Stopped for Gas

Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas!

2010-12-26T15:02:00.000-08:00

The other night me and some of the people I work with all went over to one of our managers house to put Christmas lights up. He is one of the best people I know, he is always doing something nice for other people, and I guess it was his turn to be the recipient. He mentioned the other day to us that he hadn't had enough time to get his Christmas lights up, so we all got our spare lights out and surprised him. It was a good time and as you can tell it was a very professional job!

Dance!

2010-12-20T08:29:00.001-08:00

Maycee has to "fuel up" before the big recital. Heath bars are her favorite candy bar and it made her dance like a pro! All the girls had to wear their hair exactly the same...in a slicked back bun. I was very nervous that I would not be able to make a bun that had such beauty, but look at this thing. It turned out just right. Hooray! She danced in 2 dances. One was ballet, the other was hip hop. She loved hip hop best, and I even reccorded the dance so we could show it off, but as I went to view it on my camera before I posted it on the blog...I hit a wrong button and erased the whole thing. Trust me though it was very cute, and the purple outfits they wore were so cute. Also the very high pony tail I had to switch her hair to after her ballet number was very cute:) Here are some of Maycee's friends. They have had such a good time so far dancing. They are all great friends and "true girls"! The good news is...there will be another recital in the spring so I can highlight the hip hop dance then. I am very glad she wants to dance. I love to watch that kind of stuff and I think she does a great job. I love that girl!!

Well Hello There!

2010-12-06T19:45:00.001-08:00

I wanted everyone to meet the little guy that now lives on our family room wall. Carson made him one day (out of bend-a-roo's) and stuck him up and he was very surprising to me. Carson just shrugged his little shoulders and giggled when I asked who it was. He is there to stay because he brings such joy into our hearts. It is funny to watch the reaction of those who visit us! We have gotten used to him now, but if anyone wants a good laugh...come on over.

Happy Thanksgiving

2010-12-01T20:27:00.001-08:00

This year for Thanksgiving we went to Jeff's brothers house in Lehi, Utah. It was tricky to get there!! Super snowy, we took 2 hours to get to Pocatello and we saw tons of slide offs on the way. We luckily made it safe.

These guys all had so much fun together. They are building a HUGE fort. What could be better than that right! Hours of fun!

This was kinda funny, all the kids got up in the morning and were being very quiet... turns out they were watching The Smurfs, and they thought it was odd that there was only 1 smurf girl out of all those boys.

And then we went to Temple Square. It was so pretty. The day after Thanksgiving is the very first day they light everything up. It was very crouded but the kids were all so good that we got to have a good time. I haven't been to see the lights forever, it was very nice.

1st Snow

2010-11-08T15:52:00.000-08:00

Oh my goodness, it started snowing first thing this morning and it has never stopped. The kids got home from school and went out to play in it. They started to make a snowman and the snow was too heavy to stack the balls on top of eachother so they just piled them next to eachother and called it a fort. The best thing about this picture is how I got them to look up for it. They were all hiding behind the fort and I kept asking them to show their faces so I could take a pic. They refused to look, so I said "Hey, who wants a dollar?" And their faces all popped up, Carson even raised his hand. The best part of the day is that I had the day off, in the snow and just hung out and worked on Lincoln's scrap book from when he was 1 year old. It was fabulous! I know I will get sick of this weather, but for now I quite like it.

1st Day of School take 2

2010-11-01T20:26:00.001-07:00

Today was Carson's first day at his new school. There is a new Montesorri school in the district and it is a "hands on" school. They do a lot of activities instead of bookwork and they still learn all of what they need to. He is really excited and had a great time today. He gets P.E. everyday!! I hope it goes well for the little guy, he has A LOT of energy and we for sure want him to be able to use it in a good way!!

Creative

2010-10-26T19:47:00.000-07:00

I thought this was so cute the other day. Me and Lincoln were coloring and we had used like 5 crayons and he stacked them up in a diagonal. Well our coloring quickly turned and he took every crayon out of the box and stacked them ALL in a diagonal. He is very creative.

Football

2010-10-23T20:30:00.001-07:00

Carson is the one in the white shirt and the blue flags. He is much smaller than most of the boys but he doesn't let that stop him.

He would push everyone on the other team to get to the QB to try to "sack" him. And when he did pull their flags off, he would fly it up it the air a little to celebrate.

It is amazing that there is not a broken nose during every game... Look at all the feet around his head. Yikes!

Here is a "fake" pass. He had to run by the quarter back, his cousin Willie, and keep going while it was passed to someone else. Very confusing.

This was so cute! Before every game the team sends a couple players to go out and call the coin toss, well Carson got to be one of the guys this time and he thought it was SO awesome!!

It was really super fun to watch him play, he has some good moves and he is SUPER fast!!!! I think one of the funniest things that happened the whole time is when one of the kids on the other team saw one of our guys coming at him and he slightly yelled "OH NO" and ran the other way. We had a good laugh!

Beautiful Rainbow

2010-10-09T17:30:00.001-07:00

This was the most amazing rainbow I have ever seen. It was so big that I had to take it in 2 shots and my very talented sister Jenny combined them together so that its awesomeness could be seen in full capacity. If you look closely you can actually see the end of the rainbow and I felt like a dream crusher when I told the kid-o's that we could not go find the pot of gold at the end. It was very beautiful though and even they appreciated that!

Toothy toothy

2010-10-05T17:41:00.001-07:00

Oh my sweet little baby boy lost his first tooth a couple weeks ago(well the 2nd tooth but the 1st one got knocked out at age 2... so the 1st one that actually got loose and wiggled its way out). It was so cute! The tooth fairy gave him a crisp 1 dollar bill that still sits on the top of his dresser like a treasure. He is growing up.
The 2nd part of this post has nothing to do with Lincoln, but it does have to do with dinner time tonight...and Lincoln was at dinner. Follow along closely. Today when we got home Mack had pooped in his kennel, the 1st time ever doing that. So at dinner Carson was telling Jeff that Mack pooped right in the corner of his kennel today. Well at that same moment I was putting together my taco, plopping my sour cream on the top, and Lincoln watching me said "You do that mommy" -he spreads his all over his tortilla like butter, so the plops were very interesting to him- and I replied "yes" and before I could even get the whole 3 letter word out of my mouth Carson had sprung up in his chair and said "You pooped in the kennel??". Ha ha! He was still on the poop subject but we had moved on to sour cream. I love that kid!

Fair time...WORMS!

2010-09-12T12:52:00.000-07:00

We love to go to the state fair every year...it is like a pathetic vacation to us but we love-love-love it! Well this year we wanted the kids to do something to help earn some extra $$ to spend, so Jeff thought it would be wise to "worm" the yard. Let me give ya a little background on how this goes...1st you head down to the bait and tackle store, 2nd you buy this sollution for $20.00, 3rd you go home and dump this sollution on your grass and the worms come up to say hello, 4th you grab the worms and put them in a "worm prison camp" until you can take them to the bait store and cash them in for lots of money.

Here is the outfit Jeff decided to put on to humor me. Lookin' good right! Everyone was pretty excited for this to happen. Jeff did the mixing and dumping and picking up the wormies...

Carson had no mercy and a certain skill that no one else could quite develope. He could yank a worm that was 1/2 out of the ground with out breaking it in 2.

Lincoln was also very brave. He started wearing his work gloves but quickly shed them so he could be more at 1 with the worms and he got pretty good at getting them out of the ground too. He would occasionally rip one in half, oopsie. Or squeeze the poop out of them.

Maycee did ok at first but as the night progressed so did her gross out factor for the worms and she would just hold the flashlight and point the worms out for the boys to grab. And I was in charge of the bucket, I would say "trick or treat" and the boys would throw worms right in. Here is the good news, we spent $20.00 on the sollution and after 2 1/2 nights of worming we had about 7 1/2 lbs. of worms, cashing in at $22.17 for a total of $2.17 profit! We made a killing huh!

Hair Color 101

2010-09-02T13:59:00.000-07:00

Today I did something brilliant and amazing. I saved a bunch of $$ and colored my hair all by myself. I decided to get rid of the blond highlights and go back to plain brown. However, I neglected to follow the directions completely. Don't get me wrong, the color looks fine, but my hands are another story. If you can tell in the picture they are very "dirty". Well I decided not to wear the gloves provided in the kit. I hate those plastic gloves. In my head I was assuming the gloves were there to provide protection to those whose skin may be sensitive to the chemicals associated with the color. I was wrong. I think they are there to save your hands from permenant color! In the directions, step 1...Put gloves on. Oh shoot. Now if the directions had said...Step 1: Put your gloves on and if you don't you will have to wait 28 washes before they ever look clean again. Then I would have worn my gloves. I guess I learned the hard way to always follow the instructions. I am just glad it didn't make my hair turn blue or something.

First day of school

2010-09-01T09:20:00.001-07:00

School started Monday and I forgot to take the kids picture before school, so here they are walking home that afternoon. Maycee is in 5th grade, her teacher seems really nice but he is not the one she wanted (the one that doesn't believe in assigning homework) and she has made me pay for not switching her into that class now for the past week. Carson in in 3rd grade. I think I went to high school with his teacher she looks really familiar...good luck to her:) And Lincoln is in afternoon kindergarten. His teacher seems really nice too,but she is due to have a baby in a week and 1/2, so we will see how that goes. Carson and Lincoln have some of their friends in their class, but somehow Maycee got ripped off in that area again. I hope they all do well this year!! School rocks!

Garage Sale

2010-09-01T08:58:00.001-07:00

Here is a photo of our first ever garage sale and above is the weather of the first garage sale we ever had. We thought we were doomed because of the rain. I wanted to have a sale for a long time and stuff was slowly piling up in the garage to be sold and Jeff kept threatning to take it to the D.I. Well Maycee just joined dance and she needed all the clothes for dance so I told her if she would sell some of her stuff and help set up etc. then she could use what she needed of the prophets to buy her dancewear. She quickly loaded up all the toys in her room that she no longer wanted, and that girl worked all day Friday helping me set up tables and sticking price tags on everything!! Good helper.

Well here are a few things I learned from our sale...
1. People still come in the rain, and they verbalize their appreciation to you for setting up in the garage. (Not my original plan, but we couldn't drag the tables out when there was rain, right!)
2. People that come to garage sales drive nice cars. Most of them were shiny and new looking and the people that came out of them were nice and clean. Don't get me wrong, there was the lady that carried and oxygen tank, rode a motorized scooter and talked WAY louder than she needed to, but for the most part I was surprised at the "type" of people that came.
3. I am no good at making a fortune at the garage sale. People would come up to pay with a HUGE stack of clothes and say "How much for this?" and I would say "How about $2.00". And all the people that offered lower...I would take the offer. There were a couple people that I told the price to and they gave me more money than what I told them, and they would say "You are already giving us a good deal, you're ripping yourself off." Ha ha! I just knew that what I didn't sell I had to haul away to the D.I. so I wanted it out of there!!
Anyway, we made enough money to get Maycee all her dance stuff and take the kids out to Olive Garden for a back to school dinner. I think it went well!

Explosion

2010-08-24T08:43:00.000-07:00

The other day Maycee asked if I would make them some playdough so they could make a volcano. We whipped up some green and red and they cut up some plastic cups and here is what they ended up with. I never even knew if you mixed baking soda and vinigar this would happen. This is the real reason I send my kids to school, so they can come home and educate me. They are brilliant!!

1...2...3...SIT!

2010-08-19T11:29:00.000-07:00

These guys (Crew, Gage and the boys)have become inseperable this summer and they all had almost the same shorts on, except one, and like boys are they never want to wear a shirt! I thought they looked cute so I made them let me take their picture. They play almost all day, every day and they don't fight. It is dreamy!

