We hope you had a Merry Christmas!

We hope everyone had a great christmas! We sure did. My kids woke us up at 4:30 in the morning to open gifts! We told them to go back to bed. They then woke us about 7:30ish and we had no power. It really sucked opening gifts with a flashlight and the light from the camcorder and NO COFFEE! Though really, the only part that sucked was the no coffee part. After we opened gifts I went back to bed until the power came on at 10:30. I was finally able to function with the coffee pot brewing, our heater heating (thank you Bob for the fireplace tip!), the christmas music blaring and food cooking! Santa suprised our kids with a ping pong table this year. It was a bonus gift :) It has been really fun to play though our basement doesn't have any heat. You have to bundle up to play ping pong. It is still way fun.

P.S. Regarding the picture above. I thought my kids didn't really care if they saw Santa or not. I was wrong. Josh wanted to see santa. So we headed to mall on December 23rd for Joshy to see Santa. Jacobb was totally too cool to see Santa. He wanted to sit on a bench in the mall while we waited in line. Anyway, an hour and a half later we finally get to see Santa. Josh gets one look at him and says "NO WAY I am not going up there." So I hurried and grabbed Josh and we all ran up there for a pic and we left. Though after Jacobb told Santa what he wanted Josh mumbled a wish too. Thankfully Santa heard them! They both got what they asked for. We went out to eat after and all Josh could say was "that Santa was CREEPY!"

Happy Birthday Josh!

Birthday parties are always so crazy when you are the host. Well, ALL parties are crazy when you are the host. Joshy had his party on Saturday and he seemed to love every minute of it. Unfortunately, I failed to get pics of all his birthday guests. It was mostly family with a few great friends. I didnt want to deal with the hassle of cake & ice cream so we did cupcakes & pizza. Can you read it? :)

Here is a cute pic of Josh. Can you see the defloated jump thing behind him? I guess it got a hole in it...(duh) anyway, his friend shows up a few seconds later freaking out that the jump thing was collapsing on him.

We are about to sing Happy Birthday ~

It took Josh a few tries to get all the candles out.

I thought this pic was fun. Josh is concentrating very hard on trying to read Grandma Georgia's cursive. He gave it a good effort and got most of the words.

Thanks to everyone that came to Joshy's party. I think he had a great birthday.

I cant believe my baby is 7!

One little funny from the party.... one of Joshy's friends who came to the party brought Josh's gift in a cute little birthday bag. Well, I guess the little boy went up to Jared, after Josh opened his gift, and asked if he could have his bag back so his Mom can use it for other birthday presents.

Happy Birthday to US!

Today was my baby's birthday along with mine. He was my birthday present 7 years ago and it has been one of my best gifts ever!

I will have more stuff up for Joshy's birthday, but I just wanted to say a little bit about my day today. I feel so lucky that I have such a great family and friends. I just love getting together with EVERYONE no matter where it is. It is so much fun and everyone gets along so well. I am so thankful that Bob & Katie can come and hang out with my family and feel just as a part of it. (or atleast they dont seem otherwise)

My brother called tonight from Japan and him and his wife made us super cute birthday cards. They even stayed up until 1:00 (maybe later?) just to wish us a happy birthday. (okay, maybe that wasn't the only reason, but hey, I can think whatever I want - right?)

My Mom took me shopping on Saturday and it was the funnest time EVER! I am so glad we were able to do that. We truly had not done that before and I hope we can do it more often!

My husband went out of his way to make sure my day was a great one and I just love him so much.

I really feel lucky to have so many special people in my life and getting to see them today made my day that much better!

I was bummin' last year for my 30th birthday. This birthday was much better!

I would show pics, but, unfortunately, I forgot my camera tonight - UGH!

Where has the time gone? (Revised about 10 different times)

I have been planning on posting pics from halloween since, well...halloween. I cant believe I am doing it after Thanksgiving!! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We did! We went to my Dad's house with all the family. It was alot of fun!. I was going to take pics of the Thanksgiving football game goin' on, but I was too lazy. It was cute tho watching my kids have so much fun. They really enjoyed the football game.

I am on the computer tonight in an attempt to plan my sons 7th birthday party! My baby is growing up so quickly! The year has really snuck up on me. I usually have his birthday party planned in November - this year I am planning it the week before!

Now, back to the Halloween..... Halloween was a great day for us and we had alot of fun. I hope you had a happy halloween also! Earlier in the day I was in charge of an activity for Jake's class halloween party. Though I was super nervous, it turned out really well. I am planner and everything has to be just right. I only had 2 short days to plan this activity. By Thursday night I was doing a pretend setup on my kitchen counter following the pictures I drew in my notebook. I can be a bit crazy with the planning. Below are pictures of my "examples" I was going to show his class. They had the choice of a witch cupcake or a "dirt" cupcake.

