HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Black and orange day at school. Also our pumpkins this year... Snow White, Jasmine, Aurora and Ariel!

Happy Halloween everyone! Hope you all had as much fun as we did last night. This is just going to be a quick hello! Attached are some pictures of the kids in their costumes. Pretty cute I have to admit! I guess this means we are officially into the "holiday season"! Wow, it came quickly this year! Can't wait to see many of you at Thanksgiving later this month! Until then, take care and all our love!!!!!!!!!!!!! PS - Aren't our Disney Princess pumpkins AWESOME!! I worked hard on those!!! :)
-Amy

Just some extrea pictures!

Just a few more pictures for you - back to school and such! Don't miss my blog below!!!!

I'm BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow! Summer has already come and gone and no updates from me. Well, with three kids and random stepkids throughout the year needless to say I have been busy. I'll take you through the last through months as best I can remember..... which unfortunately is not what it used to be. June was half over before the kids even got out of school. Gotta love the schools over here - they start late and get out REALLY late with about a million unnessesary days off in between. Cameron went back to Casper to spend the summer with his mom and Chance came here to spend his last summer with us. He turned 18 on July 7 - and official adult! One down, 2 to go huh? Actually he was great this summer. I really enjoyed spending time with him and seeing how he's grown up into a pretty impressive man. He's in his senior year now and getting everything in order to go off to college next fall. He's recieved letters of interest from MIT, Harvard and Yale - SMART kid!

Elly also had birthday in July. She turned 5 on the 20th - and ever since has been asking when she will be 6! My crazy little girl had a small birthday party with a few friends and then later on in the summer her and Madyson got to enjoy a pool party that I purchased at our annual MOPS auction.

The last week of July was our "vacation". With gas at $4 a gallon it was much of a trip but we did get to spent a fun week in Montana. We went to the water park with Grandma, visited Terry's relatives in Butte, went up to the lake, and took some time to just relax. I had to give Terry a hard time when I would wake up early in the morning and he was nowhere to be found. Turns out he was down at Liquid Planet with his laptop getting "a few things done"! Work, work, work........... he deserves a break.

Chance went back to Casper in August to start football practice and Cameron was supposed to come back here. Well, he ended up convincing his mom that he should stay with her. Against our request she decided that she was going to keep him. It is so frustrating putting in all the hard work and then see it just slip away. She made many promises regarding his behavior and help for him. We have yet to see any of them put into action. Please keep Cameron in your prayers - he needs some stable role models in his life and it appears that we are not supposed to be them. He's a good boy, just getting a little lost right now. He is 12 right now and I fear for what is to come when he is 16 or 17!

Chase has been in the Wyoming Boys home for last few months. I think that most of you knew about this. If not, surprise! Just kidding. It was actually a strange answer to prayer. He had gotten in way over his head and at that point this may have been his only way out. We have been worried about him for so long! Terry received a letter from him a few weeks ago and he sounds so different. We are optimistic, yet realistic. We do realize that it is easier to say all kinds of great things than it is to actually do them. We are just hoping and praying that this change is real and that we get to see the "old" Chase again. The boy is so full of life it is devastating to see him so empty. He too can use all the prayers he can get. I will update you on his progress when I get more news.

So here we are, into September alreay. Actaully, it is almost over! WOW how time flies. The girls started school a few weeks ago. Madyson is now in 3rd grade and Elly started kindergarten. We had intended to do one more year of preschool for Elly but finances and the price of EVERYTHING continuing to go up just made that impossible. I enrolled her into a half day program at a different school since our school went to full day kindergarten this year. She is doing really well and not struggling as of yet. We intend to have her complete this year and then go ahead and put her in the full day kindergarten next year. We feel like that will be much easier on her and that she will not even feel like she is "repeating" the year as she will be at a new school (Madyson's school) with all new friends. But then again, maybe she turn out to be a super genious and just sail through this year and go staight on to high school. You never know!!! :)

Little Jordyn is doing wonderful! She's starting to talk up a strorm, repeating everything that you say. You gotta be REALLY careful theses days! Ha ha! She still pretty small - she'll be 2 in January but only wearing mostly 12 mo. clothes. She my little mini! She's healthy and strong, just petite say the doctor! She brings me incredible amounts of joy! I'm been stressing a lot lately and she seems to know just the right moment to come wrap her little arms around me and say "squeeze"! My kids are the best!

I'll be heading to Dallas on Wednesday for 5 days. I'm attending the MOPS conference and leaving Terry and the kids alone. I don't even let myself think about what they will be dressed in or what they will eat for dinner - I just want them all to be alive when I get home. I love my husband dearly and I know he will do fine, he's just not me..... But hey, so what if it's McDonalds and pizza for a week - as long as they are there to hug me when I get home I could care less! And there are worse things in the world than mismatched clothes and dirty dishes!

Hope this update finds you all happy and well. I miss you all and think about you often in my crazy, busy, wonderful life! LOVE YOU!!!

