Lindsey's $300 paper clip...

Okay so it looks like a paper clip... one of those paper clips that Emily gets a hold of and unbends and creates something entirely different with it. (One time I was doing some payroll stuff and looking for paper clips, the only ones I found where now heart shaped, and they don't go back to their normal shapes to well once they are unbent.)

Lindsey has a cross bite, and my sister who is the expert of the things of the mouth could explain it better I am sure, but basically her teeth don't fit together like they are suppose to. When she was a little girl, I use to think she kind of had a crooked smile, I don't think she does so much now. Basically what I got out of the orthodontist visit when we first talked about treatment is that her top teeth arc is smaller then her bottom teeth arc so they don't fit together like they are suppose to. Which then means her teeth don't line up like they are suppose to and making her chin also not line up with her nose and all that sort of thing.

So this device, which I have no idea what its real name is - I just call it a retainer. is cemented to her back teeth or around them or something. She had to wear spacers (which were little tiny rubber rings) in between her teeth for a few weeks to make space for these metal bands that hold her "device" in there.

She has been having problems eating and getting use to it. After her appointment she got an ice cream cone, which she mostly just held until we got home, since she said she couldn't eat it. We went to dinner last night. She hardly even ate her grilled cheese sandwich, food gets stuck on the roof of her mouth under the bar. We ordered her some soup, but that didn't get eaten either. She requested soft food for lunch today, so I gave her pudding and applesauce... couldn't think of anything else I had I could send her with that was soft and easy to eat. I guess I could have sent her with a tub of frosting, she would have liked that! I would have loved to see the lunch ladies face when they saw she was eating a tub of frosting!! I guess I better go buy some more yogurt for her.

At first she was afraid to talk because she talked funny. The Dr. also told her that no one would even see it or know it was in there unless she showed them. Knowing Lindsey, she will be showing everyone.

The treatment should last about 3 months top, with a few adjustments perhaps and is only $300 (our part) but that was better then Emily's treatment which she is done with now. After Lindsey's treatment is done, she will have a retainer to wear to keep things from going back to normal.

I really hope my girls enjoy and appreciate their beautiful smiles!!

Animal Tracks

I guess it was about a week ago, the girls missed the bus so I drove them to school. Of course it was that day that Amber and Samantha were still sleeping so I had to wake them up to take the girls to school. Amber ended up falling asleep in the car again, so I thought I would just drive around a little while she slept, and Samantha was either asleep too or was being good (I couldn't see which it was while driving).

This is the view from behind our house where we were walking, you can see all the way across the lake as long as the weather is good and we don't have dirty air. The last week we couldn't see the lake at all because of the air quality.

While I was driving, I saw tons of animal prints in the snow. I thought they were pretty cool and then I thought maybe the girls would like to go for a walk and look at them too. That all seemed to be a good idea, and after all, the girls hardly ever go outside to play when it is so cold like it has been.

The girls got ready, I bundled up Samantha and Amber and put them in the stroller (which by the way, doesn't do so well in snow when there is no tracks, and when there are two 6 yr old girls pulling and dragging on it too) and off we went. We didn't have to walk far, there are several houses just behind ours that is vacant and we already found some bunny tracks. Oh, and before we left, we took our rabbit out and put her in the snow to see what her tracks looked like so we could be sure what we thought were bunny tracks really were rabbit tracks. We then grabbed the cat and threw him in the snow too and made him walk back to the house through the snow. We studied those two prints and we were off to look at more.

We saw tons and tons of rabbit tracks, some places there were so many tracks it was actually a trail and it was hard to see what walked on it. We could identify some scat (or poop) on the trail to help us decide what the animal was.

These were really good rabbit tracks where you could actually see the paw prints, normally they were just dashes in the snow like the ones next to the detailed prints. And then the frequently used rabbit trail.

We took some pictures of some of the prints and then looked on line to see what they might be, and to what I could see and to the best of my on-line search, we found coyote tracks and a few tracks of a bobcat. Kinda of cool. Although Emily is a little concerned about the rabbit in our garage if she will be okay or if an animal will come in there and eat her or not. I reassured her it wasn't really all that likely especially with as many rabbits as there are around.

I am no expert, and I was trying to rule out dog prints, which we saw some of that too, but this one was a little different than the other one, but these are my best GUESSES! I should have brought a ruler to measure them, that would have helped. We also saw one kind of like the right side print, but it didn't have the foot overstepping and it only had 3 toes, I searched for what it could be but didn't find anything. Lindsey suggested a 3 toed sloth.

