This past week....

Hey guys! It's Emmy:)  This past week was pretty fun!  Kiley's family was out of town the whole week for their Spring Break, so I stayed with her at her house and we had sooo much fun!  We watched a ton of movies, made real cute running shirts and made a whole bunch of awesome cookies!  Later in the week, me and one of my other friends went to the show Warm Bodies...Sooo good!!!  As long as you don't mind a bit of gore...it is about Zombies and I will warn you, they do show him eating a guys brain...Pretty nasty, but necessary for the plot.  I highly recommend seeing it:)
Last night was the last night of work at Lee's for the only other girl that I work with... It was so sad!!! We've known each other through school, FFA and the county fair, but we became best friends when we worked together! This picture is of me and her after we got off at almost 1 in the morning and some of the guys thought it would be fun to have a doughnut fight with the leftovers...so sad to not have my partner in crime with me anymore!! 

Today, I was at home and watched conference with the fam, whilst mom made some suuuuuper good food!! Reason number 323545 why I love conference: Strawberry Trifle cake and French Toast Casserole!!

Love you guys!!!

I didn't write last week either! Easter was just too much fun to find a computer, I guess? We had soooo much fun spending the weekend out at mom's! Stori felt very loved from all her cousins. The second she would walk out from a nap, the older girls would stop what they were playing with to take her on some new adventure! I didn't have to watch her once! :) Thanks older cousins! And a big thanks to the weather for being AMAZING! I sure love a good summer walk around lewisville, and especially love a good porch-sitting-weekend!
Stori absolutely LOVED finding her eggs. She didn't want to stop looking for them. The only bummer part is that she doesn't like candy so I filled her eggs with some goldfish and marshmallows. (we actually considered tomatoes). She still has one egg that she brought home and asks for marshmollows to go inside. :)
On wednesday we had the exciting news that we were having another GIRL!!!! Dan was hoping for a boy, but was very happy to have another little stori running around. I'm so excited to be able to dress another little girl in all of Stori's clothes. They will be the same season for all the clothes and I can't wait to get out those newborn outfits again!!!! {The pics from that day are on our other blog. Already deleted them}
Dan was excited to go so Jurassic Park in theaters for the 6th time. He went 5 times in the theaters 20 years ago with his mom, and then went again with some friends just friday! He's such a dork! :)

We spent conference at home in our sweats-- it was glorious. Stori actually watched a lot of it while cuddling with us. We loved all of the sessions so much. It felt very strange to think about conference 5 years ago. Dan is nice to let me tell him hundreds of stories over and over. it's crazy that he never met Dad. Stori acts like she knew him for years! She always points out "papa" in all the pictures of him even if we don't ask. it's very sweet.
My calling got QUITE busy because we had 4 girls in our ward have their babies this weekend and one last weekend. One of them wasn't due until june 28th, but her twins came early. I am the one in charge of getting meals for these moms. Do the math; 5 girls and a week of meals. Now try getting people in the ward to volunteer while it's finals/graduation/moving week! It's been tough.
Quick facts: I am now 21 weeks! And Stori calls me "Melnanie." yep! says it so perfectly too. I think it was being around all the nieces and nephews! :)

20 weeks! HALF WAY!

eating the mallows

she followed this cat around on her hands and knees; under tables, around chairs, down the stairs, etc.

A very blue easter morn. :)

Happy Easter and Conference week everyone!  We didn't post last weekend, but below are our Easter Sunday pictures, among lots of others.  We have had a fabulous week here with Grandma Faylene.  We don't want to let her go back tomorrow.  We spent time at the Dallas Arboretum which was beautiful!  We spent all afternoon there, just wandering and lazing on the incredible grass and enjoying all the pretty flowers.  The weather was perfect.  We took mom out to eat at Saltgrass, and another night she tried sushi!  We spent lots of time just relaxing, and chasing the kids around.  It was so fun to have Faylene go everywhere with me and see where the kids do their stuff.  We tried to watch movies at night.  The picture of Corey and Faylene asleep was taken at 9:30 pm.  I came up to join them and found them zonked!  We've loved conference.  The messages were so good.  We had no internet or cable this morning, so we couldn't get conference on any device except the iphone.  So we plugged it into speakers and gathered round the tiny phone:)  At least we stayed awake that session, sitting on barstools in the kitchen.  It was fixed by the afternoon and we cozied into the theatre room again.  This video is of Hazel reading, pretty cute.  Most of it is very purposeful chatter, but she has learned her letters and sounds from that silly amazing Leap and Lily DVD:)  Saturday Clara had her first basketball game ever, and she did great!  She had lots of fun.   Clara and Isaac also had piano festival on Saturday. They've been practicing hard.  Hope everyone has a great week.  We love to read everyone's posts!  miss you all!  

                                                                     Beautiful Mom!

                                                              Mom and beautiful Corey

Frosting cookies during conference today!

