The Finlaysons

The Merry Month of December

2011-12-27T22:42:00.008-07:00

I was much, much more organized this December (as opposed to LAST year, when I started shopping the week of Christmas...), and as a result, it has been a really nice month! I found myself repeating the phrase "I love....." several times over the month. Here's just a sampling of some of the things I LOVED!

Kayden took charge of getting the Christmas lights up this year (he wasn't very impressed with last year's lights, which consisted of the tree....) The weather has been incredibly mild this year, so putting up lights was actually really pleasant! Kayden did a great job! I loved the house lights!

Taisha turned 13!! For her birthday she wanted German pancakes for dinner and ice cream cake... yummy! I LOVE this girl!!

We went to Soda Springs for Thanksgiving, and all 16 siblings were there! It was so much fun to see everyone! They decided to have pictures taken, and early this month we got the proofs back. Here's our family's proof:

I love it!

I spent a lot of time making things with the kids this month. We made these necklaces for the girls friends.... and yep, I LOVE these! They were so fun to make, and cost just over $2 a piece. Thank you Internet for the idea!

I also helped Kayden make Kristen a quilt. It turned out great! (I love that Kayden is using a ruler to make sure that each of the ties were cut to the exact same length!)

And here are the gingerbread houses the kids made. I love that immediately after the kids made them, one of the first comments I heard was "Hey! Who ate my door?!" It was like a walk-by candy buffet!

I asked Rik to make a manger to add to the nativity things. He re-purposed an old magazine holder, and it turned out perfect! I love it!! (Huge improvement over last year's box and paper towel baby!)

The music this month has been fantastic! Anaya had a Christmas dance performance at the Festival of Trees, which started the month with some fun Christmas music! My poor piano had never been played as much as it had this past month! As you can imagine, McKay was in HEAVEN! He learned something like 16 Christmas songs this month, and practiced them in 2 minute increments all day long. We played a lot of duets together, and I loved it! Even Kayden got in on the piano action. He started piano lessons late this summer, and was busy learning Christmas songs as well. Kayden and I played We Three Kings together at the piano recital. Malia and Taisha both learned Christmas pieces as well, and played and played and played! Our family was asked to sing a musical number one week for church, and this was the first time that we could sing a song with 3 parts (we have no basses in the family....) I loved practicing, and as we were walking back to our seats after performing it, I was thinking how much I loved singing with my family. Right when we sat down though, McKay said, "Phew.... at least we don't have to sing THAT again!" Kristen sang alto with us for our musical number, and afterwards we all went down to the temple to look at the nativity. Have I mentioned how much we love her?

Rik and I went on a double date with Kayden and Kristen to the Jon Schmidt concert here in Idaho Falls. Loved the concert, and loved the company!

I love this year's Christmas tree picture!

The Christmas Eve party this year was so fun! I loved that even though Kayden is older than all the other kids, he's never too old to participate. We had a lack of boys (that would hold still), so Kayden was Joseph for the nativity.

And I loved this picture of all the kids lining up to hit the purple hippo pinata. Can you tell that we go youngest to oldest?

I also loved this picture of everyone doing the chimes. And what I love even more, is that in the picture it looks like everyone is quietly concentrating on what they are doing, but in reality, it was noisy and chaotic, and several times we couldn't even tell what song we were playing! So funny!

I love this picture of Brooklyn as a shepherd, my dad narrating, and Nathan skyping from Afghanistan on the computer next to my dad. I love the technology right now!

Speaking of the awesome technology of today, between Amazon Prime, and my smart phone, shopping was SO much easier this year. It was a piece of cake to check prices, find coupons, and find out what other people were saying about whatever I was looking at. I didn't spend any time buying, then taking back, then re-buying, to get the best price.

I am LOVING the break right now. Rik took all 13 days off, and I have just loved being home with my family. Oh, and sleeping in..... I love sleeping in. And naps, I love them too. I think that just about covers it. =)

Halloween 2011

2011-11-04T00:16:00.007-06:00

Halloween got here so fast this year! The kids were excited to carve pumpkins (except for Kayden who just ate chips and salsa!)

McKay was Aang from the Last Air Bender (and LOVED to get right into character as soon as he put the costume on!)

Taisha and Malia were "minions" from Despicable Me

Kayden had to dress up as a viking for his AP lit. class.... but I didn't get any pictures. But here are some pictures of him running at the state cross country meet in Boise. This meet was a little bitter-sweet because it was his very last high school cross country meet. He finished 3rd on his team, 18th overall (which means he got a medal), and his team got 4th. It has been an outstanding season for him, and we are incredibly proud of him!

Kayden - 18th place overall - top row third from the right

Hillcrest Cross Country team 2011 - 4th place - Kayden is on the bottom row second from the right

Senior Pictures

2011-10-21T20:27:00.002-06:00

Here are a few of my favorites from Kayden's senior picture shoot.

Phew! A Few Days Off... kind of

2011-10-21T19:31:00.006-06:00

We had a 4 day weekend the first part of October, so we headed to Island Park to get away. This has been one of the busiest starts to the school year we have ever had. My two oldest kids, were just bombarded with school and church responsibilities, and had piles of homework on top of everything else. For the first time, I watched them get further and further behind on school assignments. So this trip to the cabin had a different feel, because everyone had work to catch up on, even Anaya had a one page final draft that had to be written.

We drove to the cabin in the snow, and it had snowed the day before as well, so when we got there, the kids pulled out the cross country skis and spent quite a bit of time outside skiing. I think I took a nap. Later on that night, Malia and Kayden were working on homework, Rik was working on work, and Taisha and I made aprons (the girls are making these for Christmas present for their friends.)

We thought about going into Yellowstone again this year, but between the cold and the amount of work everyone had to do, we just decided to go get some ice cream in West Yellowstone, and then head back to the cabin.

Kristen's uncle and cousins were also in Island Park, and they took Kayden home with them so he could watch the final night of Kristen's Jr. Miss performance. The next day though, Kayden and Kristen drove up to the cabin. Part way through the day, I decided to take everyone for a drive up to the top of Sawtel Peak (Rik still had work to do, so he stayed back at the cabin.) This is the coolest drive! Looking from bottom of the peak, it's almost unbelievable that you can drive right to the top! The views were stunning! It was an entirely different weather system up there though. Lots of snow, and wind.... and it was COLD!!

Kayden and Kristen drove up to Island Park after they went to sacrament meeting, so they were still in church clothes, and I don't think any of us were anticipating the amount of snow up there (and we weren't even all the way to the top yet!)

(See my van behind Kayden? That's where it got stuck in the snow, and where in my attempt to get it out of the snow.... got it even more stuck! Then everyone had to get out and try to push... even Kristen volunteered, and got out to push in her high heals, but that didn't work. Kayden finally told me I was doing it all wrong, I let him take over and he somehow got the van unstuck (without driving off the mountain), while I was busy slipping and tipping over in the snow.... one second I was standing next to Kristen, and the next I'm right in the snow. Kristen tried to catch me.... again in her high heals! Ya, I'm that cool...no pun intended.)

It was so nice to get away as a family, even for a few days. When we all piled into the van, just about to leave for the cabin, Rik asked me to say family prayer, and I didn't get too far through the prayer before tearing up, and getting emotional because we were all together, in the van, going to the same location. I was so glad everyone was there. Too bad I was at the peak of a "bad cooking phase." Just about everything I made just was a little off for the whole trip. On the plus side, I didn't eat myself into a new jean size this trip!

Just keep running, runing, running... or playing volleyball!

2011-10-21T19:17:00.006-06:00

I think this high school has one of the best cross country coaches around. They have so much fun. Malia was really apprehensive about running cross country this year, but she will tell you it was the best decision she has made, and is already looking forward to next year. Cross country is over for Malia, but Kayden still has a little bit more training to get ready for State. He's also had a great year! He's been 3rd on the team the whole season, and has done really well! Malia and I were watching him run, and she asked my how come I don't yell. I had to explain to her that I get so emotional and proud watching them run, that I literally can't yell. I'll have to work on that I guess.

The middle school volleyball season is only a month long, but it was an exhausting month for her! It was a great learning year for her, and she kept up well!

Odds and Ends from September and October

2011-10-21T18:42:00.005-06:00

We have been lucky enough to have an absolutely beautiful autumn this year. It's been jam packed full of sports, school and church activities, harvesting, and all sorts of fun things!

Here's some pictures of all the fun stuff:

Kayden and Kristen at the State Fair

(Is it just me, or does the drawing of Kayden remind you of Rik? Maybe it's the eye brows?)

Malia and friends at the back to school dance that she helped plan
Homecoming parade float (and yes, that's Kayden's bed in the middle....)

Homecoming dance with Kaylee

Kayden would have really liked to go to Homecoming with Kristen, but she was busy preparing for the Jr. Miss competition (I guess it is called the Distinguished Young Woman scholarship program now), and wasn't able to go. She won the academic and talent portion, and overall won 1st runner up. As far as I'm concerned, "Distinguished" doesn't even begin to describe how outstanding this girl is. So proud of her!

First choir concert of the year, and it was in the Stephens Performing Art building in Pocatello. Top notch singing, and holy smokes, the acoustics were incredible!

We have be harvesting all sorts of vegetables and fruits this year! In fact, I think I might be have "harvest overload," if that's possible. Over 50 bags of corn, 30 bags of carrots (and that's not including all the carrot sticks I've put in the kids lunches), I can't even count the bags of zucchini and squash, spaghetti sauce, salsa, peach and pear jam, zucchini brownies and breads, peach muffins, cucumber and tomato salads, and we're still not all the way done yet! We're going to harvest the last little bit and get it all taken care of tomorrow. I think my hands have aged 20 years doing all this work!

Oh, and this is new....

2011-10-21T18:24:00.005-06:00

We're looking at 20-22 months to a stunning new smile! I actually think she looks really good in braces!

School Pictures 2011

2011-10-21T18:06:00.007-06:00

Here are everyone's school pictures. They aren't my favorites this year.... but that alright.

They do faculty pictures at the school I work at. I was THRILLED to get new pictures this year.

The picture above is this years picture. The picture below has been hanging in the school lobby for the past year (much to my dismay!):

Oh good grief.... This just makes me laugh (along with my coworkers!) I seem to be in some kind of really nice, happy place, and while I appreciate that Bell tried to edit my wrinkles, and any other recognizable facial lines...it just looks bizarre to me! I like this years picture a lot more, wrinkles and all. (Every time I look at this, I keep telling myself to just blink already!!)

Rik didn't get a back to school picture. But see if you can find him in the picture below:

(This was the front page of the sports section in the newspaper yesterday.)

And in Other News....

2011-09-11T15:00:00.003-06:00

After much wiggling, those top two teeth are all gone!

This Was SOOOO Fun Today!!

2011-09-02T20:02:00.004-06:00

There's a zip line course up near Heise Hot Springs and Kelly Canyon Ski Resort. We thought we'd give it a try today.... and we LOVED it!!

Back to School.... already

2011-09-01T21:52:00.007-06:00

I must have been in denial that school was about to start, because I didn't even start thinking about school shopping until we went to Utah, two weeks before school started. That made for a wild two weeks of shopping for all five kids! I got right on the school supplies though... like two days before school started... I don't think I will do that next year.

I decided to let everyone pick their own clothes, and had a lot of fun shopping with the kids. It was also really interesting to see what was important to them, and what they thought was necessary to start the school year.

For Anaya, one of those drapey vests was a must. And she didn't care what I actually bought in each store, she just liked to try on as many outfits in each store as we could find!

For McKay, it was all about matching Kayden. Everything from McKays shoes to his hoodies, and everything in between, if it looked like something that was in Kayden's closet, McKay wanted it! In fact, McKay thought it would be REALLY awesome if I shopped for Rik too, and all three boys could wear matching outfits all year!! I often wonder if Kayden has any idea how much McKay admires and looks up to him.

Can I just say that Taisha is a SHOPPER! This girl would wear me out every time I took her. It was like a whole new world for her shopping in the juniors department instead of the girls. And honestly, it was like she had died and gone to heaven. She would come out of the dressing rooms with armfuls of clothes, and we spent a fair bit of time just figuring out what to buy from all the piles! She was really excited to move up to the middle school. She tried out for, and was one of three 7th graders that made the volleyball team. And while she was set on clothes, I don't think she was prepared for her new long school days. Last year, Taisha was home by about 2:35. This year, with volleyball practice right after school, the soonest she is home is 5:50! She has been exhausted!

Malia is fun to shop with, and has a style all her own. She likes to fit in, but in her own way. She doesn't like t-shirts with the store name printed across it, or the logo bejeweled on the backside of her jeans. She really likes the hunt, and gets so excited for a bargain. And when she finds what she's looking for, she is so excited and grateful! She made us have a moment of silence while we enjoyed looking at this favorite shirt:

And when she found her new backpack, she was giddy. And I mean SO, SO happy! Anaya just couldn't believe that Malia would wear this to school, and kept telling her how embarrassing it was!

Kayden was a little uncooperative with the picture taking on the first day of school, so you'll just have to enjoy this nice picture of Kristen on the first day of school instead (he says she looks way better than him anyway....) Shopping with Kayden is always entertaining. First on his list was a new CTR ring and a pocket Book of Mormon. In fact, jewelry in general was something he looked at quite a bit... especially necklaces and pocket watches. I would send him over to the young men's department and tell him to try things on while I was looking for other things on my list. Then I would get a text from him to come see his outfit..... and he would have found the tightest, skinniest jeans, and tight shirt, and he needed me to take his picture. *sigh* It didn't matter how many times I told him we were on a deadline.... he would find the silliest outfits to try on. When he got serious, he would choose clothes that compliment Kristen's eyes (at least that's what I'm guessing....)

The first week of school is over, and we seemed to survive it. I think everyone has been a little tired, myself included. Here's hoping for another good year!

sniff Is Summer REALLY Over???

2011-09-01T20:49:00.016-06:00

I'm not sure how or when it happened, but all of a sudden it's back to school time! We even had temperatures in the low 70's today making it REALLY feel like summer is leaving and fall is right around the corner. But while the weather was hot we managed to fit a few more fun activities with the kids. Our ward's youth planned a trip to the Rexburg temple, and to Lava Hot Springs. It was a perfect day for Lava. There weren't many people there, because many of the schools were already in session, and although the day started out kind of cloudy, it ended up hot and beautiful. McKay, like the crazy, dare-devil he is, jumped off the 3rd platform, and acted like it was no big deal at all, which gave the young men in our ward a slight complex. Rik also jumped off the third platform, which gave me a complex, because he landed wrong and about knocked himself out. He told me the other day that he finally feels like he might not need x-rays.... but maybe some chiropractic work! Crazy boys!

(This must be Anaya's new favorite pose, because she was doing this in a lot of the pictures!)

We also got one more float trip in. This is the second time we floated to Rigby Lake this summer. SO much fun!!

It was super hot and sunny that day!

