Winter Wonderland (to put it nicely)

Ok, so I'm sure we're just like everyone in the Western States, but we have just been getting dumped on with the snow. Ryan's school and the kids preschool were both canceled yesterday, I think the kids will be canceled again tomorrow, and since they don't plow the roads it is a nightmare getting anywhere. I went to pick the kids up from school today and spun out of control 2 times and got stuck on the side of the road. The first time these 2 nice men stopped to help, and the second time, luckily I had a friend driving close by so she stopped to help me. It took us like 20 minutes of trying and then I flagged someone down to help. I hate driving in the snow, and I don't think I'll ever take it for granted that Utah has such nicely plowed roads.

This picture bellow is what every road looks like. It is so dumb. That's my one complaint about Spokane. I think it's so weird. PLOW YOUR ROADS!!!!



This is a random picture thrown in of the kids in their pajamas, their clothing of choice.


Anyway, It was fun in the snow though, since Ryan didn't have school he and some of the other law students took the kids sledding. There is a park near our house with a big hill. It was pretty icy but the kids had a blast and came home afterwards to hot chocolate and donuts. I stayed home with Davis and we got to relax, although I have to admit I was sad to miss out on the action.



So here's to hot beaches and at least 50 degree weather (or even 20 degrees for that matter). If I ever take an exotic vacation it will definitely be in the month of January of February.

oh Ashley, Ashley, Ashley

ok so I just need to make a little side note. So apparently when I was venting about trying to LOSE some weight I misspelled it as "louse" (which what is louse and why didn't spell check let me know) so Ashley thought she's correct me in letting me know the correct way was LOOSE (which I know why spell check didn't pick it up it's like loosey goosey ) Now the sad thing is I didn't know it until the 3rd sister made a comment to correct us both!!!! what is wrong with the Swensen girls, well at least 2 of us anyway.
P.S don't worry I've already edited my other post so now only Ashley looks bad. Sorry Ash the joke's on you. love ya

Pres. Hinckley

I just wanted to write some of my feeling on our wonderful prophet. President Hinckley was the prophet for most of my life, and I know he'll always hold a special place in my heart. he had such a good way of relating to us as members of the church. We all know he was nearly perfect and yet he he was so down to earth and seemed so human. I absolutely loved his sense of humor. he has such a good way at getting his messages across and always gets a little giggle out of everyone at the same time. He was such a positive person, and such a goer, even until the very end. I guess that's why it came to me as such a surprise, the way he acted made you feel like he at least had a good 10 years left. What a blessing that he didn't have to have a long drawn out process to make it home and back to his wife.
I do feel like I've lost someone so close to me like a grandpa.
It was so neat, in church today (before anyone knew any of this) our sacrament talks were all about President Hinckley. someone told a story that his daughter told. she said she loved his sense of humor, but more than that she loved to watch him tell a joke, he would just crack up at his own punch line. What a neat and tender mercy to hear all about him today. I will forever be grateful to him as a prophet.

Venting

ok, so I just want to vent for a minute. I am so stinking sick of trying to lose some stinking weight. I just like food, and I hate to go with out it. I have been stuck at this same weight for at least the past 2 weeks, and I think I have done pretty good with my eating, I haven't done amazing, but I definitely haven't been eating what ever I want. I just hate watching what I eat, epically if I don't see results. I'm just irritated that I'm so obsessed with my weight. but at the same time I don't fit into any of my clothes and I don't want to buy any. SO if any of you have any weight loss advice with a cool secrets of how I can eat a gallon of Ice cream and a pound of chocolate and still lose 10lbs, then let me know. I just hate the hard work. if I can get this last 10 pounds off than I know I won't be so obsessive, and I can just enjoy running and eat what I want. I think this dumb dieting had got me more obsessed with food than ever.

in honor of DaD!!!!

ok, so my dad was a little upset. last night he read my 100 things to be thankful for and noticed that he was number 94, and actually it was just his sense of humor that was #94 not even him. so here it goes
all growing up I loved to talk to my dad, he has such a calm/understanding way about him, he rarely louses his temper. I bet I can count on one hand the times my dad has ever yelled at me. he was always so calm and yet still let me know what was right and what was wrong.
Anyone that knows my dad knows that he's a little frugal, and I think he would take that as a compliment. he's pretty humble and doesn't mind going with out, and yet still never made us go with out.
My dad has always taught me (by example) to work hard and be self sufficient. But at the same time has always been there to support me through my life. he helped with cheer leading, school Dances, going out with friends, Beauty school, and even when I wrecked my car he was there to help me out.
I don't know where I'd be with out my dad and am definitely grateful for him. dad I love you please forgive me. love Katie.
P.S if your not on my thankful list....I'm thankful for ALL of my Family and my good Friends. yes that includes you.

