Coleson's Best Buddy

This morning at breakfast, Kyler was teasing Coleson. He was trying to scare him with a scary mask and so Coleson started scratching at Kyler and crying. His nails were kind of long and he ended up scratching Kyler's arm pretty bad. Kyler was crying and crying, so I took out the finger nail clippers to clip Coleson's nails and he said, "why are you cutting my nails?" I told him it was because they were too long and sharp. He said, "because I scratched my Best Buddy Kyler?" I started to laugh and said, yep because you scratched your Best Buddy Kyler.

Sweet Kyler

Ok so I have to talk about my sweet Kyler for just a little bit. This summer he did swim team. Wow, can you see that little guy swimming 25 yards? He did a great job and was so fun to watch.

I want to share a couple of sweet things that Kyler has recently said. The first was after he went to a sleepover at his friend Dayson's house. He came home and said that some of the boys were fighting over whether a particular toy or the x-box was the best thing in the world and he said, "Mom, I said really softly that I think Jesus is the best thing in the world." Talk about tugging at my heart!

Then a couple of weeks later, we were at church and Kyler's primary teacher came up to me and said that she was talking about Jesus and his life and the Atonement. As she was telling them about the Atonement, Kyler was tearing up and she could tell he was really touched by the spirit. Later on that day, Kyler shared with me that he was really touched by what Sis. Daniel had shared and that he was getting tears in his eyes when she was talking about Jesus and about him being on the cross. I grateful to be a member of this church and to have such amazing primary teachers to testify to my children of Jesus and the love that their Savior has for them.

Back to School

Back to school for the kiddos this year was a big change. After a very stressful decision, the boys are attending Franklin this year. Here is a pic of them with their cousins who also go there. Change is hard, probably more for me than the boys. They are doing great and really like it there. Bridon has Mr. Amerson, Danner has Mrs. Chudler, and Kyler has Mrs. McKinney. I love all of their teachers.

Summer in a Nutshell

May 15 - Repelling with the YW/YM

May 17 - Swim Team begins

June 14 - 14th Anniversary

June 16-19 - Danner went to Grand Canyon with Grandma and Grandpa Allen and cousin David

June 22-26th - Lindsey goes to Girls Camp

July 2-4 - 4th of July weekend at Johnson's Cabin - So much fun!

July 25-28 - Lindsey and Boys go to visit Grandma, Papa, and Grandma Deen at the cabin. Thanks for a fun time! Lots of rain, playing games, playing catch, movies. Coleson sick but pretty good despite the fact.

July 29-30 - Arizona Grand (see above picture). Had a great time playing and swimming, staying up until 2 in the morning with the Johnsons. So much fun!

Sweet Hubby

So On Mother's Day Tommy gave me a poem to read and I thought it was so sweet, but I also thought it was probably just something he found on the internet. Well, today I found out that he made up the whole thing by himself just for me. Wow! I do not deserve him! So, here it is:

Mothers

Children grow up wanting many things -

Little boys want puppies and swords and guns

Knives and ropes and anything fun

The girls love dolls and dresses andd playing house

They like glitter and crafts and lukewarm baths

But at the end of the day, what every child really wants is a mother to say "I love you"

Kinds and presidents and rulers of nations command millions by their very words, yet none is greater than a mother who simply says, "I love you

A mother's gentle kiss is better than any medicine or bandaid in the world

A story told by a mother is greater than all the movies and songs combined

At times her knowledge knows no bounds

Her prayers are so faithful they take a fast train to Heaven

Falling asleep on a thousand blankets cannot compare to falling asleep in mother's arms

She is soft and gentle and full of hope

Only mother has the ability to see her children through the eyes of God himself

She can see their future and she knows what they can become

Only a mother is brave enough to face and army alone for her child, yet meek enough to shed countless tears when her child is pained

A mother's physical, mental and emotional anguish goes largely unnoticed by the passing crowd, yet she presses forward, and all this because of her love of a child

No sleep, no money, no recognition, yet her inner beauty shows forth brighter and brigher each day

No single person can have a more profound impact on a child, a family, a community or a nation than a loving and devoted mother.

