ZOOOOMMMMMM

Jessica has had several track meets this year. I just have not had my camera handy to take some pictures. I was able to get a video of her running the 100, 200, and the 4x100 relay. She has the record for her high school in all three races. Click on the Title (ZOOOOOMMMM) of this post to see it. She is the one in the 2nd lane the first girl closest to the grass. (I am not good at taking video so sorry for the quality). She set the record for the 100 last year and she was only in 8th grade. Last night she broke her 200 record and had a personal best for this year on the 100. She was pleased with the results. She is fast like her Father who held several records in the same things.

I love to watch Jessica run, or just play sports in general. She is so talented in so many different things, drawing, writing poems, writing stories, painting, being a good friend, school, helping others in need or just because she wants to. I am sure I could go on,band I know that I am bragging, but I can't help myself. I do have a downfall about being prideful of my children. Her dad and I are just very proud of the young lady she is becoming. We know she is only going to continue to grow and mature and find out the things she likes and dislikes. We know we have taught her right and now she is able to live it. We know she is not perfect and either are we, but there is not much to say bad about Jessica, only good things. She is a well rounded young lady. We love you Jessica.

Lunch with Friends

Yesterday some of my GREAT friends took me to lunch for my birthday. We went to Chili's for some yummy lettuce wraps. You know the saying, "Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other is gold." I missed my friends who could not be there, but love and appreciate the friends that were there. I have been blessed to have made the best of friends every where I have lived. Thanks to all of you for your love, support, friendship, confidence, and advice throughout the years. You are all Gold to me.

By the Grace of God

By the Grace of God

In the darkest of moments

when I feel alone

I pray to you my Heavenly Father

and know that my pain is known.

In my times of trials

when happiness seems so far

I look up towards the heavens

and know just where you are.

In my hours of fear

when Satan's hand seems o'er me

I bow my head, fold my arms

and pray on bended knee.

During the raging tempest

when the storm feels to strong

I am carried by my Saviour

who was with me all along.

For I was never left alone

to be lost or downtrod

For I, and all mankind are saved

by the Grace of God.

-Jessica Udall

Jessica writes some of the most beautiful poems I have read. I don't know where she got this talent from. Both sides of Doug's and my family have several people who write poems. She is very talented and gifted in writing. I have encouraged her to write a book. She is putting her poems together in book form for one of her Personal Progress Projects. She wrote this about three weeks ago and I just had to share it with you.

Easter

Our annual Easter picture of the kids, before church on our front steps.

To start off our Easter we colored eggs on Friday after school. Hunter & Jessica just watched this year. On Saturday the kids woke up to their Easter baskets. We went to our Wards Easter Egg Hunt. Here is Taylor with her eggs. Spencer was able to get so many eggs, but there was families that showed up late and their children did not get to participate in the egg hunt, so Spencer gave them a lot of his Easter Eggs without being told to. Sunday before church, I tried to get everything ready for Easter Dinner. Taylor wanted to set the table. This is what she came up with. She filled Easter eggs with candy and set them all around the table, wrote a note telling us that each of us will get two eggs each, because their was twelve. We filled the center piece with candy left over from the Easter bunny of course she did not know that. Taylor said, "Hey, I got that in my Easter basket." (pointing to the candy I was putting in the bowls) "And I got that kind, and that kind, Hey wait a minute (while she put her hands on her hips). "Are you the...?" She never asked the question and I am not about to give it away yet. She is the baby and I want to keep her that way for as long as I can. We had Honey Baked Ham, mashed potatoes, corn (from the corn on took off the cob and froze), rolls and for dessert we had strawberry shortcake. It was a wonderful day filled with the spirit. Our family's tradition is to have the Easter Bunny visit us Saturday morning, so that on Sunday we can concentrate on the Savior and the true meaning of Easter. Our parents did this for us and now we are doing this for our children. One day I hope they will do the same for our grandchildren. Hunter also spoke in sacrament meeting for the first time. He did an amazing job.

Family History

My grandma and her sister told me that this picture is very rare for their parents to show affection in public. You just don't do that sort of thing back then, they told me. They cherish this picture of their parents. I love this picture also. Someone was lucky to get a shot of that. This was in Texas on a Uncle's Farm if I remember correctly. Grandma and her sister Gloria Me, Aunt Gloria, and Grandma Slade. This is Angel (my second cousin), Me, Great Aunt Gloria, Spencer & Taylor. Her son Buster was their but was not able to take pictures at the time.

