Boys Go Snowboarding and the Girls Go Where?

Stephen took the boys up to Monarch today to enjoy the snow. Ryan and Makayla went along too. Here in Colorado all 5th graders ski FREE at any resort. It is a neat program set up by the state, and both Jacob and Makayla are in 5th grade. I think Stephen is all about taking advantage of that so that he can snowboard. Stephen is an incredible boarder! I remember going with him once and having a group of teenagers watching and talking about him in awe.

Well, of course it's not fair for the girls to just sit at home. Kristy and I did a fun project in the morning (I will have to take pictures tomorrow and post it) Then we went and got the older girls out of school. We took them to the park. They fed the ducks and played on the playground. It was another beautiful day. I love the next photo with Syd's fun expression.

Here is another fun expression on the merry go round.

I better put in a more pleasant expression of Becca.

We then headed over to Rizutos for ice cream. They have both hard and soft ice cream cones that are HUGE and soooo cheap. We got 8 cones and paid $6!!! Next we headed to the dollar theater to finish up the day.

After adding up the bills, I think the girls were quite a bit more frugal with their fun!

My Little Raised Garden

The weather was BEAUTIFUL today and made me so excited for Spring and planting. My seeds from Gurney's came in the mail last week. Kaylee and I sat down and went through our seeds and mapped out what we are going to plant. We had fun making our garden plan. We even planted our tomato seeds in little cups. We did this last year over Valentine's weekend and they were the perfect size to set out when it was time. I just love digging in the soil and watching the plants grow. My soil in the raised beds is so rich and beautiful. I've tried really hard this winter to compost out produce scraps. A good friend gave me her Fall leaves and then another gave me coffee grounds that she had gotten from her favorite coffee shop. I just can't wait to see how everything grows this year.

Do YOU like Scar?

Ashley has been obsessed with the Lion King lately. She abhors Scar and is constantly asking EVERYONE if they like Scar. Last night Ryan came over to talk about Afganistan for FHE and when it came time for questions that was the first one out of Ashley's mouth. She asks strangers in stores, UPS men that come to the house, ... she even asked baby Thomas if he liked Scar. Now if you do say that you like him, she gets her scowl on her face and proceeds to inform you that YOU DO NOT like Scar, but you can like Simba. Of course the boys and even Aunt Kristy will tease her that they like Scar just to get the wrath of Ashley. I think it's just so funny that she is soooo into this Scar thing right now.

Hands

This is one of my favorite photos. I have it framed in Jerrica's nursery. The hands are Jerrica's and my dad's. My dad is a carpenter and farmer. His hands are rough and scarred. His skin is tan from the many hours in the sun. When my kids or cousins see this picture they immediately know the hands are Grandpa Coley's. To me they represent a lifetime of hard work. Then there are Jerrica's sweet little white hands grasping my dad's. Can I just say one more time that I love this photo!!!

Now for the latest hands photo. Like I said in a previous post from our trip, we took many pictures that Sunday night at Alesha's and one of them were pictures of each family's hands. We probably needed a hand poser to position our hands better. You wouldn't think taking a picture of hands would be that hard, but let me tell you it was a little difficult for some to stick their hand in. But once again I can glance at the photo and tell which hand belongs to which family member, maybe it's because they are labeled! Anyway, I'm working on a little project with this picture for each of the kids and couldn't help taking a break and doing a hand's posting on the blog.

End of the Trip

On Saturday night we went over to Jamin's for a pizza party. Their baby has gotten so big. I'm mad I didn't get any pictures while we were over there. Jon and Janna, as well as Dave and Lindsey came too. We enjoyed seeing everyone and visiting.

My shopping buddy Brittany came over and I was able to go with her and spend time. I LOVE friends that you can visit about anything and everything and time just flies as you do. I sure miss you Brittany!!! Can't you move back to Colorado!!!

Sunday we went to church and filled the Primary with all our kids. That afternoon we just chilled. We did get some fun pictures. Here is a fun one of the kids from up above.

Monday morning we went by Wood Connection and got some fun projects that I will be posting soon. We need to do a craft day with Alesha on speaker phone again.

