Toblers

Weekly Update

2012-02-15T16:38:00.000-08:00

Or should I say bi-weekly update, since its been exactly 2 weeks since my last post?? Pretty sad that I've already broken my new years resolution for blogging and we are only in February. But that's ok...I'm going to jump back on the horse and be better in the upcoming weeks. I would like to say that I missed blogging last week because life was super busy, but it really wasn't any busier than usual. Here is what we have been up to the last couple of weeks -

1. Everyone is mostly over being sick, but there are still some lingering coughs and congestion. Neither of which are a big deal until nighttime and then I feel like I'm going to scream if the coughing doesn't stop! But even that has slowed down the last couple of days. I wish I could say that it's translated into more sleep for me but it really hasn't. I think my kids just have horrible sleeping habits. And I'm sure it's my fault...I probably should have let them cry it out more when they were little but I was never any good at that. So I guess I'll just learn to sleep less for the next 18+ years of my life. haha.

2. We got our tax return back! Yahoo. I wish we would've been able to spend some of it on something big and fun, but we had medical bills and debt to payoff. And the rest went to savings. Well besides $350 of it. I convinced Kurt to let me buy a tablet! I've been doing a lot of research on them and after months of reading reviews and visiting best buy, I decided on the Asus Transformer. We just got it on Saturday and I'm pretty sure the thing hasn't barely been put down. We love it and the kids love it! There are so many handy things on it...I can't believe I've lived this long without one. haha...ok that's a little extreme but you get the point.

3. This week I also discovered the brilliance of Windows Live for blogging. How come no one told me about it before? It's seriously so much easier to post using this system. If you don't know what I'm talking about and you own a PC, download Windows Live. You will LOVE it!

4.The weather around here has been beautiful lately. Last week we had several days in the 70's...it was awesome. I felt like I would've gone outside and tanned. But just the thought of getting in a swimsuit = yikes! So I didn't. And then this week we've had two rainstorms so far and its only Wednesday! I love the rain. This is definitely the time of the year when I am grateful for where I live :)

5. I am finally seeing some results in my weight loss. Last week I really buckled down and started eating better and counting calories. My goal has been to just lose 2 pounds a week and I'm now a week and a half in and I have lost 3 pounds. So i'm right on target. I know 3 pounds isn't much but as long as the scale is moving down, no matter how slowly, I feel good. Plus my ab muscles are starting to show themselves again and I am just feeling all around stronger. Its a good feeling. If I stick to 2 pounds a week then by the time the Clark County Fair comes I will be down to my pre-pregnancy weight. yahoo!

6. Last week was our New Beginnings program for Young Womens. Have I ever mentioned that I am the 1st counselor in the Young Womens presidency in our ward? Well I am and have been for almost 2 years now. It's a calling I love but also a calling that I often find overwhelming and time consuming. But I seriously love all of the young women in our ward. They are so great and I constantly look forward to being around them. For our New Beginnings this year the girls wanted to do a skit. So they did a news broadcast and it turned out really cute. We have some great new beehives coming in this year and a lot of fun activities planned. It will definitely be a busy year for young womens :)

7. On Saturday we took the kids and met up with some cousins to go out riding. Kurt found a little spot out in the desert that is perfect for the kids to practice riding their dirtbikes. Destry is getting quite good at riding and often frightens me with his speed but he always manages to stay in control. He still isn't as passionate about it as Kurt wishes he was but he has a good time. Mayzie on the other hand is obsessed with riding the dirtbikes. I think Kurt may have finally met his match with that little girl. From the minute we start she is begging to ride and she wants to do it all herself (the throttle and steering I mean). She's actually quite good. Slowly but surely Kurt is turning our family into a bunch of dirtbikers. And he couldn't be more happy.

8. I didn't take a single picture of my kids these last 2 weeks. Pretty sad. But I did hang up a bunch of pictures that I finally got printed the other day. I find myself stopping to look at them all the time...I love it. I especially love having all of my children in all of the different stages in their lives frozen in time on my walls. It's a little bittersweet to realize how fast the time is going. Sutton reminds me a lot of Destry when he was a baby and it literally feels like it was just yesterday that I was holding his tiny little body in my arms instead of hers. I love each one of those kids more than I can put into words. Being a mom is really a divine calling.

9. Quick update on Destry - He is such a joy these days. I don't know why, but all of the sudden he just seems so grown up. He is doing such a great job at learning how to write all of his letters and numbers. He wants to know how to spell EVERYTHING and is even starting to sound out words at times. I've always worried that he might struggle a little in school because he has such a hard time focusing but lately he has transformed into a little student. He gets his homework done all by himself and in very little time. It is night and day from where he was when we started in August. I think he's going to be alright after all :) He's such a sweet boy too. For Valentines day he gave me a note, a pen (so I could write him notes) and a fruit snack; all his own idea. He likes to call me his "special girl." I told Kurt he needs to take notes. haha.

10. Quick update on Mayzie - She is still a little stinker. haha...I'm mostly kidding but there is no doubt that she is a girl! We butt heads on a daily basis and her attitude has me a little worried. Her vocabulary is continuing to grow and just in the last week I've felt like she might be coming out of her shell a little bit. This child is painfully shy and extremely clingy. She is one of the older kids in her nursery class and yet she still cries and won't let me leave every single Sunday. aghh!! It is very frustrating. I'm hoping to fix that soon. Even with all of that, she is an absolute doll. Her smile can light up a room and I love to hear her little voice, especially when she's singing. She's finally letting me do her hair without crying and she loves to "help" me, especially with Sutton. Lastly, she's my little workout buddy! Its so cute to watch her try to copy the moves. But I must say that girl has some muscles!

11. And lastly a quick update on Sutton - She has gained 2 pounds in the last 2 weeks! She is 14 lbs which puts her in the 95th percentile (shes catching up to Destry). And her height is still in the 86th percentile. She has actually been a much happier baby lately. So what I said in the last post about her being my most challenging baby has not been true in the last 2 weeks. She smiles at everything and everyone and even began giggling last week. Although she has only ever done it for daddy :( but its the sweetest little sound in the whole world. She all of the sudden LOVES baths and it is the highlight of my day to watch her kick and splash in pure delight. She has also started moving around a lot more. I can no longer leave her laying on the couch all by herself because I'm afraid she'll wiggle off. With all of this moving i'm afraid she may be starting to rub the hair off on the back of her head :( I hope I'm wrong...she has such pretty hair. But we will see!

Thats all. Thanks for reading. I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine's day :)

The End of January

2012-02-01T14:46:00.000-08:00

Well, you'll have to forgive me if this post isn't exactly the most upbeat or exciting post ever. This last week and a half has been hard. I mean really hard. Probably one of the most physically exhausting weeks of my life. It's definitely in the top 3 anyways. Our house was hit with the flu bug last week. Now I know I'm not the first mom to deal with 3 sick children at the same time, but it was the first time I've personally had to deal with it and let me tell you it was no picnic around here. I swear I was lucky if I got to sleep for more than 30 minutes straight at a time for at least 5 days in a row! I felt like a zombie and I'm sure I looked like one too. The thing about not getting sleep is that every little task seems to take a lot more effort and for me I notice a huge difference in my patience level. Normally I think I'm a pretty patient person but after a rough night, I can barely handle any little fighting or crying or mess-making. Thankfully everyone is finally starting to recover but I feel like I need a week-long vacation to truly recover. lol. Sometimes being a mom is really tough! I just hope we can stay healthy for awhile now.

Because everyone was sick, a lot of my plans got canceled last week. I didn't get to watch my little sister play in a basketball game, I didn't get to shop at Costco, I didn't get to play volleyball saturday morning, and I missed out on my Cafe Rio trip. :( But we did venture out of the house for a little bit on Saturday morning to watch Kurt race. He hasn't done a dirtbike race in a while so when he found out there was going to be one in town, he signed right up. He and a buddy of his did the team race (where they take turns riding) but Kurt ended up doing 3/4ths of the race instead of half. On the first lap, his friend rode into a fence and messed up his hand. So he was having a really hard time pulling the clutch, which is kind of essential when you are riding a dirtbike. So Kurt rode the next 3 laps, instead of them each riding 2 laps. They ended up placing 4th out of 12 teams. Not too shabby. He even got a trophy (a really lame trophy if you ask me...lol). He had a lot of fun and that's all that matters. The kids and I got up early (the race was at 8:30) to watch him but it was pretty cold. So after the first 2 laps we mostly watched from our warm car. Which is why I don't have a single picture from the race. oh well.

We took one other trip out of the house on Saturday night. The hot air balloon festivel came to town for the first time this year and we went to watch the "glow." Two years ago we went to a hot air balloon festival in Panguitch and it was awesome. The kids loved it and it was a lot of fun for the whole family. So we were thrilled to hear that they were having one in our town! Unfortunately it was a big dissappointment. It wasn't even close to as cool as the one in Panguitch. But oh well. The kids thought the balloons were pretty cool and we got to get out of the house for a half hour or so.

On Sunday my little Sutton turned 2 months old. There's not too much to report in the way of development milestones but here are her stats-

*she is 12.4 lbs (75th percentile)

*she is 24 inches long (75th percentile)

*she seems so big already! I can't believe it.

*she is still exclusively breastfeeding and has a seriously strong latch which has been a source of pain for me. Everytime I think its getting better it starts to get bad again :( This is the hardest breastfeeding experience I've ever had.

*she still spits up all the time!! ughh...lots of laundry for me.

*she still wakes up every 3-4 hrs at night.

*she smiles and coos almost everytime she hears mine or daddys voice.

*she puts up with a lot from her brother and sister and yet still gets excited when they talk to her!

*she is an absolute doll and we couldn't be more grateful to have her in our family. She is probably my most challenging baby so far, but I love her nonetheless!

{I think she's soo beautiful}

{I tried to catch her smiling and this was as good as I could get. I still need to get a big smile from her on camera...its soo cute!}

~The End~

The Third Week In January

2012-01-24T08:10:00.000-08:00

- Last week marked the start of a big change around here. Kurt started a new shift at work. He has been doing the night shift for just about 2 years and last week he changed to a swing shift. I wasn't really sure how I would feel about this since it means more daylight hours by myself with the kids...but it has turned out, so far, to be a really great change. We get to wake up together now and we've been working out together for the last week and a half. Its been so wonderful. And the nights don't seem as hard because I've had my "me time" already in the morning. So I find that I have a little bit more patience with the kids. And his days off actually feel like days off. He's not so tired all of the time anymore. It feels like a much healthier schedule and I'm really grateful!

- On Friday we were able to watch my crazy little sister (pictured below) play basketball. I am exactly 10 years older than her but we get teased all the time in my family for being so much alike. Just like me, she LOVES volleyball (and she's dang good at it too, way better than I was at her age) but she also plays basketball and does track. She's an incredible athlete and even if she has very little training she looks like a natural in every sport she does. Its pretty awesome. So she is a sophomore starter on Moapa Valley's girls varsity basketball team and they played at virgin valley last Friday. So we spent most of the afternoon/evening in the gym watching a lot of basketball. Unfortunately Malary's team got beat pretty good. But the other two games we watched we were really close. Both were won by only 2 points. So it was a lot of fun!

{haha...she has some serious personality! Love that girl}

- My mother-in-law has 8x10 pictures of all of the grandkids (there are 16 now) on her wall in her house. And my kids pictures on that wall are about a year and a half old. So I decided this week that I would take some new pictures of each of them. As always this was a challenging task...but we did it! (and yes, I wish I could go get them professionally done but that's just not in the budget these days. Unfortunately.) Here's what I got -

(My handsome 5 year old. Gosh he's big!)

{For Mayzie I couldn't decide between this one and the one below. I think she looks so beautiful and grown up in this one}

{Which is why I'll probably use this shot. lol. She doesn't look quite so grown up in this one}

{I just took these pictures of Sutton for fun. I actually did get professionally shots of her done (for free!) when she was just 9 days old. More on that story later. So I'm waiting to get those pictures back still.}

{And then for my wall, I tried to get a shot all three of them together. YIKES...that was really hard. But I think I like the last one the best. These 3 kids are my world!! Gosh I love them :)}

-In the last post I mentioned my friend, Zach Gifford, who passed away. Well on Saturday we were able to attend his funeral. It was soo great. The Cope family seriously did a wonderful job. The spirit was so strong there and the love that his family had for him was apparent. There was a lot of support from friends and family and it was wonderful to see some people that I hadn't seen for along time. I just wish it had been under better circumstances. For me, I'll always remember Zach as the kid that I played monopoly and had pillow fights with. I can still remember watching him do his bmx tricks, walking to the bus stop with him and going to church activities together. He was my first crush out in Logandale and I thought he was soo cute. He was always so kind to me. He will truly be missed here on Earth. But I'm grateful to know that he is in a much happier, more peaceful place now.

- Having three kids is hard on your body...right? All of you mothers out there know what I am talking about. With each of my kids I gained the same amount of weight, 32-35 pounds. With my first, after 6 weeks I had about 5 pounds left to lose. With my second, I had 10 pounds. And now with my third, I have 15 pounds to lose. 15 pounds!! Gosh that seems like so much to me. Ever since my 6 week checkup with my OBGYN, where he gave me the go ahead to resume normal activities, I have been faithfully exercising. I haven't missed a day. That was almost 2 weeks ago and I think I have lost 1 pound! Aghh! I know that means I probably need to change my diet...but I don't want to!! lol. In the past I've been able exercise and eat pretty much whatever I want and stay at a size that I felt good about. I guess that's not the case anymore :( So here's to trying to eat healthier and just overall less food this week! It's not going to be fun.

That's all for today. See ya next week :)

New Years Resolution

2012-01-16T16:54:00.000-08:00

I've been having a really hard time with my blog lately. Despite my valiant efforts to catch up (I actually have been trying, believe or not) I'm still about 4 months behind. I always want to post but I hate posting things that happened 4 months ago...I want to blog about the things that are happening now, while my feelings are still fresh. Right now I only post about the big events that happen in life; ie. holidays, vacations, children's accomplishments, etc. But that means I'm missing all of the little everyday things and since this is meant to be a journal, I don't want to forget about all those little things. A lady in church just shared this quote -

"Enjoy the little things in life, because someday you will realize they were the big things."