Sidewalk Art!

2010-08-15T12:49:00.001-07:00

The other day I came home from physical therapy to find this lovely art...I had to back the car up and read this one. In case it isn't clear enough it says "I love Pam, she's hot". That one was from Jeff.

Here is one of Lincoln's... very cute!

Carson made a Poky family, the big orange on is the dad and that little guy is his son.

And Maycee is of course true to her bees with a school spitited "GO BEES" on the front steps. It was very cute to come home to all this!! I love it.

Back to school time.

2010-08-15T12:43:00.000-07:00

We went to get all the kids their school supplies the other day, and a few school clothes. Maycee laid it all in an organized fashion on the floor and gave me the school supply lists to hold. I had to call out the items ,if I called out something from their list they had to act excited and run up and get it and put it in their backpack...like a game show. After all the supplies were claimed they put on a fashion show for me. It was definately a fun way to get ready for school!!

Lets go fishing

2010-08-15T12:31:00.000-07:00

Last Monday Jeffs work people all went to Lagoon. He was invited of course but due to my old lady knee it was not possible for us to take such a trip. Instead we took the day to go fishing. It was very pretty where we were although I can't remember what the place was called!!

However very unsuccessful! Not even one bite for anyone, except from mosqitoes...lots of those!

Carson was the only one that wore pants, he rolled them up so he could wade in the water without getting wet... him and Lincoln were drenched with in minutes!!

And Mack can swim. He went out in the water just a little too far and quickly had to swim back to shore. He is so chubby I thought he would just sink to the bottom. Even though it was not a "fish" productive trip it was still lots of fun to get a little bit out of town for the day.

Excuse me but what is that on your leg??

2010-08-15T12:26:00.000-07:00

Last week at physical therapy I was very frustrated because my knee was SO swollen still. Heather(my pt) told me about this tape they sometimes use to help un-swell it. I had in my mind a picture of white tape wrapped around my entire leg. Instead I got this squid tape. It lifts the skin and directs the swelling to more healthy tissue. I think it worked pretty good, my knee is almost back to the size it should be. Hooray!!

Lets cook

2010-08-15T12:23:00.000-07:00

The other day there were many kid-o's at the house and they wanted to eat chocolate muffins. Well I didn't have any so they went to Noah's house and got a mix, brought it back and Maycee, Brianna and Noah whipped them up for all to eat. Thank heavens they all got their chocolate fix!!

Transportation

2010-07-30T13:21:00.000-07:00

Yesterday the boys wanted to go see if some of their friends could play. The friends they wanted to play with live just a little too far away for them to go by themselves. So I told them I was sorry but they couldn't go. They went outside for awhile and came back in and told me they had cleaned out the wagon and that they would just pull me along to hang with their friends. Ha Ha! It was a good idea but I think they would have died dragging me that far. Mack thought it was a good time to have a ride though so it wasn't a complete waste of their time!!

Aaaaahhhhh

2010-07-29T12:51:00.000-07:00

I admire those wifes that are home all day long with no car because their husbands drive it to work. I have not been able to drive for 3 weeks now, not because I don't have a car, in fact I have a new one...have not driven it yet and won't for 3 more weeks, but I have one. It stinks being trapped here!! I would love to drive away and go somewhere fun or even to physical therapy without having to depend on anyone else. Well I know this surgery should solve all my knee problems but for now I am going NUTS!!!

2010-07-23T11:20:00.000-07:00

Maycee went to Pine Basin for a week of camp. It sounds like she had a lot of fun. They left on Monday and got back on Friday. We got to go to a parents night on Thursday, they all sang their camp songs they had learned and did skits for us. One of the days they all loaded up on the bus and went to Jackson for the day and while she was there she bought her little brothers (with her own money she had earned) these great big green jawbreaker suckers. She also bought a bag of Jelly Bellys for us, but she said she ate most of them before she got back. I guess it's the thought that counts. On their way back to camp from Jackson their bus hit a deer, everyone was ok on the bus, but the camp director said that the deer took a little nap.

The other morning at breakfast time, Maycee stood up to tell us a Pine Basin story. Just before she did, Lincoln had been reaching over and squeezing Maycee's nose and saying meep, meep, and called her Meepers. Well she stood up and Lincoln was looking at her. It was like there was a magnetic pull from her nose to his fingers and he stood up and walked over to her and meeped her nose a couple of times. Carson got up from his chair and got down like a horse, went inbetween Lincolns legs, Lincoln said yeehaw! Giddy up cowboy! and off they went and then Maycee finished her story without skipping a beat and I just laughed at the craziness.

The other day I was feeling pretty ok with the old knee and all the kids had a friend over and it was lunch time. I made this tower of sandwiches for everyone while Maycee and her friend sang at the top of their lungs "Your love is my drug". It was one of those moments I was glad to be off work even if I can't do anything and have to use cruthches and mope. I love to be with the little kid-o's!!

Hoppy Eagle Stewart

2010-07-14T13:08:00.000-07:00

We have a lot of trees in our backyard and they have produced a lot of robins this year. There were 4 nests that we know of, all different stages of life. This little guy here was the runt of all of them.

Last night Carson was looking up at the nest and little birdie took a plunge to the ground. He came running in the house to have us all go out and see. It was so cute, he just sat there and let the boys pet him. Then this morning he was still hanging around the backyard, being chased by a stray cat. Jeff chased the cat away and saved the bird.

Carson found him and wanted to hold him, so I told him to be careful and it would probably be fine. Well the bird, Hoppy Eagle Stewart, went from being cupped in the kids hands, to sitting on their fingers like a parrot!

Here is a little flying lesson.

Carson is even nice enough to help Lincoln hold it.

Success

Lincoln loves the little birdie too.

He is pretty brave, and also patient with Carson who has taken mama bird roll.

The good news is that the real mama bird still likes the baby and just follows the boys around watching that the baby is ok. She even brings it worms to eat still. Very cool. Then when it is birdie nap time, the boys climb back up into the tree to put the bird back in his nest.

I am so happy to have a new pet!

Super Snorkle!!!

2010-07-14T12:31:00.000-07:00

Lincoln is so darn cute. He looks sad in these photos but he is happy he just didn't want his picture taken. He is the only kid-o of mine that klings on to the new things he gets. He had $5.00 and wanted to buy a snorkle for the pool, so Jeff took him to Walmart and he made this big purchase and now he will not take it off for a couple of days. So Lincoln had the job of cleaning a mirror and this is what he decided to go at it with. Love that kid, he makes me smile!!!

I did it

2010-07-12T17:05:00.001-07:00

Well I finally did it. I got brave enough to have the dreaded knee surgery done. There is no turning back now. I got it done on Thursday, July 8 and so far so good. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't feel good but I survived. Here's the story...I got to the hospital at 12:00 pm and they did all the "check in stuff" and then they took me up to get my IV. The girl did a great job, I guess they numb ya a little first now and then put the IV in. Very nice. Then the nice anesthesiologist(well ya know what I mean) came in, his name was Pat, the same one Jeff had when he had hernia surgery, and he hooked me up with some stuff to calm me down. Thank you Pat. And then off to sleepy I went and I knew it was over and time to wake up because I felt the pain. When I looked up at the nurse she asked how I was and then said that they were admitting me. I asked what that meant (I was still drugged) and she said they were gonna have me stay over night because the Dr. thought I would need help with the pain. Thanks Doc. So they gave me this handy little medicine button that I could push every 10 minutes that made my pain not so bad and made me a little loopy!! I would have stayed there for the rest of my recovery if they would have let me, the nurses were SO nice and helpful, I could just push a button and they came to my room to see what I needed, but after the night they said I could go home. So here I am, homebound. I can't drive for 6 weeks, I started physical therapy today and my family is being really nice and helpful. Well I hope all goes well and that I will be up and moving soon, well I can crutch around but ya know I want to get out of the house etc. So if anyone is bored I would love some attention. Ha ha! Thanks to everyone for the support so far and I am sure I may have a little time to blog in the next few weeks.

Flip!!

2010-07-06T09:33:00.001-07:00

Maycee just learned how to do a flip in the trampoline and land on her feet. She has been trying for a long time but that blind landing has been a tricky one. Now she can land on her feet and it is so exciting. Go Maycee we are proud of ya!!!!!

Happy Birthday to you!

2010-07-06T09:26:00.000-07:00

Lincolns Birthday was last month, June 5th. I am a little late with this post but I am starting to wonder why they call this time of year "summer vacation". It has been so busy, but enjoyable, that I feel like I have lost control. Anyway, Lincoln's Birthday was fun and I love that little guy. He has started something new called..."I can talk and never stop, and there is nothing else to say I will just make silly noises without end". It is really cute for now but I can see it making us a little crazy in a while.

Preschool

2010-06-18T14:15:00.000-07:00

Here is Lincols Pre-school "end of the year" program. It was so cute, they were singing all these cutsie songs and marching in a circle. The first one was "The ants go marching..." and boy can that little boy yell hooray, hooray!! He got to go to the same school his brother and sister, so that made him excited to be there. It was so cute. He had the best teacher, Ms. Egan, she was awesome. She has no kids of her own so she LOVED these kids as her own. It was a class that had spanish speaking and english speaking kids together, there were 6 girls and 6 boys, only 4 of those kids spoke fluent english. Ms. Egan taught them how to count in spanish to 10 and she also taught them all the letters in sign language. He made cute little friends. Lincoln loved school and thanks to how well it went he is very excited to go to Kindergarten!!

Anxious for Summer

2010-05-30T20:02:00.000-07:00

Jeff's brother Spencer and his family just moved to Utah and they were telling us about a pool they had that they felt they were not going to use because their kids are still just a little too young to get good use out of it without drowning. So like a good family member would, Jeff offered to take it off their hands, strictly for the safety of their children:) We had a similar but smaller pool so we offered to trade them for the one they had. Well Jeff's mom brought the pool here after a recent visit to Utah and out of pure child-like excitement Jeff could not wait to set it up. Please note that the very faithful helper, Maycee, has her winter coat on. It snowed a little this day. Now the very best part about it is that every day I get to have the kids beg me to swim in it (50-60 degree weather outside). After every time they ask and I say "No" I get to hear them reassure me that I am a mean mom and don't want them to have any fun. One day they will thank me that I didn't let them turn into frozen ice pops out there right!!

Hmmm

2010-05-30T19:58:00.000-07:00

1 bald man + 1 pair of clippers = 2 little boys that look like cancer patients.

