Little Betsy Ross

Last night was the 1st grade Patriotic Program. They've actually never done one of these before, at least as far as I know (meaning McKenzie did not do one 2 years ago). All the kids from the 1st grade had a part of some sort, whether it was an individual part, group part or a dance, (which Morgan's friend McKenna had and hated it cuz she had to dance with a boy, how cute). All the girls wore these cute Betsy Ross hats and the boys wore red paper hats. It was fun for them and good practive on public speaking. A few of her friends right before it started.

The kids trying to behave.

This first video is the part that Morgan had. She had it down pat, hard to understand but she knew what she had to say. "Sometimes we fly our flag at half staff but only when something sad has past. For example when the leader of our country dies." Oh and bear with the wobbly-ness, Malia was being a little less than cooperative.

I will see if I can get the other videos to upload, I'm trying blogger for the first time to do my videos, so bear with me.

Blogging. . . Whatever

So I've been in a blogging funk since last month, so bad that I don't even know what I want to say. Not that we haven't been busy or anything, but I feel like I have nothing that important to update on. . . which is totally false. Something that I'm just now realizing, when I don't feel like blogging is when I stop cooking good meals for my family, why is that? The motivation is not there, I feel bad but what do I do? Oh and on top of that, I haven't been taking pics that much. So the combo has just left me. . . blah. Here's a few of the things that we've been up to, in no particular order:
1. Cavity free dentist appts-amazing I know
2. SEP conferences that went very well
3. We are in the midst of our school's Read-a-thon that I've been helping with, which has kept me crazy busy, not as much as my friend Michelle, but busy enough. I don't envy her job.
4. A weekend by ourselves (that's right, no kids for 3 days). We had a lot fun just doing nothing but enjoying the quiet, seeing a movie, eating out cleaning the carpets, ya know exciting stuff. Plus the kids had a blast and I think we gave the grandparents a new found appreciation for our lives, yes they were very happy to give them back, lol.
5. A field trip for Micah to the bean & dinosaur museum on campus.
6. We filed our tax return as soon as we got Randy's W-2's two weeks later we were able to purchase the bed of our dreams. (and buy a few other things we've been waiting to get). It's a Laytex bed and it is oh so comfy. It's soft yet firm, its never freezing when you first get into the bed, oh and you don't roll to the center because the springs aren't broken, plus there are no springs so that will never happen. Amazing I tell ya.
7. A Dr. appointment that gave me the ability to give myself shots once a week, can I tell ya how fun that is. Oh and not only that but I'm still in pain. Go figure. I'm just at a loss what to do now, other than gimping around, it's getting old.
8. Church things that have kept me busy like giving a lesson, meetings, classes, doing the RS meeting for the rest home, and preparing for our RS birthday party next month.
9. Randy's cousin came home off his mission to Switzerland this last week and his homecoming was yesterday. It was great to see him again.
10. We upgraded our computer to Windows 7. I'm still trying to get use to it, like figuring out how to edit pics and stuff. the bummer is that we wiped our hard drive and now I have none of my old pics on here. So I'm starting fresh . . . again, which is probably why I haven't been that excited about posting.
11. The winter Olympics has kept us on edge. We have been DVRing everything cuz we never can watch them when they are on, so we go back and watch everything after we already know the outcome, which is kinda lame, unless it's something really cool. The good thing is we can fast forward through everything we hate or can't stand to see the same thing done 50 times, like ski jumping, very cool. . . I just can only watch it so many times before I wanna pull my hair out.
Last but not least. . .
12. Preparing to go to Vegas with my seester's. We are finally getting away for a weekend. . . together. . . at the same time. . . in the same place. We did this 2 1/2 years ago in Seattle, and had a blast. It was time to do to it again. I'm now getting excited for it, as before it was just another things on my calendar. 10 days can't come soon enough.

Even though I feel this was really random, I'm hoping that it will get me going again, I really want to keep this up, it's important to me and my family. Anyway till next time, which will hopefully be sooner than later. . . until then here are the few pics I amazingly did take over the last month or so.

Micah's fieldtrip buddies, KC and Drake. We got dumped on one night (not nearly as much as DC) but excited none-the-less. It was soo pretty out.
Randy and I haven't changed much over the last 11 years. We still like to make each other's faces messy. I'll have to find our wedding pic sometime and show the cake-tastrophy. I got him pretty good.

Micah's 5!!!

