Cheer Central

Best Husband Ever!

2009-09-06T20:18:00.003-06:00

Okay, so I always had an inkling that I had the best husband ever, but the last few weeks have definitely solidified the title for my dear husband, Jeff. He's always been caring and sensitive, and mostly helpful around the house and with the kids. He's a wonderful, amazing father and the kids adore his every move. Audrey always hears the garage door unlocking and races over saying, "PAPA!!" Alex will run to give him a hug after work and say, "I missed you Hapuh!" (Yes, I said 'hapuh.' Alex insists on saying Papa with an 'Ha' and a 'puh') Yes, we've always known Jeff to be an overall extraordinary person. But with all the events of the last few weeks, he has really stepped out of his proverbial shell and just sort of come to life.

This trial of late has definitely been hard so far, and I don't anticipate it getting miraculously easier overnight. But we're working on it. And Jeff is ever working on the small and simple ways to make things just that much easier and more enjoyable along the journey for me. Case in point: He bought me a vacuum!! Anyone who knows me will know this has been a long time of pleading and whining and nagging and promising I'll save money in other areas to afford it to get a vacuum cleaner that works! Well, he up and bought me the one I wanted yesterday! I was so excited. Too bad it took something like cancer to get it, though! I'm not even well enough to use it yet! But it gives me that much more incentive. Weird, huh? Incentive to kick cancer is so that I can use my new vacuum cleaner?? Ha ha. Yeah. That's totally me. But hey, it's a dang cool one! Canister (so the kids can help too) bagless, hardwood/carpet, easy clean, washable filter... and it sucks! Literally! Here's my prince at work. I caught him using it on the family room when he thought I was sleeping. Thanks my man! You seriously are the best, you know. They're not the best quality pictures. Poor lighting and I think there was a smudge on the lense. But here's my prince!

First Day of School! - NOT!

2009-09-05T22:07:00.005-06:00

I finally got Sarah's first day of school pictures. She was supposed to start August 31. But she didn't get to go to her first day of Kindergarten!! :'( The poor girl was sick all week! She finally was well enough and felt up to going on Thursday morning. She had a lot of fun, and likes her class. She especially likes that her close friends are in class with her. Doesn't she just look so cute?

Mom has been in town the last week helping me through this chemo stuff and helping me get organized so I can continue the treatment. She's been an amazing help with the kids, the house, the yard... well, just about everything! Thanks mom! Here are a couple of pictures of what she's been doing to beautify the front of our home. Sarah enjoyed "helping" her plant some new flowers around our walkway. I don't know if she was quite as much actual help as she thought, but it was cute anyway.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day all day today. Joe (I think) caught this picture of a rainbow swooping across the mountains behind our front yard neighbors. It's so peaceful... a very nice way to sum up my day.

Need A Nap?

2009-08-29T18:12:00.005-06:00

Apparently I did! Jeff snapped this shot of Audrey and me the other day. I was already lying on the couch, and Audrey I guess just missed me while I was gone in the hospital. She came up and cuddled with me for quite some time before she fell asleep. And when she fell asleep, what else could I do? So I took a nap! I actually don't like the picture much. I've never been a fan of how I look sleeping. People say that they look at their spouse or their children while they're sleeping and they just look 'angelic.' Well I understand that when looking at my kids. But I don't think I've ever seen a picture of myself sleeping that I would consider angelic... Oh well.

Oh, and apparently, Sarah needed a nap that day too. Only this is where we found her instead. She's on top of the back of the couch in the living room.

With all that's been going on, I've been a little lacking in the blogging world lately. I almost didn't post the boys' first day of preschool! They went to Ms. Helen's 3 year old class for the first time on Thursday this week. They were so excited to bring their backpacks and wear the little nametags Ms. Helen made for them. For whatever reason, when we take pictures of the boys, they don't actually smile. We say "Say cheese!" and they actually say "cheese." This is how their faces turn out. But despite the funny expressions, don't they just look sharp?

I started the photo taking with Alex, but soon Sarah and Audrey sort of casually inched their way closer and closer into the picture. I guess they didn't want to be left out.

Show me your backpacks, boys!Fun times.

Look At Me, Mom!

2009-08-20T19:36:00.003-06:00

Audrey is so cute lately. I mean she's always cute. But having been so busy lately, I fear I've neglected her just a little. Especially trying to get Sarah ready for Kindergarten, the boys ready for preschool, well child visits scheduled (not attended, yet), my own medical care attended to... and many other things tugging at my daily clock every day. Today, the older three were downstairs while Audrey was napping on the couch upstairs and I was in the kitchen cleaning up snack messes. When she woke up, I gave her a snack, and sat down on the computer to check some email. My back was to her. A few minutes later, I hear this amazingly cute and proud little voice say, "look at me, mom!" I looked. This is what I found.She was so proud of her accomplishment. And it was strongly reminiscent of Sarah at her age. Sarah was the founder of lining up things. Shoes, toy animals, food, silverware, cups... you name it, she lined it up.

A little while later, Audrey grabbed my pill boxes off the desk next to me and started naming the colors. She started from the bottom and worked her way up one at a time. Here are the boxes:and here's what she said: Yehyow (yellow), puhpuw (purple), guhcus (Lucas), Ahyek (Alex), me, *pause* Yehyow (yellow - naming the same yellow box as 'me' and 'yellow"), Yehyah (Sarah), and why (white). I corrected her on the orange one being orange, then she proceeded to name them again and I told her that Lucas's color was green, Alex's was blue, Sarah's was pink, etc. It was cute. She was doing that because the kids' favorite blankets are those colors, and so many of the things that we buy are color coded for them. She was absolutely right! Lucas usually likes green. Alex likes blue. Sarah likes pink. And when Audrey doesn't get purple, she always chooses yellow. It really made me smile today and I wanted to share. Our little baby is growing up! I'm looking forward to getting to spend a little more time with her whilst the older three hooligans are off at school. Love you Audrey!

Chuck E. Cheese's

2009-08-10T14:34:00.010-06:00

Since Sarah had a big party for her birthday, we went to Lagoon the day before and saw fireworks on the Alex's and Lucas's birthday, Sarah got a huge horse barn and the boys both got bikes, we decided we should do something special for Audrey since she wasn't having an actual party or getting anything real big. What else? On the Saturday before her birthday, We went to Chuck E. Cheese's! Now, we didn't actually reserve the place and have a "party" there, we just went as a family. The kids all had a ton of fun and Audrey was just in heaven. Here a bunch of my favorite pictures from that excursion.

This isn't the best picture, actually none of these pictures are that great, but I loved the expressions on Alex and Lucas's faces in this one, so I posted it anyway.

This was one really EXPENSIVE pizza! Of course, we got game tokens, drinks and a ton of fun with it. And the pizza was actually pretty good. And everyone is actually looking at the camera. That's a rarity.

This isn't just a bad picture; it's terrible! But here's Sarah and Lucas, my little TV stars! They were standing in front of a blue screen and their images were projected onto whatever was on TV at the time. At this time, it was a coke commercial.

Hugging Chuck. I couldn't get my camera to take the picture when I actually wanted to. It took 3 kids hugging Chuck E. before I got one of the actual hug instead of seconds after. This one was right after Lucas hugged him. Apparently, he thought that was pretty cool.

He was so excited about it that he went back for more later!

Sarah, doing her favorite thing. Riding a horsey!

She gave Audrey a ride with her the next time. They could steer the horse and make it jump on the screen by moving the reins and pulling the saddle hilt. It was actually pretty cool. And Sarah was in heaven, of course.

"Hellllp!"

And the prize at the end! If any of you have been to Chuck E Cheese's lately, you'll remember that the number of game tickets it takes to get anything from the prize rack is outrageous! This one took 500 tickets! A simple dum dum size sucker was 10! Anyway. Sadly, this ball lasted less than 24 hours. It was deflated and had a couple of holes in it by the next afternoon.

Audrey had just finished her sucker in the car. She was so tired that it didn't even register to her that I was telling her to smile.

And she's out. Probably 2 minutes after leaving the parking lot.

So were Alex and Lucas!

We had so much fun celebrating Audrey's 2nd birthday at Chuck E. Cheese's. Happy birthday cutie pie!

Happy Birthday Audrey! - 2009

2009-08-10T10:57:00.004-06:00

August 9th is Audrey's birthday. She turned 2! Happy birthday sweetie! Since we were going to church on her actual birthday, I decided to make Audrey a matching dress and princess hat to wear to church. Here's how it turned out. She loved it. I also made Sarah a dress to match. Hers was pink, though with the pink and white gingham sash instead. I neglected to get a picture of her, though.

I don't know what it was about squirt guns yesterday, but Audrey had one in her hand pretty much all day long. This is after her nap and before her little party we had. She's shooting Papa. "Psheew!"

And of course, the cake. Cookies for those who don't like cake, and cake for those who do! Princess themed, of course, for our little princess. This one was super easy, by the way. Not as much work as you'd think for a cake.

Here's the birthday girl playing with her favorite present: Lip Smackers lip gloss. She's such a girly girl. She got princess dress up clothes, a doll, lip gloss, nail polish, two books, a stuffed lion (from Sarah) a bubble blowing machine, two books, and a few other little things. All girl, for sure.

Happy birthday my sweet baby! My "baby" is two now! Wow.

Oh, and I almost forgot. It was our anniversary yesterday, too. 7 years. We had this little cake after lunch to celebrate. And that's about all we did to celebrate. I think we'll go on a date later. And we've decided that we'll just celebrate our anniversary a week later from now on. Audrey can have her birthday. I guess that's what I get for going into labor on our anniversary! The day no longer belongs to us. Happy 7th anniversary Jeff! I love you!

Chaotic Kids.

2009-08-04T08:55:00.009-06:00

Oh, these kids! What am I going to do with them? We were all downstairs yesterday. I was working in my craft room, and they were all playing with toys and watching a movie. Sarah had a friend over, and they decided they would prefer playing upstairs instead, so Sarah opened the door to upstairs. They were all free! Or so they thought anyway. They all went upstairs. I was almost finished with the project I was working on, so I let them play upstairs unsupervised for maybe 10 minutes. MAYBE. I finished up, came upstairs and smelled pepper. Great. Here's what I found.

So sad.

Notice the stool? That was the original enabler of mischief.

They made the mess, so they had to help clean it up.

SIX bottles were empty. The last two, the bacon bits and sage, somehow survived. I think it's because the bacon bits were larger and harder to shake out of the can, and the sage because it's the one they were working on when I came upstairs, so I saved it.

In other chaotic randomness, the other day I saw this
It's where we hang our keys. Notice anything missing? The keys, maybe? Usually, when Jeff is gone at work, the key hooks are half full. It's a good thing I noticed that before I had to walk out the door! I had time to scour the house looking for lost keys before I really needed to use any of them.

Don't you just love when they document their own misdeeds? They were playing in the library before I had it all finished. Someone found an almost empty can of Dr. Pepper. Audrey promptly claimed it as her own. Probably because she's never allowed to have any when mom's watching.

All the pictures were down leaning against their designated walls before I had a chance to hang them. Nothing broken. Just lots of goopy fingerprints.Aren't kids just so much fun??

Secret Project! - Afters

2009-07-31T15:21:00.007-06:00

Yep. I'm finally posting them! I'm taking a serious risk here that Jeff will NOT check the blog between now and when he boards his plane to come home in a few hours. Let me just preface this post by saying that this has been the least fulfilling "secret" project I've ever done! I was hoping to do it while Jeff was gone out of town this week, and he would come home not knowing anything about it. But he looked at the blog while he was gone (which was a possibility I was fully aware of when I posted. I just really didn't think he would!), then he called on Wednesday night and talked to the kids. He thinks I painted the girls' rooms since I've been painting stuff lately. So he asked Sarah what color her room was, and she started telling him all about what I've been doing! I stopped her before she said too much, but I don't know how much he heard, or understood. So I don't know how surprised he'll be when he gets home, but at least he has no idea what the colors are...

I did not paint the girls' room, by the way. I did, however move Audrey in with Sarah, and painted Audrey's old room. It's no longer a bedroom. It's a much more useful and much cooler room now.

Here's a hint.

I finally found a good place to put these framed prints! I really love where they are now. And I love this room!

