Thursday, March 31, 2011

Bonfire

My brother loves to spend time outdoors! Our family friends built a house on some property and they let Scott come over and play around! He has discovered bonfires and invited us to one! I wasn't sure how the kids would do, so I was hesitant about going, but I couldn't pass up an opportunity for a smore. (I haven't had one in 3 years!) The kids LOVED it!!! They were so good the whole time and were just excited to be outside! This gives me real hope for the camping trips that we have planned for the summer!
Gage was thoroughly entertained by the helicopter that kept flying over us! He just starred up into the sky!

The kids were so excited to be there!
Gagey with his first smore! He totally loved it!


Maisey with her first smore. She liked it ok, but didn't like to be sticky!
Shaun and the master fire builder, aka, Scott.


Daddy and Gage! Gage kept sneaking marshmallows straight out of the bag. He probably ate 15. Later that night he finished off someone else's bag!


Our perfect fire!

It really was such a fun night!

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

I *heart* feeling productive

Today I . . .
ran 2.5 miles at the gym
washed, dried, folded, and put away 8 loads of laundry
ate 3 meals
shuttled kids to and from preschool
watched 2 extra boys during preschool
cleaned out Gage's closet, again!
cleaned out entry way closet
plucked eyebrows
showered
cleaned out under bed
posted on personal blog
wrote 8 blogs for job
ran errands with kids
unloaded dishwasher
reloaded dishwasher
prepared a healthy dinner
played hide and seek and restaurant
read books
worked on ABC and math work books
watched the General YW Broadcast with my YW
ran more errands, sans kids
blogged again

. . . and now I'm going to bed!

It's amazing what you can get done when you are up at 5 am! It's also amazing when you consider things like eating 3 meals and showering a luxury! Ahhhh. . . being a mom!

Hopefully tomorrow is just as good! We started our 2 week deep clean of the house! I'm going to need a lot more productive days in the near future!

Musical Hot Dog



I'm not sure what's up with my kids and food lately! But Maisey serenaded us with Ba Ba Black Sheep on her hot dog flute during dinner tonight!

W.W. - Just Like Mommy


Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Gage's Dinner of Choice

Gage found this jar of Vaseline in his diaper box in his room! He brought it out to the kitchen, got a spoon from the drawer, sat in the middle of the floor and started eating it. YUM!!! Shaun said at least we know it will come out smooth! :)

Aloha



Maisey's cousin brought this home from Hawaii for her!

Monday, March 28, 2011

28 on the 28th!

Today is Shaun's 28th birthday! We celebrated last night because today is filled with the boring things: work, preschool, babysitting, etc. But Shaun and I are going out tonight! Yay for dates!

We went up to the Adidas Employee Store last week and Shaun picked out a few things for his birthday! So he was surprised when we gave him a few gifts today!

Maisey picked out this Beavers shirt for daddy! She had a hard time keeping it a secret! But he loves it and changed into it immediately!

Gagey gave daddy a Star Wars Lego Clock for his desk at work! He loves that too!
I gave daddy some cologne! We put 28 candles in his Angel Food cake Then we ate dessert!

Happy Golden Birthday Daddy!!!!


You are the best!


Love,

Your Family

Friday, March 25, 2011

The ABC's of Sunriver

A: At last!!!!! We finally made it to Sunriver Friday evening! We told Maisey a few weeks ago that we were going and every morning she woke up and asked, "Is today the day we go to Sunriver?" She was so excited to be there! B: Black Bear Diner C: Cuddling with Grammy
D: Discovering Snow
E: Eating! We tried to do some of every one's favorites! We ate so much over the weekend! One disappointment, however, was the Chinese restaurant that we usually eat at was closed for remodel!

F: Family
G: Grammy

H: Hot Tub (no picture necessary!)


I: Ice Cream -- twice for the adults!


J: Junk Food -- oreos, almond m&m's, peanut butter m&m's, risens, swedish fish, and licorice! YUM!


K: Kids! This weekend was all about the kids! They had such a great time! I was so surprised at how well Gage did! He slept in a room all by himself. He didn't get in to very much, and we was pretty much HAPPY all weekend!


L: Lovely! Just lovely! When we left on a bike ride, it was sunny outside. In the middle of the bike ride we got caught in a blizzard/ice storm! I couldn't see and was peddling my bike with my eyes closed while ice pelted my face! Not Fun! This is what it looked like when we got home!

