A FUNNY RUSS MOMENT
I hope I can explain this moment as it happened last night at our ward adult Christmas party. We had a white elephant gift exchange, so one by one, people were coming to the front of the room and choosing a present. There were probably 60 people there, and our table was close to the front. A woman in her 80's went up and picked a present and as she was walking back to her seat she stepped in a circle of Christmas ribbon that fell off her present and was pulling it behind her. Someone at our table said "oh, ribbons " And, Russ immediately jumped up to help. Unfortunately, it was a "caught around her ankle" kind of thing, and Russ thought it was a "toilet paper stuck to the bottom of her shoe" thing. So, he went behind her, following her, and stepped on the ribbon as she took a step. My sister and I yelled "Russ! Russ, no!", but she took a step and tripped. Luckily, she caught herself on her table and didn't completely fall over or break anything. And, with her sweet demeanor said to Russ "Are you out to get me?!" He sat down thoroughly embarrassed, and our table couldn't keep any manner of quietness or reverence for the rest of the evening! See, as she was walking by, I'm the kind of person that just says "Oh, sad. Embarrassing." But, Russ is, of course, one who says "I'll fix it." That's why I love him! But, maybe next time he'll have to assess the situation a little more before jumping in for the save!

WHY I LOVE MY HUSBAND:

Since Russ always does the posts, I thought I'd take a minute to show exactly why I think he is the best thing around.
Here's some prize winning pictures of my dear husband. I love that he is always the life of the party, and is always willing to play my games (or anyone else's for that matter) in order to bring a smile to someone's face. Enjoy, because these pics might be gone when he sees them:). On a serious note, Russ is my best friend, and the greatest eternal companion I could have. I always feel good going anywhere standing next to him knowing how other people are just drawn to him and he has a gift of making people feel better when they are around him. So, here's to you Russ:). And Russ, if you don't like this, I apologize, but that's what you get when you leave me on a Saturday to go to your basketball game and won't be home until 2:00am. What else am I suppose to do:).
(P.S.-Russ is helping our brother in law Joe coach JV b-ball again at the high school-undefeated so far:)

The Halloween picture Russ said he wouldn't post:)
*For your viewing pleasure*

Russ read a story to all the kids at our ward Christmas party that took place in Book of Mormon times. They said he was like Samuel the Lamanite, and our good brother in law Joe loudly said "Where's my bow and arrow?" They truly have a unique friendship:)

Halloween 2006. He didn't want Cody to feel odd being the only pumpkin in the family:). This one's for you-Autrey family!

We got invited to a murder mystery dinner party. Our characters (that we had to dress up as) were Tiara Diamond-Miss Kansas City 1959, and Ivan Spudnik-a Russian rocket scientist. Note Russ' disheveled hair:) P.S.-You would've loved Russ' Russian accent!

Russ is always GOOD TIMES...GOOD TIMES

Here are some of the results of today's snow storm. Well, this is at about 9 in the morning and it continued to snow most of the day, so we actually have a quite a bit more than what you see. That is the second time it had cleared my driveway within the last 12 hours.

This is basically what we woke up to this morning. And, when I woke up I was sure I had plenty of time to clear the driveway again because school was surely going to be cancelled right...? Wrong! and not only was it not cancelled, it was at the regular time. So I had to get myself dug out and ready to have Brock at school by 8:00...? We were on time, but nobody was there. Only two of the who knows how many school buses had arrived. We heard that SIX buses got stuck this morning trying to gather kids...?!? I don't know who is in charge of making the decision to cancel school or not, but whomever it is must live in Arizona or something and not have a clue how much snow was actually on the ground. Anyway, during basketball practice today one of the kids told me that one of his teachers was so angry that school was not canceled that he had him run to the movie store and rent a movie to watch in class as a protest. That is pretty funny...

