Sunday Photo: 46

The attempt to take our Sunday photo in front of the Christmas tree turned into a wresting match.  

It should be no surprise that this happened.  

We are raising a handful of five little monkeys.  

At least they are cute.

Busy week behind us, busier week ahead.

What a wonderful time of year.

Sunday Photo: 45

We woke up to snow!  It's not too much but it still made everyone excited.

One night this week Avery and I were trying to teach Lucy to say "cute, but trouble."  

The boys then thought they would be clever and shortened it.  They taught Lucy to say 

"Cute butt"

And then they taught her to stick out her bum and slap her hip. 

Oh man. 

These kids.

Busy, thankful week ahead.

Happy thanksgiving!

Sunday Photo: 44

This month on Facebook I've been posting something I'm thankful for every day.  Friday as I was running, I found myself trying to narrow down my list for my post.  Then the thought came to me...that is just silly!  You should not narrow down a thankful list.  I posted a list of items that day.  Pretty important ones:  like diet coke, chocolate and target.  But one thing that kept coming to my mind, that I didn't list on Facebook that day was how thankful I am for my parents.  

Because honestly, somethings are just too big for a Facebook status.  They deserve their own blog post.  (Not that chocolate, diet coke and target don't deserve that...but you get my drift....)

There are days.  

Many, many days (ok...pretty much every day)

I am completely overwhelmed with gratitude towards my parents.  

I don't know where I would be without their example and love in my life.  They are my best friends.  They listen to me....And I talk a lot. I talk to them weekly.  Sometimes daily.  I've made it a goal to get them to move here....are you reading this dad?

I know it's a long shot to get them to move here.  They love the beach.  They love working on the family farm.  They love serving the people in their area.  Don't try to even attempt to call them when it's a church food delivery truck day.  They are too busy helping organize and help get orders out to those families in need.

Maybe I'll convince them to move to Utah someday.  But probably not. Like I said... A long shot.

My parents are awesome.  They don't judge me.  They offer opinions and guidance.  And they support Wade and I when we make decisions for our family....even if they might not be decisions they would have made. They've offered us really good advice and counseling this past couple years as we figured out our crazy life.

They really are the best.  I'd like to grow up someday to be like them. 

And then there's this guy.  My father in law.  My heart really overflows with gratitude when I think of him. He has opened his doors and home to us.  And we have scattered it with Legos, laughter and toddler tantrums. 

But I've never heard him complain.

He is patient with the kids.  He totally puts up with their shenanigans.  Just this morning I got these pictures.  He was watching the news when one by one they all made their way to hang out on his big bed to watch with him. I think in the long run they ended up ditching the news channel and ended up watching cartoons.

One of the hardest things about losing my awesome mother in law a year and half a go was that my kids are young and will not remember her.  She was amazing.  The other grandkids got to build a special relationship with her.  They all have memories of her.  I think Gage will be lucky to remember her.  We sacrificed a lot moving away for school and training.  And that was our choice.  But it still is hard sometimes when I think about it.

But these kids WILL know their grandpa.  And this time living here has been such a blessing.  The girls love him. The boys think he is cool.  Noah filled out a poster for star of the week at school this month and he put down everyone he lived with.  He made sure it listed Grandpa.  He said he thinks that is awesome.

I am so thankful for Wade's dad.  He works hard.  He hardly ever stops.  He is always busy and never bored.  He tries so hard to always do what's right for his kids and grandkids.  He worries about them all so much.  He is a great example and I am so blessed to have him in our life.  My life just wouldn't be the same without our late night ice cream snacks.

