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Elle has been fighting a little bug for the past couple of days. Just a low grade fever and general wanting mommy to cuddle her. Last night she fell asleep on the couch at 8pm (early for summer). We woke her up tried to get her to take some Motrin and then put her in bed. Around 4:20am I awoke to Elle standing next to my bed, she was awake....really awake. She told me she couldn't sleep so I brought her up into bed with me thinking with a little cuddling she would be able to fall back asleep.

Not so much. For the next 1 1/2 hours she proceeded to kiss me all over, cuddle me and inform me that I was her best friend, and that daddy was her best friend and we could be in her club. Pretty darn cute, more so when it is not at 4:30 in the morning.

Needless to say I am glad I am in her club, but what do ya say we have the next club meeting at a more reasonable hour?

(Mental Snapshot)

I thought I would just post quickly some of the little things my kids are doing right now, so I won't forget them. The other day Elle was outside with me while it was getting ready to rain but the sun was breaking thru the clouds. She looked up and said, "Oh Jesus is coming down, he's coming right now!" It was so cute and funny and just made me realize how much faith little ones have. Riley has been bored out of his poor little mind. He is constantly talking about his cousins, and how much fun he could have if we were in Utah. He talks about how Byron would act like an old man and chase them around. He also was sad like us all that he wasn't able to go to Bear Lake with the cousins. He nearly cried when we watched the video Becky posted for us. I feel horrible when he has a hard day and will be glad when he has been able to make some friends, it is hard to only have your baby sisters to play with. The other day I put him and Brooke in time and then forgot that I had. It had been quiet for a while so I went and tracked him down, he was laying in his bed crying. I asked him what was wrong and he just told me he was tired and bored. Again, I had forgotten he was in timeout so I just said OK, take a nap. It was only later that he asked how long he was going to have to be in time out that I realized what I had done. Whoops! Awesome mom moment. After I went to check on Brooke and she had fallen asleep on her bed. It did make for a quiet afternoon. Riley is super helpful and always looking for ways to help, he definitely is a first born and sometimes forgets to just be little and not worry about everyone else. He is anxious to start school. Brooke is always wearing her heart on her sleeve. We were watching Cheaper by the Dozen the other day and she started crying. She also started crying at Charlotte's Web, and Chronicles of Narnia. She just is emotional and it is pretty darn sweet to see her be so empathetic. She is starting Kindergarten this year and is so excited. She keeps wanting to try on her backpack. I don't know what I am going to do without her home with me. It is full day kindergarten so that is even harder...on me. So this fall it will be just Elle and Momma, that is going to be weird. But I am thinking I will be able to catch up on some of the things in my life that have been neglected. Life is good, busy as usual and I find myself needing to really slow down and enjoy the moments. I have found myself trying to take mental pictures of the kids doing different things, because I know soon it won't be cool for Riley to play school with his sisters, and Brookie won't be happy with Elle nipping at her heels like a puppy. They are growing too fast and I want to try and remember all the good and the bad.

Happy Birthday to the man who gave me three beautiful babies, and the man who I would be happy to make at least that many more with. ;) You have made me a very lucky girl, I love you.

Sunday, that one day.

Sunday, the day I dread/look forward to all week long. It is nice to not have to go anywhere but church and be able to really get to spend time with the family. The not so nice part is 1:30pm church. Yep, 1:30 church people, also our ward house just happens to be 1/2 hour from home so we have to be leaving by 12:50 if we want to even think about sitting in the chapel on a bench. Well today we were awesome, we were all ready to go by 12:45 and made it to church with enough time to get a bench. I was so glad, I am so tired of sitting on fold up chairs in the gym and trying to wrangle my kids on them. It is so much easier when they can't see the kids directly behind them, also the fact that we don't have crayons rolling off the chairs onto the wood floor is great!!! Well today I passed out the crayons, and notebooks (after the sacrament of course) and snuggled in next to my hubby to listen to the testimonys (I mean who dosen't like a good testimony meeting?). It was so nice to just sit and listen and have the kids behave and color quietly and not fight.....or so I thought. I look over to see Elle coloring, not on her paper not even almost on her paper but on the bench cushion, with a white crayon (how else would she be able to see what she was coloring?). She managed to write a B and several circles around it. Once I saw what had taken place I did what any mom would do, I grabbed her and gave her "the look", she started screaming immediatly and ran to Tom(He's the nice one). I motioned to Tom to see what she had done and then proceed to take her out. After she had her moment we got a wet paper towel to try and wipe it out, yeah didn't work. Needless to say we are cleaning the church and I am going to have to take a couple of different things to try and get it out. Gotta love those Sundays.
P.S. Note to Self, when attempting to take a photo in the middle of sacrament meeting on your hubby's cell phone, check to make sure the flash is off, thus avoiding everyone realizing you are taking a picture in the middle of Sacrament meeting. (Yeah, I'm going to that hot place ;) )

