Just Jackie

Goodbye, Farewell!!! (check out my new blog!!!)

Well I guess this week brings goodbyes to a number of different things in my life! But with goodbyes is always BRIGHT new beginnings! Today I say goodbye to typepad! Please join me at my new blog with blogger... http://just-jackiesue.blogspot.com . Unfortunately, some chicka stole my justjackie address so I say goodbye to that as well! ;-) I'm going to survive though because now I have added my middle name to the mix, and with that shall come a WHOLE LOT more personality! (probably not, but we'll pretend for now!)  So a big thanks to all of you that are always keeping up with me and I really hope you'll continue to check in from time to time! I'm thoroughly enjoying this blog world and am loving loving LOVING that what originally started with a friend of mine and then my desire to start, and we led our blog life for a whole year and then it finally became a contagious virus for the people I love... YOU!!! It's absolutely wonderful. I really have a testimony of blogging! I'm laughing so don't think this preaching thing is still on the tip of my tongue. But my point is that I really am thrilled to be able to read all my fellow bloggers sites and see what you all are up to!! I will miss Typepad... but it won't be going away anytime soon, so please feel free to come back here anytime... I have two years of archives and comments to save! Eek!!

President Hinckley video tributes

Goodness! I couldn't help but share these videos. I have goosebumps from head to toe right now from seeing them. Wonderful!!! I couldn't choose which one to share so I will share all. Take ten or fifteen minutes and share these with me when you have the time. They are great! Amazing person!!! Oh how I just love(d) him!!! Why is it that the death of this prophet is strengthening my testimony so much?? How is that even the way it is? I think it's just beautiful. I can't say it enough... please enjoy these videos. And I'm happy to say that youtube now has MANY good videos outweighing the bad after this death. So nice to see!!! There are way too many to choose from! Enjoy PLEASE. I really hope that you can!

Glenn Beck described so well exactly how I felt when I heard the news! It's like a big mix of emotions but only I only felt peaceful thoughts! I just loved hearing this short testimony of a man who changed lives!

I don't know what it was but I read the comments on each video sometimes to see what people say and this one comment just totally touched me so much and was said sooo well. It just brought to tears completely...

"I was on holiday in Samoa when i found out he passed away.. And as i sat there stunned, so did the other young men in that village.. That was Pure Proof.. That Gordon B Hinckley Touched The lives of anyone who listened to his words.. i Never Met him Before.. But He's my friend.. and i've known him my whole life.. Im Going to miss him.. Love From Melbourne Australia"

Well I don't know just what it was that he said that's any different from anyone else, but for me it hit home because I've never met him, but yet I feel he's my friend! I feel close to him! And I have known him my whole life. He's been our prophet through the most important phases of my life. And many of you know what I mean. From youth, up to adolescence, and reaching adulthood and experiencing all those changes and all that growing. I thought my one post dedicated to him was going to be it and then we'd all move on but I really felt like I should share these videos so thanks for listening to my second tribute to a man I surely love and I too will surely miss him and his sweet words. I just love hearing his voice and it still makes me feel so warm and peaceful. Thanks again for sharing!

I have been SOOOOOOOO BAD at keeping up on my scrapbooking. I did a massive wedding album of Craig and I and then I started an album of our married life. I did about ten pages in that, and that's where it ended. I decided to give up on our "married life" and at least start Linkins album. I bought tonz of things, and had big plans to get his done, and up to date. Well that didn't happen. I did about two maybe three pages and haven't had a chance to since! So being that I'm pregnant again, I think this is a priority for me. Really. Because it's important to me that my children have an album of themselves growing up and I think it's a fun "remembering" experience for me and a brag book I guess! Not that I ever show anyone really! Anyhow, so now that it's a priority I have to decide what is best for me because in this day and age there is so many options. So tonight I've been browsing many different websites trying to decide if there's a "digital scrapbooking" company out there for me. When we were living at Holloman, I started Linkins baby album with a company called Heritage Makers, but they charged me $20.....a MONTH!!! That's crazy if you ask me. That's just to use the services, and then you have to pay for the book once you want it made and that's no cheap thing either. I just think it's rediculous to spend $20 a month, not knowing how much time you can devote and the main thing that drew me away from their site and their service is that is was not user friendly at all. Ok I guess it was user friendly, just SLOW, and to look through their stuff was a nightmare. Each tiny little embellishment was seperate, they didn't have packs put together or premade layouts at the time, and each little embellishment took it's time to load so that the view would show up. It's hard to explain what I mean, but it just was not fun. They have some really cute designs though, and I went there tonight and their site has been somewhat updated so it's laid out a different way, and a little faster and easier to use, but I'm not HUGE on their baby papers and it's so limited in options in that theme so I chose to not use them for sure for final. Maybe. So... I went to Z scrapbooks and immediately I decided that their designs were just not as uppy as I'd like. Fairly boring and almost old school like. But I wasn't going to give up quite yet so I browsed through their catalog and decided they actually had some pretty cute designs hidden up in there after I did a search on "baby". So I put together a page. I thought the layout I picked was cute, but seeing the second page of it printed down below, it actually looks old school as I was saying. So, I did a little experiment of my own. As pathetic as this sounds, I made my own scrapbook page on MICROSOFT WORD. Now it's obviously not real 3D and fancy and what not, but really there's potential. I think it's so funny but it's just amazing what you can do with a dinky little program. I actually have a picture editing program and I'm sure I could mess with it enough to have a little success... but then I always go back to the drawing board... and here's my conclusion... I've spent thousands of dollars on REAL LIFE scrapbook supplies. I have like 50 stamp sets from Close To My Heart, and tonz of paper, brads, quotes, etc etc etc that I have bought over the years and a whole bunch of stuff bought precisely for Linkins baby album, so with all that going to waste if I pursue digital scrapbooking, I feel like it's not worth it. But I've been juggling the fact that with the time it would save me to scrapbook digitally, it might actually get done, where as since I keep going back to the I'm going to do it real life style, and then never doing... the stuff is going to waste anyway. So that's my struggle... So below here are the two pages that I have done on the computer. I just want to know today which page you like better. I mean it's simply obvious I'm sure, but just for experiment reasons. Don't pay attention to the white borders - obviously I could only post a certain size of these pages without everything going ski wompus. Anyhow... the second page here also may look a little didgy. That's my word for it kind of got a little blurry or digital looking through the format I used to save it to. The other one didn't get didgy looking but keep in mind that the green page is a page #2 of the layout. I didn't have the chance to upload the other page so it's a little cuter than it looks. a little. Also, forgive me for the bloody pictures...these are Link when he was born. Swollen and everything! He looks like someone elses baby. Someone elses baby with male genitals.

and this one is the one I did on Microsoft Word. It was super fast and easy too. Crazy! Neither one is my style at all, I mean they are my style, but I would consider myself more "tasteful" in that I would want more complex and cute things on a scrapbook page than these, but I guess tonight I'm trying to prove that using an online digital scrapbooking company isn't really always the best choice, or more that using one isn't necessarily going to get you a nice cute fantastically wonderful look. I don't know. So which one do you like more? Also Jenn... what digital scrapbooking company have you been using? Or tried? Or are you using photoshop? And if you are using photoshop, what do you do for paper choices and embellishments? How does that work? I'm just curious though I think I'm sticking to my final decision of scrapbooking "live" here at home in my specially made "craft room". Should be fun! I need to get on it! G'night!

My tribute to an amazing man!

Well as many of you know, the prophet of my church and many of yours of course, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, has passed away today. Gordon B Hinckley at 97 years old, passed away today from "cancer complications, and old age". I feel an overwhelming feeling of sadness but more so a desire to share my testimony of the truthfulness of my church. First I will start by sharing my thoughts on this death though. I have been feeling for years now that it's an inevitable thing that was going to happen. I have had this amazing love for our Prophet for as long as I can remember. My hubby and I call it a "crush" but I think that's far exaggerating the case just for fun! I think he is the wittiest, funniest, most tell it like it is and righteous man I've ever known of. He is so cute too!! His legacy will no doubt forever live on. It's at this moment that I feel like I don't want to accept the reality that he's no longer going to be speaking to us and giving us council from the Lord. I know that we will continue to have council from the Lord through our next prophet, but it's hard to accept that his delightful face and sweet humor is going to end here - today! I can say that there are no feelings of remorse or sadness for any people involved... though it's going to be a big adjustment for all of us and no doubt especially for those that were closest with him, I feel that they are only going to have happiness for him that he is no longer experiencing this earth and he will rejoin his wonderful wife Marjorie now. One of my very most favorite quotes from President Hinckley is actually on the topic of death itself... it starts with a scripture....

A Better Life
Consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness. -Mosiah 2:41
"What a wonderful thing is death, really, when all is said and done. It is the great reliever. It is a majestic, quiet passing on from this life to another life, a better life. We go to a place where we will not suffer as we have suffered here, but where we will continue to grow, accumulating knowledge and developing and being useful under the plan of the Almighty made possible through the atonement of the Son of God." - Gordon B Hinckley.

Though I have never had anyone REALLY close to me die, I have turned to this quote many times for comfort. Because he talks about the whole picture which I think is very important for us to remember. It's similar to the fact that I don't live near my family at this time. Although I'm not with them now, I'm frequently reminded by my Dad that this is only but a minute, compared to the Eternity that we will have together. And of course, that's the same point that President Hinckley is making in this quote essentially. I think looking at the big picture every single day in our lives can help us to become better people but also help us to overcome the day to day trials and tribulations that we face. Though he is no longer with us on this earth, the Life and Legacy of President Hinckley will forever live on in my heart and the hearts of billions of people across the world. This man has done so much good for this world. So much good that has gone unnoticed really. The outside world doesn't quite know and understand how much service and self that he gave to every corner of this world. I just think it's something to recognize especially at this time of his loss.

I know without a doubt that Gordon B Hinckley was the true Prophet of the Lord and that his council was given us through him from the Lord. I know that through the organization of our church, our next prophet will also be called of God and will continue to bring us the Lords word and council. I feel so secure knowing that the Lords love is forever unchanging.

Today in relief society, we talked about the blessings we are promised from the Lord. We talked about how we know for sure that the Lord will come through on his end of the deal and it's so great to know that if we just do what he has asked, all those promises are guaranteed to us from the Lord. Now given, the things he asks are not necessarily easy but I believe that the more we keep the commandments, the easier it is to continue to keep the commandments, and the closer we are to the Lord, the easier it is to withstand temptation. Some of the blessings we talked about being promised from the Lord are forgiveness of our sings IF we confess and forsake them. He promises that He will open the windows of heaven, if we pay a faithful tithe. He promises that great treasures of knowledge accrue to those who obey the word of wisdom. The Lord promises that He will give us answers to our prayers if we ask for righteous things and with faith that we should receive what we are asking for. He promises that we will be unspotted from the world if we keep the sabbath day holy. Divine guidance and and inspiration are promised to those who feast upon the words of Christ. The Lord has promised that the Holy Ghost will be our constant companion if we let virtue garnish our thoughts unceasingly. We are promised that we can loose the bands of wickedness, undo our heavy burdens, and break every yoke if we follow the law of the fast. And not last but last of what I'm going to mention, we are promised as members of this church... if we are sealed in holy temples and faithfully keep our covenants, that we will receive Gods glory, which is a "fullness and continuation of the seeds forever.

I just felt it was really exciting to go back and remember those promises that so easily slip our minds in this earthly day to day life. I feel motivated more to do good by discussing these blessings. This discussion was based on the talk in the Nov 2007 ensign of general conference talks. A talk given by Elder Spencer J Condie. If anyone is interested in reading it, I've attached this link... Gen Con Nov 2007 Elder Spencer J Condie

And below here is President Gordon B Hinckleys testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith while visiting the Sacred Grove. It's short but of course sweet. As he is a wonderful, cute and sweet man! (note to self: don't go to Youtube to find videos of Pres Hinckley. You will become depressed at the things you will find- though this video below if from there, it's one of about two that were positive in his favor. Sad sad world. Honestly, I hesitated even saying this because I think it should be ignored, but truthfully I just really am telling you so you are forewarned that there's no good out there.)

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,5143,695247765,00.html <---- this is a news article about his death, if anyone of you didn't get burnt by the wildfire spread of the news. (random analogy)

And below I wanted to list the timeline of his life up to becoming the president of our church... He is a very intelligent and highly educated man....It actually doesn't list his education credentials unforunately, but I'm sure I could find them somewhere. I feel bad I don't know off hand.

1910 Born to Bryant Stringham Hinckley and Ada Bitner Hinckley on 23 June in Salt Lake City
1919 Age 8, baptized by his father on 28 April in Salt Lake City
1930 Age 20, his mother dies
1935 Ages 23-25, serves a mission to England
1935 Age 25, hired as executive secretary of the Church Radio, Publicity, and Mission Literature Committee; he works in various capacities for the Church until he is called as an Assistant to the Twelve in 1958
1937 Age 26, marries Marjorie Pay on 29 April; called to serve on the Sunday School General Board
1961 Age 51, ordained an Apostle on 5 October
1982 Age 72, called as a counselor to President Kimball; later called as a counselor to Presidents Benson (1985) and Hunter (1994)
1995 Age 84, sustained as President of the Church on 1 April, with Thomas S. Monson and James E. Faust as counselors
When Hunter died after a presidency of only nine months, Hinckley succeeded to the presidency of the church at the age of 84. On November 2, 2006, Hinckley surpassed David O. McKay to become the oldest president in church history.

Hinckley was known for his aggressive building of temples. Currently there are 124 operating temples, 10 under construction, and 4 announced (not yet under construction). Before he became president in 1995 there were 47 temples in the church. Over two-thirds of all LDS Church temples were dedicated by Hinckley. Hinckley oversaw other significant building projects, including the construction of the Conference Center and extensive renovations of the Salt Lake Tabernacle.

