Blog-A-Thon #2!

Blog A-Thon #2!
I have some sad news :/ I also have some happy news! :) Both are the same: My adventure in North Carolina is about to be over! See what I mean about both happy & sad?! I am going to miss the Waller’s SOOOO much!!! But I am also VERY excited to have an unlimited amount of time to spend with my family in Utah! Because of this MAJOR turning point; I am excited to announce I will be doing another Blog-A-Thon! But this is going to be even better than the last! I am about to beat my own record! Are you ready for 10 days of blog posts?! You read that right! 10! Because that’s how many days I have left until my parents fly in!!! And because I have that much catching up to do(as always). & It all goes down today! Are you ready to rumble?

Since just about every post on my blog is a “Catch up” I figured what better way to start out the blog a thon that with another one.

•Basketball season ended & Hannah’s team took the title!! Good Job Han! Kenzie’s team didn’t win the Championships but they played awesome! I got to take Kenzie to the team party at CiCi’s Pizza where they got their trophies! Isn’t she a cutie?


•Baseball season started! & Guess who the coach is? Coach Jayson Waller! I think he enjoys it :) The other day, while Kenzie & Londyn had practice, me and Liz tagged along and let Christian play on the play sets. There were 3 of them! Wore us out ;) After we left, poor Han got smacked good in the ribs with a swinging bat. But the good news is, she is recovering well.

•It was Londyn’s Birthday & she got a new {spring less} trampoline!! We ♥ it!!


•* Warning* What your about to read includes some major bragging! Ok all my friends out in Utah who got some of that fluffy white stuff, you have about three weeks of 80+ degree weather worth of jealousy that you are allowed to have towards me! Minus a few rain showers and the crazy storm you’ll read about in a minute, the weather here has been awesome! In fact, it’s been pretty awesome all “Winter” if you can even call it that here. This is a screenshot of the weather I took the other day, nevermind the lightning, check out those temperatures!


•ISI alarms closed on a new office! We are so excited! They deserve it! From what I hear it’s going to be pretty awesome with tanning beds, an arcade, kitchen & just about everything else! If anyone needs a job and wants to move to North Carolina, ISI might be a good place to look ;)

•Chrisitian is obsessed with Toy Story!! End of story.


•One night, while Jayson & Liz were out on a date, the girls(except Hannah, who was out with a friend) and I did some Makeovers & a photo shoot! Here are the results. Drum Roll please..




•It was the end of the world! Or so we thought! There was this insane freak hail storm at 3 am one morning that about scared the pee out of all of us. It was crazy and ridiculously loud & there was a ton of it!! Especially right outside the back door where it ended up with a huge pile that was over 3ft tall! Bizarre right?!? As if it wasn’t already weird enough, everything smelled like pine. Liz said every time it hails, that is what it smells like. Weird.



Well now that everyone is up to speed, we can move on to bigger & better things!! Stay tuned for the Blog-A-Thon :)

The rules of College

According to Londyn Waller.

This is just to funny not to share…
So the other day it was beautiful and sunny and Londyn & I were sitting out on the porch soaking in some sun. She then proceeds to give me a lecture of “The rules of college.” There are a lot of rules to college, most of which I, or probably you, were aware of. Unfortunatley I didn’t have a pen or paper on me, so the next day or so, I sat her down & got the rules again. Prepare to get educated! The rules of college are…

1. No screaming
2. No laughing :/
3. Never EVER fart
4. No bright lights or Candles
5. I can only be friends with blondes & people who like pink
6. I have to be nice & I can’t do anything that is very bad.
7. No hats or backpacks on one shoulder.
8. No hairspray or lipstick
9. No playing on slides
10. I cannot bring apples.

There you have it. Will I abide by these rules?? Probably not. But thanks anyways Londie-Lou :D Gotta love her!!

The Crazy Stuff!!