The lake.....(not Bear Lake...obviously)

Well this weekend was a good weekend. Tom and I knew we had to do something to keep our minds off all the fun the Lillywhites, Smiths, and Goldthorpes, were having in "our" beautiful Bear Lake. Oh how we wish we could have been there. On Saturday morning Tom talked to one of the neighbors and found out there is a lake about 45 minutes from our house that has a beach and decent swimming. Tom and I being fly by the pants as we are decided to load the kiddies up and take off. We were there by 2:00pm and after a couple of detours and mini hikes we made it to the beach. It was...well not Bear Lake. That being said, there was sand and water and it was a lot of fun. The water was not the beautiful sapphire blue of Bear Lake, more of a dingy dish water brown but it did have one thing on Bear Lake. It was warm, like 84-88+ degrees warm. Yeah that was nice and the kids had a ball. We even attempted to make poop castles (gotta be a Lillywhite to get that one). After a couple of hours at the lake we packed up and headed home, we showered and then went over to the ward house to watch 7 brides for 7 brothers. Yeah, that's a whole lotta hot redheads. I'm still trying to convince Tom to grow his hair out like those boys. On Sunday it was nice to actually have a hubby sitting next to me, what a difference that makes. All in all it was a good weekend even without a raspberry shake. ;)

Smelly Elle Belly....

Well a week has almost past since it was my youngest babies 3rd birthday. Can you believe she is 3? I can't. She is growing up so fast. It is weird to have a 3 year old that is the baby, see with all the other times one of my children turned 3 we had a new baby, usually less than 2 months old. Just how the spacing happened. Not such much right now. I know we have more babies to be had, just not quite yet. Here's a little recap of Elle's first 3 years of life. Elle was born on July 16, 2007 within a week of her being born we were closing on our first house. A house that as I am sure many of you remember needed a lot of work. We spent the first 3 months of her life gutting the house and getting ready to move in to it. Finally right before her 3rd month we moved into the Roy house. I thought life was getting settled only to have Tom come home in early December asking me if I wanted to move to Denver. Sure why not, so we placed the house on the market, miraculously sold it and moved to Denver right before Elle's first birthday. We spent the next year and a half slowly adjusting to life outside of Utah and managed to move from one place to another. Once again just 2 months into a house in Denver (luckily we were renting) Tom came home and asked if I wanted to move to Texas. Why not? So now here we are 3 years and 3 states and 5 different homes later. We are happy but I must say a little tired. I have learned to not expect life to settle down but I am pretty content with us just "being" for a while. Elle is just about the funniest little girl you would ever be blessed to meet. She has her daddies sense of humor and has for a long time. What other 4 month old laughs at her own farts? Really? She is obsessed with babies especially Candi's newest addition baby Zack and keeps asking if someday we can get a new baby like that. She is already writing her own name and loves coloring. She has mad skills on her new bike that she got for her birthday. Seriously, she's crazy good. I remember buying Brookie a 3 wheeled scooter for her 3rd birthday and thinking that she was probably too little for it. Not Elle, she is always trying to keep up with Riley and Brookie and usually succeeds. We went to Rain forest Cafe for her birthday and she had a blast. I didn't even bake a cake since we were able to convince her that a "Brownie Ice cream Volcano" was way cooler than a homemade spongebob cake. We then opened presents with cousins (via web-cam) and on Saturday went to a concert in the park. It was a fun birthday, but we definitely missed having family and friends to share it with. I am so grateful to get to be this little girls mommy and hope that she knows how glad we are that we have gotten to spend the last 3 years, no matter how crazy, with her.

