Nick and Noah

amor espero que te gusten las fotitos y que las disfrutes.

te amamos mucho y cada dia que pasa te extranamos mas y queremos que ya vengas

cuidate mucho besos y abrasos de osos

con amor lau nick y noah

Translators??

An excerpt from Braden's school journal:

My fart sie es eim. (this was accompanied by a picture of a basket ball hoop)
means...

My favorite thing is gym!
Who could have guessed that???

Can anyone translate it correctly??

On another note, I had to go buy another prescription for Jacob today. This is the third I've had to buy in the past 2 months. The others I was so happy to have a coupon that gave me a $25 gift card for CVS when I bought a new prescription. Well, I was sad not to have one of these and was trying to come up with one. I called and asked my sister in law if she had one, no she had tossed it last week in a cleaning spree. I got on line to see if I could print one off somewhere, no way. I broke down and asked at the pharmacy if they had one they could give me and NO they did not. Now, we are not starving or so poor that I couldn't afford the medicine, but it was such a bonus to get a the gift card after paying for the drugs.

So, guess what happened?!?

As I was wandering around in CVS deciding if we needed an Easter stuff at 50% off, I found a $20 bill laying on the ground. I KNOW!! Wow! So, I went and took it to an employee and she told me to keep it. I felt bad, because if it was me that lost it, I would be soooo sad! So, I continued to wander and asked a few people if they had lost it. No one had, so it was mine!! Well, there was my bonus after all. I decided it was a great blessing for me and went ahead and bought an egg dying kit (at half price!) , as we had not dyed eggs yet. We did it tonight for FHE. Free gift cards are great, but free money is even better. (I am still sad for the person who lost it and hope they don't realize that it's gone and it wasn't the last bit of money they had to feed their starving children.)

BTW: I know what he was writing. I will tell you after a few good guesses.

Mexico

I blogged...if anyone is interested. We had the most amazing time in Mexico...I want to go back right now!

We have been "reading" the scriptures each evening before bed with Austin, Layla, Ryan, Nick, Grandpa, Grandma, and Laura (and Noah, a sometimes noisy but always incoherent participant), while Jason and Jessica have been soaking up the sun in Mexico this last week. It's been very interesting. Like Mike, I ask questions about the scriptures (we each read just one) that we read, and I'm amazed at the things even Austin doesn't understand as we read. We just thougt y'all could understand them if you could say them when we read scriptures years ago. To see if the kids were paying attention after Austin's scripture, 1st Nephi, 3:3, I asked, "So, how many fathers did Nephi have?" and Austin and Layla responded together, "Four!" So they were paying attention. Layla, Ryan, and Nicholas "read" by repeating the words after us (something we learned from Mike and Adrianne and their boys); Layla can handle phrases, Ryan two or three words, and Nicholas one word if he can pronounce it. If he can't pronounce it or doesn't want to, he says "wally" but like "oo-waah-lee" and the adults try not to laugh outloud, because he says it frequently sometimes. Scripture time is very interesting, all things considered.

I ran across an interesting website I thought I should share. It looks like a good free savings vehicle for kids (if the adults are saving money for them) and adults with a savings goal, currently paying 3.25% and if, when you reach your goal, you convert it to a participating company's gift card (best buy, Home Depot, etc), you can get up to an extra 6% on the total amount. It's www.smartypig.com . Check it out!

Love, Dad

Mom says, PS. Andy has a new post on his blog.

Scripture reading and an early morning conversation

A conversation during scripture reading.
Mike: Isaac, what did you hear in that verse?
Isaac: Arson
Mike: Yep, you heard, 'our sins.' What does sin mean?
Isaac: Idun know.
Mike: Sinning is when you do something naughty.
Isaac: Nike spitting
Mike: That's right.
Will: And, and, and, and, and like hitting.
Mike: That's right.
Will: Hey! Hit and spit rhyme!
Adrianne: They sure do.
Will repeats the next verse as Mike reads it.
Mike: Will, what did you hear in that verse?
Will: Isle of the king.
Mike: That's right. You heard, 'Isle of the sea."

Isaac tells Adrianne about the Book of Mormon early one morning

Neepfi tried to keel his brudder da Lamans. Idun know why ee did it, but ee tried to keel dem.

Family Reunion Book

Our family reunion book came in the mail today. What an incredible book! Nice job Adrianne! Sarah doesn't want to put the book down. She looked at every page with Laura, then brought it to me(Ralph), and we looked at every page, and when we were done she took it to Rebecca and wanted to look at it again. All I can really say though is what an incredible vacation! When is the next reunion scheduled? I know it isn't any time real soon, but I think I can still be anxious. Thanks again Adrianne for putting the book together. And thanks mom and dad for providing the books. I hope everyone is well!

