Come One, Come All

I let go of my paranoia and our blog is no longer private. MaMaw, you can now share our blog with your friends. I'll try to get pictures posted soon.

There were two reasons that I initially went private: a) I wanted to protect Jess' privacy. 7th graders can some times be embarrassed by the things that their Mom says (or types). b) I was concerned about having information about my kids out there and readily available.

I think I have done a good job of not saying anything too embarrassing about Jess and I'm pretty sure that our family isn't interesting enough to stalk.

So, tell your friends... this blog is now open to visitors.

We Believe

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. - Isaiah 9:6

Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who condescended to come into this world of misery, struggle and pain to touch men's heart for good, to teach the way of eternal life, and to give Himself as a sacrifice for the sins of mankind. How different, how empty our lives would be without Him. How infinite is our opportunity for exaltation made possible through His redeeming love.

-Gordon B. Hinckley

A friend at work brought me a little Christmas treat. As she handed it off to me, she started to ask me a question and then hesitated. I could tell she was uncomfortable and assumed it must be a question about religion. She finally said that she knew that I celebrated Christmas because of the kids. However, she was curious whether or not Mormons celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Our 1st Article of Faith reads "We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost." I am very glad that she asked the question. I would hate for someone to ever think that we don't celebrate this most important birth!

We hope everyone has a wonderful and safe Christmas!

Cold Winter Day

The cold weather meant no school for Frisco today. The cold weather also meant that we spent the entire day inside the house. Jonathan invested way too much time playing video games. After seeing Twilight, Jessie discovered a love for the books. She has been in her room for the entire day reading New Moon. I used the day to wrap Christmas presents. I have wrapped everything except for the kids' presents. Here is how our dogs, Gracie and Mollie, spent the day.

Merry Christmas!

These are two of my favorite Christmas pictures.

I hope you enjoy!

Not so Victorious!

On May 3, 2007, I waged a full-on attack against my weight. By August 30th, I had lost 25 pounds. I was under the goal weight that I had set for myself. I felt great about myself and I felt great that I had battled the bulge and won! Victory was mine.

A year and a half later, I now find that my victory is slipping away. It is no longer mine. I picked up a copy of Oprah’s magazine this weekend. There was an article with weight management tips. I was pumped and ready to be inspired with all of the great ideas! It was set up to show changes that you can make in your eating habits. You are supposed to make one change every two weeks. They listed things like cut out sodas, switch to 1% or skim milk and switch to whole grain breads and pastas (the rest of the list escapes me right now). Everything on their list, I was already doing. I’ve been doing these things since May 3, 2007.

How can my hips be widening, if I’m doing all of these things? I eat lots of salads. How could this be? Let me tell you… breads, chocolate and no exercising. Yes, my three meals are fairly healthy. It is the bread that accompanies my meals. I love bread (thanks, Dad. I blame you for that). I also LOVE sweets. I could eat chocolate all day long. This summer I put my kids on an all natural diet. This means that I stopped buying all of those snacks that are sweetened with artificial sweeteners or high-fructose corn syrup. Pure chocolate is the order of business in our house! Lastly, I stopped exercising.

I’ve dusted off the Weight Watcher books and I’m preparing to start the battle again. Wish me luck!

Trippin' Totless Girls

We had a great time this weekend with the Trippin' Totless Girls and their families. However, we really missed you, Tanya.

I'm sure you are wondering about the Trippin' Totless reference. We have Tanya to thank for that one. Many months ago we met as a group to discuss our annual girls' trip to Austin. Angela had researched some death defying activities and decided that we should go zip lining. Surely, all 30-something women who go zip lining as a group should wear matching shirts, right? We were brainstorming and decided on something lame like "Girls Trip '08" for the shirt. The creativity just wasn't flowing that night. Later, Tanya came up with several options, but the group decided on Trippin' Totless. We wore our matching shirts zip lining and then later to Fredericksburg. We turned lots of heads in our pink shirts. Everyone was trying to figure out what it said. I think our college-aged zip lining guides thought we were insane.

Anyway, we had a little Holiday get-together and decided to include our families this time. It is so nice when you can share great friends, great food and great fun! Thanks, Heather for hosting.

The Longest Thanksgiving Recap that You will Ever Read

See this lovely picture of our family? It isn’t from this year. I didn’t take pictures this year. I’m not sure why. This was our Thanksgiving crew. Just imagine all of these people one year older.
Fred’s mom and her husband came to visit along with Fred’s Grandpa. We were fortunate to have Grandpa stay with us while Lois and Larry stayed with Kristin (Fred’s sister). They came in Tuesday afternoon and left Monday morning.

We were so glad that we could spend so much time with Lois and Larry (Grandma and PawPaw Larry). Games, cards and dominoes were the order of business during their stay. The kids always get to learn new games while they are in town. It is so fun that they will have those memories of playing games with their grandparents. When Lois and Larry stay at our home, Jonathan always engages Grandma for hours playing checkers and Sequence.

