I think I'll have 10!

I just read an article that said that Nancy Pelosi is saying that as part of the stimulus package she wants to spend millions of dollars on birth control and abortion.  WHAT!!!!  That is supposed to stimulate the economy?!!  According to the article America needs 2.1 children per couple to keep up on births to support the nation, and we are not even meeting that number.  I didn't think the stimulus package could get any worse, but once again, politicians have proved that they can make a horrible situation even worse.  What is wrong with these people.  I think that 99% of the people in Washington have had their brains put through a spin cycle.  And they are the ones LEADING us?!!

P.S.  I think I am going to have 10 kids just to spite Pelosi!  :)

Love!

Ah bliss!!  To be married to the most wonderful man I have ever known!  Daniel, or as I call him, "Love" turned 34 last Sunday, (and yes, I am just getting around to finishing the post on Friday Night).  I can't think of a more wonderful person to dedicate a post to than my best friend, Daniel.

What a darling little boy he was!  Yes, both of our children look just like him.  Little Daniel replicas running around the house.  They are darling just as he was.

Back in his "rebel" days Daniel used to jaywalk.  At least that is the joke he always makes.  However, If you look closely at the above picture you will see some mighty long hair flying around behind his head as well as a sleeveless shirt!!  Talk about a rebel! :)  I can honestly say that I never thought I would marry a skateboarder nor have an enormous skateboard ramp in my backyard.  Ah the things we do for love!  What a blessing it was to find this skateboarder, even if he was a jaywalking rebel in his younger days.

Daniel loves power tools.  What do power tools have to do with cooking you ask?  Look closely at the "beater" daniel is using on his mashed potatoes.  "Kitchen Aid" you ain't got nothing on "Hitachi"!  With 18 volts of power in his hand, those must have been some seriously creamy mashed potatoes!  I love that Daniel can cook/bake.  However, the fact that his usual choice is baking cookies or cakes has not been very good for my waistline!  :)

A cowboy, skater, decaler, rap music listening ballerino, what a hunk!  Honestly, this is not among my favorite pictures of Daniel, but it does show 3 things about my darling hubband. 1.  He loves to dance and furthermore likes ballet because it is one of the most physically difficult things he has ever tried.  2.  He works hard at things.  He did not start dancing until college and has worked very hard at improving himself.  He also works VERY hard providing for our little family.  There are times when I don't know how he has strength to make it physically, but somehow he still manages to get up and keep going.  3.  He is silly!  He has a wonderful sense of humor and is fabulous at making people laugh, especially me.

 

Daniel is not one of the more sentimental people I have ever met in my life.  That is why when he is sweet with me, it makes me feel very special.  Our wedding day was one of the most wonderful days of my life!  He was very sweet with me that day, despite the fact that he was not excited about getting our pictures taken a million times over.  I love the way he treats me and especially his tenderness towards me.  Prince charming has nothing on my rebel skateboarder!

Our sweet children are so blessed to have such a wonderful daddy!  I love to see him playing with them and hearing the squeals of delight as he scoops them in his strong arms and tickles them.  We have been especially blessed the past few months to have Daniel home a little more and able to spend more time as a family.  What a ray of sunshine he brings into our home when he walks in the door and immediately starts playing with our children!  We are immensely blessed to have him.

Captain Hook, you've never looked better!  Among his wonderful qualities is his kindness.  He goes along with me when I want to do things that he might prefer not to do.  What a great husband!  Besides, he got to have his long hair from his rebel days back for a night, how could he pass that up!

Daniel is a tease!  Yes, I know that you already know that, but since it is one of his favorite pastimes I thought I would mention it anyway.  The only person Daniel teases more than my dad is Jan.  However, since everyone teases Jan, I'd say that Daniel's teasing of my dad is of greater note as I haven't ever seen anyone tease him as much as Daniel does.  That is probably because nobody else would get away with it like Daniel does.  They seem to have an enjoyable time teasing each other as is evidenced by the picture above!

What a wonderful husband, father, son, friend, in-law (you know he is dad), brother and man!  We love our Daniel and are so grateful that he loves us!

Bubbers Birthday Bash!

As I said in my last post, my baby boy turned 1 last Saturday.  There were so many cute pictures from the party that I decided to just put in some collages that my sister-in-law and I made.

We decided to have the party at our new dance studio in Saratoga Springs since there were going to be a lot of people there.  We decided to get pizza for lunch since that was the easiest option.  We did not guess very well on the amount to purchase however.  We ended up with 5 of the super big Costo pizzas left over.  Needless to say, we've been eating a lot of pizza the last few days.

