Guess what time it is???

Time for pictures.  .  .  ..  .. 

I love fall.  and I love fall pictures.  I took Meg and Z-man out this morning to the field across from our house.    They had fun and always wanted it to be their turn!  :)   

Meg is VERY much two!  and Loves to be independent and CHOOSE!  She is still a very lovey girl full of hugs and kisses!!! :)

 Z-man is still my TEASE!!  He gets a certain sly grin when he is teasing or being teased that I just love... I would love to capture it on camera, but I couldn't tease him and take his picture... WHERE IS MY ASSISTANT??  oh, ya, at work making money for his family!!    

 These guys are two peas in a pod.  Sometimes they love being in the same pod and sometimes . .  well, they are 2 and 3 so I'll let you think about that! :)  LOVE THEM!

 I totally didn't tell them to put their hands like that.  LOL  they look so posed and refined! HA HA HA HA!

 Zander with his "I'm being silly" face!

 LOVE?????

Stay tuned for J and Lo!!!

Mashed Potato Commercials!

When I was little, my brothers and sisters and I would pretend like we were on a commercial and see who could take the best 'bite' to sell a certain food.  NOW, my mothers food was U-MAZE-ING, and it could have sold itself, but we still thought we were funny. 

Tonight I decided to see how my kids fared in the world of commercial television. :)  

(please ignore Meg screaming in pretty much EVERY video.)

YUMMMY mashed potatoes!!!  

Over the river and through the woods....

To D and S's we go!  We had a fun family get together last weekend.

We always have fun together.  Thanks D and S for such a great weekend. :) SO MUCH FUN!!

Great Wolf Lodge. . .

Our family Vacation this year was to the GREAT WOLF LODGE!!!  And I have to say, it was one of my favorite vacations in the last few years.  EVERYONE had fun!  The oldest had fun and so did the youngest.  The water slides were so much fun.  We went with our neighbors and had a blast with them.  In the Evening, we gathered in the lobby of the hotel and listened to a story and Wiley (mascot) taught us the Great Wolf Howl.

OF COURSE, I forgot my camera.  BUMMER!, so my phone in my camera will have to do, but seriously NOT my favorite camera!  Oh well.

After Wiley taught us the HOWL!!

 Eating our snacks!!!

 Awww, LOVE all of us together!

 The Lazy river was Lo's FAVORITE.. He would go around and around again and again!

 How Tall are you?

 The Arcade

We played HARD and crashed HARD!! :)

YEAH for a successful Family Vacation!  :)

movin' right a long.....

dum-dee-dumm; dum--dee-dumm, footloose and fancy free.......

o.k. some of us are being footloose and fancy free anyway.  What better way to have fun with moving and packing than with some boxes.  Boxes really are the best don't you think?

The Papers are signed.

Well, although I still have 2 weeks in this lovely house, I can no longer call it mine.  We signed all the papers today to close this home.  I LOVE this home.  I LOVE this neighborhood.  I have so many awesome memories here.  I brought my two youngest babies home to this house.  So many birthdays, Halloweens, and . .  greatness. I know, I know, it's a house, but today I wanted to write a post to remember how very much I love this place.  :)

First day of School 2011!!!

The last month has been crazy to say the least.  We sold our home, almost bought another (didn't due to issues in the inspection), have been house hunting, put an offer on a short sale, decided to rent in OH, and FINALLY an opportunity to be in our rental property came up and we have decided to stay there for some time until we hear back on the short sale or find another home in OH.    NEEDLESS TO SAY, our kids have thought they were going to a new school, then a different new school, then back to the original new school, and NOW they are right back where they were last year (for a little while at least).  It has been CRAZY and stressful trying to figure out where our kids would be and how to help them adjust.  There are still a LOT of changes that will be happening to them in the next little bit, but for now, they have ventured off for the first day of school.

 J is in 3rd grade and was SOOO excited she was bouncing off the walls yesterday.  Lo is in 1st grade and will go all day this year.  He was also excited and happy he knew some people in his class.

It seems very quiet around here without them.  I hope they are having a good day and I can't wait to give them a hug when they get home.  :)

what a crack up!

Meg makes me laugh.  The things she comes up with are so funny.  She LOVES putting on the winter boots.  She clomps around in them for hours, and NOBODY is allowed to take them off. :)

I love this goof!

Look who's a big girl!

It is interesting and fun to watch Meg go through all her stages of life because she is my last one to do everything.  Meg has graduated to a 'big girl bed'.  She only fussed a bit when first putting her in bed, but then she felt like pretty hot stuff all grown up.  At first she wouldn't come out of bed and would still cry to have us come get her.  Now, I can't get her to stay in bed... LOL, but she is doing well and happy in her big girl bed.  :)

She wore around these glasses for a whole day.  She thought she was pretty cool!  :)

Another Year Older

AND WISER TOO!!!!!

Happy Birthday LO!!!!

