Cheers to TEN Years!

I find it hard to believe that it has actually been ten years for Jared and I!  I guess what they say is true, time flies when you are having fun!  Not everything about our life is fun, but when you marry your best friend you can make everything fun!  I know I have done this in the past, but here are Ten things that I love most about my best friend and husband Jared... in honor of Ten years together!

1. His smile!  I was first attracted to him physically and although the entire body was calling to me it was and is his smile that I love the most!

2.  He really is as genuine as you feel that he is.  I know that most people think of Jared and they think of how friendly he is.  He is very genuine and very kind to everyone that he meets!  That's why he hugs our checker at Dans and has the personal number of the manager at the Chipotle that we frequent!  That's not even an exaggeration either both those things are true!!!

3.  He can match my whit and humor!  I think of myself as funny and witty, but Jared is ALWAYS making me laugh.  Everyday I find myself laughing at something new!  I think it important to always find the humor in life and Jared allows me to do that easily!

4.  Jared loves the Lord first.  Normally I would be jealous if Jared were not to put me first, but there is one exception to that!  Jared is and always has been spiritually strong.  His knowledge of the scriptures is impressive to me.  I think he still knows all the scripture mastery scriptures that I never could tackle!  When he testifies of simple truths you can't help but feel the spirit.

5.  He is a great father!  Two of the best things that Jared and I have call him Dad!  He plays with the kids, he is loving and silly.  Most importantly, he is good at disciplining the kids so that they don't turn out rotten! If it were up to me alone, our kids would end up terrible and rotten!  

6.  Jared is patient.  I lack this quality and so I admire that he has it!  Jared is able to wait and wait and wait!  Just watch the man shop!  He will walk around a store for hours just trying on all the fanny packs and backpacks.  He will test every zipper on every bag. Next he will try them all  on and walk the store.  Then he will narrow it down to his favorite two or three and walk around with them both on, adjusting the straps to the right fit.  He will then retest all the zippers and compare them side by side.  Then he will walk away and look at something else like knives for a bit before returning and repeating the process again with the bags.  Finally, after much time has passed he will set both bags down and leave empty handed to sleep on the decision.  Usually it takes up to a year to make the choice of a new fanny pack to add to a growing collection.

7.  If you read number 6 then you might guess what number 7 is.  Yes it has to do something with his love of something as stupid and old school as fanny packs!  Yes I love that Jared is an old soul!  He is so much older than his age!  He drives slow, he only wears wool socks, he loves fanny packs, he is injury prone, he knows the lyrics to every old song that you can think of, he eats odd things for breakfast...like a cold chicken breast...and he puts baby powder in his socks and shorts every morning!  ha ha ha that's probably private, but this is my post so I will write what I want!

8.He is a Killer back scratcher!  I love to cuddle up and watch a move with Jared because he will rub my back till the cows come home!  I don't think he likes to do it either, he does it because he knows I love it!

9.  Jared is a man of many talents!  Not only is he athletic...body permitting, but he sings song parities off the fly!  He has been known to fix our cars after only watching youtube videos.  He laid my new flooring for me!  Jared can learn almost anything quickly and excels at it too!  He can do anything he puts his mind to!  That's not to say that he is always in first place, but he is usually the one to impress!

10.  I love that Jared loves me!  If I know anything, it is that Jared loves me and my kids best... I better throw his mother into that list too!  He loves his mom and Nana, and Sister....and well, he is a family man!  I love that his heart is so big and he is able to make me feel like the Queen of my own castle!  He may be the King, but he and I both know that when I'm happy we are all happier!  I think that Jared is happy making me happy; and in return, I think I make him happy too!

Thanks for Ten years!  I am glad that we did it right the first time and went to the temple so that we can be together even after we are both put into the ground!

Christmas Chaos!

Like most people, our days are cram packed with family and fun all month.  Jared's younger brother flies home from Japan once a year at Christmas and so naturally our days are full!  Having said that, we have had a really great holiday!  The kids were good this year and got a visit from Santa.  Jared and I were so happy that the kids were happy!  Jared and I were spoiled too.  Christmas came a little early for us.  We put in all new flooring upstairs so we were pretty happy this Christmas too!

Ryan got yet another doll, this time it has a fun stroller too!  She loves to play like she is a mom!  I can't believe how nurturing this little girl is!  She also got a drone, games, coloring things, a basketball game, huge pillow pet, and a few other odds and ends.  I think that the big winner was the baby Chloe though... that girl loves her babies!

Mac was really happy this year too.  When he is not involved with some kind of electronics he really likes playing board games.  He got a few board games, puzzles, and a new basketball hoop because he dunked on it too much and it broke.  Now he has a new one that hopefully will stand up to his rough play.

