peeping tom....or whatever his name is

I came down the stairs today and found a squirrel peeking in the sliding glass door. It was amazing at how fearless he was. He was pretty fat too so I'm guessing he's been hand fed before. Madelynne was right up at the glass and the squirrel had his little hands and nose pressed right up opposite her. I didn't quite get around her in time to take the picture of them nose to nose though darn it. So here's a post after forever. :) We've had the flu going around our house and blogging hasn't been on the brain. lol

Another kid moment...

I was lying down with Madelynne today at naptime when Theron called and talked to me then talked to Madi. She was sad and whining a little on the phone to him about bumping her head. Then she started giggling and passed the phone to me with light kick with her foot. She said, "Daddy said to kick you for him." When I got the phone back Theron was laughing since he'd heard her and had really said "KISS mommy for him". Funny girl! We got a good laugh out of it.

Look who's walking

Jacob is pretty wobbly, but officially walking now. Too much fun. Now if only we can hope he doesn't decide to learn to climb stairs next. :)

the things kids say....

Benjamin had to give a talk in Primary today so I printed out the story about the worth of a $20 bill for him to read. He practiced reading it to Grandpa before church then this afternoon at lunch Dad asked me where I found that talk. Benjamin piped up before I could respond and said, "she probably got it on ebay". LOL Kids are hilarious! (Yes, I love ebay but I do draw the line on finding primary talks there.) =)

Fun with leaves

Yesterday was all about leaves...lol. The kids were attempting to fill a laundry bucket and empty into the garbage. I think they only ended up making 5 runs to the dumpster. We have a TON of leaves in our yard...big project that needs to get done. I was cutting out leaves for Primary today and Madelynne was the photographer of me and her brothers. Silly girl.

Flashback Friday

This week I have a collage from my 16th birthday. I remember my mom woke me up early (saturday morning) to get ready and hurry out the door to a movie(HOOK) with my brother, Hyrum and my dad. I wasn't feeling well that day so when we got back I was a little grumpy. My mom told me I had a package downstairs then she, dad & Hyrum all walked down the stairs. I remember saying, "if it's my package, why are you all going downstairs?". Yes, I was a little bit of a brat. Then I went downstairs and found the piano room FULL of people. They shouted surprise and Happy birthday then I led the way back upstairs. I asked mom where she got the numbers to invite all my friends and she said she got it from my address book. I start hyperventilating at that point thinking she's called the guy I had a crush on from school since he was in there but thankfully he wasn't there. It turned out fun even though I wasn't a fan of surprises. lol

Theron's funny memory for today is when he was about 4. His mom and 8 of his siblings all took a road trip to Oklahoma to visit his grandparents. It was a long and hot trip in the family's ancient station wagon. Theron and his twin sister, Sharon, were asleep in the very back seat that faces backwards while driving late one night when the car got a flat tire. Theron's older brothers took charge and carefully lifted the sleeping twins onto the ground to get to the spare tire underneath the seat they were sitting on. The tire was changed and all was well...not. The brothers got everything put back into the car except for the sleeping twins. Theron remembers waking up and seeing that they were alone on the side of the road and it was dark. He said there were lots of sounds on the night. He comforted his sister and they waited...and waited. Meanwhile, a couple hours later, the older brothers realize that Theron and Sharon are NOT in the vehicle. They turn around and drive a couple more hours and pick them up where they left them. True story....I'd be ready to strangle the older brothers. lol

little reader

Madelynne was reading whle I worked on the computer this morning. I couldn't resist snapping a few unsuspecting shots on the webcam of her. Too cute. She's had it read to her so many times she was reading to me. I love moments like this.

it's going around...

