Photos by Jessica DeKock of "Forever October"

Thank you Jessica for being such an amazing friend and an equally amazing photographer!! We love you and look forward to your next visit (or our next visit). XOXOXO

Cupcake Party and Lights out!

On my birthday, the girls from mommy's group got together to have a cupcake party. Very nice and always a good time. They are all super nice and a joy to be around. The group shot was taken by Emma (age 4) so I left it untouched for memories sake and a good laugh. I personally think she did a bang up job.





















My Auntie JaLayne, Cousin Eric and Cousin in-law Scott drove into town on Saturday night only to find us sitting in the dark hoping that the electricity would return soon so we could finish making the beef stew that we had been frantically cooking. Let me clarify. Our sitting in darkness was due to a power outage, not someone's failure to pay the bill! We finally decided to finish cooking supper on the grill. It was a very nummy and romantic candle light supper. The first picture is without a flash (for effect) and the second was taken with a flash. Wow, what a difference a flash makes. All in all we are happy that they made it safely and are happy to have them here.

I NEED...

Thankfully it has slowed down, but for about the last two weeks every other word out of LaRee's mouth has been I need. Example: I need Ice Cream, I need baby doll, I need shoe, I need outside, I need slide, I need bath, I need Grandpa, etc. etc. It was getting to the point of driving us crazy. Surprise, some of you thought we were there already. Not so. Sione kept telling her, "Your two, you don't need anything!" Each time she would profess she "needed" something. Sione and I would look at each other and ask "where is she coming up with this stuff?"I mean it's not like we as a couple are prancing around the house stating, I need laundry, I need sleep, I need T.V. I need help, I need ride. Well, we were soon to find out as we stood in the middle of Wal-Mart and Sione turns to me and says , "What else do you need?" and I quickly reply" I need milk and bread and I also need bananas."

Highlights from a busy month

It seems like we have had a lot going on in the last month or two. Here are some highlights:

1) My friend Wendy and her son, Owen, flew in for the weekend. We worked hard and played a little. We took them to the Fort Worth Stockyards in between "design on a dime" projects.



2) The Weather - Crazy! We had a really bad ice storm (the picture was taken at midnight in our front lawn) at the end of January and in the middle of February we had a tornado warning. It was my first tornado warning that included a siren. At the time I was on the phone with Sione trying to figure out where our battery operated radio was. I moved our 72 hour kits, pillows, blankets and water all into the bathroom while the siren went off. Just as the siren quit, we were ready to camp out in the bathroom. Oh well, practice makes perfect.

3) A B (as LaRee calls here) came to stay for the week of LaRee's birthday. We had a mini mission reunion planned, which turned into 4 of us girls (Sisters) going to dinner at Chili's. None the less, we laughed, ate, laughed some more and, sadly, ate some more!
4) Grandma Jackie (Becky's mom) and happily LaRee's pseudo Grandma joined us on that Wednesday as well as Jessica, a dear friend and sister from my mission. Paula, also a dear friend from my mission, lives just 30 minutes south of us. She joined us as her schedule, and the crazy weather, would permit. See #2 Ice Storms.

Here Grandma Jackie is reading "Go dog, go!" to LaRee at breakfast and here they are conversing over their lunches.
5) Wendy and Owen returned to finish up the mini home makeovers that we had started 2 weeks prior. We painted walls, shelves and other odds and ends found around the house. We altered curtains and rearranged my furniture (or lack off) and we came up with what we agreed was an amazing couple of rooms.


6) LaRee took a black jumbo sized permanent marker (who even needs a jumbo permanent marker?) to our freshly painted wall. By the time I was done giving a time out and being very angry with our little artist, Wendy had already painted over the mess but I did get a picture of the wet paint.




7)Elmo has started wearing shoes and taking baths. Both are very big deals at our house.


8)Sione busted out his tools and did some home improvements of his own, which ended up being an even bigger deal than Elmo's shoes and baths.

9)We went up to Little Elm to spend some time with Uncle Todd and Lexie, his roommate's dog. All three partys were pooped by the time we left to go home.


10) Last but not least, our little Rock Star turned 2 which I will blog about real soon!!



P.S. Becky Jean and anyone else that is still reading, my word for the year is going to be Better. It was "change," but Sione kept teasing me about stealing Obama's word for the year, so I switched to the word "Better". I am going to strive to be a better Wife and Mother, a better friend, a more patient and kinder daughter, neighbor and citizen. I want my relationship with my Father in Heaven to be better and I want to serve Him in better ways. I am going to be a better listener, a better cook, and a better person. I am going to strive for better health and a better quality of life through all kinds of learning. I will have a better follow through of things I start or have wanted to start. I want to be better at putting things away and everything having a space. I want each day to be better than the last! I often think about a lesson once given in church on the subject of striving for the best. There will always be good, then better, then best! I figure if I thrive for better this year, then my feet are heading in the right direction and I just might be ready to have my word for 2010 be "best!!"

