My boys can swim!

Three cheers for my Babies Momma!
Due date is Aug 24th

Bloggers Block

I have been wanting to blog for awhile now but everytime I sit down to do a blog I can't think of one thing to blog about. So I log onto others blogs to see what others are blogging about and before i know it that eats up all my blogging time. So tonight I am going to just blog ... stream of consciousness style.


Things have been a little crazy on the work front lately. We have had a lot of changes and are getting ready for some more. Ryan has been great at handling most of the drama by himself. i.e. employees not getting along, residents driving managers crazy, millions of maintenance requests, you get the picture. I am busy in the background (in other words at home on my computer) working on the financial end of things. Where checks went, who has paid and who hasn't, making sure employees get paid the right wage for the right amount of hours, billing residents... that kind of fun stuff. I do go down to work on Wednesdays. That is my work day. My sister-in-law is a great babysitter and volunteered to watch Luke so my Wednesdays were more effective. I recently weaned him and so he stays at home all day long. She used to bring him down half way through the day so I could feed him. I sure miss the little guy on those days. It is hard to be away for so long, on the other hand it is sure nice to hang out with Ryan all day, kind of like a day-date. Reminds me of the old times.


Our latest drama is that someone hijacked an email account that we had together. I tried logging on last week and couldn't get on. They had changed our password. No, big deal you think, answer a couple of security questions and change your password back. Well we had set up this account over 5 years ago and couldn't remember the answer to the question. "Where did you meet your spouse?" We tried EVERYTHING! So we get locked out of the account and proceed to call Yahoo. Do you think that they were any help? They were so kind to give us 3 more guesses per call. Then we had to hang up and call again. After about 5 hours of calling, getting too frustrated to think and about 80 wrong answers we gave up. Stupid that there were NO other security questions that we could answer just that one. And yes we know where we met but there are a thousand ways to describe it... we even tried pre-existence! We suspect that this hacker somehow changed the answer as well. Anyhow we now hate yahoo and have a new email address. Unfortunately the scoundrel hacker got onto our ebay account linked to this email and tried to buy himself some european sports gear. I saw the $250.00 dollar debit in my checking and called Ryan to see what he had bought. It wasn't him so we got on the phone with paypal, our bank and anyone else who would talk to us. We did catch it in time and got our money back and changed our passwords and email accounts. We had everything going to that account so it was a long process to change that. I think we have cleaned up most of it. Moral of the story: change your passwords often, know your security questions, and watch out for internet crime!


Luke is doing great and continues to be the light of our lives. I just keep thinking that each stage is funner then the last. We were wondering last night which stage of kids would be our favorite... or would they all hold their wonder? He and Biscuit are becoming good friends. Luke's favorite place to crawl to is the back patio door so he can bang on the door until the dogs come up to the door. He laughs and bangs on the door. It drives Biscuit crazy and he eventually starts barking at Luke... which makes Luke laugh even harder.


My last thought for the evening is how grateful I am for the power of prayer in our lives. I had made it a new years resolution to make prayer more a part of my life. Several times in the past month I have found myself on my knees during the day pleading for guidance, peace and the spirit. Each and everytime I have seen the influence of the Lord in my life. I don't think I would have paid attention to they small blessings had I not made it a matter of prayer. I am grateful for a loving Father in Heaven who knows and loves each one of us.

Word Up

You may think that we have been so busy lately that we just haven't had time to update our blog. Not true. We have just been doing Mad Libs.


Not really.

what we have REALLY been up to...
We scoured the Internet to find some of our favorite recipes. These are Famous Buffalo Wings.


Luke and I have tackled some needed Snow Plowing.


Going through some old pictures...



And...

The last week of January we were able to take Luke out to the Cemetery to see the quads. He seemed to enjoy the snow. Last year the snow was so deep and we had no headstone so we weren't able to make it all the way there.


