Aren't My Girls the Cutest

I know I'm biased, but I don't think anyone can get cuter.

In a nutshell, since the last time I've posted, Allie has turned 5, Jessica started nursery, and we are getting ready to move, again. Long story. So, here are pics of my girls because they are so cute. The first one is from Easter. My sister-in-law and I got together and made matching dresses for all the girl cousins so not only did Allie and Jess match, but so did their 4 cousins in Oregon and one here in Arizona. It was so much fun. We had extra material so we made skirts for ourselves. I think they turned out so cute.

I know, I know....

It's been forever since my last post. In my defense, it was probably some of the hardest 9 months we have had. So much has gone on. Since my last post we have moved, started a new job, and are now on our road to recovery. For those who do not know our story for the last 3 years, we have struggled with being laid off, losing our home, having to move away from family, friends, and a ward that we really loved, and struggling to make it out of the hole that we have been put in due to trials in life. It hasn't been a fun journey, but if I had to do it all over again I would because our family has grown closer, we have relied on the Lord for everything, and have really become stronger and better capable of handling situations that come because of life. So, with sorrow there is always good, and we are on our way to the good. Just this week Rich has FINALLY landed a job, and while it isn't quite the pay we would like, it has great potential and is right up his alley. If things go well, the pay could get to where we want really soon. Right now the company is starting up and acquiring work so we are having to do more waiting, which we are used to by now. We are just glad that he has found something and that the potential is there and with hard work he can make a name for himself, which he is already doing. Another good thing stemming from this job is that his parents are going to moving to Arizona and we are going to find a rental home together (Sun Valley Ward members, be on the lookout because that is our top choice for preferred areas). His dad is going to get his contractors license and his mom is going to watch the girls while we all work toward being debt free. It will be a hard journey but well worth it.





Anyways, enough about the boring things of life, it's a lot more fun to talk about the girls. Allie turned 4 in March and is going on 15. She has quite the attitude but is really sweet and has the abililty to always make us laugh or smile. During these last 9 months she has prayed every day that her daddy would get a job. The day he found out he got the job in her prayer she thanked Heavenly Father for blessing her daddy with a job and to bless us that we will be able to find a house with stairs next to the Moss' (that's right, she hasn't forgotten you). She tells her primary teacher every Sunday about her "plan". He had me wait outside the room while she told it to him. In her words, 1st daddy has to get a job, grandma and grandpa have to move down, then we move next to the Moss', Jessica has to turn 1, and then mommy will have 2 baby boys. Everyone keeps telling me to watch out for the last because she may be seeing something that I can't. Oh boy! Needless to say, Allie is such a joy and has a sweet testimony already. I hope she will always be able to be that strong. Here is the most recent picture I have that isn't on a camera or phone (I'm really bad at that).

Now on to Jessica. All I have to say is "What a Mess!" She is my little mover. From the first time I took her to the pediatrician when she was born he said she would always be petite in weight because she moved so much. That was at 2 weeks. Now she is almost 10 months and is in to everything. She never crawled on all fours. She tried twice and face planted it on the tile so now she scoots. She uses her right hand and her left foot to scoot across the floor, and don't underestimate her speed. You look away for a second and she will be in the other room. It's amazing how fast she can move. Here is a video. I hope it works.

She won't be doing it for too much longer. A week shy of turning 9 months she decided she wanted to walk so now she walks. She will crawl if she falls down but is working on trying to stand up without assistance. I know the minute she figures it out I will no longer have to worry about how fast she can scoot but how fast she can run.

Anyways, that's been our life. I hope to be able to update this more frequently, but I always say that and then a year passes.

Allie's First Field Trip

My Secretary in Primary decided to start a Preschool out of her home so we enrolled Allie in it for the school year. She loves going to Preschool and LOVES Mrs. Moss. Last Thursday they went on a field trip to a farm in Glendale. Allie had so much fun. She especially enjoyed having her Daddy go with her. Here are a few pictures from her trip. In the picture above she is playing in a corn box with her friend Abby.



