Who's Watching Henry?

Just Today

2012-01-17T21:08:00.001-07:00

I have decided that I don’t always need to have photos of the fun things that we do in order to blog about them.

I have decided that it’s ok to post about fun things without trying to be clever or witty.

I have decided that it’s important to write while things are still fresh in my mind, or else I will forget about what made them special.

Today we went skiing. It has been at least 15 years since I last put on a pair of ski boots. My kids have never gone. I wanted them to at least try it.

I loved it when I was younger. I had no fear. I used to ski fast. I don’t know what happened. I didn’t ski fast today. I was scared. I’m getting old.

For Christmas, Steve’s mom got passes for Me and Jonathon and Thomas and Hannah to go to Sundance. Thank You Mom!

There was no school today. We thought there would be new snow, but the forecast was a little off. We got there bright and early. It was 3 degrees.

I did remember to take the camera, I just didn’t remember to take it out of the car. Later, I did remember that I could take pictures with my phone, but it was out of batteries. No pictures today.

We headed off to ski school. Thomas and Hannah were together with their instructor. Jonathon and his friend with another instructor. I was all by myself with my very own instructor.

It was hard not to think about how the kids were doing, but I had to focus on making my way down the hill without getting hurt. My teacher was very patient and helped me remember what I was supposed to be doing.

I did get to see the kids in action a couple of times. I could watch them from the lift as we headed to the top of the run. They were doing so well. I wanted to yell at them and cheer them on, but I didn’t think it was such a good idea.

We met up at lunch time and ate frozen ham sandwiches that had been waiting for us in the car. We decided that we needed some hot chocolate, but it was so hot that we couldn’t drink it. It was a good thing that we could take it outside to cool it down a little. I was worried that the kids would be ready to go home. No worries. They could barely finish their lunch before they were ready to go up again.

On the way back up the mountain, I told myself that I needed to remember to go slowly as we headed down so that I could make sure the kids were doing alright. Whatever, they passed me right up and then had to wait for me to get to the bottom.

Conditions today were less than optimal. It felt at times like I was skiing on sheets of ice. After three runs down the slope I was ready to go home. The kids were not. So we played on the bunny slope for a while. Hannah was amazing. I thought she would be the first to say she wanted to stop. She was an expert at using the tow rope to take her up the bunny hill. I was impressed. She lasted longer than I did, I decided to take a break and watch for a while. My legs were tired.

The boys didn’t last long at the tow rope before they decided to head back up the big icy mountain without me. Such a long wait – up the lift, down the hill – waiting, waiting, waiting. Hey, guess what they made it down safely. I don’t even know how to convey the stress and anxiety that I experienced while waiting for them to get back.

We lasted until 4pm, but then it finally got too cold for us. I figured that I would be a little bit sore tomorrow. I didn’t have to wait to find out. It only took the 20 minute drive home for my body to start to rebel.

Luckily Steve let us get fast food for dinner so that I didn’t have to worry about it. I’m beat. I can’t wait to do it again.

Summer Summary – In Two Parts

2011-09-30T20:33:00.001-06:00

PART ONE

Instead of trying to back blog about each individual event that happened over the summer, I have decided to just write about the whole summer all in one post.

Looks like I stopped blogging right around May – same time every year. I must have some type of mental break down when all the kids get out of school, and are here 24/7 with non-stop whining and arguing. I’m sure it’s not that bad, but I don’t remember very well. I do know that I enjoy having them back in school now. It’s so nice to be back on a regular schedule.

So I am looking back through pictures to help me remember what we did.

Here are the little boys at the zoo in May. They had a lot of fun. The weather was perfect. We actually went again today, but I didn’t have my camera. So I won’t be able to start and end with a zoo pic. :(

Thomas celebrated his 12th birthday in May. He asked for a strawberry shortcake. I don’t know if he remembers, but he asked for a strawberry shortcake when he was three. Sometime over the summer, he got a haircut and has decided that he prefers his hair short – we are all happy about that.

One of the major events of this summer was our vacation to Disney Land. It’s not very often that we take a family vacation. I’m sure it’s because we are afraid of having to be in such a small confined space like the car for hours and hours and hours together. I’m happy to say that it wasn’t as awful as I imagined it would be.

We did the drive to Orange County all in one day. It must have been the excitement of the final destination that kept everyone happy and agreeable. My new favorite way to pass the time in the car is to have an audio book. We listened to I Am Number Four. It wasn’t the best book, but it kept everyone occupied.

There was a slight problem when we arrived at our place of lodging, only to find out that they didn’t have any more rooms that would fit all of us. Yes, we did make a reservation. They were thinking that maybe we could share 3 rooms. Can you imagine the complete lunacy in suggesting that we share 3 separate villas for 4 days. Luckily we found someplace else to stay – A newer, brighter, cleaner place. Crisis averted – but not before I had a nervous breakdown at the front desk and bawled like a baby in front of the staff of idiots.

Here are my children walking away from us as they head out into the park with no adult supervision. It was hard for me to let them just go off and roam the park by themselves.

The girls got their faces painted.

The little boys were quite comfortable in the stroller that we were able to borrow from a friend – Thanks Mindy, we would have been super miserable without it.

We didn’t actually ride the Tea Cups – Blech!

We packed up and hauled in all of our own snacks, but for some reason we couldn’t resist the popcorn from the park. We also couldn’t stay away from the churros either – we ate way too many of them.

While we were there we celebrated Henry’s 4th birthday, and our 17th anniversary. We even got to wear special buttons and all of the workers congratulated us on our celebrations.

On the way home, we stayed at my Sister’s in Vegas. She was kind enough to pick up a Buzz Lightyear cake for Henry. That was his most favorite ride and he got to go on it several times.

A magnificent time was had by all and I am looking forward to more family vacations in the future.

** PLEASE PAUSE FOR A SHORT INTERMISSION **

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Summer Summary - Part Two

2011-09-30T20:22:00.000-06:00

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And we’re back.

This year, Libby turned 8. She celebrated the big day at the bowling alley with friends and family.

I was super lazy and didn’t make a cake for her, but I did buy her three from the store. One of the great things about Libby is that she was totally fine with store bought cakes.

Since this was the big #8, it was Libby’s turn to get baptized.

We continued our tradition of dinner at the Roof restaurant.

And a stroll around Temple Square.

We had a very nice time hanging out with her for the evening.

We are very proud of her.

Finally, we ended the summer with another birthday and a campout. Steve and Thomas headed out on a backpacking journey on my birthday. I was not too crushed, because I headed up to my moms house and had a great time. My sister made me delicious cupcakes and I spent most of the time with my head in a book while someone else watched the kids.

Steve and Thomas enjoyed their time in the forest. Thomas did not eat oatmeal or soup – I’m not really sure what he ate. He survived somehow though.

Also it should be noted that Jonathon also went on an amazing campout where he Climbed rocks, mountain biked, hiked, and river rafted. It was the most amazing thing he has ever done, and he lets us know every day how boring we are for not ever taking him to do those things ever.

I am always glad when summer is over – I gladly welcome cooler weather and yes – even snow!

Oh, Poor Henry!

2011-06-18T14:11:00.001-06:00

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS GRAPHIC CONTENT

From time to time, we have taken our kids to the emergency room for non-emergency situations. Croupy coughs or mysterious rashes with high fever in the middle of the night. Once on a Saturday afternoon for an eye injury where we were basically told that nothing was wrong and we just wasted a bunch of money. All this was before we had an after hours clinic here in our small village.

However, a week ago, we had an actual emergency that brought us once again to the ER. This time, we were accompanied by actual fear and panic.

Henry is very much an independent child who rarely asks for help. On this particular day, he was using our piano bench to climb up high enough to reach the TV power button. He didn’t ask for help, because he has done this by himself at least a million times before without any difficulty.

Exhibit #1 – The bench: Unsafe? Yes, and even though I have eyed the bare metal edges on the foot with trepidation, I chose to do nothing about it.

