Santa brought Clint a "club house."

New shirt from Grandma Linda.
New shirt from Grandma Linda.

Barbara and Todd

Mom and Dad with all of their children and spouses.

most of the grandchildren.

Toren and Trish

Jacob, Christie, Arianna, Mary Christipher and Bianca

Chris, Tracy and Hannah

Brandyn, Linda and Cheyenne

Grandpa reading the boys a story before everyone got to the house.



We had a great Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We all got what we wanted plus more. This is the first year in a long time that all of us kids and spouses and grandkids have been together for Christmas in a long time. It was alot of fun.

It's almost Christmas!!!!

I love this time of year!!!! I have taken a few pictures of our tree and the boys but last time i tried to upload them onto the computer nothing happened and I have not wanted to deal with it again so you are going to have to wait until after all of our celebrations for pictures.

We have a busy week this week. The boys and I have eye appointments tomorrow and I have a Dr.'s appointment on Thursday. Then Friday is Christmas Eve and we are spending the day with family and Saturday is the big day and we are spending it with family again.

This year is the first year in a long, long, long, long time that all of my brothers and sisters and their children will be together for Christmas. I am so excited to see everyone and get lots of family pictures.

I hope everyone has a great Christmas and if you are traveling be safe!!

Test Time

Well, yesterday I took a pregnancy test and I passed!!! Oh, wait I found out that we are going to be adding another bundle of joy to our family. We are so happy and excited. We have been wanting another baby for a long time and we have finally been blessed!!! We will probablly have the baby sometime in July. Yeah!!!

We are a 1st Class Couple...Well today anyway

If you make this picture bigger you can see a rock that looks like a turttle.

This is Paul Bunion's bathtub.

We got to ride in 1st class. We were lucky enough to sit on one of the love seats that they have in first class. It was worth the extra money.

Just a picture I took along the ride. It was beautiful!!!

Crossing one of the bridges.

The engine.

The car we were in.

Waiting to board the train.

Friday was our 8th anniversary. So we decided to take a little day trip up to Clarksdale and ride the Verde Canyon Railway. Our really good friends helped out and took the kids for the day. Thanks again Grabes for taking the boys all day for us you are the best!!!

It's that time again

I love this time of year!!!! This Friday is our 8 year anniversery. Sometimes it is hard to believe that it has been 8 years since we meet and married. I am the luckiest woman in the world to have such a wonderful husband. We are going to ride the Camp Verde Railroad. How fun is that going to be to see all the different leaves(hopfully). I will post pictures of our fun day when we get back.

Halloween

I know it's a little late but it's better late than never. I got a few cute pictures of the boys in their Halloween costumes. Clint was Mario and Douglas was Iron Man. Their cute halloween bags were made and given to them by their Grandma Linda. "Thanks Grandma Linda!!!"

Testing at school

Clint loves school and he is doing great. He is learning tons of new words and can read them in books. Sometimes he tries to tell us that he does not know the things that he really does. For example the other day we were reading a book and we read/said the word "the" about 8 times. The 9th time he sat there saying "hum" I need help. Really???? We just read it 8 times.

Yesterday I was talking to his teacher and she was telling me she was testing him on his number. She knows he can count to 100 but somewhere in the 20's he started the "hum, I need help". She told him that she knew he knew the numbers. Well because he had the hiccups they were interferring with his thinking (cause you know they do that sometimes). Any way, while he was setting there he waves his fingers in front of his face and tells his teacher "the hiccups are doing this to my brain." She just laughed. What else can you do? I don't know where he got that from but it was pretty funny.

Maybe we are working him too much and need to give his brain a break.

Proud Momma

Clint started school in Augus and he is already starting to sight read and read his sight words in the books he brings home. He loves to learn and is very smart. I am so proud of him and all the effort he makes to do better. These are pictures from the first day of school. I love this little man.

More pics

For my birthday Linda had us do some of the games from the show Minute to Win It. This one is of Tyrone trying to stack 3 golf balls. Very hard to do

Mom is using a gummy worm to fish a pretzel and get it too her mouth.

Jacob with and oreo cookie on his face. You can only use your face to move it too your mouth. he got all three cookies into his mouth. That's what happens when you love oreos!!

Hannah was putting a puzzle together. It was the front of a cereal box and all the pieces were the same size.

A cute picture of Jacob and his wife Christie

Me, Linda, Tracy and Brandyn (adding character to the picture)
Some pictures of Douglas's 4th Birthday. I love this little monster!!! He knew to sit in the chair so that everyone could see him open his presents.
His Ironman birthday cake
These are cute cupcake suckers that Becky made for his birthday party at home. They were really yummy and everyone loved them.

New Toys

Friday night we had a High Counsel man from our stake come over to talk to us. He
found out that the boys like Buzz and Woody (from Toy Story). He told the boys that he would bring them a small Woody and Buzz toy when he came to church Sunday. He shows up at church and he gives them the toys. Even though both Buzz and Woody had to go to time out a few times because they were flying around and being a little to loud the boys loved having them. I found out later that he actually went to WalMart and bought them just for the boys. Very nice of him to do. As a side note. Now the boys think they can bring these two toys to church all the time because they are quiet.

Sundays

I do not always enjoy going to church. I know it's important and it is what we are suppose to do but sometimes I feel that it is not worth the fight with the kids to keep them quiet. Last week was really bad. The boys were horrible during church.

