It's a Crazy Wonderful Life!

Disney World Day 5-Our LAST day!!

2011-04-19T22:32:00.000-06:00

So the weather on this day was BEAUTIFUL!!!! That worked our great since it was planned to be our beach day. I took all the kids in to Magic Kingdom for a bit first thing in the morning. We arrived at the park just before 9 am and headed right back to Frontier Land. We all rode Big Thunder Mountain Railroad two times, followed by Splash Mountain (which Kyle hated) and then Pirates of the Caribbean. Here are a few pics from our moring out.

By the time we finished those rides it was almost time to meet Mike who had gone to pick up a rental car so we could go to the beach. So we headed out to meet him and piled in the car.

It was about an hour drive to Cocoa Beach. We were all so excited for some time in the sun on the beach. Here are a few pics of the kids playing in the ocean.

After playing in the ocean for several hours, we headed over to the humongous Ron Jon shop for souvenirs and headed back to Orlando. Pretty much everyone fell asleep in the car.

We grabbed some McD's on our way back into town, went to the hotel to change and headedd back to Magic Kingdom for the evening.

We were able to ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and Pirates of the Caribbean again and then we watched the fireworks as we headed out of the park.

We had an early morning with a 7 am flight so we hurried and got everything packed up and went to bed. It was so hard to believe our trip was over.

We woke the next morning at 4 am got everything into the car and headed off to the airport. We arrived back home in the early afternoon. Everyone was pretty tired. I walked in to my bedroom shortly after getting home and this is what I saw.

Jacob and Kyle were both crashed on the floor in my room. I thought it was pretty funny that of all the places in this house, they both chose the floor.

Well, we had a wonderful trip. We are already starting to plan our big trip for next year. We are hoping we can somehow save enough money to take the whole family to Hawaii. I so want the kids to see t his wonderful place that I love so much and to meet all the family we have there. So we will see what we can do.

Disney World Day 4- Rain Rain and More Rain!!!

2011-04-11T21:24:00.000-06:00

On Day 4 our plan was to hit Disney's Animal Kingdom, but we woke up and it was pouring. So we hung out in the hotel hoping every hour that it would clear up. It didn't. At about 2 we decided to head out and brave the weather for a bit hoping we could catch the rides at this park and maybe see some animals and head back for the evening. So we headed down and caught the shuttle over to the park.

Outfitted head to knees in ponchos and some of us using umbrellas, we entered the park. I ran over to Expedition Everest to get our fast passes hoping we could come back and ride it in a little while. Mike took the kids over to wait for the Lion King show. I met them there and we went in for the show. It was really bright and fun. They sang and danced and even the kids got pulled in from the audience for part of it.

It was a really cute show. After the show we headed over to the Kilimanjaro Safari Ride. It was a fun ride and we got to see lots of animal despite the rain.

After the safari we went over to ride the Dinosaur ride. It was awesome!!! The kids loved it so much. And since there was nobody in line when we got done, they let us ride again without even getting off the ride. I guess that is one advantage to a rainy day at the park. (It was the only one)

We were blessed (hah!) with some really heavy rain for a little while and even some thunder and lightening. We headed across the park to try and ride Expedition Everest only to find that it was closed because of the lightening. BUMMER!!! We were all looking forward to riding that one. So we headed in to watch the 3D show "It's Tough to Be a Bug" this one featured the characters from Bug's Life. It was a fun little 3d or really 4d movie. It sprayed water, scented the room, and even gave you the feeling that bugs were crawling underneath your seat. (Kyle hated that part).

That movie is in a theatre underneath the big tree that is in the center of the park. The tree was truly amazing. It has carvings of animals all over it. I wish we would have had more time to look at it all, but the rain was getting to be too much so we decided it was time to leave. We had all had enough of the rain.

We decided to eat in the park at the Rain Forest Cafe. We have never eaten in one of those restaurants before so it was really fun to see it. Dinner was yummy (though very expensive) and when we were done we headed out into the rain to wait for the shuttle. Thankfully we had a little bit of shelter to help keep us out of the elements, but we watched the lightening and listened to the thunder that sometimes was too loud and too close.

We arrived back at the hotel about 7 pm and had a nice relaxing evening in the room watching television. We also made out plans for the next day.

Just ONE MORE DAY! WOW it went so fast!

Disney World Day 3

2011-04-06T19:40:00.000-06:00

On day 3 our plan was to hit Magic Kingdom. When I woke the kids at 7 to get ready and head out for the bus, Kyle would not budge. I could not wake him for anything. So Mike decided to hang out in the hotel with Kyle for a bit and let him sleep. (he ended up sleeping until about 10:30) I packed our lunches and we were off. We caught the 8:30 bus and arrived at the parking and transportation depot about 9 only to find that the monorail into magic kingdom wasn't working so we had to take the ferry and there were lots of people waiting for the ferry. We managed to get on the third ferry and headed in to the park.

The plan was to hit Tomorrow Land and Fantasy Land this first day, that would leave Adventure Land, Frontier Land and Liberty Square for our second day in Magic Kingdom. So we went right to it. I ran right in a got our fast passes for Space Mountain and then we went in lone for Buzz Lightyear. The line was short and we basically walked right on. Next we rode Space Mountain. It is a favorite for everyone but Ryan. He chose to sit this one out too and waited for us at the exit. After Space Mountian, I fas tpassed Buzz Lightyear, then we headed to the Speedway. It was about a 20 minute wait, so we waited in line and enjoyed driving our own cars. This year everyone but Kyle was big enough to drive by themselves. Our next ride was the Carousel of Progress. There was no line and we needed something short to take up the little bit of time waiting for Mike and Kyle to arrive. It was an interesting ride and fun for the kids to see all of the advances we have had intechnology in the last 70 years.

We met Mike and Kyle at Buzz Lightyear and Mike took all the kids except Kaylee on again. While they rode, Kaylee and I ran over to Peter Pan to get fast passes. Have I mentioned how much I love the Fast Pass Service. While other people are waiting in 45 minute or longer lines, you walk right in. We went back and met Mike and the Kids and he took all but Ryan on Space Mountain. As they were buckled in a preparing for launch, Kyle got scared, but her was brave and stayed on the ride and LOVED it!!!

Our next little adventure was a 45 minute wait in line for Winnie the Pooh. It was our longest wait of the whole week. If I could have, I would have fast passed it, but we already had Peter Pan and couldn't get another. The ride is so cute and in the line area they had things for the kids to play with so it wasn't too bad. After Pooh Bear, we hit Snow White followed by It's a Small World. Believe it or not, we have accomplished all of this before lunch!!!!

We went to eat our lunch and then we rode Peter Pan. After Peter Pan we went to see Mickey's Philharmagic 3d show. It was a cute show and the kids really enjoyed it. We decided since we had already accomplished all of our plans for the day that we would go ahead and hit the Haunted Mansion in Liberty Square this day as well. We LOVE Haunted Mansion. It is always a hit. When we came out it was a 4:00 and we noticed darkening skies and decided we needed to start heading out. I took the kids for one last ride on Buzz Lightyear using the fastpasses from earlier in the day while Mike hit the locker to retrieve our belongings. When we met up again a few minutes later near the entrance of the park he said that the area was under a tornado warning. We could tell with the darkening sky that something was definitely headed our way so we hurried to the monrail. Just as we got to the monorail station, the storm rolled in. The wind picked up like crazy and the rain came down HARD!!!! We even saw a little bit of hail! We were glad to be under the cover of the station which was filling up very quickly as more and more people came in wetter and wetter. We caught the train and headed to catch our bus. SO the weather made us cut the day a bit short, but we still accomplished all we wanted to and more! We had a GREAT day!!!!

That night we ate dinner at the hotel restaraunt and did some laundry. The wet clothes from Monday were leaving a funky musty smell in the hotel room. It cost us about $16 to do two loads of laundry, but the room smelled much better after the wet clothes were out, so I guess it was worth it.

We got the kids to bed and I spent a little bit of time planning the schedule for the next day and then it was time for us to sleep too. Another day gone by, why does vacation time always go so fast???

Here are a couple of pics of our day.

Disney World Day Two

2011-04-05T08:53:00.000-06:00

On the agenda for day two was Hollywood Studios. We headed out and caught the 8:30 am bus to the park and were excited because it actually WAS NOT RAINING. There were clouds in the sky, but no rain and thankfully it stayed that way for the entire day.

We started off our day getting fast passes for The Tower of Terror which said to come back about 9:45. So we headed over to the Rockin Roller Coaster. Kyle was about 1/4 inch too short to ride so I got a parent swap pass and Mike took the others on the ride. Kyle and I walked around and waited for a bit until they came off the ride. Ryan decided at the last minute he didn't want to ride it. He is not a big roller coaster fan, so we met him in the gift shop. Everyone loved the ride. Then it was my turn. It was AWESOME!!! I was able to take Kaylee, Tiff and Jake back through with me so they got to ride it a second time.

After that we all went over to Tower of Terror. We all rode it and it was really fun. Next we went to the Chronicles of Narnia Exhibit. It was interesting. We went for fast passes for the Toy Story Mania ride and even though it was only 11:00 am, our return time was for 8:00 pm. YIKES!!! The line was 90 minutes long so we just fast passed it. Next we rode the great movie ride. It was a fun one even though the kids only knew a couple of the movies in it. The next thing we did was the Back Lot Tour. It was fun to see how they do some of the effects when they make movies and also fun to see some of the real props used in some of the movies we have seen.

We took a break for lunch. Once again I had packed lunches for us. We headed to the lockers and sat outside to eat.

After lunch we went to watch the Indiana Jones Show. We are all big fans of those movies and it was a really good show. Following the show we spent a little bit of time letting the kids play in the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground. It was cool. The grass was all really tall and so were the bugs and stuff, just like if the kids had been shrunk.

After this playtime, Mike took some of the kids back to the hotel for some pool and rest time. He took Kaylee, Jacob and Kyle. Kyle was really tired. Ryan and Tiffany wanted to stay and do more stuff so we stayed. While the others swam in the hotel pool, we went to the Sounds Dangerous show, the Lights Motors Action Stunt Show which was amazing!!!!, and the American Idol Experience. I so wish that Tiff were just one year older this trip so she could have tried out for the American Idol Experience (they have an age 14 minimum). She would have blown away the competition, at least in the show we saw. It was fun, but would have been more fun if Tiffany could have performed in it. Next we went to the Muppets 3D show, ate pizza at Pizza Planet for dinner, and walked around the One Man's Dream exhibit while we waited for Mike and the Kids to come back.

Finally it was 8:00 and we could ride Toy Story Mania. That is one of my favorites in the whole park. It is so fun to ride a ride that is comepletely interactive. We all wished we could ride it again, but with the line being 100 minutes long, there was no way we were going to wait in it.

Kaylee and Tiffany wanted to ride Tower of Terror again, so they went off to that ride and the rest of us waited in line to watch Fantasmic. Mike, Kyle and Jake didn't feel like sticking around for the show, so they left and went back to the hotel. The rest of us waited for the show and it was so worth it. It was really really good!! With the show over, we rushed out of the park to catch our bus back to the hotel. We got back to the hotel just after 11 pm. So our day was over 14 hours long. It ended up being a beautiful day, NO RAIN!! And we all had a really great time.

Here are some photos from day two.

Walt Disney World Day One

2011-04-04T19:11:00.000-06:00

Since it would be a super long post to write about the whole trip in one post, I am going to just break it down day by day.

We had a great opportunity to take a super fun family vacation this year. We knew we had enough points to fly the whole family for free so we decided we would go to some place we have never been before. And yes I said we flew the whole family for FREE. That's one of the perks of Mike traveling every week for the last 3 years.

So on Sunday March 27th, we piled into the Suburban and headed to the airport. Everyone was sooooooo excited for a whole week of Disney World. We boarded the plane and the kids did great for the 3.5 hour flight. We arrived in Orlando at 11 pm, retrieved our luggage, and met our taxi for the ride to the grocery store then on to the hotel. I did a marathon shopping trip as we were being charged by the minute for the stop and picked up enough food for breakfast and lunch every day as well as daily snacks.

We got a great deal to stay at the Downtown Disney Holiday Inn (another perk of Mike's travels). We had two rooms connecting, it was perfect. We settled the kids in to bed as quickly as possible so we could get a good night sleep to be ready for our first day in the parks. The nice thing about staying at the Downtown Disney Hotel is that we were part of the Disney transportation line. There were pick ups from our hotel every half hour all day long and rides back to the hotel every half hour too from every one of the parks. It was really a nice feature.

Our first day was Epcot.
It rained
and it rained
and it rained.
THE WHOLE TIME WE WERE THERE!!!
We were grateful for our ponchos and for so many indoor attractions. We rode all of the rides and saw a couple of shows but by about 7 pm we were so done with the rain we decided to head back to the hotel. Thus we missed the big night show and didn't spend much time at all in the world showcase. We would have loved to explore the country pavillions more, but we were all too wet and getting grumpy.

Here is what we did at Epcot:
-We rode Test Track is was awesome!!!! I would have loved to do that one again, but it closed down after we rode it because of the rain.
-Next was Mission Space which we rode twice. It was really fun too.
-We rode Ellen's Energy Adventure. It was different, but the kids liked this one too.
-Next was Spaceship Earth.
-Then we headed back to the lockers and had lunch on the floor in the locker room. It was great because it was dry and out of the wind.
-Next we headed to the Lands section of the park and rode Living With The Land.
-Then we saw the Circle Of Life show
-Then it was over to the Seas for Nemo and Friends and the aquarium
-Next we saw Michael Jackson in Captain EO
-Then we headed to Journey Into Imagination With Figment and Image Works
-Next we walked very quickly through the World Showcase. We watched a film in France. Kyle slept through the whole thing.
-We headed back over to the Land and rode Living with the Land again while we were waiting for our fastpass time to come up so we could ride Soarin'. Living With the Land was a pretty cool ride. It was fun to see some of the innovative ways they are growing things.
-Finally it was time for us to ride Soarin'. One of my favorite rides. It was awesome. I wish we could have gone on it again.
-We finished off the day with dinner at Seasons, then headed out to stand in the rain to wait for our bus.
-Back at the hotel, Mike and the kids hit the hot tub, and then it was time for bed. I planned out our schedule for the next day and hit the pillow for a great night of sleep.

Despite the rain, we managed to have a great day!!!! I didn't get many pictures because of all the rain, but here are a couple from Monday.

My Trip to Las Vegas

2011-03-15T22:06:00.000-06:00

A little over a week ago, I got a phone call from Mike. It was about 2:00 pm on Friday March 4th afternoon. He said "Do you want to go to Vegas this weekend for Hailey's blessing?" I was shocked but of course I said "YES!". Hailey is my baby brother Jeff's brand new baby girl. I hadn't had the chance to see her other than in pictures and was so excited to get to go for the blessing.

It made for a crazy busy night though. My flight was scheduled to leave at 8 am on Saturday morning and we had Ryan's birthday party with his friends scheduled for Friday night. So I rushed around and got all my responsibilities for church on Sunday covered, did some laundry, packed and took care of Ryan's party.

I got up bright and early, before the sun actually, and headed to the airport in Denver. I boarded the plane and was on my way. I hadn't even told Jeff and Erika I was coming. I had talked to Steve who started working on some plans for all of us to get together for Saturday night. (he did this carefully so as to not let Jeff know I would be there) and I talked to Kevin who offered to let me stay at his place and pick me up from the airport. I was so excited.

My plan was to just show up on Jeff's doorstep to surprise him, but since he lives all the way across town and I didn't want to show up and him not be there, I decided to let him know I was there. I texted him and asked what he was doing, he said not much and asked what I was doing. I said "not much" and in the next text said "just sitting and visiting with Kevin and Cassie and the boys". He said "You're in Vegas?" and I said "yes." He said it made him tearful to know I was there, and that made me so happy. I know he was happy and excited I was able to make the trip. It wasn't long before he and Erika and my sweet little niece were over there too. She is so beautiful and perfect and I hogged her as much as I could.

The next morning we all went to church. It was so nice to have all of my brothers and their wives as well as my dad and his wife there. It has been a long time since we were all in church together (except for all the funerals in the last few years). Jeff pronounced a beautiful blessing on Hailey and christened her HAILEY SHIRLENE PIERCE. They named her after mom. That's very fitting since she is the first baby girl born since mom's passing (not to mention the first baby girl with the last name Pierce in our family in over 25 years) Anyway, I know that mom was looking down on us that day, she was with us in spirit and was so proud of Jeff for being able to bless his baby girl, and she was probably beaming knowing that all her boys were in church. I am sure she would like to see them there more often.

After church a few of us went back to Jeff and Erika's house for some lunch. We had a great visit. It was a beautiful day. I took some time to take a few photos of Hailey in her blessing dress. Here they are.

She is such a cutey and such a good baby. Jeff and Erika are so lucky. She has red hair and I can't help but wonder what color her eyes will be.

Well I visited with Steve and Bree, and Kevin and Cass and all the boys a bit more and then it was time to head back home. It was a really quick two day trip, over one day and back the next, but it was so worth it to see the smile on Jeff's face when he saw that I really was there.

Many thanks to my wonderful husband for making it possible, and to his work travel that made the trip virtually free.

Cub Scout Advancements

2011-02-25T13:17:00.000-07:00

Last night was a big night for 2 of my boys. It was our pack meeting and both boys have been working very hard to make their rank advancements. First was Jacob. He earned his Wolf Badge as well as one gold arrowpoint and 4 silver arrowpoints. Here are some photos.

Ryan has been working very hard. He earned 2 Webelos Badges, (Citizen, Showman, and Scientist), his Outdoor Activity Badge, his Compass Points Emblem and all of the Compass Point pins, his Webelos Badge, the Special 20 Award, his religious emblem (the square knot), and his Arrow of Light. I am so proud of him for working so hard and going the extra mile, doing more than was necessary to advance.

Way to go boys I am soooooo proud!!!!

My oldest boy is turning 11

2011-02-23T07:57:00.000-07:00

It's so hard to believe that Ryan is 11 years old today. Where has the time gone? It seems like just yesterday that they laid this little boy on my chest. Here is what he looked like just minutes after being born.

Here is another when he was just a few days old.

He has grown and changed so much and I am very proud of the young man he is becoming.

The last few months he has been working very hard to finish his Webelos. He decided to not just finish with the minimum required to get his webelos rank, but to complete ALL 20 of the webelos badges. I am so happy to say that he accomplished his goal. Many thanks to his scout leaders that helped him along the way, but he has worked very hard. This Thursday at the Blue and Gold Banquet he will not only advance his rank, but he will earn all the compass points, his square knot (religious award), and his Arrow of Light. I am so proud of him. I will post some pics from that event later this week.

Well, here is a couple of pictures of my boy today on his birthday! I am so proud to call him my son! Happy Birthday Ryan!

To see how RYan has changed through the years, go to my facebook profile here for a whole bunch of pictures of him from birth to present.

Ryan's Wrestling Tournament

2011-02-06T12:07:00.000-07:00

Last Weekend Ryan participated in his first wrestling tournament. We are still trying to figure out if wrestling is something he is really interested in so I was glad it was a tournament that I didn't have to get him all the gear to participate in.

I am not sure if he really knew what to expect as he went in to his first match. He was pinned rather quickly. His second match however, he fought pretty hard and he pinned his opponent. He knew going in to his 3 match that it was going to be a tough one. (he was going against the guy who hadn't lost yet that day). He went in with a good attitude and fought hard. He held on through almost all 3 periods. His opponent was ahead by points, but Ryan was fighting hard to avoid the pin. He was getting very tired and was finally pinned just before the end of the 3 period. He ended up getting a third place metal for thte tournament and We were very proud of him for trying his best.

I think he could have beat the first guy if he had one of his coaches with him, (but they were all occupied with other kids when it was Ryan's turn) and if he would have known a bit more what to expect. I think he will do well in the future if he decides to continue with wrestling. As for this tournament, it was all about getting some experience and deciding if he likes it enough to stick with it. If he wrestles next year we will get him proper gear.

Here are a couple of photos of him.

Go COUGARS!!!!!!!