The event itself went pretty good, except for Lindsey who decided NOT to put on pants and were a skirt out and then also I later discovered she didn't have socks on either, so when she stepped into some deep snow that went over her rubber boots (which I told her before we left to wear her SNOW boots) and got inside them, she shortly later complained about frozen feet. Soon after that Lauren was complaining that she was cold too.

Our adventure came to an abrupt end, although Emily and I weren't quite done yet. I am sure that Samantha was getting pretty cold too, since she was grabbing her blankets and pulling them off too. I figured it was time to go home.

Fortune Telling

When we were in Washington at the end of Dec. the beginning of Jan. we all got together as a family to do Christmas. I think there was like 20 kids there, plus some extra friends of some of the grandkids. One of my sisters brought some fun little games or activities to do for the kids.

One of the games was you had to be blind folded and then with wooden spoon and a rubber spatula you had to feel the person in front of you and guess who they were. It was pretty funny to watch.

We were waiting for one more family to arrive, so she said she would do fortunes. She said she would be right back. She came back wereing this crazy outfit and started this whole act of telling fortunes. She took each family one by one and had them sit and she would tell them their fortunes.

This is my girl's fortune. It starts out dark but gets better. It was much longer (even though it is like 5 minutes now) and I tried to cut out some things, but it was hard to decide what to cut out. So here you have it... this is the kind of things that goes on when my family gets together, and now you know why Robert is glad we live far away! :)

Washington pictures...

I thought I would put some of the pictures from our trip up. Most of them are the ones the girls too. I think their cameras are normally pretty good, but I have noticed a yellow kind of tint to the photos sometimes. I think the girls are too close to their target when they take the picture sometimes.


This is Treasure, a horse up there Emily really likes.










One of the dogs from my parents house... Possum








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Megan showing perhaps her true self?

cousin Chloe with big ears...

cousin Julia with stunning eyes, she really does have pretty eyes, but with these new eyes you can't see them.

Uncle Scott, very fitting outfit...

Destiny and her baby brother Parker.

Lauren took about 8 of these pictures with her hands and Samantha's hands... pretty cute I thought.

Grandpa being a good sport.... nice nose and glasses

Aunt Sarah... woah, look at those eyes!

Grandpa with Amber... Amber isn't looking so good here.

I thought this was too cute without the added play in the picture. I had to put the normal picture on here too.

Here is Grandpa's foot with ears, strange things happen at Pony Poop Farm.








Looks like Destiny is looking through the curtains.

Destiny with wings and horns






And this little cute guy was the whole reason for going up to WA. What a cutie he is... all that hair, and he is about the same size as Samantha and he is like 5 months younger!

Here is Thomas (cousin) and Grandpa again...

Amber loved playing with the dogs....

Lauren, Uncle Kelly, and Destiny

Amber with Baby Parker

And I guess that about wraps it up. We had a lot of fun in Washington. The girls got to see I think all of, well minus 2 of their cousins, but they had a great time. I wish we lived closer so the girls could interact with their cousins more often. The girls didn't want to come back home.

The Best Way to Travel

Having family far away, makes us always traveling for hours on end. Normally that traveling is done in our car but Santa sent us some airplane tickets this last Dec. to go to WA to visit our family there.

Every time I am in the car traveling around 875 miles to WA, I am always thinking how much better it would be to just fly on an airplane and be there much quicker, it would be less time for the girls to fight and it would be an exciting adventure.

In Dec. we did the whole flying thing, and I am not really convinced it is better than driving. Imagine... a mama pushing a stroller with a baby in it, a toddler on her shoulders, 3 little girls clinging to their mother half crying and totally whining, 13 pieces of luggage which included 4 car seats all in a crowded airport with lines longer than one would ever hope for. That mama was me with all my little girlies and our stuff in the Portland airport while Robert was returning our rental car.

Remember that with the whole 9-11 thing security measures are increased, once you check into the air lines, before they would take your bags and tag them and then put them on their little conveyor belt behind them and you walked away. Now, you have to take these bags to the X-ray machine and then they keep them from there. The lady from the airline counter asks, "Are you flying alone?" I am dumb founded thinking does it look like I am alone, and come to think of it, I don't think I am ever alone. (Just last night I had a little 2 yr old ask where I was going, I told her the bathroom, she told me she would come too and watch.) Alone is something I won't be for some time I am sure. Luckily when we flew out of SLC we had Robert's parents with us, so they carried the luggage and car seats from the ticket counter to the x-ray place. They also helped hold some of the little kids and what not.

