Familia Silverhorn

Christmas Morning

2012-01-21T08:06:00.000-08:00

I always hold the phone the wrong way when I'm taking videos, but here's one of Christmas morning.

Stasia poem contest 3rd grade

2012-01-21T08:03:00.000-08:00

Yesterday the 3rd graders at Stasia's school had poem contests in each of their classrooms. The teachers picked 4 kids from each class to go onto the whole 3rd grade competition which will be next week. Anastasia got picked to go as an alternate, so she kind of got 5th place in her whole class. I'm so proud of her. Doing this is getting her out of her comfort zone. She is more like Brian and nervous and shy to get in front of people and have to talk or perform. Great job Stasia!

Christmas Day

2012-01-20T15:27:00.000-08:00

This year (2010) Christmas fell on a Sunday. We had our church service at 9am. We told the kids that we were definitly going to church and we could do presents before or after, it just depended on what time they woke up. Well, they were up around 6:30, which is the time we normally wake up anyways on school days. They came into our room and had to coerce Brian out of bed. We went downstairs and had them close their eyes because at our house Santa doesn't wrap the presents he brings. He usually brings a "big" present for each of us or for our family. Last year he brought us a pool table and a laptop for the whole family to share. This year he totally topped himself. The girls got new iPod 4's, Graham got a bike, Brian got a PS3 and I got a Flatscreen TV! We were all super happy with our gifts from Santa. They checked out their Santa gifts and stockings while Brian started a fire. Even Brownie got a few new things and he was happy to get to play with his new squeaky toy. After that we opened the gifts under the tree from each other. We really tried not to go overboard this year. (well besides those Santa gifts). The girls got new clothes, socks, and undergarments, makeup kits, iTunes gift cards, and other little things. I really can't remember. Graham got a couple of shirts and hot wheel cars, socks and underwear. He also got a Nintendo DS and a Fish tank for his bedroom...both gifts that actually used to belong to Brian and I. I had an orginal DS that I never played and he really wanted one, so I just wrapped it up and gave it to him, I did get him a game to go with it though, Mario Kart. Brian had an old fish tank that Stasia had given him for his birthday when she was around a year old. He's since upgraded to a bigger fish tank. Graham had been asking for a cat, but really we knew he just wanted a pet of his own. Stasia has turtles, Kortnie has a rabbit and everyone pretty much has the dog. So, we wrapped up the old fish tank and gave him that too. He was so excited :-) He still hasn't figured out that he got hand me downs for Christmas! We had a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs, refried beans and hamburger (leftover from Christmas Eve Taco night) and got ready for church. Our church service was awesome, the choir did a music and spoken word service and you could really feel the Spirit. I am so glad that we did go to church. I admit that I kind of thought about skipping. After church we headed over to St Johns to meet up with Brian's family. We got there about the time they went to church so we just hung out and did Grandma's dishes for her. When everyone got home we did another gift exchange. I think my kids had more gifts at Grandma's house than they did at my house. We spent the afternoon playing with the kids and enjoying family. Brian's mom put on a huge delicious spread of food and we just had an amazing Christmas day.

Since last year, I've been having our kids draw a name of one of their siblings and new this year, our kids and their cousins on the Silverhorn/Prentice side drew names also. It was fun to see my kids really thoughtfully pick out gifts for each other and their cousins. Graham was very excited this year to pick out his gifts and even wrap them himself. He got a T-Shirt and Watch for his cousin Jon who is 12 (I steered him towards those things, but he made the final decisions), for Stasia he picked out for her some pretty hair bands and bows all by himself, and for Brian I had bought a few things for Brian and I let the kids pick what they wanted to give him from what I had. He gave Brian a video game. He wrapped all of the gifts by himself. They looked awful, but he was very proud of himself and excited and I was proud of him too. He had lots of questions about Baby Jesus and it being his birthday. He's such a sweet boy! Stasia had her cousin Emmit who's around 16 months old, she got him a baby golf set and some wooden puzzles, she picked her sister Kortnie and got her a Monster High Doll, for Brian she picked a video game. She too wrapped all of her own presents and did a great job! Kortnie picked her cousin Cheyanne who's 6, she got her a purse, wallet, lip gloss and hairbrush, and Walmart gift card. She also picked Graham and she got him a tool set from a Black Friday sale at Lowe's, it's a real set with real tools, just kid sized, it even has a little apron and saftey goggles. For Brian she gave him the DVD Fast Five. Also, in Kortnie's class the students can ear "funny money" for certain things and they save up their money and shop at "store" a few times a year. In December they had store and she bought gifts for Me, Brian, Stasia, Graham, Cheyanne, and her BFF Zoie. She came home and I helped her wrap them. She got Brian a pack of Big Red gum, Stasia, Cheyanne and Zoie little strechy frogs, Graham a plastic lizard, and on Christmas morning I found that she'd also gotten me a pack of Big Red gum. She told us that she was the only one in her class that used their funny money to buy presents for her family. How awesome is she!

Christmas was just wonderful this year, we really loved having so much extra family around and I love that my kids embraced the actual spirit of Christmas.

BlackOut

2012-01-18T16:48:00.000-08:00

For more information go here http://sopastrike.com/

To sign the petition go here https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

Family Visits

2012-01-17T09:02:00.001-08:00

Nicole working on her "ranch" house, I think it looked like a Flintstone house

Mike, Emmit, Stasia, and Cheyanne Clacie with the glue gun. (I think they used that hammer to break up pieces of candy and make stained glass, very creative ladies!)

Brian helped Graham make his

I guess I got this picture in here twice

Over Christmas, 2 of Brian's younger brothers were in town with their wives. His mom and older brother already live in our area. So, we had quite a few oppurtunities to get together.

The Wednesday before Christmas, Mike, Clacie and Emmit flew into Phoenix from Spokane. So, we all went down the Phoenix to pick them up and to visit Brian's sister who lives down there. My kids and I went, Brian's mom and nephews Kurtis and Jon, Brian's Grandma, and then Brandon's family. We got hotel rooms and stayed overnight. First we did a little shopping, then picked Mike and family up at the airport. After that we headed over to Peoria where Tricia lives. We got Kentucky Fried Chicken and had dinner with her and a fun visit. We gave her some Christmas gifts. After that we went to Mesa LDS Temple to see the Christmas light display's that they put on. It was a long but super fun day. Thursday morning we did a bit more shopping on the way out of town. It was snowing up towards home so we were eager to get on the road. I'd have to say it was one of the most slow going rides home ever. I had my 3 kids and 2 nephews in the car with me, and even though it was cold and snowy and slow going, all of the kids did really well! We got about 20 miles out of Show Low and there was a jack-kniffed semi on the road. We ended up waiting about an hour or more for it to get cleard off the road, then we followed a lead car the last 20 miles into town. It took us about 2 hours to go that 20 miles. Poor Brian was waiting for us in Show Low and couldn't get ahold of us because we had no cell service. Another long day! We met up with Brian in Show Low and then headed home to Snowflake, everyone else went on down the road to St Johns, where Marc and Nicole who came from Utah were waiting. Friday we had a relaxed day here at home, but then everyone came over to our house for dinner after Brian got off of work. I made Beef Stew with Rice and Chili & Cornbread. We ate, played pool, ping pong, video games and card games. We loved having Brian's brothers and their families here in our home. Saturday was Christmas Eve, Brian got off work early and we headed over to St Johns to spend the afternoon and evening with his family. We had tacos for dinner and we got to spend time visiting again. That evening we made Gingerbread houses. It was fun to see who all got really involved in it. The kids of course, as well as Clacie, Nicole and Brandon. Grandma was doing dishes and cleaning the kitchen and she kept giving everyone more and more candy, pretzels, marshmallows for everyone to be creative with. She got into it too. She proudly displayed all of the Gingerbread houses on her living room shelves. We covered some carboard in foil, then superglued graham crackers together in the shape of houses. I made the houses for the kids and Brandon, I just broke the crackers in half so they were squares, I glued 4 squares together and then used 2 for a roof. Then glued the house onto the foil covered cardboard. Clacie and Nicole got really creative and made bigger houses for theirs. Then I had pre-made some royal icing and went to the dollar store for some candies. I think we had Spree's, red and white mints, mini candy canes, pretzels, a bunch of different colored and shaped marshmallows, red hots, cinnamon disks, snowcaps, chocolate chips, dots, etc. They used knives to spread the icing on their house or dipped the candies into the icing. It was a lot of fun and I think a new tradition was born. Doing it this way was way better than buying those kits. Hot Gluing was genious and I have to thank my friend Christy for giving me that idea! It was so nice getting to spend all of that time with our family. Brian and I have been married the longest and we've gotten to spend a lot of family time with his brothers, especially the 2 youngest ones Mike and Marc. The first time I met them was Christmas 2000 when they were 13 years old. Now that they are all grown up with wives and starting families of their own and living far away, we really cherish the time we still get with them. It's fun to see them with their wives and Mike with his son. It was a great Christmas weekend! I'll have to do another post for Christmas day and a few more posts with pictures later.

Snow December 2011

2012-01-17T08:43:00.000-08:00

Brian and the girls, my 4-wheeler in the background

Stasia coming down the hill Classic Korky coming down the hill laughing

Graham built himself a little fort in the extra snow that the snow plow piled by our corner

Back in the first week of December we got a huge snowfall. I think by the time it was all said and done we had 28 inches at our house. Now, we do live in Arizona, so most people think we don't get snow here, but we do live in the mountains in a town called Snowflake. Snowflake is named for 2 founding families the Snow's and the Flake's, it is not named that because we get tons of snow. We do get snow, but not usually this much. It was a wonderful treat. It came Thursday evening and night, so school was cancelled for Friday. The kids had a great time playing in the snow, building snowmen, forts and going sledding. Brian had to work both Friday and Saturday, but on Sunday after church he did go sledding with us. We live up on a hill and there is an area back behind our houses that makes for great sledding. Graham and I also had good times riding my 4-wheeler around in the snow too. It was a fun weekend.

Graham's Report Card

2012-01-10T10:14:00.000-08:00

Graham is in his 2nd year of Pre-School. When he started back after the Christmas break he was coming into the 3rd Quarter. He goes to Busy Bee Pre-School here in town. He goes Tuesday and Thursday mornings 9-11am. He really loves going to school, his favorite is Show and Tell. He loves to see his friends and his teachers. Today he got his "report card" for the 2nd Quarter. He sees his sisters bringing home their report cards and getting special treats for good grades, so he's excited to bring home his report card too. It's really a quarterly evaluation. His teachers give him the same "test" every quarter they record the answers of the kids and send them home with the kids. I really love this, I can see where he's improving and what he still needs working on. First they write their name, his teacher wrote "Graham is doing well with his name. Encourage him to continue practicing writing it." He recognizes these colors...Red, Yellow, Orange, Green Blue, Purple, Pink, White, Brown and Black. He didn't recognize Grey. Number Recognition, he recognized each number 1-7 Sound, Charecter and Action of the Alphabet, they use the Zoo Phonics for their alphabet. His teacher wrote "Graham knows each character and action associated with each animal letter. he is missing the sound for N and O. He knew all of his shapes...Circle, triangle, Diamond, Square, Star, Rectangle, Oval, Octagon, Heart...for Crescent he said "Moon", I know he knows Crescent, he's pointed them out to me before, but kids being kids, he's always changing things up and now must be associating Crescent with the Moon...it fits He recited all of the Alphabet. Yay! (Usually he skips or mixes up the L M N O P section) Cutting Skills he got Beginner/Advanced "Pratice to build confidence and corret holding" Follow Directions he got Beginner/Advanced Counting...1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 14 20....not too bad Social Skills he got Needs Reminded Health and Hygeine he got Great (that's the highest one) His teachers final comment was "Graham is doing well. Encourage him to listen and participate while we are at the mat. Thanks for all you do." Well, he is 4 1/2 and even though he still needs to work on a few things, like counting and participating in class, I think he is doing really well. He's a pretty smart boy...I think :-) He loves to look at books, and the other night I caught him reading a book to our dog Brownie, he was reading "Spot Goes to School" which is a book about a dog and his first day of school. We've read it many times and it only has like 5 words or so per page. It was so cute! He points out letters, shapes and colors to me all the time. He loves playing video games, I'm not so sure I love that he loves video games, but Brian says that it's good for him as long as he doesn't play too much. Hand-Eye Coordination and all. He also loves to ride his bike, go to the park, play with the dog and he thinks he likes to play ball too. We're gonna do his first year of Little League this Spring. He keeps asking me "when is it gonna be baseball time?" Just as I'm so proud of my girls for their great report cards, I am very proud of Graham too. I have such smart kids!

2nd Quarter Report Card Day

2012-01-05T14:06:00.000-08:00

The girls brought home their report cards today. Anastasia- 3rd Grade Reading A- Language/Writing A+ Math A+ Spelling A+ Handwriting S+ Social Studies S Science S Health S Art E PE E Citizenship & Study Skills E Perfect Attendance Reading at a 5.0 Grade level (83% Above Average) Awesome! Kortnie 2nd Grade Reading A Lang/Writing A- Math A+ Spelling A- Handwriting S Social Studies S Science S Health S Art S PE S Citzenship & Study Skills E She's missed 5.5 days of school and been Tardy 5 times (Stupid Diabetes!) She's reading at 3.0 Grade Level (77% Above Average) Awesome! We're so proud of our girls. I also think it's pretty great that even though Kortnie has missed so many days of school that she's able to keep up with her class. Brian mentioned that he was worried she would get held back for missing so many days, but every year her Doctor fills out a paper and it's filed with the State so that when she misses school it's put under chronic illness. As long as she passes the benchmarks that the State or School System sets to advance to the next grade then she'll pass regardless of how many days she misses. Well, guess what, she's passed pretty much all of them, she's just got to finish her math facts and she's good to go. Not too bad for halfway thru the school year.

Conversations with a 4 1/2 year old. Mr. Graham-Cracker

2012-01-03T10:39:00.000-08:00

This morning I picked Graham up from Pre-School and then we headed to the grocery store. On the way home, we had this conversation As we passed by the NPC campus, the local community college Graham: Is that Jesus' house? Me: No, that's the college Graham: Well, where is Jesus house? Me: The Temple Graham: What's it look like in there? Me: It's shiny and pretty and clean and white Graham: Did you see him there? (Brian and I went and helped clean the Temple last week) Me: Who? Graham: Jesus! Me: Um, no I didn't see him there Graham: Where is his bed? What kind of bedroom does he have? Me: Um, I don't know, I didn't see his bedroom. Graham: Where is his mom? Where is Mary? Me: Well, they are really all in Heaven with Heavenly Father, Mary and Joseph and Jesus, all of the Temples are Jesus house and the churches too, he can come to them whenever he wants but mostly he's in Heaven with Heavenly Father Graham: So do they live up their on a cloud? (he points to a cloud) Me: Yes, yes, they live on a cloud Graham: Someday can I go to the Temple with you? Me: Yes, someday, when you are a teenager you can go see part of it, I think when you are 12 or 14, I'll go with you. Graham: Like a teenager? Me: Yes Graham: Why do they call them teenagers? Me: (oh brother!) Because they are in ageing in their teens, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 Graham: (pulling into the garage now) Oh! Okay, what's for lunch Man, he's full of questions. Everyday he has crazy questions like this. Also when I picked him up from school, he had this paper that he'd drawn a picture of a house looking thing, 2 guys and one bike/motorcycle. He wrote his name on it too. His teacher had written "When I grow up I want to be a mechanic at Show Low" so I asked him if he wanted to be a mechanic, and he told me "Yes, but not at Daddy's work, at the other one where we got Clifford the Big Red Truck" (that's what we call our new truck). So I said you want to be a car mechanic? He says "Yep" I think Brian would still be proud, he's told me before that there is way more money in being a car mechanic.

Graham's 4th Birthday

2011-09-13T10:34:00.000-07:00

Opening Presents Graham with his sisters and cousins, Emmit and Cheyanne

Bompa and Graham, it had been Bompa's birthday a couple of days before Graham so we sang to both of them and they both had a set of candles to blow out. Graham usually shares a birthday party with Bompa, this year was no different, he likes to share his birthday with Bompa, but in actualality he shares his birthday with my Grandpa Buster and my Cousin Lyle, 3 generations of "Hess" men born on June 22nd!

This year for Graham's birthday, we had tons of family coming to town for his Grandma Linda's wedding. We all gathered at Grandma Linda's house for a party, I made a Nacho bar, cupcakes and a Better Than 'You Know What' Cake. Our family was there, Grandma Linda, Kurtis, Jon, Uncle Brandon & Aunt Erin, Cheyanne, Uncle Mike & Aunt Clacie, Emmit, Uncle Jason & Aunt Magen, Lianna, Great Grandma and Bompa were all there. We ate, visitied, opened presents, and had cake and ice cream. It was a laid back family party, the best kind I think. Graham got spoiled as usual and got lots of fun toys. He had a good time playing with his cousins, especially Baby Emmit. I'm so grateful for my little boy and so grateful that so much family could be with us to celebrate his special day.

I've never really written down Graham's birth story, so I've included recorded it in this post.

June 22, 2007, is the day that I finnally got my boy. On October 31st, 2006 I took a pregnancy test to confirm my suspicions that I was pregnant, I was probably around 10 weeks along already and had figured that I was pregnant for awhile. Brian and I were at Walmart getting last minute stuff for the girls' Halloween costumes when I told him, "I think I'll go get a pregnancy test too", he said, "why?' Well, babe why do you think and he replied with, "Well, we already know you're pregnant, you've been gagging on your toothbrush for awhile now" It was true, I had been, but Brian was very busy working full time 40+ hours a week and going to school pretty much full time 30 hours a week, I was working part-time 15-20 hours a week as well. How we managed to get pregnant, I'm not really sure. :-) So I told him, "Well, I'll take the test and make it official". Well, of course the test came up positive. I went to the Dr not too long after that and had an Ultrasound that I wasn't really expecting. Brian wasn't there since I thought it was just a routine appointment, but I found out I was having a boy, finnally after 2 girls I was ready for a little boy.

By the time June 2007 rolled around, we had moved from Phoenix to the White Mountains of AZ. We were staying with Brian's mom in St. Johns, AZ waiting for our house in Phoenix to sell so we could buy a house of our own in Snowflake, AZ. We lived about an hour from the hospital, and since my previous labors had gone so fast, I knew an hour drive to the hospital would be cutting it close. I thought Graham's due date should be June 19th, but the Ultrasounds all said June 21st. June 21st was pretty much right. We went to bed around 11pm on June 21st, I couldn't get comfortable and figured I was in the beginning stages of labor, I figured I'd let Brian sleep awhile. Finnally around 4:45am I woke him up and told him it was time to go, we got our stuff together and woke Brian's mom to tell her we were heading to the hospital. I think we got on the road right at 5am and headed for Show Low. I wasn't in too much pain, but figured with how fast I seem to progress it was good to be on the road. Once we got to the hospital, I still wasn't feeling too much as far as contractions go, but I knew Graham would be coming sometime that morning. I had Brian park way in the corner of the vistors parking lot, we walked all the way around the hospital to the Emergency Entrance, I figured the walking would help me get going. (Boy did it!) We got to the ER and luckily there wasn't anyone there waiting already so they brought me straight back. They checked me in at 6:15, I went to the bathroom and changed into the gown that they have you wear. I told the nurses, "I don't think I'm quite ready, but I know this baby will be born this morning, we live an hour away and my labors come on fast, the last one was less than 2 hours, so please don't send me home" The nurses said, "okay hop in bed and we'll check to see where you are at" Well the nurse checked and you should have seen her face, she was shocked and said "Oh My Gosh, you are complete already". She started pressing buttons and calling on the phone right away, there were about 4 nurses in the room trying to get things ready and to get the baby warmer thing heated up. All of a sudden I told Brian and the nurses, "Oh man, I'm gonna have to push in a minute" they were all rushing around telling me we know, we know, try not to. I had my legs crossed and was trying to hold Graham in, the nurses were in the corner getting stuff ready and Brian was standing next to me, I yelled out to Brian, "here he comes!" Brian ran down to end of my bed just in time to see Graham come out, he started yelling "he's out! he's out!" So I said to Brian, "well pick him up" LOL Later Brian told me that "he just kind of fell out of you, still in the bag of water, when his shoulders hit the bed his water broke". He was born at 6:22am on 6/22. We had been in the hospital room a total of 7 minutes. The nurses grabbed him, weighed him, wrapped him up and put him on my chest, the baby warmer was not warm enough yet. About 5 minutes later the Doctor showed up. He started barking orders and actually chastised the nurses for not having stuff ready, they quickly explained that we'd only been there 7 minutes before the baby was born. As always it was a wonderful joyous experience to have a baby. Graham is the sweetest boy, from the time he was born, he loved to cuddle, he's always loved his big sisters and has been all boy. He helped round out our family and he certainly keeps us on our toes. He loves his dog, loves to help me plant flowers and the garden, he is active and loves to ride bikes, run, go golfing, fishing and hiking. He gives hugs to everyone he meets. He's sensitive and kind. He is the most amazing boy I know. We all love him so much and we're lucky to be his family.

Graham's New Do!

2011-06-02T08:05:00.000-07:00

Graham's been asking for a haircut for around a month now. He's almost 4 years old (35 months to be exact) and we've been growing his hair this whole time. He did have a little trim awhile back, but he kept it long. He always wore his hair in a pony tail. I always said that when he asked to cut his hair I'd go ahead and let him. So, he started asking and we decieded that we'd go ahead and take him to the "hair cut store". We waited until all 5 of us could be together to go watch and support him. While we were down in the Valley (Phoenix area) this weekend we found a "Cool Cuts 4 Kids" store and took him. The people there were so nice and the place is totally kid oriented. They have toys and video games that you can play while you are waiting your turn, then when they take you back you get to pick a movie to watch while you are having your haircut, they had these cute chairs to sit in too and Graham picked a firetruck chair. We looked at the haircut picture books and chose a short spikey type hairstyle for him. (He wanted a mohawk but we had to say no, he and Anastasia have figured a way to make his spikey-ness to look like a mini-hawk anyways). So, they took him back, put his hair in a tight to the head ponytail, measured it and chopped it off! I just about lost it. LOL...He had 10 inches which is just enough to send to Locks of Love, very cool! (In case you didn't know, Locks of Love takes donated real hair and turns it into wigs for children with hair loss, Alopecia, Cancer, etc., it's a great non-profit group, Brian's donated his hair 2 or 3 times to Locks of Love as well, check them out at www.locksoflove.org) After they cut the ponytail off, he had a wash, he liked that, then off to the fireman chair for the actual cut and movie watching. He picked a Sonic the Hedgehog movie. The girl he had took her time and did a really great job, when it came time for the shaver-clipper things, she showed them to him and let him touch them and feel them so he'd know that they wouldn't hurt. Once he saw himself in the mirror, he looked a little sad, like he'd cry, but he stuck it out and was so brave. It took Graham as well as the rest of us to get used to his new look, but now we all are used to it and he looks great. He loves how everyone is telling him that he's "a handsome little boy" he keeps telling me, "they called me a boy!" LOL. Way to go Graham, we are so proud of you for being brave, we love your new do, and we are happy that we can donate your hair to such a worthy cause!

