y acontecio

It's Great to be Eight

2012-02-05T13:30:00.000-08:00

Grant had his eighth birthday on Thursday and was baptized on Saturday (we also blessed Autumn). He is a wonderful boy and we are so glad to have him in our family. Some of his favorite things to do right now are play sports, shoot his BB gun and bow, play board and card games, read Harry Potter. I could write tons about what a great kid he is, but I will only share one example......

Thursday he spent his own money to buy a book that shows you how to fold various star wars spacecraft. (It wasn't particularly cheap either) It has printed paper that when folded correctly makes the millennium falcon, x wing fighters, etc. It had 4 or 5 of each. He has been excitedly folding them. Last night he had two of his cousins spend the night and earlier had told me he would probably let them make one each. They went home with at least three each, which he patiently showed them how to fold. This was without us telling him to share.

I am so glad Grant is my son and am glad he made the choice to be baptized.

Before his baptism

With Autumn, since she also had a special day.

On his birthday.

Autumn

Guess the baby....

2012-02-05T13:19:00.001-08:00

I was going to do a guess the baby game with each of them in their blessing outfits, and then realized Grant would be a dead give away, so I found these pictures instead. Sorry that some of them have a huge white background, we recently upgraded to a new windows program and the picture viewer is different and I am missing photoshop, so I cropped them in paint and I don't know how to fix the pictures, maybe someday, I will fix them.

How in the world did that happen?

2012-01-28T21:28:00.001-08:00

After all the kids were bathed and pajamaed, Grant and I sat down to play Othello. A few minutes into it, he started feeling his back, and said it was weird. So, he lifted his shirt a bit and it looked like a big long scratch. He came closer and thankfully it was not blood, but it was a big long curvy line of bubble gum, stuck to his back. It went from his shoulder down to his pants and was even in one of his armpits. What?

He had just taken a shower, plus how could that have happened anyway? He said that he was chewing gum in the shower. That's a new one. He did blow a bubble and it popped in the water. I asked him if he threw the gum away or if he swallowed it. He said he didn't remember doing either.

It was the most hilarious thing. We didn't find gum on his towel or on his shirt. Just his back. The poor kid had the painful experience of pulling little strands of gum off his back that were attached to the little hairs on his back. Ouch.

We laughed so hard. Seriously, how does one get gum on his back. He is talented.

(I tried to get a picture, but it didn't really turn out)

Cakes

2012-01-27T21:07:00.000-08:00

I've decided that what I envision and what happens when I decorate cakes are never the same. I try. Grant's birthday party is tomorrow and it has a StarWars theme. So I decided to make a light saber cake. You make a 9x13 cake cut it in three strips, join them to make a light saber. Easy, right?

1. My cake turned out weird, more like cornbread then cake. (oh well, who cares once the frosting is on, right?)

2. when I tried to get it out of the pan, it broke. (oh well, it is just a little bit shorter of a light saber, right?)

3. It is really hard to make gray or black frosting when all you have is yellow, green, and neon purple food coloring. (oh well, kind of light tan is the latest thing in light saber handles, right?)

At least Grant thinks it looks cool. That is what matters, not how it tastes, right?

It's Autumn-time

2012-01-26T21:31:00.000-08:00

Ok, so now that she is two months old, I suppose it is time to blog about her.....

Did you notice that my last post was Nov 23rd. Well an hour or so after that post I went to my weekly doctor's appointment planning to schedule a time to be induced. The nurse took my blood pressure, then took it again, then took it on the other arm, then got her manual one and took it. Then, she went and got the doctor. He checked me and then said go straight to the hospital. Apparently I had high blood pressure. Very high. So, I called Doug, then called a friend to spend the night with the kids. The night before Thanksgiving. Thankfully one friend could come over around 9 and spend the night and another let the kids come over to her house until then.

Anyway, long story short...At 1:11 a.m. on Thanksgiving our little turkey, actually a pretty big turkey, arrived. Autumn Kathryn weighed 10 lbs 9 oz and was 21 inches long.

The following picture presentation is not in chronological order and I don't want to take the time to fix it so, here it is....

Autumn with the turkey that Nicole crocheted for her

At Antelope Island, when she was about a week old. I had to get out of the house.

This was at about two weeks, and I realized her days of 0-3 clothing were limited.

That's a pretty good sized baby

All cleaned up

In her cute little bear coat

Two months old, and finally a smile caught on camera.

Christams Eve, 1 month old

YourLDSradio.com

2011-11-23T11:59:00.001-08:00

So, there is this internet radio station called your LDS radio.com, found at yldsr.com.....

They play LDS music, they even have a classic station, with songs such as I'll Build You a Rainbow....Anyway, I like to have it on my computer. I heard they were having their 3rd anniversary celebration with prize package giveaways on facebook. So, I decided to like them and see if I could win anything. (They are still trying for their 2500th fan, so I thought my odds were decent.) Turns out, I did win! My prize came in the mail today.......

I received:

An Ogden Temple ornament

A YW values book (someone is getting it for her birthday next week)

The Nashville Tribute Band, tribute to Missionaries CD

EFY 2011 CD

Rhodes Rolls Cookbook

The Waterfall Concept

Walking in Darkness at Noonday

A Piece of Silver (the book, not an actual piece of silver)

The first book in a new series called Zion's Promise (starts in 1860 England)

Not bad. Now I have a book to read at the hospital if I can wait that long to start reading.

Seriously, now?

2011-11-23T06:26:00.000-08:00

So, through my 5 previous pregnancies, I have always thrown up once. Well, I guess some streaks don't want to end, so this morning at 38 weeks and 2 days, I finally threw up for this one. It isn't because I am sick, in fact I feel fine now, too fine in fact, it was supposed to put me into labor, it is because I brushed my teeth. 85% of the time that I brush my teeth, I gag, dry heave, feel like I am going to throw up, but this time I finally managed it. Exciting, I know. One would think that I could have made it 4 more days....