Then of course once you go through security, everyone has to take off their shoes, put them in a bin to go through their machines along with all bags, coats, blankets, and the stroller as well. What a mess.

Our flight out of SLC wasn't so bad. We had Robert's parents that helped so much. We had to park our car in long term parking, which we didn't want to have all the kids and our 13 pieces of luggage ride the shuttle bus to the airport. Rob dropped the kids and I, and Robert's parents and their bags off at the curb side. The kids and I went inside, we had to check in at the counter since we had an infant riding with us on our lap, we had to have a special ticket. So going, most of everything went okay. The girls rode nicely, Amber had some ear problems when we were getting ready to land and wanted some medicine. Emily said her ears were clogged too, but she was much better about it.



Here is Lindsey sitting next to Grandma. Lindsey got the window seat of course.






This is Lauren sitting next to Robert on the plane, again having a nice window seat.

Emily holding Samantha on her lap, the only two kids that didn't get a window seat.

Here is Amber loving her seat to herself and of course another window seat. With Robert's parents most of the kids got window seats. Which they loved.

Once we got to the airport, we had a car reserved, so Robert's parents stayed with me and the girls, and Robert went to get our car so he could pick us up. Again, we didn't want to have the 5 girls, and 13 pieces on the shuttle bus to get the car. That in itself seemed to be a joke. Robert got there to get the car, and there was some problems, he didn't have the right card that he reserved it with, he had switched cards the night before so I had his card and he had mine. The manager suggested to have a shuttle to come pick me and the kids up, and Robert was like no! Not to mention I had been sick all morning. I get car sick sometimes, and I think that was it, it started in the car and then ended up in the plane too. I just kept feeling like I was going to throw up. I had a yogurt at the airport, and that seemed to just make it worse. Finally they drove Robert back to the airport to get his credit card. He finished all the paper work for the car and then came back and got us. Robert's parents stayed with me and the kids the whole time.

Our stay in Washington was great! I got to go see my one of my best friend and her super cute twin babies! (Seeing them brought back so many fun memories and yet also the long hours of no sleep of when I had my twins.) I got to also see ALL of my brothers and sisters, which sometimes I am not able to see them all when I go to visit. I would have liked to spend more time with sisters, but it was still great!

When it was time for us to come back to SLC, we got to the airport a little earlier then needed figuring that to check in and return our rental car, all that would take some time. Robert dropped me off and our 5 girls, and our our luggage. Robert gets two of those smart carts or whatever they are called that you get for a few bucks at the airport to put luggage on. Of course there is only one of me, and I have a stroller already to push, then I have 2 carts FULL of bags and car seats. I try to get the girls to push one, Emily does but the twins are too concerned about being left behind or something so they cry as they push and keep whining and telling me they don't want to push it. "Can't you just push it Mom?" I am so tired and just want to get to the line and then everything will be just fine. Only to find that the line goes past one other airline counter possibly two other ones. I finally get to the end of the line, and then some airport lady comes and says, "We need to move the line over here, so everyone just remember who you are behind..." I slowly move over trying to sooth and talk nicely to my crying and whining girls, while I move a stroller and a cart full of bags and now I am also pulling a little suit case on wheels since Lindsey has decided it was too much for her to do and hold on to the back of my shirt. Of course anyone smart or in a hurry that is behind me in line, jump ahead of me, I am now about 6 people behind. I am not really caring, we made it to the new line and that was accomplishment in itself. Then some nice lady (a totally angel for me really) looked back and saw me, she was the lady that was directly ahead of me before. She yelled back to me, you were behind me. I kind of sarcastically made some sort of comment on I guess no one else knew that or they wouldn't have jumped ahead of me. I really wasn't going to push the issue. The angel sent to me, came back grabbed one of my carts and pushed it up to where she was and said, "no you where here." Then she told the people behind her they needed to make room for me and my stuff. I really wasn't going to worry about it. But man, she was totally heaven sent. I told her thank you, thank you, thank you..... over and over again through the line as she pushed my cart the whole rest of the way. I saw her a few other times in the air port past security and told her again thank you or I would wave and smile to her again. She just told me, "I didn't have anything else to do."

