Thomas S. Monson: 'The Divine Gift Of Gratitude' @ The 180th October LDS...

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving week!

Ben's news broadcast :)

Ben got this k'nex roller coaster for his birthday and amazingly got it al put together. He and Michael disappeared with my camera and when I got it back I saw their movies. Too cute!

Dad's skating adventures!

For Ben's birthday party this year we did a joint party and rented out the rec center for a skating party. It was a lot of fun. I hadn't skated in about a decade since everytime I wanted to I was pregnant and it wasn't an option. haha! Anyway, my dad used to be the fasted skater. I was never as good as him. He used to take my younger brother and I skating in SLC every weekend for a while there. So 20 years later he put on a pair of skates for the first time. He's my hero for even getting that far! :)

He's a young 72 I tell ya!
They're on!! Now to just stand up....

Better yet...let's crawl to the hand rail to get vertical. :)

...and he's up!!!

This is where he realized that if he were to let go of the rail it's a long ways down and he didn't want to break anything so he took them off again. Way to go for trying, Dad!!!!

Great blog by a friend of mine! She makes Barbie couches, love seats, chairs, sleeping bags as well as clothes. Very cute stuff!

She's still getting it all up an running, but fun to look through the slide shows.

http://www.jolenescreations10.blogspot.com/

Summer is officially over!

Tali's daughter, Lexi & Madelynne (she lost her first tooth, crazy!)
My five kids and Tali's five kids equals lots of noise and fun!
My kids after Tali's son, Dominic's baptism the end of July.
Tali & I with 8 of the kids while we followed my dad on the 4 wheeler with the other 2 to Devil's kitchen to hike around.

I took Madi, Lexi & Jacob around the block and to the park and back. Lots of fun!

I am in denial that summer is over. It's been one of the best summer's we've had in a long time. We had lots of family time and cousins around to add to the fun. I lost the blogging bug for a while, but may test it out again. I put all my pictures on facebook so I forget to put any here.

The three older boys go back to school tomorrow as well as Madi. This will be her first day of school ever and she is so excited and ready to go. I'm the one that is so bummed because I will seriously miss her. It's been 3 years since I had a kid do a first day of school ever. I must be rusty, because I'm having trouble keeping it together I tell ya! :D too funny :)

We had an awesome 2 1/2 week vacation with my good friend from high school. I've always called her my other sister so my kids consider her kids cousins and vice versa. I'll include a FEW pictures from the fun since nearly a thousand were taken. Yup, very camera happy between us two mom's. LOL!!

A brief update on us is that we're still here! haha! jk. Theron's working 5 days on and 2 days off for now. The job we've been waiting for since spring hasn't opened up yet and I can't help but wonder if he's not supposed to get it. We've contemplated moving to Evanston since Theron got a job offer there a little while back and could still have a place to work if he wanted, but we have to do some serious thinking and praying on that one. I'm still doing the stay at home mom thing. I'll just have Jacob hanging out at home all day since Madi will be gone all day in Kindergarten. Jacob won't know what to do with all the quiet around the house. :) Benjamin turns 11 on Friday and has enjoyed learning to drive. :) Yes, it's early but I made the mistake of telling them that my dad started letting me drive in the BYU Cougar stadium parking lot when I was in the 4th grade. So he drives up in the mountains to and from when they do their firewood trips. It's a relief in a way to see how well he does so that if anything ever happened to my dad while out there then Ben would be able to get him off the mountain just fine. Michael turns 10 next month and had done a little driving as well since he starts 4th grade tomorrow. I haven't driven with him yet, but my dad says he does pretty good as well. Paul turned 8 this summer and was baptized. That was an exciting day for him to have so many friends and family here to support him. Madelynne turned 5 this summer and growing up way too fast if you ask me. She's full of energy and extremely independent. Jacob isn't 3 until the middle October. He's a moose though and looks like he could be a short 4. He's a sweetheart and still makes everyone smile. He's a little parrot and goes around copying his brothers and sister so it annoying to hear him copy their bad habits...sigh. ;) Well it's late and I need to switch from being a night owl to a morning person by some miracle. haha! Good night!

all I can say is wow...

