One Month

He did it! Gavin is one month old. Isn't he a cutie! (I have more pictures on my blog if you want to see them) This is the best one I think. He's doing really well. And his brothers are just starting to learn their boundaries around baby. Yesterday Xander wanted to hold him so I set Gavin on his lap. He was so proud about holding baby all by himself. It was cute. Mikey has turned into my go getter. Anytime Gavin cries, Mikey will bring me his pacifier or his blanket. Such a good little helper. I love my boys!

Happy Birthday Terriann

Happy Birthday sweet Terriann. I don't know where the last 21 years have gone but I'm glad you have been a part of them. Hope you have an awesome day.

Pickles Pickles Pickles!

Saturday I went to Grandma Willis's house and I came home with a sack full of cucumbers for my family. Well Mom and Dad have been pulling enough cucumbers out of their garden so I ended up making pickles. That was the first time I have canned anything and everything turned out perfectly. I was so excited. I got 5 full quarts of pickles. Yummy.
At church on Sunday somebody brought a big box full of cucumbers. But these weren't your average cucumbers, they were HUGE. Like 18 inches long, they were hugecumbers! So i got 3, and got several more from mom and dad's garden and I did some more canning today. With one of those hugecumbers I got 24 pickle spears, and several hamburger slices. SWEET! (...actually DILL) Everything was successful again today and now I have 15 jars of pickles, 3 are small so I have 13 quarts of pickles. how rocking awesome is that! And it was pretty easy, just boil the brine and stick everything in the jar and close the lid. That's it. And now I have pickles coming out of my ears!

Bridal Shower

OK - Rachelle's shower is Saturday, Aug. 2, at 3:00 pm for anybody local that would like to come. We are having it at Jimmy's farm house - which is where Rachelle and Taylor will be living after the wedding. If any of you need to know how to get there, give us a call.

Sticks and Eyes

Thanks everybody for your prayers. Connor is doing wonderful! They put him on antibiotics for 48 hours once we got to St. Louis. The eye doctor in Bolivar told us we were in a very dangerous position and he needed to go by ambulance to St. Louis. We didn't have anybody locally that could take care of his problem. They did a cat scan and saw a lot of infection, etc. But nohing that looked like it could be a stick. So after 48 hours, they took him to surgery to drain the infetion and low and behold found a 2" stick behind his eye included with all the infection. They went in through his eyelid - which I can't figure out how - but that is where the incision is. They say once it heals all the way the scar will be in the crease of his lid and won't hardly even be noticible. I was wishing that they had done the surgery right off the bat, and his real recovery could have been started a lot sooner. But after reflecting on it, maybe there was a purpose behind that, that I don't understand or know about. We certainly have been blessed through the whole ordeal!

Connor's Eye

Shanell, Sydnie, Wes and I all went to visit Connor in the hospital today. Apparently the swelling in his eye has gone down...I can't imagine how but it was bigger. The doctor said he should be able to go home on Friday :)

Happy Birthday Julie

Happy, happy birthday Julie. We love you SOOOO much!

Pray for Connor

I'm sure most of you know that our little Connor is in the Children's hospital in St. Louis as a rusult of getting his eye poked with a stick while swimming in our lake. He is scheduled for surgery today (Monday July 21) to have the fluid removed. Caroll and Weston and Hunter have been with him in St. Louis but Weston and Hunter returned last night.
The "Bridal Bath" for Rachelle has be rescheduled to Friday Aug. 1. I know it is super hard for Caroll to have her baby sick and be away from home, especially with Rachelle's wedding plans, so remember her in your prayers also. It is a comfort to know that Heavenly Father is full of tender mercy and is aware of all that is going on in our life. I love you all so very much and that helps me know, on a smaller scale, of Heavenly Father's love for us.

The Chapman Family

I am sure that most of you know the sorrow that Justin and I have been through in the last month. For those who don't you can go to this website and watch this news brief. Martha is Justin's mother.

http://www.kspr.com/news/local/25490249.html?skipthumb=Y

Please cont. to pray for our whole big family we are still trying to come to grips with it all but I also want you to know that we have grown spiritually from it all. And yesterday when we were at Mom Chapman's we began to laugh again. I am so thankful for our Savior who has made it possible for us to have eternal joy after this beautiful and sorrowful life we have also been blessed with. Without Him or His gospel we could not get through this hard time.
I love all of you
Marie

A couple of pictures

I haven't posted pictures on here in awhile...so here are a some I took a few days ago. Life at our house is going great. The kids are healthy and happy, Garry and I are healthy and happy, and all of this makes me EXTRA happy.

She is very smiley. Pay no attention to all that stuff on the couch behind her. I don't know how it got there. :)

Little G~ is scolding me for not putting away the camera. He is DONE. "No more carmra, Mommy. All DONE."
Do you love that hat? He stole it off his dad and put it on himself.

Yes, they love each other.

Bored?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uxvXA8Aqh4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv3WrT-h9H8&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkLq1j1kOaU&feature=related

Sweet Success

You think gas is expensive, try spending 3 weeks on a go cart for a 10 minute ride. But they DID get it going and so far it is still going on its own steam and not with boy power.

Rachelle's Bridal "Bath"

For all of you close by - we are having a bridal "bath" (we thought a bubble bath sounded more fun than a shower) for Rachelle on July 22 at 6:00 pm at Lois Nothum's house. We actually did make invitations - but in case I don't get them handed out, I figured I'd post it here :) She is registered at Target and Wal-mart.

Are we having fun?

Family cook out and as you can see it was the family that was being "smoked"

The go carts won't go! But they are still working on them!...Jeff had to get a 2 week extention on his time here and you can bet it will be up and running by the time he leaves. If I know those boys it will be up and running and then down again before he leaves.

Happy 4th!

We parked outside of worlds of fun and watched their fireworks.
This is one of my favorite pictures.

Gavin Sun bathing.

Daddy Sure loves his boys.

Lately while Gavin sun bathes, the boys have decided that laying down next to him is a good idea. So here's our babies all together.

Katelynn turned one on July 1st

Happy fourth of July
going to granite high school to watch the fireworks!!

4 Days

Here's our sweet little boy. He loves to look around at EVERYTHING. He better be able to watch out with his brothers around. I just have to thank my mom for everything she's done. She's got Mikey and Xander at her house right now and I know they're a handful sometimes. Mom you really have saved me. And I can't thank you enough. I love you!

Fun Times

So apparently there is this Chinese investigator that the sisters have who lives right by the church. He was supposed to come to church on Sunday, but he didn't show up. So we walked over to his house, knocked on the door and asked his room mate if he knew where he was. He was studying or something like that, so we asked if we could leave a note for him. His room mate didn't quite understand what we were saying, so I say, "我們可以留一個字條給他嗎?" ("Can we leave a note for him?) He just looked at me, kind of stunned, not sure why he could all of a sudden understand what these white people were saying. Hehehe, it was great. It's probably one of my favorite things in the world to see the look on a Chinese persons face when they realize that I speak Chinese. It makes me smile. :-)

Happy Birthday Carolann

Happy birthday to another one of my favorite people. Hope you have a wonderful day. We love you,