Saying goodbye to Grandma Joines

Grandma Joines passed away last month. She had been ill, hurting, and ready to meet her Savior. She lived a wonderful, selfless life, and we will miss her but know she is happy. We traveled to Peterson, Iowa, for her memorial service a couple weeks ago. The crystal blue skies, the Spirit of the memorial service, the time my extended family was able to be together made it a perfect day that will stick with me forever.



This is the church my Grandma was baptized and also married in.


I also enjoyed seeing the places that I have heard so many family stories about. This is my Grandpa's farm that is right near the church and neighboring farm to my Grandma's. It was amazing to realize they were next door neighbors growing up!

New Kids on the Blog

This is a self-taken portrait of Ellie and I giddy because all of our families' dreams came true in one day at one very special mall.

The story starts last Friday in the morning hours. Dave took a long lunch break so he could see his all-time idol Magic Johnson.


The girls and I met Dave there, and we listened to Magic give a motivational speech in conjunction with the Grand opening of a huge Best Buy at Mall of America.

Our second trip to the mall later that day was for a grander purpose....


We witnessed the "New Kids on the Block" singing, dancing, and grooving like it was 1989! They were surely "hangin' tough."


I was impressed that those old guys could still dance! My favorite moment of the concert was watching the lady in front of me (probably 5-10 years older than me) screaming her head off, jumping up and down, and crying! Woa!


Aubrie was also screaming and waving her hands with the rest of the 3o-somethings around us. Later on, Daddy asked if she likes the "New Kids." Her response, "New Kids? Those guys weren't kids!

The following morning Aubrie piped up with another question that had been troubling her overnight, "Daddy, what blog are the new kids on?" Well, Danny, Donnie, Jordan, and the other "New Kids," welcome to 2008. You are now on "the blog."

Tag, I'm it...

•I'm happiest when...I am with my family doing something fun.
•Someday I'm going to...lose all my baby weight (I'm close!)
•When I'm really down, what I want to do is...talk to my hubby.

•A person really should....travel. You learn so much about yourself and make wonderful memories. Plus, you don't have distractions so you become closer as a family.

•I feel anxious when...I prepare to travel and have to remember a million details
•It would really be wonderful if....all my goals and dreams came true.
•I like people who....are laid back, accepting, good listeners, honest, and follow through on their promises.
•I'm afraid that....my bad habits might wear off on my children.
•All it takes to make me happy is...feed me some ice cream.
•I just hate it that...I never feel caught up with my housework, and I let it define my feelings of "success". (I stole this from my sis, but it is exactly how I feel too).
•What I really want to do is....play all day.
•I wish that... I lived closer to retail and the girls' activities.
•I don't like people who... lie.
•I'm really hoping to... raise confident, loving, smart, honest, and compassionate children.
•I have everything I need, however....a maid and/or a professional organizer would be very helpful.
•If I could do whatever I wanted, I would...go out to eat every night of the week! I love eating yummy food, not having to cook or clean, or wait on everyone else.

I tag whomever reads this and wants to do it too!

Just because

I have the best husband in the world!!! I'm so lucky that he is better than any vampire out there. Thank you! Love you!

I hate Vampires!

...Any other husbands out there, a little lonely over the past few days?...

Teyah's first steps

This video is probably a month old and becoming quickly outdated as our cutie is becoming a pro walker. There's just something so magical about watching a baby learn to walk. I am amazed at how she can fall and fall and fall (sometimes horrible tumbles), but she will always hop right up again without being discouraged in the least bit. What a lesson to us all! Can you believe how much babies learn and accomplish in just a year of life! Wow!

Our July

I've found that when I have a blogging lull, it's not because nothing is going on, it's because everything is going on! Then, I don't even know where to begin to blog about it all. This weekend we had a great visit from my Dad and Debbie and also Dave's niece Becca has been here too. It's fun having an excuse (like we need one) to go out and be busy.

Becca has been a huge help with the kids!

Aubrie asked me why it's called 'Stillwater' because the water looked like it was moving.



