We had a pre-Thanksgiving dinner that night at Dave and Stacee's in Herriman since all the family was together. The food was great, and the cousins had so much fun playing together.


Sunday, Carter was blessed in church by his father which was another special event. We are so happy that Forrest and Rebecca have received this special spirit into their family.

Monday morning, we left Salt Lake and drove to Greeley, Colorado to my sister Diane's house to spend Thanksgiving with all the Blunck's (minus Mike and Jon). Diane was an amazing hostess especially considering there were 29 extra bodies in their house. Again the kids had a great time playing with cousins. And we all enjoyed EATING and EATING and EATING!!!



The highlight of Thanksgiving Day was definitely the homemade t-shirts that my sister Kelly designed for all the grandkids to wear. Take a look:

Friends, I'm seriously considering dumping the blog. I thought it would be a good way to journal my life since I'm not the best at writing in my real journal. I go a few months in between writing in my journal and then write a ten page summary that wears me out. I'm a pretty speedy typist so I thought blogging would be easier than writing.

BUT here's my confession: I feel like I'm in Mrs. Wenzel's 12th grade AP English class all over again. I write, then rewrite, then rewrite again trying to make it sound just right because I know someone is going to be reading it. If it were just me reading it, I wouldn't worry so much.

Already I have revised these two paragraphs 10x.

And then there's the question of WHAT to blog about. Do you really want to know how our Anniversary cruise went? Or will it just make you bugged when I write about our wonderfully relaxing time alone from our kids for a week?

Do you want to hear all my gripes and complaints because WE'RE MOVING?! I know, I should have posted this one long ago. Here's the skinny: we bought a lot in Santa Clara, put our house on the market, got an offer a month later, we'll move out after Christmas. To where, we don't know since our house won't begin construction until after this one closes. Anyone know of a good rental??

Do you really want to see how cute my kids were this Halloween? Or to see my "Baby" Dallin's 3rd birthday party? Yeah, you probably do but I'm not in the mood to post about it all. Especially not at this late hour.

All this being said, I do admit that I LOVE to read other people's blogs. I really do. I love what all of you have to say. And you probably don't have to revise it a hundred times before you hit the "publish" button.

I'm not sure what the answer is to my little dilemma. Any thoughts?

And just in case you really DO want to see what's been going on in our lives, enjoy this little slideshow:

I know I promised some exciting posts highlighting our non-perfect lives, but obviously my life is so non-perfect that I haven't had any time to think about blogging. But trust me, I have plenty of stories to share! Someday. When I have time...

But for now, I want to take a quick moment to say how excited I am to celebrate my 15th wedding anniversary by taking a well-deserved trip this coming week. Yes, it's hard to believe Adam and I have been married for 15 years! Even harder to believe that this is our first real trip together, minus kids, for longer than a day (And no, Florida did not count since Adam was in meetings all day and I was 8 months pregnant with Troy at the time).

We are going on our first cruise. Since it's our first, we chose the least expensive option just in case we don't end up loving cruises (cuz, we're cheap like that. I mean FRUGAL). We are driving to California Sunday night to stay with my Grandma Bell, departing out of Long Beach Monday, "cruising" to Catalina Island Tuesday, Ensenada Mexico Wednesday, a day at sea Thursday, and coming back Friday. Simple itinerary, yet we are both so excited to get away and relax!!

Thank you in advance to Adam's mom for bravely volunteering to watch the kids all week. Yes, she actually volunteered.

Bon voyage everyone, and Happy 15th Anniversary to my husband Adam on Thursday! I love you!!


Don't say it. I KNOW. We sure do look a lot younger in these photos!

Wow, two posts in one week! What has gotten into me? It might have something to do with the fact that I finally moved all of my pictures off my camera on to the computer so I'm remembering lots of things that have happened.


Whitney is in 7th grade this year and school starts at 7:45 am- ouch! We have a carpool with some of the neighborhood kids which helps out SO much. So on the mornings that Whitney is waiting for the carpool to pick her up, Dallin has decided to go out and wait with her. Just the two of them. My oldest and my youngest. So precious!

