Morri's

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Brittlyn's sign in book

Tallie and I put this together. Thought I'd share. Its been awhile since I've had to be so scrapbookie.

Monday, May 23, 2011

random pics from April and May

Seth desperately needing a hair cut

My new phone! Cordelle got me a iphone 4 when our contract expired. Yes, a little extravagant, but since we can write a little of it off for Cedar Weddings, I decided it would useful and I'm not going to lie....its one wicked phone.

The first picture with the iphone....and not to mention some cute kids. :)

Jaq was singing in the bathtub one day so Cordelle snapped this picture. She sure is cute.

Jaquelle and Seth being silly one day

And then there was our pre-mothers day, "lets build shelves in the garage so we can actually park in there project."

One easily accumulates a lot of junk over the years.

The shelves themselves took 3 hours...organizing, trashing and sorting through everything else equaled to about 12 hours. It was a long day, but so worth it.

Still junk...but in a little more organized fashion.

Took an after-lunch shower one day and opened my bathroom door to this. SO. Cute.

Seth and Wyatt, both randomly wearing the same shirt one day. I know Seth only likes Mario because this kid does (well, okay him and Mason have given an equal influence of him to Seth :)

Grandpa Mason

My Grandpa Lawrence Mason died on May 5th. His health had been deteriorating for quite some time and I think only hung on as long as he did for my Grandma who was devastated even at 88 years to let him go. We were able to go up for the funeral and see cousins (mostly Diana and Rogers family) who I haven't seen in years. It was really neat to see them all. All the kids learned and song an arrangement of I need thee every hour and it was awesome! Its amazing what can happen when you get a group of people that know how to sing and how quickly they can learn something. It was really neat!
My grandpa and I weren't super close. He was kind of a background figure to my grandma while I knew him, but it was fun for me to hear how my dad and his brothers and sister spoke of him growing up. He loved his fishing, war stories, the news, Jazz games and teaching Sunday school. But what made the service neat for me was, my dad had a dream the night before the funeral service that he saw my grandpa in the church in Aurora where the service was held and my dad asked him if he could sit down and talk, and my Grandpa told my dad that "he'd love to son, but there is so much work to do." Isn't that cool? Even when they leave this life old and barely moving, their spirits are quick to get to work on the other side. His grave yard service of course had a military salute with guns, trumpets the whole bit, and it was really cool. I mourn for my Grandma, but she's in a good rest home now where her and Grandpa were before he died and its close to Marlin and Cynthia. And she's a strong woman. I love you Grandpa and the legacy you left.

Mark is home from Hungary!!

On April 28th we went up north to pick up my little brother Mark from his mission to Hungary. It was really fun to see him. I had stayed up with Krista all week and Neal and Cordelle drove up together to meet us for the event. Mark looked great and skinny and tired and a lot like our cousin Jeff Jeppesen. It was crazy. We didn't get to talk much, but he seemed glad to be home and yet you could tell he was really going to miss people in Hungary. He even started tearing up when he talked about them at lunch. It was cute. I remember he didn't shave and he needed a hair cut bad when he got home, so much in fact my mom cut his hair before he was released with the stake president! Ha. Just amusing to me. Only Mark. It will be fun to see what his life brings. He's so talented in so many things I hope he makes the best of them.

My little brother Neal.

This past year my little brother Neal has been living with us, while he goes to SUU. I have seriously loved him being here. Its been so fun living vicariously through his college life, his relationship with Brittlyn and just to talk to someone about our family, politics or whatever comes up. I have always felt a deep connection to Neal and even since we were young, I have kind of looked out for him or over him. (Not that he really needs looking out for now) but I still will miss him asking for my advice or opinions on things, or talking to me about stuff he learns in school and pretending I still remember all that stuff. He'd better stay in good contact even though he's all grown up and married. :) This past weekend was his wedding and although everything was so beautiful and seriously amazing at his wedding and reception, I have really one regret. At the wedding dinner everyone was supposed to go around and tell people something about Brittlyn and Neal or offer them advice. And I was so wrapped up in trying to say something funny or clever that I feel like I really missed an opportunity to tell him what he's meant to me. It sucks that you can't get those moments back. I wish I would've just not cared at all what anyone thought I'd say or tried to be funny (which I wasn't) and just tell Neal thanks and that I loved doing his curly little hair when he was younger, or making him get me pb&j's in the middle of the night, going to his soccer/basketball games, scaring the pants off him as he came running down the stairs in the middle of the night singing the elements in the periodic table. :) He was my little buddy growing up and now I hope that he knows that I love him and he's really become a treasured friend.
Anyways, along with me, my kids learned to love him and here's a picture of him with Jaquelle and Seth one night that he was babysitting for us.

