The Rott'n Apples

Makiya singing @ county fair

2010-08-12T15:17:00.000-06:00

So I guess

2010-08-06T20:58:00.000-06:00

blogger doesn't want us to use outside templates. They totally screwed up my cute template and now I have this ugly blue thing. I'll have to mess around with it some more on a day I have more time to mess.

Yippeeee

2010-07-07T20:28:00.002-06:00

I've got our new website all loaded. There are a few things we still want to load, but let us know what you think.

Worm Castings & Tea

2010-05-10T07:54:00.001-06:00

We've got worm castings and tea ready for all you avid gardeners. We also have red wiggers for sale. Check out our website at http://rottenapplewormfarm.com

Makiya Singing Think of Me

2010-03-09T06:35:00.001-07:00

2010-01-28T12:35:00.000-07:00

Couldn't resist

2009-11-08T22:37:00.003-07:00

I put Joshua to bed tonight not really ready to sleep. I tucked him in and left the room. About two minutes later he cried that he'd had a bad dream. I went back in to reassure him that he hadn't had a bad dream because there was no way he'd ever fallen asleep. I turned off the light and left the room. He called me again and asked if I could leave the light on for him. I did and then about an hour later I went in to turn it off and found him all done up rofl. He'd put a hair net on his head (this was a gift from Shayla after she'd had lunch room duty at school) and then he put some safety goggles on over that (a gift from his dad). There he layed sound asleep. It was sooo funny I had to take a picture . .although it didn't turn out very good because it was my cellphone camera (my nice new camera I got in March broke a month ago). Anyway, I couldn't resist the picture and posting it for the world to see.

2009-09-19T20:58:00.003-06:00

This is sooo funny. I couldn't resist.

New look

2009-09-02T15:47:00.002-06:00

I got my hair cut yesterday. I think it turned out pretty good. I'm having a hard time getting use to bangs again.

it's been a busy 2 weeks

2009-08-24T20:36:00.004-06:00

On the 17th was joshua's 4th birthday. We had his first "friend" birthday party and the theme was pirates. here's the cake i made.

here are all the little pirates. they had a blast.

the 11th through the 13th i went to st. george with my mom, sister, neice and makiya. these pictures are backwards to the timeline, but oh well.

coming home on the 13th we drove through Zions National Park. these next few pictures are from that drive.

On wednesday night we went to the Touachan outdoor theater to see Annie, it was fantastic.

During the day on wednesday we went for a drive, first through snow canyon and then up to pine valley. this church is the oldest known still operating LDS church. it was built like a ship on its side. it was pretty cool.

These last pictures are from snow canyon.

Now school is back in session and duh, i didn't even take a first day of school picture, but when your kids get into middle school that's the last thing they want to do. i'll be sure to get a first day of preschool pictures of joshua though! thanks for looking.

Not a lot

2009-08-08T11:20:00.002-06:00

It's been a busy week. This is the last week Chuck is going up to the farmer's market in SLC, we've actually sold all our worm castings and tea that we had available this summer. We will have more, but not until October, so he's done up there.

This week we also started a diet. It's a great one, and we are not hungry. It's 1500 calories a day, but wow, we eat alot. We get our 3 meals a day, plus 3 snacks a day. The girls want to keep it up even when school starts, so I'll be sending their lunch/snacks with them each day. That will be interesting because we haven't done that on a regular basis before. After a week, we are all noticing our clothes fitting us a bit better.

I did get a scrapbook page done last night. I think it turned out pretty good.

Poor baby

2009-08-01T17:30:00.002-06:00

Our dog got attacked by our mamma cat and she had a huge ball of infection on the side of her neck, about the size of a tennis ball. I took her to the vet yesterday and he had to put her under and lance it and drain the puss, now i have to give her pills 2x's a day and wash her neck a couple of times a day too. He couldn't sew up the incision, because it needs to be able to drain. I've taken a picture to show you, it's not for the faint of heart, so be prepared. It is a little blurry, but you'll get the idea of how big the incision is.

Fire on the mountain

2009-07-28T17:13:00.002-06:00

There is a fire buring on the other side of the mountain. It has been burning for awhile, but today the wind is blowing and it's stired the fire back up. Normally, the wind blows the smoke away from us, but today it's blowing it right at us. Yucky.

Sunday Day Trip

2009-07-27T14:41:00.003-06:00

Yesterday we took a day trip to Kanab and Otter Creek. We ate dinner in Kanab at a grill that was pretty spendy, but the food was good. I, of course, had the chicken fried steak. Chuck says that is what I get any time we go out. But that is not true, they don't serve it at the all you can eat Chinese Buffett hehe.

Well, naturally, I got stomach cramps on the drive home, but to make the kids happy we took a side trip to our day trip and went over to Otter Creek. These two pictures are the view from the State Park boat launch ramp. The kids loved playing in the water and the nature etc. Me, well . .let's let the last 3 pictures tell the rest of the story.

This was my restroom companion. Fortunately, he/she/it didn't move, if it had I think it would have been dead.

Promised pictures

2009-07-25T08:44:00.002-06:00

In last night's post I said I'd get pictures posted from our small town parade. In this first picture you can see the first entry in the parade, our towns "big" fire truck. Joshua is riding in it and if you look close to the passenger side you'll see his purple shirt and cowboy hat. You can also see down the street how long the parade is hehe.

I was so excited this picture worked. The truck was moving and I was sure it would be blurry. But, what a great shot of Joshua's big smile. He thought it was totally awesome to ride in the fire truck.

We had a couple of first this year in our parade. We had our first Grand Marshall. The older lady in this picture is the Grand Marshall, but she was afraid to ride in the car by herself (even though it was her son driving), so another lady joined her. Who made her Grand Marshall, I'll never know hehe.

This is the second "first" for our parade. An actual float!

This last picture is of the 4-H horse riding club. They came at the end after the bike riders, the 4-wheelers and motorcycles, and the walkers. After the horses was the final entry in our grand parade . .the other fire truck spraying water on everyone. I didn't get a picture of it because I had my camera shoved under my shirt to keep it from getting wet.

Pioneer Day - Utah State Holiday

2009-07-24T20:41:00.002-06:00

Today we celebrated Pioneer Day. This is a Utah State holiday celebrating the pioneers entering the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. It is also and LDS holiday celebrated throughout the world by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In our little community the day starts with a flag raising ceremony and then a pancake breakfast at the park. Chuck took the kids today since I had to work, but they did bring me a plate of food. It was very good despite being a bit cold hehe.

Later in the day there is a parade on Center Street, this parade is mostly the kids in the community walking, riding bikes, riding horses or riding in one of the town's two fire engines. It probably takes longer to get every one ready to walk the 1/4 mile (if that) than it does to actually have the parade. The last entry in our little parade is always one of the fire trucks ready to get spectators nice and wet, the front window of my van is nice an clean now hehe.

After the parade the citizens and guest of our fine little community move on over to the park. The activities at the park this year includes 4-H horse exibits, the kids showed off the things they've learned this year with their horses. I think all the participants enjoyed riding around the arena holding an egg on a spoon to see who could go the longest without letting it fall and break. They also did some timed events racing through a serpintine of poles and other riding techniques.

There was also plenty of water activities. A huge water slide was the main attraction. Stacia and Shayla loved going down this. Makiya and Joshua not so much. Joshua enjoyed the bounce house and I think we all loved the potluck dinner and mingling with our friends and neighbors. Another new event this year was a greased poll. Joshua even forked over his $1 to hug the pole.

We headed home about 7:00 pm and had to get the van loaded for Chuck's trip to the SLC farmer's market tomorrow morning and then I headed into Richfield for gas so he wouldn't have to try and find an open gas station at 3:00 in the morning. It is now a great end to a great day, rain is falling and it has cooled off considerably. AND, it will be too wet for me to mow the lawn in the morning (darn hehe).

I'll post pictures tomorrow of the parade, that's the only place I had the camera with me.

nice visit

2009-07-22T12:15:00.004-06:00

My 90 yo grandma is moving to Texas so my Aunt can take care of her. We went up Sunday to visit with her and and get a picture. I had to do some manipulation of the picture because there was a huge mirror behind the couch and it was confusing seeng the backs of our heads and the photographer hehe. This pictures will of course be a family treasure. Most likely we won't see grandma again until her funeral.

Some new layouts

2009-07-06T09:14:00.000-06:00

Here are a few layouts I've done recently.

Our 4th

2009-07-05T09:16:00.005-06:00

I hope everyone had a great Independence Day. We had a good one despite Stacia and Chuck being up in SLC at the Farmer's Market. The rest of us went to the parade in Richfield, it was a lot of fun. Then at 4:00 we went to a play called "Field of Stars." It started with the Boston Tea Party and took us through the end of the Revolutionary War. It was a musical and fantastic. At the end the audience joined in singing "God Bless America." Later that night after Chuck and Stacia got home we went to the foothills west of Richfield and claimed our spot for the fireworks. We love going out to the west side of the freeway and watching from there. No city lights to interfere. These first two pictures are our view of the mountains from our spot. The following pictures are of some of the spectacular fireworks.

