Kid Made Planter

The other afternoon, I was calling for my 11 year old son.  He wouldn't respond, so I thought that he was up in his room playing legos or reading.  After a little bit longer, he finally came to me.  I told him that I had been calling him for awhile. He apologized and asked me if I would like to see what he had built in the garage.

 

He loves to spend time in the garage working with my husband's tools.  He likes to build things and fix things. He loves to organize and clean out there.  Whenever my husband is out there he always has a little shadow.  I should have known that he was out in the garage the whole time.  In fact, there are some mornings when he will go out and work in the garage before school!

 

When he brought out this planter he made, I was completely shocked!  A few days before, he found a little plant growing next to our potted climbing rose bush.  He rescued the plant and had been nurturing it in a plastic cup for a few days.  I guess he thought it needed an upgrade!

I loved how he used old wood to make the sides and bottom.  He even drilled holes in the bottom to ensure proper drainage.  And I thought the twine he used around the planter was the perfect finishing touch!  It was so cute and I was so impressed! It's a good lesson to remember: never to underestimate a child!

Practice Makes Perfect

This is what four my boys like to do in their spare time... I have another younger son who likes to accompany them on the piano. We have two on violin, one on viola and one on cello.

Practicing takes a lot of time and effort, on both the child and the parent!  But the results are so rewarding!  I love that my kids are to the point where they find different music and start playing together.  I love to sit back and listen. 

 It's one of those moments in life that I absolutely love!

FAMILY!

We had all of our family together during Christmas!  It does not happen too often, so we took a family picture. We would like to share with you!  

  Here is our family with all of our children!   Briana has 7 children expecting number 8, Brittany has 6 children, Bridget has 4 expecting number 5, Brooke has 3 and we also have a brother with 2 children.  There is going to be a total of 25 children and the oldest are only 12 years old!  We LOVE when all of us are together!  We have some GOOD and LOUD times!
Thank you Jess Roussel for taking our pictures at the last minute!!!

2nd Annual Gila Valley Stampede!

Last weekend, our Brother and Sister-in-law put on the 2nd Annual Gila Valley Stampede in Pima, AZ.  It was SUPER fun!   Here are some highlights!

 Brooke's daughter running (real fast) to catch some baby chicks!  

Brittany's son is on crutches, Bridget's son has the grey hat on, and Brooke's daughter running (real fast).

Time to let the big chickens go!

Waiting to catch the Big Chickens.

Briana's kids caught some big chickens and one even caught a greased pig!  While they where trying to catch the pig, Brooke got handed a chicken to hold.  That chicken was MEAN!  It kept pecking her!!!

Uncle Jared and Brooke's Boy

Uncle John!!!

This is our brother James.  He is the one who put on the Gila Valley Stampede!  We loved every moment of it!!!!   If any of you are in the Gila Valley next year, you definitely need to go!!!

It's time to VOTE!

Today is Election Day!   We just wanted to remind everyone to go out and vote if you have not already.  

  We always try to get our children involved.  The decisions that are made in this election will ultimately affect them in the future!  Every vote counts!!

Baby Pictures!!

We have been absent for a little while.  All four of us have had A LOT going on.

I have been out of commission because I just had a little girl!  She is SO cute!  I have been trying to adjust to having 3 babies instead of 2. 

Well, here are some pictures of the newest addition to our family!

 Of course, older sister had to dress up to be like her sister!

 My children LOVE their new little sister and are such good helpers (most of the time)!

 Our attempt at our first family picture!

The Bear Reunion

We have been missing in action for a few days.  We all have been having so much fun at the Bear Reunion.  Our Mom's maiden name is Bear.  Isn't that such a fun name!  Grandma and Grandpa Bear host the reunion every year in June and we all look forward to it!

We drove to their cabin in Lakeside, AZ.  The weather was perfect and the company was even better.  The kids spent most of the time on the lake.  The cabin is on a small peninsula on Rainbow Lake.  Grandpa Bear made a small beach near the dock.  We also had fun playing beach volleyball, softball, participating in Ping Pong tournaments and eating lots of yummy food.

The Reed Family at the Bear Reunion

We put together a small orchestra to play for our Sunday Meeting.  It was so much fun!  We had adults and children playing.  Our mom was the conductor.  We had 13 people playing: 2 cellos, 3 violas and 8 violins.  It was really a neat experience!  We played Love One Another arranged by Larry Beebe.  

