Digital Fun...

Have you noticed my new background and header??? :D

So I decided a while back that I wanted to figure out how to make my own blog background and header. I have seen tons of really cute ones and I wanted to know how to do them for myself. I looked on-line a little bit and found a website that actually tells you how to change your background. It's so simple! Or so I thought. I did exactly what the girl said but couldn't get it to work like I wanted. So I played around for a few days and finally found the right size for my background, then I designed something with all of my favorite tv shows and tv couples and my favorite flower and now I love to just sit here and look at it!

I also found another blogsite that does a daily search for free digital scrapbook elements and I have been having lots of fun downloading cute little things! I was able to use some of these to make my new blog masterpieces, but I also hope to use them for some Christmas gifts that I really should start working on! Man, I need to be more disciplined!! :P

If you want to learn more about the whole blog background thing you can go here --> http://www.howtomakeonecuteblog.blogspot.com/

If you want to use one of this girls 'One Cute Blog' backgrounds, and she has some really cute ones, you can go here --> http://onecuteblog.blogspot.com/

Another great site with lots of fun backgrounds is --> http://matiekay.blogspot.com/

All of these sites tell you exactly what to do and they are nice because you don't lose any information (links, etc) when you change your html (template) like you do with some other blog backgrounds.


And if you are interested in downloading digital scrapbooking freebies you can go here --> http://www.digifree.blogspot.com/


And, since I don't have any homework right now and I don't particularly enjoy spending my day cleaning house, if there is something that you would like me to make for you let me know! I love playing with my Photoshop program and so I would love to work on some other things that aren't mine. Just let me know and we can figure something out! Why have a boring blog when you can fancy it up! :D

Well, that's been my week, other than carting kids around all week and paying WAY TOO MUCH money to fill my car's gas tank. Although I did get to go to lunch today with my Visiting Teachers, Jennifer and Marnie, at Chili's and it was sure yummy!! This week we also had to put up some higher fencing in our backyard so that our stupid boy dog can't jump the fence anymore. Everyone else calls him Buck but I don't like that name so I have decided that I will call him the same thing that Eustace on Courage the Cowardly Dog calles Courage, Stupid Dog!! :D I don't think I've ever seen a dog this stupid... Oh well! :P Jensen and I have also been reading some cute books at bedtime. Her teacher at school started reading them to her class and so I got them so that we could read them at home. They are cute books and if you have older kids, probably between the ages of 4 to 13 (Jorden even comes in to listen! :D ), they will love them! They are the Moongooble and Me books and right now there are 3 of the, with a 4th coming out in August. Super fun!

That's about it for our week. Nothing too exciting, as you can tell. Only 3 days until Jillen's 10th birthday! Wonder what kind of cake she is gonna want? I guess I should probably check into that. Maybe then she will stop adding things to her Birthday Wish List. :D Oh, and only 4 more days until my Birthday Sub Sandwich and Strawberry Pie. Yippee!!! Too bad I have to be up early that day to get the kids to school... Oh well, it'll just make the day longer and more of it for me to enjoy! :P If only there was a CSI: Miami marathon on A&E that night, but alas I will have to wait until Wednesday night for that. Man that show rocks!! I love seeing how Horatio and Eric and Calleigh and Ryan and Alexx and Natalia and Speed solve crimes! The forensic stuff is way cool, even if it's not totally accurate. So what, at least you always know when H (Horatio) is gonna get the bad guy because he stands there with his sunglasses on, hands on his hips, looking off into the distance, and then bam! The bad guys go down!! Awesome!!!

I can't post without some kind of picture so here goes!!


Here are me and the kids at my aunt and uncle's wedding anniversary party last week -


Here is the big bougainvillea bush in our front yard, pretty but deadly! :D


Some lovely sunsets we've enjoyed the past few weeks --

Busy, Busy, Busy...part 2...

On to part 2 of our Busy, Busy, Busy series. :D
(This post is intended to follow the other post, so maybe you should scroll down and read that one first. Man, I wish there was a way to change the order of posts! :) )

Day Camp!

