tradition

Here is our traditional birthday pancakes, the big #3!!!

And I had to add this fun movie of Emree singing "I'm getting nuttin for Christmas"

Emree

Happy Birthday to my sweet sweet Emree!!

Emree will be 3 on Wed. she is such a joy! She keeps us all smiling and is just so loveable! She is very good at being shy and doesn't let many people see her very friendly self. If she does know you though and trusts you, you better watch out, she will maul you! She loves to say "I love you Mom" right at the most convenient times, like when I am about to get on her case about getting her shoes on cause we are late, or some other such time. She has a very contagious laugh and loves being a big sister. She HATES being thrown around or upside down and will scream if anyone tries to do it. She is so excited to come into Sunbeams next week and LOVES her teacher, Donna. She loves to sing and I will upload a video of her singing our Christmas song. She is very affectionate and is always giving hugs and kisses. We love you! Happy Birthday Jo-Jo!!

Baptism

So I need to get some pictures from Chas' mom of the baptism day, I don't have very many, but here they are. It was a great day, Brooklyn was so happy that everyone could come. Thank you! We are proud of you little Brookie!

Sledding Trip

Here are some pictures of the sledding trip out to Andie's Prairie, the kids were plum tuckered out by the end of the day! We LOVE living where there is snow!

I love this picture of Avery, she looks like she is doing the model walk! with the facial expression and all.

Such a cute one of Riley too!

Snow forts are the best!

These guys absolutely love everything to do with snow, they had a great time thanks DAD!

Even Emree had a good time, until Dad made her ride down with Uncle Jared, apparently he is very scary and she screamed the whole way down! You gotta know Emree, she takes a long time to warm up to anybody and its only on her own terms there is know forcing anything with this girl. If she doesn't like it you definitely hear about it!

Beckett

Each kid has his/her own endearing things that they do that I LOVE! Beckett is no exception to this. He is such a snuggly little guy. When I am feeding him or he is hungry or tired he loves to bury his head in my shoulder and play with my hair. I LOVE it, it is so cute. It's like he can't get close enough to me, which is a wonderful feeling! He loves to lay in bed with me and snuggle right up to me and fall asleep which is so nice. I can get him to sleep a couple more hours past 5:30 that way. There is just something about snuggling up with your little ones that makes you feel like everything is right and makes you realize what a special calling being a mother is!

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

We have had a great Christmas, even though we have not had any family around we have enjoyed spending time with our own little family and some friends in our ward. We feel blessed to live in a place where people are so friendly and looking out for us. I am grateful for the adopted grandparents and people we feel are family here. We have had a crazy, busy and wonderful week.
Last saturday was Brooklyn's baptism, we are so proud of her and her decision to be baptized!! We were so grateful that so much family was able to come. We appreciate Jared & his kids, Vovo, Kayla & Thomas, Janae, Ezra & Lindsey for making the effort to come up, down and over for this special day! We love you!! That night we went out to the Living Nativity here in town and got to see a real live camel!! It was cool!! Ezra and Lindsey and Kayla, Thomas and Janae all left that night. We were sad to see Janae leave since she has been here since August. We loved having her here and are sad she is gone.
Sunday we had a wonderful day at church, I love Christmas sunday and the spirit I feel there. We hung out that day, Chas, Jared and Dixie went to scope out a sledding spot for Monday, while I took a much needed nap. We got to visit with them all day and just relaxed for a bit. I did miss Gina though and visiting with her.
Monday, Chas worked half the day and Dixie drove to the airport to fly home. Chas and Jared took the kids sledding out at Andie's Prairie and had and awesome time! The kids came home with all kinds of stories to tell. I got some more Christmas shopping done and had a little quiet time with just Beckett.
Jared and the kids left Tuesday morning and for the first time in 4 months it was only our family here for dinner. Honestly it was a bit weird! We are getting used to just being us again, our house seems not so small anymore.
Chas worked most of the week then took off about 2 on Thursday. We went over the Long's for Christmas Eve dinner and had such a good time there. Brady loves playing the Wii and we had some real good laughs over watching him and Chas try out the hula hoop contest, talk about hilarious!! We got home late and got the kids in bed, Emree was so excited she couldn't stop chatting. Finally they all fell asleep and so now it was Santa's time to come!
We had a wonderful Christmas day, opened presents and just hung out with each other. The Long's came over for Christmas breakfast and we went back over to their house last night for Christmas dinner. We sure appreciate them having us over. This is the first year they have not been able to be with their kids for Christmas, so we are filling in. It has been nice for both of us. We stayed most of the night again playing the Wii and other games. What a fun night!
I love how relaxing it has been just staying home and not going anywhere. We are going swimming this afternoon and the kids are so excited.
I have really been thinking about the new year and the many things I would like to do better and try and become the person I want to be. I really would like to keep a better journal, and for whatever reason it's so much easier to do on here than actually write it down, so even if it's boring to anyone who reads, I am going to try and keep a better journal of things. Here's to new goals!!! Good luck!