Hey, hey, hey...

Well we are surviving with Tom being gone. It is amazing how slow the days go when you don't have a daddy that is going to come home. Any noise that Elle hears she assumes is the garage door, to which she screams, "Daddy's home!!!". Yeah a lot of disappointment is going around my house. The kids played outside in the swimming pool today and it was so nice to just sit and read my book. The fun was short lived though because Brooke has a mosquito bite on her calf/ankle (cankle?). Now a mosquito bite is not really anything to shake a stick at in the usual sense but Brooke and I have seem to become allergic to them and so they turn into a very sore blister. Brookes are way worse than mine and she has a nice blister right now. She ended up in bed with me the past couple of nights because it hurt so bad. I don't know what to do with it, so we cover it with a band-aid and hope it will get better. Poor girl! We struggle to find things to do with ourselves to past the time, this includes trips to the library, the park were the kids feed ducks and actually have better luck feeding the fish, and the ever popular watching of movies. We stumbled across a gem that was lost in the Lillywhite vaults. Fat Albert, the movie....yep live action baby. I think I bought it out of a $3 used movie bin, we had actually never watched it before and I though it would be a good deal. So the kids found it Sunday and we have watched it, several times. This is high quality entertainment people. It is so funny the things your kids like. Now Elle is walking around saying, "Hey, hey, hey!". Yep that's how we roll around here!

I love a rainy day.....

I don't think we are going to the park.

The game of Life

Well here we are in Texas. We are getting more and more settled everyday and are slowly adjusting to the heat and humidity. We happened to move here during record breaking heat and I guess it was a good way to jump right in. The weather this past week has actually been really pleasant minus the humidity. The kids and I spend a lot of time inside as it is usually too hot to spend more than 15-20 minutes outside at a time. Bed times are all but lost around here as we usually go outside around 8:00pm when it has finally cooled down enough. Yep 2 posts in the past year and I am writing about the weather. It has been hard moving to a new area yet again, This was our 11th move in 10 years and it is almost getting harder with each time. Hopefully we will be here for a little longer than previous times. The kids are adjusting to the move good but miss their cousins. We have all had out bouts of homesickness. We especially wish we were going home for the Lillywhite reunion, and Candi's new baby Zacks baby blessing. A lot of tears have been shed and most of them have been mine. If I have learned anything through all these moves is how important family is and how you all should take advantage of living so close to one and other. The 4th of July just isn't the same with no extended friends and family to share it with. Wow, I sound whiny!!! Life really has been good and I have enjoyed getting to stay home with the babies all day. Riley is still just a good big brother who usually plays awesome with his sisters. I had been getting on him about waking up early and then sneaking into Brookes room to wake her up. Brooke is my girl that needs her sleep and if she doesn't get enough she is all drama all day. (In fact she is crying right now about Riley not wanting to play "puppy" with her, yeah drama) Well yesterday I found a note that said "Brooke, Come and play with me. Love, Riley". I asked Brooke what it was and she said Riley had put it in her room in the morning while she was sleeping but she didn't wake up. I just had to laugh, I guess there are worse things than a big brother wanting to play with his little sister. Elle is a character and a half. She makes me belly laugh at least once a day and makes me want to lock myself in the closet at least once a day. She is the funniest little girl, I need to post a video of her. Anyways hopefully I will be more current with my blog postings and post some stuff on our awesome vacation. Oh the creepy cruiser, super sunsoaker and all the other characters. Such a good time. Anyhow until then....

Howdy....

Almost a year and just now I am posting, our life here in Denver is just crazy crazy. Luckily for me that will all be changing, our life will no longer be so busy in Denver, it will now be busy in Dallas. Yep, we are moving.....again. It's just the way our life is going right now. We get settled in a house (luckily we are renting) and Tom gets promoted and transferred. There are definitely worse things and we are actually quite looking forward to the move. I mean who wouldn't want to move somewhere were you can wear extremely tight fitting wranglers and sequined vests. Bring it!!! Tom is now a Regional HR Manager for Saia motorfrieght. I can not tell you all how proud of him I am. We were talking about how he just started at Saia almost exactly 3 years ago as a Dock Supervisor, and here we are nearly 3 years later with the position of Regional HR Manager. I am filled with such gratitude to our Heavenly Father and his blessings he pours on us. God is so mindful of us all and what we need. Anyways we are actually leaving on a 7 night Cruise to the Mexican Riviera for our 10 year anniversary. We are going with Eli and Asia, and Chris and Krystal. It is going to be so much and so needed. I am looking forward to reconnect with my cute redhead hubby! Life is good and I will try and post when we get back!!!!

