Cute little mommy

I have made several baby receiving blankets lately and Katie loves to watch and try to help. My sister in law gave me a bunch of fabric to do some blankets for her. I had left the fabric in a bag in the front room. While I was cleaning today she got them all out and made little beds for her dolls. She spent a long time spreading them out so they were just right. She called me in to the front room and said "Mom, I need some more fabrics for my babies." I love to watch her play with her babies. She is so sweet to them and takes good care of all of them. I left her babies wrapped up in the fabrics all afternoon and Katie loved it!

Happy Mother's Day!

I had a wonderful Mother's Day! This morning my family let me sleep until 8:00 am. When I got up they had made a yummy breakfast and had the table all set with flowers and everything. They made kneaders french toast and had kneaders yummy cinnamon syrup. Dale got the recipe for the french toast from Kneaders and He, Jadon, Kierra and Jaxon made the french toast the night before. It was so sweet and it was fun to have a sit down breakfast before church.

At church, Kierra spoke in sacrament meeting. She gave a very good talk. After church my family let me take a nice nap. Right before I fell asleep, they gave me two cakes from Nothing Bundt Cakes. A chocolate chocolate chip and a red velvet. Yummy yummy!

Then they all worked together and made and cleaned up dinner. Every time I tried to do something, they got mad at me and made me let them do it. It is so fun for me to see my family working together. Dale said that they all planned out the meals they were going to make together. They wanted to make the things that I would love.

Here is our family having a yummy spaghetti/raviolli dinner!

After dinner, we went to visit my mom. Several people have decided to change their profile picture on facebook to a picture of their mom for Mother's Day. As I looked through my pictures, I realized that I didn't have a picture of me with my mom so I had Lisa take one tonight. My mom is a wonderful mother. I am so thankful for the wonderful example that she is to me. She is a very positive person. She is one of the most selfless people I know. I would be honored if anybody ever told me I was just like my mom! I am so thankful for the family that I have been blessed with. They mean everything to me and I am so thankful that I get to be a mom!

Great Analogy

Today Dale and I spent the morning working in the yard. While he was mowing the lawn, I did some much needed, and long overdue, weeding. Last year we dug up all of our tulips that were in the flower bed in front of our house because they were getting old and didn't look very good. Somehow, we missed a few. After I was done weeding, I asked Dale if I should dig up the lonely tulips. He looked over at them and automatically said No. He said they represent our family in this rocky, dirty world. I really liked his analogy! After we were done with the yard work, I left for a while. As I drove away, I looked back at the two little tulips and couldn't help but smile!

Family Staycation!

For the Easter break weekend, our family went on a staycation. I've wanted to go on a family trip for a long time but we can never plan anything because all our kids have different schedules. The only time they are all out of school is for holidays when everything is busy. So, I decided to do fun things around here. It was a surprise to the kids. I had been planning it for over a month and was so excited to finally tell them what we were doing.

We started out by going to a hotel in West Valley that has a waterslide. We stayed in a really fun two bedroom suite that had a little kitchen in it. It had 3 flat screen TV's and the kids thought that was awesome! The kids had a great time at the pool, especially going down the waterslide at night when it was pitch black. The hotel also had a home theater room that we reserved. We got Subway for dinner and ate dinner while we watched a movie. It was super fun!

On Friday we met Lisa's family at the front runner station downtown and rode the front runner to Ogden. We went to Fat Cat's and went bowling, drove bumper cars and rode a virtual roller coaster. Then we ate some yummy pizza at Pizza Factory. That night we went home and slept at our house. We got up early and were on the road by 8:00 a.m. to Pocatello.

Jadon, Kierra and Jaxon found out the night before that we were going to Idaho but Jake and Kyson didn't know where we were going until we drove into Grandma's neighborhood. We spent about an hour there and then got back in the van and drove to Bear World. The kids had a great time there. There was a petting zoo and some kiddie rides. The best part was when we went on a truck tour to feed the bears. There were tons of bears that came up to the truck and we fed them bread and donuts. It was amazing to be that close to the bears! On the way home we went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse and had tons of yummy food!

