Utah Girls

Emily's Human Metaphor

2012-02-02T19:31:00.000-07:00

One morning I came to the computer and saw this homework assignment of Emily's. It turns out that she had an assignment to write a metaphor paper on what they are like I guess. Emily chose yarn. I read it and thought, yeah that really sounds like her... alot like her! (And of course this morning, I snipped and snipped at her yarn, even though I knew already how it would make her feel. I was so angry at her and I just blew it! Bad Mama!)
Emily's A.L.L. teacher was really impressed with it, she even asked if she could copy it and keep it for next years class, and also checked to see if she could share it with the class.

Emily is a super writer, she was also chosen to be one of the special speakers based on her paper she wrote on a N.O.V.A. constitution with the theme, "Roadmap to Excellence." She did a great job on it, I will have to try to find a copy and add it too. Our computer got a nasty virus and much of items were lost. I know she has the hard copy of it though.

Here is her Metaphore paper, although somehow the format changed from its original form.

I am a ball of yarn. As a ball of yarn, I unravel. I can easily separate. I can be made into something that is different from me.

As a bunch of yarn, I unravel. When someone yells or makes me feel bad, they tug on my string. Once the end is out, if anything else happens, it just keeps tugging. It might be hard to make me feel bad at first, but then I can’t stop unraveling.

With just a snip of the scissors, I can have totally different opinions. If, and when, someone says something that might seem small and unimportant, I might be cut in two. I can always be tied back together, but it always leaves a scar. Sometimes, a knot might come undone. Then the problem resurfaces. I am always tying and retying knots.

With something like a crochet hook or knitting needle, I can be turned into something new and different. I can usually do what I’m told, as long as I know how and have what I need. I can also be different colors or sizes to help me with what I need. I can be a writer if I need to write. I can be an artist if I need to draw. I can be a mathematician if I need to do math.

I am a ball of yarn.

Em's teacher told the class about an essay contest on Water Conservation, she is really wanting to enter that contest. It pays $100 to the winner. Emily's cousin Serena is a good writer, and come to find out her Grandma Thomas was quite a writer too, she won an eighth grade compitetion when she was in school.

Amber going to the Jazz game

2012-01-28T21:51:00.000-07:00

Robert likes to go see the Utah Jazz play. I am not a ~~huge~~ fan of watching sports much so it isn't something we do together much. I don't really mind going, but I would prefer to stay home and do something like, well maybe catch up on my blog.

Anyway.... the Jazz had a special for buy one ticket and you get a free ticket to another select game they already selected. Robert decided it would be fun to go to a game with one of the girls, then take another girl to the other one. Then he decided that maybe taking 2 girls at a time would be better, then everyone could go but little Sam.

Tonight was the game. It was Emily and Amber's turn to go with Robert. Amber has never been to a Jazz game, or any basketball game for that matter. When Robert asked her if she wanted to go to a Jazz game she said, "Jazz, that's basketball right? Well I'll think about it." Then today she decided she was going to go. It is a good thing, because we were going to push her into it anyway.

I was fixing her hair, which she wanted curly again, and this was her conversation.

Me: Are you excited for the game?
Amber: Yeah, will it be loud?
Me: It could be loud at times. I think you are getting some pizza too.
Amber: Will I be watching Dad play basketball or will I get to play with him?
Me: Dad is not playing basketball, you are both watching the Jazz play.
Amber: Oh, so like we are watching TV then?
Me: No, it won't be on TV, you will watch it from your seat. You may be on TV.
Amber: Oh.

She was cracking me up. They still aren't home, but I am sure they will be soon, and I am sure she had a good time. Spending time with Dad is always fun for them.

This is how her air turned out... she was in love with it. I must say, it looked pretty cute. Emily said she looked like Shirley Temple. I say double bonus, because it should stay in good for church tomorrow too! Yay!

July pictures part 1, California

2012-01-20T12:11:00.000-07:00

Okay, so this is the short version of our July events in parts, with pictures. The very beginning of July we took off for our almost month long adventures, starting toward California for the funeral of a beloved Uncle. Occasionally we would give the girls little suckers or something. Samantha fell asleep with hers. Poor baby!

The girls also spotted a dirt devil, and they thought the salf flats were pretty cool too. I am not sure if they have ever driven this way at all.

The rooms were pretty basic and small, but we seemed to make it all work okay. As soon as we got to our rooms, my parents had already been there but were currently out visiting family. The girls were excited to see them when they returned. Amber loved playing "guess who" with Grandma.

Kelly seemed to get the girls all wound up, teasing them and playing with them. But most of the time it was in my parents room, so I didn't mind much. I figured it was their problem.

One afternoon, Robert took our girls and went to a movie with them. I went over to Aunt Phyllis' to visit with family there. There wasn't much for my little ones to do there, nor was there any other little kids there. It was so great for him to take them so I could visit and spend time with everyone. I wouldn't have gone other wise. Tracy and I rode with my parents, and you can see behind us, Lorri and the rest of the group.

One of my Aunt's who wasn't able to make it to the funeral, sent little cars for the boys (my dad's brothers) to race. This is them trying to get ready to race their cars... those boys are so funny! I am not sure you could ever go wrong spending the afternoon with them!

Aunt Phyllis, Wayne's wife, was the official judge. The boys some how cheated, so she declared a re-race. Of course those cheating that won, didn't want to redo it. So they lined up again to race again.

Then the next group was able to race, then the winner of those groups raced each other. What a crack up it was! We had such a fun time.

As we left Aunt Phyllis' Lorri's car was loaded down with probably 3 too many people, but we all made it safe and sound. It was a bit of a wet ride from the water fight that broke out in the car, but I think it all seemed to be okay. Nothing like a good inside car wash.

After we got back home, we walked across the street to eat at some little fast food place. Amber and Samantha took full advantage of Aunts and Uncles that maybe would give them a ride.

The place we stayed at had a pool, but you had to have the employees unlock it before we could use it. As Robert and I were heading up to Washington, I got this picture of my sister all ready to go swimming with the gang. We left before anyone else did, since we had a long drive ahead of us, oh yeah and 5 more kids than anyone else was traveling with.

Most everyone left on Sunday, as did we. My parents and Kelly stayed behind for the graveside services. My sisters took this picture below on their way back home.

We headed for Washington, the long, scenic way, up the coast. (That will be part 2 coming soon)

Starting of July

2012-01-19T08:34:00.000-07:00

Before I start this, I want you to know this will be a ReAlLy lllloooooonnnnngggggg entry, so if you don't have time to read it all, or you just don't like to read long ones, then wait for my next one that will have the highlights and the pictures too.
July was a super busy month! Back in June my Uncle Wayne was in poor health and at different times I thought he was going to pass and then he would recover. My dad stayed most of June with him in California. It looked as if he was getting better and the medical team decided he was ready for a rehab center and shortly after he got there, his body gave up.

My little family was planning on going to WA for the majority of July anyway, so we were busy getting ready for our trip, but instead our trip took us to California first to meet with other family members for the funeral of Uncle Wayne.

I know it sounds odd that a funeral was a fun thing or a fun place to go to, but it seems the family I was born into has parties no matter what the occasion is. They know how to have fun and live life. It was a very emotional strain as well, I felt much sadness for my dad, losing his sibling and also Uncle Wayne's wife (Phyllis) left to pick up the pieces and move on. Don't get me wrong, there were many tears shed! I seemed to have been sitting in the sobbing section, or was that just me sobbing?

I met my parents and most of my siblings in California. I was the only one there with kids so it made it kind of tricky figuring out what to do with that and how to entertain them and yet still get family time in too. Robert was wonderful! One evening as we were at Phyllis' home, Robert took the kids to see a movie so I could visit and spend time with family. Many of my aunts and uncles were there along with several cousins. It was great to sit around such wonderful people and enjoy the moment. I wouldn't have been able to do that if Robert hadn't taken the kids or entertained them for me.

I am not sure why crazy things happen to us when we get together as a family but they do. "The Boys" (my dad and his brothers) had car races with little cars, then others were able to race their own cars too. My aunt Margie who wasn't able to attend sent a care package with all the goodies in it, the cars, dum dum suckers for the "dum dums" who didn't want to race, and a book to record the events of the race and other messages too.

Following the funeral (the funeral was held on a Friday I think and then because of 4th of July, the graveside wasn't until Tuesday) as the weekend ended most of us all headed back home, or for us Utah Girls that meant starting our trip to WA but now we were making the drive from California up to WA. My parents and Kelly (brother) stayed for the Graveside services and then would drive back to WA.

We decided to make a fun trip out of it, and take the scenic route along the coast on highway 1, go through the redwoods, see the ocean, stay a few nights and then drop Robert off at the airport in Portland on my way to my parents house. Unfortately for me, I missed many of the cool scenic things because all those windy roads equals car sickness to me. I ended up trying to sleep off the nausia and the head ache of it all. I'm not good at those scenic drives unless I am driving. I thought I would be okay, but I always think that and I never am.

Because we were on the road for 4th of July, we really didn't do anything. No fireworks, no celebration. I think we might have seen a few fireworks on the beach but instead we polled the girls and a movie and popcorn won the vote. Kind of boring, but it was so cold and windy that I was okay with staying inside instead of trying to brave the crowds and the winds in a town we were unfamiliar with.

With all the driving and stopping we did, somehow we ended up with some car problems. I am normally pretty laid back about things, I figure it will all work itself out, it won't really matter much in the end and it will end up being no big deal. Robert on the other hand gets a little more upset or worried about it. It first manifested itself as we were waiting in line at a drive through redwood tree park. We smelled something really bad like melting rubber and then heard a funny squealing noise too. We shortly discovered the car heating up but we couldn't really pin point what was happening with things, the cause of it, only that it was happening. We thought we would get it looked at down the road, but then it was 4th of July. We decided to say a prayer and chance it and keep going.

It didn't seem to be much of a problem except for when we were stopped and idling. As we were driving especially at higher speeds it seemed to cool the engine off naturally and it was no problem. The problem was that the whole way back from the coast to the airport we were in stop and go traffic the whole time. The car would over heat, then it would cool off, then it got scary HOT and then we would go and it would cool a bit down. We even got off a different exit because we saw our exit was backed up and we couldn't sit there at that high of engine tempatures.

Poor Robert, he was so stressed! About the car acting up, getting to the airport on time, the traffic we were in, leaving me with a car that was having problems to get up to my parents house. He was so stressed about it all. I kept telling him we would be fine and that all would be okay, it would all work out okay.

We all made it, we got Robert to the airport, he caught his plane on time, I made it to my parents, and all was good. Well except for the large repair bill we paid as we were on vacation. All in all, our car did good!   Funny thing, well not really, my sister Lorri, had car trouble coming home from CA too, and I think my parents' did as well. Lorri's car lost the A/C and my parents' lost OD in the automatic transmission.

We stayed at my parents house then for a few weeks and then Robert came up and ran yet another Ragnar Race. I was able to hang out with lots of my siblings during the time I spent there. It was so nice! My sister Lorri took several days off work to come hang out with me and my girls. Along with my other sisters who spent lots of time at my parents house.

It was kind of odd and sad at the same time. My parents are putting their papers in to go on a mission. In doing that, they will be selling the house and Pony Poop Farm will no longer exist. It seemed kind of weird and strange as I looked around at things. I thought, this will be the last time we do this, or this or go here.

One day I went out to my dad's shop.... I was immediately overcome with tears and emotions of sadness.   My dad has wanted a shop for as long as I can remember, he finally has one. As I looked around inside at all the tools and things hung around, I wondered what would it take to keep the house. What would it take to keep this shop. My dad's dream was now going to be lost. I couldn't take it.   I sat in the ~~barn~~ shop, and wept. As soon as I could get ahold of my emotions I called Robert and tried to see if there was something we could do, anything? (If only we didn't still have our rental house, that would be enough to take care of my parents house for sure!)

I later talked to some of my sisters about it. They had all thought about different things too, but nothing really would do it. Nothing would really make things better or keep the place for my parents. I couldn't handle it emotionally, how could this happen? No matter what we could all do within our means, none of us combined could make it work out. I have since dealt with the idea of it, and am okay with it. Not that if I wasn't they would change anything. It is just a house, it is just a place, it is a place where many memories have been made, but those memories are with each of us. They do not stay there. They will not fade away as PPF disolves and becomes someone else home.

I don't mean to make it sound like my parents mission is a bad thing. It is a wonderful oppurtunity and I am so grateful for their example to me... and especially to my children. They are trully sacrificing EVERYTHING! All the things they love, all the things that they have worked hard for, and the things that they have dreamed of, they are giving up or setting aside for 18 months. From the house that they have lived in for nearly 40 years, the horses, the farm animals, the playground area my Grandpa made, the shop my dad and his brothers built one summer, my mom's dog, her bird, the roses, and not to mention my mom's whole family lives all right there too. This is a sacrifice for them! What an example, all the things they are giving up to serve our Heavenly Father. It seems like such a huge deal, but then when you really think of it, it is just stuff. (Stuff I am very attached to though.)

I think as this chapter of the book ends, with my parents' place gone, all of us kids are aware of it. We are aware of what matters most. Family. It seems that each of us are a little more aware of each other, a little more motivated to stay in touch and stay close. My parents will be leaving, and it brings up questions in my mind. What does that mean to me and our summer vacations for next year? Will we all still gather at their house when they return?   Will our WA trips be over?   I guess many of these questions have no answers now, but in time they will. It is kind of the unknown and it is scary. I think of when my Grandparents left their home in CA, their house was the big gathering place. When they were gone that was the end of gathering together really. With the exceptions of funerals, we don't get together. Our families get bigger and we focus on our own. It seems strange to me, it seems like I won't be able to lose those bonds with my family, but will I? As I departed then, it was a little harder to leave, not knowing when I will be back, things feel uncertain, and I get more teary eyed when I leave, it is getting harder to leave my family as this transition is getting closer. I wonder if my siblings and I will lose touch or have long periods of not seeing each other.

Our journey took us 29 days and 3600+ miles, and many thoughts to think through. We finally made it home. I wonder if that will be the last time my children will experience Pony Poop Farm.   I know there will be other adventures in other places, but it makes me a little sad too having our last visit at Pony Poop Farm, or was it?

June stuff

2012-01-17T15:14:00.001-07:00

I was so happy to see that I already did a post about May birthdays. You can read about them here. I feel a little less behind I guess. I had thought I had saved one to post but then didn't find it. I guess I posted it after all. So now on to other things....

This is some of the events from June:

I had signed up for the 5K Dirty Dash, basically just a mud run with obstacles too. I signed up for 2. As the day was approaching, I realized that we had soccer games that day with the girls, and there was no way Robert and I both could do it. I asked the girls and Lauren was all up for it. She hadn't been running or anything, so I knew we would be awhile to do it. She had a blast, she likes doing the races and would like to do more. We were one muddy mess! I scratched up my leg pretty good in the last mud pit, got a nice scar now from it. We asked someone to take our pictures before and after, but somehow, they were taken right, and we didn't end up getting ones. I also left my purse behind so I didn't have money to pay for the warm showers, so we took freezing cold showers and then changed our clothes. The picture of our dirty clothes, after our shower is all I have to show for it.

I can pick out those use to be white socks Lauren wore that day. They are pretty stained up now.

Of course June isn't just for the Dirty Dash, it is also for the big Ragnar Race! It is the race that consumes my hubby the whole year. Prior to the race, we took a drive after church up on the race path to find some good spots for exchanges during his race. We had a BBQ lunch at some resevoir or something. The kids explored while Robert made lunch/dinner, or linner as Emily would call it. We brough the dog too.

It was almost like the beach, all sandy and fun to dig in.

There were tons of drift wood type sticks and logs the girls played on.

Everyone seemed to have their own sticks.

Samantha got tired of walking. She got a ride for awhile.

The girls found some evidence of some animals....

But some of the animals seemed to have left parts behind.

I think it was the weekend of the Ragnar Race that I took the kids to the Farm Country. I love the sign they have out by the entrance. Pretty funny!

The girls found lots of things to do. We made ice cream in a bag, played some farm games, got coloring books, stickers, and rode on a wagon ride in addition to petting the animals and riding the horses/ponies.

Samantha was loving the little calf and foal that were eating her skirt and licking her hands. She could have stayed right there the whole time and not gone any where else.

The girls stood in line for what seemed to be FOREVER to ride the horses and the few ponies they had out there too. About the time we were getting close, they switched out all the horses for different once including 2 small ponies. The girls all had their horses picked out and then they put their horses away.

For the most part the girls were delighted to be riding the horses.

Lots of big smiles and the little girls wanted to do it again. I think Emily was wishing this was a real ride on a horse not stuck in the little arena. She would have prefered a trail ride somewhere instead.

For the most part they were pleased and had a good time.

Both Samantha and Amber gave their horses kisses as they got off and told them Thank you.

This is a group shot of the group we went with. We had lots of fun. We need to go back to farm county again soon!

We left Farm Country, got some dinner and then we went to the Dog Days they had. They had tons of vendors set up for dog related things and little botiques selling items for dogs like special dog treats along with normal food vendors too. They had a cool diving dogs demostration where they dogs would dive into a huge pool to get their toy. But for the most part, the girls enjoyed the giant slides.