Anyway, check out that picture of my front porch. I have never seen this before. The wind was blowing so hard from the other side of my house and some how the snow whipped around my porch and made this wave lookin thing. So, yea, you can see that the wind is blowing left to right and somehow the snow whipped around and did that... cool huh...

Holy Snow...!!!

So today was the first real snow storm. We have had a few in the last month or so, but today was the first real one. And, it was a real one.

As some of you know, we are driving down to AZ for Christmas. And, for the winter we use studded snow tires for our minivan so Dana doesn't run into any trees or stuff like that. Well, I really wanted to wait until we got back from Arizona to put on the snow tires because I would feel pretty stupid running around the valley down there with the clacking of the studs on the nice warm pavement. But, Dana, inspired as she is, demanded that we put on the snow tires and so we did. And I am sure glad we did.

The snow started at about 9 am this morning. Our church is at 1 but I had a meeting at noon so we left at about 11:45. In the nearly three hours of snow and drifts (because the wind was really blowing), at lease 9 0r 10 inches had accumulated. The snow plow had not been to our little road and when we left for church there was so much snow that our poor, pansy little minivan was plowing the snow with our front bumper. I am glad we put on the snow tires.

Hey, look at me... two post in a row. I have turned over a new leaf (although it is now under two feet of snow).

We did have a major event which I failed to mention. Cody in now officially toilet trained. We had several pair of Thomas the Tank Engine underwear with which we have been taunting him. He was ready quite a while back to wear the underwear, but not ready to use the toilet. So, we finally bought some pull up diapers and within a few days he was toilet trained.

Cody and Rachel got a hold of my cell phone. When you turn the camera on, you can see your self in the front screen. Cody is looking at himself in these pics. Anyway, I thought this was pretty funny.

Sorry

I realize I have dropped the ball here. Around two months have passed since my last post and I apologize. If I had a great excuse I would surely use it, but I don't. Strait up neglect on my part. Dana would remind me every day since she checks all your blogs several times a week. So, I am turning over a new leaf and I will be more diligent with our posts. Hopefully. Maybe.

Thanks for your support.
Staff

This is just a cute one of Rachel....


This is for all the Dads. I had just got home from working outside and hadn't done much with my kids, and I needed to get some emails and stuff sent out. I started working in my office but they wanted to wrestle me. I figured I could kill two birds with one stone and let them wrestle me as I tried to work. It really didn't work out and I had to do my stuff later.

I drove about a half hour to get this load of wood. My poor little truck was dragging it's bottom when we got back. The good ol' Toyota did a good job.

And, Brett wanted to come out and help but it was a bit cold for him so we just took a picture of him so he could feel like part of the fam.

Here we are preparing for winter. We have a wood burning fireplace and we burn about 4 to 5 cords of wood during the winter. So, in September and October and sometimes November, most weekends are dedicated to cutting fire wood. I only have a hand full of things that I really enjoy, and one of them is getting fire wood. Brock is finally old enough that he enjoys going with me and we have a great time (as long as he has some junk foot and gloves). Anyway, we bring the wood back in rounds and a buddy of mine lets me use his splitter. I am too much of a panzy to split that much wood by hand, plus we make a big fancy activity out of splitting and stacking the wood. Oh, and, Brock is pretty good at running the splitter. He has the timing down pretty well and we fly through the wood pretty quickly.

This is just a really pretty picture. Dana took this picture off our back porch right as the sun was coming up. That is fog in the background and not smoke. A few months ago and it would have been smoke. This past summer was the worst fire season ever in this part of the state.

Dana did something pretty fun for the fam a few weeks back. She decided to dedicate the dinners for one week to each of our favorite things. S0, she would ask each of the kids what they wanted for dinner and she would make it and also decorate the table with their favorite things. Dana did her own table first but forgot to take a picture. She decorated with stuff from our wedding, and daisies. Brock wanted home made pizza and a "Ben 10" table. Rachel wanted a "Cinderella/Princess" table, Cody wanted "Thomas and Friends," and Dana surprised me with a football table. It was a fun week. The little ones really liked it.

