Thoughts

Ok so I was thinking today that Alexis is 6! Six people. She is going into 1st grade and I feel like tomorrow she will probably be going on her first date and I will wonder what happened! Kaia is 4 and starting her 2nd year of preschool.  She is best buds with Alexis and wants to do and go where ever Alexis goes which is hard sometimes when Alexis goes to a friends house and Kaia doesn't get to go.  Hannah is stuck in between at 2 1/2. She starts preschool with Kaia in the fall and she is so ready.  She is sometimes included with her big sisters and more often left behind, part of this is because she is my bully.  She is the first to pinch and hit and pull hair, but also the first to run and hug and give kisses to someone who is hurt or crying, except when crying is caused by her. Hannah plays very well with her little brother though when she is excluded or she loves to be my sidekick , which I love most of the time.  Austin, my baby, is growing far to fast.  He is over a year old. He loves his dad, he loves me too, but the majority of the time, he chooses his dad to hold him or comfort him or to play with.  This is hard for me because ALL of my girls chose me over James in pretty much any situation up to the age of 2.  It usually started to balance out after that although when ever one of my girls is hurt 9 out of 10 times they cry for mommy to comfort them.  Austin, my baby, is different and has been pretty much since he could reach out and let us know his preference.  This breaks my heart a little because he is my last baby and he is the boy I have been hoping for since I first found out I was pregnant 7 years ago.  I am happy though that my son and husband already have a close bond, one that I hope continues to grow and blossum throughout his life.

Alexis is sassy and kind and while she drives me crazy with her disobedience and back talk she is also quick to apologize with out being told to and can be reasoned with most of the time.  She can throw wicked tantrums when she wants to and I mean I am waiting to hear CPS knocking on the door because she is screaming like she is being mauled by a bear.  She is a big helper and helps change Austins diaper and get her siblings breakfast.  She wipes down the kitchen table and can read and loves to draw and dance and do tumbling and write and play with her friends.  She talks about getting married and having babies with excitement which requires lots of questions that I have to answer.  Too many questions. :) We have already had "THE talk" with her and it went very well.  She is so curious, like her mother was, and so inquisitive, like her father.  Not my two favorite traits together but it allows for a lot of teaching and learning moments. She is very independent and outgoing. Such a talkative and friendly girl with adults and strangers (not my favorite).  She has a memory that astounds me all the time.  The girl remembers people and information with such detail that I am amazed constantly.  She loves her family and is full of imagination. She is the girl I lay next to at night and we tell each other made up silly stories before going to sleep.  She has a great belly laugh and is a little mother hen.  She loves to camp and be goofy and loud.  She is cautious and protective.

Kaia to be continued.... it's not letting me save for later so I'm posting now and will have to finish later.

Ahh silly life.

So this morning I'm cleaning the kitchen and I can hear Kaia playing with barbies in her bedroom and it reminds me of my sister and I playing with barbies for hours when we were kids and it makes me smile.  Hannah is outside in the back playing with Max, who she loves, more than any of the other kids that girl loves our dog, but every time he licks her she runs in crying that she needs he arm washed or her hand and then she runs back out and says, "NO, Max! No lick-a me.".  Ha ha ha that girl cracks me up.  They are both so content to just do their own thing.  Austin is crawling around back and forth between watching Hannah and watching me.  Soon Kaia goes outside to join Hannah and then Austin sits by the window and screeches at them through the window.  It is moments like this I truly take pleasure in.  When there is peace and happiness and laughter instead of fighting and bickering which I'm sure will come inevitably but ah these moments are awesome!  They are the moments that remind me of why I have chosen to be a stay at home mom.  I am so grateful to be able to watch my kids grow and play and teach them and experience life through their eyes.

I've had a rough week but already the sun is shining again which is not to say all is well but all will be well and this knowledge and the Lord will get me through the dark days that are sure to come occaisionally ahead.  Nothing short of a miracle has what has gotten me from where I was at the start of this week to where I am and I am so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who has given me an oppurtunity to experience it.  As I look back at the last few months of my life I can see that He has actually been preparing me for this week and that is a wonderful thing to realize His love for me to help me through this trial.

