Sydney's Dream

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My Dancing Elvin Hoties

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The Dancing Elf Boys

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Happy Birthday, Emily!

It's hard to realize that 19 years has passed. Thinking through the years and all that has happened ... dark brown hair, little goat cry, smiling, waiting for her to grow to fit into all those cute outfits I got at the baby shower, long nights, rocking back and forth on hands and knees knowing that it would soon turn into a crawl, teething, walking, running, holding her bottle in her mouth as she would run and play, hot dogs and cheese, talking, putting grasshoppers into her mouth and freaking her mother out, mischevious little smiles, sleeping in the laundry basket, first talk in primary, bunkbeds, preschool, projects, fun songs, long brown hair, kindergarten, reading, flirting with cute boys at such a young age, adored by teachers, baptism, braces, loving outdoors, climbing, hiking, middle school, saxophone, friends, young women, girls camp, activities, growing up, jazz band, "organized mess", high school, dances, dating, taller than mom, high jump, Aspen Ridge, Young Womanhood, blessings, driving, job, football games, track, grades, leadership opportunities, beautiful young woman, graduation, college ... yes, it really does seem that fast. Thank you for all the good times, Emily! You add so much to our lives and our family! You are beautiful! We love you!

4th Folder ... 4th Picture ...

This is what you do…..You go to your pictures area on your computer and pick the 4th folder and 4th picture and then explain it!

This picture was taken in February 2006.

Mike and I were on a cruise ship leaving for the Eastern Caribbean.

This is looking at Miami. Fun times!

Fall Break!

It was so nice to be out for Fall Break! We worked so much outside and got a lot done. I think our yard is just about winterized. I still need to get rid of our junk pile on the side of the house and the pile of stuff in the garden and then it will be ready. The kids were great and helped so much! We were able to get the garden all cleaned out. They pulled out all the tomato plants and raked and picked up tomatoes. It was a big job. We also pulled out some bushes and a tree. One of the bushes was pretty big and the kids had fun jumping on it trying to get the branches to break. The funny thing was Joshua thought he saw a snake and wouldn't go near it after that. The kids thought it was fun to put the branches in the junk pile. When I finally got the trunk dug up from the big bush, they all gave me a cheer! I couldn't believe how hard that thing was to get out, but I finally conquered it after a lot of ax swinging and digging. It made me think about our testimonies and how they should be anchored in Christ. That bush always had water because it was right by the sprinkler and from where it was planted it always had light. Both light and water have reference to Christ and it just made me think we should be that firm in our testimonies. It took a lot of effort to get it out and hopefully if our testimonies are secure and we keep drinking from the well of living water and seeking the light, our roots will continue to grow even deeper so Satan will have no power to uproot or sever. :::my deep thought for the day::: We also did various othe things over the weekend, but the yard was the main focus. Thanks to my kids for all their hard work! Next weekend I think we'll play!!

31 Questions

Here are the rules:
I have to answer the following questions with one word answers and one word only!
Then I must pass it on to seven others.
Here are the questions:

1. Where is your cell phone? Purse
2. Where is your significant other? Work
3. Your hair color? Brown
4. Your mother? Loving
5. Your father? Heaven
6. Your favorite thing? Family
7. Your dream last night? Mike
8. Your dream/goal? Exaltation
9. The room you're in? Kitchen
10. Your hobby? Kids
11. Your fear? Heights
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Progressing
13. Where were you last night? Sleeping
14. What you're not? Fancy
15. One of your wish-list items? ?
16. Where you grew up? Ogden
17. The last thing you did? Eat
18. What are you wearing? Jeans
19. Your TV? Works
20. Your pet? None
21. Your computer? Works
22. Your mood? Mello
23. Missing someone? Dad
24. Your car? Burb
25. Something you're not wearing? Hat
26. Favorite store? Macey's
27. Your summer? Amazing
28. Love someone? Mike
29. Your favorite color? Purple
30. When is the last time you laughed? Today
31. Last time you cried? Morning

TAGGING:Whoever wants to give it a try!

More about me!

