here are some pics from my family reunion a few weeks ago.




and here are some more...





i had a lot of fun up in pinetop with my family and girls. the older i get the more i enjoy seeing my cousins and aunt and uncles that were a big part of my life. we went go-kart racing, antique shopping and had a blast...

old friends. i got to see shanna this week. it was so nice. i miss her. and i scrapped. i got 8 pages done! on a vacation album i've been working on for three years. lol i also got to annoy kaelene. always a treat. lol and kerry--that is shanna eating serrano's bean dip. just for you.

in other news--anna and i survived the catalina island field trip. we kayaked, snorkeled, soaked up the sun, made friends and watched dolphins swim in the ocean. no pictures because they are on my phone and i have no cable to download yet.

in other news i have registered for college! yay for me. i'm so excited to start school. i have decided to go to radiology tech school that has opened at our little college in prescott. it is a 2 year degree. i plan on doing that and then maybe becoming an ultrasound tech. i have a few prerequisites to do before i can start the program. math. again. because after 10 years you have to take it again. so sad. i have also contacted ASU about finishing my bachelor's degree as well. so i have some options.

anna and haley's last day of school was yesterday. it was a nice program. my favorite part (besides seeing my girls on stage) was the director of their school's little anecdote. she told a story of an old man that walked along the beach every morning with a pail collecting the starfish on the sand and throwing them back into the ocean. another man stopped him and asked why he did this as the next morning it would be the same thing all over again and that it didn't matter. the old man grabbed a starfish out of the pail and threw it as far as he could out into the ocean. he looked at the man and said 'it mattered to that one.' great story.

i haven't blogged in like forever. but i had to quickly tell what happened with brianne and jeff's visit. brianne cooked and cleaned the entire weekend. so fun. she made me mexican lasagne, bread pudding, vegetarian monte cristo sandwiches and my favorite eggs benedict! i can never make fun of her cooking again. not that i could before, i just did. lol plus she gave me and taylor facials and her and jeff colored and hunted easter eggs with the girls. plus they also were the easter bunny this year.

i have to say that there is no better feeling or reward in this world than having raised the most wonderful children. and brianne is just that. i love you honey. and your sweet husband. now go make me grandbabies...

so i watched nickelodeon's kids choice awards show. more than once...L

so this week is spring break for my girls. taylor went to colorado with her friend and her friend's mom and is having a blast. all the girls were not excited to find out that mom does not get a spring break from work. me too! but i made a game plan. i told them that every night they would get something from me to have to do the next day. so the first day it was coloring books. today it was sidewalk chalk. tomorrow they have bubbles and a mask to paint and decorate. also i told them that since i got off work earlier all week we would do some fun things together. last night we went and saw 'race to witch mountain' which we all thoroughly enjoyed. and i'm sure for different reasons. lol

tonight we went and had dinner at wildflower bread company and went and bought the crafts for tomorrow and i took carson to Rue 21 where she got some much needed shirts on sale. i have to tell you that carson has been such a big help to me this week. with taylor gone it is just her watching the little ones. every day this week carson has cleaned the house, did the dishes, done the laundry, made my bed with clean sheets! and taken care of the little ones with no complaints. and all of this she has done on her own. i did not ask her to do it. so she got a trip to the store. carson has always been such a help around the house. she is going to make a good mommy one day. love you carson.

and in honor of saint patricks day--a limerick:

There was a young lady one fall
Who wore a newspaper dress to a ball.
The dress caught fire
And burned her entire
Front page, sporting section and all...L

so last weekend as i was complaining about all the stuff i needed to get done around the house a wise person told me to take the girls and go do something. so we did. we went to the zoo here in prescott. it was a treat. they have a new tiger. we also got to see a black bear, porcupine, mountain lion and some horrendously nasty spiders. it was beautiful weather and i was glad i slowed down for a minute and enjoyed my girls and nature.

now, over on kaelene's blog she is doing a cute little 'pay it forward' type of thing. she said that the first five posters to her blog would get something handmade from her within the year. but the catch was that you had to give away something on your blog as well. so since taylor just watched that movie in school and i love kaelene i will offer something handmade by me within the year to the first five posters on my blog. and it made me think of my favorite quote on 'the soprano's': i know every day is a gift, but does it have to be a pair of socks? so no socks from me...L

my sweet girls. love 'em. have a good weekend...L

for my birthday i had my kids let me take pictures of them with me and them alone and all together and any combo i could think of. they couldn't deny their mom her one birthday request. photos. of course it is taking me an impossibly long time to photoshop them, scrap them or any other thing. that's my life right now.

