Corey's birthday dinner with our little gang. Corey and his brother Chris on the left, and our buds Levi and Megan and me on the right.

Conner has been so difficult to take to restaurants lately so my parents graciously watched him while we all took Corey to dinner. We came home and my dad had gotten Conner his first pair of sunglasses. Now I just hope he will use them.

I have two boys in my house who are not particularly good at posing for the camera. I am sure Conner's future wife, friends, and posterity will enjoy looking back at his tonsils.

Someone has a secret!
I love this picture.

Play date at Ashely's house.

Jace has a John Deer kids tractor...need I say more?

Much Anticipated...

Well the wedding went down without a hitch, it was wonderful and I can now officially say I have a new sister in law. She is the most wonderful person I have ever met and these two couldn't fit more perfectly together.
The wedding was wonderful and beautiful and perfect. Enjoy the pics!

Mr. and Mrs. Tom and Juleen Monson!

Corey loved his corsage...

Until he was told it was my bouquet and this was his corsage.

I don't have many pics as of yet from the reception I need to get some from my mom's camera! But it was beautiful. It was an outdoor reception and we were so blessed with no rain.
Conner was impossible and we had to keep juggling him around, I don't think I would know what to do with myself if I were able to just sit and talk and relax without having "where is Conner and what trouble is he getting into" in the back of my head every second!

My Bff Ash stopped by, she and Tommy worked together for a time so they are buds.

Our best friends. Megs, me, Corey, Levi and Conner.

Happy Birthday Corey

hey my friend
it seems your eyes are troubled
care to share your time with me
would you say you're feeling low and so
a good idea would be to get it off your mind

see you and me
have a better time than most can dream
have it better than the best
and so can pull on through
whatever tears at us
whatever holds us down
and if nothing can be done
we'll make the best of what's around

turns out not where but who you're with
that really matters
that really matters
it hurts not much when you're around
when you're around

and if you hold on tight
to what you think is your thing
you may find you're missing all the rest
she ran up into the light surprised
her arms are open
her mind's eye is...

seeing things from a
better side than most can dream
on a better road i feel
oh you could say she's safe
whatever tears at us
whatever holds us down
and if nothing can be done
we'll make the best of what's around

turns out not where but who you're that really matters
that really matters
that really matters
(our song)



I love you Corey.

interesting...

I read something very interesting the other day. I need to try it out to make sure its legit, but here is the deal. A man did an experiment where he put rice and water in a jar with some holes punched into the top of the jar and left it to stew for a week or so.
What he did was write negative words all over one of the jars, hateful words, swear words, you get the drift.
On the other jar he wrote positive, peaceful words. He said he would even go and touch the "positive" jar with tenderness now and then (i know, weird huh).
So after a week the difference in the jars was striking. He said after a longer period of time this is what the jars looked like.
What the man was trying to portray in this experiment was that the more we fill our life/mind with positive words and less negativity we will be happier. The more we fill our minds with negative thoughts, the more poisoned our mind and life will be.
I don't know how true it is, but I know my dad has told me on numerous occasions it is crucial to stop focusing on worries or problems because it just makes things worse. The more you focus on them the more important the negative things become in your mind.
Like I said, I don't know if it's really true or not, but I certainly like the idea...I am going to try the experiment and see if it works, I will let you know how it goes.

A day in the yard

Spring time, oh Spring time. That is the time when Conner insists on being outside ALL THE TIME. It becomes a love/hate relationship for me because I love being outside as well, gardening is my passion and I wait for it all year. BUT it has also become something I dread because I can't get much done while I am outside with him. He is getting in my way and stepping on my fragile plants and trying to dig with me while digging up stuff I just planted...sigh. In addition, being in the front yard trying to do my flowers is impossible because he is of course constantly trying to leave the yard. ahhhhh

Kay on with pictures!

Welcome back...if you remember my post last May(http://laurieandcoreykunz.blogspot.com/2008/06/look-what-i-woke-up-to-this-morning.html you will recall the creatures that invaded my yard last year are back. I have now realized what a huge problems this is and this year I am combating it early and next year will do it even earlier. I WILL CONQUER!!!!

