Loving my family

I want to stop time. I feel like I will never complain again that my house is a mess and that I am stressed from the chaos (maybe its possible). I just printed some of these pictures from 7 years ago. And my big kids use to be babies, and it goes too fast,

and I am so sad.

Baby Logan

My little buddy use to ride in the grocery cart when we went shopping, and now he's too big, he's seven.

I am going to go look at my big kids sleeping in their beds, and my little kids sleeping in their big beds, and my little bitty baby sleeping in her bassinet, which is still next to Bruce and my bed... and I am going to kiss them all, and I am going to cry because it hurts to see them get big.

I am so glad that this morning I was exhausted, and Bruce felt bad, and told me to take a night off and go do whatever I wanted without children. And I am so glad that by myself I went to the temple for my "night out". Because now I am filled with so much love for my little family it hurts, because I can hardly fit it all in my heart. I am so thankful for the power of prayer, because I needed it tonight.

I love my family. I love the temple.

Big Logan

Ashlin is such an awesome photographer. She took this picture of Logan jumping off this little tikes slide on to our trampoline below.

But his foot is lined up perfectly so it looks like he's walking on our wall... and he's a giant.

logan's big day

Something my kids LOVE about Bruce's work, is that when they have school breaks he ROCKS AS A DAD and takes the kids one at a time for a "day at work" with him. They mostly watch movies on his lap top, love going out to lunch with him, and Emma talks the ears off of all the nurses. (And I think they really love a day away from "chores at home" with mom)

But this Chrismas break Logan lucked out and had quite the day
with dad in surgery.

WARNING-GROSS PICTURES BELOW

This is a picture of a poor dog, ready and shaved for surgery, laying on the surgery table. This is a growth on his side.

Logan got to watch Bruce remove this big huge growth.

This is Logan holding the tumor Bruce removed:

How huge and gross is that. Poor doggy :(

Bruce said he doesn't see them that big very often.

Logan wanted to bring these pictures to school and show his whole class.(I didn't want to inflict any emotional damage on the children though, from the graphic nature of the bloody pics.)

See post below for more pictures of Bruce at work.

Bruce's Work

This is Logan and Lily at Bruce's hospital a few years back...

look how cute and little bitty Lily is.

Bruce loves his job. And the kids love having a dad who is a Veterinarian, it is just such a great "dad career"... gross stories, loveable creatures and fun "visit dad at work" days.

My sister Carrie does a little preschool, and I never posted their cute fieldtrip to Bruce's hospital. They brought in their own stuffed animals and Dr. Vernon did free check-ups all around!

How cute is this.

loving the above left girls hair... her and I could be pals

above, he weighed each of the kids with their pet on the dog scale.

Look at the cute boy to the rights face below... wow, if that is his face for a stuffed monkey check up, I don't know how he would have handled the above post with Logan holding a tumor.

My CUTE nephew Cooper is the one above with his mouth on the table... how can a kid resist the cool feel of stainless steel... we just won't tell him how many animals have pooped and peed and puked and bled on that table. ha ha.


Bruce is so cute with kids. I LOVE my husband, he is just so perfect. I really still don't understand how I got so lucky.

Chicken Wings

Dallin's 11 year old scout troop went on a 7.2 mile hike. Bruce, who went with them, came home laughing, that for the last half of the hike they talked about... seriously... chicken wings, prompted by Dallin I am sure, who is obsessed with them. They were all talking tough about suicide wings, how HOT they could eat, and lots of boasting and such.

The prize for straight A's at our house is a night out with mom or dad. And if you're Dallin, that means a night at Native Newyorker for Chicken wings.

When Dallin got straight A's I told him we should invite his buddies to go with him and Bruce, so they could have their own "Chicken Wing Challenge".

I, ofcourse, made invitations:

When they got home, it was so funny. They walked in and I said, "How did it go?" To which Connor immediately replied, "not good" and walked straight to the bathroom. Bruce informed me that it wasn't his first visit. It was his first time having chicken wings, and Connor told me that it will probably be the last. (though he was such a good sport and still had fun)

The other boys however, loved their wings. They challenged eachother to each eat 1 suicide wing:

Isaac walked in the house telling me, "the suicide wings aren't even hotter then the medium".

To which Bruce responded, "then why were you crying when you ate the suicide wing??!"

And Isaac exclaims loudly, "they were tears of JOY!"

Ha ha, Dallin and DJ were cracking up at him because he cried while eating the suicide wing, and Bruce says, "you guys were crying too!"

And Dallin and DJ said, "we didn't CRY we just had tears in our eyes... but Isaacs tears were running down his face!!!"

Ha ha, it was so funny. They had fun, but apparently the physical reaction to eating a suicide wing is tears.

Then they played Rockband all night for their guys party.
I love these boys.

Cowboys in the Play-offs

Bruce was SO excited the Cowboys were in the play-offs, that he wanted to have a party. Bruce and Logan put on their Cowboys Jerserys. Dallin, who didn't have any Cowboys propoganda to wear, instead of complaining, got out an old white under shirt and some sharpee markers, and made his own. How inventive is that... his buddy DJ saw it and borrowed some of our Sharpee markers to make himself a shirt as well:

At least the Cowboys won their FIRST play off game, when we had a bunch of people over to watch... (my sister Carrie came with these cakes, how sweet)

When the Cowboys lost their 2nd play off game this weekend Bruce said, "I am sad, but I am not going to cry like I would have when I was younger."

