Are You Ready For Some Football????

On Monday, Novebmer 29th, it was Patrick's birthday!!! Patrick for whatever reason really hates to celebrate birthdays.... especially his own. So this past summer, I found out that the AZ Cardinals were playing a Monday Night Football game on his birthday in AZ. So I HAD to get him tickets. He would think that is the PERFECT way to spend his birthday! He has always been a huge Cards fan... no matter if they are horrible or in the Super Bowl, he is a fan! It wasn't easy to get tickets... they sold out really fast, but I finally found him some on eBay and bought them. So he has known what his present was for several months now, but we finally were able to go to a Cards game in their new Stadium in Glendale. 

 The Stadium is really cool. It's so big, we didn't even see the majority of it, but it was still so fun. 

Here are the ESPN Monday Night Football guys. Patrick says the one on the far right is Steve Young, but I have no idea if it really is. But still, it was kinda fun being at a game that was on TV for MNF!

 After looking around for a while, we finally made the hike... and I do mean HIKE... up to our seats. We were literally 5 rows away from the top. The very VERY top. Gotta love "cheap seats" This is our view from our seats. Still not bad at all for how high up they were!

 As lame as it is, this may have been my favorite part of the night??? A bunch of Marines carried out this huge flag as one sang the National Anthem, they ran it across the field.....

 Look how huge it is??? The size of the entire football field! Notice all the Marines it takes to hold it up?? If you look really close, you can see that they had to lean backwards in order to keep the flag up and to not touch the ground. When they got to the part of the song where is says "... long may she wave..." they made the flag wave up and down and it looked so cool! It gave me chills over my whole body and made me tear up a little. I am just a softy with Patriotic stuff I guess. I loved it!! 

 The Cards Cheerleaders doing their little dance just before the team ran out to start the game.

 Here are Patrick's Cards running out. 

 The halftime show was Lifehouse. It was pretty good, at least it was a band that I know and like.

I have never gone to a NFL game before. I'm not really a huge fan of football, but it is SO MUCH more fun to watch it in person then on TV.  And when you are there, you get the added bonus of watching all the crazy drunk fans, which is almost as entertaining as watching the game itself! By the 4th quarter, that was pretty much all I was doing... watching all the 49er fans trash talking the Cards fans and people yelling at one another about plays, calls, etc. It was getting pretty funny!

*Final score: Cards- 6   49ers- 27

*4 fights witnessed among fans (just where we could see, I'm sure there were more!)

*2 people escorted out of the stadium by Sheriff Deputies

*1/2 bottle of beer spilled on us my the guys behind us. He didn't mean to, but got upset at some bad call in the game or something and had a bottle of beer in his hands and it spilled out as he stood up, and it landed on us. Awesome. Just what I wanted.... to smell like nasty beer the rest of the night! He apologize several times. Stupid drunk fans.

It was a fun night and a PERFECT way to spend Patrick's birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PATRICK!

Temple lights!!!

While in AZ, we decided that we wanted to take the boys to see the temple lights. I remember going every year when I was younger and loving it. So we were sure the boys would too. We went and saw them with my brother and his family. It was fun, the lights were awesome, and the kids loved spending one last evening with their cousins. Most of the family left the next day to drive home. We were staying a few extra days though... more to come on that later!

 The cousins we went with. With this many kids+ so much to see+ the excitement of everything, this was the best picture we got. But you get the idea... cute kids... fun outing.

 My boy in front of the wisemen traveling to find the newborn Savior.

The whole fam! I love these people!!!

The temple grounds are set up so different parts of the Nativity are set up in different areas. Here is the best picture I could get of Mary, Joseph, and the Baby Jesus. The star is what was so awesome! Look how bright that thing is! 

And then there are the Wisemen walking with their camels across the huge front lawn of the temple. I have always remembered seeing these Wisemen on the big front lawn, they look so cool in real life. The pictures do not do them justice!

 My brother and his family!

 The boys trying to act "so cool"!

Me and my 3 favorite boys ever!!!! 

I love the Mesa Temple! Especially when the Christmas lights are out and it's the wonderful Christmas season!

