Three + 1 for Thursday!

In an effort to stay on top of things, you get a mish mash of what we've been up to:

#1- My almost 1 year old is sporting a new smile these days. I think it's hilarious. She does it for random people in the store, at church, pretty much everywhere we go and generally on command.

#2- I bought some small pie pumpkins before Thanksgiving to leave on our porch for decoration, it was a week after Thanksgiving before I realized I either needed to throw them out or do something with them. I decided to try my hand at a pumpkin pie made entirely from scratch. As a side note...I don't make pies. The last time I tried to make a pie was at least 10 years ago, and it was a disaster! So I was pleasantly surprised with this little beauty. :) Now it's not all fancy with pinched edges and such, but it got the seal of approval from my boys so I was happy with it. P.S. Please pay no attention to the obnoxiously apparent water spots on my griddle...

#3- We had our ward Christmas party last Saturday. I could not believe the turnout we had. Great party, great company, great food. The Primary played the parts for the reading of the Nativity, and Garrett was asked to be a wise man. He did great. Of course, all he had to do was kneel off to the side, but we're talking HUGE improvement from last year! At the end of the program they opened up the stage as the "Red Brick Store" and had big containers of candy and things for the kids to fill up little bags. I thought the kids would be disappointed that there was no Santa this year, but they didn't even mention it so I guess the candy was the REAL star of the show.

+1 :) And last but NOT least! Happy Birthday to my handsome and wonderful husband, who is stuck at school tonight. We are SO grateful for all he does for us. He has been so very busy the last few months, with work, school, and fire, but has a WELL DESERVED break coming up. Hopefully with some extra time for coyote hunting, his current obsession, ahem, HOBBY of choice. HaPpY bIrThDaY ToDd! :)

New Moon Release Party

Some friends and I decided to host a party to go along with the midnight release of New Moon, from the Twilight Saga. Now, I loved the Twilight books, but I am definitely not what you'd call a "Twi-hard" or "Fanpire". I do, however, love me a good party.... and going to a movie with friends! We had so much fun coming up with decoration ideas, games, gifts, and more. Everything came together so well. We had a great time with everyone there and hope to do it again for the next movie! FYI- I thought the movie was excellent. It doesn't take much to entertain me, but it was much better than the first and one I'd definitely see again.

11 months

Ella is 11 months today and since I'm sooooo behind on her monthly posts, I thought I'd take a minute to catch up. Here's what she's up to these days:

*Her favorite new thing this month is climbing the stairs. We have a gate up, but it gets taken down a lot because the other two can't get over it by themselves. She loves getting caught and just goes that much faster when she does.

*She blows kisses, it's SO cute!

*When she waves she doesn't do the open/close hand thing, she just waves.

*She still has the longest tongue I've ever seen on a baby, and it sticks out 24/7.

*She eats almost anything we stick in front of her. I'm pretty sure she eats better than my older children.

*Her favorite person is Mommy. She still goes to other people pretty well, but she doesn't take long to decide she want's Mom again.

*She's learning she can jump in her crib by holding the railing. She usually does it half happy/half mad because I just stuck her in her crib.

*She has the biggest, brownest eyes, and I LOVE them! I really never thought I'd have two girls with such dark eyes.

I cannot believe how quickly this year has flown by and that my sweet newborn has almost hit the toddler stage. She's starting to show a little attitude, which I'm sure she gets from having to fend off her brother and sister.

Fall photo shoot

My mom was over last week and was complaining because she didn't have updated pictures of all my kids. I sent home Garrett's recent school pictures and a couple of snapshots of the girls, but nothing I was too excited about. Since then I've been thinking I needed to get the kids out and get some pictures before the weather is too cold to do so. Garrett didn't have school today and Todd had half a day off so I decided it was the perfect opportunity to get it done. We headed down to our town's Sun Basin Plaza and I quickly snapped as many pictures as I could before everyone was too cranky and cold to cooperate anymore. Here are my favorites:

I LOVE Garrett and Lauren's smiles in this picture, and this was the best we could get out of Ella.

This is one girl that did not want to cooperate. She would taunt me by looking up for a quick second and then look down really quickly with a HUGE smile on her face!

