I love to see the temple...

Brad went thru the temple on May 2, 2010. What an amazing "Parent Payday"!

I am so excited, happy, thrilled, scared, anxious, amazed, humbled for him to serve his Heavenly Father in Africa. I know he will be a great addition to "Gods Army".

THE DAY WE"VE BEEN WAITING FOR FOR almost 19 YEARS!

We woke up to this note taped to Brad's door. On my way home from running errands I stopped at the mail box to check at 11:30 if just by chance his call was here.....it was!!!! I took a pic closed the mail box and raced home. He was STILL asleep!!! COME ON!!! it's like Christmas Morning waiting for your kids to wake up!!
He finally woke up about 12:15
Me: "so do you want to go check the mail?"
Him:"do you think the mail has already come?"
me: "probably, it usually comes by noon."
him: "ok, lets go check."
So off we go (Brad, Spencer and I) with camera in hand to the mailbox. ( I had already told Spencer it was here...) He opens the box!!!!! It's here! ahhhhhhh!
He doesn't look too excited because the sun is shining in his eyes and he just work up. (But he was EXTREMELY excited! Just trying to hold the emotions in...
Me: so where do you think you are going?
Him: oh here! I don't know, maybe Chile?
Everyone who came put a sticky note on the place they thought he would be called.
NO ONE came even close! Not even him..

Spencer put the countdown on the timer.....
ahhhhh, too long till 7:00
The timer beeps at 7:15.... no bishop......
Calling bishop wondering where he is....it is now 7:16... everyone is dying

waiting, and waiting...........finally bishop is here!! we can start! (Brad loves bishop Layton like a father, he has been his leader since he was a little 11 year old scout)

He starts to read......Uganda Kampala Mission, English speaking but subject to change at the discretion of his mission president.

He was overcome with the spirit and emotion from the very beginning words. He had to stop a couple of times and take a deep breath to get thru.

Everyone gathered around after to see the map of his mission and congratulate him.

We had yummy root beer floats to finish it all off.

I am so proud of Brad for the amazing young man that he is becoming. I love that he is so excited to serve our Savior. I know this will be one of the hardest things he will ever have to do but I know he will come home a changed man. I know he has a strong testimony of this gospel and he will be an amazing missionary. How blessed I feel for being chosen to be his mom.

House for sale...

Our house is officially for sale. It was a bit of a shock for some of the kids when they came home from school. Even thought they have known reality has set in.... We are praying that a wonderful family is guided to our home.

Adventures of "Black Beard Bear"

Jenna was FINALLY the star student for her first grade class last week. She was the 2nd to last one in the whole class. One of the things that the star student gets to do is to take their "class bear" home with them and take him on adventures, then write in a journal and put pictures in about what he did while with them. Luckily we had some fun things that weekend or it would have been hard to come up with something cool.
First Black Beard went to Life with Jenna. This is where she goes for her different therapies. This is the carousel that is inside the lobby. It doesn't work anymore but is still fun to sit and play on.

Next we went to Redmountain High's production of Beauty and the Beast. Our good friend Mary Tuckett was in it. We really enjoyed it and the highlight was seeing the Tucketts! We sure miss living close to them! Mary did a fabulous job!

Black Beard also got to go to Jenna's Cheer class with her. See pics in last post. All in all it was a great weekend. We washed Black Beards clothes because they were quite gross after 23 other kids took him home, played with him and changed his clothes over and over. He has been on quite an adventure!!

Inferno Cheer

Jenna has been participating in a "special needs" cheer group sponsored by Arizona Heat. Their team is called "Inferno". They have been practicing each Saturday for a few months. All the kids on their team are special needs. They performed their dance and chant routine on Wednesday night and they did awesome!! Jenna is the "fly er" and she LOVES it! They have volunteer junior cheer assistants that help the kids do their routine. This is Miss Angela who works at LIFE and invited Jenna to join the team. Jenna had a great time participating and it was a good experience for her!

Thanks Angela!

Flower & heart straws for PaPa

Grandpa Manwaring recently had surgery to fix both of his knees. Jenna wanted to make something for him. She came up with the idea to make him straws decorated with hearts and flowers. She did it all by herself, even hooking two straws together to make it longer so that "papa" could drink while laying down. She made sure they would work by sucking on them and testing them out. Therefore, we told papa that we would just send him a picture of them instead of making him actually "use" them.

Get well quick papa!! We love you!