Stay tuned for my next exciting post which will showcase how NON-perfect our lives are. But really, you have to admit, this is so sweet!

Last night after dinner, the kids promptly got up from the table and all went outside. I'll admit that my first thought was "Oh great, they left without cleaning up!" On nights such as these, I usually bring the kids back in to do their nightly chores (dishes, cleaning up the basement, etc). But I decided to wait and let them play for a while.

After hearing this foreign sound, I went outside to investigate. Here is what I found:
That foreign sound? LAUGHTER!! Glee, bliss, joy, happiness, non-fighting! The kids were all playing together and were truly enjoying themselves. It was a cooler evening so it felt like pure heaven outside. If you look closely you'll see that Troy is pulling the two little ones in the wagon with a jump rope attached to his scooter. Heavenly!

So what did I do? I let them play without doing their chores! Shocker. Adam came home from work and joined in the fun. Bikes were ridden, swings were swung, trees were climbed, basketballs were shot, cribs were smashed... What?!? Um yeah, we'll just let that last part stay an inside joke within our family!




We still tried to have a formal "Family Home Evening" and considered the play time outside our "activity". We ate popsicles, sang songs, had a quick lesson, and TRULY enjoyed being together. Heavenly! (Well, except for when Dallin started using smashed crib pieces as light sabers and hit both Justin and Troy really hard. But we will try to forget that "minor" detail from our heavenly night).

Here is the slide show that I couldn't seem to add to my last posting. I sure wish I knew what I was doing!

So I kind of knew this would happen. I get all of you so excited that I'm finally blogging and then, poof! I vanish. Well, I think I have a free moment so I will try to catch up on a few of our summer highlights. Hard to believe it went by so quickly, as usual.

*Note: It's been several days since I started this post. I was interrupted almost immediately and haven't been back since. Typical. Why did I think I had time to do a blog??*

For those of you who are my facebook friends, some of this will be a repeat of what you've already seen and heard from me. However, there are a few of you that this will be new for, so to you I say enjoy! And for those of you who just can't seem to get enough of the Webb Family, I say to you enjoy (and maybe get a life if this is what you call exciting)!

July: The 4th of July was spent having dinner with the Blunck family, watching city fireworks at the park, then more family fireworks the following Monday for FHE. The rest of July was spent swimming, swimming, and more swimming. We had pool passes to both the Washington City Community Center and the Green Valley Resort so we swam almost every day. The big kids learned how to dive while the little ones gained more confidence swimming in the water. Is there such a thing as too much swimming?? My kids think so, but it was a great way to get out of the house and stay cool this summer.

Our freezer in the garage did not shut properly one day so I had to do some emergency canning to save the 60 lbs of chicken that was thawing. I saved the chicken and all of the other meat, but sadly we lost 7 cartons of ice cream (sniff) and lots of fruits and vegetables that had all turned to mush.

August: On our way to Bear Lake, we stopped and played with our Hughes cousins in Salt Lake City. We toured the Sweet's candy factory and somehow ended up with two bags FULL of candy thanks to Adam and his sweet tooth. We then went to the Discovery Gateway Children's Museum and had a blast!

On to our trip to Bear Lake for Webb Family reunion. It was absolutely the COLDEST we have ever experienced at the lake in August. Freezing temperatures did not stop the kids from having fun playing on the beach and riding wave runners. They said the water was warmer than the air. I wouldn't know since I stayed happily on the beach this year. Sorry, no swimsuit shots of me!!

We went to a Kirby Heyborne concert at the local park and the kids got to meet Kirby afterwards. The picture on the slideshow is HORRIBLE since I only had my camcorder with me, but it was the best we could do to capture such an exciting night. Who's Kirby you say? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Just google him privately and never tell me that you don't know who he is. We heart Kirby!!

