Joyner Family

Our Puerto Rico Trip!!! ...some of it anyway!

2011-07-30T12:26:00.000-07:00

I don't have time right now to label everything and write about our trip...I'm doing good to just get a few pictures on here!! But I just wanted to get some on here for mom and dad to see:) So here are some pictures from our visit to Old San Juan. I will edit this post when I have some time tomorrow, and I will add pictures from the other things we did while on the island too:)

Old San Juan

The Castles in Old San Juan

Together Again!!!

2011-04-19T11:06:00.000-07:00

Phoenix Zoo

This is one of those photos that I will always cherish!! I love that the kids are all in it and that they are all looking forward! They are all happy and getting along and life is good! Haha--they actually really got along pretty well the whole week and it was really so much fun being with them! I love Emerson's cute smile and how thoughtful and kind he is, he's really going to be a heart breaker!! I loved listening to Tanner sing as loud as he could while listening to his ipod!! I loved smooching on Sawyer and hearing him talk talk talk!! I soooo enjoyed sitting by the pool talking with Kim...and shopping with Kim...and getting all kinds of great ideas from Kim!!! I cherish the time spent with Heath!! I have missed him a lot and I love him and even though he's younger than me, I totally, completely look up to him in so many ways!!!
Marissa loves the Stink Rays...Sting Rays! She gets a little frustrated bc her "arms need to be able to stretch out longer" (as she puts it). ...but it's a glorious moment when one swims up high enough that she doesn't have to hold her breath to pet him, lol!!
There's a Sting Ray right in front of you Tanner!! Stick your hand in and pet him!! Quick!
Cute picture! I can't believe how big Emer has gotten! He's not that chubby little Emer that I used to babysit so many, many years ago!

....Mr. Peacock did it, by the stream....with his ten foot tail! Ok, so that was a little cheesy! the boys had fun following all these peacocks all around the zoo. Here are three of them near Komodo Dragon Land.

Heath is showing us where Wan, his old college roommate and who we've all kind of 'adopted' into our family, is from and where he and his wife now live.
I could smooch on this cute little thing all day long!!!

Cabela's
Here's a quick little trip to Cabela's to look at all the animals. Sawyers not too sure about Mr. Moose! Marissa is always ready for a picture!

A Trip to Jacob's School to see the baby Ducks It just so happened that Chick-fil-a was running there "free breakfast week" the same week that they were here. So every morning, I'd get up and go exercise and then come back home, load the kids up, take us to get our free biscuit and then we'd all take Jacob to school. He really wanted Emerson and Tanner to see the baby ducks that they had hatched there. Tanner was a natural with them!
Jacob actually got to hold this duck while he was hatching. He didn't help it hatch or anything, but he held it and watched him wiggle his way out!
My good friend is the librarian there, and she's the one who had the incubator to hatch them in, well, anyway, she let us bring three of the ducks home one night! We filled up a blow up pool that we had and let them loose! It was so fun to watch them swim around and to play with them!
This was right when we started to hose. Marissa had the best time mothering the three little babes!!

Univ of Phoenix Stadium
I only took a few pictures bc my battery was dead, so I'll have to get some better pictures from Kim. This is the Cardinals Stadium, where the Super Bowl 2009..or maybe 2008..I'll have to ask Marty:) but anyway, a Super Bowl in that past three or four years was held here. It's really an awesome stadium with a playing field that runs on tracks. It is kept outside when not in use so they can keep fresh green grass growing and tend to it and then when it's time for a game, they push one little button that rolls the entire field into the stadium. Heath asked our tour guide if there are any other stadiums that do that and she said that the only other one is in Germany and it's half the size as ours. This picture is Emerson & Tanner by the entrance door-love these kids!!!

Here are some locker room photos....don't worry though, no stinky boys:)
This is in one of the VIP boxes
Heath introduced us to Steve on Utube!! There's one video of Steve driving around in a Skyjack, just like this one here, getting arrested....it's quite hilarious! If you're interested in seeing what I'm talking about just look up "Steve in Skyjack" on Utube.....".....maybe I'll come down, maybe I won't...Maybe I'll come down, maybe I won't...". **disclaimer: There is beer on board, so parents, watch it first before showing it to the kid-o's :)
Go Cardinals!!! We miss Heath, Kim and the kids!!! I miss hearing little "Saw-Saw's" sweet little voice!! Good thing I recorded him talking on my cell so I can listen to him still, lol!

Hiking in the White Tank Mtns
We had to take our girls on a 1 mile hike as a pre-requisite for Girls Camp, so I brought ours and Heath's families along! We love to go hike up on the trails here! It's the perfect time of year too, the weather was beautiful as well as the scenery! The trail we went on is called the Waterfall Trail. For anyone who has actually stayed in AZ for any short or long length of time, you know that there's not too much 'waterfall' to be had here, lol! It really should be renamed to "Trickle Fall" bc a trickle is the most we've ever seen...and that was a couple of years ago after record breaking amounts of snow and rain. The good from that is that you can climb up into the cavern where the waterfall is supposed to be:) So here's Brant and Tanner as they are climbing up into it.
Studs.
Heath's portrait photo:)

LOL! I love this picture! Jacob doesn't like to get his picture taken too often. I bribed him to take this...love it! He didn't want them doing anything behind him and after vowing an oath not put bunny ears on his head, this is what the outcome is!
Tiff & Heath:) Brant is in top left and Fanny Pack Kent is in the right corner, lol. (explain a little more about him at the end of this post, lol:)
After the hike, we roasted hot dogs and made s'mores. I made sure to bring some of the big Mexican marshmallows, can't have a roasting party without those!!!
Even though Jacob doesn't' always engage a ton, he Loved Loved loved! having cousins around!! He would cry, the last couple nights of them being here, in bed bc he didn't want them to leave. ..oh, and don't be disturbed by that tall shadow in the background... that would be "Fanny Pack Kent"! It actually looks like he's getting ready to knock Jacob and Emerson over the head with a log, but I think he was on his way to put the log in the fire pit when he seized the opportunity to jump into another one of my photos! There's a history of him ALWAYS pooping...I mean, POPPING into my pictures!! REally. I even went so far as to make him a (printed) book about it!! Aw--we had a great time and it was fun to show them the real desert. ..with cacti all over the place. This was also the night bf they left, so it was fun to have some good hang out time with them!

***ok, hold up for one minute!!! I cannot believe that KIM is not in a single one of any of the photos that I have of their trip here!!! How can that be?!!! Was she dodging the bullet all week long?! Did she plan for it to turn out this way? Holy cow!! I do actually see about of a third of her face in a picture with Sawyer when we were riding the train at the zoo, but that's it. wow! Kim, if you're reading this, send me some photos with you in them!!!!

Cousins visit for the day!!

2011-03-12T13:29:00.000-08:00

There's nothing like visiting with family....esp when you live so far away from them!! And I'll just say to get used to seeing posts about family visiting us, because we will have family coming off and on from April thru July...and we're totally excited about it!!!
My beautiful cousin, Xan and her kids came to hang out with us one day this past week while her husband was at a Spring Training game about a mile away from our house. I'm thinking it's been at least 8-10 YEARS (!!) since we've seen each other, so it was really a gift to get to spend time with her and catch up!!!
Marissa and Ayden are both just way too cute!!!
Ayden was SUPER excited that we went and got the "big boys" out of school a little early! He followed Brant around and LOVED that Brant sat and played X BOX with him!
Jacob fell in love with little London! He's asked me about her since they left. He loves to get down on the floor and play with toddlers...and they love him bc he always knows how to make them laugh!
Marissa loved having cousins around for the day! She was so esp excited to hear about London (a "baby") but I think her hopes and dreams were a little bit crushed when she realized that London wasn't young enough for her to "mother", lol:)

Paintball War Wounds

2011-02-22T09:20:00.000-08:00

Marty & Peter took Brant & Tyler paintballin' several weeks ago. Marty and Brant had a great time!! You could see it on their clothes, skin and in their hair, lol! Their hair and clothes were splashed with beautiful splashes of paint...while their skin was spotted with bruises!! Nothing like a gun, a zillion paintballs & an outdoor obstacle coarse to bond father & son!!!

Preschoolers, Shoes & Water

2011-02-15T16:39:00.000-08:00

I'll start this post by repeating what I put on Facebook as my status this morning:

Looking out ur back window seeing a zillion pairs of shoes floating in ur pool is never a good thing.......

One friend commented wondering how long it took the kids to figure that fun, new game out, while another friend already has it in the works to pull this as a prank on someone!!!

I'm totally laughing about this now, but, as Jenn can attest:) I was not very happy when I looked out and saw probably 20 shoes floating in the pool, with their matches laid out on the cool deck (they were thrown over the pool fence, but didn't quite make it to the shores). I sent the children in, using my stern mommy voice:) and put them in time out. I had already given them a warning about throwing rocks in the pool. They did stop that. I think it must have been 10-15 mins before they saw the basket of shoes on the back porch and figured their new game was with shoes, not rocks, so it surely must be ok.

After ridding the pool of all our shoes, I knew that action had to be taken, lol! I had warned them that if they did it again (which was the second warning) that they would have to sit in time out. SSOOO I sat them in time out by their age...Brock, 2 mins...he gladly sat in TO-smiling the whole time while repeating "Shoes, Pool!! I FROW dim in the pool! Dats FUNNY!". Sarah got 3 mins and Garrett 4. Marissa got sent to her room for eternity!
This was taken just a little while ago, after the steam stopped coming out of my head :) I left them all out on the cool deck to dry off, so when Marissa and I went out to clean up from their little game, I got to really laughing about it all and decided to take photos for the 'ol blog. Marissa probably wouldn't have been smiling like this if I had stopped to take a picture right in the heat of the moment, it probably would have been more of a look of fear ...or terror.
It's funny how a little time passes and you start realizing other things that were going on during such an event as this. Earlier in the morning, the kids starting playing house. I remember hearing Garrett say, "WEll, Dad's are stronger than mom's and I'm the dad, so I can throw way farther than any of you..." ...he was saying that as he took his turn throwing a shoe in the water:) I just didn't realize what he was talking about until after the fact, lol!

It's the next day and I'm finally finishing this post. Marissa woke up so excited that her, new, "shiny shoes" were dry...and that I will let her wear them again! After fishing one of them out of the pool, I let her wear them just for the sake of the photo up above, but after the photo shoot, I took them and put them in Time Out. I told her that since she threw them in and didn't take care of them (esp bc I just bought them) that she couldn't wear them at all yesterday. She was horribly upset when she learned that that meant she couldn't sleep in them either!! The end.

Freeze your Tush off!!

2011-01-06T16:09:00.000-08:00

So on Christmas Day, we packed up our car and headed over the mountains and thru the snow...to Utah to visit Grandma! We all got so excited when we got to Beaver, Ut and saw SNOW!! We stopped for gas and ran to play in it!!! I'm sure it was totally obvious that we are from bright, sunny, Arizona bc when we got out of the car, the boys had shorts and t-shirts on...and I think once their feet touched the snow, they put their flip flops back on, LOL!! I did dig out their jackets and sweatshirts shortly thereafter:)
Jacob had ONE mission, once we got to Grandma's house....Find the BIGGEST Icicle possible! He kept quite busy with this venture and really enjoyed being in the snow. Unfortunately, there were a couple "Debbie Downer" moments bc I had to tell him to stop....I thought it was cool to see some of the icicles he came back with, however, it wasn't until about the 4th on that I started to realize that most of them are hanging off the tops of houses...and he's not that tall...so how exactly is he getting these down?? After a little investigative work and some instinctive tracking skills, I realized that he was "borrowing" Grandma's flag pole to "tap" them off of all the neighbors houses! I must say, however, after some observation, I realized that he really knew what he was doing and was quite skilled at it as well! He was very careful not to actually hit the house, but rather, to tap it at just the precise point so that the Icicle would make a perfect break! (I did advise him to hunt on Grandma's turf after that though:)

I didn't feel like it at the time, but looking at this picture, it makes me feel like I was a mysterious Arabian woman! ...in the snow...it doesn't snow in Arabia does it? AW....

