Thankful Thursday

1. Doors
I'm one of those people who can't stand to have cupboard and closet doors open. It makes me crazy! I like to have the contents of my cupboards and closets as messy as I want them to be and I can just shut the door! I'm painting my kitchen cupboards and I have to leave them open to dry and it is making me insane. That doesn't really sound like a thankful, but it is. REALLY.

2. Funny kids
My favorite funny quote this week. Cagney is so much like her momma in that she does not like to wear shoes and takes them off at any opportunity! We were driving home from somewhere the other day and she said, "Mom! Here comes my left shoe! Catch it!" Add THAT to my list of talents!

3. The letter A
Because it is the grade that I received in my first class back to college! I'm so thankful to find that I actually do have some brain cells left! (I thought I lost them all through amniotic fluid. I wonder where they have been hiding all this time.)

4. New babies
Remember last fall when I was thankful for all of the new babies due this spring? Well they are coming! My neice had a darling baby girl a few weeks ago, and my sister in law and an adorable baby girl last week. I just wish I could bottle the smell of these wee little ones.

5. A bunch of little things
Like the ring that Trevor got me for my birthday, Chapstick, comfortable shoes, my favorite blanket, the color chocolate brown, my cell phone, rainbow sherbet, and my bed.

Favorite Photo Friday

Lake Tahoe. Summer 2007. I need to go again.

Thankful Thursday

1. Zoo friends
I took Cole and Cagney to the zoo yesterday. (I just have to say that when they were tiny I couldn't imagine that there would ever be a time that I could take them out on my own. They are so much more portable now!) They loved it. We met up with some friends from work and their kids. It was great to be out in the SUN! I decided to get a family pass and the other kids are already asking about going.

2. Friends that help me see the humor
I try to surround myself with people that make me a better person. I love friends who help me with perspective and seeing the humor in things. I have some pretty fabulous friends!

3. Tulips
We have a few (very few) tulips growing in our yard. Today we went outside and Cole and Cagney picked two of them! So now we have even fewer, but they were so excited about it. We had a little talk about not picking the flowers. Not sure it will stick at this point though.

4. Flip Flops
I am so so so happy for flip flop weather.

5. Running
Yes running again. I can't believe how much I love running! I never ever would have thought. It is awesome. I pray for no injuries so I can keep doing it!

6. Date night
Last saturday Trevor and I went out on a DATE! We went to dinner, did a little shopping and saw the movie "17 Again". (Loved it!) It was a great evening and definitely something that we need to to more often.

I finally decided...

I have been toying with the idea of making our blog private for awhile now. It kinda skeeves me out to have people I don't know reading about our family, so I finally decided to go private. If you want to be able to read our blog send me an email. (Or just leave me a comment.) I have loved having this way of keeping in touch with people and I hope making our blog private will not stop that!

Favorite Photo Friday

Cagney, Summer 2008

A short little, tiny, complaint...

One of the worst mom jobs in my opinion is switching out my kids clothes from season to season. I absolutely hate it! I have been trying to get winter stuff put away and spring/summer stuff out. (It would really be nice if the weather would cooperate). I just hate cleaning out their closets and hauling out the millions of clothing boxes from downstairs and pulling stuff out and putting stuff away! It doesn't help that Jared and Gabe share a teeny tiny closet that has very little room for one kids clothes let alone two! Ok, I'm done now.

Thankful Thursday

Things I am thankful for this week...
1. My first nursing pre-req class is DONE!
It is hard to believe. At the beginning I wondered if I would really be able to keep up with it. The only thing I am waiting for is my grade on my research paper. I have it all figured out what I need to get on that paper to still get an A out of the class.
2. Nine Days

3. Strawberries
I love this time of year for the wonderful strawberries! I can't wait to try this recipe.
4. A downstairs play room
It is a huge mess right now, but I am thankful that my kids have a place to play and all of the toys all over the floor aren't all over the floor in the rest of my house! Looks like we have a big cleaning up project for this afternoon.
5. Fun kitchen plans
Since I am done with my class and my summer class doesn't start until mid may I have big re-decorating plans for my kitchen. I have been wanting to paint my cupboards for months. But then the walls will need to be painted too, and I really want to put up some bead board too. Hmmm...we will see how much I actually accomplish. Hopefully I can share before and after pictures in about a month!