My poor baby

2009-06-25T08:10:00.004-06:00

Last night Joshua was playing outside and he just started screaming. I reached the sliding door about the time he did and he just wouldn't stop screaming and was not wanting to put weight on his foot. I lifted him to a kitchen chair and he was still screaming and I couldn't get him to calm down and tell me what happened, but I could see the top of his foot swelling, so I grabbed an ice pack and got it on it.

After 20 minutes and him still crying I gave him some Tylenol w/codine and we headed for the ER. They had it x-rayed and couldn't see any breaks, thank goodness, and the doctor said he'll just have to deal with it. I was NOT impressed with the doctor, Joshua was barefoot and the doctor took the wheelchair and left, there was NO way I was going to let him try to walk out to the car and I couldn't carry him, so I stopped the doctor and asked for the chair back. He grunted and gave it back and the nurse (who was nice) helped us out to the van. I think he wanted Joshua to walk on his foot, but being without shoes, I didn't think walking across a parking lot was the smartest thing in the world! It had been hot yesterday, and I'm sure that asphalt was still pretty warm. Yeah, lets torment the bottom of BOTH your feet with burns. Duh!

Got him home and put him to bed. I guess sometimes during the night he wanted ice on his foot again cause I heard Makiya up and asked her what was going on.

He is up this morning, but still not wanting to put weight on his foot. I remember when a doctor told me MY foot wasn't broken, but yet it was damaged so bad that even 3 years later it still bothers me. So, despite the dumb doctor, I will baby my baby as long as he needs it. We are using my desk chair (that has wheels) to move him around the house hehe.

Balloon Festival

2009-06-19T17:01:00.005-06:00

We had a wonderful morning activity today. We got up about 5:45 am and got dressed and went over to Salina (utah) for their annual Eye to the Sky event. They had a hot air balloon launch this morning with about 20 hot air balloons. We got to watch about 15 or so launch before we had to come home, but it was absolutely wonderful. We were all so glad we made the effor to go.

Here are pictures from the launch. They aren't really in order, because I messed them up loading them here.

This is the first balloon that was being filled.

This is one of my favorite pictures. another balloon was blocking most of the morning sun when this one started to rise up, i thought it was pretty cool to see the sun hitting the side of the balloon.

This next one reminds me of my early days of scrapbooking. . .recognize the flowers fellow scrappers?

we have had rain almost every day this past week and every morning has been cloudy and yucky, but this morning it was beautiful. not a cloud in the sky and very comfortable temperature wise.

This was the last picture i took as we were heading back to the car. there were more balloons in the sky, but i could only get these 6 into the frame of my camera.

Thanks for looking.

Been awhile

2009-06-09T18:46:00.005-06:00

It's been awhile since I posted. Lots going on, so here's an update and pictures.

First we'll start with Chuck and his staph infection (again). He got a major staph infection in his finger a couple of weeks ago. He ended up having to go into the hospital 3 nights in a row for an IV antibiotic each evening. It's about better now, just one little scab and red tender skin. It was pretty scary there for a few days.

This is a picture of the Sevier Valley as seen from the west side of the valley overlooking towards the east. Two Sundays ago the girls wanted to go for a drive and play "left, right, straight." It's a fun game where they each take turns telling us which way to turn. We added a little twist that they had to tell us which direction they wanted to go as soon as we made a turn, that way it would be a surprise to all of us rather than a last second "left" or "right." We ended up on a dirt road on the west side of the valley. We've come to the conclusion that we probably shouldn't play this game again on a little over 1/4 tank of gas. We were pretty nervous by the time we found civilization again that we weren't going to make it home. At one point we had to go up this really, really steep hill. It had lose rocks all over it and Chuck had the van gas pedal floored with the hopes we'd make it. We finally wandered out of the mountain and found a paved highway and made our way home. It would have been fun to be "lost" for a little while if we hadn't been so worried about the lack of gas in the van.

This picture was taken the last day of school this year. Shayla's teacher had called us a couple of days earlier to tell us Shayla was getting a special award and could we please come to the award ceremony. We were so pleased with her award. You can read it in the next picture. She had to achieve alot this year to receive this award. She is such a smart girl and we are so proud of how well she has done this past year in school.

Okay a week ago Joshua had a friend come over to play. I think just about every toy he owns ended up on his bedroom floor. I just couldn't bring myself to step foot in there but we are really wanting him to start sleeping in his bed instead of on the recliner in the family room. Shayla and I braved his room this afternoon and cleaned it up. Here are the before and after pictures.

There's my journey down memory lane the past two weeks or so. Thanks for looking/reading.

Another Joshuaism

2009-06-03T06:05:00.002-06:00

Last Friday I went with Chuck to the doctors, and of course, Joshua had to come along. I know our doctor thinks he is the weirdest kid rofl. Joshua had to show the doctor his finger that had a scab on it so the doctor could fix it and he usually comes up with the funniest things. Well, we got out of there without anything too weird, but then came Monday.

On Monday I had to take Stacia and Shayla back to the doctor (they couldn't go on Friday). Anyway, Joshua is adamant that something is wrong with him so the doctor needs to check him out. While we were in the waiting room he told me his leg was sore. I asked him what was wrong and he told me it was full of trash from when he helped clean up the yard. That was a new one!

Okay, so fast-forward. We're in the exam room and in comes the doctor. Joshua proceeds to show him the same finger as on Friday, only this time the scab is gone. Then he tells him he has trash in his leg and needs the doctor to get it out. However, the funniest thing he told the doctor:

"I have a bone in my arm, here feel it." As Joshua sticks his fist in the doctors face.

The doctor feels his arm and says, "Yep, you sure do have a bone in there."

Joshua says, "Yep! A dinosaur bone!"

Capitol Reef

2009-05-30T14:09:00.003-06:00

Took a trip to Capitol Reef this last week. Here are pictures from our trip (trip meaning we live 1 1/2 hours away).

Fun Layout

2009-05-24T09:26:00.001-06:00

I saw the paper for this layout . .it came with the sun, tree, clouds and grass and thought it was so cute. I had taken pictures of Joshua last week that I thought would look darling on it. So, here is how it turned out.

Fun at the park

2009-05-15T16:23:00.005-06:00

I took Joshua to the park this afternoon and Makiya tagged along. She and I had some fun with the camera.

Oh my heck

2009-05-14T08:14:00.002-06:00

I'm cleaning my laundry room. That is no small task as it's had an entire winter to collect stuff! I think I swept in there a couple of times, but man, the lint on the dryer alone would have insulated the walls of my dh's garage! We had shoes in the shoe basket that kids outgrew at least 2 years ago. They are now gone, gone, gone. I've washed the washer and dryer, swept the floor and washed the nasty walls around the door (it's the door we use for going in and out of the house more than any other door). I'm now heading in there with my trusty Kirby and I think every attachment that came with it, to finish up the project. I will definately feel better about life once this room is cleaned up and I won't have to be quite so embarrassed when my visiting teaching partner shows up to get me this morning.

Saturday's project is Joshua's disasterous bedroom.

Happy Mother's Day

2009-05-10T07:02:00.003-06:00

Happy Mother's Day to all you moms. I've had breatfast in bed (well, really on the chair in the family room because I was out there rocking Joshua). And I got some amazing gifts from my family. The flowers came yesterday. These roses are talking roses. They all have Happy Mother's Day written on them. The second picture is the gift is also flowers, but they are way cool. The big tan flowers are really made from wood. They look soooo real, but they won't die. I also got a packet of seeds, bookmark and card from Shayla and a necklace that says, Faith, Hope, Love and a pair of earrings from makiya. Stacia is still sleeping, but I'm sure she'll have something she made at school. We'll I've got to get ready for church. Have a great day!

Layouts

2009-05-03T11:59:00.003-06:00

Here are a couple of layouts I've done the past couple of days.

This first one I did using the pictures chosen for my Grandmother's 90th birthday openhouse invitations.

This one I thought would be fun to do. There are so many fun whimsical layouts being produced lately that I thought it would be fun to do one too.

You can find the credits in my DST gallery.

Here's one more I did with Attic Treasures. This is me, I'm such a cute!

Sleeping in the rain

2009-05-02T09:18:00.003-06:00

Stacia and Shayla decided that even though there was a huge storm heading our way they still NEEDED to sleep outsde on the trampoline last night. I went out at 8:30 to tell them one last time they were crazy and to kiss them goodnight. As I started to the house Shayla started yelling, "Mom, mom, Stacia said the coyoties can track our sent from the mountains and they will come get us tonight." I yelled back, "Stacia, stop terifiying your sister!" As I entered the house I hear them giggling.

The sleeping ended at exactly 1:30 am when the sliding glass door screeched open and loud shouting woke me from my slumber.

In came two soggy girls with soggy blankets.

Me: "Why is everything so wet?"

Stacia: "We wanted to see how long we could stay outside in the rain."

Me: "So, what blankets do you plan on using to sleep with now you are in the house?"

Them: Deer in the headlight look. "Umm?"

Me: "What pillows do you plan on using?"