2011-01-24T14:10:00.000-07:00

So in our family we are HUGE BYU COUGARS fans. Perhaps because Mike and I both attended BYU and have a tremendous love for the school itself. Perhaps because all of our children have expressed an interest to attend there. Perhaps because of what the school stands for. Perhaps it is because they do have good sports teams. Whatever the reason we LOVE BYU. I especially love BYU basketball!!!

We knew we would be attending the BYU vs. CSU game as soon as we saw the schedule. We managed to buy our tickets just in time as it was a sold out croud for the first time since 2005. That's amazing since the stadium only holds a little over 8000 fans. That seems so small when compared to the 23000 the Marriott Center holds and sells out regularly.

This has been a great year for BYU basketball. Jimmer Fredette is the leading scoreer in the NCAA and he is backed up by an outstanding team of starters and bench players. The team is ranked #9 in the NCAA and #2 in the Mountain West Conference. (only outdone in the MWC by SDSU ranked #6 and undefeated) BYU lost one game this season to UCLA which was a bummer, but we are hoping they can hold the losses to that one. A win over SDSU this next week would be awesome, but is going to be tough.

Anyway this past Saturday we took the whole family up to Ft. Collins to watch our amazing Cougars play against the Rams. Sorry Rams the Cougars will always have my heart. Kyle was so cute before the game, he was so excited for it to start he was practically shaking! He kept saying "when is it going to start, I can't wait!" Of course Mike and I were also quite anxious. We knew it would be a good game with two fairly evenly matched teams and we were a little nervous about how it would go. It was a great game. The Rams played them well, but the Cougars were on top the whole game. Jimmer had an amazing 42 points. Other players had great games too and it was so much fun to watch this team play LIVE!!! They won 94-85 keeping alive a 9 game winning streak! I have to admit there for a little bit in the second half I was a little nervous about whether they would hold on to their lead. Thank goodness they did!!!!

Afterwards we wated around to see if we could meet some of the players. Freshman, Kyle Collinsworth came back into the stadium to do an interview. I overheard them talking to him about the mission he is planning after this season for the church. It is so great to see these players that are willing to sacrifice those 2 years of playing sports to go on missions for the church. I think that in many cases they are blessed for that sacrifice once they return. The girls had their picture taken with Kyle and the boys all got his autograph.

We waited even longer, then the coach came in and said the players were heading to the bus, so we headed outside to wait in the cold. The wait paid off as we were able to meet several of the players.

Jackson Emery just broke the BYU record set by Danny Ainge in the 80's for steals. He is an awesome defender and his 3 point shots are usually dead on!!!

Charles Abouo comes off the bench and plays a great game.

Jimmer signing Jacob's shirt

Jimmer signing Kyle's shirt

Jimmer signing Ryan's shirt

Jimmer with our whole family. It was so cool to be able to meet him.

The kids and I with Brandon Davies. Look at that smile!!

Kaylee and KEnsie were able to snag Jimmer right after he finished his media interview before leaving the court. Look how kaylee is snuggling into him. She says she is in love!! hah hah :)

What a great night. I hope the kids will remember this one forever!!!!

January update...

2011-01-24T13:04:00.000-07:00

It's been a couple of weeks, so I thought I would spend a few minutes and update the blog.

Early this month I took the kids in for their 6 month dental check-ups and cleanings. I am always scared as we head int to theses appointments because it seems that our boys have really bad teeth. As much we try to make sure they brush twice a day, we have over time between Ryan and Jacob had to do several crowns, a few extractions, and lots of fillings. This time however was a really good trip: only one small cavity for Jacob. Hooray!!! When you figure how many teeth that is between all five of the kids, having only one small cavity is a huge sucess.

Also the beginning of the month I got a new neice. Finally a baby girl born to one of my brothers. This is actually the first baby girl born in our family who will have the name Pierce in like 25 years. Including with Uncle Keith's family. I really didn't think it was going to ever happen. Cousin John and Lindsey have 4 boys, Kevin has 4 boys, Steve has 1 boy, I really thought there was a curse or something on the boys of our family. Somehow, Jeff broke it though, and maybe others will benefit later on and get girls too. Anyway, Hailey Shirlene Pierce (middle name of course after our mom) was born on January 3rd at 12:16 pm. She wighed 7 pounds 15 oz. and was 19.5 inches long.

She is sooooooo BEAUTIFUL!!!! Congrats again to Jeff and Erika!

On the 11th, we finally had Jacob's birthday party that had to be resceduled when we got stranded in the snow storm in Utah after the funeral. He was so excited to have so many of his friends come over to our house for a movie on the big screen in the basement. They watched Despicable Me which is a really cute animated film. I had made some really cute invites for the party (shown on left). I also bought them all movie theatre sized candy and some popcorn that I put in popcorn bags and each of them got a water bottle. It was a huge success. We also had pizza and cupcakes. The kids had a blast and Jacob really enjoyed the day.

The kids, and Mike had a day off on the 17th for Martin Luther King Junior day. It was so nice to have Mike home again for a holiday. He and I started the day by going to Home Depot (one of my favorite places) and buying wood to do a bit more framing in the basement. We came home and framed the doorway into the storage room at the bottom of the stairs and completed the wall under the stairs. Now all the framing for the Theatre Room except the exterior wall is done. Hopefully soon we will be able to do that exterior wall, get the electrical wired and finish off that room. That would be so awesome.

After the work was done, we took the kids out to lunch and then we went bowling. It was so much fun. I wish I would have thought to take photos of the kids bowling. I seem to forget that a lot these days. I did catch a couple photos of our scores though. Mike ended the second game with 5 strikes in a row. unfortunately, I didn't get that score photographed before they turned off our monitors. We all had a great time, we will have to do that again soon.

This past week, Ryan broke one of his fillings. I don't knowh ow, probably grinding his teeth at night, but it was a good size piece that came out leaving a gaping whole in his tooth. I took him back to the dentist and they elected to just extract it. Apparently it wouldn't have been there too much longer anyway. I was frustrated to be back at the dentist already after having such a good visit just a week and a half earlier, but what could we do. They pulled his tooth and he is fine.

Kyle decided this month that he is going to exercise every day. He made a list of the things he was going to do and has done it nearly every day since. Here is his list and a couple of pics of him doing his "backward Sit-ups" as he calls them. All I can say is this kids has a very strong back!!!

The other evening as I went to get Tiffany from school, I was backing out of the driveway and this is what I saw. I had to stop and take a picture to send to my dad.

I have to tell you how many fond memories are associated with a scene like this. Not only is it a beautiful site and evidence in my mind that there is a God and creator of this world, (for how else can something so beautiful come to be), but it brings back many memories of my father from my childhood. You see if ever you asked my dad what his favorite color was, he always responded "sky blue orange." To me that will always be a real color because my dad made it so. When he saw a beautiful sunset, or even a sunrise, he would point it out to us and say, "look kids, sky blue orange". I think of that everytime I blessed to see such a beautiful sight as the one above. Thank you dad!!

So, things are going well. We are all fairly healthy (though Kaylee and TIffany each missed a day of school recently for various reasons). It has been a much healthier year for us this year than last year was. (knock on wood) I sure hope it stays that way.

New Year, New Me

2011-01-02T19:15:00.002-07:00

So here it is, a new year. Many of us start the new year off with New Year's resolutions. So I have been thinking aout what things I want to do differently this next year and I sit down here and now to put those things on paper (or screen) and to make a record of what I plan to work on this year. (in no particular order)

1) Family History. I need to be a better and more frequent blogger. This is my family history and I need to do my best to keep it up to date and current. I was really bad last year about blogging. I feel terrible about all that I have missed blogging about. It is my hope that I can somehow catch up. In addition I want to get up to date on family scrapbooks. I am up to about 2007 right now, but really would like to get all the books up to date so all I have to work on in the future is the current year.

2) Excercise. What list of resolutions could ever be complete without this one. I want to get back into a regular exercise routine. I wouldn't mind losing a few pounds while I am at it, but the primary purpose I will be pursuing is fitness and health. I will set up a schedule for daily exercise and stick to it.

3) Family Home Evening and Family Scripture Study. I want to be better about maintaining consistency with both of these important family activities. We will incorporate a regular time for family scripture study to make it easier to remember to do it every day. We will also include Mike when he is out of town via phone call or web cam in both.

4) Personal devotions and church calling. I need to be better about my own prayers, scripture study and spending better time on my calling. I will set aside time every Sunday to work on my calling and send out the Relief Society recaps. I will begin and end each day with prayer and remember personal scripture study as well. I also will look for more opportunities to serve others in and out of the church. In addition, I will make a greater effort to go to the Temple more often.

5) Home organization. I need to set up a regular schedule for my own household responsibilites to aid in organizing the home and keeping it clean on a daily basis. I will divide household chores so that I do a portion of the cleaning each day of the week and make sure that I do all I need to. I will work on dejunking the basement and anything else that needs dejunking.

6) Chidren. I will work more with the children on their own personal chores and keeping their rooms clean. I will do better with follow up and making sure that they actually do what they are supposed to do before they are allowed to do the fun things they want to do. I will also work with them on better behavior and manners as well as being accountable for their actions. This will involve a family meeting to establish a new set of house rules and the consequences for breaking the rules to be agreed on by all members of the family.

7) Household Budget. Ugh I hate this, but it is very necessary. I need to do better about maintaining and following the household budget. I will set up the budget and keep it up to date by accounting for spending and working within the set budgets. As well as finding ways to cut the budget so that we can save more money and pay off the few loans we have.

8) Family Meals. I will get back into the habbit of preparing evening meals on a daily basis. I have been lazy this past year, doing quick, easy, (frozen and pre-packaged) meals for the kids when Mike has been away. But I know the importance of good home cooking and pledge to do more of it this year for the health of my family. This may include getting back on my Once a Month Cooking plan. I will also work on providing healthy snacks for the children and encouraging good eating habbits for them as well as for Mike and I.

9) I will continue to explore my creative side by hosting classes and workshops, creating new T-shirt designs for my cafe press shop, working on new scrapbook kits and designs, designing for Cherry Lime Boutique, and whatever else I can come up with this year.

Wow, that seems like a lot to do, but I know that if I set my mind to it, many of these goals can be accomplished very easily. I just have to set my priorities and schedule my time accordingly .

I am looking forward to a great new year and hope that by setting down these goals for myself, I can work towards bettering myself and my family in each category in some way. Now off I go towards a new year and a new me. May 2011 be the best year yet!!!

Another grandpa's funeral

2010-12-29T22:02:00.002-07:00

Today was a tough day. It was a day that I have known was coming for some time, but it doesn't matter how long you have to prepare, you are never really adequately prepared for the funeral of someone you love.

Several years ago, about 12 I think, my grandpa Thornock had a heart attack. He ended up having surgery and though we weren't sure if he would or not, he pulled through. He was pretty healthy for a few years after that until he had a stroke. The stroke took a lot from him. He became weak on one side and didn't get around quite as easily as he had before. Slowly he weakened, and eventually his body gave out. This past August, he was hospitalized for a pulmonary embelism (I think that's what it was). He was put on blood thinners to break up the clots in his blood. His blood was too thin though and his heart was having trouble. We knew it really was a matter of time.

This all happened about the same time grandpa Pierce was having troubles. He too had become very feeble. He was no longer eating much and the end of September I made the trip to Hawaii to join my family for his funeral. At that time I expected to return home only to have to head to Utah for a funeral for grandpa Thornock. But grandpa surprised us and for some unknown reason, he held on. My family and I were able to visit with him at the VA hospital for a brief time in October on our way to Las Vegas for Steve's wedding. He looked pretty good,though thin, and was in pretty good spirits. I was happy to have been able to visit with him for what I knew then would most likely be the last time I would see him alive. I was right.

In late November, I received a call saying that grandpa had become so weak they would no longer be able to do his physical therapy with him. This meant he would no longer get any exercise and spent all of his time in bed.

On December 21st I got the call that said he was doing quite poorly and was going to be going on hospice. I knew the end was close. On the 22nd I spoke to my dad and he said it hd been a particularly tough day for grandpa. He had been yelling and screaming for help. The help he wanted was from those on the other side. The hospice crew said that he may not make it through the night.

All of this was happening while my grandmother was in a hospital recovering from her own surgery. She had a hip replacement 2 weeks prior that was not healing so the doctor had to go in again, clean out the wound and stitch it shut. I have no idea why it wasn't stitched closed in the first place, but that is a whole different story. Anyway, grandma was in one hospital, grandpa in another. Grandma's doctors would not release her so she could go be with him on Wednesday night, so I prayed over and over again that night that grandpa would be able to hang on just a bit longer and that grandma would be well enough to be released the next morning and be able to spend some time with grandpa before he passed on. The next morning, I waited for a call. Every time the phone rang, I was afraid to answer. I was afraid it would be the call.

The call did come in about 2:25 that afternoon. My dad called to tell me that grandpa had passed from this life just a few minutes prior. He passed peacefully while he was sleeping with family, including grandma who had been realeased from the hospital an hour earlier, at his side.

I knew that prayers had been answered. Grandma was with him before he passed. He was waiting just for her so that they could have that last little bit of time together before he was gone.

So I prepared my family and the following Monday we came to Utah for the Funeral. The drive was great. We were able to visit with grandma and Tami on Monday shortly after our arrival. Grandma is such a strong woman. She is doing so well. She is healing from her surgery and handling the loss of her husband as well as anyone could expect.

Tuesady evening was the viewing. Grandpa looked great. The mortician did a great job with him. He looked so peaceful as if he was sleeping. It was a great teaching opportunity with my children and we discussed that his spirit was now in heaven and the shell of his body is left behind here on the earth. While we were looking at his body, his spirit was no longer inside it. He is in heaven. He is with my mother, and my sister, his parents and several of his siblings who have already passed on.

During the viewing, we visited with many family members and reminisced about grandpa. It was nice to have so many people who loved him there.

Today was the funeral. It was a beautiful service. The room was full of family and friends who knew and loved him. The opening prayer was given by uncle Doug, Talks were given by 4 of the grandchildren, one from each family. I spoke for my family. It was a difficult thing in many ways, but a blessing in others. My Aunt Georgine read the obituary, and aunt Tami gave a talk. Uncle George gave the family prayer, all present great grandchildren sang I am a Child of God, and Families Can Be Together Forever, cousin Mike sang two hymns, O My Father, and How Great Thou Art, and Tiffany closed the service by singing the hymn God Be With You Til We Meet Again (I had a proud mommy moment there, she did a great job),and my dad gave the closing prayer.

The talks reflected on memories we each had of grandpa, the kind of man he was, and the life he led. He is a great man and he will be missed.

One of the things that gives me comfort in dealing with this loss is that I know that my grandpa, my mother, and my sister are all together in heaven along with my grandma and grandpa Pierce and many other family members who have gone on before. Families are forever. What joy and peace these words bring. I know it to be true and will live everyday of my life that I can be worthy to return so that I too can be with them all in heaven.

As a side note, it has been said that now grandpa is strong, healthy, and he can eat whatever he wants as he will no longer be limited by celiac disease. That in itself is a wonderful thing.

So today we celebrated a great man and a life lived well. After the funeral service we went to the graveside service. The weather was terrible and to say that it was wet and muddy is an understatement. It was snowing a very wet snow, nearly rain and it was soooooo cold. But we listened to the 21 gun salute and watched as grandma was presented a flag as grandpa was laid to rest with full military honors. It was really cool. The prayer to dedicate his grave was given by my uncle Ken and then we all headed back to the church for a lunch provided by the wonderful sisters of the church. We visited more with family and shared stories and memories as we ate.

After all this we headed out into the snow to our hotel, changed clothes and then went back to grandma's house to visit with her some more. We had such a nice visit, and it was really hard to leave her when the time came. It felt so weird to be leaving her all alone in her house. She is a strong woman. She is a great example, and I love her so much.

Here is a link to grandpa's obituary.

MIKE

2010-12-23T14:37:00.002-07:00

Mike has been traveling like crazy. He has flown enough this year to earn enough miles to fly the whole family to Orlando, Florida to go to Disney World for spring break next year, so that should tell you how much he is traveling. He has been gone most weeks from Monday through Thursday or Friday. He gave up his apartment in Oklahoma in October and brought his stuff back home when he was promoted to a new position. He is now a Regional Manager managing 10 construction sites on Army bases in the western US including Alaska and Hawaii. He loves his job, the only thing that would make it better would be if he could be home more. That could happen with this new position once the projects all get going. He enjoyed camping with the family a couple times this year in the Colorado Mountains and wishes we could have gone more. In May he had a great opportunity to buy a new motorcycle. It is a Big Dog Mastiff (a custom motorcycle). He has thoroughly enjoyed riding his bike on the weekends when he has been home and the weather has been nice. Michelle is also enjoying riding with him on occasion. He loves movie nights with the kids, date nights with his wife and BYU sports. He is enjoying the beginning of the BYU Basketball season and cheering on a winning team. GO COUGARS!!!

MICHELLE

2010-12-23T14:32:00.000-07:00

Michelle has had a busy year. She has traveled to Utah twice, Chicago, Nashville and Hawaii. Not all of the trips were fun and exciting as two were for funerals, but the opportunity to see family was still great. We were saddened by the loss of Michelle’s paternal grandfather in September but relieved that his suffering was finally over and Michelle enjoyed a quick trip with her dad and all her siblings to Hawaii for grandpa’s funeral. As a family we also made 2 trips to Las Vegas for two of Michelle’s brother’s weddings. Those trips were all about celebration and spending time with family. They were great. Michelle and Mike had the wonderful opportunity to go on the Stake Pioneer Trek in July. They were called to be a Ma & Pa and lead a family over the 3 day, 36 mile hike pushing a handcart full of their gear. They had 9 children assigned to them and though the experience was physically demanding, it was amazing. The kids in their family were wonderful and it made it all so much fun. Michelle still enjoys digital scrapbooking and scrapbook design. She has taught two sessions of beginning digital scrapbooking classes and will be starting another session soon. Her T-shirt shop remains active (cafepress.com/mlsdesigns) and she sells an average of about 250 shirts per month. In addition, she has recently teamed up with a friend to help with a new business venture...Cherry Lime Boutique making and selling hair accessories. She is loving the creative aspects of this new business and is having tons of fun with it. You can check it out at cherrylimeboutique.com. Michelle has decided to step down from the PTA after 6 years as the Vice President and will do so in February. That will be a big change for her. She plans to stay involved in the kids’ school, but on a different level. So it’s been a busy year with kid’s sports and activities, church, kids’ school stuff, and just keeping up with the family, but she is loving life and happy as can be.

Here are some pics of our TREK family.

KYLE

2010-12-23T14:22:00.000-07:00

KYLE

Kyle is 6½ years old. He will turn 7 in May. He is currently in first grade and absolutely loves it. He is thriving right now as he is excelling in spelling, reading, and math. He truly enjoys learning and is having so much fun with his teacher. Kyle tried out wrestling in the beginning of the year, but he didn’t really like it. Maybe next year. During the summer, Kyle was able to play T-Ball. I don’t think he enjoyed it in the beginning, but by the end of the season, he was doing pretty well. He prefers to hit a ball that is thrown to him rather than hitting it off a T. I guess he will be ready for coach pitch this next year. We found out early this year that Kyle has vocal chord nodules. This is the reason for his husky, rough voice. While it is cute to listen to, we decided to see if we could get him some help to relieve those nodules. We went to a speech therapist and there found out that Kyle doesn’t use his diaphragm when he breathes or talks. Therefore he is unable to push air through his vocal chords with enough pressure to open them all the way. So for the last few months Kyle has been seeing a speech therapist to practice breathing and speaking using his diaphragm. We are hoping that over time this will relieve the irritation that is causing the nodules and that there will be no further damage. Aside from that, he is a healthy and happy little boy. He loves to play the Wii, watch TV, and do whatever his brothers are doing.

