Caroline's Baptism

This last weekend Caroline was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  It was one of the best days of my life.  I'm so proud of my sweet Caroline.  Everything went so well and it was just so great to see so many people be there to support her, especially my parents.  Hopefully at Devin's we'll be able to have both sets there!  We did miss the Funks, next time though!  We had so many people turn out from our ward, my mom thought I was crazy for making so much food.  Anyways, Caroline was lucky to be baptized the same day as her best friend her, Annabeth.  They are such good buddies and have been since the first Sunday they met at church.  I may have been in a crazy rush in the morning and forgot to bring a towel or much of anything for Shawn but he's a great hubby and knows when I'm going to forget stuff so he was sure to bring his own towel.  And my dad did a great job coming up with a talk 5 minutes before the service started.   Thanks to everyone that came and we are so happy that Caroline took this important step in life.

Caroline and Annabeth holding a cute banner that has 3-1-14 on it, the date they were baptized.

Grandma and Grandpa Reed and Caroline.  Thanks so much for coming, we have fun every time you come!

The girls being silly.

And now cute.

We were so glad we were able to celebrate my dad's birthday with him. 

He couldn't leave without at least one reading of Little Black a Pony.

We also had some great Lego building time.

And snuggles for Grandpa before bed!

Caroline's birthday

I'm so behind in blogging its really not very funny, and I don't like it but now that blogger doesn't seem to be having problems, or maybe its Safari I'm not sure but hey its working and I can get down to business now.  So Caroline hit a big milestone this year.  She's eight, eight people!  How is that possible!?  Last night I was talking about going to the hospital and having her and all the crazy stuff that happened to my poor baby not long after, I can't believe that was eight years ago.  We had a very low key birthday this year for her.  She was lucky to have Grandma Funk come just a few days after her birthday so we held off and celebrated when Sheri was here.  We also had to wait for Shawn to be in town too because he was off interviewing in Dallas when his mom first arrived. So several days after her birthday we finally celebrated with mini golf, hot chicken, and cake of course!  Caroline is such a great kid, she loves school, is a huge helper to me, a great big sister, and wonderful example to our family.  We love you Caroline!

Here she is opening her presents.  

Shawn showing Graham proper form.  It was so cute Graham was diligent at making sure his thumbs were always facing down. 

Caroline got a hole in one and had tons of fun.

Devin has an interesting technique where you gently guide the ball in with the club into the hole.

Here she is super excited about her new basketball to go with our hand me down hoop that was given to us from our neighbor.  

She requested a chocolate dipped strawberry cake so I did my best to accommodate her wishes. I think it turned out pretty well and she loved it so I'm happy.

I now have a child old enough for activity days. I remember going to those.  Weird, I"m getting old!  She loved every minute of it and felt so grown up.

Some cute new clothes from grandma!  And she loves the beautiful necklace that has her name in Arabic on it.  Can you guess who that was from?  Its so pretty and she looks very grown up wearing it. We loved spending the weekend with Sheri and had so much fun celebrating Caroline's birthday.  Thanks for coming and hanging out with us Sheri and happy birthday Caroline!

Boston (the city not the band)

Thank everything Shawn is finally done with interviewing for fellowship.  His last stop was Boston and now that he's done I kind of don't even care about posting about it because I'm just glad he'll be home this weekend.  But to be fair to Boston I'll post about it.  Really the only positive thing I can think about living there would be that there is a lot of fun history there that would be fun to explore.  And since I do have a degree in American Studies I should probably try and pretend to care about that.  Really I do think it would be cool but the negative kind of out weigh that one thing.  Like the fact it is freaking cold there way too much of the year, its crazy expensive, we'd probably have to live in a tiny place, and its way far away from family.  At this point I'd really like to try and get closer.  So Boston isn't number one for me but hey, I could do it for a year.

The Big D (as in Dallas)

Shawn finished his second to last interview today in Dallas or as most of my family knows it as my choice for fellowship.  I would love to go back to Texas!!!!  It's by far the cheapest place for living expenses but the main reason is family.  My sister will be living there and we'll only be a short drive from more family in Houston.  I would be so happy to be able to make it to baptisms, birthday parties, holidays and really any reason.  I didn't think id miss everyone so much but I do, a whole lot it turns out. Oh and let's not forget the food, fajitas and beef BBQ whenever I need a break from cooking, yes please!  And Central market where I can walk around and pretend I can afford the food, oh happy day.  I'm pretty sure I would cry tears of joy if we end up there for fellowship.  Now remember this does not in any way reflect Shawn's opinion of the programs and we will not be sharing that so just keep watching the blog to see where we end up!  We find out in April I think which also happens to be when we find out if we're having a boy or a girl so it's going to be a very exciting month!  Six down one to go!

Valentines Day

After reading some other blogs and what people did for Valentine's Day I feel like a huge slacker.  I'm going to blame it on the fact I'm just starting to have more energy and somedays I still don't have much.  Anyways for the kids I bought donuts from the store and that was their fancy breakfast.  Lazy, I know.  I did buy Shawn some chocolate but that's about it.  I did make a really yummy dinner of calzones and then we had red velvet ice cream cake.  It was so good.   We also watched Despicable Me 2 with the kids and after they went to bed we stayed up and watched Crocodile Dundee 2.  I know super romantic.  After being together ten years I really think we are just not super romantic, and I"m ok with that.  To be honest we don't have the money to buy presents or plan exciting trips so we're perfectly content to just hang out and eat good food together.   I would have taken a picture of the cake but the outside was really ugly.   I don't care though, because man it was good.  And I also decided this week that whenever Devin gets married I"m making his grooms cake and its going to be red velvet in the shape of an armadillo.  I know its like 20 years away but I"m excited.  Well that was our very unromantic Valentine's Day.  Hope everyone else had a great day.

News

Is it just me or does every January seem to go by really fast?  The lack of posting is not lack of nothing going on just the fact I hate using the computer because the track pad doesn't work, its incredibly slow and needs to be plugged in most of the time.  Really the biggest reason I haven't posted is because I"m LAZY these days, but with good reason.  We're expecting baby #4 in August and I really don't have the energy to do much. The first trimester has been fine.  I have never thrown up once during pregnancy so I really can't relate to those that feel sick, I just feel bad for them.  There are a few things I wanted to write down about this pregnancy so far though.
At my first appointment as I was filling out paper work when it asked me how many kids I had and what number this would be I kind of freaked out.  I got all sweaty and nervous and it really hit me that we are going to have four kids in August.  For some reason it didn't hit me how difficult kids can be until I had three (hence the big gap with no kids).  Anyways when I went to the front desk to give my paperwork to someone and they asked how many kids this would make and I told them the woman looked at me and said, "You don't look old enough to have four kids."  It made me feel a little better but even when I was having my exam I was really nervous, enough that my blood pressure was much higher than usual.
That was a month ago and now that I've had time to processes this I'm really excited.  This was intentional I think I'm just out of practice.  It helps that my sister just had a adorable little baby and I keep reminding myself that I get a sweet little baby at first not an big eight year old that is moody.  The kids are very excited and Devin was so excited he took pictures of my sonogram to school so he would have "proof" he's going to be a big brother again.  It was adorable.  Caroline REALLY, REALLY, REALLY wants a little sister and I keep telling her I can't promise her that so she may be really disappointed when we find out, or really happy.  So I'm sure I'll have plenty to post about in August and I'll try and remember to write about everything else.  Caroline is turning 8 next week!? How did that happen?  Anyways stay posted on me loosing my mind I'm sure I'll have some stories to tell!