I can't believe she is 8!!!!

It is hard to imagine that 8 years ago today I gave birth to Aubrey. She weighed only 6lbs.8 oz. and she was 18" long (her feet were 12"). Today she is a very sweet and beautiful girl.
We had a party for her yesterday that was a movie theme. The children ate pizza, created their own movie, and then they all ate popcorn and watched their own production. (I must say that each child earned an oscar).
Happy Birthday Aubrey!!

Her popcorn cake


Children enjoying pizza


I think she was excited for her easy bake oven


I guess we sang happy birthday too loudly


Aubrey cooking brownies for the family

A great visit from Friends

We had a wonderful day yesterday visitng with friends we made in Yuma. They came to Tucson and arranged to meet with us one day. We were planning on going up to Mt. Lemmon until it decided to thunderstorm up there and have a high of 41 degrees. BRRRRrrrrr!!!! They graciously agreed to go BBQ at our nearby park instead. We enjoyed their visit and all the kids had so much fun playing.
Here are some pictures of our day.
Getting ready to BBQ

Aubrey & Jane

Nathan & Jane eating

Samuel & Andy preparing to eat

Andy is starting a new fashion statement

Andy loved putting plates on his head...what a HAM!!!

Starting the coals to roast marshmallows and "woofums"

YUMMY!!!


Thanks for a great time Jarvis Family!

School is back in session!

I am so proud of my children as they all were so brave today starting a new school again and not knowing many other people. We are in 8th grade, 6th grade and 2nd grade this year. (The other boy in red is my nephew Jason.)

How much stuff do you need to send 3 kids back to school?.... A LOT!!!!

So I have been buying the school supplies for the kids a little at a time and stock piling them by the side of my bed. Well, I never knew how much it takes to get kids ready to start a new school year until I laid it all on my bed to pack it up...Take a look for yourself.

Summer Break 2010 is coming to an end

This summer has flown by for us.
We started off the summer visiting with a good friend Karen and her daughter Emily from Florida.



In June, We returned back to Yuma to swim as much as we could and pack our house to move back to Tucson. I don't recommend moving in the SUMMER when you live in the Desert!!!







Aubrey got tired of moving and decided to go to sleep where ever she dropped.


Damian celebrated his 11th birthday June 27th.


My mom retired on July 23, 2010 from McDonald's after 24 years.


My Nephew Adam left on his mission to Brasilia Brazil on August 3, 2010
This is a picture of all the grandkids on my side of the family.


Damian earned his Arrow of Light in May but was awarded it in August 2010.

Here we are again....

Yes, rumor has been spreading and it is true that our family has moved back to Tucson. We are in our old house again and trying to get used to where everything goes. It is funny because some of the old nails are still up so you can just hang pictures where they were before. But, I want to change things up a bit and make it new and exciting.
All 3 kids got accepted to a new school and I am very excited about it. They will be attending with some cousins too.
We are looking forward to reacquainting with you all here in Tucson.
Yuma friends-Call us when you want to come visit.....it is a few degrees cooler here and we have plenty of furniture!!!!

Just have to brag

I am sorry but this is a mother's bragging moment.
The school year wraps up with awards given to children, right?
Well, Aubrey received the award for being on the Honor roll for the whole year, the Citizenship award for her class, and the reading award with 3,794 pages read this year. Damian earned the honor roll award too, the physical fitness award, Music Achievement award for being the 1st 5th grader to ever complete the entire band book, and he received the reading award for the highest pages read this year at 26,000 pages! The next closest person was 18,000 pages. He does do more than just read, but not much.
We are very proud of all of our children and are truly going to miss this school.

What next?

So many of you know some of our many trials we have had this last 16 months. Today, was just another one. As I went outside to see my oldest daughter off to the bus for school, I noticed my driveway looked bare. What? Where is the pickup truck- checked the side of the house...nothing. It's gone!!!!! Long gone I am sure- all the way (17 miles) to Mexico. Why can't people just work hard for nice things of their own like others do? Why do they have to take from others? Did I mention the doors were locked and it had a "club" on the steering wheel? URGH!!!! It makes me so mad!
Here is a picture of the truck we will probably never see again.

