Thursday, December 09, 2010

SURPRISE!....Again!

I have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to surprise Greg at Christmas. A couple years ago I wrote a post about the fact that I tried unsuccessfully to surprise Greg with a popcorn machine for Christmas (you can read about it here).
Well, once again Greg has somehow managed to discover a surprise well before it was supposed to be revealed. Greg has been talking excitedly about the upcoming release of TRON, the Disney sequel to the movie from the early eighties. It is not a movie I would typically choose to see, so he wasn't convinced that we would ever see it in the theater, but has mentioned that it would be really neat to see it at the IMAX theater in 3D.
So, this morning, I decided that it would be the perfect stocking stuffer to grab a couple of tickets online and plan a date where we could go watch it.
Greg was at work, and I sat down at the computer to order the tickets. I got to the payment page and ran upstairs to get my wallet. By the time I got back the computer had timed out & I had to log back in. I thought it was surprising that it had locked me out so quickly since it took me less than a minute to grab my wallet, but I didn't give it much thought. I ordered the tickets, and started back upstairs to call my mom to make an excuse so Greg didn't make any plans for the date & time of the movie. As I walked up the stairs the phone started to ring & it was none other than Greg apologizing for logging in to a virtual desktop of the very computer I had been using to get tickets at the very moment I was on the purchase page.
We both burst out into laughter that he would choose that moment to log in because he hasn't logged in remotely from outside our house for a VERY long time.
Well, at least I don't have to worry about Greg double booking something for the same day now!

Sunday, November 07, 2010

Romantic Mystery

We went out to dinner last night as the kids received their report cards and did very well. Sarah was incredibly pleased as she got "Straight Threes" - which for those unfamiliar with the grading scale is getting perfect marks in each area. One of the girls favorite places to go is a local Chinese restaurant. They love it for the wontons they serve as appetizers, their choice of soup, and of course the fortune cookies. The picture above is taken shortly after Ellie had finished her dinner and cracked open her fortune cookie. Words can't accurately express, well, the words on the paper so I had Greg snap a picture of it as well:

She exclaimed to Greg: "I think I got your fortune" and then proceeded to steal his unopened cookie. Becca then agreed with Ellie and stated that I was in fact the "Romantic Mystery" for her dad.

Friday, September 03, 2010

Kristy's Shower



I need to preface this post by saying that all these pictures were stolen from Haylee's blog...and I didn't even ask!

Last Saturday I got to throw a shower for my sweet sister-in-law, Kristy... who is due in less than two weeks (and I just can't wait!)
We kept the shower small so we could invite the little girls, who are all waiting on pins and needles to meet their new cousin.

I had so much fun with the decorations for this shower...Kristy's nursery is so darling I thought it would be a fun way to decorate. Her nursery is bright pink damask & polka-dots, with accents of chartreuse green. SO CUTE! I also knew (after seeing them hanging at our fav. book store "All Tucked In") that Kristy was a fan of the giant pom poms, so I decided to try my hand at making a few:On the counter, I put pink polka-dot cupcake candles in a row because Kristy is our cupcake favorite! For lunch, we had Lemon-Tarragon-Chicken-Pasta Salad, sourdough rolls, watermelon & kiwi, and fruit tarts (with the optional pb&j homemade uncrustable for the little ones).
The centerpiece was a diaper cake complete with a wrist-rattle topper (which ended up looking surprisingly similar to Haylee's wedding cake), and I was pleasantly surprised with how it turned out & how easy it was...I won't mention the fact that I cheated & used cake forms in the middle!

Since our family isn't big on shower games, I tried to keep it pretty simple (or at least simple for me). I asked Haylee to gather baby pictures of everyone who was coming to the shower & then I copied & reduced them to fit in some white frames. I tried to take a picture, but my lighting wasn't very good & I had a terrible glare...so I'll just have to describe it. I went to D.I. and picked up all of their fifty cent frames. Then I took out the glass & spray painted all of them antique white, put the pictures back in the frames, backed them with green striped, pink damask, and pink polka-dot scrapbook paper, then inserted all the little baby pictures and arranged them on my fireplace. Everyone had darling baby pictures, although Aunt Kathy's picture was by far the most memorable! :) (she told me that she would bring a cute picture next time she comes).

