Happy Birthday Livy!

Well January is a busy month for us for birthdays! Livy just turned 2 on the 27th and I can't believe my baby is growing up so fast! We had birthday party number 1 on her birthday, tuesday night with just our family. She got open gifts and eat chocolate cupcakes (what a mess!) it was great fun. We will be having birthday party number 2 with all the family after Alex's baptism on Feb 7th at Chucke Cheeses, should also be great fun! We are excited to get together with all the family again. We will also be celebrating Grandma Mcgary's, Tamlee's and Melonie's birthdays and of course Alex's Baptism.

We are keeping busy with the kids different activities they are involved in and are looking forward to watching their first basketball game this Saturday. Seth is especially busy with work lately and we are feeling very blessed that he is since so many other constuction companies are scrambling for work right now! And if that doesn't keep him busy enough he is also drawing house plans in his spare time. I'm so grateful for his many talents and his willingness to work so hard, it has been a great blessing to our family!

Happy Birthday Seth!!!

Well Seth finally turned 30! I can't believe I'm married to such an old man! But I suppose it was expected. Last night we had a small little party with just Seth's parents and had a good time . The kids made him birthday cards (a yearly tradition) and wrote what they loved most about him inside. They are so cute and something he can keep forever and will be fun to look at again years later. For his birthday Seth got a new gun and has already been out duck hunting with it. It looks espeacially great with his new camoflauge hunting Jacket I got him for christmas (the gun is camo as well). Just wanted to share a few pics from his party and no he's not about to throwup on the cake! The cake infact was quite delicious! Hope everyone has a great week!

Goals

This Sunday in Sacrament meeting the talks were all about goal setting. So for FHE this week we sat down and made some goals that we would like to accomplish as a Family and individuals. It was fun to have everyone participate and offer their opinion as to how we can improve. Hers is a list of goals that we set for our family.....
1. Hold family home evening each sunday
2. Attend the temple each month
3. Say personal prayers each morning and night
4.Keep the sabbath day holy
5.Hold more meaningful and reverent family home evenings.
So hopefully by writing them down, posting them on the fridge and discussing them each week during FHE we will be able to successfully complete our goals this year and grow as a family and individuals.

A Great Start To A New Year!

Well I suppose it's high time that I took over the blog. So I appologize in advance for not being nearly as entertaining as Seth, but he just doesn't have the time these days. Well we had a wonderful christmas and we really enjoyed spending time with all our family! We had lots of parties starting off with a birthday party for Alex, Cody and Damon at Woodwards swimming pool, several get togethers with both sides of our family and ending with the big McGary family christmas party. We really enjoy living close to family so that we are able to that and we missed all our family who couldn't make it because of bad weather.

This past month Alex turned eight so we will be planning his baptism soon. Livy also has a birthday this month and she will be turning 2! I just can't believe how fast they grow up! Clayton and Alex just started basketball this week and it will be fun and also entertaining to watch them play again this year. The poor kids have hardly touched a basketball in their lives and don't know what to do with it when they do have it. But I'm sure they will get the hang of it and do great! As far as Bailey goes her and Livy have been having a blast with their new kittens they got for christmas. They wrap them up in little old hand towels and carry them around, push them around in their strollers, hold them by their necks, throw them off the top bunk and during family prayer the other night Livy tried to fold her kitty's arms for prayer. The kittens are well loved and abused.

We look forward to a great new year. We are in the process of trying to sell our house right now and if everything goes as planned it will close the first week in Febuary. We shall see though the people we have it under contract with have been very difficult to work with and it wouldn't surprise me if they back out. I think they seriously fear commitment! But I have faith things will work out how they are suppose to. If our house does sell we are planning on building again. Seth started designing some house plans saturday night and they are looking really good! It gets me excited to get started!

Well I hope everybody has a happy new year and all is well with your families! Thanks to all who sent us christmas cards it's so fun to see your beautiful families grow and change!

Trip to Silverwood

A week ago we made a trip up to Silverwood. For those that don't know, Silverwood is an amusement/water park above Spokane. It is a great place to practice standing in long lines and negotiating swarming wave pools. That place definitely needs to put a cap on how many tickets it sells for each day.

The highlight of the trip was spending a few days at Freeman's lakeside cabin. Along with playing with the kids, there was plenty of time for relaxation. Alise and Juan, and my parents also took time off work to get away from it all. Here are some photos:

There seemed to be no end to the schools of fish stacked up under the dock waiting to bite any worm drifting by. Bailey caught 17 fish in the space of about 30 minutes. Twice a fishing pole went missing, only to be found at the bottom of the lake with a fish still on the hook. First lesson of fishing: don't leave your pole on the edge of the dock with the hook hanging in the water. There is always a fish stupid enough to bite it.

I will upload some more photos later, for some reason it won't load any more right now.

To be cont'd......

Happy Easter! Did anybody else try to go to church and have one of their kids vomit in the car just as you were pulling in the parking lot? Fun fun!

It was Olivia if you are wondering. It made church even shorter than the time we forgot to set our clocks ahead! Luckily we snapped these pictures before leaving. The girls got easter dresses, and the boys got 3d kites.

An Ending of an Era.....

Another stage of my life has officially ended. I can no longer watch shows with "innuendos" and expect the kids to stare blankly at the screen in total ignorance. This realization dawned on me the other night when I was indulging my occasional guilty pleasure of watching the Simpsons.
What? Sometimes it is real funny!
Well, there were a few comments made by some characters in the show (that I was grinning at out of the corner of my mouth) when I noticed a veiled snicker coming from somewhere to the left of my person. Knowing that couch cushions do not snicker, I turned my head to discover the source of my distraction and noticed Clayton staring at the screen in quite the opposite of "total ignorance". In fact it was more of an embarrassed laugh. Warily, I asked him what he was laughing at. He then proceeded to explain the entire joke to me, while continuing to suppress giggles and constantly shrugging his right shoulder (those that know Clayton will remember that he has several noticeable habits; one of which happens to be a disconcerting shoulder shrug that gets noticeably worse if he is nervous).
After being tutored in the subject of "adult cartoon humor" by my 8 year old son, I promptly turned off the TV and told him it was time to do something else, preferably singing church songs or some other agenda that would scrub his brain innocent again..... Luckily Heather was not in the room and I was able to sweep the whole situation "under the rug" so to speak. The Simpsons have yet to make another appearance in our home, and are likely banned for the remainder of their primetime lives. Which if their past and current success is any indication, could be the next 40 years. Can you hear Taps being played in the distance?