Sorry it's been awhile.

So it's been awhile. We've been a little busy here in the Rawlings' household. Lizzie did get the part of Molly and has thusly been eatting, sleeping and dreaming Annie while finishing up her ballet classes this year. They are now in every day rehersals and she is so excited for the production to come to life next month. Jeremy's been working hard figuring out the world's problems and getting paid for it. Will is two and half and I'm kind of excited for the next half to get here and done, not that I don't LOVE my boy he's just a little bit on the crazy side and I am finding it hard to keep up with his toothpaste eating, running, jumping, hitting his sisters- self. I was recently put in the YW's as the Laurel advisor and I'm so loving that new calling and the challenges that comes with it and I'm trying to organize a 5k to help benefit a neighbor who has been kicking cancer's can.
Abby turns 4 tomorrow and realizing our busy schedules thought it'd be best to celebrate her birthday this past weekend. We were so excited to have all of her cousins and grandmas and grandpas come. Then Lizzie got sick the Monday before the party, no biggie as long as no one else..well Abby started running a fever on Tuesday but Lizzie was better so it must be a 24 hour thing..then I got sick Tuesday night but I was feeling better within 24 hours but Abby was still holding on to sickness..then Will got sick on Thursday...But by Friday night Abby was still holding on to her fever and Will was building up a pretty good fever. Saturday Morning Abby woke up and just started throwing up, Will was better and I felt awful. We called all the cousins and told them it'd be best if they didn't come and cautioned all others to come with plenty of purell on hand. Luckily Grandmas and Grandpas still came and even Aunt Stacey and Uncle Dustin made the trip out.

I had to search the entire world to find this princess jewelry box but it was worth it just for this sweet look on her face, that and the fact that she loves to fall asleep to the music at night.

Abby got lots of great gifts and before each picture she insisted that I take a picture of her holding up her fingers to show that she's 4.

This was my great idea. I wrapped an empty box and had Abby Lizzie and Will open it last. When they opened the box I told them that gift will be coming around Christmas time when they get a new little brother or sister. Umm they didn't really get it. But the Grandparents sure did.

Abby wanted me to make a chocolate cake for her with Chocolate frosting. But I has 0 time so this store bought cake with princess candies just had to do the trick.

All in all it was a great birthday for Abby. We're going to take her to Mc Donald's tomorrow with a bunch of friends to play since it's been crappy weather and she is finally feeling much better. I can't believe she's 4. She was born just 2 days after Jeremy started his career as an engineer. She was born 2 weeks before we moved out here to the land of promise. In some ways it's gone by soo fast and others it's been forever.

After Abby's birthday party we left the small ones and Jeremy at home and busted it over to Lizzie's preformance of Swan Lake. We were super grateful that her family could come and see it despite it being so super long and Lizzie dancing for 2.5 minutes during the entire show. But Lizzie looked adorable, we're excited for nutcracker again in the fall and Cinderella next spring.

Gma & Gpa Swenson took off during intermission it was a 3 hour drive back to O town and Gma Swenson had already put in a full days work before she came to Tooele.

It was Stacey's and Dustin's first ballet (umm sorry guys) they were a little lost but they cheered real loud for Lizzie.

The Happiest Place on Earth

Well I know you've all been dying to see how our family trip to Disneyland was, and I have tons to post yet I can't quite seem to find the time to post everything. So I decided I'd just do short tributes to each day. Not really in order but enough so you could get the gist of it all.
First of all we broke the trip up a bit by driving to vegas and staying the night there then moving on to Anaheim. The one thing I gathered from the trip was that driving that long with a two year old boy is torture after 3 hours. But we won't focus on that because there was too much good to focus on. Our first day at Disneyland the kids were so excited to see all of their favorite characters and to ride as many rides as they could. We got to Disneyland just a little after 9 and I was amazed at how many people were there. We went before the busy season hit and still there were a TON of people there. But the lines weren't too long and the temperature was beautiful nothing over 72 and nothing below 65, making the trip just that much more enjoyable.


The first character we saw when we got into the park was Minnie Mouse! The girls were so excited and Will even liked her too!

The one super annoying thing I HATED at Disneyland was the proffessional photographers who took the pictures and then handed you the photopass so you could go buy their 24 dollar pictures that you just took with your own camera. Sometimes the photographers would be in my way and the kids had a hard time focusing on which camera to look at. But the kids were happy to see the characters and to get their autographs in their little books.

Will loved pluto and didn't want to leave him when it was time to go. There were a whole bunch of other characters standing around but we decided we wanted to split to the rides. Which was a good decision we walked right on to the Buzz LightYear ride which was one of Will's favorite rides of the whole trip. The pictures I took of that ride didn't really turn out but Will was enthralled to say the least.

