A Pleasant Surprise!

If any of you know anything about the beautiful place I live, then you would know that it never rains here in the summer. I really mean never. In 3 summers here, I have never seen a drop. That is until last night! I awoke at about 3:30 to the beautiful sound of thunder and raindrops on my skylight. It was so nice. It has been overcast and cloudy most of the day so far. I'm not sure where the rain came from, but all I can figure is that it has something to do with the higher than normal humidity we've had this week. The only problem with all the rain is that once the sun comes out it is going to be brutally hot. We are supposed to get up to 107 degrees today, plus almost 50% humidity. That is not humid to some of you wonderful people out there, but for us it is really high. So, I am going to be in a sauna soon. Oh well, I'll take it, at least I got to enjoy some rain!

I don't think in January or February I would be as excited about rain, but in the summer it is wonderful!

Brooklynn's First Day of Preschool!!!!

Today was Brookie's first day of Preschool. For the last week everyday she has asked me when she starts. And then she says, 'So not tomorrow, or the day after that, or the day after that, but the next day after that.' She is hilarious. This morning she was just bouncing off the walls and so excited she could hardly contain herself. She had a wonderful day and he teacher even told me how polite she is. Wow, maybe I have actually done something right as a mom. She has manners, yippy! In the car on the way home, she gave a complete run down of all the activities. It is funny how different that is from Tyler because he says, 'I don't remember' or 'nothing' or 'I don't know what we did.' Joshy missed having her gone and cried the whole time I worked out at the gym! I felt really bad for him. 'But mom I can't smile the sun is in my eyes!'

Brooklynn with one of her best friends Taylie. They are in the same class!

A Week in the Life of the Empey's

We had a great first week of school. Tyler had a great time. He was most excited to come home and tell me that he could buy hot lunch at school. I think he comes home almost everyday to tell me what the choices were. I have not yet let him buy lunch because I need to put some money in his account. I know, I know I am a horrible mean mother, but I promised him he could this week, just once.

Joshua has kept us smiling as usual. I often find him sitting on the kitchen table sabotaging Ty and Brooks coloring and eating the ends off of the markers or stuck in Brooklynn's booster seat. He has to scream for help once he climbs in because he can't get out. He also is really into trying on all our shoes lately and walking around in them. The flip flops are my favorite. He is also starting to do the cheesy grin for pictures. What a nut.

Can you tell that he loves to torment Brooklynn by the look on his face.

'Say Cheese'

Wearing Tyler's shoes and trying to go the the step with them.

As for Brooklynn, she took it upon herself to change the batteries in the Leapster all by herself, after I told her not to, of course! So, as it turned out she threw away my rechargable batteries. I wasn't the happiest of moms at that moment. Steve told her that she had to go through the garbage to find them. She was less than pleased with that prospect and while she was brushing her teeth we heard her saying, "I don't want to dig in the garbage, I am already clean and it is kucky, kucky, kucky and more and more kucky. Of course Steve and I were cracking up. She did dig through the trash and found the batteries and of course we took pictures of her. She almost fell in she was on her tippy toes as far as she could go. After she dug them out, Steve being the dad that he is 'accidently' pushed them back in the trash. Brooklynn was so mad, 'Dad I know you did, why did you put them back in.' It was a funny moment at any rate!

Brooklynn and the search for the batteries! Kucky!

A Little About Me!

To everyone who views my blog... Tag you're it!

Five things I was doing 10 years ago:
1. Started my senior Year at BYU. Holy Crap am I that old now!
2. Wondering if Steve would call me when he got home from his mission!
3. Continued working at Media Services on BYU campus
4. Set up a homecoming date with Steve Madsen
5. Got totally played by that guy named Craig whatever - remember that Julie what was his name.


5 songs I know the lyrics to:
1. Wasted by Carrie Underwood
2. 867-5309 (Jenny, Jenny) by Tommy Tutone
3. Rubber Ducky by Ernie
4. The Thunder Rolls by Garth Brooks
5. Unwritten by Natasha Beddingfield

5 things I would buy if I was a Millionaire:
1. A Compound for my Family to live in with a pool house/grill area and a big park for the kids
2. A timeshare in Hawaii
3. A Tummy Tuck
4. Some big new car - not sure what
5. A Big Beautiful house, with a toy/game room and all my kids would have their own room

Five Things I Would Never Wear Again:
1. Stirrup Pants, what the heck were those about
2. Overalls, it really was bad from the get go, just none of us realized it
3. Skinny Jeans, most of the world is too fat for them, and the other half think they are too fat.
4. My Bridesmaids dress from Marilee's Wedding because mom sold it and it is a little out dated.
5. Banana Clips, I thought of this one driving Brooks to school this morning!

