here, there, and everywhere

Wow, I can’t believe it’s been almost 5 months since I’ve last posted…that is really bad.  So here goes a summary of the last few months of our lives.

Before school started in August we took a family trip to visit our friends, the Barton’s in Orange.  We went to the beach a few times, it’s amazing how a bunch of sand and water can entertain kids for hours.

Anniston started Kindergarten!  She goes in the morning, Tyler or I take her to school and then she rides the bus home.  It’s nice because there are just Kindergarteners on the bus coming home and we are the first stop…she thinks it’s so much fun to ride the bus.  I’ll be honest, I didn’t cry when she started Kindergarten.  She was so ready (and so was I) she loves making new friends and learning, drawing, and writing.  I was excited for her new adventure.

I just loved these two pictures.  This was during family night one Monday and the kids were practicing folding their arms for church and then giving group hugs like they always do.  We have to do a lot of practicing sitting reverently especially since Tyler’s on the High Council now, we don’t get him every Sunday to sit with us and help keep the kids reverent.  Prayers in my behalf for getting through Sunday meetings are much appreciated!

Anniston started soccer.  She has come a long way since the first game, when she cried the whole game.  She now loves it.  She scored 3 goals this season -all for the other team- but hey, at least she’s playing and not crying.

Tyler and I took a trip…just us.  It was a blast!  First time we’ve been away from the kids ever for longer than 20 hours.  We went to California, went to the San Diego Temple, went to the Tonight Show with Conan, went to a movie, did some shopping and some relaxing.  We were gone for 3 days, thanks to my parents for staying with the kiddos!!!

Last but not least, for Halloween we had Ariel, Urlacher, and Ironman!

stay-cation

Mandalay Bay has been having great deals for locals, so last weekend we took a little family stay-cation.  The kids were so excited to stay in a hotel!  We went swimming a ton at their cool beach.  Saturday morning we were in the pool at 8am.  There was hardly anyone there that early.  About 30 mins later I heard someone yell for help.  A man had collapsed on the pool deck.  Medical staff quickly ran over to him and the man had quit breathing and his heart had stopped also.  They proceeded with CPR and calling 911.  The paramedics got there and tried the defibrillator but to no avail, the man had passed away.  I’ve never seen someone die before, it was very sobering to see how quickly life can end.

On a much lighter note, you know the stereotype that white men can’t jump.  Well Decker was jumping the waves in the pool and 2 little African American boys about his same age came over and started playing with him.  They were all jumping the waves and the little boys noticed that they were jumping a lot higher than Decker.  They took it upon themselves to try & remedy the situation and teach Decker to jump.  Well it didn’t seem to be working.  One of the little boys stood in front of Decker with a puzzled look on his face and hands on his hips, studying Decker’s jumping techniques.  Then he figured to pick Decker up to get him to go higher and of course Decker being as big as him they fell down.  Little kids and so funny to watch.

fireworks & robots

We went up to Utah for the 4th of July.  Some highlights of our trip include:

-Annie running and jumping off the diving board a million times, making sure to scream each time

-Going to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house with our kids

-Seeing new baby Ava

-Fireworks

-Going to Ice Age III

-Going to bed way too late

-Playing with cousins

-Tyler and I going on a date to the Salt Lake Temple and the Mandarin        (thanks Lara)

-eating 3 lbs of cinnamon bears (still haven’t recovered from that one)

We went to The Green at the District to watch the outdoor movie they do every Friday and Saturday night.  We went to Robots .  It was tons of fun, except Troy tried to dissown us as his family.  He kept going to sit next to a teenage boy that was sitting in front of us.  He even cuddled up to him and almost fell asleep, it was pretty funny, especially since Troy is usually so shy.

{The Monster Who Ate My Peas}

Have any of you read “The Monster Who Ate My Peas” by Danny Schnitzlein?  It is my new favorite children’s book.  My kids think it’s so funny.  The rhymes flow so perfectly, it’s just begging to be read aloud, It’s a lot of fun.  So if you haven’t read it, go check it out at the library, you won’t be disappointed.

hot, hot, hot

Wow, it has gotten so hot here in Vegas, but I shouldn’t complain since we’ve had it really nice so far this summer and I way prefer the super hot over the super cold.  We have been spending our summer days either swimming, running through sprinklers, going to the water feature at the park, anything that has to do with water basically.

Tyler took Decker to the Fathers and Sons campout this year!  Decker was so excited to go camping.  They had such a good time and came home dirtier than I’ve ever seen them.  I’m just glad they made it home alive and with all limbs still intact.

We had a great Mother’s Day & Father’s Day.  We went hiking up at Red Rock the Saturday before Mother’s Day.  Unfortunately the waterfall was down to a trickle since it was so late in the season.  After Mother’s Day Annie asked me when we were going to have Sister’s & Brother’s Day.  So one Saturday we created a Sister’s & Brother’s Day, the kids got breakfast in bed and balloons (which are always a huge deal), we went swimming as a family and they each got a little present.