And.....my other girl that DID NOT want to cooperate, but she takes such adorable pictures, who would have thought?!!!

Garrett knows better than to fight me, he just sits and smiles....now getting him to LOOK at me is a whole 'nother matter!

Fright Night '09

Actually, there's nothing frightening about my little soccer player, skunk, and Scooby Doo! We had a L-O-N-G day on Halloween. Garrett was up quite early that day and already in his costume asking when we were going trick-or-treating. I take that back, Garrett was in his Storm Shadow costume at that point. Later in the day....he decided to be a soccer player. Something we wouldn't have had to spend any money on....go figure! We finally made it to the church just in time for trunk-or treating and the kids were very happy with their filled buckets. As for the candy we were giving out...we ran out...as usual. No matter how much I spend on candy it is never enough. Oh well, it's all in fun. After trunk-or treat we headed inside the church for the carnival. The kids had fun seeing their friends and doing the cake walk and fishing game. We came home and let the kids have at the candy. (The sooner it's gone, the better, and there's none left in my house.) Ella was in HEAVEN crawling around and picking up any candy the kids might have tossed aside. We sent the kids to bed and popped in a movie. We had one cute little trick-or-treater come to our door. It ended up a very nice evening and I'm excited to see what next year will bring!

Kickin' It

Our little man finally got his wish and was able to play soccer this fall. I have to admit, I was a little (OK, a lot!) nervous about him being too shy to really participate. I think Kindergarten has helped so very much and participate he did! That little boy had a blast. His team was the Cosmos, and they were such a cute bunch. Last Thursday, the 8th was their last game. It was so much fun to watch those kids and see their personalities on the field. Garrett never did score a goal. I think his shyness would take over and he had a little trouble being aggressive and getting to the ball. He probably ran three times as much as everyone else on the field though. See, as other kids ran to follow the ball, Garrett pretty much ran in circles around the group of kids with the ball. The whole time he was giggling and had a huge smile on his face. Maybe someday I'll get the video uploaded, it's quite entertaining. Each game he progressed though and eventually he started getting a little more agressive. However, he'd get the ball then lose it, because he'd stop to line up the "perfect" shot. He came this close to scoring in that last game. Maybe next spring he won't have such an adjustment period. He had a great coach, Coach Hussey, who had the patience of a saint with those little 5 year olds. It was a great experience and we are definitely looking forward to next spring.

11 things....

Todd and I "celebrated" our 11th anniversary yesterday. Well, it was our anniversary anyway. I spent the day in Wenatchee with my mom hunting for Super Saturday stuff, while Todd went to work, then school. We hardly saw each other at all. Hopefully we'll get around to celebrating at some point! In the meantime, I thought I'd post 11 things I love about Todd...

1. He's just himself. Hard to put it any other way. I wish I could be more that way. Not so self-conscious about just being me.

2. He's such a kid at times...and while the responsible side of me wants to sometimes be annoyed, the rest of me appreciates that it's just another thing that makes him such a great dad.

3. He lets me have my moods, and doesn't judge me for it. 'nuff said.

4. He balances me. (see #3 above :) We have a good way of balancing eachother most of the time.
5. He works so hard. Between work, online classes, massage school, and fire fighting, he's one busy guy. It makes me proud to know he's doing it for his family, and his community.

6. He gives the best hugs, but you'll have to take my word for it. ;)

7. He has given me 3 beautiful, amazing children.....and has changed many a diaper too!

8. He texts me in the middle of the day just to say he loves me.

9. He doesn't complain (too much, anyway :) when I need some me time, whether it be scrapbooking night or a weekend retreat.

10. He comes home in the middle of the day to jump the car when I accidentally leave the lights on, without giving me a hard time about it.

11. He's made the last 11 years of my life an adventure. I can't imagine life without him.

Happy Anniversary babe! I love you!!!!!

Adventure in the Emerald City!

Last Friday, Mishelle and I set off to have some fun in Seattle with all seven of our kids. By the time we made it to the hotel, there was just enough time for some of the kids to get in a quick (literally a few minutes) swim in the pool and eat some pizza before heading to bed. It did take quite a while to get them settled in since they had all taken "naps" in the car.