Five Things I Would Like to Do:
1. Move closer to my family
2. Go to Hawaii every single year
3. Take my kids to Disney World often
4. Learn to Golf
5. I would like to travel through Europe

Five Favorite Toys:
1. tivo
2. The internet
3. iPod
4. Cell phone
5. Kitchen Aid

My Baby is all Grow'd UP!

Well, today was Tyler's big day! He started first day. I have to admit this was much harder for me than the first day of Kindergarten. Seriously, he will now be gone from me for about as long as he is with me durning the day. So sad - at least for me! He was off the walls this morning and could hardly wait to go. We took some pictures and then we headed off to school. Once we go to school and he saw all the kids, I could tell he was nervous! Once he found a few of his friends it helped, but I am anxious to see how the first day went. I helped him find the right place to line up, and followed him into his classroom! He was excited and there are plenty of kids in his class that he had in class last year or played T-Ball with. His teacher is wonderful and I think and hope it will be a great year! I love you Ty!

In front of our house!

On the playground!

Some of the boys in his class. Brock, Carson, Nelson, Beaux

Mrs. Jackson!

Going into his classroom! Man he is so dang handsome! See the nervous smile.

The Beach and The Wedding

Two Weekends ago we went down to So. Cal to see my family and go to Laura Christofferson's wedding. It was a fun weekend. We went to the beach with Nana and Nicole. The kids had such a great time. Tyler tried boogie boarding for the first time, so did Brooklynn. Josh willing went in the ocean and it was just a lot of fun. Josh was probably the funniest, when we finally took him down to the water, he took off full steam ahead. He kept running right into a wave and in knocked him face first into the water. I rescued him and thought he would be much more cautious. I was wrong. He went for it again and low and behold the next wave took him out and he went in head first again. After that he learned he needed to be more cautious and so he took off after a receding wave and tripped and went head first into the sand. I was, of course, laughing. It took him a little longer to venture into the water again and after that he would mostly just run away from the waves.

The wedding was fabulous. I didn't get any good pictures of Laura and Kevin, but Marilee and Nicole posted some. I did get some great picture, well actually video's of the kids dancing at the reception. G-man was hilarious spinning on the floor, Tyler was great dancing too. Tyler told me on our way to the reception, "I'm not going to dance," let me tell you that conviction lasted all of ten minutes. Enjoy, the pictures and the video's.

Love was so in the air at the reception. Brooklynn and Ben we can say have never been the best of friends. I remember a few times that Brooklynn would say to me in reference to Ben, "That boy is being mean." or "That boy is bugging me!" They have since grown out of that, but at the wedding Brooklynn was loving the bride and told me how pretty she was and during the first dance she was just so excited. So, I then turned around and she and Ben were in dancing form all ready to dance. It was adorable. Unfortunately I didn't capture that first moment on film, but I did get a picture of them later. I also caught Garett giving Marin a flower he picked out of the flower bed. It was cute.

I also must mention the dress fiasco! Marilee's Bridesmaid dress due to some unfortunate circumstances did not quite turn out as well as she would have liked. Annie referred to it as, "A beautiful disaster!" So mom, with minimal assistance from me set out to fix it. Notice in the picture how gorgeous it turned out. It was not without a very frustrated Janet, and me right next to her talking her off her ledge. Mom, you are a rock star! Marilee you looked beautiful!

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Slacker!

I've totally been slacking in the blog department. I'm not sure why. I am having the end of summer blues and the beginning of school excitement. Tyler starts back on Monday and Brookie goes to preschool the next week. I am very excited for them both, but how is it possible that I am old enough to have a 1st grader! It makes me sad to think he is going to be gone all day, but happy at the same time.



We haven't been up to much, we did go to Laura and Keving Redford's wedding which was fun and I have some good video's to post of the kids dancing. I'll have to post later after I download the videos. I will have to do it before school on monday because the memory card is full!



Okay, so I am totally boring, but I just wanted to let all my faithful and devoted fans that I will have some updates next week!

Hair!

My Joshua really has the coolest hair. He was born with tons and while most babies have all their hair fall out, not Josh. It thinned and he had some fall out, but he has always had tons of strawberry blonde, sometimes red, hair. So, Steve and I were inspired by Kari and J, to give him a really cool hair do. We figure this is our only child who has had this much hair or will ever have this much. Tyler didn't even have a hair cut until he was 18 months, and I can't even tell you how many times I've cut Josh's. Anyway, here is his lastest do. I laugh every time I see that cute little face with a rocking mohawk! I love it!



Just as a side note, I would just like to mention how much I love it when my house is all clean. I have spent most of the day cleaning and I am so glad it is done and my house is nice and clean (at least for 10 minutes). Why do I get such a feeling of satisfaction from it, I think I may be a little twisted, but oh well. At least we are all clean for another week!