Croc Haters UNITE!

41% of the respondents in my Crocs: Love em' or Hate Em' poll HATE Crocs and think they're ugly.

I concur! UGLY!!

Teddy Update

Teddy went through a few tests at Primary Children's Hospital this week and was a little trooper throughout the whole ordeal. The doctors will convene and go over all her blood tests, urinalysis, scans and ultrasound and get back to Grizz and Cindy by Friday, but they're pretty sure they're dealing with Neuroblastoma. She may have to undergo a bone marrow aspiration and possibly a biopsy, but Cindy said they may not have to biopsy.

Neuroblastoma is the most common form of childhood cancer but, most children under the age of 12 months who are diagnosed with it are cured. If Teddy's tumor hasn't spread they may just take a 'wait and see' approach. That is pretty much all Grizz and Cindy have found out so far. More info will be coming Friday.

Your prayers and positive thoughts mean so much to our family at this time, you'll never know how grateful we all are. Especially Grizz and Cindy. And you know, they're handling it all very well. I know good priesthood blessings and prayers are all a factor in this. Don't get me wrong, we're all scared to death and there are still tears, but Cindy and Grizz are facing this bravely and are hoping for the best for their beautiful daughter.

At any rate, keep them all in your prayers, please.

Thru the years....

Past first days of school....

Here's my sassy lil' girl on her first day of Head Start when she was 4.





And Kai waving bye to her as she goes....


Big 3rd Grader!


Kindergarten! Awwww!




Ally's first day of Kindergarten, but Karter's 2nd week of school. Kindergarten started a week later than the rest of the school.


1st day of 1st Grade


1st Day of 4th Grade


And Kenyon stayed home to drink pop from mom's big ol' mug...


Or was it to play with Karter's football equipment?


Or all of Ally's stuff?


When the kids got home they played with the camera....


Definitely funner to be one of the little boys who stays home, huh? lol

1st Day of School

Yay! School's in!



Ok, so I'm not really happy that I have to wake up early every day, but the kids are excited to be back in school. Karter loves school and couldn't wait to get there and Ally was very excited to meet her new teacher. They split her 2nd grade class last week so she has a different teacher now and she heard really good things about her so she was excited to meet her. Also, she found out that Marleigh, Jaicee, Brindy, and Shyanne were in her class so she was even more excited to get to school. Ally is friends with everyone in her grade though so it really wouldn't have mattered whose class she was in. The girl makes friends everywhere she goes. She loves when new kids show up too. She is like her mother.





And here's what the little boys are up to while the big kids are at school.

Kai is cleaning up after the weekend wind storms.


And Kenyon just barely got out of bed.

Last Day of Summer

We got in a camping trip this summer...finally! We always go camping in the fall in the Book Cliffs, but we do like to spend time in the mountains as well.

Karter brought Kyler too...we call him 'the other brother'.






Kenyon was helping Daddy and Karter back the truck up to the camper.


I love where we live. Just 15 minutes from town and 15 minutes from THIS:

New Feature

Hey check it out! I'm going to start a new thing on my blog. A weekly poll. Be sure to vote each week!

Make your own Blinkie

And..don't forget to get your copy of The Edge magazine. It's a local, Basin magazine and it has fabulous writers (who me? Yeah...ME!). It's a fun lil' magazine. Check it out and download a sample copy today. Click here:


If you've missed my fun articles about life in Neola you can check them out here



But I'll post just one excerpt here:

"I’ve also been accused of speaking a whole different language when I begin talking about the activities in a rural town. My vocabulary particularly baffles one of my friends in Florida. For example, one evening I was describing a fist fight that happened in my yard between two women during our weekly water turn. My Florida friend had no clue what I was talking about."

You'll have to access my writing blog for the rest of the story!

Growin' Like a Weed

Look at our lil' Teddy Bear! She's getting SO BIG! She's 5 months old now and can roll over. Yay Teddy! We love her soooooo much. I don't think I can convey just how much Kai loves her either. He is totally enamoured with Teddy. He loves babies anyway, but he's got a real soft spot for his cousin, Teddy. The other day at church we were holding Teddy while Grizz and Cindy spoke and he looked around and said, with surprise and conviction, "MOM! Teddy is the cutest baby in here! She's the cutest! She really is, Mom."

Yeah, well I think so too, Kai-Kai.



Please keep our lil' Teddy-bear in your prayers and thoughts. We're not sure what the official diagnoses is just yet, but Teddy has a mass on her adrenal gland. She will undergo further tests to rule out neuroblastoma, the most common form of childhood cancer. The outlook, however, if that is the diagnoses, is quite encouraging, as most children under the age 12 months are usually cured and go on to lead healthy, full, normal lives. Please keep Grizz and Cindy in your prayers and thoughts as well as they face this trial and tough time in their lives.

Down! Set! HUTT!

It's football season!


Karter comes from a long line of big men who played the line in football and he's got his heart set on being a lineman as well. He may be the littlest lineman out there right now, but he's all heart and he is learning the game very well. He's very smart, perceptive and listens well.

And he loves football. Loves it!

Here he is...my little lineman...#76..wearing his dad's high school jersey.





"MOM! I'm late! I don't have time for pictures!" lol

Mmm..summer food

It's squash and zucchini time!
That means eating alot of one of my favorite summertime meals. Fried squash and zucchini.


It takes quite a bit of time and it's a huge mess, but it's so yummy!


Ummm...yeah. Probably not the healthiest option but oh so tasty!


MESS!

Freakin' Cats...

Oh goody. Look what showed up in our yard. Kittens. Wild little kitties. They're cute to watch now, but they're going to get big and be a bigger problem. They're really quite mean, too.

Last Week of Summer

Summer is just about over! Drink up the last of it now.

Good Job, Karter!

Karter and his hog ROCKED at the Duchesne County Fair this year! His pig won its class and went on to the Star Round. It got mad and started fighting with every other hog in the ring and I was worried that it might get kicked out, but he lucked out. It didn't place in the top 10 because it was just too light, but the judge liked what he saw anyway and came and found Karter to tell him how great his hog was the day of the sale. He just couldn't pick a hog that was that light. If only we'd had 40 more lbs on him. He weighed 235, but was a perfect hog. As it was, he was the #13 hog in the show. Our other hog that Haley Houston showed was the #15 hog. We were happy with that.

There he is...a boy and his hog. He was so happy.



Karter did awesome in Fitting and Showing as well. I was proud of him no matter what the judge's final word was. His lamb didn't make weight, but he still showed it in Fitting and Showing and did well with it too. It came home with us so now we have a sheep that we don't quite know what to do with.

There's the judge looking his hog over once again. You could tell he liked Karter's hog quite a bit. He just kept looking at it.


And here he is when the judge said, "I'm going to go with the young man in the cowboy hat for the #1 hog in this class.". He celebrated a bit in the ring. lol


Whatta smile! He was just beaming after the judge picked his pig in his class.


The judge explains what he liked about Karter's hog....


Star Round. The judge liked the bigger, heavier hogs. The Grand Champion hog weighed 278 lbs.




Star Round pic...rare moment when his hog wasn't fighting other hogs. Mean lil' sucker.


Haley's hog did very well too! She was 2nd in her class and the #15 hog overall.


Look at that awful, pink sunburned pig next to Haley's beautiful piggy.


What a beautiful girl, Haley is. Such a good kid, too. Love that girl!


Kenyon said, "Hello cows!" everytime we went by the Houston girls' steers.


Aww..brotherly love! How much do you think I could've gotten for these two little piggies at the sale?


Kai really wants to be a cowboy. I don't think cowboys ride in bare feet and shorts much though, do you?