(Notes from ME:)- I really enjoyed this timeline (below) for many reasons but two that I will mention. For one, it never occured to me that Pres Hinckley was the one to introduce "The Family: a Proclamation to the World", which I think is a really strong and firm foundation that we have in the church at this time. I guess I either just never registered that it was him, or it just didn't matter yet... but I find that interesting because I just didn't put two and two together. And the other reason why I think these next two paragraphs are great is because I read much about the Perpetual Education Fund a few years back and really studied to understand what it entails and it's benefits and how it works, and I'm a big supporter of this fund. To be honest... and I'm really telling the truth when I say this... and not boasting... but when I have thoughts of wanting to become "independantly wealthy" I honestly always think about this education fund. I don't know what it is about it, but I have a huge desire to contribute to this cause, and to be completely honest, the only time I think I want to have a lot of money, it's because I really want to do some good in this world and also because I want to serve a mission - multiple missions. Now "saying" and "doing" are definitely two different things and that's why tonight I'm making all my thoughts public because I'm hoping that will give me an extra push to follow through on what I say! That said...

On September 23, 1995, Hinckley released "The Family: A Proclamation to the World", a statement of belief and counsel regarding the sanctity of the family and marriage prepared by the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve.

In February 1996, church membership in countries other than the United States surpassed that of the U.S. membership.

On March 31, 2001, he announced the Perpetual Education Fund, a large endowment that provides loans to students in developing nations.

On October 22, 2002, Hinckley participated in the dedication of the Gordon B. Hinckley Building at Brigham Young University–Idaho in Rexburg, Idaho. This was the first building at BYU–Idaho to be named for a then living church president.

In April 2003, Hinckley gave a speech in which he addressed the Bush administration's war in Iraq. He said "... as citizens we are all under the direction of our respective national leaders. They have access to greater political and military intelligence than do the people generally," adding, "Furthermore, we are a freedom-loving people, committed to the defense of liberty wherever it is in jeopardy." He also noted that "It may even be that He will hold us responsible if we try to impede or hedge up the way of those who are involved in a contest with forces of evil and repression."

In March 2005, Hinckley, together with Thomas S. Monson and James E. Faust, celebrated their tenth anniversary as the First Presidency—the first time in the history of the church that a First Presidency had continued for such a period of time without personnel changes.

On January 24, 2006, Hinckley underwent surgery to remove cancerous growths from his large intestine.

In June 2006, Hinckley traveled to Iowa City, Iowa to speak at a commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the start of the Mormon handcart companies.

On 23 June 2006—his 96th birthday—Hinckley participated in a groundbreaking ceremony at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah for a new building that was to be named in his honor. The building was named the "Gordon B. Hinckley Alumni and Visitors Center" and was completed and dedicated on Hinckley's 97th birthday.

On March 31, 2007, Hinckley rededicated the Salt Lake Tabernacle after extensive renovation. Hinckley's last public appearance was on January 4, 2008, where he offered the prayer at the rededication of the Utah State Capitol.

At the time Hinckley became president of the church he had dedicated 23 of the church's 47 temples and had rededicated four of the remaining 24.

While president of the church, Hinckley presided at the dedication of 65 additional temples. Hinckley also rededicated five temples while president of the church, four of which he had dedicated initially. In all, Hinckley dedicated or rededicated 92 different temples — 87 while president of the church — at 97 different dedicatory services.

President George W. Bush shakes Hinckley's hand before presenting him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, June 23, 2004On 23 June 2004 (Hinckley's 94th birthday), U.S. President George W. Bush awarded Hinckley the Presidential Medal of Freedom in a ceremony at the White House. The press release put forth by the White House stated:
AMAZING!!! And awesome!!!

"Gordon B. Hinckley [...] has inspired millions and has led efforts to improve humanitarian aid, disaster relief, and education funding across the globe."
Hinckley has received many educational honors, including the Distinguished Citizen Award from Southern Utah University, Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Utah, and honorary doctorates from Westminster College, Utah State University, University of Utah, Brigham Young University, and Southern Utah University. He has received the Silver Buffalo Award of the Boy Scouts of America, and has been honored by the National Conference for Community and Justice for his contributions to tolerance and understanding in the world.

(ME again): I just simply don't have the intelligence or time to list all the great and many wonderful things that Gordon B Hinckley has done in his life, but I can surely say I tried! I just love him so much as I love this gospel with all of my heart. I am so thankful to have been sealed to hubby for Eternity and that our children will be with us and we will be as a family not only until death do us part, but for Eternities~! What an amazing gift!

When listing President Hinckleys accomplishments and life timelines, I used Wikipedia, LDS.org for sources.

Happy Birthday Mr Man!!!

Yay! My husband is officially a year older! I honestly can't believe that he is that old! I remember my friend marrying a 27 year old when we were 20, and I thought that he sounded crazy OLD!! (sorry to say that out loud friend who you know who you are). he he!!  Now I'm married to a 27 year old. I actually had a little trouble accepting that he was 26 about summertime last year, I thought to myself..."how old is Craig?" well I asked my Mom and she said 26 and I was like, "no way, he is not!" it took some math to figure out that she was indeed correct and that just blew my mind, so really this 27 thing isn't too big of a deal. I already got over that hump last summer. :) So today was a boring birthday for him. His only request was that he didn't have to wake up with Linkin in the morning - especially since we both went to bed around 2 am. Linkin slept in a little however so it wasn't too bad waking up with him at 9:30. Yeah! When Craig strolled out at about 10:00 saying he had to study- I was allowed to go take a nap. OH HAPPY DAY!!! There is absolutely NOTHING I would rather do. Honestly, in the world- than sleep. Nothing. Yeah not a thing. (after writing nothing with a period, I thought to myself if there really was anything I would rather do and skycoasters came to my mind but I then wrote my next sentence confirming that there's nothing I'd rather do). So... I slept for a good long while until Craig finally decided to wake me up, to which I pronounced, "can I please snooze?" which is when he leaves the room and leaves the door open with the hall light on and lets me sleep for another ten minutes or so! I love him!! He's so good to me. And on his birthday too.  The guilt of it being his birthday fought with the sleeper in me and won after so long and I hung out with him the rest of the day.... awake...! He requested my homemade tomato basil squares for dinner so I made that and some garlic bread and we had salad. Yay. Nothing too exciting. The recipe is attached to that link though if anyone wants to try it! Although he seems to think that that "pizza" is pretty exciting as do I. Most people that have had it love it, but one time I made Craig and I one for dinner and an extra one because we were going to have people over. Well it turns out only Jay came and it was fairly later that evening so I had it in the fridge uncooked until he came. Well I threw it in when he got there while we watched a movie and grabbed it out when the timer went off. Then served it to him. Turns out he ate all of what I gave him but the next day, I went to eat it for leftovers and it tasted sooo nasty and gross. I was like what the heck? It was soggy. It wasn't cooked all the way. DANGIT. That just makes me so mad. I have given him a hard time about it ever since. Like he just chokes it down anyway. Reminded me of missionaries for some reason cuz they have  to swallow whatever they are served whether they like it or not. Poor things! Anyways... so I cooked those leftovers longer and it ended up tasting totally normal again. I have a lot of trouble when cooking for guests...seriously - Craig will rave about something I cook and I actually really like it too but then when I cook it for someone else, it's all downhill. I always fail when I have an audience.  Silly goose! So... back from my tangent- we didn't do anything fun for Craigs birthday, we stayed home all day and watched a little (or a lot?)  TV and Craig studied a little here and there. I made him a simple little birthday cake and we ate that together tonight and watched Dance War: Carrie Ann VS.  Bruno (GO TEAM BRUNO!!!) <---- there's the link to the Dance War site and you can vote there if you watch it and haven't voted yet. I thought Carrie Ann's team did superb in their second performance but I can't bear to see someone on team Bruno go home so I will probably always continue to vote for them!! : ) Poor Mr Craig... he had the lamest birthday ever. Our lives are just too busy and we are too poor for anything exciting to happen. All he wanted to do was "chill" all day which is really nice for him considering all his days are completely the opposite of that---super high paced and going going going. So it was nice!!

Craig received some really nice cards in the mail on Saturday from loved ones... you know who you are... thanks both Mom and Dads for the nice cards and gifts, and Grandma and Grandpa Dear. You are sweet! Saturday, we went "out" for Craigs birthday... we say it was for his birthday but I know he was doing it for me...because we FINALLY went to the Olive Garden. I'm sorry but can I just share how FANTASTIC it truly was. It made up for all the waiting I did for it!!! Oh my goodness... yum! The salad, the breadsticks dipped in alfredo sauce... yum yum yum! And we bought bananas over the weekend too but they weren't as exciting as I wanted them to be. I'm allergic to them though so that's probably why. And they weren't as ripe as I'd like. But Linkin is sure happy to have a stash of bananas again, it'd been like a week. He LOVES bananas!! He's such a Monkey!!! We also went shopping in Tupelo at the mall and found some AWESOME deals at Aeropostale. I got a couple hoodies both for under $10. You should definitely head in there if you haven't yet. You know, I should really start charging for these advertisements I've been doing. GOODNESS...I sound like a commercial! Anyhow... Craig got some new jeans "for his birthday" so we say but he would have gotten them anyhow because he really needed new jeans as he has grown 4 inches in the last year. So funny! He looks cute in his new jeans, I'll take a pic of his bum for ya'll. :) he he! Oh and those jeans were both like 50% off too. And they aren't ugly by any means, so it was all in all a great shopping experience. Especially for a few folks who don't have a lot of spending money!!! Saturday night we rushed home to host a "bon fire" party at our house. All the guys in Craig's new phase II class wanted to celebrate their "dollar ride" by having a little get together so we had them all over and we hung out and talked and what not. I made some cookies for all but once again, I feel like they didn't turn out that great since I had company. But the batch that I did for just us after everyone was done eating theirs was great, soft, chewy and much better. Go figure! So annoying. I get carried away talking and burn things. But just enough that it doesn't "look" burnt but it is so it's pathetic really, I should stop talking about it because it irritates me. He he! So that night was fun. We stayed up a lot later than we should have though so we had a little catchin up to do. And that's really all for now folks. Last night we rented a movie (whoops, on a Sunday) and watched it. It was a horrible movie. I thought it was PG-13 but turns out it was unrated, which is sooo rated R or worse I swear. It had more than one F word and more than one chick exposed. I should have titled this post confessions part I because I'm literally laying this all out there, but I guess it's for those of you who don't pay attention to the movie world anymore like me and so you don't make the mistake that Craig and I seem to have made a number of times this year. We go in the store and rent these "chick flick" looking movies with some comedy and  they turn out to be super raunchy! It's so annoying. So the movie was called Good Luck Chuck and I honestly didn't think it was going to be bad but it definitely wasn't a Mormon girl type of movie! And now that I start looking at info about it online, it clearly says it was rated R which means I got the rated R version plus!! ha ha! DUH!! I even called Craig from inside Hollywood cuz he was in the car with Link and said there's this one or this one and he's like well what's "this one" rated and I said PG-13, because usually if it's rated R I put it right back on the shelf. Problem was that they were out of stock of that one and I happened to ask the girl if one had been returned and it had, so she got it for me and then I began carrying it around without looking at the back I guess. UGH. Why am I explaining myself right now? I should have never even brought this up. It's just frustrating cuz it's literally the 3rd time this has happened to us. Only the other two times we might have made the bad decision on purpose instead of on accident, hoping it wouldn't be too bad. I hate movies I guess because I can't find a good clean fresh decent one. Any help or suggestions anyone?? Seriously, because I'd love some input here? Any kid movies that are must see right now or in the last year because I'm so not up to date! Ok so I had to share, I went to log out of the movie site where I was trying to find info about that awful movie we watched. Turns out, I'm not alone in my thoughts of it. It got 100 ratings and 97 rated it rotten, and it was a 2.8% out of 10!! He he! That makes me happy. Check out some of the reviewers comments if you want... Rotten Tomato!!!

For those of you who haven't noticed or don't pay attention to my "sidebar" items...check em out. I have added a few things over there but am going to be adding many more pretty soon here. You can see a quilt of my favorite music albums, or a map of the world showing where in the world "viewers" of my blog are. Those two aren't going to be that exciting for you obviously, probably because you mainly don't care but then there's going to be some that are fun for you - especially those of you reading this while you are at work. Right now, there's already one on there called the traveler IQ, and Craig and I played it for a while and it was really fun. You learn while you play. Kind of. I didn't pass round 1 but Craig got through like 8 rounds before he didn't pass a round so it was really exciting that time. So check that out! Also I'm going to be posting some quiz type stuff on there or survey shall we say that I will need your answers and opinions on, so keep an eye on those sidebar items as you read my blog!

Miz- HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I love you to death and I'm so thankful for you! You are the best father in the world and a wonderful husband! Thanks for letting me sleep on your birthday and CONSTANTLY every other day! I loved having a slow paced day with you and I really hope you like your presents (I didn't get him anything...ha hah ahaha!!!!!) It's really sad actually and not funny but honestly, I didn't. hah ah haa! so I laugh again.... ha hahahaa!  Hope you enjoyed your day! And thanks to all you who dropped by with some love to read this!! Patty - I love hearing from you, thanks for your comments, I really miss working with you. I miss working period I guess!! he he!! And I love getting comments from everyone else!!! So much. Stephanie, you are so cute... I just love ya to death. I think it's so funny how I can feel so "in touch" with you when you are like ten states away and we've only met like three times. It's awesome. Technology can do wonders if you use it wisely!! See ya'll!!