The biggest thing that happened at our house was the family gift.  There was a pile addressed to the entire family.  As the kids started to unwrap what Santa had brought I noticed a bit of confusion and disappointment.  The first three things were clearly games intended to be played on a Wii U.  The kids were so upset that we didn't even have a Wii U to play them on.  They started to talk like maybe Santa got confused and brought them the wrong presents.  Then they opened some Wii U paddles and again they were sad and disappointed because this was totally useless for a family who doesn't have a Wii U gaming system!!  Finally the last box was opened and reviled the Wii U gaming console!  Only, the kids didn't recognize it.  Ryan slowly started to read the box, and as she did you could almost see the light bulb go off right over McCallum's head!  He looked at all the controllers and games and then started to yell: "We got a Wii!  We got a Wii!"  Jared and I were laughing as they started their delayed celebration over the gaming system!  It was so funny!  I guess Santa didn't just give us a bunch of useless equipment after all!

The only thing that sucked about Christmas was all the pictures I took!  I don't know what was going on, but I think  that these are possibly the worst pictures I have ever taken.  Maybe it was early and I didn't check my settings, but everything I took is blurry and or out of focus!  Dan't it, and yet oh well!

Family Pictures

We finally got all the Zollinger's back together this weekend to celebrate Thanksgiving and that was reason for family pictures!  Also, Stephanie and Paul announced that they will be having a baby in JUNE!  I'm so excited for them!  I can't wait to meet this mystery niece or nephew!

 

Brace Face

Yesterday was a big day for my girl!  Ryan went in and got her braces on!  Although she is just seven years old, they started her treatment now to correct some pretty good jaw issues.  Normally, the orthodontist would never start her this young; however, she has a lot of problems to correct with her jaw.  Ryan has an under bite, a cross bite, and a scissor bite.  A scissor bite is scary because it means that when she closes her jaw down her teeth lock together.  If she were to get hit with her jaw closed her teeth could just break in half because the teeth lock together.  So, to fix all that we have her in braces.  I was really proud of her.  Ryan gets really anxious about new things and she was defiantly nervous about the process.  She was really brave and got through it all.  Now she has a metal smile, but she still looks super cute!  I just hope that she can get used to having braces because after 18 months these will come off, but then she will go back into another set after just a short break!  We are in this for the long haul!  Cross your fingers it all goes to plan because we do NOT want to have to have jaw surgery!!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention that the orthodontist that Ryan goes to, Horsley Orthodontics, was doing a coat drive for the homeless shelter.  For every coat you donate you got 50 points on her rewards card.  The points are used to buy her gift cards to places like food establishments, toy stores, clothing stores, etc.  Well, this was motivating to Ryan so she made a few phone calls and we dug through our closets and we were able to come up with 13 coats!  Ryan was able to get 650 points on the coats alone!  She left her appointment with 822 points and this is just the beginning of treatment!  She already has a $50 gift card to Toys R US, and a $25 gift card to Old Navy!  That's my girl!

Halloween

We can't forget to update about Halloween!  Halloween is one of our favorite holiday's!  This year was another, all too successful year!  The kids had a blast trick-or-treating and visiting with family!  Ryan was a monster, and she won second place at the school for best costume,,, or so she told me but I kind of think she made it up.  Don't tell her that though!  I believe her, but she is going through a phase where she likes to make things bigger than they really are.  As for Mac, he was Iron man.  I couldn't get him to wear his new Captain America costume, so we went with the second best, Iron Man!  I even through together a Minnie Mouse costume so that I could fit in while I helped in the classrooms.  It was really a good time!

Korie was the cutest little Teddy Bear! 

Trck-or-Treating with Korie McCall 

Pennie was her favorite character, Jesse from Toy Story.  Holden was Buzz! 

Too much candy!  I just hope it is gone and done with fast! 

Fall is here again

We love the fall time!  I love how it cools off and you can just enjoy all the changing colors!  We have been doing some fun stuff to keep the kids busy through all the breaks in school.  We were able to go ride the ponies and pick pumpkins with the cousins like we do every year.  We just don't get to see our cousins enough!

I was also able to shoot some pictures of my niece and nephew that recently turned two!  I just love how they turned out so I have to post them for memories!  This was shot in our back yard when all the apples were falling off the trees.  Pennie and Holden remind me so much of Ryan and Riley when they were two!  They are Best Friends who fight when they have seen each other too much!  It's so fun to have cousins close like that though!  I just with Riley lived closer to us so we could see her more... and the others too!

I Once Caught A Fish THIS Big

Today we went out early and put Mac's new fishing pole that he got for his birthday to the test!  Turns out it might be a good one.  We caught four fish... not too shabby!  Oh yeah, and one crawdad!   It took a little bit of convincing, but the kids eventually picked it up to show the camera.

I have to say, I think that Ryan showed us all up today!  Every fish we caught she held.  I think Ryan is a real out-doorsy girl, we even got her to kiss the fish that she caught!

I don't care much for fishing, but I do love to see my kids having fun and catching fish!  It's worth the memories!