HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRIS! Today is my sweet mans birthday! He is the ripe old age of 333333333388888888888! I was having a hard time typing that since I am heading to that hideous number soon. Can I tell you that I think I have the best husband in the world. He is a great husband and wonderful father. Dont get me wrong even though he is pretty dang near perfection to me, I have to knock him back into reality land sometimes! LOL! I have to remind him that his childrens names are not Putter, Nine Iron, and Sand Wedge, but thats ok. I am lucky to have a worthy Priesthood holder in my home to set a great example to the boys. We have been married for going on 16 years and I am even more in love with him the back then. Who would have thought that was possible??? I also think that he is by far the hottest man around. Move over Brad Pitt and George Clooney because I think that I am married to THE SEXIEST MAN ALIVE! Ok , I will end now and spare you any further mushyness. Happy Birthday Babe! I love you and hope you have a great day! I told him he wasnt aloud to read my blog, but I am quite sure he does. We are having a BBQ later to celebrate his and Judsons Bday that is Monday. It should be fun. I will take pictures and post more later. Have a great Saturday!



Chris being a great dad and uncle.













I had to throw this one in. It is to remind him of his younger days.
I think it is High School Graduation



Wishing he was golfing.

Hey! Where did my picture go???? Here it is to go with my post below. DUH!

SPT.......
Ok, I have never done the self portrait Tuesday before so here it goes. I thought this picture was fitting for how my day has been. Blurry and making out with my Diet Coke all day.
Today I took the kids to swim lessons and then to Target. On the way to Target we stopped at Wendys to get the kids some nuggets and fries, you know a healthy lunch. I, of course had my "biggie " Diet Coke. Nothing out of the ordinary there. After spending an hour or so at Target with 5/6 kids, saying "stop that", "get in the cart" , "leave him alone" etc etc.... I was wiped and my throat felt raspy from all of the refereeing!

On the way home from Target I felt it was a 2 Diet Coke day today and stopped at McDonalds for my HUGO XL DIET COKE WITH EXTRA ICE only to have the tell me that they dont have that size anymore!! I had to settle for the next size down darn it!

Well I am off to take some Advil for my headache. I also just dropped my pan of enchiladas on the floor and burnred my hand, but life is good!!!

Have a great night!

I have a few minutes to spare, so I will try to catch up on our weekend. So far so good. We are all alive and survived our first week with no school. We managed to keep pretty busy so that helped. Dallin had football camp all last week and Landon and Bowen had scout day camp for 3 of the days. Good times! Friday we spent the day getting Dallin ready to leave for scout camp. My baby is gone all this week to Catalina for our wards scout camp. I miss him, but I am sure he is having a great time. Friday Chris worked from home for the morning and then was off golfing the rest of the day for "work". He has it rough let me tell you. He got home around 7ish and didnt really feel like going out ( I dont cook on Fridays) so Dallin, Judson and I went to Baja Fresh to eat and then to Target to get some last minute items that he needed for camp. It was nice to spend some time with him before he left.


Saturday we got donuts (not good for my thighs) and sent Dallin off on his merry way. For the rest of the day, we just hung around and did the usual house chores. I went and got my nails done and got a pedicure. My feet were in need of some MAJOR help. For dinner we ended up getting some KFC and taking the kids to the park. It was perfect park weather. So gorgeous.

Sunday I ended up staying home again with runny noses. I hate to send Hayden to nursery with a runny nose. I am sure it is just allergies, but I didnt want to take any chances of getting any other kids the same thing. It is so nasty though his right cheek is red and sore from him wiping his boogers on his shirt or whatever he gets his hands on. Disgusting, I know but what are you going to do? Hard to teach a 3 year old to "get a kleenex and wipe your nose" yah right. Our home teachers came over with a great message, we had dinner and that was pretty much the extent of our Sunday. Chris and I stayed up until 12:30 last night watching the Grudge. Why? I am not sure. It was kind of freaky, but in a lame sort of way. i am paying the price today though. I am wiped out! To top that off Lawson decided that last night he didnt want to sleep. So when 3 oclock hit and he was up for the 2nd time, I grabbed my buddy Tylenol and gave him some. I figured that it couldnt hurt and might help if he was teething or somthing. It did, he slept until 8 or so! Yes! Well I need to go check my pork tenderloin. It smells yummy. If I can keep from turning it into a door stop than I am good. Hope everyone has a great Monday!




