Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Private Blogs?
So normally I post about what has been happening in our family but today I decided to write about my thoughts instead. I have notice lately that a lot of people have turned their blogs "private". I really don't understand why. People say it is for safety reasons and maybe it is true and I am the naive one but I just don't understand it. There are so many other ways to keep "blog predators" away. For example don't use your last name on your blog or personal dates, such as birthdays, anniveraries etc. Also you don't need to put any specifics about where you live. Keeping that information off your blog should keep you from having the "need" to go private. So you all don't think that I am just going on about nothing I will try to express why I feel the way I do about having a private blog. When I first entered the blogging world I didn't have a blog but a few of my friends did. I would occassionally check their blogs and from there I would find other old friends and aquaintances. I thought it was the coolest thing to be able to see what was happening in their lives. This is when I decided to start my own blog. I thought that if I liked being able to know about other peoples fun lives they might want to know about mine. Finding many of you would not and could not have happened if everyone's blogs were private. The other thing that I hate about private blogs is once someone decides to go private you have no way of contacting them to ask them to view their blog unless you miraculously have their email. So I guess my question to all my fellow bloggers is I am really just that naive to think that by keeping personal information out of my blog that my family will be kept "safe" or am I right in thinking that having a private blog is a status symbol or paranoia by a lot of people? I will get off my soap box now but I really just wanted to get this off my chest. I am sorry if I have offended anyone who has a private blog that was not my intention.
Monday, April 28, 2008
I am a blog slacker
I am a huge slacker sometimes when it comes to updating my blog. Things have been busy, we were suppose to go to California to visit my brother this week but instead I had the lucky opportunity to be sick. Yay for me. (note the heavy sarcasm) I am finally feeling a bit better I think so I am crossing my fingers. Anyway I will try to post about the latest happenings very soon. Sorry I am not better at posting but I find it so much more fun to see what is happening in everyone elses exciting lives. Check back soon for a real update.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
A Letter To Myself
If I could send myself a letter from the person I am now to myself when I was younger this is what I would say. (Elena, thanks for another great idea for my blog).
1. Don’t cut bangs in Jr high, you will look like a complete dork.
2. Warren W. had a crush on you but it is better to just stay friends.
3. Slapping people on the butt for wearing guess jeans and saying “Guess Butt” was a really stupid game. Plus you just looked dumb doing it.
4. Be nicer to Becca J. because she is a really cool girl.
5. Learn how to study and do better in school so you don’t have to feel so dumb all the time.
6. Write about more than just boys in your journal. Your posterity will want to know more about you then just your latest crush.
7. Don’t take your flat stomach for granted because after kids you won’t have it any more.
8. Your last semester at Ricks go out more instead of being depressed over a dumb boy.
9. The “Mexican Drug Dealer” or so he was labeled, is a player. (He is not mexican or a drug dealer, as far as I know, but the look of his car made him appear that way to some) Have fun while you date him because you learn a lot and become a stronger person because of him but beware that he is not what he appears to be.
10. Don’t worry about Steve’s indecision about your dating/non dating relationship, just hang in there. It all works out in the end and it is TOTALLY worth it.
11. The night before your wedding don’t let Dad climb a ladder in the cultural hall but if he decides to anyway know that even though it is a hard time he will survive and eventually be back to normal with the help of many doctors.
12. Don’t make such a big deal out of dating. Just go have a good time. On that note your life doesn’t need to revolve around boys.
13. Be nicer to the guys you go out with that you don’t think are your type.
14. Spend more time with Muffy. She is awesome and you will both miss getting to spend time with each other after you are married.
15. Finish college and don’t skip class just because you don’t feel like going.
16. Not making the basketball team in 7th grade is not the end of the world. You make it in 8th and 9th grade.
17. In 6th grade when Mrs. Gerry tells you that you sparkle when you sing, yes, it is embarrassing but if you make it into a joke before she gets the chance to make it worse by turing it into a role play for the class, the end result might be better. Good Luck!
18. Don’t play the bounce game on the trampoline with Tyson and Jaron. When it breaks Muffy will never let you live it down and will give you a hard time for the rest of your life.
