somethin' for the rest of us....

Is anyone as anxious about Conference this year as I am??? It's not that I don't look forward to Conference every single year, I am just SO looking forward to the peace that I feel in my heart while I listen to the inspired words of our amazing church leaders. Especially right now, with the trials and craziness in the world today...I love conference as much as I love Disneyland and my family!!! (I hope that didn't sound weird).
Anyway, so you know how each year the kidlets usually get a packet with fun Conference activities like Bingo and word searches and such??? That got me thinking, "what about us mama's????"
So I've designed a couple of pretty pages that you can save to your computer and print if you'd like...who knows, I may even design a mama's bingo that you can play with dove chocolates instead of m&m's ..mmm that sounds good! One is for things to ponder, or favorite quotes you hear. And the other one is for writing goals. If anyone can think of any other fun thing you'd like to see, just let me know! And I mean that!

Last week we had the Missionaries over for dinner. They were Awesome! While we were getting dinner ready, Reagan was strategically placing Books of Mormon all over the house...I think she wanted them to know that we were Mormon too :o). Anyway, before they left, Elder Munroe read some scriptures from the war chapters (My Faves) and left us with the message of how we can have protection from harm with the Armor of God that we receive from following the counsel of our Church leaders. Then Elder Carver tore a phone book in half with his bare hands!!! Very impressive.

Helmet girl

MMMMAAAAANNNNNNNN has my Reagan had a tough few weeks! You've seen the pictures of her stitched up eyebrow...but OH that was just the beginning of it all. The stitches happened on a Friday, Monday was Labor Day-no school, Tuesday she woke up early, early in the morning with a fever, I suspected that she may have had strep throat, but I decided to give it a few hours before making an appointment and she said that her throat didn't hurt, so we left it at that. Tuesday night- Fever was down. Wednesday morning- Fever was up, still no sore throat. Wednesday night- Fever was down..this went on for the next couple of days. So Friday I'd had it with this wacked out fever and took her in for a strep test and to get her lovely stitches out. By this time she had missed an entire week of School..poor kid. Strep test came back negative (which means good in the medical world, for those of you who watch The Office...WHICH IS STARTING AT 8:00 TONIGHT PEOPLE!!! WHOO HOO!) sorry. Back to my loooong story. Saturday she was all better and excited to get back to school on Monday. Sunday...oh Sunday, My mom was visiting from Orem (I know that we live in Orem too..I'm just sayin') and all of the sudden we heard SCREAMING coming from the bathroom so we go running in to find Reagan with blood overflowing from her mouth and when we finally got her calmed down enough for her to explain what had happened...does anyone want to guess??? She said that she was jumping from the bath tub to the toilet and slipped and hit her mouth on the toilet. WHAT IN THE WHAT??? Don't ask me why she was doing acrobatics, I know that accoustics are better in bathrooms but what does that have to do with handsprings??? Well, she had a huge cut on the inside of her lip that hurt so bad that she couldn't really eat, which meant no school Monday either.In the following days she stubbed her toe, slammed her finger in a drawer and hit her head with the car door as it was opening. I told her that maybe we should put a helmet on her so she wouldn't get hurt as much, so she asked, "what color will it be?" I told her that we could maybe just use her Bicycle helmet...but she wanted a new one. Later that night we were getting ready to read scriptures and pray when Reagan walked into the room wearing this:
She put the two fireman helmets together all by herself. And that's when she declared "I guess I'm just going to have to look like this for the rest of my life!"
Chin up my darling little Reagan...life only gets harder! J/K...sort of. Hang in there!

Why do I do this to myself?????

I know how it's going to end...I keep hoping that it will change...but it still ends the same way e-ver-y TIME!!!! And i just sit there and cry and cry and cry. Just thinking about it is making my cry. If any of you out there are emotionally constipated...this'll get you going! Thanks to my dear wonderful big sis. Lori- you're the BEST EVER!!!!! Love you!

My poor, poor Reagan!