JACOB

2010-12-23T14:19:00.000-07:00

JACOB

Jacob will turn 9 years old later this month. He is a very busy and active boy and is growing faster than I can keep up with. He is now as tall as Ryan and out weighs him by a little bit. I am sure it won’t be long until I am looking up to him. Jacob had a big event in his life this year. On January 2nd he was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. This made him an official member of our church. Mom and Dad were so proud of his decision to be baptized and it was a very special day Jacob also wrestled in the beginning of the year, but didn’t enjoy it as much as Ryan did. He did however enjoy baseball in the summer. He has a great swing and plays awesome at first or third bases. During the season he was part of several great plays including a couple of double plays. He also had his tonsils out in the summer. After having a tonsil abscess in the spring, the swelling never went down, so we had them yanked out. He was a real trooper and made a pretty quick recovery. The hardest part for him was not being able to eat. Jake has a lot of energy and we are working really hard to help him control that energy and focus when he needs to. He is doing quite well in school and is a great friend. He likes playing with his brothers, playing the Wii, riding his bike and ripstick and rollerblading. He is learning to shoot a bow and even spent his own allowance this year to buy himself some arrows. He has been practicing his archery in the basement. He loves to be outside and hates doing homework.

RYAN

2010-12-23T14:02:00.002-07:00

RYAN Ryan, age 10½, was wrestling at the beginning of the year. Though we didn’t participate in any tournaments (because all of them were on Sunday), he did learn a lot of skills that he is using again this season. He is looking forward to next year when he can compete with the school. Ryan was voted school Historian for the Student Council for the last term of last school year. It was his job to take pictures and document school events. He enjoyed the job and did a great job. In the summer Ryan played baseball. It was great to watch him play. He is a really good hitter and can play almost any position he is asked. In the Fall, Ryan joined up for his first season of football. He had the chance to try out several different positions on the team. He played defensive end, running back, and offensive line. He scored one AMAZING touchdown by tucking his head and pushing his way through his opponents, had several great tackles, and a couple of sacks and fumble recoveries. He had great coaches and learned so much. His coaches called him a freak on the field saying he would do whatever they asked him to do. He’s very strong for his size and proved to be a great football player. His team went undefeated outscoring their opponents an amazing 114-22. He LOVED football and is looking forward to next season. He is making excellent grades in school and makes mom and dad very proud. He enjoys riding his bike and rollerblading. This summer he went roller blading with mom a lot through the park. He is super quick on his blades.

Here is a video of his touchdown too.

TIFFANY

2010-12-23T14:00:00.003-07:00

TIFFANY Tiffany, age 13, played on the middle school basketball team which went undefeated and became the 6th grade city champs. She followed the basketball season with Track & Field. She competed in the 100 meter, 4x100 relay, long jump and high jump. She too had a great season ending it on a high note with second place ribbons for both long jump and high jump. In May Tiffany was inducted into the National Junior Honor Society at her school. She sang in the school talent show and was later asked to perform in the end of year school pride assembly. She has an awesome voice and still LOVES to sing. She will also be singing again this month in the end of term pride assembly (by invitation) and sings in the school choir. Tiffany went to volleyball camp this summer. After 2 days in the camp for her age group she was asked to move up to the 9th grade group because her skills were more on that level. She is an excellent volleyball player. She earned a spot on the 7th grade varsity team and proved to be a very valuable and versatile player. She could play outside hitter and setter interchangeably as needed and even used a jump serve in one of her games during the season. She is an awesome net player and I hope to see her playing for many years to come. She is doing great in school and loves hanging out with her friends.

KAYLEE

2010-12-23T13:56:00.004-07:00

So I am posting this to recap our year since I have been such a terrible blogger this year. It will be in parts. One post for each of the kids. (it is from our Christmas Letter)

Kaylee

Kaylee, age 15 had a busy year this year. In February she had a second surgery on her little finger that was broken in Sept. 2009. This was to remove her screws and scrape away scar tissue in hopes of increasing mobility. After months of physical therapy, she still has very little movement in that finger, but she has not let it hold her back. In March Kaylee earned a spot on the Varsity Track & Field team. She competed in the 100 meter, the 200 meter, the 4x200 meter relay, and long jump. She had a great season by continually beating her own personal records and her 4x200 team took second at the city meet beating a school record in the process. She finished her middle school career by receiving a Presidential Silver award for Academics. She spent the summer playing volleyball at various camps and playing in a freshman league where her team went undefeated. In July she had the chance to go to EFY in Provo Utah. She had a great time and met lots of wonderful friends from all over. She also had the chance to go on the Stake Pioneer Trek and while she faced some challenges with her assigned family, she came out saying she would go again if she could. In August she started High School and made the Freshman Volleyball team. She had a great season with her team taking third place out of 12 in their division. She learned how to jump this year and proved to be wicked as an outside hitter. She improved her skills and became a real asset to her team. She has had a great year and is adjusting pretty well to high school. The big event for her this year was turning 15 and getting her driver’s permit. Now she drives pretty much anywhere we go together. She is doing great behind the wheel and is an excellent driver.

The last 2 weeks

2010-06-11T15:54:00.000-06:00

We have spent a lot of time the last couple of weeks at the pool. The boys are truly enjoying swimming, and I am loving the sunshine. Kyle has even been jumping off the diving board.

This past week, the girls have been doing a volleyball camp. It will continue through next week. I had the chance to talk with the coach on Tuesday. He wanted to move Tiffany from the 7th and 8th grade camp into the 9th grade camp that Kaylee is also in. He said her skills are much more advanced than the rest of the girls that were in the camp with her. (he moved 2 girls up, Tiffany is 7th grade) That made me very happy. She is doing well and so is Kaylee. He also told me that both of the girls have great skills and he would love to have them play with him in the volleyball club. The problem for us is that all the club games are on Sundays so we have chosen not to play in the club. He was very disappointed, but he said he understands. He went on to tell me that NOT playing club puts the girls at a huge disadvantage when it comes to making the teams in High School. He said that the girls that do not play club simply do not have the "connections" to make the teams in High School. That made me so angry. I think that when it comes to tryouts for the HS team, all girls she be looked at equally regardless of whether or not they play club. Skills should be evaluated and girls should make the team if their skills are good enough period. Well, I told my girls that they just have to work hard and if they want to play in HS, they will just have to prove that you don't have to play club ball to be good enough to play on the HS team.

The two older boys started baseball this week. It is so fun to watch them practice. Kyle will start T-Ball practice next week.

This week, I have been working hard to get ready for Relay for Life which is this weekend. I am really excited for the chance to walk. I have so far raised over $300 for the American Cancer Society. It feel so good just to know that in a small way I am doing something to help in the fight against cancer.

Today my kids and I have been busy making cotton candy and popcorn that will be sold at our booth at Relay. We made 135 bags of cotton candy and 75 bags of popcorn. LAst night we also made about 40 Fruity Pebbles Krispie Treats and 40 Cocoa Krispie Treats. This week I have also made some T-shirts that we will also sell there. Here are a couple of pictures of us working hard. I didn't get any pics while Kyle and JAke were working and of course since I was taking the pics there are non of me, but that's okay.

So much Time has Passed...(Again)

2010-05-30T22:00:00.002-06:00

It's amazing how quickly the time flies. So here is a quick recap of March, April, and May.

March...
Kaylee and a group of her friends performed a fun little dance for the Grammy Awards at Erwin. The song was called BOUNCE!!! They choreographed and practiced the dance for weeks in preparation. Then I helped them to make the costumes. It was so fun to watch them perform. Tiffany got to be a last minute fill in for one of the girls who ended up going out of town too. Bonus for Tiff!!!

We took a trip to Las Vegas for Spring Break. My brother Jeff got married to Erika. It was a beautiful sealing ceremony in the temple followed by lots of pictures and a totally fun reception. The dancing could have gone on all night I think. It was really great to see Jeff married and to know that he finally has someone to share his life with. And we are so happy to have Erika as a part of our family. It was also great to have all of my family together again. All of my siblings were there along with dad and Kay. In addition, Grandpa Pierce was here from Hawaii, Grandma & Grandpa Thornock came down from Ogden with Tami, Monica, Shandi, and Tonya. We also saw Heather and Kevin, and Yvette and her family too. It was great to see so many.

While in Vegas we took the opportunity to do a few fun things with my family. We did a hike out at Red Rock Canyon one of the days. We had a very large group. It was my whole family, Steve & Zack, Kevin's whole family and Jeff. It was a great time. We loved hiking around in the canyon, climbing on the rocks and just spending time together. We had a great time until Kyle took a dive into an agave plant and got plant spikes embedded in his leg. He had more than 12 puncture wounds in his leg and ended up in the urgent care to have one of them removed that had broken off under the skin surface. Ouch, it hurt. He was a real trooper though and with a little Novocaine, the spike was removed and he now has it in a test tube to shoe everyone.

We also had our traditional "Pierce Family Pizza Night". It was so much fun. We made lots of pizzas both deep dish and thin crust and had a real party. The pizza was so awesome, and the company was even better.

Mike and I took the kids up to the top of the Stratosphere. It was fun to look out at the whole city. Kaylee and Mike rode the big shot ride up on top. They loved it. The rest of us just watched from below. The rides up there look pretty scary.

Also in March, Jake got a tonsil infection. It apparently started as strep throat but his tonsils got infected and were HUGE!!! They are still huge today in fact, but the infection has long since been gone.

Tiffany played in the 6th grade basketball championships. Her team ended up winning the championship and went completely undefeated for the season. It was awesome. It was really great to watch her as her skills improved over the season.

Mike and I received a new calling from the Stake in March. We have been called to be Ma and Pa over a family of youth on the Pioneer TREK this summer. We are excited and nervous for this big event. We will be walking (pushing/pulling a handcart) with 6-8 youth ages 14-18 as we re-enact a portion of the handcart pioneer's trek across the country. We will be covering a 36 mile portion of the trail over 3 days and will be visiting landmarks like Martin's Cove and Rocky Ridge. It will be physically exhausting I am sure, but I am also sure that the spiritual benefits from this trip will far out-weight them. We are looking forward to it and preparing ourselves as well as we can.

April...
April brought with it Track season. Both girls were participating so the boys and I spent many afternoons in the stands at the track. The girls worked really hard and improved their own personal records with each meet.

Tiffany competed in the Long Jump, the High Jump, the 100 meter dash, and the 4x100 meter relay.

Kaylee competed in the 100 meter dash, the 200 meter dash, the 4x200 meter relay, and the long jump.

At the boys elementary school, I worked on the school carnival committee. There was a ton of hours involved in the planning, but the event was a HUGE success. Our silent auction produced a profit of $2500 and out overall profit for the carnival including the auction was $4600. That is the best we have ever done with one of our carnivals. The best part was that everyone had so much fun, it made all the work completely worth it.

May...
May brought all the final school events for the year. (much too quickly might I add) We had field day at centennial and I watched the boys play in many different events and games.

At Erwin, Tiffany participated in the school talent show. She sang Take a Bow by Rhianna. She did such a great job that she was asked to perform again at the Pride Assembly on the last day of school. For that she sang the Carrie Underwood version of "I'll Stand By You." Both of her performances were great!!!

The girls finished out their track seasons strong. Tiffany took 4th place in the 6th grade city meet in Long Jump, and her relay team took 5th place in the city meet as well. She did a great job and can be very proud of her efforts this season. Kaylee and her 4x200 meter relay team broke the school record by 3 seconds and ended up taking 2nd place at the city championship meet. She too had a great season and I hope she will continue her efforts in high school next year.

Speaking of High School, it is almost painful to admit that I will have a child in high school next year. Kaylee is now taller than me and she is such a beautiful girl. She has some really great friends and is doing so well in school. She received a Gold Presidential Academic Award for her grades this year. She almost had straight A's despite missing over 20 days of school. She stayed very organized and managed to stay on top of her school work despite 2 surgeries, swine flu, and another flu-like virus. She didn't get stressed out by the work load, but got her work done and managed to pull almost all A's for the year. She has worked really hard and I know she will do great in High School. I am so proud of all her hard work and her motivation to do well in school. She is looking forward to a very busy summer with volleyball camp, EFY in Provo, Pioneer TREK in July, and Girls camp in August in addition to volleyball open gym at the high school whenever she can.

From there I go to the opposite end of the family. In May, my baby, Kyle, turned 6 years old. The years have gone so fast and he is growing too quickly. It makes me sad to realize that he is so big now. Next school year he will be in 1st grade. He is a very smart little boy and I am so proud of him for all that he does. His teacher absolutely loved him this past year as she said he reminded her of her own son. He is looking forward to swimming at the pool this summer and playing t-ball.

Tiffany is a natural at almost anything she tries it seems. I was so proud of her over the school year. She worked very hard to improve her grades and she maintained about an A- average over the year. She also tried many new things and did well at them all. She played Volleyball for the first time and was a true asset to her team as a setter. She played basketball for the first time and improved her skills over the season to where she played very well. She did track and found that she was good at that too. She also continues in singing and is very talented there as well. I am proud of her for trying new things and not being afraid.

Jacob had a great year. He pulled really awesome grades for the year, had fun wrestling during the winter and is looking forward to playing baseball this summer. He loves to swim at the pool and ride his bike. He is still working on controlling his actions an behavior. He is a very busy boy and is constantly moving. He is also very loving and kind and makes me smile often.

Ryan finished out his fourth grade year in high fashion. He pulled an A+ on his biggest project of the year a replica of a Mesa Verde residence. He and I worked very hard on the project and he did a great job on it. He has been enjoying reading this year and has read almost the entire Fablehaven series. He has thoroughly enjoyed the series and will be looking for another book series to get into next. He pulled straight A's for the year and in addition he participated in the GT program at school which included extra work. In GT they studied the Presidents of the US this year and he learned a whole lot about many of them. He is looking forward to playing baseball again this summer followed by football in the fall.

My children continue to amaze me on a daily basis. Although we have good days and bad, days where they listen and are helpful and obedient, and days when they are stubborn and difficult. I am very proud of them overall. They are good kids. They are kind to others, and they generally make good choices. They are so smart and seem to be like sponges as they absorb sooooo mouch from the world around them. I am so grateful for each of them and the individual blessings they are in my life.

Mike continues to work in Lawton, Oklahoma from Monday through Friday each week. He is working hard and hopeful that it won't be too much longer before he will be able to spend more time at home again. We so love the weekends when he is home with us. He was recently released from his calling in church as the Gospel Principles teacher and was called to be a teacher for Ryan's class in Primary. I think he is enjoying the change, at least for now.

I continue to design T-shirts for my shop, dabble a bit in digital scrapbook design, I taught a 6 week digital scrapbooking 101 course in my home in March and will teach another session starting in the Fall, I am working on some new and exciting things for my Once a Month Cooking Project, and in my spare time I try to exercise a bit by roller blading around the park. Otherwise, the kids keep me really busy and I am absolutely loving hanging out at the pool so far this summer. I am looking forward to participating once again in Relay For Life in a couple of weeks as a tribute to my mom. Life

Well, this was super long, but for the sake of family history, I am now caught up again as best as I can be. I hope that I can do better in the near future to stay up to date!!!

The last 2 weeks

2010-02-26T16:26:00.000-07:00

Well, I had a great weekend visit with my family in Utah. We had a really nice gathering for Grandma & Grandpa's birthdays and I had a great time reminiscing with my cousins and aunts and uncles. Unfortunately I didn't remember to take pictures through the whole thing, so I don't have very many photos. I posted them all on facebook, so sorry if this is a repeat. We had tons of food, shared many memories, and lots of laughs.

After that quick and busy weekend, I came home to my family, spent a few hours with Mike and then he headed off to Oklahoma for the week. I started teaching a beginning course in Digital Scrpbooking using Photoshop Elements. I will be teaching the course once a week for 6 weeks. I have had two classes so far and I think it is going really well. I just hope the people in my class get what they need out of it. Depending on how this class goes and the feedback I get from it, I am considering offering another session of the beginning class and maybe a second class that would dig in even deeper with the fun things you can do for scrapbooking in Elements. I will also start advertising more generally if I do it again and try to get a bigger class. I guess we will see how it goes. I guess the best part is that I am enjoying the process of preparing for my classes and then walking through everything with my "students". Maybe that is in my blood a bit, afterall, my dad has been teaching dentistry for around 30 years I think, and my brother teaches a couple of classes for the State College of Southern Nevada on filmography and editing (I think that's what he teaches, I should really ask him sometime to be sure).

Kaylee had a second surgery on her little finger on the 17th. I am so glad we decided to go ahead with the surgery. We were having her screws removed, and a clean up of scar tissue with the goal of improving her range of motion, which had been very limited since her first surgery in September last year. (despite weeks and weeks of physical therapy). What the surgeon found when he opened her up was that her tendon was completely tied down by the scar tissue that had formed and there was no way she ever would have gotten that motion back without the surgery. So he removed the screws (which were bigger than I ever would have expected) and released her tendon. So we are very glad we did it. Today in therapy she actually got to a 90 degree bend, and that is just 8 days after surgery, and a huge improvement. She is getting ready for track season to start on March 8th. We are hoping she is ready.

Last Thursday, Tiffany had her last regular season Basketball game. Her team won the game by just one point. It was an intense game, bu they pulled it off in the end. That leaves them undefeated for the season with a record of 8-0. The team they beat ended up 6-2. They will have the conference championships next weekend. If all goes well, they will be the city champs for 6th grade basketball. MOst of the girls on the team were also on their champion voleyball team too. So that is really cool. Then the week after the basketball championships Track season starts. Tiffany plans to run and do the long jump. We will see how that goes too.

Ryan had a birthday this week. He turned 10. I can hardly believe it. He is having his birthday party today with a few of his friends. They are playing dart tag and Wii, having pizza, and cake and ice cream. It should be fun.

Jake is enjoying school. It makes me so happy to go to parent teacher conferences and hear how well he is doing. Apparently he listens to his teacher much better than he does to me. But I guess that is good in mnay ways.

Kyle is learning to rollerblade with his brothers and is doing great. All of the boys have been spending time in the basement every day roller blading or riding their ripsticks for the last month. They are working on a "Schools on the Move"challenge where they are supposed to log all there physical activities for the month of February. IF they do a certain amount they get a free t-shirt. It is so fun to watch them get so into this challenge. It makes me happy because it gets them active in the winter when they tend to be less active normally.

Mike has had a long week away this week. He left on Sunday and will just get home tonight (Friday). We are happy to have him home for the weekend.

Well, that's it for now.

I'm going on a TRIP!!

2010-02-10T10:32:00.000-07:00

Yes, I said I am going on a trip. Just me!!! I have been blessed with a wonderful husband who so understood my desire to be at the birthday party for my grandparents (gma 80 years and gpa 85 years) in Utah that even when it was determined that the whole family would not be able to go (that's a story I will get to in a minute) he made it possible for me to still go. And even better, my trip will be virtually free since he was able to use his frequent flyer miles, and car rental certificates to get me free travel and car rental.

I am sad that my family will not be able to be there for the big event. But I am so glad that I can still go. My dad and my brothers will all be up for the weekend too. So it is sure to be a fun time.

I was asked to create the invitation for the party and I did that a couple of weeks ago. Here is what it looks like.

I am real happy with how it turned out. Anyway, I am heading off early on Friday morning and will get back home on Monday morning. The hard part with taking a weekend trip by myself is that Mike will get home late Thursday night and I will leave Friday, return Monday, and he will leave again Monday night. So we won't get to see much of eachother this weekend while he is home. Hopefully he will have some quality time with the kids in my absence.

Now as for why the family couldn't go on this trip. Originally our plan was for the whole family to head out for the weekend trip. We would leave Friday and return on Monday which is a school holiday. It was perfect since it is a 3 day weekend. Then came the letter from the school that Tiffany has missed 11 (yes i said ELEVEN) days of school so far this year. It said she cannot miss any more days without a doctor's note. AND, Kaylee has missed even more school. She is up to 16 days now between her surgery, swine flu, and whatever this nasty virus was they all just got over. Kaylee will also miss some school for her surgery on the 17th. So Mike and I decided we just can't take them out of school for the Friday to make the trip. It was a tough decision, but it feels right anyway. The good things coming from the decision to stay home are; the girls can go to the school dance on Friday, Kaylee can go to her friend's birthday party Friday night, Tiffany can play in the school basketball game on Saturday, Mike can go watch her play in a basketball game (he misses most of them because they are on Wednesdays while he is gone), and Ryan can get his award for a poem he wrote on Saturday. So there is good in the midst of it all.

Well, I am looking for a little weekend getaway and a visit with my granparents and extended family up in Ogden. I am sure it will be a nice weekend.

