Cowboy Caleb

Here are some more pictures from Chea! I love them! The red and green look great!

The Field is Green

Here are our future missionaries. . .

Chea Lamb was so generous with her time and took a lot of photos of our family and my Mom and Dad's family before Caleb and Carson got baptized. She does great work! I highly recommend her! Here are a few of Caleb, Carson and Calvin. To see some more of the future missionaries, click here.

Dinner with Grandma Stanford

After the last session of General Conference, Grandma Standford invited us over for dinner. She made some excellent beans and cornbread with salad and fruit. It all tasted so yummy! After we ate, we all played games. We played yahtzee and uno. The boys loved yahtzee. We all had a great time. I forgot to mention that the boys got all wet from the irrigation that Ben was helping his Dad with that day. That is why Devin is "hubba-hubba".

A Scary Afternoon, Full of Blessings

Between Conference Sessions on Sunday, all the kids were out playing. When I called them into eat Devin was running as fast as he could, crying and calling my name. I ran out to see him and he said that there was a rattlesnake. I didn't think that he knew what a rattlesnake was. He kept saying that it was moving and then he would put his hand up in the air and move it back and forth. It looked like the motion that the rattles would make. He kept talking about it and he was really scared. He would not eat, and kept saying that there was a rattlesnake. So Ben walked down there and Jared met him with a gun. Ben said a prayer that if there really was a snake that they would find it. Soon after that, Jared yelled out that he found it. It was near the creek where the water from the sump drains into the creek. It is all dried up right now. But he saw the snake down in the little gorge under some old mesquite tree that fell down. He started shooting at it. Ben ran in and told us that Jared found it and we went out to see. I told all the kids to stay, but I took Devin with me so we could put some closure on the rattlesnake for him. James took the pitchfork and got the snakes out from under the sticks and there were two! We were all surprised. They were gigantic! The rattles were huge! We are so blessed that Devin was safe. I truly believe that someone was watching out for him.

They cut the heads off and buried them. Then they cut the rattles off and we saved them. They skinned the biggest snake. While it was getting skinned, Devin finally left my side and stood right next to the snake. He could obviously tell that the threat was gone. But he still talks about how all rattlesnakes are bad and naughty.
One thing that was interesting...there was a man that showed up on a quad during this whole ordeal. He was the one that wanted the skin. He cut out the heart of the snake and it was still beating! It was so amazing! He said that the heart will beat up to 6 to 8 hours after the snake is killed and then it will slowly stop. Isn't that weird!?
They would just wiggle their bodies, especially while it was getting skinned.
Here's our brave and blessed boy, Devin.

It is truly a miracle that he was safe and protected from harm.
Here is Jared, our hero who shot the snake. When Devin talks about the rattlesnake now, he says that he was shaking when he saw it. What a brave little boy. For more pictures, see the Reed's blog.

Caleb and Carson's 8th Birthday

Well Caleb and Carson are officially 8 years old! I can't believe it. They are scheduled to be baptized in April. They are really excited.

Carson just opened his "tie" present.
Caleb just opened his scripture bag.
Carson is showing off what he got for his birthday. He loves learning about the human body and all he asked for was for a "body book". He was really excited when he opened. It's actually a really neat book. I think that I am going to have to read it. He has quite the collection of books.
Caleb is pointing to his name on his scriptures. All Caleb wanted for his birthday is a Josh Groban CD. He loves to sing and make up songs on the piano. He honestly thinks that he sounds like Josh Groban when he sings! He actually asked me if he could have voice lessons!
Here are the Scripture Bags that Aunt Brittany gave to them. She bought the material and I put them together. I thought that they were so cute! Thank you for everyone who made their birthday a special one!

Queen Creek Easter Egg Hunt

Ben's sister, Heather, and I decided to take our kids to the town's Easter Egg hunt. We had a lot of fun. And the kids loved it. I only had Calvin, Ashton and Devin with me. Caleb and Carson were spending some time with their Uncle Brigham. There were lots of eggs! Ashton had alot of fun and waited patiently for his turn to hunt for the eggs.
These kids had to act fast if they were going to get any eggs! At first Devin only wanted one egg! When we told him that he could get more, he was so excited!

I was surprised at how many parents and older kids (they did it by age section) were claiming eggs in the 2 year old category! I actually had to tell one kid that he needed to let the 2 year old get eggs. His mom was nearby and I don't think she liked that I said that. Oh well!
Devin's cousin, Kennedy, went with us. The stroller came in handy! Devin is working really hard to open his egg.
Calvin was really excited to line up and go!

As you can see, there were a lot of kids there. This is only one section of them!

See Calvin in the green shirt? I dressed them all in green so that I could spot them easier in a crowd. And it worked! The whole field was full of eggs and they were gone in about 2 minutes! Calvin is showing off one of his eggs.
Calvin and Devin both had pirate patches in their eggs.

Devin and Friends

Devin went to a birthday party about two weeks ago.

I just had to post a few pictures about it.

Here is Devin and Chloe playing on the hay.

The party was at my parent's house.

Devin and Reese on the hay.
She loves to give Devin hugs and kisses at church. Isn't she so cute?

Ashton's fall

I was just going through my pictures (and I had alot to go through!) when I found this picture of Ashton. Here he just injured his head, although I really can't remember how (he has had so many falls!) Poor boy! He always has a bump or cut or scrape. Boys will be boys! What more can I say?

Jordan left for New York!

For those of you who don't know, Ben's brother, Jordan, just recently left on his Mission to New York. Here's the night before he left. I promise that Devin just adores Jordan, he was just having a "moment".
Here's Ben's dad and Grandparents posing with Jordan.
Carson and Caleb eating dessert with Great-Grandma Richardson. They love their Grandma!

Briley's Birthday

My niece, Briley, had her birthday last month. She turned 6 years old. She is Calvin's age and Calvin wanted to make a cake for her so bad. So when they visited from out of town, we just had to make this cake. It was really fun and nice because we just handed out the cupcakes and were done. Simplify...it's my motto.

Toilet Paper?

As many of you know, I buy pretty much everything in bulk. So just recently I stocked up my toilet paper supply. I didn't immediately put it away and come to find out, I had a helper. Devin ripped opened the package, took out enough toilet paper for him to sit in the package. Funny boy!

Book Tagged

I bet everyone has wondered where I have been...but I didn't forget about the book tag. My friend, Amy tagged me. So here it is.

Here are the rules:
1. Pick up the nearest book (at least 123 pages).
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the fifth sentence on your blog.
5. Tag 5 people.

The closest book to me is New Moon by Stephenie Meyer. So we'll see how this goes...

"That was usually about when the screaming started."

Yikes! Here Bella is talking about a nightmare that she had. So this wasn't as nice as Amy's post was, but here it is.

I know that alot of the ladies in my Ward love to read, so I am going to tag them. There are too many names to list.