Where to begin......

It has been so very long since I have posted. We have been so very busy and had a fun, exciting summer. I will have to post more about all of that later. I have decided to just start back with school pictures and what we have been up to lately. It hurts my head to think about all of the things I could write about and tell about.

The kids first day of school pictures:

Jessica with her friend Andrea, who came from AZ to visit us for over a week was there still on Jessica's first day of school. This is them before leaving to go to seminary. Jessica is 16 and a Junior this year. She is on the Varsity Volleyball team and loving the sport.

Hunter is a Freshman this year. He starts high school and seminary. He is 15 and is on the freshman football team playing outside linebacker. He has grown to 5'9 this summer.

Spencer is 10 and in the 5th grade. He is currently playing fall baseball and loves it. Taylor is 9 and in the 4th grade. She is playing volleyball at the YMCA. She is the youngest and smallest one on her team, but everyone thinks she is so dang cute. I need to be better about posting and hopefully I will catch up more later, but for now this is all I can do.

Jessica's first Prom 2009

Jessica and a couple of her friends, Shae, Alyssa, and Chelsea all went and had a pedicure for the Prom.

Then my good friend Melysa came to the rescue and offered to do Jessica's hair for her. She did an amazing job. She looked beautiful.

Jessica all ready to go to the Mormon prom. Here they do a Mormon prom for nine stakes down at Georgia Tech University. It is just like any other prom, except you have to adhere to the youth standards. I love that they have this alternative for the kids here in the south. She wanted to get picture done at the Lake so we met her date there.

Her date Preston Burkhart putting on her corsage.

Jessica trying to pin on his boutonniere.

Going down to the dock to get some lake pictures. I just loved this pictured with her dress

Pictures down at the lake at the Gazebo.

They make such a cute couple.

Preston was such a gentleman helping her so she would not fall.

The whole gang that went to Prom was 21 kids. We all met at the church for photo's and then a few of us parents put together a dinner for them. They all wanted to be together and so we thought this was the way and so much cheaper.

Here is a picture of what the tables looked like. We tried to make it extra nice. I made the place cards with my Cricut!!! I love that machine. Here she is at the table with her date and her friends and their dates.

They even had waiters who are friends of theirs who are not old enough to go the prom yet.

Shawn, Dallan and Anna had it going on and were a crack up. We needed to drive the kids to the dance. So five of us couples drove the kids to the prom in downtown Atlanta and dropped them off and went to Atlantic station for dinner and hung out. It was a blast for us and nice for the kids. Here in Georgia, the law is that you cannot drive anyone else besides your family in the car for the first six months of driving. Only a few of the kids had there license that long. So us parents had the privilege of taking them down there. Finally reaching the dance. This is the only picture that I am posting of inside the dance, because it has taken me three days to post all of these pictures and I am tired of this blog.

I am Loved

Ever since my kids could eat solid foods I made heart pancakes for breakfast for Valentines day. I would always put a note in there lunch with a special treat, and a little box of chocolates. This year it was on a Saturday, so no note in there lunches with a special treat. I did make them our annual heart pancake breakfast. My hearts did not turn out as great this year, but I was in a hurry because I had a Stake Young Women's Leadership meeting in the morning from 10 to 12.

We had some extra special kids with us on Valentines day morning. Who enjoyed our tradition. Jessica and Hunter are not in this picture, because they were just getting up.

I left that morning in such a hurry I did not have time to clean anything up and left my house a mess. I wished everyone a Happy Valentines day and left for my meeting, which was 30 minutes away. When I got home I was really wishing that my family would have cleaned up the huge mess I had made from that morning. This is what I encountered when I came home:

This beautiful note on the back door inviting me:

It immediately put a smile on my face. I walked into the house and it was immaculately clean and the table was set just like this. A peach rose from each on of my kids and white roses from Doug, with a special note/card from each of my children and a love letter from my husband.

With a dinner Menu of what they were going to serve that evening for dinner. I had to wait in the other room till they were finished and they called me into dinner and this is what the table looked like. I wish I would have taken one with all of the kids sitting down. Doug made it all. It was heavenly, and plenty left for the next day and it was just as good the second day. Thank you Doug, Jessica, Hunter, Spencer, & Taylor for making me feel so loved.

I love you!

Jessica has her license

Jessica got her license on Friday February 6th. We waited forever at the DMV. We showed up at 9am and she tested and passed at 11:45am, but we did not get out of there until 1:15p.m. Can you say CRAZY? The state of Georgia is ridiculous on all of there little rules. We had to have the following for her to get her license:

1-13 pages of me signing off that she is satisfactory in checking the tires, parallel parking,

switching lanes etc, etc, you get my drift.

