Our New Home

I wanted to post a picture of our new home. We will probably get to move in in about another 3 weeks or so. We haven't really started to pack our home yet. I dread packing things up and moving, but I think this will be a good move for us. We are planning on being here for a least 10+ years right Lance?
I just wanted to post a few things about it since we have got a lot of emails and phone calls of people wanting to know what it looks like.

Here is a blue print of the layout of the home. We will have plenty of room so we are up for visitors. More pictures are on the way.

Happy Birthday mom

My sweet mother turned 50 this past weekend. It was so fun to be with her on her birthday. My mother has been so incredible. She has gone above and beyond to help me out when I have needed her. I love my mom! She is so fun and so lovealbe. She makes friends where ever she goes.
For her birthday I had the opportunity to go to my grandma's house to look through her old pictures. I had such a great time finding out fun things about her and to hear all the stories. She is the 3 of 4 children in her family. My grandfather always had a nickname for anyone he knew and my mother's nickname was Twiggy.


She has always been beautiful and she has always been so friendly. She was recently called as the 8th Ward Relief Society President. She has felt very overwhelmed but I think that she will be a fantastic President. GO MOM!!!!
I found a lot of cute pictures and was able to make a video of her life for her gift. I think it was a hit. I think my mom and her siblings enjoyed looking back on old memories and there were even a few photos that they had never seen before.




Happy Birthday mom!!! We love you so much. Here are more pictures from our fun birthday party we had tonight. A tradition in our family is to have a huge family dinner/ get together the Sunday after the birthday. That is what we did tonight. It was fun to see everyone. I think everyone had a good time.

Brothers

Keaton and Andrew are so much alike and yet they are so different. Keaton was our second child. Our first son. He was born on July 15, 2005 and he was a big boy weighing in at 9 lbs. 9 oz. and 21 inches long. It was no wonder why everyone was asking me if I was having twins. After Madalynn he was a breath of fresh air. Of course we worried the whole pregnancy but once he came, we couldn't have been any happier than we were.


Andrew was born on Dec. 22, 2006. I was induced almost a week early to prevent us from all being in the hospital on Christmas day. He weighed 8 lbs. 7 oz. and was 21 inches long. He was so ready to come and make his grand entrance. He didn't cry or scream. He was so alert and calm. He was an angel baby. We were so blessed to have him. Keaton was excited to have a brother.


Now that Andrew is walking and running around with Keaton, they have become such good friends. Andrew is constantly in his shadow if it is a good day. They both love sports, playing outside and just being together. It is so fun to watch them interact with each other. Keaton has tried to help me out quite abit with Andrew. It has allowed me to sit back and watch them.

One of my favorite quotes that I have is that "A brother is better than a superhero." I think in our case that would be true. I feel so blessed to be their mother. They have brought me so much happiness. I guess you could say I am desperatly in love with my children.

Is the Easter Bunny coming?

"Is the Easter Bunny coming mom?" That was the most frequent asked question Keaton would ask us this past week. How do you help a little child to understand that you have to wait, go to sleep while a creepy bunny comes to your house to bring you treats and a gift? Keaton would get alittle frightened when we would talk about the bunny coming to our home, so we had to explain to him that the bunny was just a little tiny one that would hop to our home and quietly bring the easter basket for him. He seemed ok with that answer.
We had a great Easter Sunday. We attended two wards, our own and then we also went to my parents sacrament meeting because my mom was being set apart as the new Relief Society President. My brother also spoke in his singles ward so we all went to see him too. I had forgotten how well he speaks. I also got to see a good friend of mine who is still single. She is such a great girl. We both served our missions at the same time and had some neat experience that were shared between us.

We had everyone over for Easter Dinner. It wasn't the greatest outside but we made due and it stayed fairly decent for the Egg hunt. Our good friends, neighbors and family members came over for a potluck dinner. It was so good. There was plenty of food to spare. It is so nice to have good friends. Our neighbors next door who are buying our home are great people. They are not members of the church but they just live good lives. They have triplets who will be turning 8 this spring. We consider them almost family.

Keaton and Andrew were spoiled for Easter. During church Grandpa Quinn came to our home and left a trail of jelly beans that lead to their easter baskets in their bedrooms with candy, toys and more candy. They loved it.
Thanks to everyone who made this such a special day. We love you all. We also love those of you who couldn't make it here to celebrate with us. We were thinking of you. Happy Easter everyone!

