HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY KYSON!!

Happy Belated Birthday to my fantastic nephew, Elder Kyson Lamb! I failed to get his post up by his birthday. He is serving his mission in the Pocatello, Idaho Mission. We are so proud of him. We love and miss him very much, but hope he had the very bestest birthday.
We Love You Kys!!!

Hello Again!

Finally a new posting. I have been slacking on the updating of the blog and I apologize to those of you who like to check it often for our updates. I will try to do better I promise. We have had a busy Spring. We went to San Diego with our great friends the Smith's. Needless to say that is always a great time and we were able to stay with my parents while we were there. We enjoyed Legoland, the Midway Aircraft Carrier and the new Mormon Battalion Museum.


About 3 weeks after that we had the opportunity to finally go to a Hannah Montana taping. Our good friend (uncle) Jason hooked us up with some tickets and some sweet behind the scenes pictures. He was so gracious to be our host, a job normally done by his wife Jen who happened to be out of town. We were able to take Morgan and Mattie (my nieces) with us and we all had a fantastic time. We also got some great photos with Jaden Smith, the new Karate Kid!! He was there after the shoot to pick up a friend and was so nice to let us take some pictures with him. What an adventure! After the taping we headed to San Diego to spend the next day with my parents at the beach. The kids were in heaven. Thanks mom and dad for making it so much fun for them. My mom found a new way to entertain the kids. She gave each of them $5 and took them to the dollar store. You would have thought they had won the lottery. They loved it!!!

In other news, I am expecting. I am due November 3rd, which we now is a fantastic day as it is Grandpa Denler's Birthday. We couldn't be more thrilled. I have been sick the past few months, something I've never experienced before, hopefully I am past that now. We found out last week that it is a BOY! R was thrilled, of course, and B told P, "Awesome, he's on my team!!" P is still in denial and just says, "No" anytime you ask her about her new little brother. I'm sure she'll come around.

We are looking forward to a trip to Montana this summer and spending a couple of weeks in Southern Cal. with Elder and Sister Denler.

Scottsdale Horse Show

We had a great day on Friday. We spent the majority of the day down in Scottsdale to watch the Arabian Horse Show. It was awesome. The horses were absolutely beautiful and what an event. We went to watch our friend Jen "show" her horses. She has two, but we just watched her show one, Psonic. What a beautiful horse and Jen did a great job. She won Reserve Champion(2nd place) on Psonic and then on Saturday morning we watched her win Champion on her other horse "Gone Hollywood" we call her Holly, online. Good Job Jen!
The kids were amazed at the horses and probably loved Jen's dog Andy more than the horses. This was the first time the kids have had the opportunity to meet Jason and Jen. Jason had driven all night Thursday to get to Scottsdale to support Jen in her last few showings. B has been asking when Jason was coming to our house for months. The pictures will show you how that went. B has a new best pal, or as Jason likes to say he's a fantastic "Uncle." Both P and B fought over who got to sit by Jason in the car on the way to and from lunch. We all had a great day and enjoyed the short time with our friends.

Talent Show II

Here is the end, you can see for a quick second he starts to dance. We will try to get another video with the full dance.

B performed at the talent show for our church. He chose to hula hoop to Mr. Roboto. His dad was in charge of the camera because his mom was running the music, unfortunately dad didn't get the very end where B dropped the hula hoop and went into an impromptu robot dance. I will see if anyone else may have taped his performance, but for now, here he is.

Finally an Update

I can't keep apologizing for my lack of attention to my blog, so I will just say, here is an update, finally. Christmas was great, we spent the morning at home in Prescott with Pam, Ryan's mother, then drove down to Mesa for the rest of the day and spent the night down there. We had some eventful days, my parents were getting ready to leave to the MTC and we had some moving and rearranging to do with Grandma D in the mean time. She wasn't feeling so well so, Chelsea volunteered to have her in her home while my parents were gone to the MTC for 10 days. She will reap great eternal blessings for what she had to put up with!


After that we came back home and got to spend some great quality time with Gramma Sweetheart, or Pam as some refer to her. She stayed for a whole 2 weeks. It was so much fun, the kids were very sad to see her go, as they always are. She helped me paint the waiting room at Ryan's office. Something that should have been done, oh about 10 years ago. It looks great. Thanks for the help, Pam, you are always a trooper! Ryan bought Brennan some tickets to a Cardinals game for Christmas.(not sure if it was really for Brennan) They had a blast. Brennan wore his new Vikings jersey that he also got for Christmas and they had a great time with our friends Chad and Ryan M.


