Hurry and Catch Up!

So I know it's been awhile since I posted. Thought that I would bring you up to speed! I have not been sitting around being idol... no pun intended! I have been busy with the preparations and putting on of the Annual Hurricane Idol Fundraiser. It is a ton of work, but so worth it. We were able to raise just over $4,000 for the HHS Grad Night committee to use for the seniors. My family is so incredibly supportive... especially Rick. They have to endure wimpy or no dinners, dirty laundry and house as well as a mom who is psycho and on edge for several weeks. But it's all good and.... it's all over!!!!

Meanwhile stay tuned to the real American Idol and cheer on our own Hurricane girl--

Taylor Viafanua!

Also wanted to thank all of you who contributed to Naomi's temple can. They finally got to seal them up this week. She was so excited to put something in from so many of her loved ones. They had to have one of the leaders help her get it all in because she had so much. (If you happened to miss getting your letter to Naomi, please still send it!!! We are putting together a supplement can of the things that just couldn't get in. Lucky girl! She'll have two cans to open!

My days are spent being a wife, mom, piano teacher, volunteer, book keeper and maid. That's enough for now!!! But life is good and I am so happy!

Here are a few photos of past weeks! Enjoy!

Naomi got a rag quilt from g'ma for her birthday!

Presten played this amazing sax solo by ear for the sweethearts dinner show!

Naomi turned 14 and went to her first stake dance.

She said it was soooo fun!

Air "Soft"???

School is out for the day and Austen called a bunch of friends to head up the canyon and have a little air soft capture the flag game. They started to arrive and the house was a buzz with boys in camo and protective gear.

(Naomi and I stood snickering outside the door at the way they were all trying to get each others attention and everyone talking at the same time:))

They left here marching down the street and heading to the trail head that leads up the wash by our house. They were energetic and spirited and excited to have some fun.

Three hours later they show up at the house thirsty, thirsty, thirsty, tired and talking about the "war wounds".

The more I heard I started wondering.... just how soft is air soft?

They didn't care... the more welts, bruises, burns, etc. the better.

The bonus was... I told them to aim at tummys and bums when they left and when they returned they were talking about getting shot in the bum too many times!!!!!!

(I didn't want to see those war wounds!! :)

They are already planning the next get together. They just need time for the wounds to heal and round up some more ammo.

Boys!!!!!!

If it isn't broken...

I pride myself on being a very independent girl (get it from my mom)! I am not afraid to delve into fixing things by myself. I have been overwelmed as of lately, with broken things and all of them are way over my head in the repair category! I should probably knock on wood as I post this... so as to ward off any future breakages!

To start the year off right, my sink got majorly plugged and my handy dandy repair man (a.k.a. "Honey") finally ended up on the roof with the hose. Happily the sink was unplugged fairly quickly! Unhappily the nozzle thing on the end of the hose "broke" off in the outlet pipe and we now have to pay someone to come and take care of it.

Right before Christmas I get a call from the Sports trainer at the highschool. I immediately thought... "great! Presten has pulled his muscle again or sprained his ankle". I was surprised when he told me that Presten had broken off one of his front teeth at basketball practice. It was cracked right across the middle and looked terrible. Happily... we have a "magical, miracle worker" dentist who did an amazing job putting the tooth back on and you can't even tell where it was broken. (Also happily... the trainer had this little jar called "save a tooth" and it sure did!!!)

The first week back to school, Presten agreed to drive Naomi up to the Middle School to save me one more morning trip across town. He called me from 2 blocks away saying that his car would no longer go forward. (That would be a problem!) So I ended up making that extra morning trip, then and now every morning. Happily... we were able to get the car home so it can sit in the driveway and annoy me!

It's a new year and I am ready to get in and get Christmas put away and do some heavy duty cleaning out and organizing. The vacuum chose to give out. Normally this is something I am not afraid to jump into and figure out, but a broken latch and lack of electronically things has hindered me. I had to send that to a repair shop 3 hours away. Sadly... the cleaning bug has been replaced by other things. Happily... I still have my good ol reliable Rainbow vacuum to get by with.

