Happy Friendship Celebration!

Come on. I understand that some people don't celebrate holidays, but do we have to make up silly names for all the school parties that the kids have. Instead of a Halloween party they have a Harvest Celebration, instead of Christmas Parties we have a Winter Party and instead of a Valentines Party it is a Friendship Celebration?? Anyway....I went back and forth this year on if I wanted to have the kids do homemade valentines or if I just wanted to buy them at the store. After much debating we went with homemade. For FHE on Monday I pulled out all my paper, punches, glue, scissors etc. and let the kids go to town. It was pretty simple and TONS of fun. there was a small folded piece of paper that they got to decorate any way they wanted, then we put it around a sucker and stapled the bottom (I had to buy a new stapler as I have not been able to find mine for a very long time....it is probably hiding with my pizza cutter and my kitchen sheers.) They turned out really cute and the kids had a ball.

Nathan worked just as long as the other kids, but only produced ONE single valentine which he said was for his friend. It was huge with tons of papers glued on it. When he finally finished it he took the sucker out of it and ate it....guess he didn't quite get the concept.

Trevor worked well but stopped after about 15 and had me finish the rest of his so that he could finish a book. Before he left I told him to let me take a picture of him with his valentines that he had lined up. In order to get closer to them he tried to scoot over to the stool next to him....unfortunately I had moved the stool around to the other side of the counter to sit on.....so Trevor went right to the floor! He was such a trooper and got up to take the picture. If you look his expression still looks rather painful.

Kaylee could have done this all night. She finished the 23 she needed for her class then kept going. She is so creative and made each one of hers different. She ended up making some for her current teacher and past teacher and anyone else she could think of.

All in all they turned out great. I am heading up to the school to bring treats and help out with the friendship celebration (shouldn't they be forbidden to bring Valentine cards and only be able to bring Friendship cards?) Hope you all find LOVE this Friendship time of year!

Randomness

If there is any word that could explain my life right now it is random. My mind flips from one thing to the next with no real flow between things. You can imagine it is hard to put together a post when life is like this so here are some random bits and pictures that you have missed out on. The first show you Ashton's new past time. He is obsessed with dumping stuff out. Doesn't really matter what, but one of his favorites is the new dishwasher soap tablets that I bought. He used to dump out the big bucket of powder dishwasher detergent which was a HUGE pain to clean up, so I switched to these tablets (plus I think they work better) and yes you can still see the mostly empty bucket of powder detergent that is still taking up valuable under the sink space because I have not finished it, but went ahead and started using the tabs anyway.

Next is Kaylee's new hairdo. She came in one night with her hair in this strange up-do. Upon closer examination I discovered the source of the do was in fact a round brush that she had gotten VERY stuck in her hair, luckily we were able to get it out without any damage.

Next is a funny picture of Ashton, I don't remember what he had eaten, but he sure enjoyed it!

Then on to Trevor. Trevor LOVES to occasionally always give bunny ears in pictures, so what would happen if there was no one around to give said bunny ears to? Well this picture should answer that question.

Last but not least a small video of Nathan and Ashton who have become good friends and play the Wii together. Ashton of course is not allowed to touch any of the actual Wii equipment so we give him a game cube controller and as you can tell from the video he knows just what to do with it!

Hope you enjoyed and hope you have a GREAT day!

My Kaylee is Famous!!

Kaylee told me yesterday that a man from the news was at her class at school and did some stuff about weather and that she would be on the 6:00 news.  I figured I would record then news tonight at 6:00 and we could save it.  Well at 7:15 this morning Kaylee comes down stairs and asks if it is 6:00 yet.  I said What!!  You mean you were going to be on the news at 6:00 AM?!?  Oh NO!  We turned on the news but they did not replay it.  Luckily my amazing Hubby was able to find the video clip online!  She is only on at the very beginning in the front, you will be able to spot her if you look for the cutest girl in the room!

Check it out HERE

My week....

Well with all this beautiful sunshine we have spent every day in the great outdoors, absorbing all the sunshine and just relaxing.......