If only you could see that picture up close!
Kim, Jenna and Maddie guessing Who's Who!
Haylee, Sarah & Becca as the shower was starting.
Mom, Kristy & Haylee with the left-over diapers from the diaper cake.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Welcome Back!





Well, the summer has officially come to an end. Our summer was packed with fun...boating, swimming, hiking, playing, celebrating birthdays and holidays, reading, relaxing and watching the squirrels in our backyard. It was also filled with a fair share of naughtiness...Rachel cutting her hair (to the scalp in back), someone putting a baby outfit on my nightstand lamp & burning it just before I was supposed to go to a baby shower, a honey slip & slide (or should I say Stick-Not-Slide) and a waterfall/pool from the faucet being left on in the kitchen as well.
But, we are now back on track for a full school-year of fun. Sarah started kindergarten yesterday, and she was in seventh heaven. Her report after a full two hours (it was early out) lasted very nearly two hours, and was filled with exclamations of "and there's more!...and that's not all!"
Becca and Ellie both had a great first day as well, and were thrilled to be back in school.

Friday, July 09, 2010

Greg's Birthday

The girls were very excited for Greg's birthday this year, so we decided to make him a banner. I had a roll of BIG paper in the basement and so we made the poster about 5 feet by 25 feet. I was very smart and didn't put it up until two minutes before Greg got home because it only lasted about five minutes before it was blown up on the roof & torn to pieces.

Greg got himself a couple of fun gifts including a new back-lit keyboard, and I surprised him with the game "Life" (which he had seen at my sister's house & was reminiscing about how much he enjoyed playing it as a kid).

All I know is that I am sure grateful for him & think the world of him!

Sunday, July 04, 2010

Happy Birthday Becca & Happy 4th of July




Becca turned nine last week. We had a perfect "summer day" birthday. She started the morning going to grandma's house for a sewing lesson with her cousins, played with her birthday presents (that she opened at breakfast) then we had the grandparents over for dinner before going swimming.
Becca wanted Hawaiian Haystacks for dinner & decorated her own birthday cake (flip flops) after watching an hour of cake decorating videos. She received a cake decorating kit from her grandparents & used it for two hours the next morning practicing everything from star tip to basket weave. She also got a Zhu Zhu pet which has been a hit around our house this last week (it's a hamster that runs around its house and makes little squeaky noises).

Yesterday we started our Independence Day celebrations with the annual trip to Aunt Charlene's breakfast. It was great to see the extended family, as always. We then went swimming at Grandpa's house, and had lunch back at our house where Lego Guitar Hero played a prominent role in our entertainment. We ended the day by watching fireworks at the park and as Greg said, "Maybe we should keep our kids up late every night just so they will go to bed this well every day!"

Today Becca and Sarah are both giving talks in Primary & I'm doing Sharing Time, so I had better make sure everything is ready, but I hope everyone is having a wonderful Fourth of July weekend.

