Thursday, September 15, 2011

Around here

Around here, Troy seems to be the center of all of Aurda's art projects. She measures him, tapes things to him and puts things on his clothes....

Around here, Katie got the stomach flu. We still took her with us to Austin for the BYU/Longhorns games. By the time we left, all 4 kids had it.


Around here, Troy is the model for his mom's art projects too.



Around here, I'm trying to figure out how to use my camera. These are the kind of pics I'd like to learn how to take. I don't know what they are called (nor do I know how I took this picture or how to reproduce something like it with children rather than cupcakes) but I want to take pictures that are fuzzy in the background.

Around here, Audra spends a lot of her time dancing.

Too bad my big kids aren't around here more, or I'd have more pictures of them too!

Monday, August 22, 2011

Back to School

My little babies are off at their first day of school. Audra did great....marched in like she owned Pre-K. Her reaction to getting woken up so early (the child has been sleeping in until nearly 11 all summer)? "Mom! It's the middle of the night!" When I told her that it was just early morning, she responded, "Oh my, oh my!"





Sunday, August 21, 2011

First Day of School - Through the Years


Tomorrow morning will be another first day of school! I just can't believe that my girls are getting so big. Haylie is starting the 4th grade! I remember the 4th grade like it was yesterday. Whitney was my BFF and I went to Trabuco Elementary - the canyon school. Mrs. Romano was my teacher (and yes, she is now my facebook friend). How could my oldest child be an age that I remember so well!?!?

Anyway, starting school has me thinking back to all our other first days. Here's a walk down memory lane...

2007 - Haylie starting kindergarten and Katie starting preschool
Cobblestone Elementary - Plumas Lake, CA



Audra will be wearing Katie's shoes tomorrow!


2008 - Katie staring kinder and Haylie in 1st
Cobblestone - Plumas Lake, CA
(they switched schools half way through the year when we moved)


2009 - Haylie 2nd, Katie 1st
Dos Caminos - Camarillo, CA
(once again, they only went for a few months before we moved to Corona...and then after a few months in Corona we moved to Texas...their 4th school!)


2010 - H in 3rd, K in 2nd
All Girls Cardon Academy - Los Fresnos, TX

Here's to a great school year....starting bright and early tomorrow morning!

Friday, July 8, 2011

Livin' the Dream

On our way out the door to Utah...but I wanted to get these posted or I'm sure to fall behind.


We're all in love



Happy 4th of July!


Getting ready for our bonfire and fireworks


We had some super excited girls, so our fireworks show started early


It was a fantastic 4th of July with our little family. Here's to cooler weather (hopefully) and less humidity!

Sunday, July 3, 2011

I Wish I Could Freeze Time

We feel so blessed that our little baby boy arrived! He is an absolute dolly! We named him Troy Grant Cardon - after Trevor's best friend and former councilor when he was Bishop, Troy Bair (on a side note, the girls have been calling the baby Troy Bear...they came up with it on their own!). He made his way into the world on June 23, 2011 at 5:15 weighing 7 lbs and measuring 19 inches long.

Everything is so perfect. Our baby is so sweet. The girls all love him so much. There is nothing better than bringing a new baby into the world and into your home. I wish I could freeze time. Our kids are all such good ages -- I want to remember these days forever!

The pictures of my pregnancy were usually taken by a small child with my cell phone, so you'll have to excuse the quality, but I wanted to document my journey.

My first clue that this baby may be a boy was how differently I carried him. I usually show quite a bit by the time I'm 15 weeks, but I wasn't showing much at this point still.

22 weeks


27 weeks


30 weeks



D-Day! 39 weeks

I've delivered all my girls early - and each one came one week earlier than the last. Naturally, I thought that I'd be having this baby early too! But he was a stubborn little man! At my 38 week appointment, I hadn't made much progress and I was pretty miserable, so the doctor said he would induce me on Monday, June 20. I got up and went to the hospital, but I just didn't feel good about getting induced....so I went home (but only after the doctor stripped my membranes). Within a couple hours of returning home, I started having regular contractions. After 6 hours of contractions every 2-3 minutes, we went to the hospital. I had only made it from 1 cm to 2+ cm in all that time! So, the doctor sent me home. I ended up having contractions for 18 hours...and then they stopped!

Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty miserable. I was having horrible back labor and my children were bored to death ("Why can't you just take us swimming?" "Let's go to the park, Mom!"). I pretty much sat around and wished I was dead! Anyway, the doctor had told me that I should come back on Thursday morning to the hospital to be checked and started on pitocin. Wednesday night I drove the girls out to our friend's house, the Jones', so that Trevor and I could get to the hospital at 5:30 on Thursday morning.

At 6:30 am the doctor started the drip. By 2:30 pm I hadn't made any progress, although I'd been having regular, strong contractions for 8 hours! With all my back labor and lack of progress, the nurses were telling me that the baby my be posterior, or that the doctor may send me home again. Well, when the doctor checked me at 2:30, he broke my water and things finally started to happen! I got my epidural a little bit after that and a few hours later our little Troy was born.


Lucky for us, my mom arrived within 2 hours of Troy's birth. She stayed for 10 days! It was so nice to have her here...she entertained the girls, took care of the baby, cooked, cleaned and let me rest a ton!


I love this picture of Troy and Audra! She is so in love with him.
As she told me, "I just want to learn how to be a mother!"





Grandma swam with the girls almost everyday.