Now hasn't my husband matured so nicely?

Time out

The unfortunate post events of Emma's birthday:

Poor Lily. Emma got some presents for her birthday that were just neat enough to be beyond a temptation level that Lily could withstand. While Emma was at school Lily opened the scrapbook package and got everything out. Poor Lily had to go to time out. And just to break my heart, after 5 minutes there, she fell asleep.

It never ceases to amaze me how often, when my kids do something especially naughty, they fall asleep, and I realize, they were probably just really tired and it was effecting their decision making skills. This still happens to me when I'm really tired.

Emma's Big Night

DOUBLE DIGITS BIRTHDAY!

Yesterday we got out home videos from 9 years ago... and I couldn't get over just how CUTE Emma was! At age 1 she was talking sentences and singing whole songs. It was amazing.

Look at this cute face, Emma age 3:

So last week my talkingest-2 year old-curly-haired Emma went and turned: Who would throw such a darling party for her...
My sister Chrissy ofcourse.
Because everyone is in depression over Chrissy moving to Idaho, ALL Emma wanted for her birthday was to have a special sleep over birthday party at her Aunt Chrissy's house, just the 2 of them (because she knows its the last birthday she can do this).

Emma's birthday perfectly situated itself on a friday this year... perfect for a birthday sleepover. That morning Emma told me that her day at school was going to drag on forever because she just couldn't WAIT until that night for Chrissy to come pick her up.
Emma said she didn't want to go OUT with Chrissy anywhere, just wanted to hang out at her house all night. Emma was so surprised to walk in to Chrissy's house decorated all out so cute for just Emma!!

I am so proud of Emma, she has grown in to quite a sweet young lady. Reasons I love Emma:

-She has the most darling perfect handwriting

-She tries her best at everything she does

-She is SO funny and laughs and smiles all the time

-She dances so cute

-She LOVES to hold her baby sister Sophie

-She has been begging me all week to go over to my friend Chanda's house to help with her little kids

-She LOVES people and is so friendly

-She reads her scriptures every night on her own

-And how can I not love her cute cute sense of style

And thank you thank you thank you to my sweet sister for making it such a special special special day for Emma (who she took shopping after they woke up, all morning and bought her some dang cute shoes and stuff too)

I love you Emma and Chrissy!!!

New Years

For NEW YEARS our good friends from Vet school (the Hunts and Statens) came to party! Christine, Duane and Bruce are all Veterinarians now...

and 10 years later we are still friends.

The Statens came up from Tuscon, but there was a big New Years Saturday night dance that Ashlin really wanted to go to...

so Zach was a good sport and went with her big group of friends that he'd never met before.At midnight we had our traditional MIDNIGHT PARADE where we all get instruments and go parade up the street screaming and making as much noise as we can... then come back for lots of confetti poppers!
Lari was pretty wiped out at the end of the night.

The Statens stayed the night and the next day we SLEPT IN, hung out back for a while...

... Then we packed up and went to the park for some New Years Day Summersledding!

**SOME places you need SNOW to go sledding... NOT in Arizona, you just need SLEDS WITH WHEELS, then you FLY down those dead grass hills!**

...and we brought our new Christmas present:

(from my sister Carrie)

THE PORTABLE HAMMOCK

You can see Morgan sledding down the hill in the background while Christine lounges with some kids in the hammock.

Logan found a dead, half eaten, dried out fish when we got there. He was SO excited about it. He held it forever, but don't you worry, he washed the fish with anti-bacterial hand gel first so it was germ free!

Dallin on the other hand, is more in to LIVE fish... he spent forever searching for fish with Sydney. Now he did not have a pole... but still caught ELEVEN fish. (he threw them all back)

BEST way to entertain lots of kids is being outside where they can be loud, crazy, get dirty and explore! And when it was all done... we packed back up...

and went to

We had so much fun with them, that even though they were suppose to leave on New Years, we begged them to stay ONE more night... since Christine had to work, they left us their kids and went back to Tuscon.
...the next day, after lots of hugs and sad goodbyes, I took their kids and met Neil half way (in Casa Grande) to give them back.

New Years Day at the park we even had some time for a photo shoot with Sophie, how SOOOO CUTE is she??!

Happy New Years!

The LaRue's

Christmas Card 2009

My LAST post before I print my book for 2009! I wanted to include our Family Christmas card picture that I sent out.

Here's a couple that didn't make the cut, but came close:
Here was the winning picture for the 2009 card:

How do we get everyone smiling? If you notice everyone is smiling BUT Sophie. Well, it's not easy to juggle all the kids... and poor Sophie, I dropped her twice, she didn't have that far to fall and never cried, she just kinda slid forward... which is why I am kind of leaning over to try and keep her up and everyone is laughing and we are yelling... "don't drop the baby!"

(Our card)

Literally this year on December 20th I decided to send out Christmas cards. My neighbor Cynthia was so kind and came over after church to take this family picture. I typed the letter, ordered 1 hour photos from walmart online, picked them up monday morning the 21st, Emma and Ashlin helped me stuff the cards, and we had them in the mail that day. amazing.

Anybody know who these people are: FUNNY THING, half way through stuffing our Christmas cards Emma yells, "What!?" And there included in our 100 family christmas photo cards are 10 picture cards (above) of someone elses family we don't know. (Walmart error) They looked like such a happy family that Ashlin, Emma and I decided to send them to people along with our family cards. Ha Ha, we were cracking up!