Jayden got invited to go to Cub Scout Day Camp this year, even though he won't be 8 until the end of the month. He was sure excited and I think he had a good time for the most part. I got to go with him on Saturday and be the parent helper for his group. Our ward only has 3 boys, including him, in the Wolf and Bear Dens, which is probably why they invited him! :D He was just okay about going until he heard that they had BB guns and archery! After that it was all he could talk about! Here are a few pictures of our day!

Jayden pans for gold! The theme was 'Jungle Safari' and I think he was most excited about the cool hat! But gee, you spot those boys from a mile away in their neon green shirts! :P


And what would day camp be without water balloon fights?!?! I guess that's one good way to keep cool!


ARCHERY!!! Boy, his Grandpa Jones will be so proud!! He did great on both archery and bb guns, hitting his targets lots of times! He sure loved it!


And here are some views from South Mountain. This is the downtown area, and if you look really close you can see the ball park with it's roof open! :D Man, I never realize how big that building is until I see it from far away!


And here is a view of the mountains in the northern and central part of Phoenix. Camelback Mountain is just to the right of the center of the picture. It sure was pretty from the Day Camp!


And one more good thing from Day Camp... After the boys shot their bb guns and bow & arrows, the parents got a turn. I figured what the heck! I'm usually a decent shot with a gun, so I tried it. I got a bulleye on my first shot! My mom will be so proud! :) Then I hit the target 4 more times before my gun jammed up. I think it was trying to make the mom's next to me not feel so bad since neither of them could even hit that paper surrounding the target! :D And, just so that my dad doesn't feel left out, I tried the archery too. I don't remember ever having shot a bow before but it must be in my blood... I got a bulleyes with my 4th shot! They had balloons in front of the bullseye part of the targets and I was the first lady to shoot out my balloon!! I got a candy reward and everything! :D There was one guy who shot his balloon before I got mine but he obviously had a lot of experience since almost every one of his arrows was in the bullseye part and they all were stuck really deep into the bales of hay behind the targets. It sure was fun and my boys were excited that their leader beat all the other moms! :P


Aunt Jean's 90th Birthday!

While Jayden and I were at Day Camp I missed out on my Great Aunt Jean's 90th birthday party! She is my Grandpa Loe's sister and my mom's aunt. I was bummed that I didn't get to see everyone, especially since both of my sisters were there, but it looks like they had a great time. Here are some pictures my Aunt Nancy passed along to me...

My mom, sisters, and their babies with Jean.
LtoR - Ellee, Brooke, Brianna, Britt, Marie, and Jean


More family with the birthday girl!


On a side note, I remember when I was pregnant with Jensen, Jorden kept telling me that he thought I should name her Jean because it started with a 'J' and he thought it was a nice name. I guess if we had done that then it could have been after Aunt Jean! :D

GI Beau

I know I said that a few weeks ago my brother Beau graduated from his Army Basic Training and that he was headed to Texas for more training. Well, my mom passed along some pictures of him and I figured I should include them, you know, to show how handsome he is in his fancy dress uniform! :D (And for any of you single ladies out there, I will be screening dinner date applications in case you're interested... :P Who knows when he will be back in town but if you're pre-approved then there shouldn't be any waiting time. ;) :D )

After graduation in his dress uniform and then in his fatigues at the airport, heading for Texas.


Luckily he ran into my parents at the airport since they were all heading out the same day.


What that Army if known for... Big Tanks...


And Big Guns... (don't you love sisters... :D )


Busy, busy, busy!! Wonder what is next? Oh that's right, a month full of Wild Whitmer Birthdays! :o

Stay tuned for more pictures from those! :D

Busy, Busy, Busy...

Wow, is there ever a dull moment around here? It sure doesn't seem like it! :) We've had lots of activities to keep us busy during this first week of summer. Here's the rundown!

New Air Conditioning Unit...Finally!!

