Sunday Photo: 18

We're having a lazy weekend around here.  This morning we skipped church because of kids with sniffles.  I am so thankful that my friend filled in for an early morning meeting for me this morning..we all slept in had such a quiet morning.  Around eleven Lucy must have had enough of sitting at home, because she brought me her shoes and demanded..."go on ride!"  Wade asked her if she wanted a horsey ride, and she said, "NO!  I go on ride.  Outside!"

She loves car rides!

And since baby Lucy always gets what she wants out of Daddy, we grabbed our shoes and went on a ride out west around the lake.  

I'm so glad that Noah makes our Sunday Photo's interesting every week.

Now that we are home and the kids have inhaled their lunch, we are having a Harry Potter marathon afternoon and looking forward to some homemade bread and  Chicken Chipolte Chowder tonight.

I am so thankful we have had rain this weekend.  It's felt like Washington weather the last couple days.  I miss it.  Perfect weather for quilts, movies and good books.

Here's hoping to a better (sniffle/fever-free) week.

Happy Sunday.

Sunday Photo: 17

I should just give up on getting a solid picture where all five kids look at the camera and smile. I mean, as long as it happens once a year for family pictures, I should be happy, right?

Just look at Noah's face.

(his hair is getting darker and darker.  I'm sad my blond boy might be gone)

I took this picture as we were leaving for church this morning. 

Which was a good thing.  

Because, once again, by the time we got home the boys were sitting in the backseat of the van with their shirts and ties off and we're ready to run in the house so they could change. 

(sidenote:  I made them all sit in the backseat together.  I call the backseat: "testosterone overload" and they have a ball back there kicking and poking, farting and punching each other for fun...far away from me and the girls.) 

I love these boys, they totally crack me up.

 But back to today....This makes Avery so sad every week. (why are my kids so competitive!?!) She's totally mad at me because she can't take her dress off in the car and run in the house like them. She wants to be first.  Poor girl.  So Wade made the boys sit in the car today while Avery, Lucy and I went in the house first.

haha

 Poor boys.

really??!!

Where do my kids come up with this stuff?

I think we have our own little seven man circus around here most days.

It's pretty much awesome.

and I love it.

Happy Sunday

Sunday Photo: 16

Tonight we piled on the bean bag for a Sunday Photo before our nightly bedtime Five Kingdom's reading.  I can't tell who likes the story more, the boys, or Wade.  Actually, it's probably Wade, because I find him reading a head a lot of the time after everyone goes to bed.

We had a relaxing spring break.  Nothing earth shatter or fantasy vacations around here.  We went to Thanksgiving Point with the rest of the state.  We played a lot at home and outside with our friends.  Gage earned some babysitting money while I worked at the office for Wade.  The kids went to the dentist.  (they were so excited to go?!?) No cavities all around! Noah went back to the dentist to get a tooth pulled so he has more room.  The kid was SO funny on the laughing gas. We went to Scheels and rode the ferris wheel and the boys bought themselves air soft guns.  Not sure what I think about that.  We watched Lord of the Rings.  We read Five Kingdoms a lot. Gage read The One and Only Ivan.  The whole book.  Which might not sound like much but for him that is fantastic and the longest book he has ever read!  

School starts again tomorrow.  

Avery is excited.  

Noah has already figured out exactly how many days until summer break.

Gage doesn't really care either way.  

Eli thinks he turns 5 in 7 days.  He also thinks summer is tomorrow and he will start kindergarten next week.

And Lucy.  My buddy Lucy.  Tonight while Wade was reading out loud to the kids Lucy dumped out a bin of blocks and then continued to sing the clean up song as loud as she could.  If Wade stopped reading, she stopped singing.  If he was reading, she was singing.  She's a funny little girl.  She'll tell you that she likes you and give you a hug, and then turn around and smile and say, "Just kidding"

little stink.

these 5 monkeys.  

they make me happy.  

and busy. 

 and tired.  

but mostly happy.

{March}

With my new computer I am finding that it's way easier to blog more...I actually blog in between Sunday Photos now!  But I still end up at the end of the month with random pictures so I think I'll stick to doing monthly re-cap posts.

I'm just super late this month at getting it done.

March was a busy month.

We celebrated Gage's birthday.

He's had a lot of fun with the quad-copter that his friend gave him.  Wade told him one day that he would pay him $5 if he could land it on my head.  maybe not the best idea.  He then got it stuck in my hair.  The quad-copter has been stuck in my hair, Lucy's hair and Avery's hair. 

it's been great.