Now this picture's not that great, but you get the idea.

Here's my new comfy bench. I made the big long cushion, and all the pillows.

Here's one more before picture I forgot to post.

And the after: The last thing left for this part is some magazine holders for all the Scientific American magazines, Ensigns and Friends. I wasn't willing to spend $10 per holder at Walmart, so I'm waiting until I find something more perfect and less expensive. I wouldn't mind putting a small shelf in there on the left and putting the board games on it. But I have to find one that fits first.

And here is Sarah's room (now Sarah's and Audrey's room) after. I didn't really do anything to it other than get rid of the bookshelf, and move Audrey's stuff in. I'll make it all pretty and cool later. The main change with this project was the new library. The girls really like sharing a room so far. We'll see how long it lasts before Audrey starts getting on Sarah's nerves. So far so good!

The kids love the new library. They go in, grab a book, sit at a table and read! I'd say it was a good idea. Wanna know the best part about this project? It was free! Well, almost anyway. Almost every single thing I used to change up this room came from our house. It's all stuff I already had, including the paint! And the paint only cost me $5 when I bought it ("oops" paint from Lowe's). I already had all the fabric and embellishments for the pillows. I had the boxes for the closet. They were plastic milk crates that I covered with fabric to match the bench cushion. I had the kiddie tables and chairs already. I just moved them from the basement, where they've been enduring constant abuse and misuse since we moved in. The bookshelf was in the garage with some empty boxes on it. We got it for free from one of our neighbor's family members. The paintings were hanging in the hallway, and I never liked that placement for them to begin with. Now I love where they are. The framed Proclamation to the Family was hanging in our family room downstairs, but didn't match with the other colors. Now it goes perfectly. The only thing I bought new, specifically for this project, was the plaque that says "Library, Shhh..." And that, I bought at Walmart for slightly less than $4. Then I stained it the same color I stained the tables, painted the lettering, and attached the ribbon. I even already had the hook that I put on the door. Now, the only thing left is the magazine holders. What do you think?

Secret Project!

2009-07-27T23:35:00.007-06:00

Here are the befores:

Audrey's room.

Sarah's room.
You're just dying of curiosity, aren't you? It's pretty much finished, but I want to put some last little touches on before posting the afters.

And by the way, this is what happens to my kitchen when I take the day "off" to work on a project.

"Look, Mom, Ants!"Nice...

Judge Ye Not.

2009-07-25T20:19:00.003-06:00

I was at the grocery store picking a watermelon this afternoon with Alex and Sarah when we noticed a lady watching us. She was obviously waiting until I was finished so she could pick her own watermelon. I began thumping from one melon to another, and when I heard one I liked, I picked it up and put it to my ear. After giving it a good thump, I decided I liked what I heard and placed it in the basket with Sarah. Throughout this approximately 15 second process, I noticed the expression on the woman's face go from quizzical to condescending. If I could read her thoughts, they would have said something like, "yeah, right. Like you have any idea what you're doing." Or "yeah, right. Like knocking on a few melons is going to get you a good one." She literally rolled her eyes at me as I left. I thought to myself, "Go ahead and laugh lady. I'll be laughing the entire time it takes me to eat this delicious, perfectly ripe and juicy watermelon, while you go on guessing which ones are good or not for the rest of your life! I know exactly what I'm doing here." You see, after I left, I noticed her look around the box without touching anything, grab one out and put it in her cart. There's no way she could tell just by looking whether the melon was ready or not. Well, here's to you watermelon lady! Hope yours is just as scrumptious! Now the only thing that would have made my watermelon even better is the $0.19/lb I would have spent on it if I had gone to Wangsgard's instead of the $0.33/lb I spent at Smith's!

Happy Samoan Flag Day!

2009-07-23T11:22:00.004-06:00

July 23 is Samoan Flag Day. With July 24 being Pioneer day, and Samoa being a smaller, seldom well known but beautiful asset to the United States, many people probably don't even know that July 23 is Flag day in Samoa. Well it is! So here's to Samoa! Anyone want to go visit?

Summer Vacation - 2009

2009-07-20T14:17:00.017-06:00

***WARNING: A blogging backlog causes a backup of pictures and information. Since I've been incredibly busy lately, this post, and the few that follow, cover all the way back to the boys' birthday. So there are a LOT of pictures, and a TON of information. Just be forewarned.***

Our summer vacation this year followed a three week stint of Jeff being gone out of town on business. It was a much needed respite for me. We went to Washington this year because, if you can believe it, my 10-year high school reunion was this year! We got up early on Friday, and drove a total of 14 hours up to Bonney Lake. We stayed with Keith and Janet for the first couple of nights because Janet was gracious enough to offer to watch our little rugrats while Jeff and I attended my reunion on Saturday night.

Washington, here we come! Audrey played peek-a-boo to pass part of the time.

Pretty soon, Lucas got in on the action. But Alex was too cool for that.

Here are Jeff and I all dolled up and ready to go to the reunion.

And I had to include this one. Audrey snacked on some Chips Ahoy cookies after church on Sunday. Then she just couldn't stay awake. She fell asleep with chocolate all over her mouth, still clinging tightly to the bag of cookies!

Keith and Janet apparently had some pretty cool toys! These Power Rangers action figures made great substitutes for Voltron ones. They were definitely a favorite of the trip.

Sunday night, we had a barbecue at Grandpa and Grandma Tracy's place. Here are a few of my favorites from that night.

Alex had been eyeing Audrey's watermelon for a while. He finally asked her for some, and she eagerly obliged. Although I think she inadvertently dropped it in his lap. He didn't seem to mind.

Monday. The day of exploration. First was the chicken coop. We went inside to say hello to the chickens. They were all very excited about it... at first.

Once they saw the chickens come out of their little lair (the box they go in to lay their eggs) squawking, they decided it wasn't so cool anymore. Notice the sheer fright on Lucas's face in this picture. They bolted out of there just as fast as they could saying, "Scary in there. Scary in there."

Next, we made our way to the barn. The grass was just so tall.

I actually climbed all the way up to the loft where the zip line still sits. It was a little scary. That barn is pretty old and the wood looks it in some places. I was afraid to venture out to the edge for fear of the wood giving way and me falling to the ground on top of Jeff and the kids.

Audrey got a little distracted on the way back.

Then it was on to the creek! I guess it's become quite the popular little hike since I was a kid. They keep the trail nice and mowed down nowadays.

We made it!

Posing for Mama.

It was really cold water, but Sarah insisted on playing in it anyway. She got pretty soaked.

Audrey was perfectly content playing in the sand on the bank.

After the creek, it was time to go back to Grandma's house for some playing with cousins (second cousins)...

...Lunch...

...and naps!

After a while, and before another barbecue, we decided to go pick some pie cherries from the tree by the chicken coop. The kids really got into that and practically filled all their little buckets.

We stayed at Grandma and Grandpa's Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights. Each morning, Grandma made us some kind of hot breakfast. Being that it's collectively my family's favorite meal of the day, we were all in heaven! She was so sweet to make sure everyone always had enough to eat.

And Alex will probably kill me for this one later, but I just HAD to include these! He knew I was taking pictures, and he was perfectly willing to show me his funniest faces while sitting on the potty. Hey, it's not my fault he left the door open!

After breakfast on Tuesday, it was off to the Seattle Aquarium. This picture was taken by some random guy who probably didn't realize I had three other kids running around there somewhere. But I guess it was nice to actually be IN a picture instead of taking it. And Audrey really was enthralled by what was swimming around behind that big piece of glass.

Lucas was, too.

We took so many pictures on this trip, and it's hard to whittle them down to just the good ones. There were so many good ones. But here are some of my favorites from the aquarium.

We met Jeff's cousins Pam and Susie (sorry if I spelled it wrong) there, along with Pam's three kids. One of the exhibit attendants was kind enough to take this picture of all of us.

After the aquarium, it was back to Pam's house for a pizza lunch, and more fun playing with second cousins. I'm really glad we got to do this part because it was a ton of fun talking with Pam and Suzie there. It was hard to really communicate much at the aquarium because we all had kids we were trying to keep an eye on. It was very crowded that day. So we got to chatting and got to know them a little better there. We can't wait to see Pam and the kids down here in another few weeks!

Pam's youngest, Sophie, must have been thirsty. She found a little plastic spoon on the ground and started shoveling in the pool water! That little one has the biggest, cutest personality I've ever seen in a child so young! She's really a hoot. Very cute. (Pam, I made her stop after I snapped the picture. That pool water was pretty dirty!)

All the kids had fun picking dandelions and distributing them to the adults all afternoon as a symbol of their undying love and affection. Here's Sarah's pick.

I don't know what it is with my boys and driving. But somehow, everywhere we go, they always find something to "drive." The tractor at my Grandpa's house, the motorcycle at Pam's house, the toy car... I hope this isn't a sign of their eagerness to drive when they're teenagers.

Wednesday was Mud Mountain Dam day. We woke up to yet another hot breakfast, then the kids took the table scraps out to feed the chickens with Grandpa.

Here they all are watching them eat from outside the gate.

Apparently, chickens aren't so scary when there's a fence in between!

Here's Grandpa showing the kids his cool "scarecrow" owl that hoots and turns its head.

After a relaxing morning on the farm, we were off to Mud Mountain Dam to meet Rae Lea, Ashley (my cousin Jake's wife) and my cousin Josh's girlfriend. It's not so much a dam as it is a park with a water feature and lots of playground equipment. Here are some of my favorites from that trip.

They had so much fun there, they all zonked within 5 minutes of being in the car!

After that, we headed back to Keith and Janet's house for our last night before we headed home. The girls were absolutely infatuated with Megan. They all really loved her.

Thursday. The drive home. Goodbye, beautiful Washington! Here's the sun rising on Mount Rainier.

Jeff thought it was funny to try and be halfway in this picture. He said he could see the camera screen in the rear view mirror. But hey. What else are we supposed to do to keep entertained on a 14 hour drive home?

Washington was beautiful and fun. Unfortunately, this is what most of the drive home looked like.
Pretty boring, huh? But we're back now! And it's so nice to be home.

Squatters.

2009-07-20T14:02:00.002-06:00

We have some unintentional house guests of late. We noticed splotches of mud on our porch a few weeks ago, then noticed a couple of swallows sort of hanging around the front of our house. Pretty soon, this is what we saw.

We watched for a few weeks. No eggs. Then, all of a sudden, this is what we saw.
The pictures are very close up and not very good, but it was hard to get a good shot because the nest was so close to the corner of the front of our house and the ceiling of our porch. But they were sure cute! These were taken the day before we left for Washington. By the time we got back, the baby birdies were HUGE! I went to take a picture of some of them nestled in there, but was too abrupt and scared them out of the nest. They haven't all been back all cute and snuggly since then, so I'm just posting what I got. Anyone have any idea how long they might intend to stay? It's making quite the mess on our front step. I'll spare you the visual of that one. ;)

Happy Fourth of July! - 2009

2009-07-20T13:27:00.008-06:00

This one was fun and relaxing. We didn't go anywhere special or do anything exciting. We just spent the day home spending time as a family. We even had a nice visit with Dave and Stephanie and their cute kids. Unfortunately, I wasn't intuitive enough to think about taking a picture with all of us together. Maybe next time! Here's cute little Addi, though. I got quite a few pictures of her, but this was my favorite expression. It was halfway between "cheese!" and "Hey, gimme that camera!" Cute.

And Blake. He found Lucas's belt and was pretending it was a snake.

Austin and Chase spent almost the entire time downstairs watching cartoons with Sarah. It made for a little quieter visit for the parents upstairs, except that Alex and Lucas had just woke up from a nap when they arrived and were not real happy about it. They were fighting over who got to sit on Jeff's lap almost the entire time.

Jeff didn't want me to even take this picture, much less post it. But I had to. It still makes me laugh. He was sort of hum-singing (halfway humming, halfway singing) The Star Spangled Banner whilst eating it's replica. (see below). I found it nothing short of hilarious. Sorry Jeff. This one had to make it in here. Probably in our "Year in Review" book this year, too!

The kids helped me make flag and star Rice Krispy treats as part of the festivities this year. It was scrumptiously fun! And it's what Jeff was eating.

