The Beaulieu Bunch

Palm Springs weekend

2012-02-06T13:21:00.000-08:00

This Saturday was Jeff's yearly kick-off dinner and awards meeting. Every year we go but only a couple of times have we actually stayed at the hotel where it was being hosted.

This year it was in Palm Springs so we thought we'd take the family and have fun for the day and then go to our event that night.

We decided to take the kids on the Palm Springs Aerial Tram.

It's been years since I've been there and the kids have never gone.

The day was cool but not windy which was perfect.

I heard about some hikers getting stuck overnight at the top a couple of weeks ago because they closed the tram early due to wind....I didn't tell the kids about that one ;)

Waiting to get on. We all brought gloves and jackets because we knew it would be a lot colder at the top. Ashley was wearing long sleeves and had me carrying a sweatshirt, jacket, scarf, gloves and hat....luckily she let me leave her snow pants in the car!

The price has gone up quite a bit since the last time I've been there but I guess they've changed the car, it's bigger and rotates as you go up so you get a view from all sides.

It's a long way up...

and a long way down!

We figured well if we fall, we die...we tried not to think about it (hee hee).

Great view at the top.

At the top with Ashley bundled up like a snowman....it was cold but not thaaat cold...she shed her jacket pretty quick and guess who got to hold it.

There was frozen snow at the top. It wasn't fresh enough to play in it but it was frozen enough to skate on it.

At first Jeff was telling the kids to "get off of it" and "be careful you're going to fall"....then I said "so what if they fall" It was flat and they were having fun. He realized it wasn't a big deal but he remembered running and sliding on ice when he was young and cracking his head on it. No one fell but there was no running and sliding either :)

Taylor and I hiked a bit farther than the rest of the family to see a couple of the lookout spots. Taylor loves "bouldering" he calls it....basically just climbing up boulders.

At the second lookout he wanted to climb higher to get a better view...thats him the little dot on top of the rock in the distance.

You can see him a little better here but he's crouched down. When he got to the edge he realized how far it dropped off he said it was pretty sketchy.

Ashley ready to go back down and hit the hotel.

The trip back down was uneventful until about 1/2 down...then Taylor started having problems with his sinuses and felt like his teeth were going to fall out and his eye pop out.

We gave Jacob a benadryl before we went up because his ears have been plugged from a cold, but Taylor's ears were fine but his sinuses gave him a lot of trouble. Crazy...we came down and after a couple of Benadryl for him and some time he seemed to be better.

That night Jeff and I dressed up for his black tie, masquerade dinner. I've had this outfit for a number of years and I wear it over and over to his formal stuff.

Right before we are walking out the door I bent over to get something and the zipper up the back of my shirt completely popped open. I guess I wore it one too many times.

The pizza guy for the kids came just as this happened so I took pizzas and paid him without turning around and then frantically tried to see what I could do to fix it.

I got the zipper aligned and back together but the whole night I sat up straight and made sure not to pull on it. Wheeeeew I was just glad to get through the night intact. I guess it's time to get something else now.

Our flash on the camera died (just add it to the list of broken things around here) so we got this one blurry picture of the Parkers, the Gunnells were there too and it was nice to hang out with them.

Oh I almost forgot the emcee was giving away the centerpieces that were on the tables. The people that won them had to have the item that he called out....like 12 credit cards in your wallet....wearing a Rolex watch (not us)...have a picture of your mother-in-law. It was like a scavenger hunt...but we didn't have our wallets or purses so we didn't have any of the stuff he was asking for.

Finally its the very last center piece and the guy asks for anyone that has anything Disney.

There is a pause for a second and then Jeff yells out

"I've got one of the 7 dwarfs!!"

It caught him off guard, everyone laughed, and Jeff got the last centerpiece.

He also was called up 4 times to receive awards including top 5 in the office.

For years we used to come to these parties and watch everyone else get awards...now it's nice for me to come and see Jeff get them. All that hard work paying off!

Having 5 people and 2 beds ends up with a dilemma every time in hotels. Ashley has been relegated to sleeping at the foot of our bed. It works pretty good as long as the beds are about a queen size....these weren't queens.

She woke up early in the morning with her head 1/2 off the bed and complaining of a head ache, I let her come up in between us...you can see how much room that left Jeff and I ;)

Farewells, Homecomings and random moments

2012-02-03T14:29:00.000-08:00

Last week we said good-bye to Jeff as he went to Texas for a week of training. I played single mom with carpools, homework overseeing, some of the last of the kitchen work and Family Home Evening.

The kids are always happy when lessons are short, lectures are at a minimum and some sort of game or food is involved. So we took an idea from Steve and Tahna's family and combined the game AND the food.

We have the Oreo cookie game...

You basically stack up as many Oreos as you can without letting them fall.

Jacob was the winner...

Ashley did pretty good too....

Taylor lost by default since he didn't move from the couch :)

While Jeff was gone I spent the first day held hostage while the kitchen was being painted.

Tuesdays are always crazy but I was so grateful for a sick piano teacher who cancelled the 5:30 to 7:00am lessons (1st time in 9 years!) It made the morning doable for me. Wednesday I was again held hostage all morning and into the afternoon waiting for a late TV repair guy to come again. The TV was fixed but we then realized the power surge broke the cable box....so still no TV until the cable company comes out.

Wednesday afternoon I went into Ashley's class and did art.

We did a fun project with watered down paint that you blow across the paper with straws.

No paintbrushes! Yeah! (everyone could have their own) The straw is your paintbrush and it comes out looking like watercolors.

The class loved it and kept experimenting with mixing colors.

I found for the most part their pictures started out looking good...then they would get a little overzealous with the color mixing and it would end up a puddle of color. Some turned out pretty good though and they all had fun!

Thursday Taylor and I drove out to see his cousin Josh flying in from his mission in Baltimore Maryland.

Taylor had finals week and was done with his last final so he was happy to be able to come with me.

Cayden held the sign for us.

He was so stinkin cute here is all of us getting a picture of him holding the sign.

It was a cousin fest! I couldn't believe all the cousins from Palmdale came down too! I think there was a lot of school missed for you Josh ;)

I had to laugh at these boys in black.

Taylor likes Aeropastale and every time he's wearing one of his shirts it seems like one of his cousins are wearing one too (Jared has one on)

The plane arrives and we're waiting and waiting and no Josh.

We were laughing because we were all standing there holding the sign and the fellow passengers on the plane were giving us a blow by blow as they were coming down the elevator...

"he's coming"

a few minutes later another person comes down...

"he's waiting for his bag,"

a few minutes later...

"he's in the bathroom"

then finally....

Josh is here!

He looked sharp and happy to be home...though maybe a tad overwhelmed with all of us there.

We were happy to go to his church on Sunday and hear him speak. He did a wonderful job and shared some great experiences and more importantly things that he learned on his mission. I was very impressed with Josh and his openness with us both with struggles, things he learned and triumphs that he experienced while on his mission. Great job Josh!

Oh and after we picked up Josh we went to Shakeys for their lunch buffet and more cousin time...until we had to hurry home for the other two kids.

Friday Ashley got an award for doing so well in Math at school!!!

Great job Ashley!

Saturday Jeff is home and we had a full day. 8:30 in the morning the cable guy is here...he had to replace the cable box because the power surge blew out the port.

I hate it when the box is replaced...all our shows are gone...then I started laughing at how ridiculous that sounds...what would my grandmother think about complaining about my DVR being gone and losing all my shows.

Then Jeff and I...but mostly Jeff worked on shining up the floors. They needed it.

I actually was gone for a few hours doing a Little People of America planning meeting with Taylor and Ashley and when we got home our floors were all nice....and the table was gone.

We are having someone sell it because we were getting a new one that night. The furniture people were supposed to come from 5:00 to 9:00 at night so we sat at home waiting...and waiting...and waiting.

We finally got our table at 10:30 at night.

I don't think we could've had repair guys much earlier or later...crazy day.

While Jeff was gone I was proud of myself for putting in the can light covers and assembling our bar chairs...the kitchen is looking complete.

Jeff said I did a good job picking out the table too...it matches and looks good in the kitchen even though Jeff wasn't too sure about my hasty pick while we were in the store (We were literally walking by it as we were walking out the door and I said "thats the one!" We weren't even there to buy, just get ideas.)

So the kitchen's pretty much complete...I'm just having a hard time keeping it perpetually clean...using it doesn't help :)

This week Ashley had her long awaited field trip to Knotts Berry Farm

Sorry to disappoint some children who were there for the first time...this was not a trip about rides but about early American history. The class did get to go on 3 rides but the day was spent....

hearing presentations about history and how the early settlers lived. It was pretty interesting but by the end of the day a few of us parent chaperones were ready for a nap.

Ashley loved panning for gold the best.

Very excited to have real gold in the bottom of her vial!

Learning how to make candles

They got to take their patriotic candle back to their classroom....they said it looked like a popsicle.

The mine ride.

I loved that Ashley's friend Riley was there with Ashley all day willing to walk at the back of the line. She was a great friend to her for doing that, she never wanted to leave her.

More presentations and a chance to play a game trying to get a ring around a stick...

Ashley's face tells it all....she was more worried about getting the ring on her face than the stick.

And a turtle update. We were worried when we first got them because they never seemed to eat....they are finally eating and they seem to love to bask in the light stacked on top of each other with their legs stretched out as faaarrrr as they will go.

Kitchen remodel and some catch up

2012-01-21T13:10:00.000-08:00

I know when life is busy when I can't get to my blogging for a few weeks. That and the fact that my internet has been down off and on over here has kept me away.

So some catch up...

After getting in town from Vegas we were glad to spend the day after New Years hanging out at home. We watched the Rose Bowl parade and saw our nephew Jarek playing for Oregon State.

We had to pause this quick to get a view of him....his glasses give him away.

Way to go Jarek!

Tuesday morning up bright and early for piano and school and real life....this is what happens after being used to sleeping in...and now having to get up at 5:20.

It took me until about 9:00 to notice this....do you see it???

The weekend after New Years we met up with Angela and Robert and Ian for a little post holiday get together.

They were out of town during Christmas so we met for lunch at....

This place called Philippe's to visit and exchange gifts.