but i just had the most incredible experience with taylor lately. it's personal and private and something i will hold with me for a long time. we connected on a level that i'm sure doesn't happen all the time with a teenager and her mom. although i've never had a problem yet with teenagers. i always enjoyed my kids when they were teenagers. and i'm enjoying taylor and carson right now too.

and brianne called me with a sweet memory she had this week. one where she was at home outside watching and waiting for me to come home. and how she always was happiest when i was there at home with her. thanks brianne for sharing that with me today. i am happy when i have my girls (and one boy!LOL) at home with me. i know it's not PC to say as a woman that your kids are your life. but MY KIDS ARE MY LIFE! i love them and cherish them and enjoy having them with me. ok--sometimes i do enjoy a minute or two to myself...L

it's been a crazy week around here. but there have been a few bright spots.

it snowed like crazy on monday. all day and night and it was so pretty the next morning. the girls got a snow day and a delayed start. they sledded down the driveway, built a snowman and made lots of laundry for me!

i received some late birthday gifts from shanna and kerry on the same day. and they came on a day that i needed cheering up. if you can't tell i got a music cd (linkin park), hot tamales and mickey d's gift certificate from kerry. shanna sent me a wicked cool birthday card and ALL of her own patterns that she makes. i am always teasing her that she doesn't share her skills with me and she did.

so i just wanted to give my two good friends a big hug and kiss. they cheered me up and made me happy with some of my favorite things in life!! i would never have gotten through so many tough times without the love and support of these two--and all my other friends, neighbors and sweet children.

love you all...L

see any similarities here???

carson has been riding her bike a lot lately. so cute to see her out there. and usually when she goes her sisters follow. and i love when they all go outside and leave me inside. i usually lock the door and pretend i don't here them knocking. ha ha

carson has been doing really well in school lateley too. we had to switch her "teaching team" because she was having such a hard time with them. and now the difference in her teachers is amazing. carson is getting straight A's and actually likes school. ok-that's stretching it. she doesn't like school. but she likes it more than she did.

and she just got made the beehive president in church. the bishop set her apart and gave her a beautiful blessing and told how she had such an influence around everyone. and she does. she is such a sweetheart and is loving and kind to everyone and loads of fun to be around. and she's a clothes' thief. if i am ever missing something i know where to look. in fact she's wearing my skirt and i think everything else of mine in the pics...L

this picture was snapped a few days before christmas. all that haley really asked for for christmas was some barbies, and some more barbies. and since she got what she wanted my bathtub looks like the picture below every day. cuz haley likes nothing better than taking a bath. and having her barbies bathe with her.



last night i read a story that haley had written and drawn pictures for in school. it went something like this: once upon a time there was a girl named haley. there was a boy named tate. the boy named tate said 'i like you.' the next day he played over. and then they got married. the end.

so cute. i love my haley. she's my baby...L

a very simple layout. last year on our way to cali we stopped by the homes where i grew up. i took some pictures and even grabbed some cotton from the fields by my old house. i plan on doing another page to this and putting in some more specific memories.

anyway--happy sabbath...L

a few more layouts that i got done this weekend. happy monday...L

My Own Worst Enemy

look at me. i have been productive. i tell you. yesterday was such a great day for me. because it all happened. i combined work, motherhood and me into one day. and yes--it was a christmas miracle. i went to work, went grocery shopping afterwards, made a nice dinner that GASP! everyone ate, put away laundry, did the dishes, changed the air filters and some outside lights and made three digi layouts. all in a day's work people.

and speaking of work. oh my gosh. fun stuff. we have a new guy and he was outside while the assistant manager and i were eating lunch. so i notice his fly is open--the new guys', and i tell andy (the am) to tell him. of course he looks and starts laughing. now we are both laughing and new guy comes over to eat with us. he stands right in front of andy to get his food and both of us are dying laughing. so andy gets up and leaves me. i could barely talk to him. andy comes back and immediately starts laughing again and leaves. i am trying to talk to new guy but cannot keep a straight face. meanwhile andy tells our boss to tell him and he just opens the door and yells--hey dave--your fly is open and these two losers didn't tell you. talk about embarrassment. poor guy. i felt bad. i'm blaming andy for this one though.