A Little Facelift and Home Organization

2010-02-08T22:30:00.000-07:00

I gave my blog a little facelift today. It was time for some change!!

So, I have been working on a whole house reorganization project over the last few months. I found a great book called "House of Order Handbook- The Best Way to An Organized Life". It has some great tips in it, that are really helping me to make some changes in our home.

The biggest problem is convincing the kids to help keep things organized. I am sure it will settle in some time that if they put things away when they are done with them, the house will stay much neater eliminating the constant need to clean up. (which they hate to do of course)

One of the biggest changes I have made in my life and home is with organizing myself and my time. I made a great spreadsheet calendar for the week. I have divided my weekly household chores up so that each day I have some work to do. The nice thing about this is that if I follow my schedule for the week, I never have to spend a whole day cleaning house and when the weekend comes and Mike is home, we don't have to spend that valuable time doing housework. This has been a huge change for me and for the last 5 weeks I have poretty much followed my schedule. I simply add in any appontments for the week and print up a new calendar each week and hang it on the magnet board above my desk.

I am sure this will be an never-ending project, but it is fun to see some of it working.

Last week I cleaned out and organized the kitchen pantry. It is so wonderful to have it neat and tidy, but I have to tell you what sparked that job. We have been having a bit of trouble keeping Jacob out of the food. He is a little sneak and is constantly sneaking into the pantry and cupboards to get snacks. He is starting to pack on a few extra pounds, and we need to do something to eliminate the in between meal snacking. So we decided to buy an alarm for the pantry door. In order for this to be successful, I had to make sure all the food was in the pantry, so I had to reorganize, clean up and move extra stuff from the cupboards into the pantry. The good news is, I think it is working. I can hear anytime the pantry door is opened (the alarm is annoying too) and I can deter him from getting anything extra to eat. I hope this works, because the next step is to actually put a lock on the pantry door and I really don't want to have to do that.

Anyway, I guess I better be going. I'm not sure what the next project will be, probably organizing the food storage in the basement. Yippee!

The month of January

2010-02-04T20:59:00.000-07:00

This past month has been pretty rough for our family. We have had so much sickness in our home. It started off with Kyle the beginning of January. (following his illnesses during the holidays) He had high fevers, and headache for about a week. The next week was Kaylee's turn, she was home from school for 3.5 days with high fever and headache. Then came Ryan, he had a little bit different time of it. He still had the headaches and fever, but he also had stomache ache and vomiting. He was home from school for 3 days. Next came Tiffany home for an entire week with headaches, fever, and vomitting. Now, this week is Jacob's turn and he has been home for 2.5 days with headaches, fever, chills, and vomiting. Yuck!! I sure hope we are through with it and we don't start a second round through the kids.

Thankfully (knock on wood) I have not been sick. I have cleaned carpets twice though and there has been plenty to do in the care of the kids when they have been home in addition to my whole house organization project that is moving forward, if rather slowly, and all the normal everyday household chores. I am working towards teaching a digital scrapbooking class. I am still working out all the details, but I am hoping to start it later this month if I can get enough ladies interested in taking the class. It will be 6 weeks with one 1.5 hour class per week for $40. I will teach the basics of how to create digital layouts along with some of the styles and techniques I have found useful over the years. If you would be interested in taking my class, and live close by, let me know.

Mike continues to travel. He has been leaving on Sunday afternoons and getting home on Thursday nights. Last week he got caught in a bad ice storm down in Lawton. His apartment lost power, his flight got cancelled for coming home, the airport remained closed the next day, and he ended up driving 3 hours to Dallas on Friday in order to get home. He was home for less than 48 hours and was on his way back again. He is working hard and the job is in full swing. He is at least happy to be working even if it is far away.

Tiffany started playing basketball. She missed her first game because she was sick, but she was able to play today and had a great game. The team has won both of their games so far and is looking good for the city championships next month. We will see how the rest of the season goes. Tiff is pulling straight A's this year and is loving Middle School.

Kaylee has been working very hard. She took an afterschool position to work as the school wrestling team manager. She is in charge of the team equipment, records, weigh ins, etc. She is doing a great job and the coach told me she is one of the best managers he has ever had. She is still pulling straight A's despite missing tons of school this year. I think she has missed almost 15 days. Yikes. Like I said this winter has been really rough on our family. We found out this week that Kaylee will be having a second surgery on her pinky finger. (more school to miss) She still has very limited range of motion so the surgeron is going to go in and remover her screws and scrape out the scar tissue. The hope is that she will be able to start moving it sooner this time around since we don't have to worry so much about the bone healing so hopefully she won't form so much scar tissue. This should increase her range of motion and hopefully get her back to 100% just in time for track season followed by conditioning for the high school volleyball team.

Ryan, Jacob, and Kyle just finished their wrestling club season. They had a lot of fun and by the time the season was ending, they finally figured out what they were supposed to be doing. Ryan and Jake had their pinewood derby last week. They both designed and pretty much built their cars themselves. They had a little bit of help from mom and dad, but they did the majority of the work. The derby was so much fun. They had a blast watching their cars run the races. Ryan ended up taking 4th place and got the Blue Streal award and Jacob ended up in 6th place and took the Tricked out Truck award. Here are a couple of pics of them with their cars.

The boys are all doing well and are loving school.

So in the last 2 weeks I have taken on and pretty much completed a fun project. I have redecorated Kaylee's room. She had been complaining that her room was so "BORING". I agree, it was, since we had done nothing to it since moving in to this house 2.5 years ago. She had a very specific idea of what she wanted so I ended up making a quilt for her bed, since we couldn't find this color combo in any of the stores. I also built a platform bed and headborad, made pillows, refinshed and painted her nightstand, covered a lamp shade, refinished a shelf to coordinate, and painted some decor items to match as well. We are still contemplating repainting her dresser and vanity/desk black to match. It was super fun. Here are the results.

Next project (some time in the next couple of months) will be Tiffany's room . Of course we also would like to get busy framing in some portions of the basement too. I guess we will see how it goes. Well, I guess that is about all for now.

Jacob's Baptism

2010-01-19T16:14:00.001-07:00

I am a little bit later than I had planned posting about this, but we had a very wonderful day on January 2nd. Jacob was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We had a wonderful service where talks were given by Kaylee, and by my dad. And then, Jacob was baptized and confirmed a member of the church by his dad. We were so happy to be joined by family and friends for his special day and we are so proud of Jacob for making the choice to be baptized. After the service we had a great lunch at our house with all the family members who were in town. My dad and Kay came from Las Vegas for the weekend, and Mike's sister Teresa and her family were here from Utah for the weekend. It was a very special day!!! It is hard for me to believe that we will just have one more baptism in our family. The children are all growing so fast!

Wow has it really been that long...

2010-01-04T13:07:00.001-07:00

Since my last post...

-Mike moved in to his apartment in Oklahoma where he will be living Sunday night through Thursday night each week while he is working down there.

-Tiffany turned 12. I don't seem to have any pictures from that though.

-I had a NEW MOON Girls Night out with my friends. It was a total blast!!!

-We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with Mike's parents, his sister Kari and her family and his sister Debbie and her family from California.

-Made candy with mom Sims, Kari and Tammy. It was a full day with lots of chocolate and fun times for all.

-Kaylee had a birthday. She turned 14, had a big party and a great time!!

-The boys had their Holiday Concert for school.

-Mike's company party took the two of us to Colorado Springs for the party and a night away without the kids. It was so relaxing!

-I turned 38...did I really just say that? Ugh I am sooo old!

-We attended the ward Christmas Party where we were asked to perform a skit as a family. Each of us was given a character of some sort and had to act out the story as it was being told completely impromptu. Jacob was a dog in the skit and true to his nature, he crawled around the stage lifting his leg as a dog would to pee on everything in sight. Despite being completely humiliated as a mother I was quickly able to see the humor in the situation and was so glad when others from the audience told me how cute they thought it was. Once again I found myself saying "Oh Jacob!!"

-Tiffany made the 6th grade varsity basketball team. Practices start after the holiday break. Go Wildcats!

-Kaylee, Ryan and Jacob went snowboarding for the first time. I wasn't there so there are unfortunately no pictures of this great day. BUMMER!

-The girls had their middle school Choir concert.

-We had Christmas Eve and Christmas Day celebrations and big meals. Christmas Eve we had Kari and Deron and Deron's parents Craig and Linda over for dinner and festivities. We even had a special guest stop in with presents for everyone. It was so much fun. We had a big dinner of ham and potatoes with all the extra goodies. On Christmas day we had a big fried turkey dinner with all the fixings. We had a great Christmas!!

-We went sledding/practice snowboarding at the hill at the park. All the kids got some fun practice snowboards for Christmas. Even Kyle was snowboarding down the hill. It was so much fun!!!

-We had Jacob's 8th birthday. I can't believe he is 8 years old. WOW the time flies!!

-And we rang in a new year with Mike's parents and his sister Teresa and her family and Pete and his family. Hooray for 2010. Hopefully it will be a good year. ( and maybe I will be better about blogging than I have been the last few months)

-Mike spent almost two full weeks at home with us. It was great!!!

Halloween and More

2009-11-05T10:08:00.009-07:00

We had a big snow storm last week. On Wednesday it snowed about a foot here in Loveland. It was awesome. The kids had a couple days off of school for Parent Teacher Onferences and had lots of fun playing in the snow. We even went sledding on Friday. The temperatures have gone back up and it has been really nice this week. All of the snow has melted and for the first time in several years, we had great weather for Halloween. Usually it snows or rains and is very cold for Halloween. This year, I guess the snow just came a bit early.

Here are some pics of the kids from Halloween.

My Blue Man Group

Little Red Riding Hood

Pics of Kaylee coming soon.

The kids had a great time Trick-or-Treating. They got way more candy than we need. I am trying to spread it out so they don't rot their teeth out of their mouths. They only get a couple of pieces a day and they are handling that pretty well.

We woke up on Halloween to a mess in the front of our house. One of Kaylee's friends got us good!! Silly string, crepe paper streamers, toilet paper, paper shreds, confetti, post it notes, and so much more. Someone was very busy and I have no idea how we never heard them. I will say that I was very grateful the two boys came and washed off the residue from the silly string from my front door.

The boys all started wrestling last week. It is so fun to watch them. Kyle is doing great. He is such a little scrapper. This week, he was paired up with a little boy his size who was really mean. They were practicing take downs and Kyle did his take down and every time Kyle took him down, the other boy cried. Yet when it was the other boy's turn, he took Kyle down and beat the crap out of him (illegally) by punching him in the face, kicking him in the crotch, and jumping on him. Kyle was really good and did not retaliate, that made me proud. Jake is learning how it all works and because he is so strong he is often the last one left in the circle when they play a game called push out. They all try to push everyone else out of the circle. He's a tough guy. Ryan is doing well also. He is learning the moves and is doing quite well with his take downs too. I will have to get some pictures of them wrestling to post later.

The girls are staying really busy too. Tiffany just started a new session of Volleyball. SHe is excited to keep up her schools and work hard to prepare for next season. Kaylee is still doing physical therapy on her finger. It is healing nicely and hopefully soon she will have full range of motion again.

The kids brought home their report cards last week and it was so wonderful to see their grades. 4 of the kids get letter grades (Kyle doesn't in Kindergarten) and on those 4 report cards, it was all A's and only 3 B's. I was amazed and so proud of all their hard work. Kyle's marks were very good too and he is doing great in kindergarten.

Mike moved into his new apartment in Oklahoma this week. It is weird to think of the fact that my husband has a separate residence in another state. But it will be so nice for him to not have to stay in hotels all the time anymore. He will be working there for about a year so it makes sense for him to set up a more permanent residence, even if it is temporary. We sure miss him when he is away, but have settled into our own routine and we are managing okay without him. He makes it home every Friday and heads back to work on Monday mornings. He is hoping that it will be a Monday thru Thursday thing in Oklahome soon so he can have 3 days home with us.

As for me, I stay busy enough with the kids, house, homework, etc., etc., but I have opened up a new card shop online. If you haven't seen it yet, check it out here. I am doing custom photo cards. You choose from any of my card styles, send me your photos, pick your font and sentiment and I create your card for you. Then I send you the jpeg file and you take it to get printed. Here is a sample of one of my favorites.

Also for any Twilight fans, only 15 more days until New Moon. Yippee!! I can't wait. I am heading to see the movie with a bunch of my girlfriends. We are all getting special shirts for the occasion. Speaking of shirts, I have some new shirts in my t-shirt shop, you can check out my t-shirt shop here. There are some great Twilight and New Moon shirts for your movie night!

Well, I think that is about all for now.

2009-10-18T18:30:00.002-06:00

Well, Kaylee had her surgery and all went well. While she was home recovering, Tiffany was sick for 3 days. It turns out she probably had H1N1, which Kaylee then got also. Tiffany missed 3 days of school and between Kaylee's finger and H1N1, she missed 8 days of school. She did sneak back in to school on the Wednesday and Friday after her surgery. Wednesday proved to be too much too soon and she spent all of Thursday in bed, but felt well enough to go back on Friday. Then on Sunday she spiked a fever and missed another 4 days of school thanks to the Flu which copletely kicked her butt (probably because she was just recovering from her surgery). Thankfully Kaylee and Tiffany were the only ones that got the flu and everyone else has managed to stay healthy. Both girls are doing well and this H1N1 wasn't really all the media has hyped it up to be. Thank Goodness!!!

I have once again been dealing with some of my own medical issues. Sometimes I wonder what is going on with me, I am too young to have had so many health issies (my doctor even told me that this week). I have had right lower quadrant abdominal pain for a full week now. It started last Sunday night and was so bad I laid in the fetal postition and cried for a few hours until I finally fell asleep. When I woke up in the morning the pain wasn't near so bad. I have continued to have pain off and on all week so I went to the doctor on Friday. She sent me for an ultrasound and while they don't think it is anything serious, I will be going to see the GYN (yippee) soon to discuss my options. Have I mentioned that I hate going to the doctor? In addition I have to go in tomorrow to have a bunch of labs. They will be checking my kidneys, liver, thyroid, blood counts etc. to figure out what else might be going on. yay me!

Today was the kids' primary program in church. Once a year the primary kids ages 3-11 and their teachers do a program in our sacrament meeting. Each of the children is given a part to say and they sing the songs thay have been learning in primary each sunday throughout the year. The theme this year was My Eternal Family. The kids did a great job and it made me so proud when my little ones stood up at the podium and said their parts. Even Kyle said his little part without any help. It was a great meeting. I always enjoy watching the children sing.

I also had a chance today to teach relief society. I haven't done that for such a long time. I was so nervous, but the lesson went quite well. I am always grateful for class participation and we had lots of it today. The lesson was also on families and the eternal nature of our family relationships. I cried, of course when we talked about parents. But I guess that is okay. I still don't really have a calling in church yet. It's weird because it has been over 2 months since I was released from the young women program. I don't think I have gone this long without a calling since I was 18 years old. Well, I guess technically I do have a calling as the YW assistant volleyball coach, but we only have a couple more games left. I am anxious to see what the Lord has in store for me next.

Everyone is doing well. I will be working this week on cleaning the basement and organizing a bit more around the house as well as finishing up the kids' halloween costumes. I am so excited about the costumes we are doing for the boys. It is going to be so much fun. I will post pictures next week. We have the ward Halloween party this weekend. It will be a blast.

Well, I suppose that is all for now.

September has come and gone...

2009-10-01T21:19:00.009-06:00

Wow, has it really been that long since my last post? I am getting so bad at this. I can't believe that September is already over!!!

So, what have we been up to around here? The kids are doing great in school. Everyone has been working hard and they all seem to be getting really good grades.

Kaylee and Tiffany have been playing Volleyball. Both girls made the varsity teams for their grades and both girls have played very well.

Tiffany plays setter and she has learned so much. She had never played an official game of volleyball before, but you would never know it watching her. She plays well and she plays hard. Her team took the city by storm and won the 6th grade championships last week. Here are a couple of pics of her.

Tiff has a great serve and often goes on a run of unreturned serves they call that an ACE!!!

Tiffany has also surprised us with her grades this year. She has always been a good student, she has always had B's with an A or 2 thrown in, but right now she is pulling straight A's and most of her averages are over 100% thanks to her enthusiasm for doing extra credit. I am so proud of how hard she is working this year. I knew she had it in her, she just had to figure it out for herself. Go Tiff!! She and I had the chance last week to go with her volleyball team to CSU to watch a college volleyball team play. It was so much fun and amazing to watch. Now she knows how hard she is going to have to work if she wants to play on that level.

Kaylee plays "Outside Hitter" on the 8th grade team and has improved her skills so much over the last year. She is very aggressive and plays really well. Here are a couple of pics of Kaylee playing.

She has an awesome serve!!

She saved this one, she got under it and got it up just enough for someone else to hit it.
Her team will be playing in the Conference Championships this Saturday, however she will be watching from the bench after a season ending injury to her pinky finger led to surgery and two screws this week. It was a freak thing that happened, as she was catching a ball off a serve in practice, it popped up and caught her finger just right and broke it bad!!! Here is the x-ray.
She is so disappointed to miss the last few games of the season, but we are hoping that all goes well in her healing and she is able to get back on the court soon to get ready for next year. She too is pulling straight A's and is working hard. Though now she is a bit stressed from missing 4 days of school thanks to her injury. She has some work to make up, but I know she will pull it off. I have been able to help her by scribing for her with some of her work. (Did I mention she injured her right hand and she is right handed?) She will do fine and be caught back up in no time. She is enjoying time with friends this year and has been attending football games for the high school with them and hanging out whenever possible.

Ryan decided to run for Student Council Historian. He had to come up with a campaign, make posters, and give a speech. He chose a concept of Harry Potter for his campaign and used the idea to make posters that said "Harry says vote for Ryan" and used different characters from the books. Then in his speech he acted like he was Harry Potter recommending Ryan for the job. It was good. He was elected out of 7 who were running for that position. He is following in his sisters' footsteps. Both girls were also Historian in 4th grade and both went on to be elected President in 5th grade. Go Ryan I am so proud of you. Mom and dad were unable to watch him give his speech since dad was out of town for work and mom was at surgery with Kaylee, but Grandma went and got a picture for us. She said he was very confident and did a great job on his speech. Here is a picture of him giving his speech for the elections. He also received an award today for good work in his daily language exercises. He is a great student and doing really well in 4th grade so far. He has been reading the Fablehaven book series by Brandon Mull and is really enjoying that.

Jake is active as ever and is a bottomless pit to boot. He is always hungry and can never get enough until it comes to meal time when he is suddenly not hungry for what I have cooked, oh how frustrating!! I have squashed the snacks (he hates that) but we have stopped buying chips and other things that he likes to sneek. He is doing well in school and I am so proud of him for working so hard. He has been reading some Henry and Mudge books and is wanting to start reading Harry Potter too. Go Jake!!

Kyle has come alive and I am so happy with our decision to put him in all day kindergarten. Before, he wouldn't write anything for me, he wouldn't practice his letters, write his name or anything. I knew he could, but he wouldn't practice for me. Now he comes home everyday to do his (self-imposed) "homework." Last week he had Mike help him make a book to practice his letters and he does a couple of pages each day. He has also made his own numbers book now too so he can practice his numbers as well. He is thriving in school and I am so excited to see his improvements. Here is a picture he drew of our family.

As for me, I have been busy with the girls' volleyball games, homework, housework, volunteering with school projects, digital scrapbooking, and cooking. I recently learned how to make bread thanks to my mother in law. I then filled in for her to teach a class about it at our enrichment meeting. I have since been making a couple of loaves of bread each week. The kids love the homemade wheat bread and it has been kind of fun. I also had a cook day with my friends a couple weeks ago and enjoyed that as well. I especially love having all the meals in the freezer. I have been working out on a regular basis and I must say I am glad to have a workout space in the basement. I have been combining cardio (on the treadmill) with weights to give myself a pretty well rounded workout. Though I haven't noticed a difference on the scale yet, I am noticing that I am toning up a bit. Hooray!!! Overall, I am doing really well.

