All sorts of things...

I have horrible at this whole blog thing. Regardless of my lack of ambition to write everything down here is an update of what's been going on.

I started school shopping in May. There were clothes sales going on and I took advantage. It's nice not to worry about it. Or rather one less thing to worry about.

The 4th of July was interesting this year. Some of the neighborhood kids decided to be reckless. At first it wasn't an issue but they got closer and closer to us and a few misfired and hit my house. I didn't want to make a big deal about it but one thing led to another and there was almost a fight. The one punk kid that was the oldest and should have been more responsible immediately backed off as soon as Matt got in his face. After that everything calmed down, everyone left and we went to bed. We found out the next day that someone broke into Jay's car and stole his knives for school. I'm not saying it was those kids but if it happened here at the house then they would be the ones I'm pointing my finger at. We don't know for sure though.

August was a fun filled month. Soccer started, school started, and it was my birthday.

This year Kylie got to start soccer too. She was really nervous at first but she got the hang out it. I've noticed she plays better when I tell her she's doing good. Don't worry Kylie, you definitely have my approval. =)

School has been good so far. Kenzi started Kindergarten and is loving it. She has been way ahead of her class but she's not paying any mind to that since she's just happy to be in school. I haven't decided anything about her teacher yet. Kylie's teacher I absolutely love! She's so nice and has nothing but good things to say about Kylie. Natalie's teacher is good too. She treats them like they are in 4th grade like they should be not like they are in Kindergarten.

I finally got my dad out to get my sprinkler system installed. We even got plants and planted them. It only took a few days!! We did good. I will post pictures of them later.

Learning how to breath again...

These last 6 months have been hectic. Especially for my family. Back in October my Grandpa Zobrist died. My whole world was destroyed. I had to think to myself that he was with his wife and that's where's he's been wanting to be for the last 12 years. He's pain free and I am grateful for that. I do miss him terribly though. Just as I was coming to terms that he was gone, my Grandma Walker passed away last month. Again, my world was destroyed. I am beginning to come to terms with it but every so often (more often than not) I break down crying. I have a sneaky way of doing it though so nobody knows I'm hurting. I either claim I need to take a shower or wait until I'm laying in bed really late at night. I will dedicate a post just for my grandma but I'm not quite there yet.

Anyway, on to other things. Natalie started soccer again. She's been loving it. I have to since I now have the other mom's to talk to. It's been so wonderful for me to have some outside connections. It's been nice.

My mom got me this amazing clock! I'm so excited to hang it up. I haven't decided how I wanted to hang it yet.
Pretty sweet right? I need to get other picture frames to put on the top and bottom so it will really look like a watch. When I get it up and done I'll take another picture of it. (Of course!)

Pictures...

As promised, I've put pictures of the events I had mentioned in my previous post. They may not be in the correct order of things but I put the highlights of each event.


Thanksgiving

Watching a movie with Grandpa while waiting for dinner to be done.Sherman, Connie, and Grandma Haynes

Audrey, Ashley, Natalie and Kenzi waiting for the food to be passed around.

Eve's Birthday

Opening presents. Reed was more excited about the presents than Eve was.

Eating cake

Christmas

Opening Presents
Drinking Hot Chocolate

All the grandkids in their Christmas Jammies
Acting out the nativity

New Year's Eve

Matt screaming to the world 'HAPPY NEW YEAR!'
All of us up on the roof

Carter Boy's Birthday

Bounce house fun

Cute Carter boy
My favorite picture of Carter and Tif
Opening presents

Vance's Birthday

Waiting for the candles to be lit
Cute Birthday Boy

Very excited about the new toy gun he got

Kenzi's Birthday

Helping me make her cake
Opening Presents
Blowing out the candles

It certainly has been a while...

I know I've been slacking in my blogging. I really don't have a good excuse either. So we'll start from Thanksgiving.

For Thanksgiving we went to my in laws. Matt's family, minus Doug and June, all came out to Vegas for all sorts of fun. We went out Thursday to have Thanksgiving dinner around 3pm. Great food, great company, and lots of play time. Can life be better? I submit that it can NOT! Friday we went out to Springs Preserve to have family play time and get family pictures taken. Thanks Christy for doing that for us! We had lots of fun at the Preserve.

