She Can Bring Home The Bacon, Fry It Up In A Pan

Did you know my sister Farrah has a very successful business? She designs the most AWESOME address stamps! Check it out. Click Here.

Fly Like An Eagle

just some eagles

sittin' in a tree

at the end of my street

The Shirt Off His Back

After my father passed away last January, my sisters and I were helping my mom go through his things. For those of you who know my father, you know he....how should I put this....had a "thing" for shopping. And a "thing" for clothes. He had more clothes than you could ever imagine. He was far worse than any woman when it came to shopping. When trying to decided what to do with all his MANY shirts, my mom said she wanted to make quilts out of them.

She started making the quilts in May and by December she had completed 12 beautiful quilts out of my fathers shirts. She made one for each of her 9 grandchildren, one for my brother and sister still living at home, and one for my grandmother. She gave them to them as Christmas presents and I must say, they were by far the most loved present each of her grandchildren received.

They are a beautiful labor of love and a treasure. My kids look at their quilts and say, "Papa used to wear this shirt all the time", or "I remember when Papa wore this shirt to my birthday".

The other night when I was putting Aubrey to bed, she started crying and saying that she missed Papa. I wrapped her up tight in her blanket and told her since it was made out of his shirts, it was just like he was giving her a great big hug.

Thanks mom...

Monday Morning Musings - Did You See Where I Put That?

So, something really funny happened yesterday. And when it happened I thought, that will make such a good story for MMM, cause I'm kinda low on material at the moment. I also thought I should write it down so I don't forget it. And then I though (scoff) I'm not gonna forget this! And well, I woke up this morning, and I have been trying all day, but for the life of me I just can't remember what was so dang funny.

On the flip side, I can't get this song out of my head:



Some people call me Maurice....Wahhhh....Wahhhh....

Cross Country Christmas

On a whim, Steve and I decided, "hey- let's go to St. Louis for Christmas". So a few days later we loaded up the kids and made the 2 day journey half way across this great country of ours. Since it was such a last minute decision we also decided, "hey- let's not tell anyone we are coming and we can just show up on their doorsteps". So we did. It was a fun trip and we had a blast. The kids were so glad to be with their cousins again and when it was time to pack up the fun and head for home, there were shouts of protest. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from our trip.

The kids around the Christmas tree

Steve and his dad, Roy

Zac and Uncle David

Steve, Emily and Aubrey

Sierra gettin' the belly stomp

Aubrey and Emily gave Uncle Steve a good workout. He probably performed about 100 of these flips.

Austin, Heather, Sierra and Samantha

This pretty much sums up what the boys did the entire trip (the guns are not real, just in case you got all freaked out)

Samantha and Addy

Addy made a new friend

Naughty or Nice?

I love this child with all of my heart. I just don't know how I can survive another day of CONSTANT naughtiness, though. I'm about to duct tape her booty to a chair. You can't really tell in the picture but she has opened about 5 granola bars and is in the process of putting them in the microwave.

Oh Addy.....You're lucky you hold such a special place in my heart!

Monday Morning Musings

Addison has learned this great new trick. She has learned that she can push a chair over from the table to the kitchen cabinets and get virtually anything she wants. Like Saturday, when I walked in and found her peeling all the bananas. ALL the bananas. And don't worry, if what she is after is up in a cabinet and way too high, she has also mastered the art of climbing from the chair onto the counter and then opening the cabinet and taking what she wants.


Last Thursday, we scored some tickets to the biggest gig in town. Steve and I took Zac and Emily to the Conference Center to see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's Bell Ringing performance. It was so good and we had such a fun time.



Last Friday I turned 35. Yep. Thirty-five. My mom watched the kids that night so Steve and I could go out. Steve asked me what I wanted to do. I just looked at him with a look that says "Duh!". He knew exactly what that meant. Being that I am the last female on the planet who hasn't see Twilight, he agreed to force himself to sit through it for my benefit. After the movie we went out to eat. And since the kids were staying at my moms overnight, we played with their Christmas present until 2:00 in the morning. It was a lot of fun. We were sad to have to put it away the next morning before picking them up.


We have had so much snow here since Friday. Saturday morning Zac and his friend Garrett hit the "slopes". They spent hours playing in the snow.

Happy Birthday? Addy

I'm about to tell you a story. And you are gonna read it. And while you are reading it you are going to be horrified. Just try not to be too judgemental....

It was about a week before Thanksgiving and I told Steve, "Addy is going to be turning 2 soon. We need to plan a birthday party for her". I then asked him if he by chance knew what day her Birthday was. He didn't. I told him that I was pretty sure it was either the 27th or 28th of November but I wasn't quite sure. I then asked him how one would go about finding out when their child's birthday was if they were having trouble remembering, and all their official documents were packed away somewhere. He said you would ask her mother. Well....that made me feel even better about the whole thing.