The next morning we walked to the Space Needle and picked up our City Passes, definitely the way to go if you want to explore what Seattle has to offer. Garrett was so excited to see the "Space Noodle" before we corrected him between chuckles. After our ride up the Space Needle (my first time, by the way) we headed to the Pacific Science Center where the kids had a great time in the Water Works, Body Works, and Animal Exhibits. Garrett was a little freaked out by the Dinosaur Exhibit at first, but finally realized we were telling the truth and the dinosaurs weren't real! We hit an IMAX movie before heading down to the docks to catch a cruise around the harbor.

I think the boat ride had some great scenery, but was a little stressful trying to keep track of all the kids. We had hoped to hit the Aquarium next, but it was closed by the time we got there so we headed over to Pikes Place. They were closing down so after a quick walk through we trekked back to our hotel. The kids were such troopers, it was at least 10 or 12 blocks and we didn't hear one complaint. Even from little Lauren who held Mishelle's hand all the way back.

We really wanted to eat at the Cheesecake Factory so we all jumped in the suburban and headed out to eat. It was somewhere between 9:30 and 10:00 by the time we got seated and the kids were pretty tired. Mishelle and I were doing our best to keep everyone under control. A lady finally tapped on my shoulder and told me how well behaved our children were. I just about busted up laughing, but she was totally serious. I have to give the kids credit though, they did awesome. We got our cheesecake to go and headed back to the hotel, where there was not a parking spot to be found. After driving around for what seemed like forever (during which time we saw two hookers and lots of other crazy people) we finally spotted a space from the street so I jumped out and held our spot until Mishelle could make it back around (and boy was she quick). The kids were all OUT at this point, but we managed to get everyone into the room and out for the night.

The next morning we ate and headed for the zoo. We somehow made it out of there will all of our kids. My poor stroller had a casualty, while pumping up the tire that had been leaking air, we managed to pop the tube and give half the zoo-goers a coronary. Then, when we tried to leave, Mishelle discovered that a light had been left on and we had a dead battery. Thanks to a cute security officer we were on our way shortly. ;) We finally made it to the Aquarium and finished off our trip rushing back to the car so we wouldn't get a ticket for an expired meter.

We really had such a great time, seven kids and all. I had to laugh every time we got that look from someone who thought we were crazy carting all those kids around. We made some great memories and I'm so glad we were just crazy enough to brave the city with all our kids. I want to thank Mishelle for showing us such a great time.

(for more pictures of our adventure, visit http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=114459&id=521129925&l=c5d96a2870)

Ready To Go

Everyday when Garrett gets home from school, immediately Lauren takes over his backpack, lunchbag, and even his shoes and tries to head out the door for school. So cute.....but she's got a long two and a half years ahead of her!

Labor Day weekend

I'm in a blogging mood and although I still have much more to catch up on I thought this was a good start. Although it is getting late so let's hope it all makes sense! We had a great Labor Day weekend this year. We started out Saturday by cleaning out the garage, doesn't sound so great, but it REALLY needed to be done. It's not completely organized but it looks 100 times better than it did. Sunday evening we headed to my mom's for my neice, Shelby's, birthday party. We had so much fun just hanging out with my family and Becky's family. We ended up staying the night over there so that mom and I could can some pears the next morning and we could hit the annual Community Day's celebration. We got 14 quarts done and headed to town.

The parade was short and sweet as usual. We were near the end of the parade and Garrett and Lauren were the only kids right there so they got quite the stash of candy. Then we headed to the park for food and visiting with family and friends. The family was camped out closer to the playground this year so the kids were able to enjoy that and we weren't so worried about where they were all the time. Lauren, however, spent most of her time parked right here:

on Grandma's lap. She was my mom's little shadow from the moment we walked in the door on Sunday until we left, and even then she begged for Grandma to come home with us. This girl loves her Grandmas!

