It's a Good Day!!!

Although I am not A HUGE fan of her choice of lifestyle....I must say that I LOVE Ellen! She puts a smile on my face everyday. She is a crack up! I think Ellen has a HUGE heart and I must admit, while watching her show, when she gives away all of this money and changes people's lives, I get all teared up! I was getting all weepy this morning when I watched a show that I had DVR'ed from yesterday. Anyway, it just put me in a good mood, knowing someone else's life just got a little easier, even though deep down inside, I totally wished it were me!!!

On to the OTHER good news of the day....we FINALLY got one of our properties rented today! Yay....what a relief! Not only does taking phone calls all day about the rental get time consuming, but the gas I use to travel in to Ammon to show it all of the time gets pretty pricey! So I am extremely excited. The funny thing is, we are renting to some of our previous tenants, in fact, this family rented this same exact home only 4 months ago. They were great tenants and we are happy to have them renting from us again. I had only wished the home was in as good of shape as it was when they left. Unfortunately, the tenants who were in their for 3 months, TRASHED the home! It was terrible! Now we are confident that this family will take good care of our property.

Oh, and one more thing that really made my day. This handicapped man of about age 25 came up to me in McDonald's while I was getting a drink and said, "You are very pretty for a mom!" Ha ha. I smiled and told him thank you....but I just thought that was so nice. (and I wasn't even wearing make-up today!!!)

A MUCH Needed Update

Let's see where do I begin?

A few updates about the kiddos....

L I T T L E W I L L I A M
My handsome little fella just recently got a hair cut. To me, it's a little short, but it is growing on me. William is doing so GREAT in school. He is reading chapter books now and is really in to them. He's already graduated out of the 3-minute read program in school, and is just excelling in so many ways. We are so proud of him and his desire to learn! Flag football is over, but BYU and Steelers football is NOT....so William still gets to enjoy his sport. Can't say enough about my little smarty pants son....he's a great kid!

B R O O K L Y N
Brookie is still seeing her speech therapist, but is really improving. Her most noticeable struggles are getting out those "S" blends, "sp" "sc" etc... Brookie's "school" usually is "tool" and "spider" is "pider." You get the idea! Anyway, with reminders she can usually get it right, but I see her improvement all the time. Kindergarten is great. Brooklyn loves doing homework and is beginning to read! I struggle with my patience in helping teach her, but I am doing my best at keeping my cool. Ballet and Tap are Brooklyn's favorite things. She loves practicing her shuffles around the house. Sometimes mommy even busts out her tap shoes and makes some noise right along with Brooklyn!

B A I L E Y
....is POTTY TRAINED!!!! Yay!!!! It only took a couple of weeks and a few accidents, and she hasn't even ONCE had an accident at night in bed. In fact, we were putting diapers on her for bed, and every morning she was dry, so we opted out of the diapers and we haven't had a single clean up....knock on wood! Bailey is a bundle of joy and quite a little performer...singing and dancing. We still go to Music Makers every Thursday morning, it's one of the highlights of the week for Bailey!

M A D I S O N
Maddy is on the verge of walking. She can take steps and walk a short distance, but not quite 100% independently. She loves walking back and forth from person to person....walk to daddy, turn around and walk back to mommy, constantly. It is fun. I know most people say that they are not too anxious for little ones to walk because they get into things way more often, but Madison already does that, and I can't wait for her to walk because then she won't be a mop for the church, my house, or anywhere else she decides to army crawl around. Madison has quite a little personality, already a little sassy and it's most evident when she gets mad...watch out!!!

And now, what's new with us?

J.O.B.

William is currently working as an independent contractor for Ray Core, selling insulated wall panels and roof systems. This is the same job he has been doing, but now he works from home and gets paid strictly 100% commission. At first, I was so scared about these recent changes, but it sure has been nice to have him home, and sales have picked up in a HUGE way. Still, it would be nice to have some job security and a company that William interviewed with at the beginning of the year, recently called him to an interview for a better paying position. Not sure if anything will become of this, but it has been nice to have that door open up for us as an option.

Q.I.V.A.N.A.

In the meantime, we have been working our Qivana business more aggressively lately and it is proving to pay off. We have several friends who see the vision of this company and are seriously looking to join our team. We also have friends who have been impressed with the product and wish to become customers. We are on the ups here and are so excited about this wonderful company whose products and opportunities are changing lives!!!

R.E.N.T.A.L.S.
Some bad news has also come our way, two of our four properties have been vacated within 2 weeks of each other. Our tenants have bailed out of their obligations to us and we are forced to either pay or find new renters ASAP! It has been stressful for me, but I am trying to keep it together :) I am hoping that we can get those homes rented before the snow flies, so keep your fingers crossed for us!

