Kirk's Indiana Jones Birthday Party

Kirk turned 5. He has been really into the Indiana Jones since we went to Disneyland. Of course after he begged us we rented the movies. Man I didn't remember them being so scary, or graphic, but Kirk loved them. This year I threw him an Indiana Jones party. This was a simple party because I used all of our old Halloween decorations. The boys each got a whip, and a Indiana Jones hat. We played alot of games like whip the bat, make fossils out of play dough, and throw the Velcro balls at the felt targets. We also ate pizza, and spooky punch. Of course after I snapped four pictures of Kirk's birthday party my camera's battery went dead. But I got a cute shot of him with his cup cake. At the end of the party we had a surprise visitor. Indiana Jones himself dropped in to wish Kirk a happy birthday. I regret not getting photo's of that, but o-well what can you do. He had a really fun birthday, and he us already talking about what type of birthday party he wants for next year. I'm thinking maybe only doing these parties every other year now! This party idea is a good one for little boys because it really is versatile. I read online that one Mom hired out a reptile zoo bring some snakes, and spiders for the kids to hold. I thought Kirk would have loved that, but it was a bit pricier than the character visit. I was really impressed with the Princess Parties. They also did Kate's mermaid party last year. He was really animated, and held the boys complete attention as he told them his story. It was a really fun party, but just about did me in. I ran 18 miles the day before. I was wiped out by Sunday. I hope I can maintain these with all of our kids. I may have to resort to chuckee cheese with Benjamin. Well we will see.

I'm the worst blogger, but I haven't given up!

Yes, It's been along time since I've blogged. No, I haven't given up on it altogether. I've been a little busy with a little something called....................................................................... Pregnancy!

Florida get away!

A week in the Florida sun!

Two weeks ago Dan and I had the opportunity to get away for a fun week of warmer weather, golfing, and relaxation. We went to a all inclusive resort in Florida with his siblings and parents. My wonderful sister in-law and little brother watched our kids for us. They watched the kids here at our home so that the kids wouldn't miss school.

Florida was wonderful. It's so beautiful there, we love palm trees. Plus the humidity was great, we were so use to dry winter weather that the week long reprieve was very welcomed. This resort was a golf resort, which had a 18 hole golf course. We ended up golfing everyday. I wasn't expecting to go so often, but I've discovered how it can become an addictive sport. If you have a bad game, you want to redeem yourself and play again, and if you do well it feels like such a great accomplishment that you can't wait to play again. There were also free golf lessons everyday. I hadn't been golfing in years, so the lessons really helped me with my swing. I discovered that I was golfing all wrong. I'm amazed at really how hard it is to golf well. Dan thought that the lesson's just messed up his swing, but he's already pretty good. I guess you shouldn't change up a swing that's working for you. We also played a lot of other sports. I took full advantage of the nice weather and ran outside everyday around the surrounding neighborhood. Dan played basketball with his brothers a lot too. The nice thing about a club med is that the food is all inclusive as well. They're a french resort so they always had amazing breads, cheese, and pastries. I swear I ate about five pieces of white chocolate bread everyday! It's a good thing we played hard, so we could justify eating a lot! We also soaked in the hot tub everyday. It was fun to sit in it and watch the river. I guess you could call it a river, the water is brackish. Fresh and salt water mixed together. We saw a Manatee, and the resort employees said that there have also been dolphins, and sharks spotted in the water. It definitely was to cold to swim in it, but they had sailing lessons. Dan and I opted not to go sailing after Dan's sister's boat capsized! There was also dancing at night, and a small group of acrobat circus performers. It was a wonderful trip, but it's so nice to be home. We really missed the kids tremendously. When we made it home Benjamin sat a studied my face like he recognized me, but couldn't remember exactly how I was related to him. After about thirty seconds he connected the dots, and was super excited to see us. The kids of course got "souvenirs" (thanks to the local walmart). Kate wanted a caboodle to keep her play makeup in. Seriously she loves makeup just like her mom, I'm scared she's growing up way to fast. Kirk asked for a fake snake, so we got him and Benjamin a plastic one. The funny thing about that is the cashier at Wal-mart wouldn't pick up the fake snake. She just said she was afraid of them, and refused to scan it. We had to take off the tag and she scanned that instead.