19. Work harder and do more to accomplish your goals.
I am sure there is a lot more I could write but I can’t think of anything at the moment. Remember you have a great family and awesome friends. Never forget how much they have influenced your life and do a better job at keeping in touch with them.
Deb
1. Don’t cut bangs in Jr high, you will look like a complete dork.
2. Warren W. had a crush on you but it is better to just stay friends.
3. Slapping people on the butt for wearing guess jeans and saying “Guess Butt” was a really stupid game. Plus you just looked dumb doing it.
4. Be nicer to Becca J. because she is a really cool girl.
5. Learn how to study and do better in school so you don’t have to feel so dumb all the time.
6. Write about more than just boys in your journal. Your posterity will want to know more about you then just your latest crush.
7. Don’t take your flat stomach for granted because after kids you won’t have it any more.
8. Your last semester at Ricks go out more instead of being depressed over a dumb boy.
9. The “Mexican Drug Dealer” or so he was labeled, is a player. (He is not mexican or a drug dealer, as far as I know, but the look of his car made him appear that way to some) Have fun while you date him because you learn a lot and become a stronger person because of him but beware that he is not what he appears to be.
10. Don’t worry about Steve’s indecision about your dating/non dating relationship, just hang in there. It all works out in the end and it is TOTALLY worth it.
11. The night before your wedding don’t let Dad climb a ladder in the cultural hall but if he decides to anyway know that even though it is a hard time he will survive and eventually be back to normal with the help of many doctors.
12. Don’t make such a big deal out of dating. Just go have a good time. On that note your life doesn’t need to revolve around boys.
13. Be nicer to the guys you go out with that you don’t think are your type.
14. Spend more time with Muffy. She is awesome and you will both miss getting to spend time with each other after you are married.
15. Finish college and don’t skip class just because you don’t feel like going.
16. Not making the basketball team in 7th grade is not the end of the world. You make it in 8th and 9th grade.
17. In 6th grade when Mrs. Gerry tells you that you sparkle when you sing, yes, it is embarrassing but if you make it into a joke before she gets the chance to make it worse by turing it into a role play for the class, the end result might be better. Good Luck!
18. Don’t play the bounce game on the trampoline with Tyson and Jaron. When it breaks Muffy will never let you live it down and will give you a hard time for the rest of your life.
19. Work harder and do more to accomplish your goals.
I am sure there is a lot more I could write but I can’t think of anything at the moment. Remember you have a great family and awesome friends. Never forget how much they have influenced your life and do a better job at keeping in touch with them.
Deb
How We Named Our Kids
My friend did this on her blog and I thought it was cool so I decided to copy it. Thanks for the idea Elena
I am the kind of person that thinks of names for our kids way in advance and then I run them by Steve and see what he thinks. If I hear a name that I like sometimes I will write it down so I won’t forget it. Most of the time Steve doesn’t like the names I come up with but somehow we eventually find one we agree on.
Raleigh Nathaniel Gardner. For the most part deciding on this name was easy. These were both family names on Steve’s side and we like the names. The difficult part came when Steve wanted to spell the name like his grandpa and I didn’t. His grandpa spelled it Rollie and I was afraid that if he was a chunky kid that people would tease him and call him Rollie Pollie. My solution was to still use the name but spell it different. Steve didn’t like the idea but I told him that unless we spelled it different we would have to find another name. He finally after much persuasion agreed to spell it my way although to this day he will often spell it his grandpa’s way.
Jett Jamison Gardner. This name was much harder for us. We must have spent hours trying to come up with just the right name. I had heard the name Jett from an old neighbor of our and liked it but didn’t think that Steve would go for it. When I suggested the name Steve said he kind of liked it but he wasn’t sold on it. So we continued to think of other names. Nothing seemed to fit. When we decided that his name would be Jett it only got harder from there because we could not come up with a middle name that we liked and thought sounded good. We tried to find a family name that we like with it but failed. We had talked about the name Jamison for a middle name because we thought it sounded good but we were not sold on the name. So we are at the hospital filling out the birth certificate and still did not have a middle name. So having found nothing else that we liked his name ended up being Jett Jamison Gardner.
I am the kind of person that thinks of names for our kids way in advance and then I run them by Steve and see what he thinks. If I hear a name that I like sometimes I will write it down so I won’t forget it. Most of the time Steve doesn’t like the names I come up with but somehow we eventually find one we agree on.
