SHIRLEY BUNCH
Dave, Steph, Cade, Ashley, Mikayla, Hailey, Valerie, & Ty

We may not have it all together, but togeth
er we have it all.


Thursday, December 11, 2008

Girls Get Away

(sing to the tune Jingle Bells)

Dashing through the mall,
With bags in every hand,

Around the money goes,
Shopping all the day.

Oh, jingle bells, what's on sale?
Jingle all the way,
Oh what fun it is to go
Shopping all the day!

(Tasha, Tamie, Teresa, Chris, Monica)
As you can tell, I am not much of a song writer but I am an okay shopper. Look at all the bags in the picture! What a fun and much needed weekend I got to enjoy with the Leishman girls. I grew up without any sisters so I have adopted these guys as my own sisters. We have been buds since I can remember. (We did miss you Mom) We are hearing rumor that Wicked could be coming to Utah. If that proves true- that should be our next trip!

Thanks to all the husbands who stayed behind. Dave had a busy day taking all the kids to the ward breakfast before rushing off to Mikayla's ballet performance. Next came Ashley's basketball game followed by a gymnastics performance. I was so glad to get a break from being a taxi driver and hair/make-up artist.

I came home after a weekend of good company, shopping, tasty food, and hot tubbing to my family who had made me a candle light breakfast. What a weekend!

It had to be completely dark except for a few candles. This caused some problems as hot chocolate was mistaken for syurp and poored on the swedish pancakes.

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Catching Up!

Thanksgiving was wonderful. I have so much to be grateful for. This was the first year I cooked a turkey for people that I remembered to take out the gibblets. We had 3 of my brothers over for the weekend. We did a whole lot of nothing. I did get up for shopping the next morning. I even took Dave with me to my first stop. He wasn't excited about it but he was a good sport. I gave him his map and sent him off in one direction and I went the other. He was back in bed by 6:30 am and I was on to the next stop with Melanie. Upon my retun of shopping, I was hoping to hit the bed. But to my surprise I came home to all the Christmas stuff spread all over the house. Mikayla wanted the tree up so she could wrap her present for Valerie and put it under the tree. I guess we will try and hold off Valerie for and entire month or 25 more sleeps! (as Hailey would say)


Nov/Dec. always brings around lots of performances. Ashley performed at halftime of a basketball game for tumbling. We even managed to get her hair up in a spiderweb despite it being short. Mikayla had her first ever ballet performance. She looked so adorable out there!


Last weekend we headed up to Boise to watch the BYU/Utah football game. Yes, I said Boise. We couldn't get it on our TV and it was an away game so we decided to make a party of it with my brothers. It turned out to be not the greatest party for BYU fans. We still had a good time though.
It was my brother, Justin's 28th birthday. My sweet little Cade made him a gingerbread cake and put a "J" on it out of whip cream. He did this all by himself! I soon hope to assign him a night to make dinner!

Dave had a conference in Sun Valley a few weeks ago. I was able to sneak up there for one night. It is not easy finding a babysitter overnight on a school night. One more reason I can't wait for my mom and dad to come home!

Lack of Blogging

So much has been going on but I really have not felt like blogging much lately. I have been thinking a lot about my good friend Lana and her daughter Emma. Emma was recently diagnosed with Leukemia. She is my daughter, Ashley's age. She has the sweetest smile. They have been at Primary Childrens hospital for over a week. My heart breaks for them and the trials that lay ahead. I do know that through the help of our Heavenly Father they will make it through this. We continue to pray for them and invite anyone who desires to add them to your prayers.

Here is an example of how my brain has not been working so great lately. The other day I was driving and came to a 4 way stop. I couldn't think which way to go. If I turned one way I would end up at the gym. If I turned the other way I would end up at work at the hospital. (it seems I am usually going to one of those places) I was on auto pilot, but as I sat there I realized I was on the complete wrong side of town. I was supposed to be going to pick up my daughter at gymnastics!