When we got home we colored Easter Eggs together and then went to bed. On Easter Sunday, we got up and got ready for 8:30 am church. The kids were a little disappointed that they didn't get to find their Easter baskets before church but got over it quickly. When they came home from church, they found their Easter Baskets then went on a wonderful Easter Egg hunt that Gladys and Dorothy made for the kids. They each had their own design of eggs and their own little basket. They each got to find 12 eggs. It was so much fun watching them run around finding eggs and then finding out what was inside. Gladys did such a great job of putting everything they love in them, including money! We had a yummy Easter dinner then played games. In the evening, we went to visit Dale's cousin, Ann. Everyone loved going there and we had a great time visiting them. On Monday morning the kids asked what we were going to do today. It broke my heart to tell them that we were going home. We did get to stop at Ross Park on the way home for some yummy lunch. We had such a great 5 days together and I can't wait until we do it again!

Kierra's Birthday - Part 2

This weekend Kierra had her birthday party at the cabin. She has been planning this party for at least 6 months and has been very excited about it! So 12 girls, Katie and I spent the night at the cabin. They had no problem entertaining themselves. They spent hours taking turns telling stories. We had build your own subways for dinner. Kierra had made a whole list of games to play and then they watched a movie. After the movie they "said" they were going to bed so Katie and I went to bed too. This was at midnight. I thought they would take a while to fall asleep but had no idea it would be all night. At 4:30 in the morning, I finally got up and told them they had to go to sleep. Amazingly, they were up by 8:30. After a yummy breakfast that Kierra planned, we all cleaned up and went home. I think they all had a great time. I'm glad that Kierra has this group of friends. She's a great friend. She has been off track and every day she gets several different friends calling her to hang out. The only bad thing is that they all won't be going to middle school together next year. They will be split between two schools. At least they are having fun together while they can!

Kierra's 12th Birthday!

We have a tradition in our family of going out to eat, as a family, to celebrate birthdays. The one having the birthday gets to pick the place to eat. We went out to lunch after Kierra's volleyball game. She picked Subway. I thought we would go somewhere nicer than that. Dale knew that she loves Olive Garden so he suggested that we go there. She said "really?...ok!" We had a great time and had super yummy food. She even tried the pepper in the salad. The best part about it was that we had so much food that all the kids had their leftovers for dinner that night.

After lunch, Kierra went to a party with her Sunday School class. When she got home from that, she found that our front door had been decorated by her new Beehive class. She is very excited to go into Young Women's.

She got a new outfit to wear to church for her first Sunday in Young Women's. It's hard to believe she is 12 years old and moving out of Primary. I remember the day she was born very well. I remember going out to dinner at Applebee's and feeling really weird on the way home but not knowing what it was. She wasn't due for another month. I didn't got into labor with Jadon so I wasn't sure what I was feeling. When I went to bed, I was still feeling some pain but thought it would go away. About 2:00 a.m. I woke Dale up and told him we needed to go to the hospital. We scrambled to get everything together and on the way out the door, he said "Grab the name book!" We didn't have a name yet. During labor he was looking through the book. He found the name Sierra and said "How about putting a K in the S place? I thought it sounded good so we went with Kierra Marie Byers.

Kierra is a great girl with a lot of wonderful qualities. She is extremely artistic and creative. She is a great big sister and her little brothers and sister love her very much. She is always coming up with activities and games for them to play. She is a good friend and has a lot of friends that she loves doing things with. She is a good student and her teachers love having her in their classes. She is turning into a cute young lady, which is hard for us to accept, but I am happy that she has set some good goals for herself for her future. She will be a fantastic mother someday. She has always loved babies and loves her baby sister so much! We are lucky to have her in our family!

Girls Night Out!

Tonight Kierra and I went to her last activities day activity. It was a mother/daughter dinner. The theme was "Freaky Friday". That explains why I am wearing Kierra's glass that, while they look cute on her, make me look like a librarian. Since we were suppose to switch rolls, Kierra insisted on wearing make-up. I agreed as long as she promised to remember that she isn't wearing it on a regular basis until middle school. We had a great time together. She has had a great time in activity days but is very excited to move on to Young Womens on Sunday!