Oh, and my hair! I dyed it red and blue for the occasion. I had put some pink in my hair a few weeks before, and was unhappy with how fast it faded and washed out. So this time I tried a different brand of color. It was great! Bold and bright. However, I should have been thinking more about my upcoming high school reunion that was to happen in 7 days. I had 7 days to wash it all out. It didn't quite make it (see WA trip post above). Oh well. Live and learn, right? It looked cute for the day.

As I said, we didn't go anywhere this year. We are privileged to have a fireworks show presented by the city of North Ogden conveniently held at the high school stadium up the street. We walked up to our neighbor's driveway and watched with them from there. Here's Alex and Sarah watching them light off their own fireworks in the street before the big show.

Right before the big show started, I had to run and get Audrey from escaping down the street. As we were coming back, the first fireworks were lit. Here's her expression when she saw them in the sky for the first time! She said, "Pretty!" and pointed up at the sky. How adorable her innocence is.

I must have had the camera on the wrong setting. Most of the pictures were blurry and not very good, so I picked the best one. I love fireworks.HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AMERICA!

Another Cake.

2009-07-20T13:18:00.005-06:00

Actually, this one was brownies, by request. A friend of mine's son turned nine, and requested fireworks brownies for his birthday. So she gave me a handful of real fireworks, and a brownie mix and said "Have at it!" I love those kind of projects. I can be creative and not have to worry about doing exactly what someone else wants. It lets me exercise my creative brain muscles. So here's what I came up with. I left his name off, because they were going to include someone else in the party, but it still had nine sparkling trick candles on it. Too fun! He loved it. I think he loved the real fireworks more, but whatever. The brownies were still good. I really should start a cake blog for all these pictures. What do you think? Would you check it?

Happy Birthday Alex and Lucas! - 2009

2009-07-20T12:46:00.012-06:00

Yes, I know. I'm slow. We've been busy. But better late than never. The boys turned 3 this year, and it was a super fun birthday. They played outside all day with the family, we got to roast hot dogs in the back yard and eat cake. Plus, they got some pretty neat presents (photos to follow). All in all, they had a good day. Happy birthday boys!

Here's Alex's excited face. He was about to open presents.

Here's his face after opening practically each one of his presents.

Lucas was just as excited through the day, but just a little less expressive.

Poor little Audrey. She just couldn't understand why she wasn't allowed to open presents, too! "First, Sarah gets a bunch of cool stuff. Then Mama. Now Alex and Lucas? When's my turn??" Your day is coming, my dear. Just wait a little longer.

I'm so upset that I didn't think to get out the video camera for this one. Here's the boys' faces while running to thier next present. (see below) Alex actually screamed, "Ahhhhhh!!!" He sounded like a little girl; he was so excited.

And here's what they were running to:They're carrying the bags that they opened inside with their brand new helmets in them. They opened them up and said, "Cool!" but didn't realize that they were going to get spiffy new bikes to go with them! Alex's bike is a Spiderman bike, and Lucas's is a Transformers one. We let them choose which ones they wanted, and they both chose for themselves. Surprisingly, there was no fighting over the same one. Way to share boys!

Since Alex has a brand new "cool" bike, he politely gave his old one to Audrey. Actually it was more like, "Here you go, Audrey!" as he hurriedly pushed the bike over to her, and ran (and I do mean "ran") back over to his new Spiderman bike. She didn't care, though. She was ecstatic that Alex would even let her touch it, much less ride it.

I think she was so in shock, she didn't quite know what to do with it, so she just stood there for a minute soaking it all in before getting on.

And, of course, the cake. Dinosaur. By request.Anyone notice anything out of place? Leave it in a comment and I'll tell you if you're right!

Unfortunately, they thought my coconut-laden palm trees had "poop" on them! Ehh, I tried.

Last, but not least, here we all are waiting for the Pleasant View Founder's Day fireworks show. It's always on or around the boys' birthday. If we ever move anywhere else, they're going to wonder why we stopped doing fireworks for their birthday! I guess we'll just have to never move! Yeah... we'll see. Since it doesn't get truly dark until almost 10pm, Audrey zonked before she actually got to see any fireworks! Oh well, maybe next year little cutie.HAPPY THIRD BIRTHDAY BOYS!

Lame.

2009-07-11T00:22:00.002-06:00

Yep. I am. I have so much to blog about, but too little time to fit it all in. Just letting everyone know I'm still here, and we're still doing loads of fun stuff. The boys had a birthday. We took a family trip to Lagoon for Jeff's company picnic. Jeff went out of town again for another two weeks. I made a Dick Tracy coat and hat. And now we're all chillin' at Keith and Janet's house in Washington! It was a long 14 hour drive by the end of it all, but the kids were really wonderful. We got here around 5:30, ate pizza and pasta, then I realized that my ear that just wouldn't pop after crossing Chinook Pass was not getting any better. It was getting worse and more painful. I have an ear infection! Yikes! Luckily, Janet knew just where to go to get a nice antibiotic prescription started before all the pharmacies closed down. Hopefully I'll feel better before my reunion festivities tomorrow night! Wish me luck. I'll blog more and better later when I can get some pictures up of all the fun stuff we did in the last few weeks.

Before and After

2009-06-25T20:54:00.005-06:00

I neglected to take a picture of the family room before I started moving things around and taping up. But you get the picture.

This was a difficult task for me. We have so much of so many colors in our home that it was very hard to choose a paint color that wasn't going to clash with something. I don't know if this was the right choice, but I kinda like it. I think any color paint looks better than the white we had before. It really makes the crown moulding and the fancy floorboards pop. What do you think?

And the kitchen. I wasn't sure I should do this dark a color in the kitchen, but away I went anyway. I actually really like it, though. You have to picture this with black granite countertops and some other kind of backsplash, though. Those are on the list of changes we plan on eventually making to this kitchen. But I think it turned out fairly well.

So there you go. Jeff was out of town for both these room projects. He didn't know I was even painting, much less what color it was going to be. After he got home and had seen it, he said he likes it and that it looks really nice. I would have to agree.

Happy Father's Day! - 2009

2009-06-21T15:38:00.004-06:00

I just wanted to take this moment to wish my darling husband a happy Father's Day.

Jeff - I am so blessed to have you in my life. You do so much for me and the kids, and I really couldn't do it without you. You are such a great dad, and an amazingly supportive husband. I really appreciate you. I hope you're having a good Father's Day, even if you can't be with us today. We all love you more than you know!

I usually make Jeff some kind of picture frame with current pictures to take to work for Valentine's Day. I don't remember if I did that for him this year or not. But if I didn't, he got one for Father's Day instead! If I did, then he'll just have another set to look at on his desk when he gets lonely. Recently, we've gone on a couple of outdoor outings with the kids. They really enjoyed it, and loved the time we spent as a family exploring nature. That's where most of the pictures in this Father's Day collage came from.

The kids also really enjoy making pictures of their hands. They like to trace around their fingers, then color them all in. So, naturally, this tie with all their handprints on it was a fun choice for this year's Father's Day gift! It was fun to make. It was the first tie I have actually made, and I'd say it turned out pretty nicely. Plus, it was fun to paint my lips and plant a nice wet one on the tie to remind Jeff how much I love him!

In case he couldn't figure it out, I also wrote this little reminder on the ribbon on the back that holds the little part of the tie in place.

Jeff, you are truly loved. Don't ever forget it. Happy Father's Day Jeffrey-Love!

Things that make me happy

2009-06-19T21:49:00.004-06:00

Among many other things...

Cuteness and Cake

2009-06-18T13:11:00.006-06:00

Sarah and Audrey are becoming the best of friends lately. Sure, Audrey bugs Sarah sometimes when she takes her horses and runs away giggling, or when she tries to wear Sarah's favorite shoes (It's starting early, I know), but they really do enjoy playing and laughing together. Audrey tries to be just like her big brothers and sister. She follows them around copying everything they do all the time. She also copycats everything they say. They sure love each other!

Here the kids are enjoying an afternoon of painting. Audrey just had to see what that yummy looking green paint tasted like.

And cake! This is the birthday cake I made myself for my birthday girls' movie night last night. It was fun. We talked, ate, played, laughed, and watched the movie Sneakers with Robert Redford. It was fun to hang out with some good friends and relax a while.

The grub. Mmmmm....

Happy Birthday to Me! 2009

2009-06-14T17:54:00.007-06:00

I actually had a few days' long celebration for my birthday. It so happened that the ward campout fell on the weekend of my birthday this year. Friday night we got to go across the canyon to a campground our Elders' Quorum reserved for the ward. We got there early and enjoyed a couple of hikes as a family.

This is random, but can you believe this?? This is my not-quite-two-year-old daughter trying her best to be just like her older siblings. She got these princess underwear on herself. The do belong to her, by the way. She's right around the corner from potty training!

Back to the birthday:
Off we go to find an adventure!

We found some water. Fortunately, the water was far enough away from the gathering space so as not to pose any kind of threat to wandering children. And they did wander... a LOT. Good ol' outdoors!

They got tired and started crawling. Whatever.

Done crawling. Time for some help up the last leg of the trail! And maybe some water.

The view from our campsite. It was so beautiful and peaceful.

Off on our second hike! It started out as a drive to keep the kids entertained (the games that were supposed to be played didn't exactly turn out as planned... we had to improvise). But then we found a trail leading to the "Waterfall." So we hiked it. Off we go again! Over that log!

We made it! It was beautiful. A little scary because the trail was steep and there was a rocky embankment down to that waterfall. But it was pretty.

And we're back! Everyone really liked it. A few bumps and bruises along the way, but we all made it back in one piece.

After dinner, we hung out by the campfire. Here's Sarah's first attempt at roasting marshmallows. I think she had more fun sticking things into the fire than actually roasting the mallow to eat it... obviously.

Day two:

The cake.

Can you tell what the kids' favorite movie is this week? Jeff did a good job replicating the two towers in the Lord of the Rings movie for my cake. And it was chocolate. Mmmmmm..... chocolate.

The kids really liked singing Happy Birthday to me. They were very excited to give me my presents they picked out, too. Cute.

Blowing out my candles. Where's the other 22?

Cheese!

I think Lucas and Audrey really enjoyed Papa's cake, too.

It was a really nice birthday. I went shopping for a good portion of the day all by myself. I got a few things for my birthday, came home and had cake waiting, and had an enjoyable evening with Jeff after the kids went to bed. We watched a movie and I painted my nails (desperately needed. See blowing out the candles pictures...). I went to bed relaxed and ready for Sunday. Happy Birthday to me! Thanks to everyone who made it special.

Pretty In Pink

2009-06-12T11:06:00.004-06:00

What do you think? I'm crazy, I know. But I was originally thinking a darker, brighter pink. So this is pretty subtle. It's actually a lot cuter in person. The pictures make it hard to see. But you get the idea!

Happy Birthday, Sarah!

2009-06-08T10:56:00.012-06:00

While she was here on Sunday, Grandma Kohler mentioned that it was going to be hard to top this birthday for Sarah. I think she's right! Sarah had an entire two-day long celebration for her fifth birthday this year. On Saturday, she had her friends come over for a water party. They all had a blast playing in the sprinklers, chasing each other around with squirt guns, fishing out little toy goldfish from the kiddie pool, and blasting each other with water balloons. All that, combined with cake, capri suns, treat bags and a pinata filled with candy... how could they not have fun? Sarah really enjoyed herself. Her favorite gift of the day was Sleeping Beauty's horse. It walks, bows, twirls its tail and makes trotting sounds. It was the only gift that we knew she wanted ahead of time. Her best friend, Katie picked it out for her.

Okay. These two pictures pretty much sum up her Saturday water party:She had so much fun that day, and she couldn't quit smiling for very long. My friend Nicole took these. I'm so glad she was there to capture some really great shots. I was so busy taking care of party things that I didn't take as many pictures as I would have liked. Thanks Nicole!

Here they all are blasting each other with water balloons. As you can see, Jeff got in on the fun with this activity.

And we can't forget the squirt gun fight.

Preparing the pinata.

This is what happens when, after the pinata was broken, I say, "Audrey! Candy!" She came running.

