Spring Break

This is the end of our spring break (Sunday doesn't count as a "break") and I'm so sad! It has been so nice to sleep in and relax for the most part! The Wii has been played a lot! The Easter Bunny brought Super Smash Brothers Brawl (very smart Easter Bunny) and all the kids, right down to Anaya can play this one. McKay and Kayden played most of today (Taisha and Malia had volleyball games all day today.... *sigh... right back into The Schedule....). McKay played so much over the past week though, he has a game controller button blister on his thumb (ouch!) Pretty die hard!


Besides playing the Wii for a week, we also went to Texas Roadhouse (all 7 of us get the ribs there... mmmmm) and then went to "Horton Hears a Who." We watched movies and on the days when the wind wasn't too bad the kids jumped on the trampoline. Chores got done late in the day, breakfast was about 11 in the morning, hair didn't get done, and all in all I feel nice and relaxed.

Back to the real world tomorrow though (39 school days left starting Monday!)

Big Brown Eyes

Taisha had an eye appointment on Monday, and we decided to try some contact lenses (we're hoping that will slow down the changes in her eyes..... she has her dad's pretty brown eyes, and her mom's pretty blind eyes...)


I still haven't gotten used to seeing her without her glasses.


My mom wanted to see all 48 pictures of the stairs that Anaya took.... I think one is good enough (notice the good technique of putting your finger on the lens... no wonder my pictures are always fuzzy... finger smudges all over the lens....)

I am considering buying a new camera (which I will need to hide from the little kiddies....) Anyone have any advice on which camera to look into (keep in mind I'm pretty cheap... )?

Here's a couple pictures of the basement progress:


Kayden's room in on the left, Malia's on the right, bathroom on the far right, laundry and storage even further right. I'm standing in the family room.


I can hardly wait to move a couple kids in.... they don't need electricity, right?!

Happy Easter!

I just got up from a nice nap, and the kitchen is all clean (is there anything better than a kitchen that gets cleaned while you are sleeping!?) We had battery problems today though.... so not too many Easter pictures (probably better that way... the house has been in "Sunday Mess Mode" all day today). The kids were all dressed for church, and I pulled the camera out, got one picture of Anaya, and one of all the kids, and then the batteries went dead. I was just looking through my memory card though, and I think I know why.... exactly 48 pictures that Anaya took of the stairs. We also didn't have batteries on hand for the two little toys that McKay and Anaya got, and the Wii batteries in both controllers went dead! I think I will have to spend a small fortune to stock my batteries back up tomorrow!


Fun Easter weekend though! Rik ran 12 miles (well that part doesn't sound that fun) yesterday morning (marathon in June), and then came home and worked on the basement with my dad. I ran the kids to an Easter egg hunt, and then ran and ran and ran (um... not like Rik's running though!) I was gathering parts for Rik's car, getting last minute Easter things rounded up, and odds and ends done. I ended up stringing the house again this year (so fun!) and hid a ton of eggs all through the house (we'll be finding them for weeks.) We decorated eggs this afternoon (thank heavens for Magic Erasers!) and played games. My mom and dad, and Chad and his kids came over for dinner (and brought lemon cream cake like the one at Olive Garden... so yummy!)


Kayden was set apart as the 1st counselor in the deacons quorum today (for the whole month that he has left in there....he turns 14 in April). He also came home with a picture of his first attempt at cake decorating. Looks yummy huh? One of the young women leaders tried to fix it, and it came home looking a little more edible than in the picture.

The kids have Spring break this week.... woohoo! No homework for a week! The weather has improved and the snow is almost gone. We got the trampoline back up and pumped up all the kids bike tires.

Hmm.... I might have to go find me another peice of cake, and sit and read a few chapters of Tunnels (my free book from working at the school book fair last week.)

Email Addresses

I keep forgetting to ask for everyone's email addresses. I took my old hard drive and put it in the new computer as a second hard drive, and I know my address book and emails are right there.... I just can't figure out how to get them on my new hard drive and email program (Outlook). (If you know how to do that as well, that would be even better!) Just email me (your email address and any others you think should be in there) and I'll get you back in my address book. Thanks for the help. I'm feeling a lot better too... thanks!

I think ballroom is making me sick!

So I thought I would tell you what we've been up to the last couple days. Thursday middle of the night I started running a fever and had a terrible sore throat... turns out I have strep throat. I've been on an antibiotic for about 24 hours now, so I'm feeling a little better (a lot better than yesterday.... but not as good as Tuesday). I have been totally wiped out! I usually get strep throat if I'm run down or stressed out, and I haven't been feeling run down or stressed out, I mean any more than usual.....