My kids enjoyed hanging with their cousins every day for five days. During the week, we did a little kid swapping. We took our 13 year old nephew, Chris, for a couple of days and Jess stayed with her cousins once. Jonathan completely idolizes Chris, so he really enjoyed having him spend so much time at our house. Mostly, they just sat in front of the TV playing Game Cube. At one point, I threatened to pull out the bikes and make everyone ride around the block. I was too tired to make good on my threat. So I spent much of my time with three couch potatoes. Yes, I really did mean three. Fred joined in on the Game Cube fun.

My favorite part of the week was playing with our almost-5 year old niece, Kylie. We spent lots of time playing Polly Pockets, dollies and SpongeBob. As if I don’t get enough of SpongeBob at work, I got to pretend like I was SpongeBob working at the Krusty Krab. I thought she might be impressed with my intimate knowledge of all of the SB characters. Not so much… she just kept asking for more Krabby Patties. Since I don’t get to play little girl games anymore, I really enjoyed sitting on the floor being silly with Kylie. Too bad Kristin has 3 built-in babysitters at home. I could be easily persuaded to come hang out with her when needed.

We all enjoyed Grandpa’s visit. He is 92 or 93 – I’ve lost count at this point. We were so glad that he was able to make the trip this year with Lois and Larry. Jessie absolutely adores Grandpa and relished the time that he was in our home. Grandpa lost a portion of one of his fingers many years ago. Something to do with a cow or a bull pulling it off – Jonathan could tell you the story. He thinks Grandpa’s finger is so cool.

Jonathan is really bad with names. He can never get anyone’s name right. When I first told Jonathan that Grandpa Goyer would be staying with us, he asked if I was talking about Grandpa John. He was really surprised when I told him that he doesn’t have a Grandpa John. Our only guess is that he was talking about Angela’s dad, John Turner. We really don’t know any other grandfathers named John.

We have to extend a big thank you to Glen and Kristin who made a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. Everything was delicious! Their home is bigger than ours so everyone always congregates at their home for the week. We truly appreciate them opening their home to our family. Kristin, we will have your family over to our house for dinner this month!

Thanks to everyone for a wonderful Thanksgiving. I was having so much fun that I forgot to take pictures! We love you all.

I am Thankful for...

I am thankful for my family. Fred makes me smile daily. Have you ever heard his laugh? It is a deep belly laugh that will crack you up no matter what kind of mood you are in. I have been listening to his laugh for the last 17 years (14 of which I’ve been married to him). I still get tickled every time he starts laughing. Everyone should have a laugh like that. Jonathan is such a mama’s boy. He likes for us to sit in Fred’s recliner together and snuggle. At bedtime he will request that I sleep in his bed. He doesn’t understand why daddy gets a roommate and he doesn’t! Jessie has such a sweet soul. She cares about others and will go out of her way to help anyone in need. She tries to make sure that everyone feels loved.

I am thankful for our extended family. We love our grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. I think it is wonderful that my kids have a great relationship with all of these people. I think that it is rare for kids to have a relationship with their great-aunts and uncles. They adore my aunts and uncles and cousins and see them as regularly as possible. We are blessed to have so many people that love and care for our children.

I am thankful for our friends. We have friends that we’ve known since our college days. We think of them as family. Jess has anointed them as her honorary aunts, uncles and cousins. We are fortunate that they include us in some of their family get-togethers.

I am thankful for the knowledge that I am a child of God. I teach the 9 year olds at church and we were in charge of the Sharing Time lesson last Sunday in Primary. The topic of the lesson was “I am thankful to know that I am a child of God.” The kids did a great job and I went home truly grateful for this knowledge.

I am thankful for the Visiting Teaching program. In our church there are two sisters that are companions. They are assigned 2-3 other sisters to visit and share a short message each month. I have wonderful visiting teachers that come see me the first Tuesday of every month. They are so sweet and they are wonderful cooks. They have spoiled my kids, because they often bring treats.

I am pleased to have a wonderful visiting teaching companion and we have two great ladies that we visit. At one point, we had 3 sisters that we visited. Due to the growth in the ward, they reassigned one of our sisters. We miss her so much!

I am thankful for a sweet family member who is always thinking of me. When she is done with something, she has often sent it my way. I think she must know that I am cheap and usually won’t make a big purchase until it is absolutely necessary. Even then, I’ve been known to limp along way beyond necessary. My friends at work were so glad that she sent me clothes. I had lost weight and refused to buy new clothes. I just kept synching the old ones with a belt. The latest item was a headboard/footboard and comforter set. Our house is tiny (see the part above about being cheap) and as a result, my bedroom is the dumping ground for everything that doesn’t have a home. I have never updated the furniture in our bedroom. Our headboard was falling apart and I didn’t even have a comforter. Fred doesn’t like comforters on the bed, but I held tight and successfully argued (or maybe begged) to use the comforter that I was given. So far, he has been pleased – the comforter is much lighter than our last one. It is very exciting to have something almost-new in our bedroom. No lie, I’m using my Grandparents dresser and night stand. I’m pretty sure it was purchased in the late 60’s or early 70’s. Thankfully, it is just basic oak – nothing crazy from that time period.

