Salt and Pepper Friends

These sweet little kiddos are our neighbors that are just as cute as they come, Adith and Adyia. The universal language is love and laughter, no barrier here. We have become rather friendly with these neighbors as we have exchanged food from our native countries, it has been a fun courtship with food. They are very sweet people.

Pinewood Derby

2009 Pinewood Derby... next year.... it is ALL up to the boys, no more derby's for Dad. The boys did do a lot of work on them, it was very much a collaborative effort but next year we will give the kids the tools and let them have away at their creations. Good Job boys!

Neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt

This was our neighborhood Easter egg hunt. Sweet little children!

THANKFUL Thursday

When you are wrapped up in the crosswinds of life and at times, feels like you are being tousled around in hurricane force winds, I find it very difficult to stop and b-r-e-a-t-h! To "smell the roses" so to speak as they fly by me in a flash. I am working on that as I have be enduring several very busy weeks. Enduring well isn't that the crux of life's challenges? HOW well we endure and then to change the things we can, then endure the things you can't with a smile and a happy heart. Having said that I have had a few things on my mind that may or not seem worthy of mentioning to the reader but they have profound significance to me and have helped me to STOP, LOOK AROUND and remember that (MY) life IS AMAZING!

1) Early mornings. When I have the discipline to go to bed early so that I can wake up early. That hour or so in the early morning hours is quite, spiritual, reflective and full of grateful inspiration.
2) Order
3)Kids that sometimes are TOO honest.
4) I am also grateful I am humble enough to be teachable, even if it is being taught by my 9 years olds.
5) An amazing husband that rocks my world. I am glad he is coming home today, I have missed his yummyness.

Happy Easter

Hope your Easter was wonderful, ours sure was!


Jeffrey R. Holland describes the Savior’s solitary journey to overcome sin and death and testifies of the resulting blessings to all mankind...(more here)

"May we stand by Jesus Christ at all times and in all things and in all places that we may be in even until death for surely that is how he stood by us..."

What a Day!

5:45 am woke up, made french toast and scrambled eggs - Eddie had his TAKS testing today and he needed a good breakfast on testing day.

6:50 family prayer (minus 2)

6:55 Boys catch bus

7:15 eat breakfast, feed Scouby and Burger

7:45 made frosting, cleaned up house, ran laundry

8:00 cleaned up spilled powdered sugar from floor

8:15 got dressed

8:45 dropped off Scooby at Kristi's to take to preschool

9:00 Dr. appt - Doc prescribed anti-flammatory and muscle relaxer... hopeful this will help!

9:45 - Donut pickup

10:15 Surprise visit to Dads office with Burger and donuts

11:00 Wyatts nursery to get Hydrangea plant for teacher surprise.

11:15 Target to get gift card for teacher and some easter thingies.

11:35 Chuys to get gift card

12:00 (the fastest 15 minutes of my life) sprint home to frost cake, wrap cellophane/tissue paper/ribbon around plant, make poster for teacher, make lunch for Burger

12:15 drop off cake and poster to Val

12:20 pick up Bubba at school for dentist appt

12:30 dentist appt

1:20 pick up Scooby from preschool and change an unexpected stinky

1:30 speed home to get birthday letters for teacher (I forgot to get that earlier)

1:55 check Bubba back in school and present teacher with her very Merry UN-Birthday with babies in tow.

2:10 waiting outside teachers classroom...can not find teacher or student....

2:15 run around school trying to find them...finally find them out in the garden tending to their plants.

2:20 present teacher with Very Merry UN-Birthday 9belated April Fools, she was out of town)

2:40 students dismissed - being paged on the over head to move my parked car... trying franticly to keep an eye on my babies amongst 100's of other little kids, while trying to resolve a dispute between the twins, look for Evan who is no where to be found and trying desperately not to drop the left over cake.. that would be bad!

3:00 Drop Bubba off at piano lessons

3:15 clean up spilled bottle of sprinkles (those little devils!)

