The weather has been beautiful the past few days here! Dave is in China (again!) and each one of the kids has been sick at least once, if not twice, or three times (strep ughhhh) in the last month, so the kids and I have spent countless hours outside and we are really enjoying it! I miss Dave, but it's nice to not feel that wifely duty/obligation to make a pretty meal and have the floor picked up by 5 :) We spent the afternoon Saturday at the park. We took a picnic lunch, fed the ducks, and played! Sunday we went for a couple of bike rides.


Tonight we sketched all of the Spongebob characters with sidewalk chalk (Plankton was eeeeeasy lol), and found a dead bird ..... DJ thought it was just a feather, and you should have seen his face when an entire bird came up out of the woodchips!!! And I really need to get Lily's description on video of 'the bird flying with his head turned sideways, he didn't see the house and crrrrrack, broke his neck' lol. We also spent many fun hours on bikes, scooters, and longboards. The kids and a couple of neighbors were sitting on the longboards and coasting down the driveway, into, and across the road --don't worry, we always had someone on car patrol. :) Kyle helped the younger ones, and made sure everyone was being safe (love how helpful and good with kids he is!). All of the kids were so brave, going off of the bumpy driveway onto the pavement. I was nervous just watching them!! So, I finally tried it myself, but chickened out and slowed myself down with my feet right before the bump..... the neighbor got a kick outa that lol. And Toby had been trying to get more control of his longboard by turning after he entered the road. After a successful run, he happily pushed his longboard in front of him in a proud manner.....hit a crack in the sidewalk....and practically impaled himself with his longboard!!! He seriously hit so hard! He stepped back dazed and confused, and obviously in pain. After a few breaths, he was ready to ride again! I would have been out of commission for at least a month!

~lightyears of catching up~

Wow, I am behind! Toby turned 7 on January 24th, then I turned, ummmmm 29, and then Kyle turned 12 on February 12th. My boys are so grown up! One more year and Toby will be baptized!!!
We had a bit of a Star Wars theme for Toby's birthday. Toby was beyond excited about his birthday present! He has been begging for either AT-TE or the Clone Turbo Tank for star wars for months now! He really wanted one or the other for Christmas, but we just couldn't pay that much for something. Then right after Christmas, it went on sale.... HALF OFF! I called Marc (his dad) and explained the situation and that we wanted to split the half off cost with him........but he decided to just go ahead and buy it for him :) so we gave Toby the clone troopers to go with it! I have a video of him on youtube opening his present and jumping around and screaming.. quite funny lol (there's a link to my youtube site if you're at all interested :)



We also celebrated Toby's birthday by going to a Grizzley's Hockey game with the Leukemia Lymphoma Society! They had invited us to join them and have Toby stand in a survivors tunnel for the hockey team to enter through, but when they found out it was his birthday, they asked if he wanted to drop the puck! He was so excited and really had a great time! Our good friends, the Kimmings, went to the game with us, as did my dear friend Claire, who is running a marathon for LLS team in training.




Kyle is now 12....a deacon..... and passed the sacrament for the first time on Sunday!!!!! He makes his momma proud! He also got a really cool gift from Marc, an Arizona Cardinals football, signed by a whole bunch of the team. :) His cake.... well, I couldn't decide what to do lol He loves cows and unicorns, so I combined the two lol. He and I went with his good friend Bailey and Bailey's mom to the movie The Lightening Thief....it opened on his birthday :) <
Kyle and Bailey made it to district with their science fair project How Does Light Affect Fish Behavior?. They placed in district, and will now be going on to state at BYU.
Look at these kids! Aren't they the cutest kids ever? (besides your own of course lol) I love being a mom and I love my kids!

Lily's 5th Birthday!!!

My sweet baby girl turned 5! Lily is such a beautiful princess! She truly blesses our home. I love to hear her sing and play the piano. I love to see the awesome pictures she draws. I love her laugh and her smile. I love her hugs. I love the intelligence, spirit, and love that she embodies. She is a fabulous sister, caring friend, star student and wonderful daughter!!! We love you Lily!!!>
Anna, Lily and Sydney Pie. :) Such cute and sweet girls.



Ok this is just plain 'blog material' as Dave would say :)
Toby is a picky eater.....ever since chemo ruined a normal appetite and caused cravings galore!
So after many choices of what to eat for dinner, all sounding horrible, Toby made his own dinner............

A tortilla filled with broken up chips, spaghetti, pepperoni, salami, green beans, and home-made salsa.

He ate the whole thing LOL

~Ketchup, not just for eating~

~kids, you gotta love em!~

These pics are from My Gym.... a hopekids event. The kids had a blast!




