TICK TOCK....Where does the time go????

 I feel soooooo bad that I have not been keeping up on the happenings of our life on this blog. Where does the time go? With the invention of smart phones and Facebook/Instagram I have not made the time to keep this journal/blog. I just do quick status updates but it's just not the same as having it all together here. As I looked back at it today it made me happy that I once did this, but sad that I haven't for the past few years. Time has moved so quickly and this is a picture of our current family. Everyone is growing up so quickly. Just a quick update....Ivan is soon to be a junior and will get his license at the end of the month.  Ammon is playing football currently in Gridley for the Titans and will be an 8th grader. Grace will be a Young Woman soon as she turns 12 in December and is just such a good/faithful girl. Bradford is an amazing student and athlete with such focus, like no kid I've ever seen. He is just so good at everything he does, doesn't take after his mom that's for sure. Abby is the cutest thing you'll ever see with an amazing personality. Seriously just a light in our lives. Ian and I are still in love and trying to figure out how to keep up with this crazy life but all in all we are so happy and thankful for our many blessings.

No picture but I wanted to tell a little about Abby. She turned 5 last week, it seems sooo crazy that my baby is 5. She had been wanting Stompies, (slippers you see on TV that the eyes pop up when you walk) forever. That is always what she would say when asked what she wanted for her birthday, so we forked out the $20 for a pair of slippers and she was please as punch. She is such a smart girl so I also got her a workbook to help her get ready for kindergarden. She went through about 80 pages the first day and kept saying, "I have to do my homework before I can watch TV." At one point she was working on the workbook and I tried to help her on part of it and she stated, "Mom I got this.....I'm five now." She also played t-ball this year and was such a joy to watch. VERY INTENSE. always focused and was involved in almost every play that happened. At one point I thought she might dive to tag a kid out that was running in home. She is my little snuggle bug and firecracker. Love her to pieces!!

Christmas 2012

Stationery card

View the entire collection of cards.

Here is the Christmas card Ian Created Last night for us. I am too computer challaged or impatient figure it out but I am lucky to have an awesome husband that really can do anything. Look for yours in the mail coming soon.

Thankful...

I am thankful for so much and I know that everything I have is a gift from Heavenly Father. It seems that he grants me everything I ask for and anything I have ever wanted. Sometimes I start to feel a little down because when I think that I'm pushing 40 and there are so many things that I thought I would do and be and I'm not the way I dreamed of being I get a little down...... for instance I thought I would be a way cooler mom than I am. You know that old church movie about the little boy that came home from school to ambulances and his mom ends up dying. Then he has all these memories of her playing football with him and special things they did together. Well I always wanted to be a mom like that. One that played with my kids alot, well I kinda feel like I'm not so good at that. But this past week Ian and I took the kids down to New Port beach for vacation and it was so totally awesome. We didn't plan anything, no outings or amusement parks just hanging out at the pool and beach. Other than not being around our extended family it was the best Thanksgiving ever. It's hard to explain but it was so great to just be us and build memories with our little family. It made me more grateful than ever for my blessings. Here are a few pictures we took on the trip.

I'm Back

So I am going to make time to blog again. I can't believe it has been two years. I still need to figure out how to down load pictures though because I really think it makes the posts come alive and it makes me be better about taking pictures. The kids have grown so much I can't believe I have an 8th grader and Abby goes to pre school. We have also moved since I last blogged. I really can't go back and cover all that we have done in the last two years but I am going to push forward from now and blog from here on out.

tender mercy...

This is just a quick tender mercy moment that I wanted to share. All summer long the kids did swim team and it was alot of fun. Grace in particular did very well and was the best in her age group, usually getting first in her age group at whatever she swam. We did do a few invitational meets where they give each swimmer points for what they place in each of their events they swim. Well we never swim on the Sabbath, so at each meet she never ranked high point because of receiving zeros for all the sunday events. The very last meet was a Friday, Saturday, Sunday meet and the NVAL championships with literally hundreds of kids there and several in each event. We decided to go because usually butterfly races on Sunday, but this meet it was on Saturday and that is Graces best event. Well right off as she started to swim she forgot what she was doing and did a free style stroke before starting her butterfly. An automatic DQ. I was so disappointed but later we found out the judge had been DQing everyone so they threw out all her DQ slips including Graces. She won the event. She didn't get high point because of our not swimming on Sunday but she had accumulated enough points in 2 days to get 4th high point and receive a trophy. Practically impossible for not swimming all days of the meet. Had she been DQed for he butterfly she would not have even had a chance to get high point. Just a tender mercy from heavenly Father for our sweet Grace. (this was in the draft box from 2008)

Abigail is 2

Abby turned 2 on June 4th and I like to do a birthday post for each one of my kids birthdays and I am finally getting around to Abby's special birthday post. Looking back on the day she was born a few things stand out in my mind. She was a scheduled cesarean so I know it was a Wednesday because that is the day Dr. Ainsworth, our doctor does C- sections. We didn't know if she was a boy or a girl and we only had a boy name picked out which was Christopher Ian after my nephew Chris, Leah's son and of course Ian. The anesthesiologist was named Christopher so he was really rooting for a boy. When you have a c-section there is a big sheet between your head and stomach probably to keep you from freaking out but you can actually feel all the pulling and tugging that is going on. Really it is quite a strange experience. When they were pulling Abby out, one of the nurses said, "oh it looks like a football player.........no it's a cheerleader." And she was here all 9.4 lbs of her. I was so happy to get a sister for Grace. I was really wanting to name here Ruby before she was born, but Ian would never agree to it, thankfully because she has turned out to be a red head. My dad had been doing lots of genealogy and there were all kinds of Abigails and that just seemed right so we went with Abigail Kathryn as her name. Now she is Abby and every so often Abs and Aunt Leah throws in a Gail to mix things up here and there.
There are some definite thing I adore about Abby
Her crazy curly red hair, sometimes in the morning before it has been wet and brushed, it cracks me up.
Her big brown eyes that she talks with sometimes, it's hard to explain but she does this kind of blinking thing that is so cute.
She wants to do things herself, I often hear,"Abby do it" from her and she usually surprises me with all she can do. You have to love independance.
She loves to give hugs and usually will greet people she knows well with a big hug.
She is tough, it seems since she broke her arm and then was in the hospital with an IV and all the needle pokes there, that all the day to day ouches don't bug her a bit.

It is so fun to hear her learning to talk and all the funny things she does. I'm thankful the Lord trusted me to have her. I know I fall short as a mom so often but truly there is nothing else I would rather be than a mom.
Happy Late B-day my little red caboose.