Have I made it on the list of “worst blogger ever” yet? I’m sure I’ll be on it any day now. I always think it’s going to get better but it never does. So I’m not going to make any promises, but I will tell you my plan, which is to blog once a week for the next 7 weeks I’m in NC. We’ll see how that goes. Wish me luck! One word to sum up the past few weeks of my life: Crazy. How about two words? Emotional rollercoaster. January went by as normal, we spent a lot of time outside in the nice warm (warmer than Utah) weather, did activities, school, laundry etc.

Yup, It's warm enough for popcicles.

The lovely artwork Kenzie made for me.

But February is when things started to shake up a bit. 2 days into it, I found myself on a VERY unexpected trip to Utah, that, when I left I thought was going to be permanent. I was debating whether or not to state the reason for this “trip” because it is a little personal, but because this blog is my journal, I didn’t want to hold back. I hope its ok with the Waller’s. Here’s what happened:

The day started normal & I got the girls ready and off to school, I wasn’t feeling the best but I was trying to shake it off. Jayson, who has been going to the gym every morning and then straight to work, came home because he had hurt his neck while at the gym. After an hour or so of working, I wasn’t feeling any better so I decided to tell Liz and take the rest of the day off. I had been in my room for a while and was just about to lie down to watch a movie when I got a call from Liz. I answered, thinking she was just calling to ask if I could come down for a minute and help with the kids. But that wasn’t the case. What she said next broke my heart. She said “I know this is crazy but Jayson and I are fighting and I am going to move out. I don’t want you to be in the middle of this so I am booking you a flight home in the next few hours, so pack what you can & I will send the rest to you later.” I was in shock. Just a few moments ago my life was just a regular day, now I was about to be shipped home unexpectedly, have no job, and worst of all not get to say goodbye to Hannah and Kenzie because they were in school. I called my mom to tell her I would be coming home and burst into tears. After talking to her I began packing my bag. It was one of the most depressing times of my life.

Once I had packed all I could, no more than 30 minutes later, I took my bag downstairs loaded it into the car and off to the airport we went. This was really happening, I couldn’t believe it. Liz & I tried to make small talk, but it wasn’t working out very well because we were both so upset. Most of the car ride was quiet. When we finally got to the airport, we both hugged, started bawling and I remember muttering “this isn’t how it’s supposed to happen”. It wasn’t. I was that weird person who is in the airport crying all by myself, but I didn’t care. Soon I was on a flight home. The whole flight my body wasn’t sure what to do. Should I be excited that I get to see my family? Should I burst out crying again because I already miss the Waller’s so much? Finally I just went numb.

I had a layover in Phoenix, where a voicemail from Kenzie and Londyn came through saying how much they missed me. I cried some more. There was also a message from Liz saying how sorry she was & that she had been crying since I left &that they made a huge mistake & that if when I got to Utah and wanted to come back “Please do”. I couldn’t respond, it was just too much, so I just got on the flight to SLC. I got to see my family & it was great, but inside I was just hurting. Should I go back? Or should I stay? My body just couldn’t handle it. I still couldn’t respond to her message. I had no idea what to do, of course I missed them but could I put myself through going back? When I finally responded I expressed how upset I was and that I needed to take the weekend to figure things out. So I spent an entire weekend stressing about what to do. I talked to my family, prayed, did some self-searching & finally I did make a decision: I was going back!!

