Thanksgiving was great! It was so fun to have Nick, Janine, and kids, and Tiff, Cody, and kids here to visit. Tanae and her roomate Abby were here too. It's been so fun having Tina living close by . We really missed all of the rest of you. Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend too!
Here are a few pictures of the fun and chaos. This last picture is of Gage and Reid sitting on my washing machine. It vibrates a lot, and they thought it was a pretty fun ride. Danica and Joel are both so sweet and so cute, it was so fun to snuggle them.
The time flew by way too quickly, as usual, but we loved having you all here.

Before we get too immersed in Christmas activities, I just have to say how thankful I am for 10 wonderful, loving children and their spouses! You are all so great! I know that I have a loving Heavenly Father who truly blesses me each day.

No Warm Fuzzy

Every Thursday afternoon I help in Ryan's 5th grade classroom. On these days I take Ryan home instead of having him ride the bus. As we were walking out of the school today, I asked him, "So, how has it been having me help in your class?" Ryan said, " It's been great!" I immediately felt this warm fuzzy, and pretty proud of myself, till he added, "I haven't been embarassed about you once!" So much for my warm fuzzy! Someday when I'm old and he has to wipe up my drool, I'll get the last laugh!

Happy Halloween

Hi Happy Halloween! We had a good week, we carved pumpkins for family night. We grew these in my front yard.
I had a fun week with my pre-school too. They are so cute. I had 3 Ninja Turtles, a Care Bear, a Princess, a Buzz Lightyear, and Wolverine! I was an ugly Witch with worts on my nose.

Sierra was a Sailor and Ryan was a Clone Trooper. We had a Trunk or Treat at our park and I went through six bags of candy in 15 minutes.
I look forward to seeing all the grandkids in their costumes, so please post pictures!

Catching up

Ryan received his Webelos badge, and Arrow of Light badge, the end of September. Since Ryan likes science, that was the Pack Meeting theme. Our Cub Master dressed up as a mad scientist, and they did lots of fun experiments. They presented him with this Arrow of Light plaque, which we are in the process of putting all of his Cub Scout badges on. Right after he received this, I had to smile, because his first comment was, "I bet Matt will be really impressed when he sees this!" Thanks for being a good example with your Eagle Scout awards Matt and Reece!




Tina, Sierra, Ryan, and I, went to Winnemucca the first weekend of October to meet baby Joel, and help Tiff a little while Cody was in Vegas. It was a good trip and a very fun visit. Joel is so sweet and Tea' loves him so much. I'm not sure how we ended up without a picture of Joel, but we got some cute ones of Ryan entertaining the kids. We were so glad Brock, Crystal, Chloe, and Cavan could come visit while we were there!
On our way home Sunday, we hit a freak snow storm. There must have been at least 6 inches of heavy, wet, snow in Jackpot! It was crazy, luckily the snow plows had been through and the roads were pretty clear. Don't worry, Tina drove so I didn't even get stressed out.



On the 11th of Oct. we went to Utah for baby Danica's blessing. I was happy Janine asked me to make the blessing dress. I had so much fun picking out just the right fabric. It was pretty slippery though, and I was glad Nick held on tight during the blessing:) The boys look so big now next to Dani. They are so sweet with her.
Tanae drove with us and we had a fun visit, even though it was a quick trip.
Sierra is in driver's training right now. She has a very cranky lady for her driving teacher.(it should make her more comfortable when she drives with me) I really like the fall class because you get to practice driving in the snow and you have a big Student Driver sign on the car, so people watch out for you!
Sierra also got her report card last week and she has her first 4.0, Great Job Sierra! She is taking an Honors English class, and an AP History class, so she's working really hard.
Ryan also got all A's and B's and is finding out 5th grade is a lot of work.
Sorry I've been such a blog slacker, hope you enjoy this little catch up blog.

Happy 11th Birthday Ryan

My internet is out of commission this week, so I came over to Tina's house to catch up. I started my preschool this week. It went really well. I have 2 girls and 5 boys this year. I have lots of new ideas for each month and look forward to a fun year.

My right arm is still moving way better after my last distention! I'm still going to physical therapy and water aerobics.

Tanae and her college roomate Ana have been here since Tuesday. They will head to Rexburg this Tuesday. It's hard to believe she's on her second year of college already.

This is the plane small plane Ryan and I flew to Nebraska on in August. We had a great time visiting Shane,Casey, and kids.

Here's Ryan on the plane. He was only two the last time he flew, so this was a new experience. I had to laugh at him because he kept saying "are you sure this is safe, do you know how many planes have crashed this year." He was hanging on for dear life, but we made it safely and I think he even enjoyed the flight.

Star wars was the cake of choice this year. We had a nice family barbeque wth Grandma Medellin, Steve, Lori, Connor and the family on Sunday.



Ryan turned 11. He was so excited all week, he could hardly stand it.

Sierra accidentally threw away a huge box Ryan had asked Tina to save for him. She got another one and filled it with confetti and put his gift inside.

Back to school

Ryan and Sierra headed off to school today. Ryan will be in 5th grade and believe it or not, Sierra is now a Junior in high school. I was thinking about how weird it was that Shane turns 37 today and I'm still sending kids off to school:) Some days I feel way too old for this, and other days I really appreciate the fact that these younger kids help to keep me on the ball and motivated.

I have to admit I wasn't quite ready for school to start yet. I've been gone so much this summer, I feel like I need a couple more weeks. Oh well, I had a great time visiting everyone and it was so fun to have some extra time with the grandkids, they are all so cute! It was so exciting to have 2 new grandchildren born this summer. Danica is a little doll and we're anxious to meet baby Joel.

I had another distention done on my right shoulder last Wednesday. I've seen a lot of improvement in my range of motion and am very encouraged!

2009 Family Reunion

Hi guys, thanks everyone for making the effort to come to our reunion this year. I thought it was a beautiful location. If you look really close you can see there was a double rainbow in this picture. I took this Wed. evening during the storm.

It was so fun having everyone together again. I can hardly believe there are already 32 of us and 2 more on the way! Sierra tried to set up a slide show so you could have all the pictures I took, but it's not working, we'll keep trying. These are just a few of the fun survivor shots I got. Thanks again for getting that together Casey and Shane, as always it was very fun.

Thanks again Tiffany for all your time and effort in putting this reunion together, and everyone for their help and support. The meals were delicious and I thought our last day clean up went smoothly. Tiff said she got our deposit back, so that's great.

I had the procedure done on my arm on July 8th. It went smoothly and my arm is moving better. I have to go to physical therapy each day and am pretty sore afterwards, but hopefully I'll get it back to normal again.

I can hardly believe Sierra is 16 years old now! She was such a cute little girl and now she is a beautiful young woman. Where does the time go? We had cake and ice cream on Tina's back deck. Tina has a great fenced back yard. Her house is really getting cute. This is Sierra's friend Justin.