Bathroom

I should be cleaning my bathroom right now. I keep finding other things to do instead of cleaning. I don't know what it is about cleaning the bathroom that makes it so hard for me to get it done. Once I actually start to clean it is not so bad, but getting me to do it is another story. As you can tell, I have found another excuse to not go do it by writing this blog.
Oh the joys of a clean house, but the process not so joyful!

Tall

The other day I was talking to Abbie about how she wasn't tall enough yet to do something. I can't remember exactly what it was. Anyways, after our discussion she proceeded to walk over to her little rocket chair and stand on it, and say, "look mommy I am tall enough now."

Reading!

Last night Riley read most of a Scooby-Doo book to me. I am so proud at how far he has come. He didn't even complain about reading and try to get away with just reading one or two words. During the summer I tried to help him learn how to read, but he fought me so much about it that I stopped. He has come such a long way since this summer. He still prefers math, but his reading is improving.

Happy Birthday Terry

We got to celebrate Terry's birthday yesterday. The kids were excited to give their daddy "lots of presents." Abbie was so excited that when Terry got home from work she started showing him what we had bought. Unfortunately I hadn't gotten anything wrapped yet.


One of my friends did this on her blog, and I that I would try it out.
33 reason why I love my husband. They are not in any particular order.

1. He is a gentleman
2. He makes me laugh
3. He is a great Dad
4. His children absolutely adore him
5. I trust him
6. He loves me
7. He is a very intelligent man
8. He brings comfort and safety to my home
9. He is a worthy priesthood holder
10. He is one of the most selfless men I know
11. He always makes time to be with his family, even if it is just to eat dinner with us.
12. He lets me go and exercise for about 1 1/2 hours Monday and Wednesday evenings
13. He makes dinner for the family while I am exercising
14. He helps Riley with his school work
15. He has a testimony of the gospel
16. He helps me want to be a better person
17. He is a non-judgmental person
18. He supports me
19. He has a great smile
20. He is always trying to better himself
21. He has a great family
22. He loves my family
23. He has a great sense of humor
24. He has amazing blue eyes
25. He is honest
26. He is my best friend
27. He listens to me
28. He is understanding when the house is messy
29. He is willing to help clean the house
30. He gives more than a 100% at whatever he does
31. He holds me when I cry
32. He is willing to say he is sorry
33. I love him what else matters

This is a video of the kids listening to the card they got Terry for his birthday. I was trying to get a video of them laughing. Which of coarse they didn't do, and when I turned the camera off they started laughing.

Thanksgiving.

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. We were able to go to my mom and dad's for Thanksgiving this year. It is the first time in 5 years that we have been able to enjoy Thanksgiving with the whole family. I am so grateful for the beautiful weather we had to drive in. I was worried it would snow and we wouldn't make it over the pass. We had a fun time. My kids enjoyed playing with all the grand kids, making gingerbread houses, and helping grandpa feed the cows at the farm.
We meet up with Terry's parents on Saturday, and had lunch together. Than we went out to see Terry's grandpa's grave. We hadn't been out their since the funeral. Thanks Aaron and Danny for letting your boys come along. Riley loved playing with them.
At the cemetery Abbie made us walk around and read every head stone with her. It was a good thing that it was a small cemetery.




While we were walking around with Abbie, I found this head stone. I am related to the Tingeys'. It will be interesting to see if this is one of my relatives.

Dinner Theater

My family has a tradition of making our own movie theaters at home. This is due to the fact that it is so expensive here to go to the real theater. When we got home from church Abbie was talking about wanting to make a theater. Riley was helping me make dinner at the time, and decided he wanted to make it a dinner theater. He got really excited about the whole thing. He made place mates for everyone and put them where we should sit. Than he made a menu for drinks and went around asking everyone what they wanted to drink. He went all out, and it was so fun watching him come up with the idea and than executing it. I am so grateful for the wonderful children I have been blessed with and what great imaginations they have. It makes my life full of fun and excitement.

Homecoming!!!

Terry has been gone all week and gets home today. YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It has been an long week, but we made it. We had our moments of insanity, but mostly all went well. Thanks to all those who put up with my phone calls just so I could hear another adult voice.

Abbie has been praying all week for daddy to come home safely. Riley has been doing his best to be good so dad would bring him a toy. I am exhausted because I don't sleep well while Terry is gone. I will be taking a nice long nap tomorrow.

One good thing about his trip is that most of our Christmas shopping is done. Terry is such a wonderful husband for going to all the stores we don't have in Walla Walla and getting the stuff on our list. Especially while dealing with a head cold.

