Davis Family

Cinderella 8th Birthday party

2012-02-06T12:07:00.000-08:00

For Amelia's 8th birthday party we took her and her friends to the High School's play Cinderella. They all had so much fun! The show was amazing and the girls loved it!

Above is a picture of some of the girls with the Queen. (The nice one the Prince's mom) It is really Amanda Quinn who is one of the Young Women in our ward. My girls loved seeing people they knew up there!

And most exciting getting pictures taken with Cinderella, Prince Charming, and the Fairy Godmother! The girls were really excited about this. Prince Charming is Jocie's big brother Dean, and Cinderella is another one of the YW from our Ward Kimberly Tarnasky. It was so much fun and the did an amazing job!!!

Here is the cake we had with Grandma and Grandpa that night. Not fancy but I had made 2 batches of cupcakes that looked like icecream cones since I had dropped the first batch on the garage floor!

It's great to be 8!

2012-02-03T21:42:00.000-08:00

8 years ago today this is what I was looking at... My first baby girl, so sweet, so perfect and the the newest love in my life! She has filled my life with joy! She was a dream baby, a dream toddler, and a dream 8 year old. I am not going to say every day is perfect but she is such a good girl I am so so blessed to be her mother. She loves to choose the right and do things that will make her mommy, daddy, and family happy.

This is Amelia at 6 weeks. She was such a beautiful baby. She was a whole 5 lbs 11 oz! It was so much fun playing dress up with her every day!

This one is when she was 3. I remember this day so clearly. She had so much fun doing this photo shoot until she got tired and hungry then we were DONE. But some how Melanie still got so many amazing shots! Such a pretty girl!

8 years latter here we are with cute ice cream cone cup cakes, pink and purple balloons, and a girl getting ready to be baptized! We are having her party tomorrow. I will post those pictures tomorrow. I was going to do it today but we decided to take her and her friends to the High school play of Cinderella. It is going to be lots of fun!

She did get her Mickey Mouse pancakes before school and I took her her favorite Subway Sandwich to school, along with cookies for her whole class. But she did throw up during recess and they sent her home. She wasn't feeling well but then after a little rest at home seems to have bounced right back. She did this last week after school too, not sure why. She will be ready to party tomorrow!

She really only asked for stuff for her American Girl doll. She got 5 dresses for her doll! The first one here is a birthday party outfit. So cute it came with shoes, a purse, a birthday hat and everything!

This was a set of 3 it had jammies, a dress, and an everyday outfit. Each with shoes, and accessories.
This last one is a dress for her and it came with one that matches for her doll. She had really wanted one of these at Christmas but I couldn't find one then. Well not a knock off anyway because I was NOT going to spend the kind of money that AG wants! She loves this dress. It is going to look so cute on her! It was a wonderful day thinking about how blessed we have been to have this sweet girl in our life, I am sure it will only continue for the next month and many years. She will be baptized next month when Ethan turns 12 and we can do her baptism and Ethan's priesthood ordination the same weekend (this will be better for all the family who will be traveling!)

A few of my Spring projects that are done...

2012-02-02T16:39:00.000-08:00

My spring bazaar is quickly approaching! In fact it is a month away! I have been trying to get stuff done to sell but with Ruth being as BUSY as she is I don't get nearly as much done as I use to or as much as I think I should be able to get done! But I have some stuff finished... Above is a 4th of July wreath I did.

My summery, gardenish wreath... (I actually did 2 of these I liked it so much.)

St. Patricks Day Wreath.

Easter... Coming soon a Father's Day Wreath!

These aren't for the bazaar they are for the YW in our ward. They are going to be a plaque that helps them keep track of their personal progress. I will most more when they are done.

I love this bunny head I did from a newel post knob. I hope she sells!

I did a bunch of different bird houses just for fun....

Some Easter Peeps... I actually did one in every color they make for real. I think they are fun (please excuse all the mess in the back... I AM BUSY!)

This Uncle Sam is my most favorite!!! I really want to find a few more posts like this to make some more. He is my ONLY one! I hope other people love him as much as I do because I think I could sell a few of him.. or hope so any way!

I love these Easter bunny posts I made too. I have a few small ones done from chair rails that are cute but they need bases to stand still..

Ground Hogs Day fun

2012-02-02T11:18:00.000-08:00

Since it is Ground hogs day I thought it would be fun to do some thing with our shadows. It was perfect because we have a beautiful sunny day today! The first one is Hayden's shadow and Ryker in the stroller

This one is me... Hayden drew it.. She did pretty good

Jace did great at holding still! I loved how his cowboy boots show up in the shadow.

Hayden's first one and our cute bucket of chalk

Cute kids with shadows. Ruth didn't get hers drawn, she wouldn't hold still... imagine that!!!

Brock got his Bear

2012-01-31T07:24:00.000-08:00

Last week Brock earned his Bear in Cub Scouts! Way to go!!!!

The Not so Great Wolf Lodge

2012-01-25T15:00:00.000-08:00

For Christmas our Family got a trip to the Great Wolf Lodge for EVERYONE! Both my brothers families, us, my little sister and her new family, and my parents. All the travel arrangements had been made, my sister was on a flight from Las Vegas to come and go with us.... we get there snow and ice had taken out all the electricity for the entire town where the GWL is and the Lodge was CLOSED! We all had to go home! They had planned a baby shower for my little sister and her first baby, so instead we all went back to Prineville to spend some fun time together there. I am sure we had just as much fun there as we would have had at the GWL... ok it was fun but not THAT much fun! We have re booked and will be spending time there in March, minus my sister since she will be weeks from having her first baby! Anyway here is a cute picture of the cake my mom got for the baby shower. She got lots of cute things for baby Myka to wear, and all the fun baby things. (Mom and I made her a scrapbook for the first year or so of life although I let her know it was mostly from me.... )

I couldn't pass up posting this juice face with a plate full of pizza and grapes! 2 of her favorite things!

This is my sister and her Husband Todd. She is looking cute all pregnant! Love her! He is pretty cool. My kids think he is pretty cool. All the boys went shooting while the girls did the baby shower stuff!

And of course there had to be a lot of this after the shower!!! If you look close you can see how red Ethan's face is from screaming. I think this was just before the melt down. (There has to be one.) But it was a lot of fun until then! The kids had a great time wrestling with the uncles. Even when Ethan's head was busted open!

All the kids attacking Sunny. He was flipping them over his shoulder (this is how Ethan busted his head open, One kid over the shoulder, teeth in Ethan's head, it was minor and stopped bleeding quick!)

DOG PILE! (at least that is what we always called them!) Ruth always wants to be on top. I will lift her up there and then get her out of the way she always ends up getting trampled. (not sure why)

You can see how much they all LOVE IT!

Sunny even did the steam roller. All the kids begged him to do this and lined up over and over to do it! It was pretty funny!

This is what Grandpa did the whole time the kids were running around, wrestling, and screaming! Not sure how he does it!

Snow

2012-01-18T07:36:00.000-08:00

Ruth loved the snow.... well untill she got wet and cold.

ok it is kind of crazy that here everyone goes crazy over this much snow (you can see the grass through the snow! This snowball was rolled up by someone else the day before when there was a little more but really there was never more then and inch or so.

Enough to have fun I guess!

A lot of Christmas stuff...

2012-01-01T16:33:00.000-08:00

Ok so I haven't blogged for a while and I wanted to show some of the stuff we have done during the Christmas break. It might be long, or I might be brief, I guess it will depend on how crazy my kids get while I am working on this. These first few pictures I took while playing with my NEW camera Larry bought me for my birthday. My old one was not taking great pictures any more. We had bought it before Hayden was born 5 years ago, and it has been dropped MANY times and gotten a little wet from going on the boat... I love the pictures of Ruth mopping. She got this mop for her 2nd birthday (in October) She LOVES it and screams till she has HER mop every time someone mops so she can help. It is so cute to watch her mop.

Hayden not wanting to help or get her picture taken...

Amelia helping make dinner. She loves to make salads to help make dinner. Yes that is home made bread on the counter. I had just taken it out and delivered it hot to a few of the sisters I visit. The rest was for our Christmas breakfast, and for dinner that night.

These 2 pictures are showing something my new camera does that I love. It takes the same picture 2 times with different lighting and then you know which one is better. I love it!!!

I couldn't help myself with the next few pictures of Ruth. She is just so stinking cute and she lets me take pictures of her (I was again playing with my new camera). I love each of these faces she was making and that she is wearing her big sisters old apron that doesn't fit her anymore. It use to be Amelia's but now it barely covers her shirt.

Ruth... trying to get into something... a regular occurrence at our house. She does now know to use the taller stool or chair so she can get onto the counter!

She loves to color! I have a few more of her doing this but she was standing up and just bending over to color (with her butt in the air) They were all so funny. Oh and yes that is a whole bunch of towels on my floor! Ruth is always walking off with the one I hang on the oven. I am always turning around to find one and they are always on the floor! Not sure why she does this, I can pick up 5 or more in a day sometimes!!!

Christmas morning. Santa found us!!! That is Brock laying on the floor WAITING for the big moment! Which they had to wait a few HOURS for since it was 4 am when they got up and we were not doing presents till after 7 am

The LOOT and Larry standing (or laying for that matter) while I was getting breakfast ready. Yes we are really really mean parents who make our kids eat before they open presents. My parents did it so did his and we carried on the meanness. Plus Grandma and Grandpa and the missionaries were coming so they had to wait till the set time. Not just get up at 4 am and expect mom to make it NOW. Actually at 4 am we made them go back to bed till after 5... We didn't get much sleep that night..... Literally less the 2 hours. I had just finished doing my preparations for the next day (setting the table, getting breakfast things together, dishes done....) at 1 when Hayden woke crying worried that Santa wouldn't bring what she wanted because maybe she hadn't been good enough this year... I assured her all was well, had a prayer with her and set off to go get myself ready to bed. I still at 33 year old can't sleep on Christmas night wondering if Santa will come, if I myself had been a good enough girl.... all the excitement. At 2 am I heard more noise again and went up stairs to Hayden throwing up because she was so excited she couldn't stand it! We got her cleaned up and taken care of and back to bed just after 2 (probably 2:15) and I fell asleep quick this time. Then at 4 am I was awoken by voices in the living room. I was so deliriously tired that I was thinking, "I better go find mom and tell her the kids are up... where is mom? I better go get her.... WAIT I AM THE MOM!" I went and told the kids it was WAYYYYYYY to early and to go back to bed till after 5 they were back down at 5 but I never went back to sleep. I was to excited because I had seen that Santa DID come!!!

Some presents being opened

My mother in law made these Christmas dresses for the girls. They really loved them.

Amelia got the American Girl Doll she really really wanted. She loves her and named her Emily.

Ruth got this my little pony baby and she was so excited for daddy to get it out of the box.

Hayden got a new Webkin from mommy and daddy. She loves it!

Brock spent his own money to buy this cash register and food for the girls. They LOVED it! He was so excited to give it to them.

The day after Christmas we went to Prineville to be with family. It was a lot of fun. I love this picture of the 3 "babies" of the family. They are in order of age. Reagan was born in April of 2009, then Ruth October 2009, then Tyrah in April 2010. 6 months between each of them with Ruth right in the middle. I hope someday they will be the 3 Amigos! Tyrah was NOT happy about the picture taking, she was soooo ready for a nap. Normally you hardly hear a peep from her and she is so sweet. It was fun to watch them all interact together 3 two year olds could be scary but they were fun, well see what happens when they are all 3!

Reagan loves Dotty. Dotty, not so much but will tolerate it when she has to. Reagan is actually very sweet with her and it is cute to watch her hold her like a baby.
The last one is just Grandma doing hair and the girls all hanging out. They all had fun spending time together. They are going to have even more fun in a few weeks when we go to the Great Wolf Lodge. They all got a trip for one night for Christmas and the grand kids were all so excited there was some hooting and hollering going on when they opened their present. I didn't take a picture of that just video. I don't know how to down load that or I would. It was so much fun. I can hardly wait to get them all there and have a blast! My kids are doing a GWL count down now that Christmas is over we got to count down to something! It was a wonderful holiday and maybe latter when I don't have an 11 year old bugging me to use the computer I might take a few minutes to journal my feelings of this season. It has been one of the most magical, and spiritual seasons I can remember. Many blessings, a lot of love and a wonderful feeling was with me through the season! Maybe if my 11 year old weren't still standing here watching my every move I might take a few more minutes to share some of those experiences, and feelings, but alas he is still watching and the 2 year old is now screaming MOMMY MOMMY MOOOOOMMMMMMYYYYY so now my time is gone. I will go get the rest of dinner on the table. Maybe I hope to journal some before my memories and feeling have all faded to the forgotten things in my brain never to be remembered, like half of our Christmas dinner... again another story for another time when my 11 year old isn't standing watch, reading, and nagging... maybe later!

Gingerbread houses 2011

2011-12-12T11:24:00.000-08:00

Hayden got to do the Engine to the Gingerbread train. She had a lot of fun sticking candy all over that thing!

