KIM and JOE

2012-02-03T08:19:00.000-08:00

We have had some requests of pictures of Aiven so you can see how she is growing up. She is so super cute and happy and easy. Here are a few just to see her.

Yes she is a thumb sucker. It is good and bad. As long as she stops early I don't mind. To be able to self sooth is awesome. But if she is anything like her sister she will still be five sucking her thumb.

She is trying to scoot but not quite there yet.

Ok we got our stuff from the states and got to have a second Christmas because we had presents coming. Not like it was already Christmas just getting our stuff.

We love the towels mom. Great idea and we needed them.

Here is just a cute picture of Asher going to bed. I will let him look at a book for a few minutes before I turn out the lights. He loves to look at books and will sit on the couch just looking at the books. I try to read to him but most of the time he just wants to look at the pictures by himself and not be bothered by anyone.

Here we have to say Jeff and Kristen are the best. We love their Christmas presents all BYU shirts. What a great idea. And you know that you are good parents when your 18 month old looks at the Y on your shirt and he says "football".

2012-01-10T08:06:00.000-08:00

I forgot two very important things. Bryar had her first day of school. She is such a big girl now. It is one of those bittersweet moments that you have as a parent. She was under your complete protection and guidance and always at your side but then it's over and they are off for the entire day. She didn't get to get broken in with a half day. It is all day long!!! She was exhausted the first day when she got home but that was all it took the next two days she has all the energy she didn't have that first day. The second picture is her in front of her door to her classroom. It is great to have a little break but now I just here Bridger around me all day making loud noises and banging things to make noise Needless to say I love nap time!!! He has lost his little playmate.

And the second very important item I had forgotten was Asher's first time in the corner. It had to come sooner or later.

2012-01-10T07:55:00.001-08:00

And one bonus picture for anyone who was just missing a big huge grin from this little guy (Asher)

2012-01-10T07:53:00.000-08:00

These are actually terrible pictures but they will have to do for now. Maybe in the day time I will take the video camera and give you a tour but for now here are pictures of the inside of out house. This first view is looking at the front door. There is a room off to the side where the light is coming from.

This is our living room.

Here we are looking from the living room to the dining room.

Moving into the Kitchen.

This is the front room that we don't really have anything in yet. Joe's desk is in there right now and we are still working on the furniture in this room.

All of that is on the main floor. There is also a half bath for guests on this floor and then you can go up or down from here.

Now the pictures get kind of dark and I am sorry for that but here goes anyway. First we have Bridger in his room. Wow these are pretty bad. I will get you better video tomorrow.

Asher's room.

Bryar and Aiven's room.

This is the master bedroom. It wasn't too dark for you.

And the upstairs hallway which all the rooms come off of. The rail that you see looks over to the empty front room below.

I am at the top of the stairs shooting down to the bottom floor. I am not going to show that room yet. It is the playroom or will be when our stuff arrives from the states and then I will show you that room. The laundry room is also down there. Let me tell you how fun that is to do your Laundry on the bottom floor and all the clothes go to the top floor. I'm just saying that yes, I do get a lot of exercise in this new house. All the pants that I bought just before coming here are all a little big now.

2012-01-10T07:41:00.000-08:00

For lunch on Christmas day we went to lunch down at the buffet where there was face painting, balloon animals, and Santa who brought every child in the room a gift. Needless to say they kids all loved it. Bryar is always the first to get her face painted.

2012-01-10T07:35:00.000-08:00

Well it has been awhile because we have moved into our house so we have been pretty busy getting stuff and moving as well as Joe and I got really sick and we just couldn't get better. I almost was and then it came right back. It is looking good I think now though. I thought I would start with Christmas and see how far I get tonight. Below we have Bryar stringing popcorn so we can add it to our tree. It was a last couple of days addition.

Here is a picture of the popcorn on the tree and Bryar's presents under the tree. We didn't go shopping for Christmas presents until Saturday afternoon. Talk about last minute. We never did get Bryar to the store so on Christmas Eve day she made everyone a present and wrapped it in a towel and put in under the tree. It was cute watching her figure out what she was going to do. She drew her dad and mom a picture. Cut a snowflake out for Aiven and I can't remember what she did for Asher and Bridger but something homemade from the heart.

We didn't have our real stockings so we just put the stuff under our paper sock. We told the kids that Santa would just make our chimney real with his magic and come in to put our stuff under the tree. Bryar then said, "Well then he can make our stockings real with his magic too". I had to wiggle out of that one but Christmas morning they didn't question anything. Bridger's stocking is shown as well a little later. I will let that speak for itself.

Asher Christmas morning riding his little car that Santa got him.

Bridger's Santa gift.

And Bryar's Santa gift.

Asher opening a gift.

Last but not least Aiven's gift from Santa.

2011-12-17T23:16:00.000-08:00

We will probably still be in the hotel for Christmas so we decided to decorate the place. If you look closely to the tree you can see that they are the kids hands cut out for the tree branches. There are a lot of them. The kids drew pictures and we cut them out for the ornaments and hung them by string on the different finger tips. They had a lot of fun hanging them on the tree. There is a bed, witch, dinosaur, car, bows, hearts, and many other fun ornaments.

Here the kids have been cutting out snowflakes that we hung around the room. Bryar cut most of them out and Bridger hung them up. He didn't want to cut because he just cut off the top of his finger which was not a pretty sight. It bled for a long time.

Here we are just posing for the picture in front of the tree and the fireplace. Everyone decorated their own stocking. They are just paper so who know's how Santa is going to fill them. He will have to be creative.

Here the kids are warming their hands by the fire. Kids have such good imaginations.

2011-12-17T22:51:00.000-08:00

Just before we left Utah (the day before) we had Kati take our family pictures. Thank you Kati you did a great job especially what you had to work with that day. You know that kids never act how you want them to when it is important. Asher, who normally is our happy little guy didn't want anything to do with the pictures. But Kati did a great job regardless.

2011-12-12T02:38:00.001-08:00

We had the ward Christmas party on Saturday. It was a little different than we are used to. We meet in a home so we don't really have a big cultural hall to have a nice dinner in. So we got to the party at 6:00 and then sat down for the program while all the food sat behind us. We have an opening song and then prayer and the announcer begins the program. All the kids have already gone upstairs to get into their nativity outfits. So the primary came and did a little number and the nativity which Bridger and Bryar were both in but didn't know either one of the songs. But that is ok. Bryar was the horse and Bridger was a cow. Bryar went up there to get dressed up and walked in and said, "I wan't to be the camel". They didn't have a camel and asked her if she wanted to be a shepherd or an angel and nope she wanted to be a camel. She finally settled on a horse. And Bridger was excited to be a cow. Anyway, they did their number and then the youth had a video they had made...7:00 and still no food and hungry kids who usually eat at 5:00. I will have to say that because the primary is so small Santa had a gift addressed to each kid which was nice. Which they also did before dinner and called each kid forward to get their gift. I have some pictures of each of the kids waiting patiently for their gifts. Because we just got here I'm sure they had to wait until the end because they really didn't have a gift in their name they just got the just in case gifts at the end. Luckily they don't know that and they loved the little hair bow that Bryar got and the fishing game that Bridger got.