This one is a picture of my Great Great Grandmother. She is the Baby on her mother's lap at the left.

This is a picture of my Great Great Grandfather & Grandmother Alexandra and their horse Daisy.

This is my great grandmother a couple of years before she passed away. I remember a few things about my great grandmother and one of them is that she loved bowling. I got one of her many bowling trophies that she won when she passed away.

This is my Grandma Slade's mother, sister's & brothers in the early 70'S in Texas.

I am so thankful for my family tree. It has been amazing to learn so many great things and stories while my grandma was here to visit. My grandma was the only one in her family to join the church to this day out of her immediate family. I am sure glad that she accepted the gospel when she married my grandpa who was a member. Doug told me that my trip down to Columbus was well worth the trip to spend time with my grandmother and to be able to get some really neat pictures of my ancestor's. Most of the pictures I took of pictures my Aunt had.

I double dare you.....

How we got on a discussion of eating a raw egg I will never know, but we dared our boys to eat one (Heck we didn't even have to double dare them.) Hunter likes a challenge and I think Spencer just went along to be brave. I could not believe my eyes when I walked in on this. Jessica was taking pictures of their attempt.Doug told them to chug it real fast. Spencer took the first taste, but barely any and did not like it. Hunter was next and he gulped it down and........ this resulted. Yep, he gagged and spit it out in the sink. He said that was the nastiest thing he has ever tasted. I guess Mom & Dad do know what they are talking about.

Crazy Weather

I just thought I would let everyone know that we are OK here in Georgia from all of the crazy weather. We live 45 minutes north of downtown Atlanta where the tornado touched down last night and this afternoon. We have had several tornado warnings today and remain in a tornado watch until 1:00a.m. We did have golf size hail fall and damage two of our three vehicles. Doug says I am paranoid about the weather, as soon as I heard about the warning and heard the sirens going off by our house, we headed for the basement. I say better safe then sorry. So while we were in the basement watching the news. Doug starting throwing M&M's to the kids and have them try to catch it in their mouths. Well it started to turn into who can get to it first and yes of course their was wrestling between Jessica and Hunter to see who could get the M&M. While they were holding each other back, Spencer swooped in and snagged the M&M. It was so funny. This morning Jessica and I were at her Track meet about 30 minutes away from home. We thought for sure it was going to be cancelled, but to no avail they had it. She threw the shot put and was waiting to run the 4x100 relay, when they called the track meet due to the weather and a tornado warning.

A trip with Grandma

We had such a great visit with Grandma Slade or Great Grandma Slade to my children. We sadly had to take her to here sisters house in Columbus. So we made a trip out of it. We took Taylor & Spencer out of school early and headed out of town. On the way we stopped at the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield were a civil war battle was held. Grandma in the Museum and enjoying every minute of it. This museum is not very big, but has so much information to read and see that you could be in there for hours. We only were there for about 1 hour and 1/2. Grandma knew the kids had been there many other times, but they were very patience about letting her take as much time as she needed. This museum has a child space with coloring and reading they have visited many times. We made our way to Columbus in 2 hours and checked into our Hotel. We looked for a place to have dinner and the kids came across their favorite Pizza Place Stevie B's Pizza Buffet. I was not in the mood for pizza, but Grandma said that sounded good to her. I right away spotted a scrapbook store next door to the pizza place and so I made a deal. I will take you to pizza if I get to look in the scrapbook store. They agreed, and of course the scrapbook store had a children's play section. They did not mind it. I bought some really cute bowling paper for when we went bowling a couple of weeks ago. It had been a long day and we were all tired. Great Grandma invited Taylor to sleep with her so she didn't have to sleep on the couch. Taylor agreed happily. Grandma told her she has never slept with a Great granddaughter before. That made Taylor happy that she was the first. We woke up to snow falling the next day when we took Grandma to her sisters house. We were sad to leave her behind, but happy for her she hasn't seen her sister in two years.

My Card Group

I formed a homemade card group with a bunch of spectacular women. Here is all the cute cards they made for an Adult Birthday Card. I could not have asked for a better group of women to do this with. I wish I could have invited so many more, but bigger card groups get a little complicated. Here is the picture of the card I did. It is made out of a lunch sack. I crumpled it and distressed it to make it look old. The inside is the funny part of it all. I took this idea from my sweet dear friend Heather. Thanks Heather your the best. I also made each lady a basket to put all of the great cards they will get with their name on it. On the back of the basket I put the schedule for the cards. Here is how the group works. We have twelve people and a theme each month. This month was Birthday Adult, next month is Mother's or Father's day card and so on. They have to give me their cards by the drop off day and then the next day they come and pick up 12 new cards. This is our first month and so far so great. I did this in Arizona with very talented women for two years and I was starting to run out of cards and decided to start one here. I love to hosting scrapbook night and have had three the last two months. I am already done for the next two months, because you all know how crazy my life gets when baseball season starts. So I decided to get ahead while I had the time.

