Holly Homemaker

One of my favorite things to do is create. I love making things! Since we've been in Utah I have made several things, unfortunately I've only taken pictures of a couple of those things thus far. But since I have these I thought I'd share them with you.

My mom and I took a cake decorating class together, this was the finished cake of the last class. I also made a really cute Tyrone cake from The Backyardigans. It was a lot of fun taking the class with my mom, although she is so good at everything that it was a little difficult for my ego-notice there is no picture of her cake posted. Mine paled in comparison to her perfection. Oh, and it tasted pretty good to!


I have found a new love of making cards too. I threw a baby shower for my sister in law, Brindy and these were the invitations. My favorite thing about them is that the info. card pulls out of the elephant envelope and the envelope can be used again, aren't I clever? ;)


I'm going to try posting other pictures as I get them. I want to keep a record and this is the best place to do it for now. What kind of things do you like to make? If you want to send a picture to be posted here I'd love to do it for you!

Primarily for Mommies

I have so much to post, but my camera hasn't been working too well so all my pictures are on my in-laws camera. I will be playing catch up soon, but for now I just wanted to share one of my proudest moments as a mother.

I know this is silly, but yesterday was our ward primary program and it was Bryant's first one. He didn't have a speaking part, but his class sang "Listen, Listen" all by themselves-along with all the other songs the rest of the primary sang. He did such a great job! He knew all the words to just about every song (I Know that my Redeemer Lives was a bit tricky). He got a little confused when they sang the two verses of Love is Spoken Here together, but sang the boy part through to the end.

He looked so cute up on the stand. I told Ethan we really needed to have the "hold still" talk with him, but we didn't. He waved, winked, gave me the thumbs up, stuck his tongue out (at no one in particular was just giving his chin a nice licking), and smiled that cheeser of his.

My heart was so happy! I am sure I was glowing watching my little boy grow up just a little bit.

Soccer...well almost

What do you get when you put together 10 four year old kids, 2 goals, and 1 ball? Swarm ball (as my mother in law likes to call it) and a whole lot of fun! Bryant is playing on a cute little soccer team twice a week and having the time of his life. The majority of our team don't have a clue what's going on, but they sure have fun! We won our first game last week and they were ecstatic!

We have a few kids that like to take the ball away from anyone, on their own team or the opponents. We have a few dreamers. We have a few talkers- one girl just likes to talk to anyone who will listen and she is always trying to hold hands with someone. We had one boy playing goalie at one point I turned around to tell him to get ready and he was running back from the sideline, as soon as he got in place, he immediately grabbed himself and yelled, "I have to go potty!" I about peed my pants at that point, it was hilarious! I get to coach all these crazy kids and we are having a ball! Here are some pictures of Bryant in action.





Jonas is, of course, sad he can't play and he repeatedly runs onto the field with me (the coach runs the field with the team to encourage and show them where to be ). It takes a team of helpers (Ethan, my father-in-law and my parents) to keep him off the field and he gets past them once or twice a game.



These kids sure do grow up fast, it won't be too long and I'll have three boys playing soccer! Time flies when you're having fun!

Super Man

Just thought you all might enjoy Jonas at his finest...he loves to "dress up." He comes to me with a dish towel daily and asks me to tie it on him like a cape and he always has to have something over his eyes. These glasses are great, but my favorite are Ethan's swimming goggles. Once he's set in his costume, he runs around the house or outside and when he encounters someone, anyone, he gets into this wide-leg pose with arms flexed to show his muscles and says, "Superman to the rescue." He is just too funny!

New Side Bar

I just wanted to draw your attention to our new and improved side bar. There are links to many wonderful blogs and other fantastic sites.
In particular I want to point out my brother Sean's site.
(Its the first one listed under Favorite Sites).
He is a poet of magnificent talent and I thought you all might enjoy his work. He has one book published and I believe he is working on publishing a second, let me know if you'd be interested in it when it comes out!

Diplomacy

We were at my brother Richy's house today and the kids were building a secret hideout so "baby's couldn't get in." Paige (who is Bryant's age) came up and wanted to get in when Porter and Bryant started saying it was for boys only, "No girls allowed." Kari and I both told them it wasn't fair, so they tried explaining their reasoning. Porter said she could come in if she didn't bring in all her girl stuff (she was carrying a purse and wearing dress up shoes and bracelets).


Then Bryant said, "I don't like girl stuff...only blue girl stuff...and green...you look nice mom." What a nice cover for his rudeness to his poor cousin. They ended up letting her in, just so you know.

He looks like who?!?

This is for all of you out there who are constantly telling me how much my boys look like their dad! I scanned several pictures and they all came back saying either more me, or equal...not once did it say more Ethan, so HA! :) One scan actually said Bryant was 19% more me. What do you think? (FYI-there was punctuation in the titles, but it didn't transfer, sorry!)

Happy Birthday Grandpa Woody!

Grandpa Woody turned 60 on September 7, 2007 and we had a party! Gracie and Bryant both wanted to say the prayer for dinner, so Eric suggested they arm wrestle to decide. He and Scott had to show them how it was done...

Bryant won...

