Sorry, one more to vote on

I promise, this is the last one. I just need to know opinions on which of these looks the BEST so we can make our house look like it! Thanks for letting us overrun the blog for the time being.

Final vote

I need an opinion about which house looks the BEST. The changes are all on the bottom cement part and the trellis.

Hopefully I can buy the cement paint tomorrow.

Final picture

Ok, even though all these pics arent real, I had fun helping Andra figure out what the finished product might look like, and how she could somewhat easily accomplish her goal. I think that we have come up with the final picture...I had to change the door to actually be like their door, since i didn't take that into account when playing with her house. Anyways, it has been fun. Hope you all didn't mind all the little nit picky changes.

just checking

how about a vote

or what about this one...

and then...

or....or....

Or....

Bob IS Superman!!! Its finished!!!

We are really ready to sell now. Wow, I cannot believe how Bob stepped up and got this project finished. He added a window box and some shutters, painted the front door a new eye catching color, and planted some new shrubs to spruce up curb appeal and get extra points in my naughty/nice book! I seriously can't even believe how this place has changed literally "overnight." Lets give Bob, (and Laila) a hand!!!

Christmas gift exchange rate !!!

Cindy has Andra

Margaret has Ben

Val has Grant

Andra has Jeff

Ben has Laila

Grant has Sam

Jeff has Jeremy

Laila has Cindy

Sam has Margaret

Jeff has Vall

Now THIS is tired!

One of the reasons that we didn't go to Hendersonville for Thanksgiving (besides that we didn't know Dad & Ramona were going to be in Hendersonville for Thanksgiving) was that we have just been so darned tired. As you can see, Russ & I are not the only tired ones in the house--getting up for seminary at 5:10 every morning is taking it out of Jason! This was from the other morning while he was "studying" for his World Religions class.

Here's the bad part, though. We felt nice & rested after the weekend. And now I'm already exausted again! Something--either my really late book-club Tuesday night or the sinus infection I'm thinking about getting has really zapped me... :(

House Progress

The Garage is almost ready for siding. It should arrive on Monday and the builders will install it. The down side is that for the baby blessing, the house will still look woefully unifinshed. The upside is that by Tuesday or Wednesday, we should be able to take pictures of the house to sell (after we get the yard cleaned up)
This one is only up sides. Pretty windows, Pretty doors, lots and lots of lights in the kitchen, It is just so much fun to walk through!

Evan - 2 months

Just thought I would show how cute Evan is! We sure love him!

Enterprising Opportunist

A good mother would probably have screamed and stopped this smart child from gleaning the last of the ice cream from the box in the garbage. However, this is child number 6 and I decided that I would rather have a picture than spoil the moment. That, and that it would probably not kill him!
If it makes you feel better, I had a similar choice to make about a year ago with Joseph and the garbage can. He had climbed out of his high chair and fallen head first into the almost empty can. I really wanted a picture, but rescued Joseph instead.

no camera cord...still

Well, Margaret said that no one was posting, so here I go. Again, I cannot find my camera cord so I cannot show any nifty personal pictures, however, maybe I will find a good one on google somewhere. We have about 19 days or so until we leave for Christmas and the question at hand is will we get our countertops b4 the Paces??? Oh, only the Mighty one knows the answer to that one!!! So, did everyone get the memo for Christmas swap this year. The word is 7-up. Yep, count seven people older than you and that is who you have. Like, I have Cindys family. So, get your brains rolling cause December is almost here people.

Happy Marg?? :)

Thanksgiving at the Strattons

We all hopped in the van after young mens Wednesday and drove 7 hours to Laila's house for Thanksgiving. It was a long drive but so totally worth it. Just to get away from it all and be with family was so amazing and peaceful. All of us girls did a lot of cooking. The turkey turned out so great and it didn't last long. and Laila's sister in law Kari (sp) makes a great apple pie. I know cause they sent some home with us. I think she should post the recipe that she uses for pie crust here. Yep. Joshua is so cute! He smiled at everyone the whole weekend. All the kids played together, and the guys were in charge of taking the kids for walks while the girls cooked to keep them out of our hair. And they did all the cleaning up after dinner.
About the time we were supposed to be learving, Laila and I decided we had to go shopping at the Target racks. The whole weekend was amazing. Laila has the pictures, and should be posting them here soon!!!!!

Reminiscing

Sunday night, we had Sam, Emily and Emily's sister Natalie over to stay the night. All night long, Jeff and Sam told stories of their childhoods while Emily and I listened with the same question on our minds: how did ANY of you people make it to adulthood? Also, thank you Laila for sending Jeff's mission letters. It was really fun for the whole family to get a glimps into that side of El Jefe.

