Make Way for the GREAT RENEE'! :)

Happy Birthday Alexandra!!!

2011-06-16T15:11:00.000-06:00

So, this post is dedicated to Alexandra - because she turned 4 on May 13th!!! On the morning of her birthday, I surprised her by taking her to Build-a-Bear to create a new little friend. This is the bear she picked.

This bear fits her personality exactly! It's very colorful with rainbow hearts all over it. I wasn't surprised that she went for this one.

Alex got to stand on the pedal to help the fluff go into her bear. She also enjoyed telling everyone how old she is. See her holding up her fingers? :)

After her bear was fluffy enough, Alexandra picked out a heart, gave it a kiss, and gave her bear the heart.

Nathan has afternoon kindergarten so he came with us to Build-a-Bear in the morning. We let him bring along his turtle and join in the fun. After fluffing up the bear, it was time to clean the bear. Here is Alexandra at the bathing station. She puts her foot on the pedal and the lamps blow air to help fluff up the outside of the animal.

Turtle also got a bath! Nathan was so cute about bathing his turtle. He carefully removed turtle's shell and then gently brushed and cleaned every inch of his turtle. I have never seen him be so gentle and loving! I enjoyed watching him! :)

Moving on - time to dress the bear! Alex knew exactly what her bear should wear and she went right to work shopping for the perfect outfit. She went right to the "kissing dresses" (wedding dresses), found the one she thought was the most beautiful, then marched on over to the accessories and busied herself matching this and that. She is quite the little shopper!

Finally, after the bear was bathed, dressed, named, had a birth certificate, and lots of little extra bows, we made it out of the store. Here is the finished product. TA DA!!! Alex named her bear "Kissy" and ever since her birthday, Kissy has barely been out of Alexandra's sight.

For the afternoon on Alex's birthday, Nathan had "show and teach" at his school, so we went and spent the afternoon in his kindergarten class watching him teach his class. :)

I decided to give Alexandra a birthday party with her friends the next day, so after school I got to work on her cake. She picked to have a Tangled birthday party and birthday cake, so guess who gets to come up with something special . . . ME!!

I made her a special cake and it really didn't take as long as I thought it would to decorate it. I used ice cream cones to make a tower for Rapunzel and then just had to frost the tower, grass, and bushes. Easy enough. As I was putting together the tower, it kept leaning and leaning. I put toothpicks in at the bottom and attached the cones together with melted chocolate, but I wasn't sure it would make it through the night to the party the next morning. I left the cake here on the counter overnight and was worried about how it would look when I woke up. When morning came, Jeremy went out and checked the cake and came and told me ,"Well, your tower is still standing." Thank goodness!

After I finished her cake in the evening, we had birthday dinner and let Alex open her presents from us and Grandmas and Grandpas. She was already in her pajamas, but I noticed that she transferred her birthday sticker from Build-a-Bear from her t-shirt to her pajamas. Cute!

I love the look of anticipation on Nathan's face!

Ok. Next day. So, Saturday morning was the party. Notice my tower still standing? Woo hoo! It is leaning a bit, but still up! That's what counts. I added a couple little Rapunzel touches and Whalaa!

For the party we watched Tangled, painted fingernails and toenails, blew bubbles, opened presents, and ate cake and ice cream. This is the present portion of the party. It's funny because kids this age don't really understand the whole - I'm giving you a present because it's your birthday and you get to keep what I brought - concept. We had to explain this a few times throughout the session. Poor little traumatized girls.

Alex did love everything she received and I'm glad she got to have the experience of a party with her friends.

I had to include this picture because it made me laugh! We look so dumb!!! It was really bright outside. My 2 sisters, Lisa and Teresa, stayed at the party and helped out. I loved having them stay! It was fun to have a little extra help and some adult conversation. :)

Last but not least, we sang Happy Birthday and all enjoyed some cake and ice cream. For some odd reason, Alexandra wouldn't blow out her candles. We tried a few times to get her to do it, but she wouldn't, so I had to blow them out. I hope my wish comes true.

I did my best to make her birthday special for her and I think she had a wonderful time! :)

Zumba Me!

2011-05-22T17:11:00.000-06:00

In case you didn't already know - I finally became a Zumba instructor! I got licensed at the beginning of April and have been teaching ever since. :)

This past couple of months has been a whirlwind for me. I decided I wanted to teach Zumba in January and had a hard time getting into a training because they were sold out. So, I finally made it to the one in April and 5 days later had a job interview to teach my first hour-long class at Anytime Fitness. Lo and behold, I got the job and I absolutely LOVE IT!!! I teach every Tuesday and Thursday evening and in my "off" time I work non-stop on memorizing music and working on new dances. I wish I would have found it years ago, but I'm happy to be doing it now!!

It's fun to see the kids embrace what I'm doing too. As I practice my dances in the kitchen, they join in and work on my dances with me. Now they all have their favorite songs and they take turns picking songs on my iPod when we are in the car.

PS - I would LOVE to have friends come and join my class. Let me know if you want to come and I'll give you the details!

Quick Family Home Evening Activity

2011-05-15T15:27:00.000-06:00

We were at a loss for something fun after we finished our lesson for Family Home Evening, so out came the eyeliner and little clothes!

The kids took turn singing the primary songs in their new characters and had a blast!

Samantha is on the left and Athena is on the right.

The funniest part to me is all the extra faces they make with their chins! Nathan was laughing so hard he could hardly sit up!

After Athena and Samantha had a turn, Nathan and Alex had to give it a try. This is Nathan. :)

We tried to give Alexandra's character some hair, but she ended up looking like a balding woman who couldn't keep her gangly long hair out of her face.

Overall it provided the much-needed entertainment for the evening and gave us all a good laugh!

Excitement!

2011-03-23T11:13:00.000-06:00

It's sad, but true . . . these pictures really do sum up the excitement at our house lately! I went through all my recent pictures on the camera and this is pretty much it. Let's discuss . . .

Athena has been really excited about helping me in the kitchen with all my cooking. I was on the computer the other day and asked her to boil some water. She took a picture of it when it reached that point and came to show me that it was boiling. :)

I really do love her excitement with cooking lately. It's wonderful to have a partner in the kitchen and to be able to teach her all my secrets!

