Monsoon 2009

This is the first major mosoon storm we have had this year. In the picture is a big sand storm coming towards my apartment. Do you remember the scene in the Mummy where a face appears in the sand wall trying to eat the airplane Brandon Frazier was on. That is how the sand storms here in Mesa AZ look. I am not kidding you. I think it is so cool.

If I have my facts right there are only 2 places in the world with a sand storm like that. Here in AZ and in the Sahara Desert. Because of the intense heat we have. When the heat rises to cool off very quickly at night, it causes high pressure. The low pressure coming from the south, Mexico, it causes this type sand storm.

Lealynn Rayna

Lea turned 12 on July 6. You do know what that means right! Young Women's & Girls Camp!!!! She is so excited. And she thinks its great she isn't in Elementary School. She will be in Junior High. I was 12 yrs old when I got to wear makeup so I went out and bought her a few. That is also exciting for her.My little girl is now a young lady. Here are 12 things I love about Lea.

1:I love that she quietly does service for others. She is kinda sneaky like that.

2:I love that she reads her scriptures every night to Nathaniel.

3:I love that she tries to be a good example to her younger brothers and sisters.

4:I love that she likes to watch chick flicks with me and eat popcorn with me.

5:I love the way she dances and makes up silly rap songs.

6:I love that she is very technology savvy.She can usually figure things out for me when it comes to cell phone and computers

6:I love that when she is happy, she glows like an angel.

7:I love that she had become a very beautiful daughter of god both inside and out.

8:I love that she is a good friend to all her friends at school.

9:I love that she looks good in short hair.

10:I love that she can now babysit while mom and dad go on dates or if mom just needs to get away for a bit.

11:I love that she very helpful.

12:I love that she is all mine. Our family is so blessed to have Lea in our family. She was able to attend the Mesa AZ Temple with both my husband and me so we can be sealed as a family. Lea started the way for her brothers and sisters to be sealed to us for eternity.Thank You Lea. I love you so much.

Nathaniel Darrell

Nathaniel Darrell Working joined our family on July 7, 2004. We were so happy he joined our family. He is an awesome boy. When he was "little" his older sister loved to dress him up. For awhile I thought he was going to grow up thinking he is a girl. But he has proved me wrong. He is currently my secret agent spy boy. He is also a super hero. He loves to save the day and make sure mommy is safe. He is learning to be brave. Today he went to the Dentist and was a very good boy. He didn't cry and was so brave. He thought that the bright light above was going to tear his body apart but was glad he was still my big boy.

Since he turned 5 last week I want to tell 5 things I love about Nathaniel.

1: He tries to be the best boy every day. He also is a great "BIG" brother to Ella and Elijah. I can truly see in his eyes that he loves all his sisters and brother.Even when they make him angry, I can still see the love in his eyes.

2:I love that when he smiles, his eye close and he has that "David Archuletta" smile. His happiness just shows me what a great spirit he has.

3:I love that he can't wait till he is 12 so he can pass the sacrament. He thinks that having the Priesthood is way cool because its like having special powers.

4:I love that he owns all the spy gadgets that Walmart sells and he keeps them in his spy bag for emergencies.If I am in any trouble or danger, my secret spy will protect me and save the day.

5:I love that he still loves his mommy and his daddy. I will ask him when I get really old and can't walk very well, if he will still set on my lap. He smiles and says yes. Than I will ask him when he becomes a daddy and has a lot of kids if he will still sit on my lap. He smiles and says yes.Happy Birthday Nanno. I love you so much.

HAPPY BLOGOVERSARY !!!!!

WOW!!!! I can't believe it. I have been a member of the Blogging world for 1 year. Another amazing thing is that I have had 2, 257 awesome people visit my blog. That is so GREAT!!!! I was going to post something on here later tonight because I have a few more items to blog about, but than I received my first comment today wishing me a HAPPY BLOGOVERSARY!!!! Thank you so much Teena in Toronto for that simple comment.
I am not sure what I am suppose to do for my Anniversary. I guess I have to give something away. So I am going to have a giveaway.I have a lucky number. Whoever leaves me a comment on this blog and is the number I pick, or closest to it, will win a SPA BASKET. I will give you until Friday the 17Th, to leave a comment.Oh yeah, the number is between 1 and 10.
Good Luck and may the best person win.

Johnny Lingo

This past Saturday, we went to a party at a friends house. The theme was Celebrating 40Th yrs of Johnny Lingo. It was like a luau. We had leis and we had Hawaiian hay stacks for dinner. All the was invited needed to bring a desert to share. I brought these yummy cupcakes.After dinner, we sat on the grass and watch the old version of Johnny Lingo on a white sheet. We had to pay attention because there was also a quiz afterwards. We had a lot of fun. I think my kids had fun too.
I have been a lot of cupcakes these past few months. I found that if you frost them with a big tip, it is much easier and faster.