Mark this day down in history

2011-11-10T17:45:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I took all five children and myself to the dentist for our semi-annual cleanings and checkups. Yes, I am crazy, but now we are done.

The amazing part.....No one had a cavity!!!!!! That is definitely the first time that has ever happened, hopefully it won't be the last.

Besides the dentist, I went to the chiropractor and took Nicole to the orthodontist. Maybe I over scheduled a bit.

Halloween

2011-11-01T17:47:00.000-07:00

Jen the birthday girl.

So, I thought I should at least put a picture up....The family picture is from our party on Saturday. We also celebrated Jen's b-day on Saturday, since Daddy had to go to Minnesota for a week and left on Sunday. I made a cute cake, but our camera quit on us during the party, so the picture is on the girl's camera and we can't find the right cord, so just imagine a cute cake, it had butterflies on it.

I think Emma is trying to look mean, not that she didn't want a picture. Hopefully, or else she is just working on that teenage look. Nicole is Padme, if you were wondering, and Laura is a Halloween fairy.

So, Monday, we started the day with doughnuts, just what you need on Halloween, I know, but since it was a birthday, we have doughnuts. Since Doug was out of town, I took Jen and Laura trick-or-treating on one street while the big kids stayed home to pass out candy. I should have just let them come with me though, no one came to our house during that 1/2 hour. Then the little girls and I handed out candy, we got about 50 people, I have tons of candy left over, and the three older ones took themselves trick-or-treating. I told them to be home around 8, 8:30 at the latest. They got home at 7:30. They definitely do not care about candy as much as I did as a kid. My parents let me go with the kid across the street when we were 10. We basically ran from house to house and covered all three neighborhoods near our house. We finally went home when one house told us to high tail it home because there was a tornado watch. Maybe I just have an embellished memory, but it seems to me, I would get at least 1/2 a pillowcase if not more. My kids got maybe 50 pieces, and they were fine with that.

This is why you don't jump off swings

2011-09-20T18:00:00.000-07:00

Also known as I'm so glad that Daddy came home. I was downstairs and heard a cacophony of screaming upstairs. I took one look at Grant on the back porch and knew that stitches were to be had. I stuck a washcloth on his head and called Doug, but he didn't answer. He will have a message in the morning. Then I called the doctor's office to see if I could go to the small office by our house or if I had to go to Layton or the hospital. The receptionist told me I could just go to the office by my house, but didn't promise they could do the stitches, but they could at least tell me.

So, I walked out of my room and just about ran into Doug. So as he did a little more first aid (gauze pad) the Dr.'s office called me back and said that the one provider at the Roy office wouldn't do facial stitches, so we should go to Layton. Anyway, Doug took care of it, they got home 1 1/2 hours later with 12 stitches and 10 lollipops. He said they told him he could have 12, but he only took 10.

We think he should be Frankenstein for Halloween, but he said he wanted to be Harry Potter.

I should just stick to the children's section

2011-09-18T16:02:00.000-07:00

I checked out Julie and Julia the other day. I just came across it in the cookbook section and thought, there was a movie about this and it sounded interesting. Haven't seen the movie, sure won't now. I think I made it oh 5 pages. It was so vulgar. Really? Why can't "adults" write without using vulgarities????? How does it improve the story? I really was interested to know how cooking every recipe in one of Julia child's cookbooks helped her work through whatever problem she was having. I didn't really find out what the problem was, didn't make it that far.

Another book I checked out once upon a time was Wicked. After hearing so many rave reviews of the musical I checked out the book. (I still haven't seen the musical, do I dare?) I think I read a whole chapter before I shut it. It was so disgusting.

I know there are some good clean "adult" books, please help me find them. I know that just about anything by Beverly Lewis is safe. Janette Oke too. The Quilter's Apprentice books by Jennifer Chiaverini have been clean.

There is my rant about adult books.

First Day of School Take 2

2011-08-30T12:18:00.000-07:00

Today Jen finally started kindergarten. It is a long wait until it is time to go on your first day.

She looks a little scared. At least she knows the boy who sits next to her.

On the playground. Laura had to have her picture too.

Once again she had to be just like Jen.

This was actually the second picture I took of her, the first was the backpack. I think her teacher is going to have a Calvin on her hands.

Her backpack is about as big as she is.

First Day of School

2011-08-23T08:54:00.000-07:00

It's back to school, just in time for the hottest week of the summer so far. Jen will be in school too but her first day isn't until next week. The picture of Laura was really yesterday, but it does have a school theme, right?

This is the first year the kids didn't want me to walk them to school for the first day. I guess I could have insisted and said I wanted a picture by the school, but instead I got the dishes done.

Holland Lake

2011-08-13T12:52:00.000-07:00

We had the Hogge family reunion at Holland Lake in Montana this year. We went camping for 5 days. I am glad we had our trailer. It really is a gorgeous lake. Here are some pictures....

Nicole at the waterfall

The lake from the waterfall

Those of my family who hiked to the waterfall, Laura and I didn't.

Doug and Jen, half the time she had her legs wrapped around his.

Emma, at first she was adamant she wouldn't ski, but she ended up going at least twice.

Grant is in trouble.

Laura loved riding her turtle.

Doug

Laura driving the boat, yes by herself. We let her shoot guns, so why not drive the boat. She makes too sharp of turns for my taste.

Nicole

There are tons more pictures on other people's cameras, so hopefully I'll have some of Grant skiing and some of the tubing action eventually.

