Spring is here!

The kids out enjoying the warm weather.

We just had a what.....?

As some of you may of heard, downtown Atlanta was hit by a tornado, Friday night. It was weird to see the damage that was done to the buildings down there. Saturday, they had also predicted some heavy thunderstorms, and boy did we get them..... Wind, pouring rain, thunder and lightening, hail, the works. Our power went out, because it was so windy, and the thunder was so loud it shook the house. Since our power was out we couldn't hear the news to see what was going on. And we didn't hear the "tornado siren". Mike's sister called to let us know that one was heading our way, but since our power was out, we didn't get the call. Like idiots we stood at the window and watched the storm come through. A couple of hours after the storm hit I was talking to a friend on my cell phone and she informed me that a Tornado hit down the street from our house. We had NO IDEA! Today at church, everyone was talking about how they went down in the basement when the siren went off.......Didn't hear it! Our power was out all day, so we didn't know anything that was going on. Thank goodness it didn't hit any closer than it did. There is a farm house down the road, who's drive up to the house is lined with really pretty, big pear trees that have beautiful white blossoms on them. We drove by this morning and most of them are down, from the storm. Here are some pictures of took of our yard, cause it looked like a river was running through it. Hopefully the storm put some kind of dent in our drought out here.

The Hail...........

If you look back by the trees you can see part of a "creek" that had turned into a raging river. The "river" that ran down the side of the house

Pinewood Derby

Well, we participated in our first "pinewood derby" yesterday. It was just as long and painful as I remembered it to be, from when my little brother was a scout. Braxton and Mike, with some help from Grandpa Dave, carved and sanded the car. I then painted it. Nothing too fancy. Braxton was very excited to participate. He won every race but one in the first round. He then only won two races in the second round, which kept us from going to the third round. Come to find out, the three cars that won 1st 2nd and 3rd, all made illegal modifications to their cars, which is why they were so fast. (and can't go to district with them) Apparently our ward isn't very strict when it comes to the rules.Braxton with his car, just before we left for the church.
Braxton and his buddy Zach setting up to race against each other. (Zach won)
Braxton, watching his car WIN, by a hair!

Braxton's Baptism

Braxton's Baptism was on Saturday February 23, 2008. What a great day! Grandma Cheryl, Grandpa Ellsworth, Aunt Kerri, Grandma and Grandpa Hanson, and Uncle Mike and Aunt Kristine all came. His friends, the Maddox's, the Sampson's, the Westfalls, his primary teacher were all there too. It was so nice to be surrounded by people who love and support Braxton. Grandma Cheryl and Grandpa Hanson spoke, Grandma Hanson played an arrangement that she wrote (I love to see the temple, Braxton's favorite primary song). Mike baptized him and gave him a wonderful confirmation blessing. It was such a great experience, and a little sad to realize that Braxton is growing up so quickly.
After the baptism, everyone came over to our house for a luncheon. Braxton had a great time playing with everyone.

Thank you to everyone who has had a role in Braxton's life. Thank you to those of you who traveled out here to be here for this awesome occasion.

Braxton with Grandma and Grandpa Hanson

Grandma Cheryl, Braxton, Grandpa Ellsworth, Aunt Kerri and Hailey

Braxton's Baptism

Us at the church, before the baptism

Braxton and Mike in their baptismal clothing.

Some of Braxton's friends that came to the baptism.
Braxton and Hailey

Braxton's Birthday

Grandma, Grandpa and Hailey singing Happy Birthday.

We now have an 8 year old in the house. I feel to young to have an eight year old, but so goes life. Braxton had a great birthday.....no party this year, but his Grandma Cheryl took he and a friend out to a movie and to dinner. They had so much fun. On his actual birthday Mike and I took him to Sweet Tomatos (his fav restaraunt) and then we came home and watched a movie. Braxton is such a homebody that he was satisfied with just spening time with his family.

Our new cub scout.....

Yep, we've started scouts. I see Pinewood derby's, court of honors, and lots of projects in our future. Braxton is so excited about it. His Grandma Cheryl was here and as part of his birthday she took him to Outdoor world to get his scout shirt, book, hat and scarf.

We have our first pinewood derby in a couple of weeks and Braxton, Mike and Grandpa Dave already have cut and sanded the car. Things certainly have changed, since my little brother was in scouts. No longer to you have to rely on your imagination, the internet has opened up a whole new world of options with the car. There are so many sites that show car styles and give you tips on how to make your car go faster. Now the only problem is to decide what car he wants to do.

St Thomas, V.I. '08

For some reason the website will only allow me to add 2 pictures per post, so I've had to do several posts......

