lake and zoo

This week we were able to go to Bartlett Lake with my family. We were only there a few days, where as the rest of my family was there for almost a whole week. But we still had fun the two days we were there. Byron tried wake boarding. He just kept trying and was starting to get the hang of it. I didn't have my camera with me sadly. When I get a copy of that pic from whoever took it, I will post it. The first time Landen saw Byron fall in the water, he got all scared. It was so cute. Neither of my kids liked the boat at first, but they warmed up to it eventually.
Evan, Cohwen, and Landen. They all loved playing together.
Sydney, Cohwen, and Landen.
Landen playing in the sand.
Sydney playing in the sand.
Landen throwing the toys into the water.
Sydney just chilling out.

We were able to go to the zoo today. If you had your frys card you could get in for free. So I took my kids, Roman and Byron's sisters Michelle and Kaylyn. Sherry and Hinkley also came. It was lots of fun. Towards the end we were hot, tired, and thirsty.(our water was already hot.)I can't believe how hot it is already outside. So not looking forward to the rest of summer.
Landen sitting on the horse.
Sydney sitting on the horse. Neither of them really wanted to sit on it, but we made them for picture sake.
Sherry and Hinkley.
Sydney pointing to the elephants. Which by the way I can't believe I didn't take a picture of the elephants. If you know me, you know that I really like elephants. Darn it!
Adorable little Roman just chillin out, enjoying the ride!
Kaylyn and Sydney.
Zebra's. They came right up to the fence line. Pretty neat to be so close to them.
Same with the giraffe's. They were really close. These animals were about the only one's that seemed alive. It was so hot, all of the other animals were sleeping in the shade.
The gang!
Sherry and Hinkley.
What a great day at the zoo! And best of all it was FREE!!!!! However, I don't think I will be going back until it cools down ALOT...

Pay it Forward

The first 3 people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

1 - I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
2 - What I create will be just for you
3 - It'll be done sometime this year.
4 - You have no clue what it's going to be.
5 - I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must re-post this on your blog and offer the same to the first 3 people who do the same. So the first 3 people to do so win a FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift by me! Oh, and be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it if you want to that is! :)

Birthday and Mothers Day

I am way late posting this, but last Saturday I turned the yucky 29 years old. I can't believe I am that old. Kinds sucks knowing I only have one more year to be in my twenties.
Sadly my birthday AND Mothers Day sucked pretty much.. They basically felt like any other day. Byron had to get up early on my birthday to go to Phoenix to help his brother with his eagle project. Then straight from that he had to go to work. He works all weekends now 12p.m - 11 p.m. Kinda sucks sometimes, especially when things are happening on the weekends. However, he does get Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday off. So that is really nice to have him home for three straight days. It has been quite an adjustment though. My routine is totally out of order and I have yet to get back into one.
OK, so back to my birthday. So Byron is at work, the kids are driving my crazy, and it's my birthday. kinda sucks. Oh well.
However, we got some new neighbors two months ago and she is awesome. We get together every weekend and take turns making dinner for each other and then watch a movie after our kids have gone to bed. Her husband, ironically, has the same work schedule as Byron, so we are both home alone at for a few hours at night. So she made dinner, lasagna by my request. It was delicious. Then we ate dessert and put the kids to bed and watched our movie. So that was at least fun.
Mothers Day, we wake up early and get ready for 8:00 am church, which sadly about 80% of the time we are late to. Right after church Byron leaves to go to work. Again, just a normal day. Luckily, the kids weren't too bad, and we just chilled and watched movies all day long.
Despite my birthday and mothers day feeling like any other day, Byron did get me the best present EVER!!!! At least I think it is some of you may not think so.

I love it. Yes, it does take up a little too much room in my kitchen, but i cleared out all of my cupboards(ok, actually not all of my cupboards) and just feel so much more organized. By doing so, I realized there were actually quite a few cans that are really close to expiring. I had better get busy and make meals using those ingredients. The middle area is empty because it is made for medium size cans. So I just need to adjust it to fit some of the smaller cans. Can't wait for it to be all the way full.

April Showers bring May Flowers

Earlier this month Byron's family came over for the day. It was perfect weather outside for kite's. Landen loved helping his Grandad and Daddy with the kite. Sydney just enjoyed the free reign of running around on the grass.





The Easter Bunny managed to find his way to our house.




Can you believe that you can have these two different kinds of weather conditions in April. From coats to swimming suits.

March Madness

This month has been eventful. On the 3rd we celebrated my Dad's birthday. All of us got together for dinner.

Then Byron's brothers and sisters came and stayed with us for four days during their spring break. It is always nice when they come, they clean all my weeds in the back yard, watch and play with my kids, and help me clean. Each night, one of them had to do the dishes. Yeah.

One weekend we went to the Men's Mall (aka Cabella's). I have never been there, so it was quite fun. It was really interesting to see all animals. Landen loved the fish the most.


Anthon and Ashleigh blessed Roman the first Sunday of this month. Then we all went to their house for some yummy sandwiches and fruit. This is a picture of all the grandkids my parents have. What a crazy bunch!


Landen is singing to a song on the play station. It was so cute. I got a video of some of it and you can actually hear him singing. When he noticed I was filming him, he would get embarrassed and stick his tongue out. So cute.


This is a quilt I made. It was only my second quilt. I even quilted it on my mother in law's quilting machine. I think it turned out pretty good. I am starting on a boy baby blanket now. I think I have found a new hobby.


This is my adorable little nephew Roman.


This is my other adorable little nephew Hinkley. I was able to watch him for four days. He is such a good little boy. He mainly just slept. NO, it did not make me baby hungry.