My Crazy Family

Hi everyone! Here it is, another couple months later and I'm not getting any better at updating this thing. Just thought I'd share a few photos with you all. My crazy hubby (ie Speed Racer), Elly's last day of school, Madyson and Elly's beautiful makeup job and a couple of the baby shower I threw for Marisa last month. Yes, I made that cake. Cute huh? Marisa had a beautiful, healthy baby girl on May 29th named Haley. I'll be making a trip to Montana in a couple weeks so I can get my hands on her! It's strange not being the one having the babies.

I keep hoping the weather is going to let up so we can all get out and start enjoying the sun. Not looking like that is going to happen any time soon. Hope all is well with everyone.

Just some more cute photos!

Our new baby Sebastian!! Isn't he cute! He's about 8 1/2 weeks old now and a really good boy. Make sure you read the next blog - these are just some extra pictures.......

Is Spring Finally Here???????

Well, here's to a LONG over due update!!! Wow, it's been a while. Our computer crashed at the end of January. While we were planning on getting new one we certainly weren't planning on getting it that soon. Oh well! The new one sure is nice. I think that our monitor on the other was from the 1990's! I was a big gray bubble - I actually think that it was the the one that belonged to our first (I'm talking when I was little) computer. :)

Anyway- I feel like we're officially in a new season - SPRINTER!!! This weather just won't seem to let up! A couple weeks ago it was 70 degrees on Sunday and then snowed all day on Monday! AHHHH! The gloom and darkness is really getting to me. This weekend was pretty nice. It was warmer although not really sunny. We took advantage of it and headed for the park while we could! (Pictures above) But here it is Monday morning and not looking so great out. Elly is dying to ride her bike so it looks like we might be strapping on the rain jackets and going for a ride.

The pictures are of the kids at Easter. It was SOOO early this year! Despite the frigid egg hunting weather we had fun. ( Can you tell I'm upset with the weather???? ) Elly had an egg hunt at her preschool and I, being the practical one, dressed my kids in pants and coats. I felt so sorry for the little girls in their cute little SLEEVELESS Easter dresses!

Oh, and for those of you who haven't heard the story yet - our little Elly did indeed get a haircut! Yes, in fact she gave it to herself. I was busily getting everything prepared for Madyson's birthday party the next day. I was just finishing up decorating her cake and the kids were all in the living room watching a movie quietly, or so I thought. I sent Madyson downstairs to clean up their bathroom and she says "MOM, there's a big glob of hair in the garbage!" Thinking that someone had just cleaned the brush of something I kind of brushed it off and just told her to finish up. Again "MOM, it's like a huge glob of hair!!! I walked down to the bathroom, look inside the gargabe and instantly know what it is and WHO it belonged to. I stared at LONG chunks of beautiful, dark brown hair!!! ELLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I screamed. I ran upstairs and looked at her horrified. She had chopped pretty much all of her hair, except for a long chunk in back that she simply couldn't reach, all the way up to her ears!!! Now for a long time this has been one of my worst nightmares. I had felt so fortunate that my girls had never cut their own hair. I have a friend (HI MEL!!) whose daughter's LOVE to cut their hair. She was always so calm about it and dealt with it so well. I thought that I would freak out if that ever happened. Well, it did!!!!! I took her to the mall that night to see if there was anything that could be done. I'm standing at the counter of Regis explaining to the young gal what had happened. I was in tears, Elly was in tears, the stylist was practically in tears. But, to my surprise she actually was able to make some kind of style out of it. At first I was get really sad whenever I saw her, but little by little it has began to grow on my and believe it or not, it really suites her. Her sassy little cut fits her personality to a T. It has began to grow out and it starting to look a little better (beside the lovely little fringe she cut right at her scalp in the front). I too am over it, but pray that this never happens again. She promises that if she ever wants to "look beautiful" again she will tell me first and we will take her to a lady that "knows what she is doing". Oh my Elly, the stories that I will someday have to tell her!

It's had to believe that the school year is almost over already. Madyson is doing awesome - just flying through her schoolwork and excelling in every subject. She just completed a 8 week project in her PEP program (the advanced program she attends once a week). She studied butterflies and then put together a big presentation for their learning carnival. I was really excited to help her - you all know how I LOVE BUTTERFLIES! And it turned out great. She was able to use some of the pictures from our trip to Seattle last September. We visited the Woodland Park Zoo and explored their butterfly house.

Elly has only a few weeks left of preschool and then off to FULL DAY kindergarten. Our school is the first in the district to switch to all day kindergarten. I'm sure that she is far more ready for that change than I am. I'm a little apprehensive! It seems like a long time to expect a child that age to pay attention for. And I'm not quite ready to let go either. She too is doing really well at preschool. Being one of the youngest kids in her class she had huge adjustments to make! But like I've said before, her teachers love her. She is always giving them something to smile about and I'm sure they won't forget her soon.