It didn't look remarkable on the outside but it was absolutely packed when we got inside. I guess it's been around forever and was pretty famous. Good choice Robert.

We ate lunch and visited and watched Robert eat his pickled pig's foot...

The kids didn't want to try any but the sure enjoyed watching Robert eat it.

Afterwards we wandered over to Olvera Street to check out mini-mexico.

We tried some dried candied...watermelon, sweet potato, coconut and cactus. Interesting and good (but some were better than others)

We heard drums so we wandered to the plaza to see what all the commotion was about.

These guys were dancing to the drums and collecting donations.

They were braver than I would be in those costumes!

After mini-Mexico we headed over to China Town which was only a couple blocks away. Its funny in those few streets it felt like we were entering another country.

The markets were cramped and close, covered with items I don't see in my average grocery store.

Robert showed us these places where you could get rabbits and fresh poultry of all kinds, in fact you could take them home live. I couldn't imagine walking into Albertsons and coming home with a live duck for dinner.

Or some live sea food....this looked tempting to Jeff but I didn't bring an ice chest to bring it home in so we just admired them.

Jacob is not appreciating the poultry with the necks still on.

We actually bought a sweet and savory bun here that had meat in the middle. It was only a dollar and it was delicious! I would definitely get one again!

Angela pointed this out in the market and I thought it was hilarious.

Obviously something (I don't know what) was lost in translation.

This package reads " Close relations between family members, Shuyaging fabric workmandup series perfection"

To me it looked like some kind of plastic apron, I think.

Oh, and we came home with more pets :(

Two for $5.00 was all Jeff was thinking.

As they are being handed to a thrilled Ashley I'm asking "Wait a minute!!

What kind of turtles are they? What do they eat? How do we take care of them? ....How big do these things get!"

We are now the proud owners of 3 red eared sliders.

Hmmmmmm

That night we were invited to a post holiday dinner at the Vincent's.

Thanks Vincents! You know dinner is going to be great when the cook has been to culinary school, it was great as always!

OK now for the kitchen remodel.

We've been waiting about 9 years for this...since we moved into the house I wanted to get rid of the tile with the crumbling grout and the pitted and banged up porcelain sink but we knew that we wanted to change the layout of the kitchen so we waited patiently until the day we would be ready to do the whole kitchen. A few years ago I painted everything on the old portion of the kitchen and put handles on the doors to tide me over until we really got it done. Well that ended up having to last 4 or 5 more years.

We have had numerous bids over the years, we almost did it a few times but a stock market crash held us back (literally the day before we were signing to have it done) and the possibility of moving held us back.

So with our house deals falling through one by one we have given up and realized for the time being we are staying put....so lets get the kitchen. Finally!

Yeah!

They wanted to start demo on Monday but I had Jury Duty...actually Mary Ann and I had jury duty that week and I convinced her to go in on Monday and get it over with. We got to hang out, go to lunch and come back that afternoon to be released. They didn't need us and we were done! I was so relieved because if they would've wanted me on a trial I don't think they would take the excuse "Sorry I'm having my kitchen remodeled tomorrow"

Here are some before pictures.

This part of the kitchen was just fine...but to make it tie together we decided to have it done as well, and the fact it was cheaper to do it all together.

Here's the other side with my paint job.

You can't see it too well but the windows on the side wall both had to be replaced with smaller windows and the wall had to be repaired so we could extend the cabinets farther.

To get the kitchen ready to demolish the rest of the house looked like a pack rat house...its surprising how much stuff those cabinets held.

It even extended out to the backyard.

The person we ended up going with was recommended by Jeff's uncle. She was a Chinese lady who gave us a great quote and a time of one week! I was happy with that.

Day One

From my perch in the loft I can see the old kitchen coming down.

They didn't get to the house until 11:30 or so but that kitchen was down in a little over 2 hours!

It's all gone! A floating dishwasher and oven is all that remains.

I thought the yellow I had on the walls was bright....

This yellow was practically flourescent!

After the first day they got some of the cabinets put together (they all came in pieces and from putting together the few bookshelves and such over the years it looked like a nightmare to me!)

We couldn't walk into the kitchen at all that night so I leaned over the couch and made microwave meals with the microwave on the table.

It's funny that day ended up being one I won't forget. Not only did we have piano, and mutual and all the normal stuff, I go to get into the car that morning and my battery is dead. Ashley and I walked to school, got there just as the bell rang, did my 100 mile club volunteering job and then came home to call AAA to get my car going. I was having the city bring a dumpster at any time so my car had to be out of the driveway...was I going to have to push it out?? But I was also worried about having it parked on the street because it was street sweeping day and I would get a ticket. Well that all worked out. We had one neighbor boy over that afternoon...I had to try and find snacks from piles around the house, then I had another neighborhood boy wanting to borrow my phone going through a teen crisis. With pounding and chaos around me I was still able to talk a bit of sense to him and help him enough to get him through it. It was an exciting, stressful, hectic day.

I forgot to get pictures on day two, but Jeff was out of town that night. We had electrical issues and I couldn't call him (I'm sure there are always snags that pop up with stuff like this. I got it figured out, took the kids to jack in the box for dinner and got through the day.

Oh I forgot that at the same time as chaos going on at the house. It was Ashley's birthday so I was planning cupcakes for school and a party for Friday.

I told her that I would have to buy cupcakes but she suggested I make them the week before and freeze them...good idea Ashley. So I frosted cupcakes in the living room as the guys were putting together cabinets in the kitchen.

End of day 3 all the cabinets are done!

They did a great job! They put in molding everywhere, soft close drawers and pull outs in the pantry and all the lower cabinets and we didn't even ask for it! We were very happy.

Day 4 the granite guys came.

As they were there I was running around trying to pull off an after school birthday party for Ashley at the movie theater.

We were hoping for Saturday and it would've been less hectic but somebody already was doing one so Friday afternoon it was!

The dog wasn't too sure about all this going on at our house. I had to block her from the kitchen because she was in the way, her world was turned all upside down :)

Happy Birthday Ashley

Silly girls celebrating at the movie theater!

We had fun playing games, eating pizza and watching "We Bought a Zoo"

Jeff helped with the party part and then went home to finish up with the house stuff.

So me and 10 girls watched the movie...I took girls out 3 times for potty breaks, there was lots of moving around and giggling and general silliness but I think they all had fun.

After everyone was brought home I spent the rest of the evening at urgent care with Ashley, she fell on her thumb at recess and it was swollen 2 times the size of the other one. She sucked it up during the party but afterward she couldn't handle it.

It's tradition that she happens to get sick on her birthday every year so I was glad she was at least able to enjoy her party. Two days later she got the stomach flu for 4 days...so it just came a little later this year.

So the end of day 4 and the granite is in and our cabinet people are done with their job. Way to go!

I was very very happy to throw away my grout brush.

Saturday we had an electrician come in to work on moving a couple of electrical outlets and take out our florescent lighting and put in canned lights.

It seems that during this process everything was breaking...Jeff's transmission went out on his car and it's having other problems...it's been in the shop for 3 weeks and counting, my car needed a major service and the batter died twice in a row and we needed to replace that, our ceiling fan broke though I'm not too sad because Jeff picked up this in the clearance section for $80 and I thought he did a pretty good job.

After the electrician left we sat down as a family to relax and realized the TV was broken.

When they were working on the power an outage damaged the TV and it's gone. Luckily we bought the extended warranty...if we're lucky it will be 2 weeks to get it fixed.

He'res some of the almost finished kitchen.

We didn't get water until Monday because we ordered the faucet online and it wasn't in yet.

Until we had water I kept trying to get the kids to use paper everything...it didn't always work so I ended up having to do dishes in the bathroom a few times.

We are almost done, we have some wall fixing that is going on and painters coming today and then we are almost done!

I am very happy with the layout and I've put all the dishes, cups, bowls and lots of stuff down low where my family can get to them and Taylor and I don't have to be the only ones reaching stuff down!!

(So I'm asking Jacob why is he still asking me to get him drinks and cereal :)

Ringing in the new year in Vegas

2012-01-02T10:45:00.000-08:00

Since my family is spread out we decided to meet up with Joel and Virginia from Utah in Vegas for a few days before we all headed back to work and school.

It was a quick mini-family vacation and a nice way to get out of Riverside and see family at the same time.

We rolled in town just in time for downtown Rush hour traffic then loaded up on some food for the next few days and Panda Express for dinner. My aunt works for Hilton Grand Vacations so she helped us book a one-bedroom timeshare place...the kitchen and dining room table came in handy and I liked that it didn't have a casino in it!

The Oleson's met up with us not too long later. Some of us watched Pirates of the Carabean in our room...(you can see our view of Circus Circus from the window) and the rest of the kids watched Kung Fu Panda 2 down the hall. It actually was nice to have 2 rooms close enough together to split up if the kids wanted but still be close enough to come back and forth.

Dean was very excited to see "Asheee!!!" He loves Ashley! He also loved Taylor throwing him up in the air and Jacob pushing him in the stroller.

The next morning this is what we find after breakfast. Kids hanging out in front of the TV while Joel and Jeff take the Oleson car to the shop (leaking fluids on the drive down) and buy tickets for the adults to go to a show that evening.

We planned out our day by starting with a recommendation Joel found for the Pinball Hall of Fame...it had a 5 star rating. We were open but I have to admit I was thinking it would be more of a museum,

it was more of a warehouse.

There were lots of pinball games, and some other kinds. Basically it was an arcade so we let the kids play for a bit.

Here is Ashley getting some $.25 popcorn which was a hit with the kids (notice all the games that came here to die in the background)

Jacob found the popcorn too...

Ashley spent her money on fake mustaches and this machine. It was basically a foot massager/vibrator thingie from maybe the 50s or 60s.

It said "Step up for a pick up" and "Bet a hit, this is it, keep young and fit"

Don't know how vibrating feet keep you fit but Ashley had fun with it.

Classic Mrs. Pacman kept Jeff and Taylor occupied while we were there and then we were off to Fazoli's for lunch and a trip to Red Rock.

I would never know about Red Rock Canyon if I didn't have an aunt that lived in Vegas but we loved it. About 1/2 hour away from downtown there is a national park that has trails and canyons and hikes that take you to petroglyphs and Indian sites.

