camerons drawings

This is the drawing he drew in church, because he was bored!




This is the drawing that will be shown _>


I am a little proud of cameron right now. He got picked to show case one of his drawings at his 8th grade promotion. We are going to go get it framed. The teacher only picked a select few. He is such a great drawer. He has an incredible talent to draw and has been told that from last years teacher and this years. I put some of his favorites on here. Enjoy! There is some serious detail in the transformer ones. The yellow one took 14 hours to draw. A lot of time went into it.

cameron got his braces off

My little cameron got his braces off about 3 weeks ago. He looks so cute with them off. I told him he looked older. Can I just say, he is stinkin good looking. Spencer get's his off in October and can't wait. It will be just in time to put payton in them! Such is life huh!!!

fun times

So we have been trying something new as a family. We try to stump lovey. Here's how this game works. Lovey is like a juke box. The boy knows just about every song ever made. He can guess a song the first 4-5 notes it's played. So we hang out around the computer and start playing songs for lovey. Well this one night we started getting into it with dancing. Here are a few pictures of that. Spencer entertained us with his dance to "boogie shoes". Cracked me up. He looked like napolean dynamite. We had lots of fun.
I have tried 3 times to download the video and it won't let me. Sorry.

am I getting shorter or are my kids growing

I feel like I am short for the first time in my life. I have always been tall, but here recently I am starting to feel rather short. Cameron is not longer at eye level. Spencer is almost at my eye level. I feel when they get to this stage that time is going by too fast. Lovey and I were talking a little bit ago how fast this time has gone and that cameron will be gone in 4 years. It was like a ton of bricks hit me right then. The next 4 years will go by so fast. I am sadened and happy all at the same time. They are starting new phases of life. Cameron is entering into high school this year and that scares the crud out of me. I would like to keep him here at home with me. Spencer will be graduating from jr. high next year and payton soon after. I am just going to have to stunt aaron and mady's growth some how. Time flies. Life is so short. Enjoy it while you've got it. I also have to say that I am very thankful that heavenly father has given me and lovey the blessing of raising 4 rowdy, rambunctious, goodlooking boys and a beautiful, happy girl (poor thing). I will get the opportunity to send out 4 missionaries. What a huge responsibility and great blessing. I am thankful for my 5 blessings well 6 if you count lovey, and he is a huge blessing. I love them all.

spring break

Cameron tired from mountain man rendezvous










I am a little behind on blogging and I know this was back in march, but it's my blog and I can blog when I want to. So here goes.
Spring happens around here in March. My kids got out the middle of march and had a week off. It was great weather. Cameron went on the mountain man rendezvous. He had so much fun. Before it, he had been working on a knife. They get the opportunity to pick a knife and make it themselves. So he had been working on it for a good month or so. It was a great experience for him. He came home exhausted and stinky. He said it was well worth it. Spencer did a campout also on that week. So payton, aaron and mady were left to their own devices. They so badly wanted to go to the swimming pool, but the pool was closed for renovation. So we went to our local walmart and bought a blow up pool and bubbles. It kept them entertained for a couple of hours. They had a ton of fun and the best part was they weren't driving me crazy!!! You gotta love those school breaks.

Spencer met a car on his bike!

The frame of the bike hit him in the knee

Side that he was hit on. Road rash

He hurt this arm because he thought the lady was going to back up on him so he tried moving out of the way

Bruise on his head

Spencer stayed home and relaxed he was still hurting.

