Trip to Phoenix

We had a great time visiting Grandma and Grandpa at the beginning of July. It was just me and my girls that went for the visit. We spend time with Ty and Jerami and the boys while we were there. Colton had a birthday party while we were there and the girls loved it. We had a very restful visit even though it was hot.

We are now trying to get ready for school to start in a couple of weeks. I think I am more excited than the kids but they are ready to see their friends and get into a normal routine. We have had a very productive summer with the house and hope that everyone will be in their rooms by the end of August. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, finally.

On his way to Eagle

We are so proud of Parker. He received his Life Scout Award last night. What a great son we have. Almost an Eagle Scout. What a great accomplishment that will be. The first in our family. He completed his first year of early morning seminary (6:40am start) and never complained one time. He has been working hard on his Scouting merit badges and he never complains about that either. I am grateful to have a 15 year old that is so willing to choose the right and make good friends. He is a great example to his brother and sisters. He never complains about babysitting his siblings either. And he LOVES being taller than his mother. I had 2 inch sandals on in the picture.

Bee Keeper

We are now official bee keepers. We got the bees last night and then we installed them in the beehive this afternoon. It was really cool to see all of the bees. Presley wanted to know if the Queen bee was a girl or a bee. Then she wanted to know if the Queen bee was going to have a crown. What a cute 4 year old! She wanted to be right in the middle of it the whole time.


I also had a great Mother's Day! The kids made hot pads with their hand prints on them at church today. They were so cute! Then I got a new camera because my other camera kept having data damage and I was loosing lots of pictures. I love taking pictures and it makes me so sad and upset when I loose photos that I will never be able to document in the kids scrapbooks.

Canning

I have been on a canning spree since I got my new stove top. I have canned 36 or so pinto beans, which took 1 1/2 days because of the processing time in the pressure cooker. Then today a friend and I canned 36 jars of strawberry jam. YUMMY! I love canning because I feel such a sense of accomplishment. Plus I have only ever bought jam from a store once in my life. So what should I can next? I was thinking about chicken. I have never canned chicken. I need to call my sister because I know she has. Life is good!

16 Years

Joe and I celebrated our 16th year anniversary this weekend. It was really nice to get away and stay in Albuquerque. We got to the hotel saturday afternoon and got ready to attend the musical Legally Blonde at Popejoy. Before we went we decided to go shopping for new outfits. We got to see some old friends from the Westside of Albuquerque at the musical. It was nice to run into Dora Thomas and Brent and Val Gardner. We miss the westside (kind of) mostly just the friends that we have over there. I don't get to that side of town enough to see all my friends. Maybe I should plan a monthly visit over there. But we had a great time in Albuquerque by ourselves. I still can't believe that it has been 16 years already. How time flies when you are having fun!

Mother daughter dinner

Last Saturday night Kailei and I were invited to a Mother Daughter Dinner and program that our church put on. It was lots of fun going and eating dinner together. We went with 2 of her friends from the church and their mothers. The program was about being Loyal to the Royal within you. They talked about modest dressing and remembering that we are princesses and we need to act and treat our bodies like that. We had a good time.

Father Daughter Dance

So last friday night the kids school puts on a Father Daughter Dance. The theme was "50's dance". I had good intentions of making poodle skirts for the girls but I didn't get around to buying the material. I love that our school does this. Every year the girls can't wait to go. Of course, Presley isn't quite old enough so she didn't get to go and she was sad but hopefully next year. Caleb had a basketball game that night and so I had to get the girls ready at the game. Thank goodness there was an outlet so we could use the curling iron on the hair. Joe got out of work early so he got to watch some of the basketball game before he took the girls to eat at DJ's doghouse and then to the dance. (Side note: Caleb's team lost and they didn't play very well either.)

Question?

So I have been thinking that I am not going to send out a Christmas letter this year. I don't have time to make Christmas cards this year so I was thinking of going the easy route and ordering picture cards and sending them. I know it is kind of lame but I don't have the time. Plus, the important people read my blog so they would know what is going on in our lives. What are you guys doing? Are you sending a Christmas letter in your cards updating everyone on the happenings in your families? Let me know if you would like a Christmas letter or if I should just put everything on the blog. We have had quite a few things happen in the last couple of months. Give me your feedback, the few of you who actually read my blog.

