Backyard parties!

So, the week BEFORE Bruce dislocated his ankle (older post)... we had a few backyard parties!

The weather has been so beautiful, and we have such a fun group of moms in our ward who get together weekly for park days and playdates (Lily has quite the social life, and every day wonders what we are doing with her friends).... so we decided to invite all over to our house for a water day, we had pizza for lunch and icecream cones!

The kids had fun playing with water in our sandbox on the side of our house:

(Miss. Lily)

... and playing on the swing set:

and playing on the trampoline, little pool and sprinklers!

Nice nose Lily, clearly she had a runny nose AND had been in the sandbox, gross!

... and when my older kids came home from school, they were excited to continue the water party...

Even Ashlin... you wondering why she is wearing suspenders... oh, i came out back and she had put a garbage bag on (those are the bag handles wrapped around her shoulders) so she could get in the water with Lily but not get her clothes wet....

... she probably didn't want proof of this on my blog... ha ha! I'm glad she is still playful at heart, even though she is almost 14!! WHAT?!

And the weekend before, we had a Luncheon Baby Shower for our old nanny Janel! Yes, she was my babysitter for years, and now we are both pregnant together! Due a month apart... I tell Ashlin, won't it be cute when HER & I are pregnant together... ha ha! (I PROMISE I am completely joking, that is NOT in the plans... but it's just kinda fun to make her a little scared!)

Congratulations Janel!

See, for a lot of the year, Arizona weather IS wondeful!!

Pobresito Bruce :(

Poor Bruce. This is where he lives now. How big the rest of our house is means nothing to him now. His sphere of living is the couch, atleast since Tuesday evening. Well actually, the early morning hours of Wednsday is when we returned home from the Emergency Room, and home for him became the couch.

So Tuesday evening Bruce was playing Men's Church Softball, and I get a phone call, from which I can see on the caller ID is the Elders Quorum President. Since I know he is always at the softball game, I knew immediately that Bruce got hurt. It ended up being his wife, who immediately says, "Bruce broke his leg really bad, the perimedics are at the field, you need to come down". To which I respond, "are you joking?" a few times (as if anybody would be calling as a joke about this besides maybe my cousin Blake). UGH, not a fun phone call. AND it interupted me from my watching the DVR'ed American Idol, to which I was having my own drama when our recording cut off ADAM, the last performer. But I put it behind me, and left immediately to tend to my broken husband.

When I arrived at the field, sure enough, there were some emergency vehicles, peremedics and a whole bunch of guys with baseball gloves standing around staring at Bruce on the ground. To anyone who knows how much Bruce does NOT like to be the center of attention, I don't know which was worse, the initial pain of the injury, or everyone standing around staring at him in pain. He did not want me to look at his ankle. But I was brave. You could clearly see the bone sticking out in ways that are not normal. yuck. The peremedics were saying it was really bad and would need surgery.

How it happend: He had just run past first base, and saw he couldn't make second, so turned back to run to first and had to take a big leaping step, left foot forward, to make the base and his left foot hit the side of base wierd and his whole 193 pound body fell over his ankle. Ouch.

So, I followed the now moriphened husband inside the ambulance to the E.R. They put him completely under to pop his bone back in to place. And it ended up having no fracture. I thought this was good news, we'd be headed home and he'd be better soon, JUST a dislocation, right? Wrong. Wow, have I learned that ligament damage can take just as long or longer to heal. Bruce can hardly even move from the pain. We went to the orthopedic specialist yesterday, and they still couldn't cast it because of the swelling. We go back next week so he can decide for sure if he needs surgery. He said 10 weeks recovery. Bruce is seriously planning on going to work on Monday, in 3 days.

This is cracking me up. He is planning to sit in his roller chair with his leg up (has to keep elevated) and have his nurses roll him in every room... "Roll in the doctor!" Everyone wants a handicap Veterinarian on perkeset. We'll see how it goes. (FYI- before you cancel your Vet appointments with him, he will NOT go in to work on Perkeset, but will switch to Ibuprofen.)

So, this below has been his view for 3 days now. And if I should say so myself, he has been very well attended to, between the 6 of us. Though if the kids get too close to his sphere of living, he starts hyperventilating and yelling, "don't touch, don't touch, don't touch". The man lives in fear that someone will accidentally touch his leg. This would be painful and not an invalid fear with 5 kids, a dog and a cat bouncing around. (I just noticed in the picture below the kind of fun things you can see Bruce has to entertain him, as he lays in pain, on the T.V. screen you will see Barbie's version of "Princess and the Pauper". Poor Bruce)

It has taken me 3 days to get a smiling picture of Bruce. I dared not even ask before. (Just between you and me, he has been a little grumpy!)