Friday, June 11, 2010

Mount Rushmore and Martin's Cove




We just got back from a wonderful vacation to Martin's Cove and then Mount Rushmore. I have to start by thanking Emily for the FABULOUS pioneer clothes my girls wore. The missionaries up at the Visitor's Center were snapping pictures as fast as they could & we thought they looked pretty cute, too!
We felt extremely lucky to have beautiful weather up there. It rained only when we were in the tent or in the car & it was not even very windy for the better part of our trip.
We left our house Sunday afternoon, and drove to Rawlins where we stayed in a hotel that happily had a suite big enough to fit our family. We were very pleased that we didn't have to wake up at 4:00 on Monday morning to pack the car and get on the road...not to mention the fact that our girls love to sleep in hotels.
Monday we slept in, had breakfast at the hotel, got cleaned up and picked up some Subway sandwiches before heading up to Martin's cove. I had thought that it would be fun to play travel bingo on the way up, but there was really NOTHING to see (other than an old school bus and a few cows) so the girls just watched a movie.
After setting up camp and eating lunch, we drove back to the visitor's center where we went on a tour, watched a video and had an orientation and picked up our handcarts. I was glad that we had taken our equipment to the campground earlier because it enabled us to pull our girls along instead. The walk back to camp made me grateful that Ellie was not born a pioneer...I don't think I've ever heard her say "I'm tired" so many times :) but she was a trooper & walked most of the way back to camp.
The trail was far enough from the road that it felt very authentic walking along with nothing in sight but the mountains, Sweet Water River, antelope, bunnies and snakes.
I think my girls especially realized exactly what it meant to be a pioneer (Rachel couldn't believe there wasn't a potty anywhere).
The next morning, after a noisy night of wind and rain (but being extremely grateful for a warm, waterproof tent) we walked up to Dan Jones & Martin's coves. The feeling in the coves was very special, and again, we felt grateful to have the chance to be there. We had a wonderful lunch provided by the ward, and then felt fortunate to be able to reenact the "Valley-Boys Rescue" crossing the Sweet water (the river was 18 inches higher the previous day & they didn't think we would be able to do it) and then we had the women's pull. By the time we finally walked into camp that afternoon, Rachel and Sarah considered it home & ran to play in the sand by the campfire.
That night the weather was a little more quiet & we were able to sleep a little bit better. We packed up camp the next morning and then drove half way to Mt. Rushmore after breakfast. We found a hotel & showered and cleaned up before driving the rest of the way to the monument. The girls enjoyed seeing both Mt. Rushmore & Crazy Horse & Greg indulged my "car game addiction" by driving around the parking lot to find as many license plates as we could (we found more than 40 states plus Washington D.C. and Ontario).

We then spent a little time in the tourist town Keystone before driving back to the hotel. On the drive home we experienced a rainstorm like I never have in my life. There was constant lightning (not 2 seconds went by that the sky was dark) and we very nearly had to just pull over and wait it out a few times because of our lack of visibility.
Thursday morning, we checked out of the hotel & made the long drive home. The girls did really well in the car for so long, but we are all very excited to be home.

Friday, May 21, 2010

All is Well

Our next door neighbor passed away last Friday, so we have had a rather emotional week. He was like another grandpa to my girls...he let them help plant and harvest his garden, came over regularly for pizza and movies with Greg and the girls when I was at Mutual, took us to the Church Museum, had us over for barbecues, let the girls not just see, but run his amazing model train setup in his basement, let the girls feed the fish in his aquarium, had combined family home evenings with our family, helped us with our yard (and pulled countless loads to the dump in his truck and trailer, which always included a trip to Paces for rainbows on the way home), attended Becca's Baptism, and just loved us like family.
We were so fortunate to be able to have some of the grandkids come to our house to play when the kids came to visit/help, and it was a real blessing for us to be able to be of service to their family in some small way.
Yesterday was the funeral and we let our kids come with us. There are few funerals outside of family that I would take the girls to see, but this was one exception.
The funeral was very nice. All of the children spoke & the oldest grandchild from each of his children briefly told their favorite memories of their grandpa. I think my favorite quote from one of the granddaughters was, "even though my grandpa only had one arm, that didn't stop him from giving great hugs."

Our former Stake President (under whom he served) also spoke. He read the section of President Eyring's talk that spoke about my neighbor, prefacing it with "I know if President Eyring could be here, he would."

I don't think I can express any better than President Eyring what a great man he was, so to close this post, here is the quote from General Conference that had to do with my neighbor:

This is the Lord’s Church. He called us and trusted us even in the weaknesses He knew we had. He knew the trials we would face. By faithful service and through His Atonement, we can come to want what He wants and be what we must be to bless those we serve for Him. As we serve Him long enough and with diligence, we will be changed. We can become ever more like Him.

I have seen evidence of that miracle in the lives of His servants. I saw it a few weeks ago in the living room of a faithful priesthood holder.

I had known him as a deacon, a father, a bishop, and a member of a stake presidency. I had observed for decades his diligence in serving God’s children with his priesthood.

His family was gathered around him in his living room. He was smiling, dressed in a white shirt, suit, and tie. I was surprised, since I was there because I had been told that he was in the midst of painful medical treatments that had not yet cured him.

Yet he had greeted me as he must have greeted hundreds of other visitors over a lifetime of priesthood service, smiling. I had come to help him in the trials he faced, but as so often happens in priesthood service, I was helped and I learned.

We sat and chatted pleasantly. He told me how his father had tended to my mother as she approached death. I had not known that. I realized then that he had learned as a boy from his diligent priesthood father how to give succor. That thought made me grateful for the times I had taken my little boys with me on priesthood visits to comfort and bless.

