Mattie is 7! :)

Last Monday was a busy day!!! Mattie had her 1st grade Christmas program. Her class sang a really cute gospel version of Jingle Bells:

Mattie looked really cute!!! She was so excited about her program...she'd been talking about it for about a month. I'm glad it went well!

After the program, Thomas and I went to Mattie's classroom for a class reception!

Once we got home, it was time to celebrate Mattie's b-day...a few days early. We decided to have her family party for Family Home Evening! 2 days early :)

We had the table all set with the fancy tablecloth and fancy dishes! We had one of Mattie's favorites...Chicken Stoganoff!

After dinner, we let Mattie open her presents! Then it was time for birthday cake an ice cream! YUM!!! Can't believe Mattie is turning 7!!! :)

We have had other excitement at the house this past week...

We finally had a tadpole turn into a frog!!!!

Wow, was that an exciting day!!!

Out of all those tadpoles we caught way back when we only had one turn into a frog!!!

I hadn't expected this science project to drag out for months!! We had a few tadpoles start to grow legs, but then they'd die. This is the lucky sole survivor!!!

Mattie got another fun early birthday present. Monday night when she came to kiss me goodnight, she announced that she sort of had a wiggly tooth! Tuesday afternoon, when I got back from the store, Mattie had NO TOOTH!! She wanted fairy dust from Tooth Fairy!

Boys will be boys!!!

My boys were in 7th Heaven when Andrew splurged on two sword and armour sets for them to share! It's been crazy at our house every since...well just a little more than usual! :)

On Sunday, we as a family, went with Edd to his High Council speaking assignment! We drove about two hours to Thibodaux and Houma. Both Edd and I spoke. Bethany played a Christmas medley on her violin. After church was over, we were invited to stay for their ward dinner! That was sure a treat!!! Some good Cajun cooking! :) We had some gumbo, "cornbread casserole," along with some other yummy things!

On our way home, we stopped to take a picture of this really neat old house. It was about 2 miles down the road from the church.

The owner was out working in the yard so Edd asked him if we could take some pictures. We also asked about the house. They started building it in 1895--the year Grandpa Ray was born! They finished it five years later. The house has stayed in the family all those years!! Pretty neat!! But lots of work apparently! :)

OOPS!!!

We had a BIG OOPS at our house the other day!

Andrew let his curiosity get the better of him...there was an orange power cord hanging down from the lights that must have been screaming..."ANDREW GRAB ME and PLAY WITH ME!!!" Because that's exactly what Andrew did.

I tried to tell him to stop, but I was too late...all of the sudden, the lights started to fall off the roof!!! Andrew and I watched in horror!!! Luckily, only a section of lights fell off and not all of them!!!


This is how the house looked before the accident...BEAUTIFUL!

Unfortunately, I'm afraid of heights. I tried several times to climb up the big ladder, giving myself a pep-talk the whole time. But I could only get up half way. I decided that if I put the ladder up by the garage, instead of by the front door, it wouldn't be so bad because it's not as high, but same story...could only get up about half way.

So I called Andrew back outside. Since he's the one who made the lights fall down, I figured he should be the one to get them back up. Andrew climbed the ladder just fine, but he couldn't get the lights to stay put. He gave up.

PLAN B...have Bethany try! Bethany had no problem climbing the ladder and decided to start by the front door to get the highest part out of the way first. She got the lights to stay and we slowly moved around the corner and over to the garage. We were feeling pretty good about ourselves and were almost done! We had about 2 feet of lights left to hang when the unthinkable happened...the lights all fell off AGAIN!!!!!

It was too late to try again so we cleaned everything up and went inside. Edd had hoped to hang the lights on Saturday, but it just rained and rained and rained!!! If you haven't heard, I think we got about 14 inches of rain this weekend. Maybe this weekend Edd will get the lights back up...or Bethany may beat him too it...she hates not having them up, but has been too busy studying for finals to try again.

"Watch out for the "SWOG," Mattie!"