Here goes...


JOYS:

1. Being with my family!!

2. The Gospel

3. Date night


FEARS:

1. The woods at night by myself without a flashlight

2. Driving off the edge of a road into water with all my kids in the car and not be able to get out

3. Heights


GOALS:

1. Getting our yard ready for winter/ finish painting what we started 3 years ago. lol!

2. Read Book of Mormon by the end of the year

3. Cleaning out my filing cabinet/downstairs/closets


CURRENT OBSESSIONS/COLLECTIONS:

1. I love eating my oatmeal cereal every morning.

2. I love to collect recipes and recipe books

3. Water! It will fix what ails you. lol!


FACTS:

1. Mike has asked me twice now if I have messed up his computer. lol!

2. The roast, potatoes and gravy we ate after church today was out of this world!!!

3. I have an opened bag of chocolate chips in the kitchen closet that I'm dying to eat, but I'm trying to have some sort of self control.

~Julia~


Tagging: Aimee, KoriAnn & Mary

This past week ...

First of all, the kids started school today. I'm so sad to see summer come to an end. I missed them all so much while they were at school. They all seemed to like their teachers and classes. Here is a picture of my handsome boys this morning. The girl's escaped before I could take their picture!

Last week we got our apricot leather done. I did it a little different this year. When we picked the apricots, the weather wasn't all that good. So, the boys helped me get all the apricots cleaned, pitted, and ground up. At this point, I usually set it out on the tables to dry, but because of the weather, I froze it. A couple weeks later, I let it thaw and put it out to dry. It turned out great! Here are some pictures of the leather. I actually got 4 tables full of the stuff! After all that hard work ... a week later, it's just about gone!











Here is Nate with a sheet of it!

And the boys rolling it up and putting in bags.





My beautiful girls decided to have a play day in Salt Lake. They had so much fun shopping and hanging out together. They wanted to do one big sister thing before Em left for school.

Happy Tagging!

Thanks Emily!!

The Rules:
• Link the person(s) who tagged you.
• Mention the rules on your blog.
• Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours.
• Tag 6 fellow bloggers by linking them.
• Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger’s blogs letting them know they’ve been tagged!

- I love to vacuum! It's my favorite household chore!

- When I start a project, I like to finish it! I like to get things done in one sitting. If I'm doing something and have to stop or put away my project to finish later. It really bugs!

- I'm somewhat of a germ freak! I'm always telling my kids to wash their hands and it's the first thing I do when I walk into the house from going somewhere.

- Oatmeal is my comfort food!

- I love chunky sandals/shoes! I wish I had 50 pair! I'm always looking through the Sierra Trading Post catalog to see if there are any good deals on Keen.

- I like to work outside in the garden and flower beds. I like to weed and beautify my surroundings and make sure my flower friends are all happy. Most of the time they are. Sometimes, I don't get to them like I should and they start to droop ... like the three plants I have sitting under my deck. They have been sitting there since the beginning of June ... just waiting for a home. My tub in the front yard is waiting too. I'm going to plant flowers in it after I pull out the tree in the flower bed. Also, I'm planning to pull out a couple big bushes, but haven't done it yet. Funny thing about me and plants/flowers. Whenever Mike gives me flowers, I keep them until they are absolutely and positively dead. I feel bad throwing them away. So, I keep them until almost all the pedals have fallen off. I had a couple potted plants downstairs ... I had these things for years and they were starting to get buggy and not look well. So, I still kept them because they were plants and all and I just couldn't throw them out. Well, one day I had it ... and I tossed them. It was in the winter so the poor things went into the freezing garbage can. No joke ... the next day we watched Mythbusters and it was about how plants have feelings. I just about cried!

~Julia~

I tag Emily S, Mayme, and Jenn N!

Well this has been a pretty uneventful week. We are looking forward to Aimee coming back home from Aspen Ridge on Saturday. It will be fun to have a full house for a week or so and then Emily is off to college.

We have been watching the Olympics the last few days. Julia's favorite event is Syncronized Swimming. She was trying to convince Sydney that it is a cool sport but Sydney just giggled and said that it was goofy. It was much easier for Mike to convert the kids to the sport of Beach Volleyball.