I am thankful for so much. These are just the things that are top-of-mind right now.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I will recap ours soon!

Little White Lies

Case of the Open Bag of Fritos
Last night I started gathering all of the ingredients to make chili. I pulled out the Fritos and noticed that the bag had been opened. I called out from the kitchen to find out who had gotten into the Fritos. Jonathan was the first to answer. Very confidently he announces “It wasn’t me.” Then he adds in his 8 year old voice, I think it was Princess. She got up on the counter (which I’ve never seen her do) and knocked the bag off onto the floor. Then Mollie came in the kitchen and found the Fritos on the floor. She grabbed the Fritos and ripped the bag open. Hmmm… could our cat and puppy really be working together to steal our Fritos? I guess after they got their fill of Fritos they placed them back on the counter.

Done
This morning Jonathan was standing at my bathroom sink brushing his teeth. I was around the corner in the closet hanging clothes. Shortly after he started brushing his teeth, I hear him spitting into the sink. I asked him if he was done. He replied “Done.” He is supposed to watch the clock while he brushes. I asked him how long he had brushed. He knew that he had been caught. He grabbed his tooth brush and told me that he wasn’t done. He said “what I meant by done was are you done hanging those clothes yet. I did not mean that I was done brushing my teeth.”

Hmmm… could he have inherited the “little white lie” gene from his Uncle Jeffrey.

An Early Thanksgiving

Yesterday we went to my parents' house for dinner. (From this point forward my parents will be referred to as MaMaw & Grady.) We haven't seen much of them lately and we were hoping to finally celebrate MaMaw's birthday. Since we will be spending Thanksgiving with Fred's side of the family, MaMaw decided to fix an early Thanksgiving dinner for us. It was delicious!

While we were getting the table set Jonathan and Grady sat down to a hot game of Sequence for Kids. This is Jonathan's favorite game and he will challenge anyone to a game. It is really intended for younger kids but Jonathan has never grown out of his favorite game. Notice the lovely green hat that he is wearing. He asked MaMaw to make him this hat. Of course, she happily made the hat. I say happily because she knew that it would drive me crazy! Last year, she let him pick out some really ugly orange fleece with green flames. I have never seen a print that ugly. She made him a nice little hoodie out of it! I'm not sure what I did as a child to deserve this. All I know is that she gets a lot of enjoyment out of Jonathan's requests.

MaMaw and Grady are always good about finding fun activities for the kids. They decided that we would build a fire and make S'mores. While we were waiting for the fire to get just right, we told scary stories. Only I think our stories were more silly than scary.

Fred stayed inside on the couch and slept. He accused MaMaw of drugging him. It seems that he always has to lay down on her couch and go to sleep after he eats one of her meals. He did make it outside just in time to roast marshmallows. Jonathan just liked burning his marshmallows. He wasn't really interested in eating them... just roasting them.


Jonathan, once again, proved his ability to fall asleep anywhere. He fell asleep in Grady's lap shortly after we finished up our S'mores. We all came home smelling like a campfire, but we had a great time!

Thanks for the great time, MaMaw and Grady!

Our Other Kids

Gracie - 11 years

Mollie - 7 monthsPrincess - 6 years

Friday Feature: Sweet, Sweet Judy

Judy & Jessie on 8/31/96 - just 3 days after she came home from the hospital.


I have an aunt that has the most wonderful attitude. She is currently fighting cancer and doing it bravely. If faced with the same challenges, I wonder if I would react so courageously.

Many years ago, I had to give a talk in church about being thankful for all things daily. I referenced Judy because she spends every day being thankful for the things that the rest of us take for granted. You can just see it in her countenance. She is always smiling and she is so caring. Many people stopped me afterwards to tell me that her story had touched their lives. I received an email from a friend that simply stated, “Just want to say that I enjoyed your talk thoroughly! We have had several occasions to discuss your aunt and how thankful she is for the little things.”

The doctor says that the chemo has definitely had an effect on the cancer. She will be taking a break from chemo so that she can have surgery on Monday. After she has time to heal from the surgery, she will resume chemo again. It stinks that she has to have surgery the week of Thanksgiving.

Our family was so sad when we received the news that she had cancer. Judy has taught us all so much. As we approach Thanksgiving, I hope we can all remember to be thankful for all things daily.

We love you, Judy.

Finally!

I have finally created a blog.

I actually created one in July of 2007, and never sent out the link to anyone. I ended up deleting it because I didn't think that our family was "blogworthy." After much thought, I am finally trying again. (Side note: everything I do takes much thought. I'm not one to jump in quickly.) Also, after much thought (what did I tell you), I have decided to make our blog private. My kids are old enough that they would like some privacy.

My main goal is to use this as a means to share family stories and as a way to post pictures. I love to share pictures with my family, but always have trouble with the files being too large. Due to our busy/crazy schedules, I am hoping to post at least once a week. Wish me luck with that one!