Some June Moments

Swim lessons!

Great Family Home Evenings!
Celebrating 28 years of marriage!

Our little trip to the beach!
Our neighbor bought some snakes, the kids were fascinated by them. I on the other hand was not, so did not take this picture!
Made my aprons, my first sewing project in at least three years!

Baseball and softball season come to a close!
We pick our first strawberries from our yard! Make jam from strawberries! (with the addition of the ones bought at the roadside fruit stand)

Schools out for the summer!
Ma and Pa training!
The youth on their 10 mile hike after the training! Chloe is here with her YW leader.

A lot of memories captured! A lot of fun! A lot of love!

My Aprons

This last week when I was at the beach I finally got to make my aprons. I am pretty pleased with how they turned out. The first one here that Paige is modeling was the funnest to make because of the embroidery. The second one a very fun pattern and easier than it looks - a patchwork quilt style. The hardest part about this one were the inside corners with the bias tape. The lady here at the quilt shop is going to help me with my next one of these as the instructions for that part of the apron were very confusing. We both had a lot of sewing experience so it made me feel better that they were hard for her as well.
The third one here and my new favorite is very girly to me. But yet fun and one I will love to wear while I bake lots of delicious goodies! Thank you Paige for modeling these latest creations for me. You look just like the cute young girls on the patterns:) I have a few more to work on and I am looking for some vintage patterns. Maybe, just maybe wearing these cute things will get me more interested in the cooking part of the kitchen - but I doubt it!

Eat the yogurt!

Conversation in the car with Noah, Taylor, Hayden and Autumn:

Noah: Mom you need to lose a little weight maybe, sort of.

Mom: Noah that is really rude, Are you saying I am fat?

Mom: (Seeing a very large woman crossing the street - not to be rude) Now Noah, that is what I would look like if I was fat.

Noah: Smile on face because he is embarrassed.

Autumn: (from the very back seat) Mom, you should eat yogurt!

Mom: I don't like yogurt, it makes me gag.

Hayden: I think she saw the commercial about losing weight by eating yogurt.

Autumn: Mom, you should eat yogurt!

Mom: Autumn, I don't like yogurt. I like frozen yogurt, but not the kind that helps you lose weight.

Noah: I never said you were fat, I just said that you could lose some weight.

Mom: I have had eleven children Noah. After your wife has eleven children I don't think it would be wise for you to tell her she needs to lose weight! I think I look pretty good. I have tried for two years to lose this little (20lbs.) of extra weight. It won't budge!

Autumn: Mom, eat the yogurt.
Taylor: Mom, eat the yogurt.
Hayden: Mom, just eat the darn yogurt.

Mom: You just don't get it - I GAG!

Autumn: Well then, if you want Noah to keep calling you fat, don't eat the yogurt. It's your body!

Sadly, Noah is probably right. But I like to think I am doing OK with the weight thing. It is an issue, but I do not want it to define me. I exercise - I try hard to eat right - I feel good (most of the time). Someday I will be surprised and I will start to lose again - but for now I just can't bring myself to "eat the yogurt"

A few days at the beach

We love the beach. We go at least six or seven times a year. The last few days we spent at the beach playing in the sand, going to the pool, a tiny bit of shopping, eating good food. This time David had to stay home and work, but I got to take five of the kids and we had a great time!

One of the the things that the kids always seem to do is dig a gigantic hole to bury someone in. Everyone got buried at one point or another. This hole was for Autumn. She was so "esited" (excited) to have it be her turn!

Here she is buried to her neck as happy as can be. She stayed that way for a little while. Finally she broke her arms through the sand and then everyone helped to dig her out. Autumn loves the beach so much. From the time she was a baby she has loved the feeling of the sand. Not all of my kids were like that. If you set them in the sand they most likely would cry. Not Autumn. She was the happiest sitting and digging and crawling around on the sand.

On this day the sun was out and even though they are jumping in the waves the water is very cold! I was taking pictures and did not notice a wave coming and got wet first hand! And believe me it was cold!

Chad and Noah ventured out the farthest but did not stay that long in the water.

Here everyone running and jumping, Hayden was back by me. She had had enough of the cold water.

I love this picture with my girls. Autumn had buried my feet and was trying to bury Taylor's as well. We had a great time and I got a lot of projects done as well. In the evenings I sewed three aprons. One of them had embroidery on the bottom. I will post pictures later as soon as I take them. They were so fun to make. I also read some of a book that was done for book club a couple of months ago. We did a lot of other reading together as well. The sunsets were beautiful and it was so awesome to wake up to the smell and sight of the beach. This has been one of our greatest blessings our beach house. It was fun to have the younger kids all to myself, but we did miss David as his love for the beach out does all of ours put together!!

