It snowed

So I know Christmas was yesterday, but I am soooooooo over Christmas, I have the Christmas Blah's. It couldn't be that starting next week I start a mandatory 6 days a week 12 hour days? So I will blog our Christmas latter this weekend. So what is the next best thing to Christmas?

SNOW, and lots of it. We got pounded on Thursday night. It was great. So this morning much to our surprise we had a palathera of city vehicles show up to plow us out. Of all the machines the front-end loader was the best and he chose our front lawn to be the dumping ground for ALL the snow in the cul-d-sac. So after an hour of plowing and dumping we ended up with a sledding hill that was well over 8 feet high. My husband LOVES this kind of stuff. He created stairs in the mountain and some sledding trails fully equipped with jumps and off they went. Here are a few pics. Blogger is being dumb and won't let me move around my pics. So I love the boys on the top of the mountain it looks like they are actually on top of Mt. Logan. The action shot ROCKS, they really got some air and we finally got a camera that can catch those action shots. That was our Christmas gift to us, a new camera so we can get shots of the kids sports.

Have a nice Christmas.

Update

So you probably thought I gave up blogging huh? well it is the Christmas season which means programs and parties. Also we are gearing up for our busy season at work and unfortunately I have been working overtime. I do it begrudglingly because I only have to work 2 1/2 days this upcoming week. BUT starting the next week I work 6 days a week, 12 hours a day.

So to summarize, Colton got baptized the morning of our first HUGE snow storm, BUT everyone still came. It was short and nice. Grandma Elder gave her talk about her baptism and it was real nice. She was touched and cried most of the way and didn't even read what she wrote because she was crying. It was beautiful and we enjoyed it. Then that same day we went to the matinee performance of Voicemale. WE LOVE VOICEMALE. Their music is family friendly and very beautiful. we laughed and the kids loved it.

Oh Yeah, i just about forgot. Scott passed both his Firefighter I and Firefighter II exams. So now he is a Firefighter II with and EMT-B also. This means.......(drum roll)he can now start looking for work. WOOOOO HOOOOO. He is taking the test for Mesquite, NV in January and for the SLC FIre Authority. Also he will be testing for Ogden and Logan sometime in the next month. We are very very excited. he still has school through January but that is just for some more certificates.

So we had some parties this week, Dance Recitel and now school is out. We are finishing our shopping this weekend and now we are good to go.

Merry Christmas.

Baptism for Real

So Colton is going to be baptised on Saturday the 13th at 10:00 AM at the Mt. Logan Stake Center (church on Center Street). It will be short and sweet. There are only 4 kids being baptized so it will be quick. We will also have an early lunch right after at my mom's house.

I invite everyone out in computer land to please come to support Colton. He thinks no one will come. If you can't make it, I totally understand.

Hope to see you there.

Christmas Stuff

So here is my confession. I love Christmas. I love everything about it BUT the mess. The set up, the clean up, all of it. I love the music, the treats, how people are nice, I love teh meaning of it. I love cold weather, snow storms, all of it. I love my family and being together. I don't like to clean at all, and I admit I do only when and what I have to. My house is not messy, but it does get cluttered. Right now with working full time my house gets completely cleaned on Saturdays and then kind of coasts through the week. I see Christmas as more mess. We did however set up our tree and it is my most favorite tree yet. I will post pictures tomorrow.

One thing I am very excited about is that we have never seen the Mormon Tabernacle Choir do a live concert. I entered the raffle for tickets for the concert this year and they arrived today YEAH!!!! I think they are in the balcony but I dont' care I am soooo excited to go to it.

So these are my Christmas feelings. Hope you all have a nice Christmas.

What I am thankful for.

So I waited a day or so to do this post because I was tired and I wanted to have time to sit and write what I wanted.

I am thankful for tests and trials in life. I can honestly say that since Valentines Day this year we entered into the toughest trial we have endured in our life. Loss of job, death, moving, sick kids, financial woe's (that is expected with no jobs) and on and on. Out of this came the opportunity to move back to Utah closer to both of our families. Now I realize that they have been praying for our return since se moved, BUT we were happy where we were at. So now we moved home, with no jobs and very little money. After some time looking for jobs Scott started school and I started working full time. Now things are going well.