I love saving a buck any time, but especially in an economic slump

Four things that have saved me more then a buck and have brought a smile to my face over and over again.


Sione and I have found a movie theater that shows movies on Tuesdays for 50 cents, this means that we can go as a couple for a dollar. I'm not really a numbers person but this much I know - If our movie costs a dollar for the two of us then for sure we can afford one of their dollar hot dogs. Now that's when I wish I had a camera, to catch the look on Junior's face as I hand him the worlds smallest hot dog.


Verlyn and I hit a garage sale where the mother and her mother-in-law were both teachers and they had stacks and stacks of kids books. Well, I went book by book trying to narrow down the number of books that I figured I could pay for (I had 2 20's in my pocket) and realisticly how many we could carry back to the car. Eventually the woman came and sat down with me and started making suggestions, well - more like "you have to takes". By the time I finished I had 50 books in hand and she said she would give me the deal of a life time, everthing for $20!!! How happy was I. This is LaRee with some of the books. Please make a note that her dad was the one that dressed her that morning since the momma was out garage saleing. We as women came out of the womb knowing that you shouldn't put a pattern shirt with a patterned pants.



As most newlyweds, we had a little wedding gift money and decided to spend it on one of those fancy garbage cans that you open with your foot. Well, about a month ago a piece of plastic on the hinge broke leaving it unusable. I was so happy to hear that Sione had a plan to fix it, although my first thought was the fear that this involved ducktape, but he suprised me and used durable, semi-attractive, hardly noticable metal. Thank you Sione for being so creative and persistant!!

Eating at home is becoming more frequent for us and now that I am a stay-at-home mom, I am trying to be better with meal planning, etc. We have discovered that Rhodes sells 3 frozen loaves of bread for a dollar and some change which is much cheaper then any prebaked loaf you will find in the store, so we have been trying to keep on top of baking our own bread at home. Here is LaRee singing her praises for homemade bread.

My 2 Part blog of over the holidays

This was the first year that we had a real tree. We always put up our, as Sione likes to call it "Charlie Brown" tree, but this year we invested in a real fake tree and finally after years of collecting ornaments I was able to display them.




Christmas was a lot of fun and most of that has to do with having LaRee in our life. Her excitement grew during the day as you will see in the pictures. It was the first day that she felt good in over a week. Bless her nose running heart!!
Here LaRee and Elmo are watching T.V. on one of the days that she didn't feel so good. Elmo gives LaRee much comfort in her times of need.





Not a real fancy fairy princess look but this is the best picture to show the whole shoe/wand package.

Our family friend Todd ( we know him from San Diego and he now lives in Dallas too) his sisters came in from Arizona for Christmas so we took the opportunity to all get together and play tourist with a trip out to The South Fork Ranch where parts of the television show "Dallas" was filmed. Our little island boy is even a fan. Sione watched the show for the year and a half that he lived in Hawaii with his Grandparents. It's hard to even slip in the word Dallas without Sione jumping in with the theme song from the show.


Let me tell you, LaRee seemed to enjoy this 2 hour adventure 100 times more then our 2 day trip to Disneyland. It was too funny to watch. She loved it. She really likes spending time with her Uncle Todd and its a ranch so she had wide open spaces to be and do as she pleased.

Merry Christmas Y'all

I just love Christmas when families gather and people in general feel a little more sensitive to others. It is a time that we have so many reminders (if we look) of Christ's birth. What an amazing thing that was for the world, let alone each of us individually. It makes me feel humble and reminds me that we are all part of a much bigger picture. Our stake (made up of multiple church congregations) put on what they called "The Nativity" where members donate their nativities for this 3 day event and some very talented members, then turn the stake center (building) into this amazing display for the public and church members to attend. It was nice to be a part of this peaceful kick of to the Christmas season. Here are a few of my favorite nativities:

They had a celestial room which was done all in white. It felt so peaceful and heavenly.

I have always loved these silly little mice. There is a shop in San Diego at Seaport Village that sells them and I can not tell you the number of times I went in just to look at there collection of mice. If I had a million dollars.
These two were so unique. This first one was made out of peanut shells and the second out of nuts and bolts. Clyde Rhodes would have loved it.


Simple but very much how I think it might have been. This one was from Uruguay I think.

These last two were submitted by myself and my dad. The coconut nativity is from a trip to the Polynesian Cultural Center with Mr. Sione Latu so it has a special place in our home and stays out year round as a little Christmas reminder. The Native American nativity was hand painted by my Auntie Jalayne. She did such an amazing job. Such detail. LaRee like it because it has a bear. I have found her numerous times, on a chair trying to reach it and I always know she is trying to reach it because I can hear her going "GRRRRRR!" like all bears do.