ok--i'm leaving you with a new song for the day. check it out on itunes. i'm addicted to it. my own worst enemy--by stereophonics. love it...L

this was sent to me from someone from church in an email. i thought it was good enough to put on my blog. usually i just delete those church emails. ha ha

ARE YOU ON OVERLOAD ? PARABLE OF THE TOWELS

When my husband and I taught our children to do laundry, we started them out on the towels. Towels are easy to do: they're simple to sort, they don't have to be matched up in pairs, and they have No pockets that might be hiding nasty surprises like ballpoint pens or brown crayons or lip balm, any of which even a perfectly capable, laundry-seasoned adult can accidentally overlook in a wash cycle.


There is, however, one common mistake that my children (and even their father) tend to make with towels. They figure that as long as they can keep smashing those towels into the washing machine, they can keep adding more and more to the load.


One day I was working in the kitchen when I heard a horrendous noise emanating from the laundry room in the basement. I rushed down to check it out and found the washer groaning and rocking like a crazed cow. Quickly switching it off, I opened the lid and saw a wash of towels, crammed in so tightly I could barely pry them out. Now, I have a large-capacity machine, but it was never meant to hold fourteen, full -size bath towels!


Sure, there were fourteen towels that needed washing that day. But as nice as it would have been to be able to throw then in all at once and get it over with, the washer simply doesn't work that way. All you're doing when you try to stuff that many towels into one load is ruining both the machine and the towels. An overloaded washing machine is thrown out of balance and can't do its job properly.


I understand this principle and have explained it with infinite patience to my husband and to each of my five children in turn. But I still haven't become very adept at applying it in the larger scheme of my life. Believe me---it does apply. I'm always falling prey to notions that I can get one more thing into the load. This is probably because there is always more to accomplish than I have time or energy to do. I am a fourteen-towel woman stuck in a ten-towel-capacity life. And so I tend to operate frequently on overload.


Almost every woman I know is like this. We are really busy! We overload our days with things that truly need to be done and then drop into bed at night wondering why we feel so out of balance. We need to realize that it's better to have ten clean towels in the morning and four set aside for another day than to have fourteen not -so - clean towels and a broken machine. We're in this life for the long haul -- if we don't maintain ourselves properly, we will break down.


-- (Introduction) "Take Two Chocolates and See me in the Morning"


Remember, Moderation in ALL things! Happy New Year!

moderation in all things has always been my motto in life...L

it's been a while. i haven't had much time for much of anything. let alone blogging. but i'll put a tiny update on here. nothing earth shattering. just the same ol', same ol'. i did manage to take a few pictures at christmas. the above one is of our christmas eve outing. christmas is over. let the bells chime. totally not in the christmas mood this year. but i think the girls all enjoyed it. dallas too. it was so good to have him home. he left on new years day and there were many tears by all of us here. brianne and jeff enjoyed colorado and much to my chagrin, i mean happiness, there was no snow storm blocking their path.

my sweet haley turned 6 last month as well. and as of yesterday she has two bottom teeth missing. her first baby teeth gone. i can't believe it. we took a trip to the dollar store today thanks to the tooth fairy. our tooth fairy leaves money--not notes that their room is messy. LOL

and i became a grandma finally. thanks to my 13 year old. ha ha taylor had signed up for the baby program at school and her and her friend got their babies the night of haley's birthday. taylor loved it and named her baby estelle. i made sure i put in earplugs to sleep that night. they had to change the baby, feed it, give it attention. it was fun to watch. taylor loved it. she loves babies. i also got the results of taylor's career test from school. turns out that her most agreeable career would be that of assassin or dictator. i'm so proud. and you never know--that might come in handy later in life.

today i spent my day off with my girls. we had a great time. we went shopping and ate out and sung tunes in the car and had fun relaxing. most of my time off of work is spent with more work. laundry, cleaning, cooking, etc. well, the house is a mess, the laundry is not done and we had taco bell for dinner. but more importantly i had fun with my kids and didn't worry about what wasn't getting done. this is the year i find balance in my life. time for me, time for my kids. time to let some things slide. so i might not be blogging as much or reading your blogs, but i will take time to enjoy life and be happy this year. happy 2009...L

just in case you don't get a christmas card from me this year. i have some blogworthy pics and tidbits but i'm tired and this is all i could muster up. happy holidays...L