                                                                  Sushi!  Wahoo!!!

                                              Keep in mind, this was 8:30pm Idaho time:)

 All tuckered out at the Arboretum.  Don't know how many more times I'll get to hold my baby as she falls asleep, so I soaked in every second:)

                                     Fixing her hair so pretty.  Our Grandma from whoville;)

                                   Thanks to Dan, Corey has his guns!  Thanks Uncle Dan!

                                                Watching conference on the big screen!

Maddie and Grandma.  So very level headed:)  Same height exactly!

                              Last week Clara dyed and decorated an egg to look like President Monson. She's been waiting all week to take a picture of her egg next to him giving his talk in conference:)

Spring break

Hello everyone!
Last weekend was really fun! We went to Idaho and participated in the annual Easter egg hunt.

Josh took the kids on a ride behind the mower and they LOVED it! Except Miles, he was a little scared and Stori was undecided.

I learned it is very difficult to hunt for specific eggs with Miles and Tommy.  Luckily Maizy helped T and it worked out. By the time we came back it was time for Joel to come home! Unluckily for him…it was April fools day. The girls had big plans. They like to give “the chills” with the “ten knives in your back blood is dripping down, crack an egg on your head, let the yolk run down” ….etc. Well this summer Maizy did it but she blew the egg out and filled it with water (I made her take most of it out) and she smashed it on Joel’s head when she was giving him “the chills”. He really thought it was egg and they were screaming with laughter. She wanted to do it again but actually use a real egg. I said I couldn’t tell her that was okay but she wanted to do it anyway. Millie wanted to screw a concrete screw into the top of his head after Maizy smashed the egg. I told her no way on that one, so she settled for making him close his eyes and taste a pickle. Joel almost got mad when he realized the egg was real and even kind of tasted the pickle. He is a good Dad!

 Ken came and tore the whole garage down with his little Bobcat! It was pretty impressive. He is going to use the trusses and garage door, so I don’t feel so guilty about him doing that hard work.

 We FINALLY dug! We now have footings and the garage is down! Joel also put another outside door in our room (as if one wasn't more than enough) with a window in it. This is the door for the new location. I LOVE being able to see the yard without the garage in the way! Two Mom’s came with a whole brood of little kids and took load after load of cinder blocks away, literally thousands of pounds. One wanted to make a wall in her yard for years but didn’t have the money for the cinderblocks and the other one wanted to put a little two foot wall around a flower garden. That worked out well for us but now we have to figure out something to do with the thousands of lbs of footings and foundation! We have been without a furnace for a week and a half. We have just been using our fireplace (which actually works really well, it is still above 70 in our house in the morning). We are almost out of wood though so hopefully the inspector can come tomorrow and Questar can come hook us back up or we might get really cold! Like when we came home from Salt Lake! (there is a hair dryer in there with them)

We went to Salt Lake on Saturday and stayed at Little America again which the kids just LOVE and came home today. We listened to afternoon conference on the way down, shopped at Target, swam, ate (at Hires, YUM!), swam and did very little sleeping, ate breakfast in our room, swam and drove home during the morning session of conference. It worked out great and was a fun little spring break activity. Here is a hazard of having the same swimsuit as your sister who is not the same size as you. (I should clarify, they accidentally put on the wrong swim suit and it took them a minute to realize Maizy's was WAY too small and Millies was WAY too big!)

I found these cute little notes from Maizy and Millie to each other in the hotel.

This little guy...oh man. We call him Tommy Tornado but he gets mad and says "NO, I not a tornado, I'm a balcano!" We walked into the swimming pool and Joel and I were putting our shoes away and I was watching him closely and saw his walk over to the edge of the pool. I saw a man and his wife look at each other and I think she told him to watch him. I couldn't believe what I saw him do. He got really close to the edge and then put his hands up and bounce a couple of times as he was ready to jump in! I saw a look of panic on the man's face. I yelled and he came back. We went into the pool and the man said laughing "he was going to jump!" I just had to say "I know" and shake my head. I don't know what to do with our little bolcano!

Havasu Happenings

We've had a fun week with my mom and dad here.  They left to go home early this morning and are probably enjoying some quiet time after being around all of our noisy, rambunctious, boys all week.  It was so nice to have them here.  I don't know what I'm going to do without my mom here to help out with the kids, cooking, and cleaning.  We might just have to have Ramen Noodles for dinner and a messy house for a little while- ha, ha!  My mom asked me lastnight- "Are you going to be okay?"  I jokingly said- "If you hear a story on the news about a mom in Lake Havasu who went crazy, you'll know it was me." :)   

Ryder had his 2-week check up on Monday.  He weighed 11 lbs., 7 oz., so he's gained almost 2 pounds in 2 weeks!  We love our little chunky monkey!!  Levi has a little cough and we think he got Ryder sick because he's been stuffed up the last couple of nights- poor little guy :(   Can't believe he's already 3 weeks old now!!  My how the time flies!

