Willow is 6 weeks old!

My Little Miss Muffet is 6 weeks old today and doing great! She loves to sleep, watch episodes of "The Office" with her Mom & Dad, go shopping for deals, get wildly drunk off her Mommy's milk, be held by her sisters & brother, sleep some more & look pretty darn cute doing it all. We love her to pieces. My favorite moments are holding her tiny little hands and kissing her adorable little neck. It's amazing how much I can love another tiny person, and how wonderful it is that I get to wake up every day and do it all over again. I adore my babies...

My babies...

As I was leaving this morning at 6:20 to make an early Albertson's run, I couldn't help but take a picture of my sleeping beauties. They looked so adorable.

Integrity, people!

You know when you want something really bad and the thought of it just doesn't leave you alone? You know how you think about it all day, fighting in your mind that you really don't need it, but that it would just be fun to have? You know when you finally commit to buy it and you feel all warm inside and can't wait to hold it in your hands? And then you drag your 4 kids with you because you are actually salivating over it? And then you wait 30 minutes in the parking lot with kids going wild in the car until it's baked and then drag everyone inside just to wait longer for it and you are questioning yourself if it was worth it? But you remind yourself how wonderful it will taste and how calories are over rated to begin with. And then you pay for it, herd your children back out the door of the germ infested place, open the box just to take in the aroma- to find this staring back at you!
Really? I just wasted 45 minutes of my life for this? I was so mad last night as I drove away with my burnt pizza. I just shook my head in disappointment, looked at the kids and then wondered if it was worth dragging them all back inside, just to wait forever in line again, to be told it would take another 40 minutes to bake another one, and then wait for it while I cringed as I watched the kids playing with the greesy video games to kill the time? No. I decided it wasn't worth it, so I went home and showed Trav. " Ohmigosh" he said disgustedly. So I called and explained the situation and they offered us another pizza for free- which of course would take another 40 minutes, and naturally, we would have to go pick it up-again! I thought it was kind of funny because someone looked at that pizza, sliced it into 8 pieces, thought it was okay, closed the lid and then slapped my name on it for me to pick up. Where's the integrity, people? (it looked a lot worse in person! I think the flash gave it a nice cheesy glow because it didn't look that great, believe me!)

Willow is 5 weeks old!

I am still amazed at fast they grow and how quickly time flies. Here is little miss muffet, all 9 pounds of her at 5 weeks old.

Halloween...

These were the only 2 pictures I could get before my camera died- have I mentioned how much I hate that thing? My camera? yes, I will splurge a get a new one soon...
Here are my babies: the vampire, the baby leopard, the princess and the pink flamingo!

I never knew...

I never knew what it felt like to have my heart crumble into a million pieces until I left for college and watched my Mom drive away on the slippery ice.
I never knew how her words, "Emmy, I just want you to be happy" would change and alter my my life so dramatically.
I never knew how lonely I would be until I didn't have her by my side each and every day.
I never knew how impossible it was going to be without her until I got married and never lived with her again.
I never realized how just her voice could calm me, until that's all I had left to cling to.
I never understood how much she had changed my life until I became a Mother myself.
I never realized what she sacraficed for me, until my own children were born.
I never knew your heart could actually ache so much it felt like it had crawled into your throat making it difficult to breath.
I never knew how much I depended on her until 3 days would pass without a phone call and I would begin to panic.
I never knew how impossible it was going to be to let her go, until I had to...

... I'm glad it hurts this much every time we say goodbye.
I love you Mama.

Mama & Brent come for a visit...

One of the best parts about having babies, is that my Mom always comes for a visit after I have one! (So I've decided to just keep having 1 each year to make sure I see her often! Just kidding Mom!!!)We were counting down the months, weeks, days, hours and minutes until G-ma & G-pa would be here to visit. They arrived on Thursday the 29th (Trav's b-day) and left on Halloween day. We had such a great visit- recieving gifts, shopping, going to dinner, making split pea soup & birthday cake, playing Bingo with the kids, playing Yahtzee, making play- do critters, making carmaled apples, going to the park with G-pa, watching the snow, going to the movies, folding a few loads of laundry, jumping on the trampoline with G-pa, making haunted houses, getting Sonic with my Mom, finding orange earings, playing with the kids, talking, Mom stealing donuts from their hotel for me, having Tristin & Daisy stay a night at the hotel with G-ma & G-pa, admiring Trav's amazing spider web, going to Target, eating taco salad, trying to get G-pa in the back seat of the van with the kids, introducing G-pa to Joss Stone, watching Trav show G-pa what the Internet can do, buying a new hair dryer & shoe laces for Brent, holding the baby, watching Grace change into/out of a thousand costumes and dress up clothes, reading stories, thrift store shopping, Mom buying me a new toaster, laughing and watching Grace watch the movie Mask for a hundred times! We had so much fun together, made more memories and are now excited for May when we can drive to Seattle for my brother's wedding! Thank you for everything Mommy!

Playing red light, green light, balencing on 1 foot, Tristin holding Willow & playing Bingo with G-ma

I bought a really cool traffic light at a yard sale for a $1.00 and I have it hanging in the kitchen- so when Mom & Brent were here, they started playing Red light, Green light- they looked so funny, grown adults moving 2 steps and then freezing in place when the light turned red- here's one of Mom playing with the kids. The other one is of Tristin & Daisy trying to balance on 1 foot with their eyes closed (Just another goofy thing Brent wanted to see them do!)The next is of Tristin holding Willow and the other 2 are of our fabulous Bingo game. Mom & i always go to the dollar store and buy Bingo prizes and then play a kabillon Bingo games- the goofy glasses were one of the prizes, the kids were cracking up!

Willow, Mommy & the kids & saying goodbye at the airport...

These are kind of random pictures, but I'm trying to get them up in time for my Mom to see them by the time she gets into work this morning. Here's one of Willow in her cute owl outfit, a picture of me with my babies & the kids with G-ma & G-pa saying goodbye at the airport.

Reading stories & G-ma with the girls...

It's tradition, when ever G-ma is around, she reads stories to the kids. Here they are enjoying one- and the rest are pictures of G-ma with her girls!