This is the first time Marty has worn this huge, super puffy Braves jacket in many many years! Keeping it in storage all these years was well worth it!!

Mysterious Arabian Woman and her....mysterious man!!

We first made "Mommy & Daddy Snowmen" and it was killing Marissa that there wasn't a baby, so we bundled back up and went and made a "baby Marissa Snowman". I spent time cutting down all of mom's flower bed (that was all frozen, lol:) so we just used some of those stems for arms. Broccoli for the eyes, twigs for mouth & and originally Marissa and Jacob insisted on using bananas for the noses, but they were way too heavy and just fell off, so I think they substituted it with rocks.

...that Arizona boy still in shorts!! Marty and I ran off for some shopping together and when we got home, the kids were out playing and here's what they were wearing:) ...Marissa is sporting her beautiful Princess dress that she just insisted on taking so she could show Grandma! -Put ice skates on her and she'd be just perfect!

Marissa, in her blue Princess dress no doubt, holding our nieces new beautiful baby.

Grandma fell several weeks ago, so that's what the bruise is from. She was healing pretty fast from it, we could tell improvement even by the end of the week.

WE LOVE you Grandma!!!!!!!!

Peppermint Twist

2010-12-21T13:45:00.001-08:00

This was Marissa's first year of dance, so hence, her first dance recital!!! We were all so super excited to watch her on the 'big stage'!!!

Happy 11th Birthday to my Jacob!!!

2010-12-08T09:09:00.001-08:00

Jacob wanted a Lego Party for his birthday!!!

He helped me with the cake by making the topper with Lego's. He did an awesome job on it!!
Red, green, blue & yellow were the colors we went with for decorations!
I gave the boys each a set of four lego wheels and then let them go to town creating their own Lego car!!! They had a blast and it was hard to get them to stop so we could race them!
Here's our 'make-shift' race track!
Ethan wanted a piece of that pinata ...and he got it!!
It was fun to get the expression on Jacob's face when he opened his gift from us, Dragonoid Collosus (if that's even how you spell it:)!! He was very excited about all of the gifts he got from all of his friends!! In past years, he's never wanted a party, so it was pretty fun that he was wanting to have his closest friends with him to celebrate!!
He is really blessed with some great friends!
Happy 11th Birthday Jacob!!!!! We love you!! You are such a fun kid and a blessing in our family!!!

Gratitude

2010-11-21T08:38:00.000-08:00

Today I'm home, while Marty and the kids are at church. I feel like I'm getting a sinus infection and not feeling well. For the most part, our family blogs purpose is mostly to scrapbook events...pictures...so I usually don't get too personal. ( I have a separate, private blog, that I put more spiritual experiences on for my personal record.)...But I sat and read scriptures for a while this morning and then watched one of my favorite video's, Finding Faith in Christ and my heart is so full that I just want to record some of my testimony of Christ, here on this blog.
I am so grateful for my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! I know that Christ lives! I know that he atoned for all of our sins and that because of his sacrifices, we are able to repent. I want to return to live with my Heavenly Father again someday....to live in his presence, and it is only by repentance and faith in the Lord, that we will be able to do that.
It's so important to teach my children the Gospel of Jesus Christ. To teach them about our Heavenly Father's plan. To teach them the purpose of life, here on earth. To teach them about love and serving others. I want my sons to know and understand the importance and truths of the Priesthood and for my daughter to know the importance of being a virtuous daughter of God. I feel very blessed to have been born to such a strong, wonderful family with parents who trusted in the Lord and taught us gospel principles. There have been several times, recently, that I have come across individuals who don't believe in Christ and who have put down Christians for our beliefs...and Mormons, in particular. To those individuals I will just say that we, as Mormons, do live stricter lifestyles than most, however, the guidelines are there for reason. Living the gospel and keeping the standards of the church is what has brought me true joy and happiness! I'm grateful for the courage that the Lord has blessed me with, throughout my life, to make good choices. Don't get me wrong...I've made my share of mistakes, but so many times in my life, I've had to stand out from the crowd and make a choice bc I believe in it, rather than make choices just because "everyone else is doing it".
I am so very blessed to have been sealed in the Temple to such a wonderful man who loves me, supports me and treats me with respect. He honors the Priesthood and is an amazing father! I love our children so very much and I know that the Lord knew what he was doing when he sent them to us and that we are on earth together as a family for a reason!!
I am so grateful for our Prophet, Pres Monson! I know, without doubt, that he is called of God and that he speaks with God daily through prayer and personal revelation! The same prayer and personal revelation that each of us is empowered to have, if we just have faith. I believe in Miracles and have witnessed many miracles in our little family and extended families! Prayer is a powerful, powerful thing!
Although it's not fun to be sick and feel crummy, I am grateful for this time that I've had to sit in the quiet of our home and reflect and study and ponder and to feel the promptings of the Holy Ghost. I'm grateful for the peace and comfort that it has brought me.
I hope and pray that all of us have a great Thanksgiving Holiday and that we can all remember to take time with our families to reflect on the things that we are grateful for and ways that the Lord has blessed our lives.

San Digo, Part 1

2010-11-01T10:34:00.001-07:00

Mormon Battalion History Center

Our niece, Melissa...aka. "Sis. Virgin" (for those of you who do not know her, yes, Virgin is her last name...I'm not trying to tease her, lol:) ...is currently serving her mission in San Diego. She and her companion split their time between serving here, at the MBHC and the San Diego Temple. We were so excited to get to see her!! ...and seriously, she's natural! She took us on a tour and she was confident and we could tell that she has gained such a strong testimony and love of the Lord as well as the many people she is serving!

Marissa was yelling down to the street like she was having a conversation with someone. The funny thing is that, she was!! Some awesome college girl stood on the sidewalk, waiting to get in the car with her good looking boyfriend, bc she didn't want to break the conversation she and Marissa were having!! All I heard was Marissa yelling, "I like your boots!!! I got my pink princess purse!!!"
Uncle Marty and Sis. Virgin:)
That's not a gold tooth...that's pure GOLD there! We all had fun looking for gold.....
...I would seriously love having a little something like this in my backyard! It's kinda theraputic~~maybe I'll build one for my next 'big project'!
All of those pictures on the wall...talk...and move and look around at each other. We were all quite impressed!
Marissa wanted to be by Melissa's side everywhere we went. It was pretty stinkin cute!
Brant is officially TALLER than Melissa now!!
Jacob wanted to be around her too! He talked about his "cousin Melissa who is serving her mission", several times since our trip.
We're so thankful that our kids have such amazing cousins who are setting such good examples for them!! Thanks Melissa, we are so proud of you and love you tons!!

Outdoor Mall and Candy Shoppe
We're on vacation...we got some candy. It was fun:)

Jacob Loves loves to smell flowers! He has always had a very strong sense of smell (seriously...if you forget to put deoderant on, He'll let you know!:)...aw, since he could walk, he would pull any flowers he could get his hands on and smell them and rip them apart, piece by piece. He really wanted a CLOSE UP of him smelling these flowers. I figure it's "scrapbook worthy", so here's your debut Jake!
I love my Brant too, that's for sure!!!

Belmont...Amusement Park on the Beach!

Look at that studdly man running to me! He and Brant went to the Amusement Park to play video games and ride some rides while J, M & I played on the beach.
They won a few 'toys' so brought them on shore to throw around.

Marty and I goofing off while the kids played in the water.

San Diego Vacation, Part 2

2010-10-30T18:50:00.000-07:00

~~Point Loma~~

We went to this National Park in hopes that the tides were low so that we could get down there and play in the tide pools with the star fish:) Much to our dismay, the tides were high (..and I'm holdin on...Olivia Newton John..love that song, lol!!)...so that left us to hike some together and enjoy the beauty of this place.

Brant was the first to climb down to the bottom

Jacob loves being out doors and exploring! He found lots of "treasures"!

~~A Little Bit of Down Time~~
a little pillow fight
some silly faces
and a little monkey jumpin on the bed!

~~San Diego Temple~~ Marissa was SOO excited to see this beautiful Temple!! She calls it the "Princess Temple"! She used to seeing the Mesa temple, which is built more like a box, so this was so exciting for her to see.

I love the stained glass in this Temple!

I'll keep a copy of this for when she gets married, lol!

Brant's self portrait!
~~Sea World~~

This seal came up to us a couple of times.
The kids couldn't believe how huge Mr. Polar Bear was!!
Here's Jacob's FAVORITE! The Balooga Whale!! He knows every fact about it and was happy to share his wealth of information with everyone close by!

Pooped and tired by the end of the day!
We were sitting in the Splash Zone, but we weren't getting splashed, so Brant moved to the fourth row there...and he ended up soaked!!
He's right in front of the guy with the towel around his neck. They were on the first row and decided to move up a little, lol.

~Feeding the Sting Rays~ We have petted Sting Rays many times before, but never fed them. They eat Squid, so we bought a couple of trays.
So you stick it in between your fingers, like so....
...and then you stick your hand way down in the water with your hand horizontal. The Sting Rays then swim right over your hand and suck the food out from between your fingers! Once I felt it's "beak" and that freaked me out a little, but other than that, it was pretty cool.
Mr. Sting Ray is flapping a 'thank-you' wing at Brant!
We all loved the dolphins!

BizTown Fieldtrip!!!

2010-09-24T13:04:00.000-07:00

This past Weds I went back to Biz Town, but this time I got to go with Jacob! We had a blast! Jacob ran to be the town Mayor a few weeks ago and did an awesome job on his speech!! His second choice for his "job" was to be the CPA for the Mall!! Boy did he have his work cut out for him!! The Mall consisted of 11 businesses, all of which had employees. Some of Jacob's responsibilities were to cut checks for all the employees, make bank deposits and pay bills. He worked hard and did a great job! Here is my independent little man setting up himself a bank account...

...and here he is setting up a savings account. He's so responsible!

BOINK!! Here he is with a GREAT IDEA!! Only great business men can think fast on their feet....Jacob...you're a stellar business man!!

I just had to photograph him concentrating and working hard :)
...and that didn't last long. Just Kidding:)
Here is one of his friends giving a speech at one of the Town Meetings
He wrote a friend a letter, so had to go purchase a stamp and here he's sending it off with a smile

Ethan working hard at the Surf Shop (in the Mall). He's getting all of his merchandise (that UPS delivered) ready for business! He has some really cool stuff for sale we loved the key chains!

Olivia was the Graphic Designer in the Mall. She custom made graphic designs for personal use or you could have one made for advertisement for your business.

Brian was the DJ at the radio station! We had fun listening to all of his groovy music!! The town was glad that he has good taste in music...although many people paid for him to play their request too!

Go DBacks!!! Here's Jacob taking a break at the Stadium

~~When the Kids go away...the Mommy's will Play!!~~
Jenny in the UPS store

Melanie and Allyson interviewing each other on the town tv station that is shown in tv's throughout the town.

We volunteers had to be at BizTown 1.5 hours before the kids arrived, which meant we had to be there at 7:30am...which meant we had to leave by about 6:45am! A bunch of us all rode together and that made being up and gone so early more enjoyable, lol!

