Oops I did it again.

Well I did it again folks. I had high aspirations of actually "catching up" on the blog over Christmas break.

ahem...

However, since my camera is in residence at my in-laws house...those updates won't be happening anytime soon.

I can't figure out how this is affecting me getting the laundry done, but apparently it has far reaching capabilities.

oh well...that's my life!

Something to think about...

I don't know about anyone else, but this Christmas season has been particularly difficult. Not only have members of my own family (extended) passed on and left painful holes that can't be filled, but members of my ward family have too passed on and their loss is felt as well. It is hard to understand and I'm not sure that we even can. It just makes it even more poignant that an email my mom sent out to all my siblings and I about 3 weeks ago stayed in my inbox and I read it over and over and over. Why? Because I needed to. I want to share it with all of you. She said that she found this little poem tacked up on the bulletin board at church.

See? Heavenly Father does hear and answer prayers!


I asked for Strength, and God gave me Difficulties to make me strong.
I asked for Wisdom, and God gave me Problems to solve.
I asked for Prosperity, and God gave me Brain and Brawn to work.
I asked for Courage, and God gave me Danger to overcome.
I asked for Love, and God gave me Troubled people to help.
I asked for Favors, and God gave me Opportunities.
I received nothing I wanted, I received everything I needed!

Love you all! Have a merry Holiday season. Remember the true reason for this season. Share your testimony and love of the Savior with those around you.

forgot to post...

...when it happened. Life gets away from me sometimes. :)

The Thursday before General Conference, Mike had his mission reunion. Well, that isn't remarkable, you may be thinking. Let me continue...
It was the 20th anniversary of his mission. No lie. He is that old. His mission president and wife
are so great! I mean, really they are. I don't feel instant connections with just everyone, but I totally did the instant I met them 8 years ago. For instance, President Earl and his wife just got back from serving a mission in Peru (again) but this time working on the Perpetual Education Fund. During his time there, he tracked down every, yes EVERY, missionary that served during their time. He knows which ones are dead, which ones are inactive, went through the temple with sons of others as they prepared for their own missions. He said jokingly at the mission reunion that he "got" access to church records that even general authorities don't have access to so that he could find all of his missionaries.
In January, he and Sister Earl are heading over to Spain to be the MTC president there. How cool is that?

Mike and I with the Earls

Mike with one of his only two North American companions, Blake Nelson

And Mike with the other companion, Greg Taylor

while they were off track Part 3 - Halloween

I ♥ Halloween! It is definitely one of my Favs! The kids had fun dressing up and this year I got into it a little more than usual. Pretty sure I freaked them all out in the process, but what the heck...I'm only young once. And technically I am not really that anymore.
I was Punk...in case you could not tell.

My uber cute kiddos all dressed up and ready to go!

With the Bankheads...we take a group shot of our kids together every year and have done this for as long as we have been friends. It's a tradition that they all look forward to.

Funniest thing ever...this year Jonathan wanted to be an Army Guy so we got his costume all ready for him. Never once did I even ask Shannon what her boys were going to be and then when they got to our house to take the picture together, and lo and behold...Brody and Porter were dressed as Army Guys too! It was awesome!

Rachel was a candy corn.


Jonathan was an Army Guy and Jenny was a Bunch of Grapes.


Meghan was a wall. We got this costume from a neighbor about 3 years ago after her daughter used it and were just waiting for Meghan to be able to fit in it. She was still a little short and had a hard time walking in it, but it was a simple fun costume.

And Sidney was a kitty cat. She kept saying "meow". :)

while they were off track Part 2 - Swine Flu

On Thursday of our Disneyland trip I started to feel yucky. Not enough that I needed to stay at the hotel and just leave Mike alone with the kids all day, just enough that I was ornery. (Mike would say "what's new about that?"...he is such a smart aleck!)

Anyway, Friday was even worse and so we called it an early night and headed back to the hotel. Mike did dinner with the kids by himself and I fell asleep in the room. Saturday morning was full of rush rush rush so that we could get all packed and to the airport on time. I felt HORRIBLE! All I could think was "just make it home and then you can die...just make it home and then you can die". For real.

Sunday I didn't go to church because I had no voice. No lie. My kids love it when I have no voice. Apparently it's quieter or something something. I don't know.

Finally on Monday I had the chance to go to the doctor and get a giant q-tip shoved up to my brain. THAT is a very pleasant experience and don't let anyone tell you different. That stupid test said NEGATORY! no swine flu, but I knew better. I am a mom, my gut just tells me these things. Sometimes.
The nice doctor gave me an antibiotic anyway and within a day I was feeling better.