Boys playing at the park





I couldnt resist putting Lawson in a girly hat. Daddy will love this picture!














My hot man at the park. Doesnt he look thrilled to be there??

Happy Birthday Julie!!!
Being the loser sister that I am, didnt put 2 and 2 together to figure out that today was the 20th. It still is the 20th, so I am ok right???

Today is my OLDER sisters Bday. She will kill me for saying this, but she turns 45 today!! YOWSA! She still is a looker even in her old age. HEE HEE. She has been a fun big sister. She is 8 years older then me. You dont really notice the age difference now(except when she starts doing her disco dances), but growing up, I am sure we were pesky little brats to her. I remember she would sometimes take us driving around with her by the boy she likes house, or she would call us all day from work to ask us if anyone called her. She would also give us candy if we would clean her room or do her chores for her. Good times! When we were in HS, she was married and she would have us come over to play games and she would make us cookies and let us borrow her clothes. We had a great time and still do when we get together. She has a daughter Berlynn that just graduated HS and a 2 year old Addison.

I hope you enjoyed your Birthday blog and I hope you had a great Birthday! We love you!

Happy graduation!

We have had some exciting graduations this year.
First of all my cute niece Berlynn graduated from Coronado HS in Henderson NV. I cant believe how fast time has flown by!!! I remember how excited we were when she was born. She was the first grandchild in our family and SPOILED, I must say! I got the call that she was born when I was at BYU, yes that is right, I am THAT OLD!! Freaky! She is super cute and a great athlete. She will be attending college in Utah and playing Fast pitch ball for them. So exciting. Good job Berlynn!












Next here is my sweet baby. Not a great picture, I know. We snapped it at his graduation from middle school. He did not know we were taking the picture. I cant believe that my little boy is going to HS next year. It seems like just yesterday that he was in Kindergarten-seriously it goes way too fast.

So far we are surviving the summer. It is day 2 in the zoo! We have been swimming, playing with friends and today I even went to Costco with all 6 of them! Yes I was the entertainment at Costco. I think that people wouldnt bat an eye at me if I lived in Utah, but here in California we are freaks. That is ok, I love it! I will post more later. Gotta get the stars of my freak show to bed:) Goodnight!

HAPPY FATHERS DAY DAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


This is a special post to wish my dad a Happy fathers Day.
I am lucky to have a wonderful father. I am sure that I have not said that nearly enough! My dad has not only been a great example to me and my siblings but to my children as well. He is a hard worker and we always had a great time growing up and now. Here are just a few things about my dad:

1. My dad loves the Jazz
2. Likes to shop (especially online)
3. When my dad comes to visit, he has more luggage then my mom!
4. Makes great biscuits
5. Makes good bread (kids call it Papas bread)
6. Likes to "get away" to their house in Summit UT (blink and you miss the town)

Those are just a few fun things about my dad. When I called to ask my mom what he would like for Fathers Day he told her that he wanted nothing but just a letter to say that he did a good job raising us.
Well here you go dad. You have done the best job and I am extremely lucky to have had you as a dad.
Thanks for all of the wonderful Fathers Blessings and for bringing the Priesthood into our home!
We love you!!

This is going to be one long summer!!! My kids had their last day of school today and it is nuts!!! I was planning this grand graduation post for my boys and niece that is side tracked by my need to rant, cry, scream and thank my HF that nothing bad happend.