Next, This picture of Alexandra.

See her awesome soda can insulator? Jeremy has been so ultra absorbed with going to the BYU games and this was his latest treasure to bring home. Can holders for all! Really, the perks are amazing. We now have 6 soda can insulators sitting in the drawer of our downstairs kitchenette.

Other than that, we are patiently (or not so patiently) waiting for this cold weather to leave once and for all so we can enjoy playing outside again.

Saaaaan Diiiiiiii-ego!

2011-03-08T11:02:00.002-07:00

We went to visit my sister, Cynthia, for Thanksgiving this year. It was one of those "quick trips" that turned out to be a lot of fun! We decided to keep everything low budget and found some free things to do in San Diego for a day.

We started out by going to the Mormon Battalion Museum. What a neat find! It was really interesting to learn about the Mormon Battalion and the kids loved it.

The kids immediately had to explore the wagon.

Who knew this was sitting in the middle of San Diego? A pioneer wagon?

Inside, the LDS missionaries did a little presentation about the Mormon Battalion and it was actually quite interesting! I never even really knew what all they did and their amazing contributions to the area. Ethan jumped up at the first chance to volunteer and was more than excited to wear the "gear". I think this was his 3rd time being picked as the volunteer. Funny!

At the end of the tour, the kids got a chance to pan for gold.

As you can see, they all really got into it. :)

So did the parents.

Here is Athena finding her share of the gold.

Everyone made a pretty good haul on the gold. Too bad it wasn't real! I'd go home and pay off the house!!

Each kid was allowed to take home one piece, so they took awhile and picked out their VERY BEST one.

We were inducted into the group of honorary members of the battalion. SWEET!

Our next free activity (after lunch) was to go see the beautiful Coronado hotel and beach. We drove over this huge bridge that goes out to the island and on the way we happened to pass the famed Carnival Splendor ship, the one that was left drifting out in the ocean with all its passengers aboard and no power. It was interesting to see it because when Jeremy and I went on our cruise last year, this is the ship that paralleled our ship all the way down the Mexican Riviera. Only it was working at that time.

This is the hotel we wanted to see. The "Somewhere in Time" hotel. Isn't it beautiful? I got some better shots of it from the back view, this is just our first view of it. It's an amazing building!

After finding a place to park on a very full street, we let the kids loose on the beach. They were happy as can be just to be out of the car! It was pretty cold, but the kids all insisted on taking off their shoes. Oh well.

We got there right at sunset. Isn't it beautiful?

Something she found . . . is it a shell? A rock? I can't tell, but by the look on her face it must be pretty exciting!

I'm not sure what exactly happened, but while we were there, Callie's head just got too heavy for her neck! We tried to help her but there wasn't much we could do.

And Cynthia got stuck holding all the shoes. It was pretty hard on their family.

Here is that great view of the hotel I was telling you about. If we didn't have kids with us I would have gone inside.

With all the sand, and water, and tide pools, and rocks to climb on, and beautiful sunset to look at - Alexandra chose to play right beside this cement wall. Why go to the beach?

Cute sisters!

Another view of Coronado Beach.

Pretty me with pretty hotel. Thanks Jeremy for the photo op!

We left the beach as it was getting dark and drove to the next free spot on our list. The San Diego temple. I have to say, I think this is the prettiest temple of all of them because it looks like a palace.

My eternal children in front of the temple. :) I'm glad I got to show them this temple. It was their first time here.

And this is my eternal family in front of the temple.

We shared our wonderful day in San Diego with Brett, Cynthia, and their children. It was a fun day out - and did I mention it was free? Except for lunch. We don't very often get to come here and we RARELY spend a day with Brett and Cynthia, so that was a real treat for all of us!

Happy Valentine's Day 2011!!

2011-02-15T13:56:00.001-07:00

I've started a new tradition in our home because for our 2nd year now, I decided to put together a "fancy" candlelight dinner for the whole family.

I put together an easy menu that I knew the kids would eat, bought some fabric rose petals and candles, and decorated the table all special for everyone. When I called everyone to come and eat they were all so excited! I told them to be careful because there was REAL fire on the table, so all the kids (even Nathan) pulled out their chairs so carefully and sat down all nice.

I wanted to make this a fun dining experience for our kids because they don't get that very often. So, while I finished up work in the kitchen and got all the plates ready to serve, Jeremy sat at the table with the kids and gave them some lessons in etiquette.

It was so cute to watch them all nicely place their napkins in the laps and have nice conversation until their meals arrived.

We had prayer and then I served their plates 2 at a time. Jeremy instructed them not to eat until everyone had been served. Here is Nathan checking out his plate of food.

After everyone had their food, I went around the table and offered ground pepper to those who wanted it. It's amazing what good manners children can have when they try! I heard a lot of "Yes, please", "Thank you", and "No thank you" (said with a polite smile).

Samantha looks quite pleased. :)

Candlelight dinner with camera flash.

Without the flash.

Finally, after serving, offering pepper, and taking pictures, it was finally my turn to sit down and eat. This is what we had - spaghetti with Wacky Mac noodles and cauliflour with Crystal Lite to drink.

The dinner conversation was delightful and we didn't have to break up ANY fights! Imagine that!!!

When everyone was finished eating, I cleared away their dishes and had the kids sit at the table and continue their conversations. Time to move on to dessert! For our Valentine's dessert I homemade a New York Style white chocolate cheesecake and garnished it with fresh strawberries and chocolate chips. WOW! It was so much better than it looks in the picture! Super creamy and rich. A definite success! The kids gobbled it up and they thought it was so neat that they got their dessert right after dinner. Funny. :)

So, I actually did all of that dinner on Sunday - the 13th. Then, on Monday morning (truly Valentine's day) I got up and made these for the kids. My attempt at heart-shaped pancakes. Thankfully the kids aren't too picky about them being perfect and were so excited again.

The past several years I've left a special Valentine's gift for each of the kids either on their bedside table or right outside their doors so they can find it when they wake up. I didn't do that this year because I decided to do it differently. Athena was so disappointed that there was no surprise! I didn't know she looked forward to it so much. She didn't know I already had a plan, so I told her that she would have to wait until after school for her surprise. Then, when I picked up Athena, Samantha, and Nathan from school they found this waiting for them on the kitchen table.

