Bob and LenaGean's family

Val and Nila's family

Kim's family

Sam and his mommy

The Christen's

Heather, Lilly, Great-Grandma Anne and Grandma Chele

Grandma and Jennifer

The church hall looked so nice decorated in bright spring colors, 85 balloons and a family tree.

Larry, Grandma and Kennedy

Ruth, Marv, Jiggs, Anne, and Bobbie

Pastor Miki and Grandma

Niki, Grandma with Makena, and Joel

Grandm Ane's 85th birthday party

The Smith's

The Anderson's

The Ockerman's

The Steele's

Pretty Makena

Look at that Phelps nose!

She's only about half as long as that blanket

too precious!

Valentine Memories

Our next shirt?

We LOVE Valentine's!!!

A Big Thumbs UP!

April

I really don't know what to write about other then to just update our blog. We have been busy with Ryan's soccer schedule - we went to Boise (Caldwell actually!) last weekend, his team came in 2nd place. Last night they played in Blackfoot and won 5 - 1. Ryan plays center forward or right wing. This weekend there is a tournament here in town at a nice shady park even better!!! Next weekend they are in Twin Falls, with a game inbetween at home. Courtney and Craig went to Mutual last night and played frisbee golf, very fun! Joslyn is having her friend, Alex come over today, she is very excited! Chad was going to have Zhigy come over also, but he (Chad) was up very early this morning throwing up, so I don't think Zhigy will be coming over. Craig has two trips to Boise planned for this next week taking over enlistments. I almost have the laundry and dishes under control, so that makes it a very good day!!!

Easter 2008

Chad hunting (yes, here in Idaho, we hunt for eggs in the snow!)

Waiting to start the hunt!

Still waiting - the oldest was 17, the youngest was 20 months.

the parents taking pictures

Joslyn after the hunt

looking thru the goods

little cousins

big cousins

Waiting to start the hunt!

Ryan is on the far left, Chad is on the stairs in a black caot, Joslyn is in pink, and Courtney was in the van pout front!

Stephanie!

Chad!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Here are the children by our St. Patrick's Day tree. The leprechauns came by last night and left in the kids decorated boxes: new shirts, golden coins, Winnie the Pooh Pez dispensers and their own box of their favorite cereals!
I told Ryan to smile and Chad NOT to smile, but oh well!

Live while you're here

Yesterday was a sad day for us and all of Craig's family. His cousin, Durrell Sutton passed away early Friday morning of a heart attack. One minute he was here and the next he was gone. He was only 42. He leaves behind 2 sons, Jayden - 15 and Mason 12 1/2. It was so sudden and nobody had time to say goodbye, the hardest part of it all. His funeral was amazing, his sisters and brother all spoke and sang and his boys told of memories they have of their dad and his oldest sang, Danny Boy. Very touching and emotional day for everyone. One fun thing was they had all of the kids put toy cars in his casket spray at the cemetary - Durrell LOVED cars! He will sorely be missed and loved until we meet him again in heaven.

Those Little Angels

Well today is parent-teacher conferences!!! YEAH!!! Anyway, you go and sit in the little chair, while the teacher is sitting in the big chair and tells you everything your little angels do all day at school - you know the time when they're NOT being little angels!!! AARRGG!! Chad it seems has "ideas" for his teacher - you know little things that he thinks she SHOULD do, like move him and his best friend, Zhigy to the blue group (I don't know what the blue group is necessarily, but it must be WAY more exciting then what ever group he is in now.) And how he doesn't like circle time, because you have to SIT! She gave them a survey with smiley, straight and frowny faces next to the things they do all day like "patriotic song and march" got a smiley face, so did "recess on the big toy". "Computer time" was Chad's only frowny face, maybe because he's supposssed to be learning "letters and sounds", instead of tank wars like he plays on our all the time! He did circle the frowny face on "friends to play and learn with", he even colored it pink - his LEAST favorite color - who knows why!!! But over all he is mastering kindergarten.
Then to Joslyn's class, where her teacher does not hold back, even with Joslyn being there. I almost felt like she was tattling on her! Weird, I know, until you hear what she has to say and then shows you the proof!!! I can feel brown hairs turning grey at this moment!!! She isn't reading, she's talking. She isn't doing her computer work, she's talking. She isn't living up to her potential, she's talking!!! She better have a career talking when she's older or I'm going to wonk her!!! She hurries too much and doesn't read instructions (read, she doesn't even listen to instructions at home!). It's a good thing she is so cute, or she'd be in BIG trouble!!!
I just need to be able to split myself into 4 pieces and go with all of them to everything they do - school, piano, sports, church, mutual, activity days, friends houses!!!
Tonight is Courtny's conferences - you go to the gym find all of her teachers and listen to them tell you how wonderful she is, that's the part I like.
Ryan doesn't even have conferences, unless you need to talk to one of his teachers - he's got all A's and 1 high B right now, so no I don't need to talk to any of his teachers. He is my favorite child this week - he earned 2 eagle palms last night's court of honor - only 1 more to go and then I think we're done - they're might be more but I will officially declare myself done. I do need some time to recoup (not that I did much!), before we get Chad McKay involved in scouts in 18 months!
We are all getting over being sick these last 2 weeks - it's not fun, I don't like doing it!!!

