Continuation!

Two days after Christmas was Brooke's 8th birthday! She's a big horse lover and cowgirl wanna be, so we took her to a western town called Rawhide while we were in Arizona. It was a pretty cold day, so only the Krummenachers were brave enough to go. I have to admit, it's a pretty cheesy place. BUT, we had a great time. The kids got to pan for gold, go on a train ride, climb rock walls, see gunfights, etc. Here's a picture of when the kids got thrown in jail. They were told they wouldn't be let out unless they danced to the harmonica the "Sheriff". Everyone danced, except Brennan. SO, as the Sheriff let everyone out, except Brennan. He had a gun pointed at him and was forced to either dance, or ride a pink stick horse. He chose the dancing. It was pretty funny. We had a good laugh watching Brennan. Here's a pic of the kids at Rawhide. Brooke, Jake, Regan, Jadyn, Nate, Rebecca, Brennan, and Sarah. They sure are cute together! I love being home and having all the cousins play together. That night, we had everyone over (Todd/Matt and their awesome families as well as Aunt Janet and some of her kids, and my wonderful Grandma) to celebrate with Brooke. Laura & Brent were kind enough to make a 8 sub for her birthday. GO Krazy Sub! Best Subs around! Brooke had a wonderful and memorable birthday. Thanks to everyone for making it such a good one for her! Jeff also had fun playing golf with the brothers, and racquetball/volleyball with Darin and Todd. I was lucky to see my wonderful friends Heather Biggs and Elizabeth & Mitch. I am so blessed to have such wonderful friends and family. It was a much needed vacation! Just wish I had more time there. WARNING TO ALL PARENTS!!! This is a picture of Regan demonstrating the DANGERS of the Wii! Poor Reggie happened to walk by when her cousin, Johnny was playing and just happenened to walk in the wrong place getting smacked with remote, or whatever they call it.Probably scared John, but she healed quickly! Nice eye, huh? Four days after we got back from Arizona, Brooke was baptized. It was a beautiful baptism. Mom and Frank were able to get away from their mission and come. We are so grateful for their efforts. It wouldn't have been the same without them. Uncle Steve, Aunt Laurie, cousins, and all Grandparents involved in the program, and help from friends too with refreshments. The spirit was so strong and sweet there. It bore witness to me once again of how important these saving ordinances are, and how I know that this is the true Church of Jesus Christ. I am grateful that Brooke followed Christ's example being baptized. Thanks to everyone who made this day so special!

Well, that's it for now. Once again, I am so grateful to have come from such a wonderful family. I have been blessed to be surrounded by Uncles, Aunts, Grandparents, Cousins, Mom and Dads as well as two terrific brothers and wonderful sister who have all been such great examples to me of goodness. I feel so blessed to have wonderful sisters and a brother in law that I love dearly, as well as nieces and nephews. On top of that, I was doubly blessed to be married into a family that is absolutely wonderful. They also are great examples of living Christ-like lives. I feel so blessed to be a part of their family. I don't know what I did to deserve such blessings, but I'm eternally grateful for them. Happy New Year Everyone! May our Father in Heaven bless each and every one of you in 2008!

Catching Up!

Okay, here I go trying to make up for being a huge slacker! Novemeber was a lot of fun. Jeff's sister, Holly & family came in town for Thanksgiving. We went to Jeff's parents to enjoy the day with all of them, Laurie & kids, and Steve & family, as well as the missionaries. It was fun to have a big group together! My kids loved seeing their cousins again. We miss getting together with Holly & Ben like we used to when we lived in Houston. Here's a picture with Regan and Emma. I actually got a lot of cute pictures with the two of them. It was hard to choose. The picture with the kids and the gingerbread houses are Laurie & our kids. Laurie was nice enough to make a ton of these cute gingerbread houses for the kids to decorate - some for the cousins, others for a playgroup day. The kids loved it! Thanks Laurie! For Christmas, we took a nice 25 hour drive to Arizona to spend it with my family again. I was looking forward to warming up, but had no such luck. It was cold! We had such a good time there. We had the traditional Nativity at my cousin Tait & his wife Heidi's house. It was fun to see the tradition go on with our kids. I have so many great memories of doing it as a kid growing up with my cousins. Now, all of our kids get to follow. It was great to see everyone that night. I love my family so much! I am so blessed! Christmas day was fun as always. We enjoyed being with Grandma Diane and Grandpa Frank. They are so much fun to spend Christmas with. We had fun eating all of our traditional food, and playing games! I love Christmas with the family. The other picture above is from taking a little desert hike up a small mountain. We had fun playing in the desert, hiking, and eating lunch outside. It finally warmed up that day. It was so nice enjoying the outdoors. I know people think I'm crazy, but I think the desert is beautiful. I love all of the variety of God's creations. I have more to do, but I have to do a new post since I couldn't fit the rest of my pictures in. Pat me on the back for catching up!