Hair Style!

I want your opinion!!!!
I am getting really bored with my hair and want to chop it off. I looked through some hairstyle magazines and came across this hair style that I am considering. I want your help on deciding weather to give it a try or not. I have some reservations because of the layers. Plus, I don't always have time to do my hair, and I am worried it will not look good if I just brush it and go. I really like the style. So what is your opinion, do you think I would look good with this hair cut?

Happy Halloween

We had a fun Halloween. Riley decided to be Indiana Jones, and Abbie wanted to be Dora. It started with Riley's kindergarten class going on a parade around to the different classroom at his school.

Than our ward decided to do the trunk-or-treat on Friday night. I guess there were some who wanted it on a different night so the kids could do other trick or treating on Halloween.

On Halloween we headed to down town for the traditional trick or treating to the different businesses on Main St. Usually it is a lot of fun, but this year it was so crowded that Riley just wanted to go home. By the time we got down one side of Main St. he was complaining and whining. I asked him if he just wanted to go home, and he said yes. We went home and went to a couple of neighbors houses and than the trunk-or-treat at the high school. The different clubs decorate a car and the kids can come trick or treating. The entry fee is a couple of cans of food that they donate to the food bank. Riley had so much more fun here. It was nice to see him actually smiling.

All in all it was a successful time. Now they have candy to last them quite awhile. As long as I don't eat it all:)

My Little 3 Year Old!!

Yes Abbie turned 3 years old last week. She had a fun birthday and was way excited. She had been talking about her Dora birthday since Riley's birthday. Can you guess what her cake had on it, and what most of her presents were?

Abbie opening some of her presents. I couldn't get her to look at the camera for long, so I don't have many pictures of her face.
Abbie modeling her Dora backpack. She is going to be Dora for Halloween.


Abbie and her cake. I finally got a picture of her face. If you look close enough you will notice she has two different colored eyes.


She looked way to cute on Sunday to not take these pictures of her. It is a good thing I took them before church because by the end of church her hair was all over the place.

Turkey Anyone!

I have been trying to eat healthier, and what could be healthier than turkey. I decided to try and cook turkey drumsticks, because I didn't want to be stuck with a whole turkey. It wasn't as good as I thought it would be. Thank goodness my children are not that picky of eaters.

Riley showing off his turkey drumstick:) Notice he is missing his 3 front teeth. It makes watching him eat very interesting.

Dress Up

Abbie wearing mom and dad's shoes.



















Abbie and her friend
Hadley putting on all
of Abbie's play jewelry.

Soccer

Riley started playing soccer for the first time this fall. He has been really excited about everything. He has made a lot of progress from the first day, and I am so proud of him. He finally made is first goal the other day. Of coarse it happened on a day I forgot to bring my camera. Last night he had a game and it was rainy and cold, but the kids were having a blast. If you have a hard time seeing him in any of the pictures, his number is 24. I must thank my sister for all of the soccer clothes she gave us. They really came in handy.

Feeding Ducks

No one in my house likes to eat the end pieces of the loaf of breads. So, I collect them and when we have enough we go and feed the ducks. My kids love to go to this park that has a pond and swings and slides to feed the ducks.

Riley's Fist Day of School

Yes, Riley has started Kindergarten! It was a ruff start, but everything has calmed down. They have this colored system for behavior that he has a hard time with. Basically what it is, is if you are good you get a green card, if you have had to many warnings you have to change your card to a yellow, and if you are bad you get a red card. Well, Riley came home the first day of school with a red card. I was a little shocked that they even gave out red cards on the first day. He was devastated. He came out of the class room in tears. I think he thought I was going to be mad or something. Well this just set the tone for how the next few weeks were going to be. It got to the point he didn't want to go to school, and was telling me he was going to lose his voice and not talk at school. Finally, I emailed his teacher and we got together and talked about how we could help Riley, and I told him I didn't care what color he got as long as he was having a good time at school. He loves school now.

After Riley kept bugging me about riding the bus, I finally let him start riding in the mornings. If he had his way he would ride in the morning and after school. I like to pick him up though, because I know if I let him ride the bus, I wouldn't get as much information from him about how school was.

Crazy Hair

I did Abbie's hair in braids the other day, and this is what it looked like when we took them out.