One Big Shumate Family Thanksgiving!

Like I said in my last post, we went to Arizona for Thanksgiving with my family this year. It was so fun. We were all there... cousins, aunts, uncles, siblings, grandparents, great-grandparents. There were about 40 of us in all for the big turkey dinner. We were able to spend a week down in Mesa, and here is the first installment of our trip!

We packed up and hit the road on Wednesday. We made it across the new bridge that goes over Hoover Dam. I thought it would be super scary to cross, being as it is so freaking high up above where you usually cross the Dam, but they built walls up just high enough you can't even tell that you are on the bridge. Thank you designers/engineers of that bridge! I really hate heights! 

Just outside of Kingman, I was trying to put a blanket in the window for the boys so the sun wouldn't be on them as they were watching a movie. Patrick was in charge of the window rolling up and down, and I was holding the blanket and told him to roll it up... so he did when I told him it was ready... and my finger was in the way and I didn't realize it. OUCH!!! That really hurts to get your finger rolled up into the window. I screamed and started crying and the next thing I know, Patrick has pulled off the road and is freaking out that he had just cut off my finger or something. He was sure that with how it was bleeding that we would need to turn around and go back to Kingman to the hospital to get stitches. Once I was able to stop myself from screaming and crying... the First Aid Instructor in me kicked in and we examined my smashed bleeding finger and found that the cut wasn't at all in need of stitches (it wasn't deep at all) so we just took some ice from Patrick's drink he had just finished and wrapped it in some napkins and put in on my finger until we got the the next town and stopped for Band-Aids and some Neosporin. All was well,  my finger was just smashed a bit and pretty sore for a few days, but nothing too bad. 

We got to Mesa and enjoyed our traditional Family Lasagna dinner that we have the night before Thanksgiving. After dinner some of my cousins started talking about food challenges, and soon money was thrown down on the table, and my 17 year old nephew had accepted the challenge to eat 1 dozen Krispy Kreme donuts in 2 minutes and then KEEP them down for an additional 15 minutes after that. It was a valiant effort on his part!! He actually came really close! It was so funny to watch him. We still let him have the money for his "mission fund".

Thanksgiving Day was just a bunch of hanging out and catching up with family that we haven't seen in forever. It was fun, and the boys had a blast playing with all their cousins they had there. I hardly saw them at all that day! They had fun playing outside, watching movies, and playing on my sister in laws iPad. Super yummy food was consumed in mass quantities, pies were devoured later in the evening, and it was an all around great day with my family!

Me and my sister

I just thought this was freaking hilarious!! This is one of our 2 or 3 turkey's cooking on the front porch. How redneck is that!?!? So funny!! It was a dang tasty turkey though! 

The boys and 2 of their cousins playing on the iPad that my Sister-in-law brought. It was a big hit. Bradyen now thinks he needs one. I'm pretty sure that won't happen... Daddy gets one first out of any of us!

My sister brought these funny hats so I of course had to get a picture of the boys in them. How festive!

My little niece Bailey was DYING to hold her Baby Landon all day. Landon wasn't having any of that, so we finally had Bailey sit on my lap, and Landon on hers, then all was good. She is a dang cute little girl... always wanting to hug and kiss her Baby Landon!

Then late on Thursday night, the Black Friday adventures began!! My nice Sister-in-Law came and stayed in our hotel room with the boys so Patrick and I could go out shopping all night. We first went to Toys-R-Us, and the line was wrapped around the building 2 times, and wove through the parking lot. We were in line at about the halfway point of the 2nd line around the store, and we got there at 8:30 pm (it opened at 10pm). We started to wonder if the few things we wanted on sale was going to be worth all the waiting and the craziness that we were sure to encounter. Being the smart man Patrick is, he got on his phone, got on toysrus.com and found that the things we wanted the most were already on sale on their webpage and he ordered them (most even with free shipping) right there on his phone as we stood in line. It was awesome!! Gotta love technology! So we left there just before they opened at 10 and headed over to Wal-Mart where we ended up spending the rest of the night. Seriously! We were there from about 10 pm to just after 5am. It was crazy! Most of the things we wanted to buy went on sale at their midnight sale, but a few items didn't go on sale until 5 am. And we had to stand in line for them from midnight on... with a ticket verifying that we were getting what we were in line for... and one of us had to stay in line the WHOLE time. So one of us stood in that dang line all. night. long.  We had gotten all our items that we could, and just took shifts standing in the line. It was a long night, and we totally paid for it the next day because we were so tired, but we got the boys almost all their christmas presents and all of Brayden's birthday presents during our night of shopping. There was just 2 things that we couldn't find... and we saved a bunch of money... which was really a good thing this year!  :) We got back to our hotel room and got about an hour of sleep before the boys woke up and we were going again for the day. 

