Happy Birthday Howard

Howard is Richard's brother for those of you who don't know.

Below you will find a list of 10 things (not in order) that we know about Howard.

1. He loves the Lord and desires to do what is right.

2. He loves and cherishes his wife Tiffani.

3. He loves and adores his daughter Tatum.

4. He honors his mother and father.

5. He is a very hard worker.

6. He loves to have fun and lots of it!

7. All of his nieces & nephews think he is so cool.

8. He has lots of friends.

9. He doesn't like weeds.

10. He is honest and an all around good guy.

Happy Birthday Howard, we love you!!!

Thanks Aunt Bev

I saw Bev do a post on her blog about these cute Valentine blocks that she made and I just had to have a set. They were so darn cute!!! So, she let me come over to her house tonight and she showed me how to make them. The set you are looking at is mine and I love them! She is a very talented lady and I am amazed at what she comes up with. You should see her house, it is amazing as well!

Now that I know how to do it I will have to make a set for every holiday.
Thanks Aunt Bev, you truly are the craft queen!

officially freaked out

I am officially freaked out! I just found 2 inside my house. Richard is on his way home but before that he sent me this in an email saying....

Here is the problem

How to get rid of the problem.
I don't think so!!!!

Interesting tidbit

I got home this afternoon after running some errands and looked out my kitchen window to something that wasn't all that friendly looking. There were about 50 bees flying around the area outside my back door. I calmly walked (if it were my sister she would have called 911 - bee's are not her friend) to the back door and looked out the glass to see more like 50 to 100 bees flying about. This did cause me some concern and I proceeded to call Richard. He thought this was interesting as well and wasn't thrilled with my news. I will stay away from the backyard for now and we will deal with this when he gets home. Any ideas from my fellow bloggers as to the best way to say bye-bye to our new friends. Would love to hear from you.

Party Time

Tonight we celebrated my Mom's birthday. We had my parents & Kiff over for dinner. It was nice to get together and visit. My mom is a big American Idol fan so we all watched that after dinner.

Here is the birthday girl in her new necklace that LoraLeigh and I gave her. She looks beautiful in it.
She loves her reading glasses and has quite a few pair. You know to match different outfits of course. Well, I thought she needed a red pair for oh say Valentine's, 4th of July, Christmas or just to match an outfit. Here she is looking very hip in her stylish red glasses.


Silly Grandma & Trevon

Another silly pair.

Mom & Kiff

Happy Birthday, thanks for joining us tonight.

Our Profound Son

Trevon wrote this for a school assignment.

The instructions were that they were to write

something that started with

"Life is Like a"

His is below and the pictures are from our

Disneyland trip 2 years ago.

Life is like a Rollercoaster,
First it starts out nice and slow,
giving you a chance to get used to the ride.
Gradually it speeds up and throws you a curve.
It’s filled with twists and turns which at the moment

can seem to be too much to take.
As you hold on and take it in stride
It always seems to get better.
Sometimes you’re way up high

and at times you are way down low
But whether or not you’re up or down

you should always make the best of it.
You may not like it at first,

waking up every morning to that fast pace of speed.
After a while as you begin to relax, you’ll enjoy it

and realize that it’s not so bad.
As you get to the end the cart begins to slow

and you begin to wish for the speed again.
The inevitable always happens

even against your greatest desire.
Your hopes are to keep going but the cart stops,

never to be used again.

Happy Birthday Mom

Meet my Mom better known as Chris, Chrissy, or Grandma. This great big birthday wish is going out to her. I like this picture of her because it shows how beautiful she is and I think it captures her fun loving personality. She is a very social person who likes to be going & doing. She has a boat load of friends and they all love her to pieces. We think she's pretty great as well.

One of my favorite things about her is that she is a hands-on grandma. She adores her grandkids & if you know her very well you will have no doubts about that. She loves to do things with them and attend their concerts, events & so on. They all love her just as much!

Here she is with Trevon when she attended his Wax Museum event a couple years ago.

Here she is with Jaron last summer. Jaron took a trip with my mom & dad to Utah. It was a special time for him to spend some one on one time with them.

Here she is with Camdon. I am grateful that we live so close and that our kids know their grandparents. I am grateful to have a mom who cares so much about her family. She is always calling to check on us and see if we need anything. I am grateful that she is such a good cook and that we get to eat her yummy goods.

Here she is with all but two of her grandchildren.

Mom, I hope your day is filled with as much joy as you bring to others. We love you and will look forward to seeing you for dinner tomorrow night.

Torrin's Dance Competition

Last night we went to Torrin's dance competition over in Phoenix. Torrin is my niece and she is an amazing dancer. Seriously!!! She has been sick all week with a cold, than a sinus infection, allergic reaction to the zpac, hives, & a cough to boot. She was a real trooper. You wouldn't have known she'd had such a rough week after watching her dance. Here she is receiving one of her trophies. Last night was her two solos and then she has group competitions the rest the weekend.