Them: "We'll just pull the pillow cases off."

Off came 4 pillow cases from each pillow.

Me: Thinking I didn't know we had that many pillow cases.

They went in their room and we found two blankets hiding in the corner of their room. They changed their wet pj's and climbed into bed together.

Naturally, I tossed and turned until 6:15 am when I had to get Makiya up for baby sitting.

Maybe next-time the coyoties will get them before the rain.

Something a little lighter

2009-04-30T14:27:00.003-06:00

Here's a layout I did a few days ago.

Good morning

2009-04-29T08:02:00.002-06:00

This morning on ksl.com (Utah TV station website) there was an article about a Dan Jones (big pollster in Utah) poll that says something like 54% of Utahn approve of Obama. 254 people in 4 counties were polled (we have 29 counties and over 1 million registered voters) . .Obama won 3 of the 4 counties. There were over 300 posts in the comment section. Took a while to scan through them, but I found the following comment and loved it, so I thought I'd pass it along to you.

"I hate to admit it. My Democrat liberal friends were right. They told me if I voted for McCain, all sorts of bad things would happen. Well, I voted for McCain anyway . . . and they were right.

They told me if I voted for McCain, the nation's hope would deteriorate, and sure enough there has been a 20 point drop in the Consumer Confidence Index since the election, reaching a lower point than any time during the Bush administration.

They told me if I voted for McCain, the US would become more deeply embroiled in the Middle East, and sure enough tens of thousands of additional troops are scheduled to be deployed into Afghanistan.

They told me if I voted for McCain, we would see more "crooks" in high ranking positions in Federal government and sure enough, several recent cabinet nominees revealed resumes of bribery, immigration violations and tax fraud or tax evasion.

They told me if I voted for McCain, our relations with foreign countries would be worse, and sure enough China has questioned investing in more US treasuries, France and Germany have rejected our President's suggestions that they spend more money to save the world economy, Russia has apparently forced us to abandon our defense missile programs in Poland and Czech Republic, we snubbed Great Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown when he visited Washington (and sent him packing with a bust of Winston Churchill that had graced the Oval Office), the State Department shuffled the visit of the president,of Brazil to avoid a conflict with St. Patrick's Day (and spelled his name wrong in the official announcement), the President scuttled the pending free trade agreement with Colombia (an important ally next to Chavez's Venezuela), Mexico imposed tariffs on $2.4 billion of American products in retaliation for our breach of the North America Free Trade Agreement, and Iran is getting ever close to making a nuclear bomb. It's a good thing we're chumming up to Syria.

They told me if I voted for McCain, that the moguls of industry would increase their salaries and bonuses at the expense of the little people. And sure enough, companies like Merrill Lynch and AIG and Fannie Mae have used the bailout money to pay record bonuses to the very executives who drove those companies into the ground.

They told me if I voted for McCain that innocent children would die, and sure enough, the President has lifted the ban on federal funding of abortion and the ban on using federal funds for research on embryonic stem cells, so many more innocent children will die.

They told me if I voted for McCain, the civil rights of Americans would be put in jeopardy. And sure enough, the Congress is about to pass the misnamed "Employee Free Choice Act" which will deprive workers of the secret ballot in union elections and the President wants to institute a civilian national security force to spy on Americans.

Well, I ignored my Democrat friends in November and voted for McCain. And they were right . . . all of their predictions have come true. "

Airforce One Fly Over

2009-04-28T12:09:00.003-06:00

So, the government spent a bunch of money to fly Airforce One over the Statue of Liberty. In the process they didn't bother to inform the thousands of citizens living/working in the area. So, there is mass confusion and fear as people race from their office buildings fearing for their lives.

Couldn't they have just photoshoped the picture? I did.

In my second picture I have created a symbolic picture of how I feel our current President is destroying our liberties. The plane of course represents President Obama, the Statue of Liberty represents my freedoms and liberty.

2009-04-28T07:01:00.002-06:00

This weekend was the Natural Resource Festival in Richfield. The last few years we've had a booth in it to teach people (mostly children) about vermicomposting (composting with worms). It's always been a great hit with the kids . . .mostly the high schoolers. I've posted pictures on our Worms, Worms, Worms blog. Click here to check it out.

Stand up and be counted!

2009-04-20T10:27:00.002-06:00

Miss California didn't bow to political correctness during last night's Miss USA Pagent and I personally applaud her! Read more here. Her comment might have cost her the crown, but she should be proud of herself for not lowering her moral and her personal beliefs. She'll be happier in the long run for standing up for her beliefs.

Layout I did last night

2009-04-18T14:14:00.000-06:00

Take a few minutes . . .

2009-04-16T17:56:00.002-06:00

Follow this link and take a few minutes to read this moving article. It brought me to tears.

Are you attending?

2009-04-14T14:15:00.003-06:00

Oh yes, I found one close to home. What am I talking about you ask? A tea party! It's at the same time as Joshua's swimming lesson, but that is over by 6:00 and right by where the party is, so we'll be heading over as soon as the lesson is over.

Are you going to a tea party too?

Easter Pictures

2009-04-12T18:53:00.006-06:00

Here are our Easter Pictures. Everyone had new clothes for church today. My mom says Easter is a good excuse for a new dress, so she bought the dresses and a new shirt for Chuck. I had already gotten Joshua's clothes a few weeks ago. Thanks Mom!!

Here's Shayla.

Joshua:

Makiya:

Stacia:

Chuck and I with Joshua:

Here are the kids:

Here are before and after pictures of my hair:

Hair Cuts

2009-04-10T12:26:00.004-06:00

I took the girls this morning to the college and had their hair cut at the cosmotology school students. Their cuts turned out great. I got mine done too, and I'm not real happy with it, but I'll make it work. I will post my pictures another time after I've colored it and styled it. Here are the before and after pictures.

Makiya before:

Makiya after:

Stacia before:

Stacia after:

Shayla before:

Shayla after:

Thanks Sweetheart!

2009-04-02T07:38:00.004-06:00

Chuck has worked so hard this past week to get our piano finished. He replaced key tops, had to put some new string in it, fix the action, tune it and do a cover-lay. This first picture is a before picture and the next two are the finished product. The cover-lay he did put a bit of a red tint on the piano which is great because my living room tables are red mahagony, so it really looks good in my living room now.

April Fool's Day at our House

2009-04-01T18:20:00.002-06:00

Makiya and Shayla tried to pull a fast one on Chuck and me this afternoon. They claimed they were going outside to check for eggs. A few minutes later I hear Makiya screaming for help out in the backyard. I looked out the window and saw her limping towards the house, her pant leg pulled up with red stuff on it, I realized it was ketchup when I saw Shayla holding the bottle. We tried to get Midnight to pose like she was trying to attack her, but Midnight just kept walking over her rofl.

The only joke that worked today was the girls making the phone ring and handing it to Chuck telling him he was wanted on the phone but nobody was there.

2009-04-01T07:54:00.002-06:00

I finally got some cooperation from family members on Sunday morning. I was able to take a few pictures with the new camera. This first one is Shayla, Joshua and me.

Here is Chuck, Shayla and Makiya.

Chuck and Shayla.

Here's my baby, Joshua. Doesn't he look handsome in his new Sunday clothes! He was so excited to wear them to church.

Stacia did NOT, I repeat did NOT want to participate. I think she was bribed by her dad for this picture, which ended up blurry cause I was hurrying so fast to take it. I think she wasn't feeling to good, because 20 minutes later after we'd gone to church she started feeling sick to her stomach and Chuck had to bring her home from church. She ended up throwing up all day and missing school on Monday. So, I'll excuse the bad mood this time.

New Camera

2009-03-28T18:39:00.003-06:00

I bought my new camera today (finally). I picked up a Sanyo vpc-51070 10 mega pixel camera. Fluffy is my only model tonight. Nobody else will play with me! I'll have to get some pictures tomorrow morning when the girls are all dressed up for church.

My first layout using a photo mask

2009-03-27T19:30:00.002-06:00

I'm quite proud of this latest layout. I used a technique called a photo mask (I made this by myself and I think it turned out pretty good.) I love this technique. It's what makes the picture have the edges it has (along with the lyrics to the song in the background.)

I think this is a great way to get rid of things in a picture that you don't want hehe.

My Generous Parents

2009-03-26T16:32:00.001-06:00

I got a birthday card today from my parents, in it was a very nice check. Tomorrow I'm heading to the store to buy me a new digital camera! It's been killing me to not have one. I've very excited.

Another Funny from You Know Who

2009-03-26T07:20:00.002-06:00

This morning Joshua was eating breakfast and singing as loud as he could, "Bill the Bobber can we build it, Bill the Bobber yes we can!" We obviously don't get cable.

Poor, Poor Me

2009-03-19T18:15:00.002-06:00

I'm sick! My chest is so tight, coughing and can hardly breath. Probably have pnemonia again (I've had it alot). I don't bother with a doctor anymore. It's viral and not much they can do. I did buy some Mucinex this evening, so I'm hoping it will help me. I'm tired and just want to lay down and sleep, but I have to work (good thing though is I do it from home), and Joshua convinced me the past two days to go for a walk with him. He's coughing too, and by the time we get around the block one time neither one of us can breath and we're coughing our heads off. The weather has been soooo nice that it's hard not to want to be outside. We're suppose to have rain and snow again this weekend.

