Friday, May 7, 2010

Finished Basement!!

Brayden' camo room
My craft/sewing room


Kids playroom


Tyler's new room. Just for the record he chose the color.



Boy's Bathroom



Together Forever

No need for any words. Words could not begin to describe this day so I will not even try.




Aren't they cute. I'm not biased or anything.
This is usually where I find Rylee eating his breakfast, my kitchen window.

Rylee's had to get his tooth pulled. He was so excited for the tooth fairy to come and leave some silver.


Brayden took Hunters Safety this winter. He passed with flying colors. Would you expect any less with him, my little hunter.




Tyler posing with his blackmail picture.





Can you tell he was excited?


They can't stand the anticipation of Christmas morning.












The cat decided he wanted to be a part of the halloween decorations.










For those of you that missed Earl he was at my house for a brief visit.



Overview of the last few months

OK I know it's been awhile since I last blogged. No there have not been any major accidents just life got a hold and I was trying to keep up.

October brought a great surprise. My brother and his family were able to come visit from Australia. They were here for 3 whole weeks and we loved every minute of it. Since all the family was here we were crazy, or stupid, enough to think we could get all six kids and their spouses, plus my parents and all 19 grand kids to cooperate all at the same time. We ended up creating lots of fun memories instead.
Halloween was as spooky as ever at our house. We all dressed up, got lots of candy plus tummy aches, and was on a sugar high for the next week.

November brought Thanksgiving. It is always a joy to share time with family and once again we are fortunate enough to have our families live around here.

December of course has one of my favorite holidays. If you didn't guess it it is CHRISTMAS. Who doesn't love Christmas. I remember as a child we had two trees. One upstairs was a perfectly composed tree put together by my father and the one downstairs was thrown together, literally, with mismatched ornaments and colored blinking lights by the kids. As I've gotten older I found myself trying to have that perfect tree. I've finally realized that I was taking away memories from my own children by not letting them decorate the tree. Another fond memory is when my Dad would lift me on his shoulders so I could help hang the outside lights. My Dad would also set up the video camera on Christmas Eve telling us it was recording and it would catch us if we snuck down to catch a glimpse of our treasures. Everything about Christmas is divine. The smells, the colors, the songs and many, the memories and many, many more than I could list.

January brings a little sadness with the taking down of all the decorations and realizing how gloomy it looks outside.
Tyler decided he needed a little more attention from everyone and decided to break his wrist in 3 places. After visiting the Instacare, his doctor and a specialist he wore a brace for 3 weeks and everything healed just fine. I was sure glad to get rid of that brace because it smelled like the sewer plant. If you heard a rumor I was involved in breaking his wrist you might want to find out the whole story and by the way I plead the 5th.

February was not eventful and went by way to fast.

March was memorable. My family was able to go o the Mt. Timpanogos Temple and be sealed together forever. It was so sweet to see my 4 boys all dressed in white enter the room so reverently. From the moment we dropped them off at the children's center it was just a different feeling. They ran to play with the toys but the did so quietly. It is amazing what the mood in the temple can do to anyone. When we picked them up they were building temples with white blocks. It will be something we will treasure for the rest of their lives. The week before going to the temple to be sealed we were able to go to the Bountiful Temple to see Joe's niece, Melissa be married to her sweetheart. We learned that day the CTR can also stand for Current Temple Recommend. I thought that was something we should all strive for.

April came and went quickly. We spent spring break down in Fremont. Between hiking, playing games, looking at petroglyphs and laughing we were all worn out.
Tyler received his packet for his Eagle Scout and is now officially an Eagle Scout. I am now in the process of figuring out his court of honor in May.

As you can see we have all been busy and I will post some pictures later of the fun we have been having.

Friday, October 2, 2009

Rylee loves writing letters and especially his name. When I saw this on the sidewalk I had to take a picture of it. He is growing up so fast and i don't want to miss a minute of it.


Self-portrait of Rylee.

YUM!!





We love to get our hands dirty and I don't think we are to bad when it comes to gardening. We did take a class a few years back and there is so much to learn. We have been able to use our knowledge from this class and have had better luck at many different plants. One of those would be onions. This year our onions have turned out really nice. There's nothing better than going out to your own yard and picking out fresh vegetables. Now if I could just figure out how to keep those darn squash bugs away from my garden. They give me the Heebie Jeebie's. Maybe next year.

Jackson Reunion in Fremont

Rylee can fall asleep anywhere.














Brayden with his cousin finally made it to the top!













What can I say my boys love to climb. I think they might be part monkey.













Notice those mischievious grins. How I would like to know what they are thinking. Or maybe not.












Wayne County Days

Waiting for the candy to come.



Brayden getting the Sheriff to sign his Frisbee.


Our future home!









In August we happen to be down for the Jackson family reunion. There were a lot of fun events going on while we were there. We made it to the parade. You know it is a small town when there are tractors in the parade, candy but the handfuls are thrown and the parade route is to go up the street and turn around and go down the same street. We loved it and want to make it a yearly tradition from now on.

Think Recession


Ever since we moved into our house I have wanted a shelf above my washer and dryer. Because of the recession I did not have any extra money for anything extra. So that is when a couple pieces of wood, molding & paint came into play. Along with using my chop saw, nail gun, sander and using my router for the first time this is the shelf I came up with. I thought it turned out pretty good and I finally got my shelf that I have wanted for many years.

I'M A BIG KID NOW

Brayden has been looking forward to this day for a long time. He is no longer a cub scout but a Boy Scout. Although he is only 11 he wants to do everything he can with the older scouts. It has been fun to watch his excitement about everything that goes along with scouting.
Brayden receiving his awards and shooting his Arrow of Light.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Brayden's Birthday Surprise







Brayden is now 11. Where has the time gone? If you know Brayden you know he loves to fish. For his birthday Joe got him a tackle box filled with fishing gear. When he opened up the box to find his present his jaw dropped and remained in that position for a few minutes. Then I decided to throw him a surprise birthday party. I wish I had his expression on film. He was so excited and it was fun to be a part of. This birthday was one of many surprises. Thanks Brayden for allowing me to be your Mom!

Timberline Scout Camp


Taking all the gear to the car after everything was over.







At the end of summer Tyler went to a Scout camp for a week for training. We got to go up as a family on Saturday to witnessed the end ceremonies. To our surprise Tyler was announcing the whole thing. He did such a good job and we were so proud of him.

Rylee

Lilypie 4th Birthday PicLilypie 4th Birthday Ticker

Kaleb

Lilypie 6th to 18th PicLilypie 6th to 18th Ticker

Brayden

Lilypie 6th to 18th PicLilypie 6th to 18th Ticker

Tyler

Lilypie 6th to 18th PicLilypie 6th to 18th Ticker

Songs