Locking up!

Hi Everyone,
I just want to let you know that I'm going to be locking up my blog. I have recently had visitors from Australia and the Philippines. Since they did not leave a comment and identify themselves, and I do not know of anyone in those places I feel very uncomfortable. I will leave it unlocked for about a week, I have already sent out notification to those that I have email addresses for. If you would like to continue to have access to my blog and you did not receive an email from me please leave me a comment with your email and I'll send you permission.

Shawna

Musings

I went to Sam and Madisyn's parent teacher conferences yesterday. It is wonderful to go listen to people talk about how wonderful your children are! Jake's were two weeks ago, don't ask me why they were before the quarter ended, but I was not able to go because we were not notified or them until two days before! That was a crazy night, every person in the family had something going on outside of the home except for our 3 year old Luke.

Anyway, this morning I was musing about yesterday and thinking about Madisyn in particular and how important it is for us to teach our children about life while they are still young enough to listen! Here is what I hope that I have taught her:
1. You are very intelligent, so use it.
2. I hope you want to marry and have a family when you grow up. But not too soon!
3. I hope you will choose to go to college. There is more there than just school!
4. I hope you will have a good idea of what you want to study before you get there. It makes it so much easier to graduate!
5. I hope you choose a profession that will allow you adequate time to raise your precious family.
6. I hope that when you choose a husband you will choose a man that can and will support his family. Sadly there are many young men that don't know what that means!
7. I hope you will let that young man know right from the beginning to it is very important to stay home with your children and raise them as you and he choose to raise them!
8. I hope you will strongly encourage that young man to get his career education or training early before you start your family and the demands of life be come too hard!
9. I hope and pray that you will always make your life decisions with the Lords help.
10. I hope that life will bring you the utmost joy, no matter what heartbreaks or trials come your way.
Love Mom

October 09

Wow, October is already coming to an end!

Sam really enjoyed playing soccer this year. He is becoming quite the little athlete. We are very blessed to have a really nice AYSO program here. A lot of people put a lot a time and energy in to it. Thanks to all of them!
He really excelled as goalie and likes to play as a defender as well.
I was looking for the little boys one cold afternoon and I found them playing out in the sand, barefoot!
Funny little boys.
They are playing in the sand we put down for our stone patio, we just need more sand so we haven't gotten the stone in yet. They have been having so much fun I hate to ruin their "sandbox".

Roger and Shawna aka Frank and Willa Meana all dressed up for Jim and Shiloh Jorgensen's Halloween Party. Willa is the President of the Sunny Ridge Trail Park Assoc. and was quite upset Frank did not give her a chance to get her "pretties" on before the had to go. They won Best Couples costume by the way.

Roger, Luke and Sam at our wards Trunk R Treat night. It was SO cold. It had been snowing about 45 mins before.

Jake's street man costume.M is for Maddie of course.

Friends Connor Moore and Colter Jorgensen with Luke and Sam.Luke is a Doctor and Sam is Stitch from the movie Lilo and Stitch. It fit him very well, he was wild and out of control that night!

Busy Busy Fall Sept 09

I thought I would borrow Marcie's idea of putting a picture of my busy schedule in as a visual as to why I'm such a slacker on my blog. Sadly, my camera is failing and I am having a very difficult time getting clear shots from it.

Here are some pictures of some of the great times we have had this month.

~Ivan and Debbie Young invited us to go spend Labor Day with them up at Lake Tahoe.~

We all had a wonderful time. It is truly amazing how beautiful it is up there. Thanks to Missy their daughter for taking all of these great pictures for us. There was a pretty fierce volleyball game going on between the young and the old. Some how Jake got on the "old" team.
Our cute, not so little, Maddie
Super Sam!

Mom and the little boys.

~I just had to throw this shot of my washing machine in.~
I came in the other day and this is where I found it. I really think it is time for a new one. It has managed to ruin my new wood floors with it's little dance.

~We were excited for Jake to make the high school soccer team this year.~
We only have a varsity team and he was disappointed last year when he didn't make it as a freshman. Thankfully that didn't hold him back this year. He is second string so he doesn't get a lot of playing time but it sure is fun to watch him when he does.
He is the one in the middle in the top photo and the one on the far left in the bottom photo.

Our high school's new artificial turf track and field.

The boys are very excited to get to play on it this year instead of their gopher infested practise field.
~On Sept 8th we received very sad news that a friend of ours, son had been killed in Iraq.~

We had known Thomas Lyons during his teenage years and it was such a shock to hear that he had died in a truck bombing in Iraq. There was a wonderful out pouring of love and support for his family both at church as well as in the community.

