Happily Ever After

I have tried several times to get on and update my blog, but something always happens to stop me. We've started the last week of cheer, basketball is now just once a week but not mandatory, and so we will only have clogging and preschool left in May. Things are looking slower all the time.

This is a picture of my not so little anymore baby. We put curlers in her hair the other day, so I took her outside and snapped a few pictures. She absolutely does not hold still, so a lot of the pictures I got are her looking down. She's such a sassy little cutie, and we sure love her to death. She talks up a storm now, and can usually tell us what she needs. Funny story, yesterday after church she was sitting by me on a couch in the church hallway. An elderly gentleman was standing near us using the phone and Danica started to yell "MY BUTT, MY BUTT" I had no idea why she was saying it, and was trying to quiet her when Tyce said "No, My spot" Of course by the time we figured out she was saying my spot, the gentleman had already left. I'm posting this next picture because today is our 14th anniversary, and the most recent pictures I have of the two of us together are Mexico 2008. It's very sad that that's the case, and I hope to change that this summer.

Jody is so definately the love of my life. I can't believe how much he sacrifices to make sure his family is provided for and happy. He makes me laugh everyday and some days that's not easy to do. I looked at some of our wedding pictures this morning, and both of us have changed in many ways, but I can truly say that I love him more now than I did then. You just know so much more about each other, and go through so many things together, how can you help but love them more as time goes by. Happy Anniversary to us, and I hope there will be a whole lot more of them in our future!

Me and MY HAPPILY EVER AFTER!

Busy Time of Year!

April and May always end up being a pretty busy time of year for everyone I imagine. We have dance recitals, performances, and competitions. Basketball tournaments, preschool graduation, and of course all the homework that comes with trying to finish the school year. I guess if nothing else, these two months really make me ready for the summer break!

Kaden's basketball time had a tournament in American Falls last Fri. and Sat. Their team won the championship for the 6th grade, and better yet, were UNDEFEATED! We were all very happy for them. We did have one close call game with Burley. We won that one in overtime, but we had to play them again for the championship, and just beat them that time. One more Kaden surprise, HE GOT HIS HAIR CUT! He looks so good. He also is looking more and more grown up. It's all a little crazy for me. (I do have pictures of before and after with his haircut, but they are still on my camera).

Ali and Paige did SOOOO much babysitting for me over Spring Break because of basketball games. They did such a good job, and I was so proud of how they took care of their brother and sister. They did start their week off by having cousins come and stay over night, and they really loved that. It was fun to get a chance to have Natalie's kids here for a visit. Tonight both the girls are dancing in a competition that Preston has every year. I'm glad they are both doing it this year, because Jody's not going to be able to go to their recitals because of school, so this gives him an oppurtunity to see them both do their dances.

Tyce and Danica enjoyed having the kids home all week last week, and are still getting use to only having each other to play with again. They sometimes get along really well, and then sometimes Tyce thinks she's invading his space. Danica also went to nursery for the first time a couple weeks ago. It was not her favorite thing to do. I heard her crying several times, but she made it through the whole time. Unfortunately, it was some subs, so she will have to try it all again with new teachers next time.

Jody has been running nonstop like usual. He's got so much to do and amazes me at how he just seems to keep up. The class he's doing right now for school is much more time consuming than the last one. He's in a study group several nights a week doing homework, and then has classes on the weekend. Last night he didn't even get home until 12:30, just to turn around and do it all again today. I sure love him for all his hard work at everything he does. Just to add to his list of things to do, they also just put him in as the Deacon's Quorm advisor. We are excited that he gets to be with Kaden, but it is just one more thing to do! Hang in there Jo, you doing GREAT!

Well, I am going to try to go to Logan for a coupon run. Hopefully I can get the ward party pictures off my camera so that I can post pictures next time.

FINALLY... Spring Break

I can not begin to tell you all how excited I am for spring break. You might be thinking, "Oh! She must be going some where warm and wonderful." but, you would be wrong. I'm just so happy for the break from homework, getting up early, dance lessons, preschool, and running every direction under the sun. I know that you are thinking I forgot to say basketball, but I'm afraid that's the one thing that will still continue over our long awaited break. Kaden has a ball game in the middle of the week.

I'm not posting any pictures this morning, because we have a ball game to be to, and I don't have time, but we do have several things that are photo/blog worthy, but they will all have to wait. I mostly just wanted everyone to know that busy as we are, we are alive. Jody just got back last night from a week in Pennsylvania where he had training meetings for work. He had a good time, but he was as happy to be home as we were to have him back. Danica had a fever almost everyday that he was gone, so we didn't sleep really well. Kaden also had to different tournaments going on starting Thursday, so we have done a lot of running.