~~

Seriously, we have the best parents.  And I think every day just how blessed we are.  It's more than luck.  It's a blessing.  There are times, when I just sit back and marvel at our families and how blessed we are to come from them.  I just don't think there are words that can adequately express my feelings.

~~~

To end on a completely different note and tone...Mr. Noah is getting baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints soon!  He is pretty excited about this.  But, he is not excited about me taking his picture to make some sort of an announcement.  So today before church I attempted to get a couple fun shots of him.  He was a jumping maniac.  The boy has energy.  And then some more.  and more.

And when he sat down with my phone to look at them he thought this one was the BEST.  He said he wants me to print it out BIG and put it in a frame so everyone can see it.

because this is exactly in his words.....

"Look mom...I have no head!!!"

yep.  

it's a great shot.  

I'll make sure I blow that one up really big and frame it buddy.

Happy Sunday.

{Sister's Weekend 2014}

This past weekend was one of my favorite weekends of the year, the time we get together with my mom, sisters and sister's in law and have Sister's Weekend!  We do this once a year and it is always a fun time where we eat too much, drink too much Diet Coke, laugh a lot, shop a lot and it always ends too soon.

(Here are a couple other posts of some of the first sisters's weekends we've had:  2010 and 2008, We've come a long way, still love diet coke though!)

We are all scattered across the country- Washington, New Mexico, Wyoming, Colorado, Tennessee...and of course, the two coolest sisters live in Utah.

This year we had it in downtown Salt Lake City.  

Not very far for Kathy and I, but it was still fun..and we didn't have to take any kids.

Thursday night Anne, Jenny and my mom flew in.  We went to eat with my nephew Tyler and then came back to the hotel where we giggled.  

We took a lot of selfies this trip.

Friday morning we woke up early and got our running in.  We are kind nuts.  Sleeping in consists of waking up at 7 for most of us.  The majority of us were awake and working out by 5, or 5:30 every morning.

But like I said...we like to eat.  So we like to work out :)

Friday we went to lunch and shopped.  We picked up Karen and Suzanne from the airport.  We had dinner and watched a play at Desert Star.  It was a pretty good show, and there was a fantastic edition of the University of Utah fight song at the end. Go Utes!

After the show we had cheesecake from Kneaders.  The best treat ever.

Saturday morning, after "sleeping in" to 5:30 and getting our running done for the day we took selfies in the hotel room with a timer app.

We made mom do a bunch of silly poses.  She thought we were silly, but she is the one responsible for all of us.  We are pretty glad she puts up with us..and that she makes sure we have these sister's weekends.  She is the best mom!

Then we decided to take a picture of what really goes on:

lots of diet coke, phones, magazines, and chocolate

We walked over to temple square and went to the top of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building just for fun. 

And we shopped some more at City Creek before eating lunch and then heading back to the airport to drop off Suzanne.

I felt like we did do a lot of shuttling back and forth from the airport.  I wish everyone could haves stayed a little bit longer.  Saturday afternoon Kathy and I went to a running store and everyone else took naps/visited at the hotel.  Then we ate dinner at The Red Iguana. Wade told us to try it and it was SO good.  Most of the places we ate all weekend were deli/soup/sandwich places..but I would totally go back to the Red Iguana.

Saturday night I went to the Salt Lake Temple with my oldest sister Anne.  Then we took Karen and Anne to the airport, and we watched the Utah/Oregon game.  (Don't think we are weird for watching football on Sister's weekend. We've done that before too!)  It could have been a much better game.

Then Sunday we said goodbye to Mom and Jenny, the last ones left and everyone headed home.

It was such a whirlwind trip.  And such a good time. I came home and found out that Lucy had been really sick and running a fever and throwing up all weekend long.  Every time I had texted Wade he had said everyone was doing fine, the little stink.  He said he knows I would have come home.  And I probably would have.  Poor Lucy is still on the mend.  Wade gets super big bonus points for taking off work and watching all the kids...and double-extra-quadruple points for taking care of a sick/throw up baby the whole time too.  He is Super-Dad!

~~~

AND just for fun....

