Easter, Family Pictures and Dad's Birthday!!

It is my dad's 70th birthday on Tuesday and thought it would be nice to get the entire family together for a picture. It is the first time in years that we all got together. Both parents, 6 kids, 6 in-laws and 16 grand-kids. In a way it was kind of a miracle.

So this is what we did....

Easter egg hunt
We had the older boys hide the eggs for the little kids. It was the funniest thing to see where they hid the eggs.

Dinner with dad
Getting a table for 14 on a Saturday evening in Sandy was tough, but Steve pulled through.

Birthday celebration
hmmm.... again Steve pulled through. We used his hotel to have our party!

Family pictures
This was amazing. We were so worried that it might rain (or snow) and it was beautiful! The kids were awesome, pictures went really fast and everyone smiled! Again Steve was the man! He brought his camera and took the pictures! (I only got one on my camera of the kids, I will get the pros pics later)

Random busy days

We have been working on our food storage! It's so exciting to see the shelves fill up with neat little rows of cans and boxes! What a good feeling! It's not much, but it's a start!

And to make room on the shelves, I had to get rid of things. So I have been ebaying! I love ebay! That is a fun feeling, checking every day to see how my auctions are doing. To see how much money I'm going to make! ;)

We also cut down our tree! (Well okay Josh cut down the tree, I just pulled on a rope to make sure it fell the right direction) It was a useless tree that was bare at the bottom and grew crooked because of other trees. In the summer you can't even see it's there. So we thought it would be fun to put something else there. (We don't know what yet, maybe just grass, we'll see)

Life is good!!

The deployment is finally over! I have my wonderful husband back. The kids are happy. I am happy. Life is good!!

He came in at 5:30 am! I left the kids home, because we knew it was going to be quick. It was snowing and freezing cold. I couldn't get any pictures outside, the flash kept reflecting off the snow, and without it was to dark. But it was exciting! We even made the news. LOLJosh's mom and dad came to welcome him home!
Finding his bag.....I don't know how they do it, they all look exactly the same.
I am so glad he and the entire team are home safe. It has been a long year and we have a lot to catch up on. We also have a wonderful 2 1/2 months before he has to go back to work, so we will have a lot of fun!!

Thank you everyone that has helped and supported me and my family! Thank you Army wives I'm sure you are enjoying your husbands too! I love you guys.

The Last Sunday!!

Can I just say that I'm so glad this was my LAST Sunday alone!! And I'm sure half the ward will be glad too. Whoever said that Sunday was a peaceful, reverent day is insane, or doesn't attempt church with 4 hyper, stubborn, and insanely cranky children. We've had our "Sundays" and I'm sure there will be more (even with Josh home) but this one hit the top for me.

So yes maybe a little reverent MoTab would have done the trick, but let's all face it, today, that just isn't going to happen.

So I've found some humor to share. Maybe someone else had a crappy Sunday too.

Sammy informed me it has been a while. I just don't have much to blog about lately.

But here is something to blog about!! Yesterday I drove home from St. George in my new Dodge Durango! Thanks to the amazing help of my awesome brother-in-law Abe!I love it! The minivan was good and nice and very practical, but sadly it's time was up. (Or should I say happily it's time was up?)


And Josh comes home in a few weeks. We don't have the exact date, only that it's less than a month!! WOOHHOOT!

Easy Bake Oven!

Ya, okay, so not so Easy! At least for me that is.

Emery got an Easy Bake Oven for Christmas. I thought this thing has got to be fool proof right? Well I guess it just shows what kind of a cook I am. I can even screw up something that you just, add water, stir, put in the preset temp oven and take it out!
Oh and ours, looked NOTHING like the above pictures. So much for me helping her, I think she would have done better with me in the other room. He he he!

2008

2008 was adventurous! But it is over, and 2009 is going to be much better. (for one Josh will be here to help with the catastrophes) Only a month and a half left of this deployment!

The last two weeks were fun!The kids were so happy to see their dad. We were able to go to the gate to greet him. We were all nervous and excited, and there were lots of tears.We never ate at the same place twice (we ate out a ton), went to movies, and had a fun night out to ourselves.

We went tubing (thanks Steve and Wendy) Up in Midway we went to Soldiers Hollow, it was fun. We had the worlds largest group go down together, and only one wipe out!Went to a Jazz game (thanks Abe and Kim) It was fun to get together and the kids together with the cousins. We chose to ride Trax to the game and on the way there was fun, on the way back, we were a little tired, and cold.Went skiing/snowboarding (I will learn to board), We went with Bill, Nikki, Steve, Melanie and met up with Abe and Kim. It was a lot of fun, but I am now determined to learn to snowboard.Played lots of Rock Band (thanks Bill and Nikki), the only thing I can do is the guitar. I can't sing and the drums are hard. But Josh is a pro. And of course the rest of my family.Went car shopping (didn't buy one yet) We were very close to buying a Durango. Our van is dying, so for sure when Josh comes home we will get something. But that's for future Josh and Kara.And had a very Merry Christmas! The best Christmas present we could have had was Josh being able to be there. It makes you realize what is important and what isn't.