The girls wanted to go back to Dog Days the next day too.

Time, time, time

2012-01-09T14:40:00.000-07:00

I am so far behind again... on posting all the events of our little family. I think for the most part I am still back in May. How did that happen? I hope this week to get a little more caught up. My list to do is long, and unfortunately blogging, is towards the bottom of the list. I hope to get some more done soon, even though the stuff I will post will be pretty much "old stuff" I will feel better getting it down and wierdly, I feel like I can't do anything current until I catch up from where I left off. Stuff to look forward to hearing more about:

3 yr old birthday
9 yr old double birthday
end of school
soccer
Garden trip
WA trip
Camping
back to school
birthday for a 5 yr old
halloween
Thanksgiving in CA
Christmas
and more too!

Check back often, I hope you won't be disappointed in all our "old" news.

Laundry is piling up

2011-11-01T15:09:00.000-06:00

On night I tried to turn my barely over a year old dryer on, and it made an awful noise. We called for repair, they looked at it had to order a part and then resceduled to fix it once the part arrived. The problem wasn't just for that week without a dryer but it was that the day after the repair, we were leaving for Washington for several weeks.

I felt like the laundry mat was the answer. I had washed towels and bedding and just hung them around on chairs and the stair banister to dry. I couldn't see hanging up a load of little girls clothes all around to dry.

The girls that went with me had a super time.

They helped me fill washers and dryers and Lindsey found like $17 in a washing machine. (Turned out it was Robert's.) I figured since I was mass washing I might as well wash and dry. I had washed about 3 loads before going to the laundry mat.

We got in trouble for riding around in the carts. We ended up washing 8 loads of clothes and drying 11 loads. What a releif to have them all done at the same time. Maybe I should invest in several more washer and dryers for my own home.

All the laundry got done before our trip! And my dryer got fixed before my trip too...but I didn't really need it for another several weeks.

Work at the Zoo

2011-11-01T15:01:00.000-06:00

We didn't really work at the zoo, but Robert's work took us to the zoo. They fed us dinner and the zoo was open late for us. We also got special bracelets that let us ride the train and merry-go-round as many times as we wanted to. Which of course we did.

I lost count how many times we rode the carousel. I know it was enough times that I had to get off because my head and belly wasn't feeling real great.

The kids got a kick out of Robert riding the snake and the ladybug, at different times of course. (Some of his co-workers thought it was pretty funny too.) He is a good dad!

And of course what would a picture be without Amber doing something really silly in it. The girls had a good time. We had a zoo pass one year, but it has since expired. It was nice to go and visit the zoo again for free.

Exciting news for Lindsey

2011-11-01T14:43:00.000-06:00

Lindsey shortly after her 9th birthday, got her braces off. She was so excited.

This is Lindsey the day she got her braces on...

Then after she got them on, the first day of braces.

Then this is her silly picture after she got off her braces. Not the offical braces off picture, but I can't find it. Our computer had a virus and I can't find it anywhere....

Her doctor presented her with a bag of goodies, things that she wasn't able to eat while she had braces. Her favorite was the apple, she was excited about eating an apple without having it sliced up.

I found Lindsey in my bed asleep a few days later, with a carmel poppcorn still in her mouth. I guess she missed eating sticky poppcorn too.

Her smile looks pretty amazing, when she doesn't have carmel corn or some other sticky thing in her mouth. I think she is happy to have them off, and I am happy to not have to floss her teeth in such great detail. I'm sure that will only last for awhile, I'm guessing Emily will be getting braces.

Family Home Evening

2011-11-01T13:15:00.000-06:00

One monday night after dinner we simply went to our favorite frozen yogurt place and had yogurt.

The girls LOVE all the fun flavors and toppings for it all.

They ask to go there often, but we don't go as often as they would like.

May Birthdays

2011-11-01T12:06:00.000-06:00

I feel so bad that it has taken me this long to do the girls birthdays! May was a crazy month, then June went fast and next thing, it was July and I was on vacation! It seems like the months since that have even been faster. I will attempt to catch up... but it may take a while....

Samantha wanted a pink cake, and pink frosting, and she requested sqaure shape. Easy enough.

Samantha turning 3 made me wonder what has happened in the last 3 years, how could she be 3 already? I remember when I went to the hospital with her, 2 days before the Twin's birthday party that we had planned. Had to cancel that party, we weren't even home yet. Poor girls had to wait awhile for the party.

Samantha went upstairs right before her "party" (a.k.a. singing to her, blowing out candles, and opening up presents) and came back down in a total different outfit, which is the one she has on in the pictures.

When I asked her why she changed, she looked at me and said, "Mommm-- I had to get ready for my birthday!" Funny girl!

She enjoyed opening up her presents and finding all her treasures inside.

Lindsey and Lauren share a birthday together which is just 6 days after Samantha's birthday. Wierd thing about it, my due date for the twins was June 11th same due date for Samantha, but Samantha ended up coming even earlier than the twins. Weird huh!

Lindsey wanted a soccer ball cake and Lauren chose a football cake. Lauren likes to play football at recess at school. Maybe it is just catch with the football. Although that was last year for 3rd grade, maybe now that she is in 4th grade things are different.

These two girls crack me up! Lindsey has a funny, silly personality.... but also very thoughtful of others.

Lauren can be silly too but is normally more compassionate and loving toward others and their feelings.

The girls turned 9 this year... at each birthday I find it hard to believe as I think back on the day they were born, I am suprised that time has moved so quickly.

And it makes me miss my little babies.... how much they needed me, how dependent they were on ME, and now I am no longer the center of their life, but more of an accessory. I am afraid it will get more and more like that as the years continue on.

Hair Cut time!

2011-08-10T15:50:00.000-06:00

School is getting ready to start, so of course Lindsey wanted to get all ready with a hair cut. Of course since she was having one, Lauren wanted on, then Samantha wanted one, and also A...m....b......e......r wanted one. I can hardly say it. It killed me to cut Amber's hair. Although her hair is SO SO SO tangley, and its to long and uneven. She has been asking for awhile. Like I told Robert, Emily asked for her hair cut in Kindergarten, and since then she has left it for the most part long. Lindsey and Lauren like their hair shorter, and I say why not let them have their hair the way they want it, within reason of course.

So get ready for the shocker.... Poor Rob, I think I should have called and prepared him for the shock of her hair being short! Lauren was wanting her hair cut too, but then I guess she told Robert last night that she wanted to grow it longer. Who knows?

Lindsey at Pony Poop Farm

Lindsey after her hair cut

Lindsey again! She has a nice way of smiling...

Funny Lindsey!

Samantha got a hair cut too, but it was more just evening out the edges from when I cut it before. She was satisfied with the small cuts I did.

Amber before her hair cut. Notice how uneven her hair is.

You can see how long it is from the front...all that hair growing for the last almost 5 years!

SHOCKER!

Look how cute it is and how happy she is!

This was before she even looked in the mirror!

Then she sees her hair in the mirror, I think she likes it!

I think she LOVES it!! (and that dot on her nose is paint, we went school supply shopping and got paint)

I couldn't find my ruler, but most of you know how big a package of wipes is...

And now she has hair for her baby-ish book. I did have a piece, but it was a chunck that Samantha pulled out of her head.

Our lovely dog...

2011-07-15T01:20:00.000-06:00

Don't let this cute little guy fool you... this is what we saw and thought how cute he was...

He seems to find trouble no matter where he goes. We don't have toilet paper in the down stairs bathroom on the dispenser, it is up on a shelf, or it will look like this. This one is the best of the ones I have found.

Apparently he has seen the cat go in and out of the door, but he doesn't really fit. When come home or leave and we see his head pop out the door. It is only a matter of time before he gets stuck in there or can't do it anymore.

My iPhone was plugged in and charging, and he ate right through the cord, can you believe that?

He seems to like whatever the kids have such as puzzles. This poor puzzle the kids LOVED it and we have had it for so long!

Would you believe that he likes to play Memory games too? Guess it will be easy to match the lady bug now.

He loves the water, especially when it is in the dirt. This is what our bathroom looked like several different times! The picure doesn't even do justice, the floor was a MESS!

Yeah look at those dirty paws, real cute isn't he?!

He also has gotten a hold of a few flipping frogs from our frog game. I don't think there is any fixing that frog.

Swimming googles? Really?

He ate the tape dispenser. I complain about my kids taking my tape, at least they don't destroy it.

And my chairs for my dining table too...

That's not even nice!

This is our chair that sits at the computer desk, he spends a lot of time under the chair. You can see how he spends his time.

He has popped just about every ball in the house including 2 soccer balls.

There is ALWAYS just stuff all over our floor from him eating something, the newspaper, wrappers, toys, socks, dryer sheets. He is just a huge mess maker!

He is trying to look less quilty, but he broke Amber's cute little sunglasses. Amber was not happy.

This is only a small portion of things he has chewed up... this isn't including the large number of socks, shirts and skirts he has tore holes in, his nice expensive doggy bed he mutilated, numerous shoes he has chewed up (including some of our neighbors shoes). I am not sure I am happy about this dog at all! Some nights I think, this dog goes tomorrow! And then I soften a little bit....

When I see the look on the girls face....

And hear their laughter as they play with him.

Then I think maybe we will keep him one more day.

These are some pictures from when we first got him and then now...

And the girls seem to love this dog...

And I think the dog loves these girls too!

Choir and pink eye

2011-06-30T11:59:00.001-06:00

Lindsey and Lauren did choir for the whole year as 3rd graders. They had practice every Monday and Wednesday for about an hour. They had a winter concert where they did mostly Christmas or holiday songs and then a spring concert that they did patriotic songs if I remember right.

By about April, Lindsey was so done with choir. I hated to see her quit, but it was such a HUGE commitment to go every week for two days. I think if Lauren wasn't going too then I would have just let her quit. I had to fight her each week and persuade her to go. Lauren on the other hand, she loved going and you could see her smile and have a great time singing at the concerts.

Unfortunately my pictures aren't great, I was too far back. Lauren the day of the spring choir (I found out later) had complained to her teacher right before they were coming home of her eye hurting. Then she came home, said nothing to me of it, and then went to a friends house. She told me later that she had to keep wiping her eye at her friends house becuase it was all wet and goopy.

She went to the performance with a friend, and I saw her on the stage. I guess the choir teacher asked if she had allergies, Lauren told her not that she knew of. After the performance, Robert saw Lauren and immediately sent her to the bathroom where I was at with the little ones. I took one look at her, and knew she had pink eye. She told me she didn't want to say anything because she was afraid I wouldn't have let her still be in the concert. Which she was right!

These were at about day 4 and 5 after drops. Lauren's eyes got so red and blood shot. They looked really gross!

Everyone one else got pink eye too. Except for Robert and I. Lauren and Emily's eyes got super swollen, and so we took Lauren into after hours clinic and she missed a soccer game because of it. I felt like we were giving drops all day long. We had 3 different RX's from different times I had called our doctor, or called after hours and then when Lauren went in. It was hard to keep them all straight. At one point I thought I had gotten it, but it turned out to be just my normal allergies and went away without drops.

And poor Samantha, she got it and it started going away and then it came back so we ended up at the doctor for well care check ups and he gave her some different drops. It did finally clear up, right about the time Amber got her pink eye. Then she gave it to her cousin who we were watching.

Did I also mention we had pink eye just back in Feburary?

Soccer

2011-06-29T23:59:00.001-06:00

This year we had almost all of the girls in soccer. Emily, Lindsey, Lauren, and Amber were in soccer. It made it kind of hectic with 3 soccer practices on top of everything else going on. Then at least 3 games a week too. Usually Emily's and Amber's games overlapped in some way. Here are some pics from one of the games. I kept forgetting to bring my camera.

Emily~ she played mid most all games, she ran ALOT!

Emily's team was called the Ladybugs, they won all games but one. They were a fun group of girls. They decided to paint their faces too.

Lindsey & Lauren ~

They both played fwd, mid, defense, and Lauren did awesome as goalie too!

Lauren is in yellow shorts, Lindsey is in greenish/blue shorts

The twins were on the Cougar team, and I think they won all their games and tied one maybe. I really liked their coach, she was GREAT!

Amber~She is wearing pink tall socks

Amber's team was the Mickey's and I am not sure they ever won. They looked like they had fun though. Amber loved playing soccer for the first time. She was so so so sad when the season ended. She will be ready in the fall when it starts again.

Amber's team was really fun, most the kids on her team were right here from our neighborhood and her coach was too. The other girls' teams weren't that way. All the girls had a great time playing. Poor Sam was a little left out of it, but she will play next spring. Rob is pretty proud of his soccer playing girls! Emily at one of her games scored a GOAL, and Robert was so bummed when he heard, he was at Amber's game. His parents were at Emily's game, so they go to see it. Robert was really mad he wasn't there.

So until fall, I guess we will be putting our soccer gear away.

Wax Museum

2011-06-29T14:59:00.000-06:00

Emily's class, well the whole 5th grade did a wax museum. They had to chose someone from history that has already passed on (I believe) to do their report about. She had to write a report and then also dress up as this person. She thought about doing Laura Ingles Willder but wasn't sure. She finally settled on Elizabeth Griscom (aka Betsy Ross).

She did some reading and research about Elisabeth. Then she was trying to figure out how to dress like here. I was searching on-line and all I found was flag looking clothes. I laughed and told Emily, apparently she was more like Capt. Moroni, where she rent her coat and put it on a pole as a flag. I was so frustrated because I was getting NO IDEAS at all on what clothes or era really, I mean other than 1776 right?

We went to a second hand store to look for costumes or clothes we could convert into something. We even saw a girl from Emily's class doing the same thing there. This was like on Tuesday I think. Emily finds a flower girl type dress that is a little too small for her but it had a zipper in it so we kind of slipped it on her arms and all and it looked like it would be okay. I thought it would be a done deal with the exception of her flag material.

Wednesday night she tells me that her dress doesn't fit. It was one of those bedtime "oh by the way" kind of things. Now I am really frustrated! She needed it for Friday morning.

Of course then I go shopping on Thursday for material, a pattern (after searching for a free pattern on line) and all the notions for it too. This was our whole reason for doing this earlier so we or should I say I wouldn't have to stay up all night to do this.

I finally got started with the dress about 2pm I think I started cutting out the pattern. I knew I had some material at home for the hat and those things. Emily was specific on what she wanted. She really wanted a pink dress but I couldn't find pink material in the price I wanted to buy.

I bought a big fountain drink of diet Dr. Pepper and I started in on it. I can't remember what Robert was doing, it seems like he was working late or had soccer or something, I'm not sure. I also had to run Emily to her soccer practice during this time.

I think I finally went to bed at 3am. My alarm was set for 6:45 to get the girls up for the bus. Ugh! I was so tired and I was so frustrated that I was doing this last minute when I shouldn't have been doing it last minute. Emily in my oppinion was being way too demanding... as I put her to bed, she said, "oh and mom, can you sew my flag too?" SERIOUSLY? I told her I would do the best I can, and we will see in the morning. She was to be at school with all her stuff the next morning at 8 I think.

After she saw her dress, and I could tell she totally approved of it, then it made those lost hours of sleep a little bit better.

She was suppose to bring all our props and her costume for the wax musuem which they were suppose to be there for I think like 2 or 3 hours. The girls and I planned on going to see her. Below is her "please mom will you go buy me that book at the book fair before it closes" look. I was thinking, really? Yes, I still probably really owe you don't I? Although I did still go and get her the 2 books she wanted. I think her smile and the way she kept talking about how much she liked her dress and how people were asking her "where did you get that costume" made me kind of soft.

Another thing that shows she approved and liked the dress/costume, is that she wore it the rest of the day minus the hat and shall. Yeah, it made it seem worth those hours lost in sleep. I also had never sewn darts or zippers, but it all seemed to turn out okay. Her dress came together for the most part.

Children's garden

2011-06-14T10:49:00.000-06:00

Since we have a pass to Thanksgiving Point, we decided to check out the Children's garden. That was so much fun! I only had Samantha and Amber with me, but they so very much LOVED it. They keep asking me when we can go back.

I must say, those are some cute girls! I liked how the pictures turned out. Cute, cute girls!

If you haven't gone there, you should. They have lots of little activities for the girls to do like checkers with sticks and stones and other little activities using nature. We have got to go back soon!

Hope of America

2011-06-13T19:25:00.000-06:00

The fifth graders are able to participate in a performance that (as I understand) is sent to those serving in the millitary. That is kind of all I know about it.

Emily's class worked on the songs for days. Some days they mostly just sang all day. They had a demo type DVD that had the songs and actions that they were suppose to do for each song. Each of the kids got an audio CD as well so they could practice at home.

It was a pretty neat performance. I guess they have 2 different nights that they do it. Each night they have kids from different schools do it.

The kids are given a specific colored shirt, and those colors then make up the flag. Emily was afraid it wouldn't really look like a flag. I guess they have been doing this long enough to know it will work out and look like a flag.

Emily is the middle section, the second white stripe from the top, and on the right side. This picture came from KBYU facebook page I think, or Hope of America Facebook page.

