Our year 2007

Hello family and friends( i sent this out to some and thought many of you would love to read it),
This year mom decided the family letter would be written after the new year and after I shared my thoughts of how I was going to write the letter she thought it would be appropriate for Valentines Day.
This is Julianna Rebekah again and last year I remember my letter was full of screaming well not this year it is going to be full of LOVE.
I LOVE PINK and PRINCESSES!!! I however have 3 brothers which I LOVE so I played soccer which Christian LOVES this year and well I LOVED my coach and friends but the soccer it will come, maybe. Christian is 14 now and some things he LOVES I already mentioned soccer that is more of his passion driving force in his life which mom LOVES because he will do just about anything to play soccer. He LOVES to play basketball, run track, camping and a couple of new found activities wrestling and rock climbing. He is a Teacher at church now and is also in scouting, did I mention I LOVE him! He also has another LOVE and with that LOVE we have a new addition to our family this year. His name is Jasper Jones. The cutest little guy you have ever seen and you know what I LOVE him. Did I mention Christian LOVES animals? I know some of you were thinking another baby but no Jasper is our LOVING little dog. He makes Christian’s face light up like the sun. Speaking of sun I am a sunbeam at church and I LOVE going to primary like a big girl with David bringing our scriptures with us every week. The one thing David has in common with some of the people in those scriptures is he LOVES to build(mom says none of her kids scare her but she is afraid one day he will rewire the house or something of this sort because a mind like his thinks of lots of things). Mom will often ask him about how he came up with something and he says” I just was thinking about it and thinking about it and looking at it and I figured it out.” Scary HUH! I LOVE that about him because he comes up with the best games and we can go on wonderful adventures all piloted by his wonderful imagination. Luckily for me he knows I LOVE pink and princesses so I often get to be one when we play and guess who is old enough to join in on our grand escapades Jensen Marc and if you ask him his name he will tell you it is just that he is Jensen Marc. I LOVE him so much he plays dollies with me and he shares another LOVE of mine coloring and play doh. I think we LOVE it so much we could play with play doh all morning and then color until dinner. Again Jensen is a brother too and he LOVES to play with cars and trains. The other thing Jensen LOVES is shoes now that is my kind of brother. I think we will be getting along well in our teen years. There are a couple of people I think are not looking forward to the teen years but I LOVE them to the moon and back and that is mom and dad. I will start with the latter. Dad works hard and plays harder. He always takes time to play with my princesses with me and read me my Strawberry Shortcake book (again) and I LOVE it! He doesn’t only take time for me though he plays legos with David, trains with Jensen and homework helping with Christian. The newest thing Dad LOVES to do with us is swimming a couple of times a week and since he works a little farther away from home now which is very good for his working life I am LOVING that he still takes the time for us. He is teaching the youth at church every Sunday with the person we all LOVE and this is mom. Mom wears lots of hats like most moms do and a couple of my favorite hats are the hat of a teacher she not only teaches at church she teaches David, Jensen, and Myself preschool 5 days a week and we are LOVING all the adventures she takes on through books. We have visited medieval castles, ventured through the human body, and traveled to lands far away and long ago. Her favorite part of preschool is science and so we have grown butterflies, tried to grow a frog poor Tad he died when his back legs popped out and lots more experiments and fun. Then there is the chefs hat(which she looks so cute in). She is always whipping something up which I always LOVE and some others in the home are skeptics but she keeps trying to appease the masses. She is always wearing her Loon’s hat(the new minor league baseball team in our town) and when I ask her why she says she is charge of the Looney bin, I don‘t quite know what that means but I think it is supposed to be funny(I suppose other moms know what she is talking about). The other hat I love is nurturer and if you watch her closely sometimes you can see this hat. I have seen it on occasion it is gold and hovers over her head but I have seen it crash to the floor sometimes but she always trying to do her best. She LOVES being a mom and a wife and I LOVE her for it. There is a LOVE we have in our home that is more important than anything else and that is the LOVE for our Heavenly Father and our Savior Jesus Christ. We hope in the following year you will allow Their LOVE fill your homes and hearts!
LOVE, The Keplers (David, Julia, Christian, David, Jensen Marc, and Myself, Julianna)

Surprise... it is you!

