It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas!

The Girls decorating our Christmas Tree!

As soon as I pull out the camera they all want to "Strike a Pose" instead of just letting me catch them in the action!

Black Friday!

It's 11:30 and I just walked in from doing my Black Friday Shopping. Yea Baby! My morning started at 4:00 am as I rolled out of bed and met up with my sister and sister in law for our Annual Shopping Day! It was so nuts this year, but we managed. We went to Walmart, Roberts, JC Penny, Sears, Target, Boulevard, Walgreen's, Big 5, Kmart, Kohl's, Hurst, Krumpets, & Bed, Bath and Beyond all within 6 hours. Now that's speed shopping. I am now ready for Christmas... and a Nap!

Happy Thanksgiving!

November 27th 2008

A view of the Red Mountain Thanksgiving Morning
Adam preparing his Famous "Fried Turkey" YUM!
After the tummies are full all the Guys kick back and play "Halo" on the Xbox...
While the girls gather around the Ads and map out our Early Morning Shopping Spree. This is my favorite part of Thanksgiving! Go Fight Win!

2 of my Favorite Thanksgiving Poems!

I AM THANKFUL FOR…
I am thankful for the clothes that fit a little too snug, because it means I have
enough to eat.
I am thankful for the mess I have to clean up after a party, because it means I have been
surrounded by friends.
I am thankful for the taxes I pay, because it means I’m employed.
I am thankful that my lawn needs mowing and my windows need fixing, because
it means I have a home.
I am thankful for the heating bill, because it means I am warm.
I am thankful for the laundry, because it means I have clothes to wear.
I am thankful for the space I find at the far end of the parking lot, because it
means I can walk.
I am thankful for the lady who sings off-key behind me in church, because it
means me I can hear.
I am thankful when people complain about the government, because it means we have freedom of speech.
I am thankful for the alarm that goes off in the early morning hours, because it
means I’m alive.

This one will make you cry..
THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALL-
A weary mother returned from the store,
Lugging groceries through the kitchen door.
Awaiting her arrival was her 8-year-old son,
Anxious to relate what his younger brother had done.
'While I was out playing and Dad was on a call,
T.J. took his crayons and wrote on the wall!
It's on the new paper you just hung in the den.
I told him you'd be mad at having to do it again."
She let out a moan and furrowed her brow,
"Where is your little brother right now?"
She emptied her arms and with a purposeful stride,
She marched to his closet where he had gone to hide.
She called his full name as she entered his room.
He trembled with fear-he knew that meant doom!
For the next ten minutes, she ranted and raved
About the expensive wallpaper and how she had saved.
Lamenting all the work it would take to repair, She condemned his actions and total lack of care.
The more she scolded, the madder she got, Then stomped from his room, totally distraught!
She headed for the den to confirm her fears.
When she saw the wall, her eyes flooded with tears.
The message she read pierced her soul with a dart.
It said, "I love Mommy," surrounded by a heart.
Well, the wallpaper remained, just as she found it, With an empty picture frame hung to surround it.
A reminder to her, and indeed to all, Take time to read the handwriting on the wall

Happy 11th Birthday Callister!

In honor of Calli on her 11th Birthday, here are 11 things We love about her.

1. She is such a good kid. She is always trying to please her parents and Heavenly Father. She loves trying to Choose the Right.

2. She is a Daddy's Girl: Adam says he doesn't need a boy with Calli around, she loves fishing, camping, snakes, bugs, sports, mud and doing it all with her Dad.

3. She is absolutely the best big sister. They are best friends and play all the time together. She includes them in everything and never gets mad at them for going in her room and touching her stuff. Their favorite thing is making up plays together. Sh eis also very generous. Every time she makes any money she wants to spend some of it on her sisters.

4. That she lets me play the "Does this bug you game" without getting mad at me. She has a great sense of humor.

5. That she would rather play with the boys than the girls. She would much rather be hanging with the boys than giggling with the girls. (She stays out of all the girl drama that way)

6. That every time we go shopping for shoes, she heads straight to the boy section, and then when we walk by the bra section and I tease her she just laughs and says "Oh, my gosh mom."

7. That she loves sports and has natural athletic ability, and that she doesn't get embarrassed when I cheer for her really loud.

