April Holidays

So, that oldest daughter of mine went and turned 14, who woulda thought that could happen to me?? I lived the earlier years of parenthood just stressing about having a teenager... turns out, it is SO FUN!! (really helps when your teenager is a really good girl)

She asked me how many girls she could invite to her party, I said I didn't care... so she invited 17... that was a lot of girls running around my house. And even though I said I didn't care if it was a slumber party or not, she chose NOT, and just had her bestest cousin friend Macy sleep over. (and MAN, was I happy the next morning that I woke up to my family only and not a million nutso girls!)

(my homemade triple layer chocolate cake)

So, what do you do with this many girls until 11:00pm?? VIDEO SCAVENGER HUNT is what we chose. This was a fun FREE activity that the girls loved. We split up in 3 teams, and my awesome neighbor Rachelle, my sweet sister Chrissy and I each drove a hyper group of girls equipped with a video camara and a list of their super secret mission to film! It was a race to see who could get back to Ashlin's house fastest with all 10 items on their list accomplished and proofed on film. (ie, find a horse, sing to the cashier at a gas station, teach some stranger how to do the "jazz square", make happy grams and deliver them in person to a boy they know... etc) Then after they all met back here we watched all the videos! We all laughed, they were so funny!

Copycats!!
Ashlin was so sweet and let her younger siblings run around with the girls once they were at home, and Emma was in special "worship" mode that night, with 16 fashionable older girls to be-friend! You know she did. They ended the night with lots of "Reverse Hide and Seek" or "Sardines", where only ONE hides and the rest run around trying to secretly find and hide with them. I don't understand why everyone doesn't LOVE having kids parties, they really are so fun to plan and have!

Now, for Dallin's 11th Birthday.... Dallin was so cute, and even though he has a mom that loves to have parties, he chose for his birthday to NOT have a party and requested instead for his Dad to take him and his brother on a special birthday campout! Bruce and the boys were so excited... THEN (heres the sad part) 3 days before Dallin's b-day Bruce dislocated his ankle (older post). BUMMER. So, his b-day campout is postponed until May. But we made his day special by going to Oregano's as a family (his choice) then seeing
"Monsters VS Aliens" in 3D....


then since it was his Birthday, we had to let him get on the really cool circle ride thingy displayed at the mall that day.....



Happy Birthday kiddos!


Then ofcourse, here are our mellow Easter morning pictures.

So, there is no photo evidence of fun Easter egg dying as a family... but, oh yes, 5 kids = 5 dozen eggs, try boiling 60 eggs in a big pot... and just see if your house doesn't smell a little funny for a few days... ugh! And no evidence of our friend Easter egg hunt and Family Easter egg hunt/party... but don't you worry... they happend too!

Happy Easter!

Public Prayer??

So I am assuming that most of you reading this always say prayers as a family at meal times... BUT what do you do when you are at a restaraunt?? Do you still say a prayer as a family??

My philosophy has been, I always say a prayer before I eat in order to give thanks. It is a habit and I never forget, and I do so ALWAYS even at a restaraunt... BUT, when I am at a restaraunt I am a lot more discrete. I don't fold my arms, I often bow my head and close my eyes, but sometimes don't even close my eyes, depending on the circumstances, just have this moment of silence before I eat, with my hands folded under the table. I have taught my kids that we ALWAYS thank Heavenly Father for the food we have before we eat. But in public, it can be more private. I don't know wether my kids do so at school, but when we are out as a family, they usually see me, then each of them kind of does this quiet little thing too on their own.

So the other night I was by myself at Chipotle eating. The restaraunt was pretty empty. I ofcourse, said my own little "hidden" prayer before I ate. Then like 5 minutes later, this lady, by herself came and sat down and I noticed that she openly did her catholic crossing her chest (I am sure there is a name for that) then folded her hands and closed her eyes and prayed before she ate. THEN 5 minutes later this little sweet Christian family came in, just a mom, dad and teenage son, and before they ate, they all folded their hands, bowed their head and the father said a quick prayer out loud before they ate.

These two displays in a row were so touching to me. It made me happy to see them pray. It restored my faith in society, that there are still good Christian people who pray to God multiple times a day, as I am sure if they prayed there, they are praying in their homes also. It was such a great thing to witness. And it made me think about my philosophy, and wondered if maybe I shouldn't feel like I have to "hide" my public prayers alone or as a family.... hmmm.

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!!!