Here's the view from the visitor's center

When we drove up closer we could see all kinds of people rock climbing and repelling. It was fun to pick them out in the distance hanging precariously from the rocks.

We found a trail that took us ...

To some petroglyphs and wall paintings.

Joel thought this would be a good idea at the time...people eat cactus don't they?

Well I already learned my lesson the hard way you don't have to just worry about the big spikes...there are lots of little ones you can't see very well.

Lets just say Joel's experiment left him with spiky lips...

Some more hiking.

I loved that Dean would reach out and touch whatever dad was walking by.

After a nerve racking brush with running out of gas on the way back, picking up the Oleson's car with only 15 minutes to spare (they would've been without a car for the next 4 days) we made our way back to the hotel and got the kids dinner so we could go out as adults.

With a million choices for dinner it was hard to pick...even harder when a lot of the best places had 2 hour waiting times...we settled on a place called Bahama Breeze and it was great. Yummy island themed food and not too expensive!!

We ended up going to a show at the new hotel Aria.

It was Viva Elvis with Cirque du Soleil.

Fun and we loved it but we were hoping for a tad more acrobatics and a little less Elvis...in fact there wasn't even an Elvis! They had his songs sung by a gospel chior, plenty of videos of him but no person actually acting and singing as if they were him.

There was still plenty to keep us entertained.

We came home to the boys up playing Monopoly. Jacob was in heaven because nobody will play it with him at home any more. They ended up continuing their game the next day but finally got bored with it.

On Saturday we went and explored some of the downtown sights...like treasure island...

The Venetian all decorated for Winter.

They even had an ice skating rink but looking at it closer we read that it was a "simulated ice skating experience that was eco-friendly" It was plastic that you ride around on with greasy skates. Not worth $10.00 a pop if you ask me.

Here is as close to Vegas nightlife as our kids got...

in front of Madame Tossaud's Wax museum.

The Venetian was pretty cool and Jeff told us all about how it compared with Italy.

The Christmas tree looked like a big foil cone with balls on it.

We figured it looked much better lit up at night.

At this point Dean insisted that only Jacob push him in the stroller. I think he thought Jacob was a fun stroller driver.

We went inside to see the gondalier's...Jeff said these were much nicer than the real ones...

A quick lunch in the food court. (We aren't big eaters so it was nice to have the Oleson boys to finish up our leftovers ;)

Dean wanting to hold Ashley's hand while we're walking...awww how cute.

The tram that took us....one hotel over...the kids wanted to ride it and they got to.

We had to go to M&M world...5 stories of all M&M stuff....

it took us 1/2 the time to find the actual M&Ms

Here they are.

Not only did they have every color that had pretzel, coconut, peanut, peanut butter, mint, cherry and rasberry M&Ms. So we started putting some of each in baggies.

Before we knew it we were up to 2 pounds.

I asked Jeff how much it ended up being..."A lot"

Yeah $25.00 for two pounds, (he didn't realize how much a pound it was)!

We tried to see the dolfins at the Mirage but after winding through the maze to get to them we found out it was $20.00 for adults and $15.00 for kids to see them. Yeah right.

Never mind.

So we went to the MGM to see the lions for free instead.

This guy was full on playing with them and manhandling their mouth and everything and they seemed fine. They attracted quite a crowd.

We were wondering if the guys from "Tanked" did this one...

The last stop for the afternoon was the New York New York...Inside made of candy...

Outside...hmmmm the roller coaster...

does anyone want to try it??

Taylor and Scott wanted to try it...$15.00 for a ride....so only those two went on it.

They liked it but by the time they were off the ride everyone was pretty much done...

Besides the streets were starting to get pretty crowed. We had an hour to get off the street and back to our hotel. They were closing Las Vegas Blvd from 5:00pm to 5:am to all traffic so we would be stuck if we didn't get back to our room.

We got back and decided to swim since the pools were heated and it was nice to relax in the hot tubs and then get the kids showered and relaxed.

We ate in again and had planned to play games but the boys decided to hang out together in the other room playing more Monopoly and us adults hung out and talked until about 9:30 or so.

We were curious what the streets would be like since they were all shut down. We wanted to take a walk and when noone wanted to go (they were done walking) Jeff, Joel and I went to check it out.

I actually was expecting craziness but it was very tame.

We found cheap New Year's party stuff....

And more stuff...

We walked as far as Treasure Island and the Venetian (the tree did look better at night)

And then we headed back to be with the family at midnight and watch the fireworks

They were prepared for chaos but the whole time we were walking we saw normal people, families and even kids in strollers. I thought the few high heeled, mini skirted moms walking next to their husbands and boyfriends looked funny towering over them. Only a couple of people looked noticeably like that had been drinking all in all it was very tame, there wasn't even any music or anything...but I think we were on the "tame" end of the strip and away from the partying...fine by me.

Jeff was asked to have his picture taken 3 or 4 times and he was called "wee-man" once or twice.

At 11:30 we gathered the kids and headed to the top of the parking garage to watch the fireworks show.

It's fun to have the kids old enough to celebrate New Year's with them!

Ashley and Dean are ready!

The fireworks were shot off all down the strip, they kept coming and all seemed synchronized even with the colors that were being shot off!

Right behind us was the stratosphere fireworks!

How fun!

The next morning we found a 10:00 church service and was on the road by 11:30 to try and escape the traffic going back to California.

There were plenty of cars but it only got really bad at State line and at the fruit check-in place.

We got home to work being done in our kitchen.

After 2 years of trying to house hunt and having deal after deal fall out we decided to give up and redo the kitchen instead....so here is the first step, we put in smaller windows so we can extend the counter farther and put a return...more pictures to follow as more gets done...

Happy New Year Everyone!!

Christmas week ...reader's digest version

2011-12-28T14:23:00.001-08:00

Getting ready for the new year...it's getting closer...

now that Christmas is over I have a couple minutes to recap.

The reader's digest version of the last couple weeks.

The Saturday before Christmas was the kid's piano recital.

All 3 of them did wonderful! We were so proud!

Taylor was the finale but Jacob was right before him ahead of other students older than him.

(they are always excited to see where they are in the line up depending on how advanced their song is)

I always hear them practicing but it always amazes me to sit there and watch their hands fly across those keys, it always amazes me!!

That night we celebrated Steve's 50th birthday

Our contribution was lots of homemade waffle cones...

Tahna had food for us and our favorite was the funny memories and stories of Steve over the last ...50 years.... including a bad perm...

a stint in a homemade band...and lots of other funnies...

on the way home we got Jeff to tell the kids some of his own stories...

Tell us more....

Once the kids were out of school and I finally had an oven I thought I'd better get going on my Christmas baking.

I busted out tons of cookies thanks to our Christmas cookie dough exchange.... with our dough exchange we are supposed to bring 24 cookies for each person

...funny to see different people's version of the size of a cookie...

Got all our plates delivered.... and even got some people who gave back to us...

(we're just now trying to help clear out the last of the Christmas goodies)

This week we also sold all of the chinchillas...they all have homes just in time for Christmas....

I think Chimi is wondering where her babies are because she keeps flipping over the box where they used to sleep.

What a good chinchilla owner.

Since Taylor doesn't have a job yet the sales of the chinchillas minus tithing and food money is his to keep since he does 90% of the work. He liked that.

All week the kids have had colds...for the first 3 days of the break Taylor just wanted to lay around....blowing his nose results in his yearly nose bleeds.

One day he had 8 of them and now all our trash cans look like this....

Wednesday night we got to go to a Hanukkah Party at the Trupp's house.

We had a traditional breakfast including latkas, eggs and such and then heard a story about Hanukkah, sang some songs and each family got to light their own menorah and then eat goodies.

It was fascinating and fun to learn about our friend's religion more.

The night before Christmas Eve we made it down to the Mission Inn to see the lights.

We've missed the last couple of years so it was nice to go back. The crowds were thick so we were happy just walking around the outside of the Mission Inn. It was fun and got us in a nice festive spirit.

The kids got these light up finger toys...and also played around with the other light up toys...

We had fresh donuts and hot chocolate on the back side of the Mission Inn.

The donuts were absolutely yummy....and we laughed at how these guys looked pretty freaky from our view.

On Christmas Eve day we went and saw Sherlock Holmes with a couple of cousins...great movie,

got some goodies dropped off from the neighbors and that night

we had our yearly Christmas family home evening and

the kids got to open their new pair of pajamas.

The next morning we got up by 6:15 to do a quickie Christmas because we had 9:00 church to get to.

Stockings first!!

Maddie was nosing through the stockings wondering where hers was....luckily we didn't forget her.

It was on her list....

Skates...hopefully he won't outgrow these for a while.

Beef Jerkey...there was also the i-pod he wanted in there.

(He ended up eating a large bag in 2 days! Crazy kid)

The kids were happy...we ended up having a few more presents left that we held off opening until after church.

The presents that the kids bought for each other were favorites! Love you brother!!

Taylor did a gag gift and pretended like he gave Jacob the movie that he hated and hid in the bathroom for the whole time. (we actually just rented it)

Happy Day!

Church was a program of music and readings. I loved it!

That night we went to Steve and Tahna's to celebrate as a family.

We ate together and sang songs...including these three singing together with no warning... :) they did great.

We also went around and shared stories of giving and serving during the Christmas season. I loved it!

Then each family took a turn opening their presents. I loved that when Cayden was opening his present...

Grandpa was right their making sure the wrapping paper never hit the ground...hee hee hee.

Beaulieu's got a Wii...and we all got lots of fun surprises...

I have to say that Steve and Tahna got the biggest surprise of all...from their daughter and son-in-law.

I think surprises are the funnest part of Christmas ;)

We got a couple of games in before we went too.

Jeff's surprise to me this year was a Kitchenaide mixer! I wasn't even asking for it but I was so happy that he thought to give it to me.

I used it on Tuesday because Jacob insisted that I made donuts with our new donut maker.

So I made them...

He ate a couple...I ate a couple....the dog ate one off Ashley's plate and that was it.