January was pretty uneventful except we had 3 or 4 snow days. For those of you not familiar, as I wasn't, a "SNOW DAY" is something that happens when even a skiff of snow appears here. Someone decides to cancel school, close city offices, etc.... and thus we are left with time on our hands to entertain the children. So I will include a few pictures of what we did. We actually got about 8" in 2 or 3 days, it was awesome. Our cars were stuck in the garage, but we had a blast. The kids found a great sledding hill, our driveway! Our neighbor saw Brennan trying to slide down on the lid of a rubbermaid tote and brought over 2 sleds for us to use. It was so much fun. We all sled down several times, and that is all they wanted to do all day for 2 days. Ryan and I finally needed to get out of the driveway, so we spent 2 hours moving enough snow to get our cars out, barely, then we moved it all back onto the driveway. The neighbors must have thought we were absolutely nuts. At one point the neighbor across the street asked if we were trying to get the cars out or in? He was clearly confused by our actions.


It was really a fun family time for us, Ryan didn't even go into work on a Friday it was so bad. We loved having him home to play with for 2 whole days. He couldn't get his car out so he didn't have a choice! :)


Happy Valentine's Day to everyone!

New Family Pics

Just got our new family photos. They will only be up through Wednesday, Nov. 18th. Hope you like them.

http://www.holdsworthphotography.com/zerr.exe

More updates...

So last we posted, we were on our way to our cruise. I will try to fill you in from that point on. First of all, the cruise was FABULOUS!!! I highly recommend everyone do it. The kids loved the kids club daily. We dropped them off at 9am. If we were "at sea" for the day we picked them up for lunch at about noon and took them back about 2pm. Picked them up again at 5pm and then dropped them back off at 7pm only to be picked up again at 10pm. If we were in port, we dropped them off at 9am and picked them up at 5pm. They loved every second of it, and let me tell you so did I. Don't get me wrong, I love my kids, but they loved being with the staff and I loved being well, anywhere I wanted to be. Ryan caught up on a serious lack of sleep and got a little sun, while allowing a sprained ankle to heal. (sprain happened before the cruise).


So when we got back we were quickly into August. Brennan was on a wait list for a charter school in the area, and low and behold on the very first day of school they called and he got in. I was completely unprepared for that. I really didn't think he would get in for a month or two, but I headed to the local store and stocked up on lunch items and a lunch bag. I have to provide him with a lunch and 2 snacks every day as the school doesn't have a cafeteria. He started on Aug 11th.


Peyton also started going to pre-school two days a week this year. She loves it. She was quite distraught that her entertainment (Brennan) was going to be gone everyday without her. It has been an adjustment and she is still working on it, but getting better. She still misses him, but is loving her school.


Ryan's mom was able to come back to visit us in August for 2 weeks. It was great having her here. She was such a great help, as always, and she loved getting the kids their lunches packed and off to school everyday.


She and I took on the great task of cleaning the garage and putting the rest of our boxes away. WOW! What a chore.....and what a trooper. She was determined to get that thing done and it was a good thing because I never could have done it by myself. We can now park 3 cars in the garage if we want to. It is wonderful. The kids love to play in there now because it is so roomy and it's clean. :)


We also canned about 11 quarts of cherries, made flowers clips for the girls hair, cleaned a lot and just had a great time.


I had the fantastic experience of getting into a car wreck. I was on my way to pick up Brennan from school, luckily I was by myself. I was driving on a 4 lane highway, I was in the far right lane traveling North and a truck was in the far left lane traveling South when his back left tire came right off of his 3/4 ton truck and across the other Southbound lane hit the median and flew a good 50 or so feet in the air. I saw it at about 30 feet in the air coming right at me. I slowed down as much as I could an got over as much as I could without going off the highway, and well it smashed right into the front of my car, then (according to 2 witnesses ) flew about 60 feet in the air back over the other side of the highway where it layed to rest about 300 ft behind the truck it came off of. It was crazy. Luckily, no injuries no airbag deployments and about $5k worth of damage to my now undrivable car.





The whole thing was quite scary and I am blessed to have walked away scott free. It could have been so much worse. Two weeks later I finally got my car back and all is well.





Ryan celebrated a birthday, everyone came up to have dinner with us, which was so wonderful. We had 19 people here, and had a great time. Thanks everyone so much for coming. It meant so much to him that you all made that trip.

Happy Birthday Brennan!

Born on September 15, 2004. THE BIG 5!!!!!

Texas Roadhouse for dinner. He got to sit in the saddle while they all yelled really loud and we gave him a big "Yee Haw!"