They booked a ticket back for me for the next Tuesday. So I tried to make the best of my trip home, viewing it as just an extra & free trip to see the fam. Since it was such short notice, I didn’t have much planned to do so it was a pretty relaxed trip, did some baking, relaxing, seen “The Vow”, took Aydri to the park, made valentine cookies, had a super bowl party, & went to dinner with the parents. I said my goodbyes and got ready to head back to NC. On Monday night I kept having chills and heat flashes and severe body aches. I thought it must have been the stress, so I got up early and my mom took me to the airport. As a joke, I had texted Liz that I had been not feeling well the night before, & to bring some doctors masks when she picked me up. Mom & I were running slightly behind schedule but I wasn’t too worried, until I was waiting in the security line and all the airport workers kept butting ahead of me & I heard my name over the intercom to come to the gate. Long story short I missed my flight,they were pulling the walkway away from the plane as I ran up. This was how I felt. Right at that moment, Liz called in response to my message & told me to move my flight to when I was better in case I was sick and she didn’t want me to give it to everyone else. Well I didn’t have much choice since I missed my flight :)I called my sweet mom and asked her nicely to come back to get from the airport yet again. So I got in the car, my bag on its way east, and went home. As the day went on I just got sicker, talk about blessing in disguise! It would have sucked to fly while I was that sick. I had a high fever, body aches, chills & sweats, no appetite and a fever rash all over my chest. Sucky! The doctor said it wasn’t the flu, just some other mean virus. This is how I felt too. I waited it out and when I was finally feeling better, I got another flight out that Sunday. When I finally did get back, It really hit me how short of time I have left here! I am trying to make the absolute best of it! We have been doing all sorts of fun things like making our own bouncy balls, gummies & Chap Stick, growing wheat grass, flower pens, picnicking etc etc. The following Tuesday was Valentine’s Day, & boy oh boy did we have deliveries to the house ALL day!! Chocolates, berries, flowers, fruit flowers, and balloons, you name it. Christian is obsessed with Toy Story!! What other way to win him over on Valentines day besides Woody? Kenzie & Lon eating their edible arrangement. While Jayson & Liz enjoyed a night out me and the girls enjoyed the night in making chocolate dipped strawberries and heart shaped mini pizzas. The love could be felt! I even had a valentine myself…. Isn’t he a keeper? The other day he ran up & hugged me and said “Mine” He loves me :D Tat-om he calls me. Boy I will miss them it really is time for me to go home. Oh & he even has some major dance moves, who doesn’t love a boy who can dance? Check it out :]


This week, Jayson has been out of town & all of us left at home got a little bored so we headed out to Lazy 5 ranch, a drive through ranch where you have buckets of food & feed all sorts of crazy animals like creeper ostriches, giant hissing geese, hungry llamas, cute piggies, longhorn cows, deer & even zebras, giraffes and rhino!!! It was awesome! I don’t know who had more fun, me or the kids. But I won’t lie I got a little scared. OK a lot scared. You would be to if a giant buffalo who is very capable of charging you, stuck his HUGE head in your window and stole your bucket of food. Despite being scared I had a very fun time!


Londie-Lou on my lap

I just HAVE to take a minute to say congratulations to my fabulous, overachieving grandma! Do you know what she did? She FINALLY retired!! We are all so happy for her & thank her for all her years serving as a nurse. Enjoy retirement!!


This pic serves two purposes, one of my grams for her retirement & one for my mamasita's b-day! & my auntie is just a fabulous extra ;)

Lastly, I would like to give a birthday shout out to none other than my awesome mom!! I love and miss her immensely!!! I hope she had a fantastic birthday turning “45” again :/ Your secret is safe with me mama :D I love you!!!

Christmas Happenings!!!

This Christmas has been nothing short of awesome!! I was lucky enough to be able to celebrate with two amazing families. The day before I left for Utah, we had a Mini Christmas at the Waller’s. We all wore our footsie pajamas and said “Merry Christmas” like it really was Christmas. I made some quite delicious Santa Pancakes for breakfast & we made some Christmas crafts & treats.



For our last event of the mini Christmas day, we of course opened presents!! I honestly love giving presents! I love picking out the perfect gift for each person & the best part about this year was that I actually had the money to do it! Here is what I got everybody
- For Jayson I got a light for the grill so he can cook out at night. I had heard him say he wanted one a few weeks back so I ordered one from Amazon. Out of all the presents I bought, his was probably the one I was least excited about. Why do men have to be so hard to buy for?
- For Liz I got a custom necklace from etsy with all the kid’s name on it & there birth stones in the middle.
- For Hannah Banana I got her the a kioyseki straightener, I have the same one and she was always saying how much she loved mine, so I decided to get her, her very own!
- For Kenzie & Londyn I got them Wiggle cars! Can I just say I love these things! I first discovered them when I would babysit my cousin Kim’s kids & we would drive them all around her basement. Funnest. Things. Ever! Even Jayson & Elizabeth got into the fun



- & I got Christian a power tools work bench. Hopefully he will grow to like it, but he seems to like the wiggle cars 100x more. Well at least I know what to get him for a future gift.

