Birthday Cake

When I woke up yesterday morning I was reflecting on the day Aubrey was born. I always do around fall anyway but I was remembering all the little things that happened that day. I remember being so impatient during my surgery to see her and wanted to rip the drape down and be done just so I could look at her tiny little face. I remember the first time I saw her and touched her tiny hand and thought oh my sweet baby why do you have to go through all of this. She has been through a lot in her short life and has taught me to appreciate all the little things in life and I think that's why little things are more important to me now than before.Being Aubrey's mom has been no doubt the greatest gift I have ever received. I don't know 1 person that she has ever met that hasn't been affected by her in some way. Even if it just brings a smile to their face that day.
Here are just 7 of the many reasons why I remember everyday why Heavenly Father let me be her mom. Even though it wasn't easy keeping her here, He let her stay.
1. She is a miracle.
2. I've been able to watch her grow into such a loving little girl.
3. She is so giving and is such a good example to me.
4. She loves to be cuddled with still even at 7.
5. She's so independent.
6. She always tries to do something no matter the obstacles or how hard it looks.
7. She tells me she loves me everyday.

After a rough night Aubrey finally got to have her Birthday cake. Just 1 day late. But of course we didn't have candles so I made some out of lollipop sticks and ribbon. Hey who says they have to be real candles. Improvise,adapt and overcome as my dad always says. So she got to blow out her 7 "candles"

My improvised "candles"

Blowing out the candles before they just went out

Yewhoo I did it!!

Not so Happy Halloween 7th Birthday

So yesterday was Aubrey's 7th birthday and she was so excited. I brought chocolate dipped marshmallows and huge Costco cupcakes to school for her class and she was so happy to have her friends get a yummo treat. So then she got home from school and wasn't looking to hot, she said she had a really bad sore throat and just kind of hung out until some friends came over. Then it was time for corn chowder her favorite and she only ate one bite.WHAT!! So she got her costume on and we left for trick or treating. During the walk (about 10feet) to the first house, she started balling her eyes out saying that her side hurt and she couldn't breathe. So Dave and I told her to just calm down and have fun and go trick -or- treating. Well at about the 4th house Dave carried her for a couple minutes and when he put her down she immediately cried and said she didn't want to trick-or-treat she just wanted to go home and lay down. So then I looked at her and she asked me to take her to the hospital. OK something seriously wrong with that. So I picked her up and walked as fast as I could back to the car. She started not breathing right and o Dave's mom drove us to the ER. So we go in and they see that she's in distress, her hands were purple and she was crying but not breathing normally. They hooked her up to oxygen and start listening to her, but every time they moved her she was retching in pain. So they took an x-ray of her chest and then told us she had a huge air bubble in her large intestine that was pushing on her diaphragm causing excruciating pain. So they talked to her and gave her the choice of sitting on the toilet or getting an enema. She chose the enema without further discussion. I was so proud of her. Needless to say her side felt a lot better shortly after. The Dr even gave her a build a bear for being there on her birthday. So by the time we got home everyone has left so we had to have her cake and ice cream the next night. Not a Halloween she'd like to remember. Poor punky!! Here are the only shots I got of the night.

Aubrey as a Vampiress

The only forced smile I got all night

Is Boyd not the cutest scarecrow you've ever seen?!!


First time trick-or-treating together alone at the door

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Swan Lake

Ok I know that those of you who know Dave won't believe this but it's true. So after a very frustrating week of house hunting, making offers and finding out our loan wasn't what we thought and losing those offers, Dave calls me to reassure me that we'll get a house and it'll be fine. Then he says " Oh so I heard that the Colorado Ballet is doing Swan Lake do you want to go with me to see it on Saturday?" I was speechless and said" Of course!!" I actually thought he was kidding but no he really did take me to the ballet to see Swan Lake. It was amazing!! The dancers are incredible and the music is unbelievable!!! Even Dave was impressed and he actually liked it. It was a very nice and romantic night out. So kuddos to Dave!!

Corn Chowder request

I know I posted this recipe last year around this time but I had a request to repost this recipe, oddly enough it's from Jenny the daughter of Mama Faylor herself. Too funny Jen!!! This is our families favorite!

Corn Chowder
4 potatoes peeled and diced
1/2 bag of baby carrots diced
1 onion diced
2 stalks celery diced

put into pot and just cover with water. Boil until vegies are soft.

Add:
6 strips of bacon cooked and chopped up (I usually use the jar of hormel bacon bits, not the hard Bacos)
2 cans of corn w/ juice
1 can of cream of chicken soup
1 can of evaporated milk
stir and heat over low heat until warm. Enjoy!!

***If you like it thicker you can take
3/4 c butter and
3/4 c flour and make a rou
then add
the evaporated milk to it with
1/3 c of 1/2 & 1/2 and add it to it.

Castlewood Canyon

So there's this canyon by where we live so we thought it'd be fun to take the kids and go for a little hike and take some pictures. Well we didn't know where we were going so the first trail we attempted was no good for us considering it was almost all rock climbing. So we headed down the road and found this nice little trail. It was a fun afternoon hike before I headed off to work all night.

My cute kiddos

Such a handsome boy
Aubrey posing she's growing up so fast

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Win a quilt

So if you visit the website of the quilt on my sidebar you can enter to win it. Isn't it adorable. It looks so vintage I love it.

Traditions

So I was reading my friend Shannon's blog and she got me thinking about our family traditions. We don;t have a lot of our own yet but we have a few and some from our childhood.

- For the pas 6 years now our Halloween tradition is to eat mama Faylor's corn chowder(YUMMY, and Aubrey's absolute fave) before trick or treating then come back for cake and ice cream for Aubrey's birthday.

-every Christmas eve after our baths we always get new PJ's that are a surprise with new slippers.

-on Christmas morning we can always look in our stockings but can't touch any presents until my dad hands them out.

- the first snow of the season i attempt to make (again)Faylor's famous cinnamon rolls with hot cocoa.

- while we live in Colorado (we couldn't do it in South Dakota) we go and cut down our Christmas tree in the forest and have hot chocolate. Now that we're back we can start that again.

Dave and I have been talking about this for a few years and need to start more of our own traditions. I'm interested to see what others do.

HE PASSED!!!!

DAVE PASSED THE BAR!! SO we found out this morning at 9:20 that his name is on the list. YEAH!! I ditched school so I could check online right at 9 am and it didn't get posted until 9:20. I was getting so irritated, do they not know that peoples lives were waiting in the balance for hose results. So I called Dave at work and told him to refresh his computer because he couldn't see the list. We are so excited. I'm so proud of him and now we're house hunting!!! I found a few I like but still want to see some more but we hope to be in a house before Thanksgiving. Ok so I know I haven't been up on blogging but I work full time 12 hr nights and go to school full time and now looking for a house. I promise to post some pics soon.