Our New Place

Ok, so I am finally getting around to posting some pictures of where we're now living. We've been here almost a month now, but things have been pretty busy, so I'm just now getting around to it. It's nothing fancy, but it's ours (for now) and we love being here. We have quite a bit of space (more than the pics portray) and I didn't take pics of the bathrooms, so sorry you don't get to see my toilets (I know you are all so disappointed about that one, lol). Anyway, for those who don't know, it is a basement apartment, so our front door is at the back of the house.

This is our living room

(with my new couches, which I love, and my new t.v., which I also love)

This way taken from our bedroom door and it shows the living room and kitchen and the hallway that leads to one of the bathrooms.

This is Addison's room

(she made her own bed, not me!)

This is Addison's reading area. The little dresser is full of books and she has been learning to read so, hence, the reading area.

This is Treyson's room

This is Mine and Spencer's room

It has changed a bit since the picture because I now have a weight rack at the foot of my bed which is quite large for those of you who haven't seen it. Surprisingly though, we still have more room in our bedroom than we ever have, so I guess I can deal with it. Yes, Spencer, it's because I love you!

And last, this is our backyard

Well, not really, but it's the view past my backyard. As many of you know, I love horses! What is even better is baby horses! So for now, I have a wonderful view which I smile at every time I walk out the door. Especially, when they are running around playing.

Anyway, that's the tour of my house many have been asking for. Maybe one day you can come for a visit.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!

I know mothers day isn't until tomorrow, but I will probably be busy with Mother's day plans, so I just wanted to wish all you wonderful mothers out there a

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!

Addison is 6!

Addison turned 6 years old on April 24th! I can't believe my baby girl is getting so big! I will start by telling you a quick story. I have been trying for 2 years to teach Addison to ride a 2 wheel bike. Well, she was too scared and the second she knew I would let go she would lean to one side and jump off the bike. She kept getting mad at me for letting go, but that's kind of the point, to ride on your own. Well, I told her if she would learn to ride a two wheeler I would buy her a bike for her birthday. She wanted one, but still wouldn't really let me help her so I quit and told her to have her dad help her. She didn't want that either. She tried over and over to teach herself, but didn't seem to be making progress. She would get excited and tell me that she did it, so I would watch and she would go a few inches and fall over. I just told her to keep at it. Well, on the Monday before her birthday she came and told me the same thing, so I went out to watch expecting the same thing. Well, I was wrong, she rode all the way across the drive way! I was shocked! She actually taught herself and 4 days before her birthday. After that, she just kept going and going.

So, now we are to Addison's birthday. I kept my promise to her. She got a new bike for her birthday. Before her bike was too little and now it's a little to big, but I couldn't find any in-between. She can still ride it, but it makes me a little nervous. She didn't even hesitate, she just jumped on and went. We told her she had one present to open when Spencer came home for lunch and when he got there she was so excited. We hurried and snuck the bike into the garage and told her we were going out to lunch first (she picked Pizza Hut). She was disappointed but when along with it anyway. I was waiting in the garage when her and Spencer came out and she saw her bike. She loved it! Watching her ride it about gave me a heart attach though. From now on she has to wear her helmet and pads to ride it.

That night we had most of my side of the family together and had poppyseed chicken for dinner and had cake and ice cream for dessert. She opened the rest of her presents and then the kids played and played til it was time to go home.

Hope you had a good birthday, Addi! We love you!

Ready, Set, FINISHED!!!!

