My First Tag...

O.K. This is my first "tag" and I must thank Mekeisia for not tagging me with the photo tag...we spent the weekend in Salt Lake and then I had the stomach flu for a couple of days, so my house is a mess right now and I'd hate to have to show all of you what it looks like! Here goes....

7 things I CAN do:
1. Cut hair - I'm no professional, but I do o.k. Mostly boy haircuts and simple girl cuts.
2. Play musical instruments - piano, violin and flute and a few others if needed, but piano is the only one I feel very comfortable with.
3. Pick up almost anything, any size, with my toes. In the process of giving birth to Kyle, I broke my tailbone. So for six months after, it was extremely painful to get up and down...thus the need to use my toes to pick things up.
4. Organize - I love to organize things. There are parts of my house right now that do not exhibit this talent, but I do enjoy it!
5. Work/Play on the computer. I'm a computer geek. I love to do anything I can on the computer.
6. Hunt - in fact I quite enjoy it. I can't wait to go elk hunting this fall!
7. Do a high kick (with only my right leg) like the good ole' days of drill team!

7 things I CANNOT do:
1. Crochet - and it drives me nuts! I can do a chain just fine, but when it's time to turn and come back....I just can't do it!
2. Tread water. I'm still pretty scared of deep water. But that is one fear I plan to conquer....someday. :)
3. Have mice in my house....I'm terrified of mice and I almost can't live in my house when there is a mouse in it. Fortunately, I haven't had to deal with that issue much.
4. Remember if a ton is one or two thousand pounds. In fact, I'm not sure right now!
5. Drive a stick shift. I still remember getting stuck at a stop light in Cedar City...how embarrassing!
6. Cook - I try my best, but my food is never as good as my mother-in-law's! :)
7. Understand why this list was much easier to complete than the first.

Seven things that attracted me to Lynn:
1. His blonde hair and blue eyes.
2. His humility.
3. He loves kids and kids love him.
4. The gospel is important to him and he sets a great example for our kids.
5. He cares about people and wants to help others all the time.
6. He is SO good to me.
7. He's a hard worker. I don't think he has a lazy bone in his body.

Seven things I say most often:
1. According to Mason, "O.K"
2. According to Kyle, "Leave Hadley alone!"
3. According to Hadley, "Hi beautiful!"
4. According to Lynn, "Lynn, would you....." At least I feel like I'm always bothering him to do some honey-do for me.
5. I love you.
6. Holy Tamoly - got that from Lynn.
7. The goats are out!

7 favorite foods:
1. Anything chocolate.
2. Burritos
3. Lasagna
4. Wendy's 99 cent chicken sandwich
5. McDonald's chocolate shake
6. Sweet-n-sour chicken
7. My mom's cheesy chicken dinner

7 celebrity admirations:
1. Oprah Winfrey - her charitable spirit
2. Sarah Palin - her pride in being a mom and shaking things up with the "old boys club"
3. Dara Torres - even at age 41, she's still not giving up her dreams
4. Reba M. - for being an amazing musical artist and not too bad an actress too!
5. President Hinkley - I consider him to be a celebrity because he reached out to the world in a positive way and showing the world what we should all be like
6. Sean Hannity - I'm a news junkie and I love watching Hannity and Colmes, but mostly just Hannity - he doesn't put up with any of the Democratic schmooze.
7. Kate Grosselin (of Jon & Kate plus 8) - mother of twins and sextuplets....need I say more?

7 people I'm tagging:
Carly, Jamie, Kristi, Megan, Susan, Terra, Nicole
(only if you want to!)

Finally...some scrapbooking time!

Now that Kyle and Mason are back in school, I have a few hours to do some scrapbooking. It just works out that right after I get Kyle off to school, Hadley falls asleep for her nice morning nap. I could spend the time doing extra housework, but who wants to do that? So I've done a few pages and thought I'd share them with you.

I purchased Photoshop Elements a couple months ago and have finally decided to give it an honest try. It's a lot different than My Memories Suite and takes a bit longer to do a page, but you can do some extra fun things with it. This page of Hadley is kind of corny, I know, but it was still kind of fun to do. I love that I can cut the background out of pictures. I really need to get me a pen, though, because it's really hard to do with a mouse!

This was another fun thing I tried...a clipping mask. I was able to "cut" my set of pictures out in the shape of a "4." The possibilities for this are endless!

I did a few pages in My Memories Suite too. I think I'll flip back and forth between the programs. I'll use MMS when I need to get pages done quickly and I'll use PSE when I want to do something with a little more "spice." Either way, I'm having fun, getting done and have NO mess to clean-up!!