P.S. The bench did not come like this – there used to be rubber stoppers that covered the ends. However, they were not glued on and so they have been lost along with things like the boingy door stops and the spam can openers that unlock our bedroom doors.

One can only imagine what actually happened, because no one was watching Henry while he was climbing up to push the button. I was not even home at the time, and in Steve’s defense, he was in the bathroom. I have been amazed, throughout my life as a mother, at how many things happen while you are attending to the call of nature.

The only thing we know is that Henry was horribly hurt when the bench tipped over and his face smashed into the metal edges. Steve met him in the hallway to find him cupping the blood that was oozing from his chin. It looked minor at first, but upon further inspection he saw that Henry’s chin was flapping open and exposing quite a bit of flesh.

Luckily I was not very far away, and after Steve got Henry loaded into the car, he came and picked me up and we headed out. I had no idea what had happened and was concerned when I saw Henry sitting there howling into a blood stained towel. When I asked him what happened, Steve assured me that I would be sickened if I looked at the injury. I was picturing all sorts of awfulness, and so was actually relieved when we got the ER and they took the towel off.

Henry waiting for the numbing gel to kick in before getting the Lidocaine shot.

The actual wound – but still this does not portray how bad it really looked.

At first they tried to stitch him up without sedating him, but they finally had to put him out. He had to have stitches under the skin, and inside his mouth as well as to close up the cut – 20 in all.

All we could think about is how much more awful it could have been.

Steve left in such a hurry that he was not able to explain what was going on to Hannah who was immediately summoned to take care of Jack because she was the only one home. She was extremely worried and scared to be left so abruptly alone and so she tried to call Grammy who wasn’t home, and my sister Tauna who didn’t answer and finally Grandma and Grandpa Lauer who live in Florida and are two hours ahead of us, but were actually still awake at 10pm EST.

We are very much thankful for our neighbor who helped round up all of our kids and took them to her house to stay until we got home.

We were sure that the rest of the night and the next few days were going to be a trial for us, but Henry was just fine. He never once complained that he was hurting. This is amazing considering our previous experiences with Henry and his dental work.

I have to say the worst part of this whole business was actually getting the stitches out. No matter how many times we told him it would not hurt, he resisted. It took three of us - me, the nurse, and one of the office ladies to pin him down. I would never want to criticize or say that I could do her job better, but I am sure that I could have taken those stitches out faster than the nurse.We struggled with him for half and hour. I was actually sweating by the time we were done.

This is how he looks today. I am worried about the decision that we made when we decided not to call in the plastic surgeon. I know with time the scar will fade, but this is still pretty bad. I guess we will just have to wait and see what it looks like when he’s bigger.

Just Some Easter Pics

2011-04-24T21:34:00.001-06:00

Things have been pretty slow around here for the last month. Not much to write about. Spring has come and gone several times, but never actually stayed for any length of time. It’s been rainy and cold for the most part with a little snow here and there. Every once in a while, the sun makes an appearance and we get excited, but it’s short lived. The clouds soon come rolling in and we have to head indoors.

Steve and I took a trip to Vegas at the end of March. It was nice to get away and enjoy a little bit of sunshine. As always we spent too much money, and ate too much food. However, I got some new shoes out of the deal, and we had fun hanging out with my sister. We even decided to go see Donny and Marie at the Flamingo. That was interesting!

Our spring break was pretty dull. We hit the Kamas pool on Monday, but then Libby came down with some horrible illness, and so we spent the rest of the week under quarantine – no kids in or out. I’m not sure what she had, but luckily nobody else came down with it, so that’s a plus.

We had a pleasant Easter weekend. Lots of chocolate, but I have a new favorite saying - “Whatever the question, Chocolate is the answer!”

Here are some pictures of the kids in their new spring duds.

I have a new favorite picture of Jack – It makes me laugh every time I look at it.

It’s not the greatest, but I love the double chin with the neck tie and the facial expression – he makes faces like this all of the time that crack us all up.

Well, that’s it – Happy Eaaster!

Holy Moly, He’s 14!

2011-04-03T12:06:00.001-06:00

Jonathon turned 14 on the 23rd. We started celebrating early, because the week of his birthday was busy for us and we didn’t want him to feel like he was forgotten. It was almost like Magical Birthday March. Two weeks early we took him out to dinner and then shopping with just us and Henry. We also went to see Rango the weekend before and then we took the whole family out to dinner on his actual birthday. He had presents from all directions and got everything that he wanted.

He chose the same cake he has every year. I know why though, it’s amazingly tasty. How can you beat a pan of brownies topped with Oreo ice cream and covered in hot fudge and more cookies?

Really, I am blown away by the fact that it has been 14 years since we entered the wild world of parenting. How can my very first little boy be so big?

Oh, the memories. Since I didn’t write any of this down when he was a kid, I am going to dig deep and write a few things about Jonathon that I still remember. Warning: This gets kind of long.

For the first year of his life, we lived in a two bedroom apartment with Steve’s brother Paul. I could put Jonathon in his swing and he would sleep for hours. Sometimes I had to force myself to turn it off and wake him up so that he would be able to sleep at night. He was such a good little boy, but I really had no clue at the time. I figured it out later though, after I had Thomas.

When he was a year old, we bought our first house. He had his own room, and his own TV and VCR. His collection of video tapes was quite extensive, and he watched his favorites over and over. He could name what movie we put in for him almost before the first image would appear on the screen. He amazed us when he learned how to work the VCR by himself, and just started watching his movies whenever he wanted.

One day I found him sitting near an open window with his face pressed up against the screen whispering loudly to the outside world, “Somebody help me, please get me out of here.” I have no idea if he was acting out something from a movie, or if he really felt that he needed someone to come and save him. He sounded very convincing though, so I had to get him away from the window before someone actually heard him and called in the authorities.

Jonathon also learned the art of video game playing early on in life. It was so cute to watch him play. He started off slowly with computer games – one of his favorites was a Little Critter story game - but it wasn’t long before he had mastered the Playstation. Anyone who has spent any time with Jonathon knows that he loves talking about his latest game – now you know that it’s really our fault, we led him down that road.

Over the years, we have found that Jonathon does not really like to play sports. He has been on a team for soccer, T-ball, and basketball. He did not enjoy any of them but was a good sport and went to all his games and didn’t complain nearly as much as I did. I have been surprised this year, because he has been playing all sorts of games during PE and talks about how much he enjoys it.

Speaking of PE, it reminds me of a funny story. When Jonathon was in the 6th grade, he only had to go to PE once a week, but he still had to change into gym shorts and a T-shirt. He didn’t have an extra pair of tennis shoes, so he just wore his regular shoes in the gym. Well, when winter rolled around, he started to wear his snow boots to school. One day he came home and told me about how he had to play volleyball in his snow boots, because he didn’t remember to take his regular shoes to school. He said it was no big deal, but I felt so bad for him. The next week I made sure that he had his shoes in his backpack and sent him on his way. Later that day he came home and told me about how even though we had remembered the shoes, he forgot to wear regular socks. The morning was chilly, and so he had left the house in a pair of Steve’s heavy wooly winter socks. They were so big for Jonathon that they went up over his knees. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to him to take the socks off, but he didn’t. I just picture poor Jonathon running around the gym in his shorts with fat socks pulled up over his knees and the heel of the sock sticking out of the back of his shoes while he played. It cracks me up.

That is Jonathon for ya – or Jon as he is now called at school. He also goes by Lauer, Jonny, Jon Jon or just J. He reminds me so much of myself when I was his age. He loves art, especially drawing and in my opinion, he is very talented. He is usually in a pretty good mood and looks forward to life with excitement.I can always count on him to help me out when I need it.

There is so much more to write about him, but I will save it for another time.

Happy 14th Jonny – we love ya!