Thank God for Mothers!

Catching up

I have determined that I am never going to catch up unless I forget about posting pictures and just catch up with writing and then start from scratch. I want to backtrack a little bit though because I forgot a few things in October:

October 17, 2009 - My little niece McKinzie was baptized. What a sweet moment. I know of know other child with a sweeter, more pure heart than McKinzie. It was extra sweet because of all that she has been through the past couple of years. We are so grateful and blessed to have McKinzie with us still this day. I love her so much and am constantly amazed by her.

October 28, 2009 - Another amazing girl was baptized. Her name is Briana. She is 18 years old and joined the church all on her own. She has no support from her family and is one amazing girl. She will graduate this year and recently told me that she wants to be a seminary teacher. Wow! She amazes me with her testimony and her strength.

Ok, now on to December - What a fun, crazy, exhausting month. Filled with friends and family and lots, and lots of food. The youth got to do baptisms this month and it was a great experience. We were able to go really early in the morning. I love early morning things. It seems like the spirit is so much stronger at that time. And it was amazing as we walked outside the sun was low in the sky and it was beautiful. The sky was some amazing colors. The whole experience was very sweet.

Christmas was good. We kept things really low-key this year and I loved it. We were able to spend more of our time with friends and family and with good neighbors. One night we had a little block party on our street and closed off our street and watched the Polar Express and drank hot chocolate and had cookies.

We were supposed to leave the day after Christmas for Tommy's family's cabin; but after some coaxing from the kids, they convinced me to leave Christmas Day. This will probably not happen again unless I am planning on it and ready to go beforehand. I didn't love trying to clean up and leave for the cabin on Christmas day, but once we were there it was so fun. Of course everything wasn't in tiptop shape when we left and while we were gone our fire alarm started going off and wouldn't shut off. So, firemen had to break into our house and make sure everything was okay. Yep, in case you didn't know if there is dust on your fire alarms it makes them go off. That was fun.

January 2010- Danner had his first pinewood derby in January. Took the Youth on a Snow trip, went sledding up by Sunrise and stayed in one of the leader's cabins. We had such a good time.

Bridon and Danner started taking guitar lessons on the guitars that they got for Christmas. They are already doing such a good job and seem to love it so much. I am excited to see them learn so much so quickly and its nice to have some music in our home. I love music.

February - The beginning of February we had New Beginnings. We had a pageant theme. One of my leaders made sashes for all of the girls and they all dressed up and were amazing. One of my leaders sisters used to do pageants and we had her come talk to the girls. She was amazing. They each represented a value. Their sashes that they wore were the color of the value that they represented. It was such a sweet night.

Over Valentine's weekend Tommy took the boys to the cabin and gave me a weekend to myself. Wow, what a sweetheart. I have no idea why he is so sweet to me.

February/March 2010 - We went quading several times. The weather was so nice and we would take a quick 15 minute drive out to Tommy's Grandmas land and go riding. It had rained quite a bit so it was muddy and we went mud bogging. I wish i could post pictures of how muddy all the kids (and myself) got while we were out there. It was a blast. Then me and the boys went again over spring break with Tommy's parents and his sister Shellee and her family. I really love and appreciate when they take me with them on the outings when Tommy can't come. I love Tommy's family and we always have such a good time with them.

April 2010 - I loved Easter this year. It happened to fall on the first Sunday of April which is when we have General Conference. It is my favorite to sit and listen to the prophet and apostles speak on Easter Sunday. Since my dad was put in as a patriarch last year, he and my mom had tickets to go to Conference. So they were gone this Easter. My kids were a little bummed about that, but thought it was cool that they got to go Conference. That evening we were able to go to Tommy's parents. Tommy's mom had everyone do an egg toss with real eggs (not hard boiled), Kyler was playing. He was doing pretty good, and then one time they were getting pretty far away from each other and his partner tossed it and it cracked open right on his eye. Kyler freaked. It was hilarious.

