No Nativity?

I spent a good chunk of time today looking for small nativity sets. I thought that I would easily find some small inexpensive sets that children could play with. As my search wore on I became more and more disillusioned by the commercialness of Christmas. Not one store had any Nativity scenes in stock...not only were they not in stock, but most stores NEVER had any in stock. WHAT!?!? We have snowmen, reindeer, dogs in santa hats, but no Christ child? In my frustration, it hit me what this really meant. Each year we are losing a bit of truth and replacing it with what I call fluff.

I want to scream from the rooftops the true meaning of this season. I'm all about fun, but there is soooooo much more. How do I teach my children that it isn't about presents and parties, but about Jesus Christ? I hope that we all have a few moments of peace and reflection as we celebrate the most significant birth.

Husbands get the short end of the stick!

So my poor husband spends most of his nights on the FLOOR! Why you ask? Well, because the baby and myself take up most the bed! I ran down and snagged a picture of him just now and it made me remember how grateful I am for him. He continues to work and sacrafice for our family.

LUCKY ME! I hope he can hold out a few months longer til things get a bit back to normal. Love ya Stuey!!

Baby Baby!

I don't remember what it was like without Jilly! Isn't it a bit strange that one minute you only have 4 kids and the next you have 5? I can't put into words what it is like to add to your family. The love multiplies and I can't imagine what we ever did without her!

This is for you SarJuh!!

My brother has commented many times how lame I am that I haven't posted kids in costumes yet so here you go Joe...

Dancing Bear, Zorro, Caveman football, and Officer Squires!
Oh yeah Sarah...Here is a Twilight Pumpkin for you! SOOOO COOOL. Our neighbors carved 51 pumpkins and had them all lit. It was amazing!

Terrible Two's

Joss is definitely going through the "Terrible Two" stage... at least I hope it's a stage!

She is all about fits, yelling, hitting, and DESTROYING! She has ripped books, colored on herself and the tub, and the wall, but worst of all was what happened last Saturday. Cam and Joss decided to play "haircut". Well you can imagine what happened. She had never had a haircut. I was soooo sad when Mitch brought me a handful of Joss's hair. My friend came over to see what she could salvage. We had to go short. I'm still not used to it. I guess it will grow. It's a good thing that I love her more than anything in the world.

Birthday Boy

Five Five and still alive!

Cam is such an important part of our family. Sometimes he may get lost in the middle of the craziness, but he makes up for it with his "Booming" voice. He says the funniest things and tells the looooongest stories. I timed him once and he talked for 27 minutes without any response from me, just talking and talking. He loves to write and has used up thousands of pages practicing his letters. We sure love his spunk.

For his party this year he wanted the families in our neighborhood to come over for a pinata. He even wanted the adults to have a turn. We had dinner and broke the hugest pinata ever!

Happy Birthday Buddy!

30 aint that bad...is it?!?!

I thought turning 30 would be no big deal. Humph! I was wrong. I guess every decade you age makes you think twice huh? I'm not loving myself right now post baby...so that makes aging worse. All in all I don't feel too much different.

I'm just ready to have the best 30's ever!

She's Here...ALL NATURAL

Yep folks she's here! Born Sept. 3 2009 8lbs 3oz black haired, dimpled beauty...and yes I went all natural, by choice, and it was quite the experience. I still don't love the idea of blogging so this is gonna be short and sweet.

My husband is AMAZING.

My mom is the best help ever.

The baby is healthy, happy, and smells sooooooo great! (Nothing compares to that new baby smell.)

And Jillian Renee Squires has the 4 most excited brothers and sister you have ever seen.

LIFE IS WONDERFUL!

Happenings

I hate blogging right now....but for posterity's sake let's just make a little list.

All my boys went on the Trek in Wyoming. Yep the pioneer trek in Martins cove. Awesome story to go with that, I'll get around to posting soon...after the baby probably.
Celebrated my Grandmother's 80th bday.
Threw out my pelvis (doesn't that sound fun?)
All my kitchen appliances broke and I mean the big ones...oven, microwave, dishwashers. We are still waiting for parts.
Kids started school! 2 boys in school all day hurray! They love it.
Went to a "Special" meeting in my stake with Elder Andersen. It isn't everyday you get to sit 5 seats away from an apostle. I sang in the choir and they put me right in the front for the whole stake to see how LARGE I am. It was an awesome experience.
Visited with my friend from Spain when she came through St. George. Always a blast!
And now I am just trying to finish out the last two weeks of pregnancy strong...it doesn't help when the Dr says that I'm measuring big, but not looking too ready! BOOOO!

We are excited to get a new little gal here, but it is hard just waiting for life to happen.
I'm sure I have pictures on my camera, but honestly I'm too lazy to do the download thing.

