Here fishy fishy!

We have spent so much time at the pool this summer my kids have turned into little fishies!

Ashton has mastered the high dive and has gotten over her fear of water slides! She's always been a swimmer! Way to go little missy!

Ethan has always been scared of water so He grew the most. He now tries to hold his breath under water like 'Percy Jackson'. He makes me time him. Now he lives to jump in the pool!

Ty acts like He was born swimming! No fear that one! His favorite thing to do is jump in the pool and hold his breath!

Ty gave us a scare recently. He jumped into our friends pool without a life jacket. Like I said, NO FEAR! Luckily Greg was right on his heels and jumped in right after and got him out!

Much better! Now you can jump all you want boy!

Back to School, back to school...

yep, it's that time of year again. The time where Ty and I have to get creative since the 2 older monkeys will be gone.

Back to school night:

Here's Ashy with her teacher! She is so excited! She says her teacher is really nice and has a pet fish named Kodu! Plus, she knows lots of kids in her class. I'm so excited that her class is directly across the hall from Ethan's kindergarden class! Yay!

Here's Ethan meeting his new teacher! He was so excited to meet her!

He was pretty excited that his name was on his desk!

First day of School for Ashy. Bittersweet :>

So ready for 3rd grade!

The boys were so excited for Ashy at first...

then Ash got on the bus and we all kind of freaked out! AAH!

They just realized she's going to be gone all day. Ethan doesn't start for another week. Poor Ethan was lonely so Greg took him to lunch to make it all better

Greg's annual back to school interview with the monkeys!

Love you guys!

75 days+ 23,956 votes= $30,000

After 75 days of voting, We did it! Heart 2 Home has won the $30,000 donation from APX alarms. We ended up with 23,956 votes! I'm so happy right now! Now all of you can come out from hiding! I will no longer hound you for votes! haha! But for reals, thank you all so much for helping us win this donation. We couldn't have done it without you. We ended up averaging around 1200 votes a day the last week of voting. I feel very humbled and grateful to be part of such a great group of selfless people who believe in giving! Thank you all. I loves you to death! Here's some pics of our crazy ideas to get our votes!

We finally got the Heart2Home trailer finished just in time to park it out on main street to remind everyone to vote.

The Lehi High School principal let us have a booth next to their concession stand with 6 computers and lots of die hard Heart2homies! We had alot of fun! Thank you Hotteez Tanning and Smart Cookie for your gifts for the voters! The girls loved the tanning passes!

Tiffany's son Ben let me write 'vote 4 Heart 2 Home' on his chest with a Sharpie! So, Thank you Ben for being our walking billboard!

OPERATION SCORCHED EARTH

haha. The H2H team got together at Shawn's house, sat around the table with 6 computers and got the word out to everyone we know.

We gained a new Heart 2 Home addict, Becky Lang who worked so hard recruiting! We are so excited to have her be part of the fundraising team!

Heart 2 Home 'Rock The Vote' Bbq and Pool party at the Lehi Pool!

Thank you all who came out to support us! We had an amazing turnout!

Heart 2 Home volunteer Lorrin Price vowed He would cut his mullet off and donate it to Locks for love if Heart 2 Home won!!

Lorrin, my clippers are waiting!!

Good Things Utah! The girls at Good Things have always supported us and we loved going back again!

We gained a new Heart 2 Home Mascot, Tom! He kept the fun in voting! Thank you Parker for creating him and being his 'manager'! We really appreciate it! The kids definately love Talking Tom!

We had to get creative! 75 days is a long time to stay motivated!

I need to say a very personal thank you to my family! I have the best family EVER!

Thank you aunt Tatiana and family who recruited into Texas, Louisiana, and Guam!

Thank you Grandma Lewis who voted from Costa Rica!

Our friends in Austrailia!

Uncle Eli and Aunt Laurie who hounded the Nicoll side!

Mom who hounded all the nurses at her work!

My bunko girls! You all are awesome! Thanks for not blocking me from all my endless text message reminders! We definately got Lehi covered!

Natalie and Covieo family who hounded everyone they knew in Layton, Kaysville area!

I have so many in my brain I can't even get all of you!

I love you and respect the heck out of all of you!

