A New Reading Spot

I laughed when I saw Tucker sitting on TOP of the monkey bars reading one day. Here he is, enjoying his after school snack (pull apart licorice) and a good book!

Lift Off!

Another shuttle launch! It was awesome today...an almost perfect launch. The only thing that would have made it better would have been SHADE to wait in and NO TRAFFIC on the way home. It is so funny to see how a HUGE number of people just fill the coast waiting to see the shuttle launch. It is a big event. We parked on a strip of grass next to the road and I made Brady park far enough from the road in front of us so that a car wouldn't hit us. Well FOUR other cars parked in front of us, then a whole other lane of cars parked next to us...forget safety, just get to that launch! It's quite funny to see. Brady and I were talking a bit about 1 minute before launch and the lady next to us said, "If you'd quit talking I could hear how many seconds to lift off!" Well! If you wanted it silent you should watch the launch from your car and listen to the radio...anyway, I'm not bitter or anything.

The launch was a lot of fun. It was nice that it was on a Saturday so that we could all go out together. We also went with the Shepherds, Brady's shuttle-chasing side kick.

Happy Flirteen...I Mean Thirteen

Yikes! Today I am the mother of a teenager! Meghann turns thirteen today, or as I heard it said once, flirteen. Thank goodness she's not that "flirty" yet. Hopefully she will think boys have the cooties for at least a few more years. 10 more years would be nice! As I was looking for older birthday pictures of Meghann, I realized that our digital camera years didn't start until she was probably 5 or 6 so all of her baby pictures are in photo albums, but not scanned onto the computer so I don't have any of her cute baby pictures to post. I also realized that I don't even have one of her with her cake every year like I do the other kids...and she's my first child! I'm supposed to have 1,000 pictures of her and only 100 of the other kids, right? Well...here's a few anyway.

For her 12th birthday she wanted a carrot cake. She didn't like the walnuts in it though.

Her 9th birthday was celebrated at Aunt Joanna and Uncle Chris's house in New York. We went to Niagara Falls and even hauled gifts over to the Canadian side so she could open one at lunch. Joanna, remember when we almost got arrested for kidnapping since we were trying to take 9 kids across between the two of us (or was it 8?)...okay, not actually arrested but they were sure curious at the crossing station!

On our "party years" Meghann and Courtney oftentimes have a party together...a little less work for me!

She had this gorgeous white-blonde hair that would make everyone stare and comment. She still has beautiful hair and still gets lots of comments!



This was her first lost tooth.

This is why we call her Goldilocks!

Happy Birthday Meghann!

Card Maze

This is what I woke up to Sunday morning. My house had been taken over by card mazes. At least the boys were quiet while they were doing it and I actually got to sleep in a little!

Post Birthday Post

Since Meghann's birthday is tomorrow, I thought I'd better get the rest of Courtney's birthday post done today...this month of May is sure a busy one with birthday! Here are some pictures of her cake (she chose an ipod cake), us eating some very yummy corn on the cob for birthday dinner, and the kids at Chuck E. Cheese where we took them in the afternoon.

Rubber Mulch

Last weekend Brady got after it and put some wood pavers around the swingset area, then we filled it in with rubber mulch. After resodding countless times, we gave up on grass under the swingset. It just gets beat to death with the kids playing on it, mostly in the winter when it's dormant and then in the summer it's just dirt. Mix that with the daily rains and you can see why I don't even like them to play out back! So, hopefully the mulch will help. Now they ask each other, "Want to go play in the mulch?" instead of, "Want to go play on the swingset?"

Surprise 60th Birthday Party

Last Monday morning I flew to Utah! It was a super quick trip, I was back home in my own bed Tuesday night!! Monday night my sister's threw a surprise 60th birthday party for my mom and my sister from Washington and I both flew in for the occasion. I miss being able to do things like that so it was nice that I could be there, even though it was definitely a quick trip!

Here I am with my sister Shauna who lives in Washington.

Here's Shauna, my Grandma, my mom and me!

Tuesday morning we went to breakfast, then did some shopping before I had to get back on the airplane. Here we are with my nephew Brandon, my sister Michelle, Shauna, mom, me and Denise is taking the picture.