After a few minutes, he asked quietly, “Would it be appropriate to ask if you could give me a blessing?” His former stake president, with whom he had served for years, anointed his head with oil consecrated by the power of the Melchizedek Priesthood.

As I sealed the blessing, I was taught by the Holy Ghost at least part of what the Lord had already done for this faithful priesthood holder. He was clean, his sins washed away. His nature had been changed to want what the Savior wanted. He had no fear of death. The desire of his heart was to live to give service to his family and to others of Heavenly Father’s children who needed him.

I walked out into the night grateful to have witnessed the Lord’s kindness to His unfailingly diligent priesthood servants. He changes their hearts to want what He wants and to act as He would act.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Mother's Day Review


On Thursday, Ellie had a Mother's Day program at the school. Me being the slow-thinking person I am didn't register the fact that all the videos I was taking were "portrait" instead of "landscape" (Oops!) until half way through the last song. So here is a glimpse of the program with the camera being rotated half way through. Oh well!



On Sunday I told Greg I felt like I had had an entire "Mother's Weekend" rather than just one day. Greg had Friday off, and we were able to get my mom some flowers, and run errands together. Saturday, Greg spent the entire day in the yard getting it ready for spring. It was a great gift!

Sunday morning I woke up early & decided to take a leisurely bath & read a book. When I was finished, Greg made breakfast & helped me get all the girls ready for church. We were able to visit all the mothers and grandmothers and had a yummy dinner (and I didn't have to cook anything!) and I couldn't be more pleased with the wonderful day!

Sunday, May 02, 2010

Dance Recital

Ellie and Sarah had their first dance recital last night. It was SO cute. Sarah was a cute cowgirl and Ellie was a darling dutch girl. I took video of the dress rehearsal since I was on the front row. Sarah did even better on the night of the performance (and her cute teacher was back stage instead of right in front of the camera) but this gives a good idea of what we watched.


Sarah's dance:

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

My Future Chef

This morning I decided to make myself some split pea soup for lunch. It is one of my favorite meals and the only reason I don't have it more often is that I don't usually plan my lunches far enough in advance to start the peas simmering. But this morning I did. I checked on the peas about 30 minutes ago and decided to check my email & let them soften a tiny bit longer before eating them, but when I came upstairs I discovered an odd smell.
I opened the lid to the soup and saw flecks in it and asked Sarah if she had put something in the soup.
"Yep. I added marshmallows and a bunch of stuff from the cupboards."
Sadly, it wasn't salvageable, but I am happy to see that another generation of creative cooking has already begun.

Friday, April 23, 2010

A little Catching Up

I mentioned earlier that I had some pictures of Easter and the "Met-i-tay-shun" Sarah and her friend did, and so here are the pictures. the meditation pictures crack me up because we were all riding bikes when the neighbors' granddaughter came to play. I was watching everyone ride bikes and the next thing I knew she had climbed up on our mailbox and was saying "ah-omm." Sarah thought it was pretty cool and joined suit, and I had to take some pictures.


Happy Birthday Rachel

Rachel turned three yesterday. It is hard to believe how quickly she is growing up. She is such a sweet girl; she continually melts our hearts.
Rachel started her morning with the statement "I'm the Birthday Girl!" and happily told everyone we met during the day that she was "Three...Not two anymore!"
Sarah had dance yesterday morning, so Rachel and I went shopping along Main Street & ended up at one of my favorite shops, "All Tucked In." The front of their store is very cute, so we took some pictures before going in to shop.She was very excited to go inside (she loves playing with their alphabet blocks and kitchen).

After dance class, I told Rachel she could choose whatever she wanted for lunch. Her excited reply? "YOGURT STOP!" Yep, of all the things she could choose for lunch she wanted frozen yogurt.
I told her that we could get yogurt after lunch, so she settled on a trip to Arctic Circle where she had a great time playing on the toys, and even managed to eat a few bites of lunch.

After lunch, we went home and were able to blow bubbles outside. Rachel wanted a bubble party & it was snowing in the morning, so I was grateful for the warmer weather preventing bubbles from being all over my kitchen floor.
Rachel requested Ramen for dinner originally, but changed her mind to quesadillas around dinner time (both options were perfectly awesome to me), and then we had "gumball machine" cake and ice cream with the family.