The County Fair

2011-08-12T05:57:00.001-07:00

A couple of years ago the girl's entered some baking in the county fair, earned ribbons and thought it was pretty cool. We finally got around to it again this year.

Nicole entered a crocheted hat, zucchini bread, and pistachio cupcakes. She received 2nd place for her bread and 3rd for her cupcakes.

Emma entered two photographs, a doll, sugar cookies, and some cream cheese cookie cup things.

She earned four 2nd place ribbons. Only one of her pictures didn't place. Here is her photo, it is of the waterfall at Holland Lake.

And, since I was printing photos and running back up to the fair to enter them anyway for Emma, I decided to throw one of mine in. Surprisingly, I ended up with a 1st place ribbon.

What to call this post?

2011-08-09T19:28:00.000-07:00

I really needed to defrost the freezer anyway.

Or, Drying our clothes out on the fence is better for the environment anyway.

Or, Doug really didn't want to go back to work last Monday, pumping water out of the basement is much more fun.

Or, disasters make earning credit card rewards so much quicker.

Or, Putting the basement back together was so much fun, we thought we would do it again.

Or, Isn't stacks of bins the new thing in front room decor?

Or, Is it Labor Day yet? This summer needs to end!

Why?

2011-07-14T20:34:00.001-07:00

Why is it that when you have a completely productive cleaning day the house explodes again the next day?

Why is it when I think I will get said house cleaned back up and then catch up on my blog when the kids go to bed, is it 10:20 and only one child is asleep and one is at this moment out of bed and crying for me?

Baseball Season

2011-07-07T20:49:00.000-07:00

Grant played baseball for the first time this summer. It was machine pitch. He really did a good job. Baseball at this age is mostly comedy, with most throws to first going over the first baseman's outstretched glove. I think he had fun. Some nights it was 90 degrees and some it was 60.

Wildflowers

2011-07-06T13:29:00.000-07:00

These are some of the flowers we saw on our camp-out. I will try to figure out what they are all called eventually...

Sugar Bowl or hairy Clematis

Tufted Evening Primrose

Leafy Spurge, one of MT's top 5 noxious weeds.

Wild Iris

Shooting Star

Arrowleaf Balsamroot

Camping Day 4

2011-07-05T13:23:00.000-07:00

Tuesday morning we went to Caboose Canyon and did a little hiking.

Then Doug, Grandpa, Emma, Nicole, and Grant climbed to the Indian Caves. The rest of us went back to the campground and got ready to leave. We left after lunch and got home 15 minutes before Grant's last baseball game. It was a pretty good campout.

Camping Day 3 Part 1

2011-07-04T12:43:00.000-07:00

We headed up to Deadman's Lake for our 4th of July Celebration. First we stopped at the Nicholia Creek sign so we could take a picture by Nicole's namesake. She was thrilled.

Then we stopped on some random mountain hill to shoot the guns. Doug bought the kids a new .22 with a shorter stock so they could shoot it easier. Before the guns came out, Nicole decided to ambush Grandma with a snowball....

She was thrilled.

This

is why Doug is such a great Dad for all these girls. What other dad lets his two year old shoot a gun. Really, the first thing Laura said when we got out of the car was "I shoot gun!"

Nicole

Grandma

Heather

Grant

Jen

Emma

Camping Day 3 Part 2

2011-07-04T11:00:00.000-07:00

We drove on to Deadman's Lake. Seriously, who ever made these roads was insane I think. Doug told me that once they got a flat on the steepest part of the descent to Deadman and they didn't have a jack or an ax, so they had to saw down a tree with the serrated edge of a shovel to use for a jack.

We had lunch, then we went fishing. We had to pull out of the water for a bit while a thunderstorm rolled through. I think four people caught fish. I didn't. But at least I saw some. That makes me feel successful enough. I did get a nibble or two. Emma decided to put some swedish fish on her hook to see if the fish liked that. It didn't work any better than the worms did for me though.

We were smart enough to bring dinner with us. So Doug went and started it while we kept fishing. We had a very yummy red, white, and blue cobbler.

As we left, in the dark of course, we saw nature's firework show. There was a huge thunderstorm in the distance with tons of lightning in it.

Camping Day 2

2011-07-03T12:38:00.000-07:00

Being Sunday, I don't have a bunch of pictures of activities. We got up and drove to Lima for church. I was quite disappointed to get in the car after church and have the thermostat say that it was 86 degrees. That is uncalled for in Montana. When I checked weather.com it was only supposed to be 78 degrees. Oh well. One "hot" day.

We, well not me personally, though I did bring the ingredients, cranked out some home made ice cream. We served it with some home made strawberry sauce and it was delicious.

People played games, I laid in the trailer and read a book. After dinner we went for a walk. That about sums it up.

Camping Day 1 Part 1

2011-07-02T20:52:00.000-07:00

We went camping in Big Sheep Creek Canyon over the Independence Day weekend. Friday night we drove up and met Doug's parents. We stuck two kids in their trailer and then went to bed. Can I just say how glad I am that we went north and had much cooler weather than we would have in Utah?

Saturday started out with Grant flipping some pancakes for us.

Then we planned to drive close to the Montana/Idaho border and go for a short hike. Then go to Morrison Lake and Grandpa and the kids would fish. We made it partway before we got stuck. Then Grandma and Grandpa got stuck trying to get us unstuck. So, while the men worked on getting unstuck.....

Grant climbed us this hill...

(He is the little orange speck)

Laura was cute....

Jen played in the water (so did Laura).

Thankfully, a truck came from the other direction and pulled both of our vehicles out of the mud.

The creek crossed the road and we actually saw some fish in it, until trucks started driving through it.