Landen loved holding Hinkley. He is such a good boy. He was always taking such good care of him. He would put his binky back in his mouth when it fell out, and put his blanket on him.


Sydney loves to talk on the phone.


I tried to put pony tails in Sydney's hair. She didn't like me doing it, but I finally managed to get them in. Poor thing hardly has any hair.


The last Sunday of this month, Sherry and McKay blessed Hinkley. Then we all got together at their house for a yummy dinner. Sadly we left before the homemade ice cream was done.

100th birthday, train, silliness, food storage

Last weekend we headed up to the mountains for my grandad's 100th birthday party celebration. He passed in 1991, so I really can't remember much about him sadly. We decided to drive our car up there instead of the truck to save on gas, but we will never do that again. Landen threw up twice, and Sydney threw up once. Not fun!!! It was great to see all of my extended family and to see a slide show of the aunt and uncles in their younger years.
This is my mom and dad and my Aunt Shirlene making our favorite famous chicken noodles. My grandma made these alot and the love for them has luckily passed on to posterity.
My Dad is Branch President of the Cibique branch. This dress was made by a woman in the branch. My dad had one made for all of his granddaughters,which Halee was supposed to wear hers, Allison said she didn't get the memo. Sydney acutally loves it. She doesn't like to me to take it off.
Jason and his buddies, Landen and Evan.

This past Wednesday, we joined one of Byron's friends and his family to celebrate his birthday. He wanted to ride the light rail train to the restaurant where we were eating. So we rode from Dobson to somewhere in Phoenix. Where ever the Spaghetti House is, which was great food.
Sydney enjoying the ride. However, she was horrible on the way back. She didn't want to sit any more.
Landen loving the ride also. He kept saying, train like it!

My kids are so silly. Landen like to hide in my closets or cupboards. Sadly when he does, he takes everything out, creating a huge mess for me to have to clean. Here he took all the blankets and and extra pillows out so he could make himself a bed. Silly kids!!


Also, I have added a lot of links for food storage if anyone is interested. There is alot of good info to help you get started, what to buy, how much, etc. I have been trying to get mine together. It is a lot of work, and I have limited space for storage, but I manage to find places like in the kids closets, under the beds, in hall closets, etc... I found the following recommendations from recent prophets. By all means, I am not fully prepared myself, but I am trying. But these are good words that the prophets have spoken.

"Should the Lord decide at this time to cleanse the Church--and the need for that cleansing seems to be increasing--a famine in this land of one year's duration could wipe out a large percentage of slothful members, including some ward and stake officers. Yet we cannot say we have not been warned." (Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, p.265)

"Too often we bask in our comfortable complacency and rationalize that the ravages of war, economic disaster, famine, and earthquake cannot happen here. Those who believe this are either not acquainted with the revelations of the Lord, or they do not believe them. Those who smugly think these calamities will not happen, that they somehow will be set aside because of the righteousness of the Saints, are deceived and will rue the day they harbored such a delusion." (Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, p.265)

Roger K. Young said, "The Lord has warned and forewarned us against a day of great tribulation and given us counsel, through His servants, on how we can be prepared for these difficult times. Have we heeded His counsel? It is hard for me to understand why or how so many good and wonderful people can discount what the prophets have said, again, and again, and concerning what will suddenly happen to the world in the future. President Benson said: "The revelation to produce and store food may be as essential to our temporal welfare today as boarding the ark was to the people in the days of Noah." (CR October 1980, Ensign

With Obama as our new president and his ridiculous spending of our tax money that he thinks is going to help our economy, which is probably actually going to make it worse, I can't help but think that some of these hard days that the prophets have prophesied may be nearer than we think.

Stuff

Landen loves to play with cars and in his words he tells me, "look mama! train!"

Like I said earlier that my sister Sherry had her baby on Valentine's Day. He weighed 6.6 lbs and 21 in. long. I finally got to see the cutie pie on Sunday. He is so tiny and oh so cute. I just love newborns and their tiny little cry. So cute!

This is Roman, Hinkley's first cousin. Anthon and Ashleigh's baby. They are 6 weeks apart and look at the size difference. They just grow too fast. Plus Roman was born two pounds bigger. But they both are so dang cute. I love babies!!!

Look what I made! Homemade bread! Yum, Yum. I especially love to toast it and eat it with my homemade blackberry jam. MMM, delicious!! Plus, the healthy part, is that it is 100% whole wheat that I ground myself.(well with a wheat grinder) Also, I made cinnamon rolls, but forgot to take a picture of them. Those were yummy too. I found the recipe on someone's blog and the secret ingredient is vanilla pudding. Who would have thought. Huh. But they were really delicious too. It has taken all my will power to not eat the whole batch. I had to give half of them away or else I would be in trouble.

Valentines

If you know my husband, you know he's not much of a romantic. Luckily, my mom was in town and told me to tell Byron to take me to dinner and she would watch the kids. So he did. It was really nice to get away without the kids for a few hours.

Also, Sherry and McKay had their baby at 4:24 a.m. Valentine's Day. They were hoping he would be born on Friday the 13, cause they were married on Friday the 13th. But instead they got a Valentine's baby, or what McKay says, he was born on Arizona's birthday. My older brother Gerald was also born on Valentines Day. So now he has a nephew exactly 31 years younger than him. Hopefully she will post pics of him soon. He's a cutie!

Fun, Fun, Fun!!!

What a great Daddy he will be!!! Daddy with his babies. Chillin out!
Lovin those heels. She always is getting into my closet and getting my heels outs. She loves shoes.
Lots of fun at the park!!!