Lucky we aren't...

Red necks, in all their glory would not surpass these family photos I just found. Dear, dear..

This is Jared's birthday, Colton, my youngest brother is on the far left, he is serving a mission in Kansas/ Missouri- I am sure he fits right in. Jared, my husband is next, Cameron, my eldest and Tyler was born just after me. If that confused you, the order was Cam, me, Ty, and Colt.

It does appear in this photo that my sister in law, Michelle is aiming for my belly, she isn't. We are one of a kind.

Ovarian Cysts

Now this is potentially in hindsight, I feel more secure talking about it.

In April I had a nasty cyst on my ovary that decided to burst, that hurt. When I went in for my follow up 6 weeks later, I had 2 cysts the size of chicken eggs on my right ovary. One was complex, meaning it had 'stuff' in it. Stuff meaning, stuff.. whatever grows in these things. My doctor was concerned, he said there was a slight possibility it may be cancerous. Yeah that is what I needed to hear. I had a uncle pass away from cancer in his belly region. Needless to say, my anxiety was peeked, I was freaked. Sure people survive cancer, but who wants to go through that. Within 2 days, my friend Jan calls and she has a cyst on her ovary, but they have to remove it cause it's full of blood. She was jealous. She had a full on surgery, they took out all her woman stuff and she is in recovery. That's something else to freak me out, sure take my ovaries I don't need them, and while your at it, put me down and out for the next 6 weeks, my kids are old enough to make ham sandwiches, they'll survive. No thanks. My surgery is scheduled for August 13.

So I went to the doctor Friday cause Thursday night I started having more severe pain on my right ovary, the anxiety is worse, what if I have to have the surgery Friday!

The ultrasound dildo revealed that the cyst was draining, HALLELOUYA! (that is spelled so wrong and I don't even care) I have to go back in 6 weeks and there will probably be another cysts, but for now, I am draining.

kids

Lagoon, as if there isn't enough to do, we went to go rest for a while on the grassy area in the back. Caitlee started by sticking sticks into the ground and putting leafs on them, "mini-trees!" When she found out they weren't going to grow, she thought to make fireworks instead. This is what the finished product looked like. She is an artistic genius, I know.

Belly, toots, boo boo, Ella, my youngest, is quite artistically inclined as well. As far as color wonder allow your to incline. She doodles on these fabulous books for hours. First thing in the morning, when she gets placed at the table, "color.. please mom.. thank you." Color wonder has saved my sanity, before I was constantly hiding crayons, markers and pencils from these little fingers, now she is free to color any time she wants.

Wow, this is a dated pic, those of you who see Gav regularly know that the kid has a large mop in place of his trimmed up look here. Do-do, Choch, jalapeno, cheebs, Gavin loves to read, he reads the Harry Potter series, Eragon and Eldest, Series of Unfortunate Events, Inkheart and some others I can't think of right now. Anytime I am reading a new book, I get quizzed to see if it is something he may want to read. He is really into Pokemon as well, that is actually an understatement, you could say he is somewhat possessed by the little cards. You don't see a lot of photos of my boy on here since he is avoiding the camera most of the time. Gavin is what set me straight, started my life, or saved it..

And here is Pikester, Diggy, Ya-ya, Soraya. The nurturer of the group, compassionate, gentle, sincere and getting braver with each day. She has the softest voice and the biggest heart. Ella and Caitlee look up to her with every bit of their being. (Okay, so Cait might look up to Gavin to in the sport department.) Also very artistic and creative, my fridge bears the best artwork and it kills me when I have to take old stuff down to put up the new. Soraya is my second hand, she helps me more than she will ever know or understand.

I love all of my kids, and my husband. I can't imagine what life would be like if I never had them. There is nothing I would rather be doing than taking care of them.

Soraya Jayne

My oldest daughter Soraya turned 7 on July 12th and I don't think it's fair. I am happy to see her growing and progressing with friendships and lifes little lessons, but sad that I am such a sap and remember like it was yesterday bringing her teeny self home from the hospital.

Soraya is the fashionista of our home, check her out to the left. She pretty much picks out all of her outfits with pride. It's hard when she comes up with bright red socks on and a conflicting color, but, she thinks that she looks cute and who am I to argue with cute? With the help of Tyler (my brother) and Liza (his fiancee) she scored some baby Chanel sunglasses..

Soraya is also very artistic, she loves to draw and create things I would never even think of. She had been asking me for weeks, "can I help you decorate my cake?" I finally just told her you can do it all by yourself if you would like. And she did, I prepped the cake with white frosting and she did the butterfly.

Did I mention she is a total goof?

Baby anyone?