The wonderful thing about Valentine's Day is that you can do everything in the name of "I love you" and your family knows that I gave it to them because I love them. I don't have to pretend like the tooth fairy came by, not Santa, there is no Valentine's bunny. It's just ME doing something for THEM because I love them!

During the day I had to go to the foot doctor because I had a very sudden and extremely painful problem crop up with my right foot over the weekend. My nerve that runs right through my arch and up my ankle was completely inflamed and I could hardly walk on it. The doctor ended up giving me a shot of cortisone right into my nerve and main artery that runs under my arch. Talk about PAIN!!!! I wouldn't recommend that to ANYONE! Anyway . . . so while I was up that way (LOL, "since I'm there") I stopped at the store and picked up some of Jeremy's favorite candy, a Diet DP, and a balloon bouquet for him. Alexandra and I stopped by his office and surprised him with it. :)

Then, he surprised me by coming home with a beautiful gift. HE LOVES ME!!! These beautiful roses and a balloon bouquet for me! :)

I am blessed to have a wonderful family who I can share these experiences with while I am on this earth. Other than the lame shot to the foot (and me having to teach aerobics that night with the feeling of jumping on needles), it turned out to be 2 days of wonderful Valentine LOVE!! :)

I love you kids!

I LOVE YOU, JEREMY!!

Our Beloved Nathan

2011-02-13T17:20:00.001-07:00

Isn't Nathan so cute? I love looking at these pictures because they remind me to look at Nathan more as a little personality trying to emerge instead of a little boy who likes to bug his sisters. :) He is such a little clown and has so much energy, but at the same time he is very loving and kind. I enjoy having him in our home.

Nathan turned six on Halloween - October 31, 2010.

His birthday was on a Sunday and followed an extremely busy week/weekend. We invited grandmas and grandpas over to help celebrate his birthday. So, from the time church ended until dinner time I raced like mad to get everything done. First thing on the list - decorate a cake! For the 3rd year in a row, Nathan wanted a pirate ship cake. He picked to have a "Ghost Ship" cake so I got to work and tried my best to fill the order. The Dr. Pepper sitting there is for my sanity. :)

While I worked feverishly, Jeremy took the birthday boy out to play ball.

I watched them from the window for a little while in between decorating the cake and Nathan seemed to be having the time of his life!

I finished the cake in about 2 hours. TA DA!!! This is the finished product.

No sooner had I finished, our guests began to arrive. I hadn't even started on dinner, but I wasn't too worried. For Nathan's birthday dinner request he picked Macaroni 'n Cheese, Beans, and Hot Dogs. Wow! Talk about a heart attack waiting to happen! But, what the birthday boy wants, the birthday boy gets. We all managed to get the dinner down . . . well, all of us except Nathan. He didn't even eat it!

Next: PRESENT TIME! Here is Nathan showing how old he is.

Nathan has been really "into" Star Wars, so I got him this cute little Star Wars Lego set. He opened it and threw it aside. Samantha, however, was very excited about the set. With his permission she quickly opened it and got to work. :)

He also received this unexciting gift of clothing. It does look really cute on him.

Then the good stuff. AIRPLANES!

He also received an aircraft carrier that had more airplanes and accessories - PLUS this super sweet movie! He popped it in and we all enjoyed/endured his new Imaginext movie while he buzzed his airplanes around the room.

I figured I'd better also include a picture of some of the people who came. This was a nicer picture than the 2 pictures I got of both grandpas dozing off and missing most of the party. Looks like a rocking good time, right?

All good things must come to an end. We finished off with the birthday cake. I did a great job on the cake because it would have tasted divine if I liked cake. But those who do like cake said it was tasty and mine wasn't so bad either.

I am pretty sure Nathan had a wonderful 6th birthday and with all of my complaining about noisy boy stuff, I really do love having him in our family. We most certainly wouldn't be the same without him.

HALLOWEEN!

2011-02-07T14:50:00.001-07:00

Nathan's birthday is on Halloween, but this past year it fell on a Sunday - which was so nice! All the celebrating was done before the actual day and we got to have a real birthday party for him. I'll post all of our Halloween stuff on this post.

We ended up dressing up several different times this year because of Halloween being on Sunday. I dressed up for my Zumba class. Then the kids dressed up for school, and the next day we all dressed up to go trick or treating.

Here I am in my Zumba costume. :) We had a dress-up party on Tuesday and all danced in our costumes.

On Thursday I took Nathan and his friend, Alex to school. It turns out they had they the same costume and when Alex got in the car, they were both SO EXCITED. When they got out of the car they wanted to "fly" for their picture. Notice their hands? That's the position Iron Man stands in when he flies.

I dropped off the boys and Alexandra and I headed into the school for the annual Halloween Costume Parade. She was so happy because she got to wear her costume too. She is a fairy.

Once inside, the parade moved quickly through the gym. I almost missed all 3 pictures! Luckily I DID get them though. Here is Nathan in the parade. He couldn't wear the mask at school, so he is just the muscle Iron Man. It was fun to see him being such a big school kid!

Samantha dressed up as an 80's workout girl. Wow! Do I feel old or what? She made up her mind several weeks before Halloween and I managed to put this costume together. She was so proud! She was also proud of the fact that nobody else at school had her costume on.

Athena has been into the "scary" costumes for the past couple of years. In case you can't tell, she was a vampire. I put white makeup on her face and did her eyes all dark. She loved her costume too.

On Friday we got to celebrate once again! The kids were out of school and we finally got around to decorating our pumpkins that had been sitting around for almost a month.

This is the finished product. SCARY!!! Can you guess which one belongs to who?

Finally Saturday arrived and it was time to go trick or treating. The kids waited all day long and kept asking how much longer until we could start trick or treating. I kept telling them "after dinner". So, we ate dinner, started getting ready in our costumes, and then watched and waited for dusk and for other kids on our street to be out. Just about the time we deemed it would be OK to go out, a wild, windy storm front smacked our neighborhood. The sky got black, we heard thunder, and then an explosion of hail mixed with rain. Luckily, after about 1/2 hour the storm passed and left us with nothing but wet roads! This is how it looked when we decided it was safe to venture out.