{catch up}

Here’s a little recap on what we’ve been up to.  Easter Weekend was great.  Tyler’s little sister was in town with her cute family.  We went and saw Monsters vs. Aliens 3D.  I’ve never been to a 3D movie before.  Pretty cool, however some of the kiddos did get a little scared.  I got this cute pic from Ty’s sister.  Don’t they look stylin!

Afterward we were invited to their glorified Annual Easter Egg Hunt.  The kids had such a great time, thanks guys!

The Easter bunny comes to our house Saturday morning instead of Sunday morning.  The kids were so excited about their baskets.  I forgot to get a picture of them, but I couldn’t resist taking a pic of Decker & Troy in their new goggles.

I better get going.  It’s our night to watch kids for “baby mafia”.  I made these giant banana Monkey cupcakes with cinnamon creamcheese frosting {delish} for the kiddos!  Got to get fueled up for the 5K tomorrow morning!!!

conference weekend

I know…I haven’t posted forever and then I do two posts in one day.  I’m just trying to get all caught up.  Hope you all had a wonderful conference weekend.  These are my favorite weekends.  Saturday morning, everyone in pjs (except for Anniston, she insisted on wearing a Sunday dress for conference), the cinnamon rolls were almost done, conference was about to start, the kids were settled down with their conference packets, everything perfect.  When President Monson started talking, Anniston asks me “Mom, is he talking to me?  Right to me?”  The kids were so attentive while he spoke.  It was really nice how excited they were for conference, I thought this is great.  Well about 20 minutes into it that all changed.  Anniston was then asking “how much longer?”, “is it almost over?”  I knew the peaceful bliss wouldn’t last forever.

March Madness

March was the busiest month for me.  So busy for the first time in 8 years I didn’t have time to fill out my own bracket for March Madness.  Anniston turned 5 on the 14th.  We had a friend birthday party for her, she had 4 of her best friends come over.  The girls had a great time.

Tyler’s mom came to visit for a few days. Tyler and I got to slip away & go stay at the M Resort (super nice).  First time we’ve been away from the kids overnight for 5 years.  We had such a great time.  It was nice to be able to relax and take a nap at 9 am after a buffet breakfast.

Valentine’s Day~

Hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine’s Day.  Mine was probably the best Valentine’s Day yet!  Not because we did anything outrageous, but because we made it so simple & wonderful.  Tyler brought home roses Friday after work.  Then Saturday, we woke up & went to Dunkin Donuts for breakfast.  Then spent the day with kiddos, running some errands, eating way too many sugar cookies that we made & decorated the day before.  We had the kids skip naps & watched a movie together instead.  Then put the kids to bed early & Tyler & I made an awesome romantic candlelight dinner.  We made filet mignon, with a side of mushrooms, and weight watchers potato wedges, and washed it down with chocolate covered strawberries.  It was nice to just cook together & it was quiet & peaceful.  We did a flambe on the steaks, this was our first time doing it, I thought the flames would go up maybe a foot high, but the flames went about 4 feet high.  It was pretty funny.   Remarkably Tyler still has all his eyebrows.

gum…

By the looks of it you’d think that not blogging was one of my New Year’s resolutions…We had a great Christmas & holiday.  It seems way to long ago to blog about it now.  I will say one of the highlights was that we had all kids in bed and ASLEEP by 7:00 on Christmas Eve, I guess we wore them out.

I think in everyone’s “Mommy Career” you have a gum in the hair experience.  I’ve been a mom for almost 5 years and our first gum in the hair experience happened this week when Decker decided to stick his gum in his hair to “see what would happen”.  I thought I had heard somewhere that peanut butter would help get it out, I could be totally wrong.  But not feeling in the experimenting mood, and picturing what another mess that would cause and we were on our way out the door I opted to just cut it out.  It was amazing to me how close to his scalp he got the gum, I could barely get the scissors inbetween his head & the gum to cut it out.  Luckily he’s a boy & his hair will grow back fast.  It wasn’t too big of a deal, it happens.  Well this morning at about 4am  I woke up and something sticky was all over my hand.  I go into the bathroom and there was gum on my had, arm, neck, and hair!  What a mess.  I figured the culprit was once again Decker.  Tyler got up to help me get the gum out of my hair.  And once again  wasn’t up for experimenting, and since it was under all my hair near the base of my neck I just told him to cut it out.  He did, but I was a little shocked because it was like a quarter size chunk of hair he cut out, I was expecting more of a dime size.  It was really stuck in there.  So when Decker woke up we laid down some Gum Rules…no chewing it inside the house basically sums it up.