Ma & Pa training

Friday night David and I went on the Ma & Pa overnight training campout. We had to dress in our pioneer clothes and learn about all of the fun and wonderful things we get to do for trek. We had a great time and really enjoyed getting to meet the other Ma and Pa's from all over the stake. The weather was good and it was great to sleep under the stars. We were in our tent but David left the cover off so we could see the stars. Toshia was a little worried it would rain on us (she stayed with us in our tent so she did not have to set hers up) and as she usually is right it did start to sprinkle early in the morning. All of Saturday morning was spent with more training and we pulled a handcart around the meadow on a test run. It was not nearly as loaded as ours will be on the trek and the great thing for me is that the youth have to push, pull the handcart most of the way. After lunch the kids came up and we did our ten mile hike. It really was not that bad but I am surprised at how tired I am right now. Our longest day on the trek will be 11 miles. That will be with a fully loaded handcart. Today we just walked (some rather briskly) up for about 5 miles and then back down for 5 miles. My kids did really well and did not complain at all. I know this experience is going to be hard for them but also it will be very rewarding if they let it. Here we are at the beginning of our hike

..... and here we are at the end. Not to bad.

Here the kids are walking. Noah found a friend (actually Chloe's friend) that he thought was cute!

This picture is at the 5 mile mark. We were glad to hear that the next 5 miles were back down the hill we just walked up.

Chloe with Sis. Naillon during our break. What a great YW leader she has!

This was a great experience and really has me excited for the real thing in three weeks. Pioneer trek here we come!

Night on the River

Today was great! I got my hair done (finally) while Toshia took the kids to swimming, went to town and got that work done, read to kids, played with kids, and got the library summer reading bags for kids. While I was at the library I decided to find out about the "13 nights on the river". Well, I got Taylor to go with me for tonight's concert. I know that if the other kids really knew what it was they would be so jealous and want to come but I was not going to twist anyone's arm. Taylor and I had our date and then for some reason I had the idea to call David and see how close he was to home and well he was pretty close and he came and joined us. The three of us had a great time by the river, enjoying the great music, people watching :), and eating some of the great food served by some of the vendors down there. David was not so sure he wanted to be with the crowd of people after working all day but he said he really enjoyed it and will do it again! I have gone a couple of times over the last few years but tonight just had to be the funnest ever! Probably because I did not go alone and spending some one on one with my Taylor
was what I needed to end just a great day! Having David show up and liking it was just one of those unexpected bonuses you get when life is good:)

It's working!

Today while picking up I found this book on the floor. I sat down for a minute to look at the illustrations. Autumn walked by and said "Hey, do you want to read that to me sometime?" I said "Sure". She started to walk off but then stopped looked at me and said "How about right now, I'm not doing anything. That way you won't have to try to remember to read it to me later". Now how could I resist her big blue eyes. I said sure and for the next five minutes I had her undivided attention. When the book was finished she was off to play outside. As she opened the door to go outside she looked back and said "You can read the rest of all of my books tonight before I go to bed - I'll be back!". I thought to myself how wonderful a blessing books are right now at my house.

Summer Reading

I love, love to read. I want my children to love it as much as I do. This summer I am going to really concentrate on reading time with the kids. I have posted a short list of summer reading for kids on the side of my blog. I will be changing these every week or so and adding new books to the list. I want to learn how to do a link so I can make the list longer and include the authors without taking up a lot of space on my side bar. If anyone knows how to do this, please help me:) I have talked to a lot of moms and I have a great children's library that I have been collecting over the years that I would love to share. So a link kind of thing would really be fun to do. Anyway, I don't read as much to my children during the school year as I probably should. They have so much to do with homework and extra activities. I do read out loud to my kids during the summer. We have our favorite books including books a few grade levels above their grade in school. Books like Little Women, Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, etc. Sometimes the older kids will read a book and then I read it and then we talk about it. For instance, the Harry Potter books. There were four of us reading them, each taking our turn and then getting together to talk about it. We made it a date to see the movies together when they came out. I really like how we connected on a different level. Not just mom telling them what they can and can not do. But mom and children having interesting opinions about what we were reading. It has been fun. We have done that with lots of other books. So along with all the other great things we are doing this summer, reading will definitely be on the top of our list!

