The Wales Family

This is probably one of the girls favorite songs to perform - their top favorite being Hannah Montana of course. But here is their rendition of the Laurie Berkner Band song…

I wish I had gotten a picture, but today I think I had the worst case of Mom Shirt ever. This morning I met a lady from the National Marrow Donor Program to go over paperwork and discuss some future projects. I had originally planned on taking the girls to my friend’s house, but she had a death in the family, and i didn’t bother getting another sitter because I thought it would be easy enough to take the girls with me. We met at IHOP for a late breakfast, and by halfway thru our little brunch I was covered in strawberry syrup, smashed banana, orange juice, and whipped cream. Rylee was even nice enough to pour a gob of syrup on her hand and then run it thru my hair! I’m sure I was quite the sight for onlookers. And if looking that way in the restaurant wasn’t funny enough I actually stopped at the store on the way home because I really didn’t want to drive the 12 miles home and then back again later. I got some funny looks in the store. I didn’t even realize quite how bad it was until I looked in the mirror when I got home, there was literally a hand print on my shirt, at least 5 spots of syrup, a huge sticky mess from the banana I had tried to peel off, and the spots from the whipped cream - not to mention my hair looked ridiculous! It was pretty funny. Just when i think my girls are getting old enough to be done with this type of thing they surprise me!

I thought this tag was pretty cute. Taking a look back at various times in your life: where you were, what you were doing, etc. My life is pretty boring, so try not to fall asleep while ya’ll read this!

20 years ago:
I was 8 years old, living in the house I grew up in in Layton, UT. I spent most of my hours playing with my little brother Jason and our friends Eric, Katie, Danny (or Daniel-son as we called him), Robin, and many other friends. We mostly played outside doing dumb things like “cops and robbers” and making forts and boobie-traps, playing kick ball, riding bikes, and doing all sorts of things I don’t even remember for sure. But we always had a super fun time. / Craig would have been 12 living in North Ogden with his family and I have no idea what he was doing.

10 years ago:
I was living in Salt Lake City with my weird roommates. Craig and I were friends and hanging out all the time and just starting to think about dating. I was still dating another guy until I realized how much I really wanted to be with Craig! I was attending University of Utah studying Psychology, my first year. I also worked at Lynne Reede Services working with disadvantaged people looking for jobs, and with kids who were kicked out of the traditional school system. / Craig was going to Weber State and living with his mommy like a looser. HAha! Just kidding, he was not a looser at all, it was the perfect situation for the both of them.

5 years ago:
Craig and I were married for over 3 years by now (yes the dating went by fast, after all we already knew everything about each other!). We were living in our little condo in Ogden at the mouth of the Canyon. I was switching jobs around now from Adecco at Autoliv doing HR, for the State of Utah, Department of Workforce Services where I worked as an Employment Counselor. Craig was working for Nutraceutical making vitamins and moving things around in a warehouse – still attending Weber State University. I had transferred to Weber State now and was slowly going to college myself.

3 years ago:
Our little Jaycee had blessed our lives and was about 7 months old now. We still lived in our condo in Ogden. Craig was now working for Petzl which was an awesome place to work, and was working on finishing up his degree in Computer Science. I quit my job to stay home with Jaycee and was working for our family’s foundation recruiting Marrow Donors and writing for grants.

1 year ago:
A year ago today we had been living in South Carolina for about 5 months. We had a six-month old baby, Rylee. I was staying home with the girls and very happy to have just moved out of our 900 sq ft. 2-bedroom apartment and into our 2500 sq foot 4-bdrm home! Craig was no working at RSI doing contracted work for the State of South Carolina division of Revenue.

So far this year:
We are still living in South Carolina, Craig still working at RSI. I am home with the girls, but trying to work at home now, which is tough with 2 demanding children. We have been in our home for exactly a year today! Rylee has survived 4 more surgeries in the past year (making 6 total). We’ve spent a lot of time with doctors, hospitals, and physical therapists. We’ve also made some amazing friends and feel so blessed to be where we are!

Whats ahead for the rest of the year:
Not much! We are planning a couple of family trips, including one to D.C. next weekend- hooray. We are still working on balancing working and family and trying to spend as much quality time together as possible.

Today:
Has been a boring day. Monday’s usually are housework days, and today is no exception. We woke up, got myself and the girls ready after Craig went off to work. The girls helped me make pancakes, and helped sort he laundry. So far we have done 5 loads, and there is still more to do! They also helped me bake some bread, clean and vacuum and wash the car, water and water the garden. Jaycee destroyed all chances of Rylee taking a nap when she accidently dumped a full cup on juice right on top or Rylee just as she was drifting off to sleep! Later tonight Craig has jury duty, so he wont be home until who knows when. Me and the girls will enjoy a ham dinner (which I prepped for yesterday but never cooked), and then we will pay outside or go to the park before getting the girls down for bed.

Tomorrow:
Craig will be going to work again, of course. Me and the girls will be watching cute little Heidi in the morning while her mother goes to get pampered (lucky girl got a gift certificate), then we will just have time for afternoon nap and hopefully I can squeeze in some work, then maybe play outside if it isn’t too terribly hot. And who knows what else!

WoW. I cannot believe my baby is 18 months old today!!! Time goes by much too fast. To celebrate her moving into toddlerhood, I thought I would do a tribute to Rylee today.

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I hope all you mothers out there had an excellent mothers day. I know I sure did. It was so fun to wake up to my 2 little girls bringing me presents. Jaycee gave me a coloring book, and Rylee gave me a Mercer Mayer book “Just me and my Mommy” - we love these books and I didn’t have this one yet. It was so cute. I love that they picked out presents for me by themselves. But my absolute favorite part of the day was listening to Jaycee sing. This isn’t her best performance, but it is the best one we got on film (and sorry, I couldn’t figure out how to flip it). Enjoy!

I LOVE LOVE LOVE being a Mom!!!

Last week we also enjoyed Cinco de Mayo. We appreciate any excuse to eat some fine Mexican food - it is our favorite. As part of the occassion we of course enjoyed some delicious sangria, and got our girls drinking from the bottle!

(don’t worry, it is alcohol-free).

So I thought Rylee was beyond this with how long she has been eating with a spoon, but this is what she looked like this morning after eating her snack…
I couldn’t believe it. She actually picked up the yogurt carton and dumped the yogurt out on top of her head!