Happy Birthday Bella!

Today is Bella's (my niece) third birthday! These are a few pics I have of her that I LOVE!
Bella-boo, three reason why we love you!

1. You are Taya's best friend. You gave her a much needed cousin and play mate. You make going to Nana and Papa's house a little bit sweeter for her!

2. You are so wise for such a little girl. You have the wisdom of an old man. And it is fascinating some times to hear all the things you have to say.

3. Bella, you have the Tippetts carnivore gene! I think it is great that you will try anything once! And I think that their should be "steaken"

We love you! Happy, Happy Birthday!

Digital Scrapbooking

My House is clean, fridge - clean, pantry-clean, laundry - done, yard - fairly weed free, car - detailed, I even dusted! All the things I needed to catch up on are done. Leaving me at the now what stage.
I have always wanted to try my hand at digital scrapbooking. My sister in law, Lyndsy does it and is so good at it. On Friday, I decided to give it a try.
I don't have photoshop, which is what Lyndsy uses and that whole unemployed thing meant I can't buy it. But I found a cute website Scrapblog and created my first digital layout using their program.



Every year on the kids birthday I "interview" them and make a page with their answers to their current favorites. I have needed to do Taya's since her birthday. So here it is in digital format. It was pretty fun I must say. I then got it printed at Costco in 8x12 size. And have added it to her book!
I don't intend to give up the "old fashioned" way of scrapbooking, but I will definitely be adding more digitally made pages also!

Summer Days

I am currently unemployed. But I figure if I am unemployed, and home with my kids, we may as well have some fun and do a few things that we normally don't have time for. And even if we can't make the bills next month, at least we could say we had some good times!
So Gunner and I have been working on his Bear badge. He turns 10 next month and will "graduate" into Weblos, but it would be nice if he had his badge before he went in.
I have also been looking for free activities (going back to that whole unemployed thing!) that I could do with the kids.
So I looked up art museums online and found out there is one on BYU campus, that is free. Perfect, it would fill an afternoon and help pass off some of Gunners scouting.
I was a little unsure how this would go, Gavin can be a little rambunctious (that is putting it nicely!) so I took Star with me to.
I was surprised how much they enjoyed it. And I was surprised how big the museum was! It was really neat! But the best part came when we went to the lower level.

Walter Wick's art work was on display.
He is the Creator of the Can you See What I See books. Gunner has loved these books since he was two. There is a little yellow and red bead like man that is hidden somewhere in every picture of the books. When Gunner was little and first getting into these books, he thought that was him. So as Taya and Gavin have gotten into the books, we have always called the little guy Gunner.
When we got to the lower level and found this display, the kids went from picture to picture saying "I found Gunner".

I had to explain it to Starlee, I think she got it.


Here is Gunner posing with the little bean guy. And in case you are looking at this picture and think who beat that poor kid up? He crashed his bike the day before. Banged up his face, shoulder and ankle pretty bad!



Definitely a good trip! Now back to job hunting!

Happy Brithday Starlee!

Happy Birthday Star! Here is your list 24 facts and reasons why we love you!!

1. Star is the designated baby sitter. She watches mine and Levi's kids. And the kids love it!
2. She just got back from girls camp.
3. She is the Secretary in the YW in her ward.
4. She is the baby in our family.
5. Star, heard any good Jed jokes lately!
6. Last year, she was very very ill, I am so glad she is better!
7. She loves old people....
8. and dogs.
9. Her nickname is pickles, which is the only one my dad did not give, Levi did.
10. She survived being babysat by Levi! (ask her about this some time!)
11. She can text like a mad women! In fact she sends out all the family wide texts for my mom!
12. She is the only one in the family with pin straight hair!
13. She was named after our mom.
14. She is always willing to help.
15. I don't think she realizes how creative she is.
16. I love her room!!
17. If your looking for a gift idea....she loves Old Navy.
18. She is not allowed to drink soda.
19. She is thinking about going to school...which I think is a great idea.
20. I love her hair, it always looks so cute.
21. She was the sweetest baby, so quite.
22. She is very generous.
23. She is a budding florist, thanks to mom always making her come help at work.
24. She has a great sense of humor, in high school she was voted the next stand up comedian.

Teisha, do you still love me?

Teisha's birthday was actually on May 28th, but you know what a slacker I am! So here it is 25 (yes, shes old) facts and reasons why we love Teisha!


1. She is a awesome mom!
2. When she was in JR High, she tried to light a trash can on fire...luck for her it didn't work, cause she used wet paper towels. (Yes, we still tease her about that)
3. Her nickname is Scooter.
4. She is named after our Grandma Allen.
5. She is very patient.
6. She is a computer geek at heart, but tries to hide it.
7. When she was a teenager, she watched The Geek at lest 50 times.
8. When Gunner was born and I was sick, she took care of him, she was like his second mom and they still have a special bond.
9. She is a great cook!
10. When she was little, I use to dress her in all the frill dresses I could find in her closet.
11. She currently lives in Hurrcane, UT.
12. She is a great listener.
13. She just got two iguanas.
14. I got to do the flowers for her wedding, which were sunflowers and delphinium.
15. She is currently in the nursery in her ward.
16. Her family is very important to her.
17. She is very creative.
18. She is always willing to let us crash her house.
19. She loves to read.
20. Arbor follows her every where.
21. She has a cool car.
22. She was a flower girl in my wedding.
23. The princess braid!
24. Her and Star use to were matching dresses! It was so cute. (You guys could still do that ya know!)
25. She has a great sense of humor.

