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New Year....New Email

2012-01-10T17:33:00.002-07:00

Dear Family and Friends-

After so many years of having the same Email addy, I have been forced, not willingly either, to change email addresses. Creighton University will no longer allow me to have an email from them. Apparently if you were EVER a staff member, which I was, you only get your Email address for a year and a half after you leave the school. So I have had to call numerous times to get them to open my email box temporarily to allow me to get as many email addys as I could. I am still missing some. If you find you have a family members addy that I do not have, could you please send that to me. I would greatly appreciate that. Anyway, now that I no longer have my creighton Email addy you may be asking well, then what is your new addy...well here it is, and hopefully I will not need to change it. I have kept it very similar, as I am getting old, and am not able to remember a lot of new addresses, and passwords and such. SO here you go....

amk96599@gmail.com

So from now on please erase the old "Creighton.edu" email, and add this one. If you have sent me any email in the last 5 days, chances are I have NOT gotten it, and if you wouldn't mind, please RESEND it. I would hate to loose touch with any of you. Thanks again for all your love and support.

Love

Amber

Please leave me an Email so I have your information. Thanks.

More Updates...

2011-11-22T11:21:00.001-07:00

Well, here we are, another week or so has FLOWN by. So here are some of the projects I have been working on to make our house more of a home. It has been nice to finally get some familiar faces up on the walls. I miss having my photos up, and pics of Christ and the temple. I'm not even half way done, but thought Id give you a peek into what Ive been doing to keep myself busy these last few days. Hope all of you are well, and hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. We love you all.

BEFORE

AFTER

Here is our front door. I always tell the kids when they go to friends homes, "remember your representing our family" , but that seemed too long of a statement to put on the door, so I did what my mother did right before we sold our last home in Draper, and that was put this saying on the back door. Hers was on a plaque, but I put ours right onto the door with the vinyl lettering I did. I think it turned out cute.

Here is our kitchen saying that is on the granite tiles next to our sink. I like it. It says "The fondest memories are made when gathered around the table" That is so true. I remember always talking to my parents and always having family dinners together. It was a time to catch up from the day, and sometimes it was time to plan fun family vacations. So I thought this would be fitting to be in our kitchen.

Here is our bedroom. Still in progress. I still need to make some throw pillows from the fabric I had left over from making the headboard. And then I am going to have a photo of myself, and then a photo of Will done to put on either side of the wall quote. I think this dresses up a rather plain wall. And there isn't too much on the wall for others to see. Its just something special for Will and I to see. Don't need company traipsing through our bedroom to look at photos on the wall now do we.

And now here is my big family wall as I call it. I wanted someplace to put our beautiful family portraits that my mother so lovingly took and then mounted for us. So I wanted a place for them that would be a focal point of a room, and be a conversation piece. And I think I accomplished that. Please don't mind the old queen size headboard and foot board leaning up against the wall. That is for another
re-purposing project I am going to do. I will be turning it into beautiful outdoor/ indoor seating. A really cool project that I will post later when I am finished with it. So without further adieu, here is my family wall.....

BEFORE

AFTER

And here is our Laundry room. It is sort of a hallway type laundry area, so I wanted to make it cute, since we have to look at it all the time. So here is a before and after. i thought the saying was fitting. "Laundry Today or Naked Tomorrow. My kids laugh every time they read it. Ive had a few "mom, you wouldn't make us go to school naked would you?" from a couple of them, and I always tell them lets not find out shall we. And so I find they are much more helpful in doing some of the laundry help.

And now I have started to put out some Christmas decorations. I was so happy when last year my parents brought me out some Christmas stuff from my Childhood. I have such fond memories of these things, and so I am way excited to share with my kids the memories of these items. My kids are already anxious to be moving the "presents" on the advent calender. And I find myself telling my kids the same things my mom told us. "Stop touching it" "Please don't play with it" "We need to wait till the right day to move the presents". Ahhhhh such fond and fun memories. But After Thanksgiving this week, I will be putting up a lot more of our Christmas stuff, and decorate more, and put up the tree and all that fun stuff. Then we will hook up the lights outside, and arrange them to blink to music. I will post a video of it, IF, and that's a big IF I can get it to work this year. Here's to fingers being crossed.

Oh, and that is NOT a real grandfather clock. (Although I would kill to get one...many fond memories and happy feelings attached to that type of a clock as well...my parents have one, and had it while we were growing up. Nothing, and I mean nothing sounds as nice as a chiming REAL grandfather clock.) It is a display case, that I found for $50 and I refinished it, and then took in the workings to be repaired. I love this town. So many old people just "dying" to get out of Yuma, and family selling all of their stuff for dirt cheap. Its my kind of town. AWESOME bargains to be had if you know where to look and if you are willing to put some love and time into it. Well gotta run for now. Hope you all have a marvelous Thanksgiving. We love you!!

Just a quick snapshot....

2011-11-09T22:57:00.000-07:00

Of my front room. It is slowly starting to take shape. I will post more photos of the house once I get further unpacked and decorated. So please be patient, but here is a little bit to start off with.... Oh and can I say I love the open space, and the large 20 inch tiles on the floor throughout. This house is about 3100 square feet, but it is an EXTREEMLY open floor plan. I LOVE IT!!! More to come so stay tuned....

Project ....New Bed

2011-11-09T22:51:00.000-07:00

Well, since we have moved, I decided that all the kids got new bed frames, why couldn't I. Then I realized I was just too freakin cheap, and didn't want to spend the kind of money you would on a King size headboard/foot board and all that. So I thought to myself, what could I do to dress up a king size mattress and box spring on the floor, but do it on the cheap. Well here is the start....
I started with this...

And ended up with this...

And now I'm just waiting for my wall quote to go above it. Once that gets here, I will post the final project. I also have enough material to make a bunch of different sized throw pillows for the bed to tie in some sort of a comforter. I did all of this for under $130.00, where as normally for this type of tufted headboard in King size your looking at a whole heck of a lot more. I'd say it turned out pretty well for my first stab at making something on this scale. The thing that took the most amount of time was covering the matching buttons, and tufting it. Other than this it was a breeze. Total time it took me...hmmm about 3 good solid hours. Not too shabby, not too shabby.

Photo Collage of our California Trip

2011-10-17T23:20:00.000-07:00

My two little 3 lb babies

Isaac at the LaBrea Tar pit Museum in Los Angeles next to a Saber Tooth Cat

Vanessa getting up close to a Polar Bear in the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History

All my loved ones in the Dino Hall

Me and my babies...they are getting so big.

These two were in HEAVEN here at the Museum

Sabrina and I's birthstone...Amethyst

This is called a Tsavorite Garnet. I'm having two of these stones added to my wedding ring. These gems are what emeralds only wish they could be. Beautiful deep green stones. Very rare as well.

This was in the spider pavilion. These orb spinning spiders were about 5 inches, and were free crawling all over the inside of this building you walked in. Gave me the willies. Speaking of Will he was too chicken and stayed out of the building. he he he

With cousins T and cousin R. Such awesome kids. They have grown up so fast. My kids loved playing with them. We will definitely be back.

My sweet cousin H and my Uncle P. Love em!

Sabrina, Aunt S, and Cousin H were laughing a LOT together. I absolutely LOVE family.

Ahhhh the entrance to our Favorite place

Nessie all decked out as the Devil that we all know her to be. he he he

Sabrina wanted to be Jack Sparrow. She was Grrrrr ing all night. So fun.

Isaac was glow in the dark stick man. His costume flashed. Was awesome.

His face had glow in the dark paint on it. Looked amazing, and was even cooler in the rides under the black lights.

Dad was Cesar, and found it to be nice and cool wearing a "dress" as he put it.

Then there is me and my Cleopatra costume. Had to match my sexy hubby.

Some of the most amazing hand carved pumpkins there at Disney.

Jack Sparrow Pumpkin

Captain Hook, Peter Pan, Wendy and the kids. Peter looks a little femme to me...anyone else feel the same way?

Kids at our special Lunch with the Princesses at Ariel's Grotto.

Our bread was a sourdough Star Fish

The antipasto tower

Belle

Sleeping Beauty

Cinderella

Notice the Birthday button. We called him King all day long. Was fun.

A very happy Birthday Boy (belated that is)

Snow White

The white shell was made out of pure white chocolate. Very Yummy stuff.

Sabrina taking a rest in Minnie's house

Isaac being super silly

Nessie the new pooch

Darn sword just wont come out

He's gonna pop a blood vessel soon.

Part of my decorating for the kids room. More to come on this later. But lets just say I'm super excited!!!

MOVING....AGAIN....SHEESH

2011-09-22T10:13:00.001-07:00

Can I just say I HATE MOVING!!!! Even if it is only 2 blocks away, and even if it is to a much larger home, I still HATE moving. Having to pack up all that you own, and decide what stays and what goes..sometimes to find out that a wrong choice was made and you really did need that item you threw out. Then there is the small repairs to get the house you were in ready for the new family. Boxes, oh my, don't even get me started on boxes and scissors and paper cuts. Its just a huge mess. Moving and I just don't get along. And it is times like this that I could have an ounce, just an ounce of this most amazing "packing gene" that my cool brother -in-law has. My sister is so lucky to have him, I'm sure it made their moves much simpler and much less painful than this is going to be. The bright side of all this...no one gets to see just what a klutz, and moving freak I really am. I am a procrastinator, when it comes to moving, and I think that is my problem. But this time, I have printed out lists of to do items, and hopefully this will go much smoother than before. So...here goes....

We will be moving into a much larger home. It has 4 bedrooms, three baths, a huge playroom, that could in the future be converted into two rooms with a jack and jill bathroom in the middle of it. (But that's getting way ahead of ourselves). It still has an in ground swimming pool, but this time (wink wink at mom) it has a separate security gate around it. There is a play house, a swing set/ jungle gym/sandbox, and a separate garage too far from the house or driveway ( from years ago when you could access it from a different street) that has since been converted into a "man cave" as they put it. The neighbors on either side of us are rarely home. So it should be really quiet and Peaceful. Compared to now, where we have blaring mexican music, and dogs howling, and fighting at all hours of the night. We will be living about four houses away from the school, so the kids will change schools, and we will walk together to and from school every morning and afternoon. Hopefully my poor little "chi weenie" dog Ginger will slim down some. She looks more like a stuffed sausage, than a "chi weenie". It should be a good move for all. Each child will get their own room, and we have chosen all their themes, and what we are going to be doing to their rooms. They are super excited. As am I. I think I may even be more excited. Here are their choices.

Sabrina: She wants a sea shell/ dolphin room. Something to show that she is still a little girl, yet growing into a lady. So we will be painting her room a light blue with a pearl finish to it, and then putting up a large "wall mural" on one wall with some beautiful dolphins on it. Then decorating with lots of sea shells, and some different dolphin figurines and such, and then in a "reading corner" put a swing hammock chair for her. Just to complete the tropical/ beach feel to it. She truly is growing up. Her next birthday will mark the END of her single digit age numbers. AAAHHHH where did the time go.

Vanessa: Now as most of you know she is my little monkey. She loves monkeys, and she climbs and plays like one too. So it shouldn't have been a big surprise when I asked her how she wanted me to decorate her room, and the answer was MONKEYS. So we will be painting her room a light beige color with a pearl finish to it (Its all the latest here for tween rooms, and beautiful walls), and put up some monkey and vine decals on the walls, and some sayings. Plus she wanted a swinging rope in her room. I told her not now, until we actually buy the place if we decide to, but for now, she too will get a swinging hammock chair, but it will be brown, and I will make/sew some coordinating money fabric pillows, and add some little vines on it to help her blend into her theme, and give her a reading nook as well. She is excited for that.

Isaac: Well he hasn't changed in 7 years. What do you think he said.....
wait for it.....
wait for it....
Yup you guessed it.....DINOSAURS. But I showed him different ways to decorate, fossils, pictures, and all of that, he turned them all down flat when I showed him the photo of the wall mural with the T-Rex looking as though he is breaking out of the wall. So we will not paint Isaac's room. We will just put up this vinyl wall mural, and then decorate and display some of his dinosaur toys and books. Not sure what little special thing I will do for him yet for his reading corner, but believe me, we are watching Jurassic park all three for inspiration, If you have an idea, Id love to hear it. Maybe a little canvas tent or something in the corner to hide away. Don't know yet.

And then, the front room, will no longer have a TV in it. It will be decorated richly with warm browns and leather, and dark cherry woods, and .........FOSSILS! Yup, Will and Isaac have been slowly collecting fossils and petrified wood, and cool ancient life stuff. I'm so grateful they have the same passion and love for a hobby. Its so nice to see the father son bond they have. So we will decorate to show off these pieces, and make the front room a visiting and family room, where TV is not the first priority. Talking, having fun and learning will be.

Anyway, we move Halloween weekend, and so I will take before and after pics, and post them as we go.  I am so excited to start this chapter in our home lives, and give the kids their own rooms. They are excited about the move as well. And this will allow us to expand our family in ways we have been thinking about for many years while Will was in school. So stay tunes for that as well. And NO I AM NOT PREGNANT...yet. So please whenever you are close, or would like to come sit in the warm sun, and swim in the pool as the cold creeps into your neck of the woods, please feel free to come stay at our home, and enjoy the fun that is Yuma, AZ.
So here is our new address and new information. Some is the same, some may be different. Oh, and I would like to update all my information as well, so could you please email me at the following email address only ( I can't get into my Hotmail account anymore, and am really ticked, so ONLY use this email, or I WONT get it) amk96599@Creighton.edu, your mailing information, phone numbers, updated email Addy's, and blog addresses, and such. I would greatly appreciate it.

Our Info:
The Weigt Family
1312 South 11th Avenue
Yuma, AZ. 85364
928-699-2504
amk96599@Creighton.edu     Amber's Email
wwk16384@Creighton.edu    Will's Email

Anyway, I have lots to do, and not a lot of time to do it. During the weekend we are moving, I also have to practice with the primary kids their Primary program, (I'm still the Primary music leader), Do the primary program, attend the ward Trunk or treat dinner, and treats, make treats for all my primary kids to thank them for a good job in their program, and we will be gone the 7th thru the 11th of October to be at Disneyland. What an October. I will need November to be thankful for all my blessings and to rest, before it picks up again with the Christmas holiday season. Wow, these next few months are BUSY!!!

Sabrina's Wall mural. It is vinyl, and can be removed, so we can change her decor when she wants. It will be custom printed to fit her one wall completely from top to bottom and side to side. She is way excited.

This is what we will be putting on Isaac's wall. It too is vinyl, and will work with any color walls, it is not a square mural, they are individual cut outs. It is just showing you how it looks on two different color surfaces. I thought it would be too scary for him, but Isaac wants this one. So dinosaurs it is.

And this is some of Nessie's monkeys. There is another scene for another wall that matches, and then a saying that will go over her bed that matches, but sans the crib, this is the color walls, and the vinyl stickers we will be putting in her room. Can I just say I LOVE vinyl art. Changes a room into a beautiful work of art, without permanent damage or changes to a room. Just amazing stuff.

I miss you all, and love reading about your families on your blogs. Keep up the awesome work as parents, mothers, fathers, and amazing family members. I am constantly amazed at the examples you are to me. Thank you. and Lots of Love!!

Were Moving....

2011-08-17T15:56:00.000-07:00

Jobs! No we are still going to stay in the same house, but we are changing companies. Most of you knew some of what was going on, but here is the basics.

1. We went back to school so that Will could have a job where he was able to vacation and take time off to be with us and the extended family.

2. We have been plagued by jealousy, and resentment by others from the moment Will was promoted three months after being a pharmacist to being a Pharmacy Manager.

3. Unethical practices and things asked of Will to do were getting to him, and making it difficult to feel good about things.

4. With the final straw of a HIPPA Violation done to us, (very serious..a $250,000 fine if we had decided to really be jerks and pursue it) we decided the best thing to do was to find another venue to put our hard work into.

So, we have now what Will likes to say "assimilated" (a term from Star Trek and the Borg) to Walgreens. We had signed the contract a few weeks ago, but didn't want to say anything till it was official. Yes we do have that rather large bonus to pay back, but lucky for us they saw how valued Will was in the community, and from the high remarks from a now fellow pharmacist was given a bonus to buy out his contract and allow us to move to Walgreens.

