When Rich and I were thinking of going through with the adoption, one of the things that I wanted to make sure of if we did adopt is that our kids never felt lost in the family, neglected, or that our family had "so many kids" that we couldn't do the things we used too, or what ever the case may be. That is one of the reasons for the trip in November to Disneyland, and why I let him take the "big" kids back to Disney in March.

So with that introduction, I introduce you to our 2- yes 2 - new puppies!!! We had a puppy once when we were debating the adoption, moving, and then pregnancy, but the puppy was biting Mackenzie who wanted to mother it all day long & with all that was going on, we decided we needed to wait a while for that addition. So, now that we are settled and have had the boys for almost a year now, we decided we could have one again. Yes I said one! We were going to get a dog that was a yr or so old, but every time we looked at one or called on one, we were one or 2 people too late and missed them. Rich then found an add for puppies at a good price and we decided to look at them and maybe get one of them. They were the last 2 of a litter and there was 1 boy & 1 girl. When he called to tell me how cute they were, I told him to probably get the little girl then and he called back and said that they were playing together so cute that he didn't know if he wanted to separate them......so I said.... then get both :O) And he DID!!!

So we now have a little Sadie, and a little Jack (maybe Max - we can't decide) They are little Yorkshire's and only weigh 2 lbs right now and will only grow to be 4 or 5 lbs. They are so cute and good with the kids! And I'm glad we got 2 because when they are playful and no one here wants to play, we put them on their leash out back and they wrestle with each other and then come in and take a nap. It's kind of nice! We are loving having them around!

Brin has Sadie & Jordan has Jack (as in Jack Sparrow & Jack Bauer)

It's so cute to see Jordan with the puppies. He copies everything I do. He says "come on Jack, come on Jack, ....JACK!" as he pats his legs to get it to come. or "mere puppy, puppy!"

Just his little voice his so cute!

...Please... hold the "are you crazy?!?!" comments to a minimum :o) ...cause I know they are coming & I've already heard them.... and I already admit it!

Mackenzie lost her 1st baby tooth!

On Saturday, Mackenzie was complaining about her front tooth. We noticed it was loose a week or two ago, but it was barely loose so I kind of forgot about it. This time when we checked it was pretty loose so I told her to keep wiggling it and one day it would just fall out. A few hours later we were eating dinner and it DID fall out! I didn't think it was that loose! The other kids teeth would dangle by a thread for days before falling out! So she was excited! ...but there is more to this story!



After taking pictures of her newly lost tooth, I set it on a clean plate on the cupboard for safe keeping until bedtime when we could put it in the Tooth Fairy Pillow and excitedly wait for her visit! Meanwhile, Rich came down and thought he would do me a favor and gather up a few things, dust off the ONE "crumb"- (or what he thought was a crumb!) off of the clean plate! He then proceeded to wash it down the sink AND run the DISPOSAL!!!

At bedtime, we excitedly returned to get her 1st lost baby tooth and there was NO TOOTH, no plate, no trace of it! We then inquired about it and came to find out about her Daddy's kind deed, which leads us to the next few pictures. :o)


This is Richie and Brinley taking apart the pipes under the sink in hopes that the tooth would have stayed in the "goose neck" that a genius came up with for cases just like this!

And it was there! All 3 pieces of it! :o)

Mackenzie with the Tooth Fairy Pillow for the 1st time!

Hooray Kenzie! You're are growing up!

After all of that- the Tooth Fairy forgot to come!

But she did come the next night and brought her $3- one $ for each piece!!!

Happy Easter!

Doesn't that look yummy!

Before the Sugar High!

And After!

Before Easter we were talking to our kids about the real reason for Easter and after explaining about the entire week leading up to the Crucifixion, we paused and asked them if they understood, and Dallas said... "I understand all of the parts about Christ, ....but what I don't get is why the Easter Bunny??? How does he fit in?" ........Does any one have a good answer to that question? We gave him a simple answer, probably not a good one or the right one, but it satisfied him in front of all of the other kids for the time being.

The rest of these pictures are after church, in a hurry to get to dinner at Rich's parents. But you HAVE to take Easter Sunday pictures in your church clothes!
Isn't that some kind of rule somewhere! :o)

This is Macie almost crawling, she is getting better and better every day! She can move to get stuff now, it is still a little of a chore to get there, but soon she will be cruising right to it!



