A long week...

"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers."

It was an extremely long week.
So many of us ended up sick, or were feeling sick.
My Father was extremely stressed.
My Mother has been sick.
There has been a lot of laughs, and a lot of tears, as well as a few arguments, we are not perfect.
I hope this weekend will be better.
I'm looking forward to it.


Our Tio came to visit us. It was such a surprise. He sat in the rode and honked a few times, my Father was frustrated with it and went to look out the front window. At the same time he was saying "Is someone supposed to be leaving?! Who is honking?!... Oh it's Damian."

"Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein."
-H. Jackson Brown

Home at last.

My Mother was able to be escorted home by my Father around 3:15 this afternoon.
She has a fever, and may be coming down with the flu, sadly.
She is someone to me, that if she cries, it makes me want to cry.
And if she's in pain, I want to do something about it because I can't stand to see her hurt.
Seems as though she rested all afternoon, but she did get the chance to eat dinner with my Father.
Yes, it is obvious she is still herself because as I type she is sleeping on the couch... And her movie is still running.
She is never able to sit through a whole movie.
She either gets too busy and runs off, leaving it playing.
Or falls asleep.
I love her.
It is so nice to have my Mother back home.
And it was so great to see my Daddy-o.
I love him so much. He has been a huge help.
He is way stressed, and I hope us children can help with that.

Thank you to everyone who has helped to feed us!!
For 3 nights people brought by dinner.
It was so sweet and so generous.
Thank you for your support!
The whole family appreciates it!!!

Truly Sad Update.

Have you noticed how much someones life can change in such little time?
If not, now you will.

Tuesday-
We were up at 6:00A.M., as usually. We ate breakfast and split up.
Joshua coughed all through out breakfast, so immediately after we finished, my Father went to call the doctors.
My Mother had to be at the hospital by 7 A.M. So both of my parents were out of the house around 6:30A.M. They didn't say bye, they just left. That really worried me.
Mara, Maria, Gabrielle, Emma and I all continued to get ready for the day.
At 7 Kaytlyn took Mara, our neighbor Josh, and I to school.
Gabrielle and Emma had gotten started on dishes, and making their lunch.
Maria left the house to catch the bus around 7:25.
Joshua and Samuel were home sick in the family room all day.
Gabrielle and Emma leaft for school just before 8.

As the day went on I found out that my Mothers surgery for the most part went well, but that she lost more blood than most people, so instead of staying one night, she has to stay two.
I also came to find out that it seems as if Joshua and Samuel have the H1N1 virus, also known as "Swine Flu".

After school I had a Dentist Appointment.
To my surprise, they decided while I was there that they would pull my tooth.
"Looks like you might have a wisdom tooth coming in about 3 years, so we should pull this tooth." -Dr.
"But that's not for 3 years? So do we have to do it now?" -Leah
"Well it's numb, so why not?" -Dr.
"Sigh... Rip it out." -Leah.
I just love the dentist.

At home dinner was brought to us by two of our neighbors. The food was delicious! I was sooo hungry that I couldn't hold back from eating. That was not very smart.
The food was so delicious. But it only made my mouth bleed for the rest of the night.

Hyrum called and came to pick the kids up to go cleaning at security metrics.
They all went, and from what I heard, they argued a bit, but nothing major, just basic sibling stuff.

After a long day I went to shower, after I got ready for bed I went to the kitchen for a drink. Peter had recently gotten home so he was at the table eating.
This is how our conversation went...
Peter: "Have they (Joshua and Samuel) been watching movies all day??!"
Leah: "Yes... Well no, they spent about 45 minutes inbetween movies trying to decide what movie to watch next."
Peter: "Ugh, if they don't sleep they aren't going to get better."


Wednesday-
My Daddy-o stayed the night with my Mother, she had a painful night and needed drugs to help settle her down. Around 9 A.M. she was walking around a bit, and in a little less pain.

Joshua and Samuel are still really sick. They won't really sleep.

Since my Father didn't show up in the morning for breakfast, as we expected, we didn't get up until 6:25, 25 minutes later than we normally get up.

The morning went by way fast, I was at school sooner than I realized.
Erin (My sister-in-law, Michaels Wife) was nice enough to help out.
She took Maria to her 9:00 ortho. appointment.
And brought me medicine.
After school Mara and I walked to the Dentist.
Yes I went to the dentist twice in a row. Not the most exciting thing.
Although I did tell the Dr. I enjoyed spending my free time in his Dentist office, that's why I came back, even after he unexpectedly pulled my tooth out.
Once again my face is fat. Oh the joy, I'm starting to get used to this.

When I got home my Father had been here, he stopped by to grab some stuff, I only saw him for a few moments before he was off to Law School.
I love my parents and all they do for me, and my family.

I hope and pray that my Sweet Mother can have the strength to make it through, as painless as possible.
And that Joshua and Samuel will be able to get better, because I know they could.
I really hope my little sisters can be smart, and make it without getting sick.
I am so thankful for my older siblings, and for what a major roll they are playing in helping their younger siblings out.

Genevieve, Hyrum, Kaytlyn, and Erin have been a lot of help, thank you!!