Ok, Ok, I have just had one of those crazy weeks where I swear I have been SUPER busy, but looking back on the week I have not gotten much done (that happens more often than I care to admit)  I spent all day last Saturday painting Kaylee's bedroom, then took a break on Sunday and spent all day Monday (no school for MLK Day) painting Trevor's room.  You might think I am CRAZY for doing the painting while all my kids were home, but my oldest are getting old enough that they were able to watch over the youngest while my SIL Andrea and I locked ourselves in a paint fume filled room and went to town.  I LOVE the way their rooms turned out and I am excited to do Nathan and Ashton's room (I ran out of home improvement budget for the month, so I have to wait to do their rooms til next month)

All day Tuesday was spent still in Trevor and Kaylee's room putting beds, dressers, desks and a limited number of toys (hence the reason I did it while they were at school) back in their rooms.  They were quite excited to see the results and have kept their rooms really clean all week (Kaylee even makes her bed every day before she comes downstairs for breakfast!)  Needless to say the rest of my house suffered because of the 3 straight days in two rooms and it was getting hard to walk around.  I tried to straighten it up, but had other important obligations (aka card night) to attend to, so when Bryan came home from work I said "good luck!" and walked (or ran) out the door.  I came home having my fill of "girl talk", expecting to plan to clean all day Wednesday, when to my utter amazement.....my house was CLEAN!!  Bryan had recorded our favorite show (Biggest Loser of course) and convinced the kids to clean the house!!!  What a WONDERFUL surprise!

Wednesday, I lost my itouch, now when I say "I" lost my itouch what I really mean is someone (Trevor) set it down where Ashton or Nathan could reach it and that is the last anyone saw it :(  We looked and looked all day Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and most of Saturday when.....IT WAS FOUND!!!  Hooray!  

Saturday night we had a little "chat" with a member of the bishopric and found that I was being released as the primary chorister and being called as the second counselor in the Young Womens program (I am pretty sure the primary is not currently on speaking terms with the bishopric over this position change ;) and I am SUPER sad to leave primary, I really LOVED my calling there more than I have any other calling I have had, but I feel good about Young Womens and know it will be a good experience.

After our "chat" Bryan and I went on a double date with Barlow and Andrea (for the first time since they moved here!...I guess for the first time ever)  We had one Young Woman and a 10 year old girl come over to babysit both ours and Barlow's kids.  We went out to dinner and then PARTIED all night long, Ok, we went out to dinner, then went to Target, then to Winco, then rented the movie Ghost Town (we watched it filtered and it was really funny, but unfiltered it has strong language so be warned)

Wow, that does seem like a lot when I write it all down!  Maybe I should take next week off to recover!  

Denial

While I was on my way to pick up my kids from school today, I was pondering on what a beautiful spring type day it was . It wasn't until I was pulling out of my subdivision that I first started noticing the travesty. Someone had decided to play a wide scale prank! They had scattered white powder all over a field running down the side of our subdivision. "That's terrible!" I thought as I wondered who would spend their time ruining someones field. As I continued to drive, I soon realized that this abominable crime was more widespread than I originally thought. All the yards on the way to the school had also been sprinkled with this strange white powder. "Wow! I thought, "I sure hope this is just a simple joke and not something dangerous!" Normally on nice days like today I let my kids slowly get in the car as they say goodbye to their friends, but today, just to be on the safe side I told my kids, "HURRY up and get in the car and shut the door!" As I drove home I was happy to enter my home, safe from crazy "white powdered" grounds. I hope by tomorrow whomever played this joke has undone it and we can return to our regularly scheduled spring type days!

Just Trying....

In an attempt to be young and hip I am changing the look of my blog. I am not sure that I like it and I am still searching for just the right background for me, but in the mean time (this project has sucked up WAY to much time already) I will leave it like this. PLEASE let me know what you think, should I go back to the "old" blog? Hmmm.......

