Swiffer

We stained our new floors.  Dark.  Love it, it looks so dramatic.
But, I'm disliking that it shows everything... which Lynette, Coby's mom warned me about...
why didn't she just tell me not to go dark!?
My friend told me I need to just sweep more often... cuz, 2 times a day is not enough...
My other friend... she told me to get a swiffer... and swiffer it, "it's so great for the dust"
Well, I'm not looking at dust right now... I'm looking at the millionth crumb of the day, the little plastic wrapper from who knows what, the dirt from outside... not dust, dirt... I can't use a swiffer until I sweep it AGAIN!
I miss my old outdated orangey colored floors... that I didn't mop until my sock stuck to something as I walked over it... (I know, sounds gross. but, seriously, they never looked dirty.)

Awkward

We had the sister missionaries for dinner tonight... Sister Griffiths taught the kids a spiritual lesson that, bless her heart, they were not listening too.  We were still at the dinner table and she did get a couple responses, and she should've stopped while she was ahead... but, then she asked "why do we need a prophet?"  it went silent, and the boys started getting quirky looks on their faces... Berklie's bum decided to toot and we hardly heard it, but then realized it when... she said:
"awk-ward"
in her 'tongue in cheek' voice... !
Loud laughter...
...and there went the spirit... or maybe it was amplified!

School

This morning Keedon rolled over in bed and said "I don't want to go to school today"
That's the first time I heard that come out of his 7 year old mouth... "what?!"
I prodded for an answer, he was too embarrassed to tell me.
Then he got shy...and shouted
"Cuz, you're the best mom in the whole world!"

enough said.

Berklie to Cambel

"don't be scarred... the monsters no get you!  I PEE-TECT you!"
(they were playing monsters, and hiding under my bedspread and laughing!)

What? YOU moved?

Yup.  We moved.  If you haven't heard... It happened so fast.
Here's our New Years Resolutions for 2012  (it's a precursor to our move story!)

2012

1) Have no resolutions.
2)Make opposite resolutions...
(Last year, Exactly the opposite of all of our resolutions came to pass, not by choice... so, this year, we are going to do the opposite to begin with)
So...
3) We are not going to buy a new house with one more room (at least) by the end of the year...
4) We are not going to save ANY money.
5) We are going to be late everywhere we go...
6) We are not going to have any unexpected surgeries, or broken bones...
yada yada yada...

In January Coby started looking up houses... what?!  Coby?  He's the one that's been so against selling our house for less than what we payed for it and buying a more expensive house...
So, I didn't pay attention, so that I would not get excited...
He found a house and it was under contract... he just would pull it up and read about it over and over...
but, I did not, it was under contract.  But, he would say "too bad. This is it, this is the house"
by January 10th... we decided to start looking for a house...just to look.
We found a house in one of my favorite neighborhoods in Junction... Put an offer on it...
It was roughly the same size as our house but, it had one more room... sweet!  and a way better neighborhood and it was still in our ward!  Yay!
They countered our offer.  So, we prayed about it, and didn't feel that we should accept.
Two days later they called back and said they would accept our original offer... yay!
We had to think about it...          meanwhile...
This house that Coby had seen before came up in our "just looking" search again...but was still
under contract.  
I still did not pay attention... it was way out of our league... almost twice as big as our house, in another favorite neighborhood, and the price was too good to be true... (less than our current house!)
and Under Contract.
We were praying about our other offer on the other house one night...
The next day we both thought we should call on that house under contract.
I called ... reluctantly... She said...
"oh, that house went back on the market last night because financing failed..."
"I said, oh, we want to see it!" If any of you KNOW Coby, you know he was giving me a look, he does not rush into things!  (even looking at houses!)
Then she said, "ok, oh and hey they lowered the price by 20 thousand this morning"!!!  
I said, "We want to make an offer!"
Can you imagine Coby's look NOW?!!! Yeah, he was not thrilled... and started backing out... and away...So, I said... "ok, we want to see it first, but, bring the paperwork, we will make an offer!"
and we did!  We saw the house and felt so good about it that EVEN Coby was ready to make an offer, however he wanted to offer 10 Thousand less!  I was now giving him the LOOK.
Well, they accepted our offer by the afternoon (It was Fannie May Owned)  But, they wanted to close in TWO WEEKS!!!  So, it happened January 31st we closed on our new home!
Coby also started a new PT job in a new clinic on the same day!  (another story...)

