The Cluff Family

Fall Break

2010-10-23T19:52:00.000-07:00

On our way to San Diego!

Posing outside the San Diego Temple (Jarom, Joel, Jess, Lacey)

Me, Paul and Joel outside the temple.

So beautiful!

We drove up the California coastline and then randomly picked a place to park and walked to the beach.

(Lacey, Joel, Jarom, Jess)

I did not bring bathing suits or towels because I assumed the water would be freezing and we'd only want to put our feet in. Well I was wrong.

Joel was a little nervous at first.

It was actually a warm day so the kids decided to just get wet and have fun.

I think this is a cute picture of them. Thankfully I took one of them facing forward or I would not have remembered which girl was which.

Jarom, Joel, Lacey, Jess

So much fun!

After getting soaked we decided to rest on a patch of grass while the kids ran around in the sun trying to get dry. So here I am relaxing a bit.

We had to kill time before Sea World opened so we walked around a marina.

(Joel, Jess, Lacey, Jarom)

Erika & Joel

The entrance to Sea World. The kids thought this car was hilarious because looked like Shamu.

Joel at the polar bear display. This picture was taken after the polar bear wandered over by us and took a dump. Ha.ha.

Taking a break. (Lacey, Jess, Paul, Jarom and Joel is in the stroller.)

Waiting to watch the Shamu Show.

Lacey riding the sky ride over the bay.

Jessica on the sky ride.

Jarom, Erika, Lacey & Jess.

Jarom's 10th birthday was the day we got back from California. It looks like he got jipped on presents but he didn't. In addition to what is on the floor, he got money, a gift card and the new diary of a whimpy kid book that doesn't come out until Nov.

Yay! A new lego building set from Grandma and Suzy & Jill.

Okay so I look totally haggard, but that's what happens after you spend 5+ hours in the car with 4 kids. Anyway we bought him one of those ice cream cakes and it was quite delicious.

And now we are back into the swing of things again are already trying to figure out where to go next year. The kids want to try LegoLand and in a couple years we'll attempt Disneyland. All in all it was a pretty fun Fall Break.

What we've been up to...

2010-09-19T20:41:00.001-07:00

THE GIRLS ARE SEVEN!

Wow - look at my hair! I was taking a trip down memory lane last month because our girls turned 7 on August 19th. I can't believe it's been that long. This picture is me holding them on their blessing day in dresses my mom crocheted for them. Lacey is on the left and Jessica is on the right.
Here they are at about 3 months of age. It's so funny that they don't even look anything like they do now. Except the face, you can see Jessica has the round face and Lacey has the longer one. That is still the case.

This isn't the best photo but it shows the girls around 15 months old. Can you guess who is who? Lacey is on the left and Jessica is on the right. And Jarom isn't making the best camera face, but I thought the picture illustrated quite well how his life was going at that point - "surrounded by sisters!"

Lacey and Jessica at 15 months. They look so sweet and innocent. Honestly, they were really good babies, at least I think they were! I frankly can't remember the entire first year of their life. So I am glad I took lots of pictures. (Oh, Lacey is on the left and Jessica is on the right.)

Fast forward six years and here they are on their birthday. August 19, 2010. It was a Thursday and they had to go to school but we opened presents early. This time Jessica is on the left and Lacey on the right.

I can't even remember all the stuff they got. We bought them some dresses, markers, club penguin toys and who knows what else.

Looking so grown up - hard to believe I used to carry both of them around at the same time!

Lots of club penguin figurines.

JOEL IS POTTY TRAINED!
Now let's skip forward to the potty train. We put this train on the top of our fridge about 6 months ago to entice Joel to start using the bathroom. (He will be four in January). It did not work. I kind of let potty training him go because we had tried so many times and he just wouldn't cooperate. About a week after the girls birthday I went grocery shopping and came home to find him in underwear. Paul had just changed a poopy diaper and declared he had "had it" with diapers and we were done. I raised my eye brows a bit knowing it would probably result in disaster again but whatever. To our surprise he did great. He had a couple of hard days in the beginning but then he just got the concept and ran with it. He was even pooping on the toilet earlier than any of our others kids. (I seem to remember a couple of them using diapers to poop in for awhile.) So we happily pulled that train off the fridge and he has been loving it ever since. And I love not buying diapers or worrying about changing him.

LAKE PLEASANT

We went to Lake Pleasant for the first time ever yesterday. Our friends David & Gilda Hill invited us up for a day of boating, jet skiing and playing in the lake. We had such a good time. We all got really sunburned and we totally wiped out by the end of the day, but it was great! None of our kids can swim that well so I was really glad there were lots of life jackets around. Poor Joel had to wear a girly one, but I don't think he noticed. It took like 2 hours to convince the girls that they really could float when they
had life jackets on.

We took turns taking the kids out on the jet ski's and then David took us out in the boat on a tour of lake pleasant. He is a fast driver, we hit some waves pretty hard, but all the kids laughed and begged for more.

Here's Jessica getting ready to go play in the water. The water was really dirty but it was cold and being that we broke a heat record on Saturday, 111 degrees, it felt awesome!

Lacey was ready to try out the water too.

David docked the boat on the shore in between uses and the kids had so much fun just climbing in and out of it all day. They even had water fights with the other kids who were swimming in the lake.

Paul and Jarom getting ready to get on the boat.

Here is Erika posing in front of Lake Pleasant.

Erika and Jessica heading out for a ride.

Paul and Lacey coming back in. We took Jarom and Joel out as well but didn't get pictures. Joel LOVED the jet ski, I actually had to take him out on it several times while he would yell "Go faster mom..."

True to the nature of kids, there was lots of playing in the dirt, collecting shells and building dams.

Joel hung out on the boat for most of the day. After laying on the horn for about 15 minutes, we had to give him strict instructions to quit pushing on it because it was starting to get annoying. But he didn't get sunburned at all so that's a relief. All in all we had a great time and the kids are already asking when our next trip will be.

First day of school

2010-08-04T16:05:00.001-07:00

The first day of school - (and mom's around the country were shouting for joy). As you can see only three kids made it to school. Poor Lacey was home for a couple of days with a high fever that turned into a lovely whole body rash- yep she had roseola. But she started back to school mid-week and seems to be enjoying it.

She actually has matching PJ's, but for some reason decided to wear the top of one set and the bottom of the other.

Joel, Jess, Jarom (don't you love the gradual looks of doom as you move up to each child? Joel is thrilled out of his mind, Jessica is slightly happy and Jarom is totally ticked! Ha.Ha.)

The girls have been in separate classes since Kindergarten but both wanted the same teacher for second grade. I didn't feel like I could say yes to one of them and no to the other. So I gave in and said we could try it this year. But if they start competing with each other or having issues, next year they are going to be separated. Sounds so mean, but really they have such different personalities that being able to be their own selves is important. Jarom is in the 4th grade, with 3 other kids from our ward in the same class. We are thrilled about that. And Joel is back in his early intervention preschool. When we started him in January he only said about 50 words, now we can't get him to stop talking, we are very pleased with the results. Now if he would just get potty trained.....he will be 4 in January and it is an an embarrassment that he is still in diapers. But what do you do? It was becoming a power struggle and we know who wins those. So for now we are just waiting....and waiting and praying he takes the plunge before he is 4. Ah good times. I haven't been able to really enjoy the first week of school because I had a sick child home for most of it. But tomorrow I will have a whole morning of peace - after I go to the gym.

End of Summer Report

2010-07-28T15:45:00.000-07:00

Can I just say how much I hate blogger.
All of my pictures are in reverse order. Augh!
And I am sure there will a million spaces between each of the pictures too. Someone at google needs to address this problem.

Okay then... on to the pictures. My niece Kaylee introduced my kids to "Club Penguin" about a year ago and for some reason they are always wanting me to take pictures of these little guys.
On to the reverse order pictures. Last week we went to Greer and rented a cabin. Each of Paul's sisters, their families and his mom got cabins too. We had so much fun and the weather was awesome!

Here is Joel playing with our traveling version of Connect 4.

Jessica out by the ponds where we were all fishing - look at that view!

Trying....and failing...to get a nice family picture.

We look pretty cute though - although all this traveling has made me gain a few pounds.

Here's all the cousins.

Jessica is really getting serious about fishing.

Technically we were not supposed to use bait, but the fly fishing poles were not working and we wanted the kids to experience catching some fish. So we baited some hooks and when the fish would grab on Paul would quickly cut it free and toss it back in.

Paul helping Jessica

Lacey caught a fish and Paul was unhooking it in this picture. She was getting a little queasy watching him as you can see by the expression on her face.

Catching another one!

Jessica getting impatient while waiting for her turn.

All the kids gathering around to see who caught a fish.

We also did some bike riding - man it is so beautiful up there.

Joel playing a solo version of candyland.

This is my sad attempt to take a picture of myself and Joel while I held the camera.

Jessica and Joel playing around with a new Jenga game.

More crankiness from Jessica about not catching any fish. (These pictures are so out of order - sorry)

This is all Joel did the whole trip...run. It took all of us adults to chase after him from fear he would get lost in the woods. Infact we thought we lost him once only to discover he had fallen asleep on Grandma's bed.

Paul was trying not to go out of his mind with boredom while listening to the fly fishing instructor.

Now he's climbing...

I did grab him for a picture.

Jarom and Colton trying to snag a fish in the net.

Taking a walk around - Jessica, Lacey and the backside of Joel.

Paul trying out the fly fishing with his sister Jill next to him and Colton.

Joel doing a cool trick.

Making faces.

Posing in front of the cabin. This is what happens when its my turn to chase him around- he ends up in all the pictures. Ha.ha..

Our first morning in the cabin by the fireplace.

We had another bed for the boys to use, but they all wanted to sleep together in this king size bed. So cute!

Okay, now we are at the Evans family reunion that was held about 2 weeks before the trip we took to Greer. It was so awesome because my sister in law Becky (who is married to my brother Nathaniel who is currently doing his OB/Gyn residency in Ohio) came with their kids and my sister Allison who lives in Texas came with her family and I haven't seen either of them in like 4 years, so this was a wonderful occasion. (left-right: Andrea, Erika, Mom, Becky, Allison, & Emily (who is pregnant!))

So the whole black tarp thing on the window looks my parents are remodeling, but they're not. My mom was trying to block out the early morning sun that comes through these windows for the kids sleeping in the livingroom. We teased her about her new "white trash" curtains. Anyway it was her birthday and my brother in law Kory's birthday so we celebrated a bit. This is Kory reading his new book about "Poop - everything you need to know."

My brother used a bit too much zoom on this picture of me and Allison.

More opening of presents in the "demolition zone"...

All of us ladies went to look at Emily's new house and while we were gone we got caught in a major monsoon storm and had to wait it out a bit until the road was visible again. When we got back I discovered Joel passed out on the couch.

Joel making faces at me.

More smiles.

Allison in the resident eyebrow plucker and was helping Becky out.

Lacey messing around with a pair of 3-D glasses.

Joel and Darren playing trains.

Andrea, Erika & Mom chatting around the island in the kitchen.

Jessica, Sophee, & Lacey.

Playing computer games. Andrew, Jarom & Austin.

Clearly Josh outweighs Joel, but they still had fun.

Over the 4th of July we went to Bullhead City to visit Andrea and her family. Here is picture of Joel sitting at Uncle Kory's computer and using his headphones.

Lacey was showing off her dressed up self.

Joel decided using the doggy door was far easier than using the sliding glass one.