A good day!

...

Wracked with torment...I dont think I ever appreciated and understood what that truly meant until today.   I can say now that I know all to intimately what it feels like to have your soul wracked with torment.  Oh and it sucks.  Oh there is plenty to be thankful for and things that bring me joy but one day you are doing fine and you think you have a preety good grasp on your life and what it has been and is and will be and then BAM! You knew and know nothing.  I'm sure there is plenty that is what it has always seemed, but there is this doubt, and I apologize if this is dark and the few people who may read this are going ??? but this is my day today and I'm sure tomorrow or a future tomorrow will bring more light but today is dark.  So this is my rant and I won't be defining the problem so feel free to stop reading now.  I also have never relalized how anger and pain can comsume you but I am consumed and I hate it.  One thing can change so much and I wish I could run away and escape and just disappear but I feel trapped like I can never leave again.  How can you love and hate so much all at the same time? Thankfully I know the Lord is here for me and can take this from me and is probably the only one that can bring peace and comfort into my life again at this point, but if I'm not ready to accept that peace...

Already today I've lost my patience too many times with the kids and it is days like this I appreciate a childs short memory and ability to forgive so easily.  Hugging them and playing with them helps and when I apologize and tell them mommy is sorry she yelled and that I love them; hearing their I love you back and mommy don't be sad and then lets play, like all has been forgotten makes me apprecite them all over again.  I understand why we should be childlike in so many ways but man it is so hard.   I know in my head that I will probably look back at this one day and see the benefit of this trial but today I am in it and it is only the beginning and I don't want to be here.  

I propably, although I can't say for sure because who really can be sure, won't ever post on this subject again and no one may ever know there has ever been  a day like this in my life but it is certainly true that you NEVER KNOW what goes on in a persons life so I will do my best to never judge again.  From here on out it will be back to the kids, who I love and adore and appreciate more than anything in this world and my "normal" life and family updates.  The things that bring me joy and my silver linings on the dark cloud that has intruded on my once blissfully sunny minimally cloudy life.

Until a future tommorrow....this helped a lot today.

Another month

So it's been another month and here I am again finally.  Austin is amazing and has been rolling over for a month.  He holds his head up great and loves his tummy time.  He smiles and coos and I continue to adore him.  Hannah is starting to repeat words and babbles all the time.  I'm thinking she is going to be more like Alexis.  My girls love to sing and read and love to love on Austin still.  Lex and Kaia are starting tumbling and dance classes next week and I can't wait.  I know Alexis will love it but I'm hoping it'll help Kaia bust out of her shell.  James just got a promotion at work although not what we were hoping for, every little extra helps.  His boss says they'll revisit his pay in a bit but...I'm not holding my breath.
I'm excited we are two months into the summer because that means we are about halfway through the misery of it.  I feel like such a hermit in the summer months of August, perhaps because  I am but uhhgg it is so miserable even enduring the heat from the house to car and car to whatever location and then waiting for the car to cool off.  Yuck it is gross.  I think it wouldn't be so horrible if I wasn't loading and unloading 4 kids every time.  That alone can make a girl work up a sweat. :)
I have been missing having family close recently and it makes me super grateful for the close friends we have here.  I am longing for a trip but alas won't be making one for a while.  James is busy quite frequently on the weekends with scout camps and I have 2 little kiddos that need to grow a little more before I dare venture on a trip alone.  I am super bummed I 'll be missing a wedding and reception for one of my favorite cousins but am excited to go to my nephew's baptism.  Unfortunately we won't be escaping much heat because St. George is barely cooler than we are but we'll take what we can get.
I can hardly believe that Alexis will start school in a little over a month.  I'm so excited and nervous for her.  Excited for her to start a new adventure and to learn and meet new friends but nervous for her to encounter the world that I have protected her from thus far.  She is such a friendly girl and so outgoing that I don't want some bratty mean kid to crush her.  I am nervous to be called to come bring her a change of clothes if she has an accident because for some strange reason that James and I can't figure out she is scared to death of going to the bathroom anywhere but home.  Kaia starts preschool and I am super excited for my little independent girl to get to know other kids and to learn and grow as well.  She is super shy in new situations and I'm hoping this opens her up a bit.  I am excited to be able to have some two on one time with my two littlest kiddos because I feel like I don't get much of that.  Anyway until another month or week goes by and I sit down in peace.

so what if it's been 3 years, right?

