HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY KYRA!!

I can't believe we are the parents of a 15 year old!! Kyra has come so far in the past 10 months that she has been in our family. We are blessed to have her with us. Yes it can be a challenge at times but what 15 year old isn't a challenge?? So, as a tribute to her, the other 8 of us got together and wrote down some things we love about her. Since she's 15, we did 15! :) And I included who said some of them:

1. She's entertaining


2. She tells great stories


3. She's a great dancer


4. She's nice


5. She stands up for Ty (Jaren)


6. She's pretty


7. She plays with my hair (Natalie)


8. She has a beautiful singing voice


9. She breaks up arguments


10. She cuddles with me (Ty)


11. She has a strong spirit


12. She stands up for herself (and is learning to do it respectfully)


13. She is great at making omelets


14. She has a great sense of humor


15. She has a strong testimony of the church and isn't afraid to share it

We hope you have a great birthday and we love you!! And please stop reminding us that you'll be driving in a year, we aren't ready for that!!

More Changes!

As if we don't have enough going on around here! If I posted the daily happenings it would overwhelm you people. And with not posting it all it's easier for me to forget the chaos. Of course one day I know I will miss it. This weekend:
Saturday: Kyra got extentions,they turned out aweful and most of her bday money is down the drain. I feel so sorry for her. She's deciding today if she's going to tear them out. But, she wanted to do it. She chose the person (her friend) to do it. I had nothing to do with it and I tried to warn her. But,do teenagers ever listen to their parents? So we had Stephanie come over to try to "fix" it so it would look good enough to go to church.She did a pretty good job and I feel bad that she had to spend 1 1/2 hours of her Saturday night at our house.But we kept her entertained with dumblaws.com. You should check it out!
We also cleaned out the garage, went grocery shopping, took kids to friends houses/picked up kids from friends houses. Cleaned the house. And debated on the rest of the "to-do list" that we decided can wait til next week.
Sunday: We woke up for church and found that Mark and Ty were both sick so they stayed home and I took the other 6 to church. We were on time! For us that's huge. In the afternoon some people came to meet me that want me to start babysitting their newborn in July (no,she's not born yet) They were super awesome and I hope I can manage, it's only part time. In the evening I had to go to a fireside at the church. It was all about our teenagers and warning signs and stuff going on at the high schools we should be aware of. Almost makes you want to homeschool--almost :)
Then my aunt from Cali called to inform me that the final decision has been made. In the middle of March my grandparents will be moving in with us! Yes, I am adding to the crazy. Now we will have 2 crazy parents. 7 Spastic kids. And 2 elderly people with lots of medical issues. YEAH!! My days with no kids will now be filled with dr. appointments and handing out meds.
Don't get me wrong. I love them and we are excited that they will now be in Arizona. We have missed them. I'm just afraid of how I will handle it. Please pray for me to have energy, sanity and great organizational skills.
I'm sure there will be lots more to come on this subject once they get here. Some of it may be incoherent ramblings but I'm sure the stories will be entertaining for you! So wish me luck as we grow to a family of 11!

Running Club race #1

4 of my kids are involved in running club.In our school district they provide this in an attempt to get kids off the couch! They run at the school twice a week and after about a month they compete with other schools in the district.They get into it and love it! Yesterday was the first race (there are 2 more so loook for more results) Jake and Jaren are the only 2 that qualified.Ty walks more than runs and Natalie misunderstood. On qualifying day the coach told them it was time to qualify for the meet. The boys did their normal,Natalie was being lazy. She was really upset saying that she would have tried alot harder to qualify but she didn't know "meet" meant "race" Live and learn!
There were about 300 kids running in this race. Jake came in #8. Jaren came in #31.If Jake came in 2 people sooner,he would have placed and won a ribbon. He may have even made it but on the course he tried to pass a kid (who did get a ribbon) and he shoved Jake into a tree! Bad Sportmanship!!! It's hard 'cuz we know the kid. So I told him next race run faster,and avoid the kid who wasn't taught good sportsmanship.Good luck for the next one guys! And I'll try to remember the camera next time--sorry!