I am very thankful for my children. They have an understanding of what we are going through financially and because of this knowledge they have been very, very nice to each other and very rarely ask for items. We no longer eat out, and they have only recieved a few items when they go to the dollar store, which they are satisfied with. We were going over Christmas lists and Colton said "mom, I don't want anything for Christmas, please take the money you would spend on my presents and pay some bills" I am not even kidding. This my 2nd son because he is very preceptive about things and it bothers him that we don't seem to have as much money as before and it also bothers him that we are "renting" again, he wants to be somewhere that we won't have to move again.

I am Thankful for my husband. Through all this stuff we've been through he still loves me. He works so hard for us. Even though he is not doing full time 9-5 he is extremely busy between keeping up on kid stuff, studying to stay at the top of his class and helping grandpa. He has been soooo understanding with my new job and very supportive. I love him a lot. There aren't words to express my thankfulness for him.

Because this is getting long, I am now going to group the last group to how much I love our extended family. This group includes my Mom and Reese, Scott's parents, Larry and Kathy, and of course Grandma and Grandpa Elder. Without the support of them we would not be doing as well are we are. They have helped us in more ways than I can count. Especially Kathy and Larry and Mom and Reese who help us a lot with running the kids around after school.

So that is my short list. I am thankful for all that we have now and for all that we are going through. It will end and we are stronger for it.

If you read this entire thing, well I am surprised, but Thank You for being in my life and my friend.

On To Christmas

So now that Thanksgiving is over, in my mind it is officially Christmas.

Thanksgiving was very nice, adn now I am lounging on my couch watching Hancock and eating pie.

I started cooking on Wednesday night with Pies and salads. I made 2 pumpkin, Lemon Meringue, Apple and Pecan. All handmade!!!! Not to brag, but I was sooo excited they turned out. It appeard the lemon was the best, there was none left. I tried a new pumpkin recipe this year and I think i like it best. It used sweetened condensed milk instead of evaporated and I think it is tons better.

Then Thanksgiving morning came and i was cooking by 7 AM making the homemade rolls and side dishes like stuffing 2 ways, a traditional one with pine nuts and turkey drippings, and then a "kid friendly" version which is basically dried bread, onions and celery and a few cans of creamed corn (as the moisture) the kids loved it.

We had Prime Rib and regular turkey and smoked turkey for the meats, followed by a lot of side dishes. I even forgot my all time favorite of sweet & sour cabbage. Oh well.

It was so nice of everyone to come. DeLoy and Jenn, Cody & Dallas, Great Grandma and Great Grandpa, Jordan and Jenn and their kids. After eating we cleared off, kind of, and then sat around holding puppies and visiting It was very nice and we had an enjoyable time. The kids played games and basketball.

Of course we had leftovers and can't wait to make "leftover casserole" tomorrow. and No I am not going shopping. I have pretty much everything I need, so we are enjoying famiily time tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!!

My Birthday.

So I realize you all have birthdays but I LOVE MY BIRTHDAY!!!! I can't say it enough. Ever since I was a little girl, my favorite holiday is my birthday. I has always been a big deal in my family. I start "reminding" my husband in October. He never misses it because I don't give him a chance to, but I am sure that he wouldn't forget it even if I didn't say anything to him.

So I got my gift from Grandma Elder, so let's face it, we all know what grandma and grandpa Elder send us, so I got my gift with strict instructions that went like this "grandpa said I should buy you something instead of giving you the money because he thinks you'll spend it on bills. This money is not to be spent on bills but for something for you" Of course like an obedient grandchild I took my gift and what did I do with it.......? Okay, okay I admit that I paid a bill with it. I had to admit to my grandmother that I lied and I paid Mason's babysitter instead. She said she understood and she would not tell my grandpa and just tell him I had a good time with it.

So yes, I lied, I feel bad, but I admitted it. To be honest I really wanted to buy myself a pair of shoes with it, but I just could not do it. So I had honorable intentions that got vetoe'd by my practical side.

Tomorrow though I am going with Scott to Salt Lake City for a day out together. We are eatting lunch at either Tacano's or Rodizio grill and then watching Twilight and then we are stopping at the Toys R Us sale to grab a few last Christmas presents for the kids.

Have a nice weekend.

