Skiing Fun

We were invited by my brother's, inlaws to go cross country skiing.  They have a plenty of equipment for us and the kids and there's lots of snow outside, so we figured why not.  We were going to go on MLK day but it had rained the night before and so the snow had turned into ice which is not favorable weather for 1st time skiiers.  So we decided to try for this last weekend and it was perfect.  The mountains had gotten an inch or so of fresh powder, the temp was about 40 degrees and it was sunny.  It was gorgeous.  Unfortunately, Morgan had gotten sick the day before and Randy had gotten a call to prepare a lesson for Elder's quorum.  So he decided to stay back with Morg and Malia (since I didn't want to take her by myself), and do his lesson and some homework, leaving me to take Mac and Micah with my bro and his dad-in-law. 

 Let me just say, the kids did awesome, way better than me.  I've only every been waterskiing and snow is a little bit different.  Mac stayed in front with Billy kicking my trash.  Micah, as long as we were on flat ground, went way faster than me too.  Micah fell a lot but laughed the entire time.  Mac went down a few small slopes and did amazing.  I need to get her some lessons or something.  I think she may have found her nitch.  Unfortunately I did not get many pictures of them skiing.  This was in the meadow where you could choose different routes that all lead back to this spot.  It was beautiful.

As for me and my ability, I have some serious practicing to do.  I could get into a rythm and do pretty good and then have to go up a hill and try and help Micah and that combination was bad.  I fell quite a few times but didn't realize how bad I was until I got home and saw these beauties on my legs. . .

Ya that's right, both legs, huge bruises.  I did have a lot of fun and it was an awesome workout, but this is one thing I am just not a natural at.

Thanks Billy's inlaws for the fun day. Hope we can do it again before the white stuff goes away.

Babysitting already???

I'm having a "old" moment.  My friend/neighbor called me and asked if Mac could babysit.  Her baby had just fallen asleep, which he hadn't done all day long, and they were planning on going out to eat.  They didn't want to wake him up, so that's where McKenzie came into the picture.  So really it was going to be "please sit in my house for an hour and call your mom if the baby wakes up," type of babysitting.  She has a long range monitor so we plugged it in so she could call out to us if she needed me or Randy.  I know she is only 10, but she is sooo excited to start babysitting.  I'm really excited for her to start babysitting too ;).  I started babysitting at 8 (granted I'm number 4 of 9 and was changing diapers before I was pottytrained), but it feels weird to have a kid almost old enough to really babysit.  Double digits was hard enough.  What's going to happen when she goes into Young Womens?  From my perspective, however, I feel like she is really mature and knows how to watch kids and keep them out of trouble, she usually does that with her siblings.  What is the legal age for babysitting anyway these days?  Anyway, I just had to share my "old" moment. . . can I stop the clock pleeeeeeaaaaassssseeeee???

Happy 6th Birthday Micah

Our little man had a lucky weekend of a birthday.  His actual bday was on Thursday and we celebrated the best we could (being a school day and all) and then it gradually got bigger throughout the weekend.  I'm tired and get too frazzled on school mornings to make any decent kind of breakfast for my kids, but on their birthday's I usually make pancakes.  It seems every bday, it gets harder and harder.  So I got this idea in my head, how about cinnamon rolls (frozen one's that is) the night before and all I have to do in the AM is put them in the oven. So that's what I did.  Here's to a day full of sugar, woo hoo!

 Micah really liked them though and that's all that mattered.

 He really wanted donuts for his classmates, so I exercised and then went to the store and got 2 doz donuts and brought them into class for him.  Randy even came home from work early and came into class with me and Eah.

 I can't remember the last time we had been to McDonald's, I think it was last spring during Spring Break, anyway, we decided to surprise Micah and take him out for dinner there.  He was really excited.  The kids got Bakugan toys which they played with all weekend.

 The reason we went out to dinner instead of me making him his fav dinner was because Randy's basketball team had their first game and he wanted us to go and watch.  (this will probably the only time we go, there's no where to sit)  Anyway, the kids were pretty good.  They got antsy, I got this shot of Malia and thought it was cute.

 Randy after the game.  They kicked the other team's tooshies.  Here are my 2 guys.

 Friday, we had a family party.  My bro and his fam came, Randy's parents and sister came.  We made tonz of pizza (since it's Micah's favorite dinner and it was Friday night Pizza night anyway) and had cake and ice cream (I asked Randy's mom to be in charge of the cake, she got him a Tron cake and Micah was pretty excited), and opened presents.  Micah was very patient with the presents since he didn't open any on his actual birthday.  But we made up for it.  This is Micah holding his newest cousin Raleigh (known to Eah was Wall-E).  She is soo cute and such a good baby.

