Can you spell...?

Lately, Meridith has been spelling EVERYTHING!  I am so proud of her but sometimes in the middle of a sentence it is kind of annoying!  Anyway, Annabelle has taken to spelling too, which makes me laugh a lot!

Here is how she spells...

Mom, I want some:

T-I-E-I-O (candy)
P-I-E-I-O (cereal)

We have had such a great time with the kids this Christmas break and we wish it could last a little longer!  We hope that everyone had a happy holiday and that the new year brings many blessings to all!

Priority Boxes

Davin has decided that he wants to go to Grandma's house!  If only the boxes were a little bit bigger!

~~Here We Go Again!~~

I am only going to vent for a moment, I PROMISE!  As I watched President Obama speak last night I could only think, "Here we go again".  As anyone knows (well if you read my blog) my husband just returned from Iraq in September (his third tour over there).  His battallion wasn't suppose to redeploy until January 2011.  We have been hearing for a few weeks now that they have moved the date up to September 2010 (and that was before the speech last night).  I know now that everyday will bring us new news and we will probably be saying goodbye in the near future. 

I am in support of us going to Afghanistan, only because our troops that are over there do not have enough support.  I know that our Marines are needed and that is why they are going to be the first ones sent. 

I do feel EXTREMELY blessed because my husband should have gone to Afghanistan earlier this year and the battallion that he should have gone with lost a lot of men.  We are very blessed! I just ask that we all pray for our troops, especially the ones that are leaving and won't be able to spend the holidays with their families.

Random Posting! Playing Catch Up!

We have now been in our house for about 2 months.   Our neighborhood is brand new so ofcourse they do have to have bathrooms for the construction workers (port-a-potties).  When I was house hunting alone, I didn't realize that there was a port-a-potty right in our front yard!  I don't know how I missed it!  Anyway, about a week ago they finally took that ugly green thing away! YAY!

They also just finished the house next to us, so we no longer have this huge dirt hill on our side yard!  I am so glad because we are trying to grow our winter lawn and it didn't help to have all of the neighborhood kids running all over the lawn!  So that's gone too!

We had our Ward Halloween Party (before Halloween) and I am just now posting the pictures!

Annabelle, Why are you so beautiful?

Now that Hiram is home it seems that Annabelle is smiling a whole lot more!  She really loves her daddy!

Hiram always loves to take a family picture after church.  So here is the first one since he has been back from Iraq!  We are so thankful that he is here!  We love you so much!

I told you it was a random post! 

Crayon Rolls

One thing about getting ready for church on Sunday that drives me CRAZY, is the "pencil box" full of crayons that we ALWAYS have to bring.  The box of course is carried by me, which means that it usually opens up and crayons are dumped in my HUGE bag.  VERY ANNOYING!  This week I was looking on http://www.etsy.com/ and found that so many people are making these great "CRAYON ROLLS"!  I was so excited, so I decided to make couple of them for my girls.  They actually turned out pretty well I think, and the girls love them.  We use them for markers, pencils, crayons, etc.

Happy Halloween!!

Happy Halloween from the Cheerleader, "skinny costume" and Super Woman!  We hope everyone had as much fun as we did!

Brownies!

Oh my! My girls love to make brownies! They will only help if they get to lick the beater or the bowl at the end!

More pictures from VA and DC

I finally found the pictures from Iwo Jima

Here are some of the kids and our family while we waited for my parents to enjoy the surroundings.

Here are Grandpa and Grandma watching the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

Washington D.C.

We recently took a trip up to Washington D.C. with my parents.  We took them to some of our favorite places that we use to visit when we lived up there.

Our first stop was the Marine Corps Museum.  The museum takes you through the course of bootcamp, starting from when the recruits get off of the bus.  My kids loved the pull up bar and they all had to try it out.

From the museum we headed to Arlington National Cemetary.

 The Statue of Iwo Jima   (this is the only picture I have from there) She is not the statue.

Then we finished the evening off at the Washington D.C. Temple

On Tuesday morning I woke up to a very cold shower and I wasn't excited.  (You never pay to stay in a hotel with cold water...even at a Military Base)!  I should have complained to more than my parents and Hiram I guess!

We decided to spend the whole day walking the National Mall.  I wanted my dad to see it all.  I am so sorry that we had to do it all in one day. 

We started at the Washington Monument

Then we went to the world war II site.

We had to stop for ice cream before we got to the Lincoln Memorial.  Mom and Dad, do you remember why we were laughing so much?! (Look at that couple, do you think they were married?) Does that bring back anything?!

Making the hike to the Lincoln Memorial

"Oh, look there is one more USMC emblem, let's take another picture!"

It was such a fun trip and we had a great time spending it with our family!  We are so glad you came "home" to visit us Grandpa and Grandma.  We love you SO much!