February 10, 2013

It was a Sunday.

We had gone to church, come home and ate lunch, then all laid down to take a nap.

I was the last to wake up, around 4:30. I was waiting on my mother to call me so we could facetime with my family.

The weather was bad, it had been all day, but it wasn't anything we weren't used too.

We did have tornado warnings, but again, nothing we weren't used too.

 

My friend, Beth, text me around 5:00.

She said, "If you haven't heard on the news, a tornado is headed this way!! Be prepared!"

I read the text to Lance, he changed the channel to the news, I gathered the kids and put them in the bathtub with the crib mattress over them.

 

Lance wasn't coming fast enough, so I ran out to get him, he was in our back yard, and there it was. About a half mile away from our house. BIG, black, and scary. It was moving so fast that we then ran through the house to watch it in the front yard. It ripped apart our beautiful town of Hattiesburg.

 

 

 This was a big beautiful brick home. Squashed.

I haven't even seen all the damage yet. But the damage I have seen I am just amazed.

Amazed that no one was killed. The Lord was watching over us that day.

 

The clean up started right away, but I took these pictures a week from that day at our bishops house.

They had 190+ trees down around their house. Again, amazing.

 

I have a whole new respect for mother nature now. After living without power for 24+ hours I realize how unprepared we are! I have my behind in gear now. We are getting prepared.

(and I'm silently praying we'll eventually end up in Utah)

This just hit way to close to home.

I am soooo behind!

We have had family here since the weekend of June 15th and for the most part they've stayed

in Picayune with my in-laws, so that's we we've been for the last month.

(except for one of those weeks)

We have been on the go!

And this week, Thursday to be exact, we're leaving for Utah!

I'm so excited and can hardly wait,

BUT

we are driving.

I'm going to be making the trek with my sister-in-law Misty & her 4 kids.

So it will be Misty and I with 6 kids!

Pray for us!!

So here's just a bit of what we've been up too.

Lots of pictures ahead (:

{this is the first time I've been able to get a picture of Lance w/ all his siblings

 in the 5 yrs we've been married.}

Honey Island Swamp Tour

Homemade Slip-n-Slide

Lots of sleepovers, cuddles, loves and playtime

Uncle Lance doing anything and everything to keep the kids entertained in this

hot humid heat!

Papa & "Grauma" came to town!

My parents went on a cruise that left out of New Orleans, so before they ported out

they came and stayed with us for a few days. Then, when they got back, they stayed for another 4 days! It was wonderful!! And such a treat!

Here's a just a list of things we did:

- Watched Lance play softball

- Ate Popeye's

- My mom put me through some awesome Crossfit exercises

- Spent LOTS of time outside in our somewhat spring weather

(is 80 degrees considered spring if it's not humid?)

- Met up with them in New Orleans when they got back

- Went to Cafe Du Monde and ate some delicious beignets

- Went to The Aquarium of America's

- Ate at Timeout on the riverwalk

- Went to Picayune for my mother-in-laws birthday where we ate at Jack's and then had some yummy German Chocolate cake.

- My dad fixed a stopped up pipe in our backyard. Layla help by playing in the mud.

- Did some Easter shopping

- Papa and Layla played lots of Barbies

- Papa rigged up his car to get the tubing back to our house.

(fit right in here in the south)

- Went to The Hunger Games

- Ate Chick-Fil-A

- And spent evenings watching Marx and Layla wrestle around.

They're wonderful entertainers.

Gotta love Layla and her silly comments and watching Marx walk around

with his arms straight in the air.

He thinks he quite the man now that he can walk from couch to couch.

We love you mom and dad!

Thanks for all the fun and all you did for us!

Can't wait till next month :)

park date

you know what's sad?
this wonderful city of hattiesburg that I live in doesn't have a big community park.
it's ridiculous.
so me and my friends had to drive our kiddlets 20 min. out of town to go to a park that didn't even have swings!
BUT
we still had a great time.
and enjoyed the spring weather, that we'll probably only have for a couple weeks before it's in the mid 80's with 100% humidity.
oh wait, it was in the mid 80's last week with 90% humidity, so it's already here!
crazy southern weather!

 i love how he chews with his front teeth. adorable!

ms. sara

ms. layla

ms. brooklyn

mr. brighton

I don't ever do these kind of posts..

..but Happy October!

I think everyone in the blog world loves fall. As do I! For now, it's because it's actually been in the high 70's in the south this past week! With NO humidity. Hallelujah.

What I do miss... is the changing colors. You don't really see much of it here because of all the evergreen trees. It's so beautiful this time of the year in my home state of Utah. So if you live there, soak it up for me, PLeaSE!

October is a good month-

::First Dr.'s Apt. on the 14th

::I'll start trimester #2, and hopefully start feeling better

::It's my parents 31 year anniversary

::My mother's birthday

::and my father's birthday

::And of course Halloween, which means it's the start of the Holidays!

So this means I can bake.bake.Bake! Specially with pumpkin! Mmmm
{like i said, i hope i start feeling myself again. this time of the year just can't go without baking}

Happy Fall Yall!

she's come and gone

My adorable little sister came to the south and spent a week with us.

We had so much fun, I just hated to see her leave yesterday.

And so did Layla.

I could hear her in her crib this morning saying, "Kennnny, Kennnny!"

Kenny taught her how to say "Peace," and this is how Layla does it.

She wanted Devil's food cake with a "thin" layer of chocolate icing for her birthday cake.

Oh and we can't forget that mint chocolate chip ice cream.

(we get that from our father)

Before she flew out yesterday, we took her to downtown New Orleans.

I think she thought it was pretty neat seeing what a different culture it was.

This was on the River Walk, right outside the Aquarium of the Americas

Layla was much more interest in these...

She insisted on petting a string ray.

Right as she got up close to pet it, it splashed her in the face.

On our way to the famous Bourbon St.

Thanks for letting us have her for a week Mom and Dad.

We miss you already Kennedy!

Looking forward to Thanksgiving!!