Here we are at our first house to get candy. We like to go out as a family instead of leaving someone home to hand out the candy. Last year I left a bowl of candy on the porch and one single kid came and emptied the whole bowl into his sack. We knew who the kid was and I was very disappointed. So this year, I just carried my bowl of candy around and handed it out to the trick-or-treating kids as we passed them! It worked very well.

Thank you to our neighbor for taking a picture of our family!

After we finished in our neighborhood we came home and got ready to head north to the relative's houses. I hurried and snapped some pictures of the kids in their Halloween night costumes.

And one last picture of our pumpkins in the daylight.

We all really enjoyed Halloween this year. Our kids are the perfect ages where they have lots of fun and we don't end up having to carry anyone. Even though it got a little chilly later in the evening, no one wanted to stop knocking on doors so we ended up with way more candy than we needed, but also a lot of fun memories. :)

Self Portrait

2011-01-31T11:28:00.001-07:00

Alexandra has recently become very interested in drawing herself. This is the picture she draws over and over on our art board. I think it's so cute! She makes her head. Then she very lovingly makes one ponytail, then another ponytail. Then the eyes. Then she makes her mouth big because she "is singing in a choir". Last is her dress, pictured below the head.

She is so proud of her work and when it gets erased, she just draws it again. She has also become quite interested in coloring too. Then she takes it one step further and tells me that she knows how to color, but Nathan just scribbles. LOL! He does know how to color and draw, by the way, but it makes me laugh.

Last night we were at Grandma and Grandpa's house and we collected some new toys they were getting rid of. A "new" Fisher Price house and furniture! I told Alexandra that we needed to clean the house before she could play with it. She asked me when we got home if we could clean it and I told her we could do it in the morning. Well, this morning she asked me all morning long if we could clean it now. I said - AFTER the girls are at school and AFTER the dishes are done. She just couldn't wait and I had to chase her away from it a couple of times because she brought a sloppy rag over to the house and started washing it down.

Finally I finished the dishes and the time arrived to clean the house! She carefully helped me wash and dry each little corner of the house, even pointing out when I missed a spot. Then when it was all done, she raced to get all her Fisher Price stuff and got it all set up. Here she is enjoying her new-found treasure. Thanks G&G! :)

Girl Work/Boy Work

2011-01-25T12:56:00.000-07:00

This year I made my own grape juice for the 2nd time. Homemade grape juice is the BEST! The only thing I absolutely cannot handle are the spiders in the grapes. So, I came up with a great solution.

Since we all drink and enjoy the juice, everyone can help. The boys get to remove all the spiders and I'll turn the grapes to juice.

Nathan didn't particularly like this job at first. He and Jeremy had to dump out all the grapes, then check them and put them back in the boxes.

I solved the problem by giving him this handy dandy glove that made the job "official" and he had no real problems after that! Gotta train him early.

After the grapes were checked, the girl job kicked in. Athena, Samantha, and Alexandra took turns helping me wash sinkfuls of grapes and I cooked them and made the juice.

Looks like we've established a tradition! Walaa!!! Now that the spider problem is taken care of, we get homemade grape juice. :)

The Gathering of the Pumpkins

2011-01-24T12:46:00.000-07:00

I know this post is really late, and the next few will be too. As usual . . . I'M BEHIND!!!! I wanted to post some of these fun family outings before I forget about them. The kids like to look back on my blog and read about past events so it's my job to keep it up. Oops!

These pictures are from October, when we went to get our pumpkins at the pumpkin patch. It has become our tradition to take this wagon out to the pumpkin patch and pick out our pumpkins. The rule is that you have to be able to carry it out yourself. It makes the activity much more age appropriate and then I don't have to try to figure out how to carry 5 pumpkins out of the pumpkin patch. This year was much warmer than last year, so we were able to enjoy the experience and linger a bit longer.

Us. The parents. We must love each other!

Athena and Samantha had a lot of fun riding at the front of the wagon. They were acting so "grown up". It was fun to watch their personalities come out as they joked and laughed throughout the ride.

This year there were a few extra activites at the pumpkin patch and the kids had fun with them. There was a maze made out of big fruit bins, these cutouts for pictures, and a big tractor that the kids could sit on.

This picture makes me laugh because it looks like Athena and Samantha are having SO MUCH fun, and Nathan and Alex look on just wishing they were over there behind the wheel instead of stuck on the top where they can't get down.

Now silly faces!

After chasing through the maze several times and checking out the picture boards and tractor, it was finally time to go through the pumpkin patch in search of the "perfect pumpkin". Ready . . . set . . . GO!!!!

After much searching and deliberation, these are the winners. :)

Jeremy and I found one too. I don't usually get one because I'm the one who ends up carving all the other ones. This year I wanted to try cooking on in the oven and making a pumpkin puree to use in recipes. Did that actually happen? NO!! My pumpkin sat on the bar and the table as a decoration until Christmas time when I finally gave up and threw it out. Maybe next year.

Wow, Jeremy! What happened?!! We loaded our pumpkins onto the wagon, rode back to the beginning, and enjoyed ice cream together to finish off our outing.

Kid Worries

2011-01-20T10:43:00.000-07:00

Nathan came in to me with a concerned look on his face and said, "Mom, I don't know who I'm going to marry. (then he shrugged his shoulders) I can't marry Carlie because she is going to marry someone else."

I told him he doesn't have to worry about who to marry when he is just 6 years old.

Treasure of a Find

2011-01-16T14:18:00.001-07:00

I have so many pictures that I haven't posted to my blog, but I've been wanting to share them. I was just now going on a picture hunt, trying to decide what to post from all my pictures that date back to October when I found these beauties! Apparently the kids were having such a great time that they decided to document it with MY camera!

Seriously, who needs a horse? I'll just call this picture series "A Sad Day in the Life of Max".

Braving the Cold

2011-01-11T11:38:00.000-07:00

This winter has been so cold here! We have had several days in the single digits and teens. If I could, I'd just spend all day every day wrapped up in a few blankets sitting on the couch, but with kids that's just not possible. So I guess the next best thing is to go out and play in all the freezing cold goodness!

Ever since the snow hit the ground all the kids have been BEGGING to go sledding, so we finally found the time and bundled up! This particular day was only about 10 degrees Fahrenheit, but that didn't stop us. :)

Here is Alexandra posing for the camera, of course.

