Weekend Temple Trip

We had a Stake temple day on Saturday so we decided to make a weekend of it and stay in a hotel the night before. It was a great little weekend getaway. I am always blown away by how gorgeous the Mesa Temple is. We had a great time walking around enjoying the beatiful temple grounds and Visitors Center. As much of a production as it is to get everything ready for the 3 hour drive and then taking turns in the temple, I think it is a neat experience for the kids as well. Back in Utah we could just leave them with my parents and go 5 minutes away, we would go to the temple then rush back to get them. Since we've been here I always think how I really took those days for grantide, but this time when we went to the temple I realized living so far from the temple has its advantages too. Now that we have to drive so far and have the kids with us, we take our time while we are there. The girls are able to have their own little temple experience at the Visitors Center and while walking around the temple we are able to talk with them and answer their millions of questions. It is a fulfilling experince for all of us.
Just recently Kamaile has been much more interested in the Book of Mormon and other gospel stories. Aaron is so good at reading the scriptures to her every night and making the stories come to life. The other day at Joy school her teacher told me during free play time she was assigning parts to act out Abinidai and King Noah. While she's playing with barbies she'll say things like "I'm going to smite you" or "We're going to burn you to death" ya it's a little gruesome. She can act out entire scenes from the Living Scripture movies using word for word lines. In Primary they've been talking about the war in heaven, so I've heard Maile trying to explain it to Emmy. Since then they try to make the other person feel guilty to get a toy back by saying "Emmy you're following Satan right now" or "Jesus is going to be mad at you". Emmy's latest sayings when someone makes her mad is "ok I'm not going to play with you" or "ok you don't get any treats" so after their little war in heaven discussion she started saying "ok Jesus isn't going to send you to earth". I love hearing and seeing what their little minds make up from the things they learn and am glad they have taken such an interest to these stories.

Happy Valentine's Day!

A whole month of pink!

Aaron kept making fun of me for dressing the girls in Valentine attire for the past 4 Sundays, he said he couldn't wait to see what they would wear on the actual day. Here it is the grand finale! With these girls it could be Valentine all year with all the pink and red we've got around our house. At least we've got our one boy to mix it up a little and boy do we all love him. He really spoiled all his girls today.

"Ain't nothin gonna break me stride"

YEAH!!!!!
"Ain't nothin gonna break my stride aint nothin gonna hold me down wo no, I've got to keep on movin". These were the lyrics I kept singing over and over in my head. Somehow I did keep movin and actually never hit the wall like usual. I was preparing to hit it at 18 miles cause I always do, but I felt good and kept feeling good all the way to end. It was so great. I was dreading this day basically since I signed up for it, because I knew I wasn't trained like I wanted to be. The night before my cousins husband Josh was showing me pictures of where the course went and what the scenery would look like and that was not helping. It was an out and back course of nothing but weeds and cactus as far as the eye could see. Seriously it was nothing but desert and the road for 26 miles! I ended up running a few miles with some other runners and had a great time meeting them. It was a super small race with only 106 runners, so I ran miles here and there with different people. Most of the runners basically do any marathon they can, many had done over 100 or 50 marathons, some do the 100 milers. Most of them had another marathon in 2 or 3 weeks! I felt like such a wuss since this will do me in for a good 2 years. I loved meeting all these crazy marathon runners. Talking and singing with them made the race go bye surprisingly fast on the barren road. These people had no shame I saw one of my new found friends taking care of business - squatting 3 feet off the road. I don't have the best eyes so I was staring for a bit trying to figure out if I was coming up on an animal or what exactly it was, so of course once I realized I had been looking way too long I felt like an idiot. This really was one of my favorite races ever. Of course the finish line was the best with my cousin Tash and her family and my wonderful supporter Aaron (who watched the girls during my training and put up with my anxiety about this race, he's great) and my girls. That moment alone made it all worth it! As much as I dread those races I can't help but be anxious to do another, call me crazy but I truly love racing!



The key to this race was drinking! Aaron made me promise to drink every water station. I never have been much of a drinker. he he I hate the feeling of it sloshing around in my stomach, it usually makes me nauseous, but I stuck to my promise and I think it made all the difference.