Tin Grin

2011-04-02T20:51:00.001-06:00

Hannah has entered the world of Orthodontics. She is now in what is called Phase One of her treatment plan. It was exciting for her to finally get braces, because she was not super happy with her crooked teeth.

Here she is with her new smile.

There’s a first for everything

2011-03-27T20:11:00.001-06:00

In all of our years of dental visits, we have never had one turn out even close to the way it did for poor Henry.

At the end of February, we had to take Henry in to get some cavities filled. The actual visit went well. He drank some special potion and then drifted off to happy land as they fixed his teeth. Steve brought him home and things were great. He wasn’t even upset or anything.

Except, he was hungry. Really hungry, because he had to skip breakfast. What do you feed a hungry little 3 year old boy with a super numbed up cheek? Well fruit loops of course. So, Steve made him a nice big bowl of cereal to chow down on.

(I will refrain from any type of negative comment here. I will only mention that I strongly urged Steve to give him some apple sauce or yogurt, but Henry wanted cereal, so he got cereal.)

I’m sure Henry didn’t even have a clue that he was chewing up the inside of his cheek, not even when blood was oozing out of his mouth like drool. I walked into the kitchen to find the gruesome site and knew that it was going to be bad.

So what does it look like when this happens?

I know it looks like the camera was at a funny angle, or that there was some sort of fish bowl effect going on, but no, it’s his swollen cheek.

It a rough week for my poor little guy. When the Novocain wore off, there was much pain for him. Not only did his teeth hurt, but the cankers that had formed on his cheek were awful. We had to endure never ending cries of, “ My cheek, my cheek, my cheek, ow ow, my cheek!”

This picture was taken a couple of days after the trauma.

He was still a little swollen

Luckily, he is all back to normal now, but it was pretty bad there for a while.

Jack’s Second Birthday

2011-02-27T22:06:00.001-07:00

Jack’s birthday was pretty low key this year. We didn’t have a big party or any decorations. In fact we didn’t even wrap his presents. Hey, he’s two, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t care. We’ll try to do better next year.

Grammy and Grampy came for a visit in the afternoon, and brought him a Toy Story couch. It was very tough for Henry to understand that it was for Jack and not for him. He was like that with all of Jack’s presents. I’m sure it will be that way forever. Hannah still has a hard time when Libby get presents too.

Grandma Lauer sent a radio flyer tricycle for him, and it was a hit with all of the kids. It’s amazing how many times I have to get mad at the older kids for trying to ride it. Jack spent the day singing a Queen song about bicycles.

We got him this twisty road thing that cars drive on.

I decided to get all fancy with his Birthday Cupcakes. I know that he didn’t really care what they looked like, but he sure did love how they tasted.

It’s crazy how fast two years has gone by. Jack has turned into a little boy, and he is no longer my baby. He loves to play with Henry and copy whatever he does. This makes him seem even bigger than he really is. He is such a funny little boy who makes us all laugh. He likes to help put the dishes away and he loves to play with the kitchen gadgets. He is constantly moving chairs to get into things. He is going to be an amazing artist when he grows up, and I will be rich because I will have all of his beginning masterpieces on my walls and doors and windows and furniture. I am afraid for the terrible twos with this one – it’s a good thing he’s so cute.

Super Shopper Saturday

2011-02-20T19:34:00.001-07:00

Last Saturday, we took the girls out to spend their Christmas gift cards (presents from Grandma Lauer – Thanks!) I was not really looking forward to shopping with either one of the girls, but Steve forced me to go with him.

Shopping with Hannah is usually very stressful, because she wants what she wants no matter how much it costs, or how awful it looks. We usually end up fighting over whatever she decides to buy. So on this day I was determined not to say a word about anything she picked out.

Shopping with Elizabeth is usually very exasperating because she can not make a decision about anything. She walks around the store talking about how much she loves everything, but is unable to pick out exactly what she wants. This usually leads to me picking out her clothes for her, and then having her not like them later. So I decided that she was going to have to pick out, try on and make her own decision about what she wanted to buy.

I don’t know if it was because I went into the whole thing with a different attitude, or what, but the whole shopping experience wasn’t so bad. Hannah was a great bargain shopper and got almost twice as many items as Libby did. That is fine with me, because it took Libby twice as long as Hannah to pick out half as many things.

Surprisingly enough, Steve was a great help and made sure that Libby picked out the right sizes and found matching leggings for her. Really, it’s only because he forgot his Kindle at home and so he didn’t have anything else to do.

After we shopped, we hit The Olive Garden for lunch. I do love it there, how can you go wrong with soup, salad, and breadsticks? During lunch the girls were talking about how they wanted to get their hair cut shorter. So on the way home, we dropped into Great Clips and they got new hair do’s.

Poor Hannah, she suffers from what we like to call “The Fun’s All Over Syndrome.” She has such a melt down when it’s time to go home. I told the girls that we would take pictures of them doing a fashion show with their new clothes on, By the time that we got home she didn’t even want to change into her new clothes, but I still made her. We only got a couple of good pictures. I think we need a new camera – lately none of my pics have turned out.

Bringing 2010 To An End

2011-01-30T22:26:00.001-07:00

When I have finished this post, I think I can finally consider myself caught up. I have made a promise to myself that I will not get that far behind again. Hopefully I can stay on top of things. It’s no fun blogging about stuff that I can barely remember.

It seems like our Christmas Season was a bit hectic this year. I didn’t even get any baking done, so therefore, we did not give out any neighbor gifts this year. I find myself thinking that we didn’t focus on the more important things, and we let the hustle and bustle take over. So, note to self, try to make next year a little more special.

A few days before Christmas, Hannah was playing at a friends house and totally smashed her finger between two exercise weights. It looked awful, and was definitely something that I worried about. Luckily the doctor was able to take care of it in the office, and patched her right up. She worried so much about having to get stitches or that something might be really wrong, but in the end she loved all of the extra attention.

My mom and dad came for a visit on the 23rd. It’s always exciting when they show up with giant bags full of presents. My dad got out the video camera and took tons of videos of the kids. Tauna flew in the next day, and so we were only missing Sam. Hopefully we will get to see her sometime soon.

Our very own Christmas eve tradition is making graham cracker houses. Steve is the master carpenter and gets all of the houses glued together with hot glue. This year, he went above and beyond and made an extra large two story house with the leftover crackers.

Our other Christmas Eve Tradition is to let the kids open one present. They all know that they are getting Pajamas, and then a movie to watch. It makes them crazy that they never get to open a real present. I tried to get them to hold still for a photo of them in their new PJ”s, but it’s beyond impossible.

We all enjoyed our Christmas morning. I took more pictures than usual, so it is hard to choose just a few for this post. I will throw some in when and if I ever get around to making a blog book. Besides, there are not many people who want to look at pictures of other people opening presents.

We also have many pictures of the easy bake creations that were made later in the afternoon. I was happily taking a little snooze during the baking process, but was later informed that the chocolate cake was delish and the yellow cake didn’t quite turn out. I do not have wonderful things to say about the easy bake oven, however, it gives Hannah something to do.

All through December, I was worried that we might not have a very white Christmas. We did eventually get some snow before the magical day, so no worries there. However, the real snow came right before New Years. We had so much snow, that we had to snow blow 3 times that day.

Finally, our New Years Eve celebrations. We decided to forget about the easy bake oven, and go for some real cakes. The girls each made their own cakes, and then we tried out our new mini cupcake maker that we got for Christmas. We had cakes and cupcakes and frosting everywhere, but everyone had a great time decorating.

We spent most of the day watching our favorite movies that we got for Christmas, including Despicable Me which we probably watched twice. We finished off the year by enjoying the firework show put on by the neighbors as we drank our sparkling fruit drinks. It should have been hot chocolate, but I wasn’t using my brain.

So now that I am all caught up, I don’t know if I will have much to write about for a while. January is now over, and nothing much has happened. At least we will have Jack’s birthday in February.