Then yesterday I decide to really get after some laundry. I went to change it around, and the dryer is still running at it's same time on the timer and the clothes are wet! AAGGHH! My poor handy dandy repair man (a.k.a. "Honey") doesn't even know about this one yet. Happily... I can take the clothes over to Mom's to dry and he won't have to know for a while! :)

Gotta hurry and post this before something else breaks!

Happily... Life is still good!

Stepping into the New Year!

We had a spontaneous get together for New Years! The McCoy family joined some of the Beatty family for chili, cornbread and games! It was a fun and silly time. The kids enjoyed themselves and the adults got in a game or two of their own.

(We didn't do too well with "Totally 80's Trivial Pursuit")

Papa McCoy was especially happy with the idea of celebrating a New York New Year at 10 p.m.

Turns out we like each other so much that most of us stayed up until midnight anyway!

My favorite part was getting this photo of all the shoes piled at my back door. I am so blessed to have such awesome family all around me.

For those of you who were not here... let's work toward getting together in this coming year and celebrating the gift of family and friends!

Mama has a melt down!!

I was busy, busy, busy with last minute Christmas preparations. It snowed and they cancelled school (can you believe it?). So instead of doing what I needed to do, I did what I wanted to do and that was play in the snow with the kids.

We made a snow family with a mama, papa and 6 little ones! Of course by the next afternoon it was melting rapidly and the mama had a melt down. I almost followed her because there was so much to do, but life is just too short to worry about meltdowns!

So I just put my smile on and kept going. Turns out that there really wasn't anything to worry about after all...everything turned out fabulously!

What a wonderful holiday we have had.

Hope yours was as well!

Don't worry be happy!

What the heck is a tag?

Okay this is a new one on me! Tia tagged me and I really hope that I am doing this right or I will feel sooooo stupid!

This is the fourth photo in my fourth folder! (say that 10 times fast) :)

Batter Up!!

Larson played machine pitch this year and it was really fun to watch him get into it so much! He could play just about every position and really got frustrated when the new comers to baseball wouldn't move, throw or catch fast enough! He is such a happy kid and I really love having him around!

Naomi runs the Butch Cassidy 10K

Naomi has tenacity. She had to look that up, then decided that she liked the word. I used it the other morning at 5:45 when I was struggling to keep up as I rode the bike and she ran 3 miles.

It all started about a month ago when one of her soccer playing friends commented on how volleyball players weren't really in that great of shape, because volleyball doesn't require much running. Naomi argued with her about how hard they work and the amount of exertion that is put forth, both in practice and games. But to no avail.

Another friend who didn't make the volleyball team, decided to get into better shape for the next tryouts and decided to run a 10K. She invited Naomi to do it with her. Naomi began training and thought that this would be a great way to show her soccer friend that she was indeed in as good if not better shape than the soccer players! She even invited the soccer friend to participate with her in the 10K. The friend suddenly had something else scheduled for that same day. Hmmmm????

Naomi was diligent in her running and really came to like it.

The day of the race came. It was a chilly morning. Over six hundred participants started in Springdale and ran to the small town of Grafton. (This is well known as one of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids hideouts) Most of the course is on a dirt road, up and down hills.

I waited anxiously at the finish line. Naomi hadn't ever ran the whole 10K at one time. I was nervous, was she okay? could she really make it? could she do it without me riding a bike with her? (okay that was a silly thought, because I was always lagging behind)

Pretty soon, here she came down the dusty dirt road. She was still running and had the biggest smile on her face. She was so excited! She had done it! And then she found out..... she was first in her division! That was the icing on the cake!

Needless to say, she took that medal to school the next week and bragged it up to her friend. The friend didn't have much to say, but Naomi knew that she had proven something to herself... she really is in shape. She didn't need a 10K to prove it, you can see it when she plays volleyball!

Way to go Naomi!!