Scott's mom and step dad came into town this weekend. It was a short visit but much needed. We've missed family so much lately. They asked me to take some pictures of them with the girls, and I wanted to post a few of my favorite. Can I just say that my mother-in-law is beautiful? Because she is.

I love the above one of Bailey. She looks like such a big girl.

Also, I'm going to take a short break from blogging. I figured I'd let those of you know who check this often, so you won't have to check it for awhile. I'm going to be busy in the month of June, but I plan to blog again in July. For my last post (for awhile), I wanted to write about the things that make me happy. I feel like I've been a little negative about my kids on my blog, and I apologize if it's felt that way to you as well. It does feel good to write it down, but if I'm having a frustrating day, I probably shouldn't blog about it. It makes me look like I'm unhappy with my girls. There are just so many things that make being a mother so worth it, and here are a few pictures and videos to prove it.





In the above picture, Hannah is sleeping in her bed in our bedroom so Grandma and Grandpa could have her bedroom. I came in to see that her scriptures were opened to the picture of Jesus (as you can see on the table in the background behind the water bottle). She later told me that the picture of Jesus helps her to not have bad dreams. Then tonight the power went out. She was trying to go to bed but was worried because she usually sleeps with her lamp on. Scott told her to say a prayer that the lights would go back on so she could sleep. She said one, and five minutes later the lights came back on. She started crying, so happy that Heavenly Father had helped her. I felt an overwhelming love for her and for Heavenly Father at that moment.

Next, there's the precious moment of her reading to her sisters. These girls LOVE this book, and Hannah loves to read it to them.

And then there's the precious moment of Hannah putting toys all over Bailey, until she can barely see anything. Bailey didn't mind, and it made me laugh. Definitely picture worthy.


And then there's this precious moment that happens every time we put the girls in the same bed.

Brynn doesn't take a binky, but she always steals Bailey's, and it always seems to make me laugh!

And finally, there's this little adorableness. I love my kids so much!

Update on the Girls

Thank you for your comments on our pictures, even if you left them on facebook. You guys are all a little too kind!

Here's a little update on all of the girls:

Hannah Banana-


Oh....this child. Where to start? One minute she's an angel and the next minute I could swear the devil enters into her body. Okay, not really, but she's your typical three year old. Very emotional. Like I said, one minute she's being obedient, polite, and an excellent helper. The next minute she's throwing a tantrum over something incredibly ridiculous, like the dress she has to wear to church or the color of her dinner plate. I can't wait for this tantrum stage to end. It's weird because she often seems so mature for a three year old...she's usually really great about sharing her food and toys with her sisters. In fact, she loves taking care of her sisters. She loves being a mommy to anyone who will listen, like the neighbor boys when they are doing something that she thinks is wrong.

She also loves feeling like a big girl and watching a movie with Scott and me. Every once in awhile we'll have movie night with her, and she loves to push the couches together and snuggle with us while eating popcorn. The only hard part is finding a movie that all three of us want to watch.

Recently she's acquired a new friend that she's named Sally. This friend doesn't actually exist, but she comes with us almost everywhere. Tonight Hannah was screaming in her room. When we went in there to see what was wrong, she said that Sally was spanking her. Then we realized that she wasn't really crying, only pretending. It was actually quite funny.

Finally, Hannah is quite the little boy catcher. I didn't think that I'd have to be dealing with this until she was quite a bit older, but I was wrong. I've had at least 4 people tell me that she's had boys fighting over her in Primary (Sunday School for children) and boys putting their arms around her. I realize that it's innocent right now and that they are just friends, but I can't help but worry about her future. I can remember pretty clearly what boys were like growing up and some of them were the devil. A few weeks ago we went to the park and there was a 6 year old telling Hannah to chase him. Then he told her she couldn't go down the slide unless he kissed her. I wanted to punch him in the teeth!! He was a cute little Casanova, but I'm not ready for this kind of stuff yet!! She's still a baby for heaven's sake!! I don't want to deal with boys. She also has a friend that recently moved into our apartments named Ammon, who asked her to be his best friend. He already seems to absolutely adore her. They are really cute together, but still, he's a boy, and boys are the devil until she's 21.


Brynn-


This child is the craziest child I've ever known. From her crazy hair to her crazy personality, she just makes me laugh. She's always making funny faces, blowing air out of her nose, and laughing at the silliest things. She also moves her head back and forth like she's saying yes or no a lot and seems to love dancing to music! Here she is dancing to one of her favorite songs.


Bailey-


This child has decided recently that she's going to stop breastfeeding. I apologize if this is a yucky subject to anyone, so don't read on if it is. I breastfed Hannah until she was 13 months old, so I was hoping to breastfeed these girls until they were almost a year, but Bailey is saying, "No way, Mom." She bites me every time I try to breastfeed her. It's become a little game to her. She bites, I tell her "No!", and then she smiles or laughs. Not funny, but you can't help but laugh at her. At least I made it to almost 10 months with her, and I'm still able to pump her one full bottle a day, so she is still getting some breast milk. I'm a bit of a stickler when it comes to giving my baby breast milk. I know it's silly, but I've been told several times by doctors and nurses that "Breast is Best!", so I'm doing my best to give them the best. Unfortunately it doesn't always work out how you want it to, so I'll deal with it. At least Brynn still breastfeeds without trying to rip off a part of my body with her teeth.

