COUNT OUR BLESSINGS

Well I have come to the end of our Thanksgiving journey, and so I think I will tell you all what we are thankful for. I can say for both Al & I that we are very thankfull for our family. We love each of them and are so proud of the steps they take to become better people and that they teach their children to do the same. I for one and thankful for my Heavenly Father who sent spirits to me to guide me through my life. If it hadn't been for that guidence I would not be who I am today. I am also thankful for his son for giving his life for us so that we might return to our families and all be together again. I am thankful that I came to earth so that I could grow and have the opportunity to be with Heavenly Father again. I have a deep love for Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father. I know they love me. They have given each of us so much and I can't even imagine what it would be like to be with out them. Most of all I am thankful for my sweet husband, whom I love so much. I thank him for his love for me, his patience for me, and his excepting me for what I am. He can truly see what I can become. I feel I am truly blessed this season with all these people at my side, encouring me and loving me. Merry Chrismas.....

FINALLY!!!!!!

I finally got him. I don't know if he gave up or I got smart. Of course it was because I got smart. He is not smiling and doesn't look to pleased, but hay I got it. Any body who sees this might want to hang on to it. We may never have another.

OOPS!

Still trying to get a picture. As you can see Crosby was just as bad as Leo. He was willing to let me take his back side. I am not sure it is the best image of him, but if that is what he wants us to see then he is in the right position. I would still like his face instead of his bum.....

Camera Shy

This is the top of Leo's head. We tryed and tryed to get a picture of him. We pleaded and cryed but to no avail...

SLEEPING BEAUTY

Here is James. As you can see he in in deep thought. This is his bed since we kicked him out of his bedroom. I just had to show every body how he celebrated Thanksgiving!!!!

THE GREAT COOK

Emily is making a pomagrant salad. This was her assignment for Thanksgiving. She also made the hat she is wearing. She is a regular Martha Stewart.

Hiking the Hills

We finally got our chance to hike the hills. We went to Snow Canyon. We love to walk around the red rocks, but I have to admit this time we went to break the law. Not a big law, but a very small one. We went to get some rocks for Aunt Glenna. Leo brought me some and Glenna wanted to have some, I wasn't about to give her any Leo gave me so we had to resort to stealing. Leo told us where to go. We got lost so I asked the ranger where to find these rocks. Did I feel guilty, a little, but we still did it. We did find the rocks and we did take some. Most of all we enjoyed the beautiful country that we were in. I don't know how people cannot believe in God when there is beauty like this. Oh by the way Glenna did get the rocks and loved them.

Crosby's Bedroom

Well here is Crosby's bedroom. It is really neat. You can't get to it from the inside of the house, you have to go down a windy stair case, around and around. We couldn't get into his room because he had it locked. He was afraid that Haylee would come and get even with him, since he came to our house and dumped her matress on the floor. One thing about his room that is not so neat is that there is no toilet. Every time he needs the restroom, down the stairs he goes. Sometimes he comes down really fast.....

Our Beautiful Thanksgiving

Our Thanksgiving this year was spent in St. George with our son Leo, Kevin, Tina and all the kids. We thought we were going to see beautiful weather, but our hopes were let down when the first two days we were all stuck in the house, looking out at the rain. The park we planned on going to the the frisbee we were going to play all had to be put on hold. As you can see by the picture the sun finally came out and we were off doing what we needed to do. We did some hiking, shopping, sight seeing and Shopping. What can I say we had Emily and she could shop till we all dropped.

View of our week.......

No pictures this time, I guess I need to get on the stick.. Our week started with a Thanksgiving dinner for the singles. There were around 60 people there. It turned out really good, but boy were we tired. Both of us are thankful we don't have to do another dinner this week.

Life throws fast balls at each of us, Fri. one came to us. We had spent a lot of days at the Primary Childrens Hospital with Marcus and Amanda. On Friday Marcus had a MRI and we almost lost him. They had to put him to sleep and he stopped breathing. We hurried up to the hospital to find him in the ICU. It was scary. On Sat. he was back on the regular floor. He is a fighter. Why the Lord keeps him here I don't know, but it must be for a reason.