Our Magical Downtown Family Night Adventure

2011-01-28T15:30:00.001-07:00

This year, Steve and I did not get tickets to our favorite Christmas concert put on by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. So apparently the only other festive activity that we could come up with was to take the kids to see the lights at Temple Square. Most people enjoy this activity and highly recommend it to their friends. However, our sojourn to the big city was wrought with many trials and tribulations, so we are going to think twice before attempting this as a family ever again.

Our evening started out with Steve arriving home at around 6:00 pm. I was mildly irritated at the kids, and somewhat frazzled at the thought of coming up with something to fix for dinner. Since it was also a Monday, one of us was going to have to come up with some sort of Family Night Activity. Steve, who had just driven home from Salt Lake suggested that we pick up something to eat and head back down to see the lights. This was an amazingly kind gesture on his part, because who really wants to drive to and from SLC twice in one day?

So we loaded up the kids and headed to the gas station to fill up the car and our bellies with food from Wendy’s. It seemed like everything we did took forever, plus, the chicken sandwiches had mayo on them and since mayo is poisonous, we had to go back and get more sandwiches. By the time we headed out, it was around 7:00 pm

We decided that since there was a Jazz game, we had better not try and find parking downtown, so we headed to a trax station around Trolley Square. In our mad rush to get out of the house, we did not have time to familiarize ourselves with the way trax works these days. We showed up with nothing but plastic to pay for our tickets, but the ticket kiosk only took cash. So more time was spent traipsing through the area to get cash from the nearest grocery store. This was not such a bad thing, because as soon as we entered the grocery store, magical fairies called to the children saying, “bathroom, bathroom, bathroom” so at least we got that part out of the way.

After we finally boarded the next train that came along, we discovered that the (green) train we were on was headed south instead of north. So we got off at the next stop which was the Library. This is where Steve decided that no matter how hard we tried, we would never ever in the history of the world be able to figure out which train would take us to the lights, so we must just walk the rest of the way.

So around 8:30 pm, Steve and I along with Jonathon, Thomas, Hannah, Libby, and Henry & Jack in strollers, headed off into the night with the assurances of Steve who said he knew where we were and how to get where we needed to be. I did not have my doubts about being able to find the Temple, I did, however, wonder how long it was going to take us to get there.

I will not lie, I was not a good sport about walking all that way. Amazingly, the kdis did not complain at all. Well, maybe they did, but I wasn’t paying attention. I was lost in my self pity, thinking in my head what I was going to say to Steve later when he tried to make us walk all the way back to the car. This was not a happy thought, so I focused on the passing trax cars and tried to figure out which color we should take to get back.

Shouts of joy abounded when we finally saw a giant glowing Christmas Tree from afar. Our pace quickened, and we were finally there. It truly was amazing, there is no doubt about it. Every time we go there, I have to wonder how many hours must have been spent on stringing all those lights on every branch and twig. We wandered around for a little bit, and then everyone was ready to go.

As we were heading out, the kids were all wondering if we were going to stop and get a treat or something. We tried explaining to them that since it was after 9:00, there were not any places that were open. Plus, both Steve and I were preoccupied with trying to figure out which train to get on.

It was nice that there was a trax station not too far from where we were, and by now I knew that we needed to get on either a red or yellow car. So we waited and waited and finally we saw the train coming towards us. The only problem was that we were waiting on the wrong part of the platform. The train passed us and stopped further on down from where we were. We had to move quickly to catch the doors before they closed. We really had to scramble to get everyone and the strollers moved without loosing anyone. Somehow, in the commotion, Thomas got tripped up and biffed it on the pavement.

Steve was already at the train door, but looked back to see Thomas on the ground and was about to let the door close when It magically opened and more people got off the train. Thomas was up and on his way, but I had to make a split second decision. Jack had dropped my gloves and I wasn’t sure if I could to back and get them and still make it before the train left. In my mind, it was like a scene from the movies and I was moving in slow motion. I ran back, grabbed the gloves and made it onto the train just in time. In the movies, all the people on the train would have clapped for us. In real life, they didn’t but there were a couple of very nice gentlemen who stood up so that we could all sit down together.

We got back to the car around 10:00 pm. I could not have been happier. Steve felt bad and apologized for making us go through the whole thing. The kids were still whining about wanting goodies and treats. Me and Steve just wanted to get home, so we put our invisible earplugs in and ignored them until they all fell asleep. After that, it was a pleasant drive home.

So, if we do attempt this again in the future, at least we will know what not to do.

Fun Filled Fall Festivities

2011-01-23T22:23:00.001-07:00

It’s always a happy time for me when the kids head back to school and stop yelling at each other all day long. Some might wonder if I would rather just keep the kids home in order to avoid the stressful mornings spent waiting in line at the school drop off area. Still it’s nice to have my days free of bickering, so I must endure through the agony of dealing with inconsiderate people who don’t know how to pull all the way forward. That’s all I have to say about that.

In October, Steve and Hannah went on a Daddy Daughter Activity for Achievement Days. Hannah was very excited about the whole thing. The girls got to make up special invitations for all of the dad’s, and they had to dress up for the special Masquerade Ball. They even learned how to do some ball room dancing.

For Fall Break we headed down to Phoenix to see Steve’s sister and her family.
It was actually an enjoyable mini vacation, and we are hoping that we will make
the effort to visit there more often. The only pictures we took during the whole
trip were of the kids half asleep in the hotel room.

For Steve’s birthday this year, I have no clear memory of what we did. I am pretty sure that we had dinner at one of our favorite restaurants. I don’t know what he got for his birthday, but whenever I ask him about it, all I hear is that we sure didn’t go anywhere fun like Disneyland. For the record, Steve likes to buy himself presents when it’s not his birthday, so sometimes his birthdays are a little bit of a let down.

Documenting the first snow of the year - October 26th.
It was such a beautiful night, but this picture isn’t even close to capturing it.

For Halloween, the kids pretty much wore that same costumes as last year, so I didn’t take pictures of the kids, but we do have pics of the pumpkins. Halloween was a very stormy night, and we didn’t get much trick or treating in because of the downpour.

Henry’s, Jonathon’s, Thomas’, Hanna’s
Steve’s, Neisha’s, Libby’s and Jack’s

For Thanksgiving we made many plans, but none of them panned out.
So it was just us at home feasting on turkey.
Of course it was the best turkey ever, but I think we say that every year.

Our most time honored Thanksgiving tradition is making homemade
place cards. Hannah took on the job all by herself this year, and this is
what she came up with. I don’t think the picture can portray how cute they
looked with their little tiny feathers in the back.

And finally, homemade apple pie. It looks kind of gooey around the edges,
however, that’s caramel so it’s a good kind of gooey.

Hannah’s 9th Birthday – Sept 2, 2010

2011-01-21T15:22:00.001-07:00

Hannah usually has a great Magical Birthday Weekend because it almost always falls on Labor Day Weekend. It’s a good thing too, because Hannah always has high expectations. She has such a hard time coping when all the fun comes to an end.

Once again, she decided on a trip to the Kamas Pool – we checked first to make sure that they were for sure open, so as to avoid last years mishap of driving the whole way there to find pool closed. After swimming, we headed to the pizza/ice cream store. If this sounds familiar, it’s because this is the activity chosen most often by my kids for their birthday. The pizza is quite tasty and the kids love to stare at the bins full of ice cream and take forever to pick out their flavor.

Grammy also came for a visit sometime during the weekend and we had a little party. I went to great lengths to give Hannah a customized Taylor Swift cake. It was a lot of work, so no laughing. I created the picture on the computer by using one of Hannah’s favorite clip art girls. Then, I tried to recreate it in frosting – not so easy! She was happy with it though, and really that’s all that matters.