My sister has a huge playroom in which she has an air hockey table and a pool table. Do either of them get used properly? Not very often. Mostly the kids just build little villages on top of them and play. As long as they aren't fighting, it's so worth it in my opinion.

And here are the kids on the pool table. Jessica, Joel & Sophee.

Now we are back to our house in late June and the kids were out back jumping on the trapoline and spraying the hose.

I am not sure where Jarom is but here are the rest of kids.

In Early June, my brother Stephen finished his mission to Ogden Utah. Because my hubby rocks, he offered to stay with the kids all day so I could drive to Tucson and see my family-alone. I never had such a peaceful drive in my life. I almost forgot that silence can exist in a minivan. The kids just can't be in it!

Mom, Stephen, Dad.

Stephen, Candace(my sister in law), and Hannah.

Erika and Stephen

Elder Evans just getting off the plane.

Alright so that is about it for our summer. It actually went by surprisingly fast. And now that I will have so much more free time, I should be able to keep up on this blog a little better. But don't hold your breath!

Summer Fun-ness

2010-06-21T20:09:00.000-07:00

Well it is unfortunately summer time. I don't deal so well with having the kids home all day everyday. There is just too much fighting and exclamations of "boredness." But one great thing about having a trampoline in the summer time is being able to play with water on it. Our kids do this all the time and it totally wears them out. This is Jessica passed out on floor after playing outside in the 100 degree heat.
The week before school got out I was down and out with strep throat. It was so awful. It took 3 days for the antibiotics to start working. It was one of the worst cases I've ever had. While I was thus passed out on the couch, I began to think and I realized with summer coming on it was probably going to be time - when I felt better of course - to start potty training Joel. (Who it 3 1/2 I may add.)

Don't let this happy image fool you. He was not a very willing participant.
Infact, he didn't really make much of an effort at all. Just peed and pooped wherever he was in the house. After 3 days of h*** I decided the "control" struggle just wasn't worth it, so he's back in diapers. My mom thinks this is totally hilarious, "because what goes around, comes around". In other words, I wasn't potty trained until I was 4.

This was the "incentive" toy. It didn't work. It is now up in the closet.

Note the lonely and neglected potty seat in the background.

Lacey wanted me to take a picture of her new stuffed animal. Note the doors in the background. I finally got around to painting them the same shade of white as the trim.

For fun I decided to snap a couple pictures of our house. Paul does such an amazing job with our landscaping!

The house from another angle

We started swimming lessons again this summer. It's like a tradition and the pool we go to is pretty much where half our ward goes, so it's a chance for us ladies to have some social time while the kids are occupied.
(Don't you love Lacey's hair? She and Jessica haven't quite mastered wearing goggles without completely messing up their hair. I think it's kind of cute so I don't usually fix it.)

Joel LOVES the pool and can hardly wait to jump in when we arrive each day.

Lacey having fun

Jarom

Jessica

Joel

Joel and a couple classmates coming down the slide with his teacher.

What we've been up to

2010-05-09T18:13:00.000-07:00

So school gets out in 2 1/2 weeks and I am not very excited about that. But hopefully I can keep the kids busy for two months without going crazy. This past month I was able to go on a couple of field trips with the kids. About two weeks ago I went to the Children's Museum with the 1st graders. It was a fun little place. My girls keep asking when we will go back as a family. I am evading the question because it would be about $60 to take the whole family!

Lacey & Brooklyn Mather

Jessica, Brooklyn, Lacey (I always thought my girls were pretty tall for their age, but standing next to Brooklyn shows otherwise)

One of the first grade classes on the steps outside the museum

Taking a break

Jessica making a meal

Brooklyn and Lacey cooking up some tasty treat

The noodle forest

Jessica grocery shopping (after this field trip she informed me that she needs as grocery cart for her birthday)

About a week before the girls field trip I went with the 3rd-5th graders to Chase Field to watch some cool science experiments. Here is Jarom and his best friend Nate.

Here is one of my favorite Baseball Players, Louis Gonzales, and the other guy is Darren Sutton who announces for the Diamondbacks.

Not a great self taken portrait of Jarom and I. I look like I have 3 chins - nice.

Joel didn't have any field trips this year, but I snapped a few pictures of him playing on the computer. This is his new favorite thing. It's kind of unnerving to know that my 3 year old can operate a computer.

Playing "Club Penguin"

Another picture of him messing around.

Well I just finished up my last semester at Estrella Mountain Community College. I have nothing left to do but move on to ASU. Which was my plan until they hiked up their tuition. You get more bang for your buck if you go full-time. I can't go full-time until Joel is in school all day. And thanks to the budget cuts, he won't be in school all day until first grade, which isn't for 3 years. So I guess I am only a furlough for three years. Oh well - it's better than trying to juggle 15 credits around preschool and driving between the West Valley Campus and the Tempe campus. Maybe in three years they will have more of their classes on-line. That would be helpful.

Easter 2010

2010-04-04T18:29:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I am actually posting this on the same day as the pictures were taken! Anyway on Saturday night we had all the kids put their Easter Baskets out. They were so excited and hyped out of their minds. We had to remind them on several occasions not to get out of bed on Sunday before 6am.

Lacey, Jessica, Joel & Jarom

Jarom & Joel

This was Jessica's idea - to put their baskets on their heads. Clearly Lacey was not thrilled.

By some miracle the kids did not get up before 6, instead they got up at 6:15. Paul and I had hid eggs around the downstairs and down they went to scoop them up. Nothing to exciting. I used a very minimal amount of candy because I didn't want them to be wild and crazy for the day. They also got a pack of "Club Penguin" trading cards. It's their new thing. It's a Disney internet game that surprisingly even my 3 year can play.

Joel was not to fast at picking up his eggs because he wanted to bust open his cards.

Here is nice morning shot of everyone looking a little sleepy. I did make a good healthy breakfast but not before the kids managed to eat several pieces of candy.

Later that night we had our friends, the Allreds, over for dinner. We unfortunately did not have the traditional Easter dinner of Ham. Instead I just grilled some burgers and we had a nice BBQ. It was fun to break up the monotony of the day. I love listening to General Conference, don't get me wrong, but being trapped in the house for 2 days makes the kids a little crazy. Still love them though!

My totally overdue report of Spring Break 2010

2010-03-25T20:08:00.001-07:00

Alright, we've been home for about 2 weeks and I am finally getting around to writing about our trip to Orlando over spring break. Paul and I went, ALONE, and spent 6 days wandering all around Orlando and the surrounding areas and enjoying every minute of it. The flight from Phoenix to Florida is about 6 hours, but thanks to my friend Liz Jones, who loaned me both of the "Hunger Games" books, the flight passed very quickly for me. But Poor Paul was bored out of his mind because I had my nose in the books and I wouldn't let him buy the Sports Illustrated Swim Suit Issue to keep occupied. Ha.ha..

When we landed we picked up our rental car and wandered down a street called "International Drive" that has a lot of restaurants and shops on it. We ended up stopping at, of all places - Pizza Hut - and the next few pictures show what was actually across the street from us. The upside building is a Children's Museum. Isn't it so awesome to look at? I had to take several pictures so you could get the idea of how amazing this structure looks. It kind of reminds me of the Wizard of Oz, when the house fell on the wicked witch.

Standing in front of the Orlando Children's Museum

One downfall of traveling to the East is that Florida is 3 hours ahead of Arizona time. So we actually ate dinner at 6pm Eastern time, but it was really like a super late lunch for us. We ended up renting a suite that had a couple bedrooms, kitchen, livingroom/dining room and a washer and dryer! It was great to be able to do laundry. Plus the weather was really cold and windy so we were glad to wash and rewear our jeans and sweaters. We were able to go to the local grocery store, named PUBLIX, it's like Fry's and stock up on a few groceries so we wouldn't have to eat out at every meal.

Once we were settled into our suite it was like 8pm Eastern Time and we knew we would be getting up extremely early the next morning for Disney World. We decided to tired ourselves out by working out in the fitness room! We weren't the only ones with this crazy idea. It didn't really help and by 11:30 we were forcing ourselves into bed and trying to go to sleep.

The next morning we were up at about 6am (3am Arizona time!) and got ready for DisneyWorld. I was so excited - I felt like a kid again.

Here are a few pictures of us waiting in line to get through the first gate at DisneyWorld and park the car.

Note: I have NO makeup on so you can really see all the lovely hyperpigmented skin I have on my forehead.

The Entrance!!

One really annoying thing about DisneyWorld is that it is on an Island and not easily accessible. You don't just park and walk right in. We had to park, get on a trolley that dropped us off at a gate in which these people went through all our bags to check for weapons and bombs. Then we headed to a ferry boat and rode for about 2 miles and landed at another gate where we finally got in line to show our internet receipt so we could get our tickets and actually enter the park. Whew! It took about an hour to do all that business.

We immediately made a plan of how we wanted to tour the park. One nice thing that Disney has now is the "fast pass". You pick up a ticket for a ride you want to go on later and then when you go back you can essentially go to the front of the line instead of waiting it out. We did this with several popular rides. Oh, and did I mention that it must have been spring break for the entire nation, because the park was PACKED. I am so glad we didn't have the kids.

Paul and I on a safari boat ride.

This is the only picture of us together. Whoops! But when there are only two of you it's awkward to ask complete strangers to snap pictures. Basically Paul volunteered me to stand in most of the pictures. I did snap a few of him though.

Here's Paul waiting in line for the Lighting McQueen Car Ride. (Yes we even went on the kiddie rides:))

This is the most ridiculous picture of me. It proves I can't multi-task. The attendant was trying to talk to me as Paul was telling me to look at him and smile at the same time.

I told Paul I guessed we walked about 10-15 miles around DisneyWorld. We spent 10 hours total at the park and it was worth every minute.

Once we got back to our suite the first thing we did was jump into the super big bathtub and turn on the spa jets. Our legs were so incredibly sore that nothing really helped relieve the pain. But the hot water felt good. Slowly we started adjusting to Eastern time, but it was still a challenge to get in bed by 11pm.

The next day we went to Epcot. Paul totally groaned about having to go because it didn't seem to him that it would be as much "fun" as DisneyWorld. Infact as we were walking in to the park a girl asked her mom what Epcot was all about and the mom replied, "it's a celebration of different cultures." Paul shot me a look and I just laughed. I assured him that there were likely many rides and other fun things to do besides basking in the cultural surroundings. (Which I was very thrilled about!)

Paul in front of Epcot

I don't remember where I was at in the park - I think this was near the entrance.

I can't even remember the order of the countries. We saw so many of them: England, Canada, Rome, China, Japan, France, etc. It was so awesome. Each country was built up to look exactly like it does in real life. For example, there was a very convincing model Eiffel tower in France. In each country there were restaurants and shops all dedicated to the traditions and customs. In France we tried a new dessert called "Napoleon" (we tried not to recite lines to each other from the movie--"eat-your-food-Erika") and it was fabulous. It was this huge cream concoction with thin crackery layers. Anyway we had to share it because it was huge and likely 2000 calories.

Heading into China. And another awesome thing was most of the employees in these "countries" were actual natives from the real place. It gave a more authentic feel to the park.

This picture didn't exactly turn out the way I wanted it to. But it's several bushes cut out to look like a dragon. The detail used was really incredible .

More carvings from various plants.

This is the "America" part of the park.

All in all we spent about 9 hours at Epcot and once again my legs were dying. When we hit India I sank onto this big pillow for a break.

