We hit the bigtime!

10 years ago this was us. Wow! It has been a great ten years. An exciting ten years, and a stressful ten years. I am so grateful for this man that is my rock and my best friend. He is amazing.


Happy Anniversary honey! Love you!

Rachel's birthday went off without a hitch. Thank heavens. She enjoyed the day by spending a portion of it at a party for her two little friends in the neighborhood that share her same birthday. She had a ball and then got to come home and do her chores before her family party. No vacations at our house!!!

Here is her cake. My BFF Shannon showed me how to do fondant and so I made Rachel a "big girl" cake since she is 9 now. I thought it turned out great and what's more important is that Rachel LOVED it!

with all her "loot" ( I made her magnet board for her room- she was more excited for that I think that she was to get her ears pierced!!)

Blowing out the candles!

Want to get in on a FABULOUS birthday giveaway?? Go on over to Would You Feel Better If I Licked Your Face? and leave a birthday wish comment for Her Royal Highness and you will be entered in to a drawing to win some yummy scent thingies! I was so excited to learn that her birthday and my cute Rachel's are the same day, so of course I HAD to enter her contest!!

Happy Birthday HRH! Hope you had a great day!!!

Happy Birthday Rachel !

Happy Birthday sweet Rachel! I can't believe you are 9 years old! WOW!! You are becoming quite the young lady and we love you!

You've come along way from the first time we saw you......

....to now. Love your guts Rachey !!

♥, Mommy

I am not smarter than a 4th grader

4th graders all over the state of Utah participate in a program after they have successfully learned all about Utah and its 29 counties. I didn't even know that Utah HAD 29 counties. Of course I am not a native Utahn (or however you spell that...). I am an Idahoan. And we do not do this GINORMOUS project as measly 4th graders. I learned about Idaho history and the counties when I was in 7th grade. I remember it distinctly because it was Mr. Losser's class and he did not like me.

Anyway, so Meghan has been learning all these great things all year long. Back in the fall a note came home saying that Meghan had chosen Millard County as the county that she would do her report on. We wished that she had chosen Juab County since that is where grandma and grandpa live, but you can't tell a 4th grader what to do. Or so we have learned anyway...

The crappy thing about this whole undertaking is how much time it involves! (1) There is a written report that the students do at school. (2) There is a brochure that the student needs to make at home. (3) There is a float -once again at home. (4) A county product...at home... (5) And last but not least, a county fair entry type item- Meghan learned how to make Chocolate Zuchini Bread since she didn't finish the cross stitch project that she was also learning. (TOO much learning!!!!)

That's 5 things!! Meghan could have done this for a Personal Progress project since I know it was well over 10 flippin' hours that we spent with her fighting her, cajoling her, threatening her, making her cry, and doing it for her to basically get the stinking thing done! What the heck!!

In the end though, she claims she learned a lot. Great. Mission accomplished. This seriously makes me dread 5th grade though. That's the year they do the State reports!!

*Here are some pictures of her projects and from the cute LONG program that the 4th graders put on for the parents. Meghan had the part of a pioneer. She was too cute. She sang in a little group for one of the songs and was part of the rythymic instruments (or something like that) for another song. We are so proud of her!!


Meghan's float which showcased a popsicle stick Territorial Statehouse.
Meghan's brochure on Millard County and her county product which was supposed to be fossil beds and a trilobite being dug.

Meghan sitting at her desk after the program ready to answer anyone's questions about Millard County. Supposedly she is now an "expert". :]

Habitat

The last month has been insanely crazy around our house with me getting used to the new calling and all the time away from the family for mutual and meetings and whatnot. Like last Sunday I was gone from 8:30 am til 6:00 pm. It was nuts! Mike had a week long trip in the middle of all of that and Meghan and Rachel both had their huge big projects for their grades to get done. Meghan is in 4th grade this year which is the County Report year and it has been a doozy! It was due yesterday and the program is tonight. More on that later.

Rachel is in 3rd grade which is when they learn about habitats and have to do a diorama or habitat biome. Rachel chose Rainforest. Thank heavens! Last year Meghan chose Arctic/Tundra and it was hard! Rainforest was much easier! Today was the Habitat Tour. All the parents (and grandparents) were invited to walk from room to room and view all of the habitat boxes the kids had created. It was great fun!

Disney on Ice

was indeed a "Magical Journey". About two months ago a postcard came in the mail telling about the latest installment of Disney on Ice that would be coming to Salt Lake. It gave a code on it and said to use that when ordering tickets and they would only be $10 instead of $30-$50. I showed it to Mike and he jumped right on it and ordered them for us. We kept it a secret from the kids, which was VERY hard to do, and Thursday night we rode Frontrunner down to Salt Lake to eat and "do something fun". That's what we told the kids. As we walked into Energy Solutions Arena it was so funny to see them looking around trying to figure out what we were doing there. Jenny asked me if we were going to see the Jazz play, and Meghan asked me if we were there to see a High School Musical show or something. I laughed and then they saw all the Flounder hats and figured out that is was Disney on Ice. Jenny had this big smile on her face the ENTIRE time! *Enjoying their $10 popcorn!!

The hosts of KSL's Studio 5 opened the show and welcomed everyone. That was kind of cool.

This part was at the end of the show right before the Peter Pan segment.

Lilo and Stitch. I have to admit that this was my favorite segment of the whole show.

The Little Mermaid part. Rachel LOVED this part and was all gaga at the end when Prince Eric kisses Ariel!

This was at the very beginning. Apparently I can not put pictures on Blogger in the correct order. Anyway, it was the Disney characters introducing the theme....that they were going to go on a "Magical Journey".

It was a fun night even though we got home at 10:30. Sidney stayed home with a babysitter and that was nice because we didn't have to fight her when she got sleepy. It was bad enough that we had to fight Meghan the grouch!

I finally got around to downloading all 300+ pictures on my camera from the last couple of weeks. WOW! So on February 28th, Mike's youngest sister Deanna got married. It was a beautiful ceremony and it was great to get together once again and visit with everyone. Deanna waa beautiful bride, and her and Justin's kids were so adorable!

New calling...

I can now officially announce that the "exciting news" or "big changes" I spoke of a couple of weeks ago is that....I have been called to be our ward's Young Women President. It's gonna be nuts! There are 42 young women in our ward and 17 of them are Laurels (ages 16 and 17).

I am super excited and ready to just get in their and get 'r' done!