Veronica & Shane's Sealing

Veronica and Shane got sealed April 28th, so to make their very special day memorable, I helped her plan the dinner that took place later on that night. She told me the colors she wanted and I arranged the rest. I called my mother-in-law, the party planner expert, and she stepped in to help me tremendously. Aunt Sue printed off "together forever" labels that I ended up putting on the cupcakes for guests to take home with them.

This is a really bad picture of how it actually turned out, but I forgot to take pictures of it actually being finished. I also forgot pictures of the head table which was the most beautiful of all, of course. But, I was entrenched int he emotions of the whole day and wasn't really thinking of my camera. Fortunately, the videographer from Remember When Video's caught it all beautifully!

Julie and myself...nervous and hoping we had covered all our bases before people show up!
I didn't get pics of the Temple on my camera, but Cassia got some fabulous ones (thanks Cassia!!) so, I would rather rely on hers anyway.

Here are my kids, tired,hungry, and napless- never a good combination. In fact, it's a great recipe for disaster. Bless their little monstrous hearts, it was a long day!

Here they are walking in and seeing everything for the first time. I am a nerd and wanted everything to be a surprise- it's more fun that way.

The beautiful woman of the day!

Yup, she was surprised!

This day was so special and amazing! To see a sweet little family work as hard as they have to make it to the Temple has been the neatest experience. It was so awesome to see their two beautiful little children get to share this day with them and be sealed to their mommy and daddy for all eternity. I cried for weeks about this whole day. It was special, beautiful, and needless to say, had its moments of sheer terror provided by the adversary himself. But they made it, and everything came together in the end. I love you guys!!

I had to get pictures of the fresh flowers we used...they were so beautiful! I ended up keeping them in my kitchen for weeks after and they smelled up my whole house with their sweet aroma. YUM!

A lunchtime Friend :)

This is my attempt at making lunchtime a little more exciting! Beckam was struggling to sit down and eat his lunch, so a mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do, right! I realize it's no masterpiece, but he ate it! That was the goal- Mission accomplished!

When Spring Had Sprung!

Remember when spring finally sprung this year? Because if you blinked, you might have missed it!

I love the first buds of the season! It gets me so excited to be outside. Seeing these little buds almost made me treat these bushes like little babies just trying to hatch or something! I found myself holding them in my hand encouraging them to "come on out"!

It was at this point of time in the year when all the big sales hit for growing and planting in your yards- now there's nothing compared to the prices that hit in March.
Darn, I guess I'm a late bloomer when it comes to the gardening department.

Easter Outfits!

Brooklyn and Beckam sporting their Easter outfits! Since Easter Sunday was on Conference weekend, there was no church on Easter Day...so we ended up wearing ours the week after.

Easter was a lot of fun for us! We had family in town staying with us for conference, so it was a double whammy to have them for Easter as well.
We ate lots of treats (I don't think my tummy has forgiven me yet!) and played all weekend.

Easter 2010!

Brooklyn had lipstick smeared all over her face. She actually thought she looked pretty so we took a picture. I'm her mom, so she's always pretty to me.

B-Kate got a special tu-tu for Easter from Monga and Papa!

Our Easter eggs stayed white this year. We did not have time to stop and dye them- sad I know. But, we had so much fun doing everything else on the planet, so I really don't think my kids were deprived at all.

These are Julie's homemade sugar cookies- let me just say they are the best I have ever had!! This is my Easter basket treat that I save all the room for.
We dyed the cookie dough we made purple. I thought it turned out cute.

His little feet hardly touched the foot panels, but Brooklyn tears it up in this little car!

Can we stop stuffing our mouths with candy long enough to get one good picture in?
We did it- with a minimal fight put up, we did it!

candy evidence on his mouth...

I thought the plasma cars would detract their attention from the candy, but not really. Beckam dove right into the candy and thoroughly enjoyed himself.

The kids' Easter baskets
I can't believe how cold and snowy it was this Easter season. You have to take advantage of the first sunny day to have an Easter egg hunt or you might not get one!

Little Quirks of the Kizerian Family!