Here's what the kids had to say:
Keedon:  Do I get my own room?
Quinton:  Can I live in the playhouse under the stairs?
Cambel:  Well, when we were coming to see the house he was in his room forever while we waited to leave...He came out with two backpacks full of his clothes (which to him are his jammies...)
We were laughing, but, he was serious and wouldn't get out of the car to see the house without his backpacks...While we were viewing the house...

He picked out his room, changed into his jammies, put his clothes on the closet shelf and ran through the house tumbling and jumping and rolling around on the floor... like it was his house!
Berklie:  "This is my ROOOOOM?!"  In her high pitched squeaky excited voice...with raised eyebrows and bright glowing smile...

We then put our current house up for rent and had a bunch of showings... Our renters right now are awesome!  We really couldn't have sought out good renters and had such a thorough lease without Shannon... she walked me through the whole thing... her and Adam are rental pros!
Our renters needed the house by Feb 15th... that was two weeks from our closing day...
I had to organize (stuff that I wasn't planning on going through for at least a year) and pack...
and more importantly get our house of 6 years back into shape for someone else to live there... like, patch the ceiling, paint it... patch drywall in the bathroom, downstairs, and in the garage and paint it... repaint the basement... fix all the fixups that have been on the list for years... etc...! and get the new foreclosed home into shape to move in...
It came on so sudden, and was so amazing, and went so smoothly... what a blessing!

Our First Dinner in our New house... Picnic style...

I'm trying to Carpe 15 minutes at a time...let alone the Diem...

Natasha shared this article with me, and I loved it... This is my favorite part:  It describes how I feel about my day, everyday.

"There are two different types of time. Chronos time is what we live in. It's regular time, it's one minute at a time, it's staring down the clock till bedtime time, it's ten excruciating minutes in the Target line time, it's four screaming minutes in time out time, it's two hours till daddy gets home time. Chronos is the hard, slow passing time we parents often live in.

Then there's Kairos time. Kairos is God's time. It's time outside of time. It's metaphysical time. It's those magical moments in which time stands still. I have a few of those moments each day. And I cherish them."  By: Glennon Melton (Don't Carpe Diem article)

Merry Christmas!

Team Coby

Best fan club ever!  ~Coby

Let me just say that I did not start this race feeling like a steller mountain biker.  When my brother Ryan suggested we ride in the Vail Teva games in the beginner bracket, I thought that could be fun and doable, how hard could a 'beginner' race be.  My thoughts quickly changed halfway through the first lap from how fast can I push myself to can I even finish this race?  After a grueling 2,000 foot climb in elevation over 9 miles, I was graced at the finish line with the best fans a guy could have!  My wife surprised me with the whole family wearing these shirts!  What a great woman she is, and what a great inspiration to me.  I had to finish the race now.  Not only did I finish but did so without crashing, and wasn't even last person across the finish line, that was a win for me.  It turned out to be a great birthday ride in a beautful mountian town, and some great company (My family of course, my mom and dad, my brother Ryan and wife Jess with their kids, and my brother Brandt)  Thanks everyone!

Myself and my brothers Brandt and Ryan

Quinton on the climbing wall.  (He wasn't heavy enough to repel back down, so we had to retrieve him)

 Keedon was a rockclimbing animal; cruising to the top... no real surprise as he can climb anything that we tell him not to!

These boys rode their bikes all over Vail Village on Saturday, crazy endurance...