2011-12-08T03:47:00.001-08:00

Playing at the Hotel just making the best out of the situation. It is fun to stay in a hotel for a while but it sure will be nice to be in our house as soon as we are able to figure all that stuff out. It is getting very frustrating waiting for all that to work out and Joe just said it may be a lot longer. Yeah!!! So here are some pictures of the kids playing. One is just of Bridger walking down the hall. It looks like he is super sad. I thought it was just cute and snapped the picture. It sure looked like he just got in trouble which is pretty usual. But this time he wasn't in trouble just walking. He is doing much better here then he was when he was separated from his dad. We do love him after all. div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">

2011-12-08T03:40:00.001-08:00

Today or yesterday I should say we went around the hotel and took pictures of some of the christmas trees and holiday decoration here. It is good to know they do believe in santa here. These trees and the ginger bread house are very big and beautiful. We miss the family during the holidays but since we have never really been around during the holidays anyway I guess we just miss the snow. Oh wait we haven't had that either. So really it is just like another Christmas for us in nice warm weather and BBQ's outside. The think we miss the most is our house and our own Christmas decorations. However we do miss the family and wish you were all here with us. This picture is in the main lobby with the biggest Christmas tree

Here we have a huge gingerbread house. It is awesome. It is real gingerbread and it smells soooo good every time you walk by. Needless to say the kids want to be eating the stuff and we have to keep Asher off every time we walk by.

Another tree in the hallway.

2011-12-05T22:19:00.001-08:00

I posted the pictures on the family blog and they worked even though I only see them as words on this side. So I will post just two pictures One is of the skyline where you can see the worlds tallest building and the other is of the kids in the car on our way to pick out our furniture.

Our New Fun Adventure

2011-12-05T21:41:00.001-08:00

Okay we are back to updating our blog. Now living in a different country this will be our contact with most of you. I would post more pictures but we haven't really taken much. Unless you want to see the different furniture that we looked at to furnish our house. I will spare you all those until we actually have it in our house. I will take some pictures of our home as soon as we get into it. Right now we are at a Hotel and will probably be here for another week or two. It is taking a little longer than we had hoped to get everything going here. It doesn't help that Asher is super sick and doesn't sleep well. We are also all still adjusting a little to jet leg. We can't seem to stay up longer than 7:00 at night and we are all up and going at 3:00 in the morning. We really are early to bed and early to rise. The only bad thing about that is that things don't open for breakfast until 6:00 at the earliest so the kids are starving before we can get them fed. Today I am hoping to just sit around here and let Asher rest and hopefully get better. We had to take him to the emergency room. He had croup and could barely breath. So little that his mouth was a little blue. The poor kid has a trachea that is almost swollen shut. It is hard to have a sick kid that you just can't do much for but just hold him and let him get better. He opens his mouth big sometimes to get more air, not that it helps. But he seems to be getting a little better. I have been trying to post pictures. I hope that I can here. I have tried twice now and it just puts a number code instead of a picture I will try to figure that out for next time. But for now I will just update with words. Feel free to write us comments. We would love to hear from all of you even if it is just a word or two. Hope all is well in America!!!

2011-07-08T12:02:00.000-07:00

Well, Joe did a good job posting twice but I will have to say that the blog has been forgotten a little. We write it for the family and friends but since we are here with our family it doesn't seem like we need to post but I know there are a lot of friends that do read this as well so I will give you a little update. All our pictures of our travels are on our computer downstairs but it doesn't have internet so I can't post any of those fun things that people really like to see. As for us we are in Utah for a little while. Joe will be leaving in August for some training and I will stay here to have a baby. We are planning to have it on Labor Day so that Joe can fly home for the weekend. We will see how that works out. Other than that we are just getting ready to go overseas. Hopefully by November we will all be over to the UAE and we are so super excited for our new adventures. I will see what I can do about those pictures.

Day 7

2011-05-14T19:47:00.000-07:00

We are now in Rapid City South Dakota. We finally made it to the mountain standard time zone today. It felt like we were traveling for about a week in the central time zone. But now we finally have gone west enough to make it to the new time zone. We have been traveling mostly north bound for the trip so far. Today was the day we finally we traveled west bound. After the Cozy C RV park we traveled to Nauvoo.

Nauvoo was great. We pulled into a state park right in town and were a secure a spot for $20. Nauvoo is definitely a tourist town. everything in town is geared towards thousands of people being there at one time. However, we are lucky in the fact that school isn't out yet and we are traveling at such a great time of year. We had the whole place to our selves. My ignorance of church history was aparent when Kim had to explain everything to me as we toured the town. I enjoyed the carriage ride the most. It was about an hour and they explained a large part of the town and the history of the major sites. I really enjoyed learning about the different trades the pioneershad and survived upon such as the brick yard, the tinsmith, the blacksmith, and joseph Smith's grave. We also were able to visit Carthage jail. It was a testimony builder to see the room and the bullet holes in the door still there in the room. The kids will have very little to remember about the church history, but Bryar was able to spot a statue of Joseph Smith when we were at winter Quarters. She blurted it out unsolicited. We were all surprised as well as the sister missionary that was giving us the tour.

After winter quarters we moved north a bit to Sioux City for an overnight stay in a KOA campground. These campgrounds are pretty nice. They are clean and neat and geared for a consistent feeling when you show up. There were lots of toys for the kids to play on. The weather was pretty cool since we were moving north. it was as low as 45 degrees. Add a little wind to that and we needed to get some cold weather gear on. Funny thing is, Kim packed all our clothes and never thought that we might need some winter gear. The winter clothes were all packed by the movers and so we had none. I opted to go to goodwill for some warm gear. We were able to get a everyone some warm clothes for $20. Armed with our coats and sweaters we thought we were ready for the cold. Well now we sit in our little trailer with our little space heater and hope it is enough to keep the edge of the bitter cold away. Kim just got back from her long hot shower and I'm sitting watching a bit of tv.

Tomorrow we are going to enjoy a bit of relaxing morning. The KOZ has all you can eat pancakes for $3a person. We may indulge ourselves and then head out to the Mount Rushmore state park. We had a long drive today. We spent about 8 hours on the road today. The kids were great until hour 7. Kim and I had about all we could of our restless kids. We stopped for a bit and let the kids run about. We fed Asher a can of squash and were able to convince the kids to get back in their car seats for one more hour. We now sit in 40 degree weather, hoping for warmer weather tomorrow.

Day 3

2011-05-10T19:22:00.000-07:00

Well the summary of events goes like this. We left Sunday around noon. We said our only goal was to get out of Alabama. We didn't get that far. We ended up traveling north towards Birmingham and then we felt like heading toward Memphis Tennesee. Kim really wanted to go see Graceland. I was ok with it. We ended up in a little town called Jasper, Alabama. It's about twenty minutes passed Birmingham. We stayed there for the night. That is where we learned about the floods in Memphis and decided to head north toward Nashville instead. We wanted to avoid trouble at all costs. We saw quite a bit of carnage from the Alabama Hurricanes as we were passing through Birmingham and headed north. It was very humbling to see the destruction that the tornado left behind. Jasper was an interesting stop. All I can remember about that place was our kids made friends with a little girl and they through rocks in the pond. They rode their bikes around a lot and we parked the trailer on a slope. That was not very fun for our night of sleep. I remembered havig more room in our little Airstream when we were on our trip to Washington DC last summer. I realized today that we have an additional mouth to feed now. Asher, is the reason. He is the additional piece of luggage that we didn't have last time we went on our long journey. I must say that he is definitely a good little traveler. He loves being entertained by his brother, Bridger and his sister, Bryar. They mostly keep to themselves and read their books and color in their coloring books that Kim prepared for them.

