Rocket Derby

Noland and Brenan just had their space derby. They did so good!!! Brenan's came in first place once, and they each got second everytime after that. Who says these things are for scouts and their dads. I think the three of us did great together. If you can't tell, Brenans is the yellow (fire) one, and Nolands in the flag one.

Here is a video of Brenan's winning race. His is in the middle lane.

Brenan's baptism & birthday party

Brenan was Baptized last Saturday March 21st. Bryce was able to get a weeks leave and come home and baptize him before leaving for Iraq. It turned out to be such a wonderful day. I was stressing. We usually do baptisms on a stake basis, but since we were doing it on an off Saturday, (not a normal Saturday before fast Sunday) I had to make all the arrangements and plan the whole day myself. That morning Bryce and I had to be at the Stake Center at 8:30 to fill the font ourselves. It took three hours to fill!:( I ended up going home and getting the kids ready and meeting Bryce up there with all of his stuff to get ready. It kind of made for a long day. Thanks everyone who helped on the program. We appreciate your support.

Brenan's birthday was actually on the 5th of March, but he refused to have his party until his dad was here to celebrate with him. We had a scavenger hunt where we found the pinata at the end of the hunt. The kids had a great time with that. We planned the pinata before we knew it was supposed to snow, so we had to improvise and hang the pinata from the kitchen railing and a stick that Bryce held. Each kid went home with an arm full of loot. He had a great day and received some fun gifts from his friends.

Vegas Baby!!

Bryce was able to get a weekend off the first of February, so the kids and I drove down to Vegas and met him for the weekend. It was a lot of fun. Kind of a whirl wind trip, but fun.

We took the kids to Circus Circus for the day. They loved it. Rashele is the only one that wouldn't go on any rides, so I didn't get pictures of her.(she gets motion sickness)

This cardboard Elvis was in the window of the Hotel liquor store. I went in and asked the person working if I could take it out of the window and use it to take my kids picture. We have a friend who loves Elvis so we had to take a picture to text to her.

Grandma's 80!!

For Grandma Taylor's 80th birthday Kristin and I gave her tickets to Weber State's basketball game. Grandma loves sports, specially when it comes to the Utah Jazz and Weber State. She and Grandpa used to have season tickets and go to every game until Grandpa got to sick to drive. Taking her brought back so many fun memories of going to the games with our grandparents and parents. I don't think we watched the game as much as we watched Grandma and reminisced about the old days. Good Times!! I bought Grandma a megaphone so she could cheer on the boys.

Kristin says "it was a nail biter of a game".

What's a Weber State game without Waldo?

Kristin decided to take a picture of us. We were both going to ham it up, but it looks like I'm the only one that did. Lovely!!!

NEW CEILING

I finally have a new ceiling!!!

Most of you know the story behind this, but for those of you who don't, here goes. A few years ago we had a leak from our upstairs bathroom. We decided to tear up and replace the whole bathroom floor, and redue it. While balancing on two beams, Bryce was trying to cut some of the old floor away from the wall, lost his balance and fell through the ceiling into our family room, taking a full sheet of sheet rock down with him.

The hole in the ceiling became kind of a fixture in our house and we didn't really notice it any more unless someone else brought it up to us. Anyway, two weeks ago a member of the bishopric and a member of the stake presidency stopped by for a visit. Noticing the hole, they offered to fix it for me. Four days later they were here ready to work. They were quick too. I think it only took them about an hour. Now I just need to find someone who knows how to do the spackle and texturize it for me. Maybe I'll wait a couple more years for that!!!!!kidding

Busy..Busy..Busy

Things have been crazy around our house during the last couple of months. As most of you know Bryce has been deployed to Iraq, and I have stayed very busy being a single mom. He has been gone for over two months now and it has gone by so fast. I am so proud of my kids, they are doing so well with him being gone. They miss him, but they are so supportive of him that they haven't complained at all. These are a couple pictures I took of him right before he left.

I don't like the one with no hair, he had such nice thick hair I can't get used to him being bald.

We had a great Christmas. I decided to take the kids to my parents house to spend Christmas morning with them. I figured it might make it easier on them with Bryce being gone if they could have thier grandparents instead.

The day after Christmas my sister Jen and I drove down to California, where Bryce is stationed for some training, to visit him for Christmas. I found out a couple days before Christmas that he was one of a few Marines that weren't taking leave to go home for Christmas, so my Dad offered to watch my kids so I could go be with Bryce for a few days. Of coarse driving was cheaper, but Bryce didn't like the idea of me driving alone so Jen volunteered to come with me. We had a lot of fun. We went to SeaWorld and the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park. We also stopped by the San Diego Temple which was beautiful.

Now that Bryce has been gone for a while I think we have finally found a routine that is working and hopefully things will get easier around here. I am still trying to figure out the single mom thing, but we're making it work. Bryce is doing great, he has already had one promotion since he has been gone and is staying busy. He sends everyone his love.

Halloween Party

So I let each of my kids invite a few friends over for a halloween party Friday night. I planned all kinds of fun games and activities to do, but they had ideas of their own. All together we had 18 guests, my 4 kids and Kristins 3 kids, we had a house full. Bryce is gone with the military so I asked my wonderful sister if she could come help and she willingly agreed. Thanks Kristin for coming all the way out here just to help, it was fun. We ended up making homemade slime. That was the hit of the party! And them we played the mummy wrap game. While playing the mummy game I opened my big mouth and said it would be fun to take the used toilet paper and go toilet papering, of course all the kids wanted to do it after that. Kristin reminded me it was illegal because of vandalism and with my husband being a police officer it probably wasn't a good idea. I decided to let them go anyway, but they had to do MY house!! They had a lot of fun, but now I have a mess outside to clean up. That will teach me to open my mouth!! I had one of the parents call me before the party for a reminder of when it started, after telling him and giving him some other details he asked me if I was stupid, I laughed and said "Oh it"ll be fun!". When he came back to pick his daughter up, seeing the mess in the yard, when I opened the door his first comment was "you are stupid!". I may be crazy, but we had fun!!