Camping Day 1 Part 2

2011-07-02T11:10:00.000-07:00

Once we were free of the mud we kept trying to head to our destination. The roads, if you can really call them that, that we drove on were amazing. Very steep at times. We came to a hill that was covered in snow and the truck in front of us stopped and started throwing snowballs...

After the snowballs and sledding we saw some elk...

Grandma and Grandpa got stuck in the mud again. We were able to pull them out, but decided that maybe we wouldn't try to drive all the way up, so we backtracked a bit and stopped for lunch. We went for a hike from there. Can I just say how pathetic I felt hiking up that hill. I guess it is harder when you are pregnant or something. We all made it to the crest of one hill and then Grandpa, Doug, Emma, and Grant went on to get to Idaho.

I just love Jen's face on this one...

Emma at the border marker....

Grant and Emma rowing their boat or something...

Camping Day 1 Part 3

2011-07-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

After the hike we drove down to Morrison Lake. It really was a beautiful lake, I should have had the camera out when we were above it to get a good shot, but I didn't.

Grandpa brought his raft and he and the kids went fishing. The rowing was interesting because Emma and Grant each tried to row it. Even I took a turn. The fish didn't bite.

I am not sure if Grant intentionally jumped in to pull in the raft, but both he and Jen ended up soaking wet.

Princess Festival

2011-06-15T20:36:00.000-07:00

I took Jen to the princess festival at Thanksgiving Point courtesy of a free ticket. She was so excited to go and I decided to pull out this dress for her to wear that I was going to save for her birthday or school or some other grand occasion. (It has proven to be the favorite Sunday dress of the summer, especially because Laura has a matching one.

Here she is playing croquet with the Queen of Hearts

Having "Pearl" autograph her book. She only ended up with two autographs, she didn't really care about it much.

She was enthralled with the Princess and the Frog, the frog would carry on a conversation courtesy of a web cam.

This was by far her favorite princess though. Her cousin Brittany, aka Winifred. She was the Princess and the Pea princess.

After she found Brittany the only thing she wanted to do was to go back to the Noah's Ark (well, Captain Hook's ship today) and play in the water.

First Camp Out in the new trailer

2011-06-14T20:58:00.000-07:00

We finally took the trailer camping for Doug's birthday. We were going to go to some remote locale, but since we got a late start we just went to a place called Crystal Hot Springs in Honeyville.

We just had dinner, chickenless chicken and dumplings, because I forgot the chicken and then went to bed.

Saturday we went swimming at the hot springs, then we went home. Short and sweet.

Ants....

2011-06-13T19:17:00.000-07:00

No, they aren't in my house, at least I haven't seen any.

Ants and I are not friends. They have been in my house in summers past. I really don't like them. I had noticed a few ant hills on the south side of my house and thought I should do something about those. Tonight I finally decided to start doing something.

Borax is my friend. It kills ants. I have a borax barrier around the edges of all the shelves in my storage room. When there are ants in my garage or on the front porch, I put borax out to kill them. But of course, you can't just put borax out, they won't carry it back to the nest and eat it. You have to trick the little buggers. You mix the borax about 50/50 with powdered sugar and then mix it with peanut butter or honey. You should see them swarm it. With it mixed with sweetness, they will carry it back to the nest.

So, tonight I mixed up some of this deceptive concoction and told my 5 year old that it was poison and not to touch it and we put out about six little piles by the ants. (Really, I don't care if they are far away from my house, but when they are living right next to the foundation they have to go.) I told to just watch for a few minutes, and by the time I washed my hands and came back out, they were all over it.

It was a good chance to talk with my 7 year old about how things can look good, but really aren't, and he said like alcohol. Good boy. I think it is relevant. So many things in the world are sugar coated, but they are really harmful. The kids said something about, look how many ants there are now, where did they all come from. Just like people, hey this new fad is awesome and tons of people rush out to take part, not knowing what it really is. So, don't be an ant and stay away from sugar coated poison.

Indoor Swimming Pool

2011-06-09T10:16:00.000-07:00

Haven't you always wanted one?

We had a really nice Memorial Day weekend up at Grandma Aldridge's house. We were afraid that it would be rainy the whole time and we wouldn't get to do the yard work that we went up there to do. But, Saturday was gorgeous, sunny and almost 60. We trimmed trees, weeded flower beds, planted flowers, knocked down the root cellar, installed the air conditioner, all that kind of stuff.

Sunday it started to rain. We went to church and then had a birthday party for Rachael, Brooke, Doug, and Marjorie.

Monday it was not so rainy but COLD. We went to the Ucon cemetery and had lunch then headed home. As a side not, I was not feeling very well, and looking forward to getting home and going to bed.

It was pretty rainy once we entered Utah. When we got to Roy, I saw some Disaster Cleanup trucks and some yards that were full of water. The slough was really high, as high as I had ever seen it. I guess we should have seen it that morning, people said it was even higher.

We started unloading the car and the girls came running out yelling that there was water in the basement. Ta da! Our own indoor swimming pool, well maybe a wading pool since it was only 1-2 inches deep. Where did it come from? The window sills were all dry, the water was clear and not muddy.... The foundation. The ground was just so soaked that we flooded, as did the people across the street and at least 3 other people I know of, and they didn't even live by the slough.

I went next door to see if they had flooded too, they hadn't, but they asked if they could help, I said, nah, we don't even know where we are starting yet. I and asked the next neighbors, because their basement is lower and they didn't flood. Then I went next door to use their computer and by the time I got home we had 4-5 neighbors downstairs pushing water towards the drain and some shop-vac going on. I called to ask one neighbor for a shop-vac to use and he came and stayed until nearly midnight.