Wade's solution to helping Gage stay focused on his homework.

Lucy and her BBF babies.

We got a random snow storm and had to make a snow angel or two...

Our van got fixed and for a week I got to drive a fancy rental van.  The kids loved it.  I loved it too.  I just don't want a car payment yet.

We celebrated my birthday with half price drinks (or fries for Lucy) at Sonic Happy Hour.

We played at Neptune Park a couple times.  Gage makes it to the top really fast this year.  Last year he wasn't able to make it to the top, so he's pretty proud of himself this year.

It's finally not so cold outside so I can run outside...and watch amazing sunrises!

The third book came out...the boys have been waiting for this for quite a while.  Wade has been reading this to all the kids every night at bedtime.  They are really enjoying this book and the series.

Grandpa turned the sprinklers on a couple times as we worked on getting the yard ready for spring.  Eli thinks this means it's summer.

We enjoyed a couple lazy mornings watching shows in bed (after we sent the other ones off to school).

I went to late birthday brunch with Anne-Marie and Erica (not pictured).  Wade, his Dad and his brother had a good time watching Erica fight in her first MMA pro fight.  My friend is a professional fighter?!!?!  crazy.  But I think it's awesome she is showing her girls she can do amazing things.  We also went to baby Alice's baby blessing.  I am so glad I live by these ladies again.  We had great times in Iowa, and now we get to have great times and watch our kids grow up even more.

We planted (some) of the garden.  The hearty stuff...onions, radishes, garlic, peas.

I ran my 5K for the training.  I updated my running wall too...

We worked on the yard and put in new bark.  It is such an easy thing to do but makes everything look so much better.  We are going to add some flowers this month.

Lucy.  Bath-time.

Gage has been working hard on the piano.  He is making progress and only started (taking from someone besides me) this year. It's a challenge, but good for him to learn.

That dreaded flu bug hit our family like a hammer.  It was a horrible week.  We spent the most of the week all looking like this:

Last Sunday we drove up the canyon and walked around Tibble Fork.  The kids had fun goofing off.

And last, but not least....

Noah learned how to text on our phones.  And use emojies.  He thinks he is SO funny.  He is only allowed to text people he knows.  So just know you might randomly get a text from me, that is really from Noah, that talks a lot about poop, or bombs.

I'm looking back and realizing how random these collections of pictures look.  It's fun to blog them though.  March was great and busy and full of activities.  We are really looking forward to spring weather, planting the rest of our garden and playing outside a lot in the next couple months!

{Taste Test}

I know people who swear by name brand products.  They never buy generic. But does it really make a difference?  If you took off all the labels and did a blind taste test could you really tell?

I'll tell you right now, I'm pretty much a generic person when it comes to food.  We spend so much money on food every month as it is. Have you ever tried to feed a family of 8?! The amount of money we spend on milk alone is crazy. I meal plan and budget and try to save where I can.

So tonight for family night I thought we would do something a little bit different since it's spring break.  We decided to put this to the test and see what everyone thought.

Name brand versus store brand Western Family.

Who will win?

(We stole this idea from my sister, who the kids did this with this last summer.)

We had 6 items to test.  

chips, sliced cheese, yogurt, granola bars, cola and chocolate chip cookies

The kids just needed to taste A and B options and then circle which ones they liked on their paper. There was no right or wrong, just mark what they liked.  

So maybe some of the kids are a little young...Noah quickly voted that both chips were gross and he didn't like the flavor.  However, he had a clear opinion about everything else.  Eli just ate everything.  Then he was sad he didn't circle anything so he circled everything.  Lucy watched paw patrol on the iPad.

Some of our findings:

Big wins for the Generic Side:

Everyone at the table thought Kraft sliced cheese was gross when compared to Western Family.  It had a slightly different color and was even slightly smaller too!

I had to laugh when every single person at the table raised their hand saying that they loved the Western Family Cola over name brand Coke. hahaha. Wade said I should have tried this with root beer and he would know for sure.  excuses excuses

Big wins for the Name Brand:

Almost everyone voted for Yoplait Yogurt over Western Family.  It had more yogurt and less berries, but it had a smoother texture.  Grandpa was the only one who voted for the Western Family because he liked that it had more berries.

Cookies.  Grandpa always has cookies around here and he loves to have some every night before bed. The kids and him were quick to pick out the Chips Ahoy.  The only person to vote Western Family on the cookie was Wade.