I think she's developed a bit of a sweet tooth... Here she is waiting for her second piece of cake:

Speaking of cake, I couldn't leave out the coolest part of the party. Or should I say "hottest?" Sarah really liked this one. She got to keep the sunglasses for wearing later.

And here's the reason I was up so late so many nights this last week. Didn't they turn out cute? We only broke one of them, so I have three left for either decorating or using later. Although the one we hit with the bat didn't last long. It dented right away, but apparently we needed something a little stronger than yarn to hold it up. The "string" broke and the kids ended up having to beat the beach ball senseless right on the grass! Future reference noted. They still thought it was fun, though. And when Jeff took the broken pinata and made it rain candy from the sky, they all scrambled screaming to pick it all up. Whatever works, right?

Okay, on to the second day of partying:

Grandma and Grandpa Kohler (Grandma Dee Dee and Grandpa Smoky) came over for Sunday dinner and a second round of presents and cake. Now this was fun. After dinner, we had Sarah open up a couple more presents we had for her. A book, puzzle, and Sleeping Beauty's dress with two of her fairy godmothers. Only the dress, you say? Where is Sleeping Beauty, you say? And where is the other fairy godmother, you say? Well, let me show you:

Now didn't that turn out nicely? Sarah was ecstatic to see this one. She knew exactly who it was. Then she saw that it lights up to change the dress color. Heaven. The doll goes with her favorite present of Saturday: Sleeping Beauty's Horse. The doll can actually ride it. Yep. Heaven.

But that wasn't all. As she was eating her cake, a little trail of baby horses mysteriously appeared in the hallway and up the stairs to Sarah's room. When Sarah saw them, I said, "Sarah, they must know something. Maybe you should follow them." So she did. All the way up to her room, where she found this:

Now she has a new favorite birthday present. She wouldn't even come out of her room to watch the movie Grandma Dee Dee had brought with her (Disney's Bedtime Stories) She caught the last fifteen minutes or so when she was tired of playing alone. She played with her new barn for hours that night, and spent a good portion of her time in her room playing with it today. She also spent a good portion of her time giving hugs and kisses, and saying "I love you, Mama." Sometimes varied to say, "I love you too much, Mama." She really likes her new birthday presents. She's definitely a cutie! Happy Birthday, Sarah!!

Can't She Just Be All Girl??

2009-05-27T17:11:00.003-06:00

I have been blessed with two beautiful little girls. It's been a lot of fun making cute outfits, trying out new hair bows and clips, painting in pinks and purples, and coming up with whatever other girly things I can think of to make my little girls girly cute. However, apparently it's been more fun for me than for Sarah. For the longest time, her favorite colors were red, blue and green. Her favorite movie was Jurassic Park. Her favorite toys were horses and dinosaurs. Her birthday party last year was "horsey" themed, which translated into cowboy hats, bandanas, and a brown chocolate horse cake. I was so excited this year because recently Sarah has turned into quite the girly girl. She is now interested in dress-up, princesses, her favorite color is pink... I was thinking for sure I'd get to do a pretty, flower- or princess-themed birthday cake for her. Did you notice I said "was" excited? When I asked her today what kind of cake she wanted, she said "A Zelda cake, mom!" Zelda? Really?? She wants the wolf and Midna from the Twilight Princess game. I mean, that has to be the farthest thing from girly and princess that I can imagine. I even tried to convince her to let me make her a Princess Zelda cake. Nope. Wolf and Midna. That's it. Oh well... At least Audrey's too young to care still...Come on... You can't tell me that she's not all girl!!

A Real Update

2009-05-26T15:25:00.005-06:00

Or at least the end of one, anyway. This is the last of about 6 posts I've done today. I guess that's what happens when I get busy and my blogging gets backed up! So just be aware that there are about 5 more posts after this one, and TONS of pictures. Enjoy!

Okay, so this post is a tag on to my Memorial Day update. If you've read the ones prior, you'll know that we recently put a fence in our back yard. Since doing so, letting the kids play in the yard has been much easier and much less stressful for me. However, apparently it's been much less entertaining for the kids! They've spent most of the days in the new fenced in yard trying to get out! Successfully some of the time... since Jeff is scheduled to go out of town for a big chunk of this summer, we've been looking for something to keep the kids a little more entertained in our back yard. A playset, trampoline, sandbox... some kind of novel toy to keep them more busy playing and less occupied with escaping. Well, yesterday we found it! Have a look, see:

About halfway into the setup, the kids started to find the box a more interesting toy.

Audrey woke up and came out to see what was going on out in the back yard. She had fun watching Sarah hang upside down from the frame.

Moved to a better spot, and almost done attaching the net. They couldn't wait any longer to start jumping!

And they're free! They love their new trampoline.

Happy Memorial Day 2009!

2009-05-26T14:51:00.009-06:00

Jeff had the day off from work, and we decided to make it a fun ending to a three day weekend. After much deliberation throughout the weekend, Jeff and I decided to take the kids on a "hike" in the morning after breakfast. We went to a trail in Ogden that wound around a very large pond, and also touched up next to a river. The kids really loved exploring through the tall grasses and flowers. The trail was just over a mile long, and seemed to be just the right length for our little family. We were almost back around to the car when the kids started getting tired. They thoroughly enjoyed their hike yesterday.

Here I am in my red, white and blue tribute to the veterans.

This is one of my favorite pictures. If you could see her from the front, you'd notice her left hand is in her pocket. She was mimicking her older siblings who all found it very relaxing to walk around with their hands in their pockets.

This is what happens when we say "Alex and Lucas, come sit on this bench!"

As you can see, there was no sitting involved. Audrey was wondering where everyone went all of a sudden.

Along the way, the kids saw lots of things to stop and examine. This one was a great big snail.

They saw lots of different colored flowers along the way as well. Each of the kids picked one for me.

Even Jeff picked his favorite to add to my beautiful bouquet.

I graciously added his contribution to the others for this picture.

But here is it's ultimate resting place... I mean... you can't really blame me. It wasn't the prettiest, and it was prickly!

Here's the final bouquet. I would have put them in a little vase of water when we got home, but Lucas ended up stepping on them in the car and they didn't make it home in one piece. Oh well. At least I have these pictures to document the fact that my family loves me.

These are some of my favorite kinds of pictures. Jeff is such a good dad, and really loves the kids. Sarah had so much fun riding on Papa's shoulders. And Alex was just delighted to help push his little sister in the stroller. He loves to help, and he loves his sister.

Lucas couldn't be left out, though. Jeff was nice enough to indulge his request to be picked up. The car was only about 50 feet to the right behind Jeff in this picture. He carried them both the rest of the way there.

Happy Memorial Day!

Yet Another New Addition.

2009-05-26T14:33:00.003-06:00

And no, we're not pregnant. Here's the kids enjoying an outdoor picnic a week or so ago. Notice anything different in the background?

How about now? Anything different about the front of our house?The Farnsworths have a fence! And it is SO nice. The kids can play in the back yard without Mom worrying about who is walking into the street, or into the neighbor's open garage door, or into the pond... you get the picture. WOO HOO! Hooray for summer!

Another new addition to our property are these beautiful Gerbera Daisies. These are my absolute favorite flower, in case anyone wanted to know. I planted a few around our mailbox this year to add some colorful cheer. Aren't they pretty? I needed a "mommy break" a few days ago, so I walked outside and sat down in the grass next to my mailbox and just looked at these flowers. It was eerily calming. But it did the trick. They cheered me up.

And my little gardeners. They helped me dig up some plants I found annoying, and plant some seeds in their place last Saturday. They were very excited to wear their gardening gloves and dig in the dirt with Mama and Papa. It doesn't matter what the activity, I think they just love being outside. They're my little cuties!

Happy Mother's Day

2009-05-26T14:11:00.003-06:00

I had a pretty nice Mother's Day this year. Jeff did a lot of the wrangling, cleaning, cooking and other tasks that usually fall on my shoulders on any given Sunday. We relaxed, watched a movie, ate food... I even got to paint my fingernails and toenails. I got the itch to make a cake, so I made one that sounded really good to me. It had strawberries and bananas in it, with walnuts, a sugary, nutty filling, and chocolate sauce. It was good. Unfortunately, the only picture I got of the day was of a piece of cake! But it did taste really good...

Ice Cream!

2009-05-26T14:01:00.005-06:00

Okay... There's nothing special about ice cream per se. But I'm pretty sure this is the first time my kids have had an actual ice cream cone. It was pretty fun to watch the pure innocence of childhood at its best.

And yes, for those of you who noticed the computer content in the background, that is in fact Arrested Development playing... On that note: the other day, we were watching the news. They broke to the Fox News Correspondent in Washington DC for a story. Lucas was sitting at the kitchen counter at the time. He saw the man on TV and said, "That's Michael, mom!" It was pretty funny.

Tyler's A Missionary!

2009-05-26T09:28:00.006-06:00

In the beginning of May, my family came up for a visit, and to drop my little brother, Tyler, off at the MTC. There were so many good pictures from that few days, and I am posting way too many as it is. I really enjoyed their visit. Love you guys! Here are some of my favorites:

The first night Tyler was in town, Jeff went and picked him up from my Dad in Salt Lake, and took him on the Father's and Son's camping trip with the boys. It was much more fun than the health seminar my dad had planned on taking him to that night.

Sunday was all about Tyler.

We had a pancake/waffle dinner with about six different flavors of syrups.

I spent most of the time doing this:

... And this:

My Great Aunt May and her husband LaMar came to celebrate Tyler's mission departure. It was fun to see them again.

This was the first time that all four of us siblings have been together in a very long time. It's been at least 3 years?? Probably longer. Anyone remember? Brooke?

Funny story: One of the nights we were all up late talking and messing around (this particular night found me coloring Brooke's hair), the power went out! I was in the middle of putting highlights in Brooke's hair with foils. Only about halfway done. I had to have Tyler hold a flashlight on her hair for me, while I had one on a headband and quickly finish putting the product in her hair in the dark! When enough time had passed, I had her stand in front of my car headlights to check the color because my headlights were the most natural and brightest lights we could find at the time. It was funny. Her hair turned out very nicely, too, I might add. It was just an interesting experience. Oh, a car hit a power box and the power was out for about 6000 houses for about 3 hours.

On Tuesday, we all got to go down to Temple Square in Salt Lake and see all the church history sights. We visited the museums, the tabernacle, the Temple grounds, and the distribution center. It was pretty fun.

This is one of my personal favorites from that day trip.

When we got back, we had a fun craft activity planned with Grammy and Grandpa Lance. They helped the kids decorate some T-shirts, and the kids helped decorate one for each of them to help remind them of their trip to Utah this year. It was a lot of fun, and the shirts turned out really well. I keep meaning to get a picture of each of them individually, but each time they're wearing them, I forget! Maybe when I get some I'll post the finished products.

During his visit, Sarah decided she really liked Uncle Tyler. Here she is enjoying her uncle's music. A few minutes after this picture was taken, she actually fell asleep right there. I think Uncle Tyler ended up carrying her to her room. Cute. All the kids really took to Tyler. They still talk about him now. Just yesterday, Sarah was naming off the ages all the kids will be when they get to see Uncle Tyler again.

And the purpose for the whole trip: Dropping Tyler off at the MTC.

My little brother's a missionary! Good luck, Tyler, and God be with you! I'm proud of you, and I love you.

A New Look

2009-05-20T08:50:00.003-06:00

Yes, I know. My blogging has been severely lacking as of late. This is a lame update, but at least it's an update! So it's finally happened. I know I posted recently about loving the long hair, but being frustrated with medication making it thin. Well, yesterday, I'd had enough! Ironically, the night before, I had just told Jeff that I wasn't ready to cut my hair yet. He's been wanting me to. He likes it short and wispy. But yesterday, I woke up and just came straight downstairs to get the kids breakfast before getting dressed for the day or doing my hair. It was down and just messy. I was looking at the ends of my hair, and noticed they were splitting. One, in particular, was split at least 3 ways! It's been over 10 years since I've had split ends. Not cool. To avoid getting more upset about it, I decided to put it up in a bun with a pen. That's the way it stayed until I went up to get dressed before taking Sarah to preschool. Since I hadn't showered or really done my hair yet, I decided to look in the mirror at my messy pen bun to see if it was presentable enough to be seen outside the house. It wasn't. I looked at the size of the mess of hair I had tightly wound up and stuck with a pen. It was SO TEENY! I mean, seriously TINY. It was the size of maybe a golf ball. Maybe. So sad. I ripped it out, put it in a ponytail, took small sections of hair and pinned them up around the base of the ponytail to create some fake volume. It looked good enough then, but I was still upset. I knew my hair was thinning because of my medication, but this was getting ridiculous. Later yesterday, after running some errands, I was passing by the train station where Jeff had left his car to take the train to work. Being the sweet, loving, amazing, awesome wife I am, I decided to go leave him a little love note. As I was driving through the parking lot, I passed in front of a nice hair salon. In the window was posted a sign that said "Tuesdays only: $10 shampoo and cut!" I thought to myself, "Hmmm... that's not bad." And I kept driving. Then, I realized, "Wait... TODAY IS TUESDAY!" That was it. I was cutting my hair. I left my note, got on the phone, and arranged for a couple of babysitters for a half hour later, and then there was no going back! Here's what happened:

What do you think??