We had a great time in St. Thomas. The weather was beautiful, a little windy the last two days, but still pretty warm. I was very dilligent at putting my sunscreen on, Dad would be proud. I did get a little sunburn in some "obscure" parts, like around my armpit and and on one side of my foot, but that was it. Mike on the otherhand, underestimated the strength of the sun and was FRIED! Even his scalp was sunburned. And now it's all peeling off.

The beach at the resort. And yes, the water was really that blue.

The Great White shark that hung out at our beach.....okay, ya got me, it was just a little Lemon shark.

St Thomas

Mike and I on our way to dinner, in front of the pool. And no, I'm not pregnant. It's just the way my jacket was open.
If you look hard enough you can see Mike snorkeling......

More pics of St Thomas

We stayed in the back building, to the left. This is a picture taken from the catamaran.
A view from the pool.

St Thomas, V.I.

Mike relaxing in the ocean.
Part of the Resort.

Mike and I were able to get away for a week, "kidfree", and head down to St Thomas. After a very windy, bumpy taxi ride from the airport to the Hotel, we finally made it to the "Ritz Carlton". It was a very nice place, a little over rated in my opinion, but nice. We did absolutely nothing! And I'm not kidding. We just layed on the beach, ate, did a little snorkeling and that was it. There are other things to do at St. Thomas, but after the car ride from "you know where" I was not about to get back into a taxi to go anywhere, unless we absolutely had to. Oh, we did take a large catamaran over to St John, and snorkeled at "rendevous bay". That was a lot of fun. All in all it was a much needed vacation for both of us. And the kids had a great time at home with Grandma Cheryl.

Oh the weather outside is frightful......

Two snow storms in one week! I think this is a record. Wednesday night it was all over the news that Atlanta was going to get a "big" snow storm, that schools and business's would be shut down. You'd think we were going to get 10 feet of snow or something, but no, we got about 1/2 of an inch. They still closed school for the day. Braxton was very excited!

Storm number 1

By friday all of the snow from the first storm had melted. But they were predicting a bigger storm to hit us Saturday. Braxton had basketball practice friday night, and that was all everyone was talking about, the BIG STORM! Saturday they canceled all of the basketball games, and people were going out and getting supplies in case the end of the world was on it's way. So around 10am Saturday morning the flakes started to fall and by 2 pm we had about 3 inches on the ground. The kids were so excited. Living out here in Georgia, you don't really need the proper snow attire, so we didn't have much to put on the kids. They went out and played in it for about 20 minutes until they couldn't stand the cold any longer.

Next Michael Jordan!

Well, I think we've found Braxton's sport. He does ok at everything he plays, but basketball........he's really picked up on it. Braxton is pretty good at making baskets, passing the ball to an actual person, stealing the ball from the other team, almost like he knows what he's doing. It's fun to watch him do something he's actually good at. The funny thing is, we play for a Methodist league, and most of our team are Mormon kids from our old ward. So it's fun to watch them play. Braxton loves being on a team with friends. Today's game was especially exciting because every single kid on our team made at least one basket.
After the game I told the boys that they looked like little Michael Jordan's on the court and they all looked at me like I was crazy.....am I really that old?

At the beginning of the game they have a spotlight going, a fog machine on and they announce all the players names as they run onto the court. There's Braxton running out.

Look at that defense!

Braxton seriously stole the ball from this kid right after this shot.

Braxton making a basket.

Braxton pointing out to his team mate that he's standing on the line.

Braxton making another basket.

Making yet another basket.

A week late, but a miracle non-the-less!

Anyone who knows me, knows that every year I have the same wish, a "christmas miracle" is what I like to call it, that it snow here on Christmas day. Well, we've lived here for 9 years and not once have we had snow on Christmas day. I've heard that the last time it happened was in 1996, so I know it can happen. Well, on New Years day we went and saw a movie and on our way home from the theater it started to flurry. By the time we got home it was "blizzardy" looking, ok for Georgia it was blizzardly. It didn't stick to the ground and only snowed for about 20 min, but good enough. So we are getting closer..........maybe next year.

Taken out our front door....

The destructive duo strike again!

Happy 2008, everyone! The past couple of New Years we have opted to stay home and have a quiet evening with the fam, but this year we invited the Maddox's and Sampson's over for dinner and games, that adds 8 kids to our 2 kids which = mess! Don't get me wrong, it's always a lot of fun to have everyone here, especially for the kids.