Ralph

Water

We've been trying to work on our food storage, now that we have space to keep it in. It's kind of fun to watch your stock pile of food and toiletries grow. Now we need to work on water. In the past we have bought packs of bottled water. I don't know if this is the best way to go about it. I wondered how do the rest of you store water? What is the best way? In one apartment we lived in we would fill up all our empty milk jugs and add a bit of bleach to them. Was that good or bad? I've heard of people who use 3 liter bottles, but then we'd have to buy soda, and we don't. What do you suggest? What do you do??
Thanks for your help!!

In the interest of a new post

First, I want to say, "Good luck, Andy!" We'll miss you--at least, as much as I can miss someone I only talk to once every few months. Learn some cool phrases in Arabic while you are there and get some good recipes you can teach us all. You will be in our prayers (including the boys--that means you will be added to things like, "Please bless the dinosaur bones, and please bless the dinosaurs that they will come back to life, and please bless my friend Talon and his mom that they will be able to hide before the dinosaurs come back to life.") Please avoid dangerous things while you are there.

Second, Eli is trying to walk. He can stand up in the middle of a room all by himself. When he's excited, he will stand up and fling himself forward and stand up and fling himself forward, and stand up...making his way across the room like "frog that doesn't jump."

We are trying to sell our house now. It will be listed this coming Sunday. We'd appreciate prayers that we will be able to sell the house in good time (close enough to when we need to move to not necessitate us finding somewhere else to live but before we move). I think our report no later than date will be 15 May, no earlier than 11 May. We will get 8 days of house hunting before we report and we are still planning on going on a cruise (or some other away from the children vacation) before that. That should put us moving sometime around April 20th or so. We'll have to see what we end up doing.

I've spent lots of time and space on this post hoping to stimulate our blog's economy...uh...please comment.

Mike

It's Mike's birthday

Today is Mike's birthday. We had a great dinner and some yummy cake. We missed all of you that weren't here.

Something new

Just for the sake of seeing a new post on the site, I'd thought I'd share what is going on around here.
It's cold... well, actually it got up to 40 this week and it was wonderfully warm. I shoveled the three inches of packed on snow off the driveway. It was so nice, I took my coat off. But now it is cold again. Today when the kids left for school it was 0.
You probably already heard, but Jacob got stitches last week. Three in his little forehead above his right eye.
The kids have been taking turns getting sick. Braden had some kind of a bug a week or so ago, Mikayla had it last weekend, and Mike has been battling it for a few days now. Tyson and Jacob both have yucky coughs, and now Jacob has decided to add a runny nose to the list as well. Lucky for me, I have some seriously strong immunities. Either that or the germs are afraid of me. Either way, it is good.
Mike is very busy at work again, or as usual. He has four briefs due in the next four days. So, we will not being seeing a whole lot of him. Then he will go to Chicago the first week of February. We will miss him of course, but I am glad he is not going to somewhere warmer than here. That just wouldn't be fair.
Earlier this month my iron died. I was ironing, which is quite a big deal, since I rarely do it, and there was a loud pop, a puff of black smoke and a black mark on the ironing board. Not too big a deal, we went out and got a new one. A cheap one, but who cares, it's not like I use it much. I'd say less than once a month. Don't be too shocked, Mom, but I don't iron my sheets!
Then about a week after that, I opened the drier to find that all the clothes were still wet. It was moving and blowing but not heating up. This had happened before, so Mike opened it up and fixed the wire that continually is burning out. I got all the laundry done, and then the next day I had some sheets to do, remember I had sick kids (gross!!). When I went to change the clothes from the washer to the drier, I found that the sheets were still wet, very wet, dripping wet. The washer was no longer spinning. GREAT!! So, I wrung them out by hand and dried them twice in the drier. I still had a comforter and pillow that had to be washed. Well, they waited, as did a whole weeks worth of laundry. I had to open some new unders, if you get my drift. After much looking, we finally bought a new washer and dryer.
They are so cool. They have electronic buttons and they sing to me when I open them. They are high efficiency. They are huge! I had about ten loads of wash to do when we finally got them. I got it done in 6 instead. That is almost half! The washer does not have an agitator arm in the middle so it is much bigger. It is 4.7 cuft. The dryer is, well I can't remember, but it is big. I love them! They were very expensive though. We got a $100 rebate for buying the set, 1-3 years worth of free Tide he detergent and we got a rebate for the delivery/set up/haul away. We are pleased! Fortunately, I did our taxes yesterday and we can pay it off as soon as the check comes in. Oh, by the way, we got the Maytag Bravos, which is the newest version of the Whirlpool Cabrio, if any of you are up to date on appliances. Or if you even care!
So, that is what's going on around here. Nothing too exciting, but pretty normal stuff. We hope you are all doing well. Oh, also, I have to admit that I am a bit envious of those who are able to visit Mom and Dad soon(today, I think). I hope you have a great visit. Wish we were there!!

