Family Makes Everything Better

Marks youngest brother, Chase, has been working in Farmington for 3 years but his family has still been in Snowflake. His schedule was 7 days on and 7 days off so he would just go home those 7 days and it worked out for them. Well the first of the year his schedule changes and he is now working every week so he moved his family up here. They moved just down the street from us and are in our ward!! We really love where we live but we love it so much more now. Having family close by is the best. Mark just flat out told them they were expected at our house every Sunday for dinner and they sit by us at church. I love that! And it is just so much fun having little ones running around again. I even got to go toy shopping!! I am so thankful for family and family really does make everything better. This is Brenna. She is in Kindergarten and is staring T-ball soon. I can't wait to go watch her play.

Lilly is in preschool and only likes to eat bread, ribs, some fruit, and dessert.

Parker will be 3 in a couple of weeks. He doesn't go to school and will tell you that several times. His favorite thing to tell Uncle Mark is "Guess what? Chicken butt!" even at church. I love these little ones and love, love, love that they live by us!

Kace is 15!

Kace turned 15 on March 6th. It is so hard to believe that my baby isn't a baby anymore. Kace is just so much fun! I am so thankful that I was chosen to be his mom. I love him so much. He is so good and always, always, makes me laugh. He loves the gospel and honors his priesthood. He even loves to go home teaching!! (Thanks Nolan) What can I say I just love this guy to pieces!!! (i was going to say "this little guy" but he is now bigger than me) I hope he had a very happy 15th birthday. Kensie was in charge of decorations and she did such a great job! If you will look at the balloon bouquet in the corner of the picture you will see that they are Ben Ten balloons. Well...when we where picking out decorations they had these and High School Musical bouquets so this year we decided he would get these because he had been ten and now his isn't!! Next year ....High School Musical!! He thought they were great! Only Kace would appriciate our way of thinking.

Our family is just not big on cake so instead we did banana splits. It's a good thing he is full of hot air was able to blow out all 15 candles fast or he would of had banana split soup!! Happy Birthday Kace!

Home For Christmas

We have been so blessed to spend the last several Christmases at my parents. It is so much fun!! Christmas Eve is the best. Several of the family usually come and we have one heck of a party. It always starts out with an amazing mexican dinner and we eat til we can hardly move and then on to THE game. This game is super easy but a total blast. We call it the dice game. We have several tables set up. At each table is a pair of dice and one pen. Everyone get a peice of paper. Then everyone takes a turn rolling the dice. If you get doubles of any kind you can very nicely and polietly(yah right!) take the pen and start writing from 100 hundred to 0 on your paper. The dice continue going around the table and everyone keeps rolling. If a new person get doubles the kindly take the pen and start writing. The first one to 0 is the winner and you get a wonderful prize. If you have ever played THE game with us you know it is anything put nice and poliet. In fact it is CRAZY and a little dangerous!! We have been known to go through several pens and even a table. It is nothing for pens and even peoples papers to fly across the room. At the end of the night we are all tired from laughing so hard and we all end up with some super duper prizes. The rules of the prizes it simply that you have to either model or demonstrate whatever you get. There are a few favorites that must show up every year. Flarp is a must and the newest funnest prize is Silly String!! Here is my cute dad showing off his Clown Attire! Dang Hansome Man!

Kensie is all aglow in her Princess Outfit. It is so cute on her. Sorry Kensie but Uncle Derek was much cuter in his Ballerina Outfit last year!!

One of this years favorites were these very stylin Mr. McGoo glasses! Look at those two cute babes!!!

The Silly String is definatly the favorite. Mark and my Mom are the very worst. They are just Silly String Monsters!

Oh but they get theirs!!!

Kace made sure Mark got a good dose!

Kade needs to learn to duck and cover!!

Chrsitmas morning is a lot more quite but still so much fun. Our family loves our Stockings.

Kace is showing us how he mastered his back scratcher.

Kade is SOOOO excited about his new movie.

Kensie loved her sign that I am sure was made just for her. I know...Right?

Here is mom opening her gift from Liane and Me. We gave her a trip with us to see the broadway production of Wicked!!! Liane found that witch jar and put the tickets inside of it. Liane and her daughter Lanae, Kensie, Mom and I went to Albuquerque in Feburary and had a blast. I love Wicked!!!