Eating Lunch










Riding the train






These are all of the kids that attended.

It was cute. The farmer told them all about different fruits and vegetables and he even let them pick some and bring them home. Even Rich learned something on the field trip. He's been testing me all week on what is a fruit and what is a vegetable. Did you know that a banana is an herb? You learn something new every day.

2 weeks.....or a month

Wow! It's been quite the week and half. It has felt like an entire month. As you have seen posted, our little Jessica Gale arrived on Sunday. Thank you Stacy for taking pictures and updating the blog while we were in the hospital so everyone could see our beautiful little girl. As you will find out after this post, she waited until everything was right for her to come. Lets start at the beginning. Last Monday, I woke up to a phone call from my dad. I knew something wasn't right. He said that my mom had been in a car accident and thinks she broke her ankle. The next call was from my mom saying "Don't have that baby today!" Sure enough, she rear ended someone and was pushing hard on the brakes trying to stop and the impact broke the distal part of her fibula. No surgery, but she is down for 6 weeks. So, last week Richie, Allie, and I stayed with her since my dad was out of town. I'm grateful to have a job where I can work from home if something like this arises, and to have an understanding boss that knows that things like this happen and will let you. So, we finally went home and slept in our home on Friday. Saturday we moved Richie's brother to his new apartment. It was bitter sweet. It's nice to have our room back so we can make it into what we need it for, but now he is so far away and things are quiet around here. We love you Randy and miss you. Anyways, after moving we came home and watched the ASU football game. Great game, sad to see us lose, but when you're favored to lose by 2 or 3 touchdowns and the game is won in the last 2 seconds of the ballgame by a field goal against and SEC team, you can't complain. It was a great game to watch and we are proud of our sun devils. Anyways, that night as we got in to bed, I started having contractions. I wanted to be absolutely sure that this was it so I laid in bed timing them and trying to sleep. Well, at around 2:30, I decided to wake Rich up so he could time them. I haven't slept and they were pretty regular. At 4:00 I told Richie to grab our stuff. We got to the hospital at 5:40 (yes, it took us over an hour to get there because it is the furthest hospital from our house. That's where my doctor is). They checked me when I got in and watched me for an hour. My contractions were every 3 minutes and I was dilated to a one. The nurse was going to send us home because she said it didn't feel like labor. Then Rich said we live over an hour away so she called the doctor on call and he decided to admit us. Good thing because by the time I got admitted and they checked me I was at a 3. At around 11:00 I was at a four and they decided to put me on pitocin because my contractions were about every 3 to every 5 minutes. They started the pitocin and they went to every minute and a half. At around 1:30 I asked for an epidural. At 6:30 I was fully dilated so they called the doctor. My doctor was sick so the on call doc had to deliver. They got me all prepped and when he arrived he broke my water (yes my water had never broke). 2 contractions later our little Jessica was here. A side note that is funny, she came right during half time of the Cardinals football game. So, she waited until my mom was able to be there, she waited so we could help Uncle Randy move, and she even waited until half time of the football game. These last two weeks have felt like a month. I only stayed in the hospital for 24 hours and they let me go. We wanted to leave soon because Allie wasn't allowed to be in the hospital so she hadn't seen her sister yet. She was so excited ot see her and is going to be a great big sister. We are all doing well and enjoying being together as a family. Anyways, I will stop blabbing and get to what everyone wants to see. Here are pictures from the last 3 days here at home. 'Til next time.

beautiful baby

if you can't see, it says:
Jessica Gale
September 27th, 2009
7:09 pm
7lbs 5.1oz
20.5in long

more to come when the sisters meet

34 weeks and Cankles

Well, I am almost 34 weeks. I will officially be 34 weeks on Sunday. I had a Dr. Appointment this week and will have them every week from now on. My Dr., in a nutshell, said that this is it and what happens, happens. So, this is what I look like at 34 weeks. Ignore the face. I look like I got ran over. That's not the case though. I just got home from work.

