May?!!! Seriously?!!! That's the last time I blogged. Good grief I must either not have enough going on in life and need to be more exciting, or I have WAY too much going on in life and need to find some time to sit down and make this all happen. Either way four months is a bit extreme. I think I got into the habit of not posting last year through all the drama. So, it is time to break that habit and allow everyone in on the exciting things in our home.

I have no idea what even happened in June. The boys were out of school and instead of just four days a week got to spend a full week at a time with us. It sure was fun having them here during the day and spending more time with us.

July we went camping with the Fish family. The whole family. It was actually a ton of fun. While I'm not really the most out doors kinda gal, it was very organized and I'm pretty sure everyone loved it. The boys went hiking with grandpa and cousins. They went shooting, we went on Uncle Blaine's motorcycle and quads for rides. We had smores, and other delicious food. Besides being with my sweetie I think just visiting with everyone was the best.

August was quite full with school starting back up, Noah's birthday, Paul's birthday, a fast yet long road trip to Utah with all five kids for Uncle Blake's graduation with his Doctorate from the Y. It was fun for new cousins to meet each other. The boys had a BLAST with all the new cousins and of course their awesome toys. Truly it doesn't feel like a day went by with something going on. August really was a complete whirlwind.

To start on September, which appears to already be half over we were blessed with Paul getting and starting a new job. He is a physical therapy tech for a PT office that is at the hospital. He often comes home with quite entertaining stories of some of his patients. Of course Paul is always entertaining, I've been very blessed to have a man in my life that loves to make me smile. With Noah's birthday in August it was a special one with him turning 8 and we had his baptism the 2nd weekend in September. It was neat to see so much family from all sides there to support him on his special day. We all met up at a park after wards and had some dessert while the kids had a blast playing. September has also brought us one step closer in new home ownership. We think we might even be on the last few steps of the purchasing process. Our goal is to close in the next couple of weeks and start working on ALL the FUN projects that need to be taken care of to make that house our home.

And apparently I can't figure out where I saved all our pics from birthday and camping activities, so the above pics were Joy while we went to Seattle the first week of September. I'll figure it out but I gotta get this post done or it will be December before people hear from me again.

Random updates

So, I like to take pics, just like everyone else, and have found a bunch of just random ones from all over. I'm not sure how much sense it will all make, but here it is anyway.
Here are my two littlest ninja's, Noah and Slade

My boys out fishing. What's it called when a Fish goes fishing? You gotta admit, that was kinda funny!
Gross! I did not enjoy the whole worm part.


We told Joy we needed to go, so she ran to the room and came back with a bag of chips from the pantry, a toy, and two sippy cups. Talk about making sure she's prepared!
Slade loves the camera!

I always love the sideways shots, but hey for a 5 year old, it's not that bad.
DANG I love this handsome man!

May in the Fish house

I really do have every intention of updating the blog more frequently, then the question is do I just put all the recent pics on here, or do I do a bunch of little posts so people don't get overwhelmed. I never seem to know. So I guess I'll write and then add all the pics a little at a time. In the last month since I posted I made three different trips down to the valley. The valley means Mesa/Gilbert/Tempe for those not from around here. It's about 3 1/2 hours. The first trip my dad's family had a big preparedness FHE with tons of extended family there and we also celebrated my grandmothers birthday. It was really special to see my grandparents and take some pictures and see cousins and aunts and uncles as well. Aunt Heidi, was wonderful to let Joy and I stay with her and Tyler for the couple of days that we were there.
Aunt Heidi and Joy
Grandma's cake
Joy was quite certain this was Poppy. My dad and his dad sure do look a lot alike!
Grandma, Joy and I

Just the two of us!

The second trip down was with all five kiddos for a funeral, so it wasn't exactly a fun trip, but still time for all of us together which was nice. And our last trip down was for Paul Joy and I to head up to Puyallup for a little honeymoon and for Joy to have a visit with David. It was a nice trip for Paul and I. We enjoyed sleeping in, eating out, and visiting friends and family. Ryan had a birthday while we were there and we got to celebrate it with him. Joy even got to spend a little bit of time with her cousins, which was nice.
Uncle Paul with baby Nathan (Rich and Lorna's youngest)

Cousins playing together
Ryan and his amazing scooby doo cake made by Lorna, of course! She's amazing!
Super cute, all the cousins reading together
Joy spending some quiet time with Daddy!
Joy loved giving baby Nathan loves

Playing Pass the Pigs, it really is a lot of fun!
Joy got her hair done by Kim, a gal from David's ward, that has a MUCH better idea of what she's doing than I do. She did such a great job, so these were shots of her cute hair!

Pinewood derby, birthday, easter, fun fun fun!!!!

So we had Joey's pinewood derby last week. He is so creative and asked his dad to help him make his car into a shark. It really turned out amazing. It was pretty awesome to not be just a boring old race car and Joey did a great job helping make it look great.
This is basically starting
Joey giving Dad some tips.
Progress
Starting to take shape
Pretty stinking cool!
Slade is just a cutie. He was quite fascinated with this whole process.
Paul trying really hard not to inhale ANY MORE sawdust!
Time to sand it.
It's a lot of hard work.
Ready for some paint.
Joey is a hoot!
First color
Final coat
On to the details

We had Nicole and Bethany come up for a visit during Bethany's spring break. It wasn't terribly long but it was fun for us to have visitors and for the cousins to see each other and play. Joy is working on her consonants and really struggles if a word starts with one. So she kept calling Micah, caca. It was kinda funny.
Joy and Nikayla. Anyone know who is happier about this picture being taken?
Joy and Micah in the tub. Anyone would guess they are cousins right? LOL
Precious Nikayla
Joy loves doing this since mom does it. The towel just is quite a bit heavier on her than mama. It's pretty funny.
Now THAT is a lot of HAPPY! I loved this pic!
We had to get at least one pic of us together. Nicole, can I borrow some of that color, you look FABULOUS!

We also now have a teenager in the house. Holy cow Forest, I feel old! He had a pretty good birthday in my opinion. Steak for dinner, requested famous lemon cake from Grandma, which was pretty good, if I do say so myself. Pretty crazy weekend, working on birthday and pinewood derby, but it was fun.

A new wii game.
Now what the heck does he need a thing of bee-bees for?
Oh yeah, that's right, his LONG requested very own bee bee gun.

Slade has decided that he would like to be the family photographer so I included a few pics courtesy of Slade. At least he makes Paul and I look tall :)
Then we had a great General Conference weekend and after two sessions on Saturday we got to go to Aunt Kathryn's for a Easter egg hung for the kids. It was pretty fun.
Cute outfit Joy got from Grandma for Christmas that is almost fitting.
Come one mom, LET'S GO!!!!
Hanging with Aunt Bev before the fun starts.
Daddy helping Joy find the eggs outside. And as there were so many eggs, she sat down and started pulling the "grass" out of her basket. I said, no Joy leave the grass in and she responded "No mom, no grass, more egg" I almost died laughing.

It truly was that exciting for her almost every time she got an egg!