About half way through, there is a rope and slide. The kids spent a long time swinging and sliding into the water before floating the rest of the way.

They spent the rest of the evening playing in the water and sand at Rigby Lake.

Kayden-isms

2011-08-23T11:49:00.004-06:00

I don't know how other teenagers are, so I don't know if this is normal or not, but here's some Kayden-isms for you:

Kayden has no problem helping out around the house and is an excellent organizer and cleaner. I can always tell when he's worked on the kitchen though, because he always loads the dishes backwards and puts all the pot and pans, and dishes in the wrong places in the dishwasher, and he hides things, like the salt and pepper. It took me almost a whole week to find the salt last time (and that was only because I finally asked Kristen... and she told me where it was....)

Kayden loves to sit and chat with me.... but only when I'm trying to have a nice Sunday nap. Every Sunday, for as long as I can remember, I lay down, and a few minutes later Kayden comes in and sits down and yacks on and on and on..... He thinks this is so funny. I think he has a warped sense of humor.

Everyone has been busy getting their rooms ready for the new school year by cleaning out and reorganizing. I could hear Kayden downstairs working on his room.... but when I went downstairs he had moved his entire room into the family room, and all the family room furniture AND DECORATIONS into his room. His bed was neatly made sitting in the middle of the family room, and all his pictures and art work were tastefully decorating the walls. I mean he had to take his door off his room to get the couch in there.

So maybe this gives you a little bit of an idea why I'm so sad when I think about him growing up and leaving soon. I've had a whole summer being just a little sad and melancholy realizing what point we are at in our lives, and how quickly this point got here. *sigh*

Mountain River and Mud Run

2011-08-23T10:26:00.012-06:00

This summer has been so busy and we've had a hard time coordinating schedules so that we can do things as a family, but we were all able to go to Mountain River Ranch for dinner, wagon rides and a live show. The mosquitoes were also there enjoying all the warm bodies, but the food was great, the show was fun, and I was so grateful to have everyone there.

(This is Taisha giving "Frank," the goofball/silly character of the show, some attention. Our little group seemed to attract "Frank," and he sat by us a lot!)

______________________________________

This year Malia was able to run in the Mud Run. She absolutely LOVED it. The girls had a spaghetti dinner the night before the mud run, and they decorated t-shirts to wear for the race. The boys, on the other hand, decided they should wear daisy dukes and suspenders.... such a scary look!

(Sorry for the poor quality... I stole it off of Kayden's phone!)

(Kayden's on the bottom, left, giving all he's got....)

High Adventure 2011

2011-08-23T09:46:00.016-06:00

Kayden and Rik went camping and hiking for high adventure near Jenny's Lake this year. It wasn't as rugged as some of the other high adventures they have been on, but they still hiked a lot, and enjoyed some beautiful country. My favorite pictures are the ones of Kayden looking at the snow melting into the water that he was going to jump into. That's a cold bath! They got home from high adventure, had one night in their beds, then camped at Downata with the boys, while all the girls went shopping in Utah (SO FUN!!) The following weekend was the ward camp out, so Rik and the three youngest camped again! Good thing Rik is such a good sport!

(This is the rock Kayden smuggled into one of his leader's packs. Kayden thought it was HILARIOUS... the leader, not so much!)

Happy Birthday Anaya!!!

2011-08-23T09:32:00.007-06:00

Anaya turned 7 a couple of weeks ago. She had been asking for a hair cut, so we did that and her nails, went to lunch, came home and had a water party, she wanted tacos for dinner, and then when Rik and Kayden got home from high adventure, we had dirt. I think she had a GREAT day.

Yay!! Christmas Pictures in August!

2011-08-08T18:01:00.005-06:00

Just in case you were wondering... I finally got around to going through all the old pictures and added missing Christmas tree pictures to this post.... and I put them in order (and yes, I know, it took me over 8 months to get that done....)

Sad and Scary, but OK

2011-07-26T13:18:00.009-06:00

Now that I'm all mostly caught up on the "What we've been doing" part of our life, I thought I would share a few experiences that we've had lately.

I don't know if you noticed or not, but Malia hasn't attended any volleyball camps this summer, and she has decided not to. In fact, after much discussion, thought, and tears, she's not going to try out for the school team either. There were a lot of things contributing to her decision, but it came down to doing what makes her happy. There is a line from a song that my father-in-law likes that says, "When you have the chance, when you have the choice, surround yourself with JOY." And for right now, that is not volleyball. There was a change in the coaching at the high school, and for some reason the new husband and wife coaching team are not Finlayson fans. Other players and parents have noticed, and talked to us about it, and we've speculated why.... but whatever the reason, it made volleyball frustrating on a good day, and downright miserable on all the other days. Malia loves to play volleyball, and loved the girls. Now that the decision has been made though, and she is confident she has made the right decision, she is relieved and excited to see what else she can do. For now, part one of her plan is to run cross country. Right up until drivers ed messed up the schedule, Malia and Taisha had been getting up early and running 3-4 miles every morning. She's not very fast, but she's made it a personal challenge to stick to it and see how much she can improve through the season. Things have a habit of just falling into place for Malia, so I can hardly wait to see what she has waiting for her!

I mentioned in my last blog post that Malia got a job at a snow shack this summer. She was so excited to get this job, and works about 8-12 hours a week. It's a busy snow shack, so her time goes fast, and she was thrilled to learn that Taisha could come and help and hang out with her as well. The other night the girls were both there from 6-10. It had been a busy night, and they had just started closing down, when someone tried to rob them. The girls had closed the front of the snow shack, when someone (Malia said he was older than her, late teens, early 20's, and bigger than her) with a bandanna over his face, and a hoody on, came to the back door and yelled at them to give him the money. Malia told him "NO! It's not yours!" (So totally Malia...) She told me later, the thought didn't even enter her mind to give him the money. In her mind, where fairness and equality reign, he couldn't take something that wasn't his. He yelled at them again to give him the money, Malia said "NO!" again, and Taisha yelled for him to get out. Then they both pushed his arm out, they slammed the door, and wedged themselves so the door couldn't open, and said a prayer that he would go away and they would be safe. There was a van driving by that saw the kid in the bandanna, and pulled in. The kid took off running, and the man in the van, watched where the kid ran, while the wife checked on the girls, who had called the owner of the snow shack, who called the police. The owner was about to the snow shack when the girls called, the police were there minutes later, and I pulled in minutes after that. I got out of my van, and was trying to figure out what was going on, since I had just talked to them about 10 minutes earlier and everything was fine, and Taisha got into my van, locked the doors, and sobbed. Both girls were terrified. The police officer that was there kept telling my girls they did great, but that if anything like that happens again, just give them what they want. After the girls were out of ear shot he said that a gun store had been robbed a few nights before, so it's better to be safe, than sorry. He said it looked like it was someone who hoped to just scare the girls into giving him money, but probably didn't want to hurt them. I'm so grateful that they were looked after that night. I'm grateful that someone was paying attention, and noticed something wasn't right, and pulled in to make sure they were alright. I'm grateful the kid didn't have a weapon. I'm grateful for the priesthood blessings they asked for when we got home. I'm grateful they were there together, as they both said it would have been a lot scarier by themselves. And I'm grateful that they were so courageous and strong. There were a lot of tears, and they were both shaking, but they were safe. They didn't sleep well that first night, and Taisha didn't sleep well the second night either, but this morning, told me it felt more like a foggy nightmare, and that she finally had a good sleep last night. Both Taisha and Malia don't like to talk about it, and want to put the whole scary incident behind them.

Just to change the mood.... Anaya started violin lessons, and her teacher has me come and watch the lessons so that I can help Anaya while she is practicing during the week.... bahahahahaha! With McKay starting piano and Anaya starting violin, I have visions of the two of them playing violin/piano duets together in the future! McKay on the other hand, has a little different vision for the future: sky diving. We have had so many conversations about sky diving... Part of me is so excited to see how each of my kids personalities develop into adults, and part of me is just a little worried! =)

It's like we're playing Musical Kids!

2011-07-25T16:58:00.040-06:00

This summer has felt different than summers in the past, and for me, it's taking some getting used to. The kids have been nice and busy doing all sorts of fun things, but it feels like we are rarely all home at the same time. It's making planning things to do as a family especially hard. Here's a quick run down of what I mean:

Malia had and AMAZING time a EFY. She was actually really sad to come home after such an uplifting experience. She's already saving to go again next year.

(Malia with Tana, her EFY counselor )

(Malia's EFY group. She was SO sad to leave them all!)

While Malia was at EFY, Anaya went to art camp and started violin lessons, McKay started piano lessons, and Kayden went up to Island Park for a student council retreat. Anaya played t-ball the month of June. Last year they named their team the "Yellow Bananas," and this year they were the "Pink Raspberries." I'm noticing a trend...

Malia got home from EFY, had a few days at home, and then left with a friend to Boise to play at the water park, and Taisha went to volleyball camp. Malia got a job at a snow shack for the summer, so whenever she was home, she was working. Malia got home from Boise, and she and Taisha packed and left for girls camp.

(Malia repelling)

(Marshmallow guns)

(Awesome group of girls!)

In between all of that, Kayden got a job renting kayaks at Rigby Lake, and he has been running, running, running. He has logged over 450 miles so far this summer. He's also been mowing lawns and has spent many days staining decks (the one he is working on now, is HUGE, and has taken over 25 hours so far.)

(St. Anthony Pioneer Day Fun Run - Kayden is #291)

(Slow day at the Yak Shack!)

While the girls were at camp, Rik and I took a quick over night trip, and Kayden started working on his assignment for student council: the 4th of July float for the parade. After many late nights, here's how it turned out:

(Kayden pogo-sticked the first hour of the parade!)

While Kayden was pogo-ing down the parade, the rest of us went to Lagoon. Once again, we lucked out, and the weather was perfect, and the lines were OUTSTANDING.

(Malia and Taisha riding the tram across Lagoon)

We got back from Lagoon, and Kayden left for California with Kristen and her family. Have I mentioned how much we like Kristen and her family?

Kayden had a BLAST! They went to the beach, the temple, and Disneyland. His first morning back, he walked up the stairs SO sad, and asked if I could just drive him back to California... and then asked where his continental breakfast was!

At some point we got the garden planted. It was beautiful. Rik had drawn up a plan on graph paper, he tilled our 50 ft x 80 ft lot until it was weed-free and fluffy, and we planted everything in perfectly straight lines, with seeds perfectly placed. Imagine my shock when I drove out and saw this:

Yep, somewhere under all those weeds are our little plants having the life choked out of them! So we've spent just about every available evening out there weeding... and weeding... and weeding.

(CRAZY amounts of weeds!)

Oddly, the kids have so much fun out there with their cousins, and they look forward to the ice cream when we get done weeding for the night.

McKay has been loving every second of Scouts, and had the opportunity to go to day camp a couple weeks ago. Even though he has been waking up anywhere from 9:00 to 11:00 in the morning, on the day of day camp, he was up and dressed at 7:00! He was so excited to shoot bb guns, hike, and do all the other fun things they had planned.

My mom sent me a link for some instructions to make crocheted headbands, and Taisha has been busy making them. She's also done snow cone/cotton candy stands in the front yard, and is babysitting A LOT.

Malia finishes drivers ed this week, and then gets to practice driving with Rik and I for the next 6 months or so. Malia and Taisha have spent a lot of time together this year, and I have loved listening to them talk and giggle together. They run together in the mornings, help each other with their babysitting jobs, and Taisha loves going to work with Malia at the snow shack. They've been going to the temple together with some of the other girls in our ward. I love seeing them becoming such great friends.

So do you see what I mean? Someone is always coming or going, or completely gone, and my house feels weird to me when people are missing. Maybe it's because whenever someone is gone, we have "The Great Bedroom Switch Around." When the girls were at camp, McKay and Anaya took over their rooms. When Kayden was gone, Taisha moved down there, and Anaya moved into Taisha's room. When Malia was at EFY, Taisha moved into Malia's room. The saddest part for me though, is knowing that this is how it is going to be years, and I'm having a hard time getting used to the idea. *pouts*

Some of the other highlights of the summer have been having Nathan and his family visit, visiting with some Canada family, fitting in a quick visit with my high school best friend (who came up for our 20 year class reunion), getting called as the Primary chorister (most favorite calling of all time), and Melanie and Trevor had their 6th baby!

Logan William Palmer
Born July 11th, 2011 at 7:42am
6 lbs 10 oz and 20 inches long

On a completely unrelated note, if you'd like to see Kayden's photo shoot for his senior picture for the yearbook, and weigh in on which one he should pick, go here.

He's a Pirate! Part I

2011-06-14T10:05:00.005-06:00

McKay has been REALLY into his pirate figurines, and he got this brilliant idea to have the whole family come together, learn the pirate song on different instruments, and record it, so he could have some background music when he's playing with his pirate guys. He thought Malia, Taisha, and I should learn it on the piano, Kristen and Christine should play it on the violin, Rik and McKay would be on ukuleles, Kayden would be on guitar, and McKay even found a drum ap for the iPod that Anaya could play. We've all been practicing for our pirate-paloosa, so it's been a bit piratey around here. Malia and Christine decided to do the pirate song for the talent show at EFY this week. They had a practice session the night before they left for Logan for their parents. The "arg!" in the middle is when Malia's fingers got a little tangled! Needless to say, McKay has been in HEAVEN! Speaking of McKay, he has decided he wants to be a stunt man when he grows up! Sounds about right. =)

I've received a couple texts from Malia saying that she is having the time of her life at EFY.

Summer!!!

2011-06-06T16:03:00.013-06:00

To kick off summer, we decided to have many of the appliances and/or household items break, fall apart or die completely! The ride on lawn mower needed a bunch of work (hundreds of dollars of work.....), the air conditioning in the house and van both stopped working, the garbage disposal died a slow drippy death, the motor and/or pump went out on the dishwasher, Kayden did a back flip onto his cell phone that now doesn't work, and just today, the power supply on my upstairs computer started making an "I'm gonna die any day now" noise. *sigh*

In other news, Kayden and his friend Jake ran the Skiller 5K, and took 1st and 2nd place overall.

1st place: Jake Powell 18:13.31 and 2nd place: Kayden Finlayson 19:18.98

On Sunday we had stake conference, so as soon as we got home, we packed a picnic and headed to Balanced Rock, near Twin Falls. It was kind of out in the middle of nowhere, so we got to see lots of farm land, and dairy farms, before dropping into the rocky canyon. We stopped about a mile before Balanced Rock, at a picnic area and wandered around a bit. The kids were climbing on some rocks, but Anaya told me she didn't want to climb on the rocks because there was some kind of "weird mouse" on them:

It's one of those "hairless" kinds of mice I guess! Anaya wanted nothing to do with the lizard rocks!

McKay, Taisha and Anaya

Then we headed over to Balanced Rock. It's 48 ft. high, but balances on about 3 feet at the base.

Kayden was the first one up.

Then Taisha and McKay.

Anaya and I made it up next.

