Is This For Real??

For those who still need help in remembering the steps:
1. Run in place!
2. Clap your hands!
3. Touch your left heel with your right hand and your right heel with your left hand!
4. Gesture to yourself! WEEEEEEE!
and above all remember to:
5. Up the octave!

I think we all could make the world a better place if we just did the little lad dance once a day.

Are you kidding me?

Which Disney Princess are you?

I don't know about this.....

You Are Snow White!

Pure and trusting. You are a gentle soul who can get along with just about anyone. Everyone you meet instantly falls in love with you. How can they resist? You have a pure, lovable nature that's irresistable. Just don't trust everyone who comes across your path.

Which Disney Princess Are You?

Haircuts!

You would think that by the time I'd been a mother of boys for 10 1/2 years that giving a haircut would be second nature to me. Not so! Last night was my first attempt. Not bad, but I missed some hairs. Oh, well. Jake didn't want his picture taken.(Imagine that!)

Not to be outdone, Mady went and got hers done this morning by a friend (Thanks, Julie!), who not only cut, but helped teach her how to style it as well.

It's hard to tell from the pictures, but it looks very cute.

Tender Mercies

I came home from church at noonish on Sunday to a birthday surprise---the AC was not working. I did everything I could think of, from circuit breaker to shutting it off and turning it back on, to no avail. Finally, I shut the thing off, and hid out in my room in front of the fan.
When Phil got home, he had us open all the windows and made an emergency call to a neighbor who knows his AC stuff. Thankfully that neighbor was able to come over and diagnose the problem, the fan motor bit the dust. He told us he would get us a new one on Monday and help install it after work.
Amazingly enough due to the rare cloud cover and the light breeze, the downstairs never got above 82 degrees. In fact, over night I think the house was cooler than many nights with the AC working. Monday morning the house stayed cool with the continued cloud cover, despite the humidity. Around noon, Kevin was back with the necessary parts fixing the AC. The part was $185, but Kevin had called for us, and it was amazingly still under warranty! An hour or so of Kevin's time(we owe you big time!) and the AC was back up and running, just as the clouds lifted and the house was beginning to warm up.
I just have to express gratitude, first for Kevin and his willingness to help us, and secondly to Heavenly Father that this happened during one of the rare stormy periods this summer and the warranty that covered us.
Here's to tender mercies, may we all be more aware of them in our own lives!

Learning to blog

I know I stink at blogging, so I am attempting to learn from everyone else. This was actually a couple of weeks ago, but the pictures were perfect to try a slide show.

A couple of weeks ago we found this cute little secluded lake in Highland.

Beating the Heat!

Yesterday we escaped the heat of the summer by going up the canyon. It's the first time we've made the drive this summer, and it was SO worth it, even for a short getaway. We are so lucky to live so close to so many beautiful areas. We took Makenna and Mathew Young with us. We all enjoyed walking down the river, and freezing our toes.

We saw some amazing things.....like this snake trying to eat this fish. He finally gave up and spit it back out.

We also watched this deer across the road and up the hill a little way.

All in all, it was a refreshing couple of hours away from it all. We need to escape to the canyon more often.

Communication

I guess I am showing my age with this post, but oh well.

I am constantly amazed at how technology has changed us as a society. I love technology, don't get me wrong, but I think something needs to be done with the way we communicate. This texting and instant messaging. I think we have forgotten how to talk.

Now don't get me wrong I think those things are great, but when we use them as a first line of communication over actually talking I think we are seriously depriving ourselves.

I think kids today don't know how to spell. Parents and kids talk through text and emails more than they do face to face. It is really quite sad.

What I think is funny is it takes twice as long to type out a message then it would to call and talk to the person and it would be much more personable.

What have we become as a society when we talk more from pushing buttons than we do with using our mouths? I wonder what it will be like 10 years from now?

I know I am sounding like an old person.

Would someone turn the music down!

Gabe's Birthday

So Gabe turned 7 on Wednesday, May 7. On Monday, he came in and asked if his friend Ashton could be invited to his party on Wednesday.
Party? What party? You didn't say you wanted a party!
Yeah, a party with a pinata!
So as any good (or tired, and not willing to fight over it) Mom would do, I quickly planned a simple party for Gabe and 6 or 7 friends for Friday afternoon. Luckily, it was Gabe. He is so easily pleased, and all he asked (once the pinata was vetoed due to the lack of somewhere to hang it from) was to play some games like Musical Chairs! Okay, I can do that. Throw in a couple others like Duck duck goose, pin the tail on the donkey, and Sink the Ship (I call it balloon tag, but whatever), let them decorate some cupcakes, and party planned.

He had a great time. It's amazing how something so simple can make him so happy. I sure appreciate my Gabe and his sweet and giving personality. Life would not be the same without him!

Mothers Day!

I know today is not Mothers Day and I intended sharing this with you then, but one thing led to another and, well...it's getting written now.

I want to tell everyone how lucky I am to be married to the most incredible person that I know. I am not sure what I did, or didn't do, to deserve such a wonderful person in my life, not even sure I want to know. I am just glad that we are together.

What an incredible mother and wife Debbie is. I am constantly amazed how calm and collective she is, almost all of the time. How encouraging she always is to myself and the kids. She completely takes care of us all of the time and we don't tell her nearly enough how much we appreciate her. She is the reason why our family works so well, even in times of complete and total chaos.

Before I came home on my mission I knew the next step in my life was school and, hopefully, marriage. I asked my mission president before I left how I would know who the woman I was suppose to marry and how I would know for sure. He told me, if the woman you are dating walks in the room and she takes your breath away and makes you smile each and every time then you will know that she is the one.

I can tell you that in almost 15 years of marriage that you Deb, still take my breath away and make me smile every single time you enter a room.

I love you Deb!

Slackers for bloggers!

Last night I was chastised that I needed to hurry up and blog already. Well, life has been a little hectic and now that Spring is here (and looks like will end this weekend when Summer decides to show up) I spend more time on my lawn.

Yes, I love my lawn! As strange as it seems it is my therapy. I get to put the Ipod on real loud (usually with Van Halen), pull the string on the mower, shut out the outside world and start cutting.

I am not sure how I went from hating to cut the lawn when I was a kid to loving it now. Maybe it's just the major need of therapy in my life. Maybe each little blade of grass is like hewing down one of life's littles problems, who knows?