Swimming

We went swimming with the Young Women in our ward yesterday, and it was so much fun! I was able to take Alexis and Elizabeth with me, and that made them feel extra cool to go with a bunch of teen girls....

We all loved the water slide and went down many, many times.
Alexis was feeling really brave and thought she could jump from the high board, but when she got to the top....
She decided to climb back down!
This is me going of the diving board.... I was going for a great photo, and went straight out and was trying to look like I was flying through the air.....
and then didn't really notice how much time I had and did a huge belly flop..... and she missed the picture.... all of that pain for nothing. When I came out of the water I could her everyone going OHHHHH..... I felt really cool.
I had my eyes open during my belly flop, and I have to say they stung for a little while, and my face was really red....
The girls got a snow cone, and they were able to put on their own flavoring.... so Alexis put on every single kind, and it was 99.9% syrup, and 1% snow.... she was in heaven.
Alexis did so well on the diving board
This is a cool picture I took of one of our Young women...


This is Elizabeth's favorite Babysitters in the world. They are such sweet girls, and my girls all just love them.


Elizabeth is usually not to brave in the water, but she decided she didn't want to wear a floaty, and she was going under the water and opening her eye's and swimming like a little mermaid....
This is one of my new swim suits I thought I would show of, because I think it is so cute.... I got it from Angie Johnson... she sells them now (modbe)
It was so funny to go to a swim party and see her there.

baby in a basket

Brytlee climbed in the basket and I just thought it was so cute. She is finally starting to be happy again and smile. I will be so happy to have a happy healthy family again!

Pet flies

This morning Grandpa Harris came over to see Brytlee and see how she was doing. (which she is getting better, and her spots on her tongue have gotten smaller. Thank you for all your comments)
Elizabeth was opening the door and left it open and started to walk away, so Grandpa told her "close the door or the flies will come in". And Elizabeth told him, "it's ok, we have pet flies and they just come in and out when they want". So I guess we do have pets after all.

I need help... speak any english?

I am starting to feel like I am the worst mom in the world.... what is up with my kids all getting sick.... and not just sick, and then feel better in a few day's.... weird funky crap that hurts, and last forever.....
I have no idea what to do.... I took Brytlee to a Nurse Practitioner's Office this Saturday because my doctors office was closed, and she had to pull out a book to try and figure out what this is on her tongue..... So she gave her a prescription, and when we went to pick it up I showed the Pharmacist and asked him what he thought, and he said it was Yeast..... and gave her something different than what the other person prescribed...... so I don't really feel any better about the whole thing, and she isn't happy about it either. So if anyone has any clue what this is or what it looks like, let me know..... I am going to take her in to the doc. tomorrow. Or I might just take a trip to the hospital.... we will see how bad it bugs me.

Summer Projects!

This summer we have had a ton of things on a long list of things to do that we wanted to get done. And so Ryan and I have been working hard , and this is what we have gotten done so far.Ryan hung our pourch swing, and I got it all painted
Ryan built this little tree bench for me last year and he has been wanting me to get it sanded and stained so.....
I got it all done! Notice, he carved RH + JH in the tree under the bench.... Ohhhh so sweet!
We are building a shed, and this is what it looked like before I got it all painted
this is the inside before, and I don't have any afters yet, but I will
This is the shed after I got it all painted.... and we are still going to do some more work on it, so it isn't done yet, but I will have to post a picture when it is!
Our Garden is another summer project. We just picked all of our pea's and froze them. We have tons and tons left....
this is a picture of our garden and shed and play area. I hope it gets finished soon, and I will take some more pictures to show some progress!

Brytlee

Brytlee is such a cute little baby, I just love her to pieces! I put her hair up and it almost looked like it was a little curly,

But as soon as her hair dried it went straight as a board!
She loves the little Vacuum and gets it out when I vacuum. She is wearing her favorite outfit that her Grandma Merrill bought for her, and if she sees it, she will throw a fit until you put it on her.