And finally Rik and Malia got up there (Malia is NOT a fan of heights!)

After we left Balanced Rock, we swung by Shoshone Falls, had our picnic, and headed home. The falls were awesome this year. SO much water pouring over them!

Happy Birthday Malia!!

2011-05-30T09:58:00.006-06:00

Malia turned 15 on Saturday! We had such a fun day!

Here she is with some of her gifts. She's wearing the Hoberman Sphere on her head. I'm pretty sure that's not what you're supposed to do with a Hoberman Sphere.... She's also wearing her cupcake apron. Her favorite gift was the duck crossing sign. There is a similar duck sign down by the river and temple. Every time Malia goes to the temple, she comments on the duck sign. Taisha suggested it as a gift idea for Malia. While most kids might have a picture of the temple to remind them of their goals to go to the temple, Malia has a duck sign.

We went to Texas Roadhouse for her dinner, and then came home to whatever this raspberry dessert is called. We are hoping for non-winter-like weather on Wednesday so she and her friends can play night games and have a hot dog / s'mores roast for her birthday party.

Yippee!! School's Out! (At least I think Yippee...)

2011-05-28T11:02:00.004-06:00

That was one of the fastest school years on record.... right up until the last two weeks, which went painfully slow. There were some really good moments though. I have report cards for my elementary kids, and they are all straight A's. McKay and Taisha both earned Faithful Attendance awards, and Presidential Fitness awards. McKay did gymnastics in the 2nd grade talent show, went on a field trip to Walmart (ya, I know.... budget cuts made the field trips a little odd this year!) Taisha played the piano for the 6th grade talent show, and walked to Sonic for their field trip. Anaya walked to McCowin park for a picnic and had SO much fun on field day and the hot dog reading party.

Probably the coolest thing was Taisha was awarded the Hope of America award. It says on her award: "Presented with honor to Taisha Finlayson who has demonstrated during this school year capacity for leadership, ethical and moral character and outstanding academic accomplishment." (Incidentally Kayden was also awarded this when he was in 6th grade.)

(My camera takes terrible pictures in the gym!)

I worked on average 5 1/2 - 6 hours a day through this school year. This was new for me, and meant that things at home had to run REALLY smoothly. I felt like I was operating in some type of hyper-efficiency mode. I was never behind more than a load or two of laundry at any given time, dishes were washed and unloaded the night before, backpacks were packed, planners were signed, homework was done and corrected, lunches were packed (I hated that part), and laundry was folded and put away, all before I could go to bed that night. Trying to squeeze sports, homework, shopping, cooking, cleaning, and church responsibilities into the mix, made for exhausting days. But at the end of the week, I always had this feeling of accomplishment. I had to cut a lot of extras though. I didn't watch TV all year, not even the news. I have no idea what happened in the world or community this year. I didn't do anything with friends (I've missed that though!) I have eaten terribly this year, and what used to be a rare pop every now and again, turned into a once a day pop habit. I made it to the gym a whopping 2 times. I did a slap-happy job visiting teaching this year (lots of phone calls and just running a treat around quickly). But over all, I'm pleased with how the year went, and I loved my job at the school.

We've had our first day of summer break, and depending on when you talked to me, I was either overjoyed, or super grumpy. I was thrilled listening to Malia have time to practice the piano for 2 hours, while Taisha and McKay were on the couch reading the latest Friend magazine. And loved watching Anaya spend part of the morning drawing and coloring while Kayden was applying for jobs. But banning Kayden and his friends from the basement until further notice after an aggressive Nerf gun / Rockband war left my basement in shambles, and a foot and a half of wall that now needs to be repaired.... left me kind of grumpy. And scrubbing the words "McKay wrote this" which was written in ballpoint pen all over the kids closet doors had me a little frustrated (and as you can guess, McKay didn't write that..... ) And I haven't quite adjusted to the chaos level in the house.... but I got to sleep in!

Here's Anaya's dance pictures from this year. I love it!!

And Kayden brought home his prom pictures:

Kayden and Kristen

I sure do like that Kirsten girl (probably not as much as Kayden though!)

The Merry Month of May!

2011-05-19T15:07:00.013-06:00

I tend to go through May celebrating when something ends. I don't know if that is good or not, but it makes me so, so happy! Wrestling's over, track is over:

and Malia and Taisha had their last volleyball games last weekend (you have no idea how happy I am that 5:37am practices are over.... I almost cried on my way home from taking Malia to the last one, I was so happy), McKay and Anaya have both met their reading goals, and they are both done with math homework for the year, Taisha is done with piano for the year, Seminary graduation is over (Malia had to play some REALLY hard songs on the organ for this), and as of last night, dance is over:

and all the major papers and projects are done, including the non-meatloaf, non-hotdog project that turned out like this:

and today was the 6th grade track meet. The weather was cold and SUPER windy, and Taisha came home exhausted, but she had a lot of fun! She got 10th in the mile, 3rd in the hop, skip, jump, and 4th in the 4x400 relay.

and all the proms are over.... including the ones I didn't know about. I got home from volleyball last Saturday, and was trying to figure out where Kayden had gone. Here's how my texts to him went:

Me to Kayden: Where are you? You're supposed to be watching McKay and Anaya!
Kayden to me: (nothing for several hours then....) We just got done with the day date, and there was water involved, so I didn't have my cell phone with me.
Me to Kayden: Day date??? For what??? I have news for you..... prom was LAST week.
Kayden to me: Not for Hillcrest. For IF.
Me to Kayden: What?! With who??
Kayden to Me: Mackenzie
Me to Kayden: Mackenzie who? Did you rent a tux?
Kayden to me: Nope, just wearing my 3 piece suit and my black, grey and white tie.... gotta go, heading to the BBQ.

Turns out a friend of a friend wanted to go to the dance but wasn't asked, so Kayden took her. He even ran out and got a corsage last minute and everything. Shouldn't I know things like that? I'm starting to notice a pattern with Kayden. Yesterday he text me that he was being inaugurated into student council RIGHT NOW. There was no way I was going to be able to get there with the camera and record anything for his posterity, because he let me know as it was happening. Apparently I'm supposed to be proud, and show my love and support from a distance. But I'm on to his ways now.....

Kayden and Mackenzie

Kristen has been helping Kayden learn to play piano. Here's their first piano/violin duet:

(I downgraded the quality so it would upload quickly.... sorry!)

We are down to 5 days of school left. And even though the weather doesn't feel like summer, I'm really looking forward to summer break!!

Prom, Mother's Day, and What the??!!

2011-05-09T18:39:00.014-06:00

As part of our "PARTY EVERY WEEKEND" philosophy, Commencement was on May 7th. Kayden was SO excited to be going with Kristen. They were going with 12 other couples, so a huge group! The boys were hoping for some good weather for the day date, but the night before the dance, decided they'd better come up with a plan B, because the weather looked windy and wet. They decided on a scavenger hunt. I told them about the photo scavenger hunt that I had done for Malia's birthday a couple times, and they decided to go with that (it was late, and they were out of ideas... ) I altered it a little bit (since they were driving), and printed it up. They decided to meet at my house at 1:00 on Saturday.

Kristen 's little brother was being baptized the same morning as the dance, so Kayden went with Kristen to that, and to the luncheon afterward. All of the couples started showing up at my house for the day date, except Kayden and Kristen. After waiting for a while, I finally just decided to send everyone else on the scavenger hunt. After I got all the other kids out, Kayden showed up.... only with no Kristen! It turns out that the alterations she had done on her dress didn't turn out the way they had hoped, so she and her mom were looking for another dress!! Funny thing about the scavenger hunt.... I thought I was being so clever when I put "Photo with a street sign named after a president of the United States," on the list. I completely forgot that I live on the corner of "John Adams!" That wasn't nearly as hard as I had hoped, and all the kids had photos of the sign in my yard (CLEARLY I need more sleep!)

Kristen looked absolutely stunning in her dress, and it matched the tux and vest that Kayden had rented for the first dress!

I only got a few pictures of Kayden and Kristen, and they were in the middle of the night, after the dance, after walking through the rain, and after dessert at my house... and still looking good!

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I got to sleep in on Mother's Day. This was the best present! All day long though, the kids did little things for me. Kayden cleaned up breakfast and loaded up the dishwasher (he loaded the dirty dishes into a dishwasher full of clean dishes.... but it's the thought that counts, right?), Malia cleaned up the kitchen after dinner, Taisha got everyone and everything ready for church in the morning, McKay found all my hymns in the hymn book for me during Sacrament meeting, and Anaya decided to have beautifully polished nails to celebrate Mother's Day (ya, I know....)

In primary, the primary kids filled out questionnaires about their moms. McKay and Anaya did a really good job getting things right. McKay said that my favorite food is corn on the cob, and Anaya said Chinese food... both true! McKay said that I taught him to count by 3's, and Anaya said that I taught her to tie her shoes. Anaya said that my favorite thing to do was play the piano, and McKay said to SLEEP! This is Anaya's drawing of me:

And this is McKay's drawing of me (he put his on the back, instead of the front):

Bahahahah!! This made my whole day. This is actually how I have felt I've looked the last few weeks... huge forced smile, sleep deprived eyes, and all tinged with just a little bit of CRAZY!

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When I went to get the Commencement pictures off my camera, these pictures were on there:

Ya, I have no idea.... but it looks like "crazy" is catchy at our house!

McKay's Day!

2011-05-06T17:27:00.006-06:00

McKay was baptized April 30th. He was SO excited! State wrestling was also scheduled for that day. It turns out that McKay is actually a really good little wrestler (who knew!?) I think it might have a little to do with his super-human strength (I'm not kidding.... he's STRONG), the fact that he doesn't seem to care that he might get hurt (boy thing??), and he's extremely flexible. All season long he was consistently in the the top 3, and won his last 9 matches. That being said, he didn't even want to consider going to state wrestling. He just wanted to get baptized. Lots and lots of family and friends, and good food, made the day WONDERFUL!

If you've been keeping track (and I'm sure you have), you'd notice that that makes weekend #3 in a row of PARTY PARTY PARTY!! First we had McKay and Kayden's birthdays, then we had Easter, then we had McKay's baptism, and this weekend it's Commencement (fancy dance for Kayden). That's a whole lot of parties, food and preparations. Mix into that all the sports, school projects, homework, pinewood derby car, and everything else, and I might be getting partied out..... In fact, I think I might be going a little crazy. Malia has 3 projects on World War II due in the month of May. The first one is done. She finished the second one early, because she knew she was going to be in Utah for a volleyball tournament all weekend and wouldn't have any time to work on it. Then she turned it in... only the teacher didn't think it looked "homemade" enough. Not. Kidding. So she has to redo it. Because I'm almost crazy, I SERIOUSLY considered having her make a WWII tank out of meatloaf and hot dogs. HOMEMADE meatloaf (and I would actually hear evil laughing in my head, when I thought of this great idea!) Malia looked at me like I was insane though... and I think she's making an airplane carrier out of cake instead. I might be just a little tired, and I may have used up all my (sane) creative ideas. Almost done though..... almost done.......

On Your Mark, Get Set......

2011-04-28T15:56:00.006-06:00

McKay turned 8 just in time to participate in the pine wood derby! Rik had to brush off his "mad derby-car making skills".... it's been a quick 5 years since we had to make the last one with Kayden. McKay's car placed third out of 15 cars, but if you ask him what his favorite part of the whole night was, he'd tell you it was carrying and posting the flag, and saluting cub scout-style.

Did You Check a Wrong Box?!

2011-04-25T17:01:00.008-06:00

Kayden has been receiving all sorts of college mail over the last little bit, which is exciting and scary all at the same time. Last week though we got a letter that said:

Dear Parent,

Your daughter, Kayden has just been nominated to attend the National Youth Leadership Forum...

The whole letter was all in "her" and "she." We thought that was a little weird, but then the next day we got this letter:

Bahahaha!!

Easter weekend was busy, but nice. On Saturday both girls had volleyball at different schools in Sugar City, McKay had wrestling in Rexburg, and Kayden had a two-day track meet (I just keep telling myself, "Almost done.... almost done.....") Sunday the kids woke up to a one-word treasure hunt to find their Easter stuff. They each had 5- one word clues, like "window, cupboard, mirror, picture, etc. and they just had to wander around and check them all until they found their next clue. Easy for me, time consuming for them!

I took all the kids shopping for their Easter clothes this year, and was surprised that they all wanted COLOR. And not pastels.... BRIGHT COLORS and lots of them! I guess I don't blame them with the drab, gray winter we've had!

Kayden was mooching food at.... I mean "supporting" a friends mission farewell, so I had to snap a picture of him later than everyone else... and really he wanted me to take a picture of him doing a yo-yo trick (his yo-yo is in his left hand). He makes a handsome BOY...

McKay had his baptism interview Sunday morning before church. He gets baptized April 30th at 10:00. He's SO excited!!

Birthday Boys

2011-04-16T22:08:00.009-06:00

McKay turned 8 on Friday!! He was so excited for his birthday this year. We did a little friend birthday party Friday after school. He was also the "Star Student" in his class last week. He had to fill out the "Star Student" paper and fill a box with things that he likes. I loved that on the paper he said that his wish was to go to Hogwarts (incidentally, this is also Malia's wish!) He also wrote down that his real name is Amitai McKay Finlayson, but he wanted to make sure that everyone knew he didn't like to be called Amitai.... only McKay.

For his birthday dinner he wanted tacos, and he wanted dirt again for dessert. We got him a ukulele for his birthday. We've been listening to him strum away all day. McKay gets baptized April 30th. He can hardly wait!

Kayden turned 17 today!! Holy smokes those years have gone fast! He wanted to go to Billman's for dinner tonight, and he asked if I would make chicken enchiladas and strawberry shortcake for tomorrow. Here's a picture of Kayden and Kristen at Billman's. Yummy!! Rik got him the bone carving, and Kayden picked out the shirt when we were birthday shopping last week.

Piano Recital

2011-04-14T15:26:00.006-06:00

Malia had her Spring piano recital last night and by some miracle I remembered the camera (that's not 100% true..... I initially forgot, and ran back home to get it.) She played three pieces, but I couldn't remember how to record on the camera (that's what you get with lack of use), so I missed the first song.

(Sorry for the poor picture quality.... I downgraded the quality so it wouldn't take 3 days to upload!)

Spring break was absolutely heavenly! We didn't go anywhere, but tried to do something fun as a family everyday. We fed the ducks down at the river, went bowling, swimming, roller skating, out to eat at Texas Roadhouse, and shopped. But most of all we relaxed. I think Tangled may have been on some type of repeating loop on the TV... I watched that show so many times in a row! We also slept and caught up on some household projects (I'm so THRILLED with what we got done on the house!) Less than seven weeks of school left (not that I'm counting....)

All Sorts of Illegal.....