LIFE is GOOD!

Tutu's

My sislaw Katie made tutu's for all the girls for the 4th of July! She is super talented and always has a project, well, my mom thought it would be funny for all the girls to wear tutu's in the annual neigborhood parade. It was fun...and FUNNY!
We had a great 4th with lots of food and family...We even tried to have a shrimp boil, course I don't have a picture on my camera. We swam and by the time it came for fireworks we were all toooo tired. Oh well, maybe next year!

Broken again

Poor Mitchell...He is always injured. I seriously just finished paying off his last emergency room visit and we are already back. So Mitch was just running in a race, fell down, landed on his elbows and broke his collar bone, yep you heard right, BROKE his collar bone. It's miserable! They can't do anything for it except put it in a sling. Mitch is left handed and it is his left side, so he can hardly do anything by himself. The whole rest of his summer is shot, since he is so into riding bikes, swimming, and any sport. He rarely complains...I appreciate that, but I hurt everytime he winces with pain. The cutest story is Braden was feeling so bad and the next morning he went in and was holding Mitchells hand while they talked about what happened. I love seeing that kind of thing. All my boys are best of friends, it's so great.

Feel better soon my boy! In the mean time I'll get the check book ready for the medical bills AGAIN.

WHOA...TIME FLIES

We have had a fun/busy last couple of weeks.

Braden participated in his first PineWood Derby. Let's just say it was a learning experience for both Stu and Brade. His car definitely had the best personality...if you can't tell from the picture it's a pencil.

Memorial day we spent at my Uncle Richard and Aunt Corinnes Cabin in Panguitch. What a BLAST. I don't think that we have ever taken a vacation just our immediate family. I wasn't sure we could have fun without other people but we had a really great time. The boys fished 2-3

times a day, I read a whole book and enjoyed nature.

I also just finished with my music group this month. I have spent the last couple of month teaching this group of 11 girls a few Broadway songs to perform in a huge show with a local Dance studio. I'm glad it's over since it is starting to get pretty hard to sing and dance around with the big belly and all. Here are some pics. (these are for you Ade...don't the costumes look cute...thanks again)

Stu and I also were lucky enough to go to Lake Powell last week with Stu's sister and bro-law. My sweet parents met us halfway and took our kids and Stu and I got some much needed alone time. It's always a lot of work getting out the door, but we had such a good time it was hard to come home. I wish a I had a picture, cause I knee boarded 8 months pregnant, I'm sure it was a sight. Stu worked on jumping the wake. He did a good job. The best part was we just took our time getting to the lake, we spent time in Capitol Reef National park and it was cool. We also stopped at all the little Utah towns? We had sooooooo much fun!

No Dough!

So I know that many of you are in the same boat as our growing family... you know what I'm talking about...no MONEY! Stu and I spent hours, yes hours last night making our budget for the month and apparently we are house poor, soooooo I have a new game, it's called DON'T SPEND A DIME! No seriously, I am not spending any money this month, I have set my goals and I wanna prove to myself that I can actually do it. This means no eating out or shopping, and all my food money is cash. Once it's gone it's gone! I would love some words of encouragement with my new endeavor. Do you think I'll make it??

PS, Is it soooo sad when I'm really really excited to find and unopened sucker buried in the bottom of my purse? It's a bit sad.

Large Marge

No offense to anyone named Marge...So, I am basically a vacuum cleaner right now. I CANT STOP EATING. I have always loved food, but I will eat anything in front of me and I'm getting huge. Anyone have any filling snack suggestions to help curb the pregnancy food shoveling that I'm doing???

COUPONS!

This is a bragging post! I have been coupon shopping thanks to the help of my cute neighbor for about 8 months and I just am proud of myself for saving $$$$! So I thought I would post my most recent buy.

8 boxes of cereal

4 boxes of gogurts

3 cake mixes and frostings

4 boxes of brownies

2 blueberry muffin mix

produce

frozen healthy choice meals

popsicles

gum

pasta

biscuits

tortilla chips

cheese

cream cheese

frozen veggies

mustard/mayo

and so much more....

I paid $60 for all this food, and it would have cost $149 before all my coupons and deals. I seriously save at least $200 a month on groceries since I've started. I'll be honest coupon shopping is ADDICTING, I can't buy anything full priced anymore. It is a bit of work at first to figure it all out, but once you get it you CANT STOP!!

Joss/Mom's day!