Look at Livy already hungry for one of these



Since it was such a small race I took 2nd out of the girls and 1st in my age group, so fortunately each of the girls got to sport a medal. They thought that was so fun and wore them around all day.

My lovely fan club!

Wahoo! All done!

until baby #4

Topped off the day hanging out with some of the BFF from Hawaii! Super fun! Of course thanks for hooking up with us Julz and JP and mostly thank you for introducing me to Yogurtland - it was phenominal! Why didn't we come up with that place? It was just so perfect.Also met up with Aaron's BFF from Ohio. Maile wouldn't leave him alone, she loved him! Well I guess she'd leave him alone as long as she had others to be all over. She is such the soical girl.

I'm sad I don't have any pictures with Tash & Josh and fam. we had such a great time with them. Thanks for having us! Overall it was a fabulous weekend!

The latest

Thank you everyone for your sympathy, especially Spencer and David, I could tell you were genuinely concerned with my "cankles" and it was the right foot Spencer in case you hadn't figured it out yet. This Saturday is the big race, ahh! My ankle held up great for my 20 mile run last week, as for the rest of my body- every muscle in my body was in pain, so it is going to hurt!Ever since Kamaile started riding her bike without training wheels last August she LOVES to ride her bike. Just recently I've been taking her on some runs with me. Sometimes me pushing the 2 girls in the stroller and her on her bike or just me and her go and Aaron meets us at a park somewhere with Emmy and Livy. When she committed to going on a long run with me (11 miles)and then actually followed through with it without a complaint I decided she had earned herself a bigger bike. Her poor little legs had to pedal so fast on that thing, so we got her a 16". Now she LOVES!!!! riding her bike even more.


Emmy suddenly decided to potty train herself, which is wonderful cause I wasn't feeling too motivated yet. One night she was doing her usual stall routine but this time added a new one saying she had to go potty. I totally didn't believe her but she insisted so I gave in and let her try and much to my surprise she went without even sitting there too long. We made such a fuss over it that the next day she didn't even need her diaper, she stayed dry all day! Wow! So it continued for 2 weeks now. She has had an accident or 2 but for the most part she is a potty pro!
The only problems now are she knows she gets her potty treats so somehow she manages to push little bits out at a time, averaging 10 pees and 6 poos a day, ya she is really working the system in more than 1 way. Problem 2 is this is how I find her many times. She gets naked then assumes this lovely position touching every square inch of the toilet, sometimes even with her mouth (ya gross, I know) and not just our toilet-every place we go. Ahhh! It gives me the willies just thinking about what she is touching and sucking. It gets worse-sometimes she'll suck her thumb right after or as I'm wiping her or getting her pants buttoned she'll touch my face all over. wahaoooaoa. Seriously I'm so grossed out by this whole new routine of ours. I've never been much of a germaphobe, but she has made me into a freaked out germaphobe when she uses the potty 16 times a day. Ok one more issue she is going to fall in one of these days since she insists on climbing onto the potty the back way and completely straddling the hole before sitting down. I just know she is going to put one foot in and down she'll go. Oh man that girl is not so lady like in the bathroom.

So Mad!!