2011-04-01T18:52:00.009-06:00

Kayden came home the other day and told me he had signed himself up to run for student body secretary. So the night before he was supposed to hang up posters, we decided we better start brainstorming on some campaign ideas. Since we were short on time, we decided that there are many, many creative people out there... let's just use their ideas!! Kayden's slogan was "Vote Kayden Finlayson. Insurance for a Great Year!" And then we used lots of insurance ads and slogans: "15 minutes of voting for Kayden could save you 15%," "There's no discount for agreeing with me" (picture of Flo, the Progressive girl), "Vote for Kayden! It's so easy a caveman could do it," "Mayhem is coming!! Vote for Kayden," "This is the money you could be saving if you voted for Kayden".... you get the idea. 50 fliers, 5 posters, 400 handouts with candy, 1 banner, and a video speech later.... Kayden won!! Here's the stars of his video speech:

I'm sure this campaign didn't have any copyright issues.... We found all the images free on the internet, and no, I did not photocopy dollar bills because I couldn't find any fake ones that worked..... nothing illegal going on here....

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A group of us went down to Salt Lake last weekend for the Young Woman's Conference. This is our third year going down there, and Taisha's first. We did a little shopping, ate at The Old Spaghetti Factory, and then headed over to the Conference Center. We love this tradition!

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Today was the last day of school before Spring Break!!! I'm beyond happy!! I even made dinner and hour and a half later than normal AND I'm watching TV even as we speak... and I remembered how to turn it on! (I run a pretty tight ship lately, with not much wiggle room.) Yippee!!

Going Green

2011-03-19T15:30:00.004-06:00

St. Patrick's Day started out with a challenge to everyone to use the phrase "is magically delicious!" somewhere in their conversations that day. Which then lead to a lengthy conversation (mostly with McKay) on whether "Link" from Zelda is an elf or a leprechaun... which is why I love boys! We ended the day with a GIANT pot of broccoli cheddar soup (which was magically delicious... except for the broccoli.... why are all the green foods so yucky???), green jello, green salad, shamrock-shaped bread sticks and mint Fat Boys.

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Check out this awesome picture of Malia that I took last night:

Hillcrest had their National Honor's Society inductions last night. Freshman can't be inducted (because of the national rules), but they let the freshman apply and chose 5 to participate for this year, and Malia was one of the freshman chosen. That super fuzzy picture is Malia getting her award.

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Today Malia was playing volleyball in Malad, Taisha was playing volleyball in Sugar City, and McKay had a wrestling match in Idaho Falls. McKay has been working hard on his wrestling, but he is not allowed to wrestle with Anaya..... unless Rik is trying to show him a move, and needs Anaya to demonstrate... only Anaya is REALLY ticklish, and then the whole demonstration takes a turn for the crazy with Anaya laughing uncontrollably, Rik trying to get her to cooperate, and McKay deciding to do flips instead. Awesome times at my house...

March Madness!!!

2011-03-13T16:06:00.013-06:00

The snow is almost melted, the trampoline is set up and bikes are back in use, and all sorts of craziness is in full swing.... must be MARCH!!! Here's what we've been up to.....

Track has started, and Kayden is THRILLED... and starving. He has his first school meet on Wednesday. He is also playing on a brawleyball team (at their school it's the junior boys against the senior boys playing volleyball.) Rik is coaching their team. They are practicing at 6:00 in the morning a couple times a week. As soon as brawleyball is over, I am signing Rik and Kayden up for ninja classes.... because those two could use some lessons on getting out of the house in the morning a little more quietly. I finally got his Sweethearts Ball picture scanned in:

Kayden and Mariah

And here's a picture of Kayden and Kristen right after she won Junior Miss for Bonneville County. He likes Kristen A LOT. And I do too (even if I do get a little nervous around any of the girls and don't know what to say... how weird is that?!)

Malia is constantly on the run. Her schedule consists of volleyball, piano, organ, more volleyball, friends, church responsibilities, honors classes, babysitting, and helping me out. She is up at 5:30 or earlier every day except Fridays. She just got finished with piano festival, and I have never seen her work so hard on two pieces of music. She was determined to get them memorized, and they were such hard songs this year. On the night of festival, Rik and I were couch shopping (SO FUN!!!) and we rushed home to pick her up with just enough time to get her there. We pull into the church parking lot, and she says that we are at the wrong church. Turns out I went to the place where Taisha had festival the last few years.... and I could not remember which church we were supposed to be at for Malia, and neither could she. Nothing like driving around for 25 minutes trying to figure out where you are supposed to be to calm your nerves right before a big performance. We finally found it, and she played her best, under the circumstances, but was disappointed with how it went. That being said, she got 100%, and the judge used words like "your playing was yummy deliciousness!!"

Malia has volleyball tournaments every weekend except one from now until the end of May.

Whenever she get a free evening, she spends if with her goofy friends.

Taisha's volleyball just started and goes until the end of May. She decided she didn't want to do piano festival this year (but maybe she should have so I could keep my locations straight!) The Young Women in our ward got to run the primary last week, she taught the sunbeams, and told me she wants that calling when she gets older... she loved it! She's getting ready for her first talk in sacrament meeting, and is really looking forward to going to Salt Lake with the Young Women and their mom's for the Young Woman's broadcast in a couple weeks.

McKay finished his basketball season, and moved right into wrestling. He had his first wrestling tournament last weekend. On his very first match he pinned the other boy in 16 seconds. Which was great except, he was so confused because it was so fast, the ref kept telling him he won, and he just didn't get it. And then Rik had to tell him over and over again that he won... McKay ended up getting 3rd place. We got the trampoline set up, and he was a little worried that he would forget how to do all his fancy flips, but it all came right back to him.

Anaya is just busy being Anaya. A few weekends ago, Malia was just getting home from a two-day tournament in Utah. She walked through the door, and Anaya, who was sitting at the table coloring said, "Oh, great... I hope you don't smell stink again!" Nice. Malia and Taisha were downstairs and Anaya was being annoying, so they kept telling her to go upstairs. She finally stomped up the stairs, but not without telling them that they were like evil step moms. And then the other day, Anaya was trying to tell something to Malia, but for whatever reason, Malia couldn't hear her. After repeating herself several times, Anaya finally just told Malia, "Geez!! It's like you have no ears!!" She spends hours and hours drawing, coloring, tracing, and painting. Here's one of her latest:

And I guess you can probably figure out what Rik and I have been up to... lots and lots of running (um, not the good, healthy kind of running though.) The other day at work I announced over the intercom that we were having "Chest Club" in the library through lunch, instead of "Chess Club." Awesome!

Snowboarding!!

2011-02-21T11:13:00.007-07:00

Here's some Targhee pictures:

Rik, Quinn, Matt and Kawiti

Helamen, Malia and Taisha

KJ and Kayden

McKay (looks like he was talking or laughing... haha!)

Rik and the "Yak-Hat"

Let the Romance Begin.... or not

2011-02-18T21:01:00.008-07:00

So Valentine' Day was kind of a bust this year for us. My tooth broke over the weekend, so Monday morning (Valentine's Day) I went in to have it fixed, only it fell apart, so WooHoo I got a new crown... bummer! While I was waiting for them to make the crown, I got a call from the elementary school saying that Anaya was sick, and someone needed to go get her. I called Rik (who answered the phone hoarse and stuffy sounding), and I said something like: "Tan you doe det Anaya from thschool? Thee's thick." Dumb double round of mouth numbing shots! Rik got Anaya and ended up working from home until the other kids got home, I went to work as soon as I got done at the dentist. After some weird events at my school (it took one student's grandma almost 2 hours to find the school, and I may or may not have locked myself out of the school....), I finally got home and whipped out the fasted "red, pink and heart" dinner on record! Too bad Anaya, Rik, Taisha, and Kayden weren't feeling 100%. Unfortunately, the rest of the week didn't get much better. By Wednesday I was just as sick as everyone else, and so, so tired! Needless to say, I am so very happy that we have a nice, long 4 day weekend to get everyone healthy!

Here's some pictures of Anaya's Valentine's Day hair and nails:

Everyone (except Anaya and I) got up this morning and went snowboarding at Targhee. I'm hoping I can round up some pictures from everyone's phones and such, but for now, here's a picture of Rik when he went up to Targhee with Matt to celebrate their birthdays.

Sweethearts Dance 2011

2011-02-12T19:41:00.003-07:00

Here's a picture of Mariah and Kayden before Sweethearts:

(Sorry the picture isn't the greatest... Rik went on a pizza run with the camera in his pocket, so I had to take one with my iPod. I'll scan the professional one in when we get it back.)

Good-bye January!!

2011-02-11T16:35:00.010-07:00

So I've decided I'm not a huge fan of January. It's long. It's cold. It's dark. It's gray. It sounds SO far from spring and the end of school and longer days. So I just don't like it. But now we're in February, and for whatever reason, it just sounds better.

Kayden had his first track meet of the year (indoors in Pocatello), and just hearing the words "track meet," made me think SPRING!! But then I asked Kayden why my snow shovels are always in the back of his car, and he said that they have to shovel off the track just about every time they go to run.... My happy spring thoughts went right out the window. He's running in the Simplot games next weekend (also indoors.) He and his friend run almost everyday outside, and they tie bandannas around their faces, I guess so their lungs don't freeze.

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The other day I was taking the car-pool girls to dance, and they were talking about how much they miss their bikes, and shorts, and short-sleeved shirts.... then they got giggling (or in Anaya's case, laughing uncontrollably.) Anaya told her friends that her teacher says that she is supposed to laugh like this: "Hee hee hee," and then STOP! Such a good teacher... but clearly not the best fit for Anaya. And apparently she is not aware of Anaya's New Year's resolution.

Speaking of New Year's resolutions, McKay still falls asleep to Christmas music every night. =)

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A couple Sunday's ago Anaya and McKay were feeling cute before church, and asked to have their picture taken:

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Yesterday (February the 10th) was the 100th day of school, or what I like to call, "67 DAYS UNTIL THE END OF SCHOOL!!!!" Anaya had to bring a poster board displaying 100 things. Anaya decided on 100 googly eyes. Just like I'm not too fond of January, Anaya is not too fond of me helping her do anything... this project included. Here's how it went down:

Me: Here's some poster board and the eyes. You should start-
Anaya: I know! I know! My teacher told me. Don't help me!
Me: *sighs* and waits until she has the eyes all counted out in groups of ten, then plugs the glue gun in.
Anaya: I can glue them on myself! Don't help me!!
Me: Unplugs the glue gun and gets the Elmer's glue out. Do you want me to put the glue on and then you put the eyes on?
Anaya: No!! Don't help me!
Me: *sighs* I'll go type up the numbers while you glue on the eyes, then you can glue the numbers by the groups of ten.
Anaya: NO!! I'm going to write the numbers on!!
Me: It will look better printed on the computer, and you'll be able to see them better, because the poster board is black.
Anaya: I can do it myself.
Me: ........
Anaya: Glues eyes on, and writes the numbers with a white crayon.
Me: Let's print up a paper that says "100 Silly Eyes Looking at YOU!"
Anaya: I can type it myself!!
She then types up the page, but asks me how to make exclamation points, so I show her on her page, which makes her mad because I was just supposed to TELL her, not SHOW her...
Me: Write your name right here along the bottom edge.
Anaya: I KNOW! I can do it myself. And them writes her name on a different edge of the paper than I suggested.... *sigh*

Happy Birthday Rik!!

2011-01-22T11:45:00.006-07:00

41 years ago this cute little guy was born:

We celebrated Rik's birthday this week. It was kind of low key this year though, because we've had a bug slowly going through the house. I think it has now hit everyone, and the younger you were, the harder it hit (Anaya missed 3 days of school). All that were well went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner on Wednesday, and we had cake, pickled okra and blueberries on Thursday (the cake was more for me than Rik though, because I refused to put candles in the pickled okra...)

Anaya took care of the decorating for Rik's birthday (Bendaroos), and she did such a good job, I think she should do all the birthdays! We still have it up on the wall.... I love it!

Yippee for Snowboarding Nights!!!

2011-01-08T19:25:00.002-07:00

Rik and the kids went snowboarding the other night. Anaya and I LOVE LOVE LOVE snowboarding nights! While they were out in the cold (which they all love too....weirdos), Anaya and I went out for dinner, did a little shopping, went and saw Tangled (so good!), and then headed home. We had picked up a box of Florence chocolates for dessert. When Anaya bit into her caramel, her "kind of" loose tooth, became a "REALLY" loose tooth. It didn't take much to pull it out. She was soooooo excited!! This was her first, long-awaited, visit from the tooth fairy! Perfect night!!

New Years Resolutions 2011

2011-01-06T21:56:00.007-07:00

So I thought I would share my resolutions for 2011. I have also taken the liberty of writing some for the kids and Rik. They will thank me I'm sure!

1. I resolve to stop licking my fingers when I get something on them. Recently I was doing laundry and got some liquid fabric softener on one of my fingers, so I inadvertently licked it off.... and EWWW it was SO gross! I could NOT get that taste out of my mouth! Then, our doorknobs were not working well, so we called the company and they sent us new ones, and when I was taking them out of the box, I got some of the grease that was on the parts on my finger, so I licked it off! I'll tell you what, the grease tasted even worse than the fabric softener!! I don't even think about what I'm doing, until I'm dry heaving and gagging. In my attempt to get the fabric softener taste out of my mouth, I ate a handful of almonds... only too bad, one of them was rotten!! EWW!! NOT a good time in my mouth that day.

2. McKay resolves to listen to more Christmas music. McKay has a hard time falling asleep, but has an easier time if the radio is on. All through December he listened to the radio station that played Christmas music 24/7. He now thinks he can't fall asleep without Christmas music! So we put about 55 Christmas songs on his mp3 player and every night, we have Christmas music playing for hours. (I can hear Rudolph playing right now!)

3. Anaya resolves to laugh a little louder... more freely and openly. If you know Anaya, you know that her emotions are right in your face. There is no doubt how she is feeling. For Christmas the family got Despicable Me. I was listening to Anaya watching it, and apparently she thought it was pretty funny. It reminded me of my dad when I was younger. My room was next to the family room, and every night I fell asleep (or tried) to my dad laughing until he had tears in his eyes while watching "Night Court" and "M.A.S.H." Anaya has one of the most healthy laughs I have ever heard. She would also like to resolve to not say that her school teacher is a little nice, but mostly rude. Like I said... no doubt how she feels.....

4. Kayden has resolved to tell me when he has planned a big, huge party at my house (especially if he'd like to live over the age of 17...) Over the Christmas break he planned a party with about 20 friends at our house.... only he forgot to tell me. On the bright side, this was a perfect way to get rid of the remaining Christmas junk food.

5. Rik has resolved to never, ever retire. He took off a week and a half at Christmas, but then also got a bonus day off on Monday, because that's when his office took their New Year's Day holiday... the rest of us had to go back to school and work. When I got home from work on Monday, Rik had the Home Shopping Network blaring from the TV and was busy browsing Amazon, Ebay and Craigslist. Yep... I might go broke if he ever retires.