Here are few pictures of our trip we had a great time!

We flew into Orlando airport, because it was cheaper than flying into west palm beach. Orlando was over two hours away from the resort, so I arranged for a our group to be picked up from the airport, and then taken to the resort (this was cheaper than renting cars for everyone). We were all pretty excited when we saw our transfer was a big hummer limousine. I had never ridden in a limo before, so it was a new experience. It was nice to be able to stretch out, and all be together. It's hard to tell, but the limo is behind us in this photo.

Here we are golfing. We were able to take a quick shot before we started. Golfing was a lot of fun, I just wish it wasn't so expensive, or require so much time. It's hard to get good at golf when you only play about once every four years.

Dan's Mom holding Michelle's baby Bryston. He was the only child on the trip, and was given tons of attention, but you can't blame us, he is so darling!

The view from our room. Photo of the entire gang. Not a bad shot actually. I balanced the camera on a folded towel, and then used the timer. You can see how beautiful the lake is behind us.
The last night! We went dancing with everybody in the group.
In the Orlando airport wearing goofy sunglasses. The ones that Dan and robbie are wearing I got for 30 cents at down east home. They were making fun of them, I told them not to dis the sunglasses!

Christmas 2010

This year Christmas seemed extra magical. I think my kids are at the prime age when the excitement for Santa, and their anticipation for Christmas day is at it's peak. They were particularly mindful of Santa's good list and naughty this year. If ever they were tempted to get out of line, a quick reminder of "Santa's elves are watching" did the trick. This year Kirk was dying for an AT AT walker. It's the big star wars robot that walks. He started asking for it in September. I think Santa lucked out this year and got it on sale. He also got a couple of Lego sets; which he has played quietly with in his room for hours (I think I'm in love with Lego's too). And no Christmas would be complete for Kirk unless he got a few more star wars guys to add to his collection. He's been getting star wars stuff for Christmas since he was two, and still hasn't out grown them. I use to think this Star Wars fanaticism was just a stage, but it looks like he is a star was kid, and doesn't have any plans of changing that. Kate wanted American Girl stuff again, and was extremely surprised that Santa got her the Felicity doll which was about to be retired. It's so sad to me that the American girl company is retiring all of their memorable historic dolls. I read the books as a kids and Felicity and Samantha were my favorites; they have retired both of those dolls..... so sad. Luckily Kate got one before it was to late, Felicity looks just like me. She has red hair and green eyes. Needless to say I was ecstatic for her to get it. I have to admit that I've found myself brushing her hair, and dressing her up into her colonial gowns. She also got a amplifier which plays music on our i pod nano, and also amplifies a microphone so you can sing along. It's been very helpful for her to practise for her singing lessons. Finally Benjamin got a few things for Christmas too. Santa found it very easy to by for him. He got a car garage, and some new cars, and also some new trains to add to our train table in the basement, and lastly he got a toy push lawn mower. He loved that! Dan and I got our Christmas early this year. We scored an amazing deal on couches for our basement. I woke up at three in the morning to stand in line outside of RC Willey. If you know me well you know I LOVE black Friday deals. I just love the feeling of getting a bargain. I ended up getting a leather reclining couch set. There were only four per store, and I got the very last one! I felt like doing a happy dance in line when I got the voucher. We also splurged and got a big screen television. Now we don't have to watch movies in our bedroom (our bed was getting alittle cramped when we had all the kids watching too).

It's been a great Christmas. Here are a few pictures of the kids in their toy bliss!

I'm still alive; and blogging!

My sister mentioned to me today that it's not Halloween anymore, and I need to update my blog. She's right, I've been way to lack on it. I just can't tell you where the last three months have gone to. I love blogging, I love to capture the fleeting moments before I forget them. This is why I'm so sad that I haven't been keeping it up the last few months. My life is always busy, but the last couple of months have seriously felt like we've been in warp speed. I hope things will start to slow down now that we are into 2011. I'm really excited of this year. I've got a lot to look forward to and also dread. My Marathon is now just around the corner in May (maybe that's why I don't have anytime to blog my whole day revolves around when I can work my run in). But the bottom line is that my new goal is try to blog once a week. I feel like that is reasonable, but still frequent enough to record our family's adventures. I'll be updating soon!