Monday, April 18, 2011

EASTER 2011

So this year we went back to Little Egypt for Easter. We were excited for this year, our kids were getting older and I wasn't pregnant so we figured this would be a good year to just hang out....and hang out is what we did, because....the weather did not really cooperate with out great outdoor plans. Day one: was SO windy there were gust up to 50 mph winds!! And it didn't stop that whole day. Apparently it was like that for almost 48 hours straight. There was NO way we could set up a tent when we could barely stand on our own two feet ourselves. Seriously it was windy.....and I live in what I thought was the windiest place I've ever been. We stayed in my mom's trailer for all afternoon and then just before dark it was still windy, but at least enough that we could walk around a bit and go exploring with the kids. Needless to say though, because we weren't able to set up our tent my dad got my sister and I a hotel for the night. LAME, I know. But it was WINDAYY! And it meant one more showered day. :) Okay so Day 2 was by far the best weather day. It was warm and nice and easter baskets were a hit! We got some kite flying in, a little hiking, quite a bit of horseshoeing and some good old fun. We did Easter baskets Friday and were glad that Brett and Tiffany were there. Neal and Brittlyn and Tallie and Jim didn't show up till Saturday.
Lets see here's some other event's I remember from the trip. I left my pillow at the hotel and couldn't ever find it when I went back for it. Tallie got a ticket for riding their four wheelers right in front of camp with Gavin having a helmet on and she gave the poor rangers heck for it. She was ridiculously in the wrong and they were just enforcing the law with kids under the age of 16, but man she was SOOOOO mad and upset. And of course us being the ultimate, paranoid parents we are, completely sided with the " what if..." argument made by the rangers and then I later learned that I too was in the wrong for that one because I "should have had my sisters back" instead of "sticking up for some officers I didn't even know." Ahh, I guess sometimes you can't win. And that's where I smiled to myself, shook my head and walked away. Wouldn't be Easter without a little family drama. Love her.
Brittlyn experienced her first of many Easter campouts and did well, rigid wind elements considered. We even took her on one extreme hiking session and she did great! I'm pretty sure she'll enjoy it when she can actually sleep WITH Neal in the tent and not by herself. I like her. I'm glad they're getting married.
Okay, so the very last day was Sunday and we woke up to rain and rain all night long. THen in the morning we walked out into what might as well of been a lake of mud. Okay, it was a lake of mud. Endless rainstorms in a desert of red dirt made for a HUGE mess! Everywhere you walked you sunk it about 2 inches and everything and I do mean EVERYTHING was covered in this lovely red mud. We were in no hurry to leave so we kind of just chilled waiting for it to stop raining and eventually dry up which it did, a tiny bit. But we sure did love listening to communication going on between my parents. It really was hillarious. For anyone who knows my father, situations like that cause stress, and stress causes ridiculously rationalized arguments which almost always leads too the intense need to hurry. And in this case, since their destination was home by the end of that day, it was a need to hurry home. In the mean time my mother could care less about a storm, the mud or onery people. She just wants tradition to continue as planned. So my dad would enter frustrated and impatient, snapping at people to start packing up cause we have got to get out of here this instant, then leave, and in the exact moment my mom picks up her walkie talkie and calls my aunts letting them know that she is starting "putting the ham on" for our family luncheon. It was hilarious. Really.

We did end up going home a little early, but it was still a great Easter outing as always. Here's some pics! SHould've gotten more of the mud, but wasn't really thinking, "yes. picture." Mostly, "kids dont step in th....too late."

So the pictures are a little out of order...but once you upload, its really a pain to fix them all in chronological order....sorry!