My Grandparents

The other day I went over to my Grandmother's house to see if she could help me with a project I am trying to put together. We pulled out old pictures and laughed at old times. I found so many adorable pictures of my grandparents that I decided I should post them so you could know a bit about them. This picture was taken the day my grandparents, Patricia Ellen Cook and Sam Allen Beard were married. They were married on August 1, 1952 in Star, Idaho. In fact the house that they were married in still stands and is just down the road from where I live.
My grandfather Sam Allen Beard was born on August 29, 1927 in Meridian, Idaho. He had 3 brothers and one sister who passed away when she was 10 because of a heart condition. He has one brother who is still alive and he looks alot like my grandpa. My grandfather was not a member of the Church. He started smoking and drinking at a young age and was a roudy guy. He fought in the Korean War and always had stories to tell. In all the pictures I have ever seen of him there is always either a cigarette in his hand or a drink of some sort. But he was a good man. He loved my grandmother and his children very much. He supported their church attendance and other activities, but he would never attend church. My mother keeps a picture of him on her wall. It is my most favorite one of him. He worked for the Boise Police Department and he is with other men on the back of a fire truck with a guitar in hand. Some of the others are dressed up as clowns and etc. They were in a parade. It is such a neat picture. I wish I could have posted it. My grandma tells us stories about him every now and then it they are so fun to hear. I don't remember a whole lot about him because he died when I was fairly young. I always remember him watching Hee Haa, mixing drinks and an oxygen tank. He passed away peacefully in his sleep. My mom said that at his bedside he would talk to people as if they were right there withm him. He talked to his mother and said that he was coming. My mom said it was a neat experience to be present and hear him talk. He was not conscious while he was talking to those whom must have been present then. I can't wait until I can meet him, talk with him and get to know him better. I think that somewhere up there he is taking care of my sweet Madalynn. I am sure he already has a nickname for her like he did for every single one of us. We love and miss him so much.a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIkIvBBSmwc_-jOLMx-Mj73MUrGIhI0b26bcxlFo7VQY5qkEkeomD2_rOYO_ohkrMic6eNkIR6dEiD6wopzuoEC4dx8UMOJNTMZLso_sQGLD4XLQUcmtwDey9GtfZA22Cb6L5Vn-iffhk/s1600-h/scan0028.jpg">
My grandma Patricia Ellen Cook was born on October 22, 1932 in Dingle, Idaho. She was born and raised there. She was born a member of the church and has a few siblings who are still active in the church. Her mother passed away when she was still young. I believe she was 12 yrs. old at the time. She helped her father take care of the house and children. She was a brave woman. She has many generation of members on her side of the family that she has done the temple work for. She is still alive and is still going strong. When my grandfather passed away she gave us land next to their house to build on. So I have lived next to my grandma since I was young. My parents still live in the same house and help take care of grandma. She is very hard working. She takes great pride in her yard and garden and every year it is very beautiful. She is enjoying a lot of great grandchildren now. She is one of my best friends. We love to go over and visit her. We love you grandma. We are so happy that we live so close.
I am so grateful to grandparents who have lead and continue to lead the way by example and friendship. They have truely left a legacy in our lives. Because of them we are who we are. We know where we come from and I am so thankful for that. I hope to get started on our Family History work. We have been invited to attend a special class about this very subject each Sunday for Sunday School. This work is rolling forth and it will not stop until every soul has had their work done for them.
I went with our youth group to the temple this afternoon to do some baptisms for the dead. I haven't sat through one of those for a very long time. I was sitting there as the names were read and a young man/woman was baptized in behalf of those who have been gone a long time. I can only imagine at their rejoicing that someone had found them and performed their work. This is an ispired work. I feel so blessed to be a memeber of the church.

Happy Birthday Ava!

Today, my niece Ava Kay turned a year old. I can't believe it! She is a toddler. She is a cute one too. Just look at her. What's not to love about this adorable face?


We had a great time. All the family came over for a BBQ before the party and then we were ready for the party at 6:30pm. She had a huge crowd. Lots of gifts. I have never seen so many gifts for a little girl. It was almost as good as Christmas if not better. She got outfited for the next year. She got some fun toys that my boys just fell in love with. I even think they took off with some of the gifts to other parts of the house so they could play with them. All the cousins were over and all the little people had a fun time running around and just being together. They loved the bubble machine. That topped it all off.




Thanks for sharing your big day with us Ava. We sure love you and are so happy that you are in our family. Keaton and Andrew really love seeing you. They just light up when you come around. Happy Birthday sweet Ava Kay!