Kace's Got Talent

Last week was Kirtland Central High Schools talent show. Kace (who didn't tell us) performed at this talent show. His act has found it's way to you tube! If you have a couple of minutes and need a good laugh go to youtube and type in Kace Dance. (I know there is a way to put a link here but I am not smart enough to figure it out, sorry) He is the new star at the high school! I often wonder where he came from because he is so much more fun than all of us but am so thankful he is ours. Our home would be totally dull without him!! When I asked Kace why he didn't tell us he was performing he told me he wouldn't have been able to do it if he knew we were there. Whatever!!!! Anyway I am very grateful for modern technology and the Sign's who recorded it so that I can actually see him. So check out my very talented son (I'll admit it he gets all his talent from his dad) and enjoy!

We'll Be Seein Ya

I am thankful every day that I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. The knowledge and guidance that it gives to my life is priceless. I don't know how I could live in this day and age and raise my family without it. However, I don't think I have ever been as thankful for it as I am today. I am thankful for the Temple blessings. Of knowing that families are eternal. That even though we might have to be a part for a little while it really is only a moment in the eternal perspective. So Poad, this is not a final goodbye it's just a "We'll Be Seein' Ya!"

Lincoln Sherwood

Jan 9, 1947 - Sept 26, 2010

Sand, Fire, Marshmellows...Priceless

One of the many things I learned growing up in St. Johns is that all you need to make a summer evening a ton of fun is a sand wash, the ability to light a fire, and marshmallows. These three things are part of many of my memories and I'm sure a few of my children's. This summer we invited some friends to experience the fun with us. Let's face it, it's always more fun to have little ones around and unfortunately my little ones had the nerve to get bigger than me. All of them!!! So thanks Matthew's for coming with us and sharing your little ones.

We learned a few important things on this adventure to the sand wash. I thought I would go a head and share them.

Flip Flops are NOT the foot ware of choice at the sand wash!

Smoke Bomb's at the sand wash are a must! They entertain kiddo's of all ages for an extended amount of time.



There is a talent to roasting the perfect marshmallow. Megan has this talent!!

Look it is roasted perfectly! I didn't take a picture of my marshmallows because I do not have the marshmallow roasting talent. My marshmallows all come out a very beautiful shade of black. Boy do they taste good!

We also learned there are many ways to eat giant marshmallow. ( I found these giant marshmallows at Alco and I must say they were my favorite find of the whole summer! They were just awesome.)

Kensie's method was to just put it on a stick and eat it like an apple. Good method and the least messy.

Brookyn's favorite way to eat hers was to just smash it. She made her smore, smashed it as flat as she could and shoved it in her mouth! Her way was my favorite way to eat them.

Tayli just enjoyed the hugeness of the marshmallow! She set her giant marshmallow between her graham cracker and very carefully nibbled away so she wouldn't smash it at all. This too was a good method but a little too time consuming for the rest of us.




Now Bryle really didn't care how he ate them, he just wanted to get as sticky as possible. This one was not my preferred way of eating them but he sure enjoyed it!

Draylon really didn't have much to do with the giant marshmallows he just went for the chocolate!! Wearing brown is one of his favorite things to do at the sand wash.

Look at that face!! This is how everyone feels after a summer evening at the sand wash.

I think everyone had a great time and made some great memories. I have a feeling this won't be the last memory making sand wash trip for the Sherwood's and the Matthew's. And it was so much fun to have the little one's and the big one's too!

Fun In The Sun

For Labor Day weekend we were able to go down to Gilbert for my nephew Kyle's wedding. While we were there we decided to take in a Diamond Backs game. We had a blast!!! It was our first time to go. If we lived down there I would go all the time. They played the Astro's and they lost. We still had so much fun. We invited anyone who wanted to go but it ended up just being our family and my parents. Here are a few pictures of all of us.

The whole gang (minus me who was taking the picture)

Kensie and " The Boyfriend" Jason (23, returned Missionary, all around great guy, stay tuned)

Kace ( you will understand his look in the next picture)

The Clone's (oh my)

My cute parents

Look, I really was there!!