 Kiki had fun to with all of the party excitement, especially watching her dad play the Wii.

 Micah and his Tron cake.

 Gma and Gpa gave him a remote control car.  That things hasn't stopped going around the house all weekend.

 We got him a Star Wars Lego set.  He was very excited but I don't think it compared to Randy's excitement.  Micah probably put 2 of the pieces on that thing.

 On Saturday Micah had a birthday party with his friends around the neighborhood.  6-6 yr old's can be very entertaining to watch. 

 These guys are such hams.  We played a Star Wars pin the tail kind of a game.

 Lego creation competitions. . . that was a fun/quiet/time-consuming activity which I loved. (BTW thanx Gma and Gpa for letting us borrow 1 of your boxes of Legos).

 Then we created cupcakes-do you sense a theme here?  The kids had fun making messes with frosting and sprinkles and everything else.

 Lots of messes.

 We opened presents and played another game and then let the boys just have some free time to just play.  Some of them went upstairs to Micah's room, other's played Just Dance, which is hysterical to watch.  These guys had a lot of fun.

Then is was over (big sigh) and the boys went home and we got back to real life again.  I can't believe he's 6 already.  He sure has grown overnight.  Micah you bring such an amazing spirit to our family.  Hope you had an unforgettable birthday.  We love you Little Man.

Happy Birthday Toots!!!! Micah Lost his 1st Tooth!!!!

1st off, Randy turned 34.  Seriously can time just stop now.  Before we know it we'll be hitting 40, AHHH!  I'm not ready for that.  Anyway, we kind of had a long birthday weekend.  We celebrated New Years day with some cousins.  Had a potluck and a white elephant exchange.  It was fun visiting with them.  Randy's mom brought down a birthday cake to share with everyone.  So we sang to him on the day before his bday.  Then on his actual bday on Sunday, my brother, Billy, blessed their new little baby girl (btw congrats to them, I still haven't taken a picture of her yet).  So we went up to their ward and then had dinner with them and didn't celebrate that day.  But on Monday we decided to have a few of Randy's friends over for dinner and cake. 

Hope you had a fun day/weekend Toots.  

Micah lost his 1st tooth on Wednesday.  I had been doing P90X with my friend Jess when he bit into an apple and Randy said it started.  He noticed on Monday that another tooth growing behind his 2 bottom teeth (which made me nervous) and neither of his teeth were loose at all.  I figured well we have a dentist appt next month, I'll let him deal with it.  That was until he bit into the apple.  From Monday until Wednesday, there wasn't even a hint of it being loose.  I came home and he was holding a cold rag in his mouth.  I asked him to just let me see it and would not cooperate.  So I pinned him down and barely touched the tooth and it fell right out, literally. 

That little white thing behind the hole in his mouth is the new tooth coming in. . . craaazy.

Our little man is sure growing up.  On another side note, we had another Micahism. McKenzie taught him the "turning the apple stem through the alphabet" game.  So now every time he eats an apple (which is daily) he turns the stem and lands on a different letter. So far he is going to marry Isabel, Maya, Hadley and someone named Nikki or Nicole.  He giggles every time we think of a corresponding name to his letter.  Oh boy.

Yes I know, it's not Christmas anymore and Happy News for me

I finally got my jump drive over to my friend's home so I could get the some of the pics she took of a couple of things we did.  One being the ward breakfast.  My camera's battery died and it also doesn't take the best pics in the gym's light.  So here are a few she got.

Malia being. . . Malia

 Micah as a shepherd.

 Mac as an Angel.

 She was the angel who announced Jesus birth. (I love the little girl on the left, almost looks like popcorn popping, hu?)

 Morgan is the angel with the blue belt.  They all did a really good job.

 And yes, I did let me kids go and see Santa this year.  Micah really wanted a pillow pet.

 Morgan also wanted a pillow pet and some slippers.

All Malia wanted was a double stroller.

 Mac wanted a pillow pet too, do you sense a theme here?

 Our friends got together for our annual Ugly Christmas Sweater Party.  Everyone got pretty creative this year.  Here's Kelly and Kye with their Santa bellies.

 The winner was Brian.  Isn't that awesome.  Sarah made theirs out of old, ugly DI finds.  They were great.

