Little Iris

I was awoken Saturday morning with a phone call from my mom that my cousin's 1 yr old daughter had died. She had a cold and was coughing a ton, she had seen a Dr was actually getting better. My cousin gave her a breathing treatment to help break things up and put her to bed, they kept checking on her often and she was sleeping soundly, no coughing. The last check was at 12:00 then at 4:00 am the mom checked on her and she was gone, peacefully in her sleep, the coroner figures it happened about 1:00 am. They didn't make it home to NV for Christmas so they are 2 states away on their own (they have two older boys) Iris turned 1 in November and was such a happy sweet baby, this is tearing them up. My poor cousin called to let everyone know again in his own words what had happened to his sweet angel. It was hard to hear it all again and not cry with him. I wish I could help in some way. He asked only that I hug my kids for him and I have. His parents are going up to help.

I like to think of my Aunt Taza who passed last month and didn't have children (although she wanted them and was wonderful with them), watching over this sweet baby till her family joins her again. Hug your kids extra tight!

The Tie is broken......

With 2 girls and 2 boys what will the next baby be??? A boy!! We are excited, with all the new nephews this year if we had a girl she would have surely been picked on all her life by all the cousins, but with a boy he may be the youngest but should fit right in! Alison was more than upset by this news but once she calmed down and found out she will be getting her own room in the Basement while Carli shares with the new baby, she was happier. Although she thinks she gets her own room just because the baby is a boy, truthfully it was in the works anyway, but to not hear her tantrum we just let it go. She will love the baby anyway, just like she loved Trevin, she wanted a girl then but we didn't find out til birth, she was only disappointed for a millisecond, he was just too cute not to love!

We told our families at Christmas with a fold out frame it had 5 openings for Wallet size pictures and I added this one in the last slot, it's a fuzzy picture but at only 15 1/2 weeks it's not bad, I will get better ones next month. Everyone is very excited! Now for a name.......that's the hardest part of having a baby I think! LOL!

Christmas

(note the "fallen" angel LOL, he was laughing )

It is our tradition to spend Christmas Eve with my family and Christmas Day with Jarin's. For Christmas Eve we got together and had dinner with everyone, minus one brother and his family, with sickness in the extended family they couldn't bring his little one around, we missed them. Then of course the kids put on the Nativity play and we opened the gifts from each other. Then we went home and opened the one gift on Christmas Eve, new Jammie's of course! By the time we finally got everyone to bed it was 10:00. Santa had to finish up a few things and finally made it to our house about 1:30 am! I went to bed but Jarin stayed up a little longer then also come to bed. Tyler then got up at 3:00 AM and was told to go back to bed!! We have an agreement in our home that if you get up on Christmas Eve you must go straight to Mom and Dad's room, no peeking if Santa came cause they know we, the parents, love to record and see their faces as they first see the presents! It started when they were Little, Alison was only 2 and got out of bed and looked at her presents including a seesaw and play kitchen, then found the little ball popper push toy and came down the hall with it loudly to our room! We were shocked she had already had seen everything but also glad she didn't unwrap the wrapped presents.

Attacking Uncle Karl!

My mom made these tiles for everyone!

Poor Tyler lay in his bed til 6:00 and tried again, he didn't sleep he just laid there! We told him 6:30, we didn't want to wake the younger kids to early, then it would just be no fun, they would be too crabby! Finally we got up to unwrap presents and everyone got what they wanted from Santa, (he only brings one present and fills the stocking) and they loved what Jarin and I picked out, they even liked the new clothes. Alison got a new ipod Shuffle like the one Tyler won at school, and a new Harry potter book. Tyler got his watch, Lego's, and transformers. Trevin got his sticker book from Santa and the Handy Manny tools he so wanted! CarliAnn received her cute Elmo doll from Santa that blows kisses, and Mickey Mouse clubhouse Jammie's, Blanket, and action figure toys, she love that show! I got Jarin a toy, cause you must have at least one on Christmas, a remote control Fly, sounds gross but it's just a little robot thing that flies up,, down, and sideways and lands, the kids like to play with it too. And Jarin got me a digital picture key chain and Photo shop Classes!!!! I am excited to learn more!
The big gift that we had planned since last year was a Nintendo Wii! They were just a bit excited, we expected more, but when Jarin announced it was set up and ready to play they did get excited and asked "you mean we get to play? Right now?" as if we were only teasing them! Since we had a ton of snow we stayed in and played it most of the day!! Def Boom Blox is one of the best so far! It was a fun day for us all!

