what a beautiful mess

(John Denver brings back some very fond childhood memories) This is the only picture Joshua was able to get of us playing basketball before the battery died. We've been going to the church to set up chairs on Saturdays and figure that since we're there, we might as well get out some energy. The kids could run up and down the court all day but after about 15 minutes, me and Trevor are panting like a couple of old dogs. But it's so worth it.... ******************************* I leave tomorrow to go to Kansas for a FULL week.  I am scared (to fly).  I am excited (cause I get to visit the Birds!!!!!).  I am anxious (to be away from  home)  I am sad (to leave my family). Tonight Stephen was crying cause he doesn't want me to leave.  (I'm only adding that last sentence because while it broke my heart, it also made me feel (selfishly) good.)  I've never been away from my babies for more than overnight.   And I include Trevor when I say my "ba...

In the morning after Trevor leaves for work, I usually have two little boys come in my room and ask if they can sleep in my bed with me. They climb on in and proceed to argue about who gets to sleep next to me. I tell them that i have two sides and that Joshua can sleep on this side. He says~ but i will fall off the bed. And i say~ no you won't cause I'm right here. So he lays down and we all go into a sort of sleep where we're tossing and turning but still being quiet. The heater kicks on and we're all nice and warm and peaceful. Then I catch a whiff of someones breath (and it's not mine cause I keep my mouth closed) and I realize that I'm in the middle of a stinky breath sandwich and then the nice, peaceful mood is kinda ruined. But then I remember that they fought over who got to sleep next to me and that that'll only last for a couple more years (at the most) and I feel better. I can deal with nasty breath. But I definitely keep my nose covered...

My girls would not be happy if they woke in the morning to no new blog post.  So this one's for you, girlies. Cause I love you so much. I've had a great birthday.  I ate cake twice. Got sung to 3 different times.  Ate lots of good food. Including cinnamon rolls from the Haslem family. (which explains the upset stomach I have now~ I ate way toooo much) Been spoiled by my family, especially Trevor. It doesn't matter that he doesn't get home till 6:00. He still made dinner, BLT/avocado/chicken salad and brownie sundaes.  And they were both delicious.  I'm sure Emily won't be very happy to see this picture.  She had a headache most of the night and  by brownie time, it was enough to cause tears.  She tried to smile but to no avail.  She's still adorable though.  I feel excellent for being 31.  No crying or whining from me.  Even though I did notice a wrinkle between my brows.  If I could pick and chose my wrinkles,  I ...

Thanks again for everyones concern. Amy is doing good. She will still be in ICU for awhile longer. She has a lot of internal bleeding, a wound on her head, 6 broken ribs and collapsed/punctured(?) lung. They are concerned about pneumonia with there being a lot of fluid in her lungs needing to be drained. The kids are all okay besides stitching and bruising. Tim has a fracture in his neck so he is very sore and in pain also. We are all just praying that they heal quickly. ********************************** Lets do another round of Bad Pictures, shall we? Unfortunately for me, this is Sarah Edition.  (We seem to have a lot of bad photos of me~ I'm not ashamed)  (a little inappropriate, right?) ( I was feeling good after just having Josh, okay??) Thanks for humoring me....

Thank you all for your prayers for Amy and her family. She is doing good and will hopefully be out of the ICU tomorrow. No news as to when she will be able to come home. We're just glad and thankful that she is okay.

We have just received news that earlier today my sister Amy and her family have been in a car accident. Tim and the five kids are okay, although banged up, but Amy is in the ICU. They hit hail while driving and the car rolled 3 times and Amy was ejected from the car. All we know so far is that she has broken ribs and  punctured lungs. Please, please please pray for her and her family. Thank you.

Sorry about that last one Candice..  But it's just priceless!

