Merry Christmas!

I know it's been a LONG time, but here's a couple pictures to show our Christmas spirit!

He's growing up too fast!!!

Mommy's little helper...what a fun mess we had!

Peyton was SOOOOO excited about writing his letter to Santa, and he keeps adding to it just about every day!

He sure likes to talk about Santa, but he's still not a fan of sitting on his lap. Did you notice the nice dad laughing about it!

He LOVES his harmonica that Grandpa got at Disneyworld for him.

He even cheers for the right team...Go Ducks!

But at the end of the day, at least he still sleeps!!!!

Our Little Pool Shark!

This is so cute! We love his comments! Check out how well he holds the stick.

Nice weather!!!

Is anyone else as excited about Memorial Weekend and that we're going to have GREAT weather for it?!!!!!

Thanks for coming!

It was fun to hang out and chat with the ladies last night! We'll definitely have to repeat it...and we don't have to wait until the guys are all gone either!

Girls Night...calling all ladies (and daughters)

The guys are going to be off to the Father's and Sons Camp Out this Friday, so I'm declaring a Ladies Night! We're watching either
Meet Me in St. Louis or Seven Brides for Seven Brothers!

Whoever wants to join me, come on over around 6:30, I have PLENTY of popcorn to share! Bring your girls, and little guys if they're not going camping and come hang out!!!

Mother's Day!

What a great day! John & Peyton spoiled me and let me relax ALL day!!! They even let me watch the movie they gave me...Enchanted...what a chick flick...and they joined me...and believe it or not they survived!!! I even got to take a nice long nap, which instead of waking up to Peyton jumping on my head, he instead was tapping me on the shoulder saying "Mommy it's time to get up." It was adorable! Thanks for the great day!

Tulips, Spider-Man, Sunshine, Easter and Study...How much fun can 1 family have?

The Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival.

The "I Can't Believe You're Surrounding Me With All These Flowers" Look!

Our Little Spider-Man. He's really getting into Spider-Man right now!

Yay!!! Warm weather finally...but it only lasted a couple of days! Still, enough time to get some yard work done, garden prepped and a few trees planted!

Of course there was time to practice the bike riding...

...and the scooter!

Coloring Easter Eggs for the first time.
Throwing them into the colors would be a better description!

What a handsome boy!

Our little student. He said he was being like daddy. What a good example!

Tax Day...

If anyone else is as big of a slacker as I am...you know EXACTLY how good it feels to have JUST finished up and it's not even midnight yet! Wahoo! Now I can focus on cleaning the house since the Hotel Maughan is booked for the weekend!

Hope everyone is doing good!

And here is the cutest kid around!

Things are great!

I know it's been a REALLY long time since I've updated this, but I really do have good excuses. Here they are:
1: I can't access the blog from work, they blocked all "social" networks...the nerve! What else do they want us to do...work?!!!
2: When I get home I try to keep Peyton busy so that John can study...which involves the computer since he's taking mostly online classes.
3: I went a month and a half without a boss at work, which left me holding down the fort while a new one was being hired and trained. This meant LONG hours at the computer at work and less hours at home with my boys.
4: Did I mention that when I'm home John is ALWAYS on the computer? It's OK though, he gets really good grades so I can't complain!

OK, so here's the update...John's now a full time student, working towards his Associates in Business Management. He's taking classes through Clackamas Community College, trying to get most of the classes that he can online, Saturdays or weeknights. This leaves him open to watch Peyton while I'm at work. He's very dedicated to his classes and determined to get good grades, which he is accomplishing! He's still Scout Master, so he's out camping right now...see I'm seizing the moment to update the blog! He's also playing basketball twice a week and teaching Peyton to play pool, it's very cute!

I'm still at the same job. It's a good job, with a lot of flexibility, so I can't complain. I lost a great boss the first week in January, but luckily he was replaced by another really good one a couple of weeks ago. They're completely opposite, but have common threads of putting family first and good work ethics. I'm still working pretty long hours, but once the new boss gets comfortable with everything he's said I'll get some comp time...wahoo!!! My activities calling is awesome! I love that my assignment is to plan some sort of party every month, I even count service projects as fun...since they ARE of course...and there's always food too! Bishop said that he was NOT going to double me up with another calling since this one actually does take quite a bit of time, so I get to help out wherever it's needed. So far I've had one Sunday that I haven't been asked to help out somewhere, primary mostly, and I think that Sunday I even ended up playing the piano in Relief Society! It's great to get to bounce around so much! I really do enjoy life, but a few more hours in the day (preferably for sleep) would be great!

