Evelyn's 4th Birthday

Happy Birthday to Evelyn! She's officially 4 today but you can't convince her that she didn't already turn 4 last Saturday. :) As I said before, we celebrated by having some pizza and games at Chuck E. Cheese.

Before we get to Chuck E. Cheese though, I gotta show everyone what Evelyn spent her birthday money from Western Grandma on:



Can you say "ultimate princess package"?! The thing comes with 5 outfits, a horse, a carriage, and a prince charming (which Jacob has claimed for his own)! As a bonus, the actual package is a zipper case to put all the toys in and carry around. Here's Evelyn with her new toys all set up and ready for play. :) THANK YOU GRANDMA IN THE MOUNTAINS!!!!!!


Here she is opening her gifts at Chuck E. Cheese. She received a Little Mermaid princess package from Grammom and Papa. Fun!


Gee, look! It's one of the princess's that I had hidden under my bed.....little turkey!


Onto the rides and the games! Ryan and Marcus riding the large rocking horse.



Kyle was hooked on this racing game. All you gotta do is look at his laughing face to see how much he was enjoying himself!


Marcus being brave (and having fun) on this ride--it's a seat that goes up and around a few times. Sometimes it's scary the first time around cause kids aren't used to being up so high off the ground. But he was all smiles while being the same height as daddy.


Ok, this is just precious! Here Evelyn is all dressed up as a princess and showing a very patient, amused Uncle Rob all of her pretty gifts. He just sat there the entire time smiling and oohing and ahhing over her new toys.



Our future basketball player (one of them at least--I didn't manage to get Jacob to hold still long enough to get a really good pic of him).


Scratch that--here he is with Chuck E himself!

The Look

Ryan said he could only laugh as he read the previous post about Evelyn. He asked me if I could find a picture that has her impy look. Well, I don't have an pictures of "the look" on her face...but I have a video! Check out the look she gives behind her before she bowls....



Grr...nevermind, moving the footage from my camera to youtube totally cut down the clarity. Anyway, I think all close family members will know the gist of what her face looked like. :)

Like Father Like Daughter

Imp. Imp, imp, imp, imp, imp!!! Ok, that's not Ryan, but Evelyn sure is. But exactly how is this cutie just like her father? Presents. No matter where I hide them, Ryan always finds them (sometimes it's even accidental...but every year he finds them!!!!). So we're celebrating Evelyn's birthday a little early this year. The big day is actually early next week, but since Ryan won't be here and we need to conserve gas, we're headed for a party at Chuck E. Cheese on Saturday (Evelyn's still too young to know that we're not doing it on the correct day). Anyway, so I bought her presents last week and didn't think anything of it when I slipped the bag of goodies under my bed. I have never once seen her under there for any reason. Well, two days ago she came up to me with the biggest, brightest, happiest face and she was telling me all about the Cinderella with dresses, the Belle with her dress, and Snow White with her dresses! Uh, ok, she just listed off the little princess polly pockets I bought. I asked her where she played with those and she lead me straight to the underside of my bed.

So much for a big surprise.

Perhaps she didn't see the brand new package of princess underwear since it was the only thing left untouched. Wishful thinking, I know. Also wishful thinking that maybe, just maybe, she'll have forgotten all about the dolls? (After she showed me I had promptly moved the bag to a new, higher, hiding place and she hasn't, to my knowledge, seen it since).

*sigh*

Did my mom go through this with all of her kids? I can honestly say that I NEVER once went looking for gifts when I was a kid (though I must admit that I'm pretty sure she kept them somewhere in that abyss which was also called her closet). :)

Ok, so maybe she's impy, and a darn good gift finder--but my heart is filled with joy and love as I'm sitting here at the computer and listening to her and Julia (whom I put to bed 30 minutes ago) softly singing "I Am a Child of God" together in their bedroom. So funny how kids can irk you one moment and melt your heart the next. But I don't think any one of us would have it any other way. :)

And as for the whole ruined surprise, well, I don't think her face will be any less exhilarated when she opens her gifts Saturday. She's still getting the dolls she's been begging for for the past few months. Win win situation. :)

Tales of Beedle the Bard!!!!!!

UK Version--illustrations by JK Rowling herself


US Version


Yes, it's finally happened! Originally JK Rowling only made seven copies of this coveted wizarding children's book. Only one of them went on the market and sold at auction for over 4 million $$. I think the rest of the muggle world was in serious protest over not having the chance to read these stories ourselves. Well, come December 4 we'll have the chance!!!!!! Dude, I know where I'll be and what I'll be reading on that day!

Last of the pix from graduation

I guess that I could really divide up this posts into about three different posts...but it's late and I don't have the energy to do all that. Anyway, I came across this lot of photos and knew that I needed to post them. Onto the explanations...

Right after graduation, there's something called a pinning ceremony. OK, it's not really a ceremony, but it's an important part of becoming an officer. The new officer has someone important/special in their life place the officer's pin onto their dress uniform (it's the symbol that anyone in the military recognizes as rank of officer. Each rank has their own individual badge/pin). Anyway, so Ryan honored me by having me do this for him. I stood on the bank of this monument behind us (height was a bit of a problem since the pins go on his shoulders) so that I could get them just right. The military (and Ryan) are very anal about positioning just so. :) We had a few laughs with it.





Here we have a little reunion from Ryan's basic training. One of his drill sergeants, captain, and 1st LT had come by for the graduation ceremony and came over to congratulate Ryan. Julia is being introduced to his drill sergeant here. Ryan was so honored that these men, whom he has come to highly respect, came to see him and others graduate. He joked saying that it was very hard not to scare himself into attention when the drill sergeant approached. LOL. Old habits die hard, huh? He said it was even more odd having his drill sergeant salute him. It was an awesome thing to watch.