For those interested in what Craig is really doing here - this link is kind of a summary of what UPT - Undergraduate Pilot Training entails. It's designed for readers who are contemplating becoming Air Force Pilots I believe, but it will help our Moms and Dads to understand a little more of what he's doing... http://www.baseops.net/militarypilot/training_day.html  , and another.......

                http://www.baseops.net/militarypilot/upt_life.html

Dollar ride? Brief description - "The first flight in pilot training is traditionally called a "dollar ride," a term which is sometimes applied to the first flight in any flying training program in a new aircraft.  The student is so clueless and the instructor pilot (IP) has to demonstrate (and thus fly) so much that the student is essentially a passenger.  Traditionally, the student gives the IP of his first sortie a dollar bill as a "tip" for the ride.  The dollars are often decorated with magazine clippings (some more risqué than others), phrases, or other details that might characterize the flight, the student, or the IP.  Many UPT instructors' desks are littered with laminated, vandalized dollar bills."

Craig's dollar for his dollar ride he did this weekend. He found a picture of the Rob Schneider in Chuck and Larry - He plays the Asian marry-er (I don't know what those people are called? ha ha!) For those of you who've seen it, you would completely understand, for those who haven't... here's a clip of that part... and why it's relevant to Craigs dollar ride.  The dollar part is about one minute into it and it cracked me up again this time too so watch it!!! Good night all!

Great Night!

Tonight was a great night I have to say... ALL I WANT TO DO right now is get some shut eye but I liked to think my creative juices were flowing so I logged on for a must write post only to come up with what some like to call "writer's block"... it's a term I've become all too familiar with in the last couple of months. And judging by the number of times I've posted anything, you probably could have guessed that yourselves. Although, that wasn't "writer's block" that was "writer doesn't have a block - of time - to - write" or "writer doesn't have the bloody energy to write block". Block? Yeah I just threw that in. It makes no sense. Nor does anything I ever say. Wow.

So tonight - tonight was such a good night I must say. Although I sit here with a slight headache and stomach ache, I have to say that the time I've had to myself tonight has been seemfully a delight! See it started out by going to dinner with a big group of guys (and one gal) in Craig class to La Fiesta. A mexican restaraunt enjoyed by many - me excluded. See I'm not a big fan...so I ordered a sopapilla and you can't go wrong with cinnamon and honey. ? Anyhow, then we headed to our friend Jays house and played some FUN games for a couple hours and ate ice cream. Two new kinds were tried by me and one of them was called triple chocolate something. See, but it's not your average "triple chocolate"...cuz I don't like when it's chocolate ice cream, chocolate candy and chocolate fudge dripping. It's just too much chocolate for me- whose not a chocolate lover. Did I just speak those terms? Anyway... it's triple chocolate meaning WHITE chocolate, milk chocolate and dark chocolate and they are seperated like neopolitan ice cream is. Wow. It's a delight. And for anyone who knows ANYTHING about me... you know that I am a HUGE huge fan of white chocolate. It's like the most delicious thing God created. He did create it right? Cuz all things are in God created or something right? I like to think He created all things - especially my favorite things. White chocolate is amazing and one of my favorites is the peppermint white chocolate hersheys kisses - and I love -gosh the name of the company just slipped my mind... they make those truffles in the bags... Lindt... that's it. They make these white chocolate truffles that are absolutely amazingly delicious! Oh my gosh, why do I say I'm not a chocolate lover?... that's chocolate- duh! I'm a HUGE chocolate lover. I take it all back. Goodness I did not log on here to talk about this "pre" part of the evening, much less to rampage off somewhere about chocolate. Anyhow we had ice cream, it was good, the games were fun and we went home. WAY PAST Linkins bedtime so he crashed as soon as we walked in the door. Well a little "tiff" so to say also happened between Craig and I as we got home (he is SOOO tired and completely exhausted from this weeks work/class and his body is still adjusting to waking up at 4 am so he's understandably tired and therefore excused for his bad behavior). So I took it upon myself to jump in the bath as soon as I put Link to sleep and I literally sat in there for like two hours reading my parents magazine. I got half way through the whole mag. See I just read them front to back these days so I make sure not to miss anything. I find out a lot of stuff that is very valuable perhaps in the future, and probably a lot of useless information too. But it's a great time for me. Then I got out, rubbed cream on my cracked dry nasty feet that were throbbing previous and then logged on to shoot out a few emails. I sent a nice email to someone, an advice like email - verging on lecturing so I hurried and pushed send, and a bickering email. So I think it's safe to say I'm well rounded. If you can apply the term there. Ok so the bickering email was a reply to my Dad sending me an email about how great bananas are in all these different categories, you've all seen it <--if not click there... its "bananas help this that and the other blah blah blah"... well the trouble with all that banana talk is that here I sit, with a lot of useless information and no bloody banana. Can someone say HELP!!! I need a friggin banana. I'm pregnant and I want what I want and now. And a delicious creamy, non acidic fruit no less. Despite all that though I remain pleased with my "by myself" evening and somewhat thankful for a so tired that his snoring could wake the neighborhood husband. Honestly, I was in the bath and his snoring literally vibrated into the bathroom. No lie, I jumped out of the bath, quietly tip toed out there and got the mini tape recorder and came back and put it on my empty pillow next to him and I believe it's still on record to this minute. He he. He'll never forgive me. Not only did I post about it, but I recorded it. WELL...he's always asking me what it sounds like and I tell him it's always different and no doubt about that cuz tonight was A LOT louder and A LOT deeper. No doubt an exhaustion type snore. And now he'll know...how pleasant it is to sleep next to a hibernating bear. That's just it though...he's a bear... so mean and vorocious on the outside but so soft and sweet down deep. AWWWW!! Sap. Throw me a bone here someone! So in place of the banana I so wish I could have eaten - I had a nectarine - a fruit I treasure - and an almost entire bowl of microwave popcorn. Oh and that's not an indulgent thing for the night, that a daily occurence right now. Is that bad? Anyone know the nutrition facts on that? Supposedly microwave popcorn can cause cancer... what bloody doesn't anymore? Honestly? I'm asking you. What doesn't? It seems like they are linking everything with cancer. Just because the person who developed cancer ate microwave popcorn everyday doesn't mean that it was the microwave popcorn that caused it. Ok ok, I get that it's not a study that brought this information and that it's probably a chemical IN microwave popcorn is known to cause cancer, but whatever the case... I don't care because I've had 25 bags of it since hearing that! Don't mess with me. So why did I get on here again? I feel as though I've accomplished nothing. Creative Juices? Blegh. That's nonsense. All this was was a pregnant chick ranting about different kinds of food she's eaten and how much she loves - well what else? Food. Reality though...food sucks and when I'm pregnant, I loathe it even more so. I'm constantly hungry and can not find anything that sounds good. Nor do I want to take the time to fix me up something. I think that's why the microwave popcorn has become so much of a habit is because it's all too easy and convenient. Pop it in. 2 minutes. DING. It's done. Although tonight I was so anxious to get to bed that my jaw started hurting from eating it too fast. That's when I thought of some things I wanted to say, and the thoughts kept coming so I logged on, mid popcorn eating and started to rant and here we are... bowl still half full... my belly not so satisfied and a bottle of sprite to wash it down and no closer to bed. In fact, I've shaved off another hour of sleep basically in this rambling. We all know that Craig is not going to want to wake up early with Linkin having had to wake up so early all week long so I'm down to about 5 or 6 hours as we speak and the words are still coming. Alright I'll call it quits. I can feel my carpel tunnel acting up. No lie. Ok it is a lie because I don't have carpel tunnel but just throbbing pains in my hands when overused. Probably arthritis. Yeah see ya. Good night. It's approaching 2 am.

OH MY GOODNESS... I finally remembered what I wanted to talk about. ha hah hahah ahahahha!!!

AMERICAN IDOL. Fans? Anyone? Ok so here goes another rampage. I just want to say (and many of you have heard me complain already about this and more than once I'm sure). Simon has been known to tell a few contestants, "you're forgettable" right? Well can anyone say HALLELUJAH to that because after Wednesday nights last contestant of the day and the show for the week, there is absolutely no one else I'm thinking of but him. AND the bloody song he brought with him. I have to say it's seriously hilarious. We've seen it all right? It's getting so old to see random people come in random costumes and random songs they sing and it just can't be funny anymore right? I thought so too. But it still was. Even hearing the same thing we always hear it just still was funny. I guess the contestant himself wasn't so funny but seeing Randy, Paula and Ryan dance with him was a highlight and my favorite part of the show - Simons reaction to anything. I have a crush on him. He's so mean and blunt and direct and hurts feelings and I STILL have a crush on him. I think he's a softy bear deep in there somewhere and I just love him to death! Oh but my point about the last contestant on Wednesday and where the complaints come in is that his DARN song has not left my head for more than two seconds since. NO LIE. Last night, I didn't fall asleep until 3 or 4 in the morning because my mind was racing with the words, "I AM YOUR BROTHER, YOUR BEST FRIEND FOREVER, SINGING THIS SONGS THE MUSIC THAT WE LOVE...OHHHH! WERE BROTHER TIL THE END UP TIME...TOGETHER OR NOT, YOU'RE ALWAYS IN MY HEART" AND ON AND ON AND ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For those of you who aren't fans or missed it... it's a MUST SEE!

CAUTION: You will NOT be able to get the song out of your head for at least days, if not weeks. If you do choose to watch it... you must watch the whole clip because he is so cute and funny after the audition when he's talking about Simon. Oh I just love it!!! ENJOY 

Good times!

Well today I FINALLY began the task of organizing my "craft room". There is bajillions of unfinished and unstarted projects. Things I have purchased but never put my hands on. Lots of things! It's exciting potential but nothings happening with it. Anyhow, as I was unloading a few small boxes that hadn't been opened yet, I came across my book of poems that I've written. So tonight begins the sharing of my poems. Oh what a delightful and hilarious journey it will be as I reveal the hideous past I once lived. All these poems are from an "era" of my life known as high school. Craig likes to call it Hike school. Don't ask me why. I don't even know why I told you that. Anyhow, I once was a pathetic girl who had boys boys boys constantly ripping and tearing at my heart, and occupying most of my life! When I say the hilarious journey begins, you just wait until you see what embarassing I can do to myself. I know that only I will find them hilarious -- oh but your curious minds will for sure get a glimpse of a sad sad day in my life. Needless to say, I will be sharing my best kept secrets and opening the door to humiliation and regret. Todays poem however begins with a little less "depth" (shall we say) then the rest. But I also find it ironic and as you read, you will see there is one line in which I didn't keep my word. Tonights poem was titled...

UTAH
I love the beauty we have here
The gorgeous mountains that are near
Special places we can go
To get away where no one will know
I love our sunshine it's just right
The sky is beautiful at night
I love our parks where we can lay
Waiting for another day
The trees are amazing in the fall
We go on long drives to look at them all
The winter is perfect with awesome snow
Looking around here so many things grow
I love being outdoors and would stay there forever
If offered to live somewhere else I would never (ha hah ahahaa!)
The river it's gentle beauty is rare
Tonight I'll thank God for this place in my prayer

Alrighty then, so now I'm blushing! But honestly, how sad is that really? I miss my beloved home state!! It's so good to be out here seeing the world though. There's more beautiful places than just Utah. The fall here is absolutely AMAZING as well! I have some pictures I've developed that I've taken with my NON digital camera and as soon as I get them on CD I will share them, but it's really beautiful here in Mississippi too but Utah is Utah and I sure love it! Don't take it for granted ya'll that live there!

Lastly tonight... my favorite thing to share. Videos of my littlest Linkster buckeroo! Here are two videos that had me laughing. I hope to get the fact that he's a total Kooky monster across by showing these two videos that I took today. There's many more videos out there that have been shoved to the back burner but I shall stay on top of it today and catch up later...
Forewarning: The second video starts out real funny and then heads straight down hill as he throws a few temper tantrums and then falls and hits his head! Just a heads up!

Happy day!!!

I feel soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo happy tonight...I logged on here to write a post and I always check my comments first. Well usually I just make sure that the last comment on there is the one I read last and it usually is well tonight, I kept going down and down and down and down and there was so many new comments. I was thrilled!!!! I love to hear from ya'll so thanks so much for leaving comments and making me feel so darn special!! :)

We are very excited about our pregnancy as well. I think I kind of already established that in my last blog but the true definition of pregnancy is with us now as I scarf down a triple layered pure chocolate cake with like twelve spoonfuls of frozen whip cream. Wow! I'm crazy. Usually I would eat chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream but I just can't tell you how delicious this whip cream tastes. It's amazing!! Is anyone hungry? The irony of this little snack is that tonight Craig and I went over to another couple at our churchs house for "dessert night". There was TONZ of people there, hence TONZ of desserts. ha ha!! Wow I'm fat already. Just kidding, that's just it. The fact that I even am able to keep down anything let alone a dessert is amazing so I just take it one day at a time, and if my body wants chocolate cake, my body gets it!!! I started to realize though that pregnancy cravings don't just randomly come on. I think you have to hear someone say something about it or see it on TV or something because I never craved anything really wierd in my last pregnancy and this craving for major chocolate cake came on after hearing something about chocolate cake. It's more like my brain is wired that if it hears something it wants, it doesn't get over it until it gets what it wants. I read in parents magazine today though that a lady was craving cigarettes when she was pregnant, but she's NOT a smoker. ????? That's so bizarre and she's totally full of crap. You can't crave nicotine if you don't even know the sensation of it or the feeling it has on your endorphins. ha ha! I'm making no sense. I've been craving Olive Garden for like a month now. It's so sad because when we went to Utah the wait was like 90 minutes so no one would wait. I now continue to crave it but we are fairly far away from one so it's not easy making it to dinner there. But I'll continue to crave decent italian food until I can get my hands on some. The only "italian" food here in Columbus is Papa Johns. Pizza? Yeah I'm thinking more like....Mmmm....the breadsticks dipped in alfredo sauce and their yummy house salad with olives and parmesan cheese. Oh and the fettucine alfredo with grilled chicken. Or their cheese ravioli's with marinara sauce....Dude... I can't handle it anymore. And tomorrow is Monday!!!!! That means the possibility of getting to an Olive Garden is still five days away or MORE! :( so sad. I'm pathetic. I can't believe I'm rambling on about food when I have so much more to blog about!

