Hannah's Halloween Concert

This is Hannah ready to go to the concert. It is always a fun concert to go to. It is more like the band and orchestra  leaders goofing off with the kids playing the songs in between. If anyone wants to come out for it I promise it will be totally fun!!  Luke was laughing the whole time! Not to mention Hannah gets to play her viola!!!!!! Good times! Good times!

So Hannah is dressed as a crazy artist or something of that sort.

All the pictures I take at the concert are bad. Not to mention you can barely see her. This year I took a picture of her with her viola before we left!
She did a great job. One of the songs they played was the William Tell Overture. For those who don't know it is the Lone Ranger song as well. Hannah and the rest of the orchestra did a really great job! The advanced orchestra played the Indiana Jones theme it was so cool! 

Lizzie's Haircut

I cut Lizzie's hair last week. When it gets longer it gets stringy because she hates to have it done and I hate seeing it so stringy. Her hair is fine and she doesn't have a lot of it. I also like to curl her hair for Sundays if I have time. Which doesn't always happen. Mostly it doesn't happen. Ok it rarely gets curled on Sundays but in my mind I would like it to be curled. 

Hannah Turns 13!!!

I can hardly believe Hannah is a TEENAGER!!!!! I hope she will stay my sweet wonderful Hannah.  Lizzie says that teenagers are mean. Luke was so excited he announced his sisters birthday to his friends at school. You would think it was his birthday with as excited as he was!!

We had chocolate "satan" pie.  We call it that because when Hannah was learning to read she saw the chocolate satin pie and called it "satan" pie. We keep calling it that and with all the calories that are in one piece it should be "satan" pie!!!!

We wake up early and open presents. Luke woke Lizzie up at 2:45 this morning and then they came in and tried to wake Wade and I.  I made them go back to bed.  Then Hannah got up at 5:30 and woke Luke and Lizzie up!!! Truly there is no rest for the wicked!!

Hannah got some gift certificates to get the things that she wants at Amazon and Itunes.

Number one on her list, new scriptures.  So she finally got a quad. It's a pretty blue.

In the end we are grateful for Hannah. We couldn't ask for a better kid. I know I kind of got sentimental a few days ago so I won't keep going on and on. We are a better family because of her!! Happy Birthday Hannah!!!

Go Read!

I stole this off of someone else's blog as I was blog hopping and I couldn't resist!!! So I have read 27 out of 100. Not to bad I guess. There are a number of these that I have started and then put down because I couldn't get into them for one reason or another. And at least one I totally HATED!! (The Life of Pi). So go ahead, how many have you read?


The Big Read is a National Endowment for the Arts program designed to encourage community reading initiatives and of their top 100 books. They estimate the average adult has read only six.
Here’s what you are supposed to do:
Look at the list and bold those you have read. Italicize those we intend to read.*Star the books we LOVE.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen ***
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien **
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte*
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling **
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible 
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens*
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller1
4. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier*
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell **
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis ***
34. Emma - Jane Austen **
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen ***
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis ***
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery ***
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility- Jane Austen*
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas**
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens ( i did start this)
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett **
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt*
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

What will they think of next?

This is the newest menu item from Arby's. I can't let these pass without a comment. So you prepare macaroni and cheese and then bread it and then fry it. Why is the American public so obsessed with taking junk food and making it worse? Need I mention fried twinkies or fried snickers? What will we fry next? I am a total junk food junkie.  I love chocolate turnovers from Arby's. Now that was a good call, those things are FANTASTIC and not for weak chocolate lovers. Caramel Empanadas from Taco Bell are GREAT.  F'Real makes a DELIGHTFUL smoothie.  But c'mon Mac n Cheezers? Fried macaroni and cheese!!! Forget the fat content what are we teaching our kids about spelling !?!?!? I think I can safely say I will never order these. As for my kids, well that remains to be seen.

A New Calling

As some of you know from my panicked phone call last week I have a new calling in the church. It is official I am now the new Stake YW secretary. Which I thought it wouldn't be so bad. You know secretary is all about the paper work right? Yeah, I don't think it is going to be that easy. I have only been official since yesterday and already I have a couple of things going this week. They also mentioned speaking assignments and ward visits.  I have had a couple of panic attacks already. I feel so inadequate for the job. It could be that I haven't been released from my primary calling yet. Not to mention I have been in primary for the last couple of years so I am out of the YW loop. I kind of feel like crying because it seems so overwhelming right now.  I guess this is one more leap of faith I will be taking, it seems there have been so many in the last few months. So far so good. So on the count of three I am jumping in!  Ready? One, two, three.........

Hannah Rachael

These are some of the "old" pictures I found on the computer of Hannah.  It's hard to believe that she came into our lives 13 years ago! (ok ok I know her birthday is next week, I am sentimental today!!) She is an amazing kid. She is so much fun and has a huge imagination. She has a great sense of humor. She has always stepped in to help people in need. She is a terrific babysitter. She has a strong testimony and tries to do what is right.  She is a good big sister and still "plays" with Luke and Lizzie.  She is such a blessing to our family. I can barely remember life without her. She is just a super great kid!!!! October 23, 1995 was the most amazing day for me, because I was blessed to be Hannah's mom!  I am thankful for Hannah and the all that she is and all that she does.  I think I am too young to have a kid that old!!! Hannah we all LOVE you dearly and look forward to 13 more fantastic years with you!!!!

Luke Isaac

I am so glad that we live in a digital age!!! These are the pictures I found of our sweet Luke! Seriously these kids grow too dang fast!!!!

Lizzie Grace

I found some of these older pictures of Lizzie.  I thought I would share some of my favorites. She has always been a funny kid. I just can't believe how fast my baby grew up!!!

A Truly Good Book

I just finished reading this book.  I really liked it.  At first I thought it was a little random and had doubts that it would come together. It really did come together in the end.  The characters were real and flawed. I love how it shows a picture of redemption and forgiveness and a belief in God.  I laughed a little and cried a lot. I don't want to give anything away so I will just say it was an enjoyable read and I highly recommend it!

Luke's Photography

 Usually when Luke comes home from school he will sit down to watch a movie after he has a snack, of course.  And who could blame him, things that come easily to us are super intensive for Luke.  Lately he hasn't been watching movies after school and yesterday he decided to take some pictures. Here are a few that he took.

He took a picture of Wade being the Mac genius he is...

Me....

staring at the laundry that needs to be folded!

Lizzie trying to find a book to read for her homework.

Hannah doing her math homework.

Our clock that needs new batteries and has been stuck at that time for a week and I still look at it all the time!!!!

The empty veggies bags in the trash. And seriously do I have the cleanest looking trash or what?

Dinner in the oven...Malibu chicken, and basmati rice on the stove with the veggie pot peeking out behind it.

Just as a side note I did talk to Luke's teacher and we got the baby talk thing sorted.  He is also doing so good in reading.  He is actually doing well with phonics which the neurophyscologist said he couldn't do.  I really feel that we have no idea what he is truly capable of doing.  Just look at the awesome pictures he took!!!!