This is when the airline counter lady asked, "Are you traveling alone?" I am thinking HELLO?? She was asking I guess because my bags where tagged and needed to go to x-ray, so she was trying to figure out how to accomplish that. Right about that time Robert showed up. Phew! He carried the bags as I continued to check out. The lady in Portland wasn't nearly as nice and helpful as the lady in Salt Lake. The lady in Portland seemed more annoyed at me than anything.

As if the whole checking in wasn't bad enough. Our flight was late to arrive so we could leave, then because of the snow in SLC, we had to circle while they plowed the runways before we could land adding some extra time on the flight. Samantha was so tired, she wouldn't go to sleep and she just kept crying. The nice thing is Samantha normally just lays down in her bed and goes to bed. We don't give her a bottle to make her go to sleep or rock her or anything like that. She has a really hard time sleeping in my arms or my lap. Robert and I kept passing Samantha back and forth while she cried. While we were circling I finally put a blanked on the floor and layed her on it. She fell fast asleep until I had to pick her up when we were getting ready to land. Amber fell asleep shortly after we took off.

This is the girls and Robert riding the little people movers while we waited for our plane to come in.

Then due to the snow and freezing weather, it took us like 3 hours to get home once we got all the car seats in the car and all the girls and luggage loaded. Funny thing is that there was a package of wipes in the car, I was needing to changed Samantha before we drove home, and I knew there was some wipes in the car. Although they were frozen like a brick. I then had to go dig in the back of the car for the diaper bag for some nice soft wipes. Oh, it was good to be home--FiNaLlY!!

With all the being said, I am still not sure what is better, flying or driving? I before thought that flying would be best, but this whole flying experience has made me think again about it. One thing when we drive, we have our own car and our car seats are in tact. When we fly, we have to bring our car seats along, or rent ones. You can rent them for like $12 a day, which isn't too bad for a day or two, but for a week? When we drive, I also bring all my diapers and formula or snacks that we might want because we have the room. I packed those same things when we flew, which I shouldn't have since it took up more room. I could have maybe not packed 1 or 2 bags due to that. Financially, driving is normally cheaper, but I always thought I would prefer to fly. Maybe I might reconsider that now.... after our travels this last December.

Teaching in Primary

Robert and I in our new ward here for our church was asked to teach primary. For those who aren't familiar with primary, it is basicly the kids classes that the kids learn about God and his son Jesus Christ. There is a set time the kids go into their classes to have a "lesson" teaching about basic principles of the Scriptures. Then there is a set time that they go into a bigger group with some of the other classes to sing songs and talk about the gospel a little more. We as teachers, stay with them for both those parts. We teach them from a lesson book in class and then we sit with them in the singing part as well.

We are teaching the kids who are 5 yrs old that will turn 6 this calendar year. We have about 8 in our class. They are a lively bunch of kids and very talkative. I forgot to get some crayons from the church library and realized it once we got to class. I asked Robert if he could go get them, he said, "Gladdly, I may not be back for another 50 minutes" which is how long our class lasts for. He is really struggling I think. He has a hard time remembering their names so it makes it hard to tell them to stop talking when you can't say Sam stop talking, instead he is like, hey stop, hey you what is your name, stop talking, you have to sit down, and you over there.... It just doesn't work. Not to mention I feel like that is what we do all the time in our own home... just try to have order in the things we do at home.

Robert was pretty excited about it at first, but I am thinking he is having another oppinion now. For an example, we talked about the commandments and how they help us to choose the right. We had a hand out of some commandments on a piece of paper that said different things on street shaped signs like "Obey your Parents" and "Pray Always" kind of thing. We were talking about street signs so I was asking the kids what kind of street signs they have seen before. The kids gave off the wall signs that I have never seen in all my years of being alive. They came up with some weird ideas which I can't remember now what they were. But they were pretty creative with their signs.

I think Robert will do better as time goes. Once he gets to know the kids and loves them too. That always helps to really enjoy and love the kids you teach. Until then, he will be getting all the forgotten supplies and learning to excercise patients.

Finding the perfect gift...