Wow! I'm a slacker and have not even been to my blog in 3 years.  Oh yes tat's right my "new baby" Kaia is getting ready to turn 3 in a few weeks and since her birth I have popped out 2 more children who you would clearly not know about via my blog.  :) In fact you might think I had died were it not for the occasional posts on facebook.  So let me get started by saying we are still in Arizona and there is something strange in the water down here because in the 3 years we have lived here I have had 3 babies.  Now in my defense we were about to pop with our 2nd child when we moved here but still...  We have three beautiful girls, Alexis who just turned five a few days ago, Kaia who will turn three in a few weeks and Hannah who is 19 months. Then I just gave birth a few weeks ago to the most handsome little man, Austin.  We also got a dog, Max, a few months after Hannah joined our family so we are complete with our little man Austin.  James and I got our boy and decided that since Hannah and Austin were unplanned and when Austin was born we had 4 children 4 and under, plus a one year old dog, that we were done. So I figure that now that I have come to this huge change in phases as a parent from the birthing stage to the raising stage I can get back into the habit of writing on my blog.

So basically I figured out that I have been pregnant every year of my six year marriage and I am pretty excited to not be pregnant and experience being a mother with out morning sickness or back pains or constant weariness (due to growing a baby in my belly, I'm sure I'll still be constantly weary) or hormones going crazy.  I'm sure James is excited for this too, especially the last symptom; which has in the past turned me into a crazy emotional jealous wife.  Just ask for the stories and I'll fill you in. :)

James is hard at work at a dental lab and even harder at work in school.  He will be finished at the college down here at the end of the this summer and our plans so far are to head north to Utah and finish his bachelors up there and then hopefully get accepted to UofU for the graduate program he wants.   I am a busy stay at home mom and love almost every minute of it.  There are those occasional few minutes that make me want to scream but those come and go pretty quickly most of the time and I have a fantastic husband that helps as soon as he gets home.  This is possibly our last summer in AZ and while I will NOT miss the absolutely horrid heat of this state I have made some really good friends here and this is the longest we have ever stayed in one state since getting married and I love the preschool my girls go to and the wards we have been in and it will be hard to leave the good friends my daughters have and that I have made.  The winter weather is my favorite.  While the heat may be wretched for 5 months it is wonderful 7 months and up north I despise the cold and do NOT look forward to the never ending winters.  I'm sure we will make good friends up there and we will be there for about as long as we've been down here and then we will be off again so I should be used to this but I sure look forward to the day when my husband graduates and gets a job and we get to settle down somewhere for at least a little while.

Here are some updated pictures of us all...Hannah shopping at old navy, oh how I love this sweet girl.

 Austin sleeping, his favorite pastime.

 Alexis and Kaia playing in the sprinklers on this hot May day.

 Alexis looking beautiful while we went on an Easter egg hunt at a friends.

 Kaia in a rare pose for the camera with a smile.

 Me and my handsome boy enjoying some alone time at home.

 Daddy, who is hardly ever in pictures, at the hospital proudly holding his boy minutes after delivery!

So hello blog again it's been a long time but lets keep in better touch.  Until next time there's a bit of an update on us.  :)

So the Riese's have moved to Arizona and while I absolutely am starting to love it (minus the summer heat) we will be moving back to Utah in May. James has decided to go back to school and become a physical therapist. I completely support him in all he does but have decided me and the girls are just along for the ride for the next few years. :) We have added a member to our family and she is as adorable as Alexis was and we are loving her to pieces!!! James is living in a house full of girls and he loves it. Kaia is finally sleeping through the night, WAHOO, and while Alexis is in her terrible two phase, and trust me it is in FULL effect, there are still tons of moments where her sweetness and loving nature can make you forget all about it. James is working hard at the dental lab but for those of you who know him he is just too active to sit at the desk all day long and he is searching for something a little more stinulating to him. I am fortunate enough to be a stay at home mom and I love it. It is hard work most day, especially now with two girlies, but the rewards are greater than any pay check. While I will be sad to leave this awesome in the winter weather state I do look forward to moving back close to family. Alexis is going to miss her cousins Shelly, Briana, and Nevaeh cause they are down here but we'll just have to get in lots of play time while we can.