Well, in the rush of things, I've fallen a little behind on my blog...

We had a very fun Thanksgiving! We drove 8 hours up to Austin to be with Edd's side of the family. The kids were soooo excited to see their cousins again!!!

They were in heaven!!! Out of the 20 grandkids, we had 16 of them running around...good times!!! :)

Thanksgiving weekend provided plenty of good times!!! Football, baseball, kickball, slumber parties, playing on the nearby school playground, going to the park, Cabela's and just plain goofing off were some of the things we did! :)








All the cousins who came for Thanksgiving! :)









We had our 2nd annual Burrito Hike...this time all the hiking was with the football. After all the breakfast burritos were devoured, we had our own family football scrimmage.

Allison, Aimee, Mattie & Zoey ready for their slumber party! :)

Checking out Grandpa's new truck! :)

Edd's grandma wasn't feeling well so that was hard, but the BIG KIDS went over to her house to keep her company for many hours of watching football! :)

Another fun tradition, Edd's mom lets the kids go fishing Thanksgiving night! Each year she has a fun ornament for each grandchild! This year the boys got homemade snowmen and the girls got homemade kittens!

The next weekend, (last weekend) we received a fun surprise...
SNOW!!!!!!

We had heard that it had been snowing in TEXAS all day long. The kids were hoping that we'd get some too! It didn't snow until 10pm Friday night. Andrew had planned on staying up all night, if he had to, to see the snow! Luckily, it came on the early end!!!

Mattie & Thomas were already asleep, but the Andrew & Aimee woke them up so they wouldn't miss out on the excitement!!! Mattie & Thomas went back to sleep and Bethany, Andrew & Aimee went outside to play in the snow!!

IT IS REALLY SNOWING!!! :)

Aimee and Andrew tried catching the BIG FLUFFY FLAKES in their mouths!

They threw snowballs!

They made snow angels!

They played with friends too!!!

We went over to play with the Whipple kids! They just live in the neighborhood across the road from ours!

The next morning, this is how our house looked...

Mattie and Thomas were so excited to see that we still had snow!






















Mattie ran out and made her own little "snow" ball!














When it was all said and done, we got about an inch of snow...the snow storm lasted about an hour and so did our snow fun!


We were glad we got some snow to help get us in the mood for Christmas! Edd spent his Saturday putting up icicle lights around our house! It looked really nice when he was done! :)

So today, Sunday the 13th day of December, Thomas was telling Mattie that she needed to watch out for the "SWOG!" Mattie asked him what a swog is. Thomas said that it is a monster that will eat you, so you need to be careful!

They had a big conversation about what a SWOG is and how you say it and if it is real and if it will really eat you...Thomas was convinced that a SWOG IS REAL and HE WILL GET YOU!!!

I just asked Thomas what a SWOG is, as he was headed up the stairs to bed. He replied, "It is a dinosaur that sleeps all day."

Hmmm...so this morning one of the creature pictures we looked at on our morning Google image hunt had a sloth along with a bunch of other dinos...why a sloth was with the dinos I really don't know.

Anyway, Thomas asked it was sloth and that it was a creature that sleeps all day. So I'm thinking that the SWOG is Thomas' version of a sloth...mixed with a little mythical creature background. Andrew loves watching the mythical creature shows on TV and of course Thomas watches them too!

What a fun imagination!!! Thomas also told us that Missy, our dog, was his dad. He talked it about it all day long!!! Tonight, Edd was questioning him about where his tail was, etc. Thomas told him that Missy was going to give her tail to him and she'd get a new one. He'd also take her fuzzy ears!!! FUNNY BOY!!

When Thomas was done, he stood up, told everyone goodnight, kissed us all and went straight to bed!!! That is amazing!!! :)

Oak Alley

Tuesday, Edd and I took Aimee and Mattie to go see "Oak Alley" one of the neat plantation houses along the Mississippi River!

In the front of Oak Alley are Virginia Live Oak trees that were planted in the 1700's! The trees are amazing!!!