We had a night at Disney again tonight! Not really but Christian's choir concert tonight was a Disney themed one. It was so fun to here the kids say that is from the Lion King or Little Mermaid. Christain's choir specifically sang Beauty and the Beast and he was Gaston and a good one at that! He is getting to be such a young man I am very proud of him and all of his endevors. He is fearless not ever afraid to try something new even of he might flop. He is even doing the high jump for the first time in track and doing well at it and today he went to his coach and said I want to try to do the shotput. Coach told him to give it a throw. Needless to say I think he will not be doing the shotput. I am always amazed what we learn from our children. Currently I am learning give it a try you never know what can do, you just might surprise yourself!

Home Sweet Home

In quiet reflection I am amazed how excited we get when we are getting ready to go somewhere fun. We shop, pack, run around like crazy even and we go and we have this great time. Then we come home and it is like this AHHHHHHHHHH moment! I am so glad for that AHHHH moment! I am grateful that my kids have it too! They love being home. I am happy David and I have taken the time to really make our home into a place where our children WANT to be even more than Disney World!

A Time to Remember- Day 4

The early moring is spent getting our things packed up and off to the airport. The good news is we still have fun ahead of us!
We have breakfast with Winnie the Pooh and gang again and the kids are lackluster about it. They are tired I think and ready to go home. The Mad Hatter however was much more pleasant this time around! Winnie the Pooh really loved coming up behind Jensen and giving him a huge hug.
We went back to Disney's Hollywood Studios to go on the Star Wars ride again. It looks a lot different in the daytime by the way. During the day however they have Jedi Training Sessions so we wait for one to start. The Jedi Master starts picking kids to come up and we encourage D4 to raise his hand but he is insistant he does not want to go up there and so we don't force him to go but our little girl all dressed in pink really wants to and she is picked so she goes up and is dressed like a Jedi and has a light saber which she is quite accustomed to. They start learining all kinds of moves and soon the novelty off this wears off for Julianna and she is done and I am quite gald they got her out of there because the next thing you know is Darth Vadar comes out with 2 Strom Troopers(which would of scared her). All the kids got to take turns battling the dark side and as the stand together they send Darth off packing. Good always triumph's over evil, Right? This is when Christian goes missing really over a miscommunication and he soon rejoins us(I want to wring his neck).

The back lot is supposed to be a cool place to go and we see the Power Rangers and a good place to rest in the Honey I Shrunk the Kids place. Oh how cool is this. Riding on the ant, sliding down a film roll, huge container of playdough, even the cookie from the movie. You ge to run climb, and slide through the backyard as you are shrunk to the size of ants! Fun! Fun! Fun! It is getting close to the time of the High School Musical Show so we head over there. It is okay and and as soon as they start picking kids to come up Christian says I'm out and so we decide it is a good time to leave and go grab a snack at the hotel and wait for our Disney Express bus to take us back to the airport! Good bye Disney World!!! Soon we are home!

A Time to Remember -Day3

We are up and at it early this morning. We are heading to Animal Kingdom today for a Breakfast Safari with Donald Duck. OH what fun this is we meet Daisy, Donald, Mickey, and Goofy! We also have fun having amusical parade with Goofy. The kids take some encouraging to do this but once momis doing it the join in!
We wander around a bit waitng for our fast passes for the Kilimanjaro Ride soon we are entering a huge open bus and drivng through the Savannah seeing all the animals it has to offer. Christian is loving this and we pass his favorites the cheetahs they are no where to be seen, BUMMER!

We visit dino land and ride a triceratops and go for a much needed break to the dino fossil playground. The kids have so much fun there! We head over to the much anticipated Nemo the Musical. It is quite a wait but ends up being so worth it! Bubbles from the ceiling, huge turtles, singing fish what kids wouldn't love this!

