A Storybook Birthday

HAPPY 4TH BIRTHDAY!!

Lily had so much fun putting on "Goldilocks & the 3 Bears" play with her playgroup friends a few months back... that for her birthday she requested we do ANOTHER storybook "play".

So we had her friends over for a "Play-in-a-Day" Party!

Again, we set up our living room for the play...

Can you tell below what play we put on THIS time?!

A kitchen/cottage with a pan of "goodies", a basket,

a Forest, a Grandmother's Bed...

Yep, Little Red Riding Hood!

I have these cute "Storyteller" masks they wore, with some simple costumes...
and we put on a play!
Don't you worry, we did the play multiple times, so each girl got a turn being different characters! Changing costumes between plays was a little hectic, as I was doing it alone, while holding a baby.. ugh, but it was worth it, they were having fun... and I was not stressed, because...
there was no other parent here watching the chaos!!

Finally when I was able to put my baby down for a nap,
I FILMED our little play!

They chose the characters they wanted to be for our LAST time through... I had planned on letting the birthday girl be Little Red Riding Hood for her "Birthday Movie"... but the funny little thing cried and cried because she wanted to be the "Hunters Wife"...this was the character I "made up" for the play so we would have SIX characters to equal the number of guests at the party... and I thought they wouldn't want to be the new one...
ha ha, I was wrong!

So, if you have 9 minutes of time to spare... here is our little play below!
(I don't expect many to watch it, but its cute)

I stayed up until 4am last night making this movie for Lily... I realize I'm retarded. But I think it is so fun and rewarding making family movies, and I've had no other free time lately. So I decided it was worth a night of little sleep to make me a new family movie for my shelf!
(Sheesh, what we go through as mothers...)

Happy Birthday my darling Lily!

Creating

One of my favorite and most rewarding parts of being a mom is the variety of things I get to be constantly creating: Homemade meals, memorable moments, fun parties, and as of late...

....I have been surprised at how much I've gotten in to and enjoyed all the School Projects around here... Ashlin and Kendell had to do this 'Summertime Tundra Biome". They let me help, and afterwards Ashlin and I stared at it forever telling eachother how cool it was.... so fun!



Then the week after we finished the Tundra Biome, Dallin came home from school with the project list he had to choose from for their Egypt Unit.... we were so excited!

He chose to make a mummy, pyramid and travel brochure.

Dallin LOVES science and projects. He was so cute with this. He made a man out of playdough. Before he wrapped it like a mummy he wanted to cut slits in it to represent that ancient Egyptians cut out the organs before mummifying the bodies, then he really poured salt in each of the incisions of his mummy man to "preserve the body".

He spray painted a box and animals gold to represent that their kings were buried in gold and the ancient Egyptians buried in the tomb with them animals of gold.

I LOVE that Dallin is just soaking it all up at school and has been constantly informing us of new Egyptian facts he's learning!

We searched the internet to see if there were any pyramid next to water. (It was so fun making water for Ashlin's project, he wanted to also)

And, yeah, we found that the first pyramids of Giza were built on the West bank of the Nile river. Did you know that the features of the pyramid can be seen from the moon, they're so large?! The interior stones fit together so well, you can't even fit a card between them. And they are the oldest structures on earth, wow.

Way to go Dallin!

Then look at my newest toy!! Yeah, I am just dreamin of all the fun memories to create...

We actually bought this because I was dreamin about putting it out front halloween night, blaring my loud halloween music, dressing up like a witch and passing out popcorn all night...
can't wait!!!

But then we decided we wanted to use it right away, so Ashlin invited her seminary class over for movie night in our backyard. We had a movie, popcorn, homemade rootbeer, a fire pit and roasted marshmallows...
Here's just some of the kids...
Such a fun night!

Then look at the cute gigantic "card" Logan made Aunt Chrissy for her Birthday:


Logan spent so much time on it, and it was all his idea to tape together multiple pages. (It is him standing next to her) And we cracked up at what he wrote on the shirts...


On her shirt she's saying: "I love you"

On his shirt he's saying "you love me"

Clearly, he feels loved!


So many fun things to create!! If only there were more time in a day. Thats okay... its worth losing sleep on occassion to make something cool!

(Pyramid picture by Logan)

BIG Dreams...

So, this is my cute little 6 year old Logan...

...he came downstairs last night and taped this cutest "Christmas List" on our hearth. I thought it was sweet... until I read the list...

then Bruce and I just laughed!

DSI, DSI games, IPOD, Laptop, TV, WII, a phone....

WOW, quite the high dollar list.

Bruce informed me that this can be his list too- ha ha

Dreamin Big!

Everybody WANG CHUNG tonight...

WARNING: IF YOU READ THIS POST, YOU WILL LEARN HOW TO MAKE EGG ROLLS, AND THEN YOU WILL NEVER LOVE A RESTARAUNTS, BECAUSE HOMEMADE ARE BETTER!

So, for Young Womens Ashlin chose as one of her value projects:

learning some meals in the kitchen.

She chose a few favorites, then I suggested ORIENTAL NIGHT, and we could make Fortune Cookies, Egg rolls and lo mein noodles! YUM! (My mom worked at a chinese restaraunt and taught me how to make some awesome egg rolls!)

