Spouse Scavenger Hunt

Fun idea that I should've shared sooner. When Stephen and I were dating, I sent him on an Easter egg scavenger hunt that ended with a basket of his favorite candies. Well, I was thinking about it this past week and decided to do another one for him last night. I had him hunting for eggs and clues all over the house. There are so many fun things that you can put in the basket at the end of the hunt. I guess it was things like this that made us end up with SIX kids!!!

Nathan's 10th Birthday

I can't believe my Nathan is 10! Nathan is very athletic. He constantly has a ball nearby and especially enjoys soccer and basketball. He is very quick with math and loves doing money and time problems. He is very sweet with animals and so cute with little babies. He also enjoys video games and often complains that playing once a week is NOT enough. Nathan is also very good at the piano.

Saturday was his birthday. He started the day out with a soccer game in Pueblo and ended the day getting a big goal for his birthday. Two birthday traditions we have ALWAYS done are taking a picture of the birthday person with their presents AND decorating the night before. The birthday person has to go to bed a little earlier and the rest of the family stays up to hang streamers and put up balloons. Anyway, here is the birthday boy with his presents.

Monsters vs Aliens

Tonight our family went to the 3D Monsters vs Aliens for our Friday Flick. I loved seeing each of the kids with their glasses and facial expressions. Even little Jerrica sat there with her glasses for a bit. I've always enjoyed 3D movies. It amazes me how the perspective is so different. I love when you think that you can just reach out and touch the movie. Hands down Bob was the family's favorite character!

Art

I just love art and creativity. I love when the kids bring home their masterpieces from school or art classes. I try and display it here and there around the house. We have an "ART" wall in the loft that has art that we switch out.

I also have the art magnets on the fridge. Each year the kids get these art packets to order from a company that makes their art into magnets, mouse pads etc. Well I thought the price was outrageous especially times 4 kids. So I took their art pictures to Wal-Mart. Scanned them into the photo machine and printed them up as 4 x 6 prints, 22 cents. Then I bought Wal-Mart's magnetic 4x6 frame for $1. I loved how they turned out and they are bigger and BETTER than the company's! Plus by printing them up as 4 x 6 prints you can mail them to grandparents very easily.

Well, back to why I started this art post. Jacob is very talented. Clear back when he was in Pre-school the teacher always commented on how gifted he was. The last two years he has artwork that the president of TCA requests to be hung in his office for the year. Jacob always gets excited to get the "special" letter from the president. This year he has done drawings for his grade's newsletter as well. Anyway, he recently started an art class after school. Below is his drawing for the week. He had to draw a plate of eggs paying attention to shading. He just amazes me how he can put that dimension in his drawings, especially since his mother and father only draw stick figures. I'm just proud of his special talent!

Surprises

I love surprises! Doesn't everyone?!? On Monday when I came home from basketball I had lunch from Panera waiting for me compliments of Angie. I was so excited to have such a fun lunch and to not be expecting it.

Another fun surprise this week actually came from Kristy. One of the kids was getting something out of the fridge and said, "Why do we have all this money in our fridge?" I was like, "I wish!" Then they started bringing me $20 bills that were hid around the food in the fridge. It was Kristy trying to pay us back for eating and staying with us. Wouldn't that be fun to always open your fridge and have money hid here and there.

All of this money hiding reminded me of Julie in Washington DC. Stephen and I were VERY poor when we lived out there. Two old roommates of mine came to visit us while we were there. On the way to drop them off at the airport the one gave us $5 to help on gas. She made a big deal about it and kept talking on and on that she was glad that she could at least help us a little. Then as we hugged them goodbye, Julie whispered in my ear, "You might want to check around your car, I think there is some stuff in there that you aren't aware of" I was like OK, I don't quite understand what you are saying. Then as we drove home, we discovered bills all around our car. I don't know when or how she did it, but she hid $80 in various bills in the glove compartment, under floor mats, in the seatbelt, ashtray etc. As poor as we were I felt like we were rich with $80! I talked with her later asking if Kaelynn was in on it with her. "No" she replied "and we probably shouldn't tell her and burst her bubble with the $5!"

Anyway, I just love fun little surprises that I'm not expecting!

Some Worked While Others Played

Jerrica LOVES to mop, dust, organize my cupboards, just basically do all the work.

Jerrica was exhausted after mopping and was off to find Ashley.

Ashley was swinging herself in the dryer instead of putting the clothes from washer to dryer like I asked her to do.


And then in the afternoon was found perched in her kitchen watching position and STEALING some of the bread dough. And as we all know, Jerrica was the one that planted, thrashed, grinded and made the wheat bread.

I have always enjoyed the "Little Red Hen" story and as a mom feel like I AM THE RED HEN!!!

I'm So Dumb!!!