I have this many donuts left...

a mess on the counter...and more stuff for me to eat that I really shouldn't. :)

The last highlight of the Holiday week was seeing Wicked with all of Jeff's office staff, Steve and Tahna their friend and his kids out from Nebraska.

20 of us all met to watch Wicked at the Pantagas theater. It was great the only bad thing is they don't let you take pictures...

Here's a picture of us at dinner before with some of Jeff's agents.

TGIF and 2 for $20.00 meals...our favorite :)

And speaking of Wizard of Oz....

I had to come up with a munchin costume earlier that day.

We got an e-mail the day before for a casting call for a dwarf that is needed for a super bowl commercial. Jeff met the criteria...so we thought "why not?"

Then we found out he needed a munchin costume.

Well I went to 5 stores to try and pull something together...though it looks pretty much like an elf costume as well.

He would not let me take a picture with him in it...this is as much as your getting ;)

He said the audition went fair....

we haven't heard anything yet. He said they asked him to do a lot of facial expressions and act like a munchin and stuff...he came right from work and wan't in the mood, and hadn't practiced it but hey he gave it a try.

I asked him how the costume worked out.

He said good except he wished I had done something with the fly of the shorts.

I completely forgot that the shorts were actually boxer shorts and I hadn't thought to sew up the fly so they kept popping open when he sat down!! How embarrassing!

Sorry honey!!!

I guess we have a story for you for your 50th birthday party.

Have yourself a Merry dented Christmas

2011-12-12T09:32:00.001-08:00

Anyone else feel like their Christmas season is a little like this??

Somehow every year we feel pressure to "feel" a certain way to celebrate a certain way, continue in traditions and gift giving and creating what is often some unattainable perfect Christmas season.

The reality is more like my 1/2 rescued Christmas bulb, on the tree for a bit then grabbed by the dog dented and punctured with holes...

It started off well enough. The first couple days after the Thanksgiving break we played 1/2 day hookie to use our Disneyland passes we got in the summer right before they expired.

We started off our celebrating with an idyllic Disney Day

It helps when everything is decorated perfect the weather is good and the crowds are light.

We were thrilled that Ashley is tall enough to go on a majority of the rides and Jacob is tall enough to go on California screaming...he had been talking about going on his first "loop" roller coaster for weeks.

Space Mountain is the new family favorite. Notice Jeff screaming in the back, Jacob excavating his nose, Taylor blocking my view (I can't see anyway) and me being the extra seatbelt for Ashley. (I pretty much try and hold on to her on the rides just in case ;)

Downhill a bit from there,

Jacob wasn't brave enough to go on California Screaming...Ashley didn't want to do anything with Tower of Terror...so we wait for Jeff and Taylor....Ashley and Jacob both would rather sit there than go on the Merry Go Round in the background because "its too babyish"...

During the day we took a little break in the Golden Coral. We actually read a good review on it and hadn't ever really been in there. We watched a little show...

the kids were not sure when it started out with singing...I got glares and "can we go now!" until the mayor's "daughter" came out. It picked up from there and ended up being really cute.

Later in the night Ashley decided to try Tower of Terror.

We were so proud of her!

(I have to admit a little bribery was involved)

Here is the proof....Jeff was acting like the human seat belt this time...Ashley ended up loving it!

That night we attempted to see the World of Color show. We had to go over to California Adventure early in the day and get fast passes for it, stake out a spot an hour before the show and then when the show started we weren't thinking it was very impressive. Water was spouting and there was sound but nothing else was happening. We kept standing up thinking we just couldn't see. We thought "this isn't very good! What's all the hype about??"

Come to find out there was a problem and it wasn't working right. We waited for about 20 to 25 minutes as they tried to fix it but we were tired and started to leave. They ended up starting it again and it worked right as we were walking away. We stood at the back for a few minutes...what I saw was impressive! We'll have to try again another time.

The day after Disneyland everyone woke up tired and cranky, off to seminary and school after staying up too late the night before doesn't help.

OH yeah the oven quit that day too....not too surprising though after the oven fire :(

Had a repair guy come out to see if it was worth fixing. Five minutes and $76.50 later we found out it wasn't. We spent $400 on it 2 years ago...the warranty is up after a year...the same bare bones model in the store is now $650....that was some expensive turkey.

This month has been a lesson in creative cooking...microwave, crock pot and stove top. I've done not one but 2 Christmas cookie dough exchanges....can't cook any of them. My freezer is full of dough though just waiting to be cooked.

Oh take that back...we've found that we can put 5 at a time in the toaster oven, even though it takes longer to cook them that way. We wait 20 to 25 minutes and then we pass out 1 cookie each (probably not a bad thing). One night I made mini- homemade pizzas in it...I let the kids watch TV for that dinner because only one pizza would finish at a time and they would only get a little slice or two....so basically it feels like I've been trying to feed our family out of an EZ-bake oven!

Had to go to someone else's house to bake my offering for our church Christmas party...good thing it was already during an ugly sweater party...bad thing Jeff was home with a migraine so I went solo.

What is it about the holiday and getting sick?? Everyone except me (cross my fingers) has been sick off and on for the last 3 weeks. Fevers and coughs and colds pretty much...Everyone has been home sick at least one day in the last couple of weeks...some more than once. No body is super horrible but they just don't want to do anything unless they HAVE to. We've missed parties, get togethers, awards nights at school and haven't done ANY of the Christmas things I planned!

Oh and Taylor's leg has been really bugging him again :(

He missed more school to go to the doctor's to find out he needs to go back on crutches and get an MRI to find out why it's not healing.

He was not happy to hear the final outcome from the doctor "Track is out for this year" (he was actually hoping to start training again for the season coming up)

Disappointing to say the least.

Oh and I got a jury duty summons... set for the day after Christmas.

Lucky me.

(I postponed it for the beginning of January)

I found this in Ashley's bed. Thinking it looked suspicious I put it in a baggie and

called out my Western Exterminator guy the next day to see what exactly it was.

It's termite droppings!

Great...just got the house treated for termites...but of course we didn't tent like they told us we should. We only had it spot treated and we used some guy instead of Western :(

Another day to get a termite inspector out and we're both watching for more evidence of termites for the next 2 weeks.

And, I would like to ask WHY the schools feel the need to assign big projects due the week before we are off for Christmas break???!!!

We've been working for the last 2 weeks on Ashley's Indian project right in the middle of craziness, band concerts, dentist appointments to drill her teeth, parties and of course normal life. The day before this was due we spent all afternoon driving to craft stores to get the right modeling clay to finish it.

They didn't have black in the multi-pack for the Indian's hair...so we made their hair with white and just colored it in with magic marker...I assured Ashley it was fine (even though she was not too sure about it).

Right after I picked up Ashley after her class party on Friday she said her science project is due as soon as we get back to school. So now we're supposed to be doing a science project too!!!???? :(

Some good things....

We got to go to the fire station right next door to Jeff's office and see the ribbon cutting for the new dog training park for the police and rescue dogs. (Here is Blue the rescue dog)

After the speeches we saw some really cool demonstrations for rescue dogs, drug sniffers and attack dogs.

This year I took an idea of pinterest and did the 12 days of Christmas for my out of state families.

I was good about mailing the stuff out on time...but it's a week before Christmas and I've only had the time and energy to read 1 of the stories to my own family :(

We have had the opportunity to "help" someone be an elf for a 12 days of Christmas delivery. There is a lady in the ward who is getting gifts delivered by her friend each night. She is too old to ding-dong-ditch and doesn't want to have her voice recognized on the phone so we get to call each night and tell her to check her doorstep. So we get to be part of the fun without having to go anywhere.

Ohh I think adding to the craziness is the fact that I was trying to be more proactive in selling my jewelry this year. So not only did I spend more time making it I was bringing it to places to sell, taking personal orders and meeting people who decided they wanted to buy stuff. Nice to have a bit of extra money (to help pay for the stove) but adds to the busyness for sure.

One Sunday afternoon I was cooking and getting ready for the missionaries to come (couldn't make the enchiladas that I planned for since the stove wasn't working) Ashley made Christmas cookie shaped "crackers" in the toaster oven.

She brought them upstairs to bring to the boys to try. She didn't tell them she made them (she knew they wouldn't try them otherwise) and they said they were good.

Thats the closest things to sugar cookies they are getting.

One crazy Saturday we had the Little People of America party.

We left our house at 9:30 to set up and get ready and then got home at 3:30 in time to get ready for that night's ward Christmas party.

Taylor stayed home sick that day.

Ashley got to sit on Santa's lap (she didn't want to wear anything Christmasy and I was too tired to fight her on it)

The upside was it's always fun to reconnect with the LPA people.

The down side is we have determined it's like running a ward party on your own. Unlike church functions people are pretty happy to watch you run things alone and clean up around them as they relax. Joanna and I had a meeting and tried to get some parents to help volunteer in the future and we were happy to finally get some people to say they would so we have plans to meet with some of them after the new year.

Jacob (also in his non-Christmas outfit) is sitting on Santa's lap. I was surprised that Santa could lift him.

Once he was on his lap he started stroking Santa's beard.

He asked Jacob what he wanted for Christmas.

"I want a beard like yours"

Santa said it would be a few years before he could have that.

That night we were at the ward party.

I'm sure you could imagine how thrilled the boys were with having to dress up.

Try as we might we couldn't get the head stuff on the boys but Jeff, Ashley and I were good sports.

I served desserts while everyone was eating. I was so grateful for Jeff coming to give me a break at the end so I could eat too.

It had been a very long day and I was getting a little cranky at the adults that were giving me a hard time about only being able to choose ONE dessert until everyone had gotten one. (REALLY? none of the kids had a hard time with it :)

Everyone who put on the "Christmas in Bethlehem" party did an amazing job!

The boys complained about not feeling good so Jeff brought them home.

I was very happy to stay with Ashley for the program. They did a great job.

I loved hearing everyone's singing including Ashley with the primary kids and the Bishopric singing "We 3 Kings" The program got me more in the Christmas mood.

Despite all the setbacks, disappointing highs and lows my stressed out grinchy mood was helped by trying to serve others this week. I didn't get much of my "typical" Christmas stuff done, shopping, wrapping, preparing and of course baking all was not done but I got nice visiting teaching visits in and went and did some baby holding for my friend who had triplets.