6. Taisha resolved to lose her last 2 baby teeth (which are both close.) We have our first braces consultation in 2 months!

7. Malia has apparently resolved to help us all gain 10 pounds, by making lots and lots of cupcakes and cakes! She is LOVING cake decorating right now.

8. Rik has also resolved to be the all-time biggest collector of Coke Reward Points. He has been collecting (collecting = digging through garbage sometimes) to get as many Coke Reward Points as he possibly can. I was pretty sure that my Christmas presents were all going to be Coke things from the web site. (Rik would like me to mention that if you drink coke products... text him or email him the code under the cap or the box.....*sigh* Not kidding.)

Well, there you have it. I can tell already that we are going to be way better people by the end of this year!

December 2010

2010-12-30T23:19:00.014-07:00

December started out with Taisha all of a sudden looking like a Young Woman. I'm not sure when it happened.... but when she turned 12 a few weeks ago, she looked like she just belonged with the young women. She kept her birthday nice and simple this year: Bambinos for her dinner, sledding and swimming for her party, and Kiwi Loco frozen yogurt for her "cake."

Here are a few other pictures from December:

Anaya and Addison right before their dance Christmas dance recital.

Kayden was the "star" in the nativity.

Guess what we got for Christmas??

I somehow missed getting any pictures of the pinata this year.... which is too bad! It was cute, sweet smelling skunk. I must have been REALLY into my dessert that I was eating when the pinata was being smashed open.

Taisha got a cotton candy machine this year for Christmas and it has been a huge hit! We had banana cotton candy for breakfast Christmas morning. It felt more breakfasty eating the banana flavor.

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Ana and Dave had their baby!! Apparently they didn't consult me on how stressful December birthdays can be!! So happy she's here safe and sound!

Kamorah Thine Torgeson
Born: December 16, 2010
8 lbs 3 ounces 19.5 inches long

Christmas Tree Pictures Over the Years

2010-12-05T22:46:00.020-07:00

Every Christmas, I snap a few pictures of the kids in front of the Christmas tree. Here's the first one I have (Kayden as a baby):

And here's the pictures I've been able to find of the kids in front of the tree through the years (starting with Kayden and Malia):

(Just excuse my awful glasses... this was right before I got my eyes lasered, and they wanted me contact lens-free for a while before the procedure.)

And finally, here is this year's picture in front of the Christmas tree:

Thanksgiving 2010

2010-11-26T21:08:00.010-07:00

All 16 siblings along with their families in a church with yummy food = tons and tons and tons of fun!! It was so fun to see everyone, and was very hard to leave.

We had this whole week off from school and work, and it has been absolutely wonderful! I'm already looking forward to Christmas break.

Sometimes you just have to brag.....

2010-11-15T21:38:00.007-07:00

Tonight was the cross country awards banquet for Kayden. It was also Malia's first Christmas performance with her singing group at the Festival of Trees, and *sigh* Rik's first board meeting for club volleyball. Naturally, the camera didn't make it to any of these events (my cell phone even went dead during Malia's performance), and we had to divide up as a family to make it to everything... (welcome to my November/Decembers.)

I don't know how the volleyball board meeting went, but everything else was awesome! Rik went to the cross country banquet, and was beaming proud as he showed me all the awards Kayden came home with:

Here's what he was awarded with:

Received the Most Improved runner plaque for the 2010 cross country season (the coach made a point of mentioning that Kayden didn't even letter last year for cross country, but ended up placing 4th on the State Team this year.)
Distinguished Team Scholastic Award (3.25-4.0 GPA)
Outstanding Individual Scholastic Award (3.75-4.0 GPA)
Hillcrest High School Athletic Award
All Conference Honorable Mention Award (Awarded by District 6 Coaches Association)
Hillcrest Cross Country Participation Award
Dedication Medal (8 or more banked runs... he had 16 banked runs, so enough for two of these awards.)
He lettered in cross country
And he got the Varsity Runner trophy, for being on the varsity team for Hillcrest

(State boys team with their coach)

Kayden took a two week break from running right after state, but started training again today.

Malia's performance at the Festival of Trees also went really well. They have several more performances coming up, and I'll try to remember a camera. I was shocked at how much they have improved over the last couple of years (amazing what a little bit of growing up does... especially with the boys!) She loves singing and performing with this group, and I think the Christmas music is her favorite.

Since I'm on a bragging streak... might as well mention that we had parent teacher conferences last week and report cards home. Anaya was straight 5's (1st grade's equivalent to A's), McKay had one B+ and the rest were all A's, Taisha had all A's, Malia had one B+ (mostly because her honors science teacher hadn't corrected one of her assignments...), the rest were A's, and Kayden had one B+, and A's. Very proud of these kids! (Don't worry, I'll go back to my "lovingly mocking" style of blog writing.... just had to get this one out of the way!)

The New News for November

2010-11-08T19:31:00.011-07:00

I realize that's it's only November 8th, but we started November with a bang! (Or maybe "crunch" is the right sound effect.... see below.)

McKay's best friend August was baptized last weekend. I get a little emotional when I think about how lucky we are to have these girls living next door to us, and it's a pretty awesome thing to have your best friends so close! It was awesome to see August get baptized, and awesome to see McKay so excited for her, and especially awesome when McKay "accidentally" kicked his football over their fence, and then had to go over during their post-baptism party to get it, and then ended up staying the rest of the afternoon!

I love these kids!!

This weekend was also Sadie Hawkins, Kayden's first girl's choice dance. The theme of the dance was Mario Party, so Kayden and Kaitlin have on their matching Mario shirts. The backs say "I Mario Partied With Kayden/Kaitlin" (depending on whose shirt it was.) And they also had on matching belt buckles. Kayden is now a BIG fan of girl's choice dances.

Kayden has decided to keep up our family tradition of only crashing our cars into parked or stationary objects! Those pesky parking poles kinda squished his car a bit on one side. *sigh* When I was his age and a little older, I only hit parked cars... or the garage, it was some kind of rule for me. And Rik has only hit parked cars and guard rails! It's nice that those traditions mean so much to Kayden, and that he has decided to incorporate them into his life as well.

(Shortly after I took this picture, someone saran-wrapped his car.... lovely!)

My favorite "crashing into a parked car" story is when Rik ran into a parked truck on the side of the road. We were living in Soda Springs, and had decided to take the boat out to the reservoir to wake board for the evening. He had just come home from work, threw on his swimming suit and was hurrying to get out there as quick as he could. Kayden was almost ready, but not quite, so I handed Rik his plate of dinner, he scooped up Kayden (who was about 3 years old) and got in the truck (I was going in another vehicle.) Kayden still had to finish getting his swim suit on, so he started undressing in the truck (ya, I know.... not so safe), and inadvertently tossed his underwear on the plate of food I just handed to Rik. In Rik's haste to get the undies off his dinner, he swerved a little, and dinged a truck parked on the side of the road. Bummer. I had an impossible time not laughing when Rik told me the whole story.

We've already started the second quarter of school, and so far, so good! It's going really fast this year though!

State Cross Country!!

2010-11-01T19:18:00.012-06:00

State cross country was last Saturday, and it was held in Soda Springs this year! They took the top 7 runners for each team, so Kayden got to go. The team dyed their hair black for good luck.

We decided to take the whole family down to Soda to cheer Kayden on, and when he found out that we were coming he said, "What??? Noooooo... just stay home! You guys are always following me around!!!" Because I'm all pro on this whole "parenting a teen aged boy" thing, I knew that that was code for "Please come to my race, and bring my little brother and sisters too, because I would love for my whole family to find me before my race, when I'm hanging out with my buddies (because a lot of my best friends are on the team), and just be there... right by me... all the time! And then yell and be obnoxious when I'm running, and then find me after my race, and take my picture over and over again." That's really what he meant, and you can tell by the pictures I got:

It might look like he's going to take my camera, throw it on the ground and stomp on it, but that's just code for "Thanks for coming mom!!"

His team finished 3rd! Kayden had an awesome year this year, and we're really proud of him! (For whatever reason, he took one of the other boy's glasses for this picture.....)

Just for fun, after his race, I told him I already talked to his coach and had signed him out, so he could drive home with us.... the look on his face was priceless... zero sense of humor on that kid... zero.

Halloween 2010

2010-11-01T19:13:00.013-06:00

Here are a few highlights from Halloween:

1. So I didn't think McKay could be anything cuter than Harry Potter, but I was wrong.

2. I loved that McKay had to have the movie covers and our Pirates of the Caribbean book out and in front of me, so I didn't mess up Jack Sparrow's make up.

3. Taisha's costume was my favorite this year.... it was also thrown together 15 minutes before the trunk or treat!

4. Malia's "stick person" was repeatedly mistaken as someone from "Tron."

5. Between dance, costume parties, the ward trunk or treat, and school, I had to dress up Anaya 5 different times!!

6. It didn't matter how totally awesome I did her hair or makeup, all she really cared about was the mascara....

7. She went from telling people she was a "ghost," to telling people she was the "queen of the ghosts."

8. I LOVED that everyone did their own pumpkins this year. In fact, if I even looked like I was going to help Anaya, she would tell me to go away. Didn't hurt my feelings one bit!

9. Kayden carved pumpkins for scouts one night, and then on one of his group dates, and then he carved a whole bunch of pumpkins to answer the girl who asked him to girls' choice, so he decided he was done carving pumpkins for the year.... and possibly next year too.

10. Taisha went trick or treating with a friend, Malia took McKay and Anaya, and Kayden and his friends handed out candy at our house.... so Rik and I went out for Chinese food!

11. Kayden didn't dress up this year, but had a couple festive Halloween shirts that he wore instead.

12. I had to dress up for work... and I haven't dressed up for many, many years. But it was made clear that if one person dresses up in the office, we ALL dress up in the office! (This may have been because on pajama day, we all agreed to wear our pajamas, but then last minute, changed our minds.... except the secretary... who was the ONLY one wearing pajamas... hehe... so funny!) Rik wanted to take a picture of me in my pirate outfit, but darn it, the battery was dead in the camera. Bummer!

And Here's the Rest...

2010-10-25T15:08:00.005-06:00

The rest of the kids' pictures came home last week.

Volleyball is all over now (Malia is SO sad... but they ended out the season undefeated.) Kayden had cross country districts last week in Blackfoot, and qualified to go to state (new personal record of 17:14). State is in Soda this year, so he's pretty excited! I'm hoping he finds a job after state gets done. He, on the other hand, is hoping to catch up on school work and sleep..... He's also hoping for piles and piles of snow, and the sooner the better. I might have to disown him.

I Love Looong Weekends!

2010-10-11T23:09:00.009-06:00

There was no school last Thursday and Friday, so Friday morning we headed to Island Park, and we didn't come home until we absolutely had to (I wanted to leave earlier, but cross country and volleyball got in the way!) Friday afternoon after we unpacked at the cabin, we went to West Yellowstone, wandered through the souvenir shops, ate at one of the pizzerias, and then played cards and ate ice creams at the swirl ice cream shop. Then we headed back to the cabin and watched a DVD. Saturday morning we woke up when we were good and ready, and slowly made our way to Yellowstone. Once we finally made it into the park, we walked and walked and walked! It was a beautiful day, and after seeing some amazing sights (in the mostly empty park), we ended up at Inspiration Point, looking over the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone at sunset. Sunday morning we slept in, had a nice big breakfast, lazed around the cabin and just enjoyed the downtime. I think I can actually face the next month or so, just because the weekend was so restful and relaxing.

A Few School Pictures

2010-10-11T22:56:00.004-06:00

Last Wednesday Kayden went to Twin Falls for another cross country meet. He topped his time again, and ran his race in 17:49. He's 4th on the team right now. The Twin Falls newspaper caught the Hillcrest boys shouting out a chant before the race. Kayden is on the left of the blond guy. After the meet, the team camps and comes home the next day. This is one of Kayden's favorite meets.

Kayden was asked to his first girl's choice dance Sunday night. A pumpkin was left on our doorstep, and Kayden excitedly took the whole pumpkin straight down to his room, because he was sure it was full of candy. Wrong! He came back upstairs a few minutes later, and told me that he had to dig through the pumpkin guts to find the one pumpkin seed that had a name written on it, so he would know who asked him! So cute!

Kayden and Malia brought home their school pictures last week:

It's About Time!

2010-10-11T22:43:00.010-06:00

So I think you'd agree that it was time for new family pictures! This was the last time we had professional pictures taken:

And here are a few of my favorites that Leah took of our family right before school started:

I love them (the pictures and the family!)

Homecoming 2010

2010-10-03T21:24:00.006-06:00

We have had such a nice weekend! The weather has been absolutely beautiful, and it was conference weekend!! It was also homecoming for the high school. A few weeks ago Kayden asked Sidney Acor to the dance using a pinata, and she answered back with a stuffed frog wearing a prince crown (can't quite remember the details of all that....) After some fine tuning, the boys worked out a plan for the date (it needed fine tuning because the group started out as 22 couples.... that may have been a tad too big!) After the morning session of general conference 9 of the couples went hiking at Cress Creek, then they came home and the boys went to the priesthood session of conference (looking especially sharp in their tuxedos.) Then they picked up their dates, had pictures, ate dinner, went to the dance, and came back to my house for games. Kayden arranged to pick his date up in a Hummer... he was THRILLED!

The morning of the dance, Kayden and his date Sidney were on the front page of the sports section of the newspaper together, because they both had great runs at their cross country meet. Kayden got 17:50.... a new personal record! It was nice of their coach to mention them.

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PS: I just thought I would mention that I made some more green plum jam, only this time I did 5 parts plums to 1 part raspberries, and it looks about a million times better... like edible and everything!

Do You Like Green Eggs and Jam??

2010-09-26T09:43:00.003-06:00

Kayden started taking care of a farm a couple years ago. The owner passed away, and the kids are still trying to sell the house and the land. In the mean time, Kayden keeps the yard looking good. A couple of weeks ago, one of the daughters told him that there were plum trees in the back that produce every other year, and this was their year. She told Kayden we could pick the trees dry, since no one was there to eat them. So last Saturday we all headed over, and sure enough there were nice, ripe, sweet plums. I was so excited about turning them into jam.

Here's the thing though.... they were green plums, not purple. About 1/2 way through my first batch of jam, I found out that green plums make green jam. (Yes, I realize I should have thought of that before I started making the jam....) So here's what they ended up looking like:

(Here's the first 2 of 5 batches)

Yum.... slime covered boogers.... I'm guessing I won't be able to use them as school teacher and visiting teacher gifts this year.... unless they have a great sense of humor!

I still have more plums in the garage. I might try mixing them with some raspberries and food coloring, and maybe strain out the peels... I don't know. It does taste really good though!

Odds and Ends, and Oddities

2010-09-09T16:26:00.009-06:00

We were on our way to Soda to watch Kayden run in the Cardinal Classic last Saturday, but it was such a beautiful day (one of the few....), so we only made it as far as Lava. Kayden's cross country team stopped at Lava on their way home, so we got to catch up with Kayden there. He placed 5th on his team. He loves going to Soda to run!

