Thankful Day 14

Today I'm grateful for my husband.  We have been married nearly 20 years and I'm happy to say that we want to be married many more.  To each other, of course.  :)  He takes care of me and our family.  I don't think there is anything he wouldn't do for us.  He is an honorable priesthood holder and sets a great example for our boys.  He also sets an example of what a good man should be like for our children.  I'm so thankful he is in my life.  Thank you Mon for the many good times.

Thankful Day 13

Today I'm grateful for turkey guard dogs and monkey boys. Yesterday we were able to have a turkey for a pre-thanksgiving dinner. I'm thankful that we have the time to spend at home with our family and eat yummy food. Macie cleaned a lot of the house, and Thomas was able to help the new neighbor across the street. She paid him 20 bucks!!!! I found Matthew up in our Muskogee Crepe Myrtle tree. He told me that he was going to use the umbrella in his hand to help him get down. Imagine Mary Poppins here. :) I'm thankful he is a monkey and didn't really need the umbrella to get down. I also looked out the window and saw one happy puppy dog watching over the turkey cooking in the BBQ. It is a good thing we have him or who knows who would get into the turkey. You can never be too careful. What a nice Saturday it was. :)

Buddy,  will you be getting Turkey?

That's a long way down.  Do you need an umbrella?  :)

Matthew has always climbed anything he sees, but he addition of the umbrella now, that's somthing new.  :)

Thankful Day 12

This is pre-photo session.  I hope it doesn't tell what is to come.  :)

Today I'm grateful for pictures. I was able to have pictures taken of my children yesterday. They turned out great. I will post when I get the actual picture. Every Holiday season I have pictures taken of my children. It is truly great to be able to see the growth of each one and to see the growth of my family. To think that only 13 Christmas' ago we had one child in the picture and today we have 5. What a blessing. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and if you look at each one of those Holiday pictures you can conjure up many words and memories.  Here are some photos I took before our photo session.  I was a little worried going into the session, but I'm very happy with the results.  The Gang came through.  :)

Julia and the littles ready to go.

Waiting for our turn at Target.

Henry you better look at the camera when we get into the photo room.

Thankful Day 11

Today I'm grateful for our veterans who have served this country and helped us keep our freedoms.  I'm thankful for mom's who volunteer their time and provide great activities for my children.  We got to go to a Veteran's Day Ceremony today and Thomas was able to sing with his school choir the National Anthem.  I'm very proud of my son wanting to do things like this and I'm grateful for Emily Matthew's for making it happen.  :)

Thankful Day 10

Today I'm thankful for sweet treats and my food storage.  I was able to make a fresh batch of milk chocolate chip cookies just because.  I had everything I needed to get this sweet treat fix in my food storage, and yes people I do store chocolate chips.  I usually store them in the freezer.  You never know when you might need a little chocolate in your life.  The kids are thankful for my storage and sweet treat cravings too.  :)

Thankful Day 9

Today I'm thankful for friends who help make things better.  I have a few friends who I rely on to help me fumble through my life.  Whether it be about my kids, dinner selections or keeping house I can expect some sort of help in figuring it out.  Thanks friends, and you know who you are.  :)

Thankful Day 8

Today I'm thankful for modern technology.  I can sit at my computer, pay my bills, transfer money from my savings to checking, and record receipts onto my budget.  I am financially aware of our spending.  I don't even have to get dressed to do this.  Now, that is something to be grateful for.  :)

Thankful Day 7



Our Grandma likes to get into the fun with the Gang.  :)

Today I'm thankful for Grandma's.  My mom is great.  She helps us with the kids a lot.  Last night we took the kids to the 1080 and Pa fed them dinner and Grandma brought them over to our house and gave them Sunday Sundae's then put the gang to bed.  This made it possible for us to go to an adult fireside for church.  It was just what we needed.  Thanks Mom!!!!!

Thankful Day 6

 

Today I'm thankful for our abilities to change our environment if we want. Tom and I have been working on remodeling our bedroom. We have painted and put in new floor. Last night after almost 4 weeks sleeping in the living room we moved our bed back into the bedroom. Now, we aren't completely done, but we slept in our room and it was great.

 

What Am I Grateful For?



The Hay Gang on October 31, 2011

Today is November 5, 2011 and we are 5 days into November.  I hope to post each day in November something I'm grateful for.  I have 5 children and on this day November 5th I am grateful that I get to be their mother and serve them.  Each one is blessing in my life.  That big kid in black in the back is my partner in crime and I'm very thankful to have married him.  He takes care of all of us, but especially me when I need buoying up.  Thanks guys for letting me mother all of you.  :)

Fall Is Here!!!

The first day of school August, 2011

I'm so glad it is fall.  I love the briskness of the mornings and the chill in the air at night.  Soon we will start having fires.  Happiness!  Today is my brother's birthday, and it is the first time in 17 years that we will get to spend it with him.  He is home from prison and we are happy.  He will be getting a Starbucks gift card and brownies ala Macie.  We are supposed to go the Ward Trunk or Treat tonight, but it being Matt's birthday we will not be going.  I haven't broken it to the gang yet. 
 Tom and I are living in the living room due to the fact that we are still remodeling our bedroom. I painted and Tom has been putting in a beautiful laminate floor. The room is looking very pretty, and I can't wait until I can lay in my bed without who ever walks through the front door looking in and saying "Hi". :) The kids love having our bed in the living room because they can play the wii while sitting or jumping on the bed.
Everyone is in school and studying hard. We are waiting anxiously for Halloween to come. We will have a bumble bee, sock man, blue witch, Darth Vader, and a cape wearing karate man. The caped karate man will be going to a birthday party today. He is so excited. :)
I wish I had more of my fall pictures loaded so I could post them, but at least I'm posting. Have a great Saturday and Trick or Treat!

