Weight Loss

Ok, so anyone that knows me, knows that I have been struggling with my weight for the last 5 years. Before having tyroid problems and very large fibroids in my uterus removed, I hadn't been over weight. This is a really big insecurity of mine and I am hoping to change it soon. I am starting a life changing way of eating. I have stopped drinking soda and any other beverage, it is water for me. Yuck!! : ) I have put a tracker on my blog and will be adding a before picture so you can see my progress. I am hoping that this will make me more accountable and I will have the will power to stick with it. Wish me luck and I will update my progress on a weekly basis (every Monday).

Weight Loss Tracker

Girls night out!!

Wow!! I have not seen these ladies in well over 10 years. Maybe even longer than that. Robin came in town for her Mom's temple sealing and we were all able to get together. It was so great to see everyone and catch up on each others lives. It brought back a flood of memories both good and bad times. : ) I wish I could get together with them more often. Ember will be coming to town soon, so I will tell about that next week. I can't wait. It was great to see you girls. Stay sweet. Lets not wait another 10+ years to get back together.

Frank's Birthday!!

Well the day before Frank's birthday, Brooke says to Frank "Daddy, guess where I am taking you on your birthday?" He says where, and she reply's "to Peter Piper Pizza." I give him a grin and wait to see what he will say. (I am sure there are a million places he would rather be.) He says "I can't wait!" She was so excited. So here are some pictures from his birthday. My mom and Dad came with us and we had a blast.

Father's Day

Father's Day was nice and quite. We went to my parents house for dinner and had meatballs and gravy etc. It was really enjoyable. It is always nice when the family gets together. Then we came home and gave Frank his presents. He got candy and the older girls made him this wonderful framed collage. I didn't even know they were putting it together, it was a touching surprise. I am glad that Frank had such a great day.

Locks of Love

Brooke decided to get her hair cut tonight and to donate her hair to Locks of Love. She was so brave and loved every minute of it.

This is a picture of her hair before her hair cut.

This is after she cut off the braid for Locks of Love. This piece we saved for Dad.

Here she is holding the hair being donated.

Where is my baby? She looks so grown up now. :-)

Daddy, daughter night

Our church had a daddy, daughter night. The dad's took their daughter's out to eat and then met up at the Wirthlin home for dessert and entertainment. Frank took Brooke and Shelby to Carrabba's to eat. Kristen was working, so she sisn't get to sit down with them but they still got to see her. Megan didn't get to go either, because she had to work. After dinner they went to the Wirthlin's house, where all the dad's came with their daughters. As you can see there was quite the crowd, but they had a great time together. Thank you to the Wirthlin's for hosting a fun night.

Emmee's baptism day.

What a wonderful day we had today. It started out when I went to Emmee's baptism. She made the decision to be baptized in the LDS church and we are so proud of her. She had two of her older sister's talk and they did so well with their talks and they were good about letting her know how much they love her and are proud of her. Her dad Clifford baptized her and confirmed her a member of the church. Even though she has gone to church all of her life, this is such a life changing decision. Emmee, we are so proud of you and your decision to be baptized. Thank you for the great example you are to Brooke and Shelby. We love you!!

Carlee and David's wedding

Here is the happy couple. What a great wedding, you two are amazing.

Oh my, what is David doing?? Just kidding, he is getting the garder.

Carlee and Brooke dancing. Brooke loves dancing. Thanks Carlee.

David dancing with Brooke. Thanks David for being a good sport.

Brooke got Grandpa Jones out on the dance floor, but what is he doing? :-)

Brooke dancing with her cousin Chris. You can see Jade (Chris's wife) and Lisa in the back ground.

Ok, so this was such a fun wedding. David and Carlee were so cute. They joked with each other during their ceremony and were silly the whole night. I love how down to earth they are. What a cute couple. We are so happy for you two and we hope you had a great honeymoon. After they song you sang to each other at the reception, we are sure you did. :-) JK We love you both..

Andre's road to Eagle video

This is the video I made for Andre and presented it to him at his court of honor. It was a blast from the past making it. I can't believe that he has grown up so fast. I hope he liked it, he seemed to. Andre, Dad and I are so proud of you and we love you sooooo very much!

Pictures from Andre's court of honor

This was such an amazing day. Andre worked so hard to receive his Eagle Scout award and he did it. We threw a court of honor together in 4 or 5 days and weren't sure how it would turn out, but with such great family and friends, it couldn't have been more perfect. He could see by the attendance to the court of honor, how many people truely love and support him. Thank you so much to everyone that participated in one way or another. We are so blessed to have such amazing people surrounding us.

