Sunday, January 17, 2010

These are a few of my favorite things...

Since I got a new camera for Christmas this year, I have been playing around with it extesively. I try all sorts of pictures and maybe someday I will even read the manual...hummmmm. What I wanted to post are two of my favorite pictures and why I like them. Don't worry, there are only two, so you won't have to listen (read) for long...

I am titling this picture "Never Give Up". The reason I took this picture is because I was so impressed that this flower is alive and flourishing, in January, even while all the other flowers around her (I am thinking it is a female), are wilted and dead. I think a lot about not giving up since I am battling cancer. I hope I can be just like this flower during the whole process!!
I am titling this picture "girl running with a basketball".. he! he! I couldn't think of a good title for this one. I love taking pictures and I love basketball, so this picture just embodies all of my loves. I went to the Bagdad Girls Basketball game and took a whole bunch of pictures. Girls in my ward, girls on our team, girls on their team, people in the stands, you get the picture. But this picture is my favorite. Maybe someday I will ask her parents if they want a copy of it.....hummmmm. I am a friend of the Varsity coach so he let me take pictures wherever I wanted to, (handy, I know). Someday I might get back into coaching again, that is such a rush for me!!!

Friends we are and friends we'll ever be.....chemo friends we'll always be throughout eternity (Girl's Camp song with some modification)

Here is my lovely friend, Shelly, who also has breast cancer stage 3. She is ahead of me in the treatment process, hence her beautiful hair growing back. He hair grew back dark and curly, and I wonder if my hair will do the same.
In this picture, I am getting a chemo treatment and she is just finishing up a Herceptin treatment. (She will get IV Herceptin for one full year because she has a different type of breast cancer than myself).
Doesn't this room look really unassuming? You sit in a nice recliner, put on a warm fuzzy blanket and let the poison drain into your body! crazy, huh? I am pretty sure Satan works the same way with his dealings... makes you comfy..relax, and then bam! you notice he is dripping sin into your life slowly. Hum... what a weird analogy I just came up with! he!he!

Friday, January 15, 2010

Night Jumping!! Arizona style!

Something I LOVE about Arizona, is that you can go outside in January and jump on the trampoline. I bet they can't do that back East!

Some of the Hulse kids are over at our house having fun on the trampoline
He is telling the kids all about his next trick (You can still see the stitches in his leg from his surgery last week)

Jumping around (and not freezing, what a concept!)

You know you married the right man, when he asks the kids to go "night jumping" with him!! What a trooper! I love that man!!!

Boys, Boys, Boys!! Add a trampoline and a football and they have fun! fun! fun!

Lately my boys have been infatuated with football! And they love to play football on the trampoline... this combines all their loves---a football, some rough housing, and a trampoline!
So, let me introduce you to the players:::::
  • Will--a fun-loving four-year-old that thinks he rules the house (and trampoline)!
  • Lund-- a laid back nine-year-old that loves to play with his brother until his brother starts to cry (and then he is nowhere to be found...hummmmm)



See, Will loves to be in charge!!

Lund, making an awesome catch mid-air!

Again, Will taking charge and bonking his brother on the head!

Quarterback Lund ready to make the throw!

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Verbal "snapshot" of 2010

I stole this idea from a friend's blog and I thought that it gives such a great perspective on how life is going at this point in time...something to look back on in later years and remember day-to-day life in 2010..

Here is what is going on in the Johnson house this year...Will still wants to play with his friend Colter that moved at least six months ago and mentions him almost daily. He doesn't understand that he doesn't still live in his house here in Bagdad and constantly wants to go there, "Just to see if he is there".

We are a major tortoise family. We now have three African Salcutta tortoises. One huge, ginormous sista and two babies!

Lund loves to play golf with his dad, but I think more than golf, he loves to spend time one-on-one with his dad and this is the perfect opportunity.

Cassidy loves to make up songs on the piano and play them while singing the words that she made up as well.

Sarah loves to color pictures and she won't just color the middle of the picture like most kids, she will cover from the top of the page all the way to the bottom. Then she likes to come and "sell" them to me for a quarter. I figure it is a fair price for so much time spent on a page.

Morgan loves to play the Wii to relax. His favorite games are sword fighting against ladies (and men) that don't seem to know what they are doing (I just wanted to emphasize that he is fighting against poor innocent women and enjoying it..he he). He also likes the shooting game on Wii Play. His favorite level is when the aliens come to take your Mii away and you have to save yourself. I love to watch him so I guess it is an obsession we both have. His favorote Wii quote to say to the kids is "You are not allowed to play the Wii sitting down!!!", I think he hopes it will be a source of exersize for the children.

Sarah is an animal FANATIC! she is constantly playing with fake ones, loving real ones, and dreaming about and praying for animals all over the world.