Now, let me take you back to the week before Thanksgiving so you can have a better idea of how things were around here. Steve and I were in the process of slowly killing ourselves. Slaving day and night and night and day trying to get the house finished. My sister and her family were about to come into town and there wasn't any way possible that we could cram one more person into my mothers home, let alone 4. So like I said. Day and night, night and day. And on top of all that Steve was still trying to run a business and keep money coming in and I was trying to take care of 4 children, feed and bathe them, make sure homework got done, that they had clean clothes to wear, and trying to pack up at my mom's house so we could move into ours. Which we did. We moved in. And while trying to unpack here we were still frantically trying to finish the house and keep up with normal everyday life.

I thought about calling Addison's doctor and asking if they could tell me what day her birthday was on, but I thought they might flag her chart for possible neglect or horrible mother issues. Then one day when I was driving along I thought, "Hey! I can go back and check my blog and it will tell me what day she was born!". I put it into the back of my head that I needed to do that sometime before her birthday. Well, a few days later she got an ear infection. I took her to a doctor, not her regular doctor because that is too far away now that we moved, but a doctor close by our new house. He gave me a prescription and I took it to get it filled. The label on the bottle of medicine had her name and info on it and it said that her birthday was November 27th. Whew! Now I knew when her birthday was and I could go about planning her party. I knew we couldn't do a big, fabulous event. It just wasn't possible given the craziness going on about here.

I decided that we would go to lunch on her birthday, the day after Thanksgiving. We would go to McDonalds and eat and let the kids play in the playplace and have ice cream and open presents. Which we did. Addy had a very fun time eating her chicken McNuggets and playing. And what a bonus! She got presents too! (Sigh of relief) One more big thing down, without a hitch...

Now before I tell you the rest of the story I have to interject this one detail because I think it is funny. When we left the house and were on the way to McDonalds, Steve asked me which McD's we were going to. I told him the one in _______. (because it was the closest one to us) He said the only McD's he knew of there was in a gas station. I said, "Yeeeeaaaah.....". And he said, "That's the best we can do for our daughters birthday is a McDonalds in a gas station?". I just want to say that once you walk through the gas station to get to the McDonalds, it's just like a plain old regular McDonalds and you don't even know that there is the puming of gas going on right outside. You really don't.

OK, so about a week after her birthday we were at church and they gave us all our family's records and it had all our important dates on it. One being Addy's birth date. Which it listed as November 28th! Not the 27th! I guess last time I filled a prescription for Addison at Walgreens I told them the wrong day. Oops. Then I started thinking that maybe I told people at church the wrong day and how were we ever going to know who was right? So I immediately came home, got on the internet and pulled this up. Now I am certain that her Birthday really is the 28th. I think that it is probably something I won't forget ever again. Although I'm not exactly sure because most times I can't even remember my kids names. But I am going to try really, really hard to never again forget my youngest child's birth date.

All said and done, I think Addison, for the most part, came out pretty much unscathed from the whole ordeal. Here are the pictures as proof.

A Modest Christmas List

Steve and I told the kids that this Christmas the majority of their presents would be coming in the form of a house and their own bedroom with an awesome view. We did ask them to give us a list of the top 3 gifts they would like to receive (within reason). Auntie Lauren always gets them a good gift and between us and Santa, I think we can handle 3 presents. Here is Emily's list that she composed last night:

• i-phone
• laptop
• wii
• dog
• moon shoes
• hair dying kit
• papa
• jewelry making kit
• Grandma S.
• i-dog
• new scooter
• Nintendo DS
• pix-os
• MP3 player (she already has an i-pod, why she needs this in addition, I can't quite say)
• tamagotchi
• guitar
• girl tech stylin' studio
• new back pack
• best Christmas ever movie
• Shrek the halls
• candy
• mission money
• bratz
• 4 wheeler
• air hockey table
• pool table

Sure Emily, let me just go right out and get that for you.....

Snow Angels

We have been enjoying absolutely beautiful weather around here lately. Like no coat kind

of weather, and that is just unheard of in the month of December in these here parts. I knew it was too good to last, and it finally broke yesterday. We had a beautiful snowfall. The first in our new house. Aubrey played in the snow for hours last night. And the first thing she wanted to do when she woke up this morning was go back outside. Addy wanted to join her. They had so much fun. They played for over an hour in the snow. Addy just kept throwing herself down in the snow and laughing. It was so cute.