We learned some interesting things on the tour, like back in the 1800's the men were only about 5'4'' so the table and chairs were quite a bit lower to the ground! We saw a working "shoe fly" and learned what it was used for! When the boys turned 15, they had to move out of the family house, but they lived in their own little house on the family's property.

"Oak Alley" was a sugarcane plantation. Cotton doesn't grow in our area, the climate is too wet!!!! Sugarcane is a tropical crop and does well where we live! You see it growing everywhere...looks a lot like corn growing. It's nice to know something besides mosquitoes like the humid climate where we live! :)

Bethany's claim to fame

Bethany, our eldest child, is once again honing her musical skills. About a month ago, we found Bethany a classical violin teacher.

Bethany started taking fiddle lessons in first grade from our good friend, Tonya Hopkins. Fiddle lessons continued on for about 5 1/2 years. Bethany enjoyed fiddling!!!

Once middle school started, Bethany decided, with the help of her parents of course, that she should pursue her musical talent and join the Riverwood Middle School orchestra. Bethany played with the orchestra for two years and was also in the region orchestra her last year in middle school.

After the big move, Bethany tried out for the Northshore Philharmonia orchestra, one of the Greater New Orleans Youth Orchestras. The director gave recommended a lady named Lauren Miller as possible teacher for Bethany.

Well, Bethany is now a student of Lauren Miller! She is a very good teacher!!! After Bethany's first lesson, she recommended that we get Bethany a new violin...better quality=better sound. A few weeks ago, Edd took Bethany to pick out her violin. She also got to pick out a bow, they are all different, you know...we sure didn't, but are learning very quickly!!!

Bethany picked out a very old, but very nice sounding violin! If I can sneak a picture of her with it I'll post it. I'll even try to post a clip of her playing/practicing! :)

Anyway, last week I took Bethany back to the violin shop so she could pick out a few more bows to try out. Her teacher thought she needed to try a few more. While we were at the shop, a lady came in. The owner of the shop, Keith Davis, told Bethany that this lady, Joan Davis, could make her famous! Turns out she is editor for The Daily Star newspaper! She'd come to the shop to write an article about Keith Davis. She took a few shots of Bethany while she was trying out different bows.

This week when I went to pay for the bow that Bethany had picked out, Mr Davis had a surprise for me...he handed me a newspaper and it had Bethany's picture on the front page!!!

I thanked him for the paper! He had saved it for us! What a fun surprise! I put the paper in Bethany's violin case. Later that night, I asked her to make sure I had purchased the right bow. A few minutes later she came back grinning ear to ear holding the paper!!! :)

SIDE NOTE: It's kind of funny....I'd gone into Mr Keith Davis' store a few months ago to get all our violins restrung when Aimee and Mattie started their violin lessons at school. The whole time I was in the shop, I kept thinking to myself how much Keith reminded me of my dad!!!

Well, when Edd and Bethany went to pick out her violin, the came back home and said the same thing! They could be brothers!!!! They look quite a bit alike and have very similar personalities!

picture of the day

Some people like to post their picture of the day. Thomas is a little different! He likes to print a picture each day! This is the one he chose today. It only took 15 minutes and 14 google pages of hippo pictures to find this one! (RECORD TIME!!!)

Every morning after the kids leave, when I sit down at the computer to check email, Thomas runs over! He climbs up onto the desk as he asks, "Can you print me a __________?"
Once all the pictures come, Thomas carefully looks at the thumbnails of each picture. If he likes one, he says, "Make that one big!" He then inspects the BIG picture to see if it meets his critera for the day. If it doesn't, he'll say, "Nah, not that one!" and we move on. Finally, we find the lucky picture and I hear, "Print that one!"

But we're not done there, we have to copy it, paste it into word and make it as big as we can before we can print!

Usually I have to print dinosaurs, but occasionally we look at Thomas' other favorites! The trickiest thing I've had to look up is a "fire T rex!" But, I quickly learned the "fire T rex" is one of the characters from Andrew's DS game, "FOSSIL FIGHTERS!" It took me a couple of days to figure this out though.

