Naming Your Kids

So much thought goes into naming kids. Well, for most people. At least it always has for us. We've debated and semi-argued and vetoed. We've looked online, at movie credits, at names we get in the temple. Then we finally settle on that perfect name, the one that we think we can say 66 million times over the rest of our lives. And we're thrilled, and we start referring to my massive belly by this name.

And then they get a little older. And now I realize, what a waste of time!! You know what matters? All that really matters? Giving them a name that isn't difficult to learn how to write when they're learning how to write. I mean, what were we thinking, a B, and E, and an A?? My poor child is never going to learn how to write her name. I know, I know, she's still young. But seriously, not making ANY headway! All her school papers are just gonna say lllll, cause that's all she can do. At least she's 40% there.

I think I'm gonna name my next kid Tilly or something. Lots of straight lines...

Disneyland!... Again

So, it's true. We just made our third trip to Disneyland in the last 13 months! What can I say, we're Disneyland sort of people. Ryan's brother called on Memorial Day and said they were heading to Southern Cali the next week with their little family and asked if we'd like to come. We debated for like a day and then decided it would be a fun family vacation! We've been considering a vacation this year and couldn't decide what to do, so this decided it for us. We spent 4 days in Disneyland and were officially Disney-ed out by the end of it. I took hardly any pictures though. It just didn't seem to come up much. But I got a few. I realized though that Ryan never made it into any of the pictures! We spent a lot of time apart, actually, because Bella was tall enough to ride on most of the big kid rides, but Evan was not. So Evan and I hung out together and Bella and Ryan spent a lot of time with Brad, Kristina and Kaelee going on cool rides.

We saw Mary Poppins first thing when we got in the park. Bella wanted to see her really bad, so we waited. As soon as we got up there, she clammed up and refused to even look up for the picture!

Bella, consulting the map for our next adventure...
Bella actually took this, which was pretty impressive. Otherwise I wouldn't have made it into too many pictures either.
Bella caught me red-handed finishing up her chocolate milk!
The carousel...
Bella insisted I take a picture of Piggy riding the carousel! He had so much fun.
On our last day, after offering to go see Rapunzel a hundred times, Bella suddenly decided that that's all she wanted to do. The line was INSANE! I stood there for an hour and a half, holding Bella while she slept for about an hour of it. So I was exhausted and weary by the time we got there, but Bella was all rested up and super excited to see Rapunzel. She was just disappointed that "her boy" (Flynn) wasn't there too.
Bella on the Casey Jr. train...
We went to the Princess Coronation over in the Fantasyland theatre. They have places to kind of run around and take pictures before it starts. I suddenly found Bella wrapped up in the decor laying on the ground! I think she was a little tired by the last day.
So that was Disneyland. It was a really fun family trip and we were really glad we got to go.

I also never posted these pictures. I took a trip downtown a few weeks ago with my two cousins and their kids. We went to the fairly new kids exhibit at the Church History Museum. The kids LOVED it and we ended up playing for almost 2 hours. They had this whole thing about the early spanish who settled here or something, and the kids could dress up in this mexican garb and dance around. Evan was a crack-up in his little vest and hat! Here he is with Hannah in her pretty dancing skirt...
This area was definitely the biggest hit for Bella. She could've stayed there all day dressed up in a skirt dancing. They even had a big mirror so the kids could watch themselves dance, which just turned into Bella checking herself out for an hour!
The kids outside, running around...
We made several attempts to get them all together for a picture. It's hard to get 5 kids 5 and under to hold still for a few seconds! This was as close as we got...
There was a group picture of all of us, but it wasn't on my camera so I need to get a copy of that. My cousins had to leave to get their kids naps. I had promised Bella that while we were down there we could go see the big Jesus in the visitor's center, so we walked over to Temple Square and played around for a little while.
It was about 3:00 while we were sitting at the reflection pool, so I texted Ryan and asked him if he wanted us to stick around for a couple hours and then we could meet up and have dinner all together downtown. He said that'd be great, so we had some time to kill. I decided I'd take them over to the Beehive house and do that tour. While we were heading up the pathway on Temple Square from the reflection pool to go to the Beehive house, a little golf cart thing came toward us and who do you think was in it?? That's right, President Monson went puttering right by us. He smiled and said hi, and I sort of stood there staring like an idiot!! It was pretty cool though. Not something that happens every day for sure! After the Beehive house, we went to the top of the Church Office Building, played around in the visitor's center, and visited some of the fountains on Temple Square. We met up with Ryan and went to the Gateway for dinner then headed home. It was such a fun day with the kids. Evan didn't get his nap, but you would've never known it. He was so good and they were so well behaved all day. It was one of those perfect days with my kids that made me so glad to be a mom and grateful that I'm able to go spend fun days like that with them. I hope they're as good next time we do that so my good feelings aren't crushed! Anyway, until next time...

It's That Time Again...