OK so this private blog thing has consumed my thoughts today. I'm just frustrated that I finally have gotten my mom and mother-in-law to be able to click onto my blog and taught my sisters how to comment and now this private thing is going to make it all harder for everyone!

As I was talking to a friend today about different options, she suggested blogpatrol. Has anyone used this one? She also said that I should stamp my photos with my copyright mark.

Back to why I'm so dumb, as I was thinking about my blog I remembered a few posts that had our address AND phone number on pictures in the posts. What was I thinking!!! I don't even have that on my facebook profile, but I do out here in the open on my blog.

SOO I've been busy tonight bleeping out our numbers and looking at options on blogspot. I think I need to go private just for my sanity. Thanks for all the sweet comments and emails, just come along with me into the private world without the weirdo lurkers and lookers!

Going Private

I was sickened to learn about Stephen's cousin's blog and how images were stolen and downloaded to a porno site. After looking at my sitemeter, I see some things that worry me. This is my family's journal, a way of communicating with family and friends, and I don't want to stop posting. However, I feel very strongly that I need to set it to private. Let me know if you want to be invited to the private blog. I will be changing over in the next couple of days.

You Have Just Been "Egged"

Tonight for FHE we went around egging houses. Ashley and I filled a ton of plastic eggs with candy this afternoon. When the older kids got home from school, I let each of them choose one friend to be "egged". We then went to each of their houses. The kids would run around the front yard hiding eggs all over. Then they would put the above note on the doorstep, ring the bell, and off we would run. They had so much fun hiding the eggs and at a few places we would watch from a far at the friends finding the eggs. Oh the joy of giving and receiving!

The Spillane's MOVED to Alabama

My quote for today is from Dr. Suess,

"Don't Cry because it's Over,

Smile because it Happened"

Can I just say that I am crying as I type this post and not smiling one bit!!! My sister Kristy moved here to Colorado Springs for a year while Ryan was gone and now she is gone. It has been so much fun for us and our kids. We have kids the same ages so it has been fun for them. After they drove away Kaylee came bawling to me and we just hugged and bawled like two babies. Kristy was my little YMCA work-out buddy, project helper, babysitter, and shopping pal (one reason Stephen is glad that she is moving). On Friday I had all the basketball ladies sign a women's ball for her as a going away gift. What can I say, I'm just sad that they have to move so far away. I am glad that they bought land here to give me hope that they may eventually move back. But oh am I sad tonight!!!

General Conference

The Spillane's came over for FHE last Monday and we talked about conference. I told the story of the people from Rahyad and how their downfall would be to eat chocolate cake, and so they avoided it. Well, an evil man named Zadock had a plan to get them to eat the cake. He first introduced them to chocolate chip cookies. They rationalized that it wasn't cake and the chocolate was minimal and began to include these in their diet. Then Zadock doubled the amount of chocolate chips in the recipe. Still the people continued consuming the cookies. Next he made chocolate chocolate chip cookies (I really should have made Alesha's recipe for these because ALL the kids knew exactly what kind of cookies these were and started craving them.) The people once again justified that they were cookies and still not the lethal chocolate cake and starting to eat them as well. This is when a wise man stepped in and held a conference and pointed out to the people what was happening. The conference made all the people step back and realize what they were doing and immediately made changes. (That's the jest of what I told anyway, I kind of simplified it up from the original) Then we talked about General Conference coming up and how that helps remind us what we need to be doing. We also talked about how easy it is to slid into Satan's trap and get caught before we know it, but how conference can help stop that from happening. We ended FHE playing an apostle match game, where we had to find the person that had our apostle. It was a fun evening and got us excited for General Conference.

During conference the kids watched and did their little packets. I had prizes as they would finish a page. (Thanks to Kristy leaving her treats for the trip here!)

I had given my YW a notebook with really neat note taking ideas last year for conference and used one for myself this year. I had found this on one of my YW sites and put it on the inside cover:

Take notes of what the speakers are saying and write down your thoughts and impressions as they come to you. At the end of the talk, summarize it into what the talk means to you and how you can do better in that area. Include the songs in your notes. Listen to the song and see why they chose that song. Then at the conclusion of conference include your testimony of the things you have heard, seen, promptings you have felt, and things you are grateful for. Then use these notes as a help to your personal scripture study and goal setting over the next 6 months until next conference.

I was touched by the songs this conference because I was actually paying attention to the songs and lyrics. I grabbed my hymn book this afternoon to go over some of the words that stood out to me. In the hymn, "We are Sowing" there is a phrase, "Seeds that live and grow and flourish when the Sower's hand is cold" How true that is about all that is planted in little hearts and minds now, will live on in some way after we are gone. I just really enjoyed looking at those verses today, maybe it's because Spring is here.

