Ready or not....welcome 2010

For whatever reason we all either think about a New Years resolution or make one...or a few.

This year I am really going to keep close tabs on myself so I can finally accomplish my New Years Resolution(s)

When I think of a resolution I think of accomplishing something or in my case thinking of something wonderful to do before the next year comes around only to find myself dreading a quick look back in my journal to see nothing I had set out to do has been done.

Well this year I hope to make some reasonable goals to which I will post for all to see and please my blog readers(few as they may be) you keep on me.

1- A WEIGHT GOAL- I know, this is forever everyone goal but I am sticking it out there anyways. 30lbs lighter by 2011
2- HAPPY FAMILY- I honestly want to work on my family life, I want my kids and myself to be happy to come home from wherever they may have been. I want my kids to have a better understanding of our Heavenly Father and his plans and goals for us here on earth. I want my kids to keep journals through out there year to which they have to write in every Sunday.
3- HEALTH- it has taken a back seat for about 4 years now. We eat far to much junk and its time to get back to simple eating and for me...not as much eating and for my wee ones more eating.
4- BLOG - I cant honestly say I "need" a blog or two but I sure do want them. I want one for my everyday run of the mill, don't want to write n my journal, good reads for the posterity good ol' blog. And another for my photography which I love.
5- TAKE MORE PICTURES- That in itself may sound funny coming from me but I find my self looking for "the right shot" instead of logging my kids growing up. I also have become way to self conchious carrying around a camera because I am afraid I will be mocked (I know I am weird)
6- SCHEDULE- oh my goodness do I NEED a schedule!
7- BEING A BETTER FRIEND- I have pushed my friends to the side for way to long, its time to make it known that I love and value them. My excuse before was always that I was simply overwhelmed with my own life that I didn't want to flake out on them. That is simply not going to do this year. I may not have an active role in there life's but I want them to feel the Love I have for them and for them to be able to rely on me
8- "GET-R-DONE"- I have a great love for procrastination and its just NOT working in my life. It causes me stress and disappointment in my life constantly. I am here by taking a stand that my birthday gifts, cards and anything else I my need will be bought, made(with love ;), and wrapped the month before it needs to be.
9- TRY IT YOU'LL LIKE IT- I am going to try something new every month.
10- COWBOYS AND PRINCESSES- growing up I wanted my boys to be cowboys(whatever I pictured a "cowboy" being) and I wanted my girls to be princesses. So this year I am going to make sure I really look back and reflect what I want my kids to "be" in that I am talking about the way they act and feel. I want my cowboys to be tough but also know how to treat a lady, I want my girls to know that they are special, and that even though they are special they still have responsibilities to be gentle and kind to other's.

Now that being said I need a little freedom with these goals or else I will never go through with them. I am going to make little goals or ideas to use every week to accomplish my goals. Then at the "half way mark" (I am picking sometime in June) I am going to repost my goals and how they have helped my life, and if I have been slacking.

Wish me luck, and have a wonderful 2010!

I would never do that...

When I was pregnant with Kamryn I had a little list of things I would never do as a mother. But now 5 kids and 9 years later I realize I have broken alot of them and it makes me wonder exactly what happened to make me break those "mommy rules" along the way.
1- Sugar only on special occasions.
-I held onto this for awhile and probably did the best I could up until my little Taitum was born and candy was a way to show my kids that I loved them because I was SOO busy trying to keep Taitum happy(he had a bad case of colic). Sadly I don't think the kids go a day without having some form of sugar.
2- I was never going to spank my kids
-I have spanked my kids, sometimes as a punishment and sometimes out of anger for there actions. This one makes me sad and although I think kids can learn from a spankin I don't think its necessary. Although it has happened in the past our form of punishment usually falls on either time outs and having personal items taken away for bad actions.
3- I was going to try not to yell around or at my kids
-that one lasted until Kamryn hit the "terrible two's.
4- My kids would never go to public school.
- This is something I wish I could have stuck with. I read the book "Education of Thomas Jefferson" and I loved it. That was always my plan for my kids and I did well until my little Taitum was born and needed so much attention. I'm not a huge fan of public school but I'm glad the kids have somewhere to learn when I don't have time or energy to help them.
5- My kids will always be seen in public but not heard unless asked to speak.
- If anyone saw me on the 4th of July trying to control my kids and keep track of them will know that I didnt do so good with that rule.