Thanks to blogger this picture of me, just inside the gates of Disneyland, got thrown in with my Epcot pictures. Oh well.

I love the old English style Telephone booths. They actually remind me of the Harry Potter books. This was our last stop at Epcot. We headed back to the front gates and stopped to buy some stuff for the kids. Then we headed back to our suite where we sat in the spa tub again!

Thursday Paul had to go to his conference. (This is the reason we were in Orlando in the first place). He left about 7 am so I just layed around until about 8:30 and then decided to go to the Fitness room and try and work off the calories from that Napoleon dessert. I was showered and ready to go when Paul came back around lunch time. We decided to spend the rest of the day shopping at various outlet malls. I picked up a new outfit and a badly needed bathing suit. I then dragged Paul to the movies to watch "Sherlock Holmes." It was a good movie! We then went to eat at Sizzler....need I say more...there is definitely a reason why they are no longer in business in Arizona. The food was awful! Paul made me promise we will never eat there again. It's just not the same Sizzler that I waitressed at long, long ago when I was in college.

On Friday I wanted to go to the beach and Cape Canaveral. So off we went.

We stopped at the Kennedy Space Center and we were going tour it, except the tickets were expensive and after spending a few hundred for DisneyWorld and Epcot we decided to skip. Plus you could see most of the complex from the road.

We drove down the Eastern Coast, found a place to park and jumped out. I did not bring my bathing suit nor did I attempt to swim because the water was FREEZING. However, there were men out surfing and kids playing on the shore but I wasn't about to get completely wet.

All I wanted to do was stick my feet in the Atlantic Ocean. I've been to the Pacific Ocean a million times, but never the Atlantic. So I took this commemorative photo of my feet. While we walked along the shore we were able to pick up a large handful of seashells and bring them back for the kids.

Paul looking very GQ

Yay- I am finally at the Atlantic Ocean!

This is the Orlando Temple. I did not realize they had a temple. (My mom told me about it when I called to check on the kids). If I had known this, I would've packed our Sunday Clothes. I was really ticked I didn't check earlier. So we just walked around the temple grounds and snapped a few pictures. The temple is in a very ritzy part of Orlando. Infact in it is the same general area of Tiger Woods home.

After going to the temple we were completely starving so we stopped at a very upscale McDonalds. It was like a fancy restaurant. There was the regular menu items but also a whole section of marketplace/healthy foods. They also had a second story in which you go up and play pool or other games. We sat by a large window in these fancy chairs and just soaked up the ambience. Clearly I have never been to such a fancy fast food joint. (Many of you know I am not a big McDonalds person. I actually wanted to go to IHOP for lunch and have pancakes! But Paul was not overly thrilled with that idea. I can eat breakfast foods for every meal, while he would rather just eat breakfast foods at breakfast.) We spent the rest of the evening shopping and repacking all our stuff. The week totally flew by. But I was excited to get home and see the kids. Our flight home seemed to take forever!!! I had plowed through both of my books so I was basically just flipping through magazines to pass the time. When we landed back in Phoenix it was like 75 degrees outside and just gorgeous. My parents graciously drove the kids up from Sierra Vista and met us at our house. It was so nice to not have to jump in the car and drive 3 hours to pick them up and then 3 hours back. The kids had so much fun with all their relatives. A BIG THANK YOU to my parents, Paul's mom and 2 sisters who watched them all week. We really appreciated it.

We aren't sure what our next adventure will be. We'll have to look and see where the next conferences will be held.

It took us both about a week to get settled into our routine again. I swear I am still munching on junk like I was still on vacation.

This past Saturday Paul's work rented a luxury box at the Coyotes Hockey Game. It was awesome! We were on a private floor with dinner, drinks, appetizers, and dessert all catered. We had prime seats above the rink and we could see everything perfectly. The only down side - it was FREEZING. Neither Paul nor I gave any thought as to what we should wear. So we we showed up in shorts and t-shirts and about froze. I was going to buy a coyotes sweatshirt until I discovered they were like $50. I decided to freeze it out. Despite being cold we had an awesome time. The Coyotes won 6 - 2 and having never enjoyed watching hockey on TV, I am convinced you have to watch it in person to really enjoy it.

Pinewood Derby 2010

2010-02-28T15:14:00.000-08:00

On February 2nd Jarom participated in his second pinewood derby. It was a lot of fun and organized so well that we weren't there for all hours of the night. He and Paul made a truck and painted it exactly the same as Paul's new truck. It performed pretty consistently during the derby, though Jarom didn't get into the top three. He is pictured here with his best friends, Nate Jones. Can you see the little arm protruding out of Nate's back - well that is Joel and he wanted to be everywhere the big boys were.

Joel kept hanging around with all scouts and walking all around the track. We managed to get him to sit down next to the track, but that only gave him reason to stick his hands on it. He was so excited and I am sure in 5 years, he will have a blast in cub scouts.

Paul and the girls sitting on the sidelines. The girls are extremely annoyed that they don't get to be in cub scouts and are counting down the days until they start Achievement Days (note: not until 2011).

Here are all the cub scouts in Jarom's pack. Jarom is actually third from the left, but you can't see him. Oh well...

Here is Jarom's car on the left, followed by Nate's car, and then the chocolate covered sprinkled donut car belonged to the boy who actually won the pinewood derby.

Jarom and his truck.

Playing catch up

2010-01-31T12:44:00.001-08:00

It has definitely been awhile since I've updated this blog. Basically when we finished painting the downstairs part of the house in December, we knew it was only a matter of time before we needed to venture upstairs and tackle our two-story stairwell. Being the shrimp that I am, I was not very useful in helping paint the stairwell. So poor Paul got stuck doing it and it was quite the job because we had to paint the ceiling as well. He's really been a trooper with my desire to paint the whole house. Because I am vertically challenged he does most of the painting and I end up following behind him with a paint brush doing all the touch ups. And along with painting the whole house, I am also painting all the trim work and door frames as well. The only problem is now our doors look a a shade lighter than the frames, but I am not about ready to paint all the doors.

Here is Paul working on the stairwell as I stand on the top of the stairs looking down:

Using the extension on the roller brush to reach the 2nd floor.

The kids were surprisingly very well behaved while we painted.

Now we jump ahead to Joel's birthday. He turned 3 on January 9th. Here he is in the early morning, before the kids went to school, opening his presents. For whatever reason he likes to make silly faces when I try and take pictures of him. (Note: I can already here my mother saying, "that's exactly what YOU used to do.")

Lego's from Grandpa & Grandma.

Zoomo's from Aunt Lucia (the batteries were worn out by the end of the day because he loved it so much).

A parking garage from mom and dad and some little cars.

That night we celebrated with cake and ice cream. If you know Joel well enough you know that he likes to cruise around naked - only in a diaper - hence the reason why he has no clothes on in this picture.

Trying to blow out the candles - he started to "spit" in an attempt to blow them out so I leaned over and did the honors so we wouldn't have a tainted birthday cake.

I thought it would be funny to snap a picture of Joel getting his hair cut because it's not something he particularly enjoys.

He's getting restless and wants dad to hurry up!

Last Sunday (the 24th) I snapped some pictures of the kids before we headed to church. Here are Jessica and Lacey in their new church dresses from Grandpa & Grandma Evans.

Jarom and Joel.

A very cute picture if I say so myself.

Joel, Lacey, Jarom & Jessica

Last week Joel started riding the bus to preschool. It was kind of a weird thing to place my 3 year old on a bus and watch it go down the street. But he seems to enjoy it and it's nice that I don't have to drive him back and forth.

I am enjoying school so far. I really thought I would be "toast" in my business math class because it's been like 15 years since I've taken college math. But so far things are coming back to me and I feel like I am understanding what is taught. I am also trying to study for the ACT, because for some crazy reason the W.P. Carey School of Accountancy requires everyone to have a 25 or better on the ACT. I think it's a ploy to ruin our lives. Just kidding:)

Other than that everything else is going really well.

Forgive me...

2010-01-21T08:05:00.000-08:00

Alright so I haven't updated this blog in awhile. I just started back to school and I'm taking 7 credits; it's not too bad. I have business math and financial accounting. The teachers are great, but since these classes are both heavily based in numbers, there isn't much room for a curve in the grading scale. You either get the problems right or you don't. So I am stressing a little, but I do have 90 minutes between classes that allows me to work on homework and study (without interruption) so hopefully I can get a decent grade.
Paul and I went to the Suns game last nighit. I totally forgot my camera, which stunk because we had good seats! I could've gotten some great pictures of the players. I wore some new shoes (why?) and because the parking garage is not next door to the arena, we walked, and I got a blister on the back of my foot. I knew better, I just wanted my shoes to match my sweater. It was all for the sake of vanity.
Joel started preschool yesterday (it's actually the school districts early intervention program). He was a little shy about going with his teacher to begin with, but according to her, he warmed up right away and enjoyed himself. He will also be receiving weekly speech therapy while he is there, so we don't have to pay for it anymore! Yay.
Anyway, sorry this is so incredibly boring and doesn't have any good pictures. I will try and do better next time.

Painting Pics

2009-12-29T20:12:00.000-08:00

As usual I forgot to take some "before" pictures. But anyway this is the color that we painted on the walls. It's about two shades darker than what was previously on them. You can see the original color in the third picture on the wall where the potty seat is and going up the stairs, because we haven't painted over that portion yet.
We plan to paint the entire house only we are breaking it up in sections so we don't kill ourselves all at once. We've painted the girls room upstairs already, but we'll continue this paint color in the loft, down the halls and in our bedroom. Not sure what color we will to change to in the boys bedroom.
After 4 1/2 years of this old paint scheme I was tired of it and painting really is the cheapest way to update a room. We are also repainting all the baseboards and door frames with a nice glossy white. I can't believe how amazing it looks to have freshly painted baseboards! Who would've thought.

Looking into the dining room

The Kitchen

Living room (note the original color on the wall going up the stairs)

Living room (Joel is posing for me)

Christmas 2009

2009-12-29T19:41:00.001-08:00

Well as usual, we put the christmas tree in the dining room again because that is where our front window is. And I always like seeing other people's trees through their front windows. Our Christmas day started about 5am! Which was not great because Paul and I were so exhausted from spending the whole of Christmas Eve painting the kitchen and living room. We have this horrible texture on our walls which results in having to put on a couple coats of paint on to make it look decent.
Thankfully we were able to take a quick break in between to head to my Aunt Christine's for a fabulous Christmas Eve dinner. I have to admit we were not the best of company because we were so tired! (That will teach us to never do a big project on Christmas Eve again). And then for some reason that night everyone kept getting up to use the bathroom and poor Paul's shoulder was aching badly from having to paint the ceiling that he ended up down stairs about 4am. I basically got no sleep the entire night because of all the interruptions. So anyway, we had a very early start to Christmas day. But overall Santa was good to the kids this year. Notice how there are no photo's of Paul or myself. I looked trashed so I just snapped the pictures and the most you get to see of me is my feet. Then I spent the rest of the day lounging around in my p.j's and falling asleep on the couch while the kids played. I think the best part was watching Joel. He was so excited to get a Mickey Mouse Choo Choo Train and played with it non-stop. It's a great toy the only problem is, it's very loud because Mickey sings and talks. Paul said once the batteries are dead we should not replace them.:) Our older kids are very much into "Club Penguin" and got a lot of stuff associated with that. And we felt the need to get the girls some lego's because Jarom doesn't exactly share his all that well. So we found some cute ones in girly colors. Paul had given my my camera early as a present and then he bought me a new apron because my current one has seen better days. I bought him a video game and a couple tickets to the ASU/Uof A men's basketball game. Ironically we won Suns Tickets at his office Christmas party for that same week. It will be a busy one. We also ordered a new grill because ours bit the dust and since this is Arizona, grilling can be done year round, so I feel a little empty without it. The kids were wishing for some snow but after seeing the storm that hit the midwest we were grateful not to be back in Omaha enduring 2 feet of snow and an ice storm. I think the best part of Christmas is seeing our kids reaction. I could've watched them for hours. That is the true spirit of Christmas.