My hugs

This post is more for me to remember (since this takes the place of my journal most of the time) than for you guys.
Background--when I was dating Mark,the first thing that started turning "like" into "love" was the way he treated his mother. He was very affectionate,sweet and protective. He didn't care who was around,he always gave her a hug and told her he loved her before leaving the house. And he showed alot of respect to her.I have always told my boys that the way they treat their mom is the way they'll treat their wives.And I always add that most girls know that and will pay attention to how they treat me once they start dating.My boys are pretty great.But I worry as they get older how their friends being around will affect this.
So,here's what happened today. Jake forgot something for his science fair project that they were working on today.He just HAD to have it,quickly. Of course it was first thing in the morning,I had just gotten kids off to school and was still in pj's.I quickly got ready for the day and rushed off to the school.When I walked into his classroom his face lit up! He was so excited he got up,ran to me and gave me a huge hug and told me he loved me! Right there in front of his entire 6th grade class. No hesitation. He didn't care who was around. He loves his mom,respects his mom,and loves to give hugs!!
I don't care how old they get,it's the little things that count. And no mom can EVER have too many hugs!

Recommendations anyone??

I hope this isn't too personal. But, just about everyone reading blogs is female. We all know how important it is to find the "right" doctor. I don't think my current one is the "right"one. So I'm sending out a plea for help. Tell me who your favorite Gyno is and why. I don't like females for this type of Dr, too many bad experiences, don't ask! I prefer one no further than Mesa. So--here we go ladies....help me out!!

Explosions and White Trash

We started off New Years Eve by having a BBQ with The Clausens and The Brinkerhoffs.


Then we shipped the kids off to the Brinkerhoffs to have their own party with Jenna and Kami babysitting. They had a ton of fun!
We decorated for the adult party while the guys did their own preparations out in the backyard. Imagine watching 4 grown men walking across the yard carrying a large tree and placing it on top of a LARGE pile of wood.Follow this with an explosion and 4 men running as fast as they can toward the house. This continued for most of the evening.These guys had more explosives than should be legal.I'm just happy my house is still intact.

The fire was alot larger than it looks!We had a pretty good turn-out for the party.It was a ton of fun with lots of yummy food and entertainment.
The next day we were invited to go with the Brinkerhoffs to their family New Years Day party which is appropriately named "White Trash New Years"
It consists of a bunch of people BBQing,riding quads and shooting guns.We were barely there 15 minutes and the 1st accident happened.One of the friends of the family was riding too fast without a helmet. He crashed of course. He thought he was turning onto a trail which turned out to be a 30 foot cliff.Nobody knew he crashed so he had to climb out,across a creek and up the cliff,out to the road so somebody could see him.Later we found out he did this with a broken vertebrae,broken pelvis and broken ankle!

This is what it looks like when a bunch of crazy guys feel they can load an injured person into the back of a pick-up and everybody wants a look!

This gives an idea of what the quad looked like when he was finished with it.The crazy guys drove him out to the road,trying to take him straight to the hospital.The women in the family,not trying to be matcho,called 911 to have an ambulance meet them on the highway. They decided not to wait for the ambulance. But by this time the highway patrol knew what was happening. So they ended up shutting down the highway to look for the pick-up with 4 guys holding onto the guy in shock. They hunted them down and called the ambulance. By the time it got there he was out of it and had no pulse in his leg. It was decided that he needed to be air-lifted to Scottsdale Osborn (we were just south of Payson)

This is a pic of the cliff he flew off of. It's much larger than it appears. He flew over the creek and landed 15 feet on the other side of it. Luckily he didn't have a head injury!

We ended the day by roasting marshmallows. This was the end of 2 weeks of crazy!
I'm tired. Now I have a few weeks to recover before everybody comes over for the Superbowl party which my house was again volunteered for!

Christmas Day

We started the day off with the normal--kids sitting in "their spot" opening presents.Fun fun!




Later in the day my parents and my friend Jody came over for dinner. Alot smaller than the night before but just as entertaining. Jody had "the queen of pranks" (Kyra) making prank phone calls to several people. What Kyra didn't know at the time was that most of the calls were to Alaina's cell phone with Alaina disguising her voice. It was hilarious! Kyra referred to herself as "Boomquesha" from the "How was your Christmas Foundation" She's very talented at pranks!

Christmas Eve

Both of these parties took place at our house this year. Christmas Eve is with my moms side of the family, always a blast. I rarely get to see my cousins except for this one time a year.

Alaina played Christmas songs while everybody joined in attempting to sing. My family is not musically talented.But it works!


This is just my cousins goofing around like usual! They're a blast

The Dunes

We,being crazy,decided to go to the Dunes the weekend before Christmas.We weren't finished Christmas shopping, hadn't started wrapping presents and we were having Christmas Eve and Day parties at our house which required cleaning,extra decorating and shopping for food. As crazy as this move was--we had a blast!! We went with Mark's older brothers family, including his 2 girls visiting from Utah. None of them had ever been before so it made it that much more exciting.

Mark's nieces,Jordyn and Kayla


Kyra and Mark's niece,Hannah


Jenna playing golf


Mark showing off