I Love Family

This weekend my Grandma was in town. I love her! Unfortunately since I've had kids I've come to the sad realization that she is not here to see me any more. In fact, at times I am lucky to get a hello within the first 10 minutes of her arrival. Only after the excitement has calmed down a bit from the Great-Grandkids do I then get my greetings. But truthfully, it's this way from my mom too, so I'm pretty use to it.

I wanted to just talk quickly about my love for my family. I have been blessed with wonderful immediate and extended family. While it's easier for me to keep in touch with my relatively small family, compared to Eric's 10 sibling, two remarried parents and who knows how many Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins, I've really appreciated being involved in each other's lives. The closeness primarily extends from my dad's side of the family with his mother and sister. Auntie Ann lives in KS with Uncle George and my cousin Carter, and Grandma, also know as G.G. (Great-Grandma) to the boys lives in So. Cal. We get together at least once yearly, always at Thanksgiving, and sometimes at various occasions as we can through out the year. And every other year we have our Thanksgiving dinner with my dad's aunt, her 3 children and their families. Unfortunately as children get older and have families of their own, it's harder and harder to continue this extended tradition, but I think it's on for this year. I can't wait! My favorite part of Thanksgiving is our annual game of spoons around the dinner table. There have been years that the game has become pretty intense... and yes, I've heard one year there was blood shed after the kids went to bed:) Crazy family.

It's memories like these I hold dear to my heart and treasure the times I get to see my family. Even weekends like these when my Grandma is here for just a few days are so joyful. Catching up on stories from the last time we were together, laughing at the kids, and just enjoying each other's company... who can ask for anything more. Thank you Grandma for a great weekend!

In my lesson I taught to the Young Women today at church their was a scripture in Alma 37 which states "By small and simple things are great things brought to pass". I loved this in reference to families. And to finish my weekend I have to talk about my parents.

I am so grateful they live so close and are so involved in my families life. To top of my perfect weekend, we always join my parents for Sunday dinner. This week they came over to my house. It was nice hearing the boys laugh with joy as they played with Grandpa in the back yard, while my Mom, Eric and I finished getting dinner ready. After dinner we finished off the evening sitting on the couch and letting the kids entertain us with their simple fascination and joy in blowing up a balloon, only to let it go flying as we let all the air out, over and over and over and over.....

Needless to say, my family made my weekend. Thanks guys.

Picture of the Day

I'm just in love with this picture. I added it to the bottom of my page, but just in case you don't make it all the way down, I thought I'd be nice and let everyone see without over working your fingers trying to scroll to the bottom of the page. Plus, I like it so much I thought I'd post it twice. I know he's mine, but he is so dang cute:)

The potty experience

Quick blog tonight. As many of you know I'm working tax season this year again with my dad and normally I go in to work at night when Eric gets home. Typically by the time I get home, the kids are asleep, or at least in bed. Tonight, Tyler waited in his bed from me to get home. Luckily it wasn't too late of a night at the office, so I was able to come home and kiss him goodnight. At 9:19 Ty called out for dad because he had to go poop poop. Eric got him into the bathroom. Unfortunately, this is becoming a little bit of a routine with Ty, needing to go potty after he's in bed. That's annoying, and we're working on it. Eric then came out and chatted with me a bit and we got really involved in our conversation. As we were in getting finished doing a project on the computer I hear Tyler calling from the other room. Just then Eric jumps up and says "oh my gosh, I forgot about Ty... he's still in the bathroom!" The time was 9:43. He had been in there for 20 min. and not said a word. Eric rushed in and said, "Hi buddy, have you been in here forever? I'm so sorry." He quickly wiped Ty's bottom and got him off to bed. I couldn't help to giggle at Eric's experience tonight. Next time I'll help him keep track of the time. Poor Tyler. Maybe this is what he needed to brake his new bad habit:)

Just for fun!

Found this online and I had to try.

You Are An Orange Girl

You live in the fast lane. You love action, risk, and competition. You're spontaneous, enthusiastic, and persuasive. But you're also easily bored - and love to rebel against structures. You resent rules ... as well as people's attempts to control you!

What Color Girl Are You?

Oh no, it's back!

The craziness rises again. But this time, it's all centered around one thing... my boys!


So to start off I'd like to say that I have always described my boys as balls, big balls of energy. And they are always moving full speed ahead, always. We've had our ups and downs, as I'm sure all parents do, and I know there will always be those, so bring them on. But when it comes to basic behavior and respect issues, I feel those are fundamental, and the kids need to learn to obey no matter what the situation is. This past winter Eric and I hunkered down with the minding issue my boys where having. Nothing that we tried was working. Timeouts - useless, counting - I was not a fan, spanking - just not an option for my family, basic reasoning - ha. Luckily a good friend of mine recommend this book, 123 magic which combines counting with timeouts, and it saved us! It truly is amazing, and I highly recommend it. Eric and I were awesome at it until the boys got that horrible flu that went around and we lightened up, a lot. Who wants to discipline sick, dying kids? Getting back into has been slow, but still there. This week we will definitely be back on 100%.