After Jasper, we traveled north towards Nashville. We stopped in a little RV park, just north of the "land between the lakes" state park. Bryar and Bridger were a hit with all the senior citizens that rode around in their golf carts. They had a big grassy area that we were able to park near and they had a slide and a merry go round they played on until it got dark. We had hot dogs for dinner and put the kids to bed. Kim and I watched a tv show and went to bed.

No early risers this morning. We got up a little later than usual, around seven am. We got camp cleaned up and moved out around nine. We had an occasional rain storm on the way to St Louis. The roads were pretty clear. We stopped at Hardee's to get some French Fries after following a McDonald's 18 wheeler for 30 minutes. It had a picture of french fries on the rear end. The power of suggestion is pretty strong. We entertained our stomachs and stopped at the next town to indulge. To our surprise when we pulled in, there was a fellow Airstreamer with their shinny new travel companion. We were instant friends and happy to see it was a young couple with their new adventure companion. We traveled to St Louis mainly to see the Arch. Kim had never even heard of the Arch before, that's ok, I had no idea what it was for either. We learned it was to stand as the gateway from the East to the West. Kim and the kids went up the tram to the top of the arch, while Asher and I became better acquainted safe on the ground. Many of you know that I am actually afraid of heights. Who knew I woudl be afraid of heights, I'm a helicopter pilot by trade, but i'm afraid of heights. It doesn't match up. But that is alright by me. We have traveled to north of St Louis a bit, to the "COZY C" rv park, where I sit in the dark outside the trailer typing away on this little keyboard, while I watch the entrance sign blink on and off. The little fire flies are dancing around sporadically. It has been a great day with the family. I can only hope tomorrows adventures are as good as today's.

With no real agenda or timeline pushing us on, we are taking it one day at a time, and sometimes even one hour at a time. Somehow the feeling of no responsibilities is liberating and refreshing. I feel like it's going to take a while to undo what the Army has done to me over the past nine years as I try to slip back into society unnoticed. This is definitely helping in my quest.

We have left Alabama for good in search of a new home!

2011-05-09T16:56:00.000-07:00

The house is clean and the movers have come and gone. I'm officially out of the Army in search of a new life and home for our little family. We hooked up the Airstream Sunday afternoon, armed with a map and a dream of the open road we set out for our summer adventure.

2011-04-21T17:11:00.000-07:00

I know it has been awhile. But we have been waiting and waiting and waiting for a job offer that we are both super excited about. It finally came so it is now official. Joe will be working for Sikorsky and we will be soon traveling to the UAE. Yipeeeeee!!!!!! This is going to be such a great adventure. Joe may be going earlier than me because I have a baby on the way and can't fly after August 1st and that is when he starts his new job. But for now we have two more weeks of army life and then we are off to Utah and vacations for the summer. We are going to try to travel and visit people and places all summer and then I will stay in Utah to have a baby while Joe will go to Connecticut to start his new job. Just giving you all the update. So we may happen to stop by this summer and see you all.

2011-03-17T14:23:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to my dear sweet husband Joe today. He is now 35. Crazy how age creeps up on you. I just want Joe and everyone to know that I love my husband and am so proud of who he is and where we are as a family and couple. We are so happy and even though our lives are very up in the air right now we are happily married which is all really need. Thank you Joe for all that you do and I hope you have a wonderful day.

2011-03-07T08:25:00.000-08:00

Ok so I'm not very good at this posting thing. I have been a little busy. We are putting our house on the market and have been painting, decluttering and cleaning our place. We are not quite sure where we are going yet we just know it won't be here. I would post pictures of our house but it takes too long because the files are huge but if any of you are interested to see where we have been living for the last three years you can go to this link and see some pictures.

https://cid-d2f1daa2f0730bfc.skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?page=play&resid=D2F1DAA2F0730BFC!260&authkey=uuczwGrY6Ss%24

2011-01-25T09:39:00.000-08:00

It is finally time to update the pictures of the kids. All the grandparents are asking for new updated pictures and a picture of Asher so here they are. I have a lot more that we got that turned out pretty cute but it takes too long to post them all and as you can see how often I post I don't like to spend a ton of time here. I have to do this in my spare time and there are other things that I need to do as well so the blog sometimes gets left behind. But here are a few cute pictures and updates of the kids.

2011-01-25T09:31:00.000-08:00

We were gone for the month of December to Utah for Christmas. It was a lot of fun crazyness but a blast all at the same time. All of nine siblings were there and their families. A million kids with most under six. We have a two pictures of the snow and the kids playing with one more picture of the family in front of the Christmas tree and presents on Christmas morning. Yes the tree is back there.

2010-11-25T17:07:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. We had a great day here with just our little family. I made lots of great food (except my rolls were more brick than roll. Isn't that frustrating when your bread doesn't work out. It takes so long so when it doesn't you just bag the rolls and move on with the meal). I even made a pecan pie for the first time because that is the pie Joe requested. I'm going to say it turned out pretty good for the first time. I made cherry for me and he said we can't have Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie, but I don't like pumpkin or pecan so I had to do one for me and I only had two pie pans. So our day was pumpkin pie free. Maybe I can make one next week for him.

Bryar was also sick. We thought about camping for the weekend but were glad we decided against it when Bryar was up all night throwing up. What a day to be sick. She has been throwing up all day. Poor girl doesn't get any of the dinner. The only thing she was worried about missing though was the cherry pie. That about broke her little heart. I hope she feels better tomorrow I'm tired of cleaning things up and hopefully nobody else gets sick.

Well the best of wishes and we will be in Utah soon to celebrate the next Holiday with a little more family around (is it going to be crazy or what)!

2010-11-14T18:26:00.000-08:00

Here are the kids riding bikes. Bryar got a bike for her birthday and actually picked it up really well. We got the strider bike for Bridger about a year ago because it was supposed to help a kid go from the bike with no pedals to a bike with no training wheels. We are complete believers. Here is Bryar riding a bike and she honestly took three tries before she could ride down the street. She has a little trouble starting a stopping but once started she can ride. Go Bryar.

2010-10-31T17:55:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween from the Stoney family....one incredible family!!!

2010-09-19T13:27:00.000-07:00

OK we are off on our vacation. North Carolina was our first stop to visit some friends there before heading up further north. States we visited were
Alabama
Georgia
South Carolina
North Carolina
Virgina
Maryland
Pennsylvania
DC (we are not counting this as a state but just a destination)
West Virginia
Ohio
Kentucky
Tennessee
and back to Alabama

Here we go!! I will not tell every detail but you will defiantly get the picture.

2010-09-19T13:09:00.000-07:00

We stopped in Maryland to eat Dinner with Amber and Lane. Lindsay and Mike were also there to eat. It was a lot of fun for us to meet and catch up. I only wish we could have had more time with them. We don't have any pictures of that and we left the next morning.

This picture is a little out of place but they were within two days of each other so it still counts. It is hard to post these pictures backwards and get them right. Traveling from one destination to the next.

Harrisburg Penn. There we stayed for two nights. We went swimming and then went to Hershey World in Hershey Penn. We went on the free little ride for the kids twice because they loved the singing cows. There we took a few pictures and went back to our camp site.

The next day we got up and went to Gettysburg on the way back to DC. That was a fun museum that both the kids and Joe and I enjoyed.

Back in DC swimming and getting ready for the next big day!!

2010-09-19T12:27:00.000-07:00

Here we are in Washington DC. It was a lot of fun. We got to see some fun things for us and for the kids. We started from our campsite and took a bus to the train and road the train into DC. The kids had a great time. We could have called it good after the ride and they would have been happy.