So anyway, we spent the evening chucking stuff out the window, pulling up carpet, and sucking up water. Emma nicely made dinner for the kids. The kids all worked hard, even Jen. Laura was the most traumatized I think. When we got most of the standing water up, we could tell that it was still coming in. Between 12 and 1, Doug said it finally stopped coming in.

A friend of mine, whose basement also flooded that day came over to help me clean the kitchen, start the laundry, and cleaned the bathroom. She said they were in the drying stage and couldn't do anything at her house anyway.

Tuesday, I was supposed to go down to Kiersten's to hang out with my mom, but instead they came up and Barbara and Leslie came down and helped me go through the piles of stuff outside. Doug took the day off of work, and worked on stuff in the house. We actually didn't have to throw out too much stuff. We did chuck all the carpet pad though. The girls were really lucky that Doug made them clean their room before we went to Idaho, or we would have thrown out a lot more.

At this point we haven't started putting it back together yet. The big girls are bunking with the little kids and their isn't much floor space in the rooms. They are surviving summer without TV or toys for now.

Bittersweet

2011-05-16T14:53:00.000-07:00

Today was the Math/Science Olympiad for 3rd-6th graders in our district. It was old hat for Emma, she has participated every year so far, but brand new for Nicole, since she is in 3rd grade. This year both girls were in the Krypto contest. First time for both of them. If you don't know what Krypto is, join the club, I hadn't heard of it before Emma was in 3rd grade. Basically they give you 5 cards and then a target number. Then using addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division, you try to get to that number.

Each school sends three kids to be on a team and they work together to get as many points as they can in 12 minutes. You get a point for Krypto, an extra one for using division, and having more than two numbers over 10. It is impossible to tell how your school is doing compared to the others during the contest. It looked like Nicole's team was doing fine. But, unfortunately they didn't place. Emma's team did great and got 1st. So, that is why it is bittersweet. You feel bad for one child and excited for the other.

San Francisco

2011-05-11T15:42:00.000-07:00

The Oakland Temple

In the Redwoods

I thought this was a really weird tree

Doug took this one while riding the cable cars, those hills are insane.

somewhere between Pacifica and Santa Cruz

Over Easter weekend, Doug and I went to San Francisco. The reason, I have always wanted to see the Redwoods, and it was a convenient place to at least see some. Grandma came and watched the kids and we went and had some fun. Friday we went to Muir Woods and hiked around for nearly 5 hours. Then we went and found our hotel. It was right on the ocean. Our room even had the balcony facing it. We went to get dinner and narrowly avoided an accident. That was fun.

Saturday, we went to the Flower Conservatory, then took the train downtown and caught the cable car to the wharf. We didn't really have to catch it, we had to wait in line for about an hour, it was worth it to Doug anyway. He did the stand on the side thing. I could not believe the hills in San Francisco. It is a good thing it doesn't snow there. We walked around the piers, we were lucky it was free National Park week, so we went onto the old ships they have there. We saw the sea lions, we walked up to Coit Tower, then we took the train back to our car and went to dinner at the Cliff House. I can't believe they built that thing. Of course, I can't believe lots of what they built around there.

Sunday, we went to church, then we drove down the coast as far as Santa Cruz. We drove back through some more redwoods, stopped at a look out point where you could see Stanford and that part of the valley.

Monday, we went back downtown and went to Ghiradelli Square, then we went to the Italian district and ate lunch on the sidewalk, well on a table, but the table was on the sidewalk. In our hotel room, they had some city guides and they talked about two fabulous cafes in the Italian district, so we were going to go to one. Guess what, not open on Mondays, neither was the other one. After lunch we drove up to the Oakland Temple and walked around. (We had a hard time with things being close, the visitor's center was closed for cleaning.) So we drove around Berkeley, then stopped for a snack and went to the airport. Good thing he brought some cards for us to play, because we were there a bit early, but it came down to not really enough time to go do anything else and I was actually exhausted at that point. Then of course, our plane was delayed, but not too badly.

All in all, it was a great trip and we weren't sick of each other after four straight days, so I take that as a good sign.

Some cute kids

2011-05-11T15:36:00.000-07:00

Prom

2011-05-11T15:30:00.000-07:00

Our stake hosted a prom for us old married fogies last Saturday. It was so fun. I had the cutest date there. He is so much fun to dance with. There were some elderly couples there that could really dance. I think the turnout was probably more than they expected, it was definitely more than I expected.

Parenting 1200

2011-04-03T21:13:00.001-07:00

This afternoon in conference someone (I think it was Elder Holland) talked about easy kids being parenting 101 and harder ones being parenting 505. I decided my mom must have taken Parenting 1212. She definitely earned her post doctorate degree. I don't know how she did it. Since becoming a mother to 5 wonderful children, I have really wondered how she had 12 kids. I know how miserable I was with each pregnancy and I never noticed her being sick. (I was 12 when #12 was born, so I was likely just clueless.) Instead she was running teenagers around, helping with graham cracker castles, and sewing prom dresses.

A kind of running joke I have with my husband is how I don't make breakfast for him. Well, I do, about once a month. See, his mom made him breakfast, and not cold cereal, every day. I let him know that wouldn't be happening before we got married. Breakfast at my house was cold cereal, pancakes you made yourself from pancake mix, or anything else you wanted to fix. Sometimes one of us would be ambitious and make muffins or coffee cake, or my dad might fry an egg. Though, during the years my dad taught early morning seminary, my mom did make breakfast for him. It finally dawned on me a few years ago why my mom probably didn't get up and make us breakfast. Drum roll please....From the time she was 22 until 44 she constantly had a newborn to one year old or was pregnant. Of course she didn't make us breakfast, she probably never slept. Anyway, my kids are pretty self -sufficient at making breakfast, at least they know where the cold cereal is. (My excuse is that is when I go running or walking).