This activity is a good nap guide: sometimes I'll doze (not on purpose) while Thomas is inspecting each of the thumbnails. When Thomas is ready to look at the next page he'll say, "OK, go to the next one!" If he has to tell me 2-3 times before I react, I know I'm tired.

The other day, I was sooo tired, that I didn't react at all!!! Then I heard Thomas say, "WAKE UP, MOMMA!!!" But I couldn't respond until he'd said it a few times!!! I should've gone right then to take a nap!!!

Thomas jumping :)

This is how we spent our Friday night! Edd took Aimee and Mattie sailing with a friend from work. B was at a football game. I was home with the boys. Thomas ended up performing for quite a while. After jumping, he did dino imitations!!! Funny kid!!! :)

I don't know what the blue guy is that he is talking about...hmmmm?????

Some October Highlights...

Nearly every morning after the big kids head off to school, Thomas wants me to play
"CARNATOR!"

We hop up onto my bed and pretend we are dinosaurs and battle each other.

We started playing
"CARNATOR" hmmm....maybe a year ago??? It's been so long, I can't remember!!! I know we used to play it at the old house all the time, so it has been awhile!

Playing "CARNATOR" came about one day when Thomas was at the stage in his life when he was transitioning from trains to dinosaurs.

One day, Thomas watched Disney's "DINOSAUR" movie. He was hooked!!! He watched that movie over and over and over and over and over again!!!
His favorite part of the movie is at the end when Aladar fights the carnator and the carnator falls off the cliff!

So one day, Thomas wanted to play "CARNATOR." We have been playing ever since! :)

Occasionally, we add a few variations. Thomas will be a T-rex, like in this picture above or he will be an egg, like in the picture below. Today he was a triceratops and he stabbed me in the guts with his horns and killed me...I was a carnator.

What a cute dinosaur you might think, but when he hatches, he's usually a mean t-rex ready to attack!

One morning he was a baby longneck and he rode on my back...I was Momma longneck.

Most of the time Thomas hatches out as a t-rex, which is his favorite dinosaur right now!






A week ago, Friday, we had a little predicament...Bella was up on our roof!!! The kids called me out to come see.

Sure enough, she was sitting on the peek just above the front door, right on the point!

Just imagine a black kitty sitting on the point above the door and you'll get the picture! :)

I told the kids that Bella would be fine and she'd be able to get down since she got up...at least that's what I thought!

The kids were not convinced and Andrew proceeded to pull out the ladder and put it by the window, by the door. He climbed up, but couldn't reach her since he was on our 6 foot ladder and Bella was up about 12 feet.

I was trying to make dinner and told everyone that if Bella was still on the roof when Edd got home we'd send him up with the big ladder.

Well, a short time ladder I took this picture...
When Edd got home, the kids swarmed him and they all told him their version of the problem, all at once of course!

Edd thought that Bella would be able to get down by herself, but the kids insisted that she couldn't and that she was scared because she kept meowing.

So Edd got the big extension ladder and up he went. Sure enough, Bella was one scared kitty!!! Edd scooted up the steep roof and grabbed Bella! Yeah!!!
She was rescued, almost..................................

PROBLEM!!!

How do you climb down a ladder one handed with a scared kitty???

SOLUTION ~

You climb down two handed! After tossing scared kitty down into the blanket anxiously awaiting below, which was being held by all of us to help break her fall.

Well, it sounded great!!! But the execution wasn't so great. Bella's fall was broken sure enough, but not by the blanket.

Instead, she broke her fall on my head!!! I was standing right below the corner that stuck out, which is where Edd tossed Bella down from. Only problem was that it was dark outside and I couldn't see the scared BLACK kitty falling right towards my face!!!

Luckily the damage was minimal...I had a split, fat lip and a cut on my shoulder where a claw got me and Bella had a crushed ego. She was really sweet, almost timid the rest of the night!