Now, if I can just relax this week and not yell at my kids about yelling at each other, and just enjoy being with them, it will be a successful and HOPEFULLY uneventful Spring Break!

What A Weekend!

Last Friday I went to the basement to start vacuuming the kids rooms for everyone to come for the baptism. When I went into Kaden's room, I noticed it was wet under his garbage can. With a little more investigating, I discovered a lot of wet under his bed. I pulled back his curtain to find a window well with a lot of water in it, and a puddle in in window under his alarm clock. All the water was coming in the window, and running down the wall. I spent a good portion of the morning with a wet vac, and good neighbors coming to my rescue! We had to pull up some of Kaden's carpet, and now we are trying to get a hold of our neighbor who lays carpet, to come and put is back down. It dried nicely, and so I guess as bad as it seemed, it could have been a lot worse. It could have leaked through the foundation! Saturday was a GREAT day. We spent the morning with some of my family while Jody went to school. At 1:00 Paige was baptized, and it was really great. Both of her grandmas got to share their testimonies, and Paige thought that was so neat. Her Grandma Jacobson also made her beautiful white dress for her, and she looked SO Beautiful!

Thanks to everyone who came to share this day with Paige. We really appreciate all of you. It turned out to be a WONDERFUL weekend, even if it didn't start off so well!

Yet another birthday

Her long awaited birthday has finally come and gone. She had to watch Kaden and Ali have their birthdays first, but she endured and it paid off. She had a really good day. She got some pet shop toys, clothes, a dress, scriptures, and some very awesome baptism things from her grandparents (Shumways). My mom is making her a dress to be baptized in, and we are very excited to see it as well. Happy birthday sweety. WE LOVE YOU!

This picture I have to share because it's so cute. Danica found these glasses the other day and when I walked in the room, this is what I saw. I loved it! These were Ali's sunglasses, but the lens' fell out. I had thrown them in the garbage, but that is Danica's favorite place to look for things to play with. Anyway, just thought I'd share.

Time Flies!

I couldn't believe it when I looked at when I last posted. I can not seem to keep up with life I guess. Actually, I think that it's actually my computer that can't keep up. I was thinking about it this morning. Last year when the kids got on the bus, I would post a blog, or read other blogs almost everyday. For some reason waiting on the computer last year was not a problem, but what a difference a year makes. A Jr. High student, 2 very active girls, a preschooler, and a much more mobile toddler keeps me very busy. I just don't seem to have the time to wait for dial up, but I also don't have the money for satelite. I wish we could do wireless, but I guess that's the sacrifice we make to live in the mountains. Anyway, enough about my excuses, and on to business.


Kaden turned 12 no matter how hard I tried to stop him. It was really great to have sooo many people come to his ordination. He has now passed the sacrament twice, and I only cried once. That may be because I was sick last Sunday and didn't get to go see his 2nd time. He has been keeping us busy traveling to ball games and practices, but we sure love to watch him play. They are just about finished with one league, and then they will start another one. The good news about the second league, is that it's about 30-45 minutes closer than the current one is.

I know that by looking at Kaden's picture it's hard to see the maturity of a 12 year old... or is it? I warned him to at least give me one decent picture for the blog, but he decided to use his free agency on this and gave me no decent pictures. I have to pick my battles, so here you go...

Happy birthday Dude! We are proud of you and love you!

Ali turned 10 last week, and was so excited about it that she hardly even came home that day to be with us. Her BFF turns 10 the same day, so they went to Logan with her friends mom to celebrated their big day with roller skating, then came back to town for basketball practice, and a team pizza party. She had a great day and we are sure excited for her. She threw her hat in the air to announce to the world that she is now Half A Lady! We love you little lady.

Ali's picture is of the score after one of her ball games. You can tell by the look on her face that they won! Hurray. Her last game was last Saturday, so she is now finished. She had a great time and did such a good job. She also had a clogging performance last weekend. It was their first of the year, and she did so good. We sure like watching her clog.

Paige is cheering and reading up a storm. She has also had a performance since my last post, and did a great job as well. She has been into Junie B. books and has been going through them like crazy. She just got 50 AR points yesterday, and earned a Free Doughnut. Good job babe! Paige will turn 8 next week, and we are looking forward to her baptism on March 6th. I still don't know a time, but hopefully will soon.

