My Bryon

Some experiences over the last few days have reminded me just how lucky I am to have such an amazing man as my husband.
I missed my Twilight Meeting in order to spend time with him. I made sure to point out that I indeed loved him more than Edward.
A girl at the LC asked me if Edward was real, if I would leave my husband for him. She told me that she certainly would trade in her model for an older colder version. I told her I wouldn't. I have everything I want in the man I have. And he likes my cooking. (although he does have venison in common with the Cullen's).
At Cooper Thomas' party last night, everyone was wondering where he was. He stayed at Church so that he could fill his responsibility as Young Men's President and teach. I ditched my primary class. There were many disappointed faces. Alison sister has two daughters who were each looking forward to seeing him. The 16 year old thinks he is hot, and the older one (sorry Katie I can't remember how old you are) wanted to make sure he suffered for complaining about his ailments to her when she has been diagnosed with MS.
When I called Bryon to let him know that he was in big trouble for missing the party he told me some interesting info.
Our bishopric has issued the ward a challenge to read 1 million versus by the end of the year. This requires every member of the ward to read 24 a day. We have been trying really hard to keep up. They are dividing the numbers into whatever auxillary you belong to in order to help them know which one to place more focus on. Of course the primary is kicking butt because the kids all read with their parents and everyone in the ward has multiple kids so when the parents read 24, the elders get 24, the relief society gets 24 and the primary gets 48 (for our family at least, we have decided not to count Sam since he reads a dinosaur book whenever we do).
The numbers are turned into the bishopric each Sunday. This was the first week and we did HORRIBLE.
In order to reach our goal, we need to have 72,000 versus a week from the whole ward. The total was a little over 6000. Depressing. Bryon said that the Elders Quorum had only 300. He read just under 200 of those!! Way to carry the entire Elders Bry!! He is hoping that a bunch of people just didn't turn theirs in.
He does have quite a bit of time that he can spend reading on the two hour buss ride everyday.

Then there is little miss Gentry Thomas. She is 5 weeks older than Sam and is a very vocal young lady. When the kids and I pulled up the house, she was outside and told her dad that "My Bryon" is here. She was really excited until she saw that he wasn't in the car. She kept asking me where her Bryon was. I even offered to let her talk to him on the phone, but she was so upset she didn't' want to. When it was time to go home, she heard that Bryon was at our house and she went and got into the van. She kept saying that she was "going to my Bryon's house. I want to see my Bryon." When Alison finally puller her out of the van she was crying about wanting her Bryon. They have a special bond. Al made sure to have me convey the message that he better feel bad about making her cry.

I wanted to post some of my favorite pics of him.

I love you more than life Bry!!

24 hours of fun

This week was a total struggle.
We were able to hurry through a FHE on Monday, I worked Tuesday, Bryon did service for our neighbor on Wednesday and then I worked Thursday. Friday night I had a Twilight Movie Committee Planning Meeting in Salt Lake to finalize details (there are still tickets left if you want to go).
My in-laws met us at the LC to trade a bunch of stuff. I realized that I wouldn't be able to spend anytime with them before I needed to leave for my meeting. After having a week of kisses goodbye in the morning and kisses good night being the only interaction I was able to have with my family, I made a HUGE sacrifice and ditched the meeting.
We hung out with Bryon's parents for about an hour and then went and got movies for a PJ party.
Bryon and I rented two, and new one and an old one. The new one was HORRIBLE! We laughed at how bad it was and then we watched the re-run. There is no one I would rather watch a stupid movie with than him (or any movie for that matter).

On Saturday I cleaned the carpets. One of the drop off items was the carpet cleaner. I am buying me one for Christmas so Patsy and Greg don't have to keep lugging the thing up here for me.
I was so excited to finally be able to get out all the milk stains from Sam's bottles (yes it has been that long...GROSS).
Bryon furiously cleaned the rest of the house and the kids played with their friends all morning.
When lunch time rolled around we were all pretty beat. But no one can be tired like Ethen.
We noticed that he had been a bit quite for a while and when I got up to clean up the dishes I realized why. I guess that the night of watching movies was a bit much for him because this is how we found him.

Completely asleep. When I took him to his room he muttered that he was just going to take a short nap. Then he didn't even remember that he fell asleep on the floor 2 hours later when he woke up. We were laughing pretty hard when we showed him the pictures.
While the boys and I took a nap, Bryon taught Rebekah how to play Double Golf. They were still at it when we woke up. I couldn't sleep very well because of Rebekah laughing the whole time. They were only going to play to 50 then 100 then 150....

Sam wanted to be part of the picture action so I asked him what he was wearing. We didn't even get him out of his favorite pj's. He love Superman.