I usually don't like taking the kids sledding because it's so much work for me with all the whining, carrying kids AND sleds up the hill, and forcing them to go down again "because we are here". Well, this time was so different and we all had a lot of fun! Even I didn't want to go home.

All the kids (even Alexandra) just loved sledding and wanted to go again and again and again. Alex insisted on walking up the hill herself and even carrying her own sled some of the time! It was so cute to watch the kids faces as they sped down the snowy slopes.

Every time Alex went down, either by herself or with someone else, she just had this enormous grin on her face and she would giggle all the way down. I just wanted to soak it all in and save it for a long time.

That's Samantha sliding down the hill. This saucer was her favorite.

Nathan was just as much fun to watch. He couldn't get enough. He had that little saucer sled and just went again and again and again. As soon as he got to the bottom, he would jump off and run to the top and take it down. Sometimes he couldn't even wait to run to the top! He would get to the middle of the hill, set down his sled and just take off.

There goes Athena!

Jeremy and Alexandra again.

I did actually go down the hill and enjoy myself too, but since I'm the one with the camera, all you'll see of me is my shadow in several of the shots. Proof I was there!

Taking the kids sledding at the ages they are now is the most fun we have had with this activity and I look forward to when we can go again. I very much appreciate having our kids grow out of the toddler years, become a little more independent, and watching them having fun together as a family. :)

Great Big THANKS!!!!

2011-01-07T09:55:00.000-07:00

December was the busiest I remember in a long time - thanks to all my wonderful friends and neighbors who supported Athena and I in our Peanut Brittle Fund Raiser.

Athena auditioned and made it onto the concert choir for the group she sings with and will now be going on a tour this summer (and every summer)! Because she is under 12, I will be going with her. She is really excited to go and I'm happy for her. To raise money for her tour, we decided to sell peanut brittle and see if we could get some help.

To my surprise, things went much better than expected and peanut brittle was just flying off our shelves! I spent almost every day making peanut brittle, packaging it up, and sending her out to sell more candy. Thank you to everyone who supported her as she came knocking at your door! She was delighted with your response and I am so grateful to all of you for helping her to accomplish her goal of paying for her tour. :)

As a result of our little fund raiser, Athena earned enough to pay for her entire tour and now we just need to pay for mine! THANK YOU!!! I really hope you all enjoyed your candy!

Our stats for this year: We sold 76 lbs of candy - went through 26 lbs of peanuts - 16 batches made - and logged more than 40 hours.

Hopefully next year will be just as great as we prepare for her next tour! :)

Snowed In

2010-12-21T15:21:00.000-07:00

These pictures are from last night. It snowed all day long yesterday and by the end of the day, this is how our back deck looked.

Then the snow continued all night long and when Jeremy woke up to get ready for work, we were completely buried. He started shoveling at 6:15 am and was able to finish just the driveway by 7:45 am.

After he took these pictures and came inside, he turned on the news to see what the rest of the valley looked like and it was announced that school was CANCELLED! This is the first time we have ever had school cancelled because of snow. Crazy! I think we've had it much worse than this and still had to go to school - although this was pretty bad too.

I was actually really bummed because today was when all the kids would have their Christmas parties at school! So, instead . . . I spent all morning shovelling the parts Jeremy didn't get to yet. I did the sidewalks, a spot for Max (so he could go potty), and by the time I finished those spots, there was another 5 inches of snow on the driveway that needed shovelling.

I finally finished clearing what I could by about 10:30am and headed off for my primary meeting. Athena and Samantha were so anxious to play outside, so we brought the meeting to my house and we sent the kids outside. :)

Even though it takes A LOT of work to recover from all this snow (and more is coming), I have to say that I really enjoy the sense of community and service that it brings. As I was outside shoveling, all the neighbors were also outside working on their driveways and helping each other to dig out. Anyone who owned a snowblower finished their own work and headed throughout the neighborhood to make sure everyone's driveway was cleaned out.

The snowplow didn't ever make it down our road, but the neighbor's son has a plow on his pickup truck and he went ahead and cleared the road for all of us. Now we really are dreaming of a white Christmas. :)

13 Years with my Honey! :)

2010-12-19T16:20:00.001-07:00

Happy Anniversary!!!

We celebrated our 13th anniversary yesterday, December 18th. :) Who knew 13 years ago that time would pass so quickly and I would find myself here, in a house, mothering 4 kids, and very much in the grind of life.

That said, I am very happy to be exactly where I am right now. I chose to settle down, get married, and find happiness and joy in my family.

This year has passed by so quickly because of all the busy-ness that comes with living the family life. Jeremy is the 2nd counsellor in the Young Men's program and I am the 2nd counsellor in the Primary. I spend a lot of my time helping kids with homework and running back and forth from choir twice a week, dance twice a week, gymnastics, planning and teaching an aerobic pump class, keeping up on housework, and throwing in playtime when I can.

The nice thing in all of that is that we get to spend a lot of time together as a family, and Jeremy is really great about always finding a way for he and I to spend time together.

Now that Athena is finally old enough to babysit, Jeremy and I are able to go out on dates and have some alone time . . . even if that alone time is a little trip to Walmart!

For our anniversary date we kept it really low-key. We went to eat at a less-fancy-than-Jeremy-would-have-wanted restaurant because it was my pick. Then we went to the mall and window shopped WITHOUT KIDS. It was an enjoyable night out just spending time together.

I am happy to have Jeremy as my husband and best friend and glad to say all is well. :)

I LOVE YOU, JEREMY!!!!

Who Drew the Line?

2010-12-17T15:13:00.000-07:00

Gee, I wonder who drew the line to make it "fair".

We have this white board in our family room for the kids to show their creative side and it is fought over often. Well, this was one of those times - and to make it fair - a line was drawn down the "middle" to give everyone equal portions. In case you can't read it, the left side says, "Samantha's side". The right side says, "Nathan and Alex's side".

Happy Birthday Samantha!

2010-12-07T10:49:00.000-07:00

This post is SO LATE! However, I cannot neglect it. We missed Samantha's 9th birthday when we were on our cruise and it was an especially hard day for me. Lucky for her, she was spending time with her loving grandparents (on both sides) and they made it really special for her. She was taken to dinner twice and got to go to the BYU football game.