He is so excited to start working with people who are a little more mature, and a little less concerned about what others think of them, or what others are doing with their lives. He was excited about being told there was plenty of coverage for vacations and there would not be any problem taking them. In fact we already got a vacation planned and approved for the first week in January. He was also excited for the opportunity to not be a Pharmacy Manager anymore. He had enough of that, and didn't really like the 2 or 3am phone calls saying the alarms were going off at the store for one thing or another, and that he needed to come in. He also didn't like all the unethical things he was told to do when doing paperwork and such for the store to massage the District Supervisors numbers. So he said he would be grateful to just be a plain old pharmacist. He did say that maybe sometime in the future he would be a manager again, but he would really need to think about it and make sure that things were a lot more ethical.

So there you have it. We are moving to the Walgreen's side, and gonna stay there. We will also be able to move back to Utah in the future if we want to and if there is an opportunity to. There was no CVS in Utah or Idaho or some of the other areas closer to family.

We both feel good about the decision, and we are super happy about it, and are excited to leave all the hurt, and bad feelings, and jealousy, and gossip all behind us. So here's to a new and even brighter future.

P.S. Walgreen's Pharmacists don't have the bad reputation that CVS Pharmacists do. Apparently it is common knowledge that CVS hires some pretty shady characters. Also just something Will and I though was strange. Not one single Pharmacist here in Yuma that works for CVS is a US Citizen. They all are from outside of the country. I wonder what US citizens knew that we didn't about CVS and Yuma. Hmmmmm. Just something we found interesting.

Rabbits

2011-08-16T13:57:00.001-07:00

Well here we are with more animals. I feel like I have a freaking zoo around here, but luckily in about a month when the weather cools off we can move these guys outside where they belong. Then I only have to deal with them for about 3 months out of the year in my house when it gets too hot.

Will and I decided to raise rabbits to feed to our dogs. Their vet food is becoming outrageously priced, and it is on back order due to the shortage of farmers raising rabbits for livestock due to the declining economy. So we are looking at preparing to transition our dogs to a raw diet, which is better for them anyway, but getting started is the long hard part.

So we have this temporary indoor housing for them. It is a dog kennel with a divider in it for now. Then when we move the rabbits outside to their permanent home, we can use this for the dogs while we are out of the house. So nothing is going to waste. We double use everything around here.

So here we go raising rabbits for meat. The kids and Will want to save the pelts and make something with them, which is fine by me, as long as I don't have to pay 220$ for dog food every two to three weeks.

Plus the kids are way excited to learn more about rabbits, and to see babies and all that. We will see how cool it is once we have to kill the first one, but for now we keep telling them it is for dog food, and they know that. We will constantly keep reminding them about that fact. But these are young rabbits and ready to make lots of babies. So they will be around for a long while.

So here we go...."Ehhh, what's up doc!!!!"

The girls trying out the bunny cages to make sure they were OK.

ChiChi our Teacup Chiuauah checking out the future dinner. The rabbit is bigger than he is.

I'm so bad at this...

2011-08-14T18:35:00.001-07:00

I am so bad at this. I need to get going on blogging again. I will try to be much better now that the kids are back in school, and I have some moments to myself. I am just going to include a bunch of photos in this entry. A few of the high;lights are the last trip to Sea world for the summer, my awesome and amazing find of 40$ for two dressers, and two mirrors and two nightstands. The kids graduating from white belts to yellow belts in Karate. There is the kids first day of school, and some photos of our dogs looking hungrily at the new rabbits. Yes we got two rabbits (free - of course) so that we may breed them, and feed our one dog Kira a raw food diet. Her vet prescribed Rabbit and potato food is on back order due to a rabbit shortage, and so now we have to take things into our own hands. Guess it will be a good experience for the kids to learn a little farming on a very very small scale. Other than that, I am doing OK, and so are the kids. Oh yes, one funny this week was when we took Isaac out to dinner with the family for his Birthday, and we had steak. He looked at us after eating the first bite, and said "mmmm, this cow is ripe". Will and I about fell on the floor laughing. Anyway, enjoy the photos, and I will try to be better about blogging.

Day One Down...

2011-07-09T20:23:00.001-07:00

Well here I am using a few moments to update you all on day one, before I haul all the kids outside into the pool to exercise.

I think we did pretty good today. When I look at it I think we had a few too many carbs, but I will soon cut most of those down as well. For breakfast we had: 3 small pancakes. For Lunch we had a 2in slice from a 5 foot long hoagi sandwich, a small amount of corn chips, and some raw carrots and broccoli with ranch. I used salsa for my veggies only because since my gastric bypass surgery I get sicker than a dog when I eat Ranch dressing. Then for dinner we used a hot dog bun with some pulled pork in it, and 1/2 cup of frozen corn cooked. I also baked homemade choc chip cookies, and froze all of them but ten, this way each of us had two. I also packaged them in the freezer in groups of ten. Same reason..Two each when I do thaw them out.

Overall it was a good day. Our first day without candy..this one is pretty simple since we really don't eat much candy. First day with no soda..this one is HUGE since we were big soda drinkers. First day with no major processed foods. That's another big one since most of our food was prepared out of a box or can. And the first day of the rest of our lives.

Overall I say it was a success. Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers and well wishes. This is a huge issue with me and has been all my life. Unfortunately I passed it onto my children, and now I must undo the damage I have caused. I hope and pray this gets us to where we need to be, and will help us all to be happier and healthier.

Again, many thanks for all your thoughts and prayers. I love you all.

I hate myself, and It's gonna stop now!!

2011-07-08T16:09:00.000-07:00

I have been crying the last few hours as I have been contemplating on what to do. I am the worst mother ever. I love my kids, and want the best for them, but do I really? I say I do, but my actions say something totally different.

It started with my conversation with Sabrina this morning, it goes as follows...
Sabrina came to me with her head hung low and said "Mom, your gonna be so mad at me."
Me: "No I'm not mad at you why would you say something like that?"
Sabrina: "Mom, I weigh 181 pounds."
Me: "No you don't hon, I think you read it wrong, go do it again."
Sabrina: "OK mom, I'll be right back."
***2 min. pass***
Sabrina: "Mom, I was wrong, it's really 180.1 pounds."
Me: "OK honey, please go play for a little bit OK."
Sabrina: "OK mom"

I DIED a little bit today. I struggled with weight all my life, and now I put that disease upon my daughter as well. Then I decided to weigh all the kids. I couldn't believe it. I have to do something, and I have to do something so drastic for the whole family. I can't just do it for me, or Sabrina or any of us alone, we must do this as a family.

I closed my bedroom door, and prayed and thought about this very hard. I love my kids and my family. What would I do if I lost one of them to something I could control? I'm frustrated and sickened by this whole "Anthony case" that's in the news, but can I really control that? No I can't, but I can certainly control this. And so here I am. A broken mom, who feels like I have let down my entire family, and myself. I started to read up on different things to try and do, and it seems like I have started some sort of all of these things and we do well for about a day or three, but then we fall back into our old habits, and I give up. I can't do that anymore. It has to stop now, and it has to work this time.

I thought we were doing well, Sabrina and the kids only went up one size in clothing from last year. I was so proud of them, but then to see the scale results just made me sick to my stomach.

Will keeps pressing the idea of more kids. That's fine, and I'm all for that, but NOT until I can manage the ones I have now. I am letting them down as their mother. How am I to be a good mom, if I don't do anything, and just keep adding to the problem. So here is what I'm doing, and have done...

1. NO MORE SODA - Oh my goodness, we go through so much Diet soda it isn't funny. I know its Diet, and Will tells me its fine, and that Diet soda is fine, but how is it fine when that's all the kids and I and He want to drink. How is it fine when I crave the carbonation so badly that when I haven't had a cola in more than two days, I start dreaming and thinking about it till I get one. That's an addiction, and that has to stop. Reading the Word of Wisdom, doesn't state anything about soda or caffeine, but it DOES state that anything whether it be other types of food or beverage that has a hold on you is something you need to eliminate, and it is covered in the word of wisdom. So, as of today...no more soda.

2. NO MORE FAST FOOD - Here is another one. It's HOT here, and I'm not kidding. I use that as an excuse all the time that it's too hot to cook, so I go out and get something. I make so many excuses as to why I don't want to cook...I'm tired, or I'm sick, or its too hot, or I don't have all the ingredients. I look at our budget and just because we can afford fast food doesn't mean we should. So from not on my children have had their LAST happy meal, and I have had my LAST 2 taco meal from Jack in the box.

3. NO MORE PROCESSED FOODS - I looked in my cupboards, and too my surprise almost EVERYTHING came in a box or can. What am I feeding our bodies. Did Adam and Eve go to their hut, and look at which canned or boxed food they could prepare quickly? NO!! Did our pioneer ancestors look for can openers to open a can of ravioli for dinner? NO!! So neither shall I. Processed foods...out the door you go.

4. NO MORE SUGARS - Now I don't know the difference between simple sugars or complex sugars, but I'm sure I will. I will be using honey to cook with, and sweeten things. We will be eating fruit to get our sugars. No more ice cream bars, or cakes, or cookies, or anything of the like. We are here in a hot climate, so we need cold stuff to quench that. Well here we go... good old fashioned fruit sorbet, and such.

5. NO MORE CHIPS, COOKIES, FRIES, CRACKERS, or anything I didn't make myself with simple ingredients. All of this is fattening, and I need to do something drastic.

I will be baking a lot, and I mean a lot. I will be making my kids lunches for school, and writing a letter to my kids principal. The reason I say this, is that when I tried to put Sabrina on a diet before, I sent her a homemade lunch consisting of a salad with a cheese stick, and grapes, and a sugar free cookie, and the teacher looked at it, and told her she will be eating school lunch because there was not enough food in her lunch for her. So she went from a good for you lunch to eating an 800 calorie lunch. How are parents supposed to help their kids if the teachers are undermining us? After that I just paid for all their lunches, and didn't have to deal with it again. No more, I am taking back control of my kids lunches.

I want my kids to be happy and healthy. I want them to have many friends, and be able to participate in fun activities. But if they are fat and or dead, I can't do any of that. I know your saying to yourself, wow she's over reacting, and maybe I am, but I need to. Things need to change BEFORE its too late.

We will all be getting in the pool and doing water aerobics for an hour each night, and when the weather is too cold, we will be using the elliptical machine in our front room then and take turns. We will only allow two hours of TV per day. This one will be hard as it is SUPER HOT in the house, but we will have to learn to do other things. I will allow them to play the Wii Just Dance and Wii Just Dance 2 as long as they want and as often as they want. There will be no restrictions on that. If they want to dance for an hour, fine by me. Have you tried it...it's tough and you break a good sweat after about 20 min.

Anyway, I need to do all this not just for myself and for weight loss, but for my kids and their health and life. Here's to me, and my lofty goals, but I need to do this. I really do. If you have any good veggie recipes, or whole foods recipes, please let me know. Id love to have them and try them. But as for now, we are going back to basics, and eating the basics.

I will get my camera photos downloaded, and try to update some more on here with pics. But I needed to put all this in writing, and get it all out, before I lost my courage, and my determination. This way I can read it over and over again, and remember this feeling when I want to be lazy and just go through a drive through, or something. Thanks for listening, and letting me rant. I love you all, and miss you all. Can't wait to see family the end of this month. Ive missed you all.

Utah Trip

2011-05-21T14:19:00.000-07:00

Well, I am trying to plan out my kids summer, and I decided to take the kids to Utah. So we have sort of decided on Wed. the 20th thru Sunday the 24th. So I was thinking of going on a hike up to Timp. Caves. My kids have never been and it's been too long for me. So i know that Aunt Jan usually has everyone over for fireworks and Draper days, but maybe we can all do a hike or something in the morning of the 23rd, since the 24th is a Sunday. Just want to know who would like to get together. We don't haveto hike either. We could do the zoo. Or we could play at a park. Leave some ideas. I would love to see any or all of you. Also leave some ideas of what you would like to do. My kids don't get a chance to play with cousins, so this is a great opportunity. I love you and miss you all.

Sea World

2011-04-30T20:26:00.000-07:00

Happy Kids waiting for the animal show

This bird was at our feet during our lunch. It was sort of unnerving.

Shamu

Bad timing...all this water went all over me and my camera, we both were soaked..along with the kids and Will.

Us on our first ride ever on Journey to Atlantis..Super fun ride.

Love our faces..what a way to celebrate 10 years of marriage. Frightening..just frightening...he he he.

Absolutely LOVE these faces.

Sabrina is priceless as well.

10 Years Ago Today at 1:00pm....

2011-04-28T08:22:00.000-07:00

I married my best friend. It almost didn't happen on time, but we finally got out of that elevator and onto the fun part.

A word of warning to pass onto those of you who are yet to marry...Use the bathroom BEFORE you get into the elevator at the temple, or you may just have my luck, and have to go so badly your eyes are floating, and then the worst thing possible happens...the elevator gets stuck and your crammed into this tiny elevator with 8 people in between floors, and as you look across the crowded elevator at your soon to be spouse and smile as he tells you he loves you, and the only thing on your mind is "hurry and get this elevator working, I have to pee", instead of saying I love you too. Talk about awkward. Poor guy got a little scared when I didn't say it back to him.

So baby..here you go I LOVE YOU!!! And I wouldn't mind getting stuck in an elevator with you again...except this time I am prepared...I already went pee.

More...

2011-04-27T16:16:00.000-07:00

Well here we are, and Easter has been and gone, and I told you a little about our landscape adventures in the previous post. So here I will post a few more pics.

We had a good Easter. Will had to work, so we didn't have him with us at Church, but we had him for our Easter dinner, and that was fun. I forgot however to snap some photos of us in our Easter Cloths. SO I guess I will have to do it later. Anyway for now here are some more photos.

Here is the Sand we had dumped for the sandbox we made for the kids.

This is my wall I put together with the kids photos that my Mom took.

Here is half of the backyard. We still have a ways to go, but it looks so much better from the bomb that went off back here. We put in all the trees and plants and gravel and rock and everything.

The homemade peanut butter filled eggs I made for all of Will's employees for Easter.

All closed up and ready to deliver.

My flower arrangement I did for our Easter table.

The Easter bunny came to our House on Saturday this year..a much better way to do Easter and focus on Sunday on the true meaning of Easter. (Thanks to my sweet Cousin-in-law..her family has been doing this for years...I don't know why I didn't do it sooner..it's great..thanks Heidi..love ya)

Sabrina and her Egg find.

Nessie and her one Special Egg (the Easter Bunny left money in the one large "golden/Silver" egg for each child)

Isaac shaking his money egg.

Our Easter dessert. And it was yummy. Even the edible grass was good (tastes like ice-cream comes cut into strips)

I'm BACK BABY!!

2011-04-19T21:21:00.000-07:00

Well, I wonder how many people I actually have reading this thing since I h
ave basically dropped off the planet. It has been such a whirlwind this last month. I have had so many emotions and decisions and choices that I haven't really known one thing to blog about so I didn't blog about anything, and I should have at least said hi, and let you all know I'm OK. I need to keep this up much better if only to say hi. So I will try my darnedest to blog on here each week.

I guess I could start with my grandfathers funeral. I've had so many emotions over this one, that I still am having bouts of sadness. I know he is where he should be and wants to be, and is doing a marvelous work, but I cant stop feeling jipped somehow. I went along with this Pharmacy school stuff knowing that We would apply to the U of U only, and keep tying till we got in so that we could stay close to family, and so I could stay close to my Grandparents whom my children got to see and play with on a weekly basis. It was our tradition to go to some of the thrift stores on Saturdays and then swing by to visit Grandma and Grandpa. Those times I will always treasure. But when Will went to the Dean of Pharmacy and showed her his grades and asked what else he needed to do she politely told him, and they had a great conversation, all up until the end when she did the most stupidest thing ever and that was to make a snide comment about Mormon's, which then led him to tell her he was Mormon, and then she instantly became cold and distant and wouldn't answer anymore of his questions. After that he had a bad feeling about the U of U, and then a week later when a very dear friend of ours interviewed with that same person for a spot in the Pharmacy department was made fun of due to his being a Mormon, and then didn't get in, even though he had better grades (a 3.8gpa) and better PCAT scores and other items than his cousin who also applied to the U of U program who had fallen away from the LDS church and who happened to have a MUCH lower GPA and a lower PCAT score and NO VOLUNTEER work in the field at all, and his cousin got in..not even wait listed, just straight in. This to us stated that no matter what if we were to stay LDS we would definitely not be going to the U of U in the Pharmacy department. I was mortified, I wanted to stay in Utah, I didn't want to move away. SO I relented and we applied to other programs with the promise made to me that we would come back to Utah to practice after school was done. So I bid my time, and No offers were made from Utah. Not one!! I then reluctantly decided to go wherever my husband decided to go. I knew I was definitely never going to go to Alaska where he was offered a position with Fred Meyer. And a few of the other choices did not really seem to fit us or what we wanted. All the while I was missing out on time I wanted to spend with my Grandparents. All these years I could never get back. I have a great life now, please don't misunderstand me, but this is why I feel a little jipped. I never got back to Utah as often as I wanted to, and I never got to spend the time I wanted to with my Grandfather. My children didn't get to spend much time with him either. Luckily all of them remember him, and have fond memories of visiting them on a weekly basis. I am so thankful that I insisted on going and visiting once a week without fail. I grew to love and adore my Grandfather and my Grandmother much more than I ever had. I just wish I had more time now that I have the time and money to return to Utah. So to talk about my feelings about my Grandfather right now, are still very tender.

