Finally getting out of the house!

Well, this week started out absolutely wonderful, baby Cade Lucas made his debut! He is so cute!!!! I was just dying over all the cuteness that was being sent to me via text! I mean, look at that face!!! Love! But then some scariness, Angie had some complications, and you know the way Nathan communicates, we were all clueless. First it was very casual that Angie was having some bleeding, so they were taking her back to check it out. Then it was well, they might have to operate, and then all the sudden we're getting texts like she might need a hysterectomy!!! Luckily, they didn't have to do that, and they figured it out and she is just fine! And now her and little Cade are home and healthy, from what I hear, so all is well! I just love it when I get a new baby in the family, they are the best! Can't wait to love on him!

 

I knew it was going to be a good week also, because we woke up to this fun heart attack from the sister missionaries on our door Monday morning:

 

 

 

I was itching to get out of the house. I feel like I have been a hermit the past few weeks, and as I was reading through last week's blog post, I realized I had way too much information in there about a not all that exciting week! :) ha ha. But that's real life, they aren't all always exciting! But anyway, this week definitely was more exciting, and I was ready to party! :)

First up, on Monday was a lunch for Michelle Spear. It was supposed to be like a baby shower luncheon for her, and then she had some complications with her Crohns and was in the hospital, and wasn't even able to be there. Man, that lady is a tough cookie! She has so many medical problems and takes it like a champ! Her baby is going to be coming next Friday, and they might have to do a surgery on her at that time to take out her large intestine, and she would have to wear a colostomy bag for the rest of her life. Anyway...didn't mean to get on a tangent there. Poor Michelle, was in the hospital on the day of her baby shower luncheon, but we still had it, and planned ways that we can help her once she's out of the hospital and has her baby girl!

We had it at Angie's house:

 

I busted out the selfie stick:

 

Love these ladies! Meg, Angie, Me, Marianne and Janette.

 

Angie has a massage table and she tried to get Jackson to test it out, he liked it until she tried putting his face in the little face holder. Then he wanted out of there! :)

Taylor's first practice after the meet. All the little girls were on cloud nine from their meet. It was so fun to watch. I am so impressed with my little Taylor lady, she is quite the gymnast!

 

 

That night for FHE, dad was really excited to take the kids to newly remodeled Pizza Hut. Ben thought it was super funny that he wanted to take us there of all places. I thought it was fun for the kids since they had some reading coupons from the school and they get a free personal pan pizza. We went to pizza hut all the time growing up, it was one of our go to places, and I don't think Ben realized that and was giving my dad a hard time. I was laughing. But, as usual, we had a great time! Dad and Kathryn are hilarious and so much fun to be with!

I had to take a picture of these two together with the newly remodeled sign! :) ha ha

It was a great 'FHE'. :)

Tuesday we had my cousin, Rachel's kids all day. Her and her husband are on a cruise for their anniversary and Uncle Brent and Aunt Lorraine are watching them for the week. She had called me the week before asking me if I would take them for a day or two. So, after I worked out on Tuesday morning, I headed up to the Maughans to pick up the kids. It was fun having them. At first they were pretty unsure about coming with me, but once I picked up Taylor from school and they reconnected, the kids had a great time! It was our McDonalds lunch date with friends, so we went there for lunch with Dori, Marianne, Amber and Hannah. I love those girls and I always love our lunch dates. And this time I had 3 extra kids. It was a bit overwhelming, and it made me happy to not have 6 children, but we did have a great time. We came home and I just wanted to stay in for the rest of the night! :)

Here are all 6 kids eating dinner. Her kids are so good though, so it wasn't hard. I was happy to do it so they could enjoy a getaway! :)

 

Wednesday night was Young Women's. We have one activity a month with just our girls. And we are going to try and do it at either ours or Yulissa's house. This week was at our house. Katia came early to meet with the sister missionaries at our house. She is not actually a member, but we consider her one of our young women because her dad is a member and she comes with him every week. She just moved up here from El Salvador, and I think she enjoys having the friendships, I don't know how interested she is in the church, but hopefully, little by little. We had a great discussion with her before the other girls showed up.

Yulissa, with the help of the sister missionaries, Hna. Brown and Hna. Birdie, made us a delicious meal of fried chicken and plantains. It was delicious! AND I tried my hand at tres leches cake for the first time, and it was perfection! I will definitely be making that again! YUM! Katia was supposed to make it, but when her step mom emailed me the list of ingredients the night before I saw that you have to let it sit in the fridge for a minimum of 6 hours and I knew that I had to do it or it wouldn't be ready. And I'm so glad I did! It was perfect! Can't wait to do it again!

 

 

Jackson flirting with his second mama.

 

Katia stole my phone. She is a facebook/selfie queen. I just love her fun personality!

 

 

President Lopez stopped by for a bit!

 

Katia and Jessika, two peas in a pod!