First Day of School

Kyle and Mason both started school. Mason started 4th grade a couple weeks ago and Kyle started his second year of preschool yesterday. They were both pretty excited to get back to school. Kyle was really anxious to get back. He's been begging to go ever since Mason started going again. It gets kind of boring here without Mason around I guess.

August 18, 2008 -First Day of Fourth Grade!!! (By the way, his shirt says, "Your mom pays me to go easy on you."

No turning back now! (Circleville Elementary)

How can you start school without a John Deere shirt?

He's so little to be riding on such a BIG bus!! It's moments like these that I have to hold back the tears and be happy for my little guy!

Midway

The week before school started, we went for one last "hoorah." My mom had meetings in Midway and invited us to come stay too. Lynn was right in the middle of chopping hay, so the kids and I left on Tuesday with my mom and Lynn came up Wednesday night.

We stayed at the Zermatt Resort. It was incredible! I've never been to Midway before....I could live there. It is so beautiful! And the homes were awesome!

The first night we were there, we went bowling. I know, I know.....bowling? We live so far away from anything, that we don't get to do some of these "ordinary" things at home. We had a lot of fun together. It was so cute to have Kyle in those little bowling shoes!
Afterwards, we went swimming. I wish I would have taken a picture of the pool. It was indoor/outdoor - the kind you swim through a little tunnel to go outside. But the cool part was the hot tub. It had a huge, rock waterfall that flowed into the jacuzzi. It was all I could do to keep my boys in the pool and not the hot tub!

The next day we slept in (now that's a vacation!!!!) and then spent the day looking around the resort. It was so nice to just relax and not have to do anything!

The grounds all around the resort were so pretty. The boys even saw some goats on the hill beside the resort! That made them feel more at home!

She may not look like it, but Hadley is having a good time! She's wanting to go to the pool!

They even got a ride on a carousel. Thanks Mom for taking us with you to Midway!!
That evening, my brother John, his girlfriend Kae and her cousin and sister came up to play with us. We played some miniature golf, went swimming and had pizza. It was great. We were really excited that Lynn got there too.

The next day we finished up our little trip at Seven Peaks Resort.

We all had a fun time playing in the water. Hadley had the most fun with her newfound favorite snack....licorice.

Mason took a "dive" off the rope swing. Way to go bud!!!!

Here are the boys going down the SLOWEST slide in the whole park. We were laughing so hard when they had to push with their arms just to get to the bottom of the slide!

Kyle liked this little slide too. But the water in this part was FREEZING!

My sister Nina, her husband Jon, and their little girl Maya, joined us for a while at Seven Peaks. It was so much fun!!

There was even a rare sighting.....

Lynn wearing flip-flops! Take a good, long, look...you will probably NEVER see that again!!
It was a great end to summer!

Fun on Cedar Mountain

A couple weeks ago, Sherri invited the kids and I to come and spend the day at her family's cabin on Cedar Mountain. It was so pretty up there and we had such a great time.

Here's Mason, Matthew and Brielle.

Mason really looks up to Matthew and they have a lot of fun together. They had a blast that day with target practice at a dish network dish! Kyle had his own "gun" too - it was a stick the boys found that looked just like a little gun.

This one's for you Sherri!!!! :) Sherri and Hadley enjoying the outdoors too.

You can't tell from this far away, but Mason is in Heaven! He wants his own motorcycle so badly, but his "mean" mom is really hesitant. I'm afraid I won't be able to hold him (and his dad) off any longer, especially since he showed that he can ride this one of Matthew's so well.

Mason stayed overnight with them. Here they are doing one of Mason's favorite things....roasting marshmallows.
Thanks Sherri, Brielle, and Matthew, for a wonderful time at your cabin!!!

Bouncing Baby

Just thought I'd post these cute little pics of Hadley. We got her this jumper a couple months ago (thanks for the recommendation Stephanie King!) and she loves it. But she curls her toes and bounces on the tops of them - I can't believe she hasn't broken one yet! These are a few of her funny little faces she makes.

She's a chub, weighing in at 18 1/2 pounds. But I'm enjoying that while it lasts, because she'll be crawling soon. She loves to roll all around the house and she's trying to get up on her knees. I hate that babies grow so fast, I wish I could just bottle all of this up and keep it for a while...before I know it she'll be a teenager....scary....

Happy Birthday Kyle!!

I can't believe that my little blonde terror is already four years old! He's been waiting so long for this birthday to come, all his friends turned four several months ago and he's been pretty patient. He was so happy it finally came.

Here's Kyle after decorating his cake. He and Mason decorated the "grass" and "dirt" areas on the cake. Kyle strategically placed all the tractors too. It turned out pretty cute!

Kyle anxiously awaiting to open his presents.

All he wanted for his birthday was a "big dinosaur" and a "loader." Well, he got the dinosaur and three loaders. He was a content boy!

What a cutie!!