Life with Children

Okay I know I've said before that life is exciting and there is never a dull moment, and that comment is true if you like getting apple juice from a juice box squirted all over you, or you've just finished painting a wall and all four of your kids come running by and every single one of them rubs up against your beautiful wall, ruining their shirts. This is the kind of week I've had. One of my friends calls it a "fork in your eye" week. Not to mention one of our parakeets, Blue, died and my beautiful girl just turned eleven. It really is a lot to handle all in a week.

Last night we went to an auction at church. The youth groups are raising money for camp this summer so they were auctioning off a lot of baked goods. As soon as we got there the kids were eyeing a bright red fire engine cake (it was adorable). We told them that we'd try to get it. Finally the desired cake was up for auction, much to our surprise another little boy also wanted the cake. The bidding started and finally we gave up at $50.00. The kids were very disappointed so we bid on some cinnamon rolls and finally won them for $40.00. I told the young man that made the cinnamon rolls that we expect pictures from camp, I was just kidding of course. Anyway this morning I received a phone call from the mother of the little boy that won the fire engine cake. She was inviting our whole family over to eat the cake with them. It was a very nice gesture and I couldn't say "no", even though I knew they were in for a wild time, especially considering they only have the one boy. So we went over, we brought some ice cream to go with the cake. I had told the children beforehand that it was very important for them to use their very best manners and to say "thank you". Everything was going pretty smoothly, we had eaten cake and ice cream and the children were playing in the back yard. After a while we decided it was time to head home. I looked out back and noticed that all the kids were playing in the garden area which was now a big muddy mess. I told Paul that we needed to go get them and leave before they came back into the house. So we loaded up our stuff and were headed for the door when all of a sudden all of my "sweet", muddy children came running into this beautiful, immaculately clean house. My heart just sank as I saw muddy footprints all over her white carpet. I told her that the kids were good cleaners and that they were willing to scrub the carpet. She kindly turned me down, who can blame her, and said not to worry. Like I said a "fork in your eye" day.

TaeKwondo - A Good Thing

This last Thursday Tyler and Brayden both got their yellow belts in Tae Kwondo. They've worked hard, and I love that they are learning to have more respect (they now say "yes maam" or "no maam"). They also learned to count to ten in Korean. Just last week I saw Tyler sitting on the floor in his room with his eyes closed and I asked him what he was doing and he said he was meditating. I say anytime he can sit still and be quiet is a good thing!

Sad News

Some sad news. President Hinckley, the beloved leader and prophet of our church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) passed away this evening at the age of 97 years old. Our family loved him. I'm grateful for all that he has done to help the church and to also help us as individuals to become better people. He will be missed, and not forgotten!!

Broken Laptop

Paul just left yesterday to go to Omaha for work, he'll be gone for 2 weeks. He is working on a plane at the Air Force Base. He called last night to tell us that he made it safe and sound, unfortunately his luggage did not. On one of the flights his bag was apparently dropped and now his lap top is shattered. He showed it to the man working in the Baggage Claim area and then to the Supervisor and they said they are not obligated to cover his damages. What a bummer, that laptop cost him about $1,500.00. I guess that is probably why they don't want to pay for the damages. Oh well, knowing Paul this is far from over.

Ski Trip from....

We attempted to go skiing for the first time this last Monday. We had been planning the trip for about a month and thought that we were prepared. When the day finally arrived we spent the morning making lunches, running to the bank, and a quick trip to Wal mart to buy scarves. We finally arrived at Monarch Mountain at about 1:45. We then signed up for lessons for the whole family. Ryan and Brayden were too young to have a group lesson so they each got a private lesson. The rest of us were able to have a group lesson together. We then proceeded to get our boots and skis, easier said than done with four kids that have never worn ski boots before. The kids could barely walk and were not afraid to complain loudly about being hot (they were still in their snow pants, coats, hats, and gloves). We finally got all geared up and ready to ski, it was now about 2:45 pm. Ryan and Brayden left with their instructors and the four of us went outside with our instructor. We started by learning how to get up when we fall, and how to walk up the mountain with our skis on (this information would prove to be very useful as the day progressed). Then our lesson progressed to learning how to make a pizza shape, or wedge with our skis, now the info on how to get up when we fall was coming in handy. All of us were doing pretty good, except Alyssa. She kept falling and became very frustrated. She started to cry (DRAMA, DRAMA, DRAMA). We all became her cheerleaders and would shout words of encouragement to her, because we definitely could not go to her and help her up, that would require us to move with skis on and that was taking a huge chance of one of us skiing down the hill backwards. Anyway she finally got up, with the instructors help, and our lesson continued. We then got to practice skiing a little way and stopping by making the pizza shape with our skis. Alyssa, of course, would not even attempt this. She was standing in the same spot during the whole lesson. The time had finally come for us to learn how to ride the lift and actually ski down the bottom part of the mountain. At this point we saw Brayden skiing down the mountain and waving at us, I must admit I was happy that he picked it up so fast, but a little jealous too, because at this point I was still standing knocked kneed with my skiis in the pizza shape. Our instructor then tells us that we can get in line and ride the lift, as we are making our way over to the lift he then tells us that it is closed and time to head inside. It was already 4:00 and time for the place to close. So basically we spent $500 on lessons and skis, not to mention drive time, food, and snowpants for everyone and some of us didn't even get to ski. What a day!!!

Our Family

Our family consists of me, Paul and our 4 children.

Alyssa is 10, Tyler is 9, Brayden is 6, and Ryan is 3.

We also have several pets that are a part of our family. Our dog (Jada), two parakeets (Daisy and Blue), a fish (Rainbow), a frog (Kermit), and last but not least, a guinea pig named Oreo.