Lo-la (as Meg calls him) is an AWESOME 6 year old.  He is very busy and active.  He loves all sports, swimming, video games of any kind, friends of any age, and presents!!!  :)  Lo is quick to make friends and it's fun to watch him do that.  He has started learning Piano this year and has enjoyed playing songs.  Lo is my little buddy.  He is a good friend.  Lo gets REALLY REALLY excited about things, but can also get quite dissappointed.  When he is disappointed, his little shoulders and head almost drop clear to the floor.  He has done that since he was probably 1.  He is quite coordinated and loves to dance in the living room (o.k. really do flips from one couch to the other.)

I AM SOOOO happy that Lo I get to be with my LO!  He really is an amazing person with so much personality and talent.  I'm happy Heavenly Father sent him to ME!!! :)

Love you, LO!

Heavy, Heavy, hang over thy poor head.  What do you wish this person with a bump on their head?

 I scored this puppy 50% off around father's day.  He has seriously played with it nonstop since his b-day (I'm writing this 4 days later~)

 Lo recently watched star wars for the first time and wanted a star wars cake.  I tried to do fondant this time around.  it was interesting.  I think it's pretty cute.  and Lo was excited about it, so really that's what matters. :)

Meg turns TWO!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my BABY!  You  know, I grew up the youngest of 9.  I use to hate it when people would call me the baby of the family until a brother-in-law (who was ALSO the youngest in his family) lovingly explained to me the benefits of being the 'baby' of the family!!  He was RIGHT!  :)  Meg, meg---you are a sweet little buddy on the caboose!  I CAN NOT imagine my life without you.  You bring a happy spot into my heart.  I love your cuddles, I love your giggle, I love that you sing in the car, I love how you follow around your brothers and sister trying to do everything they do.  I love watching you when you get excited, because you REALLY get excited.  :)  I feel SO blessed to be your mom!!



Meg knew it was her turn to have the cake.  We made her a flower cake out of cupcakes.  She smiled as all the attention was on her.  It was her day and she loved it.  :)  We love you Meg!!!!!!!!

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Something everyone has to see.... at least once!

Or so that is what I was told when I was in college and I had NOT seen any of these movies.

No, I'm not talking about the new and last Harry Potter that everyone is going crazy about. I liked the first few Harry Potter movies, but past that, not much of a fan.  ACTUALLY, I'm talking about our classic STAR WARS.

Apparently, EVERYONE at school talks about star wars, and I've been getting a lot of why haven't we seen Star Wars comments.  SOO  Lo and D planned a Star Wars party tonight!  :)


This is a horrible picture, but I had to document the initial viewing of STAR WARS!  Lo is glued and continues to ask question after question to D. --  Are they the bad guys?  Who are they?  Why are they going there?  etc. etc. etc.  ha ha ha!

Happy Viewing! :)

A middle of the night visitor.... zoiks

I was sleeping in the basement last night because I was hot and have had a hard time sleeping lately, but that's really another story for another day... What is REALLY exciting is that we had a visitor around 4 a.m. this morning.  Scared me to death, but then I sat and watched him for an hour.  This lovely raccoon came and took down the bird feeders we had on our door and ate all the seed out of them.  He climbed up the door jam and would swing over to the bird feeder and work it off the door. (luckily they were only stuck on the door with suction things so it didn't ruin anything).  He hung around for about an hour and went on his way.  :)

for some reason, blogger won't show the video.  I'll work on it!

From LOOONNG to Short....

J wanted to get her hair cut short, so we headed to the salon today.  :)  Her hair was long enough she was able to donate it to locks of love. :)  AWESOME!!  Someone is going to get some GREAT hair! :)  She is so cute.  I love her long luscious hair, but she looks so cute in her new do!  She's just cute no matter what.

Here's some pics of her new do! :)

4th of July... or Independence Day!

I heard someone being corrected the other day about the 4th of July.  It is independence day which happens to be on the 4th of July.  We don't say Happy December 25th  or Happy Feb. 14th.  We say Merry Christmas and Happy Valentine's day.  Sooo, HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY Everyone.

This is one of my FAVORITE holidays!  Only, probably the reason I love it so much is because it's the one holiday that most of my family gets together to celebrate.  I live far away from my family, so I'm  not able to be there most years and every year I get a little sad.  I think about my nieces and nephews watching the parade in front of my parents house ready to catch candy, my siblings chatting and eating yummy BBQ food, and my dad running from his friends at the fire department that spray him every year.  I think of the runners running down the road early in the morning from the race that starts up the canyon, the water fights, the volleyball games, the sticky floors from homemade root beer and ice cream.

I'm proud to say that I only broke down and cried once today missing my family.  :)  GO ME!!!

To make up for it, we had our own BBQ and had some friends over to play on the enormous slip n' slide that Darin's brother let us borrow!

I'm Grateful for my freedom.  I'm so glad I get to worship how I choose, speak how I choose, raise my children how I choose, and many many other freedoms that I enjoy!    I love the country that I live in.  My hat goes off the military families out there that so diligently serve ME so I can continue to have the freedoms that I love.

SOO,  Happy INDEPENDENCE day everyone...  !!!!!

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