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Tender Moments

As I was tucking Hailey into bed last night we had this touching conversation. I am so thankful for these little moments that I am able to enjoy.

Mom: Thanks Hailey for playing so good with Valerie today. I like it when you two can get along.

Hailey: I did not fight with her all day. Do you know why? I am trying to be like Jesus.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Cade turns 12!

12 years ago Cade was born in Moscow, ID. My OBGYN wanted me to stay in the hospital and deliver Cade on Halloween. I wanted him to have his own birthday so I left the hospital and came back the next day.
My baby boy Cade is 12!

Cade has always been a happy, easy going boy. He was a big fan of the Jazz...
and the cowboys....

We celebrated Cade's birthday Saturday and I forgot my camera for the whole day. Cade took a buddy to the NazzKart indoor arena. They raced and rocked climbed all afternoon. We then headed to Gerdies for pizza. He really liked the desert pizza and could skip the rest. In fact, on Sunday we made homeade desert pizza - marshmellow/blackberry. It was tasty!

Father and son with matching soccer shirts from Mexico. Bimbo is a big bread company down there ( just in case anyone was thinking something else).

It was a big weekend for us. Cade was ordained a deacon and received the priesthood. He had his bishop's interview last week and was challenged to read the BOM every day. The deacon's quorm presidency came to visit and told him to read a story out of the New Era every day. He has such a good heart and tries so hard to be obedient. He has been reading up a storm even though that is not his favorite thing to do. He said, "I had no idea you would have to read so much once you became a young man." He is such a sweet brother to his sisters. Every time Cade walks in the door, Valerie is the usually the first to run to him yelling, "brother!" We love you Cade and are glad you are part of our family.

CRAZY FUN WEEK!

Most often, I really like Halloween. It probably would not be so crazy if we didn't cram all of the activities into 1 week. Making sugar cookies is fun for a while and then I seem to be stuck with finishing up and clean up. We all love the going to the pumpkin patch but I hate reaching in and cleaning out the pumpkins to carve them. Thank goodness for Dave! The kids had so fun deciding what to dress up as that we ended up in full out costumes 2 nights in a row. Our neighborhood gets an insane amount of trick or treaters. Our first trick or treater came at 4:45 and our last at 11:00! I was soooo out of candy by then! Most the time we don't even have a chance to close our door because of the steady stream of trick or treaters. We even have a cop patrolling our front entrance to our neighborhood. No cars are allowed.

Cade and friend Cole as?????

Witches brew at Pages house. Billy baked us up a whole bunch of goodies!

Valerie - She is such a mommy's girl. I hold her everywhere I go. In fact, on the way out of church on Sunday she was so tired that she was walking and telling me, "hold me like a baby, hold me like a baby." She surprised me this Halloween. She loved it and was not scared of the millions of trick or treaters in our neighborhood. She didn't want to hold my hand and she would walk right up to the door with her sisters.

Ashley, Mikayla and friends

Rock Star!





Saturday, October 25, 2008

I have an awesome friend, Sarah, who takes amazing pictures! I like when she gets new outfits or thinks of new poses and she needs someone to try them out on. I volunteer my kids regularly. She can get their real personalities to shine forth. Most of the time the kids love having their own photo shoot.

Love the pettiskirt!

Hailey being Hailey! This was one of her many poses she had that night.

Valerie - she is a hard one to take pics of because she doesn't like to leave my legs.


Ashley

This is so Cade


Shirley kids minus one!
I love this pic except Hailey was missing related to a temper tantrum.


Okay, so it is not always fun.

So cute!

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Happy Birthday Steph.

Stephanie knows I don’t really like this blog thing she does. But since it is her birthday, I thought she would be surprised if I left a comment. She enjoyed the lists posted by our sister in laws where they described things about themselves. She then asked what things I thought she would say about herself. I don’t know, but I will tell you some things I love about her.

