Simliarities?

Can you tell which one is which?

Well this one gives it away since you can see Brielle on the right. I think you can tell they are sisters but do not look to much alike, to me anyway. The biggest difference is that Brielle was 5.5 months and Brooklyn is 2.5 months. I love these girls.

Brielle's surgery

So after she had her fingers shut in the door the night of Brooklyn's blessing, I knew that something was still wrong with them. They didn't look right. The doctor just told me to leave the splint on for a few days and use antibiotics and she should be fine. Well my pediatrician told me that it didn't look quite right and looked at the x-ray report and said she did break her growth plate. I went and saw a hand specialist and he got more x-rays. He said that the nail bed looked out of place and possible the tendon was torn. He said the best thing was to do surgery so he could get in there and look at it, so she had surgery today. I couldn't let her eat or drink anything before the surgery. Of course they could not get her in first thing and ended up being late, so we didn't get into surgery until 1:30. She was starving and so thirsty. I felt so bad for her. The surgery ended up being pretty extensive, took 1 1/2 hours and her nail bed might be damaged for life. It has been really hard the last couple of days. I have cried a lot. Brielle only cried coming out of the anaesthesia. She is handling this much better than I am. She is such a sweet girl and automatically just switches to using her left hand. What an angel daughter I have. She will have to have this splint on for four weeks and then the doctor will remove the pin that he put in. Hopefully the tendon will reattach and the growth plate for both the nail and the bone are not too damaged permanently. I think this is definitely harder on me than Brielle. She is doing really well. Thank you for your prayers. We really appreciate them.

All about me.

Red= I've done it. Green=I haven't done it yet, but hopefully will. Black= It will never happen or I hope it will never happen
1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea (at Lake Powell, does that count?)
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice (oh how I wish!)
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance (knock on wood...)
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud (eww I hate the mud)
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching (I would love to)
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp (that makes me so sad, I don’t think I could handle it).
67. Bounced a check, Yes, unfortunately. How embarrassing.
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood stuff animal.
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar (I HATE FISH with a passion. I have tried almost all kinds of fish and cannot handle the aftertaste of fish).
72. Pieced a quilt (I have helped my grandma tie quilts. I’m not sure what it means to piece a quilt).
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job (never…hopefully never will happen)
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone (again, knock on wood, but I did tear my ACL, lateral and medial meniscus playing volleyball. It was the first home game of my senior season. Unfortunately the ACL heals a lot slower than a broken bone and so I was out for the rest of the season!)
78. Been on a motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car (we leased one)
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible (by myself or with my family? I know we did as a family, but personally I have never gotten all the way through the old testament)
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating (I think I would become a vegetarian).
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Own a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100.Visited India

Here are a couple of extra things, confessions.

- I feel extremely guilty every time I let Brielle watch TV, every time.
- I think I watch more sports than some guys (I watch every Jazz and BYU football game), and sometimes even more than that.
- I LOVE CHOCOLATE. I cannot have it while nursing again and so I eat every other sweet I can get my hands on just to make up for not being able to eat chocolate. It is awful.
- I leave my daughters (when really young) in their clothes/pajamas until they blow out or smell so bad from spit up that I need to change them. Sometimes it is just a few minutes after I change them and sometimes it is more than a day.
- I have never sworn, not once, in my entire life.
- I use to have a fairly decent voice (Mike and I would sing duets together) but when I was pregnant with my twin girls my voice lowered a lot. It has not come back all the way and it has been one of the hardest things I have had to deal with, not being able to sing the way I use to. I used to cry every Sunday singing the hymns because I couldn’t stand the way I sounded anymore.
- Since entering Relief Society almost 10 years ago (excluding my singles ward), I have probably attended Relief Society less than 6 months of Sundays combined. I have always been in Primary or Young Women’s.
- I have to do IVF to get pregnant.
- I thought I would never yell at my kids because I never remember my mom yelling at me, but find I raise my voice more than I would like.
- I sing and read to my daughters every day and usually a couple of times a day.
- We want to move up to the Salt Lake Valley again so Mike does not have such a long commute, especially with the road construction going on now.
- I don’t like the smell of rain (I know, I know. I just lost a lot of your respect on this one).
- I was married at age 19 and knew for years that I would be getting married at a young age.
- I love my daughters more than anything and I TRY never to take a single day for granted because I know they will be gone faster than I would like.

Happy Mother's Day

I want to wish a happy mother's day to you beautiful, smart, talented, spiritual and amazing women out there. Yes you (if you are a woman), each of you are so wonderful and I am so lucky to be surrounded by such incredible mothers. I especially am so grateful for my mother. She is one of the most incredible women in this world. She taught me so much about love and the gospel and being a mother. I am so thankful for my beautiful daughters who I love more than anything. I feel so blessed to be a mother. When I was little, all I wanted to be was a mother. I am grateful, so grateful, that the Lord has seen fit to bless me with these incredible girls to be an early mother to. Thanks to Bob and Shari for these adorable matching dresses. They fit perfectly and it made me so happy to put them in them for mother's day! Happy Mother's day!

Brooklyn's blessing day

On Sunday, May 2nd, we blessed Brooklyn. We started off happy and ended in tears. It was a beautiful day (not because of the weather but the spirit) with a beautiful blessing. Many family and friends came. We are so grateful for their love and support. After sacrament meeting, we came back here for food. It was yummy and we surprisingly fit around 55 people in our house/garage to eat. It was a great time. The tears came at the end when I was going to deliver back some tables and chairs to people we had borrowed them from. I opened the garage door and let Brielle start going towards the car. I went and grabbed a table and started out the front door. Well because it was so windy, it blew through the house and slammed the door shut on Brielle's beautiful little fingers. I was so sad and she was crying hysterically. I took her to the doctor and then to the hospital and found it had fractured her middle finger. Mike went and got her antibiotics and we have been keeping her going on Tylenol. I just keep imaging it in my

head and wondering how I could have been so stupid. Thankfully, she is doing pretty well and is resilient. Overall it was a good day, just a sad ending.

This was the morning of her blessing.
Isn't this dress absolutely amazing? My mom got it for her at White Elegance and I cannot believe how much I love it. It was hard to take it off of her.

Here are some family members of Mike who came.

This is a four generations shot of my grandma, Brooklyn, me and my mom.

Here is our family of four now. Wow, time flies. I feel like I was just in high school last week. In fact I still dream about being in high school all the time.

Here are my Uncle Randy and Aunt Meri. I was sad that we did not get pictures with everyone. It just went too fast.

Here are my mom's parents. They are wonderful people and I

am so glad that they were there with us.

This is Mike's Uncle Paul and his family. We love them so much!

Brooklyn with a cute expression in her beautiful dress.

Daddy and Brooklyn.

My favorite younger sister and her family with Brooklyn

(and yes I do only have one younger sister but she is my favorite!)

Brooklyn was so good during the blessing and was wide awake just staring around.

My parents with Brooklyn

Brooklyn and her new cousin Jaron.

My beautiful daughters. How did I get to be so lucky to have such amazing daughters? I thank Heavenly Father every day for them. We missed you Chris and Lisa and your family and Donovan and Teah and your family. We know you would have been there if you could!