Jarin made us some breakfast while the kids tried out the Wii and then the power went out, luckily the sausage and eggs were just finishing up so we ate without power. The kids wanted us to call the power company and we reminded them that it is Christmas and the workers have to leave there families to help fix it, they will get it done and we won't rush them. They had it back on in an hour!

Since we felt a bit snowed in with 2 feet in front (the wind made the drifts bad!, the snow was higher than our porch that is two steps up!), roads closed nearby and warnings of a new storm coming from 4:00-9:00 we decided we had better stay home from Jarin's family festivities and visit all the Grandma's on Friday. They live on the East side and they always get it worse than us! Amazingly we got it a bit worse but that's okay, we had fun seeing them Friday and we weren't rushed, it was nice and the kids loved it. We got some great presents too! One was a great quilted snowman hanging and another I thought was perfect for us was a full 6 gal bucket ( complete with orange Gamma lid) full of things to flavor our water in an emergency like jello koolaid etc. It is one thing I had thought about but aside from a #10 can of fruit drink I hadn't fullfilled that yet! I love it!

Here's a few pictures of our Snow on Christmas Day as Trevin helped Daddy dig us out! The snow drifts were amazing from the winds, notice the neighbor across the street have a mostly clean driveway at the top! An our back yard next to the house you could see the grass but in front of the shed was a hill and the gates on the side couldn't be opened casue the drifts gathered there, reminded us of Hyrum, oh we miss living there! We got another 8 or so inches by morning! Funny thing was the newspaper only comes on Sundays, 4 of them for my coupons, apparantly they decided to deliver a Christmas edition of all 4 papers, we had no clue and it was covered by snow so Jarin hit them with the snowblower, ticker tape anyone LOL!

Candy Houses

What a fun Day yesterday! First off Jarin got to sing in the Alumni Choir for his old High School at the annual Candlelight concert. They did a special concert for the Alumni in the afternoon, it is the 100th year since the school was opened so they are doing some fun things to bring back the past! He has had alot of fun practicing each week and seeing old friends, and we could hear his voice out of the whole choir, I will never be tired of hearing him sing!

Afterwards we had a few minutes before heading to his parents house for the annual Gingerbread houses! So we stopped off at Artic Circle for a quick bite to eat first, before the kids are filled with candy, and poor Carli got sick on Jarin's suit and the floor right there while I was ordering our food! I didn't even realize it until I turned around and he was gone and I saw the floor! So while he cleaned up, the other kids ate and luckily he had a change of clothes to be able to make the houses in, so he changed then offered to take her home, luckily we had both cars with us. He got her home bathed her and put her in bed just after 7:00, she was fine after that but missed out on the fun.

The other kids and I went on to make the houses and enjoy the family time. I had fun helping the kids and watching their imagination, never is a house the same with them. Alison used graham Crackers instead and made a Candy Hotel (last year she had a manger and you can't put the extra candy inside a manger for later, this year she went with a 2 story hotel so each floor could hold candy! LOL) Tyler did a Hotel also and Trevin made a normal house with candy sporadically put on there, he keeps saying it looks so yummy! We all snacked on candy and crackers while we enjoyed our family time with the cousins. Another fun night of Christmas tradition, now just have to make the fudge and stay up all night wrapping gifts, then it is truly Christmas!!

Poor Mindy's house collapsed, she was trying to make it fast casue she couldn't stay and it just collapsed, apparently there was a tornado in her houses neighborhood!

This was Trevins' (withe the Stars on top) and his cousin's Amme's (love the still pakages mini M&M's on top hee hee) and cousin Katelyn's candy factory with a Peppermint patty walk in front!