Well, keep me in your prayers that I get over this quickly. Thanks!

Saturday, March 14th

2009-03-14T20:29:00.002-06:00

Hey everyone. We had a fun day yesterday. We pulled the girls from school and left home at 6:00 am and headed north to Salt Lake City. We went to the LDS Draper Temple Open House. The temple is absolutely beautiful. After the tour we took the kids to lunch. We had a couple of errands to run while we were up there. So, we took care of those and then came back home again. The best part . . .driving our new to us van. Last weekend we bought a 2001 Chevy Venture. My Dodge Caravan was getting pretty sad and unreliable, it was time to retire it.

This morning we all (including Joshua) slept in until 8:30! It was so nice. We spent the afternoon mixing bedding and feeding the worms.

Another Joshuaism

2009-03-09T15:58:00.001-06:00

Mom: "Joshua, come here, you have a runny nose and I want you to take this cold medicine."

Joshua: "I don't want cold medicine, I want hot medicine."

Hehe

2009-02-28T08:47:00.001-07:00

Joshua had his rifle (toy that he got for Christmas) and was walking around this morning singing, "A hunting we will go, a hunting we will go, hi-mo the stereo, a hunting we will go."

It was hilarious!

Happy Valentines Day

2009-02-14T20:28:00.002-07:00

Okay, so it's the end of the day, but I do hope you had a good day! A couple of weeks ago Chuck went to tune a piano for a customer and he and the lady got talking and decided to swap pianos. She wanted an upright and we've been wanting a baby grand. So, today was moving day. Chuck and I got our piano loaded on a trailer this morning (by 7:30 am) and then a couple of friends came over and went with Chuck to the lady's house and the brought back the baby grand. Chuck has some work to do on the baby grand and I can't even play it yet because he has the action out of it while he makes some repairs and we are going to put new key top on the keys. He's also going to do a cover lay on the piano to brighten it up and get rid of a lot of the little scratches, once that it done it will be lovely!

The next part of the day was spent looking for a new van. The transmission on mine finally went out. We were going to get a new one sometime this year, but we really didn't want to have to come up with the payments quite yet. Oh well. We found a Chevy Uplander that we like and hopefully Tuesday we'll be able to find a lending institution (through the dealship) that will give us a loan. Chuck's van is on its last let too.

Tonight for Valentines Chuck took me out to dinner. We'd gotten a heart shaped pizza from Papa Murphy's for the kids and I rented a couple of movies for them. They actually made it through the evening of us being gone without calling us to break up a fight. That was a real treat!

Harlem Globetrotters

2009-02-11T08:22:00.002-07:00

We had the wonderful opportunity of seeing the Harlem Globetrotters last night. The kids had a great time, as did Chuck and I. Stacia had a hard time seeing (she broke her glasses awhile back and refuses to get glasses, she's holding out for contacts, but that isn't going to happen). Anyway, I spent the evening telling her what was going on and our kind, sweet Shayla gave up her glasses for the last 15 minutes of the game so Stacia could use them.

After the game the players signed autographs, Chuck bought a little basketball and Stacia took it to about 5 players and had it signed, Makiya had a napkin she had a couple of players sign and Shayla got a couple of signatures on her jacket she had on.

The picture isn't very good, I took it with Chuck's cellphone. We did have pictures taken of each of the kids with Big Easy, but they haven't been posted online yet. I about died when I saw the price though, so we probably won't be buying them. But, the kids will have fun looking at them anyway.

Oh No . .what did we do??!!!!!

2009-02-04T07:32:00.003-07:00

Last night was Basketball game night again. Shayla's games are over, but Stacia's age group is doing a little tournament. . . but let me start at the beginning.

Tuesday, what a crazy day! I had to get all my work done early because once 3:45 hit, we were going to be running none stop. Stacia and Shayla walked in the door from school as I walked out to go to a Relief Society Presidency Meeting at the church. Sometime between when I left and 4:45 Chuck made it home (as did Makiya). The Activity Days assistant leader picked Stacia and Shayla up at about 4:45 for Activity Days at the church. My meeting usually goes about an hour. Not last night it went from 4:00 to 6:30. Chuck called about 6:05 and asked when I was going to be home because Makiya needed a ride to Young Women's at the church. I told him he'd just have to get Joshua dressed and bring Makiya over. A little bit after she arrived I was able to go home and took Stacia and Shayla with me.

When I got home I had to cook dinner, and Stacia had to do homework and get ready for her ball game.

Well, Makiya had decided she didn't want to the go to the ball game because she wanted to stay to the whole YW's activity. So, Chuck to the house key off his key ring and gave it to her so she could get in the house when she got home, since the ball game didn't even start until 8:30 and we wouldn't be home until after 9:30. Guess what?! She got home at 7:50 and handed me the key (which I set down on my desk) and then she decided to go with us.

We headed out at 8:00, went to the ball game (which her team won, so she plays in the finals tonight). After the game we had to go get gas and then went over to the grocery store for some bread and we all got a donut. We sat at the store at their little deli tables and ate the donuts, then headed home.

We pulled up to the house and Chuck says, "the house key isn't on the ring." Then it dawns on Makiya and me that we'd just left it on the desk. We have a small dog door and thought Joshua (who had falled asleep and was now crying in the cold) could fit through, but we couldn't get him to go through and he was screaming (remember it's like 9:50 pm). We pulled screens off the windows, but everyone of them was latched. The girls were crying, Joshua was screaming and we did NOT have the money to call a locksmith! Now, we have a sliding glass door at the back of the house, and Chuck (although I didn't realize it because I was checking windows at the front of the house) had been lifting up on the door hoping to get the latch to come undone. But, he gave up and started hunting through his garage for something he could maybe jimmy the door with. Well, in the meantime Makiya said a prayer that we'd get in the house. It was so cold. Stacia was in shorts and had not coat with her. Everyone was tired.

I went back to the sliding glass door and started lifting up on it trying to unlatch it and finally after I'd done that about 5 times it came undone and the door slid opened! Everyone was so glad to finally be in the house (the 10 minutes it took felt more like 2 hours to everyone).

I was tucking Joshua in bed and I could hear Makiya just a crying. When I went to see what was wrong I was asking her if she was still scared, or what. She replied, "Mom I'm not sad, I'm happy. I said a prayer and Heavenly Father answered it. I'm crying because I know He loves us and didn't want us to have to stay out in the cold all night and He answered my prayer." What a testimony building experience for my 13 yo!

After all that, we finally got everyone in bed by 10:30 and Chuck and I went to bed where we proceeded to talk politics until 11:30!

At least now, we know if we can break in our house, so can somone else rofl. No, really, we know that next time we get locked out we should be able to get in.

WAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

2009-01-30T21:01:00.003-07:00

I replaced the batteries in my camera and it isn't working. The lens is suppose to go in and out when I turn it off and on, but it is only staying out! AND, it won't let me zoom and the pictures are horrible. I'm sooooo sad! Any suggestions, short of getting a new one. I guess this is a good reason to replace my camera, but I'll have to wait until March. So, I don't know about the daily picture thing. I might have to pick up a disposable camera and then when I get it developed I'll have it put on a CD.

Day 10

2009-01-28T07:40:00.002-07:00

No pictures today either! I found one rechargable battery, but not the other one!!! I will have to buy some new batteries, but can't until Friday or Saturday. Do you think it will be okay to take a whole bunch of pictures on Saturday? hehe I'll just have to do a layout that says, "our missing week"

We went to basketball games last night. It was Shayla's last game. She did go good. Her team lost by 2 points, but they did much better against this team than they did last time they played them. She was excited because her school teacher came to watch the game. Two of the other team members are in Shayla's school class and the teacher has attended a couple of their games. Pretty awesome teacher huh!

Stacia's game was good too, although they also lost. They've only lost 2 games the whole season and it was against this particular team. It seemed like there was a board laying across basket opening for Stacia's team. They really had a hard time getting anything in the basket, which just isn't like them. They usually win their games like 30 something to 10. Last nights final score was 24 to 18, so not too horrible of a loss. Next week they start a 3 week tournament, whatever that means rofl. I would be surprised if the final game doesn't come down to Stacia's team against the team they played last night. Stacia's teacher came last night to watch the game. Stacia is the only player on the team in her class, so another teacher that ROCKS. The teacher was saying to goes to alot of the boys games, but had never been to one of the girls games.

We had 2 hours to wait between the end of Shayla's game and the beginning of Stacia's game, so we hit Wal-mart for a few groceries and home ec accessories for Makiya. We then went over to McDonalds for dinner and let Joshua, Shayla and Stacia play a bit on the indoor playground.

Well, it's almost 8:00 am. I've got to get working. Have a great day!

Day 9

2009-01-27T15:33:00.003-07:00

Okay, I'm totally ticked at myself! I let Chuck take the van this morning without retrieving my rechargable batteries.