And then Wednesday Sidney started coughing. Nothing is worse than a little one that feels crummy and can't tell what hurts so they just cry. Mike took her in to the after hours clinic while I was at Mutual and she tested positive for H1N1. So, basically...I DID have it, I just missed the window for it to show positive on the swab. Dang! It might have actually felt worth it somehow had it been positive. oh well.

It was a rough week and a half for us. I think Meghan got a mild case too, but since there isn't anything that can be done (really) we just sanitized as best we could and tried not to cough or spit on each other.

At least it didn't last too long. That is the silver lining in all this. That and the fact that at least 3 of us have an immunity to the virus now.

"while they were off track" Part 1- DISNEYLAND

We LOVE Disneyland. Who doesn't? Well, I am sure there are some people that don't, but I must say that it is one of the places that I think we could be at everyday and be very happy.

So, the kids were off track and we planned our family vacation for October. It's hard to go during the summer because of year-round school. It rained the first couple of days that we were there, but honestly that didn't stop us at all! We just kept on going! Besides, the rain wasn't hard, just more of a drizzle and we were warm enough with just our jackets on. We walked onto rides. Seriously. We love going in October for that reason. It is still nice-ish weather and not busy like during the summer or Christmas time.

We did a day at Knott's Berry Farms too. That was super fun for the big girls because they could go on some bigger roller coasters. Jonathan and Sidney had a ball in "Camp Snoopy" which is the kids rides section of the park. And yes, the park has a Peanuts (Charlie Brown and Snoopy) theme to it. We even got to see Snoopy and the kids liked that!

Jonathan was much braver this trip and tried most every ride. He even went on Space Mountain! He was freaked out when they got off of it and claims he will "never ride it again until he is 13", but whatever...at least he tried it once. I was just glad we didn't have a repeat of last time when he cried and screamed before every ride asking if it was scary. That stunk! Sidney was a trooper and officially has a favorite ride called the Carousel. She loved it and wanted to go on it all day long or at least anytime we passed by it. Jenny and Meghan and Rachel all had a ball, just like we knew they would! They were all tall enough to go on every ride and that was fun for them.

New things I tried this time around that worked really well:
1. Instead of having a "general snack bag" that everyone could get something from when we had snack breaks like I have done before...I made a ziploc with each person's name on it. Every morning I put in it a variety of snacks. Then the kids could choose how they wanted to use up their snacks. They could eat them all before noon and have nothing else the rest of the day, or they could space them out. Also, there was no complaining that "she got a fruit snack and I didn't" or whatever. Everyone had the same types of things and if they ate all the good stuff and didn't save it for later, then that was their problem.
2. Everyone took the same amount of money to spend. No one got to take any more than anyone else even if they had more. I think this helped cut down on arguments between kids too.
3. Our hotel rocked! I can't take credit for that one, it was all Mike, but it was fabulous! We ate breakfast and dinner at the hotel restaurant and ALL the kids ate free. How wonderful is that? Plus, it was pretty good food.

And now...here are some highlight pictures of our trip!!

Mother-Daughter Activity Days dinner

Last night was the Mother and Daughter activity days dinner. It was fun! We got to eat yummy soups and then the Moms got to dress their daughters up in "modest" dresses using tissue paper, tablecloths, crepe paper, pipe cleaners, tape and staples. Oh my it was a hoot! I had three daughters to dress, but was able to recruit some help for one of them. (Thanks Linda) And I was even able to make HATS for them to wear with their dresses because every lady needs a fashionable hat to wear too.

PAINTING during CONFERENCE

We didn't really paint DURING conference. And some of us didn't even paint. Just Mike and Lorin did the actual work. We merely supervised. It was fun!! For General Conference weekend, my little sister and her hubby came down to stay with us and help us paint some stuff. On Friday night Mike took Lorin with him to the BYU vs. Utah State game. They had fun. Andi and I talked and did crafts.

On Saturday morning the boys started priming the walls and painting and Andi and I went shopping for beads to make more watch bands.

On Saturday afternoon Andi and I made the watch bands while the boys painted.
When they went to the Priesthood session, we went to Roberts Crafts to look for fun crafty stuff.

Are you noticing a theme here??

It was a much needed remodel, but one that Mike is quick to point out, that could've waited but aren't we glad we didn't! All the walls in our upstairs are an off-white color and we added some color to them. We painted the dining room a sage green color and painted the main wall in our living room a dark red. I love it!!