Jeff also got a haircut recently. Only his was free. I did it. Here he is with his new do, ready for bed. Can you tell?

The Coolest One Yet.

2009-04-24T11:24:00.003-06:00

Cake anyway. Every art project I tackle turns out better than the one before. Each painting I do turns out better than the one before (at least, I'm more satisfied than the time before), The Easter dresses I made the girls this year were my best work yet. This cake I made for my boys' friend is, in my opinion, the best one of it's type I've made yet. It was pretty fun to do, and he loved it. His mom had planned to bring cupcakes to the park for him to share with his friends as kind of a pseudo-birthday party. He didn't want to go! He said he would rather stay home with his cake. She said he sat at the table just looking at it, and sneakily picking off little "DOTS" bushes and eating the tracks. But he wouldn't touch the train part. He didn't want his dad to cut into it when it was time either. I'd say it was a hit!

At the "birthday party" at the park, Sarah rediscovered her love for climbing in trees. All the trees in our yard have branches too high for her to reach. She found a few at the park that she could reach, and up she went. WAY up. Check these out. They're vaguely reminiscent of myself as a child...

She's the high, out of focus pink blob in this one...

Here's the cupcake assortment Brittney and I stayed up WAY too late the night before decorating for all the cute kiddos. They turned out really cute, and the kids couldn't wait to devour them.

Alex and Lucas couldn't wait to show me which ones they picked.

Audrey couldn't understand why she couldn't just eat the candy off hers, and choose another one with more candy.

And here's the birthday boy. Happy Birthday Bradley!

The Real Easter 2009... Well, Outfits Anyway.

2009-04-20T14:05:00.005-06:00

None of these pictures are very good. But they all accurately depict the mood for the day. Since Stake Conference fell on Easter Sunday this year, I had the girls wear the dresses I made the week after for church instead. These were all taken after having just walked home from church. The weather was beautiful, and apparently, the boys' sweater vests were a little warm for them. But they all still look adorable. Take a look.

My Little Bug Hunter

2009-04-16T08:50:00.005-06:00

It was just an ant. But he was so proud that he caught the yucky bug that was scaring Mama! What a brave boy...

Okay, now what is up with THIS???
It's supposed to be Spring, isn't it? I have never been so done with Winter. My family is coming into town in just over two weeks. This stuff better be done before then or they'll never want to come back!

Happy Easter, 2009!

2009-04-13T09:28:00.012-06:00

This Easter was a bit different. We actually had Stake Conference fall on Easter Sunday this year, and it didn't start until 3pm. We had all morning to relax, have an Easter breakfast, egg hunt and just spend time together as a family. Then we all got dressed and headed down to the Ogden Tabernacle for Stake Conference. Let's just say, for future reference, Jeff and I have decided to swap babysitting between us for the adult session and main session of Stake Conference in the upcoming few years. The kids were pretty good for about the first half hour. After all, the Easter Bunny had left them some colored pencils and cute coloring books with their names and favorite things to color for church that day. But after that, the last hour and a half were pretty interesting... and we'll leave it at that. Here's how the morning went:

The Goods:

This face says it all:

Trying on his new hat:Now the funny part about this, is that the hats actually don't fit! Apparently, my boys have really big heads. These were sold in the toy section of Walmart, along with fireman hats, policeman hats, construction hats, etc. They're made for little kids, right? I guess my boys aren't little! Whatever. They can smoosh them on, and they're perfectly happy with that.

Breakfast. With toast, jam, milk and bananas. The kids had a lot more fun coloring these eggs a few nights before than they did actually eating them. Audrey really liked them, though. The boys liked the white parts. Sarah wouldn't touch it after she peeled it. But she had fun coloring and peeling!

And they're off!

On the hunt.

The handsome videographer (yes, we're all still in our pj's).

Can you guess what Lucas's favorite color is?

Audrey's catch. She kept getting distracted with what she could find inside the eggs...

Divvying up the loot. We had them all open up all their eggs and put the candy in a ziplock bag. Then, I sneakily snatched up all the eggs to put away for next year! I've learned in years past that the empty eggs are fun for a while, then they end up broken and underfoot about 100 times a day. So we left out the ones that they got from the city's egg hunt the day before. In all, there are probably a dozen of those eggs out right now instead of about 5 dozen. Much less mess...

Candy happy.

Here are the girls in their cute Easter skirts. They've been their cute Easter skirts for 3 years! Sarah's still fits from the first year (she's still super skinny!), and I had enough extra fabric to make Audrey one last year. Hers fit perfectly this year. I didn't take very many pictures of this outfit because I have tons in the same outfits already. They actually had their little white hats to go with. But those were put back in the closet as soon as we got home so they can be modified for next week's "real" Easter dresses. (I'm making their 2009 Easter dresses to wear to our ward meetings next week.)

After Stake Conference, the boys went straight to bed. Audrey and Sarah hung around for a bit while I made dinner for Jeff and I. Sarah worked on her reading with some help from Papa and her flashcards. She also impressed Jeff with how much she knew about all the different states, and who lived in each one. She's becoming quite the proficient little reader lately.

The dinner. Roast and mashed potatoes with homemade rolls, peas and gravy. Mmmm...

My favorite part of Easter Sunday this year. We didn't plan this nice candlelight dinner. It really just happened to work out this way. But Jeff and I put on some Jazz music, sat alone in the twilight and watched the sunset behind the distant mountains through our kitchen window while we enjoyed a quiet meal together. It was like we were on a date in our own home! All the kids were in bed, and nothing interrupted. Ahhhhhh... Happy Easter.

Here are a few of my favorites from the city's Easter Egg hunt. We went when we lived in Laveen, and it was a very enjoyable, fun time. So when we heard Pleasant View was putting one on, we had to participate! We even saw a few friends there.

The Secret!

2009-04-09T09:19:00.005-06:00

I've found the secret to making thin stringy hair look fuller! Really, I have! Just take your kids to the park on a very windy day. Then, when you get back, don't brush your hair. It will look nice and full and thick... at least until you get sick of it being tangled and feeling dirty! Yeah... maybe it's not the greatest solution. But it was still a fun time at the park yesterday. We went in the morning at about 10:30. It was pretty nice when we started out, just a little windy. But, then, it started getting COLD! The winds picked up, and the temperatures dropped. After a little over an hour, we decided to come home and eat lunch. Our friends who met us at the park, came to join us in peanut butter sandwiches with strawberry-banana jam, goldfish, apples, and chocolate chip cookies. Yum, yum! It was fun. The kids really enjoyed being at the park again. It's been since last fall that we visited the park. Here's some favorites. Audrey was kind of the star of the show this time because she just kind of hung around me. The other kids were having way too much fun to pose for pictures.

And then there was lunch.

It's Finished!

2009-04-08T01:41:00.002-06:00

Well... sort of. The fence is yet to be installed. It's in the works. But the announcement to the neighbors is finished. To read all about it, check out my other blog, http://ashleigh-impressions.blogspot.com. It has a picture that's definitely worth seeing.

Good Hair Day.

2009-04-07T14:04:00.003-06:00

I gotta say, I'm really loving my long hair right now. Unfortunately, the medication I'm on is making it fall out in handfuls. Obviously at a faster rate than can be regenerated naturally. So, I decided to document it for now. When it gets too thin, I guess I'll just cut it short again. But for now, I'm enjoying the flowing, yet thinning locks. Anyone have any good thickness boosting tricks?

The Solution

2009-04-07T08:42:00.002-06:00

I've posted my solution to the problem I mentioned on my Impressions blog a few days ago. Check it out and let me know what you think. I seriously cannot figure out how to make a link work properly on this thing... Maybe it's my Mac. But here's the link to the post. You'll probably have to copy and paste: http://ashleigh-impressions.blogspot.com

Conference Weekend

2009-04-06T12:34:00.010-06:00

I think this has been my favorite weekend in a long time. Jeff was home all weekend and pretty much just spent time with us. The kids loved that part. We watched Conference on Saturday downstairs in the toy room. I kind of liked that. The kids were there the entire time and were experiencing the talks while playing, coloring, eating snacks, and even spent a good amount of time sitting on Jeff's or my lap just listening (or sleeping!). I got a lot of miscellaneous "to-do list" projects done this weekend, and my favorite part - I started organizing my sewing/craft room! I am incredibly excited for this transformation. Being that it is a room specifically for me, and I tend to put my own stuff last on the list, the sewing room has been a mess of unorganized boxes and bins for the last 9 months (since we moved in) and has never been properly unpacked. It's coming along nicely. Not finished yet, but it's coming. Another favorite part of the weekend is a check we wrote. Why is spending money a favorite thing for me? Let me tell you. The check was written to a company called Direct Buy Vinly Fence. So what does that mean? We're putting in a fence! Finally! I'm very excited for that. Not so excited to spend the money per se, but to have the fence.

Here's my favorite picture of the Conference weekend. This is all the kids eating lunch during the second Saturday session (I think). The were raising their hands to sustain the leaders of the church as they were announced. Definitely my favorite.

I also got a chance to clean almost all the carpet in my house with my friend's in-home carpet cleaner on Thursday and Friday. It was looking pretty bad. I mean, it looked bad in the first place because it really needed replaced before we even moved in. But we figure why do that now, when our kids are just going to dirty it all up in no time flat? I think we'll put that project on the back burner until Audrey is at least 4. Unless we have another one. Then we might wait until the youngest is old enough to stop spitting up, spilling, having potty accidents, etc... on it. On the carpet note, I finally got myself a carpet cleaner of my very own! Yes. KSL. I love KSL. I got the exact one I've had my eye on in the stores brand new in the box for half the price. It hadn't been opened yet, much less used. I used it for the upstairs few rooms I've done and so far LOVE it. I think part of why I love it so much is that I got such a good deal. Good deals make me happy.

Here are some other random pictures from the week before Conference weekend. This one is from Wednesday. The kids were having a great time playing "ghosts" with their blankets. Audrey loves this. She also loves peeking out from behind the blanket saying "Here I am!" Yes. Her nose is a little goopy. But how could I get these pictures if I tried to wipe it first?? If anyone knows any great free photo-editing software I'd love to try it out...

After running around as colorful ghosts, they all decided it was time to take a nap. So it was off to the living room floor for a slumber party! Of course, they didn't really sleep. Just pretended.

This one has to be one of my "close second" favorites of Conference weekend. Audrey is very interested in the boys' potty training process. She just thinks it's the greatest thing that they get to wear underwear, and she wants to wear some too! I don't think that's exactly how it's supposed to go, Audrey...I love my kids. They're a lot of work, and my house is always crazy busy and crazy loud, but they make me smile.

Did I mention?

2009-04-01T00:11:00.004-06:00

That she loves books?

That they're best buds?

Whoops! How'd that one get in there??? Sorry, Alex. This one was just too funny not to post!

This is what Sarah thought of him wearing her skirt.Also, did I mention that she loves Jurassic Park? She was singing the theme song in her sleep at 6:25 this morning. It startled me awake because it was so loud. I thought she was totally awake. She wasn't. She was sleep-singing!

Good Mom? Or Bad?