If I'd had my camera today, I would have taken a picture of Joshua playing outside in the snow. He stayed out all of 5 minutes rofl. It was pretty cold out there this morning.

We have basketball tonight. There are 2 hours between Shayla's game and Stacia's game, so we are taking the kids to dinner and I need to go by wal-mart for milk and cereal and Makiya needs some things for school.

Yesterday, Chuck thought he'd take Midnight out to the worm shed with him. She was out in the backyard, so he opened the gate and called her. He could NOT get her to cross over the threshold of the gate and go out with him. He coaxed her for 5 minutes and she wouldn't go out of the backyard hehe. This this morning he called her to go outside with him through the side door, had doggie treats too, and she wouldn't go out. We trained her too well. We'll have to hook a leash to her to get her to go out with him rofl. At least I can be sort of certain if the door gets left open she won't take off.

I am reading The Story of Edgar Sawtell. Anyone read it? I'm about 1/2 way done. It's taken me over 2 weeks to read that far. It's a good book, but it's taking forever for me to get through it. Any thoughts about the book? Just don't give the ending away.

Picture #8

2009-01-26T20:55:00.001-07:00

I'd post picture number 8 if I could. The batteries in my camera are dead! I guess I left it turned on. I'll have to find my rechargable ones tomorrow and get them charged up. Sorry.

Day 7

2009-01-25T18:44:00.002-07:00

It is a cloudy, cold day today and we've had a lot of rain and hail. The past couple of days we've had rain too, but it's been upper 40's low 50's while it's been rainy. It's felt more like spring than the end of January, but it didn't last. It stayed considerably colder today and tomorrow snow is in the forecast again. So, I took a picture of the gray, cold sky. This is looking from my front door. On a clear day you can see mountains in the background.

Day 5 & 6 Pictures

2009-01-24T17:02:00.002-07:00

My camera works! Yeah. I'm glad I remembered about it before I went to bed, because when I woke up this morning it was pouring down rain! Yesterday's picture is Stacia and her friend that came over and spent the afternoon/evening with us. I'm so glad Stacia has finally found a best friend.

This is today's picture. Our baby Midnight. I say baby because she is only about 7-8 months old. We got her in August. The people we got her from had found her at their cabin. She and her brother had been abandoned. Although she is large, she behaves pretty good. She does still chew on things that get left on the floor and she torments the cats by chasing them. But, she is very good and when we say "bed" to her she goes to her kennel.

Um yeah, Day 5 . .well, here's the thing

2009-01-23T21:48:00.001-07:00

I really did take pictures today! I just went to get my camera to load them and realized I left it outside! It fortunately hasn't rained since I left it out there, but it's nice and cold and I think I'm not going to plug anything into it until it's thawed a bit . .so I'll post two pictures tomorrow.

Day 4

2009-01-22T11:32:00.003-07:00

Wow, I've actually managed to do this for 4 days! Whooo hooo for me. Shayla asked me to please, please, please take a picture of her today for the "photo of the day," but she doesn't get home from school for several more hours, so tough for her! (hehe, I'm so mean.) She was in picture #1 . .although you could only see her foot, but it really was her. So she can't complain too much.

Todays picture is to commemorate me taking the time to play with my son this morning. Although mostly I just replaced missing hair, helmets and swords and lined all the little people up for their picture. Joshua made sure to tell them to "say cheese." After taking about 5 pictures, this one turned out the best . ..but then Joshua wanted me to take a few picture of him playing with his knights. So, now I have a choice . .which picture do I use? I've stuck a poll on the side of the blog so you all can help me choose which picture should be my Day 4 picture.

Oh, update on Makiya. I took her back to the doctor's office yesterday and her ear looked about as bad as it did 10 days ago. She's now on a stronger antibiotic and woke up feeling alot better this morning. Joshua entertained the doctor with this little goodie. "I have a doctor kit at my house." Dr. "You do huh? Do you want to be a doctor when you grow up?" Joshua, "Yep, and a police man, and a fire man and Prince Edward." Yeah, we were all laughing pretty hard.

Day 3

2009-01-21T15:28:00.003-07:00

Here is picture #3. This is to commemorate Makiya being sick. Two weeks ago (Jan 7th), I took Makiya to the doctor because her ear was hurting. That was a Wednesay. The doctor gave her something to help. But, by Monday, she was is in soooo much pain I thought she'd ruptured her ear drum. Doctor said is was just really, really infected. Well, today is day 10 of the antibiotics and she is once again home from school (after missing 7 days for this) in pain. We have an appointment in about an hour. I have other pictures posted from basketball games last night.

Joshua was spinning around in circles while we waited for Shayla's game to start last night. He insisted I take pictures. The one below this is when he finally fell.

Last night was the 2nd to last basketball game for Shayla and Stacia will still have 2 more games (at least). Now, my girls aren't the best ball players, but they like playing. Last night Shayla made a fantastic basket! A few minutes later though, she was crying after being hit in the face by the ball and cutting her upper lip. She toughed it out an played some more.

In this first picture it is the beginning of the game and the tip-off, Shayla is in the center to tip (is that what it's called?) blue jersey with a red shirt under it.

Here are pictures from Stacia's game. She did so good last night too. I was driving her to school this morning and she was sad. She said "I'm finally starting to get where I feel confident and the games are almost over!" She has really improved over the last 2 months. She's been an a fantasic team, (I think they've only lost once).

In the first picture she is third from the left and facing towards the camera.

In this picture she is the one on the far left.

Day 2 of 365

2009-01-20T14:44:00.002-07:00

Day 2 picture is of Chuck and Joshua. Joshua has decided he and his dad are attached at the hip. Anywhere Chuck goes Joshua wants to go. I thought this picture was fitting for that.

Day 1 of 365

2009-01-19T14:12:00.002-07:00

Today is day one for me of Project 365. Here is picture #1. Today is Martin Luther King day and is a school holiday, so the kids are all home. On nights when they don't have school the next day I will sometimes let them sleep on a couch in the living room or family room. This is a picture of Shayla at about 8:30 am. I took it because of the school holiday and the kids being able to sleep in this morning. (I slept in a bit too, but eventually had to get up so I could work). Yes, her head is covered and her foot is sticking out!

New Blog

2009-01-18T17:27:00.003-07:00

I set up a new blog today for our worm farm. You can find the link on the right with all the blogs I follow or click here. I hope it is a fun blog for readers. I will add pictures and whatnot as time goes on. We are just starting a big harvest, so there will be fun pictures of Chuck and the kids out harvesting and then filling the beds up again.

I've also decided to start the Project 365 . .I'm a little late starting, but that's okay. If you don't know what Project 365 is, well, you take a picture every day of the year. Then those of us that are scrappers, take those pictures and make scrapbook pages. I think I will do one page for each week. So, each layout will have 7 pictures on it. I'm sure it will make this year very memorable and we'll love looking back at 2009 in pictures. I'm starting tomorrow, so my week will be Monday - Sunday.

We are all finally NOT SICK! Yippeeee, we had our first week of NOT going to the doctor's office since the week after Thanksgiving. Makiya was still home from school Monday to Thursday and went on Friday. She probably wouldn't have gone, but the day was over at 11:00 am. The last couple of times we went to the doctors office for Makiya, Joshua would proudly tell Dr. Blackham, "I'm not sick today!"

Yesterday morning I went outside to feed the chickens and the goat (and her boyfriend). When I came back in I sat down at the computer and I could hear Chuck and Joshua talking in the bedroom. They came out a minute or two later and Joshua saw me and came running and threw his arms around me and said, "Mommy, I was so worried about you, so was daddy!" I laughed and asked why. Apparently Joshua didn't remember me telling him I was going outside, so when Chuck was looking for me and asked Joshua where I was Joshua told him he didn't know, so they went hunting for me and couldn't find me. It was nice to be worried about!

Chirstmas Pictures finally!

2009-01-10T17:44:00.005-07:00

Christmas finally came down today. I cleaned the living room good too and we rearranged it so the girls could have our hockey table set back up. They got it for Christmas a few years ago and we put it down about a year ago because nobody was playing it. It'll stay up for a few months until nobody plays anymore.

In honor of Christmas finally coming down today I decided I better get Christmas pictures loaded.

At our annual Family Christmas Party with my side of the family the kids put on a Nativity Pagent. Here it is at the end. Shayla was Mary, Makiya was Joseph, Stacia a Wise Man, Joshua a Shepherd and my niece, Oakley was the angel. Deacon was sleeping.

My mom has for the past couple of years given the kids new pillow cases. This year they are so nice, they are flannel and they have fun little primary pictures on them.

Santa came to our Ward Christmas Party. Here is Makiya.

Here is Stacia, closest to a smile that I've gotten from her in a long time.

Here is Shayla.

Joshua was so proud of himself. He didn't even cry (or scream) like last year!

Makiya was so excited for her Christmas Present. She got a new mattress and Grandpa and Grandma got her new sheets and a new comforter. We can never get her out of bed anymore!

Joshua, being Prince Edward again. (Had to white on the screen on my computer because it had work related stuff on it.)