My mom is trying to one up me. You know a few posts ago when I was all excited about the duck swimming in the church parking lot? Well, on Thursday my mom had a moose in her back yard! Sheesh, makes the duck look kind of silly. She didn't get any pictures though.... so it's her word against mine... well, and the fish and game people who had to come and tranquilize the moose and haul it off, and the neighbors who saw the whole thing.....

This was a bad week for working on the basement. FHE and swimming Monday, meetings all night Tuesday, Relief Society dinner Wednesday, Junior High open house and tour for Malia (she was beyond excited.....) Thursday (I had to work, so Rik took her), and Friday night, I was still down, so Rik had to run the upstairs for me instead of the downstairs. He did get some work done on Saturday though, in between going to the temple, training for his marathon (he ran 9 miles on Saturday), doing all my grocery shopping (which means we have corn nuts instead of licorice, and pickles instead of Cadbury eggs), cleaning house, running the kids to a ballroom performance... hey, I think Rik should have strep throat, he clearly should be more run down and stressed out than me!

Speaking of Ballroom, Malia and Kayden were performing at the Green and Gold Banquet yesterday (Saturday night), and I was planning on making a conscious effort to remember the camera AND the battery AND the memory card (I've been getting 2 out of 3 the last few times I've tried to record them dancing....) and once again, I am not feeling good enough to even go, I barely got Malia's hair and make-up done. I think I might be jinxed. But for the record, I think I would rather forget the memory card, than have strep throat or the flu....

So now I just have to catch up (Hmmm.... or take a nap). Malia did her best to keep up on the laudry, but there is still a mountain! I really need to get my Easter stuff together... I should get on that Monday (1/2 day of school tomorrow.... so I have babysitters!)

Relief Society Birthday Dinner - and the Three Amigos

We had our Relief Society birthday dinner tonight, and the bishopric was invited.... to help introduce things. Can you guess what the theme was?!


This one had me in tears.... it's so funny of Rik (and I'm sure he's going to love that I've uploaded it......) :


Another one of Rik and his mustache (you know he can't grow a real one?!):


One of Rik whacking the pinata (he's looking a little scared or something) :


Fun night with good food, and totally worth it for the pictures!

That String Thing

Since Easter is a week from Saturday (doesn't that seem early?! In my mind it should be in about a month....) I thought I would post what we did last year, because it was so fun. We have usually done a treasure hunt, but last year I decided to do something different. I got 5 skeins of yarn... all different colors...tied one end to each of the kids beds, and then ran string all over the place.... upstairs, downstairs, in the garage, through the car and van, out the back door, over the trampoline, around the house, I mean everywhere! After I thought I had run enough string, I ended with their Easter stuff hidden with the last of their yarn (one was in the dryer, one in a cupboard, one under a bed, one in the winter stuff bin etc...)

I didn't sequence things well that night though. I was so excited to try the string thing, that I wasn't thinking too clearly. After I had all the string run through the house... it dawned on me that Rik had an early morning Sunday meeting, and rats, I stringed his car into the garage... so I had to undo that and re-do it so that Rik could drive out of the garage. Then, I hadn't gotten everything ready for church the next day, so moving through the house getting ready for Sunday was a HUGE chore.... really funny to watch... but hard (imagine big step, big step, shimmy under, try not to trip, duck, big step over the string just to get through the living room to my bed room.)

Typically no one wakes up at my house during the night (love that!), and we had later church last year, so this worked perfect at my house. My favorite part of the whole thing was listening to them wake up and try to make their way to the couch. I got up and all three of the older kids were sitting on the couch, and finally Kayden says, "um... nice string mom." Cracked me up. They had to wind their string from their starting points until they got to their baskets. It was so fun (it took some time too!) Anaya and McKay woke up later, so the bulk of the string was gone before they had to walk around, and the older kids helped the two little kids wind up their string and get to their baskets. It was really fun. I guess if you wanted to be safer, you could have dad take the kids somewhere on Saturday and string the house while they are gone and then let them do it when they got home, or just string one room in the house (but where's the fun of that?! I loved watching Kayden walking around the outside of the house in his PJs... too funny!)

This year we have 9:00 church... so I'll have to come up with something else to do, maybe something after church. I'll have to see what I can think up.

(Sorry, not the greatest picture)

WooHoo! Survived another Sunday!

The young women leaders gave me a picture of Malia from New Beginnings, so I thought I would post it. We have a tiny group of girls, but they are all really nice! Malia can hardly wait.