Men vs Women.........The Laundry Olympics

So it has been a long weekend and I am glad it is over. Scott has not been feeling the best and I have noticed it since Friday, but he swore over and over there was nothing wrong with him, I was being over-sensitive. Well today at about 5:00 he said "I think I need to go to the insta-care clinic" I was shocked because he said there was nothing wrong. Well luckily it wasn't to busy and we got in and out quickly to find out he had a bladder infection that spread to his kidneys. MEN......they wait so long feeling bad until it is excruciating and then somthing inside his head says "I think something is wrong" Duh.....what clued you into that, the buring sensation when you urinate?????? So anyway now he had a reason for being so mean the last few days and I was right, I repeat myself, I WAS RIGHT. I was not over-sensitive, you were miserable and rude. Okay that is off my chest and Yes, Scott does know I am ranting on my blog. One of the reasons he went to the doctor was because we have fought so bad the last 3 days and that is not normal for us at all, especialy fighting over the stupid small things.

now that brings us to today. Scott decided he couldn't go to church because he felt so "crappy" but he still did not tell me what was bothering him, just abdominal pain and the worst headache he ever had. So I took the kids to church, the we had dinner, and then we went to my mothers house to see the puppies and how they have grown. Wow they are big and cute!! While we are there Scott says maybe I need to go to the Insta-Care Clinic. So my mom says to leave the kids with her and run down there. After the obligatory test they determine he has a bladder infection that has spread to his kidneys. They need to start anti-biotics right now and need to do both pills and a shot. Well Scott has a big issue with needles so no shots, no matter what. Well the doctor just said we will try the pills and hopefully that will work, they also gave him Lortab for the pain in his abdomen and his headaches that are being caused by the infection, which is also in his tooth. So he comes home and takes his first Lortab and lo and behold he starts to feel better. So much better in fact he decided that we need to put away the clean laundry and sort the dirty laundry. So the entire family went down to help. Now comes the question how do you sort laundry?

Here are my piles:

Whites
Jeans
Colors
Towels
Blankets

That is all my piles. We don't always have all those piles, but those are my basics.

Scott starts to sort laundry and right off we run into a problem. He starts making the following piles:

Pants - Denim
Pants - Non-denim
Light colors
Dark colors
Whites
Towels
Blankets

I think that is way to many piles. So we had a friendly family discussion about sorting laundry. We never had this discussion before because Scott worked and I always did teh laundry. Now that he is home he took it on himself.

I asked him to blog about this, but he said I am more elloquent and would explain it better.

So seriously, we want to know the laundry sorting of others.

Baptism date, for real this time.

So because Scott's school is be unpredictable we decided to just have Colton's baptism in December because he has all his Saturday's open in December. So our official date is December 13th. The baptism will be at Grandma and Grandpa's Elders old church on Center Street at 10:00 AM.

I swear we will not change the date again, this is set in stone. We will have a brief lunch afterwards (because we have tickets to the Voice Male concert at 1:30) but we are excited anyway. I hope to see you all there.

Thanksgiving

Ok, so it is Thanksgiving again and I am officially announcing that I am cooking dinner for everyone of the Elder Family who would like to attend. Right now it is my family, my mother, Rese and her kids, grandma and grandpa, DeLoy, Jenn, Kody and Dallas, Jer and Kristi(maybe) we still have room for more and everyone is invited. we are eating at 1:00. The only thing I ask is you let me know if you are coming so I can make sure there is enough food.

Hope to see you there.

This To Shall Pass

I am refering to the next 4 years (maybe more) under Democratic Lead in the White House. You do have to admit this is why we live in this wonderful country. Yes, Obama as our president may not be favorable in the eyes of some (me included) but as in history past the United States pulled through, and we shall pull through this also.

While you Republicans are sitting at home going through a different array of feelings, anger, sadness, frustration, please remember that we live in a wonderful country and this is the price we pay for democracy, everything can't always be as we want it. I fear for our future with a Democrat president and house, but we will prevail and rise above and in the long run be better and learn from our past mistakes.

Look up and in the eyes of my wonderful grandfather "Keep Smiling"

Baptism Date

Colton's baptism has been changed to 11/15/08. Scott has school on the 8th, so we are having a "special" baptism just by himself. I will announce the time later but I am hoping for 10 AM.

