Everything Hits at once

Sometimes I wonder why everything has to hit at once, is it to teach us patience or if that is the way life goes.

Anyways this last 2 weeks has really taught us patience, if that is the word you could use.

4 days before Blake's week vacation started ( he had a week left to use before July 1st when his new vacation starts, if he does not use this week he loses it, not worth losing so he took it) his car just decided to stop in the middle of the road while he was driving it. Go figure right! Well he started working on it over the weekend and on his 1st day of vacation he worked on it and decided he could not fix it. The timing belt broke and blew the engine. How nice........ He towed it to Blackfoot to have the place be bought it from look at it. They said they could fix it for $1,000.00 WOW. Blake and I have always owned Honda's and have never had any of them break down to where he could not fix them, so I guess 1 out of 14 years is not bad, but unexpected. We have been in the process of refinancing our home, it has been over a month of waiting they keep telling us oh next week, or in a couple of days and then something else needs to be evaluated. Our home appraised for enough for us to build a garage ( we are so excited) and now we have to pay $1,000 to fix the car. I hope we have enough for the garage.

And then my dryer was making a noise so Blake tour that apart on Thursday and came to the conclusion that a fan is broken ( that would be why i have to dry my clothes at least 3 times) and needs to be replaced. $30 for a new one. So I am hanging clothes up all around my deck and home, it kind of looks like white trash. How embarrassing. OH well!

Sometimes I just want to scream, Blake keeps telling me it could be worse, I guess he is right about that but still frustrating at this moment. So instead of enjoying his vacation much he has been trying to fix everything that needed fixing or done around the house. Bless his heart, my house was even clean when i came home from work. What a gem he is.

I guess I will keep him around as well. :)

I think I will keep him around for a while :)

The other day just out of the blue Jordan came up to me and gave me a hug.  I would have fallen over if he were not hugging me and holding me up at the same time.  It just seems that since he turned 13 he does not like to show affection much, and that is ok, I have given him his space but have still told him daily that I love him and appreciate him( even if some days he is not easy to love)  So for him to come give me hug MADE MY DAY.

Well on Wednesday this week, I already told you that i had a house full of boys all week.  I had to work everyday on so on Wednesday when i came home my house was a little unkept.  I could tell everything they ate, it was all over the table and counter.  So I called for all 4 boys to come to the kitchen and fast, so in they came i started by asking them what color I was?  They looked at me like I was stupid and answered white, so i said so why should i have to clean up your mess? How old are all of you?  they answered, and so it went.  Well Jordan just finally looked at me and said Mom are not feeling loved, do you need a hug?  I could not help myself from laughing, he gave me a big hug and said do you feel better?  Yes actually I do, I responded it's just what I needed.  But just between us, I think he needed it more then me!  ha ha. yah right! 

This is why i have kids, boys actually, it makes being a parent worth every thing we go through. I do have a feeling that it will get worse until about ---------- well heck his dad is 33 and still difficult so who knows.  jk

Why I only have 2 boys!!!!

Well this week has been interesting enough.  Every year firth high school's boys basketball coach puts on a camp for 3rd-8th grade boys.  My sister lives in Star Valley Wy. and has 2 boys close to the same age as my boys.  So every year she sends her boys to come and stay with me to go to the camp, and it was this week.

It is not so bad during the day as all the boys are at camp all day long until 4 pm.  And then usually they have baseball every night to keep them even more busy and gets them really tired, or so I thought :)  This week went relatively well until the rain set in and cancelled all the baseball games, then i had to think of what to make for dinner or how to entertain them :(

Well Wednesday night my brother called and asked if his son could stay over as well, I said sure why not.  I had 5 boys stuck in my small home on a rainy night.  What to do?  So Blake decided we have a movie night, they picked Open Season, if you have not seen that you need to watch it.  It is so funny, those boys (even Blake) laughed and laughed.

Anyways the moral of my story is, I have not picked up more dirty underwear or socks in my entire life! and my house stunk so bad and I cooked more food to feed any army or so I thought again! But i hope they all had fun, and enjoyed their stay at the Chapman Hotel. My house is now quite and semi clean and smells like lemon.  AHHHHH!