Rachel had so much fun...I think 3 is my favorite birthday. Everything was so magical for her. She loved her water-paints, bike, cookies, candies, balloons, and water-bottle almost as much as she loved getting a gumball from the cake :)
We are so grateful to have Rachel in our family. She is such a sweetheart. I now need to close because Rachel has been riding her bike all morning and I just can't stand to miss watching her!

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Some People's Children

Today during Sacrament meeting (during the Sacrament, no less) I saw something fly through the air and land with a thunk on the bench in front of us. I must confess to less than charitable thoughts toward the parents of whatever youth let something that large fly through the air.
Imagine my surprise when the woman in front of us turned around to give back a pink popper (the half of a rubber ball things that you flip inside out, set them on a smooth surface and they "pop" and fly through the air) that Becca got from school this week.
I turned to her and asked if she brought it to church and she said, "Not on purpose." Nice.

Then, as the meeting was coming to a close, Greg saw Ellie building something out of hymn books and Sarah's sandals (which she cannot seem to keep on her feet to save her life). He didn't think much of it until he saw her drop another hymn book on the stack and launch Sarah's shoes. Fortunately she didn't apply much force to her catapult and the shoes stayed within the pew (Ha-shoes in a "pew").

So, if anyone would like to come see our three ring circus, just sit close to us during Sacrament meeting. I have stopped packing a lot of distractions for my kids thinking that they were old enough to sit and pay attention, but perhaps I need to rethink my stance.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Cream Cheese Penguins

I have so many updates to stick on here...Easter Dress pictures, pictures of Sarah and a friend "Met-i-tating" I just need to get the camera. But for now, I had to show this picture of cream cheese penguins. Seriously, how fun would they be at Christmas or for a kids' party.

Wednesday, April 07, 2010

And All that Jazz


We took the girls to their first Jazz game last night. As you can see from the picture, we were up in the rafters, but the girls had a really good time & the game was very exciting (the Jazz won by one point in overtime). Rachel's favorite part of the game was seeing the Jazz Bear and the "Bumble Bee!" who was there reminding us to get our baseball tickets for this season. Sarah's favorite thing was the popcorn, Ellie enjoyed seeing Ronald McDonald and cleaning out her coat pockets (she found three feathers, two rocks, a piece of bark, and a valentine among other treasures that I couldn't identify), and Becca actually liked watching the game.
We left during the fourth quarter because Rachel and Sarah were getting tired, we parked three blocks away and Rachel was starting to complain about the noise & I knew it was only going to get louder the longer we stayed.
I have to consider the night a success because when I posted the picture Rachel said, "Hey, it's the football game at the Planetarium! Where's the Bee? Can we go see him again?"

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Highlights

Things have been pretty busy around here...in the ward we have had three funerals in less than two weeks, we had a flood at the elementary school (Becca's classroom is being totally redone), we had a very green St. Patrick's day complete with shamrock waffles & green syrup for breakfast green mac and cheese (not appealing...be grateful there was not a picture) and split pea soup for dinner.
We have watched Matthew for a couple days while Haylee is in the Philippines (my mom has watched him most of the time), today we had a Primary activity, we have started working in the yard on the days that it isn't covered in snow, and life keeps moving forward.

My favorite thing that has happened this week involved Sarah. I have been cleaning her room for her a lot more than I would like, so after she turned five I cleaned out her whole room...under the bed, in the playhouse, went through all her clothes, and cleaned out all her toys, and it looked great. I told her that now that she is five she is big enough to clean her own room. I told her that if she would just clean up her toys as soon as she was finished with them and put her dirty clothes in the hamper each night that her room would stay nice and clean.
Every morning I reminded her to make sure her room was clean & for the most part she was pretty good about getting it cleaned up...or so I thought.
After about a week I went to do her laundry and she didn't have very many items in her hamper, so I waited a few more days. Pretty soon Sarah's room started to smell pretty bad, and there were quite a few toys and dress-up clothes on her floor so I told Sarah to go clean it up. I came up a few minutes later and saw that she had shoved some of the things that were out under her bed. I was surprised that she would try to convince me her room was clean without at least putting them ALL the way under so I couldn't see the mess. I bent down to pull out the things that were sticking out from under the dust ruffle and had to catch my breath.
Under Sarah's queen sized bed there wasn't room for a Polly Pocket shoe. That child had shoved the last week's worth of mess under there. It probably took almost thirty minutes just to remove everything she put under there (I made her crawl under the bed to get it all out).
As she pulled the assorted treasures out from the bed I started to pick them up, and it wasn't until she finally finished that I wished I had waited to start cleaning so I could have had visual proof about how much stuff she was able to fit in there.
I did, however, figure out the stinky smell...Sarah had shoved 3 wet diapers under her bed. (I had asked her to take them out to the garbage).
So far she hasn't tried shoving anything else back under the bed which is good because if she does, she may very well be sleeping in a sleeping bag until she's 18. :)

