Bug's Birthday

Bug chose to go to Pizza Hut for her birthday. Then we went over to the mall to play on the toys, and to buy Bug another "Bones" book.



She got one from Grandma Ellen and wouldn't put it down. We had to beg her to put down the book long enough to eat her dinner.



Bear wanted to try his hand at driving. I think he's going to be my extremist. He loves any thing with a motor and goes fast.

Bang Boom Slide

Beaner had a bit of an accident this last weekend. Big D took all the kids snowmobiling and Beaner fell out of the sled and slid down the hill on her face. The funny thing is I have a similar picture of me from when I went sledding with my dad around that age, maybe younger. I will have to hunt for the picture and post it next to this one so everyone can see: like mother like daughter. Of course, I wasn't doing a rabbit impression in my picture.

I Got Released

I received a new calling this morning, I am going to be Primary Secretary. I am excited! I had a feeling they were going to put me in Primary, the current presidency has been in for about six years. I was a little nervous where they'd put me because I didn't want to be the teacher over Bear's class.

It is funny that they put me in Nursery as soon as Bear was old enough to go and now they put me in Primary the very first Sunday Bear is going in there. I think they are trying to tell me something, maybe they're scared of Bear.

I could understand that if Sweeton was still alive. Having two identical boys with that much energy, that would be a challenge. But with Bear by himself he isn't too bad. He does take a lot of attention though.

I'm glad I will be in there to help if needed but Bear isn't going to be able to rely on my for every thing. I think this will be good for the both of us.

I've been trying to prepare him for a couple weeks now that he wasn't going to be going to class with me any more. He will be going in with the big kids, not mommy. Mommy has her own class. He wasn't too happy about that until I told him he'd be in there with Bug, Bud, and Beaner. I think he was getting used to the idea. Now, I guess we won't have to worry about that anymore.

It will be nice to be able to watch all my little ones that just left Nursery and see how they do in Primary. I like watching. I've always been comfortable being a wall flower.

Being in the presidency will also allow me to be creative again: planning activities and opening exercises. I do well in the planning but not necessarily in the teaching. I hope I have fun.

I am excited with who the president is. She is a very high energy woman, but she can also be a bit erratic. I am a very organized person who likes things in order. Some might call me uptight even. She is a little flippant in her thinking. Who knows, maybe she will help me dislodge this stick I've been carrying around my whole life.

Scripture Study At Our House

Every night we do scriptures and prayer before bed time. The boys like to take advantage of their audience. It makes scripture time fun, but not very spiritual. Of course, I don't know how you can be spiritual with two monkeys living in the house.



Bear and Bud like to play off of each other, try to out do each other.



Bear kept getting closer and closer to the camera. I had to ask him numerous times to scoot back.



Isn't he cute!?!



Bear would crowd in front of Bud to steal the spot light. Little stinker! You can see Beaner and Big D in the background trying to read. I think they gave up on the scriptures though.



Bear is our stand up comedian. He loves to make us laugh. Bug wasn't any help. She was sitting back by me watching the boys laughing and egging them on to be funnier, like that's possible.



And when we do laugh it just fuels the fire.



I think they get the poser genes from their Uncle Lowell.

My First Day At The Gym

I have never liked gyms. I never know what I'm doing and I always feel so self conscious that I never go back.

So I was a little nervous about how I would react last night. I was going all by myself, with no buddy. I walked in like I owned the place. I had to keep telling myself that I am already beautiful, that helped.

I worked out for an hour and a half and I still didn't want to leave. It was eight o'clock, I had to get home and put the kids to bed. Plus, I felt a little guilty that I left Big D home with nine hungry kids.

Maybe that's why I had such a good time at the gym and didn't want to leave.

It's been fun, Big D and I are getting in to the competition part of the wager. That really helps because I am so competitive but I never feel like I can let that side of me out - it's not pretty.

Today I made a huge banner that said, "I am going to Disneyland" and put it right where Big D can see it when he comes home. He's going to get a good laugh out of that one.

Big D was telling me yesterday that he started his diet off with a fast to get the Lord on his side. He said he had a hard time all day at work yesterday but then he'd look up some snow machines on the internet and feel so much better.

I told him that was cheating getting the Lord on his side, so today I'm fasting to even things up again. Ha Ha!

Man am I hungry!

Me and C

My best friend, C, and I love to take pictures. So we decided to try our hand at taking one picture a day and sharing it with all of you. You can see our pictures at:

ct1000words.blogspot.com

Fill free to take a gander and comment, but please remember we are both amateurs and are doing this for fun. Be gentle.

We will not be posting pictures Saturdays or Sundays.

Picture Perfect

Big D was snowmobiling with Mike, my brother-in-law. He came across this place that he knew I'd love. He took me back there the next day and he was right. I spent the next hour and a half taking pictures of every thing. I think I ended up taking over a hundred pictures.

Needless to say, I am still trying to get used to my new camera so not many of the pictures turned out, which really ticks me off. I think this is actually the first time I've actually got to play with my camera. So hopefully I'll get better.

We showed up at this spot right in time. The lighting was perfect but it was fading fast. There was so much to take pictures of that I couldn't quit saying how awesome it was.

Once again I was very giddy.