Summer Time

Okay, so much has happened over the summer that you will have to forgive me for such a long post. I know I should make more updates, and I have good intentions to do so, but never get around to it. So Sorry!
Unfortunately this post is not organized the way I would like it. I do apologize. I tried to fix it and make it look better, but it wasn't working. I definitely made it to long. After spending so much time on it I finally just posted it the way it is. Hope you can follow.
If any of you are wondering about the picture, above? This was one of my favorite pictures I took this summer. It is on the Nauvoo Temple. I took it from the top floor of the Cultural Hall in Nauvoo. This is were they held their dances.

Well here I go.

First: I must announce that my husband has finally graduated with his Master's degree. Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy! Can you tell I am excited. He worked really hard and I am so proud of him. He did an amazing job on his capstone project. Right now we are waiting to see if it will get published.

Second: I got to enjoy my sister and her family coming to my house for the 4th of July. It was awesome. Riley loves playing with his cousins. While we were waiting for them to get to our house Riley kept asking when his brothers were going to get their. We had to explain the whole family relation thing to him. I think by the end of summer he was finally getting the hang of it. Also, I ran a 10K. Yes, I must admit I was one of the last to finish the race, but I did it. It was extremely hot, but fun. The race was to support our Veterans, and we had them on motorcycles escorting us through town. Next year I want to have the whole family do the race, but we will be riding our bikes. I was going to train to run a half-marathon. Unfortunately my knees hurt so bad after training for the 10K that I will not be running the half-marathon.


Third: For our anniversary we went camping with the kids. It was Abbie's first camping trip. She didn't like the fire at first, but by the time we went home she was helping Terry gather sticks to throw on the fire. There was a nice sand bar next to the river that the kids had fun playing in, and yes we drove into to town and went swimming at the local pool. Before we went home we drove to Multnomah Falls and hiked up to the top, which is 1.25 miles one way and about 800 ft up. Riley walked the whole way by himself.



































































Forth: We went to visit my family. Where we had a fun family reunion. I planned to take some water balloons and have a fun water fight. As we were filling the water balloons I did something to my back and could barely stand straight. So you will see from the pictures that I am nice and dry while everyone else is wet. Also, you will notice that Abbie convinced anyone she could to read books to her.





Fifth: We drove to Navuoo to Terry's family reunion. Yes I said drove. It was a long trip, and we all had our moments of grumpiness. Riley won that award, but for the most part we had an amazing trip. I must say my kids did an excellent job traveling and made the trip a lot more enjoyable because of it. We tried to see as many of the historical sites we could on the way their and back.

We started with Martins Cove in Wyoming. When we got their it was actually chilly enough for jackets. One of my friend's parents was serving a mission their so we were able to have them take us on a ride up to the cove and back. On the way back it started pouring rain on us. It was quite the experience. It made me think how cold and wet we were was nothing compared to the pioneers in the freezing snow.


















Next was Winter's Quarters in Nebraska. The kids had fun at the visitors center. They got to dress up as pioneers. Riley thought he was Indiana Jones. While we where in Omaha we went to a pedestrian bridge that spans the Missouri River and walked across it.











































Then we went to Carthage Jail, where we met up with some of Terry's family. It was sobering to actually be at the spot where the Prophet Joseph Smith was martyred.























Later that day we made it to Nauvoo. It was nice to finally be in a spot that we could stay for a couple of days. We got to share a suite with Terry's brother Rob. It was fun. There was so much to do and see their that I will just give some high lights. The Navuoo Pageant was amazing. Of course, the Temple. I am very grateful for Terry's brother Dave and his family and Terry's mother and dad for watching our kids so we could attend the Temple. The 3 mile handcart trek we got to go on with the whole family. I believe I won the award for the dirtiest at the end. One of my nieces flicked cow pie onto the bottom of my pants and shoe. Than I lost that same shoe in the mud. I did get it back though.








After having a Sunday morning devotional in Nauvoo we left for home. That day we stopped at Adam-ondi-Ahmen, Far West to see the temple site, and than Independence to visit Liberty Jail. I was really surprised that my favorite place besides the Nauvoo Temple was Liberty Jail. The spirit I felt their was amazing. Yes it was a very dismal place for the Prophet and the other men that were with him, but I had never put two and two together that this is were the Prophet received a lot of revelations. It was a very holy place.



The next morning we went to the Independence Visitors Center. I believe this was my kids favorite place. At the end of the tour they have this play room for the kids. There was a kids size log cabin and covered wagon and other toys to play with. We spent quite a bit of time their. When it was time to go they didn't want to leave.



After that we spent a day at Terry's parents house and than headed home.