My dear hubby!

So, I ran across this on a friends blog and decided this would be a good one, and I've also included some random pictures of him! (Note to self: you must do better at getting pictures of the family.)

What is his name? Shaun Bess
How long have you been married? Almost 7.5 Years
How long did you date? Off and on for 2 years
Who eats more sweets? Probably me. He's more of a salty guy!

Who said I love you first? He did.

How old is he? 28
Who is taller? Definitely him.
Who can sing better? Ohhh definately me!
Who is smarter? I like to think I am! :)
Who does the laundry? I do! He is color-blind and it has made for some scary batches of laundry when he has tried helping. Mostly he just likes to throw in one pair of pants or something and calls it a 'batch'.
Who pays the bills? I do! He's wonderful at a lot of things, but keeping track of the finances has never been one of 'em.
Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? He does currently, but what ever side is against the wall is the side he sleeps on.
Who mows the lawn? We both do. I help him out with it when he's busy.
Who cooks dinner? Haha. Well, usually me unless it's cooking something on the grill. But more often than not, it's the fast food joint!
Who drives? Shaun does.
Who is more stubborn? Wow, we're pretty equal on that one. But I confidently say that I am usually the one who will back down.
Who kissed who first? Shaun kissed me the first night we hung out.
Who asked who out? Shaun asked me. That's a story to tell.
Who proposed? Shaun
Who has more siblings? I do. I have 2 sisters and 1 brother. Shaun has 1 sister and 1 brother.
Who wears the pants? Shaun does, I just tell him which ones he can wear. In all seriousness, it depends on the issue/topic. We share them! :)

I love and appreciate Shaun very much. He is such a hard worker and he is always willing to help others. He works hard to provide for us and I'm so thankful that he's made it possible for me to be a (mostly) stay at home mom. Thanks for all you do and for the wonderful father and husband that you are!

Still the proud Dad on Kambri- #3!

This is one of those pictures that shows Shaun's fun loving side! I never know what to expect out of him.

Our very own self-portrait while at Anniversary Inn earlier this year.

I Love You Shaun!!!

Our craziness...

Why does it seem so hard to be good at keeping up my own blog, but I have no reserves of spending hours looking at everyone else's?

Well, here's the Bess household update. (This is another reason why I don't like posting, is because when I FINALLY get around to doing so, I have a lot to catch up on.)

So, on that note!

Taylor- he's back in school and is in the 5th grade. It's hard to believe he'll turn 11 in November. I remember so many things with him as a baby, like it was yesterday. He's such a smart kid, I really am proud of him. The first day of school, I have no pictures of him. I asked him if he wanted me to walk him into his class and he gave me this ridiculous look and said "Nooo!" and kind of laughs at me. I'm afraid, gone are the days of him needing me like I want him to. However, independence is a good place to be. :) He was just chosen to be on the Student Council, so he's pretty excited about that. I really hope to find positive influences for my kids, most especially as they get older. It's a scary world out there.

We've started on the road with him and orthodontics. He got a space maintainer put in several months ago, and will end up needing at least a few braces on bottom. Time will tell exactly what will become of all of that.

As you'll notice, I don't have much in the way of pictures of him. I need to try harder with that, but he does his own thing so much of the time that he's never around upstairs. He's very content to be by himself downstairs in his 'apartment' (we joke and call it that because if there was food down there, he wouldn't need to come upstairs), playing his various video games, reading, or something to that nature. But I do love him very much and he is a great helper to me and especially with Kambri.

Doing what he loves...

(Crappy picture quality of a cell phone anyways. We're getting ready to buy a new digital camera, that'll be nice!)

Hollie just started 1st grade and has proven to be a bit of an emotional thing for her. We've had a few difficult mornings with her being absolutely hysterical and crying about going to school. I'm not sure what the cause is. Best we can tell, she's just adjusting to full day school and misses mom. (That does make me feel good, I confess.)

1st day of First Grade (at least she needed me, and I did get to walk her into her class)

She is learning to read and that is so exciting to see how that comes together. Bless those teachers that teach our children because #1, I don't have the patience, and #2, it's amazing the strategies they use.

She's starting to seem more grown up and is slowly moving out of her constant 'fit' stage that we've been playing in for the last 4 years. She loves to sing as you'll notice in her concert performance...aka her bedroom, as well as her creative side of self-decorating her room!

Watch out Hannah Montana, here's your biggest competition!

Kambri will be turning 2 next month and it makes me very sad. I've been holding on to every stage as she's been going through it, knowing that she's our last.