(And by the way, even though my mother in-law made Doug breakfast, she also taught him how to cook, and he probably ate the most balanced meals of any college kid ever, putting a roast in the crock pot, before he left for classes, etc.)

This is when there were only 11 of us.

Kind of crazy, but since my sister was married before the youngest was born, 1998 was the first time all 12 of us were together in our home in Kansas.

Also, 12 kids wasn't enough for my mom. She had various foreign exchange students live with her, I think 4, but that was after I left home, so I am not sure. One, lived with my parents for all three years of high school. So that really counts as 13 kids.

Of course, we were perfect angel children and never caused her any grief so raising 12 kids was easy. No one ever decided to drive the station wagon when she was 2 and knock over the neighbors mail box. No one ever got life threatening illnesses. We never fought with each other. We were always perfectly quiet on Sunday afternoons, reading or doing puzzles, so she could have a nap. Always. Or not.

Your doing great in your coursework, maybe someday we will let you graduate.

The more things stay the same...

2011-03-20T20:57:00.001-07:00

the more they change.

We have lived in our house for almost 5 years.

As of today we are in our 4th ward and 3rd building.

Yes, I brag about my children

2011-03-07T19:14:00.001-08:00

Emma got a letter in the mail today, informing her that she qualified for the state Geography Bee!!!. In the fall she won the school bee (see picture below) and then she had to take a written test in January. The top 100 scorers on the test get to compete in the state level. I think she knows more about geography than I do. Nice work Emma!

The things I think about....

2011-03-07T10:33:00.000-08:00

While driving home from Montana yesterday, we passed mile post 53 in Idaho. I thought, "I wish that were mile post 35 instead." Mainly because Jen was really needing to get out of the car for a bit and the exit we were going to take to stop was exit 36...so we would have stopped and been on our way again. Anyway, I wondered to myself, how many miles would that be and of course the answer is 18. I then thought about 42 and 24 and subtracted those and again 18. So I decided to see if all 2 digit numbers that the digits are 2 apart can be flipped around and the difference be 18....

20 31 42 53 64 75 86 97

-02 -13 -24 -35 -46 -57 -68 -79

They are all 18

So then, with my amazing inquiring mind, (that had nothing more to do then look at sagebrush and tell the other kids to ignore Jen) I wondered would this work with digits 3 apart. I knew it wouldn't be 18, but would they all be the same....

30 41 52 63 74 85 96

-03 -14 -25 -36 -47 -58 -69

all 27. Amazing

Would the pattern continue?

Yes it would

40 51 62 73 84 95

-04 -15 -26 -37 -48 -59

all 36

50 61 72 83 94

-05 -16 -27 -38 -49

digits 6 apart were 54

7 apart were 63

1 apart were 9

You get the picture. So to all math nerds out there...Why? It all has to do with the #9, when the digits were 3 apart the difference was 27 (3*9), that pattern holds throughout.

So there you go. The things I think about while driving through Idaho.

Candy Bouquets

2011-01-28T22:03:00.000-08:00

Emma told me yesterday that for Barter Day at school next week she wanted to sell candy bouquets. This is the result:

Emma's

Grant's

Nicole's

Jen's

Mine

We had a lot of fun. Laura helped by eating m&m's.

I love this kid!

2011-01-22T05:49:00.000-08:00

I suppose I could save this for a few weeks from now when Laura has her 2nd birthday, but hey, I'm already at the computer.

Man, is Laura a fun kid. She has started to chat away all day. She is a pro at getting out of her bed, (I really should video that), she gives awesome hugs and kisses.

She likes to dress herself. She especially likes to dress herself in Jen's clothes.

She used to love this pacifier, we called it her plug. Her New Year's resolution was to quit using it. Of course she had no choice in the matter and as of Jan 1, she has not had her plug. She does great at bedtime. Naptime is now pretty non-existent since there is no plug, she can climb out of bed, and she can open doors. Really, what not even two year old is supposed to open doors?

I have noticed her copying Jen in so many ways. In this picture, she is wearing Nicole's dress because moments before, Jen was wearing it. Jen likes to put books under her pillow at night. Last night, I saw Laura do the same thing. If Jen wants a drink, Laura wants a drink, etc. She sure is fun and we all love her.

Christmas

2011-01-22T05:38:00.000-08:00

We had our traditional Sleep Under the Christmas Tree party on the 18th. We watched "Christmas Story." No, not "You'll shoot your eye out" but a Finnish film about how Santa Claus came to be. It was good. We also had sundaes of course.

The next morning we opened our Christmas presents to each other since we didn't want to take everything to Kansas. (it would have been hard to fit the end tables in the car.)

Wednesday we drove to Colorado and stayed with the Lees. The Barnums came over for breakfast and then we went on to Kansas. We ahd a great time playing with cousins and did things like caroling, swimming, basketball, racquetball, learned to play some new games.

The drive home was frigid. I don't know why Colorado thought it had to be so cold. We stayed with the Lees an extra day so Doug and Rick could go skiing. (They are crazy, it was negative degrees) We had a New Year's Eve party that I missed most of with my screaming baby. New Year's Day we drove home.When the snow blows in Wyoming it really blows.

Christmas morning in Kansas

Jen

Grant's new basketball

Awesomest Husband...

2010-12-21T11:18:00.000-08:00

I have to say that I definitely have the most awesome husband in the world. The end.

Just kidding, not about the awesome part, just the the end part. For example, the other day he took apart my kitchen aid, figured out what was wrong, ordered the part and ta-da, it works.

Last night, we were having issues with a child and had said child at the table for a discussion and he was amazing. He called the meeting and was serious, but threw in enough humor to cut the tension, plus some personal experience stories. Way to go. I tend to just say "knock it off already." This is definitely why God wants kids to have a mom and a dad.