So I've decided to start blogging a little bit differently. I have a few friends that do "weekly updates" on their blogs and I think I want to try that. So some of my posts may not have pictures or may be really short and simple, but I'm okay with that. As long as I can keep doing them every week I'll be happy. And hopefully in between my weekly updates I can still catch up on the last 4 months of 2011.

The first couple of weeks in January have been jam packed with business and "big events," so this first post may kind of long. But I promise that they wont normally be like this.

-First of all we blessed Sutton on Sunday January 8th, (that was our stake's fast sunday) in our ward. And by we, I mean Kurt. lol. He gave her a truly beautiful blessing and we had all of our close family there to support. It's always a humbling thing to watch all of the men in my family, whom I love so dearly, hold my precious child in their hands and use the priesthood to bless her. I felt completely overwhelmed with love. Sutton looked beautiful in her blessing dress. I was going to have her wear Mayzie's but at the last minute (the friday before the blessing) I decided to buy her, her own dress. And the crocheted booties were given to me by my sister in law, Stephanie. I thought they were perfect!

{I really love this picture. She is just the cutest little thing! And her hair!! Its quite the attention getter. People can't believe how much hair she has...its kind of funny how big of a deal it seems to be. I especially love the fro she gets right after a bath :)}

{I still have a hard time grasping that we are now a family of 5}

{This was at the end when she was clearly tired of the picture taking...lol}

- On January 4th my handsome firstborn turned 5 years old! Yikes! He's been looking forward to this birthday for quite awhile. In fact the morning of his birthday he declared, "Now that I am 5, I can tie my own shoes." haha...too bad it doesn't really work like that. But he genuinely believes that 5 is the magic number. And I guess in some ways he is right. I can't believe that in a few months I'll be sending him off to kindergarten. I'm going to try not to think about that though.

The day of his birthday I tried to make the day seem as special as possible. He got to take cupcakes to his preschool class, which he loved, and I didn't say "No" to him at all. He got whatever he wanted. He even picked where he wanted to eat and surprise, surprise we had McDonalds for dinner :) But we didn't have a party for him until Sunday the 8th. Since I knew all of our family would be there for the blessing, we just waited and did both a blessing luncheon and a birthday party after church. It was wonderful and he got completely spoiled.

{Mayzie never strayed far from his side while he was opening presents. But she never got jealous or anything. I guess she was just there for moral support!}

{That's my fabulous little sister in the first picture. She is hilarious and oh so beautiful!}

{Destry helped me decorate for the party the night before and he loved all of the pom poms hanging everywhere. It definitely made it feel festive.}

- For his birthday, we got him motorcycle gear and boots. He was pretty excited to get it all on and try it out. So we took him riding a couple days later and he looked totally legit :) He's getting dang good on his bike too. His favorite thing to do is to find little bumps and "jump" off of them. He even catches air sometimes...lol.

{I think Mayzie loves Destry's bike as much as he does. She begs for daddy to take her riding all of the time.}

-I think I'm finally settling into life as a mother of 3. I've often felt like a crazy person, but slowly I feel like I'm getting the hang of it. The first 4-5 weeks were honestly really tough. Sutton is a big spitter-upper. Neither of my other kids spit up very much and when we were in the hospital I noticed that she spit up quite a bit. It only got worse after we got home and she was soo fussy right after she ate, and I would swear that she spit up half of what she ate. It was pretty frustrating and so I talked to the pediatrician about it and he prescribed some drops for reflux but he warned that it might not help at all. And it didn't. I was really disappointed. Since she turned 6 weeks it doesn't seem to be as bad, but I am still constantly changing her clothes/bibs and doing LOTS of laundry. Luckily she isn't as fussy anymore and that's the real reason that I feel better about it. It was hard when I felt like she was in pain...but thankfully she doesn't cry near as much anymore. On top of that I also had some major breastfeeding issues. Sutton got thrush and it left me cracked, dried, and bleeding. It was so incredibly painful and I pumped plenty of "pink" bottles. I am just finally getting through all of that and breastfeeding is wonderful now. I'm glad I didn't give up because I truly enjoy breastfeeding. She has definitely been my hardest baby so far and that was probably compounded by the fact that I have two others to take care of too. But like I said, things are much better now and I feel like I have a handle on life. Sutton is turning into the sweetest little baby too. She is smiling and cooing at us and it makes all the hard times worth it :)

-Destry started writing "notes" about 2 weeks ago. I'm not sure where he got the idea, but he decided he wanted to write everybody in the family a note. and he did. The notes are usually full of random letters and don't actually say anything but they are so cute. He always puts them in an envelope and writes mom or dad on the front and sometimes he writes his name on the envelope too. The best part is that he wants the note to be a surprise. So he sneakily places it somewhere he knows that we will find it and then watches us until we do. His whole face lights up when we find and "read" our notes. I've left him a couple notes too and he was so thrilled. I thought it was just a little phase that would be over the next day, but he has kept with it for the past two weeks. It is really the sweetest thing and I love finding all of his little notes. I hope he never stops :)

{This note he left for dad by the garage door, so that when he got home from work in the morning he would step on it and be surprised}

- On Friday January 13th, Kurt and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary. It was actually the exact day we got married on too (yes we got married on a friday, the 13th) so that was kind of fun. We got to go out to dinner, just the two of us (something that hasn't happened for a long time) and it was so nice. It would've been great to really getaway for the weekend or something but with a breastfeeding, 6 week old I knew that wasn't going to happen. Maybe next year! Anyways, we just went to Sushi Masa here in Mesquite, and it was soo good. I seriously could eat sushi for every meal. yum. It was wonderful to get dressed up for the night and get away from my mothering duties even if for only an hour and a half. I love my man so much. He is truly my best friend, my lover, my companion, and the greatest dad in the world. The last six years together have been the happiest, most joy-filled years of my life and I'm so grateful for the life that we have built together. We have such a great relationship and I love him more than ever.

- On a really sad note, my wonderful sister-in-law is 25 weeks pregnant and went in for a routine ultrasound and found that the baby is not growing as he should. They aren't exactly sure why, but he is measuring 3 weeks behind and his organs are growing faster than his body. The doctors aren't sure what to expect or if the baby will make it. The worst part is that she has had a really hard time getting pregnant and staying pregnant. and after giving up on having another child (they have 3) they got this wonderful surprise. And this pregnancy has been going so well up until now. It seriously just breaks my heart. They want this baby so bad and I want more than anything to see them have a beautiful, healthy child. Sometimes I don't understand why some people have to endure so many trials. It just doesn't seem fair. But I know God has a plan for everyone and I have faith that everything will work out for them the way that it is supposed too. I just pray that they will see a miracle happen with this precious little child.

- We had our Stake conference yesterday and it was so wonderful. We had the opportunity to have a general authority come to our valley and speak to us. Elder Choi and his wife were so great. I got to listen to a special youth fireside that morning and the spirit was so strong. I love when I get to go to meetings and feel completely inspired to be better. This was definitely one of those meetings!

- Lastly, I got some terrible news this morning. A good friend of mine, Zach Gifford passed away yesterday due to an overdose. I've known him since I was 12 and although we weren't best friends or anything I truly loved him and have some really great memories with him. His family is very close to my family and they are so dear to me. I feel so much sadness at their loss. The funeral is this week and I will definitely be attending. But all day I've just been thinking about what a terrible thing addiction is. So many people are hurt because of it. I pray that his family will be comforted at this difficult time.

That's it for now. I promise that next week won't be so long. Thanks for reading :)

Welcome to the World!

2011-12-07T15:25:00.000-08:00

On November 29, 2011 at 3:02 am we welcomed Sutton Kristina Tobler to the world! She was absolutely beautiful weighing 8lbs 6 oz and measuring 20 inches long.

{This was taken 4 days before she was born...yes I was ready to POP!}

It all started on Monday the 28th at about 2:00pm when I started getting contractions. (I was 38 weeks and 2 days) They started out pretty consistent and just kept getting closer and closer together. By 4:00pm I told Kurt he better call into work and tell them he's not coming. By that point I already had everything packed up, so we headed into the hospital. It was an hour and a half to get to the hospital and my contractions were getting more and more intense. When we got to the hospital they were pretty busy so it took awhile to get some attention. When they finally came to check me I was 4 cm and 90% effaced. So they admitted me. The rest of the night was pretty boring. My body is rather slow at dialating on its on I guess. We were admitted at 6:00pm and by 2:00 am I was still only at 7 cm. At that point they finally gave me some pitocin and my water broke. 45 min later I was ready to push. It took 5 pushes to get her out because she was turned the wrong way. But once she came out she immediately started crying and was pink all over. She got 9 and 9 on her apgar scores and I was so relieved to see her healthy little self!

{Wow! A family of 5 now}

{They weren't really sure what to think of her at first. lol}

{Going home outfit}
We got to go home Wednesday morning and everything has been really great. My recovery has been the easiest of all of my children so far and Sutton has been a great little newborn.

{Can you see the absolute joy on her face?! lol}
The hardest part has been making sure Mayzie doesn't smother her to death. That girl is OBSESSED with "baby tutten." Its really cute but also really annoying. lol

{Destry was really sweet with her. He even decided that it was alright that she was a girl. Which was a pretty big step for him.}

We are completely smitten with little miss sutton and can't believe how blessed we feel to have her in our family!

Newport Beach 2011

2011-10-23T19:23:00.000-07:00

**Warning - this may be the longest post ever in the history of blogging. lol. Ok maybe not ever, but probably pretty close. I don't blame you if you just skip this one. But for my own journaling and enjoyment, here goes! :)

For the 2nd year in a row we got to take an awesome vacation to Newport Beach! This year we stayed the entire week and it was WONDEFUL!! Seriously...best vacation ever. The kids had a blast, the parents had a blast, and it actually felt like a vacation (amazing, right?) Thats a rare thing in my experience. lol.

My parents rented a beachhouse out and we all crammed together for the week. It actually wasn't that crammed...surprisingly. This was the view I woke up to every morning. The picture doesnt do it justice...but it was incredible to be able to walk straight out our door and onto the beach.

One of our favorite pastimes was spotting dolphins. It was soo cool!

And I couldn't believe how close they were. If I was braver I could have gone swimming with the dolphins. lol.

The kids did a lot of sand castle building.

And A LOT of sand castle destroying. Our sand castles never lasted very long with Mr. Destructo (aka Destry) around. lol

Of course their favorite thing to do was play with daddy in the waves.

Destry especially loved to run from the waves. He never got tired of that game.

I love Mayzie's face in this one. So full of anticipation.

This little girl was meant to be a beach bum. She was in heaven!

Me and Mayzie were laying out. Its one of the very few shots of me. I generally prefer to stay behind the camera :)

Kurt and Malary were boogy-boardin fools! They went out every single day. And they got pretty good. I tried to join them once and I sucked! But I had a lot of fun.

Even Destry tried to get in on the boogy-boarding action. lol.

We. of course, played a lot in the sand! The kiddos loved to be buried.

Mayzie enjoyed several naps on the beach. Nothing more relaxing than that!

We took a few bike trips down to the Pier to play at the arcade and look around the pier. Mayzie loved the bike!

We stopped at the playground on the way and let the kids play on the beach playground.

The kids at the arcade. And me and the kids at Balboa Pier.

Little Ms. Mayzie developed a SERIOUS crush on her Uncle Richard the week we were there. It was actually a little ridiculous...lol. But oh so cute. She would not let him out of her sight and she always wanted to hold his hand. I really need to teach her how to play hard to get...because she was seriously aggressive. lol. Luckily Uncle Richard was a good sport.

My adorable parents. I got some good genes, right?!? :)

And here is the whole crew. Thank goodness for family!

I desperately wanted some beach family photos. So we tried...but like most of my picture adventures, it was hard. lol. There were a few decent ones though.

This is what Desty would choose to do in every picture if he could. lol. crazy kid!

I did get a couple decent pictures of me and my man though.

Gosh I'm so lucky! He is seriously the best thing that has ever happened to me! I just LOVE this handsome guy.

If you made it this far...thanks for reading. This trip is definitely the highlight of my year and I already can't wait until next year. The only thing that would have made it better is if I hadn't been 20 weeks pregnant, still a little morning sick, and looking like a whale on the beach. :( Oh well, hopefully next year will be easier in that sense. Thanks to my wonderful parents for making this trip possible!!

Mayzie's 2nd Birthday

2011-10-18T08:53:00.000-07:00

My sweet little girl turned 2 this July! We had a fun birthday party at the park for her with a bunch of family! She still seems too little to be 2, but then again she definitely acts like a 2 year old. lol.

Upon Destrys request, we had a water balloon fight! (He was obsessed this summer with water balloons after the 4th of july bunkerville water fight that we went to.) But the little kids had more fun playing in the buckets once the fight was over.

She actually completely surprised me and blew the candles out all by herself.

She got completely spoiled and ended up with some great new clothes and toys!

Of course her favorites were the babies. She didnt put them down the rest of the night. lol.

The tobler crew! I really do have the best inlaws around :)

We love you so much little Ms. Mayzie. What a joy these 2 years have been with you. Thanks for showing me how great little girls are and not being too much drama. lol.

4th of July 2011

2011-10-16T18:53:00.000-07:00

4th of July this year was a lot of fun. We spent the day in Logandale with my family and some family friends. We ate yummy food, had an awesome water balloon fight, and just enjoyed the fireworks and company! Unfortunately Kurt had to work that night, so we missed him during the firework show...but i guess thats the way it goes :(

Destry had a blast with the sparklers and the popper things (yeah thats the technical name..lol).

Mayzie on the other hand was scared to death of all of the noises and lights. She sat on my lap most of the night, cringing and whimpering. Poor thing.

I did convince her to try out 1 sparkler and I thought she liked it, but she didn't want to do anymore after that. So I guess she didn't like it that much. lol

I love the backwards shirt and wrong footed shoes. He insists on doing things himself all the time now. Love this boy!

Despite Destry's goofy face, I can't believe how grown up these 2 (the girl is my sisters daughter, Natalie) look. It blows me away!