Before

After (holding up his 10inch ponytail)

Mother's Day Weekend 2011

2011-05-19T09:19:00.000-07:00

My babies and I on Mother's Day morning at church.

Me and my girls at the Zumbathon

This year on the Saturday before Mother's Day, my friend hosted a Zumbathon. I take her Zumba classes a couple of times a week and occasionally the girls go with me to the class. It's a lot of fun and we really like it. So, a Zumbathon was a 2 1/2 hour Zumba session and the money from the ticket sales went to the American Heart Association. So, the girls and I bought tickets and went. It was held outside at a local park Saturday morning, it was a really fun time!

On Sunday the kids and Brian got up early and made me breakfast in bed. They made me eggs, hashbrowns, sausage, and English muffin with Nutella. I was supposed to be sleeping in, but instead I got up and took my shower, then I put my jammies back on and got back into bed with a magazine. :-) They gave me some cards and things that they had made at school and girl scouts. Then they gave me some cards from the store too, some scratch lottery tickets, a thing of Ferro Rocher candies, and a flowering plant. After church they took me over to Show Low to eat at the Chinese Buffet, then we came home, the kids helped me plant the flower pots for the front porch and Brian cleaned out the garage. (I've been asking him to do it for the longest time! I cleaned out what I could, but he needed to get all his tools and motorcycle parts organized). It was a pretty great weekend.

Little League 2011

2011-05-05T12:56:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to update my blog a little, so there are 3 more new posts down below this one if you feel like reading a bunch. LOL

Kortnie at catcher Zoie, Korky and Stasia on opening day

The Iron Pigs

It's that time of year again, baseball/softball season. Here in Snowflake softball and baseball are THE sports to play! This is Anastasia's 3rd year in Little League and Kortnie's 2nd. Both of them are on the same team this year along with Zoie, their best friend and our neighbor. They are on a pitching machine team called the Iron Pigs. I know, crazy name, right. Well, here in our smallish town there are probably 4o Little League teams in all the divisions and I guess they ran out of the good names. HaHa!

So, the girls have been practicing usually about 3 times a week for the past month. We had opening day on April 30th and the girls had 2 games last week. Their first game was on a Monday so Brian was able to go watch. They won that game and Anastasia hit the ball really well both time she was up to bat and also scored too. Kortnie didn't hit the ball when she was up to bat in the 1st inning and then when they took the field the coach had her play catcher. She did not like playing catcher, so when the 2nd inning started she was all upset and wouldn't go out to bat. I went to check her blood sugar, but she was at a good number so I knew it was just her being an upset little girl. Hard to tell the difference between 'regular upset little girl' or 'diabetes freakout incident'. So Kortnie didn't play the 2nd inning. Oh well. They had their 2nd game last night and played really well again, but lost 6-4. Stasia didn't hit the ball yesterday, but Kortnie did! She would have had a double, but the coach stopped her at 1st. She did amke it to 3rd base but then they got 3 outs so she didn't score. That's okay. She was so happy just that she hit the ball and I was happy for her too. So the Little League season goes until the middle of June and I think we still have 8 more games to go, it's so fun to go watch them and cheer for them and it looks like Brian will even be able to make it to 4 of their games, so that's a big improvement, I think last year he only made it to 1 the whole season.

Teacher Appreciation Craft

2011-05-05T12:30:00.000-07:00

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week. I was cruising the blogs and internet looking for something fun to do for the kids' teachers this year and came across this idea at www.SkipToMyLou.org

All you need is a bucket, some "grass paper" stuff, pencils, silk flowers, hot glue gun, Smarties, and Dum Dum suckers. I got the bucket, paper, and flowers at Dollar Tree. Then I had the rest at home, well, I bought a bag of Smarties and Dum Dums at Walmart.

You put the grass in the bucket, then glue some flowers to the end of the pencils, then poke in the candies. Easy! On the tag we typed up we wrote "Dear Mrs. B, Because of you I'm a SMARTIE, not a DUM DUM. Love, Graham then we taped the note ontop of the bucket's price tag sticker.

These were really fun and easy for the kids to make themselves and not too pricey either. I think I spent around $14 total, but we made 4 of these and had tons of leftover candies so the rest of the candy we saved for the kids. What kid or mom doesn't enjoy a Dum Dum sucker every now and then and the Smarties we always have on hand for Kortnie's low blood sugars. We even had a couple of flowers left over, I'm sure the girls will find something to do with them.

Letters to the Easter Bunny

2011-05-05T12:16:00.001-07:00

Dear Easter Bunny I want a bike, a big choclate bunny, and stamps, a small dirtbike that I could ride. And the rest you could pick. Love, Graham Mark Silverhorn P.S Hide the eggs in the living room please!!!!!

(Haha, Stasia helped Graham write that!)

Leave my dog a bag of bones, and a toy and dog treats. I love you Easter Bunny so much, thank you for everything. P.S. hide them inside

(this was from Kortnie, she didn't sign her name)

Anastasia

Dear Easter Bunny, I want a lot of stuff. First, I want some Spring shoes with heels that I can wear outside. Then I want a big pillow from Walmart that is blue. Then my family wants Mario Kart for the Wii and a stuffed animal that is a blue bunny from Walmart. Next, me and my brother want Peeps, I like bunny's you could get them if you want to. Last, I want the movie Tron Legacy, the movie, it's at Walmart. Clearly, I hope you do well. Love, Anastasia Marie Silverhorn P.S What's your real name circleit down there

Easter Bunny or Something Else

(The EB circled Something Else and put Peter Cottontail)

Easter Weekend 2011

2011-05-05T11:34:00.000-07:00

Stasia, Cheyanne, Kortnie and Graham with the E.Bunny cake that Grandma made out of cupcakes.

Cheyanne, Stasia and Graham

Andre, Stasia, Graham and Kortnie with their pretty eggs.

Even though Easter was late this year, it still seemed to sneak up on us. We seem to be going with a theme of "low-key" holidays this year. So for Easter we did the normal things, but just not quite as "BIG!" On Friday the girls were off of school so we went to the town Easter egg hunt, the kids had fun, but I thought it was kind of a bust. After that I took the kids over to Show Low, for a marathon day of shopping, picking out Easter dresses and one new Spring outfit at JCP, then over to Payless for some new Easter dress shoes, then Walmart for the regular shopping. Then on Friday evening we had agreed to watch a friend of ours, Andre for a few hours. I boiled up 3 1/2 dozen eggs, fed the kids some pizza and salad(kind of a tradition, on egg coloring night we do easy to cook, easy to eat finger type foods). After picking the eggs that cracked or broke out I divided them up between the 4 kids and let them go to town coloring them. They had a good time and made a mess of course, but it kept them occupied for awhile. Brian and I just kind of hung out eating our pizza and watched them enjoy themselves. On Saturday, I packed up the kids (Brian was working and of course he was busy that day and couldn't even get off early to join us) and headed over to St. Johns to spend the day with family. We had planned to do a picnic in the St Johns park and to let the kids play and then go back to Grandma Linda's for the traditional ham dinner. But, of course, it was WINDY and chilly! So we just stayed at Linda's house. Grandma and Bompa came over, also Brandon, Erin and Cheyanne, and of course, Grandma Linda, Kurtis and Jon. We ate our picnic lunch in the living room, then we let the kids play outside for awhile. I had brought over some hula hoops, bubbles, and jump ropes. Then the boys had their skateboards. We also did an Easter egg hunt in the front yard. Anastasia found the most eggs, so she got the Golden Egg prize with $5 in it! After all of that we had dinner, as always, Linda cooked up a feast! Way too much good food and then way too much wonderful dessert! Yummy! We got the kids to bed and then Brian and I set out the Easter baskets for the kids and hid some eggs in the living room. Graham got a new bike! He was just getting too big for his little bike that he got less than a year ago for his birthday, he loves riding his bike so much and we do quite a bit of family bike rides, so we knew it wouldn't be any fun to make him wait for his birthday a big boy bike. We filled the baskets with other Spring like outside toys, bubbles, hula hoops, jump ropes, water guns,flip flops, and then hair & nail stuff for the girls and earrings too. Oh and they got the new movies Tron and Tangled in their baskets too. The kids woke us up early around 6am on Sunday morning, we came down with them to watch them get their baskets and find eggs. Brian went back to bed with a migraine and I made breakfast. It was super WINDY on Sunday too so we just spent the whole day in the house, we played some games, watched the new movies and ate leftovers that Linda had sent home with us. Graham went to ride his bike a little bit and wanted us to go on a family bike ride, but it was just way too windy! (On Monday we did take him on a couple of bike rides since Brian was off work) So that was our Easter weekend. It was enjoyable and relaxing, except for the shopping part, LOL

2010-2011 3rd Quarter Report Cards

2011-03-30T14:26:00.001-07:00

Graham writing his name

The 3rd Quarter of the 2010-2011 school year ended on March 11. We had Parent Teacher Conferences for the girls. Both of their teachers had only wonderful things to say about our girls. They are doing well in all of their subjects and also doing fabulous with the social side of school.

Anastasia is in 2nd Grade

Reading A+

Language/Writing A+

Math A+

Spelling A+

Handwriting S

Social Studies S

Science S

Health S

Art S

PE S

Her teacher did say that she would have given her all S+ but the computer wouldn't let her. She also recieved an S in the Citzenship and Study Skills catergory. She's already passed all of the benchmarks needed to get to 3rd grade and her reading scored in the range for an "average 4th grader after the start of the school year" Way to go Stasia!

Kortnie is in 1st Grade

Social Development S

Writing/Speaking S

Spelling 88%

Reading 97%

Math 100%

Kortnie has also already passed all of the benchmarks needed to advance to 2nd grade, she's reading at a reading level of 1.8 which is comparable to an "average 1st grader after 8 months of school". That is right where she should be. Way to go Kork-Meister!

Graham is in his first year of Pre-School, he's 3 years old (4 in June)

He recognizes all of his colors (Red, Yellow, Orange, Green, Blue, Purple, Brown, Black, Pink and White)

He recognizes numbers 0-5

So far he has been taughter letter sounds for A-W (22 letters) and he remembers and repeats 18 out of those 22 sounds when his teacher points at a letter.

He recognizes all ten of his shapes (Circle, Triangle, Diamond, Square, Star, Rectangle, Oval, Octagon, Cresent, Heart and Hexagon)

He does okay on reciting his alphabet, he can do A-V but skips J

Follow Directions he got "Beginner"

When asked to Count 1-10 he said 1,2,5,6,7.8

Social Skills he got "Sometimes" (the choices were Always, Sometimes or Need Reminded)

Health and Hygeine he got Needs Reminded, apparantly he forgets to wash his hands and flush the toilet, (waht can I say....he's a boy! LOL)

He can also write his name (Kind of, see the picture at the top of this)

He seems to really enjoy going to school and tells me his favorite part is playing at recess and show and tell. He goes to school 2 days a week, Monday and Wednesday 9am-11am. There are 8 kids in his class and they all seem to get along pretty good. He'll be attending this same pre-school, Busy Bee Preschool, next year. Besides going to school on Mon and Wed, most weeks I take him to the library on Thursday mornings, they do a childrens program, they read books and sing songs then do an activity or coloring page. After the program he picks out books to bring home and read. His Pre-School really stresses reading to the kids, he has a calendar and every day he "reads" for 20 minutes we sign that and if he gets 20 days a month he can turn in his calendar and he can pick out of the prize box. Everynight he tells us "read me a book" so of course between Brian and I and 2 big sisters there is always someone to read to him. He has a couple of books that he's memorized and he can "read" them to us.

Well, that's the update on the kids and their schooling, they are doing well in all other areas of their lives as well, my only wish is that they would keep their room cleaner more often! The girls just started baseball, they are on the same team together, it's a pitching machine team. They are still involved in Girl Scouts and Stasia is in a church group and is working to pass off her "Faith in God" booklet. (this is a program for the young girls aged 8 and up to (12 I think). Graham is still too little for Little League, but he enjoys playing with his dog, riding his bike and is looking forward to helping me plant and grow the garden and flowers. He keeps asking me when are we going to grow flowers, last weekend Brian and I got a rabbit fence up and tilled a plot for a vegetabel garden, Graham of course "helped" and now everyday asks "when we gonna plant that garden?". Kortnie's diabetes is....well it's diabetes, it's challenging everyday, but we stick with it, what else are we going to do? Her latest A1C was an 8.5% it should be down in the 7% range so it's a little higher than we want it to be, but it's not necessarily a bad number either.

Spring Break Camping & Fishing

2011-03-26T10:55:00.001-07:00

We are on Spring Break this week, Brian has Sunday and Monday's off, so we decided to pack up the kids and head down to Roosevelt Lake, AZ for an overnight camping trip. We called up Brian's brother Brandon and his family and invited them along. We left after church Sunday afternoon and met up with Brandon's family at the Walmart in Payson. We headed down to Roosevelt Lake and scouted ourselves a camping spot. Finally around 4pm we found a nice sandy beach on the Salt River between Globe and Roosevelt. We set up our tents and put our poles in the water, the kids ran around and had a good time playing with eachother and skipping rocks in the river. When it started getting dark we made ourselves a campfire and started cooking dinner. We roasted hot dogs on sticks and had chips and apples too. Then we roasted marshmallows and had smores! We never caught any fish on Sunday night, but we had a really great time just sitting around the fire and visiting. We all went to bed around 11pm and were later woken up by a crazy wind storm! It was a little cold, but not too bad. On Monday morning we started another little fire and had some breakfast, more hot dogs, granola bars and apples. Then we packed up our trucks and headed to the lake. It started drizzling a little but everyone still wanted to fish in the lake for awhile. Brian and Brandon found us a spot near the lake with a pretty big covered picnic table area. My sister in law Erin and I set up our camp chairs and there we sat wrapped in blankets, she knitted and I looked through my magazines, the guys fished, and the kids went back and forth between fishing and running around. It rained pretty much the whole time we were there, but it wasn't too bad, we ate lunch, sandwiches and leftover chips, apples and granola bars. About an hour or so after lunch the rain really started coming down, so we decided to head on home. We hit a pretty good wind and snow storm coming over the rim, but by the time we got home to Snowflake, it was just windy and cold. We unloaded, everyone had showers and then we went out to dinner at Eva's a local Mexican reastaurant. I have to say, even with the rain and the wind it was a pretty spectacular relaxing weekend. We loved getting to spend quality time with Brandon, Erin, Cheyanne and eachother as well. This was our first time taking the kids camping and even the first time Brian and I have gone camping together. We've gone on day trips fishing, and last summer we went down to Roosevelt for some overnight fishing in which the kids and I slept in the bed of the truck, but this was our first tent camping, fire cooking trip. So much fun! I see some more Sunday/Monday trips in our future this summer.

The smoke is here in the picture, but I still love this pic of my 3 babies roasting hotdogs and having a good old time!

Brian and the kids, sitting by the fire, love my family, I am so blessed!

Stasia by the fire, she had this stick and kept poking it in the fire trying to light it, isn't her smile just beautiful?!

Korky and Graham fishing in the rain. They love fishing! (By the way, Brandon was the only one to catch a fish this whole trip!) He caught a good sized, 3 pound catfish by leaving his pole out the whole night on Sunday night, he was going to take it home, he put it on a stringer and had it out in the lake, Graham picked it up and said to Brandon, "Look Brandon I caught a catfish!" then he threw it back in the lake and the fish got away still attached to Brandon's stringer! Whoops! Sorry Uncle Brandon. Then at the lake Brandon caught a good sized Bass, he let it go.

Spring Break Camping & Fishing

2011-03-26T10:55:00.000-07:00

The smoke is here in the picture, but I still love this pic of my 3 babies roasting hotdogs and having a good old time!

Brian and the kids, sitting by the fire, love my family, I am so blessed!

Stasia by the fire, she had this stick and kept poking it in the fire trying to light it, isn't her smile just beautiful?!

Anastsia's Baptism December 4, 2010

2011-01-07T14:51:00.001-08:00

I am way behind on my blogging. Today I want to write about Anastasia's Baptism. We are member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. When children in the church reach 8 years of age they can choose to be baptised. Anastasia turned 8 on November 18, 2010 and decided she did indeed want to be baptised. Our Stake does Stake Baptisms on the 1st Saturday of each month so we participated in that. We went to the church where Anastasia and Brian changed into their white baptism clothes (I didn't get a picture of that, dang it), we went to the Chapel with the rest of the kids who were getting baptised. First there was an opening song, an opening prayer and a talk on Baptism. After that we sang some Primary songs while we waited for Anastasia's turn to go to the baptismal faunt. We were 3rd in line I think, so we didn't have to wait long. They called us to the baptismal faunt where Brian and Anastasia entered the waters of baptism and Brian was able to baptise her. It was so wonderful and we could all feel the Spirit with us. We had quite a few family and friends attend and it was so sweet to see all of the little children gathered right at the front of the faunt, they were just as excited to see Stasia go under the water as I was. After she was baptised, she and Brian went to change back into their dry clothes. We all then gathered for a private ceremony in a smaller room. We sang "Come Follow Me" then Stasia's Great-Grandma Anna Prentice gave a talk on the Holy Ghost, after that Stasia was Confirmed and Given the Gift of the Holy Ghost. In our church when this happens, somebody with the proper Priesthood Authority (Brian) places his hands on her head and gives her a Blessing and tells her Spirit to recieve the Holy Ghost. It was powerful and sweet. After that, we sang the song "I Love to See the Temple" and Kortnie gave the closing prayer. After the acutal baptism we went back to our house for dinner. We served, make you own sub sanwiches, orange jello salad, potato salad and chips. Then we had cake for dessert. We were so happy that so many people could be with us on Stasia's special day. We had our family of 5, Grandma Linda, Great Grandma and Grandpa Prentice, Brandon, Erin, Cheyanne, Marc and Nicole (they came all the way from UT!), Zoie Gerald and Brodee Pearce, Marcie Riley Raegan and Reece Sipes, Miss Debbie, Sarah Rencher and her kids, Stasia's teacher Mrs. Binnie, Stasia's Primary teacher Sister Smith, our Bishop Adams, Sister Sanderson, and our nephews Kurtis and Jon. Stasia recieved some fun gifts, her own set of Scriptures with her name engraved on them from Brian and I, a Scripture purse from Grandma Linda, a CTR ring from Grandma and Grandpa Hess, a picture of the Savior from Marc and Nicole, a beautiful CTR necklace from Brandon and family, a journal and a magnet from Sis Smith, and a book from Grandma and Bompa. The pictures above are of our family with Stasia after the baptism, our whole family that was there outside of the church after the baptism, and then one of Stasia in her white dress afterwards. We are all so proud of Stasia for choosing to be baptised and to become an offical member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Congratulations Anastasia and always remember the convenants you made on your baptism day.

Thanksgiving 2010 Elko Part 2

2010-11-30T08:46:00.000-08:00

Anastasia and Kenzie

So, after breakfast on Friday morning we went back to my mom and dad's house and got ready to go play in the snow some more. We were planning on going over to my grandma's house. Like I said before there is quite a bit of family living in Elko and then some that was visiting like us. So, we got all the kids snow gear: hats, scarves, boots, gloves (a couple pairs for each kid), coats, snow pants and a change of clothes for after-times 3! Yikes, that's a lot of stuff. We also figured we'd bring some snack stuff so that Grandma wouldn't have to worry about feeding hungry kids, so we brought some veggies and dip and meat, cheese and crackers leftover from Thanksgiving day. It's a good thing we brought it, because people kept showing up! Everyone actually brought a little something and it turned into a party of sorts. As the day went on quite a few people were in and out of Grandma's house. At one point Graham looked around and said to me, "It looks like a party in here". My girls and Graham had a good time playing in Grandma's snow with my cousin Michelle's girls (Grandpa Dave and Uncle Dick got out there a played a bit too). They had a sled with a rope tied around it and they all had fun taking turns pulling each other. It's nice to see them get along so well. Even though Grandma lives in a different house than she did while I was growing up it still felt just like all those holidays when I was little, tons of people stuffed into a small house, but having a good time just being together. After we left Grandma's we went over to Uncle Dick and Aunt Kay's house to see Aunt Kay, she'd been working all day so she missed out on the fun at Grandma's house, but I had to go see her before I left the next morning. We had a nice little visit and it was good to see her too. At the last minute I almost cancelled my trip to Elko, but I am so glad that I didn't!

L-R Grandma Avis, Grandpa Buster, Me, my Dad, My Mom, Korky, Graham and Stasia

On Saturday mornings, my dad takes his parents out to breakfast at another Elko traditional spot, The Coffee Mug. So, all along I planned that I'd go to breakfast with them and then head out of town. My mom even woke up and came with us, apparently she usually doesn't go-she's a night owl and doesn't like to wake up very early in the moring. (They go at 8am that doesn't seem to early to me LOL) We all met and had a good time at breafast. We had Grandpa sit in between me and Grandma and we kept telling him he was the thorn between 2 roses. I made him take this picture with us and he kept saying that he'd break the camera, I think he was right, the pictures kept coming out blurry, this was the best one we got and Kortnie is moving or something and making her face all blurry. After breakfast I headed across the street to Maverick where my Aunt Kay works, I got gas, washed the windows and went to give her a hug goodbye, she ened up buying the kids a candy for the road and we were on our way.

I took this shot while driving down the Interstate headed out of town these beautiful Ruby Mountains surround Elko on a couple of sides, they looked so pretty from the car so I took a few shots (Geez taking pictures while driving, don't try that at home, be safe!) Anyways they looked alot prettier in person but I still love them. My great-grandma was a painter of sorts (I think she even has a painting in a museum in Elko) and she painted a beautiful picture of these mountains. I have it here in my home and I kept pointing out the mountains to the kids saying to them look, they are just like the ones in my painting.

