DJ is 13!

So, I now have a teenager, and I still like him. He chose Golden Corral for his birthday dinner and someone told the waitress it was his birthday:) So, she had him stand on his chair while the whole room sang to him. He was a tad embarrassed and has mentioned that he still can't believe that happened. He got an MP3 player and yes, I've lost him.

"What?" That is now the most common word spoken by my teenager.

It was a fun night and Gram & Granp Long went with us and then Aunt Sally meet us and he had a sleep over with Jacob. To wich the MP3 player got a little more music loaded. I love it.

But wait, there's more!

Here is all who where there that beautiful Christmas night for good food and good company.

We really are part of an awesome family!

I can even take pic's of...

Jackson and Rebeka VS. Audra and Ben. It's always fun at Grandma's house!

I got a camera, I got a camera!

Me, Sam, and Sariah (yes, she's holding her homemade cheese cake that was absolutely FABULOUS!!)

Scott couldn't help but act the part of a proud Grandpa and show off Scottie and Aleese's blog. It really was a great evening. And I can put it on my blog cause I got a camera!!

DJ was sooo cute to the little kids. I love my boys!! It was a transformer Part-ta!

I GOT A CAMERA FROM SANTA

All the grandkids with Gram & Gramp on Christmas night. back row l to r

Raelyn, Danny, Audra, Rebeka, Nichollette, Allyssa, Jacob, DJ, Garrett.

Next, Colby holding Ammon, Shauni holding Carter, Gram, Gramp

Next, Jackson, Anna, Ruby, Ben

our latest greatest?

We had family pic's taken, and Jackson has his eyes closed in this one, and we borrowed the cat, but yes, this is about as good as it gets.

Ahhhh Thanksgiving

What a fab Thanksgiving. My mother was exerting her independance so we had dinner at her house for the first time in 5 years. I thought we had a good thing going by coming here, but I got my battery recharged by such a great weekend. We took Grma and Grnpa Stewart with us to my mom's and all the bro's and sis that live in Utah came. My twins were the youngest, and they just chilled in front of "Transformers" so the adults sat and ate and talked, and ate. Ahhhh.

Oh grow up

Those little toys are fun at the park! I couldn't help myself! Ride 'em cowgirl.

Oh sure..

Post every day for one week? Yeah, right. Three weeks later and back in the real world we had a very fun Sat. afternoon! We, meaning Grama & Granpa Stewart, myself, and Sally went up to join Aleese and her family at Scott & Val's for a baby shower. Aleese flew in for the fun day. She's blogging now also. Sally has photo's of the shower, not me. I'm hoping Santa will bring me a digital Cam for Christmas. I think I gotta be good to get it. The final numbers on the budget said I'm not that good. But, of coarse, good food at Val's. Nice day. Danny needed to comb his hair but it's all relative. He was there and he's so cute! Got home and watched the BYU play extremely well. Beat 'em up Cougars. Life is good on the Stewart home.

a sunday day in the life...

Sun Sept 23
ahhhh fabulous nights sleep, do I really want to get up? I don't think so, but I gotta
7am up and watched tv on the Sabbath. Stephanie Meyer was on the Sunday addition of the Today show. She's the author of Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse. Love those books
8am get in the shower and get going, hey, I'm going to be on time today!
9am Ward Council Mtg. bla bla bla
10:20 get back home and only Ben is ready for church. Leave the family and Ben and I go to church. Church is all good with the couple of dramatic moments when things go wrong. I have a very big iron to flatten them all out, until I get called into Primary after church and one of my children has made the teacher cry and there's more drama than my iron can get rid of. We all leave as friends and the primary presidency think I'm pwt. Bring it on.
Normally, home by 2:15, no, no, today we're home at 2:45.
get dinner on
run back to church for a meeting with the Bishop
make some rsp visits
get Sam and go visit Jeff (knee replacement surgery)
I'm late, but I'm still going.. game night with some inactive sisters that always invite me.
home and cleaning from 8:30-9, walll laa, life is good
in bed by 10 with out reading scriptures or having prayer. On a Sunday. grrrr

a day in a fall Saturday life...