In the city we saw the archives first to see the documents that founded our country and then went over to the air and space museum. No need to say the kids loved it there and enjoyed the hands on stuff. After a lunch we waked all the way to the end of the Mall, to the Lincoln memorial. There we saw the World War II memorial and the Vietnam memorial. Then walked back up the mall to the Natural museum. That was also fun and for the kids. They enjoyed all the animals and the dinosaurs. We had just watched land before time before we came out here so they kept standing in front of bones asking me to take a picture of them here. And they kept asking where little foot was. It was fun. We also walked by the White House but Bridger missed this if you can see in the picture. Stopping for a little snack. And Asher in his usual spot.Bridger is out. He couldn't take it all. Way too much to do.For the end of our first week we hung out with Amber's family. She watched our kids (and Lane thanks) while Joe and I went to the temple to enjoy a session. It had been awhile and when you don't live down the street from the temple and have small children you don't always make the opportunity. So thank you Amber and Lane. After the temple we went with them to pick some peaches. Unfortunately the season had ended but we had a lot of fun picking some raspberries. Later that night they came over to our camp site to swim and roast some marshmallows.Poor Asher he was either here or in the car seat pretty much the entire time. Or in the pack that I carried. Too bad for all of us that he wasn't just a little older. Although he did sleep a lot unlike the other two.

2010-09-19T12:19:00.000-07:00

Jackson Center Ohio: Next stop was Ohio to visit the Airstream factory. Probably Joe's favorite spot. Here he took a tour of how our trailer was made and all that went into the process. Here are a few pictures of the lobby where we waited a few hours for some parts. Finally they decided to mail them to us, but we all got a little something from the gift shop so it wasn't a bad wait.
After that we drove to Nashville to stay the night. We don't have any pictures but the RV park had another pool we swam in and then played a little miniature golf.

2010-09-19T12:15:00.000-07:00

Here we are at our last day of traveling. Going from Nashville to home. We thought the fortune was pretty fitting. We stopped to PF Chang's for lunch in Huntsville Al and Joe also took the kids into the science museum while I fed the baby. Ahhh those wonderful feeding baby stops.

2010-09-19T12:04:00.000-07:00

This is actually one of our first nights in the trailer but we didn't get any other pictures so I put them at the end. Here we are in Harrisburg Penn. roasting marshmallows, and then going to bed.You can see here that their mom taught them how to roast their marshmallows. All nice and toasty. Joe is more of the slow and brown melted marshmallow kind of guy.We really enjoyed camping and pulling our trailer around to all these different locations. Thanks for Amber and Lindsay to take the time to hang out. It was a lot of fun. We are home now to plan our next adventure. Hope you enjoyed our pictures and were able to view our family vacation. As we like to say, "2889 miles, three kids, and eleven states of pure family fun"!

2010-09-02T10:59:00.000-07:00

Well, we are off to an adventure as my kids are saying. We are about to take a very long drive up to Pennsylvania. We will be hitting stops in NC and DC as well as Harrisburg and over to Ohio down to Tennessee and back home. One big circle with a lot of driving. Yeah!! Don't expect to hear from us for a couple of weeks but then we should have lots of fun stories and pictures to share (unless we can't handle a car full of kids and give up, turn around, and come home).

2010-08-20T10:38:00.000-07:00

We went camping this week and it was a lot of fun. We didn't go too far from home but that just made the drive home nice. It is always nice to get home quickly when you are ready to go. It was great but we sure wish the weather was great too. It was nice, hot, muggy, and sticky. That means that most of the time was spent inside the trailer with the air conditioning. We did have a few adventures though. The kids asked if we could take some adventures. So we went bear hunting, looked at the stars and moon, enjoyed the frogs, and played at the park toys. Over all it was a great family time.
The last night was a little less desirable. We bumped the lock when we went for an evening walk before bedtime so were locked out of our trailer. Luckily we had spare keys in the truck. Oh wait the car was locked and the keys were in the trailer.
Good thing that we weren't far from home so we could call someone to come get us and give us a ride home to get our spare keys for the truck. But wait...oh yeah our house keys were on our truck keys an locked in our trailer along with our phones. Yet...luckily our trailer neighbor had a phone that we could call a friend.
We are lucky to have such good friends but who knows phone numbers now that everyone is programed into your phone, that happens to be locked in the trailer. So what to do...we did say a prayer and immediately after Bryar said, " now open the trailer" and when it was still locked she said, "why didn't Heavenly Father open it for us." And Bridger throughout the night would say in his not so soft voice, "Heavenly Father get here and open our trailer". I guess we still have to explain a little about prayer but oh the faith of the children. If only their parents had their faith and could listen a little better.
Anyway we did go to our trailer neighbor who did call around a bit and got a locksmith out there for us. Needless to say we now have spare keys somewhere around our trailer and that should never happen again. It was around 7:30 when we went on our walk and 10:30 when we got back into our trailer. 40$ later we were in, the kids crashed, and we had met some nice people. So all around it wasn't too bad in the end.....Until....
The next morning when we were putting away our trailer and getting ready to leave Joe found the keys to our trailer in the compartment of the outdoor shower. So they were right there all the time proving that the parents do need to listen a little better and maybe this crisis could have been averted.
But we did have a great time and can't wait to go again for more family bonding time and all the spare keys that we need. Thanks for taking the time to read this very long post but hopefully it was a little entertaining.

2010-07-30T06:58:00.000-07:00

Anyone else excited about the football season coming up. I know I am a bit early (like a month) but that is just how excited we are.

2010-07-16T09:42:00.000-07:00

Here is our updated family picture.

2010-07-15T05:36:00.000-07:00

Did someone say more pictures. Here you go.

2010-06-30T17:00:00.000-07:00

Our baby is finally here. He was born on Saturday morning and is a welcome addition to our family. He isn't blond like the other kids so we look at him sometime thinking whos kid is this. But life is good.

2010-06-15T06:13:00.000-07:00

I know it has been awhile but just hanging out around here waiting for a new baby to get here. Two and 1/2 more weeks. Yeah....hopefully a week will be fine with me. Joe isn't quite ready for the crying and the new schedule but man am I ready to not have a little heater in my middle and to be able to roll over at night again. So the next post will hopefully be pictures of a cute little boy.

2010-05-10T18:26:00.000-07:00

I know what some of you are thinking. Didn't Joe just sell his bike. And the answer is yes but we just happened upon another one and boy does Bridger love it. All he wants to do all day is sit there and ride his motorcycle. If he is not on his dads, he will pick up his bike and ride that around and call it his motorcycle and make motorcycle noises as he rides around. We might have the next Ricky Carmichael. And if you don't know who that is you are all missing out.

2010-05-10T18:17:00.000-07:00

We found a farm around here that lets people come and pick their own veggies. You would love it Shane. We have been every week for the past four weeks to pick some strawberries. We have had jam, shakes, pies and just plain strawberries. Anyway it is a fun activity and good food. We are planning on getting peaches at the end of the month and tomatoes at the end of June. So mom you might be helping with some canning when you get here.

2010-05-10T18:08:00.000-07:00

Bridger got a tent with a tunnel to it for his birthday and needless to say the two kids spent a lot of time in it. He wanted to sleep in it but I took it away after awhile because he wasn't sleeping just playing.

