My 2007 Blog Book

Yay! I'm finally done! (actually I've had my book for a couple of weeks...just procrastinated the post) Making my blog into a book was tons of fun and I think everyone should do it! This is the reason I'm such a diligent blogger...I love having a fun way to keep a "journal". There are several things that I will do different for 2008. Starting with not doing slide shows, and making sure I print a copy of the book out before I publish it. (the program recommends this but I thought I was above it...should have done it...I could have caught several mistakes!)

Total Cost (for those of you who are wondering) 8X11 Hardcover 110 pages about $37.00

Now I get to start working on 2008!

Karate Man Meltdown

Both of the boys had Belt Promotions last night. Jace was up for his white belt purple stripe and East was getting his brown belt yellow stripe. As you can see Easton got his new belt! We are so proud of him!Where is the photo of the little brother? Here's the story: (for posterity) As we are driving to the Karate school Jace asks me "Mom, do you think we could go buy some Pokemon cards after Karate?"...I gave the typical mom answer of "We'll see."

As we are getting out of the van Jace says "Mom, I forgot my shoes." "Oh well, I say...but we won't be able to go to the store without shoes so we'll have to go another time." WHAT??? followed by a major melt down!

So...I drag the kicking and screaming child into Karate so that I can try to calm him down in time for him to get his new belt (which by the way he has been anticipating for weeks!)~only to drag him back out kicking and screaming 15 minutes later...minus the new karate belt! AAAHHHH! So now...if you'd like to feel sorry for the poor little guy....his life is feeling pretty empty right now without a new Karate belt OR some new Pokemon cards! I would be willing to bet that my guy takes the cake for the most stubborn child!

It's a good thing I love him so much!....isn't Karate supposed to be helping me with this!!??

Aren't they cute!?

Weigh In

Emmy was weighed again today and is down to 11 lbs. 9 ozs. Yippee! Way to go Emmy!

I realize it seems like I take my dog to the vet everyday! This time it was for 'excessive itching' (like waking us up in the night 'excessive itching!')....apparently the dog groomer nicked the inside of her ears and they have turned into huge scabs...Poor Puppy! :( But, hey at least we got a good weight report!

Cool School Of The Week

The kids' school was featured on Good Day Utah this morning on Fox 13 News as the "cool school of the week". They had several segments. Camry was featured along with her choir group The Musical Express. It was fun to see the kids on tv. We LOVE our school!

Click on the link to our school to see Camry perform. She is in the 4th segment.

Grandpa's Paintings

Camry and her new painting

My Grandpa is an artist. His garage is full of his oil paintings. Camry and I were in the garage checking them out and she mentioned that this fruit bowl was her favorite. I thought that was pretty cute, so I had to tell my Grandpa. Low and behold this was his very first painting! I hope Camry knows how special she is that she is now the proud owner of her Grandpa Greats very first painting! ~ I was also given a painting to take home (which I LOVE), but my camera battery died...so I'm going to post it later!

Thank you Grandpa! We love you!
Thank you for a great time Grandpa and Grandma!

Spring Break In St. George

The kids and I took a quick trip to visit Grandpa and Grandma Great in St. George for Spring Break. Although the weather was MUCH cooler than we expected, we had a great time! Camry and Grandma made jewelry (Grandma knows the way to this girls heart), Easton got to go golfing with Grandpa and some of his golfing buddies (he is still talking about how much fun he had), and Jace and I just had a good time hanging out and visiting with Grandma and Grandpa!

Jace, Grandma Great, and Camry
Grandpa Great and Easton

Being A Woman Is A Curse!

A Healthy Weight (View From The Top)

An Overweight Pooch (View From The Top)

The curse of the female genetics continue! My poor little puppy had to go in to the vet yesterday to have her teeth cleaned, and to get one of her baby teeth that had never come out removed. As always, when she goes to the vet they take a weight first....

As many of you know Emmy and I have been on a diet. I say 'Emmy and I' because it is incredibly hard for me to tell the poor little starving thing no! She has been reduced to 3/4 cup of food a day (down from an unlimited supply), she has been limited in her snacks (down to one small beggin' strip a day), and has been completely cut off from people food...including our nightly snack of popcorn!