The fun finale to the trip was sweet Pamela's meal. She is one of my YW and was taking care of Shadow while we were gone. She called me Monday morning and told me that she was going to make us dinner to come home to. I was like, "Oh don't worry about us ..." But she had already bought the food and started the dinner. We got home around 8:00pm to a peppered roast with gravy in our oven and cheesey spirals as a side dish. It was so yummy!!! We ALL enjoyed our little feast and the sweetness of Pamela. Oh and did I mention she had the table all set with our china and napkins all fancy. She is a jewel!!!

Princess Party

The girls were each given the following invitation rolled up and sealed with a jewel. I think anything involving party and princess meant fun for them.Then dear Aunt Seamstress Alesha presented each girl (there were 11 total) with matching frog PJ's that she had made. They were also given a plain white T-shirt to decorate at the party. Kristy had stencils for the girls to use.


The party also involved making candy necklaces and getting fingernails painted. Lee had a cute stamp that would stamp designs on the girls nails with the fingernail polish.



Meanwhile the boys and dads were off playing -

Valentine's Day

Alesha gave all the kids a Valentine from Krispy Kreme for a free doughnut. So we had to go there. Nathan claims this was his favorite part of our vacation.

He is our doughnut boy!!!

Then came the Progressive Tumbling. We had rented it for just our family to use the facility. Let's just say that we got our exercise!
Foam Fights

Obstacle course Relays

Swinging into the Pit

Show off Backflips

Show off Bodies

Springy Tramps of should I say "Jumpolines" like the three year olds called them.

Hiding behind foam in complete terror of the situation.

Swinging like Jane

The Sumo Suit wrestling matches

Hanging out with cousins

Homemade Glitter Play-dough

Whipping up some hair bows for our girls

Playing computer games

Making Valentines for each other

Playing house in Alesha's fun toy area

Wii had soooo much FUN!!!
(I still need to add Valentines Day late afternoon activities. That involved A LOT of sewing on Alesha's part. I will add that and the end of our trip including our fun projects from Wood Connection and seeing the Thompson's and Brittany on tomorrow's post)

Food

After seeing the Draper Temple, Dave had made reservations at an incredible Italian Restaurant in downtown Salt Lake City called Cucina Toscana. Valter is the owner. It was a busy Valentine's weekend, but he greeted us with kisses on the cheeks and ushered us back to a secluded little area and the feasting began. We didn't order off the menu, instead they brought us course after course after course. We had yummy appetizers and then 7 different salads to try. I was so full, but it was sooo good that I HAD to keep eating. The flavors in the food was amazing! I'm craving it right now as I type. I had to laugh as Dave was telling us about this Valter and how he knows him, because he told us that he reminds him of Albert Einstein. He totally looks like him! See for yourself in the photo!

That night, (we are still on Friday) we found hung on each of our bedroom doors, little breakfast in bed signs. Alesha had a list of foods that you could check and beverages as well. Then a time to be served your breakfast in the morning. The older kids were so excited, as was I. We checked off our preferences and to bed we went. The next morning starting at 6:00am Alesha was running around breakfasts to everyone on cute heart plates for Valentine's Day. I was still full from the night before, and being the morning person that I am, I wasn't too pleasant when she brought in mine. Alesha is always such a cute hostess and great cook!

The Draper Temple

So Alesha lives in Draper, Utah and they have just finished building the Draper Temple. Sooo, what do we do ... go for a visit of course. The Spillane's and the Thompson's went out for the weekend filled with FUN.

We first had to wait our turn to go through and see it. They had us park quite a ways away at a chapel and then shuttled us up to the temple. They showed a quick video about temples. The cousins were so excited to be together for the festivities.

The chartered buses they used were a huge hit with the kids as well. They were big WHITE buses that were marked a certain color on the windshield so that they coordinated with where people parked. Well, the lady gets on the bus and goes through this lengthy talk about not getting on the "blue" marked bus will mean hours on getting back to your car. At the end she says, "Now what color is your bus?" Everyone is quiet as Ashley very loudly states "our bus is white!" Everyone laughed. She was technically right. Poor kids probably constantly wonder what adults are talking about.