7 stitches are not going to slow the poses down that's for sure!
What a crazy day in the life of my newly 6 year old little one! Friday, while playing at a neighbors house, she turned around too fast while trying to walk around a doll house and smashed her head on a wall. I feel so sad just thinking about it! So anyway, off to the E.R. we went (every time we go, I still feel a little weird about the fact that it is nothing like the show j/k). There was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth in the back seat of our Expedition that day (minus the gnashing of teeth). But my sweet little sweetie pie was such a brave little soul! I think that she was more angry about getting hurt than anything-she kept yelling, "I HATE GETTING HURT!!!!!!" with as much air as she could force out of her little lungs. I hate it when she gets hurt too, it breaks my heart to see my little ones in pain :(. Anyway, while we were sitting in the pediatric room of the ER waiting for the plastic surgeon to come and stitch my baby up, Blake thought that it would be a great time to tell her about all of the many, many times that he's had to get himself stitched up...I noticed a lot more scars on his face that I'd never really seen before that day...and I'm pretty sure that the total number of stitches that he's had in his life are floating somewhere around the 8000's. Well after he was done regaling us with his lovely stories, Reagan was still nervous so we jumped right into one of the many adventures of "Princess Reagan and her Princess Friends" that I tell her whenever she's having a hard time. All of the stories begin with, "Once upon a time, there was a beautiful little princess with the darkest brown eyes you'll ever see and pretty black hair, and her name was...." and then Reagan pipes in with..."Reagan Rosemary Harrison"...and then our story continues with whatever creative junk that I can pull out of my head at the moment. This day the Adventure was about how one morning Princess Reagan woke to find that there was no color left in the world because Malificent had cast an evil spell and the only way to get the color back was to climb to the top of the very highest mountain and find an Orange Orange, a Yellow Banana, a Blue Blueberry, a Red Apple and a Purple Velvet Flower. Sounds simple enough right??? Wrong. I had to figure out a way to keep that story going until she was stitched up and ready to go home. So of coarse Princess Reagan, Mulan, Shang, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and the rest of the princesses happened upon many absurd mishaps along the way, but indeed they finally succeeded, Thanks in part to the great Doctor and his Awesome nurse who thought that the whole story was just about a Fruit Salad....mmmmm, fruit salad, yummy yummy. And might I just add that I was SOOOOO impressed with Mt. Timpanogos Hospital! The plastic surgeon did such an amazing job and was so kind and gentle with easing Reagan's fears about what was happening. She only felt a little burning when he was dripping the drugs into the cut, but only enough for her to say "Ow, that hurts". Then when he was nearly finished stitching up her eyebrow she asked him when she was going to have to get a shot. So clearly she didn't see him shooting her the 6 times that he did! We were out of there in less than an hour and on our way to get Reagan an ice cream cone for being such a little trooper. Not the grandest day of her life, but she made it through, and I feel so blessed as always to be able to be her momma!

NOBODY SAY ANYTHING!!!!!!!

AND I MEAN IT! NOT ONE WORD PEOPLE! So My Love took the little ones out of the house while the bigger ones did their homework so I could have a few minutes away from the computer and just relax. (Maybe I was being a little too much of a cranky pants) ANYWAY...WHAT IN THE WHAT, WHAT?????????? REALLY!!!!!!!!! I just got to the Book Jacob...The last chapter of the first book...WHAT??????????????? I am seriously beside myself! I have so much editing to do, and I PROMISED myself that I would get it all done before continuing on, but...WHAT??????????????? Okay, I'm done saying WHAT??? now. But you want to hear something funny? Do you? SO after I got done reading The Book I decided that I should get my nightly Scripture Study in then, since I had a quiet house...So as I finished the last chapter of 2nd Nephi...where do you think I landed???? THE BOOK OF JACOB! WHAT????????????????

Do I know you?????

So if it's true that in the pre-existence we got to choose our families...
#1 HOW IN THE H' DID A BUNCH OF CRAZIES LIKE US END UP TOGETHER????
and #2 I AM SO GLAD THAT WE DID!!!!! Yes it's true, at any given time (like perhaps at a wedding reception) Someone will start quoting lines from "Big Trouble in Little China" or "The Monster Squad" and 4 other people will chime in and in 5 minutes or so, pretty much have every single line worth quoting, quoted! Yes it's true, that's my little nephew Jazz showing of his "Nakee Raegee's" for all the world to see, while his brothers and uncles try to rein act an album cover for who knows what rap group from the early 90's. And Yes it's true....Below you have photo's of my younger bro Mikal playing out the famous scene from "Flash Dance"....
I've said it before and I'll say it a thousand times... I Love this crazy family of mine with all my heart! There is no other group of people that I would rather spend eternity with!

Memory Tag

I kept forgetting to play this...sorry it's taken so long!

1- Post in comments a memory of when we met or a funny story.
2- Post the same instructions on your blog. (see how many people play)

My neighbor's Block Party can beat up Your neighbor's block party!

