The greatest sister ever

Today is my favorite sister's birthday. As you might have been able to guess it is Missy's birthday. Now, I know you might be thinking how can you choose a favorite? Well, when you have a sister like her it is impossible to choose anything else. But in all seriousness I love her with all my heart. So her is my tribute to her.



Missy has always been there no matter what, even if she was far away. I know that still to this day I can call her and she will just listen as I try to sort out my problems by talking them out.

Her best qualities:
She acts like she is a genius in every subject, but most of time times she is.
A zeal for life to get out and do things.
Very involved in life and will take a stand on topics.
A never ending passion for knowledge- her masters degree proves that.
Hardworking- she will spend countless hours at work just to make a difference.
Beautiful- she is so beautiful and secretly I take it as a compliment when people say we look alike.
Loving- I know that she loves me, and then when she sees or talks to my kids I can tell that she really loves them too.
Caring- my sister moved to college when I was in sixth grade, while she came back for summers and that she never lived at home for the long haul again. And even though she has been other places since then, I have never questioned how much she cares.
Ambition- she will go after whatever she wants and will not stop till she succeeds.

Now some of my favorite memories:
Her high heels while walking to a new hotel room, in the middle of the night.
Greasy fork! Greasy fork! Greasy fork!
Sleeping in her bed, because I was too scared to sleep in my own.
Copying my sister because she was grown up and looked good in make up so I had to try.
Seeing her true love for my kids every time she sees them.
Walking through scorching hot parades shouting, "Let's get it Dunn!"
Getting my first pedicure and feeling like royalty for her wedding.
Seeing how truly happy John makes her.
Reminiscing over hilarious times from our pasts.

Missy, it is a true honor to call you my sister. And even though you are far away right now, I never forget about you. I am truly blessed to call you my sister. I love you with all my heart.

Love your favorite sister,
Amanda

Finally the post about Lacey

WARNING: Long post ahead. If bored, skip to the pictures.
Ok, so to preface this I did write this already but then my stupid internet explorer deleted it because it asked if I wanted to allow pop ups, but of course refreshed the page and thus it was gone. I was very annoyed at that point, so now I am finally getting back to it. Also, this morning I smashed my pinky in the car door, so it is not usable at the moment, so I don't care about spelling errors today. So onto Lacey.
Well, as many of you know my birthday is May 9th. And it lands around or on Mother's Day every year. Many may say that I have a complex about this, but they are wrong. I just want a birthday and a Mother's day. Well, Lacey was born May 10th. So thus around my birthday and Mother's day too, but I told myself if she came early then I would not care, just because I hate being pregnant.
So, I went to work that morning and I was having contractions around five minutes apart from 9 until 11. So, I called the doctor and they said come in so I left work, after five hours. Went to the doctor and he said that I was dilated to a 3, which was two more centimeters than the week before. Dr. Aagard said that I cold come back later that day and he would check me again for any progress. Which I was really excited about. He is a great doctor by the way, he waited to leave for his lunch until he checked me. I really appreciated that. So I headed home with my mom and I decided that I was going to have Lacey that day. So we began our trek around my mom's ward boundaries walking for two hours. Keith was asleep in the stroller the whole time.
Then I went to get Benji for his lunch break and then I headed back to the doctor's office. He said I was progressing and that I had two choices. First that he could prescribe some pain medicine and that I could go home and try to sleep it off see if I would stop going into labor. Or second I could go to the hospital and they could break my water. I stared at him in shock for a minute first because who would choose to not have their baby? And second I was a VBAC (meaning I had a c section with my first and so their was certain rules I had to follow if I wanted a vaginal delivery.) And from what I had heard I could not have my water broken until a week after my due date. So of course when the offer came I jumped at it!
I drove home making calls to tell my mom to hang onto Keith for the night and Benji to get out of work. I went home to take a shower, because in case I had a c section I did not want to wait forever to shower again. Then to pack my bag, because I refused to pack it before because then I would be waiting for the baby and have everything done, you know something in my head made me feel better if I wasn't completely ready.
Then off to the hospital. With a pit stop to say good bye to Keith for the day, who did not seem to care. I made Benji walk around the hospital twice with me so that the contractions were still coming strong. Because I did not want to check in and then an hour later they sent me home. So we checked in a little after five and then got all the machines hooked up. Dr. Aagard came and broke my water shortly after, which was such a relief I was not sent home. But up until that point my contractions were not bad at all. I could talk through all of them. But once my water broke they were on a whole other level. Twenty minutes later I was asking for an epidural. But the pain doctor was in an emergency c section. So Benji had to push down on my legs during contractions, which helped a lot. Now some of you might want a natural birth. Not me, I am all for the epidural. When the guy finally came he did it, but I didn't feel it working. But they said give it time. So I was in dire straights, but the nurse said that pushing might help. So it was time to push. Then after twenty five minutes Benji said, is that her hair? The nurse said, yeah. And then ran down the hall to get the doctor out of the second emergency c section. I told Benji I was done and that I wanted a c section. He said, she is almost here and that I could do it. I was not convinced. Then I pushed and out Lacey popped and landed on the bed. The nurse and doctor rushed in huffing and puffing. Only Benji and I were in the room and they had not even set the bed up yet. So the nurse whisked Lacey up to clean her up while the other nurse and doctor set up the bed. Then the doctor told me I ripped and started to sew me up. I screamed and then he asked if I had an epidural, I said yes. Then he looked at me and said it must not have worked. Yeah, I could have told everyone that. The nurse said, congrats on your natural birth. So that is my newest battle scar that I can tell about.
But back to Lacey. She was absolutely gorgeous and worth all the pain. She was worth it, but I will not be doing that again. They cleaned her up and she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She was 18 inches long and 6 lbs and 11oz. She had a full head of hair and the longest fingers and toes. So here she is my little girl:


