Sister Megan Nicole Hebdon

My little sister is a missionary!  

She was called to serve in the Fresno, CA mission and has been out for about 3 months.  I am so proud of her and the work that she is doing.  My boys pray for her all the time and they are excited to see her again. 

 This week is the first time that we've gotten pictures from her!  

Here they are (with her captions).  

Hermana Harris and I at a zone bowling activity.  She went home last transfer.

Dinner with the Cox family at this awesome italian restaurant. 

A man named Dave we've been teaching.  He's amazing!

The Kucherry family who moved into another ward.

Tonianne dropping me off at the MTC

MTC comps

Pigtail gym time

MTC district

She didn't put a caption on this one but, this is Megan with her MTC companions in front of the Provo, UT temple.

I miss this girl so much but, I'm so happy for her decision to serve a mission for the Lord.  She inspires me and I look forward to her emails every week.  The people of Fresno are lucky lucky people.  They are blessed with my sister!

Granny

Today we had a wonderful visit with Granny.  (Ammon's paternal grandmother)  We all love her so much.  She is always so interested in our lives and every time I'm with her, she makes me feel like I'm a great mom.  At today's visit, Noah brought his Leapster Explorer to teach Granny all about it.  She let him sit right next to her and tell her all about Wolverine and the X-MEN.  Even though I'm sure she couldn't hear/understand most of what he was saying, she was happy to give him the attention he was wanting from her.

We love Granny!

Silly Faces

I couldn't bear to delete these from my phone...

Zoo with friends!

On Tuesday, we were able to go to the zoo with Cortney and her children.  Cortney and I are just starting to do more things together and I love it!  It's been a lot of fun getting to know her and her family better.  Cortney and I married cousins, Ammon and Josh.  She is a lot of fun to be around and is such a good mommy.  I learn a lot just by watching her do her thing.  : )

The zoo was tons of fun.  We got to see quite a few unusual things.  For one, we got to see the alligators being fed.  I know that the ones in the zoo are mostly tame because they've been trained but, have you seen the show, Swamp People??  My sister, Michelle got me hooked on it and seriously... you would not catch me in an alligator habitat with a stick in one hand and raw meat in the other.  Scary!  We also saw a turtle eating a frog and a snake eating a mouse.  Here are some pictures from our day!

From left to right:

Raelyn, Gracen, Morgan's head, Jack, Griffin's arm, and Noah

(not pictured is Everett)

Here they are watching the puffins.  : )

Jack, Morgan, Noah, Griffin and Raelyn

We made a stop at a super cool park in the middle of the zoo.  Noah and Jack climbed to the top of the spider web!

Griffin and Gracen.

Our zoo membership has gotten quite a bit of use this year.  We used it at the NC Zoo a couple times, Zoo Atlanta, an aquarium, and the Columbus Zoo.  The Columbus Zoo ranks #1 with us so far.   It was so cool!  Plus, that's where I went as a child so... it brings back fun memories for me.  We'll need to renew our membership soon so that we can keep making wonderful memories for our children.

The best kind of math lesson...

You guys probably all know that we live in Mayberry.  Yep.  Andy Griffith grew up here and the Andy Griffith Show was based off of this town.  All the characters are based off of real people in Andy's life.  Anyway, this is our town's claim to fame.  We have tourists coming through all the time to visit all the "historical sites".  We've never gotten into the whole hoopla.  Never gone on the guided squad car tour.  Never gone to Snappy's lunch or Opie's Candy Store.  Until Wednesday.  Wednesday I decided to take the boys here.

The place is full of candy.  You can fill a bag for $5.50/pound.  I showed Noah and Griffin how to work the scale.  I told them that they could fill the bag until it weighed 16 ounces.  They had a blast going around collecting candy and then running to the scale only to find out that they could get MORE candy.  It was a good math lesson.

Despite how they look in this picture, they had a ton of fun!  They ask to go back multiple times a day.  :)

Canoe racing

Our youth activity this week was... canoe racing!  All the kids had a bunch of fun and we only had one canoe tip over.  : )   Before the youth started racing, Ammon took our boys out on the water.  They were both scared as soon as they stepped in the wobbly canoe.  Noah got over it pretty quickly and went out a few times after their first ride.  Griffin however, didn't like it at all.  He didn't cry or whine but, when he got back on solid ground, he just wanted me to hold him.  He kept telling me that he didn't want to get back on the boat because it was too scary.  We'll see how long that lasts.

