Girls Trip

In January Ashlin and Vanessa started begging me to take them snowboarding, they had never been. I grew up snow skiing and have always wanted to go again. I hadn't skied in like 19 years. I have been nursing or pregnant for many years, and the last few years feeling like I needed to lose weight before I could snow ski. But they were so cute begging me at midnight one night, that I told them YES, I will take you this month! They were SO excited.

It was just me, Ashlin and Vannessa.

I had 4 weeks to get ready... and... well.... I didn't lose as much weight as I dreamed I would, only like 12 pounds. But I jogged 3 miles every morning. (5 days a week). I was still concerned that I was too chubby to ski.... but SOOOOOO excited to go try!!!

GUESS WHAT??? We had SO much fun!

and GUESS WHAT ELSE??? I was NOT too chubby to ski. In fact, I did so good! I was so happy! I totally still remembered it from my youth.

We skied/boarded for 2 days... I never fell once.

The girls wiped out constantly learning to snow board. It was so funny. They were so sore they couldn't even lift their forks up to eat. ha ha. But they were having so much fun learning... and they got a lot better.

GUESS WHAT ELSE???

I LOOOOOOVED being alone. I debated bringing another adult. But I decided the 2 things I really needed was time with my daughter and time alone. I never get time alone, and individual time with my children is so rare too. It was HEAVENLY to drive up and not have to talk to anyone, but just listen to music and the girls chatting and singing. AAAAAH, refreshing. And while we were at Sunrise I spent as much time as I wanted with them, but then would take off and ski on my own, and do whatever I wanted. I rode the ski lift multiple times with the girls, which was so fun. But it was also SO wonderful to ride it by myself, and look at that beautiful scenery (breath taking) and meditate and pray and just think how happy I was to not have to be doing anything for anybody else. I want to cry still because it was such a wonderful break.

I love my daughter Ashlin. Something wonderful about her is she is always positive and happy. It is just a treat to be with her. Her and Vanessa have been friends since 4th grade. I am so proud of Vanessa too, for what a wonderful young lady she's grown in to, and the way she has chosen to live her life.

We ate lunch together each day.

P.S. Both these girls paid their own way with money they had earned working. That was the deal. I paid for the hotel and gas though.

P.S.S Ashlin is wearing her Great-Grandma's ski jacket. How cute is that? My grandma LOVED skiing, that is always who we went up with. How many girls can borrow cute clothes from their great grandmother?

100 Days

Lily was so excited about the 100th day of school celebration. She REALLY wanted Bruce and I both to come for the flag ceremony where they let off balloons. So I told her we would even bring Emma, Logan and Sophie... Lily was SO excited we were all coming.

I went in her class later in the morning

to help with more 100th day festivities as well.

... but only after we checked on the basement progress. Bruce, Sophie and I stayed for 45 minutes watching these guys build us a basement.

They were making us some windows!

The Race

This is what my dining room table looked like

for multiple days this month...

I personally made 8 BIG Race Cars out of poster board and a Pinewood Derby sign for decorations for the BIG RACE. My kids helped me design the cars (we were just winging it with no templates).

I spent a lot of hours on SIGNS, and Bruce spent a lot of hours with Logan on his car:

Race Day:

I brought the popcorn popper.

INSIDER INFORMATION: The numbers on the sides of the race car posters are the birth dates of each person in our fam-i-ly.

(the kids were excited about their own poster car)

8 VERNONS/8 RACE CAR POSTERS

The Ugly Truth: Although Bruce and I put tons of time in to trying to make it a nice Pinewood Derby (I brought the balloons, above sign, checkered table cloths, made all the poster decorations and brought popcorn popper) and the night totally turned out great for everyone.... unfortunately, Logan's car did not do so hot. He was so sad. One of the weights was kind of touching the track, which held it back. His car came in last, every time. He cried. I wanted to cry. Bruce and I felt horrible. Bruce has always felt like the boys are suppose to make the car, not the dad. Bruce is right there helping him, but Logan sanded and painted and placed the stickers and weights on it himself and his car looked awesome. But somehow when his car did bad, we felt like failures too. It stunk. We totally agree that its good to lose sometimes, it keeps you humble, and its fine, but it was still sad. Only cuz he was so embarrassed, and after all the time we put in to the night, that was hard. He told me he didn't expect to win the whole thing, but he didn't expect to lose that bad either. He said he still had fun though, at least when his car was not racing.

You win some you lose some.

My girls

They other day I walked in the room and all four of my daughters were playing with these wooden "paper dolls". My girls are not close in age, which I feel bad about. So seeing them playing all together is so sweet to me.

{Because these dolls have all kinds of magnetic clothes choices, even

Emma and Ashlin will join in and create some fashionable outfits}

I feel so lucky to have four daughters.

Last night Bruce gave a very needed lesson to our family. He told us all he had been listening the last few days and felt like there were way too many rude comments, and not enough nice ones. He then passed out an article/scriptures he had picked out for each member of our family, and told us to go read it and come back and tell us all what we read. He picked something age appropriate for each person on the importance of kind words. He even went in the other room with 6 year old Lily and taught her the song "Kindness begins with me" and had her come back and sing it to us. The article he picked for me was very humbling, because him and I both know how much I needed to read it. We all really felt the spirit, everyone participated and left wanting to be kinder to each other. I am also so thankful for a good husband.

Skate Dreams

This month was Emma's 12th birthday. She became my favorite child for the day when she informed me that she didn't want to have a birthday party with friends, but instead wanted to just go out as a family. Hallelujah!

We told her she could choose anything she wanted. And she chose SKATELAND.

All 8 of us went, and it was just what our family needed. We had so much fun together with just our family. It made me realize how important it is to not always be doing stuff with other people. We laughed so hard and came home feeling even closer as a family.

Thank you Emma!

Sophie was out there too...

You see how these girls in the background below are holding hands for dear life. This is how most the little kids looked. BUT NOT LILY! She is a dang good skater. She was by far the littlest one out there so confident, skating circles around kids bigger then her.

Other kids her size and bigger were using these little balance things above, and still falling. It was so fun to see Lily SO happy knowing she was good at something. She was practicing tricks on one leg and skating her heart out!

Unfortunately, we can't say the same for Bruce.

ha ha hah a, he was so funny out there, grabbing the wall every chance he had. Turns out, balance isn't his strength. Emma was debating wether to invite the whole family for her birthday outing or just us girls. After thinking about it, she decided on everyone because she told me, "I want to hold hands with dad on couples skate". (So sweet) I told her she was going to have to hold him up.

After skating, per Emma's birthday request...

We all went to Bahama Bucks.

I can't believe it. Emma is now 12.

I worried that Emma would grow up and be sassy, because she had so much spunk in her at a young age. But I am so happy that Emma is a very sweet, very caring girl. Although she does sometimes roll her eyes, she rarely talks back to me and always wants to be helpful. Just today I left her babysitting all morning. When I came home she had cleaned the whole downstairs as a surprise for me, and was sad I came home before she could load the dishwasher.

I love you Emma!