Mike is back to traveling agin. We enjoyed having home for almost a month. He is arranging for an apartment in Lawton, Oklahoma where he will be living Monday through Friday every week starting in November. It's hard on all of us to have him away so much, but we are managing and we are so grateful that he has such a great job. The benefits alone have been a huge help this year with 2 surgeries again for the second year in a row. Everyone loves the weekends around our house. We spend our time together as a family, Mike and I have date night and we just treasure the little time together.

Well, I think that about catches us up on what is going on around here, so that is all for now.

Back To School

2009-08-19T10:55:00.004-06:00

Well it is official, I finally have the house to myself. All the kids are in school now ALL DAY. It has been a crazy week so far. Tiffany started 6th grade on Monday, Kaylee started 8th grade on Tuesday, and the boys all started today. (Ryan 4th, Jake 2nd, Kyle Kindergarten) It is a little sad in some ways to realize that all the kids are in school all day. I can't believe how fast life is going lately.

Everyone keeps asking me what I am going to do with all the time I am going to have to myself now and I really don't know the answer to that question. I think I will spend some time getting the house reorganized. We have lived here almost 2 years now and though I organized things pretty well when we moved in, some of that has been lost. So my first order of business will to be to reorganize and clean the house. It is my hope that if I can redefine the proper place for everything to be put away the kids will do that and the house will be easier to keep clean. I can hope right? Once I get that project done, I will think about what comes next.

So, Kyle was the only one who let me take his picture today. So here are a couple of pictures of our big boy on his first day of school. Here he is in front of the marque at the school. NOtice he is wearing his favorite color shorts (orange). He picked them out at the store and said, "mom you have to buy me these shorts! " I asked, "why?" he said "cuz their my favorite color" It was like duh mom why do you think?
These are some of Kyle's friends from church who are all also starting Kindergarten today.Here he is with his teacher (believe it or not). She is the tiniest little lady but so full of personality. He is going to have a great year!And here he is the first in line ready to go into the school. He was so excited!!! Well, I guess that is all for today. I will have to blog later about the visit I had with my sister last weekend.

Camping and Being released

2009-08-09T21:25:00.003-06:00

We had a wonderful week last week. We spent Monday at Water World as a family. It was a great day to be there except for a short period of time in the early afternoon that we had a bit of wind and rain. Thankfully that didn't last long and we were able to enjoy the rest of the day. The water slides were a ton of fun and the kids had a blast riding the slides and playing in the wave pool.

I worked very hard on Tuesday and Wednesday to complete a slide show from girls camp. I attended 2.5 of 4 days at girl's camp this year and had a great time. Our Young Women are so amazing. The slide show included over 200 photos of our girls in their various activities. I loved putting the slide show together and it turned out really good. We had our camp awards night on Wednesday and had a great time reminiscing about camp.

On Thursday, Mike and I packed up the gear, trailer and the family and headed into the mountains for a camping trip. We camped with 6 other families and had a great time. The weather was wonderful and the campground was amazing. We camped at Dowdy Lake and everywhere you looked was a beautiful view. The kids played in the lake, went fishing, hunted for crawdads and just enjoyed being with their friends. For Mike and I it was a pretty relaxing camping trip. Now that the kids have gotten so big, they don't require quite so much attention and we let them run and play all day. On Friday me and all the other moms took a little walk around the lake. It was a simple little walk, but was very beautiful and so peaceful without any of the kids. Thursday night I made the BEST camping desert we have ever had. We made homemade ice cream in bags(which has become a tradition when we camp lately, thank you Mel) and I made dutch oven apple cobbler to go with it. It was sooooo good.

While camping we fished a ton, actually we cast out a ton, we never caught anything. Kyle loved casting out and reeling in his line. We saw so many fish jumping I don't know how we never caught anything, but we had a total blast trying anyway. Sadly, our camping trip came to an end and we headed home. Now the piles of laundry await and things need to be put away and I need to recapture my house. I got a good start on those things yesterday but have quite a bit more to do tomorrow.

Finally the last of my blog for today is to tell about my sadness over being released from my calling in church today. I have been serving in the Young Women's program for over 4 years. I have enjoyed serving in that capacity so much. I have worked with the girls ages 14-18 the whole time. I have sent numerous girls off to college, seen several girls get married, watched them grow and learn and mature in so many ways. I have also grown so very close to so many and have so enjoyed being a part of their lives. I have been confidant to some, a shoulder to cry on to others, given support when they needed it, offered encouragement when necessary, and I hope I have been a friend. I certainly consider them my friends and hope that they will all stay in touch. It is so hard for me to think about not being involved with them in this capacity anymore. It makes me sad and I have literally cried for a good part of the day. I know that the Lord will have some other postition for me to serve in and with time, I will grow to love those I serve there too, but it doesn't make this any easier right now. I love the Young Women's Program and feel so blessed to have had the opportunity to work with so many wonderful young women. I will miss them all so much!!!

Well, that is enough for now.

Late July

2009-08-02T21:00:00.000-06:00

July was a busy month. I had the wonderful opportunity to go to Girls Camp with the Young Women in our ward. The theme was Everday Heroes and I learned a bit about the heroes that I work with in our ward. The young women in our ward offered so much service to one another. They worked hard when they had assignments and were commended for it. I was so proud of them. Our girls are amazing!!! I have been enjoying some time with the kids at the pool, though the weather this summer has n ot cooperated as well as I would have liked and we have had tons of rain this year. It has spoiled several of our pool days as well as other plans too. Oh well, there's not much we can do about the waether.

The boys all finished a second session of swimming lessons and all passed their second levels off this summer. Ryan completed level 5, Jake completed level 4 and Kyle completed level 2. Kyle went from being afraid of the water at the beginning of the summer to being a complete fish. He is swimming all over the pool with no floaties. He can dive to the bottom to retrieve his toys and he just loves it. Swimming lessons were well worth the money paid this year.

The boys are all looking forward to school starting next week and will have fun since it will be the three of them at the elementary school all day this year.

Tiffany finished up her season of softball. She had a great season. Her coach suggested that she try out for the Rage softball program here in town, but because of finances and the fact that they often play on SUndays we have decided not to do it. I hope she finds comfort in the fact that I am positive she would have made the team if she would have tried out. Now she is looking ahead to starting middle school and volleyball tryouts that are just over a week away.

Kaylee has had a crazy busy summer. She has done lots of babysitting and mowed the lawn for grandpa & grandma while they were on vacations, as well as our own lawn. So she has been able to make some money this summer. She has also spent a great deal of time with her friends and has enjoyed watching friends baseball games, playing in the river, walking all around town, spending the night at friend's home and so much more. I think she has had a fun summer.

As for Mike, he actually has had a couple of weeks at home. It has been really nice. He will be heading off again this week to Oklahoma for a couple of days. Since he is still in the preconstruction phases of the project, he hasn't had to travel quite as much. But the weekly travel will be starting up again all too soon.

Well, I think that pretty much catches us up to present.

Pics from reunion, almost stitches, turtle, and more

2009-07-17T19:34:00.006-06:00

Okay so it's been almost a month and I finally got my pictures from the family reunion uploaded for your viewing pleasure. You can check out my whole album here. I am in the process of collecting pictures taken by other members of the family as well so that I can compile a book about our adventures.

I know I am a major slacker lately on this blog. The summer is so busy. This week we had a youth activity and we took the kids boating. It was a great time. The kids got the chance to go tubing and wake boarding. Kaylee enjoyed wake boarding a lot and can't wait to go again. We ended the night in the ER though. Kyalee cut her knee on the step in the water on the back of the boat. It was a pretty good slice so I took her in. She was so nervous about getting stitches so we said a little prayer that she would be comforted. A few minutes later the doctor came in and said "The good news is, it doesn't look like it will need stitches, I should be able to take care of it with steri strips." Keep in mind this is after the triage nurse had already said it would definitely need stitches. Kaylee was so relieved and grateful. I was relieved that I wasn't going to have to try and hold her down for stitches. I don't think I could have done it, she is as tall as me now. Here are a couple of pics. ( I know, it's gross) So she got a couple of steri strips to put her back together. They covered that with a big bandage and an ace wrap to keep her from bending her knee too far and splitting it back open. Believe it or not that took over 2.5 hours. We sat for over an hour after the doc finished waiting for a bandage and discharge papers. The doc came back in and said "Are you still here? I was finished with you an hour ago, let me see what I can do to get you out of here." Fifteen minutes later we were finally out the door.

On another note, I am getting ready for Girl's Camp next week and very excited to be able to spend a couple of days up at camp with the girls in our ward. It is going to be a fun time. I have been keeping busy with my scrapbook design work and am still selling quite a few shirts a day in my shop. That has been really fun. I am now trying to decide what I should do with my time when all the kids go to school next month. Even Kyle will be going all day as we were able to get him into the all day kindergarten program at our school. He is very excited, and so am I. It has been almost 14 years since I have had the house to myself all day every day. Whatever will I do with my time? Maybe it's time for me to go to school too. I guess we'll see.

The kids are busy as ever. The boys have been doing swim lessons this summer and all three boys passed off their levels in the first session. Kyle has gone from being terrified to get in the pool to being a little fish in a matter of about 2 weeks. Both Jake and Ryan are improving and learning their strokes and having a great time. Aside from lessons, we have been spending a lot of time at the pool and I have been working on my tan. :] The boys also spend a lot of time in the park by our house. They love catching crawfish, snails, small fish and whatever living creatures they can find in the pond. They are learning to put them back into their environment at the end of the day, because they often don't last through the night in captivity. :(

Tiffany is playing softball again this year and it is fun to watch her play. She is trying her hand at pitching this year and is doing an excellent job. She is looking forward to starting at the middle school in August and hopes to play Volleyball in the fall.

Kaylee is a major social butterfly and is rarely home at all. She has been hanging out with her friends and babysitting a lot this summer so she too is staying very busy. She is rarely seen without a volleyball in her hands.

All of the kids are also enjoying the trampoline we bought this summer for our back yard. They have all learned all kinds of tricks and flips and spend lots of time jumping around. I just wish I could jump with them. (but that's another story)

Mike is traveling pretty regularly again. Right now he is going to Nashville as he is preparing for his job in Oklahoma which should start in the fall. We miss him when he is gone, but are enjoying being able to talk to him in the evenings using our new web cams and pack all we can into the weekends when he is home.

We had another 4th of July party this year and had a total blast. I have uploaded the pics from that party to my sharing site here.

Today we found and saved a turtle from certain death. (he was trying to cross the street just down from our house) He has been fun to watch but we plan to release him back to the park tomorrow (after a call to animal services to make sure that is the right thing to do) Here is a picture of the turtle.

Well, I think that is about it for now. It certainly is long enough, don't ya think? Anyway, life is fun, life is crazy, it's busy, but I wouldn't trade a day for anything different. (Except maybe a small vacation without the kids, coming soon :] )

An entire month gone by...

2009-06-23T09:32:00.004-06:00

WOW, an entire month gone by with no post to my blog. I am getting really bad at this. I must must must try to do better.

Well, I finally feel as if summer has come. It is the 3rd week of the kids summer vacation and the temps are finally hitting what they should be for summer and the daytime rain seems to be holding off.

We have been busy. Tiff started softball and has had a couple weeks of practice and started games last week. She has pitched in two games and done really well. The boys started swimming lessons yesterday. Both Jake and Ryan are doing awesome. Kyle however is still afraid to get in the water unless he is holding the wall, so it will be interesting to see how he does.

Two weeks ago I had the amazing opportunity to once again participate in Relay for Life. It is such an inspiring event. I walked in memory of my mother and in support of friends who have both fought cancer and survived and those who have lost family members to cancer or who may be dealing with it in their lives somehow at present. I had a great time with the ladies on our team and look forward to walking again next year.

This weekend we spent a wonderful four and a half days in Steamboat Springs with the whole Sims gang. (minus Kari and Deron who stayed home to have a baby). We had a great time and did some really fun activities. On Wednesday night, our arrival day, we played a friendly game of family bingo. It was a great way to help everyone to remember all the names and faces which we sometimes confuse since we don't see eachother all that often.
On Thursday we took a walk through old toen Steamboat lookin gin the shops and made a fun stop at Johnny B's for some ice cream and shakes. After lunch we headed to the Old Town Hot Springs and swam in the pools. The water was between 98 and 103 degrees in the various pools so even though the air temp was only about 65 degrees we stayed plenty warm while we were in the water. They had a 3 story water slide and the kids had a blast with that as well. That night we played games and had a really fun time. Susan prepared a game of bluff for the adults that we played after the kids went to bed and it was such a riot. Who knew some of us could lie so well. We also built up our vacabulary by learning the meaning of words like vidiot (a person who watches too much TV), sussarus (the sound of wind blowing through the trees), cadelle (a bug that eats smaller bugs), and I can't remember any of the others, but it was a total blast.
On Friday We took a little hike. It wasn't much since we had so many small children with us, but it was beautiful. After our hike we ate a picnic lunch in the park and then headed to the Alpine Slide. This activity was a huge hit with everyone. That night we had our fmaily pictures taken by Matt, our family photographer and brother in law. He did a great job as far as I could tell from the preview o the pictures we got later. I can't wait to put a new picture of my family up on the wall in my family room. The adults stayed up late and played phase 10 and had a ton of laughs.
Saturday was brunch and horseback riding which was so much fun. The trail ride was beautiful and the kids, even Kyle, loved riding their own horses. We ended the night with a BBQ dinner and gifts for dad for Father's Day.
Sunday we packed up, cleaned up and headed home.
The excitement of the weekend was that Kari's water broke on Saturday and little Isabella Marie was born on Sunday morning weighing 7 pounds and was 19 1/2 inches long. Congrats to Kari and Deron for their new little one.
Well, I think this post is long enough. I will do a picture post later today.

Tiffany in the Talent Show

2009-05-18T21:53:00.004-06:00

Tiffany was in the talent show at school today. She sang the song "You Belong With Me" by Taylor Swift. I think she did a great job. Here is the video.

A terrible experience I hope to never repeat...

2009-05-15T12:15:00.002-06:00

Yesterday was a terrible day. Well, not the whole day, but the effects of my experience lasted the whole day, so that is close enough.

The day started off pretty well. Kyle and I were hanging out at the house. We went for a bike ride around the park and came back home. He asked if he could have some of his birthday cake, so I set him up to the counter with a piece of cake and went in to the office to check email and do some scrapbooking. About 15 minutes later(no more cuz I knew when we returned from our bike ride), I thought "wow he's being really quiet, I better go check on him." I went to the kitchen and he wasn't there. He wasn't in the family room either. I called for him, no answer. So I went out the back door and called for him...nothing. I went out front expecting to find him on his bike in the front yard...nothing. I decided to check the park across the street, so I walked over to where he likes to play...again nothing. I was starting to get a really sick feeling in my stomach. I went to the garage and noticed his bike was there, but his scooter was gone, so I hopped on my bike and headed back over to the park. Maybe he had decided to go a bit farther than he is allowed on his own. I rode through the park checking all the kids favorite spots to play...still nothing. I went home and decided to check the house again more thoroughly. It wouldn't be the first time he thought it was funny to hide from me. I checked under the beds, in the closets, the basement...nothing. By now(it's been about 20 minutes since I started looking), I am getting pretty hysterical. I went back and checked the park one more time, the restrooms, the ditch. He was nowhere to be found. Now my emotions had the better of me and I called my in-laws to come and help. I think my exact word were "I can't find Kyle and I don't know what to do." Within a couple of minutes, David, Bjorg, and Kari were at my house to help. I told them the story and David headed off to the park in one direction, Kari got in the car and started driving the neighborhood, and mom helped me call the police then she went off into the park the other direction. The police told me to stay at the house and wait for an officer, so I sat (well, I paced) on the front porch while every possible scary scenario played through my head. Has he fallen in the pond and drowned? Did he go into the park and someone has picked him up and taken him? Has someone hurt him? Has he been hit by a car somewhere? Will I ever see him again? and How in the world am I ever going to tell Mike I lost our son? 10 minutes pass, 15 minutes pass, 20 minutes pass. Other people in the park are looking for Kyle too. I said a little prayer and asked my Heavenly Father to please help us find Kyle. Finally after about 25 minutes an officer shows up at my house. He said that everyone split in different directions to look for him, but nobody remembered to come to me, so he was there now. He asked me what happened, how long Kyle had been gone (now it's been almost an hour), he asked if he's ever run off before etc. About 4 minutes into our conversation he gets a call on the radio...they found him, at the swim beach. My first thought was how did he get to the swim beach and how and why in the world would he ever cross 29th street. A couple minutes later the officer came back and said "he's with a neighbor...she said she told him to ask you if it was okay to go with her and he came back and said you said it was okay." I had several thoughts hit me all at once...he hadn't crossed the busy street alone, he told a lie in order to go, oh my poor neighbor she must feel terrible, and he's okay!!!! The officer who found him, brought him home in her squad car. I think he was fine until he saw me and then he started to cry. Of course, I looked a mess and I think he understood how scared I was. ME, all I could feel was relief to have him back. After the police officer left, we said a little prayer of thanks and gratitude to have Kyle returned to us safe and sound.

That was by far the worst hour (or a little more than an hour)of my life. After he was home, I held him. I made him lay with me on the couch and I held him. I didn't want to let him out of my arms. It took several hours for my heart rate to return to normal and my eyes to dry out.

Funny thing about this is that Bjorg and Kari had just returned from their walk around the lake. They remembered seeing kids playing at the lake, but hadn't recognized Kyle. He saw and recognized them but chose not to say anything to them. Perhaps he knew he would be in trouble for not talking to me about it, who knows.

The police officers had a talk with Kyle about always making sure to ask or tell mom before he goes anywhere and to never scare me like that again. I also had a talk with him and let him know how much it scared me when I couldn't find him and told him he must ALWAYS tell me before he goes anywhere and he is not allowed to sneak out of the house anymore( I was crying as I told him these things, so I am sure it had a huge impact on him). We also talked about the fact that he told a lie to the neighbor and that was very bad. And while I think he liked the ride in the police car, I don't think he will do anything like this again. At least I hope not. I don't know if my heart could take it.

I was so grateful to be able to call Mike and tell him that the lost was found. I was also very grateful for Bjorg, David, and Kari for coming to my aid. In addition, the Loveland PD was so awesome. They jumped into action and found him very quickly. I feel very blessed that this incident turned out the way it did, but when I think about how I felt yesterday, the emotion is so fresh, that I tear up.

End of an Era

2009-05-11T23:27:00.002-06:00

As the school year is starting to close down and amazingly fast as this school year went, I find myslef contemplating the end of an era. We are soon to be finished with our last child in preschool. It is so wild for me to tink about that. We have been at the same preschool for 6 years and 4 of our 5 children have attended there. And I worked for 4 years on the Board of Directors. It will be weird for me to leave there for the last time ever in two weeks.

Along the same lines, I am having a really hard time with the fact that my "Baby" (he gets mad when I call him that) will be turning five years old this week. Where does the time go?

The Influence of Music

2009-05-07T10:22:00.006-06:00

I was just wondering why it is that the most terrible songs are the ones that stick with you. Yesterday, I had the unfortunate experience of hearing a song on the radio that I found deceptive, and vulgar. Some of you may have heard it, it is "If You Seek Amy" by Katy Perry. (I don't like her choice of songs anyway, the last one I hated was another that is so catchy I hear people singing it all the time. You may know that too "I Kissed a Girl".) Anyway, I am getting off topic here now, so let me bring this back. Yesterday, early in the morning, I hear this song on the way to take Kaylee to school. She always wants to change the radio to "her" station for the 5 minutes it takes to get to school, whatever. Anyway I had never heard it before and once I got into it, I changed it because I thought it was so terrible, but can you tell me why the minute I spent listening to that song left such an impression on me that I found myself thinking it; the words (yuck) and the tune all day long. And it is a TERRIBLE song.

This experience really made me think about the influence that music has on us and our children. People say they can listen to certain types of music and not be affected by it. I am not judging anyone for their choice of music here, just making a point. I think that music really does influence us more than we realize. Now I am not saying that someone who listens to gangster rap is necessarily going to join a gang or start killing people, but it must soften us to that somewhat. Does it make it seem like those things are okay? How about songs talking about sex, drugs, alcohol. I am sure that we listen to some of these songs without even realizing what they are talking about, but they make it commonplace and acceptable.