Temple Trip

This was Hunter's first Temple trip to do Baptism's for the Dead. I was able to go with him and the youth of our ward. I have to be a bragging mother here, I can't say enough good things about my Hunter. He is loving, caring, compassionate, sweet, giving, & a righteous boy. Their are just not enough words to describe how my son cares about me being his mom. He tells me so everyday. He is truly a mommas boy and I love it. He said that he loved the experience and can't wait to be able to do it again. I of course was tearing up being inside the temple with my son who holds the priesthood and honors it. Here we are after coming out of the temple. Here are a couple of his best friends Stanton & Carson. Hunter has to many friends to count. He is kind to everyone. One of the Sister's in our ward that serves with the Young Women told me that the girls like him, because he is so nice to them and will talk to them. Oh, yes girls are constantly bugging him, but he has a good head on his shoulders and just politely shrugs them off. This picture is of them before going into the temple. They are trying to act like bigger than they really are. These three together are a hoot.

Lunch with Grandma

Grandma and I went to lunch at one of my favorite sandwich shops, The Frosty Frog. It was such a beautiful day yesterday in the low 70's so we decided to sit outside and enjoy the weather. After lunch we went to the grocery store for a few things and they had corn on the cob on sale at a really good price. So Grandma and I loaded up our cart with 40 ears of corn. We took it home and cut off the corn from the cob and cooked it then froze it. I have never done this before. My grandmother taught me something new. I have enjoyed her here so much. Here I am cutting corn of the cob. Here grandma is cutting the corn off of the cob. Notice the smile on her face. She always has a smile on her face. She is such a happy, joyful, funny, and loving person.

Atlanta Temple

My Grandma Slade is here for a visit. The one thing she truly wanted to do while she was here was to go to the Temple. This morning we went through a session. It was nice to be able to attend the temple with my grandmother. I have had so much fun with her here and she has only been here about 20 hours all together. I have loved hearing all of her stories and can't wait to hear more of them. My Grandma bought me my temple dress when I went to the temple for the first time. So every time I attend the temple I think of her and I am sure I always will.

After the Temple we met Doug for lunch at our favorite Steakhouse. Grandma did tell us that it was the best steak she has ever had. We tend to agree with that. Every time we eat there they have the best steaks. We have never been disappointed. We take our out of town guests here every time they are in town. So if you want a really good steak, come for a visit.

Skateboarding

Hunter went to a friends Birthday Party at the local skate park Friday night. This was his first time there and his first time ever at a skate park. He wasn't sure what to expect. He was excited to try something new. He has rode a skateboard, but never down ramps. Here he is going down one of the ramps for the first time. He did pretty good. By the end of the night he was going off of the big ramps and doing tricks, board slides. Whatever that means. His friends said he did really good for never doing it before. He had a blast with a fun filled night of skateboarding, pizza, ice cream and cake. We just warned him, he better not break anything or his baseball coach would kill him. Hunter is the starting pitcher for his team. Not to say we would kill him, because it cost $150 to sign him up for baseball. he is well worth the money.

Boy Scouts

Hunter finally received his Tenderfoot. He earned it a long time ago, but now is finally receiving it. He also just went on his first repelling & rock climbing camp out. He climb a 80ft. He loved all of it, repelling & rock climbing. It was really cold & windy in the 30's, with a wind chill factor probably colder who knows. He loved every minute of it.

Cub Scouts

Spencer had now earned his Wolf Badge in Cub Scouts. We had the Blue & Gold Banquet Thursday night, which I was in charge of. Can I say, "I am glad that it is over." I am not going to be over cub scouting anymore. I am telling you right now, this is one of my most happiest moments. Don't get me wrong, I loved it while it lasted, but it lasted way to long for me. In all I have been in cub scouting for almost six years. I now get to venture into the Achievement Day girls. Taylor is going to turn eight in a month and will start to go to Achievement days. I am excited for this new adventure, she will have awesome leaders.

Way to go Spencer. We are proud of your accomplishement.