At her last visit she weighed 12 lbs 7 ozs and I was told that "if I loved my dog she needed to lose about 3 lbs."

Fastforward about 3 1/2 weeks. She weighs in at 13 lbs! What the ???? All of that hard work?? Seriously? I'm not gonna lie either! The very minute I sat down with my mini bag of microwave popcorn tonight I SHARED! We are officially off the wagon!

I'd like to take a vote....I realize she is laying down in this photo, but I personally think she is just fine!! She may look a little bit more like the pooch in the second photo...but then...who really cares!?? What do you think? Emmy and I would love your support!

My Claim To Fame

One of my very best friends Rochelle just won the Twilight Essay Contest. She sent in an amazing essay and out of hundreds of thousands of entries from all over the country she WON! I am so incredibly proud... that I had to share on my blog! So...for all of you die hard Twilight fans click on Rochelle's name to go to her blog and read her awesome entry that won her a day on the set of the movie Twilight!!

Rochelle and her kids stalking "Edward" on the set of Twilight a few days ago...

Preschool Field Trip

I got to help with Jace's Preschool Field Trip to the Dentist and the Pet Store. The kids had a great time...and I must say, were very well behaved. I am so grateful that all 3 of my kids have had the privilege of having Miss GeAnna as their preschool teacher. She is an amazing person. She is full of patience and love for these kids! I honestly don't know how she does it! Learning all about the Dentist Chair
Everyone got to try out the chair and go for a little ride. This was a hit!
Jace has issues with smells. I was very worried that he would have a melt down at the Pet Store because they don't usually have a great smell....thankfully this was a new shop and it smelled fabulous!
The kids could pet the animals if they only used 2 fingers. Smart! No animals were squished during this trip!
The snake was a hit! Everyone but mom thought it was awesome!

I Heart My Little Boys!

We have a white board in the cabinet in the kitchen. The rule is "if you want me to buy it at the store you better write it down". (I never remember all the little odds and ends that we're out of!) So today I open up the cabinet and here is my list. Apparently we are fresh out of Pokemon Cards! :)
This is the surprise I had from Jace the other day as I got out of the van. He had written my name and his on the steps leading into the mud room. (the reason the words have lines through them is because Camry was mad at him for using her sidewalk chalk without asking..darn those little brothers!) I have to say that although my first choice of where to use sidewalk chalk would not be right here...I am very grateful because after seeing this photo I am going to mop the stairs!! Sick!

I Looked Out The Window And What Did I See?

Popcorn popping on.............Snow????Will my nightmare Never end??!!

So maybe I don't do EVERYTHING around here....

After my last tag I was starting to feel a little sorry for myself...what with all of the chores I do around here...life is not seeming so fair! Until Today! Bryan called me as I was on my way to Karate and asked, "When did Chewbacca move in?" Huh? Then he proceeds to tell me the story of how he decided to clean out our bathroom sink drain (it hadn't been draining well for a couple of days). He went into great detail about the amount of hair that was stuck in the pipes along with gel etc. Needless to say I was thoroughly disgusted! He said there was enough hair in there for him to think that surely I was sharing a bathroom sink with Chewbacca! I had a good laugh...and am now feeling more sorry for him than for myself! I would rather mow the lawn, pay the bills, drive the car etc. etc. than to EVER have to do that nasty job! So....to my husband I say thank you honey! (it just doesn't seem like enough today)!! :)

An Easier Tag

Kerrieleigh tagged me with the "most inviting thing at your house tag"...this was way too hard for me! I seriously can't think of anything...I think my killer attack dog makes my house "uninviting"! So...I'm doing Jenny's tag. I'm thinking I can handle this one!

Who Do You Love? Bryan

How Long Have You Been Married? 13 Years

Who Said I Love You First? I don't know...I'm thinking me...since it took a while for me to convince him that he loved me back! :)

How Long Did You Date? 1 1/2 years?? On and off between his mission etc.