Results:

In the end, I do think some generics are better than others.  I really wanted to test cereal but I wasn't sure how I could do that on a small scale.  I think ranch dressings would be one easy to decipher.

But our findings were....the majority of us voted for 4 out of 6 on the generic side!  

Who would have thought!  

I think I'll let Grandpa buy his own snack cookies and  keep saving our money and buying generic brands most of the time.

Sunday Photo: 14

It's been a weekend full of good messages and family. We caught up on some rest and enjoyed some down time.  Tonight we had a family party with an egg hunt, food, games and the works. Towards the end of the night, I found these two sitting enjoying their root beer floats together. They are the best of friends and make me laugh.
I am blessed. My heart is full tonight.

Because He lives. We talked about that today. We took a ride up to the cemetery and dropped off a couple Easter decorations at Grandma's grave. We miss her.  It will be 2 years this week that she has been gone.  But because He lives we can see her again. We talked about Easter. We can be together again. We don't have to be alone. We talked about how because of this we can be healed.

Noah said, "Because He lives mom, I can live again without seizures." 

yep buddy.

(but he's doing pretty good at that without his medicine anyway)

I love this message. He lives.  He is here.  He is here in the good, the bad and the in between. I love Easter. I hope you know and believe that He Lives.

Happy Easter.

{April Fools}

I think April Fools' Day is always a fun day. I don't like mean jokes, just funny ones.  There have been years that I haven't done anything at all, and then there have been years that I've had fun with it. I love that this year the kids were a little bit older and had fun right back at me.

I started the morning off with a little joke on the librarian at our school. no...I didn't do every shelf. Just this one... And it made me giggle, I hope she though it was funny.

Gage was quite the funny joker today. He swapped the bags of cereal inside the boxes this morning. Wade and I can't figure out when he even had time to do this. Noah asked for frosted mini wheats and got cheerios.

He also made this funny joke at school. He thought putting it by Grandpa's computer would be the funniest thing. He got Grandpa pretty good!

He actually got me with it a couple days ago. Without me knowing, he stashed it under his bed one day after school, The other night I was cleaning up their room and accidentally found it...but it totally freaked me out! I totally fell for it and thought he had spilled some sort of chocolate drink..or worse... in his room and he was hiding it from me.

After school the boys came home and found some cookies in the kitchen.  They were pretty excited.  until they took a bite.  They told me that my cookies tasted gross and that I must have done something wrong.  I used mashed potatoes for the batter!  The funniest part was Avery came home from school and took a bite and walked off like nothing was wrong.  She ate the whole thing!  When Wade asked her if it tasted funny she said, "yeah, but the chocolate still tastes good."

For dinner I decided to go old-school.  I made these a few years ago and they totally gross Wade out. He doesn't like his food to look like other food. They are meatloaf and mash potato cupcakes.  The kids sat down at the table and looked around with puzzled looks on their faces.  They kept asking saying, "What is wrong with mom?  Are we  really only having having cupcakes and broccoli?  That is all?"  Once they figured out the trick they sided with Wade and said they were gross.  They asked if they could just eat more and more broccoli for dinner.

After dinner we told Noah the best news of the day.  Noah's been saving his money so he can buy his own kindle fire.  We told him we knew he had been working hard so we decided to buy him his own ipad.  Then we gave him the box. (hopefully the video works)

I think my favorite joke of the day though was the one that we pulled on Wade.  A couple months ago I taught a lesson in Relief Society at church.  While preparing for the lesson I asked Wade, "What does Relief Society mean to you?"

His reply:

"group texting"

Ok...maybe me and the ladies in our presidency have a group texting problem.  We really are great friends and have a good time together.  And yes, we text each other often.  Maybe a lot.  Maybe (if you ask our husbands) a little too much.  

So when I told these fabulous ladies about Wade's answer we all had a good laugh.  Then we decided we would do something about it.....we would add Wade to our group text on April Fools' Day.

Poor Wade.  I knew he had a light afternoon at the office so I created a new group text after lunch.  And then we just chatted about the dumbest stuff you have ever heard of.  For at least an hour we just chatted and chatted.  We were making up the most bizarre things.  I was laughing SO hard thinking about poor Wade and his phone just going off at the office.

Wade got home for dinner and he couldn't help but laugh.  He said we had a real problem.  He said he finally had to put his phone in the other room and shut the door.  hahaha. 

Poor Wade.

It was a great ending to our day and perfect April Fools joke.

Happy Day.