Then there is my parents. I love my parents to death, and look up to their examples. But I am really going to miss them. I know that we can email, and I know that we can video chat, but to think they are in a foreign land where the laws and rules are NOT like ours, and where they are outside of our "freedom" boundaries. I can't help but worry, and feel just a little fear. I know that Heavenly Father will watch out for them, and that they are helping to further the Lords work, but I still am human and have those fears. Funny how about 15 years ago I wouldn't have cared less, but now I care very deeply about what happens to them. How much time has changed me and how much I have grown up. I am going to miss being able to just pick up the phone and hear my mom on the other end and just chat about anything and everything. Or just call her up to ask her one of my "stupid and random" questions. Thank goodness for technology. I'm sure the next 18 months will fly by.

Then there is the decision that Will and I have made to have more children. Yes you read it correctly, more children. We both feel as though our family is not done, and after much prayer and fasting, and trips ( LONG 379 mile long trips) to the temple, we feel that we have more waiting, and will be richly blessed and even "happier than we are now, or ever could be" according to a confirmation, if we have more children. I will be having surgery to undo my sterilization that I had all those years ago before I had lost over 200lbs, and when I had many many health problems that would leave me childless, or even worse my family motherless. But now that those health issues have been resolved, and I have lost a significant amount of weight, I have been to the Dr's and have been cleared for babies again. Funny though that my OBGYN is in my ward. We live in a very SMALL town, and he is one of the best high risk Dr's there are here in Yuma and in Phoenix, and Tuscon....he comes recommended from far away. So that's great, and he comes recommended from many of my close friends here in the ward as well. So... sometime after July 2th we will start to try to expand our family, so look for more in that area as we know anything. SO that has taken a lot of my time and my feelings for that as well this month, and finally...
(as if that wasn't enough)

We spent a wonderful week with my parents and Wills parents. We decided as a small thank you for them supporting us through school we would treat them to Disneyland. So we took them, and had a marvelous time. I will post some pics soon, but I will post my most favorite photos of all of them right now so you can see just how much fun we had. I will post more about Disneyland later. Right now it is late and I am exhausted. We have been moving tons, and I mean tons...5 tons to be exact of rock all over our backyard, and 1.5 tons of sand into a sandbox we built for the kids. We are fixing up our backyard, and so I will post pics of that soon as well. Sheesh, so many pics to post and not enough time. So here you go, and I promise it wont be this long in between writings again.

I absolutely LOVE my mothers hair here!!!

I LOVE the smiles on these two faces. Made it worth it.

Funny Funny People, whom I love dearly.

My view of California adventures while we waited for the "World of Color" show to start.

My girls are TWEENS now...

2011-03-02T20:38:00.000-07:00

YIKES!!! My girls are getting older and so are their tastes in decor. They wanted a cool new bedroom, and since they had to share a room...still....till we buy our home in a few years, I wanted to make sure they loved their room. So they helped pick out this creation. I love it. It turned out better than I thought. And It still looks like a little girls room too.

This was missing the jewel at the top, and so I got it on the damaged at Target for 8$...Wooo Hooo

This is a very plush long fuzzy ink faux sheepskin rug...so fun! And a bean bag chair to read.

Two HAPPY girls

This is my new look...what ya think?

This is the girls hot new fun room....I love it!!!

Time for Science

2011-02-28T20:35:00.000-07:00

This Friday Will has yet another required Manager meeting in Scottsdale, and so we will all be going. Getting up at 4am and driving to get him there at the meeting at 8am. But the up side of this, is that I get to spend an entire day with the kids, and we are going to be doing something really cool, fun and educational. We are going to the Bodies:Exhibition. It is where they Plasticine people who have volunteered for this, and show you all the insides of the human body. All the kids are really looking forward to it. Here are a coupe of photos from the exhibit. Camera's are forbidden in the exhibit, and so I wont be posting any of us there, but I will write about it when we get back.

We are having a "Red Dinner"....What are you doing?

2011-02-12T22:07:00.000-07:00

This is the statement that my children have been telling everyone. And when I mean everyone, I'm not kidding. They told the Gas station attendant, the Restaurant waiter, the grocery store clerk, a few workers at Will's job. People looked at me crazy, and so I ended up having to tell everyone what a "ed Dinner" was, and then they all thought I was the coolest mom ever, and they wanted to do something similar for their family. I for one CAN NOT take credit for this idea. My mother is the one who came up with this so many years ago. When I was a little kid, my mother was the best, and she wanted to make some of these lesser holidays be fun as well. So for Valentines day for s long s I can remember, my mother would make what we kids fondly call our "Red Dinner". She would make everything she could Red, or at the very least pink. We could usually guarantee that we were going to eat spaghetti, or lasagna, or something of the such, along with red food colored corn, and salad dressing, and pink french bread. Then around our plate there would be lots of candy, and cute little gifts. It was something that I absolutely LOVED as a kid, and it made the holidays more special. I love my mom for that. So as a mother now myself, I wanted to do the same thing for my kids, and so I have....EVERY YEAR. For the last 8 years....also I did it for the first two years of my marriage with just Will and I. It is a fun and memorable tradition that I'm sure my kids will carry on to their kids as well.

Food Coloring...Red dye no.5....an awesome little tool to help make such huge memories.

So without further adieu, here are the photos. However, This year is very special. The kids get not one, but TWO red dinners. We invited over one of Vanessa's good friends, and then the next night we invited over Will's co-worker. SO I am posting tonight's dinner now, and then tomorrow I will post the dinner with his work buddy.

This is our Valentine Red Dinner

Each child got this. Except Isaac got a Dinosaur Puzzle NOT a jewlery set.

Chocolate covered Strawberry Marshmellows

Strawberry Soda, and a homemade Valentine Label

Making our own Pizza Creations

THe heart shaped Pizza Crusts I cut out

Making our Pizza's

MMMMM riht before the oven...notice the pepperonies I cut into heart shapes as well.

MMMMM Yummy pink Ranch dressing, pink apples, and our heart Pizza

This is our Jello Drink. It was jello, and whip cream with a strawberry heart cut out on top

Reflections of 2010

2010-12-30T10:47:00.000-07:00

Well, this year since I didn't get around to sending out Christmas Cards, I am writing our family reflections of 2010 here....

January –

Well, January was the month that we decided where we were going to live for the next few years. Will had interviewed at different chains, and decided to accept the offer from CVS. Well, he started out as the Staff Pharmacist there, and now is the Pharmacy Manager. What a great blessing in our lives, and proof that when you include the Savior in your family decisions, that He will never lead you astray. Proof that our Heavenly Father looks out for us, blesses us, and loves us deeply.

February-

February found us visiting with family. My parents came down to Omaha, NE. to visit us, and also to participate in Sabrina’s Baptism. We started a family tradition where Will baptizes the children, and Grandpa (my father) confirms them. What a great way to start our journey in this wonderful church. Two generations watching out for my little one’s eternal happiness. Another great blessing from the Lord, and how family is so very important to us.

March-

March was just bitter cold with three weeks of -7 and below temps. Made us grateful that we had warmer weather to look forward to in May. I also started to pack up our home in Nebraska in anticipation of our move to Yuma.

April –

April found us needing to rely on the Lord for comfort when Vanessa needed to have eye surgery to correct some over achieving eye muscles. She was such a trooper, and did so well. She survived the surgery, and her peepers are still as beautiful as ever. We also continued to pray and ask for help as Will was starting to complete his clinical rotations, and I was at home trying to pack, and then also taking on some extra shifts at work so that we would have enough money to move, and be settled in Arizona in a couple months. April was sort of a whirlwind.

May –

Oh how we will never forget May. April showers really did bring May flowers. Will graduated with his class, and we were very fortunate to be supported and visited by two sets of loving parents. We gave numerous thanks on numerous occasions to our Heavenly Father for allowing us to make it through school, and to make it through school as a family, and stronger than ever. (We saw a few families torn apart from the rigors of the Pharmacy Program) We spent a few memorable days with Will’s parents, and my parents. How blessed we truly were as I looked around us during the Hooding Ceremony the night before graduation where I saw our loved ones there to cheer on my best friend. How happy it made me to see him accomplish his goals. Heavenly Father truly played a large part in our lives in May.

June –

June found us tired after many nights of driving and traveling to our new home 1500 miles away from where we had been for the last 4 years of our lives. We truly miss our friends, and loved ones that were so close, but we have been able to visit my parents a few times, and it has been great. It was also fun to be in a place with palm trees and sunshine after so long with snow and ice. It felt like we were on vacation, and not in our new home. I still can’t believe this is home, and that we aren’t on some long extended vacation. How different our climate is. How amazing it is that our Heavenly Father made all of this and each climate and area is beautiful all on its own.

July –

July was a stressful month. Will had graduated from Pharmacy school, but he still hadn’t quite finished his journey. July found us fasting and praying extra on a weekly basis as we prepared for Will to take his National Board exams. He studied just as hard as he did when he was in school, and I reverted back to taking the kids away for long periods of time to allow Will the peace and quiet he needed to study. It was a tough few weeks, and made me realize just how much we did without daddy during school. It made me realize just how precious he is to our family, and how much we rely on him for strength and leadership. However, in the end Will passed both his boards with room to spare. How we immediately thanked our Heavenly Father for his help, and the relief we felt after all was said and done. Will also had to go to California and be there for a few days during the orientation and welcoming of all CVS Pharmacists in the region. We missed daddy a lot, but had lots of fun at home swimming in our pool to keep cool.

August-

August was a month of exciting news as we found out that the kids could attend the best school there is here in Yuma. They had been on the waiting list since January and finally got accepted into Desert View Academy. And I will tell you now, I am so thankful they got into this wonderful school. Not only do they get to dress up for Halloween, and they get to celebrate Christmas, but they get to talk about God, and talk about religion openly without any repercussions. I still get frosted when I think back to Sabrina getting in trouble for singing Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam when she was scared and in school in Nebraska. August was also the month that we thought we were going to melt. Even spending almost all day in the swimming pool trying to cool down, we still had to find a good air-conditioned place to hide. There a quite a few large and fun play places here. Even through the heat I was still so grateful to be able to be a Stay-At-Home mom for the first time, and truly be there to enjoy my kids. We spent lots of time playing in the pool together, walking the dogs, and finding our treasure….the Green Castle…a monstrously huge play castle for kids outside. I also got to travel and take the kids back to Utah to see my brother married in the temple to a great gal. It was nice to be in the temple, and be able to truly be surrounded by love and family and be able to thank my Heavenly Father for everything he has blessed us with. The kids got to play with their amazing cousins, and also got to renew their relationships with their aunts and uncles. It had been a long time, but once everyone saw each other it was like it had only been a few days. We got to ride the Razors with grandma and grandpa, and also got to ride in the ski boat for the first time too. It was fun to be able to share in making memories with family.

September –

Well September was sort of a quiet month…thank goodness. I was whirling about almost every month this year. It was nice to settle down and get into a rhythm. Isaac lost his first tooth and was so excited when the tooth fairy came. I on the other hand couldn’t stop crying and thanking my Heavenly Father on a daily basis for all the many blessings I had. I had a family who loves me, children who are such great kids, and a husband who loves us so much that he spent 8 long years sacrificing for us. How grateful I was to be able to go to the stores and be able to purchase much needed items, and not worry about if we will make it that month. It is such a nice feeling to know that your hard work is paying off …literally. I also am grateful for medical technology. September was the month that I had a PICC line put in, and received daily infusions of Iron. Gratefully I have been able to loose over 200lbs, but one of the drawbacks of that surgery was that they removed too much small intestine, so I am unable to absorb enough iron from my diet, and the pills were making me violently ill. As a result of not getting enough iron, I was always run down, and tired. Basically I was equivalent to a car running on fumes, and not finding gas to fill the tank. However after 3 months of infusions, I was able to have the PICC line removed, and feel much better, and am able to do things I haven't done in a couple years. (This loss of iron didn't happen overnight, it slowly happened over the last two years.) I am so grateful for people in the medical field who help to advance our vast knowledge of medicine. It made me realize just how complicated our bodies really are, and just how amazing our Heavenly Father is to create such a complex being.

October –

October was a family first, and boy was it AWESOME!!! We finally took our first family vacation after 9 years of marriage, and three kids. Part of the blessings we received with this job at CVS was the bonus Will got for committing to a two year agreement. We took our family to DISNEYLAND. We spent 4 days and 3 nights at Disneyland. We stayed in a hotel that was a little less than ½ a mile from the park entrance, and so every morning we would walk to the park, and every night we would walk home. The kids thought it was the greatest thing, and I found myself acting and feeling just like a little kid again. All the memories of my family when I was little going to Disney land crept back, and filled me with joy as I remembered my experiences, and seeing my children experience the same joy. How blessed we were to be able to make such fun family memories so soon out of school.

November –

November finally cooled down, and we enjoyed some 90 degree days, instead of the usual 120+ degree days. The pool was still being used, but not as much since it is not a heated pool, and the cooler temps cooled off the pool to a more chilling temp. Too bad it couldn’t do that in the middle of the heat. Oh well. We bought our new Mini Van this month, and found out all that we were missing. Not that we need all the bells and whistles that this new Van offers us, but they are very convenient and fun. Will and the kids call it our Bat mobile…as there are some cool gadgets and things. The automatic doors at the push of a button, and the windows in the back that roll down, and the capability to put the seats into the floor, which came in handy this month too as we bought a new Sofa and Love seat from a couple who was selling it, and we fit it completely in our van with kids and all. We thanked our Heavenly Father even more so as Will was promoted to Pharmacy Manager. He has stepped into that role, and has already received many customer compliments that have gone all the way up the ladder, and made the District Manager happy and satisfied that he had made the correct choice in placing Will as the Pharmacy Manager. How blessed we are as a family that Will is so smart, and so capable. It is wonderful to finally be able to attend Church as a complete family again…now that he makes the schedule ;-).

December –

December has been fun. We are outside a lot of the days playing, and finding fun places to go in our new home town. We have been to prisons, and ghost towns, and so many other fun places. However December is the last month of the year, and as I look back, I see the hand of the Lord in our lives every month, and every day of this last year. We have so much to be thankful for. We have been through so much this year, and we couldn’t have done it without all of you, and most of all our Heavenly Father. May we always remember to include Him in everything we do, and give thanks when thanks are due. I know for me, and our family that we have truly been blessed this year, and look forward to another year full of excitement, and blessings. Well, I say excitement, BUT not too much excitement. I want a year of being able to save some money, and start building our food storage again, and being able to settle down into a nice relaxing routine. We have many things to look forward to, and a great family to look forward to it with.

May all of you reading thins know that we love and appreciate all of you, and appreciate the role each of you have played in our lives this year. Please know that if any of you are in the neighborhood, PLEASE STOP BY and have some fun with us.

Lookin for some Hot Stuff...

2010-12-29T18:40:00.000-07:00

"Looking for some Hot Stuff Baby come on...Looking for some hot stuff..."

This is one of the songs in the Wii game "Just Dance 2" I just did about 7 songs and spent 35 min exercising by doing these dances. It went by really quickly, and I was breaking a sweat, and my heart rate was up. My girls also did it with me. So much fun.

The "Hot Stuff" song

Also the other one we dace to all day long so far is the "Michael Jackson Experience". Seriously the kids have played it for about 6 hours a day. Its a cool thing too, on the main menu of the wii, it will show you how long the wii was played for each day and by who. We have gotten our money's worth out of this cool machine. It has been played every day since Christmas for at least 6 hours every day. Such a fun couple of games. Hopefully we will all loose a little weight in the process. This gaming system is a great way to have fun together and to get a little exercise in the process.

