another v.c.u.g.

elli went in for her annual v.c.u.g. today, and the older she gets, the worse they seem to be!

when they did the ultrasound on her kidneys she FREAKED and that kind of set the mood for how the rest of the day went.

for the renal scan they had to give her a catheter that's filled with radioactive dye to see if there's still any reflux going on. once again she was not a happy camper. the worst part of it was that they had to strap her arms and legs down onto a table and she had to lay there for half an hour while the dye made it's way through her kidneys and bladder.

i was able to snap a couple of pics after she had calmed down.

(they also had to put sandbags on her limbs to keep her down. it was a pretty sad sight!)





unfortunately she still has some reflux in her left kidney, which means another follow-up appointment in 18 months, but we're still very grateful that she hasn't had to have surgery yet.

let's hope her next one will be her last!

yum!

after 3 kids, i've finally decided to start making my own baby food!

it's so dang easy i don't know why i didn't do it before!

on today's menu: peas (insert "whirled peas/world peace" joke here).

sawyer LOVED them!

keeping it real

once in a while, i'll get a comment on a post about how "clean" or "spotless" my house always is.

these comments make me laugh because this is how my house looks 90% of the time!


do not be fooled people! my main floor might look clean because we never go in the living room and the kitchen is clean because my kids can't reach anything that high.

but the basement and playroom are a WHOLE different story!

{ 5 months }

arrrrrgh!!

miss had a pirate party at preschool this morning, and thanks to my sister megan, she had an awesome costume to wear!

{i attempted to put eyeliner on her, a la "jack sparrow" but she was way too wiggly, so it ended up looking a little ghetto}



i also tried to make her give me an angry pirate face but she wasn't down with that either.

while watching the news this morning regarding the haitian earthquake, i listened to an american woman who was volunteering at an orphanage describe how the nursery of this orphanage was on the second floor and that "babies were rolling around everywhere" during the quake.

can you imagine anything more awful?

i'm grateful to a part of a church that is so swift in sending aid to victims of horrible disasters. i know many of us feel helpless when things like this happen so far away, so i wanted to include a link to the l.d.s. philanthropic website where you can donate money that will go directly to helping the haitian people.

http://www.ldsphilanthropies.org/humanitarian-services/news-features/lds-haiti-2010a.html

best job ever

ever wondered what i do for a living?

well wonder no more!

you can check out one of my films right here.

i seriously have the best job in the world! i love seeing the beautiful and unique weddings, and i also love that the couple is always so in love!

i'm honestly so lucky to do what i do!

before there was blogging...

for activity days this month we're going to talk about the importance of keeping journals. in preparing for this class, i found my old journals and started going through them.

check out my very first one. an awesome teal and gold personalized notebook from 'deseret book'.



looking back and reading old entries, the thing that kept running through my head was "holy crap i was a dork!"

would you like some proof? here's an entry from exactly 12 years ago.



keep in mind this was the same year tom and i started dating and i seriously thought i was SO mature.

the last journal entry i ever made was in september of 2001. that is, until i started blogging in october of 2007. when i first started our blog, i didn't consider it anything more than a means to keep my family and friends in touch with what was going on in our lives, but as i look back and read old posts i've realized that keeping up this blog has been a great way to journal our lives.

something that 'facebook' just can't touch.

so my point is... keep blogging my friends! you won't regret it!

our downtown adventure

tom had today off so we decided to bundle up the kids, ride the trax train downtown, eat lunch at the lionhouse pantry and then wander around temple square.

we didn't actually have an "adventure" per se... but the fact that we left the house instead of hanging around in our pajamas all day made it an adventure to us!

curly sue

i curled elli's hair on sunday and was pleasantly surprised with how it turned out.

i was also shocked at how still she stood while i did it!

isn't she cute?

do you feel that, thomas?

so do i!

it must be the 7 year itch!

yes, it's true. we've been blissfully married for 7 years now!

here's a pic of us in front of the timpanogas temple right before we received our endowment.



thanks for all the fun times, tommy! i sure love ya!



{sorry about the dust on the pictures... they were obviously scanned}