Monty's Frankenstein Finger

Here is a picture of Monty's finger after stitches. Pretty isn't it?

Here is the picture of our new "car". It's a 2003 Chevy Trailblazer, and so far we LOVE it!

Monty got his finger smashed in a rolling garage door. It fractured one bone into about 6 pieces and broke one piece off of the other bone. Here is an x-ray picture of the plate and pins that he now has in that finger. The doctors actually put all the little bones back together just using their hands, and held them in place while the pins were drilled in. OUCH!

These were our little Halloween cuties. They both had a blast trick-or-treating. Kayla can now say, "Trick-or-Treat." It took her a couple of houses to get the idea, but then she would run up spread out her arms and yell, "Happy Cake!" We're not sure where she picked that up.

Daddy's Tending....Yay!!

I went to the store to pick up a few things for hamburgers and when I got back Kayla was standing in the chair with an almost gone tube of toothpaste. Not pictured are her legs - also covered in toothpaste.
The kids love it when daddy tends. :)

When daddy's left to tend....

Conference Weekend

Saturday and Sunday was General Conference weekend at our house - the kids loved that. Saturday we also drove to Kolob. We didn't get there 'til after 6pm, but it was so pretty! We were only able to stay about an hour until it got too dark.

One of the many funny things that has happened this week... I bought Saturday's Warrior (I don't remember it being so long). I was changing Kayla's diaper and she was trying to sit up to watch the movie. One of the first songs starts to play, "Who are these children coming down..." Kayla holds up her little finger and says so plainly, "I know." It was pretty funny.

Both kids love the songs from "My Turn On Earth" and sing and dance everytime they come on - quite entertaining.

Happy Birthday Twins

What a crazy day I had. Woke up and went downstairs to exercise while watching Amazing Race. About 7:45am I get a call and it's my parents singing Happy Birthday to me. I start working and get a few Happy Birthday emails and then one with the subject, "Dad's Retiring". I keep working and ignore it thinking it's a forwared. When I finally read it I'm thinking, "No way this is a joke." So then all the sisters start emailing and awhile later I get a phone call from my dad confirming it.

Monty brings home Bajio Grill for lunch - there's no way I'm taking the girls out to eat. :) Kayla gets a hold of Monty's razor, climbs into her crib and cuts her thumb - she's bleeding pretty bad but doesn't even cry. About 15 minutes later she starts picking at the loose skin and then screaming. This went on for at least an hour.

Monty leaves for work and I get the kids ready to go to YW with me. I got outside to put their shoes on to leave and Jaida had peed her pants. So we go in the house to change her, come back out and Kayla was playing in the mud. AAAAHHHH! We finally make to YW and we're in charge of YM/YW. It was all planned out and everyone had fun playing "Do you love your neighbor". My kids ran around like chickens with their head cut off the entire time!

We get home and I start folding our entire house of laundry while watching The Unit. I get two great Birthday calls and one Birthday visitor, put the kids to bed, finish the laundry, and go back to work until 1am.

After telling Suzanne about my day she said, "Well at least you weren't sitting around the house bored all day." VERY TRUE. It wasn't the greatest birthday but at least it wasn't the boringest. :)

My how our birthday's change the older we get. Hey Tara, remember at one of our many Birthday party's spent at the Homecoming games you three your hat to me, it hit me and gave me a black eye? I can still picture the white hat coming right at my face. :)

p.s. I don't care if boringest isn't a word.

My mom and dad came down and helped me bottle 18 jars of dill pickles and 16 bottles of tomatoes. It was a lot funner than when I was in high school. :)

Kayla still likes to sit inside little boxes and I guess pans too.

Jaida & Sydney going to school.

Jaida's first day of preschool this year

The family

My cutie girls!

A picture of kid's pond up the canyon.

