Overcoming trials

 Our lives have been pretty overwhelming the past few months. Chance and I have experienced some major trials lately and just when it seemed that there was no light at the end of the tunnel..... light appeared. Through our whole marriage so far, Chance and i have had some really rough patches with trials. It seems like there is always a lot more rough time in our lives than smooth. but you know what??? I think i like it better that way. After the end of a huge rain storm of trials i always look back to see the way I handled that cluster of trials. Was i depressed? Did i have faith? Did i accept help when it was offered? Did i try to make the best of things? I have to say in the beginning of our marriage i dont think i handled things so well. ( by the way i am not talking about marriage problems).  As the few years have gone on and many many many storms of trails i feel like i grow stronger with each one. Not only does my marriage get stronger, but my faith gets unshakable.  No matter how down i get, i ALWAYS know things will work out in their own time. I am very very very relieved when we finally get a break, but i am thankful to have gone through it and become stronger. I thank my Father in Heaven every single day for that. I am not saying i want storms of trials all the time by any means, I am just saying i can appreciate them so much and have even learned to appreciate them while i am going through it sometimes! The breaks in between trails i have so much appreciation for as well. I cherish the things that go right for us and i and so grateful for them.

Little miss Bailee girl is just the cutest thing ever. I seriously am in love with this little princess. She gives me a run for my money for sure, and i think i love that!!! She is getting so big and smart. She is more than obsessed with books. I dont even know a word to describe it. I love it, but i CANNOT read anymore books. I have read so many books in the past couple weeks i could scream hahaha. But she now points things out in the books that she knows. like ball, shoes, cat, dog, those types of things.

 Oh my gosh i love them. Blake and Bailee are going through such a good getting along phase right now. They play for hours at a time together and just love it. Every morning when they wake up they get so excited to see each other. I hear them wake up and soon enough Blake starts trying to make Bailee laugh and she loves it. I love listening to it

 Ummmm Blakes pose right there kills me! But Bailee looks so cute and big!

 Again with the poses! HAHAHA apparently he is a ladies man! He is pretty dang cute though

 Pretty sure i love being a mom more than anything. It is so hard, so so so hard sometimes. But i honestly wouldnt trade it for the world. When i am having a hard day, these two give me lots of love. They are just my everything and i love them

 This little boy is a smarty pants. He seriously astounds me everyday with the things he says and does. He is way beyond his years. His nursery teachers tell me how much they love him and cant get over how smart he is. Blake is sooooooo social! Its insane. Everywhere we go, if he gets to play, you better believe he is off making friends. He always likes to introduce me to his new friends to i love that. We are doing ABCmouse.com with him and he loves it. He is doing really good at his letters and rememebers a lot. He mainly has friends that are girls bu he does have his best friends Weston! He loves him:) Blake the other day came up to me and said, " ummm hey mom, heavenly father is my hero." I just sat there and couldnt believe my ears. What a sweet sweet phrase to hear. He cant wait to go to primary and knnows a few of the songs already. He is going through a not listening phase right now. aaaahhhhhhh terrible phase! I hope it ends soon. Oh also, he cleans his entire room(which is also his play room) every day. He puts everything exactly where it belongs and doesnt shove anything in corners. He cleaned up my friends entire play room the other day and his nursery leader told me he told her that he couldnt leave until he cleaned up his messes he made. Oh for heaven sakes that might be the best quality ever!!! HAHA!

 Oh sweet girlie

 Bailee girl and Chunnie boy:)

 Its so fun living next to my sister! We got to go to Brooklyns soccer game! It was so fun getting to watch her and be a part of it. Look at these cute kids! I just love all three of them

I got to go to womens conference with Lindsay and her ward. We had a delicious dinner after to! Lindsay and i havnt lived in the same state since i was 18, Its the best thing ever! We get to spend a good amount of time together(not enough) and get to be there for our kids things. I also go to go to Brooklyns Student of the month ceremony. These times of our kids lives are important and i am so glad we get to be apart of it

My mom came for a visit!

