Better Late Than Never!

At 17 1/2 months my adorable little slow poke Ella Kate is finally walking!  I always pray these little girls of mine will hit their milestones on time, but was secretly okay with Ella staying a crawler for awhile.  She is our last baby and growing up way too fast for us.  At about 16 months was when I wondered what was going on with her, especially after our doctor told us to give her time.  She would take 5+ steps off and on, so I knew she was capable- but she chose to crawl.  I've watched her take these steps for 6 weeks and wondered when she would make walking her means of transportation.

As I watch my girls grow I am in awe at how different they all are.  I've raised them all the same and they're very close together in age- 4 girls in exactly 7 years.  And yet they are all so different.  Hailey took her first steps at 11 months and then hurt herself and stopped walking until her birthday where she stood up and just started walking like she'd been walking her whole life.  Olivia took her sweet time enjoying her surroundings.  Madelyn, my little firecracker was born walking and talking (not really).  Madelyn walked and talked earlier than any little person I've ever seen.  And my sweet little Ella Kate is content to just hang out with her best friends (her sissies) having them do all the carrying and talking.

  I will say on the mornings Ella and I are here alone (with Madelyn at preschool) I'll suddenly hear Madelyn's 4 wheeler going.  Ella will get on and just start riding it; she will climb 5 stairs on the opposite side of the railing (so scary); climb her crib's window sill- and so I know she has some dare in her.

It's so fun as a mom to see these little personalities my babies come with and it's so much fun that they're all so different.  So glad my little Isabella Kate has chosen to start walking.  She is such a cute wobbly new walker.  I am so in Love with her.

St. George- Girls Only!

With my major spring fever, I was so happy to go with my mom and sis on a little getaway.  It was exactly what I needed.  The weekend started bright and early Friday morning with a 4 hour drive heading south, complete with plenty of Diet Coke, talking and laughing.  We checked-in to our Marriott Hotel and then we ate lunch at The Pasta Factory, my favorite restaurant since I was a little girl.  We hit every store on our list and I think my favorite was hitting up Dillard's for foundation and a beauty consult- or maybe it was Ulta.  That's a tough one.  Love all the free gifts we got.  Thanks to my mom and Nat for teaching me how to shop.  And I mean SHOP.

We had to get a baker's dozen yummy cupcakes from The Sweet Tooth Fairy and some delish sugar cookies to take home to our kiddos.  We took 2 cupcakes to my grandparents that live down there and had a long talk with them.  May I say that us Leavitt girls are major multitaskers?

Words just can not describe how much I Love my mom and sister.  We are extremely close.  I am so thankful for the examples they are to me, for their amazing advice, for the love they have for me, my girls and Jon.  I know I picked them in heaven.  We are so lucky to have each other.  I am so glad Nat and Bry will always live only 5 minutes away.  (Wink, wink.)  We were sad Melissa couldn't make it as her uncle passed away and she had to go to his funeral.  We talked about doing another SG getaway in the fall and will make sure she's there then.

I have to say how amazing my husband is.  From the second I asked Jon if he'd be okay watching our girls while I went to SG without him- to when I got home- he was nothing but happy to do it and happy to have a weekend alone with his little girls (who he spoiled rotten).  He was sustained 2nd/ counselor in the YM presidency on Sunday and bore his testimony with our naughty Ella Kate in his arms grabbing the microphone and our other 3 girls sitting alone in Sacrament Meeting and loved every minute of it.  Being alone with our 4 girls in SM would have stressed me out and I would not have bore my testimony holding Ella, that's for sure.  How did I get so lucky?

Am I manipulative or what?

I googled Cruises and hit Images and left the laptop open on our coffee table.  I am smooth...  Jon has agreed to go on an Eastern Caribbean Cruise with me in the fall!

I knew I was making progress when Jon started opening up about why he was worried about taking a cruise- his agency, of course.  And when I asked him what finally made him change his mind, he said the pictures on our laptop.  Manipulative?  Maybe a little.  My next goal is to talk him into a Southern Caribbean cruise that leaves out of San Juan, Puerto Rico and goes to St. Thomas, St. Maarten, St. Kitts, St. Lucia and Barbados.  Although I will not press my luck.  I'll take what I can get.  I can not wait to see these little islands that have so much history.  And I can already feel the HOT sun on my face and the grainy sand in between my toes.

The Worst Ever.

This is the worst spring fever I've ever had.  I'm craving a cruise to somewhere HOT with plenty of Diet Coke and the bright SUN.  Lots and lots of SUN.  I've asked Jon over 100 times if he'll go on a cruise with me.  He isn't interested and it's really bothering me.  I'm getting desperate and telling him I'll settle for a 3-dayer.  It's not working.  And I'm climbing the walls.