Here are the litte ones for Halloween. We have Rachel as "Cinderella", Big Brock as "Ben 10," Cody as "Thomas The Tank Engine," and Brett as "Powder in a Batman Suit." Dana and I dressed up, but I have chosen not to post those pictures for various reasons.

Okay, this is Dana...I got tagged like a month ago, and Russ always does the blog, so...I thought I'd finally try to do something...here goes :)

Five things I was doing 10 years ago:
1. Started my 2nd year of college at EAC.
2. Was the student body secretary at EA.
3. Was in all the choirs at EA-(large group choir, show choir, girl's quartet)
4. Was living in a freaking fun filled college trailer park-Trailer #4-"The Lodge" with Steph, Nicki, Tia, and Kia, and others that would come and go. Yes, I was trailer trash, and it was COOL:). True story-you gotta love it.
5. Was going on about 2 hrs of sleep every night, eating at Jerry's and The Roost, teaching Relief Society, driving Whitey, laughing with my roommies all hours of the day and night, and enjoying life...good times!

5 Things on my "To Do List" today:
1. Clean out my garage. (I'm obssessed lately with de-junking and organizing!)
2. Preschool with Rachel.
3. Practice my songs for the community choir I'm singing in.
4. Go through all the family's snow gear-yes, we already have snow...(for all my AZ friends enjoying their good weather).
5. Get Russ to update the blog:).

5 Things I would do if I were a millionaire: (This is what I would do if I had all this money today...)
1. Send anonymous checks to people who are struggling.
2. Go to the dentist and say "Keep me here until you do everything I've been putting off" :)
3. I'd always eat out with Russ at good, expensive restaurants. I love good food!
4. I'd go out and buy our complete year supply all in one shot.
5. Buy a new mattress-my back's been hurting lately.
(Huge things, huh:)...I can't think too much right now.

5 Things I will never wear again
1. Tapered/pegged pants. I know some are in style now, but seriously, some people have hips and i don't like to look like a pear :)
2. Spandex (yikes!)-especially the ones with the neon colors down the side.
3. Ji-normous bangs with gobs of hairspray.
4. Units belts-especially turquoise and pink and peach colored accessories!
5. Huge puffy sleeves on dresses. (usually major flower printed dresses)

My Favorite Toys
(have no idea, so I'm changing it to 5 things I like to do the most right now)
1. Read my Jane Austen books.
2. De-junk and take stuff to the thrift store.
3. Scrapbook.
4. Laugh at Russ (he's seriously the funniest dude I know!)
5. Play "Go Fish" and "Memory" with my kids-they have to play at least 50 times a day!

5 People to Tag (sorry if you've already done this...)
1. Jen & Dave
2. Dan & Machelle
3. Amy & Joe
4. Katie & Donovan (Just saw your cute blog)
5. Debbie & Jake

He is cute huh?

Having fun at the local hot springs... This is Brett's first swim. Excuse the chubbyness.

This is a sweet picture. They are getting ready to support Rachel in her watching "Barbie and the Magic Pegasus."

He is just cool...

Brock, Rachel, and McKenna (cousin) are making bread. It was pretty good actually.

Dana has a new tradition she wants to start. Every year on the first day of school she will make pancakes with the number of their grade and that many pancakes in a stack. So when they are seniors they will have the number 12 and a stack of 12 pancakes. Pretty cool huh...?
P is for Preschool... and pink, pretty, princess...ect...
C is for Cody... and cool.

Dana is doing a preschool at home with Rachel twice a week when the other two boys are napping. Here's just a few pictures of our cute girl with a few of the projects she's done. For the letter "A", she did an ark and put all her animals in.














For the letter "C" she canned peach jam.
She also made cookies with her cool book...
For the letter "E" she made chocolate peanut butter ball "E's". And also for E, we have the Egyptian pyramids out of sand stone and graham crackers.