Reunion book

We got the reunion books last night. I was so excited and I opened the first one up to take a look and was so disappointed! They pictures were so dark. I almost couldn't see some of the pictures. The text also had a shadow behind the words and just looked awful. The grey we chose as the background was really dark and you almost couldn't see the black writing.

We wrote to Blurb thinking that they wouldn't do anything for us but that we needed to complain. We explained that the book looked way different than the preview and that we were very disappointed. They responded in just a matter of seconds and apologized for the quality and offered to reprint four of them (two of them were ok) and to ship them to us for free. They also offered to email us a shipping sticker so that we could ship the four books back.

We are very sad that we have to wait longer but we are very happy at how quickly they responded and that they are willing to reprint them for us. The two that turned out ok look really great and I'm really excited for you all to get them once the new ones come.

Here comes Santa Claus!

Christmas is a week away now. What are you doing this year? Are you ready? Have you given your list to the big fat man?? Here are Braden and Tyson visiting with Santa. Mikayla and Jacob refused to.

I have been having way too much fun shopping this year. I love buying and giving gifts!! The kids have been doing chores to earn money so they can buy gifts out of "Mommy's Store". I have some little things that they can buy to give to each other. I am not sure who has more fun with this, me or them.

I have done much baking and taking of treats to friends and neighbors. Another thing I love to do. We have finished all the peanut butter cups and will need to make more. Do you all make these? What treats do you make? We also made English toffee, chocolate creme cookies, turtles in a pretzel tree, hug and kiss pretzels, gingerbread men, almond roca, peppermint bark and merry berry bars. I am planning to do some little popcorn balls next week.

As for decorating, we have a little fake tree, little as in under 6 feet. I put it up on some cinder blocks to make it bigger. We got it for $5 and decided to not spend any more on a better tree. Maybe next year. The kids had a great time putting on the ornaments. Mike didn't even rearrange them when they went to bed. I was shocked. We also put up icicles and lights around the windows. We set up our nativities. We are planning to do a live nativity for family night this week. Are you also doing this??

I have some wrapping to do, which I enjoy doing. I have LOTS of cleaning to do, which I don't enjoy doing (and I just might not do it!!)

What traditions are you doing with your family? We have decided to do the live nativity, like I mentioned, and we are going to try and do a puzzle together each year (a big one, not a 25 piecer), we like to drive around and look at lights, and this year we gave some gifts to a family in the ward that is not doing well financially. I really liked that, it felt good!

I just really like Christmas. I wish we could all be together one year, but don't see that happening any time soon. Maybe some day we could all come together the week after Christmas and share some fun traditions together.

Anyway, I will stop rambling on, but I'd really like to hear what you all are up to in your Christmas preparations/plans, it makes you seem closer. Love you all!!

Hi Everybody,

I just watched the 1st Presidency's Christmas Devotional, and as at every year was touched by the wonderful talks they give and the spririt they bring to the season. I tried to think of traditions that we had in my home as a child during Christmas, and, whether because we didn't really have many (any?) or because my memory is not good, I can't think of any except decorating the Christmas tree. Every year we would get a real tree, and we would decorate it with Mom. I don't remember if Dad participated or not, and I don't remember doing much myself, except I would help Mom hang the icecicles. Icecicles were made of aluminum foil in those days, and they had to be hung just so on our tree. Mom made them hang beautifuly - long and streaming up and down nearly every branch, reflecting the many colored lights and christmas bulbs that were also on the tree. I'm sure that after we all went to bed, Mom would go back and rehang many of the icecicles we kids had hung to make them look better. It was as if the trees had long silver hair that had been brushed and brushed until it glowed warm and serene. Our trees were always beautiful, and I was impressed with the care that Mom put into them, I think because it was her gift to the family and to the Savior, both of which she loved so much. Sometimes I really miss my Mom and Dad.

I'm sorry we didn't build any real family traditions for you kids to remember as you were growing up. Your Mom wanted to, but I was always to busy or thought they were silly. I did go along with reading the story in Luke every year, and we still do that. Thank you Carol, for being persistent in helping me to read to the kids and you, and now to you and me, every year.

