Bad to the Bones

Look at who is such tough stuff!

I know I am really behind, but I just had to post these fun pictures from a Halloween party that my friend Ann threw for the little pre-school spooks. Luke dressed up like a tough guy. He was so funny! He played the part of the rebel without a cause a little too well!

Donuts on a string were a BIG hit with him. Don't you love how he is trying to hold up his pants with one hand, and hold up his donut with the other! So funny.

Other kids love the donuts too, and some even liked the string!

The party was perfect, complete with slimy punch with worms and floating eyeballs, and the most picture perfect caramel white chocolate apples! They tasted even better than they looked!

An of course all the little goblins was adorable in their costumes!

Halloween cookie decorating was some sparkly sweet fun!

Luke was caught purple handed! Troublemaker!

They also got to make some of their own personal slime to take home. This was also very popular!

The slime went into a plastic bag, and into my purse where I discovered it a few days later after the bag had unzipped and I got a hand full of slime when I reached in for my keys! Lovely!

Bobbing for apples was fun for a while, until Luke got the hang of it... when he discovered the real fun was dropping apples into the water to make big splashes while the other kids were trying to bob (see the middle picture!) What a delinquent!

Then they had a monster hunt, which was sort of like a egg hint with monsters on the eggs. Luke, being true to form, knocked everyone out of the way to get all his monsters (not his fault really - those are just survival skills for the youngest of 6 brothers, right?) But then he sweetly gave some of his finds to the little girls who didn't get any. Heartbreaker! Why do the good girls always fall for the bad boys?

Bad to the bone! Ba-ba-ba-ba-BAD!

It was the funnest little kid Halloween party we have ever been too! Thanks Ann! And even though my little rebel without a cause doesn't look like it, he had a great time too!

Lookin' Up!

Early this month, my friend Shari and I took our boys to the Jacqueline Cochran Air Show in Thermal. It is always free, and such a boy thing to do, so we try to go every year.

The first thing the boys wanted to do was climb aboard this huge C-17 cargo plane. It was like a huge cave inside. The boys strapped themselves in, ready for the ride. Unfortunately, they wouldn't fly it anywhere until everyone got out. Bummer. That means we had to watch the rest of the air show from the ground.

They couldn't hitch a ride on the Sheriff helicopter either.

We also explored some other vehicles up close and personal. The boys loved this part.

They had a bunch of planes of all sorts on display. It was fun to get so close.

You know which one they liked best, don't you? The one with the big guns! Of course they each had to take a turn blowing me to bits.

Of course, most of the time we were looking up into the air watching the fantastic tricks. The biplanes went every which way! It got pretty hot for a while there, and snow cones were extremely necessary.

It was really fun watching the parachutes too. They were so high when they jumped that you could barely see them. Wow.

We love the huge American flag descending from the sky. It was so neat to be right there next to the runway when they landed.

There were a few old WWII planes doing a mock fight, chasing each other through the sky.

This parachutist was doing tricks up there.

My favorite was the F-16 fighter jet! The crew did a precision drill to prepare for the flight, and it was really interesting to watch! But the best part was when they started up those jets! When they did is super-speed flyby it was SO LOUD! I loved it!!! It really gave me a thrill! I am so grateful for the wonderful fighting force we have to protect our great Nation, and this jet just seemed to be a symbol of that for me. Thrilling!

The boys got to meet the pilot and the team and have a picture signed. Cool.

The last plane was the very same C-17 cargo plane that we got inside earlier. Amazing how such a huge machine can get into the air, on a relatively short runway too. Getting it's big belly up into the air reminded me of trying to get up out of bed when I was pregnant - lumbering, and not graceful. But it got up and was fun to watch.

After all the excitement Dylan had fun digging through a bin of old pilot patches to find the perfect ones for his patch collection, and of course I let everyone pick out a tiny toy plane (and a few for the older brothers who didn't come because they were at a merit-badge clinic for scouts) so we went home with our own little fleet.

What a fun day at the airshow! Thanks for joining us Shari!

Thankful! (The Post I Meant to Write Before the Tryptophan hit.)

I love Thanksgiving! I love the idea of Thanksgiving, and frankly, I think it is one of the holidays that we need in this country, and in this world, more than anything else. We can all be grateful. We should all be grateful. Everyone, of every religion and creed, can benefit from being grateful. We have so much to be grateful for - especially those of us who have the Gospel of Jesus Christ in out lives and are enjoying the blessing that such knowledge brings.

I love that Thanksgiving officially marks the beginning of the holiday season. What a better way to begin than by being grateful? Gratitude carries inherently within it the character of humility. What better way to enter the season of the celebration of the humble birth of the King of Kings, than in a spirit of humility and gratitude. I don't believe it is any accident that the holidays are set up that way. Glenn Beck calls Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's the Holy Trinity of Holidays. I love that! They are together and in that order for a reason.