28 Years

Today 28 years ago David and I were married in my parents log cabin. It was a small family wedding. I remember all the work that went into the wedding. The home was being built by my parents and was not finished yet when I asked my parents if we could be married there. I think they liked the idea because it would help them get the house finished. I borrowed my older sisters wedding dress. My younger sisters and mom made the cake and did the flowers. My brother played his guitar. I came down the stairs from the master bedroom while my sister sang "Longer" David's and my song. I remember that David was so nervous and kept trying to say "I do" every time the Bishop paused during the ceremony. Finally it was the time to say "yes" and he just kind of stood there not sure what he was supposed to say. I just remember that it was for me very special and just how I wanted it to be. I am sure I drove my mom crazy with all the details but I like to think I was pretty good about the whole thing. Reality was that I made David drive back to the house after we left to tell my mom I was sorry, so I must have not had something go my way. He was patient about it but I am sure thought "what have I got myself into?".

This picture was taken right before we left for our honeymoon. My parents had a lot of property and so it was out behind their home. I thought those were the cutest pants ever - oh my goodness - polyester would not be seen today;) We spent three months in Utah working at my father's hotel and gift shop. We were earning money for when we went back to school. David had no idea that I really did not know how to cook much until we got back to college. We ate all three meals every day at the restaurant. I loved it! And I am sure there were many days at school when David wished we were back on our honeymoon - so he could have a decent meal!


We came back to my parents home to pick up all of our stuff and head off to college. I can not believe that I was caught kissing David and that my mom took a picture! Anyone who knows me knows that I am pretty private about that and so I think that David must have paid my mom some pretty big bucks to get this picture:) Also, notice how short my hair was. This was the shortest it had ever been in my whole life. I think I really surprised my mom with short hair. I was trying to cut out a bad perm - you all remember the 70's were the era of permed hair! As I looked through some old photos I have been surprised at how many different hair styles I have had over the years. (That would be an interesting post - hummm)



Seriously, I have been so blessed with this wonderful man. He adores me and I love him. I could not have asked for a better friend to go through this journey of life with. And the most amazing thing is we get to go through eternity together! We were sealed one year and five months later in the Los Angeles temple.
Here we are with baby Ashleigh outside of the temple. Don't we look like such a cute family. Ashlei9gh was one month and one day old. I honestly did not know or could not even imagine that we would go on to have 10 more children. I have been so blessed. It has not always been easy. We had a lot of growing up to do. Through it all there was always love. Happy Anniversary David. I love you!

Last Day of School

What a crazy long day! I had anticipated a lot of activity but I was overwhelmed to say the least. This was Paige's 18th birthday. We will do the party Sunday on father's day when everyone is here. My day started as usual. Walking at 4:45am. Scriptures and prayer. Then the chaos began. An emergency trip to Walmart for female products for one of the girls. When I got back lots of arguing over a pair of leggings. Then some face wash was missing and you would have thought someone had robbed a bank. For heavens sake, it's just face wash - use a bar of soap! (me not being very patient at the moment) David calls me at about 7:20 - "What is going on there? Taylor has called me twice." I tell him "I have it under control" (I think) and to "have a nice day" (away from all this choas) "I love you!" Finally everyone to school. I get ready for my 8:30 Relief Society meeting knowing I had to leave early for Taylor's awards assembly. I cannot find the camera anywhere! I know I had left it on my desk. Trying not to be angry because I had just given lecture 459 on not yelling because something was not where it was supposed to be (the face wash incident) I got in the car and was only a few minutes late to the meeting. Quickly did my part then left for the school. Parking was very difficult as it seems everyone here must have a 3rd grader getting an award. The assembly was great! Taylor received the Explorer award - outstanding student of the year in her class. I did get pictures because Jenn lent me her camera but they are on her camera and so I will post those later. Then I took Paige around to drop off a few job applications. Play group was at 10:30. Autumn and I head to the church and find that the missionaries are having a game of basketball in the gym. Do I ask them to leave or figure out another place for the kids to play? They were kind and saw that we usually use the gym so left and were going to finish their game after lunch. Had a great time at play group. Made a quick stop at the bookstore to pick up a book I had ordered. Went to two garage sales on the way to pick up Paige and then picked up all the kids from school. In between dropped off more applications. Took Chloe to work. Got everyone home with the promise that when I returned from getting Chads haircut that I would have the most magnificent after school treat because it was the last day of school. Took Chad to get his haircut, decided to cut mine as well. Did not have time to get any color done so made a future appointment. Went to the store picked up a pizza and stuff for rootbeer floats. Got home and got Noah ready for the youth activity (Chad was still not feeling very well and Chloe was working) and Autumn ready for swim lessons. Went to swimming and dropped off Noah. Everyone enjoying the pizza and ice cream - kind of a late after school treat turned into dinner. Enjoyed swimming. After I got home made David dinner (pizza was gone) then took Paige to her friends house for movie night for her birthday. Went to Walmart and walked in the store and completely could not remember why I was there! Finally after going up and down a couple of aisles I remembered I was looking for the drip pan things for the stove. I am glad I thought of it - not sure if that was the real reason I went there - but I needed those really bad anyway. Got home read at least a dozen books to Autumn but when I looked around there was Chad, Hayden, Autumn and Taylor. How sweet it was to see that they had all just come in and cuddled around me to hear the stories. Fell asleep cuddling kids, woke up this morning on the couch with Hayden. Everyone else must have gone off to their own beds. With the way this things got started I did not expect this sweet happy ending to my day!

