a.i., race for the cure, and little j

Congrats to Kris! I was actually really surprised when they made the announcement last night. I still wanted Kris to win but was a tiny bit bummed for Adam. I'm excited for Kris though! I loved how completely shocked he was by the results!! What am I going to do on Tuesday and Wednesday nights now that A.I. is over?? Hercules is probably happy to get his wife back!


Life has been pretty crazy around our house lately. It has all been good, just busy. Here is a little update on what has been going on (and some cute pictures of Little J, of course)!

Hercules and I both got new callings. I am still on the Enrichment Committee but am also a primary teacher for CTR5. I LOVE it!!! The kids in my class are SO ADORABLE! Seriously! I LOVE teaching them. I love preparing the lessons. I love to see them at Church and during the week. They are SO CUTE and say the best things during the lessons. Hercules was released as an Elders Quorum teacher and called to be the EQ president. He was feeling really overwhelmed until he was set apart. (The power of the priesthood!) He has great counselors and is really loving it. Now he just hopes he can learn everyone's names! :)

A friend in our ward, Jenifer, was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year. She is now going through chemo therapy. She put together a team for The Race for the Cure. I joined, along with a few other friends in the ward.

Jenifer is amazing and is an inspiration to all of us.

Her sister is also amazing! She flew in from Texas, just for the race. And she shaved her head. How cool is she? I thought about it and decided I would totally shave my head for my sister! :)

They had a "Survivors Parade" after the race. All of the breast cancer survivors walked and gathered up on the steps at the Gateway. I got a little teary. There were some who were so young and some old. I just couldn't imagine all they had gone through.

I ran into one of my dear friends, Sandra Thorne. She is an 8-year breast cancer survivor. I had been looking for her all morning and finally ran into her at the Trax station on our way home. I had even written her name on my list of people I was walking for that day.

It was a great day and fun to spend time with some friends from the ward. We went out to lunch after so it was fun to have girl time!

Here is Little J getting his first trim. We can't even call it a hair cut. Granny just trimmed around his ears a little bit because his hair was getting so long there. This picture was taken on April 13th and he is probably ready for a real hair cut now but we'll wait a little longer. Isn't his face so cute?!


Here is sweet baby Parker on the day he was born. He is such a sweet little thing. I got to babysit him for about an hour the other day and it was like a little piece of Heaven! He is such a good baby.

As you can tell, Little J was THRILLED that his baby cousin had finally come into the world! They are going to be buddies.


Hercules took Little J and Hailie for a ride on the 4-wheeler and they all loved it! Little J had so much fun and kept grabbing the handle bars. (Hercules was so proud of his son!)



Hercules and I LOVE any cuddle time we get with Little J. He has been feeling a little sick lately (teething, cold) so he seems to cuddle more. We take advantage of every cuddle opportunity we can!



My family had a get-together and Little J was loving the puppy. He wanted to touch it and play with it but would get a little scared if she got too close.

I don't know what Kaleb stepped on but he got little stickers all over his foot. He seemed to think it was more cool than anything else!

Oh man! I remember when I was young I used to LOVE playing on the merry-go-round. I must be getting old because just watching all these kids made me sick! (Spencer and Lantz were pushing them and I totally thought they were all going to fall off!)

Here we are getting ready for CAKE! Look at all those kids and their cute faces! I just love all of my nieces and nephews so much!


Little J has been climbing all over everything lately! He is still moving and crawling around like crazy! He has been pulling himself up on anything he can. Sometimes he uses his teeth to help! That must be the reason he already has EIGHT teeth!!! (His top 4 and his bottom middle 2 have come in. 2 more on the bottom are coming and are about half-way in now!) When he tries to climb the stairs he pulls himself up first, then he bites the stair with his teeth and tries to pull his knee up. It is hilarious!



So ... life is good. It's GREAT, actually! We are all happy and love our life together as a little family. Oh, and we are SO loving this summer sunshine!!!!

adam or kris

Only a couple more hours until the a.i. finale!!! YAY!! I am way excited! I hope and think Kris will win!!! Don't get me wrong, I DO like Adam. I think he is amazingly talented. I always look forward to his performances because they are always amazing. BUT - I like Kris more. I love his style of music. I would buy his cd. I think he seems like a cool, genuine guy. A few weeks ago I thought Adam would win no matter who was in the finale with him. But last week, after Danny got voted off, I decided that I think Kris will win because more of Danny's fans will vote for Kris than Adam.