First we remember all the blessings we are given, the greatest of these being the atonement of out Savior Jesus Christ. This gratitude and humility bring us such joy that we can celebrate the birth of he who brought us such great blessings with reverence and awe. What greater joy is there than this? At Christmas we recognize with gifts of love all those who bless our lives and celebrate the ultimate gift giver at the same time. And finally, with the new year just on the heels of Christmas, we vow to make ourselves anew. We repent, and try to change, encouraged and uplifted but those feeling of gratitude and love that we immersed ourselves in throughout the holiday season. We become new as we start a new year.

And it all starts with Thanksgiving. The love and joy of Christmas, and the repentance and rebirth of the New Year cannot happen until we are sufficiently humble and thankful. You know how some years you just have a hard time getting into that "Christmas Spirit"? I know last year I was certainly there, (for good reason too). I think sometimes we fail to get into that spirit because we fail to really take Thanksgiving for what it is and we don't stop to really reflect of the bounteous blessing that we have in our lives. If we really stop in humility and think of the great blessings that we have in our lives and thank the Creator and giver of "every good gift", how can we not help but feel the spirit of the holidays and the joy that it brings? We will! But first we must be thankful!

It saddens me that society is trying to rush right through Thanksgiving. Apparently, they have tried and failed to commercialize Thanksgiving much. Humility and gratitude seem to have within them a "anti-commercialization" clause. So they have decided instead to push through Thanksgiving, and get straight to Christmas where the real $$$ can be made. Stores now go directly from Halloween to Christmas, and a lot of the Black Friday sales began on Thursday this year! Is nothing sacred? Before we have even digested the turkey and cranberry sauce, and even before we have sliced into the pumpkin pie our thoughts turn to the big sales instead of to our blessings and to the divine source of all our great blessings. Don't fall for it! Don't let your holiday season start without taking the time to "count your every blessing, name them one by one. Count you every blessing - see what God hath done."

And so, even though I have really tried to think about all of my great blessings this week, I have yet to list them (possibly because the task is a daunting one!) It problem is not where to start, but where to END?

So here I go. You do not need to read this list. You are welcome to use this time to go write your own. I am writing this list, after all, for myself. And for my Lord. But write it I must.

I am thankful for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, for his teaching and his example, and for the sweet gift of the infinite atonement that he made for me! I am thankful for the truth of the gospel I have in mu life, my membership in the church, and the testimony I have etched into my soul of it's truthfulness. I am grateful for the scriptures, the words of the prophets, living and dead, and that I have these truths in my possession to guide my life, and to teach my children. I am grateful for leaders, and missionaries, and teachers who serve in the church to build Zion and enrich all of us. I am grateful for my calling, for the wonderful woman I serve with, and the amazing young women for who they are and who they will become. I am thankful that we live in a day where temples dot the land, especially Redlands temple which is just an hour away, and that the blessings of the temple, the ability to be sealed together with our families forever, are available to us. I am grateful for the covenants I have made in the temple, and for the strength that it give me everyday.

And temples bring us to family. I am so grateful for my family! So grateful! I am grateful for my ancestors - those pioneers who heard the gospel preaches to them, and made that choice to face persecution, and ofter leave home and all they loves behind to come to Zion, who were willing to do what was asked of this and sacrifice that their posterity could have the gospel in its fullness. I am grateful for each generation that took the precious truth of the gospel, held it dear, and passed it down to the next generation. I am grateful to my wonderful grandparents, and I miss them all very much. I am grateful for the truths they taught my parents, so my parents could raise me in truth, and that I knew have those precious truths to give to my children. I am so grateful to have been blessed with wonderful parents - an honest, faithful, and loving father who worked hard to provide for his family, and to serve in the church, yet made himself always available to us, whose family is his whole life, and his calling as father, and grandfather is everything to him. I am truly grateful for an angel mother who give her all to her children and grandchildren, who loves the Lord, loves to delve into the truths of the gospel, and loves to serve Him, her family, and others. I am grateful for their love and wisdom, and friendship. I am grateful that they live close, and that we are close, and that my children's lives are blessed by them almost every day. I am grateful for my brother and sisters, for their spouses and their children. There are every one of them good, faithful people, active in the church, and a blessing to my life. I am grateful for my husbands' family, and for his sisters and brothers, that are now every bit my sisters and brothers, and for the sweetest, lovingest Mother-in-law anyone could have! Oh, and I am grateful for my "new" cousins, that we are finally getting to know and love, after all these years!

I am SO grateful for my husband, that I was smart enough to marry that man when I was so young. His life is his family, and he is devoted to me. I am grateful that is is so hard-working, and for the business that he has built that continues to bless our family. I am grateful that he makes it so that I can stay at home with my children! What a blessing that is in all of our lives. I am grateful for the way my man looks at me and makes me feel beautiful! I am grateful for a man who respects me and supports me and encourages me to do the things I want and need to do. (Oh, and he is a hunk! I'm grateful for that too!)

