Any advice??

Chad and I have been wanting to buy a new camera for a while now,

but are nowhere near making a decision about which one to get.

With the holidays quickly approaching, I would love to get one SOON --

so I would love to hear your thoughts about the cameras you love!

What kind of camera do you have?

Do you like it?

Any recommendations???

I am alive.... barely!

Casie, Brooke, Carlyn, Mom and Me

First, I must applaud Chad.

He blogged.

He survived a weekend without me.

The house was pretty clean when I got home.

And all of the girls were dressed and fed.

But better than that, they were HAPPY!!!

He was so nice to let me go and have a FABULOUS weekend in St. Louis with the girls. (Thanks, honey!)

We stayed up way too late and had way too much fun.

And, it was over way too soon!!

I am so grateful I had the chance to spend the time with them that I did. I don't get to see them all very often, but I just love every single one of them like they were my very own mom and sisters!

We spent some of our time being spiritually uplifted at Time Out For Women.

It was nice to be able to have a serious melt-down and cry my little heart out for really no reason at all -- surrounded by a bunch of other women who were doing the same thing! Sometimes a girl has just gotta cry!

Well, when it was all over, I came home and jumped right back into life.

I am in charge of the fluoride program at Kylie's elementary school and spent every waking moment I had working on getting that up and running. It was a much bigger task than I had anticipated. I had to organize the volunteers, contact them with their classroom assignments, train and certify them, create rosters of the participating students, get the classroom bags together - filled with fluoride and put in their place at the school.

Once I finally had the program slowly beginning, it was time to focus on the next big event: Craig going into the MTC to begin his mission to the West Indies!!! Saturday the 20th was his birthday and then on the 21st he spoke in Sacrament meeting. He did an incredible job! He was very prepared and his talk flowed very well. He truly is an incredible example to me -- even as the baby in the family -- he has taught me so much. I am going to miss him, and I'm not sure my girls are going to survive without him, but we all are so proud of the work he is doing. His time as a missionary for our church (www.lds.org) is just what the Lord needs him to do.

Tuesday the 23rd, we spent the evening at home with him and the rest of my family

celebrating his birthday and just having fun together.

Wednesday was the day he entered the Missionary Training Center and I've never seen a missionary happier or more excited than he was. He left us in the large room (all of us standing there crying) with a huge smile on his face and never looked back!

Sydney with Uncle Craig in the MTC

Taylor, Elder Craig Harris, Kylie (and puppy)

When all of the chaos finally slowed down, I sat back to take a deep breath and apparently filled my lungs with some kind of little cold-monster bugs. I think I had basically run myself to the point of exhaustion and those monster bugs made themselves at home in my tired little body.

I have been down and out for almost a week now and am now starting to see

the light at the end of the tunnel!!

Just getting dressed in the morning was absolutely draining and by the time 7:00 rolled around,

I was ready for bed. Today I have actually been able to get a few things done,

but I think it's still going to take some time to get caught up on the cleaning and laundry!

Yea! for housework!??!!

Mr. Mom

So it has almost been 24 hours since Jen left me for a girl's weekend out. For those of you who haven't been following the countdown, she is in Missouri with my mother and sisters (that includes you, Brooke). I assume that they are having a great time, since Jen hasn't even called to check on me and the girls at home. Anywho, I thought that if I am going to be a good mother this weekend, then I have to do everything a real Mom would do. So here's what I've done so far. I got up early so I could get ready for the day before the kids woke up, then I got the kids up, bathed them, got them dressed, brushed hair (no bows, I'm not that good!), breakfast, and carpool. Once Sydney and I dropped Taylor off at preschool then we "ran some errands," we went to Home Depot, Wal-mart, and DI. Now we are back at home waiting for Taylor to get home. The reason I am blogging this morning is not because I think you actually care about my day, but because what kind of a mother would I be if I didn't blog about my day so all my friends could sympathize with me. So the rest of the day will probably bring house cleaning, laundry, and playing referee for my fighting kids after everyone gets home. The only thing that could make this day any more perfect is if I was capable of mixing all of this with PMS!!!
We are actually having a great time, but we miss Jen a lot. We hope she still wants to come home on Saturday!