Davis Laughing

Well we finally got some pretty good video of Davis laughing. He is such a cute baby and is always so happy. How can this not put you in a better mood?

Once there was a snowman/ We'll bring the world His truth

Well I was so glad because the other day it rained on the snow so it made it more wet for snowman making snow. It's been so powdery and cold that the kids couldn't make a snow man. So I sent them outside and was so impressed because they figured out how to make a 3 big snow balls all on their own. I couldn't go out and help them right then because Davis was awake and I didn't want to take him outside. They also had fun making snow angels. Once Davis was asleep and after they got all of the snow balls made,I helped them put them on top of each other. It was Bailee's idea to put a scarf on him and to use rocks for the buttons on him. She wanted m&m's for the eyes but then decided that they probably wouldn't show up.




Here is Tyson in his cute new suit and wearing his future Missionary badge. He felt so cool to
be a Missionary like his uncle Greg. And this next picture I think is so cute. it just shows what a cute dad Ryan is. Bailee asked him if he would paint her nails, so he went and got the nail polish and painted her nails in "rainbow colors" just like she likes it. What a cute dad to paint her nails.



These other pictures I wanted to take to show you Davis's favorite position. He has done this ever since he was one day old. he loves to arch his head back. He really is such a good baby and hardly ever cries, but if he does cry, I just let him arch his head back and he usually stops. My mom about has a heart attack every time she sees him do it because she thinks his head is going to fall off, but it's still in tact so I think he's ok. and (mom) just so you don't freak out, I am still supporting his head in the back.

and of course another picture of Bailee holding her little buddy.

Thankfull

ok so I've been reading everyone's blogs, and a lot are talking about what they are grateful for. I think it's such a good idea to take a look at your life and actually write out all of your blessings. Heather, I'm going to copy you and try to come up with 100 things I love.
Warning, this may seem long and boring to a lot of you, so don't feel obligated to read this.

1, Ryan, he works so hard and is always complimenting me, and is an awesome dad.
2. My kids. I constantly am laughing my head off at there comments, and love their sweet innocent look on life.
3. Epidural, (these aren't in any particular order) but what a blessing
4. MY HEALTH!!! thank goodness for all of our family's health.
5. Repentance, I am constantly messing up, thank goodness for do-overs!!!
6. My MOM. always serving others and I can cry to her about anything and she always understands and sympathizes.
7. Ryan's mom, she has such a good heart and is always thinking of others
8. My Grandma's both amazing examples of how to live your live
9. knowledge of the gospel and plan of salvation
10. Tylenol and ibuprofen
11. mix those with a diet coke.
12. Barbra, the sweetest lady that lives in spokane, she's like my Spokane mom
13. all the good friends we've met in spokane.
14. running (it's such a good out let, although at this point I can barely run a mile)
15. blogs
16. Utah friends
17. Mc donalds and chick-filet
18. comfortable memory foam mattress (from costko)
19. treats of all forms and kind
20. Bailee and Tyosn's preschool, and their teachers
21. seeing Davis smile
22. reading Twilight
23. analyzing every character from Twilight
24. when someone new reads Twilight so I can talk about it with them. ( I Know I Know get a life)
25. getting rid of junk
26. my mini van, (laugh all you want)
27. when Ryan cleans my mini van (I never do)
28. toy rooms
29. home videos
30. Bailee's thought process
31. Tyson's sweetness
32. anything that makes me laugh
33. hearing my kids sing any song
34. the Ellen show. she seem like such a good person
35. new make-up, it's nothing I have to fit into but it makes me feel better
36. just about all holidays
37. the sun, and summer
38. if it is winter than making snowmen or sledding
39. when my kids remind me to be a kid and just enjoy things
40. watching my kids play
41. Disneyland (especially with kids)
42. the innocent questions my kids ask that make me think.
43. praying, when I don't know who to talk to (Maybe this should be further up on the list)
44. hearing other peoples memories. like parents and grandparents
45. Missionaries, I swear they glow
46. ice cream
47. vacations
48. co-op (that's my babysitting trade off, I even like when it's my turn, but not as much as I like the free date nights)
49. Friday night (date night)
50 Naps
51. comments on my blog.
52. reconnecting with old friends
53. running errands, but only if I'm by my self
54. listening to all sorts of music especially Christmas music
55. cheezy people
56. positive people
57. Ryan's compliments
58. actually anyone's compliments
59. having a clean house
60. laying on green grass.
61. when all off the flowers are starting to bloom after a long winter.
62. when it gets light early in the morning and when it stays light late at night
63. family parties
64. game nights
65. playing kick ball with ryan's family
66. watching my parents enjoy my kids
67. thoughtful notes
68. hearing someone's sincere testimony
69.watching the kids play on the swing set
70. summer nights when it's cool enough to sit out side.
71. pillow talk with Ryan
72. hand me down clothes for Tyson and Davis
73. watching my kids open their Christmas presents.
74. telling my kids stories of when I was little
75. America's funniest home video's
76. when I earn extra cash I wasn't expecting, (shopping)
77. clearance items
78. finding good deals.
79. watching my Disneyland savings grow
80. girl talk
81. girls trips
82. being caught up on scrap booking (which I'm not)
83. if Ryan and I are in a fight I love the point where we finally understand each other and make up
84. coming up with compromises
85. my little white house. I will be excited to have new floors, but I will miss our cute house.
86. ward parties. especially in Spokane where we don't have family.
87. being inspired to do something good
88. if I see the scale with a lower number (15lbs to go)
89. picture's Bailee draws for me
90. seeing my kids learn something new
91. I love how Tyson says girls "gells" and Bailee "Belly"
92. the friends Christmas and Halloween party ( I was so sad to miss it this year)
93. Village Bakers chicken salad sandwich yummmmm
94. my dad's sense of humor
95. slimming dresses
96. having a new baby.
97. seeing my kids help out with Davis
98. empty laundry baskets
99. All of the lakes in Spokane
100. the Mountains in Utah
I can't believe I finished that, I was getting scared around 50, and I'm sure that's about the time you started to get bored. you'll have to excuse any misspelled words, this post was too long for Ryan to spell check.