Jessica & Joel

Mickey Mouse Choo Choo!

Lacey & her club penguin toys

Jarom & Jessica with their club penguin animals

Joel trying out the train

Lacey and her pink lego's

Joel, Jessica & Jarom

More time with the train

Jessica wanted me to take a picture of her

Joel gets a truck!

How fun

He loves it and it makes a ton of noise! Jessica is looking ticked because we told her she is to big to ride on Joel's truck.

Vroom.............

Thanksgiving

2009-12-10T18:21:00.000-08:00

For Thanksgiving weekend we actually ended up staying home because Paul had to go see all the newborn babies at Banner Estrella and West Valley Hospital. Plus he had to be on call too, so we just decided to hang out at home. While Paul worked Thursday morning the kids and I cleaned out closets, bagged up old clothes, and made a nice large pile of stuff to drop off at DI. Then for Thanksgiving dinner we barbecued! It was so easy and I didn't have to worry about making a ton of food and not having enough people to eat it all.

On Friday we took advantage of some of the black Friday deals, not at 4:00am, more around 9 am to buy a few things at Staples and a new bed for Joel. We deliberately avoided Toys-r-us, Walmart and Target. That night we went to Matta's Mexican Restaurant in Mesa and then headed over to see the Temple lights. We had called the temple prior to leaving and they told us the lights would be on at 5:30pm. However, when we got there about 6pm and found it totally dark, we were a little frustrated. We stopped and asked an attendant what was going on and he said since it was opening night they were not going to turn on the lights until 7pm. We were not about ready to wait around with 4 kids for an hour. So we headed home and promised them we would go another night.

Saturday we took our new camera, from which all these pictures are taken (it was an early birthday present for me) and went to the Zoo. We had a great time and the kids loved it.

Jarom, Joel, Jessica, Lacey at Matta's

Making the kids pose so I could try out my camera (note the annoyed look on Jarom's face)

Me and the girls (I love the way that Lacey is making a face like she can't wait to get away from me! Ha.ha)

Lacey showing off her new Pokeman cards and Joel making a silly face

Joel, Jarom, Lacey, Jess at the entrance of the zoo

Climbing the tower to see the giraffe's

Paul looking sexy...

A tiger

Joel was getting tired towards the end

Checking out the sights

Striking a pose in front of the rhino's.

Jarom, Joel, Jess, Erika, Lacey

Jessica

Jessica and a monkey (or maybe it's a baboon??)

Jarom messing around on the little kid playground

Jessica

Lacey

Joel

I love this picture because I was probably 50 feet away from this bird and my camera captured it like I was standing next to it.

Jessica on the merry-go-round

Me and Joel sitting down on the handicap bench! He refused to sit on one of the horses.

All in all it was such a great weekend and the kids even told us "this is the most fun we've ever had!"

That always makes family outings

more worth it.

It's a goal

2009-12-05T20:44:00.001-08:00

Joel will be 3 next month and I am still carrying 15 pounds of leftover baby weight. So I got to thinking, yes I have a terrible sweet tooth (nothing new there), but maybe I need a goal. Well anyone that knows me well enough, knows I HATE running. Always have. But I know it's really good for you. So I thought I would set some running goals for myself. Just start out small, run for 2 minutes and then increase slowly until I can run for longer stretches of time.
I have to admit I am kind of excited about this. (CRAZY - I know!) And I also didn't realize it was possible for my ankles to hurt so bad. I expected soreness in my thighs, calves, and butt, but not my ankles. As I sat in Stake Conference tonight, on a hard chair, and all my lower body was aching I thought, this pain is okay because I am working toward a goal and you have to suffer sometimes to get to that point.

p.s. I will post about Thanksgiving and include lots of pictures in the next day or two. So excuse this pictureless post about my new found eagerness to run. :)

Girly Girls

2009-11-23T19:37:00.001-08:00

Seems like just yesterday when they were born....Can you guess who is who?

4.6 hours, cauliflower ear, & it better be fixed

2009-11-12T15:01:00.000-08:00

We bought a new Dell computer in September and we have loved it. However when our 30 day trial of anti-virus software expired I neglected to renew it. And we got slammed with some viruses and trojans. Paul and I spent about 8 hours trying to clean things up ourselves; reinstall drivers, disk defragmenting, etc. Nothing worked. We were losing our patience and our minds.

So as a last ditch resort, we called Dell and after coughing up over $150 in service fees (and getting a one year service warranty package) the tech guy started working on our computer. It was all done over the internet. He took control of the computer and fixed it all. The only downside - I was on the phone from 8:30am to 1:10pm!

He found a lot of viruses, missing drivers, a few trojans, and some glitch in windows vista. We had to start from scratch to fix it. In other words, everything had to come off the computer and be reinstalled. Due to the lengthy process, I took a picture of my telephone, which shows how long you have been talking on it, to prove how long I was on the phone. (It's hard to see, but in the top right hand corner it says 4:23:34 - that was about 10 minutes before I hung up.)

In the end, my ear was sore, my back hurt and I was super cranky -it's really bad how dependant I am on a machine. (And another frustrating issue-30 days after we bought this computer, with windows Vista, microsoft comes out with Windows 7, which is supposed to be so awesome). The tech guy offered to upgrade our computer for an extra $120 for Windows 7, but I declined spending any more money than was absolutely necessary. We now have a great anti-virus program and hopefully we'll be spared any future 5 hours telephone conversations with the Dell Tech department.

The Pinata Arrived

2009-11-08T10:01:00.001-08:00

After reading our last post, Paul's sisters thought it would be funny to pick us up a pinata when they came to visit on Saturday.

Now we really look like a mexican tire shop/restaurant. Just need a few tires and a stack of hot tortilla's and we are in business.

Honestly, the color is growing on us and these pictures don't do it any justice - my camera makes the room look terribly flourescent and it's not at all. It's just a very "vivid"color.

Let's hang up a pinata and bird cage....

2009-11-04T20:30:00.001-08:00

We painted the dining room. Okay, Paul painted the dining room and I assisted. (He's so great). Anyway, we rolled the paint on and it looked like a beautiful shade of creamy yellow. Then it dried......and its brighter than we anticipated. My camera makes it look even worse - the completed pictures were taken at night.
I swear it looks lighter during the day when the sun streams into the room than it does when we turn on the ceiling light at night. Anyway - see for yourself. We aren't sure what to make of it. When we lived in North Phoenix a lot of homes around us were owned by Spanish people who enjoyed painting them bright colors. So Paul said we could hang up a pinata and a bird cage and it would be just fine! Infact HGTV says we need to embrace color! So maybe I'll add a few more pictures to the wall and some curtains to soften the effect.
Any ideas??

Happy Halloween

2009-11-01T18:08:00.001-08:00

Halloween night was great weather! It was in the mid 70's, no one needed a coat, the wind was NOT blowing, it was perfect. We also had the ward trunk-r-treat party to attend and I always love it when it's actually on Halloween because then I don't have to take my kids around the neighborhood.

And since we were gone at the party we didn't have to worry about a bunch of strangers coming to our door. I totally like giving out candy to my neighbors and friends but when you get tons and tons of people you don't know coming, it almost isn't as much fun. The interesting thing was when we drove home from the party the streets surrounding our house were dead! I couldn't believe it - normally we have tons of kids out, but it was very quiet this year.

Being that everyone seems to be looking for ways to save money, a few of us from church got together and swapped costumes for our kids. Didn't have pay a dime for anything, it was great!

As you can see from the pictures, the girls wanted to be beautiful princesses. I should have bought some tiara's or something. Jarom is a race car driver and Joel is Woody from Toy Story. He refused to wear the cowboy hat - no surprise there. We came home from the party with an over abundance of candy and have had to place it all in one spot and hand it out in a systematic way so no one gets sick. My mom used to let us just go at it and in about 24 hours we usually consumed all the candy and then it was out of our system fast. I haven't reached the point where I am willing to do that. Maybe when the kids are older and can accept the consequences of their actions better. Ha.ha....

Joel & Jarom

Joel & Jarom again

Can you guess which is which?

(okay, it's Lacey on the left and Jessica on the right)

Twin Trouble

2009-10-13T21:16:00.000-07:00

It took Jarom several years before he could tell Lacey and Jessica apart. And it looks as if Joel is going to have the same trouble. Case in point: we were all sitting the family room tonight and I was pointing to everyone and asking him, "Who is that?" He responded, "mom, dad, Jarom..." I point to Lacey and he says, "Lacey." I then point to Jessica and he says, "Another Lacey!"

Yay - it's Fall....

2009-10-09T16:08:00.000-07:00

I should know better than to write my blog and then add the pictures! So you get the pictures first and then the text. Sorry.

Paul's new truck

Right before the funeral - this is a shot of my dad's five favorite women! Ha.ha.
Left to right, Erika, Allison, Mom, Emily & Andrea

After the funeral. All my Grandpa's grandchildren (minus 4) were able to make it to the funeral. The other 4 had graduate school commitments or a baby on the way soon that prevented them from coming

Me and my brother Stephen who is on a mission in Logan, Utah. My grandpa's funeral was like 30 minutes away from his current area so his Mission President let him come! It was awesome.

The 5 of us who were able to attend the funeral (we missed Jon and Nate so much!!!!)

Emily, Allison, Stephen, Erika, Andrea

I love this time of year! I love that I can open my windows and doors and let in the nice cool air. I also dug out my meager Halloween decorations and the kids were thrilled. I am not good at decorating at all so I stress out when it's time to decorate because I don't know if it looks right. I know it really doesn't matter, but some of my family and friends have the cutest homes during the holidays and I look at mine and think - blah!

So it has been a month since my last post. I am so busy in school right now and I only have two classes! My professor's are laying it on thick I guess. Although Paul is downright shocked at how many open book/open note tests I get to take. I told him that is the advantage of going to school at night! I would imagine when I get to ASU it will completely different.

We also spent the past month scouring the valley for a new Truck and was very blessed to find exactly what we were looking for. The only problem was when we brought it home from the dealer it wouldn't fit in the garage! I figured our only solution was for me to park the van in the driveway, but with crime the way it is in Phoenix, we both really wanted to get the cars in the garage. So after some fancy finagling we managed to scrunch both cars in. Granted I can no longer use the drivers side door of my car to get in and out and the door to the house is partially blocked by the table saw, but it's worth it.

Anyway school hasn't been the only thing taking up my time, I have also been out of town. To Salt Lake City actually, for the funeral of my mom's dad, Grandpa Carr. My mom said Grandpa has been wanting to get his 8 children and 39 grandchildren together for some time now. And we did all get together for his funeral. Kind of a sad gathering - but such a wonderful experience to connect with family I haven't seen in 15 years. It was marvelous - I had a great time. And Paul took one for the team and stayed home with the kids. One funny thing is that my sister, Allison, knew every detail about all our cousins lives and I was completely embarrassed because I didn't know a thing. When I asked her about it she said, "FACEBOOK." Good grief... I may have to give in to peer pressure.