Can't wait until Sept. 22 when we get the check!! Yay! Stay tuned!
Thank you all again! I can't say it enough! Now stay tuned! We hope to announce our next family makeover very soon! Keep your fingers crossed!

This is it...

It's the very last day of the APX gives back contest on facebook! There's a little over an hour and a half left before voting closes. I'm so tapped out! It's had it's ups and downs and so did my state of mind. This contest was such a roller coaster! We went neck and neck with another charity and I have no idea how this is going to turn out! I'm so nervous! I've done EVERYTHING I could do. I left everything in the ring. It's out of my hands. No matter what happens, it was a great experience. We've never networked like we have these past couple of months and I feel like even if we don't win we will be ok. We now have a great following of people who I feel will be more open to helping us now that our name has been out there a little bit more!

Thank you all who have helped us! Some of you went out of your way sending emails and messages to all your friends. I've been brought to tears by your love and support so thank you! I love you all! I'll let you know what happens when we find out on Monday at 10am! Cross your fingers and your toes with me!

Here is a video Greg and I put together about Heart2Home! Enjoy! Oh yeah, and go to your facebook and vote please! Help us win a $30,000 donation for our little charity! Voting ends Saturday, August 21 so please remember to vote once a day for the next 6 days!

http://apps.facebook.com/apxgivesback/

Thank you a million times over!

PLEADING

WELL HELLO ALL OF YOU WHO READ MY LITTLE BLOGGIE. I'M PLEADING, BEGGING FOR VOTES. IF YOU ARE ALSO MY FRIEND ON FACEBOOK YOU KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT. OUR LITTLE CHARITY WE STARTED 6 YEARS AGO IS IN A FACEBOOK CONTEST. WHICH EVER CHARITY RECIEVES THE MOST VOTES RECIEVES A $100,000 DONATION, AND 5 OTHERS RECIEVE $30,000.
RIGHT NOW WE ARE NECK AND NECK LITERALLY FOR THE $30,000 DONATION. ONLY 4 VOTES SEPARATE US WITH THE COMPETITION. 4! ONLY 4! I AM BEGGIN, PLEADING, HEY EVEN BARGAINING FOR VOTES! THERE ARE ONLY 9 DAYS LEFT OF THIS COMPETITION. IF YOU VOTED EVERY DAY FOR 9 DAYS YOUR VOTES COULD BE THE WINNING VOTES! IT'S SERIOUSLY SO EASY. I'VE GOT IT DOWN TO 24 SECONDS. JUST LOG IN TO YOUR FACEBOOK ACCOUNT, VOTE, AND THEN LOG OUT. EVERY DAY FOR 9 DAYS. PLEASE HELP US SO WE CAN HELP OTHER FAMILIES. WE NEED THIS MONEY TO MAKE OVER THE DREAM CENTER!
ALSO THERE IS ANOTHER FAMILY WE WANT TO HELP. WE CAN'T ANNOUNCE IT UNTIL WE ARE SURE WE CAN HELP THEM BUT SINCE THIS IS MY OWN PERSONAL BLOG I WILL GIVE YOU A LITTLE INSIGHT ON THIS AWESOME FAMILY I WANT US TO HELP!

This is Presley Gleason in February 2010. Isn't she so absolutely adorable? Pressley was born perfectly healthy. When she was 6 months old her parents noticed her hands were very weak, she couldn't do very much with them. Doctors could not figure what neuro-muscular disease she had and told her parents, Mindy and Mike that she would never walk, sit, talk or even hear. Well, the doctors were wrong. She did, with lots of therapy and was doing great... Until February. Presley got RSV and was in the hospital until May. She had many ups and downs. Due to the RSV and intubation and neuromuscular condition she has, her vocal cords, diaphram are paralized and her muscles have wasted away and she is very weak. She now eats with a g tube through her tummy, a trach tube and ventilator attached at all times 24/7 to help her breath. And is now in a wheelchair.

This is Pressley today. She is an absolutely beautiful, sweet, and funny 2 year old. Doctors told her parents she would never talk again, but she manages to whisper to her parents. She is so amazing!

I'm absolutely in love with this beautiful little 2 year old. I'm voting for you Presley Gleason!