As soon as I started having kids I decided my fitness goal would be to do a marathon inbetween each pregnancy. So far I've been able to stick with it, completing 3 marathons. Well I was getting the itch back in the fall but couldn't find any marathons in AZ on Saturdays, they were all Sundays. I came to the conclusion I was just going to have to go up to Utah to do one on a Saturday. I planned on doing the SLC one in April up until about a week and a half ago when I stumbled upon one in Pheonix on the 30th of this month. I don't know how I didn't find it earlier, I was always looking for one sooner and closer, this one was perfect! Only problem is at that point I had 3 and a half weeks to build up to it. yikes! I was in shape for a solid half, so I really had to step up fast! Well I went on a 16 mile run last week to see how I felt before I officially signed up, the run felt great! True I was a bit sore afterwards, but I was surprised how good it felt. Since the run went so well I decided to sign up for the race, something I dont' normally do unless it's a triathlon or a marathon, although I have done one where I didn't sign up, but after running that far I wanted a medal and shirt for it. Well 2 days later I went out for some speed work early in the dark morning because I have to be back for Aaron to go. I had just started and was going hard when suddenly I was on the ground. Seriously I had no time to react, I just dropped! I hit a rock and completely ate it! Yes I'm sure it was hilarious to anybody who may have seen, but I didn't even care I was just so mad cause my ankle was killing and I couldn't afford to miss a single run at this point with the race 2 weeks away! I decided to try to run it off, which after about a 1/2 mile worked but by the end of my 8 miles I was hurting and suffered for it the rest of the day and yesterday. I hate that I already signed up, I have to do it pain or no pain I must follow through. Thank goodness for the eliptical. I did that this morning and it felt great, so we'll see. Wednesday is supposed to be my longest training run - 20 miles and it's my only chance since Aaron doesn't have another day off until the race. OH! I hate this! I'm having major anxiety can ya tell? I've never had a running injury so this is so frustrating to me I don't really know how to handle it. I know my feet are nasty without one being swollen and fat, but at least I have all my toenails and haven't been growing my leg hairs out for months, which is how many of you have seen my legs and feet. he he! I just thought I would show you why I'm giong crazy! But these pictures probably don't look as bad as I make it seem.

Ok so who knows if anyone even checks this anymore since I've been terrible with blogging for the past 2 months. I actually was thinking of giving up on it cause I'm just so not motivated, but my brother on his mission informed he can look at blogs now, so I promised him I'd do one a week- that is one of my new years resolutions. The main reason I didn't want to keep it up was because of this one- the catch up post is always one I dread, but here goes.


The week of Christmas we actually got snow that stuck! I never thought I'd be so excited to wake up to snow covering the ground. We immediately got out what snow clothes I could find and went out before it all melted away. Thanks to our grass we had enough snow stick to make this snow man, the girls loved it since their favorite show at the time was Frosty. After scarping up all the snow in the backyard we decided to head up to the mountains with some friends to make the most of our fun snow day, cause if it's anything like last year there was only one and it didn't even last as long as this one.



Just when I thought we'd have our first Christmas alone, without any family Aaron's sister Rachel and her family said they would come down from Flagstaff. yeah! It was so great to have family here for Christmas especially since they were moving like 2 days after. Thanks for coming!


Maile loves to talk to everybody! No matter who it is or wherever we go she's always looking for someone who will listen. So obviously when it's her turn to talk to Santa I have to cut it short because she could be up there all day. Although it was funny the 2nd time she sat on his lap she kind of panicked cause she knew she had forgotten something on her list when she sat on his lap the 1st time, so for a moment she was speechless, but then it all came to her and she couldn't stop.Just look at how chubby those cheeks are! She is perfectly square under her chin because they hang down so low. Oh they are so kissable I love 'em!

October

That's right we had it all Dorothy, Lion, Scarecrow, Tinman, toto, wicked witch of the west, east, and good witch of the north.





All the hard work paid off. These girls were loving it!!!

October was such a crazy, super fun month. Aaron's parents even came out for the last of the month and we did a whole lot of Halloween festivities. I think Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. The girls are obsessed with the Wizard of Oz these days, so we went with that theme this year. Aaron's parents even joined in the fun. We threw their costumes together that day, but they were some of the best.

Halloween Cake pops with the girls! super fun and super yummy!
(thanks for the pictures Lauri) Annual pumpkin carving contest (too bad you weren't here to lose again Spencer). We stayed with the wizard of oz theme, I know it's after Halloween, but we still need a final vote

#1#2 #3

(this one got jipped with the picture, it was even better than this pictures makes it look)

Olivia had such a cute little halloween ensemble for the month


Maile's joy school class parade and songs


We also went out Apple Annie's again, picked more apples, wagon rides, and of course had more of that yummy apple crumb pie.

We also went to the Tucson Zoo for the first time, I must say this was by far the best zoo experience I've ever had.
We're sure glad Grandma and Grandpa Kerr decided to add Sierra Vista to their long road trip across the country.