Happy Birthday Brad!!

Today is a wonderful day!
Brad was born!
I just want him to know what an awesome, amazing hubby and daddy he is!
I love him so much!
Thank you Brad for all you do for us!

What A Christmas!

Merry Christmas!
It was an Awesome Christmas! The kids had a blast. I love seeing their faces on Christmas morning. Bradon said this was one of the best Christmas's ever! Wow!
It was fun having a 4 day weekend. Most of all it was wonderful to have Brad home.
We had the most amazing Sacrament Christmas meeting yesterday. Beautiful music and scriptures read. How awesome to be able to feel the spirit so strong through all of church!!
Afterall, Christ is the reason for Christmas. What a wonderful gift our Father in Heaven has given us.
My goals this new year are to continute to give gifts to Him. Temple attendance, read my scriptures, family prayer....and I need to start having Family Home Evening weekly. What a blessing it can be!
I will get some pictures posted on here soon of the kids having fun at Christmas.

A Weekend at Mistys

Beth and Emma and Bella --sometimes they would fight over this cute doggy.

Darci, Beth and Bella (Misty's adorable dog)

Emma and Bethany play the piano.

What a fun weekend! The girls and I drove to Ogden to see Misty's new house. It's beautiful! She lives up against the mountain. It snowed all day Sunday! I felt like I was in a cabin in the mountains. It was so peaceful and the kids played all day in the snow! From the second we got there until we left. I had the privilege of going to see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert featuring Natalie Cole on Saturday with my sister Jeni and her husband Mike in SLC. That was awesome!!! A guy played an organ solo of a mixture of Christmas songs that got him a standing ovation! It was amazing!

Sunday it snowed all day! We went to church, after having to dig Misty's suburban out of the snow...thanks to Tom and Mike for digging! Every waking moment almost, Darci and Jene' were out playing in the snow. Monday was sunny, thank goodness and I was able to unbury my car and make it home. I got some awesome quality time with my mom and Jeni and Misty. I wish I could have stayed a couple more days. Didn't get much time to visit with my dad but it was good seeing him.

Thank you Tom and Misty for letting us come stay with you!!!

Meanwhile, Brad is enjoying the sunny days in Hawaii. He is having fun with his sisters and parents. What a way to celebrate a 50th wedding anniversary! He's been golfing and is hoping to go scuba diving. He misses his family here though and wishes we were there. Us too! I'm just thankful it was possible to send him so he could be there. The girls miss daddy a lot!!!!

Winter Wonderland

Looking out Misty's front door.

Kids' cousin Mason shoveling snow.

What a fun way for Jene' to play in the snow.

Darci taking a dive in the snow. Jene' almost buried in the snow.

Santa

What a cutie with Santa! Bethany is so excited for Christmas. My scanner isn't working so I don't have pics of Darci and Jene' with Santa.

Winter

Winter has set upon us. Brad is in Hawaii with his family at the moment. His parents are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary and what better way to celebrate than with your children. I'm excited for him to be able to have this opportunity to spend with his family.

I have been a fan of the TV show The Biggest Loser these past few weeks. Something it has taught me was how we always make excuses for things. I don't have enough time...that's my biggest. So one of my goals is to make the time to keep this blog updated. I know there are probably a couple people that want to know what's going on with us.

Meanwhile, so much has happened in the past few months. The kids are growing like weeds. I'm so thankful for my children. We had a great Thanksgiving. My sister Jill and her family came down for the weekend and we just had a blast. I need to get my camera out more and take pictures.

As the Christmas season is upon us we feel very blessed. Brad will be home from Hawaii on Christmas Eve. I pray all the planes fly safe and on time that day. He'll be bringing the Lehi bunch home with him so that will make a very fun Christmas.

more to come.....

It's Fall

What an emotional roller coaster these past few days. Do you ever say something you wish you could just not say, rewind time. Well, I publicly apologize to those I hurt by what I said. They know who they are.