February

I just want to give a shout out to my Aunt Toni - HI!! Thanks for reading our blog! Our February has gone by quickly and is slipping away fast! Chad and I went to Mom's for Valentine's week - always fun! Lots of work, but exciting to be doing something else for a change. Craig and the kids did great while we were away - the house was clean and laundry done. I brought Jennifer home with me for a day and a half, we took a sight-seeing/eating tour of Pocatello. Two things we do well!!! Ryan is leaving today to go to Nampa - near Boise - for state wrestling - he didn't qualify, but is going to support his team. Some of the other wrestlers came to school yesterday with mohawks and diamond shaved into the sides of their heads (our mascot is the diamondback rattler) Ryan said he didn't think he wanted to do that and can I just say - GOOD!!! Craig and I are celebrating our 17th wedding aniversary this Saturday the 23rd. Some days I can't believe it's been that long - it's flown by and then some days I can! We are excited to watch the lunar eclipse tonight - 5:43 p.m. - 10:09 p.m. MST and to celebrate Hootie Hoo Day today - it's the day you go outside and yell "hootie hoo" to scare away winter and welcome spring. So everybody yell "hootie hoo" and let's get spring here!!! Courtney has been babysitting a couple of times this month and was finally able to buy a CD she has been wanting "Labyrinth - movie soundtrack". Joslyn and Chad celebrated 100 days of school on the 6th with everything numbers! They had to take 100 treats to school, wear shirts with numbers on them, count by 2's, 5's and 10's to 100, balance on one leg, be silent, and count 100 people in a room. We are looking forward to a great March - Grandma Anne's 85th birthday party is on March 1st - going to be lots of fun!!! March 4th - march forth - make some new goals for yourself, springing forward for daylight savings, St. Patrick's Day, Easter, and spring break are going to be fun, fun, fun!!!

January

I haven't written because I would start then think I have way too much to write and not enough time, but if I don't I'll be 6 months behind and this poor blog will sit here empty! But here's what's been going on in our lives - Our Christmas was GREAT!!! Our New Year's was also GREAT!!! Joslyn had her 9th birthday on the 5th of January. She is in love with her MP3 player that we got her. What ever happened to just listening to the radio???? We went to the Rexburg temple open house on the 14th, braving cold - temperatures below 0 degrees, wind and snow. It was fabulous - so beautiful!!! We also purchased a new car - at least it's new to us - it's a 2005 Dodge Neon - gray with a little white stripe down the side - great gas mileage - Ryan says it's too sporty for me as a mom I guess, I had to remind him that I was cool once upon a time and am still pretty cool as far as mom's go!!! Ryan has been all over for wrestling - Rexburg - Madison Invitational, Malad, Idaho Falls - Tiger/Grizz Invitational - 32 schools for 5 states and Pocatello - Home at Century and the Dick Fleischmann Tournament - 14 schools - East vs. West - all Idaho schools. He has also started soccer practice - it's inside right now and only 2 days a week, thank heavens!! He earned straight A's on his report card for the 1st semester and was named the male Academic Student on the month for the 10th grade.
Courtney has been learning double petals on the piano and I just knew making them stick with it would work out - she plays beautifully!!!! She gave a talk in Young Women's New Beginnings about Individual Worth and it's was great!! She also has straight A's on her report card adn is reading up a storm!! Joslyn got 4 O's (outstandings) and 3 G's (good) on her report card. She is also getting better at piano, needs to practice more that is for sure, but definitely getting better! She, Ryan and Chad built a snow hill of of our back deck on Monday, they had a snow day. Chad is still Chad! He is learning about their bodies and tells me all kinds of gross stuff! He and Joslyn had a big 100th day of school yesterday, the 6th, celebrating with 100 pieces of candy, mimi-marshmallows, chocolate chips, etc. He is getting to miss a whole week of school this next week, when he goes with me to St. George, to help out with Valentine's. All in all, we have had a good month, pretty healthy, no accidents, lots of snow, and a warm house and good food to welcome us home at the end of the day! We can't complain!!

