WOOT!

That’s right. Baby #4 in my belly.

Baby #4 wasn’t in the mood for pictures, so the ultrasound pictures aren’t that exciting to post. But it was fun to see her (Come on — let’s just start to prepare ourselves. We are meant to have a house full of girls.) and listen to her heartbeat. It was a quick look. All of the sisters started needing something and we ended the ultrasound early. Story of baby #4′s life already, huh? My husband is a #4; they’ll completely get each other.

Also, some other big news: we are making it a goal to move to Costa Rica in late October/early November. I want to leave the day after Halloween, and Tyler wants to leave a couple of weeks early to get things ready.

This is all dependent on how Tyler’s new DVD line does. Even if it just does “OK,” we will still head down there for six to 12 months to film the Spanish line of the DVDs. We will just rent out our house here. We are telling people about this, even though it might be embarrassing if something in life happens and it doesn’t work out. Oh, but I really believe it will — and I can’t wait.

I am not nervous about moving there. I *AM* extremely stressed about the amount of work I have to do before that.

Costa Rica has this saying that you hear people say to each other all day long: “Pura Vida,” which means the Pure Life. When we were first married we ditched everything and made the jump to move out to Massachusetts. It was the best thing we did for our little family and marriage. And I feel like this is what we need right now — our lives are ready for the next chapter.

Pura Vida.

On the other hand, my blog is changing and sometimes I feel really confused on where it should go. Not too many family members read my blog so sometimes I wonder why I keep it updated “for family,” but I still have thousands of visitors every day. But I gave up being a “professional” blogger and making money for my family through my blog before Shae was born. So what do I do with all of this?

I was asked to give a presentation on blogging for an LDS stake down in Provo, and it really has been heaven-sent. More specifically, it is a presentation that my mom and I entitled, “Blogging – Your Life Now, Family History & Using Your Blog to Strengthen Your Family.” Now I have clarity on what I would like my blog to be. Can’t wait to share that presentation with you all as well. But part of my life, part of the way I bond with my kids and the things that I love will always be: cooking as a family, reading with my kids and doing fun activities with them. So I know those things will still be around on the blog because they are a part of my life, and I hope those things can be a part of my family history.

So I am kind of asking myself… why am I doing this Birthday Bash? It will be fun and I can show off some products I love. But I don’t know if I’ll ever do it again.

Until then… help me celebrate my 4th year of blogging by entering to win some giveaways!

Welcome to my blog’s Birthday Bash to celebrate INeverGrewUp.net’s 4th (or wait, is it the 5th?) Year of Blogging!

Giveaways Galore!

Over $450 in giveaways!

You can click on each item listed below here to be taken to each blog post to enter to win. Or just scroll down under this post to enter yourself into all FIVE giveaways. You must comment on every single giveaway post you are interested in winning. Comments made on this post do not count.

Mini Polaroid Camera by FujiFilm ($150)

Children’s Books by Carmen Agra Deedy ($80)

Tea Collection Clothing Line ($100)

Sweet Tooth Fairy Cakebites (Can’t put a price on this!)

Thanksgiving Point Annual Family Pass ($175)

It’s a Mini Polaroid camera!

You know your family would have a ball with that too, huh?

To have the chance to win the Mini Polaroid Camera by FujiFilm WITH 4 boxes of film, YOU MUST:

My mother in law is a fan of hers and I heard Carmen storytell at the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival a couple of years ago, so now I can’t remember how I heard of her first. But all the matters is I did hear of her, and now my girls have her wonderful children’s books.

She has a total of eight children’s books, but today we are just giving away four. Let me show which ones I have chosen:

#1 Martina the Beautiful Cockroach: A Cuban Folktale

#2 The Library Dragon

#3  The Cheshire Cheese Cat: A Dickens of a Tale

#4 Growing Up Cuban in Decatur, Georgia (my daughters listen to this over and over. I think it is one for the family to LISTEN to together. Yes, just this one is an audio book.)

To have the chance to win these four books by Carmen Agra Deedy, YOU MUST:

This clothing line is comfortable, stains come out very easily, the clothing is soft to the skin, the designs are something new and eclectic, and I am a fan for life. You know, I recently bought something from their women’s line and experienced the same great things! Oh wait — and I can’t forget that their newborn clothes have been my favorite for dressing my brand new ones, by far.

I love them, and you’ll love them. Let me show you what is new from their latest “Bali Collection.” I’ll just show you my two favorites:

To have the chance to win a $100 gift card to Tea Collection, YOU MUST:

And if you didn’t already know, you can buy her cakebites and have them shipped to wherever you are. Oh, and you’ll want to. Can I tell you? All the bakeries here in Utah try to do cakebites. And listen…they all really need to stop. Megan’s cakebites are perfection. They are a goodie that will be one of my favorites for the rest of my life.

And get this…

Sweet Tooth Fairy is on its way to Scottsdale, AZ and Southlake, TX in the next few months. YOU LUCKY DUCKS, YOU! Here in Utah there are locations in: Provo, Draper, St. George, Salt Lake City, Midvale, Layton, Orem, West Valley City and Murray.

Let me tempt you:

BA-

-BOOM

BA-

-BANG

Yep, that’s right. Here is the link to where you can buy cakebites and have them shipped to your boca: http://www.shop.thesweettoothfairy.com/

To have the chance to win a box of YOUR CHOICE OF FLAVOR of Sweet Tooth Fairy Cakebites, YOU MUST:

We all know you can head down to Thanksgiving Point with the kiddos for: the animal farm, the children’s gardens, the tulip festival, Monday Night Family Night Activities, Cornbellys in the fall, the dinosaur museum, getting ice cream sundaes in the deli, fudge from the candy store and the drive through Christmas lights.