I am grateful for my six beautiful sons. Life is crazy busy, but I have been blessed with six wonderful boys. I am grateful that they are all very different, and I am grateful each of their personalities. But I am also grateful for how they are all the same - they are good boy, polite, and usually very grateful, and trying, as we all are, to do the right thing. I am grateful for their testimonies and their desire to choose the right. I am grateful that they are all healthy, and that they are are all here with us. I am grateful for the unusual experience of having 6 sons, and the ways I have stretched in my life that I might not have otherwise.

I am grateful for my beautiful home, and am even more grateful when it is clean! I am grateful for the garage sales where I have gleaned all of my favorite things that I have decorated it with, and for all those folks who buy things full price and sell them to me dirt cheap so that we can have fabulous clothes and stuff! Muchas gracias! I am also thankful for clearance sales, and good deals that allow us to clothe and feed a family of 8! I am grateful for two cars that are paid off and that they are both still running, and for all the modern convinces, especially that extra capacity front load washer and dryer that never gets a rest, a comfy bed, and AC in the summer.

I am grateful for winter in the desert, and any time we can spend part of our summer somewhere else. I am grateful for the opportunities we have had to travel and for chance I get to see something new, and learn something I didn't know before. I am grateful for the opportunity to get a good education and finish college and grad school, and to continue to learn for the rest of my life if I so choose. I am grateful for books, for the shared knowledge of other, and for anything beautiful and intellectually stimulating - Art, books, music. I am grateful for all the creativity there is in the world, and for my own creative abilities. I am grateful that I see the world the way I do, and that I can pretty much figure out how do to anything I want to do creatively. I am grateful for the courage to try something new, and for the examples of others that give me that courage. I am grateful to know that I am a daughter of the Creator, and have inherited some of his creative abilities, and I an thankful that I can help other discover this in themselves. I am grateful for stamping, photography, watercolor, and every other creative medium that I so enjoy!

I am so grateful for my healthy body that still does what I want it to, for the most part. I'm grateful that I can swim, and to Martial Arts, and surf, and swing my kids in the air, and wrestle with them on the bed (though that is getting more and more dangerous as they get older!) I am grateful for modern medicine that keeps us healthy and helps us feel better when were are sick. I am grateful that our bodies can heal! I am grateful the food tastes good and that there is such a wonderful variety for us to enjoy. I am grateful for sweet, and for spicy, and for yummy salads in the summer, and warm soup in the winter, and chocolate anytime!

I am grateful for my girlfriends, for their listening ears, and for their love and support, for the friends I have kept from the past, and the new friends i have just met, for my older friends who have so much to give, and my younger friends who remind me what it used to be like. I am grateful for those friends who are sensitive to my feelings, and always know just what I need! How can I even begin to express my gratitude for my friends?

I am so thankful to live in this great country, and for the constitutions that was inspired by God to keep us a free and happy people, and for the freedom, especially the freedom of religion, that it provides for. I am grateful for our Founding Fathers and their courage to do the impossible for our sakes. And I am grateful for those Americans today who are beginning to stand up to protect and defend that same Constitution and restore it, and the free market system, to the place it was intended. I am grateful for all those men and woman who serve in the military to protect us and who have ever served, and their families. I am grateful for the sacrifice of those who paid the ultimate price for our freedom.

I am also grateful for flowers that smell as good as they look, for incredible sunsets, and for early mornings and the prospect of a brand new day. I am thankful for...

Well, I really could go on and on, and I intend to continue this list in my head today and throughout the holiday season.

I am grateful for this holiday season, and the chance it gives us to muse upon our many blessing. The scriptures beckon us to "remember, remember" the great things the Lord has done for us. That is the key finding the Christmas Spirit. May we remember our great blessings now, and well into the new Year, and may we all have even MORE to be grateful for when this year is done.

My First Famiy Photo Shoot

My friend Shea asked me to do a photo shoot for her family on Saturday afternoon. I was really nervous because I am used to taking pictures of my own family, and have no problems bossing them around. But I was kind of worried about being too bossy with these nice people. Mostly I was nervous that I would do a bad job, and not know what I was doing (there is still SO MUCH I need to learn!), wasting everybody's time.

Originally we decided to do it at the La Quinta Civic Park. I went down there early because I was so nervous and wanted to get my bearings before they arrived. Its a good thing I got there early, because the whole park was gated off for a beer festival! The sun was low on the horizon and we had to think fast. We decided on Shadow Ridge. It was pretty there, and turned out to be a good spot, but far from where I was, so by the time I got there, we didn't have a lot of good light left! It made me feel kind of panicky, and I didn't get to do some of the stuff, and use some of the props, I was hoping to try. It was crazy! Luckily, the Bailey kids were all in a good mood, which helped a ton.

