11 YEARS

Alan and I have been married 11 wonderful years now. Our anniversary was Saturday so we took the kids out to Ocean Shores, WA for some camping. We were going to try to go somewhere by ourselves but we figured they've made these last 11 years so wonderful so we should include them. We were expecting beautiful warm weather, we were not so lucky. While it was 90 degrees everywhere else in Washington, it was 65 at the ocean. Not only was it cold but it was misty and foggy. All of our pillows and blankets were wet from the mist, it was like having humidity without the heat. We still had a great time and of course the kids still went in the water even though it was FREEZING cold. These pictures are for all my Georgia friends, this is what the Pacific Ocean is like...all the time. Oh how I miss the South!!!!

BEFORE & AFTER

Taylor has had long hair her entire life. She's never wanted to get it cut. We trim it every once in a while but it's just not enough. She's 10 years old and I expect her to take care of herself but she hates showering and brushing her hair. It's a constant fight with her. So a few weeks ago when she asked if she could cut her hair short I saw it as an opportunity. I told her that if she could take better care of her hair for a few weeks and then still wanted to get it cut than we would. Well she stepped up to the challenge and we got it cut a couple days ago. She looks so much older it's terrifying! The first thing out of her mouth when she saw it was, "I'm smoken HOT!", um...yikes! I feel like I'm looking at a miniature 16 year old. So here's a before and after shot for you, the before is a little old but it illustrates that ridiculously long hair that she's had for 10 years.
P.S. She's donating that horses tail to Locks of Love, hopefully they can salvage a strand or two!

VIRTUAL BARBERSHOP

PUT ON SOME HEADPHONES AND GO TO A QUIET ROOM TO LISTEN. YOU HAVE TO TRY THIS, IT'S AWSOME. I USED ALAN'S NOISE CANCELING HEADPHONES AND IT WAS REALLY COOL, I WAS LOOKING AROUND AND FLINCHING! *Pause my music first*



OK, IF YOUR A GEEK LIKE ME YOU NEED TO KNOW HOW THIS WORKS. HERE'S THE TECH STUFF.

This is a technology by the name, Binaural Recording. Now this is one step ahead of conventional stereo recordings. In stereo, various factors that help us in our natural hearing are not factored in. Binaural gives a feeling of actually being there and resulting in an immersive experience unlike what we have heard over the usual speakers or headphones.

A typical binaural recording unit has two high-fidelity microphones mounted in a dummy head, inset in ear-shaped molds to fully capture all of the audio frequency adjustments that happen naturally as sound wraps around the human head and is “shaped” by the form of the outer and inner ear.

The result is a listening experience that spatially transcends normally recorded stereo, since it accurately reproduces the effect of hearing a sound in person, given the 360° nature of how human ears pick up nuance in the sound waves. Binaural recordings can very convincingly reproduce location of sound behind, ahead, above, or wherever else the sound actually came from during recording.

Alan's 1st Love

*DON'T SCROLL DOWN UNTIL YOU READ!

Alan has a first love and it's not me! I knew when I married him that he would always have this love affair going. I accepted it and now as our 11th anniversary approaches, yes, the love affair still goes on. This love of his sleeps outside our bedroom window on the side of the house. This way if he's ever missing her, he can just gaze out the window and daydream. One of the many reasons that we moved back to Washington is this love of his, he couldn't live out his dreams with her in Georgia. So now were back and I can truly say that their relationship is back in full swing. He showers her with his time and money. I think he might even whisper sweet nothings to her! So here are some pictures of his first love, I don't think you can appreciate them as much as he does, but at least you'll understand what I'm going through.


MEET SAMMY...She's 19 years old and Alan has known and loved her for over 12 years!




MY 3 YEAR OLD SON IS IN THERE ASLEEP

MEET THE NEW TANNER!

TANNER GOT HIS GLASSES TODAY. HE WAS DEAD SET ON GETTING THE BLACK RIMMED TYPE GLASSES. YOU CAN'T SEE IT IN THE PICTURE BUT THESE LOOK KINDA CAMOFLAUGE, IMAGINE BROWN TORTOISE SHELL IN BLACK AND GREEN. THEY'RE MADE FOR AN ADULT SO HE'S GOING TO HAVE TO GROW INTO THEM A BIT. I LET HIM GET WHAT EVER HE WANTED BECAUSE HE'S THE ONE THAT'S GOING TO HAVE TO WEAR THEM, I WANT HIM TO LIKE THEM. HE'S CRACKING ME UP TODAY BECAUSE HE'S SO BEWILDERED THAT HE CAN SEE CLEARLY. HE THOUGHT HE COULD SEE PERFECT BEFORE SO IT'S A WHOLE NEW WORLD OUT THERE FOR HIM. HE'S WALKING AROUND BOBBING HIS HEAD UP AND DOWN SO HE CAN SEE BLURY...CLEAR...BLURY...CLEAR, THEN HE JUST GIGGLES LIKE IT'S THE FUNNIEST THING EVER. I LOVE THIS LITTLE GUY!

Tate's 1st Feild Day

Because of Tate's sensory disorder he qualified for pre-school through the school district. He gets specialized care there including occupational and speech therapy. He's at an elementary school here in Puyallup. Today was the schools field day and pre-school got to participate. I really didn't want to haul the baby out and go but I made myself do it. I'm so glad that I did, I would have missed out on a thousand smiles. The smiles of hundreds of kids and my own smiles!

Pack Meeting

Tanner officially became a cub scout in April. He was so proud that he had to wear his uniform over to his Grandma and Grandpa house once. He went to his first pack meeting this week. We had a bonfire and made smores. He even got to shoot the water balloon canon (very cool)!