This was Ruth's contribution to the evening. Spill M&M's over and over and over and over.... But she didn't ruin any one's masterpiece so that was good. Plus she had fun. I think there is something wrong with her though. If I had given Hayden those M&M's at that age they wouldn't have had time to hit the floor once let alone 4 or more.... Ruth loves candy, but only certain kinds. None of my other kids ever cared. Ruth's favorites are Resess Peanut Butter Cups, and Smarties.

Brock worked on the caboose, and Amelia did the Gingerbread tree.

Ethan did the "coal car" it was filled with M&M's. hey that is what powers me through the holidays too!
Usually the kids take turns "helping" Larry do the Gingerbread house. This year I had handed him the house told him it was all his! The kids are big enough they did their things all by themselves with NO help and NO instructions so Larry got to do the house all on his own. It really is a work of art! All I did was one gingerbread boy and girl. Ruth did eat the head off the girl for me though. I am usually there just to take pictures, clean up and referee any candy disputes. It was a lot of noise, oops I mean fun!

Ward's primary Nativity

2011-12-10T21:44:00.000-08:00

3 very cute Angels ready for the show!

Joseph and Mary all ready

Brock was the Shepard

What a sweet picture of the Nativity.

Amelia as the Angel, Brock the Shepard, and a flock of sheep.

All the angles, sheep and Shepard's went to see the baby Jesus. Hayden informed me after wards that they used a doll for the baby Jesus. Probably because on the way there I jokingly said they should use Ruth as the baby but Larry and I were laughing that the baby would end up jumping off the stage, climbing the tree, grabbing the Shepard's stick and hitting everyone one with it, as well as who knows what else. It was fun seeing the other 4 participate though!
They all did a good job and it was very cute. They didn't have to talk there were other people who sang, and a narrator. It was a lovely evening.

A visit with Santa

2011-12-10T21:29:00.000-08:00

Every year we go to the Carousel in Salem and visit Santa. This is the only time of the year we go and ride the carousel. The kids love it and it is always lots of fun!

I love that Santa will take a break and ride on the Carousel. I snuck this picture of him sitting in the "wagon" on the ride.

Brock loved his visit with Santa!

Ethan loved that he was tall enough to play this game they have at the carousel. They have a ring catch. If you get the brass ring you win a free ride. He won 2 free rides doing this. He had pulled enough rings he got it down to the gold one for another one but someone behind him pulled the brass one. They waited for him to get it down the brass one and then took the brass one. He was a little irritated, but it was pretty funny! He would hoot and haller when he won though. It was pretty funny!

Ethan even at 11 still loves to visit Santa!

Amelia was so cute. She climbed right up there and visited with him.

Hayden seemed a little shy about getting to close to him but she sat by him and smiled at me.

Ruth not so much. This is the ONLY child I have a picture of like this. All my other kids went to Santa every year, even if they were shy about it. Pretty funny!

Hayden Loved picking the horse she was going to ride each time

Ruth LOVED the rides!!! She would wave at everyone and go "weeeeee weeeee" so cute!

Amelia and Brock had a great time to. The bottom one here is Amelia on my favorite horse. It is one of the 2 Christmas horses. I just love this one!

Back yard visitor!

2011-12-10T16:06:00.001-08:00

I wanted to throw up when Ethan found this dead in the yard today when he went out to mow the leaves... Ethan says we should save it for a white elephant gift.
GROSS!

My/ Our First ballet recital

2011-12-06T21:16:00.000-08:00

This fall I had a choice to make. I had "lost" or severely cut my baby sitting hours since the lady I sit for had lost her job and was going back to subbing instead of full time teaching. Child care is how I have been paying for piano lessons for the boys and dance lessons for the girls. I had at least 5 people ask me why I was not teaching dance since that had been my major in college and the whole reason it had been my major in college. I even had one good friend tell me where I could teach. Even though that place didn't work out I had a very kind friend let me use her garage, which also happened to already have a barre and a mirror in it! So I set off on a brand new adventure! I set word out and got 8 (counting my 2) students. I also worked it out with my boys piano teacher to trade. My boys got piano lessons and her girls got dance lessons. It has been a fun 3 months! Tonight was our recital and I was just so excited to share some pictures. I saw these Tutu cupcakes on line and LOVED THEM! I had to have them for the recital treats! I would have made them myself but I was worried that today was going to be crazy busy and I would not have gotten them done or have stressed about them. Good thing I asked a friend to make them (I paid her to do it). I would have stressed and I didn't have much time. It was a very busy day! I did make the chocolate chip cookies though.

Here is Hayden in her super cute purple tutu. We did a Tangled theme. All their music was from Tangled. So I got them lavender tutu's and a purple flower for their hair. They all looked so cute!

Amelia was so cute. She has been in 2 recitals from her last teacher. It was funny because when I started teaching my girls acted like I didn't know what I was doing. They doubted I knew how to dance at all. I surprised them on the first day when I did turns across the floor. Hayden also informed me that she use to take "real" dance lessons. It made me laugh. It has been a lot of fun being with my girls, and getting to do one thing I love. I am looking forward to what we will do for our next recital.

These are all 4 of the girls in Hayden's class, Natalia, Adaline, Hayden and Hadley. They did a great job in their 2 little dances. 2 of the girls got stage fright but Hayden and Hadley busted it out! They were having so much fun on stage it was cute!

These are all of my girls! Back row (Ruth) Norah, Jocelynn, Amelia, Lucia, Natalia, Front Adaline, Hadley, and Hayden. Ruth got a tutu by accident. I ordered 8 tutus and when I opened them up to fluff them right before the show and the girls were getting them on Ruth kept begging for one and I was not going to give her one (they are for the dancers) I pulled out the 8th tutu, and there was one more in the box. I checked the packing slip it said 8. They sent me one for free!!! I got it out and gave it to Ruth. She was thrilled and had a great time being dressed up like the big girls! She ran around and at the end was posing with them all. I didn't get any of her doing little ballet poses since my batteries were dying. Which is why these are a little dark/ grainy. I was really proud of all of them. It was a lot of fun and I look forward to starting again in January.

Tree skirt

2011-11-26T22:43:00.000-08:00

So the year that I was pregnant with Ethan, or the year he was born I saw in one of those parenting magazines where some one had a tree skirt that every year they would paint their kids hands and add the hand print to the tree skirt. I loved this idea and started it that first year with Ethan. I have done it every year and added each kid as they were born. They love this tradition to because every year when we get it out they measure to see how much their hands have grown from last year, and how much since they were a baby. Last year my skirt was looking pretty ragged because the one I started with was pretty cheep, and I couldn't wash it or the paint would come off.... SOOOO I had this great idea! I went and bought this great big piece of white felt, and giant pieces of red and green. Then I chopped up my old skirt. I cut out all those tiny hands, and traced them onto the red and green felt and stitched each name and year on each hand. I hot glued them on to the skirt. (yeah hot glue don't laugh! It was just to hold them still so I could stitch around them with out having to pin a million pins in it!) I stitched them all on then I stitched a little green and red around the edge. Now every year I just need to add their new little hands. I have room for about 2 more years then we will start a new row! I love it it looks better then my old one and brings me happiness when I look at it! That and lots of memories of little babies and growing kids!

In this picture you can see a foot print. The year Hayden and Ruth were babies they were so little they wouldn't flatten their hands out for a hand print so we did foot prints for them that first year.

Christmas Tree hunting...

2011-11-26T16:01:00.000-08:00

The weather was perfect for getting a Christmas tree today. We usually go the first weekend in December but since we had sick kids Thanksgiving and the day after we couldn't go to Prineville like we had planned so we thought we would go today since the weather was nice. We love this tree farm. They are cheep and they have lots and lots of huge ones and that is what we like! BIG!

Ruth had a BLAST! She wanted to play in the mud more but mean mommy wouldn't let her! She was really good for pictures though which is not normally the case! She would stay put long enough to get some good ones! (Yes I made these shirts for the girls. I also sold 4 at the bazaar!)

Sweet Amelia. I let her get her picture done first since she is the middle kid and always ends up going in the middle (some times we go youngest to oldest sometimes we go oldest to youngest....)

Hayden cute as usual. She only wanted to do silly face pictures but I lucked out with this one!

Love my baby Ruth! She was very smiley and fun today! She loved doing the silly face pictures too.

Brock I have a hard time getting a NORMAL smile out of, he gives me lots of FAKE smiles but I finally got ONE! I love this smile too!

Ethan has a hard time doing a normal smile to... they are often fake. So this was as good as it gets. It is crazy seeing how big he has gotten. He is almost as tall as me. I am sure he will pass me up this year!

Their favorite silly face one!

Here they are actually looking for and cutting down our tree. The others I took mostly because I haven't gotten around to getting family pictures scheduled and wanted something to maybe send out a Christmas card. I love how happy Ruth is in this picture though!

Ethan helping Amelia cut down the girls tree. Yes the girls and the boys have their own trees. Every year I tell them that if they get their room clean before it is time to go get our tree they can have one in their room. They also have to keep their room clean the entire time they have their tree or I take them down. They love it and so do I!

Ruth loved being out in nature and trying to get dirty and looking for pretty trees... we will see what she thinks of having a tree in our house tomorrow... she already LOVES all the other decorations I have up! Lets just say all the non-breakable things will be on the lower 4 feet. I just know she will get something over there that will help her reach higher then she is tall.

Turkey Shirts

2011-11-16T09:26:00.000-08:00

Yeah I made these turkey shirts. I made one for Amelia too, but she left for school before I got pictures!

Hayden's 5th Birthday!!!

2011-11-14T11:29:00.000-08:00

Hayden with her ice cream cake!!! She loved it and it was yummy! She chose cheese stuffed shells for dinner.

From us she got a kids V tech camera. Ethan has had one for years and it is kid proof and kid friendly. She has been asking for one for a while. So she got the pink and purple one! I also got her a little bracelet, and hair clip from the bazaar.

Grandma and Grandpa got her a Dora coloring book and a box with crafty things in it. She calls it her treasure chest. It is sparkly and has a horse on it so of course she loves it!

Emily's Wedding and Vegas

2011-11-06T10:17:00.000-08:00

My little sister Emily was getting married the 29th of October and she lives in Las Vegas. So Larry and I bought tickets to go down for the weekend. It was a nice little get away for just the 2 of us. My kids wanted to go but lets get real... NOT a place for kids! Plus who can afford to fly with 5 kids? It was tight just for the 2 of us to go. But so so glad that we went! Luckily I baby sat a bunch this month so we had plenty of spending money. (We don't gamble, don't drink, don't go to dance clubs so it was mostly site seeing and eating which makes it fairly cheep!) Oh but I do have to say I did "WIN" $20. We were walking up a broken escalator and I found a $20 bill! It was out on the street so there was no way to turn it in to a lost and found so it was MINE! Sweet!

These are some cool statues at the Luxor. I was going to take a bunch of pictures of the cool buildings but my batteries were going low and then died while I was taking pictures at the wedding so there are about 8 pictures of our trip! Unfortunately some of what I saw is burned into my brain and I would like to erase those pictures!!!

Here is my beautiful sister Emily on her wedding day. She really is pretty you have to admit that. They got married in the Little Chapel of the West. I hadn't ever been to a weeding like it, it was short, but nice. I didn't get any pictures of her with her husband because again my batteries died. She also has a new step daughter who is so cute! I love her hair. She just turned 11 so she is right between my boys in age. Her and my neice Johnnie hit it off right away! I had lots of fun hanging out with Johnnie and my parents while we were there. There was lots of good food, laughing, and good times. We went on the Roller Coaster at New York New York and had lots of fun walking the streets. My only regret was NOT buying these shoes I saw and TOTALLY LOVED!!! I am very happy for my sister who found some one who makes her so happy! I hope they have a very happy life together!!!

Hopefully I will get some pictures of my crafts for the bazaar and blog about it after wards, but set up starts tomorrow so if I thought I was busy the last few weeks it just gets better from here. But this is the end result and I just pray it is successful! It is always lots of fun though so I am looking forward to it!

Hayden's 5th Birthday

2011-11-06T10:02:00.000-08:00

So it isn't actually Hayden's birthday yet... but it is this coming Thursday. Which also happens to be in the middle of the bazaar. So we celebrated with friends Saturday. It was a lot of fun. Hayden planned most of it I hardly did anything. It was a fairy party. They played Fairy Fairy Troll. (Duck Duck Goose)

This is a couple pictures of a game Hayden made up. It is fairy's get chased by the Alligators. All the girls were fairies, and would fly around and the boys were the alligators and had to chomp them. If you got chomped you were out, last one in was the winner. (I gave the winner of each round a piece of Halloween Candy)

Hayden "wanted" cake pops. (I say "wanted" because I kind of talked her into them. Mostly because I had been wanting to make some and I wanted to make some for the bazaar and I knew I would have enough left over I could sell them at the bazaar... You know just multitasking) They were yummy though and she got to help make them!