The Crawley's

My husband Dan was born in California. He spent about 12 years in a town named Potrero California. Potrero is just right by the Ticate Mexican border. While my husband was growing up there he had a best friend named William Crawley. William lived right by Dan house and they spend every minutes of the day with each other. One day William and Dan went on a go-cart ride. William was driving and of course Dan was the passenger. Who knows (but them) what all happened but Dan fell out of the go-cart. Dan broke his leg and was down for awhile. Nothing happened to William, but William being a good friend still visited my husband and they still did wacky things.Than my husband moved to Indiana. Dan said that was one of the sades times in his life, leaving his best friend.

They have kept in touch with each other over the years. In fact William came to our wedding 13 yrs ago. We have visited with him a few times since. William had a hard life after my husband left. His dad died about 4 yrs ago. William grew up living with just his dad. I am sure that alone was really hard.We had no idea and Dan was so sad he didn't let us know.

Well about 2 yrs ago, William changed his life and started going back to church. That is were he met his wife of 1 week.

William and Christine came to visit us the day after their wedding. We didn't make it to the wedding because we moved and they didn't have our new address and we think it go lost in the mail. Anyways, they were flying to Hawaii for their honeymoon. They said it was cheaper to fly from Phoenix than it was from LA. SO they decided to call us and we went out to dinner. It was lot of fun.

Christine is such a nice lady. She was amazed at all my kids. The funny thing about this whole marriage thing is that Dan and William teased the heck out of Christine when they were little. Well Dan says he never did but we know he probably did but not as much as William. But you know, when they would look at each other, with all that aside, they were truly in love with each other. It was great for my kids to see that, besides seeing that with their own parents.

We are so glad that Christine and William found each other. Congrats to the both of you.

New Church Calling

I have a new calling. I am the new ward librarian. I have never had this calling. I really like it. I can't believe what the library has. Oh my gosh. It is kind of over whelming. I get to go to the church building on Wednesday and work in the library. I was told that the library hasn't been open on weds for awhile. I seem to be busy on that night. I find joy in organizing things, & helping people, especially preparing things that the teachers need for their lessons. I kind of also find this time on Weds to have time to myself. I get a break from home for a few hours and I come back home happy and full of the spirit. Who knew that you could feel the spirit in the library. I sure do.

Elijah's new trick

Elijah is now 14 1/2 months. He has found out that he can climb. Here he is trying to climb on our entertainment center. We had bunk beds for the kids to sleep in. We had to take it down and make 2 beds because Elijah was climbing up the ladder. I swear since he has started walking, he now runs and now climbing. He is just a mess maker. He is so smart to. See in this picture he moved this skateboard to the TV by himself.

Isabella's 4th B-day Party

Ella's birthday was on the 10Th of June. That was the day we went to the Mercury game. I usually make cupcakes on my kids birth day because it is usually during the week. We will put a candle in the cupcake and sing happy birthday. And than we open presents from parents, and the birthday kids siblings. Since Ella's favorite color is pink I made pink cupcakes. And since she wants a horse so bad, she got a horse on a broom stick and it is also pink.

When I bought the butterfly cake pan (i thought she liked butterflies)I was excited and i showed it to her. She looked at it a minute and than she told me is didn't want a butterfly cake, she wanted a moth cake. Yes a moth cake. she is so funny. She said she thought moth were really pretty too. So on the day of her party, I told her I was making a pink moth and she was okay with that. Now with the tattoos. My mother in law bought her some tattoos and she wanted to wear them all. So there you have my tattooed daughter.

Lea's dance preformance part 2

After the group danced the people that work for the WNBA asked for 12 girls that wanted an autograph from the players. Lea and her friends got to go down to the side of the court while the Mercury's were warming up. After the warm up the players gave each girl a warm up ball with their signature on it. That was so cool. Lea was freaking out and almost fainted. She was so excited to have an official WNBA warm up ball. And of coarse I had to have a picture with Elijah. He was a great kid during the game. When anyone clapped, he clapped. It was a fun night. Our friend's the Bigelow's were watching Nathaniel and Ella for us while we wen to this game. Thank You Julie.

Lea's dance preformance

We couldn't bring video cameras into the game. Dan used my camera's video setting to get this. Someone is suppose to sent the dance teacher a copy from the floor and he is going to send it to all the kids that danced. It was a great game. Our lady Mercury won the game against the NY Liberty.I was screaming my head off. Sorry!!!I was excited for Lea. I am also sorry for the blurriness, like I said, we used my camera.Oh I forgot to tell you that Lea is in the back and is dancing in the 2nd group.