I was absolutely starving after the race, my parents took us to a great restaurant in Vail.  They took us to celebrate my birthday, because yes, the race was on my birthday too... 

Check out this huge BBQ hamburger my dad got for dinner...

Way to go Poppy! (and Jess, she packed away this bad boy also!)

My mom is awesome, she decorated our hotel room door, for my bday, I was surprised!

Poppy and Grams were such a big help with the kids, grams had treats for them with her all weekend... our kids love their grandparents! 

You thought racing was tough, try waiting for all the mountain bikers to finish!

~Written by Coby

Cambel

While putting him down for bed:
I said "what was your favorite part of today?"
He said:  "eating carrots in the kitchen, when I was naked."

I'm not even going to name this post...

Random thoughts

I ate the biggest hamburger for dinner… Coby was amazed that I devoured that sucker… it was so good… maybe it’s the reason I’m still awake.

Some people, I have thought sometimes, although they are awesome and smart and incredible people whom I love, I’ve thought maybe they ask so many opinions, or speak out so much about what they are doing because they don’t have confidence in their own decisions… I was just thinking… too, that most of them have a lot of responsibility in their church callings… maybe I’m thinking about myself too.  You know, with all the responsibility it’s  soooo hard to have confidence in my decisions… maybe that’s a reason why we are called to where we are, because we don’t believe we can do it right… or hardly ever do for that matter…I guess maybe that helps things run with everyone’s input… all I know for a fact is that I am so grateful for friends (one in particular) who always tells me I’m doing good, and that everything is going great, even though I’m probably making the whole program fail!  Thanks L#*%*@, you keep me grounded when all I see is failure in my particular calling...

You know, I love my kids… as much as I love my amazing husband… more than my life.

In fact did you know that I used to pray for my husband? That he would make the right choices in order to be a good father someday…?  Wow, did my prayers from my teens ever get answered or what?!  He’s awesome!  He came home tonight… bustin at the seems to work on something for his future dream… but, what he said was “who wants to play Hide and Seek?!”  and of course they all came running… I said “you don’t have to do that, they need to take a bath, and I’ll do that…”  He said  “But, I want to.”  ~It’s those “little” things that are the big things to me.

Oh, and I used to pray for my kids too, that they’d know that I couldn’t wait to meet them, and that they’d know I’d love them soooo much… good thing I said it then, cuz it’s hard to remember it sometimes!  Like when I’m wiping a booger off the fridge from my 3 year old… who does that?  Gross.  (did you know that Booger is not in spell check?  Boogey is, but not booger…)

I had a soda tonight… it was delicious… orange crush, it made me feel young and naïve.  Naïve to the fact that it’s not going to go straight to my butt, and to the fact that it’s not going to hamper my oxygen intake, of which I’ve been working hard on with all the cardio I do lately… and naïve to the fact that it’s not rotting my teeth… It was just good, that’s all.

It’s 3:16 am for the 4^th night in a row, and I can’t sleep.  Oh, how I want too (and no babies are keeping me up, wish they were, I'd so rather be cuddling with one of them)

Come on.  I feel like I work hard enough during the day… my body owes me a good night’s sleep…

While I’m up… here’s a little secret.  I got Coby 3 bags of Butterfinger hearts for Valentines day.  2 of them made it till the day before… and he thinks I only got him one, cuz I had them in the car, and ate one whole bag while driving everywhere that day! AND: of the one bag I was able to give him, I’ve now eaten more than half of it, in fact I think he only has 4 left!

(and they are the big bags…!)  Hey, fair game, when I gave them to him in the cheesy heart tin with his gift, I TOLD him to hide them.  He was warned.

I laughed so hard a while back when Brian Regan (comedian) talked about the snooze button on our alarms...
"why not start the day with a little procrastination?!"
Now I think of that and smile every time I hit the snooze button (like 7X) every morning. 

This is part of my "job"!