And what comes along with being 34 weeks? Well, for me it's been since about 24 weeks. But that's right. CANKLES! I actually think they look better on camera. Some days are better than others, but now I can feel when I start to swell. Today was a doozy. This is what my ankles look like after I get home. I think it's a bath night tonight.

I know....I know....

I am probably the worst blogger in the world. So much has gone on, and I haven't posted anything about them. I kept telling myself that I need to sit down and catch up on everything. Then, as I begin to think about all the pictures I have to gather, and what I would have to write I would be lose motivation to do it. So, I decided that I am going to just give a brief synopsis of what has gone on, and then talk about now. Since February, we have gone to Disneyland, Allie loved the princesses, Allie turned 3, we celebrated our 5th Anniversay, it feels like our 10th, and we have found out the sex of our baby. Oh yeah, if you aren't in contact with any part of our grapevine we are having a baby and are due October 4th. I don't think I will make it to October. She is sitting low and keeps dropping. I was contracting regularly for when I went to my last visit and my doctor did a check but everything was shut and normal so I'm not in premature labor yet. So everyone knows, we are going to name her Jessica Gale. Gale is my middle name, and my mom's middle name. I am also the 2nd daughter and Jessica is our 2nd daughter so we thought it would fit to give her the middle name of Gale. We can't wait until her arrival. I have so much to do before then and I'm kind of stressing because I can't do certain things until other things take place, and who knows if they will EVER take place, but I figure all will be well no matter what. So, now you are pretty much caught up. I do know that those who live on the other side of town, or are out of state, would like to see how I'm growing with this one so I will attach a picture. This is me at 29 weeks. 'Til next time!

Loooooong Post

Okay, I have had enough people say that I haven't posted anything in months, so I have decided to sit down and actually update everyone on the last 3 months in the Pond home. Since my last post we have had Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and two birthdays. It was a crazy time and we have not quite settled down from all of the excitement. During that time we either forgot to take pictures or remembered our camera and left it at someone's house, so as for pictures I will post what I have which are mostly Christmas. Richie's parents came down to visit for an entire month over the Christmas season. The original plan was to stay three weeks, but they found a remodel job while they were down so they had to extend their time an extra week in order to finish the project. It was a fun time having them down. We had a full house and were bursting at the seams. Now the house seems so empty and makes me long for more company so that I can have everything full again. So, enough with the wishing and lets get to the pictures.We might as well start with the cute one. This wa Allie's Christmas dress. I put it on and she twirled and twirled and then had to go downstairs so Grandpa could take a picture. She's been into getting her picture taken lately. Now whenever she puts something on or is doing something cute she says, "Mommy you need to take a picture of this." She cracks me up.

Every year we go up to my grandparent's house in Prescott for their Christmas party. We have Mexican Food, do the nativity, and then Santa brings stockings for everyone. We don't know how much longer we will be doing that so this year my family decided to start our own and my parent's home. We all got together, had dinners, did a short nativity (with only 3 grandkids), and then all of the grandkids got stockings. My siblings and I also got together and gave our parents dinner and tickets to go see the Smothers Brothers. If you have no idea who I am talking about we seriously need to talk about what you think is comedy. It was a fun night and I look forward to doing it every year.

Now on to Christmas. As you can tell from the pictures below, we may have gone a little overboard with gifts this year. It was kind of hard to stop when we were playing Santa for more than just a two year old. Allie is the absolute best person to by presents for because she loves anything she gets, but being able to provide Christmas to other members of our family was great. After the one we had last year, this year made up for it.



There are many more images to share but I'm tired of uploading. As you can tell, we had tons of fun and a full house!

Next was my birthday. It was fun I got to eat Macayo's and spent time with family. I also got to work from home so I didn't have to go to the office that day. My sister-in-law and her family drove down that day to spend the week with all of us so it was fun to have them here a s well.


