My Mother

This is a picture of my beautiful mom. This is the same picture that we used for her memorial. My mom passed away on 9/24/08. Two days after my 31st birthday. It is a week that I will forever share with my MOM. She was an amazing woman. She was sick a lot of my growing up years, and only blessed with good health a few times. While my brothers were on their missions, and then the last two months before she passed. They finally found what was wrong with her after 20 years of being sick. My family was extatic. This was the first time that we prayed for either a miracle or to let her go home. For two months we thought it was a miracle and it was. She was her old self again. Until Wed. 9/16/08. She was sick again. We thought (even her) that she had the flu. We were wrong. She was finally taken from us to be happy and healthy. We miss her so much but at the same time are so happy for her. She was a righteous woman who never faltered from her testimony. She is an example to me of a daughter of God. She is a lot of why I am who I am. I hope she knows how much a love her. How much I appreciate her. And how much I hope to be JUST like her. I have this song 'To Where You Are' by Josh Groban that I want to dedicate to her. Because no matter where I am, she will always be with me. I love you forever mom. Until I see you again!!

Sid Halloween 2008

This is Sid. Now this was not his original costume either. He was so excited to be Indiana Jones. So, he went to the trunk or treat as Indi and then him and his friend wanted to be blind guys. So, this is the blind guy costume that he 'wore' on Halloween. Since we didn't know about this, we don't have a picture of him as Indi. Whatever right. Part of having older kids. He and his friend Chase said that they were not trick-or-treating with the 'parents' this year. Just the two of them were going. There are thousands of kids in the neighborhood. Halloween is crazy in this neighborhood.

Sammy Halloween 2008

This is Sammy. He is an ape in costume yes, but he really wanted to be a skeleton. When he told us he wanted to be a skeleton we went to Walmart and bought him a $20 costume. Well, he was really excited about it until about 3 days before. Three days before Grandma came over with this ape costume and told him he should be the ape. It is so cute. So, that was it. Once he changes his mind there is no going back. He went as an ape this year and LOVED it. So, next year don't be surprised to see Davis in the skeleton costume. Sammy had tons of fun this year. Our neighborhood always does a block party with bouncers. Not only did he not eat, but I didn't even see him until it was time for trick-or-treating. He is so much fun. Gotta love him!!

Davis Halloween 2008

Heres Davis. He will be 3 in Feb. and LOVES his heroes. For Halloween he wanted to be Ironman. He is completely obsessed with all the hero movies. Batman, Superman, Ironman, Fantastic Four, Spiderman, and of course Popeye. He is so much fun. He will growl at you while in costume. I guess that his family are the bad guys! We walked about 3 miles that night and he walked the whole way. It was Sammy that wanted carried. He never complained. Although, he was terrified of others that were dressed up SCARY! Especially, the werewolves. So Fun!!

Cait Halloween 2008

This is our CUTE Cait. She wanted to be princess Leigha this year and so that is what she was. I had her wear a long sleeved shirt and then made the dress out of a sheet. That was interesting let me tell you. For someone that can sew and with no pattern I would say it turned out pretty good. Everyone knew who she was. I was SHOCKED to say the least. While trick or treating she dropped her bucket of candy at least every 10 ft. After a while my dad would just laugh. He went with us this year. It was fun to have him.

Pumpkin Carving 2008

This is the kids doing pumpkins. Sammy and Davis thought it was "GROSS"! It took a while to convince Davis to even do it. Sid had to do four different faces on his one pumpkin. They had a good time. Not exactly our favorite thing to do though. It gets funner every year though as the kids get older.

This is a picture of Davis in his VERY favorite costume. When he wants to wear it he has to be naked minus his diaper. I continue to tell him that Superman was never naked. He says, "Superman naked!" This time he tucked his feet and legs up under the cape to keep warm.

Family Life

It's been a while since I have updated my blog, I just got back from voting for Obama... just kidding... we are a McCain family all the way... Arizona born and raised... we'll see tonight how this all plays out... Cliff has been back from the hurricanes for a while now and we are still working hard to grow our carpet cleaning business. We have been trying to follow the council of our church leaders by reducing our debt and getting our food storage together. Yesterday I bottled and dried apples... it was lots of fun to learn something new. OKAY, that was Cliff and this is me now! Yes all of the above is true. I did CAN apple pie filling and have dried some apples. It was fun and hopefully will taste good. Who knows. Our life is crazy as always. We are putting our house on the market to lower our overhead and don't know yet where we are going to go. Rent, buy, rent, buy? Who knows. We are waiting to see how the election goes, and maybe see how the next couple of months go under our new president. We may go off of our Countrys President to make that decision. Anyway, the kids are amazing. They are getting so big. Cliff and I are truly enjoying them. Sid is almost ten and always off with his friends. Sometimes there will be up to 15 kids here at a time banging around in the basement. They like to play tag, dodge ball, and other games not normally played in a house! Thanks goodness for the basement. Although, we could do without the dents in all of the window trim. Caitlin is so cute. She is finding her own. Grandma Martin bought a princess dress for her and was so excited. When she showed Caitlin the dress Caitlin looked at her and said, "I'm not into princess stuff anymore!" She has decided at the age of almost 7 that she is too BIG for dress ups. That is fine by me though. That means that there is one more thing that I can get rid of. YEAH!!! Sammy is always so much fun! He is actually quite a hand full, but that is what makes him who he is. He is extemely active, but also very OCD. He has to have things his way when he wants them. When he gets one thing in his head, it doesn't ever go away until that one thing is handled. He is doing great in school. All three of them are on the honor roll this year with an A average. They all love it and have amazing teachers this year. Davis is so much fun. He has to be one of the easiest kids in the world. Being that he is the only child at home now during the day, there is a lot more that I can get done then before. We have fun together. He has to have his regular cuddle session right when he wakes up. He is still very much the baby. He still has the paci and is still in diapers. He refuses to rid himself of either one. He will tell you straight to your face when you attempt one or even both, "No! I'm a baby!!!" So, until he decides to be BIG he will be the baby!