The next morning the kids had fun outside for a little while~they were trying to teach Mattie how to roller blade.

It was one of our first cool mornings, but the kids thought it was FREEZING!!! The raided the coat closet and went back outside!

It was only about 53 outside!

In a few weeks, the kids will think 53 is warm and will be playing outside without jackets!

Later that night, Edd and I ventured into New Orleans for a company dinner. I hadn't thought it was THAT cold, so I didn't take a sweater or a jacket with me.

When we got into New Orleans, the wind was blowing some and everyone was all bundled up!!! I had a few second thoughts, but I was fine...it really wasn't cold, just cool...it felt nice! :)

Edd and I had dinner at Brennan's! One of the guys working at the refinery was having his farewell dinner. He and his family are heading to Canada for their next assignment.

Edd and I got to New Orleans a little early so we had a chance to walk around. It was pretty fun! We saw a couple who had just gotten married just before they went and marched in their "second line parade!" I think that's what it's called. We were about a block away from their parade, but could see the umbrellas! We also looked in some windows at a few different art shops...pretty amazing stuff! :)

As we walked up to Brennan's, we saw the same guy playing the trombone, who we'd seen on the 4th of July!!! I think he was even in the same spot!!!

Once we were in Brennan's, I over heard a cute old couple speaking FRENCH! I thought that was pretty cool!!! That was the first time I'd heard anyone down here speak French!


A week ago Sunday, was FREEZING COLD!!!! It was 42 outside and in my book that is COLD!!! In fact, out of all the places where we have family living, we were the coldest!!! The crazy thing was that SLC and Boulder, CO were the warmest that morning!!!

When we got home from church, Mattie took my picture! If you look closely, you can see the red line on my lip from Bella! Just below my left front tooth.
After we ate, we all put on warmer clothes and went for a Sunday drive.

Edd was hoping to find a really cool, typical Louisiana landscape for us to get a family picture.

We saw a lot of beautiful areas, some very typical...swamp area with big oak with tons of Spanish moss...but the lighting wasn't quite right.

When we got back to Madisonville, we went over to the Tchefuncte River and tried to get some pictures there.

It is so tricky to get 5 kids to cooperate all at the very same time!!! Thomas ended up being quite the clown! If you haven't seen Edd's picture of the kids from last Sunday, you should go check it out on his blog at http://www.eddzphotojournal.blogspot.com/ (look at entry Family Picture - Outtake #237 ) we were all laughing pretty hard after that one!!! It was totally a Thomas moment!

AND THE ANSWER IS....

So a while back, like last summer, I posted a poll on who Thomas looks like....

EDD (when he was little)

ANDREW

WALTER

THOMAS

So when I was picking these pictures tonight to upload, the kids were asking who they were...they thought Edd was Walter or maybe Thomas. The other day, I showed the picture of Andrew to Thomas and asked him who it was. Thomas smiled and said that it was THOMAS!!! Sure looks like him!!! But it's actually Andrew when he was 4! Thomas will be 3 1/2 Oct 21st so he's almost the same age as Andrew in the picture.

Thomas has been having fun with the kids at home. They had Friday off. We colored ghosts to put out into the yard. We went to Wal-Mart and the kids picked out their pumpkins. When we got home, we went for a QUICK swim! Thomas had been dying to go swimming for about 2 weeks now. It had been so hot all week, still in the lower 90's and upper 80's so I told Thomas we'd squeeze it in. That we did! The kids were only in the pool for about 20 minutes when a storm blew in and it started to rain.

Today, I told Thomas that in a few months, he can start going to PRIMARY! He seemed excited about that. He still doesn't like Nursery much. I was able to walk him in today and find him a chair, then I left! He usually begs me to stay, but not today! I was surprise! Tonight he asked if it was a church night (the kids were talking about it being a school night earlier). When I told him it wasn't, he was SO RELIEVED!!! He doesn't like going to church much.

