Trick-or-Treat!!

 Devy was a spunky Cowgirl and Lukey was a cute little Monkey

Our first family picture in a LONG time

 Devy and one of her cute little friends Sagey

 You have to get candy from at least one dead person in a coffin right??

We literally went trick-or-treating for 45 minutes and we made out like bandits.  Everyone here lives in row homes and sits out on thier front porches so it goes SO quickly.  It was really nice.  Also this year it was really warm so that made it enjoyable to go.  

After we got home and dropped Luke off, Devy asked to go again... So, we did. ha ha.  It was 8:30 and she was so tired but we were both having so much fun I couldn't say no.  So we went to a wealthy neighborhood and got some awesome king size candy bars and coupons for free kids meals at Applebees.  I think that we need to make some friends with these outrageously wealthy people...

Devy quotes

After she fell and skinned her arm Devy asked me "Mom can a cookie take away my pain?" So sad but so cute

When we were driving home tonight from trick-or-treating Devy informed me "Mom this was the best Halloween EVER!" I love this little girl

Luke Words and Likes

No Yeah Stop it Candy Dog Baby Mom Dad (Pictures later) What he loves: animals, looking in mirrors, coloring on every surface possible, sneaking into mom's makeup and coloring/putting it on himself, candy, his mommy, climbing up absolutely anything and everything, the park, balls, trucks, saying hi to everyone within ear shot, dancing with his hands on his hips (has to have a good beat), and giving mommy kisses

Devy Quote

"Mom I wanna like you" um.. okay I wanna like you too sweetheart... lol

The initiation process checklist

So my sister and I had a conversation on facebook about my recent endeavors in this city fo "Brotherly Love" and instead of relaying to everyone the same story, here it is: (It is written for her so just ignore whatever you don't understand or ask me to clarify which is good too) lol... yeah. No big deal though. Yelling fights are a regular sight in Philly. It just sounds crazy when you don't live here. He was the drunk. He backed into my car right in front of me and then told me it wasn't a big deal... Then told me it wasn't as bad as when we blocked his car in in the parking lot for 6 days when we first moved here... He keeps bringing this up and how Lance and I have questionable parenting ethics since we hold our children upside down. So I lost it on him. Talking to my neighbors, they were just waiting for it to happen. They thought I was being a push-over by not "standing up for myself" when we would say things like that to me. (because I was trying to keep the peace of course and just get him to stop talking to me) Anywho, he said that he isn't crazy because he remembers seeing our license plates and that it was definitely our car blocking him in.(which he brings up EVERYTIME he sees me! Just let it go!) (I mean seriously I don't bring up that I can literally smell the drugs that you are doing wafting from your freaking house!)So, I said that that wasn't true because we didn't even know there was a parking lot up there till we had lived here over a month. So of course he called me a liar and then brought up how we were bad parents. So... I started getting a little frustrated. And we started yelling at each other. Then I realized what I was doing and stopped yelling and let him finish whatever drunken tyrant he was on. He started walking toward me trying to be funny and said "So you wanna duke this out or something?" So I said "Yeah let me go get my 250 pound husband and he will show you how it is" We started yelling again and then He then finished with how we are bad parents so then I really lost it and said "NO THAT WAS ME WHO HELD OUR SON UPSIDE DOWN and I will do it again! And YOU walked toward ME and threatened to punch ME in the neck!" And then he backed down after that when he realized that it was me that he threatened and not Lance. I kept saying "Just stop and go inside your house, you don't know what you are talking about and I am sick of talking to you. You are done, go inside now John." And he replied with (in a whining voice non-the-less) "I don't wanna go inside" (this man is 47 years old) To finish, he tried to make nice and apologize and act sad that I don't like him. (which he does this EVERY time he sees me and then tries to make up for it by saying has anyone told you how hot you are?) So I am used to this now and I usually just play along to get him to go away quicker. But his time I didn't care and I just ignored him and then told him that his questions don't matter. He asked me what my kids names were (which he has done about 100 times) so I told him they were Lucy and Ben. So the rest of the night my neighbors called my kids Lucy and Ben because they thought that was hilarious. This all happened in front of 9 kids and 5 other adults. They just stood there and let it happen. I was talking to one of my friends and she said that she was actually waiting for me to choke up and give up on the fight and she was getting ready to finish it for me. Evidently my neighbors are "proud" of me now... I don't get it but whatever. I guess it is another one of those initiation things...

