Home Makeover

So we have been really busy lately, painting and re-decorating our main floor. I'd like to say a HUGE THANK-YOU to my sister-in-law Jeanie and my brother Anthony for all of their help. I couldn't have done it without them. I took some before and after pictures so you can see the drastic change.

This is my old front room, with exception of the slip cover on the couch, here's Adam on the old couch . I only had this picture of Dayna in front of the piano wall, but you can still see what it looked like.

This is my new living room I love it!

Here's some pictures of my old apple kitchen

This is my new kitchen. No that brick is not wallpaper , Jeanie hand-painted these bricks one by one. It looks so real, I love it!

I could only find this picture of Tad holding baby Adam, in our old bedroom, but you can see that it used to be red and yellow.
This is my new bedroom, I love the comforter the most, it's this really soft micro-suede and it is soo warm and cozy.
This summer we are going to start working on getting the upstairs re-done. Should be fun!

A picture says a thousand words

Since I haven't blogged in so long it would take me forever to write about all the things that have happened the past little while. So I am just going to post some pictures.

Temple Square just before Christmas, it was a beautiful night, not too cold and the snow was lightly falling.

Christmas 2009, Dayna and Jason loved their Ipod's and Ryan loved the Rock Band game. Adam didn't really care what was in the presents he just loved opening them!

Dayna and Hunter, her Date to the Sweethearts Dance. They had a great time together. I'm still in denial that my daughter is almost 17

Jason's 14th Birthday

Jason turned 14 on Dec. 16th. I can't believe he's that old, time is going by too fast. We celebrated his birthday by taking him out to breakfast that morning. We ate a Village Inn, it was yummy. After that he checked in to school for the rest of the day. That night we had a little family party, where I made his favorite dessert, we call it Cherry Stuff, it's basically a dump cake. Everyone loves it. He opened his presents, he got an original XBOX (his old one broke a few months ago). he was happy to get another so he could play all his games again. The Dayna, Ryan and Adam gave him some of his favorite candy. A few days later on Saturday, was Jason's friend party, I tried to talk him into just inviting a few friends and going to a movie or something, no such luck. He wanted to invite like 12 of his friends over and play games and stuff. I think about 8 kids came, it was crazy but fun. I think they all had a good time. Jason is excited to go to his first Stake dance this weekend. I can't even picture him dancing with girls. It totally freaks me out. I was going to post some pictures of Jason's birthday , but I can't get my camera to upload them at the moment, so I will post those later.

Catching Up

Wow, the time is going by so fast this year. I'm way behind on my blogging. Since I got my new job where I'm typing for 4 hrs a day. I just don't feel like getting on the computer as much.
Anyways a lot has a happened in the past month or so. First of all there was Halloween. The kids and I helped with a trunk-or-treat sponsored by the mayor's re-election campaign. The kids got to pass out the candy to everyone who passed by. Then we had to stop and get more candy, since we gave a way most of what we had. Then we hurried home to go trick-or-treating. My brother Anthony's family came down to go with us, and my friend Loretta and her kids went with us also. I was so excited to see how Adam would re-act to it all. Once he figured out that all you had to do was walk up to the door and knock and people would give him candy, he was do excited, he kept showing me his candy and saying 'mom wook canny!" it was so cute! I thought he would probably only want to do one or two streets and then he'd be tired. But nope, he kept going and going, even Ryan got tired before Adam and went home. I think we were out for nearly two hours. He probably would have gone longer if we would have let him. Here are some pictures of the kids in there costumes. For some reason I didn't get one of Jason, but he dressed up as one of the "men in black".



Tad's Birthday:
We celebrated Tad's Birthday on Nov 19th. The day before we all went to dinner at one of Tad's favorite places. KFC it was yummy. Then we came home and open Tad's presents he got one of those retro Atari game systems (he's so old) it's even more low-tech than I remember but still fun. He also got tickets to the BYU vs Airforce game that Saturday. We had cherry pie instead of cake. It's Tad's favorite. On Tad's birthday, as soon he got off of work we went to Park City to stay the night at the time share. We still had a voucher for a free night, that we got after the whole fiasco there on our anniversary. It was nice and quiet there on an Thursday night, hardly anyone was there. It was nice. They even upgraded our room for free. It was so nice, it had a full kitchen, to big screen tv's, a steam shower and a jacuzzi. It was awesome. We went out to dinner at Ruby Tuesdays, YUM. Then we spent the rest of the evening in our awesome room. The next morning we cooked ourselves some bacon and sausage for breakfast and then headed home. It was so nice to get away from life for a little while.

