Favorite Photo Friday

This my friends is called a flower. Say it with me. F-L-O-W-E-R. You may have seen one before, but definitely not outside recently. This one is in a little vase on my kitchen counter. BUT in a couple of months flowers will grow outside! Trust me, it will happen. Just you wait.

Thankful Thursday

Okay, okay...in my world Thankful Thursday can be any day that I want it to be!
1. Running dates.
Trevor and I have been going out on running dates 4 or 5 times a week after the kids are in bed. We go about three miles and it is great to spend the time together. And great to see how well we motivate each other. I love having the time to talk (although usually by the end we aren't talking too much) without being interrupted by kids. I'm glad this is something we enjoy doing together. I used to hate running. Like REALLY hate running. (Even in High School when I ran on the cross country team. Why then did I do it if I hated it so much? One word. Boys. There were 7 girls on the cross country team and about 80 boys. In fact that is how Trevor and I met!) Now I love it, it's addicting!

2. Good friends for my kids.
I am so so grateful for good friends for my kids. Miquelle met the greatest girl this last year since starting middle school and I just love her and her family. The biggest advice that people give me as I get anxious about my kids getting older is to keep track of who their friends are! So glad that my kids have good friends.

3. My silly siblings.
We aren't one of those families that gets together every weekend or talks to each other every day. But I love talking to and getting together with my siblings. They are so fun. Every once in a while one of us will email something to the others and it turns into wacky, crazy, silliness. I'm a big fan of the silliness.

4. Things to look forward to.
I love having things on the calendar to look forward to. (Especially this time of year.) Right now I'm looking forward to a swimming party in February to celebrate some February birthdays, a trip to St. George in March, and Wicked in April!!! Sometimes half of the fun of things is the looking forward to them! Sometimes I'm sad when things are over just because I don't have them to look forward to anymore!

5. Family scripture study.
We have half heartedly (okay maybe 1/16th heartedly) tried in the past to have family scripture study and it has never gone longer than a day or two. We decided that this was going to be the year and so far we are doing really well! It is crazy with two three year olds running around, but we still do it. It has been a very good thing.

Random thoughts while showering at work...

*The "rule" that says "if it is wet and not yours don't touch it" really is a good rule. The problem is that I can't always keep those wet and not mine things from touching me!

*I turn 35 next month. I wonder if I'm too old to have blue toenails.

*I'm really glad that the doctors here have a shower, although I think I could have done without seeing the personalized loofah brushes that are hanging on the wall.

*I wonder how many jobs I can think of where there is no chance at all I would need to shower while I was at work.

*I wonder if anyone has ever used a whole bar of soap while showering before.

*I wonder how many times I'm going to have to wash those scrubs before I will ever want to wear them again.

*I'm so glad they have extra scrubs here at work and it sure is nice to be able to wear a size small in SOMETHING. Sure they have no shape at all but I will take it!

*Darn, one of my favorite chapsticks was in that pocket...I certainly won't be using that one anymore!

*I sure hope the lock on that door works!

*Would it be weird to blog about this?

I feel old...

I recently saw a DVD cover, the 20th anniversary of "The Princess Bride". Wait a second, didn't that movie just come out a couple of years ago?? Does that mean I'm getting old, when not only do I remember when things first came out and we are now "celebrating" the 20 year anniversary but I'm saying to myself that there is no way that could have been 20 years ago!
I'm too young for this, I mean it!
Anybody want a peanut?

Thankful Thursday

1. A working furnace
A couple of weeks ago we woke up to a freezing cold house and a furnace that was no longer working. So we paid premium to have someone come out and fix it (because it was a saturday). While I sometimes hate being a "responsible" adult and paying for things like heat and toilet paper and insurance, I am very grateful for our nice warm home.

2. Warm(ish) weather
We have had a couple of days of warmer (than it has been) weather. Cole and Cagney and I went for a walk around the block yesterday and they were thrilled to be outside. I was too, I think I'm Vitamin D deficient this time of year.

3. Our jobs
With this unstable economy I am so grateful everyday for our jobs.

4. School
This is one that is a bit reluctant. I started my online class this week. I'm overwhelmed with the thought of quizzes and tests and a research paper, but so grateful that these things will help me reach my goals. And I'm grateful for online classes too.

That is it for this week!!

Favorite Photo Friday

Jared's violin recital, November 2008. I choose this photo because I have a story to tell with it. Jared was practicing the other day and he ran downstairs and said, "Mom, listen to this!" I thought maybe he had mastered a tricky part of the new song he is learning. No, he played the Star Wars theme song. So glad we are spending all of this money on lessons every month so he can learn the Star Wars theme song. But I did think it was way cool that he figured out how to play it by himself!