My daughters are at the age when they are really getting into music and are less under my influence for choosing what they like. I still have control to some extent as I do not let them buy music that in my mind is unsuitable. But I cannot control what they listen to when they are with their friends or when they listen to the radio. It is my hope though that they will choose not to listen to music that can have a negative impact on them.

I have experienced in my own home the power of music. Sunday mornings can be very hectic for us as we prepare and get ready to go to church by 8:45 am. I have found that on the days I play soft music it has a huge impact. There is less fighting, arguing, and more cooperation. I like to play Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and church hymns, or even piano music (my favorite, Jim Brickman). Sometimes I get wrapped up in getting ready and forget the music trick and those days definitely seem more crazy. I also notice that my kids are more prepared to sit quietly in church when we have played church music rather than watch TV on Sunday mornings.

Music has been proven to have great affects on us. About a year ago I helped to do a Sunday Evening Discussion for the Youth of our church about the impact of Music. We called it "An Experince in Music." We played different clips of all types of music and asked questions throughout about how they were feeling. It really is amazing to see how the feeling in a room completely changes based on the type of music being played. I was amazed that even the youth were able to feel it. (I am working on getting that presentation to self play through all the slides and music clips. When I do, I will get it posted as it may interest some of you)

There are so many types of good music out there. I challenge any of my readers to evaluate the types of music they listen to and the impact that music has or can have on their lives. and to make a change if necessary.

Post Note: So I guess I have the artist listed wrong. It is actually Britney Spears who sings the song, not Katy Perry, so I will just add Britney to the list of artists I don't like.

It is a CRAZY life!!!

2009-04-26T21:56:00.002-06:00

This past week has been ridiculously crazy. Our school had our annual Spring Carnival on Friday and it is one of my favorite events to help plan for. Our committee has been working on it since January. The night was a huge success. We sold 800 slices of pizza, who knows how many cans of soda, gave away tons of prizes, and helped the families at our school to have a great family night. All in all it was a great night and totally worth all the many hours of planning and hard work that went into making it possible.

Mike and the boys had the chance to go to the Father and Son camp-out on Friday night with member of our ward. It sounds like they had a great time. They shot guns, roasted marshmallows and hot dogs and chased grasshoppers. What more could any little boy want?

Also this weekend our Young Women held our annual girl's camp fundraiser. This too was a raging success. We pre-sold lasagnas that could be frozen and used later. Our girls sold a total of 101 lasagnas and paid for at least half of our camp costs. Yeah girls!!! So on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, I did the shopping. The shopping list included the following: 46 #10 cans of whole tomatoes, 30 pounds of ground beef, 30 pounds of Italian sausage, 30 large onions, 70 pounds of mozzarella cheese, 2 large bottles of chopped garlic, 48 boxes of lasagna noodles, 55 9x9 foil pans, 46 9 x 13 foil pans, 3 large pkgs. of heavy duty foil, and address labels. After my shopping (you should have seen the back of the suburban) I came home and chopped onions, cooked up my portion of the sausage (the other YW leaders helped cook up all the meat ahead of time), then I divided all the ingredients in to batches. We had sisters in the ward that had volunteered to help cook some of the sauce. So then, I took and delivered one recipe worth of ingredients to each of them. They were big batches too, each recipe calls for 3 # 10 cans of tomatoes. On Saturday the Young Women and leaders gathered at the church to assemble our lasagnas. I was amazed by how quickly everything went. We actually assembled 106 (we made a few extra) lasagnas in an hour. Yes, I said ONE hour. Then we cleaned up, did the dishes, divided the lasagnas into delivery routes and were on our way out of the church after just 2 hours. It was a great time and I am so proud of the girls for working so hard.

After the Lasagnas, Mike and I packed the kids in the car and headed to Denver to a BBQ at his coworkers home. It was a farewell party to Mike's boss in the Denver office who is headed off to the Chicago office. It was a nice dinner and was great to visit and get to know some of the people he has been working with.

Looking back to catch up on things since my last post, Kaylee has been running track this season and has had a great season. She actually made the varsity team for the 200 meter and the 800 meter relay. She has improved her style so much this year and her times just keep improving each time. She has her conference meet this next Saturday. I will post about that next week.

Ryan was invited a couple of months ago to participate in a podcast group with his teacher and a couple of other boys in his class at school. It was a district wide competition and several schools participated and the teams were from all levels of schools. So Ryan's team competed against kids their own age as well as teams from high school. They created a podcast about poverty and education. The podcasts were all shown last week and judged for the contest. Unfortunately, Ryan's team did not win, but I am very excited to go to the reception where they will show all the podcasts on May 4th.

Tiffany participated the last few months in a jump rope class after school one day a week. They learned different tricks and had a lot of fun. Last week was their jump rope show. Tiffany and a friend choreographed a really cool performance and it was so fun to watch.

Jake has been really busy and is doing great in school. He is staying busy playing in the park on his bike, roller blades, and catching fish and crawdads int he pond.

Kyle tries to keep up with Jake and do everything the older kids do. He let me cut his hair the other day, but the only way he would let me do it was if I let him wear his goggles. I will have to post a picture later. Kyle has been such a character lately. He comes up with some of the funniest things to say. The other day we were in the car and Kaylee said something about having her own opinion. Mike responded by saying "Opinions are like buttholes, everyone has one and most of them stink" Kyle responds with "Anyone want to smell my opinion?" he is very quick witted and keeps us laughing.

Well, I think I better be running off, this is getting long. If you want to know what else I have been up to lately, check out my scrapbooking blog here, my digital scrapbook store here, or my t-shirt shop here.

Update on the last couple of weeks

2009-03-29T17:25:00.008-06:00

Wow, the time flies. Since my last post we have had some fun family events, but let me go back and recap everything chronologically. (warning, this is going to be pretty long as I am documenting the events for the family album in addition to reporting it all to all of you)

*Friday the 13th I was working my butt off to get ready for our trip when someone comes pounding on my front door. "Your yard is on FIRE!!!!" Sure enough someone (probably one of the delinquent high school kids walking by as school had just let out) had lit my 12 foot tall ornamental grass on fire as well as the grass in the yard, and my neighbors yard too. I hurried to hook up the hose and started spraying to extinguish the flames. I could not reach my neighbor's yard though and the fire department arrived quickly and put hers out too. I spent about 3 hours in the yard between that, talking to the fire dept and police, and then cleaning up my yard and cutting down the other ornamentals to avoid further temptation. So much for packing and cleaning. Fortunately, they tell me the fire will actually make the grass grow in greener this year. Here's looking for the silver lining. Here is a picture of the yard.

*On the 14th we headed out at about 8 am for our 12 hour drive to Las Vegas. The ride was long but the kids did pretty well. It was great to get to Vegas and spend some time with my dad and Kay and my 3 brothers, my sister in law, and my 5 nephews. For the most part we just hung out. On Sunday we joined Kevin and his family for cake and ice cream to celebrate my nephew's birthday. It was nice to visit and to see Deb and Tut (Cass' mom and step dad) again.

*On Monday, we went to the park, played some baseball(with Steve and Z) and then went to Red Rock Canyon(with Jeff and Z). We had a great time climbing on the rocks and hiking around.

*On Tuesday, we took the kids (Kayden and Jeff came too) to the strip to see some of the traditional things my kids love to see. For some reason they always want to go to Caesar's Palace and go to FAO Schwartz. There is just something about a 3 story toy store with a giant trojan horse in the entrance that gets them all excited. So we spent some time walking around and trying out some toys.

*Did I mention that Mike had to work on Monday and Tuesday. On Monday he spent the day checking on the projects he has going in Vegas and on Tuesday he drove 5 hours each way to go to a meeting in Yuma Arizona. We were so happy that he would be off work the rest of the week though.

*On Wednesday, we hopped in the car bright and early and headed off for Disney Land. We arrived at out hotel about 11:30 am grabbed some lunch and headed off for a day of fun. We had a great day and stayed in the park til 10:00(Mike, Tiff, Ryan, and Kyle) and 11:00 (Kaylee, Jacob and me) We even watched the fireworks which we have never done before. We had a full day and managed to ride a ton of rides. We rode Star Tours, Buzz Lightyear, Finding Nemo, Autopia, The Disney Railroad, Roger Rabbit, Gadget Go Coaster, Pooh Bear, Thunder Mountain Railroad, Splash Mountain, Pirates of the Carribbean, Haunted Mansion, Matterhorn, and Kaylee, Jake and I squeezed in Indiana Jones and Space Mountain in our last hour. The kids went right to sleep as soon as we got back to the hotel. It was great!
*On Thursday, we rose with the sun to make it for the Magical Morning at Disney. This allows early entry to the park (1 hour before it really opens) to some guests. After a wonderful continental breakfast in our hotel, we headed straight to Fantasy Land and rode Snow White, Peter Pan, and Pinocchio all with almost no wait. Then we headed to Space Mountain and Astro Orbitor. Next we decided to go over to California Adventures to catch some rides. We rode Soaring over California, the Golden Zephyr, Mulholland Madness, some rode the Orange Stinger and Kaylee rode the Maliboomer, Then some of us heade to Toy Story Mania, and Mike and Kaylee went to ride California Screamin'. Next we rode the Grizzly River run in turns since Kyle wasn't quite tall enough to ride and then we left the park to go to McDonalds for Lunch. Yes we did all of that before a semi late lunch. After lunch we went back to CA and rode Monster's Inc. and then Mike took the smaller kids to the Bugs Life kiddie area and Kaylee and I rode the Tower of Terror, twice! That ride is awesome!!! When we were done, Kaylee took Mike back to ride the T O T also while I stayed with the kids in Bug Land. While there they rode, the Heimlich Choo choo train, the bumper cars, and Flik's Flyers. Next we took turns riding Indiana Jones in groups since Kyle was also too short for that one. But while we waited we rode the Jungle cruise since the line was so short. This brought us to about 4:00 and we decided to take a break from Disney and go see the ocean. So we headed back to the hotel and got in the car and headed to the beach. We went to HUntington beach and by the time we got there the sun was already going down. But it was fun to walk in the sand and along the pier. We even got to watch some guys surfing. Too Cool!!!

*On Friday, Disney Land opened at 8 am so we headed out after our breakfast. The night before I had asked all the ids what they wanted to ride on Friday and so we made out way through that list. We rode Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Alice in Wonderland, Storyland Canal Boats, Matterhorn, Finding Nemo, and Space Mountain, and Buzz Lightyear. Then we went over to California Adventures to watch the Aladdin Show. we followed that with a second trip to Soaring Over California while Kaylee and Mike rode California Screaming and Toy Story Mania. After riding our rides, we did some souvenier shopping and then it was time to say goodbye to Disney Land and head back to Vegas. We left around 3:00. That night we hung out with Jeff, Steve and Z.

*Saturday morning we got up and got ready to go. We headed off to Utah. Along the way we stopped in Provo to visit our Nephew who is at BYU. We had lunch at one of our favorite old hangouts, The Malt Shoppe, and had some of the biggest and best shakes ever. Next we were off to visit our friend Tina and her family. We had a nice visit, the kids played and Mike and I enjoyed the chance to get to know Joey (Tina's fiance) a bit. We are so excited to see their happiness. The kids had a blast. Our next stop was to see Mike's sister Teresa in Salt Lake. we enjoyed a brief visit there to catch up a bit then headed off to Ogden to stay with my grandparents. It was a nice evening and great to see Grandma and Grandpa again. My Aunt Tami and my cousin Monica(and her family) came to visit. Also while we were there we had a brief visit from my cousin Emilee and my other cousin Shandy. It was so good to see all of them again and to catch up a little on our lives.

*Sunday morning we took a more realxed approach and let ourselves sleep in a bit. But at 11:00 we were off on the road for home. It is amazing how quickly a weeklong vacation can pass.

I also want to mention a little bit about how great our family trip was overall. It is so much nicer traveling with kids that are a little bigger. Disney Land was so much more fun this time around because the kids were almost all willing to try everything. Kaylee rode them all. She is a thrill seeker through and through and can go all day and night just like her mother. She loves the biggest of roller coasters and enjoys the smaller rides too. Her favorite ride was California Screaming. Tiffany found that she actually kind of likes roller coasters. She never has before, but this time her favorite rides were Space Mountain and Matterhorn. I was so proud of her for trying some new rides this trip. There were a couple of rides that Ryan didn't ride, but he tried almost everything. I was very proud of him for stepping out of his comfort zone and tring some new things this time too. His favorite ride this trip was Soaring Over California. Jacob loves it all. He couldn't get enough of the big rides. His favorite rides were Matterhorn, Space Mountain, and Indiana Jones. Kyle tried everything. He may not have liked everything, but he tried anything he was big enough to ride. The Snow Monster on Matterhorn scared him, he didn't like Space Mountain because it was dark, and Splash Mountain made him come out of his seat. His favorite rides were Finding Nemo, Alice in Wonderland, and Toy Story Mania.

If you ask Mike, he will tell you that I ran the family ragged trying to get everything in, but if you ask the kids, even though they got tired by the end of the day, they loved that we got to do so much. Have I told you how much I LOVE DisneyLand!! I can't wait to go back.

I was so happy to spend some tim e with my dad and my brothers. It is always great to see them, but it also makes me miss my mom even more than I already do. By the way thank you to dad and Kay for putting us up for a few days and putting up with us.

I have put a few pictures here in this blog, but if you would like to see more of the pics from our trip just hop on over to my photo site.

Sad Day...

2009-03-13T07:59:00.002-06:00

I just wanted to take a second and blog about yesterday. I wanted to do it yesterday, but just couldn't bring myself to. Yesterday marked the 3rd anniversary of my mother's passing. Again I wondered why the date on the calendar has such a dramatic impact on my feelings and emotions. I was near tears most of the day and shed many as well. I was blessed by the chance to have lunch with my Mother-in-Law and am so grateful for her sensitivity to my emotions yesterday. We had a nice visit and a yummy lunch. So Thanks so much Bjorg for that. It was wonderful.

Once again I tried to use yesterday to reflect on all the ownderful memories I have of my mother. She taught me so much and I will forever be grateful to her for that. She gave me many ocasions to laugh in in typical teenage style many reasons to cry or be upset, but she taught me well and raised me well.

I am so grateful for my knowledge and faith that families are forever; that I will one day be reunited with my mother and other loved ones in the glory of my Heavenly Father. it helps so much to provide comfort when I am missing her so much. I am thankful for a Savior who took upon him the sins and pains of this world. And I am grateful to know that he is always with me, that he helps to carry me when I am feeling low or unable to carry myself.

Footprints in the Sand
One night I dreamed I was walking

along the beach with the Lord.

Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky.
In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand.

Sometimes there were two sets of footprints,

other times there was one only.
This bothered me because I noticed

that during the low periods of my life,

when I was suffering from anguish, sorrow or defeat,

I could see only one set of footprints, so I said to the Lord,
“You promised me Lord,that if I followed you,

you would walk with me always.

But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life

there has only been one set of footprints in the sand.

Why, when I needed you most, have you not been there for me?”
The Lord replied,

“The years when you have seen only one set of footprints,

my child, is when I carried you.”
Mary Stevenson, 1936

This is one of my favorite poems of all time and it is what I think about on those low days. I know that my Savior Jesus Christ has carried me in his arms in some of my most trying times. and I know that it was Jesus who carried my mom through her most difficult days during her 3 year battle against cancer. I also know that she is with Him in heaven and that one day both of them will greet me with a smile, a hug and a "welcome home".

Face+slide=stitchesx10

2009-03-06T13:00:00.006-07:00

I dropped the kids off at school this morning and before I even got home I had a phone call from the school asking me to come back because Jake had gotten hurt on the playground. I got to the school and this is what I saw

I said, "I guess that's going to need some stitches." and we were off to urgent care. I dropped Kyle off at preschool and asked his teacher to tell the board that I wouldn't be there for my meeting this morning.

Jake was really worried about needing sticthes so we said a little prayer in the car and that helped him feel a little bit better. We got to urgent care and they took us right in, put some topical numbing medication on the cut and cleaned him up. This is how it looked after cleaning.
Next the doctor gave him several shots into the wound to get it really numb for the stitches. Jake was nervous, but he stayed very still and held both my hands to be brave. Then the doctor checked out his brow bone to make sure there were no breaks. (Yes the cut was that deep) The bone looked good so he started stitching him up. Jake was a bit nervous again, but the doctor did an experiment to show Jake that he wouldn't be able to feel it. He showed him that it didn't hurt by pinching some if the skin around the cut with his tools. Then he did one stitch and asked Jake if he could feel it. Of course he couldn't so the doc went on. Jake helped him count the stitches. He got 10 total, 5 on the inside and 5 on the outside. He was so brave. Here is what he looks like now.

I think most of the scar will probably be hidden in his brow. Poor little guy. He is doing great though and was excited to get a shake after we were all done.

Wow, it's been a while...

2009-03-05T10:41:00.007-07:00

It's been a while since my last post, so bare with me, this one may be long.

A couple of weeks ago Mike and I took the kids up to Estes Park to go sledding. Well, I just watched and took pictures, since it was my first real outing since having surgery. We met Pete and the kids up there and we had a blast. MIke rented a couple of tubes and a snowboard. No one in our family has ever been on a snowboard before, so we thought it would be fun to let the kids try it out on the small hills. Here are some pictures from our day.

Going back a bit farther, Ryan participated in his first Cub Scout Pinewood Derby. He did a great job on his car and came in about 4th place I think. Here are a couple of pics from that night as well.This last week was the Blue and Gold Banquet and Ryan also earned his Wolf Badge and 6 arrowpoints. Go Ryan. Here ia a picture of him pinning me with my wolf pin.
Ryan also had a birthday and his dad made his day by getting him a BB gun.

Enough about Ryan...everyone else is doing great. Kaylee finished out a session of volleyball and played in the YW basketball tournament where our team finally won a game. Tiffany is taking part in a jump rope class at school and enjoys that. She is also preparing for tryouts for a city wide talent show. She will be singing "Love Song" by Taylor Swift. She is rally good, I

hope she makes it into the show. The tryouts are this Saturday. Jake is doing great he is enjoying the warmer weather we have been experiencing and riding his bike. Kyle is loving preschool and enjoys taking walks inthe park or to Grandma & Grandpa's house.

Mike is still traveling 3-4 days a week he is working in Las Vegas, Phoenix, New Mexico and some in Colorado. He stays really busy even on the weekends when he is home, but still manages to find some time for all of us. We are all grateful for his devotion to his job and how hard he works for us.

As for me, my arm is healing from my surgery. I have had a bunch of success on my T-shirt shop and continue to sell an average of about 8 shirts per day. It has been fun to watch this happen. Who knew I could do something like that. In addition, I am very excited about my digital scrapbook design work because it is developing into more than just a hobby as I have been picked up to sell my kits in an online store. I will have more information about that soon.

Well, that should catch us up pretty well for now. Hopefully I will be back again soon.

Our lizard laid an egg..

2009-02-19T20:01:00.002-07:00

Some of you know that we adopted two anoles after Ryan's 3rd grade class finished their study of them at school. Well the other day I walked in to look at them and they were mating. Yikes!! Well, yesterday Lizzy laid an egg. It will be interesting to see if it hatches. From what I have read she can lay up to 10 eggs over the next several months. hmmm, anyone want a lizard?

Surgery and my new friend Spongebob

2009-02-15T17:36:00.005-07:00

Well, I had my surgery on Friday and it went well. We ended up only needing the lesser of the two possible procedures, so that was good. It turned out there were two areas along the nerve(one above and one below the elbow) that had band like restrictions. The doctor clipped those out and hopefully now things will get better. The procedure lasted a little less than an hour and I was home less than 4 hours after I left. The doctor set me up with a fancy foam block to help with protection and elevation. Here is a lovely picture. The kids have taken to calling my foam block "Spongebob".
I have been pretty sore today and didn't sleep well last night. Hopefully tonight will be better.

Milestones

2009-02-05T16:18:00.003-07:00

This week we hit two big milestones in our family. It is really wild to think that we are doing so many things for the last time. I was really happy to potty train my last child and say goodbye to diapers. I was glad to get rid of bottles and happy to be done with sippy cups. The crib and changing table were a little hard to put away, but that has been a while ago now too.