M: Maisey had a pretty good time between all of the fits she was throwing! Those are getting old, fast!
N: No tennis! All I wanted to do in Sunriver was play tennis. At one point when it wasn't snowing, we drove around to try to find a court with a net up. Most of the courts were clear but no nets. The one court we found with a net must have been shadowed by something because it was still covered in snow! :( I was so bummed! I guess I'll have to wait for the summer!


O: October was the last time we went to Sunriver! We need to go more often! It is just so relaxing there!


P: Picture Taking -- Maisey loves taking pictures with my camera! This one she took of Gage and I at Black Bear Diner turned out pretty good!

Q: Quiet! After the kids were asleep we enjoyed some peace and quiet! There's just something about being out in the middle of no where that makes you feel so peaceful!


R: Rides. Maisey enjoyed giving her brother rides on the John Deere! And Gage enjoyed receiving them!
S: Sledding. We woke up to snow one morning, got everyone bundled up, and headed to the sledding hill, only to find it was closed for the season because of a construction project! Another bummer! So we made the best of the snow we had and Daddy pulled the kids around the cul-de-sac behind a bike! T: Trailer -- this is what the trailer looked like when we got back from the bike ride in the middle of the snow/ice storm! The kids LOVE being in there though!

U: Up and Down the River, Phase 10, Ticket to Ride, Blockus, and Yahtzee! We played games every chance we had!


V: Victory!!!!! We watched the BYU basketball team beat Gonzaga!


W: Window watching! This is what we could see from the upstairs windows! Beautiful, huh?


X: X-box! Shaun got some NCAA football playin in!


Y: Yahtzee -- Maisey played Yahtzee with my mom and I and got her first Yahtzee ever with 5's!
Z: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz -- We got lots of rest while we were there! It's always so nice to not have to worry about your responsibilities at home for a few days!


P.S. Can I just say that I get so frustrated with Blogger's formatting issues! I have everything just the way I want it and then they mess with all of the spacing! Hence the reason "B" is at the end of "A" and not on it's own line. I've fixed it several times, but when I push publish post it goes back to the same way. Anyone know how to fix this?

Our Own Basketball Game

We were a little disappointed about the loss of the Cougs last night! But we were still able to have some fun!

(Escuse the sassy-ness of our little Miss. This is very mild compared to what we've been dealing with recently)

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Lucky Me!

I sure feel lucky to have these two crazy kiddos in my life!


These silly faces are the high light of my day!
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Hope you are all feeling lucky today too!

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Sleeping Beauties

Every night before bed Shaun and I check on our kids. And every night, with out fail, I say to Shaun, "They are so cute." 2 nights ago, this is what we found!

The little miss with her new eye mask!

And the little man, half undressed!

They truly are so cute!

Sunday, March 13, 2011

MIA = Long Update

I know I've kinda been MIA lately! I have a good reason! I have some awesome news, but wasn't able to share it until I got something taken care of today! So I knew I had to keep myself off of the blog so that I wouldn't blab! You wanna know what it is?
I got a job! An awesome job that still allows me to stay home with my kids, but also allows me to cut back on child care quite a bit. I've really been struggling with child care lately. My kids weren't enjoying the other kids, and honestly, neither was I. I think it was just childcare in general. I've been doing it for 3 years -- since Maisey was 9 months old. It was getting to be really overwhelming. My sister emailed me a few weeks ago about an opening for a blog writer at her company. She asked her boss if somebody from out of state could apply, and since most of the work is done online, he said yes. So I applied, and as you can imagine, I got the position! It really is so nice. I can do as much or as little work per week that I want to. I can work from my house, my mom's house, the airport, ANYWHERE that has Internet. So, even when on vacation this summer I can still be making a little extra money! It really is the perfect job for me!
The hardest part about all of this is letting some of my child care families go. All of the babysitting I do is part time. It's all crazy hours and I've had a hard time juggling all of it. But some of the families are our friends too. So it was hard breaking the news to them. But I did it! After days of stewing over it, I made my last phone call this morning, while staying home from church with my sick little man!
It is such a relief to have an end in sight! I am only keeping one little boy on hopefully through the end of the year, and my goal is to be completely done with child care by then! But this one boy is pretty easy and him and Maisey get along really well. I can take him anywhere with me! So it really won't be that bad! I am very confident that these decisions that Shaun and I have had to make in the last few weeks are what is best for our family! I am just so excited about it all!
Ok, on to the rest of of the updates!
I love March! Really, I love the St. Patrick's Day meal! Corned beef + cabbage = YUM! I love coming up with ideas to make an all green dinner! This year we are having the missionaries over and an investigator family. It's going to be so much fun! I made this cute little frame for our mantle. I really do feel like we are a LUCKY family!