Gabe @ Seven

Gabe turned seven a couple of weeks ago. Here are 7 things about Gabe at age Seven.

1. Gabe has the most vivid imagination. He is constantly pretending to be someone or something else.
2. Gabe loves star wars, bakugan, pokemon, and legos.
3. Gabe really likes school, but doesn't love homework. He likes math and reading, but doesn't like writing.
4. Gabe loves to jump on the trampoline.
5. Gabe does a very cute little snort when he gets laughing hard.
6. Gabe would probably rather play the Wii than do anything else right now.
7. Gabe has a bunch of teeth missing right now and it looks darn cute!

Happy Easter!

Thankful Thursday

This week I am thankful for:
1. Tweezers
Let's face it ladies, once I hit my 30's I noticed hair growing in places that hair should not be. Good grief! What other wonderful things do I have to look forward to??
2. Spring Break
It is spring break and unfortunately very WET! But I am thankful for the break for my kids and to have them home.
3. Wicked Tickets
We are going to see Wicked two weeks from Saturday. We are SO excited. I'm grateful for a co-worker that was willing to help us get tickets months ago!
4. Blogs that make me laugh
I love taking a little break from life and laughing! Some of my favorite funny blogs are cakewrecks, lovely listings, and fail blog. Go ahead and take a little giggle break!
5. Easter
I love Easter. The candy, the bunnies, dressing my kids up in new Easter duds, and especially the reason for the season.

Ipod Shuffle

I have seen this on a few blogs and it looked like fun! So here is what you do. Go to your ipod and hit shuffle and list the first 20 songs that come up....
1. Round Shouldered Man, The Secret Garden soundtrack
2. I could write a Book, Harry Connick Jr.
3. Those Canaan Days, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat soundtrack
4. The Marshmallow Song, VeggieTales
5. Sleep Through the Static, Jack Johnson
6. Open Arms, Journey
7. Normal American Boy, Bye Bye Birdie soundtrack
8. I am a Rock, Simon and Garfunkel
9. Morning has Broken, Mormon Tabernacle Choir
10. What is this Feeling?, Wicked
11. Your New Twin Sized Bed, Death Cab for Cutie
12. No Man's Land, Billy Joel
13. Someday Soon, KT Tunstall
14. A Little Respect, Erasure
15. Just Another, Pete Yorn
16. Thank You for the Music, Abba
17. I'll Take Everything, James Blunt
18. Talk to the Animals, Broadway Kids
19. Hey There Delilah, Plain White T's
20. Alone in the Universe, Seussical

Hmmm...What does your ipod say about you??

Favorite Photo Friday

Another favorite from our family photo shoot. I especially love how Coco is hugging Miquelle's arm, and Cagney is squished! Someone asked me when they saw this one if my kids were really close and always "huggy" like this. UM...NO! But thank goodness they were willing to do it for the photo!

Laundry HELP!

I stink at laundry. I mean, I can do laundry and I DO laundry almost everyday. Just the regular stuff is fine. But I am so BAD with stains! I can never get them out! I go to the laundry aisle at the store and just STARE at everything. I need help! This time it is a shirt that Gabe got for Christmas. He wore it to school the other day when they were doing an art project with chalk. He came home looking like he decided to lay down on his art project and slide around all over it! The front of his shirt was covered in purple and BLACK chalk. I soaked it in hot water and tide with bleach. The purple chalk came out, the black didn't. PLEASE, if you are smarter than me when it comes to stain removal help me out here! What can I do? I really don't want to throw the shirt out if I can help it!

Don't forget your coat!

