February 11th at 1:00pm

We are pretty sure we are having another baby!! Last October we were told that the kids mom had another baby. Well after alot of calls and emails and digging for info we will be meeting with the baby's caseworker and some other team members so they can determine permanent placement for the baby. We are so excited!! the baby was born in October so he is just 3 months old. He has been in fostercare right from the hospital. We are hoping it doesn't take to long for the transition and that we can get him before the end of February. From what I understand the rights have already been severed or are in the process so he is ready (or almost ready) for adoption. The kids are so excited. They have been telling everyone. So everyday the teachers at school ask how things are going. We have found working with the government it is always a waiting game. So we're glad that we learned alittle about patience when we were younger.

We also have other exciting news after almost 2 years of being out of a 8 to 5 job James has been hired by a temp agency to work at Wells Fargo doing loanish stuff. It's just a temp job but it is good money for now while he has it and it could turn into permanent....what ever that means anymore. He has done so great with his bullet business he has gotten alot of regulars who like his stuff so he will still do alittle of that. His shift is 2 to 11pm so he will still be able to take the kids to school in the morning and get alot done before he has to go in at 2. It will be a new adjustment for all of us for him not to be home and available all day. I'm hoping we will survive!! My biggest worry.....who will help Shea with her math???? I'm serious.. I don't know this kind of math.

We are so excited to head down to Safford/Thatcher/Central (do you think they could give this place 1 name??) tonight for Jon and Amanda's baby blessing. we are taking the camper to stay in and the kids are so excited because we are going "camping" even though we are parking in front of Jon's house. We are also going to visit our favorite Knight's the boys need to play with Benjamin they will (better) get along great!! Well I have packing to do, Sunday shirts to iron and food to figure out so we'll take alot of pictures while we are "camping" and post them next week.

I'll Try!!

I can't promise because I know me...but I'll try to do better this year at blogging. I have already started off not so great!! It has been far to long and so much has happened since the first of December when I last entered. We are doing fantastic!! We are all done with the sharing of the flu and sniffles and sneezing and we are ready for spring to get here.

We had fantastic holiday!! We got to see all the grandmas and grandpas cousins, aunts, uncles, friends, who else is there?? We had to wake the kids up for Christmas morning at 8:30 we finally decided that if we were going to get all of our visits in we better get going. I will say that next year we won't be buying anything for the kids (jk) They have to many people who are givers!! they got stuff from everyone...and we are so grateful for everything. The kids love to play with toys who doesn't??? We had a great winter break and the kids got right back into school. I really think they missed it. I love getting to be at home with Samantha for a few hours in the morning just so we can hang out she is growing so quick!!

I'm not a New Year resolution maker but I have decided to work on some things this year. I always worry that I can't learn new things and yet when I try them...it seems that I can. We had great start of the year this month with a stake preparedness night where we had a food storage pep rally that got me really excited about doing better at it for our family. I think it's easier to say everything will be fine when it is just 2 of you but everything changes when you are responsible for 5 little people. So I got 80lbs of chicken and bottled it. This is one of the things that normally would make me nervous but I did it and it looks beautiful and I got almost 35 quarts of chicken ready to add to my list of food storage items. I'm excited to do other meats like ham and beef. I have always been sold on the Costco chicken.....I am officially over that and have now saved $10.00 to $30.00 every time I go to Costco just buying the canned chicken and beef. I'm still waiting for the perfect day to make my homemade laundry soap. It will be soon I can feel it.

It's December!!!

I was late putting up Thanksgiving/fall decorations so I feel like I just put them up and now it is time to take them down to put up the Christmas ones. I'm excited!! Last night we had the annual Johnson Christmas party including a visit from Santa. We had one less crier than last year. It was fun the kids had a great time. There are always amillion kids there. I think the kids are figuring out about Santa and Christmas. Shea knows it all. The little kids....as soon as this year goes by they will have a grasp on Christmas. I had a great idea for our family Christmas dinner this year since we aren't going to pick names to exchange gifts (for the cousins) I'll have to let you know how it turns out!! But you will have to wait. For the party the kids sang some songs and I recorded it but you couldn't hear them so I deleted the video. I'll have them do it again.