My mom came for an unexpected visit! She stayed at my house for the first week and My sisters for the second week. I seriously had so much fun. I can honestly say that was the best week i have had with my mom in a long time! It was so relaxing and enjoyable. She spent so much time with my kids playing and helping them it was so great! We ran errands at yummy food when to a couple of Blakes activities, painted nails and just relaxed. We had just so much fun

 We also got to go to a Giants game! It was so fun and Chances first MLB game it was awesome.

 Went to the movies:)

 Had fun at Wiggle worms

had fun at the mall play place

 Went to the mall play place

 A huge candy store!!!!

 Brought home lots of yummy treats

 Ate lunch with Chance at work

 And enjoyed a live band and splash pad with my sister and her fam

And had great family days with everyone!!!

Such a great week i miss it and miss my mom like crazy!!!

Blake swims without swimmies!!!!

Blake has been wanting to swim without swimmies for so long! Finally i talked to my mom and she convinced me to just teach him myself and not pay for swim lessons. So that very day i took his swimmies off. Blake was in heaven. He swam right off the bat. He wasnt scared or anything. He just wanted to keep doing it. He obviously has a lot of work to do and so do i. He doesnt really use his arms he mainly just kicks his feet, but today we worked on his arms and by the end he was using them it was awesome. He cant keep his head above water yet but hopefully soon. We are so proud of him and he is so proud of himself:)

Moving to AZ!!! Lots of ups and downs

We finally made the move and headed off to start our new lives in Arizona!  I have a lot of pictures to put on so i will just tell our story in between all the pictures!

                                                             (Bailee at her 1 year appt.)
 When i came to visit my sister in April i had found our apartment and everything looked sooo great. WE were so excited to move here!!!! We got here on a Friday and stayed with my sister that night. WE woke up Saturday morning and were sooo excited to go see our new place. We drove to Mesa and found our new place. It was terrible. It looked like a very unsafe and dumpy place to live. But we decided we were going to buck up and just live there for the year were had signed the contract. Little did we know, Chances work was 25 minutes away from where we were supposed to live. That really tipped us over the hedge and we just knew we had to find a new place to live.

 Thankfully i have such a great friend that lives in Gilbert and she let us stay with her for a few days while we looked for a new place to live. WE looked at so many places at least 20. All of them were either way too expensive or really trashy. I was a stressed mess all weekend. We finally found a great place in Chandler. Its still a little out of our budget but it was the best we could find! WE live 5 minutes from the most amazing mall and shopping center ever! Oh its so great also we have a nordstrom rack 2 minutes away!!We are finally settled in and feel great about the choice we made to move here:)

 While we were staying at my friend Clarissas house Blake and Elsie got to eat some yummy smores!! It was fun staying with her for a couple days. I love her and her family so much we are lucky that they live 10-15 minutes away

 The best part of moving here is living closer to my sister and her cute family!!! We live 45 minutes away which i have realized is really far but it has been so fun! I have not lived next to my sister for 8 years! Now that we have kids and a family it is the best thing in the whole world to live next to each other! We get to see each other a couple times a week and have sunday dinners!

 We went to her house for a back to school party at the Airforce base they live at. I love that we get to share these things with each other:)

 The kids got to go in a fire truck, ambulance and got to meet a K9 dog! Blake was hesitant at first which is really weird because he is obsessed with this kind of stuff, but soon enough he warmed up and had fun!

 These two boys have seriously become best friends! They have always had a really rocky friendship. But all it took was a little maturing and growing up for both of them and now they love each other! Today was the very first fight they had since we have lived here. They play so great and get a lot of the boy energy out when they are together!!

 Oh these two!!!!