8. That she sticks with Piano, even though it's not her favorite. Also, I love her obsession with Les Miserables.

9. She is a great friend and seems to attract people to her easily.

10. That she still likes me coming and helping in her class and still lets me give her hugs & kisses.

11. She gives 110% at EVERYTHING she does. She is such a hard worker and always does her best.

Boy, that was harder than I thought. I had to keep squeezing things in to make it all fit within the 11. Happy Birthday Angel,

We Love You

Twilight

It's 11:30 pm and we just walked in from seeing the movie. Yea baby! I'm not going to say much for all of you that have not yet seen it. But I will say..."I'd see it again!"

Bitter Sweet!

After 14 years of serving in the primary, my streak came to an end. It's no secret in my ward how much I adore Primary. So when I got a phone call asking me to meet the Bishop right before church I was a little suspicious, but put it out of my head. We had only been in our new presidency for a year and half. Then when they called back again and requested that Adam be there too, I immediately knew and started to cry. I didn't sleep much that night. I was really nervous and sat in the foyer with my brave face on...until they opened the Bishops door to invite me in, the tears started again. I cried through the entire interview. The Bishop had said that this is something that they had been fighting with for a while now. They kept putting it off knowing how much I loved Primary. But there is no fighting against the spirit, once that confirmation is there. They released me from being 1st co. in the Primary and called me to be 2nd co. in the young women's. I think I was shocked for a minute, and can't remember what was said after that. I haven't been in Young Women's since I was one. So, there is no point in saying I was scared out of my mind, but I accepted. We ran home and got the girls and then came back for sacrament where the changes would take place. Again, I cried. The Bishop looked at me and I felt bad that I wasn't making this easy for him. After Sacrament I went to Primary for the last time. I even had to conduct, I bawled the whole time. I bore my testimony to the children and told them how much I will miss them. I am going to miss primary very much especially the Awesome Presidency that I have been working with. These Women are so amazing. I have learned so much from each of them and feel honored to have been able to serve with them. Kristen , Lori, and Andrea I feel truly blessed to have you as friends and am excited to continue our friendship outside of Primary. However, I was really excited to hear who was replacing me. Deborah you will do Awesome. It was kinda funny, you'd have thought I had a baby or something, I had so many people in the ward calling to congratulate me and others calling to see if I was okay. The day was hard, but as time went on I found my self getting more and more excited. I now know that this truly was an inspired call from our Heavenly Father, and I am so grateful to Sydnee and the Bishopric for being in tune to receive this inspiration in my behalf. The Lord knows us better that we know ourselves and what we need and when. I'm just glad their are righteous people that The Lord trusts to be Instruments in his hands and to receive this information when I come up short. (You always here about those people that had a feeling or knew it was coming, I had no idea. )I am so grateful for this calling and fell truly blessed. I am so excited to work with the wonderful women in Young Women's and all that I will learn from them.I am also really excited to get to know the girls. My biggest prayer is that I can teach them as much as I'm sure they will teach me. (Calli, Sadie and Gentry, I will miss you the most, but look forward to seeing Calli come into Young Womens next year.

Water Fight!

Well, with the weather getting colder, my girls have tried to find other ways to entertain themselves in the house. The girls had gone out in the garage to ride wiggle cars, after hearing them laughing and squealing we went out to take a peek We found the girls having a water fight...in the garage.... in their swimming suits.... on Sunday. I guess we better have another Family Home Evening on keeping the Sabbath day Holy. Actually I thought it was pretty funny.

Another Girl Moment

Okay I don't mean to bore you with things my girls are always doing, but for some reason I seem to blog a whole lot faster than I scrapbook, so I've started using my blog as my journal, so I won't forget some of this stuff. So anyway, Adam and I came down stairs the other morning and there was a trail of cereal leading us into the study....

There we found a note and our "suitcases" The note said to follow the arrows...
After following three, the arrows led us to the garage...


Where we saw a sign that said

"Welcome to Disneyland"...

As we walked through the main gates of Disneyland, we saw three of our favorite rides
Splash Mountain...
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad...

