Nine Years!

It's been NINE years of marital bliss for us!  I can't believe it!  I still feel like a teenager who has a mad crush on the guy that sits next to me in class!  Gordon and I met in Utah and we became co-workers at a bank in Provo.  Both of us reached for the same $1 dollar bill and our hands touched and the rest is history!!  We have a great life.  We love the Gospel. We love our girls. And we most certainly and unconditionaly love each other! 
There is no end to happiness here!! 

Happy Anniversary to us!!!

Sharing

Tonight we set up Claire's big girl bed and put it in what used to be "Evelyn's room" but is now "Evelyn AND Claire's room"!  Tonight begins a long life of sharing a room as sisters!  They have matching beds and matching bedding and it looked SO stinking cute all set up! 
We started bedtime 30 minutes early tonight anticipating a long night ahead of playing together or fighting together - we didn't know what to expect, but we knew it was going to take longer than normal.  Earlier that day, I set the bed up so that Claire could get used to it...you know jump on it, play in the blankets...etc!  It was cute to watch her figure out that it was going to be her new bed!  She loves "sissy's" room and climbing in "sissy's" bed all the time, and now there was one just for her! 
When bedtime came, we put both girls down and Claire and Evelyn both were full of giggles!  They were SO excited to be together!  The giggles lasted through story time, and through singing time, and through prayers, and through another round of singing time...and then mommy and daddy left the room...and the walls came crashing down at the sounds of screaming and crying and gnashing of teeth!
We heard things like "Claire, this OUR room now." "Get back in bed Claire, and stay there with your blankie." "Mommy and daddy!!! Claire is taking my lamb!"  "Get off my bed Claire!" "Daddy, Claire lost her paci!" "I don't want Claire in my room anymore!"
Ha ha ha ha ha ha! 
This went on for quite some time and with repeated appearances from mom and dad in their room putting butts back in bed!  And just when we were about to say "if this happens one more time, we're putting Claire back in her room in the crib and we'll try again later"...there was scilence. 
Amen!!!!!!!!!!

So behind!

Life is flashing right before my eyes!  The girls are getting bigger, smarter, taller, cuter...the days just go by too fast!  Here's some flashbacks of what's been happening with us...

Here's Evelyn making creations with Play-Doh - with some help from dad - but mostly her! 

We went to the Fire Station with lots of friends!  There were about 17 of us!!  It was great!  Too bad my camera battery died right after I took this one picture!!  Oh well, it was fun and the girls loved climbing on the trucks and sitting in the driver's seat!

This is our buddy James!  We have him over every now and then to play and this day we filled the pool up and added bubbles!  The kids loved swimming in the foam!! We love our James!!!

This is a daily - multiple times a day - activity for Claire.  She LOVES to read storeis!  This bottom shelf is full of books and every day she sits down and pulls off every single book one at a time and flips through the pages and talks in her own language or makes sound affects.  It's great!  But sometimes I fell like the character Mr. Incredible - "I just cleaned up this mess!!  Can't you keep it clean for 5 minutes!?!?"

----

The following pictures are from the "Volvo Family Day".  They had SO MUCH TO DO THERE!  It was held at BurMill Park and they had tons of blow up toys for the kids to climb on and jump in - even a water slip in slide!  They had dunking contest, drawing the Volvo truck contest, cotton candy, snow cones, lunch, a park to play on, music and lots of Volvo employees with their families!  It was a great HOT day!!  So blessed and thankfull that Gordon has a good job during these hard times!!

Claire doing what she loves best in life - SWINGING!  Her lips are blue from a blue-raspberry flavored snow cone!  She loved it!

Don't know who this dude was, but yeh, he got dunked! ha ha ha!

Daddy and the girls in a Volvo truck!

Here's Evelyn with her friend Clara getting ready to run and slide down the slip-n-slide!! Such cute little girls!

Volvo brought several trucks to have parked there for people to climb in and honk the horns!!  It was great!

Meador Family Reunion

Can I just say how lucky I am??  I AM LUCKY!  Maybe "lucky" isn't the right word, let's use blessed. 

I AM BLESSED!!! 