Another successful 4th of July! God Bless America!

Girls Camp 2011

2011-10-12T08:59:00.000-07:00

For the past year and a half I have been serving as 1st counselor in the young women's presidency in our ward. Its a calling I really enjoy but it definitely takes a lot of time and effort! This year was the first time I got to go to girls camp with these young women and we had such a wonderful experience.

We were able to participate in some fun activities while up at Kolob...like shooting. It was really fun and some of our girls were pretty dang good!

One of the biggest hits of the trip was the water slide. The girls loved it! I would have gladly participated had I not been 5 months pregnant :( but even so, I had a blast just watching those crazy girls.

{The trash bags help to make it more slippery!}

These are the wonderful women I serve with (minus Sis. Baker who had a newborn at home). Thank goodness for these ladies! They definitely made camp a wonderful experience.

{And they are a lot of fun to be around!}

I can't even describe how much I love these young women. They are such beautiful girls and I'm blessed to be able to serve them. Girls camp this year was a definite success!!

30 weeks pregnant

2011-10-01T10:16:00.000-07:00

{This is what I look like these days...and cute little Mayzie}

I've been desperately trying to catch up with all of my journaling but at the rate I'm going I'll probably have this baby before I actually get caught up. lol. So I thought I better get at least one pregnancy post up!

I am officially 30 weeks pregnant with a little girl...at least thats what they tell me :) So far this pregnancy is basically exactly like my other 2. The first 20 weeks were absolutely miserable and the last 10 weeks (from 20 - 30 weeks) have completely flown by! and I'm sure these next 8-10 weeks will be rather uncomfortable :(
I am extremely excited to be having another baby. This pregnancy wasn't completely planned (thus the december due date...I swore I would never do that again) but we had plans to start trying during the summer...so it wasn't an unwelcome surprise by any means. We knew we wanted another one. And I was actually pretty thrilled to find out its another girl...I didn't think I would be but after I thought about it, it'll be so great for Mayzie to have a sister. I know I love my sisters like crazy and I couldn't imagine not having them. But I think 2 girls in this family is plenty! So from here on out only boy babies (got that God?! haha...totally joking).

I, of course, have plenty of anxiety over having 3 children instead of 2. There are many days where I can barely manage the 2 I have, and I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to meet 3 childrens needs but I know it will work out. It always does.

Most of all I'm just so grateful for my beautiful family and the oppurtunity to add to it. My kids are thrilled with the idea of a new baby (except for destry, who won't accept the fact that its a girl. lol) and I am just grateful that so far she appears to be healthy! Hopefully the next 2 months go by quickly!!

Easter 2011

2011-09-20T11:12:00.000-07:00

This year for Easter we did what we do every year...a Tobler family camping trip! We just went about 45 minutes out of town up on Utah hill and it was really pretty. I know it doesn't look all that pretty in the pictures but we were in a nice little meadow and it really wasn't as deserty(not even a word) as it appears. We had all of the Toblers there and some extra visitors throughout the weekend too! It was a really nice getaway :)

{the circle of trailers}

{And they're off!! the kids getting a start on the annual easter egg hunt}

{The little kids hunted around camp...and Mayzie loved it!}

{The big kids searched all over the hills}

{Mayzie couldn't believe how lucky she was! lol}

{Destry got a basket full too...this picture was taken after he had dumped it all out!}

{Even though the weather was nice I still always had kids playing in my trailer. lol. Which was totally fine. Here is a rare shot of the inside of our trailer. Can't see much...but hey its a picture}

{We went on a couple of different 4-wheeler trips throughout the weekend. On this one, we went to an abandoned mine. It was pretty neat...the kids thought so too!}

{Most of the Tobler grandkids}

{Mayzie stuck with daddy the whole time!}

{Destry trailed behind but tried to keep up with Sophie and Livvy. They were taking a break here. lol. It was quite a hike just to get up to the mine!}

We had a wonderful Easter weekend! Well, everyone else did anyways. As for me I was in my trailer most of the time throwing up...yuck! I had just found out I was pregnant a couple of weeks before and the morning sickness really hit me. thank goodness we had a trailer! I don't know what I would have done with just a tent. lol.

More to come on my pregnacy soon :)

Clark County Fair 2011

2011-08-15T20:39:00.000-07:00

The Clark County Fair is something we never miss. I really do love the fair...I know its nothing super special, but I always look forward to it. In fact I don't think i've missed a year since I was 10 or so. Well, this year was maybe a year I could've skipped...lol. No, I still had a lot of fun but the weather was less than desirable. As you can see in the above picture, it was cloudy, rainy, windy, and all around freezing the entire weekend. In fact it snowed on Saturday! Actual snow sticking to my jacket in April. Crazy! With that said, we still managed to have a really good time. We definitely watched more shows and hid out in tents a lot more than usual but we still did the fun stuff too :)

The kids got to ride all the rides they wanted.

And they loved them!

This was Mayzie's first year riding rides and she had a blast!

Destry was even tall enough to go on the slide this year! boy was he excited :)

We looked at all of the animals...several times actually. But the kids love animals so it was all good.

As a bonus this year we also got to watch my brother Richard show his pig. It was his first time raising and showing a pig and he did awesome! He got 4th overall in showmanship and 4th in market. It was awesome. We were really proud of him.

Me and Mayzie waiting for it to be Richard's turn.

Watching a show at the Plaza stage. Destry really wanted to take our picture. haha.

We really did enjoy our time at the fair this year. We ate lots of yummy food and got to visit with friends and family. Those are the two reasons I mainly go anyways. But hopefully next year we get a little bit more sunshine :)

Whitney Pockets

2011-08-09T20:37:00.000-07:00

After we got our tax return in February we decided to use a little bit of it to buy a camping trailer. We had a very low budget but we didn't need much. Just something small with a bathroom and a bed. So we looked and looked and looked and every time we found something it was sold before we could blink. I was beginning to give up when my father in law asked his neighbor if he would sell his old trailer, (which was bigger, newer, and nicer than any of the trailers we had been looking at) because he had bought a new one recently. He offered us a killer deal and a day later we had a trailer! It needed a little work but luckily i'm never one to turn down a project :) I spent about a week cleaning, reupholstering, painting, laying flooring, and lots of other odds and ends and by the time I was done it looked brand new. ok that may be a slight exaggeration...lol...but it really did look a lot better. So of course we had to try it out. That next weekend we took a trip to Whitney Pockets with the rest of the Tobler's.

Unfortunately the only pictures I took all weekend were on our 4-wheeler ride. In fact I don't even have one picture of the trailer. Lame, I know. I'll try to see what I can do to fix that!

{On our 4-wheeler ride we found a hidden box full of goodies and a list of people who had visited that same spot. The grandkids thought it was great!}

{Mayzie on the Razor with Grandma. And unfortunately it turned out to be a cold, cloudy weekend in March}

{She actually did this for the majority of the 4-wheeler ride}

{Kurt was a climbing fool! He loves to show off ;)}

{Petroglyphs (sp?) that we saw. pretty cool!}

{We are crazy dusty!}

{Destry showing me his dance moves}

{Ride that rock!}

The moral of the story? Camping with a trailer is 100 times better than camping in a tent, especially when you have kids. It was so nice to getaway for the weekend! It will definitely happen a lot more now that we have a trailer to camp in :)

Peek a Boo

2011-08-06T13:38:00.000-07:00

Where did Mayzie go??

Peek a boo

There she is!

These pictures are from January...and at the time I thought she looked soo big! Now she's 2! Wow.

I realize that I am completely and utterly a failure at blogging lately...and believe me I have plenty of good excuses. But I really miss it. Now if I only I could get caught back up. Yikes! It might take awhile but I'm going to REALLY try! Wish me luck :)

I'll end this post with one of my all time favorite pictures. So cute! Love this little girl :)

5 Blissful Years

2011-04-17T09:02:00.000-07:00

On January 13th this year it had been exactly 5 years since my love and I were sealed together in the temple. That day was absolutely the best day of my life :) To celebrate we took a short trip to Brianhead and enjoyed a nice little getaway! We left the kiddos with my sister Sarany that afternoon and stopped in St George to do a temple session. After the temple we got some yummy dinner at Olive Garden and then finished our drive up to Brianhead. We stayed in the lodge up there and the room was totally cute. It had a great big jet tub and a beautiful little fireplace. We had a nice romantic evening away from the kids. It was wonderful :) Then we woke up early the next morning and got some breakfast and went snowboarding! It was a blast. We headed back that evening after a full day of boarding! It was the first time we had both left the kids overnight and it was definitely much needed. I'm already scheming to do it again soon!

This was the first picture of the trip. We had just finished dinner and we were on our way up the mountain :) I think he's sooo cute.

The only other pictures I took were from snowboarding. This is us on the lift

He crashed...haha!

The sun was bright ok?! lol

Proof that I can snowboard...I told him to get cool pictures of me jumping but ya know. lol. totally joking...I'm not that good. I wish :)

He is that good though...its kind of a weird picture because you can only see his shadow, but he is jumping :)

I can't believe that 5 years has really gone by already. I'm so crazy about this man and can't believe how truly lucky I feel to be married to him. We have built this beautiful little life together and it brings me so much happiness. I'm not trying to say that everything is always perfect because I know as well as anyone else that marriage takes work...and ours is no different. But there is no one else that I'd rather work at it with! I love you babe :)

Mayzie Update

2011-03-29T11:57:00.000-07:00

In January Mayzie hit the 18 month old mark. She still seems like a baby to me and I love that. But I know before long I'll have to start potty training and take away the binky and she wont be little anymore. But for now I'll just enjoy her as she is :)

At 18 months old:

~ she weighs 25lbs (46th percentile) and is 32 inches (49th percentile). She is slowly working her way up to average..haha.

~ she has quite the little personality. She can be oh so fiesty and always knows what she wants. On the flip side, the girl knows how to show love! She can make you feel like a million bucks with her tight hugs and sweet little kisses.

~ she adores her brother and always wants to do what he's doing or have what he has. While it's sweet, this also lends itself to a lot of fighting. ughh. I thought they were still too young for that.

~ She isn't talking as much as I would like her to but little by little she is gaining a vocabulary. Right now she can say/or has said - mommy, daddy, destry, puppy, baby, no, uh oh, owee, hi, bye, eyes, belly button, night night, yummy, hold me, pee pee, bum bum, duck, bath, binky, pee u (sp?) and please. Her two favorite words are mommy and owee...we hear those a lot. yes, she's rather dramatic. :)

~ she has the cutest little run. Her short little legs move really fast and it makes me and kurt laugh almost every time we see it.

~ she loves babies and anything that has to do with a baby. All day long she brings her babies to me so that I can wrap them up in blankets or put clothes on them. She is seriously a little mom. I've even seen her get a wipe and clean off their faces. It's pretty cute...but I'm worried that if I ever have another baby she will smother them to death. ha ha.

~ she is an absolute delight. she has the biggest most beautiful smile and she can really light up a room. We simply adore her.

{This girl totally has style :) I must say that dressing a girl is a million times more fun than dressing a boy}

{I just love her in her little church dresses!}

{Gotta love her BIG mouth!! She gets it from her dad and I love it!}

{Did I mention that she is trouble? She now pushes chairs up to the counter to climb up and get into things...this time it happened to be brownie batter. I guess I cant blame her. lol}

{This is a face I often see...can you say DRAMA?!?}

{I don't know what she is doing but I love it :)}

{It never ceases to amaze me just how alike these two are} {And sometimes they even love each other...and I love them!}

Destry Update

2011-03-23T11:28:00.001-07:00

In January we celebrated Destrys 4th birthday. Like every year I felt completely shocked that he was already another year older...but I can definitely tell a difference. While he's surely no angel its amazing the difference in maturity from a 3 yr old to a 4 yr old. He is an absolute joy and we really couldn't love him anymore. Some info about Destry at 4 yrs old -

~ hes 44 lbs and 44 inches tall - still 97th and 95th percentiles.

~ he cracks us up all the time with the things he says. He listens to everything I say whether I realize it or not.

~ he is obsessed with bad guys vs. good guys. He has no interest in cartoons or kids shows at all. Its purely all about the bad guys and good guys for him.

~ since getting the Wii for Christmas he is also rather obsessed with video games...much to my chagrin. Its a battle we often have but i think he is slowly getting better at finding a balance.

~ he loves preschool and I love to hear all of the songs that he comes home singing :) I'm happy to report that he is actually learning in preschool. lol.

~ he is always trying to make deals with me...I often hear the phrase "Is that a deal mom?" He's quite the negotiator.

~ he is a pretty picky eater, although that's nothing new, and he still asks for cereal at least 2 times a day. ughh.

~ he is still a total and complete mommas boy...much to my joy :) He loves to cuddle and kiss me. Thank goodness!

He loves to give me silly faces when he's taking pictures.

He's also quite the dancer...seriously :)

He had a wonderful birthday party with all of our family there.

For his big birthday present he got his very own dirtbike. He had been wanting one "his size" for awhile and after some convincing from his dad I finally gave in :)

He is a little wobbly but he still does pretty good on it. Although he's definitely not as passionate about it as Kurt wants him to be. lol.

Two thumbs up!

We just love this little guy :)

SNOW!!

2011-03-02T12:31:00.001-08:00

{The desert covered in snow is a pretty amazing sight}

Back in January a big storm rolled through our valley and when we woke up the next day the mountains were covered in white! It was beautiful and exciting...especially once Kurt announced that we were going to take a trip up and play!