They had lots of activities going on and this one was not far from where we sat. Many of my family members (brothers, uncles, cousins) are involved in trying to get a demolition derby going back in town and this was a fund-raiser for that. You could pay $1 to hit the car 2-3 times with a sledge hammer. I don't know how much money they raised but they were busy the whole time we were there! At first Garrett didn't want anything to do with it, but eventually he came and asked me for $1. He hit the car twice before realizing that everyone was watching so I jumped in and helped him with the last shot. He also got to write his name on the car.

We made it home not long before Garrett had his first soccer practice. I stayed home with the girls, but Todd said he did great! Our little boy is overcoming some of his shyness and I can't tell you how happy that makes me.

All in all it was a great weekend spent with family. I came home and canned and dried more pears that week for a total of 16 quarts and 13 pints of canned pears, and about 26 cups of dried pears total! Whew! No more canning for a while.....at least until it's time to do apple pie filling. Yum!

So long, friend....

we'll miss you. You have been there for us all summer long, but the weather is turning cold. So it's time to say goodbye.....for now.

So long, friend. Until next year...

Little Big Man's Big Day!

It's a strange feeling, sending your firstborn off to Kindergarten. All day. Every day. You begin to wonder....did I teach him enough? Did I prepare him enough? Teach him not to talk to strangers? To be nice to everyone? Those and a million other questions ran through my mind as I walked home after dropping him off in his classroom Tuesday morning. Can you tell he was a little nervous? He was acting very shy (BIG surprise), and would hardly leave my side. UNTIL! His buddy Jake showed up...then all was right with the world. He was still acting very shy, but at least he had Jake and another friend, Gunnar, to rely on. I knew in my heart of hearts that he would be absolutely, completely and utterly fine.....so why was I letting myself doubt? All day I thought about him, worried about him. Again, so many questions flooded my mind. Is he scared? Is he going to eat enough? Is he going to listen to his teacher? Is he going to be OK on the bus? We got home and both girls decided to take a nap. Great! Then I had nothing to do BUT worry ;). We eventually made it to playgroup and the store, and by the time I got things put away and the girls settled in it was almost time for him to be home. The bus was running a little late, but he finally made it home. He ran in the house and started gulping down water straight out of the faucet, guess he was thirsty?! When I finally got him to answer my question, "How did it go?" He replied, "It was so cool!" I can't tell you what a RELIEF that was! He was already telling me what he wanted for lunch the next day and how he was going to ride the bus in the morning, that I didn't need to take him. Again, HUGE relief, and yet....... just a twinge of sadness. How my boy is growing up! Sniff, sniff!

The details:

Teacher: Mr. Klepec

Backpack: Transformers, Optimus Prime OF COURSE!

Lunch pack: Spiderman, with a turkey sandwich, cheez-its, applesauce, and a juice pouch.

Favorite part of the day: P.E. and coloring!

Day #2 today and he's still loving it, and ready for more. Yay!

And....she's off!

I apologize for the terrible quality, and the fact that I can't turn it upright, but here's our little crawler! Up until this morning she would only make it a couple before falling or flat out giving up. I'm so not ready for this. Look for posts about all the things she'll be getting into in the near future!

Glad that's over!

I've been in a major blogging funk lately, mostly because we've been dealing with some not so fun things around this house. First Lauren woke up with pink eye late last week, this is the second time this summer, and it grosses me out. So I keep her home from church on Sunday and send the boys on their way....about an hour later, she puked all over my bed...and herself...and the floor...ugh. Thank goodness we only had that one episode and it was over. I just keep praying that Garrett and Ella have been spared this go round.

Yesterday I was so glad for an excuse to get everyone out of the house. My old roommate from Ricks (the fact that it was called Ricks will forever date me) was in town visiting her sisters, and we got to go see her and the kids along with my cousin Mishelle (who lived right next door at Ricks) and her boys. Britni's sister owns the gymnastics gym so we met there for lunch and the kids got to run and play while we visited. I didn't think to snap pictures until right before we left and even then I didn't get one of us girls. Oh well.....next time! I did get some of the kids having fun.

Garrett on the balance beam.

Lauren feeling much safer close to the ground.

Garrett on the climbing rope, although with these kids it was more like a rope swing!

Miss Ella and my beautiful cousin Mishelle

I also have to share this picture of Ella's first taste of spaghetti at dinner tonight. I'd say it was a hit! What do you think? ;)

Thankful Thursday!