Tom working hard on our bedroom floor.

Matthew is officially wanting 2 front teeth for Christmas!

Our Halloween decorations.  Thanks Auntie and Uncle!

One of our Friday night homemade pizzas.

Who gave Henry that sticker?

Red Ribbon Week and Thomas went all out.  :)

Halloween at Grandma and Pa's.

Before we went Trick or Treating.

Big Basin Redwood State Park

This year we went on our annual vacation to Big Basin Redwood State Park.  It was very fun and exciting seeing the places that Daddy grew up in.  We went on August 1 and came home on August 7.  One whole week of dirt, sun, raccoons, hiking, riding bikes, eating, making new friends, going to Jr. Rangers and Big Basin nature club, and swimming in the ocean.  We had camp visitors on Wed.  Mark and Mary Treuge from Santa Cruz came up and had dinner with us.  It was fun to reconnect with them and have a great meal together.  Buddy went to visit them on Thursday as we went to the Natural Bridges Beach in Santa Cruz.  The kids had a ball in the surf, in fact Thomas went body surfing and Henry  actually "surfed" ( picture to come later).  Every year at the end of vacation I always think to myself, no way am I doing this again next year, but after a few days at home I'm on board again.  :)  We think next year will be closer to water so we can swim most days and lounge by the water. 
Thomas made friends as usual with a little boy and spent time with him.  We got his address and I suspect Thomas will write him.  We also had a young family of a father and son camp next to us for 2 nights.  They were from Minnesota and didn't have much of the camping gear we had.  So we invited them for smore's 2 nights and they shared our campfire with us.  I let Thomas go for a walk on night before dinner and he still wasn't back at camp 45 mins. later.  I went into a bit of a panic.  I could just see us having to send out a search party for him.  I sent Mark and Tom out looking and they came back 30 mins. later with him.  He had hiked all the way up the mountain and saw the ocean.  I think he will have to really think about his scouting skills and remember that you need to go hiking with a buddy. At one point Macie counted Henry's mosquito bites and he had 62.  Yikes! I also had to use the self timer on my camera to make sure there was documentation that I was on the trip.  Here are some pictures of our trip.  :)

Matthew thought every tree needed to be climbed.

Henry "surfing"

I was on the trip.  :)

Macie and Thomas on their hike with Daddy.  The Pine Mountain Trail.

Just some of Henry's mosquito bites.

The Hay gang in camp 110 in Big Basing Redwood State Park.

It's Great To Be Eight!!!!

When you are eight in our house you get to make the choice to baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  Julia turned eight in May and decided to get baptized.  Our stake has a new procedure for children of record baptisms.  We are instructed to have our children baptized on the first Saturday of the month at 9:00 am.  Well, Julia could get baptized on June 4th, but we had a swim meet so we chose to do it on July 2nd because there was a bye for our meets.  So she got baptized on July 2nd.  She was baptized and confirmed by her daddy.  We loved going to the church and celebrating her decision.  She had a moment of being afraid that everyone would be look at her, but she was able to step into the font.  We love her and everyone that was there love her very much.

The Gang before the baptism.  You can see the excitement of everyone.  :)

Julia before the baptism.  She is so excited.

Julia and Tom ready to go into the baptismal font.  I love the smiles on everyone's faces.

Everyone who was at the baptism.  We were all there to celebrate Julia.  Our Bishopric member, Brother Hall, took the picture.

....

 sorry about not posting latley i was busy like camping and i kind of forgot anyway sorry please stay in tune later



This post was posted by Macie, who was like indeed camping with her mother. We had fun at girl's camp. :)

Promotions

We have all sorts of promotions around here.  First of all Macie is now a 7th grader and will be going to Jr. High in August.  Of course, all the other children have been promoted to a higher grade.  Matthew will be a 1st grader, Julia a 3rd grader, and Thomas will be a big man on campus as a 6th grader.  Our lilttle Henry will be going to Sierra College State Preschool for his final year before he enters kindergarten.  He has also been promoted to that of someone who wears underwear.  He is potty trained.  I feel like I got a raise because I no longer have to buy diapers or pull ups for the day time.  Yay me.  :) 

The biggest news around here is this.  My brother who has been in prison for 16 and 1/2 years will be coming home.  He has been deemed suitable for parole and has been reviewed for coming home.  We are just waiting on the actual release date.  We are thinking it will be within 10 days.  Sometimes things move slower than we want in the prison system.  We are all so excited to have him home and be able to do family things with us.  :)

We went camping again with Antsy McClain and The Tralier Park Troubadours over Memorial Day weekend.  As always a fun time was had except for the extreme cold and rain.  The gang didn't seem to mind although I did.  We are flamingoheads through and through.  We played games, listened to music, laughed with new and old friends, rode scooters and bikes, ate terrific food, and created in the craft shack.  Whew I needed a vaca from the vaca.  :)

Now we start summer and all the fun activities that come with it.  Yahoo can't wait to get our summer on.  :)