WinterScapes and Disappointments

12/30/09 - Destination - Kimbre and Matt in Post Falls. We decided to leave Portland around 1PM thinking we could get to Post Falls around 8PM...
3 hours and 35 miles later we were just barely past Multnomah Falls and the freeway turned into a parking lot. Crawling along for another 45 minutes, we finally gave up and took an off ramp onto old Hiway 30. Stopping just long enough to take some great pictures of HorseTail Falls and Multnomah Falls was a real treat. We SO wanted to get to Kimbre's to show Lisa and the boys and spend some belated Christmas cheer with her and Matt. I guess the weather had other designs for us.














Jacob and Papa built a snowman together on the back patio. This was Jacob's first experience with snow. He is a VERY precious boy! What a personality...!!

Duck Huntin'

A simple toy - but lots of fun at our house! Drew got a Duck Hunter game for Christmas and he and Ava had fun shooting the duck. It actually flies and the gun uses infrared light to shoot the duck down. If you hit it 3 times, it stops flapping - you killed the duck!

Christmas 2009

Well, it's been a WONDERFUL Christmas in the Meyers home this year. We miss Kimbre and Matt a bunch but we all had a great time with the kids, presents, and good food.
Here are just a few of the best snapshots of our weekend together. Jayson, Jason and Drew are out golfing, the girls have gone shopping after putting down the kids for a nap, and I am holding down the fort for a few hours...

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

A Few Updates

Merry Christmas! At least Ava is excited - Brycen is not so sure about this. He didn't cry, but he wasn't about the stick around for very long. As you can see from the look on his face - the moment has passed and he is ready to go!

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Insert video here---
(our computer is experiencing technical difficulties - so - the video is not available at this time -
I WILL try again later :)
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So Brycen is 8 months old - and well on his way to bigger and better things! He climbs furniture, race-crawls across the room, gets into Ava's stuff and pulls everything out of the cupboards. And now we can almost add WALKING to the list. Okay - so he still needs the walker toy to help him - but I'm pretty sure that won't last long. I have to say that raising a boy is already VERY different from raising a girl. But totally WORTH IT! I love this little "Dennis-the-Menace" so much and it will be fun to see what comes next!

Sledding!

We went sledding with some friends today after it snowed 3+ inches! What a blast! Ava had a ball - but Brycen wasn't so sure. He looked cute - but didn't like going down the hill. After awhile, he fell asleep while Drew and Ave braved the hill once more!.

My cute family - all bundled up and ready for fun!

WaHOO!

An Addition to the Zirker Family...don't get too excited, it's not a baby

Say Hello to our new dog!

Matt and I adopted her from a family who was moving to a new house and couldn't keep her anymore. Her name is Kiowa but we just call her Kia. She is a AKC-registered chocolate lab and will be 6 years old in February.

She is very obedient and knows all of the basic commands. When she's outside all she wants to do is explore and play play play! She could play fetch for hours if it didn't wear us out first. When she's inside she's extremely mellow. She just follows us around and lays in the front of the couch when we watch tv.

She's an all around very happy and fun dog! We couldn't be more excited!

Thank You

Dad,

That post was beautiful! I think I'm tearing up a bit. I don't think I have ever really sat down and heard your story of how you joined the church - or how it all started. But I have to say, with all my heart, I am sooo grateful that you sat down in that humble home, and let the spirit touch your heart. I am so thankful that I was raised in a home filled with joy and that peace we all find in the true gosple of Jesus Christ. Thank you, thank you for sharing your sweet testimony.

Love you!

Braden's Blessing

So, I started this entry a few weeks ago, but MAN time flies when you're havin' fun! Braden finally had his baby blessing on Dec. 6. Jason did such a beautiful job and it was so great to see so many of the MacKay and Jolley families there. What a wonderful blessing to have them so close-and what a feeling of priesthood power. I'm so grateful for that. Braden is now 3 1/2 months old and soooo sweet! He is the smiliest baby and loves to coo and play patty-cake. Here are some photos from the blessing, Thanksgiving, and just some fun updates for our family. Love to all of you!

I love my boys playin' ball!

"Shaving" with Daddy!

Aha Moment

Well, it's been quite a while since I added anything to this and we have so much enjoyed all of your contributions. This is the best and often visited place I go everyday!! Well, sorry to disappoint with no new pictures but here is something I thought I would share that happened a couple of weeks ago... this is the very essence of our family and how much you mean to Sue and me in every way.