Here is our sweet little birthday boy!  He was quite happy during most of the party.  He cried a couple of times (as you can see from the middle-left picture) when the elastic from his party hat snapped on his face.  Other than that, he was happy and seemed to have a nice time.

Here are the cake, some of the decorations, and some of the games.  We did a "car" theme which turned out to be super fun.  

I ended up making 3 cake mixes so that we would have enough cake for everyone.  Then, I used a marshmallow fondant for the frosting and decorations.  It turned out to be a pretty fun cake and 3 cake mixes was just about right since we only had 1 piece of cake left over.  Wow, that was a lot of cake!

For the games, we did matchbox car races with all of the little cars you can see sitting on the table.  We decorated party hats with cars on them.  We also did an obstacle course that we called "Bubbers Best Car Wash."  For this activity we had the kids put on a cardboard "car" and run through the obstacle course so the kids ended up being the cars themselves.  Then we also had a pinata that looked like a truck.  I think if I were going to do it again I would have cut out the car racing activity as the party ended up being a little too long, but everyone seemed to have a pretty good time despite it being long.

 Here Matthew is eating his first birthday cake.  I made a little car shaped cake for the top of his birthday cake which is what I used as his own little cake.  It seemed to work really well.  He was absolutely darling.  As you can see from the pictures, he LOVED it!  He kept holding some in his hand and showing it to everybody.  It was so cute.  The bottom-left picture is the remains of his little cake.  He totally decimated it and got himself pretty dirty in the process!  I guess he liked it. 

Here he is opening his presents.  It think it helped that Christmas was just a couple of weeks ago, because he actually helped open the presents.  Emma didn't understand what to do with the presents at her first birthday party, so I'm guess that since he had some practice at Christmas, he kind of knew what to do.  He was really tired by this point though, so he wasn't smiling a whole lot.  He sure has enjoyed all of his pressies though.  Thanks everyone!!!

Here are some pictures of the guests at the party.  There were too many to do one of everyone, so I just put a couple in.  There ended up being 24 children and 23 adults at the party.   Whew, that was a lot of people!!  Thanks to all of you for coming and celebrating Matthew's first birthday with us.  We had a blast!!

BUBBERS!!!!!

My little baby boy turned 1 year old yesterday!!

Here are some highlights from his first year of life:

Note:  this is another very long post!

This was our first picture as a family.  It was about 20 minutes after he was born.  Emma wasn't quite sure what to think about this new little bundle, but I sure was excited that he was here safe and sound.

This was a rare thing for Matthew the first 4 or 5 months.  He did not do very much sleeping at all, so I'm glad we got a picture of this.  The first 2 nights we had him home I got a total of 2 hours of sleep one night and 3 hours the next night.  It did improve a little from there, but not much as he had a pretty bad problem with acid reflux.  Fortunately he sleeps much better during the night now.  Now if only we can get him to nap a little better. :)

This was the only way we could find to ease the pain in Matthew's tummy and get him to fall asleep for the first several months of his life.  We would wrap Grandma Harshberger's blanket around his back and hold him close to us to put pressure on his little tummy.  I remember walking with him like this for up to 45 minutes sometimes to get him to fall asleep.  My back sure hurt after doing that, but it was worth it to help his tummy not to hurt so he could fall asleep.  I sure am glad he grew out of that.

Here he is with aunt Karla feeding him.  Matthew did take a bottle from time to time for about the first 2 months.  Unfortunately, that was all the longer it lasted and from that time on, he has decided that he wants nothing but the best!  He loves to nurse.  It has been an interesting experience.  I have not been away from him for longer than about 5 hours since he was born.  It has really made me feel like I have bonded with him and I just love him so much.

Here he is with Grandma Southern.  I think he has the most darling little cheeks that just beg to be kissed and I guess grandma must have felt the same way.  From the look on his face though, I am not entirely sure that he liked being kissed so much.  He seems to be okay with it now though, because I kiss those cute little cheeks all the time and he doesn't mind one bit.

This picture with me was taken during his first professional picture shoot.  He was a little confused as to why everyone was acting like a fool, but we were able to get some really cute pictures.

This picture with Great-Grandma and Grandpa Sperry was taken at the luncheon held after his blessing.  He did so good during his blessing so fortunately we were able to hear it.  It was a wonderful little blessing.  As you can see in the picture, he was so tired that afternoon and fell asleep shortly after this picture was taken.

Here Bubbers is in his Easter outfit.  I have loved getting to dress him up.  My favorite little outfits are the Sunday ones.  I love the little button up shirts with ties, slacks and cute little vests.  They make him look like a little man.  It is so darling.

Here is one with Grandma Harshberger.  This was taken on the 4th of July.  He really seemed intrigued by the fireworks and fortunately was not scared by them.  I love his great big smile in this picture.