Once I got there, it was already pretty packed. I was all by myself, but still finding just one seat was hard, it seemed like EVERYONE was saving seats. I finally found a seat, and then I was trying to find where Emily was. I had my camcorder, so I started using the zoom on it to find her. She told me a little where they were, and I knew she was white. Once I found her, I got a kick out of what I saw so I had to record it a bit.

Then the two songs that Emily liked best are these two.

On the last video I was looking around for some kids from the other school. Guess I should have done that later. Emily was asking me what I was doing, then she said, "well that is just great mom!" As if that has ruined her whole life now.

The Hope of America will be broadcast on KBYU July 3rd at 12:00 pm and July 4th at 6:00 PM. BYUTV will show the program July 22 at 11:00 AM and July 23 at 11:00 PM

May Days

2011-05-31T08:47:00.000-06:00

May has been one crazy month, I am glad it is almost over! It seems like it is always kind of crazy, school is wrapping up, I have 3 birthdays to celebrate... it just seems to be a bit crazy.

This is how the first week of May went for me.

Monday:
7:55 Kids missed the bus so I drove them to school
9:00ish, I drove Em and neighbor to school (my week to carpool)
1:45ish, girls come home from bus stop
2:40, I take Lindsey, Lauren, and a friend to choir practice, which is the same time Em needed to be picked up.
2:55ish, I go pick up Emily and neighbor from school, arriving 15-20 minutes late due to choir drop off.
3:45, I go pick up kids from choir practice
4:00, go to the store to get Emily her needed things for school, sunglasses, black pants, flashlight
6:00 try to find something quick for dinner and then do a fast FHE so kids can get to bed

Tuesday:
7:19, I shove the girls out the door to go catch the bus
9:00ish, I drive carpool to Em's school
10:45, go check out Lindsey from school
11:15, arrive at Orthodontists for Lindsey's appointment
12:00ish, check Lindsey back into school
2:35ish, girls walk home from bus stop
3:40 pick up carpool at Em's school
4:45, leave to take Amber to her soccer game
5:45, arrive back home to make dinner quickly
7:00, I go to my Pres. meeting

Wednesday:
7:19, kick kids out the door to catch bus
9:00ish, drive carpool to Em's school
2:35ish, girls walk home from bus stop
3:00 tell Lindsey and Lauren to get ready for their soccer game
3:35 I take twins and friend to choir practice, in their soccer stuff
3:55 pick up carpool at Em's school late because of choir practice drop off
4:30 Pick up twins and friend from choir early, drop off friend and head to Rob's work.
5:00 Arrive at Rob's work, switch cars with him... I take Em with me, he keeps the rest of the kids.
Emily and I get some dinner,
6:15, arrive at the Marriot Center for Hope of America performance (which is why we needed sunglasses, flashlight, and black pants)
Rob takes Lindsey and Lauren to their soccer game that starts at 6pm.
10pm, Emily and I are leaving Marriot Center to come home.
Note: Emiliy also was suppose to have Activity Days but missed it due to Hope of America

Thursday:
8:05, I take girls to school because they missed the bus, and I have to check them in to school
9ish, I drive carpool to Em's school
2:35ish, girls walk home from bus stop
3:40 pick up carpool at Em's school
5:20ish, Take Em to her soccer game that starts at 6:00
7:30, figure out something for dinner and send kids to bed late

Friday:
8:10, take twins and their friend to school late and check them in because they missed the bus
9ish, drive carpool to Em's school
2:35ish, girls walk home from bus stop
3:40 pick up carpool at Em's school
Sigh a big relief that the week is over!

Saturday:
8:30 take Emily to soccer game that starts at 9. Hope Grandma and Grandpa arrive to pick her up.
9:25 arrive at Amber's game that starts at 9:30.
Luckily Grandma and Grandpa picked up Emily from her game and brought her to Amber's.
10:30 take kids over to Emergency Preparedness fair (where Rob has been since 7am)
1-ish, leave the fair to go get lunch before Lindsey and Lauren's soccer game
2:00 arrive at twin's soccer game that starts at 2.
3:30 get back home.... phew! What a week!

Of course the weeks events doesn't include any grocery shopping or getting gas or stopping to pick up dinner fixings after soccer games to try to have a quick and easy dinner.

That is just about how my whole month has gone. We have had soccer games each week, normally on Saturdays, but then we have 3 practices during the week. We've had doctor appointments, and one for me and one for the dog too. I had a dentist appointment and I canceled it, I just couldn't do it!

What a month! I am glad May is just about over! I hope for slower days in the month of June.

Dinosaurs!

2011-05-23T08:56:00.001-06:00

Do you ever have those weeks that seem to go by and you feel like you haven't done anything fun, it has been just busy, busy, busy? That is how Robert and I were feeling. We decided for FHE or family night we would go to the dinosaur museum. We have lived near by for 11 years almost and have never once gone there. We decided to go.

The kids really liked it, I thought it was pretty fun too! We watched a 3D movie. Samantha and Amber were sitting on my lap and they jumped a few times.

Most of my pictures didn't turn out, but here are few that did. The bigger girls were interested in picture taking. They were too busy with other things.

Samantha was all about taking pictures. She kept asking for more pictures. Usually that is Amber's role but she was with Robert and he was trying to move their everything quickly so we would be done since it was getting late for a school night.

Samantha's little expression and body language here cracks me up. She was a little unsure of getting too close to this giant shark. He did look pretty intimidating.

That was the end of the night. We ate at the little resturaunt which wasn't a favorite at all and then went home. Oh, but before we went home, we decided to get a annual family pass.

And since we kind of hurried through things we didn't get to let the kids dig in the sand for dinosaur bones at the end. I brought the two little girls back a few days later to dig.

It was nice, we had like 40 minutes, so we just went straight to the sand where they played for about 30 minutes until it was time to go home.

And of course since these are my best girls to take pictures of (since they actrually sit and wait for me to take pictures) we took some more pictures too. I love this picture!

Aren't these girls so cute? I sure love, love, love them! I also think we are going to enjoy having this annual pass to the dinosaur musuem and all other things for Thanksgiving Point.

Note: Visitors that come with me, get 50% off admission I think, so if someone wants to join me there, let me know!

Soccer Season

2011-05-20T13:29:00.000-06:00

Soccer season for us has started and is almost over. The last game is on the 4th of June. It has been great for the girls to go get out and enjoy the weather (when it hasn't been raining or freezing cold with the wind blowing). At Emily's practice we play on the park playground, weather permitting of course.

Samantha is the only one not playing soccer this season. Amber got a water bottle, and Samantha wanted one too. I told her she couldn't get one. Later that night, after the rest of the girls went to bed and after hearing Samantha cry and keep telling me she needed it, I weakend and took her to get her a water bottle too. She brings it to drink when we go to the various soccer games to watch the girls play.

Amber started out crying and was not wanting to play at her first game. Now she has gotten a little more use to the way little preschoolers play, everyone chase the ball and fall over each other. She has been pretty aggresive some games, even trying to steal the ball from her own team mates. It is such a fun game to watch those little ones play.

Samantha is the best cheerleader, or maybe she is just my best shadow. She wants to go anywhere I go. She will go to all the soccer games I go to even if some of the girls don't go. She has fallen asleep in my lap at one game. Amber is content on not going. She even decided to stay home when we met my parents for dinner on the night they arrived. Funny girl. Samantha, she goes everywhere I go, or she is sad and cries.

Emily's games and Amber's games are at the same time so I haven't been able to get any pictures yet of Emily's games. Emily did score a goal 2 games ago and last game she assisted with one. She typically plays mid-field. She is exhausted at the end of the game. Their team doesn't have any subs at all, so they all play the whole game. Emily's team has lost one game, tied one game and won the other games.

Lauren and Lindsey are on the same team. I love their coach, she is fabulous! (I don't know Emily's really enough to have an opinion). Lindsey and Lauren's team have won every game so far. They are fun to watch. Lauren played goalie one time and she did fabulous! She was diving for the ball and didn't let one of the many shots that came toward her by. I am pleased to see Lindsey and Lauren becoming more and more aggresive when they play. They still need to step it up a bit, but they are improving.

I hope to get more soccer pictures before the season is over. It is tough on Saturdays, we have 2 morning games, that start within a half an our of each other, and then I also in that same time frame am suppose to pick up my Bountiful Baskets. Saturdays are so busy. I will be partly glad when soccer is over, so I can have more time on Saturdays.

Confession of a mistake

2011-05-10T13:38:00.000-06:00

Have you ever done something with out really thinking? You make a choice, you think it will all work out and then later you realize you weren't thinking right. Those decisions that you think are no big deal, it won't really matter anyway, and later you find out they do matter... LOTS!

Recently I had a choice to make. I should have known better. It is true what people say about those thoughts in your heart, they really decide for you. You think you will be smart, you think you can take a step back and look at it and make the right choice. In my heart even though I knew it wasn't good, I wanted something so bad. Yet it wasn't really a good choice, and I logically knew it wasn't good for me, or even my family.

Many of the choices we make don't just effect us but our families, our friends, and other people around us. I wasn't thinking of others, I was only thinking of myself and my desires. Sure others would be okay with my choice and some even be grateful for my choice. I wasn't thinking of how it would effect everyone. I was again, only thinking in the moment, I wasn't thinking of long term or what this choice really meant. I was only after that instant gratification,

I knew it was a bad choice. I knew I would have great consequences for it. I have heard before that you can choose whatever you want but you can't choose the consequence for it. I forgot about that until my recent bad choice, until I was dealing with those consequences for my weak moment, for that time when I didn't think things through. I have seen other do it, they looked so fun and so inviting... seemed so carefree and wonderful. I never saw any regrets from their choices.

I am now dealing with the consequences of my bad choice, my moment of weakness. I hope I will be smarter next time, and be able to learn from my mistakes. We got a puppy! He is a biting, scratching, chewing machine. Nothing is safe. What have I done? I am now left with regrets.

Easter Week

2011-05-10T13:07:00.001-06:00

I was thinking about Easter and how I was dissappointed how I felt when Christmas was over. It is a major religious holiday and yet I felt like as a family we failed to celebrate it with Christ in the center of things.

One of my dear friends has a book about having a Christ centered Easter. She had a post on her blog last year I think about what she does and how she brings and keeps Christ into it all. I loved it! I thought for sure we would follow it this year and adjust or add to it as I felt fit our family.

I also planned on doing those easter cookies, the ones you make and put in your oven until the morning. I have always thought it would be fun, but when I first heard of it I had just a little baby. Then each year it seemed like I forgot about it till it was too late.

I wanted to dedicate our family home evening the week before Easter to talking about Easter and all that, but then I was reminded of Jamie's Easter activities she does. I thought perfect!

The week before Easter went like this:

Sunday: I had a huge headache, but managed to talk a bit about Easter and we did the first little lesson. I explained the the kids that we were going to talk about Easter every night this week.

Monday: I woke up with a small irriated throat, thought it was maybe just allergies even though they normally effect my eyes and nose more than my throat. As the day went on, it got worse, I felt aweful called my husband to have him bring dinner home (which I seldom do for being sick). At about 5 I took lots of mortin and started to feel a bit better, my head ache almost went away. We did the second day events for the Easter week activities for family home evening.

Tuesday: I didn't sleep good, I wanted to die, in hopes to end my pain. I called Robert to come home from work so I could get some help and go to the Dr. I tested positive for strep. I came home and went to bed. We didn't do any Easter related things.

Wednesday: Didn't sleep good, motrin didn't really dull much pain but knew I was to get better since I was taking my RX. I slept most the day, the girls watched TV most all day long. A wonderful neighbor brought us dinner. All day I was either freezing cold or burning up. No Easter activity.

Thursday: I slept when the girls watched a movie, and after my older girls got home from school. I was feeling a bit better. Was excited to get back on track with the Easter activities. I combined 2 or 3 of the days to get caught up were we should be.

Friday: Feeling better, my throat almost wasn't hurting. I was contemplating running my race for the next day. I decided against it. Went shopping to finalize all our Easter stuff. Luckily I had bought most the stuff weeks ago. We forgot to do the Easter activity, but I was able to eat so sort of real food.

Saturday: I was woken up around 4ish by Amber. I started thinking about running the race again. I decided I would do it. I got up a few hours later to get ready for the race. I was pretty sore from the race. Robert and I went shopping, and my appetite had returned. I was HUNGRY and wanted REAL food! That night I stuffed plastic eggs, and we forgot to do Easter stuff again, well REAL Easter stuff.

Sunday: The girls had strings tied to their beds that lead to their Easter baskets. We went to church, went to Grandma's for Easter egg hunt there and dinner. I felt like again, this important holiday went by and we didn't focus on it enough.

I guess there is always next year. I keep thinking if I wasn't sick or if I had planned better. I tried, and it was better than last year. I feel like we didn't ever focus on those major important things about Jesus' life. I guess it is just those small steps that make you closer. Hopefully next year I will be a bit closer to where I wanted to be this year.

We didn't even color eggs this year.... I guess there is always next year.

Race again

2011-04-28T16:00:00.001-06:00

Sometime last year I entered a race. Actrually two but I only ran in one. This year I have signed up for 2 more. Each of them are 5K and I am thinking about entering the 1/2 marathon, is that crazy? I think it is. Time will tell.

My race was on the 23rd of April which seemed fine untiil I realized the girls all had their first soccer game that day too. Game one at 9am, game two at 9:30, and game three at 2. My race started at 9am in Alpine, but I had to be there early to get my runners packet and check in. That would mean I would miss the first 2 games and Robert would be hopping from one to another.

I was getting a little worried about my training since I hadn't really for awhile. My parents were here, I didn't run at all that week. We had spring break and sick kids, I didn't really run that week. I figured I would just get in some good long runs and some fast interval workout before my run on Saturday.

Then on Sunday of race week I had a terrible headache. (It never went away until Friday.) Monday morning I had a scratchy throat, and by the middle of the day, I had called Robert to tell him to pick up something for dinner since I didn't really feel good. My throat on one side felt like it was on fire. My head still hurt and I just wanted to go to bed. Tuesday morning I slept in while Robert got the early kids off to school. I had to get up around 8 to make sure Em was getting ready for school and then I would have to take her to school. Once I got out of bed, I was in such pain, my body hurt all over, my throat was in a firery furnace, my ears felt as if they would explode, my head was pounding. Several times contempleted ways to end the pain, but I knew that wasn't the answer.

Robert had asked me that morning if I needed him to stay home. I don't think I have ever had him stay home, even after we have a baby, he takes a day or two off, and then goes back to work. I guess he figures that is time enough right. (smiles) I felt so horrible, and I hated to call and ask, but I did, I called and asked if he could come home. I called and got a doctors appointment. Confirmed strep, I pretty much slept most the day after 3pm, except when I was in that 1 hr window of not being able to take more pain meds yet not getting relief.

Wednesday I told Robert he could go back to work, I knew I was on the mend. I hadn't eaten much at all, I did manage to eat a popscicle, but the sugar in it left undesirable phlem in my thoat. I figured I was dehydrated too, possible cause of headache, and it hurt SO SO bad to drink anything.

By Friday I could drink continuously without having to stop after ever swallow. It didn't hurt much to even swallow my own saliva compared to before. I even ate part of dinner. Things were looking up.

I had been dizzy and light headed the whole week. Grandma said it was due to the antibiotics. She may be right, I still get a little dizzy now, but not as bad, and I am still on the meds. I was contemplating the whole week how I was going to run this race on Saturday. How can I run if I am dizzy? How can I run if I haven't eaten at all? How am I going to run when my throat hurts so bad?

I talked to Robert about it on Friday night. I had decided it was a bummer but I wasn't going to be able to do it. I hadn't trained the last 3 weeks, I was sick, we had crazy soccer schedules... it just wasn't going to work out. End of discussion, I wasted my money, I didn't get to race.

Amber woke up early Saturday morning. I started to think about the race again. I could walk if my throat was hurting. If I was dizzy, I could always just walk too. I already paid for it, even if I walk it, I should just go. I set my alarm and went back to bed, or tried to. I was then too excited to sleep and was thinking about the race.

My alarm went off, I woke up Robert to check to see if he was okay if I really did go to my race. He said he would arrange all the soccer stuff and I could go. I got up, had a yogurt for breakfast, took some motrin and grabbed a bottle of water and headed to the race.

The race was in Alpine. It was FREEZING! I met some new friends there, which was good, since I was afraid I would be all alone running by myself. I did run pretty much by myself but I had some friends to talk to before the race started while we froze!

My time was not impressive. I was very dissapointed in it. (5K in 35 minutes, average of 11min miles.) But since I was sick, and since I hadn't ran the last 3 weeks I try to not be so upset about it. The race itself was alot of fun. I had a good time. I am thinking about signing up for their half marathon which will be in Oct I think in Park City. Time will tell. I need to get running more.

Saturday I had one hip that was really sore. By Sunday, I was moving so slow and didn't want to bend over and pick up anything. At church I asked Robert to hand me my bag. My hips hurt, my ankles, my shins... I felt like I walked like an old arthritic person.

The race I did was the Pink Series, for breast cancer. It is an all women race, and they had I think 6 firemen in their firesuits on the bottom and a white shirt and pink tie on, with their hats. I tried to put my picture on here of it but it says the server refused it. Go figure!