Today, my "tiny boy" as we used to call, him turned 5 years old. It is amazing to me how time just flies. It seems like just yesterday I was so excited to be having a boy and getting everything ready for him. He has been just an absolute joy. I couldn't have asked for anything more. He has such personality and charm. He is just a riot. He makes us laugh everyday. He asked to go to Texas Roadhouse for his birthday dinner and got to sit on the saddle while they all yelled, YEE HAW! He thought that was a so much fun. He just loves to be the focal point of everything that is going on. Today I was able to take cupcakes into his class for school. He was excited to be able to share his day with his new friends at school.

He got 3 transformers and a remote control Optimus Prime. He also got an autobots laptop computer that will help him with his rhyming, spelling and numbers. He got a color wonder coloring set, some Cars pencils and a pencil sharpener. Which he asked Ryan if this was that stuff for your armpits. We both had to laugh out loud. We explained that he doesn't quite need that yet, so it was a pencil sharpener to go with his pencils.

Happy Birthday Brennan. We love you and are so blessed to have you in our family.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KYSON!!

Happy Birthday Kys! We want you to know how great we think you are. You are a wonderful nephew and "bestest cousin" according to Brennan and he would also like to say "Clam It Sudsy!" Hope you have a great birthday. We Love Ya! Love, The Zerrs

June

June came and went so fast I just don't know where the time went. We had tons of fun with Gramma Sweetheart, who came June 22- July 4th, Grandma Cristi came for a few days and our good friends the Castleton's came for about 4 days. Gramma Sweetheart celebrated the big 60 while she was here. She is not a fan of desserts in general, but I picked a great one and she loved it. I made some Sour Cream Lemon Pies. Peyton was a ton of help with those. The kids had a wonderful time going on walks with Gramma Sweetheart everyday, watering the plants and learning to do all of their chores. Thanks Pam for that. They love to make their beds now, go figure.
We got a few days of "adult time" in this month. I had a chance to go to the play "Wicked"in Phoenix with some friends of mine. Ryan and I had the chance to go to LA to go to an Angels game. It wasn't just any Angels game, it was the Angels vs Yankees. About half of the stadium were Angels fans and the other half, Yankees fans. Angels won 10-6. The next day we met up with some long time friends we haven't seen in well....a long time. We had a great time with Jason and Jen in downtown Disney. We shopped and walked and visited and ate at Tortilla Joe's. According to Ryan and Jason, Tortilla Joe's may have the best fish tacos they have ever had. Now if you know Ryan, that is saying something and Jason, well he's had his fare share of fish tacos. We had a great time. Some of you may recognize Jason. Yes, he is the ever lovable Jackson from Hannah Montana! We like to say we knew him when....FYI Hannah Montana just got picked up for one more season. Enjoy the pictures and we are off on a cruise!!!!!

Finally.

I am trying to figure out just how to update the last 2 1/2 months in one post. I will just hit the highlights and then include a slideshow with pics from most of them.



Shortly after moving, Brennan had his Trike-A-Thon. His preschool holds one every year. We had to go around and let him collect donations for his event. I took him to Ryan's office and the Pharmacy next door and a few family members to gather some respectable donations. We didn't go all out, but we wanted to show some participation, so he did pretty well considering we didn't really go all out for donations. So the day came and wouldn't you know it, the winds were blowing a steady 20-30 MPH with gusts up to 70MPH. It was crazy. Bikes were blowing all over the place, but the kids didn't care. They rode around two courses that were set up for them and there were volunteers who would mark a paper that had been pinned to each child, as they went around. They kept good track of how many laps each kid had. Brennan won 4th place. (we were told later that he actually won that because he was 2nd in collecting the most money) He won a Tadpole Habitat.



We were so excited to have many visitors in the past couple of months. My cousin came to stay with us for a few days, we have had our good friends the Smith's twice, the Castleton's, and the cousins. I truly love having visitors. It's just one of those blessings that make my life richer. We have such great friends and we just don't get to spend enough time with them anymore. There is just something about having a house full of people. I love it!



Spring Break was spent partially here in Prescott and partially in Mesa. Our Mexico plans were botched after several warnings by the State Department about crossing the border. We had planned to go to Rocky Point. A trip we had planned for several months. Bummer, but we made the best of it and still had a great time with our friends the Smiths. We toured downtown and all the sites, and then a few days later we met them at the Phoenix Zoo. ***A very important side note here is that while the Smiths were here, Anne, Zoe, Maya and Allie, performed a miracle. They were able to potty train Peyton. Something I had been working on for months, off and on. I will be eternally grateful to all of them for their patience. They did a wonderful job!!!!!***



I was able to take a few days and go to Mesa to watch kids for a good friend. Again, LOVE IT! I love being able to help and we had such a great time. Our kids get along so well and it was just a fun time.