After I had given them all their gifts, they gave me mine & I just about cried. Or maybe I really did get a little teary eyed. I couldn’t help it. It was just so beautfiful!! Never in my life would I have imagined I would actually own a COACH BAG!! But now I can proudly say I do!! Thank you sooo much Waller’s!


Isn't she beautiful?

After all the fun & excitement here in NC, I got to pack up my bags and fly to SLC!! No feeling in the world can be the one I get when I see my family for the first time in 3 months! I couldn’t believe how big my Briar boo and Aydri Shay had gotten! Suprisingly, miss Briar must have remembered how much she loved me from last time I seen her, because I got a running hug from her. WOW!! Talk about Nirvana!! My mom had made some yummy soup & breadsticks for all the siblings to come over and eat. Food, Friends & Family- Couldn’t ask for anything better! Christmas time is busy season for my hard working daddy-o, so I didn’t get to see him until about 10 o’ clock that night :/ I didn’t make it much longer than that before I passed out for the night.




The next morning I got ready to head out to lunch with one of my best friends, Nicole. My sweet dad had filled up my car with gas and made sure it was all clean and pretty. YUP he loves me :0) We went to lunch and pretty much the best place in the world: Café Rio & then headed next door to a place almost equally delicious; Farr’s Fresh! We said our goodbye’s and I headed back to my car, only to find a note from South Ogden Police department saying I had been the victim of a hit and run! At first I thought it was a joke, but when I got out to inspect it, I found that much to my dismay it was not joke :/ All above my rear wheel tire was all crunched and ugly. So I gave the officer a call & long story short: If you’re going to be the victim of a hit and run, it may as well be in café rio parking lot because there are ALWAYS cops eating in there to see it. They tracked the guy down & got his insurance to pay for the damage. Thank my lucky stars. But really, I swear next Christmas season my car is staying safely in the garage! Last Christmas eve my car got backed into & now this?? Ridiculous. But it was still driveable so I drove it right on over to my sista’s house & we made some killer CHEESY homemade mac & cheese for dinner & had a sleepover like the good ol’ times.


Ooey gooey cheesy goodness!

We woke up bright and early the next morning to head to the mall to try and beat the crazy there. We did a little last minute shopping and then went and seen the newest Mission Impossible. Mark’s choice. Then I headed over to Lane & Krista’s to spend what was left of the day with them. Aydri showed me all of her cool new stuff she had recived since the last time I had been there, I ate to much of all Krista’s yummy baked goods and we talked and talked the night away.

I got to wake up the next morning to Aydri’s sweet little voice & eat breakfast with her cute face. We played around for a little while then got ready and met Lane for lunch. We went to Kneaders bakery which I had been dying to try since it opened in Layton & it did not disappoint! Who wants to go with me again when I get back? :) Someone from the bunch came up with the brilliant idea that we should eat lunch outside in the freezing cold on the picnic table by the library. It was pretty fun despite the freezing temperatures.



Then we went in to the library to warm up and Lane showed us some of the work he had been doing in there. He really spruced the place up :) After we hung out a little longer I decided to make my way home and actually see my awesome mom for a little bit before I headed over to Ty & Stef’s cute new house to spend the night there. We had pizza and watched Brair play. She just loves me. As soon as I get home for good, we are going to have a Briar boot camp & by the end of it, I WILL be her favorite person in the whole world :)While at Ty’s house, he MADE me make a bullet. Leave it to Tyler to make his own bullets, and persuade me to make one to. Considering the fact that I hate guns, when all was said and done, it wasn’t half bad.



Then we started watching some movie, which must not have been too good, cuz Stef went to bed before we even started it and Ty was passed out not even half way through. Then I snuck down to their guest bedroom to get some shut eye. We got up, ate breakfast and decided Tyler looks like the skinny version of the guy from the hangover & Due Date movies. The decision affected what we did later in the night, so read on. Then we headed to the mall for my 100th time and did a bit{more} of shopping. Then I went home to get ready for the Christmas eve party at M&M’s.