Hailey and Gabby alone are a handful by themselves....as soon as Gabby gets here they usually run up into Haileys bedroom and get as many clothes as they can to change into and then proceed to get every toy they can get their little hands on and who knows what they do with it all, but it's always a huge ordeal to clean it up. Well when everyone was getting ready to go home, I went up into Hailey's room to look for Gabby's clothes and noticed that it was all clean. I was shocked, but also a little suspicious.......so I went into Hailey's bathroom just to see if there was anything in there and this is what I found..............

I guess I should count my blessings.....at least they didn't turn the water on.

Hailey's Birthday!

I grew up with a sister, who shall remain nameless, that resented the fact her birthday was so close to Christmas. With the hustle and bustle of the holidays there were times when her birthday was kind of lost in the shuffle. I now have a daughter who is in that same perdicament. I am seeing Mike and myself pulling gifts out of her Christmas stash and setting them aside for her birthday, because we don't want to go shopping between Christmas and New Years, and we've forgotten that her birthday is coming up. I'm sure the older she gets, the wiser she will become and this will no longer be acceptable.

Her birthday was on the 28th of December, which fell on a night that Mike had to work late at the hospital, so we didn't even tell her it was her birthday until the following day. She had a great day though. We opened gifts and went and saw Alvin and the Chipmunks as a family. We decided to do birthday cake on new years eve, when our friends would be here to celebrate with us. Her buds Gabby and Seth were here to enjoy the cake and play all night long.

Hailey enjoying some of her birthday presents..

Hailey blowing out her birthday candles....notice the princess castle cake....yes I made it myself and yes it looked just as crappy in person as it does in the picture. Hailey loved it and that is all that matters!

Christmas Day 2007

I can't believe Christmas is over! This year has just flown by for us, so much has gone on it's hard to believe it's been a year......Anyway, we had a great Christmas. Braxton and Hailey slept in until about 8am, and then woke everyone up. They are pretty good about not going downstairs and seeing the presents....(as far as I know anyway) Their "big" gifts this year were bikes. They were both very excited about them. Hailey has been riding her's all over the house ever since she got it. Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Kerri left around 11am Christmas day, so it was just us the rest of the day. We just layed around, ate, watched movies and played rockband. It was a great day! Merry Christmas everyone!

Braxton and Hailey with Grandma and Grandpa Ellsworth.

Christmas Eve

This year Mike's Dad, Stepmom and sister, Kerri came down to spend Christmas with us. It was alot of fun to have Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Kerri here. Braxton and Hailey had a great time playing games, "sleeping over" in Aunt Kerri's room and reading books with Grandma Ellsworth. This year I had planned to do a short program with the kids for Christmas Eve, but since they had been up past midnight the previous 2 nights they were out of their minds tired when it came time to do the program. So instead we watched the movie Nativity. But before that we opened our new PJ's to sleep in.

Elf on the Shelf

I'm sure many of heard of the "phenomonon" called the Elf on the Shelf. It's a story about one of Santa's elves that comes to your home and watches you to make sure you are being nice and not naughty...he then goes to report to Santa about your behavior every night. The book comes with an actual elf that you put on your shelf, and every morning he's moved to a new spot. The catch is you can't touch him or he won't come back the next day. Braxton and Hailey have had so much fun trying to find the Elf. I have to admit that there are times the elf has "forgotten" to move and Braxton is very disappointed that he's in the same spot. Anyway, Mike has decided to get in on the fun and started to hide the elf. And this is what we found this morning...........

The fan is running and the elf is flying around. Mike is quite proud of himself.

Oh Christmas Tree.....

We did something tonight we haven't done for years! We bought a "real" tree. It's been 4 years, since the "incident", and we vowed to go fake ever since. (Mike trying to get the tree out of the house and making a huge, muddy, sappy mess on the carpet in the process....plus we were vaccuming up needles for months after that tree.) But since we have an extra family room in this house, it had to have a tree in it, so we thought we'd give a real one a try. We picked out the tree, bought ornaments and lights, then decorated the heck out of it. We went a little crazy on the lights, the color I mean. I opted for plain white, while Mike wanted color, so we compromised.

Hailey and I putting up decorations


Hailey loves to put up ornaments, you can really see it, but there were about 20 balls right in that spot.


Braxton was the official "hook putter oner" for the ornaments.

Hailey and the tree.....notice she is still in the same spot putting up ornaments.....

Three Little Indians......

When we go out to Utah, we are fortunate to have lots if family and friends to spend time with. (which at times makes our visit out there pretty hectic) But we enjoy every minute of it. Our good friends, Chris and Karen have a little girl, named McKenzie. Braxton and Hailey both love to go over to their house and play with her and all of her toys. Other than Hailey and Kenzie fighting over some of the toys, they usually have a pretty good time.