Doh!

Stella's acquired this little habit of hitting her forehead whenever she forgets something, says something silly, gets hungry, needs to go potty, is asked to do something, sees a friend, gets timeout, . . . general happiness also ends up with a head hit. It's a little irritating, but at least this habit has taken the place of the perpetual hiding.

Birthday Attention

My brother-in-law Adam and sister-in-law Xan planned my birthday eve dinner celebration which was super yummy! The kids (and some adults) played hide-and-seek for a while and adorable little Clairie hid in a basket of stuffed toys for almost 10 minutes without moving. After dropping Stella off at school, I headed to IKEA for my free birthday stuff. They ran out of sheets, so they gave me a hideous pillow and 4 vases. I'll take 'em. My friend Brooke took us out for my birthday lunch at Chick-fil-A! The kids had a great time in the play area and I had a great time with my friend! Thanks Brooke! Elliot came home early (my birthday wish) and brought my favorite pizza (Buono's is on Guadalupe and Dobson on the SW corner . . . yum, yum, yummy!), and we headed to the park to play!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

We played "Don't Eat Pete!" for our Family Home Evening activity with my birthday M&M's. Then we put Stella to bed and ate the rest of the bag.

Thank you for all of my birthday wishes from my Sweetie & Baby Girl and family and friends!

GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS!

I sure love these girls!

MISS HANNAH

MISS BRYNLEE

Click on Brynlee's picture to the right to get the most recent update on her!

. . . and I really, really love this girl!

MISS STELLA

Tuscon Trip

We went to Tuscon with our good friends Mike & Mari Ashby and Rob & Kim Curry a couple of weeks ago. We visited Titan Missle Museum first . . .

TITAN MISSILE MUSEUM

Does it look like he's asking a question or does it look like he's telling him how things should be running?

Mike hit his head several times, thank goodness for the helmets.

Kimmie didn't have to wear the helmet, but she wanted the full experience. Along with pulling this 6,000 pound door, she also got to fire the missile in the control room.

. . . and then headed to Pima Air Museum.

PIMA AIR MUSEUM


President Ashby and his assistants on Air Force One circa 1960's.

Mike's Grandpa flew a lot of the planes that are there. The boys talked airplanes while we talked Mari's baby shower plans.

Thanks for the fun time Mike, Mari, Rob, and Kimmie! (and thanks for the picture I just stole from your blog Kimmie)

Pump It Up!

Stella had a field trip at Pump It Up for preschool last week. She invited her friend Emma! They have 2 giant rooms full of several enormous inflatable slides and bouncers. I was also able to go through one of the obstacle courses to help some of the smaller kids over the humps . . . uh, I'm glad I didn't have to see myself do it because I'm absolutely positive it wasn't a pretty site!



Teacher Laura and Teacher Amanda slid down the slides with some of the kids. Look at the other girls face, it's classic!


Costco was so close that we couldn't pass up a trip including totally cheap lunch!

Another Year of Random Whitney

This month I chose President Uchtdorf's talk from General Conference for my Visiting Teaching lesson. Sunday's talks also happened to be on the same subject of HOPE. So I've decided not to bore you (or myself) with 31 random facts about me on this my 31st birthday as I did last year on my 30th, but I'll share a few of my totally random HOPES:

1. I hope that I'll remember the feelings I have when I am studying the gospel. Hope is a gift of the SPIRIT, and I can't have that unless I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing.

2. I hope that I will clean that wretched office, which I hope will also make my HUBBY so happy.

3. I hope that I will remember to be nicer this year and SMILE more because I didn't smile there for a few weeks and now my face hurts now that I'm back to smiling.

4. I hope that Dancing With The Stars will WISE up and fire Samantha Harris because she's totally useless and annoying. So much for being nicer.

5. I hope that STELLA will keep being the little fireball that she is. It'll come in handy later.

6. I hope that people will like the pictures I've taken of them so that I can hope for a really nice CAMERA.

7. I hope that I will have the CONFIDENCE to reach my health goals.

8. I hope that I will stop spending money (post-camera) so that I can hope that we can build the addition to our HOME.

9. I hope that someone will choose me to be their BABY's mommy.

10. I hope to have enough kids so that we can make a BLUE GRASS band.

Adoption

DID YOU READ THIS STORY? Holy crap. See, those are the kinds of stories that are totally exciting because it seems like it's so easy. I love to read them (as long as there are tissues nearby), but I sort of also hate reading them. Is it really realistic? I just read through a hundred profiles on the LDS Family Services website and got overwhelmed. I can only imagine how a birth mother feels as she searches for the right family for her child.

Force Feeding . . . herself

Getting Ready for Twilight!

Take the Quiz and Share Your Results!
Motherly and totally forgetable, I knew it.