The goal for all of the businesses in town was to pay off the loan that your business owed. At the end of the day, the Mall paid off our loan and made a profit of $198.00. The only problem that we had was that in the very end, we didn't get all of it deposited in the bank bc we had so much money coming in, it took the kids forever to get it all entered into the system.

TawneyG Dancewear

2010-09-24T12:37:00.001-07:00

My cousin, Tawney, has a dance wear clothing line ! She's an awesome designer and I'm so excited to have one of her pieces for Marissa to wear to dance!! Marissa is in love with it and quite honestly, Tawney has been the talk of the house as far as Marissa is concerned! She talks to her dolls about Tawney ("Does Tawney need to make you some cute clothes", I overheard her say to her Cinderella doll just yesterday!) and now I'm adding Tawney to our bedtime stories, where we make up fun little stories about all of her bff's...Sara, Regan, Haven, Janell, Bailey and now, Tawney:) Here are a few pictures that I took of Marissa and Sara just before leaving for dance:

Tickled pink...and blue...and green...and purple!

2010-09-19T21:21:00.000-07:00

From the day that we learned Marissa was a baby girl, I just knew in my mind that she'd be Creative and Artsy! I imagined her coming home from preschool with these amazing works of art and possibly learning to crochet or throw pottery on the wheel before even hitting first grade! I never stopped to consider that she might choose a different path. While she is still, quite the artist, I didn't ever think she'd choose to be Tattoo Artist!! Here's a glance at her portfolio. If you see anything you like, we are currently accepting new clients. Will work for candy. Custom designs every time...it's guaranteed that no two tattoo's are the same!!!

Time to Dance!!!

2010-09-16T22:42:00.000-07:00

It's late and I'm really tired, but I wanted to get some photos and the awesome video (thanks to Jenny:) posted. The photos are from my cell and so they aren't coming out big. I will try to jazz them up tomorrow by maybe making a collage with them or something cutesie! Marissa is Loving LOVING!! her Tap/Ballet class with her "best girl friends"!! She loves Sara and Olivia and then she made friends with the little girl dancing beside her too and has been asking about her. It's sooo stinkin cute and I'm loving this!!!!

Standards Night~YW in charge!!

2010-09-01T15:33:00.000-07:00

So we had THE BEST Standards Night ever!! We decided our theme was going to be Happily Ever After, a theme that comes from Elder Utchdorf's address to the Yw in the last YW Conference. My mom was in town at the time, so I had her read the talk with me and when we were finished, our creative juices started flowing and she really helped me figure out a really fun way to present the talk. I was excited to to take the idea to our Presidency (but not sure if they would think it was over-kill:) and was so super excited that they liked it and wanted to do it! From there, we all collaborated together to fine tune everything and put our ideas into play and here is just a snippet of the final product:
The idea was that we had several Princesses, Princes & Fairy Tale characters to teach the youth about the Standards of the Church. So...

Beauty and the Beast...(by Dawn and Mike Taylor) The standards they taught were Bad Language & Anger. Beast has a horrible temper and does not treat Bell with respect. Bell developed a bad habit of swearing back at the Beast. They finally learned the importance of respecting one another and learning to love and control their tempers.

Rumpelstiltskin and the Miller's Daughter...(Joe and Stacy Smith)Tithing--- After spinning all of the straw to Gold, the Miller's Daughter wants to pay her tithing. She knows of the importance of it, however, Rumpel doesn't, and will not let her take any of the gold to pay it.

Aladdin...(Leon Crandell) Honesty--Aladdin learns the importance of being Honest and makes a commitment to change his ways to be a more honest person.

Cinderella & Prince Charming...(Heather & Cory Staheli) Service --Even though Cinderella was treated badly by her Step mother and sisters, she still served and loved them. She was blessed to meet and marry her Prince Charming, because of her faithfulness and acts of service. Her Fairy God Mother is with her in this photo:)
Shrek...(Ed Cunningham)-Word of Wisdom-- Shrek taught us about taking care of our bodies. He was such an Ogre'! :) We Loved having Shrek there with us!!
Rapunzel...(Shavonne Updike)--Modesty--she grew her hair as long as she could so that she could dress inappropriately and hide her clothing behind her hair so her mom wouldn't see.
Rapunzel's hair coming out of her door:) I loved this!

I was so excited to make a castle cake!! It was my first time and I had so much fun with it!!!

Laurie came up with these stinkin cute!! Frog Prince Cupcakes!! She did an awesome job on them, they looked so cute all around the castle!!!

Dawn and Maddy drew two huge Temple's for me!!! After visiting all the the Fairy Land Characters, we all met in the chapel and watched the video of the talk. We talked about our 'paths' here on earth and how our goal should be to return to live with our Heavenly Father. The only way we can do that is to live righteously and to go through the Temple and remain worthy to enter it at all times. Amy cut them out and mounted them and I just think they turned out Amazing!!

Shelly put all of this awesome take-home gifts together! I loved these and thought she did such a great job!! She even made sure the dresses had 'sleeves' on them to keep them modest:) She typed out a message on them, but I need to get from her exactly what they said, bc if I attempt to write it out now, I'm sure to butcher it up badly...so I'll have to add it to this post later.

Maureen took on a big job to get the projector screen and all set up and have the video of Elder Utchdorf's talk. Pres Smith came and spoke to the youth as closing remarks and it just really turned out to be fun for all of us! We have such an awesome ward with so many people willing to just jump in and help and we really feel blessed for that! Thanks to everyone who helped our Presidency with this big event!!!

The First little Snip

2010-08-30T16:51:00.001-07:00

The first little snip is always the hardest. I have loved having a daughter with long, beautiful hair! I probably should do more cool, beautiful things with it than I do, but I enjoy fixing her all up, when she'll let me and when I have time to be patient:) By the beginning of the summer I was starting to realize that long,long hair can easily turn into long, tangly hair! That's when I decided to give her the gift of a haircut!! I waited for my mom to get in town and then we went to one of the best stylist we know, Jessica!
AAaahhhh...the first cut!!!

A little Popsicle bribery goes a long way...although we really didn't have to bride too much. Marissa was ready to cut some of it off to get it out of her way!

...and yes, this was her FIRST hair cut in her whole entire life!!...Three years!
Thanks soooo much Jess!!!!

Before....

....and After!! I have some of her clippings in a zip lock, but I haven't actually measured it yet. I'm guessing 4-6 inches. Whoo hooo!! She has absolutely loved it!! When we got home she was so excited to show Marty and tell him all about the grand experience...."See, even Princesses get their hair cut, not just boys!" She said.

Why Does It Take a Coma to Wake Me Up?

2010-08-28T06:21:00.000-07:00

My cousins wife has been in a coma now for three weeks. She's young, beautiful, talented, has such strong faith in the Lord, is an amazing mother and wife...and there she lay in a coma. It has been and emotional roller coaster and has brought me a lot of heartache trying to imagine how hard this must really be for JP. It has also kinda 'wakened' me up and caused me to reevaluate my priorities.
Am I taking time to really spend time with and enjoy my children? When Brant and Jacob were little, I used to, quite often, stop and take 'mental' snapshots of them. For instance, sometimes as I was driving down the road I would reach my hand back to give them a snack that they were hungry for. I have "stored away"in my memory the feeling of those little tiny hands trying to grab every single goldfish out of my hand! When they learned that their tiny hands couldn't hold them all, they stuff them in their mouths to allow enough space to grab every last one. Now that the boys are older, I don't think I stop and appreciate little moments like I did when they were little. My boys are still stinkin cute, but I guess "little" is cuter when the world is so new to them and they are learning and doing funny little things. I do this with Marissa, and I guess it's bc...well, she is still little:) I look out into the backyard to see her smiling in at me. She has her favorite sunglasses on, her Princess dress-up high heel shoes on (she calls them tap shoes:), a big poofy hot pink tutu and some shirt that doesn't necessarily match, but is beautiful and adorned with glitter and rhinestones! Her hot pink purse that she got out of my closet on one arm, pretend cell phone and favorite baby doll that Meema gave her in the other! She looks at me and smiles and then goes back to playing out some imaginative story with her "sisters" or "best friends" that are right beside her, that I just can't seem to see:)
I also need to tell Marty more often how much I love and appreciate him! I am so grateful for him! His love and support. I love him for his compassion and good heart. I love him for his love for me and our children and I love him for his love for the Lord. I appreciate that he honors the priesthood and knows the importance of the gospel.
I am grateful for grandparents who have such strong testimonies in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! For a Grandmother who has a quiet, steadfast, strong testimony of the gospel. I'm grateful for a Nana who, aside from past addiction to Tab (soda, lol) and an occasional slot machine (lol) never veers from what she knows to be true of the Gospel and a Papa who bears his testimony to his kids, grand kids and great-grand kids every chance he gets! For all the memories of Easter at the Beach where our large family spends the week together year after year! I believe in miracles and I know that Amber has thousands of friends, family and even strangers who know of her story, praying for her! The nurses have been referring to her as "Sleeping Beauty":) I can't imagine what she might be experiencing while she is 'sleeping'. The veil is so very thin! I pray for Amber and JP constantly and I know that, if it be the Lords will, that he will perform a miracle for our family. I pray for it.

Some of my friends who know about Amber's story might be interested in keeping up with her via a blog that her mother is keeping updated. Here's the link: amberjoygiles.blogspot.com

Free Stylin

2010-08-07T22:36:00.000-07:00

Last week Mom, Marissa and I were chillin in the pool and I decided to 'just try' and teach Marissa how to swim Freestyle. I practiced with her on the steps and then showed her what it looks like. She was excited to try it and this is a video of what she looked like on her fourth swim! She's always so excited and eager to learn new stuff and I love that!! She's teachable! I love it!

Caverns and Bodies, Trip to Tucson

2010-08-02T11:24:00.000-07:00

Last week we took my parents down to Tucson for a mini-vacation:) We had an awesome time and saw and learned tons!! I'll never forget this trip!!

We piled into the car early in the morning and headed south. Monsoon season has really cooled things off here (hurray!) and has also brought with it humidity and beautiful skies! The poofy clouds seemed to keep us occupied a lot of the time. We found all kinds of shapes and animals in them!!I think we were all fascinated by them too because they were so low to the ground. Jacob kept asking if we could drive up the mountains so he could put a handful of cloud in a jar:)

Marissa was so excited when were finally able to get out of the car and move around! She was soo excited about going into the caves...where the bats live!

Back in the 1970's, two guys found a sink hole and went exploring. After about 6 hours crawling and digging, they found these HUGE CAVERNS filled with stalactites and stalagmites! After trying to buy the land and realizing someone already owned it, they and the owners kept the caverns a secret for some 14 years before selling it. It was then turned into a National State Park.
The Caverns were absolutely stunning!! Back when I was in college, a bunch of us went Spelunking. We found a couple of big caves, but I could not imagine discovering something of this magnitude!
It was about an hour and a half tour. At the end of the tour, we got to sit in the Thrown Room. All lights turned off for a moment and then we were blessed with an amazing light show put to music. I could have sat there for hours!!! The beauty,size and magnitude of this place was amazing!
The two guys who discovered the caverns were very careful to not disturb natures beauty. They followed the same trail each time they went in and out. At one point, in the bottom of the caves, you could see their trail through the thick mud on the bottom. The mud was almost waist high at some points.
Beautiful! I want to go back!! Oh, and by the way, it's totally against the rules to take photos in the caves. ....don't stress out! I took pictures of pictures in a book that mom bought:) They turned out pretty good though, huh?
Who would have known such beauty was hidden underneath some of these mountains?
Here's a very large beetle-bug thing. Jacob surprisingly didn't know what it was, but wanted a photo of it.
Mom and I after going through the caves. As you can see, it was actually very humid down there! Our hair frizzed and curled right up and our mascara was starting to run. lol:)
I was so grateful that Mom and Dad were able to experience this with us! Kartchner Caverns is one of the only caverns in the nation that is wheelchair accessible. Dad has really bad knees, so it was just exciting and amazing to me that we were able to take him down there!