Or as a grown up, you can: shop at Thanksgiving Emporium, go on a date night at The Harvest, walk around the gardens and even do a cooking class.

But did you know of these things? Reenactment of the Thanksgiving Dinner, breakfast with Santa, Easter egg hunt, carriage rides & trolley rides through the Christmas lights, gardening classes, baby animal parties, auto shows, kids summer camps and tales for tots.

And I am sure I am missing many more. Plus, their kid’s science museum hopefully will open up someday (seems like the date keeps on moving further out).

All throughout this blog, there are pictures of us with cousins, grandparents and out-of-town visitors at Thanksgiving Point. Most of the time (don’t ask Tyler about that one time he went to the Easter Egg Hunt) we love going there.

To have the chance to win a Thanksgiving Point Family Pass for a full year, YOU MUST:

Our week this week was… good and bad. There are sad and stressful things going on that we have no control over, which makes for a sad husband. Lately I spend most of my days trying to figure out how not to lose my cookies all over the place. But it was also a good week because I realized that finally after nine years, we know how to treat each other when we are going through hard times. I am finally getting the hang of it (I am a bit slow). I guess we are growing up!

It also has been a good week because we still had some fun, we still had some fantastic spark and romance, we relived old memories and it was also good because of the three little girls we have running around this house who love Valentine’s Day.

So here we go: Things I Loved During the Week of LoooOooOove:

Ok, maybe we emotionally eat more than I realize.

My mom made the girls these adorable Valentine’s Day skirts. You know something I loved that my mom did with us kids?  She always had a little present for us after school on Valentine’s Day. During middle school years and high school years when they do those dreaded “candy grams” and it seems like everyone has a boyfriend but you, it was really comforting to come home and have a sweet something from Mommy.

So I always get my girls a little something — this year, they each got a sparkly ring and a bottle cap necklace.

And of course, Sees chocolates for everyone.

Cards from grandmas: this one reminded me so much of the cards my grandma would send me!

Abby brought home all her class Valentines, shared them with her sister and looked through them over and over and over.

The Valentine we picked out this year and sent to family was….

Cameron ran around the house all day long with her mustache on, screaming in a vampire voice, “I MUSTACHE YOU A QUESTION!”
 Tyler forbid me from doing this again. He did not find it funny like I did!

Best part of the Valentines was having people text us wearing their moustaches:

Hopefully I don’t get in trouble for posting those. Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!

So after years of suggesting asking pleading nagging that I try this, he finally realized I was not listening and took things into his own hands.

Project Peasant Food has begun! And guess who is cooking? Not me. If he wants to prove a point to me that it can be flavorful, that it won’t get old and it can be made different so I don’t feel like I am eating the same stuff everything night, then he can do it!

Project Peasant Food: Cuban Rice

picture taken with phone

Directions: Cook white rice (no extras). Place it in a cup to mold it and flip it over onto a dish. Add some tomato sauce on top (add some garlic, salt and pepper to the tomato sauce). Saute up some sliced bananas in some olive oil and place on the side. Cook a sunny side up egg (or a scrambled egg for your wife), and place on top.

How Was It? AMAZING, DARN IT. And crazy cheap. Eggs? Free at our house. White Rice? Almost nothing. Bananas? Cheapest Produce Out there. Tomato Sauce? Ok fine, he wins. This couldn’t be any cheaper.

He wants to try to do this four nights a week. I’ll keep you posted. But for now, so far I don’t mind him doing the cooking! He honestly it a better cook than me anyway.

Picture taken with my phone

If you knew her, you would be too. She has these eyes that… Well, they remind me of the reflection pool in front of the Washington D.C. Temple. That is what they remind me of — bright blue pure reflection pools.

20 months ago a man in our ward stood up in Sacrament Meeting to bear his testimony. He talked about how he had learned that his life needed more peace and quiet so he could hear and feel promptings from the Holy Ghost. He said that he had started to turn the music off in his truck while driving to and from work just so he could be quiet to think or let thoughts come to him. I felt prompted to do the same, and boy oh boy, am I glad I listened.

I decided that my life needed more peace and quiet in its daily to-and-fro. So I decided to turn off emails on my phone — no more beeps all day from clients asking me to do new things, no more emails from readers and people asking for help with their blogs. There were all these messages I felt stacking up, and that I needed to get through and get done. I just turned it off.

And the first day I did this was the first day I felt baby Shae sitting there. I went to pick her up in the grocery cart in line to get some bread. I didn’t go to pick up Cameron or Abby by accident, thinking I had put one of them up in the cart. I went to pick up a baby I hadn’t met, and I felt her presence.

So only a couple weeks later we were pregnant with little baby Shae.

Baby Shae is my angel. I don’t know who I would be without her. Some days I feel other kids running around my house — I feel their presence, but they aren’t here yet. The feeling is warm and overwhelming all at the same time.

This experience has built up my testimony — learning that we can learn from each other at church, that we can help change each other’s lives for the good. That right now in my phase of life, bringing my little babies into the world is my top priority. That it is nothing to be ashamed of or feel belittled by. That bringing little babies to the earth to raise and love is the most important thing of all.