I have to admit I went to my first visiting teaching appointment stressing, with my to-do list on the brain. I drove away finally feeling the peace we all look for. I have to say nothing bothered me the rest of the day. My friend told me the best way to get the spirit back in your life is to do your visiting teaching :) I think I have to agree.

And finally a Christmas Miracle....

I posted my oven woes on facebook and someone in our stake e-mailed me saying her father worked for Whirlpool and I could get a new oven through their friends and family website at a discount. We saved a little over $200 and I even drove down to the warehouse to pick it up to save the $70.00 delivery fee.

They laughed at me when I showed up with my mini-van in a shipping yard full of 18 wheelers but it fit just fine and I brought it home safe and sound. They even first told me they couldn't help me load it up but the supervisor recognized me from the elementary school and helped me load it up anyway (come to find out his daughter is in Ashley's class at school) Another example of volunteering giving dividends :)

And...an Unwanted Christmas Miracle....

Every year I try and buy one thing for Jeff that I know he would use but won't buy for himself. He always wears sunglasses but has been sporting a nasty $5.00 pair because he couldn't stomach paying for the expensive "Maui Jim" brand ones that he really wanted.

Sweet! I had my idea for his gift for Christmas. I got them in the mail. The next day we pulled out the old oven and lookie lookie here....

We found a pair of Jeff's sunglasses that have been missing from 6 months to a year ago.

I wiped off the fire-extinquisher powder to read "Maui Jim"

He was excited.

I was not :(

There goes my Christmas surprise!

I knew he would not be happy having me spend the money on a duplicate pair so I had to fess up and have him help me return them....on to plan B for Christmas...

The upside is I know someday I'll laugh about all of this...

A really HOT Thanksgiving

2011-11-28T09:24:00.001-08:00

This year I was excited to host Thanksgiving but when it got to a coupleof days before we were supposed to have everyone I started getting nervous.There was lots of house cleaning, fixing up Ashley’s room, we had the painterscome paint the rest of the doors and the banisters (nobody but us probablynoticed but it was nice to have everything look clean) I had doctor and dentistappointments, hosted cousins, reunion with friends and more than onetrip to the store for last minute things. The day arrived and everything ransmoothly until the fire...but more about that later.

On Tuesday we had piano lessons and then we went out for an early trip to Chuck-E-Cheese to meet up with Sharla who was in town for Thanksgiving. We also had Carol, Penney and Kristen. I haven't seen Sharla in a year and 1/2 and it was nice to catch up some and see how big her kids have gotten and also meet Sharla's newest addition, baby August.

Clark has moved from being a baby to a boy running around and wanting to do big boy stuff like play guitar hero (I was laughing at how he could barely hold the guitar)

The girls hooking up...they flew through tokens like there was no tomorrow :)

We visited, doled out tokens, all ended up buying pizza even thought it was only mid-morning and had a great time catching up while managing kid requests.

Right after this I raced Taylor over to do the mountain biking trip he's been begging me to go on with friends (Sycamore Canyon) and got home to hang out with neices. Liesl, Jenae and Jolene came over for the day and we had fun visiting with them.

They came with me to pick up Taylor from his bike ride and all had something to say about him being covered in mud splatters and needing a shower ;) After the shower they played capture the flag at the park, video games...and then just hung out watching TV.

The next day I cleaned, cleaned the house...and had the kids clean...and still had a list of more things to clean, and to shop for...but I got a call from Steve asking me about Sycamore Canyon that he saw on my blog post. He was wanting to take the kids out to get them out of the house.

Sooo I decided to give us all a break from cleaning and we met them at the Canyon and I showed them our trial we like to take. I brought the dog and Steve brought all the teens including a neighbor, which made it fun for all of them to be there.

After hanging out at the stream eating snacks the big kids all climbed the rocks and hung out...I was at the bottom so I'm not really sure what they were doing... :) then we hiked back to the cars. Its a little over 2 miles and I was so proud of Ashley hiking the whole way without complaining or seeming tired!

On the way home we scrounged just enough quarters that the kids could have Sunday's at McDonalds (I snuck a few bites from them) and then it was back to the house for more cleaning.

Thanksgiving day dawned and Jeff and I were up and getting things ready. We were set to have everyone come over at 2:00 and then be ready to eat at 3:00.

Everything was going smooth and Jeff and I were working well, on track to get everything done on time when I heard sizzling in the oven. I opened it to see turkey juices running down to the bottom.

We quickly pulled the turkey out and saw that the twist tie for the bag must have been touching the side of the oven and it burned off, letting the juices run down. Well we fixed it and put it back in.

We were at about an hour before everyone was supposed to be coming when I opened the cupboard to put a dish away and a cup came crashing down breaking one of my new bowls. As I am cleaning up the broken glass the doorbell rings as Jeff is realizing there is smoke coming from the oven.

Ding Dong????

Who could that be??

It was cousin Ben and his family an hour early. "It didn't take us as long as I thought it would to get here. You should've seen me we were doing 90 on the freeway..."...he came to talk to us in the kitchen...honestly I was too busy to entertain.

More smoke...

We open the oven and it's on fire!!

All the sudden things are not going so smoothly.

It occurred to me that last Sunday all the talks were on adversity....hmmmm I was getting my chance to experience it.

We tried closing the oven door but it kept getting worse.

"Get the fire extinguisher!"

Luckily I knew exactly where it was. Luckily Ben was there in the kitchen gabbing and we had him pull the turkey out so Jeff could spray the fire down. Jeff had to spray a bit before Ben reached in the oven so he didn't get singed but luckily the turkey was in a bag.

With enough spraying Jeff was able to get the fire out.

Now the house was filled with smoke! We had one hour before 50 people were going to be at our house, our oven wasn't usable because it was filled with fire extinguisher stuff and the turkey had an hour left to cook! Not to mention 4 family members were expected to use the oven to cook their Thanksgiving offering!

Black, fume filled, putrid smoke filled the upstairs and down and set the fire alarm and the house alarm off repeatedly. We have a monitored smoke alarm and they came through on the intercom and asked if we needed a fire truck. Luckily no, so she said "How long do you want me to disregard the alarm going off?" I told her an hour.

I thought that meant that the alarm would stop going off...no it meant that she wouldn't call the fire department during the next hour as the alarm went off.

As I'm trying to open all the windows, get the smoke out and figure out what to do with the turkey that still had an hour to cook the house alarm and the smoke alarm loudly shrilled through the house. (You should've seen how fast those boys got off those video games and went outside to hang out)

Jeff told me to call the Merrill family up the street and see if we could bake the turkey in their oven for the last hour. I really didn't want to call....it was Thanksgiving Day...I'm sure she was cooking her own dinner. Well I called. Luckily they were home, they had cooked their dinner the day before and they said to come down and use the oven as much as we needed to.

All those years of visiting teaching and home teaching this family that didn't want anything to do with the church and now they were there to help me in my time of need. They were gracious and wonderful and I wondered again if it wasn't the Lord giving us this opportunity to be blessed and be thankful.

Jeff and I spent the next hour pulling the oven apart and cleaning it to hopefully get it usable. There was powder everywhere!! My carefully cleaned kitchen was very unclean...it clung to the walls, fridge and everything. Family is arriving and Jeff and I are still cleaning. I noticed later that every table in the house looked like we hadn't dusted in a month because of the smoke. Great!

Anyway after cleaning and putting the oven back together I nervously turned it on fully expecting it not to work anymore and having to use the neighbors oven.

I waited and it was getting hot.....it worked! It was still a bit fumey but it worked! Another thing to be Thankful for!

People got their food in the oven pretty much on time and I picked up the turkey down the street and it was saved and turned just fine!!

So I started our celebration off ticking off the things to be thankful for...our house was still standing, our oven was working so we could cook the rest of the food, and our turkey wasn't ruined!

Our house was filled to the brim with people.

It was too cold for anyone to really want to hang out outside but nobody seemed to mind too much.

Steve orchestrated the games like beanboozled and Maffia which are now family favorites! I was busy in the kitchen but I heard lots of people having fun. Honestly I think some of the family members don't really care too much about the food...it's about the games :)

Heres the quiet(er) room.

Our couches were filled to capacity and more.

Another thing to be thankful for...everyone seemed to be done and going home by about 8:00!

Liesl was spending the night with us that night because we were going to take her to Universal Studios the next day. Since it wasn't that late she suggested watching a movie.

Thekids have been wanting a “scary” movie forever. We’ve seen some mildly scaryones but nothing that they considered scary enough. So we considered Insidious at redbox. The previews looked scary butLiesl said she saw it and it wasn't scary, in fact she thought it was funny. OK so we tried it. Jacoband Ashley were scared like crazy. At one part Jacob screamed like a girl andthen hid in the bathroom with his DS, Ashley kept saying “lets turn it off” Ioffered to take her to bed but she didn’t want to go to bed alone while we werewatching it. Honestly it wasn't thaaaat bad they just hadn't seen a scary movie before. I was hoping it would cure them. LuckilyAshley slept with Liesl that night and then in Jacob’s room the next night andnow she seems OK. There was a stupid song on the movie “Tiptoe through thetulips” and of course the boys keep singing it and playing it on their i-pod outloud to bug Ashley and scare her, which is funny because Jacob was just as scared.

I told them that if they keep scaring herthey have to let her sleep with them that night. Finally by Sunday she waslaughing about it too.

Friday...boycotting black Friday we headed to Universal Studios to recover from the week. Liesl hadn't been in a long time so she was excited to go.

On the backlot tour Taylor kept telling Liesl to lean closer to the side to see and sure enough Jaws popped up right next to her and she let out a loud scream...I guess he wanted to make up for her not being scared the night before :)

Ashley was tall enough to go on the Simpson's ride. So nice to be able to go on more things as a family!

Spongebob trying to give Jacob a kiss...looks freaky if you ask me.

Aaaahhhhh he's eating the kids.

Oh on the backlot tour I noticed some additions to the plane crash scene....

They had these dead bodies strewn around...maybe left overs from Halloween?

Ashley had to wait while the rest of us went on the Mummy and Jurassic Park...so Jeff bought her a tri-colored push pop to help pass the time...can you tell which colors she liked the best?