I wanted to show these pictures because they are of the best looking pies I have ever made. I made one apple and my first ever lemon meringue. The oven cooked a little hot on my meringue, but other than that, I think they look pretty good. And they tasted wonderful!

I'm not really sure what Jonas is doing in this one, but it sure is cute!

The highlight of the evening was Tom and Lisa's gift to Scott. They gave him a two wheel, wheel barrow. The kids wanted ride after ride after ride... They never tired of it, though they tired out 4 pushers! Jonas laughed and laughed when Tom pushed him at high speed. Bryant thought it looked like fun, but once he jumped in he never stopped saying "slow down" even before they started moving. Levi still will just sit in the wheel barrow until I give him a ride and after I finish the ride he refuses to get out, so I let him sit there a while longer, take a turn with him, he refuses to get out...he LOVES it! I only wish it had straps so it could be a more reliable babysitter! :)

Free slideshows, photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com
This video is long, but it was the best one we got showing how much fun the kids had.

All in all it was a fantastic party! Happy Birthday Scott!!!! We love ya!

Labor Day

For Labor Day we got to attend the annual Holliday Family Reunion in Little Egypt (Preston, ID)...FINALLY! I missed this reunion so much while we lived in Oregon. It has always been one of the highlights of my year, and this year did not disappoint. If you enlarge the photo to read the story of why its called Egypt, you'll read about David Jensen; he is my Great-great-great-grandfather (I think I got all the greats in there) and the first permanent settler of Preston, ID.

We were going to drive up on Saturday, but do to some more vomit we decided against it. We didn't want to be stuck in a tent with illness coming at us from all angles. We drove up Sunday and went to Sacrament meeting in Preston, then headed over to spend some time with family. Sunday evening is always spent by the fireside where we're entertained by one another, each big family gets a bag of props writes and performs a skit, here's a picture of Ethan and Jonas preparing for ours.

Grandpa "Hoss" (my dad) and Jonas at the fireside.

The oldest three grandkids in my parent's family were engrossed in a Batman computer game, what with fresh air and sunshine surrounding them, go figure!

Porter, Ethan, and Dalton

The younger kids had a great time running and playing to their hearts' content.

Nola and Brinlee (my cousin Katie's daughter)

My aunts Jan and Janna (you think that's confusing? There's a Janene too)
Here they are holding their grandkids.

I have the world's very best sisters-in-law- or perhaps a better term to call them, sisters-in-love. What good sports to let me take pictures of them while camping. I have missed them so much, its good to be home!

A HOG! My dad's dream come true, too bad its my cousin's...

Perhaps, the longest running tradition with our reunion is Monday BINGO! Dennis was a good sport and helped my kids, who were THRILLED to play and to win cool prizes on top of it!

A couple of my brothers (Richy and Sean) are trying to become professional game designers. They have one game, Mingling, that will hopefully be in stores next year sometime. I'll let you know when you can all buy it! This is the next one they are pushing to get in stores, Shapes. Its pretty exciting to see their dreams starting to come true!

My "Crazy Aunt Velora" my grandpa's youngest sister. She rocks!

My grandpa's oldest sister, Lauraine. The quilt behind her was made by my dad's cousin and it has a bunch of family history pictures on it. Last year, at the reunion, she had everyone sign little strips of fabric. We weren't there, so our names are not included on the family quilt. :( It was made for our family auction (to fund the family farm where the reunion is held). Lauraine was the winner of the auction at a whopping $1,006.53 (I think, I may have the figure off by a few cents...) What a treasure!

The youngest of the kids in my grandpa's family, Tom with my cute Dad (the patriarch of his family since his dad passed away in 1994). I didn't get a picture of one of my great-uncles ElDean, he was there and I don't know how I missed him, but for history's sake here are the rest of them.

Poor Jonas was so sick, we changed his diaper 8 times on Monday! He was so sad and once we ran out of diapers we had to go home.

And illustrating how we all felt at the end of the weekend, is Eden (Richy and Kari's 3rd child). Funny how we always need a vacation from our vacation. :)

Summertime, and the livin' is easy...

We are really enjoying the last few days of summer. We love being with family and we love the Woodbury's HUGE yard. This was a recent Sunday dinner at the Woodbury home...

We had a corn husking party in the garden. Bryant was a good little helper.
:)

The two Ethans, hard at work.


One day, while trying to console an ornery baby, Grandma Jane put him in one of these chairs outside and he calmed right down. Since then he demands his own chair and loves what a big boy he is.

Levi and his cousin Ike. They were born two days apart, even though they were a week and a half different due dates. Levi was due June 30, Ike July 8. Sarah was induced on July 2, Levi was born on July 4, I thought that was pretty mean.

Jonas, Ari, and Bryant eating dinner, though all the boys actually ate was Jell-o and Jonas later threw it all up.

Someone said when this picture was taken, "That would have been a nice picture if you wouldn't have pulled that face, Ethan." I would like to say, "Story of my life!" He is so much fun!

Grandma Jane and Grandpa Woody, they throw a good party! We really appreciate all they do for us and all they deal with whilst living in our midst! We love you!