Primary Talent Show

Aubrey and Damian participated in our Ward Primary Talent Show yesterday 5/18/10. Aubrey danced with 4 other girls to a song from Beauty and the Beast's Christmas. Damian played his trumpet. He played "Take Me Out To The Ballgame". They both did a wonderful job and we are so proud of them. There are a few pictures and then some videos to enjoy as well.

The Tooth Fairy will come tonight!

Tonight we had quite the ordeal. Aubrey has had a loose tooth for a couple of weeks. But tonight mom had enough with hearing about it and pulled it out! Aubrey was so excited she shouted "YES, YES, YES!" all the way to the bathroom to see where the tooth used to be. She already has her grown-up tooth behind where this one once sat.

Using ice to numb the gum


The Tooth is gone!


Tooth in the tooth fairy pillow

Medical Update

We are so relieved as we have received new medical updates on Steven. He followed up with a Cardiologist and after all his tests and blood tests came back they determined that it was NOT a heart attack after all. He had a respitory infection about 3 weeks ago along with double ear infections and a sinus infection. Somehow, he developed an inflammation of the joint where the rib cages meet around the heart which causes extreme pain. The symptoms can be just like a heart attack with the chest pain, shortness of breath and numbness down the left arm. The blood tests are what they use to determine if there are any enzymes in the blood which are present after a heart attack. His blood was clean. We are so relieved and so blessed and are extremely thankful for priesthood blessings.
Again, Thank you for eveyone's concern and prayers.

We have been truly blessed!

I need to write this down to remind myself later how truly blessed we have been this week. Tuesday morning, April 13th at 6:30 AM, Steven woke up with chest pains. He proceeded to get ready for work and never mentioned it to me until we were headed out the door to drop children off at school and go into work. I told him to go to Urgent care at least to get checked out. You know men, he didn't want any part of that. When we got to work, I took his blood pressure and it was 162/101. I freaked and told him to go to the hospital or I would keep nagging him. I guess I don't nag that much because he decided to wait til our family Dr. opened which is 1 floor below our office in the same building. He started to get numbness down his left arm and his hand was ice cold. He then got scared and went downstairs to talk to them at our Dr. office. They took his blood pressure and it was 189/117 now. We were ordered to go across the street to the hospital..."do not stop go and do not stop to collect $200". We walked in, stated chest pain, the women at the desk got on the phone and said "chest pain" and a nurse was standing behind us within 10 seconds. He was hooked up to an EKG machine, given an aspirin, started with an IV, wheeled down to get chest X-rays and later for a CT scan. It was determined that he had had a minor heart attack and was lucky he had come in when he did. He was admitted into the hospital for more observation and so they could draw blood every 6 hours to determine long term damage to the heart. I did so well at being strong until I headed home to meet my kids after school and to tell them the news. It all hit at once at how blessed we truly were and how fast things can completely change in our lives in a moments notice. I made 1 phone call to arrange for our home teacher to administer a priesthood blessing for Steven and within 1 hour, the blessing had already been given, my kids were taken care of, there was dinner hanging on my front door (because I was back at the hospital at this point), My RS president was rubbing my back at the hospital, and meals had been set up to be brought to us for the next 4 nights. Family and friends from all over have sent their concern, prayers and love for our family and we have felt it from every one of them. He is home now and trying to rest(he doesn't remember how to do that after working such long hours everyday). He will follow up with a Cardiologist tomorrow morning and we will see what life changes we have to make.
Our Heavenly Father hears every prayer offered, and He is there to help us. We are so truly blessed and evermore so grateful for all the love we have felt as we are trying to get over this little speed bump in our lives.

Earthquake #2!

So our 1st earthquake experience here in Yuma was December 30, 2009.
Now we have experienced earthquake #2 and this was much bigger. It started at 3:40 PM today Easter Sunday. Steven & I were taking a nap on the living room couch after watching conference and the couch stated shaking and the front window rattling. We woke up and both said, "that's an earthquake." All 3 children were upstairs playing and reading and came down those stairs so fast. We all went outside as we heard things falling upstairs. It felt like my 2-story house was going to crumble. It slowly got harder and louder than tapered off after about 45 seconds(which felt like hours I must admit). We went back in the house to assess any damage and to see what had fallen. We couldn't find any structural damage to the house but things were lying on the floors upstairs, lamps swinging back and forth, and a steel helmet of Steven's that fell off of our camper trailer in the garage. When we went back in the house, about 3 minutes had gone by since we ran outside, and the water in our pool was still rockin' back and forth as if we had numerous people doing cannonballs in it. There was water around the pool about 12' out all around where the water had splashed out. It has now been 90 minutes since we felt the 1st shake and we are still experiencing after shocks every few minutes that are really unnerving- like you got off a roller coaster, cruise ship or other water boat. My legs are still jittery. I definitely do not like the feeling. It was reported as a 6.9 and 20 miles deep at the epicenter in Mexicali which is about 60 miles from us. It has been reported that we felt a 4.9 here which was plenty for me.