H.O.M.E. S.A.L.E.
Recently things have picked up with our house showing. In fact, one day this week we showed the house twice in one day!!! It is looking like we may have an offer too. I am not going to get my hopes up TOO much, but I can't help but feel like things might be moving in the right direction.

WE NEED TENANTS!!!

Unfortunately we have been trying to get a hold of our renters to collect money from them and when I stopped by to grab the money, keys and a note were left instead! BUMMER!!! These renters were under a lease option and have been trying to get with a loan officer to buy the house. We have been anxiously awaiting all of this to happen, because what it means for us is money in our pockets!!! For a year now, we thought this was the way it was going to go down, but thanks to the economic situation, our renter got demoted from his job and his family can't stay in the house anymore. We are totally bummed about the whole situation. AAHHHH!!!! Just my luck these days. Soooooooo, if anyone is looking for a house to rent, or knows someone who is, let us know!!! AND....wish us luck!

Bailey's Repertoire

Down by the Bay


Going to the Zoo


Leo the Lion


Popcorn "Pocking"


Put a Ring On It


Twinkle Twinkle


You Belong With Me

ABC's

I hope I didn't post too many, but they were all too cute to be narrowed down!!!

College Reunion

Good times with GREAT friends. Valarie is such a great thinker, she emailed Joy and I a few weeks ago to tell us that she would be in town last weekend and asked if we could plan to meet up, so....we did!!!

A little about these FANTASTIC girls:

Valarie (on the right) was my roomie in college during my sophomore year. We had such great memories. She worked as a massage therapist at a salon and at Egbert's Chiroprtactic and I remember for my birthday, her treating me to a SWEET massage at her work. She is great. Val was also a horse lover and kept her horse at the Madison Fairgrounds. She was so devoted to her horse, always running there to take care of him. I just have soooo many memories of Valarie coming home from the stables in her jeans and smelling like manure....but she sure did clean up well...ha ha, and when she did....we loved going country dancing. Love you Val!

Joy (in the middle) was a friend that I met during my freshman year at Ricks. She was on the Ballroom Tour Team when I was on one of the Back-up teams. She is such a great dancer and thanks to both of our passions for dance, we became great friends. During the year you could find us country dancing two nights a week, at the school on Wednesday then at Retrix on Thursday. Joy LOVED country dancing and she was dang good at it. She probably still is. We also were involved in the Salsa Club together....oh, the good times there. It was through Joy that I met Valarie, they were roommates during my freshmen year and when Joy graduated Valarie decided to come room with me!

I just love these gals and was so glad that we decided to catch up last weekend. They both now have beautiful families and seem so happy. Valarie & Sterling now live in Fort Collins, Colorado and Joy & Dave are heading to Casper, Wyoming in a few weeks where Dave just got a job, fresh out of dental school. Give me a call girls, next time you are in town!!!

New Hair-Do

Bailey has a new do!!! Her hair was getting totally unruly. It was almost lookin' like she was sporting a mullet and when my neighborhood girlfriends brought that to my attention, I realized that it was time for another haircut. It is quite a bit shorter now, but looks way better and I am hoping that this will encourage some NORMAL hair growth. Her hair is just so fine and a lot of it has rubbed off in the back, hence the mullet look. Already her hair looks thicker too. Thanks Tori!!!

Before

Here's the Mullet

After

Here's the Pretty Girl

Flag Football

My boy's a football player!!!

It's no big surprise that I LOVE Steelers Football, and even though William is not on the Steelers Team, I guess I can be a Bears fan for a good month and a half. We are just glad that he is still on the team. To make a long story short, I voiced my disappointments about the program in a tactful email to the lady in charge of the league and in return I got 3 REALLY NASTY emails from her. She used some very offensive words and passed some unfair judgements of me as an individual and a stay-at-home mom. She also informed me that I would be getting a refund and that William was off the team. WOW.....I was shocked, to say the least. My husband called her and left a voicemail that said that we still were going to have William play, and if there were any other problems, to call him. Well, we never heard from the lady and never got our money back, so we are assuming she had a change of heart. Whew!!!

So.....here is William playing in his first game....unfortunately no uniforms yet :( He is a rock star. He is doing really great and I think he really enjoys football, I know we do!!!

Fun Shots of the Kids

Millions of Peaches, Peaches For Me!!!

On Labor Day, I went out to Monteview, Idaho, which is about an hours drive north of where I live, to can peaches with Jill. What a good aunt she is...she taught me the ropes. I have never canned before and she was a good teacher. We canned 7 boxes of peaches (3 1/2 bushel). For being my first time, we sure did go all out. But it went along quite well. I personally bought 3 boxes and came home with about 32 quart jars or about 11 jars per box. Not Bad!!!

