{Small things mean so much}

A special gift for Gavin on his baptism day brought to him by the Primary President....

 The most beautiful cake i have ever seen... coral all along the sides and shells on top.

 Jaydon is so thoughtful. He picks flowers for mommy every single day. Serious. I LOVE it.

 A sweet japanese friend of mine brought some get well flowers to me today. She knew i wasn't feeling well and brought them by. The small things mean so much.

{New Goals}

So, i have a new goal for my blog. My goal is to start posting TONS more pictures. I want to turn this into a photo album, online. :) I will still write, but i will try to cut back on the writing a bit. That will be hard since i do like writing(even if im not good at it). BUT i will do my best.

And because of that i am starting up my own private blog where i can post anything related to church and spirituality. I need a journal strictly for that, and decided to keep it seperate from this blog.  If you REALLY want to read my private spritual journal where i express those kind of feelings then email me or leave a comment letting me know you would like to have access to reading it.

{LOTS of big things happening around here}

FIRST...on Saturday Gavin had pinewood derby. He designed his own car and painted it all by himself. He didn't do too hot in the races, BUT for his first car and designing it all by himself, i think it did really good against the other cars where the dad's did it all. :)  He was disappointed, and next year he wants dad to help. :) Have you see the movie, Down and Derby? It's funny and describes the Pinewood Derby perfectly. It was my first Pinewood Derby i have ever been to. I thought it was tons of fun and its so fun watching all the boys with their cars.

 Sunday, the 27th, we baptized Gavin in the East China Sea. It was beautiful. I LOVED every second of it. I felt like a proud mommy and a proud wife.  Gavin asked me to speak about the Holy Ghost. I made it simple and quick. We have talked a lot about the Holy Ghost already, so i didn't feel like i needed to go on for too long. Here are my two boys.  This is before everyone arrived. Right behind them is the exact spot where he was baptized. The water was perfect this day. The waves werent crashing, and it was still and silent for the most part. :) AND just deep enough to get him under.

 All four of my boys.  They are all so handsome. I love them.

We had a great turnout for his baptism. We felt really loved and right at home. There was great support and we are so grateful for that. I have more pictures of the baptism that i will post later. I had a couple people taking pictures for me so as soon as i get those i will post them. :)

We asked Gavin what his favorite parts were about his baptism and his feelings about it. He said his favorite part was coming out of the water because he felt the Holy Ghost. After he came out i remembered noticing how handsome and glowing he looked. I just kept wanting to stare at him. And he had a big smile the whole time. He is such a handsome kid. I bought him a special white towel for his baptism. It was big enough to keep him warm until he could change. :) He is such a special boy.

Later that night he was showing maturity with a certain response he gave me.  I told the boys i've been trying to make a decision about something, and that i am not sure what to do about it. I told them that i have fasted and prayed and felt confused because i wasn't getting a sure answer. I thought i received an answer, but was confused on the way i was feeling about it. I told them i shouldn't be confused.  I fasted again on his baptism day and finally felt peace the whole day that we could make whatever decision we wanted. It was up to us. That is what my original answer was, but i think for some reason i wasn't satisfied with the answer. haha...He must be really tired of me. It wasn't the answer i was looking for, quite frankly. I just wanted a YES or a NO. :)  BUT i feel peace knowing that whatever the decision is that i make is right and that i won't be choosing the wrong decision either way. That feels really good to know. Man i was stewing and stewing about it for weeks. I finally got in the right frame of mind yesterday, i had faith that i would receive peace about what to choose and it happened. Sometimes receiving inspiration is a difficult process. But as one of the General Authority said, its one of the most important skills you can learn in your life...learning how to receive inspiration and knowing when you are receiving it. Something like that. So, i told them now i have to choose which one. Tanner starts telling me what i should do. Gavin pipes in and says, "NO, Tanner, leave the decision up to the Holy Ghost, mom, Jesus and Heavenly Father. Let them decide."
I love the things they say and i love moments like this where i can see them understanding and learning and growing. It's special.

EXCITING MOMENTS!!!: We have a general authority coming to have a special 2 hour meeting with our district in March. We aren't sure the reasoning , but we are excited. :) We just had one of the seventy here to speak with us for the Groundbreaking of our new church building in Okinawa. That was an awesome experience. It was Elder Ringwood. He was a tall man. Such exciting things going on here!
PLUS, we are having a fun Superbowl party here with some friends. Superbowl here starts at 8:30 a.m. on Monday morning. They give the guys the day off for it. We are getting a bouncy house for the kids to play in while all the adults watch Superbowl and chow on breakfast foods. :) THEN THREE days later those same friend, minus our kids, are heading to THAILAND for a FUN 6 day vacation. We cannot wait! I will definitely be posting pictures for you.