Our little guys turned 5 yesterday. I just can't believe how fast it really has gone. He's in preschool this year and loves it. Next year is kindergarten, ya know like really school. Whoa! Anyway, because of Randy's new lovely school schedule of every Wednesday for the rest of our lives being booked, we had to improvise a little with celebrating. So Micah has had a birthday week instead of just a day, no complaints from him though. Monday we went to Pirate Island Pizza (which is like a Chuck E Cheese only with a pirate theme). It was amazing. Grandma and Grandpa, Kristi, Julie (her kids) and Aunt Bacon were able to celebrate it with us. The servers all dressed up like pirates. Here they are singing to Micah, sorry the pic is blurry, it was the only one we got. Micah got open presents, which is his favorite part.

We didn't tell him we were going to Pirate pizza, we wanted to make it surprise. He was wearing his "Spidey" costume earlier in the day and didn't want o take it off. The pirate crew thought it was pretty funny.

We got some pirate hats for the kids to wear that had menus on the back, pretty ingenious eh? Oh and there was a balloon animal maker there. He came to our table and made swords and flowers and parrots that sit on the kids' shoulders. Morgan really liked hers.

Micah was a little scared of the pirates. We had the best server. He dressed, acted and even talked like Jack Sparrow. Micah wouldn't have any of it though, he would keep hiding anytime he came around. So Randy had to hold him for this shot (backwards of course). It was a lot of fun though, everyone had a good time. Thanx Grandma and Grandpa for the awesome time.

Then on Wednesday, Micah's real birthday he got his bday pancakes, which he shared with his siblings. The kids really look forward to this, don't ask me why. I didn't do it for Randy's bday and they were all concerned that he would be sad. Anyway, as you can tell they love it.

Then it was Micah's special day at school, so he got to have someone come with him to school and hang out with him the whole day. Since Bacon is staying with us for a bit, he chose her. What an awesome special day, thanx Bacon for being there for him.

Then we just kinda hung out and had some neighbors over in the evening for cupcakes and ice cream. Micah got to play with his friends and wear his birthday crown and watch Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (which is really cute btw). He has been growing so much the last few months, its crazy. I'm just amazed at all he is learning. I'm excited to see what the future holds with him. We love you Micah.

As a side note, cuz I totally forgot to post this earlier, we celebrated Randy's birthday also right after New Years. His parents came down so we could go and see Avatar (which was amazing). I made an ice cream cake for him, yummm. Just and just a note about the pic, that is smoke from the candles he just blew out, not some weird film on the lens. I think we are both done getting older, lol. Happy birthday toots. I love ya!

Merry Christmas 2009 style!

We went up to Grandma and Grandpa Tucker's for the big holiday. We got there Wednesday afternoon and just had a fun-filled weekend. The girls played with their cousins, Micah played air hockey, and Malia just ran amok. We decorated cookies for Grandma's neighbors, played games, stayed up till 1 in the morning, and of course watched old corny Christmas movies. Christmas eve night we read the Christmas story and Grandpa read a story talking about the symbols of Christmas. The kids all got to take part in it.

Malia hamming it up with gamma.Pa pa explaining what the bell represents and Malia being totally enveloped by it.

Then it was time for the annual opening of the jammies. I told them to pose and this is what I got. I love Malia trying to show her moves.

Randy and even got in on the action. Randy picked out these jammies for me, what a sweetheart. Now my toes will never get cold. All I needed was some bunny ears and and a poofy tail and I woulda been Ralphie opening his aunts present. We had a good laugh.

Christmas morning started about 6:30 AM for us. The kids were up at the crack of dawn ready for their goodies from Santa. Malia would open a gift and then not want to open anything else till she felt she was ready. She played with this computer for a really long time till she got her doll furniture, then she wouldn't leave us alone till we put it all together.

Micah got some transformers and a Nerf gun along with this Spiderman puzzle. He loves puzzles.

McKenzie got some barbie things, a build a bear that we got to put together and some CD's. See the excitement in her eyes.

Morgan also got barbie things , CD's and a build a bear. I think the thing she was the most excited for was her Santa hat. She specifically asked Santa for it this year, and he pulled through for her. What a nice guy. Our family got Band Hero and Super Mario Brother's for the Wii. We were really excited to get them. The kids love playing them, especially McKenzie. We found out the there are 3 Taylor Swift songs on there. she couldn't have been happier.

I love Christmas time. I love the decorations, the smells, the feeling you get when you give to others, being with family, traditions, everything Christmas. I am sad that it is over now and that the decorations are put away. Maybe till next Christmas, we can try and have the spirit of Christmas with us.

Look what I can do Ma!