This year we are in our last year of preschool. Tear tear. We have been at Community Preschool for 7 years now. I LOVE the teachers and the sense of community there. I have worked on the board for the last 4 years and have really enjoyed the time spent with the ladies there. But...yesteraday, I registered my baby for kindergarten. Milestone #1: our final kindergarten registration. (more tears) Well to be totally honest, I am quite excited that I will have more time for myself.

Then today, Milestone #2 was teaching the last of our children to ride a two wheel bike. Kyle took his own training wheels off his little bike and wanted to ride it. Since it was such a beautiful day (70 degrees) I decided to go ahead and take him out. And he was off. Here are a couple of pictures.

Surgery...(and more)

2009-02-02T22:46:00.004-07:00

Well, I went to the orthopedic surgeon again last week and he said I am going to need surgery to figure out what is wrong with my ulnar nerve and to fix it. If you want to know the history of what has been going on, you can read about it here and here. Apparently even after 3 weeks of complete immobility and rest in a cast, there was still no improvement. So he is going in. He will make an incision at my elbow and hopefully just have to do some roto rootering there in the nerve canal in my elbow. It could be bone causing the problem, it could be muscle, or even scar tissue. He will clean it all up and if things look good, that will be it. It he can't see a reason for the problem, he will instead do a transpositional surgery. That means he will actually remove the nerve from the groove in the elbow(think of your funny bone here) and reposition the nerve on the inside of the bend of the elbow. This will involve attaching the nerve to those muscles and will be a more difficult recovery. Personally, I am hoping he just has to roto rooter me. Then, after surgery, I will have another 3-4 weeks of immobility before I can start physical therapy. I just hope it all works.

On another note, we had a great weekend this week. Mike's sister Jen and her husband Matt and their two cute little kids were here this weekend. Jen and the kids will be around for 2 weeks, but Matt went home to work today. We had a great weekend. Pete, Mel, Kensie, and Eric came up to hang out, and Kari and Deron came over too. We spent a good portion of the weekend at Mike's parent's house with everyone else. On Friday Night, the adults, minus Mel, went out for dinner at Red Robin...YUM!! It was really nice to visit without all the kids around.
Then on Sunday after church, we all got together to start cooking food for our Superbowl party. We had more food than I have seen since at least Christmas! We had all kinds of appetizers. Veggies and my famous cheese dip, buffalo wings, pinwheels, bacon wrapped water chestnuts, rotelle and sausage dip, spinach and artichoke dip, stuffed mushrooms, chips, popcorn, not to mention all the desserts. Needless to say, I ate way too much that day and felt sick later on. We watched the game, some cheering for each team, and had a nice time just being together.

We also found out that Mike's sister Kari, who is expecting a baby in June, is having a little girl. We are so excited for her and Deron. I am especially excited because they live so close to us, I will get to be the Aunt that spoils her rotten. This will be the third little granddaughter born to David and Bjorg in a year. How fun it will be as the three of them grow up. It reminds me a bit of 13 years ago when the older 4 Sims siblings all had baby girls within a year. It's so fun.

Anyway, the kids are all doing great so I guess that is all for today.

P.S. If you haven't been over to my Digital Scrapbooking blog this week, stop on in. I have a super cute scrapbook kit I am giving away free all week. People are really liking it. I have had over 117 downloadson the papers just today. Yeah me!

A weekend getaway without the kids

2009-01-25T14:52:00.006-07:00

It was wonderful, need I say more? Probably not, but here are some pics and a summary of the weekend Mike and I had in Vail.

We arrived in Vail in the late afternoon. The roads were a bit messy and it was snowing so we were glad to arrive safely. Once we arrived we learned that the next day there was forecasted 12-1 inches of snow in Vail. Yikes, we had only driven up Mike's car, what were we thinking. We left a perfectly good 4 wheel drive suburban sitting in our garage. Oh well. Thank goodness for FREE public transportation in Vail. We left the car in the parking lot the whole weekend.

Friday night we grabbed some Oriental food for dinner. It was quite good and then we hung out in our room for the night. I think I fell asleep about 8:45, it was so nice to just relax and not have to worry about the kids.

On Saturday morning we woke (about 9:30 am) to about 6 inches of fresh snow. Yeah! We had some breakfast and then headed out for our snowmobile tour. It was still snowing and so beautiful. It was almost 40 degrees so it was really a nice day for riding. We geared up for our ride and then headed out with our guide and 4 other people. Here are a couple of pictures from our ride. The ride was beautiful. We rode through the aspens and through the pine trees and saw some beautiful scenes. It was soooooo much fun!!!

After snowmobiling we went back to our hotel and then hopped on a bus to go explore the villages. We took a ride up the Gondola in Lionshead Village to the top of Vail Mountain. It was beautiful, though visibility was not so good(because it was snowing) and we couldn't see much from the top.

After the ride back down, we headed over to Vail Village and explored the cute shops and hit a Mexican restaurant for dinner. We had yummy fajitas. The downside was that all 3 tables around us were full of kids. One group had a baby that cried almost the whole time we were there. So why is when we leave our kids home we are surrounded by everyone else's?

Next it was back to the hotel for a soak in the hot tub and a sit in the sauna. It was so relaxing except for maybe the kids that were splashing around in the hot tub. Once again, we left ours at home so we could relax without kids. Oh well. We headed back to our room for a quiet movie all by ourselves.

After sleeping in again this morning, we decided we needed to pack up and head out since it was snowing again. We wanted to get out of town before the roads got too bad. We headed out about 10 am and it took us 2 hours to go what would normally take about 45 minutes. The roads were snowy, slick and it was snowing really hard. Visibility was low and chain laws were in effect. We took it slow and arrived home safely about 2.

It is truly amazing that the time went so fast. We had a great time and enjoyed some time off from the kids and the house. Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Sims who made it possible for us to go.

Random Photo Blog

2009-01-20T19:58:00.008-07:00

Here are some random photos taken over the last few weeks. And here are a couple of pictures from Jakes Birthday party last week. It was so warm outside I took all the kids out to the park to run some relay races.

Sky Blue Orange

2009-01-11T17:23:00.003-07:00

I was sitting here in my office tonight and happened to look out the window and this is what I saw. I hurried to grab the camera and catch it to share with you.It reminded me of my childhood. Whenever we asked my dad what his favorite color was, his answer would always be "Sky Blue Orange." We would laugh and say that there is no such color. But here tonight, I am reminded of the beauty of the setting sun where there is proof that sky blue orange definitely is a color. And isn't it a beauty!!!!!

Thanks Dad!

#14

2009-01-11T17:17:00.000-07:00

Parallel Parking Yikes!!

#13

2009-01-11T17:15:00.000-07:00

Ever tried putting on deoderant or shaving armpits with one arm. Impossible!! Thank goodness Mike was home for the weekend to help with the second. I have to have kids help me with deoderant during the week. Nothing like reversing roles.

#12

2009-01-08T19:11:00.002-07:00

Opening a jar...with the position of my arm it is impossible for me to hold a jar and remove the lid.

# 11

2009-01-08T14:07:00.003-07:00

I told you there would be more. I just thought of another thing to add to my list. I have an itch and I can't scratch it because my arm won't bend to reach it. :( Maybe I will go rub up against a tree like a bear. I'll let you know if it works.

Top 10 list for today

2009-01-08T13:27:00.005-07:00

Yesterday was a fun day for me. I went to the orthopedic surgeon to talk about my options for treatment for my ulnar neuropathy. I have had numb fingers on my left hand for about 10 weeks now. I have seen 4 different doctors now about it with no relief or improvement. I have a compressed nerve in my elbow and can't really figure out what has caused it. We have tried several different treatments and therapies to no avail. One option is surgery to see if the compression can be relieved or to actually move the nerve from behind my elbow to inside the elbow. I don't know how excited I can be about surgery. Anyway, yesterday, he opted to put my arm in a cast from just below my shoulder to my knuckles. What fun!!! Well, it makes typing kind of awkward, so I am going to try to keep this short. Here is my list for today!!!

The top ten things you take for granted when you have full use of both arms. (what I have learned in just one day)

10- Driving (turning, and pulling into a parking spot are not easy to do with one elbow that doesn't bend)

9- Washing your hair (I managed ok with one hand, but I have a lot of hair, and it was not an easy task)

8- Pulling up your pants (again, I managed, but it takes much more effort one handed)

7- Making a PBJ sandwich (I can't hold the bread while I spread the peanut butter)

6- Putting on a shirt (straight arm through the sleeve, up over the head, then the other arm, almost like juggling)

5- Carrying the laundry basket (managed to balance on my hip and hold with the other hand, still not easy when fully loaded)

4- Folding the clothes (setting it on the bed and folding one handed takes so much longer)

3- Carrying a hot casserole dish to the table for dinner (next to impossible, thank goodness for older children who can help)

2- Styling your hair (I can't even put it in a pony tail yikes, what will I do now?)

1- Taking off (or putting on) your bra (I had to call Kaylee to help me last night as I was getting ready for bed, I never learned to do this one handed)

So there you have it. What I have learned in 24 hours not to take for granted when I get the full use of both arms back again. I am sure I will find more during the next 3 weeks, so I will add them to future posts. This is me.

Rug Burned Foreheads

2009-01-06T08:03:00.003-07:00

Here is a picture of my two boys after their brother helped them rug burn their foreheads. Ryan has a scar on his forehead from when he did this to himself a couple of years ago. Who knows why boys do the things they do.

Back to the grind...

2009-01-05T07:44:00.002-07:00

of everyday normal life. Mike headed off to Vegas this morning. I got up at 6:30 AM. Kaylee is off to school, the others are getting ready to leave soon. I can't believe that Christmas break is already over. I have to go grocery shopping today, get crickets for the anoles (our little lizards), do some laundry and some tidy up work around the house, and do all the drop-offs and pick-ups from school. Does it get any better than this? On th upside, I do have 2.5 hours to myself this morning while Kyle is at school too. I guess that is pretty good.

Oh I almost forgot, last night my wonderful oldest son decided to help his two little brothers to get rug burns on their forheads. I don't understand the thinking behind it. BUt I will post pictures later. They really did a number on themselves!!

Well, I am off. Happy Monday everyone. And if you haven't already done so sign up for my blog giveaway on my design blog. You could win a FREE t-shirt or gift of your choice from my store.

My FIRST ever Blog Giveaway

2009-01-01T14:00:00.001-07:00

Okay friends, I am hosting my first ever blog giveaway. It is on my new design blog and you can read the details HERE. So hop on over, follow the directions and maybe you can win a prize. The prize is your choice of an item from my cafe press shop. (Maximum price $20.)

My Poor Little Man

2009-01-01T12:52:00.004-07:00

Kyle is, to quote him, "Itchy Itchy Itchy" and I wonder why. Check out his rash.It is all over his torso, arms, neck, and some on his face.

The doc yesterday said he thinks it is something called pityriasis. It could last for a couple of months. Yuck. It is aparently caused by a virus. (but is not contagious) So how did he get it then? i wonder.Anyway we are treating the rash topically with steroid cream and he is taking a double dose of Claritin in the morning and a dose of Benadryl at night. Hopefully that will at least ease the itchiness.

Happy Happy New Year!!!

2009-01-01T12:28:00.006-07:00

We had a great New Year's Eve. We let the girls each invite a couple of friends over for the night and they had lots of fun. We ate pizza, had chips and veggies with dip and cheescake fondue for desert. Yummy!!! Then we watched the ball drop on Time Square. Tiff and her group stayed up until about 1:30 am and Kaylee's group stayed up all night. (despite the fact that they were sent to bed at 2:00) Now for some pictures.

Here is one of Jake, He fell asleep about 10 then kind of woke up at 11:40. He really wanted to welcome the new year, but here he is on the floor asleep again at about 11:50. I did wake him in time to ring in the New Year and have some Martinelli's with us.
Here is the toast to a new year with Martinelli's. Don't you love our fancy cups?
Here is Kaylee and her friends

(Hannah, Sammie, Laney, and Jordan)Tiffany and her friends

(Sydney and Braxton)Here is Mike and Ryan just before midnight. And finally Mike and I bring in 2009 with a little smooch!We hope all our friends and famiy have a great new year. We wish you all the best life has to give and more!!!

Happy New Year!

New Blog Background and an update

2008-12-30T23:41:00.003-07:00

Hey Everyone, notice my New Blog Background. I made it using a new scrapbook kit I have designed. I will be giving away pieces of the kit FREE every day next week on my Digi Scrap Blog. Go check it out here.

Things are good here in the Sims palace. JK Mike has been home this week so it is fun. he is home, but he is working from home. We are hoping to take the kids to see a movie later this week. We are going to see Bedtime Stories. Have any of you seen it yet? It looks really cute. Anyway, I will update on that later.

I am perplexed, Kyle has a rash all over his body. He has had it for a couple of days and I have been treating it as I would allergies, (it started at the same time he had a reaction to the nickle on the snap of his pants-stupid nickle allergy) but the Claritin isn't working. I called the doc today and they didn't have any appointments available and since tomorrow is a holiday, I have to call at 7:00 am to try to get in tomorrow as they are taking "same day only appointments" (what the heck is that?) tomorrow. Hopefully I can get in so we can see what is going on.

Kaylee's ankle seems to be doing a bit better. She is able to put a little bit of weight on it now, but still not much. My brother said she needs to "man up". I think that is hilarious.

As for me, I am awaiting an appointment with the Orthopedic Surgeon next Wednesday to find out what the next step will be for my dang elbow problems. When I saw the neurologist last week he did some tests. Not fun ones either. The man put needles (yes I said needles) in my arm and sent electric currents through them to see how my muscles and nerves reacted to it. It was quite painful and my arm hurt the rest of that day and the next because of it. The test really didn't tell us much of anything except that, so far, I do not have any conductivity loss in that nerve. That is a good thing, it means that the damage to my nerves is not too severe yet. I do however have 50% sensitivity loss and about 30% strength loss in that arm. I'm not sure what the surgeon will say but it sounds like there may be a couple of options. 1) surgery to reposition the nerve at my elbow or 2) casting for a few weeks to see if the rest will help the nerve to heal. Honestly, I am not sure which options sound better to me. I guess we will see what he suggests.

In FHE (Family Home Evening) last night we talked a bit about resolutions and goals. We will be talking more about it next week as we will discuss what goals each of the children are setting for themselves. I have set a couple for myself as well. 1)I am going to read my scriptures everyday (I hope) 2) I am going to do my best to be more soft spoken. (I tend to yell a bit and I hate it, so does everyone else) 3) of course is to try to exercises a bit every day. Yikes!! I hope I can do it. We also set a couple of family goals and I am excited to see how those go over too.

Oh one last thing before I go. Jacob had a birthday on Sunday. He turned 7, I can hardly believe it. We celebrated with cake and his choice of dinner (Norwegian Pancakes) and we watched the video of his birth. Wow it is truly amazing how the time flies. He got a bike and roller blades which should go really nicely with the skateboard and ramp he just got for Christmas. Are we Crazy or what?! We are already pinching pennies to plan for the ER visits we are sure to have this next year over these gifts. YIKES!

Okay I am off. C ya next time!!!

Christmas and a Trip to Urgent Care

2008-12-26T20:47:00.007-07:00

We had a great Christmas. On Christmas Eve we had Mike's sister Kari and her husband Deron and his parents over for dinner. We had a yummy meal check out the spread.

After dinner, we read the story of the birth of Christ. Then following tradition we gathered to sing Christmas carols while we awaited a visit from Santa. Mike went out to "hold the reindeer" and Santa came in with gifts for the kids. Here are some pictures of the kids with Santa.

After Santa left we visited for a bit and then the kids headed off to bed. Well they kind of headed off to bed. We later found them all slumbering in Kaylee's room on the floor. It was so cute. They did go to sleep well though and slept until 7:30 on Christmas morning. Yeah, we got to sleep in!! Then we opened presents and had yummy scones and sausage for breakfast. All the kids were very happy with their gifts and we spent the rest of the day lounging and enjoying what they all got.

One of the things Jake got was a skateboard and skateboard ramp. We are kind of holding our breaths waiting for the accidents to happen, but he also got some good protective gear and a helmet so hopefully he will be safe.

Kaylee, on the other hand, we hadn't worried much about and she is the one that got hurt. She was simply trying out the skateboard (not even on the ramp I might add) and she fell off and landed on her butt. The problem was that under her butt was her foot. She hopped around the rest of the day because her parents were too mean and didn't take her to the hospital on Christmas to get it checked. First thing on Friday we took her to urgent care and thankfully there were no broken bones. Just a really good sprain. So she is now on crutches and in an air cast.

Well, I suppose that is all for now. I hope you all had as nice a Christmas as we did.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-25T11:05:00.003-07:00

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas. We have a had a great day so far. I just thought I would pop up a little post for now and I will come back later with details and pictures.

My Cafe Press Shop

2008-12-16T02:26:00.003-07:00

My T-Shirt shop on Cafe Press is doing so well. I have just added some new designs and gift ideas to the shop. You can see previews of most of the designs in the slide show to the right of this post.

I just want to briefly tell you all about a couple of the things I have added.

1-I have added some great LDS YW theme related gifts. One has all the values on it including the new value, Virtue, which has been recently added to the YW theme and Personal Progress Program. The second is a design incorporating the nine B's from President Hinckley's talk "Way to Be".
2-I have also designed a shirt and some gift items based on the LDS Mutual Theme of 2009, "Be thou an example." I will be expanding this section with some other designs in the near future.
3-I have added a section of babysitter gifts. This section includes gifts you could give to your favorite babysitter and bags for girls who are babysitters. There are a couple of fun designs so check them out. I thought a great gift for my daughter would be to get her a bag and fill it with activities for the kids when she is babysitting. If you are looking for an idea for your teenage daughter, maybe you could do that too.
4-I added some reusable grocery bag designs. No more paper or plastic, go for canvas.
5-The last thing is that I will be taking orders for custom designs. If you need shirts for a family event, vacation or reunion, or any other kind of event, let me design a shirt for you. Prices are somewhat negotiable based on the quantity of items ordered for custom designs.

So that's it, but I also want to ask that everyone spread the word about my shop. I appreciate any referrals. To visit my shop click here.

Sims Family Update

2008-12-14T16:27:00.003-07:00

We have been busy, busy, busy. I guess that just comes with the time of year. All of the kids have had their Winter concerts (except Kyle, his sing along is going to be this week.) Kaylee had her Choir concert last week and I was able to go with Grandma Sims, Kari and Deron. It was a great concert and lots of fun. The other three kids had their elementary school concert the week before that. They did a great job as well. Tiffany actually had a solo to sing and she did wonderfully.

Mike has been working Monday through Thursday the last couple of weeks in Las Vegas and even though he is gone those days, it has been really nice to have him home an extra day each week. We miss him so much when he is gone.

I am in the middle of doing Christmas Cards and letters and for some reason this year I really find myself dragging to get these things done. I may end up doing a new years' card instead this year. Who knows.

On another note, I am so excited that I finally got my new camera. Mike got me this for my birthday and Christmas this year. I am so excited but at the same time a little bit overwhelmed. There is so much to learn to operate one of these things. (at least to use it to its full potential). I am very excited to start using it though and look forward to taking some (hopefully) great photos. I think I am going to look into taking a photography class.

Speaking of Birthdays, it was my 37th on Friday. I can hardly believe I am that old!!! I really felt my age though last week when Kaylee turned 13. I actually have a full fledged teenager in my home now. That is scary. Well not scary really, I just can't believe she is already 13. Well, I suppose I ought to get going. I hope everyone hasa Merry Christmas and a wonderful and prosperous new year.

Hooray, I have a new niece

2008-12-11T06:34:00.003-07:00

I have a new niece. Yippee! Addison Kate was born yesterday. Isn't she beautiful?!! Congrats Debbie and Darren.

In shock and amazed!!!