Christmas is next. Tyson and Janae came out from DC to spend it with us. We had a blast while they were here. We played games, jumped in the bounce house, celebrated Eve's birthday, and even had time to have Christmas. It was an enjoyable one. Lots of cool stuff. Our big present for the girls this year was a Kinect for the Xbox. It's been so much fun. My parents got us a new kitchen table. I absolutely love it!!! Matt's parents got us a fire pit. It's been so much fun going outside and being around a fire. It's so relaxing. The girls had a lot of fun I hope.

New Years Eve was pretty fun too. We went up on the roof to watch the fireworks on the strip. It was pretty good this year. We had a bunch of friends over just to hang out and play.

Carter's birthday was some great fun. We jumped in the bounce house, had cake and ice cream and opened presents. What kid wouldn't love that?

Vance's birthday was some great fun too. We went over to Kimber's house in the morning to play in the bounce house and my mom brought us lunch. That night we had the family over for presents, cake and ice cream. Vance had so much fun!

Kenzi's birthday was great fun as well. While Natalie and Kylie were at school, I let Kenzi do whatever she wanted. Anything she wanted to do she did. I asked her what she wanted to do and she only said, "Play a game and on the computer without asking?" I love my child. That night after dinner we had the family come over for cake, ice cream and presents. She got spoiled. We got her a bike and Tif got her skates! She's been having a blast with both.

That's really all the goings on around here. I will post pictures of each event when I get on my computer with the pictures.

Updates...

These past couple of months have been really hard on me. First my grandpa dies, then my best friends grandpa dies, and then Bailey's great grandma dies.

When I went to my grandpa's viewing I was trying so hard to be strong. Not just for myself but for my mom too. It's been hard for me. It was hard for me when my grandma died and its hard this time with my grandpa.

My family knows I have a tattoo on my leg but I don't know if they know why I got it. No, I didn't get it because I wanted to be rebellious. I got it because I was having such a hard time with grandma dying. After 8 years with her gone it was too hard for me. So my way of dealing with the pain was getting a tattoo. It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to get. But after get it I felt so much better. I felt like she was telling me that it was alright. I felt some kind of closure. As weird as it sounds I felt better.

I wanted so bad to go up to Delta, UT for Lindsay's grandpa's funeral but other events were planned and I wouldn't have been back to take my girls to school. And I really would rather not drive by myself.

Bailey's great grandma's funeral is tomorrow and the only reason I am going is to be there for Bailey. She has been through enough heartache that I just need to be there for her. To show her that I will be there for her no matter what the situation. Yes, I know I'm not her biological mother but I need to be there for her.

On the up side, Natalie won her soccer game on Saturday. She is now playing in the championship game this coming Saturday. I don't know what time but it is at Desert Breeze Park. She has done so good this year we signed her up for next year. She seems to love it a lot. I hope this new found love of soccer lasts til at least high school.

Kylie is doing really good in school. She was having some problems with writing but I've worked with her at home and she's starting to write clearer. Now we need to teach her that not ever work is capitalized. She loves to read. I'm so happy for that. I have to fight with Natalie almost every night just to get her to read. We haven't quite found what Kylie really loves to do. Perhaps I should take her to gymnastics. That could be really fun for her.

Kenzi is so excited to start school next fall. Almost every morning she has asked me if Kylie is in second grade yet. She knows that when Kylie is in second grade than she'll be in Kindergarten. Ever since Natalie started school we've worked with Kylie and Kenzi with their letters and numbers. And when Kylie went to school I got to work more with Kenzi. She knows all her letters and sounds. She knows how to write them all. She knows how to write her name. She knows how to write her numbers and recognizes them. She is reading some of the Dr. Suess books. She is a really smart girl. Maybe too smart for her own good. She did tell me that she wanted to play soccer when she got in school. I'm not sure how well that will work out though. Especially if she gets hurt. We shall see when she actually starts school.

We've had some hard times lately but have gotten through them. Some faster than others but we get by. I'm still working on it. Thanks to my family for all the love and support. It really means a lot. I'm always here for you guys too.

Thinking...