Sat, Sept 22

8-11 visiting teaching drive-thru conf with a presidency mtg after. What a fun morning! Loved it. I love this church.

11-12 mow the lawn, bark at the kids

12-1 clean up and do chores with the kids, run a couple errands

1-4:30 BYU vs AF with the in-laws over. Fed everyone left overs from the teacher dinner and life is good, started cooking...

3:30-7 make 8 pans of lasagna roll-ups for my freezer meal exchange club on thurs. Ok, that wore me out!!

7:30 ignore laundry and try to find something good on tv

8 pm turn on Pride and Prej. DVD (the 2 hour version) asleep by 9 and Sam turns everything off and puts kids to bed

a Friday day in the life..

Sept 21,
7 am Get crackin' missed the treadmill. The fire alarm went off in the middle of the night and it was a big ordeal to get the ladder and shut that thing up!
7:30 run carpool to the Jr High, oh, don't forget it's the Homecoming Parade for the High School
8:30 breakfast is done and we're out the door, on time, with both boys! Mom threatened to pick them up and physically carry them out to the car in whatever state they where in at 8:30. It worked, this time.
8:45, Get my mormon coffee, head to my Mapleton Preschool
stop to see if my Mom wants to go walking or not. It was a not.
9-11:45 Preschool, and it is soo cute. I love this class. I love my life.
12-1:30 lunch with my Mom, Cracker Barrell, run her errands, stop at Sam's Club for ribs etc.
1:45-2, get the twins out of school and hurry to Main Street for the Homecoming Parade. It lasted 15 minutes this year instead of 10. So fun. Get DJ from Jr high, he thought he couldn't miss school to go to the parade with us. But, But, it's our family tradition! No, he says. He's got to stay in school. fine.
One other tradition that we have at our house is that once a year we invite the kids teachers over for dinner and the kids pick the menu. Jackson wanted bbq ribs, Dj wanted cheese stick rolls and Ben wanted Choco chip cookies. So..
3-6 we clean and prepare dinner for Ms. Miley and Ms. K. Thomas. The boys were sooo cute to help out and clean and putter. I like my kids.
6:30-9pm we eat a fabulous dinner, relax and talk and once again, we're glad we do this.
9pm DJ has Dellon come over for the sleep over, I get the kitchen cleaned up and the dishwasher is going, I stop to watch a little news,
10:30 make Sam a very happy man, or, visa versa, watch Everybody loves Raymond and fall asleep by 11:30

a thursday~ day in the life...

Sept 20,
6am up and on the treadmill, drive the car pool and home at 7:45,
finish getting ready, get the twins up and at 'em Jackson isn't going for all my fun "countdowns" he's just buttin' heads with his mother, bring it on my boy, bring it on.
8-12am Get Visiting Teaching Conf questionnaire printed and copied, get all my calls done and get this thing a little better organized, run to Walmart and get groceries for the vt conf, dinner club, and life in general, faster momma!!
12-3 get to preschool, ahhh, to much fun, can I really call it a job? I don't think so.
3:15 head home and get DJ to Parent Teacher conf., that takes until 4:30 yes, he's getting straight A's. Yes, he likes to brag about it and so does his mother. Get home and start to clean, work on the homework with each child. after school snacks etc. while DJ and Jackson go to piano lessons. Get signs painted for VTing conf on Sat morning
6pm Go back to the school to help with the Literacy class. To fun, I took the boys with me and they do such a great job with the little kids.
We sneak out at 8 instead of 8:30 and run back to the Jr High school to finish Parent Teacher conf. Home by 8:40. I'm soooo tired from lack of sleep last night, did you hear the whinny part of that? clean, read scriptures with the kids blah blah blah

a day in the life....

