FFF 3

Saturday we had a Forced Family Fun day... We've been trying to go sledding on  Mt. Charleston all winter... we finally made it on Saturday. The kids moaned and groaned the whole way so we promised them "In and Out Burgers" on the way home if they shut their mouths and just tried to have fun... they did! We had a great time... Here are some fun pictures of our day.

Tanner catching some air!

Mom  having some fun...

Mitchell couldn't decide if he wanted to go down the hill again or not...

He finally went again!

I Love my honey!

Not bad for propping the camera on a pile of snow and gloves and using the timer!

Yum!

We made a fun trail...

Ouch!! Better call the chiropractor... nice form on the legs!

praise the lord

so this is ashley.
FIRST, i was going to write a blog about how ridiculously impossible it is for an average white girl with no disabilities or bizarre talents to get a scholarship. i searched for an hour on tuesday and found NOTHING.
THEN, i was going to write a blog about how i gave blood this morning and almost blacked out. scariest moment of my life. oh and dont forget the cool blood blister that now occupies half of my arm.
THIRD. i was going to write about how i got my precious volvo back today, making this the best day of my life thus far.

but then, something amazing happened that is the only thing i care about right now...

i got accepted to BYU PROVO!!

my first thoughts: shut up.. shut up.. no way!!! oh my gosh. shut up. no! you're kidding.

then i called my dad, and some other relatives. holy crap. i still cant believe it!! this is seriously the biggest thing that has happened in my life.. i have wanted this for so long and now it happened. i cant express the pure joy i am feeling. it's so great to know that pulling all of those ALL NIGHTERS throughout highschool doing stupid projects and endless homework... it was all worth something. this is crazy. now i have to plan housing and what the heck am i going to eat? and i also have to convince my mom that i desperately need a car. dont you guys agree???? i hate mooching off people. i dont think i would be able to live somewhere without a car... these past few weeks have been freaking ridiculous just sharing a car with my mom. so i am trying to brace myself for that. wish me luck :( BUT HOLY CRAP I GOT ACCEPTED!!!!!!!



three words...
best
day
ever

(by the way, these pictures were literally forced on here. they are disgusting, i know. you dont have to tell me)
xoxo, ashley

spur of the moment...

At about 5:00 Friday I decided to plan a spur of the moment night away with John... We were having a hard time making Valentines Day plans because the kids had things planned Saturday night and no one would commit to watching Tanner for us... so at 5:00 Friday night Ashley was taking a nap and Mitchell had no plans for the night, so i thought maybe we should go out that night and beet the crowds at the restaurants... then i thought it would be fun to get away for the night... I got onto Priceline.com and found a nice hotel room for $50. It was so nice to get away for the night!! We went to dinner at one of our favorite places... the Grand Lux in the Venetian. Then we walked around the shops at the new Palazzo tower. (I had never used priceline before... i was nervous we would get a dive, but i learned that you pick how many stars you want the hotel to be and name your price and it worked just fine! My $40 bid got rejected.. I was trying to be real cheap...)

I love my Valentine!! Thanks for being the love of my life!!!

The phrase "spur of the moment" reminds me of a challenge we had early in our marriage... My family was a spur of the moment type of family ( I think its because we lived in Seattle and we always had to plan things quick if the sun was out... you couldn't plan on that in advance. I remember my parents waking us up early in the morning and taking us to the mountains for the day or to the Oregon coast, because the sun was shining that day. That's probably hard for my Vegas friends to comprehend... think of trying to plan an activity for the rain... you never know when it's going to come...) John's family planned everything out... so when we got married, John would want to plan our weekends on like Tuesday and I would want to wait till Friday to see what we felt like doing... It was something that we eventually learned to compromise on. So now sometimes we plan things out way in advance and sometimes we do things spur of the moment!

Teenage stress...

The stresses of high school have gotten to Ashley this week. So, we thought we would take the kids to dinner at Fazoli's (Ashley's favorite) the other night to cheer her up... As we were driving to the restaurant we asked Ashley what was wrong and her response was something like this...

"You don't realize how much pressure I have being in High School, hoping to get accepted to college, worrying about boys, worrying about girl friends, my car is broken and my job and everything. I have WAY more pressure that you guys have."

John and I had a good laugh! Oh to be young again and have the pressures of high school instead of having the stresses of jobs, kids, mortgages, cars, financial security, feeding children, keeping the marriage healthy, sending daughter to college next year, church callings and etc.