Today after school Landon had a friend over to play for awhile. All is well and then they decided to go swimming. No problem, Landon, Jake and Judson were outside in the pool and I made sure the gate was CLOSED to keep Hayden out. All was working great until they decided to come in the house.
Last year I had them totally trained to keep the gate CLOSED AT ALL TIMES!!! They were getting ready to go back to Jakes, when my friend Christine (Jakes mom) came in to get the boys and asked where Hayden was. I thought he was in watching Brave Little Toaster that I had put in for him---but NNOOOO! Landon said that he was out by the pool "he's just on the steps mom). GGGRRRRRRR! I dont think I have ever moved that fast in my life!!!! I just imagined rounding the corner and seeing that sweet baby hurt in the pool. OH! MAN! I lost it!! Lucky for my boys that Christine was there or I think I would have really gone ballistic on them! He was by the pool all by himself wet, safe thankfully. Things can happen so quickly!

I am so thankful that nothing happened. We will definitely have to go over and over and over the pool rules again!

Thanks for letting me rant- again. It seems like a common occurance here. LOL Have a great Friday!!

I thought I had labels on the pictures.
First picture is Hayden with his buddy Talmage who is moving
Second picture is of Judson and Bowen playing games at Super Franks Playplace.
Third picture is of lawson in his Bumbo
Last picture is Judson during his last game this weekend.

My party is over soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I officially have only 3 days left until school is out! Scary! I seriously love my sweet boys, but I also really enjoy my little break from them during the day. Dallin is old enough to Bbsit most of them, so I can still have my "away" time. HA
HAHA. It has been a pretty busy weekend and this week is NUTS. Dallin has his 8th grade promotion and a couple of other activities, Bowen has some action going on, we have had end of the season parties and the list goes on....... Good times.

Our ward his losing alot of great families this summer also. This week we have had going away parties for some of them and it is really sad. People moving are families with kids, so our primary will look sort of puny. Good thing we are there, if we ever moved, that would be half of the primary! Just kidding.

Tomorrow is Wed. lunch day with some friends. We are doing Cheescake Factory and we are all trying to get there with no kids. It is kind of our last lunch of the summer, so we want to go out with a bang. You know, Diet Coke and great food. Bring it on. Well I think I am putting my self to sleep with this blog. Pretty boring I know. I feel that when I go awhile without blogging, it is hard for me to catch up and so I just rattle on. At least I put up a couple pictures.

I have a picture of Lawson in his Bumbo. He loves it. I saw several babies in them on peoples blogs(when I am a blog spy) and I had to run out and get one. Anything that keeps them entertained is so worth it. I swear my house looks like Babies R Us.

Hope everyone is enjoying their summer so far. If you see a dark cloud looming over Northern Cal. next week---it is from me!! LOL

Just sitting here in a BLAH mood! I am planning on doing another blog with pictures later, but I feel like just typing away. I shouldnt be PMSing quite yet, but I feel like I am. Chris is golfing(what else is new) today. I was a little irritated that he would suggest going today. I value Saturdays with him being home to kind of help out with the kids or chores etc. Oh well. Maybe I will jsut have to go out and see a movie with just the girls tonight. Hee Hee! He is with a couple of the kids so it isnt too bad. I jsut got home from Toysrus and Target( Target did perk my mood up a bit). Bowen had some bday money that was just burning a hole in his pocket, so we went and he picked out an RC Boat for the pool. We ahd one last year and the kids loved playing it. It didnt last long but hey, anything that keeps them entertained for any amout of time is great with me.
We are going to meet some friends at a park tonight for a bit. It is a little last minute, but it gives us something fun to do as a family. Well I am going the head and throw a little food together to take to the park. Have a great weekend!

Typing is great therapy! I feel better already.

Can you say bored?????????????
I know, I know with a boat load of kiddies like me, how could I have been bored? I had a Lawson free moment yesterday and this is how I used it???? Taking blury pictures of myself in the mirror. My sweet hubby took him to Bowen bball game so I could finish up dinner and have a break. Since Bowens arm is still on the mend, he isnt playing but we try to go and support the team still.

We had a good weekend I guess, nothing too outrageous happened. Iwill try a new way of recapping, since sometimes Ifeel like I have ADD when I am blogging. All sorts of things to write about, but they end up all just being lumped together in a crazy mess.