Christmas

I love this time of the year, especially when there isn't a lot of snow. We are grateful that is has been warm since we still don't have our radiant heat hooked up. We hope this weekend we will have it all hooked up and working. Then it can snow all it wants, well maybe not all it wants. I hope to get some pictures up as soon as I can get all my family together at the same time. As the kids are getting older it is harder to get everyone together. We need a new family picture anyway. Hope you are all ready for Christmas.

Thanksgiving

Hope you all have a great Thanksgiving Holiday. We are excited to be going to visit my parents in Phoenix. We need a little break from the building on the house. Or I need a break. We are all excited to get to some warmer weather, as we woke up today to some snow. It wasn't too much but some. I actually was surprised that I liked seeing the snow. It means that winter is really here and Christmas is right around the corner. Hopefully we will get some new family pictures while we are in Phoenix. We need one really badly.

I am back

Yes, I have the internet again. Yeah!!!!Hopefully I will be able to blog regularly. I am still really busy so don't hold me to it. I just had to share this good news with you all (the few of you who might care).

Anything else?

So we are selling our house, hopefully closing on August 15th. We will be moved in to our new house by August 31st, whether it is completely done or not. I have a freshman starting school in August and we are not sure yet which High School he is going to attend. And now I get called to be the Primary President. I always wanted to be that but not now. Too bad we can't pick when we get these callings. Well obviously Heavenly Father knows I can handle this. Now I just need to believe it. I am getting sad that the summer is almost over and my kids will have to go back to school. I think they are getting excited to start again. They miss their friends. Hope you all are having a great summer.

Summertime

I am so glad summer is finally here and we are in the full swing of things. I thought it would slow down but NO I was wrong. But we are getting to do the one thing the kids love to do all summer, and that is swim 3 times a week. YEAH! Parker is helping a lot around the house, he has helped hang quite a bit of drywall with me. And we have TONS more to hang! He is hoping to start golfing as soon as we figure out which High School he is going to attend next year!?! Caleb is the busy one, as usual. He goes to gymnastics 4 times a week from 9am-1:30pm. We pick him up and then we all go swimming until about 4pm. Then he has baseball practice, as he made the All-Stars team for East Mountain Little League. He will be a level 7 gymnast this season and he is excited. He has a new coach and he works out with all the older boys, which he loves, and all the boys really like him. Kailei is busy playing with friends and she constantly gets asked to spend the night. I don't know if she goes to get away from cleaning the house or if she just has so many friends that want her to stay over. Payton and Presley just go along for the ride. They both are little fish in the water. I love that my kids can all swim and they all love the water. We are enjoying the sun and hot days here especially when we can swim.
We have made lots of progress on our house. We are hoping that we can be in at the end of summer. We had a very productive week last week. We hung a whole wall 19 sheets of drywall and we installed 4 - 5' by 5' windows. It is looking really good. We have passed all the inspections so far so we are getting ready to hook up the electric to the house so that we don't have to run extension cords all over the house. Won't that be great! We are having a great summer!

Phoenix

We surprised my mother for her 60th birthday this weekend. We drove Wednesday night and got to my parents at 1:00 AM! We snuck into the house really quiet as to not wake up my mother. My dad and brother knew we were coming so it wasn't a total surprise to them. The next morning, Thursday, was my mother's birthday. She came downstairs and didn't see my children on the couch and they went up to her and gave her a big hug. Scared her a little bit but she was so surprised. Then on friday my brother, John, and his daughter Naomi flew in from San Francisco. I told my mom we needed to get my friend Katie from the airport. She was so shocked to see my brother standing on the curb. It was such a great surprise! Then to top it off we had a surprise party for her Friday night. It has been a great weekend. The cousins have played together and we have gone swimming, even though the pool is a little CHILLY! Home tomorrow to get back into the busy routine we have.

Where has time gone?

