The Higbees

Happy Holidays

2012-01-06T12:37:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas! What a great Christmas it was..We were able to spend 2 weeks at home between Alamo and Cedar and it was awesome. We have such great families and although we like it here in Arizona, we are reminded everytime we leave that we definately want to end up around family! I think it's crazy how much Will and Evvie look alike in the picture above..

My babies are now 5 months old.. I'm a bit depressed. I cannot believe how fast this is all going!! I was reading in a baby book the other day that if a 150 lb person were to grow as much as a baby in one year, they would end up being 450-500 lbs by the end of the year!!! Crazy right? That explains why Lance and I swear they grow over night! This is Will above. They have now figured out that they can put their hands and anything else they grab into their mouths, so needless to say we have a lot of slobbery shirts around here.

Our Pretty Girl.. I think my kids are so dang cute.. My parents always say, "Every mother's baby crow is the blackest." I guess it's true! Will and Evvie loved Christmas. They loved the lights and all the music and things to look at. They were even lucky enough to sit on Santa's lap 2 times!!! Maybe I will get around to posting those sometime..

Thank you Pinterest for the pose idea above.. Isn't Pinterest just great??

Our little guy is so funny! I get comments all the time from people about how they think he pulls the funniest faces. It's so true. He is always doing something different with his facial expressions! His eyebrows are so expressive.. if thats possible!! He has officially rolled over both ways as of tonight.. He finally got from his back to his belly, although he did get a bit high centered on his arm during the process!

They are both holding thier heads up so good now! They have just started noticing each other and I love it! They are always so happy in the mornings, so I always lay them on their side facing each other.. They spend a good 5-10 minutes babbling and taking turns sucking on each others fingers. It is so fun to watch! Sometimes they will be crying and I will turn them towards each other and they will immediately stop and start cooing at each other. Gosh it's so cute. They are so lucky to have a built in best friend!! I hope they are always close.

My sweet Evvie decided to roll over onto her back on New Years Eve! It was a great day for her because it means no more tummy time for her! Man she hated it! And I hated it even more.. I even stopped doing it for a while until friends and my doctor made me feel as if I would ruin their whole lives if I didn't continue doing it! She is still sweet as ever, and starting to love her Mom and Dad! It's so fun that they are starting to recognize us and get happy to see us.

Classic example of play time.. Notice how Will doesn't seem bothered one bit! They don't mind at all that someone else is sticking their fingers in their mouth and occasionally making them dry heave. It seems as if Evvie is always on a mission to find something in his mouth..

We have officially started baby food around here! Will INHALES it, and Evvie is very polite and has great manners while eating. It's so funny to see the difference between these two. Notice how they are holding hands.. That is my favorite thing lately.. They are so good at grabbing things now that they will grab each others hands. They do it while their eating, playing and falling asleep. Sometimes I swear Will is playing "Uncle" with Evvie and bending her fingers backwards on purpose. She screams and I have to intervene and break it up! I love it!

Things Evvie is doing-

-Being the happiest baby possible

-Laughing when we tickle her neck or when we blow in her face.. odd thing to laugh about so cute though. When she laughs it a cute, low and gruff noise. SO CUTE!

-Getting longer every day, she takes after her mother I suppose

-Talking seriously to us occasionally. Hard to explain, but it's as if she has something very serious to say and she is trying so hard to tell us something.

-Just barely found her toes, and likes to suck on them. Will could never get close to doing that! His belly is too large.

-Growing some great hair up top!!!

-Loving toys and putting them in her mouth!

-Loves her binky and a soft blanket she has. Whenever her face hits that softness she is out for the count! Great sleeping tools. She also likes to hold Lances finger whenever she falls alseep. (that's what he says anyways) wether she does or not I think it's pretty cute. One night I woke up and didn't know where Lance was. I found him laying on the floor asleep next to Evvie while she was holding his finger. Hahah, cute right?

-So patient. Poor Evvie gets taken advantage of. If it comes down to them both needing something at the same time it seems like Will is always first. That's because we know he will blow up if it doesn't happen soon! So poor Evvie just waits patiently. I guess it will be good for her in the long run!

Will just can't get enough of Evvie.. He is so much more solid than her! We are really starting to notice a big difference between them! I'm glad it's Will who is larger, not the other way around! At least for now.. Who knows what the future will bring!

Waiting for Dad to come home.

The Dr. is in!!! Lance is now helping at the Clinic once a week. He loves it and likes the change it has brought to his schedule. He is swamped with material. I feel so bad, but am so proud of him. I could never dedicate myself like he has! No joke he is studying or going to school for 12-15 hours a day!! We have found ourselves completely exhausted in different ways.. He is mentally fried, and I am sleep deprived!!! We will surive though! :)

Cute toes..

What Will is up to-

-Like I said, rolling over both ways

-Laughing and squeeling a lot

-Being a happy baby

-Loving to eat, eat and EAT!

-LOVES to bounce in his jumper toy. My brother and SIL gave it to us and man is it a life saver!! it will entertain him for a good 30 minutes! It is so fun to watch him jump like crazy!! Evvie isn't so much into the extreme sports like her brother is.. she doesn't like it one bit!

-Still in love with Elmo and the book that has Elmo in it..

-Loving baby food and playing in the sink cleaning off after he eats it!

Being a twin mom is starting to get crazier! I used to have things down, but as they are getting older and doing more things I feel like it is an amazing day if I can just manage to give them baths, get myself ready, clean the house AND cook dinner. Unfortunately that really never happens too often!! I am constantly reminding myself that all that matters is that they are alive and happy, and to enjoy every second! They are so much work, but I am LOVING be their mom!!!

Previews!

2011-12-08T23:15:00.000-08:00

Well, over Thanksgiving I took several people's pictures. I had a lot of fun doing it, and some have been asking for some sneak peaks.. So, here are a few of my favorites. I finally finished editing all of them. I have found it takes a lot longer to get things done with two babies around!

My adorable nephew Kobe.

My sister in law Angie's boys. She is amazing. She also has twins. When they were born Daxton wasn't even 2 years old yet! That's why I think she is amazing. I can't imagine having another little person to worry about right now!

This family needs to find a career as family modeling or something! They are such a good looking family right?

I thought this tree was awesome.

Love this picture with the awesome red shoes!

My other awesome sister in law with her adorable family!

I think this is my favorite picture of all! Isn't she beautiful?

Update

2011-11-03T22:47:00.000-07:00

I have decided Christmas cards require too much work to get in envelopes this year.. So consider this picture our Christmas card. Everyone I would have sent them to reads this blog anyways, so why bother right?? Maybe next year. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

This past year has been very eventful and so fun. Lance is busy enduring the hardest semester of his life, and I am busy enjoying the many challenges that come with taking care of two babies all by my lonesome! I have said this over and over, but thank goodness they are good babies because I don't know how I would do it if they weren't! Lance and I are completely exhausted each night as we go to bed, but although we have never been so tired in our lives (yes, even more tired then when we were playing college basketball and dating, staying up until 4 each night and then waking up the next morning for practice or weights) we have honestly never been so happy. It's amazing how happy two little human beings can make you! Merry Christmas!

That was the easiest Christmas card we have ever done. I think I will start doing it this way from now on.

They are 4 months old now. Can you believe it? I hate how fast they are changing, but loving it at the same time. It is so fun watching them learn and figure out how to do things.

Will is still cuter than ever, and always smiling with his whole face. See example above. I love how his eyes get that cute little squint. He is also becoming quite the yeller. He has found his voice and loves to use it. When he gets mad he lets us know by throwing a "Higbee Tantrum" as Lance likes to call it. Lance says Will has some fire to him like his sisters!

Our sweet Evvie Jane. (By the way.. I have had several people ask how to pronounce her name. I will explain. It is prounounced Eh-Vee. Not to be confused with Eve-ee.) Does that make sense? Poor girl, we set her up for lifelong confusion. But, we love the name, and we knew she was an Evvie when we first saw her!

We can't get enough of her. She has laughed several times now, and is the easiest baby. I always feel bad when I say one good thing about one baby, because I feel as if by saying that, I am in a way saying that the other baby is bad or something.. Which I am definately not.. That was confusing sorry.. Moving on.... Evvie is so sweet. She could babble for hours and makes the cutest noises. She is always so pleasant and loves to stare at Will. Today she actually reached out and took his binky right out of his mouth. She is getting good with her hands!