Friday Dallin had a campout and the other boys ahd a Primary activity so chris and I just had Hayden and Lawson alone time for an hour. We just let Hayden run wild at McDs close to our church for a while. It was fun to watch him play and run wild. We then went and picked up the boys and I stayed and helped clean up for a bit. I really just didnt want to go home yet, but Chris was ready, so he took the kids home and I stayed and helped clean up. A few of us ended up going to Chilis afterward. It was fun. I think we ended up almost closing the joint. It was about 11:30 when I got home. What a party animal I am!

Saturday it was Bball games and Bowens end of the season party at the cabana club here in the neighborhood. It was FREEZING cold, but some of the kids swam anyway. I was bummed that I couldnt whip out my bikini and go swimming. Maybe next time. HA HA!

Sunday went well if you call yelling at your children for the hour before leaving for church. ---Yep! that would be me! I was on one that day. I feel bad doing that on anyday let alone on Sunday. Chris had a meeting to go to and had to leave early, so that left me getting all of them and myself dressed and out the door. Not an easy task. I even get all of the clothes ironed and ready the night before to avoid some of the chaos, but it irritates me when the kids dont move fast enough. I am sure it is my own problem that I need to deal with. I dont know what I am going to do when the time changes to 9:30. Do they do home church???? Then I get to go to church and wrestle with them by myself for an hour and 10 minutes. My sweet Bowen got up and bore his testimony. That made it all worth while. His mom is to chicken to get up there and here this 11 year old does it with ease. Kids set such great examples dont they?

Monday I took Lawson for his 6 month check up and shots. This was his first set of shots, and I am paying the price for it today. He is so crabby!!! He is doing great. When he was suppose to get his first set of shots he was admitted to the hospital for a few days with RSV. My doctor wanted to wait for his immunity to get back to normal, and I just slacked off getting him back to the Drs after that. Hayden was at the appointment with me and the Dr noticed that he doesnt talk that great. Compared to my other kids he is a little speech delayed but I didnt think it was to bad. I guess we will have to go get him evaluated for that. Hollys Lucas and Hayden are a day apart and Lucas is speech delayed also. Chris wants to know what drugs we were taking together Holly when we were pregnant??? Funny guy.

Well as I said earlier I am paying the price for Lawson shots yesterday. He is crying on the floor next to me. He wants to be held. Poor baby. Hope everyone enjoys the rest of the week!

AHHHHHH! This is what I wish I was doing right now! This was Lawson last night. He was playing on the floor and all of a sudden he was OUT! How nice.
Today I feel like I work at a laundromat. I have been doing LOADS AND LOADS of the stuff all dang day. It is seriously never ending. I feel like the clothes are cloning themselves over and over again. Oh well.
Today I did get out and run a few errands. Nothing too exciting. I procrastinated signing Hayden up for Preschool until the very last second today. Hopefully he will be able to go. It is a lottery here, so you take your chances. I really need to get off my keester and get this kid potty trained. I have tried a couple of times only to have him poo or pee right in his "big boy underwear". It is really starting to gross me out changing his diaper though. His poo doesnt quite smell like a bed of roses, but whose does???????????
I then headed to Safeway to get a few things and then home for you guessed it---more laundry.

Well, I need to get going and get Judson and Bowen to their games and practices and throw some dinner into that mix. Hopelly my day tomorrow will start off better then it has the past 2 mornings. We have all been waking up way too late and running around like psychos-well maybe just me. I feel bad sending them off in a huge rush. You can tell that morningtime is not my thing. 2 more weeks of school and we can all relax...... Have a great night!!

Blogger is being psycho and not letting me post all my pictures at once. Sorry for the crazy layout!

