Nurse Anesthesia School here we come!

So yes, Darren has been accepted to Nurse Anesthesia School in Naples Florida! We are super excited and will be moving in September. He will be going to Wolford College School of Nurse Anesthesia. It all happened really fast. Our friends Aaron and Katie told us that Wolford still had openings for this fall. Within the week Darren had his application turned in. 5 days later he got a letter inviting him for an interview. Less than 2 weeks later this is how our week went- Sunday- find out I'm pregnant! Monday- he flew down and interviewed. Thursday- he flew home. Friday- got an acceptance letter! Saturday- his 34th birthday. Sunday-Have a really big fun party to celebrate! We are really so excited and grateful.

So, here is the man of the hour with all of his nursing friends. We had a big birthday, and congratulations party for him. It was such a great time. It was tropical themed as we will be moving to Florida!

Yes, these are all nurses that Darren works with. Left to Right, Alex, Ryan, Candice, Aaron, Jake, Darren, Blair, Jesse, and Tim.

Some fun tropical cupcakes.

Parker, Blair, David, Peter and Paul

Paul, Marilyn, Katie, Lauren, Jake, Tim's lady friend and Tim

This is Jake and Lauren Lovekin, they just moved here from Idaho. Jake is also a nurse in the ICU.

This is Tim, and his girlfriend. He was Blair's mission companion. Also an ICU nurse.

Cute Michael DeBry

Alex and Mariam- Alex is a nurse in the ICU

This is Jesse and Lina. Jesse is a nurse in the ICU and Lina is a Nurse Anesthetist. She had lots of great advice for Darren. She just told him not to worry and he can do it! Thanks Lina:)

Oh, you should know who this is!

David and Marilyn and little baby Clark

Blair, wrestling with the kids.

Girls Camp and Morning Sickness.

Me with Justin Bieber

Joel and I canoeing

Ok, so yes, you have probably guessed from my post title that I am indeed pregnant! Yea! And yes, I also went to girls camp last week. And yes, my last post was posted at 10:30 pm the night before I went to girls camp. And no, I was not packed yet. And yes, I cleaned house till 1 am.
And yes, Morning Sickness has hit.
So, baby number 4 on the way! I am 7 weeks along. We are super excited, especially my kids! They are so cute. You know the movie Swiss Family Robinson? And the part where Ernest and Fritz find out that Roberta is actually a girl? And they are all like, "here, let me help you." and "here, take my hand." Well, that is how my kids have been acting lately. It is super cute. On Sunday, usually I carry all the bags into church. - Well, they all insisted that I don't carry any bags and they carry all of them. So, there we all went with no bags for me, and Kyle carrying one bigger than himself. And anytime we go anywhere they tell everyone, "my mom is pregnant!" from the checkout lady to our landlord to our neighbor. They are so excited! We will see how long this lasts. It really is fun having older kids. They are also super scared of climbing on my belly. Tonight I was reading a book and put it on my belly and Kyle yelled, "mom, you'll hurt the baby!"
Well, time for bed, so that's enough for now. But I have some other really big news that I will be posting tomorrow- so stay tuned!

Just for kicks...

Ok, just for the sake of my own curiosity, If you look at my blog occasionally- please post a comment with your name. I have had a few friends say they look at my blog and I had no idea! It makes me happy to know people other than my immediate family check out my blog. So just take a minute to say hello!

I love my kids

So last week Marilyn and I were going to go to a LDS conference at Southern Virginia University. It was all about family and it was incredible. Anyways, so before we left I was telling my kids that I would be gone for a couple days. I told them I was going to go to a conference on having a good family and being a good mom. They all looked at me shocked and discusted, all 3 of them said, "mom, you do NOT need to learn how to be a better mom! You are the best mom in the world! We don't want you to go!" And they were dead serious! LOL oh, well, thanks kids, it made me feel great.

Kyle also said a cut thing the other day. He said, "mom, your really pretty when you get mad. And cute" He must have learned that from Darren!

Happy 9th Birthday Paul

Paul's Birthday cake he made himself for his 9th birthday party with friends. I love to let my kids decorate their own cakes. It cost's a couple of bucks, and they love it. He did this one Star Wars Lego themed. I didn't used to love letting them do their own cakes. I used to dream of making my kids beautiful, perfect, cakes for their birthdays. But as I would make them they would always want to help, and I could never say no, I mean, it's THEIR birthday, and its THEIR cake. So I would let them help, and then it would become un-perfect, so I would just give up and let them finish. And by the end it would be perfect to them. So now, I just let them have at it. I love to see what they come up with. Paul made these Lego guys from Lego's he already had and put them on the cake for his Lego Star Wars Birthday Party. Some times I look at blogs with beautiful birthday cakes mothers have made for their kids and get the desire to tell my kids not to touch- that I am doing the cake. But I think I will just do a cake for my own birthday, and when they want to help I will tell them- you get to decorate your cakes, and I get to decorate mine:) problem solved.

Paul and Grace DeBry

Cute Kyle!!!

Paul LOVES star wars Lego's. I think Legos are the greatest toy ever invented!

Beautiful Ellie

Paul's birthday cake he made for our family party. Dinosaur themed. He just used some dinosaurs we already had.

Paul, making his own cake.

Yea, I know, need to buy some boy wrapping paper.

Paul, Ellie, and Kyle-my cute wonderful kids!