~I decided to get busy and clean out the garage finally.~

It's been over a year. When we did the remodel everything was just piled in there and it has been growing and growing out there. Now that we are getting ready to convert it into living space I decided I had better get it cleaned out. While out there the little boys had a great time making a car (I think) out of one the old boxes.

~Roger took time off so we could go to my cousin Dylan's wedding.~

It was suppose to be a couple get away for the two of us but what does he do when we get there?

Jump over some tracks and pull his calf muscles and tendons. He ended up staying in the hotel pretty much all day while I attended the wedding and other stuff going on. Poor thing. Thankfully he healed up pretty quickly. He was in a "boot" and crutches for a week and a half, then by two weeks was walking with out help.

~Maddie turns 13! ~

Madisyn received just what she wanted!

A new set of scriptures with a bag to carry them in.

~Jake's induction to National Honor Society ~

The proud Papa

As of right now Jake is first in his class academically. We are of course hoping he can keep it up and be valedictorian but he has very stiff competition, luckily she is pretty cute and he wants to impress her with his great academic prowess.

The proud Mama

What is with those shoes! Actually, he had already been at the school for soccer practise so he just quickly changed into dress clothes before the ceremony. I guess he forgot the dress shoes.

~The last fruit on the trees!~

Conference weekend we finally decided to pick the apples. An older lady in our ward told us that many apples don't get sweet until after the first frost. That certainly seems to be true with this tree. The fruit is amazing after the frost comes. I have been busy making apples sauce and pie filling with them. Roger and the kids have been enjoying them with their lunches.

The kids were not too excited to be out in the cold but if Dad could be out there with his bum leg they certainly could go help! It didn't take long for them to have fun anyway, Jake thought it would be great to play apple baseball.

Nick's Wedding 8/29/09

I was happy I was able to make a quick (10 hour drive) trip down to Manti UT for my cousin Nick's wedding. Although in college I went to the Manti Pageant a few times I had never had the opportunity to go inside.

I was able to get there (barely) early enough to be able to go through a session. It is a live session and the rooms are amazing. I wonder if all of the murals are original? It was so worth everything to go and spend a few hours in that beautiful building.
-I started off by leaving my recommend at home and things only seemed to get worse until the moment I sat down for the Endowment Session.

Picture of Allison, Dad, Eric, Claryce and Shurell out on the beautiful grounds.
This turned out to be such a nice picture of Mom and Dad.

The Bride and Groom. Nick and Gina

1st Day of School 8/24/09

Ooops, somehow I missed this one. I already put in my journaling so it will just have to be out of order. One of the things that bugs me when blogging is not being able to insert a picture where I want it or being able to copy and paste text. Ugh.

Sam, my new little 7 year old 2nd grader. Sam leaves home @ 8:03 am

YEA!

The Kunzler Family's favorite day of the year has arrived!

OK, so maybe it is just MOM's favorite day of the year. I know the kids like it too, secretly anyway. They are so excited to get back to see their friends, not have to do boring chores all day, not have to go on big long boring drives across state lines, you know all that boring summer stuff. My big bad 15 year old sophomore.

I love these full body shots so I can see how much they are growing. In this house I do one on the front porch using the window as a height guide. It is fun to look at the last 3 years and see how they have changed. Jake leaves home @ 6 am.
(Jake what is with the white socks? I guess it was 5 am...early morn. seminary)

My super cute 8th grader and soon to be 13. Madisyn leaves with Roger @ 7 am to go pick up Jake from seminary and then be dropped at school.

Love the shoes!

Sam and Luke in front of Sam's school, Cottonwood Elementary

Sam with Luke and his new teacher Mrs. Green

Sam's Birthday Party 8/09

OK, so his actual birthday is the end of July!

But we are always in AZ for his birthday and he really wanted to have a party with his Fernley friends. He has wanted to do this for years and I finally gave in.

Actually I think I just finally came up with a fun idea.

It was a campfire Circle and Night Games theme in our Back Yard.

Sam and Luke and my masterpiece of a cake. ;)
Friends
James Knight, Jack Jones, Ian Jorgansen, Sam, Spencer Knight, Nate (Claussen), Matt Knight, Katie Bake, Seth Bake, Luke
Trying to light the candles in the breeze.

Madisyn and Luke roasting marshmallows.

Jake reading "ghost" stories. Roger and Sam.

Some of the other fun things were roasting hot dogs, jumping on the tramp, and playing Kick the Can and No Bears are out Tonight and the ever fun Glow Sticks.

I think everyone had a really fun time!