We see BALOO! Now for most this wouldn't even be on their radar but for our family(my hubby in particular)this is the best! Some of you will remember Tail Spin well this was one of his favorites growing up and he loved Baloo! What can I say I married a kid at heart aren't I lucky!!!

Lunch is uneventful and soon we are entering The Bug's Life Show and it isn't until Flick drops down from the ceiling that the familiarity of it hits me(it is at Disneyland and went to it a few years earlier) and my thought is Julianna is going to hate this and I was right her 3D glasses were off at the word go and as for the spiders coming down from the ceiling Jensen had his blanket over his eyes and Julianna might have had an idea what was happening but I covered her eyes to prevent hysterics. We are exhausted from all the fun and decide we need naps so back to the hotel!

We ate at a very nice resturaunt this night so no fun characters bounding around but it was a very nice evening. Grandpa has to leave us after dinner(so sad) which ends up being fine because after dinner it is raining so myself and the little guys are off to bed while Christian and Dad are off ot Epcot on the search for a Mexican Mickey which was never found but the did have a fun adventure!

A Time to Remember- day 2

We start off with well rested kiddos and breakfast with Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Alice from Alice in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter, and Mary Poppins and the kids have warmed up to these fun loving characters hugging them and know the drill- books out to sign, smile for picture back to eating for the next one to come and the drill starts again.
We go to Disney World again today to see what we missed yesterday so a ride on the carousel, then onto the flying wonder Dumbo himself, and the never ending It's a Small World(which I have decided you need to be a small child to really love this ride because they did and Dad not so much). The big boys went off to Space Mountain and the rest of us went to Toontown and we decided to wait in line to see mystery characters and we met Goofy, Donald, and Pluto. The kids were so excited about it they wanted to wait to see the princesses too(it was D4's idea even) so we grabbed some snacks and waited to see what princesses would be waiting and Julianna struck gold her 3 favorites Cinderella again(which was great because I had my camera now), Belle, and Snow White.
We then went to the Monsters Inc show which was hilarious and had Jensen cracked up from the get go. Now that we had a good laugh it was time to eat and take a rest so back to the hotel we headed for lunch, pool time, and a nap which was going to be much needed for the fun to come.
For dinner we went to Chef Mickey at the Contemporary Hotel. Which of course who do you have dinner with Mickey, Donald, and, Minnie(I can't remember now if Goofy or Pluto was there or not). The kids are starting to like these dinners with all the fun characters around(though it is a bit of a distraction as far as actually eating thing goes). Then we went to Disney's Hollywood Studios. This is the most exciting thing for D4 the Star Wars ride and he loved it! As you walk up there is an AT-AT and you walk right under it so cool for him and dad loved it too!! After all that excitment we went and dressed Julianna as a princess she of course picked Sleeping Beauty not her favorite princess but pink! We waited to see the Little Mermaid show while David, Christian, and Jensen went to Disney Animation. Christian came out of there beaming he loves to draw so this was so fun for him. We decided at this point to go back to Disney World for the fireworks and parade and we got there just in time for the fireworks above the castle.. beautiful. We even had enough time before the parade to go on the pirate ride one more time for D4(he had been asking all day). Jensen of course is sleeping on Dad at this point but there is a parade coming up so we transfer him to a stroller and we let him sleep as we wait. The parade is magical at 11:00 at night and all light up the kids are spellbound by it and soon enough you look over at Jensen who has been abandoned by us all and he is pointing and oooing and ahhhing at all the fun passing by. What a long but fun day for all and soon we are off to sleep.