Babies.. they are all the craze these days, and it's really nice that I am done pooping them out. I have two babies relatively close to me. Baby Mahala (Ma-hay-la) is on the left, she belongs to Steve (Jared's brother) and Mary. She was born May 1st, so much easier to remember that birthday, especially since her middle name is May. I have to admit that I am already Mahala's favorite aunt. I have had her sleep over and I am dying to babysit all the time.

This little stinker is Tyler 'Sage', born about 2 weeks before Mahala. The baby of my brother Cameron and his wife Michelle. She is a cute little turd, she unfortunately has had to endure some practical jokes. Cameron has been known to teach some things to my kids or play jokes on them, for example, after Cam took my oldest Gavin overnight when he was about 2-3 , when we were driving home, I looked back, surprised to see him smoking a pretend joint. Good hell. I lost it. I did however warn Cam that one day, he would have kids of his own and I would be teaching them a few of my own tricks. I don't think that I will teach them how to pretend to smoke a joint, but I have put a snickers in her diaper and waited for him to change it. Paybacks.

Sisters

I was the only girl of 4 children. I loved growing up with my brothers, we were always doing something, rollerblading, building ramps, blowing up ten speed wheel tubes, wrestling, you name it. Some of our favorite pastimes was to take these long orange bench mats and slide down out long section of stairs. It was like a bumpy sleigh ride. Another one was to get every pillow in the house- couch, bed, decorative, you name it, if it was a pillow we grabbed it, we would take these pillows and put them at the bottom of our stairs and mountain climb or burrow through them, it seemed like the pillows went up to the ceiling.

So far as I can tell, Soraya, Caitlee and Ella are creating wonderful memories of their own. I love to sit and listen to them play, sometimes they sing, and I think that they are the most beautiful songs I have ever heard. Coming straight from their hearts, there is nothing sweeter.

Fourth of July

Another Fourth come and gone. I never get good photographs of the fourth and I will explain why in the next photo's.

self portraits.. too much smoke and the kids are distracted.

I love the fourth of July, I like it better that Thanksgiving cause you get the food benefit in this holiday, but you also get the wonderful weather along with it. Of course I am happy for what it represents as well and I try hard to remind my kids what we celebrate it for, but it is like Christmas, they are over taken by the celebratory parts of it.

Oh look, a good one.

Denver, Colorado

In June, we went to Denver for a wedding and a belated birthday celebration, in honor of Jared's Grandpa Leon, who is 99, and to visit other family that resides in Denver Colorado. A common question we got was, what route did we take to get there, you see there are 2 popular routes to get there, through Wyoming and the other way is through Green River/Grand Junction Colorado, we did both, we went through Wyoming on our way there and it was quicker, seemed like a 4 hour drive. We have good kids. We came back through Grand Junction, Co. Which seemed so much longer, but it is beautiful, you go through Vail, Palasades (known for their peaches) Grand Junction, Green River. This way was much longer as far as time goes, there was construction in 3 or 4 spots.

I was able to meet a lot of Jared's family that I haven't had a chance to know, most of his cousins. However-I have been so tired lately that I can't think of anything clever or interesting to write about.

In the picture up there on the left is Grandma Thatcher- who moved to Denver last year so she could live with Judy, her other daughter, rather than in a retirement home. We are very fortunate to have long living realatives. Both of my Grandparents are alive and well and Jared has his Mom's Mom and his Dad's Dad to look up too. Grandpa Thatcher died due to illnesses and I think that Grandma Corpuz died of illnesses as well. I was able to get to know Grandpa Thatcher, however Grandma Corpuz passed on before I had the pleasure of meeting her.

Grandma T and her girls








Dillon, Grandma T. and My Gavin









Ariel, Tianna, My Caitlee, Aspen, Atallia, Grandma T., Lauryn, My Soraya and My Ella.






We met her for breakfast and she was so excited to see some of her beloved 'girls'.. (if you didn't know, Corpuz boys haven't been known to have boys, there are only 4 grandboys, one with the Corpuz name, out of 20 some odd grand kids!) She broke her thumb and hit her head off the ground going out side to get her mail. She is okay, just in a lot of pain. Poor, poor Grandma Thatcher.

On the right is a picture of us with Grandpa Leon. He is doing so well, he loves to watch boxing. His only compliants are his hearing and his sight. He still walks freely and seems pain free. His memory is amazing, I have met him about 4 times and he remembers me and all our children. Multiply that by 9 of Jareds siblings and all their cousins I can barely keep straight. That is Doug in the sun glasses, he wanted to be apart of our picture, we didn't realize that until now.

Family, isn't it about time?