Update overload!!!

I have been slacking lately and havn't updated for a while so here is what we have been up to for the last few months.

The girls had their gymnastics meets this last week. They love gymnastics and they are all little monkeys and all they do all day is cartwheels and handstands and drive me nuts with it!
They did charts in each of their classes and got points for how many stunts they could do. All the girls got medals and the top 3 inn each class (except for Brylee's class) got a trophy. Tessa got second in her class so she got one of the trophies. It was a great accomplishment for her.

I know it's blurry! I am a horrible photographer.

Macie was very sad she didn't get a tophy in her class but maybe next year. She hasn't been doing gymnastics as long as Tessa but is still doing really well.

Brylee was very proud of her medal and wouldn't take the thing off all day. She is in the pre-school class but she has no fear so I don't think it will take her long to surpass her sisters!

Brylee's b-day

My baby is 4! Is she not the cutest 4 year old you have ever seen!!

She had a bit of a lame cake because I was having blood pressure issues so I was suppose to be "taking it easy" by order of the dr. Poor thing this is what she had to live with. Thank goodness she was so excited it was her b-day she didn't really care.

Presents, presents and more presents! Love this girl!!!!!

10 Years!

In April Randy annd I celebrated our 10 YEAR anniversary. I can't believe it has been so long. There have been ups and downs, some days where we wanted to kill each other and some days where we wondered what we got ouselves into. For the most part it has been a great 10 years and I couldn't imagine having spent it with anyone else!! Love this crazy man!!!

Sexy beast right! We went to San Diego for a little getaway. We went on tours of a bunch of ships in the harbor which was cool. We also got to tour a Russian sub which was creepy cuz it was a little cramped and I am a little fat to squeeze through small places. Anyway, we got to go on the ship they just filmed the new Pirates of the Carriean movie. It was very cool. We also went to Universal Studios which was vey fun.

Set from the Grinch movie. Our girls were very jealous that we got to see that.

This was one of the buildings that they use for different movies and of course we had to take a pic of this!

This was a picture of buildings that they use to make it look like they are filming in a big city.

I couldn't pass this up without taking a picture. Such good childhood memories watching cartoons of Scooby Doo!!

I reccommend if you ever go to this place to do the front of the line pass it was well worth it. We had a ton of fun and Randy was like a little kid on all the rides.

Gymnastics show.

This year all the girls were in gymnastics so it was a busy week for dress rehersals and performances but the girls did awesome!!
This was Tessa after her performance. I didn't get a picture before for some reason but Aunt Cathy did their hair and it was an awesome day. Brylee is getting a little too big for her britches. Nice pose ha!

Macie and Brylee before their show. So sute!! Someone needs a tan!!

So glad we have Aunt Cathy around. Don't know what we are going to do when she leaves!!

Coloring Eggs

I am pretty much the worst mom ever because I don't like to do crafty things so my kids suffer a lot. I decided to (after a lot of begging) do the whole Easter egg thing and let the girls color eggs. They picked out their own packets and away we went.
Finished product.

Macie and her Tinkerbell eggs.

We did this right after we woke up so she looks a little sleepy still.

Tessa thought she was in heaven. They had a lot of fun!

And I think we made it through with no spills. Miracle right!

Maybe it's NOT a boy!

I went back to Mesa and had another ultrasound on Saturday because they didn't get enough pictures the first time. They checked the gender again and said um. . . .um I'm pretty sure it's a girl and NOT a boy! I have been telling Randy the last week or so to prepare in case that happened but I didn't really think it was going to! Oh well. I guess we will see which person was right in a few months.

It's a BOY!!

I havn't really advertised the fact that I am pregnant because Randy thinks you should keep it private. I am the opposite. I like to tell people the exciting news. Anyway, I am 21 weeks along and we found out on Saturday that we are about 98% sure we are having a boy. After 3 girls this is very exciting news for us. Not that we don't love our girls, but a change is good every once in awhile.