Isabella Kate!

Get down from there right now.

Not quite what I thought.

So this whole training for Ragnar thing is a bit different than I'd imagined.  First off, Love my team.  Let's just say we're all going to be pretty dang close by the time this race is over.  And by close, I mean close.  Sharing a van, sweaty and tired kind of close.  I can't wait.  Our team name is Straight Off The Couch.  How appropriate.

Asked around, did my research, and ended up with this baby.

The Garmin Forerunner 405.  She calculates time, pace, distance, calories and has an awesome GPS.  Love.  I'm at about an 8 1/2 minute mile, but don't judge.  I'm just starting.  And no.  That is not my 10k pace.

Got myself the perfect shoes what I thought were the perfect shoes.

Bought the correct socks.  You know, wick.

We've had 2 iPods for a while but I finally learned how to download songs.  Learn something new every day.  Lots of Black Eyed Peas on this little thing.  Add Where is the Love to yours and I promise, you'll run faster.

So, there I am running only hills- because that's what we live on.  Hills.  Cool breeze in my face, running to the beat of my music, loving the thrill.  Who knew I'd Love running so much?  I am so disappointed that I'm 31 and just learning this about myself.

And then.

After every run.

My knees.

My poor knees.

My poor, damaged, hard to walk after a good run, knees.

Especially my left knee.

Let's just say Ibuprofen is my new best friend.  Jon full on understands why he's been temporarily replaced.

My plan was to head back to The SL Running Co. Saturday to get myself a different pair of shoes that help my knees feel better but when I woke up I couldn't move my left knee.  I was in excruciating pain.  After spending Saturday morning with the doctor and after an X-ray with the next step being an MRI, I was put on bed rest.  Although I'm so NOT pregnant.  Heat, elevate, rest, sleeping with sticky medicine pads over my knee, ibuprofen- all that fun stuff.  My doctor told me I shouldn't even go to the grocery store or I'll have injury on top of injury.  I have to take 2 weeks off of my training and by then I'll be back to Loving running again.  I already miss it.  I am so, so grateful this injury is so early in the game.  I will only miss weeks 4 and 5 of training and will have weeks 6-20 to train and then RUN.

Go Straight Off The Couch!
Although right now, I am still ON the couch.

Here It Is!

From Blog To Book...

The Cover:  The Hertel Family
Enjoying Our Journey

The First Official Page:

And, the very last page:

This book has taken me well over 50 hours to put together- and that doesn't include the time I put in to each post, writing and downloading pictures.  I neglected my family while putting this book together in ways I would not care to share.  Let's just say cold cereal for dinner was only the beginning.  Being a perfectionist only added to the hours.  You move pictures and text boxes around and I wanted it to all be straight and even with correct spelling etc.- we will have this book forever.  Blurb put my book in the beginning to 490 pages with the first error message (OF 300!) saying they don't make books that large.  I was able to condense, and not cut out many things to get our book to a total of 245 pages.  I wish I could've made 5 like I'd planned.  But the books were more expensive than I'd thought.

There are many reasons I record our lives.  It has been so fun to read all of the great times our family has had.  I'm so happy to have this book, and that it's done.  I Love our little family and I Love our book full of family history!

Ready, Set, TRAIN!

Jon and I went to The Salt Lake Running Co. and ran on their treadmill the other night so they could tell us which shoes are best for our run.  Between 3, Jon picked these red Nike's, which he looks so dang HOT running in.  And I picked these Asics, which make me feel like I'm running on marshmallows.  We've started our training and I love that we run together.  Jon prefers to run alone and in a "zone" he calls it.  All the more why I appreciate him running with me, especially at night.  Here's to 20 weeks of training for Ragnar!  And crossing one of the few things off my Bucket List.

Disneyland! January 2012

In effort to get our money's worth with these fun Disneyland Annual Passes we have, we're averaging a trip to Disneyland every 12 weeks.  There are many other places Jon and I dream of taking our girls, but for now it's ALL Disneyland!

I thought I'd document the little things we do on our routine trips to Disneyland.  Like: The fact that we always leave around 5 a.m. with our girls still in dreamland.  And that we always eat at In N Out Burger for lunch on our way there.  Usually it's the In N Out in Vegas right off the freeway (we make it easy) but this time we ate at the In N Out in Barstow because we were making such great time.  Our friends complain about the drive and break it up and Jon and I can't figure out why.  The drive is always easy for us.  Well, minus Jon's ticket in St. George on the way home this time around.  I buy 4-5 little gifts that I would've gotten anyway, Disney related, and every major city they get a gift to open.  If that's what makes the drive easy, I don't know.