Jacob prefers to not have his picture taken....I'll take what I can get:)

Earlier in the week, we talked to Marissa about the caves. I just wanted to prepare her so she wouldn't be freaked out by going down in the ground and in the dark. For some reason, she found this purple hat in her room after that, and declared this hat to be her "cave hat"! So she was insisted on having her cave hat with her at all times. It was super cute!
I swear that's not "instant tan" on my face, lol! Being in the sun all summer with swim lessons has really done a number on me.
I post this picture only because it makes me laugh. My mom kept going crazy over these ants hauling such big flower petals! I felt like I was back in second grade as she spouted out all of the facts about ants and how they can carry 100 times their own body weight......So I took this and printed it off for her:) She laughed and I know that she was secretly very excited to have it, lol!!

~~ Bodies The Exhibition~~

Another thing we did while is Tucson, was go to the Bodies Exhibition! It was frustrating that yet again, another thing that I couldn't take pictures of. With that being said it didn't, however, stop me! I just had to get creative again, so we took pictures with the building instead!

The dude was just talking too loud...dad couldn't listen to it anymore:) It was cool of him to give my parents a huge though!
This was an amazing thing to see! We learned so much about the body! We got to hold a liver, femur and brain. The brain that we held was normal on one side (white and "fluffy" looking) and the other side was more flat and dark. This was because the person had died from a brain aneurysm. The section of fetus' was hard for me, but still very interesting. We saw a baby that was 16 weeks along. Our baby, Timothy, was 19 weeks when we lost him. I think the boys liked being able to visulize how big our baby was. It made me cry, but as I said, it was extremely interesting. The funny thing is that size-wise, they were close to the same, but our baby looked just like Brant, so the features were so different even as tiny a baby as they were. Mom got to see what a Mole pregnancy looks like. She had one (@ 5 months along) before I was born and back in the day, they wouldn't let her see it or anything. I think it brought her some closure after all of these years, to see that. I'm glad we were able to share this part of the trip together.
Marty was having way too much fun with the Bodies! I love these pictures!!!

Tucson proved to be a really great trip!! Glad mom and dad got to experience all of this with us!!

Girls Camp 2010, Camp Moqui...Baby!

2010-08-01T21:39:00.001-07:00

BE ALL YOU CAN BE, CAMP MOQUI
"BE STRONG and of GOOD COURAGE"

Girls camp was so much fun this year!! I was esp excited to have Nikole come with me!! She already knew some of the girls from staying with us last summer, so I think she really enjoyed getting to know them better too.

We were #1 after repelling down a cliff:)
I love the amphitheater area at camp! There are beautiful Aspen trees all around and it is absolutely magnificent!! Camp this year was a little later in the summer, so we ended up there for Monsoon season. Rain and some storming but we were also able to enjoy some beautiful Rainbows too!! A couple of times the rainbows came while we were amongst the aspens, it was moments like that that I could have sat there for hours just to marvel at the beautiful things in nature that the Lord has blessed us with!

We hiked to the lake where we swam, canoed, kayaked, did some 'cliff' jumping (large boulder jumping:) and just had a great time with our ward.

My third years and I made pizzas and a cool s'mores dessert over campfire. yum yum:)
Emma was a tough little cookie! She's the youngest in our yw, but she repelled down the cliff-side without even breaking a sweat!
...love Gayla! This is my comic relief buddy! She always makes me laugh:)

So my dear friend from another ward and I had a little 'friendly' (..or not so friendly..you see her holding me down with her foot! ..what a cheater:) push-up competition. I won, of coarse! I think I did 14 man push ups and the only reason I stopped was because the rocks were digging into my palms. I was cranking them puppies out so fast she didn't even know what ran over her.... and if you're reading this, Kindy, well, you know it's true:) Ok, so the real reason she's got her foot on me is because I did it to her first...and she was cranking them out too...but I still won:)
Repelling.....
fierce and mighty leaders!

I've repelled many times, but this was Nikole's first time. She was pretty nervous about the height but she really was brave! We had a really steep, crumbly climb up. It was hard, nevertheless, we made it! I told her that I saw the terror in her eyes as she was getting over the ledge. Once she got over and was on her way down, she was totally fine. Proud of you Nikole!!

Brooke turned 14 while we were at camp, so I brought "breakfast in bed" for her. Eclipse cup, plates and napkin...donuts, muffins and a wig to wear on her special day!
at the lake
We got to make lanyard pens. Brooke is seriously a pro at this stuff! I was feeling all good about myself because I know the ways of the lanyard..I used to make tons of things out of it 'back in the day'. Brooke can weave designs and practically spell words out in her stuff. She's hardcore and knows how to do way more than I even imagined! I highly recommend her to anyone who may be in need of anything involving lanyard!!
Sis Tubbs was going around french braiding every ones hair. I would have offered to help, but her braids looked so good that I didn't want anyone comparing, lol. Instead, I got her to braid my bangs so they'd be out of my face. Thanks Aubry!!
..most of the gang...
Our fourth years finally come into camp!!
I brought this swimming pool so we could pamper ourselves a little. We had a great time and just as we were getting ready to get our feet out, Bishop Weaver pulled up, so guess what he got? ..a pedicure of coarse!! The girls loved it and he was a great sport!