(Taisha and Malia jumping off the 1st platform.)

(McKay in by the rock climbing wall. He figured out how to do back flips off the diving board this trip.)
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Here's Malia's school volleyball picture from this year. Her team is still undefeated (they've played three schools so far), and she is LOVING playing.

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So we have this awesome little birds nest in our front yard:

This would be even more awesome if it wasn't in my wreath on my front door.... How lazy is that bird???

(The nest is on the back side of the wreath on the top left hand side.)

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So I'd like to introduce you to Taisha's pet wasp:

He lives in this box. I'd take a better picture, but duh... it's a wasp. I'm not opening the box. We think it's a "he" because he hasn't stung anyone yet, and according to the research Taisha and her friend have done, boy wasps don't sting. They feed it chicken nuggets and cheese... ya, I know.

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Things at work are still going pretty good, and I think I'm becoming more familiar with everything and everyone. I did try (unsuccessfully) to remove a photocopied staple from a piece of paper though and I think I sound like a dork over the intercom.....

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So my garden froze over the weekend. I hadn't even been watching for freeze warnings yet because it's only the first part of September for crying out loud. This summer has been short, cool, and wet. The peas, carrots, potatoes, corn, squash, onions and beans did great. The tomatoes (only got 2 big bowls full) and cucumbers (only 1 made it to full grown before the freeze) did not do so great this year. No critters ate anything though.

Who are you and what did you do with my old life?

2010-09-02T16:08:00.004-06:00

Here's the kids first day of school. Notice how I remembered to take their pictures this year! Kayden kind of has a crazed look in his eye because he SO did not want me to take his picture....

This year I have two kids in high school (9th and 11th grades), and three in elementary school (1st, 2nd, and 6th grades). No one in the middle school this year.

With everyone in school, I decided to get a part time job working at one of the elementary schools in our district. I work as a part time office assistant from 9-1 everyday. I was a little worried about getting a job, but I'm feeling pretty good about it now that the first week is over.

High school volleyball has been even busier than jr. high volleyball and club ball combined! Malia has been exhausted from it all. They have played so well though, and won against both schools they have played so far.

(Malia is number 12)

It has been a weird week for me though. Everyone is wearing new clothes, and all those unfamiliar clothes are going through the laundry. The weather changed so suddenly, and it feels like winter is going to be here any day now. Because of my new job, my morning routine and night time routine are different. I get up and put on new "work clothes," and go to a different school, with some teachers that I know, but most that I don't. The kids at that school are all unfamiliar, and while I think I'm getting the hang of everything, I feel kind of lost. It will be nice when everything feels normal and routine again. But it has been a good week for us all. And I'm curious to see how fast this school year goes, because it seems like each year goes faster than the previous year!

The Tail End of Summer

2010-08-23T22:50:00.016-06:00

School starts on August 30th here. I'm not excited about that, but I guess it's fine, not that I have a choice. We've been having fun while we still can though. Rik took most of the kids and some friends to Lava. They all had SO much fun (Taisha even jumped off the highest platform!!) Malia and I had to miss this one though, because she made the high school volleyball team, and they had two-a-day practices that she couldn't miss. (She is SO excited that she made the team, and found out today that she will be starting as outside hitter and middle back.)

Last Saturday (August the 21st) we decided to hike to Lower Palisades Lake. Kayden couldn't come to this one because he was doing this with his cross country team:

(Kayden is on the bottom, 4th from the right)

The team always has a blast at the Mud Run, and this year was no exception. Kayden and his friends spray painted t-shirts the night before the race..... Kayden's shirt didn't make it through the race, because it got ripped off for a flag.

The rest of us headed up to the Palisades Creek area. We had to walk through the horse trailer parking lot to get to the trail head, and I was trying to remind the kids to watch out for the piles poop all over the place, by telling them to watch out for the "car poop." Of course the kids immediately caught that mistake, and mocked me the entire hike. So sad how my mind works.... we're in a parking lot, there is poop, it must be "car poop."

This hike was over eight miles and took us six hours from start to finish. It was really hot for the first part, so we let the kids cool off in the creek that followed the trail for most of the hike (that was Anaya's favorite part!) We spent about an hour at the lake, along with a family of moose. It was really pretty up there. Anaya was a little disappointed to learn that there were no palaces at Palisades Lake. I guess according to her, if it's going to be called "Palisades," it should have palaces. *sigh*

Rik and McKay fished on the way back, and caught a fish 30 seconds after they put their hook in the water! McKay was THRILLED... and was then bored with fishing just that quick. Because they stopped to fish, they were about 30 minutes behind the rest of us, so we left them pine cone and rock notes along the trail.

Once again, I was so proud of my little kids for making through the whole hike. Eight miles in six hours is pretty good for a six and seven year old! After we got home and cleaned up, we sent everyone to bed. Malia and Taisha both got up about 3am though, because they said it still felt like they were hiking in their sleep. They watched TV together for about an hour before going back to sleep.

We have a trip to Ross Park still planned for this week, some odds and ends of shopping, and, yippee, we are having new family pictures done this week!! Overall this summer has been one of the easiest I have had in years, and I am going to miss the slowness, but even McKay says he's ready for school to start..... and that says a lot right there!

WooHoo!! 17 years!

2010-08-11T21:02:00.011-06:00

Rik and I celebrated our 17th anniversary last week. When I was looking through the old pictures I came across lots of pictures from our dating days. They brought back all sorts of good memories!! I loved our big hair! I was so completely head over heels for Rik, I could barely think straight! I remember feeling almost dizzy when I'd see him. When we were engaged, I was living and working in Idaho Falls, and he was living and working in Soda Springs. At the time, this was a monumental trial for me. I {embarrassingly} remember having meltdowns at work to my supervisor, begging him to let me off early so I could drive to Soda to see Rik. It kind of makes me laugh now (or possibly gag), but I couldn't imagine being with anyone else, and hated being apart. I still can't imagine being with anyone else and still hate being apart. I missed him so much when he went on the high adventure hike, and when he mentioned that he may have to go on a business trip the end of August, I had a small meltdown very similar to the kinds I used to have when we were engaged (my poor supervisor!) I guess not much has changed.... except maybe our hair!

I love you!

Zzzzzzzzzz

2010-08-11T18:51:00.016-06:00

So we've been trying to get everyone to bed earlier because school starts in less than 3 weeks (bummer!!) This got me thinking about every one's quirky sleepisms.

When Kayden was a baby, he had 2 favorite blankets. They both had a ruffle and he would find one of the corners, grab the ruffle with one hand, put his thumb from his other hand in his mouth, and fan the ruffle across his face. He'd be out in seconds! He was the easiest of all my babies to put to sleep. Now that he's older he likes to sleep right next to the wall. Also, he's always been in a better mood when he gets to bed early, and wakes up early. He hasn't slept past 8:30 all summer, and is usually up before 8.

Since the ruffle blankets worked so well for Kayden, I made a couple for Malia too... only she didn't like them. She loved ALL THINGS SILKY!! When she got big enough, she would reach her hand into my drawer, feel around until she found something silky, and then carry that around. After a few embarrassing situations, I made her a pink satin tricot quilt. This did the trick for the whole month that she had it.... she lost it and then went right back to my unmentionables drawer. It was SO nice when she outgrew this!! Here's Kayden with his blanket, and Malia with a silky something she got out of my drawer.

(I don't have many pictures of Malia and her "blankies"... imagine that!)

Malia was a night owl when she was little, and it doesn't seem to matter when she gets to bed or how much sleep she gets, she's always pretty happy and perky. Now though, she likes her room cold, and a million heavy blankets on top of her.

Taisha didn't get attached to anything when she was little, and she also didn't sleep through the night until well into her third year (coincidence??), and even then, she woke up several times a week. Rik and I used to take turns sleeping in her bed with her. I think Rik and I were her "blankies." She just wanted to sleep near us. She has had the most sore legs and ears at night. Even now, when she's tired, everything hurts on her.... her eye, pinky toe, elbow... whatever! She does better when she gets to bed early, and wakes up after a full night of sleep. She also likes the really soft microfleece-type blankets.

When McKay was a toddler he got attached to two blankets. Both are made from t-shirt fabric, and have a similar feel. When he was a baby he liked to sleep with these blankets on his head. I was always worried he would suffocate, but somehow he found air in there! Even now he sleeps with his head wrapped up in his blanket, and his feet sticking out the bottom. He still has his two favorite blankets. He told me he likes it when I put them by his wall so they get cold. He likes to stay up late and sleep in late, and is SO grumpy if he doesn't get enough sleep!

(One of his blankets has a permanent pin 'cause it doubles as a cape.)

When I was pregnant with Anaya my mom was going through old boxes in my grandma's basement, and came across a box with some old children's fabric. My mom took some and made them into large burp cloths. I had such pretty blankets when Anaya was born, but she got attached to the large burp cloth made from the old fabric! She has to sleep with it and Barry, her stuffed dog. The blanket it so thin, and stained, and has holes and snags all through it. It's so small I can wad it up and the whole thing fits in my hand. A really nice thing about Anaya, is when she is tired, she puts herself to bed.

Rik is able to sleep anywhere and through anything... like kids screaming, puking in the bed next to him, me changing the sheets with him in it...etc. The other night at about 11:45 I text Kayden to remind him to get home by midnight (this same text gets sent out just about every night, cause when you're 16, you forget that), and then I went in the bathroom to wash my face. Rik had just fallen asleep, and so I closed the bathroom door and turned on the fan. Kayden's friend brought him home, and he tried the front door, but it was locked so he repeatedly rang the doorbell and knocked. I didn't hear it.... Rik didn't hear it. He then used the keypad and came through the garage door, but the house door was locked. He knocked and knocked. I didn't hear him, and Rik still didn't hear him. Kayden ran around the house, and pounded on the locked sliding doors.... no one heard anything. Just after that I came out of the bathroom and noticed that it was 12:04 and Kayden wasn't home yet, so I started texting him angry texts informing him that it was 12:04 and that he better get home or else. Right then Malia came upstairs, all shook up because Kayden had pounded on her window to have her let him in. So I opened the front door and Kayden came stomping in yelling all sorts of nice things! Rik slept through that too. *sigh* Rik is the only person in our family who sleeps with socks on though.

When Rik and I got engaged, his grandma, an accomplished quilter, started asking me what kind of quilt we wanted her to make for us. She had made some of the most beautiful and complicated temple quilts. She probably died when I brought her my hunter green and white striped fabric for her to quilt in straight lines. This is my blanket though. It's been on my bed ever since we got married. I've had lots and lots of comforters on top, but every night the comforters get put on the floor, and we sleep with the same hunter green quilt. It is the perfect weight and has just the right feel for me. I don't know what I'm going to do when it starts looking like Anaya's blankie!

Happy Birthday Anaya!!

2010-08-11T16:06:00.005-06:00

Anaya turned 16, um, I mean 6, yesterday!! She wanted dirt for her birthday dessert and when I asked her what she wanted for her birthday dinner she asked if we could go to one of those, "you know, dinner places," so we went to Johnny Carino's. Here she is in her new outfit, new long earrings, and you can't tell, but she has her fancy long nails on too (all as per her request). She's growing up so fast! It seems like just yesterday when she was just a little girl!

High Adventure 2010

2010-08-11T15:46:00.016-06:00

July 27th through July 31st, Rik and Kayden headed off to the Big Horn Crags in the Salmon National Forest for High Adventure. They said it was some of the most beautiful country they have ever seen.... and also some of the most rugged. They backpacked 24 miles over the 5 days. Rik hurt himself the day before they left, and even said that maybe he should borrow a satellite phone just in case he got worse and had to be helicoptered off the mountain. Needless to say, we were all glad he made it home safely! Sorry for so many pictures... I actually had a hard time picking through all the pictures because there were so many beautiful ones!

Girls Camp and Babies!!

2010-07-20T16:06:00.013-06:00

Malia had girls camp last week. The stake theme was "Oh, The Places You'll Go!" Each ward was assigned a Dr. Seuss book. Our ward got "The Grinch," so they had lots of fun with Christmas decorations, Who-hair and secret Santa gifts. She said the food was out of this world!!! The two camp leaders that planned the whole thing had been to girls camp 28 years and 30 years respectively, so they knew what they were doing!! Malia got home on Friday at about 10:30 am, walked in the door, dropped her stuff, picked up her pillow and went straight down to her room, and crashed until after 4:30 that afternoon. She said it was the best camp she has ever been to.

One of her favorite things was the glow stick stick men dance.... who knew you could have so much fun taping glow sticks to yourself!!

Rik came up for the hikes and stayed overnight one night. He was the hike leader for one of the 5 mile hikes. He came home and said that girls camp is SOOOO NOT like boys camp..... he was very impressed with all that was planned and organized for this camp.

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My little sister, Karissa and Rik's little sister, Laura both had babies recently!! Congratulations!!

Kendria Kiersten Shirts
July 7, 2010 5 lbs 9 oz

Lochlan Patrick Murdoch
July 14, 2010 7 lbs 11 oz

Starting July with a BANG!

2010-07-06T22:02:00.013-06:00

Wow! July started out with all sorts of adventures! We headed to Lagoon on the 3rd, and I think this was our best trip yet! No lines, beautiful weather (not too hot, and not too cold), awesome spot at Lagoona Beach, good food, and fun family. Anaya was the right height this year to go on some of the big rides, so the whole family got to ride on Wicked, Colossus, and Wild Mouse. (She would like me to point out that she did NOT scream or shut her eyes through any part of Wicked!) Here she is with some of her cousins:

On Monday, it was a little cool and windy, so we decided against sand and water, and decided to hike to the Darby Wind Cave. It was 2.5 miles to get to the cave opening, and 2.5 back. It was a really nice hike with lots of water falls, creeks and streams that we got to hop across.

Here's a view of the wind cave. It's that giant upside down triangle with white water coming out. That's snow on the right hand side. This was after we had hiked up the mountain switchbacks. We then hiked all the way around the rim off to the left to get to the cave.

We were getting a little closer at this point, but this is where things also got a little more... hmmm.... adventurous??!! When I did this hike when I was a teenager, it must have been later in the season, and a lot drier, because there was no water coming out of the cave, but this year there was quite a bit of water coming out of the cave. So after we hiked up closer to the cave, we had to climb across the waterfall, and then up the waterfall, and then through the water to get into the cave. This was too hard for McKay and Anaya, so Rik carried McKay and Kayden carried Anaya.