Joshua loves helping me make things. Every morning he says, "let's make something, like cookies!" Here he is helping me. He's pretty good at it and knows all the ingredients and the order they go in for cookies. He gets confused when I make bread and we don't add eggs.

Finally

2008-12-12T09:27:00.004-07:00

I finally got all my mom's 2009 calendar layouts done. Here they are (not in order by month). Sorry, I'm not listing all the credits. If there are things you like and want to know where I got them, just drop me a comment and I'd be glad to tell you.

Goodness!

2008-12-12T09:27:00.002-07:00

Wow, it's been awhile since I posted. Sorry about that. It's been crazy at our house.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We spent it with my family and went up to my sister's house. She just moved in last fall and I hadn't seen it finished. She's done a wonderful job decorating! The kids had a wonderful time with their cousins.

Christmas is fast approaching and I've been busy getting my mom's calendar ready for our family party on Sunday. I've got the pages done, just need to pick up ink and cardstock today so I can get it printed.

Once I've given it to her, I'll post the layouts here (warning though, there won't be credits for anything, because I didn't keep track).

So, there's your update hehe.

Lots of Layouts

2008-11-09T08:38:00.004-07:00

I've done a lot of layouts in the last month or so and haven't put them here on my blog. So, since I am not able to go to church today because I have 2 sick kids, I thought I'd take some time and load them on. You can find all the credits in my gallery at Treasures to Scrap

EWWWWWWWW

2008-11-08T12:42:00.003-07:00

I can't believe I went for it.

It is so gross to me that I had always said no way.

There was no way I was going to allow anything

so absolutely ewwwweeeeey in my house.

They're dirty.

They just might stink.

They have beady little eyes.

But . . . .

It's so dang cute now that I actually said yes.

Yes, it's a RAT! A baby one at that. I can't even fathom what possed me to give in. But, it's pretty gentle and Stacia is absolutely in love with "Snowball." (Why she named a brown and white rat "Snowball" I still haven't been able to figure out.)

Daylight Savings Time

2008-11-02T06:40:00.004-07:00

Okay, I use to really love the fall time change . . .you know the whole extra hour of sleep. Not this morning! My body works according to the clock on the night stand not an internal clock. BUT, our dog's clock is internal and so is Joshua's. Chuck had to get up for a church meeting this morning at 5:45 (6:45). The dog is use to getting feed about 6:30. Normally on Sunday mornings when Chuck gets up early the dog is patient and waits to eat. NOT this morning. She started whinning as soon as she heard Chuck up. So, I had to get up and feed her and let her out. I just crawl back into bed and here come Joshua wide awake and bouncing off the walls. So, Sunday morning and here I sit with the clock saying 6:44 and me really wanting to go back to bed for another hour.

I am really stiff and can hardly walk this morning on top of wanting to go back to bed. We spent from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm gathering pumpkins from a farmer's field. It's become our day after Halloween tradition. We need them to feed our worms through the winter, and the farmer generously gives them to us for nothing. Yesterday we did take a couple of boys with us along with our kids. The worse part was the waiting. We'd load the van and trailer and then Chuck and a couple of the kids would come back to the house with him to unload. Those of us that stayed would move pumpkins to the roads so that when Chuck got back with the trailer we could quickly load it again. Next year I'm taking a book. We did go the park a 2x's because the flies at the pumpkin patch by 12:30 were horrible and swarming in my van.
I think we managed to get twice as much this year than we did last year and that is good because we will have twice as many worms to feed.

While we were off gathering pumpkins two friends were here finishing the roof of the new worm shed. I'm glad they got it done yesterday and Chuck got all the wood that will be used for the side moved under the shed. It started raining during the night and with the wood under the shed, hopefully it didn't get as wet.

Okay, so Halloween was a blast. We went to the Trunk or Treat at the church. Had dinner the kids played some games and then we had the t-or-t. It rained for just a few minutes, but the weather was really nice. I think most people had on light weight jackets. I just had Joshua in a long sleeved shirt and he was fine. I like Halloweens when the kids can actually show off their costumes rather than having them hidding under their heavy coats. After the t-or-t we took the kids into Richfield for some door to door. Joshua fell asleep on the way there, so he missed out on that. He can do it next year. I did get a couple of pictures:

The kids:

Makiya and Joshua walking over the neighbor's house to trick or treat there.

Chuck went as an injured person. Told everyone he'd fallen off his worm shed. Me, I stuck a black wig and hat on my head and called it good. Pretty funny though because two different people that needed to talk to me at the church couldn't find me.

Here is Makiya and one of her best friends. This young lady has a voice like an angel. She is an amazing singer. If Makiya's voice lessons help her get even 1/4 as good Makyia will sing beautifully. They take voice from the same teacher. The friend has competed on a State level with her singing.

2008-10-31T10:32:00.002-06:00

Anyone else want to join me in the life of leisure. I think I'll quit my job too and let Mr. Obama put gas in my car, food on my table and pay my mortgage. What happens when everyone gets all these "freebies" and nobody is working anymore?

2008-10-24T12:28:00.001-06:00

Take the Quiz and Share Your Results!

You are thoughtful and care very deeply for your family. A loving home is of great
importance to you and you always try to make people feel welcome. Although you have a great capacity to love, you also have a great capacity to hurt, so at times you can be
sensitive. You're firm when you need to be, but people trust your judgment and
appreciate the kind way you always handle things.

Thirteen

2008-10-18T17:18:00.002-06:00

What an important number in a girls life! My oldest turned 13 today! Happy Birthday Makiya!

We had her party on Wednesday since school was out Thursday and Friday and we were afraid kids would be out of town and unable to attend. As it turned out she had 11 of the 15 girls she invited actually show up. I don't think I had that many friends when I was her age. They had a blast. We gave her her gift today (well, the party was part of her gift), but we gave her a music CD and some good smelling body spray and body cream that she's been asking for.

Funny for the day

2008-10-12T13:51:00.001-06:00

I asked Stacia and Shayla to clear the kitchen table so we could eat dinner. Neither one of them moved very fast, so Joshua starts yelling, "I will, I will." He went over to the table and started pulling everything on the table onto the floor. It was pretty funny!

69 pictures and 1 video of nothing!

2008-10-06T14:55:00.006-06:00

Oh my heck. . .Stacia went on a field trip two weeks ago to Thanksgiving Point. She took the digital camera. There are 69 pictures and 1 video of nothing! I mean I think I found maybe 1-2 pictures I could actually scrap as a reminder of the trip . .or maybe scrapping nothing would be even more memorable. What do you think? Here's a few examples:

I don't know if she was taking a picture of the light pole or the handicap parking spaces.

I think there is a chicken in there somewhere.

The backend of a duck maybe?

An anteater perhaps? I don't know, I don't think anteaters live on farms and the snout doesn't like quite right . .but what else could it be?

Is that the back end of a pig or a black lamb? It's in the sheep pen obviously, but it doesn't look like one from this angle.

I thought ostriches only had 2 legs.

Now, here's something with 4 legs . . . I know this one!!!! It's a horse!!! Or a really tall goat.

Yep, every farm's gotta have power and a trash receptical!

So, there's Stacia's field trip. . hope you got something out of it, because I'm not sure she did. I still haven't figured out why the school drove 2 1/2 hours to Thanksgiving Point to see a farm, when we live in Rural Utah and there are farms by the dozen here! Oh I know . . .most farms don't have handicapped parking spots or blue trash recepticals and 2 huge power boxes! The kids needed to see and learn about those things. roflmbo!

Thanks for looking.

Hey everyone!

2008-10-06T11:57:00.002-06:00

We had a good weekend. Spent most of it watching General Conference (a bi-annual meeting done in Salt Lake City by the leaders of our church and broadcast on TV, Radio, Satellite and Internet). We also played Cranium yesterday afternoon with the kids. My dh got a card that said he had to hum or whistle a song. The song. . .The Star Spangled Banner . .You know our National Anthem! He started humming The Battle Hymn of the Repulic roflmbo. I was on the "other" team and had seen the card, so I told him he was doing a great job humming the wrong song. He looked totally puzzled and then sat there in complete silence unable to come up with the correct tune. I finally gave him the first couple of notes and he got it and Makiya and Stacia (on his team) guessed it. They ended up winning the game, but did they really win?

I just got put on a new Creative Team. It's for Treasurestoscrap.com It's a great store. I downloaded my first kit on Saturday and will try to have a layout here in the next day or two.

Hope everyone has a great week!

2008-10-04T12:26:00.000-06:00

Please join us in an interfaith fast on Sunday, October 12th for California Proposition 8. Whatever your professed faith may be, your faith and fasting can bring forth the powers of heaven. Please abstain from food and drink on Sunday, October 12th and please pray for a positive outcome for California's Proposition 8, that hearts may be softened, and that understanding and wisdom will prevail. Please FORWARD this to those in favor of protecting and restoring traditional marriage in California. We would LOVE to have residents of other states or nations join us in our fasting and prayer!

Isaiah 58:6,8-9Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward. Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am.
You can read more about fasting here on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasting

Dems vs. Rep.

