Getting glasses

How have you been doing, everybody? I have been doing good! Well on Tuesday I went shopping with my mom. We went to a few places and then we went to see if I needed glasses. My eyes have been bothering me for quite some time. We went there and I needed them. I had a lot of fun time trying them on! We took one of our favorite ones and brought them to get lens in them. We found out that it would be cheaper to get two pairs instead of just one since they had a special right then. So I picked out one more pair. It was going to take till 6 to get them done so we just went to Old Navy and went home. Later that night our whole family went to town and picked them up. Only Chauntel, Blayne, my Mom and I went in. I had to get them adjusted too. This was at the mall!

In the car, us girls were talking while the boys were in Big 5. My mom was going to text Leona a picture of me in my glasses. It was too dark so it didn't work. Instead she took this picture of me on her camera. I am glad I got them. I can see way better! ~Alexa

This Past Weekend...

We really enjoying "babysitting" Chet and Brenda's kids last weekend! It wasn't really babysitting though, since their youngest is 6! It was more like having a bunch of our kids' friends over all at the same time. We had them here while they were celebrating their coming anniversary:) I ended up with some pictures since the kids snitched my camera and got some.

I took this one of them having the tea party that Chauntel set up for them:) Our girls really enjoyed having "big sisters" for the weekend. They also really appreciated (and so did I) all their extra help with the dishes and pitching in with the little kids!

These following two collages are pretty poor photos; but James' phone had the only record of their fishing trip so I am using them anyways! James took the girls fishing in the afternoon first.

And then he came and swapped for the boys. Ryan looks pretty pleased with his catch! They only kept a couple fish that got cooked up after supper for little samples.

Here's a nice picture I got of our Godchild on Sunday morning before we went to church....

The girls who discovered they had matching skirts:)

Alexa joined them...

I went down to check on the boys...with camera in hand, Sunday afternoon. I think they tinkered all weekend! Actually, they helped out too! All the boys went with James to work on a few things at Grandma's on Saturday morning. They were a great help:) They also helped me on a sanding project...that was GREAT! The project is done now!

Well, they got picked up Sunday around 4, if I remember right. We ALL enjoyed having them here! The first night they were here, we lost electricity. When I called and told James, he said he'd get pizza since he was in town. Good thing he had already gotten them when I called to tell him that it had went back on:) Had a fun time staying up late talking and visiting, too! Thanks to all of you, if you are looking at this!

Later that evening the kids were getting a kick out of James "playing" the organ. The thing is...he doesn't really know how to play, but he wanted to sing, "I Look Not Back". So he was singing it to some really interesting music he was playing. Finally he gave up and they just sang it together.

And here he was explaining to them how much the song means to him. It really has quite the sermon in that song! Check it out! (Page #340 in the big blue songbook) So...why was I just laying on the couch and taking pictures instead of participating??? Pure lazy and really tired at the moment!

We ended up in the basement until bedtime and the usual game of tag and wrestling broke out. It gets so wild! They go so fast that I can never get a good picture of them. My camera/shutter is never fast enough. Hence the blurry photos.

Everyone who dares, joins in. Blayne, Chauntel, and Zac are for sure...but they all join in at times.

And here's baby Jared...trying his usual climbing stunts. He fits right in, in our little playroom:) Way to end a good weekend!

There's so Much Joy in the Journey!

The alarm rang and I sprang to quiet the intruder! Morning came too fast...again. I rolled over and started thinking and praying. A few minutes later I hear soft footsteps coming towards my room and laid really still and pretended to be sleeping still as he came into my room. I figured it would be 2 1/2 year old Garret...and it was. He went to the other side of the bed and climbed right up and got comfy beside me. After a little while I hear, "Mommy", and then another "Mommy"; since I didn't answer the first time. "I'm here." I still pretend to sleep as he starts playing softly with my hair. Mmmm.....feels so good. Tiny little hands so lovingly playing with my hair. He has a thing for hair. Since he was a tiny tot...he would always grab my hair. Thankfully, he actually learned how to do it now and it doesn't hurt like it used to:) After this went on for awhile, he tried again. "Mommy?" This time I rolled over, grinned at him, and said, "Love you, Garret!" He grinned really big and immediately said, "Love you too!"

I figured I'd better look at that dreaded alarm clock again. Oooopsies...I'm late! 21 quick minutes had passed since it broke the silence of the night! We jumped out of bed and started the day with alot of joy in my heart! Thank you, God, for little kiddos! They are just so special and I feel so honored to get to be a mommy! It's so great that God designed it for us to be, "Keepers at Home", "To love our Children", "To love our Husbands"....Titus 2:4-5

And when the going gets rough, like it can often get for all of us with many children....we still have so many things to be thankful for! We can remember all the little hands that help us each day, the little arms that are so ready to hug us, the little voices that always tell us that we are the best mommy or tell us that they love us and the little feet that go to do as we ask them to. (even if it is grudgingly at times) They aren't perfect but neither are their parents...so what can we expect???? We can be thankful that Christ died for ALL of us and rejoice in his love and his perfectness each day! Hope you are all having a blessed day....the clock tells me that I need to quit my musings once again and get back to school:) The kids' break is over...so mine is too! Love You, Mona

These pictures aren't actually anything to do with this post...but I thought I would add a few anyways.

The kids reading to the kids...the cozier the better, they figure as they proceed to put pillows and blankets all over the place!


We had our Day 100 school party a few weeks ago. Here they had counted out 100 of a few different things...


OK...gotta go:) I really hope to come back later and post our past weekend. We had some special company:) We'll see if I actually get to it today!

Our Yakima Trip

Hi Everyone! We went to Yakima on Friday. It was a long trip and a fun trip! We got there around 7:00 pm. We unloaded everything. Once we got settled in the rooms, we decided to go swimming. The swimming was a lot of fun. It was fun watching my dad doing cannonballs. My dad taught us how to swim better. This is my dad and mom's bedroom. My brothers and my dad and mom slept in this room.

We decided to save these Christmas presents for our trip. We opened them in us girls' room. This is all of us with our gifts. All of us got cool stuff.

This is one of the family's gifts. Us girls were doing it at this time. The boys were doing it earlier though. It is a lot of fun doing beads.

This is the boys doing Zac's puzzle. We put the little kids to bed. The rest of us stayed up until 12:30.

The boys got up early and found the motorcycle shop and ate breakfast. Us girls got up somewhere around 8:00. We went down to breakfast when we got up. After that, we went to the motorcycle shop with dad and the boys. We asked for a late checkout so we could go swimming again after that.

After we left the motel, we went and ate lunch at McDonald's. My dad bought us ice cream cones. Then we headed to the elk feeding area which is pictured at the top of this post. It was fun looking at all the elk. The men that were feeding the elk said there were about 650 there that day.

After the elk feeding place, we stopped at this park. You had to walk a long way to get there. We all had a lot of fun on the playground. Then, we headed to Grandpa and Grandma Rhoades' to spend Saturday night at their house. The next day we went to church there and then headed home. This is the end of our trip! ~Alexa with my cousin's help