{This was Mayzie's first experience with snow. Destry had been once before but I don't think he remembered. So it was kind of a first for him too.}

{Me and my little girl. yes that beanie is way too big for her...but it was all i had. We definitely were not well equipped to play in the snow. lol}

{We went with some family and they brought a sled. Destry could not get enough of it. He went down the hill over and over and over}

{Mayzie even went once...lol. Not sure if she liked it but she didn't cry so I guess so. lol}

{This is our snow attire...pretty lame I know. but what do you expect? we live in southern Nevada :)}

{Everybody loves daddy}

{Family picture! I love how I look pregnant in it. (I'm not I promise) Stupid snow jacket. lol}

Christmas 2010

2011-02-02T13:06:00.000-08:00

{Mayzie and Destry on Christmas morning}

Yes I know I am the last person on the face of the earth to blog about christmas...but i'm sure you are used to that by now. lol. I was really hoping to get this post done in january but once again here i am, totally behind...sigh...oh well. Nonetheless our christmas was wonderful. Truly wonderful. It was so nice to have my home all decorated and festive. And having two little munchkins getting excited and trying to grasp the whole concept of christmas made the season feel so much more special. It was one of the first years since we've been married that we got to truly celebrate christmas in our own home with our own little family and it was rather magical :)

{Mayzie on Christmas Eve. Grandma Tobler gave her this baby bottle and she loved feeding the baby. I just love that girl in pigtails...too cute}

{Random pictures from christmas eve and christmas morning}

{Mayzie's rocking pony...she seriously loves that thing. its adorable}

{you have to love destry's PJ's...entirely too small but he wasn't convinced}

{She LOVED her baby carrier...i don't think she put it down for a week straight}

Hope everyone's Christmas was as wonderful as ours! :)

FaMiLy PiCtUrEs

2011-01-09T20:12:00.001-08:00

Am I the only one who feels like I'm being tortured ever time I try to get a decent family picture? Actually according to my family, I am the torturer because I insist on trying to get a family picture once a year. Seems crazy to me...it takes a total of maybe 5-10 minutes?! And I can't seem to get my 2 children (actually make that 3, when it comes to pictures Kurt is extremely childlike...lol) to hold still and smile for that long. It makes me crazy...and this year was no different. We took them in the beginning of November in hopes of putting together a christmas card. Unfortunately most of them looked like this -

BLOOPERS

{my wonderful idea to take a "stacked" family picture. totally didn't work}

{oh my Destry!}

{classic..trying to run away}

{can't believe I'm actually showing this one...lol}

{Destry's muscles =)}

{This picture totally sums up how Kurt feels about family pictures}

THE GOOD ONES (yes, there are only 2)

{I think its seriously lame that we could only manage to get 2 good shots...but hey, I'm grateful we at least got 2!}

{This was a lucky shot...she is definitely a daddy's girl}

{and I always love a good picture with my man...I wish my hair wasn't blowing in my face but i'll take what I can get}

and the CHRISTMAS CARDS that never got sent -

Pretty sad...i did hand deliver some, but I didn't get any out in the mail. I had good intentions...that counts for something right? By the way I have to give a shout out to my favorite photographer...my sister Sarany. Thanks for putting up with me and my family :)

*Coming Soon - my christmas post! yay!

Halloween 2010

2011-01-03T11:17:00.000-08:00

This post has seriously been a long time coming...I can't believe that I'm soo incredibly behind. But in an effort to catch up I have to go back and do all of the posts i've been meaning to do. So bear with me. lol.

Halloween 2010 was pretty fun...as far as Halloweens go anyways. I've never been a big fan of Halloween but hey...its all about the kids now :) We went to a ward party, (which was really great) the city's trunk or treat, (which was pretty lame) and Destry had a school party (he loved, of course). So we got plenty of candy and my kids were pretty cute.

{Destry and his cousin/friend/classmate Brock after their halloween party at school. By the way, we desperately tried to talk destry out of the werewolf costume but he wasn't having it. lol}

{Mayzie in her adorable homemade fish/bird costume. lol. It was supposed to be a fish, but in the end I thought she looked more like a bird. haha. Either way she was adorable. And a big shout out to my sisters who came up with the idea and helped me make it :) Mazie loved it...can't you tell?? just kidding...she actually didn't mind it but we had to wake her up from her nap to go trick or treating. She definitely wasn't happy about it. lol)

{Pics from the city's trunk or treat...see she totally got over it. Especially once she saw the candy. haha}

{We did carve a pumpkin this year...but we only did one and it was kind of lame but the kids loved it :) Thats destrys scary jack o lantern face by the way...goofy kid}

zion hiking trip

2010-12-20T12:03:00.000-08:00

{stunning views}

Back in October Kurt, I and the kids went hiking in Zion with my family. Kurt's parents even met us up there after awhile. It was a beautiful day and we really enjoyed the trip. We already have plans to go back a couple of times next year. Hopefully we can hike the narrows too...thats one that I really want to do. {Wally's Wiggles...very exhausting}

We did two hikes on this trip. First we did 'Angels Landing' which was absolutely beautiful and a lot of excersize :) and then we saw all of the Emerald Pools. That was also a really cool hike.

{Me, Mayzie, and the waterfall}

{As you can tell we took lots and lots of pictures}

{I must say Destry was AWESOME. he was such a little trooper. He wasn't all that fast but he walked 90% of the time...and barely even whined. I was pretty proud of him}
{Mayzie on the other hand had a rough day. On our drive up she puked all over the car..yuck. And looked mostly miserable all day. poor thing. Luckily she mostly slept during the hikes}

{cute family}

{love these boys}

{this is what we did in between hikes...collapsed. lol}

{ And last but not least our family pic...except you can't see Mayzie. lol}

This is definitely a trip we will be repeating in the future. It is soo refreshing to go hiking and be surrounded by such beauty. Loved it!

Random

2010-11-17T12:29:00.000-08:00

**There are a few odd and ends that I have been meaning to blog about for awhile. The first is our Garden -

This is the second time we have planted a spring garden but the first time that we were really able to "reap the fruits of our labor"...lol. Last time we had to move right as it was time to start harvesting. So it was a real joy to grow this little garden AND eat all the yummy goodness!

And we got A LOT of yummy goodness. I think I have a year supply of zuchhinni sitting in my freezer right now...lol. We honestly couldn't give the stuff away fast enough. We also got a ton of tomatoes, some cucumbers, squash, canteloupe, and watermelon! I wish I would have taken a picture of the watermelon...they were big!

We LOVED our garden! Although i think next spring we will go a little smaller. lol. We just couldn't eat our veggies/fruit fast enough. We had quite a bit that had to be thrown out :( But I definitely learned a lot this year and I'm looking forward to next spring.

**For labor day weekend this year we were invited to a friends cabin up at Kolob. It was such a nice getaway. And we loved hanging out with a great group of people! I wish I had taken more pictures but this is all I have. I must have been too busy relaxing...lol. We really did have an awesome time though!

Thanks again Shawn and Mindy!!

**Lastly I did a photoshoot with my kids about a month ago. Every time I do this I ended up screaming and shaking my head! lol...ok maybe not screaming but pretty close. Mostly because 99% of the pictures look like this -

I mean...really?? He is soo his daddys boy :)

Luckily 1% of the pictures actually turn out pretty cute. (Yeah can you imagine how many pictures i had to take just to get these few cute ones? lol)

Thank goodness for shots like these. They make all of the craziness worth it :) I could not love these two little munchkins more!

Preschool

2010-10-07T11:40:00.000-07:00

Just over a month ago Destry went to his very first day of school, well preschool that is. I know its just preschool but it kind of made me sad. Before you know it I'll be sending him to kindergarden and bawling my eyes out...lol. He's just growing way too fast. I miss my cuddily little baby boy. At least he still cuddles with me every now and then :)

These two (Destry and his cousin Brock) got put into the same preschool class and they couldn't be happier. I just hope the teacher can handle um...lol.

Thumbs up after their first day of preshool!

I love you Destry!! Don't grow up too fast.

What's been keeping me busy -

2010-10-04T08:11:00.000-07:00

Yup...these crazy girls. I know I probably shouldn't admit that I actually know them but oh well. :) Since the middle of August I have been spending long days in the gym and on bus rides as I try to turn these girls into volleyball players...lol.

This is my second year as an assistant coach to the Virgin Valley varsity volleyball team. (wow...thats kind of a tongue twister) I got to work with these girls last year and fell in love with them! I was thrilled to be able to return this year and do it all over again.

While this job is rather time consuming and I sometimes worry about all of the time I spend away from my family, I am seriously passionate about the game and more especially about these girls. They are amazing and we are totally going to take state this year! :) So if you are ever in the area stop by and check us out. We love the support!

LaKe PoWeLL

2010-10-01T10:08:00.001-07:00

{Kurt couldn't contain his excitement in this picture...lol}

For our last trip of the summer we went down to Lake Powell. It was kind of a spontaneous trip especially because I had never been before and neither had most of my family. So we didn't really know what we were doing...haha...but it was still a lot of fun!

Lake Powell is seriously beautiful!! And we loved camping out on its sandy beaches.

The kids had a blast...I've decided that we are a "water family." My kids love the water and they are easier to watch when there is water to play in. I almost didn't even mind that we were camping...amazing I know! :)

{Mayzie LOVED this little camp chair. It was hilarious to watch her "lounge" in it}

{Sunburned and dirty...makes for cute kids...haha.}

We had a lot of fun in the boat riding around and looking at some of the sites. Mayzie and Destry both loved riding in the tube.

We stopped at rainbow arch and hiked up to it...it was really beautiful and definitely worth the hike!

The nights were my favorite. It was so calm and beautiful and we even got to do a little night swimming. Lake Powell was soo awesome and we can't wait to go again!

{The End}

Smith Family Reunion 2010

2010-09-29T08:28:00.000-07:00

Just a few days after we got home from the beach we got packed up again to head up to Beaver Mountain, Ut for a Smith Family Reunion. We camped out for the weekend and really enjoyed the beauty of Beaver Mountain.

The whole crew. It was mostly Tobler's there but we had a wonderful time anyways! :)

We always take any opportunities that we can to get pictures with Grandpa Smith! We sure love him and Grandma Nadine

The kids had a geat time playing with cousins and going on 4-wheeler rides.

(Mayzie very first ponytail! So nice to finally get her hair out of her face.lol)

The views were spectacular!

Mayzie is a FREAK about dogs! And she wouldn't leave this one alone all weekend. Too cute!

We also got to go mountain biking with Shawn and Tara while we were up there and it was a blast! The trail looked like it hadn't been used in awhile so it was definitely an adventure but we saw a lot of beautiful sites along the way!

I'll leave you with a picture of Mayzie's bedhead. Man that hair is uncontrollable! lol.

Newport Beach

2010-09-20T12:52:00.000-07:00

This was probably my favorite vacation of the summer. I mean who wouldn't love to sit on the beach for a week?!? Seriously, this vacation was sooo relaxing and thats saying a lot when your kids are with you...lol. We got to spend a week at Newport Beach with my family and some family friends who rented a beach house. It was wonderful and we already can't wait until next year!

**Beware this post has ALOT of pictures!! sorry :)

This was our "spot." Just steps out the back door of the beachhouse. (the white one right behind us in the background)

The kids LOVED the beach...it was soo muh fun to watch them play all day!

We did a little boogy boarding! It was my first time and I loved it...so much fun!

Playing in the sand is always a favorite pasttime at the beach.

Mayzie didn't really love being buried...lol.

Destry, on the other hand, thought it was great!

Sleeping on the beach is always great too!

LOVE this picture.

One of my favorite activities was beach volleyball...especially Sunset beach volleyball. Doesn't get much better than that.

Destry was a crab catching fool! This was definitely the part he was most looking forward to. And we saw lots of crabs and starfish and even a sea urchin. very cool!

This is Mayzie and Reid (Aubrey's newest. They are 5 months apart and its soo cute to see them together!We also played some Ultimate Frisbee. That game is a WORKOUT! Speaking of workouts, the very BEST thing I did all week was go rollerblading down the boardwalk in the mornings with my mom to get some excersize. So refreshing. Definitely a great way to start the day (and I forgot how much fun rollerblading is lol)

I love my family!

And I especially LOVE this guy. Can't believe its almost been 5 years! He is definitely the best thing that has ever happened to me.

The most recent family picture I have! Not very good i know...but I treasure every family picture i have because they don't happen too often.

Oh what did you do in the Summertime?!?

2010-09-13T10:27:00.000-07:00

We had a really busy, fun-filled summer! (thus the reason I am sooo teribbly behind or at least i'll blame it on that...haha) We went on many trips (posts coming soon), spent a lot of time outside, and enjoyed the heat...well for the first little bit anyways!! I honestly can't believe summer is already over. It flew by too fast!

Here are some of the activities we did this summer -

1. Played outside with the hose! I walked out back several times to find destry with the hose just drenching his little sister. Don't worry I always got him back for her :)

2. Spent some time at the Lake! We LOVE the Lake and both times we went this year were absolutely beautiful!! How lucky can you be?!
3. Got to know the local wildlife! Destry was excited to discover that he was a "jumping frog" lol. I had to explain that ALL frogs can jump not just this one.

We came home one evening to find this giant frog in our driveway. Destry and Mayzie chased it around the yard while I hauled stuff in from the truck. Before I knew it they had chased him into my house! Gross! (and this guy was FAT, the pictures just don't do him justice) So I had to catch him (double gross) and let him out in our backyard. Destry was devastated when he realized that he couldn't stay in the house. lol. He has visited many times since and the children are always delighted! thanks Mr. frog :)

4. Went mountain biking...one of our favorite summer activities. Soo beautiful and a GREAT workout too!

Glad we have good friends and family to go with!

5. Had a few pool partys. This one was in Vegas with my cousins that I hadn't seen for a long time. We had a really great time!

6. Went to a hot Air Balloon Race in Panguitch. Kurt's parents met us there and it was so neat to see the hot air balloons up close. They lit them all up at night in the streets and called it "the glow." It was pretty awesome and the kids loved it!

7. Made LOTS of messes and fell asleep in weird places! lol

8. Spent days in our pajamas taking goofy pictures! Life doesn't get much better :)

I really am going to try to post the pitures of all of our trips soon. Its sad how behind i am. but I feel like if I could just catch up then I could do better posts! haha we'll see.

She's One!!

2010-09-10T21:18:00.000-07:00

And she has been for 2 months now...lol! I know I'm super lame. It really was surreal to celebrate her first birthday...I just couldn't believe my baby was a year old! But she was definitely the cutest one year old ever :)

Mayzie and Aunt Sarany. I have to say I really love this picture of mayzie. I know she's not smiling but I think she looks soo pretty!