Thanksgiving:
We held Thanksgiving at our house this year. Tad's mom is having a lot of health problems and was unable to do it. It was a lot of work so I reallly appreciate what she did for us in past years. We had Tad brothers family and his parents come over. The turkey turned out great and so did all the other food. I was kinda nervous since I had never cooked Thanksgiving for Tad's family before. I have for my family, but for some reason it's different. It was nice to see everyone and visit and catch up on all the family news. Sometimes we feel so out of loop, so it's good be get updated on things.
We also had a bonus Thanksgiving at my brothers house on Saturday. It worked out good cause when it's the " in laws" year we don't usually get to together , but my sister was already in Utah with her in laws so we decided to do it. Friday my Sisters family and ours went to watch "The Christmas Carol" in 3D. It was awesome, it was scary in some parts though, Adam didn't want to wear the 3d glasses. But it was really fun. Then they stayed at our house that night and my sister and I stayed up talking till after midnight. It was so fun to see her and her family again. Thanksgiving at my brother Anthony's house was nice, cause I didn't have to do any of the work and mostly just got to relax and watch BYU beat UTAH and tease my brother - in law Ron about it. He is a huge Ute Fan, so its so fun glout when BYU wins.
Well now it's the countdown till Christmas. Oh I forgot to mention that I got up and 2:30am on Black Friday and when shopping with my friend Loretta. It was so much fun! And I got some awesome deals!! It was crazy but worth it. Well I guess that's about it for now.

Just Bragging

I just wanted to brag about Ryan. He has worked really hard over the past 3 yrs in scouts. And last Tuesday he earned his Webelos Rank Advancement, his Religious Square Knot and his Arrow of Light. We had an awesome pack meeting, where " Jungle Safari" was the theme. The leaders decorated the stage with all kinds of animals and they played cool "jungle music" in the background. There were four boys that got the Arrow of Light that night. They did this really awesome ceremony where they gave the boys an Indian Head dress with a few small feathers in it. Then they told a story (which I can't remember all of) but they gave each boy a different color feather for each thing like faith and courage etc. Then they had them walk across this yellow bridge to the 11 yr old scouts and their leaders who were waiting on the other side. It was so cool. I took some pictures, but as usual the quality is terrible. I really need to get a better camera. But you can still kinda see what it was like. My mom came so there's a picture of her and Ryan. We also invited our Home teacher, Brent Beckstrom and his wife Debbie. We are so proud of Ryan.

Ryan's Birthday Party!

So we just celebrated Ryan's 11th Birthday. The plan for him to invite a friend to go with our family to this place called Liberty Land. Dayna and Jason have both been there before and told Ryan how fun the laser tag was, he was so excited to go. We went the Saturday before his birthday, but when we got there, there was a lock on the gate and it said they were closed. I called my friend to look up the hours they were open and she found out that it was closed indefinitely due to lack of financing or something. Ryan was so disappointed. So we had to find somewhere else to go. After discussing many different options, we decided to go to Kangeroo Zoo. It's a place with tons of those big blow up slides and stuff. I think Ryan still had fun, but lazer tag would have been better for sure. On Ryan's real birthday we had a family party. When I asked him what kind of cake he wanted, he told me he wanted a Strawberry Shortcake (which happens to be my favorite) He really likes Spongebob so I asked him if he was sure he didn't want a Spongebob cake, but nope he wanted Strawberry. I guess he's outgrown those character cakes, how sad, I wish my kids would stop growing up so fast. For his birthday he got a spelling game from my mom, a skateboard from Jason, 2 pairs of jeans from Dayna and Adam and a video mp3 player from Tad and I. He was a happy camper!