Us girls are having one last picture taken with Brandon who is leaving on a mission to Italy in three weeks. Good luck Brandon! You'll be an awesome missionary!

A Very Long Dinner

On Friday night I went to the Melting Pot with my three friends and past co-horts in Primary. What is a co-hort anyway and how do you spell it? Anyway, we were celebrating my release (that sounds funny, huh?), my friend Dina's birthday (she's the President), and just basically having a lot of fun together. We left about 7:00 and I didn't get home until midnight!!! If you've eaten at a fondue place, you know it's a long process from first course to dessert...and what a yummy meal! I loved the cheese fondue, especially the swiss, loved the Caesar salad, liked the meats and of course, LOVED the chocolate fondue! We dipped marshmallows, brownies, bananas, strawberries, pound cake, rice krispy treats, and I can't remember what else! It was so delicious.

Here is a picture of the dish towel I made for Dina's birthday. It's perfect for her since she has a housekeeper and doesn't do much vacuuming! :) If you can't read it because it's kind of small it says, "I'm not going to vacuum until Hoover makes one I can sit on." he he he

And here is a picture of the blueberry bush they gave me as a "going away" present. And that's after the flowers on Sunday! I was starting to feel a little uncomfortable...but I can't wait to get that blueberry bush in the ground and start eating off of it! :)

It actually came with several blueberries on it...until Tucker discovered them and ate them all!

Happy Birthday To Courtney

Courtney turns 11 today! It is her "off" year for a party so we are celebrating with the family. We went to Chuck E. Cheese for some games and we'll have a BBQ tonight with hamburgers, french fries, corn on the cob and a one-a-day (Brady's drink concoction from his mission which we all love). Here's some pictures from past birthdays. (I have no idea why this is underlined!)






Here are a few more of my favorites of her through the years.

Courtney loves animals. Here she is with a cat, Grizabella, that we had for a few days and then found out that both Courtney and Spencer were very allergic to her. I was "allergic" to her poop so it was nice that she had to go. :)

Courtney is a monkey. When she was in gymnastics she was famous for being able to hold a head stand for a VERY long time!

She got a new haircut and is dying to get some pictures of that posted so I'll do that later on, but right now I need to go make an i-cake (an ipod shaped birthday cake! We'll see how it turns out!) Aargh! The underlining is back!

A New Calling

On Sunday I was released from my calling as Primary Secretary. I will miss it so much! I loved being in Primary with my kids and I absolutely loved the ladies that I worked with! We became such good friends from working together and it was more than just a calling for us. I will miss that contact each week, but that is the nature of working in the church, right? Always a change in store...

So my new calling is the 2nd counselor in the Stake Primary Presidency. I'm excited to get to know some new ladies (I had never even met the president) and get out and visit all the wards in our stake. Actually, the visiting will be a challenge because of Brady's Sunday meetings, but somehow we'll make it work.

My old presidency gave me these beautiful flowers on Sunday and the kids sang my favorite primary song to me. You'd think I had a terminal illness or something with all the tears going around!

Doing My Visiting Teaching

I was at the grocery store last week. When I went to put my shopping cart away I saw another cart with a purse in it. I picked up the purse and asked a lady who was getting into her car if it was hers, thinking she had just put her cart away and was now getting in her car to leave. She said it wasn't hers so I took the purse into the store to give it to Customer Service.

We started looking through the purse to see if we could find a name of who it belonged to. We found a checkbook and I was so surprised to find out that it belonged to a lady in our ward who I visit teach. The phone number on the checks was an old one from Virginia so I told Publix I would go home and call her and tell her she'd left her purse at the grocery store, which I did. She was so surprised but grateful that I had found it! What a coincidence.

Hmmm...Does that count as doing my visiting teaching for the month?... :)

Full Circle

Sea World was the first park we had passes to the year after we moved here...and we've come full circle. Since that first year we've done Disney World, Universal, Wet N' Wild, and on Saturday we went back to Sea World! Here's a picture of the kids back in 2004 when we had passes. I can't believe how little they were!