All of the big rides Lizzie, Me and Jeremy were able to go on but Will and Abby only had a selected amount of rides they could ride. But thankfully Disneyland has Fast Pass and Parent Passes so Jeremy or I would take Lizzie on the ride and then as soon as we got off Jeremy or I would take Lizzie again on the ride so Lizzie was able to ride every ride at least twice.

We rode as many rides as we could the first day and packed in a picnic lunch each day. We didn't worry too much about seeing all of the park because we had a three day pass and we tried to pace ourselves as much as possible. When Jeremy and Lizzie would go on a ride there was usually a character close by or a carosel so I would take Will and Abby to see the characters or ride the merry-go-rounds. The first day the longest we waited in line was to ride the Dumbo ride and that was a 30 minute wait. It still amazes me that we would wait in lines for 20,30,40 minutes for a ride that lasted just a couple of minutes. But the kids were pretty good waiting in line.

My favorite line we stood in was for the Who Framed Roger Rabbit ride as we stood there Will was acting up when a Deep Scary Voice came from behind a door with scary monster eyes and Scary furry Monster Feet. Will screamed for a solid 5 seconds and then jumped 3 feet into my arms and would not let go of me. The ride isn't a scary ride just a silly ride but Will was so scared that deep voice would come back he was frozen in place to me. He didn't fidgit, try to run around, or hit anyone or anything. It was incredibley pleasant standing in line and he loosened up once he saw that we would be riding in cars that we could drive.

Well we went and ate dinner at Downtown Disney after nearly a full 12 hours in Disneyland. The kids were a little cranky but we ate at the Rainforest Cafe which is a really entertaining pace to eat.......that is if you're awake enough to enjoy it...

spotlight on the kids

So I decided to let ya'll know what's been going on with the little ones in our house:




Lizzie: Lizzie is loving Kindergarten and we are totally in love with her kindergarten teacher. Lizzie's teacher has been so kind to take extra effort in making sure that Lizzie stays challenged in her class giving her specific reading assignments with reading journals and takes time everyday to read with her on her own level. Lizzie's really loved the social aspect of school and always comes home with a full report of what they talked about in school. They recently talked about Our country and how our government is set up. Lizzie was asked if she was president what she would do she said " I would try to help make fair decisions for everyone in the whole country and be a good leader." Jeremy then asked her what her thoughts were on the economy and taxes (after a breif explanation of what those two things were) Lizzie said "I think our economy would be better if everyone had jobs and worked really hard and taxes should be in the middle not too high and not too low." I really should email President Obama so he can see the face of his competion ;). Lizzie has been really busy with ballet they are getting ready to preform Swan Lake at the end of May and Lizzie's class are going to be black swans. It's really been fun to watch lizzie dance around the house and show us her "swan pose" Recently Lizzie auditioned for the community production of Annie. We found out about the auditions the day before and Lizzie decieded she wanted to do it. She learned Castle on a Cloud the night before the auditions and picked one of her books to read to the directors. The ad said audtions would go from 8:30-12:30 but I don't think they were expecting the HUGE turnout of girls that they recieved. They taught the girls a dance and a song and then had each girl preform her own peice and read and then preform the dance they had just learned while singing the song. I was honestly super nervous for Lizzie and tried to keep her level headed about everything and told her it was going to be a great learning experince. Lizzie's lack of height and ability to learn quickly were a great advantage for her. After 8 hours (that's right EIGHT) they announced parts and Lizzie was picked. There are only 6 speaking roles for the little girls and they are yet to post who has what part but I have it on good authority that Lizzie is a huge favorite for the part of Molly. I was super proud of Lizzie and how well she preformed under pressure. I'll have to post more after we find out if Lizzie actually gets a speaking role but either way it's going to be a lot of fun for her.



Abby and I have been able to spend a lot of quality time together which consits of mostly playing princess, or doggies, or unicorns, or horses or snuggling down and watching a movie that has one of those same themes. I'm trying to enjoy as much of Abby as I can she'll be starting preschool in the fall and I know it's just a hop, skip and a jump till she's in school and all grown-up. It's been fun to see how she's growing and the concern she has for others. She loves to take care of other people. Just the other night Jeremy and I were out on a date and had left the kids with some good friends. While these friends were reading Abby a story (about princesses) the friend had sneezed. Abby stopped the story and took the woman's face in her hands and said "oh no! Do you have the sniffles? Let me feel your head, are you hot? Here you'd better lie down while I get you a blanket." She then had the friend lie down and went and got her favorite blanket tucked it all around her and then asked if she needed anything else. The friend chuckled and assured her that she was ok. Abby gave her a careful eye over and decided that she was fit enough to finish her story. Abby and Will have become really good friends and play together while Lizzie is gone to school. They love riding their bikes together and would color from sun-up to sun-down if I'd let them. Abby will say the funniest things but don't cross her, she is quick to deal with those who frustrate her ideas or siblings. It's hard to believe that she'll be 4 this May, she was just two weeks old when we moved into our home it really makes me sad how fast time goes by.