OTHER EVENTS: Shane and i both cancelled our facebook accounts. Just so you know. I know a lot of people have asked about it. You should try it. I found that i don't miss it one bit. :)

{Our Recents}

Gavin and Tanner are playing baseball now. Gavin is in coaches pitch baseball and Tanner is in T-ball. Baseball is a pretty boring sport, but thank goodness i have my boys to watch otherwise i would fall asleep. They look so cute out there running and batting and catchin the ball. Gavin's uniform is too big for him so he can't roll his pants up to his knees because of it. Here is a picture of Gavin and his coach. His coach is trying to show him a move of some sort. He has an awesome coach, and he is soooo good with the kids.

 I love this picture of Gavin staring at me.... :)

 Tanner batting! So cute!

 And running for first....

 Drop slide.  This slide is so fun for the kids, and adults. You hang on that bar there and then let go and you free fall for just a moment. It's enough to tickle your stomach. It's so much fun. Jaydon wouldn't do it alone, so he sat on my lap for it. :)

 Look how cute he is AFTER we slide down....you can see his feet are off the ground from jumping up with that big ole smile on his face.

 We went camping over our holiday weekend at White Beach. It was TONS of fun and such an awesome spot for camping...right on the beach.  We made our tin foil dinners, built a fire on the beach and had some smores. The next morning we had a big breakfast with a bunch of friends....the Hursts, Bjarnasons, and the Heatons. Then we hung out for awhile passing the football and combing the beach for treasures. :)

 Random....

 Sunrise....the lighting was PERFECT for pictures. If i could always have this kind of lighting to work with i would really enjoy taking outdoor pics.

 It took a lot to get this one picture of them together. haha! They had a difficult time sitting still so i could take the picture.

 Jaydon showing me his piece of coral...

 Shane cooking our hashbrowns...

 Crazy kid!

 The kids are trying to dig a big hole in the ground....

 Uhhhh, we really enjoy green smoothies around here and we have them practically every single day. This is the boys favorite part of the green smoothie.....being able to make their own mustache.

I must say, i think we have three of the cutest boys in the world, not to mention they are sweet and have wonderful personalities. :) We love them and have so much fun with these three crazy kids. Life is running so smoothly for us right now. Nothing big happening...it feels weird. It seems like there has always been something going on and it makes me nervous that life is kind of quiet right now....i feel like some big thing is going to happen soon to disturb the peace. For now, i am going to enjoy every second of our content peaceful life.

{This is a Fart offensive Post}

Oh. My. Gosh. Jaydon is a real life FART machine. He is always refilling his tank with Gas immediately after releasing one. It's like a never ending farting gas machine. And the explosive sounds are like nothing i've ever heard on a kid before.

In my family growing up i heard some pretty good ones. My brothers were constantly at it, and discovering new ways to make different sounds by how they situate their bum ....and experimenting on different floors and chairs to see which one creates the loudest sounds. And sometimes even coming up with clever ways on how to fart in my face without me realizing it until the point at which they fart. disgusting i know. Or there's the buttercups you would get. SICK. BUT if you grew up with brothers then i know you have experienced this.   In my family farting was farting. We didn't ignore them and pretend they didn't happen. They happened, it was a natural part of a human experience. Sometimes we didn't react, but most of the time we DID with either a laugh, a "sick", or a "get away from me", or "wow, that was sick", OR "that was a bomb". Nothing should surprise me by growing up around it in that way.

Then comes Jaydon. He is a little brute.  But the things that come out of him, and as OFTEN as they come completely puts me in shock.  Over the past few months he constistently makes my jaw drop. I really should teach him manners because now he positions his bum in a certain way, like he is trying to show off his fart. And he always looks at ME after he does it. And i know it's because i give him a good reaction, but i can't help it. Well, i can help it, and i need to help it because otherwise people are going to think i am a terrible mother when he starts farting around people and laughing about it. But really, farts are such a funny thing to me. It's this loud noise that comes out of a bum. It makes me laugh unless there is a smell with it, and then i don't find it funny at all. sick.

So,  i really need to start teaching him manners, and somehow i will need to learn to NOT react when he does it. HOW DO I DO THAT?! That's like impossible. Maybe put a book up in front of my face and laugh behind the book so he doesn't see me laughing, and instead thinks i am reading? :) haha!

{Jaydon}

Jaydon got his haircut! Here's his before picture, and.......

His after picture!.....

He looks so different! We are so used to his long hair. I was the one who never wanted to cut it, but then one day it just got to me. I realized i was tired of it looking so messy all the time. So,we chopped it. I love it though. I miss the blonde tips and the curls, but he looks so handsome and grownup like this. And on sunday everyone said "he look just like Gavin!".
Jaydon is also in SUNBEAMS now! Crazy!!! He is getting so big. He will be FOUR years old in FIVE months. That's hard to believe.

{Christmas Time}

Our Christmas Break was a lot of fun. The boys have to go back to school today, and i am actually kind of sad about that. We've been having a lot of fun together. We love to play games and it seems like our Christmas vacation was filled with TONS of UNO.  Here are a few pics from our Christmas break. Im sad because i didn't have my camera for a few other fun things we did, like going to the Itoman Lights and watching Tanner do some caroling with a few of his kindergarten classes. Ohhhh it was so cute!

For our Christmas break the boys played lots of Pokeman...