So I found out tonight that the doctor I'm scheduled to see this week is the worst doctor in the world. I was referred to this clinic that supposedly is the best ever, and every doctor there is amazing EXCEPT one and it just so happens to be the one that I FINALLY made an appointment to go to. Wow, I have the worst luck ever. Tomorrow I will call and change it to a highly recommended doctor and the world won't end for me like it would have!

So like I've said before, I'm going to have to do some catching up on some family times that we've had that have been laid by the wayside. We've done some fun things and had some kodaks that I need to put in our family journal. So whether or not the time or season is now, I'll be throwing random blogs in about the fall of 2007. Can you believe it's already 2008. Were living the future! That's really crazy. We are supposed to be driving flying cars by now and have our SS#'s microchipped into our wrists! Oh well!

Ok so I have a list of things I've wanted to post on in the past and I just randomly chose our visit to the zoo for this time. There's actually a pretty funny story attached to this so here goes. Mostly I'm just doing this for picture posting reasons...

Holy crap that picture was put on here super large. HA HAHHA! Oh my, ok well there you go. So this is us at the zoo. This is some scary bird that I'm really glad wasn't on the loose. Birds are freaky. I have a friend here that's like PETRIFIED of birds and hearing her talk about it just makes so much sense. They are wierd! Well ok I love birds, just Magpies are freaks of nature and need to be killed. Also there's this happy bird here outside our house that is happy... ya know... when you aren't? You know, like you are trying to sleep and they are singing. And it's no pretty tune it's like the same damn thing over and over and you just want to shoot it with a sling shot. You know? Ok well that was a bit of a tangent, but yeah birds are amazing and wild and scary and so cool at the same time. This next picture is a bald eagle that completely and totally fascinated Craig and I. See-- now that's a cool bird. Bald eagles are amazing. And huge!!! I've been watching a lot of shows on the national geographic channel though and birds really are pretty impressive. They actually have some smarts. I saw one dive into the ocean and grab a friggin snake with it's bare hands and fly off holding this huge old fat anaconda or something! It was crazy.. I also saw a clip of a bird doing a fly by on this sloth that was in the wrong place at the wrong time... on a limb of a tree just slothing it's way to where ever...sloth- ville I guess. I didn't actually know sloth was something other than the character on goonies until I saw this but anyway, the bird just flew by, grabbed the scary looking monkey thing and flew on and gave it to her babies to devour. Amazing! You're all thinking...duh we know birds can do those things but I just think it's very impressive to be able to time and see when a snake happens to surface and have the skill and speed to grab it and then carefully carry it so you don't get killed by it. That's impressive! This picture doesn't do justice for how large this bald eagle really was. I'm talking it was like half as big as me. No kidding. It was way bigger than Linkin at the time. How in the world does a bird get that big. And keep me out of it's path too! He kind of looks dirty and ugly in this picture too but he was beautiful! Poor guy. I need a better camera.

Linkin loved every minute of the zoo. He was kind of wierded though I think. Like what the heck is that Mom. You can tell by the serious look on his face in every picture. He's usually staring at some animal. Except for these cute picture of him being kooky in his stroller! He's always putting his feet up on things. It reminds me of myself because I cannot go in the car without putting my feet on the dash. I did it when I was in junior high driving around with my Mom - it was an occasional argument with her and I do it now and Craig still treats me like I'm in junior high, and tells me to take my shoes off if I want my feet up there. When will I ever have independance?? Just kidding. That's a legitimate request I think. I should have named this post...TANGENT... because I've gone off on one too many. Anyways... Linkin.. yeah he's cute. I like him! Look how cute! A Kangaroo. I've always LOVED kangaroo's and have always wanted to visit Australia because of them, but this day I realized the true hideous-ness they posess. Aren't they just ugly? Ok they are kind of cute but Craig says they are like large rats to the australians. No one likes them? I don't know... I may have just made that up. I can't quite remember! Look at that green grass. Oh how I miss the warmth of the desert. Oh how I dread the warmth of the south! Craig and I actually thought it was unusual to see a kangaroo at the zoo because we don't recall having them at our famous Hogle Zoo in Utah. Man that zoo stinks and this one, well it's even more pathetic than the Hogle Zoo! ha ha! The highlight of the whole zoo is this BEAUTIFUL cat. Look at it. Oh how I wish it was my pet and sleeping in my bed purring each night. It's so cute and sweet! It was just the right size too. Oh I love it!!! Isn't it so sweet?? AWWW!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                Here's my boys... There's a crazy smile from my crazy boy!! ha haha! That's hilarous to me. It's like a cackle smile. He should have fang teeth. Oh which reminds me. Linkin only has three teeth to his name. He's almost 16 months old and he only has three teeth... but one of them is one of his fang teeth.  ha ha! It's so funny to see it sticking out when he laughs or smiles. I love it!! When will he get more teeth? The thing is though... he doesn't need them! He chews just fine without them and can eat almost anything!!! Such a funny boy! He's got the kookiest personality I've ever known! Goofball city~! Here's them again... So I am a big monkey lover. When I was young, I literally thought that someday I would beat the odds and own a pet monkey. I was determined to make it happen no matter what the cost or responsibility! Now I can't even take care of a dog, so a monkey is so far out of the question it's not even funny! But needless to say, I love seeing the monkeys at the zoo. Chimpanzees, Baboons, Monkey, gorillas anything. I love the species. So we sat an watched them for quite a while and then also watched them again on the way out. Well one monkey was really fighting for my attention. He was running and jumping up on the fence where I was leaning to take pictures. He jumped up and then stared and then jumped more and stared. Literally, showing off! Like honestly, trying really hard to impress me. No lie. Craig knew it. Everyone knew it. And he wasn't doing it at Craig, it was at me. Smart thing man. He really has taste I think! Just kidding. Anyways... the point of the story is that it got a little more graphic sooner than later with him as his little weeny rose to the occasion and he began to please himself if you know what I mean. Unfortunately being the capture every moment person I am, I busted out my camera as soon as possible only to miss it by a stroke. Nasty!!! I can't believe I'm actually typing disgusting things on here. I really am sorry. It's just a story that I had to share! Here is a picture of the little pervert. Not a very good one but there is a video of him being a nerdy monkey that I took afterwards. Feel free to watch it! Ewww what a creep!!! They are so close to humans in nature that it's really awkward to even be around them. Especially when faced with unusual circumstances!  So our time at the zoo was short and sweet, but we had fun and Linkin enjoyed his first zoo experience. I look forward to taking him to the decent zoo out here when it warms up. I wish I was a fun Mom. I was reading my friend Andreas blog and she had pictures of her and husband sledding with their baby. (gosh I think she's about 9 months now?) Anyways, I was impressed and thought that in my next life, I wanna be their kid. Although my parents had us constantly entertained too so I guess I'll keep my childhood! Thanks for sharing my life with me. I love all of you!! I know I keep asking but if you haven't already sent me the link to your blog, then PLEASE do as I really would like to see everyone's! Yay! Here's the monkey video.... yeah I guess I don't have it. Can't find it anymore. Lucky for you!!! Have a good day!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Exciting News!!!

We are ADDING TO OUR FAMILY!!!! Yep, you heard me right- I'm PREGNANT!! Eek. This is some of the reason why I've been slacking at writing on my blog for the month of December and up until now. I have so much to say, so much to post, so many pictures, so little energy! It's been a roller coaster ride of sickness from day one. I actually knew I was pregnant because of the sickness...

One night we were on our way home from dinner and driving in the car with one of our friends. I was telling them why I wasn't talking before dinner much because I felt really really nauseous again - because it was the second night of being nauseous without eating. So Jay asked, "are you pregnant?" Craig and I both exclaimed at the same time, "NO!" and he was like, "well you sound like you are!" Then I got to thinking... hmmm... when was my last period. I started to think back to Holloman and the time we were moving and remembered that I started the day we were supposed to leave there. Turns out the math put me way LATE! I took a pregnancy test early the next morning and sure enough - POSITIVE! Eek. We were trying to get pregnant, but then decided like a week before taking this test that we would rather get pregnant after March which is when I will be taking Little Link to disneyland with my family. Being the kid I am, I wanted to ride all the rides and have the time of my life and not be pregnant. Well - God had other plans! So NO it wasn't an accident, and YES it was planned - in some ways. he he! People are so annoying, the first question I get asked is always, "were you trying?" just because my kids will be close in age, doesn't mean they are accidents. ha haha aha! Just kidding, you all know who you are that asked that. Uh everyone! ha ha! Two years apart is really not THAT close either. It could be worse!

Word got out rather QUICK this pregnancy. Craig had to tell his class leader in Pilot training because he needed permission to keep his cell phone on him since I have horrible pregnant days. One guy, turned into ten real quick and we had a little holiday party at our house when I had only known for five days and so did all them! Then I couldn't keep the secret from my Mom and Sister because I needed people to complain to. And two turned into everyone else! I'm still only like 9 or 10 weeks along. Haven't been to the doctor, but I REALLY need to make that a priority like quick! Ok I take it back, I've been to the doctor. I went to the clinic on base and took a blood test and got positive results. I also saw my Primary Care Manager (Doctor) because I was so sick I wasn't keeping anything down and was MISERABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! so they gave me some anti nausea medication and sent me on my way. So I haven't seen an OB yet.

I actually prayed and prayed and prayed that I would be well while we were on vacation in Utah and God is great and answered my prayers. I had just enough energy to get to Utah on the plane without being sick and enough energy to be with my family and enjoy their company and the plans that they had for us while we were there. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see as many of you as I would have liked (Kecks, Mikelle, Anne, Applegarths, I really would have liked to meet baby Jonas and all the other new babies!) So sad. But maybe my visit in March will allow for those visits!! And then I got sick the day before leaving and was sick for three days upon returning, and now... I'm feeling good again. It's been a delightful three days or so. I have energy to do laundry and dishes and play with Linkin a lot. What a difference your quality of life and happiness when you don't feel deep stomach pains and nausea! I love feeling well. Knock on wood!

Oh dear. I have a lot of catching up to do. So discouraging. Wow. I'm overwhelmed! I miss you all because in slacking on my blog, it means I slack on reading yours. I'm REALLY excited though at how many of you have started new blogs. I can't wait to see what you have to say and what your life entails... Coleen, Anne, Shiree, Mikelle (fairly new), man everyone really. It's a catchy thing and it's addicting and fun and very good for family record keeping. Love to all,

Linkin's FIRST haircut

FYI- I dont have the energy to try and figure out why there's big gaps and spaces between my pictures so just a forwarning that they are there! :)

Wow, his FIRST haircut and VERY MUCH needed too. It was sure fun though and he's just so grown up now.

I love this look on his face. Ha haha~ You can barely see it but it's telling. And cute! He he!! 

Look at that guy!!! EEEEK!!

Jay tries real hard to talk to him and calm him down the whole time but Link wasn't having it! He was ticked!!

He does get his little head held in some awkward and uncomfortable positions. I pushed a little hard once or twice. He might have had a little mark or two. Whoops!

There's my happy boy. It's all over now buddy!! He was horrified!!

Here's a video of the Linkster after this whole terrifying ordeal. He's been doing this little side kick thing lately and this day we named it "sumo" and egged him on the whole time so he was being a little kooky and doing the "sumo" over and over again. The video can get a little lame and boring and then the pace kind of picks up again at the end. If you're bored, then what the heck it can't hurt!!! It makes me laugh!

The never-ending project!

How can it be Christmas when it looks like this?????

For those that couldn't quite understand the monstrosity of a yard that I have to rake, there's Craig, the little ant at the top of our yard with his rake. Beginning the forbidden and impossible task of raking. I've heard it all... "get a blower!", "just get a blower and blow them!" "you guys should get a blower", "maybe you should just buy a blower!" And that's "it all". So next time someone says that I'm going to get them over here with a blower to physically demonstrate how a blower is going to help any in the matter. ha ha haa! Just kidding, but I don't see it working. Not to mention that the trees still have a healthy amount of leaves on them.

I guess Craig was excited!

The Beginning... I am a slave driver. Look at that smile though. He loves it.

Diesel DUH! Look at the color under there. Craig's still smiling. This is good.

Still smiling.... and I'm still watching. And not helping.

Well he's not even 1/15th done...

Now to the back of the house. Another acre. Just kidding, it's fairly small.

Diesel seems to jump into every single picture doesn't he? This is the back of our humble home. It's fantastic. We just love it!   ....p.s.... ignore the garbage pile over there.

Our deck...our leafless deck that is! It only lasted an hour or so...

Diesel. Our other patio. Lovely. That ax in the corner is for... well if I tell you, I'd have to kill you too. I'm kidding FBI.

This is my bestest boy. A bonus pictures if you will. He likes to climb on things and sit. Not too far from the ground but fancy to him nonetheless.

These are my kitchen jars I'm proud of. That's all. Another "bonus" picture for me I guess. :)

GOODNESS GRACIOUS I LOVE HIM!!!!!!!

   

Linkin ADORES his Dad! He runs to him when he gets home and puts him arms into the air to be picked up. So cute!

Wow, I couldn't look scarier.

A prize goes to the first person to correctly identify each one of my chins!

Them again.

And FINALLY... My beautiful flowers from my sweet husband! He had them sent to me last week. I love the Holly leaves and the pine and of course the daisies are my favorite. They are gorgeous. I loved them!!!

So This post was 100% pictures and lots of them. Large too. I just feel like that's how they are going to be for a while because I have so many pictures, so little time so yeah. That's how we roll for a while. :) Thanks for reading. Love to all!

I'm BAAAAAAAaaaaack!!

WOW!!!!! I can't even begin to tell you how much I have to say right now. That's kind of why two weeks turned into two months of not writing. Can you believe it? I have had so much pressure to update my blog that I'm finally skipping my favorite thing (taking a nap) to blog. There's still so much to be done around this house right now but I will forego those things and try to spill some life to ya'll.