Even Ella loves In N Out.

We arrive in Anaheim around 4 p.m. (their time)- tired.  And we usually don't stay in the hotel we made reservations at.  I won't call myself a Hotel snob.  I like to blame my children.  Ella is not yet walking, my adorable little slow poke {she has taken steps, but prefers crawling}.  So she spends a lot of time on the floor.  And if you're going to spend 5 nights somewhere, you want it to be nice and clean.  Grateful for my patient husband who will do anything to make me happy {or shut me up}.  We always end up at the very nice Hyatt.  Before we check-in to our hotel, we always hit a Costco close by and stock up.  We'll get food we don't usually eat at home to make it more fun.  As fun as it is to eat Disneyland food, their $9.50 cheeseburger so isn't worth $9.50.  We have tried everything (food wise) there, and although good, so not worth the money.  We pack croissant sandwiches with stuff from Costco.  Then we eat at restaurants outside of Disneyland.  We always go swimming the second we check-in.  Or hot tubbing, if it's cold.

Madelyn and Ella are best friends.  I'm so glad they have each other.  I'm happy to say them falling asleep like this is common.

Ella Kate's favorite street, {and mine too!} KATELLA AVE.

Waiting in line at Pirate's!  Our family's favorite ride.
We rode this ride the most.

The Little Mermaid.  We rode this ride over 10 times.

Hailey and I on the front row of California Screamin', one of my favorite rides.  Love my little dare devil!

Let go of Pluto, Ella.

This time around we were able to go to
The Princess Story Time.

Still Ella's favorite ride, "It's a Small World."

"Curiouser and Curiouser!"

We hit up Cold Stone.  Madelyn chose chocolate with gummy bears.  Hmm... 

And this is what I don't understand.  I'm tired from walking all day and they still have energy to wrestle.

We got Ella Kate her First Mickey!  She was in heaven.

Goofy was hilarious.  He kept messing up my hair with that big hand of his.

Cookie Break.

We love Sully.  And the Monster's Inc. ride.  Rode this one over 10 times.

Rode the tea cups per Madelyn's request.  Bleh...

Space Mountain buddies.

We had a GREAT trip!  I don't know what I'm going to do when our Family's Annual Passes expire.  Cry, I suppose.  Can't wait to go again in April with my entire Fam!

My Little Smartie, Olivia!

I am about to brag.  Really brag.  So if it makes you want to throw up a little when people brag about their kids, I suggest you not keep reading.

I just got back from Olivia's Parent Teacher Conference with Mrs. Baird.  She is an excellent teacher- and when Olivia was sick the day before Christmas break, she brought the gift Olivia made for Jon and I to our front door so we'd have it for Christmas!

This morning, Mrs. Baird could not say enough about Olivia.  I smiled ear to ear when she told me Olivia is reading on a Level 4.  The levels go ABCD and then 1234.  Olivia is a level 4.  Mrs. Baird also told me she's doing really well in math.  Some of the children can write words and try to put them into sentences- Olivia is writing stories.  She's using correct punctuation and complete sentences.  I knew Olivia was reading Hailey's 2nd grade take-home reading library, but I don't think it registered to me how great that is.  It's wonderful for me to hear this because as time goes on, school gets harder and harder and to have an advantage is great.  There will definitely be things she struggles with as time goes on and to have mastered a lot so she can spend time on things in the future that she's not so great at, is wonderful.  Love my little Olivia!

Love my Hailey Elizabeth and Olivia Nicole

I could just eat her alive.

Our Merry Little Christmas 2011

This Christmas will go down in Hertel history as being a wonderful one, maybe even the best.  Our family is complete, healthy, happy.  We are content, feeling blessed, and the spirit dwells in our home.  Our testimonies are strong, our girls good, our trials bearable.

On the eleventh day of Christmas The Hertel Family

Went to see a movie in 3D.

We spent Christmas Eve with my whole family and my parents took us to the 3D movie, Puss N Boots.  I seriously enjoyed it- as much as I could anyway.  I wasn't in the theater at the end because of my noisy Ella Kate, but Jon missed more of the movie than me because of her, so I really shouldn't complain.  Seeing our girls in 3D glasses was an absolute crack up.  I tried to get a picture of Madelyn with her red pea coat, red beret and black 3D glasses- but Madelyn doesn't share my same love of pictures.  Our older 3 were so good and watched the whole movie.  So nice.  We went to my parents house after for a yummy Christmas Eve dinner and opened gifts.  Thanks to my mom and dad for spoiling us.  This year they gave some cash as well- our family is headed to Newport Beach, Disneyland, The American Girl Doll Store, etc. in April and it will definitely be a trip to remember.  We're staying in 2 bedroom Marriott Villas right on the beach that we got for a screaming deal and are praying for sun while we're there.  Our girls are so excited to go with their cousins that they love so much!