Hey all! We're all doing fairly fabulous. Other than the strange flu that comes and goes around here. Michael had his turn Saturday night then was fine after that and wanted to go to Stake Conference...so we went. He's been fine ever since. Today as soon as the boys walked in the house Paul emptied the contents of his stomach on the kitchen floor...it was lovely. Hi hello to you to, eh? ;) Boy did he look pale. I set him up in his room with a movie in bed then he after he got to feeling better he was up playing who knows what with Madelynne, but here's a pic. I had to laugh. Anyway, hopefully this bug will be on it's way very soon. I don't want the kids to get behind missing school from being sick. It's hard to get the teachers to send a package home for them to do to stay caught up. It will be interesting when Michael misses a week due to surgery later this month...sigh. =] I loved reading my cousin's blog today and reading about warm fuzzy moments. It was awesome. It made me want to slow down and not be annoyed so often and have more "warm fuzzy" moments with them. :P We are on a serious job hunt for Theron to be home more. It's getting ridiculous to have him gone so much. After 4 years of him being gone more than home we are offically fed up to the degree of quitting before finding anything. Although that wouldn't be good so we're hanging in there a little longer and praying for something to open up around here. Even a commute to Cody daily for work would rock if he were home each night and weekends. Time for an extreme home makeover.....LOL....at least in our family. We need daddy and husband home again. Anyway, life goes on and we find that we have more strength to cope than we'd really like, but we keep hanging in there. Ok, I'm done murmuring. haha! Happy November! I'm super duper excited for Christmas this year. I'm already playing Christmas music. That definitely is my favorite part. I figure I'd start early this year to draw it out a bit more since it seems to stop so suddenly after Christmas. The tree seems to come down earlier each year. I tried one year till at least the middle of January....didn't go over too well. haha! Thanksgiving will be fun though. Everyone is coming to our house except for my brother in Indiana and his family. They'll definitely be missed. I'm completely hooked to the early Black Friday shopping. Holy hannah! Last year was my first time ever going at 4am and I was amazed at what a blast it was. Who knew what I was missing! lol. So that's the plan again this year. I'm excited. Well I'm off to help Ben with his spelling. I swear I need more patience. ha! See ya!

Flashback Friday!

It's Friday! We missed last week darn it. :) So this week I found the #1 picture of me that the show "What Not to Wear" would cringe at. haha! I think I'm around Kindergarden age. Then for Theron I don't have many photo's of him little little so here's one of him doing the toast at his brother Lance's wedding reception. I suppose when I run out of pictures for him we'll start telling his crazy stories from growing up. ha!

9 years ago...

Where have the years gone? It's anniversary time! =] I am really thankful for my loving husband. He rocks! I wish he was home more, but that will come in time. I love you, Theron!! Here's a few wedding pictures then the last one is a year later to the day when we were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple.

end of October fun =]

We have had a crazy fun past week. It started with my brother, Hyrum, coming into town for work with a coworker and staying here for 3 nights. That was awesome! Thanks again for dinner Hyrum!! We had great visits. Then on Thursday morning we left early for Tali & Steve's in SLC. It was the BEST weekend. We went trick-or-treating out in Nicole and Rick's neighborhood and hit the motherload. LOL. I swear we have like 25+ pounds of candy....ugh! I mean "rock on". haha! I'll have to use it in singing time in Primary to get rid of it all. haha! Anyway, Halloween was a blast. Benjamin was a skeleton mummy. Michael was a pirate. Paul was a knight. Madelynne was a kitty cat (marie from aristocats). Jacob was scooby-doo. =] They were pretty funny out going door to door. After a while they was a continuous whine of being tired, thirsty, are we going home yet?, don't run so fast. It was hilarious. I think the adults were more into it than the kids. LOL Then Saturday was Tali's annual Halloween party. It was awesome as usual. The soups were delicious. Debbi's relay game is always my favorite. =] Then the kids went trick-or-treating door to door in the house for a small bag of candy. fun fun. The slide show below has a few of the pictures from the weekend. I won't put them all since there were almost 300 or so. haha! Gotta love digital cameras.

I've been tagged.

Krista tagged me, so now I have to put 7 things about myself that some people wouldn't know.
1. I'm #6 in my sibling line-up, although only 4 of us are living now.
2. Back in the day of being paid for my work, I've worked as a - receptionist, data entry typist, legal secretary, after-school program teacher.
3. I went on an LDS mission for 18 months to northern California.
4. Hyrum Smith, brother of the prophet, is my 4th great grandfather which makes Elder Ballard and my mother 1st cousins.
5. I'm a writer.
6. I hate doing laundry. (or maybe everyone knows that already? lol)
7. I laugh at the most inappropriate times. In other words, I have a very morbid sense of humor. Ask Joe about the time we almost got in a head on collision because he was driving on the wrong side of the road. =]

The 7 people I'm tagging are:
Kristi, Megan, Raegan, Jen C., Wendy, Heidi, Tali
Now it's your turn to let us know about you....