For trick or treating we had Jareds parents over, my brother Robby & Zachary over, my other brother Brian, Lisa, Nate & Ty, and my Dad showed up for a minute. Matt & Teena decided to stay home and trick or treat in their neighborhood and my Mom had to work so she couldn't make it. (We missed you Mom, Dave and Matt, Teena, Bryce & Evie! )

These are pics of the boys before school. They were unknown phantoms...oooh, scary. (You see behind the boys there is an archway and then a doorway and then another doorway? Well, that is our closet and that is how the neighbor boy walked in our house the other day and saw Jared standing there naked...... I dont know if it should be....but it was pretty dang funny! )

This is Josh and Jared's Dad. Can you tell who is who? :)

The kids (& Jared) before trick or treating. The boys' black costumes blend in with each other. I cant tell if I have both kids in this pic or if I cut off Joshy's head.

This is what our trick or treaters got to see when they came to our door for candy. They had to get their loot from these good lookin' men. (In looking at this picture it makes me wonder if they are smiling for the camera under their masks? If they are that would be so funny! I am so easily amused. You did know those were masks right?!? )

There were only a few kids who were too scared to come up and get candy and I dont blame them!

That was a quick run down of our halloween and Thanksgiving.! As mentioned above, I hope that you all had a happy halloween and great thanksgiving!

Now, for everyone who always tells me I need to "update my blog" (Mom, Katie, Anjie....) Enjoy! I hope that I can get Joshy's birthday pics up before the end of the year! :)

Have a great day!

Parent Teacher Conference

We had parent teacher conferences last night. Both of my kids are doing exceptionally well. We are so proud of them. However, there a few issues that one can fix and the other one...well he's in trouble.

My older boy has a talking problem and my younger boy has a girl problem. My older one can work on the talking ~ my younger boy has to continue to run from the girls. We were also informed (by his teacher)a class meeting was held yesterday because the girls were all "jealous" (as said by the teacher) of my younger boy not paying attention them and I guess some feelings got hurt, including Josh's. Supposedly one of the girls said she was Josh's girlfriend and Josh said she wasn't and then they called him a liar and he got really upset. The teacher had to tell his class that they are too young to have boyfriends / girlfriends. He has alot of years of school left with these girls. It is sort of funny, but I do feel bad for him! We were at the school for 10 minutes before 3 girls started chasing him - oh, and his face goes BRIGHT RED. Poor thing!

P.S. ~ If Josh read this blog, he would be SO MAD AT ME! So, if you see him, please dont mention the "girl problem" at school. I debated on deleting the details....however, I think it is funny. And no I am not scared of my son being mad at me - I am worried he will stop telling me. He gets embarassed. THANKS!

Pumpkin Patch

This is my favorite of all the pics. Brian, Lisa, Matt, Teena, Jared, me and the kids all went on a Monday night to the pumpkin patch. Robby and Zach weren't able to make it so Lisa and I took Zach the following Saturday. This picture is from that day.


This rest of the pics are from the Monday night trip. My kids are being silly here.

Nate turned into a pumpkin head....

I LOVE this picture. I woud love it even more if Josh was in it. That is Ty at the end.

Nice pumpkin Jake!

He is such a sweetheart!
So is Brycey!
And Josh of course!

While I was putting these pictures onto this blog I was thinking...I need to figure out how to do those slide show things. I wonder if they are faster?

I'm lucky he didnt take away my drivers license!!

This morning my kids had some breakfast with books thing going on at the school. The school parking lot was full so I had to park along the street. No big deal. I see a great/convenient parking spot that no one has taken yet, so I go ahead and make the 20 point u-turn, etc. to get this parking spot. In the middle of this 20-point u-turn I maybe saw a glimpse of a fire hydrant. Anyway, we park, we all pile out of the car and I see a cop walking towards me. All the sudden I recall that possible glimpse of a fire hyrdrant. I look and sure enough i am parked RIGHT IN FRONT of the damn fire hydrant. By this time the cop is at my car and he says "you know you are parked in front of a fire hydrant?" I said "yea... when I saw you walking up I checked (or something stupid like that)". I told him I was going to move my car, and then I asked the really awesome question that made me feel even smarter for parking in FRONT of a fire hydrant ... "So, how far away are you supposed to be parked from fire hydrant?". He tells me 15' and I get in my car and drive to new parking spot feeling awfully BRIGHT.

On a side note..I tell a (male) coworker I am going to be a witch for this halloween party we are going to and he says..."you'll make a good witch". Ha Ha. I think this is SO FUNNY. Though, he didnt mean it that way..well, atleast I dont think he meant it that way..!?

Well, I must be glad its Friday or something b/c I am rambling.

HAPPY FRIDAY!