There's an abundance of pictures taken of our beautiful back sides.  In fact one got vetoed by Trevor. It was a really good one too.... Looking through all our old pictures has made me realize something.  There's really no bad pictures.  Each one has some memory attached that makes me happy. So while I said that these are bad pictures, they're really not.  I love every one of them.  **************************** Yesterday was a great day.  Trevor was well fed and well loved.  All day long....  Cake at work, cake at home, lots of texts and some new scriptures.  And a singing telegram at work, thanks to Scott and Jenee and their kids!  I love celebrating Trevor.....

is turning 31 today.  Old? Maybe not.  A list of a few things that I love about Trevor: 1. He lets me lounge all over him. 2. He acknowledges picture taking now without looking ornery. 3. He's patient with me, his crazy wife. 4. He follows me around (and I him). 5. He doesn't criticize. 6. He makes me look like I'm still 18. 7. He has the best smile and laugh. 8. He (gently) corrects me when I'm wrong. 9. He taught the kids how to unclog the toilet. (I think I love this; it gets clogged a lot) 10. He smells soooo good without having to wear cologne. Happy Birthday Trevor! 

Do you ever get tired of seeing pictures of Josh sleeping?  Ah well, it makes for a great photo for the blog.  Especially since it's the first picture I took all day long and  I didn't take it until 8:30.  And you know what?  I'm thinking of boycotting picture taking because sometimes it's as if picture taking has lost all it's spontaneity.  Where's the really bad pictures?  Well, now you'll get to see them.  Cause this week I will be showcasing all our bad photos.  Let the fun begin....

Check out this really sweet article on her: http://mediadagger.com/?p=616 Here she is with her "famous" face on.... at Target.  Which is where all famous people shop, you know. 

I'm entitled to do that once in awhile, right? For the past year or so, our favorite peanut butter has been Adams. Not anymore. This is now the BEST peanut butter ever made: It bothers me a little that the label says "peanut butter spread" but I read the ingredients and all looked fine so I'm overlooking it. I do believe that the Haslem family should be considered "Peanut Butter Connoisseurs". Don't you agree?  It takes no stirring and it is sweet and yummy with chocolate (At least it probably is. I haven't tried yet. But some things you just know, you know?) *************************** In my last post, I put pictures of the girls with pillows but didn't explain. Shame on me. My only excuse is that it was late and Trevor was waiting on me to watch a movie and so I hurried. (unfortunately, the movie was a little lame but I did get a good nap in) Yesterday afternoon, me and the girls made those pillows. They did such a great job. Both can ha...

Those pillows aren't too bad either!

And that my friends, is how you photobomb... (not really cause if you actually look at the website,  there are some very funny photobombs. This one passes as just mediocre)

in case you couldn't tell. Why, you ask, do I have a photo of someone who isn't me  or a member of my family on my blog?  It's cause I wanted to pass along some very useful information to you.  My husband has never shied away from giving compliments.  It's just something he does and one of the many things I appreciate about him.  But I wore this sweater today  (the same one that the girl in the above picture is wearing)  and he has complimented me twice on it.  And he has only seen me for about 2 1/2 hours today.  Really?? Really.  It's that good of a sweater.  You should get yourself one.  Especially if you have one of those  "We Love Wednesdays" cards for Gap.  It'll give you a whoppin' 40% off~ totally worth it, if you ask me.  Which you didn't but it's my blog and I told you anyway. And who can go a day without seeing a picture of Joshua sleeping? I know I can't....  Good night.

I've got a lot on my mind tonight. Thoughts just running around and around; about clothes, hair, disciplining children, articles I've read on the web today, the books I'm reading right now~ four to be exact~ ugh.... I need to whittle them down to maybe... two... Let me just take a minute to break my thoughts down a bit: 1. Clothes: I love clothes. I love shopping on the internet. I've got about 20 shops on my "favorites bar" and I have "pretend" shopping carts at a lot of them. I think about the wedges that I have to have or the pencil skirt I just can't live without (I'm being self-deprecating here in case you couldn't tell). And I read a lot of fashion magazines. Makes my obsession even worse. 2. Hair: I'm going for the big-beachy-fuzzy-wavy look right now and I'm just not sure it's me. But I like it. And I like my self-done haircut more than I thought I would. And my kids need haircuts really bad. So does Trevor. I ...