 

 

Thursday was lunch with Carmen and Myriam. Myriam is Carmen's sister visiting from Phoenix and it was so much fun to finally meet her! Carmen and I had been talking about going to Hna. Zavala's cafe in Coeur d'Alene, and it was SO freaking good! I will be back many many times! Not to mention it was a wonderful get away with no kiddies!

 

Friday was the day we had all been waiting for! TWIN day! woo-hoo! I have to tell the funniest story about miss Taylor Rae. She had gone to Aidree's house the day before while I went to lunch with Carmen and Myriam. And they were going to figure out what they wanted to wear. First of all, the Rassmusens, Aidree's family, are from Boise and BIG Boise State fans. So, I went to pick her up that afternoon and Tristen had decided on these cute red GAP sweatshirts, and it was basically because she had two of them. But, for some reason Taylor's attitude had totally changed. All the sudden she didn't want to do twin day and she didn't want to wear the red sweatshirts. She was adamant. But, I still took the sweatshirt from Tristen and told her I would figure it out when I got home.

So, when we got home I asked Taylor, why she didn't want to do twin day? Did she not want to be twins with Aidree now? Why did she not want to wear the sweatshirt? I was just trying to figure it out! She told me that she did want to be with Aidree. But when I asked her about the sweatshirt, she got a little embarrassed/upset and finally yelled out, I DO NOT LIKE THE BRONCOS! I just started laughing so hard! She thought that it was a Boise State sweatshirt! I was laughing so hard because who would have thought that two 5 and 6 year old girls would be such die hard/loyal fans to their dad's favorite football teams??? HA HA. I told her that first of all, red is not a Boise state color. That Boise State's colors are actually the same as Auburn! And that it was a GAP sweatshirt from the store in the mall! :) ha ha! After that she was totally fine and happy! I called Tristen to tell her the funny story later, and she told me that Aidree is a pretty loud and proud Boise State fan, so that might be where she got the idea from! :)

It all worked out and look how cute they looked! I just love these girlie BFF's. I'm so glad Taylor has found Aidree. She has never been a girls girl. She's always been friends with boys and I'm so happy she has a BFF! She even wanted them to curl their hair together! :)

 

Tucker, on the other hand, of course, had to do something crazy and unique. A few weeks before, before I even knew twin day was coming up, he came home from school and announced that him and Jason wanted to be twins on twin day together and they waned to be thing 1 and thing 2, which I thought was so cute that they thought of this on their own! So, last Saturday Jason's mom, Lynea, me and the boys met at the dollar store to get supplies. They didn't have what we needed, so we went to Hobby Lobby and got the red shirts and blue hair day and then headed back up to their house and printed out the shirt pieces. And I think it turned out SO cute! Lynea and Jason came over before school that day and we did the hair and they were good to go! I also love this cute little friendship. Jason is such a good kid, and I hope they continue to be buds!

 

Obviously, both of these boys are going through that awkward phase where they don't know how to pose or smile for pictures! :) ha ha!

 

The insta picture of both of my twinsies together! :) Grateful that they are still young and innocent enough to want to do fun things like twin day.

Friday I got a sweet letter from Jessy in the mail. I love her.

 

And, like I posted on instagram, 'Even after 24 years of friendship, Jessy notes are my favorite. Although now, instead of passing them to each other during classes at Horizon Jr. High, we have to send them across the country. Love you Jessy!'

I should have also added that now, instead of passing them during classes at Horizon Jr. High AND emailing across oceans during college. Because we did a lot of that, too! I still can't believe how long some of our emails were back then. Like every day we would write novels to each other. I just love having a friend like her! And yes, I've always been jealous of her perfect penmanship!

 

Kathryn brought me these beautiful flowers to brighten my week! Aren't they beautiful and aren't I lucky! It's so wonderful to have family so close. Especially such wonderful family that we love!

 

Saturday came and was so nice for a break. Tucker had been wanting to learn chess, so we spent some time learning/playing chess. He wanted to play non stop, which I secretly love. I hope he continues to play and get better and better. It's a good game for him.

 

We really didn't do much else! Tucker had a birthday party that night, so we got a babysitter for the littles and headed to dinner. It was his friend, Cole's birthday and it was Star Wars themed AND a game truck and Tucker and his little buddies were pretty much in hog heaven all night. He did not want to leave when we finally picked him up at 9 that night. I love his group of buddies.

I was having a good hair day for our date, so I had to document it:

 

 

And today we had a wonderful dinner up at Papa and Kathryns! It was the perfect ending to a great week!

 

Jackson enjoying his hands in both bowls of popcorn because that's just how he rolls. This little boy is turning into the perfect cliche of a 3 year old. Bossy, disobedient, loud, nasty and yet loveable, sweet and oh so cuddly in every way. I don't know what I'm going to do with him. I don't remember my other two being quite like this, or maybe I was just a better mother to them. It's hard for me to get mad at or tell Jackson no. I have no one to blame but myself!

 

Such a tender moment between my dad and Ben. My dad feeding him the leftover butter from the bottom of the salmon tray. YUM! These two together are trouble, I tell ya! But we have nothing to complain about and a pretty sweet thing going on here! :)