Pleeeeaaaase can I have some???

Mikey, dying to dig in!

Abbey's First Make-up Application...oh, and nail polish...

Hey, that's my...toa.....ster.

Hm. Science project? Nope, just Spencer's latest engineering project at home. As soon as he heard we were buying a toaster oven, he jumped right in there with "OH! Can I have the toaster?" So he's taken it completely apart to "see how it works". And to no doubt use parts to make something else.

Christmas Break Pics

Maddy

Miss Abbey

Mikey

Beautiful Vicki!

Maddy and her beautiful jewelry!

Maddy the lush!

Abbey's toe socks.

Spencer's engineering thing of some sort.

Littlest Petshop Monopoly. The boys said, "Oh great, now we have to play it with her". Nice big brothers...

Playground Songs

Do You Have Gas?

We do, now that the prices went down!! Yahooooo...finally, more than a quarter tank at a time for our $20.00!!

I love a recycled piece of furniture!

I have this old dresser I got from a friend of mine, who got it from her great aunt. We're talking old! Like 40's or so old. It was hidious when I inherited it. But I had a vision. When Abbey was born, Dad painted it white, with pink trim on the face of the drawers and on the knobs. I added new feet. Abbey has had it in her room ever since. Well, she got Spencer's old desk in her room yesterday, and that meant something had to come out of her room. A-ha! I decided to paint the old dresser black and use it in my entryway! I'm kicking myself for not taking a before shot...it was soooo cute!

The brown looking spot on the bottom of the drawer is just the light reflecting.

Here it is in full...it's really hard to see it...it's super cute, though! I love it!

What's more beautiful? The leaves or the children?

Happy Birthday Julie!!

On November 18, 1973 Julie was born...

That was 35 years ago today!!

We love you very much...have a good one!

Neal A. Maxwell

Saw this on another blog and loved it...truely speaks to our time right now:

Make no mistake about it, brothers and sisters, in the months and years ahead, events are likely to require each member to decide whether or not he will follow the First Presidency. Members will find it more difficult to halt longer between two opinions. President Marion G. Romney said, many years ago, that he had 'never hesitated to follow the counsel of the Authorities of the Church even though it crossed my social, professional or political life.''This is hard doctrine, but it is particularly vital doctrine in a society which is becoming more wicked. In short, brothers and sisters, not being ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ includes not being ashamed of the prophets of Jesus Christ. . . Your discipleship may see the time when such religious convictions are discounted. . . . This new irreligious imperialism seeks to disallow certain opinions simply because those opinions grow out of religious convictions.'Resistance to abortion will be seen as primitive. Concern over the institution of the family will be viewed as untrendy and unenlightened.... Before the ultimate victory of the forces of righteousness, some skirmishes will be lost. Even in these, however, let us leave a record so that the choices are clear, letting others do as they will in the face of prophetic counsel. There will also be times, happily, when a minor defeat seems probable, but others will step forward, having been rallied to rightness by what we do. We will know the joy, on occasion, of having awakened a slumbering majority of the decent people of all races and creeds which was,till then, unconscious of itself. Jesus said that when the fig trees put forth their leaves, 'summer is nigh.' Thus warned that summer is upon us, let us not then complain of the heat.

~~Neal A. Maxwell, “A More Determined Discipleship,” Ensign, Feb 1979, 69–73. From an address delivered at Brigham Young University, 10 October 1978.

Two things Abbey loves...her Daddy's hat and a mirror

I caught her in the bathroom standing on the toilet "dancing" and singing...holy cow, drama!

Self Confident or Snotty?

Found this on the table this morning after Abbey left for school:

For those of you who are not proficient in "kid-spell", I will decode for you:

"I love it when I am pretty. I can be so cute I just have to look in the mirror every day. The end Mrs. May".

(Mrs. May is her teacher)

All I can say to this is "Oh my"!

My thoughts exaxtly...

The 70's

Since my scanner does not work, I've been taking pics of old pics with my camera so I can upload them to my computer. These are some of my favorite pics ever:

Me and Lisa

July 1972

Me age 11 or 12

My Mom and I at Borchard Park in Newbury Park, Ca.

Probably still 1971

Wish Us Luck...We Have A Teenager!

Spencer turned 13 yesterday, Nov. 9th

THIRTEEN REASONS TO LOVE SPENCER:

His sense of humor

He is responsable

He cares about others

He has my need for ORDER

His laugh cracks me up!

He gets excellent grades

His pastey white body in a swimsuit...how could you not love that?

He is my firstborn

He has been able to sing on pitch since the day he could speak

His curly red hair...it's beautiful!

He stuck with track even when it got hard

He is on the fast track to getting his Eagle

In three years he can drive and I can use that to my advantage...errands, baby!!

