Memorial Day

Although we were not in St George for the traditional Pine Valley Breakfast, this year we did have our own tradition! We got together with Jeff and Suzanne Carter for our annual memorial day barbecue. We had lots of fun watching the kids play and enjoying ourselves. Steve and I engaged in our semi competitive game of air hockey of which I won! (technically we are about 50/50 when it comes to winning and losing so I guess it was my turn to win.) We invited our next door neighbors to come as well and the Carters invited another of their friends. All in all it was a great day.

Pre-school Graduation

This is me just before I left for school today! I even got to have make up and take it with me to school so I would be pretty on the stage today (Chap stick)
When I got to school today we went and practiced our program for the parents we sang and danced and had a lot of fun. We even had a song where all the grandmas and grandpas had to get up and do the actions with us. Mom and Dad said we were so so cute.
Here I am getting my preschool diploma. I don't know if you can see the stripes hanging on my dress but it is my hula skirt that I wore for the performance

After the graduation was over we had Audrey's mom take a picture of all of us. Notice that I have a candy lei that Peni's mom made for us. I had flowers from dad and bouquet of balloons from mom and a balloon on a stick from Amanda. Mom and dad had to help me carry it because there was so much stuff. Boy am I loved.

After graduation we went to Chuckey Cheese to play with some of my friends we spent almost all of our tokens on the carousel where we got to ride the horses. (can you believe it =)) Peni was there with his mom and dad and then Katrina's friend Sydney showed up and we had lots and lots of fun ; -)

Rambling

Yesterday Katrina graduated from preschool I will post some pictures and tell you about it as soon as I get some time.
Tonight we get some time for ourselves, and we are going to see the new pirates movie. We are doubling with another couple in our ward so it should be lots of fun. Also this afternoon I am going to bottle tomatoes! Mom are you so proud of me =) We were able to get a full box of tomatoes for 19 dollars. Can I just say I love having friends with connections. She has a friend in the restaurant business that's how we got such a great price. Wish me luck.
My garden is growing beautifully (no Janae it doesn't even begin to compare to yours) I have 6 thriving tomato plants, peas, yellow and zucchini squash, corn, carrots, honeydew melon and strawberries. The girls love the strawberries and pick a couple every day. It is Amanda's favorite thing to do and when she finds one she comes running back to me so I can wash it and says "mom I promised" because she promised not to pick them unless they are really red. It is so fun to watch them and I love having the garden just to get them to try new things. (they hated strawberries until they picked them out of our garden)
Well I guess that is enough rambling I just wanted to post an update but didn't have time to upload the pictures from the camera and then upload them to the blog. love you all

Its all about accountability!

Well today is day 2 of a my new goal to get healthy. Actually it is the start of the 3rd week but the second week I was sick so I got no exercise in. I am posting this in my blog because I need accountability when everyone is expecting to hear how I am doing then I am less likely to quit. So what does this goal entail you may ask, well for one it means no more late night snacks and smaller portions. It also means working out at least 4 but maybe 5 or 6 times a week. Exercise means at least 25 min but my goal is 2 miles a day, the 25 minutes is just to make sure I do SOMETHING on the days I don't really feel like it. Mom has been helping me for a while and now it is time to up the anty =) anyway if you have any suggestions on how to fit exercising in or have some really good healthy snacks treats and/or meals you enjoy I sure would appreciate you sending them my way. I feel like I eat the same things all the time.
I guess if this is going to work will have to report my progress too. I will report inches and lbs lost but I will not admit what they are to start out with....that's just a little too much for me. Thanks to you all for the inspiration as I see all of you living active healthy lives... it makes me want to be better as well. ta ta for now

At the Fair

Today we decided to go to the Fair or as Katrina always says the "county" fair. She has been asking to go all week and finally Steve decided to come home early and we all took the afternoon off and played.
As soon as the girls found out that daddy was coming home so that they could go to the fair Amanda said "I want to ride Pinto". Now for those of you who don't have the pleasure of watching dora everyday pinto is her pony. Katrina didn't care about anything else either it was all about the horses and what color her horse was going to be.

When we finally got there we had to go directly to the pony ride. Steve and I were a little concerned that Amanda would not want to ride once we got there because we would have to wait outside the fence. We had warned her that this was going to happen and I guess that was enough because she got right on and never even questioned that other kids her age might be scared. I think it helped that Katrina got on first and didn't hesitate and was super excited.

They had a blast riding and you would have thought they were the rodeo queens or something they way they waved not only at us but at everyone who would look their way. Once Amanda was on the horse she was so comfortable that she never even held on to the saddle horn .

Katrina was having a ball she asked a million questions. Is "MY" horse a girl or a boy? Where is his mommy? How old is he? I think the people running the event had fun with her and it made it especially fun because we were there in the middle of the day before the crowds so we were the only ones here for the horses. The girls got to ride for about 5 or 6 minutes, later in the evening I noticed the rides were shortened to 1-2 minutes because the lines were getting too long.