Mayzie opening gifts. I must say she was really good at this. She gave perfect responses to each gift; something Destry still hasn't mastered. lol.

Mayzie in all of her birthday glory

She definitely went to town on her cupcake.

We just love this little girl!!

Playing Catch Up

2010-08-01T20:08:00.000-07:00

So I need to do some catch up.....BAD!! Its rather pathetic how far I have fallen behind. So in an effort to get this blog up to date there will now be a stream of outdated posts and an overload of pictures. I apologize for the boringness (is that a word? lol) of the many posts that are to come. But hey....its my blog so I get to do what I want :) Thanks for understanding. And like always you can completely ignore these posts. I promise I won't be offended!

Frontyard Update

2010-07-28T09:05:00.000-07:00

We have had our front yard done for awhile...since february actually. So this update has been a long time coming. But here it is...the before and after of our front yard. (forgot to take pictures of the process...bummer)

BEFORE:AFTER:

Clearly we are not landscape designers or anything...but we love our little yard. And I think it definitely helps with the curb appeal. Now we just need to paint the whole outside of the house! Aghh!! the projects never end :)

And this is my cute little boy who gets jealous when I take pictures of anything other than him...lol. Such a personality.

Backyard Update

2010-07-27T15:17:00.000-07:00

We have been working on our backyard for a long time now and it is still a work in progress. But it is mostly done (yahoo) so I wanted to show off all of our hard work.

This was BEFORE. Right after we moved in. (January sometime) It looked even worse than this when we first bought the house (hard to believe i know) but I don't have any pictures of that.

Notice the fence falling over, weeds everywhere, and no porch. And just an overall dirty backyard...lol.

Above pictures were taken after we had buried the trampoline, started work on a porch, leveled out the ground, planted a garden, and started building a garden wall. phew! It was already looking a lot better.

These were taken as we were working on the sprinkler lines!

And these are after we layed the sod. TADA! soo much better. We still hadn't finished the porch at that point.

*This is what it looks like today! Well pretty much..haha. (pictures taken in june)

Notice how my porch is totally done now...yahoo! well except for the coat of paint that I need to throw on it. But all in all...not too bad! I clearly still have a lot of projects to do but for now they will wait (its WAY too hot to be working outside..lol). We have really enjoyed our backyard this summer. The kids especially :)

Washington Rec Center

2010-07-26T17:35:00.000-07:00

Back in February I was playing in a coed volleyball league. Once a week I got to head up to the Washington rec center and play some volleyball. The kids got to tag along a couple of times and once we even took them to the indoor pool. It was Mayzie's first time in a pool and she LOVED it! Destry also had a blast. It was the first time he had seen this pool and he was in awe! haha....it was a good time. Mayzie lovin the water

Destry is totally a fish!

4-Wheeler Trip

2010-07-26T11:22:00.000-07:00

Back in March we went on a 4-wheeling/hiking trip with Kurt's parents and a couple of his brothers. We went up the mountain to see a waterfall that we thought would be pretty big. It wasn't all that big but it was still a fun trip. Destry absolutely loves these kinds of rides. He is definitely his Grandpa's boy :)

This is his favorite place to ride...in the back of the "dump truck 4-wheeler" (as he calls it) with the dogs. lol.

Kurt and Destry at the top of the waterfall

Me Kurt and Mayzie next to the waterfall

Destry showing me his muscles! lol

And cute little Mayzie :)

You don't have to read this

2010-06-01T10:39:00.000-07:00

No really...this post is for me. I honestly don't expect anyone to read it. Especially since it is 2 months late!! aghh!! But I have a little bit of catching up to do and since I want to turn this blog into a book I want to make sure I don't forget these posts. So I promise I won't be offended if you skip right over this one. lol.

Easter this year was a lot of fun. Its an Easter tradition that the toblers all go camping Easter weekend and this year was no different. We went up to Lytles Ranch (Beaver Dam Wash) and camped. It was a really fun trip and the place was actually really pretty. We took my 2 little brothers along which made the trip even more fun!

We did some serious egg hunting,

Went on a few 4-wheeler rides,

And all in all had a really good time. Although I must admit camping with an 8 month old is much more work than it is a vacation. lol. I told Kurt we definitely need a trailer if we are going to be doing more camping in the future :)

(See what I mean?? She definitely missed her crib.lol)

Don't want to leave anyone out!

2010-05-25T15:45:00.000-07:00

So I'm going to do an update on Destry too. Because if he read my blog he would be jealous that I write more about Mayzie than I do about him...lol. (no really, he is a pretty jealous boy these days!) So I guess I better give him some attention too :)

Destry at 3 years and 5 months old -

*weighs 41 pounds and is 41 inches tall (97th percentile and 97th percentile)

*seems like a giant compared to his itty bitty little sister. lol.

*is a VERY picky eater...although I may have found a solution. Lately I've been letting him help me cook and interstingly enough he'll eat it if he helped make it! Although this is not always a practical way to cook...haha.

*still loves dirtbikes, fourwheelers, tractors and any game with a ball. Yup he's a boy!

*is a much more willing model for my pictures. Although its really only because he gets jealous when I take pictures of Mayzie and so then he wants in on the action. Either way though I'm grateful.

*knows all of his colors and numbers up to 20 and he does pretty good with the alphabet, still working on it though.

*is excited to go to preschool in the fall. I still need to get him signed up but he thinks its a pretty great idea!

*talks really well. he still messes up the grammer sometimes but he does a really good job. and the things he says always have us laughing!

*is your typical firstborn child...no offense to firstborns...but BOY IS HE BOSSY! drives me absolutley crazy! And I'm not really sure what to do about it?! (Any advice??) It feels like its constantly a power struggle around here even thought I try to not let it happen. And this kid has an ATTITUDE! yikes. I feel like I'm struggling with finding the best way to discipline and teach him. Hopefully I figure it out soon.

*even with all of the grief he gives us he still is a complete joy! We just love this little boy and are so grateful that he's ours!

(and this pretty much sums up their relationship...haha...i'm kidding. But really where did they get that face?? I'm pretty sure its not from me!)

10 months

2010-05-24T13:57:00.000-07:00

I know I'm a little bit behind on this but I figure its better late than never. It will be quick -

Mayzie at 10 months -

*weighs between 17-18 lbs. (15th percentile) not sure about the height.

*still has only 2 teeth
*is a pretty wonderful sleeper lately. No more getting up in the night for me! (I know..its about time right?)
*still nurses once before bed

*she can stand on her own without using anything to pull up on. She has some pretty awesome balance.
*cruises arund the furniture and uses her walker really well. (has been for the past 2 months) Still no "real steps" but I think she is getting close.
*finally learned how to wave.

*has basically protested baby food. she will still eat it on occasion but definitely prefers the real stuff.
*is the biggest mooch I have EVER seen. it is terrible. I don't know if I'll ever be able to eat another meal without sharing...sigh.
*puts up pretty well with her big brother. He has decided that she is old enough now to play with him and often tries to force her to "play with him." She is going to be one tough little cookie I tell ya.

*can give the dirtiest looks I have ever seen. haha...me and Kurt get quite a kick out of it. I just hope it doesn't turn into an attitude any time soon :)

*will still snuggle up to Kurt and fall asleep. I'm not so lucky, in fact I never really have been. I guess its that part where she thinkg that snuggling with me means nursing. lol

*is pretty effective at communicating. I pretty much always know what she wants or what is bugging her. It's nice to be out of the "guessing" phase.
*is an absolute doll! Her hair is always out of control and in her face and I LOVE it. She is absolutely adorable and we love her to pieces.

Did I say that was going to be quick? oops. lol. I have a lot to post this week. Mostly catch up stuff. So hopefully you'll be seeing more of these cute faces :)

9 MoNtHs oLd ToDaY

2010-04-15T08:57:00.000-07:00

And I can't believe it. How is it that when they're in your body for 9 months it feels like forever but when they turn 9 months old it feels like I just blinked and all of the sudden she's 9 months

old? lol

(No I didn't photoshop her eyes...they are just really that blue.)

(The world from Mayzie's perspective...lots of stinky feet. lol)

This little girl just absolutely lights up my life. She never stops smiling and she is SUCH a mommys girl. I think even a little worse than Destry (if thats possible). But we all just adore her and are sooo glad she came to our home.

Here are some 9 month stats:

*she weighs 17 pounds and is in the 26th percentile for both height and weight. She is such a little bug! Its crazy because Destry is still in the 97th percentile for both...I don't know how I got two extremes??!! lol

*she is a master crawler. She's been crawling for about a month now and scooting a month before that. I love that she can get around on her own...she seems to entertain herself much better. and she's still not too much trouble :)

*she pulls herself up to everything! She would much rather be standing than crawling. She often lets go and tries to balance (and has surprisingly good balance). I wouldn't be surprised if she tried to start walking in the next couple months.

*she says "mama." Has been saying it for about 2 months. And just this week she started saying "dada."

*she loves to tell us "no." (by shaking her head back and forth) Usually she says it to Kurt when he trys to take her out of my arms...lol. But she also says it to me when I'm changing her diaper or trying to change her clothes...haha. its soo cute.

*Just this week she started clapping :)

*Still breastsfeeds...not much though. Usually just at night. I'd like to do it until her birthday.

*LOVES big people food or any food for that matter. If anyone around her has food she crawls over to them, takes her binky out (so cute), and opens her mouth really big. She gives you about 3 seconds and then starts yelling at you if you don't share. lol. I have to really keep an eye on Destry because he loves to share with her...agghh!

*Doesn't sleep through the night. Every now and then I get lucky but she usually still gets up once or twice a night.

*Just popped up her first tooth!! yahoo :)

(Destry "teaching" her how to crawl)

(This is her favorite pose...like she's ready to stand up at any second. its also how she crawls. one foot and one knee. haha.)

(By the way this is my second post in one week....dang I'm good. lol.)

Clark County Fair 2010

2010-04-13T14:35:00.000-07:00

I know the fair is dirty, dusty, crowded, hot, often windy, and sometimes down right miserable but I LOVE it. And this year was no different. In fact I think I loved this year even more than usual. I got to see a lot of old friends and spend time with newer ones too. Lots and lots of fun!! We were there Thursday and Friday and this is what we did -

* Rode rides (of course)....not my favorite part...lol. But it's his favorite part so I guess its ok.

* Saw lots of animals! Another one of his favorite parts.

* Enjoyed the night life! lol

* Danced on stage with the crazy break dancers.

* Caught up with old friends. So fun. I miss these girls...wish we all lived closer.

* Pretended to be girls! Well not all of us have to pretend...haha.

* Sat so good in our strollers. Seriously she was such a trooper.

* Spent time with family! (These two are soo funny together)

* And lots and lots of Eating!!! But who wants to see pictures of someone eating??! haha. So I'll post these pictures instead.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love these guys?? Because I do...a lot!

The End

The Big Reveal

2010-02-23T17:36:00.000-08:00

BEFORE:

I don't have very many before pictures and the ones i do have are of pretty poor quality. So I apologize. I wish I would've thought to take more before pictures. These ones are scanned on from the appraisal report. I look at some of these pictures and can't believe that we were crazy enough to buy it. It definitely wasn't pretty!!

(front view/back view....not a whole lot has changed...unfortunately)
(The bathrooms)

(Our street)

DURING:

Here are some of the pictures took during the process. It's pretty early into the renovations still and you can see a little bit better of how ugly the place really was.

(living room)

(hallway/front entry)

(Kitchen)

(Destry's room)

(Mayzie's room)

Notice the light switch. The whole room was covered in that purple color before. I mean everything! The walls, the ceiling, even some of the outlets were purple! Yuck! Wish I had taken a picture. It took so many coats of paint to cover it...ugh.

(Master Bedroom)

A little bit later in the renovation

(Aaahhh...can you hear the angels singing?...lol. This was probably my favorite part...seeing my beautiful floors all finished)

(kitchen/hallway)

(Master bedroom)

(Destry's Room)

AFTER:

Here we are all moved in. I am constantly playing with and moving around the decor and I still have some decorating left to do. so don't judge too harshly...lol. And obviously the front yard and backyard need some serious help. But we are working on that at this very moment. It may not be much but I seriously love this little home. I think it is perfect for a starter home and I really could not be more thrilled to be a homeowner!!

(front entry)

(what you see when you walk in the front door)

(the kitchen)

(the dining area)

(the hallway)

(kids bathroom/guest bathroom)

(Destry's room...which he loves by the way)

(Mayzie's bedroom...not really happy with the colors. So I plan to repaint. thus...nothing on the walls)

(Master Bedroom)

(Master Bathroom)

(the backyard)

I have to give a big shout out to my Dad!! Honestly without him we couldn't have done any of this. Really...he is amazing and even more my hero now than ever before! And everyone else who helped...my mom, sisters, all of my wonderful inlaws, and even some friends. We were soo blessed to have soo much help. The only thing we didn't do/install ourselves was the carpet! Pretty incredible. Thanks to everyone that helped!

My favorite things about my house:
- the yard...it isn't huge but its perfect for my kids and I love it!
- the open floor plan and vaulted ceilings...it makes the house feel bigger even if it doesn't have a ton of square footage.
- the 2 car garage (or rather that's my husbands favorite thing)

- it's in a great ward!

- it's all mine!

My least favorite things about my house:

- landscaping or lack of (working on)

- countertops in kitchen...I hate the tile (hope to remedy once the tax return comes)

- the ugly tile around the fireplace (I want to put stone around the fireplace and all the way up...once again waiting for the tax return)

Can you see more renovations in my future??!! haha....I don't know if I'll ever run out of "projects" with this house. But that's also part of what I love about it! Thanks for taking a tour of my home....sorry about the picture overload :)

This post is long overdue!

2010-02-08T10:13:00.000-08:00

Here's a quick (or not so quick) summary of what we have been doing for the past 2 months!

Turned 3 years old! I can't believe Destry turned 3 this year. Only two more years and i'll be sending him off to kindergarten. yikes! definitely not ready for that yet. he had a great birthday this year though. He got tons of awesome stuff including a pet crab that he named Henry. Since his birthday he constantly reminds me that he is now "big enough." haha. He is always cracking us up (and sometimes shocking us) with the things that come out of his mouth. This kid definitely keeps us on our toes...and we love it!

