Jason and Shiloh Guffey's Family

It's the Holiday Season!

2012-01-02T12:13:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!! Don't they all great! Of course this is after church and a 3 hour car ride to Grandma Peggy's house, but for once they are all coordinated! That hasn't happened for Christmas in a few years.
My handsome boys! I am incredibly blessed; they are all so good!
My beautiful girls! Even with unruly hair they are amazing!

Can you tell who was up all night wrapping presents and such? But it was worth it! Happy New Year and a late Merry Christmas!

I love my Tank!

2011-12-12T19:48:00.000-08:00

Lately I have been seriously wishing for the time when we can finish paying off our van and get a smaller vehicle just for running errands and such. The gas mileage would be so much better and parking and getting around would just be easier than in my extremely large and lumbering vehicle that henceforth will be known as "the Tank".
I am now more grateful than ever for this beast. Plastic and fiberglass parts were not used much in it's construction so it is made of good old fashioned steel and on a commercial truck frame so it sits higher off the ground than most vehicles around it. Tonight I was turning left out of a shopping center across a 4 lane road and managed to get in a nice little fender bender. (Oh, and the kids were NOT with me, just in case you were concerned.) I will come right out and admit that it was my fault. I looked left and there wasn't a car on the road. I paused for a car coming on the right and as soon as I pulled out I hit a small truck barreling in from my left. I'm not sure if he had pulled out of one of the driveways a little further up from where I was or if he had turned the corner onto that street after I had looked that way. In the end it doesn't matter I know you look left then right then left again and I didn't. I hit his passenger side back quarter panel which messed up his rim and busted his tire along with some good dents to the body. Luckily it was an older truck and was made of pretty heavy metal for a little truck so it's not as bad as it could have been.
The impact with the speed he was going and the busted tire caused him to do a 180 in the middle of the road though. It looked pretty bad with him spinning around and it sounded awful between the metal crashing and the tire exploding. I called 911 as soon as I got out of the traffic lane and went to check on the other driver whose truck was now behind the van, I was glad because I was afraid to look at the damage to the front knowing it had to be considerable. It didn't register right away that there was no debris or anything. Anyway neither of us were hurt and when I finally went to look at the damaged I was shocked. I dented my front bumper, it's metal so there's no cracking or breaking apart and looking funky it's just dented. Granted it's a really big dent, or series of dents actually, but still no broken headlights, busted grill, airbag deployment or anything more serious.
I am very grateful to my Heavenly Father for his protection. With greater appreciation I can now say I love my Tank!!!!!!
Shiloh

My Little Ninjas

2011-11-01T10:39:00.000-07:00

Ok so they are not all little and by the time the picture was taken they were already getting messed up but these were our ninjas and Cole who decided to go as the "annnoying teenager", his words, not mine. I wouldn't let him take his paintball gun around the neighborhood, but he wanted it for pictures.

I have a very bad headache so I will let Emily write the commentary on Halloween later, but I knew if I didn't put up pictures now, it probably wouldn't happen.

Eight is Great!!!

2011-08-14T17:54:00.000-07:00

The last few weeks have been very exciting! Our first big eight is Adrianna! We had a birthday at the end of July and Odie Podie turned eight! She had been talking about turning eight and being baptized since she turned seven. It was a great day, we all went out for the first annual Ella Memorial 5k and had a great time. Then just spent the rest of the day with Grandma Cindy having fun! We had a birthday party that night.
We had her baptism on Sunday evening and all the aunts, uncles, cousins, and Nana and Poppa from North Carolina all got to come down for it. We are so proud of her and the decision she made to be baptized!

Another big eight is we've added an eighth child to our household. His name is Cole he's a young man that we knew through church and he'll be with us indefinitely... well until he leaves on his mission in two years. He's great with the kids and everyone seems to be adapting to the household changes really well.

And of course we can't forget baby number eight . Yes I know everyone has been waiting for months for this announcement so it should come as no big surprise to anyone that I am pregnant. Baby number eight, from here on referred to as Aswell or Aslan, will be due about March 26, 2012. And yes I remembered that is Grandpa Bill's birthday, and our niece Caitlin's. What can I say we have great timing (not like the baby will be born on the due date anyway).

So on that note, I hope everyone has a happy Sabbath, and a great week ahead!

At least he apologized...

2011-07-19T09:51:00.001-07:00

So this morning I overheard this conversation between my 9 year old outdoorsman-power-ranger-wanna-be son and my 5 year old strawberry-shortcake-barbie-princess and her 10 year old protector:

Jonas: Lydia, I owe you an apology. What I told you before wasn't really true.

Lydia: Really?

Jonas: Yeah, I just made it up. Do you forgive me?

Lydia: Oh...well...okay.

Emily: What did you tell her?

Jonas: That I liked lizards...

Emily: So?

Jonas: ...And that lizards see everything in black and white except for the color pink and they will attack anything with pink especially people wearing it.

Emily: What!?

Jonas: I apologized!

Bikes and Butt Cramps (written by Emily)

2011-06-20T14:32:00.000-07:00

Mom and Dad went on a bike ride with a few friends that went from our house in Columbia at 3:00 AM to Charleston at about 8:30 PM. Aunt Heather drove our van, & Billy, Brian, Matt, Andy, Mom, & Dad biked. Dad got butt cramps (or at least it hurt so bad he finally admitted it). Mom got huge bruises on her knees. I don't know about the rest of the crew. We kids stayed at home. Madison and Mackenzie Hendrix baby-sat us for hours and hours. But(t) that's all I really know. Call my mom for any further details!

And the Beadhead Award Goes To...

2011-04-05T04:46:00.000-07:00

Lydia's wild hair in the morning always makes me smile! We forgot to take out her ponytail last night so she woke up with Cindy-Lou Who hair. I love it!

Look what I did!!!!!

2011-04-05T04:18:00.000-07:00

Ok so I kind of have a minor issue with starting little projects and they turn out bigger and grander than I plan on. The latest is no exception. I needed to paint the girls' bedroom. Now I've had the paint for a few months I just was having trouble actually getting it done. I finally decided this was the week. The original idea was lavender walls, white trim and one accent wall with pale pink harlequin style diamonds. Pretty, classy and fairly simple. My pink turned out to be a little brighter than I had intended so I was trying to figure out how to still use it yet tone it down. I still wanted to do something fun, yet original. Long story short I decided to create a plaid wall. I couldn't find a pattern so I just made one up as I was taping and hoped for the best. It turned out way cuter than even I anticipated. When the girls saw it this morning they declared it to be the coolest wall ever. Once I get the room put back together I'll post pictures of everything. Including the new window seat and finished bookshelves. But here is the wall with Emily, Adrianna and Adam this morning.I even managed to go around the door. Oops looks like I need to put the smoke detector back up.

Tennis

2011-03-18T17:51:00.000-07:00

Today we had our first tennis practice of the year. Mom was coaching Jonas, Odie, & Preston's team. Ethan & Noah DelPreorie were on the same courts, but their dad was their coach. My coach was Coach Law Powers. He was really nice, & let those who would miss the serve, get another chance. My classmate, Britt said he was going to tennis practice after school,also. Britt & I are(I think) on the same team. I was exited to see someone I've known longer than the other team mates. Tennis was really fun!!!!!!!!! I will tell more about today later.

Goose Egg

2011-03-14T16:18:00.000-07:00

Adam got a MASSIVE goose egg on Sunday, March 6, 2011. We were leaving for church, and Preston wasn't buckled up. We backed out of the drive way and drove two houses down and Preston still wouldn't sit down and buckle up. Mom hit the breaks, Preston held on to the passenger seat so he wouldn't fall. Adam, on the other hand, wasn't buckled. Adam flew out of his seat, and hit the seat in front of him, giving him what seemed to be a COLOSSAL goose egg. So here is our moral of this story:MAKE SURE YOU & YOUR KIDS ARE BUCKLED BEFORE YOU DRIVE!!!!!!! (Even if it's only two houses away) :)

Smooching In Church?!!

2011-03-13T17:29:00.000-07:00

Today after church, mom & dad had a pack comity meeting. we were the last ones to leave, so I guess mom & dad decided they would smooch in front of us. It wasn't just the "5 second quick kiss," type. It was whole romantic scene. Dad picked up mom, "dipped" her, and smooched for about 30 seconds (mom says it wasn't that long). Grrrroooooossssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Nobody dared to look! Nobody wanted to look. So here I sit, to protest kissing in front of children, 16 years or younger. Although movies don't count. So, here I sit, in my green long sleeved T-shirt and Hannah Montana pajama pants, in my mom's black chair,saying, GOOD NIGHT!

Hi! It's Me, Emily!!!

2011-03-13T16:58:00.000-07:00

Hey! It's me, Emily. My mom has said that I am the now official "blog updater." Mom is occasionally going to update the blog, but for now, It is my turn to have some fun.

cookies

2011-02-25T05:16:00.001-08:00

I love cookies. They are one of my favorite treats. You can have one if you want something sweet but are not in the mood for a lot of sugar or half a dozen if you want a sugar rush. You can serve them with milk or hot chocolate or they are just as good with with water or kool-aid when you're on a picnic. They are hand held and already portioned as a single serving food for little ones. And they come in more varieties than any other food I know.

All that being said, I have a new favorite cookie. Now chocolate chip is the standard. I make those at least once a week or so. I love them and will always love them and nothing will replace them, but when I want to make something different, well....I make things up. I actually just find recipes I think sound good then I tweak them a little to what I like. My chocolate covered cherry cookies used to be my favorite (a basic koolaid cookie recipe using cherry flavor then dipping them in melted chocolate after baking and cooling). However I found a recipe that I modified so I will share with you my version along with a few variations I've tried.

Coconut Almond Cookies

1 cup butter softened
3/4 cup superfine ( I use regular granulated) sugar
1 egg yolk slightly beaten
1 tsp Almond extract
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
pinch of salt
1 cup coconut
chopped, slivered or sliced almonds are optional, I usually don't have them so I do with out, they do make a nice touch when you've got them though.

Put butter and sugar in a bowl and mix well. Beat in egg yolk and almond extract. Add flour and salt, add coconut and mix until thoroughly combined.

Scoop up tablespoons of the mixture and roll into balls, flatten somewhat and bake at 375 for 12-15 minutes.

These are not a super sweet cookie and my favorite thing about these is what you can do with them.

Make a hollow with your thumb and put a small dollop of your favorite jam in before baking or I added lemon curd (basically lemon pie filling) then after baking when they had cooled I drizzled some with melted white chocolate and dusted others with powdered sugar. ( Those I called "Sunrise in Paradise".

Or take half the dough and add 1 tablespoon of unsweetened baking cocoa and mix well take a small scoop of each of the regular and chocolate doughs, make balls then put them together and flatten Jonas calls them "Yin Yang" cookies because that's just about what they look like. I just call them "chocolate almond coconut cookies" although Jonas' name is shorter.

You can also just brush a powder sugar glaze (3/4 cup powdered sugar, 2 tbs melted butter, 1 tbs milk) over the top of the plain cookie. This makes them a little sweeter and adds a nice shine.

Anyway there you go. Remember there is a cookie for any occasion, call me, I'll help you find it or make it up.

I posted something

2011-02-03T06:08:00.001-08:00

I finally added something to my blog, but since I uploaded the pictures a few months ago the date on the post is then and not yesterday so on the little tracker things it doesn't show that I posted recently hence the reason for this post.

christmas

2011-02-02T18:50:00.000-08:00

Ok so here's Christmas

The kids waiting for Dad to read the Christmas story from the scriptures. Notice the stockings have already been unloaded then put back.
A picture of the tree. The longer it was up the fewer the ornaments that actually stayed on the tree.

Dad getting ready to start reading.
The kids began to get a little impatient. But filled in the blanks in Luke 2.
"What? It's in the Book of Mormon too?" Baby Santa Maggie just gave up and decided the ceiling fan was interesting.
Daddy gets to play Santa.