Viva Las Vegas

2009-09-11T08:00:00.000-07:00

After that last post, I was definitely in need of a vacation. So Wednesday morning we headed out to Bullhead City (about 90 minutes southeast of Vegas) where my sister, Andrea, lives. She had graciously agreed to watch all of our children while we went and played. The kids were so excited about spending a few days with their cousins, they made the ride a little frustrating with all the "when are we going to be there" comments. We arrived about 12:30, stayed about an hour and then were on our way.

One thing I have always wanted to do is stay in a five star hotel. We got a great deal on a suite at the Venetian Resort on the strip. Included in the deal was a $50 debit card we could use in any of the slots machines. Being on the casino floor kind of creeped us out, so we hastily decided to get rid of the money and be done. We ended up at the $5 slop machines trying to get rid of the money faster when I happened to get lucky and win $75 dollars. We immediately cashed out and later that week I went to Ann Taylor and bought a new dress. (See below)

I absolutely loved the Venetian, my only complaint was the nasty cigarrette smoke they were trying to cover up with some disgusting febreze product. Thankfully our suite was smoke free and we were a good 30 floors above all the action. Here is Paul standing at the window of our suite - we had a pretty good view of Las Vegas and the new casino being built across the street.

This is the entry to the suite

This is looking back at the front door (there is actually a second bathroom off to the left hand side of the picture)

This is the bedroom

This is looking out from the bedroom into the living room

This is the living room. (The suite actually had 3 flat screen TV's in it - crazy)

The whole concept of the Venetian Resort is to resemble the streets of Italy. The inside of the casino has this amazing ceiling that makes you feel outside. The whole bottom part is a river that you can take gondola rides down - with a guy that steers the gondola and sings at you. (Note: I had to have a gondola ride - so Paul reluctantly agreed although he would rather have sat it out, since the ride takes you all through the casino and everyone usually stops and stares!)

An artistic piece on the ceiling with umbrellas. What you can't see if the tiny tubes of light that run down mimicking rainfall.

We had a jetted spa tub in the bathroom and it was awesome. As you can see I learned the hard way not to put bubble bath in a jetted tub!

A couple of views from our gondola ride

On Thursday morning we decided to go to the temple. I toured the Las Vegas temple as a teenager and was blown away by its beauty. So I was very excited to be able to return and go through it. After the temple, we went and had lunch, did some shopping and checked into our room at the Wynn Resort. This is where Paul's conference was being held. It was a very fancy room with a great view and several private amenities, like it's own pool deck, it's own elevators and check in area - it was very high end.

We thought these green couches were kind of funny

Check out the architeture of this place - it was incredible. No expense was spared in decorating.

A picture snapped from our car as we drove down of the strip of the New York New York casino.

Another roadside picture of the mock Eiffel Tower

Paul and I in the lush gardens of the Wynn Resort on our last night in Vegas.

As I packed up our stuff to leave, I snapped this picture of the skyline from our room. The only bad thing about this particular hotel is that it is right across the strip from the treasure island casino. And everynight Treasure Island puts on this show in front of it's casino and they let off canon balls and fireworks and it's a big hoopla. It was great until it was almost midnight and we were ready to sleep, not watch pirates dueling and bombs going off. Plus we also heard an amazing amount of sirens going into the late night and we can only assume the strip is not the best place to be in the middle of the night.

A special thanks to my sister who watched out kids - we are hoping to return the favor soon! We had a great time and look forward to our next vacation.

Not a great day

2009-09-01T16:59:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow we are leaving for Las Vegas. So today I had big plans to get alot accomplished. That did not happen. I went out to my car at 9:25 this morning with the intent of dropping Joel off at Stacie's so I could go to my public speaking class and, of all days to do it, deliver a speech. I strap Joel in, turn the key - and nothing. Turn the key again - nothing. I run in and call Stacie in a panic because I will be toast if I don't give my speech.
She graciously offers to let me borrow her van so I can race to school. I get to the school in record time, slide into my seat just as the teacher is starting class and notice it's really stuffy in the classroom. My teacher says, oh FYI the air-conditioner is NOT working. So I give my speech, finish class and race back to Stacie's house. She drops back off at home where I call my other neighbor, Emily, and ask her if she would please pick my kids up from school at 3. She is more than willing to do that and give my van a jump start. Between the two of us rather incompetent car jumping women, we manage to properly jump start my van. YES!
I race over to checker auto where I bought the battery only to have them tell me the battery is fine, but I should go to a repair shop and have it charged! Ummm I thought they charged batteries there..... so I run to a automotive shop, and they are baffled as to why checker sent me to them and they send me to another Checker. Thankfully I am close to my house and they agree to charge the battery but it will take an hour!
Did I mention I had Joel with me? It was almost 2pm by this time and so I think....what's a little walk home going to do? Okay it sucked! I had to carry Joel the whole 5 blocks because if I didn't, he would jump stop and "smell the flowers". I did not have on walking shoes of any kind and I could feel the blisters forming with each step. By the time I got home, I was COVERED in sweat - oh by the way it was 107 degrees outside and about 70% humid. I kicked off my shoes and discovered two blisters, I had sweat dripping into my eyes and I could barely see so I had to head immediately for the nearest bathroom and wash up. Joel was all sweaty, but after a couple rounds of water he went down for a very late nap. I laid in my garments on top of my bed with the air conditioner on 77 and the fan going full blast. After 20 minutes I cooled off enough to feel comfortable but by that time the kids were coming home and then we had to go get the van which needed, no surprise, a new battery.
But once it was installed the van started right up! YES! Now I am on my way to get fast food for my family because I haven't been home long enough to do a single thing today. Now I have to pack for a 5 days trip by tonight. Oh the joy! I have decided cars are really a great blessing and so are great friends!! Thanks so much Emily and Stacie!!!

This and that

2009-08-25T18:26:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been feeling like this! I always said I would never become a "frumpy" mom. But I have! I love hanging out in Paul's basketball shorts and a t-shirt, it's the most comfortable combination of clothing. If I don't have to go anywhere I will lounge in them all day. I will even pick up my kids from school in them, as long as I don't have to get out of the car. I am trying to wear my regular clothes more, but I honestly feel like they get stained up from cleaning and doing things with the kids. Paul is always asking me how my clothes get ruined so quickly. My response is usually the same - I have 4 kids!

Okay so remember the little man that broke into our house in February? Well he was sentenced to 5 years on prison and he has to pay us back for the damage he caused. I am not holding my breath on that one though. The interesting is, the month he broke into our house he also burglarized 3 other homes! And he owes all of us upwards of $20,000. He wrote a letter to the judge hoping for leniency and how badly his life has been etc., but never once mentioned any regret over what he had done. The sad thing is he was only 19 years old when all these burglaries occurred. Hopefully 5 years in jail will make him think about changing the direction in his life.

They are 6

2009-08-19T20:56:00.000-07:00

It was 6 years ago today that I walked into Bergan Mercy Hospital in Omaha, Nebraska and told the nurse I was not feeling well and wanted to be checked by a doctor. She looked at me skeptically because I didn't appear to be in any pain and led me to an exam room where a doctor checked me out and found I was dilated to a 7 and Lacey's head was about ready to pop out.
It was a whirlwind from there trying to get me all prepped for a c-section. About an hour later two beautiful little girls were born. The first year was very challenging, but we certainly wouldn't have traded it for anything.

Happy Birthday Lacey & Jessica

(You'll have to excuse the odd way the pictures look - I
haven't really nailed down how to use our scanner the right way yet.)

Lacey and Jess during their first week home
My mom insisted I snap a picture of them next
to some object, so when they got older we could remember just
how they small they really were. Hence the reason they are next to a box
of baby wipes.

Once upon a time Jessica used to be mellow and Lacey
used to be loud - that has since changed.

Growing up and looking cute - if I say so myself...ha.ha..

Life is tough

2009-08-14T10:10:00.000-07:00

Can any of you relate to this?

To funny not to post

2009-08-11T21:13:00.001-07:00

I love taking pictures of things that happen when my kids are very tired.

I dropped Jarom off at scouts tonight and left the other kids home with Paul. When I got back I saw a little "photo op" waiting for me.
This would be the result of playing hard all day and not having a nap - and it was only 6:45 pm! Gotta love kids!

Fun with Joel

2009-08-06T20:09:00.000-07:00

Lacey, Jarom, Jessica & Joel on the first day of school

School started on Monday! Need I say more....it's just me and Joel at home and we are having a very agreeable time together. But I must admit he stills walks around the house asking for Jarom several times a day. He definitely loves his big brother.

We keep busy going to the gym and running errands and surprisingly, he doesn't complain at all, unlike his older (and should be better behaved about running around with mom) siblings. He is continuing in speech therapy every week and is doing great! We have seen rapid progress so we are very happy.

He is also, much to my surprise, being very self motivated about using the potty! He whips his diaper off several times a day and announces, "I go potty." Today I put him in underwear and he peed on the floor and then while I was cleaning the bathroom he ran in to tell me he had pooped - on the floor. Yeah! Love the potty training. And then as I was putting away the dinner dishes tonight he plopped on the potty seat and peed only to whip out the cup part that holds the urine and presses it to his lips in an attempt to drink it! I literally dropped what I was holding and yelled NO! as I ran over to grab it from him. Never a dull moment around here.

Since my older kids are required to read every day for a certain period of time I have been loading up on library books for them. Monday I took Joel to the library and got a stack of books, however when it was time to go he didn't want to leave. So I broke the cardinal rule of libraries and essentially threw him over my shoulder and let him scream all the way out the door. I tried to shush him, but it's not like I could cover up his mouth because my other arm was full of books.

All in all, I enjoy putting him down for a nap and having some quiet time during the day. Granted I start back to school on the 24th and I will have to use nap time as study time. Oh well - at least he still takes a nap.

Summer is almost...over

2009-07-29T16:12:00.000-07:00

Blogger totally messed up the way I wanted these pictures
and the text to flow. So excuse the crazy set up.
This is what happens when we have the late schedule for church and Joel falls asleep in the car - it is nice that I can still move him inside the house without him waking up.

We have had a lot of thunder and lightening, but no rain to speak of! Jessica is very scared of the thunder and as this picture shows refused to go to bed unless someone slept right next to her. She wanted me to do it, but I wasn't up for going to bed at 7pm, so Lacey volunteered and they both happily slept through all the thunder.

Joel loves his train tracks!

Okay so summer is my least favorite time of the year. Mainly because of the heat and also because I am tired of having my kids home all day. It's bad enough when you are cooped up in the house, but lets throw some humidity into the weather (and record breaking temps) so I can just sweat more and be extra grumpy. And then let's toss in 'that time of the month' to sweeten the deal and you can guess how enjoyable I have been to be around.

One of my kids actually asked me why I am so angry? Oops! I don't mean to get angry it's just the result of all the above mentioned issues crusading against me. But we have one more week of vacation left, all school supplies have been bought, and even the kids are excited to get back into their normal routine.

I don't start back to school until the end of August, so I get a few weeks of a little break myself. I really need to repaint the girls bedroom, so we'll see if Joel is cooperative enough to let me do it.