Ok, went to the store, well a couple stores, my total was 215.12... but, what I spent was 67.44!!! BooYah... and I got good stuff, Ritz, chex mix, milk, tons of bread, cheese, goldfish, chicken nugs, potatoes, soda, OREOS, valentines chocolate, poptarts, soup, frozen veggies, ETC.... Here's my trick... I get three Denver Posts each week, just for the coupons, and they were good on Sunday... if anyone wants a subscription you can get one for 1 dollar a week for each subscription THROUGH ME... LET ME KNOW! So, I pay 12 bucks a month, but, I wash that amount in one trip to the store, and save tons on top of that! (PS: I pay for 6 mos at a time, so 36.00 bucks each sub.)

A little Catch up...

Thinking about the Future

QUINTON:  "what family am I going to be in when I'm older?"

US:  "you will get to choose your family, you will still be in ours, but you will choose your wife and have your own kids"

KEEDON:  "i know my kids."   then he puts his head down in his arms  "oh, man, I don't know what their names are going to be... "

US:  giggling

KEEDON:  "But, I will have a bigger brain when I'm a grown-up right, so I will know then"

Think about it Bud, it took us a while!


A little while later:  in a Random moment...

QUINTON:  "I choose Leslie Merrell's family."
 ME: "What?"
QUINT:  "I will choose to be in Leslie, James and Ben and Briannas family."

KEEDON:  "but, where are you guys gonna live when I am a daddy in this house?"


CAMBEL:  "Holy My!"  instead of "oh my"  or "holy cow"

I used to never be late

Believe it!
My new goal for this year is that I am going to be punctual...

So, I'm not going anywhere.

How the last crazy 8 years began...

Dating Days...

Our Story.

Coby and I met at the UofU.  On campus.  We passed each other at 5:15, no one was around... I was getting off work, he was heading to play basketball.  He was on his phone, I was tired.  We didn't speak to each other, just passed by. 
My thoughts:  "He's cute, and seems so normal.  But, he's probably talking to his girlfriend on the phone..."
so I kept walking.
His thoughts: "ugh, I should've just hung up."  (he then turned around to talk to me, but, I kept walking)
he then went home that night and said to his roommates:  "I saw the perfect girl for me today."

The very next day:

Literally, he ran up to me and started conversation. 

I had left a class early to make it for a test in another class clear across campus.  He was down in that area for free donuts due to student elections.

Disclamer: we never ran into each other on campus, before that, nor after that, our classes were in totally seperate areas, and we couldn't even work it to meet for lunch when we were dating...)

He said:  "Hey, you look familiar, we've met before..."
I said:  "Really?... Nice line..."
Both laughed.
I actually asked him to give me a call so we could figure it out, because I was interested, and in a huge hurry to get to my class...

That is not the end of the story...

Wednesday night... two nights later, when I came out from the Temple I had 11 messages on my phone...
one of them was Coby.  His was the only one I called back, because when I heard his voice on his message, my heart skipped... (cheesy, I know...but, true)
We talked for a while and here's part of the conversation:  (don't worry, it's good)...

C:  "yeah, I served a mission in the philippeans"
B: "Oh, really? so do you speak Tagalog or Cebuano?"
C: " I speak Tagalog.  and how funny, you are the second person who pronounced that correctly, most people say it how it is spelled..."
(I'm thinking, huh, it must be difficult, cuz he's not the 1st person who said that to me..."
C: "you served a mission?  Where?"
(I had been home for 3.5 mos at this time)
B:  "I served in the Anofagasta, Chile Mission"
C:  "you know, I don't even know where that is, but, I met someone else recently who went there, that's funny..."
B:  " hmmmf, how funny."