Updates

My daughter Lea told me that I had a boring blog. She had said that I have not posted any thing fun that we have done since the end of school. One reason why is because we haven't really done any thing that I thought was fun. We have been staying home vegging out.
We (Lea and I) made a list of some of the things that we have done that I didn't post. So we will be going back to the last day of school.
Last day of school was the 28Th of May. It was a half day so I spent the day in Chayanne's class. I got to bring the 3 little kids to school. They had a lot of fun at school. The last day of school in Chayanne's class was Cultural Day. All the kids had to bring a dish from another culture to share with the class. Of coarse we brought Fry Bread. There was a lot of yummy foods. It was fun to spend that time with Chayanne. Ms. Driggers is a great teacher. Chayanne will have her again next year.
I didn't spend time with Lea in her class because Lea didn't want me to. Come on did you want your parent in your class on the last day of school. I sure didn't, especially in my 6Th grade class. I think Lea has finally reached that point in her life that she is cooler than your parents. That is okay, i don't think I could handle being in a room full of 6Th graders for more than a few minutes.
That pretty much sums up the last day of school. I did forget to take pictures that day and compare them with the beginning of the school year. Oh well I will try and do better next school year.

What a week

I am updating this blog as I am relaxing at the dinner table with my laptop in front of me. We had Ella's b-day party tonight and now all the guess are gone. I will post pic about her party tomorrow. The older girls are at their cousin's house. The b-day girl Ella is at my mom's house. Dan took Nathaniel to a movie and Elijah is asleep for the night. Ahhhhh!!!! I really need this break. Tomorrow we will only have 2 of our 5 kids with us at church. Say ahhhh again. Don't get me wrong, I love having my kids with me at church. We have all the whisper fighting (older girls) we have 2 kids with ants in their pants (2 younger) and we have one who likes to pester all the rest of the kids(oldest son). Ahhh none of that tomorrow.
Back to my original post. I had to make wooden plaques for homemaking. Lets just say I learned to cut vinyl with my Cricut in one day. Than had to show other ladies in my ward how to make this wall hanging. That was nerve wrecking. My hubby cut, routed, and painted in two days 11 plaques.Thank You Honey Bunny.I cut 10 feet of vinyl in one day.So when Thursday Enrichment came and gone I was some what relaxed.Friday I relaxed as much as one can with 5 kids. Than today, I made and decorated a butterfly cake and had the hole house clean by 4pm. Dan and Ella, and Chayanne went grocery shopping for me,Thank You guys. Nathaniel and Lea helped me clean the house and take care of Elijah. Thank You guys too.
Did I forget to mention I also signed up to feed the missionaries. Oops that is because I forgot until they call me at 9pm Friday night.So they came to eat at 5pm and they were on their way by 6pm when the party started.
Yes I also planned a birthday party for Ella who waited all week.It went well.Now that the party is done and all the kids are gone or asleep, I can put up my feet and say "What a week". The only sound in this apartment is a toy dump truck that sounds like a carosine (can't spell) lamp. Ahhhh

Isabella Marie

Today is Ella's birthday. She is 4!!! She blesses our family with her sweet spirit. She loves to dance, dance,dance. You can always find her dancing and singing. She is so excited for preschool. Her seems to have found a new love for horses. So if you don't see her dancing, she is making horse sounds and galloping all over the place. Here are a few pictures of Ella as she has grown into a beautiful,and very energetic little girl.

Little Boys Room

Lately when I am out running errands, Nathaniel needs to go to the bathroom. It never fails. I will have all the kids go potty before we leave and I still end up in the bathroom some where. Well, Nathaniel refuses to go in the girls bathroom because he is a boy. I tell him him I want him going with me so I can help him. Nope, that doesn't work. He reminds me he can go potty by himself and he remembers to wash his hands. So I let him go while I am taking the Ella potty. The whole time I am worried. Yea worried. But, he has been doing fine on his own.
He has to tell me all about the urinals every time. So wonderful to have a boy that id growing up.

Preschool Water Day

On the 14Th Nathaniel's last day of preschool was water day. There were so many fun things things to do. Somethings were water balloons, water guns, trampoline with a sprinkler under it, and a cool wadding pool with a slide. but I think the most fun was the big parachute. Here are a few pictures. I didn't realize that I only had pictures of Nathaniel. Ella was all over the place playing and laughing, and Elijah was exploring mud. A friend of mine took picture of him playing in the mud. When she sends them to me, I will post them.


Naathaniel trying to smile.


Having fun with water guns.



Here is the parachute that the kids were hiding in.

The kids flying the parachute.

Elijah walking

This is my latest little buddy walking. He is doing more walking than crawling. I am so proud of him.

I don't know if you can hear at the end. I was calling his name and he said lida.I swear he says his name. He also says, Ea for Lea, YahYah for Chaychay, Ellah for Ella, & nono for Nanno (our nickname for Nathaniel.