Jeremy and I came home from our trip 2 days after her birthday and we gave her the big birthday gift she had been waiting for. :) I didn't have it wrapped already and we got home late, so I wrapped it in a blanket for her.

I love the look on her profile in this picture. She wanted a lego castle set and I found this really cool medieval house set for her. She loved it!

All the kids were so happy to have us home and I was happy to see them again! :) It's weird how even after a week, you start to forget your kid's little faces. Even though it was really late, we enjoyed just being together again for a little bit before sending them all to bed. Here is tired, but happy Athena.

Finally he made it home to his couch!

This expression is the best. Doesn't she look so happy to be back with the family? Cute!

The next day, after school, Samantha was so anxious to get started on her birthday gift. She delved right in and I sat down and worked on it with her. Legos are so fun!

Happy Birthday Samantha! I love you!

Mormon Battalion

2010-11-27T20:34:00.003-07:00

Today we visited the Mormon Battalion Museum and became honorary members of the Mormon Battalion! :) We'll have to work on Alexandra's "smile". It took us 4 or 5 tries to get this shot. You can click on this picture to enlarge it and get a better view.

CABO!!!!

2010-11-10T15:26:00.000-07:00

On the day we got to Cabo San Lucas, we decided to try the room service. It came really early, which was fine because we needed to get up and get moving for our busy day. This is me, ready to dig in! I was actually quite disappointed by the room service menu and think I'll not opt for that again. I only liked the fruit and ended up being hungry all morning.

My first look at Cabo was this.

I was disappointed by the surroundings because I didn't really expect it to be desert. On the other hand, the waterfront was so pretty and the weather was perfect! We left the ship early and were tendered to shore on this smaller boat.

Here I am standing on the dock. It's crazy busy with boats!

Jeremy and I wanted to do some quick shopping before we headed out for our tour. We purchased an excursion to kayak across the bay to Lover's Beach and wanted to see the city first.

We ran from place to place to find our last souveniers. :) Jeremy treated me to a beautiful little piece of jewelry in Cabo. We went into a jewelry store because we had a coupon for a free sapphire. Of course nothing is ever "free". They offered to set it for me and I wasn't sure I wanted to do that. After a little haggling, I ended up getting a beautiful sapphire ring with white gold and a matching sapphire pendant! At first I was mad because I didn't go in to purchase those things . . . but now I love them. They are special to me because I got them with Jeremy and he had them specially made for me.

We took a little bit too long on our shopping trip and had to run back to the pier from the shopping district. We took a picture of these guys because they were driving us CRAZY! All along the very long pier were tons of men trying to sell tours and water taxi rides. They pestered, yelled, begged, followed us, and just didn't stop trying to get people to buy their tours. On the way back, when we were running to our tour after shopping, we just held up our tour tickets while we walked. They saw our tickets and didn't say a word to us. We should have done that on the way in!!!

We found our tour guide for the kayaking with not a minute to spare. Then we boarded our water taxi with the rest of our tourist group.

This is a view of our ship as we passed it while on our taxi.

This was our view upon arriving for our tour. Doesn't it look like fun? All the pretty kayaks lined up in a row.

While we were waiting for things to get going, we met some new friends, Justin and Monica. I was having a dilemma because I wanted to bring my camera along, but I didn't have a way to keep it from getting wet. Justin had a baggie, but nowhere to put the cameras. So we put both of our cameras in the baggie to keep them dry and I put them in my snorkelling bag. It worked out well for both of us! I'm glad we were able to bring our camera along because we got some neat pictures. :)

Even though I didn't love the desert landscape of Cabo, I LOVED the beach. Isn't it so pretty? I would come back just for that.

We got in our kayaks and rowed all the way across the bay and around our cruise ship to Lover's Beach. There were so many boats in the water and it was really choppy. I was scared that our kayak would tip over when we went through some of the big wakes, but we managed to stay upright and get a good workout in the process. Before we went to the beach, we first rowed over to where the famous arch is to see it and get some pictures. Again - thankful I had my camera!

Cheesy Jeremy!

As we were kayaking across the bay, I looked in front of us as we cut through the water and about 3 feet in front of us a sea lion popped its head up out of the water. We were going straight for it with our kayak. I couldn't believe how big it was right up close! We kept going forward and it wasn't moving. Right as the tip of our kayak got about a foot away from the sea lion, it dove under the water and right underneath us. SCARY! I was afraid it was going to come up right under us and try to play with our kayak! I didn't see where it went after that, but I got a little more respect for the sea creatures we were sharing the water with.

This is what we looked like in our kayak. Me in front, Jeremy in back, with our snorkel gear tied up at the front.

Here is a closer view of the arch. I really loved that we took kayaks out to see the arch because we were able to be so close and right at that level.

We also kayaked around the rocks to where this sea lion rock is. It was fun to see all the sea lions hanging out there, but wow it stunk so bad!! I wasn't sad to leave this spot.

After viewing the arch and the sea lions, then we turned around and headed towards the famous Lover's Beach.

This is it! It is supposedly very remote because there is no dock and you can only get there by kayak or water taxi. It was very pretty, but didn't seem so remote. There were tons of people here!

The really neat thing about this spot is that you can walk "inland" from the beach, between these huge rock walls, and you come out on the other side that faces the Pacific Ocean. So, Lover's Beach faces the Sea of Cortez, and you walk across the sand to Divorce Beach which faces the Pacific.

This is what the rock walls looked like. It was about a 5 minute walk through VERY hot sand.

This is Divorce Beach . . . and Monica taking a picture.

The waves at this beach were amazing! So impressive. We were told not to swim at this beach and we didn't understand why until we got there. The waves were enormous, they crashed right on the beach, and there was a very strong undertow.

Jeremy wanted me to take a picture of him with a really big wave behind him. He was waiting for a good one so I could snap the perfect photo.

Justin and Monica were doing the same thing - she was trying to get a picture of him with a big wave behind him. Both Jeremy and Justin had their backs turned to the water and were looking at us. This wave came that was twice as tall as both of them and completely wiped them out! Other than the fact that it dragged them both up the beach, it was the funniest thing EVER! I only got this shot before it hit because I ran out to see if Jeremy was OK.