We saw and did everything but one show...so it'll give Liesl something to do next time.

Our favorite place to eat on the way out of Universal Studios. Wolfgang Pucks! Their best deal is the kids meal, for $6 you get a whole pizza, drink and a homemade cookie ice cream sandwich. Unfortunately the kids are getting to the point where they all can't have kids meals.

A fun day and we even got home by 9:00! It was nice to hang out with Liesl this week and all the cousins!

Saturday I started pulling out the Christmas decorations. I was tired of putting up my huge tree by myself branch by branch, putting on the lights, it was heavy and bulky and my arms would be all scratched by the end. Jeff saw a nice pre-lit tree at Wallmart and we decided to retire the old one.

Well it was easy to put up....but it was a lot narrower and smaller looking than our old one. (Ashley was very sad that we got rid of the old one but I have it to a single mom of 3 kids so I was OK with it).

Every time I walk by I look at it and think "Its so small"

Jacob liked it, he said that when we start putting presents under it, it will look like there are more presents because the tree is small.

In the middle of decorating we had Angela and Robert over for a visit. They were on their way back home from Robert's families Thanksgiving trip. We got to have them for lunch and hang out that afternoon with them.

It was fun to watch Ian especially as he laughed and laughed when Maddie licked him.

So now I'm trying to get into planning for Christmas. Why does it seem so stressful every year?? I think because we're squeezing in so much extra stuff that we normally don't do while still trying to do real life (like the big project Ashley has due in 2 weeks) So while trying to recover from last week I'm gearing up for the next few weeks.

It seems like every year around this time I think "next year I'll plan ahead" and I never do.

2011-11-14T11:38:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving Week!

Tis the season to be grateful so we had our annual "list your things to be grateful for" family home evening lesson last night.

I did it as a game...and gave everyone 2 minutes to list as much as they could...

Jacob is grateful for...."pie, apple, pear, bed, chimi, churro, mini-churro, other babies, light, clothes, bananas, brownies, cookies, vanilla, shakes, strawberries, and church" among other things.

Ashley is grateful for ..."house, family, God, church, pets, rooms, electronics, Jesus, food, paper, trees, plants, beds, cousins, and blankets" among other things.

Taylor is grateful for ..."girls, cars, running, bikes, dogs, cheetos, doritos, cheeze-its, brownies, fritos, ruffles, phones, chocolate, chocolate cake, ice cream, McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy's, Jack-in-the-Box, Carl's Jr, burritos, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, shakes, fries"...hhmmmmm thats his whole list

(I think both boys were a. hungry and b. trying to win the game....but Jeff won ;)

I told them about a quote I saw that said "What if you woke up in the morning and only had whatever you had thanked God for the night before..."

If that was the case I guess some of my children would be homeless and alone but they would have plenty to eat!

Sometimes I love to list everything I'm grateful for because it gets me in a good mood and makes it easier to see my blessings around me...even when life still brings challenges.

I love having a family! All the craziness, sacrifice, love, frustration and joy rolled up into one makes families wonderful!

It's pretty much a theme in our family that Jacob ruins family pictures....on purpose.

This is one that Shawna flew down from Colorado to take,

we had to get up at 6:00 on a Saturday to drive...

almost an hour to meet to get these pictures...

and this is what we got.

Luckily there are plenty more to choose from so a regular one will be on our Christmas card.

I'm grateful for our dog...

That got me to get the kids out of the house on Veteran's Day to to hike Sycamore Canyon.

I go all the time with the Elsworths but the kids never get to go...

There was a little grumbling getting out of the house but once we got there everyone loved climbing on the rocks and exploring.

The boys liked challenging themselves climbing higher...

We were laughing later when bike riders rode down the same rocks that the boys were so impressed with themselves to have climbed up.

Ashley liked the stream at the end.

I am grateful for Doctor's and Dentists and Orthodontists...we've visited all 3 this week.

Unfortunately my combined dentist appointment for me and all the kids I scheduled 6 months ago has now turned into 4 separate appointments on 4 separate days....

My fault for part of it.

Its was Monday and I was doing my thing...and I get a call "This is Mickey from Dr. Mohn's office, Are you around the corner?"

OH NO!!! I totally forgot all the dentist appointments for the kids that day.

We live 20 minutes away and if you are 15 minutes late they'll cancel your appointment. Taylor wasn't even home either! She said they could keep 2 of the appointments...so I load Jacob and AShley up and we got there as quick as possible. First thing they asked "Did Jacob pre-medicate?" No...so he couldn't be seen. (Partly their fault because they hadn't gotten the prescription up-to-date so I hadn't even gotten it) so they all got 3 separate appointments now :(

I am grateful for Primary Sacrament Programs.

We had ours a couple of weeks ago and they did fabulous! Our primary is big and the kids are cute and everyone did great on their parts. They had us in the audience write our feelings, notes and thoughts to the children as they were doing the Primary program to be read back to them in sharing time. What a great idea! I was able to express what I was feeling at the time ... I admired their excitement for the gospel, their pure testimonies and their sweet spirits. I also loved that they had small groups to sing some of the songs this year so each of the children stood out from the herd.

Ashley did her part great, she sang in a small group and did great and she played a piano solo and did great! We were so proud of her.

The only thing she struggled at was the final chord of her piano piece. She just quite couldn't get it. Afterward she told me why. "I need to see the dirty key to know where the chord was"

What????

I guess at home the piano key was dirty and she was using it as a reference!

I am grateful for hobbies...and creating...and service.

I've been doing jewelry lately and selling it a bit...and buying more stuff after I sell it...it pretty much just supports it as a hobby :)

Anyways my new thing was to experiment with wire wrapping...I saw it on the cover of a book and saw a quick you-tube video and I've been playing around with it.

On Tuesday I was invited to go and help with my nieces mutual and make jewelry with the girls. I was told to just come and they would have all the supplies....until the night before when the leaders called and said they wanted me to buy all of it...so back to the store I went (dangerous for me)

The night went good and the girls seemed to like it...even the tom boy girl who everyone was shocked made a bracelet.

I am grateful for friends who inspire me, I have lots of them.

It was a friend who gave me the idea for this cute Thanksgiving craft. It's a gobbling turkey. There is a piece of sponge on the end of a string and you get it wet and slide it down the string and the cup amplifies it and it makes it sound like it's gobbling.

I went to Ashley's class and made them for art. Fun for even 4th graders...not as fun for the teachers that have to listen to the gobbling :)

I tried buying small cups but the sound wasn't right so I found I had to go with the big ones.

Right after I had my parent teacher conference with Ashley's teacher. She's doing great this year.

I'm grateful for the temple.

Wednesday Jacob got to go to the temple to do baptisms with the youth. His favorite part is the trip to In-N-Out afterwards.

He told me in his interview for his recommend he was asked at the end "Do you have any questions?"

"Yes, is there shakes with our burgers?"

Jacob also got to go on a camp out to Joshua Tree on Friday with his scout troop. I was grateful that he was warm enough, he didn't get lost, and he wasn't interested in the repelling part so I didn't have to worry about him ;)

I am grateful for food (though not quite to the extent that the boys are)

On Wednesday I spent literally aaaallll day making this 15 bean ham soup for the first time.

It's been colder outside and I wanted to try something new so literally from 6:00 in the morning until 6:30 at night I boiled the ham bone, soaked beans, spent 3 hours simmering the soup, running back to the store again when I realized I didn't have an onion and getting special bread to eat with it.

Taylor dipped a corner of his bread in it and then looked at it in disdain for the rest of the meal without eating any. "Why do you have to make such weird dinners mom?"

Ashley ate like two bites and then filled up on bread.

Jeff ate about 1/2 his bowl.

Lots went down the disposal that night.

Jacob might have been a little more open to it but he was gone at the temple.

None of them will be eating leftovers.

I have a large amount of soup left..... for myself.

I am grateful for extended family.

Saturday we went to a farewell party for the Biggs (Jeff's aunt and uncle) who are moving away for a job change. We tried to entice the boys to go...there was an In-N-Out truck there but the catch was we had to go to a wedding reception an hour away first...then drive an hour back and then we got to be at the Bigg's party.

Taylor said In-N-Out wasn't worth it for an hour wedding reception, Jacob was just getting back from camping so we left them at home.

Then Taylor heard about who all was there after. What there were cousins there? You didn't tell me there were cousins there! (I did)

I am grateful for senty candles, plugs ins and other such things that are nice to have.

I got a new candle that smells like blueberry cheesecake.

The first time I put it out Taylor started smelling it

"Mom are you making waffles!?"

No, it's 9:30 and everyone has already eaten breakfast.

"Mom can you make waffles??" He kept asking me about waffles.

I agreed to make them the next day but the candle sent really made him want waffles I guess.

I am also grateful for our other pets that are frustrating at time but make us laugh at others.

We've found out the churro and mini-churro have found out how to get out of their cage.

They push open this top door and escape.

Once we realized this I told Taylor to put some twist ties on the door.

That worked for 10 minutes.

Then I put this carabeaner on it.

I woke up the next morning to mini-churro running around the house. This is how big the opening was and he could still squeeze out of it!

Happy Thanksgiving being grateful for whatever your grateful for!

I'm off to clean the house for tomorrow!!

Halloween in Huntington

2011-11-07T18:42:00.000-08:00

Wow I'm slipping on the blogging...It's 1/2 way through the month and I'm just talking about Halloween! Whats that all about????

I could give excuses...but I won't.

Well before Thanksgiving is here (getting ready for that too) I better get this post in.

This year Jeff's New York Life council party was in ......

TA DA....

Hunington Beach!

So exotic!

That's one thing about working for a company thats based in New York, they like a lot of the "reward" trips to be on the west coast...soooo we get to go to places like San Diego, Anaheim, Palm Springs and such. Well the beach in early November didn't sound worthy of pulling the kids out of school so we had Jenise and Sean watch the kids while I went down with Jeff for a couple of days to hang out with him at his convention.

I have to say that wherever we go with New York Life they always do great with the hotels. The Hyatt was great and right across the street from the beach! (even though it was too cold to put on a suit)

It took up the whole block and we got lots of walking in going back and forth between our room and the convention stuff.