I often find them doing the exact same thing as shown above. Must be a twin thing right?

Evvie rocking her leapord leggings and painted nails. I swear, if I would only take care of myself as good as I take care of our kids I would be looking good! Baths everyday, dressed everyday, painted nails.. Someday I might get to that point.
I love that Lance is in normal clothes!! I love when he is in normal clothes because that means we are doing something fun. Scrubs or a shirt and tie = studying or school.

They are loving to read nowadays, and thanks to Brittany, their favorite book is "Bubbles, Bubbles." Will always smiles when he see's Elmo. Crazy how he can pick him out every time.

Will has the bluest eyes you ever did see. He is becoming quite particular with things we are finding. When he wants to eat, it better happen fast or we will hear about it. When he needs to burp, act fast or else! And when he is ready for a nap he needs a nap! But, the good thing is we can read him pretty well, and predict what he is going to want next. As long as we are on the same page as him he is a very happy boy. He makes the cutest noises, and squeels way more like a girl than Evvie.

Our pretty girl.

On another note, Halloween was great. Yes, I know that was a long time ago.. But I had to show off how cute they were! I don't know why I thought a cow and pig would be great while thinking up what they should be for Halloween, but I threw it together, and I think it turned out so cute! Unfortunately we didn't get much candy.. They weren't too good at the trick or treating thing yet. We're hoping next year they pull their weight and bring in some good stuff. Lance and I were farmers to go along with their costumes.

There are those hands again.. Always so proper and lady like.
Will's face is awesome in this!

3 months!

2011-10-31T22:23:00.000-07:00

3 Months!!

Time is flying by, and I find it so fun but so sad at the same time! It seems like just yesterday my babies were little preemies in the NICU, and now they are chunks who are smiling and being "real people" instead of just sleeping, eating and pooping!..(although a lot of that is still going on.. :) )

Will- He is our happy boy! Here are a few things about him..

-He has rolled over 3 times!! He rolled over at 1 month.. crazy.. but he just barely did it again two times in a row.. Lance was a very proud dad..

-He is "wirey" as Lance likes to proudly call it.. He is always so stiff and trying to stand or do something..

-He is SOO happy! At nights I will be closing my eyes trying to burp him and whenver I open them there he is giving me a big gummy smile! Whenever he locks eyes with someone he smiles so big.

-Speaking of his smile.. it's the cutest smile! He smiles with his whole face..

-Has started sleeping through the night!!! About a week ago he slept 9 whole hours!!! I didn't know what to do with myself. And what makes it even better is that Evvie did too!!! I haven't gotten that much sleep since June!!! I feel like a whole new woman!!

- Loves, Loves, LOVES to eat!!! As soon as he is up I better act fast because within a matter of seconds he is letting me know he is starving!! Such a good change from his past NICU days with a feeding tube in his nose!

-Likes to tell us "stories." We think he really thinks he is talking to us..

-Likes looking at his sister when they lay down by each other.. cutest thing ever.

-Has just recently started doing a pouty lip. I love it!

-Gets furious whenever he gets the hiccups.

-Is so close to laughing.. but instead does a fake laugh/chuckle.

-So happy in the mornings! But only for a short period of time.. then it's on to food!

Evvie Jane

-Our long skinney girl!

-Is so sweet and has become quite a cuddly baby.. which I love!

-Is ALWAYS moving her hands so cute.. hard to explain.. but she is so dainty with her hands and is always touching her face softly with them. She has also recently discovered them and likes to stare at them every now and then.

-Such a patient baby, thank goodness since Will has a very strict agenda!!

-SOO happy! When she wakes up in the mornings she never cries. I always wake up to her kicking and squeeling and smiling! It is the best way to wake up!

-Sleeps 8-9 hours straight every night for about 2 weeks now!!! WOOT WOOT!! Like I said, I feel like a whole new woman!

-Hates it when Will hits her in the face.

-Loves her baths.

-Falls asleep on her own all the time. When she wakes up at 6 I feed her, lay her under her toys to kick, then go back to bed. She plays for about 20 minutes then falls back asleep on her own. Bless her... ;)

-Loves to kick and squeel. Sometimes she sucks in and squeels so loud and hard it makes her cough! It is so funny.

-Has the sweetest little smile

-Is starting to get the cutest fuzzy hair that I can put into somewhat of a mo-hawk!

-Still loves to snuggle up with Will. She goes right to sleep with him by her. Which I love.

-Such a sweet little girl!

Lance has 2 more weeks of intense school and finals and then we are off for 2 weeks for Thanksgiving!! There have been a few long days where It's just me and the babies from 7 am to 8 pm with a break in the middle for lunch, but we are all surviving! I go out all the time during their naps because it seems like they nap better when they are moving in their carseats. I am getting used to the attention having twins brings, and have found the number one thing that gets said to a mother of twins is, "Looks like you've got your hands full!" Seriously, no joke.. I swear that's what I hear 90% of the time.. I also hear, "A boy and a girl?? How lucky!! ARE THEY IDENTICAL??" I am amazed about how much people don't know about twins.. but for all you readers out there that don't know.. A BOY AND A GIRL CAN'T BE IDENTICAL!! hahaha... I find that question so funny. I will usually try to explain this reasoning, and one time a girl said, "Ya, but they look a lot a like.. So they could be right?" I just laughed and pretended like she had a good point. Pretty funny.

Life is so good.

As of Lately..

2011-10-11T21:34:00.001-07:00

Life is good... My babies are almost 2 1/2 months and I can't believe it! It seems like these past 2 months have gone by SOOO fast and no it is just one big blur. I am trying so hard to soak in every moment and enjoy every second of these two. So far so good.. Thank goodness my babies are good babies. Evvie is an angel baby, and once Will gets all of his gas out then he is an angel baby as well! :) They are so much fun, and are starting to be real human beings by smiling and interacting with us!

Will has the cutest lips..

My beautiful Evvie Jane..

2 month check up stats-

Evvie- 11 lbs 7 oz >97% for length! >97% for weight

Will- 11 lbs 5 oz >97% for length! >97% for weight

We were pretty pumped about that... Our little preemie's aren't so little anymore! It makes us so happy to see that they are already tall.. hopefully that continues to be a trend.. I don't see how it couldn't.

Things I have learned being a mother of twins-

-I have suddenly become the worlds best multi-tasker.. and I am always planning ahead for what my next move will be. I honestly wish sometimes people could see me sometimes.. The other day I was nursing one baby, pumping on the other side, and holding and feeding the other baby a bottle! I mean come on!! that is impressive right? Too bad no one gets to ever witness it.. probably a good thing I guess.

-I am constantly amazed that a human being can function on so little sleep for so long. I mean seriously.. It started at 7 months pregnant.. And now ever since their birth, the longest stretch of time I have slept is 5 hours.. and that was only one time!! Right now I am averaging about 3 hours of sleep a night. But weirdly enough I think my body is getting used to it.. I'm sure it will all catch up to me sooner or later.

-It's true what they all say... You really do feel like a milk cow.

-It's ok if babies cry.. Or at least that's what I have to tell myself when they both need me and I can't help them both.

-I have become really good at handling and holding a baby with just one arm/hand.

-Taking pictures has never been so much fun..

-Traveling is crazy!! I mean it seriously took us 4 hours to pack for our first trip.. it was nuts! Our little car was packed to the brim with stuff!

-I am completely in love with these two little babies.

I am loving every aspect of being a mom right now. We have waited a long time for this and it has been worth every second! We can't get enough of them!

They're Here!!

2011-08-16T16:40:00.000-07:00

This post is a long time coming.. But it is hard to find time to do much of anything around here if it doesn't consist of feeding, changing or burping a baby!!

Our sweet babies decided to suprise us a bit earlier than planned! On July 25th Lance and I were at home enjoying the evening and trying to decide what we wanted to do the rest of the night... I got up from the couch to go get a drink of water.. and WATER is what happened!! I was in the kitchen when all of the sudden something just did not feel right, and we heard a big splash on the floor! My water had broke! I yelled to Lance in a worried tone and he immediately sprung into action!! So many thoughts started rushing through my head!! My biggest concern was that it was too soon. I was 34 weeks and 5 days along with the babies and I knew there was definately a chance they would need a lot of help after they were born.