Right now, Hannah is learning and growing and testing boundaries. One minute, she can be the sweetest little girl who has smart and interesting things to say. The next minute, when she gets upset, the whole world turns upside down for us all. I have learned that she is happiest when she has a project or if she has some sort of responsibility. Boredom is Hannah’s downfall – she gets into so much trouble when she has nothing to do. She is a great helper with Jack and is always the first to volunteer to get him dressed, or put him to bed, or even to change his non stinky diapers. She is very creative and loves to draw and color and listen to music. There is never a dull moment with Hannah around.

August 17th 2010 – Neisha’s Birthday

2011-01-16T20:23:00.001-07:00

My new resolution is to post something at least once a week. I think Sunday is a good day to dedicate to documenting family history, So it’s time to get caught up.

For my birthday this year we decided to take a trip to Disneyland. Just me and Steve. The kids were disappointed, but they got over it quickly because they got to spend time with Grammy.

The night before we left, Steve surprised me with cakes from a real bakery – something that I have been hinting about for years. They were so tasty! It’s a good thing that they were small cakes so that I didn’t have to feel guilty for eating all of the leftovers.

The next morning, we hopped on an early flight down to California, took a cab to the Hotel and then headed out to Disney. We thoroughly enjoyed wandering through the park without having to listen to kids whine about everything.

* * * Flash Back * * *

When I was a senior, Steve took me to my Prom. The Prom itself was uneventful, but the day after, he took me to Disneyland. The day was filled with adventure as we explored the park and talked about our favorite rides, and got to know each other better. We had such a good time, that we missed our flight and had to take a later one that routed us from Orange County to Las Vegas to Phoenix.

(Insert lost pictures here when you figure out where you put the box of old photos)

Since my entire existence is based on the consumption of deliciously tasty food, the day was made extra special with a lunch at the Blue Bayou. This is the restaurant that you can see as you are floating by on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Neither of us knew what to expect as we ordered - Steve chose some type of steak, and I opted for something called a Monte Cristo sandwich. I had never heard of such a thing before – a ham and turkey sandwich dipped in batter and deep fried, served with grape jelly. I had my doubts, but the menu was New Orleans Style food, and this was really the only thing that sounded edible. I am happy to tell you that I chose wisely that day.

* * * End Flash Back * * *

What a delectable combination of taste and texture. I immediately fell in love with that sandwich. For eighteen years, I have searched unsuccessfully for a sandwich as good as that one. Other sandwiches claiming to be a Monte Cristo did not even come close to the awesomeness of the Blue Bayou version. We have been back to Disneyland several times, but have never been able to get a table at that restaurant.

So, for my Birthday, we made reservations. I was worried that maybe I had only imagined the greatness of my lunch that day and that it would be a bitter disappointment when I was finally able to bite into my sandwich.

It seemed to take forever, as we ate our way through the first course of soup and salad. Steve, who rarely tries anything new, opted for a chicken gumbo soup. I sat and watched with amazement as he ate the entire cup full of soup. His palette has grown so much since we first met.

When at last my lunch finally arrived, my fears of being disappointed by the built up sandwich were laid to rest as I took my first bite. It was just as good as I remembered it to be. The only problem that I faced was when I realized in my older age how utterly fattening a deep fried sandwich must be. But hey, it was my birthday, so I tried no to think about it.

It was hard for us to get going after lunch. Too bad there is not a sleepy time land to take a nap for a while. The problem that we usually run into, is that Steve is ready to leave when we have gone through the park and hit all of the rides. I, however, feel like we must get our money’s worth and stay until the kick us out. Again, since it was my magical birthday trip, we got to stay for the fireworks.

I love Disney firework shows. They are absolutely the best. It was crazy how many people were packed in front of the castle to see the show. It was like sardines. We ended up having to sit on the road, but It was still enjoyable. I really didn’t want to leave, but I don’t think they let you sleep over.

It was such a great Birthday. Thanks Steve for spoiling me rotten.

Still Catching Up – Summer Events

2010-11-28T20:14:00.001-07:00

I know it’s the end of November, but I am seriously incapable of blogging about current events until I have caught up with all of the photos stored in my pictures folder (OCD?). It’s ok, because I’m almost caught up.

So here we are with some summer randomness.

Steve, Jonathon and Thomas decided to hike Timpanogos Mountain this summer. It was the second time for Steve and Jonathon, but the first time for Thomas. They went at the end of August, and it was a perfect day.

They went up to the top and back down in one day. Steve said that he is always amazed at the energy that the boys have. They didn’t even complain throughout the whole hike.

A view from the top.

Sometime during the summer I decided to make a table. It was fun to play with all of the saws and tools in the garage. It has made a nice addition to all of our other stuff in the garage – just another surface to pile stuff on. We have too much stuff.

I planted a flower garden that had so much potential. However, due to lack of water, the flowers perished and were taken over by noxious weeds. Weeds that grew to great heights with out any water at all.

Also, this is what I woke up to in the mornings during the summer. Jack and Henry loved to watch out the window and count how many they could see.

So that’s pretty much our summer. Except for my birthday. I’ll do that next and then I can start on the fall. I’ll be ready to write about Thanksgiving in no time.

# 7 for Libby – June 18th 2010

2010-11-03T11:15:00.001-06:00

This year, we decided to take Libby on a shopping spree for her birthday. She got to buy whatever she wanted with her birthday money. It is very hard to shop with Libby, because she is very indecisive.

Libby has such a bright personality. Her sense of style is crazy, and she loves big floral prints. Her favorite outfit is an orange paisley print skirt with a pink and orange floral print shirt and rainbow striped tights.

Libby is pretty much a girly girl who loves to do her nails and put make up on. She is such a happy kid – like the little girls in the movies who sing and and dance and skip around all of the time.

Sometimes Libby says the most absurd things that make absolutely no sense at all.

Quotes from Libby:

“If your whole body was made out of cheese hamburgers, you could eat yourself. Even your stomach.”

One day while riding in the car eating French fries that were slightly cold, Thomas said he needed them warmed up. I told him to just eat them, but he insisted that he would wait until we got home to warm them up. Then in the most serious voice, Libby said - “I have an Invisible microwave in here.”

Libby told her friend that the UPS man was, "The boy who takes away X-boxes, and fixes them.”

We love you Libby!

When Henry Turned Three

2010-10-12T13:19:00.001-06:00

This year we had a Toy Story birthday for Henry. He got a brand new shiny Buzz Lightyear and I decided to buy him a store bought cake instead of trying to create my own character cake disaster.

Steve took Henry and the others big kids to see Toy Story 3. It was Henry’s first trip to a movie theater and he was good to sit through the whole movie. He even did better than Libby who always finds some reason to get out of her seat and bother the others.

Henry is constantly pushing the boundaries. He is a pretty determined kid. He loves to play outside and heads out whenever he pleases. He got a Bubble mower for his birthday, because he loves to follow us around as we mow the lawn. The best thing we ever did was put the gate up this spring so that he could not escape out of the backyard.

He is not that great at adapting to new things. We are taking part in a neighborhood Joy School. So every Tuesday and Thursday he has a howling fit as we head off to other people’s houses to play for a couple of hours. He always has a great time and is fine when I pick him up, so I don’t know why he has problems in the first place.

He is now officially potty trained – woo hoo! Except at night – of course. I wonder how long that will take?

He loves to play with cars and always has to have one to carry around with him. He also loves the movie Cars too, but we have not watched it for a while. That’s ok, because we watched it every day for like 6 months, so we needed a break.

I think he’s growing up too fast, but I know I can’t do anything about it.

Evil Trampolines

2010-10-03T21:13:00.001-06:00

This summer brought us our first experience with stitches. It think we did pretty good making it all the way to kid #4 before we had to deal with this issue.

Of course it was Libby who needed them. She has the ability to get hurt while playing with cotton balls and bubble wrap. It’s amazing that she can navigate through the obstacle course in her room during the middle of the night to get to the bathroom, but she trips over the air walking down the sidewalk in the middle of the day. She is also the first and only kid to get a broken bone.