Well "girls weekend" is officially over. We had a great time. After I got my boys off on their way on Friday, it was clean, clean, clean for me. I was a cleaning fool! It felt so good to have my house spotless, (which is rare). I was exhausted. My sister in law Dana came in late Friday night. She was the first to arrive. We chit chatted for a bit then off to bed. Saturday we got up and dressed and headed to pick up the group from the airport. We first had to make a pit stop at the car rental place to pick up our "Babe magnet" 12 passenger van. We were looking so sexy in the thing. HAHA. It was actually kind of fun to drive, I must say. It was pretty funny when we pulled up at the airport. Dana and I had made a big sign to hang from the van that said OPPORTUNITY VILLAGE TRANSPORT. Anyone who is from Vegas would think that was pretty comical. After getting on the road back to my house we stopped at a sandwich shop to get some food. Were were hungry, but didnt want to get too full because we wanted to go out to dinner later. ( the first of many food feasts) Can I just say that we ate SO much this weekend. I feel like my fat rolls have multiplied! We were lucky enough to have Tyler (Hollys daughter) come and babysit Brennah and Addison while we went out to eat. She did a great job.

Sunday we were very naughty and decided to go to San Francisco for the day. I know, I know very bad. We did feel guilty, but we had a fun time. We went to Fishermans Warf (along with about a million other people in the world) and that is about it for Sunday. Oh yah, we did come home and make some goodies. We dipped strawberries and made Magic Bars.

Monday we headed to the mall and shopped for a bit. Keep in mind there was 7 women and 4 kids at my house getting dressed every morning, so it always took forever to get out the door.
We shopped for awhile and then later went out to dinner.

Tuesday, we headed to San Jose to the Valley Fair Mall. It is a huge mall. We had a great time, but we were all exhausted after. We were not able to fully enjoy the mall because we needed to be back on the road home to beat the afternoon commute. It is brutal and we wanted to avoid it. Came home and again enjoyed way too many sweets. Later that day my family came back home from camping. They were excited to see all 0f their visitors and they so kindly dumped all of their smoky, dirty laundry at my feet. Lucky me! We later left the kids home and went out to eat. Chris was lucky enough to eat with all of us girls.

Today, I got my kids off to school ( we all woke up late of course) and then we went to run a few last minute errands, a yummy lunch, and then it was off to take my family to the airport. It went by so fast, but we had a great time. I am thankful that I have such a great husband to take the most of my kids with him for the 4 days and he didnt even lose any of them and they all survived! Now I am back to realityville by doing laundry and dishes and all that fun stuff. I will try to get some pictures on this blog. Well I am off to bed. Morning comes WAY too fast. Goodnight!

Just breathe...........................................
I am running around like a psycho lady. I am trying to get my house in order for my house full of guests and get my husband a 5 kids packed and out the door to go camping. Yes you heard me..my 5 kids. My sweet husband is taking the older 5 with him this weekend. He usually has a "no diaper" policy when he goes camping without me, but he changed it so that I would just have the baby to deal with on my girls weekend. I havent had the energy to get Hayden potty trained yet. He is getting there,but darn it, it is so easy to just change his diaper then to potty train him. It will get done for sure by this summer, because I will not miss my opportunity to have him go to his firste year of Pre school this Fall. NO WAY!! 5 down 1 to go. Heeeheee. Just kidding. I will miss the little bugger when he is at school. He is quite entertaining.

I am scouring bathrooms, vaccuuming. and all sorts of decluttering stuff. you know, the stuff that really only gets done when you have people coming. It took awhile to get Chris and the boys going. After they FINALLY got on the road Chris called and needed me to bring the tire jack to him because the camper tire was flat. Poor guy. I think they are finally on the road.

Tonight I am bringing my friend Brooke dinner, she had her baby on Monday. It is her 3rd girl and I am sure she is too cute.

Well, I need to get cracking. If I stop, it will be way to hard to get going again. I am enjoying this peace and quiet. My family doesnt come in until tomorrow early afternoon, but I really want to get it done tonight. I will take plenty of pictures of all of us. It will be too funny all of us piling in to our big 12 passenger rental van to go places. Chris keeps telling me that it is my next car, so enjoy it. I dont think so!!! I did my time with a van. Dont get me wrong. I loved my van, but I enjoy my car now. Well I am off.......enjoy the weekend..

Happy Birthday Bowen!