On the last night, there were extra girls in our tent, so Shel and I stayed in my tent that we put up as a 'changing room' for anyone who wanted to use it. Vikki brought some of her yummy homemade salsa and chips so we let her sleep over with us:) We had a great time. Laughing and snorting and talking!!
~~~Ghosts of Girls Camp~~~who could they be?.....

My big brother and beautiful niece

2010-08-01T20:15:00.000-07:00

Blake & Nikole!!! My brother and niece came to visit in June. Blake stayed for about a week and Nikole stayed for almost 6 weeks!! It has been such a fun fun summer being able to see Blake and have Nikole stay with us for so long!! She said she had an amazing summer going to girls camp with me and she got closer to alot of the kids in our ward that she knew from last summer....she really "enJoeyed" her summer stay with us, that's for sure! LOL! I so appreciated having her here and helping me out so much, esp with all the swim lessons I was doing!
Here are a few pictures we took while Blake was here. He and Marty were off golfing most of the time and they really seemed to love it, regardless of the 115 degree, blazing sunny weather!

We had fun Cheering Brant on at one of his games...

He's played catcher most of this summer season, but Marty has pulled him in to pitch a few times. It was fun to see him so switch it up during the game .

Nikole and Aunt Tiff:)
Jacob was not happy about being in the heat, but he did ok as long as he had his drawing pad and pen!
Marissa was a little bored,lol! I think it was more like, a little tired, because she fell asleep like this!
Great game guys!!!

After the game we went to Lo-Lo's to eat chicken & waffles! Yum-yum!!

There was one day, while Blake was still here, that two of my swim lesson kids came and as they were walking around to the pool they found this baby birdie on the path that leads around the side of our house. His wing was broken and he couldn't get around very well so we picked him up and tried to care for it. It was love at first sight as far as Marissa was concerned! Stephanie (who just happens to be an amazing photographer!!) didn't have her fancy camera, but she used mine and took some cool photos while I worked with her kids in the pool!

Photo Shoot by Jenn VanAllen

2010-07-14T00:43:00.000-07:00

I'm so seriously behind on my blogging that it's really not funny!! Just before heading to Girls Camp (Go LaLoma!!), my friend, Jenn, took a bunch of shots of my kids playing in the pool. It was a great opportunity to get some candid photos of my kids. Jenn had them edited and on a disk super fast! As I sat here working on some stuff for Yw's tonight, I realized that I put the disk on my desk, left for camp and never even got a good look at them! So I'm so excited to blog a bunch of them now! I'm a little bias, but I think they turned out pretty awesome! Thanks Jenn!

Marissa Treading Water

2010-06-20T23:12:00.000-07:00

Last week I spent some time teaching Marissa to tread water so she could swim longer distances. Now that she is able to tread, she can easily pull her head up to take breaths as she swims. I'm so proud of her!!!

Back to my roots...

2010-06-13T17:51:00.000-07:00

Last Month I had the opportunity to take a trip...all by myself(!)...back home to SC. As much as I love and adore my wonderful kids and hot, AWESOME husband, it was a blessing for me to be able to go and spend some good, solid, one-on-one time with my parents, grandparents, brothers and their families. I came home feeling renewed, excited to be back home with Marty and the kids and ready to start a fun summer with them! Here are a few highlights of my trip:

The #1 reason I went home was so that I could update all of my certifications to teach swim lessons. My brother Heath was the one teaching and certifying me, so he's the one I spent most of my time with....in the pool:) I so appreciate him!! I learned so much from him during the week and just really treasure the time spent with him. Thanks Heathie!

I was able to go the the Southern Strutt concert! My Aunt is the owner and she has never just put on a little "end of the year dance recital"! She puts on a three hour, full blown, theme and all, production show at the downtown theatre! Mom and Uncle Bobby are always in it as actors. I was really inspired by the show (I will post about it in more detail at a later date)! Aw, here's mom and I in the dressing room after the show.

My Girls! We always make it a point to get together every chance we can!! Don't ask what we were doing here, cuz it's kinda ridiculous! ...well, ok you talked me into it, I'll tell ya: We were goofing off with the camera...this was our "Botox look"!...wait, or is this our "hot mama" look? Looking at it, I'd say that Stacey is definitely doing 'Hot Mama', I'm just kissing the air and Kim?....well, maybe that's her "I think I'm gonna barf" look...? (LOL Kim!!!)

Denise didn't get to go out with Stacey, Kim & I but I did get to see her while I was at Heath's.
I made Denise do a few poses of her own...The Thinker. Denise, you look wise beyond your years!

Blake, Me, Heath & John!!! I seriously have the BEST brothers ever!!! I love them each so much and was so grateful that we could all spend some time together!! We took the kids out on Lake Murray and had a blast!! I really missed Marty and the kids this day! It would've been so much fun for them to be there.
Nikole
Nikole & Dallin
Me & Blake! Blake made sure he got a date with me while I was home! The thing about it is that I was all the way across town at Heath's. After getting off work one night, Blake drove probably an hour from work to where I was, picked me up and took me out for dinner! That really meant a lot to me!!

John-John drove from NC to come see me!! He'll never know how much I appreciated that! I loved getting to spend time with all of his kids too! We were all impressed with his knee boarding skills!

Tanner
Bryson, Luke & Kasidy

This is for you, Laurie!!!

2010-05-13T22:24:00.000-07:00

Good Friends and Mom of The Year Award!!

2010-05-09T19:52:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we had the best day visiting with some of our dear friends that we know from SC!!! It was soo awesome to see Beth and Paul, it's been about 7 years!! They both look so great and it was nice to catch up with them!! As the day came to an end, they eventually had to leave to catch their plane home. Shortly after they left, my mom called and asked to talk to Marissa. I could hear mom over the phone as she said to her, "Marissa, did you have such a special day today?!". What in the world is my mom talking about, I thought?! ......My soul shuddered with horror as I realized what mother was talking about...HER BIRTHDAY!!!! Aahhhh! Here's where the Mom of the Year Award comes in! Am I really such a horrible mother that I forgot my own daughter's birthday?!! We had all been so excited to share this day with her and EverYonE of us forgot it in the end! It was after 6pm when this realization came to me and luckily Marty and Jacob were at Wal Mart. I gave him a call and he brought home the best birthday present ever...a collection of Princess High Heel Shoes!!! We were all sad about forgetting, but upon hearing the news, Marissa said, "Huh? It's my BiRthDay?" ...."YEAH!!!! IT'S MY BIRTHDAY!!!". She didn't seem to care that it only lasted about 2.5 hours:)
Thank goodness I had made Peanut Butter Bars for Paul and Beth earlier in the day or else we wouldn't have had a birthday 'cake'!

She probably wished that her family would remember her birthday next year!

Life is all about the shoes now! It's funny because she calls them her "tap shoes"! Maybe she got this from Janell or Sarah:)
Miss Priss:)
This morning she ate breakfast in bed with me (her bday and Mother's Day) and then I even let her wear her new dress and a pair of her new tap shoes to church. Maybe that makes up for getting gypped on her birthday!

Brant's Birthday

2010-05-09T18:07:00.000-07:00

I can't believe my 4lb premature baby is twelve!! Last week he was ordained a Deacon and today he had the opportunity to pass the sacrament for the first time! I love Brant so much and feel so blessed to have him as our oldest son!! I'm thankful for his kind, tender loving heart and love his spunk and humor!!

Minute to Win it Birthday Party~~
We love to watch the game show, Minute to Win It, so when Brant's birthday came around he knew this was the kind of party he wanted to have!!

Tyler & Audrey were the first to arrive!

...then Cole...and before too long everyone was here and the party began!!

Hanky Panky~~The goal of this game is to pull out ALL of the tissues, using only one hand...in One Minute!

Come on CJ !!!!
Go Jacob, go!

Suck It Up~~Player must suck up and M&M threw a straw, walk over to another table and balance M&M on an upright straw.

Unwind~~Players have one Minute to Unwind both rolls of streamers!!

Sink It In~~~One Minute to sink two ping pong balls in glass
Stack It Up~~ Object is to stack three apples
Wiggle It~~ Wiggle your face to move cookie from forehead and into mouth!
Banana Pants~~swing hanging banana to propel ball across the finish line

Junk in Your Trunk~~ Players have to shake what their mama's gave them in order to get ping pong balls out of boxes!

Time for Cake, Ice Cream, Swimming & BB Gun shooting!!!

Icing filled cupcakes and an Ice Cream Bar~~ Yumm!!!

boys, boys! Messy Boys!!
Chop chop! Meema sent Jacob this real alligator head from Myrtle Beach.

Brant and Emma chopping on some yummy cupcakes!! Brant wanted vanilla cake with chocolate icing. I also filled the middle with chocolate icing.
It has become tradition for Tyler to give Brant's the funniest cards ever! Here's a peak at the card Brant got from him this year!
Gifts galore! Brant was so excited and thankful for all the gifts his friends (and parents) gave him!! With all of his money and gift cards that he got, he bought DJ Hero for the wii.
Brant helping Jacob shoot at a Coke can.

Joey helping Ryan shoot at Coke cans
Party was a huge success!

(Some names of games have been replaced with the real names, bc of my lack of memory and laziness to get up from the computer and go find out the real names!)

Hey Batter, batter-Grab that Flag!!

2010-05-09T17:30:00.000-07:00

As a family, we always look forward to the Spring! Cool weather, Spring Training games and best of all, Little League! This spring was extra busy! Brant started off with Flag Football!! This was his first time playing, so it was something new for him. He ended up loving it and talk on the street is that he will play tackle next season.

Baseball has taken up most of our Spring. He played on the Middle School team as well as his Little league, Major league team, which Marty helps coach. Middle School season finished up last week, but Little league is still going full swing for another month or so. It's been so fun to cheer him on, but I think we are all glad that things are winding down a little.

Hey batter, batter....

...swing!!!

Now RuN batter, RUN!!!

Way to go Brant!!!

A snap shot of one of Brant's best friends, Tyler! Tyler is an awesome pitcher and is always such a great asset to any team!

Love this KID! Brock hanging out with us during a game!
Love this kid even more (no offense Brockie:)!! Marissa and Jacob look forward to playtime during the games!

911...it's an Emergency!!

2010-04-21T12:40:00.000-07:00

Ok, so yesterday morning started just like any other day. We woke up, read scriptures together, made sure everyone was fed, clothed, brushed teeth, deodorant on, contacts in and got them all out the door to school. Then Allyson shows up and we start our daily workout ritual...P90X. We were only 7 mins away from being done when Brock, trying to climb up, pulled one of my bar stools over on top of him! They are made of iron with a wood seat. He got a hard blow to the chest, a busted lip and and I think a small bruise on the forehead. After about three or four mins, he stopped breathing. He couldn't hold his head up or keep his eyes open for nothing! It was very scary and Allyson and I were pretty much prepared that one of us would have to do CPR on him. Allyson started to blow in his face, which would awaken him and made him take a deep breath. I ran and grabbed a frozen bag of chocolate chips out of the freezer (?? it was the first unopened bag that I saw:) while I also grabbed the phone and called 911. What were the chocolate chips for?, you might ask...well, I would put the cold bag on his forehead and then on his chest to wake him up. He didn't like it and of coarse would cry, taking deep breaths all the while.

The EMT came prepared for anything
By the time they got to my house, Brock was breathing fine but was still out of it a little.
By the time they checked him out and left, he was holding his head up on his own and couldn't hold a Popsicle, but would suck on it.

Twenty mins after they were gone, he was happily holding and eating his Popsicle! ...all FOUR of them!!! Talk about an adrenaline rush! When the EMT decided that he was ok, they called into the dispatch that they wouldn't need a helicopter. That instantly brought back feelings and emotions in me from Jacob's near drowning so many years ago. I, once again, felt so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who watches over us!! There were several different times that Allyson and I were completely prompted and I know that it was the Lord helping us! I'm so thankful that Brock is safe and back to his good 'ol self!!

Disclaimer: The Frozen chocolate chip thing is not an approved medical procedure and should not necessarily be used in all emergency situations. Use with caution.

Christmas 2009 in South Carolina

2010-04-06T14:39:00.000-07:00

Jingle What..?!

2010-04-06T14:00:00.000-07:00

So I can't go into details of this event, however, I am posting some of these photos for my posterity, lol! In short, I had a little prank set up for my dear brother, Heath! With help from family, we pulled it off perfectly and got tons of laughs out of it!!

ok, so I'll go into a little bit of detail, well, not detail but just general information, we'll call it. Some of my extended family wanted to watch the video of Heath after having a surgery. He was high as a kite on pain killers when Kim video taped him.

Seriously, one hilarious video!!
we laughed

and laughed

and laughed!!!

OK...inside joke that I shall not go into detail about! Sorry, but this is the way things have to be people. I have sworn an oath to not devulge the details of this....esp on my blog!!Heath was a great sport and even got through all the gag gifts pretty well!

Discussing my Wish List with Jolly 'Ol St. Nick

2010-04-06T13:23:00.001-07:00

Brant got a kick out of sitting on Santa's lap! Being 'older and wiser', he and Santa were able to have a little more of a heart to heart talk than in years past. Santa was impressed with how much Brant had grow and matured:)