I was so upset that when we got home I made them sit on their beds. They ate lunch then went right back to sitting down. They did not get to play or watch tv all day (I don't know if it was harder for them or me.) We also started a new thing. We practice sitting quietly for 10 minutes every day. If they play or talk then I start the time over (has happened twice).

I am happy to report that today was much better. They did not sit perfectly still, which is to be expected, but they were for the most part quiet. After getting alot of praise for their good behavior they were able to play games on the computer after lunch and watch some tv. We are still going to be doing our quiet time as it seems to be working. We will see how things go next week.

Beautiful weather = lots of outside time

With the weather being really nice today I decided to take the boys to the park. We have not been there for a week and they have wanted to go. It was really cute. While we were there a couple of little girls (the same age as the boys) came to the playground. It amazes me how little kids are "best friends" as soon as they meet. Listening to their conversations is even better.
Here is a conversation Clint and the little girl his age had.
G: "I love you."
C: "I love you too."
G: "Are you going to marry me?"
C: "No"
G: "You can only marry me if you love me. When you stop loving me then you will marry another girl." Oh my goodness they are only 5-year-old and she is already talking about marriage and divorice(sp?)

I got a few cute pictures of the kids at the park but I got a new phone and have not been able to figure out how to get my pictures onto my computer so pictures will come later.

Easter!!!

Douglas cracked one of his eggs and was so proud of himself!

Waiting for the eggs.

Put the egg in carefully.

Is it ready yet?

Exchanging Easter baskets with MaryAlice:)

Chicks

Clint's preschool class was asking if we had any chicks because they knew we had chickens. So Tyrone drove to Prescott today to pick up chicks. Here is a picture of Tyrone and his chicks pecking him.

I know these are a little late but these are some pictures I took when it snowed in Bagdad. We took a little drive out towards WildHorse. I love the snow and actually miss it sometimes.

Loved

When Tyrone came home from work this morning this is one of the things he had. The boys love flowers and always want to smell them so Tyrone had them both carry the flowers to me and tell me that "their daddy loves me." How sweet!! I love that sometimes I get flowers for no reason at all. I have the best husband in the world!!!

Rise and Shine

5:30 am I hear a noise in the boys room. Trying hard to wake up enough to really listen to what it was I finally figure it out after just a short minute. It was Douglas going through the toy box trying to find the perfect toy. Did I say it was 5:30 am? I drag myself out of bed (because Tyrone is at work still). I go in the bedroom and sure enough Douglas is headed towards the door with his arms loaded with toys. He looks up at me and says his famous words "I had good dreams." Of course I am happy that he had good dreams but let me remind you again that it is 5:30 am so I did what any mother would do. I calmly tell him that it is not time to get up and I cover him back up in bed (toys left on the floor). We both go back to bed and 30 minutes later we are both up for the day.

I wish I had the same energy as kids do. Hopefully we both have a good day today:) We both tend to get a little crancky when we get tired. I love my little guys.

We're Jerks!!

To tell this story I have to go back to the year 2002. Tyrone and I got married November 19, 2002. What a happy time that was for us. We got gifts, cards with money and gift cards in them and many people wishing us luck and happiness. It was wonderful!!

Move forward one year. I was in the hospital for 9 weeks with my first pregnancy. Tyrone had to rush down to Phoenix in the middle of the night and apparently left the house in a mess ( like most guys do). Well before we came home from the hospital some friends and family cleaned our house for us and in doing so put some cards/mail in a bag. I never sat down and offically looked through the bag of cards/bills. The bag got put in our closet and when I would clean I would think "I should go through that bag and see what needs or can be thrown away."

Now flashforward to the year 2010. Our house is being inspected this Wednesday so to get ready I started by cleaning my bedroom really good (going through this bag of cards/bills). I found many cards we got from our wedding/bridal shower. It brought back good memories. Well this is what I found in 8 cards. A total of $155 and $85 in gift cards. Oh my goodness how the heck did we forget about these?!?!?!

I feel so bad that we missed these and now I am wondering did we even send these people thank you cards for the gift? Well too late now. I told Tyrone tha we are jerks (as that is his favorite line to say).

By the way I don't think anyone that reads my blog was affected by this mishap in any way. Oh and yes the gift cards still have money on them:)

Conversations with a 5 year-old

This week Clint has said some things that have just baffled me.
Earlier this week while we were getting ready to eat dinner he told me
C- "I'm ready to live in Heaven."
M- "Well, I'm not ready for you to go live in Heaven."
C- "How come."
M- "I'm not ready to go live in Heaven."
C- "Oh, when you are ready to go live in Heaven then I will be ready too."

I don't know where he got that from. The only thing I can think of is that the last few months he has been asking alot about his older sister who is living in Heaven. Boy had I better make sure that I am living my life so that I am ready to live in Heaven.

Then yesterday he told me that I can go help in his classroom. I talked to his teacher today and I am going to help in the classroom next Thursday so that Tyrone can take care of Douglas for me. I am excited and I think Clint will be too.

Park

I took Douglas to the park the other day while Clint was at school. There was another little boy there that was playing on the skate park. Normally I do not let Douglas play over there but I had a moment of weekness. This is what he was doing. He would run up one side of the skate park around and then slide down on his tummy. It reminded me of a seal. He had a great time and even fell asleep in the stroller on the walk down to get Clint from school.