Sorry Mom..no pictures this time!

the good & bad about kids getting older

I really enjoy watching Jake going through school and all of his grades and learning new things and him telling me about them. Jake is now in 5th grade. Which we have begun to learn this is the year where the nice, cutesy teachers end. These 5th grade teachers are about business and then some fun. Jacobb probably has a pretty cool teacher, but we have learned he is a tough love kind of teacher. And if any of you know anything about me.... I am a MAJOR softy. I do not like to have my kids (or any kids) upset, crying, hurt, frustrated, etc. It KILLS me. Which is really not a good thing. I have to learn to be mean (well probalby more strict then mean). Thankfully, I have pretty good kids so it hasn't been too much of a problem.
Anyway, Jacobb tells me yesterday, through tears, how much he hates his teacher...I ask him what happened?? Jacobb tells me he was trying to finish up his homework from another class and his teacher was showing pictures up on the board. Since Jacobb wasnt paying attention to his teacher, his teacher told him to bring up his paper and the teacher, I guess, ripped it up into tiny little pieces! I was running about 15 minutes late, so I told him when I get home, he needs to get in the car and we are going back to the school. I was PISSED ! Jacobb didn't want to go back to the school, he didnt want me to call his teacher and he said he had what he needed to re-do his assignment.
So, I call the teacher and left a voicemail asking him pretty much what the hell? Nicely of course. I was wondering was he at his wits end with jake? I mean what cause him to do something so harsh?!?!?
Well, his teacher called me back this morning. He Said "No, I wasnt at my wits end with Jacobb, but i had asked him to put it away and he turned right around and started working on it again." This sounds like something jacobb would do at home because we ( I mean Me) are pushovers ! So, after talking with the teacher, I thought his harsh actions were certainly something Jacobb could learn from....though rippping up his homework like that , in front of the whole class, was certainly over the top. Thankfully it was an assignment that only took Jacobb a couple of minutes to re-do.
Now if only I could get the teacher to do the "tough love lesson" and have it carry on at our house. NAH, I cant handle my kid crying in class!

My baby ?

This is my baby who idolizes his big brother. Josh does not appreciate me calling him or referring to him as "my baby". He gets very mad. So if he was to read my last post(s) he would be very upset that I referred to him as "my baby". Anyway, since he was an (infant) baby, Jared has always called him "McGoo". Jared said he looked like Mr. McGoo, though I have no idea who that is, and it sorta stuck. Well the other day i was trying to get his attention, and as he normally does - he ignored me when i said "Josh" (like 3 times) so I said "McGoo!" He then turned around and said "my name isn't mcgoo. it is joshua". I thought that happened in like junior high?

This one, who is also my baby, doesnt mind so much when I refer to him as my baby. He sorta likes it. :) (though don't tell his friends).

and we had to say goodbye~

We had the opportunity of spending some time with Amanda and the kids this summer while Kevin was in North Korea. Unfortunately the time had to end. Kevin came and got them and they moved to Okinawa, Japan.


This was going to be our "final" and "goodbye" pic...

but then some one suggested Leatherby's. I love this picture. My baby and my Dad sharing an ice cream and Brycey too.

This is the "final" pic before we said our goodbye's.

We will miss having them around!

it's been awhile...

A few pics of what we have been up to this summer...

I love these pictures of Jake. He is growing up so fast! He has pretty much taken over my 4-wheeler. He drives him and Josh and whomever wants a ride all over camp. These pictures also make me think of when he will be 16 with a drivers license. He is going to drive his car home, come in the house and eat. Because this is what growing boys do!






He did it again!


Here is Josh and Bryce. Josh is practicing his aim and Bryce is his helper.

Jared took these next two pictures. I thought Evie's was pretty cute.

This is about the amount of fun I had the whole trip.... and that is because I am sure I was eating a yummy Almond Joy.

Our annual Bear Lake trip. So much fun! We didnt even have a boat. Our plans for a jet ski fell through, but we didnt even need one.

yea. This is what I get when I try to get Jakes attention for a picture.

More Bear Lake.. they are not all smiling because of the camera... it is what I had to say to get them to all look at me.

4th of July. We had lots of fun. We had some of our friends and family over for food and fireworks. I just love these get togethers. I wish we could do them more often!

and of course a little swimming. I was lazy with my camera at the pool this year. I figured all swimming pictures look the same! Though Josh doesnt swim with "floaties" anymore. These are all the cousins swimming together. (Krystal if you are reading this, we have for sure got to have you guys over to swim next year! I would say this year, but I think the pool closes on Monday).

and camping! This is only one of our fun camping trips this year. the other one I forgot my dang camera! Actually I forgot that we had the luxury of the camper and that it had plugs.... my battery was dead in my camera so I didn't bring it. duh!




Just a few things we have been up to. of course the kids are back in school now and my baby goes to school all day! I think this is harder than kindergarten. Though my baby is growing up....he still holds my hand and I LOVE THAT!