Here's the good part: We discovered on our first date, through talking about other people we knew that WE HAD ALREADY MET... and it was 2 months earlier... I was dating this guy who has a sister that always talked about this awesome boy she wanted to date, so we did a group date with her and him.
He showed up in a UofU sweatshirt, and he was so good looking, and we ended up talking a lot that night...
about our missions.
(while we talked I thought  "this is the type of guy I want to date...what am I doing?..." and I broke up with my boyfriend that weekend)
Anyway, if it wasn't clear, my boyfriends' sisters' date was...
Coby.
(funny situation at our wedding...cuz we invited them...)
~and he still has that sweatshirt, and it's my favorite one, and I've had to mend it a few times already in order to keep it around... (did I just say "mend" ?.... ok, grandma...)

So, I was the second person, and he was the other person we had been talking about concerning our missions!

K~ on Saturday we went on our 1st date...

He took me to some mexican restaraunt with his friend John and some girl in Provo.
We had a "Seinfield" experience there:  where Coby went to the bathroom and one of the cooks was in there and didn't wash his hands when he left!  Gross!
At dinner I blurted out something (because, as anyone knows, I'm not the most tactful person alive)
something like "man, I feel like I've known you forever, I'm so comfortable with you!"
His buddy John looked at me like I was crazy, and gave Coby the "wierdo" eye... but, later Coby told me, it wasn't wierd to him, cuz he felt the same way...

Our Funny 1st Date Story:

We then went to "Extreme Sports"  it was a huge place with tons of activities... ropes course, boxing ring, rope pull and bounce, javeling... it was so fun...
We did boxing towards the end of the night...
The huge boxing gloves were so hard for me to hold in my right hand because I injured my shoulder the saturday before while snowboarding, so lifting it up -hurt... let alone while holding onto a huge, heavy boxing glove, I mean, it was the size of my garbage can...
I told him this, while in the ring...
He got closer to my right shoulder and said  "oh, that's too bad" and acted like he was going to look at it..
then as I looked down at my right shoulder too...
He decked me in the face! and threw my flying...!!!
I was so stunned and laughing so hard I had tears!
(he later told me that because I was laughing he knew I could handle him.... crazy kid)

We saw each other every day since then, and found other circumstances and ways that our paths had crossed through other people as well...

Ok, actually, we saw each other every day until we'd been dating 5 months... he went home to Denver and didn't invite me to go...
(I'd been already 2x with him to meet and visit his family, who I thought, and still think is awesome!)
So, I was a little bummed  that he just up and went and barely told me he was going...
no big deal though. 

A couple weeks later we started school again, I was totally stretched with time and energy, I worked full time and had a full load of classes... so I was thinking since we hadn't even talked about the {M} word that I needed a break... and I was going to break up with him on our hike we had planned for that Saturday...
We hiked 4 hours in to this awesome lake... but, the hike was a little long so I laid down on a rock by the lake... he went to use the bathroom...
Then he shouted  "hey, come check this out!"
(I thought maybe he saw a moose, because we were just talking about how he'd never seen one...)
I caught up to him... he pointed under a huge log and said, "I found something, but I can't reach it, maybe you can..."
I reached in and pulled out a black box.
"What?! somebody left their box!" I laughed... "how funny" and I shrugged my shoulders...
Then he said  "open it.."
Then my heart stopped... open it?  why?  My eyes were probably going to pop out of my head now!
(here comes another tactless reaction on my part..)
"Shut up!  You open it!"     Then I pushed him!
He took the box and bounced down on one knee...

...............................................................................................You know the rest of the story...

{Surprise} of my life... 
                                                           
                                                                       **  8 Years, 4 kids (5 and under), 8 Utah football seasons, 2546 dirty diapers, 30,001,234 hours of deprived sleep, 1 apt, 1 condo, 1 house, 2 cars, a bachelors degree, a doctorate degree and 16 slices of delicious cheesecake factory dessert (tradition) and 800 surprises later...

and he still makes me laugh ALL THE TIME!

What is he trying to say?

So, two different days, two different rooms... is he done with naps?  You be the judge, cuz he destroys the room first, then falls asleep on the dresser?