It was a fun holiday. We were surrounded by so many that we love and we really had so much to be thankful for that day!

Graditude

This week of the Thanksgiving holiday is always so fun! I love it. What's not to like... yummy food, and lots of it, being around family laughing and catching up since we all live far apart, the kids getting to play with their cousins, crazy Black Friday sales, and vacation from life and school. 

This year we are especially looking forward to it. All the Shumate side of our family will be gathered at my Grandparents house for a special family Thanksgiving. My Grandpa Shumate is 90 years old and may very well not be around for Thanksgiving next year, so we will all be together for this holiday to visit, eat, laugh, and give THANKS!

This year, our family has tons and tons to be thankful for. Over the past few weeks since Patrick has lost his job, the song Count Your Blessings has been brought to my mind over and over again. I do not at all think this is a coincidence, but one of the many tender mercies the Lord is blessing me with right now. 

"When upon life's billows you are tempest tossed, 

When you are discouraged thinking all is lost. 

Count your many blessings, name then one by one,

And it will surprise you what the Lord has done!"

Here are just a few things that I'm truly grateful for:

(in no particular order)

~The Gospel and a loving Heavenly Father who will never leave our side and loves us.

~My bestest friend and husband who I love more and more everyday.

~My 3 wild and crazy boys. My life is better because I am their mom! And a little more insane!!

~My family, they are so supportive and loving, and sometimes a little crazy, it provides some classic entertainment some days.

~My friends, we have met some amazing people over the years!

~Blogs, what a fun way to journal and keep in touch with family and friends!?!

~ITunes, really, how did I live without it for so long? We listen to music all the time at our house. I especially love to watch my boys singing along to songs, its just too funny, even when they sing the wrong words!

~Family Wii Night and Family Movie Night... a super fun way to spend time together as a family and the boys get SO excited if we even mention the possibility of such a night.

~My dishwasher... because I REALLY hate to hand wash dishes!  :)

~My Scentsy to help make my house smell good.

~Diet Mt. Dew... it gets me through the days somedays! Don't judge!!

~Crockpots, they usually (unless I mess it up, which I totally have NOT ever done!) make yummy dinners for my family.

~My DVR... without it I would never get to watch anything on TV that I like. And I'm kinda lame like that, that I LOVE certain TV shows.

~I love the weather where we live. Sure the summer's are kinda brutal, but the other 8 months of the year the weather is great! I love it! I've officially decided I hate snow, so hopefully I don't have to live somewhere it snows again for a long time.

~Constant "I love you"'s and hugs from my kids

~Back scratches from my hubby... really, is there anything better then that?!?! MAYBE neck massages, but they are both amazing, and he gives them to me often and it is wonderful!

~Cafe Rio... really... need I say more?!?! Maybe only if you don't know the goodness of the food from that place, and if you don't, I am truly sad for you! Come visit me, and I will introduce you to it's perfection! :)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you all remember how incredibly blessed we all are, and I hope you eat lots and lots of yummy turkey and tasty pies!

An Unexpected Chapter......

I have debated over the past several days if I was going to post about this or not. I didn't want it to be an "oh whoa is me" kinda post or a "whatever, good riddance"  or an "overly spiritual" one either. I finally decided that this is a major event in our lives, and this is what I blog about, major things that happen along with the simple everyday things so here it is. 