Here I sit in the dirty south. Man I don't even remember how to write. What to say? Any ideas? I have a piece of paper with things that I want to journal a memory of, but I just don't want to get into that today so in the next couple weeks, I'll be going back in time and sharing some silly stories with you for my keepsake purposes. Anyhow for now... I will tell you our move story.

We began packing up for the move on the 29th of Oct... We spent the whole week. NONSTOP. Sometimes not eating meals packing and loading and packing and loading. Well we had our walk through at our base house at Holloman scheduled for 4:00pm on Friday and our plans were to take off right after that. Well the lady came and we still had all kinds of stuff left to be done. Keep in mind that Craig and I had done everything all by ourselves. We didn't have any help. EXCEPT... Jeff and Sara Johnson. Jeff helped with a few really heavy things that I couldn't manage, and Sara was a lifesaver in helping us clean on friday. But we still weren't ready to go when the housing management lady came. So she agreed to stay late and come back at 5 pm. So we cleaned and worked hard and cleaned and 5 came a lot sooner than I'd hoped. She came again and we still weren't ready. SO CLOSE. So close, but she wouldn't wait any longer. SOOOO... we ended up having to stay in the house until monday morning when they would have someone available to come again. So all that hard work and nonstop cleaning and packing and loading was in vain essentially. We have the worst luck. WE were WASTED tired. I'm talking like sooo tired you wouldn't even believe it. Craig had stayed up until 6 in the morning the previous night and I until 4am. It was a nightmare. WE tried so hard to be ready to go but we just have a lot more stuff than we think! So Friday night sweet Sara made us dinner and we went over there and ate and played a game or two. It was fun and we were kind of relieved we didn't have to go anywhere and hardly do anything the rest of the weekend. Saturday, we finished loading up the trailer and did the last minute stuff that we hadn't yet, and then Saturday night we took Jeff and Sara to Texas Roadhouse in Las Cruces. Oh my gosh it was glorious!! We hadn't been there forever and it was so nice just to slow down, relax and have fun. It was great! Sunday, we spent the day cleaning and getting ready to go some more and then Monday we began the drive to MISSSISSSSSSISSSSSSIPPPPI! I think I might have spelled that wrong. Duh. That was lame. See I don't know how to write anymore. I feel so monotone and boring right now. All in good time eh? The drive started out so super duper lame and boring and ugly and ghetto...but as soon as we got closer to Dallas it started to get beautiful and nice and entertaining. It was pretty much gorgeous big tall trees lining the freeway and green grass along the side the rest of the way from there. Driving through Lousiana was actually really surprising because I hadn't imagined it to be that pretty but it was really gorgeous. I was happy to explore some random areas of the country. I'm skipping back to Texas...we stayed the night in Fort Worth. We got to the hotel at like midnight and the lady offered us a jacuzzi king suite for the normal room price. We snuck Diesel in. Whoops. They actually allow pets but I didn't dare to mention it in case they said they don't all of a sudden or something and then we'd have to spend the night looking for a hotel that did. So yeah, call me Satan but that's what came about. Anyways... our hotel room was splendidly awesome!!! I have never loved a hotel room more. It had this HUGE HUGE HUGE jacuzzi tub. It could have fit my whole family - Mom Dad, Josh, Justin, Jamie, Jake and me. Oh and maybe a few spouses. (I think I'm exaggerating a little).  Linkin and I jumped right in and played around for a while while Craig dinked around with our luggage. It was fun! WE slept well that night as did Linkin and back on the road were we Tuesday morning. It only took the rest of Tuesday to arrive there in COLUMBUS, MS because we are basically awesome at driving. We stayed the first night in a pet friendly TLF (Temporary living facility) on base. Can we say NASTY? Those places are just absolutely disgusting. Let me just complain for a few minutes. They are moldy around the bath tub. The beds are hideously uncomfortable and I just wanted to curl up and cry. That was the first night and then we moved to another not pet friendly TLF which was equally nasty and uncomfortable but was a little better in the kitchen and stuff. But we had to take Diesel to a kennel. He actually was very well taken care of and it was a really good Kennel experience. We went and visited him almost everyday. We had fun! The housing office on base wasn't as great here as we hoped and the house they offered us on base was a little too small for our things and was all uncarpeted which I was hoping wasn't the case as well. So we started the search for a place off base. We looked and looked and looked and looked. We finally found a house in a beautiful neighborhood that was the perfect distance from base and we went and walked through it and it was a total nightmare too. By this time, I couldn't handle another night in those awful TLF beds. I finally took Linkin while Craig was at work one day and found this house all tucked way back in this woodsy neighborhood. I got out and peeked through every window and totally fell in love with this house. Now I'm sitting in it. We ended up moving in like the day we walked through it to see if we liked it. haha ahahaah! They were leaving on vacation and we wanted a house ASAP so it kind of worked out the best it could for both of us. So here we are. All I have now is outside pictures. I absolutely love it here. I love the trees, the house, the town, the weather (right now- I know it won't last), and everything! It's been so fun to be here and I'm trying to make the most of it. These are some pictures of sweet Linkin sleeping in various places on our trip. It's always so heart warming to see my child sleeping in a place other than his crib because it's hard to get them to do. But it wasn't. For the most part.       

                                                                    

and finally here's our house...

This is the entrance to our neighborhood. Look at that beautiful orange tree. It's dead now!

Some more tree pictures!                        

Here's the house.   Pretty bland and boring on the outside. A hint of ugly. But it's fantastic for us!

         

Linkin in the yard! He LOVES loves LOVES to play out there. He runs down the hill super fast. I hate it. Because I am too out of shape to be carrying him up that hill a hundred times!! But he is unstoppable!

This is the front yard. I think I was standing on the top of the driveway. It kind of looks like a painting. It did for a few weeks looking out the window. Until more leaves fell. Try to imagine how much raking we have in store for us. Some has been done. 1/1000 of it!!

This is off our side porch and our main door...which is actually not the front door, it's at the side of the house where we park. The front door is crazy. I have trouble even opening it. One day, some random guy came to the front door to bug the Directv guys that were here and it took me a good two minutes to get the door open. ha ha hha! I'm blonde!

This is kind of a side profile of our backyard. There's our little (but quite nice and spacious) shed. I climbed on the roof one day and it was sure fun! We can store all kinds of garbage in there!

I guess I left out quite a few pictures. Like the pics of our patio and deck and of course the inside so stay tuned for that...upcoming! I love and miss you all. Hope I can get better at writing so you have a clue what's going on in my life. And I hope I don't bore you to death. Life is great and God is good! That's all for now! :)

Happy Birthday Sweet Boy!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY PRECIOUS LOVE MUFFIN!!! I just couldn't tell you more how much I love you and how much joy you bring to my life! I cannot believe you are one year old already. WOWEEE!!! That really flew by and dragged on at the same time. Crazy!! It was a long but super short year. You seriously light up my life and make each day so happy and worth living.

Ok sorry for the cheesiness readers... Linkin's birthday was really the Utah party, but we did celebrate a little bit here. I followed Linkin around with the camera all day because it was his birthday. In the evening, I made him a cake! We wanted to see if he would go for it with less people there!! So did he? Oh yeah!! He LOVED it! It was so cute. He started out with a tiny bit, then went more, and then more and then tried to devour it. Ok not really. He slowly enjoyed what he could but it was a fun time for us. Of course we video'd it and though it's not entirely entertaining, it could be fun to watch if you are bored maybe.

After we got done with the cake, we let him open a present that he got in the mail from his Grandmommers - It was a little bear holding a $20 bill and two packs of camoflauge socks. SOO CUTE!! Anyway...he really loved the bear. Here are some pics of him and the bear and just him! Goodness I love him! Did I mention that? Milestones, milestones! Crazy. He also got a sweet card from his other Grandma with another twenty dollar bill. He has more money than his parents!! So anyways...he carried his twenty dollar bill around for a while and stared at the socks! The important thing is they are stylin and his Mom and Dad love them! Oh and after eating his cake, we stuck him straight in the bath tub. He LOVES LOVES LOVES the bathtub. He always freaks when we take him out. These pictures with him and the bear (above) were taken after he got out of the tub in his jammies. That's why his hair was wet...

Really though, that was the end of his splendid birthday! We put him to bed early. h ahahaa! He was sort of ornery but he needs to start going to bed earlier so why not start on his birthday!? Sweet boy!

My Redneck Boys

Well well!! How much more classic can this picture get? Though you can't see...Craig's shirt says "I'm a keeper" on it. Linkin's says, "I'm with the band". Linkin has Fun Dip Stick all over his face and Craig has that hideous ORANGE "Fair Volunteer" hat on. And what else? They are in the parking lot of WALMART!!! Classic! I just had to post it. It was an honest moment when we took it but now looking back, it seems as if we planned it all out. NOPE, were just a bunch of rednecks!! I guess all we need is a mullet and things will be all in order!!!

F-117 Refuel Experience

Well let's just say today was crazy in every way. Craig and I crawled out of bed and the crack of dawn (5:00am). We took Linkin to a daycare providers house, and off we went to the 9th fighter squadron to meet up with some other spouses and folks, and were shuttled out to the flight line where a KC-135 awaited us. The KC-135 was being flown by the Ohio Air National Guard. We hopped onto the plane in a not exactly "hopping" sort of fashion. More like climbed the latter. Once aboard we just sat around and waited for all the fun things they like to do before taking off. Once it was close to time to take off they asked if anyone wanted to go up front to sit while taking off and landing. Well my hand flew up before anyone else so I and another gal both got to go sit up front with the pilots. I was in the seat right between the two pilots and behind them. I was so excited, I could hardly contain myself. However, I tried to play it cool. I got to wear the headset and listen to them and all their mumble jumble preparing for takeoff lingo. However, we did converse quite a bit between us and they were extremely hospitable. It was fantastic! I was so happy. I could see out the windows as we took off and it was soo smooth. I sometimes get sick during takeoffs in an airliner and although this is similar being a large (but smaller) jet, it seemed more smooth and I was definitely not sick with having the window to see where I'm going and what not. It was great. I could see the whole White Sands from up there and the mountain tops looked beautiful. I'm getting really flight sick right now writing this (seriously). ha hahaa! I guess imagining everything I did is getting me a little whoozy. (really it really is. ha haha). Anywho, I'll try to finish this without using my barf bag. So I sat in the front until what we all came for had begun. We were in the air to refuel 6 F-117 Nighthawks. Two of the spouses with me were wives of two of the pilots that were refueled today. So once I heard on the radio that we were meeting up with the first stealth, the pilots showed me out the window where he was flying in from. I watched from the front for a while and then I went to the back and if you looked out the window, you could see the second of the two stealths in the first set hovering outside of our wing. It was so awesome. I- for one am obsessed with the F-117, but if I wasn't, then 2- well I should be so I guess those are my points for today! So the first jet took quite a bit to get linked up with us so I had a chance to go down where the boom operator lays as he uses the probe to attach to the stealth. It was so freaking awesome!! You could see the pilot of the stealth only the windows on that things aren't the best so it's a litte different than if we were to be refueling another type of jet. All you could really see was his mask and only parts of it. But I wasn't looking at the pilot, I was looking at the beautiful aircraft! :)  ha ha! Another thing I thought was cool is that the base commander (for those who aren't military, he is the highest ranked officer<---I could be wrong on that part.... here on our base and is the commander of the whole base) General Goldfein was flying the last stealth that was refueled. I was wearing the headset back in the boom operator area while he was being refueled. It was pretty awesome. As you watch the video, his was the last plane on the video. He is the plane I filmed going off to the side after unhooking from the probe. So, all that being said, I have a video to share our experience today. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Thanks for reading!

Sweet Linkin Boy

Tonight, my little Linkster was sooo cute with his walker. I wish I had started filming him earlier because he was so cute with it. He was cruising all over the living room and was over by the kitchen when I went down to my room to put my pajamas on. Well if you haven't been here. From the kitchen, my room is across the large living room, down the hall and then down the other hall to pretty much the opposite side of the house. Well I was getting changed when I heard Linkin coming down the hall. I said to Craig, "if he comes around the corner with that walker, I'm going to think it's the cutest thing ever~" Well lo and behold, his face pops around the corner and he's got the walker in front of him and a HUGE smile on his face. That's a long way for him to have gone with having just gotten the walker last Saturday. He is a pro almost. He can apparently turn corners and manage to get all the way to my room from the opposite side of the house. I just love him. I know it's not that wonderful of a story but it made me so proud and love him so much more because he's just so friggin cute and determined. ha ha! So I guess to a mother every story is wonderful. Everytime he does something I think is cute (which is everything) I want to hurry and call and tell my Mom or Dad. I'm such a joke. They probably think I'm so irritating. Like ok, you don't have to call everytime he blinks Jackie. ha ha! Anyways... Dad here is the video you asked me to film of Linky Linkster awesome Link crusing around on his walker. Warning: it's kind of long because I just couldn't bare turning the camera off on him. He was so happy and so excited to be walking around the house. And tired too. MOM- underneath that video is a video of him doing what I was telling you earlier with the fabric and then grunting. So you'll have to tell me what you think about what we talked about. Hopefully that ones not too long. I don't know we'll see!~ I love you all. Thanks for reading my blog. I love you for doing so. Please please leave comments so that I know I have supporters of my life. ha ha! It makes my self esteem go up each time I get one. THANK YOU JENN for keeping my spirits up and keeping me blogging.  haha! You're the best!

Here is Linkin using his walker <---- click there where it's underlined (I have simlify for the unsavvy computer ones!). I guess it was too long because I couldn't upload it to a normal video hosting and had to use google. So here it is. Just click on the link and it will take you to the video. As for the other video Mother dearest and everyone else of course. 'Tis below! Enjoy and have a great day to you all. Oh BTW, the video above really is super long and could be considered extremely boring for some but it's there if you wish to watch it! Enjoy! Or not...

