Another year older...

Here's me. I'm 27 years old, as of yesterday, and I just had the best birthday EVER!!!
I told my husband all I wanted for my birthday was to get a girls night out. And he took it from there. He called my best friend, Mohna, and his mom and told them what to do. They called all of my other friends (and yes my family is included in that) and set up a party... to my complete surprise. Mohna said I want to take you out to dinner for your birthday, so I thought it was just going to be us. We showed up at the restaurant and I was shocked!! And so very happy. I saw Dayle,( my mother-in-law), Emily, Elyssa and Natalie (my sisters-in-law), then Tonya Bernt, Katie Campbell and of course Mohna. We ate dinner and chatted and opened presents-- which I have to admit is one of my favorite parts-- then they said " the fun doesn't stop here, we're heading back to your house to do a craft" Oh how they know me so well. I LOVE crafting!!! So we came and make little Halloween decorations, and had a fabulously chocolatey cake. So I want to say thank you to Mom and Mohna for surprising me, and thank you to my wonderful husband who cooked this all up and couldn't even be there to share it with me. I love you!!!

Me and the girls at Bajio's.

Katie and me, Tonya and me

A shout out to my B.F.F!!!! Thanks Mohna

Waiting for the choclatey goodness and making a wish!!

Thanks again everyone for making my birthday so great....

And a praise to my kids who gave me some great presents, the girls cleaned their room WITHOUT being asked, Tommy made me birthday cards at school and Timothy just loved me.

I also got to talk to my grandpa, my friend Richelle, my friend Linsey, My mom and Dad- thanks for the song and the howling- and my sister, and my brother. I also got the Happy Birthday song from my adorable nephew MR. Thank you EVERYONE!

BABY TO BIG BOY

Timbo's hair was getting pretty long so Josh and I thought it would be funny to buzz cut his hair. But we think he looks pretty darned cute with his hair cut short. What do you think?

Accidents WILL happen...

I will warn you now there is a lot of nasty things in this story so if you are squimish please don't go on. For the rest of you, here it goes...

Tommy was riding his bike with his friend Devan, yes he was wearing his helmet, and they were just riding up and down the street. Like little boys do they started doing tricks. I try not to watch because it makes me nervous. Well, Tommy did a wheelie and his bike came totally off the ground and when he came back down his front tire came off and Tommy's face hit the sidewalk.
I was in the kitchen making bread when I get a knock on my front door, I didn't know who it was but she said your son had a bike accident and his tooth came out. I didn't think much of it because his tooth was already loose and about ready to come out. But I went to go check, I got to the sidewalk and I saw my neighbor carrying him and I freaked out. He was screaming bloody murder- as he should have been. When I got to him his face was covered in blood. His tooth was hanging out, and he looked awful. I got him home and was just going to wash his mouth out but after I got the tooth out (i am not a tooth person- yuck) there was strings of blood that I didn't know if it was just blood or if it was something else, so I took him to urgent care. They got us in right away but that's about where the helpfullness stopped. The doctor didn't even really look in his mouth and then just said " Well there's nothing we can do, so just go home and wash his mouth out and give him Tylenol" thanks Doc!!! I'm still a little pissed. Well, we got home washed his mouth out the best we could, and gave him some ibprofen. His lips swelled up like balloons and he couldn't talk at all. So for two days he had ice on his lips and tylenol. Thankfully he is feeling much better, but the poor guy has cuts all along his top lip and a whole in his bottom lip where his tooth went through. He scraped up his nose and chin and shoulder. He is extremely bruised inside his mouth and has a whole there to sum it all up. He sure is my brave boy. I'm sure by next week he will be back on his bike doing tricks again- he's tuff. I will say that he sure is loved, we had neighbors and friends calling and stopping by to check to make sure he was ok. I love where we live!!!
Now for the photo's. They aren't the greatest but they'll give you an idea of how he felt.

Right after the accident...

Two days later...

Where did the fall go?

I think this year has been the weirdest year- weather wise I mean. Here in Idaho, we had a long winter, followed directly by summer, spring decided to take vacation this year. We had snow then 90 degree weather. Now, we've had a rather short summer and we've launched straight into winter again. We have rain, snow, blizzards, and very cold days and nights. I wish it would just make up its mind. Do you know how hard it is to try to dress your kids? I get out the snow clothes, then its light jackets, then its snow clothes again---AAAAAARRRRRGGGHHHH!!!! At least we have fun in the snow.

Timothy, Savana, and Ella (friend of the family), then Timbo and Sammy pulled by Tommy.

Savana's snow angels.

Siera burying her hat, and Tommy throwing snowballs (his favorite target is ME!!)

Pumpkin Painting

So for Family Night we got Grammy and Papa over to help us paint the pumpkins. We usually carve them, but we thought it would be fun to paint this year. I love being right!!!! The kids absolutely loved it. Timothy was having so much fun with the paint. His is two sided. Tommy was so careful in the lines, we helped Siera but she did a lot of it, and Savana did hers all by herself. Happy Halloween everybody!!

The other side to Timbo's pumpkin

(Gary calls it the Obama pumpkin)

The PUMPKIN Patch Kids

Well, this year we all got to go to the local pumpkin patch. Siera's pre-school class was taking a field trip and we tagged along. (We went with Nanny's class last year too.) We had so much fun. It was supposed to be snowing so the kids were dressed super duper warm- double layered, then gloves and hats and heavy coats- October people, it's not supposed to be that cold yet!!!! We were quite warm. It wasn't as cold as it was supposed to be, but it was still COLD!! Anyways, we went through a corn maze. It had questions and depending on how you answered it would lead to a path- one way was right and the other was wrong. Last year it took us about 45 minutes to get through, mainly because we didn't know the answers and we felt retarded but, this year it only took about 15 minutes. I was rather proud.
After the maze the kids got to make a pine cone bird feeder. Cool, Zoey ate ours!! Stupid dog. Then the kids picked corn stalks and got to feed it to the one horse, two pigs and 4 bunnies. I'll tell you there were about 75 kids there. Those animals got fed well. Then it was out to the actual pumpkin patch to pick out their very own pumpkin. Tommy, Savana, Siera and Timothy all picked out a $1 pumpkin, and we went home to decorate. But here are some lovely photos of our trip.






Through the maze to the giant pumpkin at the end.


Start the maze....end with pumpkins!

Isn't she adorable?

A family update

Well, it's been a whole year and then some since we've taken a family picture. So, since it's fall and beautiful and the leaves are changing and the air is crisp and wonderful, we thought we would venture out to take some photos. What do you think? Thank goodness for the tripod to hold our camera still. Timbo isn't looking but that's just cause there was someone in the park flying a kite, he couldn't help it. But you can at least see his cute profile!

I think the last time that Josh and I took pictures, just us, was about 5 years ago. So it was time. He's pretty handsome don't ya think? I sure love him, after all these years.

In a few months we'll have been married for 8 years. And this is what we have to show. Four beautiful, wonderful, talented, loving, and funny children who are the light of our lives. We are so grateful to have them. This has been a wonderful 8 years and it just keeps getting better. I'll put up something special for our actual anniversary, but this will do for now.

OUR BOYS- TOMMY AND TIMMY

OUR BEAUTIES- SAVANA AND SIERA