So we've been in Georgia for the summer and it has been interesting to say the least. James has been doing pretty good for his first year selling although it's been a lot tougher than he thought. We don't see much of each other but it is so much nicer being here with him instead of far across the country. Alexis not only walks now but she runs. It is amazing and she is starting to say words and she tries to copy everything we do. Alexis and I go swimming almost every day and she has these arms floaties that make her think she is invincible. :) She copies all of the bigger kids and dives in to the water and pops back up with a huge smile on her face. It is going to be very sad when we leave our big, fun pool.
We did get to take a week off and went to Maine for a family reunion. It was James' first experience with all of the Stehmeier's and we had a blast. Maine was beautiful but VERY small town everywhere you went. People literally stared at our family when we walked into grocery stores or any public place. It was crazy. We stayed on this beautiful lake and went canoing and kayaking, we had these two big yards in front of the houses we stayed at that were perfect for games and the week went by way too fast.
We leave for Utah on August 31st and I will be happy and sad to go. The weather has been wonderful here and I love the south, but I am ready to go home and see my family and friends.

Wow has it really been this long???

Sorry I am such a slacker but I am way better at facebook. James has moved to Georgia for the summer doing summer alarm sales for Platinum. Alexis and I are still here in Utah and she just turned one. My mom had surgery to remove a cancerous tumor in her kidney and to remove a cyst (thank goodness that's all it was) roughly the size of a softball along with all her female organs. All of that the week after James left. No fun for me...let's just say I was feeling a little overwhelmed. Now though the doctors are confident they removed all the cancer so my mom is home recovering from the surgery and has a check up in a month and then every three monthes after that for a year to be sure. James is doing pretty well down in Georgia and we are excited to be debt free at the end of this summer!!! YEA!!! James is getting very lonely with out us and we are doing suprisingly well considering James was the confident one that we would be fine for the summer and I was dreading his leaving. He asks me every day when I'm coming out there and I love being missed. Being a part from my husband has made me appreciate a lot about him that I think I was taking for granted and it has opened up doors in our relationship for us to explore that I don't think could've been opened without a seperation of longer than a week. I have enjoyed discovering things about myself and James that hadn't been brought up before now. I do miss him so much though and so does Alexis. It's not easy being a temporary single mom and taking care of someone else's kids on top of that. Alexis and I will be going out to join him soon and I look forward to the oppurtunity of living outside the Provo bubble. Maybe there I'll be better at writing here.

Our two year wedding anniversary was in March and we went hiking down at Arches National Park. It was a blast!! We had a ton of good times and there are a ton of pics on facebook should you care to look. We also went on a family vacation to my granda's house in California. It was awesome and much needed. again I tell you I'm way better at updating facebook but even then that's not to hard to do compared to this. :)

Here is a picture of my new hair color, Alexis loving the swings, and some pictures of us on Easter. It was so fun. Alexis was throwing things out of her basket and digging the candy. I let her have some chocolate and she was loving it. We went up to Logan on Sunday and spent the day with my family. It was a blast. We went on an Easter egg hunt and Alexis found three eggs. On Saturday we went to the big Easter egg hunt at Scera park and it was insanity. The adults are crazy. I saw a grown man rip a giant stuffed animal from a 10 year old boys hands. Craziness I'm telling you. We'll definitely be back next year. :)

Busy Busy

Well it's been awhile again. Things have been crazy with the nanny job and my patience is being tested to it's very limits. If all twelve year old girls are like this I hope all the rest of my kids are boys. :)

Anyway something kind of fun that I did is become a redhead...that's right I have been brunette, blonde, and am now a redhead. I'll have to put some pics up tomorrow but it is fun for sure and different but I love it. Thank goodness so does James and Alexis hasn't seemed to notice so it's all good.