The "Billie Jean" song

Christmas 2010...

2010-12-25T22:47:00.000-07:00

The kids at Santa's village here in town.

Well, Christmas has now come and gone in our home, however the memories we made will surely last a lifetime. We had a marvelous Christmas. We missed being close with family, but we truly enjoyed being together here as our little family, and hope that all of you had a wonderful Christmas with many memories. First off I want to publicly thank my Heavenly Father for this year. We have been so blessed, and this year we were able to do a lot for the children that we normally have not been able to do up to this point. And for all of that I am very grateful. Now on to our Photos.....and a very funny video at the end...(Oh and the captions say whats going on in each photo)

Cute Reindeer ornaments that they made at Santa's Village

These are Vanessa's nails. This was part of the girl's Christmas presents from mommy. They beg me for this every time I get mine done. Now they got theirs done.

These are Sabrina's nails. This was really a fun day the three of us getting our nails done. Then we went to lunch. It was so nice to have a true girls spa day out.

Isaac with Santa at our Ward Christmas Party

Vanessa with Santa and eating a popcorn ball...that's what this Santa was handing out..yummy!!

Here is our gingerbread village BEFORE we decorated it. I loved the fact that I used my glue gun (a tip from numerous friends) to put it together..no more overnight waiting to set up.

Here re the kids ready to decorate with different typed of candy in each different bowl.

Sabrina doing her house. She is just like me...very artsy and takes her time to do something pretty.

Isaac doing his house. He loved doing this. He likes to help me in the kitchen a lot.

Here is Vanessa. She loved to decorate too, but she also loved to taste test all the candy. Had to make sure it tasted good before she put it on her house.

And Voila...the finished Village.

Here is our traditional Christmas Eve dinner of...Tacos. Thanks to my sweet Sisters husbands family for this one. It is quite yummy.

And Isaac opening his traditional Christmas Eve gifts of New Jammie's and books.

Vanessa opening her Christmas Eve gifts

And Sabrina opening her gifts.

And finally all of them IN their new Jammie's and holding their new books

And here is a new tradition we started as part of our family home evening on Christmas Eve..a Family Game to play together that evening with our dessert and then to use the game throughout the year.

And here we are...my happy gang with their new Jammie's, and getting ready to eat their dessert and play the game. It was a lot of fun too. Many many smiles and laughs were had by all.

And here is the traditional plate of cookies for Santa and an Orange for Rodolph. And sitting next to it is a doll that my mother made long ago for my Aunt, who was so gracious in giving it to me. She knows what a sentimental freak I am.

And all the hard work of "Santa" and ready for bed...finally at 3am.

Sabrina Christmas morning opening her stocking

Vanessa on Christmas morning opening her stocking as well

Isaac showing off his stocking stuff

Oh yes, and Lilly got coal this year. hmmm must have been the entire ham she ate four days prior to Christmas that was for the family NOT her. Santa must have gotten wind of that.

One of the many fun games Isaac got to go with the WII we got the kids

The traditional Grandma Lund Crown Cake for Christmas Breakfast. I've been eating this for Christmas breakfast for nearly 30+ years. It really is yummy.

Isaac shooting some Dino's before dinner

Isaac and Daddy making Dinosaur molds. I've never seen two happier kids in my life. I'm so glad they are my happy kids.

And finally the funny video. We got the kids a Wii for Christmas. I had to make sure though that they got games to move a lot...ya know don't want any sofa potatoes in my home. SO we got them the Wii, and some fun games, but their favorite is the game "The Michael Jackson Experience". They get to dance to all his videos and choose if they want to be Michael Jackson or the backup dancers. I kid you not this game system was played in our house for almost 8 hours. Now granted it wasn't all eight at once, but there were three hour stints, and I played most of that time with them as well. Here is a video of daddy playing with the kids on it. Such a funny video. Enjoy.

And my you all have had a wonderful and Merry Christmas.

Angels and Trees

2010-12-09T18:11:00.000-07:00

Wow, I need to get better about posting on here. I guess I will try to do better. Here is our Christmas tree. We did a green and gold peacock theme this year, and we broke down and got a fake tree. Our first one in 10 years, but here in Yuma because we are so far, the real live Christmas trees didn't arrive till this week, and I wanted to decorate the day after Thanksgiving like we have for the last 10 years. It's OK. I sort of like the fake tree. No watering, or falling needles and if I need a branch in a certain spot all I do is bend it, and voila there it is.

The kids are also angels in the Church Christmas program for the Nativity, and so I sewed those costumes out of a flat white sheet and some tinsel. Didn't turn out too bad for no pattern, and 10 min. of time.

I am also having our photos taken as a family. Since we don't live close to my talented mother, I have to go somewhere else, and so those will be coming soon. But for now here are some photos to enjoy.

Man I need to post more often...

2010-11-18T14:03:00.000-07:00

Here are the two trees we planted to make the yard look a little better. One is a lemon tree, and the other is a blood orange tree.

This is a replica o the ring I made Will while I was in school. He somehow lost the original, and so as a Christmas Present, I had this one made in gold, and added the diamond to it. He wears this ring as his wedding ring. I think it turned out really nice.

Here is Kira. She celebrated her 1 year mark with us on the 13th of November. She has been such a good dog, and an amazing addition to the family.

I've been busy finding places to store our food storage, and to stock up on things I know the kids would eat. Starting over with food storage is tough. I didn't realize how much I used my food storage on a daily basis before e moved here and got rid of it all before we left Omaha. I would take the kids snacks or breakfast out of our food storage all the time. I'm so glad to be getting this part of our lives back in order.

Here is Miss Vanessa as the Spider Queen for Halloween.

Here is Isaac looking like he got beat up. He did a good job playing the part.

Here is Sabrina my little MardiGras Fairy. She was so cute.

More....

2010-10-25T12:07:00.000-07:00

Vanessa the Crazy Driver

*** Oh and if you are wondering about the writing on their arms, we wrote their full names, our name and my cell phone number in permanent marker on their arms so that in case they did get lost, someone could call me in the park, and I could come and get them. I got so many compliments on how smart I was for doing this, and a few mommies even asked if I had the permanent marker with me...which I did...and wrote on their kids' arms as well. Made me feel good, like I was really a responsible adult...which was the only time...since I was enjoying being a kids the rest of the trip.

Sabrina is ready to run you over

Thank goodness these guys can't really drive for another few years

This was what we had every night upon request...each kids had homemade chili in a sourdough bread bowl, and will and I shared a clam chowder in a bread bowl. After about the 4th night I was glad to be home eating veggies.

Getting our princess on......

Dad and the girls riding in a Chinese food box flyer in "bugs life" ride

The most amazing smiles came out of this child while in Disney..It was AWESOME

Sabrina showing off her razzle dazzle

Even I got into the face painting spirit of things...like my two swans?

Even More Disney....

2010-10-19T20:09:00.001-07:00

Before Tea Cup Ride - No energy....

After Tea Cup ride...all woken up and ready to party for the day!!!

The obligatory "Disney Hats"

Even Mom got one..and I wore it every day we were there.

Isaac didn't see that one coming.

Vanessa as the Spider Queen at the private Halloween Party we attended.

Sabrina as the Butterfly Princess.

Isaac as the Dragon Slayer.

And then here is just a small taste of the "upgrade" on the ride Pirates of the Caribbean. This is a screen of smoke that the boats ride through and before you go through the mist, "Davey Jones" magically appears to you in the smoke. It is quite awesome to see. We must have ridden this ride about 15 times. The kids loved it, and I liked it since I could sit for a little while. Overall we had a marvelous time, and so much fun. We really didn't have to wait too long in lines either, since it wasn't too busy, however during this Private Halloween party we went to, we just walked onto any ride we wanted to. There were absolutely no lines. It was awesome.

More Disney...

2010-10-18T16:20:00.001-07:00

Here are three of the photos that are snapped of you while you ride a ride. The faces on these are great. Sorry that they are grainy...they are a pic of a tv screen.

We got soaked on Splash Mountain.

Vanessa was ready on this one...all covered up.

This one was Space Mountain, and Sabrina was crying hysterically the entire time, and then for 5 min after the ride was over.

DISNEY LAND

2010-10-18T12:39:00.000-07:00

Well, we got back from Disney and, and let me tell you...I have a new found respect and love for my two Parents. Here I am about 5 years younger and 2 kids less than what my parents had when they took us when we were younger, and I was pooped!!! I don't know how my parents did it. They are awesome, and were troopers, and I would love to first off thank them for making my childhood an awesome one. Now on to our trip. We had what was called the 4 day park hopper with Magic Morning passes, as well as a special invitation only Halloween Party pass. This all means that the kids and Will and I walked the 1/2 mile from our hotel room to the front gate of Disneyland at 7am and didn't start walking home to the hotel ti midnight. The kids and all of us were walking and on our feet for about 17 hours per day for four days in a row. Can I just say that my doggies were howling and crying by the time we were done...they were way past barking. However luckily none of my doggies or anyone elses for that matter had blisters!! YEAH!! Anyway, I personally think that we would have been just fine with two days of Disney and then one day at the beach to relax. Lesson learned for next time.

Anyway I will slowly but surely put up all our photos of the trip. SO keep watching for them. I am so happy I got to spend such a magical experience with my loved ones. It was a time to remember.

The Kids worshiping Daddy for taking them to Disneyland.

In front of our hotel

The front gate on the first day

Another front gate with Mommy this time

The front Mickey Pumpkin as a family

There will be lots more, so stay tuned!!!

Gettin Excited...

2010-10-03T18:17:00.000-07:00

** Insert squeals like a little girl here ** I am so excited for this next weekend. I think I may even be more excited than my children. We are taking them to Disneyland. I guess maybe I am more excited than they are because I know what Disneyland is like, and they haven't been there yet. I have been reading on different websites all the tips and tricks to Disneyland, and what to bring to make it a better experience.

I never had to do that, since when I was last at Disneyland I was about 11 years old, and that was Eons ago. Back when Michael Jackson was popular...speaking of which, one of my favorite shows is going to be back there. Captain EO starring Michael Jackson is back at Disneyland. I'm so excited.

I have been showing the kids U-tube videos of the rides, and telling them ll about Grandma Larsen and Grandpa Larsen's favorite rides and such. They are getting excited. I will be posting about our trip when we get back. We will be leaving on Saturday morning about 8am, and getting to the hotel at about noon. Then we will go to Disney and play from about 1 to midnight, and then two more full days there. Then Tuesday we will check out of the hotel, and spend the day at Silver Strand Beach, and then go home later that afternoon. I hope the kids will have tons of fun. I know I will.

Are you Jealous yet? If not just wait....

2010-09-25T23:07:00.000-07:00

Looking at the Date Palm field at Sunset.

Hey all. I just wanted to share the local weather report and show you what I look at every evening with my sweetheart.

It is now 11pm at night, and the temperature outside is a BALMY.......................................
92 degrees!!

Yup still hot out here, but hey its not as bad as it has been, and all of you can come visit us in the winter and enjoy the high 80 degree weather. We have sand dunes 10 minutes from our home, river rafting 10 min away, a sandy beach 2 hours away, Disneyland 3 hours away, and the list goes on. Which by the way I will be posting pics of our trip to Disneyland when we return on October 12th. But I will post other posts first but that is a heads up. So here is your invitation to come visit us, and play in our pool, and enjoy the "winter". We would love to have you share our warm and sunny weather, and beautiful palm tree littered sunsets. Seriously...we have room, and would love to enjoy family time.

**Truth be told I am a little jealous of the leaves changing colors, and that cool crisp in the air to let me know it is time to can apples, and get the pumpkins out, and fall decorations out. This will be difficult getting Christmas stuff out in what seems to me to be the wrong time of the year. I'm sure though I will adjust. I love and miss you all.**

The last week...

2010-09-16T17:47:00.001-07:00

We have had tons of fun this last week and saw some of our hard work and sacrifice start to pay off. Will has been working a lot lately, and we really miss him, so when we get some time together, it is very precious. So when we decided to have the mini van detailed we had to rent another van since it would take all day long. Well we didn't want to be stranded at home doing nothing on Wills one full day off, and so we decided to take the rental mini van and drive the two hours to San Diego. We got there and went to Del Mar Beach. It was beautiful. Apparently Del Mar Beach is the "rich persons" beach, so it is the best for families with little kids since it is the cleanest area with not a lot of stuff you don't need when going to the beach. As soon as we took our shoes off, and looked out into the water what did we see, but a seal swimming about 2 feet into the water parallel to the beach. I have never seen them that close before except for at the Omaha Zoo.

See the seal!!

This was the very first time that the kids had ever been to the ocean. Nessi and Sabrina had been to California 6 years ago this last January, but it was for my grandmothers funeral. We didn't have time to go to the beach or anything like that because Will had to get back to school right away. Anyway here are some more photos of the beach. Vanessa LOVED to comb the beach for shells, and Sabrina LOVED playing and making sand castles in the sand. And well Isaac couldn't settle on just one thing to do, so he was up and down and all around trying to do everything he could. The kids absolutely loved the beach, and wore themselves right out. As soon as we got into the car to go get some dinner, I looked back, and after only 5 min driving they were all out like lights, and so we just drove straight home, and then went out to dinner.

All of my beach beauties!

But once they got in it they got used to it.

This little guy would not leave our stuff alone.

These Will called Sand Fleas, I grew up being told they were little sand crabs.

These are the things that burrow in the sand and leave those little holes.

This was my favorite part of the trip..seeing this all day long!!

Here is the famous sand castle...

...and it's creator!!

apparently making sand castles wasn't enough...

She had to bury daddy as well.

Nessie realizing there is a current under the water that pulls.

Look at me mom!!!

Don't let go dad....

So we all had a great time playing in the sand and sun as a family. It was very relaxing and such an awesome good time. All our hard work as students faded as we were able to just up and go somewhere fun like this as a family and not really have to have huge consequences financially if we did so.

Also something else that we crossed off our list of things to do once we graduated was with regards to my wedding ring. I'm sure you are all aware that in 2003 when Will went back to college to start this journey we didn't have a lot of money, and we needed to have a reserve to help us out. He cashed in his 401K but it wasn't enough for us, so reluctantly we both decided to take in my diamond wedding ring, and sell it and use the money to live on. With the understanding that it would be replaced as soon as we graduated. Well that day has finally came, and I couldn't be happier. Now there does need to be some clarification though. There is no way on this green earth that we would have ever been able to afford such a nice diamond had it not been for my sweet mother in law giving us such a great deal on this diamond. We did buy it from her, but at a lot less that you would at the store, and it is an old European cut diamond, and it is from her as well, so there is some sentimental value in this ring as well. I hope to be able to pass this onto the girls and have them pass it on as well. I hope they will love it as much as I do. I think it is absolutely stunning and so I wanted to share my excitement. It is a reminder of all the hard work and sacrifice we all made to get to where we are today, and that if we are patient everything we ever wanted and more can be ours.

But the best part over all above beautiful diamonds or pretty beaches or vacations, is the fact that we get to do all of this together as a family, and make tons and tons of memories. I love my family, my husband, and my life!!!

We have Twins!!

2010-09-04T16:52:00.000-07:00

Ha, caught ya with the title huh...no way am I pregnant or even trying right now. But Will has gotten his babies...or so he calls them. He has lusted over these things since we found out we were moving to Arizona, and he was lucky enough to get twins. They are two years old, and in about two more years we will reap the benefits of feeding and caring for these two girls. Wanna see the twins....well here they are.

The twins by the pool sunning themselves.

Aren't they lovely beauties. Apparently Will thinks so. I don't think they are worth the money we paid for them, but Will assures me that they will pay back ten fold. We shall see about that. Here is what they will look like as they produce the food.

This is them with their bird proof baggies on them.

They are pretty palms I have to say that, and they are BIG palms. But to get fruit off of them that I don't really care for...except for in granola, I don't know. Maybe if I cut the dates up into small pieces, and substitute them where it calls for raisins, maybe. I will have to try that since Will hates raisins, and LOVES dates. Here is the fruit up close.

Each cluster produces about 70lbs of fruit, and a tree can have about 7-9 clusters around it.

I never knew dates grew like that, but now I do. I also learned how to pollenize your female trees to produce the fruit. Something about a big cotton swab, and male flowers and I left after that to take pics. Will knows all about it though, and he is really excited to do something about it in two years. Apparently only 4 year old trees start to produce fruit, but that the tree can live for 200 to 300 years and still produce fruit.