Papa took the girls fishing for their first time, and they caught about 10 fish a piece! Even Dave caught one! Go Dave. This was one of my favorite memories of the month.

Minnehaha Falls is gorgeous!

We all enjoyed rides at Mall of America, until my cell phone fell out of my pocket on the roller coaster that loops upside down! I filed a report, the maintenence worker went looking. He found it, without a battery and pieces hanging out. Needless to say I'm in need of a new phone. The part that was a bit tricky was that David and the girls were not in the same store when we went to find them. He had kept my purse for me, so I didn't have any money. His phone is long distance, so my call wouldn't go through in the mall office phone to reach him. Remember this is the biggest mall in America, so finding him wasn't really feasible. Finally, I got the idea to ask someone if I could use their cell phone and fortunately he answered and we met up. That was quite the adventure!

Aubrie has turned into an impressive soccer player! Go Aubrie!

Our family visited Nauvoo, Ill, for the first time. What a treasure of a town! Isn't the temple beautiful?

We ventured with two other families and our kids loved it.

Notice the hole in the door from Carthage Jail.




With all the family-oriented activities, our kids still chose the hotel pool as their favorite. Oh well, what do you do!?



What a delight to be able to catch up with some old Tokyo friends in Nauvoo! Who would have thought?! We spent a great evening with the Stouts and Gloria Rodenberg catching up.


Here's our cutie enjoying our neighborhood parade during the Fourth celebrations.

I apologize for the LONG post, but truly this is a brief summary of our past few weeks!

The Man Project

I (David) will take a brief detour from the normal theme of our blog, and post one of MY grand accomplishments that I am pretty darn proud of. Keep in mind that I am about the lamest handyman out there, and prior to this, my grand lifetime achievement in building was the little footstool I built in High School wood shop. Enjoy my before/after pics of the new and improved garden.

Adventures in Modeling

Check out this coupon from Mall of America's Amusement Park and notice the girl in maroon! Look familiar?

Since my little girl is as famous as SpongeBob now, I'll tell you how she ended up on these coupons that are all over town.

Since the MOA is basically our second home, when I found out the kids could ride the (expensive) rides for free by participating in the photo shoot, I thought it would be fun to sign up Aubrie.

Then, after arriving at the casting call, I found myself second guessing this great idea. There were overly-excited moms primping their well-polished model kids, and we were far from fitting in. I realized I would have a hard time if Aubrie wanted to pursue modeling. The process of having my daughter feel like she has to be judged by her looks is not something I feel comfortable with. Fortunately, this casting call was selected on only a first come basis, so I tried to downplay her observations of the others' fancy dresses and well-done hair.

Aubrie was selected for the kid bumper cars, and she ended up riding them for about 45 minutes! She loved it and had no problem flashing her smile for the camera.

At one point, they lined up the cars with just one in front. They specifically picked Aubrie for the front car and took a handful of just her pics for that. The photo assistant said to me: "It must be rough to have your daughter be a star!" That was a total compliment to her and fun, but I have to say I still don't feel like my self esteem has to come from her succeeding in a photo shoot and (hopefully) neither does hers. This probably says a lot about me, but we were there for the free rides, free prizes they gave her for doing it, and a new experience.

I figured we may or may not ever see her in promotional materials, so I was surprised when (less than a month after the shoot) our neighbors told us she was on a coupon! Then we found the same coupon on the website. The thing I'm surprised about is they probably took thousands of pictures of all the rides over a course of three days and hers was the one selected for the coupon!

Ellie Idol

This video is somewhat old (I think from March), but one we just couldn't forget about! Enjoy!

T-Ball - The 1st Season

Aubrie completed her first year of T-ball for team "Strawberry Shortcakes," and it looks like she may be signed to a long-term contract extension next year.


Aubrie won the "most improved player" medal! We're proud of her work ethic and of course cuteness! Enjoy highlights of Aubrie's 1st season in the music video production below.

While Mom was away ...

Nothing like a good taste of mud. Where was Daddy anyway?