Can someone explain to me why in the space of one year (Miquelle moving from elementary school to middle school) that all of a sudden wearing a coat is SO uncool? We woke up to tons of snow this morning and as Miquelle was leaving the house (in just a tee shirt) I reminded her to grab her coat. She looked at me like I had just told her to not forget to wear a big purple elephant on her head. I don't get it.

Kanab- The Armpit of Utah

I feel like it has been forever since I posted. We have been busy and I don't think that things will slow down anytime soon. I have really wanted to post and have had a lot of great thoughts that I'm sure you all just can't wait to read...but I haven't done it. Mainly because I have a six page research paper due for my class next week and when I think about spending time on the computer to blog I feel really guilty. Like I should be working on my paper. So I haven't blogged. But I still haven't started my paper either!

Last weekend we went down to southern Utah. We had plans to stay at a condo in St. George, but just a few days before we were supposed to leave those plans fell through. So we were trying to decide if I should just go down for one night with Miquelle (long enough for her to dance in her competition) or try to find another alternative for the whole family to go. The kids had all been talking about it for weeks and were so excited that we decided that it would need to be a family thing. Well St. George was pretty booked because of this competition especially for a room that would fit our family. We had planned to spend a day at Zions and Trevor was able to find a room in Kanab and that would be pretty central to everything we were doing. The hotel was great. Really good breakfast and an indoor pool. The town was a DIVE! I seriously would not last a week if I had to live in a place like that.

On the way there we missed the turn of to go to the armpit of Utah so we had to take a different route. Well our map didn't show elevation and we had no idea where we were going but it ended up being over a mountain during a blizzard! It was crazy and there were a lot of times that we had to stop because the wind was blowing so hard and we couldn't see where we were going at all! So much for warm southern Utah weather. This sign was almost completely covered by snow and there were others that were just barely peeking out.


Our first stop was the Best Friends animal sanctuary. Advertised online as the biggest domestic animal sanctuary in the US or something like that. Horses, pot bellied pigs, rabbits, birds, cats, dogs, stuff like that. I thought the kids would love it. They liked it fine but it is a good thing we did it at this age, I think if we had tried it when they were teen agers they would have refused to ever go anywhere will us again! It was a "guided tour", which basically meant we got in a van and drove around and a lady said, "The pigs are down over there" as we drove by "There are the horses right there" as we drove by "The rabbits are in that building" as we drove by. We did stop where they keep the cats and the kids got to pet a bunch of cats. And we stopped where they keep the dogs and we got to look at dogs behind a fence. Whee! And I just have to say one little thing here and I'm toning this WAY down because I don't want to get myself in trouble. But as I looked at some of these poor animals that were being "rescued" I felt the same way that I feel at work a lot. Just because you can keep an animal or human alive doesn't mean that you should. That is all I will say about that!


The kids LOVED swimming at the hotel. They would have been happy doing that the whole three days! I felt so stressed the whole time we were at the hotel that my kids were going to be too loud and disturb other people. But at least when they were swimming they could scream and have fun and I wasn't stressed.


I have lived in Utah for over 30 years and never been to one of the National Parks. We spent a day at Zions. It was beautiful. Just amazing. We took one hike that was up to some "pools" and a waterfall. That was fun but I was so NERVOUS that one of my kids was going to fall off the edge! It was really narrow in some parts. But we all made it to the top and back to the BOTTOM safely. (Gosh I was not this nervous or stressed about things before I had kids! What happened?!)


Saturday was Miquelle's dance competition. I was so happy to drive to the BIG city of St. George! It was really fun to watch her dance. But I heard enough little girls screaming to last me until next year, at least! One thing I love about clogging is that it isn't....sexy. I hate seeing little seven year old girls shaking their booties and doing pelvic thrusts. Clogging is just plain fun. (Did I ever tell you I used to be a clogger?? Yup, I danced with the back porch cloggers for three years!) And the costumes are modest and fun.


We also stopped at the St. George temple. It was nice and quiet which was really nice since most of the rest of this trip wasn't!

The kids had a fun trip and that was what mattered this time. They didn't even care that we were staying in the armpit, they thought it was great!