Here is some of the pictures, enjoy:

'79 Is A Good Year

We woke up this morning and it was about twenty below zero. Brrrrr! I was cold all night, which is probably why I kept waking up all night. I'd done the motherly thing and given away my big blanket to Bear so he wouldn't be a bear the next day.

My sister-in-law and her husband had to leave back to the real world today. They drove their truck so they could pull our snowmobiles for us. So Big D and Papa Ray went out to load the machines to be taken home. It took a little bit to get them started, every thing was frozen. Once they did get them started they had a hard time getting them to move because they were frozen to the ground.

After about thirty minutes every thing was loaded and on its way home. One of the guys down in the loading area started laughing when they saw Big D driving his 1979 snowmobile to load it on the trailer. He said he had about six brand new machines and they couldn't get them running for nothing, but here are these ancient machines and they are the only ones in the area driving down the road.

Big D said all the big sexy trucks in the loading area had their hoods up with dudes hanging out the top. No one could get anything started this morning. I was so happy that my in-laws decided to extend our vacation by a day. We weren't part of the mad rush to get loaded and checked out.

I don't think the people in the cabin next to us ever got their truck started. They had to be towed out.

It is funny, out snowmobiling we get a lot of funny looks and some snickers because our machines are so old. Practically everyone we passed had brand new big dog machines. We were the ones smiling today as ours are the only machines that would do anything. Big D puts a lot of time into pampering his machines and I think it really paid off for him today.

Hazardous Snowmobiling

Yesterday the weather was over cast but warm. We all spent hours on the snow machines, even the tiny tots. Today, not so much.

I woke up to a beautiful crisp blue sky. I was so excited because I tried taking some pictures yesterday and they were all blah. So when I saw that bright sun reflecting off the snow like tiny diamonds, I got a little giddy.

We decided to take the kids over to a hill we saw the day before perfect for sledding. We pulled the kids to the hill, about a mile or two, with the cruel air biting any exposed skin it could reach.

We got to the hill where Bug went first and hit a huge jump and biffed it, I was so happy I didn't go down with her I was about to jump in with her. Surprisingly, Bud decided he wanted to go down next. Grandma Ellen was helping Bud get all ready to go down and I asked her if she was going with him.

Mind you, we just got done having a conversation with how conservative she is. She never takes risks, and yes she saw Bug just biff it on this same hill.

She climbed on the back of Bud and away they went. Thank goodness she missed the big jump, however, she did hit the little one. She landed right on her back and didn't move. I felt so bad for not talking her out of it, maybe even pressuring her into it with my little, "Oh are you going with Bud?" comment.



She didn't get up too quickly and not at all until she had help. She sat on the machine the rest of our adventure watching and trying to enjoy herself. Let's face it when you've broken your coxsis, like your butt, you really can't enjoy anything else.

It's a good thing my sister-in-law just had surgery on her shoulder, she gave her mother some of her heavy duty pain killers.

I told Grandma Ellen that I hoped she didn't decide to cancel our annual snowmobile trip just because we abused her once. That got a laugh but let's face it when your bum is broken the very last thing you want to do is laugh.



Big D and the boys pretending like they are at Disneyland.



Papa Ray did a great job at taking the kids back up the hill. In my day we had to walk up hill both ways to get to sled down again. Spoiled little tikes.



Bud on his last run down the hill. He barely made it into the sled before it took off down hill.



Big D is apoligizing to Beaner for throwing her off the sled when Papa was pulling them up the hill. She didn't get hurt she was just really pissed.



Papa called last run of the day and Bug ended up losing her sled and having to acturally run down the hill. I laughed and told her that Papa wasn't being literal.

New Year's Resolutions, Yuck!

I have made a lot of New Year's Resolutions in my life, as I am sure many people have. Out of all the resolutions I've made in my thirty plus years I can count only one that I've seen all the way through.

Back in 2006 I resolved to read the entire Bible. It was hard, and it took me a long time, but I finished it before the year was over. I was so proud of myself, I felt a wonderful sense of accomplishment.

Despite my success in 2006 I really dislike resolutions. I feel like I'm setting myself up to fail before I ever begin. Then I feel even worse when I finally admit defeat, which usually means I feel so guilty that I haven't done anything toward my resolution by April I push it completely out of my mind. Every time I think of my failure after that point is like twisting the toothpick under my finger nails.

Needless to say, Big D and I are not making any resolutions this year, mainly because I really don't want feel like a failure.

However, we have set up, what I think, is a very interesting wager.

This is the year for taking back ourselves. We've been whining about our weight for quite awhile now. We are both at our highest weight that we've ever been, excluding being pregnant with twins - but I have been asked if I'm pregnant (that's bad).

We are giving ourselves a time limit and a carrot. By July 17, 2009 whom ever loses their desired weight: Big D = 35 lbs Tiff = 30 lbs, wins the carrot.

If Big D wins he gets to buy new snow machines. He gets to pick any machines he wants and I can't give my opinion, unless asked.

If I win we get to take the family to Disneyland, and I get to look sexy on the beaches of California - not that I will touch the water, I've seen 'Jaws' one too many times.

I figure if I hold myself responsible by posting both our progress once a week then I won't be able to just give up when it gets tough. That and I'm on my blog so much that I will constantly see my progress and it will always be on my mind.

We've laid out our game plan and we are ready to start as soon as we get home from vacation.

I am excited and I hope this helps keep me motivated. Have I mentioned that the only thing I hate worse than resolutions is diets?