This morning I was sitting on the floor folding laundry. DJ was sitting next to me drawing on a magnadoodle type thing. I crawled across the floor a little ways to grab something, and as I backed up to my original spot, I beeped (because I'm retarded). My beeping inpired DJ to want me to draw him a picture of a bus (this is something that I can draw and have it be semi-recognizable lol). I finished drawing, and DJ was happy as a clam! He then said, "turn it on now please". haha I looked at him confused and said "did you just ask me to turn on the bus?" And he answered, "yes, turn it on". If only I had that much power :)
And yesterday at church I substituted in Lily's class. During Sharing Time the leader asked the Children what the greatest Christmas present of all is (Jesus Christ). She called on a few children. Toby's answer was "love"........ nicely done Toby, good guess! Lily's answer was "A SNOW GLOBE!". haha who knew? Christmas shopping for her should be easy enough then hahaha



Here is a picture of the kids at our ward party Friday night. I braved it alone, because Dave is China for a work again. All was going fairly smoothly, until my dad called me during dinner. He informed me that my suburban was no longer driveable...?? Not to worry because he and mom were ok, or at least so they thought. I felt the stress enter my body at that moment. We lent our suburban to mom and dad so they could help my little brother Devin move. On their return home, they hit a patch of black ice on a hill and lost control. The suv slid out of control and then tipped over onto the passenger side and slid into the median. Fortunately (or unfortunately) there were several other accidents there, so the police and tow truck were already at the scene, ready to help. Mom got a good bump on her head and suffered from some shock, so she was taken by ambulance to the hospital. Dad just had bumps and bruises. The suburban, not so lucky. :( I held it together (well mostly) until the ward party ended, and then drove to the hospital to pick up my parents. I am so glad that they are ok and safe. BUT, I hate all the drama that is happening while my sweet hubby is gone. The first day he was gone (Thurs) the battery in my van died... not because of a light left on or something, but because my battery was de-ead, needing replaced. Thank heavens my parents weren't gone yet, and my dad helped me take care of that. Then when I got home, my fire alarm was beeping.... you know, one of those up at the tippy top of the vaulted cealing? sheesh! Now I have insurance to deal with, ugh. And then yesterday and today it's snowing SO much and my wrists hurt from shoveling all this crap..... well it's not crap, it's quite clean, and beautifully white, but good grief I need some rest! :)
Watch for my next update (I'm hoping to have pics of my totalled suburban.... man my parents are lucky to be ok!)

~Happy day to youuuu Derek!~

Happy Birthday DJ!! It's hard for me to believe that my baby is 2 years old! He's such a big boy! As you can see, DJ is a fan of airplanes, so that was the theme for his party :) We had all 7 kids here, and had a great time!



DJ...... what a blessing you are in our family!!! I love to listen to you sing! I love the way you say "uh huh" and "uh uh". My favoriteeeeeeeee is when you say "Let's DO this, woo hoo"! I love it when you tell me you lub (love) me. :) I also love it when you see me or dad getting ready and ask us if we're going to volleyball. :) Hehe What a cute little man you are! Our favorite monkey! You're excited about life! You're funny! You're busy. You're determined. You're obedient. You make your brothers, sisters and mom and dad so happy! We all love you very much!!!!!



In this picture, you'll see some "books" that Lily, Toby and Lexi made for Derek for his birthday. If you look closely, Toby's book says, "DJ You are Asum"! hehe sooooo cute! :) DJ loved this little airplane he got! He would stand with his legs apart and use the remote to have the plane go through his legs. He'd watch it as it would go under and lean down and rest his forhead on the floor, to be able to keep watching. He was dancing around and kept all of us entertained for a long time!

~Halloween~

Our dear friends Annie, Alex and Jono came over for FHE and pumpkin Carving! I toasted up a bunch of the pumpkin seeds and they were delicious!!!
So it's dangerous to have Lily or DJ using knives or sharp objects to carve a pumpkin, right? My idea was to give them markers instead, much safer! So Dave see's DJ with a Sharpie, permanent marker, and says, "who gave him that marker?" in a concerned voice. I proudly admit that I did, and it's safer.....besides I'm right next to him and...........(as I'm in mid sentence- no lie- DJ slowly, but surely, raises the permanent marker towards his face and places a beautiful "mole" on his cheek. HA the irony! And speaking of moles, Jono carved a mole in the face of his pumpkin because "all witches have moles". To which Kyle replied "Hey, my mom is not a witch" Lovely, I know.



We went with Hopekids up to Bear Lake for the weekend. It was soooooo nice to get away! I just can't express enough how much I love Hopekids and how wonderful it is to be part of this huge understanding family, while getting to do things we just can't do on our own.
Here are the kids Halloween costumes. In case you can't tell
Kyle - Dunkin Donut (verrrrrrrry scary skills putting this together, seriously! Toby - Captain Rex (Clone Trooper)
Lily - Black Kitty Cat
DJ - Airplane Pilot (you've got to hear him say this, it's so cute, although sometimes he'd say he was going to be a pumpkin lol)


Ok so this isn't and never was DJ's costume, but his eyes were so funny to me, I had to post this!! :)



The kids got to ride on this train/wagon thing! In this last picture, Kyle is holding TJ, a fellow hopekid, who was unable to sit upright by himself. His parents couldn't ride, and so Kyle kindly helped so that TJ could ride.... so sweet!




The kids had soooo much fun! Just being in nature.... piling and throwing leaves. We really had a great time!