A Time to Remember- day 1 continued

When the kids see the castle from the monorail I think they could barely contain themselves. As we approach the castle(and the timing could not have been better) out comes Minnie, Donald, and Goofy singing and dancing and soon out came MICKEY MOUSE! We are heading to ride on a flying carpet, then a jungle cruise, through the land of pirates, and into the tiki room. We see Rafiki, Timon, Aladdin, and Jasmine but don't stop for photo ops and hugs. Into to Frontierland we go and and this is were the big boys go on the roller coaster and the girls and little guys see Woody and Jessie all with signatures and pictures, we see a stagecoach parade and take a break from the sun in the Bear Show and a little nap for the grown ups. All and all we had a busy first day at Disney but the best was yet to come for our little princess...dinner with Cinderella! Of course Prince Charming was there and the stepsisters and the wicked stepmother and to be quite honest I think she is a bit evil. Dinner ended with a kiss and hug from Cindrella and I think our little prinesses dreams did come true. Someone elses did that day too! My prince charming went to the airport and guess what he came back with MY CAMERA!!!

A Time to Remember-day 1

April 1st did not start out like any other day and nor did it end that way. A 4 am wake up call induced a frenzy(a happy, exciting, can't wait another minute, the monthes of anticpation came down to this moment) of getting kids up, dressed, brushed, and fed. Followed by all the fun endeavors you encounter at the airport and with a family of 6 I think back at it as almost comical. You love to see the business mens faces when they are behind a family of six with small children at security at the airport as you are downloading all carry ons, loveys, coats, sweaters, keys, cell phones, and not to mention shoes. Soon we were off to Florida with blue skies and 80 degrees much better than the 40's and rain we left behind.
The flight went off without a hitch, a cry, a fit it was a great flight and soon we were on solid ground again and searching for our Disney Bus to take us to the Grand Floridian. It is Grand and as we are waiting in the lobby for the grandparents to come I decide to take a picture of the 7 story ceiling and it is then I realize I left my camera on the plane. I am sad at first I have Christmas and birthday pictures in the camera bag but come quickly to grips with it when phone calls are getting no were and soon we are off on our first adventure.... lunch.

Hard Heart

" Mom how do you get a hard heart?" Well you can imagine my wheels spinning to find an answer for my sweet boy. My reply was simple. "A hard heart doesn't just happen it is when we do something wrong over and over again and we know it is wrong and we don't say we are sorry. So everytime we don't say we are sorry part of are heart gets hard and the harder our heart gets the more wrong we do. This is why it is important to say we are sorry and mean it and try to better all the time." I love his response to this, "I always say I am sorry!"

Around and Around they go!!!

As I sit here and watch my 3 youngest run circles around the dining room table my first impulse is to stop them immediately but the looks on their faces would be squashed as well. They are having fun it is like watching NASCAR but you get to the see their faces giggling as the race continues so I sit here watching in pure enjoyment waiting for the inevitable crash , ready and waiting to send in the ambulance of kisses! The best part is I know they are going to have another crash as well and that is into their beds because they are going to be exhausted after this race!

Beans and nose!

There are often two words you never want to hear in the same sentence as a mother and I have figured out 2 more...bean and nose!!! Yes one of my Little gems decided a bean so far up the nose you can't see it was a wonderful idea until the blood started running. Luckily this is not my first adventure with something up the nose and believe it or not it was with this same child. With one hard blow we had retrieved the bean.
I liked what I heard someone once say about children, " Some children are look learners and other are 2 X 4 learners," I think we all have a couple of them. All I know is I am hoping this is my last case of noseshovupitis!

A Triumph in Parenting

I have a 2,4,5 and 14 year old and you quite never know what is going to come out of their precious little mouthes sometimes. Of course as most children can often do mine were complaining about this and that so we had a lesson that caught their attention about complaining. They were collecting thumbs up if they did things without complaining. It was now time to clean up the playroom which had a few items needing to be cleaned up and what do you know I had one young complainer and I asked, " Are you going to pick up your markers and her sweet reply was, "No I am going to be like Laman." My simple response was I think he spent a lot of time in his tent thinking so why don't you do that and off she went. Within five minutes her bright smiling face came bounding down the stairs saying "Mom I am ready to be like Nephi" and she gave me a thumbs up and in turn she received another one to add to her collection and our home has been much happier of a place to be!!!! Thank you Nephi!!!