My next race is the Dirty Dash, on June 3rd, and I have a race entry already paid that no one is using. Anyone interested? It's a 5K at Soldier Hollow with obsticles to run through as well. Sounds like fun. Check out their website.

Spring Break week

2011-04-27T12:02:00.000-06:00

After my parents left, we still had a few more kids take turns throwing up. Amber went for her second round of getting sick. She was so funny (if you can see any humor in the stomach flu). She was asleep on the couch and threw up almost on Lauren't head. Amber was pretty much still asleep. I was trying to get her to sit up and go to the bathroom. She wouldn't do it. I tried getting her clothes off her, and she was mad at me. I told her she threw up all over, she didn't even beleive that. Finally she woke up enough to realize it all.

That was kind of our spring break. We had sick kids. We thought we were going to the zoo on Friday and I think that is when Amber threw up, early that morning. We didn't do anything at all. Well I take that back,

we went to McDonald's courtsey of my parents McD's Dollars they left for us,

and we got ice cream type treats and played on the play area.

Also soccer started for the girls, so we had 2 soccer practices. Samantha and Amber had fun playing at the playground while we waited for the practice to be over.

The area that Emily practices at has a few little bridges. The girls all took turns playing "3 Billy Goats Gruff" and they "trip-trotted" across the troll bridge to try and get past the troll. I wish I would have gotten pictures or even video of them. I will have to remember that when we go back for another practice for Emily this week.

It is always hard for me to get back into the swing of things, back into our normal schedule of school. Being off for the week was nice but I didn't feel like we did much while the kids were out of school. Maybe if the kids were healthier. I suppose summer will be here before I know it.

*Note: For some reason I couldn't get my pictures to download. (Frustrating!)

Visitors!

2011-04-25T09:40:00.000-06:00

My wonderful parents came to visit us for their spring break. Unfortunately our spring break was a week after their spring break. We were so happy to have them come and spend their week with us.

After the week was over, I realized I didn't get one picture of anything. Seems like I do that too often! Makes me sad I didn't capture the moments and memories of it all.

My parents spoil us when they come. Just to name a few.... grocies they wouldn't let me pay for, dinners they paid for even after I told the cashier my dad's card he had wasn't his and was stolen, toys, treats, and shoes for the girls. They also bought me some new glasses. We had like 3 glasses since we have broken most of them over the last 12 years of our marriage. We have a ton of plastic cups for the kids but for adult size cups we were lacking. It was one my list to get, but we just hadn't made that purchase. My dad came home from the store one day with a box of glasses. SPOILED!

While my parents were here I also was able to go on a field trip with my 3rd graders. They went to a museum. I even got to ride on the bus. I wasn't sure that was a good idea, I got a little sick and thought I might need the garbage can. Luckily some kids couldn't get their window put all the way up so I had a bit of air blowing on me. I got to sit by Lindsey and one of her friends on the bus and then I got to be part of a group with Lindsey too. Lauren could have been in my group but she wanted to stay in her friends group. Funny because it was Lauren that wanted me to come so bad.

I was amazed at how many parent helpers they had and several dads too. I know my girls would be overjoyed to have their dad come to something like that.

Several of my girls got sick with the stomache flu while my parents were here. My dad got sick while he was here too, but I think perhaps it was just allergies. He was sick last time he was here too and went home and got into the doctor to find it was all allergies. Poor Dad!!

My mom even did music in the Primary for me while she was here. She is so great at music. Music was something we always had growing up. She had us singing and performing at young ages. Some of us did more than others. Perhaps it was because of our talents or in my case the fear of being in the spot light that shaped our performances too. She did a fantastic last minute job at music. (Our wonderful music ladies left to have babies.)

It was sad to see my parents leave. I know the time comes, and you gotta get back to work and life. It always seems like the time goes too fast though! I cried when they left. Lauren was sick that day, I thought it would of been nice to go out to lunch with them, but couldn't with poor Lauren. That's okay, like my parents would really let ME take them to lunch and pay. They would have ended up paying.

My girls love their grandparents so much. They were so excited about them coming. They talk about gong to their house next. I wish it wasn't so far between their house and my house. They are planning on serving a mission this fall. That will be so fun for them. They are setting such a great example for my children of what's important. It's hard being so far away, it doesn't take much for me to want to go for a visit. I have told Robert before, "they are burning that pile of brush and roasting hot dogs, can I go home for that?" I often get to go home for weddings and big family gatherings but not every little thing.

My visitors are gone now. They have been gone for awhile now. I think it is time for them to return. My house seems so quiet and so lonely. Seems not right. I wonder if they can come back now?

Room Re-Do

2011-04-19T22:10:00.001-06:00

I remember when I had just Emily and I learned of a friend who had twins and they were like 3 and still in cribs I thought that was just too much! Seriously, a 3 yr old still in a crib? Emily started crawling out of her crib aound 15-18 months. By the time she was 2 she was in the bottom part of a bunk bed as we prepared for twins in a couple more months.

Later, I felt so bad for thinking that. It is so true that you don't really know until you are there, right?

My twins young life was a blur so I can't even remember when we pulled them out of cribs. There is a little over 4 years from the twins and then our next baby. With Emily we needed the crib for the twins, and she was climbing and falling out anyways.

I had two cribs so I didn't feel like we had to take Amber out before Samantha came. Amber was just about 19 months when we had our next baby. I couldn't stand the thought of having a nap time for the 19 month old and have her be able to get out of her bed. I kept the crib and set up another one for the baby.

Next thing I know, I am that mom with the baby (who isn't really a baby) in the crib. I think Amber was surely older than 3 when we finally took one side of the crib off so she can get in and out by herself. I was tired of her saying, "Mom, can you get me out of my crib?"

We had a daybed that we got from our neighbor when her girl out grew it or upsized. It is white, had a few scratches in it. I decided to paint it and have it be a Christmas present for Amber so she could be in a big girl bed. Maybe she would stop making her way to my room at night.

I never finished it in time for Christmas, then I kind of forgot about it. I finally finished it maybe in Feburary and I took down a crib.

Some of the balls where missing too so I just got some from the craft store and painted them adn got some hardware to put them back together. Pretty cheap re-do if you ask me. I wasn't super thrilled with the out come, there are lots of places I didn't get a good paint cover. But, for now, it will be just fine.

And I have one crib left. I am in no rush... she is turning 3 soon and is potty trained. That is my only dilema, having to get her out of bed to take her potty. Yeah, now I am that mom I couldn't believe would have her 3 year old in a crib! Samantha did ask for her side off one night, but the next night she wanted it back on. Funny girl!

Amber tried out her new bed after I set it all up. When I went to see what she was doing, she was asleep already. Guess she likes it, or she did. She still would prefer to sleep in my room.

(My girls loved the transformation of the bed too. In fact, my twins were jealous that they didn't get the bed.)

All about Emily

2011-04-18T12:15:00.001-06:00

Emily turned 11 not too long ago. She had a birthday party, which involved I think 4 friends sleeping over, they were up late or should I say early in the morning, but they are all such great girls.

For her birthday I decided I was going to make a bunch of mail for her. Everyone likes mail right. Well I did about somewhere around 25-30 letters for her. Somewhere from Samantha and Amber with pictures on them. Some just said, "You are AWESOME" and some where long letters from Father Time, Mother Nature, and some other people. Lauren did one from her "secret admirer" she was thrilled when I asked her to get the mail and then she saw what it was. She was saying, "Oh I got a letter, I got another one, and another....." She was cracking me up!

She had two friends here already and Lindsey and Laruen (and one of their friends) were eager to see and hear all about it too. Emily read through almost all of them except a few that were really long.

Emily got her hair cut. She was telling me before that she was going to cut her hair when she was like 12 or in 7th grade or something. I can't remember exactly what she had said. It suprised me then when she asked for her hair cut. She told me she wanted it to about her elbows she thought. I cautioned her on it, I can take it off but I can't put it back on. Obviously it will grow back but I just didn't want her to be mad at me about it if I got it too short. I ended up taking off about 8-1/2 to 9 inches of the back. Her hair seems to grow really uneven so it is all evened up again now. I think she was a little disappointed no one really even noticed that she cut her hair. You would think with that much getting taken off you would, but her hair is still SO long.

Emily received for Christmas a book on CD of the Tennis Shoes among the Nephites series. I think that is what it is called. The CD was the 11th book. For her birthday she got the first 5 books, and currently today she is reading the 5th one. She will be done with it I am sure by the end of the day. She is such a book worm! It is good and bad. She is so consumed with it sometimes, she won't sleep and then we all suffer her rath as she is a angry bear the next day. It can be pretty bad!

It seems like such a long time ago that we had Emily, and yet in another view it seems like such a short time ago we were calling family saying that our water broke and we were headed to the hospital. As I was on the phone with the dr. telling them that I thought my water broke, Rob says, "do you think I still have time to take a shower?" I didn't know. He did shower and it all seemed okay. We arrived at the hospital around 6:30am and she was delivered at 9:16am. Robert was talking to a guy in the hospital elevator when he went to go get breakfast, and the other dad was so excited about them having thier first too. He asked the guy how long they had been at the hospital, which was sometime the evening before. Robert didn't want to tell him we got there this morning and he already his baby.

10 pounds and 1 oz of total girl! Emily is such a GIRL in everything. She tries to tell me she isn't, she doesn't really care for pink and she doesn't like real fu-fu-y things, but she is a girl 100%.

There was no doubt why we got Emily first. She is such a great help and for the most part (unless she was up reading the night before too late) is such a pleasure to have around. She loves to organize and design things. She is so fun to create things with. She has always been an obedient child. She loves rules and follows them mostly. I remember in Kindergarten, she was telling some girl that she should put a shirt under her dress because it was immodest. She is more cautious now maybe on stating her mind among her peers, but she has no problem telling us how she feels at home. She will correct the twins on their eating habbits, the way they drink, or even sit on a chair too slouchy. It is tiring sometimes and causes contention as well.

Emily is getting old enough that she isn't really requesting any cake. She requested that it be Lemon flavor and that was it. One of her friends came and stayed the whole weekend with us. She arrive before Emily got home from school, and she helped me with the flowers and candles.

She has been excited to start babysitting. It has been kind of a struggle for us. Emily is getting old enough that most those we have come babysit are just a few years older than she is. Robert made a good point about getting babysitters, "we are just hiring her friends to babysit, why not have her do it?" I still kind of am uneasy about it. Robert keeps prepping me for it, "soon she will be our babysitter." It is kind of weird, I don't worry about the neighbor girls knowing what to do in the event of an emergency, but I wonder about Emily. The only difference would be perhaps the neighbor girl would have her parents at home she could call for help. I know, not much different. I did have a nighmare one night that we had Emily babysit and the house caught fire, she didn't know it and she and the twins died. I remember in my dream crying for my girls, and poor Emily, and how aweful it would have been for her to live through it and possibly feel responsible for it. In my dream I was thinking perhaps it was best for her to perish. I woke up crying, trying to grasp the reality of things and if that was a memory or a bad dream.

Emily is such a great helper to me. Often she is one I can go to and joke around with, tell her things like I would tell a friend such as experiences through the day or what one of the girls said that was funny. I try to be careful too because I don't want to influence her of my opinions of things that maybe she should make her own mind up about.

I have enjoyed all 11 years we have had together, I look forward to some more wonderful years. I can't believe she is 11 already. Where did the time go?

This is Emily at age 2. The twins were about 3 months old, we were holding onto their clothes to keep them sitting up.

The picture above is how I picture her when I talk to her on the phone. She still has that little small voice when she is on the phone, or maybe it is just me?

I'm trying...

2011-03-22T23:16:00.000-06:00

Recently I have been trying to eat better, prepare better meals as in healthier meals. I have been participating in bountiful baskets which gives us lots of fresh fruits and vegetables each Saturday.

Normally my meals would be something pretty much from a box or close to it, except for maybe tacos.
In my attempt to make healthier meals and also try new things that we get int the BB I have been trying out new recipes.

Can I just say I am sick and tired of hearing, "what are we having for dinner?" and after my response (no matter what I say, or so it seems) their response is... "I don't like that. Can I make my own dinner?"

I might just scream the next time I hear that question! Not to mention that it takes me longer to prepare a GOOD dinner but it also makes a bigger mess in the kitchen.

For example the mac and cheese with broccoli we had the other day. I used a pan to cook the broccoli in, a pan for the whole wheat noodles, a pan to cook the sauce in and then the baking dish that it went into the oven in. Not to mention the cheese grater and assorted measuring instruments.

So after all that, no one ate it but me and I think Rob did too once he got home from his meeting. Now I have a huge dish left over of home-made mac and cheese with broccoli and that was after I fed it to my family last night again. Of course no one really ate it again.

We have tried things out like fresh coconuts and pineapples. Acorn squash, asparagus, Jerusalem artichokes, mangos, forelle pears, sweet potatoes, and turnips to name a few of the things we have gotten and tried that I normally don't buy at the store or even consume.

Part of me feels good about eating more fruits and vegetables, and trying out new things. But it is canceled out with the lack of apprecation from my girls and the huge piles of dirty dishes from making the meals. Oh, and did I mention how I hate the complaining of the kids in those things we are eating for dinner? It seems the more homemade it is the worse the complaints are.

Perhaps we will have top ramen tonight for dinner tonight so I can eat in peace. Perhaps in my efforts of trying, I am failing. Ugh!

Dr again

2011-03-11T08:52:00.001-07:00

Being in Primary I get to see the attendance reports, which in that is included the kids that have not been to church at all in the month. Guess who was on that list? Samantha! She apparently didn't attend at all in the month of Feburary. She had a little cold, and then another time Amber was sick so Robert stayed home with Amber and we just let Samantha stay home too. Then Lindsey had pink eye, so she stayed home and Amber was getting over her cold (or I thought) and both her and Samantha had yucky noses. Then both the little girls were sick.

I took Samantha and Amber in to the doctor once they too were showing signs of pink eye. Poor Samantha! She was looking worse than this picture. She got yuckier before she got better. They never really had red eyes, just goopy, slimy eyes. Samantha also had a 103 temp. She was burning up.

Turns out that Amber had pink eye, an ear infection and then Samantha had pink eye, an ear infection, and possibly strep but they didn't swab her for it since the meds for her ear infections would cover strep too. Amber didn't ever really seem sick, with the exception of coughing. She did run a temperature one or two nights but was fine during the day, which was about almost 2 weeks before I took her in.

We have been to the doctor lots lately. He is our new doctor and we are getting to know him pretty quick. Lindsey with her eyes, then Samantha and Amber, and then Emily had her 11 yr well-care visit since she is turning 11. I feel like we should be allowed a punch card or something for the doctor and get our next co-pay free or some other reward. At least we have insurance. I am thankful for that!

Amber's art

2011-03-10T08:22:00.000-07:00

Amber has been practicing her name. She loves to write it. She still needs some work on it but since she just started writing her name a few days ago and this one she did from memory.
I like her picture too! I think that one of the pink persons are from one of the twins. Her pictures remind me of Emily's pictures in her preschool stuff.

Amber will start her name out by drawing a line to write it on, then she will write her name on her line. If she mixes up or forgets a letter she will start all over again with a new line and begin her name again. It is pretty cute. This is what she will call "play school" which she will ask me to do often if I don't do it. She calls me Teacher-Mommy. It always puts a smile on my face when I hear her say, Teacher-Mommy.

She's a lot of fun! I love her to pieces, every bit of it!

Random stuff

2011-02-28T12:47:00.001-07:00

Emily had a science project, so somehow in that, we ended up with 2 guinea pigs.

Now that her project is over, I am not sure what we will do with them. The got lots of attention the first couple weeks.

Now no one wants to clean their cage which gets pretty smelly pretty fast!

Our cat who still has no name besides Cat and Kitty, catches mice all the time.

He will bring them in and flip them around and catch it and bite it and then bat it again. Yesterday he brought in two mice, one right after the other one. They were not the same one, the first one was dead and the second not so dead.

It is kind of annoying when the cat brings the mice inside. (I must admit I find it amusing to watch him play with it.) Then I have to put the dead mouse outside. What is really annoying is when he brings the mouse inside and it isn't dead and he lets it loose. So far he has done this 2 times, and the mouse has gotten in a place where he can't reach it. This morning our cat was standing guard in a closet. I moved things around and the mouse ran out, the cat still was in the closet looking for it. Last I saw the mouse, it ran into my laundry room. By this time the cat was taking a nap on the couch. Perhaps I need another cat.

We sign up for Bountiful Baskets each week. Each Saturday we go pick it up. This week we got coconuts. The girls were super excited to drink the liquid inside it and eat the coconut meat. We drained the coconut.

I smashed it with a hammer! It broke right open. On the internet it suggested smacking the coconut with the back of a durable meat clever knife. I opted for the hammer.

I took all the meat out of it.

And we were left with the shells. The girls have several different things they want to do with it.

