Zak and the Baby

Zak had a fun time today helping with baby Hazel. My neighbor needed an emergency babysitter and so we had her for the day. She slept for 5 hours, and was happy when she wasn't asleep. If this is what daycare was really like, I'd do it. She was so easy. I think that Zak liked being the "big brother" for a while. This is kind of a goofy picture, but he was so excited to feed her when she woke up. He was very gentle too, and he was quiet...the best part (lately he only has one volume, and it is really loud). Thanks for letting us watch her B&K. (No...I'm not baby hungry, I got to send her home at the end of the day!)

Discovery Gateway fieldtrip

On Thursday we went with Zak's preschool to the Discovery Gateway. He had so much fun. One of his favorite activities was the KSL 5 news studio green screen. He loved standing in front of it, as well as setting the picture up for someone else. but I think that his favorite activity was the crane. He and Sam took turns lifting the blocks in the crane and building the buildings to match the ones on the wall. Thanks Teacher Julie & Teacher Liz!

America

Wow, I don't know if any of you saw Oprah yesterday. There was an amazing song, America, that Bono, Faith Hill, Seal, MaryJ Blige, and some others sang that was AMAZING. You can download the mp3 until this afternoon for free.....I would put it in my blog, but I don't know how...I am so challenged!

No time to blog

I am such a dork. I have spent the long weekend completely gutting, deep cleaning, and putting my kids bedrooms back together, and I didn't take any before or after pictures. I can't believe how much junk we have. After cleaning the boys room, I sent 4 garbage bags of stuff to D.I., 2 bags of trash, and I also have one bag of stuff to send to Marsha for her boys (not too much, she is sick of our junk too). By the time that I got the boys room put back together, I still had my living room full of stuff, and a big pile in my bedroom. It is no wonder they couldn't keep their room clean. Since then, I have actually given them permission to "make a big mess" with their blocks, because it would be easy to clean up. I also got out the Lite-Brite and let Les take it in his room. Something I would have never done before - in fact, they haven't been allowed to play with it for the last year, because there was no where clean enough to get out all of those little pegs. An now for my favorite part.....They cleaned it all up when they were done! I didn't even have to ask or remind them to!!! We'll have to get out the trains next!

Yesterday, we did the same thing to Amber's room. We got 2 D.I. bags, 3 trash bags, and 1 bag of clothes to pass down to Heather. What a relief it is to have a little corner of my life back in order. We are getting a new mattress today, and so I plan to do the same to my bedroom. If all goes as planned, I can get all of my spring cleaning done before spring comes, and then I can be outside in the sunshine once it is warm enough!

Now for the next item of business....I have got to convince my kids that it is OK to make their beds...it bugs me so bad that their rooms don't look clean, because their beds are a heaping mess. Oh well, I guess baby steps to achieve greatness!

Brian's Birthday

I just wanted to wish Brian a happy 35th birthday.

I Love You!

New Year's Eve

This year for New Year's Eve, I though we would have a nice quiet ball drop when our friends Bill & Lisi invited us to their new home. Boy was I wrong 6 of the 7 kids stayed up until midnight with us. The girls spent an hour singing High School Musical karaoke, and they all played video games for hours. We really had a lot of fun...right up until about 12:10.
Zak had just finished his sparkling cider, and his carrot, and cookie, and cracker, and... (you can imagine). He and Sam got jumping around and wrestling. Apparently a little tummy can't handle that much food, and carbonation along with jumping. You guessed it,... up it ALL came.

There is nothing quite like your kid throwing up all over someone else's house (okay, Heidi, maybe Ry did better). I felt terrible. I hope they'll invite us back. I guess that is why 4 year old don't get to stay up till midnight.

Christmas with the cousins

Saturday, after the sleepover at Grandpa & Grandma's house all of the cousins came for my family's traditional Christmas breakfast...Homemade waffles with blueberry (or maple) syrup all topped off with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream melting on top (this is my favorite breakfast in the whole world. I make waffles so often, that Amber gets sick of them). It never even crossed my mind to take a picture of them, I was too busy eating. Yummy!