Also I wanted to show you some pics of what this last storm did to our neighbors and such. The other night it was raining, and hailing. It was nothing like any of the fierce storms we would have in Nebraska, and I laughed at Will when his store closed two hours early due to the rain. I thought "What Idiots..it is just a little rain people". Well that's true if the ground could handle it, but apparently because the storm drains are so little, and the ground can't suck up the water very well, I went down the hill to get Will and whoosh we went water skiing at the bottom. There was about 14 inches of water over the road and such. Then that is when I realized OK, maybe it is a little scary for the rain we got. Then the next morning, these photos are what we saw, along with a few retaining walls, and yard walls that were undermined by the water and just collapsed. IT was a little surreal, and showed what water is capable of.

The roof slid off

The trees couldn't handle the winds and rain. Many yards looked like this with their trees.

Also, just wanted to include some photos of Kira. She has been such a great dog. O don't know if I ever posted her before pics here, but here is a before pic, and her pics I just took the other day. Will snapped one of me where I fell asleep on her. She makes a GREAT pillow. And she enjoys the contact as well.

Kira with tons of hair loss and scabs.

She just looks so pathetic and sad, and you could see her ribs as well...she was underweight.

Isn't she so pretty now. Nice even coat, and so happy. Minus her tail, but that was just a bad thing for her all around.

See all the hair on her face now. She finally looks so healthy. She sleeps with this toy snake. It's her favorite.

She is an awesome pillow. So soft. And healthy gaining her weight as she should.

Well, it's been super hot here..today it is 115. So we have been spending tons of time in the pool, and in the air conditioner rooms. Hope all is well with you guys. We miss you!!

Back to School and Utah

2010-08-22T12:17:00.001-07:00

Sorry guys, I've been away for a while, and I've been busy trying to get into a routine. I feel like I have so much to do, and half of it isn't even done yet. And I'm not working at all at a job outside of the house. I don't now how anything got done. I'm sure it didn't and I just didn't notice it. Anyway, here are some photos of the kids back to school. They got into the Charter school, and it is a very good school. We then went to Utah to see my little brother get married. While we were there my parents took the kids on their boat, and their Jet skis, and also on the RZR's. Then they took Isaac to a super fun resturant called TEMPANYAKI, I highly reccomend it. Then we visited my grandparents. Sorry all the photos are out of order. Facebook really did a number on adding them in, but I did post what they were underneath them. ENJOY!!

Tyler and Emily leaving for their Honeymoon

Nessie Ready for a great day.

Isaac all ready to go.

Sabrina dancing with Grandpa

The girls dancing with Tyler.

Sabrina looking cool in the boat.

Isaac and Nessie in the boat

Sabrina, Nessie and Uncle Jaron on the big inner tube behind the boat.

Uncle Jaron, Isaac and Nessie on a fast ride.

All the kids with my sweet Grandmother

All the kids with my wonderful Grandfather

Isaac ready for the Food and Show

The kids table ready for the food show.

Grandpa letting Nessie off the jet ski after a fun ride.

Sabrina out on the jet ski

Nessie having a ball at the lake.

All the boaters waiting to be picked up.

Tyler kissing Emily right outside of the temple.

Tyler putting cake on Emily's nose during the cake cutting.

Tyler and Emily getting into the carriage to whisk them away.

Sabrina ready for the first day of school.

It's the Mystery Machine!!

2010-08-06T23:16:00.002-07:00

Our Scooby Machine in all it's glory!!

Well here is the project I have been working on with the kids all day today...well half the day. From about 2pm to about 11pm. They absolutely LOVED doing this. First we went to Sears to get a refrigerator box for free. Then we decided to make our own Mystery Machine from Scooby Doo. The kids helped me cut everything out, and then painted everything with me. They didn't even want to take a break. They got upset when I had them take a dinner break they were having so much fun. So you may be asking yourself why did we do such a project. Well the primary has an activity tomorrow. They are having a "Drive In" movie for the kids. So the kids are to make their own box cars (with parents help) and then they will sit in and eat in their creations while watching the Disney Movie "Cars". They are so excited. Anyway, just wanted to share their creation with you. Trust me they did about 90 percent of the work themselves. They had a blast. Enjoy!!

It's even personalized!!

Our version of the Mystery Machine!!

Our little house guest!!

2010-08-03T21:17:00.000-07:00

Don't worry he didn't get hurt. He does have all 4 legs, the one was just underneath his body.

Hey all...we had an exciting half hour tonight. While daddy was walking from the kitchen to the front room, he spotted a little lizard run across the floor. He of course yelled "lizard" and all kids came running each with their own jar hoping to catch themselves a new pet. Isaac really wanted him. We have been promising Isaac a lizard as a pet since we found out we were moving to Arizona. He has yet to let us forget that. So when daddy yelled lizard, he went running the fastest and hardest. We found him, and of course no one wanted to touch him, but they wanted him in their jars. What do they think...the lizard is just going to jump into their jar and say "please keep me". Um...NO. SO I as the mommy had to catch him and touch him. Once we had him in the jar, we immediately got onto the Internet as everyone was oogling the lizard in the jar to find out what type of lizard he was. SO we looked up common Arizona lizards, and after following some links found out he was not a lizard. We observed that he was able to crawl on the sides of the glass, and that he didn't have a lizard shape head, and he licked his eyeballs. He was in fact a gecko. after searching we found that he was in fact a MEDITERRANEAN HOUSE GECKO. We even found a pic on the Internet that was EXACTLY like him. Anyway, because he could climb the glass we knew we couldn't keep him, that he would escape, and so we had to let him go. Isaac immediately started to cry. He wanted that thing so badly. Then he wanted to watch a lizard movie, and see everything lizard. So we let him go outside with daddy and let the gecko go in his little garden he had planted. That made him happy. But he still reminded us that we "promised" him a lizard as a pet. Anyway, I guess this is very common in AZ to find little lizards and geckos in your house. I don't mind those in the house, and they eat the things I hate...spiders. So good luck little gecko, and eat your weight in spiders. Remember I was nice to you and let you loose..so you better keep my house spider free. Enjoy!!

Funny Kids and Animals

2010-08-02T14:03:00.001-07:00

Well, just wanted to post a few pics of my funny animals and kids doing funny things. The kids are really a hoot and so are the animals. They keep me laughing. Just FYI...Kira is Vanessa's best friend. She absolutely loves this dog.

Sabrina and Vanessa really need a baby brother or sister...poor cat!!!

Lilly and Kira playing on the bed. Their favorite game...who can bite the others ears!

Our 100lb. Lap dog....Yeah more like the "crushinator".

What funny Kids

THANK YOU

2010-07-28T11:30:00.000-07:00

I wanted to say THANK YOU to all of you for all your prayers and thoughts for our family as we have gone through this time in our life. I want all of you to know that those prayers have been heard, and we are now on the end of Paying things forward.

HE PASSED ALL HIS BOARDS!!! HE IS NOW OFFICIALLY A PRACTICING PHARMACIST!!!

Again my many thanks and much appreciation for all the love and support we have received from all of you during the last 7 years of this journey. We are so excited to look forward and start our new life, and see where it will take us.

Again many thanks. Words can not express how happy and grateful I am to belong to such a great family.

New Phone Number

2010-07-26T09:43:00.000-07:00

Sorry it took me a little bit to get this posted. I have been very pre-occupied with other things right now. But I did change our phone number, since it is cheaper to have this. So our new number is as follows. Please make a note of it. Thanks.

928-247-9413

Thanks. I also have no information yet as to if Will passed or not. I will let you all know as soon as I know.

Thank you for all your love and support. We miss you all.

The hope of things to come...

2010-07-20T17:47:00.000-07:00

I just got another phone call today letting me know some good news. I am really praying that this is the start of a trend, and that Will will pass both exams this week, and then we can move on with our life and our plans. All three kids...Sabrina, Vanessa and now Isaac will all be attending the Charter School "Desert View Academy". This school according to the Bishop and First Counselor and other parents in our ward have all said it is an awesome school, and that their kids love it. So here we go into the world of uniforms, and strict school attendance, and such. We will be missing the first two and a half weeks of school to attend Tyler's wedding and then go to Lake Powell, after that we are not allowed to miss any more school unless accompanied by a Dr. note, or the kids will be kicked out of the school. Because there is such a long waiting list (my kids have been on it since April, they are very strict on policies. However my children will now get a really good education. Probably the BEST here in AZ that they can get. I am so thankful that they were able to get in. I just hope and pray now that the good news keeps coming, and that the next time I blog I will have some good news to share with everyone.

Bats and Wrinkles!!!

2010-07-17T14:12:00.002-07:00

Well, lastnight we were in the pool late since daddy didn't get home till about 7 pm. So we get into the pool after we eat dinner, and the sun went down and it got dark. Then we lit the tikis on fire by the pool, and continued to swim. After a few minutes we started to see bats swooping down to eat the insects that were attracted to the fire. The kids thought it was so cool to see the bats swooping down. So we watched them for a while, and listened to them make chirping noises. Then Nessie piped up and said "Mom, Grandma and Grandpa can come watch the bats flying too while they swim in our pool huh." I said "sure hon, when they come to visit they can come in and watch the bats too." Nessie then said, as she held up her fingers "But then Grandma and Grandpa will get all pruny and wrinkly like me." Nessie paused for a min and then just so innocently said "it's OK though mom, cause they are already pruny and wrinkled". Will and I couldn't stop laughing it was so funny.

Isn't it cute how kids think like that, and then just say what's on their mind. I love my kids. They keep me laughing all the time.

On a side note, Will takes his exams this week on Friday and Saturday the 23rd and 24th of July. Keep him in your prayers if you would please. My thanks!!

These Little Piggys have BLING!!'

2010-07-12T17:13:00.000-07:00

Woot Woot! Thanks to my savy shopping sister, I was able to have so much fun with my girls. They absolutely love going to the nail salon (it's only happened three times) to get their nails painted and such, but it is so darned expensive. Especially when I can do just as good of a job as they can, and it's free. But I saw my sweet sisters post about her "bling" for her toenails, and since we wear sandals here year round, I have had to make sure my little piggy's are nice and manicured. I went the second week we were here to get the manicure done, and then after that I have maintained them myself. But I loved what my sister had done with her tootsies. So I had a few dollars in my pocket, and I waddled myself on over to our Sally Beauty Supply place, and bought the same stuff as she did, and voila!! All our piggy's are "blingy". Sabrina wanted to try the hot pink, I went with the good old silver, and Nessie went with gold. Now we have three colors of glitter to exchange between us all, and our toes have never looked better. Now if only I could get a complete body makeover for 7$ I'd be even more ecstatic.

Thanks and Kudos go out to my sister for sharing this fun idea with us. We really like it. One of these day I'm going to buy one of those Sally Hansen Nail Art pens and try my hand at flowers and cute stripes. Then there will be no need to go to the salon (well lets not get too hasty...I love the foot rubs, and water treatments during a manicure).

So here ya go...I hope you can see all the sparkly...They really are WOWIE!!!

Sorry for the fuzzy picture, I forgot to change the settings, and then my batteries died in my camera. However, you get the idea. They are WAY sparkly and fun!!

So for those of you who don't have access to my sister's website, here is how she did it, and consequently we did it.....

Step One, go to your Sally's Beauty Supply store and purchase the items below.

Step Two, Paint your nails one at a time with this product...$4.25

Step Three, immediately after painting one toe, then sprinkle this onto the wet gel polish...$0.94 per bottle

Step Four, continue this process till all your little piggy's are done.

Step Five, Put two more coats of the Gelous nail gel over the top of your nails AFTER you have blown away the excess glitter (this is best done over a piece of paper or a sink)

Then VOILA...Sexy, Fun, and Glittery Piggy's.

ENJOY!!!

AAAHHHHHHH

2010-07-09T20:15:00.000-07:00

OK, now that you have ready the title, you know how I am feeling. We just set the dates and times for Will's exams. He will be driving to Phoenix AZ (about three hours away) on Thursday night July 22nd, he will then stay in a hotel that evening and take the MPJE (the AZ law exam) on Friday morning July 23rd. He will then go back to the hotel and sleep that evening and then Saturday morning July 24th, at 8am he will be taking the NAPLEX exam (the national Pharmacy boards). He will then come home that evening and we will wait to see what our future holds next.

I am asking...er shall I say pleading with much sincerity that if you find time, to please pray for him, and pray that he passes both exams the first time, and that he has great recollection skills to be able to recall everything he has learned the last 7 years. That he will have clarity of thought, and that he will do well and get the passing score that he needs to come home and continue his job and move on with his life in a better position.

I can tell you this, I will be fasting and praying like I have never done before. This is everything we have worked for, all of what we can have is riding on these two exams. I don't ask for much, but I am asking this. I appreciate all the prayers and fasting on behalf of our family in past years, I really do,but I just need these last two things to go well for him, and then he is home free.

Thank you for all your love and support throughout the years. I truly do appreciate it.

Updates...and Goals...

2010-07-05T12:28:00.000-07:00

Wow, the last week has gone by so quickly. I am trying to keep up better on this blog so that all our family can see what we have been up to. Now that I have set up a new home in a new city, and state, and have gotten us "mostly" unpacked...I say mostly because I still have all my holiday stuff packed up and stacked up in a closet, I figured it is time for me to set up my home and family and "my time". I figure if I write it down, then I have to do it.

Anyway, I was put in as the Primary Chorister last week, and yesterday was the first Sunday I did my calling. It was a lot of fun getting all prepared to sing, and I was paid a great compliment too...I was told that this was the first time "all" the kids were singing. I felt good to know that my hard work and preparation paid off. However I was a little concerned that most of the kids don't know the old classics like Book of Mormon Stories, or Give Said the Little Stream, or Teach me to Walk in the Light. I was told however by the Bishop that I am totally in charge of all music the primary kids learn...along with only "suggestions" from the primary presidency, but that if I want to teach them the classics, I may do so, and he even said it would be a good idea to do so. So on top of me having to learn all these new songs that I have never heard before, I will be teaching them the oldies and goodies. Now I have to make all the flip charts a little easier for the kids to read and learn.

So that is what I have been up to. I have also been trying to think of things to do with the kids I came across this awesome website. She has some really great activities to do with kids. So I will try to start doing some fun things like that with the kids. They love the pool, and want to spend every waking hour in it, but there has to be more to their summer than staying in the pool. It is a little too hot this month to do much else though, unless you are in an air conditioned place. As everyone here tells us..."just make it through till the end of August, and this place turns into the garden of Eden" I hope they are right. Its so stinking hot here. Last week the high of three days were 117, this week than goodness we get a break and it will only be a high of 107. Hopefully it will go down even more, and then settle into the high to mid 80's for the rest of the year and winter. Then we will really be having some fun.

I know for sure we will be getting the kids something fun at the end of this week. I'm thinking of throwing them a fun little party on Saturday, and giving them their gifts then. We haven't been able to get the kids hardly anything since we have been trying to get caught up on the Van issues, and Rent and utilities, and all that goes along with moving into a new home. So now that we will have a little bit of extra money, we will be getting them a little gift. We bough them the little snorkel, and masks at the dollar store for them when we first got here. Those things have been used to death. They have helped these kids not be so afraid of swimming in the deep end without floaties. So as part of their party and my duty as a mother to teach them the value of saving and looking forward to something, I have set forth this plan.

We will have a fun beach party. We will have a pic nick outside next to the pool, and have lots of fun. I will then present them with their "gifts" a nice "semi=pro" set of scuba mask and snorkel. (Ones you can use when going snorkeling somewhere) and then I will introduce the "pickle" jar. I will have a cute label on it and we will be saving up for our first vacation as a family. We are hoping to be able to do this one "before" grandma and grandpa go on a mission so that they can come with us...but if not we will save this vacation for when they come back. We will be saving up all our change in the pickle jar for a vacation to somewhere nice where the kids can go snorkeling. My parents have gone to some cool places, and I would love their input on the best snorkeling places to go...or any ones input. If you have gone somewhere that you think would be good for the kids to go snorkeling at then please let me know. But we will be having a fun party to give them their gifts, and help introduce our "savings" jar for our family vacation. I will be putting some things on the bottom of the pool for them to "snorkel" and dive for. It should be really fun. I will post some pics after this weekend.

Some other things I want to do this summer is have some of the primary kids over to the house for a swim party, and sort of a "get to know you" party for the kids to play with, and for me to get to know more mommies. This should be fun. I know some of them, but would really like to get to know more of them. Also we are going to be feeding the missionaries on Sunday so that we can get to know them better as well. This will be a monthly thing for our family so that we can show the kids how to be loving and generous to the missionaries, and hopefully instill in them the importance of missionary work. Also to help encourage them to want to go on a mission when they get older.