Marathon at Church

Last Sunday I was asked to sing with my friend Tiffanie for a Relief Society Visiting Teaching lesson at church. I had never heard the song before, "For Good" from Wicked, but it was sounding pretty good, and I was feeling good about it. THEN, the Friday before, we got a message from the primary presidency asking for one of my children to please give a talk in primary that same Sunday. Jadyn was so excited when she heard this and begged me to do it since she had never done it before. I thought, you know, we're singing at the beginning part of Relief Society, Jadyn doesn't talk tell the end, sure I can do this. So, Jadyn and I got it all ready. She had the talk down and memorized. My assignment, was to help her hold pictures, and help her if she got stuck. SO, we're sitting in Relief Society. All ready I knew I was off to a bad start. It was 12:30 and they were still doing announcements. Hadn't even started yet. I knew the primary was going to start closing exercises at 12:45. So, I nervously looked at the clock. Time passed, and they still hadn't turned time over to sing. By now, it was 12:45, Jadyn was supposed to give her talk, I was supposed to sing, but I had all of the pictures for Jadyn's talk. I was the only one that knew her talk to help her. WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO? SO, after talking to Tiffanie, I left and literally ran down the hall to the chapel to check to see if Jadyn was going to talk yet. The kids weren't even there yet. SO, I ran back. More time passed, we STILL hadn't sung. So, I ran back to the chapel. They were going VERY slowly through announcements. Still not time for her to talk. SO, I ran back to the relief society room. SHE was still talking. I sat for a while. She still hadn't turned the time over to us, so I RAN back to the chapel right in time to help Jadyn. She did a wonderful job. She only got stuck once. I gave her one word, and she was back on track. She told me she was nervous, but she did great. SO, I gave her a kiss and RAN back to the relief society room. I sat for about 30 seconds and they turned the time over to us. As I got up to sing, my heart was beating so fast from running back and forth, plus the pure adreneline from trying to be in two places at one time, and feeling bad for getting up and walking out so many times. BY SOME MIRACLE, I was able to sing, and it actually worked out. Come to find out afterwards, they had turned the time over for us to sing right as I walked out the door the 3rd time. The Relief Society president said, "Oh, she must be nervous!" Tiffanie told everyone that I was helping Jadyn give her first talk in primary, but apparently not many heard her. Some thought it was my first time singing and thought I kept running out of the room because I was throwing up from being so nervous! NICE! No, that's not embarrassing! Next time, I will never, ever commit to doing two things in the same hour. LESSON LEARNED!

SQUARE PEGS

Star in Your Own JibJab! It's Free!