SCHOOL STARTED!! Hooray for Mom. The kids were not too thrilled to start up again. Whitney is in 7th grade, Justin in 4th, Troy in 2nd and Audrey will start preschool after Labor Day. They have great teachers again this year, and we are looking forward to lots of exciting times throughout this school year.

**NOTE #2: I am trying to post a slide show but for some reason, it doesn't want to work this time. Grrrr.... I will keep trying!**

Today has been a whirlwind of emotions in the Webb household, and by that I mean a LOT of crying. My day started listening to Dallin scream his head off as I left to go visiting teaching. After I got back, the rest of the morning was pretty calm. We played with Eva and Mae while Kelly went out to lunch. Not much crying from them (oh, except when Kelly was trying to get Eva to leave. I'm just glad she loves my house so much that she screams bloody murder when it's time to go).

Then on to the orthodontist with Whitney. Yes, Whitney got braces today. She pretty much hates me for "making me get braces", as she puts it. She endured it pretty well in the office but as soon as we started for the car, she asked for permission to cry. Permission was granted. The tears did not stop for several hours. They'll probably continue tomorrow.

*By the way, I brought my camera to the orthodontist thinking of doing some fun "before and after" photos. Whitney was not having that. Hence, no photos with this post.*

To end my day, I watched "Marley and Me" which I checked out from the library. Four words: Bawled Like A Baby!! I am not an animal lover by any means, and definitely not a dog person, but I was literally sobbing in my seat. I think some other emotions were tied into that cry. Since I don't cry very often, I got it all out at once.

Eyes now puffy, nose running, exhausted. I'm heading off to bed!

People, I do NOT have time to be doing this right now. Yet here I am trying to blog again. My friend Holly came by tonight and told me a few tricks on how to change my background, so I just couldn't let it go until I tried (Thanks Holly!!).


We are leaving for a week long trip to Salt Lake tomorrow. Have I even started to pack? No. But I have been cleaning and organizing my house all day in preparations for the packing, which will be done on time I assure you.

But I wanted to get this picture up before Father's Day was too far past. Isn't my family darling? Now remember I said it was ok for others to brag about their families in their blog, so it's ok for me too. This picture was taken shortly after church on Sunday when some of my kids had already changed out of their Sunday clothes, and some hadn't. So I'm not the best at staging the perfect photo, but I love how it turned out nonetheless. Everyone is actually smiling! Which for our family, is quite the accomplishment.

My husband Adam is an amazing father. He helps me so much, that I honestly don't know how I could function without him. He is so great with the kids, and I know they'll remember him as being a "fun dad". I wish they could say the same for me, but I'm sure they'll remember mom as the one that was always telling them to clean up and stop fighting. I could go on and on about what makes Adam a great father, but that might make you all feel bad, so I won't. :D

I am also grateful for my own father who was definitely a "fun dad" and is the "funnest Pooh-Pa" ever to his grandkids. I am also thankful to my father-in-law for all he does for our family.


I feel a little bad that I didn't start blogging before Mother's Day, so I could give props to my awesome mother and mother-in-law. Remind me next year. By then, I'll have this whole blogging thing figured out and I can give them the post they deserve.

Off to pack now. Hopefully Liz can show me all the good blogging secrets while we're there this week, so my next post should be AMAZING!!

Let's just start with a confession: I am a blog stalker. I love reading my friends and family's blogs. They make me happy. I love hearing what people have to say, especially if they are people I like. I look forward to new postings, and am disappointed when people go days or weeks in between postings.

That said, I have been VERY hesitant to start my own blog. Who would want to read about our boring lives? What if I can't come up with clever ideas? What if no one really cares about how brilliant and wonderful my children are? Cuz, let's face it, most blogs are showcases of how brilliant and wonderful everyone's children are. Even if they don't mean to be, they are.

But that's ok. If your kids are brilliant and wonderful, you have every right to let the world know about it. If it bugs people, maybe they won't read your blog anymore, and that's ok too.

So here I go world, my first attempt at blogging. Please humor me, at least at first, and pretend to be interested.