Happy birthday James!

It is amazing to believe that a year has gone by and it is James' birthday again! This sweet boy turned seven this year. James is a great big brother and an awesome little brother. He has a hilarious sense of humor and just keeps us on our toes. He loves to read and hates vegetables of all kinds. He loves science and learning about natural disasters. We love having him as part of our family.

His birthday started off with his favorite breakfast- breakfast pizza.

Then it was off to school where he chose PB&J for lunch...his favorite which he eats every day. 

For dinner he had spaghetti and meatballs and, as it was his birthday, I didn't make him eat any vegetables at all. 

In past years James has picked a random fruit and then asked for a cake. Blueberry, strawberry, orange...you know different flavors. At one point this year he was considering a grapefruit cake but he surprised us all by asking for a chocolate raspberry cake, a great choice if I do say so myself. 

Then it was time for presents, which meant a lot of legos and a brother helping.

James even found a hat to wear

He is a great boy and we are so happy he is part of our family. 

Women's conference

I remember when I was 11 or so my mom taking me to the General Woman's meeting. We went to the Parley's Stake Center and I don't remember much of what was said, nor do I remember who spoke. All I remember is I had a good a time with my mom and then we went to Marie Calendar's for dinner and pie. Shortly after I attended that meeting the decision was made to split the meetings to a General Relief Society meeting and a General Young Women's meeting. 

I vaguely remember attending the YW meetings, but I do remember joining again with my mom in September 1997 when I was old enough for the RS meeting. Again, I don't remember much of what was said, or who spoke, but I do remember being with my mom.

Full disclosure, when the Church announced last year that they were bringing back the General Women's meeting I was a bit nervous. I was excited but at the same time inviting all women and girls over the age of eight? There are days I struggle to get my girls to pay attention in an hour of church let alone a 90 minute meeting. I was willing to try though and the girls and I talked a lot about it and how special it was. 

We had planned to attend at our local meeting house but my mom called and said she had gotten tickets to attend in the conference center. We jumped at the chance and so last Saturday saw the girls and I with sisters, cousins, nieces, and grandma's heading downtown to a rather historic meeting. 

We got there fairly early to ensure parking and to get our seats. I had the girls bring notebooks to doodle in while we waited and that seemed to come in handy as we had to wait an hour and change for the meeting to start. 

The girls got excited when the choir started filing in their seats and  got super excited when the first presidency walked in. 

I had the privilege of sitting next to a woman from Switzerland who spoke French and Spanish. There came a point in the meeting when she and I both started crying and we just put our arms around each other. It amazes me how much the spirit of sisterhood/womanhood can just permeate a room. Laine on the other hand thought it was really weird that I was hugging a stranger and crying with her.

All in all I am sure that in twenty years my girls won't remember who spoke or what was said but they will remember attending a meeting with their mom, aunt, cousin, and grammy-to me that is what is most important. 

Does this count?

A few months ago I submitted a idea to Family Fun magazine. It was on what birthday traditions that you do and I wrote about how my mom used to surprise us with new outfits on our birthdays and how I have continued that tradition. It was under 150 words but I think it turned out well.

A month or so after that I was contacted by the magazine that they wanted to publish it in their February issue. I was so excited and happily cashed my first check for something I had written.

When I got my February issue I went to where they published the ideas and found this...

My small idea had been reduced to two sentences that was all. 

Can I still claim that I was published in a magazine? 

Well at least I was paid quite well for only two sentences. 

Matty's day out.

A couple weekends ago the three older kids were with their mom. When this happens we usually make sure that Matty's days are filled with some distractions and fun, he really misses his siblings. This particular weekend he got a trip to the Disney Store to get a new toy and just time with mom and dad. On President's Day I took him up to the Natural History Museum with Grammy and Poppa. Though he was rather excited to see the dinosaurs he found a lot to enjoy in the rest of the museum. It was funny, each display and activity I had to pull him away while he cried that it was "his favorite". Some of the few that he enjoyed were:

Putting together a puzzle of a cell, I think he would have stayed here all day if needed. 

 Deciding which Rock was the snow rock and which was the 'scary rock"

Climbing though the excavation pit, where he could jump and climb and discover things.

And peer at little things that were "so cute".

We finally got to the dinosaurs where I couldn't snap a picture of him because he kept moving around. I was able to finally snap a picture of him though at the dino footprint I loved as a little girl.

He had so much fun at the museum and still talks about it. I love that he is so interested in the world around him and exploring new things. What a cute little monkey and I am so lucky to be his mom.

Welcome Cerberus Bradley!

 About a year ago we got the kids a fish tank  one of the things we told the kids was if they took care of the fish for a year we could talk about getting a bigger pet.

They were awesome fish carers. The tank was cleaned every week, the fish were fed every day, and out of the first five fish that we bought three are still alive a year later. So it was time to talk about getting a larger pet. Laine and Matty wanted a dog from the get go, Eve wanted a dog as long as it pooped rainbows (she didn't want to have to clean up after it, a girl after my own heart) and James just wasn't sure what he wanted.

Christian and I were on the fence about a dog, so as we talked about it we went back and forth on what would be best. Then came the Puppy Bowl, yes eight hours of puppies running around playing with a ball. It was so much fun and that started us thinking, just maybe.

