I'm 28 Years Old!!!

Actually I turned 28 on Friday, December 29th (yesterday) but I only had time to leave a blog post today. Here is a quick little update:
We left Hawaii two weeks ago to spend Christmas and the Holidays in Utah with my parents, my sister Leslie and her family. Since being here we have enjoyed the lights, the freshly fallen snow, sledding, shoveling snow and warming up to a fire in my parents family room. Christmas was wonderful and especially heart warming this year. Mark and I recieved a very special gift that really has touched my heart and made me grateful to all my friends and family who care about me and my family. I truly cannot express how grateful I am for such a Christmas surprise, but Thank You!!!

Since I turned 28 this year, and in this year, I have experienced many new changes, I thought i would list 28 things about me:

10 things you might not know about me:

1. I had another baby boy (my third)
2. I started taking violin lessons again.
3. Eventhough I claim I hate the cold, I miss the snow
4. I would rather be hot than cold
5. I really think it is fun to do aerobics
6. sometimes I actually need deodrant because my armpits smell bad!
7. I do not like books that are turned into poorly made movies
8. I own more pairs of shoes than years I am old
9. I will always feel like Pleasant Grove is my home
10. Although I love to workout, when it comes to actual sports, I SUCK!!! (I am the person you would pick last to be on your team)

10 things that I want to do this next year:
1. Move back to the "mainland"
2. Buy a home
3. Attend Mark's graduation from the MBA program at UH
4. Achieve my goal weight and keep it
5. Continue violin lessons until I move from Hawaii
6. Finish Theodore's baby scrapbook album
7. Get caught up in my scrapbooking
8. Remember my friends and family's birthdays (please let me know when yours is)
9. Read a new book every month
10. Make Candy at Christmas with "Tammy the Pecan Logger"

and finally, 8 things that I am the most grateful for:

1. Mark: although we have our ups and downs and ins and outs, he is my best friend, greatest support and confidant. He works so hard to make our lives better and he is always humble and willing to go the extra mile for our little family.
2. My family: This group of people always know how to give advice when I am in need and help when I am down.
2. PGWC: this group of women are truly inspiring, with a story each their own, I learn so much from them...they know I love them.
3. Diet Rootbeer: when you haven't had a soda in a long time, and you are trying to skip out on the extra calories, Diet Mug rootbeer really hits the spot.
4. Costco: whatever you are looking for, most likely they have it, and if they dont...you don't need it.
5. My Scriptures: I love to read them and feel safe, secure and at peace.
6. Shoes: because they come in every shape and size, and no matter how you feel about your body, your feet can always look fabulous.
7. Babies: Because my little guys make me feel so important and loved.
8. My Ghetto Van: because eventhough I have ran into many objects, she still runs and gets me to where I need to be.

Well, I am 28 now and that pretty much sums it up.

HOLY WHAT?!?

I just wanted to share this short little story that happened to my family today. Hopefully you will enjoy it as much as I did.

This evening Mark, the kids, and I went to see our Bishop of our ward (church). It is the end of the year and we thought that we would visit him. We all went over to the church together and went into the Bishop's office. I took him some of my mom's Pecan Sandies and I think that he enjoyed them. After our short visit with the Bishop, the Bishop asked George and Henry if they would like to pick a candy out of his candy jar. George and Henry jumped (literally) at the opportunity. George reached in first and grabbed an orange sucker, then Henry reached into the jar. At first it looked as if Henry was going to choose the tootsie roll, but instead he finally decided to opt for the sucker too. When he tried to pull out the sucker, his hand caught a few other candies and they too flew out of the jar, so Henry quickly ducked down under the Bishop's large desk/table and picked up the candies to put them back in the jar. When George noticed that Henry's sucker was still on the floor, George thought it was funny that Henry had to duck under the table. So George made up a little rhyme, "Sucker Ducker" Henry thought that was too funny, and he too decided to join in the rhyming. Soon Henry was saying "Sucker, Ducker, Pucker" Well within a matter of seconds, I will let you guess what the next rhyming word Henry said was...it begins with F and ends the same as the other words. Now it was obvious that Henry just thought this word was just one in a list of endless fun rhyming words, but as soon as the "bomb was dropped" I couldn't contain myself. I looked at the Bishop, who looked stunned and then to Mark who was looking awkwardly at Henry, and I laughed so hard that I thought I was going to pee my pants. In fact, I couldn't even say anything I had to just walk out of the room because I could not compose myself.