Unfortunately while I was there, my grandfather passed away. (my mom's dad) It was quite unexpected. We had just spent the past few weeks worrying about my Grandpa Denler (my dad's dad) who is 95 and has good days and bad. When my mom called I was completely caught off guard.

So off to California we went. I was able to caravan with my sister and her family. We had a great time, I must say. Once we got there, the good times rolled on. Fortunately for us we grew up very close to our cousins on that side of the family. We saw them often and are all great friends. So needless to say it was a great time, even though it was a funeral. Grandpa is back with Grandma now. We are blessed to know about eternal families. They were both converts, they joined the church when my mom was about 8 years old. If it weren't for them, well, our family wouldn't have been!!!! Seriously I thought about how that changed everything for them and for all of us down the line. If they hadn't joined the church, my mom certainly wouldn't have gone to BYU where she met my dad and well you see the pattern here. So a big THANKS to Grandpa and Grandma. We Love You both and will miss you so much until we see you both again.



Brennan also got to play T-Ball this year he was a Blue Badger. His season came and went so fast, his last game was yesterday. Did he improve? I'm not sure we can answer that. He did learn to balance his mit on his hat so it hangs over his face. He also loves to be an airplane as he goes around the bases. If nothing else this season was comical. A bunch of 4 and 5 year olds playing T-Ball can brighten your day. Bless their coach for his patience and great attitude!!!!



So now we are onto summer. Brennan is done with preschool for the year. Peyton gets to start with him next year. Unfortunately Brennan missed the cutoff for kindergarten, so he will be doing preschool again, but Peyton is so excited to be able to go with him. It will be great for both of them.



Our summer plans are minimal. Next up, we are excited to have Gramma Sweetheart come visit for a couple weeks, then we are off for a Mexican Cruise. This will be our 7th if I remember correctly, thanks to Grandma Cristi and Grandpa Steve.

Sorry for the Delay

I am apologizing for the delay in getting back to the blog. At first I couldn't find my camera cord to download my pictures to my blog, then I lost the camera for a while. But now all is well and we are somewhat settled in our new place. I will post pictures of that and many other things that have happened in the past 2 months. Thanks for your patience in our transition.

Moving Day!

So it has finally come......and gone. We have officially moved. Thank goodness for good friends and fabulous family. I seriously couldn't have handled another move without their help. We had friends and family travel over 90 miles to help us move, some more than once or twice. Thanks for the sacrifices! I would love to post pictures of this wonderful event, but of course, in the midst of it all I forgot to take pictures. I can post some pics of our garage full of boxes, and rooms full of "things" yet left to unpack, but I'm sure you can imagine that.

I am still sane, and starting to get settled. The kids seem to be getting there. P loves the new house and has no qualms about anything but her room, at night. She has come into our room to sleep in our bed every night since the move. I honestly am too exhausted to argue with her at 1 a.m. or 3 a.m. B however, loves sleeping in his bed and wakes up happy, but during the day continues to tell me how he hates the new house and really, really liked the old one. He has trouble with the adjustment. He did the same thing the last time we moved. At least he still goes to the same school and has some consistency with that and his friends. Hopefully his adjustment won't take long.

Because of the move, I can't think past tomorrow. Sometimes not past 10 minutes from now. We were scheduled to go to Mexico for Spring Break next week, but due to the issues with Mexico, we have cancelled our trip. I was so looking forward to a much needed vacation with our friends. I could use a lot of pool and beach time and just relaxing, I don't care where it is, anywhere would be fine.

So, I guess I get more time to unpack the house. :( yeah....
Hopefully we will have some visitors this next week to help us "break in" the new house.

Snow Day???

Tuesday night the forecast mentioned snow, we have had snow before, but no accumulation. I went to bed at about 10:45pm and looked out on the deck to find a good coating of snow. I thought oh well, it will melt quickly in the morning, but apparently it kept snowing most of the night. I woke up to snow covering everything. I had to scramble to find a note that was sent home over a month ago from B's preschool saying, "In case of snow we will follow the local school district policy for a SNOW DAY." After listening to the radio I found that all schools in this area were cancelled for the day. Now, I grew up in Utah and my husband in Montana. In my lifetime, school was NEVER cancelled. It didn't matter if we got 2 feet of snow, we still had to be at school, on time. R says he remembers school being cancelled once because it was like 30 degrees below zero and the electricity wasn't working at the school, however he also remembers that he walked to school found it was cancelled and then had to walk home.

Needless to say, we were surprised that about an inch or two of snow, in our area caused school to be cancelled. But we took advantage of it and had a great time in the snow while it was here.

As usual P wouldn't let me take any pics of her.