Fall Fun

Scarecrow Festival

This was a way fun fall festival we went to on a Monday night. Brock and Zack had tons of fun going down the blow up slides and playing all the kids games. But Brock's favorite thing was this

The Trampoline! We had to wait about an hour but he said the wait was worth it. Luckily my parents were there to walk Zack around while we waited.

Pumpkin Patch

We went to a Pumpkin Patch with some friends for FHE. We were the last ones to get on the hayride (that should have been our first clue it was too late). They drove you like a mile away through all these apple orchards to the pumpkin patch (then they almost forgot to pick us up). It wasn't that easy to pick a pumpkin in the dark, when we got back to the building we realized we had all picked green pumpkins. Lesson learned, go to a pumpkin patch during the day.
We finished the night off with big homemade cookies,YUM.

Pumpkin Carving

This was actually the second set of pumpkins we carved. We carved the first set with Jason's family after Conference. They only lasted a week before they had to be thrown away.

I found this awesome knife to carve pumpkins with, so now I look like a pro!

Happy Halloween
We are on our way out to go Trick-or-Treating. Brock wanted to be something scary, I think he did a good job accomplishing that goal. I am trying to convince him that next year he wants to be nice and normal. I was a Pirate and Jason was Howey Mandel. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of him, I thought he looked just like him.

I am a once a month Blogger

I know I am sad at blogging. In my defense I am working on 50% less energy than I usually have and I have a lot more responsibilities lately. This pregnancy has been my easiest besides needing to take 2 naps a day and I use the rest of my energy keeping up with Zack.
As far as responsibility goes, Young Women's takes a lot of my time. And then I said I would help with a ward cookbook. Little did I know she would hand me a stack of recipes to type up. I just want to hit my head on the computer desk every time I look at that project.
Anyway the reason I wanted to do a blog was to keep up with my far away friends, so I hope my once a month blogging will do the trick.
Stay tuned, I find out what I am having this month.

I hate SEP's

I don't know if they do these any where but Utah, I think it stands for student, educator, Parent. It is where you go in and talk with the teacher about how your child is doing and what they can do to improve. I am all for being in good communication with the teacher but they make you fill out four goals and how you can help your child achieve them. Everytime (which they do these quarterly), every year it is the same thing. "Brock is a great student, top in blah, blah, blah but He has a hard time listening and he talks too much. Then they want you (meaning me the Parent) to come up with a solution. Hey if I could come up with a way to make Brock listen better I would have done it way before SEP's. And for the talking, I am glad he is social. Of course I wish he would talk only when called on and only talk to other students that had their work done but I don't know what I can do about it while I am at home and he is at school.
I guess I am just irritated because I feel like it is a waste of time. I like to look on the bright side, he hasn't been sent into the Principals office for like a year and a half. That is what I call improvement.

Baby update!

I had my three month check-up and everything is going well. I heard the heartbeat which is always reassuring. My Doctor said I should not even be worrying because once you have an ultrasound and everything looks good you only have a 3% chance of miscarrying, I still worry anyway. I don't know if I posted that I had an ultrasound, I had it way(by way I mean a week) before I told anyone I was pregnant just to make sure this was a "real" pregnancy.
I actually have been feeling really well this pregnancy. I would forget that I am pregnant if I didn't have a belly of a five month pregnant women. I am going to try and keep the weight down this pregnancy, so far so good, I only gained 1 pound this appointment. We will see how it goes for months 5 and 6. Those were the months I gained 20 lbs in two months, ouch.

Have you seen the light yet?

SO I thought I was all alone in my world of Twilight love until I read that Cheree had read it. Remember awhile back when I wrote about about my obsession about a book, well it was Twilight. Now that the new one to the series came out I have gotten obsessed again. It really has gotten to a point where I have to hide it from my husband. I literally have all three books memorized.

I am slowly recovering from this sickness and now I am focusing all my efforts on getting our front yard landscaped before winter.

I want to hear what everyone thought of the series or book. I am always surprised at what people thought of each of the characters, especially Jacob and Edward.

If you haven't read the book yet, this book is like a movie that everyone tells you is awesome and then when you watch it and it isn't as good as you thought it would be. I still think you should read it.