Family Pictures

We recently had our family photos taken by a great friend of mine, Natalie Norton. She has been studying photography for quite some time now, and she offered to take our family pictures so she could build her portfolio. We haven't had professional pictures taken since Mark and I got married and it was nice to be able to take family pictures somewhere other than Walmart and Target. (Not that I don't love my Target Pictures, but it was nice to be outside) Since Mark is a full time student and our financial situation does not provide the lavish lifestyle of being able to take professional pictures, I was so grateful to my friend when she offered to take our pictures. Not only would she not accept payment, but she gave us a cd of all our shots so we could print as many and what ever size we wanted. Here are a few pictures from our shoot that I absolutely loved! I feel so blessed by her kindness and she has given our family a truly special Christmas gift. I hope that I can pay her gift forward...
This picture really captures George and Henry's personalities.


I love this picture of our family in front of the Laie LDS Temple. It is such a beautiful, tranquil place.

George's Grand Christmas Concert

On Wednesday night we attended the BYU-H tree lighting ceremony which started with the Annual Elementary School Christmas Concert. Each grade level preformed a song with dancers and movements. Then all the grades joined together and presented a final number. In our little town that we live in, this Christmas concert is a big deal. Families and friends show up 1 hour before the concert just to reserve a seat in the Center. The concert is held in the CAC, which is the BYU-H large basketball center. I was shocked that the entire center was packed! George's class preformed an upbeat song about Blitzen the reindeer...I'm sorry I don't know the name. Here is George sitting with his classmates waiting for their time to take the mainstage and preform.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie....

I asked Mark to get the baby ready for church so I could get ready and this is what I found when I came into the bedroom this morning. Like father like son, two Sunday sleepers! I thought this picture was too cute to pass up. I can't believe that it has been 6 weeks since Theodore has come into our home. He is so sweet, mild mannered and cuddly. The boys have taken to calling him "Theo", I call him "Teddy" or "Teddy bear" and Mark just calls him Theodore. You are welcome to call him whatever you want. I just thought you would like to see the update in his development!

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas

For the first time in our lives, Mark, the boys and I spent Thanksgiving alone. Mostly this was a decision on our part because I was sick this week from Mastatis and I didn't feel up to a large group of people. However, spending Thanksgiving alone gave our little family a chance to really enjoy each other and be thankful for the blessing that we have. Mark and I spent the morning preparing a Thanksgiving dinner. Mark made the Turkey, stuffing and gravy, while I made the rolls, salad, green beans and mashed potatoes. We listened to Christmas music and the boys helped clean up the house. After our dinner George decided that we absolutely needed to set up the tree. We pulled out our decorations and Mark and the boys asembled the tree. After the lights were set, we decided we were all too tired to put the ornaments on so we cuddled up as a family, drank frozen hot chocolate (a little blender mix of mine) and listened to our Christmas tunes. Over the next couple days we fixed up the tree. NOte: George and Henry put most of the decorations on the tree, I just guided them and helped put the high ones on. Our quiet family experience this year really set the tone for Christmas this year. I am so thankful for our little family. I feel lucky to have two energetic little boys, and one sweet baby. I am grateful that Mark works hard at being a loving, caring father and husband and I am blessed to have supportive family and friends that I can always call at a moments notice when I need advice, help or just someone to chat with. Although the last year has been a great struggle for our family since Mark has been gone 16 or more hours a day with work and school in the evening, it has also made us appreciate our time together as a family. I know we are not perfect, but as a family we are working on being the best we can for each other. Thank you to all of our friends and family that keep in touch...we love you!!!

Its a Miracle!!!

Actually...not just one miracle, but 2 miracles and one crap shoot! Yesterday George came screaming into our bedroom, "We got him dad, we got him!!!" Yes, it turns out one of our sticky traps trapped a mouse. (Miracle #1) Notice that I wrote "a mouse". I was excited that we had caught the infamous potato eating mouse. My day was really picking up since I have been sick for the last 2 days with Mastitas (spelling?). So last night, Mark and I went to bed and I was feeling pretty positive about our mouseless living situation. I slept so good that I was shocked when I woke up at 6:47 in the morning...shocked because Theodore slept through the entire night!!! (Miracle #2) I have never had a better nights sleep. He slept from 10:30 last night untill 6:47 this morning! This night was the night that I needed it the most...the mastitas is really wiping me out. I woke up this morning with a smile. Great sleep, No Mouse, its a wonderful world. Unfortunately one of my miracles was quickly overshadowed. When I walked into the kitchen this morning the first thing I noticed was a half eaten potato! ugh...

By the way, thanks for all the great mouse insight. WE did seal the hole yesterday, so I do not know how the mouse got in last night...any other suggestions?

OH, for those who do not know, Mastitas (spelling?) is an infection in the milk ducts...if you breastfeed your baby, you can get this infection. It feels like the worst case of flu all over your body and the infected area is red, swollen, hot, and the most painful area on the body.

Mouse Hunters...

