Birthday Time!

It is been a while since my last post. We have been busy with Birthdays as of late. Richard had one on March 26th and Matthew had one April 5th and Holly's birthday is in 2 days. Yikes! It is a busy month because we are also making a weekend trip to Cheyenne in a couple weeks. Just a quick update on the kids. Matthew was certified by the Red Cross to babysit (he is 11 now). It is very exciting to have a built in helper now if I need to run a quick errand or run to the store. He was certified also in Child CPR. He had a party on Saturday and had 7 friends come. It was a lot of fun for him. Shelley is still quite the young lady. She never stops growing, and is a lot of help to all of us. Holly Anne loves her to pieces. She has a Dance Recital coming up, so she is excited about that. Nick is fun as ever. He whistles all the time, sometimes it is embarassing. We were in Wal Mart and he kept doing his favorite kind of whistle (the kind you do at a very attractive person), and he had a lot of heads turning to say the very least. He found a bracelet on the back porch, and when he came to tell me of his discovery, he said " I was sticking my head out the back screendoor, you know when I stick my head out to whistle, and I found this...." I cracked up, honestly I didn't know he stuck his head out the door for the pure enjoyment and amusement of whistling. What a funny little boy. Holly Anne will be 2 this week as I said earlier. She is talking like a 3 year old. She says anything, and has complete conversations with us. We have to admit, as difficult as she was a newborn, she is so easy and calm as a toddler. She loves all things about dollies and strollers. She is getting a shopping cart to push around for her birthday. Her newest thing is calling mommy and daddy by their first names. It is a little strange to hear her call "Katy, where are you?"
All in all we are very well. We are looking forward to warmer weather. We really can't wait to take the boat out!! We are excited to live close to much of my family. Cory and Sarah are moving to S. Dakota!! How fun to have them close again. We are sure grateful for all of the family we have and our wonderful friends as well.
Conference was this weekend. I am always so grateful for the gospel, and what a wonderful force it is in my life. How wonderful to have a living prophet on the earth today, and how blessed we are to receive instruction from him every 6 months. Another cute anecdote about Nick... I know he is just pretty witty. We have the kids play a Bingo game during conference. They have a card with spaces for prayer, Joseph Smith, tithing, Atonement, Jesus etc. They have pictures underneath too, so he can do it by himself. As you hear a word on the card in a talk, you cover it up with a penny. So during one of the talks he heard someone say "Remarkable" He jumps up and says "Remarkable, I'll find it, it's here somewhere." I told him there was no square for remarkable, he looked at me and replied... "Well their should be, it's a pretty big word." All the kids love the bingo game, and I think it is fun for us adults too. Time flies, and you hear everyword that is said. Well, that is all for now. Until next time!

Good "Will"

I love Sunday because it really is the only day of rest we have anymore. Even though we have our Church responsibilities I look forward to the quietness of Sunday all week. I have Beef Stroganoff in the crock pot and rolls rising, and Nicholas outside screaming and playing in the backyard. Nothing like a child to bring you back to reality :).

Yesterday we went to Blair in the morning and had donuts with Henry and Joni. I got to hold little Henry Max who is too cute. We had a nice time and came home and did some shopping and hung out. We went to the GoodWill store to wander around.... which reminds me of a cute story I would like to share with you.

In January Nick said the cutest thing ever. We were cleaning out the storage room, and had been working on it for a while. We had a running pile of things to go to good will. During our work Nick approached Richard with an old tool and said "Dad, do you think we should give this one to good Will's dad?" Of course, Richard was puzzled and looked at Nick until he realized what he was implying. Richard than asked "Nicholas, what is good will?" Nick responded that it was a really nice kid who probably lived somewhere close who needed a bunch of our stuff. We about died laughing, so yesterday it was fun to take him into the actual Goodwill store so he could see what we were talking about. I thought it was so innnocent and darling. How funny to think of putting all your old things in a pile for the kid down the street... "Good Will." Happy days ahead for all of you.
Until next time.

Blessed

I can't believe that Richard and I have been together for almost 12 years. It just boggles my mind that we have done so much and been to many places together, and it just feels like it has flown by. I feel so completely blessed to be in the place that we are in our life. I am glad that I know that no matter where we are in our life that we are in it together. Our children are darling, we love eachother, and we are blessed with the gospel, a wonderful job, and a lovely home. I just felt overwhelmed this evening by all my blessings. Sometimes it is good to think only of what is great in our lives, rather than what is wrong. Just my two-cents for the day:)!

I am excited to be doing this, and I hope that my good friends will keep in contact with us and leave comments. Today we are so excited, we are going to hit 60 degrees! The kids wore shorts to school today, even though the start temp was still below freezing!! Last weekend we saw lots of family in Wakonda. Cory was in town, and so we saw him, Henry, Joni and their group and of course all the Wakonda crew... Mom, Dad, Joel,Kira and boys. It was a lot of fun. Shelley had this weird rash while we were there. Come to find out she had fifth disease... sounds scary, but it is a common childhood virus that when it is all done you get this weird rash on your cheeks and on your body. Thankfully when the rash appears they are no longer contagious.... phew, we were around all that family, I was glad to find out that she could no longer share the love :).

DeJay and Melissa and their cute kids are coming this weekend! We are so excited to see them again! I will write more soon!

First Post

I am starting to join the high tech world of blogging. Hopefully I am smart enough to figure out how to make it look cute and actually get pictures on here, and to be able to navigate my way back to this when Joni isn't helping me :)

This week we are still freezing our tooshies off here in the arctic tundra, aka, Nebraska. We are hoping that Spring is coming sooner than later. Here is a quick update on our family. I am the proud new owner of a beautiful black baby grand piano. It was such a thrill to invest in myself.....er my business, and now I have the pleasure of teaching piano on an amazing instrument. Richard is working on many projects at work and staying busy on his Body for Life program. 21 pounds and counting! Go Richard!!!

Matthew performed in a honors choir 2 weeks ago with about 200 other fifth and sixth graders. He was in a group called "Singing around Nebraska." He had a lot of fun, but at the actual performance we worried he was going to fall over from heat stroke. What a thrill to see him sing and sound so amazing with the other children. We will post the audio when we get the C.D. in the mail. He is doing well in piano and is looking forward to baseball this spring.

Shelley is enjoying taking clogging. She is quite the clogger, I hear little tappity taps from the storage room in the Basement constantly. She also is quite the piano player, I can't keep her off the new piano.

Nick, oh Nick, oh to talk about Nick. He is the entertainment daily for our family, he is the most precocious 5 year old, you will hear many things about him in posts to come. Summer is coming, which means he will probably be peeing in the neighbors sandbox, or just on random neighbors trees. You think I am joking......

Holly is talking up a storm and yesterday took a baby doll and grabbed a wipe and diaper. I watched her out of the corner of my eye as she said "EWWWE, Gross, poopy butt." She wiped and wiped her baby's bottom with her wipe with much disgust. Too cute!

I hope that I continue to keep you posted on the events and adventures we have in our life. Right now we are in good old Wakonda, Sd with my parents and lots of family. I feel so blessed to have them so close.
Until next time!