Tyler was sure proud of his creation, the other one is his cousin Jared's.

Alison's Hotel, complete with balaconies on the sides and pool with diving board on the roof, don't forget the pretzel lounge chairs by the pool!! She has such an imagination! Both floor are filled with extra candy inside and if you look at the front door you can see the candy!

Trevin's so proud of his, little kids are fast they jsut throw it all on there! LOL!

Christmas Parties and Cement

Two subjects that definitely don't go together but that was my day and no they didn't coincide!

First off we had the last of our cement poured today, it was getting cold and we have a little snow on the ground, expecting more snow this weekend, so they actually used a blow torch to warm the ground first then poured the cement, let it cure for the day and luckily we had some sun to help, then they came back and covered it with insulated warming blankets for a few days. I am glad to finally have the mud and weeds gone and be able to use the cent for parking. It is going to be so nice for the kids in the spring too, they an ride bikes, skate, more room for chalk drawing etc.

Trevin had fun watching from the window! Cement trucks are very cool to a 4 year old, even if they do make you a litle late to preschool since they are in front of the driveway! LOL!

Then at night we went to Jarin's work Christmas party, we were to bring a white elephant gift each. We chose a touch ornament that lights up the lights on your Christmas tree when you touch it, we love ours, especially the kids, and i found them on clearance a while back and so picked them up pretty cheap to give as gifts. Then for the other gift we had a left over brand new smoke ring gun, we bought them for the whole family as gifts one year and they sent us extra, to fix it we only had to pay half for the extras but never used them all. Both items were a hit. So after the dinner from Joe Morley's (Yumm, although my pregnant nose and taste buds wouldn't let me enjoy the BBQ sauce at all!) We had the gift exchange, we all took turns alphabetically and Jarin kept getting the good gifts everyone wanted to steal from him! LOL! Every white elephant exchange has "THE" one present that makes it memorable, this time it was the toilet seat with the Hosts picture perfectly plastered on the inside of the lid!! It was a huge picture, and gave new meaning to "got your back" LOL! he rest of the night many jokes were made! And it came up a few times that it was the person's ID card picture and only two people had access tot the picture, one of which said it defiantly wasn't him, the other was Jarin. When asked he simply said that it wasn't him and he couldn't say who it was because his review is next month!! He had no idea when asked for the picture what it would be used for! It was great! Even the Host thanked him afterwards for it like a good sport, he made sure he knew it wasn't his idea but wouldn't reveal the source! It was a great night and thanks to Krista for babysitting.

Brimble the Bee

So we have had a busy week and to top it off Tyler came home on Wednesday with Brimble the Bee! Brimble is a mascot of sorts for his 2nd grade class, each week he goes home with someone new and goes places with them while you take pictures and then we get to make a few scrapbook pages of the pictures.

So far Brimble has enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner and the surprise of a new baby coming to the family. A funeral for my sweet Aunt Taza, sleeping in a bunk bed, and even putting up the Christmas Tree last night! The letter that came with him told us he liked pumpkin pie so we made sure he got some!

Today he went back to school for the next child to take home but not till after we did our (MY) homework of making the scrapbook pages and a spotlight poster of Tyler! When both printers wouldn't work to print off the pages, Jarin stayed up and worked with it till after 2:00 AM to get it to work! (I didn't try til almost 11:00pm so only 3 hours!) He was sweet and told me to go to bed, I stayed up as late as I could and finally crashed only a few minutes before he came to bed too.

Through all this I found out yesterday that Tyler has a Girlfriend!!!! Aaack!! He is only 7! I told him we don't date til 16 but he doesn't seem to care, it worked well with Alison. I asked how long this has been going on, he said shortly after they went back on track she asked him if he wanted to be her Boyfriend and he said yes. That was over 3 weeks ago! He says he loves her and she is his best friend so why not, at least they are friends! I met her today and she is cute and seems very nice, she whispered a secret in his ear and it was loud enough i could hear from a few feet away, she said "I wrote about you in my journal last night" his reply "Cool" after the presentation of Brimble and his poster he walked through the class sitting on the floor and made Brimble kiss her a few times with noise! I can't believe my little boy was flirting!! I know he is cute but no other girl is supposed to know that yet, not this young! I told Jarin he gets to discuss this with him since he doesn't seem to want to listen to me, I took care of Alison and she is doing fine fending off the boys now. I really hope they hit that awkward ugly tween stage so that they can be humbled a bit!