Last but not least, New Year's Eve. We spent it over at Robbie and Callie's playing games and eating until we were about to burst. It was a fun time of family and friends.

Needless to say, we had a great holiday season and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. There is nothing better than family!

Haircut and Halloween

Well, the day before Halloween, Richi took Allie to get her haircut. We only want it trimmed with a few layers to help her bangs blend in and the first thing the lady did was cut off 3 inches. It was sad to see her beautiful, long hair be chopped, but it still looks cute. She can make anything cute.

She is getting so big!

We spent Halloween at my parents house and Allie went trick or treating with her cousins. We carved pumpkins and then took the kids around the neighborhood. Allie wanted to go to every house. She loved that complete strangers were willing to give her candy. She was Snow White and loved her dress. She would've slept in it if I would've let her. She still puts her shoes on and says, "Mommy I'm going to work okay?" It's amazing what they understand and absorb from the world around them.

Cheezy!

RICHIE GOT A JOB!

We would like to thank everyone for their fasting and prayers on our behalf. On Thursday Richie officially became the new Project Manager for Aspire Design. He starts tomorrow and we are so excited! This year has been a huge struggle, but so many blessings have come because of it. We have had more blessings than sorrows during this time, and now we are going to have so much more. I feel like shouting from the roof tops. I want everyone who reads this to know that I know that Heavenly Father answers prayers and that his Son lives. My testimony has grown so much in the last year and I know that the Lord doesn't present you with any challenge that you can't handle. I also know that he will make your weaknesses become strengths and that if you place your yolk upon him he wil help you. He loves every one of us and wants us to come to Him for help. He is waiting at the door and knocking. We just have to open it.

Tag of 8

Kim tagged me and I am actually going to do it this time! Doing this is part of my pre-new year's resolutions. So, here we go:

8 shows I love to watch (I have more than 8 so this is hard to limit):

Criminal Minds
Big Bang Theory
How I Met Your Mother
House
NCIS
Heroes
Privileged
Without A Trace

8 favorite restaurants:

Macayo's
Manuel's
Carolina's
Olive Garden
El Charro (the one in Prescott, not Mesa)
On the Border
Macaroni Grill
Buca di Beppo

8 things that happened yesterday:

ASU lost to USC (I'm tire of them beating themselves)
Got to know Randy's new girlfriend Katie
Opened a new bank account
Shopped for new work shoes for Richie
Stayed up til 2:00 talking with Randy and my husband
Played Candy Land as a family
Made Pizza
Cleaned my bathroom

8 things I'm looking forward to:

Richie's first paycheck!
Mom and Dad Pond coming down for Christmas
Megan and Kennis's twins being born
Getting Pregnant (yes we're trying)
Primary Activity on November 15th! (it's going to be awesome)
Richie's Birthday
Carrie Underwood concert!
Quitting work! (getting ready to start the countdown)

8 things on my wish list:

Going on a cruise
Being debt free (except for my house, and this is going to be within the next year)
Being a better Primary President
Tile in my bathrom
My backyard being done
Fart like Randy (inside joke)
Having twins
Being a better Visiting Teacher

8 people I am tagging:
Stacy, Stephanie, Natalie, Callie, Tiffany, Lindsay, Holly & Marcie, Lindy(you ned to start a blog and now's your chance!)

I Do Cakes!

......and flowers, and table cloths. I guess I should say that I do parties. I finally got a picture of Lindy's wedding cake from my mom. I showed it to everyone at work and they were all wondering why I was working behind a desk. So, I have decided to post the picture. Spread my name to friends, family, and people you meet in the grocery store. I don't care. This is something that I enjoy doing and would love to do more often. Please ignore the flies. I did not put those on the cake!