Volleyball games started up this weekend, so Taisha and Malia had games most of Saturday. Rik is coaching Malia's team again this year. Despite all the games, Rik was still able to get some framing done down in the basement. He and my dad got the closet walls built. The bulk of the framing is done now, but there are still some odds and ends to get done this week. Hopefully we can get started on the electrical by the end of this week. I am so excited to have it finished. I really love all my kids, but for their sanity and mine (alright, more mine than theirs...), I need the kids more spread out. There just seems to be too many people and too much stuff too close together.

Sunday was a little crazy, but is there any other kind of Sunday? We made it to church 15 minutes early, and that was with the time change... unfortunately there weren't many others there. We were missing people all over the place in primary today. I guess that's just how it goes some weeks.

My computer died this weekend. The hard drive is ok (thank heavens... I would have been really, really grouchy if I lost all the pictures and data I had on there... I was just a little grouchy to have to transfer things over!), but I think the motherboard had had enough, and stopped working right in the middle of Kayden's Power Point project for school. I'm pretty sure school projects killed the computer.

I tried to take a nap today after church, before we had to get to choir, but that just didn't go too good for me. My kids were playing some "I'm a Robot" game. I'm not exactly sure how you play, but I think there is a rule that you have to run all through the house yelling..... not my favorite game. I tried to convince them to sit down and watch TV (because I'm a good mom), but no one was too interested in that idea.

Kindergarten round-up tomorrow morning, I'll try to get a picture of McKay. It was beautiful here today... I'm hoping for the same tomorrow!

I'm feeling old!

Last night Malia was invited to our Young Women's New Beginnings, because she turns 12 this year. Just being there with all the young women and their leaders and watching Malia standing up with them singing.... suddenly made me feel old!

Then, this morning I was taking Kayden (who has it in his head that if he wears shorts, it will be spring) to school. I glanced over, and he has leg hair! That wasn't there last fall..... He's taller than me now too. He also brought home some paper work for his high school classes for next year..... all made me feel old!

A friend of mine reminded me that kindergarten roundup is Monday.... so I have to take McKay over to the school on Monday to start his kindergarten stuff.... this makes me feel old!

McKay and Anaya both know how to call my cell phone... or the "tattle phone." I'm about ready to change phone numbers... I don't know what I was thinking teaching them to call me! Still, makes me feel old!

*sigh....

Thinking positive though.... I haven't had to buy diapers in a long, long time. No one wakes me up at night and boy, that sure makes a difference, in fact, feeling older is worth it for good sleep... for now anyway... Two more years and Kayden turns 16..... might lose sleep then.


Our primary party turned out great! Lots of kids, lots of noise, lots of fun ... and we didn't lose anyone (see previous post)!

The highs and lows of Sunday

So here's the highlights (and lowlights) of Sunday:

High: During testimony meeting, a man got up and praised the primary after he brought his boys for the first time last week, and his boys loved it.

Low: Lost a Sunbeam. We didn't know he was missing until after church, when his mom was trying to find him. We have two sunbeam classes, and each teacher thought he was with the other class. When we dismissed them for classes, he wandered away from his class, wandered around the church, and finally ended up sitting on the couch in the lobby... He wasn't upset or scared (I don't think he knew he was lost)... his mom on the other hand....


High: Going to Karissa's baby blessing.

Low: Apparently my kids have a 3 hour church limit... even my older kids were restless through the 2nd Sacrament meeting.

High: I finished reading Shannon Hale's book "The Book of a Thousand Days." (And I didn't have to stay up all night reading.) I really enjoyed it!

Low: I spent all day reading.... I really had a lot of other things that I should have done... Nothing like starting Monday backwards.

High: Everybody was healthy, and went to church.

Low: Kayden said on the way home from Chad and Karissa's baby blessing lunch, "I have a persuasive paper due tomorrow. What do you think I should write on?" errr... didn't even have a topic picked out... that's never a good thing!

High: Two bags of Cadbury Mini Eggs and 5 boxes of Samoas Girl Scout cookies in the house.

Low: The kids said that no, we can't eat Mini Eggs and Samoas for dinner.... and sheesh with 7 people in the house you have to be fast... treats disappear around here when you're not looking.

Tomorrow is March 4th... the only calendar date that tells you to do something (March Forth!) We are doing a primary party with a "March Forth" theme. Cupcake march, obstacle course, goal writing (on footprints), relay races. There are lots of scriptures with "go forth" in them, so we're talking about those too. It should be fun (it could be adapted for a family night too.... you could have trail mix for snacks, or shoe string licorice). So happy March 4th!