Some of the most memorable quotes we wrote down Saturday night from this weekend:

"I call summer a success if I don't have to put on a swim suit"

"Now that we've finished lunch, let's talk about what we are doing for dinner"

"How much diet coke do we have left?  We need to buy some more"

"When do we need to go to the airport?"

"Have you ever thought about putting rogaine on your eyebrows?"

"I'm married to Mina now"

"How many deli sandwich places can we eat at?"

"This watermelon looks funny"  "That's because it's grapefruit"

"Did that guy just drop the football?  I think Oregon just scored"

~~~

Thanks again Mom for the fantastic weekend.  

I am so blessed to have such a great mom and great sisters in my life.

It is a privilege to be a part of this family.

Can't wait until next time.

(I better start stocking up on Diet Coke now!)

Sunday Photo: 43

Today was the primary program at church.  Which also means someone was sick.  Someone is sick every single year since we had kids old enough to be in a primary program.  Lucy was the poor girl today.  She's been pretty sick for the past three days (and I've been oblivious at sister's weekend with my family because superstar Wade took care of everyone and sick Lucy and always told me everyone was great and fine anytime I texted him).  Wade says the primary program is totally a "mom thing" so he said I can't miss it and he stayed home with Lucy.  Let me tell you...he is racking up bonus points left and right!

(In case you are wondering...the  primary program is a yearly program when the kids do the church service and sing songs and talk about everything they've learned that year.  If you ever want to come to church with me, you should...anytime...but this is also one of the best days to visit!)

Gage was a stud today.  He had a short talk to give and did a fabulous job.  He looked up at the audience, used expression and looked so grown up.  He said he watched me during one song and saw me happy crying and smiling. Which made him feel good.

Noah was so worried he didn't memorize his part.  I guess I was total slacker mom this year.  But I kept telling him he could read his part from the script.  He was so anxious about this.  The script was there and he did a fabulous job reading his part.  I spied him dancing around in the back row during the song "God Gave Me A Family"

Avery is the bossy big sister in charge.  She marched up front and sat so reverently in the front row.  She sang each song with gusto.  When Eli needed to use the bathroom I watched her lead him out and in just like a little mama.  She said her favorite part was all the songs but her legs were very tired at the end.

Eli.  Eli, Eli, Eli.  Well.  Today was his first primary program and Wade said he was sad to miss that.  Eli is a HAM!  This kid cracked me up the whole time.  He was doing a fake sycronized swimming routine with the divider on the stage.  He would disappear below and then pop up with his arms in the air.  He would make faces and "swim". Then there was the time I heard a huge crash and saw Eli jump up from the floor, take a look at the bishopric and the counselors and run across the stage to his teacher and jump in her lap.  I asked one of the counselors for the scoop after the meeting: Eli was jumping up and down on his chair so much that the folding chair folded in on him.  The counselor got smacked in the knee in the process (sorry!!) and Eli jumped up and ran off.  He stayed right next to his teacher or Avery the rest of the meeting.  But man...if could see this kids facial expressions.  He was cracking me up left and right.  He was making faces at people in the audience and waving at me any chance he got.  He was SO funny!  You couldn't understand what he even said for his part.  But this kid was hilliarious.  He said today was awesome.  I loved it.

~~~

 These kids are amazing. 

Singing, 

dancing in the back row, 

reciting their talk, 

or even the

synchronized swimming while jumping off chairs. 

They filled my heart today.  

Yes, I cried a few happy tears.

Because I'm a big cry baby, 

and honestly, there is nothing like a testimony of a child.  

Nothing.

{Teamwork!}

This year Gage decided to enter the PTA Reflections Program.  He has never really wanted to do this before, but his teacher also said that she would make the class cupcakes if they all entered it, and Gage loves cupcakes, so he really wanted to do it.  Cupcakes make great motivation.

Gage really wanted to make a movie.  We have a lego movie making app on the ipad that the kids love playing around with.  So during fall break I had him write out an outline and script. I showed him how to add sound effects, but then he did the whole thing himself.