These are just a few of the things that fell to the way side when more and more kids came into our family. I still love all 5 of my rules and work everyday to get back to them. I do understand that some of the other rules that I made will never be broken and some just don't apply anymore.

Being a mom is so hard and yet so rewarding. It seems so easy before you have kids. I know I make mistakes and I know I wont win a prize for being the best mom but I hope to always do my best.

As the holidays approach quickly I am always reminded of this "wonderful mom" I wanted to be and the mistakes I have made along the way. I think the best advise I have ever been given was to never think "Its too late". I love that thought, I always set my sights way too high around the holidays and this year is no different but this year Im not going to worry about what I didn't do but focus more on what I can do. I hope this holiday season of traditions and fun activity's is the best yet. I am determined to spend what time I do have with my kids being happy and active with them.

3 months already!

Wow how time has flown by! My little girl is already 3 months old!
She is already a traveler, we made a trip in August to Texas for a Radio Shack convention and Lily and Ebie came along. We saw Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and of course Texas. In the last 3 months we have been so blessed to have such a special little girl in our lives. Her brother's and sister love her to death and of course her mommy and daddy are pretty fond of her too ;)
I had a hard time adjusting to 5 children at first and also a mistake I had made...I confess I named my baby the WRONG name! I have a close friend who used to tell me that she was scared she would name her kids the "wrong" name. I never thought too much about this because I figured it would work out in the end and whatever name you chose for your baby would be the "right" name. So I set out in the beginning of my pregnancy the same way most mothers do, I was set on finding the best name for my little one. I had so many names I liked but there was one name that just made me smile every time I sayed it "Lily". It was settled the moment I presented the name to Eben and he actually agreed that he liked it too(something we struggle with anytime we talk about baby names).
So when the day came and we found out we were having a little girl we excitedly started to refer to our little one as "lily" soon after we realized we had a problem when people started asking what we would name another girl referring to a stupid tradition my husband started by calling all of his boys Eben. I had no intentions on using "eben" in any form when it came to naming my girls. But after being surprised with a pretty little girl February 18th 2007 we came upon a delima when the names we agreed to and picked out were already taken or very overdone. Everyone joked about girl versions of Eben but that was out. I always called Eben "ebey" and had mentioned I wanted to use it for our little girl but he had veto's it quickly. But as we came up blank on what to name our new little girl "ebie" just fit. So she was named after her daddy and her mommy (Ebie Lynn).
So now we were in a pickle, we couldn't have all our kids named after eben EXCEPT Lily...BUT then Eben suggested that we use "lynn" for all the girls and I liked that alot. Little Lily Lynn Leatham....it was kinda cute and fun to say. But we just kept getting flack from people. So I set out to find an "eben" name for our little girl. And one day I thought of "Ebrie" it sounded soo pretty and unique. I sayed Ebrie Lily a hundred times a day and it still sounded dumb. I needed to either have a "Lily" or a "Ebrie" because the combination sounded way too weird. So I began to think about just naming her Ebrie Elaine(after my granny) I liked it alot but I still wanted my little Lily. What a pickle I put myself in. And to make it worse everyone called my belly Lily. I figured the day she was born I would know what to do and who this little girl was.
Well she came out and she was NOT a "Lily" she looked like a "Ebrie" but everyone was already calling her Lily and then it also accured to me Ebrie and Ebie sound a whole lot like each other....ugh why I had I not noticed this before? All I did is stick an "R" in Ebie...duh
So when I was asked what her name was I sayed Ebrie Lily Leatham with no conviction at all. I was so bummed. But I just had to get used to it. For awhile after she was called both Lily and Ebrie and I loved when people called her Ebrie. But 3 months into it and she is officially Lily and it has grown on me but I'm not convinced.
What kind of flake-mom am I to not even be sure that the name I named my baby is right for her? ugh what an idiot. I have told Eben over and over that I was supposed to have twins "Ebrie Elaine" and "Lily Lynn". I find myself calling her all kinds of names lil,ebrie,brie, lily lynn, moosey, lue lue, and for some reason "mama" in a little spanish ancient...??? what is wrong with me? And what have I done? I have issues :) to say the least.

Other than me having a day to day break down over what I named my little girl the last 3 months has been so much fun. I am grateful for my precious little girl (whatever her name is :)

Too little...

too late? I hope not.