2008-10-01T20:35:00.004-06:00

Well, I have to say I was a bit upset at Makiya's Utah Studies teacher today. Makiya is in 7th grade. I had to pick her up from school today because she stayed after to work on Math with her math teacher. When she got in the car she asked me who I was voting for. I told her McCain (yes, I'm republican and proud of it.) Anyway, she said that if she could vote it would be for Obama. I asked her why. She said in her Utah Studies class the teacher went through what the Democrats want and what the Republicans want and then the kids had to mark which one they liked. The topics were economy, war, gas prices, global warming, jobs over seas, cost of college, test scores (for k-12), immigration, and terrorisim. She said he just had them write down some things he said and didn't really go into any details on anything.

Here is what he gave the students:

Economy d- hands on r- hands off
War d - get out now r - stay until we win
Gas Prices d- new technology r - drill here
Global Warming d- solve global warming r- it doesn't exist
Jobs over seas d- leave them there for cheap stuff r - same
Cost of college d- college more affordable r- stay the way we do it now
Test scores d- schools not doing good less tests and homework r - no child left behind
Immigration d- stop illegals treat nice (ie give benefits) r- stop illegals send them back
Terrorism d- world fight r- attack Iraq

Now, how in the world are these kids suppose to even understand this stuff without the explanations of how each party plans to accomplish each item. Like on the war in Iraq, just pull out now? Leave it worse than we found it. I'm not saying whether we should or shouldn't have gone to war there, I'm saying now that we have there would be serious problems if we left too soon. Did he explain that? Did he tell the kids that to make college more affordable the dems want to raise taxes? did he tell them that with the dem's ideas on global warming we'd eventually be told how warm we can heat our houses in the winter and how much electricity we could use in the summer for cooling? Did he mention that the dems want to allow illegals to stay in our country at the tax payer's expense . .oh yes, we pay for their medical, food stamps etc. through our taxes. Did he happen to mention that while we are developing new energy technology we have to continue to be dependent on foreign oil?

I happened to mention this problem today with a friend of mine that works for the school district. She new exactly which teacher I was talking about without me even saying his name. I guess I'm not the first parent that has complained about him pushing his liberal views on his students in this very conservative community. I'm sure if Makiya had liberal parents we'd be applauding what took place in her classroom today. Indoctorating children at an early age is all the rage in the left's agenda (do I sound extreme hehe). Liberals can take every one of these issues and say whatever they want and they will believe them as strongly as I believe the things I've posted. That's the great thing about America. We can agree to disagree and we have the freedom to do so.

I'm not going to complain to the school. But, tomorrow in class if the discussion comes back up, Makiya said she is going to tell him that he is just like the democrats running for election. He told the class the plan, but failed to tell them the process of how they plan to accomplish their goals. I say, "You go girl!"

Now, this post is going to tick a few people off. I do moderate comments and anything I don't like won't show up here. It's my blog and I can put on it what I want and you can't hehe.

Love Horses

2008-10-01T14:24:00.003-06:00

I love to watch horses ... horse racing, jumping, etc. I was at Cute Overload and found this youtube video of a horse. I couldn't believe it! It was so good. Thought I'd share it.

Scrapbook pages

2008-10-01T11:21:00.003-06:00

Wal-la, I have finally finished the layouts from our Living Planet Aquarium trip we took at the beginning of September. Took me long enough! I got several done and then had a lack of desire to scrap for a week or so. So, the kit I used is called Swim Fishy and it is by Kristin Aagard Designs and I found it at Plain Digital Wrapers.

Makiya scrapped this one of her pretty much by herself. I put together the torn paper on the side and reolored some stuff for her, but other than that,this is her layout.

This layout I did for a challenge at Get Digi With It. You can find the credits in my gallery there (link on side of blog).

Doin' the happy dance!

2008-09-29T15:05:00.002-06:00

Anyone care to join me in a happy dance?! My water is back on!!!! Oh yeah, Oh yeah, doin' the happy dance.

The Water Saga Continues

2008-09-29T07:44:00.002-06:00

Still no water. I finally got the "right" part Saturday morning and put it in and it STILL didn't work. Chuck tried when he got home Saturday evening and still no luck. He's going to pull it apart today and replace the "insides." Cross your fingers he gets it fixed today!

We had friends over yesterday and played Phase 10 Twist. They love Phase 10, but definately agreed that Twist is so much faster.

That's all I have today. I've got to get some layouts I've been working on posted here, all in good time though.

This Water Thing

2008-09-26T16:39:00.002-06:00

or lack of water thing is really getting old. It's getting old going out 2-3 x's a day and turning the main water on/off, but we can't leave it running until the faucet is fixed. I should have had it fixed by now, but my dh and the plumming store guy had a bit of a mis-communitcation. My dh measured the pipe from end to a certain spot and the faucet guy thought he was measuring it from the end to a different spot, but guess what that left me . . .NO water! The tube ended up being one inch too short. I took it back into the plumming store and the guy there (Tom) is so nice. He's going far beyond the call of duty to take the part home and fix it himself (cut and welding). I can pick it up some time tomorrow morning. In the meantime I get to turn the water on for a few minutes to refill the water in the fridge and flush toilets. My dishes are piling up, I didn't do them last night and tonight, because I had to leave the old part with Tom, I can't let the water run as long as we could before (the old part kept it from leaking horribly).

On a positive note, this is the LAST weekend Chuck is going to the farmer's markets. It will be nice to have him home again and tuning pianos and fixing a broken lawnmower and everything else he has set aside because he's only home Sunday through Wednesdays.

Wow . . .a whole week!

2008-09-25T07:41:00.003-06:00

I'm still sick! I'm coughing up junk . .okay maybe that was tmi, but we've all been there I'm sure.

Chuck and I were laying in bed last night and I had an itch in an umm, well embarrasing place and was scratching it. Chuck asked what was wrong and I told him, and then said, but at least I'm not sitting the car, that's the worse. We laughed and said we'd been married so long we could actually laugh about it. I said, "yeah, we're parents, if we can talk about poop, vomit, snotty noses, we can talk about weird itches."

I finished the fourth book in the Twilight Series . .Breaking Dawn. Oh the books were good. I cried at the end (a happy cry). My husband was so patient with me during this last book. He only complained once since Monday when I started it. Normally he does a lot more complaining when I read because I become oblivious to what's going on around me. It doesn't matter what the book is, if it's well written I'm going to be oblivious because I move into the book and become a part of it.

Ohhh, guess what. My radiator is fixed! Chuck got it taken care of on Monday . .but now he has my van to go up to SLC because the transmission in his is acting weird. The van is still drivable around town, but every once in a while the tranny freezes up and you can't get it to shift to 3rd gear so you have to drive 30 mph, and on the freeways it's not a good thing. At least I'm not carless this weekend. So, we get my van fixed and on Tuesday Chuck was using the hose and when he went to the spicket to turn the water off the knob broke! So, guess what, now we have to keep the water to the house turned off until I can go get the replacement part today. It had to be ordered. We do have a "key" for the water meter so I go out every few hours and turn the water on and flush toilets and refill our drinking water. I have the hose hooked up to the sprinkler outside so the lawn is being watered while I'm taking care of inside stuff. It's not fun, but it's better than having NO water for 3 days. I can at least do dishes and flush toilets. Everyone got showers yesterday so we're good. Chuck showed ME how to fix the faucet so when I pick up the part I can take care of it instead of having to wait until he gets home on Saturday. Cool huh!

Alrighty, enough from me. I hope everyone is doing good.

I'm sick!

2008-09-18T19:48:00.007-06:00

I feel lousy and shouldn't even be sitting here at the computer, but this is important. My friend had a baby on Monday (3 weeks early). He isn't doing very good. He is jaundice and his white blood cell counts are low, now they've been told the doctor's are worried about him having a stroke. So, if you could pray for baby Boston I would really appreciate it. (I'm sure the mom would too.)

Fun Pictures

2008-09-18T19:48:00.006-06:00

Here are some pictures I've taken over the past couple of days. These first two of Joshua totally crack me up. One of his favorite movies is Enchanted. He loved to be "Prince Edward." This is Joshua being "Prince Edward." Sword, boots and in the second picture he's even figured out how to have a sheath for the sword rofl. It's stuck through his underwear. He wouldn't let me put pants on him! Like the scowl in pic#2?!

Here's a picture of Prince Edward (the one on the left). Hands are even resting on the swords the same hehe.

This is Joshua and a neighbor boy. Obviously they got into the q-tips while I was working and turned themselves into . . . well, your guess is as good as mine.

Today Shayla got to redeem her busy bucks at school (pretend money the class members get for doing their reading and homework). She picked out these two sets of horrible teeth and some slime. The kids all had fun taking turns wear the teeth today.

Life and Family

2008-09-18T19:48:00.002-06:00

I am not Catholic . .but I agree 100% with this video produced by CatholicVote dot com. (I tried to embed it here, but there was something wrong with the html and I'm definately NOT an html kind of person to figure out the problme. Click on the link to watch.

Boy I'm on one today . . .