He built the big girls end tables for Christmas. Not to mention the pergola he is building off the back of our house, a finished basement here, and a completely remodeled home in Connecticut.

I was definitely wise to marry him.

(and weren't we so young a cute back then)

And now the continuing saga of ornaments (I didn't quite do this daily)...

Nicole made me this Baby Jesus in the manger a couple of years ago. She also learned to sing "Away in a Manger" in Spanish (Jesus in pesebre). Nice work Colie.

Faux Gingerbread Houses

2010-12-13T13:00:00.000-08:00

Friday afternoon we went to Grant's class to help with "gingerbread" houses. Jen got to make one too and they had a great time. The teacher said they do have a problem for next year though, the lunchroom now uses plastic bottles instead of the paper milk cartons, what to use for the base????

My mom got me this ornament to symbolize my high school(and some of college) job. Yes, I worked at McDonalds. It wasn't glamorous, but it was a good job for me. They never made me work on Sunday and were very flexible with my schedule and I have to say Mindy and I made one heck of a drive-thru team. (I hated smelling like fries though.)

Temple Square

2010-12-12T13:06:00.000-08:00

Friday night, we went to Temple Square to see the Christmas lights. We usually take the train, which I think might be the kids favorite part, but we needed to go to a store and pick up a tent for the scouts. We did park at 1300 S and rode trax though.

I think this is the first time I have gone to see the lights that wasn't bitterly cold. It was about 40.

I love this picture, Laura loves her daddy so much.
Really, she is a Daddy's girl, she even has his green eyes.

Looking down from the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.

My mom thinks she gave this one to me for my first Christmas. I just remember having it as long as I can remember.

Ta-da!!!!

2010-12-08T13:15:00.001-08:00

I have decided that "Ta-da" is Laura's favorite word. She says it whenever she does anything she is proud of: buckling her car seat, taking on or off shoes, pants, shirts, socks, diapers, climbing out of bed, getting the lid off a marker, finding scissors and using them, moving the stool into position, climbing to the counter, getting a glass, etc.

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My mom has always collected nativities. At one point I bet she had more than 100. I like them too. This ornament was given to me in high school by one of my friends. I met her in 9th grade and then we shared lockers through high school. I have hardly seen her since then. This is one of the reasons I do like facebook. Now we are friends on facebook and I can see her cute family.

O Christmas Tree

2010-12-07T13:46:00.001-08:00

Here is our Christmas tree. It is very tall. We were going to get a small one, but found a tall blue spruce instead. We only went in the ditch once while in the mountains to cut it down. It was fun. No, really, it was. The tree may not be perfectly round and full like artificial ones, but it sure smells good.

As a child, I would receive a new ornament every Christmas, in my stocking if I recall. I started doing this with my children. I decided though it was sort of anti-climatic to get the ornament on Christmas and then put it in a box until next year so St. Nicholas came to the rescue. For the past 5 or 6 years St. Nicholas brings not only candy, but also a new ornament and places them in the shoe of good little children on December 6th at our house. (This year it was a glass ball, hand painted (but not by me) with a santa or reindeer or snowman, etc.)

When we put up our tree this year, one of my children said something to the effect that our Christmas tree is like looking at the past as you put up your ornaments and remember where they came from. In that spirit, I decided to chronicle some of my ornaments. I will do one a day, so stay tuned.

This angel I received a long time ago. I don't really remember but I think I was around 10. My mom somehow found a set of at least 10 angels so we all had the same, but different, ornament. This is one of my favorite ornaments. and it made it on the tree this year. (Not all of mine do each year, because the kids have so many and someday they won't be around to put theirs on anymore and I will have plenty of room to put all of mine on the tree.)

2010-11-12T21:00:00.000-08:00

Sunflowers

2010-11-12T20:46:00.000-08:00

I love sunflowers. They are so bright and cheery. I didn't ever get a good picture of it in bloom this year, but I had a nice little patch in the backyard. I planted a few seeds, but most were volunteers. I didn't notice it last year, but this year little birds would come to my sunflower patch and eat the seeds. They were so fun to watch and pretty too. One type was a yellow bird, not a meadowlark, but almost all yellow with black markings, and of course I never got a picture of them. They would even hang upside down to eat the seeds. Lately there were some little birds with red heads. The above picture of today. I decided it was probably time to pull them up. I don't think the birds had left a single seed. So, I did, now it is a bare patch. The funny thing was, I threw all the stalks or whatever you want to call them into a pile in the horse field. When I went out to dump some apple peels, a bunch of little birds flew off the pile. I guess they were still looking for seeds.

Halloween

2010-10-31T17:55:00.001-07:00

We had a fun Halloween, as usual. What's not to love about a crazy weekend with a total of three birthday parties, a basketball tournament, dipping and decorating over 100 strawberries, staying up late, having a costume contest, trick-or treating, having a family scavenger hunt, lots of company, etc. I did manage to not make a cake. I did sugar cookies for the friend b-day party, ice cream sundaes for the double family party, and ice cream again for the family party today.

If you can't figure it out. We have Rocky aka "The Italian Stallion", a cub scout, Katara (from the anime series Avatar), the scariest costume of all...a Ute fan, a care bear, supergirl, a lego. Don't worry I haven't turned into a Ute fan.

Fairy Party

2010-10-31T17:51:00.000-07:00

The big girls were the head fairies and had the birthday party invitees find the treasure that the mean old ogre had stolen. Thanks for helping Jen have a great b-day party!

