Precious Moments!

I was sitting in Stake conference, next to my husband with two girls playing on one side of me and Taylor sitting on the other side of Joseph. It was a good, spirit filled meeting. The kids had behaved and having Joseph next to us and not up on the stand was a plus. We started to sing the closing hymn, "I Know That My Redeemer Lives" and I looked over to view a most wonderful sight. There are small moments in a mother's life which make all the hard times worth it and this was one of those moments. Taylor was wearing his suit and tie and had the hymn book open. He was reading the words and singing right along with us. Now, maybe this sounds corny, but in that moment, I began to cry. My son looked like a little missionary sitting there singing that he knew his Redeemer lived. He is growing up so fast and he already has such a strong testimony. In that brief precious moment everything in the world faded away and I felt such a peace. I think our kids will be okay amidst all the adversity that surrounds us, if we will stick to the basics. I love my children so much and thank my Heavenly Father for sending us these sweet moments in life that truly make all the rest worth it!!

Parent Day at Dance!

Emma is in a combo dance class that teacher tap, ballet, and tumbling! She loves it! Beautiful Ballerina

Here is a little clip from the class!
She still is quite shy about doing things in front of people. I know Emma shy! It is hard to believe, but hopefully as she practices more she will gain more confidence!

Monkey Swinging in the Tree

Tay's newest past time!

Meet our Monkey!

Should I be nervous?!
Let's hope we don't end up with any broken bones!

I looked out the window and what did I see?
Three toddlers
Two Boys, One Girl
Playing Baseball!
Bike Helmets for Head Gear,
A Batter, A Pitcher, A Center Fielder
What more could you want!

Madelyn Turns 3!!

Happy, Happy Birthday Madelyn Sue!!

Madelyn turned 3 on the 3rd of November! She is a joy to have in our home and although my baby isn't a baby anymore she is still "our baby." We decided to spend the day doing family things and not have a party with friends! It turned out very well with the whole day being about Madi! Daddy took her to lunch and then we spent four hours at the park playing that afternoon! That night we had pancakes and bacon at her request and then had cake and ice cream! I attempted to make a bubble gum cake which she asked for, but all of your marvelous cake decorators don't laugh too hard! This definitely isn't one of my talents!

Taylor bought her two books from the book fair. Emma made her
a necklace and bracelet! They were both very sweet to her and
made special efforts to make her day great!














As I said above, Joseph took a lunch and took her to
Burger King for lunch! We are very blessed to have Madi
in our family! We love you sweetheart!!

Grandparent Gifts!!

Thanks Grandpa and Grandma Pendleton!
I love my hat, gloves, and scarf! I look like a pretty snow bunny!

Thank you Grandpa and Grandma Katschke for the wonderful kitchen toys!
I love playing house with them!

We let Madi open her gifts from Grandparents the morning of
her birthday and also one new outfit from us!
Thanks to both our families for the gifts and phone calls that made her day so special!

This is one of mine and my children's favorite people! About a year ago this special woman came into our lives and although she thinks we have helped her because we have her over for dinner on Sunday, she has really blessed us!! She has become the family we don't have close and has made otherwise lonely Sunday's wonderful! How grateful I am that the Lord sends good people (angels if you will) into our lives at the times he knows we will need them the most!!

Playing pony with the kids!

Handy man??!

When I married Joseph, I knew he was many things, a devoted husband, a good student, and excellent Basketball player, and much more. However, a handyman wouldn't have been one of the names used to describe him. But after 8 years of marriage we are finally in our first home and he has surprised me! He has fixed a leaking roof, repaired our sprinkling system, installed new light switches, repaired our garbage disposal and now the newest in the list of projects is that he is building us a SHED! This will be the floor of it and we are taking a break from construction for the winter. He will finish it in the spring. So, imagine my surprise when not only did I get a husband with all the wonderful qualities I listed above, but I also married a handyman and builder! I am so pleased with his hard work and desire to learn these skills which he will hopefully pass on to our son!