Neither of them were expecting the wave to be SO BIG and since their backs were turned they absolutely didn't see it coming. It swept both of them off their feet at the same time and Monica and I just watched as they plummeted through the water and up the beach. Jeremy's whole suit and hat were full of sand. Even funnier was that when Jeremy stood up, he saw another big wave coming and thought he could just hop over it. He jumped, and when he came down there was more power than he expected and it swept him right off his feet again! LOL! After that he was done with the water.

We stayed and watched the waves as long as we could. Then we had to walk back to Lover's Beach and meet our group. Next was snorkelling. I could have stayed at Divorce Beach and watched the waves for a long time. They truly were amazing.

I don't have any pictures of us snorkelling. We didn't bring along an underwater camera this time. We took a boat over to Pelican Rock where they let us off to snorkel for about 1/2 hour. I think this was some of the best snorkelling we have done. There were so many fish, and so many different kinds of fish! I don't know how deep it was because there were so many fish below us. I thought I was looking at the bottom at first, but then the whole thing shifted and I noticed it was just covered with big silver fish below us.

I did try feeding the fish with some food that the guide gave me. It was fun to have the fish take it right out of my hand. The part that wasn't fun was when a fish that was about 1 1/2 feet long BIT MY HAND!!! At first I didn't realize I got bit. I thought that someone had hit into me hard because the water was really choppy and I was in the middle of a whole bunch of people and a whole bunch of fish. I took my hand out of the water to see why it hurt so bad, didn't see any blood, and just kept on snorkelling. I didn't even realize it was a bite until I got back to the ship and used hand sanitizer. My hand just burned and then all the bite marks showed up. I had 3 little punctures and 2 scrape marks across the palm of my hand. Dumb fish.

When we finished snorkelling we got back on the water taxi and headed to the beach to get our kayaks. I forgot that all I had was fruit for breakfast and hadn't really had time to eat anything all day. When I got off the boat at the beach I was so sick. I thought I was going to throw up, I was super dizzy, and thought I was going to pass out. I hurried over to sit on my kayak and thankfully we had some sugar with us. We have to take sugar wherever we go for Jeremy's diabetes. I downed a bunch of tootsie rolls and some Crystal Lite and took a few minutes to recover. Then we pushed our kayak out into the water and rowed all the way across the bay again to where we started.

Overall it was a WONDERFUL tour and we had a very good time. This picture is of us after the tour, on the water taxi, back to the dock to get on tender boat.

So, we were on the boat with our tour guides on the way back when all of a sudden our boat stopped in the middle of the water. Why did it stop? Because our boat RAN OUT OF GAS!!! Really? Isn't that something you check BEFORE you load it with tourists?

Our guides asked everyone to come to the back of the boat so the gas would pool up in the tank and hopefully reach the engine. They tried and tried to start the engine, but to no avail. Finally they called in another boat to tow us to the gas pumps.

We had to sit and wait while they got their refill, then we took off to the dock where we get off. I took this last picture of Justin and Monica. They were really fun to hang out with for the afternoon and if they lived closer, I'm sure they are friends we would get together with. :)

I took a picture of this pelican just because.

We finally made it back with only about 1/2 hour to spare before we absolutely HAD to be back the cruise ship. We still had a few souveniers we wanted to get, but a lot of our time had been wasted with the whole "we ran out of gas" thing. Jeremy and I ran to the shops, got a few things, and made it just in time to be tendered back to the ship. PHEW!

This picture is for Nathan. A pirate ship!

Once we got back to the ship, we hurried to Deck 11 to watch the famed belly flop contest. I begged Jeremy to enter, but he preferred to watch. I think he would have won. While we were up there and waiting for the contest to begin, we took a few more pictures of the area. This picture is of Lover's Beach from the view of the cruise ship.

Just the 2 of us.

Me, in my new leopard swimsuit coverup.

Finally the contest began. This is the guy that eventually won the contest. :) It was funny to watch the guys trying to make the biggest splash by doing a belly flop.

By the end of the contest (there were several rounds), the finalists bellies were just red as could be. OUCH! I guess it's good Jeremy didn't enter.

We stood on top and watched as the ship left the bay and headed out to sea. What a pretty place!

This is out on the Pacific, looking towards Divorce Beach.

These are the homes up the hillside that faces the Pacific Ocean on the Baja Peninsula.

I tried to take a picture of my fish bite, but it wouldn't show up on the picture.

As we sailed out of Cabo San Lucas, it got really windy. We sat and watched for quite awhile and I actually saw 3 whale spouts! That was so exciting for me! They were surprisingly close to the shore - between the ship and the shore. After sitting out in the wind for awhile and watching us sail away from land, Jeremy and I realized we hadn't really eaten anything all day and were suddenly starving. Dinner was in only an hour, so I told Jeremy I'd go get us an ice cream cone to tide us over and I'd be right back.

I went downstairs and made 2 ice cream cones. Then I came up the stairs to the top deck and the wind hit me really hard. The sides of the ice cream started blowing all over the place - all over the floor and all over me, just leaving the core of the ice cream cone in the middle! It was funny that it didn't just blow the whole top off. I yelled to Jeremy to come help me and he jumped off his lounge chair and came to grab his ice cream cone. We ran to the railing of the ship and bent over trying to hurry and stuff our ice cream cones into our mouths as we fought the wind.

After that fun little adventure, we cleaned up and sat down in our lounge chairs. Not 5 minutes later, I looked back to the stairs at the same place where the wind hit me before and saw a girl walking up the stairs with a plate of food. It was such a joy to watch as she turned the corner and immediately tried to shield her plate from the wind. The first to go was the french fries . . . followed by the top of the sandwich . . . and the kicker was when her blob of tuna salad blew right off her plate and splatted on the floor. She stood there looking at it for just a second, turned, and walked away with her empty plate. It wouldn't have been so satisfying to watch had I not JUST HAD the exact same experience!

After that, Jeremy and I went to our room to get ready for dinner. It was lobster night! Hooray for everyone who likes lobster. I don't give a hoot. I had chicken. Jeremy likes lobster, so he was super excited.

Here is my chicken. It was a lot tastier than it looks.

The cool thing for the lobster eaters was that the waiters would actually come and take out all the meat for you! This is the carnage Jeremy left behind.