I was right to be so nervous. I didn't realize how hard doing something like this is. It is really, really hard! Wow! I felt like I was running around like a mad woman! But fun too, especially later when you get a chance to sit down and edit the photos and see what you've got.

Because my Picasa won't work, I had to resort to using Smile Box to make the collages. They are more work and I'm not so sure how I like them. (And have no idea where that stupid arrow came from! Ugh!)

Anyway, the Baileys are such beautiful people, and I think their pictures would look terrific no matter who took them. But I'm glad it was me!

What beautiful children! I mean, really!

This is why those kids are so darling - its in the genes! I love the one on the right where they are kissing the bald baby head!

I think I love all the kissing ones! The pictures of the gals were so fun and vibrant!

And don't forget those darling the boys!

I just love the silhouettes! I'm glad I kept shooting when the light was too low to get good pics, because these actually turned out very fun!

There was a play area with giant lizards and turtles that the kids were playing on when I wasn't shooting them - only they were so cute playing that I had to keep stopping what I was shooting to run over and get shots of them in play.

That baby is delicious!

Every one of them is so photogenic.

Picasa Problem

I am having a huge problem on my computer that is making be bonkers!!! I suddenly can't open Picasa, the Google photo editing software that I use mainly for making the photo collage that I use on this blog. It simply won't open! When I click in the icon to open it, it simply bounces around for a while, and the Picasa banner comes up for about a minute, then nothing. The banner dissapears like I never tried to open it. I spend hours and hours trying to uninstall and reinstall and anything else I can think of.

Picasa was the only software I knew of that easily makes collages. My overly expensive and overly complicate Photoshop CS4 will do it, but it is complicated and time-consuming. Picasa was so easy!

The kicker is that there is NO help to be had out there! None! The best Google can do is have a community help forum, so other mac users can give me advice. Only I have posted my problem twice now with no results. There is no way to actually email or call the Google/Picasa people about my problem. And the thing is, I have actually used up all my free online memory, so now I have to pay so much for the year to store my pictures online. So now I am paying for a service I can't use! And there is no one to help me!!!! Argh!!!

Anyway, does anyone have any ideas for me? other photo software that will do collages? ways to get my Picasa to open? where I can find help? Please???

Meanwhile, I apologize for all the pictures I will be stringing up on this blog. I am so backed up with blogging, and the collages are the easiest way to get all those pictures on line. What a pain! It all just makes everything more complicated and overwhelming, and at this point in my life, I certainly don't need complicated and overwhelming!!!

A Whodunit?

Nathan was in a Whodunit mystery play at his middle school. Actually, it was two one-act plays, And Then There was One and And Then There Was One, Too, the second being the sequel to the first.

Nathan was in the second play. He played Jack Bendar, an escapee from an insane asylum, who was pretending to be Clayhorn, businessman, who was pretending to be Jorge, a Scandinavian butler. Confused? So was I.

Needless to say, such a roll required some VERY QUICK costume changes. He did it too!

The plot was filled with twists and turns, and a lot of comedy too, but basically 10 people were stranded together high on a mountaintop retreat. One by one everybody drops dead -

...everybody except Nathan that is, um I mean Bendar, or Clayhorn, or Jorge, rather. Nathan was the last man standing, even killing his own wife in the end (that's her on the floor stage right with her Viking helmet.

So that's whodunit! Nate AKA Bendar AKA Clayhorn AKA Jorge. Whatever you call him, he is trouble!

Do you remember what part Nathan played in the Sound of Music last year? a Nazi officer - a real bad guy. This time he was the murderer. My son, a murderer and a Nazi. Where did I go wrong? I think he is being type cast.

No really, Nate did a great job, and I am really proud of him! He had a ton of lines to memorize. He really looked sharp up there too! I couldn't be prouder of my son, the murderer!

Caleb brought Freddie Frog from his first grade class home for the weekend to share our weekend adventures with us, so Caleb brought him, along with his own little turtle, along to see the play. I'm sure Freddie really liked the play, especially since so many people CROAKED!

Mr. Brown Can Kick

On Friday night Dennis tested for his brown belt.

A week before he didn't know his form, but he worked very hard with the help of Dylan and myself, and was able to learn it and pull it off for the test.

I'm so proud of him for pulling it off.

Sparring is Dennis favorite part of Tae Kwan Do (my least favorite part, BTW). He really goes at it. He did a terrific job with a variety of kicks and several really high kicks to the head. He was really streached out because I have never seen him kick so high. Impressive!

He got to break 3 thick boards, but was glad he didn't have to break a brick with his fist (he has done it before, and never wants to do it again!)

Now he is a brown belt! Yay! What a good example he is to his boys. We are so proud of Mr. Brown!