Princesses, superheores and cuddley tiggers!

The cutest little tiger ever! Isn't he so adorable? Benjamin loves Halloween!

Superhero showing off his muscles! Kirk was one tough transformer!

Prettiest princess on the block! Kate was a darling Rupunzel this year!

The kids were very excited to pick out their Halloween costumes this year. Kate was once again a princess, Rapunzel to be exact. I was planning on making her a long wig out of yarn, but my visiting teaching partner was Rapunzel when she was a little kid. She still had the wig, and let me barrow it! It was absolutely darling on her. As you can see in the pictures this costume would not have been very conducsive to treat or treating. So she only wore the wig for photo's. Kirk had a hard time making up his mind, but in the end he decided on being a transformer. I found a cool costume on KSL for cheap. Finally Benjamin was tiger, that was the same costume Kirk wore a couple of years ago. It was nice to just pull it out of storage. He looked adorable in it. We celebrated it on Saturday. The kids were very excited about trick or treating, but it rained so Dan drove the kids from house to house. They did pretty well, and got a lot of candy. Benjamin has turned into a little candy monster. He knows the cabinet were I stash it, and points and grunts at it. It's pretty funny to watch him throw a candy tantrum. You have to understand that he NEVER throws temper tantrums, so that's why I think it's so funny. I told Dan that Halloween has brought out the inner monster of Benjamin. I'm not worried though. The candy will soon get eaten, and he'll hopefully turn into his normal sweet self again!

Halloween Parties

Halloween is such a fun holiday. I made it easy on myself this year, and didn't sew any of the kid's costumes.

I always take the kids out to visit my 98 year old and home bound Grandma. I like to call her the energizer bunny. She has had a couple of heart attacks, but she has just bounced back and keeps on going. She looked great yesterday. She was as sharp as ever. She's the only 98 year old I know who you can sit and talk sports. She keeps up with the Jazz, and BYU football. She can remember everything, She probably has a better memory than me. She also knows whats going on with current events, and keeps her mind very active by reading a lot. Here are some photos of her with the kids.

A good example of how responsible my oldest child is. I told Kate that she could bring her doll out to visit my grandma. As I looked back I saw this. She had seat belted her doll into the van. She is so sweet!

We also had a party last week with my parents and my brother's family. We ate sloppy Joe's, and roasted masrshmellows. My Dad told the kids a Halloween story around the fire. It was fun to get together. This is a photo of Kate and her cousin Alexandra.

Last night Dan and I attended a costume party. I love dressing up for Halloween, but usually I get so focused on the kid's costumes, that I end up just throwing something together at last minute for Dan and I. Example a few years ago Dan was a skier, and I often go as a cat. But this year I was determined to come up with a fun costume to coordinate with Dan's. We decided to go with Harry Potter since the new movie is coming out in a few weeks. We may even dress up for the movie just for fun. So here is my costume.

Going as Ginny seemed like the obvious choice because of my hair color. It was very convenient not to worry about a wig. The costume was easy to get together I already had a white shirt, gray sweater, and black skirt. I just had to make the cloak, and tie, and wand.

We found an old graduation gown for Dan's cloak. We already had the white shirt, and pants, and we borrowed some glasses from his parents. They were extremely cheap costumes. I bought the ties at DI for $2.00. I had some gold spray paint and I spray painted the stripes onto the ties. I made the wands out of paper and hot glue, and paint. They were so much fun to make. You roll up the paper from corner to corner, and tape it. Then fill in the hollow ends with hot glue. Then add detail to handle and tip with more hot glue. Then paint. I used black, white, and gold paint because that's what I had on hand, but I've seen some really cool brown ones online. No one could believe that I just made them out of paper.

Here is a ultra up close one I took by holding the camera in front of both of us. Dan had already taken off his tie and glasses, but you can see his lip gloss scar on his forehead! I'll get a picture of him in his full costume tonight. He's going to be taking the kids trick or treating, and I think he'll dress up again. This theme was so much fun to do, that I'm tempted to do a Hermione and harry costume for Kate and Kirk next year. I think they would look so adorable in little ties, and cloaks. Plus I think they would be all about the wands.