2010-04-12T17:59:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to Bridger. We love our little guy and he is now two years old. I can hardly believe it. They grow up so fast. Thank you to everyone who sent him something. We have video of Grandma Stoney's gifts and I will post it soon but Joe is not home and his phone has the video on it.

2010-04-12T17:50:00.000-07:00

Here we are having our easter egg hunt in our backyard. We had a couple of friends over and the kids had a lot of fun gathering their eggs. I put a bonus picture of me just so you could see my big belly. It's not a good view but everyone says that they haven't seen me big yet. So here I am with threee months to go. Too bad it is not a side view. Then you could really see.

2010-04-12T17:38:00.001-07:00

Coloring easter eggs.

Happy Easter!!!

2010-03-31T12:33:00.000-07:00

I just couldn't leave my cute son out. Here are some random pictures of him as well.

2010-03-31T12:27:00.000-07:00

Some more pictures (read below) just closer up.

2010-03-31T12:16:00.003-07:00

I just took some pictures of Bryar because the flowers were so pretty. So here is my beautiful daughter. I would have taken some of Bridger but flowers aren't really boy things so I will have to take some of him soon in some dirt or something.

2010-03-31T11:49:00.000-07:00

Just some cute pictures I was looking at.

2010-03-10T08:10:00.000-08:00

Also cute pictures to post were the day we left down to Florida. There was a lot of snow here in Alabama and so we made a little snowman. The kids had a lot of fun but I think they liked eating the snow more than anything.

2010-03-10T08:04:00.000-08:00

OK OK I am finally putting our beach pictures on the blog. This is when we went to Florida in Feb. It is still a little cold and the kids are fully dressed but that didn't stop them from playing and getting all through the sand.

2010-02-23T12:46:00.000-08:00

OK just for your information. We are going to have a baby for those of you who don't know this already. We just found out that it is a boy!! yeah. We are pretty excited and can't wait for him to get here already. He is due on July fourth but you can bet I count on having him in June. There are already too many birthday's in July!!!

2010-02-23T12:37:00.000-08:00

Other random pictures. We live in a new subdivision and they have just started to lay out the streets behind us. On Sunday we took a walk back there to see the work and who knew it was a wonderful play land for children. The walk turned out to be longer than expected while the kids had to climb up these big mountains and slide back down. There were also lots of pipes waiting to go underground that they loved to crawl through. If only we had looked back here a year ago I wouldn't have had to go to the park so much. Bridger just face planted off the slide and I thought it would be a cute picture so instead of cleaning him and comforting him like a good mother. I told him to stand still and not move so I could go and get the camera.

We got a little strider bike for Bridger and Bryar. It is a very light weight bike that has no peddles. It is supposed to help them learn balance so that they can go right to a regular bike. Bryar really is enjoying it and can go pretty fast. And both the kids can pick it right up and put it away after they are done which is nice.

Bridger getting in trouble here and standing through his punishment. Another cute picture.

2010-02-23T12:24:00.000-08:00

We went to Florida this last weekend and I have been waiting to post to get some beach pictures on here but they are on Joe's phone and I never think about posting when he is here. So here are some of the kids playing on a play land in the shopping center. The first one is Bridger jumping off the starfish.

Bryar was trying out all the fun toys at one shop. She moved from this to the boats.

2010-01-18T09:58:00.000-08:00

There has been an unfortunate death in the family. The little avocado plant that we sprouted from a seed died in a freezing night outside. It was a sad day of mourning. We took it outside for a little while and forgot to bring it back into the shelter of a nice warm house. Any words of condolences are welcome.

2010-01-18T09:21:00.000-08:00

Bryar has now graduated from nursery to sunbeams. Yeah. She didn't want to wear this cap and gown at all and was very grumpy about it until they pulled out the cookies. Then if mom wants a smile she can get one.

2009-12-26T14:25:00.001-08:00

I'm pretty sure we got eveyone sorry if we missed posting a video. This has taken me hours to do so you better comment so I know it was appreciated. Love you all and hope you enjoy the videos!!!

2009-12-26T12:47:00.000-08:00

Bridger Opening the Jardine gift.

Bryar opening present from Grandma Atwood

Bryar opening gift from Jeff and Kristen family finished by Joe.

2009-12-26T12:00:00.000-08:00

Bridger opening his real present from David and Kim

Bridger opening Kennedy family gift

Bryar opening Grandma Atwood's gift to family

2009-12-26T10:56:00.000-08:00

The Jardine family to Bryar.

The Kennedy family to Bryar.

Grandpa Stoney and Dea to Bryar.

Bridger opeing David and Kim's present for Bryar

2009-12-26T10:09:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas everyone. We just wanted to let you see the kids opening the presents like we did last year so that you can see their reaction. No sugar coating sorry. The first picture is saying thank you to the Ruchti family for the pajamas. We do have them opening the pj's as well but there isn't really an order here so just scroll down to find that one and see it.

Next gift is from Grandpa Stoney and Dea to Bridger.

Here we have Grandma Stoney to Bryar.

Grandma Stoney to Bridger

2009-11-02T11:20:00.000-08:00

Bryar and Bridger Halloween night. Bryar was Cinderella and Bridger was Prince Charming. I am pretty proud of his costume. His shoulder pads turned out great and he looks so very cute. And yes we did spray his hair brown. What Prince has blond hair? I just posted a lot of pictures below I don't think they all need and explanation.

2009-11-02T11:10:00.000-08:00

Carving pumpkins at the Stoney house. Bridger would only take about one seed at a time at the beginning but he got the hang of it at the end when we made him grab more. Bryar drawing her face on there before we cut it. Of course I didn't follow her lines.

Dad and Bridger working on their pumpkin.

Finally grabbing more than one seed.

Bridger liked to eat as much as anything. I got a few pictures of him grabbing chuncks and eating them.

2009-10-27T10:52:00.000-07:00

Painting at the Stoney house. We just had a fun day where paint just can't seam to stay on the paper.

2009-10-27T10:39:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Bryar last Thursday. Bryar turned three and had a great birthday. This is her blowing out her candles. Just cute and with her cake.

She got a few things I knew she would love and one was a stethoscope. She loves to play Dr. and knows a lot of her bones. She will ask Bridger all the time to lay down so she can check his heart. Previously she has just leaned her ear over. But after her present she got to use her new toy. Bridger was a good sport all day laying for her to get his heart and lungs checked. He also gave some blood and got 3 cc's of medicine. It was an after thought present but it was the favorite one.

She got some princess dolls that she also plays a lot with. They have tiny time slippers that I keep finding everywhere. Yea the kind of toys that I love. But she likes them and anything about princesses is great to her.

2009-10-08T10:13:00.000-07:00

It has been awhile so here are a few updates. I don't know why I wait so long I do have some cute pictures. It is getting those pictures from the camera to the computer that is the hard part.

First post that is very important and I know you all care about is our laundry detergent. Joe bought a washer and dryer just before we got married and with them came a three year supply of Tide. It has been very nice and last month I had to buy laundry detergent that we had to buy for the first time since we got married four and 1/2 years ago. Those were some nice pennies in our pocket. Here is Bryar's room that we have finally finished. We painted a long time ago. I was just waiting for the pictures to complete the look to post what we have done. Thanks Joe's mom for the cute bugs and butterflies that are framed and on the bottom 1/3 of the bedding.

Just a picture of Bryar in a cute dress her Aunt Tonia made for her. Good job on the dress (it was Tonia's first one).

And a cute picture of Bridger just growing up and being so cute.