Early in June, after being told more than once to stay away from the trampolines, Libby found herself knocked against the bar and got a nasty gash above her eyebrow.

She only had to have 3 stitches, but it was traumatic all the same. Especially for poor Libby who can make all things seem 10 times worse.

It a good thing we have such great neighbors to help us out when we need it. The whole experience was not nearly as bad as it could have been.

P.S. As I was looking through pictures from this summer, I came across this one. Guess how this happened? On a trampoline. This was a knee to the eye socket injury. So she has officially been banned from all trampolines everywhere.

Way back in the Month of May

2010-10-02T22:03:00.002-06:00

Poor Thomas! His birthday gets mixed up in the hustle and bustle of the end of the school year and then summer, and I never get around to writing about it until now.

Thomas chose to go to the Kamas Pool for his birthday, so we rounded up a couple of friends and headed up there. The pool is great because there is something for everyone to enjoy.

He saved up all of his birthday money and purchased an iPod Nano. He was sick of always having to listen to Jonathon’s music. It didn’t last very long though, because he left it in his pocket and Jonathon washed it. The good news is that Apple took it back and sent us another one. So that was nice. But right now, he can’t find it, and it’s been lost for a very long time. I’m sure it’s down in the pig sty that they call a bedroom and one day he might find it again.

On a side note, you might think that Jonathon would have learned his lesson, but later in the summer he washed his own iPod, and since it wasn’t under warranty, he didn’t get a new one. So now he is working to save up money for a new one.

By May, Thomas was so ready to be out of school. His 5th grade experience was not the best. He was struggling with his assignments, and his teacher wasn’t the greatest.

He thoroughly enjoyed summer though, and was not looking forward to going back to school. I was not very happy about starting school either, because we did not get the teacher that we requested for the 6th grade. But, things eventually worked out for us and Thomas has a great teacher this year.

Thomas is such a laid back kid. He loves to read adventure/fantasy books. He has finished quite a few books this year, because he was grounded from video games for most of the 5th grade.

He is a great to help out with the little boys, but we don’t leave him home to babysit very often, because he has still not earned back our trust since the broken window incident.

Let’s hope that his new enthusiasm for school lasts until the end of the year, and that he will not feel unloved when he reads this blog in the future and finds out that I never wrote about his birthday until September. He’s not alone, I also have to catch up on Libby’s, Henry’s, Hannah’s and my own birthday. So there!

It’s That Time Again

2010-09-16T22:05:00.001-06:00

It seems there is much to catch up on from the last few months. Now that the kids are back in school, I have found time to upload the photos from this summer. Only to find that I didn’t even really take that many. I wish I was better at snapping pics over the summer.

Once again I have failed to post about many things that have passed, but I am not going to try to fit it all in right now. That would be too overwhelming. So I’m just going to take it slowly.

This is one of my most favorite
moments from this summer.

Disney puts on the best firework shows ever!

Today We Found A . . .

2010-06-08T22:29:00.001-06:00

Butterfly

This afternoon we found a butterfly in our garage.
It wouldn’t fly away, so we think there might have
been something wrong with it.

It wasn’t just a small butterfly. It was huge!
It had about a six inch wing span.

We found a home for it, and we hope that it recovers soon.

Financial Planning 101

2010-05-15T16:40:00.001-06:00

Murphy’s Law

Over the last few weeks, we have been taking a financial class to help us learn how to: Get out of debt, Stay debt free, and invest in the future. We have learned many great concepts that will help us achieve these goals.

The classes started in April, and soon after we attended our first one, Steve’s car broke ($800). This was just another reason why April sucked. We had made a decision to stop charging on our credit card and this happens. Great!

Murphy’s law:
When you try to save money something expensive will happen.

This week we had some extra money come our way. We have already put a nice chunk towards debt this month, so we decided to use the extra money to build a fence that will keep Henry in the backyard this summer. This is a necessity.

Steve got online and estimated the cost of two side fences, and guess what? It worked out to be the same amount of the extra money. Nice!

We headed right out to Home Depot with our list of supplies. We decided to take Henry with us so that he wouldn’t cause trouble for Thomas who was in charge because Jonathon was on a Scout Campout.

This is what we came home to.

Thomas did this while we were gone – I guess you could call it an accident, but the point is that we had some extra money, then we spent it, and now it’s probably going to cost us the same amount to fix the window.

Luckily we were able to complete the first step in our financial plan, so we do have an emergence savings account. I just didn’t want to dip into so soon.

Things we learned today, Thomas is not responsible enough to be left in charge; there is always going to be something that requires your extra money; and making money answering questions on the internet is not worth your while. But that’s another story.

BTW: Does anyone know a good window guy?

More Vacation Pictures

2010-05-10T22:55:00.001-06:00

With a lengthy post to follow

Who would have thought that this . . . . .

Would turn into this . . . . .

Uncle Paul and Dad got creative with the frosting.

I’m not too old to play in the bounce house, and I was even able to show the girls how to do flips and handsprings without getting hurt – unlike Steve who thought he could too, but was wrong.

Jack had fun playing outside, but even crawling on grass and concrete did not motivate him to walk.

Thomas

Jonathon

The boys

Ten out of twelve grandchildren – maybe one day we will get the other two in the picture.

Steve, his brother Paul and his sister Sandra

James and Jack

Long Month = Long Post

2010-05-10T22:18:00.001-06:00

Warning: This is what happens when you don’t write anything for a whole month. This post is more for documenting the events than it is entertaining.

I don’t know if I can remember ever having a month seem as long as April. I guess it could be said that the last month of a pregnancy might be close, but usually the end result is joyful.

It’s a good thing that we were able to go to Vegas because that trip was like the calm before the storm.

We had one week from the time we got home from Vegas until we left for Florida. We decided to ship our clothes instead of checking baggage, because now they charge you per bag. If you don’t have to check bags, then you get to go straight to the gate, so that is an added bonus.

It is always a little overwhelming getting all of us through security and onto the plane. The kids were great. They might drive me crazy all of the other days of the year, but I will put up with it as long as they behave at the airport.

I hate to fly. I get sick on take-off and landing and during turbulence. I can usually keep everything down, but it’s such an icky feeling. Plus there’s always the horrible thought in the back of my mind that planes crash. Luckily we only had one bad upchuck moment, and that was on the way home. Hannah lost it when we flew into Atlanta for a plane change. It’s our fault, we forgot the Dramamine.

We flew into Tampa and so we had to drive for a couple of hours to get to Grandma’s house. It sure was nice to finally get out of the car. Everyone was so excited to finally be there.

The weather was perfect. I would like to never have to go back there in the summertime again. We stayed two nights at Grandma’s and then they put us up in a resort for the next week. The kids got to take turns sleeping over at Grandma’s.

On Friday we decided to leave the kids with grandma and go check into the resort. On the way we got into a fender bender in the rental car. I have to say that I think this put a damper on our entire vacation. We are still sorting out the details, because it’s our word against the other guys, but I’m telling you - He switched lanes into us.

On Saturday we headed back to Tampa to watch the Yankees play the Rays. We had great seats right behind the Yankee bullpen, it was fun, but it just wasn’t as exciting as going to a Yankee home game. The traffic was awful and we spent more time driving in the car than we did at the game, but at least they won.

Sunday was the day of the Bounce House. Steve’s parents rented one to keep the kids busy for the day. Steve’s mom also decided that we should celebrate everyone’s birthday because we were all there together.

Tuesday found us at The Magic Kingdom in Disneyworld. By this time the camera had run out of batteries, and we didn’t feel like digging up the charger so we don’t have any pictures. It doesn’t matter thought, because I think all of our Disney pictures always look the same.

We wrapped up our visit with a trip to Nana’s, where we all got to go for a golf cart ride and see a baby alligator that lives in one of the golf course ponds. Again, no pictures – I always forget the camera.