Oh and one more thing. To watch this video, you probably want my music from my slideshow from the Utah trip entry to stop playing so you just need to go to the second slideshow on there - The Camping one and click the volume button and that will turn it off. THANKS!!

Our trip to UTAH!

Well Craig and I left on Thursday night to head to Utah. We got about an hour outside of where we live and realized I had left my cell phone in the Accord where we took it to get parked to sell. Whoops! So we went back because I needed to have it so that this girl could get a hold of me to buy our PS2 from us there in SL. So we got back on the road and enjoyed the drive. We saw about 150 jack rabbits on the side of the road here in New Mexico. We hit a WICKED rainstorm that we both thought was totally awesome. However it did slow us down a bit. It lasted a little while and then we were smooth sailing. So we went from Gallup in NM over to Arizona to go straight up to Utah when after about an hour of crusing along, we saw a sign that said "Welcome to New Mexico!" WHAT???? We were supposed to be in Arizona and entering Utah. Well it turns out that Craig had turned left where it said to get on the 191 but then just kept going and didn't take the next turn where the next sign was. So we drove a good 45 minutes out of the way back over into New Mexico. So we had to back track. So lame but it was funny and we just laughed! Anyways...the drive wasn't as bad as one might expect. Craig and I thought it flew by. We left at about 6pm and then went back for my phone and then headed out again around 7:00 ish. Craig was Mr energy drink and went the whole night without so much as a wink of sleep. He said he was fine the whole time. He drove clear through the night and into the morning. We got there around 11:00am. Crazy boy~!! We slept all day while Jamie tended Linkin boy. When we woke up, my parents took us to Sizzler where we met Jake, Samantha and Nikson for dinner. I love Sizzler. I don't know what it is but it's sooo good so that was Craig and I's number one choice for dinner since we don't have one here. ha ha! All you can eat shrimp. mmmmmm! Friday night we went to Craig's parents for dinner and to hang out and play games. It was a lot of fun. They got us Cafe Rio take out (our request) which was SOOOO good and much needed for my belly! It's all about the food people! I was very happy and thankful that they got it for us! mmmmm! So Saturday, we spent the day cooking and getting ready for Linkin's big birthday party. Decorating and what not. It started at 5:00 and it ended up being a total blast! We had the party in my folks beautiful backyard. I'm sorry to say but if you look at the pictures of the slideshow, you will see that it's beautiful~!! :) Which by the way, everything I mention here will have a picture in the birthday slideshow. There was so many pictures that I just put them in a slideshow instead of posting them all. The theme for the party was monkeys. I put together a little grab sack for the kiddies. Yellow bags with monkey faces. I made monkey faces on brown cups. I made Linkin his own Monkey cake. We made a normal cake for the adults to eat. Krista was there and helped come up with the banana idea on the top. I had banana milk, banana candies of all kinds decorating the table, Banana twinkies, I made cupcakes and Craig decorated them to look like Monkey faces. Craig and I made a homemade bean bag toss with monkeys on it. You throw the bean bags into the monkey's mouths. My sweet mother made the bean bags for it with this darling monkey fabric. We had pin the monkey on the palm tree for the kids to play. I had a craft table where the kids made a monkey with paper plates and foam. We also had a Monkey pinata! We had palm trees for decoration. In the grab sack for the kids I had a little keychain of a barrel with monkeys inside it, they had monkey tattoos, an activity pad, a palm tree pen, a monkey bracelet, and some banana candies. It was fun! We had a good group there. All of our families almost plus a few wonderful friends (Josilyn and Tyson, and Jos's Mom - YOU GUYS ROCK!!) Linkin got some great gifts. He got some much needed clothes and some really fun toys. He loves his walker from Grandma and Grandpa (Thomas). He just cruises around walking with it and has a huge smile on his face. I'll have to post pics of that later. He has mastered the piggy bank toy Tyson got him where you put the large plastic "coins" in the slot. I think it would be hard for a baby to do, but he does it well. Then he claps for himself. It's cute! He loves all the other toys too. He honestly plays with everything. It just depends on the moment. He's pretty ADD so he goes from toy to toy real quick and even with all my child care toys, he manages to give them all a try each day. He's funny! Loves to make messes!

Sunday- I requested that we stay home and not go camping until Monday and have roast dinner and relax. We skipped church by the majority vote not to go. Me against everyone else. ha hahah! I had to throw that in there! It makes me look more righteous. h ahah! Anyways... the dinner was simply amazing. See I've had this problem lately cooking roast. It will NOT turn out NO MATTER WHAT I try. So that was a request I had to enjoy a nice juicy tasty roast back home and my Dads marvelous mashed potatoes. They are seriously so so yummy! We had big thick cooked carrots and corn on the cob as well. MMMMMMM!! Told you it's all about the food. Jamie and the kiddies came over for dinner and I had this great plan to sleep outside in the backyard under the stars. Well it started to sprinkle a little so we set up the tent. We played outside all night. Played with the fishies in the pond, played duck duck goose, and played lots of other fun games. At one point, Jorgen got this idea to put the little kid chair on his 3 wheeler and have Linkin ride on there. So with close supervision, we let him do it. We stuck Linkin on the back and Jorgen cruised around super fast. Linkin was thrilled. He smiled the whole time. It was so funny! Jorgen was also pretty pumped about it. He thought he was so awesome! ha ha!!                                                                                                                                                                                  One it got dark out, we all climed in the tent to tell "scary stories". Well Grandma went first. She told this story that this Mom and her kids went for a drive late one night without the Dad. She said her car stopped going and that she had to pull off the side of the road to this dark place. She said they were sitting there when all of a suddent there was a THUD on the side of the car. She kept trying to get the car started, but the THUD kept hitting the car like it was getting closer and closer to her side of the car and her door. Finally her car started moving and she drove off really fast and they got home and when they got there and got out, they looked and there was a hand stuck to the side of the car under the handle. It had long creepy fingernails and it was trying to get the Mom out when she peeled off. SOOOOOOOOOO the point of me telling this story is that it SHOT the rest of storytelling for the night because the kiddies didn't take to it very well!!! Well Jorgen was horrified. ha hahaa! He didn't want to tell ANYMORE scary stories the whole night. He was clutching Craig's legs. It was so funny. We (Jamie, my Dad and I) were totally laughing and joking about how we are with a bunch of little kids and Mom busts out the first story of the night as an R rated horror film. We determined that she watches too many forensic crime shows. ha haha! Poor Mommy! It was fun! We ended up telling some lame goofy stories after that.                                                                                                                                                                                                          So after we pretended to be asleep for a while and the kids fell asleep, Jamie and I snuck out of the tent to go watch The Office with my Dad. Craig was zonked with the kids and didn't want to wake up so he stayed out there! We stayed up until about 1 and then Jamie went home and I slept on the couch. Weird night. Especially for it being my idea to sleep outside on the grass, and then I slept inside while they all slept outside. ha haa! Oh well! Craig's sweet to sleep uncomfortable to be with the kids because they needed to have an adult out there probably.

Well well... Monday we left around noon to go up to the Uintas. Another request of mine. ha hahah! I'm so demanding. No, my parents and family was all for it. So we went up there, found a spot to camp and backed the trailer in, set up camp, ate lunch and then left to go hike up to our waterfalls. I say "our" waterfalls because they are pretty hidden and not many people know of them. We will go up there and spend all day and no one will hike by or anything so it's pretty cool! Also, it's a traditional spot we've been many times. I always loved to run and climb the actual spots where water was falling and splash in it. Sometimes I would sit under the falling water on a lower rock. It's a blast. This year it was super fun too but it didn't have as much water as it has before. Usually the water will go all the way to the other side and this time it was only covering like 1/3 of the scape of rocks. Anywho...we had fun playing and took lots of pictures...so enjoy those! When we got back to camp, my Dad made us a yummy steak for dinner and my Mom made us baked potatoes and broccoli. It was yummy. We hung around outside for a while and then we decided to put Linkin to sleep in the trailer so we went in and once he was asleep, we played Racko a couple times. Enough times that we all won. Oh wait, Craig never did. It took him until the fourth game to remember the correct way to play. ha ha! He's a nerd. Then my Dad did a bunch of magic tricks. That was awesome. He's funny. He's one of those magicians that WANTS to reveal his secrets. But I tried to not let him. Anyways...then we played Yahtzee. One of my favorite games that I'm usually good at and I took well uh yeah... last place!!! Whoops. Oh well. Mother Dear won! She's so good at games. I don't get it. She always wins Racko too unless my Dad's playing. For some reason, he dominates that game. ha ha! Then we watched a movie. It's Broken Bridges with Toby Keith. It was a great storyline. Not so good acting, or put together, but a good story! Then we went to sleep.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Well Tuesday after we got home, I went to sleep for about 3 hours. I'm not sure what anyone else did, but once I woke up, we went to Jamie's house and said goodbye to her and the kids, and then we stopped by Justin's to say HI and BYE to them and Colton. It was good to see them. Then we headed to Craig's parents. We were driving there and almost there when his Mom and My Mom both called at the same time and asked if we were ok. Supposedly, there was a tornado said to be in the works right where we were at. The weather was wicked. Wicked awesome!! Craig and I loved it but I was scared a little and wanted to get in the house. Craig was just smiling the whole time. and laughing. ha ha! Dork. Him and weather. We got in and the storm stopped. Camille was there and we played buzzword (which is a great fun game). We didn't stay long as we still had to pack and get ready to go so we could leave in the morning. Right when we left it started pooring again. ha ha! So Craig went to sleep fairly early and I stayed up until 3 in the morning packing everything and getting it all packed into the car. We were able to leave at a reasonable time because of my sacrifice!! :) The drive home was entertaining and fun. I took mega pictures. I was fascinated by everything. Utah is truly amazingly beautiful and when you live there, you take it for granted. It's gorgeous! (in places!) So if you are interested in those pictures, they are in the slideshow below. We were just past Moab when we got NAILED with hail. Bad!! It was sooo loud and they were seriously at least the size of golf balls. We went through some like large marble size ones and then came out of it and I called my Dad to tell him and then WHAM, one came sideways and slammed into the windshield. My Dad was like "holy crap" I could totally hear that... and then it started caming down fast and hard. My Dad put it on speaker phone at his work and they all listened to our hail storm experience. They heard the sound of our car being dented in every location. h aha! It seriously is completely hail damaged all over. The hood and the roof and the side of the car a little too. There is like 100 or more dents. EEK!! Sucks. But we were both still smiling because we are thrilled with mother nature. ha ha! We are seriously nature tree huggin freaks. We should just live in the woods! Not. I'm too obsessed with the internet. Well that was our trip!

Miss USA contest...South Carolina

I only have one thing to say. UNBELIEVABLE! I feel so bad that I'm actually doing this...but I couldn't show my Dad unless I posted it here. hahaha! So I guess I had more than one thing to say. ha haha! Check er out! Good laugh...

"and the iraq and everywhere like...such as." ha hah ahhahaha! So sad! Poor girl. She had to have felt so dang dumb.

The County Fair

Oh my my...have I got a story for you! So 'twas Thursday night of the county fair and another couple in our ward had asked us to go with them. Well they have two daughters, one that's almost three and one that's a year old. So off we go to the fair. When we first got there, we bought Linkin a paw print balloon. These are some not so good pictures of Linkin and their kids. There was too much going on to try and get a good smile out of them! It was sure fun and I was only there for the food. Corn on the cob, cotton candy, corn dogs, sno shacks, funnel cakes, Teriyaki steak sticks, etc etc etc. I know all the rides would make me sick and that's if I even trusted them enough to ride them in the first place. However,  Amber (the kids Mom) wanted to go on the screamer ( I believe it's called ), and no one else would go with her...so I decided I'd go with her. Well all was going well and it was super fun. Craig snapped some fun pictures of us before and during the ride. The food in my body at that point consisted of one corn dog and a whole bag of cotton candy that was already not sitting well in my stomach. Not to mention I spent the whole day laying around with a migraine previous to the fair. So round and around we go, laughing and having a great time, making faces and smashing each other!! The ride came to a stop and I knew I was home free --- ready to escape the ride without feeling sick. When all of a sudden we started to slowly move BACKWARDS, and the speed continued to rise along with all the cotton candy in my     stomach. "Oh my gosh, I'm gonna throw up. I'm gonna throw up, I'm so sick. Oh my gosh, If I close my eyes it might help." NOPE, it makes me sicker. "Oh my gosh," the ride finally comes to a stop and I'm just thinking to myself "if I can just make it to the gate, then I can escape the embarassment" ---volahhhh! Throw up! "I can't throw up right now. It would be so humiliating." So SWALLOW. Volahhhhh again... oh nasty. This is horrible!!" Swallow AGAIN!!! So gross. The ride operator asks the riders "raise your hand if you want one more round!" Everyone's hands go up in the air in excitement and everything in my mind and body is saying, "ABSOLUTELY NOT", I'm sweating and sick as I've felt in a LONG LONG time!!" I'm waving my hands in a desperate manner, No way NO WAY!! Please get me off. The ride operator proceeds, "ohhh it looks like we have to let one passenger off, she looks like she's not having such a good time." So he jumps out of his booth and lets me out. Me and Amber exit the ride only for the ride to continue it's devilish journey without us. Evil stupid crappy ride!!! I spent about fifteen minutes in the porta potty hoping the swallowed goods would come back up. Sweat filling my world and standing up a foreign action to me. I prayed in there that someone would have the sense to bring me a water, only knowing that no one would think of it. I walked out of there twice or so only to turn around and head straight back in. Sweet wonderful amazing and thoughtful Craig had the sense I didn't think he had to get me a bottled water and bring it to me. Oh how saving that was. We watched the girls while Amber and Adam went on one more ride, a ride which I didn't even have it in me to WATCH go round and around. So I sat on the sagebrush ground facing the stroller, the site of a balloon blowing even sending flies throughout my stomach. What a night! So I skipped the opportunity to take sweet Linkin on the cute little rides that he would enjoy and getting some fun fair kodaks!