There were so many fun things to do at the fair one of our favorite places was the kids farm area. We got to milk this cow, really milk (okay so technically it was water not milk but you get the idea) it if you didn't squeeze right you didn't get anything to come out of the udders. There was a women there who told them what they should do and gave little commentary as different things happened. First they had to pat the cow on the side and tell it their name so the cow would know who they were and not get scared it was really cute. Katrina caught right on and it took Amanda a little while to figure it out but she was a trooper and kept on trying until she got it. They actually squirted themselves a couple of times before they started getting it in the bucket.
They had this old fashioned water pump where the girls were able to pump the water they had to pump it fast and hard enough to get a little rubber ducky to float all the way down a skinny trough to the water barrel at the other end.
They each got a turn but this picture had almost everybody so obviously it wins =)






They also had this huge corn box (kind of like a sandbox only full of large corn kernels instead) they had a blast here and Amanda kept coming back after each activity to play in the corn. She loved it more than the others.







They had a Mother Goose magic show and the girls loved it! Katrina was one of the volunteers and helped mother goose rip up several squares of tissue paper. Then Mother goose squished them up in her hand while katrina waved the magic wand over it and said some magic words with the audience, the result was this beautiful hat. At the end of the show she made a bunny appear and the kids were able to go up and pet the bunny after the show.

Mothers Day

Yesterday was a wonderful day for me. Bishopbric meetings were cancelled and I got to sleep in until 7 am when I was awakened to breakfast in bed by my sweetheart and two daughters. Now I know that to some of you 7 doesn't sound like sleeping in but keep in mind my two little princesses usually wake me up somewhere between 5:45 and 6:00 am. So needless to say I felt indulged. Then the next wonderful thing happened. I got to sit through a quiet church meeting....don't get me wrong I am not happy that all of my girls have had a cough and/or fever for over a week but I was extremely happy when Steve said he would stay home with them and let me enjoy church. It was hard when first the primary and then the young men and priesthood got up and sang to their mothers for them to all be at home. So as soon as church was over I rushed home to my family. When I got there Steve had on an apron and was making me lunch/dinner of chicken enchiladas. Now he is not a cook nor does he enjoy cooking so the fact that he was taking on my favorite enchilada recipe (which has a lot of little things do do for prep) was really impressive. I just sat back and read a new book I had gotten while he took care of everything. all in all it was a good day.

Destroying Angel

One minute it's clean and the next.......




Amanda thinks that she must take out every item in the room before she can play today she even knocked over the kitchen set and the table they use to play on

She's discovered the phone.

Today Katrina discovered that she can call her dad all by herself. Over the last couple of weeks she has dialed 3 or 4 times when I call Steve, and today she walks into my bedroom talking on the phone. Of course I assumed she was pretending but then again it sounded so real. So I asked her who she was talking to and she said "daddy" I took the phone and said hello and low and behold there was my sweet husband on the other end we had a quick conversation and i returned the phone to her. They talked for about ten minutes before she decided that they were done. Love it....now at least we know that she knows her phone number. Or at least one of them.

Everyday Life

Everyday life is about all your going to get from me for a while as far as pictures are concerned but here are some I took today. As you can see Elizabeth was helping mom with the laundry we tried to catch her smiling but with the darned delay on the camera I missed them all =(

Then I went to find the girls and get a couple of candid shots of them playing.....no can do Katrina has to pose and not only pose but make it funny by making a funny face. During our little photo shoot we ran out of batteries and while I was getting the new batteries Katrina tries to play with the camera.

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When I take it away we get a tantrum and she runs to her bed kicking and screaming. These pictures look more like a sleeping child but in reality she was kicking and screaming and I couldn't resist the photo opportunity =)

As bad as it sounds it was only momentary and we were back to posing for mom and the camera.

What do you do?

Katrina has a boyfriend! Ok she doesn't really have a boyfriend but there is this little boy in our ward who is always asking Katrina to marry him when they grow up. He has even gone as far as kissing her. Yeah you heard right, he was at our house to play and they both came out holding hands and asked if it was alright to kiss. I told them not until you are married. He then asked if they could air kiss...of course I said no. When he was leaving she called out "I Love you Peni (benny). After he left I asked her why she said that and was told that that is what mommy says to daddy and they are going to get married. She then fessed up that they kissed befor they came and talked to me. Needless to say we had a long talk about when we can have boyfriends, date, kiss and get married. It finally came to the point that both myself and his mom had to tell them that they could not get married.

I thought that was the end of it but she moved right on to another boy in the ward and now she wants to marry Trenton. I again told her that she would not get married until she was older and that she probably hasn't even met the man she is going to marry. That fixed that right? Not on your life we are now at the stage where everything is followed by ...thats how I know hes the one.... ugh Whats a mom to do =)

What a week

Wow has it been a week already? All the girls at one point during the last week have been sick, and the hardest one to deal with is the baby! I have had about 5 hours of sleep a night for the last week and have probably got my 10,000 steps a day or more in as I paced all day with a crying baby. The good news is they are all feeling better and Elizabeth is asleep for her normal morning nap....what a relief. Now I just have to pick a place to start cleaning as nothing has been done for a week.
As for more fun news Bree and Tyler come this week to visit (ok so they are just stopping here on their way to and from their vacation, but it is way better than nothing) and we are so excited to see them. Then at the end of next week Steve's dad and sister are going to stay here on their way to a conference for work. Ruthanne is planning on staying several days after the conference and having her husband pick her up on the way to their cruise. Yay for them. I would love to take a cruise with Steve, maybe next summer, any volunteers to watch the kids? =)