I don't pretend to think you all care about what we do every evening but for the sake of this post, I'm going to.  We had another rousing game of "Spelling Bee". Remember when I said the kids favorite game was truth or dare? Not anymore. My brain can only bring up so many words on each of their levels to spell so I used my trusty dictionary that we found at Goodwill ages ago.  Here's a new word we'd never heard of before: Sesquipedality: given to using long words. We've all known sesquipedalians before, am I right?  The boys wrestled for a good 20 minutes.  Trevor and I enjoyed watching them.  And Joshua's nose isn't bloody from the wrestling; it's just been bleeding a lot lately.  As I was going through my Picnik account, I came across this recently uploaded picture.  I love it. I don't so much love the picture as I do the girls in the picture.  They are simply wonderful, adorable, funny, smart, kind,  sweet, giggly, love-able, sil...

includes the following: falling asleep....either during American Idol or while reading scriptures,  taking plenty of self portraits,  being twinsies or triplet-sies.....whichever.... in our Haslem Family shirts,  some sort of random, made up game by Mom  (except tonight~ we had a spelling bee which is neither made-up nor random), 8:30 bedtime with reading until 9:00,  and Conan/Coco/Conando....O'Brien. And that's about it folks.  Wish you were all here to enjoy it with us.  Oh and tonight I made cookies.  And they worked out.  And they were/are delicous.  And there are a ton of them.  Want some? 

It was 35 degrees outside tonight.  Cold?  Maybe.  But that doesn't mean you can't grill in a short sleeve shirt, right?  Besides, 35 degress is practically spring here in Idaho Falls.  And it really was a nice day.  And our nachos with grilled steak were really, really good.  Although the movie we watched, Eragon, was not really good.  In fact, I read, Anna drew, Stephen and Joshua goofed off,  Trevor slept (only a little)  and Emily...well maybe she watched it.  But she was the only one.  And tomorrow will be a really good day...  That is all.

I got a text today from him saying "Guess what" I figured/thought he was talking about something good. It just wasn't the good thing I was expecting. I was expecting to hear him say that our house got rented out or something like that. Instead after I texted back "what" he told me that there were 6 episodes of The Office on tonight and lets get some Chilis chips and guac. So yes, it was good just not at the caliber of good that I wanted. After he told me about The Office being on, I started to feel a little down and proceeded to look at my hair and pick at it like I always do when I'm doing my serious thinking. Except this time, I needed a change. Something big. I decided to cut my hair. By myself. I figured that since I'm licensed and I already cut my own layers and color it, heck, why shouldn't I cut my own hair? It would be a tragedy to have to go pay a lot of money for something I already know how to do. So with the help of my two assis...

And with these sweeties: This morning has been... interesting.  In a good way, which is why I'm in love with it.  It felt almost spring like earlier but it's back to winter again.  But spring is coming for sure.... I have a sixth sense about this kind of thing... Want to hear a story?  Here you go: As I was laying in bed this morning, the girls in the shower, Stephen doing homework,  I hear someones car alarm going off.  I start to feel bad for the person who owns the car that's making such a racket because hello?!?, that's embarrassing~  for them.  I was feeling that way until Stephen comes in our room and tells me  that OUR cars lights are blinking on and off.  WHAT?  (I have to add that I didn't even know that our car had an alarm) In my panic stricken state, being barefoot and barely properly clothed,  I grab my keys, open the sliding glass door, sprint outside,  (notice I didn't say run cause I was fa...

So great in fact,  that we're all jumping for joy!!! And yes, this is actually how we treat our furniture.  Like I always say,  what's life if you can't have a little fun sometimes. (I don't really always say that... but sometimes I think it.)