And my favorite Peter Pan.
(And yes, the girls made us go on every ride until they were satisfied.) It was so cute. If any of you know us, you know that we are huge Disneyland fans. The girls are begging to go again, saying that's all they want for Christmas. But, unfortunately this is probably as close as were going to get for a while. Thanks Girls you guys are awesome.

The Joy of Girls!

I think little girls just come equipped with motherly instincts and sweet dispositions. One of my girls favorite things to do is sneak into our room and turn down the bed, lay out our pajamas, get our favorite book ready and leave love notes on the pillow. Then they will go in the bathroom and pull out outfits, and set up our counter will all of our make-up, deodrant etc. so we are all ready to go the next day. Then they go in their room and sit and snicker unto we come to bed and find it all. It is so much fun. So, is this just a girl thing? I don't have anything else to compare it to. I've talked to my sister who has boys and girls and she says her boys would never think of stuff like this but her daughter does all the time.

A Family Home Evening to remember...

Sadie just turned eight and is totally stoked about activity days and her Faith in God book. So last night she did family home evening for us to pass off a goal. She did such a great job. First she read a scripture to us about Joseph Smith. Then, Sadie had made pages to the Golden Plates and hid them around the room, we had to find them and put them in order. Next, she told the story of the First Vision using paper dolls she had made using the cricut. Then we sang the song "Love one Another", which she called on Adam to lead us... with sign language. Needless to say, I was wiping tears watching Adam try and get through this song. Lastly, we had refreshments. She had asked me earlier to make some Rice Krispies treats and then she secretly molded them into Joseph Smith and Jesus, adding eyes and hair etc. with food coloring. Pretty creative actually, but when it came time to eat them we were all having a hard time eating Joseph and Jesus. Adam and I were laughing so hard but trying to contain ourselves so we didn't hurt her feelings. Finally we all dug in. Calli announced "Hey I got Jesus' head. More laughing and more tears. It was a very eventful Family Home Evening. I think we have a future Primary President in our family... and a primary chorister. Good Job Sadie, we love ya! (Sorry there's no pictures, somethings up with my camera, I'll try to post some later)

Bobble Head Saturday's Warrior

I was in cleaning the kitchen last night, and could hear the girls playing down stairs. When suddenly Gentry came in upset, when I asked her what was wrong she said "I don't want to play bobble head Saturday's Warrior." (bobble heads are what my girls call the littlest pet shop toys) Apparently the girls were playing Saturday's Warrior with them and Gentry didn't want to. What? I don't know either, sometimes you just have to laugh and shake your head. At least their creative right? I wonder which bobble head was Jimmy.

AMERICA MAKES HISTORY!

November 4, 2008

Barack Obama elected President of the United States

It was so funny, the girls came home from school yesterday talking about the election. They said that they had their own vote and that everyone was talking about how if Obama wins he wants kids to go to school on Saturday and Sunday too. They came home so freaked out. I tried telling them it wasn't true, but I guess their friends were more convincing, cause they didn't believe me. As I watched the election unfold last night they would come in and ask who was winning. When I said "Obama" they would run out of the room yelling "noooo".

DON'T FORGET TO VOTE!!!

Happy Birthday to me!

I finally convinced Adam to read the Twilight series. He's on Breaking Dawn and has actually enjoyed them...although, I don't know if he'd admit it. Anyway, ever since I read them I've called Adam "My Edward" so when he gave me these roses for my birthday on the note he wrote "To my Bella" (AAAHHH)

We spent the entire day just playing, first we took the girls to the Staheli Family Corn maze.

The girls and I playing in the corn at the bottom of the slide.

Calli and Gentry at the Petting Zoo

Sadie and Gentry getting a push on the swings by Adam

Here's Gentry sitting in the middle of the maze checking the map to see which way to go next.

After the Corn Maze Adam and I went to Dinner and a Movie.
Then we came home for Cake and Ice cream, the cake was made by Calli, Sadie and Gentry.

One of my favorite hobbies is making the girls their birthday cakes. So this year they wanted to make me one.

I wonder who gets to clean up the mess...actually Adam did.

Here's the girls and the finished project. Thank you Girls, you are so sweet. I love it!

What a Fun day!

High School Musical 3

The girls and I had a girls night out last week. We went and saw HSM3. We loved it! It is so cute and in my opinion the best one yet. Go Wildcats!