Adam with his new Bike.Maggie trying to open a present. She got bored pretty fast and decided breakfast sounded better.I didn't get any pictures of the other kids opening presents because it got crazy really fast. However, it was a wonderful Christmas! We drove up and saw the Guffey Clan later on. It started snowing and the roads were bad so we didn't get to go see Grandma Peggy. But we talked on the phone and it was still a Merry Christmas.

Thanksgiving

2010-11-28T11:30:00.001-08:00

Since I haven't posted in months here are some random pictures . We'll start with Thanksgiving first at Nana and Poppa's then on to Grandma Peggy's.

We spent lots of time playing with cousins

And of course eating. The dessert table was as full as the regular food table...as it should be.
And of course lots of friends and family, and a few missionaries for good measure.
We stopped and said hi to Grandpa Bill and yes, if you've noticed the date on my camera I forgot to reset it so these really are recent and not from 2007.
We got to see Bill and Linda.
And our family is finally too big to fit on Grandma's couch for pictures. We're going to have to start standing up or something.

And of course Cindy Marie and Matt and Will were there.
All in all a great Thanksgiving!
Coming soon.....CHRISTMAS! (In July probably, but I'll work on it.)

And it Begins....

2010-11-28T10:41:00.000-08:00

And so begins our boys' wrestling season. Their first meet was last weekend and they did very well. Here they are showing off their singlets with their friend Tai before any of them wrestled.
Most of my pictures are either dark or blurry or so far away you can't see much. I still haven't figured out how to do any photo editing on my computer. So anyway here are a couple pics of the boys starting out.Of course we all came to watch. Adam and Maggie like the lower level seating.While the other girls, Emily, Odie and Lydia preferred higher up on the bleachers.

The boys did very well. Jonas won 2 matches by pin and lost 3 on points. Preston pinned one and got pinned once. Jonas ended up coming in fourth in his weight class and Preston second in his. I can't believe how much they improved since last year. It was so much fun to watch and I can't wait for the rest of the season.

Halloween

2010-10-31T18:10:00.000-07:00

Ok so we got a little busy and I forgot to take pictures until after we were done trick or treating. Our neighborhood sanctioned Saturday night trick or treating which worked out very well for us. So here are the kids.
Emily was the Greek goddess Athena.
Jonas was a demigod from Camp Half-blood (greek battle armor yet no tunic/dress) check out the Percy Jackson books for more details on what that all entails.
Adrianna was a garden fairy but she had already shed her wings and wig and cute little fairy hat.
Preston was an indian/knight he had already taken off the breast plate, shield, helmet, cowboy boots and sword, but he still had his indian shirt.
Lydia was also a fairy her color theme was purple though.
Adam was Yoda and by the time this picture was taken Jason had dubbed him "bloody Yoda" although that is chili that dripped down his front not blood. He had also managed to lose his light saber by this time.
There are not any pictures of Mags at the moment. I will put the Tigger outfit back on her and take a picture tomorrow but I didn't realize we hadn't gotten one of her until it was too late. Everyone got lots of candy and we gave out lots as well so all in all I call it a successful night. We hope y'all had a good Halloween too!

A conversation with Adam and Lydia

2010-10-26T10:46:00.000-07:00

"MAAAAAAAAAMMMMMAAAAAAAAAA"

"MAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMAAAAAAA!"

"Adam! are you OK? What's wrong?"
"Wydia caw me name." *sniffle* *sniffle*
"Lydia called you a name?"
"Yeah"
"Lydia, come here please... What did she call you?"
"Say" *sniffle*
Say? Ok I know that's not right, "Tell me again what did she call you?"
"Say"
Oh, good she's here, "Lydia, Adam says you called him a name. "
"No I didn't"
"Ok then what did you say to him?"
"I told him 'No way Jose!' "
Jose... Say...now I get it.

The State Fair

2010-10-21T14:08:00.000-07:00

Well I have no idea why I have underlines on this, but I can't get them to go away so here goes. Last Saturday we had a family adventure at the South Carolina State Fair. The following pictures are not in chronological order for the evening, and no we did not go to the future, the time stamp on them is wrong. Also there was a smudge on my lens that I didn't notice at the time, but it makes the pictures look blurry, sorry about that. Yay! the underline went away!
This the the 100th anniversary year for Boy Scouts (oh dear the line is back) so if a scout or leader wore their uniform they got in free. Jonas always looks for reasons to wear his scout uniform so this was a big one for him. We saw people in all sorts of outfits including this guy. Jonas thought his glasses were so cool he went up and asked if he could take a picture with him.

I don't know what happened, but my typing just went back to normal. We had all kinds of fun. Emily and Jonas went down the BIG slide.
Maggie had her own ride all night! She really enjoyed eating sweet potatoe french fries! She also tried funnel cakes and elephant ears and of course loved them both!
All that excitement and a full belly wore her out!
I think this is the only picture of me there since I was the one taking most of the pictures.
Even Lydia and Adam got to ride some rides.
Daddy stood in line with them to make sure everyone had the correct tickets and was able to get on ok.
We enjoyed a break in one of the exhibit halls. The SC dairy farmers were giving out free milk. Everyone got chocolate of course.
Ok my pictures got a little out of order, but this was the real reason we were in the exhibit hall.
Oh, more of the milk break.

Ok so the real reason we went to the fair in the first place was because Emily Mae's art teacher submitted one of her projects from last year and although it did not win any awards it was chosen to be on display. We are so proud! Look she's pointing to her self portrait.

Way to go Emmy! Thanks for giving us an excuse for another fun family adventure!

You can now stop holding your breath

2010-10-21T05:29:00.000-07:00

I know all of you have been waiting for this for quite a while, (though not as anxiously as I have) so I am happy to announce that yes, we finally have a new computer. The ramifications of that being that I can finally check my email regularly again and update my blog a little more often and of course keep better track of my budget and all those other 50 million little things that we do with computers nowadays. and to top it off I can actually download pictures again. Yay. In fact I downloaded a bunch this morning and will next post our latest adventure...the state fair.

Maggie's 6 month Stats

2010-08-10T05:37:00.001-07:00

You may not know it, but our Maggie ('Miss' Mary Alice to Grandma Cindy) is quite the petite little girl! But she doesn't know she is just a little thing. Why when she was a mere 4 months old she was already showing off her 'mad' equestrian skills!
Yesterday she went to the Dr. for her 6 month check up and we found out how big she really isn't. (yes, you read that right)

Little Miss Maggie measured 25 inches tall and weighed in at 15 lbs. That puts her in the 25%- 50% for her age. She is such a petite little thing! (Unlike cousin Ransom and the other Guffey boys, more like Uncle Cody....wait, that didn't sound right. More like Aunt Skye). She was pronounced Healthy as a miniture horse by the Dr. and she didn't cry or wimper until they gave her the 3 shots in her legs. That she didn't like at all. She did get Iron Man Band-aids for the shots, which her brother's thought was really cool! All the attention from the big brothers helped to calm her down. Her only other problem was her little legs were so sore that when she tried to stand up on Mommy's lap she couldn't. Poor little thing.
We sure love you sweet Maggie!

Conversations with Maggie and Adam's Mimi Cheer!

2010-07-26T21:08:00.000-07:00

What We Learned at the Zoo

2010-07-21T19:20:00.000-07:00

Hello Family and Friends. I thought I would tell you about what lessons I learned while staying at Grandma and Grandpas house with Jonas, Adrianna, Preston and Lydia while Mom, Adam, Maggie, Aunt Cami, Aunt Cali, Lily Ransom and Gideon ran off some where for a few days.

I learned there are two types of concrete burns. The kind you get from wet cement and the kind you get when your head smacks a concrete wall.

Preston was the teacher of this life lesson. You should have seen the wall... Ha,ha,ha.
++++++++
I also learned it is okay for kids to act like monkeys at the zoo.

Actually, this type of primate behavior is almost expected.

We learned that a full grown tiger is large enough to carry more than half of the Guffey family.

I give us a 6.5 on the group dismount. Some of us had a little trouble sticking it.

Lydia taught us that to control and unruly tiger you just grab it by the ear and squeeze it real hard. Turn it down and the tiger walks forward, turn it backwards and the tiger will sit. Let go and he will eat you.

After several tries we concluded that three Guffey heads are all that will fit in a lions mouth at one time.

"Listen to me you guys, 4 Guffey heads will not fit in the lion's mouth."... "What do you mean drinking fountain? On his tongue? That's just gross!"

Adrianna was fearless when she entered the wild goat pen. She is like a "goat whisperer" and soon had them all calm enough that we were able to brush their fur.

Adrianna is very wise when it comes to dealing with wild goats. She was especially thoughtful and thanked the goats personally for being so well behaved.

She taught Preston and Lydia the secret touch to calm an anxious goat. This one was on the verge of breaking out until Odi Podi worked her magic.

Did you know that Llama's can spit? Yeah... Preston and Lydia asked this guy to demonstrate....

Jonas was a little puzzled about the thinking and planning on the part of zoo officials when it came to the Donkey pen. They put a framed square in the fence for you to reach through to pet the donkeys. Then they put a sign up warning you that if you try to pet the donkeys they may bite. What kind of twisted grown up logic is this? Is it a trick? A test? Well, we were too smart for them. We could care less if we ever pet a biting donkey.

"Pick a little, talk a little, Pick a little, talks a little, ... cheep, cheep, cheep, talk a lot, pick a little more......"

"It's a bird?, It's a Monkey?.... What is it?"

"Then Adrianna, Preston and I hatched a great plan......"

We learned that grandpa Darryl is not really a bird expert,
even though he knows a lot of cool stuff!
"This my grandchildren, is an Osprey. Or a deformed owl, which ever you want it to be."

Just so you know, we are not staring at a fence in the window. There are penguins on the other side of that glass. "The penguin Cabaret" ...sort of. (That was a Metaphor.... or maybe an idiom.)

So, Mom's computer is dying and she can't get online to put up any posts right now. If any of my aunts have pictures from this summer of us having fun, please call my mom and she will tell you all the magic words so you can post the pictures on her blog for all of her friends to see.
I'll talk to you later.
Love,
Emily

Proof that the Easter Bunny Cares About Personal Hygiene

2010-04-05T14:19:00.000-07:00

Easter morning we awoke to the joyous sounds of children wondering if the Easter Bunny had visited our house. Now I should explain how this tradition works at our house. The Easter Bunny is a bit of a trickster, he likes to hide things. Our children know that mom and dad get the easter baskets and stuff and the bunny comes in the early morning hours and hides the eggs we've decorated and usually the entire easter baskets too. Everything is hidden somewhere downstairs. No room is off limits including the bathroom and pantry. Occasionally the bunny will bring a small surprise that he adds to the baskets. This year Emily helped me lay out everyone's new outfits on the couch and put the easter baskets, complete with name tags, in front of each one. When the children came down in the morning to see everything set up it was all gone. That silly bunny had even taken their new clothes and hidden them. Well of course they have to wait for Mom and Dad before they were allowed to search, that's just one of those rules.

Now, Adrianna is convinced that she knows who the Easter Bunny really is. When I questioned her she answered me that it is her friend Grady's dad. I asked how she knew Grady's dad was the Easter Bunny and she replied, "Grady told me that he knows his dad is the Easter Bunny and it's not a secret anymore." And, she is convinced she saw a man and a boy running around the corner in our neighborhood that morning (we do live in a neighborhood of several hundred people).

The clencher was when I asked how they knew the Easter Bunny had even come to our house because I didn't see any Easter baskets or anything and Preston piped up with this gem, "I know the Easter Bunny was here because he took a bath in our bath tub!!"

I'm glad I wasn't drinking anything. It would have been out my nose and all over the floor. Instead I just asked how he knew the bunny took a bath. His response, "Because he left fur in the bathtub."

Now that may not make much sense yet, but picture this scenerio:
It's Saturday evening and almost bath time all the boys need haircuts before Sunday. Since it's a beautiful warm evening we take the clippers to the back porch let them take off their shirts then cut their hair and send them straight up to the bath. Yeah, there was "fur" left in the bathtub.