Brax and Madelyn swimming in wrapping paper.

Decorating sugar cookies.

Grandma Nancy with Madelyn Nancy.

Christmas Eve is my favorite.  I was tired this year but the excitement and caffeine kept me on task.  Jon and I worked anxiously (and quietly) to make everything perfect.  Then we put out the barstools and piano bench so our girls wouldn't peek.

I will say when I found out Christmas was on a Sunday, I wondered how it would all work out.  We woke up early (to no snow) and got everyone in Christmas dresses and checked out what Santa had brought.  Side note: Yes, I had the Santa talk with Hailey.  It was short, sweet, magical- and went right over her head.  Happy she still believes, disappointed in my Santa talk skills.  She believes strongly in Santa and his magic elves.  We love her and her sweet innocence.

We let the girls pick a wrapped stocking stuffer and went to church.  As much as church broke up our morning and changed our tradition of how we do things, Jon and I would feel so ungrateful if we didn't go.  Christ's birth is why we celebrate Christmas in our home.  Our girls asked us every 3 minutes how much longer until church would be over but we were able to feel the Christmas spirit a few times between those interuptions.

At home everyone changed back into their jammies and I quickly made our traditional ham, cheese, potato and egg breakfast casserole, little smokies and baked cinnamon rolls.  Then we finally opened gifts.

My adorable Isabella Kate in her Christmas coat.  Love, love, love.

Happy Little Thing!

First seeing what Santa brought...

The look on Hailey's face is what we go for around here.

 We got Madelyn a jewelry box full of make-up, jewelry and lots and lots of bubble gum!  (She asked Santa for bubble gum this year- easy to please around here.)

Liv (she asked me NOT to call her Livi Lou, but Liv, during our last Monopoly game.  Love her!) was totally thrown off because in our family, you have to be 8 to get an AG doll.  We told her she's grown-up and ready.  I've been so excited to give Olivia this doll!

There's that look.

Hailey got the AG cupcake/baking set, the breakfast in bed set and because of stupid Cyber Monday (I say stupid because I have a hard time saying no to a deal) some new AG doll clothes.

We got them all AG pets of choice (Praline, Honey and Sugar) with the AG pet set that comes with a trophy, flowers and a best of show award, so they can have pet contests.

I even got the AG Doll, Rebecca.  She's darling- they ALL are!  Jon also got me her school lunch set.  I love playing with my girls.

The look, again.

Mostly Ella got clothes, shoes, and a new swimming suit for the beach.  We did get her a fun little wagon and a Fancy Nancy Posh Pup though.

First official tea party with the table and chairs Santa brought- I'm sure there will be lots more to come.

It was definitely an American Girl Christmas here at the Hertel house!  A few weeks ago I told Jon I wanted to get him this gift from Costco but that it was too heavy to move from our car to the basement and should I call Kalun to help.  Jon said, oh don't worry, I'll help you carry the foosball table down.  I was so mad he guessed my surprise.  We all love foosball, and Jon loves that I'm actually a little competition for him.

Christmas night we went to Nate and Melissa's to be with the whole fam.  Now, I really, really love my family- but I like them too.  We like getting together and have a great time.  We had a yummy potluck dinner and played games.  The white elephant gifts were hilarious.  I won't say what we ended up with, only that Jon and I need to step up our game a bit.  We brought a Christmas cd (new, but re-gifted) and a State Farm oven mitt-- I won't say what we ended up with.  But, let me say this, the next time we do white elephant gifts, watch out.

We had our first ever Leavitt talent show.  Hailey played Clementine and Dashing Through the Snow.

My mom wanted a pic of her 4 kids.  I'll smile so much bigger in 4-6 weeks when my braces are off.

We had such a great Christmas, and are so blessed to have such wonderful family!  One thing was off though- we woke up to NO SNOW.  How does Santa land on a roof with no snow?  It was a warm day here and not a cloud in the sky.  I avoided looking outside because of the lack of white.  Maybe next year...

On the twelfth day of Christmas The Hertel Family

Read in Luke, The Christmas Story.

Jon also put together a bunch of short video clips (thanks to apple) that showed details of the birth of Jesus that went right along with Luke.  Our girls were so interested and asked 100 questions.  I love when we have the peace and time to actually get through answering their questions.  Four kids seems to bring a lot of busyness.

We are so thankful for the reason we celebrate Christmas, for the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.