I always have a hard time finding that perfect gift for some people. My girls are normally pretty easy to find something they will totally love. Robert on the other hand, I hate to say, I have stopped trying. One year I saw a brilliant idea in the "Family Fun" magazine. It was like "365 reasons why I love you" is what they called it if I remember right. It was an idea of a reader that wrote in and shared her idea. The reader bought a desk type calendar and then put one reason on each day why she loved her husband. I thought that would be a really thoughtful and loving reminder of how much Robert means to me and how I truly depend on him. I knew he wouldn't really want a desk calender since he has his Palm or he did at the time, and he most likely had some calendar at work on his desk too. So I got a little spiral notebook that I thought would be small enough to sit on his night stand on his side of the bed. I then wrote a little note in the front of it telling him how grateful I am for him and all those heartfelt feelings you normally write in a card for someone you love. I started off the year having a day on each side of the page, so when you opened any particular day it would have for example having Thursday July 7th on one side of the page and Friday July 8th on the other side of the open book. So I spent hours thinking up of ideas, real reasons and crazy things to fill in the blanks a little too. Like, "I love you so much I would go bungee jumping with you again even though I am afraid of heights!" or "I love that you don't sleep with a gigantic pink teddy bear" and then also I wrote in some with real heart felt reasons and things that brought back memories (for me anyway) of us dating or things in our past. I also put all our family birthday's on the calendar and all the holidays. I thought it was a great idea, I think Robert used it up to like Jan. 7th of that year. He did scan through it a bit, but I was rather disappointed in the gift I thought was such a great idea and everything. Well, that is how I feel many of my gifts end up like. I think they are really great and the receiver is only slightly grateful or I come up with some lame unusable gift or some unwanted item. Which then sometimes I think it would be better to not give anything.

This past year I was trying to think of something to do for my parents for Christmas. I decided to have their old super 8 films transferred onto a DVD. Although it was more money than I had thought it would be, once I started I couldn't see not just doing all of it. The films were split into two different time frames I guess. One being my immediate family films (although they stopped making movies shortly after my sister just older than I was born, so I am not on ANY of them) and then there were some films of my mom's grandparents (which were really I think 16mm film). They had tons of film of when my mom was a little girl and her parents and all. It was great to see them.

I went up to WA for my twin brother's blessing of his new son. It happened perfectly that I was also there for our family Christmas party which normally I miss since I am too far away and traveling in the winter is too dangerous in my opinion. Our family typically gathers the weekend after Christmas for their family party. This year I happy to be a part of it since I was up there. We do a grown up gift exchange, everyone brings a gift under a set dollar amount and then we do the draw numbers kind of thing and unwrap a gift or take some one's gift they have already unwrapped kind of thing.

I was trying to think of when I would give my parents their videos but I wanted to wait for everyone else there since everyone else helped finance the project. For the gift exchange I brought a gift bag with some microwavable popcorn, candy, 2 liter of Soda, a jar of nuts, and then I put that Video in there for my mom. I figured who ever got the gift would know it was Mom's and I would give them their copy of their video and my mom would get the one that was all fancied up. My number was 3 so I was trying to debate on getting the movie bag and revealing its contents to get my mom wondering about it. Instead I knew my brother had just wrapped up my sisters new glue gun she just got from one of my other sisters. I chose the glue gun just to stir things up a little and have my sister Lorri wondering if that was really her glue gun or not. (Of course when I opened it she said, "Oh I got one just like that... or is that mine? Scott is that my glue gun?" Yes indeed it was her glue gun, my brother Scott is crazy like that. (Many times for Christmas he would go into my room find a pair of shoes of mine or some clothes and wrap them up for me for Christmas. It was one of those thought, wow, I have a shirt just like this one, wait this is my shirt!)

When my mom's number was up, she went right of the gift bag of my stuff. She knew it was my bag since I got the bag from her Christmas box of stuff. She was sorting through the bag... looking at the soda, popcorn, candy peanuts, and then pulls out this video that says "Frack Family Videos" on it. She is looking at it and on the cover were pictures from the video, some of her and her parents, or her grandparents, or her sister and what not. As she recognized herself in a few of the pictures, she asked me where I got it. I replied, "it is amazing the things you can find on Ebay!" She was still stumped by the video. It couldn't have worked out better, with her taking the bag with the video in it. She finally figures out what the video is of and was just looking at it thinking the whole time from what I perceived.

It turns out in my opinion, this video was the perfect gift! As she watched it, she saw her parents who have been gone for along time, her grandparents, and then her siblings too. It was also perfect too, because when we started the process of the videos I wasn't planning on being there for Christmas, but with my new nephew it all came into play nicely. I was glad I was there to see my mom's face as she watched her movies of her family. I knew I did good at finding the perfect gift this year! Now I have to start thinking on what to do for next year.