Happy Hearts Day!!

Happy Heart's Day from our house to yours...hope your family had a great one....

and you are getting lots of good deals on all that clearance chocolate today :) 

So last week I was slammed with doctor's appointments, service, a lovely trip to the temple and lunch with sister-in-laws followed by bringing dinner to the Bullocks and holding triplets for an hour (she amazes me how she handles her 7 kids with calmness and peace). I drove all over, seemed to be occupied every minute of the day and pretty much crashed a bit on Friday...sadly I didn't take pictures of it all.

I should've taken pictures of the temple, triplets and the giant, wonderful baby shower for Erin Elsworth! She probably had 50 plus people there and was opening presents for probably 2 hours! Oh and I should've take the picture of the quilt I was hurriedly buying material for and making for Miles her new baby, and the cute church outfit I found to buy for him! Well you'll just have to imagine it! 

I do have a few pictures though...

Jeff and I have season tickets to performances at our local community college and got to go with 2 couples to see My Fair Lady recently. We entered one of those drawings that you never win...and we won!

Regardless of the fact that most of the basket contained things related to drinking...we got 2 tickets to the Gourmet Detective which is a mystery/dinner theater... can't wait to book a time to go. 

On Saturday we had one of those days where Jeff and I kept passing each other. Luckily I got up early because I had our tree trimming guy knocking on our door at 8:00 ready to trim trees (Jeff forgot he was coming and I never knew it) He must of thought we were crazy as we were both driving back and forth home, and not home all day. 

 I got Ashley to her Primary Pancake breakfast at 9:00 and helped cut pancakes for kids for 45 minutes or so before I ran over to do grocery shopping. Jeff was out doing his own errands as I dropping off the food at the house and then ran back to pick up Ashley. Then I dropped off Ashley and had her send out  Taylor so I could get him to his birthday Party. I got home and Jacob and Jeff were walking out the door to go to the temple with the youth. As they left Ashley had a friend over, and I took them to the park, tried to keep the pets away from her friend (she's afraid of them all) and helped Taylor put mom and dad chinchillas back together...maybe in 3-4 months we might have another litter :/

Then Jeff raced home with Jacob, Ashley's friend got picked up and we had 10 minutes to be ready to go to a Birthday/Retirement party for one of Jeff's clients and former ward member. 

What do you get a guy that is turning 60 and probably has everything??? We got him this candy bouquet.

It actually ended up being a fun night despite the crazy day. It was a catered Luau with good food and dancing for entertainment. We also got to see a lot of people we haven't seen in a long time. 

Monday was Valentine prep! I can't stand buying generic valentine's at the store...so I always try and come up with my own. These were Ashley's Valentine's this year. 

Ashley doesn't care too much what they look like but her teacher thought they were pretty clever. :)

I spent the day baking sugar cookies (very nice thanks to my Kitchen-Aid) and frosting them and making cards....

stressing out to get the cards in the mail before the mailman came....I meant to get some out to grandparents too out but it didn't happen. I'll have to get them another time!  

I decided to do a Valentine's dinner with the family on Monday because Jeff and I were going out on Tuesday...so heart shaped pizzas were on the menu!

For family night we dropped off cookies.

Valentine's Day was a great day...Goodies from neighbors and friends...I got to talk to some friends on the phone and I got to help in Ashley's classroom for her party. 

I made up a game to play during the party...

I had some big fuzzy dice and they rolled one to choose a color...(red, black, pink....)

and one to choose a category...(things that start with S, things in the classroom....)

Then they had 2 minutes to write down a list of the most things they could think of that fit in the color and category. They had to think about it at first... but they ended up having fun once they got the hang of it. 

We only had time for 2 rounds but the teacher liked it so much she wanted to keep it so she could play it next week.

I love helping in her class because I get to be the "fun" person. I don't have to worry about the day to day. I even got a couple extra valentine's given to me from the kids. :)

My sweet hubby got me balloons, a nice card and this giant box of chocolates...

I'm willing to share if anyone wants some so I don't eat these all by myself!

He also got the ball rolling on getting my wedding ring sized. For the last 3 months or so I haven't been able to wear it...I guess after almost 19 years it's time to size it up. There's been a few times I feel stupid for not wearing a ring so I'm glad to finally get it fixed. 

(I was glad when I went to the jewelers he said it only needed to go up a 1/2 size...I guess that's not too bad.)  

That night for dinner Jeff and I went to Outback...what you don't see is all the other couples with us. We went with like 10 other people. We laughed, talked about our callings, our kids and made fun of chick flick movies...including Twilight (hee hee).  Great food and a fun night!

I have to say my absolute favorite part of Valentines day was when I found the one and only Valentine from our children... 

Ashley made a pop-up Valentine completely on her own including chocolate from her private stash and left it on our bed to find. 

She's a girl after my own heart!!!

Hope everyone had a great day too.

Palm Springs weekend

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

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.