I told him that I am personally just happy he has learned his lesson, and if he tries to go out in the evening and have himself a fun night life with out us, he will be punished. (Ha Ha)

Ode to my Office

"A Journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

-Lao-tzu

This is the quote I kept saying to myself this week. I had a BIG DREADED journey ahead of me, I will let you take a peek:

So, this is what the Christmas holidays + a sick pregnant me does to my office! I was so sick and pregnant for all of the months of December, January and February, it was rough. I have been feeling better for like a month now, and just dreading and procastinating cleaning my office. But this was the week I decided I would fight the office and win the battle. I am not joking the above quote inspired me, I had a whole day set aside to clean it, and I kept telling myself, "just STEP in to the office"... baby steps....

I didn't want to be guilty of only posting things on my blog that make me look good. So here it is, the real office. I kept the door locked so people wouldn't HAPPEN upon it. I had multiple parties where the whole house APPEARED clean to the guests... but little did they know, lurking behind the locked door, was the beast of my office!

SO, I stepped in to the office, and one by one started picking things up and actually putting them BACK where they belonged in all my spacious cabinetry, imagine that! After FOUR hours... I gave birth to a new office! When it was almost clean, Lily (age 3) walked in and excitedly says, "ooo, is that a bed??" I cracked up that for months she has probably just thought it was a really big pile of stuff! Ha Ha! Wow, how embarrassing that it was so messy she didn't even remember the bed there.

I have to show, WHEN THIS ROOM IS CLEAN, just how masterfully planned and multi-functional it is! When we bought this house, this was the only bedroom downstairs, 4 upstairs. We walled off the closet (to make the laundry room bigger) took out the carpet, added all the shelving and made it in to an office/everything room:

#1 It has a bed, so is our guest room. Bruce's parents/family from out of town come and visit, and though this is not fancy... I know they appreciate having their own bathroom and room FAR away from the rest of us upstairs!

#2 One of our libraries of many books and pictures (in the black boxes)

#3 Office supply room. The 4 bottom drawers are hanging file folder drawers, love that!

#4 Sewing Room. This is where the sewing machine lives, though not used often, handy when needed.

#5 Geo Track home. Notice we keep all the Geo Track trains here, because look at all the hard floor space (when clean) to build master train towns!

#6 Craft room. All my craft supplies are in the corner cabinets.

#7 Game Closet. All the family games are in the bottom corner cabinet. (which is, by the way, also how it gets so messy... the kids love to get the games out... and since the room has so much great stationary and crafts, Emma loves to play school in here!)

and what lies in all the tall cabinets....

#8 Food Storage... ofcourse! Though, don't you worry, with the 6th child on her way, this is NOT ALL of our food storage...

#9 Exercize room. This is our fold up tread mill

I LOVE this room. And part of the reason I post it, is one, to brag on my husband, who put all the shelving up himself (Go Bruce) though measured and designed by me (Go ME) and two, as I've talked to people about where we are putting the new baby, people will say, why don't you move a child to your downstairs room.... WHAT??!

Do you see now how much I NEED my office/storage/food storage/craft room, ESPECIALLY with 6 children!

Cherryl + My clean office = Love

Spring Break at the Cabin

So for spring break, we packed the bags (and all the groceries) and headed up to my Uncle's cabin....

(notice the almost 6 month pregnant me)

Logan is ready with his stick gun to get any bears we see.... on our family walk in the woods he was VERY nervous of approaching wildlife, as our cubscout Dallin kept pointing out all the paw prints and telling us to what animal they belong, bear, deer, coyote, squirrel, etc... Logan was not comfortable with this situation of being in the middle of the woods, with living proof in front of him that wild life could appear at any moment!

What do you do at the cabin all day, with no town/restaraunts around.... well, besides make all your own meals, and read a 360 page book in 2 days.... the boys made a fire pit by gathering stones in a circle, then made a fire every day. Oh man can boys be entertained for hours with sticks all around them to keep adding to the fire and watching them burn! Bruce and Dallin had some great alone time talks around the fire that Bruce told me later were so special to him.

while the boys were making fires... the girls were inside playing princess and Littlest Petshops.... now these are Lily's toys... but with not much else to do but join in, Ashlin and Emma were cute playing with Lily!

And even though it was SO nice to just relax, and take lots of beautiful walks, after a few days, things were getting a little boring... Good thing Aunt Chrissy showed up with lots of new treats and some fun things up her sleeve...

She brought these crazy little Styrofoam craft AIR characters you made and then watched come to life!

It was pretty funny to watch the little characters they made dance! Click below to see how:

>
(I am not exactly sure why the quality is so bad on that video, maybe because its from my camara and not video camara?? you get the idea though, let me know if you know why!)


We are so lucky to have family with cabins!!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Here we are all in green for St. Patrick's Day!