I've been thinking a lot about my grandpa lately and one of the major things I'm going to miss is whenever he came over to visit, I'd open my arms and yell, "GRANDPA!!!" I got so excited everytime he'd come over. I'm going to miss that so much. I'm going to miss that whenever he saw me he'd ask, "How do you get so pretty?" or "You get prettier every time I see you." I'm going to miss how happy he was to see me. He was always so proud of me, no matter what I had done wrong. He always made me feel proud.

I am proud. I am so proud to be his granddaughter. I couldn't have asked for a better grandpa. He was one of a kind.

Grandpa, I am going to miss you so much. I wish I could have seen you one last time. But I know how much pain you were in. Every time I saw you, I saw and thought of grandma. I know how much you miss her and love her. But I know that you are with her again. That thought makes me so happy. She probably looks so beautiful and it must be amazing to be able to see her again. I know you are happy and are no longer in pain. I love you so much Grandpa and Grandma!

Grandpa Zobrist

I've been trying to come up with the perfect blog for my grandpa and I can't seem to put anything into words. I feel like I do need to talk about it though. So, I'll start from the beginning...

Last Tuesday I felt really sick all day and didn't really want to do anything. So being a lazy day as it was, I didn't do anything except cook dinner.

Wednesday started out normal. I still didn't feel all that well, so I took my girls to school and when we came back I laid down in bed and asked Kenzi if she was going to be ok if I slept a little longer since I didn't feel very good. She asked if I was ok and I told her I felt like puking so my good little girl got me a trash can and put it by the bed. She said, "Just in case Mom." Thanks Kenzi, I've taught you well. So she decided to put on a movie and let me sleep a little longer. I got up probably around 10 or 11, just before lunch. Of course still feeling really sick. I came and sat at the computer and checked emails and facebook and stuff like that. Then I got a call from my sister. She said that grandpa just died. I had no idea what to say. She said he went into the hospital Tuesday and the doctors ran some tests and thought they found pneumonia in his lungs. But also said everything would be fine and he'd recover. Wednesday morning he just died. All of a sudden was gone. After I had gotten off the phone with my sister I called Matt to let him know. He was working at the time with someone so he couldn't really talk but he said he'd talk to me when he got home.

When my grandma died, I was 12 maybe 13 so I didn't quite get the concept of death yet. (At least didn't want to accept it) I didn't cry right away and I didn't really understand yet. I kept thinking about it and just saying to myself, "I won't be able to see her again." It was really hard to accept for me. At her viewing, I went into the building and sat down on the couch. I didn't want to see her. I was too scared that reality would hit me all at once and I wouldn't be able to handle it. Finally my Uncle David sat with me and convinced me to go see her. Just like I was afraid, reality hit me. It hit me HARD! It was weird seeing her how she was. It somehow didn't feel like it was her anymore.

Anyway, back to grandpa. Thursday through Sunday afternoon was just a waiting game. I didn't know where or when the funeral was and we couldn't find my Uncle David or couldn't get a hold of him. So then Saturday night my mom calls and lets me know when the funeral and everything was going to be. Sunday night was the viewing and then Monday was the funeral.

Sunday night when I arrived, I was almost tempted to do the same thing at my grandma's viewing and just sit on the couch. I couldn't do that. Not this time. I walked with my mom inside and there he was. Grandpa was there up front looking so peaceful. He looked so good. But just like my grandma, you could tell it was just his body there. An empty shell. But I knew, from the moment I saw him laying there, I knew he was home with my grandma. After 12 long, painful years he was were he needed and wanted to be.

Monday was just as hard. Some of the most amazing people in my grandpa's life spoke and said nothing but great things about him. There really was nothing bad to say about my grandpa. He was such an amazing person. After that we went to the grave site and buried him right next to grandma. We stayed until they had lowered him into the ground.

The day I heard he had died I was sad but also happy since I knew he was with grandma. He wasn't in any pain anymore and he is happy. He will always watch over me just like I know my grandma has been. I know I can be happy now since both of them are together again. But I will miss them both so much.

I love you Grandma and Grandpa!

It's an old picture but I don't have an recent pictures of them. So this one will have to do until I get some from my mom.