All in One

I already know, so you don't have to say it. I have been quite the slacker when it comes to updating our blog. Not by choice. I know I say it a lot, but I have had no time. Between Primary, being a wife and mother, work, and putting together a wedding, I have been a little busy. So, here are the important events that have happened in the last 5 months. The only event I won't be posting is Lindy's wedding. I am still waiting for pictures from my mom. So, here it goes.

***Allie is TWO!***

That's right, my little girl is 2 years old. She turned two on March 4th and we had a birthday party for her at our home.

It was so much fun. Allie is the perfect kids to buy presents for. With every gift she opened she would have this excited gasp followed by a "Thank you so much" or "How cute". She did it with every single gift. After she was done opening gifts, she placed with each one over and over again. She had to make sure she took time to enjoy each individual gift. There are many things I love about her, but since she is two I will list two things I love about Allie:

1. She always brings a smile to my face. It's true. It doesn't matter what type of day I had at work. The moment I walk through our front door I know I will get the best greeting. Or, if I am having a low self esteem day, she seems to know because she will come up to me and start playing with my hair and say "Mommy so beautiful". It's great.

2. She is a genious. I know all parents think their kid is the brightest around, but I have to disagree with them. My daughter is so bright. I don't know where she gets it from. She has been able to have full conversations since 18 months. Not just coming up and saying "cookie" or "juice". It's always, "Mommy, I would like some juice please". The other day we had the misionaries over and all of a sudden we all got quiet because we heard Allie singing a song. She was singing "I Am A Child of God". It was the cutest thing ever. I love my little girl.

*** Our 4 Year Anniversary***

Richie and I celebrated our 4 year anniversary on March 13th. We didn't get to do much, but it was at least good to spend some time together. I took the day off of work and we just hung out. That's what happens when you work, it falls in the middle of the week, and you have a kid. We are going to try and do something fun for our 5th. Sorry, but no pictures.

***Easter***

We had a quiet Easter this year. We had the typical Easter baskets and went to church. I was able to get pictures of Allie in her Easter dress. She is too cute.

She is very photogenic!

***Had my First Primary Activity***

My Presidency and I put together our first primary activity and it was a hit. Since the ward split, we decided to do a "Meet the Bishopric" night. We had dinner with the bishopric and then played games with them. The kids loved it. Everyone wanted to sit by bishop, or be on bishop's team. There were some kids at the activity who ditched their baseball games because they told their mom that they wanted to have dinner with the bishop. It was a lot of fun. In the mix of things I forgot to take pictures of everything. We did get a picture of the bishopric with al of the kids. So, this is my Primary:

***Said Goodbye to Friends***

We had to say goodbye to some good friends of ours. Brandon got shipped to Korea in the air force so his wife Tiffany and daughter Addison moved to Utah to live with her folks while he is gone. We really miss them. Things aren't quite the same now that the've left. One of the hardest things is that Allie always asks "Where's Addison? Where's Tiffany? Where's Uncle Brandon?" I don't have any pictures of us with them because I haven't gotten them from my sister-in-law yet, but I do have pictures of Allie and Addie.

***Lindy's Wedding***

Lindy is married. It was a great day, and everything turned out perfectly. The cake was beautiful, the tables were awesome, the flowers lasted, and the stream worked. Yes, it was a beautiful wedding, and I had a fun time doing it, but I am so glad it's over. I think I worked just as hard at this wedding as I did my own. I don't have pictures yet, but I will get them. I am actually in the process of putting together my own wedding blog to market my wedding services. I do flowers, invitations, cakes, food, just about everything except the pictures and video. After this wedding I realized that I shouldn't be wasting my talent. This is something that I have always enjoyed doing and I want to do more of. So, I will keep you informed about the site and my services.

***Fun Stuff***

That's just about everything that has gone on in our life since February. Nothing else realy exciting to tell. These final pictures are just ones that I thought were too cute to not post. I even included a video of Allie's first swim of the summer. Enjoy! Until next time.

She loves her puppies!

Such a character!