Before I headed off to work at 5 the kids and I made the best cookies ever!! Don't worry I won't every share the recipe because I have perfect the Chocolate Chip cookie. I told Bryon that if he ever dunked on of them in milk I would never make them again. They are so soft!! Yummmmm.

After all that time with my family it was hard to head off to work. It is a rare occasion that we can spend so much time together.

It was pure bliss..

House of Order

I don't know about the rest of you, but since I had kids it has been a daily trial for me to keep the house clean. Other than my housekeeping idol Laurie, I know that many mothers suffer from this same thing.
My Stake put together an 8 week enrichment course called "The House of Order". It is a series put on by a woman who lives in Alpine.
I was excited to go until I saw her stand up and start to address the audience. She seriously looked like she had just got off the buss from Colorado City. Total FLDS baby. I said Great! She is going to tell me that it is my womanly responsibility to make the house neat and clean for my husband so that when he gets home from work he can have peace and tranquility after a long day on the job. My problems at home are nothing compared to his... blah blah blah. I was ready to stand up and leave after making an obscene gesture, but I put on my best behavior and gave it a chance.
The woman is GENIUS!!!
She is really funny and has a ton of ideas about how to be a Professional Home Manager. I loved it. So much for first impressions right?
She has the best plan for making cleaning in the background of your life and not the forefront. I am starting to implement all of her stuff this week. I will keep you posted on how it goes.
Here is her website so you can check it out. She teaches at Women's Conference all the time.

www.houseoforder.com

Rain Jumping

I had to post these. I only hope they are large enough to see the rain drops.
There was a torrential storm this afternoon and Rebekah begged me to go outside and jump on the tramp. I relented.
Ethen's bff Kenny who was brave enough to come out.
Superman
The layout after a flip.
almost as high as the fence.
Superman again.

Hopefully the rain shows up. It was shooting sideways.

taking a break. She was cold by now.
It came straight down now.
Sam wanted to join the fun. I have no idea what made him pull his shirt up. He did it on his own.

When does your child watch too much TV?

After a night of puking and constant waking of everyone in the family, I was so exhausted this morning that I just sat downstairs with Sam and put on movies so that I could do some work on the computer.
After Dinosaur was over, he requested Cars. I happily obliged, thinking that I could get more done.
As soon as the movie started, the opening scene is dark and all you hear is Lightening McQueen giving himself a pep talk.
This is what I heard from the couch.
"K, cocus, peed, am peed."
Translation- "Okay, focus, speed, I am speed." He knew the entire opening lines. He even started into talking about rekfast (breakfast) before I started laughing and interrupted him.
He is only 2!!! Geez I am a terrible mother.

The QUEEN of Nines

This was Rebekah's Big Year.

Being Born on 9/9/99 at 9:19am in Room 9, she has always had a number attached to her name. Turning 9 for such a "niner" only happens once so we made a big deal. We started off the morning early so that dad could watch as she opened her 9 presents from the family along with one from Grandma Patsy and Grandpa Greg that dad brought home over the weekend.

Then the kids got sent off to school while I ran to the store to get the class treat. Why should we not treat them to the special occasion? I actually bought Krispy Kreme Doughnuts for 28 kids!!! Won't do that again.

My mom showed up just in time to head over to the school.

At 9:19 we banged tambourines and shook maracas to announce that it was officially her birthday. She was totally surprised and completely embarrassed when we came in and made her stand up in front of everyone to tell them about her special day.

Then it was off home to furiously finish the preparations for her surprise birthday party.

We invited everyone we could think of to come to the Legacy Center which was the easiest way to make sure she didn't suspect anything. I work on Tuesday nights, so it was natural for us to go there. Bryon picked up the kids and I had about 20 minutes to decorate an entire gym before he came back with her.

Luckily I had a TON of helpers.

Jamie Linford was working that night and stopped in.

Laurie Slater, who is going to kill me for putting in this picture.

And of course the Thomas family was there to support. Adam was a little picture happy.

My mom came back with my grandma and my aunt Kay (who are both party extraordinaries so they were a fabulous help. I came home with more stuff than I planned on because they save EVERYTHING).

We even had some of the kids that came early help out.

When she finally got there, she was totally surprise and embarrassed once again.

We started off playing games. Line Tag was the favorite.

Then presents, which took a REALLY long time. Notice the Thomas'?

Page looking at me through her balloon.

The fabulous polka dot cakes. And yes those are cut out sections of the table cloth to make polka dots (I am nuts).

Goodie Bags of gumballs, whoppers and gobstoppers


Yummy cake for Grandma Colleen, Aunt Kay and Grandma Dot

Sam Likes Balloons

Miss Gentry likes the cake too.

No Words

I had a friend of mine shot some pictures of the kids. I wanted some new ones since Rebekah is having such a big birthday this year.
We went to Wines Park in Lehi and this is what she did with her amazing talent.