The proudest parents in the world.



Sooooooo glad that Granny Mac was able to come on this trip and witness this important milestone in our lives. A big thanks to Mom and Dad for bringing her along. :)


Well, the graduation is over, the pinning has taken place....time to go home!


Well, not really home. But definitely time to celebrate and have some fun! So we went over to Mom and Dad's hotel to go swimming (The heat outside was intense that day and no amount of sunblock would prevent a sunburn. Our hotel's pool was outside.). So here we are hanging out with the pool to ourselves.

Last time at SDC

Every year we have bought season tickets to Silver Dollar City. Since we don't plan on being here much longer, we didn't buy passes this year. However, while Ryan had a break before snow birding, we headed down just one last time.....



This really would have been a great picture if some kid's head (and it's not Marcus's) didn't pass in front of the camera at that unlucky moment!







Here's Julia trying her hand again at taking pictures. I like it!

Lazy, lazy, lazy....well, maybe not

But I feel like I've been lazy for not posting more often. In actuality, I've been quite busy (being a single mom of four during each week is no easy feat). :) This past week was especially stressful because of the whole car situation, my house not selling, and it was my week to teach in Relief Society (that's enough to stress me out no matter what other things I have going on!). But I tell you what, I have truly been blessed.

I think it began three days ago when Ryan checked craigslist and found a car that was 1k below our limit for a vehicle. I took it to friend of ours to see how it checks out (make sure that there wasn't anything secretly wrong with it). Nope, squeaky clean. It's a 2005 Chrysler Town and Country. Captains seats for the middle row and stow and go seating too. Much more room than the regular caravan that I was squishing our family into. Oh, I'm in heaven! I actually will pick up the van later this week. I couldn't thank Heavenly Father enough for helping us out there.

Well, now that we'll have a new and working van, we needed to get rid of the old one. But really, who on earth would buy a vehicle that needs a new engine?! Ryan decided to post it on craigslist for the heck of it. He specifically stated exactly what was wrong with it. Um, would anyone believe that 3 hours later it was sold??? Holy cow. Funny thing--so, I haven't driven the van in over a week (I've been driving Mom and Dad's van--thank you sooooo much!!!!). Well, I kinda forgot that it kills the battery when you don't run the car. Soooooo, the guy gets here and wants to hear what the engine sounds like. I put the key in the ignition and....nothing. OH my gosh, I was mortified. He told me he'd talk it over with his wife and get back to me in an hour. Secretly I was thinking "yeah right!!!!". I mean, granted, all it took was the jumper cables and a few minutes being hooked up to Ryan's car to get the van started. But still...it couldn't have been a good omen. Well, sure enough, less than an hour later this guy calls and wants to come by and pay cash for it. !!! All Ryan and I could do is give lots of thanks to the Lord. It's crazy how things have just been working out this week.

And it doesn't end there. This past week I've reallllly been struggling with my lesson for RS. It just wasn't coming together for me and it simply wasn't sticking in my head. Of course, I'm still used to 15 minute lessons that also consist of songs and activities. Now I'm working with an 8 page lesson that is supposed to last 35 minutes. And instead of being with children, I'm with ladies my age and older. I've struggled with being shy all my life--it's always been extremely intimidating for me to get up in front of large groups. When Ryan and I first gave our "couple" talks together in sacrament, I had written every single word of my talk (he only had a note card that had a few words scribbled on it). Slowly over the years I've climbed the latter to the point of only needing an outline--but the entire time I'm up there I'm shaking like a leaf. Cold and sweaty palms and everything. So of course last night I was tossing and turning (even had a real nightmare of how it all went wrong). Well, I got up in front of the ladies and just began from the beginning. A great story about Joseph and Emma. I did blank on a couple words halfway through, which was extremely embarrassing, but from there....it was amazing. I really only had about 5 quotes that I was going to share and then trust on class participation. I've attended some wards where it's like pulling teeth to get anyone to speak up. Today was different though. It flowed so well, the sisters were eager to share their thoughts and experiences. It occured to me afterwards that I actually was enjoying myself up there at the podium. I didn't have a set speech/outline. I had notecards for a "just in case I completely blank or forget to ask these questions". But I didn't even need to use them. This has NEVER happened to me before. Me? Me at ease being the teacher? Any other time it would seem laughable to me, even downright perposterous. But I don't know. The Lord works in mysterious ways. Well, and the lesson just so happened to be "Obedience: when the Lord commands, do it". I've been called to teach. So I studied to the best of my ability and taught with the spirit--and the Lord took care of the rest. Here is proof that through our trials we grow. When we are pushed out of our comfort zones, we are given the chance to become better people and are blessed for it.

Something that was mentioned in my lesson today--when we obey the lord's commandments, we are blessed. Now, we don't get to choose what those blessings are or even the time frame for which we receive them. That really hit home. We've been praying daily for our house to sell, praying to be a complete family. In the midst of this, we try to remain strong and keep the commandments. Well, we've been blessed with a vehicle to replace the broken one--and the new one is actually better suited to fit our needs. I'm becoming more comfortable in my calling. Now, I didn't pray for either of these things. But the Lord knows our needs and desires. He also knows what is best for us--and when. I'm not sure why the house hasn't sold yet--and who am I to question the Lord? But I know that He's looking out for us and taking care of us.