DPP: December 22

DPP: December 20

DPP: December 19

DPP: December 18

DPP: December 17

DPP: December 16

DPP December 9

Hanging the house lights! Love our California winters, pansies and calily in full bloom!

DPP December 8

DPP December 7

DPP December 6

DPP: December 5

DPP: December 4

Giveaway!

This is an awesome giveaway I'm entering, oh Santa, please come early.

http://scribbit.blogspot.com/

Favorite Photo of the Day!

This has to be one of my favorite photos from today, I took Aaron and my camera over to the park and had fun taking picutres, oh boy do I love this little guy!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

http://www.youtube.com/mormonmessages

I am Thankful!

Thanksgivng is less than a week away, where has the time gone? I did my 'turkey' shopping last night. I bought a 25-lb turkey to cook up for next week. I have to say, I LOVE the cooking part of it all, the smells, the preparation, gazing over cook books, the planning, the shopping, I LOVE cooking for my family! And they LOVE to eat it, and I LOVE to eat it, I can't wait. We will be having a small crowd here next week, probably 5 extra people, plus our family of six. Our favorite family recipe for Thanksgiving is corn pudding, so yummy!

Speaking of food, we had a fabulous Halloween dinner. Pictures above include wiches brew, table setting with homeade root beer in the cauldron with dry ice, kitty litter cake, and pizza mummies.

An awesome experience!!!!

This beautiful family used to live right next door to us. They are very dear friends to us. Mr. W, serves in the military, he is a F18 pilot. He has been deployed for the last six months. Mrs. W. had a baby four weeks ago, yes, while he was gone! He wasn't able to come home for the birth. On tues. Oct. 20th he returned home with his squandron and my friend asked me to come take pictures of the days activities. He saw his little girl for the first time that day. It was a beautiful day! Here are some of my favorite shots from that day. I took about 200 pics that day.

The W. family posing in front of a F18, which Mr. W. flies, he was serving on the USS Reagan.

The W. family reunited after a six month deployment

Gettting ready to greet their Dad.

Anxiously waiting for their Dad. It was so cool to be right in the hangar and watch the jets come in, it was also very loud!

This is one of my favorite shots from the day, the two oldest kids, huggin' on Mom.

Photo of the week.

Just couldn't help post this photo. This was taken Sat. night at the roadshows (plays/skits). These two girls were part of the animals that were chosen to go on "Noah and the Ark".

I Am Thankful...

.....for a busy, hectic life.
......for four wonderful, beautiful kids who wanted to go to the Pumpkin Patch even though it was raining
.......for the oppurtunity to serve others
.......for the oppurtunity to see families reunited after military deployment (more details to follow)
.......for awesome friends who make me laugh and smile

Have a Great Day!

My 10 year old son, Tyler (above photo) was giving the blessing on the food today. And this is what he said, "May we please have a great day for the rest of our lives." That was his prayer, I thought it was so cute! Because he is always having a good time. He is such a cute boy and we are so lucky to have him in our family.

Sick Kids!

I have a nursing degree and my husband has a medical degree. So,why do I get so stressed when my kids are sick? The only thing that has kept me sane this week has been my daily workouts at the gym. My cardio workout was excellent this week, more than I've done since my 10K this summer. I needed to release stress, and anxiety. And release I did, it felt so good! I've also been doing a lot of weight training, and oh my do I feel better. I think there is something to do with release of endorphins and weight lifting.

My kids have been very sick this week, my second oldest Tyler has missed five days of school. It seems to always hit him the hardest and he is always out the longest. He is one tough guy! The above picture is what my kitchen counter looks like when the kids are sick. Nyquil works great for their coughs-and knocks them out too. For Tyler, I am using buckwheat honey and he seems to really like that. My husband says, it's going to be a long, busy winter for the flu. So, what are your flu remedies? And many prayers to all of you who have sick kids!!!!

Newport Beach

We had a blast at Newport Beach last Thurs, Fri and Sat.. I took two of the kids Abby and Aaron, I just love the above photo of them, jumping on the bed at the lovely Mariott. I was able to see two of my sisters, Meleah, Anissa and their families.