One big announcement:  Brittany announced the she is pregnant!  She is 20 weeks along!  So now we have Brooke expecting in August and Brittany in November.

Stayed tuned this summer for some fun recipes, crafts and giveaways...

Happy Father's Day

I know that I should have posted this yesterday, but it just didn't happen.  So here is it today...

Happy Father's Day

Dad and Mom

We all have an amazing father!  He is so giving.  He is the kind of person that would give you the shirt off his back if he knew that you needed one. 

He is such a hard worker.  Dad is a Blacksmith.  You don't see very many Blacksmiths now a days.  But he is one of them.  He uses the anvil and forge and makes beautiful items out of iron.  If you can dream it up, he will create it.  It's absolutely amazing!  He can even make roses and irises out of metal!  

One of the roses that he has made.

I remember as a little girl watching Dad draw things.  I don't know how often he does it now, but I would be so amazed by how he could just draw things.  I would get a paper and pencil and try to sketch things the way he did, hoping that someday I could do it like he did.

He is a Jack of all Trades.  He has done so many things!  As a child, I just knew my Dad could do it all, and as an adult, I think the same thing! He used to build cabinets, own a Carpet Cleaning business (that I just knew that I would take over one day!), was a Police Officer, a Rancher, sold Real Estate, had a Pop Machine business, and of course, the Blacksmith!

I remember that I used to love going to the Horse Auction with him.  I would sit in the stand and admire all of the horses that they would bring through.  Hoping that I could take one, or two, or more home with me.  In fact, there was one time that I started bidding on a horse and Dad didn't know until the auctioneer started pointed his way repeatedly.  Luckily for Dad, someone else was the highest bidder.

One of our fondest memories is the Gummi Worms.  My sisters will know exactly what I am talking about.  We had a little section of field that just got tilled up and had big dirt clods.  He bought a package of gummi worms and hid worms under all these dirt clods.  Then he ran inside and told us that he found something outside!  We were so excited to hunt for all the Gummi Worms!

A long time ago...

One year for Christmas, Dad searched high and low and bought everyone violins for Christmas.  This was in the days before internet, so it was a lot more challenging to locate the instruments.  Two of us older girls already played, but the rest of the five kids didn't.  That Christmas vacation, we taught the rest of the kids one song and went and performed it at a Old Time Fiddle Jam in Arizona.  People couldn't believe their eyes when they saw seven children ages 14 to 2 walk in holding fiddles.  We may not have played the best, but it sure was fun and it was the start of the Reed Family Fiddlers! We later included drums, more guitars, a bass, mandolin and singing.  We have played all over the state of Arizona and into various other states!

This was years ago...

His faith is so important to him.  We were raised members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, otherwise known as Mormons.  I have loved how I could always rely on his testimony.  And I knew that everyday he prayed for me and still does.  He faithfully went to Church every Sunday, even if it was in his Police uniform!

We also spent time working at the Ranch.  It was fun to round up the cattle and to brand the calves.  It was hard exhausting work, but we all have so many great memories of it!  And we can't forget milking the cow every morning and night...

Brooke milking the cow

One thing Dad wanted us to learn before we got our Drivers License was to learn how to drive a standard transmission, change a tire and change the oil.  Not very many young girls, or even boys, know how to do that kind of stuff!  I'm so glad that he taught us how to do that!  The truck that we drove was a 1950 one ton Chevy flatbed dually.  We sure got a lot of looks, but it was fun to drive!  It even had the starter on the floor!  And with no A/C, it sure got hot in the Arizona summers!  Now people get their pictures taken in front of that old truck!  It's funny walking inside someone's house and seeing the truck I drove to high school with their family surrounding it!

We all love our Dad very much!  And we are glad for the way we were raised!

A Very Special Birthday

Our Mom's birthday is today!  And our Dad's birthday was last Sunday!  We are so thankful for the example that they have been to us.  

They have taught us so many skills such as music, hard work, welding, changing the oil, driving a standard transmission, changing the tires, gardening, performing in front of people (we had a family band), canning, cooking (Mom could make a wonderful dish by just throwing things together), baking, riding horses, working at the ranch, shoveling manure, blacksmithing, dutch oven cooking, milking the cow and the list goes on and on...

We had such a fun childhood and it was because of the experiences our parents provided for us.  When someone had an activity, the whole family helped.  We worked hard and played hard.  Life was fun!