Where Did He Propose? Recapture Dam

Who Is Taller? Bryan

Who Is Smarter? Probably Bryan

Who Does The Laundry? Me

Who Pays The Bills? Me

Who Mows The Lawn? Me

Who Cooks Dinner? Me

Who Drives? Me

Hmmm...did anyone else notice that I seem to do everything!!! :)

Who Do I Tag? Jodi, Teri, and Laura (so maybe she'll actually post!)

Hogle Zoo Field Trip

The last time I chaperoned the Zoo field trip was in 1st grade...and I swore that I would NEVER do it again! I came home beyond stressed out and had a splitting headache! Well..I was feeling a little guilty having not spent as much time with Eastons class this year so I decided I'd do it again! It was actually not too bad! Amazing what a couple of years can do for my stress level! We had a pretty good little group and we had a great time seeing all of the animals. We found out that this is the perfect time to go to the Hogle Zoo because the animals are really active, and many of them had just had babies! Really cool! Easton allowed little brother Jace to tag along! We were really glad!
Our group: Paula, Nick, Easton, and Austin
Best Buddies...Easton and Brayden at lunchtime.

Between Sessions...

Every Spring for General Conference we meet Jeff and Bonnie's family at the park for a picnic lunch. This year we were a little worried about being too cold, but it actually turned out to be a nice day. It always does wonders for the kids to get out and release some of their energy before having to endure another 2 hours of talks!

Jace and Garet on the swings...Yes...that would be my child with no shoes on!! Camry and Maddie going down the slide
Easton and Kaleb..this is how you swing in the baby swings when your 9!

You Know You're A Daddy When.....

You know you're a daddy when...this is the water bottle you take to work!

I'm sure Bryan would rather me not make this post...but I just had to! I caught him walking out the door the other day to go do a crane job. In one hand was a package of poptarts and in the other was this lovely purple dragonfly water bottle! We both had a little chuckle about the fact that he couldn't find any other one...but seriously? Can you imagine seeing him driving down the road in this truck...
Sippin' on this beautiful water bottle! I'm just feeling lucky today to be married to a guy so comfortable with his role as "daddy"! :)

A Quick Trip to Portland!

Saturday I flew into Portland Oregon to attend my favorite: A BLAZER game! They were playing a horrible team, not worth mentioning but anyway, I was with some girlfriends and low and behold one of my best friends and her husband (Jeremy and Rochelle) happen to be sitting right behind me. The problem is that I didn't tell them I would be there, it was just a quick trip.

I hear Jeremy tell Rochelle, "hey that looks like Autumn" Rochelle is then freaking out, "dang that looks exactly like Autumn" Now, this entire time I am acting oblivious to them and pretend I don't notice. Rochelle is now so sure that it is me but can not fathom my being there... I mean in her mind I would only be in Portland for her.

It gets worse. Rochelle tells her cousin who she is with that she thinks one of her friends twin is in front of her, so they start snapping pictures of me with their cell phones and sending them to me via text. "Autumn, check it out your twin is in Portland at a Blazer game!" GEESH! Talk about awkward trying to check my texts and ignore their snapping cell phone photo's they keep taking of me. It's a good thing it was really me and not some freak twin, she would have really freaked out at these two girls taking picture after picture.

DISCLAIMER: Okay fine, So Autumn wasn't really at the game, but seriously look at her twin. And I'm sure this girl did have nightmares of cell phone cameras that night. (LOVE ROCHELLE)

Buddy Day

Jace had "Buddy Day" at Karate. He was so excited about going he could hardly wait! He originally chose his cute little friend Lindy (a girl...I know...we were all shocked!) She was all for it until she found out that she might be required to do a little Karate...then NO WAY! (can't really blame her) So...Garet was the lucky guy for the day. These two are the best of friends...thankfully Garet has a pretty laid back personality most of the time, so they get along great. I'm thankful everyday for being surrounded by Bryan's family. It is so nice to know that my kids always have cousins around them whether they are playing, at school...or just need a buddy to go to Karate! :)