Lance was hillarious. I have never seen him move so fast!! Within 2 minutes our bags were packed, toothbrushes loaded, baby outfits packed, and we were on our way to the hospital! Man was it an odd experience walking around after your water has just broke! I was soon hooked up to all sorts of monitors and they started running different tests on me. We figured out it was the baby girls sack that had broke. They then took a sample of amniotic fluid to see if the baby girls lungs were developed. Thankfully the test showed that they were.. That was a huge relief!! The only problem was we didn't know if the baby boys would be developed yet. But odds were pretty good that they would be.

Anyways.. fast forward a bit.. they had me labor through the night and in the morning we met with our doctor. Soon we were schedule for a C-section at 11:00 am! It all happened so fast!

Lance and I were so excited to finally meet our little ones.. They had me walk down to the OR and soon I was numb from my chest down and they were cutting into my belly! Lance took pictures of the whole thing.. I must admit.. He just might have passed me up with his photography skills! He took some awesome pictures! First came our sweet girl Evvie Jane! She screamed and screamed right from the start. She was so ready to get out of that cramped space! Next was William Lance. He on the other hand did not scream. I was so nervous, and it made it so much worse because I couldn't see anything that was going on. I kept asking why I couldn't hear 2 babies crying.. after about 1 minute of working him over he let out a very relieving scream!! Afterwards the nurses told me they were seconds away from intubating him. He had bruises all over his back afterwards because they were rubbing him so hard trying to get him to breath.

Hope you don't mind pictures like this.. I thought they were pretty amazing!

Evvie Jane Higbee 6lbs 19 inches 11:13 am

William Lance 5 lbs 13 oz, 18 3/4 inches long 11:14 am

Finally Will is breathing!!! He is the one closest to the camera.
Evvie Jane all hooked up to cords and wires.. We HATED all those things!!

Will right after birth.. Upset his sister broke out early.. He wasn't quite ready to come!!

First time holding both babies. In the NICU. Lance is already such a good dad. It is so fun seeing him with our babies.

Both of our babies were taken to the NICU to get checked out and looked over. We were SO BLESSED to not have any serious problems. All the nurses couldn't believe how big our babies were for being that early. We were very blessed that way as well.. Hopefully that means they both have the tall gene!! Will and Evvie checked out completly healthy. No breathing problems or anything! The only problem was Will hadn't quite mastered the "suck, swallow, breath" reflex yet, so he had to stay in the NICU for 2 long weeks until we could bring him home. Evvie was a great eater right from the start so she got to come home 5 days later. The first 2 weeks were exhausting as we tried to juggle having one baby at home, and one baby at the hospital. I hated having them apart for such a long time. It was so fun to bring home Will and just lay them by each other again!

They had to put a feeding tube through Will's nose to help him get the nutrition he needed. Whatever he didn't eat they would put through his tube. As he got better at eating they started tubing less and less until one WONDERFUL day they took the tube out and he drank the whole bottle by himself!! He has already been through so much and is such a tough little guy. We HATED seeing him in there with so many tubes and IV's. But we're so thankful he didn't have serious problems.

Sweet baby girl..

Brain washing Will already to play ball.

Will's first day home from the NICU!! YAHOO! As you can tell he is pumped!!

Life is so good. We are completly in love with these two little people. My mom has been a LIFESAVER these past few weeks. So far taking care of twins is a piece of cake!! Lance, my Mom and I have a great routine down. I know I will be thinking a lot differently when Lance goes back to school and my Mom leaves in a few days!! I will then be flying solo and out numbered 2 to 1!! It will be a CRAZY next few months, but I am excited for it and just happy to have these babies here!

Thanks for your prayers and support throughout all of this! We are so blessed to have such great family and friends in our lives!

Where has the time gone?

2011-07-15T09:12:00.000-07:00

Well, were back in AZ! We have been gone almost the whole summer visiting family and going on vacations. It has been a lot of fun and we are trying to enjoy every second of Lance's last summer!! We had a baby shower, went out to dinner in Vegas with Lances family, Roasted several good marshmallows on some good campfires, had fun in alamo, Lance and my brothers caught a 30 pound, 37 inch long fish, went to our cabin,went to Sun Valley and ended up with a week stay in Sedona with just Lance and I and a few friends!

It was so much fun, but I must admit a bit exhausting.. especially when your hauling around 2 babies in your belly and feeling very pregnant! But we had a blast!

Lance in front of the Tuzigoot Pueblos! I have never really been into Indian buildings and stuff.. but seriously, this was amazing!! It was by Sedona.. It was quite the long, HOT walk, and I had too many people to count walk by and look at me like I was crazy. I felt a little crazy myself and a little nervous I was going to put myself into labor! I got the questions.. Any day now? Past due? How much longer? and Do you feel like your ready to pop? .. Too many times to count.. I don't mind though.. I would ask the same thing!! maybe not actually. But I would definately think it!

Our friends Jon and Heather also live in AZ. Ever since we have moved here we always try to find an easy place to go to just get out of the city and dutch oven! But, we have found it is VERY difficult to do that around here! Our first try gettin out ended up at a city park, with us dutch ovening on a BBQ grill, right next to a soccer field and play ground for kids with a lot of people.. Big failure.. Our second attempt was much more successful, although it took about 2 hours to finally find place to do it. Sedona is a very pretty National park.. but it is SOOOOOO regulated and SOOOOO busy with everyone else trying to get out of the city.. So, we decided to take matters into our own hands.. We drove out into the middle of no where on top of the Sedona Canyon, and built a fire (Even though there were tons of signs forbiding it.) We were just fed up! Plus, Lance is an Ex-Fireman. Needless to say, we had an illegal fire, were scared the whole time we were going to get thrown into jail, but ended up with a DELICIOUS dutch oven meal in the middle of nowhere with no people around us.. just trees! It was a long awaited time that took us about a year to accomplish! The bad thing is, this spot is 3 hours from our home.. The search will have to continue for a closer destination! All you people living in Cedar, don't take for granted being 5 minutes away from a beautiful mountain that's not crawling with people!!!

In Sun Valley.. All the boys

And last, but not least.. The long awaited belly picture! I have been having people ask me all the time to post a picture! I understand.. It's pretty interesting looking at a belly that has 2 human beings in it! I am constantly amazed that there is enough room for them in here. Everyday my belly gets bigger! I feel as if there is absolutely no more room or skin to allow any more growth.. but, I continue to be amazed.
One thing I have found to be very true about being pregnant is that it truly is uncomfortable! I never thought much about it before.. But honestly, having a rock hard beach ball attatched to the front of you that is growing at an extremely fast rate does a toll on your muscles! Little things like bending over to pick something off the ground, shaving my legs, putting my flippin pants on!! Everything is hard! Don't even get me started on bending over to pick something off of the floor of the car!!! Not going to happen.. ever! Thank goodness for Lance.. I have never been one to order someone around, but Lance has had to step up big time and be the designated floor picker upper, and the one who pulls me or pushes me off of the couch or bed.

I already regret posting this picture of me..

Pregnancy is going great! Just uncomfortable. But so far I think it's totally worth having 2 at a time to only go through being pregnant once! My doctor will induce me at 37 weeks which would end up being around August 10th. Only 4 more weeks! We are so excited and I can't wait to see these two babies! Despite everyone telling me to "enjoy it while you can" We are excited to get them here and start settling into a routine!

Love For Clara.

2011-06-12T20:30:00.000-07:00

The past few weeks I have been following a truly inspiring blog. My sister's niece on her husbands side was just recently diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a type of childhood cancer. Clara is 2 years old. It's very serious, she is now considered a high-risk stage 4 patient with such a long road ahead of her.

Clara's parent's write on their blog daily about updates and their insights on everything that has been happening. I have only met these people once when my sister got married, but they have amazed me with how spiritual they are and the things they are learning throughout this whole experience. This is a very hard time for them but it seems to me they are trying to learn everything they possibly can from it. It has strengthened my testimony so much just by reading their story.

Their family has set up several ways for people to help.

http://apps.facebook.com/fundrazr/activity/f3c0571927e94ce08e7de7b40eec994b

To read more about Clara's story go here.

http://furniturefix.blogspot.com/2011/05/love-for-clara.html

To follow the parent's blog go here.

http://mommastimeout.blogspot.com/

But most of all, PRAY for this little girl and her family.

Proud.