Sick girl Shannon

Shan has been sick for almost 3 weeks now. 2 of which she was down for the count! We took her in after the first week and they did a bunch of tests. The doctor thought she either had pneumonia or valley fever. After the antibiotics, she was feeling a bit better and the test results showed no on valley fever however the ex ray showed that she did have a spot on her lung. So here we are 3 weeks later, many Dr appointments later and feeling mostly better. She still doesn't have much energy but is doing OK.
One of her friends made her these cupcakes and brought them to her. How sweet huh?!

Sending in the mission papers...FINALLY!

Well, this Sunday they push the "send" button. He thinks his call will be here the next week....I am betting on two weeks. The papers have to be sent by Tuesday by noon to be in the Wednesday meeting that the brethren hold. Typically his friends from here in AZ have been getting their calls on Thursdays, so he is thinking he will receive his call on the 22nd of April. I am thinking it might be the following Thursday. We will have to see. They just recently changed the time you could send your papers in from 100 days to 120 days prior to your birthday. He was very sad that Pres Riggs was out of town for a few days or they would have been THIS week! In the priesthood session of conference there was a talk on how they select where missionaries are sent. Brad thought that it was so great!! I still need to look it up and read it. So here's to waiting.......

Happy Birthday RACHEL!!

Rachel turned 11 this year. Usually we only have birthday parties every 4 years (I know, I'm a mean mom) but since we are moving we decided to let her have one. She wanted to have the girls make a scrapbook page of themselves to put in a book so she could remember her friends so they each brought a couple of pictures of themselves and made a page. As each girl came we took her picture with Rachel then quick ordered 1 hour photos to be done by the end of the party. Then the party favor was a cute picture frame with a pic of Rachel and her friend. They all turned out really cute! Some of her friends couldn't come to the party so she is going to collect a picture of them so she can make a page of them too. It was a fun time.

Here are a few of them around the "pig out" center...

Here is the whole gang.Making their scrapbook pages...blowing out her candles (with a little help from her sister)We did her party the weekend before her birthday due to general conference. So here she is on her "real" birthday in between sessions of General conference. We got a call from her birth mother just as the afternoon session on Saturday started. She said..."hurry, my contractions are only 3 minutes apart and I don't want you to miss it!" Spencer took a quick shower (he had just returned home from helping someone move) we dropped our other kids off at our good friends the Tucketts and we were off to the hospital. Things slowed down quite a bit when we got there but after many long hours this little barely 5 pound baby girl was born at 11:35 p.m. just missing Easter Sunday. She was 5 weeks early so her lungs weren't fully developed so she was flown to another hospital and put in "NICU". There she remained for 10 days. It was great to finally bring her home. She has been a fun ray of sunshine in our family. Sometimes storm clouds move in but are quickly replaced with her cute smile. We are so glad she is in our family!!

We love you Rachel!!

Randomness

Jenna sporting Shannons "wig" ponytail. Shannon found this as she was cleaning her room packing. We had a good laugh about it. She actually used to wear it OUT IN PUBLIC a few times!! She loved it!
OK, so it was a few years ago but still!!!

Nice socks Michelle.....NO they DON"T match!!
Who knows what he was doing? You know Brad!!

Maybe dreaming of flying on the airplane to his mission?

It gets a little crazy here at our house. Here are a few crazy moments captured on film (well, digital)

Rachel's try for family unity!

Yes we must work together to form a pyramid.

Do Spencer and I look a little more red in the face than Brad? Must be old age.....

It was Rachel's turn for FHE and she decided we need more family unity. (I can't count how many of those kinds of lessons we have had) We played some unity games and then ended with a pyramid. When she was little she thought of a cheer to say when we were done with our family prayer. (imagine that, her thinking up a cheer? ha ha) We all put our hands together in the middle and shouted "Stick Together" we kept that up for a while but like all good things they fade sometimes. Oh well, try try again!!

Sunday Naps...ahhh

This is what it looks like most Sundays around our house after lunch...

You would think it would be WAY more comfortable in their beds.

Do you even see a picture of Spencer, Rachel, Jenna or myself? Oh no, Jenna doesn't know what a nap is, Rachel is too busy talking to take a nap and Spencer and I don't dare leave them unattended for fear of what could happen...

We're Moving!

It seems almost unbelievable after 22 years of living away from most all of our family to be able to move close to them. Spencer has been blessed with such an amazing job and on top of that he is able to do it from the comforts of home. He has worked for Cascade Microtech for about 2 1/2 years now and we decided if it didn't matter to them where we lived that we would like to move back home. So after prayer, fasting and such, it is finally a "YES" answer.

Here are the beginnings of packing up.... boxes EVERYWHERE!!

Doesn't Michelle look like she is having so much fun?!

This is what our garage looks like now with boxes needing to be filled, stuff to get rid of....

But at least the inside of our house is nice and orderly!! Now to sell the house!!