We finally got a new air conditioner for the house! Tim was able to get a really good deal on a unit and all the stuff to go with it. It sure is nice to work for an Air Conditioning Distribution company when we live in the Valley of the Sun! :) Before he put in the unit he decided to redo the pipes under the house and boy, what a mess!! It took him more than a week but he's finally done! And the house is so much cooler! :P

Here is the backyard in the middle of the mess. He decided to take out the old return that came straight into the back wall of the house because it was really bad for the air circulation, which is probably why the house was always so warm! Plus I'm sure all the holes in the old pipes and tubes didn't help! Man, air was leaking out everywhere!



Here is the new return that we put into the middle of the house. I really should have gotten some pictures of the huge hole we had to put into the wall and the one that we put into the floor, but I didn't think about it until it was too late. Luckily you can still see all the sawdust and wood pieces on the floor from where we cut the walls. The kids thought we were putting in a secret passage way between their rooms and adding a basement with the staircase in the girls bedroom closet! :D



Here's the girls closet with the new return piping going down under the house. We still need to put the carpet back in and screw down the new wood for the floor, but at least it's all working great! Oh yeah, and we need to add some trim on the wall around the box so that it looks a little nicer. :P After we put this all in we realized why they decided to put the old return in the back wall of the house! :D WAY less work!!




Anniversary Party!!

On the Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend we got to go to a 50th Wedding Anniversary party for my mom's sister, my Aunt Nancy, and her husband, my Uncle Weldon. It sure was fun getting to see family that we hadn't seen in a while. I think the kids had the most fun playing with the balloon decorations! :D It was a fun time for us all!

Here is the happy couple! Nancy and Weldon Carter who were married on June 14, 1958. Wow, they must have been just babies! ;)



Here is the Carter Family -- Leslie, Weldon, Sandy, Nancy, and Tami



And fun with balloons!! Boy, I never realized all the things you can do with a balloon! :D

Apparently, as Ellee (my niece) and Jillen show us, you can eat them...





You can hide behind them, as Jensen is demonstrating...



You can take them for walks, and Jayden is doing...



You can use them to create new and interesting hair styles, which is Jorden's favorite thing...



And you can use them to increase your cuteness factor, although in this case I think the balloon is using Ellee, in her sweet little party dress, to increase it's own cuteness factor since obviously Ellee doesn't need any help in that area! :D



Well, I think that will be it for this post! So many pictures!! Stay tuned for the next edition in this series...

School's Out For Summer...

Yeah!! School is out for the summer!! Although every year the summer seems to shrink by a day or two. What's up with that??? Before you know it the kids will be going year round. :( The kids were excited to be done with homework and classwork, but they are all pretty bummed about not getting to see their friends for the next 2 months. Oh well, they will be back before they know it! I got to go to all of the 3 younger kids class parties and that was fun. Plus it rained on us when we were done so that made it even more fun!! Here are some pictures from the day --

Here is Jensen at her class party getting her award. All of the kids got an award for something special about them or something special that they did. Her award was for making learning fun because she was always so excited about new papers that they did in class and she always tried to get everyone else excited about learning something new. Ya, that sounds like her! :)


She was so excited about it that she ran off cheering before I could get another picture! :P


Here she is with her teacher, Mrs. Martinez. She sure is a great teacher! She makes things so fun for the kids. She taught them a little morning song that they would sing every morning when saying the pledge and having a moment of silence. It has actions and everything, I guess I should get her to do it some time so I can film it. It's something along the lines of -- Good morning birds, Good morning sun, Good morning flowers and trees each one, Good morning ?????, Good morning to you and Good morning to me. Yeah, I really need to ask Jensen about it! Jillen had Mrs. Martinez for 2nd grade so we were super glad that Jensen got her this year!



