Where has the time gone?

Wow, it has been a crazy couple of weeks.  We received news that my Grandma Bodily had passed away, so we made a quick whirlwind trip to Utah.  Utah trips for us are never easy, but always fun. (even when you throw a funeral into the mix)  We have so much family there.  It was great to see everyone.  Not only were all but one of my siblings there, but many of my cousins that I haven't seen for several years.  Here are the things we LOVED about our trip:

*Dollar Theaters!  (the movies really cost $1.25-$1.50, but STILL!)

*Being there for Aunt Beth's Birthday

*A rowdy game of Bowling

*Hobby Lobby (ahhh...someday they will have one here)

*Building Snowmen (oh where is spring?)

*Family Time (Bryan's parents were wonderful hosts, we were in and out so many times and they were always willing to watch the kids so that we could have some peaceful moments...THANKS!)

Top picture: Starting lower left and going clockwise:  Trevor, Me, My Dad, My Mom, Brother Gordon, his wife Jessica, Sister Kim, Sister Charlotte (mostly hidden), Brother Barlow

Bottom picture: Me, Charlotte, Kim (only sister missing from picture is Tami)

Top Left:  Bryan and I, Top Right:  Kaylee and my Mom, Bottom Left:  My Dad and Ashton, Bottom Right: Ashton and Kim's son Abe who is 2 days older than Ashton. (on a side note it was super hard to get them to stand that close long enough to get a picture of them together)
Top Left: SIL Jessica and Brother Gordon and Trevor, Top Right: Ashton, Bottom Left, My Dad and Kaylee, Bottom Right: Sister Charlotte and Nathan.

A Tale of the Pinewood Derby

Well our first pinewood derby is finally over.  I would love to tell the tale of Trevor's car going so super fast, the fame, the glory, everyone asking how did you do it??  But alas, this is not that kind of tale, but I get ahead of myself, let us start at the beginning.

In a land far far away there was a humble housewife who did her motherly duties without complaint (for the most part)  Until one day the man of the house handed her a small bag with a block of wood, some metal rods and some round wheels and said "This will become my greatest masterpiece....or I mean this will become my son's greatest masterpiece!"  He went on to explain how in 2 short weeks this simple block of wood would become a fast car that would win in a race against all the other local men's er boy's cars.  The humble mother had heard of these races so she was not surprised.

The son created a design...."It must be pikachu!" he said.  So a lightning bolt theme came to life.  This will not be to bad thought the mother.  Little did she know that not only would it require a new saw, and as much time as the father could spare, but much of her time as well.   The entire family slaved away until finally the night of the race arrived.  Stress and worry began to build up inside this simple mother's heart as she looked at the car with no wheels, and no weights.  The father tore apart the garage, but with no luck, there were no fishing weights in the house.  "RUN to the store....quickly GO" counseled the mother.  So off they went arriving home only 10 minutes before they had to leave for the race.  

The father quickly drilled some holes for the weights and the mother hustled all the children into their carriage.  As they traveled the patient mother super glued the axles on and placed the wheels.  Only 5 minutes late...."surely they have not started" they thought.  (luckily they lived in Mormonville where everything starts late)  There was still time!!  Lubricate, add weight quickly now sit down and watch the magic!

As the boy's turn to race came everyone watched.  Oh no!  A false start, the boy's car left several seconds before the other racer!   Wait...what is this, the boys car STILL lost???  Oh NO!  This is not going to be pretty.  They restarted the racers and with no surprise, the boys car lost.  There was still one more chance for him, but everyone knew....he would not win.  With a sad heart the father went to check on the car.  Some other fathers who had witnessed this sad event came to help as well.  "Wait....what is this....you used the axles that they gave you??  No No", the fathers said, "we all used nails to keep our wheels in place, the axles are to small and make the wheels rub!!"  WHAT????   Quickly the fathers worked, they pulled off the super glued axles and nailed some better wheels in place.  It was to late to win the prize, but something had to be done to raise the boy's spirit.  When they raced again his car actually beat some of the other boys!  Amazing.  Everyone was happy....and just wait until NEXT year!

At least he won the prize for the most creative car (and thus the mother smiled as well)

A Great Day

So who knew that right after the school's Friendship Celebration would be Valentines Day!! We had a lot of fun today. It started off with Bryan letting me sleep in while he got up with the kids and made breakfast. Now, when I say that I made breakfast normally I mean that I poured the kids a bowl of cereal (or at least told them to pour their own bowl of cereal) But when Bryan makes breakfast..look out! He really makes it. He had a patient tell him how to make omelets that are FABULOUS, and he also made french toast, bacon and sausage. Sitting on my plate were a dozen roses to boot! What a sweet heart. Later on we went to a friends house to do a little partying. It was tons of fun. We did Kaylee's hair in a special heart hairdo and brought some pink heart rice crispy treats. They cleaned out their garage and turned it into a fun 50's theme with music, dancing, and food and games, what more could a girl ask for?? I am so glad I have such a great Valentine....I LOVE YOU BRYAN!

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!