I got to Jill's house at about 9:30 a.m. and I left at about 5 p.m., I think. So, it was a whole day of canning for us. The first box we pealed took FOREVER...because they were not as ripe as the rest, but after that, it was pretty much smooth sailing. I had a lot of fun and of course now I fell like a pro. Next year I may try it on my own, but who knows, maybe we will make it our yearly tradition.

Now for an explanation about the pictures. At lunchtime we baked a pizza and before I turned on the oven, I checked inside to make sure nothing was inside....blame it on my motherly instincts. All was clear, so we preheated the oven, but after a little while, it smelled like something was burning. We opened the oven and I could see something under the bottom. Jill pulled down the broiler drawer and the inside was filled with little toys, several of which were on fire and burning! For a minute, I thought we were gonna have a house fire. Jill blew out the fire, which took several blows, but some of Howard and Naomi's toys just didn't make it. I laughed....and was SOOOO grateful this happened because of her kids, and not mine. Jill's a good sport, because she laughed too. I am not so sure I would have had the same reaction if my kids were the culprits at my own house. Here are the pictures of what was left.

Notice that the baby doll's face is burnt off! And most of those little plastic letters were melted....but still salvaged. Lucky we smelled it when we did!

Trip to Polatis' Cabin

We spent an AMAZING weekend in Island Park with some great friends. For those of you out-of-towner's who have never heard of Island Park, it is a little town about an hour or so north of Rexburg, on the way to Yellowstone. We were invited to stay with some friends in their cabin on Bill's Island.

We had so much fun, eating yummy food, visiting with great friends/neighbors, riding on the boat, tubing, wake boarding, and RELAXING!!! Who could ask for anything better? The weather was hot and sunny with cool nights....just perfect! The Polatis' were WONDERFUL hosts....thanks for a great weekend you guys!!!

William & Dawson on the Tube

William & Lincoln Tearing it Up

Daddy and Maddy

A little explanation here....

William took Brooklyn and Bailey on the tube and the girls LOVED it. Bailey kept waving at all of us on the boat and she was very excited. However, when the boat stopped, the tube tipped forward and instead of dunking everyone, William and Bailey kinda fell out of the tube and William popped Bailey up just as soon as he could. Bailey gasped for just a second after she came up out of the water, because of the initial shock, but afterwards was just fine. She was so cute, the rest of the weekend she would tell everyone, "I went tubing with dad." and "I fell off the tube!" She also called all of the bumps and waves, bouncies. It was so cute!

Most of the Muranaka's + 1 Bozung Baby - 1 Muranaka Baby = Quite a Bunch

Hudson, Mama Mia & Tori

Muranaka Boys

William & Lincoln

Strike a Pose Tori

The Babies LOVE Tori

Cole & Audrey...Cole was a Tubing Fool!!!

Todd AKA "The Boat Master"

Time for a few laughs:
And this is proof that I WAS actually there for the fun weekend.

I don't think there will ever be a picture that I don't have my mouth open in. Tubing was a blast and I laughed and screamed the whole time. Here are some pics with Audrey, but where are the ones with Tori, William??? (Now, if you want to see facial expressions, from what I hear, Tori totally had me beat!)

Brooklyn Taking a Snooze on the Boat

So, I goofed and for some annoying reason, my camera was on the wrong setting...Grrrr!

Lane & Audrey: Love this Picture!!

Sleepy Cole, Tori & Mia

Todd & Tori Cooking up a Yummy Meal

Audrey Doing Bailey's Hair: We

Lane & Brooklyn

Lane & Mia

Brooklyn with her painted nails...thanks to Audrey!

1st Day of School 2009

Dawson, Lincoln, William & Brooklyn

1st Day of Kindergarten for Brooklyn
1st Day of First Grade for William

William and Brooklyn really liked school, though William DID say it was boring, always lining up and getting directions all day. Being in school all day long is quite the change for William. He is still not sure if he really likes it...I think he needs a little bit of time to adjust. As far as Brooklyn, one nice thing about this all day Kindergarten deal is that next year, she will know no difference in the length of day. Brooklyn is on the Tuesday, Thursday, and every other Friday track. So far so good.

Weekend Camping

This weekend we went on a campout, our 2nd one of the summer. We ended up going to the same exact location as last time, the one we actually staked out ourselves. It's a pretty great spot, up near Kelly Canyon along the Snake River.

We made it to the campsite early enough on Friday night that we had plenty of time for dinner and s'mores. The weather was in the mid to upper 60's the whole time, which was almost perfect if you have a fire going, but a little chilly without one. It never poured down rain, just sprinkled very lightly on Saturday. Most of the time it was overcast, but thank goodness for a camper to sleep in at night, because it did rain a couple of times Friday night.