Last weekend me and cameron and spencer went for a bike ride. It had rained pretty good before we left and had stopped and that is when we decided to go. We headed out about 7:15. I was only expecting to be gone for 20 or so minutes but it ended up a little longer than that. As we were coming out of the neighborhood by our house it started to dump on us and really hard. I told the boys to hurry and keep up. We cruised across Germann (the main road by our house) and I told myself, "o.k. home free." I looked back and told my boys to stay on the sidewalk because people can't see them and go. So cameron cruised on the other side of the street from me and spencer and started cruising home. I thought spencer was behind me until I got one street from our house and heard him cry out for me. I stopped and looked back and of course I couldnl't see anything. He called me again and I turned and looked a little harder and saw headlights and then heard a lady say "oh my gosh what do we do, what do we do." And i heard spencer say, "call my mom." He yelled one more time for me and I rode that bike so fast. At that point I realized what had happened. As I got closer I saw my little spencer laying on the ground and his bike under the car (smooshed). I quickly told myself, stay calm. And I did. I got on the ground to assess him and asked if he could move his toes. HE said "yes". He was not knocked unconcscious. He was talking to me. Our neighbor happened to be there before I even got back and it dawned on her that it was me and asked what she could do. I told her to quickly go get anthony.I also called Jodi, since she knows a thing or two about medical things. At that point Cameron was heading back to where I was and heard me and ran to get Anthony beating the neighbor in her car! Anthony came running down the road. The ambulance was called. The fire department was there and 3 police cars. They put him in a kneck brace and on the yellow baord and put him in the ambulance. They were worred about his pelvis being broked and damage to his back. The whole time cameron kept running back to the house for blankets and my purse and other things. You could tell he was very concerned for his spencee. In the mean time the driver was freaking out but her daughter more so. We were told by the ambulance driver that spencer was not in critical condition or they would have had him gone by now. I knew as I knelt beside spencer that he would be o.k.. It was just such a sickening feeling to see my child on the ground and his bike under a car. So, we did everything wrong that night. None of us were wearing helmets, we were all in dark clothes, we were riding on the sidewalk instead of the street,(apparently you can't do that) and none of our bikes had working headlights (that is a law apparently). So the police officer pulled me aside when we got to the hospital and told me if there was someone to be cited it would be spencer, but they were not going to cite anyone. He said all of the things I said above. NO headlight, we were on the sidewalk and all that other good stuff. So back to the accident. I had a feeling that I needed to go and give the driver a hug and comfort her and tell her it was o.k.. I finally got up the nerve and went over. I asked if she was the driver and she looked a little scared. Like I was going to do something. She replied hesitantly "Yes", I then gave her a hug and told her I knew it was an accident and that she didn't see spencer and it was going to be o.k.. I also gave her daughter a hug and told her it would be o.k.. I got some surprised looks from the police officers standing there. I think they were expecting me to punch the lady or something. Anyways. It was an experience I will remember. And it has made me love and appreciate my children a little bit more and I also realized that life is too short and when your time is up, it's up. He could have easily been taken back home. I am very thankful that spencer was not hurt more. That he walked away with only bumps and bruises and no broken bones. He is doing great, but is now very cautious of anyone crossing the street or anyone wanting to ride there bike. Thank heavens for Heavenly Fathers watchful eye!

Happy Birthday to Payton.

Payton turned 11! He was soooo excited for his birthday that he had a hard time going to sleep. It was like christmas all over again. He doesn't show too much emotion but this day he was excited. He got up and got to pick his favorite breakfast. Which of coarse had a lot of sugar. He picked chocolate chip pancakes! He also got to pick where I took him for lunch. He picked Sweet tomatoes, because he loves salad (that is what he said). He was excited to go to lunch and even more excited when he saw nonni in the car. We (me and mady) did a treasure hunt for him that consisted of lots of sugar at every clue. That was the treasure. He was excited, although he didn't seem like it I knew he was. Payton is such a great kid. He has had challenges from the get go of life, but has seemed to handle them pretty good. He is an easy going kid. I didn't say easy but easy going. He is actually a hand full but full of life. He is quite honest! for example, he doesn't have a problem pointing at someone with tatoos and saying, that they are naughty for having them. I keep telling him one of these times he is going to get me beat up. He doesn't see anything wrong with pointing at people and letting them know how he feels. He is sooooo good at sports. From the day he could hold a football he could throw the ball right where it needed to go. Any ball in his hand ends up in the right spot! He got an electric guitar for christmas. I Know Me and anthony must be crazy. It has been on his christmas list for the last 2 years so this year we decided to get him one. He has long fingers and the concentration that is needed to master the guitar. We are planning on getting him into guitar lessons. He was sooooo excited about it. The other thing that he really wanted for christmas was a rock tumbler. I am pretty sure that he has collected all the random rocks in the entire neighborhood, so we figured that we needed to make them pretty. If they are going to end up in our yard they need to look better, so Santa brought him a rock tumbler. We got to listen to it for 10 days!!!! It ended up in the garage so I didn't have to hear it. He loves rocks and the beauty that is in them. He loves everything about them. He could talk for a long time about them. That's our Payton! We are so thankful that he is a part of our family. He has helped me become a more patient person and for that I am thankful for him. Who couldn't use a little patience. I love payton. He keeps me laughing with his funny off the wall comments! We are glad he is a part of our family. Love you payton!!!