Over the last 2 weeks, Mark and I have woken up each morning to find half eaten potatoes or nibbles out of a loaf of bread that might have been on the counter from the night before. We came to the conclusion that we had a mouse problem. We tried scrubbing down every inch of the kitchen and only leaving out the bowl of potatoes, but the mouse kept coming and eating from the potato bowl. In addition to the eaten potatoes, the mouse correctly assessed which cupboard contained our food storage and then attempted to scratch its way into the cupboard.

Mark and I discussed the situation, and I opted for just hiding the bowl of potatoes every night instead of putting out traps...ugh I couldn't stand the sight of a half dead mouse in the morning. But Mark insisted that we get traps so we settled on sticky traps. Mark surrounded the bowl of potatoes in sticky traps, but after 3 nights he had no luck. Mark started acting fanatical and he cut up a variety of different types of food in hopes of luring in the mouse. Well, last night at 3am we were woken up by a loud plastic banging sound. It would sound out every 2 minutes or so and then die down. I quickly figured out that Mark got his mouse and it was trying to get away.

Mark lept out of bed and found a partially stuck mouse to one of his traps. The only part of the mouse that was stuck was its tail and one of its paws. While Mark was trying to figure out how to get the mouse in the trash bag without touching it, the mouse made its way out of the kitchen, down the stairs, into the and to the opposite side of the living room. There, a few seconds before Mark could pounce its prey, the mouse miraculously freed itself from the sticky trap and ran behind our T.V. hutch. Mark moved the hutch to find a large hole in the wall that leads into our next door neighbors apartment. Thus....all hunt and no glory.

P.S. This story might sound gross to some, but this is a normal everyday occurence of living in Paradise.

It has been 1 month!!!

I cant believe it has been a month since his birth. It seems like he has always been a part of our family. He is so sweet and I feel lucky to have such a wonderful baby. I just love every little inch of his baby body. Here are some snap shots I took of his body this evening. In the last month Theodore has learned to Eat, sleep, poop and pee on the doctor...hahaha.

What a sweet face and adorable feet.

Look at those long fingers!!!

More Halloween Pictures!!!

The weekend before Halloween we went to dinner with a group of our Laie friends. We dressed up in matching couple outfits and traveled to Kaneohe (30 min away) to eat at Ruby Tuesdays. It was funny to see people's reactions to each others costumes. My sister Rachel and her husband were Nacho Libre and the Nun and Mark and I were Elvis and Priscilla. I guess you can tell from our blog that we really like Halloween...or we just like to dress up....hahaha

Family Time

This weekend we decided to take some Hawaii pictures of our growing family. We drove out to Haleiwa and my sister took our family pictures and then we ate lunch with Rachel, Jason, Klailea, Rykell and some friends, MOlly and Trevor. We ate at a burger restaurant called KUAAina Burger! I was shocked with how good it was. We have lived on the North Shore for 1 1/2 years and we have never been. It was the best burger I have ever tasted. The burger was huge, but the best part was it had almost an entire avacado on it. If you ever come visit us in Hawaii, we will all go to KUAaina Burger.
Here is a picture of the cousins hanging out.
And Here is our family picture on the beach.

Here is Henry and George being little goons! Henry loves to make crazy faces.

Gimme Some CANDY!!!

If anybody knows me very well, they would know that my favorite food is candy, candy, candy. Sometimes I feel like Will Ferrell in Elf! Well, obviously now that I have kids of my own, I have really hit the jackpot on Halloween. hahahaha...just kidding....well kind of.
This year I didn't think we would have much luck because it was raining really bad, but about 4 in the afternoon, the rain let up, so we took the boys out about 5. While we were trick or treating, we met up with Sarah and Audrey (my cousin's wife and daughter) and Rachel and her daughters (my sister and kids). We on our second road the rain started to lightly drop and within 2 minutes we were caught in a full down pour. Luckily we were 1 block from Rachel's house so we headed back. But by the time we got back, I was soaked, the boys were soaked, Mark was dry...hmmm...but I managed to keep the baby dry. Unfortunately the boys only had gotten a little bit of candy, so after we dried off and changed, I let the boys do a few more homes. Literally we only went to 6 more homes, but I think they felt bad for the boys and so they loaded the boys up with candy! I think the boys brought more home this year than any other year! What a great come back!

Small, Dark and Handsome

Hello ladies, I am a small, dark and handsome young man, that is always looking for a comfortable place to relax. I enjoy long walks with my family and drinking. In fact, I drink a lot, but I am not the partying type, no, I enjoy a quiet night at home. My favorite hobbies include, sleeping, letting loose (bowel movements) and of course, drinking. My favorite places to relax and recline are on the couch, on the floor and on my bed. I am active and take time to stretch and enjoy my day. Some like to say that I have a "big head" but that is just relative baby body size and my relaxed confidence! If you are interested in hanging out with me, give me a call...or my mom, she would love to find me a good babysitter!!!

Happy Halloween!!!