**This is a work in progress...those that left comments Wednesday night saw a different background. Sorry, the longer it was up the more I didn't like it. Not sure if this one is better. Let me know what you think still**

8 Things Tag

So there are a few things I dont understand about this tag, such as, why do you have to post the rules? And why are there only 6 questions instead of 8, wouldn't it make more sense to have 8? Anyway, here goes:


8 Favorite Shows:

1. Biggest Loser (the ONLY show that we work our schedules around)
2. The Office (although we sometimes have to turn it off mid episode)
3. Numbers (I guess the math nerd inside me lives on)
4. The Amazing Race (which they moved to Sundays so I haven't seen the last 2 seasons)
5. Eli Stone (I hear this one might get the ax though)
6. Ellen (I actually NEVER watch this show because I NEVER watch TV in the middle of the day, but the few times I have seen it, it was pretty funny)
7. PBS specials (we dont have cable or I am sure I would be a discovery channel junkie, so PBS specials will have to do for now)
8. The Bachelor (NOT!! We were watching Sleepless in Seattle which was on TV and near the end they played a long sneak peak at the new season of the Bachelor, who happened to be a single dad...just like in Sleepless in Seattle! We were appalled when we realized that the only reason the movie was on was to pimp the new bachelor. That show really makes me ill.)


8 Things I did yesterday:

1. Made German pancakes for breakfast for the entire family (for those of you who know me well know that this is a MAJOR accomplishment, not the cooking part, although that is pretty major too, but the getting up before Bryan leaves and making breakfast part)
2. Cleaned my ENTIRE house AND my Van (that being said, and realizing that it took the whole day the rest of this list will be quite boring)
3. Got Dressed (no comment)
4. Got my kids dressed
5. Downloaded some podcasts (I have not had an ipod for very long but I am hooked on podcasts, they are GREAT!)
6. Made dinner AND did the dishes afterwards (isn't January great, I get so much more done in this month with all my new goals than any other month of the year)
7. Had FHE (it was fun, Trevor gave the lesson out of the new nursery manual which is SO worth getting to have in the home, he didn't need any help at all it was great)
8. Put my kids to bed on time so that I could go to bed on time so that I could get up again in the morning and make breakfast for the whole family, but ended up staying up late to watch True Beauty which was REALLY lame, therefore I slept in this morning and everyone, except Bryan, had oatmeal (grits for Ashton) for breakfast before running out the door)


8 Things I look forward to:

1. Bryan's days off
2. The rest of my family moving here (or at least their visits)
3. Bryan's days off
4. Painting my house
5. Bryan's days off
6. Speaking in Church....Just kidding
7. Did I mention Bryan's days off?
8. Family Road Trips


8 Favorite Restaurants (this one will be REALLY hard because we dont go out often and these are NOT in any order)

1. Sizzler (we dont have one here)
2. Golden Corral (we dont have one here)
3. Olive Garden (only for the lunch special)
4. Most any Chinese place (we dont have much here to choose from)
5. Applebees (I can use my Discover card cash back here)
6. IHOP (kids eat free after 4)
7. (now we are pushing it....) Mexican places (so long as they have fresh made tortilla chips and salsa it will do)
8. Um......would at a friends house count??


8 Things on my wish list

1. A Grand Piano (with a grand piano room in my house to put it in, otherwise a nice electric keyboard that is weighted like a piano would do)
2. A new minivan with the fold down seats
3. A self cleaning garage (and car, and house, and kids for that matter)
4. An enclosed porch with a hot tub (and a nice enough body to go get in it!)
5. A personal interior decorator who supplies all the need decor items
6. A new computer that will record TV for me
7. A personal jet that runs on water
8. A bag of caramel chocolates (or any chocolate for that matter)

8 People I Tag
1. Um...
2. Um...
3. Um...
4. Um...
5. Um...
6. Um...
7. Um...
8. Um... (guess I am not good at tagging, plus everyone one I know has pretty much done this already)

So there you go 6 questions with 8 answers each. Have a GREAT day!