April is the month for Birthdays around her. Briggs, Timmy, Jeddy Jed & this week miss Evva.
It's nice be able to have the family together. I won't even tell you how old Timmy is now cause then you will know how old I am getting.

The kids came out for Jed's birthday and went to church with us. Tim J put the thought and the labor into his Jed's present this year.
And Desi put in the elbow grease and Dr. Pepper and treats :) Nice and clean on the inside....
Brand new grill on the out side. It looks like a brand new truck.
We all got together and colored Easter eggs. This year we had BIG duck eggs.
Oh and we got some more chickens...
Easter was fun. We went over to the Jones's for church to listen to Desi talk. She did such a nice job. It was fun to be back home again. What an amazing ward.
And of course, the Easter Bunny was very good to the boys. New bikes!
They got to see both Mom and Dad...
And spent some time with their Nana. She made them the cute little homemade baskets behind them.
My most favorite part about this month is that we get to spend a lot of time with family and I love my family. How blessed I am to have FAMILY.

Conference Weekend

Next to the 4th of July, conference weekend is my favorite. I love getting together and 'trying' to listen to General Conference. We usually go up to Mel's cabin but once again there was to much snow. My sweet husband took a CAT up to try and plow into the cabin. He worked for hours until we all finally decided MMmmm Best Western sound pretty good.

We got two rooms that joined. They gave us a really good deal!

It was fun relaxing.
We even went swimming.
and of course shopping - I just forgot to take pictures.
The funny thing is, when I went to down load the pictures I realized someone else was trying to take pictures for me. lol..... Nice Toilet paper!
I think the funniest part of the weekend was watching Justin and his little groupies. LOL... He has some pretty cute girls following him around. Funny how they ended up at the same hotel as us. We had a good laugh. Ohh, to be young again.

It is always hard to come home for a nice weekend.

Tonight we took Evva and Briggs with us to go get some Chicks.
They are so stinkin cute!! We got 6 for now.
They are so tiny. It was fun.

House up-date: I finally got another cupboard....One piece at a time.
Duck Trivia:
Where do the ducks carry their eggs?
So my ducks looked like they had 'excuse my words for just a moment'....but, Big boobs! It just wasn't right. One day they were big and then the next they were not which made me stop and think: Where do they carry their eggs? Yep, I was right. In their neck or boobs...which ever.

Now you have learned something I will move on to this past few weeks.
Tysen turned 4 years old. Crazy how fast they grow. We had the family over for cake and ice cream.

of course he got a Thomas the train cake. Not like that is his world - oh wait a minute....it is his world.
That weekend we had the girls come over and I let them make a train cake for Tysen. See our Peay boy's like to celebrate there birthday for at least one or two weeks. Ok, Derrik a month :)
This weekend we took the kids and went (or tried) to go up to the cabin. OMG there is so much snow up there. We didn't make it in to the cabin but we stopped long enough to go sledding.


When we got home and everything in the house.....The sun came out. Why am I not use to this kind of weather? I live in Utah!

Last but not least....Bon Jovi.
I have the best husband in the world!! He was so good to take me to see Bon Jovi last Tuesday. We had a blast. Are seats were clear up but it didn't matter. I have not had that much fun in a long time. Bon Jovi put's on an amazing show. I love his music and it doesn't hurt that he is still dang good lookin too. Okay, not as good lookin as my husband but nice eye candy indeed. He has been around for 27 years and I think I have enjoyed his music for 27 years too. Mmmm and I still like his music.

Mini Spinnies Mini Studs

These two ducks are pooped out!

LOL...This is why:

I went out side and looked under a piece of wood and found these. Seven (7) eggs in one night. The most we have seen is two. So we decided that if they are going to lay that many eggs, we had better start eating them. So for breakfast today we had scrambled duck eggs. Mmmm not bad:)

Saturdays have been very busy for us the past month and so it is nice that they have slowed back down. The boys had a visit with the "other" grandma today. For Timmy's visit today they all came over to the house and we took the kids sledding.
That is Timmy on the back of the sled with Isaiha.
It was so much fun.
I am glad that Timmy is okay with us all hanging with him while he plays with his boys.
It's also been nice not having to go to the mall and time the visits. We can now spend more time together as a family. Maybe soon life will settle back down and we can live a normal life again.

I have had such a nice weekend. I love having day's off. I know, I don't work very much but it is still nice. The best thing was that Desi and the kids came and spent the night while Tim went up camping with the scouts. It was fun just hanging out and letting the kid's run wild. (poor Jed)! I love just sitting and visiting with Desi...and the kids.

So our duck laid an egg.