I'm trying to post every day this week so next year when I look back and think .. what did I do with all my time...
wed the 18th
6am wake up, give the treadmill my best, sorta
7am in the shower
7:30 run car pool, everyone was on time which makes a happy momma
come home, next wave, get twins to school, late, dang-it
make rsp calls and solve world hunger
9:30 get a mt dew and head to council pta mtg
10:30, done with that, run to the tanning bed
but wait, swing by my folks and make it look like I have been taking care of the place
while they've been gone, now tan
ahhh from 11-11:115 the world stops and my blood pressure drops 20 points, at least
ok, so I found out my new niece (getting married to my nephew Kelly) works at the tanning salon and knew who I was all along. dang-it
12-3 I'm off to work at preschool at Westside, I missed my Mapleton preK because of the mtg.
What a fabulous day! The kids were sooo mellow. And we learned how to use scissors. fabulous.
3:20 Get the home work crackin' , the neighbor calls, tend her kids while i'm cleaning and answering the phone, the other neighbor kid comes over. We're good til 6 and DJ has got some scout thing, Sam comes home, 6:30. The tractor is still not working, hence the little black rain cloud following him and hovering over his head. (yes, i'm singing it to)
7:30 I 'm off to SLC airport to pick up my folks, they're late, way way long story short I make Sam a happy man and fall in bed by midnight. After I set my alarm from 6 to 7. I just can't do it!

a typical day in the life

6am wake up and get moving,
6:02 try and keep it together, cause I'm not waking up well
ok ok I'm up! I don't have enough time for the treadmill now so just get DJ in the shower
7:15 rush to get dressed cause I decided to do a deep conditioner
7:30 car pool to Jr high, come on mom, get moving faster!
7:50 finish getting ready, oh dang, it's picture day! school hoodie it is!
8:20 Are you kidding me, come on Ben and Jackson, get moving faster! I ended up leaving them.
8:30-10 PTA volunteer for picture day
10-11:30 figure out how to stop the world and get off and catch a "quick" tan in the tanning bed
oh no, the Bishop called, the comp. service leader called and then, my sweet neighbor called and her k-garten child has diarea and she can't leave work.
12:00-12:20 miss lunch to clean up my cute neighbor, and yes, all that that implies, get him to daycare , did I mention miss lunch? go to work.
12:30-3:30 have a fabulous day in preschool, minus the pee pants incident, mom was very good about coming in.
3:30- 4 quiet down the over achiever on the PTA board
is all i have left to do is.. laundry, cub scout pack night, guitar lessons, city council mtg., ym's is going rock climbing, Sam's chopping corn, a t-shirt party that my friend is throwing, but, I've got my health and Gilder to frame for it, so, I'm doing OK. I just want to look back in a couple years when I feel like I don't do anything and remember days like these. another bonus, no one got in my face. ahhhhh

Mrs. Stewart's 1st day of preschool

She did it! Made it through her first day of preschool. We had a couple kool-aid spills and at least a dozen "Where's my mom and when is she coming back" but we're good to go. A couple puzzled faces at the comment~ "You don't get to make the rules at preschool, now please sit down and I'll tell you what we're doing next" I do love my job and love the independence of a 4 year old. And then the bravery of a 5 yr old. I've got a fantastic life!

Whose chilren are they?

Yes, as a matter of fact, we do crack ourselves up

OK, this is the picture, sorry

I love 'em!

Here's fun picture of the boys that we love!

It worked!!!

OK, I figured it out! By the way, if Emily lived closer, none of this would have taken so long! (did you feel the guilt? I was going for guilt here:)
Life at the Stewart is fantastic! School's in, for all of us. The fall harvest is right around the corner, and oh, did I say school's in? Now, I need to figure out how to get the pic's off my cell phone and on to this computer. Don't stand by. But, I will get it figured out!

Testing..

Okay, I'm trying this agian, for like the 4th time!!! I'm such a techno idiot! But, I'm not giving up. Thanks for being patient. OK, did it work

Oh we're back!

Oh yes.... we're back! It all started when Beebe and Tyler got me the first part fixed and Em and AJ got the rest. I'm sooo techno savy that I couldn't figure it out on my own. And, we're back!