Oh she also didn't want ice cream (which shocked me because she LOVES ice cream) But I think the thought of getting to choose what ever you want made her think that this was the chance to get some Dora Popcycles! (Since I always say no to those things they are a total rip off! But that is what she wanted for her birthday party so that is what she got!) She will be having Ice Cream cake on her birthday. (Another thing to make my life easier during bazaar week. Although she LOVES that part too!!!)

Claire got her this play dough set which she spent the rest of her day painting and doing play dough.

Halloween

2011-11-06T09:52:00.000-08:00

Halloween day my kids didn't have school. It was an inservice day. So I thought it would be fun to throw a Halloween party for the kids. I have ALWAYS wanted to do this and never thought we had a good time to do it between school and other activities that fill up the time. So since we had the whole day off I went for it. We played musical "chairs" it was really on papers.

Classic eat donuts from a string game!

We also played pin the face on the jack o lantern, and we had lunch I wish I had taken pictures of it. I made "mummies" (hot dogs wrapped like mummies), Brains, (jello mold), Lips and teeth (apple slices with mini marshmallows between two slices) and bones, (yogurt covered pretzels) I also made Skeleton cupcakes, and pumpkin rice krispy treats. It was all a lot of fun. Just don't ask my kids if mom will ever do this for them again.... I typically like to share the fun stuff we do but let me just say the party was FUN! But getting my kids to get ready or clean up after the party was NOT so I told them I may never do it again. Mostly because I had done all the prep work, went to Vegas and came home the day before, and needed to get a ton of other stuff done for the bazaar... Not my favorite Halloween, but the party part was a lot of fun. I probably will do it again, just not the day after I get home from a trip out of town.

I had a hard time getting excited about Halloween this year because we couldn't decide on costumes I really liked that were going to take little to NO effort on my part, like I said, I went to Vegas and I am getting ready for the bazaar that is literally days away! Finally I needed a last minute idea for Brock the week before for a party and I told him I could wrap him in TP and he could be a mummy or I would cut a sheet and he could be a ghost. All the kids loved his ghost costume so much we all were ghosts. It was super fast and easy for me so away we went! Even Ruth loved it! She didn't want to take it off and wanted to wear it every day after I had cut them up. Some times it was ALL she wanted to wear. It was kind of funny watching a tiny person run around with nothing but a tiny sheet on! So cute!!!

Pumkin Carving

2011-11-06T09:41:00.000-08:00

We have a tradition of carving our pumpkins the Family Home Evening before Halloween. (We have our FHE on Sunday because I never know when Larry will be home Monday night and it is more important to me that we are all here then we do it on Monday...) Anyway we carved our pumpkins Sunday the day before Halloween. The kids had a great time. Ruth loved it!!!

Here is Hayden with her pumpkin. She wanted triangle eyes and a BOO mouth!

Ethan's attempt at a Voldimort pumpkin...

Amelia is all about eyelashes. Pretty cute!

Larry and I had just gotten back from Las Vegas. I will post on that later. My little sister got married on the 29th and so we flew out to be there. It was a very quick trip!

Ruth's 2nd Brithday Bash!

2011-10-10T13:59:00.000-07:00

Ruth loves to sweep! Every time I get my broom out she wants to sweep with me. I happen to have 2 brooms but she is always hitting me and everything else with the giant broom so I thought getting her a little mop and broom her own size would be perfect. It sure was she didn't want to put it down and she kept running into the kitchen to sweep and we had to coax her into opening any other presents.

Grandpa got Ruth a new baby doll. You can see the OLD one she has been dragging around is getting pretty dirty, plus it is an old one of her sisters (she hasn't ever had one of her own) She has been VERY attached to that doll the other night I couldn't find it and NO other doll would do! We finally found it the next day in the boys room. She now loves to carry both around plus her broom, and if she can manage she will hold all 3 and lay on her new Dora pillow pet that Great Grandma Lucy gave her! (Which made her soon to be 5 year old sister burst into tears the second she saw it! She LOVES Dora and has been begging for a pillow pet but I refuse to buy one because my mom MADE them pillow pets before pillow pets were cool and they are way cooler then some stupid pillow pet!) anyway I told Hayden to let Grandma Lucy know that she loved it and wanted one to and maybe she could get one for her birthday that is just a month away! That helped! Ruth loves hers I think even more because her big sister covets it so!

This is her little toy toaster she got that actually pops the toast up when the timer goes off!

She got this little pie that has 4 different fruits you put inside the pie. She likes it but her big sisters love it more I think. But really the broom, doll and pillow pet are about all she can handle!

I made her an Elmo cake because she also LOVES Elmo and has for a LONG time. She also carries Elmo just about every where we go and she sleeps with him a lot... he gets a little less love now that she is so into babies but still she loves him, now that she has 2 babies to love though he may be history because her arms aren't long enough to hold all 3!
I wasn't sure if she would even see that it was Elmo on the cake but once she saw it she yelled "Meh Mo (or sounds more like Memo) then she started squealing soooo exciting! I was so glad it made her that happy because seriously I thought it was going to be SOOO easy because I have done 3 dimensional cakes and those are HARD this was just squirting frosting on a formed cake.... it took a long time, mostly because I did so many colors, and I made the frosting.... But it was worth it! She also loved blowing the candle out. Hayden did it one time to show her what to do and then I couldn't get a picture of it because as soon as Larry would light it she would blow. It was so cute! She really liked it. I told Hayden she better watch out next month or Ruth will blow hers out too! We let her do it several times it was so cute!

We love you baby Ruth!!! Happy 2nd birthday!

Look Who's 2!!!

2011-10-08T23:39:00.000-07:00

I love this peanut! We have been so blessed to have her in our family! She has brought so much joy to our home and life! She is adored by all her siblings as well. She keeps me on my toes and teaches me so much. Here I think I have raised 4 others passed this point and I think I have "seen it all" but NO she is whole other nut to crack! I love that she is this way and fills our life with ACTIVITY! I will post a few examples of her more recent "activities" that keep me guessing.
I realize this is sideways but if you look she pushed her scooter over so she could open the door. She succeeded in getting it open enough to climb back down and get out the door and bring in a few of the gourds from the front porch. She did this yesterday!
She has learned how to get on and off this horse all by herself! She not only will ride it side saddle like this but she will STAND on it and bounce it!!! I am telling you if I don't have a heart attack before she grows out of this phase it will be a miracle. I don't think a day goes by with out me finding her into or on top of something new.
Saturday (yesterday) I was in my craft room and I had set a foot board from a bed frame up against the wall (it has rungs like a latter) I turn around and she has climbed this (latter) to the top and was working on trying to climb the book shelf!
This is one of her new favorites as well. PLEASE FORGIVE THE MESS!!! It is bazaar season and it is what it is. Saturday I spend doing a major clean up so I could function again... well for a few days anyway! But NOTICE she pushed her scooter (again) over to the chair and climbed up, she will also climb onto the desk as well. Yes I know she has no panties on in the picture. So sorry. This is another thing she likes, to be naked! She doesn't like to get dressed or wear clothes so if she can get them off or get away with out she will. She loves to try to play with the mouse or key board. The librarians hate her I think because she is always trying to get to the computers there too. In fact she even turned one of them off and rebooted it last week.
Here she is at the boys football game! She was so dirty!!!!! She has not been to another one since! IT was either let her be dirty, or let her climb the bleachers... I chose dirt it was safer then falling to her death! OOOOHHHH Baby Ruth I love you and all the cuteness you are. Yes you keep me running but I love how snugly you are, how sweet you are with your baby and Elmo, and how Amazing you personality is!!!
It seems like just yesterday she scared us on her way out! Her birth was quite the event! And I thank my Father in Heaven everyday for getting you hear safely! Now if he can just keep you safe, I try but I really need his help! Everytime I turn around there you are again!

Pumpkin Patch 2011

2011-10-08T11:26:00.000-07:00

The girls love getting a ride in the wheelbarrow every year!

Girls choosing the Perfect pumpkin.... They both (the big girls) Wanted a Cinderella pumpkin (a white one)

Ethan ALWAYS tries to get the biggest one he possibly can!!! We have always said if he could carry it he could get it. This year that changed. He can pick up the biggest ones they had this year! Unfortunately the weather was not great for the GIANT ones we LOVE to get every year!

Brock's job was pulling the wagon. ON the way out to the patch he had just Ruth, on the way back... all the girls! He proved how tough he was though he did it all by himself!

The girls loved the ride!

Elmo

2011-09-29T14:33:00.000-07:00

This is what Ruth looks like when Elmo comes on the TV.

Finally a post about the girls bed room!

2011-09-26T19:05:00.000-07:00

During the summer I spent a few weeks redoing the kids bedrooms and moving everyone to a different room... I am sure I blogged about it with out pictures but I am not sure if I actually did... It was a crazy time around here. But I finally decided to take pictures and post some on the girls room. Sorry they are dark, it is "fall" now so the sky was gloomy and I wasn't getting much natural light to work with but this room is one of my favorites in the house now! I will post pictures of the boys room.... when it is clean, so maybe never!This is a ribbon chandlers I made! It is just an embroidery hoop covered in cute ribbons that match their room colors! FUN!

Here is the top of the house bed. You can see through the window is Amelia's bed. It is like the coolest little fort up there! Every little girl that has come to our house since it has been done has LOVED their room! (Hey so do I!)

This is Hayden's bed. You can see through the little window there is a "room" inside there. That is where the girls have organized all their dolls. It is cute how they actually organized everything in there. They have the cradles all made, babies tucked in, doll clothes in a box....

This is the school house end of the room. That chalk board sitting on the floor will be hung after I repaint the black board. You know in all my spare time! These antique desks I LOVE!!!! I basically stole them at a garage sale! I want to paint them or redo them but my husband has FORBID me from doing that! He says they are way cooler, and worth more with all their "character" He might let me put furniture wax or something to polish the wood... I still love them anyway. (What would you do if they were yours?)

Here you can see Ruth's bed, the "dinning area" and the "school house" and the corner of the kitchen. It looks like it is crowded in this picture but it is not. It is a huge room so there is plenty of room to move around in here!

Another angle of the school house and Ruth's bed. I do want to find a hidden way to keep the little people but haven't come up with something yet. I don't like the look of them in this room but my kids do still play with them and love them and I won't get rid of them. They are probably the only toy I will keep for my grand kids. They are well loved in this house... just need a nicer way to be kept.

Here is the kitchen/ laundry room area with the dinning room. Oh this beautiful oak table and chairs were built by Larry's dad for Amelia's birthday when she was 3 or 4 I think. They are LOVED by all the kids that play here!!! They have served many "tea party's, and dinners."

Full shot of the house/ book shelf and the Barbie house in the corner! Don't you want a bed like that! I know you do! TO BAD! I spent HOURS and GALLONS of paint on that sucker!

Another angle of the cuteness called BED!

More cuteness,

Angle shot of the cuteness. Dotty just wanted in on the action. Oh and don't you love that cute little stroller. I bought it from a friend. It was hers when she was a little girl. LOVE THIS ROOM! Oh and don't look to close at the curtains. I made them and wanted to see if they were going to be the right length... all that jazz but didn't have any rods, SO I tacked them up and haven't gotten around to getting a rod (plus I am tapped out on money to spend on this project till later...) Also want to add some kind of wall art in those big spaces..... but again need money and a great idea as to what to do there.... hmmmm I am kind of wishing I could have my cousin come and paint a mural or something... maybe we will see.

FOOTBALL!

2011-09-26T18:46:00.000-07:00

If you click on the first picture and look at #40 (the one int he middle) you can see Ethan smiling under that helmet! He is LOVING football!

Journaling

2011-09-20T11:52:00.000-07:00

Ok this is small but I am feeling thankful for the prompting I had this morning, and wanted to write it down before I forgot. (Not sure if I will publish this or not.) I was taking Hayden, Ruth and Jace to the library for story time this morning and I had a thought, grab your cell phone. I brushed it off thinking I am not suppose to have it on when I am in there anyway. But decided to grab it anyway. We finished story time and just as I was finished picking out books and ready to sit and watch kids do puzzles for the next half hour or so my phone rang, it was the school. Amelia had fell and split her chin open on the monkey bars. So I packed everyone in the car, went and grabbed the first aid kit, and went to the school (not knowing if I could super glue or if she would need stitches). Luckily it was a quick clue it back together job and I took care of her right there. But I was just so glad to not only have had the prompting but that I listened. She would have been sitting at the school for an hour by the time they would have gotten a hold of me if I hadn't had my phone. I know it wasn't life or death. But I know to my little girl it made a big difference that I was there quick. Which makes a big difference to me.

Flag Football

2011-09-20T09:52:00.001-07:00

Brock's first Flag Football game was lots of fun! He played a good chunk of time and they won! They had 5 touch downs plus all the extra points and the other team got ZIP!