At the Christmas eve party I finally got to see my Grandma and Grandpa Rose who I had not seen in like 6 months. It’s always a good time with them!



We had a beautiful dinner & I tried my first Tofurky. Not bad, but I decided I’m not much of a meat substitute person, there is more to food then meat. Then going from our look alike decision from earlier, we dressed up Tyler to look like the guy one the Due Date cover. Oh. My. Gosh. This is why I love my family! See for your self.



Mir had planned all sorts of fun Christmas themed minute to win it games for us to play like pin the nose on the reindeer. Honestly, I think everyone else must have cheated because theirs were all on the board and mine was well… not.






Then Aydri carried on the tradition of giving all of us her personally picked out presents from all a dollar. I got the cutest bird pen. I love it! I’m going to take that pen with me all over & we are going to have some great adventures together! Lane got the sexy tie shown in the picture below.



For the past 2 years, my entire family has been sleeping over at Mark and Mir’s mansion on Christmas eve. I LOVE our new tradition. Being the youngest in my family, I was SOO sick of waking up Christmas morning and having to wait 20 years before everyone else would show up. Now it’s perfect because we all get to be together and it’s better to watch the little ones opening presents than sitting around with a bunch of boring adults. So for the rest of Christmas Eve, some of us went to bed while the other {fun} ones stayed up to watch” It’s a wonderful life”. When that was over, we sat out presents and everyone went to bed. Except me. I stayed up until 3 o’ clock in the morning working on the Child family year in review that I should have had done weeks before. Finally, nowhere near being done I decided to sleep anyway because I didn’t want to be the Grinch on Christmas day.

Finally the big day arrived. We all awoke and waited some time before Aydri woke up. Then we all went down stairs to see literally hundreds of presents covering the basement!! It was insane!





We all dug in and had so much fun opening present after present. I gave Aydri and Ipod touch, in hopes that maybe she would actually be happy to see me instead of my iphone when I came to town ;) Briar got a rockin’ ride on princess 4-wheeler. She couldn’t have been cuter riding on it! I had drawn Mark’s name for the Siblings and got him a radar detector. Lucky Lane about pooped his pants when he seen the gun Krista bought him, one he apparently talked about in his sleep. Way to go Krista for pulling off the surprise!! You see, Lane hates surprises so he always knows exactly what he is going to get. But not this year!







Like all good things, Christmas came to an end. I actually spent the night at my real home, it was wonderful! I feel so blessed to have so many other houses that take me in and allow me to sleep over! I am the luckiest girl ever!
Monday was my last day in town & I couldn’t let it go to waste, so it was packed with all sorts of fun stuff. For the first part of the day, I just hung out at home with mom & dad & of course my cute dog, Zeke. I missed him so much! He didn’t do it this time, but when I came home in September & he saw me for the first time, he jumped on me and gave me a huge hug!! AWWW!! We played outside with my dad for a while. Then me & dad went inside to eat lunch & played a board game with mom. After that , we got ready to head to Salt Lake. We met Lane, Krista & my cousin Jessica and her new hubby Crew at the front runner station and headed to Salt Lake. We met M&M at California pizza kitchen. (Tortilla soup=YUMMY!) After dinner we went Ice Skating!!! Of course, I sucked but it was still super fun! We ended the night with only one minor injury to Miranda :/ I guess I was having to much fun to take any pictures skating, but I did get a few of me & miss Aydri. Neither turned out good. One she has a grouchy look but the other one my eyes are closed. Pick your poison :)




We took front runner back to Layton, stopped & seen Jessica’s & Crew cute apartment & headed back home to spend one last night in my bed...

With all my bags packed back up, mom & I headed back to the airport with one final pit stop at another one of my awesome friends, Mickelle’s house. I literally just had to swing by and drop off her present so I didn’t miss my flight :/ We have major catching up to do! At the airport, I got some extra time to spend with my mom because my flight got delayed a few times but eventually we said our goodbyes with only a couple of tears, knowing that this was the last time we would have to do this. & that was it. Next thing I knew, I was on a flight back to my other home in NC. Time always flies when you’re having fun.