Sarah wants to be a pet store owner when she grows up.

Will loves Hot Wheels and if you want to get him to do something, just bribe him with a new Hot Wheel...(hey, they are only 97 cents)

Lund loves to walk around the house on his hands. He sure is good with his handstands these days.

Cassidy loves to write her own words to songs and says that she is starting her own band and she even has a notebook of songs she has written.

The kids love to have me read to them at night, but they all want a different book... that takes a while.

We seem have a lot of germs around the house these days... last week it was a cold, this week it's the stomach flu.

Sarah loves school this year and loves to say, "I am such a smart kid.. one of the smartest in the class!"

I love the small "Cutie" oranges this year.. especially the ones made by Sunkist

Lund is growing so much he is shooting up out of his pants, literally. He shot from a size 8slim to a size 12slim overnight.... Try finding pants!!!

Morgan loves walking to and from work since his office is right down the street. he has his laptop in his backpack and a huge copper mag lite that he uses to threaten any dogs that charge him on his way. Plus, he loves that copper flashlight!
Morgan and I love to take evening walks together. We talk about life and enhance our friendship, all in one. And yes, he brings the copper Mag-Lite!

Lund loves the play "Speed Stackers" and he is REALLY good at it! he loves to tell me that he is "using both sides of his brain and developing better hand-eye coordination" He is like a walking commercial!

Sarah loves playing "Littlest Petshop" and her favorite is to group them all into families of according animals... cows with the cows, fish with the fish.. you get the point!

All the kids LOVE the trampoline!! We have had a trampoline for 8 or so years and it is by far, the best purchase we have ever made! We replaced our old one this Christmas with a new one and it is fun times all over again! And we still have yet to break any bones on the trampoline (knock on wood)

Our favorite Family Home Evening games are "Squirt in the face" and "Oink". One of them is a tradition handed down from the Johnson family and one is an invention of our own!

My daughter is gettting so old that she will return text messages for me on my phone if I am too sick to answer them myself!

Sarah just started reading the scriptures aloud with everyone else at scripture time each night. She still needs lots of help, but she is one her way!

We pray everynight as a family right after scripture reading. We kneel around our coffee table that we refer to as our "prayer table" because the kids claim that we don't drink coffee, so we don't need a table named after it. Good point kids!

Cassidy and Lund can boogey board in the ocean way better than I can and Morgan taught the older kids how to "dive through the waves" this past summer. I, on the other hand, was also taught and failed horribly. I stay on the beach and take pictures!

I have found a new obsession this year... photography!!! I have always been interested in taking pictures of the kids, but this year, I have been obsessed with it! I always want clearer, better, more artistic shots.

We have eating out more this year than any other year of our marriage. (mainly due to all the cancer treatments and appointments). On the bright side--- more dates for Morgan and I!

Morgan cooks dinner more that I do.... and it is DELICIOUS!!! The kids have been known to, at a BBQ at the park with other families, yell out, "You call this a hamburger!!" (much to their mother's shagrin)

Sarah loves to wear flowers in her hair (the kind with clips), and she looks beautiful.

Cassidy loves to dress up in cute outfits and one of my wigs and my glasses and have "fashion shows". She looks adorable!!! She sure loves those wigs! (she is much more fond of them than I am!!)

All of my kids are soooo good about not being embarrassed at all that their mom has cancer and is bald currently. They show me often, that love comes from the heart and doesn't look at "outward appearances". They are willing to tell anyone and everyone that their mom has "breast cancer". Even my nine-year-old son, who I figured would be scared out of his mind to ever mention the word "breast"! What a champ!

Monday, January 11, 2010

Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it sure is great wtih kids!!

I love my super-creative kids and sometimes, they even amaze me! Yesterday, Cassidy (ususally the creative instigator), came up with this bubble recipe, and then they even figured out how to make bubbles inside of bubbles, inside of bubbles!!! They are quite the pair when they put their heads together. I love my creative kiddos!!




Sunday, January 10, 2010

Will's first unaided prayer...(usually we help him with his prayers)

Heavenly Father,
Have a good day...Bless Colter can go on a mission, bless Colter's mom can go on a mission, bless every mom can go on a mission, bless that truck over there can go on a mission, bless that toy can go on a mission, bless that elephant can go on a mission, bless my pillow can go on a mission, bless that toy over there can go on a mission----Wait!! That toy doesn't have two arms!! You have to have two arms to go on a mission!!!!..(I interrupted at this point and said we were about done with the mission category), bless we cannot be hurt, and we can sleep...
Heavenly Father...I mean Jesus Christ...Amen

p.s. Hey, at least we know he has missions on the brain!!! Gotta love it!!!