While we were there, I found out that my Grandpa up in Bear Lake was very sick. My mom didn’t want to worry us, but the doctors had only given him a few days. So as soon as we got home, I headed up to see him. There were many family members there and it was good to see everyone, even if the reason wasn’t the best.

By the time I got home, I felt like I had been away for the whole month. I was not even sure what day it was. Luckily there was nothing scheduled so I didn’t have to worry about remembering anything.

The rest of the month was long because I was always wondering when I would get that unwelcome phone call about grandpa.

Keith Weston Johnson 1922 - 2010

2010-05-10T22:17:00.001-06:00

I got the call on Friday, April 30th.

I always remember Grandpa working - up in the barn or digging irrigation ditches or working on tractors. Even when he stopped working the ranch, he always had a project that he was working on.

I don’t remember him ever getting mad at us, but I do remember that he always let his opinion be known. You always knew if you drove too fast down the road when you came to visit, or if he didn’t like the logo on your shirt.

One day when we went to visit, grandpa asked us if we were renting an apartment and how much we paid. Then he went on and on about how stupid it was to throw money away by renting. So Steve and I decided that we should look into buying a house. I am glad that I was able to see him when we got back from Florida.

This is his Obituary from the Herald Journal.

LAKETOWN, Utah - Keith Weston Johnson, 88, left this life peacefully at his home April 30, 2010. He was born in Laketown, Utah, on April 18, 1922, to Willis Dewitt and Lydia Ann Weston Johnson. He married Thelma Satterthwaite on Sept. 19, 1942, and was later sealed in the Logan LDS Temple on March 30 1959.

He was a man of varied interests and talents and was a civic leader. He gave generously of his time and means to the community and LDS Church. He served as president of the Rich County School Board and Bear Lake TV.

Keith has one passion in life, his love for livestock and the Big Creek Ranch. He devoted his life to good, hard, honest work. He was taught this ethic at an early age while working side by side with his father Dewitt.

Keith spent his life adding upon what his father started. He now passes that legacy of ranching to his sons.

Keith had a way with animals; his love and gentleness of them was always visible. His pets were his pals and always on his mind right to the end.

Keith loved and cared deeply for his family; they were what mattered most. He will be greatly missed and always remembered in our hearts. We are grateful we had the time we had and for the wealth of love and knowledge we all received.

He is survived by his wife Thelma; children: Joan (Mark) Mckinnon of Laketown, Utah; Dee (Gaye) Johnson of Dry Fork, Wyo.; Bonnie (Dewey) Forsberg of Logan, Utah; Philip (Bobbi) Johnson of Parker, Colo.; Nola (Farrell) Eastman of Millville, Utah; Kimberly (Brent) Roberts of Providence, Utah; Yale (Lisa) Johnson of Laketown, Utah.

Keith was preceded in death by his parents; a baby boy, Gilbert; two brothers and two sisters.

The family will have a private funeral at 11 a.m. Monday, May 3, 2010, at the Big Creek Ranch. Interment will be in the Big Creek Cemetery.

The Keith Johnson family will welcome friends to celebrate his life with them from 4 to 6 p.m. May 3, 2010, at their home.

Just One More Day

2010-04-01T00:17:00.001-06:00

We got home from our Vegas Getaway today and I just wish that it could have lasted one more day. I know it’s good to leave why you are still enjoying your vacations, but I think I could have had fun for just a little longer.

We headed out on Monday morning after we got the kids off to school. I was thinking it would be a super long drive, but we were to St. George in no time. We stopped in for a visit with my grandparents for a little bit. We spent some time looking at family photos from over the years. My grandma has a hard time remembering who people are, and I was glad that she seemed to have a moment when she knew who I was. We felt bad when it was time to leave.

It has been a while since we have stayed on the strip, and there were tons more people than I remember. After we parked, we had to journey through Italy to get to the front desk of The Venetian, and then had to wait in a line longer than Airport security. I had to take a picture of the floor in the lobby, because it reminded me of a game of Q-Bert and I couldn’t walk on it without jumping from block to block.

Both Jersey Boys and Phantom were playing at the hotel, so we were greeted with songs from Frankie Vallie in the elevators and Phantom in the hallways. I am seriously amazed at the amount of money spent on building these hotels. Our room was so nice and comfortable, I wish it could be my little home in Italy.

We met my sister for dinner and then went to see the fountains at The Bellagio. The fountains are something that I would tell you not to miss if you were going to Vegas. I think they are pretty entertaining.

The highlight of our trip was our hike to Ice Box Canyon in Red Rock Canyon on Tuesday. I am so not a hiker, but I was sure that the Jillian workouts had made me tough enough to tackle most anything. My sister recommended this hike and even though she told me it might be tough, I said if she could do it then so could I.

It was a 2.5 mile trail – half of it was climbing up a river bed. Yep, I think Jillian needs to work me a little harder, because I was ready to give up before we even got half way in. It was definitely a challenge, but It was also totally worth it. I guess that’s what it’s all about – getting to the end and being able to say that you did it.

The pictures don’t even come close to showing what it was really like, we had to climb up all sorts of rocks and boulders.

That’s my sister with us. She made a good show, but she was just as sore as I was today.

Hey, guess what? I climbed up that – yes, I did!

So did Steve!

It was pretty cool.

Then we climbed down, ate some great pizza for lunch and went shopping. I wanted to take a nap, but then I knew that if I did, I wouldn’t be able to get up ever again.

We decided to get tickets to Blue Man Group on Tuesday night.
I have to tell you that it wasn’t the greatest show I’ve ever been to. In fact, I don’t recommend it unless it’s free or at a drastically reduced price. Go see STOMP instead.

We had never seen these guys before, so we didn’t know what to expect. Especially when they asked Steve if he wanted to be part of the show. Steve reluctantly said yes, and they took him away to explain what he needed to do. Then he came back, and he wouldn’t tell me what was going to happen.

Now, because the show was kind of lame, Steve’s part wasn’t that funny, but just that fact that he had to go down on the stage and participate was great. He really hates doing things like that.

Then we had to get up early this morning so we could beat the bad weather and drive home today. I didn’t think we would be able to get up, but we had a nice 7am wake-up call from Hannah who wanted to know where her black turtle neck shirt was. Yeah, even when you get a way you can’t really get away.

Thanks to my mom – who never ever gets online to read this. She was nice enough to watch the kids so that we could go and play. It was great to go and hang out with my sister. It was even nice to spend time driving in the car with Steve for 12 hours. We need to do it again soon.

Jonathon - It’s not always about you!

2010-03-26T11:42:00.002-06:00

Well, we officially have a teenager in the house. Even though he just barely turned 13 on Tuesday, we have been experiencing teenage behavior for a while now. In my opinion, teenagers (well, at least Jonathon) think the whole world revolves around them. Steve and I can not have a quiet conversation without Jonathon asking what we are saying about him. If I get after the kids for not cleaning up, Jonathon gets mad because he thinks I am speaking directly to him. If we make any plans, go anywhere, do anything, we have to make sure that it’s all right with Jonathon first. He even thinks that all phone calls are either for or about him.

This week, however, was actually all about Jonathon.

Last Friday kicked off his Magical Birthday Weekend. I’m not sure how many times I heard him say that he didn’t have to do something because it was his Magical Birthday Weekend. Steve even wondered if we should ban the whole magical weekend thing between the ages of 12-18. I’m not sure if we need go that route, but we will have to make some adjustments for the teenage years.

Friday was spent at another friends birthday party and on Saturday he went to see Diary Of a Wimpy Kid with his friend. This meant that we lost our babysitter for the whole weekend – Oh the sacrifices we make for our kids! Tuesday was his actually birthday and so I took him down to Salt Lake to a book signing at Desert Book. We bought the 5th book in the Fablehaven series and got it signed by the author. This was exciting for Jonathon, but for me, and Henry, and Jack, it was a long wait in line. Now I have to decide if I should read the Fablehaven books, or the Percy Jackson series first – any thoughts?