After the game Brock told me, "I am really good at ripping off other people's flags. But I never got to do a touch down. I think I was suppose to." I explained to him that not everyone needs to touch the ball, or do the touch downs and that ripping the flags off is just as important so that the people with the ball can do the touch downs. He had a lot of fun!

Joys of Toddlers/ Preschoolers

2011-09-16T15:26:00.001-07:00

Ruth is the Joy of our home! Ok they all are pretty awesome but there is something about a "baby" that everyone loves. She may not be A baby but she is our baby and she fills each day with EXCITEMENT! She is 23 months old, wears 12 month (some 18 month clothes), is potty trained, and makes a funny sound like kkkkkk kkkkk when she needs to "go" and I never have to remind her. She climbs EVERYTHING, she will even push chairs to get to what ever she wants to climb, This morning she fell off the piano because I turned around saw her on it and told her to get down... she fell getting down (I should have helped!) She loves to yell mom mom mom mom mom mom till I look right at her and say RUTH. She loves peek a boo, and will say it every time you put clothes on her, she loves to be tickled, hates to wear clothes (prefers totally naked if possible), loves to drum on EVERYTHING, this morning we discovered her "art" on her bedroom wall she did in the night. Luckily it was chalk so it washed right off, she will attempt to copy things the kids say, like DUH BOB, (hers comes out more like Buh bob!) She gets new words all the time, she won't stay in a shopping cart to save her life. (I say this thinking of my old self who would probably judge a mom for saying "I can't make her stay put" I would have though yeah right just make them... I can't she can get out of the seat belts even when I cinch them as tight as I can, and she can climb out of the baskets too...) But she makes everyone laugh she is so stinking cute, and all of these things are things that I just love about her. These pictures I just had to take because she has found where I HIDE the pan lids and loves to get them out and bang them together. You can see she makes a funny face some of the time because it is loud in her face. She also loves to put them on the floor and rub them around (making and awful sound on the wood floor). She cracks me up. It is even funnier when she does this when daddy is home because he HATES it. But I am just cool like that so I let her. Larry says it is because I spoil her, I say it is because it just isn't worth the fight, it doesn't bother me, and it isn't hurting anyone... Anyway She is tons of fun, high energy, and makes me so so glad that she is the last one. She will keep us busy enough for 3!
Who wouldn't love this Peanut. (Peanut has been her nickname since the minute she was born at a whole whopping 5lbs 7 oz)Preschool so far (the whole 2 weeks of it) have been a lot of fun for Hayden and myself. Last week we did letter "A" number "1", circles, and Red. This week we did "B" "2" squares, and Orange. This was her letter B art notice it is covered with Band aids and buttons. Then today we made Brown Binoculars, and drew pictures of B lettered things all over them then went on a hunt for B things all through the yard, and house. (We found LOTS!) Then I read "Betty Bunny loves Chocolate Cake" and had her find all the B's in the book as we read. I have to say I LOVE teaching preschool to one kid! I can think of something that morning while in the shower that goes with what we have been learning and have enough of what ever it is I need, plus it is so much fun to just be focused on the one. I hope things continue to go this well all year.
I should post about the rest of the kids too but I did just post Ethan in his football gear, Brock is doing football too but doesn't have his shirt or anything yet. I will have pictures tomorrow from his first game I will post about him later. Amelia and Hayden are both taking dance lessons from me now. I lost my babysitting job since she lost hers, so I don't have the money to pay for the lessons they use to take. Besides that I went to college to do this and it was the reason I took dance was so that I could teach it when I was the mom... I finally rounded up a few students, I have 6 in Hayden's class and 4 in Amelia's. I am teaching in a friends garage for now. It is pretty exciting for me, a little scary, but fun at the same time. I will post pictures of that later.

Last Trip out for the year!

2011-09-14T18:08:00.000-07:00

Larry and I decided that since the weather was AWESOME this last weekend we would go sneak in one more camping skiing trip before football, took over and the weather turned. So Friday night we took off to Green Peter.Ruth decided she loved the water (she wouldn't get in the deep water at all the whole rest of the summer, at the Lake that is!) But she climbed out of the boat on her own (I caught her). She LOVED IT!
She loved playing on the knee board!
Brock's favorite is the knee board! He will only ski when we talk him into it. He enjoys the knee board a lot more!

Ethan on skis. He loves to do it all, knee board, ski, and wake board. Larry and I both skied as well. It was a nice little trip out. We had to rush home for a temple trip with the youth from our trip in the evening! Well worth it!!!!

Are you ready for some FOOTBALL?

2011-09-14T09:56:00.001-07:00

Both boys are starting football this year. (Our first we have always done soccer). Ethan gets to do tackle. He is LOVING it! I have to say it kind of brought a tear to my eye to see him looking so "manly" in all his gear! How did he get this big I would like to know! Where has the time gone???

Preschool

2011-09-14T09:54:00.001-07:00

This is Hayden's Pre- K year. So she and I are doing a Mommy and Me preschool just her and I. We made this apple and she is painting it. We work on one Letter, number, shape and color a week. She LOVES it and I have to admit so do I! I love getting one on one time with my kids!

1st Day of School

2011-09-07T11:12:00.001-07:00

This is the school bus cake I made for the first day of school dessert! My kids loved it and I have wanted to make one for more then 7 years. I don't know why it took me so long!
Brock all excited for his 1st day of 4th grade. I am not sure how this happened. When did he get to be old enough to be a 4th grader. Time has flown. I still feel like I should just be sending him off to Kindergarten! (Oh and the dinosaur lunch box Brock is holding. I MADE! Hopefully the other ones I made will sell at the Gentle House Bazaar!)
Amelia was very excited to be going into 2nd grade! She has Brock's second grade teacher Mrs. Peterson. I am sure this will be a perfect fit for her.
The BIG man this year! MIDDLE SCHOOL! I am really really unsure as to how this happened!!! It makes me feel old, I am certain I am not old enough to have a middle schooler, I guess when you start young this is what happens, but I am still young! He was so excited about having lockers and lots of new teachers, and new friends! I hope he has a wonderful year. He will be taking band (I found a trombone on craigslist cheep) and7th grade math!!!

All 3 of them ready to go!Brock by room 5! Looking already for the day. He has Mrs. Naggair. Ethan's 4th grade teacher. I am very excited about this too. I am sure she will be perfect for him.

Amelia at her table. She is sitting next to a boy named BROCK! It is not a super common name so it is kind of funny to us. Hope it is a wonderful year kids!!!!
When they got home Hayden and I had made them a school bus cake and school cookies. What a day! Hayden loves Mommy and me preschool (it is literally just her and I, but I make it fun and she looks forward to it. She bragged to her brothers and sisters when they got home. She also will ask me to put Ruth to bed by 9 am so we can get to do preschool, since we do it during nap time. )

Frog Face

2011-09-01T11:23:00.001-07:00

Ruth loves to put on our goggles. It always makes me laugh because I think she looks so silly! I finally got a picture of it!

Once I started taking pictures and she knew she was being cute she started doing a little dance for me. It was pretty funny!

Bit of what's up....

2011-08-24T10:03:00.000-07:00

I love my little girl! She is 22 months and look what she can do!!! All 3 of my girls got this job done about this age. As soon as she started showing interest and knowledge of what was going on we jumped on it and here she!!! She still has accidents but for the most part she is telling me when she needs to go! Just imagine when I never buy diapers again... (I still buy diapers for bed time but one diaper in a day is a huge cut back!!! ) YEAH!
The panties are fitting better now that they have been washed but still saggy... Poor baby, but that is what happens when you are a peanut and you potty train!

Busy Summer stuff catch up!!!

2011-08-15T14:47:00.000-07:00

Ok so I am way behind but we have been so busy having fun I haven't had time to post... not that anyone cares because I am certain no one but myself reads this. So anyway here is a wrap up! of the last 2+ weeks. The cousins came we went to the beach... then we decided to swap kids and sent Brock to Prineville with his cousins and we kept Johnnie. We had lots of fun going to the pool, going to the $1 movie in Salem, got school shoes for Ethan, and for theme day while Johnnie was here we had Art day!
On art day I made pancakes and the kids decorated them into really cool art... this one I think was Johnnie's flower! We used sprinkles, fruits, jams, M&M's, Peanut Butter....
For our field trip day we went to the Gilbert House. It was lots of fun too. They have a new exhibit. An animal hospital the kids all had a great time!
Friday night we packed up the car and drove to Prineville to switch back kids and take the cousins boating in Prineville. We try to go once every summer to take the kids boating and they all had a great time (well all but Angela who gets motion sick!)
Here is Ethan showing his cousins Brigham and Hyrum how to water ski (always willing to show off!)
After Brock showed off his knee boarding skills Brigham tried it! He did a great job and got up first time out!!! Way to go!
Here are the girls (minus Reagan) Johnnie tried water skiing and is getting really close she is getting up but still working on getting control of the skis I was so impressed with how hard she tried and didn't want to give up! After her brother knee boarded so easily she thought she would give that a go too! She did a great job at that too! She loved the tube! (who doesn't!) We had a great week with Johnnie!
At the end of our day we were boating across the lake and we saw this! He was eating something dead and let us get really close. We were still on the boat but we could have thrown a rock at him we were so close!
The week after all this the batteries in my camera were dead and I kept forgot to get new ones. For theme day we did Dino Day and I make dinosaur shaped pancakes, the kids played with dinosaurs (Brock's) and played with dinos in the play dough. I made dino poop cookies for snacks too. (They were those chocolate no bake cookies!) For dinner we ate like pterodactyls. (fish and vegetables) While they were busy doing some dino stuff I have spent my entire week painting and rearranging their bed rooms. The boys moved to the girls room and all 3 girls moved the the boys old room and the nursery will be my new craft room... I am still not done. I am very tired and it has taken me ALL week! I am sure it will take a full week still to get everything done! I will post pictures of the rooms when they are done. The girls are almost done I just have one decor thing I want to make and the boys just need a tiny bit of paint... (which I forgot to buy while I was at Walmart today so I will have to go back tomorrow!!!) The craft room needs all my craft stuff taken upstairs and organized but I still have to get all the baby stuff out of their. I will be doing a garage sale this weekend to get rid of it all so that hopefully I will have the money I want to get the stuff I want to organize the new closet down stairs (it won't have craft stuff in it anymore so it will become the "mud room") All exciting stuff! It will feel like a whole new house and I only had to move... everything. But it will be fun when it is done. I have also started painting a few of my crafts for the Gentle House Bazaar! I am getting very excited for it but feeling like I better get a move on I have lots to do and am running out of time!!!! Better run and get more done! There is still laundry to do, house to keep up, a triathlon to train for, rooms to finish paining, crafts to make, dinner to make.... oh and Ethan is gone to scout camp this week so my muscle help is gone getting things up and down the stairs will be much harder!!!!

Beach Trip with our Workman Cousins

2011-08-02T16:51:00.001-07:00

We spent Saturday at the beach in Lincoln City with our Workman cousins. It was a lot of fun. It was a bit chilly... ok normal for the beach. But it didn't rain and we had sunshine. The kids had a blast playing in the little river, and getting very sandy! (Well everyone but Ruth more on that later!)
Here is Hyrum digging! This kid cracks me up!

This is after I covered Brock with sand. They all liked this for some reason...

Ruth isn't a fan of wind... or SAND! She doesn't like her feet or hands to get dirty. She spent the first half of the day on my lap, I got her to lay snuggled up by Hayden for a bit then while I was covering Brock up I look over and what do I see.....

After that she was just running around, I even caught her army crawling in the sand!!! Where did that come from!? Why wouldn't she do it before... alas she only spent the last hour or less playing really good in the sand! Maybe next time she will remember she doesn't hate it!

Cute Reagan in the sand! She is so cute I could eat her up! We had fun having 2 babies around. (ok she isn't a baby she is 2)I had to put this one up I liked it so much the kids running back after playing in the waves a bit!
We ended their visit for the weekend by swapping kids. Johnnie stayed with us and Brock went to Prineville with the cousins. I hope he is having fun. We are keeping Johnnie busy doing his jobs and doing fun stuff every day! It is nice having a 12 year old girl in the house (especially because she is not MY daughter so she is super helpful, kind and doesn't cause trouble!) I hope Brock is being as good to Aunt Angela as Johnnie is to me! Oh wait he can't babysit... so nope I win! Miss you though Brock, I keep feeling like someone is missing!

Theme Day Thursdays

2011-07-28T22:20:00.001-07:00

Today's theme was GIANT day! (We had already done teeny tiny....) I made them GIANT pancakes. As big as their plates, gave them all a GIANT glass to drink out of (don't worry I didn't fill them!) Yes I know there are no pictures of the boys that is because they were busy being mad about something... I can't even remember what it was. Oh I remember I took away ALL The Lego's this morning because they were fighting over A piece AGAIN! So they all got boxed up and will be sitting in the garage till further notice!