Today, during the opening prayer, Thomas was laying in Aimee's lap. She'd been giving him some "scoose bumps." All of the sudden, he started fake snoring and wouldn't stop!!! I put my hand over his mouth and he kept sawing those logs!!! He had the bench in back of us giggling and Andrew's friend, Connor, was trying so hard not to laugh out loud too! He was sitting on the bench in front of us!

After the opening prayer, I put Thomas in my lap. He started sniffing and said, "I smell animals!" while he kept sniffing. Bethany, who I think was horrified by the whole situation, offered to take Thomas out and scooped him up almost before I could answer. There's no telling what would've happened next if B hadn't taken him out. WHAT A FUNNY KID!!! :)

A few weeks ago, Thomas cleaned up all his dinosaurs when I asked him. When he was all done, I thanked him for cleaning them up. He responded with this, "Yah, I'm cool cuz I'm almost big!"

Pretty funny little guy! :)

I guess Thomas is really growing up. The other day, he asked me what I was going to do when he goes off to school. If I put him into pre-school, that would be next year. That's kindof sad, almost the end the little kid era. It's sad to think that my babies are all growing up, but on the other hand, I'm a little excited to have some free time! Maybe even the house will stay cleaner because everyone will be old enough to put things away, RIGHT???

It's Autumn Time!

Well, nothing like pressure to post...just typed the title and somehow after I hit "enter," it posted!!! So for those who are looking at this right now, SO SORRY! I'll have something a little more exciting ASAP!!! :) Sunday afternoon, Sept 27th

So here we go...

Last Sunday was High Council Sunday and we all went with Edd to the Jefferson Ward. Edd had asked Bethany and me to speak with him. As we were crossing the bridge, Thomas said, "This is a BIG BRIDGE!!!" I looked out the window for the next mile marker to see how far we were and a few minutes later, there it was...MILE 11~so we were just barely half way!

Driving into New Orleans is always an adventure! Edd was following the directions from our GPS and said they were totally different than the directions he'd gotten from mapquest....hmmm. When the GPS announced that we should enter the roundabout Edd was not happy!!! Luckily, the exit we needed was open and we went on our merry way, unlike the last time we had to use the roundabout! :)

The Jefferson Ward meets in a church building that is really little but the congregation was a good size. We were very surprised to see some familiar faces at church!!! Bro & Sis Stansel, from the Kingwood Stake, were there. They are serving their mission in this area! Another missionary knew us too!!! Elder Davis, walked in and came over to say hi!!! He is Brittany's little brother, Miles! Brittany is married to Joe~one of Edd's brothers.

This is a picture of Elder Davis and Edd in the back of the chapel.


Sunday afternoon was NAP TIME!!! After working hard to get some good pictures of the kids, Edd sat down for a minute in the papasan. Well that minute turned into quite a few minutes!



















Later, Sunday night, I put Thomas in the papasan after his bath and ran upstairs to get his clean clothes. When I got back downstairs, Thomas was fast asleep! Edd told me a few weeks ago that once you sit in the papasan, you can't help falling asleep!


















I have had loads (hee hee) of fun doing laundry with my new washer and dryer! :) The red makes me so happy! :) Thomas has always loved to help me with the laundry. But this week we had a little problem with some shrinkage...




OPPSSS!!! What happened??? :)


Friday night, Edd and I were in Best Buy and I saw the exact washer and dryer, except in WHITE. I'm so glad I got RED!!! :)



It's AUTUMN TIME! :)

Tuesday, September 22nd was a special day!!! It was the first day of Autumn! It was also my Grandpa's birthday...he would be 114 this year if he was still alive. He turned 100 the year that Bethany was born. He was 103 when he died, just after Andrew was born.


Grandpa was a special man! He was always happy to see us when we came to visit and greeted each of us with a smile and a kiss! :)

I loved it when I was a little girl, he'd give me super long horsey rides on his foot...he must have had super strong legs because I could only do it for a few seconds with my kids!