I hope you kids will make the time and establish wonderful traditions of service, love, compassion, and worship with your beautiful families that you repeat each Christmas season, so they will learn and always remember, and when they have families of thier own, be able to teach their children about their family traditions, developed around the greatest gift ever given, that of the birth, life, and sacrifice of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I love you all so very much, and am so happy with you, your families, and the lives you live, the examples you set. Your Mom and I could not have been more blessed than to have you children and your children in our lives. May you all have the joy that comes with loving each other, holding your families close, making sacrifices for each other, and preparing together for exaltation and eternal life, for that is what it is all about, after all.

Love,

Dad

explanation

Ok, here is an explanation.

1. I need help with labeling. I am not sure I remember the order everything went in. If something is out of order, let me know. Do you want me to label everything, most things, somethings? Mike had the suggestion that under each family picture we label each person and then we don't have to label everything. If someone forgets who someone is, you can just flip to the front and see. Also, if you notice, some pages have a big space of white. That is for labeling. I tried to leave one page at the beginning of each new activity for labeling (take a look at the beginning of the beach pictures with the one with Layla in the sand). Some other pages have places for labeling and that is because I couldn't get it to format better than that. I can either label those pages or leave them with the white space.

2. I thought it might be nice if anyone who wanted to would write something--like a favorite memory or something. For instance, I have no idea what happened at Hersey park. So, it would be nice to have some input on what happened or what you want to go along with the pictures (did I put the right pictures in there?).Jessie suggested we add recipes from the reunion. I think that is a fun idea. If we want to include recipes I need to know what recipes you want added (Jessie's dip, Laura's meatballs, etc.) and I also need to have the recipe. If you want to write a memory or something I need to have those in about a week or so. You can post it on the blog or email me.

3. Does anyone feel they are over/underrepresented? I tried to make the pictures equal but might not have. Is there a favorite picture you want included that I didn't put in? Do you want a different family picture?

4. As it stand right without adding or subtracting any pages it is between $25-$38 depending on if you want softcover, hardcover, or image-wrap. I can put as many or as few pictures in it as you would like. The price per page goes down the more pages you put in. If we get over 80 pages it is between $30-$45 (it is that price from 81-120 pages). Here is the link to the prices http://www.blurb.com/create/book/pricing#standard-portrait

Ok, that's all I can think of. Is there something else I forgot? Oh yeah. There is one more thing. The slide cut some of the pictures off a little. That won't happen in the book.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving all! We are having our own little Thanksgiving today. We are eating and then painting our living room and just spending some quiet time together--and it is 61 today so we will go for a walk too.

We wanted to make a list for you all of 10 things we are thankful for:

1. Mom and Dad
2. Siblings
3. A good job that provides well for us
4. Heavenly Father (Isaac chose this one)
5. Membership in the church
6. Monkeys (Will chose this one)
7. The country we live in
8. A home to live in
9. The times we live in so we have all kinds of luxuries
10. Our super, awesome, exciting, argument free marriage--we'll let you decide which one of those adjectives might be an exaggeration.

Tell your family what you are thankful for today!

Uhh...we really are bad about birthdays

Happy (late) Birthday, Dad. You are certainly our favorite dad, and we're sorry we forgot you. We hope you had a great day and that you enjoyed all the people who did remember. Here's a picture of the children you have that did.

The reunion book

I am starting to make the book for the family reunion. I am wondering how big everyone wants the book to be. I can make a book up to 440 pages, which I think is ridiculously big. We have a ton of pictures so I'm wondering how many of them you actually want. I am willing to make it as big or as little as you would like. Also, I think I can find a way so that there are "contributors" so that you can get on and have some input. I see good and bad things about that. On the one hand, you all might want different things and I might get annoyed trying to please everyone ;). But on the other hand, it would be nice to not be responsible for guessing what everyone wants. Also, I thought it would be nice if everyone could write something brief about what their favorite thing/things about the reunion was and if you have some pictures that you really loved, if you would tell me so I can include them. Do you all want to contribute or do you want me to do it and then surprise you all? I can make it and then you can all preview it and let me know what changes you want...Hmmm. Leave comments and let me know.

I was just looking at the picture at the top of the blog, and started wondering. When was the last time that there wasn't someone in our family who was pregnant?

Halloween with Grandma

We had a great time with Grandma here on Halloween. We had a pizza dinner, then went out trick or treating with our very large group and got lots of candy! Everyone looked great in their costumes, Steven a chicken (We got a lot of comments about his costume), Yanina a witch, Nick a bee, Becca and Sarah were in Poodle Skirts, Gavin (Laura's Cousin) was an IRS agent, Jacob a vampire, Mariah was a random person, Noah I did not get a picture of was a bee also, and the rest of us...well we did not dress up. We were glad that everyone could come and join us for the night.