My Awesome Vacation

This vacation was a blast. I learned that Jason and I can navigate anywhere and our kids are troopers (most of the time). To start out our week and a half vacation we flew into Philadelphia at 3:00 a.m. then took a bus to NYC the next morning. Don't let me forget to mention that the airline lost our luggage that had all our clothes in it. We didn't have our clothes, i.e. garments and other essentials, our whole trip. In fact they just fed-ex'd my bag today (a month later, but at least they found it). So the fact that we didn't have any change of clothes made our trip a little more adventuresome than we had expected.

NYC

New York was so fun to be in and it made it even better to meet our good friends there. The day we got there on the bus was rainy and cold, so we had to cancel our Statue of Liberty trip and find something else to do. We ended up going shopping for Broadway appropriate attire and sweaters for our freezing children. Then just on a whim we decided to go up to the Empire State Building because there was no line, it was well worth it.

--warning--- Jason and I are the biggest "tourist" around and we are proud of it-


So these are the same clothes we wore on the plane. Comfy but not what I would prefer to wear around New York

This is how Zack got his naps almost the whole trip, poor kid.

The Natural History Museum with the Montoya's. It was worth being there just because they were with us.

Time Square. I wish I had more pictures with the Montoya's in them but it was Steve taking the picture so just picture him on the other side of this picture.
Then that night we went to the Lion King on Broadway (those pictures are on another camera). That made the whole trip worth it. We had Stephen Montoya's sister watch our five kids (two babies included) in a tiny hotel room, she performed flawlessly, and the night was a blast.



On Sunday we went to sacrament mtg inside the Manhattan Temple, that was nice to slow down for a minute. We looked like hobos though because we were so dirty and obviously not dressed for church.

The last thing that I wanted to do in NY was see the Statue of Liberty. That ended up being an adventure in itself because we took a 2 1/2 hour detour to Staten Island instead of Liberty Island. We will never make that mistake again. We made it onto the last boat going to the right island so everything turned out perfect.



We ended leaving NY way later than we thought we would so we didn't even get into Philadelphia until 12:00 a.m. I worried my family to death because our cell phone was dead and they couldn't get a hold of us, my mom actually thought "thugs had gotten us"-her exact words.


Hershey, PA
We finally made it to my sisters house at 4:oo a.m. They had our bed all made with king size Hershey's bars on our pillow and tons of candy on the bed side table. It was like going to the best 5 star hotel ever.

We experienced Hershey to the fullest. We went to Hershey World one day and then to Hershey Amusement Park the next two days.
The best part of being in Hershey was getting our clothes washed and going on a Target shopping spree for new clothes. Ok maybe the best, best part was finding out I was pregnant.

The air actually smells like chocolate!! It was so Yummy to just breath in.

On our way out of Hershey to Philadelphia we stopped by Valley Forge. It really felt like sacred ground and it is the most beautiful place on earth.

Philadelphia, PA

Liberty Bell

Liberty Hall, where they signed the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. That was way cool to be where so many great men had been
Of course we couldn't be in Philadelphia without running up the Rocky stairs at the Art institute and posing with Rocky.
Our last day was spent with my sister and her family at the Franklyn Institute of Science. That was way cool to see all of his inventions. That one is worth going to if you ever go to Philadelphia because it is so hands on for kids.

Ok so that is my trip. You now know way more than you ever wanted to know about our vacation.

I'm Back

I am so sorry I have not posted in so long. But for those of you who patiently check every so often I have some big news for you. I am Pregnant!! This was way unexpected, in fact I was riding roller-coasters the day before I found out, whoops.
I am 9 weeks along ( I am never one to wait 12 weeks to tell everyone) and am due April 5th but will deliver probably the end of march-a planned c-section you see.
As you all know I get big very quickly and this pregnancy is no different. The sad thing is is that was my first "sign" of pregnancy, nausea was second. I kept looking at my stomach thinking why am I only gaining weight in my gut. I was getting way sad about it until I found out there was a reason that I looked pregnant.
In the next couple of days I hope to post the pictures of my way fun trip to NY, Philadelphia, and Hershey PA.

Look who is walking-kind of

First of all, does anyone know how I can edit a previous post. I noticed right after I posted there were a few mistakes and I can't find the edit button.

So Zack finally has a desire to walk but he just can't get the balance down. I hope he doesn't do what he did with talking, try really hard at first and then give up. I haven't heard a word out of him since he was Twelve months old.