Busy Busy Busy

So it has been a busy and long week. You all probably know from my mothers and Josie's Blog that we had Colton's birthday party at the ice rink and it was a success. We had a lot of fun, and I am proud to say that both Scott and I actually skated and did not fall, so that we would consider a success. We have now found a new family activity I think. All we have heard since friday is "If we clean our rooms can we go ice skating?" So I think it is time to make a reward out of ice skating.

So now Saturday comes and Scott takes off to school and leaves me alone with the kids and we had to be at a parade and 2 basketball games at the same time. So I ran and dropped Rainee off with Aunt Jen at the LaShars float and then I ran the boys to the rec center where they met up with Grandma Kathy (Scott's mom) who went between Bowen's and Colton's basketball games that were both at the same time. Unfortunately Bowen's team had not practiced together and did not play well and lost 48 to 12 BUT Bowen did score some points. It appears that he is the only boy on the team who has had a real coach and real instruction in basketball and actually knew his position and what he should do. The other boys on the team, this was their first time playing. So needless to say once again he has been placed on a less-than-desireable team, but because we are new in this school district nobody knows what he can do or picks him for the teams. They will choose competative teams off these rec league teams so hopefully Bowen can still shine and make it on a competative team.

Colton is on Gene Needham's team and they did well. He is also one of the only boys who has been taught basketball and could actually dribble (that is a big thing in 2nd grade) so he got to play point guard and was able to make some points also, he was sooooo proud of this.

The USU Homecoming Parade was a first for Rainee and she was soooo excited to be in it, unfortunately that excitement ended about halfway through the parade and by the time it was done she was tired and ready to be done. She looked cute though in her jogging suite and Uncle DeLoy took some pictures for me (we still do not have a camera).

Right after the parade Aunt Julie called and invited us out to the ranch for the afternoon. That phone call changed our entire afternoon. Once I had said to the kids that Aunt Julie called all I heard was when are we going? We don't want to go to the party, let's go to the ranch. So we got ready and went to the ranch.

I need to take a moment and thank Uncle Bill and Aunt Julie for letting us enjoy their ranch. It means so much for us to have a quiet place to go to. I let them do whatever they want and just don't worry. I just have a to watch Mason, but other than that they are free to go. They played with Misty and her friend and went all over, while Bill and Cliff-a-roony (that is what Colton lovingly calls Cliff) bailed a field of hay, then Uncle Bill hooked up the flat-bed trailer and we all, even Mason and I, went out to the field to bring it in. It was fun, there were sooo many of us out there. Colton drove the tractor and he loved it. Bowen did try to lift some bales of hay and while they were still kind of heavy for him, he did try. Rainee just rode on the trailer with Mason and I walked behind the trailer. It was the end of a great afternoon. Not a lot of city kids would consider hauling hay as fun, but they all loved it. I am sure that next year Bowen will be able to be more help hauling hay.

That night Colton decided to go to his birthday dinner at the Indian Oven. This did surprise us a lot, but we had a meeting and talked about trying new food and we were up to it. They were so nice to us there and we had a great dinner. Everyone loved their food and we had very little leftovers. For Birthday dessert we got homemade mango ice cream. I have never had anything like it before. I would go back just for the mango Ice Cream.

So that is all......wait I forgot Sunday.

Sunday, we woke up and I started doing laundry and dishes because we were out on Saturday and I didn't do it. I made rice pudding for Reese, since his birthday is this week and that is one of his favorite desserts. We made it to church and got home, changed quickly and went straight to my mom's house for dinner. We had a great dinner of rib eye steaks, 7-layer salad and roasted potatoes. Then we had a dessert of rice pudding. It was great and we all ate to much. So we get home and get a phone call from Scott's mom and dad stating that they needed an exterminator because they found a GINORMOUS (is that a word?) wasp nest. We did not have the quick mind to get a picture, but it was about 18 inches across and hung down about 18 inches, anyway it was HUGE. So they were freaking out because it was inside the house and THEY DID NOT NOTICE THIS!!!! how is this? You could heard the buzzing from the outside of the door. So it just so happened that Scott brought home all his firefighter turn-outs (gear) and so he dressed up completely because we figured that wasps couldn't sting him through it and put on his air tank and went in and covered the next with black garbage bags and then hit it down into the bags. he brought up those bags to take outside and they were literally vibrating with angry wasps. So we duct taped them shut and Scott went back in to use a shop vac to vaccume up the ones that were left.