The Reflections Program theme this year was "The World Would Be a Better Place If..."

I think he did a great job.  It's such a clever little video.  

The Reflections Ceremony was last night and Gage won an award for this movie!  

I believe he gets to move on now in the competition!

What a great job Gage!  

We all love TEAMWORK!

{two!}

Sassy-pants Lucy May is two!

It seems like yesterday Lucy was born. These past two years have flown by in a blink of an eye.

Lucy is such a fun girl.  Although she looks like two is serious business in the picture below. Ha!

Lucy loves her dad.  She is always yelling "Dad!  Dad!"  The other day Gage, Lucy and I were at the grocery store and Lucy kept looking up at the ceiling and yelling "dad!?  Dad!?"  When dad wouldn't appear she would the yell for "Wo-ah?! (Noah). Woah!?"  Gage and I were giggling and giggling at this.  It was like she thought they would appear out of thin air.

Lucy loves her brothers: "age" "woah" and e-i". But she adores her sister.  She is always following Avery around and trying to do anything that Avery does.  She learns so much from Avery.  I am so glad that they have a sister.

Lucy loves her blanket and her baby owl. We had to get her the giant owl for her birthday today. We also got her a bubbleblower and it was a huge hit! She has stood by the bubble blower clapping her hands all day long.  Tonight we opened presents and she got a couple new outfits from Grandma and Granpa and Aunts and Uncles.  Each new outfit she would open and hold up the pants and exclaim, "pants!  Yay!"  So funny.  What a silly girl!

Lucy is starting to say all kinds of words.  Her vocabulary grows daily!  The other day she was saying "shut" over and over as she walked around the house and shut all the doors.

Lucy with her new giant owl:

Lucy gives the BEST hugs.  I am not even kidding.  She wraps her arms around your neck and just gives the best hugs.  If you are having a bad day, a hug from Lucy will cheer you up.  There is nothing like it.  She always says "good hugs" too as she hugs you.

Lucy loves to eat meat.  We call her our little carnivore.  She loves ham and chicken and beef and hot dogs.  Sausage is the way to her heart.  (Maybe not so good for her heart? Ha!  Her little heart has already been through so much!) She can't handle real milk and has to drink lactose free, but she loves cheese and is always asking for more cheese.  She loves apple juice.  

Lucy loves to sing "Let it go!"  She loves the movies Frozen, Tangled and she really loves the minions from Despicable Me.  She loves Sky from Paw Patrol and she also loves Bubble Guppies.  She loves to play with blocks and trains.  She loves to carry around babies and take care of them.  She likes to "cook" in her play kitchen.  She loves to help me in the real kitchen all the time.

Lucy is such a fun girl.  We are so happy she is part of our family.  We always knew she needed to be here.  She makes the perfect little caboose.

We are so proud of little Lucy May and happy she is two!

{eight!}

Today Noah turns eight years old!

Noah is a such a funny boy to have around.  He likes to tell jokes and get us all laughing.  He loved to play video games and play outside.  He loves playing with his friends.  He loves legos and cars.  

He really loves to eat and is very particular about what foods he likes.  He loves fried chicken legs, egg rolls, homemade mac and cheese, and cheesecake.

Noah is very good at not complaining about his medicine.  He takes it every day and reminds us if we forget.  He doesn't complain even though he says it tastes gross.  We are going to start tapering him off this medication and he is excited and nervous at the same time for this idea.

Noah is a good friend. He likes to look out for people.  A couple weeks ago he told me about a friend who was having trouble on the play ground with some other kids bothering him.  So Noah told me he was going to spend his next day protecting and defending his friends.  (I had remind him as long as he doesn't hit or yell at anyone this might be ok...but the best thing might be to talk to a recess guard!). He was so passionate about this!