Time for another quickie top 10 because I've waited so long to blog and there have been a million things going on. This goes kind of way back, so I'll try to be brief. And there's lots of pictures of my cuto kids, so why wouldn't you look?? So here they are, in no particular order.

1. St. Patrick's Day. Yes, it's been that long! So, I have NEVER gotten into this holiday, and I don't know why I did this year. But I put the kids in green and made a fun green dinner and dessert. I think it was more fun because Bella is finally getting old enough to understand some of this. My friend (thanks Linds!) gave me this link for this really cute little clover treasure hunt, left by a leprechaun. So I decided to do it and Bella had so much fun. It was by color, so she did it really easily. At the end of it was a rainbow with a pot of goodies and toys. Evan just thought the goodies were awesome!

Our green cupcakes...
and green dinner. It's hard to tell, but the rolls are green too.
2. Easter also happened, like 5 weeks later! Again, I got more into this holiday than I ever have before. We colored eggs the night before, which Bella thought was pretty cool once she figured out what I was doing!
These are their Easter baskets. Bella got Tangled, which you can see in the mix there of her basket. She really wanted that movie, so I told her to be really good and ask the Easter Bunny to bring it, and he just might. I guess he listened!
The Easter Bunny always hid our entire basket so we had to go find it. Apparently that's what our Easter Bunny does too. It was fun to watch her try to find it.
With her new favorite movie...
3. On April 20th, I woke up expecting a nice, normal day. It was not so. I had been having some really bad pains off and on over the previous few days in my stomach and on Wednesday morning they started getting kind of intense. I was taking preventative measures to not be getting pregnant, but after some of the things I had been experiencing over the last few weeks, and the abdominal pain, I started wondering if maybe I had gotten pregnant anyway. So I took a pregnancy test, and sure enough, it was positive. I knew the pain couldn't be a good sign, so I called my doctor, and was in their office by about 2 that afternoon. I spent the day being poked and prodded and they finally diagnosed a tubal pregnancy. I was bleeding pretty good internally, so I needed surgery that night. I checked in at the ER, sat in a room for about an hour, and was in surgery by about 8:30, I think it was.
There was about 2 soda cans worth of blood in my stomach that had to be removed. A lot of times, with a tubal pregnancy, the tube erupts and they have to remove it. I was lucky and was able to keep all my body parts, which is a relief considering how it could've gone. But I have spent the last several weeks recovering. They re-opened my C-section incision, so it was quite a surgery. Those 36 hours starting about the time I got to the dr.'s office up until about halfway through my hospital stay could possibly be ranked as the worst in my life up to this point, and I hope forever! I will spare you all the gory details, but it wasn't fun. Good news is, I'm back to about 90%, and should be at 100% in the next week or so. And I was grateful that they let me make it home before Easter so we could enjoy that together. Yay for surprises!

4. This is my grandpa...
Around the end of March (sorry, I'm hazy on all the actual dates), he got really sick and was diagnosed with Stage 3 leukemia. Things went downhill pretty fast and with all the things going on, they weren't able to continue treatment. On April 4, he passed away. My in-laws were so wonderful and cancelled their travel plans for that weekend to watch the kids while Ryan and I traveled to California for the funeral. It was so nice to be there without the kids and be able to enjoy a nice time with family in memory of Grandpa Roth. All but 1 of his 32 grandchildren were there, the one being on his mission right now. I think my uncle said at the funeral that his legacy currently includes 102 people, so far! It was incredible. I loved my grandpa and had so many wonderful memories with him. I'm so grateful for such a strong example who raised such a wonderful family and gave me so many people to love. He will be missed. Love you Grandpa!

5. Mother's Day! Yay for this day! It actually wasn't that great of a day, cause Evan was a monster during church so I had to leave early with him. We had a family dinner with my family that day, and I was bringing a few things, so I spent most of my afternoon baking. Ryan did help me a ton though, which made it nice. And he got me the best presents! He got me this movie, which I LOVE...
And these beautiful flowers that are still brightening up my kitchen...
Thanks to Ryan for making my day so great. I love being a mom!

6. Wow, I'm only to 6. Still with me?? Okay, so this is kind of two things, but the kids finally got their own room. They've been sleeping in the office in the basement, with just their beds in there with a desk and lots of other office-y things. We finally talked to Ryan's parents about making it an actual bedroom, and they were kind enough to spend a weekend making that happen. We also decided to move Evan to a toddler bed, which has been a disaster so far :) I keep hoping it will get better, and thinking that it just has to! This is how it's going...
He goes to sleep (when he finally gets around to it!) on the floor every night and I go move him into his bed. And then sometimes he falls out in the middle of the night. He's such a funny kid! I would post more pictures of their new bedroom, but I haven't made it very cutesy yet. So if I ever get around to that, I'll put up pictures! I just have to say that I love having their dressers and shoes and diapers and everything else out of my bedroom and contained in their own little space!