SO I realize that it's been a few weeks since the 24th of July, but how could I not blog about the BEST DANG BLOCK PARTY??? Let's see...do I begin with talking about the cotton candy, or the snow cones, or the dunking booth, or the huge blow up slide??? Or maybe I should talk about the thousands of dollars in fireworks that had necessetated a Bail Bondsmen to be on Stand-by incase "someone" who had to be on a plane the next day got arrested! And what would an amazing Fireworks display be without the one and only "ROCKET CHICK" ??? She was discovered by "someone" in my ward at a "ghetto" 4th of July celebration in Provo..so now she has a standing invitation for the ROCKINGEST 24th Party in the World! ( yes, I know "rockingest" isn't a real world :o) Anyway, Thanks Amanda for the invite- WE had a BLAST!!!!

Poolside

Uncle Mike and Aunt Karalee

What's a summer without swimming??? My kids are little fishes who can't get enough of the water! We had such a great time with Mike and Karalee at the pool (they are, after all their absolute FAVES!) And why wouldn't they? We've gotten season passes to Seven Peaks in the past but with a new baby, gas prices and that pesky little Crypto..We decided WAY against it this year. But my kids talked me into going once this year so we went last week. I will always see Bette's HUGE smile in my mind when I think of how fun going down the little slide was for her. She'd go down, run to me, give Ava and I a hug and run back to do it all over again. She got knocked over by a few kids and her face would be completely underwater at times, I totally thought that would freak her out, but each time she just brushed it off like it was no biggy. I was very impressed, she surprises me every once in a while. And my squeaky little Reagan was actually big enough this year to not get knocked over by the smallest wave in the kiddie pool, so right away she was already talking about how she wants her birthday party to be at Seven Peaks this year. I, ever so sweetly told her that we're most likely going to need to plan something else, but in my mind I was screaming "No way in H' are we going to have a birthday party here!!!!!" My nerves were completely shot by the end of the day with holding Ava and keeping my eye on Reagan and Bette for 5 hours...and cringing each and every time water would splash on us, I had visions of tiny little bacteria going into our mouths and down our throats (Like on the T.V. show HOUSE). And to those of you who may be wondering why I didn't invite you to come with us, I knew that I wouldn't be very good for a conversation because I was absolutely focused on leaving there with as many children as I got there with :). All in all, the stress of it all was so worth the beautiful smiles on my little ones faces. Even Ava was kicking her little legs as soon as she saw the water, which I don't understand because we can barely wash her hair in the tub before she's trying to climb out.

Well, Hope you all are enjoying your summer! Be Safe!

this is Reagan

I am my mom photography assistant I learn at church is special to go to

Don't pee your pants

I saw this on Adhis' blog and I just had to share...I was falling out of the chair laughing when I read through the comments on this article!!! (Be sure to click on the image to make it bigger if you can't see it that well)
So here are the comments:

by getitfixed: I'm glad they caught this guy before he did a drive-by on the rival gang in Provo with his pea shooter. He could have put out an innocent bystanders eye!

by I Can't Be Serious: We should go easy on this guy... After all, with gas prices at their current levels, even a pink tricycle is starting to look good to me....

by Billy_Jack: Those gang initiations get better and better...

by Grimalkin: Maybe it's part of a big theft ring. Maybe they were going to strip it out for parts and sell them to shady bicycle repairmen. You can't put anything past these guys.

by johnseeholmes: It sounds like this guy is really having a hard time transitioning off of his mission.

by Truestory4: He probably figured it was safer than a 2-wheeler. Maybe he was drunk and needed that extra stability to stay up right. next he'll be stealing big boy bikes with training wheels.

by ToddE : He is part of the Buttercream Gang. All the others have bicycles. Just wanted to go help widow Jenkins who had fallen again.

by UtahCelt: Well... Every one knows that tricycle theft is a gateway theft to more hardcore robberies. Next it will be electric wheelchairs from the supermarket, razors, wheelies, then up to the adult sized bikes.....

by UtahCelt: See what rising fuel prices are driving gang members to do!!! Maybe now we will have pedal-bys instead of drive-bys....

by Cindy132: What type of gangs do they have in Utah County? Little Raskals?

by UtahCelt: I wonder if the police had to do a PIT manuever to spin out the suspect. Was it a high-speed pursuit?

by Observer317: The answer is "yes" on both questions. The officer had to walk briskly after the tricycle, and put his foot in front of one of the back tires. There was no damage to the tricycle, but the pursuing officer’s shoes were scuffed in the altercation.