To Knee Surgery or Not To Knee Surgery

2010-05-20T18:02:00.001-07:00

For as long as I can remember I have had a bad knee that dislocates easily. I dislocated it the first time while playing the human cannon ball when I was a junior in high school. It was funny I guess, well besides that it hurt like a mother and I permenantly scarred my little sister because her face happened to be right by the dislocation. Sorry Jenny! Since then, I dislocacted it 2 more times that required a hospital visit, one, I was walking on the ice and my foot slipped behind me and my knee popped out! I was just getting done cheering at a basketball game and I remember this hot guy came over and carried me to the car (thank you annonomously hot guy for your service). My friend then drove me to the hospital where I had to call my mama, who did not believe me and thought we must be playing a joke. Hey, that's not even funny mom!!! Well a really mean nurse took me in a wheel chair and got me in a room and said "get up on the bed" um, hey lady, maybe you didn't notice I am a little out of comission right now-right!! In her disgust with me she whipped me around and smacked my bad leg on the bed and magically set my knee cap back into place. Bad, bad nurse!!! My mom said that we never did get a bill from the hospital for that visit. And finally, I dislocated it for the last time that required medical attention on the ski hill. I caught my ski in the slushy, bad snow, tumbled head over heels a few times, knocked my ear warmer head band directly over my eyes and screamed as loud as I could as to warn my fellow skiiers to stop and rescue me. Then the ski patrol was called and lucky for me the guy that came to save me was also someone I went to school with. Just to add to the embarassement. Since then and mixed inbetween I have many times popped my knee out of joint many times, but luckily I could pop it right back in. Yesterday I took the plunge and went to a specialist and he said my knee was all wrong. My knee caps tip to the side instead on sitting straight up. Well that explains a lot now doesn't it. He was very nice and gave me 2 options...I would be fine-ish and could just live with this problem forever. OR I could have surgery and fix it now. Now I just need to decide what to do. I guess the reason I am having a hard time making the call is because I expected the DR. to say "If you get this done we will have you dancing by tomorrow" and that is not what he said... he said I would have to take at least 10 days off of work and that I wouldn't be totally fine for 3 months or so. So should I live with the pain forever or should I put myself out of my misery?...but I would have to recover first. Please help me. Thank you!

Happy Mothers Day

2010-05-16T08:24:00.001-07:00

Happy late mothers day to all the beautiful momma's out there. Here are some photo's and a story from our fun day at my house. My mom, my Aunt Joyce and sister Tammy came over for dinner (my brothers wife was sick so they couldn't come and Jenny is across the U.S. so she wasn't here either) and of course, like always we had lots of fun. Tammy had made this beautiful german chocolate cake that we were all so excited to eat. My mom had a piece on her plate and was joyfully walking to have a seat to eat up, only she made a big mistake and walked by Tammy, who saw the happy look in my moms eye and grabbed the plate and pushed it up tight to her face. She was a frosting mamma!

I grabbed my camera because it was so funny, I wanted to remember that moment forever! Well as they were posing for a photo for me, frosting on face, cake in hand, Tammy SMACKED the plate of cake again creating a bomb-like effect sending the cake all over my kitchen. Please note the look on each of their blurred faces...My poor mom is just preparing for the worst and Tammy must be looking for the cake in the air, it seems to already be out of the picture frame. Anyway, I love my family, they are always good for an irreverent laugh!

Baptism

2010-05-13T20:29:00.001-07:00

Isn't he cute? I can't believe that he is already old enough to get baptised. We did ponder the thought of having him wait till he was like 18 or so just to be on the safe side. Ha ha! No really, we are so proud of him. He made a grown up good choice and he has been so good.

Here is the funny part. The night before the baptism we were filling out the paper that says a little bit about the child being baptised, a member of the Primary Presidency reads it in front of everyone, it asks questions like "how many brothers and sisters does he have" and "what are some hobbies he likes" and "who is baptising the kid-o" and then "what makes that person special to you"....

Well I was asking Carson all these questions and I would write down what he said. I asked him who would baptise him and he said "daddy". I asked him what made daddy special? He thought for a minute and then said "uh, he has big nipples". We laughed and laughed. A couple minutes later Jeff said "Hey you didn't actually writed that down did ya?" Can you imagine.

On the more serious side though. I love this little kid and I am so glad that he took this step in his life. He is a good boy and I am excited to watch him grow!!

A True Friend

2010-05-02T20:02:00.001-07:00

The other day the neighbor kids were over playing with Lincoln and Carson and they all went in the backyard to play soccer. Well, when they do that and Mack is outside too he of course likes to "play" with them. They all must have gotten tired of Mack getting in the way so they put him in his kennel. It was so cute because we looked out the back door and we saw Lincoln in the kennel with the dog. He felt sorry for Mack and so he just opened the door and hopped inside with him so he wouldn't be lonely.

EARTHQUAKE!

2010-05-01T20:27:00.000-07:00

Today we went to Fiesta Ole' for lunch with our little family. We were sitting there eating our yummy food when Maycee turned to me and said "So, if there is an earthquake what is our plan? Like... should we hide under this table or what?" I looked around and said "I dunno, I think we should go under the door frame." And then she told me that we should just sliiiide under the table so stuff won't hit us" and she slithered down under the table like a little snake. I guess that must be what they are talking about in school right now. It was very funny to me.

Carson turns 8

2010-04-29T14:42:00.000-07:00

I guess this is better late than never. Carsons Birthday was March 22. He turned 8 and is now a big boy. We had so much fun with Maycee's birthday party and I guess I thought I could pull off a boy party too, but it turns out that boys are lots different than girls and I haven't really figured them out yet. We went to Leo's and I think they had fun, video games and a playland how could that go wrong? I did learn that 1 1/2 hours was not quite long enough, if I do that again I will have it longer, none of the kids were ready to leave.

We also had a party with the fam...he got lots of fun presents. He got a Nintendo DSI from us, he has waited since Christmas to get it. We made a deal with him that if he could stay out of trouble with his teacher at school from Christmas till his B-Day he could have one and he managed to do it. Good Job Carson!

And it is always cute to watch the little pyro-maniac blow his candles out...after he has to light them himself. He is a fun little kid and although we complain sometimes about his "activeness" we really wouldn't want him any other way. I really LOVE that little guy, so Happy late BDay buddy, we love ya!!

Class of 2010

2010-04-14T19:51:00.000-07:00

Oh my gosh is it really this time, have we made it through? Saturday April 10,2010 this little guy graduated from BYU Idaho. He now has a degree!!! What a great feeling.

Marching across the stage to recieve his "diploma cover" as the guy doing the announcing said. They will get their actual diplomas later in the mail. Really though it is the cover that we were after!

Here is Jeff and his dad, thanks for coming, it meant a lot!! and a huge thanks to his mom and dad for all the many hours they have helped us with our kids while we were trying to juggle my full time job, his part time job and his full time school schedule. **We made it**

This is our neighbor/2nd mom to us both, Claudia. They have been our neighbors for 6 years now and we love her right to death. Her husband John, our 2nd father passed away in February. Jeff and John were very close and it has been hard not to have him around, but as Claudia tearfully reminds us, he was there in spirit and he would have been very proud of his Jeff's accomplishment!!

Here is me, his very proud wife. It has been hard as heck and I don't think anything in our life is the way we ever planned, but it is awesome to see the young man reach his goals.

The graduation was very nice, it only lasted about an hour but the kids while proud, were very restless, they wanted to run up and down the stairs like toddlers when we were finished. Yikes!!

And the proud family all together. Good job Jeffrey! Now lets go find a job!!

Yeah Spring!

2010-04-06T08:29:00.001-07:00

It's funny how we wait all year to get a "snow day" out of school...today is April 6, 2010 and we have officially entered into spring, today, the kids are not in school due to the snow.???!#*@*##! Work with me spring time! Work with me.

Kids say the darndest things!

2010-03-19T08:54:00.000-07:00

Today Maycee was playing Mario Kart on her pink DS and she was trying to win a race. This was going on while I was trying to do her hair, Carson and Lincoln were also in the bathroom. Well she was in first place with the 2nd place racer right on her tail and she was saying, "he is gonna get me, he is gonna get me, he is right behind me..." and Carson said, "Why Maycee are you his passion?". It was so funny.

St. Patricks Day

2010-03-17T09:18:00.000-07:00

Today is St. Patricks Day. It is kind of a boring holiday, I like the ones that you get to get together and eat a huge meal!! Anyway against the kids will I lined them up to take a picture of their green attire. Don't forget your green or someone is bound to pinch ya!!

Hair cuts to the max!

2010-03-17T09:10:00.000-07:00

Before...

After! These guys always want to grow their hair out for a while so we can spike it etc. and then one day they decide to want short hair again. They beg every time Jeff cuts it to let them be all the way bald and I always say no because I think they would look like cancer patients. This always makes me a mean mom in their eyes. Someone back me up with this theory.

Reverence

2010-02-22T14:44:00.001-08:00

One time when I was little I was in Sacrament meeting with my family and there was a little game I liked to play all by myself to pass the time. I would sit on the bench and slightly spread my legs and bend clear over upside down and look at all the peoples feet that were reverently sitting behind us. Well one week it went terribly wrong and as I was tipped over I somehow lost my balance, flipped over (yes, my nine or so year old body in a dress)and landed on my head, wedged between the bench I was on and the one in front of me. I helplessly looked over at my mom and sisters for some sort of assistence to make my way back to my feet, but since my head was down and my bum(with my underwear very visable)was up...they were paralized with laughter and took a minute or so to pry me out of this possition. It was that day that I decided to sit like a big girl in church and never let my head pass through any possibilty of throwing me upside down!!!! Well last week at church there was quite a crowd, a baby blessing and we were sitting clear in the back on the metal fold up chairs. I was looking straight ahead at the speaker, again not wanting to chance being irreverent. Out of the corner of my eye my innocent little Linky flashed to my side...he also had invented this game where you look between your legs at those behing you. Remember he was on a folding chair, not only did he fall over head over heels but the chair he was sitting on tipped forward pinning his head to the ground. Oh my goodness it was quite a sight and again our bench burst into laughter and Linky decided that was not a fun game after all!!!

Tooth Fairy Please

2010-02-20T19:43:00.000-08:00

I remember back in the day before I had kids and I would see other peoples kids with all their teeth missing and think...that poor mom must be embarassed to take him out in public cuz he looks so pathetic. Well now I am all grown up and it seems to change things because my little Carson is missin his 2 front teeth and it is the cutest thing to me. I am always telling him to smile for me because I think he is so stinkin' cute. I guess it is the face only a mother could love, and I do!!!!

Maycee's Birthday Fashion Show Party!

2010-01-31T14:40:00.000-08:00

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OK for some reason I am very bad at things on the computor, so if you click on VIEW ALL IMAGES, it will show you the pictures. I will call for back up and get it working. But for now this will have to do...
These are some photos of Maycee's friend party from Friday. It was so fun. We had all the girls bring 3 outfits... 1."Beautiful dress" 2. "Favorite outfit" and 3. "Jammies". First, all the girls came to our house and they all made their very own pizza (all the boys that lived here went to Grandma's). It was so funny, I found out that ALL little girls are piggies. They ate all their food and then they all were burping and giggling. We took all the girls downstairs and had them pick out some samples from my Mary Kay stuff and then we "made them up". They were all so cute with all that make up. We turned all the lights in the house except on spot light and they would come out from the little streamer curtain we made and pose...Maycee put 4 X's on the floor so everyone would know when to pose. I got to be the photographer. We ate yummy cake and icecream and then all the girls voted to watch Twilight (even though I rented Confessions of a Shop-a-holic for them). We had so much fun. Thank heavens for my little Maycee and all her creativity. I love that girl!!

Big Helper

2010-01-22T13:34:00.000-08:00

Lincoln likes to help me unload the dishes. He is a good helper. He also likes to stack the dishes as high as he can. That is quite a stack. He hasn't broken anything yet. Pretty impressive.

Sleep over

2010-01-21T13:40:00.001-08:00

On Sunday night Maycee had an idea to have a sleepover in the basement. All the kids could get their sleeping bags out and sleep on the couch because there was no school on Monday. So we let them do that, the funny thing is... Maycee decided that her bed was more comfy and went upstairs to sleep. And so the little boys in all their sleeping cuteness zonked out by themselves. They are so innocent when they sleep!!

A Good Afternoon!

2010-01-15T07:31:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, I came home from work and ignored all the things I needed to do around my house. I plopped down in my basement and did my nails and watched Twilight. Oooh, now that is a good day!

Dog Sitting

2010-01-13T14:47:00.000-08:00

We had one of my friends dog with us for a week while they were in Florida for a "Make a wish" trip with their family.