Here is Jayden and his teacher, Ms. Swartz. Boy, I can't say enough good things about her!! She was really a blessing for Jayden this year. He struggled so much last year in 1st grade, they really wanted to keep him back in 1st grade again this year, but once we got his ADHD diagnosed and got him started on some medication things seemed to straighten out a little bit. Ms. Swartz was always so patient with him and always encouraged him to do his best. He really enjoyed having her as a teacher! I got to help out in his classroom a few times each month (well, I helped in all the kids classes) and I was really impressed with how positive she was, even when the kids were not being their cutest selves. :P She really helped Jayden with his handwriting and he really started improving once they started cursive in January. As a result he got the Best Penmanship award for his class! He was so excited!! We will forever be grateful to her for all of her hard work and dedication!
<-- Notice the army suit from Uncle Beau! Seriously, he never wants to take it off!! :D At least it was cold and rainy all day so he didn't sweat to death or look too out of place wearing his jacket! :P


Jillen always loves her teachers, and this year was no exception. She was a little worried at the beginning of the year because 4th grade is a little stricker than 3rd but she did great! And she quickly became a favorite of her teacher. Mrs. Nicol told me that she could always count on Jillen to have a good answer or to work hard on her classwork. She said lots of good things about her which made me happy since I'm her mom. I guess I must be doing something right since other people think she is such a sweet, helpful girl. Jillen and I will both miss her next year!! I always looked forward to helping in her class because Mrs. Nicol was so much fun to talk to! :D Jillen made the Principal's List and had straight A's again this grading period. She was sure excited!!



And of course, Jillen is our little social butterfly. Here she is with a few of her best friends --

Jillen and Hannah


Jillen and Kaylin


Jillen and Maddie


And Jorden did great with his school stuff too. He won't get his grades for a few more weeks but according to his weekly planner he has pretty close to straight A's again, if not all A's. And he said that he made the Honor Roll again. I asked him if they give out certificates or anything and he said yes, that he had thrown away a couple of them! :o I guess we should be getting one in the mail for this semester and he thought he had another one in his folder, so I should be getting that. Silly Boy!! He got to go out with his friends for the first time last night too! I think I saw him for a total of about 15 minutes all day! As soon as he got home from school his friends came and picked him up and they went to buy tickets to the Indiana Jones movie. Then they all went and hung out at one of his friends houses and had dinner and stuff. He had a really good time! I think he was surprised that I let him go, especially since he didn't get home until almost midnight! But I know all the families and all of his friends are in his Deacon's Quorum at church so I figured it was pretty safe. Plus I guess he's got to be able to start having some fun without me sometime... ;)


So, since school was out today I decided to take the kids to the movies! One of our local theaters does movies before noon on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and holidays for $5.00 each. I have been waiting patiently for 2 weeks to see Speed Racer, so off we went this morning to the 11:00 show. I know that the critics didn't like this movie, but I have learned over the years that the movies I love are usually the ones that they hate, and the ones that they rave about are ones that I can't stand. You know, the kind where you feel dumber for having wasted 2 hours of you life watching it? :P The kids were excited, but probably not as excited as I was! And the movie was really good too!! No cussing or blood or sex or anything! And both the young kids and the older kids liked it. There was lots of action in the car race scenes and a pretty good story line too about the good guys trying to defeat the bad cheaters. And the fact that Matthew Fox and Scott Porter are in it didn't hurt either! :D Well, at least I found myself smiling a little more everytime they were on the screen!! :D It is one that I am sure we will buy when it comes out on dvd. Here are the kids (minus Jayden who apparently doesn't like to be in pictures anymore... Wait, he is my child right??? :P ) in front of the movie poster. Notice the long sleeved shirts!! It was chilly all day!! And it's the end of May!! I think our high today was around 70 degrees or something, and it has rained for the past 2 days! We got over an inch of rain!! That kinda sucked for all the high school graduations last night. :( Anyway, Speed Racer!!!



Oh, and congrats to Cookie for winning American Idol!! He will do great!!! I sure wish that both him and Archie could have won but I know how talented they both are and I am sure they both have great careers ahead of them. Yeah Cookie!!