James and I are going to be pretty busy the next few weekends with Easter, our anniversary and Conference coming up we'll be gone visiting the family, going camping, and hanging out in Salt Lake with some of our extended family. Life is great, Alexis is keeping me on my toes but is the angel that saves me from going insane. Her innocent smile and wet kisses keep me laughing. Here are a few more fun pics of her.

Oh my goodness I have been slacking. I can't believe I've taken so long to write. Well Valentine's Day was awesome. My incredibly handsome husband brought me flowers and balloons and a card and conversation hearts (as has been tradition since I was a little girl;the hearts I mean) and he bought a cute pair of red shoes for me (I of course helped him out with that). Then we went to dinner at our tradtional place since being together, the oh so delicious Carrabas. It was a great day and so much fun making valentines for him... :) Alexis had her nine month check-up and did not grow in 2 months, but I swear I feed the girl whatever she wants...well almost. There are too many unknown papers and who knows what that she tries to eat all the time. :) She is such a joy in James' and my life we can't get enough of her.
James and I have been discussing buying some land this year in Texas to build on later in the next 4 or 5 years when James has gotten enough experience as a ceramist so that we can move down there. We have planned on moving down there but we plan on staying with our current live in nanny situation for at least 3 to 3 1/2 years as is desired by our bossman. And James is working in such a good lab that things may work out for us to stay here but we figure if we end up staying here we'd just sell the land and enjoy whatever profit we made. Anyway that is the latest update for now.

Well a few new fun things have been happening...James has applied for American Gladiators and he tried out for a professional indoor football team, the Saints, for which he will be paid to play if he makes the team. He's pretty excited for both things so keep your fingers crossed. Things have been going so much better with the nanny job I'm doing. Both kids are being so much better. It's nice to go three weeks in a row so far with out world war three going on with them. Although hopefully I haven't jinxed anything by saying so. :) Alexis is pulling herself up with much ease and crawling around so good. She has already started letting go of the couch or table or whatever else she's holding on to to stand on her own.

It's snowing like crazy and while I'm grateful for the moisture it will provide...ENOUGH already! I'm done driving in the snow with crazy drivers that have no idea what they are doing. Bring on the spring.

Holidays

Well it has been awile since I last wrote. We went to St. George for Christmas and it was a quick trip that didn't last nearly long enough. It was Alexis' first Christmas and she had more fun tearing up the paper and trying to eat the paper than playing with her presents but it was so fun to see her get excited. We were home for a few days and then went up to Logan to spend New Year's Eve with my family and it was a blast playing games and staying up late talking.

A few days after we got home from New Year's and we were off to Vegas for the big CES conference. James loves the car audio display and since his hobby is to "pimp" his ride he was very excited to drag me all over to see every booth we could get in the few hours I was with him. We all stayed with Monaca and she was wonderful for watching Alexis while James showed me all the new gizmo's and gadgets at the conference. Alexis did so well traveling and thank goodness for the wonderful blessing she is. The weather was insane on the way to vegas and a 5 to 5 1/2 hour trip ended up lasting 7 and a little hours.

We are finally back home now and settling into our normal routine and the new year is treating us very well so far.

Christmas

Well it is that wonderful time of the year and we are loving it! Alexis is almost 8 months and she is getting so big. It is fascinating to watch her learn to crawl and grab things and discover the world around her. I am loving being a stay-at-home mom and am so grateful for the blessing it is for me to be able to do so. James is a waxer at UVDL and working hard to perfect his art of making teeth. Right now I am also a live in nanny for a family and it is a different experience, James, Alexis, and I live in the basement but it is just like we are extended family. Along with Alexis I am helping take care of two other kids but they are both in school full time so I get most of the day with just Alexis. It has been such a blessing for both our families and James and I will be forever grateful.

We are all heading down to St. George for Christmas to spend it at my sisters instead of heading up to Logan to spend it at my parents house. We are pretty excited although I am bummed we won't be having a white Chrstmas. James has been snowboarding and already says he can't wait to get Alexis a snowboard next year and start teaching her...who knows she may be able to snowboard better than she walks next winter. ;)