"I miss Jesus"

As you may know from a previous post of mine, I am not a perky, happy person when I first wake up. It takes me a little while to be totally awake and ready for kids, chatting, etc. For this reason, I try to get up before the kids to get my day started. So this morning I am soooo tired, and still not totally ready for kids when they came downstairs. I was looking at a blog and they just had to come over and look over my shoulder. Annoying sometimes. I'm getting ready to click on something and Bailey says, "Can we look at that"? As I'm about to say, "Go get ready for school" (because I am trying to do something by myself) I see that he's pointing at a video clip on the blog with a picture of the Savior on it. So, somewhat reluctantly, I click on it thinking, fine, they can watch it and then they'll go along their way. The music starts, and immediately I recognize the voice of the man singing...Kenneth Cope. His voice gets me every time! Love him! So we watch this video to this song and I'm thinking to myself, how thankful I am for kids who have a desire to learn about the Savior and for kids who enjoy and choose to listen to Gospel centered things. Just yesterday, they requested to watch the movie "The Work and the Glory". Anyway, then Abbey starts asking questions about Jesus, and we had a couple of little chats about some doctrine principles. At the end of the video, Bailey says, "I miss Jesus and Heavenly Father, don't you"? Wow.

Weakness

Weakness.

The atonement doesn't cover only our sins, but our adverstiy. And that part is very broad. God does not turn up his nose or turn away from us because of our weaknesses, or our sickness or heartache. He sees in them the seeds of our sanctification, a way in which we can be more like His Son. Weaknesses are a key pattern to how the Lord works with us. He has told us often that He purposefully picks the weak things of the world to accomplish His work.

When Christ appears to the people in the Americas, at the temple Bountiful, he asks them to come forth and touch his wounds. Why his wounds? Usually we think to prove, as evidence, that He is who He says He is. But what about this--what if he wanted them to feel his weakness, his humaneness and scars, so that we might know that it's OK for us to be the same? " I think he calls us all to touch the woundedness in Him, and in ourselves, so that we can be one with Him. REAL INTIMACY COMES THROUGH SHARED WEAKNESSES, NOT STRENGTHS; OTHERWISE, HE'D HAVE US FEEL HIS BICEPS, NOT HIS WOUNDS."

Some people seem to be more open. More open to my pain, more open to feeling and hearing and experiencing it with me. While others turn away because it is "too hard for them." Do you know how much it means to have someone acknowledge your pain? Through an awakening of what this would mean in their own lives. It makes the pain so much less in vain. Does this mean we go around being negative and only speaking of our weaknesses? No. It's about honesty. And openness. It's about being real. Including celebrating our blessings. We may be making someone feel unnecessarily isolated because we choose not to share our weaknesses in appropriate ways.

We may be causing our fellow sisters or brothers to feel even MORE weak, when we turn away from their pain and show them only our "best selves". Do you agree with me? Take the example from this article about a Relief Society talent show, where women come and show their very best. Some may come away feeling diminished and alienated, like they don't measure up to other ladies in the ward. The activity of sharing strengths often produces feelings of personal insecurity and separation, if not downright competitiveness. (Church basketball with the men?)

But what about three or four of these same women in a Visiting Teaching moment...sharing some tender moments of the grief of losing a child, a failed marriage, a wayward teenager, a fractured testimony. Has this happened to you? You've wept a bit with your sisters and come away feeling a closer bond, feeling the wounds of a fellow sister, and had a connection, warmth, and uplift perhaps not possible from the talent show. Again, Terrence Smith says, "I think there was something about touching Jesus' woundedness that built a Zion culture in ways that touching His strengths would not have done."

--Personal thoughts from another blog... as well as quotes she gave from Dr. Terrence C. Smith

AHAHAHAHA!!

A boy and his dog

No, this is not one of my sons, but I'm sure it would be just as sweet if it were. :o)

Look how intense the dog looks? Way too cute!

Who Knew??

WHO KNEW THIS???

Have you ever rented or borrowed a car and when arriving at the gas station wondered...mmm, which side is the gas filler cap? My normal solution was to stick my head out the window, strain my neck and look, try to see in the side mirrors or even get out of the car! Well ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to share with you my little secret so you will no longer look like Ace Ventura on your way to the gas station or put your neck at risk of discomfort or injury. If you look at your gas gauge, you will see a small icon of a gas pump? The handle of the gas pump will extend out on either the left or right side of the gas pump? If your tank is on the left, the handle will be on the left? If your tank is on the right, the handle will be on the right (see photo). It is that simple!

Don't feel dumb, just go out and share the world's best kept auto secret with your friends.