Random Ravings...

Get ready!! The All-David Finale airs tonight on American Idol!! Now I will be the first to admit that I haven't regularly watched this show since about season 2 or 3, and I wouldn't have watched this season either if it hadn't of been for my Mom telling me that I MUST watch it! :D I had class this Spring on Tuesday nights so I was never home to see the performances and then one night I missed class because Tim was gone and I thought, "Oh yeah, American Idol is on. I guess we can watch that since I don't know any of the other shows that are on." After that night I was hooked! I would get home from school on Tuesday nights a little after 10 and finish up any History homework that I had to have turned in by midnight, and then go to YouTube to watch that nights performances. My favorites from the very beginning were -- Brooke White, David Archuleta, David Cook, and Jason Castro. We started calling them by nicknames as the show went on. David A. became Archie (which I think a lot of people call him), David C. became Cookers or Cookie, Brooke was just Brooke (with a lovely name like that why change it? Am I right Brooke??? :P ), and Jason became known as Pretty Eyes. :D I was really excited when they all made the top 5, and I am super excited that the David's made the finale! I figured that they would so I was thrilled last week to see that other people agreed with me, especially since I never guess these kinds of things right! So good luck from us to the Two David's! I think they are both really great and our house will be happy with either one of them as the winner! I really like David Cook, but I must admit I will be voting for David Archuleta. His voice is so beautiful, and he's such a sweet kid -- We Love Him!! Good Luck boys!!

The David's!! Cookie and Archie --

Brooke -- Hopefully we will get to see her again this week!

And Pretty Eyes (Jason). Is there really any question as to why we gave him that nickname??? :D

Okay, I saw this first picture and I couldn't NOT mention it! I know everyone thinks that their babies are the most beautiful babies ever, and some of them are really cute, while others obviously have parents who are highly delusional. :D I always thought my kids were cute but I will be the first to admit, this baby is the most beautiful baby ever! I guess with the parents she has, she comes by it naturally. I have always thought that there should be a law requiring some people to pass along their genes, and this baby is proof of that. Thank you Brad Pitt for proving my case!! Now if Michael Vartan would just find himself a nice girl... Well, there's plenty of time for that!! Especially with 2 more little Jolie-Pitt babies on the way. Can the world possibly handle 3 of these gorgeous little people??? I can't wait to see!!

Look at those eyes, those cheeks, that mouth, and that hair! She is just perfect!! And with a name like Shiloh, she's even cuter!!

I guess with beautiful parents her probability of being cute was pretty high. Although sadly it doesn't always work out that way! ;)

Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt gets my award for Most Beautiful Baby On The Planet!! She's just so sweet!

As Jensen and I sit here watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for the hundredth time, I am reminded of how amazing Johnny Depp is! If you haven't seen it, you really should!! He is hilarious and even though he looks a little odd and his skin is kinda pasty white, he's still one of my favorites! This movie is really great, just like the original!! Check it out!! You won't be sorry! :)

Silence and Camo Boy...

Wow!! This week is finally over! Jensen was sick until Thursday and got to stay home from school all week, until Friday when she was only there for about an hour since they had early outs because it was the last day of the grading period. The kids are pretty excited to get out for the summer this Thursday, although Jayden and Jensen are going to do a Summer Reading Program there for the month of June. It should really help them with their Phonograms and give them a head start for next year. And since it's only half a day, Monday through Thursday, they should still get plenty of play time.

Can you hear that? Listen... Did you hear it? The sound of silence? Coming from my house? Ahh, a mom's night alone!!

So this past weekend Tim decided to take the kids camping. They all have been dying to go for quite a while now so he found a camp site just outside of town and they headed out for the night on Friday afternoon. They didn't go too far and since it was hot, they came back Saturday morning. But I got the night all to myself! I almost didn't know what to do with myself! Almost... :D Tim said that he wants to try and go once or twice a month with the kids, which would give me lots of nights to myself! :) The kids all asked me if I would go with them but each time I explained that "Mom doesn't camp!" and eventually they got the hint. It's not that I don't camp, or haven't ever camped, I have...alot. It's just that I don't LIKE to camp, and avoid it whenever possible! ;) My idea of roughing it is a hotel room! Anyway, I had plenty of things to keep me busy, as you can see in this picture of my events for the evening!