Funny thing, the girls were so excited for all this coconut adventure, but no one liked the water from inside, or the coconut, and they even convinced me to make coconut milk, which no one liked. We did make a smoothie out of the coconut milk, but only a few liked it. I guess now I have a ton of coconut. Perhaps now I really will make granola to help use up my coconut. I love coconut, and have been eating the raw coconut. I am the only one. Oh, well the cat was eating some too.

This is just a random picture of Samantha. She still loves her blanket, and her thumb. Unfortanetly, Amber is still sucking her thumb too. I was so good at having my kids be done with bottles at 12 months, their pacifiers shortly after that. In fact little Amber did have a pacifier and I took it away from her before Samantha was even born. Then when Samantha was sucking her thumb, Amber picked it up too.

Samantha loves her blanket. I asked her what her favorite animal was, she said "blanket" which cracked me up. My baby is growing up! That makes me sad! Wish I could slow the days down and keep her little. All my kids are growing up too fast!

The eyes have it...

2011-02-25T19:48:00.000-07:00

Pink eye that is. Poor Lindsey!

Clever Amber

2011-02-19T10:05:00.000-07:00

Amber seems to have a rapid growing brain. She reminds me of Emily at this age, witty for her young age and understood joking around. Amber will get Samantha to come over to me or go into the bathroom, whatever it is that I am requesting of Samantha, when Samantha isn't cooperating. Amber will say "hey Samantha, follow me" or "Samantha can you catch me?" or something like that to get her to be tricked into coming to me. Then of course, Amber walks right over to where I want her. She helps me out quite abit in the day doing this, also asking Samantha to race her to get her pajamas on or her seat buckled, things that she isn't doing for me. Amber is pretty clever! I am afraid this cleverness will be not for my benefit as she gets older.

One day I was in the basement going through totes and totes of girl clothes. It seemed there were not clothes for Amber, so I went to look for the clothes I knew we MUST have in the basement, after having 3 girls ahead of her, and twins... there had to be something more. When I was getting all the clothes gathered I stumbled upon a pair of footed pajamas that were like size 14 or 16 in girls. I thought they were the funniest thing. I showed them to Amber and told her they were Emily's size.

That night I secretly got those pajamas with Amber and added them with her pajamas. As I was putting on Amber's footed pajamas, Amber said to Emily, "I just love footed pajamas, don't you?" Emily of course just responded, "yeah." Then Amber said, "they are so warm, don't you wish you had a pair?" Then Emily got sucked right into it, "Yeah I wish I had a pair, I just love footed pajamas!" Then Amber asked her, "if you had a pair would you wear them?" Emily was exagerating, "Yeah I would wear them every night and all day if I could!" Amber quickly got up, grapped those big pajamas and threw them at Emily and said, "You do, here you go!"

I was laughing so hard... Emily got pulled right into it. Amber did it all, she didn't need any help, she just suckered Emily into saying exactly what she wanted.

So Emily humored Amber, and the rest of us, and put those pajamas on. Too funny!

The next morning Emily was wearing different pajamas. She said she got way too hot and had to change in the night.

Emily is so good with Amber. They both have such a bond and unique love for one another. I love to watch them interact. I hope they will always be close!

Valentine's Day

2011-02-15T11:47:00.000-07:00

As Valentine's day approached, I couldn't help but to think of our Valentine's time 2 years ago. You can read the post here about when Samantha had RSV and she was in the hospital. It was just a day or two after Valentine's day. At times it seems like so long ago, and yet also like just a short time ago. How does time do that, seem both so distant and yet just yesterday too? I read my post from two years ago and remembered all those feelings of how sad it was to listen to Samantha struggle to even breath, and Amber who was 2 was sick with it I am sure too, but she was old enough that you could hear her raspy breathing but she was strong enough to be okay. I hated going to the hospital and holding down my sweet little 8 month old baby while they stuck tubes in her nose and mouth to suck out the fluids while she cried her little tiny helpless hoarse cry. I hope I don't even have to deal with something like that again. The twins even remember going to the hospital to visit her. They remember the little kids hospital gown she had on. It was blue with little bears on it. It was way too big, but we just modified it a bit. I had forgotten those details until they had said it. I had some pics but they were on a phone that I had to replace and I lost the pictures.

On to better things... this year I didn't do as much with the heart theme as I have before. I tried to make heart cookies, but I think because they were store bought dough, they didn't turn out. I have done it before with my recipe and it works so good. So I ended up cutting the cookies a bit to make them look more like hearts.

I had Samantha and Amber paint "love" pictures. They were cute. Then I just drew on some other paper for placemats and added some candy suckers to the table. Suckers seem to be a staple at our house sometimes. You can see the pictures they painted under the little bottles.

The strawberries were heart shaped, the ice in the pink soda was heart shaped, and the pizza was heart shaped before I cut it. We also ate heart candy too. Oh, yeah the best part was Amber helping me make heart shaped breadsticks. She helped me twist the pillsbury breadsticks from a can into little hearts on sticks and big hearts too. I put some of the ones in a vase that were tall, but some of them just broke. Oh well. To my suprise the breadsticks were tasty. They were the garlic kind. I will probably buy them again. I hadn't had them before, or don't remember it anyway.

Samantha is "too big for her high chair now" or so she thinks she is. She uses a chair now. She seems to be enjoying her dinner.

Amber insisted on having her mouth wide open. She is too funny! Since she has been sick she has been working on eating all her food. She actrually ate ALL her pizza but a little bit of crust, and 3 bread sticks. You can see a little of the breadstick in her hand that was kind of shaped like a heart wand.

Emily is good with anything that has to do with pizza! I lost count of how many slices she had.

Lauren was enjoying the meal, but seemed to have already filled her belly with candy at a friends house so she didn't eat much. Emily snuck into Lauren's picture. (You can really see those genetic canine teeth of hers.)

This is the funniest pose of Samantha's! When you tell her to say cheese, she squishes up her face and closes her eyes and says, "cheese!" It really cracks me up!!

I went cheap, really cheap and just wrote Robert a little letter with some song lyrics from Matthew West, "Wouldn't Change a Thing" and what does he do... what he does everytime. He gets me something way too expensive, something I wouldn't have ever dreamed of because it is out of what I would consider our price range.... he got me an iPhone. We were getting ready to shut my phone off to save some money, but instead, he upgraded it to a new phone and got himself one too. The phone seems pretty cool, but it will take me forever to figure it all out. I had my iPod figured out, but now a phone was just added to it. Yikes! It will take me awhile. Now I will get nothing done around the house for a week while I try it out and learn how to use it. It will be Robert's own fault when he comes home and there is no clean clothes or clean dishes. (okay not really)

A recap of the last few weeks

2011-02-11T12:41:00.000-07:00

Friday after school there was a swarm of kids at our house playing. There were a few of them playing on an old phone (one with a cord connecting the base to the handset) that I plugged in, they wanted to see how it worked. Next I hear the words "911" and "dialed" which caught my attention quickly. I informed them that it was against the law to call 911 if it isn't an emergency and that they could get in big trouble. They hung up the phone. I unplugged the old phone.  As I was putting the phone away and continued my lecture on why we can't call 911, the phone rang. I wasn't for sure if they really had called 911. I aswered the phone, and it was the 911 center. They received a call from my house and wanted to know if everything was alright or if we needed help. I apologized and tried to explain what had happened and that we were fine.  About 15 minutes later, a police officer knocked on my door due to the 911 call. I explained it to him and assured all is fine. He took my personal info anyway. I guess I have a record now.

When the officer came, I was getting ready to walk out the door to meet Robert for a date. We had a sitter. When we came home we heard all about their eventful night. The saw something out the kitty door in the garage.   Some glowing eyes (like cats eyes do) but it wasn't the cat. Amber went to open the door and the sitter told her NO! Then the sitter went to look out there, she found the return of the Racoon! He hissed at her as he was going down the steps. I guess the kids where pretty spooked and stayed in my room the rest of the night.

We had an incident the night before of something that was in the kitchen and I thought it was the cat. When Robert went to go check it out, the cat was in the loft. The kitty door swished open and shut when Robert went in the kitchen. As he came back upstairs the cat was still in the loft. Same night, just earlier, the kitty door swished but the cat was laying in front of the door. I thought it was maybe the wind. I felt the cat to see if he was cold as if he were in the garage, but he wasn't. I didn't think any more of it until later when we had other things. I did notice the racoon tracks in the snow in January sometime. We are blocking the cat door in the outside garage door so he can't come into our garage.

I went shopping on Saturday... alone... but ended up coming back much later than I anticipated which made a frustrated husband. I did get alot done. I got some curtains for our bedroom since the stupid vertical blinds that are in there are falling down, getting broken and don't work. I found some curtains to replace the vertical blinds in our dining room too that I want, but those will have to wait a bit longer. I did a small grocery store trip and got some hardware for some misc. tasks around the house at Home Depot. I got a book shelf for the little girls room and some little baskets to go with it.

Sunday we had Robert's parents over for dinner. Technically, they brought dinner. I made a new salad, with cauliflower, onions, brocoli, rasins, bacon, sunflower seeds. It was SO yummy! Robert made the comment, "how can you make something with so many vegtables in it taste so good?" Due to the super bowl, we had some junk food too. Emily ended up throwing up early the next morning and stayed home from school on Monday.

The curtains I got weren't the right color so I went back another day to exchange them. The new ones were $10 more but I think they will be better in the long run. I also splurged and got a little table and two stools for the little girls' room to go with the little book shelf and their new dresser.

I put together a dresser, a book shelf, a little table, and two stools. I organized the little girls' clothes and got rid of stained or too small ones.  I moved two older dressers to the basement to make room for the new dresser.  (I am excited to have those in the basement to one day organize some things down there.) I also debunked the bunk beds in the twins' room. That was tough. It would have been quite the sight. I had four 8/9 year olds helping me stablizing one end of the bed as I moved the other side. I even had Emily on the bottom bunk to kick the top bed up at one point.  I rearranged the twins room so that they could have their beds both on the ground. I think Lauren was tired of being on the bottom bunk. Their room is a little tight, but it will work.

I also got a book shelf that about did me in when I carried it upstairs, I was thinking I was pretty wimpy until I looked on the box after I got it upstairs. 90 lbs, no wonder it was feeling so heavy.  Ugh. My muscles were resisting when I put the back seat back into the van after carring the book shelf in it's box all the way upstairs. The book shelf will hopefully be better for the books and toys so we can get rid of the toy box bins.

On our drive back home from getting the book shelf, I was telling Amber that she couldn't have chocolate milk because of her cough. I was trying to tell her that we didn't want to give her something that would make her cough more than she already was. I started out with "you can'tt have things that will make you..." and I was trying to think of ways to complete it. I didn't want to tell her she couldn't cough, so I was trying to choose my words. Amber then finished, "make me die, right mom?" I told her that was right (since that is all you can follow with when she uses that right mom phrase). Then she was quiet for a moment. Then she said, "Jesus probably really loves having a dog and a cat now." It kind of caught me off guard, I had to have her repeat it. The thought of her dying made her think of Jesus and that made me feel great that she put those two together. She use to say things like, "if I push my finger in my eye I will go live with Jesus." It kind of freaked me out alittle. She would say things like that when she was going to bed about going to live with Jesus and dying. I was always wondering, is she preparing me for something?   The reference to the dog and the cat that Jesus has is from our cat that never came home fearing his fate was death and a dog we had before she was even born that had to be put to sleep.

Oh, did I mention I also got a flat tire? I found a crack in the sidewall of the tire on my van. I heard this loud gushing when I was taking the seat out of the van to get that whopping 90 lb book shelf. I could feel the air wooshing out. I filled up my tire with air from our compressor and prayed it would make it to the tire place. Would you believe when I got there, the tire was still fully inflated, I couldn't see the crack at all. The two little girls and I sat in the waiting room while they replaced the tire.

Emily had a science fair that we went to. She did it on the diet of guinea pigs. She got two different kind of food and fed one to one and the other to the other. Then she put them through mazes to see if the time was better one way or the other. She was checking to see if it one food effected their intelligence or activity level. She didn't think she collected enough data to really tell one way or the other.

Rob's mom went to the ER for a kidney stone and a UTI. They admitted her for a procedure to flush the stone out, she had complications with blood pressure and has stayed this whole week. We took the kids to see her the first night, but she was in ICU so the kids weren't able to see her. Poor little Amber wouldn't leave, she said "I'm not leaving until I see Grandma!" Even in the parking lot she was pulling back and telling me she came to see Grandma and she still wanted to see her. It was pretty funny.

Since then, Amber has came down with a cold accompanied by a fever so we aren't able to go see her until Amber gets better. Amber looks so sad, her little eyes are all red and watery even. One night I heard her crying in her bed, I went in her room. She had turned the light on and was looking around in her bed. I asked what she was looking for. "I was looking for you!" she cried. She must have been looking for her blanket and shirt or water or something. Poor thing, she is just out of it.

Lindsey and Lauren both have DEAR today, Drop Everything And Read. Lindsey also has her RAD kids graduation. I feel bad I will be missing it all. Amber still isn't feeling great. Robert doesn't feel like he can miss any work since twice a week he goes to physical therapy and leaves work early. I wish there were someone to go to it. I feel aweful I am not able to be there. Lauren wants me to come help with her Valentine's party on Monday, but it will have to depend on how Amber is feeling.

Robert's physical therapy has been going good. It is funny, our insurance approved him for 6 visits. The dr. recommended twice a week for 12 weeks. Our hope is that the insurance will still cover the other visits. Oh, and did I also mention when Robert was thinking about this surgery he asked them how much it would cost. The amount they gave him he thought was total before insurance, so he was thinking we would pay like 20% of that. The price they gave him was AFTER insurance. That made for a nice surprise. He has started lifting weights with his arm at PT. At first they were just using the weight of his arm as weight. Now he is up to a 2 lb. weight. He said it about killed him. It will be nice once he has full use of it, so I don't have to do it all. Book shelfs and dressers, Christmas trees, gargbage cans, snow shoveling, moving furniture, putting up curtains. There are hundreds of things (or it feels like) I have been doing that I think it would be nice to have help with or for him to do it.

I got a call from a research place a week or so ago. They wanted to know if I would be interested in coming in for a control panel, I think is what they called it. It would take about 2 hours but they would give me $75. I thought, sure! I took the girls to Grandma's and went for the panel. Turns out they always overbook, so I sat there for about 20 minutes then they told me I wasn't needed, so I got $75 anyway, and they will call me again since I didn't get to really do it. I was excited!

The same day Emily had her science fair, Lindsey had an appointment with her orthodontist. She scored another A on her brushing and flossing. That put her name into the monthly drawing and she got to put a sticker on her picture. Her picture had 5 stickers on it already so this made 6. Every 3 stickers you get a gift card to a local business. She last time got a walmart $10 gift card. This time she chose Cinemark. She was really excited!

Samantha's new thing is "in-a-men" which means in a minute. I am sure that is a phrase she hears me say often. I will ask her to come here to put her pajamas on or get her shoes on. She will tell me, "in-a-men" and she will continue doing what she is doing. Funny girl! She also does this cute thing with her eyes. When she is telling you something that maybe might be a bad thing she will squint her eyes up real tight. For example, "I just spilled a little bit" or like when Grandpa asked if she wanted some of his cake. She said, "no I have my own." But then she came back and said, "Maybe just a little one" with her eyes all squinted and her fingers showing how little of a bite. She is so cute!

It is amazing how much you can accomplish at times and yet other times nothing gets done. The master bathroom has been on my to do list for weeks. Yet I can never find time to do it. Although I did find time to rearrange 2 bedrooms, put together furniture, and organize the loft which was a 2 day project, and I cleaned the car out. The car was a nightmare in itself. We also lost one of the remotes and I had a hunch the couch ate it. I turned the couch over and sure enough, the remote was there along with tons of other little pieces of playsets and some other unknown things and lots of crumbs from snacks and popcorn. That couch is the worst at eating things! Although we still have a remote we lost around Christmas time that has never surfaced. Strange.

There is always lots of things going on. I saw a paper announcing sign-ups for spring soccer. Amber is old enough this season. She will be so much fun. But I am not sure about 3 practices and 3 games each week. I am sure I have forgotten some other things from the last few weeks. Since it is Friday, it is my laundry day, so I must get on it or laundry will never be done this week. I am hoping to get my curtains up too, but I have been hoping that for half the week. I also want to put together the new shelves too. I am not sure my day is long enough.

Finally, all about Christmas

2011-02-01T08:43:00.000-07:00

I was hoping to have this post done before it was 2011, but I guess Febuary 1st is good too. I really should be doing dishes, but here I am instead recording history right?

We have started having annual Christmas family parties since Robert's parents moved back to Utah. We all get together, or all those that can. Santa seems to have time to stop by for a visit, we have finger food type dinner/snacks and have a small gift exchange using the "Wright's Christmas Story" where you pass your present to the left or right/wright everytime the story says those words. It is lots of fun.

Present at our party this year was our family of course (since it was at our house), Robert's parents, his grandparents, his sister's family which includes their daughter's family, and we missed Robert's 3 other siblings and their family that live out of state.

The girls seemed to like the food and most of all the good stuff they got from Santa when he brought their stockings full of goodies!

Samantha sitting with Santa getting her stocking.

Lauren telling Santa how good she has been this year so she can get her stocking.