So with that irrefutable evidence we started the great easter basket search. Under tables, behind doors and curtains, in the pantry, and even behind the mini fridge and fishtank. They eventually each found their basket with the new clothes folded neatly on top. The eggs magically got hidden at Nana and Poppa's where we were headed later.

The lesson in all of this? There will always be evidence to support whatever you want to believe in, you just have to find it. The other lesson, The Easter Bunny may care about his personal hygeine, but he doesn't care about the cleanliness of your bathroom.

Coming Soon......

2010-04-04T20:38:00.000-07:00

I'm working on several posts, but it's taking me a while so be on the look out for Baby Maggie update, April Fools at School, Easter and proof that the Easter Bunny cares about personal hygiene, and The Legend of the Five Year-Old Would-Be Stunt Man. These should be fun or at least mildly entertaining. I also have a bunch of Easter pictures and family pics to put up. Speaking of which check out the family easter outfit co-ordination in the new pics I already added. Is it normal to get such a thrill out of making my family dress alike? Because it truly is one of the highlights of my year. Anyway, more later.

Brothers and Sisters

2010-02-06T22:49:00.000-08:00

All day on Friday all of Maggie's brothers and sisters wanted to see this little cutie. So Friday evening they all got to come up to the hospital and take turns holding her and getting to know her. They also got to take turns talking to mom and telling me all about their day. WARNING - The following videos may show images of me that should probably never be seen by...well...anyone. I had finally convinced the nurse to take me off the IV and hadn't yet had a chance to shower. I had also been sleeping most of the day and was trying my best to look and sound normal for my kids even though I felt only half there mentally. I hadn't seen a mirror in nearly 24 hours and I didn't want to. However the kids were really cute!

Introducing Mary Alice Guffey! (aka Maggie)

2010-02-06T10:59:00.000-08:00

After weeks of anxious anticipation Mary Alice Guffey has arrived! She was born at 11:44a.m. on Friday February 5th 2010 She weighed in at 7lbs 9oz and 20 inches long and showed us just how good her lungs were.
(Side note - Aunt Skye, although she is not your namesake, you now get to share a birthday for the rest of your life. Can't you feel the love? Happy Birthday!) I will spare you the labor details, suffice it to say this was a long one.

However, she was born healthy and screaming so we are happy!
Due to the length and circumstances of labor Mom got some pretty potent painkillers shortly thereafter and was pretty much a sleepy and somewhat loopy mess for the rest of the day.
For those of you who are wondering, she is named after Jason's Grandmother, Mary Alice(Sparks)Guffey. To avoid confusion we decided to nickname her "Maggie" since her initials are MAG.
All of her brothers and sisters were very excited and came up to see and hold her that evening I will attempt to put up a video of that in just a little while.

Someday The Baby Will Come

2010-02-02T05:39:00.000-08:00

Well I mentioned last week that when I'm in labor it tends to be long and drawn out. This one is no different. Just to update everyone at once I had another appointment yesterday and although I've made some progress (I'm now dilated 5cm) the baby is still not quite ready to make her grand entrance. After another week of steady contractions I haven't gone quite insane yet. (Although a few times I've come close.) The contractions did calm down over the weekend when my sisters-in-law were here. They helped me clean-out, sort, organize and redecorate the "nursery". It was wonderful having them here. And the room looks beautiful! Thank you Suzanna and Heather!

The contractions picked back up about noon yesterday and ranged from 3-7 minutes apart for over 12 hours, but with no real changes in me there's no baby yet. We'll keep everyone updated, but that's it for now.

Parental update

2010-01-27T07:16:00.000-08:00

Ok so I didn't quite get to Jason and I the other day. So here it is. Jason is back in town full time now. His company is in a new office building so they moved from one side of town to the other which makes his commute a little longer but nothing terrible. Besides being one of the coaches for the boys wrestling club he has been training (along with his sister, Mollie and Aunt Wendy)for the Myrtle Beach Marathon on February 13. That date just happens to be my due date, which brings me to me.

I have been busy with the normal stuff... kids, house, young women's calling ect. We got the bassinet, carseat, and baby clothes out of the attic yesterday. Although I am not due for 2 1/2 weeks I tend to go through a phase known as "prodromal labor". You can look it up and it's actually kind of interesting, but basically what most women go through in the first 2-24 hours of latent or pre-labor I take 1-2 weeks or longer to do. At my last appointment on Monday I was dilated 3cm and 60% effaced. That may seem like the baby in imminent however, the week before I was dilated 2cm and 40% effaced. So despited mostly steady and somewhat constant contractions over the course of a week I had only progresed 1cm and 20%.

On weirder news the "nesting" instinct has finally kicked in. I did laundry and organized, and ran errands and couldn't keep still from about 3:30am yesterday until after 9pm. Considering my usual house cleaning and energy levels that was a total shock. I went to bed about 10pm woke up 5 or 6 times during the night then woke up for good at 5am and have felt like I'm on a really good caffine buzz ever since. I even feel a little jittery inside and just can't hold still. I guess this is a good thing, although the desire to clean is waning and slowly being replaced with a desire to sew or scrapbook or do something crafty like paint to babies' room (I won't do that, I'd have to clean it first). I keep feeling like a crash is due anytime but for now I guess I should make the most of it.

Update

2010-01-25T09:38:00.000-08:00

Ok I know that's a really generic title, but that's all this is. Everyone is doing well and we're healthy and happy at the moment. We got report cards on Friday and the lowest grade on any of them was a 95. The kids got ice cream sundaes for that.

Emily is nine now and is suddenly becoming quite the fashonista. She'll tell me what she wants to wear and I'll be a little skeptical, but when she puts the outfit on it turns out to be very cute and trendy. I think she got Cami or Jesse's fashion sense because we all know I don't have any. I can't believe how fast she's growing up.

Jonas is the big news of the week. His lowest score on his report card was a 98 and because he has such high test scores on the standardized tests (98th percentile nationally) he's been asked to be in the "gifted and talented" programs at school next year. He got in a minor bike wreck on Friday and managed to bust his mouth and chip a front tooth (we're headed to the dentist this afternoon) luckily no permanant damage so far. He also participated in his first wrestling tournament on Saturday. He didn't win any of his matches, but did very well and is learning quickly. I think it was a bit of a shock because up until now all he's done is practice moves and techniques and has never actually wrestled a match so this was very different. He only got pinned once and the other two matches he lost on points although one was pretty close. We are so proud of him, but it was so hard for me to watch. I think I'd rather have my kids do running sports or competetive table tennis or badmitton. Anything has got to be easier than watching your kid in a sport where you know he's gonna get hurt and unlike football or something you are close and can see every emotion on their face when they are in pain. Although the better he gets the less that will happen I hope. He really enjoyed it though, so I guess that's what it's all about.

Adrianna is doing so well in school she has made such rapid progress her teacher is very proud she's already started reading chapter books. Last week they did mid year tests and she has come up four reading levels since the last benchmark tests in fall. She is as hilarious as always and always has a smile for everyone.

Preston continues to be a great help at home. He's been going to wrestling practices also, but can't compete until after he turns five, so for him it's all just fun for now. I like that. He is also learning to write his letters very well. Now we get to start really working on his name.

Lydia is the princess as always. She still refuses to wear pants unless forced and only if it's freezing outside and even then she'll wear a dress over them. She is so excited about having a little sister and talks about her little sister "Mawy Awice" all the time.

Adam is suddenly growing up. He still likes to be held and snuggled, but he so enjoys playing cars and nerf gun wars with the boys. I'm anxious to see how he reacts to not being the baby any more.

Well that's all for now.

Halloween

2009-11-01T18:59:00.001-08:00

I know you guys have been waiting for this so here it is. Our family halloween zoo!
There will be several pictures of all of them together in their costumes because there is not a single picture where they are all looking at the camera and smiling and you can see all their faces at once. Some of the expressions are priceless though if you click on the pictures and enlarge them.
Just in case there are any questions I'll tell you what each one is. Emily is the bunny, Jonas a coyote, Adrianna a tiger, Preston a lion, Lydia a zebra and Adam a giraffe.
One of my favorite shots is Adam's face in the next picture.
Then check out Lyds with the tongue out and Odie and Pres grinning till their little cheeks hurt! I love it!!!
Ok many of you have heard the story, but through sales and and coupons I ended up with an insane amount of candy and spent the same or less than I usually do (which isn't much let me tell you). So after taking candy to a party last weekend and to the ward trunk-or-treat Friday this is how much candy I had left to give out on Halloween. Yes that is a wicker laundry basket, not a huge one, but still big enough for 8 big bags of candy. If the basket doesn't look very big compared to Adam look again at the above pictures to see how much he's grown. The boy is getting big!
We ended up with only 2 handfuls leftover. Our neighborhood is a good one for trick-or-treating, people really get into it. Jason and the kids walked less then half of the neighborhood and when they got home we combined all the candy. (This makes it easier for mom to control the sugar intake.) We just dumped it back into the basket. I think we ended up with more than we started with.

Report Cards

2009-11-01T17:35:00.000-08:00

Well it has been an eventful weekend at the Guffey house. The kids brought home their first report cards of the year on Friday. They all are doing very well.
As a third grader, Emily got A's in language arts 100%, science 95% and social studies 98%, that's everything except math, she got a B. All her other subjects she's doing great! Her teachers' comments were, "Excellent class participation. Attentive in class. Conscientious worker." We also got back the official scores for the Measure of Academic Progress tests. She scored well above the average in Reading and also above average in Math.
In the second grade they only do numerical scores for Math and Language Arts. Jonas got 100% in language arts and 99% in math. He's getting high marks in all his other subjects also, they just score them on a different scale. He also scored well above average in both Math and Reading on his MAP tests. His teachers' said, "Joy to have in classroom" (he got that comment a couple of times) and "Excellent class participation."
In first grade they use a completely different grading scale. There is actually a whole code to understand it because they get graded not by subject but by standards in each subject. For example in Language Arts she was graded on 11 different things from writing legibly to reading independently to identify and producing rhyming words, ect., ect. It is similar with each subject being broken down into smaller incremental things like that. Suffice it to say she is doing very well and got high scores in all subjects and is progressing nicely. Her teacher's comments were the funniest! "Adrianna is an absolute riot! She keeps me smiling all the time! She is doing fantastic in all areas of 1st grade and I can always count on her to lend to class discussion!" Translation: Adrianna is hilariously random and off the wall but comes up with things that actually go with the class discussions, you just wouldn't normally think of a six year old saying them. (That is pretty much what her teacher told me at our parent/teacher conference a month ago.)
Jason and I are very proud of how well they're doing and how hard they work. The family even got to have pizza to celebrate on Saturday. Ok and that way we didn't have to cook before getting ready for Halloween either. So it was good for everyone. I know it will amaze you all, but up next the Halloween post!

School, Potato Flakes, Babies & Mud

2009-09-23T04:30:00.000-07:00

Ok so things have been a little busy here, but we are finally done with traveling for a little while, settled in school and life is good. The 3 older kids are doing well in school. The first parent teacher conferences are this Friday. We got their first interim reports this week and they all scored above the benchmark indicators for the "Vital Indicators of Progress" in Language Arts. That made me very happy! I have been a little worried about my Odie Podie, but it appears she is doing very well. One of Emily's tests was how many words they can read correctly in 1 minute. The benchmark for beginning 3rd grade is 77 she scored 138. I was not surprised, she is my daughter after all. I will give you all a more in depth update after conferences this weekend.

Meanwhile back at home it has been a little different. The first 2 weeks the younger kids didn't seem to know what to do with themselves, they got over that pretty quickly though. Preston has realized the role of oldest at home now belongs to him and he's loving it! Lyddie pretty much does what she's always done and will only wear dresses and and changes princess dress ups about 4 times a day. Adam has realized there aren't as many people to stop him when he tries to do things like climb into the kitchen sink and play in the water or climb the pantry shelves like a ladder. He's also figured out that the #10 cans that I usually keep on the lower pantry shelves, because of their size, are easy to open and not all are heavy. Like the newly opened oatmeal and potato flakes that he carried into the front room dumped onto the ottoman and then mixed with his hand. I walked in while he was directing a symphony (yes those kinds of arm movements) two handed through the pile he had made and had flakes and oats flying around the room. They covered the couch, piano, side table, chair... and the carpet you may ask. Oh boy... they keep resurfacing from the depths, just oozing towards the surface a little at a time. The first few days every day I would go in and find more where I could have sworn I had already cleaned. Oh well, at least he hadn't added water, yet.