Levi is fearless sometimes. We decided to go with a 6 ft. fence instead of a 5 ft. fence because we thought for sure the kids wouldn't try to climb that high.  Well- a few days after the fence was up our door-bell rang, and guess who it was???  Yep- little Levi had climbed up and over the fence and ran around to the front door!!  I guess we're going to have to get those privacy slats so he won't be able to climb- the little stinker! 

Max is loving being back in preschool after being off for spring break.  His backpack, which had mysteriously disappeared, re-appeared today and he was so excited!!  He said "Mom- I have to show you something!"  He took me in his room over to the closet and said "It was hiding in the closet!"

Jon needs a haircut (along with the rest of the boys) and has been spending a lot of time in the bathroom combing his hair. 

Taylor made the local newspaper this past week.  He was the only 6th grader in his whole school to get straight A's this past quarter!!

Jen is slowly adjusting to having a new baby around again- spending most of the day (and night) nursing and the rest of the day trying to keep Levi and Max from squishing their new little brother- they just love him soooooo much! :) 

Tyler is anxious for Summer Break!  Only 7 more weeks!  He's enjoying being a new dad again is doing a great job at helping out while I'm in recovery/no sleep mode.  We went to the Wrestling Banquet Monday night and the wrestlers all pitched in and got plaques for the coaches which was pretty neat.  They had a little farewell for the Head Coach who announced that this was his last year coaching.  Everyone kept asking Tyler if he was going anywhere.  It was really neat to see how Tyler interacted with the wrestlers and how much they look up to him.  He actually put his name in for the Head Wrestling Coach position a couple months ago.  He hasn't heard back yet, but is hoping to get the position.

Wish we could have been in Idaho this weekend to spend time with the family.  Can't believe it's been 5 years now since we were all gathered at the homestead in Lewisville and Bridget came running in to be with everyone.  Sometimes it seems like it was just yesterday.  Thankful for the knowledge of eternal life and that we have the opportunity to be with our loved ones who have passed on again someday. 

(From Tyler)  It's hard to believe it has been 5 years since Dad finished time here on earth.  I have really felt him close the last couple weeks.  The veil is still really thin for little Ryder and every time he smiles or giggles in his sleep we just assume he is with his grandpa.  Every time I sit in our chair and hold him he always stares very intently at the picture of dad.  There is hardly a day that passes that i don't think of dad, and I constantly strive to be the kind of dad he was.   

We hope everyone enjoyed conference as much as we did and that we can all take what we learned and strive to be better.  Hope everyone has a good week!  Oh- and congrats Mel and Dan on another little girl on the way!  So fun!

NEVERENDING FUN WITH THE FAMILY=EXHAUSTION

It is almost midnight, but I wanted to post a little bit.  Tomorrow I am flying to Texas for a week.  I am really excited, but very tired.  Once again, a very long week at work... then family fun for the whole weekend .  Of course everyone couldn't be here, but those who came, all seemed to have an enjoyable time!  Aleisa and her four youngest came Friday night and left Saturday afternoon.  Josh, Amanda and their four, Megan and her four,  Dan and Melanie and their one and Sherlene were all here  for the Easter Egg Hunt and dinner today.   The weather cooperated beautifully!!!!!  We also had Melanie and Dan's friends come last minute to hunt Easter Eggs, and we can't forget Chayton....:)  he was here, so we put together some eggs and a basket for him.   After Sac. meeting,  Megan chatted with Dorothy and Wade and invited them to dinner.  It was so much fun.  We had a really yummy meal, while basking in the warm sun!  I plan on having a wonderful week and hope you all do the same!   XOXOXO

Hey Y'all!

It's me!!  This week was uneventful...until today!! Yesterday (Saturday) I got off work at 5 and came home to see the family.  At midnight, Kiley called me to see if I could help her write her talk for church.  So I drove to Smithfield and I was their until 4 A.M. helping her write her talk (and talking quite a bit as well).  I then drove home and fell asleep at about 5:30.  I woke up with the kids to see what the Easter bunny had brought at 7:00 and then I got ready for church.  I drove into Logan to go to a farewell, then drove the Clarkston to hear Caleb speak (he did way good!), then drove to Smithfield to hear Kiley and her family speak in church, then drove home for the usual Easter festivities.  Then, about an hour ago, I got a call from one of the kids that I work with saying that Lee's had flooded and that he was on his way to help clean up.  So me and Daph got in the car and started driving towards Smithfield when he called me and said that they didn't need me because it was already almost cleaned up!  Later tonight I will be driving back to my apartment.  Thus far, today I have driven 149.6 miles!  But that's pretty much the only exciting day I've had this week!!
I love you guys and I'm real sad that I couldn't be there for the Easter egg hunt!! 

Love, Emmy:)