So I thought I posted a message and then I realized I didn't get around to it. So here is an update on the family, for those of you that read my blog. We are all doing well staying busy as usual.
Starting with Parker, he had a chance to go and tour the high school yesterday. Yikes, I can't believe that is next year already. He is really excited to be going to Moriarty High School! I am glad because I still don't like the Pintos....Green and black are not my favorite colors. He is trying out for the baseball team next week. He also thinks he wants to run track and possibly play golf at the high school. We will see what happens. He is still doing scouting stuff and he just received his 1st class rank and will be a star in 4 months. He already could be a star but they require you be a 1st class for 4 months. He is playing basketball on the church team and the team isn't very good but they have fun.
Caleb is still participating in gymnastics and is doing very well this year. His last meet in Las Cruces he took 3rd overall for his age. He has his state meet in March and looking forward to that. He also was honored at school with a Gold Honor Roll member. That is the highest recognition they give for honor roll. They had an assembly at his school for all the 3rd to 6th graders that had accomplished this recognition. We are so proud of Caleb's accomplishments at school.
Kailei is doing well in school also. She has made so many friends that we hardly ever see her on the weekends because she always wants to spend the night at her friends house. She really wants to be in Jazz and Ballet but I need to find time when we can get her in that. It always seems to be when we have other activities going on.
Payton is still loving school. She has lost 3 teeth so far and has 2 more that are loose. She is the worst when it comes to loosing teeth. She is also doing very well in school but she can be a little too social sometimes.
Presley really wants to start school so I am looking at getting her into pre-school next year for something to do. She loves being home without any kids. She plays so well by herself that when the kids get home from school she usually is always screaming at someone for bothering her. She is such a good girl and spends lots of time in the car with me travelling to and from the other kids activities.
Joe and I are staying busy as usually. We hope to be in OUR house before the summer so we are working hard at that, in our free time, which seems to be not very much. I will try and post pictures as soon as I can upload them.

Happy New Year

We hope you all have a wonderful New Year's Eve and be safe. We are in Arizona visiting my parents and enjoying the vacation. It is colder than we thought it would be but we are having fun still. We have enjoyed spending time with my brother Tyler, his wife Jerami and his 2 boys. The cousins love playing together. I love coming here but it always seems to set me back with all the junk food we eat. I did go running today and played some basketball with the boys. We went and saw the Christmas Lights at the Temple last night. It was beautiful! We miss all our friends and other family at this beautiful time of the year. For those of you who received a Christmas card, there was no picture. I am still getting used to living without the Internet and didn't have time to get pictures in the cards. So, you can visit our blog regularly to see updated pictures.

Lost tooth

Payton lost her first tooth. She actually had 3 teeth loose at the same time but she was so scared to pull them out. Once she realized that she got money for her teeth she was a little more excited to pull them out. She lost her 2 bottom teeth within a couple of weeks. The second tooth pretty much fell out and she lost it. Poor Payton!

Kailei baptism

Kailei turned 8 and was baptised on Halloween. She was so excited. She wanted to get her ears pierced so bad but she had to wait a few days. We are limited with what is close by our house, but I found out Walmart (my favorite place, NOT) pierces ears. Who would have thought?

The Happenings

So now that I have internet connection and the time to download pictures here goes.
Caleb turned 10 and since I don't have an oven, we had a donut cake. Joe thought it was rediculous but I thought it was inventive. Caleb got his new Broncos jersey and hat from Grandpa and Grandma Edwards. He is getting ready for his upcoming gymnastics season with his first meet on December 12th.

Where has time gone?

Kailei turned 8 on October 20th and she was lucky to get baptized on Halloween. I don't think she will ever forget that. It was great to have all our family and our friends around for this special time in Kailei's life. All she wanted for her birthday was to get her ears pierced, so that is what she did. I thought for sure she would shed a tear, but she didn't cry at all. I was shocked....She looks so cute. It is hard to believe that it has been 8 years.
On another note, Presley is 3 and she seems to always be getting hurt. We were having family home evening and before we knew what had happened she had fallen off the wood bench at the table and it had dropped on her big toe. Needless to say she can't walk on it and it is all black and blue. We are going to xray it to see if it is broken, not that there is anything to do for a broken toe.
We are all enjoying life and the blessings that we have. Yes, we are having our share of trials right now, but I like to think about the positive things in my life because there isn't anything I can really do about the other things. It drives me crazy when people are always complaining about their situations, someone else always has it worse so be grateful for what you do have.