Saturday, we had the lucky privilidge to return to the fair. We had signed up as volunteers to work in the youth booth for the LDS church. The fair is such a success for our youth here that this one fundraiser alone raises enough money to pay for all the youth activites for the entire year. This is a GREAT cause! So Craig and I signed up. However, Friday night I cut my finger SOOO deep that Craig said I should really go get stitches. Usually, when I (or perhaps you) cut myself, it doesn't hurt because it's ya know...just a cut. However, this bad boy throbbed like a mother! It was soo so painful. It wouldn't stop bleeding for hours and hours. Craig helped me butterfly it. It was super deep and pretty wide. We butterflied it with two butterfly bandages and then wrapped it up. I actually woke up the next morning and it was still bleeding. Like gushing. We didn't have a babysitter so we decided with my finger and Linkin that I wouldn't work in the booth and that Craig would. So I dropped Craig off at the fair and proceeded on to the canyon and drove up to Cloudcroft so that Linkin could have a nap. I stopped at every turn off -taking pictures of lots of things. Some silly some not. Everything, however- fascinating to me of course. I explored and actually enjoyed myself quite a bit. Though I was alone, I enjoyed my time in nature~! ha ha! Wow, I'm such a air breathin' tree hugger! Here are my crazy pictures...

      

So after I went on the crazy random picture taking drive to Cloudcroft, I went back to the fair to be with Craig. Here is Craig with his silly hat on in the booth.  The boy next to him is named "Monkey". Craig only knows him as Monkey and I forget his name. They say they call him Monkey because he climbs trees like a monkey but ironically, he looks like one. Cute boy! He took me and Linkin around the fair with a corn dogs for sale sign around his body. We went into the building where they have advertising booths and everyone was so cute to Linkin. They gave him stickers, and wind mills and candy, and took pictures of us, and lots of fun stuff. He was of course smiling as always and feeling so happy! Here are some duh pictures of him. He smiled except for when I took pictures. Like I said earlier, there was just too much going on. He really draws attention in public with his sweet contagious smile! Anyways...then we went and looked at the animals. Wow~! That was crazy fun! Ha ha! Linkin was delighted. He smiled at those goat s the entire time a nd was so thrilled. So funny!~

Ok so that was a lot of fun. As you can see, he has his sticker on his shirt and his windmill in his hand. Big smiles, occasional "der" looks on his face - ok more than occasional. ha ha! He's just a cute boy. At least he always is to me! I just love him more than words could ever express! Alas, I shall post a video of  Linkin and the goat. It will start sideways and then go straight. Sorry about that. But it's a good little clip of a crazy goat. Must be the goat from Adam Sandler CD's. Don't listen to them to find out what I mean unless you've already heard them. It's not appropriate for anyone's ears. h ahaha! Honestly. Here she is.... Oh and here's the polaroid that they took of me and Linkin in the building. I scanned it in. Who uses a polaroid anymore anyways? ha haha! I guess them! Linkin was more into the smarties in his hand that someone gave him than this photo. Monkey was holding him up to the hole. Nice boy...like I said. I bought him a corn dog later and gave him a dollar for games. He was well paid! ha hhaha! :)

Our splendid weekend!

Boy was it a packed and fun weekend. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it! First I want to inform you all that I spoke too soon about Linkin sleeping well. He's awoke every night since I wrote that post about him sleeping well. He also wakes up WAY TOO early for his mother to handle. But hey, life goes on. At least he goes back to sleep with a little pat on the back (for the most part - not in the morning) and not having to have a bottle...All in all I think it's still a lot better. Oh Jenn - -the calm child didn't work for us. :( But on to my weekend story. This may be long.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
<-------scary photo!! Friday night, we had a bunch of friends over. See we went from having a good group of friends here when we first got here to having ZERO, and now we have an overload of casuals coming in constantly. So we are up to like close to ten casuals - hence friends. Plus we have started getting together with some other Lt's as well. And we have a new 2lt that just came in who is married and has a daughter. They are really fun too! So Friday night, they were all over at our place. That's what I made a couple desserts for, see The cook queen. We also ordered pizza and enjoyed the delicious taste of Papa John's Garlic dipping sauce. MMMM!! So we hung out for a bit and talked and then we started to play RISK. A game that I've written off for the last ten years simply for the fact that when the boys in my family  would play, it took HOURS and HOURS. So I have never had any desire to play. I got suckered in this night though and Craig and I were a team. As you can see, we were really excited and acting crazy. Well on and on and on and on goes the game. We all felt really bad, because the two girls covering their faces in this picture to the left were really get picked on in this game. They had no chance. Although they did fight til the end and did really good. Then we decided to keep it going down to the final winner instead of stopping at two players left. So we continued on and LO AND BEHOLD....Craig and I won! Here is the board. He he!! 

So Saturday we were invited over to some friends in our branch's house. They have been in the Air Force for close to twenty years, and the father is a pilot. So it was our chance to "drill" them with questions. Also invited was another family who the father is also a pilot. It was a fun day. We got there and everyone was already in the pool, so Craig and I and Linkin jumped in and swam for a good while. It was a lot of fun. Linkin loves the water and he warmed up to everyone else so he could play and enjoy himself. At one point, we had him in this floaty device and he liked that. It was so funny, they have this hot tub area above the pool so the water flows out of it into the pool and there's an area where you can put your head behind the flow of water. Well Craig would slide Linkin's little body back in there and right when Linkin would go behind it, you could see him hold his breath as if he was actually under water and then when he came out he would stop. hahah! He looked constipated everytime Craig put him behind there. It was cute! Silly boy. Anyways...then the grown ups hot tubbed for a bit after which was nice cuz believe it or not, it started to get a little cold. Then we had a BBQ dinner. Oh my it was delicious. It reminded me of home because we had the good ol' hot dogs and hamburgers but then there was potato salad, baked beans, chips of all sorts, and a big bowl of tasty fruit. Lemonade and the works. It was really good. I mean I cook a lot but it's not often, you have classic BBQ works at my house so it was nice. So we chatted and enjoyed ourselves for dinner and then Craig and I went home. It was a lot of fun though. Their families are very strong. It's been said many times that Air Force families are strong and close knit and it's been proven to me already while living here. It's really great!! Oh and good kids too!

Sunday was the best! But of course it deals in nature as always. Whenever I think something is the "best", it probably has to do with critters or sunsets, or something natural on earth. ha haha! So Sunday night was the meteor shower. Well they were actually perseids. So Craig and I gave Linkin a late late nap and woke him at about 9:30pm to go out to see the stars. We drove out to what's called Tulle Peak. It's north of where we live, WAY out on base in the middle of nowhere really. It's where they have test tracks where they test missiles and stuff. So we took the long drive out there but it was sooooooo worth it because when we got out of the car, the stars were simply AMAZING!!! Seriously, I've never been somewhere where the stars were so bright in my life. There were millions and millions and they were sooo bright and pretty. The milky way was SOOO long and SOOO bright and marvelous!!! I seriously was so happy. I loved it so much. THEN when we saw a perseid, it made everything even MORE awesome!!!! Holy cow, it was cool. They would shoot clear across the sky and leave a dust trail. The star would stop shooting and the tail would still be there and slowly fade. I wish sooo bad I could have got it on camera. For one I forgot my camera and two, it wouldn't have been captureable anyway because my camera stinks. Although, those stars were bright enough to probably show up on video. Hmmm...perhaps I'll go out again just for the stars. But anyways....WOW those meteors were soooooo awesome! We saw about ten! Which was plenty. They would have gotten more close together and more wild if we would have stayed but Linkin needed to sleep and so did we. It was very worth it only seeing ten. Heck even seeing one was a thrill and a half. Everytime we'd say, "ok let's go!" then we'd see another one and then we'd want to stay again. ha haha! Then when we for sure decided to leave, I saw three within like 20 seconds. Oh my my my! So so so cool!!! If any of you missed them, then you truly missed out. It won't happen again for another hundred years or so (exaggerating - I have no clue how long)!! But it was a great night!!! THEN...we took the long drive back. We were driving along seeing rabbit after rabbit after rabbit after rabbit, did I say after rabbit. I think we saw hundreds. So were crusing along when THUD, we ran over a jack rabbit. It was soooo sad. We went back to see if we killed it for sure because I didn't want it laying there suffering. it was so awful...but it was 100% dead. Still twitching but I doubt suffering. Did I need to throw that in? Nasty! So anyways...we kept cruising along and saw hundreds more rabbits when all of a sudden, you could see a precious little cottontail run right under our tire and THUD!!! Gone was the cottontail which is really sad because they are innocent - at least Jack rabbits are varments!! So I honestly have a heart and felt really bad, but it was so slow motion and we could see it but nothing we could do....and we both at the same time were like "OHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" and then we both BUSTED up laughing so hard. It wasn't funny but just the fact that it was our second one was horrible and we didn't know what else to do BUT laugh. We'd already dodged like five other ones. UGh! Stupid rabbits. Stay off the road. And why do the dumb things always DART out right when you are driving by. Duh! So we didn't go back and see it because I couldn't bear the cottontail thing. Then we were cruising along still and drove right over the top of a SNAKE!!! So we went back and it managed to stay between the tires and continue to live it's life. ha ha! He slithered off the road into the sagebrush and the end of it's tail was black and white striped. I looked him up later and learned that he's called a western diamondback rattlesnake!!!!! CRAZY. click on the link to see it or learn about it. So we sat and threw hershey's kissables at it, to try and get it to look at us or come out of the brush. Eventually he turned and stared us down. Freakish. I love snakes. I think they are awesome. We didn't hear it rattle so we didn't think it was a rattlesnake but apparently this is the "king" of the rattlesnake family. You might be interested to learn about it if you click on the link. I learned that they have venemous fangs and "reserve" fangs incase their original set breaks off in a victim. EEK!! It also says they have heat sensing facial pits and an essential infrared detector to guide them to warm blooded creatures! Sketchy. I'm glad we had the sense to throw kissables at it from the car and not try to mess around with it. He was out hunting for our next victim which was a poor little gopher that got slammed by us right as we entered the life of base again. Poor dear. We went back to scope out our final victim thinking it was a rat but then realized it was a gopher by it's pokier looking brown hairs. Poor thing. Animals, may you rest in peace! What an adventure 'twas! Oh and at this point, you should be thankful I forgot my camera. Or it wouldn't be pretty! ha ha! Well I would at least have been able to snap a shot of that gorgeous snake!! Oh well. Another time I guess.

LInkIn SlEepS!!!

I am very very very happy to announce that my beautiful wonderful awesome child sleeps solid through the night!!! Being a first time Mom is hard because there are so many things that you dread trying because of all the horror stories you hear from other parents and what not. I thought I would have the hardest time ever trying to get him to actually go back to sleep when he wakes up without giving him a bottle. Wow!!! Boy was it easier than I thought. The kid took ONE night and only like ONE and a half "sessions" before he stopped crying and crying for me. It was amazing. I spent about a half an hour ( felt like a whole three days...) "sleep training" him during the first cry session. I went in there about every five or ten minutes (it's supposed to get longer and longer but I didn't have it). Anyway, all I would do is go in there, pat his back and rub it and give him his binky, etc, and then walk right back out. Me being in there didn't calm him AT ALL but I still kept doing it and while I was there and while I wasn't, he was screaming and crying like a maniac. But after about a half hour, maybe fourty five minutes, he stoppppppped! And then....he was asleep!!! I couldn't believe it at all. I was thrilled to death. So I JUMPED into bed and tried to fall asleep as fast as I could because I knew it was going to be a LONG week and LONG night. So about three or four hours later, he woke up again. He cried for maybe ten minutes and I might have went in there once or twice to pat his back. But then he fell asleep again! Well that was night number one of throwing in the towel and deciding that I can't can't can't handle getting up that many times with a child this old and since that night, Linkin hasn't awoke in the night and screamed and cried for me or his bottle! It has been amazing. The first couple days, I woke up in the morning with my heart so full and felt sooo proud of him for doing. I actually thought that it would never ever ever ever end, but it has and it's the biggest relief in the world. Great great great~!! He also goes right to sleep when we put him in bed most times. Ok well I take it back...he actually dilly dallies around in his crib for a half hour sometimes but he doesn't scream and cry like he's mad to be in there. He actually seems to like it quite a bit. He's so cute though. One time, he was really quiet and I figured he was asleep so I snuck in there to get something and there he was standing up to the edge of his crib playing with the mobile that's hanging from it. h ahahah! What a nerd. He hurried and fell down and looked at me like he was in trouble. The things that a baby this young knows is crazy! I can't remember right now what I mean, but I'll tell you when I do remember. ha ha! He has learned a lot of fun things. He can throw a ball as you've seen, he can give kisses....my favorite thing. I ask him like twenty times a day...twenty??? More like five hundred!!! He's like, "mom, come on - there's a limit to this!" sometimes he'll push my face away but most of the time, he opens his mouth and sticks his tongue out and leans towards me and gives me a big open mouth kiss. I always tell him not to kiss me like that because I'll get arrested, but he doesn't listen. I think it's so cute that he doesn't quite know what to do but he knows what kisses are and tries real hard. Whenever I say, "Linkin give me five, he gets this huge grin on his face and then smacks my hand. I love it, it's so funny! I'll try and get a video. What else? Well he's a little BUGGER!! He likes to get into MISCHIEF in anyway he can. I'm sure ALL kids do this because they are exploring but his favorite things are the toilet, and hopefully he can get there while the seat is up (his hopes, not mine) so he can splash around in the water and have a hay day. He also gets into diesels big dog dish and splashes in that water. I even caught him eating a few bites of dog food one day. He likes to eat dirt, and that's totally a baby thing I think! And he loves to get into the garbage can. And pull every single thing out of it and throw it all over. In fact, I'm surrounded in garbage right now because I let him get in the one by the computer because it's just all paperwork garbage so it's not so cucka! Then I clean it up and we start all over. He's sure a lot of fun though. Having a normal nights sleep is so life changing. I actually don't feel much different at all but if I think about it, I feel happy and excited!!! He's a good boy. I just love him so much!!!