This is the fridge wall. Right now there is a laundry sink in front of the windows, but later there will be a window seat there. You can see there are two different colors of wood in the kitchen. The lighter color will be used all over the kitchen on top, except the around the stove. That cupboard will be dark.

Oh, my gosh. A real picture. Let us rejoice!

So here is that picture of the kitchen I have been promising Laila. Whew. I thought it would never happen. This is a picture of the kitchen from the dining room. On the front left there is a base that one day a pillar will sit on. Front right is a bar for the guys to play chess at. That was Nathan's baby. It has special drawers for chess accessories! In the middle is the island. Behind that to the right is the sink, and directly behind is the stove. The stone guy says the countertops should be here late next week? ???? ? Or Christmas. Whichever

Movie ideas, anyone??

Ok, the picture is just here for all of you to drool over--this was the entrance to our neighborhood yesterday morning. (You really need to click on the picture so that you can see it bigger.) The pear trees looked for weeks like they were going to have a blah fall, but at the last minute they've turned stunning.

What I really want, though, is some advice. (After you've drooled over the picture.) I like to try to give the LDS movie industry some financial support from time to time, so I want to buy some dvds for the kids for Christmas. So--any suggestions from you guys out there in LDS movie land? Any that you've seen & enjoyed, or seen & disliked? Help me please!!!

For those interested parties - Bob says we are ready to sell!
Actually, This is how we spent Saturday. Remind me never to hang wallpaper again, no matter how cute it is! I thought of Cindy and of Dad and Ramona all day while we were tearing off the wallboarder to paint the room all one color. Dad and Ramona hung the great Kinkade boarder and Cindy and Russ repainted the room last time. It was really an awful mess getting all of it off the walls!!!
Three generations of paing - the creamy greenish color was here when we moved in. We somehow managed to do the pink (??) and white, and finally, there is the tan color that we have loved. Just a bit of history!

Nightime bedwarmers

I know that you all enjoy my random stories here on our blog, so here is just another one to keep you rolling, or sleeping uneasily..... The tempurature has finally dropped here and we are pretty sure that winter will actually come. To celebrate each year Brent and I get excited and bring out our down comforter which he bought for me on our first Christmas. I have enjoyed it every winter since then. Well, last night was no exception.

Sometimes a little earlier in the morning than either Brent and I want to get out of bed I here Lilly enter our room and come and find the first parent who lets on that she has been heard. Of course, Brent never hears her because he could sleep through a tornado. Due to this, I often just pretend notto hear her and because I have done this enough times, she has learned to make her way over to Brent who is the one who gets out of bed and goes with her.

Well, at about 4:30 (much earlier than any Lilly visit) I thought I heard movement, and began my pretending. After a few seconds, I turned over to notice something on my comforter near my sholder and pushed the blanket away. IT moved to the middle of the blanket. When I noticed that it was a mouse I literally climbed over Brent exclaiming that there was a mouse in our bed, which finally woke him up. Well, I have nicknamed our nightime buddy "Mr. MOOSE." Was it a fluke that he was on our bed with us? Who knows. Anyways, after chasing him around our room for a while we put out some mouse traps and set out to get back to sleep...fat chance. Of course we kept hearing things. Then we turned back on the lights, chased some more, got some more mouse traps and then gave up and went to sleep together on our couch (not a couch bed mind you) downstairs. Well, when Joshua woke up, I went and slept on the extra bed in his room.

When I went back to my room to get ready to take a shower I found Mr. MOOSE sitting right in the middle of my bed, on top of my comforter. NO, I think it was no fluke. I think he decided that he too might enjoy our down comforter on these cold winter nights. Yuck. Well, I, in my masculine way, threw a skirt at him. LIKE THAT WORKED!!! He jumped off the bed and ran behind Brents dresser. Unfortunately for him there was just enough room to fit a plastic hanger behind the dresser, and Brent, who detests rodents of any type, but especially mice, took one mighty swing with the hanger and stunned Mr. MOOSE just long enough to grab him with some toilet paper and send him sailing...in the toilet. FLUSH!! Again. Yuck.

So, sleep snug tonight folks!!! I hope that this one mouse was just here for some warmth and not to leave posterity! Anyways..traps are set, house is clean, poison will be purchased, and we are ready just incase Mr. MOOSE's friends decide they would like a warm snuggle too.

P.S. The pictures are not of OUR bed, or of Mr. MOOSE, but just to give you a visual image while ready!