FHE around the fire

For FHE tonight we roasted marshmallows and had smores over the fire pit David got for his birthday. Pretty much all we did was roast "mallows" and stuff our faces. It was fun to have Paige home - so it really felt like a real FHE. Everyone ran in the house when a raindrop fell but David and I sat out the "storm" and after about three minutes the rain was gone. It was windy though and that made things a little chilly. But over all we had a really fun family gathering around the pit and look forward to many more memories being created this summer.

Saturday cleaning

Saturday I spent the whole day cleaning in my garage. Well, I did stop a few times to go to ball games. (There will be a post later about the ending of another season of baseball) I had a few weeks ago set my goals for the year and cleaning out boxes was one of those goals. So far, I have accomplished two of the goals on my list. I have not finished the sorting of boxes but I made a big dent. I am trying to make room for the food storage I am working on and well, I just am a packrat. I cleaned out 8 tubs and one big cardboard box. I only filled 6 back up and threw away the box! Yeah for me! I found the coolest antique canning jars at a yard sale Saturday and bought all 12 of them and they now house all my lace, trims, and scraps of ribbon. That was so fun filling the jars and now they look so cool on my shelf.
It is an idea I saw a long time ago in a magazine and was doing it with regular canning jars but these just make it so much nicer. I love antique kitchen stuff if you can't tell from my kitchen. I also now have a project tub that was fun to sort and put together. I had things scattered all over the place. Now they are all together for my someday craft projects. You know the ones I will do when everyone is in school and I have nothing else to do all day. The next big project to clean out are the church files of teaching materials. I sort of did that when we moved but now I am really going to weed it down. The last part and most daunting for me are all the kids papers. I have a few tubs of things and a couple of filing cabinet drawers with stuff. I am feeling very excited about the whole process though and it is a very good feeling getting everything organized.

Also, Saturday we picked our first strawberries. The little strawberry plants are so full of berries and they tasted so good. It seems just a few are ripening each day, today we got a few more. I hope not to many get eaten by the critters outside before we get them picked and on our cereal!

I've been bit!

Ok ladies, I have been bit by the apron bug. My mom made David and I aprons when we were first married. My daughter Ashleigh made me an adorable apron for our homemade christmas one year. I noticed a couple of years ago my friend Aundrea wearing an apron when I was over there chatting one day. At the time I thought I should make her an apron. (Aundrea, you still might get one;)) Then I have noticed lots of beautiful aprons showing up on a few other friends blogs. Today while wandering the aisles at Walmart of all places I ended up in the fabric department. And there, right in front of me shouting "Buy me! Buy me!", were these cute patterns for aprons. Sewing is therapeutic for me but lately (at least for the last 5 years or so) I have filled that with scrapbooking. After sewing the "adorable" pioneer dresses I needed to last week I have had the itch to sew again. I didn't have time to actually look though the pattern books and certainly no time to look at fabric (that could be hours of perusing) so I picked these up also knowing in my stash I have other patterns. It was funny because I was taken back to my younger mom years when I would sew all the girls summer clothes. Looking through the pattern books, looking for fabric - it was so nostalgic for me. I loved it! So, thank you all for reminding me of my first crafting love - sewing! And of course, I will look as adorable as the models wearing the aprons on the patterns and I will walk around with cooking utensils as if I am the "awesome" cook my family always wishes I was because of the adorable apron I am wearing:)

Mixed emotions

Boy do I feel stupid. I thought today was Taylor's awards assembly. I really did not look at the date on the paper she brought home. I have been out of it most of the week. I have been sick. So feeling on top of the world this morning I was excited about going and capturing on film her great achievement. You would think someone at the school would have wondered why I was wandering up and down the halls waiting for something. I finally asked when I was noticing that the children were not leaving the gym and there were no chairs set up. Really though all morning I have had a smorgasbord of emotions over another daughter who should be receiving her highest honors this year and graduating from high school.