Sydney went on a backpacking trip Wednesday to Saturday with her grandfather, uncle, aunt, a couple cousins and another family. They were going to go to the Windrivers but there was a fire in the area they were going to go to so they changed to the Sawtooth Mountains. It was either raining or swarms of mosquitos were attacking so they came home a day early. She did have a great time though.

Julia went to a Relief Society activity on Friday and Saturday. We gathered at Sister Taylor's in-laws home and camped in their backyard. It was a great location! Thank you Taylor's for being so hospitable and allowing us to campout in your backyard and use your flushable toilet! We had a wonderful speaker, Bishop McKay. He was my Seminary teacher back in the day. It was great to see him and his wife! We had a delicious dutch oven dinner. We also brought white elephant gifts. Holy cow! That was fun! We laughed and laughed and Sister LaRose kept trying to make everyone steal someone elses gift. Luckily, Jamie got her paint! ;-) We then played games until late in the night. It was so much fun and we learned some fun things about some of the sisters in our ward. We also roasted marshmellows! Yum! After that I went to bed. I couldn't find a spot in a tent so I slept under the stars on my matress. Thank heavens for air bed matresses. Sister West and Sister Higgs joined me a couple hours later. We had a delicious Mountain Man Dutch Oven Breakfast. Thank you Schroeder's! Then we made some fun necklaces out of dried up potatoes. lol! I can just see Ali and Britt reading this and thinking ... dried up potatoes?! lol! It was a great time and all of our sisters are just so much fun to be around. Thank you everyone for a wonderful time!

Being some of the older folks in our LDS Ward we have been harassed, cajoled, encouraged, made fun of, felt bad for, etc., because we did not have a blog. We have taken a large leap and finally are ‘Bloggers’. We are not sure our life is exciting enough to warrant a blog, but here we go.

This year marks 20 years of wedded bliss for us. We also have the milepost of our oldest daughter Emily heading off to BYU this fall. It seems like just yesterday Julia was saying ‘no’ when Mike asked her to marry him and yet here we are. (Obviously he was able to change her mind with his suave wit.) Someday we might bring you up to speed on the last 20 years but for now here are the last few days.

Friday was Mike’s Client Appreciation Pool Party. It’s in its third year with much success! We had a lot of fun visiting with family, friends, people we don’t know very much (except Mike … he knows them pretty well since he did their loans) and eating lots of food and snow cones. The little kids loved the Rubber Ducky Derby (little rubber duckies float around the lazy river … the first one around wins!) and the older kids loved the Twinkie Eating Contest! I think Jeremiah West still holds the top Twinkie eating count at 15! We all had a great time! And … if you’re thinking this sounds fun and want to come next year, talk to Mike about a mortgage or a re-fi, he’d be glad to help you and we’d be glad to see you at next year’s pool party!!

Saturday was spent putting things away and cleaning. The boys have recently got into Pokémon. Brandon got a deck of Pokémon cards for his birthday awhile ago. They have been playing non-stop for the past couple of days so we went to Target and found another deck. They were so excited!

Today being Sunday; it is the lovely day of rest. Emily takes that literally! She sleeps all day long. The Bishop came into Relief Society today and commanded us to start a blog. Ha! Ha! Just kidding, Bishop! Although, Elder Ballard did mention it in last month’s Ensign. So, we are doing our part to share the gospel with our family and friends via the Internet.

Also, a dear, dear friend of ours passed away this week. Our dear friend and sister, Barbara Cozort. She was in the Mount Lewis 5th Ward. She was our sacrament Grandma when Mike was Bishop in that ward when all my kids were little. She helped when Nate spilled water all down the front of me while Mike just laughed from the stand. She helped bounce Brandon on her knee when he was fussy. She brought quiet toys for the kids to play with. She made the girls gifts. Every week she was there. She was amazing! We will miss her sweet, loving example. For now, we know her spirit is in heaven and look forward to the day when we will meet again.