Black Friday

So I did go out shopping with my friend Krista, her hubby had to be to work at Target by 4:00 am. so she waited for her kids to get up and brought them over. My sweet hubby watched both our kids so we could shop and then we picked up pizza on the way home!

We hit 3 stores and 4 hours, and when we got home Jarin and I hit even hit Amazon, and Disney shopping.com for some great deals! I finished buying a few things for Christmas, and getting a few other things for birthday's in a few months for the boys. It will be a good Christmas!

The Secret is Out.....

We have finally told our families and the kids that #5 is on the way! Due June 14th! They are all very excited and so are we. I have never waited so long to tell others, but it was nice to keep our secret these past 12 weeks. Now Alison won't leave me alone about it! LOL!

We were told at the begining with a blood test that I wasn't so after a rooler coaster and a few more Home tests, we decided to wait till we had our first appt and ultrasound before we said anything.

The way we announced - last year I made some bragbooks of all our families so everyone would have updated pictures of eachother, then this year I had 5 new nephews! So I made up their new pages (all digiscrapping of course!) and slipped a new one in the back, then gave it to our mom's first (we are lucky and get to visit both families for the Holidays) and as they ooohed and awed and flipped through them they came upon the last one and gasped and smiled. It was fun, Alison didn't believe it! Then she was sure it was a boy because I scrapped it on green paper! Silly girl, she really wants another sister! We don't care if it's a girl or boy, as long as the baby is healthy!

An amazing woman!

Just an excerpt of my Aunt's Obituary, my dad included a great tidbit, it is only one of many stories and tales she told us about, she traveled all over and met many great people, and she was always a "Lady" proper and classy. Her funeral is in the morning and right now I am listening to Jarin practice his version of "I Stand all Amazed" for it, it is beautiful! Thank you for all your kind comments, I was sad, but I am not anymore, she was lonely the last few years and is now with her parents she loved so much, and wrapped in loving arms. I am happy for her! I love the gospel and knowing I will see her again, that will be so fun!


Taza N. Armstrong Peirce 1922 ~ 2008 Taza Armstrong passed to the other side on November 23rd after complications from surgery.Taza was born August 4, 1922 in Park City Utah to Ruth Irene Addy and Arthur LeRoy Armstrong. She is survived by her sister and two brothers. Taza worked hard to help support her family. Her career included secretary to the Army General's office at Fort Douglas during the war years of World War II; an insurance secretary and claims writer; and an international hostess with the Salt Lake Council for International Visitors. As an International Hostess she was associated with the U.S. Dept. of State in Washington, D.C. and the LDS Church. There were many international visitors to Utah who came to know and love her including foreign royalty and exchange students. Taza loved to read and learn about other countries. Her love of languages led to her being instrumental in bringing the lost papyri that Joseph Smith used to translate the Book of Abraham back to the church. This effort brought her directly in contact with Pres. Hunter and other leaders of the LDS Church. Taza had a wise humor that will be missed by family and friends. She was an amazing woman with many talents and great deeds to her name. She was active in her church and she worked tirelessly on genealogy for both her family and her many foreign friends. She brought much joy to the lives of many people. Taza will now rest in peace while waiting for the second coming with her family who preceded her in Death.

My Aunt

My sweet Great Aunt Taza passed away this morning, she was such an amazing woman and strong! We didn't expect her to make it through the night over a week ago but she kept fighting. Last night she had another blessing and right after her breathing changed and it was rapid yet shallow once she calmed down, the hospice nurse kept saying any minute and she made it another 3 hours. She was always such a strong and independent person.