Got My Camera Back

Yea, I finally got my camera back Monday! That night we went up the canyon and I took a bunch of pictures. This time there were no flies swarming around us. It was nice and quiet and very beautiful. Kayla had to have her shoes off pretty much the entire time. We didn't want to here her cry about it so we just left them off and she was happy. Jaida wanted to go exploring everywhere. She gathered a whole bunch of fire wood and flowers.

Thank Goodness For The Dogs

Kayla keeps stuffing her face with food, choking on it, and then throwing it up. She did just that right before we left to take Jaida to a friends house today. When I got home the mess was cleaned up. All thanks to the dogs. Maybe I always will have a dog.

Proud To Be An American

"I'm proud to be an American where at least I know I'm free, And I won't forget the men who died who gave that right to me, And I gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today, 'Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land God Bless the U.S.A."

On Thursday I had the opportunity to take the kids to the Cedar City airport and see a battery of the 222nd Soldiers arrive home - they have been gone for about 18 months - and stationed in Iraq for a year of that time.

Even though we only knew a few of the soldiers coming home we had a great time. It was so exciting to see the plane flying over head, land, and then drive right up to us with an American flag flying out the front window. When the first soldier stepped off the plane everyone cheered and Jaida was screaming just as loud as everyone. :) Monty was working, but luckily was able to come out from work with others as Sheriff's Office jail representatives.

The soldier in this photo is the son of one of my old coworkers - he actually had two sons come home that day.

Here is a small news video clip of that return:
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=323945#

Jaida's Preschool Graduation

Jaida had her preschool graduation on May 19th. This is the best picture we got of her. They sang about five songs, put on their graduation caps, and then recieved their graduation certificates. I'm sure it would have been very nice if I would have been able to watch it. I was outside almost the entire time with Kayla. Every time I brought her into the building she would start screaming. I wanted to go lock her in the car...and no, I'm not kidding.

We made this awesome sandbox with a cute little tree inside...guess what happened to the tree? Destructo girl broke it off! Yep I'm talking about you Jaida.

We've Got Grass

We now have a backyard full of grass. We did this all on June 8th. The pictures aren't very good because all I had was a crappy disposable camera. It took us from about 2:30 - 5:30 to put it in...and then a little more time for all the touch ups.
Thanks to: Tim, Misty, Dusty, and Bobbi!!
I've posted seven pictures, scroll down to see it finished.

This diesel pulled up in front of our house about 12:30pm.

They piled 14 pallets of grass into our backyard.

We've just started, and it's going really fast.

At this time, the grass is starting to get really heavy. :)

Just about done...

Almost done.

Finished! It looks a lot nicer in person. :)

I just got a bunch of these sayings in an email and couldn't resist posting this one...

Broken Camera

Well, I'd love to post some Easter pictures, new sandbox pictures, or some funny pics of the kids, but my camera is broken. So I guess it will be awhile before I even take anymore unless I get out my flim camera.

We just got back from getting Jaida's preschool pictures. We got to the studio and all her classmates were in shorts, capris, or cute dresses. I had Jaida in long pants, long sleeved shirt, and a jacket. :) Oh well, luckily I'll be able to post those pics when I get them back.

Entrance to Sand Dune Arch.

Check out the tame animals at the new visitors center at Arches National Park.

The kids LOVED the pool.

Moab in April

We went to Moab last weekend for a wedding. I was so excited until I heard it would be cold. We got a hotel room with a big pool in the back and went swimming everyday. We got to Moab on Friday - I sat in the back in between the car seats all the way...boy was that squishy ;). First we stopped at Monty's grandma's house and then got to go to the rehearsal dinner/bbq. It was in the groom's mom's backyard and had a beautiful pond with fish. So of course the entire time we were there me, Monty, or Judy were chasing Kayla away from the pond....that cured my want for ever having water in my backyard! That night after the kids were asleep Monty and I went down to the big hot tub - it was outdoors and even though it was raining the water was nice and hot. Even the swimming pool, which Monty and I swam in for awhile was pretty warm.
The wedding was really nice...congratulations Dean and Heather!