Random, Christmas, cleaning, Davis growing again

ok, so I just wanted to add a few more pictures of Christmas up, since I wasn't very good at posting while I was in Utah. up above is Tyson, Bailee and their cousin Ashlyn on Christmas eve in their new Christmas jammies.

and Tyson looking so excited on Christmas. (he really was excited but I think he was concentrating pretty hard on his leapster, I worry about that boy, he could play that game all day if I let him.)

Tyson Payton and Olivia, 3 little buddies

Bailee Dillion and Tyson just hanging out

Our cute little Davis Smiling. he gave us his first smile right before we left for Utah when he was 5 weeks old. (for Ryan) it was so funny because he would only smile for Ryan, I would sit and work with him for 20 minutes and Ryan would come and stand behind me and he'd just start to smile. now he's starting to laugh, it's so precious and adorable.

A friend of mine gave me a good idea for a Christmas tradition, They open a game on Christmas eve and then play it as a family. so Mauressa, I'm copying you. we opened and played Twister. it was pretty fun.

ok, so now to the cleaning portion of my blog. I am so proud of myself. I wish I had a before picture of this room. it was chuck full of crap!!! boxes everywhere. so I went through and dejunked a lot of it and then moved all the boxes into another room and turned this room into a toy room. so now the kids can play with all of there toys in the basement. I am so surprised at how clean their rooms look. my fear is that now all the toys will slowly end up back up stairs. we'll see I guess.
Bailee and Tyson were so excited to help me with this project. They would slowly bring down toys and set them up. and Bailee was so excited that she would just talk in the funniest tone. her voice was all high pitched for like an hour, I wish you could have heard her.
we're slowly trying to get the house organized so we can put it up for sale. I can't believe that it is already time to start thinking about all of this.
I have to say, there really are a lot of things I will miss about Spokane, but one thing I will not miss is the fact that I don't think they know what a plow is. it snowed like a foot of snow last night and seriously NONE of the roads are plowed, I just don't understand. not even the main ones. When we first moved here we thought it was so funny how everyone had snow tires, and now we realize we are the idiots without them. and we all know my driving abilities, it's not a pretty picture. I was honked at and I think a few unkind words were yelled at me, but I just smile, wave and slide on by.