Amber wasn't too sure about Santa after her mall trip that she decided she didn't want to sit on Santa's lap even for a sucker, but she did okay this time.

Lindsey sitting on Santa's lap excited for her stocking of good stuff.

Emily didn't look my way to smile for the camera, but she too sat on Santa's lap.

Grandpa even got a turn. Sanata made him in charge of collecting garbage.

Here is the wonderful Grandparents of Robert. The girls love their Great Grandparents!

This is Robert's neice and her family.

Funny thing about our family party was Robert was still healing from his surgery and then his sister's husband just had knee surgery. The two of them sat next to each other on the couch. Santa commented on the two of them. We made several jokes about it.

On Christmas Eve, we were invited to go to the Johnson's family party. We enjoyed pizza and made some candy sleighs in groups that we then raced each other to see whose was fastest. (My team won!) Then we did a little gift exchange with the "Wright Story" and passed our gifts around. We also put together some hygeine kits (I think that is what they are) with toothbrushes, wash clothes, combs, soap, toothpaste. Our church participates in humanitarian aide, and that is what these kits were used for. My girls love doing it, they always ask if we will be doing it again when we go to the Johnson's party. I guess I need to get more involved and get some kits for us too to do.

Finally came the day of Christmas. The kids were so excited. Amber was asking for days, is tomorrow Christmas? I had to keep telling her no and showing her the calendar so we could count the days. It was kind of a bummer, I had not wrapping help since Robert was in his sling. I started early wrapping presents and then the big night of Christmas Eve, I wrapped maybe 5 presents, came down stairs with all my boxes of wrapped presents. Robert was pretty surprised I was done already. He at one point said, "when are you going to wrap presents?" I kept putting it off and putting it off. I think he thought I might be wrapping presents until the time the girls woke up.

I wish I would have gotten pictures of what Christmas looked like. I got it on video but no still pictures and I am too lazy to get them from the video right now. The older girls all got new bikes, Samantha got a baby stroller, high chair, and little bed. She LOVED it! Amber got a little barn set with animals and tractors and all.

I somehow with those little girls seem to always have smudges on my lens. Lauren is opening up a present here, and Robert looks a little sleepy still.

Emily wanted to try to guess what each present was as she opened it, so many times she would not look until she could guess what it was. Oh, and look, Robert looks a bit sleepy again.

Amber opening one of her presents.

Lindsey was always cracking jokes, "yeah it's a box, I love it!" She is the life of the party.

Samantha worn out from Christmas morning.

Poor Samantha was so worn out, she fell asleep without her blanket or sucking her thumb. She is wearing a dress up outfit that Amber got for Christmas. It was too funny to watch, little Samantha just kept bobbing her head, then she would sit back up and start bobbing all over again.

That was a short version of our Christmas. The girls got lots of stuff, Emily got a TON of books. I don't recall too many toys. Mostly the toys the girls got came from what they bought for each other.

That was how are Christmas went. It seemed like it came and went too fast. Every year I feel like we need to have more Christ in our celebrations, every year I try to do it and yet every year I feel like we didn't do enough. I heard of a family that doesn't do Santa. I kind of like the idea so that Chirst is there instead of Santa, but I feel like it is too late for that. I will just have to try a little harder next year. I think with Robert's surgery and all, it made things so crazy and fast paced, we waited till the last minute to do many of the things and that always makes it hard for me to feel the spirit and enjoy the season of the birth of Christ. (sigh) I will do better next year!

Right, Mom?

2011-01-27T12:54:00.000-07:00

"You have to be 4 before you can stand on one leg, right Mom?""You can't go to space unless your big, right Mom?"
"Mom, right?"

Amber is at the stage (oh, I hope it is a stage) where she has to be confirmed on everything. She will say something or do something and then say, "right, Mom?" If I don't say "right" then she keeps asking. Sometimes she will say something that isn't quite true or that is more complicated like if we eat more than one vitamin a day we will die, right? I try to explain to her, they have iron in them so if little kids eat too many they can get very sick and perhaps even die, but I don't know how many is too many. Then she will say it again, "But if we eat more than one in a day than we will die, right mom?" And if I keep trying to explain it to her that it isn't entirely true, she just keeps getting louder, "RIGHT MOM? Isn't that RIGHT?" I finally say, yes that is right." Even if I say, "yes" it isn't good enough, I have to utter that "right" for it to be right. I can say, "yes that is right" or "you are right" or just a plain "right" will work. She must have a "right" though or she will not drop it until I do. It is exhausting! Right, isn't that right?

On the other hand she is so funny! She trully cracks me up. A week or so ago, she was standing on one leg with her other leg kind of stretched out with a pencil sitting on her foot as she was balancing on her one leg and also balancing the pencil on her foot she tells me, "I am so tricky, I should be in the circus, right Mom?" Of course she was right, I couldn't agree more, she is very tricky and she does need to be in the circus. She then showed me some other circus tricks she could do.

She has her own vocab too. Like "twinkleheaded" do you know what that means? "That means when your head is spinning and your dizzy." I am not sure if she got this vocab off of a TV show she watched or what, but it cracked me up. She told me once, "I was dancing so fast I started to get a twinklehead." I then had to figure out what it meant. She told me. Now when I ask her what it means, she will just spin around and say, "it's when you are d-i-z-z-y!"

She also uses words like yesteryear or lesterday or last-earlier that are always cute to hear. I remember when my other girls would use words like this, that you knew what they were talking about but they didn't quite have it right. She is growing up too fast! She is alway such a big helper for me too. Recently she is big time into dressing up. She will want to sleep in her dress up, and she changes her clothes so many times during the day to get something else on.

Then there is Samantha! She is a silly girl too. She is a little into dress up but more into pretend. She will be a kitty or a mouse. One day she was crawling around on her belly on the carpet and kitchen floor. I asked what she was doing and she said she was "Mantha-snake" (She doesn't say Samantha, it's Mantha.) She often comes up to me meowing. She loves it when I pretend she is a kitty too. I ask her if the kitty needs to go outside to go potty, she will shake her head no and meow. I will ask if the kitty needs a treat and she will meow and then say "kitty wants meat." She is fun to be around.

Samantha is getting very independent. She will dress herself, which sometimes looks interesting the things she has picked out. I usually let her go with it. I haven't interferred too much with my kids' choice of wardrobe, if you have seen Lindsey, you would know that. Yesterday, or as Amber would say, lasterday, Samantha was putting on some panties and having trouble with them. She said they were too tight. I looked, she was putting them on sideways stepping into the leg band for the waist. No wonder they seemed so tight. I showed her how they went and I put them of her. She said, "I do it" and she took them back off, completely, put them in her hands, held them up and then proceded to put them on all by herself. Between her changing her clothes and Amber, their room is a constant mess. They both change all day long!

I am loving the no diapers though! I was going through coupons and say some for diapers, I smiled and tossed it to the side since I don't need those anymore. We do pull-ups at night, to catch the potty in case any comes out as I tell Samantha. She is good with it. Two night ago, she woke up in the early morning, and was calling, "mom, mom, mom" I went to her bed and noticed she was soaked.... her pull-up didn't quite catch it all. She must have had extra drinks that night before. I took her downstairs to get her another pull-up change her pajamas, and then I noticed my shirt was soaked from carrying her too. That doesn't happen to much. She was one that would wake up wet in a regular diaper at night sometimes too and I would have to change her and her bed too. I would say most mornings she is still dry, which is nice because she is just that closer to being completely potty trained. Although she does seem to have lots of accidents still, it is frustrating, because she was doing so good. I am not sure if it good or bad, but she will take off her wet clothes, and get new ones on. When I notice she is in something else, I ask her why she changed. Sometimes its from being wet and others just because she saw something better she wanted to wear. Amber found some Finding Nemo panties yesterday, she changed right as she saw them. Samantha will do the same thing. All that means normally is LOTS of laundry for me. Right? Isn't that right?

Still trying to catch up

2011-01-11T12:01:00.000-07:00

I forgot to also mention I went out on Black Friday, but was really at about 10pm on Thursday of Thanksgiving. I went to Toys R Us to find something, which they were out of. Come to find out... those deals are on the internet, so I ordered it on Friday, same price as it was advertised but I had to pay shipping, but I didn't have to wait in the line outside of the store to get in as they were only letting so many people in the store at a time. Also the line inside was INSANE! I would have been there forever if I did find what I was looking for. After that I went to Walmart to get some dishes I wanted. Found them, and a few other things. I waited in line for 3 hrs to check out. Then I went to Old Navy to get some clothes for the girls. Someone said you can buy them on-line instead of waiting in line (which is were I got the idea for Toys R Us) but they didn't mention that the selection would be stinky and most of them would be gone online also. I left the store to go home and get it all on-line to find NOTHING I was looking for was available on-line in those sizes or colors I had in my shopping bag at the store. You win some, you lose some! The dishes I got were okay but the design I wanted they were out of, so just for kicks I went to the Walmart closer to our house... which was dead and quiet. I found the dishes I wanted, bought them, no lines, no crowds. I was amazed, and I will go back there next year for black friday Walmart deals.

Another thing that happened in November is that we sold our Suburban and got a Minivan. I totally loved, loved, loved my suburban. I was sad to see it go and the nice space we had. I will want one later I am sure again. We decided since we still have our old house which is renting for less than our payment and other finacial things, that we should scale back a bit for awhile so we can have some breathing room. Now we have a van that only fits the members of our family, no extra room for friends or Grandparents, just our family. It will work just fine. Oh except for the big girls all having to be right next to each other... it is very challenging. And the carseats don't buckle up nicely or fit as tight as I would like them to. I have to keep tightening them. I wish they had the new LATCH system. The good thing is, this car has less miles on it then our old one did. And now we have a white car and a white minivan. Cute huh!

Now to December... Robert was scheduled for surgery on his shoulder. The year prior during an indoor soccer game, he got knocked down. The guy that knocked him down was calling him a baby or something like that (probably more mean and descriptive) and Robert's shoulder was hurt pretty bad. He kind of healed and seemed okay but in certain activities or movements with his shoulder it would shoot a sharp pain and finally he got it checked out. They call it a SLAP surgery, they go in and drill through the bone and use some method which I can't spell to attach the labrium back to the bone. It then heals and goes back together like it is suppose to, and now Robert's shoulder won't pop out of socket or catch and cause such intense pain for him. Although he did say one day (as he was in pain) "I should have just lived with it. This is worse than the pain I had."

The picture above is him in his nice surgery attire. He was just hanging out waiting for his turn. He had an IV in and I got to sit with him. I was a little jealous that he was getting a nap. (I am always jealous over someone's nap.) We sat there and joked around a little and in our "private" little curtain area talked about nothing really because it wasn't private at all. We heard the guy next to us talk about the hormones they are adding to apples and all about his apple orchard. They took him back to surgery, and I went and waiting forever in the waiting room.

The said it was suppose to be a 40 minute procedure. I waiting for about nearly 2 hours and by this time and have seen doctors come out and give updates to everyone but me, and finally someone comes and tells me I can go see my husband. Funny thing, before the surgery, he had to shave his armpit, and his shoulder and all. Then they wanted him to write the word "right" on his right shoulder. I guess so they knew which shoulder they were doing surgery on. We were making jokes about that, drawing an arrow on his other shoulder pointing to the right side, or putting "wrong" on the left side.

Surgery went well, the doctor said it was turn worse than he thought. He called it a 6 point repair or 6 point something. I am guessing 6 screws that reattaches the labrium. Robert went into the surgery with a little cold and so when he came out of the anestetic (where's my spell checker?) he was coughing so hard. He couldn't stop coughing. I guess it is common to have a cough afterwards, the nurses where calling it a "block cough" due to the shoulder block they did on his shoulder. It was kind of like a spinal block I guess when you have a c-section but it is specific for the shoulder. He had a cold for several days which was really hard on his shoulder, everytime he coughed it hurt his shoulder once that pain block wore off. He was also funny too, he at one time said that he wished we could put his arm back in the sling how it was when he came home from the hospital because it didn't hurt then. Of course it didn't hurt, he still had that block in effect and he didn't feel his shoulder at all.

It was very interesting, he couldn't do much for himself. I dressed him, showered him, made food for him and in some cases even fed him. I felt like we had a new baby. He needed meds like every 4 hours which needed food with them too. He would text my phone or call me from his phone in the middle of the night needing food, meds, or to be unhooked from his ice pack pump to use the bathroom. Because it was an out-patient surgery he thought he would be back to work the next day. He had surgery on Wednesday and went back on Tuesday and was still in a lot of pain. I think he went back because he had stuff he needed to get done. He underestimated it big time. He said, "why didn't they suggest to do surgery on Monday and then just take the whole week off?" I was thinking, the lady told you that you weren't going back to work on Thursday when you asked before the surgery when you could return to work. I think he was still thinking it would be a pretty easy thing. He went back to the doctor today for a follow up and will start physical therapy today too. He is totally NOT looking forward to that. So many people have told him how hard it is, and especially on a shoulder. I think he is scared!
So this wasn't suppose to be just a surgery post, but it looks like I should have dedicated it to that. But I already loaded the other pictures, so I am going to continue on with this L..O..N..G post.

Amber and Samantha play really well together... well most the time. They are hillarious together. They are so fun! They are both into dressing up and make believe. Samantha is into it big time. She will come hand you something in her small little hands and place a small something in my hand. My eyes don't see it but she tells me it is a little kitty or a little bottle of something. It was hard having them so close when they were young and I felt bad for Amber not having her time with us before we had another baby, but they play so well now.

In the picture above, they have a book that they are reading to their babies or animals or something. It is different every night and I am not sure who their audience was that night.

They love to have hats on, of all sorts sometimes they aren't hats but my kitchen items or even it might be a pull-up diaper on their heads. Amber loves to put pants on her head for a hat, she thinks it is sooo funny. It is pretty funny looking! The picture above Amber took. They both want to take pictures with my camera. It kind of scares me what they take pictures of, and of course the fear of them hurting my camera. I am glad we have those kids camera's still.

The girls all went to the dentist during Christmas break too. I was so sad and felt so ashamed of myself and the lack of teeth care I have been for the girls. Little Amber had a cavity, and they decided to do a crown for it. I feel so bad, because it is my fault, I am the one that should be doing that, and I have failed! Poor thing! She did AWESOME! She sat very still and did everything they asked her to. She was a trooper. The dentist went on and on about how well she did for being so little. I felt aweful that she had to be there for treatment in the first place.

She is pretty proud of her silver tooth! But every time she smiles or laughs and I see that silver in there, I feel I have failed.

On the other hand, Lindsey had no work to be done, Lauren a couple small ones that didn't even need numbing, Emily had a few that were small too but she had a baby molar removed bacause the tooth under it was coming in wrong. Her poor teeth are so crazy! I see braces again for her!

It was a HUGE tooth with roots and all they took out. She had a gaping hole there. She was pretty sensitive for a few days. She seems fine now.

I also talked about our new addition.... which would be a cat. Funny thing, it looks like a smaller version of our old cat, GATO. One afternoon the girls told me there was a cat meowing in our yard. I went out to check and I could hear it but not see it. Later when it got dark, I went back out to see with a flashlight. The poor little kitty was stuck, probably more afraid and cold. There was snow on the ground and there wasn't any foot prints so he was probably there all night the night before. I got him out brought him in the garage the girls made him a bed. He laid down in it, ate some food (which we still had left over from our cat that is gone) and got him some water which he drank right up too. I think he is the first animal we have had that used the little bed the kids made. They were always trying to make beds for the cat or the rabbit. They never really appreciated them and would never stay in the bed. This cat, which still is nameless, loved every little bed the kids made.

The middle of December we took the cat in to get nuetered. We had gone to all the neighbors around to find out where he came from. We found the family and they said, "you can have him if you want him." I really wanted to get a baby little kitten, but I guess this is okay too. I thought the kids would have so much fun with a little kitten instead of a 4 month old cat.

The girls would go out into the garage (since we didn't let the cat in the house) and play with him and sit with him. After Amber had sat in this little sled, the cat slept there for the next few days. He seems to be great with the kids. Although I thought the adopting fees were crazy.... $80-$100 for a cat? They are crazy! After our $178 vet bill for shots and neutering, I think that price is a good deal! Although I secretly wanted a little litter of kittens, but having a boy cat, it wouldn't have been so favorable for someone else I guess, and I wanted the kittens here at our house.

With Christmastime came gingerbread houses. I was thinking I would make the gingerbread but as time went on and life has been so crazy I saw this little Wilton's 5 piece gingerbread village. I thought that sounded like a good deal, and it came with frosting and candy too. Score! The kids all got to make their own.

Amber was mostly interested in just eating the frosting instead of it getting put on her house. She ate more candy than she applied to her house too.

Lindsey did pretty good with her house too. Notice the place in the background, those are my new dishes that I got from Black Friday for my Christmas present.

Lauren did good with her gingerbread house. Although the other girls called her house an out house. In the kit they had a name for all the little houses, and when we got to her little structure Emily said, that is their out house. They all laughed but Lauren of course.

Emily was a great creative planner here on hers. She came up with ideas and then Lindsey and Lauren followed those ideas too.