In other news I had an ultrasound last week and we found out we're having a ..... wait for it..... girl!!! Yes, through absolutely no power of our own we are sticking with the alternating girl,boy pattern that, so far, has run in our family. We are very excited! We already have a couple of names in mind but for a multitude of reasons I am not sharing them until we're closer to actually having the baby.

Jason is still working out of town, but we try to make weekends as fun and memorable as possible. Like this past weekend. Jason's sister Mollie was on a team to run in the USMC Ft Jackson Mud Run. It is over 4 miles of military obstacle course with over 30 obstacles many of which involve water, and, you guessed it, MUD. Unfortunately two weeks ago she fell on the stairs and sprained her ankle and partially tore some tendons and is now in a brace and orthopedic walking boot. So a week before the race she called and begged Jason to take her place so her team would not have to forfeit. Jason has been running but not exactly training for this kind of race, however for the sake of family, and of course the chance to do something we crazy people call fun and adventure, he agreed. His teammates, all women, showed up in matching pink tank tops. Although he didn't wear the fourth matching tank top he did concede to write the name of the team on the back of his gray t-shirt which was once again "Dirty Blondes". It was a lot of fun! Nana and Poppa came down to watch and Mollie and her kids were there to cheer on her team. Of course our clan went. Jason did really well and afterwards said it wasn't as bad as he was afraid of and that with a little more prep time wants to do it again next year. The kids got to participate in the "Polllywog Mud Run". Ethan, Emily, Caitlin, Jonas and Adrianna each did it about half a dozen times or more and Preston and Lydia even joined in for a few runs. It was a blast! My laundry room screamed in terror when we got home (knowing the messes my kids can make and get into that's saying something!) but other than that it was a fun weekend!

If I can figure out how to get pictures off Mollie's facebook I'll try and put some mudrun pics up, but no guarantees.

2009-06-21T19:22:00.000-07:00

"I know a secret!"

"You can't keep a secret."

"I can keep secrets really good! I have my forgetting powers!"

"Can I make a rock slide down the sand pile?"

"Dat not a seekwet!"

"I'm gonna be a big brother."

Markers, Haircuts and a Lucky Shirt

2009-06-18T07:33:00.000-07:00

Ok so I had a few surprises this morning. The first was that while I was upstairs Lydia got hold of an orange permanent marker and gave herself freckles like Mommy and Jonas. She also colored her hands just for fun. Any ideas how to get this off? Next we have Adrianna who last night pulled a Pedro. In case you haven't seen "Napoleon Dynomite" I'll explain. She was very hot and her ponytail had gotten knocked sideways so some of her hair had come out of the elastic holding it back. Instead of just asking me to fix it she got a pair of scissors and cut off the locks that were sticking to her face and neck. She then took out her ponytail completely before I could notice and fell asleep. When I went to brush her hair this morning I noticed. She had even cut of pieces of her hair that were still in the ponytail so I really had to cut it and do some creative layering this morning to try and even it all out. I fixed it for now but luckily Cami is coming up next week and can make it look a little smoother I hope. Some pieces will just have to grow out some more. She wasn't thrilled with the haircut but we had a long talk on the consequences of cutting our own hair. After all that Jonas came in wearing a very familiar looking camoflouged Transformers shirt. I asked him if hadn't he worn that yesterday, and the day before? (Luckily he had not been playing outside much). He answered in the affirmative and said this was the fourth time he had worn it without it getting washed because it was his lucky shirt. We had a little dicussion about how unlucky it would be if nobody would play with him because he was stinky or if he got sick because he didn't wash his clothes. He'll probably wear it again tomorrow but it is getting washed today.

My New Room

2009-06-16T13:35:00.000-07:00

I know you are all shocked and amazed that I am finally updating. I found the cords to my camera at last so I am able to have pictures to download. This post is going to have pictures of my new room. Now most of you know I am not a great house keeper. But the fact that half of our bedroom has been used as a storage room pretty much since we moved in is bad even for me. My incredibly amazing sister-in-law Suzanna came down last week with her four kids and in four days we completely transformed my room. We dejunked, decluttered, trashed, and cleaned then refinished furniture, painted and decorated. That would have been a feat in and of itself but the fact that we did this with 10 children ranging in age from 8 years to 2 months "helping" was incredible. Now I will warn you of the graphic nature of the first few pictures. This is picture above is the storage area that was supposed to be my bedchamber. These are the before and they were taken after we had started the sorting process so even though it looks awful believe it or not there was some order to the chaos. In the picture above you can see the opening to the "bedchamber" on the right. No matter how hideous this looks remember the end results speak for themselves. Above is the main room where the bed used to be. The head of the bed was against the wall on the right. The bed used to be where the cabinet and drawing table now are temporarily. This part of the room is not yet finished it will become a library/sitting room (with a fireplace between the windows eventually). Jason will be starting on the book shelves this weekend hopefully. Now I know you've been waiting for this so here it is. The finished bedchamber. This obviously is the straight on view. The side tables are the same green and gold ones that were in grandma Peggy's house we just refinished them along with the head board we haven't used in years. It used to have a green and cream crackled finished and where you see the light panels those are actually bamboo place mats cut to fit into the panel recesses. And Daddy, thank you for the Moroccan pillow shams. Don't they look just perfect?!Now to the left side notice the awesomely huge mirror.( It weighs a ton, well you know what I mean, that's why it's not hanging.) However, I actually like it leaning like that, go figure. Now to the right. Notice the same shelves that were in the other room minus the clutter (and several pictures that I actually really liked, but just didn't go with the look). Heather and Suzanna picked out the pictures above the bed which are hard to see in these pictures (they are purple flowers on a chocolate brown back ground) and the plants (hope you notice the second one). They also picked out a little round lamp on the left hand night table that in the picture just looks like a ball of light. It's really pretty though. Anyway I love my new retreat and can't wait to have a "library" in my room! (Those of you who know me know that is like a fantasy for me.)
For anyone who is wondering we used mostly things I already had and were able to do this with very little money spent. To be honest I didn't know I had such good looking stuff.

It's Only Been A Month

2009-05-07T13:34:00.000-07:00

Okay.... I know Easter was almost a month ago, but I couldn't stand it. Here is how we celebrated Easter in the Guffey home.

When we got home from church we found out the the Easter Bunny hid eggs in the back yard by the construction zone! (Okay, the retaining wall we're working on). Everyone had so much fun, and we found all of the eggs!

The End!

Coming Soon

2009-04-07T19:04:00.001-07:00

I will get to my team the "Dirty Blondes" in the next day or so, just be patient with me please.

The Mud Run - Dirty Blondes

2009-04-05T19:26:00.000-07:00

Well, here it is as promised and only a week late. I'm not sure how this will turn out because when I downloaded the pictures I had them oriented to the left and not center so the text may not match the pictures exactly.

The "Dirty Blondes" consisted of me Janet, Andrea, and Mollie (my sister-in-law). This whole thing was Mollie's big idea and we even had shirts with our team logo done on them. We found out later that the color of the mud splatter printed on the shirts was almost the exact color of the real mud.

Anyway, to start we had to get down on the ground, when they shouted "up" push up into plank position then hold it till they yelled "go". Two teams started at a time as you can see and the team behind us were the "Dirt Daubers". As we were waiting we got to talking about different races and they told us all about the Fort Jackson mud run which you will hear all about later since Jason and Mollie are already planning teams and training for (it's in September.)

Ok so finally we're off. I was the slowest runner on the team, but the other girls were very understanding since I volunteered to boost them over the walls. Of course I got some help too since the teams behind us didn't want to wait while I struggled to heave myself over, they gave me a boost. Unfortunately we don't have any pictures of that. Those would have been rich.

We had fans cheering us all along the way! They didn't think it looked too hard. Of course these are our strong boys Preston, Jesse (Chad & Suzanna's son), and Jonas. They said they want to be on Team Huge next year.

So when we came up to the "mud pit" this is what we saw...

A sand bagged area filled with red dirt and being flooded with water. Very cold water.

Andrea was the first one through, then Janet and I together, then Mollie. Notice how Janet managed to keep her shirt clean. Mollie hugged her later just so she'd be dirty.

The creek bank was slippery, but we negotiated it with no mishaps. And finally made it to the finish line where we promptly removed our shoes as they weighed about five pounds apiece at that point.

We waited and our fans soon joined us as we cheered for Team Huge and celebrated the fact that we finished.

As we awaited results the kids wanted to run their own race so Jason organized a few sprints for them as well. It's never too early to start training I guess.

The Mud Run - Team Huge

2009-04-05T15:56:00.000-07:00

For several years Jason and I have enjoyed participating in 5k races. Jason has also done 10k and even a sprint triathlon, so when his sister asked if we would be interested in doing an 8k mud run we were excited at the prospect. We knew 3 1/2 months in advance this would be a fun challenge. 5 miles with 30 obstacles and calisthenics stations along the way with one obstacle being a mud pit followed by a creek. So we've been "training" off and on for a while always knowing that although we didn't have quite enough time here or there to get in a work out, the race was still far enough away that we had a while to keep training. Then came the day that we realized the race was less than a week away. Oh the panic.

I was registered on a team with my sister-in-law Mollie and two of her friends but Jason's team had disintegrated in the months between finding out about the race and actually participating in it. So with only a few days to go he managed to convince his brother-in-law Chad that he could still do it and two guys from church, Tui and Jason, that it would be fun. Since no one on their team weighs under 220 pounds their name was "Team Huge".

Now although none of these guys are small they are actually pretty fit. They run, bike, play basketball, lift weights and other various activities. So with each knowing their own abilities they were all pretty confident they could make it through. Unfortunately there were a few setbacks. Jason Garrett had been really sick and was finally starting to feel better but after 2 1/2 miles was having such a hard time with his lungs that he had to drop out.

However the other three team members continued on valiantly without him. The second time around was when everyone had to go through the mud pit and creek. The fans (aka Jason's sisters and all the kids) were yelling that the only way to get through was to dive in like a slip and slide, so that's what they did.

Tui seemed to come through without any issues. However Jason ended up with mud in his contacts and Chad, well you see the pictures. Jason sunk about a foot into the mud crossing the creek, but Chad, oh how I wish someone had managed to get it on video. After much slipping and sliding he managed to haul himself up the creek bank and then only had to worry about the 20 extra pounds of mud he was carrying. Ok, so that's an exaggeration, but not by much.

After the mud pit they still had a few more calisthenics stations, but finally they made it victoriously to the finish line. They were a sight to behold and were received by cheers from all their fans.

After the race there was only one water hose for all the contestants to rinse with. After looking at the length of the waiting line Chad and Jason decided to take advantage of a nearby pond. (Tui had already left in order to get to his daughter's volleyball tournament, we did receive word he managed to get in a shower before he went.) So anyway, they headed for the pond where they dove right in. Jason came up laughing and yelling because a fish had swum up his shorts.

They came out of the pond a lot wetter but not much cleaner. However being dirty never stopped them from helping out and these two dads voluntarily emptied the overflowing trash cans which contained a surprising number of muddy shoes.

They did well and we are all proud of the big boys of "Team Huge"!

2009-04-01T13:13:00.000-07:00

Yes it will come as a shock I am finally updating my blog. Lots of things have happened lately to keep us busy but nothing other than our visits from "The Grandmas" have seemed blog worthy. And I also haven't had the time to update. However with Grandma Cindy here for a few days here we are.

Jonas loves his P-dog and Liddie Bittie!

I had to go meet with some sisters from church this morning. Long story short, I learned how to make laundry detergent. Anyway Grandma Cindy stepped into a day in my life for a few hours. She got to do school with the kids and keep everyone else occupied at the same time. School went pretty well until the internet started freezing up. At one point while I was still home we had all three computers (mine, Grandma's, and the school computer) going at once.