2011-04-08T08:23:00.000-07:00

A lot of people always brag about their husbands on their blogs, so I figured now was a good time to get my adequate amount of bragging in.. Lance is amazing.. Let me tell you one of the reasons why. This past week he was sworn into the Air Force. That's right! We are in the Air Force! If you would have told me 1 year ago we would be in the Air Force I never would have believed you and I would have been straight panicing at the idea of even being in that situation! But it happened, and we are SOOOO happy about it. Now that we are in the Air Force they will completely cover all of Lances Optometry school.. Phew!!! No more lingering debt of 300,000 + hanging over our heads.. In return we will owe them 3 years of service at a base here in the US after he graduates. That is the basics of it all.. Along with many other benefits along the way. So, let me get to the bragging part. Lance was 1 of only 15 people elected to receive this Optometry Scholarship for the Air Force NATION WIDE!!!! 1 out of 15!! I didn't even realize how competitive the scholarship was until the recruitor told us all when they swore him in. Bottom line, I knew Lance was something special. Seriously though, he is just on top of things and doing some pretty amazing things with his/our lives. Needless to say, I am very proud & blessed. Ok, Ill stop bragging now, it's probably getting quite annoying.

After They swore him in Lance had to salute the person swearing him in, then he turned and the guy in the uniform had to salute Lance! It was crazy because uniform guy has been in the airforce 30 or so years,and already Lance is a higher rank than him. They treat their medical proffesionals pretty good.

On another note.. I am also proud of this picture.. seriously.. We found this awesome place to take pictures down here, and there are birds everywhere.. I was saying to the Mom, "I wish we could get a peacock to spread its feathers for the background of a picture. " Literally seconds later we turn the corner and see this beauty. This NEVER happens right? It was huge, and we were scared it might be in attack mode so we only took like 2 pictures in front of it. Thank goodness one turned out!

Also, I never made it clear in my last post.. Baby A is definately a girl! Those dang ultrasound techs were giving me grief! We are glad to have things figured out finally! My latest project includes these cute onesies and a headband.. Poor boy always gets the short end of the deal.. They just don't have many accesories for boys.

Babies.

2011-03-31T10:52:00.000-07:00

We had the big Fetus anatomy scan two days ago, and thank goodness everything looks completely normal and healthy! The babies are both measuring big and moving like crazy! I love that I can finally feel them moving! As for now it seems as if Baby boy is a bit more hyper than Baby girl.. we will see if that holds true.. He is constantly kicking my belly button. We are truly blessed and loving every moment of this. I am now 18 weeks, and I am not kidding you, my belly grows overnight.. We take weekly pictures of the belly and today Lance was just laughing looking at the pictures and saying, " You are going to get so HUGE! And it is going to be so awesome and funny!" I didn't know whether I should laugh or panic... So instead I just lathered on another coat of anti stretch mark cream... I figure I should maybe post a picture of the belly, just so when people see me in real life they aren't startled. We have however made a big milestone, we are halfway there!!! My doc tells me they will start me at 37 weeks with these babies. Fun times.

Baby Girls Foot.. All 5 toes!

Baby Girl touching her forehead with her toes! I love this picture and her sweet little profile! I am really bothered however because no matter how I rotate the picture before I upload it, it always turns out like this.. so just tilt your head..

This one is a bit confusing.. It is parts of both babies. They are getting so big that they don't both fit into the monitor at the same time.. But, On the right is Baby Girl laying on her back with her head on the right and her legs curled up on the left, then you can see a line inbetween her and the other baby.. That is the membrane that divides them. Then all the way to the left is the baby boys legs and feet.. they were kicking each other the whole time!

Baby boy's profile! I love this one.. You can see everything so good, his little nose and lips! Adorable already! The circle above him is his sister floating around in her sac. That is part of her feet that you can see.

Wait for it...

WAIT FOR IT.....

Don't judge me people who are pregnant and due 2 months ahead of me and we are the same size..

BOOM BOOM POW!

By the way, I just noticed I'm wearing the exact same shirt and necklace as I was in my last picture 3 weeks ago.. Oh great, now I am totally going to be judged.. It's becoming rough to find shirts that fit me these days! hahaha

Have a great day.

BABY A IS MODEST

2011-03-18T10:33:00.001-07:00

Well, we went again... Good news is, baby B is still a boy.. Bad news.. we still aren't 100% sure what baby A is!!! It was funny because when the Ultrasound tech first started looking at baby A she immediatly said, "Looks like your having 2 boys!!" We were excited, and I started imagining best friends, playing basketball together, going on missions together.. But after she thought she saw "the manhood" it instantly disappeared. So, she kept trying to look and look, for 15 minutes, but Baby A had its legs crossed and curled up. I asked what she was doing looking for so long... She said she couldn't confirm it was a boy because she couldn't see anything anymore.. So maybe it was like the umbilical cord or something.. Then, miraculously baby A opened up a bit and we got a good view for a minute.. Then,the tech said.. "I think it's a girl!" Wait, what?!?! So then all my dreams of two boys went away and I started thinking about all the great girl things.. You know, bows, cute outfits, doing girly things... having one of each.. But then she said, "I can't get a great view.. But i THINK it's a girl." Well, I THINK that all the ultrasound techs at my office are all fakers!!! I mean come on!!! We have been told it was a boy, then a girl, then a boy.. then finally a girl.. and instead of confirming it, she says.. I THINK its a girl.. hahaha So, I don't know what to think.. But, going off of my ultrasound tech skills I think BABY A IS A GIRL!!!.. I never did see the manhood like baby B flaunts so easily.. And instead we saw "the 3 lines" which indicate girl.. so, I'm posting the picture to see what you think.. Please if you have had girls or know anything tell me what you think.. Im curious.. Thse pictures are hard to get a good look at though.. The top one is the girl..

Do you see the lines??

The babies look so big in the ultrasound.. And as a result, I'm getting Large myself! It's so funny because there are SOO many people in the ward due a whole month or more before me and we are the same size.. I have a feeling I need to get used to being bigger than everyone! Soon I will be passing them all up. This is at 15 weeks. haha

I keep thinking.. If I'm already this big at 15 weeks.. I am going to BE HUGE by the end!!

We are super excited either way.. but for now I am planning and making as if it is a girl!!! I figure, if I'm wrong, then I will give all my girl stuff to one of my 4 friends all having girls before me.

Poor girl though.. she is smooshed!! The little boy is laying horizontally on top of her, and she has been banished to the bottom right corner of the uterus, while he is sprawled out completely!! ahaha.. they are fighting already!

This is the Boy above. Look at him all spread out with his cute little arm by his head..

This is our smooshed little girl.. She looks so cute though!! You can tell why they had a hard time looking!

We are Super excited to have a boy girl combo.. I mean, how couldn't we after these 2?? Just look at them! This is my brother Chad's twins. We did a photo shoot for them, Ill have to put up more because they are hillarious!!

They love giving kisses!

On another note.. My brother David and Juli had a baby girl!! She is adorable with TONS of dark hair.. completely opposite from her siblings who were bald and blonde! here is one of her photo shoots I did..

The best part of all though was seeing Lance hold Carys at the hospital.. Look how sweet!! I can't wait until its our babies he is holding and looking at! He is SOO excited and is going to be the best Dad.. He loves little kids. I am a lucky woman!!

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!!

BREAKING NEWS!

2011-03-07T14:30:00.000-08:00

Well, I am about to make one of those official posts.. You know, announcing that.. WE ARE PREGNANT!!!!!........ WITH TWINS!!!!!!.......AND ONE IS A BOY!!!!

That's right! We are pregnant with twins, and we couldn't be happier!!!It has been a long time coming, so we are SOOO THANKFUL for this great news! I'm pretty sure everyone already knew.. but we chose to wait until I knew things were considered safe and far enough along before we announced to the whole world! I am currently 15 weeks along and my due date is Aug. 31st! But, with twins they are considered full term at 37 weeks, and it's really good if you make it that far.. So, we are hoping to make it to around Aug. 10th!

We had an ultrasound today to find out the gender of each baby, but unfortunately Baby A would not cooperate and had his/her legs tucked up just right to where we couldn't tell what he/she was.. At least it is a modest baby :) Baby B on the other hand was proud to announce to us that he is a BOY!! We were both thrilled, and Lance couldn't stop grinning from ear to ear!! He was SURE that it was going to be 2 little girls.. so a Boy was a suprise to him! He has already started planning hunting trips, fishing trips, working on his dads farm with his little boy, and of course teaching him all he knows about basketball!! It was so fun to see him so excited! I am also so excited for this little guy to come into our family. I had a feeling all along we would have at least one boy!