We love you Ashley!! We love you more than anything and we want you to be happy!! Everything will work out... college will happen before you know it and Heavenly Father will guide you to the one you should go too. Enjoy your last few months of high school... Remember to ENJOY THE MOMENT!

recipes...

My mom and my sister in law have asked for a few of my recipes... so i scanned them in... click on them to see them bigger. I made the ribs and they were delicious!! I used pork ribs... After they cooked in the crock pot all day I threw them on the BBQ for a few minutes with bbq sauce. So good!! The crock pot chicken is a favorite in our house... shred it and serve over rice. A few of them I haven't made, but had them at the pig out in our ward and they were yummy! Erin said her pizza bread burns... so I changed the temp to 350 instead of 375... see if that works. Maybe cook it a little longer too... The pizza fondue was yummy. I served it with homemade bread sticks... but the kids said it was more of an appetizer than a meal... I was full though.
Good luck and happy cooking.

Bloggers block...

I have been wanting to update my blog but I don't feel like I have anything to say... 

I wanted to post about my niece and her husband coming down for the weekend, but I didn't take any pictures... I hate posting without pictures... I guess that is the scrapbooker in me. We had a fun time with them. But it was so weird to have my niece bring her HUSBAND! How could I be old enough to have 3 nieces married?? They are really cute together. Shawn had a soccer tournament and he had to play his games in the rain! It was cold... I felt bad that we had stuff going most of the weekend, we only got to see half of one game! They played great and made it to the semi finals I think... Spencer (my nephew) came down with them and kept Mitchell happy all weekend! They have been buddies since they were a few months old. We watched some home movies from when they were babies... they were such cute little guys!

Ashley's car is in the shop... so we have been sharing the van. It has been cramping her style a bit! The price you pay for wrecking your car... I have been waking up early to take them to seminary... talk about cramping my style... I'm usually sound asleep. I think I am ready for my afternoon nap! I was just going to write that I could never teach seminary, but I know if I write that then someday it might happen... I am NOT a morning person at all.

I will try to be a better blogger this week... 

February dinner menu...

I must say that January went so smooth because I had my dinner calendar! I only swayed from it a few times... 

Here is my February calendar. (Click on it to see it bigger... Let me know if you want any of the recipes.)

best and worst

Here are the best and worst of last week... (we still do this at dinner every night! The kids complain, but it helps us learn about everyones day)

Best: 

1. Ashley and Mitchell & Amanda Hansen were safe in Ashley's little fender bender.

2. Tanner participated in his last pinewood derby!! He had a sweet looking car!

3. Tanner earned his Arrow of Light in the cub scout program.

4. Ashley was brave in one her classes and expressed her feeling about abortion. The teacher was all for it and she told him that she totally disagreed with him! She is a good little missionary.

5. John found out that he has a business trip in San Diego in March, and I get to go with him!!

6. Sales were up a bit at Sunburst Shutters this week! John is helping them launch a new program where they will now sell all kinds of window treatments. He has been extremely busy with this and its nice to see that it is working!

7. I was able to go to the temple on Wednesday.

8. Learned some great grocery shopping tips.

9. John got to go to a missionary meeting with L. Tom Perry

10. We had a great youth conference pizza planning meeting Friday night.

11. Tanner had his DARE graduation.

12. Church was great today.

13. Mitchell actually invited friends over to the house on Friday night. And they had a good time!

Worst:

1. Ashley was in an accident.

2. My baby is growing up too fast. I can't believe he is in 11 year old scouts. We will miss pack meetings...

3. Ashley is going to be poor after she pays the insurance deductible.

4. John has been pretty stressed out at work. 

5. John and I each had different church meetings this weekend, so we didn't get a date night.

I guess it's a good week when I have more bests than worsts!!

ashley sucks at driving

hi this is ashley. not only does this post count as "ashley's corner IV", it will also be a vent session. and let me start by saying, i had a choice of my mom writing this blog or me writing it. since it was coming either way, i figure i would set the story straight. well i have sure had an interesting morning.. 

it started like any other day: woke up, bad hair day, was late to seminary, the usual. driving from seminary to school is easily one of the worst parts of my day. its so crowded, teenagers dont know how to drive (obviously) and all that junk.

so we're sitting at a red light (sahara and el camino if you want the specifics) and the car in front of me scooted forward a little bit, and i thought for her to be scooting up, the light must have turned green so what do i do? 