Since things had calmed down we decided to take a break and go to Tori and Russ's. Normally it is freezing cold up there but it was beautiful the whole time we were there. We had a lot of fun with the kids. Shireen and Brook were so excited to show us thier club house that they were being a pain, so off we went through the horse poop and the weeds to the far cornor of the field. There were a bunch of trees growing together and in the summer I am sure it was all enclosed in , but with all the leaves gone it was wide open. They had done a good job of fixing it up. They had a shelf for their stuff. They showed us where the doors were and the wood piece they stepped on to open the doors. The thing that was the most interesting was a log that was a funny shape, with a hole on one end. Both girls informed us that the log was where Ayden peed, not only on the log but right in the little hole. All I can say is he has good aim.

After a week with a lot of ups and downs visiting with family was the perfect ending. We love our family and are Thankful that our Heavenly Father let us have them for our short time on this earth.

Our week in 30 seconds......

Well another week has gone by. On Tuesday we worked at the polls from 6 in the morning to 10:30 at night. The election was called just as we were going home. This is a funny process we have here in America. We have had some snow, but mostly rain. Our biggest excitment of the week is that Crosby came to visit us. He went to church with us and I was about to shoot him and Alden. I had to set between them. I went shopping with him at the mall all day Monday. I told him that he was like Joddy and Emily, he didn't like that. He isn't quite as bad, but almost. He did go into a scrapbook store with me. He stayed with me the whole time. He left on Tuesday to go to Kaysville to visit friends (all girls). We sure enjoyed him. We love it when any of our family comes to visit...

Clowning Around

Well here we are, believe it or not..... We were working in one of booths at the ward Holloween party and decided that we had to dress up. Haylee did the makeup. Sad thing was the kids looked at us funny. I think they were a little scared. All it took was Al acting up and soon we had a whole bunch with us. One little kid looked at us and told he would come back later, "we are going to be here for 3 years. We had a lot of fun. It keeps us young in mind, our bodies are another thing.

AUSTIN'S BAPTISM

This is a picture of Aimee Jo and her family at Austin's baptism. It was 9/26/08. He was sure happy.

MYSTERY GARDEN

Looks pretty bad..... Believe me it looked better not to long ago. Al planted the garden so that is why I am writing about it. We had a lot of tomatoes, small egg shaped ones, small round ones, mediem ones, large ones and then there were the really big ones. We never knew what kinds we planted but we had fun eating them. Then we come to the peppers Al said that he planted green pepper, but they never got really green. We waited and waited and finally decided we better eat them. They tasted like green peppers. He also had some other type that he said was not hot, well I ate one and they were hot. Our beets did really good and looked like beets. Al also said he planted pumpkins, not so,they came out with light green and dark green stripes. We weren't sure what to do with them so finally I brought them in and cooked them, guess what they turned out to be spaghetti squash. Well as you can see we have come to the end of our garden adventure for this year. Can't wait to see what happens next year...

MARCUS AT PRIMARY CHILDRENS HOSPITAL

Marcus went to the hospital on 29 Oct. The doctor said he was the same. In a month he will go back for a scan. He has some motor skill problems so we have to see another doctor. He talked to me and laughed. It is nice to see that he is doing this well. He will be 4 months on the 4th of November.

Trip to North Carlonia

Up, up and away we go to Tonya and Scott's House in North Carlonia. We spent two weeks with our family. There is not much to do there, but visit and enjoy all our grandkids. We did spend two Saturdays at band competition. Sitting 12 hours a day is hard on the back, but in the end it was worth it. They took several awards both times. The band members were in suits and poodle skirts. Cherise played the french horn and Lelani played the tamporine and cow bell. All in all they did great.......
Colby turned 8 years old so we did a birthday party and a baptism. He was baptized on Oct. 21, 2008.
In the area we visited, there are trees all along the roads and after two weeks it got pretty boring. All we could see were trees, trees and more trees. I am not saying that we don't like green trees, but I can tell you now that when we looked out the car window it was not very exciting. When we finally came home we were both so glad to see into the distance. We decided that home is the place to be.
Our trip was a lot of fun because we so love to see our kids and grandkids. It was nice being in their life for a couple of weeks. After getting home we both know that family is what life is about and we sure do love ours.....

Staying Connected

In an attempt to stay connected to our children and friends we are starting this blog. With our crazy schedules and everyday life we often forget to share the funny exciting things happening. Hopefully, this blog with help us to do better.