The temple was beautiful with woods from Africa and limestone from China. The bride's room had sconces on the wall that resembled crowns. Rebecca and Karley were in awe. The paintings were gorgeous. They had the carpet all tarped and instructed us to stay on the plastic. Of course once again Ashley was trying to pull bark out of the tree pots and rearrange the vases on tables. I just kept thinking, "Why can't she stay on the path!?!?" I think I will be thinking that the rest of my life. She is too curious! We were allowed to have JUST our family (well there were 20 of us) sit in a sealing room together. Someday they will be sitting there for each other's weddings.

They ended the tour at a chapel right by the temple. There were cookies and bottled water in a little reception area. We took turns taking pictures of the Hills, Spillane's and Thompson's in front of this gorgeous painting of Christ. I wish the camera wouldn't have caught such a glare.

Alesha told us of the lady who was in charge of the reception's food. She was told that the first week she would have 6,000 special VIP guests come through before it was opened to the public. She had special apricot walnut appetizers and mozzarella balls. Anyway, they had an incredible number of guests come through and each time they thought that they were out of something, they would find another tray of food. At the end of the weekend they counted up the number that went through and it was 12,000. She was in disbelief because she had just planned for barely over 6,000. It seems like those stories of food always happen except in my pantry!

New Beginnings

I need to mention our New Beginnings before I jump into the trip details. We had it the night before our family left for Utah. We had a sea theme. The song the girls learned had lyrics like "anchored in truth" and "no storm will drag me down".

We had the moms introduce the new beehives and give them a basket of goodies that represented their daughters. Karlene gave a good talk on Personal Progress and then Jeanette bore a sweet testimony about Personal Progress. I talked on anchors and the Bishop talked on lighthouses. We gave each of the girls a copy of the Jenny Philips CD with this year's themed songs.

On the way to the church I was practicing my talk on my kids. Kaylee and Rebecca wanted to come for New Beginnings and the boys had scouts. As I was saying my talk, Nathan told me "Mom, are you going to use that voice?" "Yeah Nathan, why do you ask?" Then he has the nerve to say, "Well, that's not really your voice. Your voice is more screamy and yelly and the voice that you are using right now is really soft and quiet." (And yes two minutes before we went up to church, I was yelling to get scout shirts on and scout books found, but HELLO I do not have a yelly voice!!!)

Anyway, the night went really well. I was sad that more of my girls weren't there. Below is a picture of the girls that did make it.

Finishing Up Valentines Day

My title should read "finishing up Valentine's in Colorado" because we actually spent the Valentines weekend in Utah. Yet before I post all of the fun in Utah, I wanted to do one last post of things the kids did before we left on our trip. The above picture is Nathan's that he did in art. They were experimenting with chalk and shadows. I totally LOVE it and must find a frame for it.

Next we have the Valentines boxes. The kids missed their parties because we left early in the week. So they made and took their cards and boxes into their classes early. They are excited for tomorrow to get their boxes back. Anyway, Becca did a "Fancy Nancy" box. Nathan and Kaylee made soccer boxes.

I sure got a kick out of all the time the girls spent on analyzing which "kiss me" card would go to which boy. I don't even think the boys even read what their valentines cards said on them!

Speaking of boxes, we made a little package for our grandparents with valentines, pictures, and chocolate. We love you guys!!!

Then Rebecca had also made these neat clay heart necklaces in her art class. The teacher had them make clay snakes and mix the colors together and form hearts. Then they baked the hearts. They each made two so that they could wear one and then give one to a person that they love . I am the lucky winner of Rebecca's love necklace.

Stephen spoiled me with chocolates and a card before we left. He also did a cute heart attack on our mirror in the master bath that said, "Everytime I see you I get the same heart attack that I did when I saw you the first time" I still am wondering if that's a good or bad heart attack!?! Anyway that's how we finished the Valentines Holiday here. I'm excited to blog the Utah trip, but due to my tiredness "from the trip" I will do it tomorrow.