Is life ever going to S-L-O-W down????

It's been a crazy week AGAIN! Is life ever going to slow down? Here's whats been going on...

First, car shopping. Ugh! I have been driving my "well loved" Durango far longer than I should and it was time to let it go but I ABSOLUTELY H-A-T-E car shopping! For over a month we have talked about what car to get. I was dead set on a crossover and Weston wanted a car. This past week I hit just about every dealership in town test driving vehicles to cross them off my list of possibilities. (I had to trade my Durango, there was no way I was going to sell it.) I almost feel like a traitor with what we ended up with. We bought a 2009 Toyota Camry SE. I swore I would never ever purchase a brand new vehicle and I really didn't want a car but it felt like the best choice no matter how much I tried to talk myself out of it. Now that it's done, I really love my new car but mostly I'm very grateful to be driving a SAFE car that will last me forever and get great gas mileage..AND it's really pretty too!

On Wednesday, I went out to dinner at The Cheesecake Factory in Chandler with my step mom and my sisters from my side of the family. My sister from Washington was here and we had a new addition now that she's 18...my beautiful niece Chelsea. I can't believe I'm old enough to have a niece graduating from high school! I feel so old! This dinner was actually the very first time we've ever done this and it was really nice. My family has been going through some really hard trials and it was truly wonderful to push all that aside and just enjoy spending time together as women. I love you guys!

After dinner I HAD to sneak into Barns and Noble to buy a book I've been so patiently waiting to be released...THE HOST! I have fallen in love with Stephanie Meyer's books. I couldn't wait for this one to come out. I know I shouldn't have with everything I had going on this week but YES, I've already finished it. I'm not sure I love it MORE than her Twilight books but it DEFINITELY was a good read. I can't wait for BREAKING DAWN to be released in August!

Saturday was crazy...Cole woke up sick so all of our plans for the day went out the window. My sister and her family were actually here to baptize my nephew Kenny. With Cole being sick, only Emily and I went to that. For some really strange reason, I was super emotional and cried several times. I cried when the kids sang, I cried when Kenny was baptised and I had a really hard time saying goodbye to my sister when it wall all over. (No, I'm not pregnant!) I guess I'm just a SAP, what else can I say??!!! Congratulations Kenny, I love you!

After the baptism, guess what? WE CLEANED OUT OUR GARAGE! Yes, my new car is parked in my garage! I know this seems stupid but I have been waiting for 3 very long years to park my car in there. This is really huge to me! No more hot seats, burning buckles and hot steering wheels you can't touch! I LOVE IT!

Now for some sad news. Saturday night Emily paid the price for our garage cleaning efforts. About 11:30, Emily started crying in her bed. Weston went in to see what was wrong and suddenly it hit me that she had a scorpion in her bed. I'm not sure if it was intuition or a prompting but I jumped up, ran in there and started carefully pulling her bedding back to find it. We couldn't see it anywhere until all of a sudden it moved and ran across Emily's chest! Weston flicked it off and yanked her out of bed. She was stung TWICE by the bugger! She went into a little bit of shock, started shaking uncontrollably and got really cold but she stayed calm. She was in a lot of pain and I ended up staying up with her ALL NIGHT LONG watching her carefully to see if she was going to have a reaction. She ended up having some numbness in her mouth and lots of pain around the stings but other than that she did great. Thank goodness!

My week finished with a really nice Mother's Day. It wasn't as pleasant as I would have hoped because I was so tired but it was nice. Mostly I was overwhelmed with gratitude for being blessed with the honor of BEING a mother. I love my kids more than I can express. I tear up just thinking about what they mean to me. There's nothing I wouldn't do for them and nothing I wouldn't give for their happiness in this life. I don't believe there is anything on this earth that can come close to the joy I feel in this amazing calling. I AM FULFILLED BEYOND MEASURE!