I woke up on Mom's day feeling a bit sorry for myself...I'm not sure if it was the lack of the expected breakfast in bed, or thinking about my own mother and mother-in-law, who I wouldn't be sharing the day with, or the ever growing body that just didn't want to move, but I just was in a bit of a funk. Now add 4 rambunctious and rather busy kids into the mix, and also the responsibilities of being the Nursery leader and I have to admit I was a bit grumpy! I was irritated at the talks in church, because I kept telling myself how I don't fit the "good mom" mold that they were all talking about. I did enjoy my 3 boys singing the traditional mothers day songs during sacrament meeting though, and I did get to talk to my brother and sister, who are on their missions even though I thought I wasn't going to get to. The fun part of the day was that it was also, Joss's bday! When we got home from the madness that was church, with my new plant, Stu made dinner and we ate outside. Then our neighbors came over and we opened presents with Josslyn, and had my fave ice cream cake. I can't believe that my girl is two! She is a blessing and by the end of the day I had come full circle to feeling grateful for the sweet kids and husband that I have. I truly am GLAD to be a MOTHER!

Baptism Day

So this last weekend my oldest boy had his baptism. He was soooo excited! We had tonz of great family and friends join us. I am so grateful for all the help since I was fighting migraines and didn't know if I could get everything ready. My mom came early and helped out so much! The spirit was definitely there, and Braden kept telling me that he wanted to do it again. I feel so much joy watching him make good decisions. I also am glad to have a good husband and father and brothers who are such good example to Brade.

Baptisms are the best!

Brades Bowling Bash

I wanted to make Brade's 8th birthday special, so we threw a last minute party for him at the local bowling alley. I made bowling shirts and a bowling ball and pin cake. It was fun! I can't believe he is this old.

Tea anyone?

So I know everyone has differing political views but I wanted to share my experience with the "Tea Party" protests that were going on all over the country yesterday. I decided last minute that I wanted to make a stand against the out of control spending and the super high taxes that are coming our way, so I made a sign and went with Stu to a local tea party! We were embarassed at first that we had a sign because we weren't sure what to expect ( neither Stu or I have ever been to any sort of politically based rally) we almost left the sign in the car, but brave Stu tucked it under his arm and we headed in. I was shocked and surprised at the almost 1200 people that were there, standing room only, many with signs. Everyone was polite, and patriotic with a determination like I haven't seen in awhile. There were speakers talking about what we believe, and entertainers, food, and a petition to sign. They also had preaddressed envelopes full of tea to send to the President and other leaders. We were overwhelmed, but most of all we had a BLAST! Stu really broke out of his shell, he kept walking in front of the news cameras holding our sign and he took pictures with everyone. I'm not sure how much of a difference something like a Tea Party will have, but I want to be proactive in some way. I'm sure some people think I'm crazy...Well maybe I am...Crazy about this country!

Easter FUN

We had a GREAT weekend at my Mom's and Dad's celebrating Easter...For some reason Easter meant more to me this year! I think it had something to do with the spirit we felt during conference, but also we got to hear my mom and dad speak in the BYU student ward which took a lot of effort for our ever growing family to get ready and all the way to Orem for the 8:30 am meeting. It was well worth it. I have good parents, with great testimonies. So...on Friday, I got crafty with my sisters in law and made bows, for Joss and the new baby gal coming our way. As usual we had lots of great food, which didn't help my large marge belly. On Saturday we had a luncheon and indoor easter egg hunt. That was fun!! As usual I don't have too many pictures. Saturday night we got crafty again and made the kids tshirts with their nicknames on them to go along with the baskets that the Easter bunny was to bring. We had tons of fun and I have to admit that it made me miss big Sunday dinners with the family.

Weekend of Inspiration

Well the title basically says it all. I bet you think I'm talking about conference, and trust me I am, but along with an AWESOME conference where I was truly inspired ie...Elder Hollands talk was AMAZINGhttp://www.lds.org/,I also had some other experiences this weekend that helped me to refocus on what is really important.

I had one of my good friends stop by for a visit while she was in town. It's always such a blast to reconnect with people, and if you really pay attention everyone has something inspiring about them. My friend found out a couple of years ago that she has Lupus. I don't know what ya'll know about this illness, but it really really stinks. It effects about every system in your body and causes extreme pain. She has had one baby, but has always wanted more. The dr.'s suggest that she shouldn't have any more children. She has worked really hard to get feeling good just to turn around and decide that having a baby is more important. I wish you all knew her! She never complains, and in fact she'll probably get mad at me for writing this because she would never tell a soul that she even has any sort of illness. After hearing her stories about hard times, and cruel people she still had a smile on her face and a positive attitude.

I find myself complaining over silly pregnancy related things like having to go to the bathroom too much, or headaches. I should just be grateful for my health, why can't I just be grateful?

Well...

It looks like Joss will get her little sister!!

We are super excited at our house!

Thanks for all the love and support. ANY NAME IDEAS?!?!?

SO WHAT IS IT?

We find out on Thursday!!

What do you think we'll get this time???

p.s. For all of you who have inquired, my due date is Sept. 5th