Basketball Weekend

Yes, it was another Saturday of basketball. The four oldest are playing and each had a game. Nathan and Kaylee each had an indoor soccer game as well. So basically we were running from one game to the next. Did I mention that there was a birthday party as well for Nathan to go to. It makes for a busy Saturday, but the kids sure are getting good at basketball. We were so proud of them!

I like this picture of Coach Jordan talking to the team as Rebecca is oblivious to him and smiles at me across the floor. Coach Jordan has been such a good coach for Rebecca and Nathan. I get a kick out of his wife, Petra. She is such a hoot! I don't know if I sign the kids up under him because of his coaching abilities, or so that I can visit with his wife?!?

Other than the basketball, I've been really busy with stuff for Young Women's and trying to do some spring cleaning / organizing around this house.

Granola

The other morning my aunt called asking if I still had a recipe that she had given me. She was totally freaking out because she had lost it, and was quite excited when I had it. It started me thinking of my recipes that I love and would hate to lose. I LOVE to cook and bake and I'm constantly asking for and giving people recipes and so I'm sure I could do the same as my aunt and call whomever I got or gave the recipe out to. Yet, with the many hundreds of recipes, how could I keep track of who has each recipe. I thought it would be fun and more practical to have another safety measure here on my blog to store some of my favorite recipes. I might even make a fancy digital cookbook of my favorites someday.

Anyway, here is my absolute favorite granola recipe compliments of Jae Stringham. I've had many versions, but LOVE this one. You can even use that wheat down there in the food storage!!! I make a batch of this every month. Sometimes the peanut lovers in the family convince me to make a peanut batch. Anyway, here is a copy for you to try and an extra copy for me in case I lose my recipe!! Alesha, you better print this one up!

Reading Books

I love to read!!! I love to read by myself and then I love to read to the kids. I kind of really get into the expression and voice when I read out loud. I always tell Stephen that I need to work for a books on tape company and be their audio.

I try to read to the little girls in the afternoon. Jerrica amazes me how she will sit and just listen. Some of my kids (AKA - ADHD - Ashley) has a harder time. I think it's fun how each one has a different favorite picture book that they love hearing. Then we have the family classics that every one of my kids have enjoyed. I think I need to make a list of our favorites just to have.

At nights, after the older ones read I like to read outloud a family chapter book to them. We have read Hatchet, From the Mixed Up Files ....once again I should make a list of our favorites. I love when we are reading a fun book and HATE when it's over and we have to find another good one because sometimes that can be VERY hard. We need another good one right now. Does anyone have a favorite that their family enjoyed?

Of course I get very tired as I sit down and read. Do the kids? Just take a look at the above picture from today's little reading session. Yes the tickling started as soon as I put the books down and got the camera out. Anway, let me know some of your favorite books and I will post our family's lists.

Little Bigs

Miss Ashley has the life!!! She goes to the YMCA in the morning, where she plays, dances and does projects. When we come home she wants to make play-dough, watch movies, play games, jump on the trampoline ... Basically just play ALL day long. Her absolute favorite thing to do is to have play dates. Wednesday I took her and Sydney to Little Bigs, where we met Landon and Kelly. I always enjoy chatting with Kelly. She is one of those that you can visit with forever. I love analyzing and discussing things with her. Anyway, the kids had a ball running around and playing together. We are REALLY going to miss Sydney when they move!!!

I make Ashley's schedule sound fun and carefree. Mine, not so much!!! On this particular Wednesday I worked outside, did heaps of laundry, went to Mr. Biggs, ran to teach piano lessons, made sure Rebecca had a ride for her art class, packed Kaylee's soccer practice bag and made sure she got up to Monument for practice, ran to the outlet mall with Kristy (Ryan left that morning so we HAD to do something fun), and then raced home for Young Womens and scouts. I think I need to have a talk with Ashley and get on HER schedule!!!

Art Party Ideas???

We alternate years for friend and family parties for birthdays. This year Kaylee is on a friend party year. Anyway, I just finished making Kaylee's invitation for her upcoming birthday party. I'm going to go print them off at Wal-Mart's Photo kiosk tomorrow so that I waste their ink and not mine. Just wondering if there are any creative or fun ideas out there for the fiesta!?!?

St Patricks Day Project

I said that I would post the project that Kristy and I worked on the other morning. So here it is below. We had gotten the wood letters while we were in Utah and decided to do a little modge podging. I think it turned out really cute. On the other side of my clock I needed an Irish picture to put in my frame. Thus, my two cute models above. Kaylee couldn't stop laughing long enough to pucker and Rebecca is ALWAYS ready to pucker!!!

Grandma Letters

This week each of the kids recieved a letter from Grandma Charla. They were thrilled as always to get mail. I know that we live in a day of email and texts, but I still LOVE those hand written notes. I'm saving each of their letters in their family history boxes so that they can have Grandma Charla's personal note to them in her writing. I've kept some from Grandpa and Grandma Thompson as well.

A couple of years ago for FHE I had each of the kids fill in the blanks to a form letter. Next I let them each pick a different grandparent to mail their letter to. We stuck their letter along with a blank form letter to each of their grandparents and great grandparents (I even stuck a stamped self addressed envelope in each one to help the process). We were so surprised to get all four grandparents letters back along with the four great-grandparents. We would get so excited as each one would arrive and we would read it. It was fun to see what we had in common with each of them. Three of the grandma's put strawberries and cream for their favorite snack. Some had the same favorite hobbies as our kids have. One question I had on there was to write a favorite memory about your parents. Grandma Brenda had written about how she "loved watching her parents dance together and loved to participate with them in dance festivals." Grandma Jackie had written on her question of what was a difficult challenge you faced and how did you overcome it, with "I was always tall and skinny, so I became a good cook as I aged and now I am short and plump!" It was so fun reading these letters with their personalities throughout them. Now that a couple of them have passed on, I'm so glad that we have their treasured letters!!!

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)