Jacob went to see Santa well prepared! He had worked hard to get his list ready, including the item he wanted, where Santa could buy it (a back up plan for Santa if the elves couldn't get around to making it) and also included a drawing that he did of each of his Christmas wishes! This was a business meeting; no time for chit chat or small talk! Jacob felt so strongly about this that he ended his meeting with a hand shake...you know, to seal the deal!

Marissa wanted Nothing to do with this long, white bearded man! She wouldn't look at him or give him the time of day for nothin....nothin, that is, except for the beloved Candy Cane! Once she got a candy cane from him she had a change of heart!

Gingerbread Houses

2010-04-06T12:57:00.000-07:00

Making Gingerbread Houses is one of our favorite Christmas Traditions!!! We love using all kinds of different candies to see what designs our creative juices can come up with!!

Mom takes this Gingerbread business seriously!

Dad is having way too much fun taking pictures !!!

In the end, this was our neighborhood that we built!! Dad was a little too busy playing with the camera so his house is still in 'construction' mode!! What a great way to start the Holiday Season off!!

An Artist and Photographer!!...and Artistic Photo Shoot.

2010-02-19T15:32:00.000-08:00

So the day has come...Marissa has discovered my camera!! Let's just take a look at some of her latest photo shoot, shall we?!

....her baby's pink stroller...look at the way she brought out the straight lines with the angle of the shot....................amazing! This would look awesome, blown up to poster size, hanging in the garage.

The theme of most of her portfolio seems to be her baby dolls:) Here we see Baby Tigger laying relaxed, and upside down on his pillow. Very interesting. The baby's hand to the left of the photo and the leg of the baby to the right, draw the eyes directed to Tigger baby. Their placements are precise!! Wow! Love it.

Here she took a typical vaulted ceiling and she transformed it into a ceiling with color! She strategically shot this from a 2.339 mm angle at exactly 3:24pm, to maximize the reflection from the sunlight! The reflections from a wall of mirrors make for beautiful and interesting patterns, while at the same time, she captured a rainbow of colors around the light fixture. I'm telling you, the planets must've been aligned perfectly to get such a shot!....If only all of our ceilings could always look this beautiful!!

This photo is entitled, "Blurred Vision". As you can see, the photographer was going for a slightly abstract photo of her most prized possession..her little tiny, miniature baby.

I love the business in this one! You've got a dad, a brother, a piece of greenery and of coarse, the finishing touch, a finger at the bottom of the shot! Dad's beard gives plenty of texture, brothers one eye is interesting and the greenery makes me think of the "Singing Tree" in the movie, The Three Amigos! What more could be more interesting than this!!

Now, anyone in the market for a "self portrait", need look no further!! Is this the face of perfection or what?!! I love the way this artist smeared food on her cheeks, to distract from the pure beauty of her face! The way that she scrunched up her chubby little face and puckered her lips are just genius!...and the waves in her hair!! Masterpiece!!

One of Many Projects

2010-01-21T12:07:00.001-08:00

One of our many projects that we worked on for Christmas was designing Jacob's very own book! Jacob is constantly drawing, sculpting his clay creations, building with Lego's and most recently, drawing and making his books. I constantly have papers laying around the house (all over the house:) with his drawings and imaginative creations on them! As much as I truly treasure them, I really wanted them organized and all together, so I decided to design a book for him where he can see them often and preserve them a little better. He was so excited about this project, so we got to work on it immediately....While I was organizing, designing and editing, he stayed busy drawing more and more and more and more-lol:) By the time I finished this book for him, he already had plenty to make the next one!!! Aw, It's so cool that Brant has put stuff together and we are now in the process of getting his book made. Here's a little sample:

This copy of the book is soft back. You can see the cover page is bent some from Jacob's love of looking at it!

Jacob drew all of these images free hand and in pen (his medium of choice, usually)! He now introduces himself as "an Artist" when meeting someone! These have been awesome projects! All of the grandparents got a copy of his book for Christmas...which really helped, bc I never know what to get them:)

A Salad Surprise & Ratatouille!...recipe included!

2010-01-18T15:02:00.000-08:00

Today I had to run to the store. While I was gone, Chef Brant & Chef Cole made this delectable salad for me! ummmmm.........it consisted of: carrots, lettuce, apples, potatoes, celery, Raspberry Hershey Kisses that were in the freezer, spinach, ranch dressing and Reddy Whip!

I'm not too crazy about the Hershey Kisses and not quite sure about the Reddy Whip, but I've been picking out the carrots and other veggies from it and they are pretty good:) Thanks guys for Salad Surprise!!!

In return, I made them some Ratatouille while they were outside. Brant has actually been asking me to make it for a week or so now, so it worked out pretty well to go ahead and make it for him. About 15 mins after showing it to them...it was just about all gone!

Yummy stuff! It's a recipe that a friend of our 'invented' and I've enjoyed making it ever since!

Per Jenny's request here is the recipe: ...it's really hard, so get a pen and paper people:)

Ratatouille Recipe (Darren Gallacher's invention:)

Cut thin slices of zucchini and squash. Get a bag of pepperoni. Spray your dish with a non stick spray and then alternate Squash, Zucchini, Pepperoni...S, Z, P...S, Z, P...SZPSZPSZPSZPSZPSZPSZP....until you have filled the dish! ( You can go in whatever order you prefer...I've found that PZS works well too! ) If you are using a square dish, you might want to try a zig zag pattern:) Top it with Spaghetti Sauce of your choice and sprinkle with some Mozzarella. I like to add a little garlic and pepper to it, personally. Bake on 350 for about 20 mins. There will be some juice in the bottom, when it's done, that you'll see with your first scoop. I just suck it up with a baster to get rid of it. If you're really in the spirit of Ratatouille, you can watch the movie while you eat! Yummm!!

ps. Jenny, like the glass dish? It's one you gave me a couple of years ago:)

Firelight...or is it Twilight?

2010-01-04T19:33:00.000-08:00

(pause the playlist to the right:)

2009-12-02T13:16:00.000-08:00

I am so behind on my blogging!! For now, I'll just post a few things that have been going on.
#1--Thanksgiving Day Triathlon
Brant did an awesome job in the triathlon! Here are some pictures:

Here he is getting marked...early, early in the morning!!
Brant and Tyler...I'm so proud of both of them!!
First leg: 1 mile run. They started in the canal and then ended up on the sidewalk.

Here he is running into get his bike!!

After the 4 mile bike ride, he's changing for the swim.

...last leg of the race--100 meter swim.
WAY TO GO BRANT!!!

BIG thanks to Maddy and Dawn, who helped with Marissa so I could go get pictures and welcome Brant to the finish line!!! Marty was in charge of the traditional, Ward Turkey Bowl with the Elders Quorum, so he and Jacob were there. Dad was very sad he couldn't get there in time to see Brant, but was so excited to hear all about it and see pictures from the big event!
After the race. Way to go boys!!!

2. Jacob has been drawing tons lately!! He's done some really amazing stuff. It's amazing to me that he draws with a pen and really doesn't mess up too much. This is just part of one of the many of his "projects" that he trying to get finished.

3. Jacob got Student Of the Month!! Way to go Jacob!!! We're so proud of all of Jacob's accomplishments!! He's doing awesome and growing into such a fine young man!

4. One night the kids looked out on the back porch bc they kept hearing noises. That's when they saw this ferret wondering around in search of a snack!! The second I walked out with the carrots, she grabbed one and came running right over to me! A while later, we saw neighbors from down the street walking around with squeaker toys...so with that, I walked out to them and told them that we had had a great time playing and taking pictures with their pet and that she was in our backyard!! Just a week bf we found her on our porch, our neighbors found her in their HOUSE!! Can you imagine?! Esp if you were like, sleeping and this long hairy thing crawls in bed with you or something! ahh! ...we did have an experience like that once, now that I think about it! About 4 yrs ago, our pet Hamster got out of his cage, climbed up our comforter and into our bed!! I woke up to feel it crawling on me and freaked out! I flung the blanket as hard and fast as possible..you know, to be sure that the "8 inch tarantula" (as I imagined it!!) splattered on the wall! I heard the 'thug' on the wall and cut the lights on and we couldn't find a thing! Nothing! Nothing in the room, nothing in the bathroom. I sat down on the side of the tub to calm myself down and low and behold, little Mr. Hulk comes waddling into the bathroom! Poor guy! He lived a whole year after the drama...and he never snuck out of his cage again either:)
5. Rissa has been completely potty trained for a while now and rarely has accidents. She's such a big girl!! I have to say that she keeps me laughing bc, she's learning how to use this potty thing to her advantage! Before naps or bedtime, she is sure to say, "Mom, but I have to go pee again!". We mom's don't care to chance it, so I send her on her way...off to the potty again...just to be sure:) The best is when she talks me into sitting on the edge of the tub so she can have someone to chat with! She chats about her baby dolls and pushing them in her stroller. She'll look at her toenails and talk about her polish. Then she'll spend half an hour peeking in the toilet and talk about how all of her pee-pee's and poo-poo's are going down to the Ocean! It pretty much takes me an hour now to get her down for bed at night, but I'm just thankful she's doing so well with it!! I can't wait to go back home for Christmas and let Meema take on the roll of "Marissa's Potty-Chat Buddy"!! I'm sure my mom will love the experience :) and it'll be some real, bonding, memory building time for the two of them-lol!!

Photo shoot by Mary Ann that I never blogged

2009-11-02T15:28:00.000-08:00

This past July we went up to Utah to visit Grandma Joyner. While we were there, my friend, Mary Ann, did a Family Photo shoot for us so we could get some updated family pictures as well as get some with Grandma. I never posted about this part of our trip and want to so that when I print this year's blog out, it will be part of our memories for the year! As always, Mary Ann did an awesome job!! Thanks for working us into your busy schedule girl!!!
{One thing that I do want to notate, for memories sake, is that Jacob found two worms during the session. The thing about it was that on both occassions, he was seriously about-maybe-50 yds away from them!! Both times, while we're all posing and getting pictures taken, he jumps up saying, "OOOo,ooo! OOOOO!" and takes off running. He digs down in the sand a little and pulls out a worm!! We were all dumb founded. How the heck could he spot them from so far away?!! This story also explains why he's holding a worm in the permanent picture to the right of my blog!!!}

Jacob's 2 sec's of Fame on TV!!

2009-10-28T09:41:00.000-07:00

Brant and I watched and waited intently during the evening news the other night, hoping to get even a small glimpse of Jacob! The tv Station had gone to his school several days before and done a little news clip on them. The kids all wrote down their questions and got and opportunity to ask them and chat some with the reporter. Here's a recording of the little clip that they did, in between the sports and weather:) Jacob is seen near the end of it and is to the left, in an open spot pretty much by himself. You'll know him when you see him-lol-being a little silly the second the camera hits him! His friend, Olivia is right in front of him waving and good friend, Graham, is "hugging" the reporter at the very end. Brant was awesome the first time we watched! He was pointing out Jacob and all of his friends in no time!! Thanks for helping spot them buddy!!

In the Mind of an Autistic Artist

2009-10-27T09:00:00.001-07:00

I found this story, of Stephen, who is an Autistic Adult with a Photographic Memory. He is extremely talented!! They flew him up over New York and now, from memory, is free hand drawing a DETAILED paneramic view of what he saw!! Having our own little Autistic Artist in our family, I feel a connection to this story in so many ways and wanted to share it! Be sure to pause the music...I moved it up a little closer to the top so you don't have to scroll down so far:) Also, check out Rissa singing (right) BEAT IT, while you're at it:)....well, it's actually Brant's voice (lol)!

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Watch CBS News Videos Online

It's really made me stop and wonder if Jacob has a photographic memory b/c when he draws or makes things out of his clay, he's very detailed. He can see something once and recreate it either immemdiately or months later! And usually it's pretty exact. Once, in Primary, they were talking about the army of Helaman I guess had pitcures and had done 'Sharing Time' out of it and all. Before you knew it, he had sculpted a very detailed warrior out of his ball of clay. Teachers and kids, alike, were coming up to Marty and I talking about how amazing it was. Brant was the first to find me, "MOM! You should have SEEN what Jacob made!!!". {He has the need to have something in his hands most of the time so we, with Primary leaders consent, let him have a small ball of clay b/c it helps him feel a little more centered and focused.}

Daddy's off work for a week!!

2009-10-26T10:35:00.000-07:00

The school district that Marty contracts into, was out of school all week last week, for Fall Break! It was so nice to have him home! Marissa LOVED play dates with dad, as did I!! We spent a lot of time outside b/c of the beautiful weather.

One day, Marty asked Rissa where she wanted to go for lunch and she said, "Pawk! ...WWeeeeee, Sweeeeng....Ruunnnn Fast!" Translation: Park!!! Slide, Swing...I get to run super fast!

So we packed a lunch and headed to the 'Pawk'!