There's a lot more going on with my girls, but we'll save that for another post. I did also want to mention that my sister, Kerrie, had her baby today! Mia May, 7lbs 4 oz! I can't wait to meet her!!

Pictures are In!

I wish I could post them all, but that would take me forever (especially since I can only upload two at a time because they are such big files). Here are some of my favorites, though!

Preview

Here's a preview of what's to come! I'm so excited! We took pictures yesterday with my awesome cousin, Angela, and I can't wait to see the rest. I have a feeling that there are none of Bailey smiling, though. Poor thing was not feeling good yesterday. I'm a mean mom and made her go take pictures while she had a fever. She's doing much better today, though. I'm not sure when the rest will come, but here's a link to my cousin's blog if you want to check it out!

Alright....I'll keep the blog for awhile longer. I told myself that if I got at least 40 people that I would continue. I wasn't actually expecting to get that much, but I'm actually glad. Thanks for voting. I'll update again soon.

Do Me a Favor, Would ya?

As I stated in my last post, I'm thinking of quitting this whole blogging thing. We started it 4 years ago when I was pregnant with Hannah because, living so far away from our family, we wanted to be able to post pictures of our children for their grandparents, aunts, and uncles to see. I know that my writings aren't inspirational or awesomely worded, but that's never really been the point of my blog.

Last year I posted a survey at the side of our blog and was surprised to find that 41 people voted on it. I had no idea that that many people were checking my blog. It seems like 90% of the people on my blog list aren't updating their blogs anymore, so I'm sure that there aren't that many people checking my blog anymore. If that's the case, I am going to quit and take these writings to a personal journal. I will be happy to email my family and close friends pictures and updates of the girls if they still want them, but I don't know that I want to post all of these things on the internet for any stranger to see if not many people are even checking this. Does that make any sense? I realize that I could just go private, but it's too much work, and I'm lazy.

So, what I'm asking you to do for me is this: if you check my blog, even just every once in awhile, vote on my side bar. This way it will be anonymous, and that will determine whether or not I continue this blog. If there are only 5 or 10 people checking it, then I will just email you all pictures of my family.....and it will give you all an excuse to CALL me MORE!!!! ;) If there are more than that, then I may continue to keep up the blog because then I'll know that I'm not just doing this for me and my mom, but for you guys too. Thanks a bunch!

I meant to write this a long time ago, but forgot. For anyone who comes to our site using scottandmaran.com, that will no longer be working tomorrow. We had to pay for that, and we've decided that we aren't going to do it anymore. I don't know how much longer I'm going to be keeping up this blog anyway. Part of me just wants to write these things in my own personal journal and stop blogging, but we'll see. So anyway, make sure you come to our site using scottandmaran.blogspot.com.

Also, my hubby and I celebrated our 6th year anniversary last week! I can't believe how fast time has gone by.






Want to hear how our lovely night was celebrated?? It was crazy! I really wanted to go to the Melting Pot since we've never been, but we decided that we wouldn't have enough time to go there and eat because it's far away, and we've been told that it takes a long time to cook your own food and whatnot. So, we decided to go to a fun little restaurant called The Mayan (complete with cliff divers, but I'm not sure how good the food is) and then to a movie afterward. It's about a half hour away from us and we didn't leave until about 6:15. When we got on the freeway there was a ton of traffic due to an accident. Stop and go, stop and go. I was getting really hungry and when I'm hungry, I'm grumpy. So about a half hour into driving we decided to turn around. We were going to go eat at Carrabba's, but when we got there they told us it was going to be an hour and a half wait. No way. So then we went to PF Changs. Hour and forty five minute wait. What is going on here? Then we went to California Pizza Kitchen....forty minute wait, which was better. At this point I was so hungry that I was tempted to go to Taco Bell. But, we decided to try out Spaghetti Factory, which was only a 15 minute wait. Thanks heavens! While we were at Spaghetti Factory the waitress told us the reason things were so busy around there was because UVU was having their graduation that day and everyone was taking their kids out to dinner. Whoops! Guess we should have checked into that. We finished dinner at about 8:20 and wanted to make an 8:15 movie there, but it was sold out when we got there. Boo. So, then we went to another theater, hoping to find something that was going to start soon since we told our babysitters that we'd be home around 11. There was nothing there either. Finally around 8:45, we decided we'd check one more theater and if that didn't work, we'd just go home. At this point we were laughing about how the night was going and we didn't even care what movie we could see, as long as it was something! To our luck, though, there was a 9:25 showing of Date Night, which would get us home right past 11. It was a hilarious movie, in my opinion. The night turned out really good, despite the fact that we were having horrible luck with all of our plans. Next year, we'll back up plan a little better. I must say, though, that with how many places we drove to that night, I'm glad I got to spend it with my hubby. I haven't laughed so hard in a long time. It looks like we definitely need to go on more dates alone together!