We drove on Saturday from Elko to Flagstaff in 11 hours. I had planned on stopping in either Las Vegas or Kingman, but just as I was approaching Hoover Dam Brian called and asked where I was at. I told him that I was almost to AZ and I felt good enough to continue on to Flagstaff if he wanted to come meet us there. So he booked a room in Flagstaff and we all met up there. Flag is only about 2 hours from our house, but I wanted to shop at Sam's Club on the way home and since we were all missing Brian we figured we'd just have him come to us, also I needed him to bring another car, the one I was driving was loaded up with my Black Friday shopping and luggage and kids! I was headed East and he was headed West, I got off on the exit came around the corner and he was at the stoplight coming off of his exit. So we timed it perfect and both got there at the same time. The kids were excited to see him (and so was I). We got our room and got settled down for the night, we planned on sleeping in, going to breakfast, hitting the Sam's Club and maybe the mall and then continuing on to home. We woke up at 7:30am to 4 inches of snow on the ground and it was still coming down pretty good. We took our time getting ready for the day, headed out to breafast and the snow was still coming down. The roads weren't too bad, they'd been sanded and plowed some, but still we'd heard it was snowing or trying to snow her at home too so we just went to Sam's Club and got the stuff I wanted then figured we'd skip the mall and come on home. Once we got about a mile or 2 out of Flagg the roads cleared right up. It was a windy drive home (what's new that's always a windy drive Flagstaff to Snowflake). We got home about 2:30 Sunday afternoon. The whole trip Snowflake-Elko-Snowflake was pretty good and again I am so glad that we went! I feel so blessed to have such an awesome big family. It's great that we can go so long without seeing each other and just pick up right where we left off. It's great that my kids can play with my cousins kids and get along so nice, it gave me memories of playing with my cousins when we were little. It's nice that I can sit back and reflect on my younger days. (I'm feeling old at that statement). I got a kick out of telling my kids at one point that "every adult in this room has given me a spanking when I was a kid". My cousin Lyle and I told our kids that Aunt Linda (his mom) was mean and she got after us for not going to sleep and giggling all night. They didn't believe us that she was mean and I don't even think they believed us that all those aunts, uncles and grandparents used to spank us. It was certainly fun to sit and tell our kids all kinds of funny stories and remember when's about when we were kids and to remember our parents telling us the same kinds of stories when we were kids. Also another fun thing was to see the kids looking at all of Grandma's pictures. Grandma loves pictures and she has an amazing collection of all of her kids, grandkids and great grandkids. She had a photo album of grandkids on the table, it had a few pics of each grandkid starting with the oldest and moving down to the youngest of the greats. The Great Grandkids kept flipping through it and comparing our little pictures with the adults we are now. Kortnie got to my cousin Brian's page and asked me, "Wow is that Daddy!" No, Kork, that's my cousin, his name is Brian too, he's standing right over there. LOL Geez they don't look alike at all, they aren't even the same color. Silly girl! Another funny thing was little Kira seeing a picture of her daddy (my cousin Lyle), she just didn't believe that long haired teenager(ish) guy was her daddy when we told her, so we told her go ask him. He said it was him and she said something like, "no! I don't like it!" So funny. Wow, I love my family, what a blesssing to be born into such a great family to be loved unconditionally by so many, and to be able to love so many people too and what a blessing it is to be able to pass that along to my own kids. Thanks be to God for providing me with so much! Hope all of you had as wonderful Thanksgiving as I did.

Thanksgiving in Elko 2010 Part 1

2010-11-30T08:42:00.000-08:00

This year for Thanksgiving the kids and I packed up and drove to Elko, Nevada. My dad's hometown and where he and my mom live now. Also, living there are my grandparents Avis & Buster, my Uncle Mike & Aunt Debbie, my Uncle Dick & Aunt Kay, 4 cousins (Michelle, Mercy, Ashley and Lyle) and their families, and then Aunt Linda & Uncle Ken who live a few hours away. Then there are countless other extended family and family friends too. And since it was a holiday of course there was other visiting family as well, Katie who lives in Washington, and Brian who lives in Utah. I hadn't seen Brian in maybe 10+ years and I got to meet his wife for the first time too. Some family I hadn't seen since I'd last been to Elko 3 years ago and some I've seen a bit more recently. It was a quick trip 2 days to drive there, 2 and 1/2 days to visit and play and then 2 more days to drive home.

We left Tuesday afternoon when the kids got out of school, we drove as far as Vegas and got a room for the night, Wednesday morning we continued on to Elko. There was some snow along the way, but the roads weren't too bad. We did come up on an accident though, a lady and her 3 kids rolled their little car. We stopped to see if we could help, a few other's stopped as well. I left my kids in the car and walked down to the crash, got there in time to help pull the mother out of the car, her 3 kids were already out. The car was on it's side and they had to climb out through a window. Everybody was okay though. The 2 smaller kids were staying warm in somebody's truck up by the road, the mom was pretty shaken up in shock I think. I can't imagine how scared she must have been! 911 had been called and everyone seemed to be okay so I got back on the road. (My kids kept trying to get out of the car so I had to be on my way, couldn't have them wandering around the highway.) We got into Elko around 4:30 Wednesday afternoon. They had a good amount of snow there and the kids couldn't wait to get out in play in it, we did make them wait until Thursday morning though. When we woke up Thursday morning it was -14! We made the kids wait untill it was 0 degrees to go play. Silly kids, got all bundled up, went and played about a 1/2 hour came and had hot chocolate then went right back out in that cold snow! We just had a small Thanksgiving dinner, my parents, kids and I. It was nice to just have a lazy day with them. (Back home in AZ, Brian spent Thanksgiving day in St Johns with his mom, grandparents, nephews, and his brother's family)

Friday morning mom and I got up to shop while dad stayed home with the kids. I wasn't too impressed with the sales this year, but I picked up a few things. The crowds weren't bad and it was a pretty good time. (Back home in AZ Brian even got up early and went to Show Low for the Black Friday sales! I could hardly beleive it, he was in Show Low by about 5am, got his stuff, came home unloaded his car and was back to Show Low by 8am for work!)

A trip to Elko wouldn't be the same for me without going to breakfast at the Commercial. So, Friday morning after shopping, mom and I went back to the house, loaded up dad and the kids and we headed over to breakfast with the "big snow bear". We met Uncle Mike, Aunt Debbie and Katie there too. The food was good and the company great. The kids liked seeing the giant Polar Bear, or snow bear as Graham kept calling it. Growing up with my dad in the military and moving around every 2 years, I never really had a hometown. We did move to Shepherd, MT when I was in 8th grade and we stayed there untill I graduated High School, so I'd consider that my hometown. But, all thru my childhood we visited Elko often, and since my parents and tons of other family live there, it seems like home to me. I was glad that I was able to go visit and I am so thankful to Brian for encouraging me to go even though he wasn't able to join us. Stay tuned for Elko part 2!

Anastasia's 8th Birthday!

2010-11-30T08:09:00.000-08:00

On November 18, 2002 I became a mom and Brian became a dad. Our sweet little Anastasia arrived and blessed our lives in ways we never thought possible. I had an easy pregnancy, and a pretty easy delivery with her I started labor around 6:30am, got to the hospital around 8:30am and she was born at 10:16am. She was a sweet little baby, she would sleep a good 6 hours in a row at night, wake up to eat and go right back to bed. She hardly ever cried, and was happy, sweet and cuddly most of the time. I like to say that she tricked us pretty good. We soon found out when her little sister arrived that Stasia was a special baby indeed. Stasia is a smart girl and does really well in school. She loves to read, she enjoys math and arts and crafts. She likes to sing too but I'm afraid she is a bit tone deaf like me. She loves her family, she reads books to Graham and keeps a close eye on Kortnie. She likes to cook with me, or to help Brian fix things. She is one of the many Joy's in our life and we are so blessed to have her as our first born.

(L-R~Korky, Zoie, Stasia, Andre, Brodee) To Celebrate Anastsia's birthday we had a couple of parties. The first was on her actual birthday. A Thursday evening, we invited our good friends, the "S" family over for dinner, we also had Zoie and Brodee from across the street over. We call this group of people our Snowflake family. Anastasia picked the menu, we had fried chicken, mased potatos, gravy, broccolli & cheese and ice cream cake. She got to open her presents. She got a Nintendo DSi with one game and a carrying case, and a light that clips to the side of her bed so she can read at night. She also got a cookbook, some Christmas themed baking pans, a Cinderella Doll, and some coloring books. We had a good evening, the adults enjoyed visiting and the kids enjoyed torturing a couple of teenagers. (they were wrestling around with Kaitlyn and her friend Rocky, so funny!)

(L-R~Kadi, Emma, Korky, Saige, Stasia, and Zoie) 2 other friends Riley and Kaitlin came over a little later. The 2nd little celebration was on Friday after school, Stasia had a few friends come over, they put on fake nails, made a necklace, ate cheese and crackers and chocolate cake. They were a little loud and crazy, but actually pretty good, they all seemed to have a pretty good time. Up next we are looking forward to Anastasia's baptism, it's this Saturday December 4th. In our church when the kids turn 8 they can choose to get baptised. Anastasia has decided that she would like to get baptised and so we are excited for her and proud of her too. It's a big deal and we are having a pretty big celebration this weekend, with our family, our Snowflake family and some friends too. Stay tuned....

Vetran's Day 2010

2010-11-11T09:58:00.000-08:00

Today is Vetran's Day and I'd like to say Thank-You to all of the Vetran's out there, thanks to those who have served, are serving or will someday serve. Thanks for choosing to protect this great country, the USA, thanks for choosing to protect the rights and freedoms that most of us take for granted most of the time.

For the men in these pictures, know that we love you and we are very proud to call you family.

Kyle

Keith

Adam

Jason

(at the Phoenix Vetran's day parade with Graham in 2009)

Korky's 1st D-Aversary what I learned, Gratitude

2010-11-09T08:45:00.000-08:00

The time has come, a day I myself dreaded. The first anniversary of Korky's Diabetes diagnosis. She was diagnosed on a Sunday afternoon, November 8th 2009. We recognized her one year mark this year on Sunday November 7th, I suppose we can have the D-aversary on either the 1st Sunday of November or the actual date November 8th. Personally I just thought that it was kind of depressing and I felt like taking it to the Lord and telling him, "Okay, it's been a year, that's enough, you can take it back now". My Korky though, thought it was pretty cool, I guess to a 6 year old it sounds like another day to celebrate, she told people all day "today is my Diabetes 1st Birthday!" My husband and I talked and I told him "Guess what today is?" Of course he didn't know, but when I told him it had been a year since I'd taken Korky to the ER that fateful Sunday afternoon, his face kind of fell, and he said to me, "It's only been a year?....Oh, yeah, I guess so, it feels like longer". Yes it's been a long year!

We figured to "celebrate" we'd have a Junk food Carb fest all day. One donut each with a 3/4 cup of Lucky Charms cereal and a 1/2 cup of Orange Juice for breakfast, for lunch it was a cheese crisp, then we went to church, came home and had a "make your own pizza" night, I make the dough up and then we use up leftovers and just stuff we have on hand. For dessert it was one piece of Halloween candy. Yes, it was lots of carbs and a lot of junk, but I try to rationalize it that some of it was pretty good for the kids, the OJ, the milk on the cereal, the cheese and the veggies on the pizzas (even though they really didn't put on too many veggies, mostly black olives). And awesomely enough her BG's stayed in range all day, they hung out in the 130-150 range with only one high of 238 which she had insulin on board for and it came down pretty quick.

Like I said above Korky has taken her disease in stride, at first she would ask "why me" or "why don't Stasia and Graham (her sister and brother) have to take shots", she get upset when she couldn't just have a piece of candy or an apple without a shot or finger poke. She'd get mad if I told her to come check her BG while she was busy playing with her friends, she wouldn't want to poke her finger or take shots in front of anyone. In the hospital, she only wanted daddy to do her shots, when we came home and he went back to work, she got used to me doing them and then only wanted me to do them and not her dad. When we went on the pump it was the same way, she only wanted her dad to do the site changes, but I forced my way in there and now she and I have become so good at it that most of the time we don't even ask Daddy-O to help us with it. Over the past year she has adjusted and grown, she doesn't really care if other people see her poking her finger, taking a shot or a bolus, or doing a site change. She doesn't love when complete strangers stare at her or ask questions, but when it comes to friends and family she doesn't care one way or the other about doing her stuff in front of them. She's learned that if she just gets it done she can go back to whatever she was doing in the first place, there's not much procrastination anymore. She has learned what she can eat anytime, what she can't ever have, and what she can have with a small bolus. I am constantly amazed by her adaptivness, I guess that's why this Disease is given to young children mostly, they can learn to change and adapt much faster and easier than adults. I'm not saying it's easy for her, some days she makes it seem that way, and then we have some days that are absolute HELL! But really, this has been a tough, long year for my 5 now 6 year old baby. I am proud of her, in awe of her, amazed by her. In fact I am amazed by all of my kids on a daily basis, how well they all have adapted to Korky's disease.

Now on to me, I said this one year D-aversary was depressing right, well the day started out that way, I was feeling sorry for myself, sorry for Korky and sorry for the whole family. I am so glad that we recognized her D-aversary on Sunday though. We went to church that afternoon and I was still having my pity party, I didn't even really want to go to church, but the kids wanted to go and Brian must have felt that I needed to go too, so we all got showered and dressed and went to church. I am so glad we went! Now we are LDS (or Mormon) and the first Sunday of the month we have a Testimony meeting, we take our Sacrament and then for the rest of the meeting time, our Ward (or congregation) members are encouraged to come up to the stand and give their testimonies. The first person to get up started off the theme that everyone seemed to follow, Gratitude and Thanksgiving, very appropriate for the first Sunday of November. Various member of our church got up and testified the things they were thankful for and recognized that God has his hand in all things. We went on to our Sunday School class and were taught a lesson on keeping our Cisterns full, by trusting, studying and communicating with the Lord. (I could go on and on but I'm trying to paraphrase), after Sunday School the women and men separate and go to our individual classes, the women's class is called Relief Society, where the theme of Gratitude and Thankfulness was continued. As I sat through those 3 hours (yes 3 hours) of church last Sunday afternoon, I realized there is much to be thankful for and that instead of having my pity party I should show some gratitude and my heart was lifted. So I have to say, I am thankful we recognized Korky's D-aversary on Sunday so that I could have my inevitable pity party, then go to church and have my heart lightened.

Yes my daughter has Type 1 Diabetes and it sucks, big time. But, there are diseases and afflictions out there that can be worse, there isn't a cure, but there is insulin and insulin pumps, and various other devices, that we can use to help control it. She has to work hard to maintain her health, but if she works hard she can do most anything that a "normal" kid can do. Yes, I live in fear that she MIGHT die in her sleep, but some mother's live with the KNOWLEDGE that their kids won't make it past X number of years. It is hard work, not only for Korky, but for the whole family, but that hard work builds character, teaches us resilience, and compassion. So, yes, I have a lot to be Thankful for, I won't go so far as to say I am thankful for Diabetes, but I am Thankful for my daughter Diabetes or not, for my other 2 kids and their sweet souls, for my husband who helps me more than I recognize on a daily basis, for my home, for our insurance, for our family and our friends who love us unconditionally and support us and would do anything to help us, for our crazy dog, for modern medicine, for the country we live in which isn't always perfect but could be a lot worse, for the fact that my husband has a good job and I am able to stay at home with our kids, for electricity, for running water, for an abundance of food available to us, for the Internet and the DOC, for the teachers who love my kids at school and at church, and for so much more, again I could go on and on, but this is getting long.

Bottom line is we as a society take so much for granted, when we are having our pity parties, we just need to sit back and think of the things we are taking for granted and remember to be thankful for them.

Here are 3 people I am most Thankful for, Graham (3 years old), Stasia (7 almost 8) and Korky (6). They are decorating their pizzas as my GrammyBoy would say. We used, leftover spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce, ham, pepperoni, green onions, mushrooms, black olives, jalapenos, leftover taco meat, and bacon bits, and of course cheese.

Here is Korky, clearly enjoying her pizza and her Junk Food Carbfest D-aversary.

Taking a bite of that delicious pizza, I think she put pepperoni and ham slices and tons of cheese on her pizza. Oh and an extra special treat of Diet Mug Rootbeer.

Report Card Time

2010-10-29T12:41:00.000-07:00

I've been updating my blog today, look below for 4 more new posts. I though I was done, but as I was doing some other chores around the house I remembered that I still need to post about report cards. So, the begining of October was the end of the first quarter. That means report cards and parent teacher conferences. Both girls have done really well in school so far. Anastasia once again got all A's, mostly A+'s at that. Her parent teacher conference went really well too, her teacher is wonderful and sweet. She's fun and full of energy too. You can tell how much she loves these kids and her job. It's such a blessing. The only complaint about Anastasia is that she sometimes goes to fast and makes a silly mistake that she shouldn't and I think that she needs to work on her handwriting, but I think that's because she goes to fast too. She's brilliant and sharp that girl. I think learning just comes easy to her, it always did for me, I never had to work too hard at school. It's a blessing for sure. Kortnie is also doing well at school. She isn't as quick to pick things up as her sister, but she still does fabulous. She got all A's and 1 B+, not too shabby. She goes 2 or 3 times a week to the reading specialist, which I am grateful for. Kortnie is a smart girl, but she has a hard time focusing, any little distraction and her focus is gone. When she's with the reading specialist it's just her and the teacher, nothing going on around her to distract her. I have noticed her reading is greatly improved, where Stasia is always way ahead of the class, Kortnie is right where she should be or sometimes just a little ahead. Kortnie does especially well in math, and she much prefers to learn by doing rather than sitting and listening. She doesn't love school, but she doesn't make too much of a fuss and she is excelling and learning so that's all that really matters. She does love her teacher though, so that's a good thing too. Funny, she looks so much like me, but her brain works like Brian's and Anastasia looks like Brian, but her brain works like mine. Graham has been in school the same amount of time as the girls. He goes Monday and Wednesday 9am-11am, and then on Thursday's I take him to the library program. He loves going to school and is picking up tons of information. He is pretty good at writing a G, a square and a circle. He can pick out the letters A-I and knows all the sounds of them and quite a few words that start with each of them. (his school focus' on 1 letter per week). He knows most of his numbers 1-1o as well. He can say the Pledge of Allegiance and sing quite a few little songs. He knows all of his shapes, the other day he picked up a dice and told me it was a cube. Very good I think that he knows the difference between squares and cubes. I had on a pink plaid type shirt the other day and he told me it was pink squares. So funny. He is starting to remember the names of his classmates and his teachers too. Show and tell is a favorite of his and he loves reading too, he has a calendar and if he reads every day at the end of the month he'll get a prize. He never fails to tell me, daddy, or one of his sisters to read him a book at bedtime and on the mornings that he doesn't have school or library. Sometimes during the day I'll see him sitting on the couch with a book telling the story to himself and he'll tell me "I'm a good reader". I think he might be super smart and sharp like Anastasia. Time will tell. Along with these report card updates I'll write a little about the PTO. We are doing pretty well, and I am enjoying being president. We did t-shirt and hoodie sales and made around a $1300 profit. We sold them to the students using order forms and then Anastasia and I sold some at home football games for the high school too. We put on a teacher luncheon during parent teacher conference week, it turned out nice and the teachers really appreciated it, I had a great committee who put it on and I didn't have to do anything at all! Nice! We are in the middle of another fundraising thing getting people to order or renew their magazines and the school gets a profit. We also just collected the 1st quarters Box Tops for Education and it looks like we'll be getting around a $600 check for box tops April-October 2010! I have another committtee who collects and counts them so again there isn't much I do personally which is nice. We give away a root beer float party to the class in each grade that gets the most boxtops each quarter. Anastasia and Kortnie were both in winning classes (it's a good thing I don't count them or people might think I cheated). I did get to go do the root beer float parties though. So fun. Last Thursday we did 1st and 3rd grade, Friday I did 2nd grade and I'm looking forward to doing kindergarten on Monday. Being on the PTO has been really fulfilling and I'm glad that I am able to help out at the girls's school.

Finished Pumpkins

2010-10-29T09:01:00.000-07:00

Pumpkin Time

2010-10-29T08:59:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again, time to carve the pumpkins! Both of the girls took field trips with school to the pumpkin patch here in town and then we took a family home evening trip one Monday afternoon as well. So the girls each had 2 pumpkins to carve and Graham had one. Lots of fun, Graham and Kortnie enjoyed taking the guts out, Stasia not so much. Stasia and Kortnie used some princess (Mr Potato Head type) poke in things on their small pumpkins. Then on their big ones, Kortnie did a a skull and Stasia a haunted house. On Graham's pumpkin he hammered in these little glow spike things (reminiscent of a Lite Brite) in the shapes of stars. Our dog Brownie kept coming and eating mouthfulls of pumpkin guts or licking it up off the floor. Kind of yucky, but I guess he got his serving of veggies for the day. We had an enjoyable time and the mess wasn't that bad. So Halloween is on Sunday this year, we'll do our dress up and trick or treating on Saturday evening. We also have our JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes on Saturday too. So we'll be having a busy day, gonna do the walk down in the Valley on Saturday morning then hurry back up the mountain for trick or treating with friends. I hope everyone reading this has a great Halloween weekend. Stasia is going to be a witch, Kortnie a vampire and Graham a fireman. I'll do a post hopefully sometime next week with pictures.

A few little side trips

2010-10-29T08:49:00.000-07:00

It's starting to get cold here, our family loves going to the lake or river and doing some hiking/nature walking and fishing. The kids have fall break at the beginning of the month, so they were all off school on a Monday and since Brian has Monday's off too we figured we better take one last trip to a lake. So we went up to Pinetop/Lakeside and to Woodland Lake Park. I had gone there a few weeks earlier with a field trip with Kortnie's class. While on the field trip I fell in love with this place and knew I had to take Brian and the other kids there. It's only maybe a 45-60 minute drive from our house and Walmart is on the way home, so we were able to include our weekly shopping into this little trip too. So it's a huge lake, that has a walking path all around it, probably a mile, also lots of smaller trails that lead offi into the forest, it has a playground, bathrooms and BBQ stations with picnic tables too. There is a fishing dock and a small boat ramp tooo. And of course lots of ducks. It also has baseball fields and tennis courts around it too, but those are set off from the lake, so you really only see them if you get on one side of the lake, I want to say the Eastern side, but I really am not good at directions NSEW, so I could be wrong. LOL So we drove up there, we walked all the way around the lake, we climbed on this little waterfall, we played at the park, we fished and fed the ducks for awhile, then we took some side trails off into the forest and nature walked for awhile. It's just beautiful up there, when I went with Kortnie there were tons of yellow wildflowers everywhere, and when we went as a family some of the leaves were starting to change so that made it pretty too. We saw lots of animal tracks and some little chipmunks. There are signs that says it's bear country, but we didnt' see any bears, thank goodness. Anyways, such a beautiful, relaxing and fun spot. We had just taken our family pictures the weekend before, but after taking the family to this Woodland Lake Park, we think that we'll do our next family pictures here. This past Sunday, we got up around 7am and went to the Taylor Dam here near our house, alot of the water had been let out or dried up, so were able to do some walking around on the mud flats, we had fun skipping rocks or just throwing them and trying to hit certain targets, we walked around and just enjoyed family time. Afterwards we stopped at the grocery store and got some donuts, then went to the park by our house, we played, swinged and ate our donuts then came home and got ready for church. It's been down in the 20's and 30's in the mornings here, but warming up nice during the days so maybe this next weekend after Halloween we might be able to get in another small morning trip to a lake or stream. We'll see.