Alan had some issues with his smore!


Water Canon...check out the kids face at the edge of the picture!

Baby Legs

This pose is now forever going to be called "baby floating in outer space"...thank you Rusty!
I think your going to have to put up with a lot of these shots because this kid is so cute and I have way to many cute outfits for her. I have to share them with the world. This is what she wore to work with me yesterday (she began her career at age 6 weeks). I love these "Baby Legs", they're little baby leg warmers. I have 3 pairs of them and I would love more. First of all they're wicked cute, second they make changing diapers so much easier than with tights. Third, when she starts crawling her knees won't hurt. LOVE THEM! You can get them at www.babylegs.net the lady who created them is in my friends ward in Seattle. They can be worn for years too, they're one size fits all.

Tallula Belle

Edited* Sorry about the profane hand gesture there!


Ok so I guess I lied in a previous post...I might have a little time to dress her up and take pictures of her. She was just so dang cute at church today, I had to document her cuteness. I'm loving the dark couches we have, I can prop her up in the corner and snap some shots. I then darken up the edges of the picture in photoshop and voila, it looks like a studio shot. Baby Lu is 7 weeks old today and I'm not going to cry about it. Maybe I'll cry next week when she's 8 weeks, but not today. I just hate that she gets bigger and bigger, I don't want this one to grow up. I'm well aware of what happens to them when they turn about 18 months old. It's all down hill from there! I just really LOVE the baby part of my kids lives and that's so short. Since Lu is my last baby I'm having a hard time with all the growing and saying goodbye to the phases a baby goes through. Most of you know that I almost died of a blood clot that shattered into my lungs during my pregnancy. Because of this I have an increased risk of clotting again if I were ever to become pregnant again, also factor in that I've had 4 C-Sections and the doctors said, no more! Even though we really didn't plan to have more, it was incredibly hard to be told you can't have more kids. I struggled with it for my entire pregnancy, I only gained peace with the verdict in the last few weeks of my pregnancy. Still, I struggle with the finality of it. It's given me a greater joy for motherhood, I'm cherishing not just Lu but my other kids as well. I've found a greater patience for them and and a greater appreciation for each one individually. I realize that I'm running out of time with them, my portion of their lives is so brief. I want to give them all the love and counsel I can before they move on. So again a trial becomes a blessing, surprise, surprise!

SOCCER

If you haven't had the experience of going to a child's soccer game, you really should. It's really funny to watch. Tanner is a total character out there. Here's a few pictures from one of his games. Unfortunately I didn't get one of Tanner on the ground, which is where he spends most of his time. He goes after the ball with a vengeance, by the time he gets there he's going full speed. He usually collides with someones shin or shoe and trips. He's mastered the fall, tuck, roll, stand and keep running move.
We got the kids on teams with our best friends kids. So Tanner plays with Colton and Alaina, and Taylor plays with Jordan. It's been fun to be able to hang out at practice and games together.



NOTICE TANNER RUNNING FOR THE BALL WITH A VENGEANCE IN THE PICTURE ABOVE!


TANNERS BEST BUDDY COLTON GETTING NAILED BY THE BALL, HE MAY BE EVEN MORE OF A CHARACTER THAN TANNER! ONCE HE WORE ONE OF HIS SISTERS CLEATS TO PRACTICE, NOTICE I SAID ONE. HIS CLEAT WAS A SIZE 2, HER'S WAS A SIZE 7. HE DIDN'T NOTICE THE DIFFERENCE AND HAD TO PRACTICE WITH ONE GIANT SHOE ON. IT WAS HILARIOUS!


THIS IS THE FUTURE ALAINA RIGTRUP. TANNER HAS BEEN BETROTHED TO THIS LITTLE LADY FOR ABOUT 6 YEARS NOW. WE TEASE HER RELENTLESSLY ABOUT MARRYING HIM, SHE JUST ROLLS HER EYES AT US. WE'LL TALK HER INTO IT SOME DAY!



TAYLOR PLAYS IN A HIGHER AGE GROUP THAN TANNER. IT GETS WAY MORE COMPETITIVE AND INTENSE. WHICH UNFORTUNATELY MEANS SINCE SHE'S A BEGINNER SHE HAS TO SIT OUT MORE THAN SHE WOULD LIKE. SHE ACTUALLY KEEPS TRACK OF HOW OFTEN EVERY OTHER KID GOES IN AND IF SHE'S HAD LESS PLAYING TIME SHE GETS TOTALLY TICKED OFF. IT'S KIND OF FUNNY TO SEE HER GET ALL RILLED UP. I DON'T HAVE A LOT OF PICTURES OF HER YET, BUT HERE'S A FEW.

ABOVE IS A PICTURE OF WHERE SHE SPENDS MOST OF HER TIME!


THIS IS TAYLOR AND JORDAN JUST AFTER THE OTHER TEAM SCORED.

Big Weekend

Tanner was baptised and comfirmed on Saturday. I don't think I have ever felt the spirit so stongly as I did that day. It was an incredibly beautiful experience. Tanner is a very special little spirit. He has great things in store for him. I'm so proud of him for making the decision to be baptized a member of the church.



Little Lu was blessed on Sunday. The blessing Alan gave her was really beautiful. I'm so grateful to have a wonderful husband who is worthy to exercise his priesthood power and does so with such a sweet spirit. Hearing Alan give blessings is so touching, he just becomes overwhelmed with the spirit. Alan doesn't normally get emotional. He's a rough and tough man, he's funny and happy go lucky. He just lives in this world without the emotional roller coaster that most of us go on. So to see him become emotional during blessings is a gift for me. I'm proud of my family, I can see great things from them in the future. I'm so blessed!