This is from a 12-yr-old boy in Houston

I hope I can get this to work. It's a 12=yr-old boy who called in to a morning radio show in Houston. You have to listen to it!

http://www.ksbj.org/eblogs/morningShow/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/logan-calf-story.mp3

My Goofy Kid

Ok, I know you guys are thinking--is she ever going to stop posting tonight? But it has been such a crazy hectic week and this is the first minute I've had to do more than sit down and check my e-mail!
I picked up Josh from school this afternoon, and somehow the conversation got onto people having babies. Josh said how much he doesn't like to think about gross things like people being pregnant. (Remember, he's 12.) I said how much I don't like to think about the fact that I had both Jason & Josh without any pain medication, which was really painful! He said oh, his teacher said that she had morphine when she had her baby. I told him I like morphine, because after the triplets I had a special 24 hour kind of morphine. Then he asked "So when they cut you open to have me and Jason you could just feel all of the pain?" I told him no, they didn't cut me open when I had him or Jason. I could tell he was puzzled. After a minute he said "So then how did we get out??" I wasn't even really thinking about it too much. I said "Well Josh, you got out the way Heavenly Father meant for you to get out!" It was very quiet in the back of the car. I could almost hear the gears turning in his brain...the realization of exactly what I was saying. And then he said "oh yeah--at the special cloning facility!!!"

Good save, Josh! ;)

Dad & Ramona at work again!

Dad & Ramona came for a short visit to do a service project for me. Originally they were coming to put up a tile backsplash for me (as per my begging on the blog a week ago) but I couldn't get tile as fast as they could come. I asked instead that they finish a project that CL & I had started before she left for school. I'd been looking at the light box in our kitchen for some time thinking it had to change. There were only 4 fluorescent tubes in there, which wasn't nearly enough. And the doggone box part was just so big and dark. Well Cindy Lynn egged me on and I tore it down from the ceiling (with just a little help from Russ) and then I cut it smaller and CL primed it and painted it all white. Russ reassembled it for us a few days later. We were dismayed to realize how far from done it was at that point. It needed to be calked between all of the boards and then between the boards & the ceiling and then the whole thing painted one more time. Once school started I just didn't ever have time to get to it, and it was really bothering me. Enter Dad & Ramona. Dad spent most of the day up on a ladder caulking & spackeling and painting and Ramona stood on the island to paint. Look how great it looks now! Thanks so much for your help, you guys!!

Fall in NC

For several weeks now I have been watching and waiting for fall to really come, and this week it finally happened. It has been just beautiful. On Wednesday I had gone out to exercise and only got to the stable before I saw a group of trees so beautiful that I had to turn around and come back to get my camera. I was taking pictures as I made my way back to the beautiful trees by the stable, all the while listening to “Redeemer of Israel” by Lex de Azevedo. (The soundtrack of my life recently.) I was pleasantly surprised to realize how much more I was enjoying the music as I stopped to take pictures along the street. I reached the trees by the stable just as the music was reaching it’s climax. As I listened I thought “wow, this music is even better than ever today. It’s somehow more intense than normal.” I was sure it was because I was so focused on the beauty of the world around me. I framed my shots while thinking that the bass parts were more full than I ever remembered hearing before—almost rumbling, they were so deep. And then, right as I took the last picture, a dump truck drove by.

Ummm…I guess that explains the rumbling bass!

A Little Self Confidence

So, I figured that someone needs to put something new on this blog every day or so, so here is my input. H is the most self confident kid in the world. Today he gets home from school, and with a smile announces that he wet his pants at gym class. "Just feel it mom, see." I did not feel it, but believed him. I asked what happened that he couldn't get to the bathroom and he simply said that he didn't think he would be allowed to go, I guess since he was in gym class. Well, I asked if he was embarrassed, and he said not, no one even noticed! He was as happy as a clam. Luckily gym is close to the end of the day. Anyways. I thought that this picture is a great example of the type of self confidence, self assurance that H possesses. If only we were all that way!

Because we could use a laugh...

I thought there were enough changes to warrant putting more pictures up. It looks like they will be putting in the windows (no more throwing rocks for my kids) and putting on shingles soon. This builder is worth every penny!!!

Crystal Garden

Ok, I will try to get another picture up soon! :):):):):) The final product!

but here is my website for it...
http://poster.4teachers.org/view/poster.php?poster_id=237066

Strange creature found in Park City

We saw some strange and amazing creatures in Park City this weekend. By far the strangest was the Savannawhatnonamous. We tried to capture it so we could get famous, but no luck. That extra leg helped it run away extra fast.

As for our blonde moment for the week:

We were driving down the highway in Park City when Bob and I spotted a dead deer beside the road. Leigh Ann, sitting close enough to have a good view, said "Aww, so sad, it's a dead Kangaroo!" Bob and I, once again, began to laugh. When I caught a good breath, I said "Leigh Ann, Kangaroos only live in" and before I could finish, she said "I know, Canada". Yikes! Perhaps I need to become a home school mom!