So we have some great and exciting news to share! Treyson is finally a big boy! He is potty trained and wearing big boy undies! YAY! We had some tough times along the way, but we finally did it! I say "we" because for those who haven't done the potty training thing before, it takes a lot of effort on the parents side, as well as the childs. I'm sharing my story because I know how much I appreciated other's stories and advice when I needed it. When we first started, Treyson was getting the hang of things and I knew it would only be a short time til he had it down and lucky for mommy, he wanted to use the BIG potty, not the little one (saved mommy from having to clean it!). What mommy didn't plan on was the flu hitting us all. We didn't have to but, we called it quits for a while (mommy was too sick to care). Little did m0mmy know, trying to start over was going to prove to be quite difficult. Treyson just didn't want to anymore and no longer had any interest in the matter. After a while mommy decided, WE ARE DOING THIS! After a gruesome day of mess after mess it hit mommy we had a trip to Idaho in a few days so once again, we put it on hold. Finally, on monday (one week ago), mommy decided to give it another go, but approach things a little differently. Mommy took Treyson potty every 20-30 mins all day long! The same thing the next day although mommy still couldn't catch Treyson before he left a surprise in his undies. After the third accident (which happened while playing outside) mommy was already sick of it, but just didn't know what to do. While cleaning up the mess Treyson said, "Let's go back outside!" and it hit mommy like a ton of bricks and she knew EXACTLY the key to suceeding! What is Treysons favorite thing on the planet? Playing outside! So mommy said, "No, Treyson. When you poop your pants you don't get to play outside. If you want to play outside to have to poop in the potty." Treyson tried kicking and screaming, begging, sneaking out, anything he could try to get back out there. Mommy was tough though and didn't let Treyson go back out to play. On the third day mommy decided to go longer and see what happened and reminded Treyson if he pooped his pants he couldn't play outside so we went around an hour between brakes, but guess what? Treyson started telling mommy he had to go potty. BREAKTHROUGH!!! At least with #1. Mommy was still waiting to see what would happen with #2. Then FINALLY another BREAKTHROUGH!!! Treyson told mommy he had to go poop! Not only told mommy, but actually did it! Mommy was so relieved, but didn't want to count her chickens before they hatched. Well, mommy can now count her chickens! Treyson is still telling mommy when he has to go both #1 and #2 (or he just does it on his own sometimes too).

This is Treyson's potty chart. Some of it was from before when we tried potty training, but a lot of it is from this week as well. He got it all finished and we got to have a little success party. He loved the sticker chart and also getting one for himself to keep everytime he went potty.

Good job Treyson! We are all so proud of you!

AAPF NATIONALS 2009

Spencer qualified last October for and was able to attend the AAPF (Amateur American Powerlifting Federation) National meet in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Usually it's not so close to home, so that was pretty cool. He did so awesome. He weighed in at 148.8 lbs, which was the very highest he could possibly weigh in order to compete.

The first lift was the squat. This is usually Spencer's best lift and he planned on getting 600+ lbs. Well, in order to make weight he had to drop quite a few lbs in a few weeks in order to make that weight and during that time he lost quite a bit of strength. He still got his highest squat that he has ever gotten at a meet which was 545.6 lbs., but it wasn't quite what he'd trained for.

I was a little nervous for his bench because he didn't do as good as we had hoped on squat and his bench is usually his lift he sikes himself out on. Well, the day was full of suprises! He planned on getting around 330 lbs. for his bench, but he got all 3 lifts with such ease so he was able to go for a 4th attempt to get the world record in the AAPF for his weight class. He went for 355 lbs and got it! That was beyond exciting!

Spencer preparing to deadlift.
I liked this picture so I had to put it on.

After such an amazing bench, Spencer was so pumped up for his deadlift. He got all 3 attempts and ended up getting 501.5 lbs on his final deadlift. That's been a goal of his for around 5 years to hit 500 lbs. on his deadlift. Another huge accomplishment!

Look how excited he was to get that last deadlift!

It was such a great meet and full of excitement. One thing Spencer realized once we were back at the hotel was that he only needed 1 kilo more to tie the total (all 3 highest lifts add together) of the world record! Darn it! If he would have realized it at the meet he would have went higher so he could have broke that world record total. Oh well, Spencer qualifed for the AWPC World meet in Chicago (in August) and we are planning on attending if we can afford it, so he can break a few more records while we're there! That will be such an amazing experience for him. Only 3 people from each weight class and from each country is allowed to compete in the World Meet, so Spencer is 1 of 3 in the U.S. allowed to compete in this World meet. What a stud! I'm so pround of his dedication and determination. Love you Spencer!

I also wanted to tell Sue Ann, Grandma Oldroyd, Subrina (also thank you for all your wonderful pictures!), Kensi, Jessica, Debbie, Mike, Noel, Beth, Cody, and Zack for coming and supporting Spencer for this meet, THANK YOU!!! It meant so much to him!

Random pics from the meet

The kids at the meet

Playing at the park during the big break. They were excited to get out and run around!