 I was soooooooo excited for Mama/grandma Jenny came into town. She stayed for almost a week. It was the best thing ever. She got to know my kids really well and play with them like crazy! My kids love love love her. She is so great with them. She played lots of super heros with Blake and sat and played with sweet Bailee. I was also excited because i finally got to spend one on one time with her and really get back to the friendship we used to have. She is so kind and loving. I love that about her. Not only did she spoil us rotten but she gave me so much great advice and help with how to get situated and about life in general. I will treasure the last week i got to spend with her it was amazing!

 Story time here at Barnes and Noble is sooo fun! Characters come and the kids get to meet them. Blake and sweet Elsie with Arthur!!

 With Jenny we did LOTS of shopping, eating, playing, swimming, and watching some good old Duck Dynasty!

 Jenny was such a treat!!

 Blake was cold and not in the best mood at a restaurant we were at so Jenny wrapped him up and cuddled him:)

 Jenny took all of us to an amazing steak dinner at Kegs steakhouse. Oh it was so delicious! Best steak i have ever had, hands down!

 Jenny bought me all the stuff i need to do my own gel nails! OH how i love this! So we took some girl time and did our nails!

Lots of fun girlie time:)

All in all i am really loving Arizona right now. I have a great best friend here, amazing family and a great mall, What else does a girl need??? We really miss the family we have in Utah and wish they would all just move here with us haha!

Sweet Bailee girl is 1 !!

Ok seriously, fastest year of my life! Bailee being born was such a huge blessing in our little family. She is sassy, independent, sweet, determined, energetic, loves people, loud, crazy and always on the go. Bailee has the best smile and cutest laugh. She smiles at everyone and gets shy and leans into me! I love love love when she does that. Here are a few things she is doing right now
1. Bailee is a crazy walker. Seriously she is everywhere and has been for months. Very confident walker.
2. Bailee says a few words: Mom, dad, hi, up, yea, yuck and all done. Today she was waiving to everyone and saying hi. I loved it!
3. Bailee is completely off bottles and formula. She is strictly sippy cups and milk. She loves her sippy cups! She walks around with it like she is so big
4. Bailee eats anything and everything. NO joke i have not found a single thing she wont eat. Best eater ever! She LOVES oatmeal, yogurt, any fruit, broccoli, corn and any type of cracker.
5. Bailee screams and screams loud. She is very high pitched and she does it if she wants anything! I have been trying so hard to get her to say please but she just wont. It gets really hard during church
6. She loves to be chased, tickled, thrown up in the air, and played with. Whenever Chance and Blake wrestle Bailee gets so excited and runs up to them and wants to play. She loves water, bath time and splash pads

 Look how happy she is!! Oh i love her. Her eyes are so beautiful i cant get over it

 Birthday lunch with daddy at Chik-fil-a. She ate 4 chicken nuggets, a whole fruit bowl an ice cream cone.

 Bailee tends to shove things in her mouth. She is such a stinker. We have to be really careful with ehr

 terrible picture of all of us. I look huge, chance looks like a mountain man, Blake looks constipated and Bailee cant take her eyes off the ice cream. Yikes!!! But its the only one i had

 Sweet girl in her party dress!! Perfect party dress for her birthday.

 She gets so excited about pretty much everything.

 Yea unfortunately this was the best i could get out of these two.

 Her cake turned out soo great!!! Of course someone else made it!

 The theme was just bright colors. I feel bad because Blakes first birthday was way more extravagant. Poor girl happens to be born second!

 I love her so much. She is the light of my life right now. I love this age because they basically can do no wrong because they dont know.

 Oh yikes

 She looks so big and old in the picture.

 It took her a little bit to just dig right in. I thought she would go after it right away but she was so dainty and polite.... Just like a girl should be

 HA love this picture! She got so excited once she actually got into it

 Bailee and her cute friend Shaeley

Love her with all of her princess and barbie stuff!

Happy birthday my sweet princess, Bailee girl, Bay, princess picalo(dont ask), and bailee button(blake calls her). You are the greatest blessing in our lives and we are so grateful you chose to come into our family. We love you!!!!