After Three Years, We Finally Got Family Photos

This was my Valentine's gift from Michael and my Christmas gift from My mother and father in law! Otherwise I would never get family pictures taken because I have so many excuses: Not enough money, I have to lose weight, Michael is a brat about getting his picture taken,ect...

I am glad to have them done. I have learned more about what I want in pictures and what I would do differently for the next time. I know that I will not wait so long for the next family photo.

"Time Of My Life" Watching American Idol

I watched the American Idol finale last night (to my husband's disgust. He thinks it's worthless junk that rots braincells!) and was totally surprised by this piece in the show. I was waiting for Gladys to perform but no THIS was TONS better!!!

This is fo sho one of my all time favorite songs! Add SUPER SEXY Jack Black to the mix, plus Ben Stiller and Robert Downey Jr. and you have the best Pips EVER! This skit cracked me up! I seriously PEED my pants laughing and I was rolling on the floor busting a gut...not a good mix eew!

(remember to pause the music player at the bottom)

AND... the best part of the night...

Who would have thought!?!? I am impressed that Simon apologized to David Cook. How about Cook's performance with ZZ Top... FIERCE! I was expecting innocent little David Archuleta to take but I really really wanted David Cook to win since the very beginning! I was SHOCKED when he did!!! It's about time that a rocker took America Idol!

What a great way to waste my time!

Mother's Day Flowers!

Michael and the babies surprised me with a ton of beautiful flowers Saturday for Mother's Day and I was really impressed with the thought he put into it. He always does something but this year he involved the kids. They each got to pick out their favorite flower and we planted them together. It felt good to get my hands dirty and watch the kids dig and organize the flowers and throw away all of the containers.

The actual Mother's DAY wasn't anything too special. We did have some very thoughtful people relieve us in nursery so the we could go to Relief Society. I felt kind of out of place but really enjoyed the little break. After church I snuck in a small nap and the aftermath was minimal just a box of Girl Scout cookies devoured by the kids and a couch cushion fort. They did stay VERY quiet for me!

They Say It's Your Birthday! Happy Birthday To Ya!

This is my May-may! She was born on Mother's day two years ago! What an amazing experience it is to bring life into this world on such a special day! It was such a beautiful and sacred experience. I felt such an overwhelming power of the spirit comforting and witnessing to me the wonderful blessing of the calling of MOTHER!

So imagine my disgust with myself when I try to find pictures of May when she was a newborn and I can't find any because I don't have any! Our already crappy camera bit the dust right before she was born and I never got around to getting another one, not even a cheap disposable camera! I really loathe myself for not finding a way to take pictures of her at birth and her first few weeks! They change SO much during those first weeks! The picture above is the earliest I can find and she was about three months there. I shouldn't be so hard on myself. The month she was born I was packing up our house in Vernal and dealing with housing issues in Colorado. We had to be out of our house by the first of June but we had nowhere to stay in Colorado so the kids and I stayed in Kelly and Shawnie Reynold's basement for a couple of weeks until we wore out our welcome. Michael had been staying in a hotel in Glenwood Springs, CO on the weekdays so we decided that the kids and I would just stay with him there. We lived in a motel room for the rest of June and the first part of July. During that time my little May was sick with some mystery virus so we rarely left the room. That is FOUR little energy filled children cooped up in a little room! We had continental breakfast EVERY day! Madse's poop was multi colored because all of the Fruit Loops he ate in the lobby! Mike's company couldn't keep paying for a motel so we found a studio apartment up at Sunlight Mountain Resort and it had a kitchen! No more blasted Fruit Loop and eating out!

This was the view out of our back door! I didn't appreciate it at the time! I was too stressed about having all of us crammed into a studio apartment and waiting on some selfish woman who was unwilling to move out of the house that we had under contract because she was using it as leverage in her divorce settlement. So as a result of all of that stress, the first few months of May's life is a blur! The really pathetic thing about this is that I didn't buy a camera until after her first birthday so we don't even have pictures of her first birthday! Cue more self loathing!