Brian and the kids on the little waterfall.

The girls on the little waterfall.

My 3 babies on a fallen down tree.

A cool little bridge over the lake

Fire Safety Month

2010-10-29T08:30:00.000-07:00

October is Fire Safety Month, at least it is here in our town. The Snowflake and Taylor fire departments do a few event type things for the community and the kids. Both fire departments go to the schools and do some demonstartions and lessons for the kids, both fire departments hold open houses, and the Snowflake department comes to the library on one of the Thursday morning when the younger kids have their children's program. We went to the Snowflake open house, they served hot dogs and drinks, and had tons of little booths set up. The kids got to put out a fire with a real life fire extingusher. The medi-vac helicopter was there and the kids got to tour that. That was actually pretty interesting since it was the helicopter that Kortnie and flew down to Phoenix in last year when she was diagnosed with her T1D. They had 2 different fire engines that the kids could tour and climb around in. They had a trailor set up to show you what a tornado or a fire was like. That too was pretty interesting since we were under a tornado watch for most of the day and there were actually a couple or tornados that touched down in Flagstaff, we also toured the fire house. Lots of fun for a family night. Also Graham and I went to the library the day that the firemen came. Graham goes to pre-school on Monday and Wednesday and then on Thursday is his library day, we go pretty much every week and they do a children's program. He likes going to get new books and to sit with his friends and hear stories read to him by someone else. So this week the firemen came. They read a little story about a fireman, then they showed us all of their protective equipment and let the kids hold it and touch it, one fireman dressed up in all his gear, they told us about stop, drop and roll. Graham is going to be a fireman for Halloween and I got him this really cute and sturdy costume at Costco, so he wore it, the fireman's kept commenting on how much they liked his costume (they said it looked like a real fireman, but not as heavy as all the stuff they have to wear LOL) anyways as we were leaving they let us take some pictures with their truck. Doesn't Graham-ee boy look just like a real fireman? I have to say the firemen and women are probably something I take for granted, but after all the events this month it sure has brought to light how thankful I am that they are out there for us. Hope I never have to use their services though.

Brian's Big Crash

2010-10-13T12:38:00.000-07:00

About a month or so ago, Brian crashed his dirtbike. He went out to Aripine race track with a group of friends. He's still kind of new to dirtbike riding, but was excited to go out on a race track and ride. Apparently they went for some off-track riding too, he went over a tricky cattle guard and crashed big time. He said his front tire went over and it popped up a little bit, then the back tire hit that cattle guard lip and really popped up! He says he remembers being up in the air, hands on handle bars, but looking down at his front fender. The back tire landed back on the ground and he thought he was going to get leveled out, but a barbwire fence got in his way instead, he hit the fence and took out a couple fence posts, and wasn't really sure how he landed, that it all happened way too fast. He says his friend came running up and started yelling at him, "Look at me, are you all right, how many fingers, what day is it?" He was pretty coherent so they wern't worried about concussions or anything. They were about 7 miles from the truck, so his friend took off on his bike to go get the truck and come back for Brian, (another friend stayed with him). Brian decieded he could still ride, so he got on the bike and headed back towards the truck. He said he laid in the truck for awhile to catch his breath and let the other guys finish their ride. He came home that afternoon, I went out to help them unload and Brian's friend told me that Brian crashed and needed some TLC. He was moving around, and seemed okay, slow and sore but okay. So I brought him upstairs and thought I'd get him a bath going. Well, not quite, he had cuts and scrapes all over his left side, and his left shoulder was swollen up huge. I called some friends to come watch the kids and made Brian go to the ER. Good thing I did, he ended up with a broke collarbone, not much you can do for that unfortunatly. He's in an arm sling and taking it easy now. Thank goodness he didn't need surgery. He broke the collarbone in 2 places though. He took one week off of work but now he's back to a full scheduale and doing "light duty" type stuff at work. He's healing and moving around alot better, but I can tell that he's frustrated that he can't do all the things he normally does. He can't mow the lawn, pick up the kids, push a grocery cart for too long, can't do alot of lifting at work and is moving alot slower in most areas. He's on the mend though, but they say it takes about 4-6 months to get back to 100% function in his arm. Thank goodness it was his left and not right side! Check out the pictures of his back and legs, crazy road rash. Don't look if you have a weak stomach. Crazy guy, he says "I can't wait to get back out there riding again!" Here are some pictures of right after he came home, before we went to the ER. He still has some bruising now but is healing up pretty good on the surface. I tell ya, that first 2 weeks created alot of extra work for me. It was like having a 4th kid. I am glad he's on the mend and thankful that this is all that happened to him, I know it could have been much worse.

(left side) these turned into pretty nasty bruises and he had a nasty bruise on is bum too, but I didn't take a picture of that. LOL

This was the worst, and I had to change the bandages and put antibiotic cream on it, YUCK! (back of left leg)

(front and side of left leg)

Brian's Birthday Weekend

2010-08-25T09:12:00.000-07:00

Brian with the kids, (left to right) Kortnie, Anastasia, Zoie and Graham.

Brian on his new birthday bike.

Brian and his tiny fish.

It's that time of year again, Brian's birthday, this year he turned 32. His birthday was on a Monday this year, but since he has Sunday and Monday off from work, we kind of made a 2 day celebration out of it. First of all, we got up early on Sunday morning and went to find a new fishing hole. Some friends had told us about a place not too far from home and we set out to find it. It was a beautiful spot, lots of small blue gill fish which are fun to catch and release, and a few bass as well. Not only is this spot a great fishing spot, but it's a nice hiking spot too. We fished, and hiked and climbed rocks for a few hours, then came home to get ready for church. We went to church and as always it was an uplifting experience to start our week off right. After church, our babysitter came over to watch the kids while Brian and I went on a date. We went to dinner at a favorite Mexican place, then we were going to a movie, we wanted to see "Inception" and we had some time to kill, so we went to the arcade to play pool, air hockey, pinball, and Pacman. We got ice cream and took it in to our movie. It was a great movie, we both really liked it! On Monday, we walked the girls to school, walked over to Maverick for a soda and walked home. We took Graham to school and did yardwork while he was gone. After I picked Graham up from school we decieded to go on a bike ride. About a week ago Brian and I got new bikes for ourselves and I told Brian that was what his birthday present was going to be. So, we rode our bikes down to McDonalds for lunch. We came home, Graham asked us to take his training wheels off, so we did and he took right off! No help or training from us was needed, no running behind him or anything. Awesome! Brian was planning on going dirt bike riding that afternoon with a friend of his, so we started getting him ready to go. He left with his friend around 1:30, so I hurried and got to cleaning, decorating, wrapping presents and making dinner. Brian got home around 5ish, and we had his little party. Just our little family and Zoie, she lives across the street and is best friends with our girls, she spends alot of time with us and wanted to come celebrate Brian's birthday with us. We ate baked ziti and had chocolate pie and toffee bars for dessert. After dessert we let Brian open presents. He got Oatmeal Cream Pies, a new extension cord and cord keeper for his garage, and a big hydraulic car jack. He has one of those jacks at work already and when he needs to do work on our cars at home he hauls that thing back and forth, it's heavy so I figured he needed one for at home too. He's mentioned before that he has tons of tools at work and he would like to start building up some for home too, so he doesn't have to bring them back and forth every weekend. That way he doesn't have to worry about forgetting something at work or at home, and when I ask him to do something spur of the moment he won't be able to tell me "I don't have the tools here at home to do that, I'll bring them from work tomorrow". So it was a great birthday weekend for Brian I think. We love him so much and we count ourselves lucky to have him in our lives. Love you babe!

New Adventures!

2010-08-20T10:28:00.000-07:00

We are starting lots of new adventures in our household. First off, we've been teaching the Sunbeams in Primary at our church (3 and 4 year old Sunday School) for the past 2 years or so. We got released from that positon and asked to be on the Activites Commitee instead. We are excited for a new calling and hoping that we can do a fantastic job at it. We serve on the commitee with 2 other couples and will have two big events coming up, the "After the Summer Picnic" and the "Ward Christmas Party". We'll miss our little Sunbeams, it's been so fun teaching them and getting to know them. We've actually done 3 sets of classes over the course of our calling, so we've really gotten to know quite a few sweet kids! Also another new adventure, I've decieded to take on being President of the PTO for the girls' school. I am excited about this as well, we had our first meeting yesterday and had a pretty good turnout. We've got some good ideas and hopefully we'll be able to accomplish most of them. I want to sign up the girls for Girl Scouts too, so that will be a new thing for our family as well. I was thinking of signing up to be a troop leader for one of the girls' troops, but now I am not too sure since I'm sure I'll be busy enough doing PTO and our new church calling. (Not to mention taking care of the house and being a mom and wife). I've gone to a few Zumba classes and really enjoyed it, the lady who has been teaching the classes is looking to start a permanant class and I think I'll try to sign up for that when she gets something going. And last of all we'll be signing the girls up for Soccer soon too, this is not a new adventure but a continuation I suppose. But, it looks like we are gearing up for a fun filled busy fall! We got a phone call last night asking if we'd like to rejoin the bowling league again this fall and Brian told them probably not. We really liked bowling last fall, but it's every Monday night and we have to drive 30 minutes there and back (so an hour round trip). Maybe we'll do the Summer league or next fall. We'll see.

Graham-Ee Goes to School!

2010-08-17T21:43:00.000-07:00

Our little man started school this fall. His first time ever! He is 3 years old now and has been looking forward to going to school just like his sisters. We tried to sign him up for Headstart but we were above the salary cap and couldn't get him in. That's okay though because we were still able to enroll him at Busy Bee Preschool here in town. It's a pre-school in the home of his teacher. There are two teachers a mother/daughter team. He'll go 2 days a week, Monday and Wednesday. Right now he only goes 1 hour 9am-10am, but in October he'll move up to 2 hours 9am-11am. This pre-school came highly recommended by various friends of ours from church and so far it seems to suit him well. His first day was August 9th. It was a Monday and since Brian has Monday's off from work we were both able to take him to his 1st day. He picked out his clothes the night before and packed his backpack with 2 folders we got for him to keep his school work in. We took him to the school and he headed right for the playground. I signed him in and came out to say goodbye, he was up on the top of the jungle gym thing and I yelled up to him "Graham-ee come say goodbye to me" he just waved and yelled back "bye mom!" I was a little sad that he didn't want to come give me a hug and kiss, but on the other hand so proud of him for being a big boy. He's in his 2nd week of school now and already learning new things. Mostly I wanted him to be able to socialize with kids his age and anything else he picks up will be a bonus. His homework every night so far is to read books with mom and dad, he tells us everynight at bedtime, remember you have to read a book with me! Enjoy school buddy, we love you lots and are so happy that you love going to school!

First Day of School 2010/2011

2010-08-11T17:03:00.000-07:00

Today is the first day of school for the 2010/2011 school year. Go Lobos! Anastasia will be in 2nd grade this year. She has Mrs. Binnie for a teacher. She is super excited to be back in school and so far Mrs. Binnie has been pretty awesome. Everyone around her says she's a great teacher with alot of energy. Anastasia is a scholarly girl, she excelled in reading and math last year and I know she'll do just as well this year. Good luck Anastasia, we know you will have a great year!

Kortnie will be in 1st grade this year. She has Mrs. Rencher for a teacher, she seems to be a nice teacher so far, I only met with her for the first time this morning, but she was eager to hear about Kortnie's diabetes and the procedures we've lined up for her so far. Korky only went to 1/2 day school last year and did not have to eat meals or take shots at school last year, so I am nervous for her to be gone from me all day. Now that she is on the insulin pump and not shots it should make things at school alot easier for her. For those of you who are curious, in the picture you can see her insulin pump in her lefthand pocket and the little tubing hanging down from about the middle of her tummy is the tubing that connects to her under her shirt and delivers the insulin. She hasn't let me take too many pictures of anything diabetes related yet. For now, we are packing her lunch everyday and including a list with the foods she has in her lunch and how many carbs are in each thing. She goes to the nurses office 5 minutes before her class leaves for lunch, checks her Blood Sugar and the nurse puts all the info in the pump remote and gives her a bolus (bolus=infusion of insulin). I went down to the school today at lunch and did the bolus myself while the nurse watched. Tomorrow I will go down and watch while the nurse gives the bolus. After the bolus, I walked Korky to the cafeteria and she met up with her class right as they were sitting down. When I first dropped Korky off this morning she was nervous about maybe not knowing anyone in her class, but she quickly found some kids she knew and was relived. When I went to see her at lunch she said to me, before I even asked "mom school is fun, I like it here!" She's so brave, all the extra's she has to do to live her life and she just jumps right in and does it. She'll have a great year too, I just know it! Way to go Korky!

Swimming lessons

2010-08-11T16:47:00.001-07:00

All 3 kids took swimming lessons this summer. They were in 3 different classes, Anastasia was in Intermediate, Kortnie in Beginner and Graham was in Toddler. They went Monday-Friday for 2 weeks, the girls classes were an hour each and Graham's was a 1/2 hour. They all really loved their classes and each excelled in their own way. Kortnie learned quite a few strokes and diving. Anastasia mastered a few strokes and learned diving. Graham learned some basics and is getting better at floating. He loved "superman" and "crocodile eyes". He also really loved jumping in! He can swim pretty good in a sort of doggy style/free style type of movement. He can keep his head above the water for quite awhile now. Both girls have graduated into swimming in the deep end of our local pool by themselves. I was glad for the oppurtunity to be able to take them to their first ever swim lessons. Another perk of being a stay at home mom is that I have the time to take them to things like this.

Camping at Roosevelt Lake

2010-07-24T18:33:00.000-07:00

A couple of weekends ago we went "camping" at Roosevelt Lake here in Arizona. We left Saturday evening after Brian got off work, we got to Roosevelt and found a good spot about 10pm. Our plan was to fish all night with the kids and I sleeping in the back of the truck when we got tired, and then heading home around 9 or 10am. As soon as we got there, Kortnie caught a frog, which she kept in a bucket the whole time we were there. Anastasia was the first to catch a fish, a bluegill. Around 1 or 2am the kids and I crawled into the back of the truck to sleep. Let me tell you, it was HOT and STICKY, the bed of the truck HARD and the bugs LOUD! The kids didn't seem to mind and drifted off to sleep pretty quickly. I however tossed and turned, looking forward to every small breeze and trying to concentrate on the sound of the waves rolling up to shore. Brian fished the whole night, he was trying to catch a catfish and had his poles set up with bells on them so that whenever he'd get a bite or nibble he'd hear the bell ring. I heard the bells ringing several times thru the night, but alas he never hooked a dang catfish, just got tons of nibblers. He did catch a Bass around 4 or 5 in the morning though. It was the only fish worth keeping and since we only got the one we decieded to throw him back before we left. It's no fun to come home and only be able to cook one fish for dinner. Graham and I were the first ones up in the morning, I'm not sure I even got any sleep at all. In the morning we fished for blue gills, chased some big lizards and ate donuts, the kids also took of their shoes and played in the water for a bit too. The sunrise was beautiful, but as soon as the sun came up it got HOTTER! Brian and I were spent and getting tired of being hot and sticky, we told the kids 30 more minutes and I started loading up the truck to go. I think we left around 8:30 or 9am to head back up the mountain towards home. We got home, took showers and headed to church, by the time church was over Brian and I were super tired, having been up for around 32 hours straight. We ate dinner, put on a movie for the kids and were just plain lazy. Luckily that evening we got "One Awesome Monsoon", we sat on the porch and watched the storm rage all around us, the power went out around 7:30 or so and we said, "It's bedtime!" The kids were a little scared of the storm and power outage so they made beds on the floor of our room and we all went to bed early. It was an adventurous weekend, I'm not sure that I had all that much fun, but the kids and Brian did, so that's A-OK in my book!

Summer Fun

2010-07-24T18:31:00.000-07:00

Fishing at Silver Creek, Anastasia, Zoie, and Kortnie. We took a trip to Silver Creek with our 3 kids and 2 extras. We caught some small trout and some crawfish, we saw some snakes and got sunburned. We ate pizza and oreos, it was a wonderful day!

Brian got the little motorycle running and the kids are loving it! Anastasia can ride all by herself, I got a video of it, but I'm not sure how to post it. Kortnie can not really go completly by herself, Brian runs next to her and helps steady her if she needs it. Of course Graham can't ride by himself, Brian runs behind him holding onto it. He loves riding it and I don't think it'll be too long before he masters it on his own, maybe next summer.

It's Monsoon season here, we've been loving having the afternoon storms roll in, we have this huge hole in the backyard which makes for a pretty nifty mud puddle. The other day, we had 6 kids playing in it. I took this picture when they first started playing in it. Neeless to say the splashed and had mud fights for about 35 minutes, they were covered in mud. Had to take them to the front yard, strip them down and spray them off before letting them in the house for showers. Normally I am opposed to that much messiness, but I relented and let them have some good old fashioned, messy and best of all FREE fun!

Graham turns 3!

2010-07-24T18:17:00.000-07:00

Yay! Our baby boy turned 3, can you believe it, my oh my time flies doesn't it? Our sweet little man is growing up so fast! We had 2 little parties for him, the first one was on Father's day, our family has lots of events during Father's day week, Graham's birthday is the 22nd (also my grandpa Buster has a birthday on the 22nd), Bompa's (Brian's grandpa) birthday is the 17th, Brian and I have our Temple anniversary on the 17th as well, and Father's day is always in there too. So, we got together with Brian's family on Father's day and celebrated all of those events. Graham had a little cake there and got a few presents from the family members. Then on Graham's actual birthday the 22nd we had a pizza and cake party at our house, we invited some great friends of ours the Staugaard Family and then some of the neighborhood kids as well. He got his big present that evening. A new BIG BOY BIKE! Yay, so fun, he has really taken to it and he pedals that little bike all over the place trying to chase down his sisters and follow them everywhere. Also, after he turned 3 he finnally decieded to get himself potty trained, he bought himself some underwear and is really doing great, in the past 2 weeks he's only had 2 accidents so he's basically got it down, we are so proud of him! Graham is the sweetest little man, he loves kisses and cuddling, he'll often crawl into bed with me and tell me "nuggle up". He's smart too, he can count to 10 and is starting to do his ABC's as well. He loves his sisters and wants to see what they are doing all the time. He is even learning a little bit about Kortnie's diabetes and he does a good job of looking out for her. He loves his doggy Brownie too and always wants to give him treats which he calls "Brownie's Cookies". He enjoys riding his bike, fishing with dad, cooking with mom, swimming, helping dad fix the cars and motorcycle and of course riding the motorcycles too. We love you so much Graham and we are so lucky that you are a part of our eternal family!

DIsneyland Pictures

2010-07-13T10:17:00.000-07:00

Me and Brian at CA Adventure one afternoon when my parents took all the kids back to the hotel for lunch and swimming so that Brian and I could have some alone time! Can you belive we were standing in front of a wall? This wall is painted to look like a street!

Our family just inside the entrance to Disneyland, the obligatory family photo op, doesn't everyone who's ever been to Disneyland, have a picture like this?

My babies with Mickey and Minnie!

All the kids, I love this picture, I love how they are all posing, what sweet beautiful babies! And I have the pleasure and honor of loving them and being a part of their magical lives. From right to left, Jordan, Stasia, JJ, Korky and Graham in front. They are in order of age too, didn't plan that, it just happened, 8,7,7,6 and 2 almost 3!

Summer Vacation 2010~Disneyland

2010-07-13T10:08:00.000-07:00

Well, it's the last of my vacation posts, we left home on June 3rd and drove to the Denver area, we spent the 4th and 5th in Denver, left there on the 6th and headed to Vegas where we met up with my parents and nephews, left Vegas on the 7th and drove to Anaheim, CA, we went to the beach on the afternoon of the 7th and took the girls into Disneyland park that evening too. We spent the 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th at Disneyland and California Adventure, then left CA on the 12th and drove all the way home to Snowflake. It was a long trip but so fun and so worth it! We spent 4 full days at Disneyland and California Adventure, I think we got to see and do pretty much everything, well, everything we wanted to do. It was so nice getting to see my parents and my nephews who we hadn't seen in quite awhile! Our nephews used to live in Phoenix and my parents used to live in Globe, we lived in Phoenix at that time too, so we'd all be able to get together quite a bit and the kids were all such good friends. It was nice that after 2 1/2 years apart they all got along just like no time had passed. They paired up Jordan and Stasia, Kortnie and JJ. Graham also enjoyed being around the boys, he really took to JJ and they became fast friends. Disneyland is a Magical Place, I could write and write about tons of the fun things we did while there, but what I really want to convey is just that we had a completly enjoyable time, the kids did so awesome, we had some long days and they were tired but they kept it together pretty well, hardly any whining, they didn't ask for things endlessly, they didn't run off and get lost, Kortnie's diabetes didn't flare it's ugliness, we were able to keep it in check! The older kids surprisingly were a little nervous to ride some of the bigger rides, but after the first couple of days they were back to being adventourous and daring. Kortnie and Graham right off the bat wanted to do everything, no fear in those two! Graham was able to do most everything, I think there were only 3 rides we had to keep him off of because of hight restrictions, the Raging Rapids ride at CA Adventure and Splash Mountain at Dland as well as Space Mountain. Then there was 3 more rides over at CA Adventure that Brian and I did by ourselves, some of the kids probaby could have gotten on them if they wanted, but Brian and I did those one afternoon while the kids went back to the hotel with Grandma and Grandpa. We saw lots of charecters and took pictures and got autographs with them, we saw a parade, we saw fireworks everynight. Between the 9 of us we rode all but 2 rides, we missed Mr Toad's Wild Ride and Peter Pan, those ones had LONG lines everytime we were near them. The rest of the rides had pretty good line times, I think the longest we ever waited in line was 20 minutes, most were between 0 and 10 minutes! Oh, the Toy Story ride over at CA Adventure was long, but the kids really wanted to do that one, so we made Brian go wait in line for us while we did another ride, so when we got over to him we only had that 2o minute wait. The kids are still talking about all the fun they had on their vacation! Now we are going to start saving to take them to DisneyWorld! That might take another 5 years of saving, but that's our goal and we're going to make it there someday! Sometime later I'll post a blog about my tips for saving money and having fun at Disneyland!

Beach Pictures

2010-07-13T09:33:00.001-07:00

Here are a couple pictures of the kids at the Beach that didn't get uploaded in the previous post.