We are now among the ever growing percentage of people who are unemployed. And it sucks. Bad. It was totally and completely unexpected for us, however, as we look back over that past several weeks and even months, we can now see that a loving and caring Heavenly Father knew exactly what was about to happen and was already watching over us and blessing us long before we knew it. It has been little things like how about 6 months ago, after Patrick had been having a particularly hard time at work, I mentioned that maybe it was time for him to move on from this company. He said he didn't think it was, he had worked there too long (over 10 years!!) to just leave now. So we dismissed the thought and continued on with our lives.  It's bigger things like just 2 weeks before everything happened, we got a VERY unexpected check in the mail from our mortgage company for an overage in our escrow account and a letter telling us since our property taxes had gone down, our escrow amount we pay every month was going down, therefore, our mortgage payment was going down as well. We had just put that check into savings and were still wondering what we were going to spend it on. It's things like when everything went down, we thought that the company would just give us a final paycheck and be done with it. But they gave us options that usually they don't give people. And while having to choose which option was best for our family was hard because one of them meant moving back up to Utah to take a job there, we chose the option that kept us here where we feel so strongly that we are suppose to be, without a job, and waiting to see what will happen, and with enough money in the bank to sustain us for several months. 

Many will say that we are simply crazy for choosing the option that we did, to take a sort of "severance" and not take a job in such a horrible economy. And I would be lying if I said that thought hasn't crossed our minds either. It is incredibly scary to take that kind of chance. But as we thought and prayed and talked about it together, we just knew that it wasn't the time for our family to move back to Utah and that we had given all that we could to this company and it was time to move on and find a new road to travel on. And to those who think we are simply crazy or stupid for doing so, then to them I would say that we KNOW that the Lord is watching over us and has something in store for us. Where or when we will find out what that is, we don't know, but THIS is where He wants us right now and we are putting all the faith we can find in ourselves into HIM right now to guide us to what He wants us to do and a job that will sustain our family.

That doesn't mean this trial hasn't been hard so far. It doesn't mean that we haven't had bad days where the negative and stress haven't overwhelmed us. But it DOES mean that we know we will be ok and we can feel His loving arms around us giving us hope. 

Plans we thought we had set are now changed. So now what the future holds is uncertain.... and I'm not so sure that is such a terrible thing.

Being a Mom of Boys.....

As the years have passed, I have found the statement that little boys have a special place in their mother's heart to be so true. Due to the fact that I am, of course, a mother of 3 boys, I would venture to say I'm kinda an expert on boys. Now that is NOT to say that I am perfect at raising my boys, but I pretty much know how they work, think, and function. I am surrounded by it all day every day. And try as I might to teach these boys manners, discipline, kindness, the gospel, and what is deemed appropriate or not (just to name a few).... I know that boys think bodily functions are hilarious. Especially at the dinner table... even when Mom is giving them "the look" until they say excuse me, showers are their worst enemy, anything green is not edible (unless it's green Jello or candy), and washing hands seems to be optional (which it IS NOT!) And that once they start school, it is most definitely not cool to hold your mom's hand in a parking lot, store, or as you cross a street... I mean someone might see, and we just can't have that!

However, little boys most definitely do hold a special place in their mother's heart. Among all the dirt and grossness that they posses, there are those heart-melting times when they want to curl up in your lap and cuddle, when they ask for just one more kiss goodnight, and when they give you those sweet innocent looks that remind you how awesome it is to be their mom and how you wish they would stay little, sweet, and innocent just a little longer.

This is just one of the reasons why I'm so obsessed with getting my boys pictures taken at certain milestones when they are babies and at least once a year when they are a little older. So that one day when I'm old, crazy, and probably senile from all their shenanigans I can look back and remember how once upon a time they were pretty dang cute and melted my heart on a regular basis.

Last year I had a friend take these pictures of Landon when he was a newborn and of the 3 boys all together. I L-O-V-E-D them! So when Landon turned one, I asked her to take his pictures again. And once again, I'm loving them! I just love how his little personality is showing in so many of the pictures. Here are just a few of them... possibly my most favorites!

 

Oh yeah... and little boys in overalls pretty much have cuteness oozing out of them!

Halloween Again!

This year Brayden really wanted to be Harry Potter. He's reading the first book, and so he was really excited to dress up as Harry.