Tonight was our ward party. I was lucky to find a bunch of costumes at a yard sale this past weekend...I was on the hunt for baby items, but I found a lot of great other things. I picked up George and Henry's superhero costumes for 2 dollars each. If you haven't guessed it, I am dressed as "Super" mom, and Theodore is my homemade pumpkin pie. Mark wasn't at the party because he has school in the evening.

Here is Henry showing his super power.


George loves his batman costume...here is a picture of him in mid air as he "flies" from the top step to the bottom.

Here are my two superheros standing on the small wall protecting our home.

Just My Luck!!!

On Sunday morning I was laying in my hospital bed when I heard a rumbling noise and the room around me started shaking. I sat straight up and yelled to Mark, "wake up, wake up!!" Mark jumped out of his pull out chair bed and grabbed the baby, we took cover near the hospital bed while items around us shook, moved across the room and fell off the walls. After the quake was over we were suprised by two more! At that time I lost it and started crying. My first thought was of George and Henry. Our home is on the north shore and we happen to live right on the beach. We tried to get a hold of Terra, my friend who stayed the night with George and Henry, but all the circuts were busy. We were worried about the Tsunami effect! For the first hour all the circuts were jammed and the power was out. A generator came on at the hopital but it couldn't sustain the AC so nurses were rushing around bringing fans to patients. We wanted to check out as soon as possible, but telephone lines were down and we couldn't even get out to the north shore (our hospital was an hour away). After waiting for hours, we were about to leave when the nurse said we had to stay in our rooms, A FIRE had broken out on the first floor of the hospital, they had put it out, but they had to do assessments and no one could leave! ugh...finally at noon we were able to leave and come home to a power outage home....no water, no sewer...no food!!! It was a crazy day, but we are doing ok now!

HE IS HERE!!!

Here are the shots of our newest bambino! I am sorry that it took so long to get up on our blog, but if you have watched the news lately you might have noticed there was a crazy Earthquake in Hawaii....that is another story.
Any way, Theodore Summerill was born at 2:23 am on Friday the 13th 2006!!! He weighed 8 pounds and was 20 inches long. Although he has the dark hair that George has, most of his facial features look like Henry. We are excited to welcome our little baby boy into our family.

ASK AND YE SHALL RECIEVE!!!

I have been wanting to go yardsaling since I returned from Utah, but because of Mark's busy schedule and our ever changing lives, I have only been able to go once. This is primarily because we live 1 hour from and decent yardsaling areas. I have been saying to Mark for the last few weeks that I would really like to save money this year and try to find most of the boys Christmas gifts at yardsales, and I really wanted to find a 3 in 1 playpen. Mark didn't really want to invest the time to drive an hour to yardsale and then not find anything that we needed, so I have held off and just kept it in the back of my mind.
Yesterday I just kept feeling like I would find what I needed if I went yardsaling this week, so I tried to find someone to go with me, but all my friends were busy, so this morning I begged Mark to go with me and he said ok. We went to 5 or 6 crummy yard sales, and we were about to give up. But I followed the sign to one more sale and guess what?!? They had exactly what we were looking for!!! I was so excited. All the toys in the top picture were brandnew, the still were in their plastic and in boxes! Then we found this great neutral color playpen! Besides these two items, I also picked up a few pairs of cute baby shoes, baby bibs, baby toys and tupperware (a must have in humid Hawaii). I have to say today was one of my best yardsaling days in a long time. I tell you what, the Lord answers prayers no matter how silly they are!!!

One Last Project!!!

I spent the last few days organizing my home and remodeling some of the furniture. This first picture is a picture of our bedroom upstairs. Our upstairs is a loft, but one side is completely open and the other side has a door and is more private: our bedroom. I recently bought the large Armoir that you see on the left of the picture and the padded white chest at the foot of my bed. I found a great posting on Craigslist (this is one of my favorite websites). A military family moved here from Maryland and found that their new apartment would only fit 1/2 of their furniture, so he put an add on Craigslist and I found it!!! I purchased 5 great pieces of IKEA furniture for only $180.00. The Armoir and the white chest were 2 of the 5 pieces, in the next picture you can see two more of the pieces that I bought: a tall book shelf and a hutch book shelf.
This second picture shows the open area of our loft. We have turned it into our office/scrapbooking area. Now with the new bookshelves, we have a great way to organize all of our stuff!!!



And Finally, this third picture shows the remodeling that I did. If you remember my old post, the white furniture that you see in this picture used to be black with a shabby chic finish. I decided that since we were so close to the beach and the carpet was so dark, I would paint them white and change my accent colors to blues and greens. I did throw in the red pillow because I love red!

Getting Ready for the Baby!!!

Only 3 weeks to go!!! Mark took these pictures of me after we got back from a morning walk. I have just a few weeks left so I decided to remodel some of my furniture and organize my home.