We have her in speech therapy, as she's not really talking much. She does say a lot of names of family members, and a few odd and end things, but nothing definitive that helps us in communicating with each other. Consequently, it makes for a lot of frustration on her end and ours. I just keep praying that it will come soon for her.

We have put her on the potty a few times just more for the practice, and we have been successful quite a few times. When I can have 5 minutes for life to slow down and not have to be running some where during the day, we're really going to try tackling the potty training thing. How nice it will be when I buy my last package of diapers EVER!

Such a proud girl! First time on the toilet was a success.

She is a lot of fun and I am really enjoying my 1-on-1 time with her when kids are in school. She was very distraught when they first started back and would walk through the house calling their names and looking at me questioningly, but she's getting in the swing of it all better.

Jamming out like her big sister!

As for Shaun and I, we're keeping busy with normal day things. Shaun has been working a lot of extra hours lately at work, so it seems there just aren't enough hours in a day to get done what we need to at home, but such is life! :) Hunting season is here, therefore, very shortly I will be a Deer Widow, a Goose Widow, and everything else imaginable. Haha! He enjoys it though, and that's what matters.

I've been released from my Primary calling so that I can work on getting Kambri transitioned into the nursery. She screams bloody murder when I leave her there and it's been awful. Hopefully it will be a quick transitioning period so I can get comfy again back in Relief Society. I will be setting a date within the next few weeks to go through and take out my endowments in the Logan Temple. I'm very excited for this, as it's been a long time coming. I pray that Shaun will follow suit and that our family will be sealed shortly.

Okay! Quite lengthy, but it's been a while. I would say that I'm going to be better, but I don't want to set the standard too high for my ambitions! LOL! I truly would like to do better, as I thoroughly enjoy reading blogs and keeping up to date with everyone else. It would be nice to be able to reciprocate though and leave something for others to read!

With that, have a wonderful week!

Just a quick update...

This will be a short post...but just wanted to keep myself in the habit of posting. Today was a pretty relaxing Sunday. The kids and I (minus Kambri who has been sick the last few days) all went to church and the rest of the day just pretty much hung out at home. Lindsay, Mark and Haddie did come over for dinner and then afterwards Taylor, Hollie and I started our quest of reading one chapter a night from the Book of Mormon. We'll have to do a bit of adjusting for the difference in age, but we'll get it! :)

Ok, I got my hair cut and colored today by my sister-in-law. And while I like the color, it got cut WAY too short! I HATE short haircuts that you don't like. Now I keep looking at pictures of peoples hair and wishing my hair were longer again. Grrr!! It's just hair, it'll grow out, right?! Blah. I'm really hoping it'll grow out a bit here in a few weeks so I'll like it a bit more.

I will try and post tomorrow and I have some cute pictures to include...be sure to check back! :)

Much to be grateful for!

Well, I'm trying to keep my word and keep up on this thing. I have not posted pictures however. I need to get this plug-in thing for my laptop to make it easy to transfer pictures from my camera. The other process takes me longer with getting on our desktop and what not. So, I will work on that.

For Family Home Evening on Monday we went to the Brigham Pool. The kids all had a great time. Last time we tried getting Kambri in the pool up at the condo, she didn't want anything to do with that. But this time, she had a blast. She went up and down the little kiddie slides and had an absolute blast. As she was coming down one particular time, I commented to Shaun that she's not a baby anymore. Kinda made me sad. It's amazing how you remember the day they were born like it was yesterday, but with the blink of the eye they're suddenly all grown up. So, we did have a great time and I took the camera so I could post pictures later, but left it out in the van. We'll be going again shortly though and I'll remember to bring it TO the pool with us.

Right now I feel very grateful for everything that Shaun and I have. We're dealing with a family member right now who has basically nothing. On a day to day basis he is looking for an apartment to get into, as he has no where right now. It's really sad. As I went home last night after work and looked at all the wonderful things I've been blessed with, I couldn't help thinking of how much greed and materialism there is in the world today. I find myself lusting after peoples' brand new homes, new vehicles, etc etc. I have a beautiful house that we've turned into a home. Decent enough vehicles, they don't have rust...they run...they look decent enough to see. I decided to make a list of the things Shaun and I have accomplished or been blessed with in the last 7 years since we were married.