A day at the zoo....

Joel going ape for Megan!! :-)

Brooke, Emmee and Shelby just clamming around!!

Kade, Brooke and Emmee riding the camel.

Shelby and Megan

Brooke and her cousin Emmee

We had a great day at the zoo. It was half price day, if you wore cardinals stuff for the superbowl weekend. So we all wore shirts to support them. The kids rode on a camel and Brooke thought it smelled pretty bad. :-) We walked for a really long time. I thought we would just go until about noon and at 4:30 we were all dead meat. What a long but wonderful day.

Andre is an Eagle Scout.

It is official!! Andre got his Eagle Scout certificate, card and paperwork in the mail. Now we can do his court of honor. Ya hoo.. We are so proud of him, he did a great job.

A great hike!!

Today we went for a hike in the Las Sendas area. It was Frank, Megan, Joel, Shelby and I that went. We had a lot of fun.



This is the first hike that Megan and Joel have gone on with us. Here they are racing down the hill.



Great job for your first hike.



We always have so much fun being outdoors.



Oh our sweet little Shelbers is so tired. Megan and Joel head on and finish their hike. About half way in Frank and I go back because Shelby is too tired. It was fun though anyway. Next time we will have a babysitter. :-)

Our girls outing..

Brooke and I had a fun night last night. Just the two of us went to see Kristen at Carrabbas. Of course we had to sit and eat. We had a good time just talking and coloring. It is so great to have a little one on one time with each of the kids. Brooke is such a big helper and doesn't mind sharing her time with mom and dad with her siblings. She and I had Salmon and pasta and of course that wonderful bread. YUMMY!! Thanks Kristen for the wonderful dinner.

Shelby's 1st birthday!!

We had a great day as a family. We all can't believe that a year has already passed. Shelby has been such a blessing in our lives, as all of our kids have been. Time is just flying by too fast. We had cake and ice cream at my mom and dad's house. Shelby wasn't sure about the cake at first, but she decided really quickly she loved it. She devoured the cake and made a big mess. It was great to watch this. She loved all the great presents that she got from everyone. She got some clothes from sissy Megan, which was good so she could change after the cake thing. It was great to have the whole family together. Thanks to my mom and dad for hosting her party and a big thanks to the Roger's for coming to share this special day with us. These are some fun pictures of her party. The cake and presents wore her out. She was out for the count shortly after opening her presents. Happy Birthday Shelb's, we love you!!

MISSING!!!! PLEASE LOOK AT THIS PICTURE!!

Our friends daughter is missing!!! Please look at this picture and let us or the police know if you have seen her. I will be sending out an email to everyone I know, please pass it on. Jenika is our oldest daughters age and I don't know what I would do if this was me. Please help bring Jenika safely back to her family..

Sandy, Utah Dec 2008

We had such a great time in Utah. We got to see my sister and her family. We stayed with Jodie (my sister) and Sam and had the pleasure of seeing their daughter and her family and their two sons and their families. We also got to spend time with the Smart's and the Ellett's while we were there. I came to Utah sick with a pretty bad cold and a couple days into our trip got a really bad tooth ache. I wish I would have felt better so we could have done more and we could have visited more of our friends while we were there. Next time we will. :-) We are so fortunate to have such great family and friends in Utah and love going to visit. The kids loved the snow and played in it constantly. We got pictures of the girls playing in it but I could never get any pictures of the boys playing. Everytime I would try to get pictures of them they would hide and throw snowballs at me. Above is a slide show of pictures we took while we were there.

Scenic drive to and from Utah

The Sunday after Christmas we left for Utah. Don't have a heart attack but Frank drove us there. If anyone knows Frank, they know he hates to drive for long periods of time. He was a trooper and drove the whole way there and back. Because of the weather we drove through Las Vegas on the way there and decided because of the back up at the Dam we would go the other way home. We had a great drive there, it was Frank, Andre, Rick Niner (Andre's friend), Brooke, Shelby and I that went. We went home through Flagstaff and when we left on Saturday morning it was snowing and had snowed the whole night before. It was a slow start to our trip home but about an hour into our drive the weather eased up and we were on our way. Here are some pictures of the beautiful scenery we saw on our travels.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!! I am sorry that I wasn't on the ball enough this year to get family Christmas cards out. We did take a family picture and I had every intention on getting them out this year, but my good intentions weren't enough. I love getting pictures and cards every year so I can see how everyone is doing. So thanks goes to everyone that sent them our way. We had a great Christmas minus a few sicknesses. It was great to have our whole little family together for a couple of days. Kristen is now 21 and still manager at Carrabba's and working her tail to the bone. Megan is 18 and living out in Queen Creek with Kristen and looking for a job. Andre is 15 and is glad to have the whole Eagle project behind him and can't wait to have his court of honor. Brooke is 5 and just loves playing and helping out with her little sister. Shelby will be 1 next month, boy time has flown by. She is just such a sweet baby and a joy to have around. Frank and I are so blessed to have been given the opportunity to raise such great children. They all have their own unique personalities and ambitions and were are so proud of them. To all of our family and friends we are so lucky to have you in our lives and we appreciate all you do for us on a daily basis. Thanks for your support and love.