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

I like to ride my bicycle

Greg and I got new bikes and we have been spending every sunny minute over at the church with the girls totally enjoying ourselves. Somehow we only got pictures of half the family & it is mostly the half that is behind the camera (yes, Rachel is often behind the camera & I get to hit delete on fifty to one hundred pictures regularly).Can you tell that Rachel thinks she is SO BIG?!
Rare Heather footage
Greg lookin' great!

Friday, March 05, 2010

Sarah's Birthday

Sarah turned five yesterday & we had a day of celebrating. She started the morning by putting on her fanciest dress-up and crown for a breakfast of crepes and juice.
Then, she changed into her favorite dance clothes for her creative dance class, where Miss Sarah (her teacher) gave her a birthday balloon and let her go first for all the activities since it was her birthday.
After dance we went to McDonald's where she climbed and played for almost two hours taking about two bites of hamburger during that time (thanks for keeping me company Haylee & Leslie).
When we got home from the golden arches, there was a gift from Sarah's Primary teacher waiting at the door with the nicest card...it made Sarah's day.
After three hours of exercise Sarah was pretty tired, so she sat on the couch with the gummy bears Haylee gave her and watched Tinkerbell with Rachel.
Just as Tinkerbell ended, Bryan came over and we all made chocolate chip cookies (because we just don't have enough treats on a birthday....OK because I know that making a treat will always make Bryan want to stay here instead of telling us that he's going to 'head home').
Then Bryan snuggled all of us on the couch while we watched Enchanted.
While Bryan was here the weather turned from a beautiful spring day (we went to dance & McDonalds in short sleeves & no coats) to a full-blown blizzard ( It is still snowing this morning & we went from no snow to about 8 inches overnight...not as much as some winter storms, but it's a pretty heavy dump for March).
Look out the window and you can see the beginning of the storm...
Despite the change in weather, we had a great time with a pizza and fruit snack dinner (Sarah's request) visits to and from grandparents, birthday cake, and then we topped of the evening by going to the rec center for a family swimming party.

For the last month or so Sarah has been upset that no friends would be invited for her birthday this year, but when I asked her if she had a good time she told me that it was the best day of her life, so I think we can call the day a success.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Gung Hay Fat Choi

Or, Happy (Chinese) New Year!
I told Haylee that Ellie was having a little Chinese New Year parade today, and she called me at 9:30 asking if everything was OK. I told her I was great, to which she asked, "Then why didn't you come to Ellie's parade?"
OOPS! With the recital last night I completely forgot. Happily, Ellie was able to get support from her aunt & didn't even ask where the rest of her family was.
And Haylee was kind enough to take video and pictures of the (very short) event, so I didn't end up missing it after all!
THANKS HAYLEE!

Becca's First Recital

Last night we went to Becca's first piano recital. She did a great job performing "Climb Every Mountain," "I Am a Child of God" and "Bingo." She asked me to accompany her duets (which is beyond my comprehension since I am such a lousy pianist), but decided to go solo for "Climb Every Mountain"...which really had the prettiest accompaniment. Oh well!
She did just GREAT on everything, though, and received flowers and frozen yogurt for her efforts.
What a sweetheart she is!

Happy Holidays!