When I asked Marty what he wanted to do for lunch, on a different day, he said, "Swing, club, ...green!" Translation: Golf! We were going to hit a coarse somewhere, but ended up not having enough time, so we hit the driving range instead. We dropped Rissa off to a friend and enjoyed our time together. I'm not sure if we even actually ate lunch, now that I think of it:)

When asked what I wanted to do for lunch, on yet, another day, I chose 'Sub, store', which translates to, "Subway and a little Shopping". Thanks for a great week together, Marty!! It's now Monday Morning and we miss you already (but we are glad to be getting back on our regular schedule, I must say:)!!

My Cousin Needs Your Vote for tv show, So You Think You Can Dance!!

2009-10-23T08:43:00.000-07:00

My cousin, Justin Giles, is an Amazing Choreographer!! He is currently in the Top Eight running to be a new Choreographer on So You Think You Can Dance!
Please click on this link http://www.sytycdism.com/ and VOTE for him!!! Click on the red that says Which Choreographer Should SYTYCD Bring IN? and then under Contemporary Choreographers CLICK --Justin Giles!!! I expect all of you to go do it...NOW!!! :)thanks!!:)
...oh, and spread the word!! Tip: Send the LINK to your grandma's & friends & neighbors...& the Ice Cream Man... to make it super easy for them!!!!

Rissa & I Start Joy School!!!!

2009-10-21T08:18:00.000-07:00

I was actually not even thinking about Preschool at all for this year, until some friends expressed that they really would love to have Marissa in their group. After a couple of weeks of thought, I decided to let her participate. She is the youngest and her attention span isn't as 'long lasting' as some of the older, much wiser kids-lol :)--but I know she's loving it!! She really is learning a lot and she LOVES being with her friends!! I love teaching them (every seven weeks)! I love to see how they all interact, play and how they absorb everything they are taught!! I have been so excited both times I got to teach! I was excited to watch her learning in action!! Well, I can see that she has learned a lot already...but after teaching last week, for the second time, I think I came to a realization and that realization was that she's way too much like her mother!! SHE IS A SOCIAL BUTTERFLY!! Chatty, chatty chatty! Here are a few pictures from the two weeks that I've taught.

I was the first to host Joy School, so this was the first week of the school year.

The theme for the month was Ocean, so I came up with an Ocean game that the kids had fun playing. We also learned about Circles and the letter A, we practiced cutting with scissors and we made little Aquariums for our craft. Apples were our yummy snack.

To get the wiggles out, all of the little princesses dressed up in Marissa's tutu's and ballerina clothes! We only had one boy that week ....he got to dress up in Super Man capes!

cutting, cutting, cutting!!

Last week was my second turn to teach. We learned about the letter E, squares and Orange.

I think I glued their Elephant Ears on up-side-down, but the kids didn't care! They loved wearing them!

We had Eggs with our snack. Some of the kids really wanted to try cracking it open, so I let them all crack one. We then boiled some and scrambled some to see some of the different ways you can cook them.

I cherish this time with her and am loving every moment at this age!!! It's such a busy age, but so much fun for a me!! Wheels are turning in her little head and there's a surprise around every courner....ummm... sometimes a not-so-good surprise....but I'm just trying to focus on the good, fun surprises and growth moments!!

Nana & Papa Come on a Surprise Visit to see US!!!!!

2009-10-08T15:09:00.000-07:00

We were all so excited, early yesterday morning, when we got a call from Papa saying that they were in Las Vegas and were driving down to see us!! Nana & Papa are MY mom's parents, so the kids' Great-Grand parents. They live in SC, so we don't get to see them very often, so what a wonderful surprise it was!!! Marty, Brant & Jacob had to leave for a Scout Field day so Marissa and I had so much fun having them to ourselves for a little bit!!

Marissa immediately bonded with Papa!! Before we knew it, she was dressing him up and picking flowers with him! Not to mention that she had him running laps around the place, inside and out!! I was so excited for her to spend time with them! She knows them from pictures and from our family prayers, but it's a whole new thing to BE with them, HUG them and BOND with them!!

She and Nana bonded very easily too! The first thing on Rissa's list was to show Nana her baby that sucks her bottle and cries! Her Tutu, jewelry and fairy wings (well, Rissa prefers, butterfly wings!) were all on the list of "Must show Nana" too!!

Nana is known for her hats--they come in all different shapes and sizes, but we all love her baseball caps with glitter, rhinestones and BLING!! I loved sitting and talking with her! I showed her several of my pottery pieces that I made on the Potter's Wheel and sculpted by hand. I shared some of my sewing projects and we talked a lot about artsy stuff:) Nana is one of the most amazing women I know! She is soo talented!! She is an amazing painter & artist! She's also one of the best Story tellers that I know!! I have so many wonderful memories of her stories of fairies and princesses! She used to tell us stories about the fairies who lived in the woods that were (at the time) across the street from her house. We also talked and laughed about past Halloweens! The kids and I have the house decorated for Halloween, so I was telling her that every year when I'm decorating, I always think of the different years as a child of going trick-or-treating at her house. One year, she dressed herself in a black gown and paled her face and hands. She laid down with arms across her chest, in the long flower bed that is built into their porch. I'll never forget walking up to the porch, lights dimmed and some creepy music playing softly in the background. Was that my Nana? Was she really dead or alive? Made of plastic or blood and bones? My brothers and I get closer, closer, closer...BBWWAAAHHHHHHAAAAA!!!! I think my younger brother and I cried for a day about that scare!

Then there was the man down the street who stuttered. One year she sat in a chair, in black, with pantie hose over her face. Weird...again, we couldn't quite tell who it was! Well, that year, she scared the stuttering man down the street so bad that he passed out! When he woke up, all he could say was, "Mmmmiisss Giiillllleess.....IIIiiiiss tthhhaaattt Yyyooooouuuuu?!

Three Peas in a Pod! uumm, Jacob kept insisting on doing this goofy face...still cute kid though!

We got treated out to dinner and desert! We ate at Westgate b/c we knew they'd love seeing everything there! We ate at Shane's Ribshack (yum!) and then walked around to Cold Stone for some ice cream. Westgate has shopping, movie theatre and the Hockey arena is there. Concerts, motor crossing, Big Trucks...all kinds of events are held there! There are huge fountains that shoot up water to lights and music and it's just a fun place to hang out. On the way home, we drove 'next door' to show Papa the Stadium where the 2008 Superbowl was held. You can see how big it is, from our street, so he was really excited to get close up to it. He was amazed at the grass field that sits on a plat form and can be brought into the stadium for games, and then rolled (electrically of coarse) back outside.

During dinner, Papa showed the boys his GATOR BOWL ring! He played football for USC and was in the FIRST ever, Gator bowl in 1946 and HE MADE THE FIRST TOUCHDOWN OF THE GAME!!! He was later recruited by the Green Bay Packers, but declined the offer b/c he would have to leave Nana behind for months while he trained, etc. Nana was far along into a pregnancy and he wanted to be with her. Papa coached for some 30 years. He was inducted into the SC Hall of Fame as a coach, many years ago. Just last year, he was also inducted into the SC Hall of Fame as an athlete!! We all loved hearing him tell about these awesome experiences from his life!!

Brant loved listening to Papa talk about sports!! He could have listened to him for days!!

Jacob is planning all of the neat gifts that he is going to make them out of clay! He esp wants to make some things for Nana b/c they got a chance to talk about it a lot. He can't wait to make them and then take them to her when we go home for Christmas.

We are so very thankful for this quality time that we had to spend with such amazing grand/great grandparents!!! They have no idea how much their visit meant to all of us! We can't wait to see them again in a few months!!!

"I Tooted"!

2009-10-04T22:56:00.000-07:00

So here's our little Princess tonight at the dinner table, letting us know that she "tooted"! This is always a topic that our little Rissa is ready to talk loudly about anytime, anywhere!! She was being so silly and funny while she ate, that I just wanted to capture it on video. We also got her to say a few words that are really cute when she says them, "He's so Cute", or rather, "He's so Toot" is one of them! Brant made the comment that "Marissa's not going to get many dates when she turns 16 if she's still 'tootin' all the time like she does now!". Dad is ok with that:)

(Don't forget to PAUSE the music:)

Fishin on the Farm

2009-09-26T09:49:00.001-07:00

A few Saturdays ago, Marty was gone to a convention for work and the kids and I were bored and looking for something to do. WE called our good friends, the Garcia's, who live on a farm and have a beautiful pond...{large pond or little lake, I'm not sure which:)} ...and asked them if we could come out and fish! As always, they said, "Of Coarse!", so we ran to the store and bought some Night Crawlers and a few other things that you buy when you want to catch fish, and then we headed out to their house! Now I'd like to say that we had such a great time, and we did, until we tried to actually start fishing! Only then, did I realized that I needed one of those "Bobber-thingies" and maybe larger hooks would have been good too! It was a scorching 107 degrees that afternoon! So you can only imagine how 'fun' it was, throwing the bait out and watching it sink to the deeps of the big pond/little lake!! As we reeled it in, Jacob felt sure several times he must have caught a HUGE fish....only to learn he was dragging in every piece of algae plant that happened to be in the path of the mighty hook! Once we started fishing down near the reeds and other tall plant life, I 'reel'-lized that if I could throw the bait over a couple of the plants, or a floating stick or something, it would hold the bait and hook up so it wouldn't sink into the algae depths...it gave Jacob some hope, but still didn't work. aw-here are a few pictures---

oh, and here's one of our little 'pocket fishing rods' that we brought. Cute, but ridiculous! Don't waste your money on one!

Jacob gave up on fishing and started collecting snail shells!

As we all loaded up in the car, Rissa said, "I'm so hot!", Jacob said, "Mom, I think you need to take a Fishing Class...you don't know how to fish! I thought you did, but you don't!" , and Brant follows that reply with, "Mom, I think you owe us a Sonic Slush:)"! They were all right and we headed off to Sonic and then went home and jumped in the pool.

Thanks again Garcia's for sharing your big pond/little lake with us!!! :)

2009-09-14T22:42:00.000-07:00

The other night, we all went out as a family to dinner and then to a few other places before heading home. On the way home, Kenny Rogers song, came on. With grand excitement, I hurried and told the family, "HUSH!hush! OOOOoohh Mommy loves this song!!!".. and then I cranked up the volume and began singing this beautiful song of his! As I sang (with my eyes closed:) I couldn't help but reminisce on the days long ago, as a child. It seemed just like yesterday! I remember riding side-by-side with my mom in the car listening to this song. My mom would put her Kenny Rogers 8-TRACK in the player, crank up the volume and cry and sing and cry and sing and cry and sing-along with good ol Kenny! Man are those some good memories! I didn't cry though...I just sang! Sang, sang sang! Even if I had forgotten a word here or there, I sang...until I heard a noise in the very back of the car. Was someone crying? Yes. Who? Why? Do I really have to turn the song down to let the inner compassionate mother in me shine? yes. I must. Even though it's the end..the best part of the whole song! The climax, if you will! so I turn the song down to hear that one someone is crying. I turn Kenny off so that I can hear better. "Is someone crying back there?" 'Yes", I hear through the sobs! "It's Jacob crying, mom", Brant tells me. "Jacob, why are you crying? What's wrong?", I ask. After a moment of trying to gather himself he answers, "It's this song, mom. It's so beautiful...and I miss my baby Chick! How can I live without him?!"
I should've known my little tenderhearted Jacob would find the beauty in the song! Thanks Kenny, you've touched all of our hearts...all of them:)

Jacob's Sweet Dance Moves

2009-09-09T22:29:00.000-07:00

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

These are clips from Jacob's jam session at my cousins house a while back! I didn't have the camcorder with me, so I just started snapping shots!! You Go Jacob!!

Washing Clothes the Old Fashioned Way.....

2009-08-24T08:28:00.000-07:00

....just couldn't resist, could ya!! Rissa loves the bath a little too much...or maybe she was just really upset about spilling that ketchup on her pretty pink outfit:) Her expression makes me laugh, b/c when we walked in, that look on her face totally showed that she wasn't quite sure if I'd be upset with her or not.....

...I must say, it was nice to have her bathed already by the time we got back to G'ma's house!

These were from our trip to Utah that I never blogged...and they are definitely blog worthy!! We were at my cousins house and Rissa just couldn't take it anymore that Ashley was in the bath and she wasn't, so she took matters into her own hands!

Swimming Like Fish

2009-08-19T14:09:00.000-07:00

I'm being trained by my brother to teach swim lessons and so I've been working with some kids to get practice with some of the teaching techniques. In the Spring, I will be getting hands on training as well as certification from him, so that I'll be ready to open for business this next May!! Here is a video of Sara and Rissa swimming! They are both 2 yrs old! The 2nd and 3rd clips are of Brennen & Ethan, both 3yrs old! It was so much fun working with these kids and I'm sooo proud of them!! All of the kids were swimming in 4 days!!

Happy Birthday Marty Dear!!

2009-08-18T09:01:00.001-07:00

Happy Birthday Marty!!! Well, actually it was Yesterday, but it was one of those crazy days during the week full of school, work and running around busy, so I do feel like we weren't able to celebrate to FULL CAPACITY! That's ok though, b/c that gives us all the more reason to stretch the celebration into this next weekend, right?!!