Here is a shout out to our newest blogger in the family!! Vanessa. Welcome!! Can't wait to see all your posts. You are such a grown up!!

Love you!!

Happy Thanksgiving

This is our Turkey Lurkey at the kids table.....do you love Thanksgiving kids tables??


I love this entryway buffet and the picture above it. what a great reminder for me every time I come or go.

Here is one of my treasures!! I'm grateful for strong men who could carry it up the stairs to add it along this wall. it is a 12 foot bench. Thanks to the Church of Hope that was getting rid of them for free.

We had a great Thanksgiving!! We had the Zieglers over and we had a house full. It was great to see all the Utah cousins. The boys couldn't wait to see them. We got to see Jon's new baby Cannon. He is a cutie. I'm a horrible picture taker as you can see I didn't take any pictures while they were here. I need a brain transplant!! I am so thankful they were here and that all the little kids (and big kids) get so see each other once in a while. We get to go to Utah after Christmas for a few days we are excited. I think cousins should know each other!!

It was a busy weekend Stacy had her baby on Friday night or was it at the crack of dawn on Saturday they named him Braden they should be coming home on Wednesday. Jake got engaged to a darling girl, Heather, She is also a teacher. We had kids playing inside we had kids playing outside. The weather was perfect. The kids loved to be outside and play on the swing. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. It was good to be with family. We are so grateful to have the family we have been waiting for. This is our year for gratitude to our Heavenly Father for all he has given us. We are grateful every year but we have seen his hand so clear this year in our family. We have been given the ultimate blessing from our Savior Jesus Christ without him all of this would be for nothing. We are grateful for the atonement, restored gospel, for the blessings of the temple. There is so much power in knowing that we will be a family forever. It makes some things so much easier to do each day. We have are grateful for the scriptures especially the book of Mormon. It really is a different book as we look at our little people and know that they are descendants of these great prophets of old. We are so thankful for a living prophet. Who loves us and lead and guides us. These are great days to be alive!!

Happy Birthday to our little lover

Easter 2008

This is Easter morning. What a bright happy face. Her hair is so short.

Nov. 2007 she had such fine short hair. Love her lips!

I'm forgetting her being so little.....I'm glad I have pictures.

can you just gobble up these cheeks. She sure has changed this is the first week in Dec 07 what a cutie.

Look how tiny she was next to the boys. Christmas eve 2007

these 2 are from Easter.....it didn't take her long to figure out how to open an egg and it magically had candy in it.

This is our big girl on our new swing.

This is today. She is trying to get something out of the jar.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LITTLE MAMA

Today is our little love child's birthday!! She is 2yrs old. I will have to say that every time I think about the time we doubted that we could take another one I get sick to my stomach. She has been so wonderful to have in our home. We can already see that she has a very gentle spirit she cares about her older brothers and sister. She is becoming such a character. She loves to make faces. Her #1 favorite thing to do is sing. I hear her singing all the time either I am a child of God or her ABC's those are her 2 favorites. She loves to have her back scratched which is hilarious to me because she is so little. When I look at pictures of when we first got her I see the biggest change in her. She is such a big girl. She can do everything by herself - or so she thinks she can. She holds her own with her brothers. My favorite thing of all is that she has her daddy's heart. He always says he would take 10 little Samantha's I totally agree with that!! She gets so giddy when he comes home from wherever and she sees him. I love it. I know that she has always been part of our family the same way with all of our slices of heaven. I am grateful for a Heavenly Father that knows us and has a plan for each of us and knows exactly what we need. I could not have picked better children to fit our family so well. We love you Samantha !! Happy 2nd Birthday!!

I VOTE FOR CANNING!!

