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

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!!

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!

Anaya left this picture on my pillow the other day.

Easter Weekend 2010

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

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!

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)

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!