This is the kids and 2 of their cousins in their shirts

that their Grandma Smith gave them for Easter.

Decorating Cookies!

Micailey and her cousins from Saint George

Cousin Madison decorating a very colorful "Easter Egg" cookie

Micailey's Bunny cookie- can't you tell!!!!

I didn't get a picture of all of their cookies, but these are the 2 that I did get.

Dallas's chick

His was an egg but I didn't get a picture of it before he started eating it

Happy Easter!

We decided to get the kids a surprise this year for Easter! We made them close their eyes until we said! Dallas wasn't home but soon found out!

When they looked in the box - this is what they saw!

We got 2 little Ducks!

They are so cute! The kids love them and play with them non stop!

-especially Mackenzie who is the little mother of the family!

Even Macie is intrigued by them!

Here they are together. We haven't named them yet. We don't know if they are boys or girls until their adult feathers start growing in, so we are trying to come up with non-gender specific names. But they are so cute and are growing so fast!

Why am I blogging about a jar of pickles you ask? ...

Today, we got up and the kids wanted a yummy breakfast for spring break so I decided to make them pancakes. When Brinley came down she was insisting that she wanted a ham and pickle sandwich. I told her that I was not making sandwich's for breakfast, I was making pancakes! After a while of tantruming, I said that if she could talk Micailey into making her a sandwich, she could have one, but I was not making it. I was already holding a baby, trying to stir the batter, and trying not to burn the griddle in the meantime.

So she ran upstairs and talked Micailey into making her a sandwich. They came down and Micailey got the all the food out and everything was fine. She had everything on the sandwich and was getting the pickles out of the jar with a butter knife and all was still fine. She asked for a plate to put the pickles on and I got her one and when she returned to the bar she said..."uhm, why is there pickle juice all over the bar?" Initially I thought maybe a few drops here and there, but what I saw was entire bar top SWIMMING in pickle juice! It was starting to create a waterfall effect down the side of the bar, into the cracks of the drawers and down to the pool on the floor! I grabbed a few napkins to try and stop the flow to the floor and quickly realized it was still FLOWING from somewhere! So I grabbed the jar of pickles and immediately noticed that there was a 2 inch chunk out of the bottom of the jar and ALL of the juice in the entire jar of pickles was now on my bar and floor!

How in the world!!! She didn't drop the pickles, she didn't hit the pickles, all she did was stab a pickle with a butter knife and the bottom fell out!!! We now SMELL like pickles! Our feet smell like pickles, our hands smell like pickles, the floor smells like pickles, the bar, the loaf of bread, the crayons they had been coloring with, the mayo jar, my ward phone list,....you name it - it smells like pickles!

The last time I smelled pickles this strong was a month after Rich and I got married and I drove my parents car to work and was in a car accident. The catch is... they were in the process of moving and had loaded the trunk full of bottled pickles, about 6 - 10 cases of pickles! Can you imagine the smell! Sometimes I wonder what the mechanics and wrecking yard thought when they had a strange aroma of pickles - even better yet- after baking in the sun for a while! Sorry for the graphic details :o)


This is Micailey pointing to the whole and a picture of the chunk that fell out. You can't tell me an 8 year old can do that to the bottom of a pickle jar with as butter knife with out making quite the commotion!

Kindy 500

Mackenzie's kindergarten class had to make box cars for a parade. She was so proud of her car. She designed it and picked the colors and every thing. She was assigned West Virginia for her license plate.

They did a short program with a few songs about America - which- just like every other kid of mine - she wouldn't sing a single word of! She just stood there and smiled. :o)

This is her parade through the school.
I only took one pic of the competition just to show how elaborate some of the kids got!

My girls!

So the other day when I got Brinley and Mackenzie dresses they looked so cute I had to take some pictures! Brinley didn't cooperate very well- she has this new fake smile that she does every time she gets her picture taken- she's so funny- so I included one of her "smile" and one that I happened to catch of her while she was laughing at her smile! :o)

And Mackenzie was so fun! She had so many cute pictures! She was so cute about it too. I took pic's of her the same day as Brinley's, but those turned out a little blurry, but the next day, she was dressed all cute for school and came too me and told me how cute she looked and how the helper mom in her kindergarten class told her that she always looked so cute and then she paused..... and said "so, uhmm, did you want to take some pictures of me?...." How can you say no to that! So I grabbed the camera and got some really cute ones of her!