Conner, wanting to do pretty much everything that his big brother does, wanted to be someone from the Harry Potter books/movies too. First is was Ron, but I couldn't figure out what Ron would look like so that it would be different from Brayden's costume. Then I convinced him to choose something else, so he chose Hagrid. Another problematic choice. All the Hagrid costumes were for adults since Hagrid is so big anyways, and I couldn't figure out how to pull off the bushy wig and beard when he wasn't allowed to wear masks and stuff to school. So that is how we finally settled on Harry Potter in his Quidditch robes. The costume even came with a Golden Snitch! 

 As I was trying to figure out what Landon should be, my sister offered to let me borrow this costume that my mom made for my niece last year. It was so dang cute!! I thought for SURE he wouldn't keep the head part on for long, so we put his costume on at the last minute and ran outside to take pictures. I was yelling at everyone to hurry outside so we could get at least a few good ones of Landon before he started flipping out and tearing the hood off. I was completely shocked when he didn't touch it once. In fact, he left it on and didn't touch it for over 3 hours. He lasted through all the pictures, driving in the car, and trunk or treating at the church. It wasn't until he was tired and wanting to go home and go to bed that he finally started pulling on it. There was only 1 ribbon casualty due to his decision to be done with the head part, but that can easily be fixed!

 The 3 kiddo's all ready to go trunk or treating!!!!

Seriously... I couldn't stop taking pictures of Landon in his lion costume... it was just to dang cute!! This one you can see the cute little tail in the back.

 Those chunky cheeks... you just have to give them a big kiss!

See... I couldn't stop taking his picture... I probably have at least15 more that I spared you all and didn't post.

He just sat in his stroller the whole time while we walked around the church parking lot to trunk or treat.

The boys got SO MUCH candy!! Brayden counted his candy once we got home and had over 115 pieces, that didn't count the ones he ate in the car or that he shared with his mom and dad!  :)

We will be on candy overload for a while!

Once we got home... Patrick dared Brayden to eat a Warhead and keep it in his mouth for at least 30 seconds. It was pretty funny. Brayden's face puckered up and tears were in his eyes, and he was laughing so hard. He did it though! I don't think I could... I hate that kind of sour candy!

Hope everyone had a great and fun Halloween! We most definitely did!

School Halloween Parties!!!

Last week both the boys had some fun Halloween festivities at their school. 

Here they are in their costumes all ready for school

Brayden was Harry Potter in his Gryffindor Robes.

 Conner was Quidditch Harry Potter. He refused to let me draw a scar on his face with my eye liner like I did for Brayden. He was just so disgusted that I would even think to use "girl make-up" on him! What was I thinking??

First up was Conner's class party in Kindergarten. Those kids got so much junk to eat, it was just crazy!

 Landon came along for the fun too. Conner was so excited that we were at his party with him.

For the older kids in the school, they had a trunk or treat and parade for them. All the classes walked out so everyone could see them in their costumes, then they got to go around to get some candy at the cars. 

I loved this picture of Brayden as he's jumping! He was really excited for the candy that was coming his way I guess!

Waiting patiently..... 

After the kids went around to all the cars, they went back into class for the last hour of school. Those poor teachers!! 

Conner had more fun playing with his friends instead of watching the parade and stuff going on.  Here he is with his friend John in his Peter Pan costume.

With all the parties, we were at the school for a good part of the day, so that really made nap time hard.  Landon finally just gave up and took a quick nap in his stroller for about 30 minutes. The bad part was that was ALL he slept that day. Which made going to soccer games that night until after 8 pm tons of fun! He was one tired little boy by the time he finally got to go to bed that night!

The kids had a great time at their school parties and got lots of candy and goodies!

Watch out Ladies....

These Patton boy's are turning out to be pretty dang handsome!

Brayden - 2nd grade

This picture makes it look like he has flaming red hair, and he really doesn't. I mean it does have some red to it, but this picture makes it look as red as mine, and it really isn't in real life.  He's pretty cute though!

Conner - Kindergarten

This little man just melts his momma's heart!

I may or may not have teared up a bit when these pictures were brought home. My little guys are growing up too fast!