Cameron is living with us now. He moved back her in January. It has been an adjustment for all of us. We are all still trying to figure each other out and we have days where I want to quit, but he has made some huge progress! He has made a couple of really good friends and seems to fit in well at school. As of right now he's doing well in school. Coming from an environment that was very unstable I'm sure that all of this is just now starting to feel sort of normal to him. I wake up each more and have to remember this. I know God has a purpose for this situation - though sometimes it is hard to see past the hurt I'm feeling about it. Please pray for Cam and for our family. He is very loved yet refuses to believe it sometimes. I remember being a teenager and thinking that my parents just wanted to ruin all my fun. Turns out they really did just love me and care about my safety and well being!!!! I never would have thought that at 27 years out I'd be figuring this all out.

Jordyn started walking last month. She refused to walk for a long time. She much preferred to crawl or just be carried. I knew she could do it and then one day I guess she just decided it was time. Now she didn't just take a step or two. She literally got up from Terry's lap and walked all the way across the room to me! Now she is all over the place and getting into everything! But she is so stinkin cute that most of the time we just laugh when she gets into the snack cupboard (that happens to have a broken child latch) and pulls EVERYTHING out onto the floor. We had some fig newtons in there and she loved them. She would pull everything out, find the newtons and walk aroung with the bag until someone opened it up and gave one to her. In the pictures she was playing peek-a-boo with the flower. She would laugh and hide her face and then I would say "Peek-a-boo" and she would pop her chubbly little face out and laugh even more. She is a sweet baby and I am having so much fun with her. I am sad that she is no longer a little baby but I'm cherishing every moment I have with her and each new little milestone that she hits. She's cutting her top molars right now and has been a little cranky - but hey, who wouldn't be!

Well, I'm sure that's long enough for everyone. Hopefully it won't be another 3 months before I post an update but with 4 kids I guess you never know. We love and miss you all!!!! Keep in touch!

-Amy and Family

Happy Birthday Baby Jordyn!

My baby girl is one!!! Yesterday we celebrated Jordyn's 1st birthday. Definitely a bittersweet day for me - she's developing into such a sweet little girl but each day she's also becoming less and less of a baby. We had a little party for her and some of our good friends were able to make it. She loved the balloons and presents often sticking her head inside of the gift bag to see what was in there. The time that our children are so small goes by all too fast. I cherish every moment with her and as I rocked her to sleep last night I thanked God for this precious gift. She will someday grow up but she will always be my baby girl. Happy Birthday Jordyn! I love you!

My year in review....

Well, hard to believe that another year has ended and a new one is just beginning. My family and I are finally starting to settle back into a somewhat "normal" rountine of daily life, though most people who know me would hardly define my crazy, busy, chaotic life as anything but normal. We had a nice Christmas here at home. We went to Montana for Thanksgiving knowing that we would be spending here. Our New Year's Eve celebration was pretty mild. We went to our friend's house and stayed until Jordyn had reached her limit. We were playing guys vs. girls at Catchphrase and I'm sad to report that the girls were defeated (pretty badly actually!) But, we did have a great time there. Madyson and Elly are both back at school and thriving. Madyson is still doing extremely well. Elly and has really gotten into the swing of school and her teachers are always telling me how much they enjoy her and her enthuseism for life. My baby girl Jordyn will be celebrating her 1st birthday on Sunday. We are having a little party for her with our friends. I'll be sure to post pictures of her cute little face covered in cake for you all to see. One again I am just so amazed at how the year has flown by.
Looking back at 2007 we had had some of the best and worst experiences in our lives. In January we welcomed our beautiful baby girl into the world and she has since filled our lives with more joy than we could have possibly imagined. Terry's job is going well, although stressful!!! His store is growing and growing and growing which makes for a lot more work to accomplish with the same amount of employees to do it. I am so grateful and blessed to have such a great husband who works so hard so that I am able to stay home and raise our children. It has been a sacrifice but absolutely worth it!!! We are excited to see where Norco will take us next! Elly started school this year and loves it (though she doesn't enjoy waking up to get ready to go- yes, she's definitely her mommy's girl!) Madyson was placed in an advanced learning program and I just read her assessment for the year so far - shiny and perfect!! (I know I'm biased - but I swear, she's a genious! Right Grandma Lori???) Terry and I have had our stuggles with some tough things that have happened to our family this year, but through the trials, tears and pain we have learned to lean on and depend on each other more than ever. We appreciate all your prays and ask you to continue. Things seem to be nearing an end though it is still a daily stuggle. But God is so amazing! I have seen Him work miracles. He has taken situations that seemed so hopeless and turn them into some of my lifes greatest blessings. You don't always know what He is doing, but..... HE ALWAYS KNOWS WHAT HE IS DOING!!! Put your trust in Him and he will never forsake you. I love you all and send you best wishes for a wonderful 2008!!!