7. Big news, which sort of prompted the bedroom change above... Ryan's parents were asked by the church to go to South Africa for 3-6 years so his dad could head up the legal counsel for the church for all of Southern Africa.
They accepted, and will officially be moving to South Africa at the end of August. We have decided to stay at the house for longer than we had initially anticipated, so we wanted to work on settling in a little more. They're really excited for this new adventure and I'm excited to hear all about it!

8. Ryan got a new calling, which is in the primary. He teaches to 8-9 year olds. He had been in the Elder's Quorum for about 1 1/2 years, and I think he was kind of ready for a change. He's been having a lot of fun with it and loves the age. They're old enough to pay attention but not quite old enough to really misbehave! I hope he gets to keep this calling for a while since he's enjoying it so much.

9. Evan turned 18 months and gets to go to nursery now! This is an awesome moment for any church-going parent. He actually went a week early because it was the week right after my surgery, so I didn't go to church, and Ryan had responsibilities to take care of. He loves it, and one of the nursery leaders just told me today that he is a model nursery child. She said he's so good every week and never even cries or barely makes a sound. I think he's too terrified to! But I'm glad he's acting good so other people think I have good kids! My little boy is getting so grown up!

10. I have officially started my last semester of school! HOORAY! I've been working on my bachelor's for the last 3 1/2 years and I am sooooooooo ready to be done! I will have my Bachelor's of Science in Accounting
And that will be official in August, when I will graduate and get my diploma! I'm really happy that I took on this challenge, but it has been really hard with kids and I am really looking forward to being able to just focus on being a mommy for a while.
Speaking of being a mommy, so blog post would be complete without a nice array of pictures of my kiddos! Here are some random photos of my two cuties over the last couple months. I love this two to death and while they can be extremely frustrating very often, they are so much fun and never cease to provide hours of entertainment!
Happy blogging! And now you know everything you wanted to know about our lives for the last couple months, and more! As always, I'm going to attempt to not wait until I can actually come up with 10 events to cover!

Baby Shower

So, I'm kind of not very smart, and I don't know how to properly load pictures onto my blog (!!) so these might be in kind of a weird order, but I'm not changing them! We threw a baby shower for my sister-in-law, Ryan's Sarah (not to be confused with my sister-in-law Andy's Sarah :) She had her twin boys, Carter & Weston, on February 23. We had already been planning the shower for the 10th, then halted it when she delivered early, then resumed when we decided that it would still be fun to do!

My friend Lindsay (thanks again!) sent me a link for this adorable idea for an ice cream parlor for a party. I loved it and decided that I had to do it. I spent waaaaaaay more time on it over the next couple of weeks than I should have - putting off taxes and homework to get everything done. But it was so much fun. So, here are the pics and full detail for my sister-in-law Andy's Sarah, who couldn't make it!

I asked my mom to make two baby bundle cakes, and left her to that. Of course, she delivered, as always. These were the cutest things ever! I couldn't cut them, I made someone else do it! Then Ryan & I brought home a baby head for his family to eat. That was a little creepy!

So here are is the ice cream set-up. As always, I took more pictures of the decorations than anything else!

We decided that we needed something salty to cut all the sugar. We went with pretzels and popcorn. On this website, this lady used an popcorn bucket for her spoons, and when I saw the pattern, I knew I had to use the adorable popcorn bucket for something. So I blew it up, made 50 copies of it, cut them all out, glued them all together, and then glued a popcorn or pretzel tag onto the front (my mom totally helped me with all that - never would've gotten them all day myself!). They were soooooo cute!

This is a picture of our games. Sarah had invited quite a few people, so we didn't know how crowded it was gonna be. So rather than try some organized games with 30+ people, I just did some out on the counter that people could do if they wanted. We had "guess the baby food", a bottle full of jelly beans that you had to guess how many were in there (which, there were 114 and the winner guessed 113 - pretty impressive!), and a paper with a baby word scramble & seeing how many words you could make from the baby's names, Carter Ryan & Weston Glenn. We had a few prizes for the winners and then people weren't forced to participate if they were anti-baby shower games! Oh, we also played that game where you get 3 little clothes pins when you get there. Nobody is allowed to say "baby" or any form of it. If you catch someone saying it, you get one of their clothes pins, and vice versa. I think the winner ended up with like 14. I ended up with none!

Oh, and here's one final, random picture of the whole thing all together. I have to say, I was most proud of my triangle sign there. It was cute, and really quite easy to make.

And here's a picture of Sarah with all her volleyball girls. I just thought it was a cute picture of all of them!

Sarah opening presents... These are the car seat covers I made for her. I just made up the pattern, working off my memory of some that I saw. She's supposed to let me know how they work out for her so I can tweak them for the next time I made one if I need to.

Sarah's grandma knitted (I think) some blankets, booties, hats, and sweaters for the babies. They were really cute and must've taken her forever.

Overall, it was very fun. I loved how the ice cream parlor turned out and I saved all my signs and everything, so I hope I get a chance to use it again! And I hope Sarah had fun! She got a lot of homemade gifts that were super cute. Hopefully she's a little better equipped to bring home those babies!