One fun memory we share is the time our Dad ran into the house and said he found gummi worms hiding outside under the dirt clods.  We recently had part of our field tilled up and he went out one morning and hid gummi worms under the big dirt clods.  We thought it was amazing that gummi worms were coming out of the ground!  Now that we are older, Brittany has tried to recreate this experience for her kids, but she said that it needs to be a cooler morning and not in the middle of a hot day...the gummi worms melted.  :)

So I talked to my Mom this morning and asked what she wanted to do on her birthday today.  Most Mom's might go and get a pedicure or go shopping or even relax, not our Mom.  She wants to try our her new weed eater and remove the nails out of the boards from the chicken coop they tore down.  Only our Mom...we love her!

We are thankful and blessed to have them as our parents! And love them to pieces!

What have your parents taught you?

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BillionClicks.org

A couple of weeks ago, all of us sisters went to the Time Out for Women in Albuquerque, NM.  I posted about it last week.  We had so much fun!  There are so many speakers that I absolutely loved, in fact, I loved them all!  I just wanted to take the time to talk about Hilary Weeks and a project that she is doing right now called BillionClicks.org.   

I think that this is such an excellent program that I shared it with my family for Family Home Evening Monday night.  For those of you who don't know, every Monday night we gather together as a family and spend time together.  We sing, have a lesson, activity, pray and always end with a treat!  Anyways, my older kids knew that I had something special to share with them all week and they knew that it involved a clicker and they were so excited about it!

I shared this video with my family.

And then I explained that I have a clicker that each person will take for a day and will "click" their positive thoughts onto.  We will then record our "clicks" onto BillionClicks.org.  They were all so excited!  The only problem is that I only had one clicker and they all wanted to go first.  So we had to come up with a rotation schedule and these boys are really clicking away!

Next week at Family Home Evening we are going to discuss the difference  that clicking made in our personal lives and the difference in our home this experiment makes.  I really think that this was an inspired program that will aim our focus onto the positive things in life.  There are so many distractions in life that can get us down and make us feel useless and worthless.  But with all of the blessings and opportunities that come our way everyday, it's important to acknowledge and focus on the positive things. 

Hilary Weeks and our Sisterhood!

So go ahead and CLICK away!

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Time Out For Women

This past weekend we all drove to Albuquerque to attend the Time Out for Women Conference.  We had such a great time and built many fun memories.  Our mom joined us along with our sister-in-law, Karlee.  She is so beautiful and so fun!  We missed hanging out with our other sister-in-law, Larissa, but she is getting ready to have a baby.

We stopped at this fun place to eat called Sparky's in Hatch, NM.  The food was great and the atmosphere was upbeat.

Brittany ordered a Root Bear Float that was tasty!

Brittany and Mom

The BBQ was yummy, especially on the pulled pork sandwich!

Karlee, Briana, and Bridget

When we left the restaurant, the line was out the door and the parking lot overflowing! We wanted to get a picture of us in front of the building with the Colonel from KFC, so we asked a group of military men to take our picture.  We were a little off centered, but it worked.  

Brooke joined us from Amarillo when we got to our hotel.  We wanted to go and see the Albuquerque Temple.  However, there weren't enough seats in Mom's car, so Karlee sat on the floor.  We looked like a bunch of clowns piling out of a car in the circus!

Brooke, Briana and Karlee

Brittany and Brooke

Briana, Brooke, Brittany, Karlee, Bridget, Mom

Karlee, Brittany, Brooke, Briana and Bridget

Mom, Brittany, Brooke, Briana, and Bridget

Karlee, Brooke, Bridget, Brittany and Briana

Before the Conference started, we stopped by and ate at Chick-fila.  The cow came up behind Karlee and scared her so bad!  We were all laughing so hard!

We were so excited to see and hear Jenny Oaks Baker.  She played amazing!

We heard so many speakers.  Friday night, we listened to Dean Hughes.

After the meeting on Friday night, we ran into our cousin, Julie.  We didn't even know that she was going to be there.  So we were all excited and sat with her and ate lunch with her the next day.

Hilary Weeks performed and spoke on Saturday.  She did a great job and was so fun!  She talked about thinking positive thoughts and counting them on a clicker.  She started a website trying to get to a billion clicks.  So we all bought clickers to count our positive thoughts!

We all had such a great time and would definitely go again!

Julie, Karlee, Bridget, Brittany, Mom, Brooke, and Briana

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