I had an interesting Aha moment in Gospel Doctrine. Scott Davis was talking about Missionary Work and put a few questions on the board - one read: The Church is different because:... He was trying to get us to develop our own elevator pitches about just what would we say if a non-member asked a simple question like "What is so special about your Church?"

Many people were confused by the "Elevator Pitch" but it's essentially a concise and clear statement about something and is generally associated with sales and your ability to convey a message in the time it takes the elevator to go from the 1st floor to the 3rd floor.

Well, I thought about how over the many years how I have approached this question and most of the time, because of my crazy analytical mind, I have always gravitated toward the mysteries of the kingdom or the meat and grizzle of the gospel rather than the simple and easy points.

Early in the class, Scott asked this open ended question. To everyone's surprise a non-member who comes every week and to my knowledge has never participated in any discussion was the first to raise his hand. This was a huge Wow!! Terry Newsom said in essence this:

"What is so special about this Church is that it offers a structure to my family that brings joy to my home.

It finally dawned on me that in the very beginning of my search for the truth that the one thing that really got my attention was this little humble family that I visited when I first went to dinner at their home and the missionaries were there to teach me. I don't remember the missionaries or their names, but I will never forget the feeling I had in their home. The sense of unity and peace and something of the spirit that was very special that I had never known in my home.

It seems it's taken me all this time to come to this realization that Scott so beautifully revealed to me - that people don't want to know the hidden esoteric dogma of the gospel as much as they want to really know why I am smiling and why every time they see me that I am basically a happy person. This peace that I feel is so very difficult for people to understand in this sarcastic and dreary world. My message should always just be this one simple statement - My Church is a place I go because it unifies my family and bring me joy.

One can't help but to want to know why and how they can get some of that in their lives.

You are all of this and so much more. Can't wait to see you for Christmas!! we are truly counting the days!!

Wanna see?

So I don't know if ya'll knew that I had started my own blog in addition to this one. So far I haven't done too much with it, but there are times that I like to post thoughts there that I don't on the family blog (there have really only been a couple in my total of eight posts). The rest of the time I mostly copy and paste to both so there's a lot of the same there. But I thought I'd let you know in case you're interested in the rare non-Meyers Family Blog posts that I do. I also have a great list of awesome recipe blogs and sites that have a lot of yummy stuff and it's always fun to try new recipes! =)

It's www.rowleyfamilyfun.blogspot.com.

Love you all!
Ashley

Woo-woo and Doody

I have to document this somewhere! Jacob has two FAVORITE bears, Woo-woo and Doody, that sleep with him every night and go with him most places. The nice thing is, they're nearly identical, so if one needs to be washed or gets misplaced, he'll usually be satisfied with the other. His favorite is Woo-woo, and yes, he named them himself!
You may think this is just a cute little story, but the really funny part is where I believe he got those names. Is anyone besides me an Elmo fan? If so, you may have seen the video "Elmo's Potty." It's all about learning to use the potty, including such subjects as listening to your body, graduating from diapers to underpants, and how to wash your hands. In one section Elmo is talking to his friends BabyBear and CurlyBear about the different names for pee and poop. It's pretty funny. Anyhow, the Bears call it, have you guessed yet?? . . . . . wee-wee and Woo-WOO! And, as other kids add their two cents, one kid enthusiastically shouts "DOODY!"

Yep. . . my kid named his bears after poop!! :)

Love these boys!

We got the boy's pictures done yesterday! Finally... They did great and I think we got some great photos. As I was swapping out their pictures in our frames it's was amazing to see how much they've grown in just a year! And it's great to finally have a real Dallas photo. I love these handsome boys!!

This picture was an adventure as we tried to keep Tucker looking at the camera And smiling, and keeping Dallas upright and hands down. Jett just laid their forever with a great smile waiting...and we finally got a good enough shot! =)
My 3 cuties!
Handsome man! He's looking so grown up to me!
And you gotta love the dimples.
Funny Tucker-bug
Love his little tooth in that cute grin!

Jacob and Braden

I must say, as a very prejudiced mother, my boys are the CUTEST!! Braden is starting to smile and coo now and I love it! And Jacob loves his brother--he is sooo good about being soft and giving him kisses. He loves singing and holding up objects for Braden to stare at. His only fault is ocassionally leaning on him too hard or accidentally bopping him with a toy.:) One of Jacob's favorite things is "playing drums" which basically means taking any object and hitting it with another object to make lots of noise. Sometimes its great fun and sometimes it drives me nuts, but for the most part, it's pretty cute.