On Friday Paul had surgery on his shoulder to repair a tear in the muscle. The surgery went well, but he is still in a lot of pain and has very limited mobility in his left arm. This means I get to be the resident "gardener" around the place, mowing the lawns and trimming the bushes. I have never mowed any of our lawns before and let me say that I have a new found gratitude for the whole manual labor experience. We spent 1 1/2 hours outside early Tuesday morning working in the yard. Paul directing me while I mowed the lawns and cut branches off one of our trees. It was only 8 in the morning but almost 100 degrees. I've never sweat so much in my life. The bad part was that sweat kept rolling down into my eyes and stinging like crazy! But I am happy to say I survived it all and without any allergic reactions to the grass. One thing I have realized from his limited mobility is that he does ALOT to help me out. On Saturday night I collapsed onto the couch in total exhaustion from all the work I did. And it's not like anything was particularly hard, but there just seemed to be so much more work than normal. I know I got the better end of the deal in our marriage! Ha.ha.

A double scoop day

2009-07-08T12:55:00.000-07:00

I guess it has been awhile since I've posted anything. The first part of summer about killed me since I was taking Economics in a 6 week period and doing swimming lessons with the kids, but we managed alright. Things have really slowed down this week and the kids are driving me up the wall. The past two days Jarom and Jessica have been going at it constantly. Because they essentially have the same dominant personality, they clash all the time. I was so stressed out today that when Paul got home from work I headed out to get a double scoop ice cream cone - something I don't usually do. It was that bad of a day. I don't want to feel like I have to spend the whole summer vacation being a disciplinarian, but it drives me up the wall when my kids do not treat each other well. I feel like it is a reflection on me. Like somehow I am a bad mom because my kids don't always like each other. Now I have a glimpse of how fighting with Nate (my younger brother) probably stressed my parents out as well.

We had a nice 4th of July visit at my parents home with my two sisters and their families. Sadly the other 4 siblings couldn't make it due to dental school, OB/Gyn residency, a mission and running their own business. We missed all you guys!!!

On the morning of the 4th, all the adults headed out to Kartchner Caverns. My mom had already been previously so she stepped up to the plate and offered to watch 8 wild grandchildren. The kids had all woken up at the crack of dawn and were playing in the backyard on the swings at like 6 am. We had to leave about 7am for the caverns. And as we were walking to the cars (note: my parents live on the base of a mountain so essentially their property is like a wild life zoo.) Anyway most of us walked across a set of pavers to my dad's car, when my sister Andrea let out a little yell and we looked back to see a rattlesnake not 6 inches from one of the paver's we had all just walked across. It was just sitting there. Not making any noise, not even moving.
My brother in law immediately ran for his .22 but couldn't find ammunition. And because the kids were playing in this part of the yard earlier (yikes!) we decided we had to kill it so no one would get hurt. Andrea and I scrambled into the back of my dad's truck while Paul started throwing big rocks at it. Unfortunately it had to suffer death by stoning and an eventual beheading, but we couldn't run the risk of having any of kids encounter it. We stretched it out later and it was almost 5 feet long! My dad saved the rattler and the kids got a kick out of holding it.

Check out the rattler

Here is my little guy running around naked.

Kory and Paul firing up the grill for a

good old 4th of July Feast.

Jessica, Joel, Lacey & Jarom on the steps

in front of my parents house

Me and the kids at the fireworks show. Paul stayed back

with Joel who was very tired and would not have handled

staying up until 10pm.

Me and my mom and 2 of my three sisters (the other one

lives in Texas) Emily, Erika, Mom, Andrea

A fun picture of my kids and Andrea's kids. (Clockwise from

the top: Jarom, Josh, Audree, Lacey, Sophee, Jessica, Kaylee)

6 hours with Dad

2009-06-23T20:44:00.000-07:00

JOEL

Okay so this picture is a little old but the expression on his face is pretty typical of how he behaves on a regular basis -- which is "I can do whatever I want." Paul had all the kids to himself for about 6 hours on Saturday as I did visiting teaching interviews all morning and then ran errands afterwards. When I got home I asked Paul how everything went and this was the low down:

1. Some older child thought it would be "okay" to give Joel a juice box and not supervise him. Hence I had to mop my dining room and kitchen floors when I got home because I was literally sticking to them. No one fessed up as to who gave him the juice either!

2. Paul went out to mow the lawn and spray for weeds while asking the older kids to please keep an "eye" on Joel. Never a good task to assign them. Anyway Paul had his mp3 player on so he didn't here Joel come out front but he sure saw him as he ran down the street NAKED.

3. Paul grabbed him and brought him back in the house, put his clothes and diaper back on and again told the older children that he was almost done and to please, please watch Joel. Once Paul finished the outside work he came inside and found Joel naked again, told him to go sit on potty seat and he would get his clothes. As Paul walked upstairs to the loft he started to catch a nasty smell. In the middle of the floor upstairs was a diaper full of poop with several older children laughing hysterically and throwing toys in it! Joel came sauntering back upstairs with poop all over his backside and as Paul looked down at the potty seat it was covered with a layer of poop! All three older children get in huge trouble and sent to their rooms while Paul cleaned up all the poop, toys, and Joel. I think Joel got in trouble too.... I can't really remember, I only wish I had recorded Paul's description of the events because it was far more funnier. In all fairness, Joel has been whipping off his poopy diapers for me pretty regularly, the only difference is, since he follows me everywhere I go, I can usually catch him in the act.

Not exactly a great Father's Day Eve for Paul. But being the fabulous man that he is he took it all in stride. We love you Dad!!

1st Annual Cluff Campout & Kinder Graduation

2009-06-07T15:05:00.000-07:00

FIRST ANNUAL CLUFF CAMPOUT
This past weekend we took the kids camping at Riggs Lake on Mt. Graham. We took various pictures on the way up the mountain to help pass the time and keep the kids entertained. (note: being a "true" camper, I have no make-up on - hence the reason why I look nasty!)
(second note: we left Joel with my mother-in-law because I am convinced we would have lost him in the wild!)

Erika, Lacey, Jarom and Jessica at Wet Canyon

Paul holding Lacey, Jarom and Jessica at Wet Canyon

So we made it up to Riggs Lake about 1:30 on Friday and quickly picked out a campground. And it's a good thing we got there early because it was packed by that evening. There were several family reunions going on as well as a large camp of drunks who brought up several large base speakers and sang karaoke. Thankfully they didn't do it all night long.

Jarom, Lacey & Jessica at our campsite

We desperately wanted to fish on Friday but it was extremely windy so we had to bag that idea until Saturday morning. But we actually ended up going home early on Saturday, even though it was great fishing weather, because the kids did not sleep well the whole night, they would not stop fighting with each other, and I forgot half our food in my mother-in-laws fridge down in Thatcher. If my cell phone had gotten service on the mountain, I would have asked one of my nephews to bring up our food - actually beg would've been more like it - so we had to have a fabulous dinner of s'mores and chips! We had all the fixings for a great wiener roast - only we no hot dogs to do it.

The kids posing in front of Riggs Lake

The girls were very excited about sleeping in a tent

Uh-oh we have to run for van and Lacey was scared

As you can see in the picture below we had a slight "bear" problem. The forest ranger warned us about it and he was right on as you can see the proof here. This rather large brown bear made his way through our campsite and the surrounding sites looking for food.

Not what a mother wants to see while taking her children out camping

After the first bear sighting we decided to build our fire and get going with dinner. This was when I realized half our food was in Thatcher. Oh, and Lacey said the fire smelled terrible and kept covering her nose whenever she got within 10 feet of it.

Lacey hanging out around camp

Jessica in front of our tent

Bringing down what was left of our food to eat for dinner. Paul told me to strike some crazy pose but I didn't quite do it. (Note: Jarom had his hand over his chest because he was having anxiety attacks about the bear coming back - certainly felt a little anxiety myself.)

Our great feast of s'mores and chips

As we were eating dinner, Jessica yelled out that the bear was behind us (again!) and sure enough we saw it not 50 feet from our campsite. Paul decided to walk after it to snap a good picture as proof that we saw a bear in the wild. I was very nervous about him doing that and kept shouting at him to come back to the van.

Just wandering around looking for food

Here we are crammed in the van again waiting for the bear to leave (note: by this time Jarom was ready to pack up and leave)

I was having a great time messing around with the campfire. Paul said I was like the lone kid in the camp out that doesn't get involved in any other activities, just sits by the fire and plays with it. Maybe I was a pyromaniac in a previous life.

Erika, Lacey, and Jessica

Lacey and Jessica standing on top of the picnic table

On our trip down the mountain, as Paul was grumbling about the kids behaving badly and not being able to fish - Jarom started gagging and we immediately pulled over to the side of the road and in time for him to vomit. He proceeded to pretty much puke most of the way down the mountain. It was great. Paul said we are never going on a family trip again (he says this after every family excursion) but I had a great time and definitely want to do it again. We splurged for an air mattress that was quite heavenly to sleep on and with our new sleeping bags we were quite toasty. We did have problems with the whole "porta potty" thing and I ended up having to let the the girls hold onto me for dear life whenever they sat on the porta potty because they were afraid they were going to fall in. We tried to teach them to "pop a squat" but that didn't go over so well. We took several pieces of sporting equipment with us to play with and the kids said it was the best day ever because we've never played sports as a family! Oops! I felt guilty after that one - I suppose I ought to kick it in gear and start playing with my kids more often.

So anyway, it was quite the trip, but it definitely made for the some fun memories (and did I mention I also forgot all the kids underwear and ended up at Wal-mart in the early morning hours on Friday buying clean underwear before we left - just another great moment to add to our trip. Now they have a surplus of undies - I guess that's never a bad thing to have a surplus of.)

Speaking of undies, Joel has been taking his diaper on and off constantly during the day and showing an increased interest in the overall workings of the toilet. He likes to flush the toilet multiple times a day and will race in after any person who walks into the bathroom so he can stand by them and wait until they are finished, bid farewell to it all, and then flush the toilet. So today we dug out the potty seat and thought we would give it a try and he peed in that thing 5 times! I couldn't believe it - he is barely 2 years old and none of our other kids cared a whit about potty training this early. So tomorrow I am off to buy some cool underwear for him. Maybe I'll have him out of diapers before the summer is over - yeah!

KINDERGARTEN GRADUATION
These next pictures are from the girls kindergarten graduation. They put on a nice program and had dessert afterward. My only problem was the horrendous way most of the parents were dressed; skin tight clothes with outlines of thong underwear, shirts several size too small or with plunging necklines, tattoo's everywhere, body piercings galore and just an overall sloppiness in dress and attitude. One of my friends sat on the front row only to have a lady squat down on the floor in front of her and turn around to say "don't mind my butt crack" and displayed most of her behind and thong undies for the entire row of parents!

Lacey and Mrs. Wilson (formerly Ms. Varni)

Jessica and Mrs. Estrada

Joel trying out the graduation hats

Jessica eating some yummy cake

Lacey chowing down

Jessica sitting in place for her part in the program

Lacey sitting in place for her part in the program

A few things

2009-05-21T09:10:00.000-07:00

This is what happens when one learns how to climb out of

their crib during naptime, destroy the bedroom and then become

so tired they can't quite make it back to bed.

Okay so I have been going through vacuum cleaner withdrawals! Last week

my new vacuum quit. Didn't make any noises, just shut off and

wouldn't go back on. I took it to a repair place because it's still

under warranty and apparently there was an electrical malfunction

and some parts got melted on the inside and it needs a new cord and

all this other jazz.

Well anyway, it's going to take two weeks to get the parts in! I vacuum

my house (okay, just the downstairs) every single day. My two friends,

Stacie and Emily, have graciously let me bother their vacuums, but

I always feel guilty asking. And then to add insult to injury- some older child

of mine left the pantry door open while I was upstairs yesterday and Joel

got a container of cracked wheat out and dumped the whole thing on the floor!