 We went up to Okuma Resort with a few friends of ours, the Cartiers, Carrolls and the Lowes. Everytime we go we love to ride these little bicycle buggies...

 This is a great spot to look out over the ocean!

 We did the batting cages...

 And the kids got in the water and played on the beach....this is just a few days before Christmas people! :)

 Jaydon let Elise bury him. He didn't budge. He acted like he was chained down or something. He started getting sand in his eyes, but wouldn't move! haha! Elise is his favorite friend. He tells us that he loves her, often.

 Christmas morning playing one of their new DS games...

 Jaydon was more than thrilled to get a new bike!

 The boys received TONS of ninjago legos this year. Shane pulled out the card table and spent lots of time putting together their lego planes and such.

 They loved their double sided light sabers that santa brought all of them.

 Gavin's NEW set of scriptures that he got for his Birthday!!!

 Tanner got a ipod shuffle. He loves listening to his music!

 One of the cook ninjago motorbikes for his ninjas...

Christmas Eve we read a few Christmas books, the usual Bible version of Christmas, and acted out the Nativity Scene.  The boys came knocking on our door at about 1 a.m. in the morning, asking if it was time to open presents yet. We said, no, and told them to go back to bed. They came in at 4:30 a.m. pounding on our door again to see if it was time to open presents. We said, no, and to go back to bed. We couldn't go back to sleep so we got up and were opening presents at 5 a.m. Crazy! i know! It is soooooooooo fun watching the boys open their gifts. Its the best.

Christmas was a good one with lots and lots of fun had by all. We went to our friends home for Christmas Dinner with a few other friends. It was good food!  A few days before Christmas we went to see the Itoman lights. We didn't spend much time their this year. I recall last year being better, probably because it wasn't sprinkling on us the whole time.  I watched Tanner and a couple of his kindergarten classes sing songs to everyone at the BX. Unfortunately , i didn't have my car(long story) and so i didn't get pics. I am sad about that.  We played tons of games together over Christmas break. It was fun and i was ACTUALLY sad to see  the kids go back to school. weird. ;)

We are so excited for this new year. I have a feeling there is lots in store for us this year. :)

{Gavin is 8!}

For some reason, blogger isn't allowing me to post pictures right now. As soon as it allows me to i will post a couple of Gavin.
I cannot believe Gavin is 8 years old already! I feel like time is flying by so fast that its crazy.

If you don't know, Gavin's birthday is on Christmas Day. We usually reserve the second half of Christmas Day to celebrate his birthday, but this year he didn't want to wait. He insisted on opening his birthday presents on Christmas morning.

For his birthday we gave him a new set of scriptures with a nice leather case to go with it. I was sooooooo excited for him to open up and see his new set of scriptures. He really likes them. He has a goal to read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year. We let him read in his bed at night before he falls asleep.  So far this year he has reached chapter 11 of 1 Nephi. He is on a roll! I am so proud of him.

Facts about Gavin....
1. He has a very tender and loving heart. He really cares about others feelings.
2. He has very high emotions, but with that comes lots of passion for what he believes in and what his hobbies are.
3. He has tons of energy, and when he is excited about something he IS EXCITED. haha!
4. He is a smart kid. He says he doesn't enjoy school, but he does awesome with every subject, and he really enjoys being with his friends all day.
5. He LOVES to read. I am glad about that. :)
6. He likes to make sure we do things together as a family a lot. He is like shane and I with that. We like family time and being together.
7. He loves his brothers.
8. He loves football and soccer, and sometimes basketball. Right now Football is his favorite.
9. He loves Ninjago and pokeman.
10. He is fairly outgoing, and makes friends easily.
11. He loves to eat. :) One day we are going to go broke because of how much he eats.
12. His reading level is almost a year ahead of his peers.
13. His teacher enjoys doing science with the kids and they often do some type of science lab. His teacher says Gavin really enjoys doing science, especially the lab.
14. When he grows up he wants to be a football player. :)
15. Did i mention he really likes football? He plays football with his brothers everyday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GAVIN!!! We love you!

We have been sitting down a lot lately to watch family home videos of when these boys were babies up until now. Gavin was such a happy happy happy baby. Really, he was! He was always smiling and laughing. AND the CUTEST baby ever!  I don't remember him being difficult at all.  He started sleeping through the night at the age of 2 months! He did that all on his own. I didn't make him cry all night or anything. I was certainly spoiled with him. He stopped sucking on his pacifier at age 10 months(the longest any of the boys used a pacifier), and he went off the bottle at one year old. Simple. Never had issues with him. AND he was the cutest little baby boy! my heart melts everytime i watch those videos of him as a baby. I wish i could go back to those days. I know i enjoyed and loved having him, but looking back now, i feel like if i could go back i would enjoy and love him even more. That's one thing i don't want to feel. I don't want to wish to go back so that i can be better. I want to be the best mom for them NOW and not have any regrets. I really really try to live like that everyday, but it can be hard sometimes. ya know.\
Anyway, i am so lucky to have Gavin...as a baby, a toddler(he wasn't so easy as a toddler) and now. He is growing up. I wish it could all slow down.