I wanted to take a second to say to our friends and family who happen to stop by the blog, thank you.

We have a member of our stake presidency who lost his daughter when she was 18 in a car accident and who I feel really understands true loss, and has given me strength by his example had me thinking about our own small experience. What we have learned? What do we still need to learn? And how important it is to have sympathy for others going through a difficult stretch of their own? What I think I take away from it isn't the pain of the loss, or in our case we feel the loss of some of the experiences that we would have gone through, but instead, a deeper compassion for those who are going through hard times of their own. The loss of family, job and financial troubles, sickness, worry for loved ones, all of these things are affecting those around us.

Our experience just happens to be one of those trials, and while we have used many shoulders to cry on, we need to offer the same to those going through difficult times of their own. The hard experience seem to be able to make us more aware of the feelings and emotions that come with difficult times. How do we express our gratitude for those who have helped us? How do we provide support to those who are in their own difficult experiences now? Hopefully by sharing our small testimony of gratitude for all blessings. Even blessings of loss. We are appreciative of all that has been done for us and want you to know our thoughts and prayers go out to all.

Thank Goodness for Blogging

During the month of December I didn't get a chance to do much blogging or checking up on all you guys out there. Finally a couple of days ago I decided to treat myself to some blog surfing. After reading about everyone's holiday fun, finding more old friend's blogs, and being inspired by people's posts, I decided that I am grateful for blogging. I loved reading people's posts and hearing their voice and remembering their personality through their style of blogging. I am not the most creative or most regular blogger but I hope that my voice comes out in our little posts (as well as Ryan's). So I guess this is my blog-imony, keep blogging everyone you do a great job!

On to our latest update...

I was sure once Christmas was over things were going to slow down... Boy, was I wrong! Luke and I got sick the week after and it feels like I am barely starting to catch up on things. I had grand notions of new years resolutions, a sparkling clean home, an organized primary, and new hobbies to be mastered. I actually just started my exercising resolution this week. Better never than late... or is it better late than never?

We have had Ryan's Uncle and Aunt up for a visit... it was great having them here... I don't know if they would say the same...

If you can't tell their truck is stuck with one tire in the ditch in front of our house. Luckily it wasn't too hard to pull out. It made me laugh because I have nightmares of doing the same thing!

Luke is doing well. He got over the cold/flu/earache and came out of it with two teeth! He is army crawling and enjoying being able to move around more. I have had to learn to watch what is in his immediate surroundings. He is now sturdy enough to bathe sitting up which is a lot more fun for him. Lucky for me he loves his baths. He is quickly becoming a professional splasher.


Biscuit and Luke are becoming friends fast. Or should I say that Biscuit is putting up with Luke more and more. He will sit longer and let Luke poke, prod and pull on him. I can't wait for the day when they can chase each other around and wear each other out!

Last but definitely not least, Congrats to Angie (my sister) and Ryan (her husband) on the birth of their daughter Madison this week. We are excited to have more cousins for Luke to play with. We will let Madison get a little bit older before we subject her to Luke!


That is about it for us. We are excited for the new year and all the wonderful things that are sure to happen this year!

Hey Griswold. Where do you think you're gonna put a tree that big?

No we didn't get a Christmas card sent out. If you are saying "Wait, I didn't get one last year either... Tough noogies...
Not really, we have yet to have ever sent any out.

We headed to California for the mandatory visit to my parental units. I kid, I kid Mom and Dad.

Luke was hamming it up while we packed
That thing in his mouth is a Giraffe. not a Melanosaurus. which is a dinosaur that lived during the Triassic Period. It was a large plant eating dinosaur, growing up to 40 feet long. Surprised you didn't know that.

While there we spent a day showing Annalyn and Diedre one of our favorite, non-touristy, local Californian get aways. Balboa Island. Where we rode around on a 12 passenger bicycle. Don't let the name fool you. 12 passenger bike is code for 10 guests pedaled around by Ryan and Lee. This place could get popular so see it before the tourists ruin it.