Quick Ashley Book

I'm just like the mouse in "If you give a mouse a cookie". Yesterday I grabbed my camera to get a picture of Ashley and it turned into a neverending photo shoot. I wanted her to smile and she gave me every expression but a smile. I was getting quite frustrated but kept taking in hopes that one of them would turn into a smile. Finally the last few she gave in and I got some smiles. Anyway, as I looked at them I thought about how expressive she is and loved some of her non-smiling photos. Then that afternoon I decided to print them up and make a board book of them. So while I was at Costco I had them printed and then last night decopauged them into one of our old torn up board books. It probably took a total of 10 minutes to do the book and I love how it turned out. Both Jerrica and Ashley have carried it around all day today. Here are some of the pictures. There were eight different emotions and then at the bottom of the post is the book. I think it would be fun to do one with each member of the family on a page.

As you can see one thing always leads to another. In fact just cleaning my house I feel like I'm constantly doing the "if you give a mouse a cookie" thing!!!

April Fool's Day

Kristy and I had fun with the kids lunches last night. We made six for each of the school kids. (Kristy's family has been staying with us since last week.) We opened the bottom of the chips and switched them all around so that Doritos were in the Cheetos bag etc and then used the double sided tape to seal the bottom again. We also stuck notes in the chip bags. Then we dumped out the water in the water bottles and filled them with Sprite. And did the raisin / Yogo bite switcheroo. We were laughing so hard thinking that we were so tricky!! Little did we know the boys were running around getting pranks set up for us.

Bright and early all of the alarm clocks in the house went off thanks to the boys. I thought Stephen had set mine to go and work out and was mad at him for setting my clock. The boys also snuck into Kristy's room and took Thomas out of the crib and put a doll in his place. Needless to say they woke Thomas up and Kristy wasn't too happy. The boys also poured a pitcher of water in Rebecca and Karley's bed to make it seem like they peed the bed. I wasn't too happy on that one.
I remember how much my Grandma Jackie loved this day. We loved going to her house to see if she could trick us. She was always baking and cooking up pranks. She would put cotton balls in cupcakes and milk straining pads in her pancakes. She always had that little sparkle in her eyes and mischievous grin.
All in all it was a fun prankful day! The kids were a bit sad that the chips they picked out weren't really in the bag. I do hate when I have my taste buds set on something and then am not able to eat it. Shelby's teacher let her keep her fake teeth in the rest of the school day. I had a bag of those from Halloween and thought they would be fun in the lunches. Jacob went to dump his raisins on the table and instead had yogo's rolling all over the cafeteria. Kristy also short sheeted the boy's bed tonight and I can hear the comotion right now. So yes, all in all it was a fun day!

Snuggling

During Spring Break mom and I took Kristy's older kids and mine to "Race to Witch Mountain". Rebecca asked at the beginning of the movie to sit on my lap, which usually is holding Ashley or Jerrica. Since those two were home with grandpa I of course said, "YES". Can I just say how much I enjoy snuggling my kids. She would whisper questions about the movie in my ear and turn to me and giggle at the funny parts. I loved every minute of the movie because I had Rebecca on my lap. Tonight when I was reading with her, she commented on how she sat on my lap for the movie the other night and how she wanted to do it again.

The definition for snuggling is:
SNUGGLE (Verb)
to nestle into (a person or thing) for warmth, safety or affection
Doesn't everyone want to be warm, safe and loved! No wonder I love to snuggle so much, now to just keep my kids little forever so that they will always want to snuggle with me!!!

Kaylee's Baptism

I can't believe my little Kaylee is 8 and old enough to be baptized. What a special time for her! We did a little photo shoot and then sent out invitations. The following photo is my favorite of her because it captures a little bit of her personality. I ended up using it as the photo for the centerpiece at her baptism. I forgot to take a picture of her beautiful flowers, scriptures, and photo that we had setting on the table at the baptism, so we set it up for the luncheon and I took a picture that's posted below.

Here is a photo of Kaylee before we went to sit in the chapel. I talked to her a little about the symbolism of water and reflection. She was so nervous.

Kaylee's dad baptized her. How blessed we are to have a worthy Priesthood holder for our little family!

Kaylee had a lot of family and friends come to her baptism and I'm so mad that I didn't get pictures of them. So instead of a photo of Kaylee in her beautiful baptism dress with her grandpa and grandma Thompson, I have her here tonight in PJ's with them. I did make a list of all of those who attended. Both sets of grandparents were there, and I'm making them write their testimonies to put in Kaylee's baptism book with hers.

Aunt Kathy put her name on a white towel that she used on her special day. I'm hoping that she will think of the day she was baptized every time she uses it. I just love little reminders! She also took her stuff in the rainbow bag after the primary song, "I like to look at Rainbows ..." We gave her scriptures with her name, the Thompson's have always given our kids a homemade "Be" plaque that the kids put up in their rooms, and the Coley grandparents have always given the kids a journal. She did get a lot of other neat gifts from family and friends. Once again I feel that each of them are special reminders of her day.