And then there is Samantha.... with candy up her nose. She did eat the frosting... I had to keep putting more on there. She cracks me up!

Here is the finished little village. And then they all ate their houses with the exception of Emily whose I think is still sitting on the counter untouched.

I feel pretty caught up, well kind of. We still have Christmas to go over and then of course we are 11 days into the new year. Ugh, will I ever be caught up? Hopefully next will be Christmas.

Catch up time...

2011-01-02T22:02:00.000-07:00

I was hoping to have this all done before the new year, but I guess I didn't get it done. Back in November, Lauren participated in RAD kids. She really liked it. Her whole class did it, and I believe Lindsey's class will be doing it sometime in the future too. I was able to go watch what they learned when they "graduated" from the class.

Here is Lauren in all her stuff after she had ran through the course.

When everyone ran through the demo course, they handed out certificates of completion.

Then also in the beginning of November, Lindsey and Lauren both participated in "Reflections" which is put on by the PTA. Lauren did a poem and Lindsey did a picture. Lauren got to read her poem in front of everyone and it went on to Council level. She also got a trophey and a ribbon. It didn't go on from Council level but she got a ribbon from Council level. Lindsey got a ribbon for participation. Both the girls did a great job!!

Emily made a picture for the "Reflections" but didn't ever turn it in. I felt really sad for her that she didn't do it. Hopefully next year she will complete it and turn it in too. This years theme was "Together we can..." and I can't remember what next year's theme is.

Also in November was Thanksgiving of course... I like to put a big piece of paper up for the kids to write on saying what they are thankful for. This year the paper was filled pretty fast. Amber drew a picture and then asked me what it was. I told her I didn't know because it was her picture. Then she put a dot on it and said, "It's a fish! I am thankful for fish." I thought that sounded good.

Since we didn't have any trees at our new place we were happy to help with some of the falling leaves at the old house. Samantha and Amber were more than happy to help with it... or jumping in it anyway. They were even good sports and got in the green waste can to stomp down the leaves so I could add more.

Samantha was a little shy about it and unsure of the idea at first but that soon wasn't the case.

Amber was LOVING it all! She could have stayed there forever.

Finally I had to talk the girls into letting me put them in the green waste can.

We got some of our first real snow that added up to much. The girls made a chair from a big snow ball or a few snowballs.

They even got Samantha to try it out too. She liked it!

Before the snow came we had to take the trampoline down. Samantha has become a real fan of the trampoline. She loves to jump on it. Even though here she is taking a break, she is quite the little bouncer!

So I think that pretty much catches us up until December. Great so I am closer but still so far away! Oh did I also mention we had our Primary Program in November? It was a pretty crazy month for me! Our prorgram went great, lots of prayers answered there. I did put one little girl in the wrong class so she didn't get to sing with her class, I felt so bad about that. I had to apologize to the mom and tell her what happened. I think for being a new Primary President for this ward and doing the very first Primary program in my LIFE, it went smoothly. The time I was really worried about, but it was PERFECT in time! I was so glad when it was over! What a lot of stress relieved for me and my presidency (and I am sure my music leader)! They were all HUGE helpers in it.

Sometime soon I hope to have a report on December's events. Hopefully before Easter is here.

Christmas Sing-In

2010-12-17T13:06:00.000-07:00

I still have a TON of catching up to do... but here is something very recent!

Check out what Emily's school did for Christmas singing. She is the one in the front next to the girl in the green shirt. Emily has a white shirt (duh since all the girls were to wear white) with a light blue shirt under it. Her hair is in a pony.

All about Samantha

2010-12-07T08:32:00.003-07:00

Samantha is a pure joy! She laughs and smiles all day long. (Okay so recently she has taken to hitting when I put her diaper on at night, but I think she is trying to be funny.) She is such a little girl! She will carry a purse around, backpack, and a baby normally. She also is very fond of her little doll stroller. We have had it for years, and I had to recently sew it to fix it since she use to sit in it and it broke so it wouldn't hold a baby without dumping it out when she walked around. Did I already say she is just a pure joy? I love her so much!

She will pretend to go places, she will get her purse and say, "I going to the store. I be right back." It is funny because I totally her ME in her little phrases. I must have said I'm going somewhere and I'll be right back a hundred times. She is just hilliarous!

Recently she wanted to wear panties. I was thinking, yeah whatever. She nearly potty trained herself. It wasn't long before she was going potty all by herself. She was just a little under 2-1/2 when she did this. All my other kids have been more like 3. I have a friend that potty trains her kids more around 18 months to 2 years, so I knew it could be done. I just never felt like I had that undivided attention to tend to a toddler potty training. She still wears a diaper at night, but I have noticed sometimes she is still dry in the morning. She also still sucks her thumb so when she wakes in the morning, she is super quiet and sucks her thumb. I think she would go potty in the toilet but because she is still in bed she goes in her diaper.

The last few days she has also turned into a "big girl" too. She will climb on the big toilet all by herself, sit on it and hold herself up. Then Samantha will say, "I BIG huh. I not fall in (as she shakes her head no). I use your potty." She is just hilliarous. When she is done, she just wiggles back down off the toilet and finishes and flushes the toilet also. Before she was using the big toilet, she was dumping her potty bucket into the big toilet and flushing it. Some of the older girls don't even flush the toilet. Then when she flushes the toilet, she shuts the lid, climbs up on it and washes her hands in the sink. It is amazing what this little girls will do!

I have failed to video her lately but I really need to. Her little high pitched voice is a delight.... well mostly! I could have about 50 of her and be okay I think. She is great!

About a week ago, it was a crazy night here, Robert was working late or something and I was running around trying to get kids dinner and get myself ready for a meeting. The kids were having quesadillaa I think for the most part. Samantha came up to me and told me to turn the TV off. I was busy and in a rush so I didn't really give her much attention. She kept following me around and kept telling me something that I wasn't totally understanding. Then I took a second and gave her the attention she was wanting. She asked me to turn the TV off so we could pray. As soon as I turned the TV off, she got back into her chair and folder her arms, bowed her head and started her cute little prayer. It made me feel bad first for forgetting to have a blessing on the food, and also because I waited so long to really see what she needed. Lauren was pretty much done already with her food. Samantha is a great leader! She does so many things all by herself... somethings she does even the older kids don't do, like flushing the toilet.

She loves to go to church and be in class. She loves to be a mommy to her babies. One morning she was sitting on the couch with her baby and a blanket for her baby and she looked at me and said, "You a mommy. I a mommy too!" I think her favorite thing is to laugh and smile... and of course if she has a baby in a stoller that makes it better. She also loves little animals like some little frogs and snakes we have. She loves little things.... and I love her!

One of her favorite things is to give me a hug in the morning. Then I would say, "what is better than a hug in the morning" then she will give me another hug and I will say, "Two hugs in the morning!" This then goes on to 3 hugs, 4 hugs, and so on. She will also do this at night too when I am getting her pajamas on.

I am sad that soon this sweet little girl will be gone and in its place will be some other phase of Samantha. I would like to keep this one a bit longer but not sure how I can preserve her at this time. Perhaps the next phase will be just as delightful. People talk about the terrible 2's and I haven't seen it really with Samantha. It also makes me feel a little guilty too because at this age when Amber was 2, I feel like I missed so much because we had a little baby. Then with Emily I feel SUPER bad because we had 2 babies when she was at this age that I am just in love with. I can't really go back, I just need to make the best of what I have now, enjoy the stages and phases as they go in and out of them. It is hard to do that sometimes when life seems so busy. I sometimes forget to stop and take time to hear the little voices like the one that wanted to turn the TV off so we could pray.

To the USPS

2010-12-06T21:00:00.001-07:00

I have been unsatisfied with your service for the last 2 years since we have been in this area. You have continued to let me down in your delivery services. Not only do you leave my mail box open to allow my mail to get wet often, you have countless times NOT taken my outgoing mail. I thought if I put my flag up that meant you would take my mail to the post office so it could go on its way. Maybe that isn't the same rule here. I thought that was just standard when the flag is up and there is stamped and addressed letters inside that the mail person takes it to the post office. Was I misinformed?

Then last week when I had a box delivered with some Christmas presents in it you left it on the road in front of my mailbox. Luckily I had a great neighbor that saw it and brought it and gathered my other mail that was scattered with it. He brought the wet box and letters to me. To my suprise it was the box I was expecting with the contents for Christmas that retailed over $200, and to find out it was just sitting there on the side of the road.

I am very dissapointed in your services! If we did have a post office for my city, I would highly consider getting a post office box. I think you can do better! I wish you would do better!

Amber's story

2010-12-05T22:39:00.000-07:00

Amber has been having a hard time lately. She wants me to tell everyone her story. We went to meet a cousin at the mall and Amber kept telling me, "Will you tell him about me?"

To hear her tell the story it is best, but you will have to hear it from me, the best I can like she tells it.

The othe day Amber and Samantha were playing tag. Samantha was running this way, and Amber was running that way and they rounded the courner.... CRASH! Amber's front tooth smacked into Samantha's forehead leaving Samantha will alittle indent in her head. Then Amber would also say that Samantha's forehead hit Amber's tooth making it really wiggly. I didn't tell Amber until alter, but her tooth was bleeding all around the edges of it. They both fell to the ground crying and I was trying to hold them both and comfort them. Poor girls!

Then on Thanksgiving, we were at Grandma and Grandpa's house and Amber fell down the basement stairs and got a rug burn on her cheek as she slid down the stairs on her face I guess. It is looking much better now, but it was bright red and swollen for the first 2 days. Then it scabbed over and now it is practically gone.

Once again, Amber got hurt... she somehow just fell down on the tile and conked the back of her head on the tile floor. I heard this big "CRACK" and looked to see Amber on the floor. Poor thing! She was having a bad time for a few days but I think her luck is changing around for her.

She was so excited to tell everyone about her story of her tooth, her rug burn, and then hitting her head.

Gotta love that girl! Bumps, bruises, and all, she is fun to have around. My camera is giving me problems or I would have gotten a picture of her little cheek.

Stay tuned until I have more time...

2010-12-03T08:46:00.000-07:00

So... there has been so much going on here, I will tell you all about it but right now I am swamped with craziness! Too many things have happened it will take me maybe a year to record it all. It will take time, but right now I don't have any time. I will try to find some time soon. Fun things to come like....Thanksgiving, Lauren's award, Samantha's favorite things, Black Friday, Rob's surgery, new addition, and probably a random photo dump. Stay tuned to see it all.

Halloween Time

2010-11-15T08:55:00.000-07:00

Now that it is nearly Thanksgiving, I suppose I will get my Halloween pictures on here. Life has been so busy! The day is over before it starts somedays!

The girls' schools have a Halloween parade where they get to wear their costumes, parents come and get the see all their costumes. Last year both the girls' school did it at the same time. I went to Emily's school and then raced to the twin's school to see them finished with the parade. This year they had one in the morning and one toward the end of the day. I was so delighted!

Emily wanted to be Cruella DeVil. She made a good one! I made her coat the morning of school, and she had a black dress that she wore. I also made her bag for treats (pictured later).

Lindsey wanted to be a mummy, I told her I couldn't let her do that for school, because she wouldn't be able to do it herself. She decided to be a witch for school and then she would be a mummy later.

Poor, Lauren, I totally missed her picture! You can see her in the back, like the 3rd person. She was an indian, but later I found out that was just for the parade.

Then for Halloween, Lauren was a witch.

Luckily Emily stuck with Cruella, for the parade, the turnk or treat, and trick or treating.

Amber was an elephant... and she made a cute one. Except when she was tired and just laid on the floor sucking her thumb. (Notice the 9-1-1 bag, those came from WA as a barf bag because Emily had thrown up the morning we left, if I remember right. They came from Aunt Lorri but were at my parents house.)

Lindsey was a mummy... for only trunk or treating. She threw a fit because it was falling all apart... mostly it was my fault because I went about it the wrong way. I should have used a stretchy material instead of cutting up a painting cloth that you use to cover things with. I will know for next time. Stretchy only! It fell to pieces as she got in the car, as she moved, as most anything. Not to mention when it was raining, she wasn't sticking together very well. I felt bad, and Lindsey was crying and didn't want to go to trunk or treating.

Samantha was a cute little Dalmation dog, which was suppose to be with Cruella, but somehow I didn't get a picture of the two of them together. Bummer!

After I painted Samantha's nose, Amber wanted her nose painted too.

So cute aren't they? I couldn't help but take lots of pictures because they were so cute!

Samantha loved her tail! She kept finding it and pointing it out to us. Sometimes she would even freeze, and say, "where's my tail" as she would look for it.

Then after the trunk or treat and the mummy costume turned bad, Lindsey decided to be a gypsy. No one looks very happy in the picture except Lauren.

I think everyone was ready to go and tired of standing for pictures. This was the best picture I got of all the girls for Halloween. Nice huh! Maybe we will get a better one next year.

I also forgot to show you our pumpkins. This is all of them together on our steps.

This is Samantha's pumpkin, the smallest of the all.

This was Lauren's and she carved it herself.

This was Amber's she told me what shapes and how they were to be for her face.

This is Emily's pumpkin. She wanted a small one.... less guts and seeds I guess.

This is Lindsey's she carved herself except for the glasses. She wanted a "nerd" pumpkin. Funny girl!

This is mine... I can't help but to do a pumpkin with the girls. I actually gutted two, but a neighbor used one of them.

And did I mention all these and 3 more were grown from our garden? Nice huh! Unfortunately those were about the only thing that grew in our garden. Oh well.

I got some trees!

2010-11-10T19:00:00.000-07:00

It takes so long to get everything all ready. You plan and plan things out how you want your yard to look. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't work out. I carefully thought it all out how I wanted everything to be, where I wanted this and where that should go. I have visited the store countless times looking for great deals and things that will be perfect for my yard.

I found 4 trees that I loved, one in particular that I had to have the minute I saw it. It took some time to get ahold of the right people to get them. I was so excited the day we picked them up. 4 trees for our yard! I could hardly wait to put them in their places!

After all my hard work and planning, I think my yard is done! It is such a accomplishment when you get it all taken care of and it is finished.... well almost! With all the excitement of doing our yard, the neighbor kids wanted to help and so did my own girls. For the most part it was helpful, but the idea and picture in my head wasn't the same outcome of their helpfulness.

See here it is... my finished yard..... for HALLOWEEN!

I must admit it looked better at night.

There's Spiderella! It was formed after Emily. I wanted to do another one this year for one of the other girls, but didn't ever get around to it. I was so busy... life has been CrAzZzY!

We covered our lights with these pumpkin buckets. If only I would have remembered we had 3 with broken handles, I could have used those instead and used these are real treat buckets. Oh well, they were $.97 a piece.

This was my FAVORITE tree. I loved the black bird in it.

Would you have guessed these use to be tomato cages? They are turned upside down. Then I put lights on them too so after 6pm the timer would turn on these lights and any lighted pumpkins.

Here's our graveyard... it was so windy, I didn't ever put the grave stones out. I was afraid they would blow away.

We had tons of bugs and snakes on our front door. The kids even put some on our door bell. They didn't decorate how I had it all in my mind, but they had fun decorating and it was okay. I am getting better at letting go of things being done MY way.

Here's one of our trees that we got... from the garbage pile at the public works building. Robert that I was crazy! Perhaps he is right. "You got dead trees for Halloween? Why?"

This is Jack, he come back every year now. Him and Spiderella. The girls told me I put his shoes on the wrong feet. Ooops! A neighbor boy told his mom, "did you know that Jack is just fake?" Kind of funny!

Then I also got some sticks... I think they were from my trees mostly. I put them in a pot and we had spiders and snakes and bugs hanging from them. The girls put spider webs all over them, but I didn't want them that way. I took most of them back off.

A first for Samantha

2010-11-09T12:29:00.001-07:00

This is Samantha after she enjoyed a slice of Amber's birthday cake. You can read about it here. Isn't she just a doll? I love her... her little voice, her loving kindness toward others, her imagination, her smiles, the little things she has to do, the way she says "sop" for stop. Or the way she will shake her head no while she is telling you something, like saying "we color on it" as she shakes her head no, which means to her we don't color on it. She is so fun! I could have about 7 of her and would still be happy.

Samantha has always been bald in my opinion. She has lacked hair from the day she was born. Now that she does have hair, 2 years later, it is so light it is hard to see. I have been going back in forth of cutting her hair or not. It is so uneven but it does make it look like she has more hair. I was thinking I would wait until she was 3 to cut her hair, but then it might be harder to cut when it was longer.

Decisions, decisions. I also was worried that once I cut Samantha's hair, Amber may decide she can cut her hair by herself or maybe even Samantha's hair. Amber is pretty clever on things like that, and wanting to do things by herself. I also didn't want Samantha to experiment with the scissors.

I finally just did it. Samantha was just out of the bath. I distracted her with the junk drawer, I put her on a stool so she could dig in there and look around while I put her hair in a pony pretty much and cut her hair.

This is what her hair looked like before she got it cut. It was in the middle of her back when you pulled it straight.

This is what it looks like now.

She didn't even know I cut it.

It still isn't perfectly even, but it is better then it was before and it will grow more even too. When I told Robert I cut her hair (3 days later) he said he couldn't even notice. I then showed him the hair and he was suprised.