Andre gets approved for his Eagle

I haven't blogged for while and I need to catch up, but I couldn't go another minute without letting each of you know how proud we are of Andre. Andre had his board of review for his Eagle Scout Thursday night and got approved to recieve it. He will be having his court of honor soon and I will be letting you know when it is. I want Andre to know how much we love him and again, how proud of him we are. This was a great accomplishment for him and he will be so glad that he has it. A special thanks to my Dad (Mel) and Bishop Budge for going with Andre to his board of review and for their love and support. They are great examples to our family. We love you!!

Halloween 2008

Wow, we had a great Halloween. This was Shelby's first Halloween and she loved it. Brooke was a purple butterfly fairy princess and Shelby was a cow. They were both so cute. Our Halloween week started on Tuesday, the girls and I went to my sister Kelli's ward party. It was too dark for pictures, but the girls had a lot of fun. They had chili and corn bread to eat and the kids went trick or treating from person to person. Then on Thursday we went to our friend Lisa's ward party. It was set up like a carnival. They had a rock climbing wall, carnival game booths, jumpy houses and little ponies to ride on. The little pony ride was a hit with Brooke, this was her first pony ride and loved every minute of it. They had food to eat and made kettle corn, shaved ice and cotton candy right in front of you. Halloween night was a good ending to the week. We went to see our Grandma Raia and loved our visit with her, then we were off the see Grandma and Grandpa Jones. We scored big at both of our grandparents houses. Then we went trick-or-treating a bit in our neighborhood and at about 8:00pm headed to Carraba's to see our sissy. Of course we had to stay and eat while we were there. I wish I had a picture of us all there but there was Frank, and I, Megan, Joel, Brooke, Shelby and Maddie Budge and our new friend Trae. We ate good food and enjoyed each others company. What a wonderful week we had, thanks to everyone that was involved in it. We so appreciate all of our family and friends and love you dearly.

My car accident

So one of my biggest nightmares finally happened. I hate driving on the freeway, because people are in too big of a hurry. I was on the freeway, on my way to a 10:00 appointment, when the driver next to me came into my lane and hit me. She was a nice 18 year old girl that got spooked by someone entering the freeway to her right. She didn't know what to do and hit me. It took all my might to stay in my lane and not cause any additional accidents. We drove hooked together for a while. This happened during rush hour traffic and there was someone looking out for her and I both. When her car finally released from my van, she went flying across all of the lanes of traffic. It was a miracle she did not get hit by any other cars. I was really sore from the impact, but very grateful my kids weren't with me and that I wasn't hurt worse. It really makes you stop and think about the things and people that you appreciate in your life. When these things happen, it makes the problems in your life you think are so big, seem rather small.

Woods Canyon Lake

To end our Payson trip we decided to go the Woods Canyon lake and go for a final hike. We didn't go clear down by the lake, but about half way down they had some beautiful trails. It was so cold, but worth every minute of it. The kids enjoy being outdoors as much as we do. We took some pictures of the great views that we experienced. We had a great weekend trip and hope to take lots more in the near future.

The natural bridge

As you can tell we love to hike and be outdoors as a family. Frank, Andre, Brooke, Shelby and I went up to Payson and stayed at my Mom and Dad house. We had such a wonderful time getting away. It is only about an hour and ten minutes away, but it is far enough away that you feel like you are on vacation. We get to relax and enjoy no work for a couple of days. We drove up to the Natural Bridge and hiked down into the canyon. As you hike down past the bridge there is this little waterfall that comes down and gets you wet. When you get down to the bottom there are many rocks you climb up and over. Frank hiked with Andre and Brooke back to the farthest part of the canyon and I stayed out with the baby. After they came back, Andre was nice enough to watch the girls and Frank and I hiked back there and had a great time. I love how adventurous Frank has turned out to be. We really enjoy our hikes together.