Strawberries!

Last week, the boys and I went to a local strawberry farm with some friends.  The boys had so much fun being "strawberry hunters".  They were really good at finding perfectly ripe strawberries.  We ended up buying 2 gallons.  We had enough to make strawberry freezer jam, strawberry shortcake and plenty to just eat fresh.  The freezer jam turned out really well.  I used this recipe.  If it ever stops raining around here, we plan on going back so we can make more jam and freeze some for smoothies.  Yummy!

cracking eggs

Griffin woke up early this morning.

Just like every morning...

I picked him up and took him into the playroom.  I placed him on the lovesac, turned on the tv and pushed play on his Dora the Explorer dvd.  I staggered back to bed and fell asleep.

zzzz...

The next time I woke up, it was because Ammon was talking.  Here's what I heard:

Ammon - "Griffin, what are you doing?"

Griffin - "cracking eggs"

Ammon - "You're cracking eggs?  Where are you cracking eggs?"

Griffin - "on the lovesac"

Ammon jumped out of bed and checked the playroom.  Yep, sure enough, he had cracked an egg on our lovesac.

Why?

Well, according to Griffin, he wanted to "plant the egg in the dirt and watch it grow".

A few words to describe...

... my mom.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom.  I love you SO much!

I love to see the temple

For about a year and a half, Noah has wanted to go inside a temple.  Ammon and I go every month and Noah knows how special the temple is to us.  He knows that he has to be 12 years old before he's able to serve in the temple.  We found out that the Atlanta temple was re-opening after some renovations.  Before a temple is dedicated, it is open to the public for tours.  We knew we HAD to make it happen for Noah to go inside a temple.  I called my sister, Michelle, who lives close to Atlanta and plans were made to go to the temple open house.  Noah was so excited.  So so so excited.  We watched a short video about temples and were then escorted through the temple.  Before we went in, they put shoe covers on our feet to keep the temple clean.  They boys loved that part.  Griffin actually cried when we had to give them back.  I walked with Griffin and Ammon walked with Noah.  Noah was in awe the whole time.  Griffin asked to touch everything.  : )  Their favorite part was the Celestial Room.  It was bright and beautiful.  There was a huge chandelier that Griffin thought looked like a christmas tree, and mirrors that went on for eternity.  It filled Ammon and I with joy having our family together in the temple.  I am so glad we were able to make the trip to the House of the Lord.

(Noah, Griffin, Tate, Toby, and Troy)

As we were walking back to the car, we realized we hadn't taken a picture yet.  Here are the boys with the temple in the background.  I was talking to my mom a few days later and and she said that I should ask the boys about the temple and record their answers.  I tried but, it didn't go over so well.  Here's how the conversations went:

Noah - Age 4

Mom- Where did we go on Saturday?

Noah - Temple and the zoo.

Mom - What was your favorite part of the temple?

Noah - Learning about all the rooms.

Mom - Which room was your favorite?

Noah - The most beautiful room of all. 

Mom - Do you remember what that room was called?

Noah - (shakes head)

Mom - Did you get to keep something from the temple?

Noah - Yes!  The thing that helps me remember the temple.  But I don't need it.  I can always remember.  (we were given a brochure of the temple)

Mom - What did we have to wear in the temple?

Noah - The things that cover your shoes.

Mom - Why did we have to cover our shoes?

Noah - So we won't get the temple dirty... Is that enough talking?  Because I'm trying to delete some pictures off my Explorer.

Griffin - Age 2

Mom - Where did we go on Saturday?

Griffin - The temple!

Mom - What was your favorite part of the temple?

Griffin - We didn't get the temple dirty.  And we didn't get the zoo dirty.  And we didn't get Toby's house dirty.

Mom - Which room was your favorite?

Griffin - That room and that room.

Mom - Tell me more about the temple.

Griffin - Can I get in Meeko's cage?  (Meeko is our puppy)

Yeah, we'll have to do that again.  They weren't very talkative when I tried to do this.

My family is awesome!

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well this one is worth a lot more than that.

And another one

These are just some fun pictures from our busy lives.

Jessica looking beautiful.

And still beautiful with her new hair cut.

The boys got hair cuts too.

Noah loves video games. Notice the angry bird sitting next to him. :-)

Megen is now on her mission!

Noah is saving for his mission.

Life is good.