One of those days

2010-09-23T21:03:00.000-07:00

It was one of those crazy kind of days. This will be a boring post. I went running at 6:30. Got home around 7. Breakfast for kids, fix some lunches, fix some hair, dress Laura, take Nicole, Laura, and Jen, to the orthodontist for Nicole's 8 am appointment. (Leaving a crying Grant home with Emma, I told him to leave for school at 8:15 and Emma said she wanted to leave at 8:12). Take Nicole to school at 8:20, switch the laundry, start cleaning the kitchen, pretend to brush Jen's hair. Leave again at 9:25 and sit in the car for half and hour whilst no one shows up for volleyball...why do I even try....Home again, take a shower, make a few phone calls, load the girls in the car, go to the library, drive to Brigham City and pick peaches. Yeah, they are such good peaches!!!!! Get home at 2. Eat some lunch, put Laura in the bath that Jen started for her. Jen had put milk in Laura's hair. Jen started the other bath for herself. Sort the laundry while girls play in respective tubs. Get Laura out, try to put a towel on her. She says "NO!!!!" and proceeds to grab some toilet paper and attempt to dry herself. Get girls dressed, hurry and put laundry away, go outside to watch for the kids coming home from school. Do the look in backpack and what can I eat thing. Start dinner. Help Nicole start making hot pads to sell at 3rd grade market day. Doug gets home. Finish making dinner. Eat dinner. Read Sister-in-law's blog and find out she is expecting. Take Grant to soccer practice (witness a miracle in progress while there...a little boy who wasn't supposed to walk again was kicking a ball). Come home at 7. (husband gone to scouts) Tell Emma to wash the dishes she was supposed to. According to family rule, she is supposed to go to bed now because jobs were not done. Tell her if she does the dishes and cleans 100 things in the playroom I would cut her a deal. She whines about cleaning. Discover the dishes aren't very clean, so I ask her to redo them, she whines, so off to bed for her at 7:20. Do not have a happy child. Put Laura to bed. Get other kids pajamaed. Start to help Nicole again. Hear a sickening thud from upstairs. Find Laura on the floor, screaming. Try to figure out if anything is broken. Doug comes home, all kids to bed. He leaves to play basketball, I clean the playroom (not because I played with the toys but because I want it clean). Collapse at computer.

I guess we know who he likes best

2010-09-12T17:15:00.000-07:00

The other morning Grant was saying family prayers. He blessed everyone, Dad at work, the big girls and himself at school, Mom, Jen, and "bless Laura more," pause. Then he added because she is sick. It cracked me up inside during the pause though.

Comfy?

2010-09-12T17:11:00.000-07:00

I'd have to say this doesn't look like a very comfortable way to sleep to me.

Half-marathon

2010-09-10T13:46:00.001-07:00

I decided I wanted to do a half-marathon at least once in my life. I do not ever plan on doing a marathon, that is just crazy. So I signed up for the Top of Utah Half-marathon. It started up a canyon in Hyrum and finished in Providence, about a mile from my sister's house. One of my sister in law's ran it too. (I would say did it with me, but she is so much faster that she wasn't really with me.) I trained for a couple of months, with a nice neighbor who would go on 8, 9, or 10 mile runs with me, even though she wasn't doing something so crazy.

My goal was to finish in with a 12 minute mile average, so 2 hours 36 minutes. I started out great and was surprised to look at my watch once and see that it had already been an hour. The first 7 miles were down the canyon and the above picture is me at mile 7, where my husband and kids were waiting. At 10 miles I was still doing good, I thought. I made it in 2 hours, so all I had to do was finish the last 3.1 in 36 minutes. Well, I crashed. I could hardly move my legs. I would look at my watch and see that I was going 15 minute miles and will myself to go faster, but to no avail.

I did keep moving and eventually I finished, in 2 hours and 46 minutes. So, 10 minutes slower than I wanted, but I did run 13.1 miles (well I walked through the mile 11 aid station, about 100 yards).

I took a nice shower, ate some good food at a Cafe Sabor, then went and climbed on a mountain to pick huckleberries.

A rainbow kind of day

2010-09-10T13:40:00.001-07:00

This evening, while I was jogging, I thought to myself, "This is a rainbow kind of day." It was raining off and on and the sun was just breaking through. Sure enough, within 5 minutes, there was a rainbow. (Disclaimer: The above picture is not yesterday's rainbow, but one from August, I didn't take a picture yesterday. )

There were scattered showers all day. As I walked with the children to school, I noticed that to the west there were blue skies, to the east, dark clouds. We talked about how if someone had checked out a back window of our house, he would have thought it was a sunny day. Out a front window, completely stormy. It reminded me of the folk tale where two friends see the same person walk by and one thinks his hat is red, the other green. They get in a huge fight about it. Turns out, the hat is both.

There is a rock in my ear, but it's okay, I can still hear

2010-09-09T21:29:00.000-07:00

What???? At bedtime the other night, my son told me he had a rock in his ear. So I got a flashlight, pulled on his ear and tried to see in the canal. I could see something that might be a rock. So I sent him to bed and went downstairs to inform his father. Said father told him to come downstairs and looked for himself. I then held the flashlight, whilst said father carefully extracted the rock with a toothpick. Then my son informed us that he thinks there was still another rock in his hear. Lo and behold, there was, bigger than the first. His father successfully extracted the second rock. Son couldn't remember if there were anymore rocks in his ear. We couldn't see anymore. I decided the otoscope walmart sells would be cheaper than a $100 visit to the doctor to find out we had removed all the rocks, so I went to wally world at 9:30. We couldn't find anymore rocks.

Why were there rocks in his ear? It seemed like a good idea at recess.

Score

2008-12-30T12:13:00.001-08:00

December

2008-12-30T12:07:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving

2008-12-30T11:59:00.000-08:00

Halloween

2008-12-30T11:58:00.000-08:00