Devy Quote

As my sweet daughter was sitting down to do her business on the potty she yelled "Reduce reuse recycle!"

Lukey Firsts

My Son said his first two word sentence today and kissed me with his lips together!! Picture to come later My baby is growing sooooo fast!!

Preschool

I taught preschool today and it was a lot of fun! I had the kids for 3 hours and they went by way faster than I expected! The kids are awesome!

Devy Quote

After a day at the zoo my beautiful daughter exclaims: "Mom, I love alligators, I love to hug them and brush the blood out of their teeth." At least hygiene is important right?? lol

Devy Quote of the Day

Mom, the wise man built his house upon a rocket

Devy turns THREE

For Devy's birthday I made a Dora the Explorer cake. It was my first fun cake I ever made. I learned a lot and now know what not and what to do the next go around. I will definitely start a day ahead of time so I don't waste a whole day that we should be having fun instead of making a dang cake. She loved it in the end and we had fun sharing it with our neighbors.








My amazing daughter turned three this month! I cannot believe it! I have been a mother for THREE YEARS!! I mean COME ON! This is seriously incredible.

I love this amazing little girl. She is so full of life! Everything is a game. I love that when I wake up every morning that there will be a cute little blonde running up to me to give me supper lovies and tell me that she loves me so much and then that she needs breakfast. Getting dressed and going to bed and brushing teeth are all games. She loves her little brother! She is her main man second only to her Dadder.

Devy is always saying crazy things that make me laugh until it hurts. Like "Mom Jesus dies but then he was ected" While in the middle of playing at a public park. Or pointing to a man with a hoodie on saying "Hey mom look Jesus!" Or every big building with is a Temple and she is ALWAYS pointing them out.

She is also OBSESSED with having babies. Every day I am asked if I am pregnant. Now though it is more of when is she going to be pregnant. Which has also led to interesting conversations about going to college and marrying a nice returned missionary in the Temple and THEN having a baby a couple of years after... She tells me all the time that she is going to the temple and getting married to her husband. OH DEAR.

Her best friend right now is a little boy named Alex. He is so dang cute. He is a month younger than Devy and the sweetest little boy ever. We have fun playing with them outside on the sidewalk. She also has a couple of twin girl friends that are super nice.

Devy loves playing with ANIMALS! She got a farm for her birthday and has played with it EVER SINCE. She is ALL about role play. Sometimes I pretend like I am busy but I just stop and listen to her little drama stories that go on between her little farm animals.

Role play is the new game. Anything is a toy. We were eating lunch the other day and had fresh peas in the pod and those turned into a few friends going to the park and learning how to share their toys. She is always being a mommy to them and excising her motherly duties of making her toys share or go to time out if they hit mommy.

She is so smart and kind. She is really getting into helping me and loves to help me get stuff if I am stuck and need help. I love that she understands life now and how to communicate a little better. She is AMAZING at talking. I love when she messes up her tenses because I happens infrequently that I cant bring myself to correct her because it is so dang cute.

I love you my dearest Devy Lee. You are my shining star

Philadelphia

The move has been kind of crazy. But we will survive. We have a friend living with us right now so I cant completely unpack my house for another couple of weeks. If you have had boxes all over your house before and you can do nothing about it, it gets kind of frustrating. All in all though I am glad to help someone in need because I know I would appreciate it if someone did it for us.

I tried to go to center city last week but I got really overwhelmed by the traffic and the no parking so I drove around for 30 minutes and then told my GPS to take us home... lol

I did go and buy a membership to the Please Touch Museum. I heard that it was awesome for the kids and that you can spend hours in it. So we are excited to do that.

We also have a little fenced in back yard, except the people before us didn't take care of it, so it is all over grown. And so I broke down again and bought a week whacker so we can actually play in the back yard.

And another one was we bought a laptop since Lance accidently left the Ipod in the back of a taxi and I had no connection to the internet. You don't realize how much you rely on it until it is gone. HOpefully this spending will not become a habit since living in this huge city is already expensive enough.

Wish me luck and hope that I don't get mugged.