2008-09-17T10:25:00.003-06:00

Another rant! The guy fixing our radiator (remember when I posted about it clear last Monday!) called me this morning. He said he needed to know the year and make/model of our car so he could order the cam. What the *&(*%#$? It was suppose to be ordered LAST monday! He said it wasn't written down on the order form and that our phone # had been transposed, so he'd been waiting for us to call so he could talk to us about it. This is ridiculous, because we've called EVERY day (except Sunday) since last Wednesday! Chuck wasn't home when the guy called and I told the guy I was so angry about this that he better just call my husband (do you think he got the hint?) The most annoying part, the office lady had taken our phone number every time I'd called because she had to "check" on the status and call me back! I won't have my radiator until Monday or Tuesday next week. Another weekend with 4 kids and NO car. Well, I guess if it was just the weekend it wouldn't be so bad, but it's Thursday through Saturday night.

Sympathy would be greatly appreciated! hehe

Beware my friends, be very aware!

2008-09-17T09:12:00.002-06:00

WARNING: Do not sign up with Vonage unless you are absolutely sure you want to keep them for at least 2 years! I just tried to cancel my account and they want to charge me over $90 to cancel. Their service has been crappy . .the person on the other end of the phone always tells me that I sound like I'm underwater . . They claim the information was in a confirmation email (I'm hunting for it), but I read everything they gave me and I honestly don't recall any disconnect fees.

Anyway, that's my tiraid today.

Family

2008-09-15T11:33:00.003-06:00

A friend of mine passed the link to this beautiful song/video along to me and I wanted to share it here on my blog. Enjoy!

Fevers and sore throats

2008-09-12T06:29:00.003-06:00

Oh joy! Three sick kidos. Joshua started running a fever during the night, and Makiya and Stacia both have nasty sore throats. Shayla is the only one going to school. As soon as she leaves I'm heading back to bed! I managed 4 hours of sleep last night. I'm SOOOO glad I decided to take today off rather than this past Wednesday. I've got to find someone that will pick up some Children's Motrin in town for me. I'm about out and no car to go myself :(

So much for cleaning good today. When Joshua is sick he just wants to snuggle . .which I don't pass up the chance to do that with him . ..they grow up too fast and then the snuggling is done.

Remembering 9/11

2008-09-11T06:59:00.002-06:00

I'm sitting here with Fox New's online streaming video of the names being read of those that died during the attacks on 9/11. Yes, tears are streaming down my face. That was such an emotional day for me. My oldest had just been in kindergarten a couple of weeks and when I saw what was happening I wanted to go pick her up from school. I remember the overwhelming feelings I had within me.

Hahahahaha

2008-09-08T22:46:00.003-06:00

Chuck and I got a good laugh tonight. I was sitting here working and Makiya had just gone to bed (1/2 hour later than she should have, but really, who can blame her, she's reading Twilight). Anyway, I hear water running in the kid's bathroom. I send Chuck to check and see if Makiya had decided to take a shower. Nope. . .wasn't Makiya. Stacia and Shayla were in there taking a shower. Okay, so that wouldn't really be all that funny, except, I'd put them to bed an hour earlier with the plans that they get up at 5:50 am to take a shower before school. Well, they claim their alarm went off and so they just got up and didn't really even bother to check the clock. I asked them if they were tired and they both said they'd felt like they'd slept the whole night. The clocks were all messed up because our power went out this evening and apparently they didn't get the alarm set right. m EDITED: This morning they still didn't get a shower. They still didn't get their alarm set right and when I got up at 6:20 and realized the house was too quiet, I went to get them up and their alarm had never gone off.

Speaking of the power being out . . .it went out about 4:30, just as I was getting our enchiladas ready to bake. I stuck them in the fridge with the hope that when we got home from the Bookmobile the power would be back on and I could cook them.

We got back home at 5:20 and still now power. I got creative tonight and made homemade gravy with beef chunks and brown rice and corn on the cob. Now, you ask . . ."how did you cook dinner with no power?" That is the joy of a gas stove. I lit it with a lighter and we had a marvelous dinner! The power did come back on just as I was putting the corn in the pot to boil, but by then dinner was ready, so the enchiladas are waiting to satisfy us tomorrow night.

Have any of you played Phase Ten Twist? I got this for Chuck for his birthday and we've had a blast playing it. We love PhaseTen, but it is such a long game, this version takes about 1/2 the amount of time to play, but we are satifying Chuck's need to play Phase Ten AND finish the game. I highly recommend the game.

My poor hubby is sick. He came home from the long week up North with the crud. I'm just praying I don't catch it and I'm being mean and won't let him kiss me on the lips!

My car is dead again. It's been having overheating problems and I'd have to add anti-freeze/coolant to the car every time I wanted to drive somewhere. Chuck pulled it apart today and too the radiator into be fixed. We should have it back by Wednesday. It is a real pain to want to go somewhere and not have a car here!

Well, that's all for tonight!

Museum of Natural History Layouts

2008-09-04T12:51:00.002-06:00

Here's are the layouts I scrapped from the photos of the kids at the Museum on Monday. The kit I used is by Paula Phillips called Dino Roar and is available at GDWI (link on the side bar).

Layouts and Freebies

2008-09-02T19:17:00.007-06:00

Wow lots to post today. First I have a several layouts from CT assignments to post here and then I have an overlay freebie at the end of the post.

These first 2 layouts were created using Crazy Beautiful by Toy Box Designs. This one of Makiya was taken this summer.

This picture of Shayla was taken a couple of years ago.

And finally these pictures from Joshua's Birthday are done using Little Fox by Danielle Engebretson Designs at Get Digi With It.

Here is the freebie.

Labor Day Fun

2008-09-02T10:09:00.003-06:00

We had such a fun day yesterday. My family along with my parents and my brother and his family went to the Living Planet Aquarium in Salt Lake City. The kids had a great time. They saw "Nemo" and sea horses and those that wanted to were able to touch sting rays. After the Aquarium we headed up to the University of Utah and went through the Museum of Natural History. Joshua loves the movie Night at the Museum and had so much fun seeing the dinosaur skeletons and the mammoth skeleton (Manny from Ice Age). He kept wondering when they were going to come alive though. We bought him a little plastic dinosaur and he calls it Rexy and doesn't let it out of his sight! Here are a few photos from our excursion.

I couldn't get stacia to smile for a family picture.

Oh my . . .

2008-08-30T20:15:00.002-06:00

It has been raining so hard this evening! I'm glad I saw it coming and could secure the animals and what not outside. Chuck got home with a trailer load of wood for his shed just as the first drops of rain started falling from the sky. The lightening and thunder was awesome. I love thunderstorms (we don't have to worry here like they do in the mid-west when there's a bad storm, so I can say I love thunderstorms.). We've had a couple of good ones this year, but nothing that has knocked the power out or made your skin crawl when the thunder cracks right over the house.

The funniest Thunder story happened about 9 years ago. We lived in the Salt Lake Valley and a storm was starting. I was putting kids to bed and chuck was in our bedroom. He said he was kneeling at the side of the bed praying and the thunder cracked and he jumped over the bed in one leap and was into the room with me and the kids in the second leap. His heart was racing and I was laughing sooo hard at the look on his face. Okay, so you had to be there, but it was pretty funny to me. . he still gets upset when I laugh about it.

I spent the day reading Midnight Sun . .this is by Stephanie Myers the Twilight Saga author. The story starts at the same place as book #1. This book was meant to be sold, but somehow a copy ended up on the internet and you know how things spread like wild fire here. On her webside she talks about how devistated she is over it, but decided that she wanted to put the story out there rather than people having to go find the illegal copies. The manuscript was 276 pages (double spaced) and I got it read today. Because I'd just read Twilight on Monday and Tuesday this week it was all fresh in my mind and I could scan through the manuscript quickly. I also finished the second book this morning. I was up until 2:00 am reading it and with Chuck gone I had to sleep with the bathroom light on hehe. I'm such a wimp. The book and the manuscript were both excellent.

Well, enough rambling for tonight. Night all.

Building a shed . . .

2008-08-28T17:16:00.002-06:00

is NOT fun. My husband and I got the four corner posts up today. Talk about crazy. We got the first two in and then when trying to put in the back two corners we had a horrible time getting the thing square! My poor dh had to make the holes bigger so we could actually get everything to line up. But, we did it! Next week we will have 8 more 4x4's to put up, but getting the 4 corners square was the hardest (I hope!)

Joshua spent almost all day playing with his little friend. They looked so cute . .they both had "big" hats and it was so funny watching them walk down the street together.

I got a cute photo of Joshua naked except for the hat hehe. He'd gone into the bathroom and I couldn't resist making him pose when he came back out. It's just his backside, but with the great big hat it's pretty funny. I'm in the process of scrapping it, so when it's done I'll post it. I just realized today that I haven't scrapped his birthday pictures yet either or the girls "first day of school" pictures. I know what I'm doing this weekend hehe.

We are heading up to the zoo on Monday, since it's a holiday and the girls are out of school. The 3 younger kids have never been and Makiya hasn't been since she was a baby. I'm looking forward to the day.