Hoops Date

Our wonderfully talented nephew, Jackson, was in town playing with the BYU basketball team tonight . We ofcourse had to go and brag that we were related to such an awesome ball player.:0) We also decided that it was a great opportunity to initiate a double date with our new friends Mike and Sarah. So we enlisted a sitter and grabbed some food at the local Cafe. We then got to see Jackson start in the game against Pepperdine. He did FABULOUS I have to say and ended up with 9 points, 9 assists, 2 rebounds and 2 steals for the game. The score ended up being 82-53 BYU ! We really enjoyed watching him and are always so impressed with his humility amongst his great talent. It was great to catch up with him a bit afterward and have some good laughs. We had the added bonus of also visiting with a handful of other members from our ward. Thanks Jackson for providing us with such great entertainment... You're Awesome !

Horsin' Around

For the past few years now we have spent many of our Saturdays horseback riding at a nearby ranch. I feel EXTREMELY fortunate that we have this particular ranch so close to our house. We have several different ranches in our city as well as in the surrounding cities close by. I LOVE horsebackriding ! I have ever since my Girl Scout Troop went to a stable in Newport beach and took riding lessons after we raised enough money from selling girl scout cookies. Then a few years after that my aunt and uncle bought a house with some horse stalls and owned a few horses for a handful of years. So everytime we went to visit I remember spending hours riding and just being in HEAVEN. It is such a great childhood memory for me.
So every Saturday I get my horse fill by taking the girls to a wonderful place called the H.E.L.P ranch. The letters stand for Handicapped Equestrian Learning Program. It is owned by a WONDERFUL elderly man named "Pete" . He is a very generous and compassionate man that has been offering his services for over 30 years. He started horsebackriding in the special olympics at one time with his beloved wife. She has since passed but he keeps it going and does such a great service for the special needs community in our area. He has a HUGE heart and therefore does it by optional donation only ! I feel so lucky to have this in my own community. It is strickly run by volunteers who are wonderfully patient and compassionate. The girls are always thrilled to go ( don't be fooled by their serious expressions :0)and it is an especially great activity for Madison. She keeps getting better and better about riding. She gets SO excited when she gets up on the loading ramp to get hoisted onto the horse. She continually gets better about holding onto the saddle. I am so thrilled my girls are loving it as much as I am :0).

Girls Redecorating Week

This past week my FABULOUS sister-in-laws came to stay with us. They came to do me and my family a HUGE service. Our humble little abode needed their talents desperately for some updating. My wonderful sister-in-law Alicyn is an AMAZING faux painter and makes masterpieces on walls. She is a professional faux painter up in Utah where she lives. To my good fortune she had some avaliability this week to come and make miracles happen on our walls. Jakes other sister, Melinda willingly offered to come and help as well and came to visit all the way from Georgia to spend these 5 days with us to contribute her talents to the HUGE task at hand. Not only was she feverishly hard at work on the walls of our master bed and bath but she also offered her talents as our family photographer ( you will see her talents soon on my homepage but also in this years christmas card ). She knows what a priceless service this is to me. With her patience, love and amazing tools she helps to ease my stress of getting an annual family photo. These wonderful women will never know how much their services brightened my spirits. Each and everytime I look at my walls I think of their selfless service to us and their christlike qualities. My home looks AMAZING ! Ofcourse with these two fabulous aunties around Brooklyn wanted to get in on the action. She was right there at our feet much of the time asking when it was her turn to paint.

Unfortunately with faux painting textures there is not a lot of opportunity for childs play so I often had her help me paint the walls of my garage/ laundry area. It already has a rustic texture and I felt that she really couldn't go wrong as long as the paint got on the walls. It was such a great week and thankfully even with my motherly duties tearing me aways from consistently contributing, these wonderful ladies were able to get 3 rooms completely finished ! I am just in awe of the change these finishes make to my home and am excited to finish up the garage so that I can move on to the organizing part ! Such a great finale to a low key summer. Thanks Alicyn and Melinda !! (I will be sure to post updated pics once the final touches are completely finished... stay tuned).

Catchin' Up and Staying Tuned !

So I knew when I started this whole blogging process that it would consistently get neglected. Sure enough it has been 2 months since my last post and LOTS has happened. Some things worth blogging about and some not but rest assured we have been VERY BUSY! To my defense May is always the craziest month for me. Every year it rolls around there are half a dozen important things that I have going on. It is our anniversary, mothers day, my mothers birthday, Madisons IEP meeting (we set up goals for the following school year), and the time when I am frantically marking my calendar and organizing the summer events to keep my children entertained! That in itself will be a whole other blog that I will post along the way.
So for the past two months here is what I have meant to update you all on regarding our challenges, victories and fun outings.
To keep this post simple and to keep my mind on track, I am just going to list the topics of my upcoming posts.
The GFCF challenge -Changing things from the inside out.
Curly Girlies
Horsin' Around
Mothers Day Fun
9 years and counting
Rockin' Fathers Day Early
I hope that this will atleast keep you staying tuned as I slowly become more technically savy. I hope to have all of these posts done in a weeks time. Stay Tuned !:0)

Sarah's ABC's

So my good friend Rebecca tagged me with this ( a few weeks back... I lag!) Anyway thought it would be a fun for those of you that do not know little details about me. :0) Enjoy !