I hope everyone got a chance to vote or will take the chance before the polls close tonight!! I'm sure if we do our part everything will be OK no matter what the outcome is :)

I celebrated voting day today by doing alittle canning. My first attempt at real fruit. For our girls weekend in Oct we picked the pears off the pear tree at the ranch and brought them home. They look great in the bottle and I hope they are great tasting!! I used apple juice as the juice so it's cloudy I'm gonna do a regular sugar syrup for the next batch. I also couldn't find quart jars I still have to hunt some down. I'll go alittle later tonight or tomorrow. I still have 3/4 of the basket full of pears. Thanks girls for helping pick them!!!

These are my fancy tools I thought as long as I was doing pears I should use a paring knife.

This is our beautiful basket of pears. This is how many I still have left.I just did one bowl and I got 13 pint jars out of the bowl full. Yeah for whoever said you don't have to do amillion jars in one day...this basket may take me all week - Or I'll have to borrow a bigger pot.I forgot to put alittle butter in the mix to keep the bubbles down but they scooped off great!

Someone talk to me here!! I did the boiling everything and turning the jar upside down and the jars sealed. For jam that is enough.....is a sealed lid a sealed lid?? They are beautiful aren't they!!! Actually they look like eggs. Lindy I need to know about doing the butter!!! that may be my next project. Oh I guess I need to finish the pears. I can't wait to see them in quart jars!!

Happy November!!

I sat down earlier today ready to update and I got carried away looking at every ones blog. I am glad that I got back to it today. We had a great weekend! We made it through another Halloween with little people around last week we made a couple of projects to decorate. We also did pumpkins that was a hit with the little ones they weren't so sure about the gooey mess but they went along with it and pulled out all the seeds.

I'm sure you are all looking forward to seeing the grand costumes the kids wore...If I didn't have a digital camera I'd say I didn't want to waste film. I had great costumes figured out Joey was going to be a jail bird, Jordan was going to be a lion and Jesse was going to be a clown and Samantha was going to be Toto (Dorthy's dog) and Shea was going to be some kind of witch. I'm sure it started out with Joey he got some vampire teeth at school and that is all he wanted to wear... so he wore his halloween shirt and his vampire teeth. I had Jordan all dressed in his costume ready to go and looking great and he decided he didn't want to be a lion....so he took the costume off. Jesse didn't want to wear anything so I tricked him into wearing a shirt (which had a batman logo on the front) and put a batman cape on him which is a regular thing for him to do...Samantha had most of her costume on but wouldn't let me put on the head part (hat) that has the ears. Shea well she chose not to so some work at school and got her card changed a couple of times last week so there was no dressing up for her (mean mom) we had a great trunkertreat at the ward the kids got loaded with candy!! It will last a couple of years...seriously... we had a backpack full of candy from last years loot and when we got broken into the rats took our backpack full of candy.. How weird is that??

Fun weekend! Great Conference!! I love the conference broadcasts what a miracle that is. I didn't want it to end. It is so refreshing to hear our church leaders speak and be so optimistic about the times we live in - It is a great reminder to me that we do live in a great time, a perfect time live - we have it all...(except for a couple of things I'm sure we could all use...a Jetson's dryer that folds clothes on it's own and disposable clones so we can be everywhere we need to be and to do everything that needs to be done!) I love this time of year. Why don't we remember to be grateful all year...or is that just me :0 I do get overwhelmed when I think of all the blessing I've received especially lately. There really isn't anything that we are in need of or that we feel is missing in our lives (except for the 2 things mentioned above) It seems like the windows of Heaven have been propped open just for us for along while now. I've really been trying to pay attention to every little thing and to be grateful. This is a great time to be alive!!

These are some of our holiday projects the kids were so funny with them Samantha was so serious about gluing it was great! Jordan got the most excited of all the kids about making our decorations - what a character.

We made a mobile on the light in the entryway for our spiders and skeletons.

vote, vote, vote, vote, vote, vote, vote, vote, vote, vote, vote, vote, vote, vote, vote, vote, vote!!