I love that my nephews love coming and staying at my home.  It is fun and good memories.

love you all!

lots of fun on Memorial Weekend

What a weekend! Earlier in the week my Dad turned 70, all of us kids just called him and acted like no big deal.  Well on Saturday we threw him a surprise party.  His younger brother and sister came from Utah to be in on the surprise.  And surprise it was,  my dad has never had a surprise party before and he was so excited and grateful. We all had a good time and yummy food.

Here is Jordan and Kiel with their grandpa.

On Monday we kicked off the Summer with our annual Chapman hot dog roast.  It was nice weather and lots of yummy food.

Here is a picture of my mothers headstone.  Every year my dad buys a new precious moments and glues it on her headstone in remembrance of her.  She collected precious moments so he decided to continue it for her.  No one has ever bothered them to took any off.  It is so neat and something us kids look forward to every year to see what one he picks  every year.  this year was for the boys.  It is neat, and the grandkids love it.

He is 70, boy he does not look it or act it. This year on his birthday he was finishing a big job of concrete.  Do you know anyone who is 70 and still does concrete work?  AMAZING!

This is everyone (almost) who showed up for the grand event. On Sunday morning Dad and Chris made dutch oven breakfast for everyone and then we went to the grave.  So we were busy all weekend.  It was fun.  We love everyone and thanks for making it a great weekend.

KARISSA'S GRADUATION DAY

SHE DID IT! Congratulations  Karissa............ She is absolutely beautiful.  We were lucky enough to be able to attend my nieces graduation.  And it turned it nicely and it was fast 1hr and 5 min.  WOW! 
Katie and Liberty having fun at the graduation.  Liberty and Karissa share the same birthday.  May 28th Liberty will the BIG #1 and aunt Karissa will be the BIG 18. and gets to go to
Romania to spend time with her dad.  What a graduation gift.

have fun Rissa, we love you!

Kiel's baseball game

Oh how I love baseball season, except for the weather that is.

Here is Kiel's 1st game of the season. Blake was lucky enough to have to umpire this game so he could watch Kiel play.  Kiel got to pitch to close the game, and close he did.  He got 3 up 3 down.  Blake was a little nervous because he did not want to look like he was favoring Kiel but, no problem with that this kid of ours can throw and has good aim.  He was so excited, he struck out one of his good friends that is pretty competitive with Kiel. They won the game.  GOOD JOB BUD!

Busy May

Wow What a busy  Month May has been so far, it will only get crazier this next week for us.

Mother's day was just another day, good thing I have an amazing grandmother that makes it special for all of us moms.  She always goes all out.  We had a big dinner, yummy dessert, good company and Blake doing the cleaning and dishes ( I had to post a picture so you all would believe me, and I could remember it always ). My nieces Katie ( and her daughter Liberty ) and Karissa came and joined us, it was nice to visit with them.  Liberty is just so cute, and fun it was a nice visit.

Blake bought a new toy, as you can see it kept him and the boys occupied for many hours the other day.  Then it was time to re-paint the basketball court.  This year Blake wanted to add the jumpman symbol to it, so he spent some time to cut it out and paint it on the court.  It was a nice finish!  Mylie ( our cat ) decided it wanted to add to the finishing touches and so we have some paw prints on our court.  I am sure you know how that made Blake feel!

blogging has become boring........

For some reason everyone has gone to facebook and has forgotten about staying in touch through blogging.  I for one love blogging and check everyones blog for updates only to be rebuked.  

Life around the Chapman's has gotten crazy.  Jordan has started Babe Ruth baseball and has practice every night from 6:30-8:30.  So I kind of enjoy 2 hrs  a night to myself.  Blake coaches and Kiel goes with them to play as well.  I have kept myself busy with working out, reading and cooking dinner.  But none the less it is down time for me.  :)  Love it!

Kiel has started baseball as well but he has practice after school.  I can not wait for their games to start.