I have SO not been doing good with blogging lately. So much has happened since I last blogged about the birth of Lily I kind of don't know where to even begin. Because it late and I should have more free time this week I will try to catch up in another blog but for now I wanted to post Lily's birth announcement pictures.

SHE'S HERE!!!

Ebrie Lily Leatham is finally here!
Date- June 14th 2009
Time- 8:20 p.m.
Weight- 7lbs 10oz
Length- 20 1/2 inches



I made it! finally she is here! And boy do we just love her! She somehow came out with dark black hair and brown eyes...?? I dunno? She is bigger than all of my baby's and even though I came well prepared with an adorable "daddy's girl" preemie outfit we had to go home in an over sized outfit picked out quickly by her dad after finding that the preemie outfit only came to her knee :)

The birth went well. After contracting for a week or so and being woke up in the middle of the night with labor pains...I called my midwife and she came down Sunday afternoon to start me. Everything was going good and by 2:00 p.m. I was in full blown labor. I had every intention on staying home and laboring in my quiet little house and having the "most amazing" well planned birth ever I chicken out and began to have a full blown panic attack when I reached 6 or 7 cm and realized "I cant do this". I called it quites and rushed to the hospital for my "drugs". Eben had called ahead and made sure that the guy from Fillmore was here to give me an epidural and I wouldn't have to wait for the guy from Delta to get here. I walked in and straight to the birthing room and tried to stay calm as I quickly realized it might be to late and not only was stuck at the hospital but I was going to have to go through all the pain of giving birth to a baby naturally again. My midwife came to the hospital to give me support and as an hour passed I knew time was getting close but I was determined to get that relief before I had to push a baby out. Finally the epidural guy got there (the Fillmore guy ended up being out of town for dinner so I was waiting for the other guy to get there from delta) he quickly "hooked me up" with a wonderful pain numbing dose. I could finally bare to live again...I was really at the point of thinking I would rather die...lol From there I sat comfy cozy in my bed waiting for the doctor to get there and when he did he checked me and sayed "it's time" I'll go get dressed. I felt the epidural wearing off and I would have liked another dose I decided to buck up and get this done. When the doc got his scrubs on I got to work giving my best pushes to get baby Lily out. But one of my worst fears showed it's ugly face when she decided to come face up(all of my kids have come that way except for Ebie) my pelvis has issues and as she was making her was out she was stuck. I knew I didn't want a c-section so I gave it my all for 45 minutes and had my dose changed so I could really feel what I was supposed to be doing. Finally she came out...lookin like a MOOSE! She looked alot bigger than she was but still! Everything went well and she was in great health.

I really enjoyed my hospital birth and my doctor and nurses were amazing and very understanding and respectful of what I wanted and didn't want. We didn't stay long and with the doctor's ok we left that night at midnight to our comfy home.

About to pop? no...about to scream!

If I am asked one more time "if I'm going to POP" I will have to just start to scream! And that goes for "oh you poor thing", "that baby isn't here yet?" "your running out of room arn't ya", "you know what causes that dontcha(hate that one the most)", or one of the worst things....when people just laugh in pity...???

Technically I am not DUE until the 21st of June. They keep moving things around but I really haven't informed anyone about changes with my due date so why is it for the last 3 weeks I have had to put up with these questions? I know I am huge and I may look super done but that's the last thing I want to hear from people. First of all I HAVE a mirror and the simple fact that I haven't been able to fit into regular maternity clothes for the last month lets me know that I AM HUGE! So please save your "oh so clever" remarks to yourself...lol

I'm actually not that annoyed I just wish there was a like a group home for fat pregnant people :) somewhere you went when you got "to fat for public viewing" somewhere where other fat mother's who just want to be left alone could go. I refuse to go to the store, church, and always can find an excuse to stay in the car when we go anywhere.

Here's some belly pics we took a couple of days ago, I almost skipped over them this time around but I figured because I was having a girl she might enjoy them when she starts having kids of her own. And no I didn't somehow grow hair over night, it's just a fun little clip on thing...ebie and I like to clip it on here and there for fun. I will probably never have hair that long because I CAN NOT stand having long hair so it's fun to get to clip something in and then take it out when I'm tired of it.

click..take a pic

Kids being kids