2009-03-30T14:38:00.006-06:00

I've been feeling rather productive as of late. We made it to the grocery store this morning (yes ALL of us made it), which was a much needed excursion on multiple levels. Finally back at the house with the groceries put all away, I realized that the kitchen was clean enough to make some cookies. So we did. The kids all thoroughly enjoyed helping put all the ingredients in, and putting the M&M's on each one. Of course, they also thoroughly enjoyed "tasting" the dough and candies, as well as trying the finished product. Unfortunately, the cookie-making extravaganza turned out to be what their lunch consisted of. Along with a couple of glasses of milk. If I were a better, more health-nut of a mom, I probably would have insisted on some fruit and sandwiches before any cookie tasting of any kind. Oh well... maybe next time. At least they were all happy, right? Plus, it's not that common an occurrence to make cookies for lunch anyway. Here's me with the finished product. I thought I'd throw myself in there so those of you who haven't seen me in a little while will realize that I'm not really a weird-looking, balloon-faced mess ALL the time. See? I CAN look normal! Plus, I cut bangs recently and I'm still deciding whether or not they fit. What do you think?

Here's a second look to show the bangs more. Do I remind you of anyone? Just curious to know...

After our Cookie Extravaganza Lunch, the kids burned off some of their sugar energy playing "Voltron: Defenders of the Universe" in the kitchen and living room. Lucas was Zarkon. Sarah switched off between being the Black Lion and Keith, and Alex was Sven, and spent most of his time "dead" on the floor.

Lucas really enjoyed being the "bad guy," but wasn't always thrilled when the "good guys" fought back. Oh the challenges of learning how to play...

Ashleigh's Impressions

2009-03-27T19:10:00.002-06:00

I don't get nearly as much traffic on that site as I do here. And I don't usually solicit it. But I've posted a situation I would like some advice on from all you creative friends of mine. Please check it out if you have a minute or two and let me know what you think. And then after that, feel free to return often ;). Thanks. The link is to the right, or you can just go here:
http://ashleigh-impressions.blogspot.com/

Sandbox, Anyone?

2009-03-27T11:16:00.005-06:00

So do you think my kids need a sandbox?

The sad part of this is threefold. This box of dish detergent was almost completely full. I bought it maybe a week ago. And since my highly efficient dishwasher only uses about a tablespoon of soap per load, not much of it had been used yet. Also, this particular detergent works great, and I love it, but it's expensive. It comes in at about $6 a box. ($6 that is now all over my floor full of dust, crumbs and other common kitchen floor components). Probably the most frustrating part of this, though, is that it's not the first time this exact thing has happened... Live and learn, right? Right...

This kind of thing is what happens when I'm a little "slow" in the morning after staying up WAY too late the night before. It happens a bit more often than it probably should. I find it's the only time I can get things done more productively and truly uninterrupted. What in the world was I doing until 2am, you say?

I was folding 3 loads of mainly kids' finally clean laundry.

Making strawberry-banana muffins and strawberry-banana jam with the already overripe bananas that had been sitting on my counter for the past few days.

I also washed and put away two loads of dishes, wiped out the incredibly dirty, dinky countertop microwave that's taking the place of the new one we got until we get it hung on the wall, rearranging and re-organizing my food storage room since I have been just setting grocery bags full of food down there instead of putting them away (It's too cold in there right now!), and catching up on a few shows online in the process. However, here's this morning's version of me having had too little sleep, and too much to do last night.
Live and learn... I've got the living part (and repeating mistakes part) down. When do I start the learning??

Catch Up Time!

2009-03-26T15:21:00.009-06:00

***WARNING*** This post is LONG. But it's cute. So read it anyway!

We've been really active and productive over the last month, despite what my blog reflects. This first picture is just a little tidbit of fun from a few weeks ago. Sarah has a music mini-class in her preschool class every Thursday. This month, they've apparently been working on playing "Musical Chairs." Sarah found her little CD player and stack of primary songs in her room. She brought it downstairs, proudly put it on and started rearranging kitchen chairs. Pretty soon, she was playing Musical Chairs with her brothers and sister! I had to step in as Music Monitor so she didn't have to stop the music every time. This was the best picture I got out of the bunch. They wouldn't stay still long enough. But it was cute. Made me smile.

Sarah's preschool class got to go to the Treehouse Museum in Ogden last Friday. It was fun, but I'm incredibly glad I was not crazy enough to take all those kids myself! Jeff left for an extended lunch break to join us. After all, at a museum for kids, adults get in free! Here are Alex and Lucas showing us their "I'm being patient, mom, I swear!" faces. This was the gathering time before they got to be turned loose in the museum to explore what they wanted. They were seriously itching to get going.

I don't remember where this idea came from, but usually when I take all the kids somewhere like this, I take their picture at the place before we get all started just in case they get separated from us and we need help looking for someone. Having a picture of what exactly they look like and what they're wearing really helps people try and find them (not that that's happened to me... but I heard it was a good idea). Here's all the little cuties I had with me that day:

This one is Sarah's friend, Katie. She lives down the street and goes to the same preschool as Sarah. They made instant friends when her family moved into the neighborhood right after we did. We like her and her cute family. So does Sarah.

Here's Audrey "walking the plank" on this cute wooden sailboat. She really did walk right off the edge!

Lucas really enjoyed the xylophones hung on the wall.

And yes... that was Jeff playing in the background! I had to make him give up his mallet so Alex could play, too. ;)

Audrey loves books and rocking chairs (she has two in her room), so it was no surprise to see her relaxing in this kid-sized rocker by the shelf full of books!

This was by far Sarah's favorite exhibit. Can you guess why? Hmmm... let me see...

Audrey didn't realize this window was for creating medieval puppet shows. She just thought it would be fun to climb through.

Alex and Lucas soon found the fun with Sarah at what became their favorite exhibit also.

Lucas and one of Sarah's friends' little sister, Kate (She's just younger than Lucas) put on their own puppet show. Only Lucas forgot his puppet, and they both forgot to stay behind the curtain!

Here's Audrey enjoying making and "eating" her Japanese dinner.

With an entire two floors and a treehouse to explore, you'd think they would find their own separate places to play...

My cute little Firefighters.

My other cute little Firefighters with some stowaways on the truck!

On another note, can you believe these pictures?? If you live in Utah right now and are looking outside today, I'd say you don't believe them. But yes! It was actually Spring-like for a few days. These car washing, pool swimming pictures come from the same day as the Treehouse museum. It was a fun-filled, busy, exhausting, but very nice day.

Smiles...

2009-03-05T15:59:00.005-07:00

I've been feeling like doing just about anything but smiling the last couple of days. I decided to post these pictures to remind myself why all the stress is so worth it. Please pardon my lack of makeup, and the huge scratch in the middle of my forehead. That was courtesy of Lucas's toenail! (Gross, I know.)

Hilariously Immodest!

2009-02-28T15:45:00.002-07:00

We've been working on potty training with the boys lately. They've been doing remarkably well for how remarkably uninvolved I am most of the time! They will go, flush, wash up and even get dressed again sometimes. Well, this time, Alex never quite made it to the dressing part. I guess he was too tired!

Lucas decided it was terribly immodest for Alex to be naked on the stairs. He put this baby wipe over his brother so he wouldn't be embarrassed later. Too late! I already snapped the embarrassing photo! It was sweet, though.

Beautiful Pleasant View

2009-02-18T12:27:00.003-07:00

No, it's not a redundancy. It's the name of our little town. Not only is it the name of our town, but it's the truth! I LOVE where I live. I love my house. I love my yard (except for the lack of fencing :( ). I love my kids and family. I love my neighbors and my neighborhood. I just love life here right now. Yes... I said "right now," even though this post comes after an entire day of blizzard like snow that blanketed the almost completely visible grass with another foot or more of fluffy, sparkling whiteness. As the sun began to break through the clouds this morning, I couldn't help but reflect on the beauty of the nature I sometimes take for granted, yet am surrounded by every day. I absolutely LOVE the snow! Yes, it's cold outside. Yes, I'm ready for spring to come and the sun to warm it up enough for my kids to play outside again without layering up so much that they look like marshmallows. Yes, it's scary and dangerous driving in it. But it's BEAUTIFUL! Take a look:

Experimentation

2009-02-18T12:11:00.012-07:00

It's been a bit of a rough morning. Sending Sarah to her room to clean it, then the boys a few minutes later to help her, facilitated a much needed Mommy Break for me. Audrey came into the kitchen a few minutes later, and I smiled at her. She smiled this huge, loving, excited, and extraordinarily adorable smile right back at me. It was then that I decided to try an experiment. For the rest of the day, I'm going to pick random moments throughout the day and just smile at my family. A genuine, sincere, non-joking smile. And see what happens. It brightened Audrey's mood immediately. Maybe it will do the same for the rest of my family. After all, we could all use a smile, right??

Here's Audrey's bright return smile.

Alex must always say "Cheese!" when we ask him to smile for a picture. As a result, his smile is always a little off. Still cute, though!

Lucas thinks it's funny to squish up his cheeks and squint his eyes for a smile. It makes for a good laugh!

And here's me. I'm kinda loving my eyes this morning, so I decided to post a picture of their blueness!

Sarah would not smile for me this morning. She kept giggling and hiding from the camera. Hence the absent picture. Maybe next time.

Another New Addition??

2009-02-10T13:12:00.005-07:00

Yep! That's right folks! The Farnsworths are moving up in this world! And no. We are NOT having another baby. We have added a new member to our kitchen family, and I am SO incredibly excited about it! Not only because it's 95% the stove/oven combo I wanted, but because I got it dirt cheap!! Yes... I am the Bargain Queen! Take a look see:

I say it's 95% the one I want. That is because I would have preferred gas. However, our kitchen is not currently hooked up to a gas line, and I found this electric stove for such a great price, that I was willing to settle for electric for a little while longer in order to get the double ovens and major features this one provides. Hooray for bargain hunting!!

We still haven't gotten our refrigerator yet. But we did get a new dishwasher that I absolutely love with help from our home warranty (the one that came with the house gave out on us). Two down, two to go! Wish me luck!

GO CARDS!

2009-02-02T09:39:00.006-07:00

Okay. It would have been really nice to see them take it all. Giving up a record 100 yard interception return wasn't helping their cause, and a last minute Steeler touchdown seemed to seal the deal. The first half wasn't that entertaining to watch, but our Cardinals made it a great game in the 4th quarter. We had a few friends over that have ties to Arizona to help us share in the glory of the first Superbowl for the Cards since 1947. The first one ever for the Arizona franchise. It was sad when they lost it with about 30 seconds left to go, but it was definitely fun to cheer them on the entire time. The kids even got really into it and could be caught yelling "Go Cards!" in the other room. Maybe they were just reading each others' faces...

Here's Sarah celebrating by the food. Papa asked her to show off her beautiful Cardinal face.

Alex did really well letting me paint his face. I was completely done in about 3 minutes.

Lucas, on the other hand... He just would not sit still. It took me about 10 minutes to finish his..

What's that black stuff??

Oh... Go Cards!

Audrey was so interested in the face paints. She wouldn't stay off the table while I was painting the Lucas's face...

and she just had to see what the green one tasted like!

After much squirming, and even more touching her face, we finally got hers done. It seriously was only about 15 seconds of actual painting. The rest was grabbing her hands and trying to turn her face back to me. She thought it was a game. But she turned out cute! Sarah loved the heart.
If the kids hadn't had so many Rice Krispy treats, soda, chips and other junk food last night, we may have gotten them all to sit down together for a few seconds to take a picture of all the littlest football fans. But they were way too wound up. Plus, playing with friends is always way more fun than taking pictures! Their new friends Zack and Kenlee were there sharing in the fun. Kenlee really liked Sandy, and Zack thought it was the coolest thing to chase around the other kids with a little roaring alligator puppet on his hand. The other kids agreed. It was a very fun night.

Shadows

2009-01-27T14:18:00.004-07:00

Look at me. Two posts in one day! I'm on a roll! Don't get used to it. I'm back from taking Sarah to preschool dressed as you see below. She was so happy to wear her cute striped tights. When we came in the house, Alex noticed the sunlight and shadow of the blinds on the living room floor. He walked across it and turned around. Then he noticed that there was a little boy in the floor! So he started waving at him.

"Uh oh. You caught me!"
Then Lucas joined in.Aren't kids just so cute when they're discovering things for the first time?? I love this.