Photog Blog

I know I've already asked for help in naming my photography blog, but I've narrowed it down to 2 names: Shooting Star and Make It Snappy. Which one do you like? Vote to the right.

I've borrowed my cousin's nice camera to practice taking pictures of other families so that I can perhaps get a good picture or two of her family this weekend. I've already started my blog, it just needs a name so that everyone can look at it and start telling Elliot how badly I need a new camera so that my fairly good pictures can become spectacular!

8 Things Tag (from Kyle B.)

8 Favorite Shows...

1. Little House on the Prairie
2. The Office
3. Dancing With The Stars
4. Alias (first 2 seasons only)
5. 24 (but it's getting old)
6. Scrubs
7. Friends
8. Law & Order

8 things I did yesterday..

1. made bows
2. modge podged #10 cannery cans with scrapbook paper for the nursery
3. painted with Stella
4. cleaned up the huge mess Stella made with paint
5. showered AND fixed my hair
6. checked everyone's blogs 9 times (per hour)
7. took family pictures of the Holden family
8. cracked up as I was looking at the pictures of the little poses the Holden girls did

8 Things to Look forward to...

1. My birthday
2. Twilight (holy crap, did it take forever to get below 30 days and now all of the sudden there is only 8 days left!)
3. Getting my fingerprints done
4. Thanksgiving
5. Christmas
6. Having more children
7. Stella being excited when I pick her up from preschool
8. Elliot coming home from work

8 Favorite Restaurants

1. Sonic
2. Olive Garden
3. Cafe Rio
4. Outback
5. Logan's
6. Landmark
7. Buono's Pizza
8. Taco Bell (just lately)

8 Things on my Wish List...

1. A fat new camera
2. Babies
3. Weight Loss
4. The house addition
5. New clothes
6. Elliot to not be stressed
7. Stella to think that I'm the best Mom ever
8. to get all of my projects done.

8 people I tag...

1. Clarissa F.
2. Kayla S.
3. Bethany D.
4. Candice P.
5. Amber A.
6. Amy R. (the Asian's wife)
7. Rebecca H.
8. Lisa F.

Brynlee Louise Bangart

Sweet baby girl BRYNLEE LOUISE BANGART was born this morning. Lindsay told me that Brynlee pinked right up and gave out a little whimper. She is 2 pounds 6.6 ounces and is 14 3/4 inches long. I'm assured that baby and mommy are doing well, which I totally believe because I'm sure that Brynlee is just as stubborn as her mother!:) Please keep them in your prayers!

Jeepers

Our friends were in town from Oklahoma for while so we took a little outing to the indoor amusement park called Jeepers last week. The girls LOVED it, especially the bumper cars. They were giggling so hard and making me laugh so hard that we were all snorting! Thanks for the fun time Rebecca, Rachel, and Kaitlyn!

This "roller coaster" was going so fast that I thought the girls were going to fall out! They were totally squished up against each other with their heads whipping around. I was getting sick just watching them!



Stella dressed herself that day. I didn't feel like fighting her about the interesting color scheme.

VOTE to Keep Baby Bangart IN!

I know voting day is tomorrow, but we need some votes TODAY! My sister Lindsay (come on, you all know her because you stalk her blog) has been in the hospital all weekend due to some pregnancy complications. I just got an update that the baby may be born today (she's only 28 weeks).

Now, I've told this sweet baby girl that I'm excited to meet her, but I'm in no mood to entertain her arrival today! Lindsay and Baby Bangart (and the rest of the family) need your prayers right now! Please pray for my baby sister and that sweet baby girl!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is probably my least favorite holiday . . . besides the ones that just come around that I forget about (Columbus Day) when I really need to send something in the mail and the mailman doesn't come. I hate that.

Our ward Trunk-Or-Treat was last week and I must say that the Whoopie-Cushion was my favorite costume.

Stella refused to be a witch like we'd planned all year, and insisted on wearing her tattered Ariel wedding dress.

And then there was the crazy lady that was attacked by an Obama supporter . . .

Our only Halloween visitors were Joe (Headless Horseman), Sammy (Spiderman), and Clark (Cowboy), but we didn't have any candy for them.

I forced Stella to wear her most intact princess dress for her preschool party and Halloween night. She is Princess Rosella from The Island Princess (Barbie). We went to my cousin's neighborhood carnival.

I tried to do her hair really cute.

Maeser's (my cousin) daughter Bailee, Stella, and Scott's (my other cousin) daughter Lauren.

Scott and Elliot took the girls (Lauren and Stella) around to the houses to Trick-Or-Treat, but we didn't bring Stella's pumpkin basket (on purpose), so we didn't get any extra candy. I stayed back at the house with Stacy to hand out candy. Some people get so serious about Halloween.