I was pretty excited. Okay, so this is a first time for me. I know very little about farm life but Jed is slowly teaching me. Now Derrik on the other hand thought Meagan was pulling his leg when she told him....Derrik: Ducks don't lay eggs! LOL...I can't say much cause I didn't think they did either until I started to think about "how do we get more ducks". Okay so on the other side of that....I didn't know that a girl duck can just lay an egg and then the male sits on the egg to fertilize it. We don't have a male duck. No little Ducklings for us. We did get two more eggs this morning.

Before I forget I just have to write this down.

Me: boys will you come with me over to Ron's pre-school and help me clean?
Ron: Yes
Isaiha: No!
Ron: Please Isaiha? I really need you. My pre-school is a mess!

Phone call today-from Zoee's phone line.
Me: Hello
Briggs: Can I speak to Ron.
Me: um, yea...sure
Ron talks for a minute and then Isaiha talks. I finally get the phone back.
Me: So Briggs, where is Zoee?
Briggs: Upstairs watching TV.
Me: Where is Evva?
Briggs: Upstairs watching TV with Zoee.
Me: Where's mom?
Briggs: Down stairs working
Desi in the back ground....
Briggs, who are you talking to?

He is too cute. He called all by himself.
Yea lol-he is only 3

Quick up-date on Isaiha. Can you tell he is feeling much better. He helped me make cookies tonight and enjoyed cleaning up the beater.

We stayed home again today. He is ready to get out of the house. We will see how he's feels in the morning.
Anyone know how long you keep a kid in when they have pneumonia?

I did go to Young Woman's today to hear Meagan give her lesson. She did such a good job. I am very proud of her.

The Jone's came out and visited with us. It is so much fun when they come out. The house get's crazy with the kids running but oh how I love to have them all over.

Evva lost another tooth. She is so cute. Ron keeps telling me "Evva misses me". Cracks me up. It's more like um....Ron misses Evva. I just tell him. "oh yes, she misses you"

Zoee made Grandpa a cake while they were out. Grandpa has been sick too and she wanted to make something for him. She is such a sweetheart. She recited the 13th article of faith to me tonight. I am so impressed with her. She is so bright!
It's always hard to say good byes. You would think that we live hundreds of miles away from each other but we don't get to spend much time together now that we have the kids and they have Timmy. I keep telling the girls that this will soon pass and then we can be back together again.
Once again I wonder if the "State" realizes what they are doing to families. The say in the last day's that Satan will attack the family~Mmmmm Would that be the devil in disguise? LOL....just kidding (kind of). Okay, never mind.
I am so grateful for my family. Life wouldn't be worth living without my family. They make it all worth while.

DATE NIGHT

So I have to chuckle just a little to think that here we are (My baby in her 20's) and date night ends up being with Isaiha in the Doctors office. At least we were together, right!

Poor little guy. When I got home from work he kept telling me that he was tired. I took his temperature and it was 104. (Reminded me of the good old day's with Timmy). We went into a night time pediatrics out here in Tooele that will now be our pediatrician. VERY impressed! He sent us to the hospital for chest X-Rays and went back to find out that he has pneumonia. Isaiah kept saying...."NO FLU SHOT". I didn't lie to him about not getting a flu shot but he did get 2 big shots in his legs. They found that he also has Asama and sent us home with a nebulizer and a years worth of prescription for his breathing treatment. That was from 5 pm - 8

Then it was 8 pm at Wal Mart to fill perscriptions
2 am Wal Mart for tylenol-cause I forgot it the 1st time.
4 am fever finally broke and off to sleep we went.
Mmmmm anyone that knows me knows "I like my sleep". Oh well, he is worth it 10 X over again.

Today he is feeling so much better. He keep trying to convince me that he is all better and he can go out side. Hahahah...I don't think so but I am glad he is feeling better.

Jed went back to the Temple tonight. He has been off since we got the boys and has really struggled on if he should go back or not. He had decided that he would quit and stay home but he got too much flak from a few of us. We keep telling him that we need those blessings :)

Life keeps changing ~ who knows where we will be in a year from now. We will just keep our seat belts on.

President Thomas S. Monson - Prophet of the Lord.

" My dear sisters, do not pray for tasks equal to your abilities, but pray for abilities equal to your tasks. Then the performance of your tasks will be no miracle, but you will be the miracle."

I always need a good thought to keep me going. Thank goodness for small miracles like these cute kids.

Our time has been filled with visits for the kids, with DCFS, phone visits, kids, school, foster classes and work. As you can tell by my blogging or lack of....I haven't had much time for anything else. One nice thing is that Timmy get's longer visits so we have been able to have family night with the Jones family as well. I have really missed my grandma day with them.