This picture does nothing more than capture one of very few moments that Papa has ever cooked in his life. I had to capture it for all to see. Way to go Papa- we knew you could do it!

The little "twins" addicted to their drinks...and to Nemo.

Wow, even synchronized head turning...impressive kids!

Another one of Brooklyn's clothing creations- and proud of it of course!

Ok, so I had just put Beckam down for his nap. I was looking for Brooklyn everywhere and calling her name- no answer! I looked in my room on my bed and saw all the covers bundles on top of each other which was exactly how it was left when I got out of that morning, so nothing changed. I continued searching all over the house, then back to my bed. I turned the corner of my bed and found this little mouse sleeping with a book on her head. I had to laugh!

I never can hug him too much, he's my little squishy- just like the jellyfish is Dori's little squishy on 'Finding Nemo'.

This is his face to the common question he often asks... "what?"

Brooklyn modeling her St. Patrick's Day hat that she made at preschool.

Brooklyn was on a streak where she had to have a bowl of oatmeal before she could go to sleep. So, this is her divulging in nice hot bowl of oatmeal- one of our favorites!

A Psycho Story to Remember

I wanted to document a story that happened to me about 2 years ago for the sake of the safety of anyone else who can benefit from it.

I was driving down 90th South heading toward I-15 in a borrowed 4-runner that was Jason's Uncles. He had me drive it for a couple of days, early one morning I went to return it to him, with little Brooklyn in the backseat and a pregnant belly with baby #2 on the way.

As I was driving I noticed a big, red diesel was playing cat and mouse with me on the road- I would slow down to let him pass me in the second lane, but then he would slow down to stay right in line with me. So, naturally I sped up to get far enough in front of him that other cars would fill in the gap, ultimately separating me from him. But- he did not let me get away...he kept right in line with me. There were a decent amount of other cars on the road, so I was hoping that if anything happened, there would be plenty of witnesses!

As luck would have it, I came to a red light. I was too far behind to step on the gas and get through it, so as a law-abiding citizen, I stopped. Well, so did the red psycho diesel driver next to me. The next thing I know, the diesel driver is getting out of his vehicle and walking over to me. I just thought in my mind 'maybe something is wrong with this car and Uncle Mark just never told me about it and this nice man is simply coming to inform me of it.' Then, something told me that was not it. The man started pounding on my window asking me to let him in. I felt safe enough because I had all my doors locked.

I looked at little Brooklyn through the mirror and saw she was sound asleep and hoping she would stay that way because I was freaking out inside of my mind. I meant to roll the window down just a crack so I could understand what this guy was saying to me. I thought he needed directions or something so I decided a crack in the window would be okay...but out of panic and not being familiar enough with this vehicle that wasn't my own, I accidentally pressed the unlock button which unlocked all my doors. The man immediately took advantage of that and opened up my car door and got inside! He was saying things to me but because I was panicking all his words were just noise and babble to me, not making any sense whatsoever.

For any of you who know me, you know that when I get scared I fight...and I fight hard. Some of you have even tried scaring me and became the brunt of a brutal kick to the face, slapped, or kicked in the chest to the point you couldn't breathe for a second. My husband has probably received more kicks than anybody thanks to his sneaky spiffs he tries to pull on me. (Sorry honey, but really, you saw it coming!)

I saw the man look in the backseat, realizing that a baby was in the car he became somewhat shocked himself...then my motherly instincts started kicking in.

Although my mind went blank out of horror for what this man was planning on doing to me, I yelled in a voice that was not my own "get out of my car!" I shoved him with some unknown force and pushed him out of my car. Then, he looked in one last time at me and then backed away, slammed the door, and went back to his diesel.

When it was all over and my doors were locked at last- I finally knew I was safe and that miraculously everything was okay. A situation that could have gone very differently went very right instead. Tears flooded my eyes as I sat there crying uncontrollably. I finally put the car in drive and proceeded to my destination.

I guess the moral of this story is that I am grateful for my husband who always encourages me to keep my doors locked, the angels who sent the man away from me and my little girl that day, and the ability to "fight" that God instilled within a rather normally quiet and witheld little me.