Here she is with her friend Zoe who also did really well.
The competition went a little late, we didn't get home until after midnight. Camdon got a wee bit tired as you can see and fell asleep. Thanks Grandpa Turley for lending him your jacket for a pillow.


Here is the amazing dancer with all of her trophies. She also received a nomination for dancer of the year. In my eyes, she already won it. You go girl!!!

A Special Day

The first reason that it was a special day is because Camdon completed his Math Blasters at school. He has been working for this all year. We are so proud of him. I let him pick what he wanted for dinner tonight. He chose to have - Spaghetti, Corn, & Garlic Bread. Oh yes, and homemade chocolate chip cookies for dessert. It was a great dinner, thanks Camdon!

Here he is in his Math Blaster shirt that he got at school today.

The second reason it was a special day is that I got to watch my sweet little niece Tatum today. She sure is a cutie! She had so much fun standing at the screen door and watching the birds play in the grass and bushes. Isn't she just darling.

Camdon gave her a puppet show after school.

Jaron & Trevon playing with her.

Aunt Marcy playing pat-a-cake with Tatum.

We love you Tatum!

I can hardly wait

I really don't watch much on television. Two shows is really it for me each week. I like the show Biggest Loser and the other one is Lost. The new season is starting tomorrow night and I can hardly wait!!! Are there any other Lost fans out there???

Mixed Emotions

Our son Jaron has been a fan of the Eagles since he was just a little boy. He really has been very loyal to them for many years now. He has an Eagle's bedroom, he wears clothing with the Eagles logo and he even has a couple of Eagles ties that he wears to church. He took alot of flack about them at the beginning of the season. However, they like the Cardinals shocked everyone this season and really made a comeback. Obviously because they played eachother yesterday. Jaron was quite torn because he is from Arizona and also like the Cardinals but the Eagles is and has always been his team. He was excited about the Cardinals win yesterday but he really took it almost personally that the Eagles did not win. He was pretty quiet the rest of the day, which if you know Jaron, is very unlike him. He can talk a bluestreak when it comes to football. Well, this morning when he woke up one of the first things he did was come in and turn on the Wii. He is playing football, Eagles vs Cardinals. I guess he is going to show them who really should have won. What a true fan he is!!! Jaron, you crack us up. Yes, I know that you are going to be mad at me for putting this on the blog.

Cute story

Last week Camdon went shooting with Jaden. This was Jaden's Christmas present to him. Camdon was pretty excited about it and had a super time! He loves to spend time with Jaden anyway but to get to do something so cool was even better. Thanks Jaden!

So, a few days later Camdon comes home with some of his schoolwork and there was this great story that he had written. It just goes to show that this experience with Jaden really meant something to Camdon. Story below.
One day I was hunting alligators with my cousin Jaden. I found an egg that looked like a kaleidoscope. Out of nowhere I hear, Roar! Roar! I shook with fright. Roar! Roar! A big 20 foot long lizard lured at me as if I were bait on a hook. Suddenly....BAM, Jaden shot the thing and killed it. I was very relieved. We headed home and it took about an hour. By now you could tell I was starving. We had the choices between my mom's homemade chicken noodle soup or pizza. I chose the 1st one since my resolution this year is about being healthy. After dinner my egg that I had found fell to the ground and out came a .....lizard. The end.

Happy Birthday Laura

This birthday wish is going out to my sister-in-law Laura. She is married to my brother Todd and we love her dearly. She is an awesome cook, she is smart as can be, and she is so adaptable fitting right in with any group of people. She is always so quick to jump in and help with anything and she has a great sense of style as you will see from the picture below.

Laura is a wonderful mother and she loves my brother and takes good care of them all. One of the things that I admire about her is that she is always reading and studying and striving to learn more. If her kids are struggling with something, she'll find out all she can about it. If my kids are struggling with something, she will call, send, or email information about it. I really appreciate this about her.

These two sweet dogs are her babies also. She pampers them and takes great care of them. I can't remember what kind of dogs they are but they are hairless which is pretty cool. I can't remember their names either, sorry Laura. We love ya and hope that you had a fabulous time celebrating your 40th birthday in Mexico. Doesn't she look amazing!!!

I LOVE THIS MAN

This is one of the greatest Dads in the whole wide world. Jaron will be going to Mountain Man Rendevous in the Spring. The boys have been working on these capotes (coat) for several months now and needed to move on to other things. So, his leader organized for all of the mom's to meet this morning to finish up the making of the capotes. It really is quite an undertaking. Well, I was scheduled to work today so I asked Richard to go in my place and he agreed. It turned out that I am still trying to get over this crud so I wasn't able to go to work or help with the capote. So, last night Richard dug out the sewing machine and I gave him a crash course on sewing that was all of 10 minutes long. He got up at 6:30 this morning and headed to the church with a bunch of Mom's and made Jaron's capote. He didnt get home until about 12:30 and then he worked on it for a couple more hours. Here he is below at home just a sewing away, bless his heart. I have just never been more in love or proud and the finished product is amazing. You are a superb Dad and a fabulous husband. I LOVE YOU!!!