Vacation: Our trip to California: The Beach

2010-07-06T12:21:00.000-07:00

After attending Mark and Nicole's wedding we continued our vacation and went to California. We left the Denver area pretty early Sunday morning and drove to Las Vegas, it was a LONG drive about 12 hours. We met up with my parents and my nephews there. They arrived in Vegas well before us and had already gotten set up at a Motel 8, right off the strip. So, we figured we'd just stay at the same place as them. We got to the Motel, unloaded the car, and decieded we'd take the kids and walk the strip for awhile and look for some dinner. Oh, and Kortnie had been battling high blood sugars all day so we also did a quick change out of her "site" (the spot on her tummy where her insulin pump infusion set is at, normally we change it about every 3 days, but with the crazy highs she was having we had to change it out earlier because it just wasn't working the way it should have been). So, after the site change we headed off toward the Las Vegas Strip. We walked for a few hours and enjoyed looking at the sites, but then Kortnie hit a quick "low blood sugar" and by quick, I mean it came on fast. She got pretty weak, we fed her some glucose tabs and a granola bar but she wasn't having much luck in coming back up, a side effect from battling the Highs all day, she had too much insulin in her system and it was catching up to her. We had ended up walking about 3 miles away from the hotel, so we figured we'd better take a cab back to the hotel (there was no way I could carry Graham that far while Brian carried Kortnie, the $10 cab ride was money well spent), get some pizza and call it a night. Got Korky fed, her blood sugar back to within the normal range and we hit the hay. Monday morning wasn't too early of a morning thank goodness, we got the car loaded up and met up with my parents and started down the road towards Anaheim. We got some breakfast down the road aways. The drive to Anaheim was a quick one, we didn't hit much traffic at all and navigating the freeway changes wasn't too bad. We got to the hotel about 1pm and of course our room wasn't ready yet which was okay since we were still 2 hours before check in time. We still had sandwich stuff in our cooler so we shared a lunch of sandwiches and chips with my parents and nephews, then decieded we'd go to the beach while waiting for check in time. Brian looked at the map and came up with a plan to get us there. It was about a 20 minute drive from where our hotel was. We spent a couple of hours at the beach. My kids have been to the beach before, and they had a good time. Graham I don't think really remembered going to the beach before and he didn't get in the water too much, he had way more fun running away from the waves and digging in the sand. This was my nephews first time to see the ocean. The boys and my girls had great fun looking for shells, body surfing, as well as digging in the sand. Brian, loves the ocean and as soon as he could break away he took his snorkel and went out into the deep. It was cold water and a cloudy day so I didn't get wet past my knees, mostly I was keeping an eye on the kids and taking pictures. I did take a break and was able to go sit on the sand and watch the water for awhile, it was so nice and peaceful. I wish we could live near the ocean. Maybe someday. After the beach we headed back to our hotel, but we did stop on the way at a Target, mom and I went in the store and picked up a few snacks and things. Back at the hotel Brian and I fed our kids dinner of leftover burgers and hotdogs (from the cookout we had for Korky's birthday in Colorado) and some frozen mac and cheese meals I picked up at Target. The hotel at disneyland had a fridge and microwave in all the rooms so that really helped out in keeping the cost of food down for us on the vacation. After dinner and showers, we dropped Graham off at my parents hotel room then Brian and I took the girls over to Disneyland for a few hours. I think we left the hotel about 845pm and Disneyland was open untill midnight. We got a special deal and had recieved 5 day Park Hopper tickets for the price of 3 day tickets. We were only planning on using the tickets on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, so we figured it would be fun to just go see a few things Monday evening as well. We went on a couple of rides with the girls, saw Minnie Mouse, watched the fireworks and then headed back to the hotel. We had a great first day in California and we were ready to go to bed so that we'd be energized for the next 3 days at Disneyland! Next time I'll blog all about Disneyland and California Adventure.

June 5, 2004~June 5, 2010

2010-06-29T07:28:00.000-07:00

I can hardly believe it, but our Kortnie has turned 6! I can still remember the day she was born, she came quick around 3:15am, she had these light whisps of blonde hair and big blue eyes. Brian and I thought to ourselves, "What's this? A blonde haired blue eyed little sweetie, how did that happen?" Then we quickly thought, never mind she's gorgeous and even though we loved her as soon as we knew I was pregnant, we loved her about a zillion times more as soon as she was in our arms. And amazingly enough, that love just grows and grows with every passing moment. We already had one beautiful daughter and we were a bit worried that we wouldn't have enough love for a 2nd baby, but isn't it just wonderful how we can have so much love in our hearts? Kortnie has been a whirlwind of excitement and emotions for as long as she's been alive. As a baby she was loud and boistrous, she ate like she could never get enough, I was constantly feeding her, she loved to be held or to sit in the swing. She did not like to be left alone. She didn't sleep thru the night untill well after her first birthday, she was collicky and later became lactose intolerant. But, even though all of that makes her sound like a "hard baby", underneath it all she was all smiles, cuddly and so loving, she had and still does have an infectious, melodic laugh! As she grew older she became so independant, often she'd come to me and tell me she just wanted to be alone, she'd head off to her bedroom and climb up on the bed with her babies and books, she'd sit and soon she'd be asleep. I always appreciated that she knew what she wanted and she'd go make that time for herself. Korky is so colorful, she puts together the craziest outfits and mixes up some pretty zany color combinations, I often think she'll be a fashion designer or something when she grows up. She love to make art too. And she really loves to make people laugh and smile. She has the capacity for such love and she really does love unconditionally all the people she comes in contact with. Last year was a tough one for our little Korkmeister, she was diagnosed in November with Type 1 Diabetes, best we can figure she'd developed it around March of 2009 and it took us untill November to figure out what was going on. With her diagnosis came a helicopter ride to an ICU unit at Phoenix Children's Hospital, followed by 4 more days of hospitalization after we got out of the ICU. In the hospital we learned that she'd have to be on insulin injections for the rest of her life or untill a cure is found. She was sad and upset, she cried and asked why me? But despite all the changes her 5 year old self was facing, she kept her sprirts up and she's come out on top! It's amazing to see that at such a young age she has really absorbed most of the information we've given her about her condition. She is careful to watch what she eats when she isn't around me, she know what she can and can't have and what she can bring home and save for later when Brian or I give her an injection. She recently got on an insulin pump, it's a small (pager sized) computer that she wears clipped to her waistband, the pump holds insulin and has a tube that goes from it to an infusion site that we have in her belly, the pump is programmed to give her small doeses of insulin throughout the day and then we can tell it to give her bigger doses when she's eating. Kortnie is working at learning how to use the pump to give herself her infusions for mealtimes. She is really working towards a goal of being independant so that she can get back to regular life and be away from mom and dad for longer periods of time. She'd really like to be able to go spend the weekend with her grandma or cousin again, so that is what we're working toward. We are so proud of you Kortnie, you've had a rough past couple of months, but you are a shining start and an inspiration to all of us! Also, I just have to say that our Korky, is smart, loyal, energetic, happy, colorful, loving, amazing and inspiring! Our family wouldn't be the same without her! We love you Kortnie and we're so lucky to have spent the last 6 years with you!

Vacation Part 2: Korky's 6th Birthday

2010-06-28T18:23:00.000-07:00

Kortnie at breakfast the morning of her birthday

Kortnie, Lianna, Stasia, Cheyanne, & Graham at the mall

All 7 grandkids (Brian's side of family) at Korky's birthday cookout

All the girl cousins at Korky's cookout While we were in Denver, Kortnie's 6th birthday came. Her birthday was the day after her Uncle's wedding and all of the family was still going to be in Denver so we planned our day around her. First off, we went to breakfast at the hotel, then the girls and I headed over to pick up our niece Lianna who lives in Denver. Lianna wasn't able to make it to the wedding, but her mom worked it out with me that I'd be able to have her on Saturday and she could spend the day with us for the birthday fun. We hadn't seen Lianna in quite awhile, but it really didn't take much time for her to warm up to us and for all of the kids to really enjoy their time together! After we got back to the hotel and gave Lianna a little time to get re-acquainted with the rest of the family we headed over to a bowling alley nearby to our hotel. We got there in time for the Saturday morning special of $1 per game bowling. SCORE! I paid for each of the 7 kids to do 2 games, and the adults all decieded to play their own games at the lanes next to us. We were all pretty tired from the wedding the day before but we still had a blast! The kids decieded to play boys vs girls, so we had Kurtis, Jon and Graham on one team; Stasia, Kortnie, Lianna and Cheyanne on the 2nd team. It turned out that the girls took so long doing their first game that they didn't even get to the 2nd game. After bowling, we headed over a mall also close to our hotel, we all ate lunch at the food court so everyone could get what they wanted. Afterwards we split up into groups and walked around the mall for awhile. Then, back to the hotel, everyone changed into swimming suits and headed down to the pool. Our family party of 15 pretty much took over the pool, heehee! Our hotel had a courtyard area outside of the pool with a BBQ, so Grandma and I went over to a Safeway and bought up some stuff for hamburgers and hot dogs, added chips and cake and had ourselves a cookout! We ate dinner and opened presents, then back to the pool for more swimming. We tired the kids out, took them upstairs for showers and then spent the rest of the evening doing our goodbyes since everyone was leaving at different times the next morning. What an amazing time we had in Colorado, it was so much fun to see so much family, to meet and get to know a new branch of our family, and to celebrate Mark & Nicole's marrige as well as Kortnie's birthday. Family really is everything isn't it?

Summer Vacation Part 1 "The Wedding"

2010-06-28T15:51:00.000-07:00

1 Our Family at the Denver (LDS) Temple ALL of our family at the Denver (LDS) Temple

Our newest Sister/Aunt with some of her new nieces and nephew. Korky, Cheyanne, Nicole, Stasia, and Graham

This summer has been super busy already. We've had a great time so far and I figure we'll have more fun in the next couple of weeks! First off we took a big 2 week road trip vacation. We left early the morning of June 3rd to drive up to the Denver area, Littleton, CO to be more exact. Brian's younger brother Marcus was getting married, he's the last of Brian's siblings to tie the knot, his 2 youngest brothers are twins and Marcus is the older twin. Now we were definitly excited to be able to attend this wedding and to welcome our newest sister Nicole to the family. BUT, also a little bittersweet for me, when I came into the family these twin boys were 13 years old. I have been lucky to watch them grow into men, and to be a part of their growing up. However, it makes me feel DANG old to see them grown up enough to be getting married (and the other twin is expecting his first baby in August)! So, back to the vacation, we arrived in Littleton about 4:30pm CO time. We hustled to get checked into the hotel, get a little dinner for our kids, and get changed into our church clothes; then we ran over to Nicole's parents house and dropped off our kids so that we could meet up with the rest of Brian's family and attend Nicole's endowment session at the Denver (LDS) Temple. We made it just in the knick of time! Nicole's endowment session was jam packed between her family and ours! It was such a joyous occasion and so awesome to be a part of! Thanks Nicole for inviting all of us! After the Temple session we picked our kids up and headed back to the hotel, all of us were staying at the same hotel so we got to visit with the family the whole weekend. So, Thursday evening the guys (Brian, Brandon, Jason, Mike and Mark along with Mark's 2 new brothers) went out bowling. Us girls (me, Erin, Magen, Clacie, and Mom) stayed at the hotel to watch our kids swim. The kids stayed out to the pool untill about midnight! Took them up to the room, showered and got my 3 into jammies and bed, I lay down and looked at facebook for awhile, then turned off the computer and Brian came rolling in about 2:30am! A pretty late night, considering the wedding was at 10am the next morning and we were planning on being at the Temple by 9:30. So, Friday morning I got up with the kids and took them for the free continental breakfast the hotel put on, then we got ready for the wedding and yes, we made it on time! The Denver Temple has a small waiting room for the kids so we dropped the kids off there with coloring books and crayons. Marc and Nicole's sealing room was packed to the gills and they had a beautiful, but short and sweet little ceremony! Afterwards we took the obligatory excess of pictures out in front of the Temple. By the way, it's such a pretty Temple and had beautiful grounds! After the many pictures we went back to the hotel to change into regular clothes and headed over to an all you can eat buffet supper hosted by Brian's mom. It was immediate family on both sides and pretty casual, but so nice to get to mingle with our "new family"! That evening Nicole's family hosted a reception. Beautiful decorations and Yummy food, what more can you ask for? Our husbands were busy standing in the "meet and greet" line all night, so us girls made sure to decorate the car! It was so nice getting to see our family and to be so blessed to be able to attend Mark & Nicole's marriage! Stay tuned.....for posts about the rest of our vacation!

Anastasia's last week of school

2010-06-18T21:57:00.000-07:00

Anastasia with her teacher Mrs. Ramsay

With her classmates, waiting for their end of the year program to begin. (she's the one with the purple hairband and purple and white shirt on)

Anastasia has passed the 1st grade and will be advancing on to 2nd grade. Where does the time go, my first little baby is getting to be all grown up! Anastasia is a super smart girl, she got Straight A's in school as well as her sister. But, for being in first grade she is reading at a 4th grade level! She was one of the top 2 readers in her class. She also enjoys math and excelled pretty far in the math facts, she got well into the 2nd grade math fact tests on the computer. Her last week of school wasn't quite as busy as Kortnie's but we did get to go see her do a little show at her school. Her class sang a super cute song called "Peanut Butter". We are so proud of our girls and think it's great that they are already looking forward to the new school year this fall.

Kortnie's last week of school

2010-06-18T21:38:00.000-07:00

Kortnie with her teachers, on the right is Mrs. Slade and on the left is the assistant teacher Mrs. Flake. Kortnie really learned alot and blossomed in Kindergarten and it's thanks to these 2 ladies! Kortnie on the fire truck with the headphones on. She was so cute and excited. Look at her right arm and you can see her insulin pump, it's the pink and black square thingy.

Lost her first tooth ever!

Kortnie at the track and field day

It's summer time and we've already been pretty busy, I am going to try to update my blog with some of the "going's on" that I haven't had time to put up yet.

So, school ended on May 21st, Kortnie graduated from Kindergarten! She passed with "straight A's" and will be going into 1st grade next year. Her last week of school was a busy one! Graham and I got to participate in quite a few activities with her. We went on a field trip the the Taylor Fire Department. It was a bit chilly and pretty darn windy that day but we still had fun. We got to see a couple different kinds of fire trucks, try on a fireman suit, and get sprayed by a fire house. Some kids, my Kortnie included, thought it was too cold to get sprayed, so they took turns spraying the kids that did want to get wet. Also, she had a Track and Field day at her school, Graham and I went down and spend the morning with her there at school. The teachers set up several different stations for the kids to rotate around in groups, they had a tug of war, obstacle course, limbo, hula hoops, giant beach balls, duck duck goose, and sack races. All of the stations were fun. Graham loved the obstacle course, and Kortnie was the winner in all the sack races her group did. Also, we got to attend a Kindergarten graduation, the kids same some cute songs and got diplomas, Kortnie was so happy Brian was able to attend the graduation. Also, 2 other exciting things happened that last week of school! Kortnie, Brian and I met with the Diabetes educator at our hospital and got her trained and hooked up to an insulin pump, and that same day she lost her first tooth! The insulin pump has been a new learning process for us, but it is giving us better and tighter control of her blood sugar levels. I'll blog more on that a little later.

Savings!

2010-05-19T13:28:00.000-07:00

I have this friend who has posted about her coupon prowress on her blog; and today I thought I would too, I do try to be a savy shopper and get the most for my money all the time, but today I think I really hit the jackpot. I went to Basha's (our local AZ family owned grocery store) to get a piece of redmeat~whatever I could find for a good price~to cut up and use on kabobs tonight for dinner. It's also the first day of a new sale ad so I picked one of those up and checked to see the "on sale" items. Well, this week they are having some pretty good sales and some great store ad coupons as well. Buy 10 yogurts which are already on sale for .50cents and get $1 off. And also buy 6 Betty Crocker items and get $3 off, the BC cereals and fruit snacks were already on sale for $1.88. So this is what I got...

*8 boxes of cereal,

*3 boxes of mini fruit roll ups (18 in a box and since they are small sized, way less sugar and carbs, they last longer and don't sugar up the kids as much, also a good low carb snack for when Korky needs a blood sugar boost),

*1 box of Scooby-Doo fruit snacks (because Graham wanted them and he's too cute to resist~spoiled I know)

*10 Yoplait yogurts

*1 small London Broil

I paid $24.18 total, saving $31.54 in instore discounts and $7 in coupons, for a total savings of $38.54, that's over 50% savings! After those awesome savings, I felt totally justified in buying the London Broil which was $2.99/pound and cost $3.62, just think if I hadn't bought the LBroil I would have only spent $21! Yay for me!

2010-05-18T13:41:00.000-07:00

Every year the Kindergarten here in Snowflake does a Mother's Day Luau. I got to go last year with Anastasia and again this year with Kortnie. It's only for the kid and the mom and it's nice to spend some quality one on one time. We got to the school and laid our our blanket, then Korky went to her class to get dressed up, she wore a "grass" skirt they had made out of green construction paper, they also had bracelts they had made and then she brought me a lei she had made out of paper flowers and colorful straws. The kids did a dance and song, then we were entertained by some teachers and students from a local hula school. The kids held a limbo competition then did another dance for us. Afterwards they served us cake and punch. It was so fun and the kids did an awesome job. Thanks Korky for taking me to your luau!

Let's Play Ball!

2010-05-18T13:25:00.000-07:00

Kortnie up to bat. Kortnie playing pitcher Kortnie ready to go! Stasia in the outfield. Stasia up to bat. We've had an interesting baseball season. It's Anastasia's 3rd season and Kortnie's 1st. Anastasia had a game cancelled due to SNOW, yep, we had snow into May this year, and yes Arizona has snow. Anastasia is on a pitching machine team called the "Rattler's" and Kortnie is on a T-ball team called the "Express". Anastasia hasn't hit the ball in a game yet so far but she has hit it in practice. She does pretty good in the field though. Kortnie is enjoying t-ball but I'm not so sure she'll be a sporty kid, time will tell I guess. We are proud of both girls for going out and playing and enjoying themselves!

As always, time seems to be flying by.

2010-05-06T08:29:00.000-07:00

My goal this week was to get my blog updated and here I am doing it with one day to spare. I don't know why I can't make myself sit down and blog once a week or so, I mean this is supposed to be my journal. It seems the last time I wrote was back in Febuary, so let's see if I can remember all that we've been doing. Brian has been on a bowling league team for the past few months, he finished up with it on the last Monday of April. He'd go play every Monday night from 7pm to about 10pm. I was an alternate for his team and would join him everynow and then. Some nights the kids and I would go and watch and other nights we'd stay home. Brian's team ended the season in 4th place out of 8 teams. He won $57, which is less than we payed for him to play, but still it was a fun time and we all enjoyed it. We are thinking of joining again in the fall league. Also, he's been working on his new dirtbike, he had to replace a few things on it, seals and gaskets and I'm not sure what else. Anyways, he's finished it and is enjoying going out to ride, it's actually pretty physical and he is sore afterwards, but he is having fun and getting more and more daring each time he goes out. The kids like to go take rides too. Brian is really busy at work, for awhile he was the only tech there, but over the past 6 weeks or so they've hired him another tech, a younger guy straight out of school that still is in the learning phase, and another more experienced guy he worked with a little over a year ago has returned from his National Guard deployment and is back to work. But, it's getting to their busy season, so he's still pretty swamped. It's a good thing he enjoys his work. Anastasia is doing wonderful, she's been busy at school, she is still getting straight A's and really excelling in math and reading. They do things called AR reading and Math Facts, in AR they read approved books and take computer tests on them, and Math Facts is a sort of computer test also, I think they are tests in increasing diffulculty. For AR last quarter she read 190 books and took tests on them and ended up with a 99%, this quarter I don't think she's read quite as many books, but I'm pretty sure it's because her teacher has moved her up to chapter books, which take a little longer to read. As far as her math facts, she told me she is on level 14, I think she told me that have to pass level 4 in order to get to 2nd grade, so she's well beyond that. Her teacher tells me that Anastasia along with a few other kids are right at the top of the class. We are so proud of her! She is also playing baseball again this year, she is on a pitching machine team, they've had 2 games so far, the 1st was cancelled due to snow and the 2nd her team tied, the score was 9-9. She didn't hit that game, but played pretty good in the field. She doesn't have a set position yet, I think the coach is still trying to figure out where everyone's strengths are. Kortnie had oral surgery back in Febuary, she had to have 2 root canals and get 3 crowns put on. We knew this surgery was coming up before she was diagnosed with the diabetes, and ended up having to put it off a few weeks because of the diagnosis. They put her under anesthesia and did the dental work. When she woke up she was a mess, she was confused and out of it, her blood sugar was dropping and she wouldn't take the juice I was trying to give her. It was a scary couple of minutes, but we got thru it and got her blood sugar back up. Once we got to the car, she slept the whole 2 hours it took us to drive home from Flagstaff and was back to her normal self that evening. Her diabetes is pretty much under control, she still has times when her blood sugar goes really high or really low, but we are learning to recognize the symptoms she has and can catch them before too much damage is done. She just got approved for an insulin pump and it will be here on Tuesday. We haven't figured out if we want to get her started on the pump before or after our vacation, but once we go to pump training I'll blog more about it. Kortnie is also doing well in school and getting all A's. On the last report card she had mastered everything she needed to in order to go to 1st grade, she's started reading and has taken about 12 of the AR tests so she'll be that much ahead when she goes to 1st grade next year. She is playing t-ball for the first time this year. She seems to be liking it all right, but I do have a feeling she won't be the sporty type as she gets older. Graham is fabulous like always, he is getting really big and people think he looks more like a 3 going on 4 year old rather than the 2 going on 3 year old that he is. He seems to be a pretty smart boy and can count to 12 already, he picks up on things really quickly, asks tons of questions and remembers most of what you tell him. He knows the difference between a dirtbike and a motorcycle and a quad. He loves all kinds of things that "go" and wants to be a fireman, policeman, motorcyle racer, fast car driver and a trashman when he grows up. He is physical and active and loves jogging and jumping on the trampoline. He's been asking us for a bicycle for awhile now and he just might get one on his 3rd birthday in June. He is excited to go on his trip to Disneyland to see Goofy. In fact he loves to go anywhere, every day he asks me to take him somewhere, whether it's grandma's house, walmart, the library or disneyland. He does go to the library every Thursday for the children's reading program and he loves it. I tell him on Wednesday night, tomorrow is library day and he remembers in the morning and reminds me "mama today library day?!" We have been working to get him interested in potty training, he likes to not wear his diaper, but does not like to go in the potty, he says it's too hard. So we'll keep working at it. As far as me, I am enjoying being a stay at home mom, I am working on getting a yard sale put together and plan on having it the weekend after Mother's Day. I keep myself busy with running the kids around to their different activities, between running the house, tball practice and games, baseball practice and games, Doctor appointments (Kortnie has tons and a couple of weeks ago we took all 3 kids to the dentist, NO CAVITIES!), church, and library days with Graham I stay pretty dang busy. I also watch a friend's son 3 afternoons a week after school. Well, this post is long enough and I have to go get Graham ready for library day. I'll try to post some pictures today or tomorrow. Happy Mother's Day to all the mom's out there!

JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes

2010-03-04T14:19:00.000-08:00

Every year in October or November the JDRF (Juevenille Diabetes Research Foundation) hosts fundraising walks all across the country. This year, our family will be participating in the 5K walk at Tempe Town Lake in Tempe, AZ (for those who don't know where Tempe is, it's a town in the Greater Phoenix Valley), on October 30, 2010. The ironic thing is that Anastasia and I did this walk back in 2003 with group of my friends from work. It was at this walk that I publically annouced my pregnancy with Kortnie. And now it'll be 7 years later and we'll be participating in the walk again but this time it will be closer to home. Our team name is "Friends and Family of Kortnie Silverhorn" and it's in Kortnie's honor that we do this walk. We are excited to be able to do this walk and we'll be working hard to raise money between now and then, our goal is to raise $1000! We'll be asking for donations from our family and friends, writing to local business' to see if they would like to donate to our team and in the Spring we'll hold a yard sale and we'll use 1/2 the money we make to go towards our fundraising goal. So, if you'd like to donate to our team click on this link, http://walk.jdrf.org/walker.cfm?id=87634030 or http://walk.jdrf.org/ and on the "Donate to a Walker" type in any of our names and Arizona and you can donate to one of the 5 members of my family Also from these links I believe you can sign up to be a part of our team and join us on walk day. We truly will appreciate any donations big or small. And feel free to repost this on your own blog or the link to the donation site on your social networking pages or even send an email with the link to any of your friends of family that you think might want to donate. Thanks for you support and don't be surprised if you see this reposted a few more times beteween now and October!

Snow/Random pictures

2010-02-21T16:25:00.000-08:00

We got some snow in January, the kids made a snowman in the front yard, we went and did a little bit of sledding on some small hills close to our house, and down below, Graham somehow got himself stuck in a turned over barstool, I was on the computer and I hear him calling, Mommy help me, help me, so I went to see what was going on and he was stuck, so cute and funny! Then the last picture is Graham in his new dirtbike helmet that he got for Christmas all ready for a ride on daddy's new dirtbike. Let me just say, that little Graham-cracker is so technical, if you call the bike a "motorcycle" he'll tell you "that not motorcycle, that dirtbike" LOL...he really does know the difference. What a cute smart boy.

New Dirtbike pictures

2010-02-21T16:19:00.000-08:00

Here are a few pictures of Brian and the kids enjoying the new dirtbike

We're nearing the end of Febuary

2010-02-21T16:01:00.000-08:00

It's been awhile since I posted, it seems life is busy here. I made a decision to quit my job at Walmart, I was only going to be able to work one day a week and I figured it just wasn't worth it to have to drive over there for a 4-6 hour shift once a week. I have enjoyed being able to stay home with the kids, I've been working on cleaning out the house, my plan is to go room by room, throw away the stuff that is broken and set aside the stuff that we don't use anymore for a Spring or Summer yard sale. Hmm, what else has been going on? Brian has been involved in a bowling league on Monday nights, he is on a team and I have substituted for teams occasionally when they have an absent player. It is alot of fun and we are looking forward to being on a team together when the fall league's start. Also, Brian has been playing on the church basketball team on Tuesday nights and I have been playing on the church Volleyball team Thursday nights, both of those seasons come to an end at the end of FEB. All of the kids are doing well, they are growing and learning every day. Kortnie has survived the first 3 months of diabetes, just 2 days ago we took her in for her first blood test, she has to have blood tests every 3 months. We'll get the results of her test next Friday when we are schedualed to see her DR. Also, Kortnie had oral surgery last week, she got 3 crowns and 2 fillings. It was quite nerve racking for me, but it only lasted about 2 hours and she did just fine. She was a little out of it and quite angry when coming out of the anesthesia, but as soon as I got her in the car for the 2 hour ride home from Flagstaff she went to sleep and slept the whole way home. Anastasia is a reading machine and is reading everything in sight. Graham has learned how to count to 10 and is working on his colors, he knows quite a few already. Brian sold his motorcycle and used the money to buy a new dirtbike a Kawasaki KX250. He has done a little fixing on it and should be ready for some fun rides by next weekend. Valentine's day has come and gone, it was a nice laid back day. Brian and the kids made me breakfast in bed and gave me a hydrangea, we went to chuch then came home and the kids and I made Brian some lasagna and cookies. We played video games and watched the Olympics in the evening. That's about all we've been up to lately, we are looking forward to March and Spring Break, and baseball/tball season, also a trip to Disneyland which we are planning for early June.

A good idea

2010-01-11T08:38:00.000-08:00

One of my friends and I were talking about how hard it is to keep a journal when we have so much else going on. She says that she just prints out her blog at the end of each year and uses that as her journal. I thought that is such a good idea that I think I'll do it too. So I'm going to try to post more often and will be writing down all kinds of things that I want my kids to hear about or remember when they are older. So, some funny things that have happened recently............. Graham bought a new backpack at Walmart the other day, it was $3 on the clearance rack so I let him have it. We get home, he puts on the backpack and says "Momma you take me school now?" I tell him, "no Graham-ee you need to go potty in the potty chair first" he says, "ok I go potty", he goes up the stairs and I follow him after a little bit, he's coming out of the bathroom and I can hear the toilet flushing. Now we've been working on potty training a little but he usually just sits on the toilet a few seconds then hops off, flushes and washes his hands, so I didn't think he'd actually gone. He tells my, "momma I pee my finger" so I laugh and tell him he needs to not flush it and show me next time. Then I pick him up because he's so cute and his little white t-shirt is wet and kind of yellow down at the bottom, so I guess he actually went potty. I was so proud that I gave him 5 m&m's and called Brian to tell him. That was 5 days ago and he hasn't gone in the potty chair since. Oh well, it's a start and we'll keep working on it. Last week we were all driving somewhere, all 5 of us. I hear the girls in the backseat talking and their conversation goes like this. Stasia: "Korky I wish we were cousins" Korky: "Why?" Stasia: "Because then we could go over to each other's house and spend the night and have slumber parties and play Barbies and it would be fun" Korky: "Yeah it would be fun!" This from 2 sisters who share a room and have an extensive collection of Barbies and just got bunk beds! And lastly, this is what Graham's Nursery (Sunday School) teacher wrote about him on Facebook last night Marie Jones says: Well I have to brag about my little nursery class today. They were so sweet. When I held up a picture of Jesus, Graham walked over and kissed it and put his face on it for a hug. That little guy loves Jesus! We had a fun time in there today.

Graham's first haircut

2010-01-09T11:31:00.000-08:00

Yesterday on Jan 8, 2010 Graham got his first haircut, most everyone knows that Graham has pretty long hair, and it was time to trim it. Our friend up the street Randi said she'd do his haircut for us, she works at a hair salon but also does cuts from her home. I think Brian wanted to cut his hair short, but Graham, Randi and I wanted to keep it long, so we ended up with just a trim. Graham did pretty well, at first he didn't want to sit by himself and cut his hair, he kept saying "leave it up" which means he wants his ponytail. So finnally he got on daddy's lap and we told him we were just gonna trim it and cut the yucky stuff off, he said okay. So we handed him a sucker and let him help by holding Randi's water bottle and he did awesome! (except he didn't want to wear the haircutting bib thing, instead he wore his superman cape) And as a super bonus Sis.Randi didn't charge us, she said 1st haircuts are special and fun and she was happy to do it for us, thanks Randi!

Before the haircut

Trimming!

All done, thanks again Sis.Randi

The girls new room

2010-01-09T11:22:00.000-08:00

For Christmas this year we bought the girls new bedsets, paint and curtains, we wanted to update their room as well as find a way to better organize it so maybe it'll stay cleaner. So the day after Christmas we spent cleaning the heck out of their room, threw away all the broken toys, papers, and crap that little girls have all over the place. The girls had recieved new jewelry boxes from their Grandma so we organized their jewelry too, we threw out all the old torn up or finished coloring books, organized all of their art supplies into trays and put inside the drawer of their built in desk. We cleaned out the fish and turtle tanks, we vacumed like crazy and moved everything away from the walls, we cleaned out the closet and dressers and got rid of all the clothes and shoes that don't fit anymore and the ones that were all grubby too. It was a big job, you should have seen all the crap we took out of there! On Sunday Brian painted the walls and ceiling, we went with a light, light blue. It matches both of their new bedsets pretty good, then for curtains they are a sheer white/purple. Most of their funiture is white, except for the Barbie cabinet is a pinkish/purple. We spent Monday putting the room back together, we put the bed up into bunkbeds (they had both been down on the floor before), put the new sheets, blankets and pillows on, we hung new shelves up close to the ceiling and kind of rearranged some. Now the room has alot more room to play, the Barbies are all enclosed in one cabinet, and the room actually has been staying pretty clean. Both girls wanted to sleep on the top bunkbed, so we came up with a compromise that at the beginning of each month they will switch, so for now Anastasia is on top and Kortnie on the bottom, we'll be switching in FEB. Overall it was a big project, but we all worked really hard on it together, and it's looks alot fresher and brighter, the new paint helped out tons! So the colors are white, blue, purple and pink. They come together pretty well. There are some pictures below. Bunkbeds up!

Brian put up 2 new shelfs, this one has stuffed animals and the other has photographs and collector Barbie's, down below this shelf is their big dresser with their CD player and fish tank, to the left is the bunkbeds

Barbie Corner (all Barbies and their stuff is stored in this cabinet), this cabine is down towards the foot of their beds, to the left of the cabinet is a window, then another small dresser and the closet, on the top part of this wall is the 2nd shelf that Brian hung.

This is their built in desk, it has the Turtle tank and some books on it, the desk shares this wall with the closet which is to the right and the bedroom door is to the left.

It snowed!

2009-12-23T09:02:00.000-08:00

It snowed last night, the kids were so excited that they had to go out and play in it. It was dark, about 7:30pm and they got bundled up and went out to make snowballs and have a snowball fight. Brian went and joined them and I stood on the porch and took pictures. The first picture is Brian and Graham throwing a snowball at me. This morning after Brian left for work the kids and I ate our hot cocoa and oatmeal, bundled ourselves up and walked up the street and went sledding on some hills back behind our neighborhood. We only have maybe 2 inches of snow, so it wasn't ideal for sledding, but we still managed to get about an hour's worth of fun in before we all decieded it was cold and we'd better head home to sit in front of the fire. I think we'll make some cookies together later on today and have some chicken noodle soup and grilled cheese for lunch. I kind of hope it stays cloudy and cold all day so we can have an indoor movie, cookie and soup day, but I can already see blue skies and sunshine starting to peek through the clouds. Merry Christmas everyone!

Merry Christmas

2009-12-06T19:03:00.000-08:00

Here is a preview of our Christmas pictures, got the girls some new dresses and Graham got a new tie, we took some photos this morning before church and I'm having fun "creating" with them.

Anastasia's 7th birthday

2009-11-22T19:06:00.000-08:00

Anastasia, our oldest kid, turned 7 on November 18th. We can't believe that 7 years have gone by. Our big girl is in 1st grade, she is super-smart and reads very well. She enjoys playing sports like baseball, soccer and volleyball. She loves going to church. She has lots of friends and isn't shy at all. She is a big helper to mommy and is eagerly learning how to cook, she can do quite a few things in the kitchen (supervised of course). She is a great big sister too, she is trying to be supportive of Kortnie's new challenges and she is always willing to love on Graham and change diapers too! This year her birthday fell on a Wednesday, so I took cupcakes to her class. Then we had a slumber/pizza party on Friday night. Brian and I were very brave we took 5 extra kids (for a grand total of 8 kids) to Pizza Hut for dinner. Then we came home and opened presents and ate a Dairy Queen Oreo Blizzard Ice Cream Cake! Yummy! After cake the 2 kids left to go home and we had 3 extra girls spend the night. The girls had fun doing hair and nails and makeup. They watched movies and talked about boys (they sure did even though Brian and I told them they are WAAAAY too young to be talking about boys!) They stayed up till after midnight and then were up by 6:45am and playing Barbies. I made them blueberry pancakes for breakfast, then they played makeup again. The 3 extra girls headed home at about 10am. We sure are glad that we have our Anastasia, she is one awesome girl and life definitly wouldn't be the same without her. We love you Big Girl!

Anastasia opening presents

Mary-Margaret, Andre, Zoie, Stasia, Korky, Hailey, and Brooke

Mary-Margaret, Stasia and Brooke with makeup on

Korky and Zoie with makeup on

How Insulin Pump Therapy Works

2009-11-17T11:29:00.000-08:00

How Insulin Pump Therapy Works This is for Michelle, a website all about the insulin pump, which we hope to get Kortnie on in a few months. Click on the purple link.

What Is The Difference Between Diabetes 1 And Diabetes 2?

2009-11-16T17:05:00.000-08:00

What Is The Difference Between Diabetes 1 And Diabetes 2? Kortnie has Type 1 Diabetes, click on the link above for a pretty good explanation of the differences.

Type 1 Diabetes and Kortnie

2009-11-11T13:03:00.000-08:00

So, most of you know that Kortnie was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes and that she's been in the hospital for a few days, I thought I would share some things with you now that things have calmed down. Kortnie has been kind of sick for the past month or so, she's lost alot of weight and was looking pretty thin and all around sickly to Brian and I, it finnally hit home last Friday night (Nov 6) that she was getting pretty bad, we thought we'd wait till Monday and make an appointment with our DR. Sunday morning we were in church, I looked at my sick Korky and all of a sudden it was like my eyes were clear and I could see how bad she really looked and the thought came to me that I should take her to the emergency room right now. She has lost 10 pounds, which is 20% of her body weight, her skin was gray and ashy and so dry, her eyes were sunk back in her head and she was like a limp rag. So, I took her to the hospital, after looking at her they figured she had Diabetes or Lymphoma, it was so scary! They did a test and found out it was Diabetes. I called Brian who was at home with the other kids and told him to pack us a bag we'd be staying in the hospital. Later after Brian got there they did some more tests, her levels had dropped and she was getting worse, they told us her Potassium was way too low and we needed to be taken to Phoenix Children's Hospital to PICU (pediatric ICU), they told us her blood was turning to acid and because her Potassium was so low she could have a heart attack or go into a Diabetic coma. Everything started happening so fast. Korky's uncle Brandon came and he and Brian gave her a blessing, they said, she'd have a hard time, but that she would be brave and courageous and that she could count on her family and friends and Heavenly Father to give her comfort and get her through. The helicopter people came and loaded her up, they wheeled us out to the helicopter pad, Brian said goodbye and we took off to Phoenix. We were both so scared, I cannot imagine what Brian must have gone through, at least I got to stay with Korky. That 1 hour helicopter ride was the longest hour of my life! We got to PHX and settled in the PICU (she slept the whole helicopter ride) they had things hooked up to her heart, her finger, 2 IV's with about 9 different things going into 1 IV and the 2nd to get blood out whenever they wanted. By about Monday afternoon we were stabalized and Brian was on his way with the other 2 kids. We got moved to a regular room Monday night. We learned all about diabetes all day Tuesday, we learned how and when to give her shots (5 times a day at least). Kortnie is doing so well, she has indeed been courageous and she lets us give her the shots without even really crying anymore. Brian and I have been doing most of the work with supervision from nurses the past day and a half. Hopefully they'll let us go home this afternoon or early tomorrow morning. If we get out today we'll stay overnight her in Phoenix at our house (or at Jay and Magen's since they rent from us) then drive back to Snowflake tomorrow. I am not going back to work untill Tuesday at the earliest so we'll have the weekend to get our babysitter and the school up to date on our situation. I am scared to leave her alone and go back to work, but I know we have to get on with our lives. Korky will have diabetes forever and always need insulin shots, I have to be brave and let her know that she can still do anything and everything she wants to do. No sheltering! We want to thank everyone for their prayers, for their help, for their love and support. We have realized that we truly have great friends, great family and a great church support behind us. Even though we are dealing with this illness we still feel blessed. I am also super thankful that the Lord prompted me to bring her to the DR, I don't even want to know what would happen if I hadn't listened and waited longer. Again, thanks so much to everyone!

Halloween 2009

2009-10-31T20:31:00.000-07:00

Superman

Ladybug

Rockstar

2009-10-31T20:27:00.000-07:00

Pumpkin Time, Happy Halloween!

Sunbeams

2009-10-27T10:23:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of my Sunbeams, from left, Graham and Stasia, then my sunbeams are...the one in black/red, the Bumblebee, the Blue Power Ranger, the Transformer, the Pirate, and the Wolverine.

Haha, my mom in law sent me this story in an email, she know that Brian and I are the Sunbeam (3&4 year old Sunday School) teachers at our church. I thought it was too funny and hope you all do too.

An allegedly true story from a physician in Utah.*I work part-time as a teacher of family doctors. The program provides training on psychiatric disorders and emphasizes the importance of emotional support. The new doctors are given plenty of time to visit with their patients and learn about their challenges. One of our interns, who has never lived in Utah and knows nothing about Mormons, is still struggling to understand the cultural climate here. Last week he was interviewing a new patient and stumbled on what he thought was a raging psychosis.

Doctor: "Well, Mrs. Olsen, we've talked about your high blood pressure and your medications. Are you experiencing any particular stress in your life?"

Patient: "Oh, yes! It's the Sunbeams. They're driving me crazy."

Doctor (very surprised): "The sun beams?"

Patient: "Yes. I've never had trouble with them before, but this group won't sit still. They bounce all over the room, and run out the door and down the hall."

Doctor (reaching for a pen): "Have you told anyone about this?"

Patient: "Of course. I told the president."

Doctor: "Really! What did the president tell you?"

Patient: "She said Sunbeams are like that. I'm just going to have to learn to deal with them."

Doctor (concerned that he may be missing something): "I know people who are sensitive to sun beams. Do they cause you a rash or anything?"

Patient (confused): "A rash? No."Doctor: "What's the biggest problem they're creating?"

Patient: "It's the noise. They just won't quit talking."

Doctor (astonished): "The sun beams are talking to you?"

Patient: "Well, yes. But mostly they talk to each other."

Doctor (scribbling furiously in the chart): "I see. Can anyone else hear them talking?"

Patient (after a moment of stunned silence): "You're not LDS, are you?" This is so funny, while our Sunbeams do talk alot and are pretty active, they don't really drive us crazy. In fact Brian, I think eggs them on a little (or a lot) and he is the one who gets them all riled up. We are so grateful for our calling to be teachers in the Sunbeam class. 3 and 4 year olds are fun! I give them a snack and teach the lesson, I didn't think they were learning much, but I've had some parents tell me that they do indeed learn and retell the Bible and Book of Mormon stories that we teach back at home. I love hearing that and I love being a part of their lives. It's been alot of fun being their teacher and I've learned quite alot myself!

2009-09-21T16:04:00.000-07:00

Graham at the fair playing with a piggy, he was so cute, this is supposed to be a video, but I am still trying to figure out how to get the video to play on here.

Another video, but I have to go make dinner so I'll have to figure out how to make it play later. LOL

This is just a cute picture, or a horse, Graham was excited to see the horsey but then it tried to get him and he jumped back.

2009-09-21T15:55:00.000-07:00

It's Soccer Season, they call themselves the Cardnials, this is Stasia, Andre (our friend and the babysitter's son) and Korky at the first game.

Stasia (in pink shorts) did awesome! This is her 2nd year, and I can tell she's improved, the blondy behind her is Aubree, one of our neighbor girls.

The girls during halftime, Korky was getting tired, they lost 2-1.

Graham at the Apache County Fair, he got to do the rides by himself mostly, this is the Choo Choo Train, he had so much fun!

Graham with babysitter Debbie and her husband Joe at the Sweet Corn Festival, this is the first parade I've actually got to go with Graham too, usually I am working, the police and firetrucks were loud, he liked seeing them but didn't like the loudness of them too much.

Pictures!

2009-09-21T15:44:00.000-07:00

Something very exciting was happening, there was a tractor and jackhammer across the street digging up the neighbor's driveway, Kortnie and Graham had their lunch on the porch that day so they could watch!

Happy 31st Birthday Brian! (August 23)

Anastasia, Kortnie and a friend were having a rock fight in the backyard, they busted our sliding glass door, man, they were so scared! They thought I was gonna kill them, it was funny, I actually laughed, but let me tell you the girls have been doing dishes for a month to work off the debt.

Brian cut his hair the first week of August, and just yesterday he cut it again, now it's really short! Buzzed, he had them cut it on a 1, and phew, it's super short, makes him look younger, he's handsome with long or short hair, but I miss the long.

Graham got a new suit, a hand me down from a friend, it's too big for him but he loves it, he wants to wear it every Sunday.

And so it goes.....and goes.........and goes!

2009-09-10T16:39:00.001-07:00

I always start off this blog saying, "It's been a long time since I last blogged, so here goes an update" ****laughing**** And so it goes like this. Business as usual around here, life continues to go and go and go. We have been doing normal things lately, Brian and I going to work, the girls going to school and Graham getting into everything. Some interesting, fun, exciting things that have happened recently, let me see..... **Brian had his 31st birthday on August 23rd. He didn't want to have a big family party or anything, so we just celebrated with our little family. His birthday was on a Sunday, so we were all home and off work. We went to church, came home and had dinner, baked ziti and fruit pizza for dessert, Brian's requested birthday dinner. Then we just hung out, played video games, watched movies, jumped on the trampoline. Fun, easygoing, pretty much a normal Sunday, but with Brian picking the dinner and presents too. I gave Brian some $$$, Graham got him screwdrivers, Kortnie got him work gloves, Stasia got him a toy motorcycle, ( I took the kids to Dollar Tree, that is what they picked out for him LOL ) **The next weekend August 29th Brian and I headed down to Phoenix for a weekend alone, Brian's mom watched our 3 kids for us. We stayed in a hotel Friday and Saturday night, we ate out, we slept in, we shopped for ourselves, we went to a movie and we walked around Tempe Marketplace and Mesa Riverview. Brian took his birthday money and spent it at Harbor Freight on a welding machine. **The first weekend of August we had a family party for one of Brian's brothers and his wife. We had most of the family in town and some good friends too, we enjoyed being together and celebrating Jason and Magen, it was a family reunion of sorts, we spent 2 days over in St Johns visiting, eating and laughing! **Right before Brian and I took our weekend trip, our girls broke our sliding glass door, luckily it was only one of the double panes, so we'll be replacing that soon, hopefully we'll replace it with French Doors. Can you believe they were having a rock fight? They were so scared and just knew I was gonna kill them, it was too funny, I actually started laughing because of how scared they were. I didn't really get upset at all, I mean of course kids are gonna break stuff, and hopefully this got it out of their systems and we wont' have any more broken windows, right? **Last weekend we went to the Taylor Sweet Corn Festival, there was a small town parade, cute, we got a lot of candy, then we went to the horseless kids rodeo, they had a foot race, a barrel race, a jumping thing and a fishing booth, got more candy. Then it started raining on us, but the kids insisted we check out all the booths in the rain. Finnally I convinced them to get some curly fries and a funnel cake and we'd take it home to eat for lunch. It was a nice way to spend a Saturday morning. **This weekend we hit the Apache County Fair in St Johns (Brian's home town) we are excited and will have so much fun! Hopefully I remember to charge the battery in my camera so we can get some good pictures.