Independence

2009-01-27T10:37:00.004-07:00

So... Is it bad to let my daughter be this independent? I asked her if she was going to wear an outfit she had on this morning to preschool. (basically the top in this picture and red, dark pink and light pink striped pants - Last year's Valentine's pants). She said yes. I said, "Okay, but it's really cold outside. You should put a long sleeve shirt under that one." She said okay, and went upstairs. This is how she came out. I have to take her in about an hour, and I'm not making her change. She really wants to wear that outfit. So? What do you think? Too independent? To church yesterday, she wore a very cute sweater and matching kaki skirt. (greens, browns, golds and oranges)... And bright red tights with white snowflakes on them. I let her wear it. Am I ruining her? No one made fun or anything... she's got a good friend (same one) in both places that likes what she wears... I don't know. I think she's cute. But definitely a little eccentric.

Look Who's growing up!

2009-01-18T19:51:00.005-07:00

Audrey is getting just so big! She likes to do everything her older siblings do, and will stop at nothing to get the help she needs. She was just so sad this night when she had to eat strapped into her chair at the table while everyone else got to sit at the counter. So I put her up on the stool and let her give it a try. She kinda liked it. I wasn't so thrilled. My older three tend to fall off the stools still when they're not paying attention. Audrey's fall would seem so much farther and so much more painful. Plus, her scream would be just slightly more irritating. She's learned that if she wants attention, she has to be the loudest one in the room. She utilizes that new realized skill more than I'd care to admit. My house is always pretty noisy. But hey... I'm used to it by now! And no, this is not a typical dinner at the Farnsworth household. Jeff was out of town, and there was really no need to cook a big meal with leftovers that the kids probably would fight me on eating anyway. So it was corndogs, mac 'n cheese, apples and oranges. What a spread! Ironically, it was not one of their favorite meals anyway. They don't care much for mac 'n cheese or corndogs (weird kids!). Most of the fruit was gone, but we had an abundance of "leftovers" that night without me even cooking.

The Battle of Short vs. Long

2009-01-18T19:14:00.004-07:00

Well, as you can see, short won out. Sandy is getting used to the new house and her new rules. She's had a few "accidents" here because I think she used to have a doggy door at her other place, and didn't know quite where to go here. As a result, we found that her long hair often acquired some of the mess, and began to smell less than fresh. I decided to cut a little off, just so she wouldn't be dragging it around getting it dirty. In the grooming process, I discovered a horrible amount of matted and tangled hair under that beautiful froo-froo top coat! How incredibly uncomfortable that must have been! So... about 4 hours and a huge mountain of hair later, she's shaved nearly bald, and looking ever so comfy! See for yourself...

Now, normally I don't dress the dog up. Maybe once in a while. But it's still pretty frigid here in Northern Utah, and she's probably never had hair this short since she was born. I wanted her to stay just a little warmer on her potty breaks outside in the snow rather than shocking her system with a new hair cut AND frigid cold, so we got her this hoodie. Sarah actually picked it out. She sure looks cute doesn't she?

The bows only lasted about 3 hours. They're nowhere to be found now. She probably shook or scratched them out. I'll probably keep her hair just a tad longer next winter.

Reaction

2009-01-15T13:29:00.003-07:00

For those of you who wondered what Jeff's reaction to the post below was, here it is:

When he got home, Sandy was by the front door with Sarah. Since Jeff came in the garage door, he didn't see her until he walked all the way through the kitchen. Sarah knew he was coming and had a huge smile on her face. Jeff saw her and said, "What in the world is this?" He was clearly confused. At first, he thought it might be someone else's dog. Then he thought, "Is this our dog?" So he said, "Sarah, who is this?" The first thing Sarah said was actually quite hilarious. She said "We didn't steal her. A lady gave her to us at a house last night." Why she would want to reassure him that we weren't stealing, I have no clue. Now that he knew it was our dog, I could see the wheel's turning in his head. Here's what I imagine was running through his mind at that moment:

What did she (Ashleigh) do?

I thought we were trying to save money. (for a fence, TV, fix the Navigator suspension problem, refrigerator, etc...)

How much did she spend?

And probably some other things I missed or didn't pick up on. I asked him what he thought. With apprehension and confusion, he said, "She's cute." Then I proceeded to tell him that she was free, and quickly said why she was free so he didn't start to worry that there was something seriously wrong with her. (The owner was elderly and had been in and out of the hospital lately and couldn't take care of a puppy right now - along with her other Shih Tzu, and four other dogs that are living in her daughter's house with her) We seriously just lucked out. I saw the ad 8 minutes after it was posted, and was the first responder, so we got her.

Long story short: After hearing all the facts, Jeff is happy and excited to have a new dog in the house. We've both been missing Cosmoe lately, and have been talking about a new dog (what kind to get, when to get it, how much to spend, etc.). Jeff even said he had been thinking about starting to look online that very day he came home and found her here. I even thought about telling him to get me a puppy for Valentine's Day. So I'd say he's pleasantly surprised. We have been really happy with Sandy these last couple of days. She's very well mannered, yet playful. The kids absolutely adore her, and practically won't let her alone long enough to go to the bathroom! We were definitely blessed with a great find. Call me the "Deal Queen." I tend to find amazing deals on things we need or are looking for on KSL classifieds quite a bit.

Farnsworth #7

2009-01-14T14:10:00.007-07:00

And no. That doesn't mean I'm pregnant again. Here's the newest addition to the Farnsworth household. As you all know, we lost Cosmoe last September. Since that very night, Sarah has been praying to "please bless that we can get a new dog" every single night. I guess four months of praying for it paid off! We found "Princess Suzy Racoon" (Her previous owner named her Suzy. Sarah added the Princess, and Racoon. Couldn't tell you why...) on KSL Classifieds last night for FREE! We've had her for less than a day, and she's been wonderful so far. She's 8 months old, already housebroken, but still a puppy, so still trainable, and she actually really likes the kids. She's been attached to Sarah's hip all morning long just following her around, and has been very calm and mellow. Now for the funny part: Jeff has no idea we have her! He's been out of town since Monday and is getting back this afternoon. He called me last night at about 5, and I found the ad and called for the dog right after, and immediately loaded everyone up and went to pick up our new baby girl! We've been discussing getting a new dog for some time, but were thinking we'd wait until spring after we put a fence in the back yard. Being a sucker for a good deal, I just couldn't pass up FREE! I don't think Jeff will mind... We shall see. Isn't she cute? We bathed her last night, and brushed her out and trimmed up some scraggly hairs this morning. I was thinking I'd shave her all like we used to do with Cosmoe, but it's really cold here, and she might be warmer with the longer coat. Plus, I think it's kind of cute! What do you think? Should we shave her? Or leave her long?

**After Jeff got home tonight, and we had a family vote on what to call our new dog, we decided on "Sandy Beach." We'll call her Sandy for short. Sandy because she's sandy colored and Beach because... well you'll just have to ask Jeff about that...

Passie Time

2009-01-06T22:39:00.003-07:00

I think we've finally gotten the boys officially "off the passie." It's been a week or so, now, and we haven't given them one at all. We started by taking it away when they wanted to go outside over the summer (more because we didn't want them to lose them - they cost something like $2.00-$2.50 a piece!). Then, we started making them leave them at home when we went somewhere. Then we started snagging them up during the day when they put them down and were not looking. Eventually, we dropped passie use down to naptimes and bedtimes. A few weeks ago, I stopped giving them one during naps. They would ask for one, but I told them no, and let them whine about it until they fell asleep. It really only lasted about two minutes after I closed the door. (When they realized I wasn't coming back to give in to their whines.) About a week or so ago, I simply "forgot" to give them their passies at bedtime. They asked for them a few times, and have a few times since, but I think they're officially off! Hallelujah! My sweet little boys are growing up. And hopefully their teeth will not suffer from their prolonged exposure to the pacifier.

World Famous!

2009-01-05T17:38:00.005-07:00

Or at least in the patent world. Jeff has finally received his first patent approval. Congratulations Jeff! It's too bad it only took the reviewers a year and a half to finally publish it! Had he still been working at Mobility Electronics in Scottsdale, this published patent would have come with a nice $1,000 bonus. Oh well. At least he has something approved and published to put on his resume to add to his value. Here's the link to all the information: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2008/0319732.html?query=PN/20080319732%2520OR%252020080319732&stemming=on
Congratulations Jeffrey Love!

Merry Christmas!!

2008-12-29T21:54:00.008-07:00

And happy New Year! I know... How lame am I?? December 9th?? Okay... so I found my camera probably 2 days after I posted that it was misplaced. And I have a whole new set of pictures since then and still haven't posted any. Sorry. I never sent out Christmas cards either. Nor did I finish the gifts for my parents or Jeff's. I'm just all around lame this year. I'll work on that...

On another note, here are some of my favorite pictures from the holidays:

Here are all my sweet children watching Elmo's Adventures in Grouchland together. Audrey was sad, and Sarah decided she might feel better if she could sit with everyone on the chair. So she lifted her up there between the boys and covered everyone with the blankets. This is how I found them.

I waited until after church to get the pictures of all our cute Christmas outfits. Since church is from 1-4, and the kids haven't had naps or lunch... well... you get the picture. This was the best one of Alex and Sarah. I was laughing too hard at them to get a really nice one. And Sarah insisted on wearing her headband like a "Nephite."

Here is Jeff and Lucas. You might recognize Jeff's vest from a certain Halloween a few years back...

Mama, and poor little Audrey. She was so hungry and so tired. But ever so cute! And I think my face is starting to look a little better. What do you think??

Sarah helped me wrap a present she got for the boys one night, and as everyone was getting ready for bed, she kept asking me for things. "Can I have some ribbon, mom?" I gave it to her. "Can I have some tape, mom?" A little frustrated at this point because she was supposed to be getting ready for bed, I asked her why. In her semi-embarrassed and shy way she has when she's doing something cute, she told me she couldn't tell me. I gave her a piece. A few minutes later, she came smiling to me looking like this. She called it her "Santa mustache."

On Christmas Eve, the kids all get to open their Christmas Jammies. Here's alex trying to find the pockets in his. They all had ones similar to these and actually all kept them on the whole night! Our Christmas morning video had fully clothed and cute kids!

We had a true White Christmas this year. It snowed through the morning until about 11:30, then politely cleared up so we could all go sledding and play in the snow. Then it snowed when it got dark again that night. It was a lot of fun, and the kids all had a blast sledding down the hill at the high school with the tubes Santa brought, then making a snowman in our back yard. Here's some of them eating the freshly fallen snow on the little mini-hill Jeff made with the snow he shoveled off the driveway.

Here's Sarah trying to catch some snowflakes that began falling before we went inside.

That night, we jammed on the new Guitar Hero: World Tour game we got from Jeff's mom for Christmas. Everyone really likes the game, and these pictures are not posed! Sarah is actually playing the drums here, and Lucas is actually singing! He REALLY likes that part. He insists on having a turn with the mic every time we get it out. And we can't forget little Audrey. Every time she hears the game start up, she comes running and giggling. Then she'll stop in the middle of the family room and start dancing. Jeff let her have one of the guitars the other day, and she seriously thought she was playing. I love that my kids love music!

These ones are a little more random, but I really liked them. They're all from the last week or two.

I couldn't just give the boys a bath this day. First came Audrey, trying to climb in fully clothed. What else could I do but put her in? Then Sarah just wouldn't be left out. She insisted on bathing with everyone. They had a lot of fun splashing each other. They always love the bath.

This one is fondly reminiscent of my post called "Boys will be... boys?" from earlier this year. I just don't understand why they can't leave their clothes on! We always go in to check on all the kids right before we go to bed, and this is what we found one night. They fell asleep right by the door like this.

And this last one is from tonight. The boys both really love their two blankets they've had since they were born. They take them pretty much everywhere. Tonight, they had these two sippy cups full of water right before bed. They got two washcloths from the drawer in the kitchen, and were found walking to their room together with their "babies" wrapped up in their "blankets" all ready for bed. When Jeff was getting them ready for bed upstairs and one of them dripped toothpaste on the floor, Jeff took Alex's washcloth to wipe the spot up. Alex freaked out saying "No! Blanket!" Jeff then very apologetically helped him wrap his "baby" back up in his "blanket." That's not all. Alex named his baby cup "Bluie" (because his favorite color is blue) and Lucas named his "Greenie." Sometimes they just really surprise me. They're so cute!