While I was gone Grandma got pictures of school time. And of my closet in the school room, although I think I've posted that before here it is anyway.

Here is our Odie Podie concentrating very hard on history I believe.

My busy little bees!

And my closet.

A SHORT UPDATE

2009-02-16T09:02:00.000-08:00

The Guffey Family is A-Okay,
Let me tell you how they spend their day.
Jason is off to work on construction
While Shiloh is busy with school instruction.
Emily, Jonas & Adrianna, you see
Love Math and English and Geography.
Preston, Adam and our Lydia girl
Keep the house in a constant whirl
With games and messes, and art on the wall,
So Shiloh's work hours are never small.
So don't complain when the posts are slow
Just know that this family is on the go.
So now they are sending their love your way
And want you to know, they'll post pictures someday!

Posted by Cindy

P.S. Shiloh's Computer is disabled at the moment (her electrical cord shorted out) She will be back online soon.

Was This Illegal??

2009-01-23T07:47:00.000-08:00

Okay.... I got tired of looking at the same thing on Shiloh's blog. Knowing how busy she is, I hacked into (well, is it hacking if she gives you the info?) her blog and changed her background. At least that way I will have something new to look at. :-) Love you Shibaby. Can't wait to see more pictures of the kiddos!! Hope you like the background. If not just tell me and we will try something new. - Mom

Birthdays and Magic Carpets

2009-01-09T12:05:00.000-08:00

First of all thank you to Grandma Cindy and Grandpa Darryl for the beautiful birthday dress! My camera accidentally got left in the van at the baptism so I'm waiting on a cd of the pictures that were taken so I can download them onto my computer and here of course.

The Magic Carpet

I figure that when my kids grow up they are going to blame us for any of the quirkiness in their lives whether it's actually our fault as parents or not. So I believe I need to do something at least once in a while so they will have something really bizarre to look back on and realize the rest of the time we were pretty normal.
I was standing in the front room this morning when I noticed the rug by the front door was turned back. As I went to fix it the tag caught my eye because in big bold letters was the word "Magic". Having very recently watched the movie "Aladdin" I had a little laugh to myself and when I went back into the kitchen where the kids were I commented casually that we had a magic carpet. Of course the kids latched onto that.
"Really?!"
"Where is it?"
I told them it was right in front of the door. They raced to the front room then just stopped and stared at it for a moment.
"Mom, that's just a rug," one of the older ones complained.
"Yes, but did you read the back?" I asked. Suddenly from amid a flurry of activity came a voice full of awe.
"It says 'magic'! right there look!"
That exclamation was followed by shouts and squeals of wonder. Then the question that, for some reason, I had not anticipated.
"Can we fly it, Mom?"
I can only say that I have been a mother for a while now because the answer came without me even thinking about it.
"Sure, just not in the house." So the troops ran out to the driveway carrying the carpet. As they piled on as many as they could they began to wonder how to make it fly.
I think Jonas was remembering a scene from Harry Potter because the first the he said was
"I think you have to say 'up'," so immediately a chorus of "UP! UP! up?" filled the air.
Then they thought maybe it needed a jump start so they took it to the trampoline. There they took turns sitting on it while the others jumped trying to get it airborne so it would fly. By this point I was on the phone with my mother giving her a play by play and laughing hysterically. The kids were starting to lose steam asking my why it wouldn't fly. I told them I didn't know, when my mother laughing in my ear said maybe they haven't said the magic word. Of course I had to repeat that outloud and that set them off again. I let them go at it, guessing magic words, as I walked back inside. After a minute Jonas came running in saying he needed paper and a pencil because they thought they found the magic words on tag. Now the tag is written in English, French and Spanish so I'm sure some of those unfamiliar words probably do look magic to them.
I finally called them in for lunch and we went about the rest of our day, but the carpet was far from forgotten. During lunch they had left it out on the trampoline and when a bird flew past the sliding glass doors Emily saw the movement from the corner of her eye and jumped up yelling that she'd just seen the carpet fly past. By the time they got outside though it was still again. After that I told them maybe we should keep it inside just to make sure it didn't fly off. Jonas resorted to throwing a glass of water on it to try and wake it up. And later when I went up stairs I found several of the children sitting on it at the top of the stairs saying they were going to try and fly down the stairs.
Somewhere during all of this they decided they needed capes too, so the older four were all wearing their baby quilts tied around their necks. It was during that time period that Adrianna brought Adam downstairs. They were followed by the carpet. When she had bent downto pick up Adam, Jonas had been messing with the carpet and it fell on her cape so when she went down the stairs it was dragged with her. Of course she is convinced it was following her.
They have now come to the conclusion that the carpet is like some of the animals from Narnia, (note the book Prince Caspian) it has been treated like a regular rug so long it doesn't remember it's a magic carpet. So now they are on a quest to help it remember.

Christmas of Course

2008-12-27T15:57:00.001-08:00

Christmas at our house was wonderful! This was the first time in our 10 years of being married that Jason and I have spent the entire Christmas day with just our little family in our own home. It was absolutely fantastic. It was so relaxing! Which is what we needed after being up till 4:30 a.m. doing all the Santa stuff and finishing our projects (which got mostly finished). This is our Christmas tree with all of the presents before the carnage began. Notice all the Morrocan poofs. The kids now have their own favorite seats for movie watching.

Before we had our traditonal reading of the Christmas story from Luke 2, we talked about symbols of Christmas and what they mean and how we remember and celebrate the holiday.

I can't post all the pictures of the kids presents but here are a few highlights. The girls with the dollhouse we made them. Although we got it mostly finished we obviously didn't get it painted. The girls don't mind though, of course I did promise them they get to help with the interior decorating. They are excited to decorate the rooms especially the ones for the "High School musical" barbies they have. Thanks Cali, Trav and Gideon. They love them!
Jonas got one of his favorite presents from Grandpa Darryl. Here is his "Indiana Jonas" bag, it is awesome! He put it on as soon as he got it and only took it off to bathe. He even wore it to eat christmas dinner. It now carries all of his treasures including marbles, IndianaJones action figures, travel sized battleship, his "Junior Special Agent FBI" badge, a bug vaccuum, and of course his toy gun which looks very similar to Indy's.

The boys also got swords that dad carved. I was skeptical at first, but he made them big enough they have to use two hand to lift them so they can't exactly swing them around, they are just fun to have.

Lydia and Adam also got something mom and dad made. They got rocking horses. The neat thing about them is that we made the pattern from a rocking horse Jason's great-great-grandpa made for Jason's mom when she was little. That rocking horse made it through her, all her kids and now the grandkids so we figured it was a pretty tried and true design. They got finished, although like the dollhouse they need a coat of paint or at least stained and varnished.

Another of the cool homemade presents was a monster truck track that Jonas made for Preston. He designed and built it himself with only a little help from mom and dad. He used the brad-nailer and built ramps and jumps, glued log piles, cars to crush, rocks, the dirt track, grass and even a water hazzard in it. It got played with all day long! Luckily Preston got some new monster trucks from Santa.

We have been abundantly blessed this year and are grateful for all we have been able to do and the blessings wer have recieved. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

They said I had to put a picture of me on here. I was taking all the pictures so this is the only one of me all day. And no I'm not going bald the hat is just weird.

The blowout

2008-11-19T13:06:00.000-08:00

I know I don't post pictures very often, but here is one I took this morning. Lydia and Adam in the tub. Of course they needed a bath after I let my 2 yr old feed my 1 yr old oatmeal for breakfast!

Tuesday evening we were in the van heading to Jason's office to pick up a notebook for him. We had just gotten on the interstate when I noticed something was wrong with my van. Since I was in the left hand lane I made my way over to the far right lane and could tell I had a flat tire. By the time I reached the shoulder and came to a stop I was in the middle of an overpass with 4 lanes of traffic blowing by. I jumped out, saw that my back tire on the passenger side was completely shredded and immediately began calling for help. While it is true that I am a pretty handy person and a do it yourselfer, there were a couple problems here: #1 I had a van full of kids, #2 I have never changed a tire on this van and didn't even know how to get the spare down & #3 It was getting dark. Thankfully a super nice brother from our ward (who just happens to be a truck driver) came and saved the day (& us). I helped him change the tire, so now I am ready to take on any future blowouts. Well almost - I have to replace my spare first.

Just so you realize this was more then a flat I took a picture of the tire (& odie!)

Here is a picture of the all of us.

This is what I found when I got out to look!

Halloween and Home

2008-11-04T18:55:00.000-08:00

Ok, so we got one single solitary picture of us at halloween. Emily is some kind of woodland princess, Jonas is "Indiana Jonas", Preston is his sidekick "Short-round", Adrianna is a kittycat princess, Lydia is a Moroccan Princess, Adam is a giraffe, Mom is the Moroccan queen and Dad was just dad handing out candy. We had a great time, our neighborhood really gets into the halloween stuff, so we have more candy than we know what to do with. We always put everyone's candy together in a big bowl so everybody can enjoy it. It took my largest stock pot to contain it this year. Luckily though I can put the lid on it and put it up when I want it away from little hands.

I am also going to show off the shelves in my "school room". For those of you who don't know, we have a five bedroom house. Three for the kids, one for Jason and I, and now one room for school. It's still a work in progress and I took this picture while we were still moving stuff in, so it's a little messy, but you get the idea.

Oh one more cute story. I was trying to get the kids to take baths one morning before school. Everyone else was done and only Jonas was left. He had been reading in the school roon for quite a while and I finally had to go in to try and force him out to take a shower. What I saw was him sitting on the floor with and illustrated book of the Old Testament on his lap and a group of toys in front of him. His excuse for not coming when I'd called him was "But mom I'm teaching Sunday school". As much as I wanted to say "Aww! You-are-so-adorable-and-that-is-the-cutest-thing-ever!" I smiled and said "I am so glad you are and I will let you keep teaching as soon as you are cleaned up because you know that Heavenly Father does not like unclean things." He gave me the look that said "I don't really think this is what He meant." But fortunately he didn't argue the point. So Here are pictures of his "text" and his class.

School projects

2008-10-23T18:57:00.000-07:00

I know you are all shocked by the fact that I am posting again within a week of my last post and not a month, however fact is sometimes much stranger than fiction. On that note allow me to share some of the more interesting parts of our school days.

Emily had to read an article and a poem recently on the Plains Indians and the buffalo. She was supposed to write two reasons why there are fewer buffalo today than in the 1800's. Her answer was in big bold capital letters "THEY ARE DEAD" and if she knew what it meant I'm sure she would have added "DUH" to that. Ah, the attitude of a seven year old and the obvious stupidity of adults asking the questions. I just busted out laughing and had to call Jason at work with that answer.

We have gotten to do some fun things like our latest project. Jonas has been studying ancient Egypt and got to learn to write using hieroglyphs. The symbols originally stood for words, but then evolved into standing for sounds so there is a kind of modified alphabet he used. We made some "clay" that he carved names into, his own of course then mom, dad and Bobo. (Sorry "Grandpa Darryl" was a little too long for him). Of course all the other kids had to get in on the action too, so I took some pictures. Enjoy!

For Grandma and Grandpa

2008-10-18T18:25:00.000-07:00

Ever since we had our "Christmas-in-July-with-a-Moroccan-Santa-Clause" in Nauvoo, Grandma and Grandpa have been begging for pictures of all the kids in their Moroccan outfits. Here they are (finally).

Randomness of Children

2008-09-10T05:44:00.000-07:00

Ok some of the things my children do are just plain bizarre. Here are the pictures to prove it. I don't know what order these are in, but between taping a face shut, eating while sleeping, being told to smile nice and covering a face with shiny stickers my children always make me laugh. The gymnastics in the living room wasn't so hot, but she was trying to be a cheerleader. Someday I will write a meaningful post again.

Well, it's been a while...

