A New House Again

After months of construction we finally put the finishing touches on our basement. Voila! Our living space doubled. Once the carpet guys finished installing there was no stopping the girls. They got right to work hauling down their mattresses, clothes, dolls, and STUFF. I don't think the squeals of delight could be matched by any ride at Disneyland. Their 3 years of sharing a bedroom finally came to end. Now they each have a bedroom to call their own and they are thrilled about it. I actually heard Brynn say to herself as she was organizing her room, "I'm going to make my bed EVERY DAY!"

Plenty of room down here to shout for joy and do cartwheels.

Brandon's excitement was equal to the girls when he was able to finally enjoy his Christmas present. This cougar fan got a giant BYU fathead logo for the wall. I have never seen such ambition as I did when he was measuring , centering, marking out where his beloved "Y" would go. He did all the work and after it was up.....Ahhhh you should have seen the look on his face. It was pure joy! Wish I had a picture of that one. He finds excuses now to come downstairs just so he can turn the corner and "Ahhhhh" admire the fathead.

I have loved de-cluttering the upstairs and moving all the toys, clothes, books and extra blankets downstairs.

But best of all, Buddy no longer has to sleep in our closet. He has moved into the girls old bedroom and hallelujah! I can put my clothes in there again! Winners all around.

Having a basement has been wonderful. Without the kids and toys we have a much quieter and cleaner main level. Sometimes it's too quiet...so I go down to check on them and they are happily playing games or organizing their shelves and true to her word Brynn has been making her bed every day!

The Greatest Reason to Celebrate

He is Risen! I can't get this hymn tune out of my head. It is a good one to have though, especially when you are hearing the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's version. I love Easter and it's message of Christ's Resurrection. Each year I come to appreciate it more as I learn more about it. This year we read the events from the Bible on each day that it occured starting with Palm Sunday last week and concluding today, Easter Sunday. We Believe!
This is 5 year old Adria's picture of the Crucifixion from our reading on Good Friday.

I also really loved that it was LDS General Conference on Easter Weekend. We moved the couch into the office and watched it online at BYUtv (no TV service yet.) --All this while feasting on our Easter candy (like mainly ones that involved peanut butter) to keep us alert and attentive. BTW--I could not find Cadbury mini eggs this year????? Did anyone buy them out early???

While it's fresh in my mind, here are a few things that I got out of all that counsel to help me personally:

Tell children the stories of Jesus (over and over), ask them questions, let them talk, and LISTEN, Bear spontaneous testimony, welcome thoughts by invitation only, The home is the most important place to teach and prepare our children, personal revelation is the most important life skill we can develop, a mother's influence is extremely important, faith is WORK, How we respond to trials determines our life's course, Judge not, the sacrament is the most sacred and holy meeting in the church, Hold your tongue about things (teaching children to avoid the temptation to gossip,) Let children see your love for them on your face, Where there is a design there is a Designer, All things work together for good for those who love God.

Plastic Eggs, Plastic Bags

Plastic grocery bags are good for many things. They are good for when you forget to bring baskets to the Easter egg hunt. They are also good for throwing up into when you are driving home in the car. Of all the places I could have lost my lunch, the car had to be the worst. It was a long drive home.

Throw up aside, it was a pretty great day. With 10 kids their spouses, and their kids, the annual C. family Easter egg hunt is a big event. Mom and Dad C. really know how to pull it off. We started with lunch and then we were divided into 5 groups. The coolest part is that even the grown-ups are in on the fun. We had a blast racing for candy, chips, drinks, eggs and plastic eggs with $ inside.
Maybe next year we should add a 6th group: Mom and Dad C. --they could race to find plastic eggs filled with little notes and pictures from the grandkids:) Except that we'll have to mail them because they just announced they will be putting in their papers to serve a mission later this year. Yeah! and Ohhh....
Thanks for all the fun...especially the plastic!

Who is this Kid?!

"Samson," as he is affectionately called by the ward, lost his curly locks. Bud got his first haircut yesterday. Problem is, we don't recognize him anymore. He went from looking like a gentle cherub to looking like....this...a regular boy! Wierd.

Ready or Not

Blame it on the world news and the books I'm reading but we're having a bit of an emergency preparedness-a-thon over here. I'm in book 2 of the "Great and Terrible" series by Chris Stewart. It's an exciting fiction read about the war in heaven and the war between good and evil in the last days. It has made me think differently about things for sure. I like books like that. My book club is reading Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank.

Inspired, (or maybe alarmed) I hit the case lot sale today and loaded up things like apple juice and canned peaches. I spent the afternoon dividing up and freezing 40 lbs of raw chicken--yuck. Brandon has always teased me throughout our marriage that I always stock up big time on TP. He doesn't understand that it's a necessity right up there with food, shelter, and water. I ordered a huge box to keep the other packs in the basement company. It may come in handy for bartering...

Curiously, the items that have sparked the most drama at our house, are the red emergency backpacks I brought home for each kid last week. I thought I casually explained what 72-hour kits were. But it seems I mentioned the word "earthquake" and that word was NOT received casually.