(The wind cave is way up above this area)

This is the coolest cave though. It starts out with that giant opening, which is where we put on our warmer gear and head lights, and hiked back into the cave where there is a small opening you can crouch and get through. We were making our way through the cave, and got to a small space, and Taisha and McKay were DONE in that small space. Taisha, who had hiked the whole hike in bad shoes and a blister, but never complained, was REALLY not enjoying the tight, cramped spaces of the cave, and McKay was cold (it's really cold in there!) Rik and Kayden wanted to keep going, so the rest of us turned around and headed back out. My plan was to get us to the big opening and wait for Rik and Kayden to help get us down the waterfall, but everyone was cold and wanted to be away from the wind and water, so Malia and I got McKay and Anaya through the water that was at the mouth of the cave, and then I carried them one by one down the waterfall, and then across the waterfall, then down past the steep part until we could sit down and warm up (it's too steep to sit up by the cave). McKay was not happy about this whole situation! He didn't like that Rik was still in the cave and that I was the one now carrying him down the mountain, and he was cold and wet. He got considerable happier when we were back on safe ground though! We were about 1/2 way down before Rik and Kayden caught up with us. They absolutely loved the cave though, even the parts you had to get on your back and slide on the ice through the narrow cracks! We all came home nice and dirty!! I was very proud of my little kids though. It was 2 hours of hiking up the mountain switchbacks, a hour or so in the cave, then 2 hours back down, in wet shoes, but they did it!

On the drive home, Rik wanted to stop and see some more waterfalls (cause he REALLY likes waterfalls!) I think this is Falls Creek maybe?

After that we stopped for square ice cream cones in Swan Valley (I'm sure they appreciated our stinky, wet feet), and headed home. 75 loads of laundry later, I think I might be getting close to being caught up!!

June 2010

2010-06-28T21:18:00.017-06:00

Here's a quick little run down of June. I'm so totally enjoying summer break so far, I don't think I can even put it into words!

Kayden has been a running machine! He's running morning and night, and doing P90X. Needless to say there is never, ever, ever enough food in the house ever. He also ran the Skiller 5K (5th overall, 3rd in his age group), the Scenic River Classic 5K (5th in his age group and personal record at 19:23), and the To Bone and Back Race (he ran 5 miles of an eight person 40 mile relay, and they got 1st place!!!) He's been looking for a job, but nothing has come up yet (he didn't try any fast food places though, and I don't think he will), but he's still got his lawn jobs, and that's keeping him busy.

Malia has been reading for weeks now. She's been so glad to finally have some down time, and catch up on all her reading. She finished the Percy Jackson series, Savvy, The Golden Spiral, the last of the Ranger's Apprentice series, and is on the last Harry Potter book (can you believe this was her first time reading that series??) So I think that has her at 12 books for the month of June. What a life! She did take a reading break for an intense volleyball camp. It was all week from 8-5:30. Her trainer was from Brazil and played volleyball for BYU. She said she learned more in that week than all her years of playing volleyball. She was also so stiff and sore she could barely move!

Taisha has had lots and lots of friend time. She went to the circus, planned a surprise birthday party for one of her friends (they had decorations and the whole bit), and went to Pine Basin with one of her friends. Pine Basin is a school district run camp that lasts a week. I sent her with a camera... she took 3 pictures, all self portraits.... none turned out all that great! She had so much fun at camp though!!

McKay has been sleeping in. And boy, does he LOVE sleeping in. He decided against playing t-ball this year, just in case he had early games that interrupted his sleeping in! He's spent a lot of time on the trampoline though, and has learned to do a back tuck (took him all of 5 minutes to learn how to do that!) He's trying to figure out how to get a twist in there now.

Anaya, who does get up at a reasonable hour, played t-ball this year. She's on a cute little team and has LOVED playing. By the way, she informed me that she DID NOT like the way I did her hair for this picture. *sigh*

I have just been enjoying the slow, and the sleep, ooooh, the sleep has been wonderful! We got the garden planted, and Rik decided that what is mostly fun and successful on a small scale, must be really fun on a larger scale...... so he got us a garden plot out at the church farm. It's 50 x 80 ft. I'm not 100% sure that that way of thinking translates well in gardening.... it's huge!!

We also had a trip to Bear Lake. I was being nice and lazy though, and didn't feel like walking all the way to the van to get the camera out... I love summer!

Happy 14th!

2010-05-29T13:22:00.003-06:00

Malia turned 14 yesterday!! I wrapped her door opening so she had to go through the wrapping paper to get out of her room. It was the last day of school (and a half day), so she and her friends went out to lunch and then to the movies, then she came home and helped me get ready for her party.

The girls went on a neighborhood scavenger hunt, and then came back for dinner (homemade calzones (I made over 60), fruit, and party junk food), did a little crafty, opened presents, had cake (my best attempt at Gandolfo's chocolate mousse cake), and then played night games until they were frozen. Based on the silly, crazy, loud laughing, I think the whole thing was a lot of fun!

And Even More May (Exactly how long is this month anyway?!)

2010-05-28T13:11:00.005-06:00

Anaya graduated from Kindergarten yesterday! This school does such a cute little graduation program! She had a really sweet teacher this year, and Anaya kept telling me over and over how much she loved school.

After graduation we went out for lunch and ice cream, grabbed our field day game and headed back to the school to play field games with the 1st graders. All was going well until this little guy scooted past my feet and down the middle of my obstacle course!! I'm not scared of snakes, unless they sneak up on me like that.... After the kids got done screaming, they thought it was the coolest thing ever!

After games they had Popsicles and headed back in right before it rained, and I left totally overjoyed that that was my last time volunteering at the school for the year!! YIPPEE!!!

Today was the last day of school for everyone. McKay woke up happier than he has in MONTHS!! I was right there with him! It's also Malia's 14th birthday today! More on that later...

More May....

2010-05-24T22:08:00.009-06:00

Last weekend the boys headed up for a the father and son camp out. This is what they woke up to:

McKay wasn't bothered by the cold, and said that he slept really well. His favorite things were helping build the fire, putting sticks in the fire, standing by the fire, using his pocket knife to get more sticks to put in the fire, and he said he LOVED that "Mom wasn't telling him to go to bed a million times!" (He told that to Rik several times...) (Also, just so you know, a "million" is a slight exaggeration. It's more like 150 times a night that I tell him to get in bed!)

While the boys were staying up late, Taisha, Anaya and I did some of their favorite things (Malia was at Lagoon with her choir, so she missed girls night out). We went out for dinner, shopped, and then went out for dessert. While we were shopping, we found these:

Anaya is in HEAVEN with some real, non-dress-up, high heels. She slept in them, and was SO excited to go the church so she could wear them.

This whole "obsessed with shoes" thing is all very foreign to me. Through the years, having my arms full of babies and toddlers, and all the gear that goes with them, my only stipulation for a pair of shoes was that they be slip-on shoes. Then a few summers ago, I got a pair of flip flops that were like being barefoot (no support whatsoever!) They were cute, and I loved them, but after a couple months of wearing them I had completely ruined one of my heels. I ended up developing plantar fasciitis, and was in a lot of pain! After doing some research, and talking to friends and neighbors, I decided to try some different shoes in an attempt to avoid cortizone shots or surgery. I tried several kinds, I discovered that my feet LOVE Chacos. I started wearing them from the second I woke up, and after a while, all the pain went away! It was wonderful! There aren't dressy Chacos though, so I would get ready for church and put my Chaco flip flops on with my nylons, and change into church shoes right before I left. Except all the times I forgot, and showed up at church with my Chacos flip flops and nylons. So to summarize, my shoe style is slip-on Chacos and Chaco flip flops with nylons. I'm super cool! I've decided that Anaya gets her shoe/high heel fetish from Rik. Er, um, not that Rik wears high heels, but Rik has probably 3 times more shoes than I do (or more), and his sisters sure like their heels (I'm thinking there is a "high heel" gene at work here.) I've even seen his sisters wearing heels with sweats. This doesn't even compute in my head... but neither did the high heels and pajamas from the other night!

On a different note, McKay lost both his top teeth in a matter of a few days. And even more shocking, the Tooth Fairy actually remembered to come BOTH TIMES, take the teeth, and leave the money right under his pillow. I think the Tooth Fairy deserves a cheesecake for that (or maybe a new pair of shoes....)

Almost done.... almost done.....

2010-05-20T13:00:00.011-06:00

This week has been a whirlwind of rehearsals, recitals, field trips and school projects. I tried to record Anaya's dances with the video feature on my little camera, but it turned out really blurry. So when Malia had her piano recital (Wednesday night) I decided I would try my iPod to see if the quality was any better. Right before her recital I hurried and downloaded a free icamcorder app. But, duh, the icamcorder I downloaded only let you record 15 seconds at a time (hmm... wonder why it was free?) So that didn't work out so good either! But earlier when Malia was practicing, she would record herself playing on one of our MP3 players, so she could hear what needed work. I pulled one of those practices off the MP3 player. I guess that will have to do at this point! It's not perfect, but boy, this song is tough!

She also played a classical piece, and I have it recorded in 15 second increments, but honestly she has been playing it since November, and we are all kind of sick of here! I turned her pages for her at the recital, but I was so nervous for her (does that ever go away??), that I think I made things worse. She told me after, that she could tell by my breathing that I was nervous, and that made her even more nervous... nice!

So, let's see, we're down to a choir concert tonight, I'm helping at some type of hot dog party in McKay's class tomorrow morning, the boys are going on the father and sons camp out tomorrow night after Kayden gets home from Boise (State track and field, he left this morning), Malia is going to Lagoon tomorrow with her choir, and then woohoo... WEEKEND!! Next week is far more do-able...at least that's what I'm telling myself...

Lookin' Good

2010-05-19T16:06:00.001-06:00

Since I'm scanning stuff in...

Spring Dance Recital

2010-05-19T15:30:00.002-06:00

Anaya's dance recital was last night. She loved being on stage, and says she wants to do dance again next year, just so she can do more recitals. I'm thinking at some point she would probably love to ballroom dance. Doesn't that sound like it would be right up her ally (high heels, make-up, pretty dresses, and dancing with a boy???) They did their tap dance to "Zipadee Do Dah," and their ballet dance to "Take to the Sky." She did great!

Anaya and Addison (best friends) in their dressing room.

Kayden's Famous Legs

2010-05-17T22:59:00.003-06:00

The other day Kayden text me that his legs were on the front cover of the newspaper. I was thinking it was a track picture, but was wrong:

That's Kayden in the dragon head!

Yippee for Easy Sundays!!

2010-05-17T22:50:00.009-06:00

We had Stake Conference on Sunday, and took advantage of the fewer/shorter meetings. We drove up to Cress Creek and hiked around a bit. It was beautiful!

The Difference Between Boys and Girls

2010-05-17T21:36:00.003-06:00

So the big dance came and went, and I think Kayden had a lot of fun. It was a busy day for all of us, but over all went good. We ended up feeding them dinner at our house. Notice the good group picture I got... somehow I managed to get 1/2 of Kayden's head, and missed his date completely. Just another one of those "good mom moments."

So with all this boy/girl stuff going on, I've been noticing how different boys and girls are. It's especially apparent with my two youngest kids. McKay and Anaya are 16 months apart in age, are a year apart in school, have been parented almost identically, but are so totally different from each other. For instance, yesterday while getting everyone ready for church, I had to tell McKay that no, he couldn't take his G.I. Joe guys and guns to church. Nope, not even if he made the gun noises quietly. A few minutes later I had to convince Anaya that no, she couldn't wear her play high heels to church. Nope, not even if they matched her pink church dress. A couple weeks ago I had Anaya and McKay sitting by me drawing. Anaya was drawing a princess with puffy sleeves and a beautiful dress, rainbows and flowers. McKay, on the other hand, was drawing a robot that ate an alien (you could see the alien in the robot's stomach), and a speech bubble that said "BURP!" next to the robot. And you know how McKay wrote me stories about camping with attack skeleton dogs? Well, Anaya wrote me a story entitled, "I Want Hi Heels." Here's her story (by the way, it was homework and had to be turned in...): "I like pritty shoes. I want pink hi heels. I hope my mom gets me hi heels cuz I like hi heels so much. The End." Anaya tends to socialize too much with her neighbors at school, and McKay gets in trouble for making noises with his arm pits (apparently that's distracting...) Yep, boys and girls are so different!

Kayden came home the other day and told me that girls are dumb. He's discovering that girls are more emotional and sensitive than boys. Then he looked at me and said, "Oh, except for you mom." So I guess he's kind of learning...

Daddy Daughter Date

2010-05-02T09:31:00.005-06:00

I just got some cute pictures from Taisha and Rik's daddy daughter date.

Whoa.... it's May! Let the countdown begin to the end of school!!!

So, have you ever had one of those days??

2010-04-23T16:53:00.004-06:00

You know, those mornings where you get home a little late from the gym, only to find that the kids that are normally up, are not. And then when McKay wakes up, low and behold, the tooth fairy forgot to come, so while Rik is stalling, you are trying to find some cash... any cash, and then woohoo 10 minutes later you explain that the money fell behind the bed, and the tooth fairy must have had her hands full, that's why the tooth is still under the pillow, and holy cow McKay, you must have slept CRAZY last night! And then you find out that Malia needs to be to school early, and while it might seem convenient to take Malia and Kayden to school at the same time, you can't because Kayden can't find his German text book. And then while you were looking for the German text book, you suddenly remember that you didn't study spelling words with McKay, so you start yelling, " McKay spell the word "beaches" while you are yelling "You mean, the German text book just WALKED out of here??!!" And then you go to take the kids to the elementary school, and the van has a really, really flat tire... so you move all the kids into Rik's car, take them, then come home, to take Malia early, and as soon as Malia leaves, you find the German text book, so Kayden has to go in a separate trip. And then you remember that you were supposed to help in Taisha's class with accelerated math at 9:00, so you hurry and hop in the shower, so that you can be ready 25 minutes later... and leave Rik to put the spare tire on the van, which, it turns out, is also flat. So then you skip helping at the school to get the spare tire and flat tire fixed, only to find out that the flat tire can't be fixed, so you have to buy two new tires. And then you have to rush home, with new tires on, to finish Anaya's homework packet that she didn't feel like doing the night before. And then as soon as you get her and her completed homework dropped off at school, you go to get a much needed hair cut, and it ends up short. Way short. Not cute short. And when you get home from your hair cut, you get the mail, and get the new price of insurance with your 16 year old son now added, and you almost pass out because it is so much higher than you think it should be? You know that kind of day? That's the kind of day I'm having. And all my morning chores, that I normally get done in the, um well, morning, are still not done, and I don't think they will get done until tomorrow morning. 'Cause I don't feel like it. *sigh*

In other news, Kayden turned 16. I have zero pictures of this big event, because on his birthday the longest he was at the house was to shower, and I didn't think he would appreciate that. He had an out of town track meet on his birthday that went late, and then got home, showered and went to his friend's house for a surprise birthday party. We finally caught up with him 10:00 the following night to sing "Happy Birthday" and eat day old cake. The night before his birthday he and his friends asked girls to Commencement. The day after his birthday he set up a double date with a different girl than he asked to the dance, and they went disc golfing and out for ice cream. I was kind of thinking I needed a more gradual introduction to the whole dating thing... and I'm still not all that comfortable with it. Kayden was all for it until he realized how expensive it is to date! He keeps telling me that dating is a rip-off! Cracks me up! The big (expensive) dance is May 8th.