Misplaced

2008-12-09T14:26:00.004-07:00

So I've been meaning to post about our trip to AZ over Thanksgiving, among other things, but I seem to have misplaced my camera! Not to worry, though. I know it's somewhere in the house. I just don't know exactly where. When I find it, I'll post the pictures from the past month. We've been doing a lot of fun things lately. We put up our Christmas decorations, including the lights outside. We went on a long drive to Arizona to visit family for Thanksgiving. We made Christmas cookies, and ate them all before we could deliver them! And we've spent a good deal of time with friends. Sarah has been learning a lot in preschool and doing lots of fun activities. Sarah, Audrey and I went to the tree lighting ceremony for North Ogden and even got to see Santa! Sarah told him all the things she wants for Christmas. She and Audrey both got a candy cane from Jolly old Saint Nick. Unfortunately, that was one of the events where the camera was MIA. I'm hoping to find it before our ward Christmas party so we can get a picture of all the kids on Santa's lap. We also said goodbye to a very dear, very old friend over Thanksgiving. Big Red. The Durango. He was a loyal and reliable friend for a very long time, but it was time to replace him with a newer more "reliable" version. The newest addition to our happy family is a 2004 pearl white Lincoln Navigator. We have loved the comfort and ease of use the Navigator has provided so far and are hoping it won't cause us too much grief with all the bells and whistles it has. Two slightly less new additions to our family are a treadmill and stationery bicycle. We purchased those about six weeks ago and have thoroughly enjoyed having them in our bedroom for our nightly exercise dates. Can't hurt to try and stay in shape, right?? So far so good. It really helps to have a work out buddy and the extra motivation having two people on a work out schedule provides has proven very advantageous. Being able to run a few miles without having to brave the cold of winter doesn't hurt either. Happy late Thanksgiving everyone!

"Candy"

2008-11-21T16:27:00.005-07:00

First of all, let me just say: When you get free stuff, take advantage! I got a small box full of apples from my neighbor, who got them from our other neighbor's trees. Free. Today, I made almost three quarts of applesauce. It would have been probably four quarts, except I waited a tad too long and had to throw away five or six of the apples. To buy that much applesauce at the store would be at least $10. More if I bought organic and unsweetened, which is what I get as a result of canning my own. As I was preparing to make the applesauce, I had to peel and core the apples first. I have a peeler that I can mount on the counter that peels, cores and slices at the same time. It peels the entire apple in one long strip. Sarah was fascinated with the whole process and was helping me on and off throughout it. When I was just about done with the peeling, she asked me if she could have some candy. I said, "what candy?" because there wasn't any candy out anywhere. Pointing to one of the strips of apple peel, she said, "This candy. Right here." She was obviously pretending that the peel was candy. She knew exactly what it was because she watched and even helped me get it off the apples. I said, "Really? Um... sure, I guess you can have some 'candy,' but I don't know if you'll like it." But she did. She ate two entire apples worth of peels! I guess that's good, right? Isn't the peel where most of the nutrients are in an an apple anyway? Go Sarah! She's picky and weird in what she likes to eat, but pleasantly surprises me sometimes.

Seriously?

2008-11-20T17:24:00.006-07:00

Okay... I sweep the floor pretty much daily. I'm pretty sure I swept it at some point yesterday, and if I didn't, I did for sure the day before. Either way, it was completely dirt free at least once in the last two days. Well, I swept it again today. This is what I gathered up:Seriously? After just ONE day?? Please tell me I'm not the only one whose kids make this kind of mess in their kitchen...

By the way, this is my 101st post!! Hooray for blogging! Had I been more organized or observant, I would have done a nice "100th post" post. Oh well. I have other things to worry about... like cleaning the floors! ;)

What's For Dinner?

2008-11-19T17:33:00.004-07:00

Usually, I like to make something yummy. I enjoy cooking, and usually like what I come up with. The rest of the family? Not so much sometimes. Tonight, though, I made whole wheat biscuits and the kids helped me cut shapes. They each chose which shape they wanted and we made peanut butter sandwiches with homemade banana jam and some raisins, pickles and goldfish. Nutritious, eh? They seemed to enjoy making these a lot more than eating them, unfortunately. I've been blessed with incredibly picky eaters in my children. Oh well. I love them anyway. Looks yummy, though, doesn't it?
So what did you have for dinner?

Pure Sweetness

2008-11-11T10:54:00.007-07:00

Jeff and Audrey had the privilege of attending Kathy's 60th birthday party over the weekend. She had a sixties-themed party for which I made Audrey a retro little outfit to wear. I was hoping it looked the part because it was terribly hard to find any pictures online of sixties fashion, especially for babies. Here's the outfit.

And here's the cutest little sixties baby!

Earlier this week, the boys had a playdate with the neighbor boy. Apparently, this is what happens when I let them stay up to play instead of napping during the day. Alex fell asleep at the top of the basement stairs.

And Lucas fell asleep at the bottom of the entry stairs.I'm not sure what it is about stairs, but that's the cozy place they chose to rest that day.

Now, these ones aren't the best pictures because I was in a really bad spot for taking them. But if I had moved, I most definitely would have missed the opportunity. Alex was very upset this morning because Sarah let Lucas sit in Alex's chair at the table so he could color with her. Alex wanted his chair and refused to sit on the other side of the table in the other chair. He came over to where I was sitting at the computer and sat down on the floor to cry. Audrey came over shortly thereafter and decided to try and comfort him. These are the pictures I caught of her patting Alex on the head as if to say "It's okay, Alex." You see... when Alex or Lucas accidentally do something to make Audrey cry, that is exactly what they do. They pat her on the head and say "Sorry, Audrey." She was mimicking their consoling behavior! What a sweetie.

Double Trouble

2008-11-06T09:48:00.003-07:00

This is why we don't own any crayons that are not "washable." At least it's one of my many reasons. Audrey also likes to eat the crayons, so washable is great for the rainbow colored slobber that ultimately ends up all over her shirt.

This morning, as I was following my kids around picking stuff up and cleaning up after them, I found this:

I asked Lucas if he did it and he said "No." When I asked him who did, he said, "Alex did." As I proceeded to clean it up, Alex walked in the room. I asked him if he did it, and he said, "No." When I asked him who did, he said, "Lucas." Now, I'm pretty sure Alex is the real culprit judging by the guilty look on his face and the color of the crayon. I'm sad that he's learning to lie to get out of trouble already. I guess all kids learn that at some point, right? Better to get a handle on this bad habit early... not to mention the coloring on the floor thing.

Post-Trick-Or-Treating Fun.

2008-11-01T12:14:00.006-06:00

**There are like six new posts here. This one is the last in the actual history of things, so if you want to see this week in the order it occurred, start with the post titled "Pre-Halloween Fun."**

Halloween day and night brought more trick or treating. We went to the locally owned grocery store where they always hand out candy throughout the store to the trick-or-treating patrons. We met with our neighbor friends there, then headed to the assisted living home (Emiritus Estates) down Washington for a visit with the elderly and more candy gathering. One of our neighbor's grandmothers lives there. It was fun to see the joy on the faces of all the elderly men and women as they saw all the cute kids in their costumes and handed each a piece or two of candy. After that, we came home to empty out our pumpkins, and get ready to stroll the neighborhood.

Once everyone returned home for the evening, the feasting began.

Here's Lucas saying "cheese" for the camera with a mouth full of candy corn.

"Mwah hah ha ha ha!"

On Halloween night each year, the kids are allowed to eat as much candy as they want... until bedtime. Then they place their pumpkins full of candy on the kitchen table as an "offering" to the "Great Pumpkin." Then it's upstairs to brush teeth REALLY well, and off to bed. In the morning when they wake up, there's a great new gift in place of the candy filled pumpkins that was left by the "Great Pumpkin" sometime during the night as a little "thank you" for the candy they so lovingly bestowed upon him. Here's what that looks like.

In the morning, the kids all came down to eat breakfast and found the gifts. Both the boys got new trains. Alex's pulls a car with a dinosaur skeleton on it, and Lucas's pulls a car with a bicycle on it. They were very excited about them. Here's Alex looking at his.

Lucas wasn't quite as thrilled with having a gift.

"Hey...

"Where's the candy???"

Audrey wasn't quite sure what to do with hers. At first, she picked it up and dropped it on the floor. She's been doing that with everything that she doesn't feel has a use to her lately.

Eventually, with a little help and guidance, she got hers opened. I think she likes it.

Sarah slept in quite a bit longer than the rest of the kids. Which is understandable. She did stay up quite a bit later than everyone else also. But when she finally did come down and see her new gift, this is what I got.

She got the Belle doll (from Beauty and the Beast) that goes with the princess horse she got for her birthday earlier this year. She was thrilled. Which is good, considering I bought it back in August because I happened to see it on sale and thought it would be smart to store it for an occasion where she might do something to merit a new toy like that. I'd say it worked out quite nicely.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Party Time!

2008-11-01T11:50:00.006-06:00

Well, I survived the sewing machine attacks and we were ready to go for the party in the morning. There were about 20 preschoolers, a dozen or so moms and one dad. The kids all had fun decorating halloween cookies, playing musical chairs, and making footprint ghosts. They had their fill of cookies, pumpkin shaped sandwiches, chips, grapes and goulish punch (apple juice mixed with 7-Up in a punch bowl with a blue, frozen, floating monster head.) Later that night, we headed over to the church for our ward party and door to door trick or treating around all the kids' primary classrooms.

Here's my little mummies decorating their cookies.

I can just see the thoughts running through Lucas's head in this one. "Hmmmm... should I put more candy on it?" He decided in favor of that option.

Here's Audrey at our ward party. Unfortunately, she was feeling a little ill that day. She did have plenty of smiles at the party, but my camera takes so darn long to focus and take the picture that I missed every single one of them! She made such a cute creepy baby mummy, though, don't you think?

This is my "cool kid" Lucas. He was posing for me at the church before the costume parade.

Our little mummy family won "Best in Show." Which really earned us nothing but bragging rights. There was no actual prize. This was the only picture of our entire family on my camera. I think a few other people got some good ones. But I only have one.

Alex really liked his "scary clothes."

Here's Mommy Mummy with her baby.

Cutest, littlest mummy at the party.

And the sugar high begins...

Scary Papa Mummy!

Poor Audrey. She did so well despite not feeling very well. Then she zonked.

Here they all are on the ride home showing off their mummy growls.

I Sewed My Finger!

2008-11-01T11:34:00.004-06:00

That's what I get for procrastinating and staying up late. I waited until three days before the first Halloween party to start on the three new costumes for this year. Sarah's, Alex's and Lucas's. I finished Sarah's and Lucas's, and half of Alex's in a couple of late night sewing sessions in a row. Then I had the last half of Alex's to finish the night before the first party at 11:30am at my house. So... here's what happened:

The first finger.I was tacking one of Alex's mummy strips down, and my finger just sort of jumped up under the needle! I swear it did! I poked a hole right through. It bled like crazy too. So I went up and washed it off, wrapped it for a minute while I got out all the first aid stuff, then proceeded to put neosporin and a bandaid on it. It was throbbing, but I wasn't finished with the costume that I needed the next morning. So I put all the stuff away and headed back downstairs.

The second finger. It was less than five minutes later. The first time, I just yanked my finger back away from the sewing machine and said "Shoot!" Not even very loudly. The second time, I yanked my finger back and yelled "CRAP!" which, if you know me at all, only comes out of my mouth when I have done something I consider seriously stupid. So I went back upstairs and had to get all the first aid stuff back out. When I was finished, I left it out just in case! This one was much less severe, though. It was more of a cut than a puncture, really. Which is a little funny because that's the finger that still bugs me today, after 4 days. The first one that went through is practically healed. Go figure. The scratched finger is more of a nuisance than the actual wounded finger...

So this is what my hand looked like for a few days. If you'll notice, the time on my watch in these pictures is AM, not PM. Thus the tired stupidity that led to sewn fingers.

On a brighter note, my nails were very festive. Look at the cute Jack-O-Lantern polish!