I swear this picture is almost the same as last year. He wanted the same ice cream brownie cake as the last two years. I don’t care though, because it’s the best. I invited neighbors over so there wouldn’t be any left over to pig out on the next day.

This week was also the Regional Science Fair. So we went to BYU to set up on Wednesday and then Jonathon presented his project on Thursday. There was an awards ceremony that night too. I am truly amazed at the amount of talent and imagination kids have these days. Jonathon didn’t win anything, but our neighbor McKay took second place in his category. So way to go McKay!

When I think about how fast the last five years have gone by, I get worried that the next five will go even faster, and he will be 18 before I know it. Jonathon is my best helper even though he complains the whole time. I can count on him to do a good job babysitting when I need to go somewhere. He does good in school and I don’t have to badger him about doing his homework. I know he is a lot like me when I was his age and I love to see how he copes with the challenges of daily life. He makes me proud to be his mom.

Jack Turned One

2010-03-15T19:31:00.002-06:00

February 23rd – Happy Birthday!

Yes, it was a while ago, I don’t know where the time goes.

For every kid that we have, the first birthday becomes less and less of an event. See Henry’s First Here.

Poor Jack, I wasn’t even going to buy him birthday presents. It’s not like he knows right? But, Steve said that we had to get him at least one. So he got one present from us and one from Grandma. I also got him a new outfit, but then forgot about it until I found it 2 days ago.

Grammy was a slacker and decided not to show up for the “not really a party” so she could hang out with my Dad in Austin. So it was just our little family.

I didn’t even make him a cake – I went to “The Store” in Midway and bought him one. It was white with confetti sprinkles. I also bought a red velvet cake for me and Steve to eat - they were both delicious. Also, they were the perfect size, everyone got a piece, and there was only one slice leftover. I’m not sure who ate it for breakfast the next day, but I’m sure she did plenty of Jillian Michaels to make up for it.

Note to baker: Green confetti looks like mold!

Jack was 23 lbs. and 12 oz at his last check up. He only has 4 teeth, but that 5th one has tried to cut at least 3 times. I think it might come through this time though. He says Mama and Car and sometimes Henry or Hannah – not too chatty. He doesn’t walk, but he can climb just about anything. I think he’s going to be a mean little boy, because he likes to hit and throw things, and grab my glasses off my face.

Blatant Destruction

2010-03-02T14:36:00.001-07:00

Throughout the years I have had quite a few things ruined by my sweet little children. I will never forget the day that Thomas sat and picked the chocolate chips out of his Chip A Hoy cookie and mashed them into my two day old couch cushions. Or the time that Jonathon dumped a quart of blue paint in the hallway. One day, one of them took a pair of tweezers to our television screen and carved some nice designs. We had only been in our new house a few months when one of the kids scribbled non-washable green crayon all over the walls and the back of my Lazy Boy – Mr. Clean met his match on this one.

These things and many other have taken place because I have had an endless supply of toddlers. I understand that they really don’t know any better. One could say that it is my fault, for not watching them more closely. So, over the years we have just learned to accept that destruction is going to happen.

However, I can not accept the fact that my 8 year old would do something like this:

When did Libby turn 8 you ask? Oh, No, Libby didn’t do this. This is Hannah’s cruel attempt to frame her sister. And, it wasn’t enough for her to just let me find it, she actually came to me and tattled on Libby.

I used to think that Hannah was pretty smart, but she wasn’t bright enough to figure out that I would know that this was not Libby’s work. I have so many unanswered questions. Why would Hannah want her sister to get into trouble for this? How could she be so mean? Why did she have to use my chair?

P.S. I have not tried to get the crayon out of the chair. I don’t know the best way to go about it. I don’t even know if it’s washable crayon. But mostly I have left it there so that she can be reminded of it whenever she goes into the front room.

February – Exciting After All

2010-02-25T16:27:00.001-07:00

We stayed pretty busy in February, and I think it went by quickly. I thought this month would be less than average, but it turned out to be full of adventure.

The potty training was quite exciting for the first week, but then the novelty wore off, and Henry really didn’t care if he accidently peed in his underwear – and now, neither do I. I will try again later.

Jonathon had a major Science Project due this month. Steve thought it would be fun for Jonathon to try out a Mythbusters theory. They drilled dimples into PVC rockets to see if they would travel faster than non dimpled ones.

They decided to call the project “Lucy In the Sky With Dimples”

Today I found out that he is going to the District level with 26 others. I think I will play the Proud Mom Card – He worked hard on the project, but I didn’t think he would actually be one of the winners!

On the 18th, we had our annual Blue and Gold Banquet to raise money for our scouts, and this year I only made one cake. I think this is why I didn’t totally hate the day of the Blue and Gold. I even kept my house clean so that Steve didn’t come home to a HAZARDOUS WASTE DUMP like the previous years.

Yes, it was a hot POPCOM cake – the red gel got carried away.

I’m going to stop here, because the next two posts might be lengthy and I would hate to bore you to tears.

Stay tuned for Jack’s Birthday and Hannah’s Destruction.

Let the Games Begin!

2010-02-04T18:11:00.003-07:00

This week I took Henry to the store and we bought “Big Boy Diapers” (pull ups) just for him. Thus launching us into the
Wild World of POTTY TRAINING.

Things started off slowly, but soon Henry wanted to go potty every 5 minutes – fun fun! However, he still found time between frequent potty breaks to soil his Big Boy Duds in a bad way.

Today though, was a day for celebration. No messy pants for
us – YAY! Yes, I do realize that it might not happen again for a while, but still we were excited.

Because Henry loves to play (read make a mess) in the bathroom,
I have had a child lock on the bathroom door. But after two days of having to open the door every time Henry had the urge, I decided to take the lock off the door.

Today I came home to this

You can’t really see it, but there is a hand towel in the sink covered in liquid hand soap; and yes, the water is running.

You would probably think that he is undressed so that it will be easier for him to just drop his undies and go potty - right? Nope, this is just how Henry likes to spend his days. Who needs clothes in the middle of winter anyway - huh?

The boots though, what a fashion statement! He loves his boots. Sometimes he can only find one boot, and then he throws a black tennis shoe onto the other foot.

He is going to be a trendsetter, this one.

January = Uneventful

2010-01-28T15:13:00.001-07:00

I am not the best at documenting all of the baby firsts. Jack has already rolled over, smiled, started crawling and has cut his first tooth plus 3 others. He gets around pretty good, but doesn’t walk yet. He loves to wave, dance and play with Henry. He has said his first words and is starting to make sounds and point for things he wants. I don’t know when they all happened, they just did.

It’s not a big deal though, because if I decided to document all of these things when they actually happened, the rest of my kids would be mad and I would have to listen to them whine to me about how “it’s not fair” and why didn’t I keep track of all of the things they did when they were babies.

Where am I going with all this? Well, I cut Jack’s hair today (his first haircut) and then gave him a bath to wash off all of the little hairs stuck to him. He was all clean and dressed so I decided to take pictures of him. So now I have at least documented one of his firsts.

He just turned 11 months old. He is a pretty happy little guy.

Henry has a little backpack that he fills with toys and then he puts on his jacket and boots and tells me that he is going to school. I guess I will have to decide what he is going to do this fall – Joy School anyone?

Since Church now starts at 11:00 am, it has thrown a wrench into our Sunday nap schedule. We are getting used to it now, but at the beginning of the month Henry would fall asleep on Steve’s lap. One Sunday Henry wasn’t quite awake when we put him on the bench, and he slid forward and knocked his head on the bench in front of us. He got a nice rug burn on his forehead. I don’t think it hurt him, because he didn’t really cry, but it looked awful. It used to be worst than this.

Well folks, that’s it for January – Hopefully Feb is filled with just a touch more excitement and adventure.

Who’s Watching Henry?

2010-01-01T16:29:00.005-07:00

Life is crazy at our house. Even though we now
have Jack to look after, we still have to wonder. . .