2008-08-25T20:02:00.000-07:00

I'm not even going to try and catch up on everything that happened since my last post. Here is a brief timeline though:
July 4th - Celebrated in Charleston
mid-July - Road Trip!!went to Nauvoo for Hillary and Jake's wedding
July 30 - Adrianna's birthday
Aug 14-17 - Guffey Family Reunion in Gatlinburg, TN
Aug 15 - Closed on our house!
Aug 20 - School started. Homeschool that is. It was a little rough at first, but is smoothing out slowly but surely.

Amidst all the big things were of course little things like a weekend trip to NC just for fun, Shiloh learning how to can peaches and pears (both grow very abundantly here and my kids can pick some pears), and of course our church callings. With all that in mind, I'm just going to randomly post my favorite pictures from over the course of the summer. I'll try to label them if I can recall details. Anyway, enjoy! Hopefully things will be settling into a routine now so I should have a few minutes now and then to get on and update my posts.

Part 3

2008-07-09T16:49:00.000-07:00

Lydia's birthday was the 28th. We started the day by washing the cars as a family. Jason had more fun soaking the kids with the waterhose than anything. Although since it was 90 degrees at ten in the morning who could blame him.

We had a little family party for Lydia that evening. Jason made her birthday cake. He figured this would be the last time she wouldn't really have a strong opinion on the subject. It was an angel food cake with a cool whip frosting that had fruit in it, pineapple, bananas, strawberries and then blueberries on top. It was very, very good!

Lydia had been getting phone calls all day long with people singing happy birthday to her and by the end of the day she was singing it too. Our little dress up queen.

Part 2

2008-07-09T11:54:00.000-07:00

So after the primary activity came Father's Day. Daddy got just what he always wanted, a new grill! Complete with accessories. We didn't get pictures of that though. Here is a picture of daddy with the kids at bedtime though.

Some time in the next couple of days I managed to get this shot. Lydia asleep in her food. Like mother, like daughter so I'm told (Ok I've seen the picture of me).

Then we went to Georgia to visit Skye and Ryan and Ryan's parents, Doug and Donna. We swam in their new pool.

Cami and Skye got a kick out of Adam's "baby Speedo".

Adam had a real knack for finding any hard plastic handles and chewing on them.

I have a couple more shots of him in various rafts but out of respect for myself and fear of my sisters I decided the public didn't really need to see those. Suffice it to say they aren't the most flattering pictures ever taken, although Adam looks adorable in all of them.

The swimming wore him out and while adam fell asleep on a chair...

Emily and Adrianna were helping Donna make an ice cream sandwich cake. It was Yummy!!!!

We had a great time and managed to learn how to make smocking for dresses and even found time to play a few board games with Skye and Ryan before we had to head back home

What a Month: Part 1

2008-07-07T05:42:00.000-07:00

It has been quite a month for us so I'll break this up into several posts. After Lily was born we spent a day or so with Nana and Poppa before we headed back home. On a trip to wal-mart Adam was in his carseat and I was helping Emily pick out a new swimsuit Adam started screaming, it turns out Lydia, who was also in the buggy, was biting him. I took these picture a couple hours after we got back. Yes, she got in some trouble.

Emily and Jonas are really big helpers, they even got Adam down for a nap all by themselves.

We had a primary activity before Father's Day. The kids all made a little present for Dad and then played water games like a water balloon war between the Nephites and Lamanites and tug of war over a baby pool full of ice & water. Preston and Lydia weren't too interested in the water games but they loved the bubbles

All in all a great success, even Adam had a friend.

Cami mentioned our visit to Skye and Ryan for a few days. It was a lot of fun! That will be our next installment.

A Blessing and a Baby

2008-06-07T18:05:00.000-07:00

This has been an eventful week. It started off Sunday June 1st with Adam's baby blessing. I never did get a picture of everyone, but with Jason were his Dad (Mike Guffey), brother Jacob, brother-in-law Grant, my brother-in-law Ryan, and our bishop. All the family came down from NC and Skye and Ryan came up from Augusta. We had a great time seeing everyone and the kids got to spend time with their cousins.

Adam's outfit was made by Ryan's mom, Donna, who is marvelous seamstress. He talked (cried) through the blessing because we forgot his pacifier, but there were some beautiful things said nonetheless.

Poppa Mike was able to enjoy some time with the man of the hour.

The kids last day of school was Thursday and we celebrated by letting them stay up late and watch movies.

And finally Cami had her baby today, Saturday! It's a little girl and though you will probably get the same info on Cali, Cami, and Mom's blogs I have the pictures first.

She went in a little before 6am, started having good, hard contractions and asked for an epidural at 10:30am.

And then we all rested easy for a few hours. Sorry I couldn't get my pictures to rotate the right way, I'll work on that.

Lily Jewell Guffey made her appearance at 3:05 on 06/07/08 ( I think that is so cool!)

She is 7 lbs 2 oz, 20 inches long, has reddish blondish hair (what little there is of it), and great lungs and vocal chords which she practiced using to their full extent.

The little family is doing wonderfully and Cami was so awesome! You would never know she just had a baby!

It's been a great week!

His Good Streak

2008-05-22T11:26:00.000-07:00

Preston is the child that confounds me more than any other. For one he is smarter than any child should be (and I have children who read at a third grade level in kindergarten). There is nothing he can't figure out a way to get on or in, take apart, put together, sort, etc, etc. He is also very calculating and knows exactly what he can do to push the envelope and get away with. Now some of you may think I'm exaggerating, after all, he's only three. However, I believe he is "Dennis the Menace" in the flesh, sweet and well meaning, but at times exasperating. The other day was a good example.

Let me give youa little background first. We live in a very nice suburban neighborhood. The neighborhood is only a couple of years old and with the exception of one couple, all the families in our cul-de-sac have young children. I am the only full-time stay at home mom. The others all work at least part time but are generally home by late afternoon when the kids get home from school.

The kids were all out in force on this particular day playing in the cul-de-sac and each others yards which is normal. I had to go back inside the house for something but was keeping an eye and ear on them through the open front door and windows. As I was heading back out I heard screaming and Jonas came running in yelling at the top of his lungs "Preston's naked in the cul-de-sac!!!" My first thought was that I misunderstood him. I mean, Preston had already gotten in trouble once that day for taking off his clothes then wandering out to the front porch. Alas, there was no misunderstanding my wonderful, young son was standing buck naked by the mailbox surveying the other kids as they screamed and the mothers laughed.

I reacted the way I think any mother would "Preston Scott Guffey (notice the use of the full name) get back here and get your clothes on right now!" His clothes were in a nice little pile right where he took them off, on the porch of course. He looked at me smiled as big as he could then took off sprinting to the other side of the street. So amidst the yelling and laughter I walked quickly and purposefully after him already so mortified that I decided Iwas not going to embarass myself further by trying to run in flipflops in front of all the neighbors. As soon as he reached the sidewalk on the other side he looked back to see how close I was and made a hard left to circle around the cul-de-sac thereby passing every single house and child on the way back to home where he would probably go hide behind the couch. Unfortunately for him he was having such a good time and laughing so hard I caught up with him when he passed the first house. I scooped him up and carried him under my arm and about made another neighbor wreck as she pulled up did a double take and burst out laughing.

What he was thinking I'll never know, but we certainly know how to give the neighbors something to talk about. I can't wait till we get the back yard fenced.

Mommy Tag

2008-05-14T17:54:00.000-07:00

1.Typically, what time do you wake up? midnight, 1:30am, 3 am, 4:30 am, and I get up and get the school age kids up at 5:30am
2. On a good night, what time are your kids in bed? 7:30pm
3. How long have you been a mommy? 7 years, 4 months and 10days
4. How old were you when you became a mom? 21 years 356 days (almost 22)
5. What is your favorite kids T.V show? Bindi the Jungle Girl (the Croc Hunter Steve Irwin's daughter has her own animal show.)
6. What is your least favorite kids T.V. show? Don't even get me started, I could go all day with the ones I don't like.
7. What is your favorite chore? I actually have one! Vaccuuming. Getting to that point is what I don't like.
8. What is your favorite meal to cook? Sunday dinner. I pretend I'm a chef and do semi-gourmet meals (my kids call them fancy dinners). Example: Brown sugar and pecan crusted salmon, seasoned baked asparagus, buttery garlic rice, and dulce de leche tropical fruit salad with coconut.
9. What meal do you cook most often? Chicken stirfry and rice.
10. What is your kids favorite meal? Hot dogs with mac & cheese or pizza
11. What is your favorite thing your husband does with your kids? Taking them camping and hiking and reading bedtime stories
12. What are 5 things that make you smile when you’re being a mom?
A. spontaneous hugs and kisses.
B. Adrianna saying "youwa da best mommy eva!".
C. Listening to them laugh when Jason reads them Calvin and Hobbes.
D. Hearing them help each other when they don't know I'm around.
E. Having other people tell me my kids are well behaved.
13. If you could take your kids anywhere, where would it be? Some place tropical.
14. When was the last time you went out without your kids? I went shopping at wal-mart at 11:00pm Monday night.
15. What is your favorite pastime/activity to do with your kids? Go on "adventures"! (going hiking, camping, to zoos or museums) just doing things together.
16. Name one thing you said you would never say as a mother? "I'm going to count to 3..."
17. Name something you do, that your own mom did? Sing and read to my kids
18. What is your favorite quality your mom has? Her craziness
19. What is your favorite kids book? Skippy Jon Jones and Don't let the Pigeon Drive the Bus.
20. What is your favorite advice for new moms? Sleep
21. What is your most heartbreaking moment as a mom? Having other kids be unfair and knowing there is nothing you can do about it because you can't punish someone else's kid, then trying to explain why some people don't treat others nice.
22. What is your most joyful moment being a mom? Having everyday with them!
23. When was the last time you told one of your kids, “I Love You”? At bedtime.
24. When was the last time you were told, “I love you” by one of your kids? At bedtime.

Ok I actually did this and it only took 2 very interrupted hours.

This One is for Mom

2008-05-13T14:06:00.000-07:00

I came across several old pictures the other day (any of you Brazil Bunch check the other blog) and I found treasures galore. Among them pictures of my Grandpa Doc. I haven't found any others and these were pretty blurry even though I tried to enlarge them some. He's on the far left. This was a family reunion labor day weekend 1996, just less than one year before he passed away. As part of the events/entertainment his group, which included my cousin Hannah, Uncle John and Aunt Nancy, and Grandma Louise, were dancing the macarena. Now the pictures don't do this event justice. There were serious inquiries into whether medical professionals should be summoned either for the ones unable to breathe for laughing, or Grandpa in case he threw out a hip. It was quite the spectacle. Mom, I do have the hard copies of these pics,. I'll give them to you this summer. Enjoy! This wonderful lady was my great-grandma Mildred Eppert. She was Grandpa Doc's mom. In the picture with her is her other son, Grandpa's brother, Uncle Ronald and my sister Hillary. I will always remember going to visit her at the old farmstead and how she always had flowers growing everywhere it seemed. Sunflowers by the garage, petunias, and pansies by the house, and a myriad of flowers for cutting in her gardens. She taught me how to make a doll out of petunias using the flower for the skirt and the leaves and stems for head and arms. I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen. My mom, of course, has many more memories than I do, so, mom these are for you. Happy Mother's Day! (just a little late)

Mother's Day Gifts

2008-05-11T15:53:00.000-07:00

Mother's Day is a very special holiday in our household. As a mother of young children I receive more poems, biometric art (that's art using hand prints, fingerprints, etc.), pictures, flowers, hugs and kisses than any other given holiday. I even receive a good bit of chocolate and unlike other holidays where I may receive similar gifts I also am pretty much guaranteed at least one meal where I don't have to cook or clean up afterward. This afternoon I got another bonus gift. NAP TIME. All of the kids went quietly and willingly up to their beds for nap time. At about the same time even (now that was a real bonus). I was able to chat with my Mom and Dad via the Internet and then before going to my room for my own nap checked on the kids of course. Some were sound asleep... Some were not....

and one made his own special little bed, just because he could. Preston actually slept there for two hours. I'm at the point where I like my comfortable furnishings and that includes a good bed.