Even though he struggles to walk on the ground, he has no trouble walking up the slide. He truly is a monkey.

Quick Heber Trip

I wish I had more hours in a day. I think this is the first time since college that I don't even have time to watch any of my favorite T.V. shows. Sorry it has been so long since I have posted.

So this last weekend Jason had a golf tournament in Midway, early Monday morning so we got a hotel for overnight. I thought I was just going up to stay over and then do some shopping in the morning with my (step)mother-in-law. Little did I know that we would have a blast, and I forgot to bring my camera.

After the boys got done golfing, they met us in Park City. Then went to eat at a little Mexican restaurant right by the alpine slide. Just out of curiosity we went to see how much it was, then we got sucked into buying tickets for the alpine coaster and the alpine slide. The alpine slide was fun but the coaster was a thrill. You have a lever to make you go and stop so you feel like you are in control and you also feel like you could fly off at any moment. I think it is scarier than a real roller coaster because you are in control of how fast you go and how fast you whip around corners. Anyway, I survived but my throat didn't because I screamed the whole way done. It still hurts to talk.

Obviously that picture is not of me and Brock but you get the idea.

The long awaited conclusion

I did it!!! I finished in the book in 3 days. I think it was one of the longest books I have ever read, somewhere around 800 pages.

For those that like Harry Potter books, I think it is a must read. If you have never read Harry Potter it might get pretty confusing.

Jason and I started listening to the books back in 2000 when we were traveling from Idaho to Utah so often. We then kept up with the last two releases in Iowa. So when the last and final book came out we had to read it before someone slipped and told us how it all ended.

If there are in other Harry Potter readers out there we will have to talk, if you dare reveal yourself.

I guess irreverence doesn't keep you from leading the youth

Most of my friends know that I have a problem being reverent in sacred places. I know most of you remember how I got the giggles during a temple session in Chicago. I have numerous other stories that are just like that. Like when I was in College we went to do baptisms for the dead. I was dumb and put my key on the zipper. While someone was helping we out of the baptismal font my key got caught on something and pulled the zipper down quite a bit. That caused a ruckus for a minute, I don't think anyone saw anything but still horrifying.
Both the giggles and zipper were equally embarrassing and quite unintentional but my point is I have a hard time being reverent (respectful, bringing the spirit, thoughtful) however you want to look at it, at the appropriate times.
I just got called to be the first counselor in the Young Women's and I am terrified that I will mess sacred experiences up for them. Besides, I am suppose to be their example on how to act and I am still learning that myself.
I was called of God so I am sure he will help me in these areas.

So the Young Women's President is my way good friend Angie, in fact she is my only really close friend in the ward. The whole presidency is around my age so we are kind of young but we all have really different personalities which will help balance each other out.



This is Angie. This picture was taken during a hike to a waterfall a couple of months ago. She reminds me a lot of Haley Browning.

Ten years Better

When I left High School, I did not look back. I have only kept in contact with 2 of my high school friends, if you consider talking to them once every year is "keeping in contact". I didn't go to my 5 year reunion and I have never regretted it. So when the ten year reunion was coming up I didn't really consider going. High School for me was fun but not worth remembering.
Well, then I missed my friends wedding (one of the two I stay in contact with) because my mom accidentally forwarded the invitation a month late. I was way sad I missed seeing her (she lives in California) and meeting her husband. The next time she was coming to Utah was for the ten year reunion, that is when it even entered my mind to go to the reunion.
It literally had been 10 years since I had seen anyone from high school. I had left for summer school right after graduation, no graduation party, cruise or anything. I was afraid no one would know me and I wasn't sure what to expect.
Well it was a Blast! I had forgotten how fun my girl friends were. We reminisced for hours about all the good times. My good friend Lizzy even came from London to be there. I thought all my friends looked even better than they did in high school. The boys on the other hand were the same, I can see why I didn't like them back then either.
Thumbs up for the TEN YEAR


These were some of the girls I hung out with. Lizzy is the one laying across everyone.


That is my friend Julie and her husband, hers was the wedding I missed.

Thats Better.

I don't know what took me so long to decide that it was time to cut Zack's hair. The thing that put me over the edge was the back of his hair could fit into a ponytail holder, just the back of his hair though.



He looks a little upset that he lost the ponytail but I think he looks much better!!