My sister Carrie has had us over every St. Patrick's Day for years, and she decorates all green and has Corned Beef, and a bunch of green stuff! So cute. (I think this is a big deal to her husband, who use to be catholic before joining the ranks of mormonism)

Here we are below, her family and mine... minus who?? oh, that would be Bruce taking the picture, the only one NOT in green... how very unfestive!

Do you even know why St. Patrick's Day is celebrated?? I asked my brother in law Geoff (AKA Uncle Buff, El Jefe) last night.... Patrick, who was made a Saint by the catholic church was the missionary/man who brought Christianity (via catholicism) to the then Pagan Ireland. And the country really embraced the new Christian religion. What a great reason to celebrate... Christianity brought to a nation! Soooo I've never been to Ireland, nor plan to, or have any Irish in me... but I'll still wear green for that! :)

And the kids had fun playing with the Brady's cute turtle!

PINEWOOD DERBY

Tuesday night Dallin had his LAST Pinewood Derby!

He turns 11 next month, and moves out of Cub Scouts.

Bruce helped cut the car, but Dallin really did paint it and design it all himself! His car was winning 1st each time, and he was all excited, then something happend to one of the wheels, and after that it stopped going as fast... but Dallin was a good sport about it, I was proud of him. Especially since the other 2 boys, D.J. and Zach, that Bruce helped make their cars, placed in the top 5! We were excited for them and Dallin still had fun!

And last month Dallin's school had this really neat program for Presidents day, where all of the 5th graders spent weeks learning LOTS of patriotic songs. It was neat to go to... how can you tell which one is Dallin below??? CLEARLY, he is the most handsome one there, in the middle with the shirt and tie!


We love you Dallin! You are such a good boy! I am so happy to see you read your scriptures every night. I see you constantly be the first one to jump up and help your siblings and others. You have such a big heart. The other day we were at "Jeepers" play place with the kids and this lady walked in the door a little ways away and dropped a bunch of plates and stuff she was holding, and without skipping a beat Dallin ran over to her and started picking up all of the stuff. I was so proud of him, and as we drove home I told him that he is really being what he has said in cubscouts for years: "... I promise to do my duty to God and my country... and help others...". I think you can really feel inside that you have kept your Cub Scout promises!
I am sorry Dallin that sometimes it is so hard for me to be patient with all of the ~eNeRgY~ you bring, because when I really sit back and watch who you have become, I am so pleased and proud!!!
I love you!!!

Kids Art and Anniversary

SUPERBOWL

(picture by Dallin)

So, I canceled my Primary Presidency meeting and we had a Superbowl party! We don't normally watch TV/games on sunday.... but we made an exception... the CARDINALS were in the superbowl?!! Bummer we didn't win... but atleast we had that long touchdown run with 2 minutes left in the game that got us all on our feet screaming! I was hoarse all night from the screaming from that 1 play... good times! Dallin was drawing Superbowl pictures all month after the game!

Now, can anyone guess who this is below????? I will give you some hints.... My parents were getting rid of old VHS movies, and gave us this 1980's series of movies, which, who knew would recently come out with another film to add to the collection....

Yes, the above picture is Indiana Jones, as depicted by Logan Vernon. Isn't it cute??

My boys have watched them all and loved them.... but ME on the other hand is about to give them away... a little too violent, especially the last one... ok, seriously, am I too overprotective of a mom if I get rid of these?? They are only PG, but I am pretty sure it was before PG-13 came in to effect. What do you think??

AND LAST, but not LEAST:

HAPPY 15TH ANNIVERSARY BRUCE!
This picture was actually taken on his 38th B-day in Feb, in the morning before the kids left for school when we opened his presents and had his special birthday breakfast. (no, not cocoa puffs, like his shirt says, which he, by the way, really sent away for from a coupon that came in a cereal box. His new 3 favorite shirts are now his Cocoa Puffs, Cheerios and Trix cereal shirts he got for $3 total. That was a lucky cereal box morning when he found that coupon!!)

But seriously, now even though we forgot it was our anniversary on tuesday, until we were reminded by Janels facebook message wishing us a Happy Anniversary... AND we celebrated it that night by going to Pinewood Derby (how romantic)... I thought of Bruce all day and got teary eyed a couple times just thinking about how WOW, it has been 15 years!!!

I am so thankful to have such a wonderful husband, and what a fruitful 15 years we have had... the sixth child on her way! I have still yet to see the man lose his temper... I am thinking after 15 years, it is just not going to happen! He is everyone's favorite in the family. We all look forward to him walking in the door each day. We are so thankful for such a playful, hardworking, righeous man who reads his scriptures every day, makes sure we read scriptures as a family every day, and comes home to us as soon as he can every day! God answered all my prayers when he gave me Bruce! (and IMAGINE, we only dated 3 weeks before we started talking marriage, and after 5 weeks were officially engaged with the ring!)