Keep Rio Rancho Beautiful.

I am going to go backwards here. Our family participated in Keep Rio Rancho beautiful this year. Troop 714 cleaned up Rio Rancho Elementary school. This is where our kids have gone to school, so the kids took pride in cleaning it up. After the project we went to Haynes park for a BBQ and prizes. We won some Little Ceasars pizza and some free swim passes. What is so funny about this picture is Anna is still so afraid of anything in costume. The dude with the big nose standing next to Soren didn't go over well with her.

It was a windy day but Troy was able to take advantage of the sunshine.

Logan got to hang out with some of his friends. Sariah was very cute and I loved teasing him about it.

This was while we were working at the school. Both the older girls wore their Young Marine clothes. The rest of us, our scout uniforms.

This was Olivia's uniform. The wind was blowing so hard. Can you tell?

Cleaning up made my kids aware of what they do with their own garbage. It made them sad that there was so much trash in the rose garden. I hope this experience will stay with them for a long time.

Look at Soren. What a goofball. Ella's raking technique leaves something to be desired. At least she was helping. I loved doing this service project with my family.

Smell issues.

If I could have my house smell like fresh lilacs all they time.........life I think would be perfect.

I have serious smell issues. I hate for my house to smell yucky.
I have 3 dogs.
Worse than that, I have 5 kids.
Two of those are boys who end up peeing on the bathroom floor.

So what do I do to make my house smell good? Clean all the dang time. Work, work and more work. I also have an addiction to burning really good candles. My latest one is Honeysuckle. Troy hates it because it reminds him of old ladies perfume. All my favorite smells remind him of old ladies, rose, lilac, wisteria, lavender, honeysuckle and sweet pea. Maybe that says something about me. Hhmmm?

Back to the lilacs. A few days ago I thought my favorite smell in the whole world was wisteria. I was wrong. It's lilac. For now. I got these from a lady in my neighborhood because my lilac bush is teeny tiny still. I sat at the table yesterday and just smelled.

Just one more way for my house to smell good. I try to always have some fresh flowers in the house. Beside making it smell good it also makes it seem fresher. My house seems like it's always messy. Backpacks, homework, dishes and laundry everywhere. I do try hard to keep it clean and picked up. My pet peeve is to walk into my house and have it smell bad. So I go on with my day cleaning...
organizing..
laundry.....
sweeping...
all so my house will smell good.

Crazy hike.

This was at the very "end" of our hike. Troy got a picture of my end with the first aid pack. This pack is a must have with our family. With out fail, someone is always getting hurt. This is the result of two parents with no coordination having children. The odds weren't good that we would have coordinated children.

Izzie went straight for the water. I can't wait to get her out to the lake to do water training with her.

We spotted a piece of drift wood floating down the river. Olivia got so excited because she thought it was a crocodile. She is scared of beavers, but gets excited over crocodiles. Go figure!

There are moments in my life that I think all is absolutely bliss. This was one of those. Then it was gone in an instant when my 14 year old son was complaining about everything under the sun.

Our complaining 14 year old climbed a tree. It was really funny watching him try to get down.

Our girls taking a rest.

Soren finds anything and makes it a gun. I know some things are certain in life. Teenagers complain and Soren will make a gun out of anything.

While I was going through these pictures I just stopped at this one. I love this man. I love this man who puts up with me saying "let's take our 5 kids and 3 unruly dogs on a nature hike." I love this man who puts up with 5 fighting kids in the Suburban while his wife is screaming at all of them. I love this man who crawled into bed with me when we got home and took a nap with me because the kids fighting and not the hike exhausted us.

Call us dweebs, but look at our shirts. How funny is that. This is another reason I love this man. Matching shirts and the fact that he is pinching my bum trying to get frisky.

It was good for all of us to get outside and get a little sun. Can't wait to do it again.

For my Mom.

My Mother moved from Idaho to Utah a few years ago. With that move she left her Wisteria behind. At the house I grew up in, the Wisteria covered the whole back porch. It took over the whole back porch. It became scary.

She wanted to plant some at her new place in Utah, but my Dad still has nightmares of the Wisteria taking over the house.