I also want to spend a lot less time here on the computer. I have notices that I spend a lot of time that I could be doing other things, here on this computer. I will be updating the blog, so that you all know what I am up to, but as far as getting onto face book and all that, I find that I am spending way too much valuable time on here reading stuff, and not attending to my children. I'm not saying that the Internet is bad, but for me I find that it is addicting, and that I should cut down on my usage time. SO I am allotting myself two hours a day on the Internet only AFTER the kids have gone to bed. Hopefully this will help me become more organized with my time, and help me spend more quality time with my kids.

Well, I better get going, I will update you in a little while on how the party went with the kids, and how we are doing. Hope all of you are well. Please know that we love you all and think of you often.

Request for Prayers and Fasting....

2010-06-28T13:32:00.000-07:00

Dear Family and Friends-

As you know these last 8 years have been very hard and difficult. We have finally graduated, and have moved here to a great life in Yuma where we can finally relax. However there is one more hurdle, and I mean HURDLE we have to pass, and that is the National Exam - the NAPLEX - and the AZ law exam. I am very scared, and afraid for my husband. I have been praying so hard and so long for him to get to this point in his life, and now I am praying even harder that he passes his NAPLEX and Law Exam on the first try. As most of you know he had a difficult time getting through school, but we did it with lots of prayers and fasting, and I am pleading with you all now. Please if you think of us at any point in the day please say a prayer for Will that he may be able to have clarity of though, and great recollection, and that he will be confident and able to pass the NAPLEX exam the first time, and the Law Exam the first time. If we don't, we loose all that we have worked hard for, and will not be able to stay where we are at. For my sake, I'm willing to work at Burger King to support my family, but I hope it won't come to that. I am asking mostly for my children's sake, and for Wills sake to please pray for his success. This test impacts all our lives very deeply and we could use all the prayers we can get on his behalf. I hope and pray that he will be successful, and that once all of this is behind us, we can move on and enjoy some of the successes he has earned.

Thanking you all in advance -

Amber

Ode to my new best friend....

2010-06-28T09:29:00.000-07:00

Oh how I love you..my new best friend
How you make my life so much easier...my new best friend
How my back no longer hurts..my new best friend
How you get me all clean, and take away all my dust...my new best friend
I use you and then toss you aside and you still come back for more...my new best friend
I tear your head off, and throw you in the washer when you get too full of yourself...my new best friend

You come back better than ever...my new best friend

We should all have a best friend like you in our lives.

Here is the money shot.....

And here is what my new best friend cleans to earn its keep in my cleaning closet......

Thanks to all of your advise, I went to a janitorial supply store and got this mop for about 60 bucks plus the spray to help attract all the dirt better, and then when I'm done I throw the head into the washer. It is my new best friend. Now cleaning my floors takes half the time, and its one and a half times more fun to clean.

Happy Fathers Day

2010-06-20T20:21:00.001-07:00

I have four very wonderful fathers in my life, and I am thankful for all of them. They have each touch my heart and soul in ways that have made me a better and stronger person.

The first father in my life became so 65 years ago. He is a very handsome man. Don't ya think so. Very dapper. Eat your heart out ladies..too bad he's taken..my mom is a very lucky woman. Anyway he is a very quiet and soft spoken man. A man of great strength, and wisdom. A man who loves his family and yet also loves God. A man who has many sides to him. A man who has always treated my mother with the utmost respect and love. A great visionary. A man of many talents. My father is my hero. He took a child who was not of himself, and loved me and raised me and made me who I am today. A man who loves his grandchildren and showers them with that love. My father is the best. He has seen me through thick and thin, and has loved me unconditionally. I will always love him, and am so very grateful that I will never be without my father. I am sealed to him, and will always be with his for time and all eternity. My father is such a quiet man, but when you get to know him, he will talk to you about anything. He is a very smart man as well. My fondest memories of my dad are when I was younger. He would sit my sister and brother down for bed, and he would tell us about the "three armadillos". Those three armadillos did so much. They would go for walks and run into the mean alligators. They would wander out of their dens and get into so much mischief. Those three armadillos did everything. Funny how they three armadillos did a lot of what my sister and brother did. I couldn't go to sleep without those bedtime stories. The time I got to sit next to my father and have him cuddle with me and tell me those stories, were the best times I had. I also remember my father letting me hug him and just cry. My best friend in the entire world (at the time) Suzie - our Irish Setter - was struck by a piece of road equipment and killed. I was so sad, and couldn't do anything but cry. I remember my dad going to pick her up, and take her to be buried. I remember he came home, and held his arms out for me, and we sat in his chair and he just let me cry and cry. I will never forget how much better he made me feel just by being there and holding me. Thanks dad for all you have done for me, and for being my strength. I hope you have a great fathers day.

My next father in my life became so officially April 28th 2001. But I knew him a year earlier. Even though my father in law has only been in my life for the last 10 years, they have been wonderful. When I met my father in law, he did everything possible to make me feel loved and welcomed. He is what I call my gentle giant. As everyone knows I am a shortie, and everyone always towers over me in height, and that is no different here. Dad stands a lot taller than I. I have a lot to look up to..literally!! He is such a great guy. Very warm and affectionate once you get to know him. He has always been there for me, and has been wonderful to me. After having two other daughter in laws that fizzled out, I was very apprehensive and scared to meet my father in law. I was afraid he wouldn't give me the time of day or want to love me. But quite the opposite. He gave me all his love, and took me in as his daughter in law and has been great. He is very quiet as well. He too loves you silently, but you know his love is very strong, and that if you just said the word, he would be there in a heartbeat, or die trying. He too is very handsome. Eat your hearts out again ladies..oops too bad...he too is taken by my sweet mother in law. I'm just surrounded by good looking men. If my son gets any of these looks, I will be beating the girls off of him with a HUGE stick. Anyway I love my father in law dearly. Over the last few years I have gotten to know him even better because we lived so close to him. It has been wonderful to see him be able to enjoy life, and enjoy his son and his grand kids. He is a great man. Something a lot of you may not know either, is that this is a VERY, and I mean VERY intelligent man. Worked hard all his life to give his family the best, and all the while read a lot of books to educate himself even more. You should NEVER play scrabble with this man, unless you want to loose. He is great at it. Like I said super smart. I love you dad. Happy Fathers day!!

Here is the third father in my life. Also my husband, but a very awesome father. Here is a man who tried so very hard to make two other marriages work, but finally made it to me, and Heavenly Father has blessed him for his righteousness with three children. He is the worlds best Father to them. He loves those kids, and would do anything for them. He has gone back to school to provide a better life for those children, and has finally completed that. We are so very proud of him. He too is very handsome..Well I guess Isaac will just be a little heart breaker. So much handsomeness to go around. Anyway, this man is very loving, and very kind. He is a great support to me. He is a wonderful husband who would do anything for me as well. All I have to do is ask. He has taught our children to love life, to love science and especially to love the Lord. He has shown this by word and by example. He is the best thing that had ever happened to me. He makes life worth living. I don't tell him nearly enough how much I love him and how much he means to me. He is my knight in shining armor. I am so grateful that I will also be able to share in the eternities with him. I could think of no better person to be there with than him. He is a great mix of both my father and my father in law. He is very loving, and strong. He is super intelligent, and has a great love for education. He also loves the Lord. He also though is a super funny guy, and can make me smile no matter what. I love you hon. Here's to an eternity with each other.

Here is a future and when I say future, I mean future father. He won't be a dad for many many many years. And girls I mean it. You will have to go through me to get to him, and I'm not going to let just anyone go out with him. Isn't he cute...he is gonna be such a heart breaker when he gets older. He is the biggest ham you have ever seen. Such a little comedian. But he too is a little lover. He gives me great kisses, and LOVES to give me hugs all the time. And he tells me all the time "I love you mommy." as he hold up his little hand in the I love you sign language sign. He is my little boy. A future father who is learning everything from his father, and his two grandfathers. What better examples and influences could he have.

Finally my fourth father. My Father in Heaven. My Father who loved me so much he sacrificed his son so that I may once again live with him. My Father who loves me and watches over me from afar. My Father who I may not be able to hug right now, but I can still talk to him, and hear him give me advise. My Father who will allow me to be with my husband and other father for time and all eternity. My Father who sacrificed everything just for me. My Father who will forgive me and still love me no matter how much I may have messed up. My Father who gave me life its self. Thank you Heavenly Father. My only hope is that I will be all that you foresaw me to be, and that I will make you proud of me, and that one day (not any time soon) I will be able to return to you and your open arms. May you know how much I love you, and hope that you too have a great Fathers Day.

JUST FYI - To my previous post...

2010-06-18T18:05:00.000-07:00

Can I tell you I HATE HATE HATE idiot people who don't read things carefully and know how everything in the world is spelled.

OUR NAME IS SPELLED WEIGT NOT WEIGHT.

I am so tempted to change our name again to SMITH. How the hell do you mess that name up...you can't!!!

Now we can't cash our check, can't get the car fixed, and cant get Will to the mandatory meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday in Scottsdale which is about three hours away from here.

GGGRRRRRRRR!!!! What a fine mess we are in here in YUMA. Now we have to wait for another check to come from corporate, which won't get here till about Thursday, and then he gets another check on Friday. SO we have to go another week without pay. Can anything else go wrong here. Lets see...

Kids sick with 103 degree fevers and vomiting all over..Check, Check and Check
(no insurance...so no antibiotics... the tell tale white pustules are on the throats, but can't do anything about it)

Cars transmission goes bad, and axle goes bad...so unable to drive..Oh a big Check on that one

Can't go to the Ward activity since we have no transportation, and I have no ward directory or any one's phone numbers or addresses...Check on that one

Can't buy toilet paper and we are down to the last 1/2 a roll...check.

Husband gets paid and we can't cash the thing due to an idiot who inputs it wrong..Check

Jumping into the pool with rocks attached to myself...negative..but getting there. I'm so frustrated.

Sorry if you all didn't want to read this, but I figured I better write it down since this is how I keep my journal. I print this off once a year into book format, and keep it.

Hopefully in a year we will look back and laugh, but as of right now, all I am doing is crying. Hope you all are having a better time than I am.

How I feel right now...

2010-06-18T14:01:00.001-07:00

*** This is a Rant entry..be forewarned ***

I am so mad today. Things are going along fine, and we have been struggling, and I have tried my best to hold it together and be happy and positive, but right now, I am having a VERY hard time being positive, and I haven't even found out yet if my husband actually got his paycheck yet. That would just be the icing on the cake for me.

This is what I want to do to our van.....

I am so angry right now. I took the van in and it was put up on a lift. The mechanic pulled me aside, and showed me everything. Apparently not only do the front and rear motor mounts have to be replaced, the axle is shot, and there is something loose in the transmission. Now, the motor mounts we have to pay for, the transmission and axle are more than likely covered under the drive train warranty. We don't have long enough history at Wills job, even though we have a signed contract for two years, to qualify alone for another car, and he has two mandatory meeting to be at up in Phoenix (3 hr. drive each way) on Tuesday and Wednesday. What in the world is going on here.

I have thought so many bad things right now that they aren't worth mentioning, but I am just so angry. This feeling will definitely not be brushed aside with just a hug and a kiss from Will. I don't know what I am going to do here.

AAAHHHHHHH. I really do feel like hitting something, and my car is looking better and better and the hammer is right next to the van!!!

I won the lottery...

2010-06-16T10:53:00.000-07:00

Or so it will feel like it. If you ever want to feel like you won the lottery, just go three and a half weeks without a paycheck or any incoming money of any kind, and live on $21.00 for those three and a half weeks. Wow, hopefully on Friday the 18th we will get our first paycheck. Man, the things we need. You don't realize what corners you can cut when you really have to. I think out of this entire experience, I will be so glad to be able to stop wiping my kids bums (have to use as little toilet paper as possible - got to make it stretch). You know if you have kids, you have gone into the bathroom at one time or another and found almost an entire roll wadded up in the tank. I needed to avoid that issue. I will also be glad to get some toothpaste so my kids can brush their teeth again. We ran out of toothpaste yesterday.

But looking at my husbands pay amount,(and it is only about 1/4 of what he will earn once he passes his boards) it looks like we won the lottery. It will be so nice to be able to run to the store and pick up what we need whenever we will need it.

In fact, that noise the car has been making since about the third day of arriving here, I finally took the van in to get an estimate as to what it was and what it will cost. Come to find out it is the front and rear motor mounts that have gone out, and need to be replaced. Now here is the strange part. I go into panic mode seeing how much it will cost us (remembering I'm still on our old way of paying, and not having any money) and when I pick up Will, I tell him the bad news. I am apologizing up one side and down the other, and freaking out over how are we ever going to pay for this, and all the while Will is sort of snickering to himself. I ask him whats so funny. He puts his arms around me, and says "hon, it's OK, we can manage that just fine". I keep saying yeah right, how, and he tells me that he gets paid weekly, and we will have more than enough to meet our needs this time, and that soon we will be able to have a reserve. When I looked at the numbers he was right, but still being in that mindset of "where is the money going to come from" is hard to get out of. It will take me some time to get over freaking out over stuff like this. Thank goodness for Will.

Also on another note, since the gentleman Will is working with in the pharmacy is Pakistani, he doesn't care about Sundays off, and so he gave Will all Sunday's off. That is great. He gets to go to church with us all the time. I'm so grateful for all my blessings. Now if they will deliver on Friday the check, then we will truly be blessed, and things will work out.

It's final...

2010-06-12T10:27:00.000-07:00

Well, I was hoping that all the rumors were wrong about the bad schools here, but apparently they were all true and then some. So, I have the kids on the waiting list for this really awesome charter school where the kids are super smart, and it uses all the latest technology in the classrooms. But till they get in, I am officially home schooling the kids. I am going to be using the Heritage Home School program. So it still will cost us about a grand a year per kid, but this includes all materials, and it is catered to each individual child, and they also test the kids on a quarterly basis to see if they are on track or where they need more help. Now all I need to do is get money together to get the tests on the kids, and then get the materials to start. Now we can do family vacations whenever dad has the time, and when the extended family has time...now if I can only get myself into a routine so I can get myself all organized to do this. It will be challenging I'm sure, but I don't want my kids to loose their love of learning, or their high scores. Now I have to find others who home school so that I can get into a group to play or do field trips. So much to do....

Blessings and Curses

2010-06-11T09:49:00.000-07:00

I have a few things right now in my life that I find absolutely wonderful, yet at the same time most horrible. I just find it very funny that things your grateful for can sometimes be a double edged sword.

GRATEFUL: I'm grateful for the van getting us here with no issues at all.
CURSES: The Van HATES this lower octane gas, and lets me know so every time I drive it.

GRATEFUL: I'm grateful for the swimming pool in this hot hot heat of 113
CURSES: The kids won't do anything or talk about anything except for the pool and how long they can stay in it, and when can we hurry home so they can get back in it, and wake up at 7am so they can get in it.

GRATEFUL: I'm grateful for my new home with ALL hardwood floors, no more pushing a vacuum around.
CURSES: Its ALL hardwood floors. Your feet get all sandy and everything sticks to them, and you have to sweep and mop on a daily basis, and when the kids have been outside in the pool you sometimes have to sweep and mop on an hourly basis. (Any ideas on a great mop/broom would be AWESOME)And the dogs click and clack on the floors with their nails.

These are just a few of the things I though about today that I absolutely love and hate all at the same time. Now I know what people mean by a Love - Hate relationship.

ARIZONA

2010-06-05T11:40:00.000-07:00

Well, here we are in our new home. I'm way excited to be here. Our home is much bigger and nicer than I thought it would be, and the pool is such a blessing, especially with the latest temps of 110 and 113. It's hot no doubt, but with a pool and shade it helps a lot.

When we first got here, I forgot to put the sunscreen on the kids and they played in the hotel pool for only an hour, and look what happened...poor kids. But now we know we swim with a shirt on over our suite and we put on SPF 50, and then swim. Then in the evening we can go without a shirt since there is shade over the pool, and the kids wont get the sunburns.

There are NO radio stations out here except for all Mexican radio, so I will be using my Cd's a LOT. I feel like I am visiting my grandparents Lund's home while here. There are palm trees everywhere, and orange trees, adobe style houses, and grapefruit and lemon trees everywhere. I love it. Reminds me of when I was little.