Pictures from the Bahamas

Here are some more pictures I failed to post with our Bahama vacation. Enjoy them!

Here was a swimming pool that we swam in quite abit. It was an infinity edge pool that I swear looked like it was part of the ocean. It was so beautiful.

Here are some pictures of Lance and I at 8 Mile Rock. For all you die hard Pirates of the Carribian fans, this is where they filmed part of that movie.

Some other random photos we took just of the Bahamas. What an amazing place.


Nothing like ending the day with a view like these.

We're back

We did it! We had a week to ourselves, no children. It was great! Of course we missed them but it was so great to be on our own. We had an incredible week in the Bahamas. What a beautiful place! The people were so friendly and everyone was just happy. We are glad to be back home with our chilren.
We arrived on Monday, first thing in the morning and we took a taxi to the Harbour where we waited to set sail. We took off from Fort Lauderdale. We didn't get to see much of Florida but the coast where we were was pretty.

Our boat ride was close to 4 hours long. It was a nice boat ride to the Island. We had a lot of college students on Spring Break with us. They made it quite interesting. We arrived on the Grand Bahama Island alittle after noon. We took a taxi ride to our hotel and from then on we were on our own. Our hotel was not right on the beach, but we were only a hop,skip and a jump away. I was amazed at how big the Island was. I was expecting it to be some little remote island out in the middle of nowhere. But it was quite big. They drive like the British, on the left side of the road. They have no rules and the round abouts almost killed us. Our first day there we rented some mopeds so we could cruise the island and explore on our own.

The people were so friendly and we never felt afraid of being robbed if we turned our backs for a second. They pretty much thrive on tourism. That is how most of the island make their living. The cost of living is pretty high there so many Bahamians take a boat to Florida, stock up on pretty much everything and take it back to the Bahamas. It was amazing how expensive everything was.
We had fun on our moped ride. We cruised some parts and found some beautiful places. The beaches there were amazing. Here is a huge home we found right along the beach. So you see, there is a lot of money on the island as well.

It was great, we got to sleep in every morning and come and go as we pleased. It was strange not having a child to take care of or a diaper to change. It was really nice to have some time with Lance. We hadn't had time to ourselves since before we started having children.
We spent most of our time down at Port Lucaya. It is a port right along the coast. It was full of beautiful resorts, beaches and entertainment. We even got to watch a wedding on the beach one day. We ate strange things and had a fun time laughing at all the crazy things we saw. We also found out that there is a place on the island called 8 Mile Rock. For all you died hard Pirates of the Carriabean fans, they filmed part of the movie there. We couldn't find the exact location but we got close. We also took a Glass Bottom Boat ride out to the ocean. The bottom of the boat was glass. There were windows where we sat down and watched the diver feed the fish. It was fun to see them. I coulnd't believe how fast the flocked to the diver when he pulled out a loaf of bread to feed them. I would recommend a get away to anyone who is reading this. It was so nice to get away from the ordinary life and experience something different for a change. But it is nice to be back with our children. They did really well for my parents which really suprised us. It made it all the more easier to have fun.
We made it home Saturday afternoon to find our children well and happy. It is nice to be back and it is time to get back to our normal life. It was nice while it lasted.

Here we are with "Gilligan and Skipper." They took us on the glass bottom boat ride.

Here are some pictures of our vacation. Enjoy.

Bahamas, here we come!

We have been planning this vacation to the Bahamas for a couple of months now and it is finally here. We leave tomorrow afternoon for a week. I am so excited and so nervous at the same time. I have never left my children for a vacation. We have always taken them with us and it has only been as far at Utah or Arizona. Never a week without my children. What am I going to do with so much free time?
Yesterday I went out in search for the perfect bathing suit. Funny thing is, there is no such thing, especially after you have children. The last time I bought a suit was in high school and back then, I had this great tiny figure, but now, after 3 kids and a few years of not working out, it will do it to you. I was so frustrated that I hadn't found one I liked. Well I found one. I hope that it will suit its purpose snorkeling, and just hanging out on the island.
I am keeping my fingers crossed and praying really hard that my children will do well. My parents and siblings are going to be spending the week with them. The fact that they are watching them makes this all the more easier for me to go out and enjoy a week without them. Andrew is almost 15 months and I am weaning him so he should do alright. He is just a huge mama's boy. Pray for them!
Keep posted. We will be back on Saturday and I will post everything that happened. We love you all!