(no I'm not into the whole cake making thing...obviously. But luckily Destry didn't mind:)

Over 6 months old! My baby girl is 6 1/2 months old. That totally blows my mind. I wish I would've been better about keeping track of her milestones on here but oh well. She still has us all wrapped around her little finger and is getting more and more demanding...yeah she's a girl :). Here is some more info about Mayzie-
~she eats baby food. Started at 6 months and LOVES it. Which is a huge relief to me. Destry was not good at the whole baby food thing. (In fact he would probably still be breastfeeding if he could...lol.) So I was worried about how Mayzie would handle it. But she's a total champ!
~she gets around pretty well. She's not crawling yet but she sure can roll and scoot her way around the house.
~she thinks her brother is pretty much the coolest kid in the world. Even when he is stacking piles of pillows on top of her (happens all the time) she is still smiling and laughing at him. I'm trying to enjoy this stage because I know that in a short time she will not find him so funny anymore and then I'll get to listen to the fighting instead...lol.
~she still has no teeth although I'm hoping one will make its appearance soon. I've been dealing with swollen gums and an extra fussy baby lately. no fun :( teething sucks!
~she is a total momma's girl. If she can see me then she doesn't want to be held by anyone but me. Even with Kurt too. It makes my life a little more exhausting but it is kind of cute :)
~she is still one of the happiest babies I've ever seen. She loves to ham it up for complete strangers (as long as I'm holding her of course). The girl just always seems to have a smile on her face. We love her completely and are so glad she's ours.

(Do we look alike? Me & Kurt fight over who she looks more like on a daily basis...lol.)

Bought a House!! This is the very reason I haven't posted in 2 months. I have been very busy trying to renovate, move, and settle in. We've been in for 3 weeks now and I absolutely love it. Its soo wonderful to have our own place. There is still a lot left to do. We are currently working on the front yard. but its soo rewarding to do the projects ourselves and feel like I'm accomplishing things. I want to do a whole post with before and after pictures so watch out for that!

Learned a lot about coaching. I think I mentioned this before but I had the opportunity to be the assistant coach to the Virgin Valley High School varsity team last year and it was such a blast! Seriously...I loved it so much. I absolutely fell in love with the girls and getting to play volleyball everyday was the best! We got to go to state and had a good season. I was really proud of my girls. And I'm looking forward to next year!

(How about those zebra spandex?? huh??) :)

Everyone got spoiled at Christmas this year. Christmas came and went so fast this year that it barely felt like Christmas to me, but we still enjoyed it. Destry got plenty of new things including a trampoline for our new backyard! yay! he loves it and plays on it every single day! We had a lot of fun telling Destry about Santa this year. He really got into it and tried very hard to stay off of the naughty list :) Hope everyone else had a wonderful Christmas.

(After every present he opened he would look up at us and ask "for me?" haha. He couldn't believe that all of the presents were actually for him. it was so cute.)

(what a mess!)

Ready to get back to blogging. I've definitely been missing the blogging world and am excited to be able to spend some time on my blog again. I've got lots of posts planned for the future...hopefully i get to them all. And I'm excited to get back to blog stalking everyone...haha.

So in love with my life! Really...I just feel so blessed these days. I have a beautiful home and a beautiful family! I have wonderful friends and I'm able to do those things that make me happy! What more could I ask for?!

(wow I love these two!)

*By the way this spells TOBLERS...in case you didn't catch that. haha. Sorry about the long post and overload of pictures!

Better Late than Never

2009-11-22T20:21:00.000-08:00

Yes, I know Halloween was almost a month ago...(sheesh where has November gone?)....but I never posted pictures of my little goblins!

This year Destry was Spiderman....he loved the mask. The only problem was he kept growling and trying to scare everyone. I tried to explain to him that Spiderman isn't scary but he wasn't having it...haha.

Mayzie was a little pumpkin and boy was she cute. Perfect costume for a chilly Halloween night.

I have to say that our Halloween was a little lame this year. We went to our new wards trunk or treat and I think Destry got 15 pieces of candy total! I was sad for him and wanted to go more trick or treating but Kurt convinced me that Destry didn't care and he didn't need anymore candy. He was right of course, but I was remembering my days of pillow cases full of candy and I was feeling bad for Detsry. lol.

Anyways...life has been crazy lately...as always. I feel like I write that in every post. It will be soo nice when things slow down around here. But we just bought a house and have been busy trying to make it nice for our family. It was a foreclosure, so we got a good deal on it but it definitely needs some love. I'll try to post pictures soon. Hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving!

3 months old

2009-11-02T21:11:00.000-08:00

This post is a little late...since Mayzie is now 3 1/2 months old, but I've been meaning to write it for awhile now. I can't even express how much we enjoy this little girl. I was so excited to have a second child but I had no idea how much I would really enjoy it. It's SO much different the 2nd time around. Since I know how much work it is to have a baby, I'm not shocked by it this time. I just expect it and it allows me to just enjoy having a baby. I mean, with Destry I was thrilled to be having a baby but I wasn't sure what to expect. And once he arrived I couldn't believe how much work he was..haha. I felt totally overwhelmed. But this time around I just get to skip the overwhelming feeling and proceed to the pure love and joy feeling. Anybody else know what I'm
talking about??

It's probably different too because it is a girl! I am really beginning to see the many differences between boys and girls. Mayzie is soo interactive...it's crazy. She wants your attention so bad!! its cute as heck. Destry was never like that. And boy does she babble!! lol. way more than Destry ever did. It's just a lot of fun.

Some of her stats at 3 months

- she weighs 15 pounds.

- still wears size 1 shoes and they are too big for her...lol.

- she has been rolling over from her belly to her back since she was 2 1/2 months.

- she is a really easy baby. She generally falls asleep quickly and without fussing and is mellow and happy when she is awake.

- she loves to smile!! and spends 90% of her time awake with her mouth wide open like a baby bird...too cute.

- she loves her bumbo and so does Mom!

- we are just starting to discover how tickilish (sp?) she is. I love hearing her little giggle.

- she's always up for everything...she has been on a few four wheeler rides and sat at cold football games and she never complains!

We just love her to death and couldn't be more thrilled to have her in our home! Now, if I can just get her to stop growing... ;) I don't think I'm ready for her to start talking back anytime soon. lol.

Mayzie's blessing and more...

2009-09-13T19:44:00.000-07:00

(haha....love her little face in this picture)

My life has finally slowed down a little and I'm excited to get some time to blog. I don't know how all of you mothers of 2+ can blog all of the time. My days just seem to fly by without ever getting anything done!

(Mayzie in her blessing dress)

This last month has been pretty crazy. We had Mayzie's blessing last week (9/6/09) and it was a lot of fun to have so much family come and support us. Kurt did a great job and gave Mayzie a beautiful blessing. It was a wonderful day.

(Mommy and Mayzie on her big day!)

(Just a bunch of random pictures)

Also this last month we moved out of our house. We were renting it from Kurt's sister and then Kurt's brother Brad and his wife Stephanie decided to buy it. So we had to move about 3 weeks ago and we are now back with the in-laws. Moving is definintely no fun :(

(Isn't she adorable?? I just love all those rolls!!)

Also, because of this latest development we've begun house hunting! Thus the reason we are with the in-laws. We are looking to buy and although we've been at it for over a month we still haven't found the right house yet. So if anybody knows of any good houses for sale (for cheap of course...lol) then let me know! Hopefully we'll find one soon.

(more random pictures)

Also this last month marked the starting of the volleyball season. I was asked to be the assistant coach to the Virgin Valley bulldog varsity team. Something that I am thrilled about! (And to all of those that are going to accuse me of being a traitor...all I have to say is that I'm still a pirate at heart, but it was too good of an offer to turn down.) So since the second week of August I've been busy at practice and games almost every day! But I'm having a blast. We have a bunch of fun, talented girls but we just haven't put it all together yet. Hopefully they'll get it soon!

Mayzie's status:

- she is almost 2 months old (two days away)

-at her 8 week appointment she weighed 13 lbs exactly! (whew....and the doctor said, "thats a big girl you have" haha)

- she is a champion breastfeeder and is usually done within 10 min or less at each feeding. (something I really appreciate!)

- she is finally getting over her thrush...this was a big nightmare since she gave it to me too. Very painful :(

- she has been smiling and cooing for the last 2 or 3 weeks.

- but for the past few days she seems to be smiling nonstop :) it is sooo much fun.

- she also seems to be coming out of the fussy newborn stage. She has been much calmer and more pleasant lately.

- she only wakes up once or twice a night. It doesn't seem too bad because she always goes right back to sleep.

- we absolutley adore her...she is such a beautiful little girl and we can't seem to get enough. Destry included :)

(I just love that second picture...she is such a chubby baby!)

She is also turning into a big daddy's girl. Because of me being gone with volleyball so much Kurt has been much more involved with caring for her than he ever was with Destry at this age. (Something that I love and really appreciate!) And it shows. She smiles sooo big at him and loves the sound of his voice. It's soo cute.

So anyways...as you can tell I've had my fill of adventures this month and hope that life will slow down a little. But I know that until volleyball is over and we find a house and move again, life will be anything but slow!

Since we've been home....

2009-08-08T20:07:00.001-07:00

1. We've done a lot of sleeping!! Or at least Mayzie has...lol.

2. I've tortured my kids with countless photo shoots...none of which I've been really happy with :(

3. I've LOVED watching Destry with his new little sister. While he ignores her most of the time, when he does pay attention to her he's soo sweet. Always wanting to kiss her and hold her!

4. We cut Destry's hair...something that I am still distraught about. I just wanted to trim it a little, but he wouldn't sit still enough, so we had to use the clippers :( No more surfer hairdo for him. (this is his last photo with crazy hair...lol)

5. We've gone to Church. After missing 2 Sundays due to having a newborn, I was ready to go back to church when Mayzie was just 2 1/2 weeks old. But it turned out to be a total nightmare. Destry was terrible...much worse than usual and I'm pretty sure I only caught one testimony during the whole meeting :( But my kids looked soo cute in their church attire..haha. (Notice the haircut)

6. I've been adjusting to life with 2 kids. It's definitely a lot more challenging than having one. But so far I feel pretty dang lucky. Mayzie has been an easy baby. Although she is beginning to be more fussy. But I think that is to be expected.

7. I've just been enjoying my new baby girl and trying to relax a little before my life gets REALLY crazy! In the next month I will be dealing with a lot more changes and I'm nervous about how I'm going to be able to handle it all. But I'm sure everything will work out. Hope everyone enjoys their last couple of weeks of summer vacation!

Meet Our Newest Addition!

2009-07-19T20:41:00.000-07:00

Introducing little miss MAYZIE SHEA TOBLER.

She was born at 1:43 am on Wednesday July 15th.

She weighed 8 lbs. 2 oz. and was 19 inches long. (and that's at a week and a half early!)

We absolutely adore her and are soo happy to have her here.

Birth Story - My birth story is actually rather boring but I'll share it anyway. It all started at about 2:00 pm on Tuesday when I began getting some contractions. I had been having contractions for the last week and a half so I didn't really think much of it. I didn't start taking them seriously until about 3:30 when I decided that they were pretty regular and that I should probably time them. They were coming every 2-4 minutes and were lasting about a minute each. After timing them for an hour I called my sister (who is a maternity nurse at the hospital that I was delivering at) and asked her what she thought. She called the hospital and they said they were really slow, so she told me to go in and get checked to see if I was actually in labor. I showed up at the hospital and they said I was 3 and 1/2 cm dialated and to walk for an hour to see if that would help me progress. After walking I was 4 cm dialated so they said that I could stay. We got admitted to our room around 7:30 and they started pitocin. A couple hours later I got the epidural, they broke my water and we just waited. At 1:15 I got the urge to push and they called my doctor. It only took 3 contractions and a few pushes and she was out! (Soooo much better than with Destry) She came out pink all over and screaming! It was a really great experience and I wouldn't change anything about it!

Mayzie in all of her birthday glory!! (kurt took these pictures, thats why they are so terrible..lol) I couldn't believe she weighed 8 lbs 2 oz! I'm definitely glad she decided to come early :)

Isn't she beautiful?? She has a ton of thick black hair and it's soo pretty. She also has a long torso with short legs (tobler genes) and really long fingers. (I just love newborn photos in black and white)

Destry came to see her the next morning and he seemed pretty uninterested in the whole thing. lol...it was rather funny. Once he gets used to her I'm sure he'll be a great big brother.

Our new family photo! Don't we all look lovely...haha.

Destry comparing feet with Mayzie. He thought it was funny that her feet were so small.

One of my very favorite picture! I can't believe I actually have two kids...its amazing. I just love them both so much.

From left to right: Aunt Sarany holding Mayzie - Mayzie is actually named after Sarany. They have the same middle name! so naturally they are going to be best friends; Mayzie ready to go home from the hospital. I couldn't believe how small she looked in her seat; Daddy and Mayzie...and yes he is absolutely smitten. It's adorable; And a full body shot of little Mayzie as she is about to cry.

*Sorry about the picture overload...but this is actually just the tip of the iceberg. And i'm sure there are many more to come :) We are just loving our new little girl! I'm still learning how to juggle the demands of two children but so far she has been a really easy baby. I'm sure that won't last for long though. lol.

4th of July Weekend

2009-07-12T20:18:00.000-07:00

I have to say that I am a HUGE fan of the 4th of July!! I think it's such a fun holiday. Probably because it's the only big holiday that we celebrate in the summer. Not to mention that I definitely LOVE this country and despite it's many flaws, I am proud to be an American! So, I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th....here is how we spent ours -

Me and Destry headed to Logandale Friday afternoon (Kurt was working...as always) and we woke up Saturday morning and headed to the community celebration at the fairgrounds. We had some free breakfast and then watched the boys participate in the candy dash. They got a TON of candy. And yes...I actually let my son out of the house looking like that. lol. We didn't want to miss the breakfast so I didn't take the time to comb out his crazy hair :)

Next on the agenda, we went to a GREAT pool complete with a cliff, slide, and cave (Destry's favorite). It was sooo much fun. We swam for hours and the kids never seemed to get tired. It was a great time.