In the afternoon we went to a GIANT party at the library. (It was the end of the summer reading program party but there were more then 100 people there so that is pretty big!) It was fun and all the kids won free tickets for a meal (they used them for dinner!)After the GIANT party I made GIANT cookies. Just for perspective that is a dinner plate it is sitting on. That means that cookie is about 6 inches across. Larry got home late tonight and saw them and said, "HOLY COOKIES!" Yeah that is right! But no one at a whole cookie... although I think Ruth came the closest!

Vacation 2011

2011-07-28T19:25:00.001-07:00

Vacation was a lot of fun this year. It really always is. Our favorite lake, great weather, great water, and lots of time with our kids. We ran in to the typical "pirates" on our big trip to the end of the lake. (Which means Daddy and Mommy throw kids off the boat, there are lots of squirt guns being sprayed and lots of fun!) Hayden actually swam this year with out death gripping on to Larry or I! I guess those swimming lessons worked!

Me and Amelia showing off one handed on the tubes. Larry bucked me off probably 5 times the only time Amelia came off she was going a victory dance in the tube after I fell off and she fell over!All of our kids have done this...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz on the boat!
Me and Hayden on the tubes. She likes it slow and NO bumps... lets just say her ride was really short this year because it was not a smooth day on the lake when we were doing this.
Brock and Amelia are quiet the dare devils on the tube. Brock doesn't like to ride with me because once I told Larry not to crazy... That doesn't mean anything! The kids start chanting buck mom off! And before I know it I am on the CRAZY ride! It is fun though.
Don't worry! We did NOT pull they baby in the tube she is just sitting there with her sister while other people are jumping off rocks and swimming around them. She loved sitting in there!!!
I can't believe I was terrible at taking pictures this year... I usually thought I should take pictures of this.. but not want to get up and miss what was going on! This is the ONLY picture I got of Whitney my sweet niece! She is such an angel. She would hug me and let me hold her and she barely knew me! Her and Ruth played nice and had fun being the littles together!
Brock built a "lake Owyhee" instead of a sand castle. He found lots of little bits of junk to make boats, a half a ball to make the "glory hole" What a creative kid even when we are camping. The kids loved playing with their cousin Dwight!!! I loved seeing him in those shorts they were Brock's when he was little!
This picture is for Melissa Jones I hope she looks!!! It is showing how full the lake is this year! Typically we are camping where I am standing and there is a good 100 yard hike down the steep rocky hill to the boat... this year... 40 feet at most! It was AWESOME!!!!
Brock is our Pro knee boarder, he does water ski as well but he way prefers the knee board. He will only ski most times if we tell him he has to ski before he can knee board. He had gotten really good at doing 180 turns on it and is sooooo close to getting a full 360! Who knew a 9 year old could do tricks!
Amelia learned on this trainer ski this year and after doing it a few times she got up on regular doubles!!!! So proud of my 7 year old little girl water skiing. She is a little timid about it, which I am not sure why she is our biggest dare devil when it comes to the tube!!!
Daddy skiing! I never can get the best shot of him cutting really hard... but I am driving the boat too so you get what you get!
Ethan water skiing. He has been doing it for a few years now! He learned how to get up on slalom this year! I just never got a picture. He is still learning how to balance it once he is up! But we are so proud of him for not giving up!
The kids all LOVED their cousin Josh. This is a picture of him teaching the kids how to play "We Will Rock you" on their drums they built! Who needs toys. Every year on vacation I am reminded that my kids don't need any toys. They have just as much fun with sticks and rocks! I think I will sell all the toys!
Loving the Sea Bike!
This may be the cleanest picture I have of Ruth all week. She was a dirt ball all week, but loved it!

50th Anniversary

2011-07-28T18:50:00.001-07:00

Here are a few of the cousins. Ethan, Hayden, Dwight, Whitney, and Ruth. They had so much fun getting to know each other. Larry's parents have been married for 50 years and the family came out for the celebration. It was nice to get to see the cousins!
This is Larry's sister and her kids. Her husband couldn't make it. With Grandma Lucy and Larry's parents Glenn and Nadine.
This is Larry's Brother Lance, wife Karen, and 2 of their 4 kids. Sariah and Josh. Jake is married and couldn't come (he starts law school soon) and their other daughter Hanna is on a mission in Brazil!
This is Larry with his siblings and parents!
All of us! I didn't get pictures of our family or Scott and Annette's family because my battery died. I also very sadly didn't get a picture of the quilt! Back in March I told Larry about how my family had made this quilt for my grandparents for their 50th anniversary and each family did a square. Larry loved the idea and said why don't "we" do that! (This meaning I do it!) We called his brothers and sister and checked to see if they would participate if I sent them a square to do and they all agreed. I got all the fabric cut the squares and mailed them to each family. They all got them back to me "on timeish" So I could quickly put the top together before girls camp, then hide it so Grandma wouldn't see it while she was here taking care of kids while I was at girls camp. After camp I spent the next week + getting it on the rack, quilted, and bound. A lot of blood, sweat, and tears (literally!) went into it. They love it and everyone said it looked good. I hope they just don't look to closely. I am not a perfect sewer but it turned out. I stole this picture off of Scott and Annette's blog!
I embroidered a family tree for our family square. It had Larry+Amanda stitched on the trunk, each of the kids were a leaf, then I had a little spotted dog sitting there (our dog Dottie) a bike sitting against the tree (Larry and I have been riding together pretty regularly lately) and I had a tire swing hanging from it. I also did one for each of the kids. Ethan's had a lot of stuff on his because we couldn't decide on one thing he would have represent him, he had piano, music, bike, water skiing, Boy Scouts soccer, and baseball. Brock had a long neck dinosaur (I know big shocker!) Amelia had a ballet dancer, Hayden had a butterfly with flowers, and Ruth had tracings of her hands and feet. I also stitched the temple they were married in and I did a 50th anniversary square. Larry's contribution was scanning and printing on a fabric square one of their wedding pictures. It turned out nice. I sewed 9 squares! Then put the whole thing together.... now I need to get busy on my holiday bazaar projects. I am starting to feel behind. It is almost August and haven't done a thing! Plus there will not be a grandma camp this summer so I will not have a full week of work work work with out interruptions to get a jump start on my stuff... So I better start busting some stuff out next week!!! Soooo don't come buy for a while my house will be a "work zone" I guess that is a nice word for PIG PEN! Oh but next year I will have the girls all moved into one room and I will have a craft room! That is another project I have to get done this coming month, paint bed rooms, pain beds, move all the bedrooms around!!! I think I am tired thinking about it now!

Music Camp!

2011-07-27T15:02:00.001-07:00

Last year Brock and Ethan did this music camp with our music teacher from MES during the summer. They loved it. This year Amelia, Brock and Ethan were all old enough but Brock had Cub camp the same week... So just Ethan and Amelia got to do it this year. They had so much fun! Amelia got to play the mouse in their rendition of the Lion King. Ethan got to be Simba!

Like Ethan's head piece/ mane? Yeah I made it! All with a paper bag, a piece of ribbon, and my curling iron! Yeah I am crafty like that! Ethan was pretty excited about it and thanked me for it which was nice. I let her keep it so she could use it the next week for music camp if she wanted.

First boat ride of 2011

2011-07-11T11:49:00.000-07:00

Ruth LOVES the boat. Good thing she has to have a life jacket on. She tries to climb out all the time but the life jacket holds her back a little because it is a little bulk between her and what ever she is climbing, the side, the steering wheel, the windshield, (no I am not making that up!!!) I fear that she will eventually succeed and get out of the boat, yes she will float but it still scares me! I wish she were a little bit afraid of SOMETHING! But she is not afraid of ANYTHING, fire, heights, water....
Ethan got really good at catching salamanders and the kids had a blast playing with them.
Brock is really good at knee boarding. He can do a 180 deg turn pretty easy he is trying really hard on getting a full 360! I am sure he will be doing it before the end of vacation!
Watch out there are pirates aboard this boat! (There always are a few "men" tossed over board)
Ethan's first time out on our "new" wake board. He really liked it. I might have to try out the new one to see if I can steer it a little better then our Giant one! We will see! One more week till vacation!!!
Ruth just looked so cute in the morning light on my bunk that I had to get a picture!

This was our "amazing" camp site. It had bags of trash all over we cleaned up so we could stand to be there, and had a giant cliff which terrified me into night mares with Ruth and her NO fear of anything! I literally woke up in the middle of the night and woke Larry on accident having a nightmare about her falling off the cliff! Good thing it was only one night!

Theme day Thursdays (which we did on Friday)

2011-07-11T11:32:00.001-07:00

Thursdays we try to have a theme and eat foods, and do crafts that go with the theme. I missed taking pictures of the teeny tiny pancakes we had but I took some last time we did this back in September. They are tiny pancakes and we eat them in a bowl like cereal with syrup and butter on them. YUM! I bought these tiny "crabby patties" for teeny tiny day. (I got a box of 8 for 98 cents!) The kids thought they were fun!
Then we did teeny tiny crafts. Brock and Amelia took an art class last summer where they got to do these and we loved it so much we wanted to do them again this summer! (minus paying for a class). I bought them all little wooden boxes (which I got for 40% off at craft warehouse so they were CHEAP) and some bake to dry sculpty clay. They make their objects to go inside the box and they paint the box, then they will each write a story about the things they made. I actually made these for Hayden... she was having a hard time (although she was still having a blast, I just wanted to play too and made these and told her she could have them. Not bad for my first time ever with sculpty clay!)Here is Brock showing our teeny tiny dinner. Larry ended up having the day off of work so we went on a spur of the moment camping trip. I had planned these lil smokies for dinner only I was going to cook them different at home. But I thought what the heck we will just roast them over our camp fire. The kids had a blast with this! (I did bring regular hot dogs to to fill our tummies more then just a teeny tiny bit!) I also brought coleslaw (aka teeny tiny pieces of food)
We attempted roasting these mini marshmallows. They just burn but it was fun trying (I did bring regular ones too though!)Hayden eating her smore!
Here is a picture of Ruth holding the Teeny tiny marshmallows before she ate a not so teeny tiny amount of them and then threw up a NOT so teeny tiny bit all over me! Ahhh memories!

Feild trip day Friday (which we did on Thrusday)

2011-07-11T11:23:00.001-07:00

Thursday was suppose to be a nice day at the beach so we changed our field trip day to Thursday instead of Friday. The kids had a great time playing in the sand and the water. Amelia loved chasing the sea gulls away after we fed them crumbs left over from our lunch.

Ruth loved the sand... a little to much. When she started getting tired she would just lay her face right in it. I kept picking her up and brushing it off and trying to get her to lay on me in stead.

I hardly heard from the other kids unless they were hungry. They stayed busy playing. Which was WONDERFUL!

Independance Day!

2011-07-06T17:18:00.000-07:00

We LOVE the 4th in our small town. It is a BIG deal here! Everything shuts down for the day, everyone is out and there is a big party! We party from sun up to sun down. We start every 4th at the church for a flag raising and cinnamon rolls! Then we head off to the children's parade. This is basically all the kids in town show up ready to walk, ride, or what ever down the main street in town. This is the "opening act" to the bigger town parade. My kids love participating in this here is a picture of them lined up for that!
This is the only way we could keep Ruth out of the middle of the road and this only worked for a short time. In a chair with candy!

The "big kids" waiting for the parade!
This was Amelia's fancies hair to date! It is a flag and I am sorry the picture isn't as clear as I thought it was when I took it but if you look close the upper left has tiny buns that make the stars of the flag and then there are 6 french braids making the stripes. It wasn't to bad to do and we copied the idea from my favorite hair blog! But she got lots of comments and it held up really well which I was actually worried about! Hayden actually let me do a star in hers with pigtails but sorry no picture!
After the parade we always throw a big BBQ for all our friends. Her is a great picture of the "rescue mission!" Ethan was being super smart and was walking on the top of our back fence... then what do you know he fell over into a GIANT patch of blackberries! It was quiet the event! Larry had to lift a latter over and wedge it down so he could climb back out. No major injuries just a lot of scratches. He will live, although he tried to milk it for the rest of the day!There was a lot of other excitement too. Some water fights... I got Larry with a water balloon, tried to get Neal with one, then they threw me in the pool... A bunch of other people ended up getting wet on accident... you know the story it is hot there is water around and adults who never really wanted to grow up, that is the way we roll! It was a lot of fun and a lot of great food! We look forward to doing it again next year. But we weren't done yet! When the sun goes down the next party starts!
This picture pretty much sums it up. Ruth is NOTHING like Hayden and LOVES the fireworks. She would cry till you gave her another sparkler. She had a great time!

Theme day Thursdays

2011-06-30T17:41:00.000-07:00

Hayden and her mask!

