"There is no Arizona, no painted desert, no Sedona*...".

Oh, but there is. We visited it this past weekend. I read an article in a newspaper about the natural pools and rock slides of Arizona and I got the strangest feeling. I wanted to go do something outdoor-sy. That is a VERY strange feeling because as many of my friend might know, I HATE the outdoors. I've been camping once in my married life and only a handful of times besides. We've never been on a hike while married. So you can imagine Tom's surprise when I organized everything and got everybody to move, move, move in order to get out the door and get going. We drove to an area just past Sedona. And maybe, just maybe, I can get into this outdoor beauty type of stuff. It was so gorgeous seeing that red rock and the mountains and everything. I was blown away. It was beautiful. It was a 2 1/2 hour drive both ways and that was hard but the kids were really good-I just don't like being in the car. Also, it's like 20 degrees cooler there so even though my sister Katie whined for a good hour of the way there she was also thrilled with how beautiful it was. Let me narrate some of the pictures for you:

Tommy pushing Eliza. He was perhaps the cutest on the hike. He just ran and ran. He loved the feeling of freedom in the great outdoors. It was worth it just to see him that happy.

On the bridge at the trail head. We're all ready to go in our hats.

This was really cool. This was the site of the hotel used in the movie "Call of the Country" (by Zane Gray) and hoity-toity 1920's people stayed there like the guy who played Rhett Butler. It burned down and here's the site. The kids are standing in front of this cave that they used as their "fridge" back in the day.

Livvie and Samantha in front of the stove for the same hotel.

The cute outdoorsmen.

Sitting on one of those log benches/fences on the trail. Perfect for photo ops.

We made it to the water. I hiked quite a way in the water. I was holding Eliza on my hip the whole time. I felt slightly precarious making it one of the not-so-smart things I've done. I fell twice but it was all pretty shallow and Eliza loved it. Plus, Tom and I commented that we're used to Utah mountain-fed streams that are only mildly tolerable in August. We were expecting to be freezing but the water was SO nice. No numbness of our feet or anything.

The kids (who we were doing this for) were total weenies about everything. When we got to a totally still part Olivia ended up liking it but Samantha never stopped throwing a fit the entire time. She liked the hiking though (which was I was nervous about-so go figure)

Another shot of the kids in the water.

A family picture. Our fun hike (nature walk) that we lived to tell about. I might even be looking forward to the family camping trip with Tom's family next week (but only a little bit)

*Those are lyrics from a song called "There is No Arizona" by Jamie O'Neal. The entire drive up Katie kept singing "My Sedona" (My Sherona) and Tom kept singing (from Route 66) "Flagstaff Arizona, don't forget Sedona" and NEITHER of those are the right lyrics. My song, however, does actually have the word Sedona in there.

9 Months Pictures!!

So I finally got Eliza's picture taken in a studio. I am a horrible mother. I had had Samantha in 3 times by this age, Tommy twice. So if any of you are the third children out there and there are fewer pictures of you growing up, let me assure you that your mother loved you just as much-everything was just so overwhelming to try and do. I snatched the opportunity to get Eliza's done while Katie was in town. She watched Samantha (with Livvie) while I took Eliza and Tommy. So here are the darling pictures of my precious girl. And have no fear - I purchased smiles by wire for this express purpose. I ended up getting most poses too-not good for the bank account but I figured-hey she'd never had them done-right?

If I had had to choose a single pose-this one would have been it (above) SO CUTE!

Flashback Friday

Once upon a time I had a ton of friends. I thought that was never more evident than when we blessed Tommy:

My mom was there (in VA) from California so we planned the blessing for then. It was a good thing that she was there because she worked furiously with me on Saturday making huge ACP, mandarin orange, and Chinese chicken salads. I ordered several Costco trays of sandwiches and baked dozens of cookies. I also had a couple of wonderful friends volunteer and bring potato salads or other desserts.

So-back to the friends. I had like 60 people in my house that day. So many, many people from the ward came. I LOVE a party and I had so much fun. I couldn't get over it for days, that people loved me and would come support something like that (I'm sure it helped that there was food, but still). That was fun, I miss parties like that. I need to do something here...but who would I invite?

The cute family and the darling guest of honor

Delee and I

Our Bishop, Mike, and the bishop's kids

Sarah and Jason M.

The Bishops kids again. I wish I had taken more pictures, but I was having too much fun.

Happy 6 Years: Or a History of a Couple of (Un) Romantics

Sunday was our 6 year Anniversary. True to form, we didn't really celebrate it. It was Father's Day after all, plus-what would we have done on a Sunday anyway? When I originally wanted to do this post (which I thought about a long time, I plan posts-so what?) I realized that we have a long and illustrious career of not actually celebrating our anniversary on the day, forgetting,etc.

So lets take a trip down memory lane for a couple of the good, bad, and forgotten anniversaries...


June 21, 2003. Truly the best day of my life, a almost perfect day (marred only by the horrible LA traffic) with the totally perfect guy.


Year One: This isn't a picture of us on our actual anniversary, which is sad because our first year it was actually pretty awesome. Tom took me to the Roof (a restaurant on the top floor of the Joseph Smith Building in Salt Lake). The food was good and the view was great. Then we stayed the night in a nice hotel and went to Lagoon the next day. He planned it all and it was a surprise so I thought it was so fun and we had a great time. The reason for no pictures-we were terrible at remembering our camera back then-though that's not always different from now.

