Thatcher Gets His First Snowmachine...

and it's just what he was hoping it would be!

Thatcher Turns Three!!

It's A Pool Party!

Thatcher Turns Three!!

Christmas In Sunny Arizona

We spent Christmas in Phoenix this year with the Morris Covey! We had a great time and Santa Claus found us even without snow! Thatcher must have been a good boy because he got exactly what he asked for, a green motorcycle. Wow!!

And Finally The Christmas Card Picture...

...that unfortunately or fortunately, I'm not sure which, never made it in the mail. Maybe next year we'll find time for cards?

Halloween...

A little late as usual. I never have much time to myself. But I couldn't resist sharing some of the happenings of our Halloween festivities! We started out at the pumpkin patch picking out the perfect pumpkin!

Next we went to Gardner Village with Gram, Bomp, and the Johnsons. We celebrated Ann Marie's birthday and experienced "Ride to a Witch." It was a lot of fun. Thatcher painted witchy toenails, made witch's brew, and poisoned apples!

Halloween Party at Gram & Bomp's House

We finished up with a great time at Gram & Bomp's house. Kricket, Tom, Annie, Max, Gram, Bomp, Stephen & Cari all helped us celebrate this spooky night! We went trick-or-treating and could not have asked for better weather. It was beautiful! We didn't even wear jackets! That does NOT happen in the Burg'. Then we went back to the house and had a very spooky and delicious feast! Thanks everyone!

Click here to view this photo book larger

FOURTH OF JULY

A little late... (slideshow below)

Paul's 29th Birthday!!

CATCH-UP

I haven't updated in quite some time. I was looking at my most recent pictures and couldn't decide which to blog about so here's a collage of the latest and greatest!!

Total Stud


Our Little Cowboy

Boots, a Diaper, and your Tricycle

Kiana, Dono, and Thatch

Lunch with Sister Morris

Happy Mother's Day

I love you MOM!! Happy Mother's Day! I am so so blessed to have my mom. I must have done something really great to be able to choose Mary Ann to be my mom!! I wanted to share this little article that reminded me so much of her! It is from the Real Simple magazine. Authors wrote little articles about "what they thought was really worth their time." One of them reminded me so much of my mom! Read on...
GORGEOUS!


Springing the kids from school for the day
Every so often, I like to surprise my kids by taking them out of school. I don't keep them home, because half the pleasure is in the act of liberation. I send them off to school, same as always, then show up an hour or two later and march them out like Moses and the Israelites.
I take them out to lunch and, over their toxic fast food of choice, tell them I missed them and that I just wanted to hang out with them. I ask them to name the best and worst things about school this year and what they're most looking forward to. We are all partners in crime here, shirking our responsibilities as one, and it's incredible how a small whiff of the illicit can open up new lines of communication. Every half hour or so, I check my watch and ask them what they'd be doing if they were in school. You'd be amazed at how many times you can do this before it gets old.
As lunch draws to a close, I affect an air of exaggerated nonchalance as I tell them to leave room for snacks at the movie. As I watch their faces light up, it's easy to remember why I became a parent in the first place. I make sure to drive past school on our way to the multiplex, even if it's not exactly on our way; the other direction, actually, but worth the detour. We turn up the radio and sing along loudly, because today we're all too cool for school.
At the theater, they can buy whatever snacks they want. Today there are no rules. No penny-pinching, no sugar-monitoring. I hold their hands (my son is 11, and I know one day soon he won't let me), pat their backs, refrain from correcting grammar or indulging in any form of parental instruction. My kids are not the only ones on break today.
Family life is built around routine. It has to be, to some extent. But the danger of routine is that it often becomes, well, routine, and we all run the risk of becoming part of the furniture. Torching the script every now and then shows my kids that I love them for the people who they are while at the same time pulling back the parental curtain to reveal the big kid pulling the strings. Something as quotidian as sharing the simple joy of an empty movie theater in the middle of the day can go a long way toward reminding parent and child alike that even though we're all supposed to be someplace else, there's no place we belong more.
-By Jonathan Tropper (Real Simple Magazine, April 2010)

I can remember my mom doing exactly this. She, and a lot of times my dad, would show up unexpected and take me out of school just because. We would do lunch, go on a scenic drive, Jackson Hole, or whatever. I thought I was on top of the world. What? Leaving school just because? It made me feel soooo IMPORTANT! Or if I was sad or having a bad day my mom would take me out shopping. It really made me feel so much better knowing that no matter what anyone else thought or said or did at school, my mom loved me and thought I was great and that's all that really mattered anyway!! Thanks mom! I am so blessed to have you as my mom!

Mother's Day Quotes

Abraham Lincoln
~ "Everything I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother."

Russel M. Nelson“During my professional career as a doctor of medicine, I was occasionally asked why I chose to do that difficult work. I responded with my opinion that the highest and noblest work in this life is that of a mother. Since that option was not available to me, I thought that caring for the sick might come close. I tried to care for my patients as compassionately and competently as Mother cared for me.
Many years ago the First Presidency issued a statement that has had a profound and lasting influence upon me. “Motherhood,” they wrote, “is near to divinity. It is the highest, holiest service to be assumed by mankind. It places her who honors its holy calling and service next to the angels.
Because mothers are essential to God’s great plan of happiness, their sacred work is opposed by Satan, who would destroy the family and demean the worth of women.” Russell M. Nelson, “Our Sacred Duty to Honor Women,” Ensign, May 1999, 38

President Gordon B. Hinckley
“Most of you are mothers, and very many of you are grandmothers and even great-grandmothers. You have walked the sometimes painful, sometimes joyous path of parenthood. You have walked hand in hand with God in the great process of bringing children into the world that they might experience this estate along the road of immortality and eternal life. It has not been easy rearing a family. Most of you have had to sacrifice and skimp and labor night and day. As I think of you and your circumstances, I think of the words of Anne Campbell, who wrote as she looked upon her children:

You are the trip I did not take;
You are the pearls I cannot buy;
You are my blue Italian lake;
You are my piece of foreign sky.
(“To My Child,” quoted in Charles L. Wallis, ed., The Treasure Chest [1965], 54)

You [mothers] are the real builders of the nation wherever you live, for you have created homes of strength and peace and security. These become the very sinew of any nation.” Gordon B. Hinckley, “Women of the Church,” Ensign, Nov 1996, 67

The Easter Bunny Found Us...

We had a great Easter/Conference weekend! Thatcher was hilarious looking for Easter eggs and talking about the Easter bunny for days afterward. Paul and I got a little carried away with the hunt and we hid enough eggs for 10 kids instead of one. Ooops! We are now fighting the urge to fill ourselves with chocolate between each meal!
Thatcher is talking more and more everyday. I think he thinks he is an adult. He talks to Paul and I as if he's right on our level.
For example:
Thatcher:"Mom?"
Me: "Yeah"
Thatcher: "Should we go to WalMart?"
Me: "I don't know, should we?"
Thatcher: "Yeah. It be fun, yeah, let's do it mom! Ready? Go?"
He is definitely the best part of our day! I am so grateful we can be a family forever! What an amazing blessing and knowledge we have in our lives.







Homemade Easter Goodies


Too Much Fun


Our April Fool's Day:

Piano Remodel

I am now the lucky owner of the family pass around piano. In fact this very weekend my dad was lamenting about Aunt Laurel's request to have the piano in her 3rd floor apartment. Uncle Stephen and my dad had to carry it up three flights of stairs. Then after Laurel was done with it, back to Burg' it went, and now here it is back in Utah. It definitely needed a serious facelift.