Christmas Letter 2009

As I reflect on this past year I feel so blessed. We have had a wonderful year and accomplished a lot! We are all healthy and well and acknowledge our Heavenly Father's hand in our lives. So here is our year in review.

Jan: Enjoyed playing in the snow and anxiously awaiting Beckett to come. Chas started studying like mad for his PE (professional engineering )test in April. Had a great trip up to Spokane to visit Aaron and Marissa.

Feb: Beckett born on the 25, 4 kids really seems like a lot! He is a happy boy, but rarely takes aanything more than a 15 min catnap twice a day!

March: More and more studying for Chas and lots of adjusting to 4 kids for me. We loved having a lot of family come down for Beckett's blessing which was so nice!

April: Drove down to Sacramento for Chas' test. We got to see Jared and Gina, Steve and Lisa and took a couple days in the Redwoods and at the ocean, so much fun!!

May: Brady turned 5! We have been here for 3 years. Did our traditional Memorial Day campout with the Huntsmans, and had a great time! Brady and Chas had fun at the Father son campout!

June: Mother Daughter campout, it will be nice this next year to really just take the girls! without a nursing baby! Planted our garden, getting ready for summer.

July: Our house projects are un-ending! This month we (Chas) built a food storage room and put up a new garage door, now we can actually get in the garage from the outside, novelty! Went 4 wheeling up to Mormon Basin, so fun. Went to CO to visit with Chas' family and had a wonderful time! Drove up to Canada with Kayla and Thomas.

August: The kids and I stayed in Canada for 3 weeks, Chas came and met us on the third week and we had a family reunion. We had a blast! Janae came to live with us until Christmas, working and saving money for school. She is so much fun to have around!

Sept: Kids started school, can't believe Brady is in Kindergarten!! He is reading already and loves going to school. Brooklyn is in 2nd grade and can't wait to be 8 this year. Tried to recover from being gone for so long.

Oct:Halloween is always fun, but always cold! I was in charge of the party at the church so that kept me busy! We had Little Red Riding Hood, the Big Bad Wolf, and a little Old Lady for Halloween . Beckett was sick and so did not dress up.

Nov: We had Thanksgiving in Utah and were able to have it at Uncle Don's house as we were all in Utah for Kayla's wedding. We had a great time visiting with friends and family.

Dec: On the 10th we celebrated Brooklyn's 8th birthday, and also on the 10th we got Chas' PE license in the mail. It was a great day! We are so proud of Chas and all his hard work in getting his license, it was a long time coming. On the 19 Brooklyn got baptized, we are so proud of her too. We are grateful that Dixie, Ezra & Lindsey, Kayla & Thomas, Janae and Jared and his kids were able to come take part in her special day. We appreciate them for making the effort. Our house is now empty and it is just the 6 of us again and honestly it feels a little weird. We will miss having Janae live with us and will have to get used to doing stuff on our own again.

We know our Savior lives and strive to be more like him. We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!

The big 8!

Well 8 years ago today we started our little family, and I can't believe it has been that long! Brooklyn is 8 today and loves all the attention a birthday brings! Chas and I took her out for lunch and I don't think she stopped smiling the whole time, it's so nice to be able to have that special one on one time with the kids.

Some things about Brooklyn

- she has a very kind heart

- there is no gray area with her its right or its wrong

- she loves kittens and horses

- she loves pretending and has quite the imagination

- she still plays "dress up" all the time, only now its with church dresses and not princess dresses

- if you can't find her she is hiding somewhere with a good book reading away, she is an awesome reader, her favorite has been Amelia Bedelia, she laughs out loud! It's fun to watch her read.

- she is learning to play the piano

and the most exciting... She is getting baptized on the 19th of Dec. We are so proud of her decision to choose the right and follow the Savior. We LOVE you Brooklyn!!

Little minds know so much

When we were down in Utah we were able to go and see the Joseph Smith movie at Temple Square, it was so good. During the movie Emree and I had this conversation:
Me: Emree do you know who that is?
E: Nope
M: Joseph Smith
E: Incredulously, "Like the one in my nursery book?!"
M: Yep
E: Mom then he goes into the forest and he sees Jesus Christ.
M: Yep you are right
Then after the first vision is portrayed she says, " See Mom I told you he saw Jesus Christ!"
Ahh the faith of a child. And she is learning something we are teaching her, at least what the nursery leaders are teaching. Their little minds soak up so much more than we think, gives me hope and is a little frightening at the same time.
I truly can't believe everything that the early saints went through especially the prophet. The older kids thought it was kind of scary because they showed the mob tar and feathering Joseph, which was awful! How thankful I am for the perserverance and faith in sticking to the truth no matter what came upon them. What power and faith they had, if only I can have a portion of that is my goal!