His name is Baxter and he is a Newfoundland. He is training to be a service dog for their son Cade and although he is as big as a horse, he is so sweet. Him and Mack played so hard, Mack was limping all week. I think he was faking because as soon as Baxter left, so did the limp.

The kids had so much fun playing with him. He can run a little faster than Mack. They were playing a game of fetch, they threw a ball up the stairs and then back down while Bax would chase it around. It was good for a lot of laughs!

Lincoln had no problem sticking his hand in the mouth of this large beast.

And he loved to jump up and dance without any warning. He is a big, big doggie and we had lots of fun with him. And although Mack had lots of fun too, he was very happy to be the "only dog" again.

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-31T14:56:00.000-08:00

Every year we make a GIANT batch of sugar cookies for Christmas. I love the cookies and so does the whole family and although it is a tradition we will never give up... I am now realizing I enjoyed this a lot more when I was a child and had less responsibility in it.

Ok, this is something we have done since I was a kid. We all would wait down stairs in the basement where we slept and wait for my parents upstairs to call for us to come up to see if Santa came or not. We would all wait so patiently(as patient as kids can be) until we got the go ahead.

Well now the kids bedrooms are on the same floor as ours and so they have to run from their rooms to ours with out sneaking a peak down stairs until we go down stairs to see if Santa came. Here are the kids after we called them down, trying to see if it is so...

And here they are after they see that Santa really did come. So cute. We didn't have a plentiful Christmas this year, but to see the look on the kids faces is always worth a million bucks. I love these silly kids!! So I hope everyone had a good Christmas, and a Happy New Year to ya.!

Snow Days

2009-12-12T13:30:00.002-08:00

Carson loves to shovel the snow, yesterday I think he went out 7 times to shovel. I guess having it snow all day long for 2 days worked out pretty good for the little guy!! He is a good helper, even though there are some days he makes me want to punch him, he is really a good little boy deep down inside.

Mack wants to help too, but his way of helping is chasing the shovel till it hits him in the face and then he runs after it again. It really slows down the process.

Lincoln wanted to clean off the trampoline, he did a pretty good job. When I looked out to see how it was going, I saw he was scooping the snow up and dumping it on his head. Huh, that was fun I guess.

Maycee and Lincoln stayed out a little longer and they made this very cool "snow fort". It looks a little like a casket, but they were so proud of it. They wanted to have me take lots of pictures of it for them.

They even put the big blue sled in front of it because it kept them warm in there, they are practicing to be on survivor man or something.

Maycee is very photogenic. If she wants you to, she will sit there for beautiful photos. She is a good girl. Oh, and those are the new glasses she got for the school year. She loves them even though they are not the ones I liked the best.:)

That's Better!

2009-12-12T13:30:00.001-08:00

BEFORE......

AFTER!!

Maycee got the cutest hair cut a little while ago. Her hair was getting so long and the whole time it was growing out she wanted it cut. So I finally gave in, I just wanted to see what it looked like when it was long. It does look so much cuter short, it looks so healthy and shiny. So Thank You to Grandma Campbell who took on this task with a smile and made Maycee look so cute!!!

Let it snow...

2009-12-04T13:30:00.000-08:00

The kids went outside to play the other day when we got some snow, and one of the boys came in and said, "hey come look what we did on the tramp" and I expected them to have taken their little red shovel and gotten all of the snow off. No, I was wrong, they rolled up all the snow and made it into this GIANT snowball, in about 2 minutes...

They rolled it off and made it into a great big snowman that was about 10 feet tall, I thought I had a picture of it but I guess not. It was awesome. They had lots of fun putting it together and then the next day they had more fun knocking it down.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-30T20:25:00.000-08:00

I love, love, love Thanksgiving. I think it may be my favorite holiday. This year it was with my side of the family at my house. This is a picture of the bathroom door. The good news is that we have 3 bathrooms, the bad news is we don't have a plunger...ok we do now cuz we had to go buy one to un-plug the toilet. Anyway we had about 20 people here and the kids slightly out numbered the adults, so we taped off the bathroom so no one would accidently use it. Funny funny!

Here is part of the crew. We were getting ready to watch UP. It is the cutest movie ever. I don't think we have ever watched a movie on Thanksgiving before but it was really cute and we had so much fun that day. I have the greatest family ever:)

2009-11-30T13:20:00.000-08:00

Oh my, this is the last of the trip to Cleveland... Here is Jenny and her lovely husband Josh...he made up a game called Lets stick grapes in our lips and look like silly pants. It made us all laugh so hard that our bellies hurt.

On Jenny's birthday we went for a day of shopping, just the girls and we managed to find a restaurant, Applebees and we had a girls lunch. It was so much fun and a big thanks to Josh for taking the day off work and letting the ladies do our thing.

Look how cute the Birthday girl is...yes there are candles in the ice cream and for some reason that really didn't seem that odd until right now. hmmm

It is hard to tell in this photo with my junky camera, but this is the house from the Christmas story, the real house. The leg lamp is just inside the window behind us. Who knew that movie was filmed in Cleaveland? Not me, till I was there.

OOOOh, the city. Turns out this is probably the most windy and cold day the city has ever seen. Ok, maybe not but it was freezing. We are standing outside the Browns football stadium, ya can't see it, it's to the right but believe me it's there. Shortly after this we drove into the hood, the gheto, the slums and it was quite frightning. I wanted to go see it so bad and I feel very lucky to have made it out of there with out getting a cap busted in my head. It was scary, they even had bullet proof glass in the gas station... I don't even like guns!!

I had the best time ever and I am so happy to have gotten to go an this amazing adventure:) Thanks to Jenny and Josh for letting us stay in their house, especially to Jenny because she didn't even know we were coming....and especially to Josh because he did know and kept an amazing secret for two months. UNFORGETABLE!!!

Kirtland day in Ohio...

2009-11-22T13:56:00.000-08:00

I always knew that Kirtland was in Ohio, but as it is well known I am not very good with geography and I had no idea that my sisters house was, was only a half hour or so from it. We decided to go see it and it was so very cool. A lot of the little town is not the original buildings but they did their best at recreating it.

This store however is the original, the original floor boards and walls, and the door that we were standing in front of is the very door that has always been there. The couple missionaries that gave us the tour reminded us that it was the original door and that it is the same one that Joseph Smith walked through personally. The picture above is the store from the inside, very modest but useful, not WalMart by any means but very cool. They had guns and buttons, fabric, thread and grains etc. Maybe it was WalMart.

The main level of the store is the store and store room of course and then some modest living space. The upper level is all "house". Up there was awesome, they showed us the room where Joseph and all his men would meet and where Emma did typical wife things, like make them food. Also it was the home of the room that housed the first School of The Prophets. There are 2 prophets that I have been very impressed with, in a way that I feel like we could be buddies or family, President Hinkley and Joseph Smith. Not to underestimate the power of the others, but there is something about them that keeps them both very close to my heart. There is no doubt in my mind that anything either one of them has ever said is anything but the truth, so to be in a room where Joseph Smith recieved revelations was VERY surreal.

This is just a photo of the "town" how cute huh. Even though these are not the actual structures that have always been there, they have tried to re-create it to be as close to what it would have looked like as they could.

This is a picture of the Whitman's "summer kitchen" it actually had a door on each side so they could be left open and let the breeze come through, wow. I for sure would have never cooked.

This is a logging place, they cut the wood that was used to build the temple right here. Notice little Jack is having fun on one of the logs on the bottom.

I forgot what this building was called, but they did stuff with ashes and stuff to make another kind of substance. It was cool, they kind of created a place to help guys have a job etc.

And here we were in front of the Kirtland temple, we couldn't go inside, it was closed when we were there, but it was still very cool to see. It is amazing they could build something like this so long ago. We had a great time and the kids were so good, they totally trooped around on a "grown up" day. We did go to a yummy, yummy place for lunch called Penn Station, Jenny's favorite. It was a good ending to a very good day!!

The Beginning of Ohio...

2009-11-21T15:08:00.000-08:00

Well I am not too far behind with my trip, it has only been a week since I have been home and look at me already. Here we are on the way to Jenny's on the plane. We had SO much fun on there, suprisingly, usually planes are not too fun but this flight was exceptional. We were in the very back seat right by the bathroom and the flight attendants seat. We laughed and laughed!!!! I can not believe there are so many people that have to go potty over and over on the airplane. For some reason we found it humerous and we got real silly. We actually hi-jacked my mom when she came out of there once and threw her on her seat, the guy waiting in line to go in next was just a little nervous to come out but we were easy on him.

This is Jenny's backyard, it is so pretty. It is like a tiny forrest right there. It was such a nice afternoon, this is where we had lunch after church. It was the Primary program in her ward, a good surprise to us. Anyway, what better way to eat "after church" pancakes huh!!

After church and lunch we went to this very beautiful place called Whips Ledges. It is an awesome place for hiking around. There are so many trees and little trails all through the ledges. The whole ground was covered with leaves, it was hard to tell where or what we were stepping on a lot of the time.

Here is one of the giant rocks that there were to climb on, in fact my mom and Tammy never left this rock once we found it. Look at the background, I don't think I have ever been anywhere that there were so many pretty trees, here in the forrest all we have are pine trees, pretty but just not the same.

Ride 'em cowboy. Why not hitch a ride on the giant log in the middle of the trail.

And here are my mom and Tammy....still safely on the giant rock. It was a very nice day and like always, lots of laughs!!! I will post the rest of the trip later, but here is the first day.

The Ultimate Surprise!

2009-11-09T18:12:00.000-08:00

New purse for my trip to Ohio...$15.00
Plane ticket to Ohio...$360.00
Snack in the airport...$5.00
Seeing the look on my sisters face when we showed up across the country to surprise her for her Birthday...PRICELESS!!!!
Tomorrow is my sister Jenny's birthday...birthdays have always been a big deal in my family so it was only appropriate that we make a big deal of them still. We planned clear back in September to come to surprise her for this special day and it was so hard to keep a secret for that long. Her husband Josh came to get me, my mom and my sister Tammy from the airport and Jenny was at the church for a Super Saturday activity and she was in the midst of cleaning up when we showed up like government spies and gave her the surprise of her life, check out this video to see what we did.

2009-11-04T13:15:00.000-08:00

WELCOME FALL!!! This is my very favorite season. I love that we get to wear sweaters and snuggly wear and thank you to Stephens Mint Hot Chocolate- you are welcome at my home any time!!!

This however is not welcome...October 30, the day before Halloween, 10:oo A.M. No school today and also the first snow. In Idaho we are used to bundling up to go trick or treating but honestly the snow is not part of my fun!! The kids loved it though and managed to wrangle this snow man together in no time at all while I watched from the window sipping hot chocolate.

Oh what beautiful children I have. Maycee is a pumpkin princess?? And yes that is orange spray stuff in her hair and yes it could probably kill the one who applies it. I blew orange snot for a while. Yikes. Carson is a ninja-KIYA, he did however refuse to wear his hood that came with the costume and the awesome eye deals, oh and the knife he had to have for the costume...also MIA. Lincoln is a um, I forgot what he is called, but he is scary and so cute with all that face paint!!!!

They totally hooked up with the candy and they each like to organize then candy into catagories.

Carson likes to spread it all out to make it look like there is more. oooh

Maycee is really happy, but likes to make funny faces often. They are all very nice to share and they got some darn yummy chocolate candy bars.

All in all it was a good Halloween and now we can now look forward to Thanksgiving. HOORAY!

Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas!