gas it. 

i wasnt looking. i think i was skipping a song on my ipod but i cant even remember. all i know is i heard mitchell scream "ASHLEY, STOP!!" so i look up, proclaim my thoughts in some profanic word choices, and my car is in Jessica Leavitt's butt. not literally. 

her car got a bunch of little scratches and a big crack (i will be replacing the bumper).. and mine?  well just take a look... 

ta-da. 

thats what i get. hopefully this experience will make me a more cautious driver. on my way home i stopped like 10 feet behind each car hahaha.

it's alright i guess. luckily i was blessed with amazing, understanding parents. they came and comforted me this morning right after it happened. i am just so grateful that no one got hurt. 

its crazy how fast word travels among highschoolers. i was 30 minutes late to first period and by the time i walked in, everyone already knew. how does that happen? text messaging? dont people have anything better to do than text each other about my mistakes? sure, i like attention but not when it's about something stupid i did. i already feel horrible about it and now i get to hear fun comments in the halls from others who weren't even involved. luckily my good friend Russell was in the mood for Cafe Rio after school. it definitely makes life a little better :). another fun surprise was after school i arrived in the parking lot to find a small group of people examining the front of my car.

no, that didnt make me feel stupid at all. 

not at all...

love, ashley

Change...

One of the great things about the church is that there is always change...  It's always hard to let go of callings and its scary to move on to new things.  But if we were all comfortable in our callings, we wouldn't grow. We had big changes in our ward today, we got a new Bishopric. We feel great about Bishop Hodson and know that he has been called by God. And his counselors are strong, great men. I know that they will do a wonderful job.

We love Bishop Lords and his counselors! They have done an amazing job and we will miss them!  Bishop Lords is the only Bishop we have known here in the Canyon Gate Ward... He and his counselors and their families helped us feel so welcome when we moved in. John loved working with Bishop Lords when he was the YM's president. He learned a lot from him and enjoyed getting to know him. Bishop Lords was always supportive of me in my calling with the YW.  He came to camp everyday to be with his YW and never missed a youth conference or another stake event. That meant a lot to the girls and the leaders. THANK YOU!!!

The only problem I have with our new bishop is that he won't be the Stake YM President anymore! I have enjoyed working with him so much for the last 22 months. He has taught me so much. When I stressed out before a big event, he would bring me back down to reality and tell me everything will work out fine. And it always did. Our presidency's had some good laughs in our monthly meetings. I will miss his quotes of the day, his willingness to do any job that needed to be done or have Kayla do anything...haha. His assistant at work is named Kayla and she was a great help! I'm not sure who will make sure the chairs are set up straight at youth conference and who will bring the water??

One more change... my high counselor Dix Jarman got sustained as the new YM president in the Monte Cristo ward today... I am SO SAD! I have loved working with Dix. He was such a great support to me and my presidency. When I got my calling I knew I would be working with him, so I knew everything would be ok. I knew he would support me and help me with whatever I needed and he did. Not every man would stir port-a-potties at girls camp and run up and down the mountain everyday with a list of things to bring back for all the ladies. He never complained, he always had a smile on his face. He will always be known at camp as the pink port a potty man and the guy who had a bag of candy to share. JK. The girls will remember him for his strong testimony and his willingness to serve them.

Thanks Dix & Derrick! Love you guys! (I told President Worthen that he better get some good replacements or I will be bugging him all the time!)

Happy Birthday Tanner!!!

Today is Tanners birthday... I can't believe he is 11! Time has sure flown by! Tanner was born in Spokane Washington. We were so excited that he was a boy! (well, all of us except Ashley, when we called her after he was born she asked us to check again!) But once she saw him, she was his little mom and loved him so much! And Mitchell was so excited to have a playmate.

Tanner has been a silly boy since he was very small. He loves to make faces, loves to tell jokes and stories, he keeps us very entertained!

Here are a few of Tanners favorite things:
*He LOVES pizza & Taco Bell
*Loves to play Guitar Hero
*Loves to draw
*Loves riding to Grumpy's with Mitchell
*Loves working with dad on projects
*Loves swimming
*Loves playing checkers with dad

He was obsessed with vacuum cleaners!

Our little surfer dude!

He was so HAPPY to meet BUZ!

Joy School graduation...

Ouch!

T visits his friend T-Rex

Baptism day

Surfing in Hawaii, he was a natural!