Then it was time for visitors. I love this picture so much, it is our first family picture.


Keith was very hesitant at first. Well, he had a very bad cold. So I had to separate the two of them and then I couldn't just hold Keith anytime he wanted. So it was very very hard but now he has warmed up to her. He even asks to hold her now.


I love this picture of the best things in my life.


Here is Lacey now, her hair is just wild.


Lacey has been such a joy to have in our lives. We are so blest to have the children that we have. I love them so much!

For My Great Aunt Judy

This post is for Judy. Technically she is my great aunt, but we are a lot closer than that. She is an amazing, strong, beautiful woman who I adore. I am proud to call her family. So this post is just to say thank you for always being so good to us. She gave Keith this really cute outfit. But since Keith is little for his size it just barely fits. Thank you Judy.





Also, thank you for the adorable little clothes for Lacey. Hopefully she will be here soon to wear them.

My Little Chef

Cooking. I have a love/hate relationship with cooking. I hate planning out what to cook, and I can never stick to a menu because what you are supposed to have for dinner never sounds good on the night you are supposed to have it. But I love to cook, especially when it turns out really good. I love when you get compliments from your cooking, they seem to be better than a lot of other compliments. Maybe because of all the effort you put into cooking it. Plus, I like when I feel like I am succeeding at being a homemaker. So anyway, a love/hate relationship.
But the part I love most about cooking it doing it with Keith. He always wants to help, no matter what I am making. He is getting really good at adding everything into the bowl and not spilling anything. And he always says, "Mmmmmm." So he is constantly giving compliments, who could ask for more? The best part is that he even says, "Mmmmmm" when it is just flour in the bowl, it is easy to make him happy. He is such a sweetheart, and he is going to be quite the baker one day.
Since he is constantly trying everything that we put into the bowl I have now starting putting aprons on both of us. So here is my sweet little boy in the apron that actually fits really well.



So here is to my little chef who hopefully will never stop wanting to cook, especially when he learns how to make dinner all by himself. :)

I want to be just like Daddy

As many of you probably know, Benji could survive solely on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I have never actually had one of these. One, because they seem disgusting. And two, I only eat sandwiches on hoagie buns or that are toasted. So I have not experienced this apparent joy of the sandwich.
Anyway, I think the doctor says that you should wait till your child is two till they try peanut butter. (Since peanut allergies are really bad.) Well, Keith got into the Reese's when he was like 8 months old, thanks to Halloween. So he has been enjoying this sandwich pretty much since then. Which, by the way, he loves to just eat the peanut butter and jelly not the bread.
So now to these pictures. Benji had left the peanut butter and strawberry jam out with the butter knife, after he made his sandwich. I walk into the kitchen and this is what I see:



Apparently I do not even have to help him get his food. Keith knows how to survive with the best of them. So as you can see Keith is already trying to be just like his daddy.

Say Cheese!

Keith is a very smart kid. A long time ago he learned that when someone says, "Say Cheese" he needs to give a cheesy smile. The best part is that he actually says, "Cheese" when he smiles. This is just a small collection of his Cheeses.