Now my mom is gone and we're on our own here in Texas :( Luckily, I feel really good and the baby is really good, so we are going to pack up our grip and head west for the rest of the summer. On Friday night we'll be starting our 26 hour pilgrimage to Utah for a week. Next we'll drive to Plumas Lake, then on to Orange County, and finally up to Camarillo. We're super excited to see all our our friends and family - and to get out of this hot place for a couple of months!

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Three Little Girls....

Four years ago my little girls looked like this. We were waiting for our baby Audra to make her big debut....


And now, here she is wearing Katie's dress :)

It makes me happy.

Happy Mother's Day

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Hi Girlies!

Hi Babies! Dad and I have had a fun and relaxing couple of days so far. Here are a few pictures. I'll try to take more tonight and over the next week. We sure love you and miss you!
A big storm rolled in last night. It rained and rained! But, it was just like at home...the weather was still warm and humid. This was on our way to dinner.

They grow LOTS of pineapple in Hawaii. I had no idea that this is what pineapple plants looked like. We went yesterday to a place where they grow most of the world's pineapple. It's called the Dole Plantation. Go look in the pantry and see if we have any canned pineapple...it will probably say "Dole" on it!

This is the view from our room. It is sure pretty! We wish that you girls were here so we could swim with you.


We'll post more tomorrow. Remember, there's a 5 hour time difference, so you may not be able to see our pictures until Monday. Love you!

Sunday, February 20, 2011

The Intentional Family

I recently read part of a book called The Intentional Family by William J. Doherty. I found it very interesting! I decided right away that I wanted to implement some of the ideas into our family.

After Doherty talked about all the different families that have emerged through the world's history- the institutional family (pre-1920's), where the "primary goals for family life were stability and security; happiness was secondary"; the Psychological family (starting in the 1920's), where the goal cheif goal was "the satisfaction of individual family members"; the Pluralistic family (beginning in the 1970's), where the "ideal is to let a thousand family forms bloom as families creatively respond to the modern world" - he points out that "we now have the first society in human history without a clear social consensus about what constitutes and 'real' family and a 'good' family."

His premise is that only an intentional family "has a fighting chance to maintain and increase its sense of connection, meaning, and community over the years. An Intentional Family is one whose members create a working plan for maintaining and building family ties, and then implement the plan as best they can." Families can accomplish this through family rituals. A ritual is not simply a routine (such as cleaning the bathroom). A ritual is an activity with meaning or significance, it must be repeated, and coordinated. (I could go on and on....there is so much good stuff here, but for fear of boring my readers, I'll stop. Just go read it yourself.)

I decided that the easiest way for me to have regular special rituals (in addition to the traditional rituals we have such as Christmas traditions) was to implement a special Family Home Evening each month. It's been neat to plan these!

Our first one was in January and we called it our "Ancestor Birthday Party." Each January we'll repeat this ritual. We began by busting out of all our birthday celebration decoration. We decked the house for a very special birthday party. We also planned some fun party games. On Sunday, we enjoyed a very special and yummy dinner, surrounded by balloons and streamers. After dinner, we gathered on the couch to learn about our ancestors. I brought a book out that I have that has a lot family history in it, including pictures. I shared some stories from the book, and a few stories from my memory about my grandparents. We were lucky to have Nana and Papa here, so afterward they each shared a few stories about their families and heritage.

Lastly, we talked about how we have come from a long line of wonderful people who have sacrificed to give us many of the comforts we enjoy. We talked about how important it is to be linked to these people, and to continue the great work they sacrificed for - and how that all starts (and ends) with families. It was a great night!

Then it was party time! We enjoyed a fun game of "Pin the Crown on the Princess" (what would you expect from an all girls family!?!?) and had our cheesecake while we sang "Happy Birthday dear Ancestors." This evening has gotten the girls interested in stories about the people who came before them.








February's special night was a candle light dinner and art contest. The girls and I planned the reddest meal we could (lasagna, heart shaped garlic bread, red jell-o, sparkling grape juice....and salad). We talked about all the fun and silly things that we love in the candle light.

Throughout the week proceeding this night, I encouraged the girls to do art projects and color pictures. Then we displayed them all, and talked about how beautiful they each are, and how talented the girls are. Then, each daughter entered one masterpiece into each of the three categories to be judged - most colorful, most creative and one more category that I can't remember! Wouldn't ya know it, each girl won!







What's planned in March, you may ask? Well, that's the problem...I don't know. Maybe something with my Irish heritage? I'm asking for suggestions - after all, I've got 10 more months to fill :)

Thursday, February 17, 2011

A Visit from Nana and Papa

We had a great visit from Trevor's parents last month. They were wanting to get away from the cold weather in Utah, but unfortunately we had some chilly weather while they were here. We still had a great time!

On a nature walk



Audra playing in front of our house.

Ok, it's not really our house, but I like to think it is. It's really this cool historical home about a mile down the road. We've gotten to know the owners quite well, and the girls and I love to go play in the beautiful yard and trails that surround it.


Enjoying some time by a resaca.


A great day at the park

Our time was too short, but we were sure glad that Nana and Papa were able to make the trip down south to see us!

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

My Baby Is Really Smart

He can touch his knee to his nose.

That's right people, I said HE! We made a boy! Who would have thought it was possible?!?!?

Now we are going to spend the next 3 months convincing Audra that Pinkalicious just isn't going to work for the name. Every time we say that it's a boy, she says, "No it's not! I ordered a girl!" Poor girl. Her heart is broken :( but we're thrilled!