Jocey's Young Women's Medallion - Youngest to get it in our House!

Finally, we do not have to be pushing and prodding the girls along to finish their personal progress - Jocelyn Finished her Personal Progress and received her YW Medallion in Church - We are so proud of her and as you can tell so is Grammy, still taking photos in the Chapel (No No)

His New Path in Life!

So, As of March 7, 2011, Chris is back to Work. It's been a long 8 months, for ALL of us! But I know he feels a sense of relief. We have turned back the clock 20 years and started all over, but have Faith that this is the place we are supposed to be and what was meant to be. A few Changes, Chris has to learn to adapt to;

1. Freedoms of being your own boss, NONE
   
2. Has to clock in and out
3. First time ever having a daily commute more than 5 minutes
   
4. Can't ask for time off...
5. Must dress nicely each day (I like that part)
   
6. Not here to help with Activities, Sports, Driving, Cleaning, Laundry (This part he loves)
7. New Business Environment all together, Training, homework, licenses

We are really proud of Chris and his hard work to obtain a new job. It has been rough and sometimes downright horrible. Lots of ups and downs, and even down right sucker punches at times, but The kids and I have done our best to support his decision to leave the Family Business, take on additional debt, and look for other employment. I think in the long run, the possibility of advancement within the new company will be great and he always gives 150% to anything he touches. We are willing to stick it out til our ship comes in or sinks, which ever comes first! Like I always say We may not have it all together but Together we have it all! So we rise or fall together - in either situation we will be together forever!
(Actually some days to the girls I am pretty sure that Forever seems like an awfully long time - Especially when it is a clothing fight...)

The other Mother turns "18"!

Alissa will hate that I have posted this picture - But this is the only one we have - With the camera broken we used Chris's iphone after Dinner and a Girls Church Basketball Game - Alissa still loves to participate and take it to the hole! As you can tell living in Utah, BYU has a big affect on us and Alissa's shirt says it all "I've been Jimmered" .

18 years ago today, I had no idea Alissa was coming and we got the biggest and best surprise of our lives - Being Induced into labor and 4 1/2 hours later we we handed this amazing little girl that has changed my life forever.

We are so proud of the woman Alissa has become. She has worked hard for everything in life and proven herself by her hard work. In this current phase of Alissa'a life, she is deciding on Which University to attend, being accepted to both BYU and SUU on Scholarship, Starting her 4th year on the RHS Girls Golf Team, Starting back at work at the local Golf Course, getting ready to graduate and excited to have the college experience.

Happy Birthday Baby - You are 1 in a million!

Zoey Quotes....

You know I love this girl and I am surprised at times the things that come out of her mouth - Seeing she has had a job for 4 years teaching dance, can remember dance moves for dances she was in at age 10, 11, & 12. She choregraphs for girls when they need solos - and then I here this from down stairs:

"Mom, where are you? Is 1 half of 2" A little bewildered, I repeated what I could not have actually heard; "Zoey, did you just ask me is 1 half of 2?" (Mind you this is my 3.75 gpa 11th grader, soon to be senior) "Yeah is 1 half of 2? - I am having a really hard time thinking right now."
And so there you have it the Quote of the Week - my almost 17 year old - has reverted back to 1st grade math, maybe I should take her back to school with me, so this never is the issue again? What the X#$&*!

Reverence Combined Activity

I am posting this for my purposes only; The Mia Maids were in charge of a combined YW/ YM activity in February which needed to focus on Reverence, after much deliberation and meetings with my presidency this is what we came up with:
The leaders acted out a a very ad-lib skit about all the kinds of irreverence we are too used to being around when we attend Sunday Church or Weekday church activities, We had the following adult leaders doing the following things.

Gum Chewing and popping, game playing, texting, food passing around, walking around, leaving the room constantly, know it all, tickling backs, laying on the floor, feet on chairs, falling asleep, throwing papers, are we done yet?

This went on for about 10 minutes, quite the entertainment for the youth and then the youth were put into 10 teams of 7 and they had to make a Reverence Mormon-ad (Poster) to display in the church as to what we need to be doing to show reverence with the church buildings.

(Now, a little disclaimer, we have over 100 youth and we had 73 show up for the activity, so yes it was loud and crazy, but during the skit - they were awesome.)

The activity turned out awesome and all the kids had a great time! I was really proud of the girls and leaders who helped put this all together!

Sweetheart's 2011 for Zoey & Alissa

I am catching up on February before March hits me in the face in 2 more days---ARGH!

Alissa & Zoey attended to Girl ask Guy RHS Sweethearts dance on February 12, 2011 - Alissa went with a cute friend named, Jake and Zoey went with her BOY/ Friend, Corbin. Alissa spent most of the morning decorating at the school for the dance, an SBO's job is never done, Zoey joined in the decorating as soon as she was done teaching dance for the day. They then went to D.I and bought crazy outfits so they could all go to DISCO skate night at Classic Skating - The crazy safe fun the kids have I am proud of the choices they are making.

As you can tell we were able to be with Alissa to get pictures, funny story, there was snow on the ground and Jocey, didn't bring shoes with her, so she hopped on Mom's back so I could get a few pictures of Alissa and her date; cause she thought he was HOT!

However we had to CRASH the dinner party for Zoey cause they both left the house at the same time. We went to another person's house, who we did not know at all, and just started snapping pictures of all the couples and their date and of course we had to get the infamous best friends photo of Sam, Zoey & Nat! Still trying to get back in time for Stake Conference -

So the life we lead - They had a great time.

Service brings Humilty !

We have been getting ready for Stake Conference this past month, and the Stake Presidency asked that each family do specific reading and FHE's and perform a service to someone. So as a Stake Presidency, the came to decision that, our families would go and serve dinner at the Road Home Shelter in Salt Lake City. Of course I was feeling a little picked, seeing as I had to use my day off to prepare and cook all the food assignments for our family and everyone else in our family just had to show up... So the humbling part begins, we show up and get set up and the kids took over the serving and talking to the people and helping the little kids: I was definitely in awe of their love and compassion for those who have hit hard times and are trying to get their lives in order and back on track! Tracy's, Blake's, Juassi's & Gibbon's Families you ROCK!!! I am so proud!