Here we are dancing around. I got some cute pictures of Bryar and Bridger dancing away. They love to dance and always want to listen to music and they really get into it.Bryar always has to have a princess dress on and princess shoes. Luckily she is easy to convince that all her dresses are princess dresses. I convinced her that all the princesses all have their peasant dresses so if the dresses doesn't go up very high when she spins, she will call it her peasant dress. So she is always a princess.

dancing continued...

Bridger getting his hair cut. It is not his first it is actually his third but he was so cute that I decided to post it.

2009-08-21T10:46:00.000-07:00

Just hanging out in Alabama I guess. It is still pretty hot around here so we stay indoors a lot. And when it isn't too hot it is raining. Hurricane season is starting up so we are getting rain here. Life is good here. Bridger just got over his double ear infection. Thank you Tonia for the information on the oils that helped with the healing and the pain. You are awesome. Bryar is talking like crazy and using big words. Some of her sentences are pretty funny. The other night Joe and I put the kids down and sat down to watch a movie together. It was a few minutes into the movie and Bryar pokes her head around the corner and says, " Can you turn of the movie it is waking me up and I can't sleep". It was pretty cute. True since the TV is on the wall of her bedroom but just funny. Joe is still in the middle of his course at work and not getting much flying time because of the rain but it looks good today so hopefully he will get some. I am getting ready for some birthdays. I think I am going to sew Bryar some dresses because that is all she will wear right now. It has to be a princess dress. Luckily all dresses are princess dresses so she has a few. It just looks like she is going to church everyday. So that will be my spare time for a little while. Hopefully I can make some for her just to run around in so we can save some of the nice Sunday ones for Sunday. That is the update for today!

2009-08-07T08:41:00.000-07:00

It has been awhile but we are ready to roll here. We have been on vacation for the last two weeks of July to Vegas, Utah and Wyoming. It was long and fun and lots of driving. It took a little time to recoup from the traveling but we are getting back slowly. Joe was promoted to CW3 on Wednesday. We are sooo proud of him and the living he provides for this family. Congrats to him and we love him. Our vacation was a blast the only thing we wish we could have done that we didn't was see our good friends the Lenahans. Sorry but hope to see you guys soon. Or next year when we come out. The kids have been sick this week as well so they are recouping also. Joe is working hard at school and work. He just finished an online class Wednesday and is working on the new mike model blackhawk class and has four more weeks with that and then maybe he can take a break in the studying department. Oh no he can't he will be starting up another class online on the 15th. No worries he will soon have school done and have another accomplishment under his hat. I luckily don't work so I just sit around here eating bon bon's all day. Isn't that what homemakers do?

2009-07-13T13:09:00.000-07:00

A very very cute video of Bryar dancing. I can't stop watching it so I figued you would all like it to. Looks like I have a little dancer on my hands. And if you know me you will know that I'm in for some trouble. I don't know the first thing about any of this girl stuff.

2009-07-09T07:24:00.000-07:00

Bryar cut about half of the top of her hair three months ago. So she has been running around with a mullet for the last few months and I have decided to cut it because it has grown out a little while. She cut it right to the skin in more than one place. So here she is in her nice short haircut.

2009-06-28T12:00:00.000-07:00

Here is Bridger looking for his dad. I let him outside and the first thing he will usually do is go to the shop and see if Joe is in there working. He is all about his dad!! Here he is working trying to hammer in nails in the fence we took down. Joe is just outside of the camera lens doing the same thing. It is always fun to see a boy trying to be like dad.

While we were doing our back porch we decided to lay a sidewalk from our driveway to Joe's shop so it would give us a nice easy walkway and we wouldn't have to make a cow trail. So this is why our fence was down and Bridger was working on it. You can see a little of the sidewalk that Bridger is standing on in the first picture when he is peeking in the door.

2009-06-28T11:49:00.000-07:00

We have just had a back porch poured this month. Joe traded out some shutters that he built for a nice stamped and stained back porch. It is nice and big and we love it. As soon as it is cool enough to enjoy it we will have to get some furniture that that we can really enjoy it.
Here is a cute picture of Bridger on the tractor that was used to level and fill in areas under the new porch. He would sit looking out the window all day and watch. Bryar was there too. Tractors are amazing and very entertaining for kids. Here is the yard getting prepared for the cement.

Final product. We love it!! our porch was so useless before because it has two doors and the walkway was the only space we had between the doors so you couldn't really put anything there and there wasn't any place for a BBQ. Now we have plenty of space for it!!

A close up so you can see how it is stamped and stained.

2009-06-28T11:44:00.000-07:00

We painted Bryar's room. It was a lot of fun. I will post pictures of the finished product later when I have it decorated and her bedspread is finished. Here is just a picture of the process. Joe built molding on the wall on the bottom five feet of one of the walls and here we all are painting it. Or actually making a mess but having lots of fun. Bryar wasn't eating paint she just ran the roller over her face thinking she was painting her face like a cat (reference to a previous picture that I have posted).

2009-06-28T11:38:00.000-07:00

Our garden has grown well so far. We are pretty excited for our first garden. We had onions, peas, green beans, tomatoes, bell peppers, banana peppers, cucumbers, spinach, strawberries, and lots of corn. Those are all plants that we have eaten. We still have potatoes (russet, red, and sweet potatoes), zucchini, squash, and lots of little watermelon coming. Yeah!!!

2009-06-28T11:28:00.000-07:00

Ok my dad said he was sick of looking at green beans every time he checked out our blog so I guess that was a hint to post something. We have actually been very busy and have a lot of things going on that I could have posted. I just don't seem to have very much spare time. Maybe if I did a five minute post every week or so instead of a long post that takes a long time I would have more time to post. We will try it. After this post of course.

These pictures got posted backwards but here are Bryar and Bridger in their two chairs. In the first picture posted Bridger is sitting in a gray chair. I wanted to refinish it just because I didn't like it and we were given it by someone and I just wanted it to feel nice and clean and new. So I took it apart and while it was apart Joe looked at the frame and said that it would be easy to make so he took the frame in his shop and a little while later we had a chair for Bryar. They love them and I always find Bryar curled up in her chair when I send her to bed. That is where she wants to sleep sometimes. I of course being the mean mother I am make her get back into bed. But it is cute.

2009-05-22T09:23:00.000-07:00

Last post for today. We are just excited about the fruit of our labors. Here are some of the first vegies out of our garden. Yeah. Happy that something grew for us.

2009-05-22T09:10:00.000-07:00

More Pictures for the viewer. Just Bridger sitting on the back porch eating gold fish. Bryar's scared face. We loved our cousin Emily's scared face so much we wanted one of our own.

Bryar sitting on the couch. We were all sitting there and I was throwing Bridger around when Bryar sits down and says, "Mom can you take a picture of me like this". I just laughed got the camera and figured I'm in for some trouble already.

We went to a little fair a the park and Bryar got her face painted like a pink cat. The line was forever and I kept trying to get her to go on some of the big bouncy blow up toys more but she really wanted the pink cat face and so stood in that line for over an hour to get it. And she loved it!!!

Bridger folding his arms for the prayer at the dinner table.