2009-09-24T16:07:00.000-07:00

This photo has nothing at all to do with this post, but I like to have something to look at and I saw this picture and I knew it would bring joy to all around. It is Jeff on his mission if anyone wondered. Anyway me and the kids drew us names for Christmas so here is the list....

Mom and Mike have Tammy and Dane
Tammy and Dane have Mom and Mike
Doug and Becky have Josh and Jenny
Pam and Jeff have Doug and Becky
Josh and Jenny have Pam and Jeff

Ed has Maycee
Tasha has Jack
Bethany has Bridger
Ryan has Sally
Alex has Zach
Mariah has Willie
Zach has Lincoln (p.s. Linky was so excited)
Bridger has Carson
Willie has Ed
Maycee has Ryan
Carson has Mariah
Lincoln has Alex
Jack has Bethany
Sally has Tasha

I hope you found the color coding very helpful. Christmas is only 92 days away (unless I counted wrong) so get shopping. ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho is Santa real? Maycee wants to know.

Oh cute puppy

2009-08-31T14:57:00.000-07:00

This is our new puppy, Mack(Mack Daddy, Big Mack, Macaroni, Mack Taylor etc.) My friend gave him to us. She already has a bulldog and her friend gave her this puppy cuz she got a dog from bulldog rescue that was pregnant and this is one of the puppies. We love our little Macky!!

Happy Birthday to Myself!

2009-08-06T11:32:00.000-07:00

First off, this is Jenny again. Pam's sister who happened to set up her blog and knows all her passwords...Secondly, we have a tradition that I send a card with the birthday person's head on something. I used a banana car because, "There's a putter going slow I call it a banana."

Today is Pam's Birthday! What better present could I give than an updated blog, right, right? Here are six things I really like about her. I picked six since the numbers in her age add to that. You do the math.

1. When we play Taboo we are psychics. I only have to say something like "binder" and she will know to say "tent."
2. She was always better at gymnastics. If I could dislocate like her I would be more flexible too.
3. One time we switched the preselected muffins at the grocery store. We probably wanted more chocolate ones. They probably frown on consumers touching baked goods and repackaging them.
4. If you get her to laugh hard enough she'll pee her pants.
5. We can make up dances that will have you on the edge of your seat.
6. She's very thoughtful. She came to visit and kept doing very helpful things, like she was part of my brain. My poor husband gets the raw end of this because I'm always saying things like, "Pam would have known."

Happy Birthday Pam!

Captain Plazmo To The Rescue!

2009-07-21T20:18:00.001-07:00

Last weekend we had the Relay For Life. For those who are unfamiliar with that, it is a bunch of local businesses that come together to raise money for the cancer society. This took place at Bonneville High Schools stadium. There has to be someone on the track, from your team, walking at all times. My job happened to have had a few teams and a booth there. This picture is of my friend Melinda (she is the one with the hat and the finger bunny ears). I work with her and she is a CANCER SURVIVOR!! Thank you for living Melinda, I love you!!! She is one of the strongest people I know, she was married at 19, had twins at 20, one of which died at birth. She got cancer, kicked it... Her home had a rare form of mold from a flooded basement and the clean up crew did a sloppy job, her husband died from a RARE desiese he developed from the mold, their entire house and everything inside had to be destroyed and rebuilt. She has been remarried, had quadrouplettes(4 babies at one time) they are now 4 years old, one of which has a severe case of hydrocyphelis and is a wonder to all the doctors at Primary Children Hospital, he was in the hospital for 3 weeks in which time he had 7 surgeries and is still not for sure out of the woods. And now she is ready to battle the cancer again. Look at that smile. She is like that most of the time. Makes ya wonder why we ever have the right to complain about anything right!!

On the lighter side, my job is at a plasma collection center and they have a mascot suit, which I volunteered Jeff to wear, this is him getting suited up. The blue packs around his waist are icepacks to keep him cool and that stylish pointy hat is to hold up the suit into a nice hershey kiss type form.

We laughed so hard watching this girl I work with climb into his hiney to help him in. Jeff said one time she grabbed his manhood totally violating him by accident.

Now who can resist this hottie. I am kissing him. Don't ya love his tiny stub hands poking out the front. Oh my gosh!

Check out those moves. Carson is dancing with him and Maycee is standing back cracking up.

WHAT A SPORT right. It was all for a good cause, I think there was like $40,000 dollars raised for this event. Rock on!!

An accident waiting to happen!

2009-07-14T08:52:00.000-07:00

In case you can not identify this young lady, it is Maycee. Poor girl. She was riding her bike the Thursday before the 4th of July and CRASHED hard. Jeff and I were outside when she did it but we were at the neighbors a couple houses down and our neighbor watched it happen, AAHHH She was sitting there on her hands and knees SCREAMING with her tooth dangling out of her mouth(by a nerve the dentist said), blood dripping from her nose and mouth. I had a movie that our neighbor borrowed from us in my hand(Twilight, oh yeah!) and I chucked it, scooped Maycee up and headed for home. Thank heavens our dentist lives down the street from us. He came over and looked at her, SHOVED her tooth back up where it should go and headed over to his office with us.

He got us to the office and deadened her whole upper mouth and that made her very silly. I think she was acting like she was on laughing gas, but she wasn't... The dentist was explaining to us that what she had done to her mouth was similar to if you tear every ligament in your knee, cuz her whole tooth was ripped out. And Maycee asked what a ligament was and he was trying to explain it to her, and I said they are kinda like rubber bands. She kept saying"rrrrruuubber bands" and giggling. It was really cute.

He had to hold her tooth in place, so he strung floss and some binding goo from tooth to tooth so that it would hopefully stay where it should be, kinda like braces. This picture here is her after a week of healing. She has now had an X-RAY of her nose done, it was huge and bigger on one side because her glasses smashed into her hard(somehow didn't break, but were not the shape glasses should be and were very scuffed up)But her nose was not broken...Yeah! And now at age 9 has had a root canal done on her very front tooth to try to prevent discoloration. All I could do at the end of that terrible night is look at Jeff and say,"Did that really just happen?". Now we just wait and see if everything stays good, good color and hope the tooth stays there. And can we please never do this again. Lincoln broke his tooth(the very same one) out on his bike last year, so good luck Carson. I hope you keep your tooth!!!

Hello again.

2009-06-12T07:30:00.000-07:00

Hi, it has been forever since I blogged. I am gonna try to do better. This is my new hair. It is really not as long as it looks, but I had my head down so I could get a picture of the top. Thanks to Maycee for being my photographer.

Here are the kids ball teams. Carson is on a pitching machine team. They are pretty fun to watch. They are starting to get the hang of things. They try to get the kids on the other teams out. They have not mastered their throwing though. It seems that they usually chuck the ball so far that the person they aimed for has to chase the ball and then they repeat that with the next person they throw to. It is fairly entertaining.

Here is Maycees softball team. I love that girl, but it is painful to watch. They have the girls pitch to eachother and the majority of the time they get walked, but if someone does get to hit the ball it is very exciting!!

I figured out how to use a new feature of my camera. You can highlight one color and make the rest black and white. Please bear with me cuz I think it is fun to do so a lot of my pictures will probably look like this for a while.

Blog Worthy

2009-03-27T21:50:00.000-07:00

I have not blogged forever and I am sorry to say that this is what brought me back. I have a great pictures of my kids on their birthdays but I chose to write about Louey, our cat. He is the most fluffy cat in the world and it is becoming spring and he sheds pounds of hair a day. Well I took him to get his hair cut and this is what came home to me. When I took him in I said "just buzz him down a little" and the girl said she could do that but around their legs she couldnt go as short because cats have sensitive legs. I had a picture in my head of the finished product, him looking like a well groomed short haired cat. When I went to pick him up the lady was telling me how she loved his head, that was funny I thought. Well she brought him out and I said thank you, but could barely hold back the laughter. We got him done at PetSmart and it is a LONG walk from the groomers in the back, to the front door. By the time I got to the front I was doubled over in laughter, then in my car I was crying cuz I was laughing so much. His head looks like an orange on a toothpick!!! I have never seen something this funny in my whole life!!!

What were they thinking??? I mean do people really do this to their cats on purpose, cuz the groomer did not act like she thought anything was fishy. Hmmmm.....

Hold on Tight!!

2009-01-27T13:25:00.000-08:00

Today we were driving home from Bonneville, round trip 12 minutes. Well Carson and Lincoln were fighting in the back seat(we were already back into our neighborhood by now). So I told Carson to get out of his seat and move to the seat away from Lincoln. Well a little further down the street we entered into a dead spin, ok not really, but we started to slide on the dang snow that got dumped on us last week, UHHH. We slid full speed(12 MPH) into a mailbox of a house that I did not know who lived in it. Their mailbox stand was made of concrete and we smacked into it hard. That sucked, but then I heard Carson crying, I thought he was mad because of our little detour so I turned around to look at him. It turns out he was mad because he had neglected to put his seatbelt back around his little waist and had flown from his seat and smacked his nose into the seat in front of him. There was blood streaming from his nose and all I had to wipe it up was a frozed wipey, that was in my purse, in the car all night long. I wrote them a heartfelt note and stuck it in their mailbox. I do not think that is in the top ten list of how to make a friend, I guess now we will see if they wish to take any legal action against us. Ha Ha!! Why do people make their mailboxes so indestructible???

The things this boy says...

2009-01-11T20:24:00.000-08:00

Today after dinner, Carson was wanting to watch T.V. I already had told him that after dinner it was time to read me his books he brought home from school. And then he said very matter of factly to me..."I have 2 eyes." He was thinking that he could watch t.v. with one eye and read with the other eye. Me and Jeff were standing in the kitchen laughing at him because in his mind he really thought that would work. He is so funny.

Bless You!!

2009-01-04T20:33:00.000-08:00

Last night while we were eating dinner, Carson had to sneeze and he turned to the side and slightly stepped away from the table, but still slammed his cheek into the corner. Ouch!!! He cried and had a big ol' welt, but today he had no bruise or anything. Poor Buddy!!
O.k. I know this may gross some out or maybe just bore ya to death, but as you all know I started a new job and I tend to come home with some pretty funny stories, so I thought I could blog about it and stop telling you all in person. Yesterday I was at work (at 5:45 a.m.) and I was working away. Well this guy got there and I went over to stick him with my little needle and he starts to tell me of his horrible experience about the last time he came and this girl sucked so bad she stuck him and totally missed his vein and then had to go get someone to come help her fix it and it took forever and totally hurt the whole time(thank heavens it wasn't me that did that!!). So I went on to tell him how I would be really careful and be sure to get it right... so I stuck him and he was like "WOW, you did awesome I didn't feel anything, that was the best stick I have ever had here!" He looked away while I stuck him and was still not looking, I gently said "OH I am so glad you think so cuz I just totally missed your vein and I need to run and get someone to come and fix this." He was like "thats ok man, it totally doesn't hurt still!" It was so funny, I guess I won't be quite so confident next time.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

2009-01-01T19:55:00.000-08:00

Holy cow, I can not believe it is already 2009. It seems like this year came and went so fast it is crazy!!! I have not blogged for so long, thanks to my sister I at least had one post for the last couple of months. Today is my brothers birthday so first of all I must say a few words about him.... please refer to the photo a couple of posts ago of all us siblings, he is the one that is not a girl!!
1. He always drove in his car in the summer with all the windows up and NO air conditioning because he didn't want to mess up his hair.
2. He likes a good laugh, if you tell him something funny he laughs hard and tears roll from his eyes!!:)
3. He is an awesome dad. Seriously, I have never seen a person spend so much time playing with their kids, and he does it all with a smile. He thinks it is a treat to be with them!!
4. He spends money good, he doesn't waste it and always pays things off quick.
5. He loves sea food, it is fun to watch him try and crack a crab.
6. He sets his mind on something and does not give up, he just got his masters degree, he went on the south beach diet like 2 years ago and is still on it etc.
Love ya Doug- Happy Birthday!!!