SPLISHIN' & A SPLASHIN'

Of course we had to go swimming while we were staying in a hotel! We has a blast playing in the water and most of the time it was just us. Not much to say here so, hope you enjoy the pictures.

ZOO TIME FUN!!!

On our way back from Idaho, we decided to stop at Hogle Zoo and give the kids a chance to get out of the car and run around. We only had an hour to see everything before they closed so we went crazy fast and saw just about everything that there was to see. Treyson hadn't ever been to the zoo and Addi didn't really remember when she went so they were both so excited and loved every minute of it. Enjoy the pics.

Some of the animals we saw

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Playing @ the zoo
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There is one just one really quick story about our trip to the zoo that I would like to share....

...Meet Tino

See Tino sleep.

See Tino when Tino gets woke up. The End.

Told ya it was really quick! Ok, so that was the short version for those who don't like to read, but I can't just leave it at that. While we were at the zoo a bunch of the animals were sleeping, which was cute, but not as fun as when they are playing. We had already seen Tino, but on our way out we decided to see if he happened to wake up. Sadly, he hadn't. I tried knocking on the glass and he didn't budge. Although, at least with the human ear, you couldn't really hear it very well since the glass is so thick. Anyway, Subrina (my sister-in-law) started taking some pictures of him and the flashes made him start to twitch a bit. I got excited and went to try to knock again, but right when my hand was about to hit the glass, his arm went flying back and scared the heeby jeebies out of me. Subrina and I started laughing and the others came quickly to see what was going on. They got up close to the glass and Tino flung his arm back and smacked the window. The girls of course screamed and jumped back. Right then, Tino came flying up and got on all 4's and just glared at us. We were all laughing by then and Jessica (our cousin) put her face up close to the glass and Tino went flying up to the glass, which he was already pretty close to, and practially shoved his nose right up against the glass looking very, very angry. We were all still kind of laughing, but at that point we were expecting Tino to start beating on the glass to try and get out so he could kill us. Although it's not likely he could break the glass, it was still kind of scary, especially with my little babies in there. Anyway, we all kind of backed off and were looking at the orangatang when Tino decided to cool off and went to the gate to go outside, even though it was shut. My point is...Don't mess with Tino when he's sleeping!!

Picture For My Hair Color Survey

So I have this issue with never knowing what color I should dye my hair and I just went in and pretty much left it up to my stylist because I trust her a lot. Well, my hair was quite a bit darker than I expected and it was kind of a shock. I'm not sure what I think about it yet, but I want to know other peoples opinion. Spencer said he really likes it and it's probably his favorite color my hair has been. He has wanted me to go dark for a long time, but I always ignored him, so I guess he got his wish. Anyway, I added a poll that's on the right side of my blog, so be sure to take it!

Write Thy Name Upon My Heart

"...There is no other name given whereby salvation cometh; therefore, I would that ye should take upon you the name of Christ...that ye should remember to retain the name written always in your hearts."

Mosiah 5: 8, 12

Richard Paul Evans

I had the opportunity this past weekend to attend the Vernal Women's Regional Conference. Can I say, "WOW!" It was such an amazing experience. I wish that everyone could feel how I felt sitting there listening to messages and stories that I heard. Richard Paul Evans was the main speaker at this event. For those of you that don't know who he is, he wrote "The Christmas Box". He has written many other books and accomplished many other things in his life, but "The Christmas Box" is his most know work. I haven't read the book (although I now plan to), but I have seen the movie and I have read a couple of his other books. I knew he was a great writer, but I didn't know much else about him. There is really no way to repeat his messages and the spirit that came with them, so my best advice is, if you ever have to opportunity to listen to him speak, DO IT! He has so many stories to tell of his personal experiences along with a bit of humor. Not only that, he brought such a strong spirit to the room. I don't thing there was a dry eye in the room by the end of his talk. There is way too much of what I learned to try to put in here, but I wanted to share some of it.
The theme of the conference this year was "Write Thy Name Upon My Heart". The talks were centered around how we can write Christ's name upon our hearts. Richard had 5 main points that his talk revolved around. 1-We are all divine creatures. We are all entitled to divine inspiration if we stop and take the time to listen. 2-Learn to forgive. We cannot move forward if we cannot learn to forgive others, it will only hold us back. It's like the ancor of a ship. That ship is going somewhere, but if that ancor is holding the ship back, it will be stuck there until that ancor is released. 3-Success comes from failure. The more you fail, the more you succeed. We never learn more than from failure. Listen to the voice that tells you the possiblities and ignore the voice that says you will fail, so don't try. 4-Adversity is a required step in your path. Everyone goes through their own trials. We go through those trials to learn and to grow. Sometimes we may not understand why at the time, but in the end once we have overcome that trial, we are greatful for what we learned by having to go through it. 5-In the end it's all about love. Love is the most powerful thing on the earth. We love those whom we serve.