1 -30 hour driving course taken online certificate

1- ADAP certificate( Alcohol and Drug awareness class she took in health)

1-School attendance certificate notarized by the High School she attends.

1-40 hour tracking sheet that she drove for 40 hours with my signature and notarized

$10 for the license

We had all of the documents, but being there so long and be shuffled from one counter to another four different times, they lost one of the pages. I just filled out another one right there on the spot. I thought for sure they were going to make me stand in line again for some dumb reason. She did a great job and passed with flying colors.

On Saturday Doug, Spencer and I were sick (and still are) so I had Jessica run to the store for a few things all by herself (well she took Hunter and Taylor), but she was the licensed driver. Later that day she took Hunter and Taylor to there friends houses and picked them up too. It was nice to have another driver in the house who could run errands for us. Doug and I were nervous, but had confidence in her. She is growing up to fast and will soon be graduating High School and off to college. It is a bitter-sweet thing in my life to have a daughter who is now driving and out on her own in the world.

On Tuesday, Jessica and I were driving to an appointment and we were talking about all of the canning I had been doing. She asked "Mom, will you teach me how to can?" I responded of course, I had been wanting to do some jam, with the berries that I have frozen. So are asked her if she would like to can some jam? We decided to do it yesterday after school.

I taught her two different methods: First we made Raspberry Freezer Jam

Second: We cooked & made Blackberry Jam

Jessica stirring the jam while sitting on the counter, which she know she is not allowed to sit on.

Ladling the jam into the jars. Cleaning of the rims and putting on the lid & ring. Turning them upside down. Finished product: 9 jars of Blackberry jam

Time with my daughter: priceless How many teenagers do you know that ask there mother's to teach them how to can? Jessica said" She wanted to learn, because she will need to know how to do it when she is a mother." She also is going to use it as one of her young women projects. I had fun teaching and speding time in the kitchen with her. She will now be able to pass this knowledge on to her children one day.

I love these moments

Jessica

Hunter Taylor

Spencer with duckie (from Grandma Udall) and otter (from Grandma Slade)

Happy "SWEET SIXTEEN"

We love you and could not be more proud of you.

You are beautiful inside and out.

Jessica's "Movie Night" birthday party

Jessica and her friend Alyssa both have birthdays three weeks apart. So they decided that they would like to have a birthday party together. Here is what the invitations looked like: It was a shape of a ticket with glitter sprayed over the top. Then we inserted them into popcorn bags. They rocked!!!!

The girls made posters to hang up. This is them working on them. (Rachel does that board look familiar that Jessica is writing on) yes she still has it and uses it.

Alyssa checking to make sure she doesn't have any text messages.

This is the red carpet that everyone came in on.

These were the signs that they made for the movies they showed. The boys in our ward had made Dewey Finn and Missionary Possible a couple of years ago. The movies were very very well made, very professional also so FUNNY!!!!

My dear friend Jaime let me borrow her big blow up movie screen and projector again!!!! She is awesome!!!

I told the girls to go and take a few pictures. I loved this one of Jessica, except for the car in the background. They asked everyone to dress up in a costume, WHY?? They wanted to make their own movie, but then decided not to last minute. Jessica was a hippie.

Not such a good picture of the party. My camera is wacko. We had a whole concession stand set up were we rented a popcorn machine, we had nachos, pretzels with cheese, big size candy bars, and pickles. We wanted it to be like if they were at the movie theatre. Here they are holding Jessica up in a pose. They are all wrapped up in blankets, because a cold front decided to drop in that day. It was windy, and in the 40's. But they had a BLAST!!!!

The kids in our ward are always up to something. The boys made a pyramid, so the girls had to out do them and made a higher one.

Wimpy Wimpy Wimpy!

Don't these girls look happy? Would you want to date them? They are looking now that they are of legal age. I just think that Jessica has such a glow about her.

Ok so this is not the best picture, but they just had to raise her up.

Then it was Alyssa's turn and she just struck a pose.

Here Jessica is with one of her best friends Seth, who decided at the last minute to pull his shorts up mess up his hat, shrink, and add a cheesy smile.

Jessica didn't open her gifts until everyone was gone, except Shae. They were having so much fun that they had forgot all about it. She has some really great friends who are very thoughtful and I know that she appreciated the thoughtfulness. But her favorite gift of all was this red rose from Seth. He also gave her some funny gifts, a gum ball machine, and bubbles. Seth also brought Alyssa a yellow rose, can I just say the drama that came from that was to funny. Jessica didn't care, she loved the rose and I could not believe that she let me take a picture of her with it. Her first flower from a guy.

Jessica we are so glad that we were able to give you the party that you wanted and it went great for you. Dad and I both love you very much, but you will always be our first baby.