He loved the turtles

Mr. Quarterback

Guitar Hero

Hiking the Narrows

We love you Tanner! Hope you have a great day!

Time to talk resolutions...

John gave a great Family Night lesson last night on Balance... it got me thinking about the different areas of my life: Spiritual, personal, family, my hubby, financial and my calling. I realized that I need to categorize my resolutions to keep balance in my life.

So, after a lot of soul searching and pondering, here are a few of my resolutions for 2009:

Spiritual: I plan to use the Preach My Gospel as my guide for my daily scripture study. Have you read this book? I haven't. I keep hearing John and others talk about it and the Sister missionaries came over the other night and presented a lesson on it and WOW... There is some great stuff in it. It's not just for Full-time missionaries. It's for everyone... Plus I want to keep my Wednesday morning temple trip. I have missed it over the holidays!

Hubby: Try to go to bed earlier so we have more time to talk. We have gotten into the habit of going to bed late, and then John falls asleep instantly and we miss out on talk time without the kids around. Plus I want us to plan more creative dates.

Family: Enjoy the daily activities more... help Tanner with homework better, talk more to the kids while I drive them places (mitchell doesn't like to talk much, so it's usually quiet in the car... I need to pry him a little harder.) Play more games together. We had a great time playing "Rack-o" last night. We used to play that with my grandparents. fun memories.

Financial: Stop eating out so much. It got pretty bad in November and December. I was very lazy on the cooking and found myself grabbing cafe rio and pizza a little too often! This will help my personal goal too...

Calling: My presidency decided today that we are going to work on getting our YW Medallion. I am excited to get this again. I would also like to communicate with my ward YW presidents better this year. I plan to do this by visiting wards more and not use email as my only way to communicate. I forget that I have a phone sometimes. And I want to have more consistent presidency meetings. We are off to a good start... (I made the cutest calendars for my presidency. I transfered dates from the stake calendar into one that I made on the computer and added cute pictures from last year. Like in March I have pictures of last years Youth Conference, in April I have a picture of last years camp banner since that is the month we pick the camp theme and then I have lots of camp pictures throughout the rest. Its like a little srapbook of last year! so fun)

Personal: It's time to admit that I have lost all control of this part! I have gained back 25 pounds of the 50 that I lost a couple years ago. Most of it in the last 6 months. So, it's time to face it and get back to healthy eating! I have been pretty good about exercising... If not, I bet i would have gained it all back by now. So, the plan is to start keeping a food journal and keep exercising. I started today and have tracked everything so far! I know what i need to do, I've done it before and I really don't want to spend the money on Weight Watchers again. So I am going to give it a shot on my own. If I write things down and plan my meals ahead of time I know I can do it! So the goal is to fit back into my favorite jeans!

To help me get started on my resolutions, I made a dinner calendar today!!!! My life goes so much smoother when I have one. I sat down a the computer with a few cookbooks and scheduled out the month. I plan to do this every month. It will help with not eating out, healthy eating, more time with family and my sanity. I put the calendar in a little binder and put any recipes that I would need to look up into the binder. So everything is ready to go. I found a really fun blog where this girl cooked in her crockpot everyday in 2008. Crazy! But, she has some good looking recipes. I will let you know if I try any good ones. I decided that Mondays would be crockpot day. I am trying out a pork chop recipe tonight... I hope it's good, it smells good. check out the site here.

Here is my calendar for the rest of January...

one of the joys of teenagers...

Look at what we woke up to this morning! Actually, one of us woke up to it last night. Thanks to the knocking on the door... What is really crazy is that we had only been in bed for like 10 minutes and John didn't even hear the knocking! He'd only been asleep like 5 minutes!! Talk about heavy sleeper. I on the other hand, was up waiting for Ashley to get home. We should have caught them 2 times because we had just walked up the stairs to go to bed, I guess neither of us looked out the front window and If Ashley would have been home on her curfew, she would have caught them. But no, she was 15 minutes late. I guess what comes around goes around! My sister and I t.p.ed quite a bit in High School! And I do remember that there were times that we laid on the horn as we were driving away, so I really can't be mad at the knocking... Julie, do you remember when Brother Amendola called the Terry's in the middle of the night and told them to go see if his car engine was hot, because he had seen a brown van drive away. Then Brother Terry called us in the morning to see if it was us because we had a van like his?? We got caught! Good times!