Pregnancy so far has been great! Well, not really.. I have been quite sick, but I don't care.. It makes me feel comforted as I'm throwing up to think that at least I am still pregnant!! Thankfully the sickness is going away, and I am feeling so good! I now have a new found respect for sick, pregnant women.. I used to think they were all fakers.. Boy was I wrong!!! It really does happen.. pregnancy makes you sick!! Lance has been so good and supportive as I have been sick and no fun. I go to bed around 9 every night because I just can't hack staying up late anymore.. A very different change from my old night owl ways!

We announced the exciting news to our families clear back in December by showing up from Arizona wearing these T-shirts. It was pretty funny to see everyones reactions!

My shirt says Lance .. Is going to be a dad..

And lances says, Breaking news.. Anne's pregnant!

Oh, by the way.. that same day we found out we were pregnant we found out that Lance was 1 of about 20 who got accepted into the Airforce!! And that is nationally!! I knew he was smart!!! YAHOO!!! That means no debt from school!! It was a very good day!

We are SOOOOO HAPPY!

Stay tuned for Baby A's Gender.. We go back in on Monday to find out!!!

2011-01-18T13:55:00.000-08:00

My sister is REALLY talented at making things out of wood. It's seriously insane. She makes me so many cute picture frames, this awesome table that you could put in your entry way, or behind a couch, she made her boy the most adorable book shelf, she made me a shadow box to display Lance's basketball jersey, benches, stools, mirrors, tin tiles, decorative blocks with vinyl on them.. Seriously, anything. It's nuts. She has quite the wood working shop! Anyways, she started a blog with her friend and they do custom orders on anything. For instance I told her to make me this table and told her the exact heigth and width to make it so it would fit perfectly in this spot. She will also paint it any color you want. And the best part is.. she has super low prices!

So, go check out her blog and even if you don't see anything on her blog you would like, email her with an idea of what you would like and she will do it for you. You can click on the button to the side of my blog. It's called Decorative Designs!

Were still alive!

2011-01-13T14:36:00.000-08:00

We're still alive!!! Holy cow it's been FOREVER!!!! It has honestly been the busiest 2 months of our lives.. for reasons I will explain later. I feel like I haven't been here in AZ for the longest time! Our lives are finally starting to slow down again and have normalcy. We are back on a regular schedule that doesn't involve driving to and fro every other day or on a seconds notice!

Where to even begin.. I guess this picture will do..

Lances Wrangler Butt truly drives me nuts.

Halloween was spent in Alamo, sure it was forever ago, but I know my family will want these pictures so I have to post them.
It was so much fun.. Alamo is the cutest, funnest, smallest town ever!! I love that Lance grew up this way, and I can't wait for our kids to experience their Grandpa Eddie's farm!

Pumpkin carving was a blast, and Lance and I decided to do something a bit more traditional this year instead of the cool designs everyone does.. but, it didn't turn out exactly how we wanted it to.. We were going for evil eyes and came up with Asian eyes..

Milly and Kellon
Ang and her boys, minus 1
We decided to do something funny, instead we look so odd.. oh well

Headless Lance Man

Phoenix Suns VS LA Lakers Game!! Thats right, We saw Kobe in person!! So fun..

In front of the Arena. Overall life is so, so good! We are enjoying our life here in AZ, and I am welcoming the change of our winter.. For instance as I type I am sitting with our patio door wide open, seeing green trees, blue skies, and hearing a lawn mower.. Did I mention I smell fresh cut grass??!?!?! NUTS!!!! I'm sure it beats Utah where the weather is below freezing and you have to use a broom to sweep off snow from your car.. BUT although I love this current weather, we will see who will be bragging in JULY!!! :) I will always be a Utah girl, but this is a fun change!Hope everyone is doing well, have a great New Year!

Fall

2010-11-08T09:02:00.000-08:00

Well, first of all, there is no such thing as Fall here in Arizona. Which is really too bad because Fall is my favorite time of the year! Instead, it just feels like a typical Cedar City day in July! Luckily enough we were able to go visit Cedar for my adorable niece and nephews 1st B-day! It was so much fun to see everyone again! We decided to take some 1 year old pictures of the babies while I was down. It was so much fun! Also, Lance and I decided to pose in front of an awesome Tree to document our only Fall experience of 2010!

By the way, I have been keeping busy with taking pictures for people. It has been so much fun and keeps me busy.. I have decided I need a blog to put all my pictures for people to look at. So, hopefully within this week I will have it up and running. Hopefully it will be a bit longer lived than my Cake blog!!! ahahaha! I soon found out that making cakes takes A LOT of time and A LOT of cleaning up afterwards! Plus, A LOT of late nights stressing out over a sunken cake! Plus, I wasn't willing to charge people enough to make it worth it for me.. Anyways, I know this photog blog will be around for longer! :) hope everyone is doing well!

GOLF BALL HAIL!!!!!

2010-10-06T19:48:00.000-07:00

Who would have thought that we would experience our first storm of golf ball hail while in Arizona. Isn't it supposed to be really hot here?? It lasted for about 1 minute, maybe not even that long. We had to run out and get some to document it all. Luckily our car was under a cover, but SOOOO many cars around here are dented up so bad.. It was kind of entertaining to drive around the next day and see all of the damage... haha, thats awful.. Our neighbor got his tail light knocked out. On the news today it talked about all of the car dealerships who had all of their brand new inventory damaged with alot of dents and broken out windows!!! Isn't that just horrible!?!?! Who would have thunk!

The White Coat!

2010-10-04T10:51:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! Our lives have been busy here in Arizona.. Lances life has been busy actually.. He has been a studying fool lately! I always seem to find him in interesting positions while he is becoming educated, so I have decided to start capturing them. He really is doing so good though. School is intense and he is really enjoying it. He never ceases to amaze me however.. Last test he got a 100%! I need to start getting used to the fact that he always gets good grades and stop being so suprised by a perfect test score I guess. It's just so hard to do because I was NEVER one of "those students!"

Moving on, this past weekend was the White Coat Ceremony! Apparently it is a big deal. What they do is they present the first year student's their White Medical Coats.They defined it as, "A symbolic rite of passage for students of the healing arts. It signifies the students' initiation into the clinical phase of education and toward a career as a health care professional."

It kind of felt like a pre-graduation. It was pretty neat though.. I got really into it and excited about it all.. I probably took way too many pictures, but I'm really proud of Lancey-poo so I had to document it.

Putting on the WHITE COAT!!

Ah, the handshake..

Lance feeling ON TOP OF THE WORLD!! Look at that smile! He is feeling good about himself here! Well.. that's what I thought, but when I showed Lance this picture his explanation was, "this is all kind of weird.. I feel like I have accomplished something awesome, but in reality I haven't even started! I still have 4 more years of all of this!"

His Optometry class. All 50 of them!

The Jacksons! These are our new friends. Lance has a good study buddy now, and I have a good craft buddy!

Afterwards Lance showed me around the Optometry Lab. He practiced some of his tests on me. I was very impressed. He is already a great doctor. If any of you are having eye related problems in about 4 years keep Lance in mind.

Don't they all look so intimidating and like they know what they are doing?!?! Wrong-O! They are still very fresh and only know how to do 2 eye tests. BUT, they have a white coat! ;)

I love this picture! He really is doing a great job and I am so blessed to have such an attractive doctor in my life. Basically, Look out world.. Here comes Dr. Higbee!.... (That was maybe too much..) I just can't help it.. he looks so darn proffesional in that white coat! I sure am proud of you Lance!

THE AZ!