Growing up...

So it has been forever since I did a "real" post so many things have been going on that I seem to get overwhelmed and think, "I can't post until I get caught up". Well I am going to post anyway. The kids continue to grow and it makes me sad to look at the pictures from last year to now and see how much they have changed. Riley's last day of school was on Thursday. He had grown and changed so much this last year. He reads so well and we were so lucky to have him in such a good school. I am so excited to get to have all my little ones home with me for the summer. The house just feels better when everyone is home. Another big development is Elle and her growing interest with the potty. Last Friday I ran to target and they had the cutest potty chair. It was only $12 and I figured we would give it a go. She had tried sitting on the toilet but always hopped off as fast as she sat down. I brought it home and figured it would just be a toy for a while as I didn't really think she was ready to start potty training. Well she dragged it into the bathroom and started stripping down. Sure enough she peed in it. I couldn't stop laughing, here is my 22 month old baby using a potty chair.



I thought it might be a fluke thing but she consistently uses is 2-4 times a day. I am not really pushing the full potty training yet, I am letting her set the pace. She is dry in the morning when she wakes up so we take her then and she is like "Speedy Gonzalez". Such a funny girl and just shows me how fast she is growing up. Brooke is her same cute self and just a busy body.



We are looking forward to a fun summer spent in the pool working on our tans. Work for me has finally slowed down and I will finally have a set in stone schedule that will start in July. I will work Wed and Thurs nights and that is it!!! It really hasn't been that bad as of lately but the days have been flip flopping around a lot which makes it hard to plan stuff on the weekends. But we have been blessed to only need a babysitter for about 5 hours once a week as it is so that makes it easier. In fact this morning my kids were devastated to wake up and see me here instead of the babysitter as they think she is more fun. (Some days I would have to agree). So the real true benefit of the new schedule will be that I will only need a babysitter for 1 morning and then I will have 5 days off and no weekends. Yipee!! Well I will try and write more often and keep up on this beast of a blog. I need to blog about all of our fun little vacations and Tom's graduation. Maybe tomorrow. Adios...

9

9. Nine moves....literally.
8. Eight Semesters of School.
7. Seven Sleepless years.
6. Six different cars (Mazda, Altima, Dodge Pickup, Blazer, Chevy Truck, and Minivan)
5. Five awesome Vacations (Orlando, NY, Hawaii, California, Yellowstone)
4. Four different jobs.
3. Three Beautiful Babies.
2. "Too" many kisses to count.
1. One very lucky girl.

Happy Anniversary Babe. I love you more than anything this world can offer.

Yummy....

So I have been fighting a nasty cold for a week now. Last night I finally decided to go to the Dr. and see what the deal was. It turns out I have "Walking Pneumonia".....yummy huh? I was able to get some antibiotics and some awesome narcotic cough syrup (what's not to love about that?. Needless to say, My house is a mess, my kids are a mess, and I am a mess. Once again I give praise to whomever invented Redbox, as "Bolt" has been a lifesaver over the past week. I'm off to order some pizza for dinner, and get in a hot bath, I don't think Tom has ever found me more attractive than I am now in my hacking, runny nose, pajama wearing hotness. Oh the joy!!!

Silly babies....

So today is another day spent in our pj's we watched "Over the hedge" and had a delicious lunch of peanut butter sandwiches. I was looking over some pictures that are overflowing on our SD cards and came across this video. I had to laugh out loud. This was last Sunday night while I was at work. I guess Tom decided to have a band with the kids. I like to think Brookie got her awesome air guitar skills from me. Tom is better at remembering to just "play" with the babies than I am. What a good daddy Tom is, I'm one lucky girl...

Momma snow day!