Here is Maycee the week before Thanksgiving, she is in a cheerleading group and they were performing for 1/2 time at a basketball game, that is her in the very middle at the top of the pyramid. It freaks me out, now I see why parents go crazy when their kid is in sports, it makes ya really scared to see them in a possition that could potentially kill them. Ha Ha!

My sister Jenny and her family came to town over Thanksgiving and Maycee fell in love with her baby, Sally, (I think Sally liked Maycee too). She still will not stop talking about her and is always saying how she misses her and wishes they would move closer. We had a great time while she was here, my favorite part was when we went to lunch on my 1/2 hour lunch break, we laughed for 30 minutes straight. My family ROCKS!

This is Jack(Jennys kid-o) Maycee, Carson and Lincoln they all decorated our tree. It was fun and "kid cute" but I am excited for the day that I get to have a kid tree AND a beautiful tree that I get to decorate with all coordinating decorations etc.

Christmas morning, Lincoln is opening a motorcycle that pops wheelies. He was funny, after almost everything he opened he would say"Oh yeah, I REALLY wanted that!!"

No holiday with presents would be the same with out Carson, can you see the excitement on his face??? He is this excited about everything he opens for himself and about everything anyone else opened too. He makes it all so fun. He may be crazy but it is times like these that we are so glad we got him!!

Maycee got the spa factory, that is all she wanted pretty much, she spent most of Christmas making perfume, lip gloss and bath salts. She is such a girl! We like her.

We had a great Holiday Season and hopefully everyone else did too!! I hope to manage my time better once we get back into our daily routine next week, I will try to blog more. Oh yeah baby!

A Special Feature

2008-12-12T14:00:00.000-08:00

The Sisters
Pam at the top, Jenny on the left, Tammy on the right

This is Jenny, the featured birthday girl from the post below. I helped Pam set up her blog and therefore know her user name and password. She mentioned recently that her life was a little hectic to blog and maybe I could help her out. What, with poking people with needles to draw out their plasma (she was a pro her first time and is already loved by patients), being the cheer coach of a High School team, running a household, raising three kids (four if you count Jeff :)) and getting her cat water directly from the faucet...yes, she's got a lot on her plate. So, I bring to you a fun fact about my sister Pam. She has a condition of "extra stretchy skin." Just look at the picture to see for yourself. This is why she dislocates easily, which happened to ruin my life a little when she dislocated her knee right in my face one of the many times. So be careful with her please. And someone take this girl some hot cookies, she deserves it!

Happy Birthday Jenny!!

2008-11-11T20:42:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was my other sister Jenny's Birthday. She is the one on the right of the picture above, that is me on the left. She now lives far away and I miss her very much, I can not wait till she comes at the end of this month so I can give her a big hug!! I will now write some things about her that ROCK...
-We used to take shopping carts from the parking lot at Smiths Food and Drug and drive holding on to them outside of the car window clear over into the parking lot at Subway, there were speed bumps there and we would drive really fast towards the speed bumps and when we hit them we would let go of the shopping cart and watch them jump... Good Times
-Sometimes when we would go to the mall everyone would stare at us cuz they thought we were twins.
-She would make up these crazy puppet shows with her friend and then she'd make me watch them while they were under the kitchen table like no one could see them. She would laugh so hard I couldn't even understand what they were saying.
-When we were little she would bite herself and go tell mommy that I bit her. Naughty!!!
-We used to share a room and we loved to play jokes on eachother, one time I snuck over to her bed in the dark and jumped up to scare her and she punched me in the eye. It almost knocked me out. It was hilarious!!
-Isn't it funny how when you are little all you wanna do is kill one another and then as you grow everything changes. I love my little sissy, I think all of my memories include her, I could go on forever with all of our stories, she is one of my very favorite people and I am so glad I got her for my sister!!!
Happy Birthday Jenny, I love ya!!!

Happy (late) Birthday Tammy!!

2008-10-28T13:24:00.001-07:00

It was my sister Tammy's Birthday on the 17th and although I am late I would like to do a birthday tribute to her. Here are some things that I like about her. She is the one above in the orange...
1. She could always make my babies stop crying when I couldn't, she would come over to my house on her lunchbreak for fun and snuggle them.
2. She used to make up little songs about me and my boyfriends and sing them all the time. How embarassing.
3. Road trips are always funner when she is there, we can laugh our heads off at simple things like the directions to the capital building in Salt Lake that say, "go to the capital building" or at made up words like peeenlop.
4. When she would hand down clothes to me I would think they were like gold.
5. She is a good secret keeper, she knows things about me that are safe in her little head and I know she won't tell anyone.
6. She has called me many times on the phone and let me cry so hard to her that my words were "blsheklzdcn," and she makes me feel better.
7. She has been my number 1 example in my life, I always wanted to be her, if she hadn't made the good choices in her life that she has, I probably would not be where I am today.
Thanks Tammy, I love you and I am glad that you are my sister!!!

Yikes!!

2008-10-18T08:46:00.000-07:00

I hope you can tell how freakishly huge this bug is. It is in the bottom of a canning jar and he fills up the entire bottom. Last night at the football game this guy came falling out of the sky(I saw everything like it was slow motion)and landed on the track. Jeff caught him in a cup and we brought it home to show the kids, they were equally impressed!!

Here is what happens when it snows in the middle of October, the kids and Jeff make 2 giant snowmen. Maycee is happy I promise, I don't know what happened to her face in this picture. I personally do not think it is such a great time to roll snow around on the ground so the kids are lucky Jeff is fun. I stayed in the warmth of my house and made chocolate chip cookies.

Alright I think this is the last yummy thing I know how to make so I will stop with the recipes. These are Calzones and they are really easy and fun to make. Everyone in the family can help and put their own fillings in. It makes the kids want to eat dinner cuz they got to pick out what is inside. Sometimes we put a food coloring dot on the outside of the calzone and then we can remember which one is for who.

Calzones

5 tsp. yeast

1 1/2 cups warm water

1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp. salt

4 cups flour

Mix the yeast and water. Add sugar and salt, stir. Add flour all at once and stir until most of the flour is absorbed. Knead until smooth and elastic. For breadsticks roll our and cut into strips, cover with butter, garlic and parmesan cheese. For calzones roll out and cut around a salad plate. Cut mazzarella and other toppings(pepperoni, canadian bacon, peppers, onions etc)fold over and seal tight. Brush with egg yolk and milk mixture. For both things cook at 425 for 12-15 minutes. You don't need to put any sauce in the calzone it will all squirt out when it cooks, warm some marinara and dip in it with the calzone. ENJOY!!

Was that really worth $30.00??

2008-10-04T18:14:00.000-07:00

Here are my bruises from my last plasma donation. I have never had a bad experience before. I went in on Friday to finish earning my $50.00 for the week, and this is what I came home with. When the guy put the needle in my arm it seemed o.k. but when the machine started, I wanted to cry it hurt so bad. I didn't say anything to any one, I just thought I could tough it out for the next hour and I really wanted to read the book I brought. I really don't mind needles at all, but I do not like to look at them when they are in me, if I had looked I would have found that my arm was swelling up like a ballloon and everything that was being pumped into me was piling up right above my elbow. Ouch!! Well my maching was not working right so one of the girls came to check it and I asked what was wrong with it, she said she didn't think the needle liked how it was placed in my vein. I was like "yeah it is killing me!!" so she started to poke around in my arm right on top of the needle and besides hurting a bunch it also started to gross me out. I started to get all sweaty and pukey feeling and I felt like I was gonna pass out. I didn't but it was really crappy, now I have this HUGE bruise and it looks like I have been battered. The cheerleaders all said that if Jeff was beating me up they could take care of him for me. The funny part about this too is that the girl next to me in the plasma center was not doing well either, it was her first time there and while I was having trouble, so was she. She almost passed out and was barfing in the garbage can next to her bed. I am sure the employees were so glad when we left that day!!! The sad thing is... I'll go back, I guess we will see what happens then. Nasty!!

My silly "quirks"

2008-10-04T17:25:00.000-07:00

My friend Amber tagged me and I am supposed to write 6 Quirks about myself, so here we go...
1. I have a serious issue with people touching my nose, if you do it makes me freak out and do mean things to who ever has touched it. (Seriously, don't touch it)
2. I hate looking at or handling raw meat. Sometimes I have a hard time eating the meat if I have seen it raw and have had to touch it. Jeff knows this and will sometimes show me his hamburger that is not quite cooked all the way, then I dry heave and can not finish my hamburger. Yuck!!
3. I dislocate easily. I have permanently scarred my sister Jenny because the first time I dislocated my knee it was inches away from her face. It is not my best quality, at least I don't randomly start on fire or anything.
4. I hate scary movies. Jeff was watching House of Wax on the t.v. when we had free HBO trial. And he was in my bedroom(o.k. our bedroom)at bedtime so I had to watch it with him cuz I was too scared not to. Now I will forever keep asking him"hey do you remember in house of wax when 'this' happened" and he will say"yes" and then I have to tell him how it destroyed me forever.
5. If I am on my cell phone in my car I always pass the street I am supposed to turn on. If any one has been on the phone with me while I am in the car you have probably heard me say"woops, I have to turn around, there goes my street".
6. I am a closet singer and dancer, if no one is around, I love to sing loud and dance around. Please don't try to peak into my windows.
Now wasn't that fun, I think I would like to know some of your quirks now, so Jenny, Tammy and Becky give me some dirt on you. That will be due one week from today or I will give you an F.

2008-09-25T13:06:00.000-07:00

Hi I have had a few requests for this braided bread recipe, so here ya go...
2 1/2 tsp. yeast
1 1/4 cups very warm water
5 cups flour
1/2 cup soft margarine
1 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup sugar egg yolk with 1 Tblsp. milk
*combine the yeast, 1 1/2 cups of the flour, salt and sugar, pour in the water and stir until smooth. Mix in soft margarine and eggs, slowly add remaining flour to make a soft dough. Knead until smooth and elastic. Place in a greased bowl and cover. Let rise until doubled in size, about 1 1/2 hours. Punch down and divide into 2 peices. Divide each of those into 3 peices. Roll out like little snakes and braid. Each recipe makes 2 loaves. Let rise again, brush with egg and milk mixture and bake for 20-25 minutes on 350 degrees. ENJOY!

I just made dinner and I was proud of myself. I even made the noodles from scratch. It was really easy, but it kind of looks like witches hair. Yum Yum.
Last night we had a reading night at the school. This is a picture of my friend Kjiersten(she was in charge of the big event) and Jeff and Carson. I told them all to say ARGH like a pirate in the picture. Kjiersten threatened me if I put this on my blog, so I guess the game is on right. It was a great night.!!

Here is Jeff, he was invited to read a story to the kids dressed up like a pirate. It was very cute, he talked in a scruffy voice like a pirate. I laughed! He did a good job and might I say he is a pretty hot pirate.

We also had a death in the family this week. Carson hamster bit the dust, poor Peanut. He came upstairs carying the cage and said she was dead. I asked him what he thought we should do with her now(meaning bury her or what) and he said, "well I guess we should give her to someone else now". Good idea buddy.