Halloween!

We had a great Halloween! Madi and I went up to school and joined the kids in their school parties. Then we all came home and took a little rest. After some much needed rest (mostly for mom and madi) we met friends at Burger King for dinner and then went to the school's trunk or treat. We opted to skip the church trunk or treat and let the kids try going around the neighborhood because they didn't remember ever doing that. Emma even asked what to do. She didn't know what to say when she got to the door. The went around the neighborhood and then came home for bed. It was a great day and they came home with TONS of candy! We have sent it to work and home with the missionaries to spare our teeth and tummies. Even still we have all been on a sugar high the past week!













Taylor was Anakin Skywalker!
Here he is with his best friend from school.














Madi was a Princess Ballerina














Emma was Cinderella!

Jacey tagged me a while ago and I am just getting around to it. I am not really good at doing tags, but for my good friend Jace I will do it! So here it is:
Fourth File, Fourth Picture in the File, Explain a little bit about pic, Tag four friends
I tag: Jamie Terry, Melissa James, LeMira Wheelwright, Katy Pendleton
This is a picture of my gorgeous husband helping me accomplish a project I dreamed up. He put at lot of work into helping me put stripes on the girls wall and finish their room! Thanks babe for being such a sweetie!

Karoake!

Next Hannah Montana? Gabriella Montez?
You decide!!
She may not be ready for show biz yet, but we
sure think she is cute!

Piano Recital

For those of you who may not be interested, just
skip over this post!
This is for our Grandpa's and Grandma's!!
Since we don't live close enough to show you the
kids' progress, we thought we would bring you a
little video of how well they are doing!

We are taking it a lot slower with Emma since
she is a year younger than Tay, but they both
are doing very well after only a couple months of
lessons!

High School Musical 3

Madi:" When is High School Musical going to start?"
(another preview)
"This isn't High School Musical!"
(then the very next preview came on and a little rodent says,
"Hey, this isn't High School Musical!")
We all laughed and laughed!

An advantage to living in a small town! We chose to wait and go to the show Monday for FHE instead of fighting the crowd over the weekend! Much to our surprise, we avoided any crowd and had the whole theater to ourselves! The kids thought that was so cool!

Madi got a little tired half way through, but Taylor and Emma were enthralled the whole time! They really loved it and Joseph and I give it two thumbs up as well!

Carving at its Best!

Pumpkin carving at
a friends house!












Emma had to do her's by herself and Tay wanted a
Lion, so he cleaned it out and Joseph did the carving!
Madi thought the whole thing was disgusting and so she
played on the swingset and I carved her pumpkin!

DEER!

How many of you have deer(lots of deer) roaming around
your yards? In Sheridan, deer are everywhere! This is a
lot a block away from our house!

Found a BUG!

Why is it that a bug to a two year old is a cute
little pet and when we get older, they are annoying
pests! Madi kept asking to take the worm home.
She thought he was so cute and when we had
to leave, she stroked it and said, "I'll miss you."
Maybe our kids need a pet?!:(

Leaf Walk

Leaf Book we made from the leaves we found on our walk!

Madi looking over the bridge!

Isn't it great that even a little leaf can be a treasure!!

Madi and I enjoyed the fall day by taking a walk and looking for leaves! We had so much fun together!

Cheetah Cookies

Taylor checks out some kind of wild animal book every week at the library. They are fascinating to him, but not so much to me since they are all encyclopedia types and take a long time to read. Anyways, at the end of this one there was a recipe to make Cheetah cookies, any of you who know Tay know how much he loves BIG cats so we decided to make these for FHE! We had a blast making them, but the end product didn't look quite like the picture and to be frank they tasted nasty! Joseph and I tried to choke a couple bites down without saying anything because we didn't want to hurt Tay's feelings and then he said, "These aren't very good are they Mom." We decided it is a fun craft idea, not a good dessert!