Josh is 12!

Well on December 3rd Josh turned 12 years old and on December 6th he was made a deacon. I now have 2 deacons. Dallas won't turn 14 until April so they will get to spend a few months together as deacons. I was going to take a picture of my two boys today after church but I forgot so I will do that next week and post those. I can't believe that my two little boys are growing up. It is fun to watch them grow but time is just going by way to fast.

We had a great weekend with our family. My mom came, Phil's parents came, Karena and Brent came with all of their kids, and Jared and Kendra live here in town. They were here also. The kids had so much fun together. I sure wish we all lived by each other. Brent also helped us get all of our plumbing in our downstairs bathroom hooked up so now we have a working bathroom downstairs. Thanks so much Brent! The only problem with having that bathroom working is I now have 4 toilets to clean. Ugh!

This past week on December 10th my mom got married. She married Monty Nickle from Arizona. She new him when they were younger and just recently reconnected. They are living in Arizona for the time being and will return home to Washington for the summers. It has been 10 years now since my dad passed away and she has been very lonely. Change is always hard for me and I miss my dad a lot, but I hope this brings my mom happiness.

Because of everything that has been happening in my family I have really learned to appreciate my family even more. I love my brothers and sisters more than they will ever know. I hope they all know that. I would do anything for any of them. I am so grateful for their friendships. I am so grateful that my kids have so many cousins that they can call their friends and can have such a fun time with them. There is a special bond with cousins I think and it is so fun to have so many and a few more still to come. Maren is expecting anyday and Jilayne is due in June. I am sure Kimberly still has a few more to come. It is such a blessing to have such a large family. Anyways I love all of them!

My new favorite Quote!

I forgot to mention I saw the coolest quote the other day at my friends house. I am having vinyl made right now to put on tile for my front room. It says "Because someone we love is in heaven, we feel Heaven in our home." I just loved it when I saw it. I have some very special people that I love in Heaven and I hope they are watching over us and I hope we have a little piece of heaven in our home because of them. Love and miss you Dad and Kristi!

Chase is 4 today!

My baby is 4 years old today. I can't believe it. I keep telling Chase that he will always be my baby but he keeps reminding me that he is not a baby. It is amazing how time flies by so quickly. I thought I would never be out of the baby stages. It actually feels pretty good but then it is also sad to think all of my kids are growing up so quickly. I just thought I would mention a few things about Chase today. He is such a joy to have around. He makes us all laugh. He is very stubborn but he has the cutest smile. He has a great imagination and he is happy to play by himself while the other kids are at school. He still likes to sneak into our bed every night and it drives Phil crazy. Last night I didn't even hear him come in but when I woke up he was right there beside me. I am sure that too will end soon as he realizes it isn't "cool" to sleep with mom and dad. We are so grateful to have Chase in our family. We love you Chase.

Last night for his birthday we went bowling and had cake and ice-cream. It was so cute to watch Chase carry the big heavy ball up to bowl. It weighed about as much as him but he was determined to do it himself. Phil has a banquet at work tonight and Dallas has a game in Idaho Falls so we decided to celebrate last night. Chase is anxiously awaiting the moment he will get to open his presents. I let him open his Star Wars Clone Wars coloring book to keep him entertained today and he said it was the best present we have ever given him. I love this age when they are so grateful for anything--even if it only cost me $1 at Wal-Mart.

Well here is a little update on what we have been doing at our house. Phil has been very busy tiling all of our bathrooms. He has the downstairs one done, our back bathroom and hallway done, and our master bathroom just about done. We have one more bathroom to do but it may have to wait. It looks so good. Phil has done an awesome job and it has been a lot of work. Thanks Phil!

Our kiddos are all busy with basketball right now. Dallas and Josh each play 3 games a week. One night here in Rexburg and the other 2 are in Idaho Falls. They keep us very busy. It is so much fun to watch them develop their talents and to make good friends. Dallas has had some lingering injuries but he hasn't complained and keeps on playing. He has some issues with his feet and knees right now. We are working on fixing them but haven't been very successful thus far. Tiana is also playing basketball and has really improved this year. It has been fun to watch her. She just plays one game a week on Saturdays here in Rexburg.

Tiana and I went and saw the musical Annie this past weekend. It was so much fun to watch and to be able to do something fun with Tiana. We don't get to do much "girly" stuff with so many boys around. We had a lot of fun. We went with our neighbor friends-Debbie, Summer and Kelly Miles. It brought back a lot of fun memories of growing up and watching Annie over and over again. Good times!

Chase and Logan really just get to follow us around. They are troopers and I think they enjoy it. They don't usually complain to much. We are grateful for our family at this time as always.

Last week in Young Woman they had each of us write down something we wanted to work on for next year. I wrote down that I wanted to do better at keeping a journal. So here I am and we will see how well I do. This is going to be my journal so it may bore people but it is for my children to look back on someday.

Anyway Happy Birthday Chase. We love you!

Its been a long time.

Well I haven't blogged pretty much since I started my blog. We have many things going on but I just don't take the time to do this. Last weekend we went to Boise to watch Madison High play in the basketball state tournament. They took 2nd place, but we had a ton of fun. I think at least half of the town of Rexburg was there and most everyone stayed at the same hotel. The kids had a blast with all of their friends. It was like a big hug slumber party. The kids were all out playing until at least midnight. The hotel had a basketball court and a swimming pool. The kids had so much fun. Today Dallas and Josh are playing in a basketball tournament in Idaho Falls. Josh's team is playing in the Championship game and Dallas's team lost their second game so they will play for 4th place. They both have played very well and hopefully they are having fun. This is their last basketball tournament for the year. Dallas may play in a couple more. Tiana, Logan, and Chase haven't been feeling the best so we stayed home today but we are going to the boys games tonight. Phil is leaving tonight to head to St. George with all his high school buddies. I think there are 10 of them. They go down and golf every year. It is a long way down there to golf one day but they have a lot of fun. I hope he enjoys it. They drive down Sunday and then golf like 36 holes on Monday and then drive home. They have friends from Utah, California and Idaho. They all meet there. I will try to post some pictures soon.

This is a picture of the kids taken a while back. I thought it was cute to have the sister surrounded by all of her brothers acting like tough guys.

This is the all the kids and the dog (which we no longer have). I was just experimenting with the picture thing to see if it worked. I am going to try it.

Life is Good!

This is my first time blogging so please don't laugh because I really don't know what I am doing. This weekend we went to Jackson Hole for a couple of basketball games for Dallas. They won both of them so that was great. We did some sight seeing afterwards and spent some time with another family from the team. We found a candy store that all the kids loved and they all filled their bags up. Less than 24 hours later and the bags are empty. Love those dentist bills huh? We went out to eat at Bubbas and it was pretty yummy.