Christmas day came and Luke was very happy to be surrounded by Christmas gifts as you can see...

That was until he saw mommy kissing Santa, thats when we snapped this gem.

(enlarge for full effect)

And to top it off we got home only to find the weather of Southern California had been replaced by a weeks worth of Idaho snow. Which in itself isnt so horrible, but this is my second friggin winter my mailbox has been BURIED in snow. Can you find the mailbox in this mess?

Hope you all had a great Christmas and are planning to have a Happy New Years. Come visit, and help me shovel.

Holiday Madness

I don't know how the holidays get so crazy so fast. I pretty much had things under control and then Thanksgiving hit and there are now about a million things I need to get done and not enough time to get them done.... at least that is how it feels. One of the things on my list has been updating our blog. It has been so long that we had to get guest bloggers to fill the void! (Thanks Callie and Jessie!)

Let me back up and say we had a fun filled Thanksgiving. We went to the Bensons in Utah this year. We had 10 of the 11 siblings there and their spouses, kids, and some of the dogs. We all stayed with my parents which was a feat to fit that many people in one house. To the Benson kids it took us back to the days of growing up with two bedrooms, one bathroom and ten kids. I am sure it was a long weekend for the in-laws who never had to wait in such a long line to get a shower.

One of the highlights of the weekend was the Turkey Trot. Since all of us have competed in some sport or other through high school (some college) we tend to miss the glory days, which leads to us finding other competitive (I use that term very loosely) outlets. This year it was the Orem Turkey Trot. It was a 4 mile race on Thanksgiving morning. Here is the gang race ready.


I won't post what we looked like at the end... well I shouldn't say that for all of us. Some were more in shape than others... I was one of the others. Tamy, my youngest sister, even ran the mile race for kids. She did good, only stopping once to cry and tell Deb her stomach hurt. We convinced her to keep going and then she sprinted to the finish. Gotta love it! All in all it was fun until the next day when I couldn't walk because I was SO sore. Luke cheered us on from his little cocoon of warmth.


As for Black Friday shopping, we tried to avoid the crowds but got a couple of good deals. Ryan got the shopvac he has always dreamed of.

We are now moving into Christmas. We started a tradition of going to Island Park and cutting our own Christmas tree. Last year Jacob was there to help find the perfect tree. This year we had a different helper.


Ok, so he wasn't much help cutting or loading the tree but he did make things a lot more fun. We searched for the perfect tree which is a lot harder than it sounds. We wandered off the beaten path so Ryan decided to forge his own trail.


After we found a good tree; Luke, Biscuit and I cheered Ryan on as he cut down the tree and loaded it up. We quickly posed as if we had done all the hard work.


Pictures of the decorated tree to follow... some other day. Other than trying to keep up with the holidays, I have been busy trying to teach Luke to eat solids. It is an exhausting venture for all involved. Here is Luke resting after one attempt, and yes, those are carrots in his nose.


After doing the winter wonderland Christmas last year, this year we are heading to sunny southern California. I can't say that I am not looking forward to the warmth and sunshine! If I can just make it there and get everything done it will be my own Christmas miracle!

Insane in the Brain

Who doesn't watch VH1's 100 best hip hop songs? Yeah that's right i watched all 100 songs and LOVED IT!
I realized I had been to the concert of musical genius number 34: Cypress Hill Insane in the Brain (Yes I am that cool) Maybe the concert was a little scary, moshing was big back then and there were a lot of people there, good thing Callie was there to keep people from being up in my grill.
For a full list of the top 100's go to the link below, it really ages you
other Favorites include:83,80,66,47,38,37,29,26,20,17,4,2. Unfortunately Beyonces If you like it then you shoulda puta ring on it, didnt make the cut, I was rooting for that one
and my all time fav 72 : JJ Fad Supersonic, can I just say awesome?