Here is another photo of us with our Kaylee girl. I'm just so proud of what a beautiful little girl she is!

Not So Smooth Sledding

Colorado had a big blizzard blow through on Thursday night into Friday morning. Stephen picked his parents up in Denver on Friday morning during the tail end of the blizzard. Anyway, the sun came out and all the snow started melting that afternoon. We tried to go sledding in town at different parks, but kids and sun had made all of the runs melted and grassy. SOOO we headed back into the forest to go on a hill behind Pattie Wennig's house. It all started out fun and happy as you can see above with Kaylee pushing Grandma Brenda and Rebecca.

Then trauma happened and I'm just sooo grateful that it wasn't worse!!! The picture below is of the run before the accident. Nathan and Kaylee were sledding down quite fast and Kaylee was on the front of the sled. She hit the corner of this railroad tie with her face. Yes I did say, her FACE. She let out a shrill scream and I let out an obsenity. I ran down and her nose was bleeding and starting to swell up. Good thing we had snow near by to ice it down. She was so good to keep ice on it. For a while we thought that maybe she had broken her nose. I kept making her look at me head on to check her out. So once again Spring Break has not been very smooth.

Spring Break A Day on the Farm

I started the week with things not running smoothly and it continues. We went to the Hatchery for last year's Spring Break and were going to go again, BUT Mrs. Ross just couldn't fit us into her schedule. I commented on how I hate when things don't go smoothly and Kaylee piped up, "But mom when we aren't able to do something, we always get to do something that we weren't planning on doing, and it's usually just as fun" I thought, oh girl keep that bit of wisdom for the rest of your life and you will always be happy. Anyway, here is a photo from last year and then the rest of the photos are from Tuesday.

All the kiddos outside Uncle Warren's dairy.

Jacob climbing a little too high!

Feeding the calves. There was a tiny twin that was so cute.

Inside the milking barn, watching the process. A milk cow gives 10 to 12 GALLONS a DAY! The photo below would hurt any nursing mom.

We also went and saw the pigs and piglets. This pig above was HUGE!! Then on to the sheep and lambs. The girls always love the little lambs.

Next were the rabbits. She explained to the kids how a momma rabbit pulls the hair off of her chest and makes a nest to have her little ones in. A rabbit can have up to 12 litters a year. (That's one each month of the year!) One of the kids asked what they did with all of the rabbits and when she said eat them and sell them for meat I thought that Rebecca was going to start crying.

They also went in the hen house and she let them each gather an egg out of the nests to keep. I couldn't believe how excited the kids were to get an egg. HELLO! They could just get one out of our fridge!!! I guess it got them ready for Easter coming up. At any rate we really enjoyed seeing and touching all of the many baby animals. They are always so soft and cute.

Spring Break Art Day

So I took Alesha's idea and hid the kids day's agenda in a cereal box.

Little did I know the day wouldn't flow as smoothly as the agenda had outlined. I first took the kids to an 8:30 orthodontist appointment for Jacob and Kaylee. (What a fun way to start out Spring Break!!!) Then we headed over to Bemis. The kids were excited and some of them were reminiscing about classes that they had taken there. Well, we go in and I find out that I have the date wrong. The family adventure demonstration and hands on projects had already taken place. AUGGGG!!!

So we load up in the van as some of the kids start freaking out about what we are going to do because it's supposed to be art day. Can I just say I hate when things don't flow smoothly!!! I did have a project for them at home and stopped at Michaels to pick up another.

We used the fun Crayola crayons from the birthday party to make T-shirts. It's fun because the older and younger kids can do the project. Ashley scribbled away as Jacob took his time on his cartoon.
The next project I had seen in Family Fun last year. They had made mosaic collage frames for mirrors. I thought it would be fun to put items around a frame (Michaels $1) and then put a picture of the kids in their frame to capture their age. I made all the kids scour the basement and junk drawer for little treasures that represent them. The boys had legos, kinex, army men, mini dragon...It was fun to see what everyone came up with. I'm mad that I didn't take a picture of the boys frames, but I'm way to tired to go round them up and take a picture. I will have to post it later. Anyway, as they would bring some trinkets to put in their pile, I would frown thinking that they probably shouldn't use it, but then would think again that it is one less little thing to pick up.

The art day ended with a mosaic tile tournament of Blokus. I had to post a picture for Angie. This is such a fun game for a lot of different age groups. Stephen and I have even had fun playing it with other couples.

Looking around now at the house I think I should have made the agenda a Spring Cleaning Day instead of Art Day. I let the boys go off for a play date with two brothers late this afternoon and should have made them do their chores first. I just HATE when I get behind on the house, and if I'm not constantly cleaning I seem to get behind, especially due to my little string out everything Ashley and Jerrica.