We have had a very fun week full of celebration. Valentine's Day seemed to last an entire weekend. We made Valentine's boxes...Ellie wanted a purse and Becca requested a giant "love bug" (which I think we may repeat for future years). I didn't take a picture of Becca's, but it turned out cute. I just wrapped a shoe box with a black garbage bag, put a giant heart on top like wings, put little black hearts on the wings for spots, added googly-eyes, antennae and a smile and presto! a love bug.
For Ellie's purse, I just covered a cereal-sized box with different valentine's paper, took an extra piece of cardboard to make a flap, took two little magnets to 'button' it & put her name in big letters on the front.
I went to the school to help with Ellie's party, and it was very fun. They played "kiss the frog" (pin the tail on the donkey) with lip shaped stickers and a giant frog mylar balloon, made little 'love bugs' had goodies, and read stories.
That night we decorated sugar cookies, and had a little Valentine 'camp-out' in the front room, where we read stories & snuggled in sleeping bags.
Sunday we had heart-shaped waffles, and went to Grandma's house after church for more cookie & cousin fun.
Monday, the girls had school off for President's day, so we decided to have an All-American dinner complete with flag-shaped jello (blueberries, strawberries & cool-whip). For FHE we talked about agency, and choosing the right & included the story of George Washington and the cherry tree. Then we let the girls build their own banana split complete with G.W.'s cherries on top.
It was certainly a fun holiday weekend!

Monday, February 08, 2010

The Gospel's True & I love you!


For anyone who wants to read a little bit about where I came from, here is a link to a little post my cousin wrote about my Great Grandma & Grandpa. Grandpa died when I was only 2 1/2, but I still remember swinging with him on the back porch & playing with wind-up toys with him in the pond behind his house. Grandma Bert & Grandpa G-G-Pa were truly amazing people! Here is the link to her post:
http://areasonofhope.blogspot.com/2010/02/gospels-true-and-i-love-you-legacy.html

It's a Major Award!

Nope, no leg lamps at our house, but we were pretty proud to discover that Becca won the "Crowned Jewel Award" at Valley View (also known as the Student of the Week)...which entitled her to a free burger from Burger King, and a special certificate from the principal. She has been working so hard this year and is such a sweetheart! At her parent teacher conference, her teacher paid her great compliments & said she is a joy to have in class...and we sure love her!

Ellie's Berry Special Day



Ellie turned seven on Friday, and wanted to have a "Strawberry" party. Not a Strawberry Shortcake Party, just a Strawberry party...so we did & it was very fun.
We started the party by making "baskets" to hold all of their strawberries (we just decorated brown lunch sacks with stickers & crayons). Then, we played some "berry" fun games. We played fruit Twister (each color was a different fruit...strawberry, lemon slice, green apple, and blueberry), Fruit Pictionary, pin the leaves on the strawberry, and a Strawberry toss (my mom made strawberry shaped bean bags, and they had to toss them into a basket). As prizes, the girls received one of the bean bags, strawberry suckers (I frosted heart shaped suckers to look like strawberries) and strawberry play-doh (those turned out REALLY cute...I made pink play-doh with glitter & added strawberry kool-ade so they smelled like strawberries, shaped them like a strawberry, put them in a disposable pastry bag (and the corner of some sandwich bags when I ran out), and tied the top with green ribbon to make them look like strawberries).

We painted flower pots, planted strawberry plants & had strawberry manicures & pedicures..here is a picture of one of the manicures after painting the flower pot :)
ate cake & ice cream, and opened presents

...and Ellie thought it was the best day EVER.

Friday, January 29, 2010

Another Day Another Adventure

I know I haven't posted for a while, but this adventure should hopefully make up for my negligence over the past week or two.

This week I put up bead-board wallpaper in my kitchen. I LOVE it. Before we moved in, there was wallpaper in the kitchen & then someone removed it & painted the walls without taking care of the glue first & it just looked bad. I didn't want to deal with sanding and puttying, so I have been looking for another option & when I saw this wallpaper online it seemed too good to be true, but it really looks just like bead-board. You can even putty, caulk, and paint it.
I put the paper up on Monday and haven't had a chance to do the finishing touches so there were a couple of little corners that were peeling up a little bit.
That gives the background for today's adventure...so please be patient as it all comes together.
Tonight for dinner we had Chinese food. I set the table with a black tablecloth, red placemats, white dishes with Chinese calligraphy stuck to the bottom of some clear glass bowls, and put some Chinese art in the middle of the table as a centerpiece. It looked pretty cute (I thought) and provided the atmosphere of learning for my girls.
We talked a little bit about Chinese New Year coming up in a couple weeks and Sarah started asking me questions like:
Sarah: "Mom, How do people in China eat?"
Me: They use chopsticks
Sarah: How do they drink?
Me: Just like we do.
Sarah: How do they walk?
Me: Just like we do.
Sarah: How do they get dressed?
Me: Just like we do. Sarah, people in China are just like us. They don't have blonde hair and blue eyes like you do; they look more like Mulan, and SilverMist (Tinkerbell's fairy friend)
Sarah: Is Tinkerbell Chinese, too?
Me: Nope. I don't know where she's from.
Sarah: Oh, But how do people in China..........
It went on like that for a while.