Noah is really good at school.  He hardly tries and does really well.  He never procrastinates his homework.  He gets good behavior reports and seems to learn a lot.  But he is such a grump about school.  He likes his teacher, (we love her, I think she is perfect for him). He likes his friends and class.  He just says it is so long and I think it just makes him so hungry and tired.

Noah is so excited to be eight!  He will be baptized next month and he cannot wait.

He had a "friend" party last year and we try to do friend parties only every other year, but last week he just kept telling me it wasn't fair because he we had barely moved here and he only had one friend come.  He wanted a party, so last minute I put together a birthday party last week.  Saturday we had a handful of boys over for a Lego party and everyone had a great time.  Noah had a great time.  It was so loud and rowdy, but I love these silly boys.  

Noah really loves video games.  Really.  He will do just about anything to get to play for the tiniest time.  Like these birthday pictures...he takes these he could turn on his new game....We got him a new Lego video game for his birthday today.  He was pretty excited about that.  We also had birthday dinner for Noah and Lucy at Noah's favorite pick: IHop.  These kids eat like crazy every time we go there!

Some of Noah's favorites this year are:

Favorite food: chicken legs, egg rolls, cheesecake, homemade mac and cheese

Favorite drink: root beer, orange soda, diet coke (totally my son!)

Favorite song: Star Wars and anything fast and wild

Favorite subject: lunch

Favorite book: the very hungry caterpillar and FableHaven 

Favorite thing to do: play video games

Favorite video game: Lego Star Wars

Friends: Gage, Brendan, David and lots of boys

Favorite movie: Star Wars

Favorite restruant: IHop 

Favorite color: orange

We are so happy to have Noah in our family.  He is such a character and we can't imagine our family without him.  He love Noah!  We can't believe he is eight!

Sunday Photo: 42

Tonight we had our traditional pumpkin smashing party.

It's a silly tradition we love that lasts about 3.2 seconds.

Because really -  anytime you can make a tradition out of smashing stuff it ends well, right?

Tonight I am thankful for my family and our silly traditions.

Like pumpkin smashing and documenting our Sunday photos.

{October in the books}

I read 8 books in October.  I started the month really wanting to finish 9, and I'm a third of the way through with a different book, but this last week life just got super busy and overwhelming and I just couldn't finish it. The end of the year is almost here!

Goose Girl, Shannon Hale

I re-read this book.  I looked it up on my book blog and can't believe it's been 7 years since I read it the first time.  I love Shannon Hale and this series.  They are magical and great books for any teen girls (or older!) to read and love. I hope to re-read the other Bayern books soon.

The Running Dream, Wendelin Van Draanen

I picked up this book at the library and I had no idea how much I would love it!  It's a story about a teen, Jessica, who loves to run and tragically loses her leg in an accident.  Learning to live and maybe even run again...this story tells if and how she does it. It was such a great book! I hard such a hard time thinking this was a piece of fitcion, the characters were very real to me.  I think if you love the book "Wonder" you would love this book...and if you love running or not you would love this book.

Timmy Failure, Mistakes Wete Made, Stephan Partis

Our school book fair was this month.  This was one the librarian told me was good.  She said the principle read it and thought it was pretty funny.  I figured it was worth a shot.  It was SO funny!  Hilarious. I think my boys would love this series.  This might be something going on their Christmas list (without them knowing)

Love, Ruby Lavendar, Deborah Wiles

Another book fair find.  I read Each Little Bird that Sings by Deborah Wiles years ago and loved it.  I knew I would love this book.  Ruby's grandmother goes to Hawaii and Ruby has to learn to get through summer without her.  She makes new friends and learns new things.  It's a fun little story and I think I'll be adding more Deborah Wiles books to my reading list soon.

The Anybodies, N.E. Bode

A good friend let me borrow this book, she has a bunch on her reading list for me to borrow actually!  I thought this was a fun and cute story.  I think there are even more books making this a series.  I'll have to look for them at the library.