Some funny things:
We were driving to the wedding and Jaida was sitting in her seat talking to herself. She was saying, "Apple, red; sky, blue, cloud, white; pee pee, yellow, eew, gross..., sorry mommy."
At the rehearsal dinner Monty had just sat down with his plate of food and I handed Kayla to him so I could get my food. She was reaching for his food so he slid his chair back to get the food out of her reach. As soon as Monty sat back Kayla reached out her leg and kicked the plate of food, catapulting the food all over both of them.
Jaida was gathering flowers outside while we were getting ready to leave. She says, I'm giving these to great grandma. She goes in the house all excited and says, "Here grandma." Great Grandma looks at the flowers and says,"I don't want those, those are weeds...I'm allergic to them." Nobody knew what to say after that.

Updating to March 2006

Okay, so it's been about three months or more since my last post. In January my little brother would have been 16! Where has the time gone.

In February we celebrated Misty's, Jaida's, and Cody's birthday. Monty and I decorated Jaida's Scooby Doo birthday cake which turned out pretty good. I know that more stuff happened in February, but I can't remember - a month is way to long to remember. :)

March: Biggest snow here that I've ever seen. That weekend we went south for a wedding. On the way there we passed our cousins who had just been in a wreck. They were okay but us stopping would have caused another wreck so we just headed on. We got something like 19 inches of snow. Jaida kept going out in the backyard in whatever she was wearing (ususally with no shoes) and run around with Sammo.
Celebrated birthdays for Dusty, Jared, Suzanne, and Tim.

Something really funny from Jaida. We were all downstairs cleaning things out. One of the items was a 2005 day planner. Jaida was sitting up in the window sill pretending to write in the day planner and all of a sudden Monty and I hear, "Dear diarrhea." We both look at her and start laughing. She says, "What? I'm just writing in my diarrhea." It was pretty hilarious!!!

Since it's been so long I need to update you on poop girl. :) Jaida has had some accidents, but for the most part she goes in the toilet now. She even went five times in a row to get her Dora umbrella. Thank goodness!

We got a ton of snow! Jaida ran out to play in it in some tights, shorts, and shirt - no shoes. She was out for quite awhile until she fell down.

One of Jaida's drawings.

Kayla loves to eat crayons, I think she had the most fun eating this purple one. You can't tell from this picture, but it looked like she had purple braces.

Alright, I admit I took a really bad picture, but when your dealing with my kids you only have .5 seconds for the shot. :) And don't they look so cute....

Kayla is our little couch potato.

Scooby Doo birthday cake

Jaida and her friends at her birthday party.

My twin

Grandchild #7

At Christmas I found out my twin sister is pregnant...three and a half months along! I think she's almost far enough along that she can find out what she's having. I'm really excited for her! They already have a girl, 6; and a boy, that will be five in February.

Can't Take The Poop Anymore

From the title of this post, you can decide if you would like to keep reading. :)

In the middle of December Monty got shoulder surgery. He has been in a sling ever since and has very limited use of his arm. Well for about the last three weeks Jaida has decided that she no longer wants to go number two in the toilet. She would much rather go in her pants. Ahh! Talk about frustrating! Not only do I have to change ALL of Kayla's diaper messes, but I for the last few weeks have also been cleaning up pretty much all of Jaida's messes too. Luckily she wouldn't do one huge thing, but it would be about three small ones a day. Looking back I really think she liked us getting mad at her and her getting in trouble for it. Monty took away everysingle one of her toys and locked them in the toy room. He also would not allow her to watch any movies. He bought her a cute little Dora umbrella and we made her a chart that she could put stickers on. Five stickers, which means pooping in the toilet five times and she got the umbrella. Well, she acted like she could care less about the toys, the movies and the umbrella! So what do you do after that? I have no idea. After talking with my mom I decided that I would just ignore it, and whatever happended, happened and I would not make a big deal out of it. Well low and behold...two days later she went in the toilet. Hopefully she will keep it up, but I'll let you know if she doesn't. :)