BYU football!!!

 Jason took Luke and Jojo to the BYU football game

 funny faces

 Joseph and his funny face....

They all had fun! The boys did really good!!

Luke and Lacey's Birthday!!

 Luke and Lacey turned 7!! We started the day off with pumpkin pancakes and yummy syrup!! They loved it!! Yummy!!

 Jason surprised them with coming home from work for a few minutes and bringing them balloons. It was a HUGE hit!!!

 Lacey and her makeup purse....which she loves.....she keeps putting on makeup!!!

 Luke and his gun....it whistles....pretty cool dude!!!

 opening up presents from Grammy and papa and Great Grandma and Grandpa Maughan. They couldn't make it to the party in the evening so they came over after lunch. It was great though. They had there celebration all day!!!

 money!!!

 Great Grandma

 Great Grandpa

 Grammy and the kids

 The new game!! Blokus, which they love!!

 putting together star wars lego together....they did great!

 playing blokus

 the cakes

 cute boy!!!

 opening gifts.....

 more......

 cute Jameson!! love him!!!

 making bracelets

Lacey and baby with the dresses that I made them!

They had a great day!! Full of fun!! I can't believe that they are already 7. They are growing up to fast!! Happy Birthday guys!!

We are alive......really!!

I know that it has been forever since I have blogged. Really I kinda gave up on it, but some things in our life are changing and I want to keep in contact with people I love! So here we are. I"m committing to be better at blogging for you! (You know who you are! I love you so much!!! It will be hard, but this is life and this is what happens, things change!!) We are busy with homeschool and life with 5 kids! The girls started dance this last week, and they love it!! Luke is in soccer and loves it! Jason is working hard for our family. I'm working hard teaching our children and trying to be a nicer, kinder person:) 
I would love to include some pictures, but we got a new camera recently and I have no clue how to get the pictures off the darn thing. So till next week.....I will learn how to get the pictures off the camera....our twins turn 7 in 2 days! I can't believe it.....my babies are growing up!!!

Debt FREEEEEE!!!! (except our house)

Today is a day that we have worked very hard to see come to light.  It has been 8 1/2 Months since we started our totally money makeover. We have just completed step 2 and it feels great!!! It has been something that I wanted to do, but I solely did the finances, and I was ok at it. I tried hard to make our ends meet but it never worked like I wanted it to.  Till Mark and Mark (my cousins) came out to visit us and we got taking about money. They (mostly Mary at first and then Mark came in to join in the fun later) told us about Dave Ramsey. (They offered to send us his book and Cd's. It has been great reading and listening to his cd's.) Who I have heard of before, cause of Nicole. I was super excited to get started!!! Jason was there listening to bits and pieces of it. When we got home I told him that I really wanted to do it!! But we had to do it together or it wouldn't work!!! So we started right then. We stopped spending!!! We sat down and did a written budget. Oh man, that first month was super hard. Of course, I ended up in tears, and it was not fun at all!! Looking at all of our debt,  was super HARD and very eye opening for Jason to see what we had done!! We had lots more debt than I would have liked! We had some student loans, fence debt, truck debt, and some personal credit card debt, and no money in the bank! Fun huh!!! NO!!! It was Alot of Money!!!! We got gazelle intense!!  It was a slow start, then things started to move. We were blessed big time!! Jason was able to work alot, passed a test to get a raise and got smarter with our money!!!  Every month that we do our budget it has gotten easier for the most part!

One thing that I didn't expect to come out of all this was, it has made our marriage better! Which I love!! We didn't have a bad marriage before but this money makeover has improved it 10 fold. Our communication is better, we are working for a common goal for our family. Life is just better!!! We are super happy!! Now for step 3!!!
Thanks Jason for all your hard work to help this happen!!! You rock babe! I love you so much!!!

Dreaming

Last evening I had the opportunity to take Lydia, Luke, and Lacey out to my parents friends horses. Lydia has been really into horses, so I thought that it might be a fun for her to take some riding lessons. I checked into them and they are WAY expensive so I knew that wasn't going to happen. Good thing I didn't tell her about my thoughts so she didn't get her hopes up. I was telling my mom about Lydia really being into horses. She said that they had some friends with so horses. But of course I forgot about having Lydia calling my dad to set something up....I seem to forget everything these days unless I write it down...It's pretty bad! Oh well I guess that is what happens when you get old. Anyways. On Sunday we went for a walk as a family down by the river! It was so nice, By the way LOVE 9am church!! The kids and Jason were throwing rocks into the river when some horses passed by. Then I remembered about having Lydia call about the horses. So we did it right then before I forgot. My dad was very on top of it and that night he called and had something set up. I had to call Laura who was very nice to arrange the details. Yesterday was the big day. Jason was home so he could stay home with the little boys. (they are sick and its not been very fun)

Let me tell you the kids had a blast. They got to hold chickens, cats, groom a horse, feed her treats, ride her, trot on her, and play on water barrels and just be out in the open. The kids loved it. They all did great! Lydia had so much fun. She said it was way better than she thought it was going to be. She was in heaven. It was the best to watch. I also to ride her...It was great! It brought back lots of memories when I would ride the Anderson's horse. We went to watch Ashley ride her horse down in the arena. The kids watched and then they started playing on water  barrels. What simple entrainment. But they loved it, watching the horses and playing in the open air. It was heaven.

They were each able to have an egg. They thought that was great. Laura told them it would taste better than the white eggs. The kids had them for breakfast this morning. Luke said, "Yep, she was right, they do taste better!" so cute!! Love him....

It is just reminded me of what I wish we could have. I really wish that we could live on 5+ acres, and have chickens, pigs and cows, and maybe even a horse. I really just want space where the kids could go play and have some freedom to explore. I would love to have a HUGE garden, and just take in the world and the beauties that our Father in Heaven has given to us. But that dream takes lots of money and is not possible now or who knows if ever. I"m grateful for Matt and Laura and Ashley to share there animals with us. It was perfect!!