busy is good :P

Boy am I glad that Primary singing program is over. :):) I managed to fumble my way through the 8 songs. I hadn't even heard of 3 of them before. They did awesome. Now the fun begins in singing time, eh? :) Not much is new. Oh, Michael went to the Billings Clinic on Friday to do a pre-op appointment with the surgeon since he's got a hernia. We scheduled his surgery for the week of Thanksgiving so he can use the time off school as part of his down time. This is his second surgery, he had a hernia on the other side 4 years ago. Crazy! So far his Nephrotic Syndrome is still in remission. The doctor will watch him to make sure the surgery doesn't cause a relapse. Michael is looking forward to having it fixed. I probably shouldn't have let him play soccer, but I forgot all about it when I signed them up and Michael didn't remind me of his hernia until after their tournament. LOL. Oops, pin a medal on me. =]

Flashback Friday!

I originally wanted to post pics of the kids when they were little, but they wouldn't upload...darn it. So here's one of Theron on his brother's guitar when he was like 8? I think it's the same guitar he colored the strings with crayons then his brother broke the guitar over his head.....can you feel the love? haha! The one of me was back in 1977....I was one.

time goes marching on....=]

Hey there! We've had a fun few days. Theron got home Monday morning and had 2 days with us for his reset. It was great to have him home. It worked out perfect since the kids didn't have school Monday for the hunting holiday. I had a wallpaper project I tried to recruit him to help me with, but no suck luck. haha! It's a doozy of a job so I'll have to do a little "how to" researching on the internet before tackling that one. Here's couple pictures from the past few days.

My dad was pushing the garbage down with a fist to make more room and met a little resistance with a can.....being on coumadin(sp?) he bled all over the place for like 2 hours. Not that we'd neglect it that long on purpose, but we all went down for naps on Sunday and he woke up with blood all over his blanket...poor guy. So I called the hospital and he gave us the idea of using super glue to seal the cut....it was FABULOUS! a little mess sure, but it worked!

There's a walking path along the river close to our home and pretty much goes the length of town north to south. It was a pretty walk.

Theron played a little "Simon Says..." with the kids last night. It was nice to see that they still had it in them to do what they're told immediately without griping. hahahaha! The little one is them walking like eqyptians. haha

The self-shot is fabulous for dragging people who don't want to be in pictures into them. haha! So there's Dad and me, Theron and me, Michael and me & Paul and me.

FLASHBACK FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, we've decided to add a little fun to this blogging and poach on others creativity. =] We are going to do a Flashback Friday every Friday we remember to post and put old pictures up from our suplus of photos from before the conversion to digital cameras. =] This week I found one of my family at Thanksgiving in 1983. I was 7. Theron's picture is his school pic from like 4th grade. We got a chuckle out of these, hope you do too. Can I just say what the heck am I wearing? I vaguely remember that my mom made my vest and skirt, but hello? I love the shoes!!! LOL

All about Jacob!!

Jacob turned 1 today! It's amazing how the past year has flown. We did a little cake for him and sang. Jacob hammed it up as you can see in the video and pictures below. :) Jacob is crawling at lightning speed all around the house. He'll stand up and balance without holding anything, but won't take any steps by himself yet. He's pretty close to walking. I keep telling him to slow down and stay little. Funny how that never works. I remember saying that to all of them and time kept marching on. LOL! Anyway, Happy Birthday Jacob!! We love you bubbers!

p.s. Michael is the cameraman in this little clip and laughed till he couldn't breath when he watched it again and heard his little growling Godzilla moment at the end then the scratchy breaking up noises....silly boy.

whirlwind of activity

,
Hi all! We had a very fun filled and wild weekend. Tali & Steve came into town on Friday for Michael's baptism Saturday morning. It was loads of fun. There was no hot water to fill the baptismal font so calls were made for people to bring 5 gal. buckets of hot water or coolers full. It was a little hilarious if you ask me. =] Tali & SheraLee sang a duet together that was pretty. We had cake afterwards in the kitchen area of the church then migrated to the house with everyone for hoagie sandwiches for lunch. It also snowed like 5 inches over the weekend as well. It was extremely weird to wake up and see all that snow after only 2 weeks of Fall weather. It's October for heaven's sake!!!! lol. Here's a few pics of the crazy weekend.