2009-05-22T08:49:00.000-07:00

Ok, Ok, I know it has been forever. Life is pretty busy around here and we have had lots of recent play dates so too many kids around here for me to sit down and relax. But as for our life, things are going well. Joe just changed companies at work and now hasn't seemed to really work much. Which is actually nice for us to have him around a lot. He has been working out in his shop a lot because he is building shutters for a guy who will soon be making us a nice big back porch. We are trading and are pretty excited about it. Joe just finished up the shutters yesterday and I have to say that they are amazing. He is such a good woodworker and did a really good job. He should install them on Saturday and then we will just sit and wait for Mr. Jenny to come and give us the nice stained back porch that we want. So that is Joe's life. Mine seems to be watching kids a lot lately. But it is fun for Bryar to have some friends so I don't mind all the time but we had a really busy week last week so this week we have taken a little break from friends. Bryar loves to play with everyone and will cry every time we have to go or the friends have to leave. Bridger is just learning all kinds of new things and getting hurt along the way. I will post some pictures of him and just how cute he is and all the new cuts and scrapes lately. So that is us and we are just plugging along. Now for what you really want. The pictures.

Ok here is a cute one that shows his scrapes. If you look closely you can see the tan line of the scrape that just barely healed on his forehead. Now he has three little scabs on the top of his head and one new big one on the forehead.
Here is a picture of his hand. He brought me a can lid out of the garbage that I had just cut off of a can and as I went to take it away he turned to run and of course fell right on it. So needless to say I spent the rest of the night in the emergency room to get it all sewn up. After I was there for four hours it was staying together nicely so they just put a lot of glue on it and wrapped it tight and sent me home. Next time I will just take care of it. But when he first cut it it was definitely gaping open or I wouldn't have taken him in. So here is the healing hand. It has closed up nicely and has just changed the lines on his hands a bit. He will just have an extra one. It might make it a little more difficult to get his fortune read.

Just a cute picture of his head again.

2009-04-21T09:00:00.000-07:00

Well it has been a very long time since I have updated anything. I don't know where my time goes but I guess it goes somewhere. I have had family in town the last couple of weeks and it has been a blast. It is nice to have family see where and how you live. Plus the kids love it and it gives me a little break from always entertaining my own kids all the time. Thanks mom and dad for taking the time and making the effort to come to visit. We love you and had a great time. Here are a few pictures of our life. Bridger also has turned one. Yeah. He is sooooo cute we love having him around.
Blowing out the candle. (with dad's help, he never quite got it)

At the beach with the grandparents. The kids got burried in the sand.

Bridger just haning out. He didn't like the water much and spent most of the time in the chair. It was a little too cold for him.

2009-03-18T05:55:00.000-07:00

Well, It was Joe's birthday yesterday and I had every intention to post a nice long message about him. But I always seemed to do doing something and then we left when he got home from work so I never got around to it. So instead I will write this little message to him so that all may know that I love my husband and the children love their father. Joe is very good to us and has done a wonderful job providing for his family. He does his job very well. Actually everything he does he does well. He is really busy right now going to school and working and doing all that he has to do and I'm sure feels overwhelmed sometimes. But he does a great job and always pulls through with flying colors so good job Joe. We love you very much and good luck on your upcoming test. You will ace it I'm sure. Love you!!!

2009-03-13T09:40:00.000-07:00

I never finished the pictures for the last post I was doing but Joe came home and call me crazy but I would rather talk to him when he is home than do anything on the computer so we had to wait until now for the rest of the update.

I put the kids to bed and went outside to hoe the garden a bit until it was too dark to see what I was doing. When I went in an hour later I checked on the kids and Bryar wasn't in her bed. So I checked Bridger's room because that is where she usually goes. And he was sound asleep and she said she wanted to sleep with Bridger. So I let her and we moved her later so that they wouldn't wake themselves up too early.
It is fun having two close together and I can't wait until they can really just play together. It is getting closer. Bridger loves the books that have different textures. Thanks for getting them for Bryar Grandma.

A little snow here. Two Sundays ago it was snowing pretty hard. Nothing stuck and it was great weather two days later but it was fun.

And last but definitely not least. We have sprouted and avocado seed and are getting a plant out of it. I'm very excited and who knows in twenty years we will have our own avocados. This will probably mean we can't move back to Utah because I don't think it would grow there. I guess we will have to choose between family and the seed. It is a close one.

2009-03-09T17:49:00.000-07:00

Okay. It has been awhile since our last post. It has been pretty busy around here, but I thought I would tell a few stories and post some pictures. So here is what is going on.

Starting with our garden. We are planting a garden this year. We are pretty excited about it. You might think that we would start out with a small one to see if we like it or to see if we can even do it but no, not us. Bigger is better.
So we have a garden that is about 20 feet by 40 feet. Anyone need any produce. Hopefully something will grow. With this big of a garden we are sure to get something.

As for our cute daughter she is as cute as ever. Every time that I see her she is in a new outfit. This is one that was particularly cute.

Also one of her trying on her dad's shorts.

Some other cute stories of Bryar. She has a pretty vivid imagination. She is always playing with her imaginary friends Queen (the queen in snow white), Snow White, Cinderella, Grasshopper, and Ghost. For the first cute story.

I am putting Bryar to bed (in the closet where she wants to sleep now. I figure why fight it). She says

"No ghost have my pink sippycup"

I said

"Okay ghost can't have it"

Bryar

"tell him mommy"

Mom

" Okay (as I turn my head to her room) Ghost you can't have Bryar's sippycup"

a few seconds later Bryar asks,

"Where is ghost going to sleep"

mom

"how about your bed"

Bryar

"No how about your bed"

Mom

"No, how about the couch"

Bryar

"okay"

Then I left and went into the kitchen to make Joe some dinner because he wasn't home from school yet and I hear some whispering in the living room.

Bryar

"Ghost...Ghost....do you need a blanket"

and I peek in the living room and Bryar was putting a blanket on the couch for ghost. It was pretty cute.

Second story is we were looking everywhere for Bridger. He had shut himself in my closet and wasn't making any noises just playing in the shoes. So me and Bryar are looking and she says.

"Bridger is lost. We will just have to buy another Bridger." It is funny what kids say and how they see things.

2009-02-27T16:36:00.001-08:00

Oh by the way all you Texas friends I don't know if you know this or not but Ivy has a blog now so her link is over on the side with my favorites under the Hill Pack. Go check it out. Hi Ivy.

2009-02-27T16:20:00.000-08:00

It has been awhile but it has been pretty busy around here. Joe has started a trigonometry class online and it has been very very time consuming. I try to keep the kids out of his hair while he spends almost every waking moment on that class. Other than that things are going pretty good here. Bridger is cutting three teeth right now and is pretty cranky. I don't remember Bryar ever cutting her teeth. I think she just went around like it was another day and didn't really have a problem. But Bridger is a little or a lot more needy. It is cute on the one hand because I have a cute little cuddly boy but on the other I can't hold him all day. They are doing great other than that. Bridger is getting so tall that everyone asks me if they are twins when they are in the stroller. Funny he looks like a baby to me and she looks older but I guess sitting down and without taking a good look they are the same. Anyway same-o-same-o here and I will post a few pictures in a few days or so. I will have to find some that are cute.

2009-02-17T07:37:00.000-08:00

OK, well, here we are filling our daughter's head with totally useless trivia. But she does like to do it and asks every night before we go to bed to do her presidents so we thought we would let you all see. It is sometimes hard to keep her attention especially when she could see herself in the camera but she does it. And I show you the card after she says it just in case you couldn't understand her. But she does a pretty good job, I think anyway.

2009-02-09T18:15:00.000-08:00

AARRRGGGGGHHHHHH. I just finished all the video's and posted them to my family blog. It is too frustrating to do it again and takes too long so if you want to see any more I posted three more, One of Bryar and two of Bridger. One he is walking and the other one he is tickling Bryar. Bryar is dancing in her video.