I loved his treat drawer in the kitchen...he'd ususally let us pick something when we'd come over! Sometimes he had petrified marshmellows...which were the BEST!!! Most the time it was licorice...black is my favorite. Sometimes he'd treat us to blackcherry floats!!! YUM YUM YUM!!! One time he gave me a box of powdered doughnuts, what a treasure!!! :) But, unfortunately, I couldn't keep them...that's another story.

I loved it when Grandpa would push me really high in his swing! I felt like I could touch the sky! :) He was always whistling some tune while he pushed me!

I loved looking at Grandpa's worms in his worm box! Grandpa even tried to teach me to fish. What patience he had trying to teach me to cast. Over and over again, I'd get my line stuck in a tree and he'd untangle it and let me try again!

I loved all the family outing we had. Picnics and pingpong out on the patio with all the cousins...which wouldn't be right with out the "orange water!" Grandpa liked his TANG on the mild side! :)

One time Grandpa even showed me the wooden oxen he had in his garage, which he'd used when he went on the commemerative Pioneer Trek.

Grandpa was a great example! :)

Autumn came to our neighborhood with a big splash! We had a HUGE downpour!!! It only rained for about an hour, but we got tons of water! It flooded the backyard and filled the ditches! The kids couldn't resist having a little water fun!

Thomas was so cute...he came running up to me and said, "Don't worry, we are watching out for snakes!"

Can he read my mind or what!!! I had just been thinking about snakes!

SWEET SEPTEMBER :)

So far we have had a SWEET SEPTEMBER! :)

We have been blessed with "COOL" temperatures...low 90's and upper 80's.

One of these nice cool mornings Thomas and I went to the Mandeville Tammany Trace Trailhead park, where playgroup was for that week.

I was surprised to see these beautiful leaves there! Most of our trees still just have a little hint of orange.

Thomas had so much fun at the park that he insisted that we take the kids there.

So Labor Day morning we went back and played. The kids had a great time! :)

One of the things we are most excited about is FOOTBALL! :) We caught the tail end of BYU's first game against OU, and they actually won!!! Wow!!! The kids had fun watching and were hooked! So we got tickets for the BYU vs Tulane game, which we had such a good time at!

Aimee and Mattie had their beauty shop open. Edd was a lucky recipient of their beauty expertise! :) We have been blessed with foot massages all month long! :)

Andrew was a great big brother one afternoon. He kept Aimee, Mattie, and Thomas entertained for quite a while! He found some site on the computer that had pictures of strange beasts. They all had fun checking out the weird creatures, especially "el chupacabra!" Unfortunately, there were a few scary dreams afterward.

Thomas is sporting the spiky hairdo, compliments of Aimee and Mattie's hair salon! :)

Edd has had a busy time at work lately. Maybe since May???? Anyway, he came home from work wearing his "UNIFORM." We hardly get to see him in his "FRC's" (the official name: fire retardant clothing) which is what he has to wear along with his steel toed boats when he goes into the refinery. Mattie thinks he looks like Uncle Scott Zogg in his uniform! (he's a fireman!)


Lately, we have been blessed with the presence of "the twinkee twins!" It is always fair weather when the twinkee twins are visiting. It's been a long visit this time! :)

Unfortunately, my dryer gave up the ghost this month. It has given many good years of service along with the washer.

I was very sad to have my dryer go out. I had to dry laundry on racks in my bedroom, which took forever since it is so humid down here!!!

Aimee asked me the other day if her sock was ok...it was crispy. I told her it was dried on the rack and it was fine! :)

To make things a little more exciting in the laundry room, my new washer and dryer are RED!!! :)

This week I got to be Mattie and Aimee's grandma! :) It was Grandparent's BINGO week at their school.

I didn't think it was a big deal, but I didn't realize where I live!!! Everyone has their whole family here!!! I sent a note to school saying that our closest grandparents lived in Austin, TX. The teacher wrote back asking if there was a friend that could come, or even me???

So I went! The day I played with Mattie, we won two times!!! The day I played with Aimee, we got really close to winning. We had a lot of fun!