She is happy. She has some big mood swings up and down but generally she is happy. When I come home from work after dealing with people who are very serious, I sometimes open the door and see her doing crazy things like clogging and clapping with a giant smile and sparkling eyes when there is no music playing. Suddenly the world seems less serious.

She is a loyal friend. Stephanie has had some good friends in her life. She stays in contact with most of them. She assumes the best of her friends actions and will do all she can to help them. I am grateful to be one of those friends.
She is without guile. We all know she can’t lie. But it is very painful to her to be deceiving in any way. She gets visibly nervous and unsettled. Don’t ask her to be the one to lure another to a place for a surprise party.

She lifts others up. She truly wants others to succeed and be happy. She doesn’t cut others down and can’t stand to be in the middle of personal conflicts of others. She just wants everyone to be happy and have a good time. Sometimes I think if she was raised by a less structured family she might have been a cross between a high achiever and a hippy. I know that doesn’t make sense, but I can’t think of another way to describe this part of personality right now.

She is a strong person. She does not like conflict and is perfectly content letting someone else take charge most of the time. However, if the situation involves something important to her she can take control of the situation without panicking. She can also become feisty if needed (she gets feisty in sports sometimes when not needed). This surprises some people who don’t really know her that well. I am lucky to have seen several examples of this. One of the most recent is when a man had stopped breathing and his heart had stopped. Once she realized no one else quite knew what to do, I watched her calmly and politely take control and got some help from others to perform cpr. For the next several days people kept telling me how impressed they were with the way she handled herself and the situation. I know she has done this type of thing countless times at work but I enjoyed seeing it for myself. I can see my sister in law nurses doing the same thing.
She is smart. Stephanie was somewhat of a perfectionist at school. This was good for me because she had scholarships at byu which saved us money. It was frustrating when she would ask me for help in classes like physics and math, and then get a higher score on the tests. She can memorize anything and she rarely makes mental mistakes when accomplishing a task.
She has a kind heart and is a good Christian. I am thankful for her nudges and reminders when I slack on my responsibility in areas like family home evening, family scripture study, and going to the temple. She doesn’t make correct choices to appear righteous. She does good things just because of the way she is. She is sincere. She is by nature not critical or judgmental of others. I picture heaven being full of people like this.

She is a great mother. She focuses all of these talents she has on our children. I hope they grow up to be like her.

I am sure she will disagree with some of the things I have said, but she tends to look for her faults rather that her positive attributes.

I hope you have a happy birthday. I love and admire you.

Dave

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

BYU Homecoming tradition

What a fun weekend we had playing with Keller and Shirley cousins. Even though Mom & Dad Keller are out of the country we still managed to keep up the tradition and get the family together for a little fun. A big thanks to Grandma & Grandpa Shirley for letting so many extra Kellers (16 extra people slept at her house and many more stopped by to visit) stay at their house and enjoy the good food and Halloween party.

Cam & Erin stopped to stay with us on the way to Provo. Don't let Gavin fool you. He is not really asleep.

We were so glad that we made it through the whole game without getting rained or snowed on!

Ashley in her first ever BYU shirt.

Erin & Quicny

Todd & Jenn

Brandon & Sarah

The weather was crummy but the kids did not mind. They were happy not going anywhere but just hanging out and playing with cousins.


Having fun on the zip line!

Sunday dinner was a real treat. Rad & Wendy had us over for a pizza dinner. They just finished making a pizza oven in their backyard. I think they need to start a show. Wendy making pizza dough with her secret ingredients and tossing her dough and Rad cooking the pizza to perfection.


Mikayla and her look alike, Grandma Shirley.

We did not come home until Sunday night because the Highway was closed. How crazy is that? We came home to loads of snow. It was midnight and the kids were crazy with excitement. They were jumping on the trampoline and Dave was shoveling. It is only October. The leaves are still on the trees. It has since been a few days and the snow has not melted!