Here is Jaron modeling the capote

(It just needs 2 buttons & it is done)

He even lined the coat since the outside is wool including the pockets which are lined as well.

Impressive, eh?

Lunch with the Principal

Camdon came home from school yesterday with an invitation to have lunch with the Principal of his elementary school. I asked what he had done to deserve such an honor. He simply replied, "I use good manners". Well, we were thrilled to hear this and weren't really surprised. He is a pretty good kid. When he went to sleep last night he said he wasn't sure he'd be able to get to sleep right away because he was too excited about his lunch date. I thought that was cute and he was up bright and early to make sure he was ready and wearing his school colors which are red, white & blue. He has since come home and reported that it was a great time. We are grateful for a good school which acknowledges good behavior and provides such a positive learning environment.

Thanks Mom

I am still not feeling well, as a matter of fact, today has been my worst day. My mom came over today while I was sleeping and brought a big pot of homemade potato soup and fresh bread right out of the oven. It was delicous and really hit the spot for me. Jaron had three bowls of the soup and said it was the best potato soup he'd ever had. My family thanks you for a good meal and I thank you for being so kind and considerate. Love you Mom!

Sick

I have been sick for two days now with the worst head cold I believe I have ever had. It seems as if there is no relief in sight. I am miserable with that stuffy head, congested feeling and a hacking cough. I think I have gone through atleast 5 boxes of kleenex. Anyone have any suggestions on what to do for relief? Also....I made some changes on my blog background and lost my friends and family list. So, if you dont see yourself on there, please leave me a comment so I can add you back on. I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

Our trip to Utah

This is a marathon of pictures. I couldn't help it. We had such a great trip and I wanted to show a highlight of everything.

We stopped at this really cool bridge place. I can't remember what it was called but the pioneers crossed here many, many years ago and I thought it was very neat.

This was a nice stretch for our legs.

Our very first stop once we got to our destination was to see the lights at temple square as this was the last night of the season that they would be on. It was beautiful.

Camdon, Jaron & Grandpa Turley

Every single branch of this tree was wrapped in lights.

It was breathtaking.

The temple was so beautiful with all the lights on.

Kellie loved it as well.

I thought this tree was so fun. It was in one of the visitor centers and I loved that it was done in the primary colors and made by children for children to enjoy.

Here is a full view

Camdon & Trevon

We were being silly with these.

One of many nativies. This one sat on the water.

Later that night we went to join family for dinner.

The kids couldn't resist a snowball fight the next morning.

They had a blast!

Later that day we went to the Aquarium. The pictures hardly do it justice. We saw some really neat things. Here is a really colorful starfish below.

This was the strangest looking fish I have ever seen. Weird, huh?

Camdon petting one of the stingrays

A tiger shark

Up close & personal with some of the creatures.Trevon with his cousin

Another gathering with family to eat. We ate lots of yummy food on this trip. I gained 3 pounds and will have to eat a few salads this week to get that off.

The kids had fun playing.

This picture of Camdon cracks me up.

The guys did lots of sports watching.

When we went out to our car this night it was snowing.

When you are not used to this it is an exciting event.

The next day we started it off with a tour at Welfare square. It was so interesting. Richard really wanted Jaron & Trevon to go on this since they collect fast offerings once a month. It was neat to see what that money goes towards and just how many people it helps. The affects are worldwide and it was one of our favorite things we did.

We also went on a tour of the Conference center. If you have never done this it is something you should plan for. It was so neat!!! I was talking with Camdon later that night and his favorite thing from this day was the feeling that he had in his heart when he was in the Conference center. It was worth the trip just for that alone.

Our tour guide was full of interesting information.

I loved the tree that was in the convention center.

It looked so real with the snow.

The set for Christmas was beautiful as well.

This picture brought me to tears. You could just feel of his spirit.

It's not often you get to say that you sat on the front row of the Conference Center.

and here we are on the very back row of the balcony.

Of course we had to have lunch at the Lion House. That is a must.

Some more of our group.

I got to stop by and say hello to my cousin Vanessa

who lives in the area. It was way too short but so good to see her & her cute kids.

Sweet little Addie

Evan, Camdon & Ian.

It had been awhile since these boys have seen eachother. Camdon wasn't sure that he remembered them. But, once they saw eachother it all came back and they had great fun playing together.

Then we were off to another family party. I found a sweet little baby to hold. He was precious!

It was a great trip and we are so glad that we went.