When the wheat is cracked it's not easy to pick up. Hence I had to use Stacie's vacuum again!

I feel like I have lost my best friend! Ha.ha.

My wild girl

2009-05-14T16:29:00.000-07:00

Does this child look like she has an attitude? This was
Jessica when she was three and showing her displeasure
in having to pose for a picture. She is definitely our
little stubborn girl. She's also pretty tough too. The other
day she got in trouble at school for telling a boy she was
going to kick him "where it counts" (not her exact words)
if he didn't leave her alone.
On one hand I was proud of her for standing up for herself,
on the other hand she could probably have gone about it differently.
Infact, I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing as I tried to
explain how we don't talk about what we are going to do to other
people's private areas.
Technically if she is being bothered by a boy she has more
than my permission to give him a swift kick. But it's probably better at her
young age to encourage her to go get a teacher instead.

Then and Now

2009-05-11T20:47:00.001-07:00

Then - May 1997

Now - (okay 6 months ago)

Our 12 year anniversary is on Wednesday so I thought

it would be fun to post the "then and now" pictures of us.

I am always reminded of that quote, "today I marry

the one I will laugh with, live for; love."

Because I married the best possible person on earth.

He couldn't have been more perfect than if I had

created him myself.

34 years young

2009-05-02T20:41:00.001-07:00

HAPPY 34th BIRTHDAY PAUL!

(He looks really tired here, but that is because he had just
gotten off work. Plus everyone thinks their children have swine flu and have
been inundating his office, but no one has tested positive yet.)

Just for fun....

2009-04-27T21:05:00.000-07:00

Erika
&
Paul

87% Compatible

♥ Erika and Paul have been romantically-together for a long time. That alone demonstrates a degree of compatibility. Their shared faith will help form a bond between them. They both abstain from drinking, so that helps compatibility. However, their astrological signs are not in harmony. But their views on children are similar. Overall, Erika and Paul are highly compatible. They are capable of having a beautiful relationship together. ♥

Test Your Dating Compatibility

Late Easter Pics

2009-04-22T15:55:00.001-07:00

I snapped a couple pictures of the kids last Sunday and
thought I would post them for fun. It's kind of amazing
how big they are getting.

Jarom in back, Jess, Joel, Lacey

In our front yard

Jess, Lacey, Jarom, and Joel in the front

Easter

2009-04-17T16:32:00.000-07:00

Jessica, Lacey, Jarom

The easter bunny came without to much fanfare this year. The kids really wanted to have an easter egg hunt, but I knew that would be a "fight" waiting to happen, with Joel wanting all the eggs for himself. So I decided to keep it simple and just give everyone a stuffed animal and a basket of candy. Joel got "Doc" and "Fillmore" to add to his growing "CARS" collection. I didn't put candy in his basket but that didn't stop him from following his siblings around and saying, "anny". I was also not a good mom and didn't do any fun easter crafts nor did we dye easter eggs. Maybe someday I will be more creative.

Joel opening his cars

A cute picture of Jarom and Joel in the tub

Lots of little things

2009-04-01T21:11:00.000-07:00

Well I have been a slacker! Whew, it has been about 3 weeks since I last updated my blog. I guess I feel like I always have to attach pictures for it to be an interesting post. But I don't always carry my camera around... But anyway it's not like we haven't been doing anything exciting around here.

First and foremost, we had high hopes that with the many afflictions Joel has endured in his 26 months of life, that we would be spared the "terrible two's". Maybe some mercy would be shown to us...well that hasn't happened and he is the biggest stinker! I have never seen such a beast in my life. The problem is, he's really cute, and I think the Lord did that on purpose so I wouldn't get so frustrated. All he has to do is flash me his little smile and I about melt! Anyway he is constantly hitting the other kids, who I might add are much older and larger than he is, yet they still yell out for me to help them. He climbs on everything, he can even climb into his crib. Heaven help me the day he figures out how to climb out of his crib. He set off the alarm system to our house and he likes to run the water in the bathroom sink while positioning his hand directly under the faucet so as to spray the bathroom in multiple directions. He enjoys dive bombing the most unsuspecting person who is trying to take a nap on the couch. Usually that is me! If I tell him to stop doing something, he keeps on doing it even after I spank him. If Paul spanks him he usually stops...dang why can't it work for me? Anyway that is just a brief synopsis of this child, I could actually keep going but like I said he is lucky to be so cute!

I have been released from teaching the 7 year olds in primary and I am kind of sad about it. I had a great little class of 4 girls and 1 boy and they were the most well behaved kids I have ever taught. Now I am the new Visiting Teaching Coordinator! I am a bit nervous about this because I have never done anything with Visiting Teaching except go and do my own every month. But I think it will be a good opportunity to get to know all the sisters in our ward, because sadly, after 3 1/2 years I still don't know some of them.

I finally broke down and rented "Twilight" though I have never read the books. I heard so many mixed reviews that I hesitated even watching it. But guess what - I actually liked it. I give it 3 1/2 stars. The only thing that annoyed me was how pasty white all the vampires looked. I realize they are suppose to look that way, but it just seemed like a bit much. But now I may have to borrow the books and read them. I am sure they are way better than the movie, although I read a recent article in which novelist Stephen King said Stephanie Meyer was not a good writer! Oh well...I have never read any of his creepy books so I am not going to take his comments seriously.

For some reason this winter season has been just awful for our family. All of my kids keep getting sick. Right now Joel has some stomach flu bug and is running a fever - augh! I haven't been the gym regularly since January. I feel the like the biggest blob and my sugar cravings are ridiculous and I am beginning to wonder if I will ever get them under control. The problem with being such a shrimp (I am only 5'2") is that the slightest weight gain makes me look like I gained 30 pounds or am pregnant-neither being the case. I only need to lose about 15 pounds, but it sure feels like it's impossible. My mom had to give up chocolate and sugar to get to her current weight (and she looks amazing!) but I don't know if I am ready to give that up! Why can't sugar just be healthy - like fiber?

Spring Break

2009-03-22T19:54:00.001-07:00

For spring break we didn't really plan anything - just a quick visit to Thatcher to see Paul's family. And the exciting part was going to Duncan where my brother in law and sister in law run a dairy farm. This is always our kids favorite part - forget Disneyland - let's go see all the animals! Unfortunately Joel contracted pink-eye about 2 days before we left and looks a little miserable in the picture below. It was one of the worst cases of pink eye I have ever seen but thankfully Paul hooked him up with some good eye drops and within 24 hours he looked so much better.

He is still a cutie anyway!

I love this picture of Joel looking up to Jarom

The girls insisted I take a photo of their dogs dressed in
Christmas scarves and hats

At Duncan in the back of Aunt Lucia's truck. This is
one of the things my kids love about the farm - riding in
the back of a truck with no seat belts.

This huge stack of cotton seed makes for some fun times-
very dusty-but fun

See how happy Joel is that he can ride in the truck, on the
farm without being strapped into a carseat

Lacey making her way up the mountain of seed

Lacey & Jessica riding in the pack of Aunt Lu's truck

Joel was thrilled by the baby cows

One of the big cats had some kittens and Jarom carried this
one around for about an hour - he was quite attached to it

Jessica finally got over her initial hesitation to hold the kittens
and posed for this picture

Lacey riding on the teeter-totter

It didn't work

2009-03-20T15:21:00.000-07:00

Well I haven't had a chance to post my pictures from our trip to Thatcher over spring break because I have had 2 sick kids all week - Lacey & Joel. I finally broke down and took them to the doctor today. And guess what they have - influenza A - in other words the flu shot they had a couple months ago didn't work. And I know it's not guaranteed to work either; the scientists having to guess about which strains they think will surface during flu season, but it's still frustrating nonetheless. And then I have been thinking of all the places we've been over the past week and how many people we may have infected! Augh....
There is nothing that can't be done for the the flu; just rest, ibuprofen and liquids. Dang. That is not something a two year old really wants to do. He would rather hang off my leg all day and be fussy.

Washing clothes in the toilet and other items....

2009-03-13T14:04:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been to a public park and had to use the restroom? When you walked into the restroom were you ever greeted with a sign that says:

"Due to constant problems with the toilets clogging up because clothes are being washed in them, we ask that you quit doing this. If you are responsible you will be banned from the park. If this doesn't stop, the restrooms will be permanently closed."

Why I didn't snap a picture of this sign is beyond me, but it was the most hilarious thing I have ever read. It's posted in the restrooms at the Margaret T. Hance Park in downtown Phoenix. That would be the park that is on the tunnel that runs over I-10. I accompanied my girls on a field trip to the Puppet Theatre and then afterward we had lunch at played at this park. The parents and teachers all got a kick out this sign as this particular park is known to have many transients that come through it. Though I would never have thought someone could have concocted such an interesting way to wash their clothes - ever thought of using the sink?

Anyway below are some pictures from our trip. We are planning on going to Thatcher this weekend as the kids are now on Spring Break. And then Joel came down with Pink Eye yesterday and I have been cleaning the house like mad trying to get rid of his little germs. But really is that possible to do with a toddler that touches everything? I am also sick, with a cold, so I haven't felt any better but I know for sure that I don't want pink eye!

Lacey and Jessica on the baby swings. (After they were done several other kids wanted to swing on these too. The only problem is I had to lift them in and out of the swings. All was fine until a little chubby boy got stuck and I couldn't pull him out! A stranger had to come help me get him out as he was moaning about his crotch hurting!)

Lacey, Jessica, Nathan (A boy from our ward), and three other kids from Jessica's class.

(Note the one boy making the gang signs - nice...)

Jessica and Lacey in the puppet theatre

Lacey and Jessica lining up after practicing the mandatory

bus evacuation drill prior to leaving for their field trip

Justice is served

2009-03-05T09:46:00.000-08:00

Well the detective who investigated our robbery case called me yesterday with great news, the individual who broke into our house was arrested and put in jail! Apparently he is a prior felon and was on probation so now he's in a little more trouble than he could have been. We are pressing charges so who knows how all that is going to play out. We just want to be compensated for our losses, or as my brother in law would say, "receive our beat down money!" The detective said the man initially denied the whole thing until the officers said they had his DNA samples from the scene of the crime and then he fessed up. Unfortunately he doesn't have our property - its long gone - no surprise there. But good news for us anyway!

Fun without the kids

2009-02-23T18:08:00.000-08:00

Considering that past 2 months have been awful - we decided it was time for a break. We have never gone skiing together so we thought we would try it out in Flagstaff over the weekend. I have only skied once and that was in high school and Paul hasn't been since college so we thought it would be fun to do.
My mother GRACIOUSLY watched our kids and we headed out to Flagstaff on Thursday morning. We hit the outlet malls at Anthem where Paul insisted I buy a few things for myself. What husband normally encourages this! He was surprised to see how difficult it is for women to shop - what with the sizes never being the same in any one store and the fact that all the styles are strapless, sleeveless or see through! He now knows why I don't particularly like to shop for clothes. Anyway I don't need to write all the details of my shopping experiences but I did get a few new things and so did Paul so that worked out well.
Friday we hit the slopes and it took awhile for me to get comfortable skiing again. We basically stayed in the "easy" area because I kept falling down. I would get to where I was going really good and then I would speed up and become nervous and bite the dust. The good thing was everyone else was falling too. When we rode the ski lift up to the top of the mountain the slope under us was littered with people who had fallen down. The one amazing thing though, was the number of little kids that could ski. Better than me infact! And they didn't even use poles, they just skied straight down the hill using their arms for balance.