This picture is from the day of our anniversary. Samantha was 3 months old, we'd just come home from the big family reunion on my mom's side, and she was in town. I had work, Tom had work and school. We didn't do anything. Tom had BYU's Campus Craft and Floral flowers delivered to me. I remember saying out loud to my mom-oh crap, it is our anniversary and I totally forgot. We did go on a date 3 weeks later that Tom's mom babysat for that we deemed the anniversary date. It was dinner at Ruby River and a movie (I think a Spiderman movie?)

An awesome year, definitely a great one. We'd been living in Virginia for a month, I had picked up all the brochures of fun things to do when we moved there, among them parasailing. So we went down to Virginia Beach and parasailed. Samantha was strapped into me. She was 15 months at the time. The man in the boat said that he'd taken younger than her, but never on water so choppy. It was choppy for sure. It was amazing and Samantha loved it. I loved it, Tom loved it, it was great.

We got married June 21. 4 years later my sister and her husband got married on June 23. We traveled with our two kids (Tommy 7 weeks old) across the country on our anniversary to get to the wedding. The flight attendant made an announcement to wish another couple "Happy 25 years" and Tom and I looked at each other and said "Oh my gosh, yeah, Happy Anniversary sweetheart" I'm pretty sure we went out a couple of weeks later (thanks to Angie F.) but I'm not sure.

Year 5 is totally on me for being an anniversary fail. I knowingly went to Utah to attend a very good friends (Carol's) wedding on....June 21. It was the first time I'd ever left my kids for overnight with Tom by himself. He was AMAZING of course and took them to the park, library, swimming, etc. I had the time of my life with old college roommates. It was totally weird and I was only gone 2 nights and one full day but I was happy to be home. Tom made sure there was at least a memento of our anniversary because unbeknownst to me he slipped some money into his mom's luggage, which she found and bought the flower bouquet picture below. Isn't he a sweetheart?!? Several weeks later we went out to see "Get Smart" and my mom watched the kids while she was visiting AZ. We decided that was the anniversary date.

This year we haven't done anything yet, I already gave him his present. The year is Candy/Iron so I got him a table saw (iron in it) and a huge pack of candy. I don't know what he's gotten me because I haven't gotten it :)-he hasn't had time to go shopping. Katie is here and if, and only if, it was food poisoning and not the stomach flu then she'll babysit for a date tonight. Considering it's only 4 days after the fact-I think we're doing great!

I love Tom so much. The end.

The long awaited, much anticipated pictures.

So here are some pictures of my house. And while they might not be long awaited OR much anticipated (only my Grandma and mom politely asked to see pictures) I am excited that my house was clean enough to snap a few pictures. I was furiously cleaning to get ready for my mom-I even got curtains up and pictures (mostly) hung. So here are most of the rooms.

Samantha's room. It's the tiniest, but she has a huge bed and that's part of it. I haven't quite gotten to decorating it obviously.

Tommy's Room

My room-also not decorated-based on my vast moving history it will be the last decorated, painted, etc.

Master bathroom-very nice.

The Loft, our office and playroom. It is my favorite room in the house. Notice the nice corner desk in the middle of our wall-to-wall desks. I got that for free, awesome huh?

My kitchen-I love so many, many features of this room: the counter tops (some very nice material that's neither granite nor corian but superior according to my mother-in-law), my flat-top stove, my drop down black sinks, the pull-out cabinets, the HUGE drawers, etc.

Other view of kitchen-do you like my red wall?

Family Room

Another view of family room.

Living Room

Taken from the stairs

An Official Molly Mormon

So I'm official now...I am a coupon-er. I fought it diligently. I still don't like it. But it happened like this:

Tom heard all the great deals our friend Monica was getting doing coupons. He was amazed and transfixed. I said (stupidly) that if HE did it, then he could order the extra newspapers. So he did. And THEN we came to the realization that he doesn't have any time-what were we thinking?!? So I have trekked out the last three weeks to get my fabulous deals. Now here are the requisite photos. I also have a nifty ticker on the bottom of my blog to keep track of my saving. If you're interested (and I can not imagine that you are) the goal I have set for myself is simply to make our 4 newspapers a week pay for themselves in savings. Since I've been doing this for three weeks and I've paid off this months and the next two-it does seem worth it.

Retail 72.00 for 15.00

17.84 for 4. 30 (and this is where I always disputed the relevancy of coupons because I would NEVER pay 17.84 for this stuff. I would go to Wal-mart and buy it all. (I bought this at CVS). So I obsessively compared prices to Wal-mart prices and it was still cheaper, but not by nearly as much. I do CVS partly because they give ECB's which is money to use next time and if you invest a little money in the beginning you can start to roll them over and never pay out of pocket there.

26.43 for 6.94 Both the shampoo and conditioneer with rebates and deals will end up free.

And give him what? A great big....

KISS!!!

There are not words deep enough (especially on a blog) to express my gratitude for my wonderful husband, the most perfect father for our kids. The true testament to what a great dad he is is how Samantha, Tommy, and Eliza want to be with him, jump on him, drive him crazy with their questions, love, etc. He is a great father

And a HUGE belated Happy Father's Day to our wonderful dads. We look up to you so much, thank you for your hard work, sacrifice, love, advice and everything else important that you gave us. We love you.