Top 10(ish) photos of 2008

I wanted to do a post with my top 10 photos of 2008, but couldn't narrow it down to only 10.

January 2008
Oh, my heart. This is before we finally cut Cole's hair so he still had all of his sweet baby curls. Also before we finally said farewell to the binks. When Cole is relaxing he puts the corner of his blankie in his ear. Sigh, so sweet.

February 2008 They don't need the shirts anymore, they have learned how to verbally blame each other!

Also from February 2008. The best thing about lots of snow is jumping off the the mailbox into it!

March 2008. Beads and a super hero mask. My kind of girl.

March 2008. Jared's old shoes, Jared's new shoes. Jared is in fourth grade and already wears the same size shoe that I do...and I don't have small feet!

Easter 2008. Love the little cheesy smile.

March 2008. This is what happens when you live with little boys.

June 2008. Spring soccer season. Love the sun kissed cheeks.

July 2008. Coco and Grandpa at Cherry Hill.

July 2008. Ever take a picture of one of your kids and then wonder who the heck that kid is because there is no way you have a kid that grown up? That was me with this picture.

August 2008. Sailing on the Great Salt Lake.

August 2008. Snuggling on the front porch during a summer thunderstorm.

September 2008. This little wild flower grew in the middle of our curled up garden hose.

September 2008. Cagney at Julie and Seth's wedding reception.

October 2008. I love fall.

December 2008. We don't often take pictures of the two of us, I really love this one. Jared was the photographer.

December 2008. Taken from our front porch.

Whatcha been up to?

I took a little break from blogging and had planned to do a bunch of posts, but I just don't think that is going to happen...so it will have to be a nutshell. Here is what we have been doing...

My parents and Trevors parents were both out of town for Christmas. We do love visiting our families but also loved how relaxed and lazy we were able to be this year. On Christmas eve we took the kids to see BOLT (very cute) and then came home for homemade pizza and crepes for dessert. HEAVEN Then the kids opened their sibling exchange gifts and their new pajamas.

(I just have to say here how happy I am to have a picture with all of my kids smiling and actually looking at the camera. We have a whole years worth of photos from 2006 where every picture we tried to take of all five kids Cole is either squirming to get out of the picture or crying.)

The kids were so thrilled on Christmas day when I told them that we could stay in our pajamas all day. Whohoo! We had a wonderfully relaxing day. Our traditional Christmas morning breakfast is mountain man breakfast and cinnamon rolls.

Here are some of my favorite photos from Christmas day. (Trevor and I got a new camera for ourselves for Christmas so these pics are all taken with that.)

Cagney has been asking for a water baby since July and reminding us everyday how much she wanted one. So far she has named her DeeDee, Cutie, and just water baby.


Jared had a very Pokemon Christmas.

Miquelle is very quickly taking after Trevor when it comes to music. How they can remember songs and artists is beyond me. I know what I like, but five minutes after hearing it I can't remember what it was.


Miquelle playing Mario Cart on the new Wii.

Lots of nerf gun fights around here.

Gabe was very excited to give us the ornament that he made at school.


Cagney kissing her water baby before I could even get it out of the box.

Coco shares his Grandpa's love of trains.

Since Christmas day...
*Cagney has been dressed up like a princess everyday thanks to her new trunk of dress ups.
*Lots and lots of playing on the Wii.
*I have been working some odd shifts at work (odd meaning shifts I don't usually work) because of the holiday schedule.
*I'm enjoying the new hand weights that Trevor put in my stocking. I had a very heavy stocking this year.
*Jared put together his new Knex roller coaster.
*We have had tons of snow (a lot came on Christmas day). Since my parents are out of town and we are house sitting we have had two houses to keep shoveled. It has been a lot of work. But I'm sure the extra exercise was good considering all of the holiday goodies.
*Lots of Knex creations and pokemon battles and remote control vehicle playing for the boys.
*Things have been crazy with the kids all home from school. It has been fun too, but I'm looking forward to monday when everyone goes back to school! (I worked yesterday and someone asked me why I was in such a good mood, I told them it was because I was getting a break from all of the craziness at home!)
*New Years Eve we got together with good friends, had too much good food and played some really fun games. Learned a new game called Held. Really fun, but we didn't play it long enough to get very good (at least I didn't) and need to play it again. Learned a new dice game that I can't remember the name of. It was really fun and apparently we were swearing in Spanish during the game but no one knew for sure because no one spoke Spanish! And we played Wacky six, this is a fun one because we could play as couples. It was a really fun evening.