Happy First Birthday Teyah!!

My baby had her FIRST birthday Saturday! Teyah is just a ray of sunshine in my life. We had a great family day and made some awesome memories. I have to say she "takes the cake" between the three girls of the most entertaining cake eater. Here's the video, feel free to skip the singing to get to the funny part ...












I believe in SPOILING our kids on their birthday and Christmas, and the rest of the year we usually don't give them hardly anything. So when it's their birthday we totally party!


Our town had a parade in honor of our little Teyah (well not really for her, but it was fun anyway).


At dinner at the Olive Garden, our waiter saw Tey's shirt and surprised us with a breadstick candle and song!

Teyah LOVED having a huge breadstick to herself.

Here are a few facts about Teyah:

-With all three of our kids we've had a "surprise" genetic something. Aubrie is a lefty, Ellie has very curly hair, and Teyah is extremely petite. Unfortunately, Teyah has been sick this week, so I took her in Friday (has her third ear infection) and found out she weighs 17 lbs 12 ounces. I looked online, and it looks like she doesn't even make the 5th percentile! Yikes! The sad thing about that is it's going to be a long time until she weighs enough to be able to put her in a forward-facing carseat (the recommended weight is 20 pounds).

-She is probably my best talker at this age. She says: hi, Mom, more, Dada, all done, ball, Ellie (Eyi), Aubrie (Auba), up, uh oh, yes (uh huh), yeah, out ... I think there's more, but that's all I can think of right now.

-Teyah is not walking yet, but she seems to be close and also doing it backwards from how my other kids learned to walk. She can stand up in the middle of the room all by herself and even without pushing herself up from the ground with her hands. It's quite impressive (Dave says he can't even stand up the way she does). She will stand there forever but usually only attempts about 2 steps before she sits down or falls over.

No tomatoes here

I am full of Ellie stories this week. Yesterday, it was storming and she was scared of the thunder, so she decided to say a prayer. In her prayer, she said, "Thank you that the tomatoes didn't come inside our house." After the prayer, I was laughing and trying to figure out why she would be afraid of tomatoes (other than the recent salmonella scare). Then, Aubrie said, "Mom, she's trying to say tornadoes!" Oh, silly me. Of course!

Lake Elmo

I totally forgot to take pictures, but last night we went to Lake Elmo (a filtered swimming lake with a beach) with a bunch of friends. The girls were super excited, but they weren't quite sure what to expect at a lake with the name of Elmo. They were trying to figure it out, and Ellie said, "I think Elmo is going to pop out of the water ... or maybe we're going to have to look everywhere for him and yell really loud: 'MRS. ELMO, WHERE ARE YOU?'"

The Dancin' Video

Unfortunately, this is just the dress rehearsal because they wouldn't let us take video at the recital. I think she was extra amazing at the recital!

The Dancing Beauty Queen

Our little "Dancing Beauty Queen" was the star of her dance recital performance. She knew every move and danced right on beat, smiling and singing the words to the song!


Our little performer loves to be on stage! She said she wasn't nervous at all and just had a ball.


Ellie was so proud of her sister and says she really wants to do it next year too.


We were treated with the arrival of my sister Lauren just in time for the recital. Lauren is a trooper since she basically went straight from her all-night post-graduation party to the airport to come here.


After the recital, we had some adventure as we raced home to beat the storm that supposedly was dropping golf ball-sized hail. We didn't quite make it home before the dime-sized hail hit our car, but that's not so bad. The night continued with a handful of tornado sirens. At one point, Dave went outside to checkout the storm and happened to see these "wall clouds" (the clouds that produce tornadoes) forming. Then he noticed it starting to rotate. He then decided to join us in the basement! As he came down, we heard on the news how a "trained spotter" had located a rotating wall cloud in our area. Despite all the sirens, crazy clouds and hail storms, none of the funnel clouds touched down. (For those of you who don't know much about tornadoes, it starts as a wall cloud, then rotates and becomes a funnel cloud, and once it touches the ground it becomes a tornado.)