2010-09-13T13:51:00.000-07:00

Well, we finally have access to internet, so I thought I would catch everyone up! We made it to Glendale!! It was a pretty easy move, and thanks to Lances dad and my parent's we were able to get things organized really good down here! Our ward is already awesome, there were 6 guys waiting to load everything upstairs for us, things couldn't have gone smoother! Lance is now 3 weeks into school and he is doing awesome! He got a big, fat, WHOPPING 93% on his first exam.. and let me tell you, it is REALLY hard, in depth material.. I occasionally peek at his computer to see the jibberish that he is studying.. It makes me dry heave..I can't believe him!! I just hope his smart jeans rub off on our kids.. But he is loving it, and loving the challenge.. He studies from 7am to 7 pm, eats dinner, then studies till bedtime! Friday nights have become our "date night" and I already look forward to these times! Last friday we found a Discount Cinema and went to a cheap movie that only cost $3.00! We have allowed us $20.00 a month for dates, so we will have to get pretty creative.. It's not easy being so poor! As for me, I am living a great life right now! I am enjoying keeping up the house, and pride myself in having meals ready for Lance when he gets home.. I don't know how long this will last, but its alot of fun right now to try out new recipes.. I also am busy painting things, decorating my house, and sewing things.. hahaha, I sound lame.. Anyways, did I mention we live at a RESORT!!! It was the best decision of our lives to live in these apts. An awesome pool, hot tub, gated entry, and my favorite.. a workout room.. Oh ya, and there are lakes all around our apartment!! We love it. I will take some pictures soon to show!

Also, I wanted to give a shout out to Hasky!! I don't really know why, but she asked me too.. I really miss her..

Anyways, life is good.. We have made some good friends already so that always makes everything better. We definately miss our families, but we are really enjoying this time because we know it's going to go by faster then we think! Hope everyone is doing good!

On our way to Arizona! I don't know why I was holding up the map.. we were using our GPS..

Please ignore the boxes and un-hung things around us.. we were still in the process of unpacking! But, This is our first nice dinner in AZ.. I attempted to make my Mom's famous rolls.. nothing close to hers, but they were actually pretty good! Lance is holding up his steak and his favorite cup..

This is the only part of our apt that is decorated.. Yes, that is a door.. Yes, It is there on purpose.. I love the door.. Lots of people don't really "get" the door.. We have found that it is a great conversation piece however.. what do you think?

We made it to the mesa temple! This is what you get when you put your camera on timer on your car.. a little lop-sided! But it was a very nice temple.. an older one so it was very unique and beautiful!!!The pillows I made.. I'm not sure about this one right above.. don't judge me.. I feel very vulnerable.. Its really hard to make a pillow cover to fit perfectly! Oh well, it was a fun thing to make..

Busy!

2010-07-18T11:44:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been a while! I quit my job about 3 weeks ago now, and I am so glad I did because our family has had alot happen.. My cute Grandpa Passed away on July 7th, and it has been a sad, overwhelming, spiritual, loving and overall growing experience. I am so blessed to have such a wonderful family, and I am so thankful for my Grandpa for allowing us to have all of that. He was such a neat man, and he will truly be missed. I am so glad I have been able to spend so much time with him these past few years. I look up to my Grandparent's relationship so much. My Sweet grandma was there with him until the very end holding his hand and loving him. It is definately a great example to Lance and I, and something that we both work for everyday. It will be very different now without him, but I am truly at peace with everything because of our wonderful Gospel. I am so glad I took these pictures just about a week before it all happened!

I also have been keeping busy with making my first wedding cake and taking their pictures as well.. This was clear back in June, I am just a little slow posting. It was one crazy weekend, but I ended up learning alot and am so glad they let me do it!

2010-06-06T15:40:00.000-07:00

Well, we have been busy! Lance is enjoying his last summer of his life, and I am working at SBSU until the end of this month! I turned in my papers to show I was leaving and they informed me that I had 3 sick days that I hadn't used, and if I didn't use them I would lose them!!! How about that for good news!??! So, Lance and I planned a big get away! We went to Alamo, then on over to Zion to camp and Hike angels landing! On our way home we stopped by Sand Hollow and floated around for a couple hours! It was a BLAST! It was so fun just being with Lance, he cracks me up!

Funny story, we didn't have an outlet to blow up our air mattress, so we decided to walk 1/4 mile to blow up our air mattress, then we had to walk back with it blown up, then we realized it wouldn't fit in our tiny tent!!!! hahahah! We laughed our heads off! So what do we do? We shove it in there and make it work.. Sure, we could have ruined the tent, but we didn't care! We saved up a long time for this air mattres and gosh danget we were going to use it!!! So, we had to take a picture..

I also have been taking millions of pictures of my family.. I have decided I need to stop bothering them, or else they won't be able to see from all of my flashes! Thanks for being good sports.. If you want me to practice on any of you, let me know!

Senior Pics

2010-05-23T11:40:00.000-07:00

Once again I was able to take some pictures of my cousin Jennifer! It was so much fun and I think she looks awesome! Things are going good with us, we finally got an apartment in Arizona and we are so excited! It looks like a five star resort, and we live right next to the pool and workout room so I couldn't be happier!

Kaitlyn's Bridals!

2010-05-13T18:47:00.000-07:00

So, I have been taking some more pictures lately and I figure I might as well post them on here! I was able to take a few bridals for my friend Kaitlyn. It was a lot of fun, and it's so much fun to take pictures of beautiful people!

Update and more pics!

2010-05-04T19:28:00.000-07:00

Well, it has definately been a busy month! Lance is graduated.. WAHOO! I'm very proud of him, but he feels as if it's nothing to be too excited about because he still has 4 more years.. :) I have been busy working and making more cakes that I finally got around to posting on my cake blog! I also had the privelage of taking some family pictures for my good friend Erin Tate! It was so much fun, her family is so funny and easy to take pictures of..

Photography??

2010-04-18T21:24:00.001-07:00

Alright, I admit it! I have alot of hobbies and thank goodness I have a husband who supports and encourages them! I don't know as if anyone really even knows, but I LOVE photography! For Christmas Lance was kind enough to get me a nice camera to entertain this passion, and now it's all I can think about!! I have just started and a lot of my stuff I know is not that great, but I enjoy doing it! I decided to post some of my favorites to show you a sneak peek and to get some feedback I guess.. who knows, I might even conjoin my cake blog with photography.. haha.. well, enjoy, and thanks to all of my family for being my guinea pigs and letting me experiment on ya!

Sweet Home Alamo!

2010-04-03T10:59:00.000-07:00

We headed to Alamo to go to Lance's Grandpa's 87th Birthday party! It was alot of fun.. these are some pictures of our adorable nieces and nephews that I took!

happy st. pattys day!

2010-03-21T14:03:00.001-07:00

My new favorite treat... Cake pops. Makes any St. Patricks day better!

Scratch that.. Arizona, Here we come!

2010-03-14T15:11:00.000-07:00

Well, for those of you who don't know, we aren't going to Oregon anymore, were going to Arizona! It is a long story, but basically what happened is Arizona put us on their wait list,and Oregon accepted us. So, we had to go with Oregon because we didn't know if Arizona would ever work out! Well, just as I was starting to feel really good and excited about Oregon Arizona called and accepted us! They gave us one week to decide, and let me tell you.. It was a ROUGH week!!! We decided to start back at square one and take this as a whole new decision between the two. After a stressful roller coaster ride, we decided to go with our initial feeling of Arizona. All I can say is I am SOO thankful for a solid husband who doesnt let his emotions get him too carried away:). I wasn't much help and was so confused about the whole mess! Thank goodness for Lance!

Anyways, we will be attending Midwestern University in Glendale Arizona!!! We are so excited, and have already found a place to live and plan to move there in August! We are looking forward to getting out of the snow, but know that we will soon be missing the cold weather!!

We are also very excited, especially Lance, for all of the sports teams that we will be so close to.. And hopefully we won't be too poor to go to a few games! We are excited for this new adventure!

Cakes!!

2009-12-07T13:30:00.000-08:00

Alright, so I took some cake classes a while back, and I have been making some cakes for different people... It's always been a dream of mine to decorate cakes, so I decided to finally do it! Unfortunately I broke my camera a while back, so the pictures of the cakes aren't the best, and I haven't been able to take pictures of all the one's I have done.. Oh well, it's just a little sneak peak I guess. I'm kind of embarrassed about it, but oh well, why not!?! Just click on the little "Anne- Made" button on the side and check it out if ya want!

Here we come OREGON!!

2009-11-12T19:57:00.000-08:00

Well, Here we come Oregon!! We finally decided on Pacific University in Forest Grove Oregon! Lance is going to go to Optometry school! We will leave this coming Aug! The school takes 4 years to complete, then I have no idea where we will end up! This is quite the adventure for us both, (especially me) and we are really, excited, nervous, anxious, happy, scared, thrilled, but most of all excited for this little adventure. It's kind of crazy imagining myself living there when I haven't even been to the state of Oregon!! I hear it's gorgeous up there though!!