2009-02-09T17:04:00.000-08:00

Here he is playing peek-a-boo.

This video is of Bridger dancing.

Now he is trying to jump on the bed with Bryar.

I have a lot more but this thing is acting up so they will come later

2009-02-02T11:46:00.000-08:00

We went to the Aquarium in Atlanta last weekend and got two good pictures. The rest were fuzzy or crying so here are the two I got. Joe was in woodworking classes so I was by myself which makes it a little more difficult to take care of two kids and get pictures all without naps and going to bed late. But it was fun and she is still talking about it.

Well here are more pictures for you all. I got some pictures for you of Bridger standing up. He is taking steps here and there when he wants to but his mode of travel is still crawling but it is definitely getting closer.

Bryar is going to bed here. I usually let her read to herself for a few minutes before bedtime because Joe is in class most nights and it is just me and her because Bridger is in bed. She will read her favorite books from Aunt Janette and then I will come in and read one or two and turn out the light. Thanks Janette for the books. She loves them!!!!

2009-01-20T13:59:00.000-08:00

We thought that you might want to see some cute pictures of Bridger. Ok really we were asked to post some more. So here are some that I have. I need to take pictures of him standing. He has been able to stand completely on his own for a couple of weeks now but I have never taken a picture of it. I will work on that. So here he is exhausted after a long day and could barely finish his bottle before passing out. This is actually around Thanksgiving. He is just happy to be here. He is a very happy kid. Hopefully he will stay that way.

Another cute one just after they got their Christmas pj's from Aunt Suzanne. I said I would post some pictures of them and I never did so here they are.Opening their pj's.

Everyone in their new pj's. Joe got me some so I had some new pj's too. They are soft and very comfortable but very warm. I am happy to say it is getting cold enough here in the last couple of days that I could actually use them and not be too warm.

2009-01-19T16:26:00.000-08:00

Well, Bridger took his first steps today at nine months ten days. That means that he beat Bryar. She started taking her first steps the last couple of days before she turned ten months. I guess all boys are not slower than the girls. He just wants to play with his sister so bad that he wants to walk. They are really great together and are starting to play together and love it. I hear them laughing all the time in the other room so I have to go in and see what is going on. Bridger is just shaking his head like he is saying no and then he looks at Bryar to make sure she is still laughing and when she stops he starts up again until she starts laughing again then he stops to watch her and laugh and then it continues over and over again. I have to say it is nice for me to be able to just let them play together. This is why we had them close together. I can't wait until he is running around with her.

2008-12-29T17:16:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone. We just went to the coolest zoo I have to tell you about it. When we got there it wasn't that impressive and a little expensive but it was worth all the money and more. It started off with a little part where you could feed the animals and there were lots of goats, mini horses, buffalo, a camel and those kind of animals. Unfortunately while I was paying Bryar stuck her fingers in the baby deer's cage and got bit so she was scared to feed the rest of the animals but she did it. She would get next to the fence and drop the food right in front of them. Too bad they couldn't get through the fence. Next it was the monkeys that you weren't able to feed but then the best part came next. The owner came and took us on a personal tour and took us behind the main fence to the lions and tigers and took us to their actual cages. We were only one chain link fence away from them. He told us the history of all of them and made them jump on the fence to get some good pictures and it was just a lot of fun. Then we moved to the liger's cages and we got to pet their tail that was sticking out of the cage as he just watched us. Then the bear and mountain lion which we also got to pet. So it was really neat. A petting zoo of wild animals. If ever any of you come and visit we will definitely take you there. Here are some pictures we took.

This is the same cougar just watching us all.

Joe with his new friend. Yuck don't bring that around me.

a cool picture of the alligator. There were two other ones as well.

This is where the owner shook the fence and "Grumpy" (that was his name) jumped up and growled.

One Lion who wants Bridger for lunch.

Eating their 20 pounds of chicken that they get a day. Except the ligers. They get 40 pounds because they grow to be huge. They can get up to six feet tall and half the size of a small SUV. Very very big animals.

Feeding the animals at the beginning.

2008-12-25T12:02:00.000-08:00

We have decided to post you Bryar's reaction to opening all of her presents since you can't be here to see her reaction yourself. Your name is at the top of the clip when she is opening your package. Sorry Suzanne we thought of this bright idea on Christmas morning and we opened your pj's on Christmas Eve so we only have pictures for you. But she loved them and thank you. Bridger didn't really pay any attention so you will just get him in the background but he loved all your gifts as well.

Grandma and Grandpa Atwood

Grandma and Grandpa Atwood again

Grandpa Stoney

2008-12-25T11:38:00.000-08:00

Grandma Stoney

Aunt Janette

Aunt Xarissa

2008-12-16T16:35:00.000-08:00

It has been awhile since my last post. I can't believe that Christmas is so close. We have been so busy around here. Our neighborhood is a very fun, nice, and friendly neighborhood. There are only 15 occupied houses so someone decided to do a progressive dinner and sent out fliers. We had a couple of meetings to plan things and it was Saturday night. I have to say we had a lot of fun. It was fun to not only meet all the neighbors but we got to see inside all the new homes and see how they decorate. Some had the same floor plan but they were decorated differently and were just fun to look at. We did a "dirty Santa" or also known as "white elephant" gift exchange at the end. It was a lot of fun but now I feel like that is over and the baby shower that I gave a friend today is now over so I can get on with the Holiday. This week is making goodies and handing them out. I love to make them all. It is funny because I make all this stuff that I don't really like and give it all away. Not that it isn't good, it is but I am just not a sweet person. But it is fun to do and a good tradition I remember my mom doing. You know how we all did things our mom did even though we don't know why. Just because she did I guess.

2008-12-02T10:54:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas! love the Stoney's

Here is our Christmas card this year. I am going to be lazy and not send one to everyone but to all of those we love (who look at this anyway) Merry Christmas. This year has been good to us and Joe is here so we can't ask for anything more. We love you all and hope you have a wonderful season.

2008-11-29T08:25:00.000-08:00

Thanks everyone for the turkey feathers. We had a lot of fun putting them up on our wall and reading with Bryar what everyone was thankful for. You are all awesome!!

A HOUSE DIVIDED

2008-11-20T17:08:00.001-08:00

Anyone else excited for the big game!!!

2008-11-13T18:05:00.000-08:00

Well as most of you know Joe is an amazing woodworker. I thought that I would just post his latest project. He is planning on making plantation shutters for our house and started with a sample one. The sample is not painted, but the finished product will be white to match our window trim. As you can see it looks great and we are ready to start production!

2008-11-11T18:04:00.001-08:00

Poor Bridger gets left out a lot but he has now done something noteworthy of a post. He is starting to crawl.

2008-11-11T17:39:00.000-08:00

We went to the Zoo today and it was a lot of fun. Joe didn't have to work today so we went with his golfing buddy Ty and his family. The kids were good for the two hour drive up and had a great time. Bryar is riding the train here looking out.

still riding

Joe opted to sit with Bridger while we went on the train so we didn't have to wake up Bridger who had fallen asleep in the stroller.

still on the train

This is how Bridger spent his entire day. A good sport.

We are having fun even though you couldn't tell with all the big smiles.

2008-11-07T05:48:00.000-08:00

These are the feathers that I used to send to family. Feel free to use these or just make your own. I just used regular printer paper that I printed these off and cut them up. But if you want to make them out of construction paper be my guest. The feathers don't all have to be the same.