Randy was so excited he had the people check twice just to make sure. He wanted to hang the pictures form his mirror in his truck and go staight to the store and buy boy clothes finally!! It was cute to see him so excited. He says the baby will be his "little buddy". (His girls still have him wrapped around their fingers though.) This is our exciting news for the week!! Yippee!

The toothless wonder!

Macie lost her first tooth!! She has had this loose tooth for a week or so now and she was so excited that she stayed up last week almost all night trying to get it to come out so the tooth fairy would come that night. Finally last night it was so close and she was determined it was gonna come out. Guess who she let pull it out? TESSA! Is that crazy or what. She trusts her big sister I guess. They were so excited! Thanks to Brylee falling off the bed and screaming last night the tooth fairy was reminded to do her job!

Christmas Day 2010

We had a wonderful Christmas of course with lots of crazy kids ripping gifts open. Between Tiff's 11 kids and our 3 we had enough stuff to fill the whole living room. (Spoiled kids! Thanks to their dad!) Besides Randy being sick it was a perfect time with family and fun and reflections of Christ.

Anxiously awaiting to get to go into the front room.

Brylee and her stocking goods.

Macie was most excited about her snow globe. Go figure?

Tessa thought she needed to hide her face. All in all Christmas was a success. We had an awesome dinner with the family and we tried to make sure the kids remembered what Christmas is all about.

Christmas Eve

I am way behind I know but thats just the way I roll I guess. We spent Christmas in Heber this year. We stayed at Randy's sister's house and it was a lot of fun for the girls because they love laying with Aunt Tiff's kids! Tessa in the new jamies.

Brylee was in Heaven cuz hers had ballerina's on them so she thought she had to dance.

Macie sporting the classic Snoopy!

So excited for Santa to come! Of course they couldn't sleep!

Tessa's B-day

So Tessa turned 8 in October. Crazy right I am so old!! She wanted to have a Halloween party so everyone dressed up and we had lots of fun. She was baptized in Heber on the 30th with 3 of her other cousins. It was a crazy day but very memorable. I will post pics of that when I get them.

My pics are never in order but oh well!

Tessa blowing out her candles on the pumpkin cake I made and was very impressed with myself!

Presents, presents and more presents!

We played pin the face on the pumkin for a game. The girls had lots of fun with that!

Our little 8 year old devil!

All the cute party goers.

Thank goodness for grandma and her ability to whip out crafts at the spur of the moment!

This is the awesome cake I made that for the first time ever actually looked like the picture. Dang I'm good!

Macie's B-day

I am a few months behind but that is my life right now! Macie turned 6 in Szeptember and she wanted a dance party! Aunt Becky happened to have a disco ball so that worked out well for a little extra excitement for the party!

In case you can't tell these are suppose to be microphones. They didn 't look exactly like the pic but it was close enough and Macie like them so that's all that matters I guess!

The happy b-day girl blowing out the candles.

Carter was quite the little dancer busting some break dancing moves out! It was pretty funny.

Aunt Cathy was there doing everyones hair so they would be so beautiful for the dance!

All the fun friends with the awesome glasses looking so fly!!

Brycen part 2 . . .

This is the program from the funeral. They turned out really cute! He was all smiles all the time!

Here is their latest family picture. Brycen was having a hard time sitting still as usual. He was known for his energy. Never stopped running and getting into everything.

They had a huge print of this one at the funeral. J and A said this was the perfect picture of him because it showed his personality. Such a mischievious smile!

The ward was so helpful after the accident. From the minute the accident happen there were people there helping. Wed. morning they had ladies over cleaning the house, someone came and cleaned their carpets, did their laundry, a plumber came to fix their toilet they had been having trouble with. They had enogh food and gifts for the other kids to last for weeks.

Friday when we got back to their house we had to answer the door every 15 minutes literally, because there were so many people bringing flowers, hugs, cards you name it. Even some of the police officers who were there came and brought cards. It was amazing to see that their are still good people in the community that are willing to do any kind of service needed.