Will is a two year old. Now for some they refer to it as terrible twos, but I'm not one of those. I love this age. Will is learning to be independent and he speaks so well. Every once in awhile he'll get frustrated about not getting his way and throw some of THE biggest tantrums that I have yet to experince as a mom but he often makes up for it with his laugh, adorable smile with dimples and those gorgeous big blue eyes with eyelashes that go forever. Will loves anything on Wheels, trucks, motorcycles, four wheelers and trains. He's discovered how to build with duplo's and that is now what we bring for him to play with during church (we've had to stop bringing cars his sound effects are often very LOUD) but he'll build towers and airplanes over and over again. Will loves the movie "Cars" and has to watch at least the first half of the movie everyday. He loves his lightenting McQueen bike and loves to go really fast on it. The sidewalk on the North side of our house has a slight incline and Will has learned how to pedal himself (ok he can't reach the pedals quite yet so he kind uses his foot like you would on a scooter) to the top of this hill and then lets go as he zips down the hill. The smile on his face is so huge! I really think this kid is going to have a need for speed much like his daddy. I have to be careful about when I say "Let's go to the park" The second Will hears that he bolts for the door and starts pedaling his bike for all he's worth. The other day I was trying to change into some running clothes before we went to the park and made the mistake of telling Will that we would go the park as soon as I changed. Well three seconds later he was out the door and halfway down the street, it took me forever to change into my clothes because the second I'd turn my back on him he would make a run for it. We've known learned if we're going to the park we have to spell it out. He is so fun and full of life he really makes us all smile.

just checking

So i'm actually hating having my blog private. I think everyone is like me and only checks private blogs every once in awhile and honestly I need more attention than every once in awhile. So i've updated my layout, changed the pictures and wanted to test the water to see who's actually looking at my blog. So if you've seen this post leave a comment and let me know that you still remember me. And let me know if you think this pic should be our header or the one I currently have I can't decide.

A Christmas Story

Once upon a time John and LuAnn had 8 kids. They were crazy, but good kids and they always, ALWAYS loved Christmas.

(Just missing the oldest and the youngest this year)

Those crazy but good kids had even more crazy but still good kids by the truckloads who also loved Christmas especially the getting together to cause mischeif part of Christmas

This is only a small sampling of the grandkids ranging in ages between 32-13

Those grandkids got smart real fast, and for the vast majority of them, they all found more sensible spouses that were never ever crazy but they still loved Christmas

well some of them were somewhat sensible and a little less crazy.

Then those grandkids got really really crazy and had even crazier kids that loved Christmas but even more loved causing chaos and running around in crazy circles at all times everywhere they went and Great Grandma and Great Grandpa loved them even more for it.

But they're all so stinkin cute I guess that it just makes sense to love them all.

ps this is not all the great grandkids loads of them were missing! Talk about a posterity!


We had a blast at the annual Carter Christmas Party. I am seriously amazed that everyone can still get together every year for this the majority of the grandkids are very much grown-up with families of their own yet they all still get together to see everyone the Saturday before Christmas. It's nothing too complicated (well except for Uncle Reese's rules on how to pass white elephant gifts.) But we all laugh and enjoy each other's company.

The white elephant gift splendor.

Grandmas and Grandpas lovin' on their kids.

Adults laughing and chatting together about Christmases past.


Grandpa always gives out shiny new dollar bills to the Grandkids.

Will inspecting his shiny new dollar wondering what it would taste like.

So that is just one Saturday activity from our Christmas splendor. We had just weeks full of tradtions and fun making. Next on the agenda of blog posting ...........................................................

Christmas Cookie Making!