Quilt

Ok so here is my reason for not blogging anything in November, this took up any free second I had and a lot I didn't! But I loved the way it turned out! I almost kept it!! j/k but now I really want to make one for us! Congratulations Kayla! hope you like it.

Beckett crawling and curls

We have had fun experimenting with the girls hair and I LOVE Brooklyn's in curlers. I think it turns out so cute, Emree's is a little short, she ends up looking like Shirley Temple, which of course is not bad, but she is not so fond of sleeping in them. Here is Chas and the younger two, this is even before church, I guess you take what you can get! Any sleep anytime, I am wondering why I am not sleeping, but taking the picture? hmmm???

And finally here is Beckett learning to crawl. I really can't believe that he is crawling already! Emree didn't crawl until she was 10 months old, I thought I had some more time before her started this. He is progressing much faster than I though, but her really has to keep up with the other 3, he is getting too big too fast, Iam not ready for this. Now he is already pulling himself up on things and will push things around and walk behind, crazy! What happened to my little baby boy?

Halloween

We had a fun Halloween with Litle Red Riding Hood, the Big Bad Wolf and the old Granny. Here is little red riding hood being scared from the big bad wolf, and ol' granny is just looking cute as ever! Our little woodsman was sick and so is M.I.A

Here is Brady and Jarom at their kindergarten parade, they are the best of friends.

We had like 7 pumpkins carved and out on our front porch, it was great! We had a fun party at the church and ate way too much candy, all in all we had a great Halloween, but greatly missed our 4th little tike hanging around.

good excuse

Well I really do have a good excuse for not blogging lately, our computer bit the dust and we are awaiting our new one to be delivered! Exciting! In the meantime we are without one, except when I get a few seconds at night to check my email on Chas' work one. Plus I have been super busy trying to finish my sisters quilt for her wedding, and if I do say so myself it is turning out pretty darn good, I will post pictures after the wedding of course and I get to give it to her! anyway until some future date, adios!

YEAH!

Today it is snowing, yeah!! We are all so excited! Just wish it would stay ! I love the snow!

Grateful

Today I am so grateful for Fall! The colors right now are just so beautiful! I was out and about early this morning and couldn't help but feeling so grateful for the beauty of the earth! There is nothing better than the sun shining through the reds, oranges and yellows of the fall trees. We are truly blessed to be able to enjoy the beauty of the earth.

More Canada pictures

The grandkids loved wrestling with Grandpa any chance they got, here is one time on the trampoline, Watch out Grandpa!! We LOVE playing sports together, here we are practicing our softball, playing 500 up. It was a lot of fun.

And here is cute Emree ready for church, I think her pigtails are so cute

Brady and Beynon also in their church duds, Beynon's smile is so funny!

Tacey and Beckett chillin' in the stroller while we were all painting the barn, they are awake, but it was super bright outside.

I had to put this picture of Kayla and Thomas in, one because it's so cute, 2 because it totally reminds me of Chas and I, as most of our dating months we were both working in the bush with my Dad, so most pictures of us are in our work clothes just like this one.

The kids dressed up Beckett, he looks like a pilot back in the day

Another one of Emree

Brookie and Brady lovin all the wide open spaces

random

Our last trip to the river or any water for the summer. My friend Danielle and I went up the Grande Ronde river for an afternoon of sun and water, the kids had a ball and we enjoyed watching them.
(Don't mind the bluriness on all of the proceeding pictures, some little finger touched the lens!!! ARGHH!!) And of course Chas' birthday. I love him and Brooklyn smiling at each other in this picture.

And another one....

And of course life would be dull without any home projects going on. For my birthday Chas took out the old nasty carpet that was in the hallway and added laminate floor to match the kitchen, it looks so nice and is sooo much easier to keep clean! Thanks Babe! and Lloyd too for all your help!

WE took a quick trip up to Spokane to take our little nephews home after spending the week with us, obviously we did a good job and wore them totally out!

Our FHE activity driving up to Indian Rock, here is Janers with the kids.

Of course another picture of Brady falling asleep in the most random positions!

I have been telling Chas for awhile that I wanted to take this old humongous fan and cupboards out from the middle of the kitchen. Finally after hitting my head one to many times trying to reach underneath it to hand food to the kids, Janae and I decided to just do it one day! Chas was a little surprised, but I had to take matters into my own hands!! It looks sooo much better, now I just have to decide what to do there instead!