December 2010

December this year consisted of, of course, many things. We had a "snow" day here and spent the day inside building a homemade gingerbread house. We spent almost the entire day constructing and decorating it.







Jacob starred in his 3rd grade play, A Bugz Christmas, as the soldier beetle.






Alexis performed in the Children's Choir at the annual creche that our Stake holds. It is a wonderful event with over 300 nativities to view.





We had a relaxing Christmas and day after Christmas doing nothing. We technically had a white Christmas with the snow that arrived the night of the 25th.







We rounded out December with a trip to Charlotte, NC to visit with Josh, Kristi, Adam, Alyse and Ely who were passing through on their way home from Florida. We attended the 'First Night' celebration they have for the kids. We visited the NASCAR Hall of Fame, rang in the new year at 7PM with Ronald McDonald, got our faces painted and made crowns for the celebration.










2010 was a great year and we are looking forward to an even better 2011!

Time Flies

My, how time flies. I have been lax at keeping the blog updated. I promise I will do better. For now, I will give you an update on our day today.

Dusty and I went to the temple today which was a very, very nice way to start our Saturday.

Dusty and Jaocb started the ever important pine wood derby car...yes we even have the plans in AutoCad!

I continued de-junking and cleaning the house. It felt wonderful!!!

We went to Alexis' basketball game.

We went to Jacob's basketball game.

We sat in some gross bleachers and saw way too many butt cracks and underwear.

(Note to self / Advice to Other Game Goers: make sure to wear a long enough shirt so that your icky backside doesn't show to everyone sitting behind you.)

Watched Miss America Pageant with Alexis and we were thrilled that Miss Nebraska won!!

Going to bed now.

Horrible School System and School

I am so sick of the school system here. I literally hate it!!

When I was in school if we forgot work or had to go back to the school, we could. We would walk through those front doors and into the classroom where our teacher was working at her desk. We would then get our book or whatever we forgot and head back home.

Alexis missed school the first 3 days of this week due to having a fever. Today was her first day back and she forgot to bring home her math book. So, we headed back to the school and walked into the office only to be greeted by a "friendly" office lady who informed us that it is school policy to not let the children back into their classrooms for forgotten items after 3 PM. That is when school gets out. I asked why and she said that they are trying to teach the children to be responsible.

WHAT??????? Well, isn't it responsible of a child to go to their mother and say "Mom, I forgot my math book can you take me back to the school to get my math book". I say it is. Furthermore, maybe the reason she forgot her math book is because she is required to haul all of her books (yes ALL) in her backpack all day long. This backpack weighs a ton. She is going to have back problems from this later in life, I just know it. That said, if she is required to haul everything around, then where is the math book? She has a desk, but she does rotation with 2 other classes and the kids were going through her desk. Arrghh!!!!

The secretary said that they are trying to prepare the kids for middle school next year and teach them responsibility. Well here is what I have to say to that.....
Are you ready?

Maybe, just maybe, we are forcing our children to grow up way too quickly. We should let our children be children. 6th grade is too young for middle school. No wonder my child is so anxious about school. They are pushing way to hard.

I am done. Next year we will be home schooling. I can teach my kids way better than a school that is so liberal it is sickening. I am serious on this.

My kids are special. They are smart. And dammit they deserve better.

Pumpkin Creations

These are our Halloween creations this year. The pictures pretty much say it all.

Pumpkins

This year I wanted to take the kids to a pumpkin patch with all the bells and whistles; hayride, corn maze, etc. But it just didn't happen. Instead we found a farmer that puts up a roadside stand with all his pumpkins lined up. Not as exciting as my original idea but still fun. We were excited to find a clown there who was giving away free balloon creations to the kids. Each kid got a sword of some sort and Lex ended up with a crazy hat.



This is what Lex will be driving when she turns 16 :)


Our goofy picture with Dad driving the tractor...




Now on to carving our jack-o-lanterns!!!

Backyard Creatures

This is what hangs out in our backyard. And in our house. We have now had 2 in the house. The last one, the kids caught and released all on their own while Dusty and I were both gone.

Happy Anniversary...12 Years

What does 12 years look like?

5 pregnancies, 3 kids, 2 angels, 3 states, 11 moves, 3 college degrees & lots and lots of hugs and kisses is what 12 years of marriage looks like for us.

On October 16th Dusty and I celebrated our 12th year of marriage. And we are doing great! We know that we have only come this far in our life together with the help and support of our Heavenly Father. We are so grateful for his hand in our life. And no matter how backwards we started out, we know that this is how God intended our life to be. We are blessed beyond measure with love!!

Junior Prom ~ 1997


Our Temple Sealing ~ 1999



Christmas ~ 2004


January ~ 2010



To my husband, I will forever be grateful for his patience and love. I have loved him for a very long time and feel like we are one, not two beings. I live for him and cannot wait to see him when he is gone on a business trip. I love how funny he is and how his sense of humor has transferred over to our children. I love his spontaneity and how he can brighten my mood. He is my soul mate.

So, what do two people who have been married for 12 years do to celebrate? Oh, wait...don't answer that.

We went to the zoo with our kids!!!

The kids overheard us talking about what we wanted to do for our anniversary and voiced their opinion that we should celebrate it as a family. Emma wanted to have cake and have a party. So we decided to just do something fun together and that is where the zoo comes in. We haven't been to the zoo in years, so this was great for us.

There was so much to see and do at the zoo that we didn't even get to everything. The kids got their faces painted, played on the playground and we saw some really fun animals. Did you know that seals swim on their back upside down? They do! See, I'll show you...

If I tried to do that it would be disaster.

We saw one of these
And some bison, snakes, turtles, polar bears, brown bears and owls.

We saw some of these

We also saw gators, some really ugly baboons, snakes, cougars (boo!!!), and lots other animals.

But our favorite were the chimpanzees.
We stayed watching them for almost an hour and got some really cool video. There was a teenage girl there that bonded with the chimps. She sat on the ground by the glass and would 'touch' hands with one chimp in particular. He would kiss her on the glass and get very defensive any time one of the other 11 chimps tried to get near her. One chimp was mad about this and decided to begin charging the glass. He would back up really far and then start jumping up and down and then he would charge the glass with a rock in his hand. He would launch that rock at the glass as hard as he could and everyone would scream and jump back. There were parts of the glass that were cracked and it looked like this was a common practice for these chimps. They are super strong! We watched this until the park was closed and we had to leave and go home.







We had a great day being together and had a great anniversary!!

Happy Anniversary Dusty! I love you!!!