We have hibiscus flowers all along the front of the house. they are just baby plants but the few flowers are so pretty. Can't wait to get some money to add some more plants. We have free reign to do with the yard what we want. I'm way excited.

Graduation

2010-06-05T11:13:00.000-07:00

Well here are a few pics from Will's graduation. It was a very nice ceremony. It was made even better by having our loved ones with us. Will's mom and dad made the trip from Illinois, and my parents made the trip from Utah. It was so much fun and the kids enjoyed having both sets of grandparents there. We always love having family around, and especially to celebrate such a big success in Will's life. I'm so proud of him. He worked hard and it will now pay off for his hard work and dedication. Love you honey!!

MOVING!!

2010-05-20T13:56:00.002-07:00

Well the day has finally come. We are moving away from Omaha, and to our new home in AZ!!

Please start using our new phone number and address now...

928-699-2504

and our address is

1321 South 8th Avenue
Yuma, AZ 85364

We won't have internet service for the next couple of weeks, so feel free to call anytime or write.

See you all soon!!!

To School or Not to School...That is the question!

2010-04-22T12:03:00.002-07:00

Well I found out some unhappy news today. The Yuma area government cut the schools spending just like the school thought. And so now there will be 41 to 1 student to teacher ratios in the classroom, and then no PE, music class, or art classes offered anymore due to the lack of budget and the poor area we are in. SO now here is the question. Do we as parents let our children fall behind on their studies and hope they don't fall behind others in the states on standardized testing (which the Yuma schools are currently testing at about the 51st percentile - just awful) or do we pay 12 thousand dollars a year for the three kids for private school, or do we get lesson plans, and home school them ourselves...which most of the LDS families are doing right now...so we hear. What is your opinion? Do we home school, and offer more advanced courses, and teach them things they wouldn't or couldn't learn in the public school, or what would you do in our situation? Any help would be greatly appreciated...by the way...with home schooling there are numerous groups organized by the school board with other home schooling parents for play dates and field trips and all of that. I NEED HELP, because I don't know what to do.

Holy Cow...I'm so Bad!

2010-03-11T12:55:00.004-07:00

Wow, I'm so bad. I didn't realize just how long it has been since I updated. Things have just been so hectic. All these years I've always said "when Will graduates then..." well, here we are less than 30 days before he does graduate. We have finally made the life changing decision to accept the job offer in Yuma Arizona. All of us are looking forward to the warmer weather, and the ability to be outdoors most all the time of the year. We got the kids new sandals, and some pool toys (diving rings and squirters) for Easter, and they are way excited.

I guess I should recap the last little while...hmmmm lets see:

Sabrina got baptized and it was wonderful. She looked so pretty, and so grown up. My parents came to visit too and the kids absolutely LOVED having them here. They really missed my parents. I have too, but I could tell the kids, especially Nessie missed them the most. Nessie is a little like my mom. Very prim and proper, and always needing to look so pretty. The more I look at Vanessa the more I see my mom. Its ok though, I love my mom to death, and couldn't think of a better roll model for her.

We are so looking forward to Yuma. I can get the kids into extra activities that require exercise, and a pool and so many other things to look forward to. Of course I got permission to paint the walls if we wanted to, and to put up "wallies" the wall stickers and quotes. So it will look much better. Right now its just the guy who owns it, and four of his friends living in the house. SO it is very "mannish"

Will is out of the hospital and doing well. We are just trying to keep his Iron levels up, and fill him full of blood till his ulcers heal up. Hopefully that will be soon. Till then he is doing the "vampire lounge".

The dogs are wanting to stay outside for longer periods of time now to enjoy the weather as well, instead of going outside to do their duty super quick, and race back inside. They are really enjoying the weather, and so are we...even though it is only 70 degrees. The kids love playing outside, and with the daylight savings time they have a lot more playtime outside. The fresh air is great.

I have also been packing boxes a little at a time, and its so much easier than waiting till the last min. Hopefully everything will be ready by the 24th, and we can leave Omaha by 9am on the 26th of May like we have planned. Yikes that's coming sooner than I think. There is still so much to do.

Well I hope all of you are doing well. I'm sorry its been so long since an update, but Ive just been really busy. We love you all and miss you.
I will try to keep better about writing. I need to be better about letting all of you know how we are doing. Please know that we love you all and miss you all.

Mish Mash of thoughts...

2010-01-23T16:58:00.002-07:00

Well I just realized that it has been so very long since I have posted, and I'm sorry for that. There has been a lot going on over here. The biggest is us just trying to hang on by our fingernail tips to passing and graduating. This rotation Will is on right now could make us or break us. The instructor is notorious for being a real hard.....you know what, and has had numerous complaints lodged against him this year, but being a tenured professor it seems that no one can touch him, and the students just have to "deal with it" as we were told. Will is doing so much right now. He takes the bus so he can get there at 6am (he isn't even supposed to be there till 8:30am) and he has me pick him up at 6:30 pm, and then he is constantly doing homework till around 11:30 at night. He has never had this much homework on a rotation before. We are constantly praying for him to pass. We would hate to loose his good job, and such because of one guy. So we are HIGHLY stressed out with that.

On other accounts, I have constantly found myself thinking this week about how much I have turned into my mother. Not that its a bad thing, but you know how when you were little and your mom would punish you, or say something to you that you didn't like, you would think to yourself, or at least I did, I'm never going to do that to my kids. Well this week, I have said a myriad of phrases I knew I hated when I was a child. Such as "Don't make me turn this car around" or Don't make me come back there..." or my favorite apparently this week is "so help me...." After I would say those phrases, I would catch myself thinking about how holy cow Ive turned into an adult. Yikes!!

We also had to have a huge discussion today in fact with the girls as we were grocery shopping. I was talking about what made each of them special and unique. They were asking me what made them special, and I was telling them. All of a sudden Sabrina asked where my real parents were at. I said "You know that Grandma and Grandpa are in Utah." She looked at me, and in all seriousness said "No mom, your "real" parents." I then figured out she was talking about wanting to know about my birth parents. But I have to admit, I hated hearing that Ugly phrase every time someone would say it to me when I was younger and growing up, and even when my kids asked the question, and being completely innocent, it still stirred up hateful and ugly emotions. I get this defensive attitude right away, and think to myself...are you nuts, or just plain stupid, I have real parents idiot. But I quickly turned that into a teaching moment, and tried to push those hateful and defensive feelings away. I NEVER let my girls see how much I hated those words. I kept the mood high, and explained to them that I have real parents and that Grandma and Grandpa are mommy's real parents. I explained that mommy just has a "birth" mother. And the easy way to remember what she is called is that she was the one who gave birth to mommy, but to be a "real" parent as the girls put it was to be there every night and day and to love me, and care for me, and feed me, and buy me things, just like I do for them. I asked them if I was their real mom, and both chimed in saying yes. I then asked them who mommy's real parents were and they both chimed in "grandma and grandpa". I was satisfied with it, and we moved onto something else, but to still feel those defensive feelings really shocked me that after years of growing up I hadn't been able to get over the feelings like that. I gess when someone thinks that my parents aren't my real parents, especially after all they have done for me, and continue to do, it just makes me infuriated. I guess that will never quite go away. I wasn't expecting to have to have that discussion with my kids, and have it be such a hard discussion to deal with. I thought the "sex" discussion would be hard, but this was just as hard I think. But we got through it, and they totally understood, and I think we can all move on.

Anyway, we also put our foster dog on an airplane today so he could go to his forever home. I hope they enjoy him as much as we enjoyed him. He was a sweet dog. Good Luck Emmett.

I then started a job this week as a cashier at the local grocery store. Some easy work to get us by this last semester so we can stay on top of our bills. So Ive been training for that, and Ive been training to do the phone work in the evenings after everyone has gone to bed.

I have also started school, and I am WAY excited for my class. I am taking theater makeup design. And I am so excited we get to learn professional makeup tips, and I get to use it all for Halloween. We also get to learn how to do prosthetic pieces to totally change the face. Isaac will be helping me as my model, and we are going to turn him into a tiger with prosthetics and all. SO I will post pics as the semester goes on.

Well I think I'm all caught up for now. Now all I need to do is download all my photos and post them too. Man I feel like I'm falling behind.

Our New Home in AZ

2010-01-01T16:41:00.003-07:00

Well everyone, I hope you all had a great time ringing in the NEW YEAR! I know we did. All three kids made it to Midnight. Just barely though. Then they rang their pots and pans, and then collapsed into their beds. It was a great evening spending time with them watching movies and having popcorn and playing games.

We have also come to some agreements with a gal in AZ for rental of her home. If we really like it, after two years may even buy it from her. It was built in 2004. It has 4 bedrooms and 2 baths. It has an ionic filtration system in the house, so that's good for Isaac's asthma. The entire house is the 12 inch ceramic tiles on the floor, except for in the bedrooms and that is light beige colored Berber. So even better for cleaning, and allergy sufferers. It has a water softener, and filtration system in the house. It also has a stereo system wired throughout the entire house. Outside it has two big patios. One on one side of the fence that doesn't have the pool, and the other side that does have the pool. They are wired with water misters and ceiling fans (it gets super hot outside) over each patio. Then there is a salt water pool (for those of you who don't know much about this apparently the salt water is better for you than chlorine, and is easier on the surrounding plants, and the hair doesn't turn green). And there is an attached hot tub. All of which is surrounded by an internal fence with a combo lock on the gate, so the kids are safe and can't get to the water without supervision. Then there are already Lemon trees, pink grapefruit trees, and Navel orange trees already planted, and should put on fruit next year. Plus we have permission to plant some Date Palms, and a garden and an avocado bush. I'm really excited for each kid to have their own room, and to be able to live in such a nice house. Please when any of you are on your way to California, or want to come down and warm up during the winters, please stop by. You will always be welcome. We are so excited to be starting this new chapter in our lives. We just have to make it through the next 15 weeks, and we will be on our way to our new start of the new road we will be going down.

Fractured!

2009-12-27T17:58:00.002-07:00

Well, we finally had the plows come through here about three hours ago, and now I am just returning from the doctors office. They xrayed my ankle and sure enough it is fractured. I had broken my left ankle many years ago, and it grew back a little abnormal, and apparently I cracked the bone right in the same spot. They say that's normal, since it isn't as strong as the original. SO Im on muscle relaxers and Tylenol, since I am allergic to all opiates, and they are at a very limit of what they can do for pain because of that. Well I guess now that I had survived four days of pain from a fractured ankle, I guess I can face and survive anything. Now if only I can figure out how to itch my ankle between the brace. Have a great evening...I'm going to take my meds and go to sleep. By the way the cookies were great and the kids had tons of fun.

The savages are going wild!!!

2009-12-27T10:05:00.002-07:00

Here we are day 4 of being trapped in our home. There is no plows in sight, and they haven't even gotten the "designated snow routes" cleared yet, so what makes me think they will reach our roads anytime soon. I guess just wishful thinking. I am so antsy. I need to get out of the house, but I can't. Even if we were to get out of the driveway, we couldn't get down the street. There are three cars stuck in the 4 way stop in front of our house, along with a 4 x 4 truck stuck as well. Guess my little minivan wouldn't have made it either. We survived Christmas. Santa was very generous this year to the kids, and I greatly appreciate all the help we received from friends and family to make this happen for them. They had a great last Christmas here in Omaha. I guess if we are to be stuck in the house for four days in a row with no end in sight anytime soon, I guess Christmas is a good time. They have been doing great because of all the great toys and such they get to play with. However I'm afraid of what is going to happen when we run out of batteries. I'm still not feeling well. My ankle is about the size of a grapefruit and hurts quite a bit. I had slipped and fallen and heard it pop on Christmas Eve when I let the dogs out. I haven't been able to get to the doctors office to have it looked at because of the snow. Well I better go, the kids want to make cookies right now, so I better go do that with them. Oh yeah and today makes the third time since we moved here in 2006 that church has been cancelled due to bad snow. Arizona is looking better and better everyday. I hope all of you have a great new year.

We Finally Know.....

2009-12-19T07:55:00.002-07:00

We Finally know where we are going. We had sort of closed ourselves off from people this past week because we were doing a lot of praying and talking and considering of a few different offers. We wanted to make sure to choose the right place for our family, and I think we did GREAT!!

Here are a few hints as to where we will be going....

1. We NEVER haveto shovel snow again!! (This is a huge plus since we have both slipped on the ice, and then have had to pay some big repairs on our car due to the stupid snow and ice this year so far.)

2. We will be growing dates, oranges and lemons in our backyard. (I made Will promise me a Lemon bush to remind me of my Grandma Lund...You can come suck on them anytime Tiera, and I wont even yell at you that your teeth are going to rot out.)

3. We have one of the biggest canyons in the world right in our backyard.

4. The saying "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" is only about a 4 hour drive to hear.

5. It's probably the world biggest Cat Box!

6. 80% of the world Date crop are grown in our backyard. (Will has an obsession with Dates..he loves them since the surgery. I think they're gross.)

7. We will be able to visit family at least once a month if we wanted, but for sure WAY more often than now because we will be closer.

8. All rental homes have a swimming pool in the backyard, and so we will be swimming all year round. (This is the kids favorite part).

9. There are TONS of Dinosaur museums and quarry's that we will get to see. (This is Isaac's favorite reason)

10. We will have the best time of our lives here, and really begin to enjoy life without school....

Guessed yet!

Do you know yet?

One more chance!

We are going to YUMA, ARIZONA! Will is going to work for a great company called CVS. There are two CVS's in Yuma right now, and they are currently building two more. So in about six months after Will is working there, he will have the opportunity to become what they call a PIC (Pharmacist in Charge) Pharmacist of his own store. SO it will be great. I'm so proud of him. Now if we can manage to pass the rest of the rotations, and then pass the NAPLEX we will be doin great!! Wish us luck in our upcoming adventures. Sorry we have been so shut off from you all. Now hopefully we can all relax a little and enjoy the rest of the holidays

Kira and KISS Tickets!

2009-11-21T21:14:00.004-07:00

Well, Ive been pretty busy lately, and so I'm sorry to those of you who use my blog to keep tabs on us. I guess I will just highlight the two Main events that have happened to us.

Kira is a new dog. We are not her permanent family "yet" but we would love to be. We are actually fostering this dog for the American Black and Tan Coon hound Rescue of America. She is the sweetest dog ever. She is housebroken, and LOVE attention. She just love to follow me around the house, and see exactly what I am doing. She also loves to play with Lilly (our dog that is 1/2 beagle and 1/2 black and tan coon hound) She is the epitome of the old hound dog with the huge ears lying on the porch where you need to hold a mirror in front of their nose to make sure they are still alive. (if you haven't figured it out, the fog on the mirror from the breath is the joke-don't feel too bad it took me a few min to figure that saying out too). She just loves to be loved. However she comes at a hefty price, and that's why we are only fostering her right now. She has super high medical bills. She had such a sad life. Some hunter took her to a state park in St. Louis and just dropped her off there to fend for herself. She had been there alone for a while. About four months back a family went camping with their four dogs in that state park. The family children saw Kira, and felt bad for her. They started feeding her dog food while they were camping for the week. The kids wanted her, and the mom said that if she was still there at the end of their trip they could take her home. Obviously when she is being fed she will stick around so they took her home. However the state that she was in was horrible. She could only walk about ten steps before she totally collapsed and had to lie there for a while to get up enough strength to stand again and walk ten or fewer steps again. All her teeth are broken down to hardly anything due to her pillaging through campfires to eat anything, and trying desperately to eat rocky that were covered in grease, and drippings of marshmallows and such. Because of the lack of protein and good food ALL and I mean ALL her fur fell out. She had scabs and sores all over her body. So the lady took her to the river and washer her up got all the flies and crap off her the best she could till she got home to give her a proper scrubbing. After taking her to the vet, they found that with an ultrasound she had no heart worms which is good, but meant she wasn't around other dogs, but she had bad fleas, and a bad skin infection all over, and and underlying yeast infection all over her skin. For the next four months on a weekly basis this poor dog was subjected to Lime Sulphur baths and antibiotics, and so many other pills and creams. So they decided to move her to another foster home because where she was, the lady's four other dogs would gang up and hurt Kira. So they called and asked if I would like to keep her for a while, and even adopt her. I said yes to the first part, but said maybe to the second part. I wanted to make sure the two dogs would get along. And so far they have. Some of Kira's hair is now growing back now that we have her on a grain free food, so its mostly protein, and she gets a hard boiled egg in the morning and in the evening with her antibiotics hidden in each egg. Lilly loves this, cause with the new dog she is getting more and more treats. We have her "hunter orange" sweater on her all the time to prevent her from scratching open her skin and causing her sores to open and not heal. PLUS its cold and she needs to be kept warm, and with no fur thats hard to do. They also hog the bed at night, and take up more space that we do on our own bed. The kids love her to death. Isaac was playing with her ears, and the next thing i hear is "mom look" I turn around and Isaac had ties Kira's ears together on top of her head. It was so funny, and Kira let him do it. She is the "perfect" dog if ever there was one.