First I got Panda Express for dinner. Yum!! Then I went to Paradise Bakery and got some Lemon Zester cookies. (They are SO good!!) Then I went to Bath and Body Works and got a refill for my plug-in room freshener. Man, I could spend a small fortune in that store! :P Then I went by Sonic and got a Vanilla Cherry Coke. I was all set! When I was at Wal-Mart earlier in the day I saw that they had refilled their $5.00 dvd bin and they had some movies that I LOVE! I got A Knight's Tale, Footloose, and The Wedding Planner, which I added to the 2 ice skating movies I got not too long ago - The Cutting Edge and Ice Castles. Have I mentioned how much I love movies??? :D I also treated myself and bought Juno. It's such a cute movie! So I had movies to watch, which I did, and I even watched an episode of Roswell and one of Friday Night Lights! And imagine my excitement when I turned on Jay Leno just to see who was on and found out that Matthew Fox, aka Jack on Lost, or Racer X from Speed Racer, or 'Foxy' as he is commonly called (obviously we know how he got THAT nickname!! And it's not just because of his last name!! :D ) was going to be on. Oh, he's so awesome!! (And so grows my crush...) It was a fun evening, that's for sure!! I was even nice and bought Chocolate Chip Cookies from Paradise Bakery for the kids and Tim for when they got home. (Well, I knew I shouldn't eat an entire dozen of Lemon Zester cookies myself... :P )


Then Saturday my parents came by on their way home from their trip back East where they got to see Beau graduate from his basic training. They had a great time and really enjoyed the time they had to visit with him. They said he got ice cream 3 times that day while they were out! Apparently the Army isn't too big on their recruits eating a lot of fattening things! :P So, of course, they brought some fun things for the kids. The girls got Army Teddy Bears and the boys got Army Camo t-shirts. And Jayden got his wish fulfilled -- the wish he has had ever since seeing Uncle Beau in his snazzy Army camo uniform! I mentioned before that Jayden asked me why I hadn't gotten him any clothes like Uncle Beau's...Well Uncle Beau sent a mini Army suit just like his for Jayden! It's for his birthday next month, but there was no way that it was gonna wait until then! He put it right on and seriously has only taken it off to shower and go to church today. And then as soon as we got home he put it right back on! He slept in it last night, jumped on the trampoline in the sprinkler with it yesterday afternoon, and wore it all morning and afternoon/evening today. And he's sleeping in it again tonight. I am gonna have to PRY it off of him tomorrow morning when he has to go to school. He even took his hat with him to church today! He wore it the whole way in the car and then held it in Primary, putting it back on as soon as we left he building to go home. Silly Boy!! And he did all of this even though it was almost 100 degrees yesterday and over 100 degrees today! He looks a little silly sweating to death outside in his t-shirt, pants, jacket, boots, and hat, but he loves it!!! Thanks so much Uncle Beau!!! Hoepfully I can get it washed tomorrow while he is at school because I am sure he will be looking for it as soon as he gets home from school! :D

And here is Jayden going his best impression of Uncle Beau -

And just to prove how into camo Jayden is, he fell asleep last night in the camo uniform, with his camo blanket, so Jorden and I decided to have a little fun of our own!! We played our own version of Where's Waldo -- we call it...

Where's Jayden???

Can you spot the elusive Wild Jayden?

How about now?

And since we had just watched E.T. yesterday afternoon, I was inspired by a particular scene. This is the Where's Jayden??? version of it -

Yeah, it doesn't pay to fall asleep around this house when mom is still awake and has a camera!! Oh well, at least he's cute!! :D Ahh, what an interesting week!!