On the 17th, we had Kyler's birthday party. This is actually Coleson's birthday, but since he is so little we decided we would just celebrate his early so that we could have Kyler's on Saturday. It was so funny because everyone kept saying, "Coleson is it your birthday today?" and Coleson would say, "I already had my birthday!" This was Kyler's first year for a party. We set up slip and slides at my moms and let the kids play in the water. A little pizza and a pinata and oh what a party!

Then the weekend of the 24th was Tommy's birthday. Thanks to Shelli, my brothers wife, for watching my kids for the night so that we could go out. That Sunday we all went to church and it was fast and testimony meeting because our ward was going to have Stake Conference the next week. Bridon got up and bore the sweetest testimony I have ever heard. It was pretty sweet because once I asked him why he never bears his testimony and he told me, "Mom, when I bear my testimony I want to say something that really means something to me." And he did. I still have people come and say what a sweet testimony it was. He told how he had been reading in the scriptures about how to find out if something is true or not and knew that he needed to pray about it. So that night after reading his scriptures, he prayed to know whether it was true and he said, "I couldn't stop smiling for the rest of the night." Wow, what an example he is to me.

Our time in April and May has been filled with getting Bridon to Basketball and Danner to Football twice a week and weekends full of games. Tommy took them Turkey Hunting over the weekend the 17th and 18th of April, but Bridon got sick and was throwing up so they came home early. I was kind of grateful though because then Tommy was able to help me with Kyler's birthday party.

This past weekend was Mother's Day weekend. Tommy and the boys definitely spoiled me. They made me breakfast in bed, let me do whatever I wanted to all day, gave me sweet gifts, and let me go to bed early. It was wonderful. Bridon even wrote some pretty sweet things on my car with one of those car markers. He put, "We are lucky to have you", "We love you" "Happy Mother's Day" I have the best boys in the world.

November News

Bridon earned his Arrow of Light

On Nov. 17, 2009, they had a special Arrow of Light ceremony for Bridon and 4 other boys his age. It was a pretty awesome night and they give the boys these amazing animal skins with all of their boy scout achievements on them, hung on an arrow. We are so proud of Bridon and the hard work he put into earning all of his scouting awards. Way to go buddy.

Some of the other boys were Stone, Conner, Ezra and Noah. They did a whole night of honoring those who serve our country and invited members of our ward from many different services to participate. It was a very cool night.

Exhibition Game Danner played on a soccer team this year that was pretty competitive. It was fun watching them and good to see the competitive spirit in Danner. One night when the season was just about over, we had an exhibition game with a 11-year-old girl team. The boys each got a name and were introduced in a really fun way. Here are Danner and Porter looking pretty cool.

Thanksgiving 2009

This year for Thanksgiving we got together with some of the extended family on my mom's side. It was crazy to see how much everyone had changed and to realize that we hadn't seen each other in so many years. Hopefully it won't be that long before we see them all again. Thanks mom for putting together such a fun Thanksgiving.

Oops October still

Halloween 2009

Bridon dressed up as a Grandma (hilarious), Danner was a Rapsta, Kyler was a Knight, and Coleson was a Power Ranger. All of these were pulled together by themselves or pulled out of our costume box. I love when the kids pick things that don't cost us anything. Coleson's was a last minute change. He was going to be Batman, but the day before decided he wanted to be a Power Ranger.
Coleson was wanting me to take pictures of him every two seconds around this time. This was one of the many that were taken. What a cutie!!!

October 2009

Overview of October:

Bridon turned 11

It seems for some reason in the B home when we just do a birthday cake with family on our children's actual birthday, they have to all sit on the counter to sing and blow out the candles. So, here we are, Bridon's 11, and still sitting on the counter to blow out his candles. At least they are all freshly bathed.

Bridon/Danner combined birthday party

Here is a picture of all of the boys at Bridon and Danner's combined b-day party, as well as the girls who came and crashed it and sprayed all the boys with shaving cream.

We had a real problem that day with the cupcakes. The sprinklers at the park kept coming on for some reason. We kept moving the table with the cupcakes; but, of course, one time we didn't move fast enough and the cupcakes got a few sprinkles of water. Luckily, little boys don't seem to care.