3:30 Brayson and Karter join the house of chaos for a few hours...:)

4:00 rinse out garbage can

4:14 schedule vet appt, call on prescripts, get groomer appt, check voicemail

5:15 leave for Scouts round 1

5:30 drop off Fish, Bubba and Karter

5:45 run into HEB for french bread

6:00 Drop off Bracen at Vals

6:00 Home again...

6:15 make dinner

6:20 bathe babies

6:30 eat dinner

6:45 Eddie and Ben leave for scouts - round #2

7:00 put Burger to bed

7:20 Douby to bed

7:45 Twins come racing in - feed them & clean up again

8:00 Tubby time for me with muscle relaxer and people magazine

8:30 Ben and Eddie come home

BOYS....talk..talk..talk...
..talk..talk.. talk...
...talk..talk.. talk...

9:20 send boys to bed, kisses

9:30 check email, need to detox... type this post...hummm....chocolate cake???

off to bed, WHAT A DAY!

TOO Much Trampoline Fun

Ben was having just TOO much fun out out the trampoline, always has to impress us with his tricks, this time it came back to bite him. Sorry Mom... don't bother watching :) I just had to post it!

Mount Bonnell

Over conference weekend we went on a family outing to Austins highest peak, a whooping 775 feet above sea level. It is far from the spectacular views in the Wasatch mountains or the majestic Rockies but it was quite beautiful nonetheless. The views of Austin and were gorgeous and green but we were equally impressed with all the million dollar house that line the river in West Lake. It really was quite amazing, Their homes are literally on the water and water garages for their boats. Very neat! Mount Bonnell was actually settled by Mormon pioneers who built a mill on the site but upon its destruction in a fire they moved west.

April Fools Day

I was up to no good this April fools day! my late father was born on April fools day and was the ultimate jokester so it seems fitting I follow in his traditions.

I yarned the boys rooms... that was so funny! Bubba is a sleep walker and while I was up on top of the bunk trying to tie the yarn to the heat vent he gets up, totally unconscience might I add, and clumsily navigated through the yarn to the bathroom. On his return he said "this is weird!" and hops back in bed. I was still perched up on his bed attempting to act normal yet nearly peed my pants.I had fun little pranks in their lunches. When they came home from school I had new chores for them which under normal circumstance would not have been that unusual but the chores themselves were NOT at all usual. Ben called it, he said to be careful because Bubba would cry... and he did. BUT I could not help myself, I just had to milk it as long as possible, being steadfast that these were legit chores. I think Fish pretty much knew these were a joke but was not completely convinced for some time. Bubba colored all the beverages in the fridge green...notice his green finger... he got a little trouble for that one, I mean seriously, ALL of our drinks? We scraped out the cream in the Oreos and filled them with toothpaste and put rice in Dads toothpaste. Ahhh.. it was a fun day... It was a LOT of work but I can't wait to do it again!























A Very Merry UN-Birthday! Both of the twins teachers have summer birthdays and as part of the room parent responsibilities is to honor the teachers for their birthday. Since that is impossible I thought it would be a fun idea to surprise them with a Very Merry UN-Birthday. It was really fun! Away, a fun idea for other people you love too.

Spring Break

Ben was in Denver this week of spring break so I decided to gather up my chicks and haul them up to Dallas to visit their grandma and grandpa Hurst. It was a wonderful few days!
When we got home we played with friends, went to the Zoo, played on the tramp, went to the park and just enjoyed one another's company!
My sweet neighbor Andrea

Up Ward Basketball

The kids had a fabulous season in basketball this year. Upward basketball is a sports organization that runs through Christian churches. It is a positive and uplifting experience and the boys all did great!

Enrichment Birthday Party

Our RS birthday party celebration was themed after a tradition birthday party. A wonderful dinner, mingling, guest speaker and yummy dessert. It was a really fun night and I think the decorations turned out really cute!

Fun with Scouts

The twins had some good instruction from a biker in our ward about bike safety.

The 11yr old scouts made "Extreme Pinewood Derby's" It was hilarious! They built very crude derby's in about 45 minutes and them attached CO2 cartridges to them and let them take off in a fiery glory.




Tour of the Capitol building.