This year just before school got out I had this idea that I would do Theme day Thursdays all Summer. I would come up with something that would be the theme and we would eat things that have to do with the theme, do crafts and activities that have to do with the theme. Today we had banana muffins for breakfast along with bananas on our cereal, or banana cereal. I was going to make Monkey bread but I have a Relief Society activity I have to go to. We made these Monkey crafts, cleaned the living room while acting like Monkeys and tonight before they go to bed I will read them a Monkey book (Curious George.) We might have to do 5 little monkeys jumping on a bed too! This one was low key but our teeny tiny day I have planned for next week will be over the top! It should be fun! It think it will be fun just to mix it up a bit in the middle of the week. Thursday's are pretty boring normally!
The Monkey Masks and Brock's puppet. He never wants to do the craft the way I show. Today he wanted to do something totally different. I don't care we are just having fun. But he informed me that he hates monkey crafts (that is until he found a way to make it all his own!!!)

Girls Camp!

2011-06-27T15:07:00.000-07:00

Girls camp was a lot of fun! It flew right by! It was full of games, laughing, pranks, and testimony building experiences! Let's be honest I worked hard on filling it with pranks. Allison and I had a good time teaching the girls the art of a good prank. There were fake snakes, spiders, and a mouse tied to fishing line to the bathroom doors, there were stolen clothing thrown in the lost and found so that others would have to dance to get it back, and there was a bra on the flag pole! There would have been more if I had been faster then Allison! But she got me. It was all fun! The ride home was full of Chinese fire drills... I still hurt, and am still tired but hopefully I will catch up on sleep soon... Oh girls camp I can't wait for next year! But I will need new pranks before then... HMMMM back to the drawing board!

Girls headed to games.

Muddy Sophia!

My muddy Beehive girls!

I love how Kierra looks like she isn't sure about this... She loved it!

First day at camp they played monster games. This was the volleyball one. I didn't get pictures of the soccer game or the kickball game because I was playing too!

Swimming Lessons take 2!

2011-06-27T15:00:00.000-07:00

Monday I did get some pictures since I wasn't leaving for girls camp till Tuesday. Only thing is Ruth was such a wiggle, running, screaming child that I didn't get any pictures of Ethan or Brock. Everytime I tried she would run to the water. So we went out side the fence so she could play on the bike rack in safty!

Swimming lessons!

2011-06-19T21:45:00.000-07:00

Ok I am lame AGAIN! My 4 older kids are all taking swimming lessons for 2 weeks. I kept forgetting to take my camera and then figured Oh well they have another week of it.... oops I won't be here next week to watch Grandma will be here with the kids while I am at Girls Camp with the Young women from our church. So... again sorry no pictures. But here is another mental picture of Hayden being very brave for her swim teacher, blowing bubbles, going under the water and jumping off the side of the pool (all things she does not do with me! She is more cautious then any of our other kids.) Picture Brock and Amelia doing a great job learning how to side breath, float, and doing a great job and swimming! Ethan is learning all kinds of new strokes and is even learning how to do flip turns! (I can't even do that!) Then here is the best mental picture yet. Picture Ruth constantly kicking and squirming to get away from me, flashing her cutest smile the second she is free and then running as fast as her little legs will carry her to the water (almost falling in if I am not faster then her!) Then picture by day 3 me giving up and sitting outside the fence to watch and her walking yes I am not joking or exaggerating walking between the bars of the bike rack! Then finding that there is a DOOR that goes through the pool house onto the pool deck! Yes the last 15 minutes of that lesson were spent chasing her out of there!!! I then found I should just shut the door (even thought they like it propped open!) That is what we have been doing this passed week. Around the lessons I have been doing all I can to prepare for girls camp... I leave Tuesday morning. I think it will be a lot of fun and look forward to spending the time with my Young Women. I will miss my family tons. Every time I am snuggling Ruth, getting sticky hugs, or listening to her jabber (which she does A LOT lately) I think of how I will miss her little sounds and all that! It will be fun though to! I was sad I couldn't go last year because Ruth was still a baby and nursing and I wanted to go be with my girls, so I am excited to go with them this year! My kids are going to have lots of fun with Grandma! I will post what ever pictures I have next week... It will be a different set of faces, and fun stories I am sure!

Ruth's "18" month pictures

2011-06-11T14:38:00.001-07:00

Ok so Ruth is technically 20 months last Thursday.... But I hadn't gotten her 18 month pictures done yet. My amazing friend did a special last week and I jumped at the chance. Ruth was a little slow to warm up but did ok. She was pretty tired by the end but I am SOOOO happy with the pictures! Julia you ROCK! I couldn't choose just one or 2 to post so here is a look at my beautiful baby Ruth!

Yard Sale find!

2011-06-10T16:05:00.001-07:00

I have coveted these when I have seen other women find these at garage sales on their blogs and wanted one of "my" own! When I bought it I thought... my husband might not be as excited as I am because I have already filled his shop with my projects for the Holiday Bazaar and other home projects with stuff I have picked up... but he was actually excited when he saw them and was even more thrilled when I told him what I paid! He will NOT let me paint them. Which is fine by me I love the rustic feel, and I already have SO many paint projects to do I don't have time to think about it now anyway. I will give them a good polish with some wood soap and polish though. Once I get the girls "new" room all put together I will post pictures. Which won't be till the end of summer probably! We picked up an awesome House bunk bed last weekend at a garage sale (also one of my paint project that I need to do). So I am envisioning setting up their little house area on one side and their little school on the other. I can hardly wait! I think they are excited too!

Ruth's first pony tail!

2011-06-10T16:03:00.001-07:00

I was so excited when last Saturday I could do this with Ruth's hair! SO CUTE!

First "hot" day = slip and slide!

2011-06-03T19:22:00.001-07:00

Ruth loves to be outside. This weather makes it even more fun!

Brock got this slip and slide for his birthday. He has been dying to take it out and try it! FINALLY it was warm enough to break it out! They had a lot of fun, for about 15 minutes. Well worth it though!

I have to admit that I laughed when this happened! Hayden ran on the slip and slide and fell. Classic!

Popsicle tongue!

School Assembly

2011-06-03T19:11:00.000-07:00

The school was having their last assembly of the year and showcased some of the skills the kids learned in the circus trick unit of PE. I was very impressed!

Kids balancing act!

These were some of the jugglers. I was so impressed with all the kids skills! I couldn't do half the things these kids were doing!

Brock doing his "circus trick" These are called a Duck walk. They rock back and forth and they move forward. It was pretty cute. I think I totally want one, they look like a great work out for the inner thigh!

Preschool graduation

2011-06-03T19:05:00.001-07:00

Hayden let Ruth try on her Graduate hat! SO cute! We had a fun little party for the kids we did preschool with. We had lunch and then gave them all diplomas and hats.

Hayden and her best friend Claire!

The graduating class of Mommy & Me preschool year of 2011! (minus one Mr. M, who was sick :( )

Hayden's year ended the same way it started. A pouty face girl in the group shot. She pouted the first day because she wanted to be by Claire and NOT Ian, This time it was she wanted to be by Claire and we took to long getting everyone rearranged for that to happen. Then she had to keep the face just to keep up the act. I had to try pretty hard to keep up the act!

Memorial Day Weekend.

2011-05-31T18:34:00.001-07:00

Ok so again I am LAME! I took my camera with me to Prineville for Memorial Day weekend. Know what I did... Never took it out of the bag! I do this more and more lately. So sorry! I need to get better about taking pictures again. We had a lot of fun. So you can picture in your mind these things that we did.
Here is Hayden she had a snotty nose and a cough the whole time we were there. But she had lots of fun playing Toy Story 3 Yatzee with Grandma. In fact she said "This is the best day ever." (This is her new favorite thing to say thanks to Tangled and she says it every time she is having fun. I love it!)
Her is your mental picture of Ruth who also had a runny nose (no cough) but wanted me to hold her most of the weekend and didn't want Grandma or Uncle Sunny to hold her. She would go to Grandma for chocolate though. She did enjoy playing outside for a while on Monday.
You can mentally picture Brock taking rides on the 4 wheeler, burning stuff in the fire, playing with his cousins and shooting ever pop can Grandma would let him have with his brand new BB gun he bought with his birthday money! Oh yeah happy happy boy!
Ethan also took rides on the 4 wheeler, shot his BB gun, and burned stuff in the fire. Oh they boys also helped a stack some of the wood Grandpa chopped onto the wood pile.
Picture Amelia spending Saturday playing with her cousin Lia in the rain with umbrella's, playing Yatzee with Grandma, Lia and Hayden. (They loved it every time Grandma rolled the "bad guy") She also played out side pulling weeds, and riding the 4 wheeler.
Here is a wonderful picture of me reading Mr. Poppers Penguins to my family on the drive to Prineville. (We Saw that they made it into a movie, I had read the book as a child and thought if we are going to see the movie we should read the book first. Which is the way we like to do it usually) Here is another one of me feeling very very sick on Saturday and Sunday. Luckily I found out my dad had Anti-biotic on hand and we got things taken care of lickety split! But I had fun tying a few quilts with my mom and sister in law Angela (when Ruth wasn't clinging to me). I also went for a run all the way down my moms drive way on Saturday AM (before I started feeling sick) You are probably thing, ran down the drive way... big deal, well their drive way is over a mile long and I ran it there and back, and for some reason I learned I HATE running on gravel! I also helped in the kitchen a bunch. Monday I also went with my mom to take flowers to my Grandma Nola's grave. We stopped by a few others that were there that we knew as well.
Larry enjoyed helping chop, and stack wood on Monday, as well as went to an estate sale and found me some AMAZING stuff for me to paint for the bazaar this fall! He also spent Saturday working on pumps and other MAN stuff with my dad and brothers. OH he also got to shoot his 17 including using a few gofers as target practice. It may sound like a boring uneventful trip but we love to go and spend fun time with family.
Here is the BEST picture of the weekend though!!! Mom/ Grandma did an object lesson on keeping the Sabbath Day Holy and she made a Sundae, (Sunday) with Taco sauce, BBQ sauce, Soy sauce, mustard... A whole bunch of gross stuff and she likened it to putting stuff in our Sunday that ruins it, like going to the store, the movies, or doing yard work, lots of things that aren't really Sunday activities, it ruins the Sundae. So then she made a real Sundae (Sunday) and added chocolate, caramel, sprinkles, brownie... and likened it to all the good things that we can do on Sunday that make the day great! The kids LOVED it then we all cheered GO GO GO and pressured my brother Sunny into tasting the GROSS Sundae! It was so funny. My kids were laughing and having a great time! Brock kept saying it over and over after he did it "I can't believe he ate it!" To be honest I can't believe it either this is my brother who does NOT like to try new things or anything he thinks might be Gross! It was a lot of fun!

Brock' Real birthday

2011-05-26T17:12:00.001-07:00

OK confessions of a BAD mom! I have had a HUGE project going on and it won't be done for a while longer... I can't talk about it on my blog yet because it is a SECRET project and someone who reads my blog occasionally is the recipient so I won't disclose what the project is until it is done... this being said I have been trying to work on that, watch 2 extras 3 days a week, serve in my calling, be a mom to 5 kids, we had a dance recital, and, and and.... you get the idea. Not a lot of sitting time at the computer that is not involving doing things that HAVE To be done. Anyway along with my confessions I get to the dance recital with my camera and fresh batteries (I knew they were getting low so I put new ones it I wouldn't want them to die!) and found that my memory card was still in the computer!!! Classic. I have done this before here is the kicker, I did it AGAIN the next day when we took the kids to the beach to go camping. I was totally bummed because the girls were so cute (I did get video on our video camera but I don NOT know how to down load those!)Hayden seemed a little nervous before they went on stage but she did great! Amelia was my "seasoned pro" She did a great job as well. Plus on the beach Ruth was so so so cute. Last year she hated the beach and would cry the whole time we were there! But she LOVED it this year and would run to the waves with her arms wide open calling to them. It was so funny! We had to keep chasing and catching her to keep her out of the water. It is May and that water is COLD! Plus she is a tiny peanut and the smallest wave would take her out. It was a really fun camping trip though. The weather was great. No rain, no wind, not to cold. Couldn't ask for much more! We all had a great time.

Brock really wanted a new bike for his birthday! He has been asking and even made a list of all the things he wanted on his list. (It was so cute!) He wanted shocks, hand breaks, "changing" gears, a kick stand, water bottle holder, and he wanted it to be yellow. He got all but the last 3 and 2 of those can be added if he wants. He was still thrilled and loves his new bike! The part I love is that I had also given him an art kit. (That was all he opened from us) he was totally excited about it and was checking it out totally happy with it, then dad walked in with the bike! I am so glad he didn't throw a fit and act disappointed about the art kit. It just goes to show how sweet and easy to please he is. It just makes it so much more fun to give him what he really wants because he is so excited about it and so grateful that he has said thank you everyday since.
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Brock chose cherry and strawberry cheese cake for his birthday!

I also have not blogged about Mother's day yet. I really should because I have to admit it is probably one of the best ones I have ever had (As being the mom that is). But I really should get to making dinner my family is going crazy! Again no time... anyway Lets put it this way. I got a new sewing machine, my husband made an amazing breakfast and dinner (we don't really have lunch we have snacks because of the time of church...) He also made lemon mirange pie from scratch my favorite. On top of it my kids made cute cards, (Brock made a bracelet at scouts which I love and wore to church!) And there was very little fighting. It was a peaceful day and I loved it. My husband went the extra mile and my kids really really tried hard to make it a good day. No pictures of course!