So we are having a blizzard here today and tomorrow...literally just watch the news. It is snowing so much that I was sent home from work today and told not to come in tomorrow! Yipee!!! I came home and took the kids with me to run the babysitter home, after we got back inside we were all soaking wet due to the snow and the fact that our apartments refuse to shovel the sidewalks....ever. So I made an executive decision to get back in my pj's to which all of the children followed suit. We have spent the hole day curled up on the couch in our pj's watching movie after movie and just enjoying being lazy. My kitchen is ferocious, but I really don't care. For breakfast we had homemade cinnamon rolls (it was also lunch for me) and I am making french dip sandwiches for dinner, followed with chocolate ice cream for dessert. All in all a nearly perfect day.

Riley

I had Riley's parent teacher conference on Monday night. It went great, it is so nice to go and have someone other than family tell you how awesome your baby is. Riley is doing really well in school and he is one of the best students she said she has. The teacher said he is the "sweetest boy" and "just so kind", and "so helpful" and the teachers "favorite student". Now mind you they could just be stroking my ego but I know Riley and they are all true. He is the only student in his class that has not had to “flip” a card for the whole year. It was so nice to hear that they think he is wonderful and gave me a little mommy pat on the back that though I make huge mistakes when it comes to raising him he is turning out to be an awesome little man. I was so proud of him, that I brought him home a dozen Krispy Kream donuts as a reward (for him and me). He was one happy little boy. I usually write the kids a note on the days when I am going to work, as I leave before them. Well last Thursday I didn’t have to work and this is what I woke up too, I mean honestly isn’t that the cutest thing ever? Way to go Riley, We love you!!!

TITLE: "This is not what I signed up for!!!"...or..."Somebody shoot me now!!"....

OK so it really isn't that dire but I have never remembered being quite so busy in my life. As many of you already know I got a PRN (on call) job at a local hospital. I actually really enjoy what I do and the pay is great. Now when I was hired on I wanted to be a "team player" and really help out, so they needed someone to cover on of the other girls maternity leaves. I figure OK, this could be crazy but it is only a couple days a week and the extra money will be nice. Well I have for the last month been working on average 46 a week. This has been so crazy, and stressful. As you can imagine this has left little time for housework, church callings or let alone all my girlfriends that I am missing terribly. I usually have Monday and Friday off and think OK I am going to catch up with everyone and everything but when it comes down to it, I end up spending the day cuddling with my kids and maybe doing some laundry. You should see the pile of laundry on my couch it would make blood shoot out of your eyes (Glenn Beck anyone?). Needless to say I know I have not be the best Mommy, Sister, Wife or Friend lately and I hope you can all forgive the lack of posts. Luckily I only have about 3-4 more weeks of pure terror and then things should slow down. I am looking at switching to a part time weekend position that would leave me home with the babies all week long. So that would be great. I miss them so much when I am gone at work and hate the thought that someone else is spending more time with them than I am but luckily it is only for a little longer. So sorry for the lack of posts, phone calls, emails and blog comments. I am still around and keeping track of all of you and soon enough it will all quiet down.......right? I am off to take a hot bath, cuddle with my babies, and hopefully get to bed before 11:30pm. Adios....
P.S. Angie, I am so glad you found my blog, shoot me an email @ Tom_Dani_Lillywhite@hotmail.com so we can catch up.

Hello again....