With no kids I got to go with Jeff to some of the early morning meetings....which meant breakfast at 6:30...I was there for moral support but when it was time to break out for workshops I bowed out and did my own thing.

After I left Jeff I went for a run on the beachfront sidewalk...it was foggy most of the day and I kept hearing fog horns the whole time. (you can't see the water)

Almost every night we came back to find something in the room..the first night we got this cool California basket with snacks and stuff.

It was fun to find out what we would get next...

we ended up getting a book written by the key-note speaker, nice.

And, a "how-to" book on visiting Disneyland

(good for chuckling at none-the-less being the Disney pros we are and all)

This and the convention center rooms were about all of the hotel that Jeff got to enjoy...pretty typical but it was nice to be with him alone for a couple of days.

Our view from our room....

If you turn sideways on the balcony....

and zoom the camera in as far as it would go.

Couldn't hear the waves over the traffic on the street but we could see them!

Halloween was spent making flyers for Jeff for his AAC campaign and then going to an awards dinner. Yummy food but glad the kids weren't with us, they had much more fun trick or treating with friends and Jenise and their other cousins.

You might be wondering what is AAC?

Well its an election that is held every year for 4 agent representatives to go back for a week in the spring to the home office and meet with the heads of the company to discuss issues, concerns and suggestions from the various agents in the field. Jeff served on this committee about 8 years ago and he was asked by one of the vice Presidents of the company to run again...so he did. There is 8 people on the ballot and he campaigned for one of the 4 spots.

Yummy food.

Happy couple getting ready to eat the yummy food.

Tuesday after Jeff's meetings we were free for the rest of the day to do whatever we wanted.

While he was in meetings I went to walk along the sand...

It wasn't as foggy as the day before but still pretty cool.

I loved it! I felt like I had the beach to myself. Nobody was out there and all I could hear was the waves. Even though there were more people up at the street level I only passed by one guy on my walk.

I saw lots of birds that I don't normally see at the beach (maybe because there wasn't all the people there) and I found this guy. I thought he was dead but I just had to poke him...he was alive :)

I would love to have walks like that every day!

Since we had lots of time to kill we decided to do a session at the Newport temple.

Then walk along the pier....

Our hotel waaay in the background.

Walking back to the downtown area we visited the street fair/farmers market/craft fair.

There was music, vendors (we bought a great photograph of the beach from a guy there for Ashley's "beach" room) and food.

But we passed all the food and saved our appetite for this Italian restaurant that the hotel recommended.

Wow it was worth the walk! It was so good...I noticed a lot of New York Life people there...they must have all been told to come there too from the hotel.

Thats one thing about these conventions...I spend a week of eating really good food....too much really good food!

Wednesday morning I woke up early and went to the agent's breakfast and heard Jeff and the other candidates give their speeches. We found out later that day that Jeff won one of the spots!!

So now we're going to New York in April!

Mike Schlappy was the key-note speaker of the week. A motivational paraplegic, Olympic gold medal winner with a great story, great attitude and an inspiring way to motivate us.

Right after his speech I hightailed it home to surprise the kids.

We knew the finale of the week was an evening at Disneyland. We were hoping we could just bring our kids to that part of the convention (they've all been going to the conventions since they were babies) but we were told no by the travel staff. Sooo no problem, we tried, we told the kids no Disneyland.

Then the first night we were invited to sit at the table with the Vice President of the company. Really nice guy and in the course of the conversation when he heard that we weren't going to be able to bring our kids to Disneyland he insisted he would make it happen. We were shocked and weren't trying to pull any favors in fact I changed the subject. But sure enough right after dinner he did whatever it took to make it happen.

I didn't have Jenise tell the kids I just went around and pulled them out of school about lunch time one by one. It was hilarious to see the shock on their faces as they saw me. "Mom why are you here???" (Taylor actually thought he was in trouble which made me wonder why he thought that ;) Then when I told them we're going to Disneyland they were very excited!

This also happened to be the warmest day so I brought their suits so we could check out the pools.

You can barely see it but there are two waterslides in the background and I was excited for the boys to be able to try them. They said they were not that great and the water was a little cold. So for the rest of the time we stayed in the heated parts of the pool.

Then we got dressed, boarded the bus and got ready to go to Disneyland.

You can see how excited the boys are...actually they just get sick of me taking pictures all the time.

We were there about 6:30 and the park closes at 8:00 then we would get Adventure land and Frontier land for just New York life until 10:00. Well we found out that the park is DEAD on a Wednesday 2 hours before its closing.

I've probably never been there when it's so empty.

The highlight of the evening was the fact that Ashley just makes the 40 inch height requirement!!!! That is when she is standing up her tallest, and puts the sign on the very back of her head...but still

Happy Day!

We discovered this when we were in the line trying out the new Star Tours ride (they added new movies to it that change every time you ride). Right after this we ran over to Space Mountain.

It was all so fast she didn't even have time to think about if she would be scared or not.

She wasn't she LOVED IT and said it was her favorite ride of the night!

No more splitting up the family waiting while some get to go on the rides and others don't !!!!

We ran to the Haunted House to do the Nighmare before Christmas version, and then we went on Splash Mountain, Big Thunder mountain and Ashley loved all of them :)

When it was time to eat Disneyland had the buffet for us.

I have to say I was very impressed and it was way better than I expected. It was gourmet food served country style. Very delicious.

Taylor's favorite was the Salmon.

Afterwards we went on some more rides and then helped ourselves to the dessert bar again the food was exquisite.

I drove the kids home that night and we got in about 11:30. It was a great day but it make for a long morning we had to roll out of bed in time for Seminary the next day.

Oh one last highlight of the week.

Ashley and I went up to Palmdale for a family baby shower for one of Jeff's cousin's wife. It ended up being a full family affair (helped that it was Jeff's mom's birthday that day)

We had plenty of snacks....

and I did the games including my Candy matching game.

Roxana is from Panama and Lori (her mother in law) had to explain what some of the baby terms meant because she wasn't familiar with the English terms.

We are excited to have her and her daughter Maybel as part of the family.

And it made me excited to see the family next week for Thanksgiving!

Halloween Happenings

2011-11-03T14:14:00.000-07:00

A little catch up now that I'm back in town.

So the Thursday before Halloween we went to THE Halloween house. The one that is all over facebook, youtube and all the news shows.

We got there 40 minutes early and here are the crowds.

There was hundreds and hundreds of people already there.

Taylor and I agreed that it felt very much like Disneyland...like the minutes before the fireworks show when everyone is jammed together waiting for them to start.

The streets were blocked off and we filled the whole area.

Luckily Jacob and Ashley squeezed ahead to the front and so they got a front row seat.

When the show was getting ready to start the owner of the house came out and asked everyone in the front to sit down. There was a small group in front of us that just wouldn't sit down. People were getting a little annoyed and it seemed like they were ignoring everyone.

Someone trying to be funny asked them to sit down in Spanish.

They sat right down.

We thought it was even funnier and now we all could see the show :)

The guy did a great job putting together like a 1/2 hour show of lights and music. He runs it once a night and it's become the biggest thing in Riverside.

The finale was the Party Rock song and he even had kids and dressed up people dancing in the driveway for the finale. We all clapped between songs and couldn't believe what a show he created!

(A few days later LMFAO themselves came out and shot a commercial in front of his house with their song playing behind them.)

Friday night I was getting ready for the hopefully now annual Halloween party at the Elsworths.

She asked us to bring a plate of desserts...so getting a little inspiration from pinterest I decided to take what I had at home and make some...

Mad Mint Marshmallow Monster Men!

And...with the leftovers some Monster Eyes.

They actually weren't 1/2 bad to eat too :)

Jeff and I donned our costumes. Jeff liked being Pit Boss last year (because it doesn't require much dressing up) so he was the Pit Boss again.

I tried to think of a costume that would go with his.

I decided to be someone from Whale Wars. I found out that not very many people watch Whale Wars (I don't blame them) and so they didn't really know what I was. Oh well I looked enough like a Hippy they just called me that.

You can't see it I had an awesome not very attractive uni-brow...

but I think the drawn on hairy legs were the biggest hit.

Now our costumes were nothing compared to everyone else's costumes! We died laughing every time a new couple would join the party.

Everyone was creative and made the party fun.

So a sampling of the guests...

Mormon fundamentalists

Heffner and his bunny...

Tron lit up and an Indian Princess

Cave couple

(his unibrow had me beat by a long shot and she said she lost a lot of hair that night trying to get all the snarls out! :)

OJ and Nicole Simpson complete with wounds and bloody knife...

Hillbilly hick boy and his lovely wife.

The belly is real...Jenny has a tan shirt on and drew the belly button on top of her pregnant belly.

Hilarious!

Cute Squaw and a CRAZY Rhinestone Cowboy.

Miss Ladybug

More Cowbell guy and Twilight fan

Cowboy and Panda

(which was an inside joke from a past newlywed game so it made it even funnier)

We ate snacks...we pretty much all brought dessert, so there was tons!

( I ended up bringing by little Marshmallow guys to the neighbors which they loved)

And we played minute to win it style games...

and laughed at each other trying to do it.

Thanks Elsworths for a great party!!

Saturday morning dawned bright and early as we headed out to do a family photo shoot with Shawna Banagas. The kids complained about getting up early but I was happy it looks like we'll get some good pictures out of it! :)

So when we got home it was time to prepare for Trunk-or-Treat. A lot of kids could guess what was inside by boxes but some of them couldn't

So in my "feel the gross stuff" boxes....

I had thick carrots for Goblin Bones.

Twine for Witches Hair.

Large Olives for Eyeballs.

Whole Dill Pickles for Monster Fingers

(they were even bumpy...hee hee)

I had oily spaghetti for Worms.

I think the grossest thing I had was a pumpkin with it's guts still in mixed with crushed tomatoes for a skull with brains.

It's funny because most people seemed to be the most freaked out when they touched the "DEAD CROW"

This is what it looked like before. It's my crow decoration.

I think they couldn't place it and when they put their hand in they felt something hard with feathers and actually was goopy from other people touching it with goopy fingers.

I can't tell you how many kids thought I really had put a dead crow in the box!