We went to Cafe Rio and showed off our awesome sweaters.  Randy's was pretty sweet too.  It was a green suit jacket with poo brown slacks, a green/red plaid shirt and and heinous tie.  I added the holly and ivy to the lapel for a better affect.  I should've gotten a pic of us, but we were having too much fun.  Thanx guys for the great time.

So it's been over a week since Christmas and I've been dying to announce this, but I had to wait until my dad ok'd it since he's the bishop in his ward.  But he has told them, so it's my turn. 

My dad got a job transfer. . finally. 

He has been trying to get a promotion since he moved to Michigan and it just never happened, until now. We are alllllll soooooo excited. He starts at the end of February in Montana.  Do you know how happy that makes me?  It will be be only a 9 hour drive instead of 2 and half days.  I can't wait till they are out here.  They are going to let James finish his senior year before they completely pack up and head out, my dad's nice like that, he did that for Shauna when we moved from Virginia to Oregon too.  But by the end of this year, my whole family, minus my bro who's serving in Afghanistan, will be in the west.  That is an amazing accomplishment.  Anyway not that this affects any of you, I am just really excited and happy that after many years of hard work, patience and being faithful, my dad is being blessed.  He deserves it.

How lame am I? Christmas 2010

Before I start this post I must apologize.  I do not know what happened to Thanksgiving or all of December, but for whatever reason, I couldn't keep my head on straight enough to blog anything except the cards that I made, I know, lame.  And what's worse, I still haven't sent the cards out.  It will get done if it kills me though.  Anyway, we had a fun Thanksgiving at Randy's parents house.  They were nice enough to watch the kids for us again so we could have a little, quiet Anniversary, alone.  And of course we went went Black Friday shopping, again.  We also got to go see the new Harry Potter, which is funny since I haven't seen any of the movies in the theater, but it was really good.  We had a nice, quiet time together, I can't believe it's been 12 years.  Love ya toots.

Anyway, December happened and it was a mad dash to the end.  We had parties and parties and more parties, presents to make, get and send out, goodies to hand out and weddings to go to.  I don't know how we did it all or made it out alive, but it is now over and I'm able to breathe now, ahhhhhh!  Just to warn you, this is going to be long and have a ton of pics, but I'm just to tired to make it into a lot of posts, so it's getting done all at once.

The 1st weekend in December is the BYU family Christmas party.  This year we decided to simplify and not try to sit on Santa's lap or try for that matter to do everything they have available.  We did get to the craft area and the kids made some cute things.  I was able to get their pic in front of our usual spot.  Don't they look so happy?

 They each got to write a letter to Santa also.  I will be sad for the day they decide Santa is not real.  I love that magical part of Christmas.

 The following week, Randy got really sick and found out it was strep, lucky us.  So I quarantined him and bleached the house and luckily kept the germs at bay.  He was recovering still by the weekend which was our ward's breakfast and Nativity.  So I took the kids by myself.  My friend has better pics that I'll post later, but this is what I was able to get with my stinky camera before it died (which is going to be theme for this post, I dislike my camera a lot right now and can't wait till I can get my new one so I've been very unmotivated in taking pictures, but that's beside the point).  Micah was a Shepherd,

 Morgan was an Angel, and Mac (not shown) was the main Angel.  They had fun

 We made some gifts this year for various family members.  Here are the final products.

 We also made picture frames for grandparents, but I forgot to get a shot of it before sending them off.

 Tuesday before Christmas we got dumped on with about 12 inches of snow.  It was awesome, except for the part where Randy's car got stuck in the driveway and I had to dig and push him out.  It was great.    It was really pretty though while it lasted.  We got hit the hardest, Salt Lake didn't even get anything from this storm.  Unfortunately it melted by Christmas.  This has definitely been a weird winter so far.

 We were planning on leaving on Christmas Eve for grandma's since we were heading that way for a big extended family luncheon earlier in the day.  But plans got changed because Randy's sister Julie got her papers from the 1st Presidency giving her the OK to be resealed.  So she quickly scheduled it for Thursday, which pushed all of our Christmas preparations up a day (making things even more crazy around here), so we scrambled to get everything finished for us to leave Thursday afternoon so we could be there.  We let the kids open their gifts to each other, since we didn't want to take all of the gifts up to Gma's, which we found out later was a good choice.  Morgan and Micah got picture boards from McKenzie and Morgan.  They had fun making them for each other.  Mac and Malia got stuffed animals from from Malia and Micah.  They were really excited to be so secretive with each other.

