The Big Apple!!!

Last week Justin and I got to take a little (much needed) vacation. We had some free plane tickets, that we had gotten a little over a year ago when our flight from the Philippines got delayed like three times. So we decided to go see New York neither of us had ever been there and thought it would be fun to see. I'll tell you what, it is everything you would expect New York to be... busy, loud, exciting, busy, crowded, busy, dirty, and busy. It is defiantly a trip you need a vacation after. We had such a good time, and packed in as much as we could in the 6 days we were there. We didn't stop going for a minute, everything from ground zero to broadway we tried to do it all. It was so fun and so educational. There is so much history there and it just reminds you how blessed we are to be in this country. Plus it's always so nice to get away with just Justin and really just enjoy each other and then come home and remember how much you do miss your kids! and a big Thanks to my Mom who is always so willing to watch our kids so that we can get away together. I love you Mom!

NYC, BABY! Here We Come!!! (Justin in front of Time Square)
Central Park, It was so pretty, and relaxing.
just some little boys sailing their boats at the park.
On one of our double decker Tour Bus rides.

The Phantom, so Awesome! I think Justin even enjoyed it a little although he won't ever admit it!

At the Yankees Game!!! (of coarse it was the coldest day we were there, and I decided to wear short sleeves and capri's, I was freezing until Justin got sick of me complaining, went to get a hot dog and came back with a $65 Yankee's blanket. What a rip off, but worth every penny, it made the game enjoyable, and even came in handy for a little snuggling on our tour bus ride later that night :)



Just doin' a little people watching :) One of the funnest things to do on vacation, right? Seriously NYC has some interesting "characters". I wish I would have taken more pic's of some of the things we saw!!! Check out this hottie :)
Elmo just hangin' out on the streets.
My favorite treat there, roasted NUTS! ummm!

Us at Live with Regis & Kelly, so much fun! One of the highlights of the trip. The studio was so small (it's looks so much bigger on screen) The front row literally sat like 5 feet in front of their desk (we were on the 4th row). oh, and yes we got on T.V. for like 3 seconds.
Regis, Kelly, Gelman, and guest Simon Baker chatting with the audience during commercial breaks. We also got to see J.T. (winner of survivor) and Ricky Gervais. I was really surprised how much they interacted with us, they were so friendly and down to earth, especailly Kelly, she was so funny!
We also went to The Little Mermaid on Broadway! because it has always been my favorite Walt Disney Movie. So Cute!
The Manhattan Temple, we were able to go do a session one of the days. It was so weird to just walk right up to it on the corner, just like any other building, there were no pretty grounds fences or anything. But it was beautiful inside!
The Metropolitan Museum, we heard it was a must see, that we would want to spend a whole day there. Okay, so I guess Justin and I are not history buffs or educated enough or something we were dying after 2 hours, bored out of our minds. I guess maybe it would have been better had we have known who any of the people in the paintings or statues were. ( My cousin Melissa will be completely ashamed, it's probably like one of her favorite places, but seriously we could have used her and her knowledge that day.)
We did find one kinda cool floor full of knights, all their garb, and swords and stuff. Justin was digging it anyway!
Empire State (bottom right) and some other cool looking Buildings and churches. Some of the buildings there are so old and just detailed, their beautiful.
The Statue of Liberty, amazing to see in real life!
Just a street vendor trying to earn some money renting out his snake for pictures. We gave him a few bucks because we thought the kids would love the picture, and heck, why not waste more money when your on vacation :) ( it was ALOT less than the Met. Museum anyway, and a little more exciting!)

A Trip to the E.R.