Mom!

Okay I can't really just ditto Lydnsy's list. I am feeling refreshed and relaxed to this ones for you mom/nana (the kids are helping) 49 facts and reasons (even though she claims to be 29) why we love you!



1. Every Sunday she makes homemade rolls just for Taya.
2. She has fabulously huge curly black hair.
3. She loves everyone of her kids (in laws, grand, whatever!)the same.
4. She was a lunch lady.
5. Anything blingy, sparkly or just plain gaudy will get her attention.
6. Nana dimples!
7. Give her a Pepsi and you'll be her friend for life!
8. She has 4 children(me, Levi, Teisha and Starlee..
9. 3 "adopted" children, Cory, Lyndsy, Johnny...
10. 8 grandchildren, Shaylee Gunner, Gavin, Taya, Bella, Arbor, Paislee and Kailia.
11. She broke her ankle..trust me it wasn't graceful!
12. She has been married 31 years to the love of her life, my dad Kevin.
13. When we were little we each thought we were her favorite kid, cause she would tell us we were and tell us not to tell the other kids. It wasn't until we were adults, that we discovered she said that to all of us!
14. The naked boy song.
15. Cinnamon rolls.
16. She is a great cook!
17. She was adopted at the age of 5 by Marion & LaRae Allen.
18. She was raised by them on a little farm in Kingston Utah.
19. She attended Pleasant Grove High School (go Vikings!)
20. She loves the color red.
21. She love vintage costume jewelry.
22. When I told her I was pregnant, at barely 18. The first thing she said was "don't marry him if you don't love him... being pregnant is not a reason to get married!" You have to be one clear headed parent to say that!
23. She pulled mine & Cory's wedding together in just over a month.
24. She is the florist at the PG Maceys.
25. She is known there for her touch of bling the corsages she makes.
26. She has a great sense of humor.
27. I admire the relationship she has with my dad. Like I said 31 years of marriage, and they still make out!
28. She LOVES DI. And has a gift of seeing the potential in what may seem like junk.
29. Butternut squash soup.
30. At Christmas we all looked forward to our stockings the most, because we knew they would be awesome...thanks to her!
31. She let me cry on her after Shaylee, for many months.
32. Shopping moms pantry.
33. She is a closet Cher fan.
34. When ever one of us has a birthday, she lets us choose dinner. She has even made grilled hamburgers in February.
35. I know that whatever I am going through, good, bad or ugly she will listen.
36. The pinto...listening to Thriller.
37. She was a stay at home mom through out our childhoods.
38. She has one prizes for her costumes (the picture above)
39. She is quick to forgive.
40. Passion fruit snow cones.
41. She is very generous.
42. She loves to read, Mary Higgins Clark is one of her favs, but she still won't read the Twilight series.
43. She hates spiders and heights.
44. She has 3 sisters and 1 brother.
45. In the 80's she was a tole artist, very talented.
46. She can make anything better than most people, except Funeral potatoes - Aunt Cec, Potato salad - Johnny and Fudge Jumbles - me.
47. She is famous for her Halloween dishes, most particular potty pudding.
48. When Levi and I were teens she would often wake up on Saturday morning to her entire family room filled with sleeping teenagers and I never heard her complain about it!
49. She has offered each of us kids $100 if we would give one our kids the middle name Pepsi.

We love you mom/nana! Thank you for all you do and I hope you had a great birthday!

It's been awhile!

So I have totally slacked off in keeping up on the blog! I can't believe it has been since April and that May is already over!
The kids are out of school. They really needed the break, especially Gunner, I think he had it by the last day. Before they got out I got to go with Gunner on his field trip to the Bean Museum and to the Pioneer Park Museum in Provo. It was fun and I got such a kick out of watching Gunner and his classmates. They are all in the stage were they are deciding maybe the opposite sex is not as icky as they thought! But they don't want to say it out loud, cause what if their friends still think that girls are icky! So they stand in two groups, one boys and one girls. And one will go "hey Camille, Gunner thinks your cute!" and then a girl goes "no, Camille likes Jack" and so a boy yells back, "Jack thinks Maria is cute!" and they go back and forth until one or the boys decides he needs to prove who he likes and goes over and pulls a girls hair! And then it starts all over again.

Gunner and his friends Jack & Christian.

But, that is not all we learned. The Bean Museum is really cool. And it is free. So if you or the kids have never been and you are looking for something to fill the summer days you should check it out.




I thought Pioneer Park was really interesting, but the kids were bored and lost interested in what the guide had to say.


Gunner took his digital camera with him. One of the best parts was watching what he would take pictures of.


I probably took more pictures like these than of anything else!

But the very best part was getting to spend a whole day with just Gunner. Sometimes I feel like I put so much pressure on him, cause he is the oldest. And I don't get to spend a lot of time with just him.



But, now that school is done that leaves us with the fun question, what do we do with three kids all summer? They don't need to be babysat, more just supervised to make sure they don't play video games all day. Lucky for us my mom and sister, Star are helping us out. Taya loves spending time with her Auntie!

I also did not get to wish my mom and sister, Teisha a happy birthday and do there list! But my Sis in law, Lyndsy did such a good job hers, I am just going to say ditto! Happy (late)Birthday mom and Teisha, love you both!

A couple more pics for my sisters. Remember the princess braid? Here is Taya sporting her very own version of it!