I was SO RUDELY awakened this morning by Todd's pager :) so I thought I'd get my Thankful Thursday post in early today. Hopefully this won't be my only post THIS week!

1. Electricity! I was without for a few hours yesterday. I know, it could have been worse, but I was doing laundry and dishes and didn't know how long we'd be without. The man who answered the phone at PUD didn't sound very reassuring!

2. The internet, where I can find just about any information I need, especially a quick family night lesson, complete with a treat recipe!

3. My sweet kids. They can go from driving me crazy to melting my heart to making me laugh in a matter of seconds, and I love 'em!

4. A decent camera, that allows me to take great pictures of my beautiful kids...like this one (except for some reason it's not uploading with very good quality, go figure):

There's always more, but it's too early to think straight right now :) Hope you have a great day!

Thankful Thursday!

OK, Jodie, I am following your example and I'm going to give this a try! :) Today I am thankful for:

1. My family---each and every one of you!
2. Sleepy kids after a very. long. day.
3. My dear husband, who so willingly serves his community.
4. A certain grandmother who lets her rather fiesty two-year-old granddaughter lead her by the hand all over Costco and Ross without complaint. Oh yes, and who takes her five year old grandson to the elevator (which is actually the escalator) clear across the mall.
5. The Gospel, without which I don't know where I'd be.

Seven months!

Our little ray of sunshine turned 7 months almost two weeks ago, and as usual, I'm a little late getting around to blogging about it. Ella continues to be such a sweet and loving little girl. Such the happy baby, she puts up with her older siblings without too much complaint, and even treats them to a giggle every so often. I love, LOVE her expressions. Just a hint of mischief and so much joy. She's working very hard on learning to crawl. She wants to take off so she can keep up with everyone else. It won't be long now, and I'm SO not looking forward to trying to keep her out of everything. We love this girl and are grateful for the joy and laughter she brings to our home.

First Haircut (Times two!)

After going to the pool the last few weeks I noticed more and more that Garrett needed a haircut. Once he got out of the pool he looked like a bird that had just dried it's feathers after being wet. I guess you'd have to see it. I took a picture a while back, but it just doesn't do it justice. Anyway, tonight I finally talked (ahem...threatened) him into letting me cut it. After I was done with him I got to thinking that Lauren could use a little trim too. I've never taken her in for a cut and figured I could just do a little trim, I think I have trimmed her bangs once or twice. What I wasn't thinking was that the sides were quite a bit shorter than the back. So when I started on the side I was only cutting off and inch or so, but when I got around to the back it was closer to three. Yikes! I'm definitely not a pro, but I thought it turned out pretty cute and I know it will be much easier to comb through! While all this cutting was going on, there was Ella, gnawing away on her biter biscuit. I looked over and saw something similar to this:
I did stand it up a bit more to show the full effect for the picture (sorry, it was a horrible shot of her face so I cropped it). You see, it either stood up like that, or if it was down it bore a striking resemblance to a comb-over. It's pretty entertaining while blowing in the wind. Poor thing. When it was shorter I could put it in a pony tail and could curl the end with a little gel, but it had gotten way too long and even the ponytail wasn't remotely cute anymore. I have talked myself out of cutting it a hundred times over, but tonight I just couldn't take it anymore! I decided to trim it a bit. I took off a good two inches. It thought it would be a quick snip and we'd be done, but she's a squirmy little sweetheart so it took me a few tries. Again, not perfect, but much more manageable!
She looks scared stiff in that last picture, I promise she could have cared less what I was doing. Oh and forgive the remnants of the biter biscuit on her face. :) She got a nice warm bath before bedtime!

4th of July

Here I am, behind again! We haven't been home much, we've been out enjoying all the beautiful weather! We had a great 4th of July this year. That afternoon we headed to Todd's parents for some yummy food and water fun for the kids.

Todd and Ella, notice Ella's pager, he's starting her off early! ;)
Water balloons with Grandma. I think 99% of them hit the ground before reaching thier intended target.

Slip n' Slide!

Watching the fireworks. This was right after we got there. I think that was the only time we had all the kids actually sitting down!