It is funny how life throws you a curve ball every once in a while. We had a rough start to February, a really rough start and in some of those darkest times I just wanted a dog to pet and love. That was it. We started researching breeds and dog care. I was pretty sure I wanted to get a rescue animal and I didn't want a  puppy. We visited shelters to learn about adoption procedures and we scoured the internet to look at what was available.

There were so many cute dogs and we just kept falling in love.

Then yesterday it all came together. I got home from running some errands and Christian was on KSL.com looking at dogs there. We had talked about getting a  weimaraner mix but had given it up as they are usually costly but we found this one, at the right price, and the pictures were too cute to pass up.

So we talked about it and said, why not. A puppy was not what we had planned but next thing I knew we were driving to meet the owner and fell in love with this little one. A quick run to Pet Co later and this little pup was on his way home with us.

 We surprised the older kids and they were jumping up and down when they got home from school.

Next came the naming. Growing up we always named our dogs after some type of deity. There was Sampson, Thor, Ramses, and Zeus. I decided that we needed to keep that tradition alive and we presented the kids with these names: Apollo, Odin, Loki, Cerberus, and Fenris. Though I was hoping for Odin or Loki they chose Cerberus, which is the right name.

He is a great pup and is a fabulous addition to our family. The kids dote on him right now and race to feed, walk, and clean up after him. Matty is not so sure, see Cerberus likes Matty, alot. Between the licking of the face and the hands Matty is not quite sure why he wanted a puppy. But he is here to stay!

Valentine's Day

I have never really been a fan of Valentine's Day. I think it dates back to being really sick on my first school Valentine's Day so since then it just hasn't been that fun. That said though my kids love it so we try to make it fun here at home.   

It all starts with the boxes, and the kids designed and put together their own boxes this year. 

James' had mustaches and many cute stickers. 

 Eve went very artistic this year. She drew flowers all over and then topped it with ribbons.

 Laine decided that add some light to hers. It had a working lamp and an on/off switch made with a paper clip.

 Since the kids' school was out on Valentine's Day they had their party the day before, which meant that our celebration carried on for a bit longer as well.

Eve made this cute Valentine in class...

 And James seemed to get a lot of hand written Valentine's from the girls in his class.

Everyone loved the treats that Grammy brought over though. The heart classes were by far the best.

The next morning we had our traditional overnight stuffed French Toast, a hit in our family.  After James finished he declared that he wouldn't have any other treats the rest of the day...that lasted about an hour.

 Then the kids and I took over Valentine's to grandparents. When we stopped at Grammy's work where Matty was very happy to see that they had pizza.

 The other kids shared a few treats.

Then there was a quick shopping stop where the kids decided to take some time to play on some giant sugar beets.

 Then it was home for heart shaped sandwiches and homemade twix bars and cupcakes from Georgetown Cupcakes. A favorite Valentine treat here.



That evening Christian and I left the kids with a heart shaped pizza from Papa Murphy's and Valentine Jell-O cups. It was a fun day and we had a fabulous time all together. As we were driving home that night I looked to Christian and said, "You know, I think I actually might like Valentine's Day now." I think that might have been the best gift I could have given him.

Science Fair Fun

So January in our house tends to be science fair month. Science fair is okay but man trying to help getting three projects done is hard. It also doesn't help when you have deadlines being moved and kids who forget that it is due until the day before. Yeah fun times. 

This year James decided to do work with electro-magnets. I let Christian take the lead on this one (as well as on all others) seeing as he knows a lot more about electro magnets than I do. James was trying to see how powerful he could make the magnets and did that by using extra batteries and extra coils of wire wrapped around a nail. He would then see how many paper clips he could lift with his new magnetized nail. 

 James had a ton of fun and even though he only gave us two days notice to get this project done.

Laine on the other hand was prepared for this project. She started a couple weeks before, she was also the one who we had a clear due date on.  Laine decided to see how long fruit could power a clock, much like a potato clock.

 Laine tried oranges, pears, apples, onions, peppers, bananas, and several other items I can't quite remember to see what powered the clock the longest and with the strongest current.

To her surprise the apple and not the orange was the winner.

Finally we come to Eve, we thought Eve's project was the last one due and were making plans to test some of her neighborhood friends about the power of taste. Eve's plan was to blindfold people have them smell something, like peppermint, then eat vanilla ice cream. She wanted to see if they could identify what flavor of ice cream they were eating.

Unfortunately about ten days before the due date while we were getting the family ready for bed Eve came in and said, "I have a problem." We asked what it was and then the tears started, through the tears we found out that her science project was due the next day and she just found out today.

Seeing that the whole family knew what her project was supposed to be thus eliminating them as viable test subjects. As it was after eight we had to come up with something new and exciting. Again Christian stepped in to rescue a project. He came up with the idea to use some different foods and blindfold Laine and James. At first they would be both blindfolded and plug their noses and try to identify the food they were eating. After the did this once they then unplugged their noses and tried the foods again, being able to smell the foods this time and taste them.

 Here experiment seemed to be a success. Both kids were able to identify more foods correctly after they had smelled them. And Eve was only up till 10:30 or so finishing her project board.

'The next morning Christian thought he would be nice and drive the kids to school rather than take them to the bus stop. While driving Eve's voice comes from the back of the car, "Oh, um this paper here says that I just had to tell them how I was going to do my experiment." Yup, fun times.

So that was our science fair adventure. I am glad it is done, we have our pretty green participant ribbons displayed now and most the project boards have found their way to the recycling bin, so until next January I bid science fair adieu.