I am looking very sunburned but actually I wasn't, must've been the glare from all the snow

Paul the pro skier - he didn't even fall - lost his balance once - but no falling down the slopes like I did several times.

After 5 hours of skiing, I was physically exhausted. I hurt in places I didn't even know could hurt. We headed back to our hotel where once we walked in the room, I promptly fell across the bed and slept for two hours! Anyway we had a lot of fun and it was so nice to just get away and be together - heck we even slept in until 7am! Around here that is late...ha.ha...

little update

2009-02-13T12:07:00.000-08:00

Well all my kids are home for a 4 day weekend and surprisingly, they are behaving quite well, which is why I am taking a quick moment to write on our blog. My mom and sister were telling me I needed to post some pictures of our new living room furniture that was delivered yesterday so I agreed. We really like the furniture though I almost cried when Paul had to break down our old sofa and throw it in the garbage.

The past week and half have been filled with so many mixed emotions. At first, I think I was in shock that someone had broken into our home and wasn't really feeling anything. But as the days went by I started to get angry, depressed and even fearful. Needless to say I have been very comforted by one thing and that is, even though the Lord didn't stop this person from breaking into my home (because He won't take away our agency) he did make it possible for me to be removed from the situation. And that is where all my daily prayers of "please keep us safe" come into play. The only way I could be safe with my boys was not to be home.

So anyway we are getting back into the groove of things again and like the day after the break-in, Paul and Jarom zipped over to Wal-mart and bought a new x-box with some new games. Our new TV is supposed to be here any day now and of course we have furniture that we can actually be comfortable on now. Oh and we are putting in a top of line security system on Monday! (That's where another one of my biggest comforts is coming from). I am a little ticked that half our refund is going to fixing this mess, but on the other hand it's another blessing that we have the money to even do it all. Granted we will get most of it from our insurance except for our $1,000 deductible, the security system installation, and the depreciated value of our couches. But hey things could have been a lot worse. The guy could have trashed our house and he didn't - we were so blessed. Have I said that enough? Okay I will quit and post the pics of our new furniture. Sorry they turned out so badly, but the sun was really pouring through the windows when I took them.

Our new couch

We decided to skip the matching love seat and get two chairs instead

View from the kitchen

A very grainy view from the stairs and my two boys!

Tender Mercies

2009-02-05T11:19:00.000-08:00

I thought January was bad but February has not been any better! Our home was broken into on Wednesday and while it has been a traumatic experience I have seen first hand the Lord's tender mercies in my life. It all started with us not receiving our daily newspaper. I called the Republic and requested a new paper from their automated machine but was told delivery wasn't available in my area. That's stupid, was my first thought. But then I figured it was no big deal because I could just pick up a paper later and stop by the post office too. Jarom was home, pretending to be sick, so I figured instead of dragging him into a grocery store I would just drive over to the nearest store with one of those machines you drop a few quarters into and it gives you a paper.
About 9:30 we headed out and were only gone about 30 minutes before returning home. When I drove up to the house I noticed by front door was open. The security door was still shut but the door was opened. I just chalked it up to forgetting to close it. I parked the car and got the boys out of the van and as I opened the door into the house I saw our picture window had been broken out in the livingroom. I grabbed Jarom by the back of his shirt and we ran across the street to our neighbors while I called the police.
Apparently they were chasing the perpetrator around the neighborhood just as I called because my neighbor, from across the street, had seen him jump my fence initially and called the police first. So anyway they lost the guy but they know what he looks like and the car he drove so they'll probably find him. After calling the police I called Stacey (Allred) and totally fell apart on the phone and asked her to come over and stay with me. She raced over with her two boys and we loaded my boys in her van and the 4 of them played around while the police did their initial investigation of the house. After it was all clear they let me walk through it. Unfortunately these pictures don't really do justice to how much glass was all over the place. The guy broke a double paned window that is about 5 feet by 4 feet - it was a big mess. He made off with our new LCD TV, the x-box, all the games for it, both controllers, an area rug, and wouldn't you guess - half the cushions from each of our couches! Apparently he was getting frazzled trying to figure out how to get out of the house because the security door was locked, and the key hidden and every window in the house that opens up, Paul put a heavy piece of wood in each track so the windows can't be open. And to get the wood out you have to pull it out with plyers, you can't lift it with your hands. So he had no choice but to climb back out the window he broke, throw the cushions over our wall (that drops off like 9 feet) and throw the TV and x-box onto the cushions. He obviously cut himself from breaking the window and there were blood smears all over the place, so forensics came and took some samples for a DNA match. And then when I cleaned up the glass I found a bullet outside, so he obviously had a weapon which makes the charges against him more severe than typical breaking and entering. So anyway all this went down the day after my surgery and it was insane! But I contacted a glass company that came out that day and put in a new window, we've got all the paperwork for our insurance company started up and we are now looking at buying an alarm system for the house. Despite this being very stressful we were so blessed to have not been home when it happened, that our neighbor saw everything and called the police, that our home wasn't vandalized or severely damaged and that he only took things that we can replace and no one was hurt. There were so many tender mercies shown to us through this whole process - especially from our good friends Stacey and Emily (Mather). I can only feel gratitude and a little excitement over getting new couches!

No more pillows!

Who would take cushions?

The infamous picture

2009-02-05T11:16:00.000-08:00

I can't believe I am posting this but here it is - me after sinus surgery sprawled out on the couch!

What a month!

2009-02-03T17:12:00.000-08:00

I am so glad that January is over with. The start of 2009 has been stressful for us to say the least. It all started with Lacey getting a very nasty cold that eventually got passed on to the rest of us. And it was bad - high fevers, hacking cough, disgusting runny noses, etc. Lacey and Joel both ended up with ear infections in the end but much to Jarom's luck he hasn't gotten sick.

It's always bad when I get sick because I have to keep plugging away and doing my motherly thing even though I don't feel good. However, I didn't get it nearly as bad as the kids so I can't complain. Between Lacey and Jess they missed about a week of school - which means I missed out on going to gym for most of the month because the kids weren't all sick at the same time! So not being able to go to the gym, getting sick myself, having sick kids, and then starting school all within a 3 week time frame about killed me. So I melted down (i.e. cried while Paul looked at me helplessly), called my mom who gave me great advice and decided to quit whining and just do my best. I originally signed up for 2 classes this semester but an opportunity came along to take a condensed version of Computer Info Systems so I decided to do it. That will basically be an easy "A", but then again it's additional homework. Oh well.

And then today I had Endoscopic Sinus Surgery and I am sitting here a little drugged up, looking haggard and wearing a strappy thing around my head that holds a gauze pad under my nose (it's collecting the discharge from the surgery). Paul snapped a rather atrocious looking photo of me while I was sleeping on the couch and I am debating on posting it. I actually can't upload it right now because Paul has the camera at the Pinewood Derby. I am sad I am missing Jarom's first race, but I couldn't really attend since I am still draining heavily. I will post pics from the derby as soon as I can.

So anyway, let's just hope February is a better month for us! Paul and I have planned a getaway to Flagstaff to go skiing in a couple of weeks and we are really excited about that. We haven't gone on any dates in like 6 weeks because we've all been so sick. But it looks like everyone is on the mend. Yeah!

Train Park

2009-01-23T20:08:00.001-08:00

Since the kids had Monday off in observance of MLK day, Stacey (Allred) and I decided to take the kids to McCormick/Stillman Train Park in Scottsdale. The weather was amazing and the kids had a great time. (Joel was a bit of a beast - but that's because he had a little cold.)

Joel, Jessica, Jarom, Lacey
Lacey, Jessica, and Jarom walking around on the tracks.

Joel was having "attitude" issues, so I gave him a mostly empty juice box so he would be happy.

Waiting for our turn to ride the train. You can see the back of Anna (Allred) and the Lacey and Jessica.

Instead sitting up on the bench, in the train, Joel decided to sit on the floor and dig through my diaper bag.

While we were waiting for the carousel, Joel was throwing a major fit so a nice lady offered to let him play with her kids little cars until her children were done riding the carousel. Thank heaven for the generosity of strangers.

Getting impatient waiting for the carousel - (Clockwise from the bottom) is Jessica, Anna, Brendan and Jarom.

Jessica sitting on the bottom of one of the many slides.

I took this picture just as Lacey came down the slide so she has a wild expression on her face.

If there was ever a picture that described Joel to a "T", it's this one. He couldn't get enough of climbing up this wire barricade. Thankfully the top was curved over toward him so he couldn't have fallen out. But this is pretty much what I deal with on a daily basis....

Maybe they do listen

2009-01-18T19:42:00.000-08:00

Do you ever wonder if your children listen to a word you say? Sometimes I feel like I am talking to a brick wall or that what I say goes in one ear and out the other. Paul and I have tried hard to teach our children manners: the whole please and thank you thing. And for the most part they seem to okay with it. But I always wonder, without my prompting, will they ever be gracious when I am not around?
So today at church we were sitting in front of an elderly gentlemen when Jarom dropped some of his crayons down the back on his chair and at this man's foot. The man leaned over, picked up the crayons and handed them to Jarom. Jarom turned around, looked at the man and in the nicest little voice said, "Thank You."
I don't know why that hit me like it did, but at that moment I thought, maybe my kids actually listen to me!

He's officially done!

2009-01-14T16:08:00.000-08:00

We received word that Paul PASSED his American Academy of Pediatriacs Board Test. It's a grueling exam so we are very happy to get these results. He is officially board certified in pediatrics and he can rest easy knowing that school is over, residency is over, and this rotten test is over!

Christmas 2008

2009-01-12T19:03:00.000-08:00

We started the Christmas season with a fabulous "Kindergarten" holiday show in which Lacey and Jessica enthusiastically participated in. Below is Jessica Here's Lacey with some of her classmates

About a week later we hit Matta's restaraunt in Mesa for dinner before heading out to look at the temple lights. We are a little sad that the Matta's right by the temple closed down because we had to drive all the way over to the one on Higley and Brown.

(Joel, Lacey, Jarom, Jessica)

Making cookies for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve! (Lacey, Jessica)
Christmas morning at 5:30am!!! Doesn't everyone look excited? (Mom and dad were not excited)

My lovely profile in the left and the rest of kids checking out the "Easy Bake Oven"

What is in this ginormous box?

A super cool kitchen from Aunt Lucia!

Joel prefers to use the kitchen as a jungle gym

Santa brought art kits for each of the girls. I decided to strike a pose while supervising the painting that was going on.

Jarom is thoroughly enjoying his new x-box game

Erika and her girls (Jess on the left and Lacey on the right)

Paul and Erika

Peer Pressure

2009-01-12T11:10:00.001-08:00

Okay for all my sisters, sister in-laws, and friends who said I would eventually cave in and start a blog one day - well, you were right! I am totally giving in to peer pressure. Oh well, at least it's good peer pressure, right? I also figure since I am not so good about keeping a journal anymore, perhaps this could serve as one for me.
I just hope in the coming months, especially when I go back to school next week, that I can keep this up. I only have one child at home during the school year so I have it pretty easy, but don't fault me if I take weeks off at a time. :)
I must give a shout out to my sister, Allison Brown, who designed this amazing blog! She has tons of layouts for anyone to use - for free - at alliebrownslayouts.blogspot.com. So check it out!
Enjoy!