And here are some pictures from Saturday. We were in the second row at the Shamu show, also known as the Soak Zone, and yes, we got soaked! But it was a hot day and it felt GOOD!

Brady and the girls rode Kraken a few times (the big roller coaster) but Tucker breathed a sigh of relief when he wasn't quite tall enough! I think he takes after his mom when it comes to roller coasters... :)

The Change Commercial

This was one of my favorite "commercials" from Saturday Night Live and about the only thing I remember from my SNL days (thank goodness). The reason I think it is so funny is because I have become that commercial!

We have started an allowance for the kids. Here's the details:

Each child earns one dollar for every year that they have been on the earth. They get paid twice a month (on our pay days) and 10% goes to tithing, 10% to long-term savings. On every birthday they get a "raise" with another 10% going to savings, until their savings and tithing combined reaches 50% of their pay. Complicated? Not at all, when you compare it to what I do at the bank every two weeks!

Here's what I get from the teller:

23 Quarters

9 Dimes

2 Nickels

14 One dollar bills

They always look at me a little wierd but I just smile and say, "Five suckers with that please!" :)

So, you can see why I like this change commercial so much! If only my bank were called CitiWide.

In Honor of Mothers

Hope all you Mom's out there have a great Mother's Day! Here's a little post to honor all mothers.

Dad's Survivor Challenge
Here's how it works:

Six married men will be dropped on an island with one car and 3 kids each for six weeks. Each kid will play two sports and either take music or dance classes. There is no fast food. Each man must take care of his 3 kids; keep his assigned house clean, correct all homework, and complete science projects, cook, do laundry, and pay a list of 'pretend' bills with not enough money.

In addition, each man will have to budget in money for groceries each week. Each man must remember the birthdays of all their friends and relatives, and send cards out on time. Each man must also take each child to a doctor's appointment, a dentist appointment and a haircut appointment. He must make one unscheduled and inconvenient visit per child to the Urgent Care. He must also make cookies or cupcakes for a social function.

Each man will be responsible for decorating his own assigned house, planting flowers outside and keeping it presentable at all times. The men will only have access to television when the kids are asleep and all chores are done. The men must shave their legs, wear makeup daily, adorn himself with jewelry, wear uncomfortable yet stylish shoes, keep fingernails polished and eyebrows groomed. During one of the six weeks, the men will have to endure severe abdominal cramps, back aches, and have extreme, unexplained mood swings but never once complain or slow down from other duties.

They must attend weekly school meetings, church, and find time at least once to spend the afternoon at the park or a similar setting. They will need to read a book and then pray with the children each night and in the morning, feed them, dress them, brush their teeth and comb their hair by 7:00 am. A test will be given at the end of the six weeks, and each father will be required to know all of the following information: each child's birthday, height, weight, shoe size, clothes size and doctor's name. Also the child's weight at birth, length, time of birth, and length of labor, each child's favorite color, middle name, favorite snack, favorite song, favorite drink, favorite toy, biggest fear and what they want to be when they grow up.

The kids vote the dad's off the island based on performance. The last man wins only if...he still has enough energy for some quiet time with his spouse at a moment's notice. If the last man does win, he can play the game over and over and over again for the next 18-25 years, eventually earning the right to be called Mother!

Happy Birthday Jordan

Don't ask me how old I feel to have my baby turn five! Ouch. Where does the time go? Here are some of my favorite pictures of him, plus some old birthday photos. I think I have his first, second and fourth birthdays. No idea where the pictures of his 3rd are! He keeps us laughing. Here's something funny he said last week when I gave him a "buzz" haircut with the electric trimmers - "It feels like you are doing a taser all over my head!"

He wanted a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and chocolate ice cream. It's in his blood, handed down from Grandpa Larry, through his mom and now he's infected too. A true chocolate lover.

He's opened three presents already, all from mom and dad (yours are next Grandma and Grandpa's!). He got the DVD "Snowbuddies" (his FAVORITE movie), a Webkinz (an Alaskan Husky he's already named Shasta from the movie), a game (Cover your Tracks) and two swimming suits! Whew! Okay, if you're counting I guess that's technically more than three presents but a few were wrapped together! :)