Destry taking a break from swimming to eat some chips. This is the face he makes anytime I put a camera in front of his face...haha...it cracks me up. But it makes it really difficult to get a decent picture of him.

After swimming we all headed back to my parents for a yummy bar-b-que and then went to a family friends house to watch the fireworks and set off some of our own. The community put on a pretty good show and we had a lot of fun.

Destry with a sparkler...the sparkler looks way cooler without a flash but then of course its blurry :( I need to work on my photography skills obviously.

Sunday was a wonderful day full of family, church, celebrating, and relaxing. Kurt finally got to join us and we celebrated Richard's birthday (my little brother). But I didn't take any pictures :(

On Monday we woke up early and headed out to the Lake! It was sooo much fun. The weather was great and I had a very hard time just sitting in the boat and not being able to ski or tube :(
But I still enjoyed relaxing on the beach and just being at the lake. It's definitely one of my favorite summer pastimes.

The boys and Malary played a lot of "King of the Tube"...a game that I usually rock at! (in fact I think I even invented it) But once again I had to sit out...I know everyone feels bad for me...haha. And yes, that is my mom laying out on the front of the boat. Gosh I hope I look like that after I'm done having kids. (and she had 7! crazy I know).

Anyways, that was our 4th of July weekend...full of fun!! It was definitely a wonderful time and we enjoyed getting away from real life for a few days! (Sorry for the LONG post)

Any Day Now!!

2009-07-10T22:44:00.000-07:00

I have been patiently awaiting the arrival of my little girl...but with only 2 weeks left I am definitely feeling excited and anxious. I can't say I'm enjoying these last weeks of pregnancy (does anybody?). I feel like I'm humongous and I can't wait to just feel normal again. But because of my husband's schooling and my family's summer vacations I'm actually perfectly content with her staying in there until her due date. It would be soo much more convenient that way. Of course that means she'll probably come tomorrow...haha...good old Murphy's law.

Me at 37 weeks. (about a week ago)
Here are some of my Stats: As of Thursday I was 3 cm dialated and 70% effaced. I have been having random contractions for the last 2 weeks along with the constant Braxton Hicks. And today I had so many contractions that I considered going to the hospital but then they slowed down. So far I have gained 30 pounds, which I'm actually really happy with. Overall, while I'm more uncomfortable than I ever remember being with Destry (my back hurts, my ribs hurt, I have terrible heartburn, I can't breathe 90% of the time, I can't sleep, and my hips are killing me) I feel okay and I think I can handle two more weeks! But its not really up to me is it?? :)

* I do have a 4th of July post coming... it's just taking me awhile to get it up!

What We've Been Up To

2009-06-18T22:26:00.000-07:00

Well life has been really busy lately and I've barely picked up my camera at all. So I've felt like I've had nothing to blog about. But here is what we've been up to (that I've actually taken pictures of) -

1. Getting Ready for Baby Sister.

Yes thats what I call her...haha. Sad I know, but we are the kind of people that don't settle on a name until we actually see the baby. We have some ideas but we definitely haven't decided on anything final yet. My wonderful sister in law, Tara, gave me bags and bags of baby clothes awhile ago (thank goodness since I have absolutely no girl clothes) and Destry helped me sort through them. lol. We had a lot of fun and got some really cute clothes for this baby to wear. She'll be totally stylin...kinda like Destry in these pictures :)

2. Our Garden is Growing

No thanks to us though. Since we moved I was devastated to think I would have to just let my garden die. But luckily my wonderful brother and sister-in-law, Steve and Amy, (what would I do without such good family??!) have been watering it since we left. So it's still growing. These pictures are actually a month old, so it's grown a lot more since. We've even got to pick some veggies. Yummy!

3. Having Fun in the Sun!

My little boy should've been a fish! He seriously loves the water sooo much...actually a little too much. He tends to be much braver than he should be and I have to keep a close eye on him at the pool. But he's soo cute. We've spent a lot of time at splash pads and pools since we've been here in Vegas.

Changes

2009-05-23T10:57:00.000-07:00

It seems that many changes are coming my way right now. The obvious change is that in just 9 weeks (give or take) we will be a family of four instead of three. I have been wanting and anticipating this change for a long time now but the nearer it draws the more anxious I begin to feel. Anxious in a good way because I can't wait to meet this little girl and hold her and love her but also anxious in a bad way because I know how much work a baby is. I worry about being able to handle the demands of a newborn while also giving Destry the attention and love he needs. I'm sure I'm not the first mother to have this worry and I know I'll be able to handle it, but still...I worry. (Hey I'm a mom, what do you expect?) I do have to say that this pregnancy seems to be flying by. I feel pretty lucky up to this point because I haven't felt too uncomfortable just yet. Don't get me wrong I still manage to complain quite a bit...lol...but overall it's been a pretty good pregnancy.

Right now my biggest complaints include:

1. The dreaded rib pain...ughh.

2. Sleepless nights

3. Heartburn/naseau

4. Feeling huge and ugly

5. It's HOT!!

But thats just all part of the deal right?? Here's to another 9 weeks!

(These pictures were actually taken at 28 weeks. So I am a little bigger now)

The other big change that has unexpectedly come into my life is that we will be temporarily moving for a couple of months! This is a change that I'm not soo excited about but in the end I know it's the best move. Kurt just found out that in order to finish his schooling he will now be working/interning 6 days a week. We are talking 6 -12 hour shifts a week!! Not only are they 12 hour shifts but he will be working the night shift :(. So I was not at all comfortable with him commuting into Vegas 6 days a week after a 12 hour night shift. No thank you! So we will be picking up our family and moving into Vegas to live with my wonderful grandmother for a couple of months (basically until the baby comes). So needless to say I feel a little overwhelmed at the moment, but really I'm just grateful that we have somewhere to go and that our family can stay together during this stressful time for Kurt.

Like Pres. Monson said in his Nov 2008 conference talk, "Nothing is as constant as change...Despite the changes which come into our lives, may we fill our days with those things that matter most."

Do you like his shaggy hair?? I've been trying to grow it out for summer.

The latest pictures of my rowdy little 2 year old :)

I love how grown up he looks in his little church clothes!

2 Months In The Making

2009-04-25T09:41:00.002-07:00

Destry HAD to help his Dad in the tractor! He thought it was the greatest. (Sorry about the blurry picture)

For the first time in our lives me and Kurt have a backyard!! Since we have been married we have always lived in an apartment or with in-laws, so when we began renting this house I was absolutley thrilled to have a huge backyard! First of all for my son, because he LOVES to be outside and its a perfect place for him to play. And secondly because I've always wanted a garden and now I finally have room to grow one! So about two months ago I got Kurt to dig up the dirt a little bit in preparation for my garden. It has taken me two months from that time to get everything planted! That is partly due to my laziness and partly on purpose (I was waiting to plant certain things in order to ensure that it was warm enough). This is the first time I've ever been involved with planting any type of garden....so I started out small. But I am soooo excited about it! This week I have had a whole bunch of plants start popping up and I feel like a little kid everytime I discover a new one :) It's sooo much fun! So hopefully, in a few more months I'll have yummy homegrown food to eat!

This is the final product! Notice the logs around the garden...this is to keep Destry out! It's actually worked too. As long as he knows his boundaries he is a pretty good kid.

We planted tomatoes, peppers, corn, cucumbers, squash, zucchini, watermelon, and canteloupe!

We also have chickens in our backyard! They are not actually ours (they are Kurt's brothers') but Destry loves having them around. My parents are actually hatching some for us, so in a few weeks we'll have a lot more! And then we'll have fresh eggs too...yahoo. I told Kurt the other day that I could have totally been a farmer's wife...haha :)

Clark County Fair 2009

2009-04-20T14:56:00.002-07:00

He LOVED the rides this year...

and the animals...

but the motorcycles (or dirtbikes as he called him) were his favorite!

I am one of those people that loves the fair. Now I know there are plenty of people out there that think the fair is dirty, crowded, stinky, and full of white trash carnies (sp?). And those people are probably right! BUT if you can overlook all of that, the fair really is a lot of fun! I've been going to the C.C. fair for a lot of years and I know its the same thing every year, but every year I enjoy it. And this year was no different. Although the things I enjoy now are much different from the things I used to enjoy. When I was young it was all about the rides and the food. Now I can't believe I ever rode those rickety old dirty rides. Just riding alongside Destry on the carousel made me sooo dizzy :) Now, I just prefer to walk around and run into old friends. Or catch a few shows and definitely eat as much as I can! And I got to do all of that! So I call it a definite success! However, I did spend quite a bit of time at the carnival watching Destry go on all of the rides. But that was actually fun too. Anything that makes him smile makes me smile too! Which of course means that I spent a lot of time in the small animals building :) He talked for days about all of the cows, pigs, and other animals he saw. All in all, it was a great time and I'm already looking forward to next year!

Destry and his favorite Aunt Malary. He seriously adores her! It's soo cute.

Destry and Natalie (my sister Aubrey's little girl) They had to share this big stroller all day and it didn't really work out so well...haha. They hardly ever see each other and when they do they aren't all that interested in playing together...I think they are both just too bossy!

They are sharing a slushie...this went surprisingly well!

* I think I have one more post to do and then I should be all caught up! So stay tuned :)

Easter

2009-04-17T08:31:00.001-07:00

Easter this year was a lot of fun! Destry loved the whole thing and was one of the best dang egg hunters out there...lol. It's soo much fun to have him be able to enjoy the holidays and actually understand what is going on. We celebrated Easter with the Tobler family this year and it was great to have all of the cousins together. We had an Easter Egg hunt, decorated cookies, and cooked up a yummy dinner. It was a nice day (besides the cold weather) and we enjoyed being able to relax with family.

Waiting for the egg hunt to begin was killing him.

Destry and Brock after the egg hunt and Destry stuffing his face with the cookie he was supposed to be decorating!

I also dragged Destry along for some Easter pictures this week...but that photo session didn't last very long...haha. I got a couple of cute ones but I learned that I definitely need to bring Kurt along next time!

I did actually try to do his hair before we left the house...as you can tell it didn't last long. :)

Love this picture!

This is what he did the entire time...as soon as I tried to snap a picture he would run away laughing...ughh!! Boy did he think he was funny!

I have a lot more updating to do....so hopefully within the next week or so I'll get caught up!

Lately...

2009-03-19T11:42:00.000-07:00

1. This picture is from Dec. 16th, my graduation from UNLV. I promised to blog about it and then never did because my battery in my camera went dead and I didn't get any pictures :( I finally got this picture from my sister's camera the other day so I thought I would finally post about it. Graduation was...well...long, very very long. But it was still a lot of fun and it meant a lot to me to finally accomplish my goal of getting a college degree. Yay for being a college graduate!

2. 2 weeks ago we went down to Laughlin to watch Kurt ride in his favorite race of the year. This is the second year in a row that I have been able to be at this race and it is always a lot of fun. Kurt and his partner (Janten) did really good, taking 2nd in their class and 11th overall. This is a really competitive race and I was really proud of them!

This is all that Destry did the entire race....played with his dirtbike in the sand.

3. This last weekend we headed down to Dumont to go play in the sand. We only got to be there for a couple of days but it was a BLAST! Seriously...one of the funnest camping trips I've ever been on. Unfortunately I was too busy having fun and I didn't take any pictures :( But it was a much needed vacation!

4. Update on Destry - he is POTTY TRAINED!! Woohoo!! I kind of picked a terrible time to start (we started two weeks ago and then had vacations each weekend) but he did really good. And I am so relieved to be done buying diapers (for 4 more months anyways...lol) and cleaning up dirty diapers. Unfortunately we still haven't kicked the thumb-sucking habit despite my best efforts...but we'll keep working on it! He's growing and talking so much more everyday and I am really treasuring these last few months of him being my only baby!

He has to be just like his dad! But i'm not complaining...safety first...lol. Notice the cute boxer briefs :)

5. Me?? I am actually feeling pretty dang good lately. It's about time! lol. While the morning/all-day sickness wasn't as intense this time around (although still terrible) it seemed to last longer than it did with Destry. So I am very relieved to finally be feeling somewhat normal and able to function. Now that my belly has popped a little more, we know that it is a girl, and she's kicking me all of the time, this pregnancy is starting to become very real. It is making me even more anxious to meet this little girl while also feeling very nervous about caring for two kids! But all in all I really can't wait. Sorry for the long post, but it feels good to finally be updated!Me at 21 and 1/2 weeks pregnant!

We Are Having....

2009-03-03T14:59:00.000-08:00

a baby GIRL!!! We had our ultrasound today and I am still in total shock. For some reason I had it set in my mind that we were having another boy and when the u/s tech said it's a girl, I was totally dumbfounded! But in a good way :) I am absolutlely thrilled to have a baby girl to dress up and to be best friends with some day! It's just going to take some time to get used to the idea of princesses and dolls rather than trucks and motorcycles. But the best news of all is that she appears to be totally perfect and healthy! YAY!! Thats always a huge relief to hear those words. Here are the ultrasound pics -

This one shows the girl parts! The technician said she has only been wrong twice in her whole career. She made sure to double and triple check to see if she could find boy parts anywhere...but there were none.

This is one of her legs stretched all the way out, from her little bum cheek down to her foot. The tech said that she had long legs! Yup...thats my girl :)

This last shot is of her face.

Oh Baby!

2009-02-18T13:20:00.000-08:00

We have a big announcement to make......We are PREGNANT!!! yahoo!! I'm actually 17 weeks along and due at the end of July! I've been meaning to post about this for awhile now, but haven't really felt up to it. I am one of those lucky women that gets to puke my guts up for the first 20 weeks or so of pregnancy....ugh:( So sometimes its hard for me to remember that I am excited about being pregnant when I feel sooo miserable! But really....I am beyond ecstatic about this baby. I have been feeling ready to have another one for awhile now, but wanted to be done with school before I got pregnant. And the timing couldn't have been any better. We are soo grateful for the opportunity to be parents for a second time! There is no greater joy than bringing a new baby into the world!

Terrible picture I know....but it is what it is! :)

Love is in the Air!