Say Cheese for Making Cookies:


Like Father, like son:


Say Cheese for Powdered Donuts:


Say Cheese for Dirty Faces:


Say Cheese for Christmas:


Say Cheese for Crazy Hair:


Say Cheese for Clean Rooms:


Say Cheese for Mommy:


Say Cheese:

Story of a Little Boy

I want to tell you a story of a little boy and his dreams. There once was a little boy who dreamed about one day falling in love. He went through everyday thinking about the woman that would one day be his. He tried everyday to become the man that this woman would want him to be. He would wake up and go to school learning what he could to be smart enough for her. Every Sunday he would go to church and learn all he could about things that he could use to raise a family unto the Lord. He would work hard around the house to be prepared to ease the workload around the house so that the wife could get more rest. He would babysit his family and other peoples families so that he could learn to change diapers and take care of babies and children so that his future wife could take time for herself when needed and not have to worry.

Every night it seemed that he would dream of her. He would toss and turn because he would only catch little glimpses of what she looked like and what she acted like. He would try and compile the little bit of information that he could remember form these dreams. This happened for years and years. At points in his life he wondered if she was real or if this woman was even around still. He worried that maybe he had done something wrong and she just walked right by him not knowing what he missed out on. Eventually he thought that all was lost and that he would have to find a girl that would take him.

One day, many years later he was sitting in the foyer of the church waiting for his friends to be done. Sitting across from him was the most beautiful girl that he had ever seen. He wanted to talk to her but he could tell that she was a wanted woman. Suddenly she started talking to him telling him about herself and getting to know him as well. She told him where she worked. After that conversation she walked out of the church with another man. He was crushed inside but created a plan to run into her at work and to get her more familiar with him. Every time he went to her work she wasn't there. He would walk up and down the aisles of the store spending way too much time trying to find her but never seeing her. He just gave up.

Many months later he went to an activity and she was by herself. His mind went racing to the point that he didn't know what to say or do around her. He found out through others that she was no longer with the other man that he saw her with. He was lost and didn't know what to do. The next day his friends invited her to come over and play games with a group of people. She accepted. She was very sneaky and she found out a way to get his number.

The two started to hang out and talk almost everyday. About a week after they started spending time together he knew that she was the one. He began to lose his emotions. He couldn't control himself. She was the girl that he had prepared himself for and dreamed about for so many years, but there was one twist, she was better than he could have ever imagined. The two married and raised a family together. The boy was so in love and so was the girl. She was so happy for the things that he did to be prepared for her and the two lived happily ever after. Forever.

This was my Valentine's Day present, it is more than I ever hoped for.

Our Baby Girl

So the great news is that she is doing very well. She is right on track for growth with no foreseen problems. It is amazing what medical technology can tell. We are slowly getting ready for her. I am trying to pace myself on getting things for her, I mean we still have till the end of May. Keith is doing good, I am not sure he grasps the concept yet. When I ask him where the baby is he always points to himself. So I have been trying to pull out her little shoes so that he can see that it is someone other than himself. But I guess it will just all take time. But I am very hopeful that he will help out with the baby. Which brings me to the exciting news. We have finally decided on a name.

Lacey Nicole Smith

I think it is really cute and it seems to just say girly girly. Which is what she will be, I will not be having a girl that wants to watch the Jazz all the time with her Dad. :)

If It Weren't For Him...

...I would be throwing up all day because I am too sick to get my medicine.

...cereal, peanut butter and jelly, sandwiches, pasta with cheese, spaghetti, soup, ramen, pancakes, mashed potatoes, rice, popcorn, pizza; would not be the list I hear every time I complain that I am starving and that there is nothing in the house to eat.

...I would not get the texts saying, "Just wanted you to know I love you."

...Keith would not have a rough and tumble parent to tackle at all hours of the day.

...I would not have my own personal masseur.

...the bath would never get started because I am just too tired and sore to get up and do it.

...I would not have anyone to guess jingle bells when I play name that tune.

...D-Will, Millie, Memy, The Sink, AK, Cisco, and Dingy would be just a jumble of words with no meaning.

...all the shoes would be in the mud room where they belong. :)

...I would not have someone who understood me so completely that I don't even need to say what I am thinking, he just knows.

...I would be lost and lonely.

...I would never feel so loved and complete.

Surprise

I am sure that most everyone knows by now, but we are expecting a baby girl. She is due May 20th, so still a ways to go. I have no names picked out yet, but her middle name will be Nicole just like mine. We have no good pictures of her yet, when we went for the ultrasound her feet were on either side of her head. But we will have another ultrasound to get all the measurements they could not get because she is stubborn, just like Keith was. So that is our good news, we can't wait for her to get here!