So yesterday I had my first experience with stitches, now I know to some of you who have probably had them several times it's no big deal, but I am one of those people who has never broken anything or ever been cut badly enough to even go to the doctor nor has my husband(since we have been married anyway)or any of my kids,up until this point. I guess 30 years of no major accidents in my lifetime it was about due time. and to be completely honest(for those of you who know Jett) I am really surprised he has seriously made it almost five years without one of these incidents. Anyway, at the park yesterday, Jett was riding a bike and I'm still not sure what happened, I just saw him biff it pretty hard. By the time I got over to him and saw his finger I could tell it didn't look good, it was cut pretty bad and I could see the whole finger nail bed sticking out. So I left Lincoln with a friend and headed to the hospital (Jett screamed the whole way there and kept saying he didn't want stitches he just wanted the doctor to super glue it) :) We had x-rays done and it didn't look broken so that was good, but then he had to have two big shots to numb the finger and that was not so good :( I knew he was in ALOT of pain when he turned down a popsicle and a sucker(some of you know, the kid would never turn candy down) They ended up removing the whole finger nail cleaning out the cut and sewing the fingernail back into the finger(literally put the needle through the nail and then through the finger)UGH!!! I teased Jett it was like when Mom gets fake finger nails on, because the whole finger nail, just laying on the table, looked like one of those long plastic fake nails they glue on. It was pretty gross. In the middle of the night the pain medication wore off and he woke up crying and this morning it has been hurting alot I don't think the Tylenol and Motrin are cutting it, but I think we are well on our way to recovery. I know it could have been alot worse and I am so thankful it wasn't, but it is just heart breaking to have to watch one of your kids go through something like this, you just wish it could be you in their place. I just felt so bad for the little guy.


the splint covers most of the damage but you can still see a little on the side (sorry for the graphic, but someday I know he will probably think this is cool!)

The Photo Shoot

The kids spring pictures. This was the first time I had a photographer take them outside. I have to say the process was a bit harder than in a studio, but the final result was well worth it! They turned out so cute.
Melissa with Simply Be Photography took these pictures. She was so good to work with and did a GREAT job!



















....Lincoln had had enough and that would be a wrap!

Funny Guy!!!

Oh, my husband thinks he is SO funny. I wish I could say that this last post was a mean joke and that he just threw a bunch of clean clothes on the floor, but sadly it is the truth..... In MY defense our laundry does not usually look like this. This last week was the first week we finally had nice warm weather here in Cache Valley, and all three of my kids got the flu. So if they weren't in the house puking their guts out (which made for some of the massive laundry pile) we were indeed outside enjoying the weather, and yeah, so my household chores got a little neglected, okay alot neglected. You would think most kind, loving, husbands would find that large pile and think "my wife must of had a crazy week, I'll help her out a little and do a couple loads of laundry for her." apparently, not Justin. However, if he thinks that this is the solution to get me to do the laundry he is dead WRONG. In fact maybe just for that embarrassing little stunt I should do everyone else's laundry in that pile but his (that would mean for the first time in our marriage HE would actually have to do the laundry) :) and by the way honey, you say I exaggerate, really, 90% of the day and 3-4 weeks? REALLY? If I didn't do the laundry for 4 weeks, guaranteed it would be to the ceiling. Anyway, looks like you can all see what I will be doing this week, I guess I'd better get to it. Oh, and thanks alot Alisha for telling Justin how to make a post and Taya for showing him my password. I see how you two are :)

*** F.Y.I. for those of you who don't know us very well, we really are just teasing each other and truely are madly in LOVE!!! right honey?:)

Our New Peice of Furniture!

This is Justin. This is my first and maybe my last post, when Ashley finds out about it. Dave Webb gave me the excellent idea to show what this blogging BS has done to my wife. I would like to introduce you all to the Ballard Love Sac. Since Ashley spends 90% of her day blogging this is what happens to the laundry after 3 or 4 weeks of "not having any time" to do it cause she is sooooo busy doing other very important things...

This is all for fun, and she knows what a good wife and mother I think she is. She is amazing... but I do think she blogs too much!

OH! Lincoln!!!...

is what I have found myself saying ALOT these days... Sometimes it's in a "You are so cute" way, and sometimes it's in a "What in the heck are you doing?!!!" sort of way. Lincoln is at that stage where you realize they really aren't babies anymore. I forget how smart toddlers are and how quickly they pick up on things and figure them out (especially the things you don't want them to.) He is so curious about everything, and doesn't comprehend when somethings not a great idea. Here are just a few of his new interests, and a look at how fun the last couple months have been around our house...

#1. the TOLIET everything goes in the toliet, from basketballs, to toys, to a whole box of tampons, whatever he can find, this day he was stirring my eyebrow pencil in the water... looks like I'll be needing a new one of those. (check out the guilty little look. he now understands he's going to get in trouble, but that just makes it even more fun right?)