Extreme Art.

In our elementary school we all had the chance to be a part of something called "Junior Achievement". It's pretty much a program that helps to get you a feel for what your going to deal with when you grow up. Business, family, Schooling, etc.

Each year they talk with you about something different, and each year they give you a magnet to do with the subject. These are some of the magnets we got while we were in elementary school...

Although they didn't look like this... On Monday Maria decided she had a brilliant idea and that we would rip off the picture on the magnets, and draw our own.

So of course, we did. Aren't they just lovely?

My Sweet Mother came home soon after we finished, we were worried that she would be upset about our "Great Idea". But my Mother, the sweet heart she is, said they were "Beautiful", and gave us permission to rip apart all the magnets and draw on them.

So there is our cheap art of the week.

Maria had a Birthday?

Why yes, Maria did have a birthday. She is officially a TEENAGER!
We worked Saturday morning, so by 2 in the afternoon Maria was pretty discouraged.
But it was all good, she went babysitting, so my Mother, Mara, and I set off on our mission.
It all started with Chocolate Milk...

My Sweet Mother took me grocery shopping with her, which she hates to do. We walked around the store looking for vegetables, chocolate milk, and other things in between. Finally it was my turn, Balloons. We bought 70 Balloons, hurried through the line, and we were on our way.
Chocolate Milk was on a 2 for $1.00 sale. Or something like that... So we both got one. Not thinking about Mara who was at home putting streamers up in mine and Maria's room...

Mara did such a great job with the streamers! When I walked up to the bright bedroom Mara stated "I think I've officially made it so that you can't walk in without having to duck under streamers."

Little did we know, we were in for a rough time. I bought 70 balloons, plus we had quite a few from Mara's collection. I discovered that Mara could blow up, and tie about 3 balloons in the time that it took me to just tie one balloons... Things were not easy. This balloon had a hole in it.

"Where is all the air coming out of?!?!" -Leah Anne
"uhh... THE HOLE?!" -Mara
Two balloons ended up with holes, and I attempted to bandage... Well tape them up. This balloon was successful... The other one wasn't so lucky...

This was the other balloon... It didn't really work out...

Maria got home from babysitting and went straight to her room. She was all like

"Giggle giggle giggle"

After she saw her room. Mara and I made her, that's right, MADE her go to the movies with us. We went and saw Julie and Julia. Ahh! It was too adorable. We all enjoyed it!

We then decided we would get our pictures taken in the Photo booth thingy... Well we didn't have 3 one dollar bills. So it didn't work. We then decided we'd use our camera to take pictures of ourselves in the photo booth... that didn't work out too well either. But it was pretty funny!

Then Maria had a brilliant plan. She decided I should attempt to go up the down escalator. That's right, try to run up, the down escalator.

After I attempted that, we went outside to meet up with my Mother dear. She decided we should be taken to the Fast Food Restraunt Wendys. So, we went to Wendys. And ate food.

Maria was sooooo super happy... You just can't tell in this picture...

Mara was enjoying herself too...

As well as Kaytlyn... Okay... She was really eating a sour orange.

On Sunday Maria had her cake... Well she decided she didn't want a birthday cake, instead she wanted Birthday Brownies. So of course, she got what she wanted.

Gabrielle made the very delicious chocolatey soft brownies. And was really annoyed with Maria when she exclaimed that she was going to cut an "M" into the Brownies.

Gabrielle got pretty upset, and asked if she could just have a normal piece... This was about as normal as it got for Maria's brownie cutting.

As soon as Peter saw, he decided he wasn't that hungry for Brownies anymore. Too bad huh?

Website!

Once again, I have updated my website.
If anyone is interested in looking.
It's nothing real nice yet, hopefully that happens soon!!

leahannephotography.weebly.com

I love my family.

This is to you, your parents, your siblings, younger or older, your adorable children, your noisy neighbor, your cousins, and to the world.

I LOVE MY FAMILY

Tonight my Mother, bless her heart, took another daring quest. She drove Joshua, Emma, and I to her work, to clean.
What an adventure. We had been put in charge of cleaning 3 buildings.
We started with building 3, moved to 2, and then 4.

3 went by fast, I worked in the bathrooms with my sweet little sister Emma.
She told me about school, and her friends.
As we got ready to leave that building, and head for building 2 I could already feel that something would go wrong.

Emma had started to complain about how heavy the bag was that she was carrying.
It was dripping, and too heavy for her, so Joshua carried both heavy bags.
We got the top floor of the second building done and had moved to the bottom.
Joshua was swift, and had finished everything, all he needed to do was clean the main entrance windows.
He asked me to hand him the windex, and some paper towels. I stretched out my burnt brown arm and held it up for him to grab.
He held it by the lid in the air, and swung it a few times, messing around with Emma who was on the stairs below him.