It is Bowens birthday today. He is 11 years old today. So hard to believe. Bowen is such a sweet boy. He is so caring and loving. He is full of spunk and always likes to be the center of attention (in a good way). I always say that he should be an actor. Bowen is so lucky,he is also getting his Arrow of Light tomorrow. Such an exciting day for him. He was such a cute baby and such a tanker. You can see by some of my pictures that he is not your average 11 year old. He is so tall for his age. When he was a baby I could never put shoes on his feet or button his shirts because of his "paws" as I affectionately called his hands and feet. He never really crawled, but did the GI Joe crawl. So cute. I could go on and on about him. We are so blessed to have him in our family. Love ya !!BO BO!!

I needed to take a few minutes to vent out some of my feelings today. I sent my poor Judson off to school today mad at him. I hate doing that. I have always "tried" to send them off every day happy. I think that it makes a huge difference in your day when you start it off without your mean mother yelling at you over a sweatshirt. Yes, this is my little guy who tries my patience on a daily, sometimes hourly basis. He is SO strong willed. He gets it from me I am sure. Chris and I were talking about it last night as Judson was trying to eek out more time for reading when he was supposet to be in bed and we decided that we neeed to choose our battles with Judson and try to let some things slide. I guess between last night and this morning I forgot that as I got mad at him over something sillly. They were running late this morning and the other boys were outside ready to walk to school and he decides that he needs his sweatshirt. He is a sweatshirt addict! Of course neither one of us knows where it is and didnt have time to scout the house looking for it so I yelled at him for waiting to the last minute to do this. I have been so mad about it all morning. I guess the only thing you can do is try harder to be more patient with him.

Sorry about going on and on about that, but I feel so much better getting it off my chest. Today I am doing more laundry and cleaning. It really is never ending. I am trying to get things clean for my company this weekend. My husband is taking the boys on our annual camping trip with friends from our old ward. I decided not to go this year because Lawson is still little and it really wouldnt be fun to go with a little baby. My mom, 2 sisters, and sister in law are coming this weekend for a girls weekend. There will be a total of 8 people coming ( they are bringing their girls with them too). I of course will be the only one supplying the boys. We need to have some testosterone among all of the hormones. I am excited about it. We will probably be shopping and eating the whole time. We even are renting a 12 passenger van so we can all ride together wherever we go. That will be a sight.! Well I need to keep moving while Lawson is having a nap. I hope everyone has a great day!

I cant believe it has been so long since I have blogged. This week has seriously flown by. I havent done anything too exciting except clean, clean, clean and my house still looks like I have sat on my rump all week instead of clean. Oh well. It has been a really busy week also. We had 2 open houses to go to for the kids schools and Chris has had meetings and BAM it is the weekend again. Last night I had a girls night out. It was so fun. My friend Brooke is moving back to where else---Utah! Come on people, what is it about Utah???? I think that about hald of my ward has jumped ship and moved back to Utah. What do they have that we dont have here? Could it be that you can buy a house for half of what you can here??? HHHMMMM! I guess that is a plus. We will miss her. THis was kind of a going away party/surprise baby shower. She is having her third girl in about a week. We had dinner at an Italian restaurant and then some of us night owls went to a movie. We went to see Disturbia. Crazy freaky movie!! I liked it alot, but if you are a chicken and things scare you easily, then this movie is not for you. All in all we had a fun night.

Today we have spent most of the morning cleaning the garage. It was a mess! It will probably stay clean for about 5 whole minutes. That is the way it is at my house. Things do not stay nice and tidy for very long.

A few minutes ago chris took Bowen and some of his friends to Great America theme park for his Bday. My baby is going to be 11 on tuesday. I cant believe it! We moved here to California when he was 5 weeks old. Time has really flown by. This picture is of Chris and the boys(Bowen is in the green) on their way out.. They were so excited. I think Bowen is kind of excited to go without his brothers. Usually the older boys end up having the younger ones tagging along with them wherever they go. That is the way it is in big families, but today it is all about him and his friends. I hope they have fun.

Well I need to go take care of the rest of the 5 that I have home with me. I tild them that if they hurry up and do their chores we can go get a Slurpee or something. They think that is cool. Well I am off to the "ZOO" If only you could hear what my house is sounding like right now. Crying baby and 3 year old!! I think I am going to run away! Have a good weekend!!!