One of their neighbors was amazed at all the support they had and their strength that he now wants to take the missionary discussions. I guess there is usually some good that comes from a tragedy. We will miss Brycen but we all know that this was Heavenly Fathers plan for him and that he will be waiting in heaven for others to come so we need to do what we can to live with our Father again.

Brycen Paul Burrell

(I have a picture but it is in a different format so I can't dowload it. I will get another one soon so everyone will be able to see what a cutie he was.)

Last Tuuesday the 17th I was in my kitchen getting the girls some dinner when my phone rang. It was my sister calling to tell me that my brother Johnathan had just called and said that his sweet little 2 1/2 yr old boy Brycen had been ran over by a car and killed. I was in shock and just kept asking if she was serious. I couldn't believe her, I didn't want to believe her!

After being in shock for a day and a half I finally was able to call my brother and see how he was doing. I was fine untill he started talking. He was crying and just kept telling me to hug my girls. At this point I completely lost it and was a mess for the rest of the night. Randy was so nice, he brought pizza home for dinner and got a funny movie and some ice cream to try to make me feel better. It was a very nice jesture because he didn't really know what to do with me sitting their crying uncontrollably.

We left to go to Mesa on Thursday and I went to the funeral home with Johnathan and Alicia Fri. morn which was the hardest thing I have ever witnessed. Alicia (as you could expect) was basically like a zombie and just sat there staring and crying for most of the time.

The funeral was Saturday and it was beautiful but sad of course. Brycen's little casket was hard to see and Johnathan had to basically pick Alicia up to follow the casket to the chapel because she didn't want to go. It was very sad. There were lots of fun stories told about Brycen and a beautiful song that had everyone in tears again. The most amazing thing was as we were leaving J and A stopped and gave a long hug to the girl who ran over Brycen. It was a very nice funeral. The gravesite dedication was on Monday and it was beautiful as well. The funeral home did a dove release for them and they gave Alicia the first dove to release and when she let it go it jumped onto Johnathan's shoulder. After that it jumped onto the canapy until the other doves flew off then that one followed the rest. The releif society brought balloons and everyone wrote messages on them and we let them all go at the same time. It was pretty cool.

Johnathan and Alicia have been very strong through this whole ordeal and I have learned a lot from seeing the faith they have in Heavenly Father. They were able to go to the temple several times for comfort and were assured that they are loved and that Brycen was happy. I was also touched by their incredible forgiving hearts towards their neighbor and very good family friend, Heather, who was the one who accidentally ran over him. She felt completely aweful and it will probably take her longer to cope with the accident than J and A. They showed an incredibble amount of Christ like love which I admire them for. They grew a lot in a very short amount of time.

I am so glad to know the Lord's plan and that we have the opportunity to have eternal families. This was the only thing that got them through their ordeal. J and A got up in chuch and bore their testimonies and thanked the ward for all their help and they helped a lot! It was amazing the way they were just like an extended family and jumped in and helped in every way possible. Anyway, Johnathan said he was reading a talk and they said that some of us while in the pre-existance chose to come back early and he knew that Brycen was one of those people. It was an awesome testimony that they gave. I am forever amazed at their strength.

This is really long and if you made it through the whole thing good job. I just wanted to write down my feelings and memories of the weekend before they faded. This was an experience I would never want to have to go through again but there have actually been lots of amazing things come out of it. I will write them when I download the picture.

Moral of the story, hug your kids because you never know how long you will have with them. Trust the Lord and know that Jesus knows your pain because he took upon himself all of our sins and pain because he loves us.

First Day of School. . . .

Well just like every other blogging mommy already or soon will have the infamous first day of school pics. This year was Macie's first day of kindergarten. I thought the 2nd child would be easier and I did fine till I had to leave her classroom but it wasn't easier!! I still wanted to cry but I held back the tears till I got in the car. I guess I am a weirdo! Oh well here are my cute girls. I only have Brylee home all day so we will have some good bonding time!

Tessa wanted to go with the peace out look!

Cutest little piggie tailed girl around!! They grow up way too fast!!