19 months

This kid.  

She's spoiled.

No other child in the history of my parenting days has gotten away with what she does.  

Pushing her baby in a stroller in the grocery store.  

Eating green smoothie popsicles in my bed (On a green blanket, it helps a bit). 

Playing Polly Pockets.

Eating in the car and making a huge mess.  

You name it, she does it.  

She is obsessed with balls still.  The purple shirt she is wearing in the bottom left is Lindsay's soccer jersery.  It has a ball on it.  She insists on wearing it when she finds it.  She also loves Macie's kitty socks and wears them whenever she gets the chance.  (Top middle, and bottom right).  She loves jewelry and shoes and babies.  

She loves "The Wheels on the bus" song and "Twinkle Twinkle"

She hates nursery.  

She loves me.

I love her. 

Carly's Wedding

When Maddie was very little, my sister got divorced and moved in with my parents.  At the time, my parents were watching Maddie about 30 hours a week for me, so Maddie spent a lot of time with my sister and her two girls.  We have always stayed close to the three of them over the  years.  Carly's senior year she did work release at school, so she got to join us on our weekly lunch dates with Grandma and Grandpa.  It was so fun to have those lunches to get to know her better as an "adult."  About the past year and a half, us Wakley's have definitely taken the back burner to this guy.  It's a good thing he's a great guy, or I'd be hurt that she prefers his company to mine these days.

Such a strange day to see my little Carly - who used to only wear gym shorts and play puppies with my girls - get married.  She's still just a kid to me and it was hard for me to see her all grown up and in love.  I know that she's happy and that makes me happy.  Scott really does complete her.  I just hope they don't end up with a million pets - they are both suckers for a sad little animal. 

They got married in the Salt Lake Temple and it just so happened to be freezing cold that day.  We had parked at the Conference Center underground and had forgot our jackets.  So cold!  Sweet Macie always gets blue lips when she's cold.  People kept asking what she had eaten.  Nothing, just cold!  Carly had wanted my girls to have matching dresses, because she had matching dresses with her cousins at my wedding.   I tried to deliver, but the girls all wanted different patterns.  I found a simple idea on Pinterest and tried it out.  Not my favorite, but the girls liked them. 

This is when I have to admit that I'm a control freak.  Did you know that about me?  Crazy, right? You'd never guess that I like to be in charge of things.  As Carly and Scott were planning their wedding, I had my doubts and I voiced them, many times.  They decided to have their reception at Rio Tinto soccer stadium.  (They are die hard fans).  I couldn't think of anything worse, except for having a photo booth for the guest book. 
Huh. 
Who knew that these crazy kids knew how to throw a fabulous reception?

The room was beautiful!  It was so fun to walk out and see the field.  The photo booth was so much fun!  My sisters and I did a picture together, and I don't think I've laughed that hard in ages.  I love my sisters, and I loved seeing all the old people whine about the photo booth, but then they did it anyway. 

My girls danced and danced all night and didn't want to leave.  Even Lexi finally got down and danced for a bit with her cousins.  (She now watches the video over and over on my phone). 

So grateful for my sweet Carly, and so excited to have Scott in our family!

Family fun is hard...

I kept telling Jeramy I really wanted to drive the Alpine Loop to see the fall leaves.  We decided that we should go after conference on Sunday.  We told the kids about it between sessions.  They all said, "NO!!  That sounds boring.  I don't want to."  And on and on, even Lexi said a few "No" just because she heard it so many times. 
Conference ended and we told the girls to get dressed.  (Yes, we were still in our jammies at  4).  Maddie started a "Maddie tantrum" that quickly escalated to epic proportions with stomping and slamming and yelling and crying. 
She didn't want to go. 
She refused to get dressed. 
We tried to stay calm. 
She, did not stay calm. 
She got so worked up that Macie started to cry.  When I asked why, she said she was crying because Maddie was crying. 
Girls. 
We finally got everyone in the car and headed out on our adventure.  We had never done the loop before, so we really didn't know what to expect.  It was pretty steep with a lot of switch-backs and about a million other people that had the same idea as us.  The girls were a bit nervous (something about an accident earlier in the summer that involved the van rolling down the side of a hill).  Maddie kept saying, "I just want to go home!"  Macie saying, "I just want to get out and walk."  Jeramy cursing all the idiot drivers and side of the road parkers.  The guy behind us honking obnoxiously at every side of the road idiot parker. 
We were having so much fun!
We got to the "t" in the road and Jeramy had to pull off and take a breather.  It was a bit tense in the car.  We were soon surrounded by about 10 cars and blocked in.  We waited and as we waited, Lexi decided she was done with our trip.  She started screaming and yelling "NO" to everything. 
Good times. 
Jeramy said, "There's no way I'm going to Cascade Springs, let's just go home."  I said that was fine, and he headed down the road towards the springs.  I kept quiet, not knowing what his plan was.  We got to the upper parking lot of the springs and it was pretty empty, so we stopped.  Got out and smelled our brakes.  Yikes!  They were crazy burning hot. 
Nice. 
Macie informed us she had to go to the bathroom.  We walked over and found this on the door...

So much fun!
We walked down to the springs, the kids said how lame it was.  We walked back up, Lexi cried/screamed the entire way back up.  If you look closely at the picture on the bridge, Lexi is crying.

I had told the kids no movie in the car - that they needed to enjoy the beauty - yeah, we watched Despicable Me on the ride home. 
Lexi screamed. 
Maddie whined. 
Lindsay threw up. 
Happy Sunday, everyone!