Happy Birthday Steven

I want to wish my husband a very happy birthday today. Your family loves you very much!

***NERD ALERT***

This too could happen to your children if Nerd day is declared at your children's school.

Does the tooth fairy like to play hide and seek?

We took the kids to go see the movie Tooth Fairy. (Cute family movie by the way.)
On the way home, Damian pulled out a tooth. In our home we have a tooth fairy pillow that has a pocket to place your tooth. We leave the pillow on the kitchen island so the tooth fairy doesn't have to go upstairs. Well, we came home and the pillow was retrieved and placed on the counter as it is suppose to be. I got busy making dinner and cookies for Aubrey's Valentine's party not realizing that the pillow had been removed. The next morning as I was making lunches, I remembered that the tooth fairy was suppose to have come that night and now I could't find the pillow. I frantically searched because I knew Damian would be up soon and would be looking for the pillow. After no success of locating it, I decided to ask Damian if the tooth fairy had come. He replied he didn't know because he couldn't find the pillow. Aubrey overheard our conversation and quietly and innocently walked away to peek around the corner. I asked her if she took the pillow. She replied, "Yes, I wanted to see if the tooth fairy could still find it." I said you go get it right now. She went over to the living room loveseat, pulled back the couch pillow and said, "Just what I thought, the tooth is still there." It wasn't even her tooth and she had to hide the pillow.
I guess the tooth fairy doesn't like to play hide and seek.

Who says white girls can't dance?

Steven was listening to his music and Aubrey started dancing. She didn't know I was video taping her until the end when I talked to her. Sorry for the jumpy video at times, I was laughing so hard. And after she was done she promptly had an asthma attack.

I'm exhausted!!!!

This completes my 2nd week at working outside of the home again and I am exhausted. I started working in the medical office where my husband works. So this is a new thing for me too. I've never taken vitals signs on anyone before this last Tuesday. Also, we put our house on the market here in Yuma this week and had 2 showings in 1 day. So bewteen the house selling, learning a new job, and juggling my role as a mother.....I can't wait to sleep in past 5 AM tomorrow. I pray no children get sick in the night. :)

When it rains, it pours.....IN MY HOUSE!

We have had a really bad storm here for Yuma. Homes here are built to block sun, not rain I guess. So at 3 AM Thursday morning I heard water dripping. I got up to investigate and was horrified at what I found. My entry way was falling to the ground. This is a vaulted ceiling about 18+feet high. Water was also running down the beam in the middle of the room pulling the paint off that too.







As the day progressed with no relief from the rain, I saw that my kitchen table was wet. The edge of the ceiling where our nook is in the kitchen was leaking all the way across. It took 8 buckets/trash cans to collect the water.




I decided I better search the whole house and while in the Master bathroom I found this one too.


I was hanging my laundry and looking out the window. I saw pool toys, plastic chairs and flip flops floating on the side yard because there was so much water. I only could watch the water flow under my back garage door and flood the garage as well as filling my air conditioner units on the ground.
I know we are still very fortunate as our trials are minimal compared to those in Haiti, but this is 1 of the many problems our family has had to face these last 2 weeks. We will overcome this. I never thought I would be so grateful to see sunshine in Yuma as I am this morning, but the rains are expected to continue through the weekend.

A teenager has entered our house---YIKES!

Today is Emmalee's 13th birthday. Where has the time gone?
So we officially have a teenager in the house although it has felt we already had one. She is a special daughter of God and we are glad that she is in our family. Happy Birthday Emmalee!

Mom surprised her by decorating her room while she was at school


Playing Air Hockey at Peter Piper Pizza


Emmalee's Oreo Pie Dessert