Good news, I have learned how to can foods from my garden. I made pickles (they taste good), canned carrots and tomatoes. I am looking forward to next year because now I know exactly what I want to plant, how much, and what I will do with it all. It goes to my food storage. I still have some more carrots to do and a few more tomatoes. The carrots take the longest because of having to pressure cook them.

Meanwhile, we were able to get 3 deer on the muzzleloader hunt. I'm a poor shot, thank goodness Brad is not. Barratt's a very good shot. He came up 2 of the 5 days we were there. He was there about 2 hours and shot a nice 3 point. I was there 5 days and missed a nice 4 point and a 2 point. I need to improve my aim.

I do love fall! I hated the wind yesterday though. It blew so hard that it blew a board that was leaning on the side of our garage into our truck and put a nice dent in it. Thank goodness for insurance.

Someday I will post some pictures on here. Life gets so busy and my computer at home is so slow. I need more RAM but also lack the funds for purchasing some. I will have to get on the laptop and do it.
So hopefully more to come soon...

A Hot Air Balloon Ride

Brad and I got the privilege on July 23 to go on a Hot Air Balloon Ride with his parents and two sisters (Tammy and Kim). We went to Park City and I never realized how high in the air we were until I saw the comparison of the regular balloon to us!!! It was so much fun and we are so appreciative to Brad's dad for inviting and paying for this fun adventure!! (The people in the blue t-shirts weren't part of our family.)

Busy Summer

General Conference Weekend

I wish I would have had the camera. We decided to go up to Salt Lake this past weekend. We grabbed the Lehi bunch and spent half the time with Brad's parents and half with mine. We went ice skating at the Olympic Oval. That place is HUGE!!! The kids had a blast. I realized the aerobics I've been doing 3x a week are doing me good. I wasn't even sore and had the muscles to skate. WOO HOO
You should have seen Bethany. She loved it!! At 2 1/2 yrs old she was skating all over. She had a miniature old person walker thing that she just pushed around the rink. We couldn't tell her which direction to go or touch her. She was excited to be on her own. Very determined to do it by herself. Becca, Bradon and Bo had been before so they were pretty good. It took Darci a bit to figure it out. Jene' (being the little dancer she is) kept trying to go on her toes --toe pick on ice skates. She got better as the evening went on. Harley switched to hockey skates and liked them much better. Brad took a nice fall on his wallet that left a bruise the same size on his buttocks. Lucky him, that was the only time he fell. I took about 4 spills, but it was a blast!!!

Conference was exceptionally awesome and I can hardly wait for the Ensign to come out. My favorite quote: "Your future is only as bright as your faith" --Pres. Monson

I loved that we were encouraged to keep moving forward and to read the conference talks!

someday....

Someday I will get more pictures posted. Life gets so busy. To keep you updated, I am now in the Relief Society presidency. That keeps me pretty busy. Brad got laid off his job in February (he'd been there for 4 years). He is now driving truck and we never know when he will be home. I'm just thankful he is working and we can pay the bills. Bethany is now mostly potty trained at 2 1/2 yrs old.
We are happy for Spring to be here...now if we can get Spring weather. I am still at the same job and love it!
My computer at home is now fixed so I'll try to updated pictures and such.
Thanks for hanging in there :-)

Okay, so my computer at home is slowly dying. Someday I might get it fixed. Meanwhile, I've got to get on Brad's laptop and do some serious updating. So hang in there!!

an update

I've had fun with internet at my house so I'm finally upgrading. So hopefully in the next few days there will be a lot more pictures and this should be updated more often.
Meanwhile, Jene' has turned 6 and so has Bo. Bradon is now 9. Barratt is now 17!!! Brad is now 41... hee hee.
All of these birthdays happened between Dec 28 and Jan 8!
We've had a very busy December between work and Christmas. Our Christmas was very nice. Santa brought the family a Wii and now we can't get Brad off the Rock Band guitar. He also brought us a cool basketball hoop stand. Now that the snow has melted we have finally been able to put that up.
Pictures should follow this fairly soon!