Spotlight on ME

In my new ward, I was asked to spotlight myself -- now really, how hard is it to make yourself sound interesting?! But I did my best, they changed it and spotlighted me but some if it was lost in translation. . .so, here is the spotlight on myself, by me! For those who know me well, sorry, no big surprises, but for those who don't. Well, I tried to make myself sound interesting :)!

I am the second oldest child of six, the oldest girl and I have four brothers. I am originally from Globe, Arizona, but spent time in the Seattle area of Washington, Colorado, Idaho and Utah. My dad was a veterinarian and when I was around ten, I vowed I would never marry a veterinarian. . .and guess what I learned? You don't make vows when you are ten! I am happily married to a veterinarian, Jake. We have three energetic boys, Jacob 10, Ryan 7, and Spencer 5.

I enjoy being busy and tend to pack more in my day than I probably should. . .but I love what I do (at least most of the time). When I am not busy taking care of my boys, you might find me helping Jake with his business, paying his bills or running the endless errands. I also might be doing some of the fun things that I love doing, reading, working on the computer, traveling, planning my next trip (did I say I LOVE traveling?), shopping (having no girls, I compensate by buying cute outfits for my numerous neices and friends daughters!), exercising, crafting, blogging, finding good deals, and visiting with my friends.

In college, I studied nursing and got my RN. I have found that it has come in handy with my boys and their mishaps! I like the color red, anything that I don't have to prepare for dinner -- I especially love eating out :). I am excited to get to know all of you!

Ryan's birthday and a few more pics of Ryan

Here is an example of why I don't like to try and take Ryan's picture, he likes to make "freaky" faces. I still love him though. For Ryan's birthday, Ryan got to choose where to go to dinner and what he wanted for a cake. So, he started out wanting pizza -- Pizza, come on that is so "Friday" -- but that was fine. Then he said he wanted . . .Denny's!! What?! Obviously, we don't get out much. . .so we said fine and were on our way when we decided to just get pizza. . . so it was Papa John's for dinner.

For his cake, he wanted a cake with worms and dirt. That is what I did for his younger brother's preschool and I suggested a few other ideas or a Costco cake and he wanted me to make a dirt cake, so I did what he wanted. I think it turned out pretty cute and he was pretty excited to light the cake with Jacob and to have his cousins and grandparents come for his birthday cake. I think it was a Happy Birthday for him overall.

Here's one of the pictures that should have been on the lower post. I know, I am lame but there you go!

Happy EIGHTH Birthday RYAN!

Ok, so I have already lost some of the pictures for this post. Oh well. We celebrated Ryan's EIGHTH birthday on January 11th! I can't believe that he is EIGHT! Here are eight facts about Ryan:

1. He is a good middle child, he is the peacemaker of the brothers. Spencer looks forward to Ryan coming home from school and playing with him, or reading to him or even teasing him. He gets along well with Jacob too, idolizing his big brother and letting Jacob have his way most of the time. :)

2. Ryan loves his mom. Really, he likes to be around me and help me. I couldn't love it more, the other two love me, but prefer Jake.

3. Ryan loves to read, he will read anything he can find, he particularly loves Calvin and Hobbes, but feels sorry for Calvin's parents because they have to play Santa for Calvin. He thinks that some of the tricks that Calvin plays would be wonderful, but knows that if he tries, Calvin would go very far away. :)

4. Ryan loves to hear stories from Jake from when he was a kid, actually he likes my stories, but I think all of my boys can identify with Jake and the boy antics from when he was a boy better. He also loves snow, he doesn't get to play in it often cause Jake and I hate it!

5. Ryan has the best imagination! He can imagine anything in the world happening and sometimes it isn't very good in the middle of the night! He used to love to dress up all of the time and be someone -- when he was really little, he used to strip down to nothing but a diaper, but once I got a Peter Pan costume for him to wear and a sword for Peter Pan, he loved to dress in that costume and he has stayed dressed ever since!

6. Ryan always tries to do his best. He likes to be the most extreme, it used to be he was the best behaved in his primary class (he had all girls) now, he is probably a little more to the other extreme in Primary!

7. Ryan has never been afraid of things that are too hard -- he knocked his tooth out when he was two or three when he was trying to pull his big brother up onto something he had climbed. . . I miss his knocked out tooth, at the time I was melting but it kind of identified and defined who Ryan was!

8. I lost my last pictures bummer, oh well. Ryan loves to learn about the gospel and set goals to be better. He doesn't like being forced to do things, but if you let him decide to do something, he will do awesome!
Here are a few things about Ryan, we love having him in our home and are proud of who he is!

The Holidays

Ok, so I am WAY lazy! I just haven't been motivated to pdate my blog for well, yeah, almost a month! No real reasons why, just not getting it done. So, here is the beginning of a few posts, we have been busy! Over Christmas, two of my brothers and their families came to Arizona to visit! Spencer is always in heaven when these cousins come because there are a BUNCH of boys around his age to play with. And play he did. His cousin Cooper and he get a little crazy and unfortunately, for Cooper, he got to have the brunt of a fall he and Spencer took into a glass cabinet, nine staples later, Cooper was back to normal. The flu flew through our house and my parents while everyone was to visit. Fortunately, for most it wasn't a long lasting illness.

On New Years Eve, my mom's brothers came to AZ to visit. I have an Uncle who lives in Egypt and he and his wife and their daughter and her husband and son came for a "mini reunion" most all of the family was there but there were a few that couldn't make it. We met at a park on New Years Day and enjoyed rekindling our ties. It was good. We missed when all of the family left, but the boys enjoyed the extra time before school started getting to play with all of their new toys and enjoying the beautiful weather!