1st Day of School, 1st Day of School!

2009-08-17T08:26:00.000-07:00

Remember the beginning of the movie "Finding Nemo" when Nemo was so exctied to start school? My girls reminded me of Nemo when it was time for them to start school this year. They started school on August 10th! They were both so excited, Anastasia is in 1st grade this year and Kortnie is in Kindergarten. Kortnie was in Headstart Pre-School for the past two years, but was super-excited to go to the "big kids" school with Anastsia this year. Stasia goes all day from 8am-220pm and Kortnie goes a half day from 8am-1045am. Most schools around here have all day kindergarten, except for Snowflake and Taylor where we live. :-( Stasia in in Mrs Ramsay's class, she already knew she was going to have 2 of her friends in class with her, so that was a great way to start the new year. Kortnie is in Mrs Slade's class. Mrs Slade is the same teacher that Stasia had last year, so we were all excited that Kortnie would have a teacher that our family was comfortable with already. Also, Kortnie has one friend from church and one friend from Headstart in her class. The girls qualified for reduced priced school lunch and breakfast, so Anastasia is having fun looking at the menu each day and decieding if she should bring her lunch or eat at school (Kortnie only is able to eat breakfast at school), and the breakfast really helps because sometimes with work we'll have to drop them off early and they can eat at school. I am so proud of my girls, they love school and are so excited to learn! Graham had a little of a hard time the first couple of days, he'd walk around the house asking where the girls were, and if I had to drop them off at the babysitters by himself he'd be a little sad wondering where the other kids were. But he has quickly gotten used to being able to spend some time alone with Mommy or Miss Debbie, and he loves morning when we get to walk the girls to school, the school isn't too far away, but I am still amazed that he'll walk all the way down there and back home again without complaining. He'd much rather walk then ride in his stroller. So cute! Graham will be able to start Headstart next year and then all my babies will be grown up!

Brian cut his hair!

2009-08-04T17:12:00.000-07:00

Look at that long beautiful hair!

There it goes!

Almost done!

All that pretty hair on the ground Brian decided to cut his hair yesterday. He has cut it a few times since we've been married, about every 2 years or so. He said he wanted to cut it and has been thinking about it out loud for about a week, so yesterday we took him to NU YOU salon in Snowflake and got it cut. I was sad to see it go, but he looks good with short or long hair and it's his choice so I'm okay with it. I think you can see his gray hair more now though. Then I made him shave off his goatee as well and he looks younger. When we came home after the appointment he the dog barked at him, I guess he didnt' recognize daddy with short hair. Brian thinks Graham should get his haricut now too, but I am not ready for that. And besides he asked Graham if he wanted to get short hair like daddy and Grahammy said Huh-Uh!

Water Slides and Pony Rides

2009-08-04T16:55:00.000-07:00

Brian's niece had a Super-Fun birthday party, she was turning 4! She had a big water slide and a horse drawn carriage pony rides. What fun! The pony's name was Queenie, she had her hoofs painted purple and pink with glitter and had a purple mane with ribbons tied into it. So cute! Thanks for inviting us Cheyanne and Happy 4th Birthday!

Phoenix trip

2009-08-04T16:50:00.000-07:00

We took a trip to Phoenix to do some school shopping and have some fun. We stayed overnight at our house down in Phoenix. (where 2 of Brian's brother's are living). We went to Arizona Mills Mall and hung out, we walked all around the mall, ate at the food court and hit the arcade. We got to visit with our family and some old friends and the kids loved being able to just hang out with us without "having to do" to many things. We did also go to Sam's Club and get some new clothes for school.

My 31st Birthday

2009-08-04T16:42:00.000-07:00

Posing with a Monster Truck Driver

The girls with a GIRL Monster Truck Driver

Graham loved those big trucks!

Kortnie and Brian For my 31st birthday we decieded to do something fun as a family, we figured we'd either go and see Ice Age 3D or go to Moster Trucks, as you can tell from the pictures we picked Monster Trucks! We both had to work that day, so after work, I headed home, picked up the kids and high-tailed it back to Show Low, we met Brian and went to Jack in the Box for dinner, (we were going to go out for pizza, but ran out of time), then we went over to Thunder Raceway to see the Monster Trucks, we got there early enough that the kids could go down to the "pit" and meet the drivers and have them sign their flags. The girls were very impressed that there was a GIRL moster truck driver. The show was pretty good, Brian especially loved the mud bogger's. Kortnie didn't like the noise too much but she got used to it. The next day was a Sunday, so Brian and the kids got me an ice cream cake and some presents. It was a good birthday. It's so nice to be able to do fun things together with Brian and the kids.

Soccer Camp

2009-08-04T16:32:00.000-07:00

This summer I signed the girls up for Volleyball and Soccer camp. The local High School coaches put on these camps, and the kids really enjoyed it! The volleyball camp was 2 evenings and took place at the High School gym. Stasia did really well and might just be a player when she grows up. Soccer camp was 4 mornings and took place at the soccer field/park. Stasia played soccer last fall, so she already knew how the game was played, but this was the first time for Kortnie. They both picked up some skills that they'll be able to use this fall. While the girls were at Soccer Camp Graham and I had fun playing at the playground and walking around the walking track.

4th of July

2009-08-04T16:25:00.000-07:00

Graham & Brian watching fireworks

Brian & Graham lighting a firework

Stasia & Graham lighting a firework I have gotten really behind on my blog lately, so I am going to try and go back thru what we've been up to this past month. So for the 4th of July Brian and I both had to work, but we did get to enjoy some fireworks. We took the kids to the park and spread out a blanket and watched the fireworks and ate ice cream from Dairy Queen. It was a great show and all the kids loved it, especially Graham! The next evening we went over to a friends house for dinner and to light off fireworks they had gone over to New Mexico to buy. It was nice hanging out and relaxing with the ladies, while the dad's helped the kids with the fireworks. It was a relaxing holiday and we enjoyed being with each other and friends! Happy Birthday America!

Pink Milk

2009-07-06T19:52:00.000-07:00

Graham loves "pink milk". You know when you add strawberry syrup to milk....Well, last week we had run out of the strawberry syrup, so I bought some after I got off work at Walmart one night. I came home that night and put the syrup in the fridge, next to the milk where I always keep it. Graham was sleeping already so he didn't know that I had gotten him some new "pink milk". But, apparently he figured it out....The next morning I was just stepping out of the shower when he came into my bathroom with red syrup all over himself. It was on his forehead, his hands, and his feet. He had dog hair stuck to the syurp on his feet, and a big smile on his face. I came downstairs and saw various little pink handprints on the stairway walls, and on the kitchen floor, a big puddle of strawberry syrup. He had found the new syrup, took off the whole lid and tried to pour it in his cup, he had it on the counter and floor. Then after he showed me his mess, he got out a kitchen towel and started trying to clean it up. I got a few pictures of him standing next to his mess. Then I did take one of him trying to clean it up with my cell phone also so I could send it to daddy. I didn't yell at him too much, because he did TRY to clean it up and he's so dang cute too. For his punishment I just told him no "pink milk" today, you'll have to wait until tomorrow to have some. I am glad that I could laugh at his mess and not get all crazy mad about it.

Graham's 2nd Birthday Weekend

2009-06-27T13:14:00.001-07:00

Our sweet baby boy turned 2 on June 22, 2009. First on Father's Day we headed over to Grandma's Linda's house and had a combined party. We Celebrated Graham's birthday, Bompa (Brian's Grandpa) birthday and Father's Day. We had a wonderful meal of Navajo Tacos and tons of dessert. We had a cake for Graham, Sugar Cookies for Brian, a German Chocolate cake for Jason, and Chocolate Pie for Brandon, and Ice Cream too. Graham got lots of fun gifts, and some new clothes too. We had a great time visiting with family and celebrating together. Then on Monday, his "real birthday" we had some friends (our babysitter and family) over for dinner. We grilled chicken and had salad, corn on the cob, and chips and salsa. Then leftover cake and ice cream for dessert. Graham got some new clothes from our guests, and a 3 wheeled scooter from Brian and I. Again, we had a super time visiting and watching the kids play. On Tuesday we went on an "Adventure". We decieded to drive out towards Payson and check out some of the many lakes between here and there. We started at Black Canyon Lake, we caught one trout, a few blue gills, and a couple crawdads. We hiked around and saw all kinds of bugs. Graham had fun digging on the shore side, he fell in the lake once, we got him out quickly and of course he thought it was so much fun. Afte Black Canyon Lake we went over to Willow Lake, this lake was very nice also, we caught tons of crawdads and Graham enjoyed playing on the rocks. All in all it was a wonderful, relaxing weekend. Our Little Graham is such a sweet boy, he loves all of us unconditionally. He enjoys his doggy Brownie, they are the best of friends. He loves to help out around the house. He is generous with his hugs and kisses. He loves motorcycles, airplanes, and helicopters, anything that goes! He has toy tools and loves to help daddy fix things. He is always looking for his sisters "Horky" and "Asia" as he calls them, he says "Horky doing" or "Asia doing" and goes to find them. He tells his dog "Mon Nownie" meaning come on Brownie. He loves digging in the dirt and bringing bugs to show to me. He loves going to church to see his friends in the nursery. He is all boy! He's mommy's boy and I love it. I totally spoil him and am not ashamed. We love you Graham, we couldn't imagine life without you, you make our family complete!

Kortnie's Birthday Pictures

2009-06-15T19:16:00.000-07:00

I couldn't get the little slide show to post, so I'll just put up these pictures from Kortnie's Birthday weekend.

Opening presents from Stasia and Graham

Getting her ear's pierced

Trying to light the candle's in the wind

Opening presents at the birthday party

Kortnie's 5th Birthday Extravaganza Weekend

2009-06-15T15:47:00.000-07:00

Our darling middle child, our youngest daughter, our baby girl, turned 5 on June 5, 2009. Her Birthday was on a Friday. Brian and I both worked all day Friday, but when we picked the kids up from their babysitters house we asked Korky where or what she would like to have for dinner. She picked McDonalds, so we took the 3 kids out to dinner at McD's. They had Happy Meals and for dessert ice cream cones. Afterwards we came home and let Kortnie open the presents that she got from her sister Anastasia and her brother Graham, she also had gotten a few cards in the mail from Gma and Gpa Hess, Great Gma and Great Gpa Hess, and her bank, so she opened those too. Saturday morning I took her to the hair salon here in Snowflake to get her ears pierced. She picked out tiny gold heart earrings, she was such a big girl, climbed right up in the chair and sat still, for her first ear at least. Then she howled like we were trying to kill her! After that first ear, it took us a good 25 minutes to get the 2nd one done. My Korky is a drama queen! I am sure the salon people never want to see us in there again. Finnally, I just had to hold her down to get the 2nd ear done, and let me tell you, she is a strong little thing, my muscles were sore from holding her still! After both ears were done, she calmed right down and hugged the ear piercing lady as well everyone else in the shop! After the ear piercing we had Kortnie's party! We had it at the local park up the street from our house, she invited her friends from church, friends from school and some family too. We had a picnic party, she asked me to make ham sandwiches, chips, watermelon and strawberries for picnic lunch. We had some lawn games like horseshoes, bowling, jump rope, and hula hoops as well as the playground equipment to play on. She had butterfly and flower cupcake cakes, they were so cute! She got tons of presents from her friends, purses, makeup, Barbie stuff, bug catching things, a giftcard to Walmart from Gma and Gpa Hess and as a "family type" gift a trampoline from Mommy and Daddy! On Sunday we went to church and the Primary (Sunday School) kids sang the Happy Birthday song to her, and she got a picture of the LDS temple here in Snowflake, and a coupon to get a candy from the Bishop. I can't believe our Korky is 5! Enjoy the slide show of pictures, isn't our girl beautiful? Happy 5th Birthday Korky, we love you, you light up our lives!

Chimichangas

2009-06-02T07:32:00.000-07:00

So, I've been cruising the food blogs lately, and found a great recipie that I just had to try. And the greatest thing about it was that I had all of the ingredients in my kitchen already. The recipie was on a blog called http://whitetrashmomma.blogspot.com/ and was for chicken chimichangas! Our family loves chimi's and I make a version with hamburger, refried beans and cheese, but had never attempted chicken. So I made it, they were yummy and we'll be making them again. Pretty easy for the filling too....so here's the recipie.... Chicken Chimi's 3 chicken breasts 2 tsp season salt 1 tsp garlic powder 1 tsp onion powder 1 package taco seasoning 1 10.5 oz can cream of chicken soup 1 8oz package cream cheese 8 oz shredded cheddar cheese (I used Colby instead since that is what I had) 1 package of X-large tortillas oil for frying Put chicken breasts in large pot, cover with water, add season salt, onion and garlic powders, boil untill chicken is cooked through. Drain water, shred chicken, add soup, cream cheese, shredded cheese and taco seasoning, mix untill blended well. Spoon chicken mixture onto tortillas, wrap up tightly and secure with toothpicks. Heat oil in large pot, then fry chimi's (usually 1 at a time) untill golden brown. Set on tray lined with paper towels. **I was still waiting for Brian to get home so I put a bit of shredded cheese on top of finished chimis and put the tray in the oven at 200 to keep warm....we served these with chips and salsa, and watermelon. Sour Cream on top of chimi's. The recipie made about 5 good sized chimi's and our family of 5 ate all of them (Anastasia ate a whole chimi!), we were all full, but it didn't leave leftovers, so next time I'll double the recipie I think. The filling was so yummy and actually kind of reminded me of the filling inside of a chicken quesadilla at Taco Bell.

Catching Crawdads at Silver Creek

2009-06-01T14:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterday after church we had a quick lunch of sandwiches and soup, then we headed out to Silver Creek to do some looking around. We ended up catching crawdads, digging up some mint plants, and hiking around. It was a fun time, a lazy Sunday afternoon. We enjoyed being out as a family and since it was a little overcast and rainy there wasn't anyone else out at the creek. I think we ended up with 5 crawdads in our bucket, Brian and Kortnie brought them home and put them in their fishtanks. We also hiked upstream and found some wildflowers and plenty of other things to look at, we also found a patch of peppermint so we dug up a few and brought them home, so I can try to grow them in a pot. On the way back from the creek, all 3 kids and I rode in the back of the pickup. They thought that was great fun! It is day's like yesterday that I am reminded of how truly blessed I am to have such great, fun kids and a sweet husband! Enjoy the pictures of my pretty babies!

Graham's Flowers

2009-05-29T08:21:00.000-07:00

This is the one my mominlaw got me

Graham smelling the pretty flowers

I said awhile back that I was going to update the blog with things we've been up too......

A few weeks ago Graham and I started our flower pots outside in the front of our house. I recieved a pretty flower from my mominlaw for Mother's Day, so we planted that one and also went to good old Walmart and bought a few more to put in our pots. They sure are pretty and make me smile to see them when I drive up. Graham loves to smell them and help me water them. Right now we have 4 pots with flowering plants in them, then we have 6 pots we planted seeds in. They are all starting to sprout and we are anixously awaiting the blooms! Our rose bush is also in full bloom! We pulled weeds in the front yard yesterday, we filled 6 bags full, and still have some more to go. Today I am going to buy weed killer spray and use that now that I have the majority of big weeds pulled. I wish I had more time to be out in the yard, but between work and kids I don't get out there as much as I'd like too. My little Graham~Cracker loves being outside, he loves to help me pull the weeds, water the flowers and clean up the yard. He spends most of his time out in the backyard, it is fenced in, and I usually just leave the back door open for him to go in and out all day long. He's a sweet boy and I am glad to have him and his unique personality. I wonder if he'll grow up to do an outside type job. Enjoy the pictures of his flowers.

Anastasia's Graduation

2009-05-28T18:35:00.000-07:00

On stage getting ready for the program to start

On stage singing

Getting her diploma from her teacher Mrs Slade

At home taking pics in front of our rose bush

Anastasia graduated from Kindergarten on May 22, 2009. She is so cute, she loves school and was sad that it was going to be her last day. The teachers had made some cute graduation caps for the kids to wear. The kids sang a few songs, did the chicken dance and recieved their diplomas, it took a long time because there were so many kids. Stasia really loved kindergarten and her teacher, she says she misses school and it's only been a week. She is excited to go to 1st grade next year, so far we know she'll be in the same class as our neighbor and good friend Zoie, and her friend Jacob (who is also her kindergarten teacher's son). I am so glad that Anastasia loves school so much and we can't wait for next year, when both girls will be in the same school! Way to go Stasia, we love you and are so proud of you!

Korky's Graduation

2009-05-28T14:21:00.000-07:00

Calyssa, Erin and Kortnie

Kortnie getting her certificate from Miss Mandie

Kortnie on the bridge

The whole class singing, Kortnie is the one who isn't looking forward, on the right side with pink shorts.

Kortnie graduated from Headstart on May 21, 2009. She has gone to Headstart for the past 2 years, it is a pre-school run by NACOG (Northern Arizona Council of Governments). It a great program and she really loved it. They teach them basic rules for getting along in a classroom, hygiene, and proper eating habits. Stuff like, proper way to wash your hands, toothbrushing, sharing, recognizing and writing ABC's, eating fruits and veggies, fire safety, (they took a field trip to the fire station this year)....all kinds of things. At her "graduation", they called it a Bridging Ceremony, they sang a song while standing on the bridge, then they were given their certificates, the teacher stood on one side of the bridge and called their names, they walked over the bridge and got their certificates. They had little t-shirts made up with the name of their school Snowflake Headstart, the logo of headstart and then "Little Lobos" which is our town's mascot. Too cute, the parent committee made them some graduation hats to wear too. After the ceremony was over we all ate pizza, salad and fruit cocktail for lunch with chocolate milk. It was short and sweet, just the way I like it! I cried a little to know my baby girl is going to kindergarten next year. Kortnie cried alot saying she misses her friend who died and doesn't get to go to kindergarten next year, she also cried saying she'll miss Miss Mandie her teacher. She still wakes up everyday and asks if she goes to school today. I am glad she loves school so much, and hope she enjoys kindgergarten just as much as she loved Headstart.

Korky's Creatures

2009-05-18T14:31:00.000-07:00

Horny Toad

Horny toad in flower pot

Horny toad on Kortnie's shoulder

Kortnie cuddling the baby bunny

Baby Bunny in bottom of bucket

My middle kid, Kortnie, loves animals. She is interested in bugs, spiders, snakes, lizards, frogs, fish, sharks, dogs, cats, dinosarus, any type of animal pretty much. Recently Brian caught a baby bunny in the backyard. Brian was out chopping wood, he threw one of his logs and accidentaly hit a baby bunny. He figured he'd catch that bunny and show it to the kids, while he went to get a bucket, the dog found the bunny and caught it for Brian. So, the bunny came in the house and everyone held it and exclaimed how cute it was, so, we decieded to keep it, my reasoning was that now we've all held it, the mama bunny won't want it back because it stinks like a human. We had that bunny for a few days, we fed it carrots, broccoli and lettuce. It liked the broccolli the best. One morning Brian went to check on the bunny and it was having a seizure, by the time we got home that afternoon the poor bunny had passed away. Kortnie was heartbroken! You'd have thought we learned our lesson about wild animals after that bunny died. But, NO! Last Wednesday Brian was off work, he and Korky decieded to go fishing at Silver Creek, I said sure, go fishing, just have her back in time for school at noon. Well, they went out to the creek and soon figured out there weren't any fish yet, they haven't started stocking yet this season. So, instead they found some bugs, some snakes, even a turtle. What did they come home with? A HORNY TOAD! I don't think I've ever seen such a thing, Kortnie loves it. It's kind of freaky looking, it reminds me of an iguana/frog. Kortnie has been keeping it in one of those big ice cream buckets. We looked online and found out it likes to eat ants, so she's been feeding ants to it. She put rocks, dirt and some weeds in the bucket, the horny toad burries itself in the rocks and dirt to sleep. It's made itself at home. Kortnie thinks this thing likes the sun, so in the mornings she takes it outside to sit on the sidewalk to sit in the sun. One morning she had that thing sitting in the sun and she was standing up in front of it, directing it in a song. She also thinks that this thing likes to sit in my flower pots, so she sits it in the pots I have on the front porch. I took some pictures. One of these days I am going to have her and Brian take it back to Silver Creek, but for now she's taken it to Headstart for show and tell, Anastasia's kindergarten class, her babysitters house and her friends houses. She'd take it everywhere if I let her. I love my girl, she's so compassionate and loving and such a good little lover of all living things!

On a side note, Kortnie had a little friend/classmate die about a week ago. It was a tragic death, and she was hit pretty hard by it. (I won't go into details, but lets say it's pretty awful, Kortnie was only told that her friend had an accident and died, not any of the terrible details) I think this horny toad has really helped her get through some of her sadness, she tells me that her friend is in Heaven with bunny (and a few other family members that she'll name off). She tells me that she can still talk to her friend and she knows that her friend and bunny can look down on her from Heaven. It's been a week now since she found out about her friend and she's doing really well, she still mentions her friend in her prayers and talks about her a few times a day, but she seems pretty positive.

**Also, I'd like add that it is pretty darn funny to hear my 4 year old say the word "horny" LOL

Because I care about this..........