Pictures (part II)

2008-05-05T18:33:00.000-07:00

This will only let me put 5 pictures up at a time so I had to split the kids up, here are the others.I never did get a good picture of Jonas looking at the camera. He was having too much fun riding around on this bike that was much too small for him.

My sweet Odie Podie (aka Adrianna) was really trying to be brave after she fell and scraped her knee. She smiled through the tears. That's my girl!

I know, now I have no excuse for not posting updates more often.

Pictures at last!

2008-05-05T18:03:00.000-07:00

For one of my Mother's Day presents I got a digital camera, and yes I got it early. I was actually given a gift card and told it must be used for a digital camera so I got to pick it out and figured I ought to get it early that way I can learn to use it before mother's day. So here are a few (not very good) pictures from this afternoon.My wide-eyed , happy, baby buddy, otherwise known as Adam.Preston really gets into the whole "say cheese" thing. Emily got a haircut last week for those of you who didn't know. This is the shortest her hair has been since she was a baby. Cami cut several inches off.

I want to laugh every time I see this picture! She has this high pitched squeal/giggle that usually accompanies this face.

Ok part two will be up in just a minute, which is ironic considering you'll probably read that before this, oh well.

Work

2008-05-01T20:10:00.000-07:00

Just for fun, a few months ago my mom, sisters and I each wrote a poem about "work". Of course that means something different for each person. The peoms were very enlightening and very representative of our personalities I thought. Mine actually sums up a typical day so I'm going to allow all of you a chance to get a glimpse into my head, I mean, life.

Cleaning the House

Books, backpacks, eight pairs of shoes,
Two hundred crayons and fifteen balloons,
Three Barbie dolls, seven matchbox cars,
Diapers, sippy cups, an old granola bar.
A tent of five sheets on my chairs and vacuum
Takes up what’s left of my living room.
Fifteen loads of laundry to fold
A sinkful of dishes in water getting cold.
One child has climbed in the baby’s seat
Another is thinking dog food is a treat.
I pick the dishes up off the floor
Before her thinking can become more.
We start a race to put things away
Before daddy comes home at the end of the day
With armfuls of toys, blankets and clothes
They run upstairs like they know where each goes.
I finish the dishes, and start supper to cook
I give the downstairs a once over look.
“Not bad” I think of the job that they’ve done
The house looks decent I say everyone’s won.
Daddy comes home and gets hugs and kisses
We have our dinner and then do the dishes.
Then it’s pajama time and upstairs we all go
To thuds, thumps and giggles and I think “Oh no”
And there it is waiting at the top just for me
A mountain five children struggle over with glee.
Our collection of things from the downstairs today
I put a 6 year old in charge of putting things away.
I should have known better, but what would you do
When the five, four, and two year olds say they’ll help too.

Unfortunately that's a pretty acurate description of my house today, only no tent in the living room, but the kitchen table is covered with sewing projects and the front room is now carpetted with newspapers that never made it to the trash. Oh well I'm tired it'll still be there tomorrow. I'll take care of it then. (in that respect I'm not quite the slob I used to be, my procrastination times have gone down though I doubt they will ever disappear good.)

Sewing = Babysitting

2008-04-30T17:48:00.000-07:00

Things are pretty quiet here on the home front. All the kids are in bed so right now I am sitting at the kitchen table giving sewing lessons. Yes I am teaching as I type. Actually there's not much for me to do but make sure my friend is following the directions on her pattern. My friend is one of the young women in my ward and besides just coming over out of the kindness of her heart to keep me company when Jason is out of town she asked me to teach her how to sew. I was extrememly flattered when she asked me and would have taught her no matter what, but she made me an offer I couldn't refuse. Free babysitting in exchange for sewing lessons. Now here's my question for you mothers out there, what would you do for free babysitting? I can tell you sewing lessons is an easy one, plus she gets to count it as one of her personal progress projects (say that ten times fast).

As for the family, we went camping for Jonas' birthday on the 18th. We went to Mistletoe State Park in Georgia and Skye & Ryan met us there for the camp out. Now this was really an awesome thing for them to do because I found out after we got there that the park was only ten minutes from their house yet they came and sat around a campfire and slept on the ground anyway just to spend time with us. I love people who love us :) Jonas got to open his presents around the campfire and said it was the best birthday he ever had. Everybody else really enjoyed it too. We even had the dog with us. It was her first camping trip and she was very well behaved. We have a three room tent and she got one room all to herself and did not bark once all night or try to chew anything. I am constantly amazed that we ended up with such a smart dog. Of course if she wasn't so smart and well behaved she would have been gone a long time ago.

Wow those are the two most exciting things that have happened in the last few weeks. No, wait! We went and visited Grandma Peggy Sunday evening. She's looking good though still very tired and weak (as is expected after heart surgury.) We didn't stay long , just the noise from my kids will tire a healthy person out. Then we went and had a sleep over at Aunt Cami's. (The kid's didn't have school Monday). We all stayed up way too late. After the kids went to bed Cami and I stayed up even later and made magnets and watched movies. I was sure the kids would sleep in after being up so late. No such luck. Oh well. We hung out then all got haircuts before heading back home.

Pretty boring, but that's good, it means nothing catastrophic has happened recently. Although Preston did hit Adrianna in head with the fireplace shovel today. No serious damage (not even a goose egg) but Preston ended up in bed unable to play for 2 hours. He was only supposed stay there while I figured out a suitable punishment, but he fell asleep. The real punishment was not being able to play outside when he woke up. Emily asked her teacher today how many sides a circle has. When the teacher answered "none" Emily replied "What about the inside and the outside?" My children get so much of their personalities from their Father that it's almost scary. (Although it would probably be a lot scarier if they didn't.) Lydia brought me the Snow White and Sleeping Beauty dresses yesterday and insisted one be put on her. She spent the entire day (even nap time) in one or the other. My little princess. Adam finally figured out how to bounce in his jumper thing and not scare himself. It's now one of his favorite things to do and much preferrable to having his siblings hold him. Jonas takes delight in teasing everyone, especially his dad. Like father, like son.

Well, i just had to help my student rip out the entire front basteing of her skirt we're sewing because we put the pleats in backwards. so I better go. That's all for now folks.

2008-04-04T07:05:00.000-07:00

I read my sister Cali's blog this morning and for those of you who don't know her it's well worth reading. She and her husband are new parents. After struggling for sometime with infertility they finally had a baby boy placed with them for adoption. As a sister I was able to have a unique perspective on their situation as they started dealing with infertility and was actually able to talk openly from the beginning.
At first it was hard to know they were going through something I would obviously never understand, but Cali was able to teach me so much.
First, never to try to say something to "make it all better" because I can't.
Second, never to feel guilty for my own situation being different, it just is.
Third, Heavenly Father knows us individually and what one person may see as a challenge another will see as a blessing.
And fourth, never to apologize or feel guilty for the things I am able to do. They are part of Heavenly Father's plan for me and no one who loves and cares about me would want to change that.
She helped me realize the true difference between sympathy and empathy and has given me a new perspective on things I otherwise wouldn't have known. In short, though she may not know it, through sharing her experiences she has helped me become a better person. So Sis, thanks for all the lessons learned. You are such a great mom, I mean I turned out OK and you've been teaching me for years. I love you.

All in the Name of Good Clean Fun!

2008-04-01T05:27:00.000-07:00

A few years ago my little sister Cami started a tradition in North Carolina called "Happy Halloweening". It happens in the week or two before the actual Halloween and started the first year she was married mostly as an excuse to have some good, clean fun with just us girls. We decided that being close to halloween, instead of asking for treats, taking treats to people would be cool. We considered leaving treats on the doorstep, knocking on the door and running, but where is the fun and adventure in that? A plan evolved. We would ring the doorbell and when someone answered we would stay just long enough to yell "Happy Halloweenie!" and shove a plate of goodies at them then run before they could figure out who it was. In order to keep our identities secret we would need costumes including wigs, shades, make-up, the works. Most of you know that my sister Cami and I married brothers so we obviously have the same in-laws which include four sisters. So feeling that we needed more than just the two of us we recruited them. Anyway through the years the costumes have gotten worse, I mean wilder (Jessse in black shiny spandex with tropical underwear over them and rainbow knee socks and high heels), and the visits more than just a hand-off and run. (Although the first couple of years we had people wondering). The reason I bring this up is that I was checking my sister-in-law Mollie's blog ( it's "Grant & Mollie" at right) and she had put these pictures of the last adventure up the other day. I wasn't there for that one but Cami and all our sisters-in-law were involved. So here is a chance for everyone to meet my other sisters.

They actually went to the grogery store where the youngest sister, Amelia, (now Sister Guffey in the Pocatello, Idaho Mission) worked. That is Cami with the flower-crown on her head and Mollie in the shades. This is Suzanna. And here is Heather. Finally the whole group. Yes, our sweet little Cami can convince otherwise sane people to go out in public looking like this all in the name of good, clean fun and giving to others! I love you all!

Thanks!

2008-03-26T20:52:00.000-07:00

I love the new look! Thanks Cali for all your help. You're the best big sister ever!

New Look

2008-03-25T09:57:00.001-07:00

Hey, I hacked into Shiloh's blog and fancied it up for her. (With her permission of course.) But she hasn't even seen it yet. So I'm interested to know what y'all think. I think this looks very Shiloh. What do you think? --Cali

Easter

2008-03-25T07:15:00.000-07:00

My last post is a testament to my lack of knowledge when it comes to technology. I had started a post and accidentally posted before I was ready and went to take it off my blog and couldn't figure out how so I managed to edit it down to "nothing". Anyway here is my own Easter parade. I made all the girls dresses and the boys ties over the course of a day or so.

Then I decided to make myself a dress. Oh my overestimation of my abilities and underestimation of time. I kept messing up and was up all night Saturday ripping out seams and resewing them. I think they all turned out pretty well though.

nothing

2008-03-24T07:05:00.000-07:00

My 100

2008-03-16T11:26:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'll take the challenge here are 100 things about me.

1 I live in South Carolina (at the moment)

2 I was born in Texas

3 I lived there longer than any other state

4 I've lived in 13 different states

5 And 22 different cities

6 I lived in Mexico for 2 months

7 I would love to go back for a month or two

8 I want to take my kids to Mexico

9 I want to teach my kids Spanish

10 I am planning on homeschooling my kids this year

11 I want to plant a garden.

12 I have a sandbox for a back yard

13 I like mountain biking

14 I haven't gone trail riding in years

15 I love running

16 Especially trail running

17 I train for and run a 5k road race between each pregnancy

18 This time I'm trying a 10k

19 We are planning on having more kids

20 We want to get our kids into running (and mountain biking)

21 They love going to races and running when they have kids events

22 We like taking our kids camping and hiking

23 You get odd looks when you take little kids on trails more than a mile long.

24 I have a love/hate relationsip with clearance sales

25 I love the bargains but inevitably buy things I don't need

26 Acquistion therapy to make one feel better only works for a short time then guilt takes over for spending money instead of facing what was bothering you (unless you acquired really cute shoes! Then you need not feel guilt.)

27 I won't go into how I know that

28 My hair is short again. Cami cut it last night.

29 I enjoy Disney channel, just not as much as my kids do.

30 I like waterfalls

31 I want to design a waterfall to go with the inground pool for my dream house

32 I want to build it somewhere warm.

33 In fact tropical would be nice.

34 I love the South

35 I like crafts and making things

36 I don't like cluttering my home with crafts once they are made.

37 I am in process of de-cluttering my home.

38 It is a never-ending process.

39 Sometimes I want to get rid of everything and just start over

40 Then I decide I really don't want that

41 I just want to be better organized with the things I have

42 I don't care much about sports

43 I've never watched an entire sporting event on television

44 I take that back, I've watched horse racing

45 But a race lasts less then 5 minutes

46 That's about the longest I've spent watching any other sporting event too

47 I love reading

48 I'm addicted to chocolate

49 I have chocolate in some form every day

50 I realize I have a problem and have been cutting back

51 I won't say I'm going to quit chocolate all together, but 2 large mugs of hot cocoa, cookies (choc. chip or Oreos), and several pieces of straight chocolate candy (kisses, m&ms, choc. bars, ect) a day was excessive.