Funny Alexis

Ryan asked Alexis, "why are you crying"? And Alexis answers, "well, I was just over there, playing in the water and splashing with JOY when Elizabeth came over and whacked me". Ryan asked..."splashing with JOY"? Alexis says so sad... "a huh, splashing with JOY".
She can be such a DRAMA QUEEN lately, but she cracks me up! I just love this little girl.

Proud Owner

So I am now the Proud owner of a Kirby! I had a guy show up at our house, and he stayed for almost two hours.... He showed me how sick my carpet was, even after I used my own Vacuum, and how cool it is because it can shampoo the carpets and do front flips, and all sorts of cool tricks.... They should call it a transformer instead of Kirby....but oh well.
But I have to say, I did fall in love with it, and bought it.... I hope it isn't just a crush.

so now

So now I am sick.... will this ever end? Elizabeth still has all the sores all over her mouth, and she isn't eating anything. I feel so bad for her. I just have the normal head cold, but it is so hard to be sick and have a family to take care of.

Sick Kids

Alexis was sick a couple weeks ago, and then I got it, and then Brytlee and Ryan got sick, and now it is Elizabeth's turn... what is the deal? It is Summer time!?
I ended up taking Elizabeth to the doctor today because she looked like she was getting a cold sore two day's ago, and then the next day she had two, and then when she woke up this morning, she had them all over her mouth.. It really freaked me out, and I would have loved to gotten some kind of medicine to make it go away right now..... but it is something Viral, and there isn't a med. you can give her, so we have to wait it out for up to ten days... the poor girl can not eat or even swallow.
I couldn't believe all the kids that were in the doctors office. I counted at least ten kids that were sick in the waiting room, and then passed a few more on the way out. And a lot of the people I know that have kids have had something like this.... so if you don't have sick kids yet... maybe you should stay home for a couple weeks.

Call me GRACE

A couple of weeks ago at church I had just taken Brytlee and the girls to their classes, and then headed back down the stairs to go to my own class, but on the fourth to last step my heel caught on the edge and I went down a little faster than I had planned on.... And it was in front of at least 30 people.... I was lucky that my dress didn't fly over my head (Annette) and I landed on my knees. But as soon as I hit the bottom three men run over to help me up, and all the women gasp. I told them to back off because I was praying, and then walked away like it never happened.

Fishing

Ryan, the girls and I went fishing yesterday. We bought a five man boat/raft thing, and decided to try it out. We had a lot of fun, and caught a 6 fish. (well I think I caught all the fish, and let the girls real them in) But it was so great to see them get excited over their fish. Alexis is such a inpatient fisher. The second the line is in the water, she is saying" Uh, this is taking forever, I am never going to get a fish... when is a fish ever going to bite...." It was really funny.
When we were done, the girls decided they wanted to jump into the water and swim to the shore.... it was about 50 yards, and there was weeds and stuff touching them.... they were funny to listen to while they were swimming. Lizzy asked " what if a fish bites us"?
I was really proud that they made it all the way all by themselves and didn't need us to jump in and save them! (even happier that I didn't have to get all wet)!

Anniversary

July 14th, 2000, I married my sweetheart Ryan. We have been married for eight years, and it gone by so fast. I knew as soon as I got to know Ryan that I wanted to marry him, and feel head over heals in love.
We meet while on a double date, I was with Richard Stoker, and he was with his girlfriend Hollie. I didn't really check him out that night, but her made sure to remember my name. Three months later, while my good friend Shalee and I were running around Ricks, we ran past his room, and he yelled out "Jill" I hurt his feelings when I said I couldn't remember who he was, but I think he got over it. We talked that night and then meet a couple nights later at Retrix!! (that place rocked) after the late night of dancing, he offered me a ride on his motorcycle, and Shalee and I went back to his apartment and hung out till 3, and that is when Ryan and I had our first kiss.
I was hooked after that and couldn't keep him out of my thoughts. I had never felt so crazy and gotten butterfly's in my stomach like this before!
Our first date
Ryan asked me to the Homecoming dance at Ricks, and it was a lot of fun.
After Ryan played two years as Quarterback at Ricks, he was recruited to Western Michigan to play. We were talking about getting married before he left, but had not decided anything, but after being a part for a little while, we couldn't stand it anymore. So we decided to get married over the phone, I flew out to Michigan to get my ring, and get our pictures taken.
The titanic...
We are such dorks....
while I was in Michigan, My luggage was lost, and we didn't know if I would get them in time for our pictures.
They did, but when we went to get them done, the guy taking our pictures was 90, and couldn't stop shaking... we named him Mr. Arthritis.. The pictures turned out so ugly!!! (Ryan had asked around and everyone said he was great???) It felt like everything was going wrong.
So we decided to just go to a park that was near by and have Chase take some pictures of us, they turned out great, and we ended up using those for invitation!