So, ofcourse she invited some friends over for the chinese party, and my sister,... and we got cooking... they started with fortune cookies:

After baking, you quickly add a pre-made fortune and fold like a fortune cookie:

Best part about this, making your own fortunes! They made up like 36, we ate some that night, then they passed them out to people at school... a few of their favorite fortunes:

"Some day you might be as cool as Ashlin" and

"Some day you might be as cool as Vanessa"

While those hardened, we moved on to EGG ROLLS:

Step 1: Veggies
GRATED carrots, Cut up cabbage, Bean Sprouts, Green Onions

Step 2: Stir Fry
(The essential ingredient is above, SESAME OIL, adds fab flavor!)

First, stir fry your chicken in sesame oil, remove, shred or cut in small pieces. Add all your veggies, with some salt and Ginger. Stir fry a few minutes until cooked, then add the cooked chicken and a little soy sauce.

Then you are ready to assemble the egg rolls!
(You buy egg roll wrappers from the refrigerator section of the grocery store.)

Scramble a raw egg... then to assemble, you get an egg roll wrapper, put filling in the middle, then using the egg to seal the egg roll, you fold it up!

After they are assembled... you fry them up!

(before and after)

To make the lo mein noodles, you use your left over filling. Fry some cooked thin spaghetti noodles in sesame oil, then add your left over filling, and some snap pea things...
Add some soy sauce to taste... and you have quite the scrumptious meal:

What a fun night!

Then afterwards, to work it off, we went iceskating!And even Lily and my sister came too...

I titled my post "Everybody Wang Chung tonight" because that was a rockin 80's song- after I put it on my blog, I thought I should look up the meaning, you know, just in case... and it actually means:

"go out socially and have some fun"- PERFECT!

Everybody Wang Chung Tonight! :)

Blessing

Sophie Marie was blessed:

Sunday, September 6, 2009

She was blessed by her wonderful daddy!

It was such a beautiful blessing. My feelings of gratitude were so full. Before the meeting even started my eyes were brim with tears. Each time an extended family member walked in the chapel, to come and hear Sophie blessed, I teared up anew. I felt so thankful, that even with our 6th baby, people were still there to support us. It meant so much to me and my emotions were so tender. I have felt so humbled, since having Sophie. I feel more than ever my constant dependence on the Lord for strength. It has been such a growing experience for me. I have felt, more than ever, just how much the Lord blesses us with strength as we seek Him. I have been humbled because as I have brought on more things in my life, I realize even more so how much I cannot do this on my own. I feel so dependant on the Lord. I am so thankful for that. But it has also been humbling because I feel less and less able to "please" others, or meet expectations the world has (or what I think the world has of me as a woman). I feel in my prayers a stronger desire to just become more who God would want me to be, and please Him and let go of worrying what others think of me. As extra time has become more precious and rare, I feel this greater need to spend all the time I can on my family.

Our FIRST family picture with the 8 of us!
(On Sophie's special day)

Look at my cute baby smiling!
We had a little photo shoot in the mothers lounge in the church. I wanted to get pictures of her on her blessing day. So after I nursed her I propped her in the nursing chair (and the white changing table-first photo above) and we had a photo shoot!

I love sundays! The week days are so busy with everyone coming and going here and there. Thank heavens for the Sabboth Day.... when we let go of all the hustle, turn off the TV for the whole day, and turn off the Video Games... and just hang out as a family!

Emma took this picture of me and I laughed when I saw these, because how rare it is for me to be ALONE on the couch....
....It's more often like this:

...but also often like this:

ha ha, never lonely, thats for sure!

Here is cute Sophie hanging with her dad on her blessing day, how lucky she is to have such a wonderful father... and look, he doesn't get to be alone on the couch either! ha ha

We love you Sophie!!

Rainy Day

Yesterday morning we woke up to such a beautiful sound...

pouring rain! That is a rare treat in Arizona. Bruce had taken the baby downstairs and let me sleep in (I heart you Bruce). So when I came downstairs the family had been awake for a while and I was SO happy to see that my children were doing exactly what I would have wanted...

playing in the rain in their swim suits!

This is one of my favorite Arizona memories as a kid... playing outside in the warm summer rain! But I remember the streets being flooded with water whenever it was pouring rain, darn them for improving the city drainage systems... because it was SO fun to splash around in the deep rain puddles gathered to the sides of the road while it was raining!

We lived in Colorado for 4 years while Bruce was in Vet School. I remember one of the first times it rained in the summer and I wanted to take my little Ashlin and run out in the rain... but to my shocking surprise... it was freezing cold!! We never could run out and play in the rain in Colorado.... that is one benefit of living in hot Arizona!

This picture Logan spent a long time making yesterday. He called it "D & L Extreme". He told me it stands for "Dallin and Logan". I thought it was so cute. I recently have been realizing that even though my children weren't born as close together as I had wanted (we had multiple miscarriages) they are still so close to eachother. Dallin and Logan are 5 years apart (Emma is in the middle of them) but they still play together a lot! Logan usually sleeps in Dallin's bed with him, because he says he's scared to sleep alone. The other night Dallin was doing Rockband with Bruce, so I put Logan to bed first with Lily in bed with him. I told Dallin as he went to his room, "you get your bed all to yourself tonight, Logan is already asleep with someone in bed with him". A few minutes later I went back to check on Dallin.... and he was sound asleep... where.... in bed with Logan and Lily. It made me smile

Sophie's first rain... Then Ashlin and Macy had their own rain party on our deck with Lily. They took all of these pictures:

Loving the rain and moving on to fall weather... yeah!