Lance will be a Boxer!!The school mascot is a Boxer.. What is a Boxer you might ask?? Well, some sort of made up, mythical Chinese creature that is supposed to be very fierce.. Interesting....

Forest Grove: A city of 20,000 located 24 miles west of Portland, Oregon, a vibrant metropolitan area with a population of 2 million. Surrounded by the rich and productive farmlands of the Tualatin Valley, Forest Grove offers urban amenities in a striking rural setting.

Im kind of excited that we will be living in a small town, but only 30 minutes from Portland and close to the beach as well! I am so proud of Lance.. It is a hard thing to get into Optometry school and he got accepted into a great one!! I don't know how I got such a smart husband!! Quite an adventure we have in front of us!!

Most of all, I'm excited because our awesome friends TJ and Heather Peterson live up there as well! TJ is going to pharmacy school up there at the same school! Built in friends already!

Mrs. Teller

2009-08-10T13:31:00.000-07:00

Well, I have officially joined the workforce and am finally contributing to society!! I have just recently started a job working as a teller at State Bank Of Southern Utah! (And no, my Dad had nothing to do with me getting the job!!) I work at the south main office full time and I am liking it so far. There is ALOT of things to learn and to get used to, but things are finally starting to click and I am feeling alot more comfortable with things. I get to work at the drive through window, and I really like it because you get to send things to people through tubes... ahhaha.. I work with some really fun people so that always helps too.. I have been trained on what to do if i get robbed, how to identify counterfit checks/money, and many other scary things.. It is so crazy.. I handle and touch so much money everyday.. I always think, "This money could change my life, and all it is is paper with numbers on it!" ANYWAYS, overall its great EXCEPT for the fact that Lance and his family went on a really fun river raft vacation and I couldn't go because I had to work!!! :( So, that has definately been a downer.. Hopefully I can go next time..

Back Blogging!

2009-06-15T11:04:00.001-07:00

Alright.. I am a real bad blogger! But I love to get on and read everyone else's posts! Here is what we have been up to the past few months..

I also graduated from SUU in May with a Bachelors in Nutrition! But, the only problem now is actually finding a decent job!! There is honestly 30 jobs available in Cedar City right now, and 15 of them are sheep hearding jobs! I mean, I'm getting a bit desperate.. so I might have to take the sheep hearding on! So if anyone has any job connections.. PLEASE! Let me know!!

Lance helped coach the Freshmen baseball team this year. He absolutely loved it! All of the kids referred to him as the, "Nice Coach". Pretty nice shot I got of him right? Very intense coaching going on there!

After Graduation we had about a 2 week break until Lance started up his summer Organic Chemistry class that now controls both of our lives!!! :) We decided to go visit my brother Nathan and his family in Fresno California. We stayed there for about a week.. It was so fun seeing our nieces and nephew! They are so cute! We got to go to Yosemite National Park and see the giant redwoods and the tallest waterfall in the U.S.! It was a blast!

After Fresno we went straight to Sweet Home ALAMO!! It was alot of fun. Almost all of Lances family was there to celebrate Ed and Kris's birthdays! We had a suprise birthday party for them in their backyard and cooked hobo dinners. Lance was so cute, he spent so much time trying to find the perfect tree for his dad. He finally found a Sycamore tree. Ed planted it in their yard so they can watch it grow together.. Alamo is so much fun.. I love that Lance grew up working on a farm.. He is such a hard worker! I can't wait till we have kids and they can experience all of the animals! Ed always has some new sort of animal on the farm. This time it was baby sheep! It was so much fun to feed them everyday.. I have to admit I think I liked it more than the kids...We also went to their cabin up at Cherry "CRICK." It is their family's favorite place to go. It really was alot of fun.. It was really pretty up there!

Spring Break!

2009-03-31T12:51:00.001-07:00

Our Spring break/Late honey moon was AMAZING! We spent a whole week together in Kaui and we wish we could go back to the nice weather!We did alot of really fun things and our vacation was anything BUT relaxing!! We really didn't spend much time layin on the beach at all! We went on 3 hikes, a kyak expedition and much, much more! We were completly worn out by the end of the day! Here are some fun pictures showing what we did. I tried to create a really cute picture above, but Lance INSISTED that his foot be in it for some odd reason... He figured that since I drew the heart, he should be able to have a part in it too... Looks like he got his way! :)

We rented a kayak for the day and set off on the Waiulua River! We kyaked about 2 miles then did a hike to the "secret falls" that weren't so secret! It was SOOO muddy on the hike we ended up going barefoot almost the whole way! I have never been so muddy! It was the kind of mud that you would slide around in, making it very difficult to walk:) On the hike out we decided to make the best of the mud situation as you can tell....

This was my favorite day! We rode on a zodiac and toured the Goregous Na Pali Coast! It honestly is unreal.. I would say the prettiest place I have ever seen. Kaui is so beautiful! This is where alot of movies have been filmed like Jurrasic Park, a James Bond movie.. Raiders of the lost tomb etc... The boat was real bumpy and because of weight distribution Lance and I couldn't sit by each other.. Poor Lance though was surrounded by two girls throwing up into the ocean!! Nevertheless he recovered! The best part was when we saw whales! They actually swam right under our boat! They were huge, and it was so interesting to see them so close! I have alot of pictures, but I liked this one the best cause in it you can see the belly of it. The turquoise part in the water is the underneath of the whale! So cool! THEN, we ran into a pack of 200+ dolphin!!! They were so playful and chasing our boat! It was so cool to look out and see so many dolphin jumping at the same time! It definately was an amazing day!

Kaui has SO many neat waterfalls! Here is Opeka'a Falls. As you can see, Lance doesn't follow the Hawaiin rules.

This is the gorgeous Waimai Canyon! I don't know if I'm spelling these right by the way... We hiked out to see this amazing lookout and a 300 ft waterfall! These pictures don't even do it justice honestly! We also found a spot to have a Hawaiian Picnic! It was so much fun!

Another hike we did.. This is the beginnging of the Na Pali Coast. We hiked to a hidden beach. It was kind of a cool little place. Once again the view was AMAZING!

The church we went to.. It was such a nice and friendly ward. They sang to us and gave us some home made leis. We loved it! Definately a highlight!

The delicious Hula Pie! This was our last night on the Island.. This pie was AMAZING!! I wish I could have another right now!

Good Times!!

2009-03-13T15:54:00.001-07:00

Ya BiRdS!

Well, I am officially no longer an athlete at SUU!! I can't believe it! Basketball has been a HUGE part of my life and it is unreal to think that I will no longer compete seriously anymore! I have SOOO many mixed feelings about it being over. First off, I have to admit I am very much relieved! Basketball has been the biggest, most time consuming commitment for me. I have constantly had to worry about getting in the gym, staying in shape, watching what I eat, getting enough sleep... etc.. for 8 years now! So honestly, it feels great not having to worry about all that anymore! I'm not going to lie, I haven't worked out or even thought about working out for about 2 weeks now, and im not going to for a while! But, at the same time it is VERY sad! I am going to miss it a whole lot! I will miss being around all of my teammates, working hard everyday,playing in front of my family and home town, traveling all over the United States, setting goals and most of all just the game of basketball!! But, like Lance always reminds me,
"The only thing constant in life is change!" I loved my time at SUU, and honestly playing basketball has taught me so much. I have had to go through alot of hard times and good times with basketball, and because of that I think I am a better person! It will be fun to move onto the next phase in my life and focus on being a wife and hopefully getting a job!!

I'm not sure if you all knew this, but I am a gangster in training. Tiny G taught me everything i know about being a straight up gangser!! Just check out those signs were flashing!! Hardcore! Traveling was always long, but alot of fun at the same time! I'm going to miss everyone!

We had a big family party on Lances birthday!! It was so much fun. I had my last home game on the same night as his birthday, so afterwards we went up to my parents and had cake and ice cream.. Lance's mom Kris even made the Higbee's famous Alamo tacos! It was so much fun to be with everyone!Lance is still in denial that he is 23! He wants to stay young forever! His cake by the way, was AMAZING!! we layered ice cream sandwiches, then we spread a layer of snickers ice cream cake over them, followed by another row of sandwhiches. Then we spread cool whip and topped it with crumbled snickers!! It seriously was so good. I highly recommend it! Lance had a good day, and I am so glad he is my husband!! He is always happy and in a good mood and makes my life good!