Notice how in all the pictures Ellie is hugging someone?! She is such a sweetheart!

We had a couple of fun parties for Paul's Birthday - a family one and then a friend one that we had 15 kids come for. I really wasn't expecting that many kids, but we had a great time. Except when Kyle went right up to Ellie and pushed her- so she socked him right in the nose, which led to a gushing bloody nose, which led to 15 kids freaking out! Then Ellie was crying and hiding because she was so upset thinking all the kids at the birthday party would think she was mean. It was pretty much a fiasco and could have been a great scene of chaos in a movie.

We did a pinata which is always a hit. Here is an idea for frugality. I have issues spending $20 on something kids are going to hit with a baseball bat and break apart within 24 hours of buying the $20 dollar object. So, in our family we decorate a Shoe box! And yes, I let the kids decorate the box however they want. I punch a hole through the top and bottom, put the rope right through the middle of it. Then I duct tape it closed. Walla, cheap pinata the kids can hit it to their hearts content. And I haven't spent much money or time on it. I also buy candy at 1/2 off after Easter for Paul's birthday.
Happy Birthday Paul! We love you!!

If you are afraid of Catepillers, DO NOT read this post!

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About a month ago we got invaded by catepillars. They were EVERYWHERE! and I mean everywhere. You could hardly walk up the driveway without stepping on one. It was insane! Alfred Hitchcock should have made a movie about them. Thank goodness my kids were not afraid of them, actually they loved playing with them. I think it kept them busy 3 days straight. Kyle gathered all the caterpillars up and put them in this plastic box so we would quit stepping on them and driving over them . Too bad he left them in there overnight and they were all dried up the next morning. Yuck!

Storm #3 The Mother of all storms!

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Well, 2 nights ago we got hit again by another storm. We weren't so lucky this time as we lost Darrens car. You can probably tell by the pictures it was pretty much demolished. We had a total of 4 BIG trees down, and 5 medium ones and a couple of small ones, so a total of 11 trees down around the house. We were so lucky though to not have the house or any of us hit. It was pretty scary- although it wasn't as long lasting as the other storms. It hit so fast and so hard, we didn't really know it was coming or what had happened till it was over.
It was Sunday evening about 8:00. Darren and I were down the street at David and Marilyns. We had driven seperately. Darren had driven his motorcycle and I drove my van. His car was left at our house parked on a grassy grave. It was on the grass because we had Pauls Birthday Party the night before and had a ton of cars in our driveway. It was the 1st and last time he ever parked there. As we were finishing up at David and Marilyns, some very dark clouds started to approach. It started raining a little, and Darren said he had better leave and get home. The rain let up a little so he went home. I gathered up the kids- but couldn't find Kyle. It started Raining VERY hard, and thundering and lightning and the wind was howling. Just like the other times. I thought maybe Kyle had already gotten in the car and wanted to get home as quickly as possible. So I ran out to my car, Ellie and Paul followed right behind me. The second we got in the car it was terrifying. The rain was so hard-the only way to describe it was like being in a serious waterfall. I couldn't see out the windows at all! Then it started to hail and the lightning and thunder were booming and flashing all around. I looked out the car window and saw a huge green branches outside the car where I knew they had not been seconds earlier. A 75-100 foot tree had fallen down right by the car. The rain and hail, and thunder were so loud I didn't even hear it! I knew we had to get out of the car, as I seriously feared it might get lifted off the ground or the windows would shatter, or we would get struck by lightning. I told the kids to run inside as quickly as possible. We ran about 15 feet uncovered and we were drenched! It was hailing too so it hurt a little. I wasn't to worried about Kyle, I figured he was still inside the house. We made it inside- but it was pretty darn scary. The power was out and I could see the huge tree that had fallen in their front yard. Then I noticed Kyle wasn't inside- I started yelling for him, feeling a little panicked when Ellie told me he had gone with Darren. She had been trying to tell me the whole time, I just wasn't listening cause I was, well, preoccupied. As we stood inside David and Marilyn's house Darren called on the cell phone and said a huge tree had fallen on his car and trees were down all over at our house. Thank goodness he and Kyle made it home within seconds of it hitting and stayed down in the basement. He didn't hear a single tree fall either because the rain was just thunderous! I think it was all over by the time we even knew what had hit us!
That night we prayed and thanked Heavenly Father that we were all safe- cause you better believe we were thankful!

Our power has been off and on constantly since then. Every time it comes on I run and stick a load in the washer, and start vacuuming! Our neighbors had their power lies ripped right out of their house and just got power today- 2 days later. Which is actually really fast considering all the damage around. I will post some more pictures tomorrow.

Tonight we had more thunderstorm and tornado warnings- but it missed us by about 15 miles.

The crazy thing is, that this storm was nothing compared to all the other storms across Texas and Missouri! We didn't make the news or anything. We live in such a crazy world. Now those tornado's in Missouri aren't even front page news, because of the one tonight in Kansas. Not to mention all the flooding in Missippi, wars in Lybia, Volcanos in Iceland and rember the Tsunami in Japan and Nuke meltdowns that just happened like last month? A year ago any one of these disasters would have stayed front page news for days or weeks! But they all get pushed back and forgotten cause something else is happening.
Just the day before this big storm, Darren said, "wow, there hasn't been a natural disaster for like 3 days. I wonder why it's been so long!"