostly because it was so warm! I am not a very big fan of the cold weather out here in Idaho. So by the time we got to Mexico it was a Wednesday night. So that night we did not really do very much besides eat! The next day, Adam and I went with his brother Matt and his cousin Pat to roam around the island. The island we went to was Isla Mujeres, which is right off of Cancun. Then on Friday it was my birthday! I turned the big 23 years old. In the morning we went Snorkeling. My mother-in-law, Gay, and my sister-in-law, Amy, were so kind to watch Shelby for Adam and I. We had so much fun. We were with Jim (Adam's dad), Matt, Pat, Dan, and Chelsea. The guide took us to see a turtle farm afterwards. It was pretty neat. It was mainly sea turtles, which I had not seen very many of before. After that, the guide took us to lunch. After lunch, we went to hold this nurse shark. It was scary. I need to get the pictures from Amy! The best part of the experience is when we were getting back in the boat to head back to our hotel. Pat served his mission in Chile and so he speaks Spanish. It was great to have him along because he really helped out with communicating with the Mexicans. So since Pat speaks Spanish, he was talking with this Mexican that was in the boat across from ours. And one thing that you have to understand is that Adam's family has this thing about acting gay. Their mom's name is Gay and so they call themselves 1/2 gay and acting gay is a joke in their family. So while Pat was talking to the guy in the other boat, he thought it would be funny to ask him if he wanted to go on a date with Matt (Matt is not married). And of course Matt did not know what Pat was telling the guy and so he looked at Matt and Matt started waving and smiling at him. So the Mexican thought Matt wanted a date with him. Pat told us this after we had pulled away from the dock and we all thought it was hilarious. That night we just went out to the downtown area where all the people gather. They had fireworks at midnight. The next morning we left at 650 to head to Chichén Itzá. It was awsome. We had a LDS tour guide and so he gave us the LDS perspective of the ruins. And his name was even Nephi! Dan and Chelsea were so kind to babysit for us! After the ruins, Nephi took us to this Cenote. It was amazing. Only Amy and Josh had their swimsuits and so the rest of us just jumped in with our clothes on! it was pretty cool! Then on the 2nd we decided to rent golf-carts. Most people on the island drive golf carts and scooters. So we cruised around the island on the golf-carts. Adam, being the mechanic that he is, decided to rig the golf-carts to go as fast as they can go! He just happened to have some zip-ties with him and so he made it so you just pulled the zip-ties and then you could have full throttle. We called it "nitro". it was great because we were able to pass all of the other golf-carts. The rest of the time we just hung out at the pool and beach. We all drank our hearts out in non-alcoholic drinks! (it was an all inclusive resort) We ate a lot of food but most of the time it wasn't very good. We were sad to leave the warm beach but I guess we all have to get back to real life sometime!

Christmas 2010

This is the only picture of Shelby we got with all of her Christmas presents behind her. And the bottom of the tree is in the picture as well. I know, it's kinda sad!

This past Christmas was Shelby's first Christmas. The month of December was a great month. We were able to do many fun things. On Christmas Day, I was not able to take very many pictures because I was not feeling very well! I had 2 kidney stones and so we did not have a very eventful Christmas. However, Adam did manage to take a few pictures. He is so wonderful and I don't know what I would do without him!

I am now a blogger

I went to a craft night the other night and a friend, Megan Eddie, was talking about how she made her blog into a photo book thing. I did not know that you could turn your blog into a book! So I am convinced that this is a great way to keep a journal. This way I can put pictures with the things I want my children, my grand-children, etc. to remember. I have been trying to keep a journal for Shelby to one day give her to when she gets married. I have heard of some people doing that before and it was a very special moment. It is hard to keep a written journal because time goes by so fast and I do not have a lot of time to just sit down and write in the journal. I'm sure I could make time but this seems a lot easier. So I will start this blog off by posting about our Christmas that we just had so Shelby's first Christmas will be in our book at the end of this year! and please pardon my blog as I get used to how this thing works!