A thought

A couple months ago we had a super Saturday. First time I've ever heard of it. It was this activity where ladies get together and craft all day. I believe the church has put an end to Super Saturdays (for now at least).

Any how, I was getting ready to embellish my craft with a sticker that read "our family is forever" when I noticed my friend pick up her sticker that read "just family." Oh cool, I thought, where can I get one of those? To which she replied, "I special ordered this" and with a lowered voice "we're not married in the temple." Call me insensitive, but I couldn't help but laugh.

As if

How can families not be forever, married in the temple or not. We married, we had children, we experienced life together. We're bound to a certain degree , temple marriage or not. And unless I missed the part that our memories of our family will be wiped away completely at death, I believe you can't forget family whether you want to or not.

And if my kid in heaven didn't remember I was his mama, I'm gonna slap him right side the head.

stupid Mormon cliches

12/30/09 waiting outside the Ogden temple for Spencer and Laura to come out

A Big Day

We've been super busy these past couple of weeks with lots of family visiting and celebrating. One of the major events besides Christmas, our Anniversary (which we didn't celebrate), New year's, Spencer's wedding, and Toki's birthday, was his baptism.

I was quite busy trying not to completely mutilate the opening and closing hymns, as the pianist, and then trying to keep Vy and Lolo quiet and still (which wasn't working) that I wasn't able to calmly and peacefully enjoy the ordinance.

However, I'm happy for us. We've made it this far and it is an accomplishment for me. It's not easy to stay active in any church, and have seen lots of converts "fall away."

I hope for my children that they will notice the blessings in their lives because of their faithfulness in keeping the commandments and trying to live Christ's teachings. It's so easy for us to be ungrateful and not see how truly blessed we are until something happens to shake us out of our so called "misery." We've been given so much and in many ways are spoiled.

Vy and Lolo were the only kids watching the baptism. They got front row seats to watch their big brother get dunked. They then thought they could also crawl into the center of the circle as Chris, his dad and grandpa, Uncle Quin, and brothers Loyd and Bobby, gathered around Toki to lay their hands on his head and confer the gift of the Holy Ghost to him.

Something that I want to remember is when our Bishop got up to address us and especially Toki and gave him some specific instructions. "I interviewed this young man before baptism and his parents have taught him well. You have good parents." To which he replied, "I know." He kept replying "o.k." as the Bishop gave him specific instructions to listen to his parents and to write down in his journal about his baptism experience.

So happy my parents came up for this event. My kids loved having their grammy and papa around. And it was just nice to have their presence with us for a handful of days. Wish it would happen more often.

hahaha. Toki looks mortified and I look fat.

Playing around with my new lens

Chris smoked a turkey this year with his new smoker from his parents. Delicious.

The wood soaking before being put in the smoker.


My nephews and neice visiting us and playing in the snow.

My bro and his youngest.




Tyler my nephew. Awww, I remember when he was born, now he's all grown up.

My neice


Ang and I being silly. We're wearing leather pants btw.

Random pictures I liked.






A tradition to see the lights at Temple Square



Remembering 9 years ago. Wow.

Toki has a really good "shoot or take down"

Been Hyper lately

The kids and I made some ornaments. Here are a few.

Finally finished this quilt after 4 1/2 years. After buying our home, I really wanted the boys to have Pottery Barn like quilts but wasn't going to pay for them. So I started this project. It's totally imperfect. I tried hand quilting it and that was the major reason it wasn't getting done. So I decided to use a sewing machine to finish it up. It is so messed up and I love it and my kids are fighting over it. The other is pieced together. Hopefully I'll get hyper again and quilt it.

After walking around the paper store for an hour, I finally decided on this look and if I got this card in the mail, I would stare at it all day long ;0).

Tried making caramels for the first time. A couple things I learned.....carmels need a lot of time and patience and you need to cook the heck out of them. (I had to go back and edit this. Chris was displeased. He posed the question, "what if I talked like that?" Well...he made a good point because I wouldn't like that. It just doesn't seem right coming out of Chris' mouth. I told him I really want him to go to Heaven and when he does that he needs to come and visit me with his wife and kids and then I stood corrected again....."wives and kids." oops sorry dear, "wives and kids I mean."


I made a soft caramel and a hard caramel. I liked both very much.

For years now I've been imagining sketches of the boys on my wall. So here's a practice run. Toki at 4 months.

He is going to Regionals for his Reflections art project. Congrats! Vy was jealous because he didn't make the cut, but got over it. These boys can be competitive with each other. Vy placed 1st and 2nd in the last two wrestling tournaments they had. Toji was very jealous. He came in third in his last two tournaments which is really good as well. Jealousy......A kink we're trying to work through (if at all possible) before they hate each other. Wondering if we should just have them in completely different activities.

A couple things that happen every Saturday/Sunday when Chris can. He makes waffles and he always forgets the last one. So here it is, burnt.

And seriously contemplating signing up for this.LA marathon I had been thinking about training for another one. And even more specifically, imagined my brother and I doing something like this, I was actually thinking more of a half marathon. And then it was as if he read my mind. He called me up and proposed the challenge. I'm always up for a challenge. He overcoming his individual struggles is probably equivalent to what I would have to overcome.......3 kids, snow and cold, time constraints, and my body falling apart. This is going to be tough.

Will try to get around to posting up the two tournaments that the boys participated in yesterday and the week before. Wow. It's a tough sport.

Yes Please.......I'll take an XX

Comments I've gotten since having 3 boys (some more than others)...
1. So you going to try for the girl?
2. You NEED a girl.
3. Ohhhh, if you had a little girl, she would be soooo gorgeous.
4. You need to have 6 kids.
5. What if you have a fourth and it's a boy...followed by a hahahaha.
6. You've been slacking. (this may be something I tell myself)
7. This is how you have a girl....followed by a variety of options, some more explicit than others. (I like to hear what my lady friends have to say. It was weird to hear some of the comments made by males, usually not requested by me.)

Some expections I'm hearing....get pregnant, have a girl, and make sure she's gorgeous.

And for $18,000 I could do it:



Interesting article. It mentions that most countries have banned the procedure. It's legal in the U.S.A. and 70 percent of one doctor's clients are from those other countries. I think it's too extreme for the purpose of just choosing a gender but think it's a fabulous option for those who have a huge chance for genetic disorders for example those families who have had all kids with a genetic disorder. When I've been pregnant, I've always skipped out on the genetic disorder testing. I don't want to make myself worry about information I can't do anything about. If it's obvious on the the ultrasound....that's another thing.