2008-12-09T22:44:00.014-07:00

So a couple of weeks ago (on Nov. 18th to be exact) on a whim I decided to set up a cafe press shop and see if I could sell my t-shirts designs that I had ceated for our Twilight GNO. I thought if people like my shirts, maybe I can sell a few. I really did not have very high expectations at all. That little bit of inspiration has paid off for me though. As of tonight, I have sold a total of 213 products through my little shop(17 today, 25 yesterday!). Most of that has been this one design.

That was the one I did for my own shirt for GNO. I loved it when I created it and aparently other people do too. I have since come up with a few other designs. Check them out.

This is one of my favorites:

So far most of my designs have been Twilight related, just because I have Twilight on the brain, but I am interested in branching out. I am good at the designs, but not always good at the creative side...coming up with the ideas. So if anyone is interested in teaming up with me on some designs, let me know.

You can click on the individual pictures above to be taken to that design section in my shop or

Click here to visit my shop.

I have a couple of other designs up as well, so check it out.

Also, as you can guess, I am looking to build traffic to my site. I would be very grateful to anyone who can advertise for me on their blog or website. Just a little blurb and a link would be great. You could copy a picture too if you want. Is that too much to ask of a friend? ; )

Numb Fingers and growing older

2008-12-04T09:53:00.003-07:00

So today makes 5 weeks since I woke up with that asleep, numb, tingly feeling in my last two fingers on y left hand. You know that funny bone feeling, or how your hand feels when it falls asleep. I have had that constantly for 5 weeks!!! It is really starting to be a nuisance. Actually, it has been that all along, now I am just getting sick of it. After 4 days, I went to the doctor. She sent me for xrays to make sure there were no bones problems causing the compression on the ulnar nerve. 4 days later when I finally heard back from the office about my xrays, I was referred to a neurologist. Of course it was a Friday and already past five so I had to wait until Monday to make the appointment. When I called, I was told the earliest appointment was over 2 weeks away. So I made the appointment and proceeded to wait all the while hoping my hand would just wake up. In the meantime, I decided to try a chiropractor. I had considered that the volleyball I had taken to the face 2 weeks prior to the numbness may have caused some issues in my neck that were now inflamed and compressing that nerve. I called the chiropractor and got in the next day. He fixed me up, my neck was out in two places, my back out in two places and my hip was out as well. Imagine that. Anyway, I have never been to a chiropractor before and had no idea what to expect. After two visits, I felt better in many ways, but my hand was still numb. I decided to wait it out until I would see the neurologist the next week. The Neurologist performed some tests and determined the compression on the nerve is at the elbow. He also told me that I have weakness in that hand, almost half the strength of my right hand, all due to the "neuropathy" as he called it. He called his occupational therapist and got me an appointment later that day for therapy to try and resolve the compression without surgery. Well, that was now 10 days ago and I am still numb. I have had two visits to the therapist, I wear a stupid looking padded sock thing over my elbow to protect the area all the time, and I have to sleep with a splint on my arm to keep my elbow almost straight. That is no fun at all. Anyway, I just wanted to complain a bit. Sorry for the long drawn out story. I am just tired of this feeling in my fingers. There is also sometimes severe pain and cramping episodes. The pains are in my hand, wrist and elbow. ugh!! If it's not one thing it's another lately.

It seems like ever since I hit 30 (a few years ago) my body has been falling apart. A couple of years ago I had to have my gall bladder out, it just quit working. I had a hysterectomy because my female parts couldn't figure out that a month should be 28-30 days, instead of 14, I have had shoulder problems, foot problems, wrist problems, & digestive issues galore. I broke a toe and my foot, sprained my wrist, fought carpal tunnel, now cubital tunnel and had miscellaneous aches, pains and illnesses. And I am not even that old!!!! I am still only 36 (for a few more days anyway) and I feel like I am falling apart. I wonder what I will be like when I am 50 or 60 or 80 for that matter. Well enough of that. Time to stop feeling sorry for myself and get back to cleaning house.

On the bright side, I am hosting our ward Relief Society Enrichment Christmas Activity in my home tonight. My house is nearly clean, yeah! Mike will be home tonight(if the weather doesn't delay him). We woke up to a blanket of snow all over Loveland today(I think this is a good thing though I hate driving in it) It is a beautiful sight and the snow continues to fall. My house is all decorated for Christmas, and I am feeling the Christmas Spirit. My children are wonderful, happy and healthy. My family and extended family are amazing and I have wonderful friends. I have the light of the gospel in my life and a Heavenly Father who loves me. What's a little feeling old or a numb hand when you have so much!!!

Thanksgiving Weekend

2008-11-30T20:55:00.003-07:00

Wow, the weekend is over! We had a great Thanksgiving week. It was so nice to have Mike home all week too. Mike's sister Teresa and her family came in on Tuesday for the Holiday. We had a great visit and spent lots of time together. The kids enjoyed playing with their cousins. pete and Mel were up Thursday and Friday as well.

We had a pretty big group on Thanksgiving Day for Lunch/Dinner. There were 23 of us all together. The nice thing about having so many people for Thanksgiving is that you can split up the meal. Many hands mak light work. We had so much food some of it barely got touched. Of course that was great for all the after Thanksgiving meals the next couple of days. Anyway, we had a great time and enjoyed the company of so many this year.

On Friday, I had a near death experience, well not really, but it was somewhat scary. I am sure most people have read about the trampling death of a Wal-Mart employee on Black Friday. Well, I had my own Wal-Mart experience. I was there at 4:30 in the morning for a key item that was on sale. I was standing 2 feet away from it on the opposite side of the rope to hold people back. When the clock struck 5 and the rope dropped, I took my two steps forward to grab the item. Just as I grabbed it, I was shoved forward an downward over the pallet by 3 other people behind me trying to reach over me. I yelled, "You know if you let me up, you could get to it much easier." I fought my way out and headed off to explore the other Black Friday Deals. It truly is amazing that people get so selfish, careless, and impatient that they would trample a person that way. Just run over him. It is sad.

On a happier note ,today we trimmed our tree in preparation for Christmas. It is so fun. I love this season so much. Christmas truly is my favorite time of the year. Here are a couple of pictures.

Twilight...aaah

2008-11-23T19:17:00.007-07:00

Friday was the big day. I took my daughters at 12:15 to see Twilight, they loved it. I took a lot of flack for "bailing" on my ladies and was called a "traitor" for going with Kaylee and Tiff before seeing it with my lady friends for our GNO. That's okay though.

We had a great time Friday night. There were 12 of us that met at the Olive Garden for dinner and despite very poor, very slow service we still had a great dinner. The excitement in the air over the movie was almost visible.

After dinner we headed over to the theatre where we were crammed in like sardines to wait for the movie. There were several people ahead of us in line, but we had a pretty good spot. Eventually, the lines were out the door. We had a blast showing off our shirts (made especially for this night) and talking Twilight. Finally we were allowed into the theatre for the final waiting period. The time went so slow, but we had fun. When the movie started cheers went up in the theatre.

Overall, I really thought the movie was pretty good. The book is definitely better!! There were some things I didn't like, especially the bug eyed way they portrayed Jasper every time he was on screen. I also felt like there were some really cheesy scenes, and lots of the story missing or jumbled. But considering the low budget they had to work with and how much they had to try and cram into 2 hours, I think they did a pretty good job. I was very excited to read that they have announced that they will be moving forward with the production of New Moon. Maybe they will be able to make that one a little bit better. Anyway, here are my scrap booked pages of the pics from our GNO.

Thanks Ladies for a great Girls' Night Out. It was a blast as always. So what are we doing next time?

If you like my page layouts, they are available for Download as quick pages from my Digi Scrap Blog here.

Where is your Spot?

2008-11-19T21:51:00.004-07:00

I found a link to this survey on Michelle's blog. This was fun and it's nice to know that I am actually living in my ideal spot. (as if I didn't know that already) Loveland ranked number 3 behind St. George, Ut. and Ft. Collins, Co. (which is our neighboring town) Several other Colorado and Utah cities were in my top 20 with a couple in Idaho and Montana as well. Go check it out and see where your ideal place to live is, then come back and leave a comment to tell me what you found. Click the link to go to the survey.

Blog background

2008-11-19T18:26:00.002-07:00

I made this blog background, isn't it great? If you want to snag it for your blog just copy the code below and add it as an HTML Gadget in your layout editor.

Need a Twilight T?

2008-11-18T19:06:00.003-07:00

Check out my t-shirt store. Right now all the designs are Twilight related because it is at the forefront of my mind these days. But I am sure I will be making other designs too, so check back there often.

http://www.cafepress.com/MLSDesigns

Digi Scrap Freebies

2008-11-14T07:51:00.003-07:00

Hello Everyone, I just wanted to let all my friends and family know that I have officially completed a full week of freebie giveaways on my digi scrap blog. I am loving this designing thing. It is so much fun!!! I think I have a new obsession, I mean hobby. ; ) If you are into digi scrappin or want to do it in the future. Go check it all out here. Also, I could really use some help getting the word out about my new blog, so please tell your friends to come see me there too. In addition, I will have a new kit that will be given away next week. It is Twilight inspired, so if you like Twilight, you will definitely want to visit there next week. I am really excited about how that one came together at 1:00 in the morning the other night. (I couldn't sleep) Well, I am off to see the wizard...I mean take the kids to school. See ya!

2 days in a row with doctors

2008-11-11T18:23:00.003-07:00

Well, I decided to go to the doctor yesterday, for myself, which is something I really don't like to do. However for the last 6 days now I have had numbness in my left hand. It is constant and very annoying. So I called the doctor and went for my appointment which led to x-rays and further tests. I do not have answers yet other than the logical guess that it is a compressed nerve somewhere between my neck and my fingers. I hope to get this figured out and fixed soon because I am tired of the constant feeling that my hand is asleep. meanwhile, I have been trying to figure out what I might have done that could have injured my neck , shoulder, or elbow and all I can think of is a couple of weeks ago when I was coaching volleyball and took one of Kaylee's bullet overhand serves to the jaw. It definitely jarred my neck and hurt for a couple of days, but then it seemed fine for a week or two. My neck is sore again so I don't know if that is related to my numbness or not. I guess we will see.

I also talked to the doctor about some digestive issues I have been experiencing for many months and she is doing testing to get to the bottom of that as well. Oh joy!

Last night, Kyle was up a lot of the night with a croupy cough and trouble breathing, so it was back to the doctor again today. She put him on Orapred and hopefully tonight will be better. He sounded so terrible last night, I felt so bad for him that I let him sleep in my bed so I could have him close to me in case he had any more problems.

I've been busy, busy on my scrapbooking blog so go see what I have been up to. I think I have found another great hobby. Maybe this one can one day make me some money. Who knows.

Well, I guess that is it for now. See Ya!

I'm So Slow...Halloween and more

2008-11-05T16:26:00.003-07:00

Wow, It has been a crazy week and a half. I have been busy working on stuff for my new Digi Scrap blog, PTO Book Fair, teaching my quarterly YW joint lesson, YW in Excellence, Halloween, Halloween Parties, preparing for Tiff's B-day party this week, and making preparations for a digi scrap Christmas Card Class I am teaching tomorrow night for our ward RS Enrichment Night. So, I just need to catch up on what has been going on in our Crazy, Wonderful Life.

First off, after about 3 weeks of working from home, Mike is officially traveling again. He is now working on a job in Las Vegas managing the remodel of 54 McDonald's to add the new McCafe. He is taking over for someone who is far less organized than him and the last 2 weeks have been long and busy. He has still made it home for weekends though which makes me happy. The advantage to working on a job in Vegas is that we have friends and family there that he can visit making his evenings much less lonely. Yeah!

Kaylee started with a new Volleyball team practicing in a nearby town. She LOVES volleyball and just can't seem to get enough of it. She had a super Halloween Bash on Halloween here at our house. Several of her friends came over for the night. They seemed to have a lot of fun. We had set up the unfinished basement as a movie theater for the night. We moved the extra couches from the loft down to the basement, used a carpet scrap and projected a movie on the basement walls. It was pretty cool. In addition we strung cobwebs, hung spooky lights, and had dry ice in the punch.

Tiffany is getting ready for her birthday party this week. She is excited to be turning 11 on Monday. YIKES!!! She is loving being the Student Council President at school and is enjoying reading Twilight.

Ryan is obsessed with Legos lately. He made a plane and has not let anyone take it apart.

Jake is running constantly. He enjoys the park across the street and playing with his new friend Daniel.

Kyle has finally learned to say his K and G sounds. I was beginning to wonder if those sounds would ever come to him, but he finally got them. I am still reminding him of proper pronunciation when he says words using these sounds, but he can say them and he is getting it. How nice it is to hear him say his name as Kyle not Tile.

We had a great ward party and trunk or treat. The theme was Indiana Jones and they had lots of carnival type games for the kids to play. It was a super fun night! Halloween was lots of fun. The kids got way too much candy. Here are some pictures of them in their costumes.

Kyle the Bat, Ryan as Harry Potter, Jake the Power Ranger, and Tiffany the cheerleader. KAylee decided she was too old to dress up this year. Tear Tear, no pictures of her.

So like I said in the beginning, I have been pretty busy. I have been busy designing for my new scrapbook blog and have a scrapbook kit that I hope to release next week. If you are into Digital Scrapbooking, you will have to bookmark my blog and check back often for Freebies. You ca find it at JustForYouDigiScraps.blogspot.com Tomorrow night I am teaching a class for our RS Enrichment about making your own Photo Christmas Cards. I am really excited about it and hope it turns out to be fun. I am also really excited because the other night I bought my tickets fr Twilight the movie. I cannot wait to see it yippee! Well, I suppose I better run for now. See Ya!

My first Digi Scrap Freebie

2008-10-30T18:17:00.004-06:00

I posted my first ever scrapbook freebie on my new scrapbooking blog. It is a really cute Quick Page. Check it out here. Here is what they completed layout looks like.

New Blog

2008-10-26T18:48:00.002-06:00

Well, I have been busy improving my skills in digital scrapbooking and finally feel confident enough to start sharing some of my designs. I will start by just featuring some of my layouts and eventually start offering quick pages and scrapbook kits. I will also share links for some great places to find scrapbook stuff on the web and hopefully eventually some tips for the trade.

I love to digi-scrap. It makes scrapbooking so fun and easy. So check out my new blog. I will try to past something at least once a week. You can find it here or by the link on my links list.

Fall has Arrived

2008-10-25T14:04:00.005-06:00

I guess Fall has officially arrived here in Colorado. The leaves have changed and are falling to the ground. The temperatures are dropping and the kids are upset that I won't let them wear shorts anymore. I hate the colder temps but I do love the fall. This is the lovely view I have from my front porch. Isn't it beautiful?This last week we had some wind and the big pine tree in our back yard decided to shed some needles. It was a mess. The yard was covered with needles everywhere. Today, I raked them all up. Here is a picture of the pile of pine needles.

I guess you will have to look at it sideways, because no matter what I do, it keeps turning the picture when I upload it. Sorry. I can't believe how many pine needles there were. It is amazing there are still needles on the tree. Unfortunately there are plenty more where these came from, I just hope the rest decide to stick with the tree.

Kyle at the Pumpkin Patch and Wishing Fountain

2008-10-25T13:49:00.004-06:00

On Wednesday I had the chance to go with Kyle on a field trip for preschool. We went to a little pumpkin patch. They had a maze and a couple of spooky shacks the kids could walk in. It was fun. Kyle reaction to some of the spooky stuff was so funny. He was the first person in our group to find his way through the maze including adults. Good Job Kyle!! Here are a couple of pictures. The first one is a picture of Kyle and the pumpkin he chose. There were pumpkins of all sizes, but he wanted the littlest pumpkin, "just like the book we got from the library, mom." he said On Friday, Kyle and I went out to the mall. He saw the fountain and said "a wishing fountain, can I make a wish?" So I gave him a couple of pennies, he closed his eyes and tossed in his penny. It was so cute I had to grab a picture. Afterwards, he told me that he wished he was Spiderman so he climb up the buildings. He is so cute.

Free Online Class

2008-10-20T07:57:00.002-06:00

JessicaSprague.com is offering a free class about telling your family stories. She has some great classes on digital scrapbooking too. I am hoping to sign up for one of those classes soon too, but this one is free so I figure I should check it out. It sounds interesting so I thought I would pass on the information to all of you. You can check it out here.

Is it a fire...

2008-10-19T18:59:00.003-06:00

So last night after going to bed very late (1 am) I was rudely awakened at 3 am to the smoke alarms going off. My heart was racing as I ran through the house to make sure everything was okay. Mike had just changed the battery in one of the alarms before we went to bed because it was beeping, so I don't know why they were going off.

Anyway the alarms went off full signal startling both Mike and I from dead sleep. Everything in the house appeared to be fine so we went back to bed. (By the way Kaylee is the only one of the kids who woke up, YIKES!!)

So I laid in bed thinking I smelled smoke and scared that maybe something was really wrong and we just missed it, then about 4:00 the alarms sounded again. Mike and I both walked through the house and still found nothing.

Fast forward another hour and yes you guessed it, alarms again. This time Ryan woke up too. His comment, "Mom the alarms are giving me a headache." My response "Yes son, I know, I have been up dealing with it since 3 am, I have a headache too. Go back to bed, everything is fine."

I don't really understand what it is that was making the alarms sound, but it was a completely ridiculous night. But wait, the night isn't over yet. Again at 6 the alarms sounded for the 4th time. Mike decided to disconnect the alarms completely so we could sleep for the last hour of the night. Then of course, I was stressed over "what if something were to really happen now and we don't have smoke detectors hooked up." Needless to say we made it through the night, but I was not happy when my alarm sounded at 7 am for me to get up and get ready for church, and neither were the kids.

So here is the question. Why does this always happen at night? I never have these issues during the daytime (unless I burn the toast or something, but at least then there is a logical reason for the alarms to go off). Can't they put a clock or meter on the detectors that can tell you the battery is going to die during the night, let's just take care of this BEFORE you go to bed. I mean seriously, this has only ever happened to us in the middle of the night. What is that all about? And if Mike just replaced the battery in one before we went to bed because it was beeping, was it dying batteries causing the alarms during the night or what else could it have been? Wouldn't the next one needing a battery just start beeping too.

On another note, we did make it to church on time (9 am) despite being really tired. Today was the Primary Sacrament Meeting Program. Once a year our sacrament meeting is done by the children in our ward. The adult leaders over the primary (children ages 3-12) write a program and give each of the children a small part to say and they all sing songs to go along with the program. This year the program theme was "I am a Child of God." It was really well done and all our kids did a great job saying their parts. It was really fun to watch them sing all the songs they have been learning in primary this year. Great job guys. I was so proud of all of the kids, but especially proud of Kyle and Jacob as they stood and repeated the parts they had memorized.

After church I came home and took a much needed nap.

Kyle's New Passion

2008-10-16T09:57:00.003-06:00

Yes, my four year old son, Kyle has developed a passion. I always said that the wooden train set we bought years ago was one of the best toys we ever purchased, but over the last couple of years, use has been tapering off to several months of no use at all. I was even considering getting rid of the train tracks and table since it takes up a bit of space in the boys' room. That is until a couple of weeks ago. Suddenly, Kyle is completely into trains. He is not happy building track on the train table either. "The table is too small, I can't build a big enough track on it." So he has taken over the bedroom, well most of it anyway. He has played with his trains every day for about 2 weeks now and is asking for more tracks for Christmas so he can make his track bigger. For the most part he has created his own railroad even taking it under the bed around the bed leg. I must admit he has been very creative about this. I helped him a bit yesterday to tie in a couple of dead ends, but he built this track system virtually by himself. Check it out in the pictures below.

At least this makes Christmas easy for him this year.

Photoshop Elements

2008-10-14T19:07:00.004-06:00

I have Photoshop Elements which I have never used yet for digital scrapbooking. I love so many of the elements on the web for scrapbooking and really want to start using this program to make my layouts. I have a huge collection of digital scrapbook papers and elements that I really want to make the most of. Up until now I have been using the Creating Keepsakes Scrapbook Designer which I love and was so easy to pick up on. It just can't do everything I know elements can do. I usually pick up on these types of things pretty quickly, but I am so lost here with this software, I just want to scream. I have even tried following some online tutorials and still can't figure things out. Ugh!!! I can't imagine it is that hard to figure out, but so far it is just way over my head!! Am I just dumb or what?