A- Attached or Single? Attached! Married 9 years in May.
B- Best Friend? Jake
C- Cake or Pie? Cake ! Homemade white is my FAVORITE !
D- Day of Choice? Friday.
E- Essential Item? Um . . . my Minivan?! :)
F- Favorite Color? Red ( at the moment) but green is my favorite one to wear.
G- Gummy Bears or Gummy Worms? Yuck, Neither ! Just empty calories !
H- Hometown? Moorpark, California.
I- Favorite Indulgence? Shopping ! Lately it has been at the Thrift Stores in O.C.
J- January or July? July because we throw a 4th of July party with a bunch of friends and this is usually the month for the Emery Family vacation.
K- Kids? 2 beautiful girls
L- Life isn't complete without? Family.
M- Marriage date? May 15th 1999.
N- Number of brothers and sisters? 2 brothers and 1 sister.
O- Oranges or Apples? APPLES ! My current favorite are the baby Jazz apples @ TJ's.
P- Phobias and Fears? Too many to mention. But clutter is a recent one.
Q- Quality or Quantity? Quality.
R- Reason to smile? See "K" above. My cup runneth over.
S- Season of choice? Springtime ! The weather is perfect !
T- Tag three people? Amy A., Leilana and Beth ( my sister).
U- Unknown fact about me? I played basketball in highschool my freshman year.
V- Vegetable? Baby carrots !
W- Worst Habit? I often do not think about dinner till it is 5pm!Quesadillas it is !
X-ray or Ultrasound? Ultrasound
Y- Your favorite food? Lemon Cake( from costco) or Key Lime Pie from CPK ! YUM !
Z- Zodiac Sign? Libra.

Thoughtful Prayers

So lately I have been encouraging Brooklyn to think of new things to say to Heavenly Father in her prayers. I told her that he wants to hear what we have to say and that we should ask him for things to happen. Well she caught on to the idea really fast and has started really enjoying saying prayers and not speeding through them quite so fast now. She takes pride in her individual thoughts and ideas. Tonight her prayer went something like this...
"Dear Heavenly Father, we thank thee for this day, we thank thee for our home, please bless papi and nana, and all of our friends. Please bless Ma Ma ( Madison) on the bus that she will be safe. Please bless Ma Ma on the bus that she will buckle her seatbelt by herself . We love thee very much and we say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen." I often have to hold back my little giggles so that I do not break her honest concentration. She is quite proud of her thoughts and often repeats to me afterwards her new thought. I love my independent and thoughtful thinker. She also has learned to sneak in some suggestions for what she would like to do the following day. Like the other night she said, "and please bless that I can play with Blake tommorrow and that we can share with each other." Note that there was no playdate set up with Blake at the time of the prayer. That is when she is testing out my " Heavenly Father answers prayers lesson." Needless to say we managed to sneak in a playdate with Blake the next day to prove the point.

Company

Jakes good old friend Phil and his wife Christy, and daughter Josie came for a visit this week. Jake wanted to relive his youth and so he obtained some Iron Maiden tickets. They went out for the night while we (the wives) entertained the kiddos and watched my favorite chick flick... The Notebook. Christy had not seen it and I couldn't help but take that opportunity to share this wonderful romance. Ofcourse she LOVED it. We then spent the next few days they were here showing them some sights. We went to the Santa Barbara Zoo and per their request we checked out the La Brea Tar Pits ( I had been there once as a child and it is just as I had remembered it, only the "what if I were to fall in" scenerio switched to "what if Brooklyn were to fall in". The fear is still there it just shifted a bit). Overall we had a great time catching up and Brooklyn loved having this new friend sleep over for a few nights. They are only a few months apart in age and they took really quickly to each other. We are grateful for the enduring friendships that we have that time and distance cannot break. Hopefully now we can start to see each other more often and enjoy more great times together.

Snuggle Bug !

Each day when we are at home for an extended period of time, I hear a sweet little voice call out to me "Mom, come snuggle me on the couch". She is such a sweet little love bug and I cherish these moments !

Favorite Family Fun !

So we enjoyed our favorite park so much that we had to share the fun with Jake too. We headed there after church today and it made for a really great sabbath day. I felt that it was actually more spiritually appropriate for us to do rather than staying home and having my children end up watching TV. It was such a great family day and made us feel warm and fuzzy as parents to be enjoying our children as they do what they do best... play !

My Favorite Park !

I took the girls to the park today. It is a park that has been around for awhile but that we have rarely been to. We have so many parks here in Moorpark that I have not felt the need to branch out much. Well that has changed ! I have made a personal resolution to go out of my way to find parks that fufill both of my childrens needs. Madison needs parks that have tons of open space and highly accessible equipment. She loves to swing and so it helps to have special swings that accomodate her 7 year old body with support and seat belts. Brooklyn on the other hand can access any type of playground but being the social butterfly that she is, she wants to go where other kids are around that she can play with. My needs are pretty simple, give me a park that is enclosed or tucked away from the street where my kids can roam safely and I'm happy.
Well today I revisited that kind of park. It fits all of our needs! It is called a sensory park. It is only a 10 minute drive away and has provided us hours of fun and stress free playtime. I took the girls out with Flora ( my right hand gal ) and we enjoyed a nice picnic lunch and hours of exploration. There is also a club house there and so there is always a birthday party going on (which means more kiddos to come play when the party is over ). I think I may even have Brooklyns 4th birthday party held there come November.

The Handyman Can

Jake has found the inner handyman ! He replaced all of our bathroom sinks today . After 5 years of rusting sinks ( they were the originals )we are left to think, why did we not try this earlier ? Oh well, they look great and we appreciate them all the more ! Thanks Honey ! My "honey-do" list should keep you perfecting those skills all year long.