While Maisey goes to preschool, Gagey gets to play with his friend Hudson and Hudson's baby brother Brody. (Maisey's teacher's kids!) Gage is OBSESSED with Brody. He sleeps in his car seat so I started putting him on the table so Gage couldn't bug him and Gage found a way up there! So now he goes on the counter. Don't worry, Angela! He is always supervised!

Ever since Maisey started preschool, her creativity has sprouted! It's so fun to see her come up with different ideas. They had a music week at preschool a while back and her teacher let them play her violin and guitar and clarinet. Maisey found a couple of toys to make her own violin!

Gage got this little train for Christmas that has each letter of the alphabet on each of the train cars. Maisey put the whole thing together in the right order! She is getting so smart!

This little guy hasn't been feeling too well this week. He has let us cuddle him and rub him more than ever. He is really starting to turn into a little boy and not such a baby. I can't believe he is going to be 2 next month! CRAZY!!!!

Maisey got in to my makeup! When she saw herself in the mirror she was really sad that it was all over her face, so she wiped it off and tried again! Lucky me!

Gagey does not like getting in his car seat or getting out! Getting in is seriously a wrestling match. I have to pin his legs down with a leg, push his chest back with an arm and *try* to buckle him with the other hand as quickly as possible. It's quite the process. But by the time we get home he doesn't want to get out. He just sits in there and re-buckles the top part of his seat. Well, after church last week, I left him in the car like usual so he could re-buckle and I ran our church bags inside. I came back out to get him and found him in my seat! Isn't he so handsome?

I spent the first week of the month stocking up on our food storage. Safeway had some awesome sales, so I ordered coupon off of ebay and got us all stocked back up again until next year! 80 boxes of cereal and 60 boxes of fruit snacks should do! With the cost of coupons it all cost less than $20! I even got Shaun in on it this time! It was nice to have a little help!

I'm teaching a cake decorating class to the YW this Wednesday. I'm not quite sure what I'm doing, so I decided to practice a little bit! I made this for a birthday party!

Here is part of the birthday party that we had last night! We had a Birthday Bunco Bash for Shaun and three other friends of ours that have birthdays this month! It was WAY fun!

I got each of the birthday people balloons with yummy treats tied to the bottom and their name going down the string! They turned out pretty cute!

This was the raspberry vanilla cake

And this was the chocolate cake that I made. They were both yummy! Any one want to guess how many sticks of butter is in both of these cakes combined? It's a pretty gross number, but I'm sure that's why they tasted so good!

Here were the birthday guests of honor! Shaun, Jenn, Jay, and Mike! Happy Birthday you 4!
We have a lot of stuff coming up in the next month or so. We are going to Sunriver this weekend, Shaun's going to Tennessee, we are celebrating Gage's birthday, and I am going to Utah! It's going to be crazy busy but we like having fun adventures to look forward to! Stay tuned for updates on our busy lives!

February Catch Up

These are pics from last month that I never got around to posting! Like I said, it's been a little crazy around here lately!
I ordered 40 lbs of chicken from a distributor out of Spokane. I ordered ground beef from them in January and loved it too. It's so nice to have a freezer full of ready-to-go meat at such a cheap price! I spent a whole day trimming and portioning the chicken! We have already used it several times!

I helped my mom sell her car and buy a new one! We did them both in the same day! It worked out really well, but it was a little stressful. I was kinda sad to see this car go! This was the car that I took my last road trip in with my dad. Maisey was only 2 months old and Shayla and Christina joined us on the crazy adventure! It was sure memorable! So I wanted to post a picture of the car!

I like looking at the snow from my window. It only lasted a couple of hours, but it was sure pretty!

We took the kids swimming at the KROC center! They had a great time!

Gage was really cold by the end and it was SO late so he was tired. But I wasn't complaining that he wanted to cuddle.

For FHE we played Don't Eat Pete! I used to play that game when I was like 10! I remember it being so fun so I decided to find a copy of it online! My kids L.O.V.E.D it! We played with m&m's the first time because that's what I used to play it with but since then we've played with raisins, grapes, and cheerios! They ask to play it all the time!

Also, Gage broke his crib! :( See around his crib? There is no border. There is no Fat Head left on the wall. And the canvas decoration that was up has been taken down. Obviously Gage doesn't approve of his mom's decor choices. We had to set up Maisey's old crib in his room. He has been sleeping a lot better in the new crib though!
So, there you go! I think I'm all caught up now!