Here is Lorin priming in the dining room

Mike and his shadow as he painted in the living room

Sidney would sit in the space on the back of the piano to watch the action

Mike taping around the windows in the dining room....and making faces too!

Lorin and Mike painting in the living room

Dining Room--- BEFORE

Dining Room---AFTER

Living Room Wall---BEFORE

Living Room Wall----AFTER

First ever piano recital

Rachel

Meghan

Meghan and Rachel have been taking piano for a year and a half now and they were so excited when their piano teacher announced that she would be doing a piano recital. She has 7 students from 4 different families and so the recital was tons of fun because we are all from the same neighborhood and ward. She does a really good job teaching the girls and letting them learn fun songs that they actually WANT to practice. They each played two songs and did a Fabulous job!!

Jonathan's birthday

I missed doing a feel-good post about how cute Jonathan was as a baby and showing his baby pictures and whatnot, and I almost forgot that I didn't even post yet about how he celebrated his birthday, so today I got my butt in gear and did it. There you go. That was a long run-on sentence, sorry.

So because Jonathan is turning 6 and he started Kindergarten this year, he got a cake in the shape of a School bus. Yes, I amaze myself too with my craftiness. It's just all...so...amazing. He really liked it, so it was all good.

Blowing out his 6 candles!!

Woah! It's a new bike. And its so big! (apparently too big because he couldn't even ride it. We took it back to the store the next day and got him his New new bike.)

Oh yeah, I terrorize the neighborhood in style now!

Queen of the ROCK!

So the Beehives and the Laurels combined a couple weeks ago to go on a short hike at Antelope Island. It was fun. Thankfully it was not that hard of a hike. Because really, I am not that much of a hiker. :)

We all had fun and I was even brave and climbed up on this rock to pose for a picture with some of the Beehives. You have to understand that I am afraid of heights. Like bigtime. I fell 3 feet off of a monkey bar when I was in first grade and broke my arm and that did it for me. This rock was probably like 15 or more feet high. I had to use handholds and footholds and Alli (one of my awesome Laurels that rock climbs) talked me up it. It felt great when I got to the top! This was my hooray cheer!!

Jenny got baptized!

Our sweet Jenny was baptized on September 5th. She is getting so big I can hardly stand it! She had an amazing day and was so happy to have family and friends there to celebrate with her.

Jonathan's First Day of school

He's been going for a few weeks now, but I am slow getting these pics on the blog. Oops! Jonathan is officially a Kindergartener! He started school one week after the girls started. He loves his teacher...she seriously Rocks! And he has two friends from the neighborhood in his class so he has fun daily. Sometimes too much fun since I have already gotten some notes from his teacher....

I can't believe he is getting so big!!

Future Falcettes 2009

The girls did Future Falcettes again this year. They really enjoy it. They get to go learn the moves to a dance every night for one hour for 4 days and then on the 5th day (the Friday night) they perform their routine along with the Falcettes (Drill Team) at half-time of the football game. It was super fun!

And since I am Young Women's President, it was also a treat for me because our ward had 5 Falcette members on it. That's right, 5! Three Laurels and 2 Mia Maids. They are adorable girls and I am glad that they are good role models for my daughters!!

Jonathan and the broken toe

Well, these posts will be sadly out of order, but I can't help it. Life is insane and I can't keep up.

3 weeks ago Mike was installing an outlet on the end of our kitchen bar and Jonathan was his little shadow watching it all happen. All of the sudden the battery fell off of Mike's drill and right onto poor Jonathan's toe. He goes screeching across the living room in shock and I chase after him yelling "what happened?" Finally I was able to grab him up and look down and saw that his toe was already 3 times its normal size. Broke indeed. So we kept an eye on it and when it looked worse the next day I took him in to the Doctor and they x-rayed it (which was pretty cool to a 5 year old) and told us how to buddy tape it and give it time to heal.

Yeah right. He is 5 after all and keeping him calm enough for something to heal is next to impossible. It is doing better though and the Doctor thinks it will be fine in the long run. It's not like it is his big toe or anything. It is his 4th toe (so the one next to the pinkie toe) and doesn't really affect walking or running.
So, you can't really tell since this isn't a great picture (taken with my phone), but it is purple and swollen. This is about 1 week post breakage.

First Day of school

Really. They need to stop growing up! I am not sure I can handle this!! No really, it's okay. I know they love their time away from mean old mom while they are at school and learning. And I am okay with that.

At least this summer they got a sortof vacation. In between going off for summer break and going back on we got 5 weeks break. Some of the tracks only had 2 weeks!