Along with those 5 main points, he had multiple examples and stories to tell. I wanted to pick my very favorite to share with you, but it really was quite hard because so many of them touched me. So I decided to tell the last story he told because he thought it important enough to share during his talk on friday then again on saturday. So here is my attempt at repeating the story. It went along with point #5. Richard and his family were living in Italy at the time and they decided to go swimming one day. His kids were playing in the pool and him and his wife both were a little distracted when they looked in the pool and noticed their daughter Abby (7) was holding on to her younger brother Micheal at the deep end of the pool and it was causing Micheal and her to both go under. They started yelling for Abby to let go of Micheal when the lifeguard jumped in to get to the kids and get them to safety. Once the children were safe and out of the pool they were talking to Abby to try and figure out why she wouldn't let go of Micheal when they learned to real story of what had happened. Micheal, who wasn't a very good swimmer and had to wear arm floaties, had jumped off the diving board with his arms pointed strait up into the air. When he hit the water one of his floaties came off of his arm completely and the other one was in a position that it was pushing him under the water. Abby, who could swim but was scared of the deep end was up in the shallow end playing when she saw what had happened to her brother. She jumped out of the pool and ran to the deep end, jumped in and went to her brother and was trying to push him up above the water. So what they saw as Abby pulling her brother under, was really Abby going under herself in an attempt to save her brother and keep him above the water. She was the only one who had seen what had happened. To him, this was Love in it's purest form.
I don't know if I told the story exactly right, but it was so touching to me. The way he told it gave the impression of how God is with us. We get ourselves into situations where we are "drowning" and through God's love we are "saved". Anyway, it was such a great experience for me I wanted to try to share some of it with others.

Write Thy Name Upon My Heart

Write thy name upon my heart,
Jesus, Savior of mankind,
Teach me charity unfailing,
Teach me compassion, Lord, like thine.
Endow my soul with loving kindness;
Make me even as thou art.
Engrave thine image in my countenance;
Write thy name upon my heart.

When battles rage, when storms arise,
Make me a messenger of peace.
Teach me faith to bid the tempest cease,
Endow my soul with loving kindness;
Make me even as thou art.
Engrave thine image in my countenance;
Write thy name upon my heart.

Grant me strength to serve thee well;
Light my spirit with they grace,
Til all my works reflect thy goodness,
Til all my labors sing thy praise.
Endow my soul with loving kindness;
Make me even as thou art.
Engrave thine image in my countenance;
Write thy name upon my heart.

-Sally DeFord

At The Museum

I haven't done a post for a while because I haven't really had anything to blog about, so I decided to just do a quick post to let people know we're still here. Last Saturday we had a family day just hanging out. The kids really wanted to go to the museum and Spencer hadn't ever been so we made that one of our stops. The kids had a blast, but of course they are too young to sit and read about everything and sit through the movie (at least Treyson is) so we went through pretty quickly. Treyson would stop and look at pretty much everything and did some of the activities at the beginning, but most of the time it was a quick look then off he went to the next thing. The kids of course thought that the coolest part of the museum was the dinosaurs and stuff outside. Anyway, I just wanted to post some pictures of our adventure.

(Sorry the pics go from the end to the beginning cause I was too lazy to switch them around)

Spencer thought it was fun to try to pose like the dinosaurs. The kids wanted to join in on this one (Addi needed to go to the restroom really bad, just a little TMI if your wondering about the look on her face)

I wasn't going to take a picture here, but Addi thought that I needed to since it was the biggest, meanest dinosaur that there was there (those were her words)

See a resemblence?

The Mammoth

Ahh!!! Don't eat me!!!

The Long-Neck was too long to get it all in the picture

Trying to find all the animals, insects and plants on the green sheet

Just a cute picture

Playing in the cave

Sweeping for fossils