IT SUCKS, MAY I ADD SUCKS! Having new neighbors.  I keep (after 2 months) looking across the street looking for Deonne to be outside mowing or working in the garden, and all i see is a bunch of old trailers, junk, trucks, junk out in the yard.  It is not fun.  And no one to talk to.  I guess Blake and I will become hermits again.

 Jordan is getting excited for the end of this month he gets to go to The Grand Canyon with my Dad and his 3 cousins for a week.  he is nervous and excited.  He is not looking forward to the long, long, long drive in the car but looking forward to being with his grandpa and cousins.

And also about school almost being out for the summer.  Ugh, but I am happy for them, they need some fun times ahead. 

HAPPY FRIDAY!  HOPE YOU ALL HAVE A GOOD WEEKEND.

A teenager in the house!

Wow, where have the last 13 years gone!  I can not believe Jordan is  13 years old already.  I have a teenager, I believe I will be in denial for the next 5 years at least. 

Jordan I believe had a good birthday.  He has decide again to change the colors of his room.  He now wants to do North Carolina colors. So I will be painting his room again!  He got a NC trash can filled with his favorite, HOT CHEETOS from his aunt Melaine. He got money, Nike clothes, and a gift card for ITUNES and mom and Dad gave him a IPOD video nano, North Carolina Championship shirt, and North Carolina banner.  I would say he had a good birthday.  Oh yah and Kiel gave him his favorite candy bar COOKIES AND CREAM HERSEY.  

I can not believe how time flies while your raising kids!

Here comes Peter Cotton Tail..........

Playing games at Grandma's. Courtney discovered how to blow the middle of an egg out of it's shell without breaking the shell.  Then they decided to play blow the egg around on the table.  I have no idea what to call a bunch of people sitting around a table blowing an egg around!  Any ideas?  Oh well it looks like they had a bunch of fun. Jamie and Aaron came down from Rexburg for the day, it was fun to spend the day with them. $5.00 Oh Yah......

Jordan found his animal

Kiel loves reeses peanut butter cups

Jordan is a closet eater!

Don't tell Mom you found me

eating chocolate in the laundry room!

Happy Easter!  Luckily the Easter bunny hopped on over to our place Saturday night.  We didn't think he was going to make it.  The boys were up until about midnight.  But SURPRISE! he made it.  They were lucky with a $5 bill in their basket and lots of candy. We spent the day over at Blake's grandparents. His grandma Loraine had surgery on her back on friday, so we brought her dinner on Saturday night and on Sunday we cooked and cleaned so she could rest and relax.

We had dinner and then hid the easter eggs for the kids.  They also had a stuffed animal for each of them that they had to find.  Jordan had more fun helping the little boys find their eggs and stuffed animal, and Courtney had fun finding Jordan's stuffed animal for him that we hid harder for him!  Oh well they all had fun, and got lot's of candy.

I found my stuffed Froggie!

My trip to Vegas

My trip to vegas was long but worth it. We left friday morning from Salt Lake at 7 am. It rained or snowed the entire way.  It should have only taken us 6 hrs to get to vegas and it took us almost 71/2 hrs. It was crazy, I am glad I was not driving.  We stopped just outside of Saint George at In & Out burgers for lunch.  That was kind of fun, they were yummy. Friday night was the wedding at the Luxor.  It was a beautiful wedding and Shylee looked so beautiful and happy. Afterwards we went on an interesting drive all around Vegas trying to find the reception area, the directions they gave us were totally wacky, and we were following Travis ( the brides father) and were completely lost it was horrible, but kind of funny. The dinner was very yummy, and lots of fun.

We left the reception and went and walked the strip until about 1am our time in Idaho. It was so cold

and windy my face was frozen.

On Saturday we got up early and started our way down the strip again. We had a yummy breakfast

at the Rainforest in the MGM hotel, were Thayne won $50 on the slot machines, that was a blast!

We totally wore ourselves out on Saturday, we walked up and back and through almost every hotel and shop

We were so tired we did not make it back at night to watch all the shows at Treasure Island or the Volcan

show we did catch the water show at the Belligo that was so beautiful. We just had lots of fun.