Dinner was good, as usual, and we had to be rolled out of the dining room. When we got back to our room, this is what we found. A monkey hanging in our room! (The thing made out of towels.) It was so cute! We left it up there all the next day.

That was our fun day in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. It was a very long, tiring, fun, and eventful day!

Leper?

2010-10-28T14:16:00.000-06:00

Last night I took Athena to dance and Nathan was with me. He and I were waiting in the car when he decided to share some valuable insight with me. He said:

Mom, my teacher told me that if you get a lot of "owies", then your skin will fall off and you get to be a leopard.

Not My Kind of Fun

2010-10-24T15:54:00.000-06:00

On Friday, close to midnight, I was sitting at the bar and Jeremy was sitting at the kitchen table. We were enjoying a bit of free time before going to bed since the kids were all in bed. Max was acting a little weird and was sniffing around the refridgerator. I looked over to see what Max was doing just in time to see a mouse dart out from under the fridge and run right under the pantry door. I did my job and screamed really loud! Ugh!!!! It was so disgusting! So . . . for the next hour and a half, Jeremy's job was to go through the pantry and find the mouse.

We thought it was on the right side of the pantry because there were boxes sitting in the middle of the pantry that I didn't think it would go around. Jeremy and I started emptying all the food and putting it on the table. Then Jeremy got the job of cleaning everything out from the floor. When he had most of the stuff out of the right side, Max got really interested and started looking into the pantry and trying to sniff a little closer. Jeremy thought he had the mouse cornered, and right when he lifted up a box the mouse ran out from under it and over to the left side of the pantry.

I certainly wasn't much of a help because I was so sick to my stomach from seeing the mouse. I really thought I was going to throw up. Jeremy handed me the broom while he pulled stuff out from the pantry and told me to whack at it if it came running out. NO WAY! There is no way I could whack at the mouse! So I gave him the broom back and then he said he would hold the broom while I pulled stuff out. That wasn't going to happen either! So onto the next brilliant idea (at 1:00am). We set up a barricade all around the pantry doors using boxes and filling any empty spaces with plastic grocery bags. That way, if the mouse came running out again it would have nowhere to go. Finally we got down to the last bit of stuff. I had to leave the room because I knew the doom was coming soon. All of a sudden Jeremy started yelling and whacking and yelling and whacking. Then after 3 hard hits he started jumping up and down and whooping and hollering. "GOT IT!!!"

I hope this is the only mouse I have to deal with this year. I've had to clean out all my drawers and wash every linen from the linen drawer in the kitchen. Thankfully Jeremy was able to kill this stupid, pesky mouse without splattering guts all over the place. He did, however, break my broom. It is bent weird in the middle. After the mouse was dead we finished the pantry cleaning project and got every last thing put away and cleaned up by 2:30am. This was a party I would have been happy to miss.

Delicious Fall Treat

2010-10-22T11:45:00.001-06:00

This year I tried my hand at making caramel apples for the first time. I can't believe I didn't do it before! They were SO EASY to make and a huge hit!

I kind of cheated. I used Kraft caramels instead of making my own from scratch. All I did was put about 75 caramel squares (unwrapped of course) into a sauce pan. Then I added some evaporated milk and melted it all down. Whalaa! Then I stuck some craft sticks into my apples and dipped them in the caramel.

I also melted some chocolate chips and added evaporated milk to make the chocolate more spreadable and I put the chocolate over the top of the apples. Jeremy didn't want the chocolate ones, so I made some with chocolate and some without.

It ended up making 10 apples and they lasted us a little more than a week. We had them for our family home evening treat and then for after-school snacks. I'll definitely have to do it again. Maybe next time I'll be more ambitious and try making caramel from scratch.

It's PUMPKIN time!!!

2010-10-19T15:11:00.000-06:00

Each year we take a trip to the pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins and enjoy a night out. This year it was pleasantly warm! We boarded the wagon and waited for it to fill up before the tractor pulled us to the pumpkin patch. Here are the 4 kids all ready to go.

I enjoyed watching Athena and Samantha enjoy being together as sisters. They really do get along well.

We are ready too! Extreme close-up. AAAAAAGH!

This year a few more things were added to the pumpkin patch. In addition to these cutouts that they have each year for pictures, there was also a crate maze and a tractor to sit on. The kids had a blast! Nathan and Alex are the perfect size for these ghosts.

Athena and Samantha opted to sit on the hay bales. :) Then we all ran and chased and played hide-and-seek in the maze for awhile.

Next . . . sitting on the big tractor. Nathan and Alexandra were a bit nervous sitting on top, but they stopped whining long enough for me to take this picture.

Here is another cute sister picture. Ok, so they fought too about not having enough room on the seat and who gets to hold the wheel, but it all worked out.

This is the other cut-out available for pictures. That pumpkin on the end really freaks me out.

When it was finally time to go hunt for pumpkins everyone was so excited! Here is Alex racing to find the perfect one.

I think Nathan was the most picky this year. He went through 7 or 8 pumpkins before I finally just said, "You know what . . . just PICK one! You will never know the difference between this one and that one when we get home."

LOL . . . Athena and Samantha are stalking their prey.

When all was said and done, everyone ended up with a pumpkin. My rule is that you have to be able to carry out your own pumpkin. As you can see, all pumpkins are carried! Mostly it's a selfish rule because I don't want the job of carrying 5 pumpkins around for the evening. It does tend to keep the pumpkin sizes in check, so it works!

I decided to get one too this year. I want to try baking it and using it for cooking. We'll see if I end up being so ambitious.

After all the pumpkins were picked, we boarded the wagon and took a ride back to the barn for ice cream. Sorry, Jeremy, for the awful picture of you. I picked this because the kids all looked so cute.

Overall this was a good pumpkin experience and I think the kids had a good time. We ate ice cream at the end and that turned into a battlefield because Nathan kept bugging his sisters and then several of them got into trouble, but I guess that's life, right? So I'll say . . . the pumpkin part of this experience was WONDERFUL - especially that the weather was so cooperative. I didn't take any pictures of the ice cream part because who wants to remember that? Except that my ice cream was pumpkin pie and it was SO GOOD! So, I'll remember to get that again.