Brock's Birthday Party

2011-05-15T16:49:00.000-07:00

I know Brock's birthday is a week away! But... next weekend we really wanted to go camping since this weekend we had a ward activity on Friday night. So we decided to have the birthday party a week early, go camping next Friday night then we will do family party on his actual birthday (Sunday the 22nd). He invited friends over for lunch and cake, then we all went swimming at the Dallas Aquatic center. It was a lot of fun. Brock informed me that it was the best birthday ever! I won't remind him that he tells me that every year! So I guess, the less work I do the better off I am, I did so little for this party, I bought the ice cream cake at the grocery store, bought pizza, then took them to the pool! Easy peasy as my kids would say. Great day!

At the pool the kids loved the rope swing. I have to say I had so much fun watching them I gave it a try too! I was impressed with Ethan's back flip off the rope swing!

Brock had to take the swim test to get the ok to go down the big water slide. He passed just fine! He had to go off the diving board and swim the entire length of the pool! I am so proud of him! He was a little to "short" to go down but they said if he passed the swim test he could do it and he did great!

Ruth and Hayden loved the water! Ruth is a natural little fish! It was a lot of fun for them but Ruth was out in the car in the 10 minute car ride home! Sorry I got no pictures of Amelia and Ava. I hardly ever saw them other then when I went in the "deeper" pool and I wasn't taking my camera in the pool!

Crazy Hair!

2011-05-14T16:47:00.000-07:00

Ruth had pig tails yesterday, she pulled one out and daddy pulled the other out this morning. This is the look we had till we went to the pool! The kids loved it!

Hayden's Dance Costumes

2011-05-04T13:05:00.001-07:00

Hayden in her Bunny Ballet costume! She Loves this dance and Loves this costume! I have to admit it is pretty dang cute!

Here they tried dancing in them. The ears were hard the first run through for Hayden but I helper her adjust them some and she did fine the second run through!

Are not all these little girls so cute in their costumes. There is one little girl in this class that makes me think of my niece Lia, just her coloring and some of her mannerisms. I found out yesterday her name is Italy. Which made me grin because Lia's name is Australia! CUTE!

Hayden's Tap costume. I was afraid she wouldn't put it on at all... She took one look at those sequins and said in a very cautious voice, "mom it looks like it might be itchy." I assured her the sequins wouldn't be touching her skin and she wouldn't have to wear it very long. She did great!

Their recital isn't until May 19th but the little girls need to have a "dress rehearsal" I guess so that mom's who have girls like Hayden can mentally prepare their kid to wear something they may not be crazy about at first. At least she was totally into it and was easily persuaded! (This time!) Plus it gave us lots of time to get pictures, some times on show night there isn't a lot of that. I am sure I will post more when the time comes, you will want to see Amelia's as well.

Cutie Pie!

2011-05-04T12:52:00.000-07:00

I convinced Hayden to let me put curlers in her hair Saturday night so her hair would be fancy on Sunday! It took her big sister begging for them for her self to get Hayden to agree. (Hayden doesn't like anything to maker her ichy, or at all uncomfortable.) I loved the end result. They were pretty tight curls in the morning but with in a few hours they had relaxed a little bit giving her the cutest head of curls ever... if only it lasted longer! She got lots of compliments so maybe she will let me do it again!!!

Easter 2011

2011-04-25T22:12:00.001-07:00

This year we colored our eggs outside. It was such a beautiful day (we have had so few of those so far this year!) We just didn't want to waste one minute of it in the house. Ruth was napping, which I have to admit made this activity easier and lets face it, more enjoyable. She is so grabby we would have had all broken eggs, spilled dye, and painted baby! The kids had a lot of fun being creative as usual. Larry and I colored a few too. Usually we divide them up and they all get a certain number to color to make things "fair". This year the kids didn't even count them or ask how many they could do one time. They just got to work and had fun. SO NICE!

Hayden and Amelia finding eggs! They were so excited. The girls made cards for the Easter Bunny, left out a carrot and a drink just in case he got thirsty. All on their own they came up with these ideas. It was pretty cute!

I love this picture of Ruth. She loved her ball so much she wouldn't put it down, but got excited about finding eggs with the big kids too so she would carry her ball and the eggs. She did figure out that we were putting them in the carton. It was so cute watching her! She still won't put her ball down. She napped with it today (the day after Easter)

I wish I had taken a picture of them all dressed up in their cute matching things. The girls all let me do their hair alike with cute ribbons and every thing! But we had had a "traumatic" ending to our morning due to some major disobedience issues with an older child. SOOOOO. We were lucky to get to church with out mom being in tears, let alone traumatize everyone more by trying to get everyone in a picture... It did end up being a nice day (even though the weather turned and we were rained on all day). But there was a beautiful spirit at church, and we had a lot of fun with our friends we had over for dinner after church.
We truly are blessed to be able to celebrate Easter and the true meaning of it. I feel so blessed to have a Savior who would come to Earth, live as the perfect example of how to live, suffer and die for me so that I am able to repent and return to live with him, then on the 3rd day rise from the grave, so that I to will be able to live again. This is truly what live is all about, what he made possible. I am so thankful for my beautiful family and the opportunity that I have to be married to a wonderful man for time and all eternity, so that we can be with our family forever. It is not till death do us part. We can be and will be a family forever, all because we have a Savior who made all things possible!

Ruth scoots

2011-04-12T15:03:00.001-07:00

I just wanted to write down a few things about Ruth so that I can remember how she is right now. I just love this peanut and she brings joy to our life. I often have to laugh, and shake my head. I have had 4 babies before her and never really had much of a problem taking them shopping... Then comes Ruth. She hates to sit in the cart. Normally I just made my kids stay there and gave them something to entertain them. NOT Ruth! Those seat belts don't hold her in. She crawls out and then climbs out of the cart (I have had to catch her several times from hitting the ground) So I tried putting her in the basket, again she can climb out! I will try carrying her and shopping. Killer on my back and arms, plus tough to drive the cart. Anyway once and a while I let her walk a little, this is even more crazy! Monday at the grocerie store she would run which ever direction she wanted (it was really quiet there this is the ONLY reason I let her do this). She would help push the cart (which was the best option) she even found the "mark down" cart and pushed it a little ways. I had to stop that before she ran into the glass case... then she started pulling all the cans off the shelf.... you get the idea. It is so good that she is the last and not the first. I have a little more patients for all this and am not pregnant while dealing with this behavior. Most of the time I do the best I can at distracting her and keeping her busy and out of trouble but once and a while I just shake my head and laugh.
This picture is taken with her best buddy Elmo. I think she is trying to say his name now... she says "beh bo" or Beh mo. Not sure one of those. It is pretty stinking cute! She carries him a lot! Sleeps with him and often won't put him down for a meal. Which means yesterday he got a bath in the washing machine. She loves all stuffed animals but he is number one! When she sees him on tv she gets very excited. It is pretty cute! I just turned this pusher into a scooter for her this afternoon and she loved it! It was pretty cute how she figured out how to push it and that she wouldn't put Elmo down to ride. I showed her he would fit in the little "trunk or Hood" But she wouldn't hear of it. She was holding on to him. She is always into something, climbing something, dumping something, or a sleep. I can't get enough of her. When I was sitting taking picture of her and watching her discover this new toy I couldn't stop thinking before I know it she is going to leave me for Kindergarten... then what... I know what, it will just be an odd feeling to not have a little person to play with all day. Stay little my little one!
She also started pointing to herself when you ask her where is the baby. SOOOO CUTE!

Spring Flowers 2011

2011-04-04T14:55:00.001-07:00

Most years if there is a day when the trees at the capital are blooming and it is not raining I take my kids to take pictures there. I think it is such a pretty setting... If only I knew how to use my camera better... and how to get my kids to look like they are having fun... Oh well I think they turned out nice enough.

Pretty Amelia... I am not sure if I am really that boring or what but none of my kids were very smiley. They were having fun while we were there as long as the camera wasn't pointing at them...or they give me really really fake smiles...

Pretty little Hayden! She hardly ever smiles at the camera anymore! She makes me laugh all the time, just not when I am trying to do pictures usually!

Brock so Handsome in a tree... almost 9 years old!

Handsome Ethan Now 11 years old!

Sweet Ruth has hit that magical age of run away and don't look at the camera... I lucked out and got this one of just her, with some peek a boo, and lots of help from daddy. As you can tell the rest with her in it don't typically have her attention!

Field Trip

2011-04-04T14:44:00.000-07:00

Brock's 3rd grade class at Silver Creek Falls
It was a lot of fun going on this field trip with Brock. It was the first one I have gotten to go on with him. He liked having me a long as well. I am so glad I was able to go!

Sun breaks

2011-04-04T14:38:00.000-07:00

We had a few sun breaks on Thursday and my kids and I took advatage of it! Ruth LOVED being outside! All of us did really! But this is a first for Ruth since she has been walking. I sat and read a book and just watched them play for a little while.

Daddy's water colors

2011-04-04T14:33:00.000-07:00

Don't worry she only made this face till he did Amelia's face and she loved it! Then Hayden wanted more. It was pretty funny!

Spring Break.... anniversary

2011-03-23T16:08:00.000-07:00

(Ok I just published this and then looked at the photos... all I could think was 12 years ago hu... seems like last month and I don't remember being that skinny...)
I feel like I have been neglecting my blog as of lately... not because we haven't been busy, but because most of the time I feel like if I don't have a picture I don't really want to put anything up... I haven't been taking all that many pictures lately. So just for an update. The boys are doing piano lessons, and Cub Scouts, the girls are in dance, and now we get a week "off" for spring break. Grandma took the kids ALL 5 for the weekend so Larry and I could go away for our anniversary. It was so nice to have a little break. We only went to Lincoln City for one night (not thinking we were going to have a whole weekend). We shopped and ate yummy food, stayed Friday night and then headed to Portland for a ward temple trip. Which was really nice to have to feel rushed about getting back to get a baby sitter home! It was a little weird to be in our house and have it be sooooo quiet. Usually during the summer if mom takes kids for Grandma camp I still have the dog. Which follows me everywhere like a shadow! But she went with the kids (since we were not going to be home!) Anyway it was a nice break though. Larry made me breakfast Sunday. (our actual anniversary! 12 years!) I made cookies for my beehives, we had tons of time with out 5 kids to get ready. Then he made me dinner as well. It was a wonderful weekend full of rest. Then Monday I went to Prineville and picked the kids up. My sister in law Angela followed me with her kids. They spent Monday and Tuesday night with us. We spent Tuesday at OMSI, and then I kept the kids Wednesday morning so she could go to the temple. The rest of spring break is going to be filled with (tomorrow) cleaning and maybe a trip to the store, and Friday I will be at the scrapbook convention shopping and then dancing in a talent show with a few friends for their ward. Anyway I didn't take any pictures of all of this stuff we have done so just enjoy my narrative... or not since I am sure no one reads it anyway, it is for me anyway.

Look what I made!

2011-03-16T15:03:00.000-07:00

So I decided my girls needed a St. Patrick's day hair clip... This is what I came up with! Amelia wore them to school today, even if St. Patty's day isn't until tomorrow. Pretty proud of myself.

Ethan's 11 birthday

2011-03-11T11:02:00.000-08:00

So here is Ethan with his pie. He looked pretty wipped out in all the pictures I took. I guess it has something to do with spending the entire day skiing with his dad! What a day! The other one is a "hat" Hayden made for him. She was so proud of it! He was a good brother and prettended to love it.

Look who's 11!

2011-03-08T17:47:00.000-08:00

Ethan turns 11 today! I can hardly believe it has been that long. He is such a good boy and I am so blessed to be his mom! I have loved watching him grow and start to turn into a young man. I can't help but think that in a year from now he will be getting the priesthood and passing the sacrament! We were watching some old family video's a few weeks ago and Ethan was just barely 4 in them (Hayden's age now!) It made me a little sad missing those days, but I wouldn't trade any I have had! He is such a great kid! Thanks for being part of our family Ethan!

Ethan asked for Lemon pie for dessert. I will post pictures of the Birthday stuff latter.

Principal's award

2011-03-04T15:06:00.001-08:00

Brock came home from school today with a Principal's award! I was so proud of him! He had to earn 3 Dolphin high 5's to get one (they get these for doing great things like helping others, using good manners...) He is my first one to get one! He also got a free movie ticket and bumper sticker to go with it!

Girl stuff

2011-03-04T11:49:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to show off my babies pig tails! She looks so cute! She has also just discovered the mountains of Little People in my house and she LOVES them! So cute.