Abby posing for me on the hotel furniture.

Aaron peeking out of the covers. I LOVE his eyes!!!

This has to be one of my favorite photos of Aaron on the beach.

Just another awesome photo of Aaron in the water.

I am Thankful.....

1. for being able to visit two out of eight of my amazing sisters this past weekend.

2. for being able to live in a time where we are able to have a living prophet on the Earth today and have the technology to be able to hear his inspiring words.

3. for my loving husband and family.

4. for peace and comfort.

5. for being able to photograph the beautiful "Birds of Paradise" above at Newport Beach.

Funnies from our house!

My four year old started preschool this year and lately has been very interested in how to spell things. Yesterday he was sitting at the kitchen table and he was asking me how to spell simple words, like Mom, Dad, cat, his first and last name. Then he said, "Mom, how do you spell credit?". I said, " Why do you want to learn how to spell credit?" And he replied, "Because you have so many credit cards". Oh boy, they do observe everything.

Children

Yesterday at church was our 'Primary Children's Sacrament Presentation'. It is absolutely the best sacrament meeting of the whole year. Why, because the children are so real, sweet, innocent, vulnerable, trusting, full of faith, so close to heaven, their words and singing are full of beautiful messages. So, for Family Home Evening last night we discussed this verse:
1 Corinthians 13:11
" When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things"
We talked about how much influence that little children have and the sweet spirits that they are, and how we as adults can become more, and learn from them.

Family Campout

We had an awesome family campout these last two days at Shaver Lake. The kids had a blast! I know they enjoyed because in every one of their prayers they would say, "Please bless us so we can have some more camp outs in the future". Everyone was given a camp name, these pictures will describe their names.
Jacob, above was named 'Rubix', because he played with his Rubix cube the whole time.

Abigail was 'Frog Princess' because she caught these little frogs

Tyler, in the middle with the green shirt was named 'Pyro' because he was obsessed with starting and playing with the campfire.

Aaron was named 'Rocky' because he would climb and climb and climb these rocks.

I was named 'Dutch' because I made this awesome dessert in the Dutch Oven, the recipe was titled "Chocolate Lover's Delight"

Jay Dee was named 'Air Bear' because he said he slept well on his new air mattress I hooked up for him and he SNORED like a big bear.

Good time had by all!

Hello!

Has it really been over two months since I have posted something. WOW, where does the time go? We keep so busy, I guess I forgot about my blog for awhile. Well, it has indeed been and exciting and eventful couple of months. The most exciting part of the summer was our cruise to Alaska, it was awesome! We celebrated my 40th birthday and we were gone for seven days by ourselves. It was a dream vacation. We had the time of our lives and saw some beautiful country, ate some delicous food and slept whenever we felt liked it. The above picture is just one of about 1000 I took on our trip. I do have a small trigger problem with my Nikon D80.

The next photo is of our family, with Jay's mother and sister, my grandma was also with us, she is taking the picture. We had some fun times, which included birthday parties, backyard barbecues and family reunions. We are in front of the Oquirrh Temple in South Jordan, Utah.

This next photo is of our second son, Tyler. I thought I downloaded a picture of our oldest son, Jacob, who turned 13 on August 4th. I am to tired to fix it. Tyler's photo will have to do for now.

I turned 40 on July 24th, it was wonderful to be with family on my birthday, we celebrated at my parent's house with lots of family, food and birthday cake!

Happy Fourth and Happy Birthday!

I love, love, love the fourth of July, absolutely my favorite holiday. I love it even more because it is my husband's birthday tommorow. We crashed his lunch hour yesterday and celebrated with the other dr's and their office staff. Above is Dr. Beddoe and Dr. Castillo. He works with these two fabulous men!

These are the gifts he received from his MA Vanessa, and the office staff.

The kids and I celebrating with the Dr., ie. my main man!

When my two oldest boys walked in the room they immediately silly stringed their Dad, it was awesome!

The beautiful cake we brought in for the party, so yummy!

Happy Birthday Jay Dee, WE LOVE YOU!