52 I'm down to one form of chocolate a day and cutting back on that.

53 I haven't had Hot Cocoa for over a week.

54 And I couldn't figure out why I didn't lose weight as fast after this baby, DUH.

55 I've lost 5 lbs over the last couple weeks

56 I like snuggling babies when I take a nap on the couch

57 I like snuggling babies period.

58 Did I really need to write the word "period" if I was ending the sentence with a period?

59 I need to use better grammer.

60 My husband corrects our children's grammer more than I do.

61 His mother is a language arts teacher.

62 I love theater

63 I've been in at least 13 plays or musicals.

64 Unfortunately I don't remember much of some of them.

65 Guess it didn't make as much of an impression as I thought.

66 I was Cali's understudy in Joseph ATATD.

67 It was the only time I think an understudy didn't want the lead to miss a performance.

68 My kids like watching the movie with Donny Osmond

69 I like it too

70 I like wearing sandals

71 I didn't wear them for years because I was overly concious of my feet.

72 My right foot got cut by a lawnmower when I was 10

73 I realized after about 10 years people really don't notice the scars or my toe.

74 The scar is mostly on the bottom of my foot and my toe just looks fat.

75 I want palm trees in my yard

76 I'd like to take a cruise

77 I want to take my kids to Hawaii

78 I love fireplaces in
79 My favorite color is yellow
80 It makes me think of sunshine and flowers
81 1 cup of Kashi and 1.5 cups of milk will keep me full for over 3 hours
82 Most of the time I eat something about every hour or so that I'm awake
83 Most of the time those are small snacks like a few crackers or pieces of fruit (or chocolate)
84 I'm blessed with a metabolism that can run on pure sugar.
85 I inherited my sweet tooth from my Grandma Peggy
86 At eighty-someting she still eats dessert after most meals.
87 That doesn't include her daily doses of dark chocolate.
88 I know who I take after
89 I try to do my unhealthy snacking when the kids aren't around
90 I want my kids to eat healthier than I did
91 I know I have to teach by example
92 I do cook healthy meals (most of the time)
93 I've learned to cook
94 I can make choclate chip cookies without a recipe
95 And my mom's chicken enchiladas
96 I love the way babies smell after a bath
97 I love my husband and the fact that he loves me!
98 My family is my life.
99 I like anything we can do together
100 I look forward to forever with them!

2008-02-15T04:52:00.000-08:00

Ok, I give in to the update police, since I was the one begging everyone for updates a couple weeks ago. First of all, I won't go into the whole story because you'll all get that from Cali and my mom, I have to say Cali and Travis got the best Valentines day present ever!!!! I am sooooo excited for you two!

Now about my family, I have no new pictures, we don't even own a camera so sorry about that. However things are going pretty well here on the home front. In fact nothing around here has happened lately, which is a good thing, but it doesn't make for very interesting news. So if you get bored I won't be too offended.

Jason has been working up in North Carolina, about 3 1/2 hours from where we live. The particular project they have him on up there has to do with retro-fitting a hydro-electric plant at a dam from private commercial use (it used to power an aluminum plant) into public use to add electricity to the local grid. He loves the area and the work but hates the commute, although to make it a little easier he stays up there two or three nights a week. It still makes for long days when he does have to go back and forth since he has to leave by 4 am and doesn't get home until after 6pm then has to go to bed pretty early to get back up at 3:00am and do it again. That project should be finished around the beginning of March so we only have a couple more weeks of that then our schedule should be a little more normal.

I am just doing what I always do. Taking care of my children, the house, sometimes the bills, trying to fulfill my Relief Society calling, working out now and then, and occasionally checking my email and blogs. Ok lately more than occasionally. I've been trying to do anything productive (ie dishes, laundry, cleaning floors, ect.) in my house cleaning time, pretty much going for whatever looks the worst (most of you know house keeping is not my strong suit), but now we're starting a new system for cleaning. I know most of you are probably completely bored at this point so I won't go into that any further.

The kids are all doing great! Emily is growing into such a mature young girl. She helps me so much with the other kids she thinks she's the second mom (who does that remind me of?). She had her first slumber party last weekend. She had 6 girls over, next time it's limited to two. We had a good time, but there was such a difference in the girls she invited from school versus the girls from church. I couldn't believe that at 6 & 7 years old the girls were talking about having boyfriends or guys they had crushes on. Now I really want to home school my kids. Emily is doing really well in school though, she got the highest scores possible in everything on her last report card. Way to go Ems!

Jonas is also doing excellent in school. He also received all of the highest grades possible on his last report card. He is in a special reading class taught by what we used to call the "resource" person. In most grades levels they work with the kids that are struggling in reading but in kindergarten they work with the kids that are ahead and would get bored in class. I found out from this reading teacher that Jonas is the most advanced reader in the entire kindergarten (5 classes). What a proud Mama I am! He has also been begging his dad to go camping since the weather is starting to warm a little, hopefully we'll get to the beach to do that sometime this coming month.

Adrianna has become my big helper with Adam. She likes to hold him and snuggle next to him when he's laying on his blanket. She is my silly girl too. She loves to dance and play and make up silly songs and rhymes. She reminds me a lot of aunt Cami in all her cute craziness. Like the other day she was wearing swim goggles around the house claiming they kept the sun out of her eyes then put on an umbrella hat because that helps too. Now the fact that we were inside and it was a cloudy day didn't seem to matter. Oh, what fun!

Preston is just plain crazy. He is becoming a cross between uncle Jacob and uncle Cody. Just enough recklessness to scare me to death and enough caution to not get hurt (most of the time). He's a thinker and figures out how to do things the other kids wouldn't dream of. I will honestly admit I am scared of him becoming a teenager. He is so bright and has more energy and stamina than even a three year old should. But he also has the sweetest smile and hugs and kisses.

Lydia or Liddie Biddie as we call her, isn't so itty bitty any more. She is still a growly bear, but is kind of starting to talk and thinks anything the other kids do she should be able to, including jumping on the trampoline and riding bikes in the cul-de-sac. We let her on the trampoline sometimes but have to keep a close eye so she doesn't get bounced too much. She loves to snuggle and thinks wrestling with her brothers and dad is the funnest thing ever! That's when the growling really comes out.

Adam is growing so fast! He smiles so much now! Jason and I are still trying to decide who he looks like. In the other kids we can see resemblances to different family members, but so far Adam just looks like himself. And an adorable self that is! He is a very content baby which makes for a lot less frazzled mom.

Well that is an update on everyone. Just so you know I started this over a week ago and had to stop and save it half way through thinking I'd get back to it that evening, then I got sick and didn't touch it for a week. So it's been a long time coming. Sorry, I'll try to do better next time!

Home and Healthy and Thankful

2008-01-24T18:44:00.000-08:00

As most of you know everyone is back home and healthy once again. Thank you all so much for your prayers on our behalf. You don't know how much I appreciate those. And these blogs too. It's great to be able to keep up with everybody. John, you need to give us a little update, it's been a month since you put anything up on yours. BJ (I know your blog says Brad but you will always be BJ to me) it was wonderful to hear from you! Congrats on marriage and the new baby! I know it's sentimental and nostalgic but to everyone, I love you. Thanks again for keeping us in your thoughts & prayers.

Sick Kids

2008-01-16T21:00:00.000-08:00

As most of you know after reading my mom and Cali's blogs, Adam (6 weeks old) and Lydia (18 months) are in the hospital with RSV (respiratory sincytial virus). Both are stable and slowly improving. Adam is no longer on the c-pap (that's the forced oxygen) but is on warmed, humidified oxygen. He's still on IV fluids, but is allowed to finally bottle feed again. Lydia is still on oxygen but is down to the lowest setting and as soon as she can keep her blood oxygen levels up with the O2 shut off completely they'll let her come home.

I want to thank everyone for the prayers and support on their behalf. I know it is through those prayers and the blessings and mercy of our Heavenly Father that they are able to recover as well and as quickly as they have.

I will continue to update their progress here. Oh, and for those of you wondering Preston is also doing well. Grandma Cindy spoils him completely and he takes full advantage of it! Of course all the other kids do too. so thank you all again!

Stripling Warrior

2007-12-31T06:08:00.000-08:00

Jonas's artistic talents are showing once again in his latest masterpiece done just this morning. He was inspired by his new necktie that he got for church. It's a stripling warrior.

Baby Adam

2007-12-19T14:17:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of pictures of the new baby.

NEW BABY

2007-12-19T14:03:00.000-08:00

Obviously I haven't updated this in a few weeks. We've been a little busy. Adam Jennings Guffey finally arrived at 2:46am December 2nd after mom spent three and a half days in labor. He started showing signs of respiratory distress shortly after he was born and ended up with pneumonia which kept him in the hospital for an extra week. He is at home now though and is doing great! He is getting more love than he ever could have thought possible and is constantly fought over when someone says the phrase, "Can I hold the baby,mom?" Everyone has to have a turn, even, and sometimes especially, Lydia. So here are the pics I have so far.

The Kids

2007-11-27T14:37:00.000-08:00

I am finally putting new pictures of the kids up here. After all my promises of the Halloween pictures I still haven't gotten them from Jason so at this rate they should get up here sometime before Valentines Day. Anyway, hope you like these. Personally I think they are adorable, but then again I may be just a little predjudiced. Jonas 5; Adrianna 4; Emily 6; Preston 2; and Lydia 1.

Update on Halloween Pics

2007-11-02T08:56:00.000-07:00

I will have pictures of halloween up here, but I am waiting for them to get sent to me from Jason's computer. I didn't have the right software to download them onto mine from the camera. I promise it will be soon!

Jonas and Emily's School Pictures

2007-11-02T08:49:00.000-07:00

These aren't very clear because they are just the proofs, but I thought you might like to see them anyway. Emily's wide eyes and raised eyebrows make me giggle everytime and Jonas is just himself. I'm ordering the actual pics this week. We are having pictures taken of all the kids next week as well so pretty soon there should be more. Enjoy!

Jonas' Spaceship

2007-10-28T17:59:00.000-07:00

This is just an expirement to see if I can scan in images and actually get them on here. This is one of Jonas' lastest pieces of artwork.

This Week's Update

2007-10-25T09:00:00.000-07:00

jonas lost his first tooth yesterday. That is the big news of the week. It was very exciting for him and the tooth fairy left him a whole dollar. The only other big news is that we've all been sick. Again. I am partially blaming this on the fact that Emily and Jonas are going to a much larger elementary school (at least 5 classes per grade k-5 and other special programs, pre-k ect.) and are exposed to a lot more germs. We are trying to combat this in every way we know how including being extra vigilant in hand washing and other common sense things and I think we're finally making progress, either that or our immune systems are starting to get stronger. Hopefully both.

Anyway other than the colds we're doing well. The kids are all very excited for Halloween of course. This is the first time we've lived in a close subdivision and everyone is looking forward to trick or treating. I will put up pictures of the kids in halloween costumes next week.

Jason and I have been pretty busy this last week with new callings. Our ward split and we're in a new one now. Jason is the Elder's Quorum President and I am second counselor in Relief Society. We've had more meetings the last couple weeks than in several months previous. Anyway all is well or at least normal (for us) I just wanted to give you a quick update.

Our Family

2007-10-18T12:39:00.000-07:00

This is our family. It was taken at Jesse & Kelly's wedding in July and is the most recent picture we have of all of us. (Usually one of us parents is taking the picture.) Jason is holding Lydia, then there is Shiloh, 4 1/2 months pregnant, then Emily. In front, Jonas is in the tux and cowboy hat, then Adrianna and Preston. Aren't they all just adorable!

Jason and Shiloh Guffey

2007-10-18T12:27:00.000-07:00

This is the most recent picture of the two of us. If it looks a little familiar then you've probably seen the other family blogs (Cindy or Cali's). The only time we tend to get our picture taken is when we're with family.