Here is Bailee and her most favorite toy. (poor little guy) I know I always write about this but she really is such a good help. it was so cute yesterday I was making dinner and Davis was kind-of fussing, then I heard him stop, so I finished, when I went to see how he was I saw Bailee with a bunch of books around her and she was reading them to him. I snuck the camera over and recorded a little of it, so I'll have to get Ryan to post it later.


Here is Bailee and her papa (in Utah) they have such a cute relationship. she just loves her papa. and here is my regular post of Davis's growing. I need someone to leave me a comment on how to group all of my pictures together into one big square.(does that make sense) I see it on everyone els's but I don't know how to do it. the last picture Davis is 9 weeks old and yesterday he weighed 11lbs, 11 oz. he's just growing so fast. it makes me sad how fast they grow.




So it's the new Year and I think I need to make some resolutions. to start, I of course have to start with the most common of all resolutions, lousing weight. I forget how much I love and am obsessed with food until I can't have it, but this baby fat doesn't want to come of on it's own so hopefully I will make it come off somehow. I'll have to keep you posted. My sister and me are supposed to be encouraging each other.
My second goal is I really want to be consistent With family home evening. We do pretty good at like every other Monday, so this year I want to make it every single Monday.
and My last goal I need to give some background info. I always go blog surfing when I get bored (don't pretend you don't snoop into random peoples blogs either) anyways, from reading them I realized how many people have health problems and other hard trials in their lives. I can't believe how blessed our family is. we really have been so blessed this year. We are all healthy and are all taken care of in so many ways. for some reason it's so easy for me to forget how blessed I am, and it's so easy to give myself a pity party. So I guess my goal is to remember how lucky we are and also to be more charitable and willing to serve others, and I guess to look for opportunities to serve others.
so there you go, in six months you can ask me if I am a size 2 (ya right) if I have been holding FHE and if I'm not as selfish.
sorry for the incredibly long post, I just feel like I had to catch up.

Davis's Blessing

Yesterday was Davis's special day. It was so fun to be able to bless him with all of the family there. We are so happy to have our sweet Davis in our family, he has been such a good addition, and he is such a good baby.

Davis also got to share a special day with his Uncle Greg. Greg was set apart to go on his mission yesterday, and is going to the MTC this morning. He is going to the Argentina Rosario Mission. It is pretty awesome because Ryan also served in Argentina but he went to the Neuquen Mission. Ryan hopes we can go pick Greg up in two years. We'll sure miss you uncle Greg!! Davis, Dad, and Grandpa Bullock.
Davis is so lucky to have so many cousins right around his age. From the Bullock side he has Peyton (3 months) Olivia (4 months) and not in the picture Emmi (9 months)

from the Swensen side he's got Austin (4 months) and Halle (8 months) . I'm so glad he's got so many fun cousins, it a few years they will be running all around having a blast.

Christmas Pictures

sorry it's been so long since my last post. It's so hard to blog while we're here in Utah. we have had such a fun Christmas Vacation. it's been so fun to be here with family, and see friends. the kids were so cute Christmas morning. we had it at my mom's home with my mom, dad , brothers, sister and cousins. it was so fun to have a big group. I was so surprised, the kids didn't wake up, until I woke them up at 8:00 A.M. (I was up at 7:00 waiting for them to wake up because I couldn't wait) I love Christmas morning, especially with kids they make it so much more fun and exciting.
Tyson was so funny he's been asking for scooby snacks for the past 3 months. ( I don't even know where he got it he hardly ever watches scooby doo. ) so anyways I know they make some gram cracker scooby doo snacks, but I couldn't find them before Christmas. So after he opened all of his presents he came up to me and Ryan and was holding back tears, and said Santa forgot my scooby snacks. he was so sad. I thought it was so funny. of all the presents he got, all he wanted was those stupid scooby snacks. so anyways the next day my sister found some at smiths, so we told Tyson they must have fallen out of Santa's sleigh . he was so excited it was really cute. these are some cute blankets my mom made for the kids, they love them . and were so excited, I am hoping they will replace their old ones, they were getting so raggy. so far so good.


ok so I just have to tell you some more of my deals. we have a store by us called Spokane Discount, and they sell all of costko's returns so I got these costumes for $4.00 each. I was excited. another deal I've found I like to do for Christmas I buy all of the clearance halloween costumes for super cheep and them give them to the kids for dress-up's . they love them and you can get a ton of stuff for so cheap.



Island princess, another door buster.