I do have to tell you, I had asked Isaiha to get his socks on for church. Look how well he minded. Yes-we made him change his socks. I thought it was pretty cute.
These 3 have become very good friends. Ok so Isaiha may have a few battle wounds on his face from Tysen but they still love each other.
I have learned a lot this past month. I really enjoyed the foster classes but I am grateful to have those out of the way. I am hoping that February will bring back a little bit of normal around our home. Jed will be going back to the Temple this Saturday. He has missed that very much. Few more weeks before we return to court again. So I will keep praying and praying and praying. Soon I hope to have my family all back together again without the state in the middle.

This to will pass......

For Christmas we got the boys some new church clothes. It has been fun to dress them up nice and go to church. They look so handsome that I just had to share.
Since we have had the boy's we have not had much time with the Jone's. That has been very hard for me. I keep wishing that the courts would ask me what I think of "their" program. I sure have an opinion and I don't think they would like it. The system focuses on taring families apart. Re-Unification? Ha....It's all about power and money....okay, enough of that. That is for another day. Back to - we have not had much time to spend with the Jone's cause Timmy is living with them and the boy's can't be near him, except for 1 hour a week. I use to have grandma day every Wednesday and spend time with them. Go to the park, movie, McD's or what ever we could do. It's been over a month now and we have not had that time, so we decided (Zoee and Me) that it was time for a sleep over. We talked about playing games all night long. "ha ha...all night with me"? Any ways... We had fun!
Zoee was such a good helper with the boys and finding different games for them to play. We even played Twister. That was pretty fun.

So the all night games ended about 10:30 for me. I was pretty proud of staying up so late. I just don't function after 9.

The next day there was so much snow that we got out the sleds and Zoee pulled the kids around until we went to the park and went down the hill. Evva didn't feel well and the boy's got cold fast so we didn't stay long.
On the way to take the girls home we stopped off at McD's to have - oh yea, Ice Cream. Zoee's most favorite food. I had so much fun just being with the girls.

Briggs was home sick so we will have to have another sleep over just for him.

We went and spent time with Jone's yesterday. We took the kids to Carl Jr. (Jed is figuring out this McD or Carl Jr. play ground thing-he likes letting the kids play hard while we visit). Then we went over and Tim cut the boy's hair. Don't they look sharp! He actually has cut all the boy's hair. He does a good job. Then we went and saw "Yogi Bear". It was so fun.

Today the boys all went into new classes. Tysen is now a Sunbeam. Ron is in CTR 4 and Isaiha is in CTR 5. They were so excited.
We survived church and the boy's all had a good time.

Christmas Time

I thought I would introduce you to Timmy's little family. I think this is the first time that I have had them together where I can take a picture of them all together. Shelby looks so much like Isaiha.
We had the family over for Christmas Eve. We were going to do little Christmas Eve (Norwegian tradition) but ended up Christmas Eve instead. We still tried to do a little of the Norwegian thing with the little sandwiches. Mmmmm shrimp, salmon but no reindeer or sardines. I just couldn't get my self to do that nor do I think anyone in my family would have eaten them. One tradition that Janet has shared with me was to put an almond in the rice pudding and who ever got the almond would get a present. Well we doubled the recipe and .....
everyone was a little sick of rice pudding before the almond was found. Desi cheat? lol...she was just helping her daughter cheat.

I tried to find the Norwegian shop for a gift but it has moved and I couldn't find it so they ended up with a blanket for the gift and they all shared for a minute.

After the rice pudding overload we all went into the living room to....
Visit? I just couldn't resist.

Christmas morning for us was a little different than usual. It was fun to share it with children again.
These kids have had so much fun playing with all of their toys that it has been hard to leave the house.
We did go visit the Jones family for our traditional breakfast. Tim has fixed us breakfast for the past few years. If you know Tim's cooking you know how good it is. Mmmm! Timmy had got the boys some ride on toys (that they LOVE).
We could only stay for a short time (1 hour) but it was so much fun. I love my family and any time that I get to spend with them.
On the way home Ronaldo was so tired that he passed out on us until I took this picture and then his eyes
flew open. They played so hard.
The last thing I wanted to share was our Christmas gift from our family. I LOVE IT! (and all the toys you see is just the reflection of my messy front room off of the glass). What a great way to remind us what Christmas is all about. I also go a beautiful picture of Christ with two children. Every time I look at it, I cry. I know-Shocker.
I love my Savior and love to see him with Children. Thanks kids for our gifts...and for you. I love you all so very much.