by UtahCelt: Did the gang member have big floppy shoes, rainbow wig, red nose and go by the name "Homey D. Clown"?

by justapeon: what I want to know is if he was sucking his thumb as he peddled along.

by UtahCelt: I am trying to picture a gang member earning his street creds rollin' phat a Dora the Explorer tricycle with gold spinners....

by Jose V.: Wow!!! I better put my Hotwheels away!

by sundancer: Joyriding down the Boulevard on a stolen tricycle? This is even better than the police beat at BYU...

by x11x: I'm glad KSL did this story, now every time I see a gang banger I can picture him peddling away, flashing a gang sign, and roll'in phat on 3 inch wheels.

by Frankjohn: I can just see the news reports "And the fleeing perpetrator suffered severe puncture wounds to the crotch area when police attempted to spike the tires of the stolen vehicle..."

by Observer317: And everyone laughed at me when I put “The Club” on my Big Wheel. Well, I still have my Big Wheel, who's laughing now?

MY FAVE is this last one about the Big Wheel HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

"Did someone dare you???"

So my mom called me on Monday to tell me a little about a conversation that she had with Reagan the day before as they were sitting in church together. It always makes my heart drop just a little when people start a conversation with me by saying, "I just wanted to tell you what Reagan said...". Anyway, here it is:

(While looking at the burn on my mom's leg)Reagan- "Oma, what happened to your leg?"
Oma- "I got off of the motorcycle the wrong way"
Reagan- "Did someone dare you???"
I can't quite remember what my mom told me that she said after that. But she did tell me that as they sat after they had talked about it for awhile, Reagan was looking at her leg out of the corner of her eye... and very slowly reached over with her hand and pulled down one of the ruffles of my mom's skirt over the burn .
We had a great laugh over that...Reagan is a HOOT!

Color me bad...(Oh wait) Mine

A lovely time we had at Color Me Mine a few weeks ago! I love hanging out with my girls. Reagan decided that it was her very most favorite place in the whole wide world and wants to live there when she grows up...we're sure going to miss her :(. Kaitlin, although not quite as enthusiastic as Reagan loved it too! I tried my hand at painting a bowl for My Love for Father's Day and ending up wiping the whole thing clean and starting over 3 different times because he couldn't possibly be expected to eat cereal or ice cream from a flawed orange bowl! I finally accepted the fact that I'm not the best ceramic painter in the world and will forever see the vision that I had for that bowl in my brain and that is just going to have to be good enough! He Loved it anyway...my perfect simple dear husband! For the three days that it took to get our pieces back, all Reagan could talk about was how she was going to eat a piece of garlic bread on her brand new flower plate that she made all by her very own self. I don't even know how she was able to chew her garlic bread with the great big smile she had on her face through the entire dinner. And my darling sweet Kaitlin's beautiful mug met it's untimely demise not even two days home from the Riverwoods...as I was loading the dishwasher that day, the handle hit the edge of the sink and broke into two pieces. My ever so sweet Kaitlin was so gracious about it because she knew I felt horrible about breaking her art! I guess we'll just have to go back again!
I've been meaning to photograph the finished pieces for weeks now, I'll get them up soon for sure! They look so great!!! (The girls' do anyway).

Family Reunion Schedule

Here it is...you can click on the image to make it bigger!

Bette's FAVES

Fabulous Family Night

SHOOT... I totally meant to post this earlier and tell you what a fun time we had at the Children's Museum at The Gateway! I hope everyone (that wanted to) had a chance to go and see "The Body" Exhibit with Sesame Street. Reagan and Bette learned SO much about everything from how our brains work to digestion and poop...wowsers, they covered just about everything.
This was one of the funnest family nights! We started the night off at Rodizio Grill in Trolley Square. I absolutely LOVE eating at Rodizio or Tucano's with Reagan because every time one of the servers would come by with their huge skewers of meat, Reagan would ask "Is that steak?" and if they said yes, she'd say "YES!!!! I want it!". By the time we left I swear she had eaten her weight in steak. And I feel it's also important to note that she actually tried, and LOVED the Rattlesnake! She is the last person on earth that I could ever imagine eating rattlesnake but she surprised us! She has a great time watching people cringe when she tells them all about it!
After our amazing dinner we headed off to The Gateway. Blake and Kaitlin decided that they would rather go shopping at Zumies and PacSun then go to the Children's Museum so they had a great time bonding with their dad and I had a blast with the little ones! This is a rather interesting time in our lives, I knew there would come a day when Blake and Kailtin would be "too cool" for the things they used to love, I just didn't think it would come this soon. They are such wonderful kids though, andI wouldn't miss this for the world!!!

