My baby girl

I have a lot of emotions about my oldest daughter turning 8! I went through 3 boys and waited and waited to be blessed with a baby girl; and she was definitely worth the wait! I was ecstatic to have a little girl, and showed it by having a pretty bow on her head EVERY day of the 1st year of her life, precious bling earrings and adorable outfits...that I will admit I sometimes changed afew times a day, just for fun! She reminds me of me as an 8 year old....happy to pitch in and want to be involved with the little kids....I will find her changing a diaper and ask her "did Daddy ask you to do that?" "No, I just knew he needed to be changed" She loves to help in the kitchen, loves being a big sister, and is happy about life. I love her beautiful curls, pretty green eyes, and cute dimples when she smiles at me. For some reason I'm not super touchy feely with my older boys, the older they get....but I can't imagine never wanting to cuddle with my girls. Girls are drama that's for sure, but worth every bit of it!! This little girl changed not just me, but her Daddy as well; little girls have that effect on their daddies. They flash their cute smiles and get away with almost anything. I can't say I'm looking forward to Emberlyn growing up, I want to keep her a little innocent precious girl, but I can't. Shell be dating and driving and not want anything to do with me soon, BUT, I know that the relationship I am building with her today, will mean that someday, when she gets over thinking I am embarrassing or mean, she will be an adult, have a family of her own and she will cherish the relationship we have built, just like my relationship with my mother. I will teach her how to sew, cook and be a good mommy and someday she will do the same with her own daughters. For now, I just try to soak up every minute of her little girlyness and try to be a good role model for her. I LOVE my beautiful Emberlyn and feel so blessed that she was sent to our family!

(left to right)

Grandpa & Grandma Mosley, Aunt Tiffany, Uncle Lester, Aunt Cindy, Aunt Amanda, Austin, Ryker, Dad, Mason, Hunter, Aunt Tiffany, Uncle Mike, Talia, Aunt Stephanie, Uncle Jeremiah, Mom, Grandma Cronin, Great Grandma Adams, Brigham, Korryn, Emmy, Brinley, MaKenna, Liberty, Piper and Noelle

Mom, Dad and Em

Emmy and Korryn 

 Big broher Mason

 Austin and Emmy

 Liberty and Emmy

 Emmy and Kenna

 Emmy and Mom

Grandma Cronin and Emmy

 Great Grandma Adams and Emmy

Em and Brinley

 Emmy and her Daddy 

Hunter and Emmy

Piper and Ems



Nursery fun!

Sometimes I miss being in RS with my friends, listening to a great uplifting lesson and meeting new people, but there are Sundays that I LOVE my nursery calling. The little boy in the corner is gathering all the kids over by whispering "come here come here" and then when they are all hunched in the corner with him he yells "RAHHHH!" and they all run and scream....it was actually really cute. I am leaving nursery and headed for a new adventure with the 16 & 17 year old boys and girls in Sunday school and I am SUPER excited about it. I actually enjoy teaching because it gives me opportunity to study and read, something I don't usually take time for! I'm gonna miss my little munchkins though, they are so sweet and I love spending time with them. Here's to new adventures!

Baby Elise blessing day

 I am the proud owner of the only picture with her smiling....she just loves me that much!!

Daddy and his pretty dolly

I LOVE this little lady!! I wish I could go visit her every day and when I do get to see her I seriously could hold her for hours!!! Her blessing day was no exception, she looked so adorable and we had a blast at Jacob and Crystals!

Emmys Rock Star Party!

I had a BLAST planning this party for Emberlyn......wish I would have had afew hundred dollars to drop on it, but it still turned out great! I let her invite all the girls in her primary class and a couple girls from the neighborhood and we ended up with 19 little girls at our house, it actually went a lot better than I thought! The girls were a little bummed out that we ran out of time and didn't have time for hair, but we got nails and makeup done and did our photo shoot along with some rock band and cupcake decorating. I LOVE girl parties!!!

 Her hair was probably MY most favorite part!

 I made a dozen tutus for the girls so they have a fun photo shoot for the party. Thanks to the Rock Band props I think it turned out GREAT!!

Kenna girl! 

 Libs wasn't getting the whole props part LOL!

 Pretty Brinley!

Sweet Pipes! 

Rock star Whitney 

Birthday Girl rockin it! 