Tyce has been a crack up lately. Our new favorite story with him is this... He came upstairs the other day quite upset and said, "Jesus doesn't help." I asked him what was wrong, and he said he lost his checkers and asked Jesus to help him find them and He didn't. I told him that the best way to ask for something was to pray. He agreed and went back downstairs. A few minutes later he came back up still just as upset. He said, "I asked Jesus to come down and find my checkers, and He didn't come!" I giggled a little as I explained that He won't come find them, but will put thoughts in your mind of places to look. Anyway, long story short, he was consoled, and 2 days later found the missing checkers. Jody and I have chuckled about this for awhile now. He has also been praying for all of us to follow Jesus and not Lucifer lately. He sure makes us chuckle.

Danica is as sweet as ever. She has been sick several times, which we have been passing around like crazy, so her sleeping habits are not all that they use to be, but hopefully we can all be healthy some time in the near future. She is on the countdown to nursey, and I'm not really excited about this either. She's been such a good girl that it makes it hard for me to let her grow up. If she were screaming all during church it might be another story, but I imagine I'll be able to stop her aging process about the same way I stopped Kaden's. Not At All!

Well, now that I've caught you up on the kids how about Jody. He started the masters program at USU in January. He goes on Friday nights from 6-10, and then goes again on Saturday mornings from 8-12. It will be a tough schedule to keep, especially in the summer time, but we are sure proud of him for doing it. He does get some weekends off, so hopefully it won't be too bad. I don't think he's loving doing homework agian, but he'll do a good job.

Now, I'm going to go take Ali to school. She has had strep throat this week. I hope we don't all pass that around. We all had colds, then the stomach flu, and now strep. Danica unfortuneately, started getting her runny nose and cough back yesterday, before it actually even got to completely disappear from before. Well, I really need to stop now because I haven't typed this much in quite a while, and my letters are all starting to come out wrong. I will try to not make it another month before I post again.

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Just letting you all know that I finally updated Danica's picture on my side bar. She is standing by the bathtub, so the background is not so great, but she sure looks cute.


Things for us have been busy as usual lately. Kaden is playing on a competitive Basketball team over on the West Side, so three days a week we drive him over there to practice. There league starts in a couple of weeks, but they did play in one tournament and did really well. They almost won, but couldn't get the ball to go in the basket in their last game. Unfortunately, you need that to happen to get points.


Ali also started basketball, and had her first game on Saturday. They did not win either, however, she did make a basket and we were all thrilled about that. She's growing up too fast. I trimmed her bangs before her game on Saturday, and she had a melt down with them being shorter than she wanted them. I had to help her fix her hair in a way she was pleased with, and now she's just counting down the days until they grow out. Jody told me she's getting to the age when I'm not allowed to tell her when it's time to trim her bangs anymore. I guess he's probably right.


Paige came home from cheer on Wednesday and announced that she can do a back hand spring on her own now. (They start by standing on the top of a triangle shaped mat, so she still has some practicing before she's doing them on a flat surface. I don't know when they will start having them do that.) For me, this is something I would rather just know about than actually see. I get sooooo nervous watching this kind of thing. But, I am so proud of her hard work to be back to where she was before she broke her arm. Good job Babe!


Tyce's big announcement is that he is a member of the HIGH FIVE CLUB in preschool. This is the club you get to be in when you can say all the letters to your teacher when she points to them in a random order. He is one of only about 4 so far, and all of them are BOYS. He's very proud of that as well! He's a funny little man, and still keeps me on my toes.


Danica is learning more words everyday. Her new one, and our favorite, in PATIENT. She's heard me say it a lot, so one day when she was screaming, I told her to be patient. Then I said, can you say patient? And she did! It's the cutest thing ever. She sure keeps us all happy. She loves to play with her siblings. They all call her WINK. I don't know why except that it's just another one of Ali strange nick names for people.


Jody is stressed even more than usual, as he is studying for the math section of his GMAT test, along with work, farm, family, church, and getting taxes ready to go. He sure is a wonder! I don't know how he does it all, but I sure do love him.


I am in a hair rut, and so tonight I am going to fix that problem. I'm tired of being 33 already, and I've only just begun. Hopefully a new hairdo will bring me out of feeling frumpy, and on the feeling sizzley. If that's even a word. Well, that's our update for now, I need to get batteries for my camera so I can take pictures of basketball and other activities. We have Kaden being ordained a Deacon on the last day of this month, but we're not talking about that. It makes me sad. And then Paige will be baptized on the 6th of March, so I better get those batteries.