Happy Birthday My Grace!

Today is my Gracie's Birthday!! I can't believe that 6 years has gone by and she has only had stitches ONCE (knocking on wood now)!! To be honest I try to forget the last few weeks of my pregnancy with Grace because I was 3 weeks overdue and a total NUT CASE by the time I had her but I suppose that was the warm up for her arrival!!

Grace is funny, silly, imaginative, wild, thoughtful, loving, affectionate, passionate and so many other amazing qualities. My life would have been way too boring without Grace, she humbled me, strengthened me and just plain toughened me up in just a few short years! When you are blessed with a child like Grace, everyday is eventful, mind twisting and sunny! Her moods are vast and her senses are tuned like a cheetah stalking its prey, one moment she is quiet, gentle and concentrated and the next the beast is released and duck and cover is your only option!

The Lord has something fantastic planned for Grace and I feel so honored to have been chosen to have a front row seat, although sometimes I have to close my eyes. I love being her Mother, even when she is testing all human boundaries and my patience! Happy Birthday Grace

Flashback Friday! Back Logged Birthdays!

January is a busy month in our family! I have two children that celebrate their birthdays during the month, one sister, a sister in-law,and several friends! I guess they are all the equivalent of a possible tax return baby gone late! Just kidding, each of my children are treasured members of our family, and we would never think about the possible financial gain from producing offspring, NEVER!

Here is a little flashback of my January babies!

January 9th Lexi turned 11, holy smokes! Can I just say that living with a hormonal preteen is way too much competition for this high maintenance Mama, I am the only one in this house that is allowed to be hormonal! Oh wait, this is supposed to be about the good qualities, OK back on track!

Alexis was my little angel that saved me from myself and my brain dead stage of 17-20! From the moment she was born I knew that all my decisions needed to be made in her best interest and not my own!

After I separated from the "donor" just 10 days after she was born I only looked forward! I started school and focused on taking care of her. I didn't date or expose her to any lame guys for the next three years, I just figured if I was to marry again that my Heavenly Father would take care of it. He did, and boy were Lexi (3 at the time) and I super excited!


The years have swept by much faster than anticipated and she is just a few short years from driving, dating and then graduating! In the process however she is an amazing daughter, sister, cousin and friend! Lexi works hard in school, loves to read, ride her bike and talk (this could be from genetics but we are working to discover the source). I love her and I am proud of her! Go Lexi Go Lexi, shake your booty, Go Lexi, it's your birthday!


To celebrate this year we were actually in Utah for my cousin Rachel's wedding (which was on Lexi's birthday)! It was a great day we ordered room service for breakfast, got ready and then spent the entire day with family for the wedding. We ate lunch at a great Mexican place in downtown SLC and the best part of the entire day was when we were at the wedding dinner my sweet and amazing cousin Rachel stood and announced to the entire room that it was Lexi's birthday and had everyone sing to her! It made Lexi so happy, it was the most generous thing that Rachel could have ever done for her! Lexi was so surprised by it that she had to cry (remember hormonal), which then made all the rest of us cry! It really was a special day!






Then there is my James, how do I describe the boy that stole my heart from the moment he was placed in my arms? He was born on a fantastic day, January 24th, my sister Janna's birthday! I remember it was early in the morning, he was calm when they handed him to me, he looked up at me with those sweet eyes, and that was it for me, I was all his!



He is ALL boy, through and through, no question! He loves to jump, kick, punch, shoot, tackle, play with cars, and then when he is done he will come give his mama the nicest hug! He throws his head back when he laughs and gives his sisters a stern yelling at if they step out of line. James is silly, loves to be tickled and rides on the "big kid" swing, yelling "Dog! Dog!", meaning he wants an "Underdog"! (it's when you push your child in the swing and go underneath them). I am proud to be him mama!


This year for his birthday it was small and quiet with some cake and the usual Birthday anthem. This year I made cake pops for his cake and they were quite yummy! He is a good boy and I love watching him grow!


But don't mess with James cause I think he is gonna run this town someday!!

A Tiny Bit

I haven't had nearly the time I would like to blog lately! Every time I have been at the computer I have had other responsibilities calling me and then the desire to sit and look at the screen for even a moment longer seems too long!! So while I still intend to write lengthy posts about the very important events as of late, today there will just be some pictures that represent some of the pure joy my life truly has been!

Flashback Friday! It's My Party and I'll Cry if I Want to!

This picture is from my 15th Birthday can you see how thrilled I was!! Yay Birthdays :)

November is my birthday month and recently I was thinking about previous birthdays. For years I had this crazy superstition that my birthday brought about people dying. It started in High School when a good friend died near my birthday and her funeral was on my birthday. It actually continued for about 7 or 8 years where EVERY year there would be a funeral ON or VERY near my birthday for someone I knew. I guess I started to not really want my birthday to come, and it kind of became a thing for me to tell my friends not to go anywhere on my birthday so they would be safe at home. As I have gotten older my birthdays have become less and less of a big deal, I am usually happy with a cake, candles and a few presents. Now don't get me wrong, I LOVE parties, but the people close to me are not party people and so if I want a party, I have to plan it myself, which has always seemed a little weird to me. Anyway, this year I am just hoping for no funerals and a little cake, although my husband does have some gift he has been working on for quite sometime and I am excited to find out what that is!



Some pictures from past years. The one with the messy chocolate cake was Jimmy's first attempt at making one. The one that says 21 on it, was actually a joke from my sister Emily, I was actually turning 29. I have also had two baby showers on my birthday, one while I was pregnant with Alexis and the other while I was pregnant with James. For my 16th Birthday I went on my first date to Sadie Hawkins, I didn't meet the kid I went with until that day (he was the younger brother of my sisters boyfriend at the time). Good Times!

Love to you,

Flashback Friday!!! and Happy Birthday Dave!!

This weeks picture is of me when I was 5 or 6. The thing that I love about this picture is that I am holding a doll that has quite the significance. For my birthday that year (5 or 6) my Uncle Steve Novakovich ( I have two uncle Steve's), at the time I called him "Uncle Moneybags". For my birthday he laid out several piles of money, a stack of $1's, stack of $5's, stack of $10's and so on until there was at the end a $100 Dollar bill!! He then told me I could choose any ONE of the piles I wanted, being quite versed on my currency I went straight for the $100 Dollar bill, he tried to persuade me to choose one of the others but I was not changing my mind!! He then took my sisters and I to the toy store and let us choose anything we wanted, well my sister Alyssa chose a doll that could roller skate, my sister Janna and I were both eying the same doll, one that could eat and poo and you had to change her diaper! Janna decided that was the doll she wanted and I don't remember all the details but somehow my uncle and sisters convinced me that I wanted the black doll that ate and pooed and Janna got the white one. Tricky sisters!! I did love that doll though, and the fact that she ate and pooed!! Janna stop laughing!!!


Speaking of Janna the event of note today is that it's her husband Dave's Birthday!! I love Dave because he is so good to my sister and my nephew Ethan! You see us Holler girls could be placed in the category of "Mid-High Maintenance" and I would say that all of us older 3 girls have found men that have handled it quite nicely!! Dave is such a great man, he is a talented concert pianist and composer, he loves riding his bike for miles and miles and he has such an agreeable disposition!! He is probably one of the most stable people I have ever met, very calm and hard to rattle, well except that time he fainted when my niece busted her head open, but I don't blame him for that!! Dave is the eternal optimist and I am grateful that my sister snagged herself such a hard working, honest and kind guy to be her eternal companion!! Happy Birthday Dave!!!

There aren't too many uncles that would let their nieces do this to them!!


Love to you,