It really did not hit me until yesterday. I have been trying to keep my emotions in check over this situation. I have had to be the really tough mom over the last few weeks and I have not let myself feel anything about this. Paige has made a series of bad choices. This morning I was remembering her as an elementary student. How concerned she was with her grades, how polite she was to the teachers, the awards she received at her school, how she loved school but hated being away from her family. How she loved playing softball and how good she was at it. Changes began in middle school. A lot went on that I had no idea was happening with her. So there began the choices she began to make that have put her on the path she is now on. We tried to work with her and help her. As soon as we were aware of certain things we really tried to get her the help she needed. And it seemed all was going well. She was good at letting us think she was fine. Now, I am not making excuses for her behavior. She knows now as well as I do at some point you own up and take responsibility and don't let situations you have no control over take control of your life. She has been taught that through many sources! I honestly think things just get too overwhelming for her and she runs instead of facing things. Yesterday Chloe came in to talk. She had tears in her eyes as she told me of the Senior assembly that took place at school yesterday. She, like me, has tried to keep her emotions in check when it comes to Paige. But there up on the screen more than one time were pictures of Paige. She kept thinking - Paige should be here, she should be enjoying all of this. She will never get this moment again. Being a senior should be the happiest time of ones life. - As she related all this to me I could not help but feel so sad for not only Paige but for what Chloe was feeling as well. With my older children I was so excited this time of year for them. For the wonderful new experiences they were going on to. Knowing that what lie ahead for each of them was going to be challenging but exciting as well. It has been hard for them. But they each have in their own ways made their marks in the world and have really accomplished a lot of things. Like normal teenagers they thought we were "geeky" or "old-fashioned". I think they thought we harped to much about church. We said and taught what we did because we know it to be true and know that it will bring the most happiness to them. That is something that will never change. We also knew that they would outgrow most of that and learn we were doing the best we knew how at the time. I love them more for their courage and strength that they showed. All of this with Paige has left me overwhelmed and discouraged. Sunday was hard as we honored all the graduating seniors.Paige was not there - I don't know where she is at the moment. But I got through it and I know I will get through this.I have been focusing a lot on my other younger children and trying hard to throw myself into their joys and love.

I have found a lot of comfort in the scriptures concerning all of this. They have lifted me up when no one else could. I have found the answers to how to handle the different situations. I have said many times how grateful I am for the words but I can not express it with words. I know that someday Paige will see the "daughter of God" that she is and come around. The covenants I have made assure me of this. So I do have a certain kind of peace. But the joy shall come at another time with her. This I know. For now I am soooooo excited and optimistic about Taylor's achievements - as well as, Chloe, Chad, Noah, Hayden and Autumn's. Ashleigh, Toshia, Chelsea and Seth continue to amaze me with what they accomplish! I love you all more than you will ever know!

Swim lessons

Autumn started swim lessons last week. And boy, was she excited! You do not know how long she has waited for it to be her turn. The pool was offering a discounted price on lessons to train new teachers. It was perfect for her! She really has been having fun and learning a lot. I signed all three of the little girls up at the gym for daily lessons after school is out. I like that pool better and it is outside. Taylor and Hayden have loved swimming at that pool and Autumn has walked by it all the times I've gone to the gym and can hardly wait to go to "mom's" pool. We really have liked the classes there. I think the one thing my older children have said is that I never did the next level of lessons with them. But I remember going to the park and doing the week of free lessons and then doing a couple of sessions and even eating the free lunch at the park afterwards for several summers. The problem always was that most of the time I was pregnant. So I am sure there were some times when I just didn't get them signed up. I know they all at least had the first lessons. So, I was thinking to be a better mom of these younger three and making sure they are strong swimmers. Maybe they will want to do the swim team - maybe the olympics - well, for now just getting across the length of the pool for Autumn will be like winning a gold medal!