Talia and I got our picture with some strippers from the " American Storm " and they gave us free tickets

to their show for that night. Talia I thought was going to faint when she saw these guys on the street

she stopped me and showed me them, I asked her if she wanted her picture with them and she,

no kidding could not even talk to me, she was stumbling her words. So i asked them for her and they said

sure. When they put their arms around her, the look on her face was so funny. It was worth it.

I wanted to go to the show but she would not go with me, what a party popper she is!

Luckily the drive home on Sunday was nice weather. It took us 10 hours, I am beat

Happy Birthday to me!!

It was a good day. Kiel got right up and wished me a happy birthday with a hug.  He is such a sweet little boy. I told him I was going tanning and would be right back, he was so excited because he wanted to make me breakfast.  Gosh now i was excited, so I hurried  home, when I got back he made me a fried egg, toast and a glass of milk, he also made Jordan breakfast as well and he cleaned up the mess. Then later on I surprised them with the news that they get to make my birthday cake for me.  Needless to say Kiel was thrilled, while Jordan not so much.  But he did a good job and it turned out nicely, and yummy.  Strawberry shortcake, yummy!  Blake called all his family and my dad, Chris, Thayne and Kade showed up as well.  It was a goon day.  I got lots of money to spend in Vegas and a full body massage coming from my hubby ( the best gift ever, if I ever receive it ha ha).  

The boys making my cake and eating the batter as they go.

Jordan mixing up my birthday cake against his wishes! But he was sweet to do it for me.

Oh I just love birthdays, aren't these just beautiful? 

These flowers were given to me by my visiting teachers from my church.  Oh my goodness they are so beautiful and smell up my whole house.  I love tulips!  I just hope I do not kill them, if you know me at all you will know I do not have a green thumb.

I leave for Salt lake in the morning, and then leave for vegas on Friday morning, the nerves are setting in.  I hate leaving my family behind and it is soo far to go.  I know everything will be alright but as a mother I get nervous.  But I am a little excited it should be fun.

VEGAS HERE I COME!!!

Only 9 days until I am in Vegas for my 1st time.  And only 6 days until my birthday.  Holy Cow! I think I will be 31, I am an old girl!

 I am going to Vegas for my niece's wedding on April 3rd. I am riding with my Dad and Mom.  Blake is unable to go do to his vacation days.  So he told me to just go ahead.  My brother Thayne is riding with us and Tanya and Talia (both my sisters) are meeting us in Vegas.  It will be a fast trip but fun.  I am really excited, but disappointed Blake won't be with me.  

SPRING INTO ACTION! DO SOMETHING FUN FOR YOURSELF TODAY AND POST IT ON YOUR BLOG.

Normal life, What is that?

Well basketball is finally done. Blake says we can finally go back to our normal lives, and I asked him if he remembers what that actually is, his comment was "not really but I do know it is boring".  Well there you have it, that is our lives.

 Jordan and Kiel both had basketball tournaments this last week end.  Jordan had a 7th grade tourny. in Shelley that Blake helped with. They didn't do too well but had lots of fun and a great experience for next year.

Kiel had a tournament in Firth for 5th graders and since he is only in the 4th grade they wanted him to play up, so we let him.  His team went undeafeted and he had so much fun, he is just more excited that they beat Shelley (our biggest rival ). So with these two boys we spent all night Thursday, Friday and all day Saturday watching basketball.  We are officially sick of it.  You all probably never thought that was possible.

Well unlucky for Blake he has been asked to coach the 7th grade Babe Ruth baseball ( like he has every year), so he has this week only off until baseball starts next week. I do not think we ever get a break from sports.  The head high school football coach came and asked him to coach the 8th grade football for this coming fall.  That is one sport Blake has never had anything to do with, and told him so hoping he will get out of that one.  GOOD LUCK!

Any way we are off to baseball season in one week, Kiel will start in about 1 month.

Happy Spring to all of you!!!!!