But the next great issue is their behavior, mainly in public. At home or at friend's homes it's never too bad. But once we are out in a store, watch out for those Lawrence boys. A simple trip to the grocery store for a loaf of fresh bread - that's it one loaf - turns into a half hour long excursion full of chasing boys through isles, restocking shelfs that my boys have rearranged, dragging one, sometimes two kids by their shirt collars to the check out stand with them pleading for something, and it usually ends with tears, sometimes from all of us. Well, what I wrote and that might seem a little dramatic, but it's always a dreaded chore.

I just recently got off the phone with my Mom. Thank goodness for mom's. She always has an answer for everything and this time she was brilliant. We'll be trying a new game, a quiet game of sorts, and get gold stars or something as we go. I haven't totally perfected the game plan, but hopefully it will teach my high energy boys how to contain that energy for any given amounts of time. I'm not asking that they sit perfectly still while I gab with my girlfriend for a 1/2 hour, but if I could swipe my card as I check out of the grocery line, or fill out paper work with out one kid spinning circles in the middle of the isle, knocking everything over, while the other one screams to get down to do something in the opposite direction... I think I would have accomplished my goal. Wish me luck, and please, if you more experienced mom's have anything to add... any and all input is welcome. Here's to motherhood!

One last side note: I have super cute pics and movies that the boys have been doing recently. I'll post those shortly, when I'm not so stressed with them. They sure are cute though.

So who doesn't love a great sexy pair of high heals. I always feel so confiendt when I have an awesome pair of shoes on. But when you are as tall as I am, adding any hight to myself makes me... well, super tall. Summer is a great time to kick off those heals and take it easy - and it's a great time to spend in some hot flats. Jhona said it perfectly, "just because a shoe is low on heel, doesn't mean it can't be high on style."
So at least for this summer, I'll be sporting the look of fun, frilly, fashionable flats. Care to join me?

6 Years and counting

This past Thursday Eric and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary. It's been a wonderful 6 years. After our horribly long 9 month engagement, we were married in the Oakland Temple on the 28th. I had dreamed up this winter wonderland wedding and had everything to match the theme, all the way up to the dress. I has a strapless dress altered into a beautiful long sleeve wedding dress, and it was my dream dress. Who would of thought that it would be 70+ degrees in Oakland in February? Well, it was and I was so hot all day. Other than that the day went fairly flawless up until my reception. As I was preparing for my "grand entrance" I walked out of the dressing room and hear a loud splitting noise. "No way," I thought. See when I purchased my dress back in November of the previous year, I was recovering from a 4 month episode of mono, which has caused me to drop about 20 pounds. I had since regained my weight, and it was just enough apparently to split my dress. Panic. But luckily my families good friend Gail Adair was a quick thinker and a better fixer and pulled to zipper back together and all was fine, I just didn't breath for the rest of the night. It was also my parent's 20th wedding anniversary that night, so we were able to give a tribute to them during our reception, and it was probably the most memorable part of the whole night. Happy 26th mom and dad.

Since that night Eric and I have had a lot of fun turns in our road of life. We went back to Utah after our honeymoon in Tahoe. Oh, P.S., do not try to learn how to snowboard on your honeymoon. It makes for a very painful and sore rest of the weekend. In Utah, Eric continued going to school and we worked together as AMAZING sales persons at a small reading program company. Amazing like we were constantly the top two sales people in the company. Well Eric was number one, until I got hired... then I became #1 and we were able to say we were 1 and 2 in the company:) No Eric, I'll never let you live that fact down. But to Eric's credit, he did train me.

About 8 months later, we had the opportunity to move to California. I wasn't a huge fan of Utah, but I do miss the mountains, and we weren't moving to Wyoming, which is where Eric was from. I had brought Eric out to California on many occasions while we were dating. He had never seen the ocean before, and once I brought him out here, he fell in love. So it wasn't much of a debate. We moved to a cute duplex in Citrus Heights where Eric worked for various companies and then moved into the finical field, which he had a real knack for. I worked as a florist, and eventually opened my own company. Then I moved into running my own dance and fitness studio. Eric and I had Tyler in '04 and we where so excited to start a new page in our life. Parenthood. I left the studio and stayed at home, to shortly find myself needing more. I moved into photography and Eric moved to Wells Fargo, where he still is today and is leading his market in investments. Nice job babe. We then had Tanner in '06 and moved to Roseville. Life has been moving full speed ahead since then and it's been so much fun.

It's amazing to see our little ones grow and develop every day. It's fun to see how different their personalities are. Even though I never would have imagined my life to be what it is now... 6 years of marriage, two dogs, two kids, and my own business, I wouldn't change a single part of it, ever! I can't wait for what the future holds...

Here's to 6 years and counting.