She never did have children of her own despite being married for a few short years. She adopted all of her nieces and nephews and all the kids in the neighborhood, she loved kids! Growing up she would take each of us kids in our family on our own outing wherever we wanted to go, I got to visit an amazing doll museum and go to lunch with her, every little girls dream right! My brother got to ride the bus downtown and go to Trolley square. In her older years every time we would visit we would hear of these stories over and over, clearly they were some of her favorite memories of us.

She had an amazing life, she traveled, she served as an ambassador for the Church showing dignitaries and even royalty from other countries around our state as they would come to visit. She learned to speak some of several languages because of that job. She was and insurance claim adjuster for years, and perhaps the funniest is she learned to Fly a plane before she drove a car! Her father was old fashioned and didn't believe women should drive cars, so she took flying lessons and one day took her mother up in a plane, when they got home her mother told her father all about it.

Even though she was my "Great" Aunt I knew her better than some of my other Aunts and we will miss her, my kids loved visiting her too. I am glad after a long life and struggle she has finally moved on and is no longer in pain, I am grateful to have known her and to be able to see her again one day. I am grateful she can be with her parents and loved ones again and that she can go on to do a greater work now free of the limitations she had here.

I am looking forward to the funeral services, she planned them all out herself, Jarin was asked years ago by her to play Mendelssohn's Lullaby, it should really be a tribute to her.

We Love you Taza, we will miss you and look forward to meeting again.

Twilight

Tonight I got to see the new movie Twilight, based on the saga books by Stephenie Meyer. I loved it. Can't say it was my favorite, but I think that is due to the budget they had to work with. I also feel it is better understood if you have read the books! But over all it was still great and now after the great ticket sales they have announced the making of New Moon, the 2nd book in the saga, hopefully they will have a better budget! Bring on the Volturi!

I did take the old kittle camera to catch of picture of us that went but it wouldn't work! We went out to the theatre in Tooele at 4:15 and the crowds were perfect, as we left the theater the line was outside for the next showing! We went at the right time! If you get a chance def go and see it!

Random pics of kids...

So just a bunch of fun pictures of some of the kids, Trevin likes to avoid the camera so I don't have one of him. Carli especially has been too cute lately.

One of her favorite toys is the Laundry basket, Jarin caught her just lounging in it watching TV!

And again just casually sitting on Tyler watching TV, those two have a special bond!

Then Alison decided to be silly and hop on Ty too, makes it look like Carli really grew up fast huh.

Alison went to her friends Taylor's birthday party, it was a no sleep over slumber party, they wore PJ's, brought their pillows and blankets and had a lady come teach them oragami, then even got to put on makeup. I found out when she called me to see if that was ok, apparantly the face wash hurt her face, guess she has my skin! Her friends dared her to put the makeup on this way and she was so proud of it I had to take a picture, she didn't like washing it off though.

Tyler had to do a Pilgrim or Indian village for a project in school, we did both. Seriously in 2nd grade and lower it usually mostly the parents, but proudly he did most of it, I kept telling him it was his project! He was very proud of his stick people and the TP's! Of couse we helped, I don't trust him with a glue gun yet.

Carli has been fighting her naps lately but then falling asleep before dinner, even when I let her sleepan hour she is so cranky! So I decided maybe she would like to sleep on our bed, we read a few stories then sing a few songs and it works, she's out. She was pretty insistant the past couple times to sleep on daddy's pillow under the covers! This was the first time and she slept for 3 hours!!

I always have Carli's hair up, mostly in piggy tails but I have been tring other things, today I left it down. I figured I better get pictures. It's actually kinda cute but without the little hair clip it just keeps falling in her face and she can't stand it. This was the 3rd clip today, she won't keep it in, when we took the kids to piano lessons she was whining in the car, when I looked to find out why it was just because her hair was in her face, she would wipe it away and it comes right back. Love the curls in the back, just like Alison's used to be! Maybe soon we will be able to leave it down more often, just need it a little bit longer.

The last pictures were taken tonight too, we had KFC for dinner, I was finished and had one away from the table, when I came back I found Carli eating the mash potaoes straight from the container!! She looked so sly and was so proud of herself, I had to grab the camera, the pics are cute but the first looks I got from her were even better!