Blake's First "Melodrama"

Check out how much taller he is than the rest of the 6th graders...We have no idea how that happened...we're all such shorties in our fam.

Dashing Dan Saves the Day!!! Blake was a total Rock Star in his first Play at School. He played the Hero who saved Beauty Bell from Robbers...or something...I think that's what the 6th grade play was all about! It was so great to see him up on stage working his magic! We were so proud of him, he was a total natural. We thought that he'd totally want to be in more plays after seeing how great he did, but after the show, the first thing he said in the car was "Man I'm glad that's over with, I don't think I ever want to act again!". He's lucky I'm not a psycho stage mother :0).
Anyway...Great Job Bud, WE LOVE YOU!!!

Wonderful Week....

What a completely just WONDERFUL week we've had with the LOVE OF MY LIFE being home!!!!
This is the first whole week that he's been able to take off since before Ava was born (we planned and saved two weeks vacation time for when Ava was born so we could have those days, that we'll never get back, to just spend with her and rest and not worry about work...but that didn't get to happen because, to put it lightly, one of the guys he worked with pretty much had no soul) But now...oh these last few days have been GLORIOUS! We'll save our traveling vacations for later,(when Ava can tolerate being in her car seat for more than 20 minutes) we just wanted to have a great relaxing week and we SO HAVE! Monday, Blake took Blakey and Kaitlin long boarding in the canyon...all they've been able to talk about since then is...long boarding in the canyon again! My children have the most absolutely perfect dad for them! He truly cares about their individual interests and loves them so much! He always walks through the door after a crazy day of work with his arms wide open for hugs and a HUGE smile on his face!!! These are the moments that matter most and he dedicates his life to making these moments last! Tuesday and Wednesday, were spent in and on the yard, Reagan and Kaitlin caught a butterfly. Reagan also got 2 new rose bushes this year, every year she gets a new rose bush for her birthday-because her middle name is Rosemary! Thursday was definitely memorable... I spent the day shooting Ben and Alicia's wedding ( loved it...I'll post about that in the next little while) and while I was at the Salt Lake Temple I met my very most favorite Photographer in all the world KATE BENSON!!!!!!!!! (Can you believe it Karalee...we were just admiring her work the night before). I saw her walk by and I completely just froze because I had only seen pictures of her on her website- And she is as stunningly gorgeous as her work...WOW! Anyway, later we were in the same area and I couldn't help but ask if she was Kate Benson and when she said she was I was just like a gushing idiot...I seriously almost started to cry! I hope she doesn't think that I'm a total psycho... But I want to be just like her when i grow up!!! She is absolutely AMAZE-A-ZING!!! And to top that off, every once in a while I would look up and see my dear cute hubs with baby Ava in her carrier on his chest, and pushing a stroller with Reagan and Bette inside. He so graciously came along with me so Reagan could match the flowers on the temple grounds, and so Ava wouldn't have to wait to long to be fed, and most importantly to be there to support me and offer me his beautiful reassuring smile because he knew that I was nervous out of my brain!!! I can't even say how much I ABSOLUTELY, TRULY, LOVE THAT MAN WITH EVERYTHING THAT I HAVE!!!! One night I was climbing up the stairs at 3:30 in the morning after working on pictures and he came walking down the hall because he came to find me, but then he couldn't go back to sleep because he's used to getting up that early and eating breakfast, so we shared some left-over Chinese food at 3:30 in the morning..."I live for little moments like that!"
Ahhh, what a wonderful time we've had...watched my new FAVE movie "Dan in Real Life" five million hundred times...was pleasantly surprised to find that "The Office" is in the funny groove again ( I was super worried about how weak last week's episode was) but when I watched this week's episode on-line tonight...Heck yes "The Office" is back. This episode had me "AAAAAHHHHWWWWWW-ing and gasping and laughing the whole way through and Jim telling Pam that his proposal is going to kick her a**--- probably my new favorite line from a sitcom EVER!!!!
Sorry this was so long...even sorrier that I have no pictures to show, I didn't dare do anything with my camera out of fear that something tragic would happen to it and I'd have problems with the wedding pictures and when we took Blake's camera with us to the zoo today - With our BFF's - The memory card was full...figures! I'll leave you though with a little somethin' somethin' that I like to call MY NEW FAVE MOVIE!!!

"this corn looks like an angel"

Jordan