Raleigh Nathaniel Gardner. For the most part deciding on this name was easy. These were both family names on Steve’s side and we like the names. The difficult part came when Steve wanted to spell the name like his grandpa and I didn’t. His grandpa spelled it Rollie and I was afraid that if he was a chunky kid that people would tease him and call him Rollie Pollie. My solution was to still use the name but spell it different. Steve didn’t like the idea but I told him that unless we spelled it different we would have to find another name. He finally after much persuasion agreed to spell it my way although to this day he will often spell it his grandpa’s way.
Jett Jamison Gardner. This name was much harder for us. We must have spent hours trying to come up with just the right name. I had heard the name Jett from an old neighbor of our and liked it but didn’t think that Steve would go for it. When I suggested the name Steve said he kind of liked it but he wasn’t sold on it. So we continued to think of other names. Nothing seemed to fit. When we decided that his name would be Jett it only got harder from there because we could not come up with a middle name that we liked and thought sounded good. We tried to find a family name that we like with it but failed. We had talked about the name Jamison for a middle name because we thought it sounded good but we were not sold on the name. So we are at the hospital filling out the birth certificate and still did not have a middle name. So having found nothing else that we liked his name ended up being Jett Jamison Gardner.
Jett's Starting To Walk
Jett just started taking his first steps! YEA! I think he could totally start walking if he wanted to but he is nervous about it. Oh well I guess it will all come in time. It sure is fun though to watch his attempts. I think my favorite is when he just stands there, doesn’t move his feet and then falls forward hoping you will catch him. It’s a good thing I do because if not he would face plant it hard. It is really funny to watch.
EASTER
I should start by saying I am so dumb because I didn’t get any picture of anything for the following post. So I am hoping to steal some pictures from my sister to post later.
My family and I are in love with Easter Egg Hunts so there are a lot to talk about. On Saturday morning before Easter I got up early with the boys and drove to Orem to go to our traditional hunt at Mountain View. Since Raleigh is still 3 we was put in the with 0-3 age kids and he totally towered over them. He was all geared up and ready to go by the time it was ready to start. There was candy on the lawn and there were some plastic eggs also. I had told Raleigh before hand to just go for the eggs because I knew he wouldn’t like the candy on the ground. When they blew the whistle to go like a very obedient child he ran out there as fast as he could and only picked up the eggs. When all the eggs were gone he kept looking for them. I told him he could pick up the candy on the ground but he didn’t want it. When he realized all the “Eggs” were gone he was a little disappointed that it was over so fast. All in all though I think he had a good time.
Later that day my family was having their Easter Egg Hunt. It has kind of been chaotic this year with trying to work around everyone’s schedules so we ended up deciding to have 3 different hunts. The first one was going to have to start late in the day due to my sister having to drive down from Idaho so instead of having it in the yard we decided to try it at the church so it wouldn’t be dark before we could find the eggs. My family is different than most in that we have a kids hunt and an adult hunt. I think the adults enjoy it as much as the children. We filled about 335 eggs just for the adults to find. (We count them before hand so we can know if we missed finding any) We got to the church and split up into 2 groups. There were so many places to hide the eggs and we didn’t want to be disrespectful in the church so we didn’t hide them too hard and said there was no running except in the cultural hall. When we were all done we counted our eggs and found out we were missing like 30-40 eggs. We searched the church up and down probably 5 times before we recounted and decided we had miss counted in the beginning. We had found a few more eggs but there was no way we missed that many. Anyway, we were all tired since it was about 10:30pm when we left and we all decided we would never be holding it at the church again. What a disaster!
On Easter Sunday after church we went to Steve’s sister Nicole’s new house in Spanish Fork. Their house is gorgeous! They had invited the whole family over for dinner. It was a really good dinner and it was so fun to get together with the family and socialize.
On Monday, it was a slow work day so I drove over to my old neighborhood to take care of a few things that I have needed to do for a long time and I told the kids I would take them to the park. It was the most beautiful day. I couldn’t have asked for anything better. Raleigh and Jett loved going to the park too. We haven’t been to a park since last fall and it was nice to just enjoy the nice weather outside. I got to see so many of my friends and neighbors. I loved getting to see all of them and realized just how much I miss seeing them on a regular basis. For anyone that I didn’t get to see I hope to get to see more of you soon. We plan to come back and visit the parks fairly often. If you would like to make a play date out of it sometime let me know.