Please help us help her family by voting with us on facebook. Just follow the link: http//apps.facebook.com/apxgivesback/ you will have to 'like' the application. Then go to 'click to start voting' then click on the green mountain region, scroll down until you find The Heart2Home Foundation and click 'vote this charity'. Please do this for me and paste this on your wall. Ask your friends and family to please vote with us! I promise that noone with Heart2Home gets ANYTHING from this contest. ALL money we ever get goes solely to the families we help. Noone gets a paycheck. We are strictly volunteer. WE have NO funding. We absolutely need this money to help these families!! Please help us!

http://http//apps.facebook.com/apxgivesback/

Girls craft day!

Ashy and I had a fun craft day the other day. We bought some wood and picked out some very glittery paper and modge podge and got to work. Ashy traced the letters and cut them out while I stained the wood letters. Then she helped me modge podge the paper onto the wood. They look so cute above her bed! Good job Ashy you crafty girl you!

Tada! The finished product. She had so much fun we ended up modge podging the light switches and outlets with the same paper! Her room is now very glittery! She's a little addicted to modge podge and wants to know what else we can do!

Have you ever had one of those moments when it's like a light switches on? As I was sitting in sacrament meeting today I felt restless. I felt like something was wrong, like I had left something. It was so weird. I was just sitting there and then I just had this panicked feeling like I was missing something. I was sitting there, with my family and it was so clear that I didn't have my whole family there and a part of me knew it. My arms felt empty. Greg was holding Ty and the other 2 were coloring and I had such a strong feeling that we have a baby waiting for us to bring him/her here. It's kind of overwhelming. 4 kids? I mean really. Greg felt it first a couple of weeks ago and I was like "ok" but today I felt it too. So I guess it's time for another adventure....

Heart to Home Grants wish of the Dream Center

We did it! We announced on Good Things Utah Wednesday that our next project will be the Dream Center in Salt Lake City! I'm so excited to do a community project! This one is going to be HUGE! We don't have a date for the makeover yet since we blind sided Pastor Al on Good Things. We talked after the show, checked out the facility and talked about what needed to be done and when. It looks like It will be in the winter, after Christmas is when they slow down. They are so busy when school starts through Thanksgiving and Christmas. So, that's probably our best bet. Hopefully we can squeeze in another family makeover in before that. I got to go meet with another family Tuesday night that I'll write about laters!

Here's the boys eating the crepes off the set. Silly boys!

Watch our announcement on GTU here

Heart to Home Grants wish of the Dream Center

Back to fairview

Didn't we just get back? Why yes. Yes we did. However, our neighbor kindly lent us his 4 wheeler last week and the key to it did not make it home. Mister Ethan lost it in the volleyball court. So, we went back to Fairview to find it. After all 6 of us (grandma and grandma included) raked out the volleyball court, Greg ended up finding the keys. Ethan did the happy dance of course. That meant He could go fishing now. Well, we were going to go fishing and then Jojo, Grandma and Grandpa's dog was hit by the neighbor's truck and ran off (we thought He was dead). The neigbor came over and told us what happened at that the dog had run off but He was sure He hit him. So, we searched for over an hour on foot and on the 4 wheelers when finally a bloody Jojo came hobbling up the road. Poor little Joe.

Greg and Penny held him while I played dr and tried to bandage his paw up which was so torn apart poor thing. He only yelped once and it was because of the thunder not me.

Poor little guy though it wouldn't stop bleeding for a long time. And he wouldn't stay off of it. This is how the barn and the front porch look. It's everywhere! It looks like a crime scene!

So, today Jojo us very sore, He won't come out of his dog box. Say a little prayer for Grandma's dog.

Even though the weekend started rough we still managed to have a great time. We had to postpone our fishing because of the dog and then a thunder and rain storm. So, I introduced Penny to the movie Steel Magnolias (can you believe she's never seen it? It's one of my favs) . We cried and cried. What a good movie. This is how the boys kept occupied during the rainstorm and crying fest:

After our little nap we went fishing and got skunked for the first time EVER! There were so many people on our secret pond we went to a different lake and had no luck. But that's ok, we cut our fishing trip short and went to the Basin Drive Inn and watched Despicable me in the back of Grandpa's truck.

I love Fairview weekend trips!