Our hike on Saturday was a lot of fun. We hiked a trail that was through the canyon and just beautiful. Our friends, the Deans, let us borrow a baby hiking backpack which worked wonderfully for Madison. Along the hike there was a spot where we had to cross the stream, pretty deep actually, as Daddy slipped and fell in. We all got a good laugh out of that one. The kids thought it was fun to have to walk across the log to cross the creek. Coco, our Lab, got a little more comfortable in the water this trip too.

After our hike, we took a drive to find a fishing spot along the river, and lucky for us we found a perfect little spot just down from our campsite. The girls fell alseep in the car, while the boys and I unloaded and fished. I actually did not fish, just watched. I manned the fire, which we built right beside us. Unfortunately the boys got skunked....no fish! The only thing Little William DID manage to snag was Coco's nostril. Somehow as William was going to cast, Coco got in the way. Little William started to cry and scream, but luckily we got it out without even any blood. It must not have been too bad of a snag!

A Few Updates

First and Foremost....

GOTTA SCROLL DOWN AND CHECK OUT OUR LAKE POWELL POST!!!

Brooklyn just got a new haircut today...it was time for a change and a chance to get her hair blended a bit more, since her own personal hair cutting experience. Audrey Muranaka AKA (Ah- "G" Naka....as Bailey calls her) gave her the cut. It is quite cute and I would say she cut a good 3-4 inches off. It looks great!

Last week William and I celebrated our 8th Anniversary! I can't believe how much time has just flown by. I am soooo grateful to have a husband like William, he is just AMAZING! William is a wonderful father who is so involved with the kids and always willing to help out with them. Everything from changing diapers, to fixing hair when we are running late to church. I love William so much because he is so supportive of me, always letting me have time for my friends. He also has been such a rock for me during a really hard year in 2008. I can always count on my "Babe-is" to cheer me up or be a shoulder to cry on. I love you so much William. Thanks for 8 great years and looking forward to eternity!

YARD SALE: We had a yard sale on Saturday, Aug. 1st....and it was FANTASTIC!!! I did WAY better than I expected. I made a whopping $512....not bad for a days work. Actually, it took me a lot longer than a day. Ever since I decided to do the sale, I made myself (and my husband) go through the whole house and de-junk. It has been great, but boy did I have QUITE the pile in the guest room. I got rid of so many baby things, including lots of clothes. What didn't sell, I took to D.I. (Thrift Store). Aaaahhhh, it feels good to be clean and organized!

Noisy Kids!!!!

I was at the mall today with all 4 kids...that was my first mistake! Actually, I just needed to run a quick errand to Old Navy and I entered the mall in the door that was closest to Old Navy. Anyway, on my way out of the mall, as I was approaching the door, Little William did something to Bailey that made her cry. (Big surprise there, he is constantly tormenting his little sisters). Well, Bailey was crying and was quite loud in the echo-y hallway. But there was really nothing I could do while pushing the stroller, except for tell Bailey everything was ok....which I did. The next thing I know, there was an old man walking for exercise with his earbuds right next to the door, and I thought that he was going to open the door for me, but instead he says, "Boy you sure do have a bunch of noisy kids!" At first I thought he was being sympathetic, so I kind of smiled and said sorry. Then he walks away, not even cracking a smile. Grrrr...I was so offended and obviously already embarrassed. I just thought, he has NO idea....only one of my kids was being noisy, but since I had 3 other kids he just assumed they were all misbehaving. I guess he just doesn't remember what it was like raising kids. Hearing comments like that is soooo irritating to me. Oh well, like I said, "He had NO idea what noisy is.....he should hear the chorus of all 4 of them!!!!"

My Little Soccer Star

This year Little William has decided to play soccer. He is playing in the 6-7 year-old division, but there are some 8-year-olds on his team. I am guessing that some of the boys turned 8 sometime between sign-ups and the actual season.

Anyway, I am so shocked...William can really hold his own! He is a first year soccer player playing with kids who already have a couple of years under their belts. William is very aggreessive and LOVES playing offense! He is actually quite good at both offense and defense. He is not afraid of the ball or lots of legs kicking all over the place. We've been so proud of him.

Who knew I would gobble up this "soccer mom" thing? I LOVE watching William play. I am one of THOSE moms who is screaming on the sidelines, cheering on my son and his teammates. What can I say, I am my mother's child. I take after the best! My mom was the ULTIMATE soccer mom, only I never played soccer, it was just every other sport and activity that I participated in growing up.

Here are some pictures from Williams 1st game!