Last night was Amelia's 1st grade music program. She was so excited and picked out her whole cowgirl costume herself (left over Jessi costume from 5 years ago when we did Toy Story 2). She looked cute and sang great!

sick and sweet

2011-03-02T15:13:00.000-08:00

Poor Ruth has had a little bug latley. She has been running a fever for 3 day (yes I took her to the DR. It is a viral infection it will clear up...) She is so sweet, not fussy. Just snugglie while sick. She doesn't eat much which worries me since my soon to be 17 month old is a whoopping 16.7 lbs today at the DR! But hopefully she will be on the mend soon! I loved this picture because she LOVES this Elmo and snuggles him all the time!~

Cross over

2011-03-02T15:10:00.000-08:00

Last week Ethan crossed over to Boy Scouts! The Order of the Arrow came and it was a great program! I am so proud of him! Sorry for the lack of pictures of him in this but I had to stand up front with him and didn't think to get some one to take the pictures for me...

Great Wolf Lodge

2011-02-18T10:28:00.000-08:00

For another surprise for Larry for his birthday I planned a surprise get away to the Great Wolf Lodge. I called his boss to get the time scheduled off and booked it. I even erased my email confirming the reservation (after I printed my stuff) Then a week later they sent another confirmation and Larry saw it on the email! So my surprise was half ruined... but we did not tell the kids what was up. Wednesday morning I got the kids up and started getting them ready for "school" (I packed all the stuff the day before and hid it in the back of the car). I told them school was starting late because of a maintenance issue... (is it wrong that I totally lied...) Anyway I told them I would drive them (they usually ride their bikes). They all got in the car (Larry left ahead of us dropping the dog at a friends house.) Then I drove passed the school. They were a little freaked out. Mom you passed it. I told them oh well maybe we will do something fun instead, what do you want to do? Amelia was pretty worried, her teacher would miss her she missed her teacher and "I need to learn!!!" So I kept driving to Larry's work and we picked him up. Then the kids looked in the back and saw the bags, the started guessing. We kept making new stories up. We said lets stay the night at OMSI, we pass OMSI. They all yell Hey you passed it!!! Then we say Oh lets go to Seattle, well go to the Space needle... Then we get to the Great Wolf Lodge and you can see it from the Freeway. Larry told all the kids LOOK! They started screaming sooooo excited! It was so funny! They loved the surprise and it was so much fun making it a surprise. I could hardly sleep the night before I was so excited. (If you can't tell I love surprises!!!)
They were so funny the whole way there. The would guess where we were going and they would say things like, hey there is a car following us that is suspicious, they laughed so hard when they opened Larry's lunch box and found toothbrushes and deodorant (my way of pretending things are normal by packing a lunch for Larry and not letting them see me pack last minute things in there.) I laughed a lot the whole way there they were so funny! It was so worth it they had so much fun and it was the best birthday ever (or so I like to say) for Larry. His birthday was Thursday! It was so much fun I may plan more adventures as surprises!!!

You can't tell from this photo but Ruth had a blast!!! She was so good when she would get tired she would just fall asleep with Larry or I holding her. I truly was surprised at how well she handled it and loved the whole thing!

Ethan coming out of the wave pool! Surfer boy!

Another one of those fun floating things to climb on!

The giant bucket of water!!!

We loved this cool snake. It floats and is anchored down so it doesn't float away. Larry and I wished we could cut the rope and put it on the top of the car. We would love to take it on vacation to the lake!!! Our kids had a great time on this thing!

We called this pool the Lily pad pond. It was a huge pool that had these fun lily pad's to walk across, plus some other fun things to climb on and play on.

This was one of little kid areas. The water starts really shallow and only gets to be about 2 feet deep. Hayden and Ruth LOVED this area. (Although so did Brock and Amelia!) Ruth would walk around and climb on everything she could. It was so cute! She didn't even mind all the stuff that sprays water in your face. She would just shake her head and wipe her face with a smile.

This is the wave pool. The waves don't run all the time. They start and stop with 5-10 min breaks in between. It is amazing how fast they start and stop. It was a lot of fun and we spent quite a bit of time in there. All my kids loved it, even Ruth. Hayden didn't so much at the beginning, but grew to love it!

This is a piece of the water park. That giant bucket at the top fills up with water and dumps. It does it pretty often. I would guess about ever 5 minutes or so. It was pretty awesome. That whole structure has things to dump water with, and 2 fun water slides from the top!

The kids by the clock tower. They have a fun story time here just before bed time. My kids all thought it was fun, but Ruth LOVED it. She had caught a second wind by then and would squeal with excitement every time one of the characters moved, talked, sang! IT was sooo cute (her more then the show!)

Hayden playing in the fountain by the wave pool. She loved the fountains, (ok she loved all of it except for the slides)! She doesn't go on slides even at home.

Valentine's Dinner

2011-02-15T11:52:00.000-08:00

Every year for Valentine's Day I make an all red dinner. It had become a fun little tradition in our home. I don't always do the same food, but I do try to stick to things that are more naturally red to avoid to much food coloring!

So this year it was stuffed shells, with marinara sauce, garlic bread, cherry Jello, beats, and 7up!

I die the butter pink and then make the garlic bread with it so the bread will be red/ pink as well. Some years we have had strawberry milk, this year we had cherry 7up. The kids loved this addition!
Every night at dinner we go around the table and say what our best and worst part of the day is. (This is helping my kids talk about their day, take turns and listen to each other, it has helped a ton with manners!) Anyway for Valentines I thought we would change it up to make it special. We went around the table and took turns saying something that we love about each member of our family. Ruth was totally rude and didn't say she loved anyone... but I think we know regardless! It was nice to hear each of them say nice things about each other and I think they each really liked feeling loved by all the others.

Surprise!!!

2011-02-14T18:05:00.000-08:00

So Larry turns 35 on Thursday! He and I have had some long talks lately about our childhoods and things we have done and have never done. I found that my husband has NEVER had a birthday party. The year he turned 31 we went out to dinner with a few friends and I think that is the closest he has ever been... anyway I thought this was the year and he needed a party!!! So I called up all our friends and they came through. We met at this great pizza place in West Salem and they surprised him. I love that it actually was a surprise and he wasn't suspiciouse! We had pizza, his favorite cake (German CHocolate!) and played pin the tale on the Donkey. I wanted a pinata and a few other games but I thought the pizza place might not appreciate it... It was a lot of fun though. Happy Birthday sweetie! More surprises await you!!!

Look what I can Do!

2011-02-11T14:54:00.000-08:00

Ruth has a new trick!!!
I can hardly believe that my baby is doing this. I realize that she is 16 months old and yes she should be doing this but I really just want her to stay a baby as long as possible. She is still very small and I am glad for that... but it is just flying by. Today I was sitting thinking about the fact that in 4 months she will be the same age my other 2 girls were when they potty trained... I don't think they make panties small enough for her, let alone the fact that she can barely even see over the toilet seat! CRAZY! Stay little little one!

Rapunzel Party!

2011-02-08T14:46:00.000-08:00

Amelia wanted a Rapunzel birthday party... So this is the cake I came up with.

Brock made Amelia this cute little scrapbook for her birthday. It is all pictures of him and her.

Amelia wanted an Easy bake oven for her birthday. She LOVES it and has been baking away! She even did tiny pizzas on Friday night! FUN!

I don't know if you can tell from this last picture but Amelia lost her top two teeth (on her birthday!) She looks so cute!

Look Who's 7!!!!

2011-02-03T12:55:00.000-08:00

My sweet girl is 7 already. It seems so hard to believe! The time seems to have flown by! We are so blessed to have Amelia in our family! She fills our home with love and joy! She is such a good sister. She loves to help with Ruth and Ruth just adores her. Today when I took Amelia lunch at school we sat with her and Ruth just kept hugging and kissing Amelia. Amelia is not only a wonderful sister to the baby but to everyone. She loves to help Hayden, and "trick" her into doing what ever it is that mommy has asked, she is one of Brock's best friends and they can play for hours with out an argument! She also looks up to her biggest brother and tries to help him out when she can as well. She loves to help me and quiet a bit lately she will come to me and ask what she can do to help just for no reason at all. She works hard at being a good girl, is a great student and is doing well in school. She truly is kind to everyone. I love this girl and hope she is always as sweet, kind, thoughtful, and fun to be with. She loves to dance, sing, and play. I love getting to spend time with her just one on one because she is so much fun. I am a lucky momma to have her! She is also very beautiful and I hear her daddy say that quiet often. He says it to me quite a bit even when Amelia can't hear him. He sure loves his little girl as well!

Pinewood derby 2011

2011-01-31T14:33:00.000-08:00

So the Pinewood Derby was last week. It was a lot of fun! Ethan's car took 2nd! Very exciting. There was only one car he didn't beat! His Watermelon car won "yummiest" ward as well. Brock's car won the "coolest!" It was a yellow (big shocker!) race car with flames painted on the front. They had a lot of fun and this was Brock's first one! He didn't come in last one time either, so it was very exciting.

Ballet and Bikes

2011-01-24T18:48:00.000-08:00

Hayden started dance at the begining of the month. She takes at the same place Amelia has been going and her class is right before Amelia's so it works out perfect! She LOVES it and is sooooo cute in her little dance clothes! I love it! I know I put a bunch of pictures but really she is so darn cute! She is getting tap too but my batteries died so I didn't get pictures of that.

Saturday Daddy took Amelia's training wheels off. She has been riding with them way up for a while but since they ride everyday to school I wasn't to sure about taking them off and having her struggle the whole way there and back. But Larry saw her ride and Ethan kept saying they never touch so they came off this week. Sure enough she just flew past, turns, stops and starts NO PROBLEM!

Snow Day!

2011-01-09T21:33:00.000-08:00

Larry and I decided we wanted to take the kids sledding Saturday. (Well we decided before that but we went on Saturday!) The weather was great. It was cold and snowy off and on. (I hate sledding when it is raining because then it is just slush!) Anyway the kids were so excited to go and it was so much fun. On our way home they all said thank you for taking them and that they had had a great time! Those are the times when I am just glad we did something fun as a family and we all had fun! Oh and no one got hurt!

We packed a lunch and snacks to take with us. We also took a little stove, water and hot chocolate. So we had lunch after some sledding and then were ready for some more snow fun and Ruth was ready for a nap. I sat in the truck with her sleeping on me while Larry helped the kids dig a really cool snow fort! When Ruth woke up and was ready to play some more we came out to this!

Hayden is a cute little snow bunny! She liked to eat the snow, and play with snow balls.

Amelia and Ethan were my die hard sledders. She would go up and down the hill all day I think! Ethan was always on the go so I have no pictures of him actually sledding!

If you can't tell from these pictures Ruth LOVED the snow! I don't think we have ever had a baby love it this much this young. She smiles and laughed while Larry pulled her up the hill and the whole time down! (Don't worry he didn't go to the top of the hill just little rides for the baby!) Anyway she loved it she would also crawl around on the snow it was so funny! I don't think I have ever seen a baby crawl in the snow. The funny thing to me is she HATED the beach (like scream and cry the whole time your there even if it is warm....) but LOVED the snow!

Brock loved the snow but got tired of walking up the hill... He had a great time though!

FHE

2011-01-09T21:29:00.000-08:00

Ruth's favorite part was having daddy throw marshmallows at her so she could eat them!

Tonight we had our Family Home Evening Lesson on temples. We talked about what temples are for, and what we have to do in order to go to the temple. We did a little puzzle with a temple on it and then we all built a temple out of marshmallows and toothpicks. (This was my idea but it was "Amelia's" FHE with my help)Amelia's brother's informed her that this was the best FHE we have had! Way to go Amelia! It was a lot of fun, don't know how much they learned but I did learn that Hayden knows you can get married in the temple! It was fun so that makes it a successful night.

Watch me Grow!

2011-01-09T21:19:00.000-08:00

Ruth now can sport pigtails! We just discovered this this week! LOVE Them! They are so cute! Also this week she has started taking her first steps. She can take 3 or 4 now and gets very excited for EVERYONE to watch and cheer! We love this girl!

Beautiful Kids!

2011-01-08T20:37:00.001-08:00

I love these kids and I am so blessed to have each and everyone of them! Thanks Julia for taking beautiful pictures of me sweet kids!!!

Ethan is getting so big I can hardly believe it. I am sure he will out grow me this coming year. I know not a huge accomplishment but it is a big deal when your kid out grows you! He is a huge help, sweet, forgiving, and smart. I love this boy and am so so glad that he is my boy!

I love these "crazy teeth" pictures you get of kids when they are at this age, loosing and getting new ones and they don't quiet all fit! We have one of Ethan that when we got it at first I thought EWWW now I love it because it just shows a stage that is here and gone so quickly. He is growing up so fast, and I think I forget it and try to keep him my little Brock... I love this boy, he is kind, thoughtful, grateful, creative, and sweet!

Who wouldn't love this face! This girl keeps me on my toes, makes me laugh, and brings joy to every day!!! I love her!

Ruth is such a sweet girl! This year has flown by! She is so fun for everyone, she loves to play peek a boo, make her silly face, and just recently started standing up in the middle of the room and looking around to see if everyone has seen! Quite the entertainer!!!

I can't believe how big she looks, and is! I love this sweet girl!