Motivation

My mom emailed this link to me. It's a pretty incredible! Take a look.

Are You Going To Finish Strong? Awesome video! If you watch only one video today make sure it is this one! Nick Vujicic has no limbs but he leads an incredible life!

Ahhhh....

The house is quiet... all the kids are back in school! Christmas got put away on Saturday and my house is clean. I am sitting on the couch ready to watch a new season of Oprah! I do have laundry and a huge stack of papers to go through and a checkbook to balance... but for the next hour, its me and the TV and a blanket. I am hoping for a little weight loss motivation from my friend Oprah today! It's a new year and I have some new goals!

I am feeling for my friends up in the Northwest... my sister posted that they were getting more snow and school might be cancelled today and my friend Stacy in Spokane said their school is for sure cancelled and they were expecting 8 more inches of snow... I must say that I am glad I am in the dessert today! A few days of snow is fun, and then it becomes a burden, especially in the Pacific Northwest. There are just so many hills, you can't function, even if you have good snow tires. Good luck my friends! I will think of you in my quiet house watching Oprah.

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a safe and happy New Years Eve! Mine was a little different... I had to chaperone the youth dance and we couldn't find a sitter for Tanner, so John stayed home with him. I didn't like being away from my Honey on New Years Eve! We decided to go out tomorrow night and have our own little celebration... I am looking forward to it!!

The dance was great. I was worried that we wouldn't have a good turnout, but we did! The DJ brought this fun photo booth... here I am with my 2nd counselor and my secretary. Unfortunately my other counselor wasn't able to come. I love my presidency! Such great ladies!!

I got home around 1:00am and it took a while to get the kids all settled and home. By about 2:30 I was almost asleep when I hear a ton of teenagers out back. Mitch and his 2 friends were sleeping in the backyard on the tramp (I know, crazy kids, they insisted on it! It was very cold out...) I thought the noise was them... so I jump out of bed and open the door ready to yell at them and they are still on the tramp almost asleep... the noise was over the wall in Canyon Gate...  A late party getting over. They were so loud! And then a like 4am a car alarm went off! Not a good night sleep for me!  I need a nap!!!!

Since it's a new year, I thought I would give the blog a new look! My super talented friend Suzanne drew this cute picture of our family! I LOVE it! I hope to have that skinny waist in a few months! I love that she captured John and Ashley's little dimple on their chin... so cute.

Christmas pics 2008

Here are some pictures from Christmas Eve and Christmas day. Our Christmas Eve was spent at the Lords house. We had a great time with them. This has become a tradition for us and we love it. Keri sets a beautiful table and we usually bbq some steak and have crab legs. We always have those English poppers on our plate that we open before dinner... that's why we all have silly hats on! That's a tradition with the Lords, since Nick when on his mission to England.

After dinner the kids get ready for the Nativity... 

It felt a little different this year... and then I remembered that we were missing Adam! It was strange. 

I made my brother's famous Eggnog Cheesecake for dessert and Keri made an English trifle. Both were yummy!

Christmas morning! Ashley with her new coat...

Mitchell with his new guitar!

The family playing the new Guitar Hero World Tour...

Tanner loved his cash from Grandma and Grandpa!

Now the Birthday celebration after a delicious dinner... Scott and Jenn and Duece came to join us for the festivities.

Ashley was so excited about her new scriptures!

Her favorite dessert!

It was a great day! We relaxed and had a fun time with the kids, playing with their new things. I am so sad that it is over... I am going to try to do my best to keep the spirit of Christmas in our home all year! I'd write more, but I am really tired.... I'm off to bed!

My little girl turned 18 yesterday! How in the world did this happen?? Time has flown by! It seems like yesterday that I went to the Dr. for a routine pregnancy exam and he told me I would be having her within 24 hours! I was shocked. She wasn't due for another month and it was Christmas Eve! And to make it a little more exciting it was snowing like crazy. When it snows in Seattle, life pretty much shuts down. We drove to the hospital Christmas Eve around 7pm and had her at 12:30 am Christmas morning! It was an amazing night, holding my new little girl and watching the snow fall out the window. My first white Christmas!

Ashley is an amazing daughter! We love her so much! She's a great big sister, a great example to all of us and she's such a happy girl! Happy 18th birthday Ashley!!!!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas tradition #3

We always make our own Christmas card.... Here is this years....

Click on it to see it bigger.

I hope you are all having a Merry Christmas!!