So I wanted to redeem myself this birthday and make May May's 2nd birthday extra special! She wanted a Spongebob Squarepant birthday party. She is SO obsessed! She sings the song and pleads with me to watch it EVERYDAY! We had cake and ice cream and corn dogs for dinner! It was a hit with the kiddos! May opened presents and we played around together until bed time. This weekend we will celebrate with her cousins at Lagoon and with the Nash's on Sunday. I will definitely go overboard on pictures to ease the guilt I have, that I will always have.

Top Ten Reasons I Love My Maymers:

10~ She love to spank bums! She just goes around smacking every one's butt's and laughs!

9~She says "Tank you mom" all the time, even when I finish torturing her when I do her hair. She has these crocodile tears and whimpers "Tank you mom." Melt my heart!

8~She has no fear! Mike does these dreadful stunts with her that make my gut wrench and she giggles!

7~She LOVES off-roading with Michael. We are all getting tossed around the truck and I look back at her and she is clapping her hands and saying "agin, agin!"

6~ She sneaks into Ashley's bed every night!

5~ She loves to be outside! She stands by the front door with some one's shoes that are way to big for her as she pleads "outside, outside..."

4~She climbs into my lap when she is tired or just needs some love and says "Mom, song." and of course I sing to her. It makes me feel needed.

3~She lives to pester Madse. You think it would be the other way around but she gets him so rilded up!

2~ Her kisses take my breathe away...literally! she takes my face into her chubby little baby hands and lays one on me!

1~She keeps me on my toes! She is always doing something funny or naughty but no matter what she does it is guaranteed to make me so glad that I have her!

I hope when she gets older, she doesn't hold it against me that I don't have newborn pictures of her.

Mom, Grandpa Mark, Gram Betta if you have any pictures of May at birth PLEASE send them my way! I might be able to forgive myself if you have pictures!

German Pancakes~ Our Weekend Tradition

So puffy and delicious! We like to make these on lazy saturday mornings! It is one that the kids can easily help with!

You got to try this recipe!

Carolyn Squires' German Pancakes Recipe

8 eggs

1/2 c. milk

1 c. flour

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 cube butter or margarine

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. While oven is preheating, put 9x13 in baking dish into oven to melt 1/2 cube of butter. Meanwhile beat together milk, eggs, flour, and salt. When the butter is melted, pour the batter into the baking dish. Bake for about 20 minutes. Batter will crawl up the edges of the pan and form peaks. Serve with warm syrup, jam, or powdered sugar. It is also very tasty with fresh strawberries and whip topping.

Transfer Treats!

Ssshhh! Don't tell President!

Baker's one and only date on the mission ha ha!

>

He's shooting me in the head! The punk!

We had ten seconds to come up with a pose and I totally bombed! Baker thought that was pretty darn funny! Bailey's face is hilarious! They were up WAY past their bed time! It was our last night with Elder Baker so I made chocolate chip cookies and we made them into ice cream sandwiches. They were so good that health conscious Baker had seconds! We are really going to miss Baker! He is such a joker and was always pulling crap on me like telling me that the mission president said that missionaries were no longer to associate with me. That one scared the snot out of me! Such a funny guy!

I have this thing for missionaries. It's not like THAT, I promise! There is just something about having the missionaries in my home. The spirit that they bring is so powerful! The work that they do is amazing! I think it all started when my brother in law Macklin was on his mission in Chicago. I often wondered who was taking care of him and if he was being fed. He would send home pictures of families that helped him out and a lot of those families would write to his parents. I wanted to be one of those families that made mission life a little easier for these boys. My most selfish motive is that someday Madse will be on a mission and it will comfort me to know that someone is taking care of my boy like I am taking care of these boys!