It is pretty chaotic in my parent's house when everyone is there, so I only had my camera out for a few minutes, but here is a few good pics.

This is Greg's oldest son Mark. He didn't want me to take a picture, but I caught one anyway.

Zak & Seth (Scott's 5th child)

This is just a picture of the little boys and grandpa being silly.

Marsha & Ty (Greg's wife and son)

Once again we were spoiled at Grandpa and Grandma's house. Thank you.

Aunt Lisa had our family this year, the kids all love the Webkinz and the travel games that she got for them. On Sunday, we put together the K'nex rollercoaster and ferris wheel that she gave them. They took about 4 hours to build, but they were worth it.

Thanks for everything Aunt Lisa, we loved it!

Christmas

Now that my poor computer has made it through the virus, I decided that I should blog Christmas for Grammy and Gramps. We know that it was hard for them to be away from the grand kids at Christmas.

Christmas Eve tradition at our house always includes pajamas. This year I couldn't find enough time to make all of the kids pajamas, but I did get Amber's made. I love the way hers turned out. It is a very different pattern than I have used before. She is learning how to sew, so I got enough fabric that she can make some capris for summer time to match. My kids needed pajamas so bad, that Amber actually also got 2 sets of Hannah Montana pajamas, Les got Transformers and (hmm.. the other character slips my mind), and Zak got 2 sets of Dinosaur PJ's. I still owe the boys some that I make.

My mom also made them each a set of Pajamas that match all of the cousins. Amber and her cousin Heather are the only girls on my side of the family, so she made theirs matching, as well as matching ones for their American Girl dolls.

One of the first things that Zak had to check, was that Santa got his snacks. This year the kids decided that Santa and the reindeer needed something healthy along with their treats. So Santa got an orange and a cookie with his milk, and the reindeer each got a baby carrot. But we found those half chewed on the snow on the front lawn.

this is the Christmas morning mess at our house. We were truly spoiled. I thought that I kept it small and simple this year, but it always amazes me how much it turns out to be.
One of our favorite gifts this year was from Grammy and Gramps (who are currently serving a mission in Florida). They sent us a puzzle with a picture of a cruise ship, and told us that when they finish their mission, they would like us all to come to Florida and join them on a cruise. We are so excited. We can't wait. (With the weather right now, I would be happy to leave today!)

Another favorite was a fort set. Zak already had one, and loves it. This one is much larger than his last one, and has pieces that turn it into several carnival games as well as the fort. The best part is that both sets will work together to make an awesome fort.

Apparently after our 10 day camping trip last summer, Santa decided that we needed warmer sleeping bags than the little sleepover bags that the kids had. Brian already has a nice one, so me and the kids got these, and Brian got a fleece liner for his to make it even warmer. The kids all tried theirs out on Grandpa & Grandma's floor on Friday night.

I forgot to get pictures of each of the kids with their new stash of things, but here is a brief list of the favorites. Amber: Sewing machine & Heeleys Les: Skateboard & Heeleys Zak: Fort & pots and pans (he loves to cook).

My computer is back

Well, my computer is alive again, that was a pretty brutal virus. Our awesome neighbor spent a ton of time just trying to recover my pictures from the hard drive before he nuked it. Last time we talked to him, he said there was one more thing he could try, but he didn't expect much because nothing else that they usually use worked. I was devastated as you can imagine. I am so lazy, all of my pictures since 2005 were on my hard drive, and I haven't backed them up anywhere else. The last thing he tried worked, and he saved everything. Now my computer is back up and running, but it doesn't have any of my programs on it so it is totally useless. (this is not the fault of my awesome neighbor who saved everything for me.) Even the programs that run all of my files he saved are not on, so I can't use what I have. UUGGHHHHH.

Just a warning, watch out for a window that continuously pops up that looks like the Windows security warning window. It is a virus and is BAD news. It looks really good, but it is the first sign that you have the virus.