Sigh...so it's been a rough week. Monday this week we had the last of our company in town leave. We'd been gone for a week in Vegas then came home to barely unpack then have family in town for another week almost. So Monday night we started up the routine we've been neglecting with so much going on of family scripture study. We sat down and were taking our turns. All the kids were still pretty wired from having a house full of cousins and friends. They weren't listening, I was frustrated. I threw my water bottle to get their attention. Madelynne was lying on floor in the middle of the living room and sat up then turned around to look at me as the bottle is now flying across the room. It hit her in the corner of her eye. I was sick instantly that it had hit her. She crawled up on my lap and we cried together for probably the next 20 minutes while I held an ice pack over her eye. It was an accident. I can honestly tell you that I would never purposely harm my child. If you were to ask any of the other kids what happened then yeah, they're going to just say I threw it at her eye. I threw the bottle and yes it hit her eye, but no it was not intentional by a long shot!!!
The reason I write this is that my boys have been questioned about Madelynne's eye and they gave their "kid" answer without the whole story and so the black eye was reported to Department of Family Services and a police officer showed up at my house tonight to follow up and find out what happened. I was shocked! He asked if he could talk to me and I was stumped as to what he wanted when he said it was in regards to Madelynne's eye I was sick! He said he'd questioned the counselor as to whether any of the boys ever had bruises, etc. which of course they didn't other than what boys normally get. After I explained what happened and he realized it was not intentional then he left.
I have to admit I have been angry, embarrassed and extremely sad all night over this whole thing. It saddens me that whoever this was couldn't have just called me or asked if maybe I needed something and in their round about way asked what happened. I may be quiet till you get to know me, but I am a very friendly person. Some say my being quiet comes across as snooty or judgemental. I am soooo not a snooty person. I'm very down to earth, easy to talk to. I'm also the most non-judgemental person you will ever meet. I have always given everyone the benefit of the doubt all my life. I'm saddened that I wasn't given the benefit of the doubt and given a call.
Anyway, life goes on. Maybe whoever made the call will read this and maybe not. Maybe if you work at the school and have heard the speculation about what really happened this will put an end to it. So thanks for the soap-box moment.

Still on the planet!

Hi there! I can't believe it's almost been 3 months. Time definitely gets away. Let's see, what's new around here since the last post....

Theron was able to contact his daughter, Markida, for the first time in ten years. That was exciting. She got a hold of me on myspace and we instant messaged for a little bit. She mostly had questions about her dad and if she looked like him, etc. Finally she and Theron exchanged numbers (unknown to the ex) and talked and talked. I don't think they had a single conversation under 3 hours each time they talked. Theron felt like the hole in his heart had begun to fill slightly. Poor guy. That's been rough on him. His son, Joseph, still doesn't contact him at all so it was nice for Theron to get updated on him by Markida. Joseph is 20 this year...crazy! Markida will be 18 in April.

Joseph 19 1/2 years old

Markida 17 1/2 years old

We went to my sister's up in Helena in January for my nephew's baptism. That was exciting since it had been 2 years since our last trip up there. Our new family pic was from after the baptism in the foyer.

Over Valentine's weekend we went down to finally meet little De'Ja Natalia Dent. She was 9 weeks when we finally got to meet her. Soooo precious!

De'Ja at 10 ish weeks old. :)

We've had a lot of sickness around here. We go through Clorox wipes like crazy on everything trying to get rid of the germs. It doesn't help that I get a little OCD when it comes to hand washing. hahaha! We're hoping the sickness is gone by this weekend when we go down to SLC again for the baby blessing for De'Ja. Very exciting!

Theron's anxiously looking for another job to bring him home more. It's time. So April is our goal and our leap of faith. We nearly headed for North Dakota and Casper a month or so back, but it wasn't meant to be I guess. I'll move anywhere if it means we'll all be together more often than we are now. We're looking in south western Wyoming as well. I hate to move my dad further away from his roots, but I guess we do what we gotta do. He's already said he's 100% behind us with it so I'll take him at his word. =)

Hopefully I'll find my camera for next posts. We head to Vegas the end of this month for our annual trip so gotta find it before then. :) My cellphone just doesn't cut it. Goodnight all! Hopefully it isn't another 3 months till I blog again. haha! :)

Christmas craft fun

More craft fun. It was a Christmas tree decoration tonight while we ate chocolate candies. lol

Dad's getting into the decorating. =) Madelynne's partner in crafty crime.

Jacob teamed up with me to get his done.

Madelynne & Grandpa's finished product.

Paul finally finished. =) Michael is a nut.