1. Shaun adopted Taylor 1 year after we were married.
2. 2 additional healthy babies- Hollie & Kambri.
3. We bought our first home 18 months after being married.
4. I have been able to work very part-time since we got married.
5. Enough $$ to live half-comfortable
6. Good dependable jobs
7. Communication to juggle time with both sets of in-laws
8. Good health (aside from the normal colds/flu)
9. Supportive, loving in-laws
10. There's plenty more to list, but I'm limited with time right now.

I hope that I can always try to remember all that I've been blessed with. There's a lot of bad in our world today and it's easy to get tripped up on what we DON'T have.

Holy Family Updates!!!

Ok! I'm making a vow to myself. I am going to join the world fully with blogging. I have spent way too many hours looking at everyone else's and I need to get my own going. Seeing as I haven't been diligent in keeping up with personal journals, hopefully this will serve for that purpose also. So, a quick rundown on the fam! :)

Shaun got a promotion back in January and is now the Water Department Leadman. He's really grown into this position and now starts sounding more and more like a supervisor. :) He's been keeping quite busy the past little while doing projects around the house for me. He redid our bathroom. (Why is it that projects always take 3 times longer than you plan for them to?) I'll have to post some pictures. He's really become such a handyman since we got married. Theres very few things that he's encountered that he hasn't been able to fix himself. He's definitely a hard worker.

I have been keeping busy with keeping a half-functional household running. I swear I'm never caught up with things. I work 2 days a week as an Assistant Business Office Manager for a local short-term rehab center here in Brigham. I really enjoy it for the most part. It's nice to have an out a few days and I find I appreciate my kids much more when I have a small break away. I am working on losing this excess weight I've inherited over the last 8 years, and I am doing pretty good at blogging with that. I've joined a weight loss blog site called 'Blog to Lose'. I love it there and the support is awesome! I've also been trying to keep up with the cleaning of all of the projects going on around home. Ya know... sweep/vacuum the dust that is going everywhere, clean up the never-ending supply of tools, and the catch all person for whatever else. Oh yeah, in the midst of the mess I'm supposed to be keeping up with the kiddies and occasionally providing some sort of dinner meal. I just got through repainting my living room and hall (my living room turned out awesome, I'll post pics soon) and then we just got new carpet installed. And Shaun had a small project in between this with tiling an entry way in the living room. He did a great job and each tile project looks better and better. Did I mention that I LOVE my living room? I painted one wall a reddish color and the other walls a taupe color. It looks sweet. I am also working towards going through the temple towards the end of August. This is something I have wanted for a long time and it is way past due.

Taylor has been running around taking up residency at as many various houses that he can, thus far this summer. He loves staying with his Grandma Leslie, Grandma Brenda and Aunt Lindsay. When he is home, he plays a lot on the computer or his various gaming systems...or reads. He is so smart and whips through books much ahead of his age. Oh, and I almost forgot...him and Hollie are often at each others throats with as much spare time as they have on their hands right now. He just started mowing the lawn this year, can you believe it? It makes him seem so grown-up. I guess he is growing up though. After all, he'll be in the 5th grade this year. He is a great help to me around the house and also with Kambri.

Hollie is enjoying summer to the fullest. Between running back and forth between our house and our little ole' neighbors', playing at Grandma's with her cousin, talking on the phone with her friend from school, (I did mention she is only 6, right? They talk quite often. It's darn cute!) teasing the crap out of Taylor and Kambri, and trying to keep up with Taylor's number of sleepovers...she makes me tired! She is learning to ride her bike without training wheels and is so proud of herself. She loves to follow Mom and/or Dad around while we're out and about.

Kambri is getting so big. My baby is growing up so fast. It's hard to believe she's almost 2. She recently started speech therapy with the 'Up to 3' program that is coordinated from Utah State University. She is extremely smart and understands what we tell her, but was making no efforts in trying to talk. They originally started by teaching us some sign language to use with her until she started picking up on some words, but an amazing thing has happened. Within the last week she has started saying several different words. She'll mimic us and approximate words now! I am completely tickled. It has been such a worry for me and she seems so excited to be able to say some words now, also. She is into everything, my worst child yet for that. I shouldn't say 'yet' because we're SOOOO done having kids. (Sorry, got a little off topic there.) She loves to play outside, play with her baby cousin Haddie, and play with her dolls. I'm really looking forward to this next school year and it being just her and I. I've looked forward to that 1-on-1 time with each of the kids at that age.

Well, that's plenty long for now. I will work on getting some pictures posted tomorrow. Whew! That really wasn't quick, was it? Hopefully the rest will be shorter from here on out, now that I've gotten things caught up to speed.