This picture with Grandpa Southern was taken last summer.  This was a momentous occasion just because of the fact that my dad doesn't hold the little babies very much.  I don't know if this was the first time he held Matthew or not, but it was one of the first times.

This picture with aunt Jan was taken last summer while we were at the zoo.  It was Matthew's first trip to the zoo.  He was still a little young though, so he didn't get way excited about anything except the glass of water that Jan was letting him take little drinks from.  It was really cute, he kept trying to grab the cup from her.  I would say that was his favorite part of the zoo.

Here he is with Great-Grandma Spendlove.  We go and visit her in a rest home most every Friday.  This particular Friday happened to be Halloween, so he was all dressed up as a darling little bumble bee.  We got to go trick-or-treating around the rest home.  Matthew was not entirely sure what to think about it, but he did find a little girl about his age there who was also dressed as a bee.  He seemed to like her.

Bubbers has turned in to a fairly laid back little guy.  He is generally happy, as long as he has a full tummy.  However, he does not like hats.  As you can see from the picture above, he is about to pull the hat off, but he is laughing and is not bugged about it.  That is one thing I love about his personality!  He is such a sweet little guy.

As I said earlier, he loves to nurse and that is exactly what he is doing in this picture.  The past few months he has decided to take up yoga while nursing.  It is quite funny to see how far he can move without loosing the milk supply.  He has actually fallen right off my lap into a standing position on the floor in front of me several times because he went a little far with his yoga.  It is so cute!

Here he is with his favorite friend, his sister.  He loves to do everything that she is doing and can frequently be found following her around the house, knocking down her blocks and taking her baby doll.  He LOVES her.  Fortunately, even if she does get frustrated with him at times, she has decided that she loves him as well.  It is so nice to see her sharing with him so often now, and showing him that she loves him.

Here he is with his aunt Jenny at his first birthday party.  What a big boy he is getting to be, but he has obviously not lost those kissable cheeks yet!

Our sweet little Bubbers is one year old now.  He has such a sweet little personality.  He seems to be so gentle and have a wonderful little spirit about him.  I feel blessed every day that I am able to be his mother, to be home with him and to get to see his sweet little personality coming out.  He is such a joy to be around and a wonderful addition to our little family.  We love him so much!

Pappy!

This month is such a special one; it's birthday time for you.

We'd really like to celebrate your happy day with you.

Zipadeeay and heighdeeho, here's something we can do.

We'll sing a song that we all know, Happy Birthday to you!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAPPY!!!

I have many fond memories of going to Bear Lake for our family vacations while I was growing up.  Dad's boss owned a condo up there, so we went there most every year.  Dad used to stress a lot  trying to get all 9 kids ready and up there, but we always had a nice time when we got there.  I don't remember him having dark hair like he has in the picture above.  I guess having 9 kids must have stressed the color right out of his hair.

There was one time that Dad and Jon found a trail for us to hike.  It went to a lake, so we packed a lunch and planned to hike to the lake and enjoy the beauty as we ate our lunch and then hike back.  They picked a lake that was named "Red Lake."  Unfortunately there were no pictures of this lake, so they didn't know how "beautiful" it would be.  When we finally got up to the lake it was hideous.  I think there were cow pies all over the place and it smelled awful.  The lake was not kept up at all.  It had a bunch of algae or moss or something and looked disgusting.  We ended up going a ways away from the lake to eat our lunch.  Despite the disgusting lake, we actually had a very fun time.  As we hiked down we made up this song sung to the "Sound Off" army tune where one person leads and the rest repeat each line:

Dad and Jon they picked a trail

(Dad and Jon they picked a trail)

They led us straight down to ...

(They led us straight down to ...)

Red lake was a hiker's trap

(Red lake was a hiker's trap)

It looked and smelled like a pile of Crap!

(It looked and smelled like a pile of Crap!)

Sound Off 1, 2, 3, 4

Wow, I was a little crass back then!  :)

Dad was always very supportive of all of the missionaries from our family.  You could always tell just how much he loved his children when missionaries would come home because the moment he hugged them, he would start crying.

Dad was a good sport about things.  He often did family activities that he did not want to do because Mom wanted to do them.  The 4 girls went with mom and dad to the Oregon coast on a vacation one year.  I remember one afternoon we were just sitting on the balcony of our hotel room talking and laughing.  There were 2 different conversations going on.  I said something about boys being scared of me and then I heard dad say, "Well yeah, if all you look at are the hips."  He wasn't talking to me, but I didn't know that and it sounded like he was saying that boys were scared of me because of my enormous hips!  We laughed about that for a long time.