 We got up to Gma's in time to eat dinner and get the sitter to their home to watch the kids to make it to the Bountiful Temple and be there for Julie and David. 

Malia had started to get a cold at the beginning of the week and I thought she was doing better Thursday, but by Christmas Eve AM she took a turn for the worse and I ended up taking her into Urgent Care to find out she had a double ear infection.  I felt sooo bad and a little irritated since she just had her tonsils and adenoids taken out, weren't these suppose to stop?  She was miserable just laying around, sleeping on everyone.  We got done with her appt and got meds in her in time to still make it to the huge family lunch (which I did not get pics of, go figure).  I probably should have stayed back with poor Eah.  Luckily she slept through most of it on Randy's lap while we visited with everyone. 

In the midst of trying to get everything done before leaving, we forgot some crucial items for Christmas, like our stockings and Sunday clothes, so after the lunch, we ran back down to our house and grabbed the forgotten items and really wore out the kids by this point and they crashed in the car on the way back to Gma's

 That evening, Malia perked up a little after giving her Ibuprofen and  another dose of antibiotic in her.  She was ready to party a little. 

 They were a little excited to open their jammies.

 Can you tell?

 We got them in bed around 9ish and they slept in until 7 AM, which is amazing for us since they are usually up around 5 or 6. This year I woke up at 6 thinking I heard them, but it must have been someone else's kids, so I went back to sleep till 7.  They got into their stockings pretty quick.

 They all got their own toothpaste which Morgan thought it was deodorant, don't even ask.

 They were all really happy with all of the Silly bands they got.  Santa was really generous with them this year.

 We got breakfast in the oven and proceeded to tear through gift after gift.

 Gma and Kristi were pretty proud of themselves in finding this toy.  It jumps and coos and is a delight to have around. . . not.

 The tree before it got torn into.

 Santa got them each a pillow pet, which they were very excited about and Malia got the double stroller she had been telling everyone about.  Since Christmas, she hasn't taken her hands off that stroller literally.  You can see her hand marks on the handles.

 I took a lot of shots of Eah, just cuz she kept doing crazy things, like watching intently while Randy was opening her Silly Bands.

 Morgan had fun playing her cousins new DS, something that will probably never end up in our house. 

 Micah enjoying his Buzz.

 Mac got the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid and finished it in a couple of hours.  She said it was really good.

 And since Malia got her new scooter from her birthday stolen this fall, she got a replacement scooter.  Hopefully this one will last a little longer.

 It's been a whirlwind of fun around here and even though I haven't had time to breathe, I really enjoyed it this year.  I love my kids and my family and am soo grateful I have them around to help celebrate these special times.  I wanted to get a pic of our tree before I took it down.

 Oh and a couple of big surprises for Randy and I.  His parents gave us a new flat screen TV, totally unexpected.  It really caught us off gaurd.  We've been very patient about getting a new TV till he's done with school, so when they brought this out, I wasn't ready for my emotions.  Thanx again you guys, we (meaning all of us, including the kids) are having a lot of fun with it. 

 Other news was that after my grandma passed away, my dad was able to pic through a lot of her furniture for my bros and sis.  We did a little drawing to see who would get what and I am now the proud owner of one of her big oak tables with 6 chairs.  Randy's dad helped us haul it out of my brother's house and set it up Monday night.  It is such a nice addition to our family.  We don't have the plastic chairs anymore and when we have company, we have another huge leaf to put in so we can all fit at the table, instead of half at the table and a few at the kids table and  more at the card table.  I'm soo excited for this, it really is a gorgeous/sturdy table.  And now I will always have a piece of my grandma with me.  This was the table in her kitchen where they ate when we weren't around.  I have pics of them sitting here drinking their coffee, or with my kids.  Man I miss my grandma.

The other amazing news came while we were Skyping with my lil bro Jon who's on his mission.  Almost all 9 of my bro's and sis's, minus Andy who's in the Middle East right now, were there.  It was so much fun to see everyone on Christmas awesome to see Jon and hear how his mission is going.  He has a baptism next week which we are all stoked about.  But that wasn't the news.  Unfortunately I can't post it until after this weekend, but trust me, as soon as I am allowed to, I will be screaming it from the roof tops, because this is news we all have been waiting for, for years.   So stay tuned.

This is a special time of year. I love Christmas, I love my family and the traditions we have. I love that Jesus Christ was born and that he lived and atoned for everyone.  How lucky are we to live during a time when the gospel has been restored and we are able to have to knowledge of Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father and the gift of repentance and forgiveness.  Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!!