Anyway, my next announcement is I won HUGE the other day. I entered a contest with my favorite radio station for a chance to win concert tickets to my ultimate favorite rock band...KISS. I was so disappointed and upset I couldn't go to see them when they were going to be playing so close to me (5 min away). But I figured I would go when will graduated, IF they would still be doing concerts...Paul Stanley had Knee surgery...you know old man stuff. Anyway, I get this phone call on one of the most horrible days I had been having. I was told that I had just won front row tickets to see KISS live in concert. I said no way this is a joke. Sure enough it was no joke at all. I about DIED. I couldn't figure out how to breath or walk. I about hyperventilated on the phone with the DJ. Anyway here is a pic of the tickets...worth over 600$ but I'm not going to scalp them...I'm going to go on a date with Will and we are going to sing and dance, and have a good old time, and party til the cows come home. I have a sitter lined up and everything. My sweet old neighbor from the town home is going to come over and watch the kids. She is so great to do this for us. I haven't had a date with Will since we moved here, and to go to my ultimate concert with him sitting in the front row seats 1 and 2, and getting KISS sweat on me, and touching the stage will be so very awesome. Since I didn't pay for the tickets I'm going to buy a tshirt and one of those memory programs that are so pretty, and frame it all with the tickets for my memory. Maybe I can get one of them to sign it for me. Anyway, eat your heart out KISS fans, I'm gonna "Rock and Roll all day and Party all Night"!

My Cute Trick -or- Treaters

2009-10-31T19:36:00.004-07:00

Here are my kids all ready for Halloween. We went to a Branch activity where we had a chili cook off and Trunk or Treat. We went and had a great time. The kids really enjoyed eating the different kinds of chili, and then going to a church parking lot FULL of cars. They got TONS of candy. Then we took them to our usual street behind this local grocery store. We go every year to this same street where there are retired teachers and dentists, and such, so the kids really make out great with pencils, pens, erasers, chap stick, and toothbrushes. Its a great place to go when you don't want to go too far, but yet let the kids get the old fashioned Halloween trick or treating.

Sabrina was so cute as Cleopatra. She really played the part by dancing around and walking like a queen and such. It was so fun to see her dressed up like that. She was so pretty.

Vanessa was Ariel from the little mermaid. She too pranced around like she owned the place, and was so pretty. She had glitter all over so that it made her look wet, like she just got out of the water. She was such a cutie.

Isaac was Wolverine from the X-men. He totally had that down pat. Running around, and using his claws on everything. But he looked so cute.

And then Will dressed up as a Death guy. His eyes lit up under the mask. It was really creepy and cool.

So here are the pics. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed dressing them up and helping them get ready. Hope you all had a great trick or treating experience.

Christmas Memories (Already???)

2009-10-19T06:51:00.003-07:00

Yes you read it correctly...I am making Christmas memories already, and it's only OCTOBER!! How you may ask, it's easy...Sabrina, Vanessa and I have been asked to sing in Sacrament meeting for the Christmas program. It was announced yesterday by our Bishop that they needed people with singing and musical talents to come and volunteer to participate, or else we would be sought out, but they preferred volunteering first, and then he listed off a couple names and mine was the first one, all in front of the entire congregation...well, talk about you can't back out then. I took it as a compliment, so I went home, and was looking at songs. Sabrina came up to me and asked me if she could sing with me for the Christmas program...how could I say no to that, and then Vanessa wanted to as well. So there you have it. My girls asking if they could sing with me for the Christmas program. I didn't even think they were paying attention in Sacrament meeting. Sabrina has taken after me, and really has a great voice, and Vanessa does very well too when she isn't so shy. I think if I am up there with them, they will do ok. They helped me pick out the song and everything. SO here is the song. I will be singing all the verses alone, and then all three of us will be singing the chorus. It should go very well.

It is called Breath of Heaven. It is a song from Mary's perspective on carrying the Christ child. It's a really pretty song, and the piano is absolutely stunning. I'm excited to sing with my girls. Wish us luck.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vrSrEOqLiI

Um...Grandma and Grandpa....any chance of a visit around the second week in December? Just curious if you were planning anything.

Reflection...

2009-10-15T21:41:00.003-07:00

After hearing the news about my cousins death, I took a selfish turn. I spent some time doing a lot of reflecting. As most of you know (and if you didn't, you do now) know that I fell away from the church and did a lot of terrible things i should have never done. One of those things was to participate in the illegal use of drugs. I had very little if any self esteem due to my weight issues, and Satan knew that. he knew just what to have my old druggie friends tell me to get me to use the heavy drugs that I am so glad I was able to stop. I thought about all the times I went to work high, or drove a car and put myself and others at risk of dying. At first the drugs were fun, and there were no consequences, but the further along it got, and the more I did the drugs, the harder it became to just up and quit. Most people looking in from the outside say its easy to quit, and you just don't want it bad enough to quit. How wrong you all are. Drugs do something to your free agency, and your choices. It takes that all away, and pretty soon you have no agency at all. You become a slave to the drugs. Unfortunately for my dear cousin she became that slave, and had no way of getting out before it totally overtook her and eventually took her life from her. I am so glad that she is now free from that bond. I can't describe the feeling you get when you are able to break free from that hard taskmaster, and finally see with your own eyes what you have become, and finally break free from the downward spiral. It was so hard to stop. I relapsed a few times, but was finally able to stop. Six years later I was able to fully repent of everything, and attend the temple to receive my endowments. Those six years were some of the most difficult in my life. Using drugs and drinking and sex were easy, those took no brains and no moral fortitude. Those took no courage to do. It was easy. The following six years were the roughest years of my life. Unfortunately because of those choices people have expressed very harsh and mis-concepted thoughts about those of us who used drugs or who were adopted. Being adopted didn't make me use drugs, being a fat person didn't make me use drugs. No one made me do anything. i chose to do it by using my free agency, and as one of the consequences that same free agency was taken away. You now may ask how I became selfish the other night after hearing such horrible and sad news. It was very easy. I was able to free myself before it was too late. I was able to learn from my mistakes, and was able to catch myself just in time to be able to continue my journey here on earth. I am so fortunate I was able to do so. Otherwise I wouldn't have my precious children or my wonderful husband. I am so thankful I was able to gather just enough strength to pick myself up and stop the cycle before it was too late. Unfortunately my cousin was not as lucky to do that here in this life, however she is now fully aware of herself, and is in a position where she can now learn and move on, and become the young lady she knew she should and could be. One day we will all get to see that beautiful young lady, and get to know her. She is now able to feel the "bands loosed" and know what it is like to be free. What a marvelous feeling it was to feel that, and how relieved I felt. I'm sure Becky is feeling that now. The relief and the happiness of having those chains loosened. May she know that she will always have a special place in my heart. From one former drug addict to another How wonderful it is now that we are able to see where we are going and where and who we want to be. Isn't it glorious to see the love that the Savior has for all his children. We are now both free from the harsh taskmaster, and both have the eternities to enjoy our family and our Savior. May you enjoy your Peace Becky and know that we had never stopped loving you and neither did your Heavenly Father. God be with you till we meet again.........

I'm now officially OLD and Breaking Down!!!

2009-10-01T09:54:00.002-07:00

Oh my gosh, can we say OLD FOGEY! I mean I don't have a foot in the grave yet, and I stress the word YET, but Im getting there. I picked up my Orthopedic Shoes today, and had to switch from oil of olay to something stronger for my sagging and wrinkling skin. Man, when I was little I thought I'd never end up old like this...but here we are age 34 and really in bad shape.

I had to go into the DR. to have my back pains and numb feet looked at. Basically when I would exercise the entire front half of my foot goes completely numb, and no matter how I try to rotate my foot or reposition it, it still goes totally numb. So the Orthopedic Dr. looked at it and come to find out I walk on the outside of my feet, my knees are rotated funny, and my toes are starting to curl up, plus since my weight loss, my once crushing arch has now been able to go back to a high arch...so NO MORE cheap Payless Shoes, well sorta. So I have to have some Metatarsal Bars put on my shoes, and specially made and formed inserts. I feel like a freak with these. But hopefully when I go to test out my tennis shoes tonight at the gym, that I wont be scary on my feet with numb footsies.

Then as I was looking at my face, I realized that I can no longer wear liquid foundation. It melts into all my ever growing creases, and looks so bad. So I changed to powder foundation, and to a new neutrogena hydration and plumping skin rejuvenating crap. And I say Crap, because I'm sure that it wont work. But for a free trial, I am willing to try anything. I have used oil of olay for years now every morning on my clean face, and it just isn't keeping to stinking wrinkles at bay any longer.

May I really feel so old. Ive got old granny shoes, and old granny face lotions. man, when did I get so old...It just snuck up on me and bit me right on the face..feet, and all over!!!

Well here's to trying to fight old age, and slowing it down. It's not going to get me without a HUGE FIGHT!!!!

Whats been going on...

2009-09-28T14:53:00.002-07:00

Sorry guys about it being so long in between posts. I've been incredibly busy rearranging my life and my priorities. Lets go over what my schedule was like.... I was working at Walmart. It was supposed to only be part time 15 hours a week, however they were so short handed that I was working 40 hours a week. Then I am going to school part time in the evenings Mon-thru-Thurs from 6pm to 9pm to help get more loans to help our family live and to pay for Wills Tuition. This last year where all my refund goes to pay the balance owed on his tuition is so tough. We have 40$ every two weeks from my Work study job to help pay for gas to Lincoln and back on a daily basis (basically like driving from North Bountiful Utah to South Provo Utah) and gas in the van for taking the kids to school, and then trying to get cloths for the kids. I so wish that we had DI's here. They had better selections of kids clothing. Here I can't find hardly anything. But anyway, I am working at Creighton for two days a week for my student loan called Work Study. Plus trying to be a mom, and filling my calling as the YW 1st counselor, and all of that, I just had no time to sleep. I would get maybe 5 hours. I was so exhausted, and things just weren't working out. So I decided to quit Walmart not knowing how or when I would get another job to help pay for our utilities and clothing and everything that are the basic of basic needs. I told myself that I was going to focus strictly on my kids and family, and whatever happened happened. Well one of the gals in my branch, who I have her daughter in my YW class, fired her babysitter on Friday, and called me to see if I was willing to babysit for pay. OF COURSE!! She has the sweetest kids, they are so cute, and they are my kids' age. She is a home health nurse, and works overnight, so I will be watching the three kids from 6:30 pm to 8am and then take her 10 year old to school as I drop of my kids to school as well. It works out perfectly. I can be home and be a mom, and it takes not much more effort on my part to watch them sleep. SO I am so blessed and thankful for this blessing. So now I have more time to spend with my kids. They are WAY excited to have their friends from church be on permanent sleepover status, and the older girls will move upstairs with my friends oldest daughter, and the two little ones who are 4 and 5 will be downstairs with Isaac and us...so they don't fall down the stairs. I am really glad that this Sister thought about me to watch her kids. She is so very thankful for me helping her out and tells me I am an answer to her prayers, when in fact SHE is the blessing in disguise to our family. I wont get rich doing this, but it will be enuf to help with gas in the cars to get the kids to school and get Will to his rotations, but we will still end up relying on the Lord for assistance with our utilities and such once in a while. So now, I am not as busy, but my priority are the kids ...and their friends...and I can act more like a mother that I want to be. SO that's how we have been doing.

As a side note...if you know of anyone who has some gently used Twin Size blankets that they are willing to part with and send to me, I would be most grateful. We have a few spares, but not many. I have some other feelers out there for some twin beds...right now they are using air mattresses, but that should only be temporary. So if you know of anyone or anything willing to help, I would be most grateful.

Well thanks for all your love and thoughts and prayers. They are greatly appreciated.

Shots, Apples and Raspberries...Oh My!!

2009-09-19T15:23:00.005-07:00

Well, we were naughty but nice parents this last Friday. Will had gotten his Flu shot for free at Creighton last Wed. and then I got my Flu shot on Thursday. Well all three kids got their Flu shots on Friday morning. We decided that by the time we were all done fussing with them, and settling them down from the shot, it wouldn't be worth putting them back in classes, so we kept them out for the rest of the day to play hooky. SO we decided it was a great time to make our annual trek to the Apple Orchard. So we did. The kids had tons of fun, and enjoyed eating their Carmel apples, and raspberries. We had picked 3lbs of raspberries, but I think the kids ate about a pound in the field. They totally enjoyed themselves. We also picked 15lbs of apples. We got gala apples and melrose apples. Both very sweet apples and great for applesauce and cooking. Also eating fresh. I will be making applesauce here soon with our haul of apples. I will also be making quite a few of my famous apple tarts. I have eight requests already lined up. Hopefully next fruit season I will be back in Utah picking peaches as well as apples, and pears, and then making my famous tart with those fruits as well. With our raspberries, I made 5 pints of raspberry sauce. No sugar added, so we can pour it over our ice cream or waffles or cheesecake desserts. It is really good. In fact the kids had some chocolate cookies that they dipped in the remaining little bit of raspberry sauce, and they really loved it. So we will definitely be doing that again. Enjoy our pics. We all had a great time.

'Lil Farmers' Market

2009-09-07T14:09:00.005-07:00

I can see that the rest of you are as stumped as I am about what to do with so many pumpkins. Not to be discouraged, I came-up with a plan that combined 3 goals: 1) getting-rid of at least some of these pumpkins, 2) Making a few dollars, and 3) Giving the kids something constructive to do. Below is a picture of the result.

Also in the lower part of the picture are 2 magnetic toys that I (finally!) got-around to making for the kids...yeah,...right...the kids... Anyway, here is a close-up of 2 toys that I made using recycled materials around the house. The one on the left has a dowel (okay so I bought one thing) that I bought holding 2 magnets with the same pole facing each other. In this way, the magnets "levitate" and allow small hands to explore the very real force involved. On the right, I used an ordinary washer and an extra neodymium magnet. The silver magnet closest to the washer is responsible for the attraction of the washer. It pulls about 35lbs on a piece of iron or steel; so I've been looking for a "safe" way to use it without running the risk of pinching small (or not-so-small) fingers. The "strings" holding the washer back are actually 3 of 100 of those cheap ball-chain connectors that you see on keychains all the time. I bought a bag of 100 of them from American Science & Surplus for $1.45 a couple of weeks ago (Okay, okay, so I bought two things!). They are already proving even more handy than I had hoped.

What's your best pumpkin recipe?

2009-08-22T08:07:00.002-07:00

Well, Amber can't find the camera since we went to the Iowa State Fair, so I don't have any updated pictures of the Rumbo squash taking-over the rest of the yard. But I do have at least 15 squashes of 15-20lbs EACH growing nicely. In fact, the vines are STILL putting-out female flowers; so I don't know when this will end. The vines are getting suspiciously close to my house, and I'm starting to get nervous. Isn't this how all those 1950's "B-movies" start? Hey, if you saw a recent picture...you'd be paranoid, too.

We've harvested a few of them already; and the next natural question is: "What do we do with all of them?". A fair question. We have a couple for decoration inside and outside the house; but I can see that "supply" easily out-strips "demand" in this case.

So... What are YOUR best recipes/uses for pumpkins? Please post your answers so that we can all share ideas. And if you want a "pumpkin" (and like the green color)...just stop-by. I'll be happy to pick you a fresh one...or three. On second thought...the best recipe/use posted gets a FREE Rumbo squash...just add $19.95 for shipping & handling...

The Answer!!

2009-08-08T12:57:00.002-07:00

Here it is in all it's cute and ugly glory. The newest baby AARDVARK at the Omaha Zoo. Isn't life just disgusting and cute all at the same time. Makes you want to say "aahhhhh how..um...ugly?"

Good Guess Teri and Ginny. But you guys live here. he he

Guess what this is!

2009-08-05T18:25:00.002-07:00

We took this picture recently, so you know it's in the Omaha area. But do you know what it is? We'll post the answer in a couple of days. The winner receives: Bragging Rights.