Vacation, Vacation, Vacation

Okay, so my home goes from being loud, messy, and full to being quite, still, empty, clean, and lonely this week.  Blake and the boys headed out yesterday morning to Boise for Firth State basketball until Saturday night.  I stayed home to work and relax. (how stupid of me) I am walking around my home thinking what should I do, maybe i should clean out drawers or closets, or maybe cupboards, or maybe sit down with a good book and relax.  Well reading won of course, why should I clean when they are off playing and eating out. Am I right or am I right?  I feel like I am right.  Maybe the house will get clean by Saturday night, maybe!

Have a happy go lucky day, and do something crazy today:)

Love, Laughter, and a full house

What is better then a full house of family? Nothing! So, with a full house this weekend, we sure had a lot of love and laughter in-side these 4 walls. 

My brother Troy and his wife Lacey flew home from Romania  (he is working for Dome tech.and is stationed In Romania for about 1yr.) for 2 weeks to visit with family and see Troy's kids, so my little sister Talia and her family came to town to see him and they all stayed at my home this weekend.  It was sure fun to visit with all of them.  We watched movies, played games, ate lots of food, told stories and  barbecued steaks (they were yummy & juicy). My brother Travis celebrated his 40th birthday on Saturday, we tried calling him and he was gone to work, we were going to let him know we were not able to celebrate with him (cause he lives in Arizona) but we were defiantly celebrating his birthday eating steaks, and thinking of him. 

Any ways we had a fun weekend, and we were so happy to be able to see Troy, Lacey, Talia and Matt. On Sunday Dad and Chris had everyone over for dinner and to give Troy and Lacey their Christmas present's.  Again yummy food!  Saturday our neighbors officially moved to Idaho Falls.  We feel so bad we were unable to help, do to all of our company but we do love them dearly and will miss them.  So all of you that are just dying to move to Firth, the house across the street is for sale, I know all of you would love to be neighbors with the Chapman's! haha!

I love a house full of giggles and love!

Kiel turns the big #10

Kiel celebrated his 10th birthday on the same day Michael Jordan celebrated his 46th. Yup, thats right, Kiel and Michael have the same birthday, and there is not a year that goes by that Kiel likes to remind his older brother of this fact. This was actually the 1st year Kiel has had to go to school on his birthday since kindergarten.  Since presidents day is the day before he has always missed school.  He is in the 4th grade this year, and I felt so bad for him, he called me when he got home from school and I asked him how his day went and he said" just like any other day", and I said "Oh how is that?" "nothing great happened today!"  I asked if anyone said happy birthday or anything, and he said "no, no one knew it was my birthday, they could care less"  I felt so bad for him I almost started crying for him.  But come to find out for some reason they sang to him on Friday, why?  I have no idea. Oh well he survived it.

Here are some pictures of Kiel opening his presents with the Chapmans. Here he got a Chris Paul jersey, high school musical 3 ( he does look a little overely excited about this one), he got pistachios from great grandpa-ma Chapman,(he tells us they are his favorite), and he got lots of money as well as candy.
 

Here he got a tiger from Grandma-pa Chapman with a gift card hooked onto it.

He got NFL fantasy football monopoly game from Grandpa-ma Potter.  they could not make his party that night so they dropped off his present.  Here we are playing it as a family, we had so much fun that we played it for 3 hrs on sunday night.  We are hoping we played it right! It was fun!  So he tells us he had a good birthday.  He ended up with $65, we asked him what he is going to do with it (since he has his fathers mentality, if he has it, he spends it without thinking about it) he says he is saving it for Boise.  Blake and the boys are going to Boise next weekend for Firth Boys State basketball with my dad (grandpa Potter) again this year.  They had so much fun last year, that they are going back again.  So Kiel wants to save his money for that. Some times they do surprise you!  I just can't wait to see what he brings home from Boise, that he bought with his own money.  Remember his Dad is going with him!  This should be interesting to see.

What I want to be when I grow up!