Morgan has had 2 wiggly teeth for about a month now and I kept telling her that she needs to pull them out so that she can ask Santa for her two front teeth. She has been wiggling them all month and about 2 weeks ago she finally let me pull one of them but the other was still holding on tight. That was until the other night when she brushed her teeth and the loose one started to bleed. So I told her that was it and we were pulling it now. After a little bit of convincing she finally let me yank it. She is soo stinkin cute without them. Just an FYI, her gums are not bleeding, she was eating a very red candy cane right before I took the pic. Kinda adds to the affect though right? On another note, Malia (my little sly fox) got into her aunt Julie's makeup when I wasn't looking for seriously no more than a minute. She was covered and I was mad, but I had to get a quick shot, just cuz this is how she is all of the time. Too cute not to share. She looks like my little hobo, eh, not only because of the black mascara all over her, but her hair is very unruly and I don't have the time or patience to do it every day.

Anyway, I still cannot believe that it is Christmas Eve, where has the time gone, seriously. We love this time of year and am so grateful we get to spend it with family.

Twas the Month of Christmas

Just cuz I know how crazy things get Christmas day, I'm going to get the pre-holiday happenings on here so I'm not putting so much on here at once for Christmas. To start we had our ward Christmas breakfast with the primary nativity. McKenzie and Morgan were angels. . . . Micah was a sheep.

The 3 after it was over. They did a really good job and for the most part sat still.

Right after they were done, Santa came and visited them. The poor guy's beard kept falling off.

We've been busy doing lots of Christmassy things (a word right). The kids had school until yesterday, which meant all of their parties were yesterday, which I was involved in 2 of them. We also made goodies for our neighbors and went around caroling to them, well most of them. Then this morning right after breakfast we frosted cookies. I haven't had time all month to do the cookies, but I was bound and determined to get it done before we left for grandma's house. So they ate Lucky Charms for breakfast and then immediately helped me frost and decorate cookies. Good combination right?

They had fun though and now I can enjoy just being up here, chillin, enjoying the company. I am officially ready for Christmas. Oh and just as a side note, I've been back to my Rhumatologist and he started me on Prednisone (which almost completely worked) and he wants to start me on another drug 10 times scarier which I'm not that keen on. There is still no diagnosis but he knows something is wrong. I go in again next we to discuss other options.

End of Thanksgiving goodness and friends

I know we are only 2 weeks away from Christmas, but I really wanted to post a little about our Thanksgiving weekend. The last day of school before the holiday, Morgan's class put together a couple of Pilgrim and Thanksgiving skits. All the kids got to participate and have their own lines. Morgan was a pilgrim girl and talked about what it was like on the Mayflower and after arriving in the New World. Isn't she so cute? Here she is saying her lines.

I was in charge of making/bringing rolls for our Thanksgiving dinner at Randy's parent's. Since I'm in pain, I begged Bacon to come over and help me make the rolls (meaning doing all of the muscle work). Isnt' she awesome, please don't leave me Bacon . . .

The yummy product. My mom has been making these rolls ever since I was little. We love them and look forward to the holidays just so we can have them. Not that we can't have them other times of the year, we just don't, weird I know.

We went to the Tucker's for an awesome meal with about 25 people. It was a blast. That night we left the kids with grandma and grandpa and Randy and I went home. Our 11th Anniversary was on Black Friday, and we really wanted to for once go shopping together, (something we haven't done since we were first married with no kids). We got about 4 hours of sleep and got up like the rest of the crazy black friday shoppers and got some great deals. We came home and slept for the rest of the morning and headed back up to kids to make sure they weren't killing grandma and grandpa.

Saturday on our way back home we all decided to make a quick trip to temple square and look at the lights (since Randy's bro and sis in law had never seen them). It was really cold so we only stayed for about half hour - forty-five minutes, but it was long enough to see all of the really cool lights. This tree is just covered in red lights, it is soo beautiful.

The Salt Lake temple, beautiful as always.

Last weekend was Randy's faculty party. It was a pretty crazy weekend. We had the party, a good friend's baptism, Randy's family pictures (which BTW the photo shoot can be seen here they turned out really cute). The last time we had a Tucker family picture was when we were first married with no kids. These are the crafts the kids made this year at the party.

After that fun-filled day we also were invited by some friends to an ugly sweater Christmas party. I'll try and post pics on that later. There were some doozies. I won itchiest sweater and Randy won saggiest arms sweater. It was great.

Now to today. My old high school friend, Sarah, came and visited me. She needed to get away and so she just bought a plane ticket and came down. She had a few other friends to visit, but I got to see her first. She stayed the night and we just talked and talked and played games just like the good ol days. We had a lot of catching up to do. The last time I was able to see her was when McKenzie was about a year or so. Can I just tell you how grateful I am for Facebook. I have been able to reconnect with so many of my old friends that way. Thanx Sarah for a great time. My kids miss you already.

Now onto really trying to focus on Chrismas, good luck right. I have a doctors appt. next week to go over results of some tests I've had, hopefully some news soon. I'll try and post when we figure something out.