Other Things

Here's more cute pictures of our visit with Mom & Frank. These two were at the zoo. Aren't they so cute with her? This is a dress my Mom bought Regan for her 3rd birthday with her cute shiny pink shoes she bought. She loves them so much. Doesn't she look adorable? Okay, I have so much to catch up on. I've got to do this more regularly. I have lots to talk about Thanksgiving, but I'll do that later once I transfer the pictures over. Let me catch up on before Thanksgiving. First,we had my brother Matt in town for awhile. It was fun having him here. He is so good with the kids in playing with them, and even helping with homework. It was great having him visit. Jeff went to the girls' elementary school to do a career day demonstration on what he does at the refinery. Somehow he got roped into doing this for all the first graders and all of the second graders at Tara Oaks. He did a fabulous job, like always. He really is good at explaining the refining process on a level the kids understand. He even said that in his job, his plant is like a big McDonald's playground that he gets to play in. I don't know if it's exactly the same, but the kids thought that was cool. Jeff also got brave and entered into the biggest National Professional Raquetball tournament. His company was one of the sponsors, so he and one of his work buddies signed up. Of coarse, he entered the lowest bracket at the amateur level. Regan and I had fun going down to the University of Memphis to watch him play. Unfortunately, he got his behind whipped. But, he sure was cute doing it. He said he was so nervous, his legs were shaking. Not used to people watching him. But, in all fairness, the 50 year old guy that beat him (that's right, I said 50) did end up winning the whole tournament for his level. I told him, he might want to try doing some local tournaments first next year. Overall, he had a good time. I have been busy with reading to classes, doing crafts and volunteering in the health room down at the school. Also, I somehow got roped into helping with the Young Women's Daddy Daughter Western party they had with the Stake. It was fun because I got to work with a lot of my friends from Stake Camp, and also my friends from the ward. We had a great time. I learned some line dances and burned off all the Nachos I ate dancing around with my friends. That line dancing is a great workout. I need to do it more often!

Stuff missed

Okay, here's some more pics I didn't get in. Above is, of coarse, Halloween. The kids are with their cousins who just moved here. They had so much fun. Brooke is a Power Ranger (go figure), Brennan is OB (I think), Jadyn is the White Witch & Regan is Tinkerbell. Actually, she's really a fairy because it was cheaper. We figure she'd never know. Above right is our fam in the Smoky Mountains. Directly above is Jadyn. She cheered for the Packers' Flag football team. I know I'm biased, but she was the cutest cheerleader ever! Even though the team lost every game, I don't think one cheerleader even noticed. J.J. loved it. After freezing the other night watcher her, we are now grateful the season is over. Good thing Brooke wants to cheer next year and they'll be in two different leagues with games on different nights! YIPEE!!! That's okay, I really eat this stuff up. I have so many more pictures. I wish I could post them all. If it didn't take forever, I probably would.

Still don't know what I'm doing.

As you can tell, I never got the whole Blog thing down before. Still trying to figure it out. So, instead of trying to catch up, I'm starting with the month of Oct. Just briefly, summer was very memorable with a wonderful family reunion with the Bradshaw clan that I just loved, Girls Camp that ROCKED, and a great visit in Arizona. Now to continue...

We had a great month in Oct. It first started with a much needed visit from my fabulous sister. (Thank you Jen!) We had so much fun and quite an adventure. For those who missed out on her Blog explaining the whole thing, you really missed out. Then, my brother Matt came for a very quick visit. It was great seeing him, even if it was less than 24 hrs. Later in the month, Mom & Frank came for a week where we had a great & wonderful time. We celebrated Regan's 3rd birthday. Hard to believe it has been 3 years. We also went to Gatlinburg & the Smoky Mountains. We stayed in a gorgeous cabin right in the middle of the changing fall leaves. We spent a day in the Smoky Mountain National Park among nature. It was absolutely beautiful. Didn't see any Black Bears this year. Total Bummer! But, we saw lots of deer. Of coarse, we see deer all the time, but it was fun for Mom & Frank. The next day, Mom & I went to the little shops in town while Jeff & Frank took the kids to do Go Karting. Apparently, Frank didn't realize that he would be needed to help drive the younger kids and wasn't quite ready for what he got himself into. According to Jeff, "It was worth all the money we paid just to see the look on Frank's face!" Unfortunately, he didn't have the camera with him! Later that night we went to a family comedy/singing show that was fun. They had all the kids from the audience go on stage. Jadyn, being the ham that she is, managed to push her way to the front & center of the stage with Regan and the two of them danced their hearts out in front of everyone! They definitely stole the show. Brooke said she had stage fright and stayed in the back. When we got back to Memphis, we spent time with them at the zoo, our town's "Mayberry" shops, and Graceland. We also enjoyed having them here for Halloween. The kids just loved being able to show them their costumes. Overall, October was such a great month. We loved having everyone visit. Anyone else out there who'd like to come, we'd love to have you!