Okay, are you checking your childrens homework?  Well after seeing this, you might want to start checking it more closely. My sister-in-law posted this on her blog and I thought it was too funny not to post on mine. Kids' minds are amazing!  HOw funny!

when asked to draw a picture of what they wanted to be when they grew up, second-grader "Sarah" turned in the lovely drawing shown below. Needless to say, the teacher was a bit surprised -- Mrs. Smith had always seemed like such a conservative woman. So she sent a note home to the girl's mother asking for clarification as to the picture's meaning.


(Here's the reply the teacher received the following day)

Dear Mrs. Jones,

I wish to clarify that I am not now, nor have I ever been, an exotic dancer. I work at Home Depot and I told my daughter how hectic it was last week before the blizzard hit. I told her we sold out every single shovel we had, and then I found one more in the back room, and that several people were fighting over who would get it. Her picture doesn't show me dancing around a pole. It's supposed to depict me selling the last snow shovel we had at Home Depot. From now on I will remember to check her homework more thoroughly before she turns it in.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Smith

What have the Chapman's been up to?

Well we have been pretty busy doing a whole lot of nuttin. Both of the boys are still in basketball and having lots of fun. They both had reports going at the same time.  Jordan had to write one on John Quincy Adams, and thank goodness we are done with that one, and he had to make a stupid puppet of him. How stupid is that?  Kiel has one for Idaho History due next week.  So I have been really busy helping both of them get their reports typed and written so they make sense and readable ( that is a bigger job then you think, try reading Kiel's writing, let alone Jordan's ). Kiel has had a lot of fun the past week at school.  He had all in one day a Valentine's party, 100 days of school party where they watched The Fox and the Hound, and cupcakes for his birthday, all in 1 day.  Wow, what a day!  I will post pictures from Kiel's birthday tomorrow when I down load pictures.  So stay posted.

Jordan had his first school dance last friday, WoW, a little much for mom to handle.  Blake and I talked to him the night before about dancing with girls and the rules and how to never turn a girl down and then dance with the next girl. He was so embarrassed just talking about it.  He said don't worry mom I will just stand on the sides against the wall and dance with no one!  Well some of the teachers paired him up with some girls to dance with, one being the teachers daughter.  Jordan said he about died from embarrassment, Blake and I would have loved to seen that.  He did say he had fun though, so that is good, at least if didn't scare him away!

Well our dear friends, adopted parents and grandparents across the street are leaving us next weekend to move to Idaho Falls.  blake and I are just devastated over this turn of events.  We are so worried about who is going to be our new neighbors it just kills us.  We always thought they would be across the street for ever.  They keep an eye on us and our kids and we just love them to death.  It will be a very long hard week for us in this house hold.  But we love them and wish them well on their journey in Idaho falls.

Other then that boring stuff that is about all we have going on here.  Oh yah, we have been glued to the t.v on Tuesday and Wed. nights. AMERICAN IDOL is back on, we are huge fans of that show and love to watch it every week.  We can not wait for it.

25 Random things about ME!

Here is 25 random things about me!

1. I was married at age 17 ( I do not really recommend this)
2. Blake and I have been together for 14 1/2 years
3. I love love love the color purple
4. dolphins are my favorite
5. I have always wanted to own a horse ( a clydesdale)
6. I have never broken a bone in my body
7. I love, I mean live to read romance novels
8. I fall asleep during movies ( any movie)
9. my dream has always been to have a little girl named after my mother
10. all I have ever owned is Honda vehicles
11. I have never been on a plane
12. Blake and I have never been anywhere for 1 night by oursleves ( how have we made it 13 yrs)
13. I have 2 of the best boys ever
14. I love to cook
15. I hate hate hate the snow
16. I love watching sports on t.v and in person
17. I would love to see a dolphin in person some day
18. my dream is to bring my boys to Chicago in 2 yrs from now ( including Blake)  ha ha
19. it makes me happy when my family is having fun
20. I love to laugh
21. I love the smell of a new born baby
22. I love spring
23. I love fall
24. I love to make other people happy
25. I am looking forward to our next big Potter family reunion this year in Bear Lake

Gosh that was harder then I thought.  thinking of random things about yourself off the top of your head it tough.

Thanks for letting me share with you just how crazy  and odd I am.