After dinner I was doing the dishes when water started coming down through the ceiling. Rachel has been potty training this week (CAN I JUST SAY WOO HOO!) and she tried flushing an entire roll of toilet paper down...obviously without success.
As I was running up the stairs to take control of the situation, I slipped on a piece of "extra" wallpaper that I somehow had forgotten to throw away over the last four days bringing us back to the beginning of the post. Because what I slipped on was not actually "extra" wallpaper, it was a small piece of the series of paper Rachel had peeled where the edges weren't stuck down all the way.
For anyone who sees Rachel, she does have a nasty conk on her forehead, but I promise it was unintentional, and self inflicted...She slid on the Tang powder that she had dumped in the kitchen and hit the corner of the wall. The poor kid. Really it was probably a blessing in disguise because it is a lot harder to get mad at a child staring up at you with a giant goose egg.
So that is it for my day today.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Like Father Like Daughter

I didn't get to hear any "Zap Zap" sound effects last night, but Rachel did wake me up with a blood curdling scream in the middle of the night. I thought she had split her head open & ran into her room where she was standing on her bed, and when I asked her what was wrong she whispered "Spiders!" The poor girl was shaking like a leaf & I spent the next hour snuggling her in her bed, then when I thought I was carefully sneaking into my bed turned around to see Rachel climbing up after me where we snuggled for another hour.
By that time she was feeling much better & she woke up this morning happy as a clam. She made me "clean her bed" last night, and seems to be doing much better now!

Monday, January 18, 2010

My Poor House

I'm afraid that my house may not survive my calling. Every time I go to clean something...OK, maybe not EVERY time, but frequently when I start cleaning things I get interrupted with Primary things. This usually involves me sending an email, making a phone call, looking up information etc. and my house gets neglected time and time again.
Not to mention the fact that my post-interruption motivation for getting started cleaning is usually next to nil.
I will try to clean again as soon as I finish sending a couple of emails, but I have a feeling something else might just crop up before I can get to those dishes...or that laundry...or the straightening...or vacuuming (you get the idea)

Friday, January 15, 2010

Happy Birthday Dad!


I just have to wish my dad a HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I am so grateful to have such a wonderful dad! He is so much fun to talk to, and he is a GREAT grandpa to my girls...seriously, how many people allow themselves to be turned into a toilet paper mummy for the entertainment of five little girls? We all love him & wish him a Wonderful Day!
LOVE YOU DAD!

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Winners!

I got a call from the girls' school today to tell me that Ellie was a finalist for Reflections, but I didn't hear anything about Becca. Happily, when I got to the school assembly, I discovered that both of them actually won in their different categories. I was so proud of them! I will take pictures of them with their entries as soon as they get them back...they didn't hand them back today. Becca entered in photography. She found the letters in the word "BEAUTY" in different objects in our backyard, and Ellie entered in literature and wrote a free-verse poem that was REALLY good (in my completely unbiased opinion).
Hooray for happy days!

Saturday, January 09, 2010

Super Greg

I was just cleaning out under my bed and came across a note I had written in the middle of the night about a month ago (yes, it has been that long since I cleaned out under my bed). It took me a minute to remember why I had written it, then I started laughing out loud.
Greg regularly saves the world at night, and sometimes talks in his sleep , so I get to be a part of it. One night, at about two in the morning, he yelled "GET UP!" I asked him "Why! What's wrong?" To which he replied "We're Grounding Out! ZAP! ZAP! ZAP!"
Well, I was up for another hour thanks to the adrenaline rush, but at least I was laughing thanks to the "ZAP! ZAP!" sound effects.