I have two amazing families - the one I was born into and the one I am happily married into.  We had a summer full of reunions and I am blown away by the strength of family!  I'd like to dedicate this post to two people very dear to my heart on my side of the family and these two people are my Grandma and Grandpa Meador.  This loverly couple fell in love, had a family, joined the Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and since then have sat back and watch their legacy grow!  They have 4 children - all married in the Temple, 15 grandchildren - almost all married and the ones that are married were all married in the temple and 10 great grandchildren (working on more!!!). 
We had a wonderful Meador Family Reunion in Denver, Colorado.  So much love and fun shared by all!  I miss them all so much now!  We were lucky enough to grow up together - all within just a few minutes away with the farthest only being a few hours away.  It was the best way to grow up!  Now, as an adult, I feel very close to my cousins and my aunts and uncles and my grandparents for the relationships that were able to develope at a younger age.
I have TONS of pictures of the reunion - eating, playing games, playing pool, roller skating, swimming, home-made ice cream, laughing, crying...just being together...but we had professional pictures taken on the last day and I think these pictures really capture the true nature of the reunion - the LOVE we have for each other. ENJOY!!

If you give a mouse a cookie...

He's going to need a glass of milk right? Well, this is what happens when you give Claire a cup of yogurt...HAHAHAHAHAHA!  You're gonna need a lot of napkins!

Family Reunion

ROAD TRIP!!! Gordon's side of the family was having a family reunion in Pennsylvania and we were excited to go! We drove our van and the drive up was about 7 hours. The girls did fabulous -all thanks to Aunt Rachel and Uncle Ryan who carpooled up there with us - I got to sit back and enjoy the long ride while they got to hear "I have to go to the bathroom!" "Claire touched me!" "Aunt Rachel, I want a snack!" "Aunt Rachel, Claire dropped her paci!" ...from the backseat!! HA HA HA! Oh, and me and Gordon totally kicked their butts at the SLUG BUG game! It was a fun road trip and we arrived safely at our destination in Pennsylvania.

Day one of the reunion featured a trip to Hershey Park. This place is where chocolate comes from so I was in heaven! We toured the factory and got free samples of Hershey bars and then we had a great day in the park with all of the roller coaster rides and water rides! At Hershey Park, the rides have height catagories - Claire was a Hershey Miniature and Evelyn was a Hershey Kiss...that's how you knew what ride your kid could go on. It was pretty cute! A good portion of the morning at the park was spent on KIDDIE rides and it was fun looking for the rides for the MINI's and the KISSES!!! We were there from about 10 in the morning until about 7 at night. No naps the entire day! The girls had a blast and were tuckered out by the time we got back to our hotel room! We ate a quick dinner and then we all crashed!!!

The reunion was at a park about 25 minutes away from our hotel. On the short drive over, the girls zzzzonked in the car. They were so exhausted from the day before! HA! We had a great time visiting with cousins, aunts, uncles, and other people that we did not know! :) We had great food and games to play for the kids. There was a firestation up the street that we walked to and in their garage they had an old 1978 MACK Fire Truck. Since Gordon works for Volvo trucks and they manufacture the MACK truck, he was pretty giddy to find a MACK truck, but it was also an old fire truck. They let the kids climb inside and take pictures!

I don't think I captured this on camera, but a highlight of our trip up north was Gordon taking me to a Wegman's. Through work, Gordon has been able to travel to different places and Volvo has a plant in Penn. Up north, they have these grocery stores called Wegman's. I know it sounds silly that I was so excited to finally get my chance to have my own Wegman's experience, but it truly was worth the wait! This place is amazing! It's a glorified Harris Teeter, Costco, Candy store and Fresh Farmers Market all combined into one magnificent store! I wish we had one in North Carolina because I would move right in and live there!!! It was a treat to finally have a Wegman's experience! HA HA!

Enjoy our pictures from our visit to Pennsylvania!! Gordon and Jamie (aka my hottie and me!)
(above) THE GROUP! Paw Paw, Arminda, Natalie, Adam, Lindsay, Rachel, Sam, Jake, Granny, Evelyn, Melanie, Mel's friend (sorry I forgot her name!) Ty, Jamie, Claire, Ryan and of course Gordon is taking the picture! Round and Round it goes! When will it stop? - No body knows!
I love both my girls!
Mack Daddy Fire Truck!