The House at Rose Creek, Jenny Proctor

This book was recommended on my amazon page and it was a good book.  It's LDS romantic fiction.  It's also has a conversion story and a little family history mixed in.  The author lives in the south and has 6 kids.  How she has time to write fiction too, I'll never figure out, but I'm looking forward to her other book!

A Lady at Willowgrove Hall, Sarah E. Ladd

I've been waiting for this book to come out and it finally did!  This is the third book in a series that I have really enjoyed.  If you enjoy clean regency romance, I think Sarah E. Ladd is a great place to start!

What Alice Forgot, Liane Moriarty

A friend read this book and rated it on Goodreads and it looked really interesting to me.  Alice wakes up from an accident and has forgotten 10 years of her life.  10 years gone.  Where was I at 10 years ago, where would I be 10 years from now?  It's such an interesting concept and idea.  I really enjoyed this book and thought the characters were fascinating and loved the ending.  The only thing is it has pretty strong language.  I didn't really love that, but I really think it was an interesting book.

~~~

My book list total is now at 82.  

I have two months and 18 books to go!

{October}

October was a busy month!  But really...what month is not busy?

We finished off our garden.  We picked a lot of tomatoes and made salsa.

We also bottled salsa.We ended the season with quite a pantry: 9 pints jam, 2 pints beets, 36 pints salsa, 8 pints dilly beans, 7 pints pickled jalapeno and we gave away a couple more jars here and there.

The four big kids had dentist appointments and all passed with no cavities!  YAY!

Sometimes when Eli is a preschool and it's just me and the two girls we like to make crafts.  One morning we made a bow holder.  We have one (in storage somewhere)...which I found later this month...keep reading.

We all got our flu shots.

Don't they all look super thrilled?

We ended up getting them at a pharmacy of a local grocery store (because our pediatrician didn't have them yet) and now Eli is scared to go back there.  Poor guy...we don't get shots every time we go to Kohlers!  Your are supposed to remember the candy you got at the end!

Avery lost her first tooth..then a few days later lost her second tooth!

We've had a good fall break from school and have loved playing in the leaves in the backyard.

We've been trying to make it to the temple once a month.  

We had to go separately this month, but we made it.

One Saturday this month I did it.  I pulled every single stinkin box out of the garage storage, opened it, labled it and then re-tapped it.  The garage was a mess.  I am usually pretty organized and good at moving.  9 moved in 14 years will do that to you...But since I was kinda mad we were moving, and didn't want to be here very long, I didn't label a single box. They were not packed well.  Everything was just thrown together.  I found Avery's hair bow holder!  I found a lot of the stuff I've been looking for this past year.  I am happy the garage is now organized and looks great.  I'm happy that we are here. I really am... and I'm even happier to say this project I've been putting off for a year is D-O-N-E, DONE.

We ended fall break with Sonic Happy Hour drinks and a walk around Cascade Springs.

We decided Lucy is old enough and put her to work.  

She won the cutest employee contest.

I got talked/guilted in to decorating a door for red ribbon week at the school.  I am NOT crafty.  I decorated the janitors doors since they don't have a room mom.  Then one of the other sweeper boys nominated me their room mom.  I'll take that.

My first time running in double digits this last week!  My running total was lower this month because I took an entire week off got a 24 hour crazy bug/food poisoning a few weeks ago.

I ran 57.5 miles and biked 31.  I'm almost halfway done with my half marathon training.

What did Lucy, Eli and I do while everyone else rode the fun mountain coaster (see the post about Snowbird)...we acted like goofballs at the base of the mountain.

And last, but not least, on the 30th there was a Red Cross Blood drive...great time time to have a blood drive, right?  The day before Halloween.  Wade and I both gave blood.  My dumb arm wouldn't work and my vien collapsed and so I didn't even give enough, but Wade and I have huge matching bruises.  I haven't given blood since before I had Gage.  It's been a long time, but I'm looking forward to getting back in the habit:)

Bring on november...birthdays and holidays!