Samantha has had her first haircut! Something Emily had when she was about 9 months old because she had so much hair, and something Amber has never had.

Time out

2010-11-07T20:30:00.001-07:00

Robert had a work function... "Strategic Planning" I think is what they called it. They invited the wives or spouses to join in. Robert and I talked about it and it didn't really cost that much more, since we shared the same room as our spouse, they had food costs and they provided activities for the spouses too so that would have been extra. I know one employee that was much happier having his wife there during the time, and perhaps others felt that way too.

We stayed at the Zermmat Resort in Midway. It was very nice. They have several different places to stay, they have their main rooms in the hotel, then they have Villas and then resorts I think they called them. The resorts had garages and all that too. I saw some advertising on those that you could buy them, use them and rent them out too. We stayed in the Villas, and they were really nice! They had a small full kitchen with dishwasher even. There was a dining area with table and chairs, a living room area with fireplace. Then the bedroom was off of that. They had a bathroom with a shower and a dividing door to another part of the bathroom with vanity and jetted tub which were right off the bedroom. The bedroom also had a patio or balcony depending on which floor you were on. It was very nice!

I was very spoiled while I was there. Robert's company paid for spa treatments, and someone canceled theirs so I ended up getting two. Wahoo! Then we got $50 to go shopping in Park City with. It was fun, and I so enjoyed spending some time alone with my wonderful husband whom I feel like I never get to spend time with.

They even had a little carousel at the resort, and goats... We laughed about the resort having goats, but they

weren't outside when I walked up where they were suppose to be.

Here is a rose for my Mom, she loves roses! It doesn't look nearly as good as her roses when I saw them last.

They also had some geotherm hot pots, is that what they are called? Perhaps you have heard of the Crater at the Homestead? I guess kind of the same thing. Basically holes in the ground with hot water in them.

This little house is for my girls. Isn't it cute?

It snowed the first two days while we were there. Not the whole time, but enough to weigh down things. This is outside our little patio. The pool was off to the right of our room.

They had a pool that was both outdoor and indoor. At the bottom of the picture you can see a little canal, and that leads to the outside pool. (The outside pool wasn't very popular.)

The company also paid for us to do an activity one of the days. It was on Tuesday. (which was Amber's birthday and I was sad to not be there for her birthday) We signed up for the zipline in Park City but I guess it broke or something broke so it was canceled. Many of the other activities were cancelled too due to weather because it was snowy and cold. Golf was off and so was street louge... which is what we got signed up for after the zip line. We were offered to go "off-roading" which we went for. Robert didn't seem to excited about it until we got going. We went with a co-worker of his. He was nice enough to take the pictures for us. Robert went flying through a mud puddle, claiming he didn't think it was that deep. Yeah right! lol We got soaked, and muddy. It was sooooo cold too. It was snowing and freezing. My legs and face where numb! Thanks to some friends that gave us some hats to borrow and gloves, otherwise I would have been miserable!

Robert was proud that our vehicle was the dirtiest when we brought it back. I think we were the dirtiest too. At dinner Robert noticed I had a little mud mascara still even after the shower. It is kind of hard to tell, but our faces looked like the windsheild in the above picture. The guy we went with told Rob on the way back to our resort, "you got a little mud on your face." We all laughed.

On our way back we met one of the other groups off-roading with a flat tire. We had an extra seat and asked if any of them wanted a ride back. They declined and said someone was coming to fix it. After we left we were laughing as we looked at the empty seat... it was covered in mud. No wonder no one wanted to sit there.

This was a view shot from our off-road adventure when we were on top of somewhere between Cascade Springs and Midway.

We had a good time. Thanks to Robert's mom who stayed home with our kids so I could go. This was the first time I had been away from the kids for so many days besides a c-section hospital stay. This was lots more fun than a c-section hospital stay, from the room to the food to the activities to the way I felt.

Happy Birthday Amber!

2010-11-06T14:38:00.000-06:00

It seems like it wasn't more than a day or two ago and we had this little baby in our arms. I remember it so clear, going to the hospital in labor, them sending me home. I was walking around at home in front of my 4 yr old twins, pacing trying to be side tracked, them talking to me telling me things, asking questions. We still at that point didn't know if we were having a baby girl or baby boy. Then we went back to the hospital and not long after that I heard Robert say, "It's a beautiful girl!" He sounded so excited, but I think it was just the joy of knowing my pain was over. It has got to be so tough on the husbands too, feeling so helpless during the whole labor of birth.

I was a bit afraid to get attached to this baby before she was born. With the experiences we had before, I didn't want to get attached, I didn't want to experience another disappointment. I was trying to NOT get attached, not getting excited about it, just in case things didn't turn out well. Finanlly she was here, she wasn't going to be a disappointment, she wasn't going to get my hopes up for nothing. We had Amber Elizabeth. My Grandmother's middle name was Elizabeth too. We waiting over 2 years for her,we finally had our little Amber. She was worth the wait. She has brought so much joy and laughter to our home. Of course the other girls loved her from the beginning.

Amber recently has been asking me to tell her stories of when she was a baby. I tell her the story of when she was little, she never smiled. She must have been at least 4 months or more before she really gave me a smile. She would smile at the bookcase, the ceilings, but never at me when I would talk to her. I wondered if maybe there was a problem.

Then one day, it finally came... she not only smiled but she would start to "talk" and "babble" back at me too when I talked to her. My fears were eased. She was the center of attention. It seemed like we were starting all over again with babies. My youngest besides Amber was now 4, and it seemed so nice and different to have just ONE baby again instead of two to care for at the same time. It seemed almost too easy.

I was a bit afraid to get attached to this baby as it was growing inside my body. With the experiences we had before she was born, I didn't want to get attached, I didn't want to experience another disappointment. I was afraid that maybe it would be hard to have that bond with her after trying to NOT get attached just in case things didn't turn out well. I had not problems with bonding when she was here. She turned one and I was very attached to this little girl. What a wonderful time! Sometimes she still wasn't very smiley but she makes up for those lack of smiles everyday now. She is always such a happy smiley girl!

Amber was such a sweet spirit. By this time we were expecting another baby. After having such a hard time getting Amber we didn't want to wait too long to get that last baby here. It was kind of sad for me to think of how different Amber's little world would be once we had that new baby.

Amber herself, was just a little baby. She was barely a year and a half and then we had a new baby. It was like my little Baby Amber grew up over night. When she came to visit us at the hospital, it was amazing to me. I felt so sad for her, knowing her life and her attention would be so changed with this new little baby.

Amber seemed to adjust okay. She loved her little sister to pieces. Sometimes she loved her a little too much. I was telling Amber just yesterday about the time she was kissing her little baby sister's head and she must have gotten a little excited or something and she bit her head. It was so sad, but who knows what that little girls was thinking. We celebrated Amber's 2nd birthday with the thing she loves best... suckers!

I still don't always know what she is thinking about. She is crazy most the time! I love her so much! She is that warmth you feel when you are sitting in a sunny window. You can't help but to be want to be around her. She is a burst of energy and craziness too!

I am not sure when it started. Somewhere between her 2nd and 3rd birthday, but she loves getting her picture taken and she wants to always be in the pictures. She is so darn cute it's hard NOT to take a picture of her.

She is also a creature that loves other creatures. We were driving by some mink farms yesterday and she pointed to them and said, "is that were the living animals are?" Kind of a funny way to put it, but yes that is I guess where they are. She is our lover of all.... she likes the spiders, snakes, and bugs right along with all those cute fuzzy animals that most like. She was our chick keeper when Grandpa brought home like 12 chicks.

I could hardly believe it when she turned 3. Where did the time go? Did life really go that fast. My little baby is growing up. She loves Dora and Diego too. I remember when the twins were this age and they were in love with Dora and Diego. I wish time would pass a little slower. I feel like I am missing too much.

Amber continues to do these crazy and wild poses for pictures. When I have the camera out, it is normally because she is being crazy with some sort of costume or addition she has added to herself. It was hard to choose some of the pictures because she has some really funny ones! Did I already say she is CrAzY?

She is a blessing to have. To think there was a time I wasn't sure if we would have more than the 3 kids we had, we are very blessed. Amber is such a goof ball, she is so fun to be around. If you spend anytime with her, you can't help but to love her and want to be around her more. She is one unique girl.... I love her so much!

I could hardle believe it was that time again, time for her to be one year older. I knew it was coming but I didn't want to face it! My baby is 4. How did that happen? She wanted a cow cake for her birthday. I was so excited and was ready for it. We went to the store to buy black for the frosting and she changed her mind to Mickey. Maybe because of our recent Disneyland trip, who knows? She said her next birthday she will do the cow. I am thinking that won't happen though, but maybe, with Amber she is always suprising you.

I really was sad about the cake, I bought a disposible tin pan that had the little face on it. It was so not good. The cake didn't keep it's shape, the face was too big. I tried shaping the cake and I tried trimming the face. I would not recommend using their kit. I would have instead just used a few round pans instead and put them together. Amber didn't seem to care. She thought it was great.

So my little baby, or the one whom seemed to be a baby just a day or two ago is now 4. How did that happen? I know it happens because I have other children who seem to be a little too old for the time I feel like we have had with them. I treasure my little Amber each and every day. She is such a blessing, an answer to prayer, and a wonderful big sister to Samantha. I love the relationship they have. I know they will be best friends forever. Amber is loved by so many! Especially by me!

Disneyland

2010-11-05T19:00:00.004-06:00

We got free tickets to go to Disneyland through the "Give a day, Get a day" program. Check out my post here about it. Since we were already in California, we decided this would be a good time to use our tickets. Amber and Samantha didn't have tickets, Samantha was free and Amber was a $67 to get in I think. We saved a fortune! Especially since we tried to bring our own food to eat, and drinks too. I had a whole backpack full of snacks and sandwhiches and drinks. We had a blast! Last time we were at Disneyland, Lindsey and Lauren were 2 and Emily was 4. Unfortunately we are still odd, so it makes it hard on some rides, because someone has to ride alone.

This was Splash Mtn. The girls went on it with their dad, then they took me on it.

This is Indian Jones. Lindsey was too afraid to go on it the first time, but then the other girls LOVED it so they begged to go on it again, this time Lindsey went on it too. The first time they went with their dad on it. The rest of us went to Tikki's something with singing and talking birds.

This was Pirates of the Caribean ride. The girls liked it except Amber. She wasn't liking the drop offs. The first one Robert told her it was the last one it was all over. I then pushed him and pointed forward where there was another one. Ooops! It wasn't her favorite ride, but the other girls seemed fine with it.

Lauren and Emily on the Pirates ride... they liked it too.

The girls rode this ride at least 2 times. They liked Thunder Mtn.

This was the Submarine ride, now it is Nemo themed. The little girls went on it and thought it was fun.

I had the little girls for awhile, and they LOVED this ride too. I was a little dizzy, well alot dizzy when it was over. I can't do spinning rides. Even Nemo's Submarine ride made me feel dizzy or sick.

This was Space Mtn. The girls LOVED it. They went with Robert first then they took me on it again. They take a picture of you somewhere through all the winding and spinning. Look at how scared Lindsey looks. Emily was plugging her ears the whole time because it was a super loud ride. I didn't care for it that much. I liked the old one, or what I remember of the old one anyway. It has been so long, maybe I didn't like that one either. I perfer the up and down hills instead of just round and round rides. (Shh, don't tell anyone but I am more of a Magic Mountain/Six Flags fan.)

This was It's a small world. I have a picture really close to this of Lindsey one this same ride. It will be cute to compare them.

This was Amber and Samantha's favorite ride I think. They wanted to come back on it again.

There was lots of times when we split up, the big kids went with one of the parents and the little kids went with the other parent. Some rides we could all go together and some we couldn't due to the nature of the ride or the height requirement. We took all the girls on the Mattahorn. Amber was groaning toward the end and yelling, "I hate this ride, I hate this ride!" We were cracking up laughing. That wasn't a favorite for her either. I took the big girls on the Haunted House, which is one I like, but they didn't really like it and it was all changed and decorated for Nightmare Before Christmas. I was bummed!

This is the little girls eating a sandwhich while we were waiting for a Pooh ride.

Can you tell the big girls are like, "Really, you want me to stand by Pooh's stuff?" They just got off Splash Mtn with Robert,

This is some stuff the girls were playing with while we were waiting in the line for a Pooh ride.

The little girls and I waiting in a long line to see Pooh, Eyeore (who had to go right when it was our turn), and Tigger (who left right at the person before us). I was bummed we only got to see Pooh, I would have settled for Tigger instead. Oh well. The girls liked it. Amber gave him a big hug when she left. It was so cute!

I took the girls into Toontown. We had fun there too. The other girls I think were in line for Space Mountain I think.

Amber and Samantha got to meet Mickey Mouse! Amber said, "Hey I have seen you on TV!" It was cute.

This is a fountain in Toontown.

Again this is in Toontown, this is Goofy's car, parked in front of his house.

The girls had to drive every car they saw, several times!

This was so funny! Amber was playing with this.. then she pulled it all the way up and put down the handle. It triggers all these noises, exploding sounds, firework sounds, smoke coming out of the building.... and they just kept going on and on. Amber was running around in a circle screaming. It was hillarious! People tried to do it again after we left, but it just made a little "boing" sound.

The girls found yet another car to ride and drive. This was a fire truck next to the TNT box.

I think this was in Goofy's house. We played here for awhile waiting for Robert and the big girls. They had a little play area outside his house with a slide too.

This is note worthy that Samantha is driving! That didn't happen much. This is Mickey's car right outside of his house.

Emily was trying out the little door. I think she has seen someone named Alice try to fit in small places before.

We had a great time! I would totally do the "Give a Day, Get a Day" again for tickets. The bummer was we had to choose between California Adventures or Disneyland. I also felt guilty that much of the time we were catering and trying to work out ways to get the big girls back on the big rides they wanted to do. We didn't do many of the little rides and the ones they wanted to do again, like the It's a Small World, we didn't get to do it again because we were hurring to go to some other big ride. I felt bad about that. We did only a few small rides for the little girls. I guess that just means we will have to go again! I also regret not getting a picture in front of the castle.... I kept meaning to do that, but Robert wasn't much into waiting around for pictures, instead it was riding rides and getting in line to ride rides. The kids had a good time.

We brought home souviners, 4 princess plastic cups for the little girls, a snoglobe Emily picked out, Lauren got a hat with mouse ears, and Lindsey picked out a little stuffed Bolt dog. That cost probably more than our food did.

California Trip

2010-11-04T13:01:00.000-06:00

Typically we make a trip to California in the fall. This year we went a little earlier than normal. The girls were really excited to go to California to see their cousins and family there. Robert and I always enjoy our visit... and look forward to the time we get to spend with family there.

Samantha was glad to see a little greeter on the porch. She looked in her (Samantha refered to it as a her) little bag and said, "Its enpy!" (empty) It was pretty funny. She also knocked "her" over and was trying to put her back up. With the wind we have here at our house, this cute decoration would have never made it.

Samantha really liked this pumpkin girl as she refered to it. She gave it several kisses.

This is cousin Sean and their cooky dog Duke.

Cousin Serena gave make-overs to the big girls. Lindsey said she looked ugly, then looked at Lauren and said how pretty she looked. I looked at both of them, and said "You LOOK the same!"

Here is Serena doing her magical work on Lauren.

Now Lauren is complete! Lauren was loving the make-up!

Then it was Emily's turn.

And Emily just aged about 4 years! Time to wash it off, I am not ready for her to be that old!

This is why they call Duke a cuke!

Silly Duke!

Then it was time for the girls to do Serena's make-up! She was a little scared. I didn't blame her, the girls were saying... where does this go? Serena would say, that is lipstick, it goes on my lips. I didn't get a picture of the final out come. Serena did better at doing her own make-up then the girls did. She re-did her make-up right away.

We visited the beach.

The girls were asking what the noise was, they thought it was thunder, but it was just the waves, they were crashing!

I can't remember if it was Serena's suggestion or one of my girls' for a picture here, but I think it was a good one.

Serena was so good with the little ones. And they loved her too!

Emily is trying to keep Amber at a safe distance from those big waves.

Lindsey found something.... someone perhaps left behind or lost.

Oh, it was just Serena's hair piece. Serena's lots of fun!

The pictures don't really do justice for the size of the waves. They were pretty cool to just sit and watch.

Ping Pong battles were on most the time. I played with Amber across the table from side to side instead of end to end. Amber was pretty coordinated really for being just 3, well almost 4.

We went out for ice cream. Who could complain about that? The girls were loving it!

Then our time was over and it was time for us to come home. We look forward to visiting them again. Thanks to Uncle Bill, Aunt Michelle, Sean, and Serena for the fun time. We also went to Sean's water polo game, and that was pretty amazing. That is a tough sport! Serena delighted us with some of her music on her Tenor sax (I hope I am right on the tenor) which we were glad to see her new saxophone she got from Christmas last year. We will look forward to the next time we get to come visit again. (If we do the Disney "Give a day, get a day" again, I would like to go back before Samantha turns 3 so she will still be free.) Plans are already in the making!