October Break

Fun with the Cookies at their cabin.

This year we had a really good time over October Break. Tommy usually never takes off any time from work during the boys breaks, but this year was different. We were able to go for several days on a cabin trip with the C family. The kids had a blast. They played flashlight tag, hiked, climbed trees, played games, picked berries, played football, climbed trees. My kids still talk about it, especially the trees there were to climb.

Crazy Climbing Danner

If you can't tell what this is or why I would post it, look really close. See a figure of a boy at the top of the light pole? That's Danner. Crazy climbing monkey. One day, we were out front playing before dinner and he starts scaling the light pole. Slowly getting higher and higher. Here is a picture of him right before he touches the top. Crazy, crazy boy!

Soccer

In September, the boys started playing soccer. This was Kyler's first year playing soccer. It was so fun to watch him play. He is such a cutie. I really love to watch him run and dance around the ball.

Danner turns 8

September 17, 2009, Danner turned 8.

Happy Birthday buddy. We are so excited for your special day.

September 21, 2009

Danner is baptized and confirmed a member of the church by his Dad.

What a sweet day it was to see our little Danner be baptized. We are so proud of the decision he made to take this big step and wish we could express the sweet spirit that was there that day. There were many friends and family members there that day and we are grateful for their love and support. Danner loved his special day and remembers feeling really good and very excited when he was baptized. He also remembers thinking it was really cool that his Uncle Markley took him for a ride in his Mustang afterward.

Back to school

Then it was back to school:

August 10, 2009

Bridon started 5th grade

Danner started 2nd grade

Bridon has Ms. Donley who was also his 4th grade teacher

Danner has Ms. Gourley

August 11, 2009

Kyler started his 2nd year of preschool.

His first year with Ms. Allison

July 2009

July 2009

So here is July in a nutshell:

Arizona Grand Hotel and Water Park with the Lamoreaux's

Fossil Springs with Tommy's family

Camping with Yeager's, Sara Dildine and some of her friends

Cabin Trip with Fishing and Fireworks over 4th of July

Allen Family Reunion

We had a great time at the Arizona Grand with the Lamoreaux's. The kids played and wore themselves out. We adults had a chance to go out together for a nice dinner. The boys love staying in a hotel and we love not driving very far to get to the hotel.

Fossil Springs was a blast. We went with both of Tommy's sisters and their families. We also took my nephew David with us. The kids had a good time hiking, swimming and jumping off of the waterfall and cliffs into the water.

The place we went for girls camp had an amazing water hole that the girls loved to swim in. It was beautiful there. So we came back to play and swim. There were some high places to jump off of and everyone had a good time swimming and cliff jumping, even though the water was freezing.

Over the 4th of July, we went and stayed at the cabin with Tommy's parents. We also had the Allen family reunion that weekend. So Saturday morning we went to the fishing derby at the golf course. After that, we went to the family reunion for the day. The boys loved catching crawdads with their cousins, playing in the water and hiking. Not to mention the food. Then we went back with Tommy's family and had dinner at the Golf Course. Then onto fireworks that night. It was a busy but fun weekend.

Below:

Too hot, or not?

Connor and Jordan were over at our house one day. Tommy had brought home some really, really, really hot salsa. So we challenged the boys to take a big scoop on their chip and down it. Their faces in this picture crack me up.

June 2009

June 2009

In a nutshell:

Lindsey went to Girls Camp

Wow, way too much fun!!!

~Played with Crazy Boys~

After a long week at girls camp, it was fun to come home and spend some time with these crazy boys.

~Went to the Lake~

Tommy's family all rented jet skis one day at the end of June and we all went out riding, eating, pulling tubes around, and cliff jumping. Bridon and Danner (yes my 7 yr old) and a bunch of their cousins, jumped off a probably 40 ft cliff. Talk about give me a heart attack. I wish I could have gotten a picture of it, but we were in the middle of the lake and I didn't have my camera. Crazy boys

Kyler never wanted to leave the jet skis. He was crazy, always wanting to go faster.