BFF and cousin Korryn 

SISTAS!!!! 

BEST party ever!!!

Flashback Friday

This one came courtesy of Tiffany Tietjen. I was telling her yesterday that when Austin and Hunter complain about Brigham and Ryker get into trouble I tell them "really??? If you knew HALF the things you two did, you would be grateful these boys aren't like you were!" She reminded me about a stake conference in Queen Creek MANY years ago when They got outside and were helping "direct traffic" in the parking lot......they probably thought thats what they were doing, really they were just being sneaky and naughty! Those two caused me more trouble than another other kids! When people ask me how I handle 8 kids I tell them....."because I survived life with Austin and Hunter as toddlers....everything else has been a piece of cake!"

Flashback Friday

Not sure this is really a flashback, but I remembered something a couple months ago that made me laugh. When I was pregnant with Ryker we thought about letting the sex of the baby be a surprise...we did it with Liberty and it was really fun and I think its fun (especially after having 7 kids) for their to be SOMETHING exciting for everyone else too. I mean really, we know what sex the baby is, what the name of the baby is and for us even the day we are going to go HAVE the baby, there isn't much anticipation with any of that. BUT, I didn't want to let it be a surprise, with two small babies I wanted to plan and be ready. So we decided to find out what the baby was but not tell anyone......I just realized afew weeks ago that outside of telling my sister last month, no one knows we did that HAHAHAHA! We knew the whole time and it was awesome!!! I would buy things for him and hide them in case anyone came over and I would purposefully call him a her or a him to throw people off. It was REALLY fun and we would lay in bed and laugh about it. I love this little man and couldn't imagine life without him.....even when he is giving me his grumpy face and growling at me AS I write this LOL!
(These pictures make me want to cry....WHY do they have to grow up so fast???)

Flashback Friday

I really want to give props to the right person for this idea....I know its one of my gorgeous nieces, but when I find out for sure the right one then I will give proper acknowledgment LOL
I have only had this blog for afew years and obviously have had kids a lot longer than that and my kids LOVE hearing stories about me, Devin or themselves as little kids so I am really going to try and be good about posting some sort of memory every Friday..........I know how much my kids will love this!
So here it goes; (and hopefully as I go through our stuff that has been in storage I will find all our pictures and scrapbooks and be able to post pictures with these)
When we had Austins 2nd Birthday we had the Mechams, Parkers and Dale, Tiffany & kids over for cake and ice cream and gifts. He opened every present and would cover his mouth and gasp like it was the most amazing thing he had ever seen! My favorite part was when we got ready to sing him Happy Birthday he folded his arms and INSISTED that we say prayer.....I'm still not sure what he thought we were getting ready to do, or if he just figured we were eating so we needed to pray?? Whatever was going through his head....it was funny and unexpected. He was always making us laugh.....he drove me crazy always getting into stuff, but he really made us laugh!

Monday Night Madness

At the beginning of every new year I set goals....I set many and I am not really sure if I ever accomplish any of them. Last year was to get to 100 blog posts, which didn't happen :(  So this year I put a lot of thought into what would be an obtainable goal and what would be something that would not only impact me, but my family for the better . I decided on only one goal, because when I decided on this one, I realized how much this will change not just me, but our family.......100% Family Home Evening. To some this might be no big deal at all, and sad to say I really never thought I would look back as a parent and say that I had NOT been 100% with such important things, but unfortunately my health has affected my family a lot and it breaks my heart. We have done good with all the ups and downs with me, all the stress, all the moves, the schooling etc. etc. etc., but good is not good enough for my family. They deserve the best! It can't be that hard right? Its only 52! Tonight was my 1st test of sticking to it or not, because Devin left with the boys to go do some work that could not be avoided, so I was left with a migraine and 5 kids under the age of 8, which I normally would have said, "I'll just do it tomorrow night when Devins here to help" (guess how many times that actually has worked out......you guessed it, a big fat NONE!) But I did it, and somehow singing time and my lesson on being happy and doing things to make others happy turned into this video of Ryker which is pretty funny actually.
So here's to a year full of family memories, togetherness, teaching moments and the Spirit of the Lord filling the walls of my home and bringing our family closer together ;)
1 down, 51 to go
(share with me some of your most successful FHE)