Ryan couldn't be home for a lot of the planning for the wedding. He had to stay in Michigan because of football.
This is a picture of my Bridal shower. I have had so many great friends, and feel so blessed to be a part of their lives! I had a great bridal shower, and was so excited to get married!


this is our friends and family that came to our wedding and came for pictures. We also had a breakfast before we went to the temple, and besides getting a speeding ticket on the way to the wedding, the day was perfect!

(Ryan saw a lady at the hospital do this to Alexis, and he had to try it... )
I am still so in love with Ryan and will always be. The longer we are married, the more I find out how much alike we are. I feel like he is perfect in every way, and wouldn't change anything about him (except I would make him not like football) but that is not going to happen!
It has been a wonderful eight years and I have loved it! I am so thankful to have him and so thankful that I get to keep him forever!!!!(we are getting a new family picture this month... so it will be updated soon)

The weekend

We had a great weekend! We have going on a lot of family bike rides, and I love it! I would ride a bike around everywhere if I could! It is really great because Elizabeth is no longer in need of training wheels, so she is keeping up so much better. (she is actually faster than all of us now).
We had a really fun family party in the park Friday night, and the kids all played and had a great time with all there cousins while the adults talked and enjoyed lots of yummy food! Alexis has not been feeling very well, so she just stuck around by grandma and cuddled most of the time...
Saturday I started of my day by having a yard sale with my friend Stephanie. It was really nice to get ride of some things that we don't need, and get some money out of it also.
After that, we went to another party! It was a party for the Bears! A team that Ryan has been playing with for the past couple of years. We had a great dinner, which was in a very cute park that had toys, and a pond with fish and ducks. The girls and I went over to the pond and feed the ducks for a half an hour. They loved it, and didn't want to leave. After that we went to a swim park that they had rented out so we had it all to ourselves! It was such a great time, and the girls had so much fun! Elizabeth stayed in the water until 9:30! Brytlee was cold so we had to get out a little earlier and Alexis still wasn't feeling her best so she didn't really swim that long. We all went down the water slide a couple of times, and Brytlee was so dang cute going down it. She was cold, but just flexed her little body and would say weeee, but in a funny cold voice.
We had a great weekend, but sadly have no pictures to remember it by.... I hate it when that happens.

Funny story

When we went to Park City a couple of weeks ago, it reminded me of when I went with my bestest friend in the world, Lindsy Reed and her mom to Park City.... I was invited along so I could help Lindsy in her golf tournament. I was going to be the Catie and carry her bags for her.... but around the third hole, I made her carry her own bag, and started chasing frogs, and birds, and they had to keep telling me to shhhhh... I hadn't every really been golfing before, but after it was all over... I was so fired!
But we went to our hotel, and found out there was no pool... so we went across the street and found one in a different hotel. There was some really snotty girls there that didn't want to get there hair wet, and so when we went running towards the pool and did a canon ball.... they were not very happy. They all came over one by one and splashed us.... (it was funny)
I had such a great time on this trip and it was so much fun to be in the company of a friend I truly love like a sister!

Butterfly

Elizabeth caught a Mon ark butterfly! She was so excited, and Alexis was so jealous! Alexis caught one last year, and has been trying to catch one again ever sense!
We played with it for an hour, and it would just crawl on the girls arms, and sit on there fingers. Then we let it go, and Alexis was really mad about that also!
Brytlee didn't know what to think about it.... she didn't really like it to close to her so she was freaking out a little when we put it on her head....