A Little of Everything

So much has happened in the last month so I thought I would blog about a little of everything. Just a warning this is REALLY long!
First off at the end of August we found out that Tad's Grandma died, she was 92 yrs old, Tad's Grandpa is still alive and is also 92. They mostly raised their family in Idaho and then they retired to St George, they lived there for about 5 yrs, when their health started to deteriorate there daughter moved them to Washington so she could take care of them. She wanted to buried in Idaho. After talking to family it was decided she would be buried there on Labor Day weekend, it ended up being two weeks after she died. I've never seen any one wait that long to bury someone, but the whole family was there. It was a really nice service, I was mostly just sad for Grandpa, he looked so lost. They had been married over 70yrs, I don't think he will live much longer without her.
On Sunday August 30th Tad & I had an appointment with our Stake President. We knew that they were probably going to release Tad as Bishop, since he had served just over 5yrs. The whole Stake Presidency was there when we walked in. They asked us how we were doing, and we told them about Tad's grandma, but that everything else was going well. The Stake President then said, the reason they asked to meet with them, was that they would like to extend a release to Tad. I felt my heart drop, even though I knew it was time. They said all these wonderful things to us and thanked us for our service. As we left the office I felt so sad for some reason. All the next week I just kept crying about it and dreading for Sunday to come, but of course it came. I walked to to the chapel and saw Tad and his counselors sitting on the stand. I knew it would be the last time I saw them there, and I started bawling like a baby, I couldn't stop. I cried the whole sacrament meeting, I knew I was going to have to bear my testimony and when it was my turn. I was still crying. I don't know what I said really. It was so hard to talk. Tad bore his testimony after me and he held it together much better some how. When they sustained the new Bishopric they asked them to take their seats on the stand. Tad came and sat by us. I just cried on his shoulder even more. After sacrament meeting we stayed in the chapel to watch the new bishopric be set apart. I am happy for them and I know they will do a great job. But I was still sad for Tad. The whole next week I was still sad. You would think I would be happy, I mean I get my husband back. He will be able to sit with us and not have all those meetings to go to Sunday morning. After much soul searching and talking to many supportive friends and family. I realized I was sad because, supporting my husband for the last 10yrs he's been in a Bishopric has been such a big part of my life. Now it is gone and it's like you mourn that life you had, because from now on things are going to be a lot different. You wonder who will still want to be your friend and who was just friendly to you because you were the Bishops family. I have to find my identity again, I don't know who I am anymore and I feel lost. I have to find a new purpose in life and become a different person almost. I'm slowly adjusting to it. It's definitely been nice to have Tad home more and having him sit with me last Sunday was nice. This whole adjustment thing is weird, but good weird if you know what I mean. I know it will just take time. Tad has done really well with everything so far, he liked just going to High Priests last Sunday and sitting with me in Gospel Doctrine class. I'm glad that he is handling everything better than I thought he would. Maybe it hasn't sunk in for him yet. So I'm trying to be prepared if he does start feeling lost. I hope they give him a new calling soon.
Next on to happier news. Dayna got asked to the Homecoming Dance. It was a boy named Chandler, she met a school. She said he was just a friend of hers. She didn't like him like a boyfriend thing just a friend thing. I found out that he liked her more the other way. So I thought it would be and interesting date. They had a group of 8 that went together. They do the whole day date and night date thing now. We never did that when I was in High School. But they went to movie and then went home and changed and then went to dinner and the dance. Dayna looked like Cinderella to me, she was so beautiful. She had a really fun time at the dance. I took a picture of her and Chandler before they left which I will post on here. I just can't believe my daughter is old enough to date. I starting to feel really old.
Next thing, I was talking to my friend Adelle (who happens to be the new bishop's wife) the other day. I knew that she dabbled in photography and asked her if she would like to practice by taking some pictures of my family. She said she'd love to and told me that there was this really cute park in Cedar Fort that we could go to. So we scheduled a time and went there. I LOVE LOVE LOVE how the pictures turned out. She did such a great job. I have them posted on here also.
Also this September our little blue Honda Civic blew a head gasket and I thought that was the end of if for sure, it wouldn't be worth the money to fix it. So I put a little message on Facebook that my car was gone for good. My friend Tammy saw my post and said she might be able to help. This guy friend of hers was a mechanic and was willing to see if he could fix it for a lot cheaper than we thought, another mechanic had quoted $600-800. This friend of hers Mark called around. He ended up getting the crack fixed instead of having to replace the whole engine. He practically took apart the whole car to do it and spent probably 10 hrs at my house working on it. After all that he only charged us $300. What a blessing! I didn't know how I was going to survive without a car all day everyday. Also a little before this happened I was talking to my friend Tammy about how I need to find a job and that I wished I could find a data entry job I could do from home. She said she knew a girl who did something like that and home and that she would ask her about it. To make a long story short I applied with the company and a week later I had the job! I start on Monday and the training is only for a week and it's at night, so I don't have pay for a babysitter or anything. It couldn't be more perfect. It's another blessing. We have been blessed so much lately. I thought that once Tad got released all the blessings would stop too. But that hasn't been true. We've been blessed more than ever! I am so lucky to have the friends and family that I have. They are so good to me.