PS oh yeah and there is literally no parking on our street so I have to walk 5 blocks to park the dang car... I cant believe I complained about walking 100 feet to get to our garage... lol I dont know if I will even leave the house in the winter time. As it is, I wait till the weekend to run errands with Lance since it is easier to handle two kids and all that walking around with two parents to two kids instead of one.

Peace out

Luke is ONE

I can't believe My son is one year old! This year has really gone by. He is so dag cute! I just want to squeeze him EVERY DAY! He is the happiest baby EVER! Everything is so funny to him. He is the BIGGEST flirt. He can say NO, Mama, dada, devy, stop it, go away, thank you (my personal favorite more like dey due but he definitely says it). He likes to walk around bent forward with his arms stretched out back (my fault I showed him that), He is SOOOOOO patient! He will sit and figure something out until he does and never gets frustrated... I love it. I swear my one year old has more patience than I do. He loves to walk and put on shoes. He LOVES is daddys shoes and tries to put them on multiple times a day. Luke LOVES to climb; he as been a climber since 9 months. He has climbed onto the back to the toilet and up a crazy scary ladder. He has NO fear. He is ALWAYS falling and bumping his cute little noggin so therefore ALWAYS has a bruise somewhere on his head. (Today his tooth punctured his lip) I can get enough of this guy. He LOVES his mamma (which I can't complain) He LOVES nursery (even though he is too young he just goes right in and doesn't even look back; which is amazing because he kind of has separation anxiety)

I love you my son and may you always be this handsome and charming. I love you more than words

MOVING!!!!!

So excited that life is moving on for us. There was a time there for a long time that we were so depressed that our lives were over as we knew it.

I will have to say that when you have a dream and it is coming true, you tend to get a little attached to it. But when all-of-a-sudden it gets ripped out of your hands for now fault of your own or those around you, what do you do?

Do you get angry and get even? Do you scream at the heavens? Do you crawl into a hole and curse the world? Do you go into survival mode and become a zombie until it is all over? Or do you take the high road, put on your working shoes and change your plans?

Well I can say I have done a little of all of these. I have to truly admit that I felt every single one of these emotions. However, in the end I feel good. I truly felt that we were going to be okay, I just had to wait and wait and wait. That was it.

I had to get up every morning and put on my working shoes and be a mother, wife, housekeeper, entertainer, lover, and friend. How does one do this you ask?

Truthfully, I didn't do this every day. There were a lot of days I just vegged. I couldn't find the emotional energy to get off the couch and live. I basically did the basics... I got up fed my children, changed thier clothes, brushed their teeth, fed them again, and then again and then put them to bed.

But after a while I started adding things to do to my day. Hey why not go outside? Go for a walk? play a game? Be a friend? Sure but these were still HUGE struggles.

However, guess what!!! After MONTHS of prayer and fasting and prayer and crying and prayer and fasting and prayer and screaming and prayer and fasting and crying... and then prayer again, our prayers were answered.

The Lord works in mysterious ways people... SERIOUSLY!
We were planning on moving to Oregon, and trying to pick of the few pieces of our hoped-for professional life and figure out how to pay 100K back with two bachelor's degrees and half of a med school degree. (Pretty daunting I have to admit)

But within TWO DAYS Lance was in a dang school and a pretty good one at that!

We had NO IDEA

All I can say is thank you to my Heavenly Father. Thank you for seeing what I could not and softening the hearts that we could not. My faith in my Savior has increased 10fold and I cannot express the love and admiration for the sacrifice that those around me have made on my behalf. I love my Savior, my family and my friends. I thank you for buoying me up in a time that I could not raise my head out of the water of life. I felt like I was drowning and there was no way out.

Thank you for your countless prayers and words of love and encouragement, they mean the world to us and we will be forever greatful. You are all true friends and loved ones.

Funny Moment

I saw a really funny quote today:
It was a magnet at this lady's office who was overweight and had a trashcan behind her desk FULL of Pepsi cans

"I wish I was as skinny as I was when I thought I was fat"

Best quote ever

Precious Moment

So I have to post this before I forget
Today while we were reading books we saw a picture of a Giant Panda and:

Me: Devy what is that?
Devy: A Care Bear (said very matter-of-factly)