Happy Birthday Zach!

Twelve years ago today, my life changed. Twelve years ago, Kris and I were newlyweds getting ready to start the biggest challenge in our lives up to that point. Our oldest child, Zachary Christian entered the world at 12:03 pm, weighing 8 lbs. 1 oz. Looking back, I was such a young person taking on a very big responsibility. Luckily for us, we were blessed with a very easy going baby. Zach was a beautiful baby, with dimples and blonde hair. Today, is his 12th birthday. Talk about a whirlwind of time gone by! People would always say, "Enjoy them while they are little, because they grow up too fast." I can honestly say, I understand that all now. When they are little, you are going through new challenges that are frustrating, tiring, and exciting. I admit there were times I did not enjoy the Terrible Two's or Three's. I remember a time when Zach took crayons, and proceeded to draw on our white, flat paint hallway, (flat paint, I know! We didn't know any better then, remember we were in our 20's!) and then took them and colored our light tan carpet up and down the hallway as well! I don't know what I was doing at the time, but I remember getting toothpaste and scrubbing the crayon and the paint off the walls. This was just one of many times, Zach got into trouble. Now, I have a very responsible, helpful twelve year old. Some things about Zach: 1) He's a very good student. 2) He's a very good athlete. There's not too many sports that he can't play. 3) He's popular (even with the girls. Every week there is at least one phone call from some 6th grade girl). 4) He loves the color red. 5) He is a meat and potatoes kind of guy. 6) He is a good big brother to all of his siblings. When not with friends, you can find Zach with one of his siblings. Even when he has some friends over, Zach is a good enough brother that he lets Justin and Tyler tag along. 7) He used to be blonde (white). His hair always reminded us of a baby duck. Up until he turned about 7 or 8, then started turning dark. Mom couldn't even find him at one of his basketball games a couple of years ago, because I was looking for a blonde kid, not the dark headed kid! 8) He taught himself to play his electric guitar. 9) He looks out for his younger siblings. 10) He still tells us he loves us (how many more years do I get to enjoy this one?!) 11) He loves to camp and hunt and spend time with his dad. 12) This weekend, he will become a Deacon... I am so proud of him and love him and wish him a very happy birthday. Happy Birthday Son!

Family Photos Finally!

Monday night, we took advantage of the beautiful weather and headed to Murray Park with grandma and grandpa for a picnic and family pictures. I try to make it a tradition every three years to update the family photo, and this year we decided to try the cheap way and use our digital camera. The scenery was great, and so was the first half hour of photo time, then we took a break and ate dinner. Yum! After looking at all the pictures, I decided the family photo wasn't what I had in mind, so we had to put the boys white shirts back on (I was smart and didn't have them eat and drink red cream soda in them), and tried for one good picture. After several pictures and several cat fights between the kids and getting Tyler to just give us one good smile (didn't happen) we called it a wrap. We were happy with the last bunch of pictures, and that night Kris was trying to move all pictures to the computer, when the card crashed (probably too many high quality photos), losing the last half of our pictures! Just our luck! Kris was quite upset and spent most of his day on Tuesday at work trying to figure out how to salvedge the pictures. (We even lost all the pictures from all summer long!) Luckily, that night he found a free website that retrieved most of our pictures! Huge sigh of relief! I am so grateful for websites that are not into making a ton of money off of others, and for those that put free tips, programs, etc. out there for all of us! At least I don't have to worry about this for three more years! Yeah! Many thanks to our photographers, Mom and Dad!

Cheerleader For A Day

One of Hayley's dreams came true last Friday. She got to participate as a mini cheerleader for the Viewmont High School game. A girl from our ward who is a cheerleader for Viewmont called us to see if Hayley would be interested in doing a cheer camp for a week, then performing at half-time. Would she?!!! After putting in four hours of practice time, she was officially ready to perform at Friday's game. All kids were excited, even Zach, who has recently gotten into the Viewmont footballs games (this was his 2nd game already). He invited a friend, and they hung around for about 20 minutes, then disappeared where all the tweens hang out at the end of the field. Apparently, this is a popular hangout for lots of 6th graders! I never noticed little elementary kids hanging out at my high school football games (probably too busy noticing other things like cute boys!) Tyler and Justin passed the time by playing with a friend, who's sister is the real cheerleader. Hayley was a real natural and looked great as a cheerleader. Who knows whats in her future? Hopefully all her dreams come true in life...

Bill the Cat

It seems we have adopted a temporary (hopefully) cat. For the last couple of weeks, there has been a cat roaming the neighborhood. We have heard it several times at night outside our bedroom. I am not a cat fan! In fact, Kris doesn't care for them either. On Saturday, this cat kept coming around our house, and the kids took it upon themselves to chase the cat off. Don't turn us in to authorities, but Zach even used his airsoft gun to target practice on the cat. That didn't scare it off, Kris chased it off several times with a newspaper, still not scared! At one point on Saturday, it ran into our house after one of the kids left the door open. After about ten minutes under my bed, we finally were able to chase it out of the house. It is a very mild tempered, nice cat, and Hayley and her friend Jaycee started petting it. This is probably why it would not leave our yard. Today after church, we saw it lapping up some water that was in our driveway. This started to pull at our heart strings! Kris and I decided we would give it some leftovers from dinner, it was so hungry it devoured my beef stew (at least someone ate my beef stew!) We decided to let the kids enjoy it as an outside cat, until we can find its owners if there are any. Tyler announced at dinner that its name is Bill, but my mom and dad came over, and since I am allergic to cats and will not touch it, my mom took a look and thinks it is a girl, so maybe it's Billy?! Hayley gave the poor thing a bath, and it just sat there and let her! We'll see how long this pet lasts...