(this is only about half of the bucket)

Conner and I found this birds nest in our yard the other day. He was fascinated by it and we put it in a dish so that he could keep it. He mostly just wanted to take it and show it to my dad.

MOAB

We had probably one of the funnest weekends in our lives! We decided to do a fast trip to Moab for Memorial Day weekend and went with our best buddies Megan and Levi and Chris. We just hiked and played and laughed all weekend.

Here we are right when we arrived in Moab getting some grub before starting our hike to the arches.

Me and the Megster.
Me, Megster, and her brother Levi. TROUBLE for sure :)

Corey sure looks like he had something important to say...

Finally to the arch...only to be greeted with a thunder storm, we took a picture and ran down that mountain as fast as we could without killing ourselves. Sand was blowing in our eyes and it started hailing. Thank heaven for the canopy on the top of the backpack Conner was in. The thunder and lightening was so bad I was afraid Conner was really going to lose it, but he held on and we got down before he got overly scared.

As part of our budget trip all five of us stayed in the same room. I loved it.

This picture is my favorite, Conner saw Corey spraying his feet with a foot deodorant stuff and Conner has been obsessed ever since. He begs and begs for Corey to spray his feet it is the cutest thing ever.

We went to dinner at this pizza place and they gave us our silverware wrapped in these bandannas.

The gorgeous one.

Beautiful, just beautiful. I want to go back so bad. I took this picture on our four wheeling trail, I tried to get the lizards but the slippery suckers always got away from me. I wanted one sooo bad.

Me and the Megster have the greatest times.

We got two jeeps to go up in the mountains four wheeling. Probably the funnest thing I have ever done in my life. I felt bad for the Con man bumping around in the back with nothing interesting to do but he was a good sport.

You can see here the three innocent kids and their nice clean jeep...

And then like five minutes later they come around a corner and meet up with us looking like this...

It got so much funner when I started driving. (oh and look at me, I'm not dirty. I'm comfortable and dry. Glad I'm not in that other jeep haha :)

This is how one of our jeeps ended up after our day came to a close. The other one wasn't as bad...mine and Corey's...but c'mon, we are more responsible AND we had the Con Man in the back! At this point the question was how on earth are we going to get this clean enough so they won't know what we did to it when we turn it back in!

Then the rain REALLY started to come. Twenty times worse than the day before at the Arch.

A small tribute to my mom

I didn't get a chance to write a post about mother's day. I have a lot to say but I thought I would just write a few things about my mom.

1. I love her Sunday dinner's, she does this for the family every single Sunday. I couldn't live without it.
2. She listens to me. Endlessly. There is really no one else I trust enough to really and truly pour out all my insecurities and trials with. She knows EVERYTHING about me. If I call her, she listens. When I first had Conner I literally called her every couple hours just to vent. She didn't mind. She just listened and made me feel like I wasn't crazy.
3. She goes with me to Walmart and to do errands.
4. She is a wonderful Grandmother to Conner.
5. She plays Scrabble with me on Sundays.
6. She goes on walks with me and Conner.
7. She gives me coupons.
8. She gives me bracelets.
9. She never tries to push her opinion on me. Some mom's tell their daughters how to be, what is right and wrong, how to raise their children, etc. My Mom NEVER does that.
10. I know, without a doubt, she wants the very very best for me.

Thanks for being my Mom, I love you!

just some pics

So it would appear my son is sending me a message...

(if you can't tell, this is one of those lovely kid nose sucker things, he FREAKS out if he even sees me holding it)

I found it hidden under a whole basket full of laundry in the basement.

Cold pizza and a drink, watching TV like a real man.

I found Conner playing his ukulele and singing to Barney songs, he is unbelievable.

what?

So my gardening has begun...I get creative at this time of year with my gardening and I made a small "green house" out of an old Costco razor container. I planted about four seeds and closed the lid to create that great green house effect. Well I left the rest of the seeds I didn't use in their bag and put them in the container so I knew which plant was which...well they were all getting big and ready to transplant and look what I found when I opeded the seed packets.
So all the time and tender care I have put into growing wonderful plants could pretty much be worthless considering all you have to do is leave them in their freaking packet and put them in a container that has wet soil. Good Grief. Check out all those plants that came from seeds just sitting there in their freaking package. I can't even believe it!