So ... GO KRIS!!!!!

adam & danny VS. adam & kris

I am totally torn about a.i. right now. What about you? Adam and Danny have always been my favorites, but lately I've been liking Kris a lot too. (I loved Allison and was sad to see her go last week, but I would have been sad about any of them.) Adam is undeniably talented. Hercules doesn't like him but I always tell him that he can't deny his talent. I love his voice when he doesn't scream. Oh, and when he doesn't stick out his tongue. He is amazing and I feel like every performance of his could be in his own show. Does that make sense? I just feel like he is already a rock star! I think he is the "most ready" contestant they have ever had. So Adam is already in the finale. I just need to figure out who I hope is with him. Last night at the beginning of the show I had decided that I wanted it to be Adam and Danny in the finale next week ..... that is UNTIL Kris was so freakin' cool and did "Heartless". Because seriously. Heartless??? When I heard that was the song he chose my jaw dropped open and I thought it was over for him. I thought we were going to see Kris actin' all yo-yo-rap-ish on the stage. Haha! I was dying! But then he started and I LOVED it! How cool is he??? Now I'm torn. One minute I want Adam and Kris in the finale. The next minute I want Adam and Danny because I feel like I need to be loyal to Danny, having liked him the whole time, you know? The thing is that I think Danny is amazingly talented, and the story about his wife always pulls at my heart. But I have NO IDEA what kind of album he would make and that bugs me a little because I feel like at this point in the competition we NEED to know what kind of album he is going to make. Kris has done a great job at being artistic and showing his style ... and I'm pretty sure I would want to buy his album. So. It's decided. I hope Kris and Adam are in the finale next week.

blessed life photo

CONFESSION: I didn't take the beautiful pictures that were posted in my MS Walk post below. My sister did! Julie. She is A.MAZ.ING. In every area of her life! Seriously. I remember when we were in the singles ward together (back in the day!) and a few people asked me if my sister was "for real" because "how could someone really be like that"??? Well, she is "for real"! She is the PERFECT sister! I told her I want to live by her so I can watch her and then try to copy every little thing she does! She's the best! And she takes GREAT pictures! You should check out her blog: BLESSED LIFE PHOTO. You can see different pictures she has taken: black and white, babies, weddings, families, children, etc. She is the one who took the pics of Little J when he was about 2 weeks old. She also took pictures of our family for us to send out as Christmas cards. Feel free to contact her so she can take pics of you and yours! I can promise that you won't be disappointed. :)
(By the way. Julie did NOT ask me to do this! I just thought I should let you know that it wasn't ME who took the pics below that a few of you commented about. And I wanted to let you know that she DOES take pics for others - just in case anyone is interested.)

movie review

Under the Greenwood Tree. Have you seen it? I loved it! Who knew that 2 people washing their hands in the same basin could ever be SO ROMANTIC??!!

the ms walk

I am finally blogging about the MS Walk. Thanks for being interested in it and asking how it turned out. Let me just say that it was amazing! Hercules and I were so grateful for everyone's support. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! We appreciated the cash donations, the donated items (clothing, baked goods, plants, bikes, household items, etc.) for us to sell at the MS Garage Sale, the HELP at the garage sale, those who came and walked with us, and mostly your interest and good luck wishes! We are so happy to be surrounded by such wonderful family and friends.

The Walk was on April 11, 2009 and was held at The Gateway. It was supposed to be a rainy day but instead it turned out to be perfect weather for a 3.5 mile walk! (Special THANKS to Hercules' parents for watching Little J for us. We didn't bring him because we thought he would be miserable in the rain. He probably would have loved being out there with everyone but instead he was showered with love and attention from his Grandma and Grandpa!)


BEFORE THE WALK!
Check out this crowd! It gets bigger each year and we loved being there with all those people. It is such an inspiring feeling.

Here we are, creating our individualized "I Walk Because ..." t-shirts:













These Star Wars guys show up every year. The kids LOVE it!

After check-in everyone eats breakfast and then gets to hang out with each other, waiting for the Walk to begin.

















THE WALK!











Granny was there to welcome us back after our 3.5 mile walk!


The home stretch!!








People lined the sidewalks before AND after the Walk to cheer us on! I have to admit it was hard not to get all teary at the end of the Walk. People were standing there holding big signs that said "Thank You" and also the year they were diagnosed with MS. THEY are who we were walking for and why we worked so hard to raise money for the National MS Society.


Here is our awesome team: Team MS: Mystery Solved!!! (We had a professional pic taken that day but it hasn't shown up on the website yet, so this is what you get.) We had 44 team members! All of them weren't able to make it to the Walk but we really appreciate everything they did to make it such a success ... and SO MUCH FUN!! Together our team raised $3,286. Pretty amazing, hu?!


So .... we'll see you at next year's Walk?????????