Pickly man with his tree.

Wow, these guys are all a little silly. =) Benjamin with his end result. fun fun!

Gettin' crafty =)

We had some way cute crafts brought over and have had fun making it a family thing each night while they last. Last night we did the snowmen. The kids had a blast making them.

Gingerbread Lane =)

I woke up to find the kids all set up in front of the kitchen counter driving cars and pretending their little houses had driveways. Too funny! Hot Wheels City has been trumped by Gingerbread houses!! lol

Christmas party fun

Saturday night was the ward Christmas party. The kids had fun dressing up like shepherds. I could tell Benjamin was surprised to be Joseph. Bless his heart. He kept saying things like 'what if someone else is when we get there?' He's so tender. It turned out pretty great. All the kids looked awesome and sang out nicely. Then the family dancing was a lot of fun afterwards. :) I didn't get a picture of Madelynne darn it. She was an angel. A messy one since she was eating ice cream before....with 2 spoons! She's a nut!

Jacob ended up being the puppy.
but tried on the shepherd at home.

Paul stylin in Theron's leather coat as a shepherd. lol

Michael

Benjamin played Joseph. Great night!

This was great! Hope your holidays are going well so far!!!

Amazing Grace Techno - Computer Controlled Christmas Lights from Richard Holdman on Vimeo.

Dad's birthday! #72 =)

Dad was surprised we came into his room to sing to him.
He was excited to get a new blender. hahaha! He's worn the old one clear out till it squeaks and whines. =)

anxiously awaiting to help assemble it.

then the crowd moved in and between all of them they got it assembled and tested out his health shake he makes every day.

He also got chocolate covered almonds and we made a cake for him for dessert after dinner. =) He was pleasantly surprised and said it was definitely one of his better birthdays. I think all the birthday wishes on Facebook and calls today were a huge factor. =)

Allergic reaction =(

I think I jinxed myself on this one. It wasn't too long ago that I actually had the thought go through my mind "how can you be allergic to nuts of any kind?" lol =) It didn't make sense to me since I hadn't heard much about it until the past 5 or 6 years.

This morning my dad got a package of Cashews for his birthday/Christmas from my uncle and he shared with us and you know kids, Jacob had to have a fist full as he wandered around the house. So I went up to tackle my mountain of laundry waiting to be folded then heard a croupy cough out of the blue that made me think he was choking. I came downstairs and he was barking like a seal when he breathed in and wheezing. Scared the crap out of me.

Then the internal debate started on whether I'm overreacting or if I really ought to take him in. I had myself talked into just going down and buying some Benedryl for him then last minute I thought...you know what? He has insurance, the worst they can do is send us back home so I went down to Midway. While he cried during the chest x-ray he sounded terrible. Every breath in was a bark. Poor guy.

Anyway, it wasn't much of a reaction while sitting in the ER and the doc said he'd just treat him as if it were a nut allergy and I left him home with my dad while running to the Pharmacy to pick up the 2 day steriod and antihistamine oh and some eye drops for one eye that was really red for some reason. When I got back home I took one look at Jacob and panicked slightly. He'd swollen up quite a bit more. His right eyelid was swollen, the rash had spread and his ears were bright red and swollen with little bumps all over them. Very weird. Never dealt with this stuff before. Anyway after the first failed attempt to give him his medicine (he couldn't swallow very well so he spit the first try out) he seems to be doing better. He's woozy...lol...most likely from the benedryl, but the hives are getting better slowly.

Now that I think about it, I think this was his first time eating cashews. He's had almonds, peanuts, walnuts, pecans and NEVER reacted like this. I wonder what makes one nut different from another. Cashews are the best too! hahahaha =) Anyway, I'm super grateful I got him in and he's got the medicine working on him. Seems like the itching has mellowed as well. Phew!!! =)

Gingerbread houses =)

It was a sticky sticky afternoon around here. We rolled out the gingerbread dough last night and cut out the walls & roof then baked them letting them sit out overnight to firm up a little more then the decorating began today after lunch.

Paul's little house under construction.
gingerbread lane =)

Madelynne's finished house.

Paul's house.

Michael's house.

Benjamin's house.

They had the back sides decorated too, but that was a ton more pictures. They turned out pretty cute. Lots of fun. Learned what to do better for next year since this was our first attempt ever at gingerbread houses. lol =) Merry Christmas!!