Great Birthday!

I had a great birthday yesterday. When I woke up in the morning, I looked outside to check the weather. I noticed that all my flower beds had been weeded! I was thrilled! I had been gone the night before and Dale had some guys come weed the front and back and prune the bushes. It was dark when I got home so I didn't notice. I get so frustrated in the spring when the weeds are growing like crazy! I can't get rid of them or my allergies will get out of control. It was so sweet of Dale to take care of it for my birthday! I signed up to go on a fieldtrip to This is the Place Monument with Jaxon. I was a little disappointed, but not surprised, when we woke up to rain. It almost always rains on my birthday. As we traveled on the bus, in the rain, to the monument, I kept thinking how horrible this was going to be. At first the kids were complaining and all I wanted to do was find shelter and sit in it. The people at the park had other plans for us. We went on the rotation they had planned for us. We started at the handcart pull. One of the volunteers told some wonderful stories about what some of the pioneers went through to come to this valley. As she was telling these stories, it started snowing! So all the kids got to do the handcart pull in the snow! It was actually really cool! They all had smiles on their faces even though they were soaking wet and getting muddy. I really enjoyed the time I was able to spend with my little Jaxon! I don't get to spend one on one time with him very much. He was so sweet to me all day. I had brought a cooler for our lunches and he never let me carry it. He had written a Happy Birthday note to me and put it in my lunch along with 2 of my favorite candy bars. When I signed up to go on this fieldtrip, I thought Jaxon would just hang out with his friends and I would be along for the ride. He didn't at all. He stayed with me the whole time and just talked about everything with me. I couldn't ask for a better present from him! While I was on the fieldtrip, my e-mail on my phone was going off all day. I was getting happy birthday wishes on Facebook from friends and family. It was such a great feeling! When I got home, I found that Kierra and Katie had decorated my bedroom doorway. They didn't have any balloons or streamers so they used ribbon and put all the flowers that we put in the girls hair on the ribbons. It was so cute! Kierra is so creative. That night Dale and I went out to dinner at Texas Roadhouse. It was yummy and nice to go out on a date. We were going to go to a movie but didn't see any that were too exciting so we went to Blockbuster and rented "Date Night". I had a great day! I can't wait until next year when I turn 40 because I am going on a cruise or to Hawaii!!!

Tired Baseball Players

This is what Jadon and Jaxon looked like about 1/2 an hour after we got home from baseball tonight. Everyone was just watching TV and I looked over and saw them both asleep. Neither one of their teams did well tonight and I guess it took a lot out of them!

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!