Pappy is a great big teddy bear.  He talks like he's all tough, but deep down, he's a softy.  I remember he asked me to teach him the basic step to a slow dance for my wedding.  When we actually started dancing, he broke down crying and didn't even try to do the dance.  I felt so special knowing that he loved me so much that it moved him to tears.

Pappy has a great sense of humor.  He's very handy and was always fixing or improving things around the house while we were growing up.  He is also a very good teacher.  He taught my Sunday School class when I was about 12 or 13 and I remember being impressed with how much he knew.  He also taught by example.  I remember him taking us to the stake peach farm several times to thin peaches while we were growing up.  He is a great man and a wonderful father.  He is one of the best examples I know of someone who has come unto Christ and allowed himself to be changed.

Thank you Daddy!  I love you!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

So Handsome!

Matthew got his first haircut on Saturday, December 27th.  When I took him in, the girl cutting his hair found that he has 5 cowlicks on his head.  She said the hair on the top at the back of his head won't ever lay flat, so the best thing to do is to cut it really short.  Bummer!!  Oh well, he was so good the whole time.   When she started to cut with the scissors, he wanted to see what she was doing and started moving his head, but I blew some bubbles for him.  He loved the bubbles and just kept laughing over and over again.  It was so cute and very helpful because it made it possible for her to finish cutting his hair.  He was so cute!

Here is his hair before it was cut!  It was so darling, but it was always falling in his face.

The first snip!

He loved the bubbles!!  It was so cute to see him laughing so much!

All done!!  Good thing aunt Jenny came and brought her camera or we wouldn't have any pictures of this momentous occasion.

Don't I look handsome!?!

Christmas Day 2008

We had a wonderful Christmas this year!  We decided to do only 3 presents per person, 1 fun, 1 practical and 1 spiritual.  That made shopping easier and it was fun to come up with ideas for each present.

We had decided to start opening presents at about 7:30 so we could be sure to be done in time to get to my parents house for the traditional breakfast which was at 9:00 this year.  Emma woke up earlier than I thought she would and was very excited to get going.  We had to wake Matthew up.  He was so tired and so cute!  Jan, Jenn, Tamara and Chris came over to do presents with us.   We had a really nice time and it was so fun to see Emma.  She really understood it this year and was so excited!

After opening presents, we went to my parents house.  While my dad and a couple of my brothers made a delicious breakfast, Daniel played with all the kids.  They all piled on him and tackled him.  Then he would do a push up and lift all the kids up and they would fall off.  It was really cute.  

After breakfast we opened presents from my parents and did the gift exchange among my brothers and sisters as well as one between all the grandchildren.  It was a lot of fun and at the end, Jon and Daniel had "special" presents for each other.  Jon gave Daniel a bunch of "Sunstate Rental" coupons as a joke because he had rented something from them instead of from us.  Then Daniel gave Jon a pair of sweat pants with Jon's company logo, "South Point Builders" in vinyl letters across the back end.  It was so funny, everyone was laughing so hard.  It was a really good joke!

Later that day, we just vegged and played with our new things.  We put the kids down early that night and watched the movie my parents gave us, "An Unlikely Mormon."  It is the conversion story of Glenn Beck and it was very funny!  We both liked it a lot!  It was a WONDERFUL day!

Matthew just after he woke up.  He was SO tired!!

Emma was so excited!  Matthew was still a little tired at this point!

Matthew didn't really get the whole opening presents thing.  He is still a little young.  He liked to pull of a piece of the wrapping paper and play with it.  He was so cute!

Daniel opening his "Graham Crackers."  It was actually his spiritual present, a scripture case.

Tamara gave Emma a play doctor set which she loved.  Here she is giving grandma a hug after opening it.

I guess he didn't like the present!   I just thought this face was so funny, I had to put it in.

Emma loved opening her presents this year and required very little help.

Daddy helping Bubbers open his "spiritual" present.  It was a "Little People" Noah's Ark play set.  Bubbers was more excited about the wrapping paper.

This was Emma's very favorite present.  It was a baby doll with a stroller, car seat, bassinet/rocking cradle, diaper bag, etc.  She loved this and played with it for hours at a time for several days after Christmas!  She still loves it and plays with it often.  It is cute to see her taking care of her little baby.

Here we are at my parents house.  All the kids are piled on Daniel and he is getting ready to do a push up.

Here is Emma opening her present from Ethan.  It was a kitty and she loved it!

Here are the South Point Builders sweat pants.  I think they were the funniest present this year!

This is Emma playing with the doctor kit that Tamara gave her.  She has played with that almost as much as she has played with her baby.  This was on Christmas night when she and daddy played "checking" for about an hour.  Daniel was so cute about it and she loved it!

Matthew with his favorite aunt!

Emma with her favorite aunt!