2009-02-13T14:29:00.000-08:00

Gosh he is soo Hot!! :)

This post is exactly one month late....but in light of Valentine's Day being tomorrow (although we almost never celebrate it and I don't care one bit!) I thought I would give a shout out to my honey! Exactly one month ago Kurt and I celebrated out 3rd wedding anniversary! It kind of blows me away that it has actually been three years since the day we were married, not because 3 years is a long time...but because I still feel like we are newlyweds and barely getting started. I can't express how lucky I feel to be married to this wonderful man. We were told by many people when we were first married that "marriage is really hard and its something you have to work at." So far, being married to Kurt is the easiest, most enjoyable thing I have ever done. Now don't get me wrong...we have our fights, but 99% of the time we just have fun together. We love being together and any hobby that he has, I have too, and vice versa. We love to play volleyball together, go dirt-biking together (later post to come), mountain bike , go snowboarding and plenty of other things. As long as we are together we have fun! Kurt is not at all hard to live with and if I ever get mad at him he has me laughing within minutes and forgetting why I was mad in the first place. He has such a big heart and he genuinely and sincerely loves people...and most especially his family. He would do anything for his family. Since the day we were married he has been working sooo hard and sacrificing so much in order to gain a good career to be able to care for his family. He is also the best dad in the world...just ask Destry:) As soon as Kurt gets home from work his attention is turned to his little boy. Destry absolutely worships Kurt and if you see them together you would see that Kurt worships him right back. I always knew Kurt would be a good dad but I never dreamed he would be this good! I love him soo much and I am sooo proud of him. He is my very best friend and I look forward to many more years of marriage with him!

This was one of the very first pictures we ever took together. We had been dating for about 2 months at this point.

Two of a kind! And I couldn't live without them!

Happy Valentine's Day Kurt!! We LOVE you!!

TAGGED

2009-02-13T12:31:00.000-08:00

I've been Tagged!

The Rules:

1. Go to your documents/pictures.
2. Go to your 6th file.
3. Go to your 6th picture.
4. Blog about it.
5. Tag 6 people to do the same.

6. Here it is:

Haha...nice huh?? This picture was taken on Halloween 4 years ago. Me and Kurt were barely engaged and we were all going to a Halloween party. This picture is of me and my girlfriend April. She is probably one of the sweetest, funniest, most likeable people I have ever met and we always had soo much fun together. Anyways, the story behind the picture is that we were trying to come up with costumes to wear to the party and we settled on being nerds...lol...I guess you just have to have glasses and a side ponytail to be a nerd?!?! Yeah...I've never been good at dressing up! If I remember right the party ended up being pretty lame, but we went and danced and laughed and had a good time. I think we were some of the only girls who actually had clothes on (and this was an LDS party) but we had fun laughing at all of the "french maids" and "little bo peeps" haha. We ended up leaving early and watching a scary movie. It was a fun night...but not a cute picture!!

I tag:

1. Aubrey

I think most everyone else has already done it...so if you haven't then I tag you!

Finally an Update

2009-01-28T15:52:00.001-08:00

It's kind of ironic that my last post was titled "Back in Action" because I have been everything BUT back in action! I thought since school was over I would have all sorts of time to sit and blog...boy was I wrong! December was a really crazy month for me with the holidays and all. And then January has just flown by...I can't believe it! But here's what we've been doing for the last couple of months.

CHRISTMAS

So I know I'm probably the last person on earth to be blogging about Christmas...but oh well. Gotta do it. We had a wonderful and very busy Christmas. I put off all of my Christmas shopping and present making until after I was done with school, which left me very stressed out for the 10 days before Christmas! Kurt unfortunately had to work Christmas Eve, Christmas, and the day after Christmas. But we celebrated with him when he was home. We spent a lot of time hanging out with family and just enjoying the company.

This picture of Destry and my little brother Richard was taken at my parents ward Christmas Party which was a "Night in Bethlehem." We had to dress up and the whole place was decorated...it was pretty cool. We had a lot of fun.

We spent Christmas Eve over at Shawn and Tara's with the rest of the Toblers. The kids put on a Nativity program and Destry got to be a shepherd. The problem was that he wanted to hold the baby...haha....which did not make Mary very happy! He basically ruined the program but we all had a good laugh out of it.

Here's the grandkids in their costumes and then again in their new pajamas. Destry got "car" pajamas and he wants to wear them every night! He loves um.

When Kurt got home from work on Christmas day we opened our presents. Well, mostly just Destry opened his presents. And even though we tried to take it easy this year...he still got spoiled. I got a piano for Chirstmas!!! Yahoo! I was soo excited. It's just an old one from D.I. but I love it and play it everyday! And then Kurt surprised me with a gift certificate to a spa! So one of these days I'm going to go get a massage!! Kurt basically picked out his own Christmas because all that he wanted was dirtbike stuff (boring) but he got a few other little things too. So all in all we had a wonderful Christmas!

DESTRY'S BIRTHDAY

So I think this is going to be the longest post in history....sorry! I guess thats what happens when you don't post for two whole months! But we celebrated Destry's 2nd Birthday at the beginning of the month. It seriously blows my mind that he is already 2 years old. But it was really fun. We had all of our family over for some cake and ice cream and once again he got totally spoiled!

He is all business when he opens presents. It cracks me up.

He had a hard time figuring out what to do with the candles!

Playing on his new scooter that he got from Grandma and Grandpa Tobler. He loves it!

TERRIBLE TWOS

So I don't know how he knows but it seems like since the day he turned 2, he has become a total monster...haha...ok not really. But he sure knows how to get in trouble. Here are just a couple of examples.

He poured the bowl of soup I made him for lunch on top of his head!! WHAT??!! He must have thought it seemed like a good idea. Needless to say he took a long bath after that one.

On this day he decided to climb up on the counter and pull out my baking soda. It was a brand new container and he dumbed the WHOLE thing out all over himself and my kitchen! Ughhh....that was a long clean up...haha. These are just the two examples I got on camera. I'm sure there are many more to come!

And this is just a random picture. It's the view from my back window from a couple of weeks ago! Soo pretty. I just love living here! Hope everyone is doing good! And I'll be sure to post more often :)

Back in Action

2008-12-08T20:58:00.001-08:00

So....I know that I've been really lame lately and I want to apologize!! Life has been so crazy and it seems like I've barely had a minute to even sit down. But hopefully from here on out I can be much better about updating on a consistent basis. So here's what we have been up to for the past few weeks -

* Thanksgiving - I haven't even posted about Thanksgiving and thats mostly because I forgot to take pictures. I still can't believe I didn't take one picture all weekend! But we did have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Kurt unfortunately had to work 12 hour shifts both Thursday and Friday, so we definitely missed having him around. But we got to spend a lot of time with family, eat a lot, and me and Destry did a little shopping. So we had a good time.

*I finally finished up school last week!! Yahoo!! This semester was soooo much work!!! So I am definitely happy to finally have it all over. But I must say that I LOVED LOVED LOVED my classes that I taught and I'm definitely going to miss all of my students! Graduation is on Tuesday, hopefully I'll remember to get some pictures of that :)

*We MOVED!! We are still here in Mesquite, but we are finally getting out of Kurt's parents house (something I'm sure they are very grateful for!) We are renting Kurt's sister, Jennifer's, old house. They now live in Salt Lake but still own a home down here in Mesquite. So this is the biggest reason that I haven't posted anything because I am still trying to unpack and we didn't even have the internet for a week! So needless to say, I haven't had a lot of time on my hands. But we love our new home...it is much bigger than anything we've lived in before and we don't even know what to do with all of the new space! Well, Destry does....he is constantly running everywhere and making messes of course. Here are some pictures of the new place. I still don't have all of my decorations up or even have everything situated but oh well.

*It's Christmas Time!! and I can't believe it. I'm totally not ready this year. I have SOO much shopping to do still. It's rather overwhelming....but I guess thats what happens when you procrastinate. But we are definitely enjoying the holiday season....now if I could only get the days to slow down! We do have our tree up but it doesn't look all that pretty. Mostly because we had to move all of the breakable ornaments to the top....lol. It took 3 broken balls for me to finally move them. So its a little unbalanced...haha...but we love it anyways!
*Most of all I am LOVING being at home with my baby! I can't believe he is going to be 2 in less than a month....where did the time go? But we are really enjoying all of the time we get to spend together and I am finally getting the time to try and break all of those bad habits of his (bye bye thumbsucking).

I know I'll probably get stoned for saying this but....

2008-11-24T18:58:00.000-08:00

I DIDN'T LIKE TWILIGHT!! I know I'm in the minority here and everyone probably hates me for saying that, but thats how I feel. I didn't hate it but I just felt like the whole movie was awkward. I actually liked the actors and actresses and I think they did a pretty good job but I felt like Edward and Bella's relationship never left the awkward phase. Instead of being intensley romantic I felt like it was intensly creepy. And what was the whole spider monkey thing?? haha...honestly I think I laughed more at the movie than anything. I will say that I had fun watching it (thanks to my sisters). It was entertaining and I think they did a good job at trying to cram as much information as they could into a two hour movie (especially for a low budget film). But just like with any movie that is taken from a book....it doesn't even compare to the book! like my sister said, "It was sooo much better in my head!"

On to other things....we took some Reid family (my family) pictures a week ago and that is no small task with a family of nine plus. So I think the one we got is pretty dang cute! I just want to say how much I love my family...they are soooo wonderful and I am constantly grateful for all of the support they give to me and my family!

I also tried to take some pictures of me, Kurt, and Destry but unfortunately that didn't go sooo well. Here are a couple but I don't really love any of them. Getting an almost two year old boy to sit still and actually look at the camera (not to mention smile) is basically impossible. Hopefully we'll get to try again soon!

Also Congrats to the Moapa Valley Pirates for winning state again!! We had a lot of fun supporting them this year! And Destry is the cutest little pirate fan ever!

Don't you love the pirate tatoo??!! Too cute

Halloween 2008

2008-11-04T11:36:00.000-08:00

Destry was the Incredible Hulk for Halloween. He is posing here with his Uncle Thayne (my little brother) who was the Incredible Hulk for Halloween last year. Thanks Mom for the costume!

This picture makes me laugh because Destry was just dieing to eat all of his candy.

Halloween 2008 was awesome!! This was the first year that I got to have a little one to really enjoy Halloween and I loved it! I think the holidays are going to be soo much more fun this year because watching Destry's face light up and get excited is way more fun than watching my own. :) But for Halloween this year we went to Logandale and participated in my mom's wards trunk or treat. It was a big event and we really enjoyed it. Destry got plenty of candy and he could have easily gotten more but I figured he had enough :) Then we went through a neighborhood haunted house and it was a blast. It's been awhile since I've been through a haunted house and it was fun to feel like a kid again! Anyways we really enjoyed ourselves this Halloween and we

hope everyone else did too!

Destry, Thayne, and Natalie (my sisters baby....she is 3 weeks older than Destry)

He had a hard time waiting to eat the candy...as soon as he got it he wanted to eat it.

Richard (my other little brother) was a dead gangster...haha...only in Logandale.

Natalie had two costumes, a cheerleader and a skunk. My sisteres Malary and Mckinzy were a flight attendant and a Fanta girl (or Daffy from Scooby Doo).

This is Thayne's spiderman impersonation and my brother-in-law's wig. It was huge...lol.

Destry absolutely loved his costume...he never wanted to take it off. He was the cutest little Hulk I've ever seen!

And he very quickly passed out as soon as we started driving home. He played waay too hard! :)

Update

2008-11-03T11:04:00.000-08:00

Well, life has been crazy stressful busy for me lately and my blogging has definitely suffered. I finally got a break from school (Thank you Nevada Day) and I'm hoping to finally update my blog. So sorry for the overload of pictures that is sure to come :)

Homecoming 2008

So Moapa's Homecoming was almost a month ago....it's sad that I'm just now posting about it I know....and it was a lot of fun. I always enjoy going to the Homecoming game and parade and seeing everybody. This year was no different.

Jay's 60th Birthday

Kurt's dad, Jay, celebrated his 60th birthday on Saturday October 18th. We had all of the family down and threw a party for him. It was wonderful to spend the weekend with family and to be able to enjoy everyones company.

I will be posting really soon with Halloween Pictures!

Tag....finally

2008-10-18T08:22:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to do this tag for awhile now. So sorry...I know everyone else has already done it.

Eight T.V. shows I love to watch:
1- The Hills (I know...kinda stupid)
2- The Office
3- Project Runway
4- Grey's Anatomy
5- Dr. 90210
6- House Hunters
7- Biggest Loser
8- Gossip Girl
Although since school started I almost never see any TV. :(

Eight Favorite Places to Eat:
1- My Mom's House (she's the best cook ever!)
2- Olive Garden
3- Cafe Rio
4- Las Palmas
5- My House
6- Carraba's
7- Macayo's
8- Pizza Factory
And sooo many more!!

Eight Things that happened yesterday:
1- Went to school
2- Got mad at my students (almost never happens)
3- Took a nap with Destry
4- Hung out with family
5- Graded Tests
6- Took Pictures of the Grandkids
7- Played with Destry
8- Snuggled with my husband

Eight Things I look forward to:
1- Getting done at school each day and going home to Destry.
2- Christmas
3- Thanksgiving
4- Being done with school and getting my degree!
5- Having another baby....hopefully someday soon!
6- Owning my own home and decorating it.
7- Seeing my husband get on the Fire department.
8- Growing old with my sexy husband and watching our kids grow up.

Eight Things I love about Fall:
1- It's my very favorite season.
2- Beautiful weather
3- Changing Colors
4- Volleyball/Football games
5- Thanksgiving
6- Halloween
7- Dirtbike/4-wheeler rides
8- Wearing jackets

Eight Things on my wish list:
1- Be a good teacher.
2- Be a great mom!
3- Lose some weight
4- Build my dream home
5- See Kurt get on a Fire Department
6- Have enough money to be comfortable and not worry about money. (If thats possible)
7- Vacation to a beautiful island!
8- Just always be happy and appreciate everything I have.

Eight people I tag:
I think everyone has already done it! But if you haven't....then I tag you!