2008-09-09T20:52:00.000-07:00

Hey, I just tried to post the cutest video clip of Carson reading, he is so funny, he gets a spanish accent when he sounds stuff out. It is amazing how quick they learn, just last week he could barely sound a word out, now he all the sudden can look at a word and say it. Kids are amazing! As for this picture of Lincoln... please look at the fabulous grapes in his hand, they are called globe grapes and I got them at Walmart, I thought they would be dreamy, but as we all shoved them into our mouths we found the joke was on us, these grapes have seeds in them. I didn't even know that could happen. Any way I didn't want anyone else to be fooled by their physical beauty. Go for the small seedless ones.

What not to wear...

2008-09-06T20:25:00.001-07:00

Today me and the kids went to my nephews football game while Jeff was at work, by the time the game was over Jeff was done with work and wanted to go to the mall with us to get Maycee some new earrings. When I got home to pick Jeff up to go with us, this is what he was wearing. All I could say was"you might want to re-think that outfit". Bless his heart, in his own mind he thought he matched, both items of clothing has cream and brown on them. He willingly changed into another shirt and was a good sport about me taking a picture of him for my blog. That explains where Carson gets his ideas about matching his clothes.
Other than that we have had a pretty busy week, we went to the fair on Tuesday, (I forgot my camera). There is no better place than the fair, I am a redneck at heart(Lincoln fit right in with his crazy hair and busted out tooth). I love all the food, we always eat so much, give me a bucket of grease and I will chow down on it. I got bronchitis(how do you spell that?) and much to my surprise I have turned into a weenie when I am sick, I have been so lucky to not be sick for a long time that now I can't seem to cut it feeling junky. And it was homecoming week, parades, assemblys and games, it was a lot of fun and Bonneville won the football game.

School Time

2008-08-31T19:56:00.001-07:00

I don't know if you can tell what this is, but it is my arm. I took a phlebotomy(drawing blood) class with one of my friends and we got to practice on eachother. This bruise kept growing and lasted about 2 weeks. It didn't even hurt, but my friend sure felt bad. I am excited to get a job now. I will get to stab people in the arm every day. Watch out Idaho.

School started a couple weeks ago, and I wanted to take some pictures of the kids on their first day of school.... this is what I got out of Carson. Good Luck Miss Johnson. Today in church Carson had to give a talk, last time he gave a talk he was totally irreverent and I could not stop laughing at him. Today it was a replay of the first talk, Jeff would whisper in his ear what to say and in a very silly voice he repeated it followed by the entire primary laughing(and mom). He is very funny!! One day he will grow up, maybe I will too.

Here is Maycee on the first day of 3rd grade. Isn't she so cute? In the past when school has started she has had some really bad nerves which gives her a stomach ache and some barfing for about 2 weeks. This year she found a way around that and was just fine. On the first day of school she did have to leave the breakfast table quickly, but it was barf free!!! And she did fall down our stairs in the garage on her way to her bike, she was pretty scraped up, but not puking. Good girl.

Lincoln was pretty bumbed about not being in school and kept saying he was ready to go to pre-school now. Too bad buddy, you are stuck with me another year. I am not ready for that little guy to grow up yet.

Other than that I have been busy with cheerleading. We had our first Football game this weekend in Preston(home of Napolean Dynomite), they lost pretty bad but it was fun. It is amazing how emotionally attached we get to these girls. Jeff came with me and he was very aware of every boy that got near the girls on the bus and kept telling me that they weren't allowed to sit with the football players etc. and then he said they weren't my cheerleaders they were his, I guess now we have about 25 daughters. They are a lot of fun.

Shucks!!!!

2008-08-08T20:50:00.000-07:00

Isn't Lincoln just so cute?? Well if you click on this picture to enlarge it you will notice that his front tooth is not quite right. He was riding his bike yesterday and he crashed on the side walk and broke his tooth into 3 pieces. He was really tough. I thought the only thing that was hurt was the little scuff on his chin.

After calling about 20 dentists this morning I finally found one that could get us in for an appointment TODAY(I thought a broken tooth should be a priority to all the dental offices, but I guess I was more concerned about it than they were). Well under that cute big fat lip(full of that stuff that numbs your mouth)there is NO TOOTH!!

He is only 3 years old and now he has NO front tooth. I think it is so cute though. Every time he smiles I can't help but do the same. He will only have to wait 3 years or so to get his big boy tooth in. He is a genuine red neck toddler now. I love that boy. He was great at the dentist, the Dr. said he was the bravest patient he ever had. I have never even had to have a tooth pulled. Now we have to go back in 2 weeks to make sure the other front tooth will be fine. He is sure excited for the tooth fairy to come tonight!

Hamsters and Hornets

2008-08-06T20:24:00.000-07:00

Maycee has begged for a hamster for a couple months now and we kept telling her no, well our neighbors had a couple of hamsters they didn't want anymore so she got them. Well Carson got one and she got one, they named them Peanut and Anna Montana. I personally think they are the cutest little critters, they run around in their cage 100 miles per hour, they are super entertaining.

Please look closely to this little buddies arm. He got attacked by some hornets the other night. We were at our neighbors house and the kids wanted to play on the swingset, so my kids and the neighbors grandkids headed over there. Just a minute into their swinging Lincoln was SCREAMING and the Grandson was sprinting from the swingset screaming "BEES" and waving his hands all over. Lincoln was the only one that got stung(or whatever hornets do) he got 3 on the inside of his arm and one on his shoulder. I HATE bees or any sort of flying, stinging creature, so this makes them even higher on my naughty creature list!!!

Where did July go???

2008-08-01T14:05:00.001-07:00

Here are some pictures from our "Bumble bee" cheer camp, Maycee is the one in the bright white skirt and shirt right in the middle. It was a lot of fun, we didn't have any injuries and there were only one or two tiny girls who wanted to call their moms cuz they missed them. I think the high light for most of the girls for these 2 days of fun was when the sprinklers came on without us knowing they were going to and they all got to play in the water after lunch. Yeah.

This month I also got to go to Pocatello for 4 days for cheer camp. I know I am supposed to be an adult and all but I had so much fun. I love coaching cheerleading. It was like being a kid again. The girls all did really good for the most part. There were only a couple girls that got in trouble for sneaking out at 3:00 a.m. to go be with boys, actually they are dead meat!!!! And there was one girl that got really sick and we had to take her to the doctor and then the next day she went to the E.R. cuz she couldn't breathe. It turns out she had a bladder infection, an ear infection and MONO. Yikes, so I hope no one else gets it. Anyway, it was a few days without little kids, just doing something I really like. Maybe if it was in Hawiia it would have been even better!!! Well other than that I have just been busy doing summer stuff, the kids love to have me take them on picnics(I could tell you what every park in town has to offer). We have taken advantage of the movie tickets the school sells, I think we have eaten our body weight in popcorn and seen more movies than I thought possible. And although we are feeling the pinch of having a husband/dad that is a full time student, I have to admit that in the last month or so I really feel like things have been going well and that somehow we have become closer as a family. We have made a point of having family scripture and prayer every night(Jeff got a quote in one of his religion classes that said if you would make a commitment to doing that every day that it would pretty much make your whole life go smoother. Turns out those darn prophets are right a lot of the time!!!) School starts this month and while I really like my kids I think it will do them good to spend some time away from eachother.

Stinking Seagulls!!!!

2008-07-18T14:15:00.000-07:00

Today we went to the river and fed the ducks and geese. Jeff's brother was here this week and we had a ton of bread that they got to feed the birds but we never made it to the river while they were here. Anyway the kids and I went today and it was quite an event. Lincoln got attacked by 2 geese(okay they just bit his little fingers and hurt his feelings). Carson kept saying that the ducks were all telling eachother super funny jokes because it sounded like they were laughing so hard. And I was innocently standing by a huge pine tree in the shade when a stinking seagull dive bombed me with his poo. That is right he dropped a load right on my back, I felt a thump and then some warmth and I turned to the kids and asked if there was poo on me, and as they were totally grossing out they admitted to the mess. They would not help me clean it off because they thought it was too yucky. Thank you very much, I have been pooped on by a bird!!

Summer Fun

2008-07-10T16:56:00.001-07:00

This is what we do for the month of June. We play lots of T-Ball. It is pretty fun to watch, the skills of the kids are definitely still developing, but the comedy is never ending!! Carson is obviously ready to kill the ball, and he actually is quite a good hitter!!

I never thought I was the mother who would wish to destroy her kids with embarrassing pictures, but we are always after Carson to get his finger out of his nose, so when I got ready to snap this shot and this is what I saw I could not resist! Sorry Carson.

Maycee played softball this year instead of T-Ball. The girls pitch to each other and so it made hitting the ball quite a challenge. I think she got a piece of this one though!!

Due to the lack of hits in the game, she was always found in the outfield squatting of sitting on her tail. Her coach always was yelling to her,"Maycee, get up. This one is coming right to you" She never stood up!

I went to take the garbage out yesterday and I found this Caterpillar scooting across the ground. I told the kids to go get a branch from the tree for it to crawl on and they found caterpillar number 2. We put them in our little bug habitat and now they are hanging upside down making a cocoon or something, I will definitely update everyone to let ya know if we get a butterfly out of these puppies or not.

HOLY COW!!! Who knew we had a splash park in Rexburg?? SWEET. For all of you who are as sheltered as me, you must head over there as soon as possible. The kids had so much fun and it is free. This picture is a little blurry, but here is Maycee shooting down the water slide...

When Lincoln finally got brave enough to run through the water he thought it was awesome. He wanted to go sit on all the water shooting up. That can't feel too good in the bum crack?

And here is Carson, livin it up of course. He has a way of making anything he does adventurous. He is lots of fun to watch, ya never know what he is gonna do!

Poo in a box

2008-06-24T15:48:00.001-07:00

I am sorry I do not have a picture for this story, and I hope none of you will think I am totally yucky, but this is a great story that made me laugh HARD and now every time I think of it I laugh again. A couple of days ago we went to see Jeff at work (out in the middle of nowhere, with no bathroom). Well anyway, Lincoln came over to me and he had to go potty, number 2, if ya know what I mean. I tried to explain to him that there was no bathroom and that he needed to try to hold it for a minute till we could go. He started to dance and said he needed to go now! I turned to Jeff and asked him what we could do in this situation and he looked around the job sight and focused in on an empty cultured stone box, it is about as tall as Lincoln and pretty wide and inside of that was an empty cement bag. He said"put him in the box and have him poop in the bag" So I informed Lincoln of the plan and picked him up to try to load him up into his new "bathroom". I guess he did not like the idea because he held on screaming, trying to fight his way back out of the box. I looked at Jeff, who had started digging a hole in a nearby pile of dirt, and he said "poop in this hole Lincoln". Lincoln said "no" and then poooped in his pants. Not good! Here is the best part...Jeff was less than impressed and he started to scold Lincoln by shouting, in all seriousness..."LINCOLN, IF I TELL YOU TO GET IN THE BOX AND POOP IN THE BAG, THEN GET IN THE BOX AND POOP IN THE BAG!!". I tried hard not to bust up, but for obvious reasons, my laughter came out and all I could say was" Honestly, did you just say that?"
It was so funny and now everyone in the house will randomly say"If I tell you to get in the box and poop in the bag, than get in the box and poop in the bag". We are very easily amused in this house!

Well isn't that nice.

2008-06-07T20:26:00.000-07:00

Today was the "Daddy Daughter" date, and since I am now an activity day leader I was able to be there with this dazzling duo. We had a picnic theme, if you can tell from the picture though it was an inside picnic, when it is 45 degrees outside and 50 mph wind it makes picnicing not so nice outside. They all still had fun though, there was food, potato sack races, 3 legged races, dad's painting the girls fingernails, and some girls painting the dads fingernails, and painting t-shirts. Rock on. I remember the daddy dates back from when I was small, so I hope this memory will last as long for these 2.