I live in New Mexico. I have lots of Wisteria. It's starting to take over the whole back porch. I haven't had nightmares yet, so I think it's OK.

Mom had back surgery last week. I hope that the pictures of the Wisteria cheer her up.

I just wish that she could smell these.

It is one of the most amazing smell in the whole entire world, next to new babies.

When there is a breeze I open my windows so the entire house will smell like Wisteria blooms.
Dad, I will put up with the Wisteria Monster. You take care of Mom. Wish that I could be there to help out. Hopefully these pictures will put a smile on you face when you remember Dad climbing on the roof with an ax and saw trying to contain the Wisteria.

The love of a child.

I picked you some flowers Mommy!

Go Broncos

I finally got the BSU Bronco's logo finished. I had been telling the boys that I would paint one for them. I used a projector to take the computer image and put it up on the wall. Then I traced it and painted it. That easy. The only thing that I didn't like is that it took a while.

I need to find some more BSU stuff for the room. Grandpa Chuck gave the kids a BSU trash can. I have been saving up all our old jeans to make the boys some jean quilts with Orange and Blue on it.

Troy got Soren's shelf hung up. Soren reads every night and he needed something to hang up his light on. Not two seconds after he had it up it was full of stuff. So funny.

Lions, Tigers and Beavers oh my?

Olivia is deathly afraid of beavers. Don't know how or when it happened. A while ago she would come into our bed at night crying, saying that the beavers were going to get her. The next morning we asked her why she was scared of beavers and she said " The teeth are going to eat me." Yikes. That's a scary thing for a little girl. She was trying to show us what a beavers teeth looked liked. So our little Miss Muffet continues to be frightened of beavers, even when she sees a picture of one. We even saw one cross the street in Missouri. She freaked out. Then there is Franklin's friend Beaver, in the cartoon and books. She freaks out.

One day she was telling us about a dream she had about a "nice" beaver. She pulled her lips in over her teeth and said that the "nice" beaver didn't have any teeth. She still freaks out over beavers, still has bad dreams too. It doesn't help that her older brother will run around with his teeth out over his lip saying that he is going to eat her. I hope this doesn't scar her for life.

On a Spring day in New Mexico.

We went down to the Rio Grande River to look at all the budding trees and go on a nice walk.

I am so excited for all the leaves to come out. I NEED the green.

The kids were in dire need of some fresh air after being cooped up in the house for a few days. It's been really windy and the dust is horrible.

Olivia was all decked out for a little hike in leggings and a white skirt. I just had to keep saying to myself.....pick your battles, pick your battles. So what if she is out playing in the brush and dirt in a white skirt. At least she was wearing hiking shoes. She accessorized her outfit with a colorful necklace.

This is my kids favorite thing to do. Explore the outdoors. Ella is here telling me about the trunk she was standing on.

Logan thought it was a good idea to climb up on the fallen tree with Fred. Notice the boots. No tread. Not a smart idea.

It gave us a pretty good laugh.

We saw several pairs of geese. I was amazed at how loud they are.

Taking a rest. By now Olivia had been hit in the face by branches and dog leashes several times and was having a meltdown.

Me and my Sweetheart. We don't get many pictures of us together. I am usually the one taking pictures.

Logan acting cool.

Soren acting cool.

After the hike we went and had lunch at Village Pizza in the Village of Corrales. So Yummy. If anyone is ever in New Mexico you need to go here.

I was laughing so hard watching the boys all walk out together. Strutting their stuff.

I was sitting out in the suburban with the dogs. While we were eating Logan went out to go check on them and found the animal control guy trying to get Fred off someones BMW. Yikes. We still don't know how he got out of his leash and out the window that was rolled down just a few inches. He is not a small dog. Luckily we didn't get into any trouble. The Animal control guy was very nice.

This is a hitching post. Don't see them around very much anymore. There are a lot of horse trails in Corrales and people just ride over to the the pizza shop.

More horses.

Then as we were driving home on the main road we saw this. What I find so funny is the little boy in the back totally into his book. It was the perfect day for a little drive. Horses or car.