On Tuesday, after Easter, my sister Kim was back in town and we decided to hold the kids hunt that night. We filled another 130 eggs for the 6 kids to find. They were so excited we could barley keep them from running outside before it was time to start. I was really surprised at how good the kids did at finding the Easter Eggs. We thought with that many eggs it would take them a while but it was over in no more than 15 –20 minutes. It was so much fun to watch and see their faces light up every time they saw an egg.
The next day, it was another slow work day so we went with my 2 sisters to the bounce house and classic skating. It was a lot of fun. The kids loved running and playing and being as wild as they wanted. It was a crazy busy week but so fun! Thanks to everyone for making it a fun week.
My family and I are in love with Easter Egg Hunts so there are a lot to talk about. On Saturday morning before Easter I got up early with the boys and drove to Orem to go to our traditional hunt at Mountain View. Since Raleigh is still 3 we was put in the with 0-3 age kids and he totally towered over them. He was all geared up and ready to go by the time it was ready to start. There was candy on the lawn and there were some plastic eggs also. I had told Raleigh before hand to just go for the eggs because I knew he wouldn’t like the candy on the ground. When they blew the whistle to go like a very obedient child he ran out there as fast as he could and only picked up the eggs. When all the eggs were gone he kept looking for them. I told him he could pick up the candy on the ground but he didn’t want it. When he realized all the “Eggs” were gone he was a little disappointed that it was over so fast. All in all though I think he had a good time.
Later that day my family was having their Easter Egg Hunt. It has kind of been chaotic this year with trying to work around everyone’s schedules so we ended up deciding to have 3 different hunts. The first one was going to have to start late in the day due to my sister having to drive down from Idaho so instead of having it in the yard we decided to try it at the church so it wouldn’t be dark before we could find the eggs. My family is different than most in that we have a kids hunt and an adult hunt. I think the adults enjoy it as much as the children. We filled about 335 eggs just for the adults to find. (We count them before hand so we can know if we missed finding any) We got to the church and split up into 2 groups. There were so many places to hide the eggs and we didn’t want to be disrespectful in the church so we didn’t hide them too hard and said there was no running except in the cultural hall. When we were all done we counted our eggs and found out we were missing like 30-40 eggs. We searched the church up and down probably 5 times before we recounted and decided we had miss counted in the beginning. We had found a few more eggs but there was no way we missed that many. Anyway, we were all tired since it was about 10:30pm when we left and we all decided we would never be holding it at the church again. What a disaster!
On Easter Sunday after church we went to Steve’s sister Nicole’s new house in Spanish Fork. Their house is gorgeous! They had invited the whole family over for dinner. It was a really good dinner and it was so fun to get together with the family and socialize.
On Monday, it was a slow work day so I drove over to my old neighborhood to take care of a few things that I have needed to do for a long time and I told the kids I would take them to the park. It was the most beautiful day. I couldn’t have asked for anything better. Raleigh and Jett loved going to the park too. We haven’t been to a park since last fall and it was nice to just enjoy the nice weather outside. I got to see so many of my friends and neighbors. I loved getting to see all of them and realized just how much I miss seeing them on a regular basis. For anyone that I didn’t get to see I hope to get to see more of you soon. We plan to come back and visit the parks fairly often. If you would like to make a play date out of it sometime let me know.
On Tuesday, after Easter, my sister Kim was back in town and we decided to hold the kids hunt that night. We filled another 130 eggs for the 6 kids to find. They were so excited we could barley keep them from running outside before it was time to start. I was really surprised at how good the kids did at finding the Easter Eggs. We thought with that many eggs it would take them a while but it was over in no more than 15 –20 minutes. It was so much fun to watch and see their faces light up every time they saw an egg.
The next day, it was another slow work day so we went with my 2 sisters to the bounce house and classic skating. It was a lot of fun. The kids loved running and playing and being as wild as they wanted. It was a crazy busy week but so fun! Thanks to everyone for making it a fun week.
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