2009-01-20T12:42:00.000-08:00

JEEZE!!! It has been a LONG TIME!! Im a horrible Blogger. I admit it. But I have worked hard, and I am finally caught up! This basically recaps the past 3 months. It has been crazy but alot of fun! This is our Thanksgiving day together. It was a little different than usual... but alot of fun! I had a game up at BYU the day after Thanksgiving, so I had to be up in Provo on Thanksgiving day. My whole family was in Cedar for Thanksgiving. Coach let us leave for about 4 hours to have a Thanksgiving so my cute husband followed me up to Provo, then we went to my sister's house up in American Fork and had our first Thanksgiving dinner together! I made rolls and a pie the night before, and we cooked everything else up at Kyms. It actually was alot of fun to just be with Lance that day. We had alot of fun, well, until I had to go to practice 3 hours later and run on a full stomach..

This is our Christmas Tree! Once again basketball seemed to interfere so we had to adjust! Because of our busy lives we couldn't find a time to go find a tree. So... we went spotlighting for a tree at 10 o'clock at night! We went after one of my home games down to New Harmony on some of our land and cut us down a good one! It was actually quite fun, but let me tell you what... spotlighting out a good tree is tough work! It took us almost 3 hours of walking and searching in the dark, cold mountains! But it was well worth it!

Our Decorated Tree. We didn't want to spend any money on decorations so we got quite creative!It turned out really cute though!

Lance has started to shadow alot of different doctors to kind of get an idea of what he would like to do.. This is his first day when he shadowed an Optometrist! I just thought he looked so cute so I had him pose, as if to look into the future at what he will someday become.. Quite deep, I know.. haha.. he is a good sport to put up with me.

This is our "fake" Christmas Eve party. Since Chad and I weren't going to be with our family doing the traditions we thought we would hold a fake one on Monday night before we left for Alamo. It was so much fun. We had a steak and shrimp dinner, decorated gingerbread houses, played chimes and acted out the Christmas story. You are NEVER to old to get dressed up and act out that wonderful story.. hahah.. even though we look a bit ridiculous. It was a blast!

*Christmas in Alamo*

Christmas was so much fun! Thankfully coach gave us a whole week off, which was so nice! Usually we practice on Christmas day, so this was a very welcome change! We spent Christmas in Alamo with Lance's family. It was my first Christmas away from home, but Lance's family is so much fun and we all had a great time! We spent Christmas Eve at windmill with the whole fam and had dinner then we played games and read the Christmas story. It was alot of fun!

HaPpY NeW YeArs!!

We had a fun New Years Eve.. We went out to Winger's with Chad and Brittany then we went to our Friends Jana & Tate's for a while. After that we went back to Chad and Brittany's and brought in the new year with a BANG!! We celebrated by drinking sparkling cider and blowing horns, and popping poppers!!.. haha.. basically we just had alot of fun with all of our friends and are very lucky!

2008-11-04T20:32:00.000-08:00

Coach Hod passed away yesterday, Nov. 3. It happened so quickly, and it still seems as if it's not real. He was an amazing man and coach, and I am so thankful that I had the oppurtunity to be coached by him for the past 2 1/2 years. He taught me so much, not only about basketball, but about life. He was a fighter... I don't think anyone really knows how much he had to go through, but I NEVER heard him complain about his circumstances once, and there were many times he could have. He came to practice everyday until he physically couldn't anymore. Even though he could barely sit up in his chair, he was there on the sidelines watching us and coaching us until they had to take him to the hospital. He never gave up on us as a team, and has helped me to become a much better person and player. Our team was fortunate enough to go see him the day before he died and I am so thankful I had the oppurtunity to hug him and say goodbye to him. Even though he was deadly sick, he told our team that he planned on coming back to practice soon.. Once again, a fighter!!! His last words of advice to us were, " We gotta get to work ladies, we've got to take care of our business!" I loved that man and will miss him very much.

2008-11-04T20:24:00.000-08:00

So... I have to teach pre school three times this semester for a class I have, and so I decided to take the children on a field trip to the Centrum! It was alot of fun.. and we even had a suprise guest... THOR!!! The best part was.. Thor was actually Lance!!! It was hillarious! I was just as entertained as the kids watching Lance dance around and act like a bird.. What a good husband!!

Halloween!!

2008-11-02T20:41:00.000-08:00

For Halloween this year, Lance wasn't too excited about dressing up. I kept trying to think of things to be, but he had no interest until I mentioned the idea of being Mexicans!! As you can see he fits the part pretty well... The painted on chest hair and mustache!! He really liked it because he spoke Spanish the whole time. I also learned how to say Lance is very handsome and strong!

We all got dressed up and went out to dinner at the Pizza Factory... As you can see we were accompanied by some real violent ninja turtles, a referee, and a great basketball player!!!

Lance wanted to pose like this because he says this is how all mexicans take pictures.. Standing far apart with a serious face..

We had a doughnut eating competition.. you know, the one where it's tied on the string.. Dad actually won.. It was quite impressive!
(Notice how much Lance really looks like a Mexican here) :)

We also had a cake walk.. You might be thinking we're a little too old to be doing such things... But it was seriously hillarious.. I don't know what happened, but pretty soon Lance was doing a Mexican hat dance, and Chad was steamrolling Brittany to the ground giving her major carpet burns.. ahah.. it was a blast!

Update!!

2008-10-29T22:57:00.001-07:00

Alright, I am finally updating our blog! Things have been really busy with school and ball underway! We had a really fun harvest holiday! We were invited to a "Murder Mystery" party put on by our friends at a cabin up in Brian Head. It was a 40's themed party, and Lance played the part of Sylvester Malone, a private eye detective, and I was Millie Millicent, a resturaunt worker! It was actually really funny because that outfit was my Grandma's going away suit for her wedding! Please notice the cape that goes with it, it was quite the outfit. Lance also borrowed my grandpa's attire. It was alot of fun!

We took this picture just so you could see Lances slicked back part and his beard! Probably the only time I will ever see him with a beard because he hates it!

Sam's Wedding

Lance's brother got married and it was alot of fun.. It was especially fun for Lance because he got to get back to his roots and dress up as a cowboy grooms man! It was hillarious seeing him in the whole get up, but I must admit he looked quite good as a cowboy and I am trying to convince him to dress like this more often!! Our cute nephew Daxton even dressed up in his wranglers and boots...

Lance in the line. As you can see, he's not quite a real cowboy yet because he is the only one without his thumbs in his pockets and a big smile..

It was quite the event with a wedding in a field followed by some delicious dutch oven! It was alot of fun!

Us supporting my bro. "Number 90!" They won this game and they are doing alot better this year. Chad is tearing it up! As you can see we really got into it.. That is my adorable nephew Kyle!

The Cake!

2008-10-05T21:25:00.000-07:00

Well, as you can see, Lance got a little out of control on our cake.. His excuse was because he thought I was going to smash it in his face so he had to defend himself! Unbelievable! Haha, it was actually really funny.. I'm just glad I got picture proof of the abuse! Here is our beautiful cake! I seriously loved everything about it.. Especially the fact that the top was our favorite, cherry chip flavor!! I hated cutting into it and ruining it!
As you can see i forgave him for shoving the cake in my face..

2008-10-05T21:12:00.000-07:00

Here are all of my cute neices and nephews.. well, except for Kym's new addition Bryce. They were so cute all day.. The girls loved my dress and always wanted to hold my flowers for me..
As you can tell this picture was somewhat of a struggle! But at least we tried! We are missing one little neice in here too.. Milly's new baby Alivia. Milly was a trooper too.. about a week later she had her baby! Lance and I obviously didn't communicate too well with our two pregnant sisters before we planned the wedding date! But thankfully they still made it!

2008-10-05T20:58:00.000-07:00

Here is the whole Higbee Crew! They are all so much fun!We actually managed to get everyone in this picture!

2008-10-05T20:49:00.000-07:00

Here is our whole fam.. Minus Kyms husband Brandon.. and you might not be able to tell, but Kym is also pregnant. She was a trooper! She came down for our wedding on the weekend, then went home and that Monday had a baby boy Bryce! So, I guess it's not the whole fam, but its hard to get one of those these days with our family.. Everyones always poppin out kids!!

2008-10-05T20:18:00.000-07:00

I love this picture because it shows everyone.. this is right after we got out of the temple walking to the steps to take pictures. Luckily right when we came out the clouds covered the sun so it was actually really nice and not too hot!