There truly is no place like home for the Holidays!! It has been a really interesting experience actually “Coming home” for the holidays. In a way it made it better because I had so much to look forward to! I loved and cherished each moment I got to spend with my amazing family. Now here I am like a month later finally blogging about it :]If you made it this far into my novel of a post, hope you enjoyed hearing pretty much every detail of my mini adventure :] Hopefully I will be seeing ya’ll soon!

This & That

Well it’s been a while since I’ve been here & we have a lot of catching up to do. I took notes on everything I wanted to blog about but, totally forgot to write down when it happened. So the following is a big mumbo jumble of all the happenings between my last post and today, except for all the Christmas related happenings, which will get a post all to itself. Let’s begin the crazy…
• The Girls started basketball. They are pretty dang cute in their uniforms don’t ya think? • They went to the Detroit Pistons basketball game when they came to Charlotte to play the bobcats. They got to sit front row and get their jerseys autographed. Pretty neat. • Christian got a haircut!! This is big news!! He is no longer a little surfer dude, but instead he is a little punk rocker dude & a cute one at that!!! • On New Year’s eve, Kenzie-Lou celebrated her 8th birthday!!! I decked out her door in streamers and a “Happy Birthday” sign, so when she opened up her door in the morning BAM!! Judging by the fact that she wouldn’t let me take it down for like 3 days, I think she liked it. Of course, she got the famous Waller pie to the face. Later in the week we had her party at the great wolf lodge. FUN stuff!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY KENZIE!! I hope it was the best!! Enjoy your year being 8!! • We got a fish tank!! I honestly have never been that interested in aquariums, but I’m pretty sure that I want one in my future house. I never knew that fish had so much personality! They are so stinking cute! There has been quite a few nights when we get the bean bags and gather around the fish tank and watch it like TV. We even named them all… One Eyed Jack, Creeper Joe, Chaos, Dolphin, and Tammie Fae. We also have two anemones, Getti & one unnamed jerk who ate our Daisy fish :/ Sad day. • And last but not least, I have to add these just for fun!! & this was a hilarous video I got from Lane & Krista after Christmas..... :D

They'd been drinking to much eggnog :]

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas!

Well, minus the look part. North Carolina Christmas time is nothing like the white, cold and snowy winter I know from Utah. It has been a very nice change ;)I hear about the crazy winds and freezing temperatures back home, and realize how lucky I am to be blogging outside while its 65 degrees and sunny. Now, it’s not a California Christmas, it still gets in the 20’s at night, but warms right back up during the day. Can’t complain. Despite the warmer temperatures, I am still getting into the Christmas spirit. We have had a lot of fun Christmasy activities going on at the Waller house. We decorated the tree while blaring Christmas music and Hannah rocked the footsie pajamas :)



Each kidlet got their own little Christmas tree to go in there room. They all did a great job decorating them!! As you can tell, Christian was very proud of his!!


I even got my own little tree. I named it Pinky. It’s not hard to guess why...


Liz hung the cute monogrammed stockings with care {I am happy to announce that there is a letter "A" for Autum hung with the rest of family, I feel so special!) and decorated the house ADOREable!! Later, we built a fire in the outdoor fire place, played Christmas music, drank hot coca and ate pizza and donuts. Yum Yum Yum!!



Then on Tuesday night we went to Mcadenville which is THE Christmas Town, USA. Seriously Google it.



It’s an entire community that goes all out with Christmas lights that you can drive through. It was AWESOME!!! We opened up the back of the Escalade for the older kids, Londyn stood out the sun roof & Christian sat on my lap.




It set the mood for Christmas, which is coming up faster than I can say Fa la la!! Can’t wait to see the fam!! & I must admit, I really hope we get a good dose of the fluffy white stuff for Christmas. Then I can leave it behind after Christmas :D