#2. CLIMBING out of his seats, even the straps in the grocery carts or in his stollers will no longer contain the little worm. One day I left him in his highchair eating lunch and went back to my room to do something and came out to find him sitting on the counter eating the ice (which he loves) out of my ice water. He had climbed out of his chair and to the other side of my island. I know, I was lucky he didn't fall off the counter.



#3. HATS, he loves to put on hats and walk around with them on :)
#4. any little BOX that he will perfectly fit in. He loves to sit in the laundry basket while I'm folding laundry, he loves to climb on top of them too.
#5. ICE, as I mentioned before. One day my brother's dog (which btw is the ONLY dog allowed in my house, I can't even believe I let him in) was licking ice off my floor and I guess Linc decided that it looked like a blast so he just joined right on in. Luckily I had mopped the floor that morning, which rarely happens these days.




#6. DANCING! check out these sweet dances moves. I guess it's really just one, he just bounces and swings his one arm. We call it "The Linky Dink".

So even though he can sometimes be a little fart, he's a pretty darn cute little fart and I guess we'll keep him :)

Easter!

This year for Easter all my Family came out for the weekend. We had our annual Easter egg hunts. A kid one and an adult one (that's right, me & my adult siblings still get to have egg hunts!) and they are very competitive, too bad we didn't get pic's of that one I'm sure it would have been pretty funny. My parents fill our eggs with money, 1's, 5's, 10's, and 20's. Every year we try to score the most dough, and every year my brother Sid ends up with the most. My sister-in-law (Jodi) and I suck we always end up with a few dollars, and every year we always miss an egg or two, last year after the snow melted Jett found a blue Easter egg with two dollars in it. So If I see any of my neighbors slowly walking around my yard, I'll know what your doing :) J/K :)
I think there was a smudge on my camera lens during the egg hunt and my pic's turned out sort of blurry :(






Checking out what the Easter Bunny brought...


Grandma Julie & her three BOYS!!! ( I know, she doesn't look like a Grandma)

Picture Day!

So we just got back from having the kids pictures taken, and as you all can imagine I'm totally FRAZZLED! I've decided the best part about getting your kids pictures taken are when it is OVER! I've had to keep rescheduling because of this crappy weather we have been having here, and today was finally a beautiful day. Although the weather finally decided to cooperate of course my kids didn't. Taya's front loose tooth is literally hanging on by a thread, (which wasn't when I scehduled the pic.'s 3 weeks ago) I kept begging her to pull it out before pictures because it's just hanging there and looks so gross, but she didn't ( I'm sure that will look lovely) hopefully photoshop can fix it and Lincoln CRIED pretty much the entire time. I kept telling the photographer, he really hardly ever cries ( because seriously he doesn't) I'm sure she was thinking "whatever lady they all say that." Anyway the other two did as good as can be expected. I don't know who picture day is harder on the the poor kids, or us mom's. Who really believe that after 3 hours of being told to Stand Up, Sit Down, Look Over Here and oh, by the way SMILE :)... a one year old is really going to do it, but for some reason we do. So anyway hopefully we got some good ones, and it was worth the weeks of stressing, and just a little WARNING... get ready for a picture overload in a couple weeks :)

Tag!

I got tagged, to pick a picture from my 6th post. I didn't start a blog too long ago so these pictures weren't that old. The post was of our family vacation in St. George, I did a slideshow so I had a ton of pictures to choose from but I had to pick this one of Jett and my brother Jesse. I have no doubt this game was Jesse's idea, and this is a typical Jesse pose ( from the time he was a little boy he has always pulled a face for the camera, and this is one of the more mellow ones) !
I am dedicating this post to my siser-in-law Jodi because a while back she posted this picture of her baby.....
where she wrote, and I quote " Mlyee has just started this new smile where she srunches her nose, we can't figure out where she has picked it up from because both Jesse and I don't do it..."

Just thought I would help her out with the mystery :) ha ha ha!

***I am tagging Hanne, Brianna, Courtney Mckay, Jocelyn, Alisha, Michelle, and anyone else who wants to play! (choose a picture from your 6th post, and tag 6 more people.)