Enrichment Night

Tonight was a BLAST! For any of you looking for an idea for enrichment night in your own church's (I use the word church because some people are non mormons and they could do it too if they wanted ) but then I guess it wouldn't be called enrichment night. Anywho...we had what was called a "service auction". Everybody brought a service. For example: a homemade meal, a coupon for babysitting, homemade cards. I brought a crafty sign that said HOME is where they love you. I have to say that lots of people liked my "service" so I was glad. It wasn't that much service so I feel like I should have done more, but anyway... Then what we did was well ate of course....delish food!! I brought a strawberry margarita squares. They were ok. There was a really good salad though and it's going to be on my cooking blog really soon (when I get my hands on the recipe). I will post the Strawberry margarita squares soon too though. Anyways...so after eating, what we did was they determined ahead of time a list of ways you could receive "points" or "money". So they read the list and for each thing you did, you got 5 points or more depending on what it was. For example, if you read your scriptures daily, you get 5 points, if you attended 4 sacrament meetings last month, 5 points. Um, 5 points for each child you have. etc etc. The list went on for a while. There was lots of creative stuff. Things that you should be doing to better yourselves basically. So then after we tallied our points, then the auction began. There was some fun stuff there. None of which I could "afford". The advantage is in being older because you have more children, and lots of other stuff too. But then again, that's just a good excuse for why I stunk at auctioning for what I wanted! ha haa! I ended up getting some cute homemade cards that someone had made. 8 of them. It was nice! There was lots of babysitting, and food. Loaves of bread. Etc etc. It was great fun. We laughed and joked and had a great time trying to bid for what we wanted. Everyone had a stick thing to wave for our bid, and someone's husband did the bidding for us. So anyway, I just thought I'd share my idea. I thought it was super fun and a good way to mingle and get to see other people's talents but also to focus a lot on service. Doing something for someone else. Some more idea for "services" were Crochet lessons, homemade jewelry, piano lessons, food storage binder with recipes and helps for how to use random food storage ingredients, and scrapbook pages. Some more ideas for points are if you've done visiting teaching this month, visited a sister in need, visited someone in a hospital in the last year. Attended the temple, and points based on how many times in the last year. So it was a lot of fun! It also helped me to think about the things I have and haven't done lately. It's amazing how a YEAR can sneak by you before you go to the temple again. CRAZY!! One was if I've bore my testimony to anyone in the last year. I don't believe I have. Someone said well you do every week when you teach primary and then the sad reality came to me that I don't even do that. I teach my lesson but I never actually explain to them how thankful I am for Jesus Christ and the atonement and that I have this wonderful gospel in my life. So I enjoyed it fully. It was a fun night! Have a GREAT WEEKEND!!! Mine is busily packed with plans. Which I like! So I'll talk to ya on Sunday probably. Have fun!

CHRISTMAS!!!

Well Saturday felt quite a bit like Christmas. At least for Linkin. In the morning I went to a USDA meeting for my child care. Afterwards, I "borrowed" a TON of stuff from the Family child care office. And when I say TONZ...I mean it!! Here are the pictures I took to show you how much I incorporated in one day. It was so fun. I'm going to get more too. Some things I forgot to get until I got home came to mind so I will do that this week. I've been getting a few calls to see if I have openings already. I haven't been able to help any of them thus far because I don't have my official license until hopefully Monday, if not the next Monday (2oth)...but the word going around is that everybody's full and there is still people needing care so we'll see how it goes once I'm licensed. Here are the pictures. I'm sooo excited to start providing for children. For one because we need the money, but also I think it will be fun to teach children things and care for them. Yay~!

We have our own Vanna White here!

We got a play kitchen, a two seat wagon with seat belts, a little tike car rider thing, another steering wheel oval shaped thing ?? Those are what's up there. Linkin had a blast on them. As you can see on the turquoise car thing, he had a very serious look on his face as he tried to steer it where he wanted it to go.

   

Here are some more pictures of the fun things we got. The kid table I put outside on our patio so the kids could have lunch out there occasionally or what not, and next to that is my FAVORITE thing...the crab sand box with a lid. I love it love it love it. We haven't gotten sand for it yet, but we will do that this week. The middle pic shows the kid car lot. Obviously those are the toys in the pictures of Linkin riding. And the last picture shows the kids outdoor chairs and in the corner you can kind of see the kid small slide that I got. I will be putting that in the backyard though not on the patio. He he!

As you can see from these pictures, I haven't quite figured out the best way to organize all the many toys I have here. There is so much stuff. A lot of it isn't in these pictures too. We got everything from Toy cash register, child BBQ grill, Sand toys of all sorts, Cushy toys for baby, kitchen play, horseshoes, gardening kit, blocks, legos, Stackable blocks, baby builder toys, Sewing kits, play telescope with slides, Brain Quest, A music kit with tonz of different instruments, dolls, play dinosaurs, play sea creatures, Marble ramp thing, puzzles, math toys, food magnets, books, books, books!, Trucks drums, tool set, play guitar, zoo legos, camping backpacks, play mops, ironing boards, vacuums, handheld vacuum, etc etc etc!!!!!

So much fun! Linkin thoroughly enjoys his new "play corner" and I really think I like how I have this all set up for the kids. I can't wait to start! Neither can my finances!! ha ahaha! Thanks for visiting my blog!

New BABY!!

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ...

enough money within her control to move out and rent a place of her own, even if she never wants to or needs to... Nope, don’t have this! Never will…

something perfect to wear if the employer, or date of her dreams wants to see her in an hour... Nope, but I have a lot (enough) clothes

a youth she's content to leave behind.... absolutely!

a past juicy enough that she's looking forward to retelling it in her old age.... definitely

a set of screwdrivers, a cordless drill, and a black bra... Uh, Yeah!

one friend who always makes her laugh ... and one who lets her cry... Josilyn and my Mom or Dad

a good piece of furniture not previously owned by anyone else in her family... I don’t think I own a piece of furniture that was orned by my family….Oh Diesel’s couch. (Diesel is my dog.!)

eight matching plates, wine glasses with stems, and a recipe for a meal, that will make her guests feel honored... I have this covered minus the wine glasses – I don’t drink wine and even if my guests want to, I can provide a “cup” or two.

a feeling of control over her destiny… I’m working on it…I believe it’s up to God – if I do what he wants me to!

A WOMAN SHOULD KNOW…….

how to fall in love without losing herself…. Done that….my poor husband! J

how to quit a job, break up with a lover, and confront a friend without; ruining the friendship.. I have accomplished each of these things……MANY TIMES!

when to try harder... and WHEN TO WALK AWAY... Hmmm! Like for instance….??

that she can't change the length of her calves, the width of her hips, or the nature of her parents.. Oh but she’ll try….the nature of my parents mustn’t change! EVER! I love them!

that her childhood may not have been perfect...but its over... Sadly it is, and I vouch that it WAS perfect. I lived, I loved, I enjoyed every minute. I was treated very well! (minus the fact that I still haven’t been to Disneyland:)

what she would and wouldn't do for love or more... Oh I do

how to live alone... even if she doesn't like it...  Unfortunately I know how to live alone – well with Linkin for short periods of time at least  {smile}

whom she can trust, whom she can't, and why she shouldn't take it personally... Should I name names?

where to go... be it to her best friend's kitchen table...or a charming inn in the woods...
when her soul needs soothing... Josilyn, can I come to your table?

what she can and can't accomplish in a day...a month...and a year... I haven’t learned this yet

My friend Mikelle gave birth to a new baby boy on July 26th. 6lbs 6 oz! How exciting!!! He looks JUST like his Dad. Look at all that hair! So fun!!

So I'm putting this at the very bottom because I know it's getting REALLY old but tonight I found the cutest little toad ever! He's the smallest one I've seen yet! Here's a few fun pictures of him. He was exciting!
What a sweet little guy, no? I just can't believe he was about the same size as a penny!! Crazy! I wonder if he's still a tadpole. Kidding. Oh notice the picture of him and the penny in my palm that there is a strain of pee up on my fingers. Yeah they pee a lot when you pick em up. Someone correct if I'm wrong. It may not be pee but some form of fighter liquid. ha ha ha! Cute guy. He's back in the wild. Hopefully safe. Because last night I was driving home from the store at night after a major storm and I almost ran over the hugest toad. I stopped and got out to look and saw him hopping along the street so I was happy again. Then I paid more attention as I continued to drive and noticed toads all over the place on the side of the road. Just frolicking around in the puddles. Then I pulled into our neighborhood and SMASH! There was a HUGE dead toad splattered in the road. I felt ILL! I made the mistake of stopping and rolling down my window for a better look. Not a good vision to have in your mind. I wanna throw up thinking about it.
I decided to start adding to my cooking site some more so tomorrow I will post a fabulous eggs benedict that I made tonight. If you are fans of eggs benedict (not many people that I know are...) then you will delight in this. Super easy and SUPER good! I loved it thoroughly. In fact my belly STILL feels full and we ate at 6:30. Wow that's unusual for me.
And my final subject tonight. I BARELY discovered that you can buy LORNA DOONE'S Shortbread cookies at the store (at least at our store). These are the cookies I enjoyed while staying in the hospital after having Linkin. Oh my they are sooo addicting and SOo good! Anytime of anyday! You should eat them. :) No I don't work for their company advertising. {smile}

My Husband is a GIRL!

Ha ha! I have some "you had to be there" stories to tell today but I will try my best to help you feel like you were there!

Well yesterday morning I hopped in the shower and put Linkin on the bathroom floor with his toys. As soon as I turned the water on and drenched myself...there's Linkin clearing the fog on the shower door with this little hands and face as he proceeds to scream and cry as if I had fallen off a cliff and he witnessed. So OFF with his clothes and IN the shower he goes! He felt excited for about a half a second and then he stood up to my leg screaming looking up at me with one eye closed and the other barely open as water dripped onto him in ways he was not comfortable with! So OUT he goes back to his toys. (I dried him). As soon as I shut the door, the terror scream began again. It was as if he felt that something horrible was happening to me. He just stood up at the door and pressed his face up to it. IN he goes again! Screaming and crying continued. I had to finish so OUT he goes and he continued having a fit until I got out of that darn shower and picked him up. He was terrified. ??? I normally take baths and he stands at the side and splashes in the water and plays and has a great time so this shower thing.....He was NOT having it! Stupid story I know but it's for the Mother's sake that I write it. (Me being the Mom).

Has anyone ever played SODOKU??? It's a super fun puzzle game. It's very addicting and you feel so accomplished when you can finish one. I highly reccommend you play it for those of you that have way too much time on your hands! Anyways...last night I had the opportunity of playing that game in my own sort of way. You see, for my Child Care I have to plan menus and turn them into the USDA Coordinator. It was a complicated matter for this girl who hasn't been to school or work for almost a year! You have to plan each meal so that it has a variety of colors, Of course it has stipulations on the type of food you feed them, and you have to have Iron once a day, Vitamin A three times a week, and Vitamin C once a day. You also can't serve the same food twice in one week, and you can only serve the same "kind" of food (for instance "beef") as long as it is in a different form as it was earlier and only twice per week. So I could have a Hamburger but then the beef would need to be used for like tacos later in the week. So I have to plan breakfast, snack, lunch and snack. It's chaos man. It's so much like playing sodoku. It took me forever!! Also you can't serve two different foods in the same "kind" of way either, so if you had Chicken A La King for lunch, you can't serve "creamed" corn with it. Get it? There's so many more rules if only I could list them all. ha hahaha! Not! You'd fall asleep! So I ended up recruiting Craig to help me after so long because I just couldn't think anymore. We play sodoku together sometimes so this worked! Well we were sitting here rockin these menus when all of a sudden Craig screams, "cockroach!" well cockroaches are fairly normal and not such a big deal but when the HUGE sucker stopped, we realized it WAS NOT a cockroach! It was a gigantic SPIDER! In our house. NOT COOL at all. I know my blogs have mainly consisted of the stories of frogs and spiders and whatever else but I had to tell this story and I so wish you could have been here. So Craig and I ran into the kitchen to fight the bugger and I said WAIT, let's take a picture. He started to run rampant so Craig screamed "I'm smashing it". I said NO!! because it was one of the biggest spiders ever and I wanted a picture for sure. So Craig lifted up the rug to where it was crawling under and I proceeded so snap some shots of it, but it didn't do justice because it looked tiny in the pictures, so I said put something next to it. So Craig was like, "yeah I'll put my credit card next to it" He was almost SHAKING cuz he was so scared as he shimmied his credit card about three inches away from it. I said Craig, you gotta get it next to the spider or it serves no purpose, so he starts to slide it closer to the spider and then the spider moved a little and Craig started to SCREAM like a little girl and DROPPED the rug on the spider and then started dancing around in terror, so I screamed too because he frightened me and I started to dance around the room too and I hopped up onto the chair and I look over and Craig is stationary with one leg but takes his other leg, lifts it clean up into the air and teeters over and stomps right on top of the rug where he imagined the spider was. I wish so bad I could video this stomps because his body didn't move at all just his leg and it pulled his body over there. It's like he didn't want to go any closer but he had to step on it, so he just teetered. Oh my gosh it was hilarious. He was holding his  "place" and saying how he just about peed his pants. I was laughing so friggin hard I wanted to die! So we lifted up the rug and he actually smashed the spider right on. So we took a picture of it smashed. he eheh!  Fun times! I thoroughly enjoyed seeing my wuss husband in fright!!

My sweet little boy has learned to throw a ball and he is so very proud of himself. He is so cute. I must post another video. I just love him to death and all his little accomplishments make me so proud. He's also learned to clap but he just hasn't perfected it quite yet! Um, sorry the video is so dark. I'm using the video on our digital camera so quality is low. I cut everything out but two throws too. Short and sweet!! :)