Happy Birthday McKay!!

2010-04-17T12:25:00.005-06:00

McKay turned 7 last week!! He wanted to go to the Aquatic Center, where he spent all his time doing front flips off the diving board. He was disappointed that he wasn't allowed to do them off the high diving board, he could only jump off that one. He's been asking for a skateboard for weeks!

He wanted tin foil dinner for his birthday dinner and dirt for dessert.

I was looking through McKay's school papers from last week and came across a math test. He only missed one. He was supposed to look at a graph that showed what juice the children in Mrs. Gifford's class liked. From the graph he was supposed to write two things about the children in that class (like, "3 kids liked grape juice," or "More kids liked orange juice than apple juice.) This is what he wrote: "I like my juice cus it is yumme," and "I like juice cus I git to burp." Yep, it was marked wrong, and his teacher underlined that it was supposed to be about Mrs. Gifford's class..... not McKay. =)

I Love This!

2010-04-12T15:51:00.003-06:00

Anaya left this picture on my pillow the other day.

Easter Weekend 2010

2010-04-12T15:28:00.008-06:00

I decided to string the house this year for Easter. So fun.... so NOT safe if you need to do any walking around in the middle of the night. Sad, but I was also stiff the next day from trying to get around the house through all the string. After the kids got the string all wound up, we did a Easter Story scripture treasure hunt. This was also a lot of fun, and helped get us back to the real meaning of Easter. I had a ton of eggs hidden all over the house as well (you can see some hidden in the picture.) I just found an egg this morning, and it made my whole day!

Over 1800 puzzle pieces put together through Conference. My family loves doing this! The Disney villains puzzle was especially fun, except that Rik felt the need to sing Disney songs depending on what character he was working on....

The Easter bunny brought the Wii game "Just Dance," and it has been a HUGE hit! We highly recommend this game, but you'll have to get your own "Rik" to watch and mock!

The next weekend Malia and Rik had volleyball games in Ogden on Saturday, and Kawiti and Teryn were blessing their baby in Ogden on Sunday, so we stayed in Utah for the weekend. Here's a picture of the kids in their Easter outfits before the blessing.

I didn't pull my camera out once at the baby blessing! But it was a lot of fun seeing the family, and seeing how much everyone has grown!

Spring Break 2010

2010-04-09T16:19:00.008-06:00

Spring break came just in time! I was so ready for a break!! We went to Utah and stayed in a hotel with a water slide. We swam, ate, swam, ate some more, swam, watched a movie while eating.... you get the point! We also spent some time shopping, wandered through the Discovery Museum, and found the true meaning of Easter at the Temple Visitor's Center and on Temple Square.

The kids went back to school the Monday after Easter, and the next day (Tuesday) we had a nice big blizzard and school was canceled!! I love that the only snow day we had this year was in April! I was so happy to have that bonus day off!! And on a day that I could have gotten quite a bit done, I did a whole lot of nothing! I finished the book I was reading, caught up on Project Runway, slept in, took a nap, and went to bed early! Perfect day in my opinion. The book I was reading was "Savvy." The weekend before Easter Malia and I went to Utah for the Young Women broadcast with the girls in our ward. While we were driving down we talked a little about books, and one of the moms recommended the book "Zippy." So while we were shopping before the broadcast, I walked into Barnes and Noble, saw the book "Savvy," and was excited because that was the book Lisa was telling me about, so I bought it. Zippy... Savvy... whatever! I hurried right out to show Lisa that I bought the book she told me about. Ya, I'm that cool. (It was a good book non the less!)

OoOoh look... I'm on a roll now!

2010-04-09T15:54:00.008-06:00

We may or may not have dressed up for St. Patrick's Day this year....

Malia tried out for her school's musical, and got a part. I wasn't 100% sure practice was going to fit with her schedule, but it worked out, and she did a really good job! We have it on DVD if anyone wants to watch it. (That's her in the pink shorts and the striped shirt.)

Malia's play got done on a Friday night, and the Monday after that track started up. *sigh* She is doing discus and shot put and Kayden is running the 1 mile, 2 mile, and 4 x 400 relay. In March we also found out that Malia needs contact lenses (she's not nearly as blind as Taisha though!)

Malia was invited, along with a handful of other 8th grade girls from Idaho Falls to go to a science and math seminar sponsored by the INL. This really opened her eyes to some different careers that she had never considered. She came home so excited and driven, and really would like to pursue some type of math or science degree now.

One night for dinner I made fish, garlic mashed potatoes and broccoli. Anaya came into the kitchen and said, "Ew! Dinner smells like a bad, bad word. A bad, bad word that I am NOT allowed to say! A bad, bad word that I get in BIG trouble when I say it... Yep, that's what dinner smells like!" I'm not sure which bad, bad word she was talking about, but I had to agree that dinner was a little smelly that night!

Oh, and this was new in March:

Kayden turns 16 the middle of April. He's all licensed now, and helping me haul kids around. I don't know what to think of all this....

Valentine's Day 2010 (Yes... I know it's April)

2010-04-03T15:39:00.008-06:00

I'm going to try to do a little bit of "blog catch-up." So many fun things happened during February and March. I kind of wish they were spread out over about a 6 month period, instead of two months! I don't know if we were just lucky or what, but in the past, activities and appointments just worked out and sequenced one with another. This year was the first time that things were on top of things. And nothing worked well together! I would have to have one kid to 3 different places at the same time... or 3 kids to 3 different places at the same time. Basketball was on top of gymnastics on top of play practice. Or piano festival was at the same time as the play performance, and Malia should have been on the road to a volleyball tournament all at the same time. The last two months really put my "mom superhero powers" to the test (and sometimes may have failed me, as I nearly came unraveled a few times...)

For Valentine's Day we had a family "Red, Pink and Heart" dinner.

Here's a picture of Taisha's Valentine's box:

(It's holding a card that says, "I'm not LION! I love Valentine's Day!")

McKay played Basketball all through February and through the first part of March. This was the first time he had played basketball. He was pretty nervous at first, but got better and better through the season. He got pretty good at rebounding (and that was his favorite part.)

The 4 older kids and Rik snowboarded every chance they got. Kayden still goes back and forth on whether he's happy winter is coming to an end.

Anaya and I usually did something that involved going out to eat and having Anaya's nails done while everyone else was gone snowboarding. Speaking of Anaya, she has been learning the primary song "He Sent His Son" in church, and she was singing it the other day.... "How could the Father tell the world of Nintendo DS..." I tried to tell her that the words were "How could the Father tell the world of love and tenderness," but she told me I didn't know what I was talking about....

On February 25th my sister Melanie and her husband had a baby! They named him Ethan Thomas Palmer. Cute little guy!

Happy 40th!!

2010-01-25T20:46:00.009-07:00

Last week we celebrated Rik's 40th birthday. As part of the celebrations we filled his car with 40 balloons. Just so you know, you about pass out when you try to blow 40 balloons up... It was a busy day, but we still had some of Rik's favorite foods for dinner: shrimp, veggie bars, asparagus, Caesar salad, and blueberry pretzel salad. Friday night he and the kids went snowboarding (except for Anaya... she and I stayed home and did nails). This was McKay's second time snowboarding, and he loved it! Turning 40 is a pretty big deal, so I thought I would do a quick list of 40 things that make Rik Rik (unless I can't think of 40 things...)

1. Rik comes up with the most unique nick names... then morphs them a few times until they are really, really strange. For example, Malia's nick name is "Moogie," and Anaya's is "Shnoogalish."

2. Rik has at least 4 times more clothes and shoes than I do.

3. Rik can play the piano, ukulele, and guitar.

4. He is left-handed, except for sports, which he plays right-handed.

5. Rik can fall asleep ANYWHERE... like the floor, the counter top, the computer chair, tanning beds, on the phone talking to his mom, or on the couch reading with McKay.

6. Rik likes super smart games... word games are his specialty.

7. He likes to watch UFC.

8. He will eat anything... and I mean ANYTHING. Macaroni and cheese is probably his least favorite though.

9. Rik loves volleyball and racquetball. He's been coaching Malia's team the last several years, and really enjoys it. Here's some pictures from their tournament in Utah a couple weeks ago:

10. In 16 years of marriage he has never taken a sick day. He just doesn't get sick.

11. He knows how to disc golf.

12. He always looks put together.... whether it's midnight at Walmart, or shoveling snow, he always looks perfect.

13. People are always shocked when they find out how old he is and how old his kids are.... it totally makes his day!

14. Rik likes to shop.

15. He can still do a standing back hand spring... and if you get him on the trampoline, he can do all sorts of flips.

16. Back in the day he was in a break dancing group.

17. He has a hard time remembering to zip up his pants... so funny!

18. Someday he would like to restore full-sized arcade games.

19. He likes to read.

20. Rik has run a full marathon.

21. He has a really nice tenor voice... especially when he gets the words right. He sang in a men's quartet a few weeks ago in sacrament meeting.

22. He spontaneously does jazz hands when he's walking through the kitchen.

23. He had rheumatoid arthritis when he was little, and was told he would never walk again (they were wrong.)

24. He is a healthy eater and not too big on desserts.

25. He has broken his front tooth at least 3 times.

26. He likes to snowboard.

27. He's addicted to synthetic fiber sports shirts (I just counted 27 in the closet right now!!)

28. He can't grow a beard.

29. He lived in New Zealand for three years (his mom is Maori.)

30. He is an incredibly hard worker.

31. He is an excellent writer. I used to proof read his papers when he was in college. I always thought they were a little wordy.... teachers LOVED his stuff and always wanted to keep them as the "example paper!"

32. If he could do it all over again, he would go into graphic design.

33. Every now and again Rik tries to communicate by whistling... this generally doesn't go so good.

34. He has one leg that twitches every couple of minutes all night long.

35. He can play hymns on the harmonica with his nose. Anyone need to borrow our harmonica? ew.

36. He went on his mission to Sacramento.

37. Rik won a TV at a spelling bee when he was younger.

38. He loves the gospel, and gives everything he has to whatever calling he is serving in.

39. He is a really, really good dad.

40. He still makes my heart skip a beat when he walks into a room.

Phew... that was harder than I thought! Oh... here's a picture of Rik in his birthday suit (hmm that doesn't sound right!):

I love you!

Is it a little weird?

2010-01-06T10:23:00.012-07:00

So do you think it is weird that Anaya got 12 new nail polishes for Christmas (because she LOVES having her nails polished at least twice a week), and she wants to wear all 12 colors at the same time? I have learned over time to not care what pattern or color scheme she wants on her nails, because that battle is just not worth it. Today though, she told me she wanted me to rainbow each nail. That seemed a little time consuming for right before school, so we settled on a different color on each nail.

Is it weird that McKay has his first basketball game tonight, and his first practice tomorrow night? Should make for an entertaining game to watch!

Also, McKay is DESPERATE to start piano lessons. And he gets to try snowboarding with the big kids on Friday!

Is it weird that volleyball has already started up again (started before Christmas!)? Rik is coaching Malia's travel team, and when I pointed out that he doesn't actually have time in the evenings to coach, he decided to have practices at 6am Mondays and Wednesdays... and that will be the schedule until MAY!! It wouldn't be too bad, but Malia also has early morning piano lessons on Thursdays, and she and Kayden go to the temple every Tuesday morning at 6am to do baptisms (a couple of the cute temple workers have gotten to know them over the last few months, and actually invited them to their family Christmas party.) Malia absolutely loves having everything done and over in the morning though... is that weird for a teenager?

Is it odd that I love cleaning and organizing my house right now, and I think it is because I got a couple new pieces of furniture and some new curtains?

And speaking of furniture... Taisha loves rearranging furniture. She and I spent an evening rearranging her room and then redecorating it, and loves the way it turned out.

I did just a little bit of after Christmas shopping... primarily I was looking for men's Christmas socks. They are kind of hard to find. I guess there isn't a huge market for cheesy men's Christmas socks... I don't know, but in our family that is one of our Christmas traditions. So when I finally found some, I bought the 4 different ones that they had, and then on my way home figured out that I will be giving him the 4th pair when he is on his mission. That was a little weird!

I thought it was a little odd when I walked by a couple Walmart employees talking, and one said to the other, "Dude, I just don't like conversating with the other Walmart employees." Conversating? That's weird!

And not that I'm picking on Walmart... but last week I was at Walmart with my friend Brett picking up a birthday cake for her 4 year old daughter named Carma, and we both thought it was a little weird that her cake said:

Yep.... it says "Happy - Bad Carma." So weird! (And so is the story of how they FIXED the "bad" for that matter!)

Well... and this is just plain weird, unless you know him, and then it is perfectly normal!

The Finlaysons

The Merry Month of December

Halloween 2011

Senior Pictures

Phew! A Few Days Off... kind of

Just keep running, runing, running... or playing volleyball!

Odds and Ends from September and October

Oh, and this is new....

School Pictures 2011

And in Other News....

This Was SOOOO Fun Today!!

Back to School.... already

*sniff* Is Summer REALLY Over???

Kayden-isms

Mountain River and Mud Run

High Adventure 2011

Happy Birthday Anaya!!!

Yay!! Christmas Pictures in August!

Sad and Scary, but OK

It's like we're playing Musical Kids!

He's a Pirate! Part I

Summer!!!

Happy Birthday Malia!!

Yippee!! School's Out! (At least I think Yippee...)

The Merry Month of May!

Prom, Mother's Day, and What the??!!

McKay's Day!

On Your Mark, Get Set......

Did You Check a Wrong Box?!

Birthday Boys

Piano Recital

All Sorts of Illegal.....

Going Green

March Madness!!!

Snowboarding!!

Let the Romance Begin.... or not

Sweethearts Dance 2011

Good-bye January!!

Happy Birthday Rik!!

Yippee for Snowboarding Nights!!!

New Years Resolutions 2011

December 2010

Christmas Tree Pictures Over the Years

Thanksgiving 2010

Sometimes you just have to brag.....

The New News for November

State Cross Country!!

Halloween 2010

And Here's the Rest...

I Love Looong Weekends!

A Few School Pictures

It's About Time!

Homecoming 2010

Do You Like Green Eggs and Jam??

Odds and Ends, and Oddities

Who are you and what did you do with my old life?

The Tail End of Summer

WooHoo!! 17 years!

Zzzzzzzzzz

Happy Birthday Anaya!!

High Adventure 2010

Girls Camp and Babies!!

Starting July with a BANG!

June 2010

Happy 14th!

And Even More May (Exactly how long is this month anyway?!)

More May....

Almost done.... almost done.....

Lookin' Good

Spring Dance Recital

Kayden's Famous Legs

Yippee for Easy Sundays!!

The Difference Between Boys and Girls

Daddy Daughter Date

So, have you ever had one of those days??

Happy Birthday McKay!!

I Love This!

Easter Weekend 2010

Spring Break 2010

OoOoh look... I'm on a roll now!

sniff Is Summer REALLY Over???