He was so mangled he had to be thrown away at the end

but it was sure fun for that night.

The kids seem to like my table but they all had to make use of my wipes after they were done!

I went through most of a container of them that night!

And so for the kid's costumes....Ashley was a girly robot.

She had the dress up outfit and the sandals already. We bought the face mask at Michael's and the "hair" at the dollar store. I even painted her silver at her request.

So her costume cost me $5.00

Nice!

Jacob wanted to be a air-soft gun toting Ninja (don't ask)...we got as far as the black outfit (The pants are my workout Capris that he has now decided are really comfortable)

He borrowed this Stay Puff head for the picture but really he had no costume....just as well because he didn't go around and get any candy.

Better than Taylor who did absolutely do nothing but grab his crutches and call himself cripple...and one time he mentioned that he was a Hollister model.

He also didn't get any candy other than the random piece he would ask for and eat immediately.

Knowing that her brothers didn't get any candy...makes Ashley super paranoid that whenever she turns her back they are going to eat hers (ha ha).

We also invited Little People of America to the Trunk or Treat again this year so we were happy to see them.

For actual Halloween night Jeff and I were at his New York Life convention so I missed the night and the chance to get pictures.

I heard that Steve and Family came up to Trick or Treat with Caden and Jenise and Shawn in our neighborhood and had fun. Ashley was very happy to have cousins to go around with.

Jacob trick or treated with his Stay Puff Marshmallow friend for awhile (at least he put on a mask with his black outfit)

and Taylor trick-or-treated/hung out with his friends for awhile.

Still worried about looking cool he still didn't wear a costume but he came home with some candy...

that is now officially gone as of yesterday....

so Ashley is still having reasons to be paranoid.

Oh by the way we had our house re-painted on Saturday. The pink is gone!!! Yaaayyyy!!!

Confessions...

2011-10-27T11:27:00.000-07:00

Confessions....we all have them here are some of mine....

I shop at Kohls too much...Taylor complains that everything we own (clothes wise) is from Kohls, Kohls clearance no less. Thats not true but not entirely untrue as well.

I can't get help it if we have free money there, I've got to use it! And if we get a $10 off in the paper Jeff will buy a couple extra papers :)

I love Kohls clearance...pretty much everything I want ends up there at some point!

I've eaten too many Caramel Apples!

Jeff was going to make them for a mutual activity so we had to try some out for Family Home Evening...then there were left overs from mutual...then someone gave us some caramel apples...and I seem to be the only one who didn't get tired of them

Oh no!!

I'm trying to avoid my yearly Halloween binge...but this isn't helping

I did wait until this week to buy the Halloween candy and I've kept it hidden and closed, better than most years, but I fear for my waistline when we get slammed with nice bite sized chocolate bars.

The other activities they did at mutual...teams making one person up as a mummy!

I confess I love having a son thats game for being wrapped up as a mummy and having his picture plastered on facebook.

(Love his cardboard "sword")

Now if I could just get him to dress up for Halloween!

The painters have been here.

I confess I just stood by and watched when the Gardeners came and mowed around all our patio furniture instead of moving it out of the way or asking them to move it.

I know that there will be a patch of long grass underneath.

They'll just get it next week...

(They never even move the dog toys...they just mow around them)

I was at Bath and Body and got these cool Halloween soaps at a dollar each. I bought a bunch to give to Visiting teaching people and the kid's teachers.

Confession I always like to have something to bring over on a visiting teaching visit.... partly because when I see them on my counter I feel guilty until they are delivered. (Hey sometimes it's whatever pushes me to do it)

Thats my secret to "help" my husband do his hometeaching too...if he has something to bring he will more likely do it.

So I have one sister who says "You know you don't have to keep bringing me stuff"

Sorry but I do...really it's just me and honestly I just like to do it for fun.

The last week or so I've had 8 doctors appointments for the kids!

Eight!

4 of those appointments came with a $45.00 "specialist" co-pay. It was going to be 6 co-pays but I got out of 2 of them.

I spent $200.00 last week on specialist co-pays and lot of time in waiting rooms, getting kids out of school and lots of driving!

Through the course of the week we did get Taylor's MRI...he does have a stress fracture in his hip. It's a mirror image to the one he had last year. So he's on crutches for at least another month, then they'll do a checkup. It probably will take another couple months to heal.

Talked to his pediatrician who is also a endocrinologist who says they've already done more tests than anyone normally would for this type of injury. All his blood work came out fine so he is chalking it up to over training.

So basically try and get him healed up and then see how he does.

A friend of mine sent me a picture in an e-mail and asked me to do a witch poster for a "pin the wart on the witch nose" game.

Confession people think they are bugging me with stuff like this but I thought it was fun and I doctored up the picture a bit...added some stuff and made her green instead of yellow.

One side of me doesn't want too many people to know I can draw or paint ;) but secretly it's fun to do something out of the ordinary and have to use your creativity ;)

She was happy with it and even brought me flowers (before she even had seen it)

OK a big FAIL on the house color stuff.

After driving around the neighborhood and trying to match paint colors we BOMBED big time.

Trying to use a paint chip to match a house DOESN'T WORK.

They started painting...it was in the shade and seemed OK.

I got home and I said "It looks PINK!"

He said it was the light.

Well then he painted the trim colors as a preview.

"It looks like a pastry cake!!"

I called Jeff home from work to do some damage control!

We determined we could not go with the yellow and green we picked out for the trim. So the painter got some browns together and we picked the darkest one hoping it would be better.

Paying extra to re-buy trim paint was a small price to pay we thought.

So the house is done. We were happy with the job the painters did...

but we aren't happy with the paint color still.

We think we're going to get used to it but every time we drive up we think

"Our house is PINK!!!"

We are paying more money to have the base color repainted....before our neighbors think we're crazy :(

We've already been asked """ummmm are you done painting yet???"" Like they're saying "is that really the color your house is going to be??"

Sooo in the mean time anyone need some material???

(You'd get this if you have ever been to the pink house)

Oh one more funny with the painters. They pretty much speak Spanish with a little English thrown in. He kept telling Jeff he was going to get a "lotion" finish. I kept telling Jeff there is no such thing.

He finally called the paint store they told him it was a "low sheen" finish!

Confession - I love having a niece (and nephew) that are willing to come and stay with the kids while Jeff and I go to the New York Life convention.

We had them over for Sunday dinner and to go over stuff for when we are gone.

They don't seem to be the least worried about things.

That makes me not worry.

It was fun to play with Cayden. He loves all the toys my kids don't play with anymore!

I hope he'll enjoy his visit...I'll have to do some baby proofing and we have determined that the dog will have to stay in another room or outside.

One swipe of the tail and over he goes!

Sorry Cayden!

I'm sure when you're older you'll love Maddie :)

We probably spoil the dog (or I spoil the dog)...but when Jeff brings home dog toys that he thought he was paying a dollar for and finds out they were $5.00 each we are holding onto them to bring them back and buy the cheap ones.

The bad part is Maddie has already seen them and keeps trying to steal them off the table.

I had to hide them.

Confession - I bought a dog toy that was miss shelved and I paid like $9.00 when I thought I was paying 3 or 4. Instead of bringing it back I let her have it.

Shhhh...I didn't tell anyone.

Besides it's her favorite toy.

Confession - I am relieved that Jacob is in a phase where he is getting straight A's and lots of praise from his teachers,

without help from me,

or reminders about what he needs to be doing.

He does his homework fast and most of the time first....

but that's so he can hurry up and play more video games.

Because of his grades I haven't been complaining too much about the video game time....

(I don't want him to lose his motivation...isn't that horrible)

Confession - My family still gets fruit snacks during sacrament meeting (isn't this supposed to stop when you're out of nursery!)...and now Jeff has become the Candy Man too with his suit coat pocket always full of it.

It comes in handy when kids are crying or cranky in the halls not wanting to go to class...Jeff hold out his hand to shake theirs and deposits a little candy. I have to admit more than one melt down has been avoided by Jeff's candy man ways.

But...I was quite embarrassed last Sunday when candies are being noisily unwrapped in our row and jelly beans kept skittering to the floor! I'm not opposed to a mint or even a piece of gum but this is getting ridiculous!! I barely refrained from disassociating myself from the crazy candy mayhem and sitting in the foyer to listen to the rest of sacrament. How embarrassing.

Taylor this confession is for you...

Why did I go out to your room to get your dirty laundry and find that you colored your VAN's PINK!!???

I texted him at school and come to find out they were supposed to wear pink laces one day for breast cancer awareness. He didn't have them so he let his friends color his shoes pink!!! (Not too happy about it)

I laughed when he couldn't find his regular shoes two days later and had to wear these ones....he'll still be wearing these ones. He chose to color them...he now gets to wear pink shoes.

This week is red ribbon week for AShley's school. Each day they have something they are supposed to wear. The first day was supposed to be pajamas day but she thought it might have been changed. (the copier was broken so they didn't get their flyer) So we got ready and drove her down to the school a little early...we scoped out what the other kids were wearing (no pajamas) so I drove her back home to change.

Confession - I drive to the school way too many times...I'm a pushover mom that way.

Yesterday was crazy hair day. I did her hair like normal before we remembered....so we just clipped a bunch of crazy stuff in it and called it good.

Confession - Trunk or Treat is coming up and I'm having fun dreaming up stuff that will feel gross for our trunk or treat game...hee...hee...hee

I'll share the secrets of what's in my boxes later.

Maddie graduated from her Adult Dog 2 class last night!

It's been a lot of fun going to class with Ashley every night.

Confession - I worry about making Maddie a therapy dog and having people being grossed out that she wants to lick them to death.

The other day she wanted to "meet" a little boy riding a bike she she lunged towards him (I was holding her back so she never got close to him) he screamed and started crying hysterically and the dad had to hold him up on his bike to keep from falling over. I felt bad. Maybe we need some more work.

Magnus graduated too!

We're so happy to be doing doggie classes with the Elsworths. They even came over and brought Maddie on a hike with Magnus when I couldn't go. They treated him just like one of their own.

Thanks guys!

What good doggie parents :)

Confession - I smile when I find out things like

The Halloween soap I bought at Bath and Body (for $1.50)

Glows in the Dark!