Size "doesn't" matter

It was February, I hadn't pulled out any shorts out of storage bins yet...
I asked my 3 1/2 year old Quinton...


Me:"hey, buddy, where'd you get those shorts?"
Q: "off the couch mom."

They were on the couch, because I had pulled out BERKLIE'S
clothes for the day, and she was 3 months old!
HA!  That's just how rail thin this mega eater is!  (I'm not being sarcastic, he eats all day long!)

Admit it, {U} love us.

Nurture vs. Nature

Some things we love about Junction...

The Natural Abundant Produce...

   Grapes from our OWN Grape vine

25 Quarts of Grape Juice
9 Pints of Jam



































Our very OWN garden:
Here's the story behind our garden:
It didn't grow at all the first year.
or the second.
The third ~ I dug it out by 2 feet (yes all of it, and yes I was pregnant with Berklie) It is 12x15 feet.
I then had 2 feet worth of garden soil brought in, after I lined it like you would a garden box (we had tree roots coming up from the ground choking out our garden)
Then I put all the previously dug out dirt back in the garden.
All by myself.  Coby then tilled it, and nourished it and composted it.  It was amazing.  I canned 30 pints of tomatoes, 16 pints of salsa, the boys got their pumpkins from our own patch, and we had zucchini taking over our counter tops, and garage shelves!
This year I also canned 40 quarts of Peaches, 9 Quarts of Apple Pie filling and 17 Quarts of Applesauce.
(Kacey got all my apples for me, seriously, she picked 6 bags of apples for us! She also taught me how to CAN... so much patience!) I also froze 15 jars of Strawberry jam, 12 jars of Apricot jelly, and 3 Quart bags of Peaches for smoothies... Coby makes the best peach berry smoothie.  (and my friend Leslie makes the best Peach shakes, she calls them smoothies, only to make us all feel better about drinking a ton of her concoctions!)
We also have a huge strawberry patch, thanks to my friend Dawnee, who came and planted 50% of it while I was gone!  What a great surprise that was two summers ago, and now we reap the rewards...

If I could have an assistant

So, She is officially my personal assistant.  When her and Robbie came to visit (see the following post that she even wrote!) she was on top of doing all the things for me that I never get to myself.  I am always preoccupied with the boys and baby that I forget stuff for myself, she was sticking flowers in my hair, handing me gum, getting me water, and tending to the child that was on hold at any given time, since with 4 someone is always on hold.  She is amazing, I just feel bad cuz I can't pay her what she is worth.
(She makes great money as a legal and personal assistant to two lawyers, and is really good and professional at it.)
Thanks for blogging for me too Darcy!
PS: I'd have more posts of all the funny stuff that goes on around here if I really had an assistant!

Jonesin' in Junction

Jonesin' in Junction

Robbie and I had so much fun visiting our friends in Grand Junction. 
They are TOO good to us, and their kids are just so cute! 
Brandy is amazing and makes motherhood look so easy! 
I wish we still lived close to them. The weekend was adventured packed! 
No matter what we do with them it's always a blast!

Quint, Keed & Robbie played the Wii

while Cambell read his scriptures

Grand Junction is such a beautiful place. So many outdoorsy things to do! On Saturday morning we decided to go on a hike- "Devils Kitchen"

Robbie & Berklie

Quinton & Keedon

All of us

Jones Kids

Darcy & Robbie

Brandy & Darcy

Brandy & Coby

Later that night we went on a fun double date!

Dinner was SO good! Italian, my favorite.

then Robbie did some bull riding...

and bowled.

Me and Robbie both got a Turkey!!! My first time ever! I'm usally lucky to break 100! 

and...the girls won!

We played double or nothing and the wager was too high to lose it! :)

Sunday we went to church and had another delicous meal (made by Brandy) went on a walk and then decided to stay another day!

Pretty tight fit! 
Some after church pictures

On our walk--Can you tell they are Ute fans?

We had so much fun on our quick little weekend trip!

Can't wait to see them again soon!