President Hinckley

there is a website - HinckleyChallenge.com - that is challenging everyone to read the Book of Mormon in 97 days - how old the prophet was when he passed away. They started the 4th of February, I didn't hear about it until today - sorry! But I think this is a great idea!

Crazy Week!

Well we have had a busy, fun, scary week! Monday thru Friday I finished all of the shopping! Going out into the crazy world with even crazier people driving in the snow, that for some reason they think it isn't going to snow, so they forget how to drive in it!!! Ryan had wrestling at West Side, his old school, on Wednesday night, against Mountain Crest and Bear River, both from Utah. He didn't get to wrestle any of his old friends, but won both of his matches that night!!! Courtney got dropped off at her friend Samantha's house and they went babysitting later. Joslyn got to pick up her BFF, Claire and her sister, Carrie and take them with us to the school. Thursday was Courtney's 13th birthday! I can't believe I have 2 teenagers now! She LOVES owls, so I scoured this town and found her a stuffed owl, a owl shirt and an owl desk set, plus some other things, namely an "I Love Edward Cullen" shirt from the Twilight book series that she loves. I never thought I would have a daughter that loves owls, vampires and science fiction/fantasy books. She's definitely her father's daughter! Thursday was also Joslyn and Chad's Christmas program at school, or to be PC, the Holiday program - whatever!!! They both did a great job, Joslyn's class sang "Home for the Holidays" and "North Pole Rock and Roll", for that one hey all wore sunglasses and looked so COOL! Chad's class sang Santa Ho - a version of BINGO and Angel Band, which they gave them sticks to hit against each other, who thought of giving 5 & 6 year olds sticks?!?! Anyway, way cute!!! Then Thursday night, Ryan had wrestling at Century, his school now against Bonneville from Idaho Falls and Rigby, he has cousins that go to each of these schools - Josh and Logan, respectively. He beat his guy from Bonneville, but lost to his guy from Rigby, but it was a fun night. Friday, Craig and I went out shopping, loads of FUN!!! We've vowed to never leave the house AGAIN!!! Saturday we drove to Idaho Falls and saw Craig's Dad, his brother, Dean and his wife Deanna, to give them their Christmas gift. Then over to Kevin and Sharlene's for a while, to see wedding photos of their daughter Angela's wedding on the 15th of this month in Portland. Then we hit Sam's Club and McDonald's on the way out of town. This is where the SCARY part comes in - we were just past Fort Hall Indian Reservation on I-15, when the gas pedal gets stuck!!! Thank Heavens Craig is driving, not me, because I don't know what I would of done!!! He had to ride the brakes and try to get it to stop, it wouldn't, so we got off the exit and drove into a parking lot and just shut it off. Even then when we would turn it back on, it would just rev and rev, Craig thinks the line is broken or something. So luckily we were only about 6 blocks from the house, so Craig and Ryan ran home and got the other car and came back and picked us up. I had in the meantime, called the insurance help line and got a tow truck sent out. We had to lead the tow truck driver over to where we wanted it dropped off, because he's kind of new to town. I have never been so scared or prayed so hard in all of my life. But we are all safe and other then being a bit scared and not having the van to drive, we are okay. We are just going to stay in the house all week, enjoy the snow - we have a couple of inches and are expecting some more - have a nice Christmas, watch some football - that will just be me, but whatever! - and have a good rest of the year.

Wishing you all a Safe and Happy and Healthy Christmas and New Year!!! We Love You!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day. We made turkey with all the trimmings and had Craig's friend Dominic, his three kids - Miguel, Anthony and Aleah, and his girlfriend, Lisa over for dinner. It was very nice. Finished it all off with pumpkin pie and some football, what more could you want?!?!
We are very thankful this year for so much - our family, friends and neighbors, our health and well-being, Craig's job, our warm and cozy home, the good for us (and not so good for us) food, clothes that keep us warm and dry, our belief in the gospel and the opportunities we have to serve others.
A man in church on Sunday, challenged us to serve others with love and charity this Christmas season by just doing 5 minutes of good. Multiply your family members by 5 minutes and do that much service between now and Christmas.
What a good lesson and what a great way to show your love to the Lord.

Happy Birthday Craig!

Happy Birthday to Craig - he's the big 39! (Not the BIG 40!)He's had to spend the day working, he drove to Boise last night, slept on Gowen Field and is driving back right now. Then he has a bunch of things to do in his office, but we've got a surprise for him, we're taking him to see Mr. Magorium's Wonder Imporium and having cake and ice cream later.

October Decorations

Our family of ghosts dancing around the tree

graveyard

Ruby and Joe in the graveyard

The front porch