How did each kid respond?

Adrie and Brynn went right to work packing theirs. Adrie put in her boots, her sketchbook, some lifesaver candies and crayons. She cried when she couldn't fit her ducky blanket and her stuffed cougar in her backpack. " I'M GONNA WANT MY DUCKY IF THERE'S AN EARTHQUAKE..." she wailed.
Brynn stuffed her pink princess sleeping bag in her backpack. She seemed satisfied that it left no room for anything else.
Kate didn't bother to pack at all. She turned all fatalistic and cried, "Why bother if we're all just gonna die..."
I had a little fun with her and said that instead of spending her last $10 on Barbie stuff she should have stocked up on water and flashlights.

Looks like we'll have to do some packing or re-packing of the backpacks soon. Any tips? We'll probably also need some trauma counseling and I think I'll leave that one to Dad.

B-Day Drama

There's been a lot of celebrating going on over here. Three birthdays down with one more to go in March (Cannon's). I really wanted to take a break from parties this year but after months of intense begging, pleading, tears, and such they wore me down. I gave them 10 bucks and 2 choices: Keep it all for yourself. Or have a party and spend it on your guests. What did they choose? The latter-- way too quickly. Obviously the stakes weren't high enough.

Here's a synopsis of all the events:

Brynn's birthday #7: She invited a few friends over for an American Girl doll party. Everyone brought a favorite doll. They rotated around to different doll stations: hair salon, Dr. office, etc. Brynn spent her $10 on cupcake holders for her guests to take home. The girls ate and decorated cupcakes with gobs of frosting, sprinkles and candy. Brynn and her friends were easy to please and they had a good time.

Adrie's birthday #5:

Breakfast in bed (Trix.)

She had 4 friends over for a candy game. She spent her $10 on beaded bracelet kits. They proved a bit frustrating for some little hands but in the end they had some nice sparkly bling to wear home. They spent the rest of the time happily playing with all of Adrie's new presents. I love this age.

Kate's birthday #9: This is the age where Mom's great party planning ideas come to heads with Kate's great party planning ideas. It came to blows. Kate spent her $10 on storebought invitations and wooden block photo holders that the girls could paint. She also paid for the donuts. That we all agreed on--it was what else to do with 1o 8-9 year olds that we didn't agree on. I found an idea online that I thought was great: send them out of the house on a scavenger hunt around the neighborhood. Only instead of collecting useless things like paper clips they could support our ward humanitarian project and collect a few supplies for the orphans in Haiti e.g. a bar of soap, shampoo, TP, etc. First team back to home base wins--and so do the orphans right? Wrong. Kate thought this idea was HORRID. Maybe you do too... Anyway, at the suggestion of one of her friends they ended up playing a dance freeze tag kind of game. It was a hard crowd. I think they could have benefited from doing a little service but what do I know I'm just a nerdy mom. Sheesh. I know this is just the start of things to come--wait until we have to plan her wedding!@#!*

For her birthday she got a desk for her future room in the basement(pictured above because it hasn't arrived in the mail yet) and my old camera. I upgraded to a Canon powershot 12.1 mpx that was a bargain on amazon for $129.

Seriously next year I'm stickin to my guns. Enough already. No parties. We'll have some happy family times and spend the money on the orphans in Haiti.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ALL MY GIRLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do your kids get birthday parties every year or do you pay your kids off and if so how much--ha ha?

A Dose of Vitamin D

It's that time of year when I get a serious case of travel bug and I HAVE TO GO SOMEWHERE.
I shouldn't do this to myself but I browsed the travel section of the paper. Even China was looking good. Pretty much everywhere was looking good except Antarctica (no travel deals there anyway.)

Luckily, we don't have to drive far to experience a complete change of scenery and change of weather. Yes, thank goodness for warm and sunny St. George! We spent an extended weekend with family in one of our favorite spots. The first day we hiked through Zion's National Park--nature at it's finest. The most exciting thing besides all the huge cliffs and water was that we spotted a deer munching on branches. She wasn't but 20 feet from us and didn't even seem to care that we were there! I tried to share the excitement with some other passersby but when I whispered to them and pointed to the bushes they said with an accent, "Is okay, yah!" Obviously, English was not their native tongue and they had no clue what I was saying. They missed their moment with the deer.

Zion's was spectacular. We didn't get around too much with 4 little ones and muddy trails but what we did see was awesome. The girls found quiet spots by the river to draw pictures in their nature journals. I loved Adria's picture of a huge towering rock with an arrow pointing to the top and the explanation, "a place you can fall off."

We had a fun time hanging out with family--Thanks Q and T! Brandon enjoyed golf, the ladies went shopping, cousins played together. We had to go to the cool Euro park again. The grand finale of the weekend was the "Awesome Aquatic Center." This was like swimming pool heaven for our kids: fountains, slides, a lazy river.

Thank goodness we had all these sunny memories to hold on to as we arrived back home to our snow covered neighborhood. Vitamin D sure does a body good.

(Wish I had some photos but I haven't figured out how to download them from my new camera yet... )