WOW, for being a nice relaxing Sunday we did not get to relax until after 8 PM and boy am I beat.

Talk to you all soon.

Colton's Birthday

So everyone is invited, seriously I mean everyone to Colton's 8th Birthday party on Friday night at 6:30 at the Logan Ice Rink.

Now I realize you all don't live here, but if you are within the sound of my voice you are invited (that includes you Jenn). It will be sooooo much fun. All the ice skating you can stand from 6:30 to 8:00 with cake and ice cream and treats. If you can make it please do we would love to see you. I am serious, everyone is invited (Josie)

So the other time to reserve is on Saturday November 8th, that will be Colton's Baptism. They have not told me the time yet, but I am sure it will be in the morning. So once again everyone is invited and we would really like you to come. We missed having family at our events for 3 years in Washington, so we are really looking forward to having a large turnout for the Baptism. For Bowen's we had no family there, so we want to change that. When I get the time I will post it.

Let me know who is coming on Friday we would love to see you.

Starting over again.

So here I am again. I am now getting around to starting a blog once more.

So many of you are probably wondering what was going on. First off you need to realize that I work for a company in that everything we do is completely confidential. I know this and I don't have a problem with it. Apparentaly in the past, about 5 months back I made mention of getting some new clients. This was a mistake on my part and I know that. Now the clients did not see this nor did I say anything more than they were just my clients. In fact if we were out on the town and I saw them they would not hesitate saying Hi to me, so fortunately they are not the kind that care about whether others know who does their bookeeping or not. Anyway I digress. It appears that someone at my office found my blog and not only was following it, but reading my past posts, and in the past posts found stuff he/she was concerned about and turned me in to the partners. So I offered to just make it private, but that would not fix everything. I needed to remove every reference that I made to work. Since that did not sound to much fun to me because of how many blog posts I have made since I started work, I just backed up my blog to my computer and deleted it.

So now we have my new blog. I debate whether to make it private or not for the mean time it is public but not searchable on the internet or listed in blog listings. If I have another problem with people from work "monitoring" my blog then I will have to make it private, but I really don't want to.

So I made mention earlier before I deleted my other blog that my hair had accidentally gone pink. Well let me expound on this for a moment. Many of you who have seen me or my blog pics know that my hair is dark brown on top and the bottom layer is blonde. When I was hired my hair was that way. I don't think that is so normal, but they hired me anyway. So after some time it was time to change the hair. The brown needed new color and the blonde had almost grown out. So instead of bleaching again I thought "why not go red?" There is nothing wrong with red. So my hair stylist did some highlights in the main part of a caramel color and the red dye, then she took THE SAME COLOR and put it on my bottom layer. i thought it would be really nice. When she rinsed it out we both just about freaked out. My blonde had only taken the pink shades of the red color, but the top layer took the red just fine and looked nice. So it wasn't like a light pink, it was Cindy Lauper pink. The next problem came that it was late on Friday night and I was late getting home so I said just leave it and maybe it will wash out, but I did make an apopintment to have it fixed later the next week.

Now comes Monday and time for work. I did my hair, ironed it and everything and went to work. Now I knew what my hair looked like, but I did not worry because I knew I was going to get it fixed. Later on that day, about 3:00, I got called into a partners office and there were 2 partners waiting for me. First off they wanted to talk about my hair. I told them it was a mistake and that I had an appointment to get it fixed later this week. Of course that wasn't soon enough. Then I got the talk about being in a professional work environment and on and on and on. Let me just say that my clothes are very nice and clean and fit well. I don't wear questionable clothing and I feel well dressed. They also mentioned that if I was going to make a change to my hair in the future that maybe I should consult them on it. YEAH RIGHT. I change my hair a lot, I never leave it one style for long. While I will not make the pink mistake again, I am not going to ask before doing my hair.

So that was last week. I was very very frustated. Not sad, not hurt, just frustrated. I did not get in "trouble" and my quality of work is not an issue, just my hair and my blog.

So the combination of all that is what led me to this new blog. While nothing much will probably change but it is really better this way.

So try to leave me note and let me know if you care or if you are still out there in Internet Land listening to me. I will be adding photos and such as time goes on.