Peyton is still the cutest little guy ever, no offense to anyone else, he has LOTS of cute cousins and friends, but what can I say?! In the past months he has been to Disneyland, celebrated his 2nd birthday, discovered that there are other good movies in addition to The Incredibles, started going with friends to the library for story time, now loves books even more, started potty-training, discovered he can take his clothes off by himself and started saying that he was going to "Go home to...insert any of the following names: Uncle Sean, Maile, Duder, KaiKai, Hailey, Ansen or Gwanma and Gwanpa's house" when he gets angry or really tired. That kid just never stops and it's so much fun!

So there's the update and now I've got to get to bed! I know tomorrow is Saturday, but I still have to be to work at 6:00am and I have an activity tomorrow night! Here's some pictures to to make you all smile!

Batman Buddies!

They all LOVED Kachow and Mater!

Look at those cute cousins! How fun!!!

Thank you Aunt Summer for being such a good sport and going on the Teacups so many times! You rock!!!

Peyton wasn't so sure about the characters while we were there, but this has become one of his favorite pictures to look at! Every time he see's it he yells out a real excited Digger!

He had lots of fun, but I think if he could pick, seeing Mr. Incredible would have been the highlight of the whole trip! Good thing he was strapped into the stroller or else I think he would have run out into the parade!

What a fun trip!

He could hardly wait to get home and show dad his cool Incredible's shirt and Dash's "Fast as Lightning" hat!

What a fun bunch of George cousins!!!

Here's a good portion of the family...we missed the rest of you!

Peyton had an "Incredible" 2nd Birthday Party!

He discovered the joy of getting presents...this is when he first saw the work bench!

The Junior Superhero's played pin the symbol on Dash. Peyton still loves Dash on the wall two months later and he plays with his work bench and gun daily!

Aunt Tori even sent him an Incredible plate, bowl and cup! Awesome!!!

And just the past couple of days Torr, Emily and Haylee visited! It was fun having them here and watching Peyton and Haylee play...even though the first night Peyton got sick, which NEVER happens, that was a bummer! But they still had fun! Come visit again!!!

Oh ya, did I mention that I got my new camera after Christmas? I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!!! I'm planning on being down in Ashland next weekend, with my camera, so Saturday if anyone wants family pictures, let me know! Torr and Emily are already on the schedule!

So there's the update! Hope all is well with our family and friends!!!

Explosion, Trees, Snow, Lay-Offs, More Snow and Superman...all in Woodburn!!!

Explosion...The past week and a half has been quite the busy one around here! First there was the bomb that blew up a bank about 2 blocks from our house. There were 2 Woodburn police officers and a bomb technician that all were killed, the Woodburn Police Chief is still in critical condition and there have been 2 arrested so far. We still haven't heard why they did it, it's just really a sad situation. I missed the bomb by about 2 minutes. I was sitting on the freeway off-ramp when the bomb went off, so I'm very thankful to those cars that ran the red light and blocked the intersection so I had to wait longer on the off-ramp.

Trees...We had a very fun time with the Morgan and Widing Families up in the hills getting a Christmas Tree! It even snowed just a bit for us while we were there! We all got beautiful trees and had a good time doing it! Very fun!!!

Snow...The next morning I was at Ward Council when people starting calling asking if we were having church because of the snow. We looked outside and sure enough there were about 2 inches on the ground! We had church, even though some members took it upon themselves to call others and announce that church was canceled! Of course schools have been closed all week because of it, mostly because around here when it snows the roads end up being extremely wet sheets of ice and accidents end up closing most of the major roads!
Lay-off...well the economy has taken it's toll on our family at last. With both John & I in construction it was just a matter of time before someone lost their job. Unfortunately John was laid off yesterday. We're very blessed though because about a month or so ago we finally felt good about being able to live off of 1 income and I just about turned in my notice. Fortunately we listened to the spirit and held off because of the economy. Now it's just deciding if we have John look for another job or take the opportunity to finish his school. We'll see...

More snow...after not such a good day yesterday, today sure has been great! I made it to work and back safely just as the snow started accumulating again! By this afternoon we had about 4-5 inches in our yard! We all bundled up and went out to play! It was great! We started a snowball fight with the neighbors over the fence, and they all ended up in our yard playing for a while. It was very fun and I still can't believe we're getting so much snow here in OREGON!!!

Superman...Our wonderful neighbors brought over some toys and clothes that their son had grown out of and when we came in from the snow Peyton found his new best friend...Superman! He's almost as tall as Peyton and it didn't take him long to discover that they wear pretty much the same shoe size! It is hillarious and Peyton has been packing him around the house since! Very cute!

Yes...we're still alive!!!

Sorry for the LONG absence!!! First I was really slacking, now our computer is having some serious problems and blogspot is blocked from work, so no updating during work hours! I promise I'll update this as soon as we get the computer up and running! For now, here's a family picture!