Christmas Recap at a glance

So I know I'm a slackin on my new years hope of blogging more but as an great excuse everyone and I mean EVERYONE has been sick in our house for what seems like F...O...R...E...V...E...R starting the night of Christmas Eve so I've spent a lot of time pretending to be Dr. Quinn Medicine woman . So you're getting the lazy version of our Christmas: (I promise I'll get more creative with these posts as days go by)


One: We are so super blessed as parents, I remember as a kid not being able to sleep through Christmas Eve night and being up at 4 in the morning until the year that my parents made the rule that we had to wait till 6 so we would wake up at 5:30 and wait till our alarm clocks all said 6 and we were out those doors so fast. Anyhow back to us being blessed as parents our kids woke up right on time at 8:30 a.m. I was up at 7:30 hardly containing my eagerness for them to wake up and see what Santa had brought them. Anyhow then as a family we say a prayer upstairs and then make the kids wait at the top of the stairs till we go down as parents first. Which just happens to make for cute photo moments like this with all of their little santa hats on. Ummm yes they are adorable.

Lizzie wanted a wii so bad this Christmas and I kept telling her that I grew up without a nintendo and had a perfectly happy childhood. Anyhow it took her nearly 10 minutes to figure out that she got her wish of a wii even after she read the card that santa had left reminding her to share the wii. Even then she really had some serious toy envy with Abby and that barbie guitar.

Lizzie did have some serious fun documenting all of Christmas with her new tinkerbell camera.

Will was easily entertained with his two cars and this awesome cars bike.

Abby loved her princess bike as well. (Disclaimer for adult eyes only: So these bikes came by the wonderful Black Friday deals so the week of Christmas every night I asked Jeremy to put the bikes together so we didn't have to do it Christmas Eve night. Well we constantly got distracted and wouldn't you know Christmas Eve night who would be sick? Why it's our local engineer and put thingies together man Jeremy. So he had to sit there in a sick coma like state and watch me put the bikes together. I'm happy to say that they still haven't fallen apart but I was really kicking myself about not being a little more demanding about putting the bikes together quicker. Adult Reading time over) So Will and Abby have been racing their bikes down our super long hallway ever since (Honestly I can't wait till spring and we can get those bikes out of the house.)

Abby can now play a hundered different versions of Girls just wanna have fun....i used to like the song.

Yes I can see it in her eyes toy envy. Luckily the girls are pretty good about sharing.

Abby gave Lizzie this cute build a bear ballerina bunny. We had fun sewing it together and it now is one of Lizzie's favorite sleeping buddies.

Abby had three wishes for Christmas, A princess bike, a unicorn and a rainbow. Lizzie found this cute unicorn and was happy to be able to scratch that one off of Abby's list.

Will is seriously so easy to buy for essentially if it has wheels or buttons he's happy so he was in heaven with this Cars Cell phone. He has honestly spent more time on his phone than I do on my own.


So I snagged these super cute sweaters for a super good deal and when I started wrapping them for my kids I thought they are so going to hate these as gifts. As soon as Will opened the present he stripped down and put on the sweater. He soon realized he didn't have pants so he went and got his pants and also pants for the girls so they could all be dressed for the day.
This was my shot at Abby's rainbow. And she loved it!



Adorable little kids. Happy Christmas. Can't wait for next year.

Time for a change

Hey All! So after a lot of careful consideration and a long talk with myself I've decided to go private with this blog. If you want an invite please leave your email address. I'll make the change at the end of the year. Sorry I've been a sucky blogger lately but hopefully the new year will bring a new commitment. And here's a pic for you all to enjoy.





`

pumpkin patch/cute kids/ 29 yrs of greatness!

Hello Blogging world..have you missed me? It's possible right? Well I'm just a month and a half behind on my blogging so I thought I'd throw it all out there right now. Well not all. Just a couple of things and then maybe I'll come back and put more out there.
So this particular post has pix from our annual trip to the pumpkin patch and some photos of some super cute kids and a woman on her 29th birthday.

This is a pumpkin just in case you've never seen one.

When I took this picture I really really hoped that it would look like Will was laughing...umm guess not.

The entire time we were at the patch Will talked on his pretend phone. He's obsessed with phones right now.



The pumpkins seemed to go on forever and ever.

Lizzie walked up to me and said Mom take a picture I look like a farmer. I guess some grass in the corner of your mouth is a requirement for all farmers.


I was totally stoked for fall and have spent as much time as possible outside soaking it all up.

Abby picked the last of my flowers and I enjoyed it immensely.


I decided I don't have enough pictures of Will and gave him a little photo shoot. Umm ya he's slightly handsome...holy cow what am I going to do when he gets older!



For my 29th Birthday we went out to dinner and came back to three happy kids my friend Mindy made me a cake and we all sang Happy birthday. Really the only thing I really wanted was a picture of all three kids looking and smiling at the camera with me.....well I guess there's always next year.
Almost made it.

Well I'll try to post the rest of my pix sometime soon. Leave a comment if you've missed me blogging.