I had walked around the corner to the bathroom to mop the tiled floor, when everything happened too fast.
I heard a high pitched shriek from Emma, I was up off the floor and over to her side in an instant, before I could even ask what had happened I heard Joshua yell at me, telling me to grab it.
Joshua had the top of the bottle in his hand, but the bottom had now fallen down more than half the flight of stairs, and was leaking on every step,
Without thinking I grabbed it as fast as I could and slammed it onto the ground. Running to grab the white paper towels to start dabbing at the stairs.
Joshua was already on it, he was not dabbing though, instead frantically apologizing to Emma, and swiping at the stairs.
I asked Emma to start on the floor, and talked with Joshua for a minute trying to get him to calm down.
I convinced him to go do the main door glass windows, and that I would finish the stairs.
After a moment he agreed to it. I frantically dabbed at the stairs, trying to get rid of as much blue windex as possible before my Mother saw.

After I ran out of paper towels I went over to Emma in the bathroom, I begged her to relax, and told her how sorry Joshua and I were. Letting her know that you could hear the hurt that Joshua felt in his voice.
I asked Emma if the liquid had gotten on her face, she said no, but that the bottle hit her head, and leg, spilling all over her body before it hit the stairs.
I felt awful. We quickly finished up that building before moving onto the last.

The last building, building 4 goes by so fast.
Joshua finished first, and My Mother next. Emma and I were the last to finish.
Well I was, I mopped the bathroom floor by myself.
When I walked out I saw Joshua talking with Emma by the pull up bar.
He had asked her how many she thought he could do.
She responded with 3, he then asked me, I said 7.
As he went to do it it wasn't completely on the top of the door frame, he went to pull up and the bar fell forward, taking my dear little brother Joshua with it.

He scrapped his knee on the carpet, and took some wood chips off the top of the door frame.
We all gasped. My Mother decided we would just set it off to the side. And figure out what to do with it later.
Surprisingly with everything that had happened, finished in about an hour and a half.
It was quite the night.

Rain rain PLEASE come again!

Jeez! It's about time I got on here and updated!
Most might say the sun is what brightens their day and makes them smile.
As for me, it's the gloomy weather, the rains poring, our trees blowing, thunder growling like a fierce tiger, and lighting glowing. While Maria, Gabrielle and I are out taking photos...

Maria was soooo cute!

Yes. I picked out her outfit. Go me!

We laughed so much!

"One, Two... Two... Two... POSE!... Three."

My sisters are so gorgeous!

"Maria pose! No! Right now Girlie POSE!" -Leah
"Fine! I'm ready!" -Maria
"Aw, it's okay, I just took a picture of the clouds." -Leah

Gabrielle is such an angel!

"This is the look Gabrielle gives me every time I say something; 'uh... weirdo..."

Okay seriously? Cutie!

Maria was quite the Model for me.

Yay! Gabrielle took a picture for us... Well... She took about 6, but the first 5 times either me, or Maria... Or the both of us where not paying attention.

Maria was really good.

Flashing a smile.

"Just pretend like your skipping, no one will know you weren't really."

Gabrielle was spacing out most of the time. So we didn't get as many pictures of here.

What a cute little girl! I could just hug her forever!

"Look both ways before crossing the grass!"

I love black and white photos.

Here is my story, I'll keep it as short as I can! I know My brother-in-law Mike doesn't like to read long things! hahah.
Samuels Birthday was August 25.
One of his friends gave him a blue star balloons.
On September 5 Samuel gave it to me.
I decided I'd draw a smile on it, and name it "Charlyn" (Ch-are-lin)
Not being able to decide if it was a boy or a girl.
This balloon loves to wander!
It enjoys being in the bathroom, particularly the shower, and seems to be fond of my mother and Maria.
My Mother woke up Sunday morning with Charlyn right by her head.
She said if it showed up in the room again, she'd have to pop it.
I had to start tying it up so that it wouldn't be popped.
Seems as though Charlyn is getting old and tired.
I don't think it'll last much longer.
I had some great laughs while it lasted though!

Videos!

Here are some random videos from the past three months. I'll update with stories soon. I promise! Just enjoy some videos for now! Thanks for being patient!

Oh dear...

Sigh. I know I need to update the blog when my youngest sister Emma tells me it's been a while. Good grief.

I'll update it more sometime within the next two days. But here are some side stories.
There where about 20-30 hang gliders a few weeks ago.
It was so cool to watch them come from the top of the mountain!
But come to hear, one or two got stuck at the top, with injuries!
They had set up in the park 8 cop cars, an ambulance, and a fire truck.
All in the field by Wasatch Elementary School.
A lot of neighbors gathered around to see what was going on.

What to do memorial day weekend... Swim of course! On Monday, me along with all my little sisters... and Joshua, got to go swimming at Hyrum and Sylvias pool. It was such a blast!
I hadn't been swimming with Hyrum there before, it was extra fun though!

Joshua and Hyrum had some pretty sweet moves!

A few weeks ago, Maria, Gabrielle, Emma and I took our nieces and nephews to the park.
Right as we started we warned them that they would have to hold hands as we crossed the street.
Josh then reached out his hand to hold Mias right away. Josh is adorable.
Mia wasn't quite sure what to do.
So we took an extra 2 minutes at the beginning of our walk up there watching Josh show Mia how to hold his hand.
I love little kids!