2009-05-15T08:16:00.000-07:00

Because I care about this, I am posting it here, if you agree please go sign the petition, if you don't then ignore it! I am also going to be forwarding this out of my email and posting a note about it on Facebook, so if you get 2 or 3 times, Sorry! Please read this and sign the petition. Proposed Mastectomy Law Change(written by a surgeon);I'll never forget the look in my patients eyes when I had to tell them they had to go home with the drains, new exercises and no breast. I remember begging the doctors to keep these women in the hospital longer, only to hear that they would, but their hands were tied by the insurance companies.So there I sat with my patient giving them the instructions they needed to take care of themselves, knowing full well they didn't grasp half of what I was saying, because the glazed, hopeless, frightened look spoke louder than the quiet 'Thank you' they muttered.A mastectomy is when a woman's breast is removed in order to remove cancerous breast cells/tissue. If you know anyone who has had a mastectomy, you may know that there is a lot of discomfort and pain afterwards. Insurance companies are trying to make mastectomies an outpatient procedure. Let's give women the chance to recover properly in the hospital for 2 days after surgery.This Mastectomy Bill is in Congress now. It takes 2 seconds to do this and is very important. Please take the time and do it really quick! The Breast Cancer Hospitalization Bill is important legislation for all women.Please send this to everyone in your address book. If there was ever a time when our voices and choices should be heard, this is on e of those times. If you're receiving this, it's because I think you will take the 30 seconds to go to vote on this issue and send it on to others you know who will do the same.There's a bill called the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act which will require insurance companies to cover a minimum 48-hour hospital stay for patients undergoing a mastectomy. It's about eliminating the 'drive-through mastectomy' where women are forced to go home just a few hours after surgery, against the wishes of their doctor, still groggy from anesthesia and sometimes with drainage tubes still attached.Lifetime Television has put this bill on their web page with a petition drive to show your support.. Last year over half the House signed on. PLEASE! Sign the petition by clicking on the web site below. You need not give more than your name and zip code number..http://www.mylifetime.com/community/my-lifetime-commitment/breast-cancer/petition/breast-cancer-petitionThis takes about 2 seconds. PLEASE PASS THIS ON to 20 friends.

Baseball Season!

2009-05-14T12:27:00.000-07:00

Stasia up to bat!

She was playing pitcher here!

Anastasia is playing T-ball again this Spring, she is on the Ironbirds! This is her 2nd season and she is doing AWESOME! She is getting better at catching the ball and understanding the rules of the game, she does well at pitcher and 1st base. The other day she was practicing at her friends place and she even hit a couple of pitches! Next year we'll put her on a pitching machine tealm. Also next year, Kortnie will be able to play her first season of T-ball. Graham is also getting into the sprit of ball season. He has learned the word "Baseball" and loves cheering for his sister. We have a tee and plastic bat system in our backyard, he loves playing ball with his sisters and Stasia loves showing Graham and Kortnie the ins and outs of the game! Gotta love sports! It teaches all kinds of things, hand~eye coordination, teamwork, sharing, and gets you excercise and out of the house! Not to mention the fun snow cones from the snack bar! Oh yeah, and I forgot, Stasia loves sliding into home plate! I'll have to try and get a picture of that too! No games next week though, they are on hiatus for Graduation week.

Mother's Day

2009-05-14T10:25:00.000-07:00

Stasia singing at the luau Stasia in line for the limbo at the luau Stasia and Wyatt at the luau, cute couple? I think so, do you think I could arrange a marriage between these two? I am going to try and update my blog with some of the things we've been up to. First I'll start with Mother's Day. First of all, the Thursday before Mother's Day Anastasia's kindergarten put on a Mother's Day Luau. Apparently it's a tradition at the school. It was just for Anastasia and I. We arrived and Stasia got dressed in her grass skirt (made out of green construction paper), then she had a homemade lei and bracelet to wear. She also had a homemade lei for me to wear. She picked a spot on the grass and spread out a blanket for me to sit on. We sat by her friends Zoie and Wyatt and their moms Cindy and Heidi. We go to church with these families so I know their mom's and it made it fun to be able to sit with people I already know. The kids did a hula dance and sang a song called Hawaiian Rainbow. Then they got in line for a limbo contest, I thought it would be chaos, but actually the kids stayed in formation pretty good. Stasia only made it two or three rounds, then came to join me untill they had a winner. After the limbo contest some real Hawaiian hula dancers treated us to a performance, then the kids did another song. At the end the kids served us cake and punch. Yummy! It was alot of fun and such a neat thing to do! Afterwards we continued our "date night" and went over to Sonic Drive In for dinner! We brought ice cream sundaes home for the rest of the family too. On Mother's Day Sunday Brian and the kids got up and went to get me breakfast...Donuts from Basha's. I was able to get up and shower and shave my legs while they were gone to the store, let me tell you, being able to shower without any interuptions is so nice! We ate donuts and afterwards I started getting things ready for dinner after church. We went to church, the children sang a song during Sacrament meeting, I cried of course. There were talks by children about mom's, and a mother/son who are friends of ours sang a duet together. It was a sweet~enjoyable meeting! After Sacrament meeting we went to teach our Primary class, the kids all were in good form and we didn't have too many problems with squirmy or crying kids, which is a feat with 7 or 8 3&4 year olds! Instead of a lesson we had the kids make Mother's Day cards for their moms. After church we came home and our company had already arrived they were waiting outside for us! We had invited some of Brian's family over for dinner. We had his mom, 2 nephews, and his brother Mark over. We made kabobs on the grill, I had pre-cut and pre-marinaded everything, so we let the kids make up their kabobs and I made up a bunch for everyone else, then Brian and Mark grilled them for us, we also had corn on the cob, pasta salad and fresh veggies with ranch. After dinner Brian and Mark got up on the roof and hooked up my swamp cooler while the kids played with the dog and ran around the back yard. Brian's mom helped me clean up dinner. I had made a pound cake to make Strawberry Shortcake for dessert, but Brian's mom forgot to bring whip cream and we were too full from yummy dinner to eat dessert anyways. Brian gave me a sweet card, the girls gave me pictures and cards they had made up. They had stuff they had made at school, church and here at home, they even had drawn something for Graham to give me! My favorite was a bouquet of "flowers" that Kortnie had made, she cut out and colored differnet shapes and taped them to drinking straws. Very cute, very imaginative. (did I spell that right?) Brian's mom brought me a Lily plant and a planter in the shape of a teacup. We gave kitchen herb garden kits to Brian's mom, Grandma and SisInLaw Erin. (I also bought one for myself) I haven't planted the herb garden kit yet, I'll have to do it soon and blog about if it works or not. So, that was Mother's Day, it was nice and relaxing and enjoyable. Hope all you other mom's had a great Mother's Day too! I think just this one post is all I'll have time for today, but I'll be trying to catch up some other stuff in the next couple of days. Stay tuned!

So, I guess I'll blog now........

2009-05-06T10:18:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since I last put anything down on here, so I thought I'd drop in and say Hey! Things are good and busy around here. The school year is coming to a close, Kortnie will be graduating from Headstart on May 21st. We've gone and registered her for kindergarten at Higland Primary's open house night, and then she also went on a field trip to kindergarten with her school. Brian took the day off and went on the field trip with her, they got to go into Stasia's classrooom and do "move around the room" time with them. I guess it's when the kids break up into groups and spend a few minutes at each of the centers in the classroom. Kortnie seemed to enjoy herself and have a good time and is getting so excited to go to Stasia's school this fall. We have an appointment Monday afternoon to do Kindergarten screening, I think they just ask them some questions and see what they know already so it helps the teachers get kids in the right classes. The only thing Korky isn't looking forward too is the 3 shots she has to get this summer before school starts. Anastasia is doing well and has really started reading and sounding out words, she is proud of herself and I am proud of her too. I love reading, but find it hard to teach Stasia how to read, but finnally we have found our niche and she is really picking it up now. Stasia is also playing t-ball again this year, she is getting better at catching the ball and understanding the concept of the game, I think I'll put her on a pitching machine team next year. Graham is doing excellent, he has lots of words that he uses, he understands all kinds of things and can do quite a few things to help around the house. I love this age where the kid actually wants to help do chores! He likes to take out the trash, scoop dog pooop in the backyard, take his folded laundry to his room, dishes, dust and clean windows, and help pick up toys, and feed the dog. The weather is getting nice and he loves being outside. Usually I keep the back door open so he can come in and out of the backyard whenever he wants, but if for some reason I don't have the back door open he just goes out through the doggy door. A few weeks back he became an escape artist. I was watching a show on TV, saw him go out the doggy door and thought no big deal, he can't get into any trouble out there. After awhile I thought it's pretty quiet, so I went to check on him, both he and the dog were gone! I found him ACROSS THE STREET at our friends house. So I brought him home, and put a padlock on the gate since now he knew how to work that. Then I went to the bathroom and told Stasia to watch him, next thing I know she is calling out "Graham where are you?" So I come down and now he's gotten out of the RV gate and went around to another neighbors back yard! So, when Brian got home I had him secure the RV gate and now we have padlocks on the other fence gates. Man, I guess boys will be boys right! The last bit of exciting news is that we are going to have Brian's brother Jason and his wife, along with another of Brian's brothers moving into our house in Phoenix, that is such a blessing to us. The house has been empty for a long time and we weren't having any luck getting it rented, we were lucky that not too much damage was done by vandals although we did have a few minor things happen to it. Now we'll have people we know and trust living there! Mother's Day is coming up, we are having Brian's mom and grandparents over for dinner, as well as 2 of his nephews and 1 brother. We are going to make kabobs and strawberry shortcake. I am hoping for good weather! I asked Brian for either a screen door or a pressure cooker for Mother's Day, let's see if I get either of those! Happy Mother's Day to all the mom's out there, and to all the future mom's! I love all of you ladies, my family, friends, and neighbors, Happy Mom's day!

Dinner Ideas

2009-04-17T10:32:00.000-07:00

My friend had a great idea to post dinner ideas, like her I am always interested in making something new. So she tagged everyone who reads her blog to put in one of their favorite dinner recipes. I will tag everyone who reads my blog to do the same. So here's mine.... this is fun for me to make with the kids, I let them make up their own kabobs then we grill them. Of course you can add or take out some ingredients, just put together what you like or what you can afford. And for those of you who don't have kids yet, this would be a fun thing to make when you have friends over for a BBQ also. Kabobs 1 package Kielbasa 1 package hot dogs 1 package uncooked shrimp 2 chicken breasts 1 pound london broil (or whatever red meat you find on sale, I'll buy a couple London Broils when they are on sale for cheap and use them for beef jerky, kabobs, stew meat and fajitas) 3 zuchinni cherry tomatoes 2 yellow squash 1/2 red onion (can be any onion I like red for the taste and color) 1 bunch green onions 1 can pineapple chunks your favorite marinade Soak your wooden skewers in water overnight or at least for about 5 hours. Cut everything into 1 inch pieces. Marinate shrimp, chicken breasts, and red meat. Sprinkle veggies with a little olive or vegetable oil and salt&pepper. Drain pineapple chunks. Set everything out on the table or counter, show the kids how to skewer the meat and veggies, then let them make their own, encourage them to make patterns or colorful kabobs. Then place them on the grill and cook turning frequently untill they are cooked through. Serve with rice, pasta salad, or a loaf of french bread. We make these probably once a week in the summertime, the kids love to make their own kabobs, and maybe it sounds funny to grill pineapple, but it is so yummy! I've heard grilled peaches are good too, maybe this summer we'll try them too. Okay, so again, I tag everyone who reads this to post one of their favorite dinner recipes. Hope someone tries the kabobs and has fun with them.

Happy Easter!

2009-04-12T18:51:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter everyone! We decieded to kind of have a low key Easter around here. Friday afternoon the kids and I made some cupcakes, then after dinner we colored eggs. Graham was funny, of course this is his 2nd Easter, so he got pretty into coloring eggs,he had fun putting them down in the cups of color, then grabbing them out again, he'd say "ooooh" then laugh, then SQUISH the eggs in his hand, we'd have to hurry and get them away from him, I think he totally squished about 4 of them. Too cute, he's all boy for sure! Then today (Easter Sunday) we've just hung around here at home. This morning we woke up to Easter baskets and an egg hunt in the living room. We ate donuts for breakfast and Easter candy too of course. Then we went to church. After church we came home and had a nice little Easter Ham dinner, Kortnie and Graham took long naps, I read some of my book for awhile and Brian and Anastasia played outside with the her new sidewalk chalk. We've talked with the girls and our Sunbeam's class about the ressurection of Jesus Christ and the real reason for Easter today, we are grateful today to have the Gospel in our lives and to have the knowledge that we have an Eternal Family.

Our trip

2009-04-01T13:08:00.001-07:00

My what a whirlwind! It was fun, we left early last Monday morning and arrived in Salt Lake City around 5pm Salt Lake time. The kids did pretty good on the trip, we made it there in about 10 hours and 30 minutes. The weather was pretty good for the drive a little snowy and wet the closer we got to Salt Lake. We met up with my parents who drove up from Elko Nevada to spend some time with us. We went out to Olive Garden...my favorite...so yummy! Then we relaxed at the indoor pool and hot tub at the hotel. Tuesday morning after breakfast we had planned on the zoo, but it was cold, windy and wet so we opted for the Museum of Ancient History at Thanksgiving Point. It was really cool. It's the biggest dinosaur museum in North America. It had tons of hands on things for the kids to do and it also has a 3-D movie theater, so we got tickets that included a 3-D movie, we saw the Wild Ocean one, it was neat, I've never been to a 3-D movie before, it felt like you could reach out and touch the fish and such. In fact, Graham and Kortnie kept trying to touch them. The big dinosaur skeletons were neat to look at and also to see where they had been found. There was this huge turtle one that was about as big as a bedroom, and it has been found in South Dakota. There was an erosion table filled with sand and water that the kids could play at, there was a sandbox thing with a bone burried in it that the kids could use tools to uncover, and all kinds of things they could touch and feel. A great place for kids and adults! It wasn't too awful expensie either, adults $15 and kids $12, Graham was free. For that price you can go all day to the museum, and do the movie too. I think it was reasonable. In the gift shop we found some chocolate covered bugs and salt and vinegar crickets that we had to buy and give to Brian's oldest brother for his birthday. After the museum we went to dinner and the mall, then swimming again. Wednesday morning we got up early and headed to Spokane, we hit all kinds of weather during that drive, wind, light snow, heavy snow, blowing snow, but it was interstate the whole way and we made it in about 11 hours. We even saw the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile along the way at a gas station in Deer Lodge Montana. We got to Spokane before the rest of the AZ family since they were flying in late that night. So, we got to take Mike (Brian's youngest brother the one getting married) and Clacie out to dinner and then of course more swimming because we had to take advantage of that indoor pool! Thursday morning the whole family was together, about 18 of us, we went over to Cour D' Alene Idaho to walk the lakefront and eat these huge ice cream sundae's called Gooey's. After that our family got together with Clacie's family at a buffett reastaurant and had a big pre-wedding dinner together. Thursday night Brian and his brothers went out to go bowling while my sister in law and I took all the kids swimming. Friday was the wedding and also Brandon's birthday. So in the morning we took Brandon out to eat at IHOP, the whole big family of 18 again, he opened his presents and we sang to him, he even ate one of those salt and vinegar crickets, GROSS! Then the wedding, it was a Temple wedding, so beautiful and sweet! Of course I cried because I was so happy and I cry at these things! Between the wedding and reception we had a few hours so we went back to the hotel, ate Subway and Birthday cake, the guys all went to a sportsman's warehouse and us girls stayed home with the kids and took naps. The reception was fun, they had dancing and I have to say my girls are the cutest, they loved dancing and jumped up on stage with the other cousins and had a good old time! Anastasia really has rhythm! Saturday morning we left late to start the journey home, the weather was okay on Saturday and we made it to Brigham City Utah, about an hour north of Salt Lake, we woke up late again Sunday morning to a white out pretty bad snow, blowing snow, yuck. But we left anyways and the snow let up once we got past Spanish Fork. But of course then we had blowing dust which isn't fun either. We made it home about 9pm Sunday night. We were glad to be home and so tired. I had Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off from work, I've got the laundry done and have things back to normal around here. Tonight (Friday) we have the reception for Mike and Clacie over in St John's, AZ so after tonight our family wedding festivities will be over and we'll be able to start planning Easter. Our Spring Break was good clean fun and I'm glad it's over! I'll try and get some pictures put up of our trip by Monday at the latest!

ABC Long List

2009-03-31T11:12:00.000-07:00

I got tagged to do this so here goes! ABC- Long list! A - Available: Nope. - Age: 30 - Annoyance: Stupid people - Animal: penguin B - Beer: No - Birthday:July 11 - Best Friend: sisters and moms - Body Part on opposite sex: smile, eyes - Best feeling in the world: snuggling up with Brian and/or the kids - Blind or Deaf: neither. - Best weather: Spring or Summer blue sky in the 80's or a rainy day cuddled up at home with the kids and soup - Been in Love: Yes - Been on stage?: basic stuff with school plays, choir concerts etc... - Believe in Magic: the spirit of magic - Believe in Santa: sure C - Candy: chocolate, most recently I ate some chocolate covered cinnamon bears, they were awesome! - Color: I like all colors - Chocolate/Vanilla: Chocolate! - Chinese/Mexican Food: Mexican, but I like good Chinese too - Cake or pie: both, at the same time! LOL - Cheese: Oh yeah! D - Day or Night: Day - Dancing in the rain: yes E - Eyes: Hazel - Everyone's got: to be loved - Ever failed a class?: surprisingly no. F - First thoughts waking up: where are my glasses - Food: Love it, (too much probably) G - Greatest Fear: something happening to Brian or my kids - Gum: dark blue extra - Get along with your parents? yes H - Hair Color: strawberry blonde - Height: 5'1" - Happy: sure am - Holiday: It's too hard to choose, I love Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, 4th of July - How do you want to die: Happy. I - Ice Cream: Mint Chocolate Chip, and Cookies and Cream...mixed together - Instrument: the radio LOL J - Jewelry: wedding ring always, earrings sometimes, mother's necklace sometimes - Job: raising the kids, taking care of the house and bills, and Walmart K - Kids: 2 girls and 1 boy - Kickboxing or karate: nah - Keep a journal?: no L - Love: my husband, children, family, & friends. - Laughed so hard you cried: yes M - Milk flavor: I don't like milk, I have a mild lactose intolerance - Movies: chick flicks, adventures/thrillers - Motion sickness: only when I'm pregnant. - McD’s or BK: neither -- if I have to chose it's BK, but usually I'd rather have Subway or Taco Bell. N - Number: 3 O - One wish: to be able to sell the Phoenix house P - Perfect Pizza: white pizza, chicken and garlic, Candian Bacon, Mushrooms and BlackOlives - Pepsi/Coke: Pepsi Q - Quail: Greasy R - Reason to cry: I cry over everything, happy stuff, sad stuff, overwhelming stuff - Reality T.V.: Does Food Network count? - Radio Station: all of them - Roll your tongue in a circle: Yes - Ring size: I don't know, whatever fits. S - Song: November Rain by Guns and Roses - Shoe size: 8 - Salad Dressing: Ranch - Sushi: i like California Rolls - Skinny dipped?: wouldn't you like to know - In the shower?: yes I like showers - Strawberries/Blueberries: strawberry T - Tattoos?: none - Time for bed: 10ish - Thunderstorms: Love them U - Unpredictable: sometimes V - Vacation spot(s): the beach W - Weakness: ice cream and books - Which one of your friends acts the most like you: none. - Who makes you laugh the most: Brian or Graham - Worst feeling: when the kids are sick or hurt real bad - Wanted to be a model: No Way! - Worst Weather?: crazy wind X - X-Rays: a few Y -Year it is now: 2009 -Yellow: I want my kitchen to be yellow Z - Zoo animal: Elephant LAST PERSON WHO.... 1. Slept in a bed beside you? Brian 2. You went to the mall with? The whole dang Silverhorn/Prentice side of the family while we were on vacation during Spring Break 3. You went to dinner with? Brian and the kids 4. You talked to on the phone? Linda 5. Made you laugh? Graham 6. Hugged you? Korky 7. Said they loved you? Brian 8. Held your hand? Graham 9. You spoke with? Kortnie 10. You cried over? Mike's wedding If you made it to the end -- you're good! So, I tag anyone else who wants to do this!

Wedding Day Details

2009-03-20T10:37:00.000-07:00

My friend did this on her blog and tagged everyone who reads it. I think these are fun so I decieded to do it too, and I'll tag everyone who wants to do this to do it! Wedding Day Details. Share... I love these things!!! Details, Details!!! 1) When was your wedding day? July 31, 2001 2) What day of the week was it? I am not sure 3) Did you get married in a church? A chapel in Las Vegas, it was called "Little Chapel of the Flowers". 4) How many in your wedding party? no wedding party 6) How many guests were invited to your wedding? We invited our anyone in our family who wanted and could afford to come, we had 13 guests. 7) How long did you wait to Tie The Knot after your proposal? We got engaged on Valentine's Day 2001, then married at the end of July, so 5 months. 8) Who did you hire as your photographer & videographer? It was part of the package deal at the chapel! 9) Did you have a DJ or a band? Nope 10) Did your father walk you down the aisle? Yes. 11) What color were the bridesmaid dresses & groomsmen vests? We didn't have bridesmaids/grooms. 12) Who was your Maid Of Honor/Best Man? We didn't have those either, but my Grandma signed the marrige license. 13) Did you have a Bridal Shower? Yes, after the wedding, and it was a couples thing, so both Brian and I went,it was put on by our friends. 14) What type of limo did you get? Again, the limo was part of the package from the chapel, it was a regular black one, it picked us up at the hotel before the wedding and dropped us off again afterwards. 15) Where did you go for your Bachelorette/Bachelor Party? Didn't have one, the night before our wedding Brian and I went out to eat and walked around Vegas, then the morning of our wedding our two families (the 13 guests) went out for a buffet breakfast. 16) What type of wedding gown/tux did you two wear? My dress had a full skirt and tank-top type straps, it was beaded, very pretty, I rented it and bought the veil, Brian wore a rented Black tux, with a purple vest. 17) How was the weather? Hot! We are talking full-on summer in the desert. 18) Where did you go on your Honeymoon? We flew to Portland, Oregon, rented a car and drove up and down the Oregon coast, we didn't have a plan, we just drove and stopped wherever we wanted to stop, we played on the beach and explored small coastal towns, we went to tour the Tillamook cheese factory 3 times, LOL. 19) What was your favorite part of your wedding day? It was awesome to be married to Brian and to have our families around us. 20) How long have you been married? 8 years this July. 21.What was your favorite part about planning the wedding? After we got engaged we were overwhelmed about planning a wedding, the we came across a book about eloping, it had tons of ideas for destination weddings and lots of websites, that's where we cam up for the idea of Vegas, and then we figured Brian had 2 weeks of vacation at the end of July/ beginning of August, so my dad went online with me and helped me buy the wedding package at the chapel and we got everyone set up to come to Vegas, the whole thing was exciting and fun! 22. What was your least favorite part of the planning? We had to wait 5 months to get to the actual date of the wedding.