I did manage to get his favorite cake made! It's one of those, "family recipes that have literally been passed down from generation to generation". I must say, however, that I don't bake each layer in the ol fashion skillet, like my mother-in-law and her mother and her mother did:) Same homemade recipe though, and same delicious taste!! I got 6 yummy layers on there this time!!

Happy Birthday to you Happy birthday to you Happy birthday to you Happy birthday to you!!

AAaahhhhhhhhh WWWhhhhooooooooooooooo!!!

He did get some gifts too! The kids were excited for him to get a mini frig to put in his office...we also got him lots of goodies from SAMS to keep it stocked up!! WE LOVE YOU DAD!!!!

Snuggling, Family & Doughnuts

2009-08-13T12:50:00.000-07:00

The last of our Utah pictures.....

rest

relaxation

Snuggling with Grandma

FAMILY

My cousin, Lee! They had us over for dinner one night and it always so much fun to spend time with them!!! Thanks Jenn & Lee!!!

I LOVE Jenn!! She is one of my favorite people!! We had such a great time, sharing crafty ideas, eating and laughing!!!

Every time we visit, we make Julia give us a concert! She has an AMAZING voice, seriously, she has the singing voice of an adult (ok, well that sounds funny, huh?!) ....so maybe I should say that she has the voice of an Angel, which she definitely does, but it's more the voice of...an adult angel! I only use the word adult, bc she has a more mature voice than other kids her age.

Anyway, this visit she entertained us with many of the songs from WICKED!! I really should've recorded one of her songs!

Rissa and Ashley had the BEST time playing together!!!! Actually all of the kids loved playing together and I loved that they each had a cousin that was the same age.

WE spent one whole, entire day ...from sun up to sun down:) at Seven Peaks Water park! We met the Christensen's there and played all day long!! I only have this one picture, to remember it by...well, actually, I do have a couple more, but they include ME in a BATHING SUIT, so they did not make the cut for the blog!!

MORE FAMILY...THE JOYNERS

Rissa and her little baby, Austin!
All of the kids LOVE Aunt Angeline!!
So we all played this game....well, I don't even know the name of it. Basically, you throw the balls across the yard and try to ring it on the bar. Each bar is different points, top being the highest. This is a picture of my balls-lol-all three of mine made it on the TOP bar!!! My niece, Cara and I, were teammates, and this was my last throw of the game!! ...we won and beat Angeline and Brittany!!! I liked that ball game, I need to find out the name of it though!

Some of the guys lined up to watch the 'competitions' that were going on.

Janell, G'ma @ Dana enjoying the beautiful weather! We LOVED the cooler weather, that's for sure!!

I love our nieces and nephew's!! This is our niece, Cara. LOVE HER! The only thing that we were sad about was that we didn't get to see Brett...BRETT, WE LOOOVVEE YOU TOO...next time we may just have to bombard him at work!!

Krispy Kreme

Does anyone else just love these doughnuts?!! We took advantage and went, twice I think, b.c the ones close to our house have shut down so we have been Krispy Kreme-less for a couple of years now! YUMMY GOODNESS!!

Ok, so to be perfectly honest, I went a third time...without the fam! I was soooo excited to get to see one of my good friends that I haven't seen in 18 years!!! Minta met me at my sis-in-laws house, and then we ditched and went to KK!
and just for the record, we did not eat all of these doughnuts ourselves!! we did take them home to our families!!
....or maybe we did eat them all!! lol---really! MINTA!! I had ssooo much fun with you!! It was so funny b/c from the second she got there, we were chatting and laughing non-stop like little school girls!! And even after talking late into the night, we still have so much catching up to do!! I can't wait to see her again....but until then, we'll have blogging and facebook, right?!!

I Love to see the Temple

2009-08-12T18:43:00.000-07:00

I am really trying to get the rest of our Utah trip blogged, and I seriously need to be leaving for YW's RIGHT NOW :) so here are some of our pictures from our visit to the Beautiful, Salt Lake Temple!! I love the peacefulness that you feel when visiting the Temple! I am thankful for the Temple and pray that I always go often and never take advantage of having one close to our home!!

In all truthfulness, it wasn't the most peaceful trying to snap a shot of the kids at the fountain!! We were just about done and we were hot and ready to go eat, but life is good! We got this shot, smiles and all:) Good times, kids, good times!! We adore these three!

The Living Aquarium, Sandy, Ut

2009-08-08T09:26:00.000-07:00

WE had the BEST time at the Living Aquraium while we were in Utah!! I think we all agreed that "Flappy" the Stingray, was our favorite, however, this picture of Brant and the Octopuss is definately my favorite photo of the day!!!
One of Jacob's favorite foods is Lobster & crab!! He was sooo excited to see this gigantor lobster...he wanted to cook it up and eat it!

Tiger Shark

Lost in the Swamp

cute kids in a cave

Rissa LOVED these fish!!! I think our next pet will be a fish or two for her-it was so fun to see her and listen to her in all of her excitement---"FEEEESH!". Oh, and to a two year old, feeesh are very interactive with you!! She loved that they play 'Peek-A-Boo' with her...popping out from the rocks and stuff

Brant must be wearing some good Worm smelling Cologne!! These fish followed him to each side of the tank, but they wouldn't follow anyone else! Maybe it's the red:)

FLAPPY!!! The kids gave this Stingray the name, Flappy, b/c he would litterally pull himself up the wall and flap, looking for someone to pet him!!

I started petting him and he just sat there, seriously, for about two mins! It was kinda like our dog-lol!! We all fell in love with Flappy!!

"Here Flappy, here Flappy!"
"....good boy, good boy Flappy!"

Day 1 in Utah....Declutter thy Mother's Shed....

2009-08-04T09:06:00.000-07:00

When we go visit G'ma, we always tell her to make a list of things that we can all do together to help her around the house. Well, boy did we get to her!!1 We were so excited that we got to help clean out and organize her shed!!! Marty always likes finding "old memories" stuff!

G'ma rigged up a cool trash bag despencer--clever clever!!
Brant helped tons with keeping Rissa occuppied when she needed breaks from "hepping"! G'pa's old walker did the trick most of the time.

I just had to get a shot of this! JB White!!! I loved finding this box bc of two reasons: 1-for the longest time I shopped there (man they had good sales!!) and got my hair done there ...along with the fact that they were bought out years ago and no longer exist!! 2-When I was growing up, my dad was a Supervisor there, in the warehouse and so we ALWAYS had JB White gift boxes on hand! This was just one of those things that sparked a lot of memories for me.

We found Marty's Dad's Postal Jacket. Along with being in the Air Force, he was a Mailman. Our kids love the fact that G'pa was a Mailman....the old school kind, ya know! He didn't wear t-shirt and shorts and tennis shoes like ours! He was a hard core Mailman who dressed in the uniform and walked from door to door devlivering mail to the people of the world! It meant a lot to come across many memories of Dad.

OK----SSoooooooo...here's something else we found!
And upon ripping up the linoleum -- here's what we found!!!! ARE YOU KIDDING?!

So it wasn't before too long that Marty and I headed off to Lowe's to buy supplies for a NEW SHED FLOOR!! This was the first time we've ever replaced any type of floor by ourselves, so we had to do a little research at the "Do It Yourself" counter, but it didn't take too long before we had gathered our supplies and were heading out the door!

It was exciting to be taking this project on....but what if we TOTALLY SCREWED UP G'MAs shed floor??!!!! That thought did make us a slightly nervous, but didn't stop us!

Jacob was oh too eagar to saw something!!! We had even brought his Scout book with us, so it worked out well that he could knock two birds out with one stone!

We figured that since there was some water damage in the past, that we should water proof the wood, so Brant took on the job of weather proofing the wood. He actually took on many jobs, and his work was GREATLY appreciated!!!

I know that the Lord hears our prayers!! Our last two boards were, seriously, 1 inch too big! And G'ma had no power tools..only a hand saw! I just couldn't figure out how we were going to get the long, 1 inch strips cut with that tiny little saw! So I offered some very serious little prayers, and then I went and just started digging in all of G'pa's tools!!

When I saw the blades I just knew there had to be an electric saw of some kind - somewhere!! I think I also saw the Pearly White Gates of Heaven at about that same time!!! Not too much longer and I found this hand held saw, attached the blade and started cutting awayQ!!! I made sure that everyone got a chance to experience the joy of Power Tools!!!!

LOVE IT!! That was SSOOOooo much EASIER!!!! (Thank you G'pa!!!)
So here's the floor before Lanoleum
Nailing the Lanoleum down...I really liked the design I picked--I think it really brightened the place up! (G'ma loved it, so I'm happy about that:) ...and I am aware that there's a slight ripple in the middle....(huummmmmm...don't really know what to say bout that....I will probably use this picture in a lesson someday--talk about how sometimes there are ripples in life, or something weird like that?)
So here's the finished product!! The ripple isn't so obvious when 'stuff' is in there:)

Our Trip to Utah... Part one...Over the River and Through the Woods, to G'ma's House we go!!

2009-08-04T07:40:00.000-07:00

So we had an awesome time visiting friends and family in Utah last week!! It's funny, bc there were about 5 other families from our ward visiting up there at the same time! One of my good friends, Jacey, has already posted about their trip (!! We've all only been home just a few days!!) and she has inspired me to attempt to get caught up!! So here we go.....On our way to Utah!
As I said, there were several families driving up around the same time. We and the Christensen's decided to just follow each other up, so we left super early in the morning and drove straight through.

One of our stopping points---this was too beautiful not to take some pictures!!

Rissa and Luke :)

All went smoothly til we came across an accident.......
Once we hit Filmore, we ended up stopped, sitting on the interstate for...well, honestly I'm not sure how long. Maybe an hour.?. We kinda had fun, so I didn't even pay attention to the time! Fun? well, maybe not FUN, but we had our friends right behind us, so it was way better than sitting there by ourselves! ...So back and forth we ran to each other's car! some guys got out and just strolled up and down the side of the interstate, while another guy decided to crush a few golf balls out into the desert! Me? I sat in the back and watched a movie with the kids while letting Rissa climb from the front seat to the back, front to the back, front-back.....I must say that after being in her carseat so much, she loved the freedom!
We didn't know for a long while what was going on b/c the interstate was backed up so far that you couldn't see anything at first. Before too long we saw tons of black smoke and then the fire trucks and all and we realized that something horrible had happened! It's blury, but Marty pulled it up on his Blackberry. A Semi-truck ran into the back of another, catching the engine on fire. In turn, the other caught fire too. The drivers were Air-Vac'd to a hospital.

Allyson I know has better pictures b/c I turned around and she was hanging out the drivers window snapping shots!! I was sitting in the back, on the opposite side of our car, so this is as good as I got. I think you get the point of how bad the accident was though.

Our arrival...
After 12 Hours or so of driving...and just sitting on the interstate:)-we made it to Grandma's House!!! Before we even went in the house, we tackled G'ma with hugs and kisses and helped her add a little "bling-bling" to her garden!
It was fun to see Rissa instantly bond with G'ma! She's old enough now to understand who she is and I think she was glad to finally SEE the G'ma that's in pictures!! We all loved staying with her and having so much time with her all to ourselves!

Back to School Already?!

2009-08-03T16:22:00.001-07:00

I cannot believe that it's time for school to start again!! After a fun filled summer with lots of family and friends, Jacob was feeling like a "Mr. Grumpy Gills" (a term from Finding Nemo that the kids and I have picked up and use from time to time when we're not feeling the most positive:) about having to go to school this morning. This first picture tells it all. He wouldn't turn around b/c he said that he was "not happy about starting the fourth grade, this is a terrible morning and I'm not gonna let you take my picture!" So being the good mom that I am, I listened to his argument, said, "Ok Jacob, that's ok-you don't have to look at the camera" ...and then I snapped a shot of him from behind walking into school:) On the way in, the Principal saw him walking in and rushed over to greet him in this chipper, happy voice, "Good Morning Jacob!!! It's sooo good to see you back in school!! Are you excited to start the 4th grade?!". He didn't really stop, maybe slowed down a bit and kinda growled at her as he walked by. lol--thankfully our Principal has a good sense of humor and she also knows Jacob pretty well so I don't think she was offended by it:)

It's amazing how fast a child can change their attitude!!! All it took was one glance at seeing his name written in cursive on his new desk and all of the sudden he wants his picture taken!! Other than being a tad on the grumpy side this morning, he had a great day at school and did admit to me when I picked him up, that he loved seeing his friends again and that school's not so bad! He's going to learn tons of new stuff this year that I think he's going to enjoy.

Brant had a few 'minutes to chill', as he put it, after I taking J to school, so after we 'chilled' for like, 10 mins, Rissa and I walked him over to the brand new middle school! I love it b/c it's literally just across the street from our house!! As you can see, they haven't even finished the landscaping yet! Brant was sooo excited to start school today!! It was a little hard for me to drop him off, though! I'm excited for him to be at a new school where he has so many good friends...and he's so close to home!

He still had a smile on his face on his walk home!