Oh what a day!!! Lincoln turns 3 years old. WHAT?? He was so cute, he got to wake up and open his presents in his spider man jammies. We got him a few things that he liked, but what he really wanted was a motorcycle. From the time he could talk he has told us he wanted one. We told him that he would have to learn to ride a bike without training wheels first(knowing that by the time he could do that he would have forgotten about that promise)but when he took off on his bike a couple weeks ago he quickly reminded us that now he could have a motorcycle. Needless to say, he did not get one for his birthday. I had asked him if he had a good birthday and if he liked all of his presents, and he looked at me with puppy dog eyes and said"Mom you know all I wanted was a motorcycle." Well alrighty then, talk about breaking my heart!

Ya know you are getting old when a bird flies into a tree and it keeps your attention for 20 minutes. But honestly this bird looks like he belongs in the jungle. He was in the tree in my front yard in the freezing summer weather here, and he had such a good time. We loved him, but he flew away darnit. Seriously, does anyone know what it is?

And last of all my dad was here this week and it was very good to see him again, now I have got to hear the kids ask all day, "Where do you think Grandpa is right now?" They sure liked him.

Poop on Walmart!!

2008-05-28T13:39:00.000-07:00

Sometimes there are the days you go to Walmart and when you are finished you have to ask "Why did I choose to go there?". Today was that day! I got up early in the morning and had a lot to do before kindergarten got out. So I ran my errands and had to do some major grocery shopping. I had Lincoln and Liz with me and they were actually really good. However I went to check out, my cart so full things were spilling over the sides, and what did I find?? There were 2 express lanes open(I was definately not a candidate for that) and 2 other checkstands were open, IN THE WHOLE STORE. To top it off, my guy(employee) at my checkstand happened to be about 80 years old, and he wanted to talk about each of my items, I wanted to tell him to zip it and speed up. He also double bagged every single bag, are we not trying to save the world, and he asked me "how I made out",WHAT?? No I do not want to make out with you old man. From the time I got into the line until I had paid, it was 24 minutes. Honestly! I am sorry to complain so much, but I know everyone feels the same way as me when it comes to checking out at the store. Right?

Lincoln Rides A Bike

2008-05-26T14:17:00.000-07:00

Last week Lincoln decided he wanted to try riding his bike without training wheels. So Jeff took them off and he took off down the road, he never even crashed. He is still only 2 years old. It is really cute to see his little legs peddling so fast. He is pretty amazing.

Good Times!

2008-05-22T09:30:00.000-07:00

I was looking through some photos and I found this one and I thought it was so cute and I knew it should be there on my blog. I had someone recently ask me to fill out a "survey" type thing on my blog, but I decided to switch it up a little. We made some books in young womans a while ago called the All about me books. So here is what I will do... Ya list 5 things you love and then 5 things you don't love. Anyone who thinks this would make a fun blog entry for them is welcome to do this too...
5 things I love
1. My family! That is why I had to have this cute picture on the page.
2. My house: Some people live in cardboard boxes, so even though I hate my diamond carpet, I love having a roof over my head.
3. Girls night out: Can you really ever laugh as hard as when you are with a bunch of giggling girls?
4. Public School: Don't get me wrong, I love spending time with my kids, but I also love that I can send them to school and they learn how to spell. I would be a terrible home schooler!
5. Brownies: Enough Said!

5 things I don't love
1. Road Rage: Is there anything more uncomfortable than being in a car with someone who is sure to get you killed.
2. War: I think we were all taught when we were 2 years old not to hit!
3. Contention: I like when we have love at home.
4. Stinky feet: I think we should all smell like beautiful flowers!
5. Liars: May the liar be thrust down to hell.

The boys in our house all went to the Father/Son campout this weekend. Jeff forgot to bring the camera, but Carson drew this picture and when I asked him about it he said it was Daddy, Carson and Lincoln all on their trip. (Please note the outstanding detail, they all have nipples and a bellybutton.) They had a great time, they had a fire, ate dinner, made breakfast, played games and when they left Jeff took them fishing. I asked Carson if he put the worm on the hook all by himself, and he said "No, those worms were like OUCH, OOOHH, OH, that hurts" all the while squirming with pain himself. And the good part about them being gone is that me and Maycee got to have a girls night out with my mom and sister etc. We all went to dinner and shopping. Good times!!!

Go Bees!

2008-05-14T20:22:00.001-07:00

This is how Lincoln felt by the end of Maycee's concert on Friday, although we all loved to hear her sing, I think it would be accurate to say that we all felt the same way after the busy week we had.

Here is a great shot of Maycee singing, she will sing and sing all over the house. The other day she said "Mom, I am an alto. Listen to me." I have to admit she belted out a tune that sounded great. Watch for her on the next American Idol.

This is Carson's concert. Yeah they are all in Kindergarten and he is pointing because that is part of the action to the song. This was the only picture I managed to take that he was not totally boogyin'. Give this boy a tune and he will break it down!!!

This whole week was so busy, but so great. I applied to be the cheer coach at Bonneville and I got it. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love gymnastics and cheerleading. I am so excited. I had to plan cheer tryouts for this week and while I have been on the trying out side of try outs before. I am learning that there is a lot that goes into planning it. I am so excited for the year, all the girls seem like they will be a lot of fun to work with. So between that, soccer games, concerts, cheer clinics and shopping for Maycee's new fingernails(she begged Grandma for)Oh, and watching the finally of the Bachelor, we have been nuts here. School is almost out for the kids and I am excited to have them home for the summer. Tball and Swimming, family reunions, we can't wait for the good times to roll!!!

Sunday Afternoon

2008-05-05T11:53:00.000-07:00

Lincoln is training to be a super model, this is his "sexy" face.

No fear in this boy. He is very willing to jump in and catch that goose, take him home and cook him for dinner!

This is a game the kids love to play at the river. It's called... run as fast as you can to the tree and run back to mom. They usually sleep good after this game. Yahoo!!!

Maycee is such a great big sister. She doesn't want him to fall in.

Carson is caught red handed eating the bread for the birds. He is a growing boy.

These guys love to get out as close as they can without falling in. I wish they would stand back, but at least if they fall in it is pretty shallow right there.

Isn't this a great day? Yes those are buns on Jeff's ears, he is slowly turning into Mickey Mouse!

We love to go to the river, and this was the most perfect day. We walked around and it was like we were camping, but we got to go home and sleep in our own beds and wash our hands(Lincoln kept picking up goose poo, he thought it was rocks. Ew) We hope to have many more of these great days. Maybe summer really is here!

Breakfast in bed

2008-05-03T12:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Maycee decided to make me breakfast in bed. It was so sweet, the night before she said "You sleep in a little later tomorrow because we have a surprise for you." So in the morning I could hear her quietly rummaging through the kitchen. Carson was in bed with me because that was his job-to keep me in bed.(that is not a very hard job, I really like it there). Then she brought up the food, she brought 4 kinds of cereal, 2 kinds of yogurt, milk, sugar, a bowl and spoon, she thought of it all and it was all neatly stacked on a little tray. I felt so special. There was even a hidden note that said... thank you for everything you do for us, we love you so much. Wow. Maycee is our girl that loves to sleep in, so for her to actually get up at 6:30 to do all of this was just sweet! She did say that she had to let Lincoln sleep though because he would just cry. Good call, he is a weenie when his sleep is disturbed. Well the sun is shining today so I am gonna go bask in it, ya never know it may snow again tomorrow.

That hurts!

2008-04-29T11:51:00.001-07:00

(click on this for a close up and you can totally see the pain better!!)

I'm sorry if anyone is totally grossed out by feet but look closely. This is Carsons foot. His toenail used to be all in one piece until yesterday. He was coming home from school kicking his new ball down the street. I guess he missed the ball and kicked the road and BROKE his toenail in half and off his toe. He gets kind of silly when he gets hurt. His cousin "Willy" was supposed to come over and he said" I don't want anyone to come over anymore" Which he promtly followed with" When is Willy gonna be here?" They were still able to manage the video games together. I think he has been so tough, last night I pulled the dangling toenail off the rest of the way and Carson didn't even move. Now we just hope it will grow back right so he will still be proud to wear flip flops!

Here's the week...

2008-04-27T07:16:00.000-07:00

This picture is actually of the first day of school here, please notice the green grass, it is not green now because it will not stop snowing! Anyway, this week I got to go to the school(the girls I babysit were sick)and we ate lunch in the cafeteria with Maycee. It was so cute, when we got to school Maycee was sitting in the chair right in the front waiting for us and then she showed us what to do. It brang back many memories from the "old days". Were those tables and benches always so small? I was very entertained to watch all the little kids eat their chicken fried steak, they don't hand out knives in the elementry school, so all of them stabbed their big hunk of meat with their forks and took bited out of it that way. It was very cute. It was nice weather for part of the week and then it went BAD! (I just tried to put a picture of a snowy robin right here, but it ended up on the top. So please note the picture of the snowy robin on the top of this post!) We looked outside and saw this poor robin with the look on his face that seemed to say"What the heck just happened I thought it was spring". I think we all felt the same way. There is someone just down the road that put a big giant blow up santa out in their yard, it quickly blew down because of the extreme wind, but they were kind of funny. Now today it is beautiful with the sun shining and last night it was nice enough that Jeff and I hired a babysitter and walked around the entire green belt(a big path around the snake river) with out freezing. I guess people are right when they say" If you don't like the weather in Idaho just wait 20 minutes". I think we are all ready to have summer!!!

Lets try this again...

2008-04-19T14:52:00.000-07:00

Is Lincoln in this picture? If it worked he will be so cute! He slightly modifies the alphabet, but I still think he is as smart as he can be, who needs t.u.v.w. and x right. I love his little voice too. You should hear him sing I am a Child of God. He gets the words... almost right?

Our poor babysitter

2008-04-19T14:43:00.001-07:00

Every Thursday I have an 11 year old boy named Cameron come over and watch the kids while me and Maycee go to gymnastics(I coach her class). Well this week, this is what I came home to. They had decided to put Cameron in the corner, make him dress like a girl, tape him up, smear lipstick all over him and tape little pieces of paper all over the living room that said"camera" like they were hidden cameras. When I walked in I laughed so hard and told them to FREEZE so I could take a picture. He is such a good sport! I wonder if he will show up next Thursday??

What a smart boy

2008-04-16T11:51:00.000-07:00

Today we were sittting down eating lunch and Lincoln sang the ABC's. I did not even know he could sing that. I thought it was so cute, so I thought you all would enjoy it as well. It is one of those days that I am so glad I get to be home every day with the kids. Then I will never miss cutsie moments like this!! P.S. I hope this actually plays a movie for you all, I am sorta challenged in these technilogical areas!

YUMMY!

2008-04-13T20:16:00.000-07:00

I found this recipe on the back of my flour bag and I knew it looked like our kind of treat, it had a dorky name though. They called them "Scott's soccer mom treats" but really they will be called..

Pam's delicious peanut butter chocolate cookie bars

1/2 cup butter 1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 cup brown sugar 1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 cup sugar 1 cup flour

1 egg 1 cup old fashioned oatmeal

1/3 cup peanut butter 1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

ICING

1/2 cup powdered sugar

2 Tblsp. peanut butter

2 Tblsp. milk

Preheat oven to 350

Cream butter and sugars. Add egg and peanut butter and mix. Stir in soda, salt, flour and oatmeal. Press into 9x13 pan. Sprinkle chocolate chips over top. Bake 20 - 25 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from oven and drizzle with icing. Eat em' up and love them too.