We have had a lot of missionaries come and go. It breaks my little heart when I find out that the elders go without food. I have this open door policy and they know they can just show up and I will whip them up something to eat. It totally makes my day when they call and ask to borrow some peanut butter sandwiches. The only problem is that I get very attached and it is inevitable that they will leave me and move on to another area but they all seem to keep in touch! Which I love!

Here's a few more of my favorites!

Gardner and Muro!

Salinas!

Gardner's Wendy Song! Gardner has some mad guitar skills...well not really but he is very entertaining! Gardner is THE coolest!

Baker cut Madse's hair!

Bailey's 21st birthday

Oh That I Were An Angel

May 3rd is a day that will be indelibly imprinted upon my mind and heart for the rest of my life. It is the day that I lost my brother, nine years ago. I had gotten off work at Burgers Unlimited and was getting ready for bed. It was late, about eleven o'clock, and the phone rang. It was my mother. She asked us to come to the house and kept repeating the words "My baby, my baby!" We were told nothing and I assumed that one of my sisters had gotten hurt. As we drove across town, we speculated what it might be. When we arrived, all of the lights were still out except for a light in the living room. My mother was in hysterics and couldn't tell us anything. The only words that came out of her mouth were "My baby, my baby!" It was aggravating not knowing what had caused my parents to be so distressed. My father told us that a few minutes before my mom had called us that an officer showed up at their door with the devastating news of Rhonnie's death. He was on his way to his girlfriend's college graduation in Cedar City Utah. He had planned on taking the bus but a couple of guys that he had met in Boulder offered him a ride in a small plane owned by one of the guys. Just outside of Cedar City, they came into some bad weather. The pilot flew lower to get out of the clouds and crashed into the side of a hill, killing everyone instantly. That news just knocked me to the floor! I held my mother and we sat on the couch and wept. After a while, it had occurred to me that none of my sisters were awake. My mom said that she couldn't tell them, that she didn't have the strength to tell them. She asked me to wake them up and tell them. It is still so vivid in my mind how they each reacted. Nell was just dazed. It seemed like she had shut down. I don't remember her having any emotions at all that night. I went into Royeal's room and gently woke her. She didn't even want to get out of bed. I held her as we both cried. I asked her to come to the living room but she refused and said she would deal with it in the morning. I saved Rondee for the last because she was so young, just eight years old. How do you break such sad news to an eight year old? We all gathered in the living room and cried. By that time my grandma and grandpa Powell had arrived. My father gave each of us a blessing and I can remember the words of the blessing he gave to me. We prayed as a family and my sisters went back to sleep. My parents, Michael and I wept and talked till early the next morning.

Looking back on everything, I don't think I really started mourning for Rhonnie until long after his funeral. I had to stay strong for my parents and for my sisters. I was amazed at the lives that Rhon had affected. He left a piece of himself with every friend he made and to hear their stories of him was very comforting. I feel like each one of his friends is like a brother or sister to me for the time and the love that they shared with my brother. I will always be grateful for my wedding, because that is the last time we all saw him, the last pictures we had together. He was wearing glasses and underwear and we know that his girlfriend Lisa must be pretty amazing to inspire such change in him. He was one that was too free to be constrained by the any kind of limitations. I used to think he was so old but now that I am older I realize that he was just a child, a mere twenty two. My father and I got to see Rhonnie's body before it was prepared. That might seem pretty morbid but to me it was a very bittersweet experience.

I miss him! I long for his warm embrace, his wet sloppy kisses. The more time goes by the harder it is for me to hear and remember his laugh or the sound of his voice. I get glimpses of him when I hear a song by Nirvana, Jane's Addiction, Dave Matthew's Band. I see him in his friends that have kept in touch with me through out the years, in the long haired hippy hitch hikers on the side of the road. He has been with me during the birth of my children. I could literally feel him by my side as I brought each of my babies into this world. I have had a few more experiences where I have felt his presence, his touch but I feel that those experiences are just too personal and special to share. I am so very grateful for the promise of eternity that I will have with my brother and my family but an ache in my soul will remain with me until then.