Just had to send some of the latest pictures of our

cute boy! He is really even tempered (see above) unless we decide to dress him up just for fun ( see left). Then he thinks he is being picked on!

I am really looking forward to the beach, but WAIT! - we left out girl's night out! Here are some pictures of the kids in the hotel hot tub and pool in Park City just to give you a reminder of how much fun we have there. It was not nearly as much fun with the kids as it is with my sisters/sisters in law - especially since Matthew was terrified to go to sleep in the hotel room (re: wake off and on until 1 am). The kids did have fun though, so I guess that is what counts! Anyone want to suggest a date for tGNO 2008?

Ghet-toes

Remember? They're going to be marketed under the name "Ghet-toes"! That way we can really connect with our target audience. And this summer, we can beging collecting for mass-production. So get your orders in now, everyone!

This is for Amber.

I couldn't get my pictures to line up how I wanted them to, but I just wanted to remind everyone of the beach, and start my product marketing for next years line of

"Lee Press-on Shells" or maybe "Toe Shells"

Make sure to take a good close look at these beauties!!! Yummy!

SAND, SURF, SUN

Family Beach Reunion

July 2008

Holden Beach, NC

ALL TOENAILS WELCOME!!!

Josh's Crystal Garden

For science in my new school we have to do a project to help us observe better. It is a crystal garden! I was really surprised how much they grew and how cool they were.

look at the before and after pictures (both after adding more solution.)

On Being a Watson

I have co-written a hymn with a friend of mine. He was getting ready to print a copy for me and asked, "Now you want it to say 'Cindy M. Ray,' don't you? I'm sure he was surprised by the quickness--and the intensity--of my response. I definitely did not want it to say that-- I wanted it to say Cindy W. Ray instead. I explained to him that being a Watson has a lot of meaning for me. (And being a Watson woman still more! ;) ) When I married Russ I took his name because I love him. But believe me, I am nothing like a Ray! I am sometimes envious of my sisters in law--that they bear the name I love. I am still a Watson to my very core. I am a Watson in my extroversion, in my passion, in my love of big family gatherings and the ocean. (And big family gatherings at the ocean!) I am a Watson in my love of the farm, my need to be right, and in my stubborn unwillingness to be controlled. I heard Rachel telling Jenna very importantly the other day "I pick up stuff with my feet because I am a Watson." Cindy Lynn wrote a lovely essay a couple of years ago on being a Watson, and if you want to you can read it here: http://cindylouwho2006.livejournal.com/2006/06/05/
Here's to being Watson. Not necessarily an easy thing to be, but always, (by definition) interesting.

Watson Thanksgiving?

Hey all, I was just wondering - is there any kind of Watson Thanksgiving thing in Utah this year? I didn't realize there was anything going on until the day of last year, and I'd love to come join you guys if there is...

Cindy Lynn

More on our trip to Utah

In answer to your questions:

Cindy Lynn, if you will be in Logan on Saturday, Dec 1, Cory is having his "Wintersongs" concert with all his choirs at Utah State thatnight. It's a must-see! It starts at 7:30 in the concert hall. I'm not sure if we'll be able to be there because we need to be in Genola early the next day for Evan's blessing. There is another concert, however, the following weekend on the 7th and 8th with his concert choir combined with the USU Institute choir. That is an annual production and a big hit with the Logan community. We will be attending that one for sure. Hope you can make one of them!

Andra,

We were planning to spend some time with you if we can park our air mattress on your family room floor downstairs for a couple of nights. We are planning to help with whatever you need us to do. My Dad is still in his home in Salt Lake, however my niece and her husband are living with him now and are pretty much occupying the whole house. We don't feel comfortable encroaching on their space. We also don't feel comfortable encroaching on anyone's space uninvited, nor on anyone's space who has invited us for too long a time. So we've got Andra on our list of places to stay for part of the time. Anyone else out there want us?

Love you all!

Trip to Utah

Greetings, All!

We are heading to Utah for little Evan's blessing and will be leaving here sometime the 28th or 29th of November. We'd like to stay unil Sunday the 9th or Monday the 10th, but we are concerned about where we will stay. Since my Dad's home is no longer available as a launch pad for us we need to find someone else who wouldn't mind a couple of old fogies camping on their living room floor for a few days.

We want to be able to visit with everyone, and will need to spend some time up in Cache Valley, but we're up for dibs on anyone who wants to give us shelter for a few days. Let me know if you're available for our visit so we can make our plans. Love to all!