Wow, how fast time flies by with all the holidays and other busyness. We had a great Thanksgiving here in Colorado. It was so nice to be on our own time schedule with the meal and all but it was also soooooo quiet. We were able to go home the next weekend for Josh and Steffany's wedding and it was so nice to have everyone together. It was the 1st time in several years that all 8 of the siblings were together and it was a super fast trip but filled up my soul for at least a couple of weeks. Tom and I decided that he would take off the day after new years and we would head out to Utah for the New Year. Christmas was memorable. We had Papa Murphys for dinner on Christmas Eve and had a great Christmas day. We took the kids to see "The Tale Of Despereaux." Its a cute movie and movie popcorn and Christmas just go together. It was a fun day though we missed our families horribly. Luckily we knew we were going "home" in less than a week and that gave us something to look forward too. We left Wednesday night for Utah and Elle as usual got diarrhea about 1 1/2 into the drive. In Aspen Colorado we pulled over for the second time to change her and Tom ran into a grocery store to get some "bum cream". I started changing her not realizing what exactly I was getting into. Brooke started dry heaving.....literally, and I got poo all over myself. My hands and all of my left thigh were covered in a horrible stinky mess. Elle was also covered and at this point screaming at me. Tom came back around this time and after a change of clothes for both Elle and I. We made it to Frank and Amy's house in Payson around 1:30am. Tom and I shared a new years kiss in the car though it was less than romantic considering he was chowing down on some dill pickle sunflower seeds....blech! Frank and Amy were sweet enough to let us camp out at their house and we were able to spend sometime with them the next day. In fact Brooke and Ava got their picture taken at kiddie kandids for free and were soooo excited.
Brooke is still talking about "her" Ava. That evening we went to my parents house for a "New Years" party and got our "karaoke" on.Wow, Tom was never so excited to be married to me for all eternity...but it was fun and I think we all had a good laugh. The next day (Friday) we all just kind of hung out and played some games, then we went on a couples date to Tepanyaki and I had my first sushi. I ate part of a cucumber roll, it had eel, and had fish eggs in it. All night I just kept envisioning baby fish in my tummy. Riley almost died when I told him about it. After dinner we all went to watch Valkyrie. I actually really liked it though as a mom it made me worry about what my kids might see and have to experience in their lives. The next day was Saturday and we went sledding and then had dinner at Jed and Suzanne's. It was so fun to see everyone but as usual went by much to fast. I had wanted to see Krystal and her cute little baby girl, but we just ran out of time. Luckily we did run into Chris and Luke (he is getting sooo big) sledding so that was nice. Any how we are back and you all can expect posts on a nearly daily basis.

Happy Birthday Riley.....

Ok, so we are back, kind of. We still haven't gotten our internet set back up and so that explains the lapse of almost 2 months without a post. We should be getting the internet in the next week or so so things should move along then. Lots of things have happened in the past 2 months. I ended up going home with Tom to pick up the truck and had a nice visit. We were also able to go up to Laketown for Tom's mom's surprise birthday party. It was so nice to see everyone. Well today Riley turned 7. That seems so "big" to me. Tom and I were reminessing last night about the past 7 years and how things have turned out. They are quite different than what we thought it would be but still soooo good. Riley has lost his 2 front teeth this week and looks like a late jack-o-lantern. I am so glad Riley is in our family he is the best big brother and always so helpful. One day he will make a very good husband for someone. We love him so much! We are having a little party tonight with our neighbors and then on Saturday we are going to do something fun. Until next time....

Goodbye old friend....

So life has been crazy as usual but I am learning that will probably never change so we are just rolling with it, or trying too. As many of you know we had tried to sell the Blazer several years ago to no avail. We had it listed on KSL for months and barely even a call. We since we have moved out here Chris has been "babysitting" our truck and trying to sell it. No bites...suprise, suprise...who wouldn't want a 3/4 ton gas guzzler in this economy. Well after several discussions we decided that we would keep the truck, and sell the blazer. That way Tom gets his manly vehicle that can haul stuff and we can downsize to 2 vehicles...what a concept. We decided we should probably list it soon so that we could hopefully have it sold by the time we went home for the holidays. Tom spent all Saturday morning getting it ready and then on the way to see Brookies movie (Igor...stupid, but were we really expecting anything more?) we dropped it off. We dropped it off about 1:00pm and didn't really think much more about it. Well that night I took Brookie with me on a long Walmart trip to pick out a toy with her birthday money. I took Tom's phone with me but conviently left it in the car...nice but typical right? Well after 1 1/2 hours we pulled up home and Tom called me. I told him I was outside and to come and help me get the groceries. Well the problem was Tom wasn't home, he had to take the kids over to our friends, and luckily neighbors, house and go meet someone about the blazer. OOPS!! Luckily the kids were good, and Tom sold the blazer. The problem now is that we are down to one vehicle so Tom is going to make a trip "Home" sometime in the next 2 weeks to pick up the truck. So we had to say goodbye to our little blazer, we got it when Riley was a baby and it had a good run minus the transmission issue while on vacation in California. It will be missed, Riley was actually kind of sad that we were selling it. Oh, and Brookie wanted me to tell Jennie, and Cassie, and Erik that she used her birthday money to get the Mommy and Baby doggy with the carrier from Costco...she loves it and it has red hair like her daddy. Thanks again.